Cleo The Magnificent Part 24

"I am anxious, and I have my wits about me," put in Morgan.

"Well, after three months he could make himself deuced handy."

Kettering's mild oath was simply intended by way of encouragement.

"You see," he went on, "once you'd learnt the lay of the case, you'd soon get your hand in for straightforward setting, and then if you didn't mind exercising your muscles, you could do a bit of pulling at press. And a man of your education, sir, might turn his knowledge to account in proof-reading. Not that there's much scope for that sort of thing, sir, in my little business. But it's just an idea we might keep in mind. There's no knowing what might come of it. Now I'm not going to omit the business part, sir. I know you must be wanting to hear about that, and I know you'd prefer to make a bargain on a strict business basis. Perhaps you care to make a suggestion."

"I am too ignorant for that. I want you to give me just what I am worth and no more. Of course, I know that I shall not be worth anything for some time."

In a few minutes they had arranged everything in such a way that there should be no obligation on either side. Morgan was to live in the house. A wage was to be put to his credit from the beginning for all work done by him that was of use, at the regular "piece rates," and such work as "pulling at press" and "clearing," which could only be estimated by time, was to be entered at time rates. Of course his earnings at first would be very small, but they would increase from week to week. On the other hand, an agreed weekly value was put on his board and lodging, which from the first would be charged against his earnings. And when eventually the wages due to him had overtaken the amount thus due by him, he should get the weekly balance in cash, or he might then, if he preferred, board and lodge where it pleased him.

Morgan was touched by old Kettering's sympathetic comprehension of his needs, but when he sought to give expression to his thanks, the old man would not listen.

Mark entered just then, and, the situation having been made clear to him in a few words, readily agreed to have Morgan by his side in the workshop, and to make of him a sort of protege.

The whole interview had consumed barely half an hour, and Morgan went out just as the journeymen were returning for their afternoon's work.

He had arranged to begin in the morning, since they had a heavy job to get finished that afternoon, and could not spare a moment to initiate him. Mark, however, said he would teach him the lay of the case that evening from a diagram. Kettering, before he left, said he would make it his business to give the girls to understand that they must treat him with respect, but begged him to ignore them in case they should misbehave, winding up with his oft-expressed conviction that all women-folk were crazy, and it was a mistake to take them seriously.

However, Morgan troubled himself little about the girls; they had no terrors for him now. An exquisite peace came upon him. It was many years since he had had the feeling.

CHAPTER II.

He was not sorry to have the afternoon free, for it gave him the opportunity of writing long letters to Helen and to his father. He felt he owed it to both to make them understand his changed att.i.tude.

"One real critical moment in a life," he went on to write to Helen, after narrating all that had occurred up to that very moment, "suffices to work changes that may seem almost miraculous. I am not going to say that the prophecy you made just to encourage me a little is going to be fulfilled. Happiness is not for me--I have lost the essential factors of that. But a cheerful acceptance of life, a full use of each day, a consciousness of submission to a healthy self-discipline, must bring me a healthy sense of worthiness.

"Of course you will see that my making the payment of Cleo's debts a sort of goal will enable me to test my strength. Once I arrive at the goal, I shall be able to hold my head high. I have done the one and only thing, and it was good for me that the means were so near at hand. And so I hope to have your approval both of my determination and of my returning you this bank-note. I have still eighteen-pence in my pocket, and Mr. Kettering says I can draw a few s.h.i.+llings whenever I feel in need of them.

"I dare say my donning an ap.r.o.n and holding a composing-stick must at moments seem quite comic to you. Viewed by itself, it no doubt _is_ comic. But it isn't a fact to be looked at by itself. It is a fact which has a relation to my whole existence--in the past, present, and future--and must be strictly viewed in such relation.

"I don't know why I should mention this except that I caught a sudden glimpse of myself as a workman and found myself smiling. Every life must have its critical moments, and I feel that I have just pa.s.sed through mine. I have come out with different conceptions of things; moreover, I seem to have found the key to the scheme of my existence, and, though as yet only in a haunting way, to understand the underlying principle, working through all my dreamings, my failures, my mistakes, and my folly, towards my redemption."

In the letter to his father he necessarily had to condense a good deal, as the ground to be covered was so extensive. And some instinct urged him to be silent about his attempt at suicide. He told briefly of his marriage, which he described as a sort of a jump with his eyes open he had suddenly been impelled to take. He had fallen on a place astonis.h.i.+ngly different from what it had appeared to him, for he had been the victim of a mirage, through which the force of his impulse had taken him into underlying abysses. He went on to describe Cleo's failure and his own awakening; how they had gone to Dover, how Cleo had left him, and why he was remaining there now. He likewise included a message for the Medhursts, but asked his father not to tell them his whereabouts. It would be sufficient if they were a.s.sured all was well with him. It was an odd fancy, but he wanted to have the feeling that he was hiding from them.

He had been too touched by his father's letter not to be frank and sincere, as indeed he would have been in any case, and he only omitted to say how close he had been to his end because he shrank from giving pain.

"There is one thing in particular I want to ask you," he concluded, "and that is not to be tempted to come here to see me. If you really do sympathise with my motives for the life I have chosen, you will understand my fear that a meeting between us now might unnerve me. I know it is a great thing to ask you to be satisfied with the knowledge that I am well and cheerful, and that, my wife having left me of her own accord, I have nothing to reproach myself with in my conduct to her from beginning to end. But I want to begin my new work and submit myself to the new discipline. So much for me depends upon it that, though I am strong and confident, I must not run the risk of being distracted from my purpose by forces that are stronger than I. Where the issue is so great--as it is, according to my conception of things--it is but natural I should distrust myself a little. The year is just half gone. Give me the opportunity of testing myself and of inuring myself to the discipline with no other encouragement save the knowledge of the worthiness of my purpose and the goodwill and approval of whoever understands me. I want to stand alone for the present--isolation brings out every atom of strength in me. Then, perhaps, when the new year comes and I shall have had the strength to stand firm, I may be able to look you in the face."

Helen, in her reply, would not agree with him that he had lost the essential factors of happiness. She still stood by her prophecy. She understood and entered into his every feeling, and approved of his plans unreservedly. The ten pounds she had given to a starving man.

"I wanted to celebrate your choice between life and death, and the dawn of your new era, by making a human being happy, if only for a little while. You should have seen his face when he understood all that lump of money was really his. What emotions must have stirred in him! He must have thought that the age of miracles had come again. It gave me the sensation of drinking some ethereal brand of champagne--it was to your happiness, of course, I drank.

"I was aware, from the beginning, that you were beset with dangers from your own temperament and disposition. But perhaps, after all, it is best that your temperament should have worked itself out its own way. You will emerge the better and the stronger for it in the end, and then, when you do come into your happiness, you will be able to appreciate it with your whole being. But I must own to a sense of guilt--I might have been a truer friend to you had it not been for my selfish love for you.

You have yet to forgive me for that.

"It rather vexes me that I cannot do more than just look on and see events shape themselves inevitably, like a spring uncoiling.

I should so much have loved to be the good fairy of your life.

But, alas! that cannot be, since its very inner force is its own good fairy.

"P. S. I have managed to write you a whole letter without one flippant phrase. Which is certainly a proof that your admonition to me not to look upon you, in ap.r.o.n and s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, picking up type, as a comic picture has made a due impression on me. I am seeing you the whole time as a sort of glorified, idealised workman, enveloped in a mystic halo, and standing for the dignity of labor and the n.o.bility of man. By the way, I have met Miss Medhurst. I had quite a thrill as we shook hands! And she had not the slightest idea I was of any special interest, more than any other casual person she might meet. Strange dramatic position, was it not? Of course, I never want her to know about me. Which reminds me, I am rather alarmed lest your mood of confession should have led you to make me known to your sire--I hope not.

And please don't. May I come to Dover for a day now and again in order to see you for ten minutes each time? I have decided to cut Scotland and pa.s.s August at Folkestone instead, just lounging on the beach and reading novels. Please say 'yes.'

"P. P. S. I don't like the idea of my role being limited to writing you amusing letters. Won't you allot me a more active and satisfying part? Would it not be a good idea for you to appoint me your 'London agent?' Suppose you give me the list of your creditors and remit me your money as soon as you have a decent instalment put by. You could leave the distribution to me. The workmen should be paid first, of course. I shall arrange to ferret them out, which, I think, will not be difficult, as most of them are, no doubt, attached to the theatre. It would make me so happy if you said 'yes.' After all, one's life, when once its conditions are settled, and its allotted tasks performed, really reduces itself to inter-relations with a few chosen personalities, and everything else becomes a mere background against which one lives. It is the few who occupy one's central consciousness and make one happy or miserable. You will see, therefore, how important to me this apparently little thing will be."

His father's reply was brief and to the point. He thanked his dear son for listening to his prayer, and was happy to hear that everything was now well. As to the irreparable mistake, that, of course, must be faced and lived down. He would respect Morgan's wishes and not seek to see him for the present. Directly he had received Morgan's letter he had sent a long telegram to the Medhursts, which he was now supplementing by a letter. They had telegraphed back, asking him to convey to Morgan their love and hoping they might hear about him from time to time. "You have made me understand a good deal to which I have been blind," he went on. "You were never an ordinary lad; you had special needs, as has every lad of any individuality. I should have sought to comprehend them, instead of trying to drive you along the ordinary lines. No wonder there was a discord--a jarring and a clas.h.i.+ng. G.o.d speed you, my dear son, and with all my heart do I wish you success in doing that which you feel to be right. For the present, good-bye!"

When Morgan wrote again to Helen he prayed her not to come just yet.

His mood was desperately set on isolation, till he could feel he had tackled the task before him and made substantial progress. He hoped she would not alter her plans, as she had meditated, but he gladly accepted her services as "London agent." There was little chance, though, of his being able to send her the first remittance for several months, by which time she would probably be back in town.

CHAPTER III.

Meanwhile Morgan had settled down "at case" and was patiently learning to pick up the "stamps." He was initiated into the mysteries of ems and ens, of leading and s.p.a.cing and making-up. Racks and galleys and wooden and metal "furniture" played a large part in his dreams; turpentine, paraffin and machine-oil, roller composition and inks became the breath of his nostrils. By an effort of concentration he would never before have been capable of, he made rapid advance, Kettering generously letting him do such work as he could do most effectively, so that his wages' account mounted week by week. The close attention his work demanded made mind-wandering and aimless thinking impossible; but as time went by and he found himself acquiring skill, his enthusiasm grew, and he threw himself into his new occupation almost with frenzy, taking a sort of savage satisfaction in the grey grime of the workshop with its soiled wooden fittings, and in the silent companions.h.i.+p of his ap.r.o.ned co-workers.

He filled up his time at every department of the trade, learning--besides type-setting and proof-correcting--to take the gas-engine to pieces and to clean it, to help to make ready "formes"

on the machine, to mix inks, to clean rollers and to work at press, either as inker or puller. But the grime had no power to enter into his spirit, though some slight suggestion of his occupation began eventually to show itself in his face. His hands, too, suffered severely, for soft white hands get quickly ill-used in a printer's workshop.

Still smarting under a long lecture from their father, Alice and Mary had at first taken care to confine conversation with him to trade exigencies; but after a few days they had grown to accept him as part of the household, and were civil to him again. Mrs. Kettering liked to get him to herself of an evening and talk to him for two hours at a time. Kettering himself would fidget a good deal at such times, but scarcely ventured to intrude, though apparently his greatest delight was also to converse with Morgan. But Mrs. Kettering showed no such scruples about entering into the conversation and eventually taking Morgan captive, being entirely without respect for the fact that her husband was in legal possession. In either case Morgan's contribution to the conversation rarely exceeded one-fourth of the whole.

Mark continued taciturn as ever, though his enormous mustachios seemed to grow constantly, as if benefitting by the energy that should have gone into speech. Sometimes he would accompany Morgan on a long walk, and on such occasions Morgan would try to discover the secret of his personality. He learnt after some difficulty that Mark regarded women pretty well as so many demons put on this earth to entrap men's souls.

He however had to confess he hadn't formed this opinion from outside experience, but then, he added, he had taken good care to steer free of the s.e.x. He was satisfied to do his work and smoke his pipe--a veritable pipe of peace.

This philosophy, however, only represented one-half of him, though its few simple facts had had to be elicited in little bits, buried in irrelevances, and as there were apparently numbers of such little bits, the process of extrication had been a somewhat painful one. Nor did the other half come as a single revelation. It was also conveyed in little bits, which Morgan had to dig out and piece together and these bits were more difficult to find than the others, for they were infinitely tinier. Mark had once been in love, but had been too shy to let the object of it suspect it, or, rather, he had not known which way to set to work, and the prize had been snapped up by another.

Of course, Morgan's thought sometimes indulged in flights that had little relation to the workshop or to the processes of printing, but only within strict and narrow limits. These he further narrowed by giving up a great part of his leisure to the perusal of such technical books as Kettering possessed. Cleo still figured largely for him. She had been too big and important a fact in his life to lose her place as yet in the centre of his consciousness. But even had he the power, he would not have attempted to gather any intelligence as to her movements, though he could not help speculating somewhat on the very point. Should she ever return into his life again--and he could not make up his mind as to the probability of her doing so--then would be time enough for him to concern himself with her practically.

And amid all his toil, he had ever a sense of something light and dainty, something he was aware of as a haunting, unseen presence. And then at moments there gleamed upon him the wistful fancy that, beneath all the phrases and arguments with which he had equipped himself for the battle, it was really his love for Margaret was helping him to be strong, that it was the hope of his one day attaining to be worthy of her friends.h.i.+p was aiding his self-purification, that it was the flame she had lit in him had now sprung up again, defying all the mean elements by which he was surrounded to eat into his spirit.

And once the fancy had come to him, he nurtured it, so that it grew and grew and became part of his very self. If, indeed, it had not been truth when it had first come to him, it was truth now.

CHAPTER IV.

Strolling out one evening, about the end of August, to cool after the heated atmosphere of the workshop, Morgan was dreaming a beautiful vain dream. He had gone half way down the shorter St. Margaret's road, and in the distance rose the square church-tower. For the last two or three minutes he had been conscious of people a few yards ahead of him, and, as their slow stroll was yet slower than his, he had been getting nearer and nearer to them. Now his eye rested half vacantly on their backs, and the perception forced itself upon him that the three backs were those of ladies; and the next thing that dawned upon him was that there was something familiar as well as pleasing about the carriage, the curves, and the movements of those backs, still some twenty paces ahead of him. But he was still dreaming of Margaret, and these perceptions from the outer world were not strong enough to destroy the images in possession of his mind. He was quite close on them before he became aware that he had stumbled on Mrs. Medhurst, Margaret, and Diana.