Reginald Cruden, Talbot Baines Reed [best black authors txt] 📗

regular work is to be. Wait a little, and they’re sure to find out your value.”

“They seem to have done that already as far as sweeping is concerned. The manager said I didn’t know how to hold a broom. I was quite offended,” said Reginald.

“You are a dear brave pair of boys!” said the mother, warmly; “and I am prouder of you in your humble work than if you were kings!”

“Hullo,” said Horace, “there’s some one coming up our stairs!”

Sure enough there was, and more than one person, as it happened. There was a knock at the door, followed straightway by the entrance of an elderly lady, accompanied by a young lady and a young gentleman, who sailed into the room, much to the amazement and consternation of its occupants.

“Mrs Cruden, I believe?” said the elderly lady, in her politest tones.

“Yes,” replied the owner of that name.

“Let me hintroduce myself—Mrs Captain Shuckleford, my son and daughter—neighbours of yours, Mrs Cruden, and wishing to be friendly. We’re sorry to hear of your trouble; very trying it is. My ’usband, Mrs Cruden, has gone too.”

“Pray take a seat,” said Mrs Cruden. “Reg, will you put chairs?”

Reg obeyed, with a groan.

“These are your boys, are they?” said the visitor, eyeing the youths. “Will you come and shake ’ands with me, Reggie? What a dear, good-looking boy he is, Mrs Cruden! And ’ow do you do, too, my man?” said she, addressing Horace. “Pretty well? And what do they call you?”

“My name is Horace,” said “my man,” blushing very decidedly, and retreating precipitately to a far corner of the room.

“Ah, dear me! And my ’usband’s name, Mrs Cruden, was ’Oward. I never ’ear the name without affliction.”

This was very awkward, for as the unfortunate widow could not fail to hear her own voice, it was necessary for consistency’s sake that she should show some emotion, which she proceeded to do, when her daughter hurriedly interposed in an audible whisper, “Ma, don’t make a goose of yourself! Behave yourself, do!”

“So I am be’aving myself, Jemima,” replied the outraged parent, “and I don’t need lessons from you.”

“It’s very kind of you to call in,” said Mrs Cruden, feeling it time to say something; “do you live near here?”

“We live next door, at number four,” said Miss Jemima; “put that handkerchief away, ma.”

“What next, I wonder! if my ’andkerchief’s not my hown, I’d like to know what is? Yes, Mrs Cruden. We heard you were coming, and we wish to treat you with consideration, knowing your circumstances. It’s all one gentlefolk can do to another. Yes, and I ’ope the boys will be good friends. Sam, talk to the boys.”

Sam needed no such maternal encouragement, as it happened, and had already swaggered up to Horace with a familiar air.

“Jolly weather, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” said Horace, looking round wildly for any avenue of escape, but finding none.

“Pretty hot in your shop, ain’t it?” said the lawyer’s clerk.

“Yes,” again said Horace, with a peculiar tingling sensation in his toes which his visitor little dreamed of.

Horace was not naturally a short-tempered youth, but there was something in the tone of this self-satisfied lawyer’s clerk which raised his dander.

“Not much of a berth, is it?” pursued the catechist.

“No,” said Horace.

“Not a very chirrupy screw, so I’m told—eh?”

This was rather too much. Either Horace must escape by flight, which would be ignominious, or he must knock his visitor down, which would be rude, or he must grin and bear it. The middle course was what he most inclined to, but failing that, he decided on the latter.

So he shook his head and waited patiently for the next question.

“What do you do, eh? dirty work, ain’t it?”

“Yes, isn’t yours?” said Horace, in a tone that rather surprised the limb of the law.

“Mine? No. What makes you ask that?” he inquired.

“Only because I thought I’d like to know,” said Horace artlessly.

Mr Shuckleford looked perplexed. He didn’t understand exactly what Horace meant, and yet, whatever it was, it put him off the thread of his discourse for a time. So he changed the subject.

“I once thought of going into business myself,” he said; “but they seemed to think I’d do better at the law. Same time, don’t think I’m a nailer on business chaps. I know one or two very respectable chaps in business.”

“Do you?” replied Horace, with a touch of satire in his voice which was quite lost on the complacent Sam.

“Yes. Why, in our club—do you know our club?”

“No,” said Horace.

“Oh—I must take you one evening—yes, in our club we’ve a good many business chaps—well-behaved chaps, too.”

Horace hardly looked as overwhelmed by this announcement as his visitor expected.

“Would you like to join?”

“No, thank you.”

“Eh? you’re afraid of being black-balled, I suppose? No fear, I can work it with them. I can walk round any of them, I let you know; they wouldn’t do it, especially when they knew I’d a fancy for you, my boy.”

If Horace was grateful for this expression of favour, he managed to conceal his feelings wonderfully well. At the same time he had sense enough to see that, vulgar and conceited as Samuel Shuckleford was, he meant to be friendly, and inwardly gave him credit accordingly.

He did his best to be civil, and to listen to all the bumptious talk of his visitor patiently, and Sam rattled away greatly to his own satisfaction, fully believing he was impressing his hearer with a sense of his importance, and cheering his heart by the promise of his favours and protection.

With the unlucky Reginald, meanwhile, it fared far less comfortably.

“Jemima, my dear,” said Mrs Shuckleford, who in all her domestic confidences to Mrs Cruden kept a sharp eye on her family—“Jemima, my dear, I think Reggie would like to show you his album!”

An electric shock could not have startled and confused our hero more. It was bad enough to hear himself called “Reggie,” but that was nothing to the assumption that he was pining to make himself agreeable to Miss Jemima—he to whom any lady except his mother was a cause of trepidation, and to whom a female like Miss Jemima was nothing short of an ogress!

“I’ve not got an album,” he gasped, with an appealing look towards his mother.

But before Mrs Cruden could interpose to rescue him, the ladylike Miss Jemima, who had already regarded the good-looking shy youth with approval, entered the lists on her own account, and moving her chair a trifle in his direction, said, in a confidential whisper,—

“Ma thinks we’re not a very sociable couple, that’s what it is.”

A couple! He and Jemima a couple! Reginald was ready to faint, and looked towards the open window as if he meditated a headlong escape that way. As to any other way of escape, that was impossible, for he was fairly cornered between the enemy and the wall, and unless he were to cut his way through the one or the other, he must sit where he was.

“I hope you don’t mind talking to me, Mr Reggie,” continued the young lady, when Reginald gave no symptom of having heard the last observation. “We shall have to be friends, you know, now we are neighbours. So you haven’t got an album?”

This abrupt question drove poor Reginald still further into the corner. What business was it of hers whether he had got an album or not? What right had she to pester him with questions like that in his own house? In fact, what right had she and her mother and her brother to come there at all? Those were the thoughts that passed through his mind, and as they did so indignation got the better of good manners and everything else.

“Find out,” he said.

He could have bitten his tongue off the moment he had spoken. For Reginald was a gentleman, and the sound of these rude words in his own voice startled him into a sense of shame and confusion tenfold worse than any Miss Shuckleford had succeeded in producing.

“I beg your pardon,” he gasped hurriedly. “I—I didn’t mean to be rude.”

Now was the hour of Miss Jemima’s triumph. She had the unhappy youth at her mercy, and she took full advantage of her power. She forgave him, and made him sit and listen to her and answer her questions for as long as she chose; and if ever he showed signs of mutiny, the slightest hint, such as “You’ll be telling me to mind my own business again,” was enough to reduce him to instant subjection.

It was a bad quarter of an hour for Reginald, and the climax arrived when presently Mrs Shuckleford looked towards them and said across the room,—

“Now I wonder what you two young people are talking about in that snug corner. Oh, never mind, if it’s secrets! Nice it is, Mrs Cruden, to see young people such good friends so soon. We must be going now, children,” she added. “We shall soon see our friends in our own ’ouse, I ’ope.”

A tender leave-taking ensued. For a while, as the retreating footsteps of the visitors gradually died away on the stairs, the little family stood motionless, as though the slightest sound might recall them. But when at last the street-door slammed below, Reginald flung himself into a chair and groaned.

“Mother, we can’t stay here. We must leave to-morrow!”

Horace could not help laughing.

“Why, Reg,” he said, “you seemed to be enjoying yourself no end.”

“Shut up, Horace, it’s nothing to laugh about.”

“My dear boy,” said Mrs Cruden, “you think far more about it than you need. After all, they seem kindly disposed persons, and I don’t think we should be unfriendly.”

“That’s all very well,” said Reg, “if there was no Jemima in the question.”

“I should say it’s all very well,” said Horace, “if there was no Sam in the question; though I dare say he means to be friendly. But didn’t you and Jemima hit it, then, Reg? I quite thought you did.”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” repeated Reg, this time half angrily. “I don’t see, mother,” he added, “however poor we are, we are called on to associate with a lot like that.”

“They have not polished manners, certainly,” said Mrs Cruden; “but I do think they are good-natured, and that’s a great thing.”

“I should think so,” said Horace. “What do you think? Samuel wants to propose me for his club, which seems to be a very select affair.”

“All I know is,” said Reginald, “nothing will induce me to go into their house. It may be rude, but I’m certain I’d be still more rude if I did go.”

“Well,” said Horace, “I vote we take a walk, as it’s a fine evening. I feel a trifle warm after it all. What do you say?”

They said Yes, and in the empty streets that evening the mother and her two sons walked happy in one another’s company, and trying each in his or her own way to gain courage for the days of trial that were to follow.

The brothers had a short consultation that night as they went to bed, not on the subject of their next door neighbours.

“Horrors,” said Reg, “what’s to be done about the Rocket? I can’t stop there.”

“It’s awful,” said Horace; “but what else can we do? If we cut it, there’s mother left a beggar.”

“Couldn’t we get into something else?”

“What? Who’d take us? There are thousands of fellows wanting work as it is.”

“But surely we’re better than most of them. We’re gentlemen and well educated.”

“So much the worse, it seems,” said Horace. “What good is it to us when we’re put to sweep rooms and carry messages?”

“Do you mean to say you intend to stick to that sort of thing all your life?” asked Reg.

“Till I can find something better,” said Horace. “After all, old man, it’s honest work, and not very fagging, and it’s eighteen shillings a week.”

“Anyhow, I think we might let Richmond know what a nice berth he’s let us in for. Why, his office-boy’s better off.”

“Yes, and if we knew