Читать книгу The Story of Antony Grace - George Manville Fenn - Страница 25

I went over the address in my own mind to make sure, and also repeated the directions given me by Mr. Revitts, so as to make no mistake in going into the City. Then I thought over again Mr. Rowle’s remarks about his brother, his name, Jabez, his age, and his being exactly like himself. That would, I thought, make it easy for me to recognise him; and in this spirit I walked on through the busy streets, feeling a good deal confused at being pushed and hustled about so much, while twice I was nearly run over in crossing the roads.

At last, after asking, by Mr. Revitts’ advice, my way of different policemen when I was at fault, I found myself soon after two in Short Street, Fetter Lane, facing a pile of buildings from the base of which came the hiss and pant of steam, with the whirr, clang, and roar of machinery; while on the doorpost was a bright zinc plate with the legend “Ruddle and Lister, General Printers;” and above that, written on a card in a large legible hand, and tacked against the woodwork, the words “Boys Wanted.”

This announcement seemed to take away my breath, and I hesitated for a few minutes before I dared approach the place; but I went up at last, and then, seeing a severe-looking man in a glass box reading a newspaper, I shrank back and walked on a little way, forgetting all about Mr. Jabez Rowle in my anxiety to try and obtain a situation by whose means I could earn my living.

At last, in a fit of desperation, I went up to the glass case, and the man reading the newspaper let it fall upon his knees and opened a little window.

“Now then, what is it?” he said in a gruff voice.

“If you please, sir, there’s a notice about boys wanted—”

“Down that passage, upstairs, first floor,” said the man gruffly, and banged down the window.

I was a little taken aback, but I pushed a swing-door, and went with a beating heart along the passage, on one side of which were rooms fitted up something like Mr. Blakeford’s office, and on the other side a great open floor stacked with reams of paper, and with laths all over the ceiling, upon which boys with curious pieces of wood, something like long wooden crutches, were hanging up sheets of paper to dry, while at broad tables by the windows I could see women busily folding more sheets of paper, as if making books.

It was but a casual glance I had as I passed on, and then went by a room with the door half open and the floor carpeted inside. There was a pleasant, musical voice speaking, and then there was a burst of laughter, all of which seemed out of keeping in that dingy place, full of the throb of machinery, and the odour of oil and steam.

At the end of the passage was the staircase, and going up, I was nearly knocked over by a tall, fat-headed boy, who blundered roughly against me, and then turned round to cry indignantly—

“Now, stoopid, where are yer a-coming to?”

“Can you tell me, please, where I am to ask about boys being wanted?” I said mildly.

“Oh, find out! There ain’t no boys wanted here.”

“Not wanted here!” I faltered, with my hopes terribly dashed, for I had been building castles high in the air.

“No; be off!” he said roughly, when a new character appeared on the scene in the shape of a business-looking man in a white apron, carrying down an iron frame, and having one hand at liberty, he made use of it to give the big lad a cuff on the ear.

“You make haste and fetch up those galleys, Jem Smith;” and the boy went on down three stairs at a time. “What do you want, my man?” he continued, turning to me.

“I saw there were boys wanted, sir, and I was going upstairs.”

“When that young scoundrel told you a lie. There, go on, and in at that swing-door; the overseer’s office is at the end.”

I thanked him, and went on, pausing before a door blackened by dirty hands, and listened for a moment before going in.

The hum of machinery sounded distant here, and all within seemed very still, save a faint clicking noise, till suddenly I heard a loud clap-clapping, as if a flat piece of wood were being banged down and then struck with a mallet; and directly after came a hammering, as if some one was driving a wooden peg.

There were footsteps below, and I dared not hesitate longer; so, pushing the door, it yielded, and I found myself in a great room, where some forty men in aprons and shirt-sleeves were busy at what at the first glance seemed to be desks full of little compartments, from which they were picking something as they stood, but I was too much confused to notice more than that they took not the slightest notice of me, as I stopped short, wondering where the overseer’s room would be.

At one corner I could see an old man at a desk, with a boy standing beside him, both of them shut up in a glass case, as if they were curiosities; in another corner there was a second glass case, in which a fierce-looking man with a shiny bald head and glittering spectacles was gesticulating angrily to one of the men in white aprons, and pointing to a long, narrow slip of paper.

I waited for a moment, and then turned to the man nearest to me.

“Can you tell me, please, which is the overseer’s office?” I said, cap in hand.

“Folio forty-seven—who’s got folio forty-seven?” he said aloud.

“Here!” cried a voice close by.

“Make even.—Get out; don’t bother me.”

I shrank away, confused and perplexed, and a dark, curly-haired man on the other side turned upon me a pair of deeply set stern eyes, as he rattled some little square pieces of lead into something he held in his hand.

“What is it, boy?” he said in a deep, low voice.

“Can you direct me to the overseer’s office, sir?”

“That’s it, boy, where that gentleman in spectacles is talking.”

“Wigging old Morgan,” said another man, laughing.

“Ah!” said the first speaker, “that’s the place, boy;” and he turned his eyes upon a slip of paper in front of his desk.

I said, “Thank you!” and went on along the passage between two rows of the frame desks to where the fierce-looking bald man was still gesticulating, and as I drew near I could hear what he said.

“I’ve spoken till I’m tired of speaking; your slips are as foul as a ditch. Confound you, sir, you’re a perfect disgrace to the whole chapel. Do you think your employers keep readers to do nothing else but correct your confounded mistakes? Read your stick, sir—read your stick!”

“Very sorry,” grumbled the man, “but it was two o’clock this morning, and I was tired as a dog.”

“Don’t talk to me, sir; I don’t care if it was two o’clock, or twelve o’clock, or twenty-four o’clock. I say that slip’s a disgrace to you; and for two pins, sir—for two pins I’d have it framed and stuck up for the men to see. Be off and correct it.—Now, then, what do you want?”

This was to me, and I was terribly awe-stricken at the fierce aspect of the speaker, whose forehead was now of a lively pink.

“If you please, sir, I saw that you wanted boys, and—”

“No; I don’t want boys,” he raved. “I’m sick of the young monkeys; but I’m obliged to have them.”

“I am sorry, sir—” I faltered.

“Oh yes; of course. Here, stop! where are you going?”

“Please, sir, you said you didn’t want any boys.”

“You’re very sharp, ain’t you? Now hold your tongue, and then answer what I ask and no more. What are you—a machine boy or reader?”

“If you please, sir, I—I don’t know—I thought—I want—”

“Confound you; hold your tongue!” he roared. “Where did you work last?”

“At—at Mr. Blakeford’s,” I faltered, feeling bound to speak the truth.

“Blakeford’s! Blakeford’s!—I know no Blakeford’s. At machine?”

“No, sir! I wrote all day.”

“Wrote? What, wasn’t it a printing-office?”

“No, sir.”

“How dare you come wasting my time like this, you insolent young scoundrel! Be off! Get out with you! I never knew such insolence in my life.”

I shrank away, trembling, and began to retreat down the avenue, this time with the men’s faces towards me, ready to gaze in my red and guilty countenance, for I felt as if I had been guilty of some insult to the majesty of the printing-office. To my great relief, though, the men were too busy to notice me; but I heard one say to another, “Old Brimstone’s hot this morning.” Then I passed on, and saw the dark man looking at me silently from beneath his overhanging brows; and the next moment, heartsick and choking with the effects of this rebuff, the swing-door was thrown open by the fat-headed boy coming in, and as I passed out, unaccustomed to its spring, the boy contrived that it would strike me full in the back, just as if the overseer had given me a rude push to drive me away.

I descended the stairs with the spirit for the moment crushed out of me; and with my eyes dim with disappointment, I was passing along the passage, when, as I came to the open door of the carpeted room, a man’s voice exclaimed—

“No, no, Miss Carr, you really shall not. We’ll send it on by one of the boys.”

“Oh, nonsense, Mr. Lister; I can carry it.”

“Yes, yes; of course you can, but I shall not let you. Here, boy, come here.”

I entered the room nervously, to find myself in presence of a handsome, well-dressed man, another who was stout and elderly, and two young ladies, while upon the table lay a parcel of books, probably the subject of the remark.

“Hallo! what boy are you?” said the younger man. “Oh! one of the new ones, I suppose.”

“No, sir,” I said, with voice trembling and my face working, for I was unnerved by the treatment I had just received and the dashing of my hopes; “I came to be engaged, but—but the gentleman upstairs turned me away.”

“Why?” said the elder man sharply.

“Because I had not been in the printing-office, sir.”

“Oh, of course!” he said, nodding. “Of course. We want lads accustomed to the trade, my man.”

“You should teach him the trade, Mr. Ruddle,” said one of the young ladies quickly, and I darted a look of gratitude at her.

“Too busy, Miss Carr,” he said, smiling at her. “We don’t keep a printer’s school.”

“I’ll teach him,” whispered the young man eagerly, though I heard him; “I’ll teach him anything, if you’ll promise not to be so cruel.”

“What a bargain!” she replied, laughing; and she turned away.

“I don’t think we need keep you, my lad,” said the young man bitterly.

“Indeed!” said the other young lady; “why, I thought he was to carry our parcel of books?”

“But he is a strange boy, my dear young ladies,” said the elder man; “I’ll ring for one from the office.”

“No; don’t, pray!” said the lady addressed as Miss Carr quickly. “I don’t think we will carry the parcel. You will carry it for us, will you not?”

“Oh, yes, indeed I will!” I cried eagerly; and I stepped forward, for there was something very winning in the speakers voice.

“Stop a moment, my man,” said the elder gentleman rather sternly, while the younger stood biting his lips; “where do your father and mother live?”

Those words made something rise in my throat, and I looked wildly at him, but could not speak.

He did not see my face, for he had taken up a pen and drawn a memorandum slip towards him.

“Well; why don’t you speak?” he said sharply, and as he raised his eyes I tried, but could not get out a word, only pointed mutely to the shabby band of crape upon my cap.

“Ah!”

There was a deep sigh close by me, and I saw that the young lady addressed as Miss Carr was deadly pale, and for the first time I noticed that she was in deep mourning.

“My dear Miss Carr!” whispered the young man earnestly.

“Don’t speak to me for a minute,” she said in the same tone; and then I saw her face working and lip quivering as she gazed wistfully at me.

“Poor lad!” said the elder man abruptly. Then, “Your friends, my boy, your relatives?”

“I have none, sir,” I said huskily, “only an uncle, and I don’t know for certain where he lives.”

“But you don’t mean that you are alone in the world?” said the young man quickly, and he glanced at the lady as he spoke.

“Yes, sir,” I said quietly, for I had now recovered myself, “I am quite alone, and I want to get a situation to earn my living.”

The elder gentleman turned upon me and seemed to look me through and through.

“Now, look here, young fellow,” he said, “you are either a very unfortunate boy or a designing young impostor.”

“Mr. Ruddle!” exclaimed Miss Carr indignantly; and I saw the young man’s eyes glitter as he gazed at her sweet, sad face, twenty times more attractive now than when she was speaking lightly a minute before.

“I don’t want to be harsh, my dear, but here we are obliged to be firm and business-like. Now, boy, answer me; have you been to a good school?”

“No, sir,” I said, speaking sharply now, for his use of the word “impostor” stung me; “I was educated at home.”

“Humph! where do you come from?”

“Rowford, sir.”

“Town on a tall hill?”

“No, sir,” I said in surprise; “Rowford is quite in a hole; but we lived four miles from Rowford, sir, on the Cawleigh road.”

“Then you know Leydon Wood.”

“Oh yes, sir! that’s where papa used to take me to collect specimens.”

“Humph! Don’t say papa, my boy. Boys who go into the world to get their living don’t speak of their papas. John Lister!”

“Wait a minute, Ruddle,” said the younger man, whose back was towards us; and I saw that he was leaning over Miss Carr and holding her hand. “If you wish it,” he whispered softly, “it shall be done.”

“I do wish it,” she said with an earnest look in her large eyes as she gazed kindly at me; and the young man turned round, flushed and excited.

I was shrinking away towards the door, pained and troubled, for I felt that I had no business there, when Mr. Lister motioned me to stop, and said something to the elder gentleman.

He in turn screwed up his face, and gave the younger a comical look.

“Your father would not have done so, John Lister,” he said. “What am I to say, Miss Carr?”

For answer the young lady rose and went and laid her hands in one of his.

“If you please, Mr. Ruddle,” she said in a low musical voice, “it will be a kindly act.”

“God bless you, my dear,” he said tenderly. “I believe if I were with you long you’d make me as much your slave as you have John Lister.”

“Then you will?”

“Yes, my dear, yes, if it is really as he says.”

She darted an intelligent look at me, and then hastily pulled down her crape veil as Mr. Lister followed her to her chair.

“Come here, my lad,” said Mr. Ruddle, in quiet business-like tones. “We want boys here, but boys used to the printing trade, for it does not answer our purpose to teach them; we have no time. But as you seem a sharp, respectable boy, and pretty well educated, you might, perhaps, be willing to try.”

“Oh, if you’ll try me, I’ll strive so hard to learn, sir!” I cried excitedly.

“I hope you will, my boy,” he said drily, “but don’t profess too much; and mind this, you are not coming here as a young gentleman, but as a reading-boy—to work.”

“Yes, sir. I want to work,” I said earnestly.

“That’s well. Now, look here. I want to know a little more about you. If, as you say, you came from near Rowford, you can tell me the names of some of the principal people there?”

“Yes, sir; there’s Doctor Heston, and the Reverend James Wyatt, and Mr. Elton.”

“Exactly,” he said gruffly; and he opened a large book and turned over a number of pages. “Humph! here it is,” he said to himself, and he seemed to check off the names. “Now, look here, my man. What is the name of the principal solicitor at Rowford?”

“Mr. Blakeford, sir,” I said with a shiver, lest he should want to write to him about me.

“Oh, you know him?” he said sharply.

“Yes, sir. He managed papa’s—my father’s—affairs,” I said, correcting myself.

“Then I’m sorry for your poor father’s affairs,” he said, tightening his lips. “That will do, my lad. You can come to work here. Be honest and industrious, and you’ll get on. Never mind about having been a gentleman, but learn to be a true man. Go and wait outside.”

I tried to speak. I wanted to catch his hands in mine. I wanted to fling my arms round Miss Carr, and kiss and bless her for her goodness. I was so weak and sentimental a boy then. But I had to fight it all down, and satisfy myself by casting a grateful glance at her as I went out to wait.

I was no listener, but I heard every word that passed as the ladies rose to go.

“Are you satisfied, my dear?” said Mr. Ruddle.

“God bless you?” she said; and I saw her raise her veil and kiss him.

“God bless you, my dear!” he said softly. “So this little affair has regularly settled it all, eh? And you are to be John’s wife. Well, well, well, my dear, I’m glad of it, very glad of it. John, my boy, I would my old partner were alive to see your choice; and as for you, my child, you’ve won a good man, and I hope your sister will be as fortunate.”

“I hope I shall, Mr. Ruddle,” said the other lady softly.

“If I were not sixty, and you nineteen, my dear, I’d propose for you myself,” he went on laughingly. “But come, come, I can’t have you giddy girls coming to our works to settle your affairs. There, be off with you, and you dine with us on Tuesday next. The old lady says you are to come early. I’m afraid John Lister here won’t be able to leave the office till twelve o’clock; but we can do without him, eh?”

“Don’t you mind what he says, Miriam,” said Mr. Lister. “But stop, here’s the parcel. I’ll send it on.”

“No, no. Please let that youth carry it for us,” said Miss Carr.

“Anything you wish,” he whispered earnestly; and the next moment he was at the door.

“You’ll carry this parcel for these ladies,” he said; “and to-morrow morning be here at ten o’clock, and we’ll find you something to do.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” I said eagerly; and taking the parcel, I followed the ladies into Holborn, and then along Oxford Street to a substantial row of houses near Cavendish Square, where the one I looked upon as my friend paused at a large door and held out her hand to me.

“I shall hope to hear from Mr. Lister that you have got on well at the office,” she said in her sweet musical voice. “Recollect that you are my protégé, and I hope you will do me credit. I shall not forget to ask about you. You will try, will you not?”

“Oh yes,” I said hoarsely, “so hard—so very hard!”

“I believe you will,” she said, taking the parcel from my hand; “and now good-bye.”

The next moment I was standing alone upon the pavement, feeling as if a cloudiness had come over the day, while, as I looked down into my hand, it was to see there a bright new sovereign.