The Project Gutenberg EBook of Where the Blue Begins, by Christopher Morley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Where the Blue Begins Author: Christopher Morley Release Date: September 17, 2008 [EBook #1402] Last Updated: March 16, 2018 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS *** Produced by Dianne Bean, and David Widger
TO FELIX and TOTO
“I am not free—
And it may be
Life is too tight around my shins;
For, unlike you,
I can't break through
A truant where the blue begins.
“Out of the very element
Of bondage, that here holds me pent,
I'll make my furious sonnet:
I'll turn my noose
To tightrope use
And madly dance upon it.
“So I will take
My leash, and make
A wilder and more subtle fleeing
And I shall be
More escapading and more free
Than you have ever dreamed of being!”
MR. GISHING FAMILY WOSH
8 towls
6 pymjarm Mr Gishing
12 rompers
3 blowses
6 cribb sheets
1 Mr. Gishing sheat
4 wastes
3 wosh clothes
2 onion sutes Mr Gishing
6 smal onion sutes
4 pillo slipes
3 sherts
18 hankerchifs smal
6 hankerchifs large
8 colers
3 overhauls
10 bibbs
2 table clothes (coca stane)
1 table clothe (prun juce and eg)
After contemplating this list, Gissing went to his desk and began to study
his accounts. A resolve was forming in his mind.
“For students of the troubled heart
Cities are perfect works of art.”
There is a city so tall that even the sky above her seems to have lifted
in a cautious remove, inconceivably far. There is a city so proud, so mad,
so beautiful and young, that even heaven has retreated, lest her placid
purity be too nearly tempted by that brave tragic spell. In the city which
is maddest of all, Gissing had come to search for sanity. In the city so
strangely beautiful that she has made even poets silent, he had come to
find a voice. In the city of glorious ostent and vanity, he had come to
look for humility and peace.
All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful:
but the beauty is grim. Who shall tell me the truth about this one?
Tragic? Even so, because wherever ambitions, vanities, and follies are
multiplied by millionfold contact, calamity is there. Noble and beautiful?
Aye, for even folly may have the majesty of magnitude. Hasty, cruel,
shallow? Agreed, but where in this terrene orb will you find it otherwise?
I know all that can be said against her; and yet in her great library of
streets, vast and various as Shakespeare, is beauty enough for a lifetime.
O poets, why have you been so faint? Because she seems cynical and crass,
she cries with trumpet-call to the mind of the dreamer; because she is
riant and mad, she speaks to the grave sanity of the poet.
So, in a mood perhaps too consciously lofty, Gissing was meditating. It
was rather impudent of him to accuse the city of being mad, for he
himself, in his glee over freedom regained, was not conspicuously sane. He
scoured the town in high spirits, peering into shop-windows, riding on top
of busses, going to the Zoo, taking the rickety old steamer to the Statue
of Liberty, drinking afternoon tea at the Ritz, and all that sort of
thing. The first three nights in town he slept in one of the little
traffic-towers that perch on stilts up above Fifth Avenue. As a matter of
fact, it was that one near St. Patrick's Cathedral. He had ridden up the
Avenue in a taxi, intending to go to the Plaza (just for a bit of splurge
after his domestic confinement). As the cab went by, he saw the
traffic-tower, dark and empty, and thought what a pleasant place to sleep.
So he asked the driver to let him out at the Cathedral, and after being
sure that he was not observed, walked back to the little turret, climbed
up the ladder, and made himself at home. He liked it so well that he
returned there the two following nights; but he didn't sleep much, for he
could not resist the fun of startling night-hawk taxis by suddenly
flashing the red, green, and yellow lights at them, and seeing them stop
in bewilderment. But after three nights he thought it best to leave. It
would have been awkward if the police had discovered him.
It was time to settle down and begin work. He had an uncle who was head of
an important business far down-town; but Gissing, with the quixotry of
youth, was determined to make his own start in the great world of
commerce. He found a room on the top floor of a quiet brownstone house in
the West Seventies. It was not large, and he had to go down a flight for
his bath; the gas burner over the bed whistled; the dust was rather
startling after the clean country; but it was cheap, and his sense of
adventure more than compensated. Mrs. Purp, the landlady, pleased him
greatly. She was very maternal, and urged him not to bolt his meals in
armchair lunches. She put an ashtray in his room.
Gissing sent Mrs. Spaniel a postcard with a picture of the Pennsylvania
Station. On it he wrote Arrived safely. Hard at work. Love to the
children. Then he went to look for a job.
His ideas about business were very vague. All he knew was that he wished
to be very wealthy and influential as soon as possible. He could have had
much sound advice from his uncle, who was a member of the Union Kennel and
quite a prominent dog-about-town. But Gissing had the secretive pride of
inexperience. Moreover, he did not quite know what to say about his
establishment in the country. That houseful of children would need some
explaining.
Those were days of brilliant heat; clear, golden, dry. The society columns
in the papers assured him that everyone was out of town; but the Avenue
seemed plentifully crowded with beautiful, superb creatures. Far down the
gentle slopes of that glimmering roadway he could see the rolling stream
of limousines, dazzles of sunlight caught on their polished flanks. A
faint blue haze of gasoline fumes hung low in the bright warm air. This is
the street where even the most passive are pricked by the strange lure of
carnal dominion. Nothing less than a job on the Avenue itself would suit
his mood, he felt.
Fortune and audacity united (as they always do) to concede his desire. He
was in the beautiful department store of Beagle and Company, one of the
most splendid of its kind, looking at some sand-coloured spats. In an
aisle near by he heard a commotion—nothing vulgar, but still an
evident stir, with repressed yelps and a genteel, horrified bustle. He
hastened to the spot, and through the crowd saw someone lying on the
floor. An extremely beautiful sales-damsel, charmingly clad in black crepe
de chien, was supporting the victim's head, vainly fanning him. Wealthy
dowagers were whining in distress. Then an ambulance clanged up to a side
door, and a stretcher was brought in. “What is it?” said Gissing to a
female at the silk-stocking counter.
“One of the floorwalkers—died of heat prostration,” she said,
looking very much upset.
“Poor fellow,” said Gissing. “You never know what will happen next, do
you?” He walked away, shaking his head.
He asked the elevator attendant to direct him to the offices of the firm.
On the seventh floor, down a quiet corridor behind the bedroom suites, a
rosewood fence barred his way. A secretary faced him inquiringly.
“I wish to see Mr. Beagle.”
“Mr. Beagle senior or Mr. Beagle junior?”
Youth cleaves to youth, said Gissing to himself. “Mr. Beagle junior,” he
stated firmly.
“Have you an appointment?”
“Yes,” he said.
She took his ward, disappeared, and returned. “This way, please,” she
said.
Mr. Beagle senior must be very old indeed, he thought; for junior was
distinctly grizzled. In fact (so rapidly does the mind run), Mr. Beagle
senior must be near the age of retirement. Very likely (he said to
himself) that will soon occur; there will be a general stepping-up among
members of the firm, and that will be my chance. I wonder how much they
pay a junior partner?
He almost uttered this question, as Mr. Beagle junior looked at him so
inquiringly. But he caught himself in time.
“I beg your pardon for intruding,” said Gissing, “but I am the new
floorwalker.”
“You are very kind,” said Mr. Beagle junior, “but we do not need a new
floorwalker.”
“I beg your pardon again,” said Gissing, “but you are not au courant with
the affairs of the store. One has just died, right by the silk-stocking
counter. Very bad for business.”
At this moment the telephone rang, and Mr. Beagle seized it. He listened,
sharply examining his caller meanwhile.
“You are right,” he said, as he put down the receiver. “Well, sir, have
you had any experience?”
“Not exactly of that sort,” said Gissing; “but I think I understand the
requirements. The tone of the store—”
“I will ask you to be here at four-thirty this afternoon,” said Mr.
Beagle. “We have a particular routine in regard to candidates for that
position. You will readily perceive that it is a post of some importance.
The floorwalker is our point of social contact with patrons.”
Gissing negligently dusted his shoes with a handkerchief.
“Pray do not apologize,” he said kindly. “I am willing to congratulate
with you on your good fortune. It was mere hazard that I was in the store.
To-day, of course, business will be poor. But to-morrow, I think you will
find—”
“At four-thirty,” said Mr. Beagle, a little puzzled.
That day Gissing went without lunch. First he explored the whole building
from top to bottom, until he knew the location of every department, and
had the store directory firmly memorized. With almost proprietary
tenderness he studied the shining goods and trinkets; noted approvingly
the clerks who seemed to him specially prompt and obliging to customers;
scowled a little at any sign of boredom or inattention. He heard the soft
sigh of the pneumatic tubes as they received money and blew it to some
distant coffer: this money, he thought, was already partly his. That
square-cut creature whom he presently discerned following him was
undoubtedly the store detective: he smiled to think what a pleasant
anecdote this would be when he was admitted to junior partnership. Then he
went, finally, to the special Masculine Shop on the fifth floor, where he
bought a silk hat, a cutaway coat and waistcoat, and trousers of pearly
stripe. He did not forget patent leather shoes, nor white spats. He
refused—the little white linen margins which the clerk wished to
affix to the V of his waistcoat. That, he felt, was the ultra touch which
would spoil all. The just less than perfection, how perfect it is!
It was getting late. He hurried to Penn Station where he hired one of
those little dressing booths, and put on his regalia. His tweeds, in a
neat package, he checked at the parcel counter. Then he returned to the
store for the important interview.
He had expected a formal talk with the two Messrs. Beagle, perhaps
touching on such matters as duties, hours, salary, and so on. To his
surprise he was ushered by the secretary into a charming Louis XVI salon
farther down the private corridor. There were several ladies: one was
pouring tea. Mr. Beagle junior came forward. The vice-president (such was
Mr. Beagle junior's rank, Gissing had learned by the sign on his door)
still wore his business garb of the morning. Gissing immediately felt
himself to have the advantage. But what a pleasant idea, he thought, for
the members of the firm to have tea together every afternoon. He handed
his hat, gloves, and stick to the secretary.
“Very kind of you to come,” said Mr. Beagle. “Let me present you to my
wife.”
Mrs. Beagle, at the tea-urn, received him graciously.
“Cream or lemon?” she said. “Two lumps?”
This is really delightful, Gissing thought. Only on Fifth Avenue could
this kind of thing happen. He looked down the hostess from his superior
height, and smiled charmingly.
“Do you permit three?” he said. “A little weakness of mine.” As a matter
of fact, he hated tea so sweet; but he felt it was strategic to fix
himself in Mrs. Beagle's mind as a polished eccentric.
“You must have a meringue,” she said. “Ah, Mrs. Pomeranian has them. Mrs.
Pomeranian, let me present Mr. Gissing.”
Mrs. Pomeranian, small and plump and tightly corseted, offered the
meringues, while Mrs. Beagle pressed upon him a plate with a small doily,
embroidered with the arms of the store, and its motto je maintiendrai—referring,
no doubt, to its prices. Mr. Beagle then introduced him to several more
ladies in rapid succession. Gissing passed along the line, bowing slightly
but with courteous interest to each. To each one he raised his eyebrows
and permitted himself a small significant smile, as though to convey that
this was a moment he had long been anticipating. How different, he
thought, was this life of enigmatic gaiety from the suburban drudgery of
recent months. If only Mrs. Spaniel could see him now! He was about to
utilize a brief pause by sipping his tea, when a white-headed patriarch
suddenly appeared beside him.
“Mr. Gissing,” said the vice-president, “this is my father, Mr. Beagle
senior.”
Gissing, by quick work, shuffled the teacup into his left paw, and the
meringue plate into the crook of his elbow, so he was ready for the old
gentleman's salutation. Mr. Beagle senior was indeed very old: his white
hair hung over his eyes, he spoke with growling severity. Gissing's manner
to the old merchant was one of respectful reassurance: he attempted to
make an impression that would console: to impart—of course without
saying so—the thought that though the head of the firm could not
last much longer, yet he would leave his great traffic in capable care.
“Where will I find an aluminum cooking pot?” growled the elder Beagle
unexpectedly.
“In the Bargain Basement,” said Gissing promptly.
“He'll do!” cried the president.
To his surprise, on looking round, Gissing saw that all the ladies had
vanished. Beagle junior was grinning at him.
“You have the job, Mr. Gissing,” he said. “You will pardon the harmless
masquerade—we always try out a floorwalker in that way. My father
thinks that if he can handle a teacup and a meringue while being
introduced to ladies, he can manage anything on the main aisle downstairs.
Mrs. Pomeranian, our millinery buyer, said she had never seen it better
done, and she mixes with some of the swellest people in Paris.”
“Nine to six, with half an hour off for lunch,” said the senior partner,
and left the room.
Gissing calmly swallowed his tea, and ate the meringue. He would have
enjoyed another, but the capable secretary had already removed them. He
poured himself a second cup of tea. Mr. Beagle junior showed signs of
eagerness to leave, but Gissing detained him.
“One moment,” he said suavely. “There is a little matter that we have not
discussed. The question of salary.”
Mr. Beagle looked thoughtfully out of the window.
“Thirty dollars a week,” he said.
After all, Gissing thought, it will only take four weeks to pay for what I
have spent on clothes.
MR. GISSING.
At the door he paused, relit his pipe leisurely, raised his hat to the
superintendent, and strolled away.
In spite of this nonchalance, the situation was serious. His money was at
a low ebb. All his regular income was diverted to the support of the large
household in the country. He was too proud to appeal to his wealthy uncle.
He hated also to think of Mrs. Purp's mortification if she learned that
her star boarder was out of work. By a curious irony, when he got home he
found a letter from Mrs. Spaniel:—
MR. GISHING, dere friend, the pupeys are well, no insecks, and eat with
nives and forx Groups is the fattest but Yelpers is the lowdest they send
wags and lix and glad to here Daddy is doing so well in buisness with
respects from
MRS. SPANIEL.
He did not let Mrs. Purp know of the change in his condition, and every
morning left his lodging at the usual time. By some curious attraction he
felt drawn to that downtown region where his kinsman's office was. This
part of the city he had not properly explored.
It was a world wholly different from Fifth Avenue. There was none of that
sense of space and luxury he had known on the wide slopes of Murray Hill.
He wandered under terrific buildings, in a breezy shadow where javelins of
colourless sunlight pierced through thin slits, hot brilliance fell in
fans and cascades over the uneven terrace of roofs. Here was where
husbands worked to keep Fifth Avenue going: he wondered vaguely whether
Mrs. Sealyham had bought those stockings? One day he saw his uncle
hurrying along Wall Street with an intent face. Gissing skipped into a
doorway, fearing to be recognized. He knew that the old fellow would
insist on taking him to lunch at the Pedigree Club, would talk endlessly,
and ask family questions. But he was on the scent of matters that talk
could not pursue.
He perceived a sense of pressure, of prodigious poetry and beauty and
amazement. This was a strange jungle of life. Tall coasts of windows stood
up into the pure brilliant sky: against their feet beat a dark surf of
slums. In one foreign street, too deeply trenched for sunlight, oranges
were the only gold. The water, reaching round in two arms, came close:
there was a note of husky summons in the whistles of passing craft. Almost
everywhere, sharp above many smells of oils and spices, the whiff of
coffee tingled his busy nose. Above one huge precipice stood a gilded
statue—a boy with wings, burning in the noon. Brilliance flamed
between the vanes of his pinions: the intangible thrust of that pouring
light seemed about to hover him off into blue air.
The world of working husbands was more tender than that of shopping wives:
even in all their business, they had left space and quietness for the
dead. Sunken among the crags he found two graveyards. They were cups of
placid brightness. Here, looking upward, it was like being drowned on the
floor of an ocean of light. Husbands had built their offices half-way to
the sky rather than disturb these. Perhaps they appreciate rest all the
more, Gissing thought, because they get so little of it? Somehow he could
not quite imagine a graveyard left at peace in the shopping district. It
would be bad for trade, perhaps? Even the churches on the Avenue, he had
noticed, were huddled up and hemmed in so tightly by the other buildings
that they had scarcely room to kneel. If I ever become a parson, he said
(this was a fantastic dream of his), I will insist that all churches must
have a girdle of green about them, to set them apart from the world.
The two little brown churches among the cliffs had been gifted with a
dignity far beyond the dream of their builders. Their pointing spires were
relieved against the enormous facades of business. What other altars ever
had such a reredos? Above the strepitant racket of the streets, he heard
the harsh chimes of Trinity at noonday—strong jags of clangour
hurled against the great sounding-boards of buildings; drifting and dying
away down side alleys. There was no soft music of appeal in the bronze
volleying: it was the hoarse monitory voice of rebuke. So spoke the church
of old, he thought: not asking, not appealing, but imperatively, sternly,
as one born to command. He thought with new respect of Mr. Sealyham, Mr.
Mastiff, Mr. Dachshund, all the others who were powers in these fantastic
flumes of stone. They were more than merely husbands of charge accounts—they
were poets. They sat at lunch on the tops of their amazing edifices, and
looked off at the blue.
Day after day went by, but with a serene fatalism Gissing did nothing
about hunting a job. He was willing to wait until the last dollar was
broken: in the meantime he was content. You never know the soul of a city,
he said, until you are down on your luck. Now, he felt, he had been here
long enough to understand her. She did not give her secrets to the world
of Fifth Avenue. Down here, where the deep crevice of Broadway opened out
into greenness, what was the first thing he saw? Out across the harbour,
turned toward open sea—Liberty! Liberty Enlightening the World, he
had heard, was her full name. Some had mocked her, he had also heard.
Well, what was the gist of her enlightenment? Why this, surely: that
Liberty could never be more than a statue: never a reality. Only a fool
would expect complete liberty. He himself, with all his latitude, was not
free. If he were, he would cook his meals in his room, and save money—but
Mrs. Purp was strict on that point. She had spoken scathingly of two young
females she ejected for just that reason. Nor was Mrs. Purp free—she
was ridden by the Gas Company. So it went.
It struck him, now he was down to about three dollars, that a generous
gesture toward Fortune might be valuable. When you are nearly out of
money, he reasoned, to toss coins to the gods—i. e., to buy
something quite unnecessary—may be propitiatory. It may start
something moving in your direction. It is the touch of bravado that God
relishes. In a sudden mood of tenderness, he bought two dollars' worth of
toys and had them sent to the children. He smiled to think how they would
frolic over the jumping rabbit. He sent Mrs. Spaniel a postcard of the
Aquarium.
There is a good deal more to this business than I had realized, he said,
as he walked uptown through the East Side slums that hot night. The
audacity, the vitality, the magnificence, are plain enough. But I seem to
see squalor too, horror and pitiful dearth. I believe God is farther off
than I thought. Look here: if the more you know, the less you know about
God, doesn't that mean that God is really enjoyed only by the completely
simple—by faith, never by reason?
He gave twenty-five cents to a beggar, and said angrily: “I am not
interested in a God who is known only by faith.”
When he got uptown he was very tired and hungry. In spite of all Mrs.
Purp's rules, he smuggled in an egg, a box of biscuits, a small packet of
tea and sugar, and a tin of condensed milk. He emptied the milk into his
shaving mug, and used the tin to boil water in, holding it over the gas
jet. He was getting on finely when a sudden knock on the door made him
jump. He spilled the hot water on his leg, and uttered a wild yell.
Mrs. Purp burst in, but she was so excited that she did not notice the egg
seeping into the clean counterpane.
“Oh, Mr. Gissing,” she exclaimed, “I've been waiting all evening for you
to come in. Purp and I wondered if you'd seen this in the paper to-night?
Purp noticed it in the ads., but we couldn't understand what it meant.”
She held out a page of classified advertising, in which he read with
amazement:
PERSONAL
If MR. GISSING, late floorwalker at Beagle and Company, will communicate
with Mr. Beagle Senior, he will hear matters greatly to his advantage.
________________________
BEAGLE AND COMPANY
take pleasure in announcing to
their patrons and friends that
MR. GISSING
has been admitted to the firm in
the status of General Manager
Je Maintiendrai
__________________________
Mrs. Purp's excitement at this is easier imagined than described. Her only
fear was that now she would lose her best lodger. She made Purp go out and
buy a new shirt and a collar; she told Gissing, rather pathetically, that
she intended to have the whole house repapered in the fall. The big double
suite downstairs, which could be used as bedroom and sitting-room, she
suggested as a comfortable change. But Gissing preferred to remain where
he was. He had grown fond of the top floor.
Certainly there was an exhilaration in his new importance and prosperity.
The store buzzed with the news. At his request, Miss Whippet was promoted
to the seventh floor to be his secretary. It was delightful to make his
morning tour of inspection through the vast building. Mr. Hound, the store
detective, loved to tell his cronies how suspiciously he had followed “The
Duke” that first day. As Gissing moved through the busy departments he saw
eyes following him, tails wagging. Customers were more flattered than ever
by his courteous attentions. One day he even held a little luncheon party
in the restaurant, at which Mrs. Dachshund, Mrs. Mastiff, and Mrs.
Sealyham were his guests. He invited their husbands, but the latter were
too busy to come. It would have been more prudent of them to attend. That
afternoon Mrs. Dachshund, carried away by enthusiasm, bought a platinum
wrist-watch. Mrs. Mastiff bought a diamond dog-collar. Mrs. Sealyham,
whose husband was temporarily embarrassed in Wall Street, contented
herself with a Sheraton chifforobe.
But it began to be evident that his delightful little office was not going
to be a shrine for quiet meditation. His vanity had been pleased by the
large advertisement about him, but he suddenly realized the poison that
lies in printer's ink. Almost overnight, it seemed, he had been added to
ten thousand mailing lists. Little Miss Whippet, although she was fast at
typewriting, was hard put to it to keep up with his correspondence. She
quivered eagerly over her machine, her small paws flying. New pink ribbons
gleamed through her translucent summery georgette blouse. They were her
flag of exultation at her surprising rise in life. She felt it was
immensely important to get all these letters answered promptly.
And so did Gissing. In his new zeal, and in his innocent satisfaction at
having entered the inner circle of Big Business, he insisted on answering
everything. He did not realize that dictating letters is the quaint
diversion of business men, and that most of them mean nothing. It is
simply the easiest way of assuring yourself that you are busy.
This job was no sinecure. Old Mr. Beagle had so much affectionate
confidence in Gissing that he referred almost everything to him for
decision. Mr. Beagle junior, perhaps a little annoyed at the floorwalker's
meteoric translation, spent the summer afternoons at golf. The infinite
details of a great business crowded upon him. Inexperienced, he had not
learned the ways in which seasoned “executives” protect themselves against
useless intrusion. His telephone buzzed like a hornet. Not five minutes
went by without callers or interruptions of some sort.
Most amazing of all, he found, was the miscellaneous passion for palaver
displayed by Big Business. Immediately he was invited to join innumerable
clubs, societies, merchants' associations. Every day would arrive letters,
on heavily embossed paper—“The Sales Managers Club will hold a
round-table discussion on Friday at one o'clock. We would greatly
appreciate it if you would be with us and say a few words.”—“Will
you be our guest at the monthly dinner of the Fifth Avenue Guild, and give
us any preachment that is on your mind?”—“The Merchandising Uplift
Group of Murray Hill will meet at the Commodore for an informal lunch. It
has been suggested that you contribute to the discussion on Underwriting
Overhead.”—“The Executives Association plans a clambake and barbecue
at the Barking Rock Country Club. Around the bonfire a few impromptu
remarks on Business Cycles will be called for. May we count on you?”—“Will
you address the Convention of Knitted Bodygarment Buyers, on whatever
topic is nearest your heart?”—“Will you write for Bunion and
Callous, the trade organ of the Floorwalkers' Union, a thousand-word
review of your career?”—“Will you broadcast a twenty-minute talk on
Department Store Ethics, at the radio station in Newark? 250,000 radio
fans will be listening in.” New to the strange and high-spirited world of
“executives,” it was natural that Gissing did not realize that the net
importance of this kind of thing was absolute zero. It did strike him as
odd, perhaps, that merchants did not dare to go on a junket or plan a
congenial dinner without pretending to themselves that it had some
business significance. But, having been so amazingly lifted into this
atmosphere of great affairs, he felt it was his duty to the store to play
the game according to the established rules. He was borne along on a
roaring spate of conferences, telephone calls, appointments, Rotarian
lunches, Chamber of Commerce dinners, picnics to talk tariff,
house-parties to discuss demurrage, tennis tournaments to settle the
sales-tax, golf foursomes to regulate price-maintenance. Of all these
matters he knew nothing whatever; and he also saw that as far as the
business of Beagle and Company was concerned it would be better not to
waste his time on such side-issues. The way he could really be of service
was in the store itself, tactfully lubricating that complicated engine of
goods and personalities. But he learned to utter, when called upon, a few
suave generalities, barbed with a rollicking story. This made him always
welcome. He was of a studious disposition, and liked to examine this queer
territory of life with an unprejudiced eye. After all, his inward secret
purpose had nothing to do with the success or failure of retail trade. He
was still seeking a horizon that would stay blue when he reached it.
More and more he was interested to perceive how transparent the mummery of
business was. He was interested to note how persistently men fled from
success, how carefully most of them avoided the obvious principles of
utility, honesty, prudence, and courtesy, which are inevitably rewarded.
These sagacious, humorous fellows who were amusing themselves with
twaddling trade apothegms and ridiculous banqueteering solemnities, surely
they were aware that this had no bearing upon their own jobs? He suspected
that it was all a feverish anodyne to still some inward unease. Since they
must (not being fools) be aware that these antics were mere subtraction of
time from their business, the obvious conclusion was, they were not happy
with business. There was some strange wistfulness in the conduct of Big
Business Dogs, he thought. Under the pretence of transacting affairs, they
were really trying to discover something that had eluded them.
The same thing, strangely enough, seemed to be going on in a sphere of
which he knew nothing, the world of art. He gathered from the papers that
writers, painters, musicians, were holding shindies almost every night, at
which delightful rebels, too busy to occupy themselves with actual
creation, talked charmingly about their plans. Poets were reading poems
incessantly, forgetting to write any. Much of the newspaper comment on
literature made him shudder, for though this was a province quite strange
to him, he had sound instincts. He discerned fatal ignorance and absurdity
between the pompous lines. Yet, in its own way, it seemed a bold and
honest ignorance. Were these, too, like the wistful executives, seeking
where the blue begins?
But what was this strange agitation that forbade his fellow-creatures from
enjoying the one thing that makes achievement possible—Solitude? He
himself, so happy to be left alone—was no one else like that? And
yet this very solitude that he craved and revelled in was, by a sublime
paradox, haunted by mysterious loneliness. He felt sometimes as though his
heart had been broken off from some great whole, to which it yearned to be
reunited. It felt like a bone that had been buried, which God would some
day dig up. Sometimes, in his caninomorphic conception of deity, he felt
near him the thunder of those mighty paws. In rare moments of silence he
gazed from his office window upon the sun-gilded, tempting city. Her
madness was upon him—her splendid craze of haste, ambition, pride.
Yet he wondered. This God he needed, this liberating horizon, was it after
all in the cleverest of hiding-places—in himself? Was it in his own
undeluded heart?
Miss Whippet came scurrying in to say that the Display Manager begged him
to attend a conference. The question of apportioning window space to the
various departments was to be reconsidered. Also, the book department had
protested having rental charged against them for books exhibited merely to
add a finishing touch to a furniture display. Other agenda: the Personnel
Director wished an appointment to discuss the ruling against salesbitches
bobbing their hair. The Commissary Department wished to present revised
figures as to the economy that would be effected by putting the employees'
cafeteria on the same floor as the store's restaurant. He must decide
whether early closing on Saturdays would continue until Labor Day.
As he went about these and a hundred other fascinating trivialities, he
had a painful sense of treachery to Mr. Beagle senior. The old gentleman
was so touchingly certain that he had found in him the ideal shoulders on
which to unload his honourable and crushing burden. With more than
paternal pride old Beagle saw Gissing, evidently urbane and competent,
cheerfully circulating here and there. The shy angel of doubt that lay
deep in Gissing's cider-coloured eye, the proprietor did not come near
enough to observe.
If there is tragedy in our story, alas here it is. Gissing, incorrigible
seceder from responsibilities that did not touch his soul, did not dare
tell his benefactor the horrid truth. But the worm was in his heart. Late
one night, in his room at Mrs. Purp's, he wrote a letter to Mr. Poodle.
After mailing it at a street-box, he had a sudden pang. To the dreamer,
decisions are fearful. Then he shook himself and ran lightly to a little
lunchroom on Amsterdam Avenue, where he enjoyed doughnuts and iced tea.
His mind was resolved. The doughnuts, by a simple symbolism, made him
think of Rotary Clubs, also of millstones. No, he must be fugitive from
honour, from wealth, from Chambers of Commerce. Fugitive from all save his
own instinct. Those who have bound themselves are only too eager to see
the chains on others. There was no use attempting to explain to Mr. Beagle—the
dear old creature would not understand.
The next day, after happily and busily discharging his duties, and staying
late to clean up his desk, Gissing left Beagle and Company for good. The
only thing that worried him, as he looked round his comfortable office for
the last time, was the thought of little Miss Whippet's chagrin when she
found her new promotion at an end. She had taken such delight in their
mutual dignity. On the filing cabinet beside her typewriter desk was a
pink geranium in a pot, which she watered every morning. He could not
resist pulling out a drawer of her desk, and smiled gently to see the
careful neatness of its compartments, with all her odds and ends usefully
arranged. The ink-eraser, with an absurd little whisk attached to it for
brushing away fragments of rubbed paper; the fascicle of sharpened pencils
held together by an elastic band; the tiny phial of typewriter oil; a
small box of peppermints; a crumpled handkerchief; the stenographic
notebook with a pencil inserted at the blank page, so as to be ready for
instant service the next day; the long paper-cutter for slitting
envelopes; her memorandum pad, on which was written Remind Mr. G. of
Window Display Luncheon—it seemed cruel to deprive her of all these
innocent amusements in which she delighted so much. And yet he could not
go on as a General Manager simply for the happiness of Miss Whippet.
In the foliage of the geranium, where he knew she would find it the first
thing in the morning, he left a note:—
MISS WHIPPET: I am leaving the store to-night and will not be back. Please
notify Mr. Beagle. Explain to him that I shall never take a position with
one of his competitors; I am leaving not because I didn't enjoy the job,
but because if I stayed longer I might enjoy it too much. Tell Mr. Beagle
that I specially urge him to retain you as assistant to the new Manager,
whoever that may be. You are entirely competent to attend to the routine,
and the new Manager can spend all his time at business lunches.
Please inform the Display Managers' Club that I can't speak at their
meeting to-morrow.
I wish you all possible good-fortune.
MR. GISSING.
As he passed through the dim and silent aisles of the store, he surveyed
them again with mixed emotions. Here he might, apparently, have been king.
But he had no very poignant regret. Another of his numerous selves, he
reflected, had committed suicide. That was the right idea: to keep
sloughing them off, throwing overboard the unreal and factitious Gissings,
paring them down until he discovered the genuine and inalienable creature.
And so, for the second time, he made a stealthy exit from the employees'
door.
Four days later he read in the paper of old Mr. Beagle's death. There can
be no doubt about it. The merchant died of a broken heart.
Respectfully yours,
MR. GISSING.
A prompt reply from the Bishop's secretary granted him an appointment.
Scrupulously attired in his tail-coat and silk hat, Gissing proceeded
toward the rendezvous. To tell the truth, he was nervous: his mind flitted
uneasily among possible embarrassments. Suppose Mr. Poodle had written to
the Bishop to prejudice his application? Another, but more absurd, idea
troubled him. One of the problems in visiting the houses of the Great (he
had learned in his brief career in Big Business) is to find the door-bell.
It is usually mysteriously concealed. Suppose he should have to peer
hopelessly about the vestibule, in a shameful and suspicious manner, until
some flunky came out to chide? In the sunny park below the Cathedral he
saw nurses sitting by their puppy-carriages; for an instant he almost
envied their gross tranquillity. THEY have not got (he said to himself) to
call on a Bishop!
He was early, so he strolled for a few minutes in the park that lies
underneath that rocky scarp. On the summit, clear-surging against the
blue, the great church rode like a ship on a long ridge of sea. The angel
with a trumpet on the jut of the roof was like a valiant seaman in the
crow's nest. His agitation was calmed by this noble sight. Yes, he said,
the Church is a ship behind whose bulwarks I will find rest. She sails an
unworldly sea: her crew are exempt from earthly ambition and fallacy.
He ran nimbly up the long steps that scale the cliff, and approached the
episcopal residence. The bell was plainly visible. He rang, and presently
came a tidy little housemaid. He had meditated a form of words. It would
be absurd to say “Is the Bishop in?” for he knew the Bishop WAS in. So he
said “This is Mr. Gissing. I think the Bishop is expecting me.”
Bishop Borzoi was an impressive figure—immensely tall and slender,
with long, narrow ascetic face and curly white hair. He was surprisingly
cordial.
“Ah, Mr. Gissing?” he said. “Sit down, sir. I know Beagle and Company very
well. Too well, in fact-Mrs. Borzoi has an account there.”
Gissing, feeling rather aghast and tentative, had no comment ready. He was
still worrying a little as to the proper mode of address.
“It is very pleasant to find you Influential Merchants interested in the
Church,” continued the Bishop. “I often thought of approaching the late
Mr. Beagle on the subject of a small contribution to the cathedral.
Indeed, I have spent so much in your store that it would be only a fair
return. Mr. Collie, of Greyhound, Collie and Company, has been very
handsome with us: he has just provided for repaving the choir.”
Gissing began to fear that the object of his visit had perhaps been
misunderstood, but the prelate's eyes were bright with benignant
enthusiasm and he dared not interrupt.
“You inquired most kindly in your letter as to a possible vacancy in the
Church. Indeed there is a niche in the transept that I should be happy to
see filled. It is intended for some kind of memorial statue, and perhaps,
in honour of the late Mr. Beagle—”
“I must explain, Sir Bishop,” said Gissing, very much disturbed, “that I
have left Beagle and Company. The contribution I wish to make to the
Church is not a decorative one, I fear. It is myself.”
“Yourself?” queried the Bishop, politely puzzled.
“Yes,” stammered Gissing, “I—in fact, I am hoping to—to enter
the ministry.”
The Bishop was plainly amazed, and his long, aristocratic nose seemed
longer than ever as he gazed keenly at his caller.
“But have you had any formal training in theology?”
“None, right reverend Bishop,” said Gissing, “But it's this way,” and,
incoherently at first, but with increasing energy and copious eloquence,
he poured out the story of his mental struggles.
“This is singularly interesting,” said the Bishop at length. “I can see
that you are wholly lacking in the rudiments of divinity. Of modern
exegesis and criticism you are quite innocent. But you evidently have
something which is much rarer—what the Quakers call a CONCERN. Of
course you should really go to the theological seminary and establish this
naif intuitive mysticism upon a disciplined basis. You will realize that
we churchmen can only meet modern rationalism by a rationalism of our own—by
a philosophical scholarship which is unshakable. I do not suppose that you
can even harmonize the Gospels?”
Gissing ruefully admitted his ignorance.
“Well, at least I must make sure of a few fundamentals,” said the Bishop.
“Of course a symbological latitude is permissible, but there are some
essentials of dogma and creed that may not be foregone.”
He subjected the candidate to a rapid catechism. Gissing, in a state of
mind curiously mingled of excitement and awe, found himself assenting to
much that, in a calmer moment, he would hardly have admitted; but having
plunged so deep into the affair he felt it would be the height of
discourtesy to give negative answers to any of the Bishop's queries. By
dint of hasty mental adjustments and symbolic interpretations, he
satisfied his conscience.
“It is very irregular,” the Bishop admitted, “but I must confess that your
case interests me greatly. Of course I cannot admit you to ordination
until you have passed through the regular theological curriculum. Yet I
find you singularly apt for one without proper training.”
He brooded a while, fixing the candidate with a clear darkly burning eye.
“It struck me that you were a trifle vague upon some of the Articles of
Religion, and the Table of Kindred and Affinity. You must remember that
these articles are not to be subjected to your own sense or comment, but
must be taken in the literal and grammatical meaning. However, you show
outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. It so happens
that I know of a small chapel, in the country, that has been closed for
lack of a minister. I can put you in charge there as lay reader.”
Gissing's face showed his elation.
“And wear a cassock?” he cried.
“Certainly not,” said the Bishop sternly. “Not even a surplice. You must
remember you have not been ordained. If you are serious in your zeal, you
must work your way up gradually, beginning at the bottom.”
“I have seen some of your cloth with a little purple dickey which looks
very well in the aperture of the waistcoat,” said Gissing humbly. “How
long would it take me to work up to that?”
Bishop Borzoi, who had a sense of humour, laughed genially.
“Look here,” he said. “It's a fine afternoon: I'll order my car and we'll
drive out to Dalmatian Heights. I'll show you your chapel, and tell you
exactly what your duties will be.”
Gissing was startled. Dalmatian Heights was only a few miles from the
Canine Estates. If the news should reach Mr. Poodle...
“Sir Bishop,” he said nervously, “I begin to fear that perhaps after all I
am unworthy. Now about those Articles of Religion: I may perhaps have
given some of them a conjectural and commentating assent. Possibly I have
presumed too far—”
The Bishop was already looking forward to a ride into the country with his
unusual novice.
“Not at all, not at all,” he said cheerily. “In a mere lay reader, a
slight laxity is allowable. You understand, of course, that you are
expressly restricted from the pulpit. You will have to read the lessons,
conduct the service, and may address the congregation upon matters not
homiletic nor doctrinal; preaching and actual entry into the pulpit are
defended. But I see excellent possibility in you. Perform the duties
punctually in this very lowly office, and high ranks of service in the
church militant will be open.”
He put on a very fine shovel-hat, and led the way to his large touring
car.
It was a very uncomfortable ride for Gissing. A silk hat is the least
stable apparel for swift motoring, and the chauffeur drove at high speed.
The Bishop, leaning back in the open tonneau, crossed one delicately
slender shank over another, gazed in a kind of ecstasy at the countryside,
and talked gaily about his days as a young curate. Gissing sat holding his
hat on. He saw only too well that, by the humiliating oddity of chance,
they were going to take the road that led exactly past his own house. He
could only hope that Mrs. Spaniel and the various children would not be
visible, for explanations would be too complicated. Desperately he praised
the view to be obtained on another road, but Bishop Borzoi was too
interested in his own topic to pay much attention.
“By the way,” said the latter, as they drew near the familiar region, “I
must introduce you to Miss Airedale. She lives in the big place on the
hill over there. Her family always used to attend what I will now call
YOUR chapel; she is a very ardent churchgoer, and it was a sincere grief
to her when the place had to be closed. You will find her a great aid and
comfort; not only that, she is—what one does not always find in the
devouter members of her sex—young and beautiful. I think I
understood you to say you are a bachelor?”
They were approaching the last turning at which it was still possible to
avoid the fatal road, and Gissing's attention was divided.
“Yes, after a fashion,” he replied. “Bishop, do you know that road down
into the valley? The view is really superb—Yes, that road—Oh,
no, I am a bachelor—”
It was too late. The chauffeur, unconscious of this private crisis, was
spinning along the homeward way. With a tender emotion Gissing saw the
spires of the poplar trees, the hemlocks down beyond the pond, the fringe
of woods that concealed the house until you were quite upon it—
The car swerved suddenly and the driver only saved it by a quick and canny
manoeuvre from going down the bank. He came to a stop, and almost from
underneath the rear wheels appeared a scuffling dusty group of youngsters
who had been playing in the road. There they were—Bunks, Groups, and
Yelpers (inordinately grown!) and two of the Spaniels. Their clothes were
deplorable, their faces grimed, their legs covered with burrs, their whole
demeanour was ragamuffin and wild: yet Gissing felt a pang of pride to see
his godchildren's keen, independent bearing contrasted with the rowdier,
disreputable look of the young Spaniels. Quickly he averted his head to
escape recognition. But the urchins were all gaping at the Bishop's shovel
hat.
“Hot dog!” cried Yelpers “Some hat!”
To his horror, Gissing now saw Mrs. Spaniel, hastening in alarm down from
the house, spilling potatoes from her apron as she ran. He hurriedly urged
the driver to proceed.
“What terrible looking children,” observed the Bishop, who seemed
fascinated by their stare. “Really, my good sister,” he said to Mrs.
Spaniel, who was now panting by the running board; “you must keep them off
the road or someone will get hurt.”
Gissing was looking for an imaginary object on the floor of the car. To
his great relief he heard the roar of the motor as they started again. But
he sat up a little too soon. A simultaneous roar of “Daddy!” burst from
the trio.
“What was that they were shouting at us?” inquired the Bishop, looking
back.
Gissing shook his head. He was too overcome to speak.
TO REV. J. ROVER POODLE
this useful steam-roller
as a symbol of the theological mind
MR. GISSING
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