Bab Bab 25 · THE FIRST BATTLE.

. THE FIRST BATTLE.

Lewisham's inquiries for evening teaching and private tuition were

essentially provisional measures. His proposals for a more permanent

establishment displayed a certain defect in his sense of

proportion. That Melbourne professorship, for example, was beyond his

merits, and there were aspects of things that would have affected the

welcome of himself and his wife at Eton College. At the outset he was

inclined to regard the South Kensington scholar as the intellectual

salt of the earth, to overrate the abundance of "decent things"

yielding from one hundred and fifty to three hundred a year, and to

disregard the competition of such inferior enterprises as the

universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and the literate North. But the

scholastic agents to whom he went on the following Saturday did much

in a quiet way to disabuse his mind.

Mr. Blendershin's chief assistant in the grimy little office in Oxford

Street cleared up the matter so vigorously that Lewisham was angered.

"Headmaster of an endowed school, perhaps!" said Mr. Blendershin's

chief assistant "Lord!--why not a bishopric? I say,"--as

Mr. Blendershin entered smoking an assertive cigar--"one-and-twenty,

_no_ degree, _no_ games, two years' experience as junior--wants a

headmastership of an endowed school!" He spoke so loudly that it was

inevitable the selection of clients in the waiting-room should hear,

and he pointed with his pen.

"Look here!" said Lewisham hotly; "if I knew the ways of the market I

shouldn't come to you."

Mr. Blendershin stared at Lewisham for a moment. "What's he done in

the way of certificates?" asked Mr. Blendershin of the assistant.

The assistant read a list of 'ologies and 'ographies. "Fifty

resident," said Mr. Blendershin concisely--"that's _your_

figure. Sixty, if you're lucky."

"_What_?" said Mr. Lewisham.

"Not enough for you?"

"Not nearly."

"You can get a Cambridge graduate for eighty resident--and grateful,"

said Mr. Blendershin.

"But I don't want a resident post," said Lewisham.

"Precious few non-resident shops," said Mr. Blendershin. "Precious

few. They want you for dormitory supervision--and they're afraid of

your taking pups outside."

"Not married by any chance?" said the assistant suddenly, after an

attentive study of Lewisham's face.

"Well--er." Lewisham met Mr. Blendershin's eye. "Yes," he said.

The assistant was briefly unprintable. "Lord! you'll have to keep that

dark," said Mr. Blendershin. "But you have got a tough bit of hoeing

before you. If I was you I'd go on and get my degree now you're so

near it. You'll stand a better chance."

Pause.

"The fact is," said Lewisham slowly and looking at his boot toes, "I

must be doing _something_ while I am getting my degree."

The assistant, whistled softly.

"Might get you a visiting job, perhaps," said Mr. Blendershin

speculatively. "Just read me those items again, Binks." He listened

attentively. "Objects to religious teaching!--Eh?" He stopped the

reading by a gesture, "That's nonsense. You can't have everything, you

know. Scratch that out. You won't get a place in any middle-class

school in England if you object to religious teaching. It's the

mothers--bless 'em! Say nothing about it. Don't believe--who does?

There's hundreds like you, you know--hundreds. Parsons--all sorts. Say

nothing about it--"

"But if I'm asked?"

"Church of England. Every man in this country who has not dissented

belongs to the Church of England. It'll be hard enough to get you

anything without that."

"But--" said Mr. Lewisham. "It's lying."

"Legal fiction," said Mr. Blendershin. "Everyone understands. If you

don't do that, my dear chap, we can't do anything for you. It's

Journalism, or London docks. Well, considering your experience,--say

docks."

Lewisham's face flushed irregularly. He did not answer. He scowled and

tugged at the still by no means ample moustache.

"Compromise, you know," said Mr. Blendershin, watching him

kindly. "Compromise."

For the first time in his life Lewisham faced the necessity of telling

a lie in cold blood. He glissaded from the austere altitudes of his

self-respect and his next words were already disingenuous.

"I won't promise to tell lies if I'm asked," he said aloud. "I can't

do that."

"Scratch it out," said Blendershin to the clerk. "You needn't mention

it. Then you don't say you can teach drawing."

"I can't," said Lewisham.

"You just give out the copies," said Blendershin, "and take care they

don't see you draw, you know."

"But that's not teaching drawing--"

"It's what's understood by it in _this_ country," said Blendershin.

"Don't you go corrupting your mind with pedagogueries. They're the

ruin of assistants. Put down drawing. Then there's shorthand--"

"Here, I say!" said Lewisham.

"There's shorthand, French, book-keeping, commercial geography, land

measuring--"

"But I can't teach any of those things!"

"Look here," said Blendershin, and paused. "Has your wife or you a

private income?"

"No," said Lewisham.

"Well?"

A pause of further moral descent, and a whack against an obstacle.

"But they will find me out," said Lewisham.

Blendershin smiled. "It's not so much ability as willingness to teach,

you know. And _they_ won't find you out. The sort of schoolmaster we

deal with can't find anything out. He can't teach any of these things

himself--and consequently he doesn't believe they _can_ be taught.

Talk to him of pedagogics and he talks of practical experience. But he

puts 'em on his prospectus, you know, and he wants 'em on his

time-table. Some of these subjects--There's commercial geography, for

instance. What _is_ commercial geography?"

"Barilla," said the assistant, biting the end of his pen, and added

pensively, "_and_ blethers."

"Fad," said Blendershin, "Just fad. Newspapers talk rot about

commercial education, Duke of Devonshire catches on and talks

ditto--pretends he thought it himself--much _he_ cares--parents get

hold of it--schoolmasters obliged to put something down, consequently

assistants must. And that's the end of the matter!"

"_All_ right," said Lewisham, catching his breath in a faint sob of

shame, "Stick 'em down. But mind--a non-resident place."

"Well," said Blendershin, "your science may pull you through. But I

tell you it's hard. Some grant-earning grammar school may want

that. And that's about all, I think. Make a note of the address...."

The assistant made a noise, something between a whistle and the word

"Fee." Blendershin glanced at Lewisham and nodded doubtfully.

"Fee for booking," said the assistant; "half a crown, postage--in

advance--half a crown."

But Lewisham remembered certain advice Dunkerley had given him in the

old Whortley days. He hesitated. "No," he said. "I don't pay that. If

you get me anything there's the commission--if you don't--"

"We lose," supplied the assistant.

"And you ought to," said Lewisham. "It's a fair game."

"Living in London?" asked Blendershin.

"Yes," said the clerk.

"That's all right," said Mr. Blendershin. "We won't say anything about

the postage in that case. Of course it's the off season, and you

mustn't expect anything at present very much. Sometimes there's a

shift or so at Easter.... There's nothing more.... Afternoon. Anyone

else, Binks?"

Messrs. Maskelyne, Smith, and Thrums did a higher class of work than

Blendershin, whose specialities were lower class private

establishments and the cheaper sort of endowed schools. Indeed, so

superior were Maskelyne, Smith, and Thrums that they enraged Lewisham

by refusing at first to put him on their books. He was interviewed

briefly by a young man dressed and speaking with offensive precision,

whose eye adhered rigidly to the waterproof collar throughout the

interview.

"Hardly our line," he said, and pushed Lewisham a form to fill

up. "Mostly upper class and good preparatory schools here, you know."

As Lewisham filled up the form with his multitudinous "'ologies" and

"'ographies," a youth of ducal appearance entered and greeted the

precise young man in a friendly way. Lewisham, bending down to write,

perceived that this professional rival wore a very long frock coat,

patent leather boots, and the most beautiful grey trousers. His

conceptions of competition enlarged. The precise young man by a motion

of his eyes directed the newcomer's attention to Lewisham's waterproof

collar, and was answered by raised eyebrows and a faint tightening of

the mouth. "That bounder at Castleford has answered me," said the

new-comer in a fine rich voice. "Is he any bally good?"

When the bounder at Castleford had been discussed Lewisham presented

his paper, and the precise young man with his eye still fixed on the

waterproof collar took the document in the manner of one who reaches

across a gulf. "I doubt if we shall be able to do anything for you,"

he said reassuringly. "But an English mastership may chance to be

vacant. Science doesn't count for much in _our_ sort of schools, you

know. Classics and good games--that's our sort of thing."

"I see," said Lewisham.

"Good games, good form, you know, and all that sort of thing."

"I see," said Lewisham.

"You don't happen to be a public-school boy?" asked the precise young

man.

"No," said Lewisham.

"Where were you educated?"

Lewisham's face grew hot. "Does that matter?" he asked, with his eye

on the exquisite grey trousering.

"In our sort of school--decidedly. It's a question of tone, you know."

"I see," said Lewisham, beginning to realise new limitations. His

immediate impulse was to escape the eye of the nicely dressed

assistant master. "You'll write, I suppose, if you have anything," he

said, and the precise young man responded with alacrity to his

door-ward motion.

"Often get that kind of thing?" asked the nicely dressed young man

when Lewisham had departed.

"Rather. Not quite so bad as that, you know. That waterproof

collar--did you notice it? Ugh! And--'I see.' And the scowl and the

clumsiness of it. Of course _he_ hasn't any decent clothes--he'd go

to a new shop with one tin box! But that sort of thing--and board

school teachers--they're getting everywhere! Only the other

day--Rowton was here."

"Not Rowton of Pinner?"

"Yes, Rowton of Pinner. And he asked right out for a board

schoolmaster. He said, 'I want someone who can teach arithmetic.'"

He laughed. The nicely dressed young man meditated over the handle of

his cane. "A bounder of that kind can't have a particularly nice

time," he said, "anyhow. If he does get into a decent school, he must

get tremendously cut by all the decent men."

"Too thick-skinned to mind that sort of thing, I fancy," said the

scholastic agent. "He's a new type. This South Kensington place and

the polytechnics an turning him out by the hundred...."

Lewisham forgot his resentment at having to profess a religion he did

not believe, in this new discovery of the scholastic importance of

clothing. He went along with an eye to all the shop windows that

afforded a view of his person. Indisputably his trousers _were_

ungainly, flapping abominably over his boots and bagging terribly at

the knees, and his boots were not only worn and ugly but extremely ill

blacked. His wrists projected offensively from his coat sleeves, he

perceived a huge asymmetry in the collar of his jacket, his red tie

was askew and ill tied, and that waterproof collar! It was shiny,

slightly discoloured, suddenly clammy to the neck. What if he did

happen to be well equipped for science teaching? That was nothing. He

speculated on the cost of a complete outfit. It would be difficult to

get such grey trousers as those he had seen for less than sixteen

shillings, and he reckoned a frock coat at forty shillings at

least--possibly even more. He knew good clothes were very

expensive. He hesitated at Poole's door and turned away. The thing was

out of the question. He crossed Leicester Square and went down

Bedford Street, disliking every well-dressed person he met.

Messrs. Danks and Wimborne inhabited a bank-like establishment near

Chancery Lane, and without any conversation presented him with forms

to fill up. Religion? asked the form. Lewisham paused and wrote

"Church of England."

Thence he went to the College of Pedagogues in Holborn. The College of

Pedagogues presented itself as a long-bearded, corpulent, comfortable

person with a thin gold watch chain and fat hands. He wore gilt

glasses and had a kindly confidential manner that did much to heal

Lewisham's wounded feelings. The 'ologies and 'ographies were taken

down with polite surprise at their number. "You ought to take one of

our diplomas," said the stout man. "You would find no difficulty. No

competition. And there are prizes--several prizes--in money."

Lewisham was not aware that the waterproof collar had found a

sympathetic observer.

"We give courses of lectures, and have an examination in the theory

and practice of education. It is the only examination in the theory

and practice of education for men engaged in middle and upper class

teaching in this country. Except the Teacher's Diploma. And so few

come--not two hundred a year. Mostly governesses. The men prefer to

teach by rule of thumb, you know. English characteristic--rule of

thumb. It doesn't do to say anything of course--but there's bound to

be--something happen--something a little disagreeable--somewhen if

things go on as they do. American schools keep on getting

better--German too. What used to do won't do now. I tell this to you,

you know, but it doesn't do to tell everyone. It doesn't do. It

doesn't do to do anything. So much has to be considered. However

... But you'd do well to get a diploma and make yourself

efficient. Though that's looking ahead."

He spoke of looking ahead with an apologetic laugh as though it was an

amiable weakness of his. He turned from such abstruse matters and

furnished Lewisham with the particulars of the college diplomas, and

proceeded to other possibilities. "There's private tuition," he

said. "Would you mind a backward boy? Then we are occasionally asked

for visiting masters. Mostly by girls' schools. But that's for older

men--married men, you know."

"I am married," said Lewisham.

"_Eh_?" said the College of Pedagogues, startled.

"I _am_ married," said Lewisham.

"Dear me," said the College of Pedagogues gravely, and regarding

Mr. Lewisham over gold-rimmed glasses. "Dear me! And I am more than

twice your age, and I am not married at all. One-and-twenty! Have

you--have you been married long?"

"A few weeks," said Lewisham.

"That's very remarkable," said the College of Pedagogues. "Very

interesting.... _Really!_ Your wife must be a very courageous young

person.... Excuse me! You know--You will really have a hard fight for

a position. However--it certainly makes you eligible for girls'

schools; it does do that. To a certain extent, that is."

The evidently enhanced respect of the College of Pedagogues pleased

Lewisham extremely. But his encounter with the Medical, Scholastic,

and Clerical Agency that holds by Waterloo Bridge was depressing

again, and after that he set out to walk home. Long before he reached

home he was tired, and his simple pride in being married and in active

grapple with an unsympathetic world had passed. His surrender on the

religious question had left a rankling bitterness behind it; the

problem of the clothes was acutely painful. He was still far from a

firm grasp of the fact that his market price was under rather than

over one hundred pounds a year, but that persuasion was gaining ground

in his mind.

The day was a greyish one, with a dull cold wind, and a nail in one of

his boots took upon itself to be objectionable. Certain wild shots

and disastrous lapses in his recent botanical examination, that he had

managed to keep out of his mind hitherto, forced their way on his

attention. For the first time since his marriage he harboured

premonitions of failure.

When he got in he wanted to sit down at once in the little creaky

chair by the fire, but Ethel came flitting from the newly bought

typewriter with arms extended and prevented him. "Oh!--it _has_ been

dull," she said.

He missed the compliment. "_I_ haven't had such a giddy time that you

should grumble," he said, in a tone that was novel to her. He

disengaged himself from her arms and sat down. He noticed the

expression of her face.

"I'm rather tired," he said by way of apology. "And there's a

confounded nail I must hammer down in my boot. It's tiring work

hunting up these agents, but of course it's better to go and see

them. How have you been getting on?"

"All right," she said, regarding him. And then, "You _are_ tired.

We'll have some tea. And--let me take off your boot for you, dear.

Yes--I will."

She rang the bell, bustled out of the room, called for tea at the

staircase, came back, pulled out Madam Gadow's ungainly hassock and

began unlacing his boot. Lewisham's mood changed. "You _are_ a trump,

Ethel," he said; "I'm hanged if you're not." As the laces flicked he

bent forward and kissed her ear. The unlacing was suspended and there

were reciprocal endearments....

Presently he was sitting in his slippers, with a cup of tea in his

hand, and Ethel, kneeling on the hearthrug with the firelight on her

face, was telling him of an answer that had come that afternoon to her

advertisement in the _Athenaeum_.

"That's good," said Lewisham.

"It's a novelist," she said with the light of pride in her eyes, and

handed him the letter. "Lucas Holderness, the author of 'The Furnace

of Sin' and other stories."

"That's first rate," said Lewisham with just a touch of envy, and bent

forward to read by the firelight.

The letter was from an address in Judd Street, Euston Road, written on

good paper and in a fair round hand such as one might imagine a

novelist using. "Dear Madam," said the letter, "I propose to send you,

by registered letter, the MS. of a three-volume novel. It is about

90,000 words--but you must count the exact number."

"How I shall count I don't know," said Ethel.

"I'll show you a way," said Lewisham. "There's no difficulty in

that. You count the words on three or four pages, strike an average,

and multiply."

"But, of course, before doing so I must have a satisfactory guarantee

that my confidence in putting my work in your hands will not be

misplaced and that your execution is of the necessary high quality."

"Oh!" said Lewisham; "that's a bother."

"Accordingly I must ask you for references."

"That's a downright nuisance," said Lewisham. "I suppose that ass,

Lagune ... But what's this? 'Or, failing references, for a deposit

...' That's reasonable, I suppose."

It was such a moderate deposit too--merely a guinea. Even had the

doubt been stronger, the aspect of helpful hopeful little Ethel eager

for work might well have thrust it aside. "Sending him a cheque will

show him we have a banking account behind us," said Lewisham,--his

banking was still sufficiently recent for pride. "We will send him a

cheque. That'll settle _him_ all right."

That evening after the guinea cheque had been despatched, things were

further brightened by the arrival of a letter of atrociously

jellygraphed advices from Messrs. Danks and Wimborne. They all

referred to resident vacancies for which Lewisham was manifestly

unsuitable, nevertheless their arrival brought an encouraging

assurance of things going on, of shifting and unstable places in the

defences of the beleaguered world. Afterwards, with occasional

endearments for Ethel, he set himself to a revision of his last year's

note-books, for now the botany was finished, the advanced zoological

course--the last lap, as it were, for the Forbes medal--was

beginning. She got her best hat from the next room to make certain

changes in the arrangement of its trimmings. She sat in the little

chair, while Lewisham, with documents spread before him, sat at the

table.

Presently she looked up from an experimental arrangement of her

cornflowers, and discovered Lewisham, no longer reading, but staring

blankly at the middle of the table-cloth, with an extraordinary misery

in his eyes. She forgot the cornflowers and stared at him.

"Penny," she said after an interval.

Lewisham started and looked up. "_Eh_?"

"Why were you looking so miserable?" she asked.

"_Was_ I looking miserable?"

"Yes. And _cross_!"

"I was thinking just then that I would like to boil a bishop or so in

oil."

"My dear!"

"They know perfectly well the case against what they teach, they know

it's neither madness nor wickedness nor any great harm, to others not

to believe, they know perfectly well that a man may be as honest as

the day, and right--right and decent in every way--and not believe in

what they teach. And they know that it only wants the edge off a man's

honour, for him to profess anything in the way of belief. Just

anything. And they won't say so. I suppose they want the edge off

every man's honour. If a man is well off they will truckle to him no

end, though he laughs at all their teaching. They'll take gold plate

from company promoters and rent from insanitary houses. But if a man

is poor and doesn't profess to believe in what some of them scarcely

believe themselves, they wouldn't lift a finger to help him against

the ignorance of their followers. Your stepfather was right enough

there. They know what's going on. They know that it means lying and

humbug for any number of people, and they don't care. Why should

they? _They've_ got it down all right. They're spoilt, and why

shouldn't we be?"

Lewisham having selected the bishops as scapegoats for his turpitude,

was inclined to ascribe even the nail in his boot to their agency.

Mrs. Lewisham looked puzzled. She realised his drift.

"You're not," she said, and dropped her voice, "an _infidel_?"

Lewisham nodded gloomily. "Aren't you?" he said.

"Oh no," said Mrs. Lewisham.

"But you don't go to church, you don't--"

"No, I don't," said Mrs. Lewisham; and then with more assurance, "But

I'm not an infidel."

"Christian?"

"I suppose so."

"But a Christian--What do you believe?"

"Oh! to tell the truth, and do right, and not hurt or injure people

and all that."

"That's not a Christian. A Christian is one who believes."

"It's what _I_ mean by a Christian," said Mrs. Lewisham.

"Oh! at that rate anyone's a Christian," said Lewisham. "We all think

it's right to do right and wrong to do wrong."

"But we don't all do it," said Mrs. Lewisham, taking up the

cornflowers again.

"No," said Lewisham, a little taken aback by the feminine method of

discussion. "We don't all do it--certainly." He stared at her for a

moment--her head was a little on one side and her eyes on the

cornflower--and his mind was full of a strange discovery. He seemed on

the verge of speaking, and turned to his note-book again.

Very soon the centre of the table-cloth resumed its sway.

* * * * *

The following day Mr. Lucas Holderness received his cheque for a

guinea. Unhappily it was crossed. He meditated for some time, and then

took pen and ink and improved Lewisham's careless "one" to "five" and

touched up his unticked figure one to correspond.

You perceive him, a lank, cadaverous, good-looking man with long black

hair and a semi-clerical costume of quite painful rustiness. He made

the emendations with grave carefulness. He took the cheque round to

his grocer. His grocer looked at it suspiciously.

"You pay it in," said Mr. Lucas Holderness, "if you've any doubts

about it. Pay it in. _I_ don't know the man or what he is. He may be a

swindler for all I can tell. _I_ can't answer for him. Pay it in and

see. Leave the change till then. I can wait. I'll call round in a few

days' time."

"All right, wasn't it?" said Mr. Lucas Holderness in a casual tone two

days later.

"Quite, sir," said his grocer with enhanced respect, and handed him

his four pounds thirteen and sixpence change.

Mr. Lucas Holderness, who had been eyeing the grocer's stock with a

curious intensity, immediately became animated and bought a tin of

salmon. He went out of the shop with the rest of the money in his

hand, for the pockets of his clothes were old and untrustworthy. At

the baker's he bought a new roll.

He bit a huge piece of the roll directly he was out of the shop, and

went on his way gnawing. It was so large a piece that his gnawing

mouth was contorted into the ugliest shapes. He swallowed by an

effort, stretching his neck each time. His eyes expressed an animal

satisfaction. He turned the corner of Judd Street biting again at the

roll, and the reader of this story, like the Lewishams, hears of him

no more.