As the best substitute within our reach we agreed to walk across Regent's Park together. Pomfret's business took him in that direction, and I was glad of a talk about Christopherson. I learnt that the old book-lover's landlady was Pomfret's aunt. Christopherson's story of affluence and ruin was quite true. Ruin complete, for at the age of forty he had been obliged to earn his living as a clerk or something of the kind. About five years later came his second marriage.
'You know Mrs. Christopherson?' asked Pomfret.
'No! I wish I did. Why?'
'Because she's the sort of woman it does you good to know, that's all. She's a lady—my idea of a lady. Christopherson's a gentleman too, there's no denying it; if he wasn't, I think I should have punched his head before now. Oh, I know 'em well! why, I lived in the house there with 'em for several years. She's a lady to the end of her little finger, and how her husband can 'a borne to see her living the life she has, it's more than I can understand. By—! I'd have turned burglar, if I could 'a found no other way of keeping her in comfort.'
'She works for her living, then?'
'Ay, and for his too. No, not teaching; she's in a shop in Tottenham Court
Road; has what they call a good place, and earns thirty shillings a week.
It's all they have, but Christopherson buys books out of it.'
'But has he never done anything since their marriage?'
'He did for the first few years, I believe, but he had an illness, and that was the end of it. Since then he's only loafed. He goes to all the book-sales, and spends the rest of his time sniffing about the second-hand shops. She? Oh, she'd never say a word! Wait till you've seen her.'
'Well, but,' I asked, 'what has happened. How is it they're leaving
London?'
'Ay, I'll tell you; I was coming to that. Mrs. Christopherson has relatives well off—a fat and selfish lot, as far as I can make out—never lifted a finger to help her until now. One of them's a Mrs. Keeting, the widow of some City porpoise, I'm told. Well, this woman has a home down in Norfolk. She never lives there, but a son of hers goes there to fish and shoot now and then. Well, this is what Mrs. Christopherson tells my aunt, Mrs. Keeting has offered to let her and her husband live down yonder, rent free, and their food provided. She's to be housekeeper, in fact, and keep the place ready for any one who goes down.'