CHAPTER IV

CLURK FOR MR. MASTER

I

Guardians sat at a long, green-covered table. Large plates of sandwiches and large cups of coffee were supporting them against the strain of their labours in sitting late, and they regarded Mr. Wriford with eyes that stared from above busily engaged mouths. A different class of men from the members of the Cottage Hospital Committee and, like the Matron, accustomed to a class of pauper different from Mr. Wriford.

His difference was advertised in his youth--a quality very much abhorred by the honest guardians as speaking to shocking idleness--and in the refinement of his voice and speech--a peculiarity that lent itself to banter and was used for such.

One addressed as Mr. Chairman first spoke him.

"Well, you've had a good fat thing out of us," said Mr. Chairman, himself presenting the appearance of having made a moderately fat thing out of his duties, and speaking with one half of a large sandwich in his hand and the other half in his mouth. "Best part of three months' board and lodging in slap-up style. Number One. Diet and luxuries ad lib. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to pay for it?"

This was obviously a very humourous remark to make to a pauper, and it received at once the gratifying tribute of large sandwichy grins and chuckles all round the table.

"I call upon Mr. Chairman," said one grin, "to tell this gentleman exactly what he has cost the parish in pounds, shillings and pence sterling."

This, by its reception, was equally humourous, one Guardian being so overcome by the wit of "gentleman" and "sterling" as to choke over his coffee and rise and expectorate in the fire.

"Sixteen, fourteen, six," said Mr. Chairman, "and as a point of order I call Mr. Master's attention to the fact that another time a spittoon had better be provided for the gentleman as has just needed the use of one."

The Workhouse Master who stood beside Mr. Chairman having contributed obsequiously to the merriment and banter aroused by this sparkle of humour, Mr. Chairman loudly called the meeting to order and again taxed Mr. Wriford with his debt to the parish.

"Sixteen, fourteen, six," said Mr. Chairman. "Can you pay it? I lay you've never earned so much money in all your life, so now then?"

In the days of wild escapade with Mr. Puddlebox, Mr. Wriford's thoughts--all in some form of passion--worked very rapidly. Now, as though they had learnt their gait from his slow revolving of his ceaseless question, they worked very slowly; and when he spoke he spoke very slowly. His mind went slowly to the account he had been reading of himself in the illustrated paper. He thought of the large sum that awaited him in his agent's hands, and he thought, with an impulse of the furious Puddlebox days, of the glorious sensation he would arouse by bellowing at these uncouth creatures: "Earned so much! Well, I daresay I could buy up the lot of you, you ugly-looking lot of pigs, and have as much over again!" But he allowed the impulse to drift away. He had done that sort of thing: to what profit? He might do it. He might follow it up by stampeding about the room, hurling sandwiches at Guardians and shouting with laughter at the amazement and confusion while he did as much damage as he could before he was overpowered. What profit? The excitement would pass and be over. It would lead to nothing that would satisfy him. It would bring him nowhere that would rest him. He had done that sort of thing. It attracted him no more. Should he answer them seriously--explain who he was, request that a telegram should be sent to his agent, go back to his old life, take up the success that awaited him? What profit? That, too, he had tried. That, too, would lead him nowhere, bring him no nearer to his only desire. He imagined himself back in London, back in his own place once more, enjoying the comforts he had earned, travelling, amusing himself, settling to work again. What profit? Enjoyment! Amusement! He would find none. They and all that they meant lay hidden beneath some secret of life that must be found ere ever he could touch them--something for which always and always he would be searching, something he had missed. He had tried it. It had no attraction for him: rather it had a thousand explanations, worries, demands, at whose very thought he shuddered. Let him drift. Let him go wheresoever any chance tide might take him. Let him be alone to think, to think, and haply to discover.

"Well?" said Mr. Chairman.

"If you think I'm fit to go, I'll go at once," said Mr. Wriford. "I'm very grateful for all that has been done for me."

Mr. Chairman reckoned that he ought to be. "Where'll you go?" demanded Mr. Chairman.

"Anywhere."

"What'll you do?"

"I don't know."

Mr. Chairman thumped the table in expression of one of the many trials that Guardians had to bear. "What's the sense o' that talk?" demanded Mr. Chairman. "Anywhere! Don't know! That's the way with all you chaps. Get outside and pretend you're starving and pitch a fine tale about being turned out and get rate-payers jawing or magistrates preachin' us a lecture. We've been there before, my beauty."

Chorus of endorsement from fellow-Guardians who growl angrily at Mr. Wriford as though they had indeed been there before and saw in Mr. Wriford the visible embodiment of their misfortune.

"Well, what?" said Mr. Wriford helplessly.

Mr. Chairman with another thump, and as though he had never asked a question throughout the proceedings, announced that that was for him to say. Mr. Master would find a bed for him and let him take jolly good care that he earned it."

"I'll be very glad to work," said Mr. Wriford.

Mr. Chairman looked at him contemptuously. "Plucky lot you can do, I expect!" said Mr. Chairman.

"I can do clerical work," said Mr. Wriford. "Anything in the way of writing or figures. I'm accustomed to that. If there's anything like that until I'm fit to go--" A sudden faintness overcame him. The room was very hot, and the standing and the questioning, while all the time he was thinking of something else, possessed him, in his weak state, with a sudden giddiness. He smiled weakly and said "I'm sorry" and sat down abruptly on a chair that fortunately was close to him.

Mr. Master bent over Mr. Chairman and whispered obsequiously on a subject in which the words "our clurk" were frequently to be heard. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Chairman, "Mr. Master suggests that we might leave over the business of appointing a boy-clurk till our next meeting, while he sees if this man can give him any help. I want to get home to my supper, and I expect you do. Agreed, gentlemen?"

"Agreed," chorused the gentlemen, throwing down pens and taking up new sandwiches with the air of men who had performed enormous labours and were virtuously happy to be rid of them.

Mr. Chairman nodded at Mr. Master. "Keep his nose to it," said Mr. Chairman.

"This way," said Mr. Master to Mr. Wriford; and Mr. Wriford got slowly to his feet and followed him slowly through a door he held ajar.

II

Stronger now. Increasingly stronger as day succeeded day and the year came more strongly into her own. Only waiting a little more strength, so he believed, to betake himself from Pendra Workhouse and go--anywhere. Actually, as the event that did at last prompt him to go might have told him, it was a reason, a shaking-up, a stirring of his normal round, rather than sufficient strength that he awaited. In a numbed and listless and detached way he was not uncomfortable in the new circumstances to which he was introduced after the Board-room interview. The Master, removed from the obsequious habit that he wore when before the Guardians, showed himself not unkindly. He conceived rather a liking for Mr. Wriford. Mr. Wriford performed for him the duties of boy-"clurk" in a manner that was of the greatest assistance to him. He reported very favourably on the matter to the Guardians; and when Mr. Wriford spoke of taking his discharge put forward a proposition to which the Guardians found it convenient to consent. Why lose this inmate of such valuable clurkly accomplishments? Why not offer him his railway fare home, wherever in reason that might be, if he stayed, say a month, and continued to assist the Master? At the end of that time he might be offered a very few shillings a week to continue further--if wanted. Mr. Master carried the proposition to Mr. Wriford. Mr. Wriford in a numbed, listless and detached way said: "All right, yes." He was taken from the workhouse ward where till then he had slept and accommodated in a tiny box-room in the Master's quarters. His nose was kept at it, as Mr. Master had been desired. His duties were capable of extension in many directions. That he fulfilled them in a numbed, listless, and detached fashion was none to the worse in that he accepted them without complaint whatever they might be. "I call him: 'All right, yes,'" Mr. Master obsequiously told the Guardians. "That's about all ever he says. But he does it a heap. Look at the way the stores are entered up. I've had him checking them all this week."