Kingcote’s abode was in one of the principal streets of Norwich. The shop was narrow but ran back some distance, and above it were two storeys for dwelling; to reach the house door you went up a yard, beneath an archway, the side entrance to a respectable public-house being opposite. The name of Gabriel had been left undisturbed along the top of the shopfront; above it, in fresh gilt letters, was the name of the present tradesman; a small “late” connected the two.
In the rear of the shop, a small dark room, with windows of which the lower half was in ground glass, served during the day-time as counting-house; after business hours it became the private sitting-room of Mr. Billimore. It was to Mr. Billimore that Gabriel referred, when he spoke in terms of confidence of the assistant who had so long been his father’s right-hand man. He was middle-aged, rather above six feet in stature, and entirely bald; not a hair remained upon his head. He had, however, a thin moustache, reddish mixed with gray, and a goat-beard beneath his chin; the chin itself, for some strange reason, he carefully shaved. His cheeks were marked with healthful ruddiness, and he had eyes which twinkled with a pleasant and kindly humour. When he met a customer, he stood with bowed head, performing the action of hand-washing; when discussing a matter with his employer, he invariably took his handkerchief from the breast-pocket of his coat, and polished his head with it, as if the act implied a seemly combination of self-respect and deference. Never was a worthier assistant, never a more capable. His knowledge of the outsides of books was considerable; his acquaintance with them as literature was such as might be gained by a complete perusal each Sunday morning of The Athenoum. In the pleasantest manner possible, he set to work from the first day to instruct Kingcote in the details of shopkeeping; without a smile of presumption he answered questions which Kingcote himself put with a half-ashamed laugh; his seriousness and honesty were beyond suspicion.
Mr. Billimore had a bedroom at the top of the house; breakfast, mid-day dinner, and tea, he took with the family; his supper, consisting of bread and cheese and a pint of beer, was, in accordance with immemorial usage, laid for him in the counting-house at nine o’clock. Kingcote wondered much what his assistant did with himself during his free hours, for no acquaintance ever came to see him, and his excursions were limited to a walk before breakfast on Sunday morning, and another after supper on the same day. If Kingcote went by chance through the counting-house after the shop was closed, he found Mr. Billimore sitting with a glass of beer at his elbow, a churchwarden pipe between his lips, either musing or reading some periodical. The pipe and glass were invariable; the assistant had the habit at Sunday dinner of pouring out his second tumbler of ale just before the meal ended, and carrying it with him into his own quarters, that the afternoon tobacco might not be unmoistened. That he suffered no ennui was demonstrable, for it was no uncommon thing to hear him laughing by himself, a remarkable laugh, half a crow and half a scream. When Kingcote heard the sound for the first time, he had apprehensions that Mr. Billimore was unwell; discovering the truth, he was annoyed by the thought that it was himself and his inaptitude that occasioned the assistant’s mirth. This, however, he was soon convinced was equally a mistake, and he and Mary derived not a little amusement from these grotesque outbursts of solitary mirth; occasionally they could hear them even when seated in their drawing-room, which was immediately above the shop. It only remained to suppose that Mr. Billimore was a philosopher of the school of Democritus, a conclusion not perhaps wide of the mark.
By the end of his first three months, King-cote was acquiescent in his life, even contented with it. The customers who had been in the habit of using the shop still came, for Mr. Billimore’s continued presence was reassuring, and the little that was seen of the new proprietor was not repellent; there was every likelihood that the business would still be what it had been. It was a week or two before Kingcote broke himself to the habit of remaining at the counter when a purchaser entered, but even this grew to be very simple, and quite in the order of things. With the bookselling proper was joined a stationery business, and perhaps on the whole it was a little harder to sell a newspaper or a quire of note, or a bottle of gum, than to take an order for a volume or part with one from the shelves; still, no mortal is above satisfaction in receiving cash payment, part whereof is calculable profit, and the very till soon began to be more than endurable in our friend’s eyes.
The trial was when acquaintances of old time presented themselves to claim recognition. There were not more than half-a-dozen who did so, and two or three of these were not, in the end, unwelcome. They were worthy people of the middle-class provincial sort, full of natural curiosity, but also not lacking kindliness. Their curiosity Kingcote satisfied only in broad terms, and perhaps the fixed melancholy of his face prevented the grosser kind of inquisitiveness. He let it be known that his sister kept house for him, and that she was a widow, but it was some time before any one called to see Mary. The circumstances of her marriage were remembered, and created prejudice; there had not been wanting those who, at the time, hinted at worse things than a mere elopement, and now such points were rediscussed with the relish of a provincial appetite which has only limited diet. Still, even Mary was in the end accepted. The first lady who called upon her no doubt suppressed a hesitation for the sake of getting a glimpse of the domestic interior; one or two others justified themselves by the precedent. There followed invitations to heavy tea, and it was made known to Kingcote that he would be welcome here or there at supper. For his sisters sake he obliged himself to go wherever he was sought. He might not enjoy the conversation at these houses, but in future he must have that or none, and to keep up pretences would savour of the ludicrous. He was a shopkeeper, and likely to remain one to the end of his days. Nor did he in truth repine.
He rested. From his illness there had remained a good deal of physical weakness; it was more apparent now than it had been during the late months of the past year. He had no longer a desire to take walks, and indeed seldom left the house for such a purpose; when at leisure, he sat with a book, and it was a trouble to stir from his chair. His appearance was that of a man ten years beyond his own age; always grave, he had only to sit in silence for a quarter of an hour to fall into a dreamy state of absent-mindedness; as often as not he turned the pages of his book without knowledge of what he seemed to be reading. This was not the same thing as unhappiness; his mood was emphatically one of contentment. He interested himself in the details of his business, and was in nothing neglectful. Only it was all done without active pleasure; his life remained joyless.
“What are those lines you are repeating, Bernard?” his sister asked him one evening, when he had turned from the finished supper, to take up a magazine.
“Did I say them aloud?” he asked. Then he quoted:
For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were
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