The Clean Heart

by A. S. M. Hutchinson

Then Mr. Filmer. "Well, really!" says Mr. Filmer. "Well, really—h'm, ha!"

Then Mrs. Filmer. "This I did not expect. This I refuse to believe. Left Gamber's! I cannot believe anything so hard on me as that. I cannot."

Young Wriford manages to say: "Well, why not?" and at once there is released upon him by Mr. and Mrs. Filmer the torrent that seems to him to last for hours and hours.

Why not! Is he aware that they were awaiting his arrival this very week-end to tell him what it had become useless to suppose he would ever see for himself? Why not! Does he realise that the expenses of feeding and clothing and above all of educating Bill's children are increasing beyond endurance month by month as they grow up? Why not! Has he ever taken the trouble to look at the boys' clothes, at their boots, and to realise how his brother's children have to be dressed in rags while he lives in luxury in London? Has he ever taken the trouble to do that? Perhaps his lordship who can afford to throw up a good position will condescend to do so now; and Mrs. Filmer takes breath from her raving and rushes to the door and bawls up the stairs: "Harold! Fred! Dicky! Come and show your clothes to your kind uncle! Come and hear what your kind uncle has done! Harold! Freddie—!"

Young Wriford, seated at the table, his head in his hands: "Oh, don't! Oh, for God's sake, don't!"

"Don't!" cries Mrs. Filmer. "No, don't let you be troubled by it! It's what our poor devoted Alice has to see day after day. It's what Mr. Filmer and I have to screw ourselves to death to try to prevent."

"And their schooling," says Mr. Filmer. "And their schooling, h'm, ha."

Schooling! This settles their schooling, Mrs. Filmer cries. They'll have to leave their day-schools now. He'll have the pleasure of seeing his brother's children attending the board-school. Three miserable guineas a week he's been contributing to the expenses, and was to be told to-day it was insufficient, and here he is with the news that he has left Gamber's! Here he is—

"Good God!" cries Young Wriford. "Good God, why didn't you tell me all this before?" and then, as at this the storm breaks upon him again, gets to his feet and cries distractedly: "Stop it! Stop it!" and then breaks down and says: "I'm sorry—I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. It's come all of a blow at me, all this. I never knew. I never dreamt it. It'll be all right. If you'll let me alone, I swear it'll be all right. The three guineas won't stop. I've arranged to do two weekly articles for Gamber's for three guineas on purpose to keep Alice going. I can get other work. There's other work I've heard of—only I wanted to do better—of course that doesn't matter now. Look here, if the worst comes to the worst, I'll go back to Gamber's. They'll take me back if I promise to give up the work I want to do. I'm sorry. I never realised. I never thought about all that. I'm sorry."

He is sorry. That, both now and for the years that are to come, is his chief thought—his daily, desperate anxiety: sorry to think how he has let his selfish ideas of better work, his thoughts of marrying Brida, blind him to his duty to devoted Alice and to old Bill's kids. Think of her life here! Think of those poor little beggars growing up and the education they ought to have, the careers old Bill would have wished them to enter! He is so sorry that only for one sharp moment does he cry out in utter dread at the proposal which now Mrs. Filmer, a little mollified, fixes upon him.