Fortitude

H >> Hugh Walpole >> Fortitude

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And indeed that first vision of London, seen through the grimy windows of
the cab, was terrible enough. The cab moved a little, stopped, moved again;
it seemed that they would be there for ever and they exchanged no word.
There were no buildings to be seen; a vast wall of darkness surrounded him
and ever and again, out of the heart of it, a great cauldron of fire flamed
and by the side of it there were wild, agitated faces--and again darkness.
On every side of the stumbling cab there was noise--voices shouting, women
screaming, the rumbling of wheels, the plunging of horses' hoofs; sometimes
things brushed against their cab--once Peter thought that they were down
because they were jerked right forward against the opposite seats. And then
suddenly, in the most wonderful way, they would plunge into silence, a
silence so deep and cavernous that it was more fearful than those other
noises had been, and the yellow darkness seemed to crowd upon them with a
closer eagerness and it was as though they were driving over the edge of
the world. Then the noises returned, for a moment the fog lifted showing
houses, rising like rocks from the sea sheer about them on every side, then
darkness again and the cab stopped with a jerk.

"Ah, good," said Mr. Zanti, rolling his red handkerchief into a ball. "'Ere
we are, my young friend--Mr. Peter, after you, please."

Before him a light faintly glimmered and towards this, after stumbling on
the slippery pavement, he made his way. He found himself in a bookshop
lighted with gas that hissed and spit like an angry cat; the shop was low
and stuffy but its walls were covered with books that stretched into misty
fog near the ceiling. Behind a dingy counter a man was sitting. This man
struck Peter's attention at once because of the enormous size of his head
and the amount of hair that covered it--starting out of the mist and
obscurity of the shop, this head looked like some strange fungus, and from
the heart of it there glittered two very bright eyes.

Peter, standing awkwardly in the middle of the shop, gazed at this head and
was speechless.

Outside, Mr. Zanti could be heard disputing with the cabman.

"You can go and be damned--ze bags were not on ze outside--Zat is plenty
for your pay and you be damned--"

The shop door closed with a bang shutting out the fog and Mr. Zanti filled
the little bookshop. He seemed taller and larger than he had been in
Cornwall and his voice was sharper. The head removed itself from the
counter and Peter saw that it belonged to a small man with a hump who came
forward to Mr. Zanti very humbly.

"Ah, Gottfried," said Zanti, "you well?"

"Very, sir," answered the little man, bowing a little and smiling; his
voice was guttural with a very slight accent.

"This is Mr. Peter Westcott. 'E will work here and 'elp you with ze books.
'E is a friend of mine and you will be kind to him. Mr. Peter, zis is Herr
Gottfried Hanz--I owe 'im much--ver' clever man."

They shook hands and Peter liked the pair of eyes that gazed into his.

Then Mr. Zanti said, "Come, I will show you ze rest of ze place. It is not
a mansion, you will find."

Indeed it was not. Behind the shop there was a room, brown and green, with
two windows that looked on to a yard, so Mr. Zanti said. There was no
furniture in it save a table and some chairs; a woman was spreading a cloth
on the table as they came in. This woman had grey hair that escaped its
pins and fell untidily about her shoulders. She was very pale, tall and
thin and her most striking features were her piercing black eyes and with
these she stared at Peter.

"Zis is Mrs. Dantzig," said Mr. Zanti, "an old friend--Mr. Peter Westcott,
Mrs. Dantzig. 'E will work wiz us."

The woman said nothing but nodded her head and continued her work. They
passed out of the room. Stairs ran both up and down.

"What is down there?" asked Peter.

"Ah, zat is ze kitchen," said Mr. Zanti, laughing. Upstairs there was a
clean and neat bedroom with a large bed in it, an old sofa and two chairs.

"Zis is where I sleep," said Mr. Zanti. "For a night or two until you 'ave
discovered a lodging you shall sleep on zat sofa. Zay will make it whilst
we 'ave supper."

It was now late and Peter was very very tired. Downstairs there was much
bread and butter and bacon and eggs, and beer. The woman waited upon them
but they were all very silent and Peter was too sleepy to be hungry.

The table was cleared and Mr. Zanti sat smoking his pipe and talking to the
woman. Peter sat there, nodding, and he thought that their conversation was
in a foreign tongue and he thought that they looked at him and that the
woman was angry about something--but the sleep always gained upon him--he
could not keep it away.

At last a hand was upon his shoulder and he was led up to bed.

He tumbled out of his clothes and his last impression was of Mr. Zanti
standing in front of him, looking vast and very solemn in a blue cotton
night-shirt.

"Peter," Mr. Zanti seemed to be saying, "you see in me, one, two, a hundred
men.... All my life I seek adventure--fun--and I find it--but there 'as not
been room for ze affections. Then I find you--I love you as my son and I
say 'Come to my bookshop'--But only ze bookshop mind you--you are there for
ze books and because I care for you--I care for you ver' much, Peter, and
zere 'as not been room in my life for ze affections ... but I will be a
ver' good friend to you--and you shall only be in ze shop--with ze books--I
will be a good friend--"

Then it seemed that Mr. Zanti kissed Peter on both cheeks, blew out the
candle, and climbed into his huge bed; soon he was snoring.

But Peter could not be sure of these things because he was so very tired
that he did not know whether he were standing on his head or his heels and
he was asleep on his sofa and dreaming about the strangest and most
confused events in less than no time at all.

III

And then how wonderful to discover, on waking up the next morning, that it
was a beautiful day, as beautiful a day as any that Cornwall could give
him. It was indeed odd, after the great darkness of the afternoon before
to find now a burning blue sky, bright shining pavements and the pieces of
iron and metal on the cabs glittering as they rolled along. The streets
were doubtless delightful but Peter was not, on this day at any rate, to
see very much of them; he was handed over to the care of Herr Gottfried
Hanz, who had obviously not brushed his hair when he got up in the morning;
he also wore large blue slippers that were too big for his feet and
clattered behind him as he walked. Whatever light there might be in the
street outside only chinks of it found their way into the shop and the
gas-jet hissed and flared as it had done on the day before. The books
seemed mistier and dustier than ever and Peter wondered, in a kind of
despair, how in the world if any one did come in and ask for anything he
was going to tell them whether it were there or not.

But here Herr Gottfried came to the rescue. "See you," he said with an air
of pride, "it is thus that they are arranged. Here you have the
Novel--Bronte, Bulwer, Bunyan ("The Pilgrim's Progress," that is not a
novel but it is near enough). Here you have History, and here the Poets,
and here Philosophy and here Travel--it will all be simple in time--"

Peter's eyes spun dizzily to the heights.

"There is a little ladder," said Herr Gottfried.

"And," at last said Peter timidly, "May I--read--when there is no one
here?"

Herr Gottfried looked at him with a new interest. "You like reading?"

"Like!" Peter's voice was an ecstasy.

"Why of course, often." Herr Gottfried smiled. "And then see! (he opened
the shop door) there is a small boy, James, who is supposed to look after
these (these were the 1_d_., 2_d_. and 3_d_. boxes outside the window, on
the pavement) but he is an idle boy and often enough he is not there and
then we must have the door open and you must watch them. Often enough (this
seemed a favourite phrase of his) these gentlemen (this with great scorn)
will turn the books over and over and they will look up the street once and
they will look down the street once, and then into the pocket a book will
go--often enough," he added, looking beyond the door savagely at a very
tired and tattered lady who was turning the 1_d_. lot over and over.

Then, this introductory lesson concluded, Herr Gottfried suddenly withdrew
into the tangles of his hair and retreated behind his counter. Through the
open door there came the most entrancing sound and the bustle of the street
was loud and startling--bells ringing, boys shouting, wheels rattling, and
beyond these immediate notes a steady hum like the murmur of an orchestra
heard through closed doors. All this was wonderful enough but it was
nothing at all to the superlative fascination of that multitude of books.
Peter found a hard little chair in a dark corner and sat down upon it. Here
he was in the very heart of his kingdom! He could never read all the books
in this place if he lived for two hundred years... and so he had better not
try. He made a blind dash at the volumes nearest him (quietly lest he
should disturb Herr Gottfried who seemed very busy at his counter) and
secured something and read it as well as he could, for the light was very
bad. It was called "The True and Faithful Experiences of the Reverend James
Scott in the Other World Being a Veracious History of his Experiences of
the Life after Death"--the dust rose from its pages in little clouds and
tempted him to sneeze but he bit his lip and counted forty and saved the
situation.

Herr Gottfried dealt with the customers that morning and Peter stood
nervously watching him. The customers were not very many--an old lady who
"wanted something to read" caused many volumes to be laid before her, and
finally left the shop without buying anything--a young man with spectacles
purchased some tattered science and a clergyman some Sermons. A thin and
very hungry looking man entered, clutching a badly-tied paper parcel. These
were books he wanted to sell. They were obviously treasured possessions
because he touched them, when they were laid upon the counter, with a
loving hand.

"They are very good books," he said plaintively.

"Three shillings," said Herr Gottfried.

The hungry man sighed.

"Five shillings," he said, "they are worth more."

"Three shillings for the lot," said Herr Gottfried.

"It is very little," said the hungry man, but he took the money and went
out sadly.

Once their came a magnificent gentleman--that is, he looked magnificent in
the distance away from the gas jet. He was tall with a high hat, a fine
moustache and a tailcoat; he had melancholy eyes and a languid air. Peter
was sorry to observe on a closer view that his tail-coat was frayed and his
collar not very clean.

He gave Herr Gottfried a languid bow and passed through the shop into the
room beyond.

"Guten Tag, Herr Signer," said Herr Gottfried with deference, but the
gentleman had already disappeared.

Then, after a time, one o'clock struck and Peter understood that if he
would place himself under Herr Gottfried's protection he should be led to
an establishment where for a small sum meat-pies were to be had... all
this very novel and delightful, and Peter laid down "The Experiences of
the Reverend James Scott," which were not at present very thrilling and
followed his guide into the street. Peter was still wondering where Herr
Gottfried had put his blue slippers and whence had come the large flat
boots and the brown and faded squash hat when he was suddenly in a little
dark street with the houses hanging forward as though they were listening
and any number of clothes dangling from the window sills and waving about
as though their owners were still inside them and kicking vigorously.
Although the street was dark it was full of noise, and a blaze of light at
the other end of it proclaimed more civilised quarters (Trafalgar Square in
fact) at no great distance.

"Gerade aus," said Herr Gottfried and pushed open a swinging door. Peter
followed him into the most amazing babel of voices, a confusion and a
roaring, an atmosphere thick with smoke and steam and a scent in the air as
though ten thousand meat-pies were cooking there before his eyes. By the
door a neat stout little woman, hung all over with lockets and medallions
as though she were wearing all the prizes that the famous meat-pies had
ever won, was sitting in a little box with a glass front to it.

"Bon jour, Monsieur Hanz."

"Tag, Meine Gnaedige Frau."

All down the room, by the wall, ran long tables black with age and grime.
Men of every age and nationality were eating, drinking, smoking and
talking. Some of them knew Herr Gottfried, some did not.

"Wie gehts, Gottfried?"

And Herr Gottfried, planting his flat feet like dead weights in front of
him, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair, smiled at
some, spoke to others, and at last found a little corner at the end of the
room, a corner comparatively quiet but most astoundingly smelly.

Peter sat down and recovered his breath. How far away now was Treliss with
its cobbled street, and the Grey Hill with the Giant's Finger pointing
solemnly to the sky.

"I have no money," he said.

"The Master has given me this for you," Herr Gottfried said, handing him
two sovereigns, "he says it is in advance for the week."

The meat-pies, beer and bread were ordered and then for a time they sat in
silence. Peter was turning in his mind a thousand questions that he would
like to ask but he was still afraid of his strange companion and he felt a
little as though he were some human volcano that might at any moment burst
forth and cover him with furious disaster.

Then Herr Gottfried said:

"And so you care for reading?"

"Yes."

"What do you read?"

What had Peter read? He mentioned timidly "David Copperfield," "Don
Quixote," and "Henry Lessingham."

"Ah, that's the way--novels, novels, novels--always sugar ... Greek,
Latin?"

"No, just a little at school."

"Ah, yes, your schools. I know them. Homer?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"Ah, well you shall read Homer. He is the greatest, he is the Master. There
is Pope for a beginning. I will teach you Greek.... Goethe?"

"I--beg your pardon."

"Goethe, Goethe, Goethe--he has never heard of him--never. Ah, these
schools--I know them. Teach them nonsense--often enough--but any
wisdom--never--"

"I'm very sorry--" said Peter humbly.

"And music?"

"I've had no opportunity--"

"But you would love it? Yes, I see that you would love it--it is in your
eyes. Beethoven? No--later perhaps--then often enough--but Schubert! Ah,
Schubert!" (Here the meat-pies arrived but Herr Gottfried did not see
them). "Ah, the Unfinished! He shall hear that and he will have a new
soul--And the songs! Gott in Himmel, the songs! There is a man I know,
he will sing them to you. Die Mullerlieder. It is always water, the
Flowers, the Sun and all the roses in the world ... ach! 'Dir Spinnerin'
'Meersstille' ... 'Meersstille'--yah, Homer, Schubert--meat and
drink--Homer the meat-pie, Schubert the beer, but not this beer--no,
Helles, beautiful Helles with the sun in it...."

He had forgotten Peter and Peter did not understand anything that he said,
but he sat there with his eyes wide open and felt assured that it was all
very useful to him and very important. The inferno continued around them,
the air grew thicker with smoke, a barrel-organ began to play at the door,
draughts and dominoes rattled against the long wooden tables....

Ah! this was, indeed, London.

Peter was so greatly moved that his hunger left him and it was with
difficulty that the meat-pie was finished.

IV

During the three days that followed Peter learnt a very great deal about
the bookshop. At night he still slept in Mr. Zanti's bedroom, but it was
only a temporary pitching of tents during these days whilst he was a
stranger and baffled by the noise and confusion.

Already his immediate surroundings had ceased to be a mystery. He had as
it were taken them to himself and seated himself in the midst of them with
surprising ease. Treliss, Scaw House, his father, had slipped back into an
unintelligible distance. He felt that they still mattered to him and that
the time would most certainly come when they would matter to him even more,
but they were not of immediate concern. The memory of his mother was closer
to him....

But in this discovery of London he was amazingly happy--happier than he had
ever been in all his life, and younger too. There were a great many things
that he wished to know, a great many questions that he wished to ask--but
for the moment he was content to rest and to grasp what he could see.

In a day he seemed to understand the way that the books went, and not only
that but even the places where the individual books were lodged. He did
not, of course, know anything about the contents of the books, but their
titles gave them, in his mind, human existence so that he thought of
them as actual persons living in different parts of the shop. There was,
for instance, the triumph of "Lady Audley's Secret." An old lady with a
trembling voice and a very sharp pair of eyes wished for a secondhand copy.

"I've very sorry, Madame," began Herr Gottfried, "but I'm afraid we
haven't..."

"I think--" said Peter timidly, and he climbed the little ladder and
brought the book down from a misty corner. Herr Gottfried was indeed amazed
at him--he said very little but he was certainly amazed. Indeed, with the
exception of the "meat-pie" interval he scarcely spoke throughout the day.
Peter began to look forward to one o'clock for then the German, in the
midst of the babel and the smoke, continued the educating progress, and
even read Goethe's poetry aloud (translating it into the strangest English)
and developed Peter's conception of Homer into an alluring and fascinating
picture.

Of London itself during these days Peter saw nothing. At eight o'clock
in the evening the shutters were put up by the disobedient James and the
shop retired for the night. Herr Gottfried shuffled away to some hidden
resting-place of his own and Peter found supper waiting for him in the room
at the back. He ate this alone, for Mr. Zanti was not there and during
these three days he was hardly visible at all. He was up in the morning
before Peter was and he came to bed when Peter was already asleep. The boy
was not, however, certain that his master was always away when he seemed
to be. He appeared suddenly at the most surprising moments, smiling and
cheerful as ever and with no sign of hurry about him. He always gave Peter
a nod and a kind word and asked him how the books were going and patted him
on the shoulder, but he was away almost as soon as he was there.

One strange thing was the number of people that came into the bookshop with
no intention whatever of having anything to do with the books. Indeed they
paid no heed to the bookshop, and after flinging a word at Herr Gottfried,
they would pass straight into the room beyond and as far as Peter could
see, never came out again.

The magnificently-dressed gentleman, called by Herr Gottfried "Herr
Signor," was one of these persons.

However, Peter, happy enough in the excitement of the present, asking no
questions and only at night, before he fell asleep, lying on his sofa,
listening to the sounds in the street below him, watching the reflections
of the gas light flung up by the street lamps on to the walls of his room,
he would wonder ... and, so wondering, he was asleep.

And then, on the fourth day, something happened.

It was growing late, and Peter underneath the gas jet was buried in Mr.
Pope's Homer. A knock on the door and the postman entered with the letters.
As a rule Herr Gottfried took them, but on this afternoon he had left the
shop in Peter's hands for half an hour whilst he went out to see a friend.
Peter took the letters and immediately the letter on the top of the pile
(Mr. Zanti's post was always a large one) set his heart thumping. The
handwriting was the handwriting of Stephen. There could be no doubt about
it, no possible doubt. Peter had seen that writing many times and he had
always kept the letter that Stephen had written to him when he first went
to Dawson's. To other eyes it might seem an ordinary enough hand--rough and
uneducated and sprawling--anybody's hand, but Peter knew that there could
be no mistake.

The sight of the letter as it lay there on the counter swept away the shop,
the books, London--he sat looking at it with a longing, stronger than any
longing that he had ever known, to see the writer again. He lived once more
through that night on the farm--perhaps at that moment he felt suddenly his
loneliness, here in this huge and tempestuous London, here in this dark
bookshop with so many people going in or out. He rubbed the sleeves of his
blue serge suit because they made him feel like Treliss, and he sat, with
eyes staring into the dark, thinking of Stephen.

That evening, just as he was going up to bed, Mr. Zanti came in and greeted
him with his accustomed cheerfulness.

"Going to bed, Peter? Ah, good boy."

Peter stopped, hesitating, by the door.

"Oh, I wonder--" he said and stopped.

"Yes?" said Mr. Zanti, looking at him.

"Oh--well--it's nothing--" Then he blurted out--"I saw a letter--I couldn't
help it--a letter from Stephen this afternoon. They came when Herr
Gottfried was out--and I wanted--I want dreadfully--to hear about him--if
you could tell me--"

For an instant Mr. Zanti's large eyes closed until they seemed to be no
larger than pin-points--then they opened again.

"Stephen--Stephen? Stephen what? What is it that the boy talks of?"

"You know--Stephen Brant--the man who first brought me to see you when I
was quite a kid. I was--I always have been very fond of him. I should be so
very glad--"

"Surely the boy is mad--what has come to you? Stephen Brant--yes I remember
the man--but I have heard nothing for years and years--no, nothing. See,
here are my afternoon's letters."

He took a bundle of letters out of his pocket and showed them to Peter. The
boy found the one in Stephen's handwriting.

"You may read it," said Mr. Zanti smiling. Peter read it. He could not
understand it and it was signed "John Simmons" ... but it was certainly in
Stephen's handwriting.

"Thank you," said Peter in rather a quivering voice and he turned away,
gulping down his disappointment.

Mr. Zanti patted him on the shoulder.

"That's right, my boy. Ah, I expect you miss your friend. You will be
lonely here, yes? Well--see--now that you have been here a few days perhaps
it is time for you to find a place to live--and I have talked wiz a friend
of mine, a ver' good friend who 'as lived for many years in a 'ouse where
'e says there is a room that will just do for you--cheap, pleasant people
... yes? To-morrow 'e will show you the place. There you will 'ave
friends--"

Peter smiled, thanked Mr. Zanti and went to bed. But his dreams were
confused that night. It seemed to him that London was a huge room with
closing walls, and that ever they came closer and closer and that he
screamed for Stephen and they would not let Stephen come to him.

And bells were ringing, and Mr. Zanti, with a lighted candle in his hands,
was creeping down those dark stairs that led to the kitchen, and he might
have stopped those closing walls but he would not. Then suddenly Peter
was running down the Sea Road above Treliss and the waves were sounding
furiously below him--his father was there waiting for him sternly, at the
road's end and Herr Gottfried with a Homer in one hand and his blue shoes
in the other sat watching them out of his bright eyes. His father was
waiting to kill him and Mrs. Pascoe was at his elbow. Peter screamed, the
sweat was pouring off his forehead, his throat was tight with agony when
suddenly by his side was old Frosted Moses, with his flowing beard. "It
isn't life that matters," he was whispering in his old cracked voice, "but
the courage that you bring to it."

The figures faded, the light grew broader and broader, and Peter woke to
find Mr. Zanti, by the aid of a candle, climbing into bed.

But some time passed before he had courage to fall asleep again.

CHAPTER XII

BROCKETTS: ITS CHARACTER, AND ESPECIALLY MRS. BROCKETT

I

On the next afternoon about six o'clock, Mr. Zanti, accompanied by the
languid and shabby gentleman whom Peter had noticed before, appeared in the
shop.

"Signor Rastelli," said Mr. Zanti, and the languid gentleman shook hands
with Peter as though he were conferring a great benefit upon him and he
hoped Peter wouldn't forget it.

"Zis," said Mr. Zanti, "is my young friend, Peter Westcott, whom I love as
if 'e were my own son--Signor Rastelli," he continued, turning to Peter,
"I've known him for very many years and I can only say zat ze longer I 'ave
known him ze more admirable I 'ave thought 'im."

The gentleman took off his tall hat, stroked it, put it on again and
looked, with his languid eyes, at Peter.

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