CHAPTER XV
'My son,' said Mother Fayres, as she looked at the specimens, 'before we go any further, come in 'ere out of the wind and let me give you a kiss.'
Alfred submitted to the motherly embrace, and then, seated on a chest of drawers in the stuffy, varnish-scented arch, prepared for the game of bargaining. He had never in the old days had to deal with Mother Fayres; Ladd had done all that, and Ladd had always complained of her as a bitter handful to deal with. But then, Ladd had complained of everybody.
'Now,' said the old lady, throwing him a key, 'go to the door and padlock it careful, and then we can talk in a nice sociable way with nobody to interrup'. We don't want no 'aggling,' she continued amiably, 'we don't want no 'igh words, we don't want no unkind remarks. You sit up there again, and you tell Martha Fayres, who's known you since you was in long clothes, all about it, and she"
'You can keep your mouth shut, I s'pose?'
'Like a sphink,' said the old lady, closing her lips tightly for a moment as specimen of her powers. 'Where's the stuff? Where'd you pinch it from? Who 'elped you? Was what's-'is-name in it?'
'Whoever what's-'is-name may be,' replied Alfred exultantly from the top of the chest of drawers, 'he wasn't in it. I did it all by my little lonesome and no one else ain't had a finger in it.'
'Consequence of which,' remarked Mrs. Fayres argumentatively, 'you've got no one to share what I may call the proceeds, and Don't go denting that me'ogany, my son, with your clumsy 'eels.'
'Me'ogany?' he echoed,
'Well,' said the old lady, hedging, 'paint, then! As I was about to remark, you've got no one to share it with, and therefore you naturally say to yourself, you say: "Well, I shan't want so much for this little lot as I should otherwise 'ave."'
'Oh,' said Alfred ironically, 'that's what I say, is it? First I've heard of it.'
'And, moreover, you say to yourself—and mind ye, I don't say you're wrong: "It's one thing to go and do a big snatch; it's another thing to go and get rid of 'em. Therefore," says you, "times being 'ard, and the blooming tecs being more interferin' than ever, I shall go first of all to poor old Mother Fayres," says you, "knowing quite well that what she can afford she'll freely give, and that if it means the last drop of her 'eart's blood she'll pay it down ready and accept all the responsibility, and if necessary go to the block and willingly 'ave her 'ead took off."'
Mother Fayres, touched by her own eloquence, wept.
'I seem to 'ave been unusually talkative,' remarked Alfred satirically. 'What I'm rather more interested in is"
Mother Fayres held up her hand.
'I 'aven't finished, my son,' she said pathetically. '’Ear me out and then you can talk for all the rest of the week. I try to earn a honest livin'; I give the best price I can for second-'and goods of any description, and I ask no questions and I don't expect anyone to ask questions of me. If I meet Inspector MacDonogh or any of his men in the street it's always "Good-mornin', mother," and "Ah! there you are, then," and "How's the old complaint?" and pleasant nods of the 'elmet, from one and all. If that means anything,' said Mrs. Fayres, weeping again from pure satisfaction, 'it means that I'm respected.'
'Means you've never been found out.'
'Don't make a joke of it, my son,' she begged, shaking her old head reprovingly. 'We never know what trouble there is in store for us. I've seen so much of it one way and another, and them that's feeling confident and like twenty shillings in the pound have been the first to go. And then for four or five years they're out of sight, and when they come out they find themselves forgot, and'
'What'd you feel inclined to say for the lot?' interrupted Alfred rather uneasily. 'Let's give up cacklin', and come to bisness.'
She looked at the watches lying in her capacious lap.
'How many do you reckon there are, my son?'
'Roughly speaking about eighteen 'undred.'
'They're not so good as English watches, and they'll take a bit of gettin' rid of.'
'That's your part of the work.'
'Nothin' besides these tickers?'
'Yes,' he said, 'there's some parcels of furs and some silks and a few odd things. Them I shall hold over for a bit.'
'All or none's my motto,' remarked Mrs. Fayres. She closed her eyes and moved her lips, as people do when working out mathematical problems.
'There's a set of furs,' he said, 'that I'll keep for a present. I don't know as it won't suit my book to clear all the rest of 'em out at once. Only it must be done to-day, because I'm off to the seaside this evening.'
'If I give you a good price for 'em, my son,' she said, opening her creased old eyelids, 'promise to bring me everything you get in future. Don't go elsewhere. There's that swindlin' old fence of a Mayer at Rotherhithe, who'
'I shan't do no more jobs of this kind,' he said. 'This is a special and a final.'
'’Ark at you!' said Mother Fayres in an incredulous way.
'It's a fact,' said Alfred Bateson in his most sober manner.
'You'll be the first that's known when to stop, then. Precious few of 'em that sooner or'
A sharp rattling at the door of the arch startled them. Alfred slid from the chest of drawers and rushed down the narrow passage between furniture to the opposite door; that also was fastened, and he tugged madly at the padlock. The watches slipped from Mother Fayres' lap, and she kicked them into the corner behind an early Victorian mirror.
'Mother Fy-rees! Mother Fy-yres!' a shrill voice called through the slit at the doorway.
'It's all right,' cried the old lady to the perturbed Alfred. 'It's only someone.'
'Who?' he demanded from the other side of the arch. His face was white and wet.
'Be a man!' commanded Mother Fayres. 'She's only a little kid of a gel from the coal arch that fetches me my usual from the corner about this time. All the same, I must confess she gave me a turn.'
He came forward, slowly mopping the inside of his hat.
'I could do with a drink,' he said, moistening his lips.
The small girl, on the door being opened, complained bitterly of having been kept waiting, and suggested that people who could not answer promptly to knocks had better fetch their eleven-o'clock stout-and-mild themselves. She had left her ironing to make the call, and now it meant heating afresh. The important small girl returning from her errand, showed less of truculence on receiving for her services the sum of one halfpenny, being double the amount of the usual fee, and relented so much as to holloa a prophecy through the partly-opened door that there would be rain as soon as the wind dropped, and that people who had clothes hanging out would do well to take them in.
'I s'pose you'd like to come round and see the stuff, mother?'
'No, my son,' replied Mrs. Fayres expansively as she removed the shining pewter pot from before her face. 'I'm going to trust to your word in this affair. I may be doin' right, I may be doin' wrong; but I'm going to trust you. I'm not one of your suspicious, unbelieving people. I know who I'm dealing with, and that's good enough for me. "Live and let live" is my motto.'
'Mine,' said Alfred, 'is "Live"!'
'That is why—just pick up them samples, will you, from behind the looking-glass?—that is why I don't go beatin' about the bush like some, but I say plump and plain'
Here the old lady leaned forward in her chair, with hands on knees, and looked at herself in a distorting mirror.
'Forty-five pounds,' she remarked to the mirror.
'Pound of what?'
'And the 'ole thing taken clean off your 'ands, my son and me 'aving to take all the responsibility.'
'Responsibility be 'anged!' shouted Alfred explosively. 'D'you mean to say that you've got the impudence to sit there and offer me forty-five for three thousand pounds' worth, you old'
A train rumbled noisily overhead, drowning the end of this sentence.
'It sounds like a lot of money, I know,' she said equably, 'and it'll mean taking out of the Post-office. If I hadn't known you all these years, I should 'ave said twenty-five.'
He looked at her blankly, muttering a criticism.
'No, no,' said Mrs. Fayres reprovingly, 'don't let's indulge in bad language. It's not a bit of use doin' that. Shall we say fifty of 'em?'
'You can,' he replied with brusqueness, 'I shan't.'
'I think it's a mistake on your part, my son,' she said with laborious friendliness, 'to go openin' your mouth so wide. It shows a grasping nature that'll stand in your way if you ain't careful. Throw the set of furs in and I'll spring another sov'rin, if it's the last one I've got.'
'Look 'ere,' said Alfred menacingly, 'I may just as well talk plain as not. I want 'undreds for this lot and 'undreds I'm goin' to 'ave.'
'’Undreds?' echoed the old lady feebly.
'’Undreds,' he repeated, slapping the chest of drawers so that it rocked and staggered. 'This isn't one of your footling little jobs; this is great, this is, and I know it. You ain't dealin' with a fool, Mother Fayres. Five 'undred pounds, or at the least four, is what this lot's going to fetch, and if you can't run to it, why, someone else will. Let me see. He's moved from Mill Lane to Rotherhithe, isn't he?'
'If you go to that low 'ound, I'll never forgive you.'
'I shall go jest where I like,' he said, nodding his head determinedly.
'Be a sensible child and take what 'Eaven sends you,' she urged. 'You'll never regret it.'
'Give me the key.'
'S' down,' begged the old lady.
'Give me the key and let me go out of this bloomin' 'ole in the wall, or I shall do someone an injury.'
'Sid-down,' she repeated commandingly, 'and let's talk sense.'
'If you won't give me that key,' he shouted threateningly, 'I shall have to make you.'
'’Ere's the key,' she said, craning herself up out of the easy-chair. 'And now you listen to me. I shall give you till six o'clock, my son. If you ain't back 'ere by six o'clock I shall'
'Well,' he said, with his chin up defiantly, 'what will you do?'
'You wait and see,' replied the old woman, trembling, 'you wait and see. I can be as nasty when I'm roused as most ladies. One word of advice I'd like to give you, my son, and that is: Look out what you're up to.'
'I can get a Rotberhitbe train from Lower Road, can't I?' he asked over his shoulder at the doorway.
'You go to him,' she cried, her face purple with annoyance, 'and I'll'
'By-the-by, give me back them samples.'
She threw them at him separately, and he caught them, slipping one after the other into his pockets.
'How's that, umpire?' he asked cheerfully. His usual good temper had partially returned at the sight of the old woman's anger.
'You'll find how it is,' she screamed after him, 'if you don't'
He walked to Creek Road, and hurried over the bridge to visit first a small cigar shop at Greenwich. This had been so much time wasted; it was increasingly urgent that the goods should be distributed at once. Near to the old church at Greenwich he saw two be-furred ladies in a brougham, and he laughed to think what a tremendous swell Caroline would look in the set which he proposed to reserve for her; he would have to pretend that she was a Russian princess, and call her Carolinowsky. Twelve o'clock from the church steeple. The early editions of evening papers were being shouted in London Street; he felt half-annoyed to observe that there was nothing on the placards about his exploit. Journalism was not so smart as it should be.
He found himself suddenly hungry, and before going on to his new destination, he turned into an eating-house, which bore all over its front a number of slips of paper, as though it had cut itself in shaving, and when he had ordered a dinner that came to elevenpence found himself too much excited to touch any of it. The white-aproned lad who waited resented this attitude, so unusual with customers, and on the instant Alfred found himself embroiled in a second quarrel, in the course of which the white-aproned lad told him fiercely that he was no gentleman, a statement which Alfred disputed, offering to settle the matter out in the street, where he would knock the waiter into the middle of next week. The lad retorted that were it not Monday, and be in consequence wearing a clean apron, nothing would have given him more pleasure.
At the small cigar shop, disappointment.
'Well, he isn't exactly in,' said the man and wife behind the counter in a mysterious way, and speaking sometimes in duet, sometimes dividing the work of a sentence between them. 'But the business,' the wife hastened to add, 'is carried on same as 'eretofore.'
'Where can I find him?' demanded Alfred.
'Do you want' asked the husband confidentially—'to back anything for the Liverpool Cup?' completed the wife. 'Because, if so,' said both, 'best plan is to write down what you fancy on a slip of paper, and simply pass it across the counter, and'
'I want to see him and no one else. I ain't backing anything to-day. Where is he?'
'’Olloway,' replied the duettists.
'What address?'
'The Castle.'
'Unlawful receiving,' said the duettists. 'A thing,' added the soprano, her head shaking with pride, 'that we're going to keep very clear of, please goodness.'
'Morning,' said Alfred, stumbling towards the doorway.
'If ever you want to back a gee-gee'began the husband.
He walked, dazed with annoyance and disappointment, around by the Park gates. Leaning against the railings of the dancing pavilion, he swore under his breath at everything. Only Mayer remained, and if Mayer failed, he would have to try a fence unknown to him, and to whom he was unknown. There would come risks. Looking through the railings, he suddenly remembered that it was here he was once before taken (it was the night that Trafalgar came). He hurried away at once; it seemed like tempting Providence to remain. Feeling in his pockets as he hastened through Burney Street, he found that he had only a few coppers; he had relied upon obtaining at once a bag of money, and he had brought only about enough to pay for the hire of The Bishop and the van. It was necessary, therefore, that he should go back to Lewisham; perhaps it would be as well to remain there until dusk. The young carman would shortly be thrown out of the house in Mill Lane, and Alfred hoped he would be too much ashamed of himself to go to town. In that case there was hope.
A constable followed him up the steps of the Lewisham tram to take a free ride, and sat behind him. He touched Alfred on the shoulder.
'Got such a thing as a light about you?' he asked.
'I think I can oblige,' said Alfred, producing a box. 'How's business?'
'Always something doing in our line,' replied the constable, striking a match with protection from the wind afforded by his helmet and lighting his pipe. 'Long message come in as I was leaving the station, with description and goodness knows what all. I slipped off,' added the constable acutely; 'thought perhaps I might be wanted.'
'Not wanted near so much as somebody else,' suggested Alfred.
'Good!' said the constable approvingly. 'Very good indeed. Bit of a humourist, ain't you?'
'Not doin' much in that line just now,' replied Alfred. 'Things are goin' a bit awk'ard with me.'
'My advice to everyone is,' said the constable, 'don't worry! I've known some chaps worry all the colour out of their hair.'
'That's my principle too—hullo! a spot of rain!—in a general way, only that at the present time'
'Next time we run across each other,' said the constable, when he rose to descend, 'let me know if it hasn't dried straight.'
'I won't forget, old man.'
He was so much a creature of his environment that this brief chat with a member of the opposition cheered him. As the tram sailed down the hill into Lewisham, he reminded himself of his previous good fortune ('Better be born lucky than rich,' poor old Ladd had said), of his excellent capabilities for getting out of tight corners; the gay anticipations of four or five years with Caroline and the boy and no work returned to his memory. He hummed a song cheerfully as he entered the shop.
'Turned up again, then,' remarked William Finnis, looking up from a cycle rim. 'How is she?'
'Getting on a treat,' replied Alfred readily. 'Sea air's doing her a lump of good. She sent her love to you.'
'Ah!' said William Finnis.
'I'm off again this evening, and I may stop away down there for a few days. All depends.'
'Now you're 'ere,' said Finnis, 'give us a bit of your 'elp. I've got more work than I know what to do with.'
'What!' expostulated Alfred, 'with my bad leg?'
'No,' replied the other, 'with your two hands. Off with your coat and set to.'
Thus the afternoon was spent. Outside the rain had commenced and customers were few. Miss Ladd looked in now and again from her duties—once to bring post letters; one was from South America. Alfred's uncle wrote asking him to come out if he were without encumbrance; the other was from Caroline.
'I know all about that,' said Alfred lightly, and slipping it into his pocket. 'She'd posted it before I got down there.'
Finnis saw in the distance a new invention, and approached nearer to it every day. If he made money out of this one, there were several things he proposed to do.
'What you thinkin' of, old man?' asked Finnis presently.
Alfred was gazing vaguely from his seat at the rain-beaten street-window.
'I'm 'anged if I know,' he replied thoughtfully.
At seven o'clock he said good-bye to Miss Ladd, and took from that lady a message of affection for Trafalgar. At the station he saw on the newspaper placards:
'DARING ROBBERY OF WATCHES!'
'They've took their time over it,' he grumbled, as he bought a journal at the bookstall. He tore out the short paragraph referring to the affair, and placed it in his pocket-book with all the care of an actor preserving his good notices.
In the train he read the letter from Caroline:
'My dearest, dearest Husband,
'A line to tell you that Falgy and me are down here safely, and that the weather is fine, but cold. There are not many visitors, as the season is over. I am rather lonely, and I wish you could come down to see me soon.
'It seems so strange to be writing to you again. Like the old days, I must not close without telling how much I love and care for you, and how I thank you for all your goodness to me.
'I never shall forget how kind you are to me, and I am proud to call you my dear, dear husband.
'We unite in fondest love,
'Your loving wife,
'Caroline Bateson.'Falgy is a good boy, and he has made this last cross, me guiding his little hand.'
He looked at the closed window of the compartment; the background of dark, rainy night caused it to reflect his features.
'’Pon me soul, Elf, old man,' he said severely to his reflection, 'if you ain't precious near cryin'!'