Pip/Chapter 8
LIFE AT FIRST-HAND
I
Pip reached London that evening to find the great gloomy house in Westock Square shuttered and silent. His father's brougham had driven up as usual at lunch-time, after the morning round, and its owner had been discovered lying in a dead faint inside it. He had been carried into the house, to die—not even in his bed. Death, with whom he had waged a vicarious and more than commonly successful warfare for thirty-one years, had conquered at last, and that, too, with grim irony, in the very arena of the dead man's triumphs—his own consulting-room. The great physician lay peacefully on an operating-couch near the darkened window, surrounded by life-saving appliances and books that tell how death may be averted.
His affairs were in a hopeless tangle. He had risked almost every penny he possessed in an ill-judged effort to "get rich quick," and so provide for himself, or at any rate for his family, however sudden and direct the course that his malady might take. Half his capital had been sunk in unremunerative investments, which might or might not pay fifty per cent some day; and the other half was gone beyond recall on an unrealised anticipation of a fall in copper shares.
A week later Pip, Pipette, and Mr. Hanbury—the latter ten years older than when we last heard of him, but not much changed except for a little reasonable adiposity—sat at dinner. It was almost the last meal they were to take in the old house, for now res angustæ were to be the order of the day.
The meal ended, and coffee having been served, Pipette, looking pale and pretty in her black evening frock, gave each of the men a cigar, snipping the ends herself, as she had been accustomed to do for her father; and the trio composed themselves to conversation.
"I saw Crampton to-day," said Pip. (Crampton was the family lawyer.) "He gave me the facts and figures about things. I couldn't follow all the stuff on blue paper, but I asked him questions and jotted down what I wanted."
"How does it work out?" inquired Hanbury.
"By putting what money there is in the bank into Consols, and adding the interest on the few investments that are paying anything at all, the total income of the estate comes to exactly one hundred and fifty a year," said Pip.
"So long as the capital sunk in the other investments produces nothing, that is?"
"Yes. There is a matter of fifteen thousand pounds buried in some Australian mining group: it might as well be sunk in the sea for all the good it is doing us. Of course it may turn up trumps some day, but not at present, Crampton says. So Pipette and I are worth just a hundred and fifty a year between us."
There was a silence, and the ash on Pip's cigar was perceptibly longer when he spoke again.
"A hundred and fifty," he said, "is not much use for two, but it's a comfortable little sum for one; so Pipette is going to take it all."
Pipette came round and sat on the arm of Pip's chair with the air of one who wishes to argue the point, and Pip continued hurriedly,—
"We talked it over with her this afternoon, Ham, and she agreed with me that for the present it will be best for her to accept the Rossiters' invitation to join them on their visit to Spain and Algiers, which is to last about a year. Pipette will be able to pay her full share of the expenses, so she won't be dependent on anybody. At the same time she will be having a good time with really nice people instead of—instead of—"
"Instead of sitting all day in a two-pair-back in London?" said Hanbury.
"That's it, exactly," said Pip, grateful for this moral support. "Of course it would be ripping".—Pipette was beginning to shake, and he put his arm clumsily round her—"it would be ripping to have remained together, but it can't be done at present. In a year, perhaps. The old lady has been very sensible about it."
Apparently being "sensible" did not include abstinence from tears, for Pipette was now weeping softly. She had lost her father only a week, and now she was to lose her beloved brother.
Hanbury, who, like most strong men, was helpless against feminine tears, coughed self-consciously.
"It sounds a good arrangement," he said. "I suppose it is quite impossible for you two to live together? With the hundred and fifty, and what you could make yourself, Pip—"
"How am I going to make it?" inquired Pip.
"What are your prospects?"
"What are my accomplishments? I am just twenty-five; I am sound in wind and limb; and I sometimes take wickets. Can you suggest anything else?"
"Yes; you possess a stout heart and a hard head."
"If by hard you mean thick, I do," agreed Pip dismally.
"Thick heads have their market like everything else. Where are you going to take yours?"
"Where would you suggest? I have my own ideas on the subject, of course, but I should like to hear yours, Ham."
Hanbury looked across at him quizzically.
"My young friend," he said, with a flash of his old pedagogic manner, "long experience of your character warns me that you have determined on some crack-brained scheme, and are now prepared to defend it against all comers. Proceed."
Pip grinned.
"As you like," he said. "But I think a discussion would clear the air. Here goes! Pipette is appointed chairman. The subject for debate is 'The Choice of a Career for a Young Man without Education, Ability, or Prospects.' Fire away, Ham, and bear in mind that all the learned professions are barred to me."
"I'm not sure of that. How about school-mastering?"
"At a Preparatory?"
"Yes."
"Do you recommend the billet?"
"Frankly—no. Preparatory work is all right provided that you don't mind a berth in which your real work only begins at playtime, and which, unless you can afford ultimately to set up for yourself, offers you an absolutely maximum screw of about two hundred a year."
"I know the sort of thing," said Pip. "You start on about eighty, with board—"
"Which means a poky dust-hole to sleep in, meat-tea, and—"
"'The post is one we can unreservedly recommend'—I know."
"'Write promptly yet carefully,'" chanted Ham, "'to the Principal, the Rev. Adolphus Buggins—'"
"'Explaining that you have heard of this vacancy through our agency—'"
"'Stating your degree and previous experience (if any)—'"
"'If a member of the Church of England—'"
"'Your willingness to participate in school games—'"
"'If musical—'"
"'If possible, a photograph'—yah!"
"Don't you think we are rather wandering from the point?" inquired the mystified chairwoman.
The rhapsodists ceased their antistrophes and apologised.
"True," said Ham. "Suggestion number one is negatived without a division. Let us try a fresh cast. Have you any influence with business firms?"
"No, thank God!" said Pip simply. "An office would just kill me. If I had any chance of a post I should of course have to apply; but I haven't, so I needn't."
There was another pause.
"If," said Ham reflectively, "there was any prospect of your sunken capital rising to the surface again, say in two or three years' time, and it was simply a matter of hanging on till then, you could afford to spend the intervening period in a very interesting fashion."
"As how?"
"Go and see the world for yourself, above and below, inside and out. Knock about and rub shoulders with all sorts of folk. Plunge beneath the surface and see things as they are. Make your way everywhere, and if possible live by the work of your own two hands. You would acquire a knowledge of mankind that few men possess. At the worst you could hang on and make a living somehow until your ship came in—if it were only as a dock-hand or a railway porter. It would be a grand chance, Pip. Most men are so unenterprising. Those at the top never want to see what things are like below, and those below are so afraid of staying there forever that their eyes are constantly turned upwards and they miss a lot. I'd give something to be a vagabond for a year or two."
"What fearful sentiments for a respectable house-master!" said Pipette severely; but Pip's eyes glowed.
"However," continued Hanbury more soberly, "Pip can't afford to waste time observing life in a purely academic way down in the basement. He must start getting upstairs at once."
"Hear, hear!" said the chairwoman.
"As a matter of fact," said Pip, "the scheme I have in my eye rather meets the case, I think."
"What is it?"
"Well, I made a list of all the careers open to me. I'll go through them."
Though his final choice was all they wished to know, his audience settled themselves patiently to listen. They knew it was useless to hurry Pip.
"The things I thought of," continued the orator, "are—cricket-pro, gamekeeper, policeman, emigrant to Canada, and Tommy."
He smiled genially upon his gaping companions. "They are all good open-air jobs," he explained.
Pipette stiffened in her chair.
"But they will none of them do," he added.
Pipette relaxed again.
"This," said Hanbury, "is interesting and human. We must have your reasons for rejecting these noble callings, seriatim. A cricket-pro, for instance?"
"Once a 'pro' always a 'pro,'" said Pip. "I hope some day to play as an amateur again. And while we are on the subject, I may as well say that I'm not going to be a professional-amateur. No two hundred a year as assistant-deputy-under-secretary to a county club for me, please!"
"Good boy," said Hanbury. "Now, please—gamekeeper?"
"I'm too old. A gamekeeper requires to be born to the job. I have the ordinary sporting man's knowledge of game and sport generally, but I should be a hundred before I learned as much about the real ins and outs of the business as—a poacher's baby."
"Quite so. Policeman?"
"The only chance of promotion in the police force is in the detective direction, and I—I think detection comes under the head of learned professions."
"Tommy, then?"
"A Tommy's would be a grand life if there was always a war. But, Ham, think what the existence of a gentleman-ranker must be in time of peace. A few hours' duty a day, and the rest—beer and nursemaids! Help!"
"You have been devoting much time to reflection, Pip. Well, to continue. How about emigrating?"
"Emigration is such a tremendously big step. If one is prepared for it, well and good. But I'm not ripe yet. You see, Canada and Australia are so far away, and I'm not quite prepared to give up—"
"England, home, and beauty—eh, Pip? Is that how the wind blows?"
"Dry up!" said Pip, hastily passing on to his peroration. "Before I try any of these things I am going to see how my own pet scheme pans out."
"And that is—?" said Pipette breathlessly.
"I can use my hands a bit, and have a sort of rough knowledge of mechanics," continued Pip, staring into the fire and stating his case with maddening deliberation, "and I don't mind hard work. Mind you—"
"Pip, do get on!" almost screamed poor Pipette.
Pip, looking slightly surprised, came to the point.
"I am going to try for a job," said he, "at a big motor works I know of. I will start as a cleaner, or greaser, or anything they please, if they'll take me; and when I have got a practical knowledge of the ins and outs of the business, I shall try to set up as a chauffeur."
He broke off, and scanned his hearers' faces rather defiantly.
"How do you like the idea?" he asked.
"You'd get horribly dirty, Pip," said practical Pipette. "Think of the oil!"
Pip laughed. "I'll get used to that."
"And how long would you stick to it?"
"What, the oil?"
"No, the trade."
"That depends. If I find the life absolutely unbearable for any reason—Trades Unions, for instance—I shall jack it up. But I don't think it is very likely."
"Neither do I," said Hanbury, who had had exceptional opportunities for studying Pip's character.
"Then," continued Pip, with something like enthusiasm, "if those sunken shares took up, and there was money to be had, I might buy myself a partnership in a motor business. If they don't take up, I must just save my wages till I can afford to go out and farm in Canada. I'll take you with me, Pipette, if I go," he added reassuringly.
II
A month later Pip obtained a humble and oleaginous appointment at the Gresley Motor Works in Westminster Bridge Road.
The foreman who engaged him was short-handed at the time, and though Pip was obviously too old for a beginner, he was impressed with his thews and sinews. After a few weeks, finding that Pip did not drink, and if given a job, however trivial, to perform, could be relied on with absolute certainty to complete it on time, the foreman unbent still further, and paid Pip the compliment of heaping upon him work that should have been done by more competent but less dependable folk. Pip throve under this treatment, and in spite of the aloofness of his fellow-workmen, who scented a "toff," the novelty and genuine usefulness of his new life inspired him with a zest and enthusiasm that took him over many rough places.
For it was not all plain sailing. The horny-handed son of toil is no doubt the salt of the earth and the backbone of the British nation, but he is not always an amenable companion, and he is apt to regard habitual sobriety and strict attention to duty in a colleague as a species of indirect insult to himself. However, abundance of good temper, together with a few hard knocks when occasion demanded, soon smoothed over Pip's difficulties in this direction; and presently the staff of Gresley's left him pretty much to himself, tacitly agreeing to regard him as an eccentric but harmless lunatic who liked work.
Pip purposely avoided young Gresley when he applied for the post. His idea was to obtain employment independently, if possible, and only to appeal to his friend as a last resource. He was anxious, too, to spare Gresley the undoubted embarrassment of having to oblige a venerated member of his own college and club by appointing him to a job worth less than thirty shillings a week. Gresley, moreover, would probably have foisted him into a position for which he was totally unfitted, or would have pressed a large salary on him in return for purely nominal services. Pip was determined that what he made he would earn, and so he started quietly and anonymously at the foot of the ladder. He even adopted a nom de guerre, lest a glance at the time-sheet or pay-list should betray his identity to his employer. The Gresley Works contained seven hundred men, and it was not likely, Pip thought, that young Gresley, who, though he was seen frequently about the shops, spent most of his time in the drawing-office, would recognise even his most admired friend amid a horde of grimy mechanics.
But for all that they met, as they were bound to do. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Pip's reliability and general smartness soon raised him from the ruck of his mates, and presently his increasing responsibilities began to bring him in contact with those in authority. He had not counted on this; so, realising that recognition was now only a matter of time, and wishing to avoid the embarrassment of an unpremeditated meeting in the works, he waylaid his friend one morning in a quiet storehouse. The surprise took young Gresley's breath away, and Pip took advantage of the period preceding its return to give a hurried explanation of his presence there, coupled with a request that his anonymity might be respected.
That night young Gresley, filled with admiration, told the whole story to his father.
"Of course, Dad, you'll move him up to a good post at once?" he said.
Old Gresley, leaning his scraggy face upon his hand, replied curtly, "I shall do no such thing."
The son, who knew that his father never said a thing without reason, waited.
"Wilmot? He was the young fellow who helped you when you went fooling away your money at cards, wasn't he?" continued the old man, suddenly turning his Napoleonic eye upon his son.
"Yes. He pulled me out of a tight place."
"That young man wouldn't thank me for undeserved promotion. He has the right stuff in him, and he wants to do things from the beginning—the only way! I often wish that you had had to start in the same fashion, Harry: there's nothing like it for making men. But your foolish old dad had been over the ground before you, and that made things easy. What that boy wants is work. I'll see he gets it, and I'll watch how he does it, and I'll take care that he is paid according to his merits."
Consequently Pip, much to his relief, was left in undisturbed possession of his self-sought limbo, and made the recipient of an ever-increasing load of work,—varied, strenuous, responsible work,—and for three sturdy years he lived a life that hardened his muscles, broadened his views, taught him self-reliance, cheery contentment with his lot, and, in short, made a man of him.
He learned to live on a pound a week. He learned to drink four ale and smoke shag. He became an habitué of those establishments which are so ably administered by Lord Rowton and Mr. Lockhart. He obtained an insight into the workings of the proletariat mind. He learned the first lesson which all who desire to know their world must learn, namely, that mankind is not divided into three classes,—our own, another immediately above it, and another immediately below it,—but that a motor factory may contain as many grades and distinctions, as many social barriers and smart sets, as many cliques and cabals, as Mayfair—or Upper Tooting. He learned to distinguish the stupid, beer-swilling, illiterate, but mainly honest British workman of the old-fashioned type from the precocious, clerkly, unstable, rather weedy product of the board-school and music-hall. He discovered earnest young men in blue overalls who read Ruskin, and pulverised empires and withered up dynasties once a week in a debating society. He made the acquaintance of the paid agitator, with his stereotyped phrases and glib assertions of the right of man to a fair day's work and a fair day's wage, oblivious of the fact that he did not know the meaning of the first and would never have been content with the second. He rubbed shoulders with men who struggled, amid cylinders and accumulators, with religious doubts; men who had been "saved," and who insisted on leaving evidence to that effect, in pamphlet form, in their mates' coat-pockets; and men who, either through excess of intellect or from lack of adversity, had never had any need of God, and consequently did not believe in Him.
He saw other things, many of which made him sick. He saw child-wives of seventeen, tied to stunted youths of twenty, already inured and almost indifferent to a thrashing every Saturday night. He saw babies everywhere, chiefly in public-houses, where their sole diet appeared to consist of as much gin as they could lick off the fingers which accommodating parents from time to time dipped into their glasses and thrust into their wailing little mouths. He saw the beast that a woman can make of a man and the wreck that a man can make of a woman, and the horror that drink can make of both; and, being young and inexperienced, he grew depressed at these sights, and came to the conclusion that the world was very evil.
And then he began to notice other things—the goodness of the poor to the poor; game struggles with grinding poverty; incredible cheerfulness under drab surroundings and in face of imminent starvation; the loyalty of the wife to the husband who ill-used her; the good-humoured resignation of the shrew's husband; the splendid family pride of the family who, though they lived in one room, considered very properly that one room (with rent paid punctually) constitutes a castle; the whip-round among a gang of workmen when a mate was laid by and his whole family rendered destitute; and finally the children, whom neither dingy courts, nor crowded alleys, nor want of food, nor occasional beatings, nor absence of any playthings save tiles, half-bricks, and dead kittens, could prevent from running, skipping, shouting, quarrelling, playing soldiers, keeping shop, and making believe generally, just as persistently and inconsequently as their more prosperous little brethren were doing, much more expensively, not many streets away. Pip saw all these things, and he began to realise, as we must all do if we wait long enough, that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that life is full of compensations.
In short, three years of close contact with the raw material of humanity gave Pip a deeper knowledge of man as God made him, than he could have acquired perhaps from a whole lifetime spent in contemplating the finished article in a more highly veneered and less transparent class of society.
Pip allowed himself certain relaxations. He had consented to keep fifty pounds out of Pipette's hundred and fifty a year, and once a month, on Saturday afternoons, after a preliminary scrub and change in his lodging, he departed to the West End, and indulged in the luxury of a Turkish bath. (He needed it, as the heated individual who operated upon him was wont, with some asperity, to remark.) Then he dined in state at one of those surprising two-shilling tables d'hôte in a Soho restaurant, and went on to the play—the pit. Sometimes he went to the Oval or Lord's, and with itching arm watched the cricket. Once he heard a bystander lament the absence, abroad, of one Wilmot, a celebrated "left-'ender" ("Terror, my boy! Mike this lot sit up if 'e was 'ere!"), and he glowed foolishly to think that he was not forgotten. Absence abroad was the official explanation of his non-appearance in first-class cricket during this period, and also served to satisfy the curiosity of those of his friends who wanted to know what had become of him.
Sometimes, as he sat in the shilling seats at Lord's, he wondered if he would ever be able to use his member's ticket again; and he smiled when he pictured to himself what the effect would be if a petrol-scented mechanic were to elbow his way in and claim a seat in the Old Blues' reservation!
He saw no friends but Hanbury, who occasionally looked him up in his lodging, and with whom he once went clothed and in propria persona to a quiet golfing resort during one joyful Christmas week, when the works were closed from Friday night till Wednesday morning. He heard regularly from Pipette. At first she was obviously miserable, and Pip was at some pains to write her boisterously cheerful letters about the pleasantness of his new existence and the enormous saving of money to be derived from not keeping up appearances, knowing well that the knowledge that he was happy would be the first essential in producing the same condition in Pipette. After a little she wrote more cheerfully: then followed a regular year of light, irresponsible, thoroughly feminine correspondence, full of the joy of youth and lively appreciation of the scenes and people around her. Then came a period when unseeing Pip found her letters rather dull—a trifle perfunctory, in fact. Then came a fortnight during which there was no letter at all, and Pip grew anxious. Finally, just as he sat down to write to Mrs. Rossiter inquiring if his sister was ill, there came a letter,—a long, breathless, half-shy, half-rapturous screed,—containing the absolutely unprecedented piece of information that Providence had brought her into contact with the most splendid fellow—bracketed with Pip, of course—that the world had ever seen; that the said fellow—Jim Rossiter—incredible as it might appear, had told her that he loved her; whereupon Pipette had become suddenly conscious that she loved him; that everybody was very pleased and kind about it, and—did Pip mind?
Pip, who knew Jim Rossiter for a good fellow, wrote back soberly but heartily. He congratulated Pipette, gave his unconditional assent to the match, gratefully declined an invitation to come and take up his abode with the young couple after their marriage, and faithfully promised, whenever that joyful ceremony should take place, to have a bath and come and give the bride away. Which brings little Pipette's part in this narrative to a happy conclusion.
Of Elsie Pip heard little, and tried to think not at all. At present she was not for him, and probably never would be. His mind was quite clear on the subject. When, if ever, his ship came in, he would seek her out wherever she was, and—provided she had not married some one else, which was only too likely, Pip thought—ask her to marry him. Till then he was a member of the working classes, and must not cry for the moon. Still, though he conscientiously refrained from direct inquiries, he greedily hoarded every careless item of information on the subject that cropped up in Pipette's letters.
Elsie had no parents, and soon after Pip's disappearance "abroad" had gone for a trip round the world with Raven Innes and his wife. She spent some months in India, and Pip, who knew that that bright jewel of the Empire's crown contains many men and few women, shuddered and ground his teeth. However, no bad news came, and presently he heard from Pipette that the travellers had left Colombo and were on their way to Australia. After that Pipette became engaged, and the curtain fell upon Elsie's movements, for Pipette's letters now harped upon a single string, and Pip was far too shy to ask for information outright. So he hardened his heart, hoped for the best, and went on with his day's work, as many a man has had to do before him, and been all the better for it.
One sentimental indulgence he allowed himself. Every Christmas he sent Elsie a present, together with his best wishes for the season. Only that, and nothing more. No long screed: above all, no address. He had his pride.
After two years' work his duties took a more varied and infinitely pleasanter form. He was by this time a thoroughly competent workman. He could take an engine to pieces and put it together again. He could diagnose every ill that a motor-car is heir to,—and a motor-car is more than human in this respect,—and he was a fearless and cool-headed driver. Consequently he was frequently sent out on trial trips, touring excursions, and the like; and owing to his excellent appearance and pleasant manner, was greatly in request as a teacher. More than one butterfly of fashion conceived a tenderness in her worldly and elastic little heart for the big silent chauffeur, who explained the whole art of motoring so clearly and quietly, and was never dirty to look at or familiar to speak to. He grew accustomed—though slowly—to receiving tips, even from his own former friends and acquaintances, more than one of whom sat by his side, and even conversed with him without recognition. His name was now John Armstrong,—he was holding back his own till a more prosperous time,—and he had shaved off a mustache of which, as an undergraduate, he had been secretly but inordinately proud. These changes, together with his leather livery and peaked cap, neutralised him down into one of a mere type, and he looked just like scores of other clean-shaven, hawk-eyed chauffeurs.
One day he drove down a roystering party of cricketers to play a match in the country. When the game began it was discovered that the visiting team was a man short. The captain, hard put to it to find a substitute, cast his eye upon the chauffeur, and straightway pressed him, a not unwilling victim, into the service. In black leather breeches and shirt-sleeves Pip fielded in the sun, "revolving many memories," as Tennyson says; and towards the end of the match, when runs were coming somewhat too freely and all the bowlers had been tried in vain, was given the ball; whereupon, throwing caution to the winds, he disposed of five wickets in exactly three overs. Fortunately the team had lunched generously, as teams that come down from the city for a day's sport not infrequently do, so the enthusiasm which Pip's feat evoked was too alcoholic to be discriminating.
One more experience Pip had, and as it marked the closing stages of his apprenticeship to manhood, and also introduced him to a character whose existence was foreshadowed in the second chapter of this book, it shall be set down at length.