Chapter IX

And Ownie--in weeds for the second time in her life--sighed as she had sighed when she lost Harris, "I don't know what will become of me!" Though her youth was gone, her egoism remained, and even the solicitor was touched by the pathos of her helplessness. "I was a good wife," she said, having had a week to convince herself of it; "it's hard that he never made any provision for the future."

David did not return to school, and Vivian, who found his mother's lamentations wearisome when he was at home, began to thaw towards his half-brother, and discussed matters with him.

"The mater is selfish, you know," he said; "she only thinks of herself. It's deuced rough on you and me, but she never talks about _that_. I suppose we shall have to go into a poky little house somewhere, and pig along with one or two servants eh?" He was unconsciously picturing the environment in which he had been born.

"I suppose so," said David.

"Good Lord! When one remembers all the money that was made, you know, it's awful. They ought to have saved. The idea of spending every bob, and never thinking about to-morrow! I don't blame him any more than her, of course," he added hastily; "it was her fault too; but I wish they had let me go to the Cape. It isn't a lively look-out to live in a tin-pot house here, and come home to find the mater fretting over her lost splendours. That's what it will be--she isn't the woman to be cheerful when things go wrong. I shan't be able to stand it; I know I shan't. I shall cut it after a bit, and take a room up West."

"She won't let you. Besides, she may need your salary."

"What?"

"Well, who's going to keep her if _we_ don't?"

"Oh, I say!" exclaimed Vivian, "do you mean to tell me we shall be as poor as all that?"

"I don't know. I hope we shan't. I'm sure _I_ don't want to live at home either now; but it's likely enough, isn't it?"

Vivian pondered.

"There's her jewellery," he said at last; "that's worth a lump, you know. As to your not living at home either, one of us will have to, it's certain! She can't be left by herself; it wouldn't be right."

"I don't think that _my_ going would trouble her; she has never wanted _me_. If she does, of course I'll stop. The thing is, I don't know what sort of berth I can expect to get. I'm afraid it won't be very easy for--for a fellow like me to get anything to do, will it?" He tried to force a laugh. "I've never been in demand so far."

"No, there _is_ that," said Vivian. "She was talking about it yesterday."

"What did she say?"

"Only that. It won't be so easy as if you were--you know! You ought to have sung, Dave, then you'd have been all right. Fancy, if you'd had the governor's voice; by Jove, there would have been none of this bother at all! Of course, if you can write, it'll be better than nothing." He hesitated, and looked a little sheepish, for such confidences were new between them. "You want to go in for being an author, don't you?"

David nodded. "I've sent verses to magazines already; only, they weren't taken."

"I should peg away at it if I were you. I always told the mater it wasn't half a bad idea for you when she called it 'rot.' It doesn't matter what an author looks like, you see; if he's as hideous as the veiled Johnny in what's-its-name, it doesn't show in his books. Just you go on turning it out; that's my advice. I'd like to see some of your things one day."

"Still," said David, "I shall have to get a berth at first, you know. I shall give it up before long, of course, but I must have one at the start."

A sincere belief in oneself generally inspires conviction in somebody. That is why Ownie had never failed to find supporters. Vivian regarded his half-brother a shade enviously.

"It's my opinion you're not half such a fool as the mater thinks, old chap," he murmured. "I wish I could do something of the sort myself, though I can't say I'm nuts on poetry. Just you swot away. If you write enough, some of it's bound to bring in some coin sooner or later. Now, what have J got to look forward to? Why, nothing at all! I can stick on where I am for ever. If I'd gone to the Cape, I might have come back a millionaire; but how on earth can I hope to make any money in a billet in London?"

"I thought," David said, "that what you really wanted was to go into the Army?"

"Oh, well, I did--I was younger then; we all want to do something silly at that age. I've changed my mind about that. I want to make money, that's all _I_ want; I'd like to be a manager. There's plenty of oof to be made in the musical business, I can tell you, even if you don't sing or play yourself. There are lots who do--and brains are as good as a voice, if it comes to that. Of course the swell artists get deuced big terms, but if you're smart you can get the others to pay _you_. I'm keeping my eyes open, what do _you_ think? It isn't difficult to make a profit on a concert if your rent's not too high, and you go the right way to work; it's like making a book on a race. And, after a bit, you get cracked up in the papers for your 'services to musical art in England,' too. If I had something to start with, I'd have a shot at the game to-morrow."

He stroked an incipient moustache, and David looked at him with respect. Himself, he panted to be famous--fortune was a detail--but the flourish of qualities that he didn't possess impressed him.

Some little time passed before Vivian was relieved of his fear of having to contribute immediately towards his mother's support. Then, when light was shed, it was evident that if she sold her diamonds, she could withdraw from The Woodlands with a considerable sum, and the earliest idea was to remove to a villa at Balham or Wandsworth. On the advice of one of the decrepit foreigners, however, who promised her a clientèle, she talked presently of taking a boarding-house at Regent's Park as soon as she was able to sub-let. The fall was crushing, but at least it was better than solitude in a suburb and living on her capital. Privately, too, as she foresaw herself ministering to the palates of bachelors, with a red lampshade over the dinner-table, she considered the possibility of marrying again. She was prepared to view purple moustaches with a more lenient eye now, and she contemplated a business run on good lines with more complacence than she permitted to appear.

In the meantime, before a tenant was forthcoming, several attempts were made to find David employment. The decrepit, but faithful, rallied round her--the least deserving generally receive the most sympathy--and though a coloured boy of forbidding countenance was no acquisition, he at last obtained a clerkship at a music publisher's.

When he had been engaged at Panzetta's a few days, he broached to his mother his desire to live alone. He didn't allude to her lack of affection for him; he put the matter on grounds of expedience.

"I don't think my money would be any help to you, would it?" he said; "fares and lunches run away with a good deal. I couldn't give you any more out of a pound a week than it would cost you to keep me. If I took a bedroom near Panzetta's, there wouldn't be any fares to pay. I saw one advertised for seven shillings, quite close by; I might go and look at it, if you don't mind."

Now she had reflected already that he would be no acquisition to a boarding-house either, and in her heart she was relieved by his proposal. Still her hesitation was not wholly insincere.

"You're very young to go away by yourself, David," she demurred; "you're not seventeen, you know. I don't think you ought to do that yet."

"I'm quite old enough to take care of myself. If you have no objection, I should prefer to go." He spoke in the tone that was natural to him when he addressed his mother, and it sounded as if he were resigning a situation. It pierced even her coldness. She flushed, and looked down.

"I know you've never been very fond of me, of course," she faltered. "Now your father is dead, I suppose there's nothing to keep you with me?"

"I never said that," replied David. But she observed that he did not deny it. "I don't see what use there is in stopping here--and in a boarding-house you would find me in the way, too."

She was startled. It came upon her as a shock, to discover how well she was understood by the son to whom she had voluntarily revealed herself so little. For almost the first time she felt remorseful; something of tenderness moved her towards the boy whom she had taught to regard her as a stranger.

"If you'll be happier away, go," she returned, in a low voice; "only don't forget there's always your home if you want to come back." One cannot undo the past by a mood; missing the confirmation of response, she was never keenly aware of it herself, but there was a stir of appeal within her as she added the last words.

"Thank you," said David politely.

He went to look at the room during the luncheon hour next day. It was in. Soho: the ordinary lodging-house attic, with a rickety chest of drawers, a white paraffin lamp, and a low ceiling that dipped to a window which commanded a fairly extensive view of neighbouring chimneys. However, he was not dissatisfied. The window, indeed, rather attracted him by reason of a resemblance it bore to the one in the familiar prints of Chatterton. He settled to move in on the following Monday, and left a half-crown as deposit. Ownie, duly informed of his arrangements, said little but that she should expect him to come to see her on Sundays, wherever she might be. Not so Vivian; Vivian said that he would be very short on a pound a week, but that he was to be envied all the same. As for himself, he had thrown out hints of taking diggings too, and "the mater had sat on him promptly. Considering she meant to run a hash-house, her opposition was distinct rot, you know, because she would have plenty of people to talk to there without him!"

It would have been becoming for David to feel sentimental when he packed his books, and his clothes, and went to bed in his little room in The Woodlands for the last time; but he did not. He was vaguely surprised at the absence of appropriate emotions. A profound relief was in his heart, the relief with which the unwelcome embrace solitude. There is none deeper.

He had grown in fetters. The burden of knowledge had weighted his soul, hampered his speech, even cramped his gait; and he was to be free. His spirit stretched itself. The only love that had been given to him had passed away, and he expected life to yield no other, was resigned to know no other; he wasn't seventeen. To be alone, to be famous! as yet he asked no more. And he looked forward boldly. No suspicion of the disappointments, the disillusions that lay before him, no inkling of the difficulties that throng the path of the literary idealist, leavened his mood.

When he drew up the blind next morning, the sky was fair; the garden of his childhood glistened in the sunshine. Ownie was not an early riser, and when he had breakfasted, he went upstairs again to say good-bye to her. "Well!--don't forget to come on Sunday," she said, and he nodded assent. His trunk was to be called for and delivered at the lodging during the day, so he walked with Vivian to the station. Hampstead was alive with young men walking to the station, young men recently introduced into their fathers' businesses and proudly conscious of their first silk hats, and their gold watch-chains. No overcoats hid the watch-chains, though it was freezing. David marked the youths pityingly: to have no other prospect than an office all one's life!

He took his seat in Panzetta's with a new exhilaration. The hopes of glory that have faded on an office-stool might have provided him with another theme, but he did not think of that. Mentally he examined his manuscripts, and decided which of them to submit to an editor next. Nine-tenths of the journals published in London were unknown to him, his verse was as yet imitative, he believed that the best work was the easiest to sell. But the road was hidden from him, and he smiled.

A small fire was smoking in the attic when he reached it. His box had arrived. He lit the lamp, and produced from his pocket a purchase that he had just made--it was a penny bottle of ink. When he had had a cup of tea and some bread-and-butter, he put his clothes in the rickety chest of drawers, and arranged his books on the top of it. Then he took from the trunk pens and foolscap, drew the one chair to the table with infinite zest, and brushed the crumbs out of his way.

But he did not write. Memories flocked thick and fast. After awhile he got up and looked out over the chimney-pots. The view was very cold; under the moon the roofs shone white, and snow was falling. He thought of it falling on a grave. The poignancy of sorrow overcame him, and he sat huddled by the window, the tears dripping down his face.