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Will Warburton

G >> George Gissing >> Will Warburton



Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)

George Gissing

Will Warburton





CHAPTER 1




The sea-wind in his hair, his eyes agleam with the fresh memory of
Alpine snows, Will Warburton sprang out of the cab, paid the driver
a double fare, flung on to his shoulder a heavy bag and ran up, two
steps at a stride, to a flat on the fourth floor of the
many-tenanted building hard by Chelsea Bridge. His rat-tat-tat
brought to the door a thin yellow face, cautious in espial, through
the narrow opening.

"Is it you, sir?"

"All right, Mrs. Hopper! How are you?--how are you?"

He threw his bag into the passage, and cordially grasped the woman's
hands.

"Dinner ready? Savagely hungry. Give me three minutes, and serve."

For about that length of time there sounded in the bedroom a
splashing and a blowing; then Warburton came forth with red cheeks.
He seized upon a little pile of letters and packets which lay on his
writing-table, broke envelopes, rent wrappers, and read with now an
ejaculation of pleasure, now a grunt of disgust, and again a
mirthful half roar. Then, dinner--the feeding of a famished man of
robust appetite and digestion, a man three or four years on the
green side of thirty. It was a speedy business, in not much more
than a quarter of an hour there disappeared a noble steak and its
appurtenances, a golden-crusted apple tart, a substantial slice of
ripe Cheddar, two bottles of creamy Bass.

"Now I can talk!" cried Will to his servant, as he threw himself
into a deep chair, and began lighting his pipe. "What's the news? I
seem to have been away three months rather than three weeks."

"Mr. Franks called yesterday, sir, late in the afternoon, when I was
here cleaning. He was very glad to hear you'd be back to-day, and
said he might look in to-night."

"Good! What else?"

"My brother-in-law wishes to see you, sir. He's in trouble again--
lost his place at Boxon's a few days ago. I don't exac'ly know how
it happened, but he'll explain everything. He's very unfortunate,
sir, is Allchin."

"Tell him to come before nine to-morrow morning, if he can."

"Yes, sir. I'm sure it's very kind of you, sir."

"What else?"

"Nothing as I can think of just now, sir."

Warburton knew from the woman's way of speaking that she had
something still in her mind; but his pipe being well lit, and a
pleasant lassitude creeping over him, he merely nodded. Mrs. Hopper
cleared the table, and withdrew.

The window looked across the gardens of Chelsea Hospital (old-time
Ranelagh) to the westward reach of the river, beyond which lay
Battersea Park, with its lawns and foliage. A beam of the July
sunset struck suddenly through the room. Warburton was aware of it
with half-closed eyes; he wished to stir himself, and look forth,
but languor held his limbs, and wreathing tobacco-smoke kept his
thoughts among the mountains. He might have quite dozed off had not
a sudden noise from within aroused him--the unmistakable crash of
falling crockery. It made him laugh, a laugh of humorous
expostulation. A minute or two passed, then came a timid tap at his
door, and Mrs. Hopper showed her face.

"Another accident, sir, I'm sorry to say," were her faltering words.

"Extensive?"

"A dish and two plates, I'm sorry to say, sir."

"Oh, that's nothing."

"Of course I shall make them good, sir."

"Pooh! Aren't there plates enough?"

"Oh, quite enough--just yet, sir."

Warburton subdued a chuckle, and looked with friendly smile at his
domestic, who stood squeezing herself between the edge of the door
and the jamb--her habit when embarrassed. Mrs. Hopper had served
him for three years; he knew all her weaknesses, but thought more of
her virtues, chief of which were honest intention and a moderate
aptitude for plain cooking. A glance about this room would have
proved to any visitor that Mrs. Hopper's ideas of cleanliness were
by no means rigid, her master had made himself to a certain extent
responsible for this defect; he paid little attention to dust,
provided that things were in their wonted order. Mrs. Hopper was not
a resident domestic; she came at stated hours. Obviously a widow,
she had a poor, loose-hung, trailing little body, which no
nourishment could plump or fortify. Her visage was habitually
doleful, but contracted itself at moments into a grin of quaint
drollery, which betrayed her for something of a humorist.

"My fingers is all gone silly to-day, sir," she pursued. "I daresay
it's because I haven't had much sleep these last few nights."

"How's that?"

"It's my poor sister, sir--my sister Liza, I mean--she's had one
of her worst headaches--the extra special, we call 'em. This time
it's lasted more than three days, and not one minute of rest has the
poor thing got."

Warburton was all sympathy; he inquired about the case as though it
were that of an intimate friend. Change of air and repose were
obvious remedies; no less obviously, these things were out of the
question for a working woman who lived on a few shillings a week.

"Do you know of any place she could go to?" asked Warburton, adding
carelessly, "if the means were provided."

Mrs. Hopper squeezed herself more tightly than ever between door and
jamb. Her head was bent in an abashed way, and when she spoke it was
in a thick, gurgling tone, only just intelligible.

"There's a little lodging 'ouse at Southend, sir, where we used to
go when my 'usband could afford it."

"Well, look here. Get a doctor's opinion whether Southend would do;
if not, which place would. And just send her away. Don't worry about
the money."

Experience enabled Mrs. Hopper to interpret this advice. She
stammered gratitude.

"How's your other sister--Mrs. Allchin?" Warburton inquired
kindly.

"Why, sir, she's doing pretty well in her 'ealth, sir, but her baby
died yesterday week. I hope you'll excuse me, sir, for all this bad
news just when you come back from your holiday, and when it's
natural as you don't feel in very good spirits."

Will had much ado not to laugh. On his return from a holiday, Mrs.
Hopper always presumed him to be despondent in view of the
resumption of daily work. He was beginning to talk of Mrs. Allchin's
troubles, when at the outer door sounded a long nervous knock.

"Ha! That's Mr. Franks."

Mrs. Hopper ran to admit the visitor.





CHAPTER 2




"Warburton!" cried a high-pitched voice from the passage. "Have you
seen _The Art World_?"

And there rushed into the room a tall, auburn-headed young man of
five-and-twenty, his comely face glowing in excitement. With one
hand he grasped his friend's, in the other he held out a magazine.

"You haven't seen it! Look here! What d'you think of that, confound
you!"

He had opened the magazine so as to display an illustration,
entitled "Sanctuary," and stated to be after a painting by Norbert
Franks.

"Isn't it good? Doesn't it come out well?--deuce take you, why
don't you speak?"

"Not bad--for a photogravure," said Warburton, who had the air of
a grave elder in the presence of this ebullient youth.

"Be hanged! We know all about that. The thing is that it's _there_.
Don't you feel any surprise? Haven't you got anything to say? Don't
you see what this means, you old ragamuffin?"

"Shouldn't wonder if it meant coin of the realm--for your shrewd
dealer."

"For me too, my boy, for me too! Not out of this thing, of course.
But I've arrived, I'm _lance_, the way is clear! Why, you don't seem
to know what it means getting into _The Art World_."

"I seem to remember," said Warburton, smiling, "that a month or two
ago, you hadn't language contemptuous enough for this magazine and
all connected with it."

"Don't be an ass!" shrilled the other, who was all this time
circling about the little room with much gesticulation. "Of course
one talks like that when one hasn't enough to eat and can't sell a
picture. I don't pretend to have altered my opinion about
photogravures, and all that. But come now, the thing itself? Be
honest, Warburton. Is it bad, now? Can you look at that picture, and
say that it's worthless?"

"I never said anything of the kind."

"No, no! You're too deucedly good-natured. But I always detected
what you were thinking, and I saw it didn't surprise you at all when
the Academy muffs refused it."

"There you're wrong," cried Warburton. "I was really surprised."

"Confound your impudence! Well, you may think what you like. I
maintain that the thing isn't half bad. It grows upon me. I see its
merits more and more."

Franks was holding up the picture, eyeing it intently. "Sanctuary"
represented the interior of an old village church. On the ground
against a pillar, crouched a young and beautiful woman, her dress
and general aspect indicating the last degree of vagrant
wretchedness; worn out, she had fallen asleep in a most graceful
attitude, and the rays of a winter sunset smote upon her pallid
countenance. Before her stood the village clergyman, who had
evidently just entered, and found her here; his white head was bent
in the wonted attitude of clerical benevolence; in his face blended
a gentle wonder and a compassionate tenderness.

"If that had been hung at Burlington House, Warburton, it would have
been the picture of the year."

"I think it very likely."

"Yes, I know what you mean, you sarcastic old ruffian. But there's
another point of view. Is the drawing good or not? Is the colour
good or not? Of course you know nothing about it, but I tell you,
for your information, I think it's a confoundedly clever bit of
work. There remains the subject, and where's the harm in it? The
incident's quite possible. And why shouldn't the girl be
good-looking?"

"Angelic!"

"Well why not? There _are_ girls with angelic faces. Don't I know
one?"

Warburton, who had been sitting with a leg over the arm of his chair
suddenly changed his position.

"That reminds me," he said. "I came across the Pomfrets in
Switzerland."

"Where? When?"

"At Trient ten days ago. I spent three or four days with them.
Hasn't Miss Elvan mentioned it?"

"I haven't heard from her for a long time," replied Franks. "Well,
for more than a week. Did you meet them by chance?"

"Quite. I had a vague idea that the Pomfrets and their niece were
somewhere in Switzerland."

"Vague idea!" cried the artist "Why, I told you all about it, and
growled for five or six hours one evening here because I couldn't go
with them."

"So you did," said Warburton, "but I'm afraid I was thinking of
something else, and when I started for the Alps, I had really
forgotten all about it. I made up my mind suddenly, you know. We're
having a troublesome time in Ailie Street, and it was holiday now or
never. By the bye, we shall have to wind up. Sugar spells ruin. We
must get out of it whilst we can do so with a whole skin."

"Ah, really?" muttered Franks. "Tell me about that presently; I want
to hear of Rosamund. You saw a good deal of her, of course?"

"I walked from Chamonix over the Col de Balme--grand view of Mont
Blanc there! Then down to Trient, in the valley below. And there, as
I went in to dinner at the hotel, I found the three. Good old
Pomfret would have me stay awhile, and I was glad of the chance of
long talks with him. Queer old bird, Ralph Pomfret."

"Yes, yes, so he is," muttered the artist, absently. "But Rosamund
--was she enjoying herself?"

"Very much, I think. She certainly looked very well."

"Have much talk with her?" asked Franks, as if carelessly.

"We discussed you, of course. I forget whether our conclusion was
favourable or not."

The artist laughed, and strode about the room with his hands in his
pockets.

"You know what?" he exclaimed, seeming to look closely at a print on
the wall. "I'm going to be married before the end of the year. On
that point I've made up my mind. I went yesterday to see a house at
Fulham--Mrs. Cross's, by the bye, it's to let at Michaelmas, rent
forty-five. All but settled that I shall take it. Risk be hanged.
I'm going to make money. What an ass I was to take that fellow's
first offer for 'Sanctuary'! It was low water with me, and I felt
bilious. Fifty guineas! Your fault, a good deal, you know; you made
me think worse of it than it deserved. You'll see; Blackstaffe'll
make a small fortune out of it; of course he has all the rights--
idiot that I was! Well, it's too late to talk about that.--And I
say, old man, don't take my growl too literally. I don't really mean
that you were to blame. I should be an ungrateful cur if I thought
such a thing."

"How's 'The Slummer' getting on?" asked Warburton good-humouredly.

"Well, I was going to say that I shall have it finished in a few
weeks. If Blackstaffe wants 'The Slummer' he'll have to pay for it.
Of course it must go to the Academy, and of course I shall keep all
the rights--unless Blackstaffe makes a really handsome offer. Why,
it ought to be worth five or six hundred to me at least. And that
would start us. But I don't care even if I only get half that, I
shall be married all the same. Rosamund has plenty of pluck. I
couldn't ask her to start life on a pound a week--about my average
for the last two years; but with two or three hundred in hand, and a
decent little house, like that of Mrs. Cross's, at a reasonable rent
--well, we shall risk it. I'm sick of waiting. And it isn't fair to
a girl--that's my view. Two years now; an engagement that lasts
more than two years isn't likely to come to much good. You'll think
my behaviour pretty cool, on one point. I don't forget, you old
usurer, that I owe you something more than a hundred pounds--"

"Pooh!"

"Be poohed yourself! But for you, I should have gone without dinner
many a day; but for you, I should most likely have had to chuck
painting altogether, and turn clerk or dock-labourer. But let me
stay in your debt a little longer, old man. I can't put off my
marriage any longer, and just at first I shall want all the money I
can lay my hands on."

At this moment Mrs. Hopper entered with a lamp. There was a pause in
the conversation. Franks lit a cigarette, and tried to sit still,
but was very soon pacing the floor again. A tumbler of whisky and
soda reanimated his flagging talk.

"No!" he exclaimed. "I'm not going to admit that 'Sanctuary' is
cheap and sentimental, and all the rest of it. The more I think
about it, the more convinced I am that it's nothing to be ashamed
of. People have got hold of the idea that if a thing is popular it
must be bad art. That's all rot. I'm going in for popularity. Look
here! Suppose that's what I was meant for? What if it's the best I
have in me to do? Shouldn't I be a jackass if I scorned to make
money by what, for me, was good work, and preferred to starve whilst
I turned out pretentious stuff that was worth nothing from my point
of view?"

"I shouldn't wonder if you're right," said Warburton reflectively.
"In any case, I know as much about art as I do about the
differential calculus. To make money is a good and joyful thing as
long as one. doesn't bleed the poor. So go ahead, my son, and luck
be with you!"

"I can't find my model yet for the Slummer's head. It mustn't be too
like the 'Sanctuary' girl, but at the same time it must be a popular
type of beauty. I've been haunting refreshment bars and florists'
shops; lots of good material, but never _quite_ the thing. There's a
damsel at the Crystal Palace--but this doesn't interest you, you
old misogynist."

"Old what?" exclaimed Warburton, with an air of genuine surprise.

"Have I got the word wrong? I'm not much of a classic--"

"The word's all right. But that's your idea of me, is it?"

The artist stood and gazed at his friend with an odd expression, as
if a joke had been arrested on his lips by graver thought.

"Isn't it true?"

"Perhaps it is; yes, yes, I daresay."

And he turned at once to another subject.





CHAPTER 3




The year was 1886.

When at business, Warburton sat in a high, bare room, which looked
upon little Ailie Street, in Whitechapel; the air he breathed had a
taste and odour strongly saccharine. If his eye strayed to one of
the walls, he saw a map of the West Indies; if to another, it fell
upon a map of St. Kitts; if to the third, there was before him a
plan of a sugar estate on that little island. Here he sat for
certain hours of the solid day, issuing orders to clerks, receiving
commercial callers, studying trade journals in sundry languages--
often reading some book which had no obvious reference to the
sugar-refining industry. It was not Will's ideal of life, but hither
he had suffered himself to be led by circumstance, and his musings
suggested no practicable issue into a more congenial world.

The death of his father when he was sixteen had left him with a
certain liberty for shaping a career. What he saw definitely before
him was a small share in the St. Kitts property of Messrs. Sherwood
Brothers, a small share in the London business of the same firm, and
a small sum of ready money--these things to be his when he
attained his majority. His mother and sister, who lived in a little
country house down in Huntingdonshire, were modestly but securely
provided for, and Will might have gone quietly on with his studies
till he could resolve upon a course in life. But no sooner was he
freed from paternal restraint than the lad grew restive; nothing
would please him but an adventure in foreign lands; and when it
became clear that he was only wasting his time at school, Mrs.
Warburton let him go to the West Indies, where a place was found for
him in the house of Sherwood Brothers. At St. Kitts, Will remained
till he was one-and-twenty. Long before that, he had grown heartily
tired of his work disgusted with the climate, and oppressed with
home sickness, but pride forbade him to return until he could do so
as a free man.

One thing this apprenticeship to life had taught him--that he was
not made for subordination. "I don't care how poor I am," thus he
wrote to his mother, "but I will be my own master. To be at other
people's orders brings out all the bad in me; it makes me sullen and
bearish, and all sorts of ugly things, which I certainly am not when
my true self has play. So, you see, I must find some independent way
of life. If I had to live by carrying round a Punch and Judy show, I
should vastly prefer it to making a large income as somebody's
servant."

Meanwhile, unfortunately for a young man of this temperament, his
prospects had become less assured. There was perturbation in the
sugar world; income from St. Kitts and from Whitechapel had sensibly
diminished, and it seemed but too likely, would continue to do so.
For some half-year Will lived in London, "looking about him," then
he announced that Godfrey Sherwood, at present sole representative
of Sherwood Brothers, had offered him an active partnership in
Little Ailie Street, and that he had accepted it. He entered upon
this position without zeal, but six months' investigation had taught
him that to earn money without surrendering his independence was no
very easy thing; he probably might wait a long time before an
opening would present itself more attractive than this at the
sugar-refinery.

Godfrey Sherwood was a schoolfellow of his, but some two or three
years older; much good feeling existed between them, their tastes
and tempers having just that difference in similarity which is the
surest bond of friendship. Judged by his talk, Sherwood was all
vigour, energy, fire; his personal habits, on the other hand,
inclined to tranquillity and ease--a great reader, he loved the
literature of romance and adventure, knew by heart authors such as
Malory and Froissart, had on his shelves all the books of travel and
adventure he could procure. As a boy he seemed destined to any life
save that of humdrum commerce, of which he spoke with contempt and
abhorrence; and there was no reason why he should not have gratified
his desire of seeing the world, of leading what he called "the life
of a man." Yet here he was, sitting each day in a counting-house in
Whitechapel, with nothing behind him but a few rambles on the
continent, and certainly with no immediate intention of going far
afield. His father's death left him in sole command of the business,
and his reasonable course would have been to retire from it as soon
as possible, for foreign competition was making itself felt in the
English trade, and many firms more solidly established than that in
Little Ailie Street had either come to grief or withdrawn from the
struggle. But Godfrey's inertia kept him in the familiar routine,
with day-to-day postponement of practical decision. When Warburton
came back from St. Kitts, and their friendship was renewed,
Godfrey's talk gave full play to his imaginative energies. Yes, yes,
the refining business was at a bad pass just now, but this was only
temporary; those firms that could weather the storm for a year or
two longer would enter upon a time of brilliant prosperity. Was it
to be supposed that the Government would allow a great industry to
perish out of mere regard for the fetish of Free Trade? City men
with first-hand information declared that "measures" were being
prepared; in one way or another, the English trade would be rescued
and made triumphant over those bounty-fed foreigners.

"Hold on?" cried Sherwood. "Of course I mean to hold on. There's
pleasure and honour in the thing. I enjoy the fight. I've had
thoughts of getting into Parliament, to speak for sugar. One might
do worse, you know. There'll be a dissolution next year, certain.
First-rate fun, fighting a constituency. But in that case I must
have a partner here--why that's an idea. How would it suit you?
Why not join me?"

And so the thing came about. The terms which Godfrey offered were so
generous that Will had to reduce them before he accepted: even thus,
he found his income, at a stroke, all but doubled. Sherwood, to be
sure, did not stand for Parliament, nor was anything definite heard
about that sugar-protecting budget which he still believed in. In
Little Ailie Street business steadily declined.

"It's a disgrace to England!" cried Godfrey. "Monstrous that not a
finger should be lifted to save one of our most important
industries. You, of course, are free to retire at any moment, Will.
For my own part, here I stand, come what may. If it's ruin, ruin let
it be. I'll fight to the last. A man owes me ten thousand pounds.
When I recover it, and I may any day--I shall put every penny into
the business."

"Ten thousand pounds!" exclaimed Warburton in astonishment. "A trade
debt, do you mean?"

"No, no. A friend of mine, son of a millionaire, who got into
difficulties some time ago, and borrowed of me to clear himself.
Good interest, and principal safe as Consols. In a year at most I
shall have the money back, and every penny shall go into the
business."

Will had his private view of the matter, and not seldom suffered a
good deal of uneasiness as he saw the inevitable doom approach. But
already it was too late to withdraw his share from the concern; that
would have been merely to take advantage of Sherwood's generosity,
and Will was himself not less chivalrous. In Godfrey's phrase, they
continued "to fight the ship," and perhaps would have held out to
the moment of sinking, had not the accession of the Liberals to
power in the spring of this present year caused Sherwood so deep a
disgust that he turned despondent and began to talk of surrender to
hopeless circumstance.

"It's all up with us, Will. This Government spells ruin, and will
count it one of its chief glories if we come to grief. But, by
Heaven, they shan't have that joy. We'll square up, quietly,
comfortably, with dignity. We'll come out of this fight with arms
and baggage. It's still possible, you know. We'll sell the St. Kitts
estate to the Germans. We'll find some one to buy us up here--the
place would suit a brewer. And then--by Jove! we'll make jam."

"Jam?"

"Isn't it an idea? Cheap sugar has done for the refiners, but it's a
fortune for the jam trade. Why not put all we can realize into a jam
factory? We'll go down into the country; find some delightful place
where land is cheap; start a fruit farm; run up a building. Doesn't
it take you, Will? Think of going to business every day through
lanes overhung with fruit-tree blossoms! Better that than the filth
and stench and gloom and uproar of Whitechapel--what? We might
found a village for our workpeople--the ideal village, perfectly
healthy, every cottage beautiful. Eh? What? How does it strike you,
Will?"

"Pleasant. But the money?"

"We shall have enough to start; I think we shall. If not, we'll find
a moneyed man to join us."

"What about that ten thousand pounds?" suggested Warburton.

Sherwood shook his head.

"Can't get it just yet. To tell you the truth, it depends on the
death of the man's father. No, but if necessary, some one will
easily be found. Isn't the idea magnificent? How it would rile the
Government if they heard of it! Ho, ho!"

One could never be sure how far Godfrey was serious when he talked
like this; the humorous impulse so blended with the excitability of
his imagination, that people who knew him little and heard him
talking at large thought him something of a crack-brain. The odd
thing was that, with all his peculiarities, he had many of the
characteristics of a sound man of business; indeed, had it been
otherwise, the balance-sheets of the refinery must long ago have
shown a disastrous deficit. As Warburton knew, things had been
managed with no little prudence and sagacity; what he did not so
clearly understand was that Sherwood had simply adhered to the
traditions of the firm, following very exactly the path marked out
for him by his father and his uncle, both notable traders.
Concerning Godfrey's private resources, Warburton knew little or
nothing; it seemed probable that the elder Sherwood had left a
considerable fortune, which his only son must have inherited. No
doubt, said Will to himself, this large reserve was the explanation
of his partner's courage.

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