The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
nothing. The look on his face was anxious, but not wrathful. He
sighted Clarence, and hurried up to him.
'Jones,' he said, 'I've been looking for you. I want a word with you.'
'A thousand, if you wish it,' said Clarence, courteously.
'Now, look here,' said Mr Rackstraw. 'I want to explain to you just
what this game means to me. Don't run away with the idea I've had you
fellows down to play an exhibition game just to keep me merry and
bright. If Houndsditch wins today, it means that I shall be able to hold
up my head again and look my fellow-man in the face, instead of
crawling round on my stomach and feeling like a black-beetle under a
steam-roller. Do you get that?'
'I do,' replied Clarence.
'And not only that,' went on the millionaire. 'There's more. I have put
up my Bloomer boot against Mr Dodson's Meredith ball as a side bet. You
understand what that means? It means that either you win or my life is
soured for ever. See?'
'I have got you,' said Clarence.
'Good. Then what I wanted to say was this. Today is your day for
keeping goal as you've never kept goal before. Everything depends on
you. With you keeping goal like mother used to make it, Houndsditch are
safe. Otherwise they are completely in the bouillon. It's one thing or
the other. It's all up to you. Win, and there's four thousand pounds
waiting for you above what you share with the others.'
Clarence waved his hand deprecatingly.
'Mr Rackstraw,' he said, 'keep your dross. I care nothing for money.
All I ask of you,' proceeded Clarence, 'is your consent to my
engagement to your daughter.'
Mr Rackstraw looked sharply at him.
'Repeat that,' he said. 'I don't think I quite got it.'
'All I ask is your consent to my engagement to your daughter.'
'Young man,' said Mr Rackstraw, not without a touch of admiration, 'I
admire cheek. But there is a limit. That limit you have passed so far
that you'd need to look for it with a telescope.'
'You refuse your consent?'
'I never said you weren't a clever guesser.'
'Why?'
Mr Rackstraw laughed. One of those nasty, sharp, metallic laughs that
hit you like a bullet.
'How would you support my daughter?'
'I was thinking that you would help to some extent.'
'You were, were you?'
'I was.'
'Oh?'
Mr Rackstraw emitted another of those laughs.
'Well,' he said, 'it's off. You can take that as coming from an
authoritative source. No wedding-bells for you.'
Clarence drew himself up, fire flashing from his eyes and a bitter
smile curving his expressive lips.
'And no Meredith ball for you!' he cried.
Mr Rackstraw started as if some strong hand had plunged an auger into
him.
'What?' he shouted.
Clarence shrugged his superbly-modelled shoulders in silence.
'Come, come,' said Mr Rackstraw, 'you wouldn't let a little private
difference like that influence you in a really important thing like
this football match, would you?'
'I would.'
'You would practically blackmail the father of the girl you love?'
'Every time.'
'Her white-haired old father?'
'The colour of his hair would not affect me.'
'Nothing would move you?'
'Nothing.'
'Then, by George, you're just the son-in-law I want. You shall marry
Isabel; and I'll take you into partnership in my business this very
day. I've been looking for a good able-bodied bandit like you for
years. You make Captain Kidd look like a preliminary three-round bout.
My boy, we'll be the greatest combination, you and I, that the City has
ever seen. Shake hands.'
For a moment Clarence hesitated. Then his better nature prevailed, and
he spoke.
'Mr Rackstraw,' he said, 'I cannot deceive you.'
'That won't matter,' said the enthusiastic old man. 'I bet you'll be
able to deceive everybody else. I see it in your eye. My boy, we'll be
the greatest--'
'My name is not Jones.'
'Nor is mine. What does that matter?'
'My name is Tresillian. The Hon. Tresillian. I am the younger son of
the Earl of Runnymede. To a man of your political views--'
'Nonsense, nonsense,' said Mr Rackstraw. 'What are political views
compared with the chance of getting a goal-keeper like you into the
family? I remember Isabel saying something to me about you, but I
didn't know who you were then.'
'I am a preposterous excrescence on the social cosmos,' said Clarence,
eyeing him doubtfully.
'Then I'll be one too,' cried Mr Rackstraw. 'I own I've set my face
against it hitherto, but circumstances alter cases. I'll ring up the
Prime Minister on the phone tomorrow, and buy a title myself.'
Clarence's last scruple was removed. Silently he gripped the old man's
hand, outstretched to meet his.
Little remains to be said, but I am going to say it, if it snows. I am
at my best in these tender scenes of idyllic domesticity.
Four years have passed. Once more we are in the Rackstraw home. A lady
is coming down the stairs, leading by the hand her little son. It is
Isabel. The years have dealt lightly with her. She is still the same
stately, beautiful creature whom I would have described in detail long
ago if I had been given half a chance. At the foot of the stairs the
child stops and points at a small, round object in a glass case.
'Wah?' he says.
'That?' said Isabel. 'That is the ball Mr Meredith used to play with
when he was a little boy.'
She looks at a door on the left of the hall, and puts a finger to her
lip.
'Hush!' she says. 'We must be quiet. Daddy and grandpa are busy in
there cornering wheat.'
And softly mother and child go out into the sunlit garden.
IN ALCALA
In Alcala, as in most of New York's apartment houses, the schedule of
prices is like a badly rolled cigarette--thick in the middle and thin
at both ends. The rooms half-way up are expensive; some of them almost
as expensive as if Fashion, instead of being gone for ever, were still
lingering. The top rooms are cheap, the ground-floor rooms cheaper
still.
Cheapest of all was the hall-bedroom. Its furniture was of the
simplest. It consisted of a chair, another chair, a worn carpet, and a
folding-bed. The folding-bed had an air of depression and baffled
hopes. For years it had been trying to look like a bookcase in the
daytime, and now it looked more like a folding-bed than ever. There
was also a plain deal table, much stained with ink. At this, night
after night, sometimes far into the morning, Rutherford Maxwell would
sit and write stories. Now and then it happened that one would be a
good story, and find a market.
Rutherford Maxwell was an Englishman, and the younger son of an
Englishman; and his lot was the lot of the younger sons all the world
over. He was by profession one of the numerous employees of the New
Asiatic Bank, which has its branches all over the world. It is a sound,
trustworthy institution, and steady-going relatives would assure
Rutherford that he was lucky to have got a berth in it. Rutherford did
not agree with them. However sound and trustworthy, it was not exactly
romantic. Nor did it err on the side of over-lavishness to those who
served it. Rutherford's salary was small. So were his prospects--if he
remained in the bank. At a very early date he had registered a vow that
he would not. And the road that led out of it for him was the uphill
road of literature.
He was thankful for small mercies. Fate had not been over-kind up to
the present, but at least she had dispatched him to New York, the
centre of things, where he would have the chance to try, instead of to
some spot off the map. Whether he won or lost, at any rate he was in
the ring, and could fight. So every night he sat in Alcala, and wrote.
Sometimes he would only try to write, and that was torture.
There is never an hour of the day or night when Alcala is wholly
asleep. The middle of the house is a sort of chorus-girl belt, while in
the upper rooms there are reporters and other nightbirds. Long after he
had gone to bed, Rutherford would hear footsteps passing his door and
the sound of voices in the passage. He grew to welcome them. They
seemed to connect him with the outer world. But for them he was alone
after he had left the office, utterly alone, as it is possible to be
only in the heart of a great city. Some nights he would hear scraps of
conversations, at rare intervals a name. He used to build up in his
mind identities for the owners of the names. One in particular, Peggy,
gave him much food for thought. He pictured her as bright and
vivacious. This was because she sang sometimes as she passed his door.
She had been singing when he first heard her name. 'Oh, cut it out,
Peggy,' a girl's voice had said. 'Don't you get enough of that tune at
the theatre?' He felt that he would like to meet Peggy.
June came, and July, making an oven of New York, bringing close,
scorching days and nights when the pen seemed made of lead; and still
Rutherford worked on, sipping ice-water, in his shirt-sleeves, and
filling the sheets of paper slowly, but with a dogged persistence which
the weather could not kill. Despite the heat, he was cheerful. Things
were beginning to run his way a little now. A novelette, an airy
trifle, conceived in days when the thermometer was lower and it was
possible to think, and worked out almost mechanically, had been
accepted by a magazine of a higher standing than those which hitherto
had shown him hospitality. He began to dream of a holiday in the woods.
The holiday spirit was abroad. Alcala was emptying itself. It would not
be long before he too would be able to get away.
He was so deep in his thoughts that at first he did not hear the
knocking at the door. But it was a sharp, insistent knocking, and
forced itself upon his attention. He got up and turned the handle.
Outside in the passage was standing a girl, tall and sleepy-eyed. She
wore a picture-hat and a costume the keynote of which was a certain
aggressive attractiveness. There was no room for doubt as to which
particular brand of scent was her favourite at the moment.
She gazed at Rutherford dully. Like Banquo's ghost, she had no
speculation in her eyes. Rutherford looked at her inquiringly, somewhat
conscious of his shirt-sleeves.
'Did you knock?' he said, opening, as a man must do, with the
inevitable foolish question.
The apparition spoke.
'Say,' she said, 'got a cigarette?'
'I'm afraid I haven't,' said Rutherford, apologetically. 'I've been
smoking a pipe. I'm very sorry.'
'What?' said the apparition.
'I'm afraid I haven't.'
'Oh!' A pause. 'Say, got a cigarette?'
The intellectual pressure of the conversation was beginning to be a
little too much for Rutherford. Combined with the heat of the night it
made his head swim.
His visitor advanced into the room. Arriving at the table, she began
fiddling with its contents. The pen seemed to fascinate her. She picked
it up and inspected it closely.
'Say, what d'you call this?' she said.
'That's a pen,' said Rutherford, soothingly. 'A fountain-pen.'
'Oh!' A pause. 'Say, got a cigarette?'
Rutherford clutched a chair with one hand, and his forehead with the
other. He was in sore straits.
At this moment Rescue arrived, not before it was needed. A brisk sound
of footsteps in the passage, and there appeared in the doorway a second
girl.
'What do you think you're doing, Gladys?' demanded the new-comer. 'You
mustn't come butting into folks' rooms this way. Who's your friend?'
'My name is Maxwell,' began Rutherford eagerly.
'What say, Peggy?' said the seeker after cigarettes, dropping a sheet
of manuscript to the floor.
Rutherford looked at the girl in the doorway with interest. So this was
Peggy. She was little, and trim of figure. That was how he had always
imagined her. Her dress was simpler than the other's. The face beneath
the picture-hat was small and well-shaped, the nose delicately