Chapter Ten.
“Will you walk into my Parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly.
The two days which followed the despatch of the letter to “Omega” were long and anxious ones for Reginald Cruden. It would have been a great relief to him had he felt free to talk the matter over with Horace; but somehow that word “confidential” in the advertisement deterred him. For all that, he made a point of leaving the paper containing it in his brother’s way, if by any chance the invitation to an additional £50 a year might meet his eye. Had it done so, it is doubtful whether Reginald would have been pleased, for he knew that if it came to selecting one of the two, Horace would probably pass for quite as respectable and considerably more intelligent a young man than himself. Still, he had no right to stand in his brother’s way if fate ordained that he too should be attracted by the advertisement. He therefore left the paper lying conspicuously about with the advertisement sheet turned toward the beholder.
Horace, however, had too much of the Rocket in his business hours to crave for a further perusal of it during his leisure. He kicked it unceremoniously out of his way the first time he encountered it; and when Reginald saw it next it was in a mangled condition under the stairs in the suspicious company of the servant-girl’s cinder-shovel.
On the second morning, when he arrived at his work, a letter lay on his case with the Liverpool postmark, addressed R. Cruden, Esquire, Rocket Office, London. In his excitement and haste to learn its contents it never occurred to him to notice the unexpected compliment conveyed in the word “Esquire”; and he might have remained for ever in blissful ignorance of the fact, had not his left-hand neighbour, the satirical Mr Barber, considered the occasion a good one for a few flashes of wit.
“’Ullo, Esquire, ’ow are you, Esquire? There is somebody knows you, then. Liverpool, too! That’s where all the chaps who rob the till go to. R. Cruden, Esquire—my eye! What’s the use of putting any more than ‘London’ on the envelope—such a well-known character as you? Stuck-up idiot!”
To this address Reginald attended sufficiently to discover that it was not worth listening to; after which he did not even hear the concluding passages of his neighbour’s declamation, being absorbed in far more interesting inquiries. He tore the envelope open and hurriedly read—
“Sir,—Your favour is to hand, and in reply we beg to say we shall be glad to arrange an interview. One of our directors will be in town on Monday next, and can see you between one and two o’clock at Weaver’s Hotel. Be good enough to treat this and all further communications as strictly confidential.—We are, Sir, yours faithfully,—
“The Select Agency Corporation.
“P.S.—Ask at Weaver’s Hotel for Mr Medlock.
“Liverpool.”
The welcome contents of this short note fairly staggered him. If the tone of the advertisement had been encouraging, that of this letter was positively convincing. It was concise, business-like, grammatical and courteous. Since his trouble Reginald had never been addressed by any one in the terms of respect conveyed in this communication. Furthermore, the appointment being between one and two—the dinner-hour—he would be able to keep it without difficulty or observation, particularly as Weaver’s Hotel was not a stone’s throw from the Rocket office. Then again, the fact of his letter being from a “corporation” gratified and encouraged him. A Select Agency Corporation was not the sort of company to do things meanly or inconsiderately. They were doubtless a select body of men themselves, and they required the services of select servants; and it was perfectly reasonable that in an affair like this, which might lead to nothing, strict mutual confidence should be observed. Supposing in the end he should see reason to decline to connect himself with the Corporation (Reginald liked to think this possible, though he felt sure it was not probable), why, if he had said much about it previously, it might be to the prejudice of the Corporation! Finally, he thought the name “Medlock” agreeable, and was generally highly gratified with the letter, and wished devoutly Monday would come round quickly.
The one drawback to his satisfaction was that he was still as far as ever from knowing in what direction his respectable and intelligent services were likely to be required. Monday came at last. When he went up on the Saturday to receive his wages he had fully expected to learn Mr Durfy’s intentions with regard to him, and was duly surprised when that gentleman actually handed him his money without a word, and with the faintest suspicion of a smile.
“He’s got a nailer on you, old man, and no mistake,” said Gedge, dolefully. “I’d advise you to keep your eye open for a new berth, if you get the chance; and, I say, if you can only hear of one for two!”
This last appeal went to Reginald’s heart, and he inwardly resolved, if Mr Medlock turned out to be as amiable a man as he took him for, to put in a word on Gedge’s behalf as well as his own at the coming interview.
The dinner-bell that Monday tolled solemnly in Reginald’s ears as he put on a clean collar and brushed his hair previously to embarking on his journey to Weaver’s Hotel. What change might not have taken place in his lot before that same bell summoned him once more to work? He left the Rocket a needy youth of £47 10 shillings a year. Was he to return to it passing rich of £97 10 shillings?
Weaver’s Hotel was a respectable quiet resort for country visitors in London, and Reginald, as he stood in its homely entrance hall, felt secretly glad that the Corporation selected a place like this for its London headquarters rather than one of the more showy but less respectable hotels or restaurants with which the neighbourhood abounded.
Mr Medlock was in his room, the waiter said, and Mr Cruden was to step up. He did step up, and was ushered into a little sitting-room, where a middle-aged gentleman stood before the fire-place reading the paper and softly humming to himself as he did so.
“Mr Cruden, sir,” said the waiter.
“Ah! Mr Cruden, good morning. Take a seat. John, I shall be ready for lunch in about ten-minutes.”
Reginald, with the agitating conviction that his fate would be sealed one way or another in ten-minutes, obeyed, and darted a nervous glance at his new acquaintance.
He rather liked the looks of him. He looked a comfortable, well-to-do gentleman, with rather a handsome face, and a manner by no means disheartening. Mr Medlock in turn indulged in a careful survey of the boy as he sat shyly before him trying to look self-possessed, but not man of the world enough to conceal his anxiety or excitement.
“Let me see,” said Mr Medlock, putting his hands in his pocket and leaning against the mantel-piece, “you replied to the advertisement, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Reginald.
“And what made you think you would suit us?”
“Well, sir,” stammered Reginald, “you wanted respectable intelligent young men—and—and I thought I—that is, I hoped I might answer that description.”
Mr Medlock took one hand out of his pocket and stroked his chin.
“Have you been in the printing trade long?”
“Only a few weeks, sir.”
“What were you doing before that?”
Reginald flushed.
“I was at school, sir—at Wilderham.”
“Wilderham? Why, that’s a school for gentlemen’s sons.”
“My father was a gentleman, sir,” said the boy, proudly.
“He’s dead then?” said Mr Medlock. “That is sad. But did he leave nothing behind him?”
“He died suddenly, sir,” said Reginald, speaking with an effort, “and left scarcely anything.”
“Did he die in debt? You must excuse these questions, Mr Cruden,” added the gentleman, with an amiable smile; “it is necessary to ask them or I would spare you the trouble.”
“He did die in debt,” said Reginald, “but we were able to pay off every penny he owed.”
“And left nothing for yourself when it was done? Very honourable, my lad; it will always be a satisfaction to you.”
“It is, sir,” said Reginald, cheering up.
“You naturally would be glad to improve your income. How much do you get where you are?”
“Eighteen shillings a week.”
Mr Medlock whistled softly.
“Eighteen shillings; that’s very little, very poor pay,” said he. “I should have thought, with your education, you could have got more than that.”
It pleased Reginald to have his education recognised in this delicate way.
“We had to be thankful for what we could get,” said he; “there are so many fellows out of work.”
“Very true, very true,” said Mr Medlock, shaking his head impressively, “we had no less than 450 replies to our advertisement.”
Reginald gave a gasp. What chance had he among 450 competitors?
Mr Medlock took a turn or two up and down the room, meditating with himself and keeping his eye all the time on the boy.
“Yes,” said he, “450—a lot, isn’t it? Very sad to think of it.”
“Very sad,” said Reginald, feeling called upon to say something.
“Now,” said Mr Medlock, coming to a halt in his walk in front of the boy, “I suppose you guess I wouldn’t have asked you to call here if I and my fellow-directors hadn’t been pleased with your letter.”
Reginald looked pleased and said nothing.
“And now I’ve seen you and heard what you’ve got to say, I think you’re not a bad young fellow; but—”
Mr Medlock paused, and Reginald’s face changed to one of keen anxiety.
“I’m afraid, Mr Cruden, you’re not altogether the sort we want.”
The boy’s face fell sadly.
“I would do my best,” he said, as bravely as he could, “if you’d try me. I don’t know what the work is yet, but I’m ready to do anything I can.”
“Humph!” said Mr Medlock. “What we advertise for is sharp agents, to sell goods on commission among their friends. Now, do you think you could sell £500 worth of wine and cigars and that sort of thing every year among your friends? You’d need to do that to make £50 a year, you know. You understand? Could you go round to your old neighbours and crack up our goods, and book their orders and that sort of thing? I don’t think you could, myself. It strikes me you are too much of a gentleman.”
Reginald sat silent for a moment, with the colour coming and going in his cheeks; then he looked up and said, slowly—
“I’m afraid I could not do that, sir—I didn’t know you wanted that.”
So saying he took up his hat and rose to go.
Mr Medlock watched him with a smile, if not of sympathy, at any rate of approval, and when he rose motioned him back to his seat.
“Not so fast, my man; I like your spirit, and we may hit it yet.”
Reginald resumed his seat with a new interest in his anxious face.
“You wouldn’t suit us as a drummer—that is,” said Mr Medlock, hastily correcting himself, “as a tout—an agent; but you might suit us in another way. We’re looking out for a gentlemanly young fellow for secretary—to superintend the concern for the directors, and be the medium of communication between them and the agents. We want an educated young man, and one we can depend upon. As to the work, that’s picked up in a week easily. Now, suppose—suppose when I go back to Liverpool I were to recommend you for a post like that, what would you say?”
Reginald was almost too overwhelmed for words; he could only stammer,—
“Oh, sir, how kind of you!”
“The directors would appoint any one I recommended,” continued Mr Medlock, looking down with satisfaction on the boy’s eagerness; “you’re young, of course, but you seem to be honest, that’s the great thing.”
“I think I can promise that,” said Reginald, proudly.
“The salary would begin at £150 a year, but we should improve it if you turned out well. And you would, of course, occupy the Company’s house at Liverpool. We should not ask for a premium in your case, but you would have to put £50 into the shares of the Corporation to qualify you, and of course you would get interest on that. Now,” said he, as Reginald began to speak, “don’t be in a hurry. Take your time and think it well over. If you say ‘Yes,’ you may consider the thing settled, and if you say ‘No’—well, we shall be able to find some one else. Ah, here comes lunch—stop and have some with me—bring another plate, waiter.”
Reginald felt too bewildered to know what to think or say. He a secretary of a company with £150 a year! It was nearly intoxicating. And for the post spontaneously offered to him in the almost flattering way it had been—this was more gratifying still. In his wildest dreams just now he never pictured himself sitting down as secretary to the Select Agency Corporation to lunch with one of its leading directors!
Mr Medlock said no more about “business”, but made himself generally agreeable, asking Reginald about his father and the old days, inquiring as to his mother and brother, and all about his friends and acquaintances in London.
Reginald felt he could talk freely to this friend, and he did so. He confided to him all about Mr Durfy’s tyranny, about his brother’s work at the Rocket, and even went so far as to drop out a hint in young Gedge’s favour. He told him all about Wilderham and his schoolfellows there, about the books he liked, about the way he spent his evenings, about Dull Street—in fact, he felt as if he had known Mr Medlock for years and could talk to him accordingly.
“I declare,” said that gentleman, pulling out his watch, after this pleasant talk had been going on a long time, “it’s five minutes past two. I’m afraid you’ll be late.”
Reginald started up.
“So I shall, I’d no idea it was so late. I’m afraid I had better go, sir.”
“Well, write me a letter to Liverpool to-morrow, or Wednesday at the latest, as we must fill up the place soon. Think it well over. Good-bye, my man. I hope I shall see you again before long. By the way, of course, you won’t talk about all this out of doors.”
“Oh, no,” said Reginald, “I haven’t even mentioned it yet at home.”
Mr Medlock laughed.
“Well, if you come to Liverpool you’ll have to tell them something about it. See, here’s a list of our directors, your mother may recognise some of the names. But beyond your mother and brother don’t talk about it yet, as the Corporation is only just starting.”
Reginald heartily concurred in this caution, and promised to act on it, and then after a friendly farewell hastened back to the Rocket office. The clock pointed nearly a quarter past two when he entered.
He was not the sort of fellow to slink in when no one was looking. In fact, he had such a detestation of that sort of thing that he went to the other extreme, and marched ostentatiously past Mr Durfy’s table, as though to challenge his observation.
If that was his intention he was not disappointed.
“Oh,” said the overseer, with a return of the old sneer, which had been dormant ever since the night Reginald had knocked him down. “You have come, have you? And you know the hour, do you?”
“Yes, it’s a quarter past two,” said Reginald.
“Is it?” sneered Mr Durfy, in his most offensive way.
“Yes, it is,” replied the boy, hotly.
What did he care for Durfy now? To-morrow in all probability he would have the satisfaction of walking up to that table and saying, “Mr Durfy, I leave here on Saturday,” meanwhile he was not disposed to stand any of his insolence.
But he hardly expected what was coming next.
“Very well, then you can just put your hat on your head and go back the way you came, sir.”
“What do you mean?” said Reginald, in startled tones.
“Mean? what I say!” shouted Durfy. “You’re dismissed, kicked out, and the sooner you go the better.”
So this was the dignified leave-taking to which he had secretly looked forward! Kicked out! and kicked out by Durfy! Reginald’s toes tingled at the very thought.
“You’ve no right to dismiss me for being a few minutes late,” said he.
It was Durfy’s turn now to be dignified. He went on writing, and did his best to affect oblivion of his enemy’s presence.
Reginald, too indignant to know the folly of such an outburst, broke out,—
“I shall not take my dismissal from you. I shall stay here as long as I choose, and when I go I’ll go of my own accord, you cad, you—”
Mr Durfy still went on writing with a cheerful smile on his countenance.
“Do you hear?” said Reginald, almost shouting the words. “I’m not going to please you. I shall go to please myself. I give you notice, and thank Heaven I’ve done with you.”
Durfy looked up with a laugh.
“Go and make that noise outside,” he said. “We can do without you here. Gedge, my man, put those cases beside you back into the rack, and go and tell the porter he’s wanted.”
The mention of Gedge’s name cowed Reginald in an instant, and in the sudden revulsion of feeling which ensued he was glad enough to escape from the room before fairly breaking down under a crushing sense of injury, mortification, and helplessness. Gedge was at the door as he went out.
“Oh, Cruden,” he whispered, “what will become of me now? Wait for me outside at seven o’clock; please do.”
That afternoon Reginald paced the streets more like a hunted beast than a human being. All the bad side of his nature—his pride, his conceit, his selfishness—was stirred within him under a bitter sense of shame and indignity. He forgot how much his own intractable temper and stupid self-importance had contributed to his fall, and could think of nothing but Durfy’s triumph and the evil fate which at the very moment, when he was able to snap his fingers in the tyrant’s face, had driven him forth in disgrace with the tyrant’s fingers snapped in his face. He had not spirit or resolution enough to wait to see Gedge or any one that evening, but slunk away, hating the sight of everybody, and wishing only he could lose himself and forget that such a wretch as Reginald Cruden existed.
Ah! Reginald. It’s a long race to escape from oneself. Men have tried it before now with better reason than you, and failed. Wait till you have something worse to run from, my honest, foolish friend. Face round like a man, and stand up to your pursuer. You have hit out straight from the shoulder before to-day. Do it again now. One smart round will finish the business, for this false Reginald is a poor creature after all, and you can knock him out of time and over the ropes with one hand if you like. Try it, and save your running powers for an uglier foeman some other day!
Reginald did fight it out with himself as he walked mile after mile that afternoon through the London streets, and by the time he reached home in the evening he was himself again.
He met his mother’s tears and Horace’s dismal looks with a smile of triumph.
“So you’ve heard all about it, have you?” said he.
“Oh, Reginald,” said his mother, in deep distress, “how grieved I am for you!”
“You needn’t be, mother,” said Reginald, “for I’ve got another situation far better and worth three times as much.”
And then he told them, as far as he felt justified in doing so, of the advertisement and what it had led to, finishing up with a glowing description of Mr Medlock, whom he only regretted he had not had the courage to ask up to tea that very evening.
But there was a cloud on the bright horizon which his mother and Horace were quicker to observe than he.
“But, Reg,” said the latter, “surely it means you’d have to go to Liverpool?”
“Yes; I’m afraid it does. That’s the one drawback.”
“But surely you won’t accept it, then?” said the younger brother.
Reginald looked up. Horace’s tone, if not imperious, had not been sympathetic, and it jarred on him in the fulness of his projects to encounter an obstacle.
“Why not?” he replied. “It’s all very well for you, in your snug berth, but I must get a living, mustn’t I?”
“I should have thought something might turn up in London,” persisted Horace.
“Things don’t turn up as we want them,” said Reginald, tartly. “Look here, Horace, you surely don’t suppose I prefer to go to Liverpool to staying here?”
“Of course not,” said Horace, beginning to whistle softly to himself. It was a bad omen, and Mrs Cruden knew it.
“Come,” said she, cheerily, “we must make the best of it. These names, Reg, in the list of directors Mr Medlock gave you, seem all very respectable.”
“Do you know any of them?” asked Reginald. “Mr Medlock thought you might.”
“I know one or two by name,” replied she. “There’s the Bishop of S—, I see, and Major Wakeman, who I suppose is the officer who has been doing so well in India. There’s a Member of Parliament, too, I see. It seems a good set of directors.”
“Of course they aren’t likely all to turn up at board meetings,” said Reginald, with an explanatory air.
“I don’t see myself what business a bishop has with a Select Agency Corporation,” said Horace, determined not to see matters in a favourable light.
“My dear fellow,” said Reginald, trying hard to keep his temper, “I can’t help whether you see it or not. By the way, mother, about the £50 to invest. I think Mr Richmond—”
Mrs Cruden started.
“This exciting news,” said she, “drove it out of my head for the moment. Boys, I am very sorry to say I had a note to-day stating that Mr Richmond was taken ill while in France, and is dead. He was one of our few old friends, and it is a very sad blow.”
She was right. The Crudens never stood in greater need of a wise friend than they did now.