A Barren Title: A Novel

by T. W. Speight

In whatever part of the street you took your stand a couple of taverns were well within view, and, as a matter of course, there was a pawnbroker's emporium "just round the corner." It is needless to say that the street swarmed with children of all ages and all sizes, and that you might make sure of having the dulcet tones of a barrel-organ within earshot every ten minutes throughout the day. It was situate somewhat to the west of Tottenham-court Road, and ran at right angles with one of the main arteries that intersect that well-known thoroughfare.

In this populous locality Mr. Fildew and his wife rented a drawing-room floor, consisting of three rooms, and including the use of a kitchen below stairs; and here they had lived for between six and seven years at the time we make Mr. Fildew's acquaintance. As we shall see a great deal of that gentleman before the word Finis is written to this history, it may perhaps be as well to introduce him with some particularity to the reader before setting out with him on his afternoon stroll.

John Fildew at this time was about fifty-two years of age, but looked somewhat older. Thirty years previously he had been accounted a very handsome man, and there were still sufficient traces of bygone good looks to make credible such a tradition. But the once clear-cut aquiline nose was now growing more coarse and bibulous-looking with every year, and the once shapely waist was putting on a degree of convexity that troubled its possessor far more than any other change that time had seen fit to afflict him with. As yet he was by no means bald, and his iron-gray hair, however thin it might be at the crown, was still plentiful at the sides and back, and being seldom operated upon by the tonsorial scissors, its long, straggling ends mingled with the tangled growth of his whiskers and lay on the collar of his coat behind. Grizzled, too, were whiskers, beard, and mustache, but all unkempt and apparently uncared for, growing as they listed, and only impatiently snipped at now and again by Mr. Fildew himself, when his mustache had grown so long as to be inconvenient at meal-times. His eyes were his best feature. They were dark, piercing, and deep-set, and were overhung by thick, bushy brows, which showed as yet no signs of age. Their ordinary expression was one of cold, quiet watchfulness, but they were occasionally lighted up by gleams of a grim, sardonic humor, accompanied by a half-contemptuous smile and at such times it was possible to understand how it happened that many not over-observant people came to regard him as a genial, good-hearted, easy-tempered fellow, when, in truth, there was scarcely one touch of real geniality in his composition.

Unshorn and unkempt as Mr. Fildew might appear as regards his hair and whiskers, shabby-genteel as he might be in point of attire, he still carried himself as one who holds himself superior in some measure to the ordinary run of his fellows. His boots might bear unmistakable traces of having been patched, but they were carefully polished and well-set up at the heels. His trousers might be old, and it is possible that they too might be patched on certain parts not visible to the public eye, but they were well ironed at the knees, and were strapped over his boots à la militaire. His frock-coat--always worn tightly buttoned--might be threadbare, inked here and there at the seams, and not after the latest fashion, but it had the merit of being an excellent fit. His hat, too, might be of ancient date, and suspiciously shiny in places, but it was always carefully brushed, and was worn with an air of assurance and aplomb that made its defects seem superior to the virtues of many newer head-coverings. Mr. Fildew's linen might be old, possibly darned, but such portion of it as was visible to the world at large was at least spotlessly white: there was some one at home who took care of that. His attire was completed by a deep, military-looking stock, a pair of faded buckskin gloves, and a substantial Malacca cane with a silk tassel. Being naturally a little short-sighted, he always carried an eyeglass, but rarely made use of it in the streets.

And yet Mr. Fildew's shabby attire was not altogether a matter of necessity with him. One day his son Clement ventured to say, "Father, I wish you would go to my tailor, and let him set you up with some new toggery."

Clem was brushing the collar of his father's coat at the time, and the remark was made laughingly, but Mr. Fildew turned with a scowl and confronted his son. "Confound your tailor, sir!" he cried. "And you, too," he added next moment. "Do you think I'm a pauper, that you offer to pay for my clothes? If you are ashamed to be seen out with me, remember, sir, that there are always two sides to a street." And with that Mr. Fildew turned on his heel in high dudgeon.

Clement and his mother exchanged glances of dismay. "You know how peculiar your father is, dear," said Mrs. Fildew afterwards, "and what little things sometimes touch his dignity. It was injudicious of you to say what you did."

Clement shrugged his shoulders. "I have lived with my father all my life, and yet I confess that I only half understand him," said the young man. "At times he is a complete enigma to me."

"I have lived with him more years than you have, and I think that I almost understand him: almost, but not quite," responded Mrs. Fildew, with a smile. "But then a woman always does understand a man better than another man can hope to do."

Clement Fildew might well say that his father was an enigma to him. Although the latter refused so indignantly to allow his son to be at the expense of refurnishing his wardrobe, he was not too proud to accept from him his weekly supply of pocket-money. But then the money in question found its way from Clement's pocket to that of his father after such a delicate and diplomatic fashion that the susceptibilities of Mr. Fildew had never hitherto been wounded in the transaction. Every Friday Clement placed in his mother's hands the sum of one guinea. The sovereign and shilling in question were wrapped up by Mrs. Fildew in a piece of tissue-paper, and quietly deposited by her in a certain drawer in her husband's dressing-table. By Saturday morning the tiny packet would have disappeared. No questions were asked; neither Mrs. Fildew nor her husband ever spoke to each other on the matter but silence has often a meaning of its own, and it had in this case.