George Mueller - "A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller"

Andrew Barton Paterson - "An Outback Marriage"

James Mark Baldwin - "The Story of the Mind"

William McPherson - "An Elementary Study of Chemistry"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Fortitude

H >> Hugh Walpole >> Fortitude




"And," continued Mr. Zanti, cheerfully, conscious perhaps that he was
carrying all the conversation on his own shoulders, "'e will take you to a
'ouse where 'e has been for--'ow many years, Signor?"

"Ten," said that gentleman.

"For ten years--every comfort. Zere's a little room 'e tells me where you
will be 'appy--and all your food and friendship for one pound a week.
There!" he ended triumphantly.

"Thank you very much," said Peter, but he did not altogether like the look
of the seedily dressed gentleman, and would much rather have stayed with
Mr. Zanti.

He had packed his black bag in readiness, and now he fetched it and, after
promising to be in the shop at half-past eight the next morning, started
off with his melancholy guide.

The lamps were coming out, and a silence that often falls upon London just
before sunset had come down upon the traffic and the people. Windows caught
the departing flame, held it for an instant, and sank into grey twilight.

"I know what you're thinking about me," Peter's companion suddenly said (he
was walking very fast as though trying to catch something), "I know you
don't like me. I could see it at once--I never make a mistake about those
things. You were saying to yourself: 'What does that horrible, over-dressed
stranger want to come interfering with me for?'"

"Indeed, I wasn't," said Peter, breathlessly, because the bag was so heavy
and they were walking so fast.

"Oh, yes, you were. Never mind. I'm not a popular man, and when you know me
better you'll like me still less. That's always the way I affect people.
And always with the best intentions. And you were thinking, too, that you
never saw anything less Italian than I am, and you're sure my name's Brown
or Smith, and indeed it's true that I was born in Clapham, but my parents
were Italians--refugees, you know, although I'm sure I don't know what
from--and every one calls me the Signor, and so there you are--and I don't
see how I'm to help it. But that's just me all over--always fighting
against the tide but I don't complain, I'm sure." All this said very
rapidly and in a melancholy way as though tears were not very far off. Then
he suddenly added:

"Let me carry your bag for you."

"No, thank you," said Peter, laughing, "I can manage it."

"Ah, well, you look strong," said the Signor appreciatively. "I envy you,
I'm sure--never had a day's health myself--but I don't complain."

By this time they had passed the British Museum and were entering into
the shadows of Bloomsbury. At this hour, when the lamps and the stars are
coming out, and the sun is going in, Bloomsbury has an air of melancholy
that is peculiarly its own. The dark grey houses stand as a perpetual
witness of those people that have found life too hard for them and have
been compelled to give in. The streets of those melancholy squares seen
beneath flickering lamp light and a wan moon protest against all gaiety of
spirit and urge resignation and a mournful acquiescence. Bloomsbury is Life
on Thirty Shillings a week without the drama of starvation or the tragedy
of the Embankment, but with all the ignominy of making ends meet under the
stern and relentless eye of a boarding-house keeper.

But of all the sad and unhappy squares in Bloomsbury the saddest is Bennett
Square. It is shut in by all the other Bloomsbury Squares and is further
than any of them from the lights and traffic of popular streets. There are
only four lamp posts there--one at each corner--and between these patches
of light everything is darkness and desolation.

Every house in Bennett Square is a boarding-house, and No. 72 is
Brockett's.

"Mrs. Brockett is a very terrifying but lovable woman," said the Signor
darkly, and Peter, whose spirits had sunk lower and ever lower as he
stumbled through the dark streets, felt, at the sound of this threatening
prophecy, entirely miserable.

No. 72 is certainly the grimiest of the houses in Bennett Square. It is
tall and built of that grey stone that takes the mind of the observer back
to those school precincts of his youth. It is a thin house, not broad and
fat and comfortably bulging, but rather flinging a spiteful glance at the
house that squeezed it in on either side. It is like a soured, elderly
caustic old maid, unhappy in its own experiences and determined to make
every one else unhappy in theirs. Peter, of course, did not see these
things, because it was very dark, but he wished he had not come.

The Signor had a key of his own and Peter was soon inside a hall that smelt
of oilcloth and the cooking of beef; the gas was burning, but the only
things that really benefited from its light were a long row of mournful
black coats that hung against the wall.

Peter sneezed, and was suddenly conscious of an enormous woman whom he knew
by instinct to be Mrs. Brockett. She was truly enormous--she stood facing
him like some avenging Fate. She had the body of a man--flat, straight,
broad. Her black hair, carefully parted down the middle, was brushed back
and bound into hard black coils low down over the neck. She stood there,
looking down on them, her arms akimbo, her legs apart. Her eyes were black
and deep set, her cheek bones very prominent, her nose thin and sharp; her
black dress caught in a little at the waist, fell otherwise in straight
folds to her feet. There was a faint moustache on her upper lip, her hands,
with long white slender fingers, were beautiful, lying straight by her
side, against the stuff of her dress.

"Well?" she said--and her voice was deep like a man's. "Good evening,
Signor."

"Good evening, Madame." He took off his hat and gave her a deep bow. "This
is the young gentleman, Mr. Westcott, of whom I spoke to you this morning."

"Well--how are you, Mr. Westcott?" Her words were sharply clipped and had
the resonance of coins as they rang in the air.

"Quite well, thank you," said Peter, and he noticed, in spite of his dismay
at her appearance, that the clasp of her hand was strong and friendly.

"Florence will show you your room, Mr. Westcott. It is a pound a
week including your meals and attendance and the use of the general
sitting-room. If you do not like it you must tell me and we will wish one
another good evening. If you do like it I shall do my best to make you
comfortable."

Peter found afterwards that this was her invariable manner of addressing
a new-comer. It could scarcely be called a warm welcome. She turned and
called, "Florence!" and a maid-servant, diminutive in size but spotless in
appearance, suddenly appeared from nowhere at all, as it seemed to Peter.

He followed this girl up many flights of stairs. On every side of him were
doors and, once and again, gas flared above him. It was all very cold, and
gusts of wind passed up and down, whisking in and out of the oilcloth, and
Peter thought that he had never seen so many closed doors in his life.

At last they came to an end of the stairs and there with a skylight
covering the passage outside was his room. It was certainly small and the
window looked out on a dismal little piece of garden far below and a great
number of roofs and chimneys and at last a high dome rising like a black
cloud in the farther distance. It was spotlessly clean.

"I think it will do very well, thank you," said Peter and he put down his
black bag.

"Do you?" said the maid. "There's a bell," she said, pointing, "and the
meal's at seving sharp." She disappeared.

He spent the time, very cheerfully, taking the things out of the black bag
and arranging them. He had suddenly, as was natural in him, forgotten the
dismal approach to the house, the overwhelming appearance of Mrs. Brockett,
his recent loneliness. Here, at last, was a little spot that he could,
for a time, at any rate, call his own. He could come, at any time of the
evening and shut his door, and be alone here, master of everything that he
surveyed. Perhaps--and the thought sent the blood to his cheeks--it was
here that he would write! He looked about the room lovingly. It was quite
bare except for the bed, the washing stand and a chair, and there was no
fire-place. But he arranged the books, David Copperfield, Don Quixote,
Henry Lessingham, The Roads, The Downs, on the window sill, and the little
faded photograph of his mother on the ledge above the washing basin. He had
scarcely finished doing these things when there was a tap on his door. He
opened it, and found the Signor, no longer in a tail-coat, but in a short,
faded blue jacket that made him look shabbier than ever.

"Excuse--not intruding, I hope?" He looked gloomily round the room.
"Everything all right?"

"Very nice," said Peter.

"Ah, you'll like it at first--but never mind. Wonderful woman, Mrs.
Brockett. I expect you were alarmed just now."

"I was, a little," admitted Peter.

"Ah, well, we all are at first. But you'll get over that, you'll love
her--every one loves her. By the way," he pushed his hand through his hair,
"what I came about was to tell you that we all foregather--as you might
say--in the sitting-room before dinner--yes--and I'd like to introduce you
to my wife, the Signora--not Italian, you know--but you'll like her better
than me--every one's agreed that hers is a nicer character."

Peter, trembling a little at the thought of more strangers, followed the
Signer downstairs and found, in the middle of one of the dark landings,
looking as though she had been left there by some one and completely
forgotten, a little wisp of a woman with bright yellow hair and a straw
coloured dress, and this was the Signora. This lady shook hands with him in
a frightened tearful way and made choking noises all the way downstairs,
and this distressed Peter very much until he discovered that she had a
passion for cough drops, which she kept in her pocket in a little tin box
and sucked perpetually. The Signor drove his wife and Peter before him into
the sitting-room. This was a very brightly-coloured room with any number
of brilliant purple vases on the mantelpiece, a pink wall-paper, a great
number of shining pictures in the most splendid gilt frames, and in the
middle of the room a bright green settee with red cushions on it. On this
settee, which was round, with a space in the middle of it, like a circus,
several persons were seated, but there was apparently no conversation. They
all looked up at the opening of the door, and Peter was so dazzled by the
bright colour of the room that it was some time before he could collect his
thoughts.

But the Signor beckoned to him, and he followed.

"Allow me, Mrs. Monogue," said the Signor, "to introduce to you Mr. Peter
Westcott." The lady in question was stout, red-faced, and muffled in
shawls. She extended him a haughty finger.

There followed then Miss Norah Monogue, a girl with a pleasant smile and
untidy hair, Miss Dall, a lady with a very stiff back, a face like an
interrogation mark, because her eyebrows went up in a point and a very
tight black dress, Mr. Herbert Crumley, and Mr. Peter Crumley, two short,
thin gentlemen with wizened and anxious faces (they were obviously
brothers, because they were exactly alike), and Mrs. and Mr. Tressiter, two
pleasant-faced, cheerful people, who sat very close together as though they
were cold.

All these people shook hands agreeably with Peter, but made no remarks, and
he stood awkwardly looking at the purple vases and wishing that something
would happen.

Something _did_ happen. The door was very softly and slowly opened,
and a little woman came hurrying in. She had white hair, and glasses were
dangling on the end of her nose, and she wore a very old and shabby black
silk dress. She looked round with an agitated air.

"I don't know why it is," she said, with a little chirrup, like a bird's,
"but I'm _always_ late--always!"

Then she did an amazing thing. She walked to the green settee and sat down
between Miss Dall, the lady with the tight dress, and Mrs. Monogue. She
then took out of one pocket an orange and out of another a piece of
newspaper.

"I must have my orange, you know," she said, looking gaily round on every
one.

She spread the newspaper on her knee, and then peeled the orange very
slowly and with great care. The silence was maintained--no one spoke. Then
suddenly the Signor darted forward: "Oh, Mrs. Lazarus I must introduce you
to Madame's new guest, Mr. Westcott."

"How do you do?" the old lady chirruped. "Oh! but my fingers are all over
orange--never mind, we'll smile at one another. I hope you'll like the
place, I'm sure. I always have an orange before dinner. They've got used to
me, you know. We've all got our little habits."

Peter did not know what to say, and was wondering whether he ought to
relieve the old lady of her orange peel (at which she was gazing rather
helplessly), when a bell rang and Florence appeared at the door.

"Dinner!" she said, laconically.

A procession was formed, Mrs. Monogue, with her shawls sweeping behind her,
sailed in front, and Peter brought up the rear. Mrs. Lazarus put the orange
peel into the newspaper and placed it all carefully in her pocket.

Mrs. Brockett was sitting, more like a soldier than ever, at the head of
the table. Mutton was in front of her, and there seemed to be nothing on
the table cloth but cruets and three dusty and melancholic palms. Peter
found that he was sitting between Mrs. Lazarus and Miss Dall, and that he
was not expected to talk. It was apparent indeed that the regularity with
which every one met every one at this hour of the day, during months and
months of the year negatived any polite necessity of cordiality or genial
spirits. When any one spoke it was crossly and in considerable irritation,
and although the food was consumed with great eagerness on everybody's
part, the faces of the company were obviously anxious to express the fact
that the food was worse than ever, and they wouldn't stand it another
minute. They all did stand it, however, and Peter thought that they were
all, secretly, rather happy and contented. During most of the meal no one
spoke to him, and as he was very hungry this did not matter. Opposite him,
all down the side of the room, were dusty grey pillars, and between these
pillars heavy dark green curtains were hanging. This had the effect of
muffling and crushing the conversation and quite forbidding anybody to
be cheerful in any circumstances. Mrs. Lazarus indeed chirruped along
comfortably and happily for the most part to herself--as, for instance, "I
am orangy, but then I was late and couldn't finish it. Dear me, it's mutton
again. I really must tell Madame about it and there's nothing so nice as
beef and Yorkshire pudding, is there? Dear me, would you mind, young man,
just asking Dear Miss Dall to pass the salt spoon. She's left that behind.
I _have_ the salt-cellar, thank you."

She also hummed to herself at times and made her bread into little hard
pellets, which she flicked across the table with her thumb at no one in
particular and in sheer absence of mind. The two Mr. Crumleys were sitting
opposite to her, and they accepted the little charge of shot with all the
placid equanimity bred of ancient custom.

Peter noticed other things. He noticed that Mrs. Monogue was an
exceedingly ill-tempered and selfish woman, and that she bullied the
pleasant girl with the untidy hair throughout the meal, and that the girl
took it all in the easiest possible way. He noticed that Mrs. Brockett
dealt with each of her company in turn--one remark apiece, and always in
that stern, deep voice with the strangely beautiful musical note in it.
To himself she said: "Well, Mr. Westcott, I'm pleased, I'm sure, that
everything is to your satisfaction," and listened gravely to his assurance.
To Miss Dall: "Well, Miss Ball, I looked at the book you lent me and
couldn't find any sense in it, I'm afraid." To Mrs. Tressiter: "I had
little Minnie with me for half an hour this evening, and I'm sure a better
behaved child never breathed" ... and so on.

Once Miss Dall turned upon him sharply with: "I suppose you never go and
hear the Rev. Mr. M. J. Valdwell?" and Peter had to confess ignorance.

"Really! Well, it 'ud do you young men a world of good."

He assured her that he would go.

"I will lend you a volume of his sermons if you would care to read them."

Peter said that he would be delighted. The meal was soon over, and every
one returned to the sitting-room. They sat about in a desolate way, and
Peter discovered afterwards that Mrs. Brockett liked every one to be there
together for half an hour to encourage friendly relations. That object
could scarcely be said to be achieved, because there was very little
conversation and many anxious glances were flung at the clocks. Mrs.
Brockett, however, sat sternly in a chair and sewed, and no one ventured to
leave the room.

One pleasant thing happened. Peter was standing by the window turning over
some fashion papers of an ancient date, when he saw that Miss Monogue was
at his elbow. Now that she was close to him he observed that she looked
thin and delicate; her dress was worn and old-fashioned, she looked as
though she ought to be wrapped up warmly and taken care of--but her eyes
were large and soft and grey, and although her wrists looked strangely
white and sharp through her black dress her hands were beautiful. Her voice
was soft with an Irish brogue lingering pleasantly amongst her words:

"I hope that you will like being here."

"I'm sure I shall," he said, smiling. He felt grateful to her for talking
to him.

"You're very fortunate to have come to Mrs. Brockett's straight away. You
mayn't think so now, because Mrs. Brockett is alarming at first, and we
none of us--" she looked round her with a little laugh--"can strike the
on-looker as very cheerful company. But really Madame has a heart of
gold--you'll find that out in time. She's had a terribly hard time of it
herself, and I believe it's a great struggle to keep things going now. But
she's helped all kinds of people in her time."

Peter looked, with new eyes, at the lady so sternly sewing.

"You don't know," Miss Monogue went on in her soft, pleasant voice, "how
horrible these boarding-houses can be. Mother and I have tried a good many.
But here people stay for ever--a pretty good testimony to it, I think ...
and then, you know, she never lets any one stay here if she doesn't like
them--so that prevents scoundrels. There've been one or two, but she's
always found them out ... and I believe she keeps old Mrs. Lazarus quite
free of charge."

She paused, and then she added:

"And there's no one here who hasn't found life pretty hard. That gives us
a kind of freemasonry, you know. The Tressiters, for instance, they have
three children, and he has been out of work for months--sometimes there's
such a frightened look in her eyes ... but you mustn't think that we're
melancholy here," she went on more happily. "We get a lot of happiness out
of it all."

He looked at her, and remembering Mrs. Monogue at dinner and seeing now how
delicate the girl looked, thought that she must have a very considerable
amount of pluck on her own account.

"And you?" she said. "Have you only just come up to London?"

"Yes," he answered, "I'm in a bookseller's shop--a second-hand
bookseller's. I've only been in London a few days--it's all very exciting
for me--and a little confusing at present."

"I'm sure you'll get on," she said. "You look so strong and confident and
happy. I envy you your strength--one can do so much if one's got that."

He felt almost ashamed of his rough suit, his ragged build. "Well, I've
always been in the country," he said, a little apologetically. "I expect
London will change that."

Then there came across the room Mrs. Monogue's sharp voice. "Norah! Norah!
I want you."

She left him.

That night in his little room, he looked from his window at the sea of
black roofs that stretched into the sky and found in their ultimate
distance the wonderful sweep of stars that domed them; a great moon,
full-rounded, dull gold, staring like a huge eye, above them. His heart was
full. A God there must be somewhere to have given him all this splendour--a
splendour surely for him to work upon. He felt as a craftsman feels, when
some new and wonderful tools have been given to him; as a woman feels the
child in her womb, stirring mysteriously, moving her to deep and glad
thankfulness, so now, with the night wind blowing about him, and all London
lying, dark and motionless, below him, he felt the first stirring of his
power. This was his to work with, this was his to praise and glorify and
make beautiful--now crude and formless--a seed dark and without form or
colour--one day to make one more flower in that garden that God has given
his servants to work in.

He did not, at this instant, doubt that some God was there, crying to him,
and that he must answer. Of that moon, of those stars, of that mighty city,
he would make one little stone that might be added to that Eternal Temple
of Beauty....

He turned from his window and thought of other things. He thought of his
father and Scaw House, of the windy day when his mother was buried, of Mr.
Zanti and Stephen's letter, of Herr Gottfried and his blue slippers, of
this house and its people, of the friendly girl and her grey eyes ...
finally, for a little, of himself--of his temper and his ambitions and his
selfishness. Here, indeed, suddenly jumping out at him, was the truth.

He felt, as he got into bed, that he would have to change a great deal if
he were to write that great book that he thought of: "Little Peter
Westcott," London seemed to say, "there's lots to be done to you first
before you're worth anything ... I'll batter at you."

Well, let it, he thought, sleepily. There was nothing that he would like
better. He tumbled into sleep, with London after him, and Fame in front of
him, and a soft and resonant murmur, as of a slumbering giant, rising to
his open window.




BOOK II

THE BOOKSHOP




CHAPTER I

"REUBEN HALLARD"


I

There is a story in an early volume of Henry Galleon's about a man who
caught--as he may have caught other sicknesses in his time--the disease of
the Terror of London. Eating his breakfast cheerfully in his luxurious
chambers in Mayfair, in the act of pouring his coffee out of his handsome
silver coffee-pot, he paused. It was the very slightest thing that held his
attention--the noise of the rumbling of the traffic down Piccadilly--but he
was startled and, on that morning, he left his breakfast unfinished. He
had, of course, heard that rumbling traffic on many other occasions--it may
be said to have been the musical accompaniment to his breakfast for many
years past. But on this morning it was different; as one has a headache
before scarlet fever so did this young man hear the rumble of the traffic
down Piccadilly. He listened to it very attentively, and it was, he told
himself, very like the noise of some huge animal breathing in its sleep.
There was a regularity, a monotony about it ... and also perhaps a sense
of great force, quiescent now and held in restraint. He was a very normal,
well-balanced young man and thoughts of this kind were unlike him.

Then he heard other things--the trees rustling in the park, bells ringing
on every side of him, builders knocking and hammering, windows rattling,
doors opening and shutting. In the Club one evening he confided in a
friend. "I say, it's damned funny--but what would you say to this old place
being alive, taking on a regular existence of its own, don't you know? You
might draw it--a great beast like some old alligator, all curled up, with
its teeth and things--making a noise a bit as it moves about ... and then,
one day when it's got us nicely all on top of it, down it will bring us
all, houses and the rest. Damned funny idea, what? Do for a cartoon-fellow
or some one--"

The disease developed; he had it very badly, but at first his friends did
not know. He lay awake at night hearing things--one heard much more at
night--sometimes he fancied that the ground shook under his feet--but most
terrible of all was it when there was perfect silence. The traffic ceased,
the trees and windows and doors were still ... the Creature was listening.
Sometimes he read in papers that buildings had suddenly collapsed. He
smiled to himself. "When we are all nicely gathered together," he said,
"when there are enough people ... then--"

His friends said that he had a nervous breakdown; they sent him to a
rest-cure. He came back. The Creature was fascinating--he was terrified,
but he could not leave it.

He knew more and more about it; he knew now what it was like, and he saw
its eyes and he sometimes could picture its grey scaly back with churches
and theatres and government buildings and the little houses of Mr. Smith
and Mr. Jones perched upon it--and the noises that it made now were so
many and so threatening that he never slept at all. Then he began to run,
shouting, down Piccadilly, so they put him--very reluctantly--into a nice
Private Asylum, and there he died, screaming. This story is a prologue to
Peter's life in London.... The story struck his fancy; he thought of it
sometimes.

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