James Boswell - "Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica"

Belle K. Maniates - "Amarilly of Clothes line Alley"

Sabine Baring Gould - "Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe"

Richard F. Burton - "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7"

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





II

On a late stormy afternoon in November, 1895, Peter finished his book,
"Reuben Hallard." It had been raining all day, and now the windows were
blurred and the sea of shining roofs that stretched into the mist
emphasised the dark and gloom of the heavy overhanging sky.

Peter's little room was very cold, but his body was burning--he was
in a state of overpowering excitement; his hands trembled so that he
could scarcely hold his pen ... "So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a
gentleman"--and then "Finis" with a hard straight line underneath it.... He
had been working at it for three years, and he had been in London seven.

He walked up and down his little room, he was so hot that he flung up his
window and leaned out and let the rain, that was coming down fiercely now,
lash his face. Mud! London was full of mud. He could see it, he fancied,
gathering in thick brown layers upon the pavement, shining and glistening
as it mounted, slipping in streams into the gutter, sweeping about the
foundations of the houses, climbing perhaps, one day, to the very windows.
That was London. And yet he loved it, London and its dirt and darkness.
Had he not written "Reuben Hallard" here! Had the place not taken him into
its arms, given him books and leisure out of its hospitality, treated him
kindly during these years so that they had fled like an instant of time,
and here he was, Peter Westcott, aged twenty-five, with a book written,
four friends made, and the best health possible to man. The book was
"Reuben Hallard," the friends were Mrs. Brockett, Mr. Zanti, Herr
Gottfried, and Norah Monogue, and for his health one had only to look at
him!

"So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a gentleman!" His excitement was
tremendous; his cheeks were flaming, his eyes glittering, his heart
beating. Here was a book written!--so many pages covered with so much
writing, his claim to be somebody, to have done something, justified
and, most wonderful of all, live, exciting people created by him, Peter
Westcott. He did not think now of publication, of money, of fame--only,
after sharing for three years in the trials and adventures of dear, beloved
souls, now, suddenly, he emerged cold, breathless ... alone ... into the
world again.

Exciting! Why, furiously, of course. He could have sung and shouted and
walked, right over the tops of the roofs, with the rain beating and cooling
his body, out into the mist of the horizon. _His_ book, "Reuben Hallard!"
London was swimming in thick brown mud, and the four lamps coming out in
Bennett Square in a dim, sickly fashion and he, Peter Westcott, had written
a book....

The Signor--the same Signor, some seven years older, a little shabbier, but
nevertheless the same Signor--came to summon him to supper.

"I have finished it!"

"What! The book?"

"Yes!"

Their voices were awed whispers. The whole house had during the last three
years shared in the fortunes of the book. Peter had come to dinner with a
cloud upon his brow--the book therefore has gone badly--even Mrs. Brockett
is disturbed and Mrs. Lazarus is less chirpy than usual. Peter comes
to dinner with a smile--the book therefore has gone well and even Mrs.
Monogue is a little less selfish than ordinary. The Signor now gazed round
the little room as though he might find there the secret of so great an
achievement. On Peter's dressing-table the manuscript was piled--"You'll
miss it," the Signor said, gloomily. "You'll miss it very much--you're
bound to. You'll have to get it typewritten, and that'll cost money."

"Never mind, it's done," said Peter, shaking his head as a dog shakes
himself when he leaves the water. "There they are, those people--and now
I'm going to wash."

He stripped to the waist, and the Signor watched his broad back and strong
arms with a sigh for his own feeble proportions. He wondered how it was
that being in a stuffy bookshop for seven years had done Peter no harm, he
wondered how he could keep the back of his neck so brown as that in London
and his cheeks as healthy a colour and his eyes as clear.

"I'm amazingly unpleasant to look at," the Signor said at last. "I often
wonder why my wife married me. I'm not surprised that every one finds me
uninteresting. I am uninteresting."

"Well, you are not uninteresting to me, I can tell you," said Peter. He had
put on a soft white shirt, a black tie, and a black coat and trousers, the
last of these a little shiny perhaps in places, but neat and well brushed,
and you would really not guess when you saw him, that he only possessed two
suits in the wide world.

"_I_ think you're absorbing," Peter said, a little patronisingly perhaps.

"Ah, that proves nothing," the Signer retorted. "You only care for fools
and children--Mrs. Brockett always says so."

They went downstairs--Peter was, of course, not hungry at all, but the
conventions had to be observed. In the sitting-room, round about the green
settee, the company was waiting as it had waited seven years ago; there
were one or two unimportant additions and Mrs. Monogue had died the year
before and Mrs. Lazarus was now very old and trembling, but in effect there
was very little change.

"He has finished it," the Signor announced in a wondering whisper. A little
buzz rose, filled the air for a moment and then sank into silence again.
Mrs. Lazarus was without her orange because she had to wear mittens now,
and that made peeling the thing difficult. "I'm sure," she said, in a voice
like that of a very excited cricket, "that Mr. Westcott will feel better
after he's had something to eat. _I_ always do."

This remark left conversation at a standstill. The rain drove against
the panes, the mud rose ever higher against the walls, and dinner was
announced. Mrs. Brockett made her remarks to each member of the company
in turn as usual. To Peter she said:

"I hear that you have finished your book, Mr. Westcott. We shall all watch
eagerly for its appearance, I'm sure."

He felt his excitement slipping away from him as the moments passed.
Suddenly he was tired. Instead of elation there was wonder, doubt. What if,
after all, the book should be very bad? During all these years in London he
had thought of it, during all these years he had known that it was going to
succeed. What, if now he should discover suddenly that it was bad?... Could
he endure it? The people of his book seemed now to stand very far away from
him--they were unreal--he could remember scenes, things that they had said
and done, absurd, ignorant things.

He began to feel panic. Why should he imagine that he was able to write?
Of course it was all crude, worthless stuff. He looked at the dingy white
pillars and heavy green curtains with a kind of despair ... of course it
was all bad. He had been hypnotised by the thing for the time being. Then
he caught Norah Monogue's eyes and smiled. He would show it to her, and she
would tell him what it was worth.

Poor Mrs. Tressiter's baby had died last week and now, suddenly, she
burst out crying and had to leave the room. There was a little twitter of
sympathy. How good they all were to one another, these people, stupid and
odd perhaps in some ways, but so brave for themselves and so generous to
one another. It was no mean gathering of souls that Mrs. Brockett's dingy
gas illuminated.

Every now and again the heavy curtains blew forward in the wind and the gas
flared. There was no conversation, and the wind could be heard driving the
rain past the windows.


III

Peter, that evening, took the manuscript of "Reuben Hallard" into Miss
Monogue's room. Since her mother died Norah Monogue had had a bed
sitting-room to herself. The bed was hidden by a high screen, the wall
paper was a dark green, and low bookshelves, painted white, ran round the
room. There were no pictures (she always said that until she could have
good ones she wouldn't have any at all). There were some brown pots and
vases on the shelves and a writing-table with a typewriter by the window.

When Peter came in, Norah Monogue was sitting in a low chair over a rather
miserable fire; a little pool of light above her head came from two candles
on the mantelpiece--otherwise the room was in darkness.

"Shall I turn on the gas?" she said, when she saw who it was.

"No, leave it as it is, I like it." He sat down in a chair near her and put
a pile of manuscript on the floor beside him. "I've brought it for you to
read," he said, "I'm frightened about it. I suddenly think it is the most
rotten thing that ever was written." He had become very intimate with her
during these seven years. At first he had admired her because she behaved
so splendidly to her abominable mother--then she had obviously been
interested in him, had talked about the things that he was reading and his
life at the bookshop. They had speedily become the very best of friends,
and she understood friendship he thought in the right way--as though she
had herself been a man. And yet she was with that completely feminine, a
woman who had known struggle from the beginning and would know it to the
end; but her personality--humorous, pathetic, understanding--was felt in
her presence so strongly that no one ever forgot her after meeting her.
Some one once said of her, "She's the nicest ugly woman to look at I've
ever seen."

She cared immensely about her appearance. She saved, through blood and
tears, to buy clothes and then always bought the wrong ones. She had
perfect taste about everything except herself, and as soon as it touched
her it was villainous. She was untidy; her hair--streaked already with
grey--was never in its place; her dress was generally undone at the back,
her gloves had holes.

Her mother's death had left her some fifty pounds a year and she earned
another fifty pounds by typewriting. Untidy in everything else, in her work
she was scrupulously neat. She had had a story taken by _The Green Volume_.
Her friends belonged (as indeed just at this time so many people belonged)
to the Cult of the Lily, repeated the witticisms of Oscar Wilde and
treasured the art of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Miss Monogue believed in the
movement and rejected the affectations. In 1895, when the reaction began,
she defended her old giants, but looked forward eagerly to new ones. She
worked too hard to have very many friends, and Peter saved her from hours
of loneliness. To him she was the last word in Criticism, in Literature. He
would have liked to have fashioned "Reuben Hallard" after the manner of
_The Green Volume_, but now thought sadly that it was as unlike that manner
as possible; that is why he was afraid to bring it to her.

"You won't like it," he said. "I thought for a moment I had done something
fine when I finished it this afternoon, but now I know that it's bad. It's
all rough and crude. It's terribly disappointing."

"That's all right," she answered quietly. "We won't say any more about it
until I have read it--then we'll talk."

They were silent for a little. He was feeling unhappy and, curiously
enough, frightened. He would have liked to jump up suddenly and shout,
"Well, what's going to happen now?"--not only to Norah Monogue, but to
London, to all the world. The work at the book had, during these years,
upheld him with a sense of purpose and aim. Now, feeling that that work was
bad, his aim seemed wasted, his purpose gone. Here were seven years gone
and he had done nothing--seen nothing, become nothing. What was his future
to be? Where was he to go? What to do? He had reasoned blindly to himself
during these years, that "Reuben Hallard" would make his fortune--now that
seemed the very last thing it would do.

"I knew what you're feeling," she said, "now that the book's done, you're
wondering what's coming next."

"It's more than that. I've been in London seven years. Instead of writing a
novel that no one will want to read I might have been getting my foot in. I
might at any rate have been learning London, finding my way about. Why," he
went on, excitedly, "do you know that, except for a walk or two and going
into the gallery at Covent Garden once or twice and the Proms sometimes and
meeting some people at Herr Gottfried's once or twice I've spent the whole
of my seven years between here and the bookshop--"

"You mustn't worry about that. It was quite the right thing to do. You must
remember that there are two ways of learning things. First through all that
every one has written, then through all that every one is doing. Up to now
you've been studying the first of those two. Now you're ready to take part
in all the hurly-burly, and you will. London will fling you into it as soon
as you're ready, you can be sure."

"I've been awfully happy all this time," he went on, reflectively. "Too
happy I expect. I never thought about anything except reading and writing
the book, and talking to you and Gottfried. Now things will begin I
suppose."

"What kind of things?"

"Oh, well, it isn't likely that I'm going to be let alone for ever. I've
never told you, have I, about my life before I came up to London?"

She hesitated a little before she answered. "No, you've never told me
anything. I could see, of course, that it hadn't been easy."

"How could you see that?"

"Well, it hadn't been easy for either of us. That made us friends. And then
you don't look like a person who would take things easily--ever. Tell me
about your early life before you came here," Norah Monogue said.

She watched his face as he told her. She had found him exceedingly good
company during the seven years that she had known him. They had slipped
into their friendship so easily and so naturally that she had never taken
herself to task about it in any way; it existed as a very delightful
accompaniment to the day's worries and disappointments. She suddenly
realised now with a little surprised shock how bitterly she would miss it
all were it to cease. In the darkened room, with the storm blowing outside,
she felt her loneliness with an acute wave of emotion and self-pity that
was very unlike her. If Peter were to go, she felt, she could scarcely
endure to live on in the dreary building.

Part of his charm from the beginning had been that he was so astoundingly
young, part of his interest that he could be, at times, so amazingly old.
She felt that she herself could be equal neither to his youth nor his
age. She was herself so ordinary a person, but watching him made the most
fascinating occupation, and speculating over his future made the most
wonderful dreams. That he was a personality, that he might do anything, she
had always believed, but there had, until now, been no proof of it in any
work that he had done ... he had had nothing to show ... now at last there
lay there, with her in the room, the evidence of her belief--his book.

But the book seemed now, at this moment, of small account and, as she
watched him, with the candle-light and the last flicker of the fire-light
upon his face, she saw that he had forgotten her and was back again, soul
and spirit, amongst the things of which he was speaking.

His voice was low and monotonous, his eyes staring straight in front of
him, his hands, spread on his knees, gripped the cloth of his trousers.
She would not admit to herself that she was frightened, but her heart was
beating very fast and it was as though some stranger were with her in the
room. It may have been the effect of the candlelight, blowing now in the
wind that came through the cracks in the window panes, but it seemed to her
that Peter's face was changed. His face had lines that had not been there
before, his mouth was thinner and harder and his eyes were old and tired
... she had never seen the man before, that was her impression.

But she had never known anything so vivid. Quietly, as though he were
reciting the story to himself and were not sure whether he were telling it
aloud or no, he began. As he continued she could see the place as though it
was there with her in the room, the little Inn that ran out into the water,
the high-cobbled street, the sea road, the grim stone house standing back
amongst its belt of trees, the Grey Hill, the coast, the fields ... and
then the story--the night of the fight, the beating, the school-days, that
day with his mother (here he gave her actual dialogue as though there
was no word of it that he had forgotten), the funeral--and then at last,
gradually, climbing to its climax breathlessly, the relation of father and
son, its hatred, then its degradation, and last of all that ludicrous scene
in the early morning ... he told her everything.

When he had finished, there was a long silence between them: the fire was
out and the room very cold. The storm had fallen now in a fury about the
house, and the rain lashed the windows and then fell in gurgling stuttering
torrents through the pipes and along the leads. Miss Monogue could not
move; the scene, the place, the incidents were slowly fading away, and the
room slowly coming back again. The face opposite her, also, gradually
seemed to drop, as though it had been a mask, the expression that it had
worn. Peter Westcott, the Peter that she knew, sat before her again; she
could have believed as she looked at him, that the impressions of the last
half-hour had been entirely false. And yet the things that he had told her
were not altogether a surprise; she had not known him for seven years
without seeing signs of some other temper and spirit--controlled indeed,
but nevertheless there, and very different from the pleasant, happy Peter
who played with the Tressiter children and dared to chaff Mrs. Brockett.

"You've paid me a great compliment, telling me this," she said at last.
"Remember we're friends; you've proved that we are by coming like this
to-night. I shan't forget it. At any rate," she added, softly, "it's all
right now, Peter--it's all over now."

"Over! No, indeed," he answered her. "Do you suppose that one can grow up
like that and then shake it off? Sometimes I think ... I'm afraid ..." he
stopped, abruptly biting his lips. "Oh, well," he went on suddenly in a
brighter tone, "there's no need to bother you with all that. It's nothing.
I'm a bit done up over this book, I expect. But that's really why I told
you that little piece of autobiography--because it will help you to
understand the book. The book's come out of all that, and you mightn't have
believed that it was me at all--unless I'd told you these things."

He stood facing her and a sudden awkwardness came over both of them. The
fire was dead (save for one red coal), and the windows rattled like
pistol-shots. He was feeling perhaps that he had told her too much, and the
reserve of his age, the fear of being indiscreet, had come upon him. And
with her there was the difficulty of not knowing exactly what comfort it
was that he wanted, or whether, indeed, any kind of comfort would not be an
insult to him. And, with all that awkwardness, there was also a knowledge
that they had never been so near together before, an intimacy had been
established that night that would never again be broken.

Into their silence there came a knock on the door. When Miss Monogue opened
it the stern figure of Mrs. Brockett confronted her.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Monogue, but is Mr. Westcott here?"

Peter stepped forward.

"Oh, I'm sure I'm sorry to have to disturb you, Mr. Westcott, but there's a
man outside on the steps who insists on seeing you."

"Seeing me?"

"Yes--he won't come in or go away. He won't move until he's seen you. Very
obstinate I'm sure--and such a night! Rather late, too--"

Mrs. Brockett was obviously displeased. Her tall black figure was drawn up
outside the door, as a sentry might guard Buckingham Palace. There was a
confusion of regality, displeasure, and grim humour in her attitude. But
Peter was a favourite of hers. With a hurried goodnight to Miss Monogue he
left the two women standing on the stairs and went to the hall-door.

When he opened it the wind was blowing up the steps so furiously that it
flung him back into the hall again. Outside in the square the world was a
wild tempestuous black, only, a little to the right, the feeble glow of the
lamp blew hither and thither in the wind. The rain had stopped but all the
pipes and funnels of the city were roaring with water. The noise was that
of a thousand chattering voices, and very faintly through the tumult the
bells of St. Matthews in Euston Square tinkled the hour.

On the steps a figure was standing bending beneath the wind. The light from
the hall shone out on to the black slabs of stone, bright with the shining
rain, but his cape covered the man's head. Nevertheless Peter knew at once
who it was.

"Stephen," he said, quietly.

The hall door was flung to with a crash; the wind hurled Peter against
Stephen's body.

"At last! Oh, Stephen! Why didn't you come before?"

"I couldn't, Master Peter. I oughtn't to of come now, but I 'ad to see yer
face a minute. Not more than a minute though--"

"But you must come in now, and get dry things on at once. I'll see Mrs.
Brockett, she'll get you a room. I'm not going to let you go now that--"

"No, Master Peter, I can't stop. I mustn't. I 'aven't been so far away all
this time as you might have thought. But I mustn't see yer unless I can be
of use to yer. And that's what I've come about."

He pressed close up to Peter, held both his hands in his and said: "Look
'ere, Peter boy, yer may be wanting me soon--no, I can't say more than
that. But I want yer--to be on the look-out. Down there at the bookshop
be ready, and then if any sort o' thing should 'appen down along--why I'm
there, d'ye see? I'll be with yer when you want me--"

"Well, but Stephen, what do you mean? What _could_ happen? Anyhow you
mustn't go now, like this. I won't let you go--"

"Ah, but I must now--I must. Maybe we shall be meeting soon enough. Only
I'm there, boy, if yer wants me. And--keep yer eye open--"

In an instant that warm pressure of the hand was gone; the darker black of
Stephen's body no longer silhouetted against the lighter black of the night
sky.

Still in Peter's nose there was that scent of wet clothes and the deep,
husky voice was in his ears. But, save for the faint yellow flickering
lamp, struggling against the tempest, he was alone in the square.

The rain had begun to fall again.




CHAPTER II

THE MAN ON THE LION


I

After the storm, the Fog.

It came, a yellow, shrouded witch down upon the town, clinging, choking,
writhing, and bringing in its train a thousand mysteries, a thousand
visions. It was many years since so dense and cruel a fog had startled
London--in his seven years' experience of the place Peter had known
nothing like it, and his mind flew back to that afternoon of his arrival,
seven years before, and it seemed to him that he was now moving straight on
from that point and that there had been no intervening period at all. The
Signer saw in a fog as a cat sees in the dark, and he led Peter to the
bookshop without hesitation. He saw a good many other things beside his
immediate direction and became comparatively cheerful and happy.

"It is such a good thing that people can't see me," he said. "It relieves
one of a lot of responsibility if one's plain to look at--one can act more
freely." Certainly the Signor acted with very considerable freedom, darting
off suddenly into the fog, apparently with the intention of speaking to
some one, and leaving Peter perfectly helpless and then suddenly darting
back again, catching Peter in tow and tugging him forward once more.

To the bookshop itself the fog made very little difference. There were
always the gas-jets burning over the two dark corners and the top shelves
even in the brightest of weather, were mistily shrouded by dust and
distance. The fog indeed seemed to bring the books out and, whilst the
world outside was so dark, the little shop flickered away under the
gas-jets with little spasmodic leaps into light and colour when the door
opened and blew the quivering flame.

It was not of the books that Peter was thinking this morning. He sat
at a little desk in one dark corner under one of the gas-jets, and Herr
Gottfried, huddled up as usual, with his hair sticking out above the desk
like a mop, sat under the other; an old brass clock, perched on a heap of
books, ticked away the minutes. Otherwise there was silence save when a
customer entered, bringing with him a trail of fog, or some one who was not
a customer passed solemnly, seriously through to the rooms beyond. The shop
was, of course, full of fog, and the books seemed to form into lines and
rows and curves in and out amongst the shelves of their own accord.

Peter meanwhile was most intently thinking. He knew as though he had seen
it written down in large black letters in front of him, that a period was
shortly to be put to his present occupation, but he could not have said how
it was that he knew. The finishing of his book left the way clear for a
number of things to attack his mind. Here in this misty shop he was beset
with questions. Why was he here at all? Had he during these seven years
been of such value, that the shop could not get on without him?... To that
second question he must certainly answer, no. Why then had Mr. Zanti kept
him all this time? Surely because Mr. Zanti was fond of him. Yes, that
undoubtedly was a part of the reason. The relationship, all this time, had
grown very strong and it was only now, when he set himself seriously to
think about it, that he realised how glad he always was when Mr. Zanti
returned from his travels and how happy he had been when it had been
possible for them to spend an afternoon together. Yes, Mr. Zanti was
attached to him; he had often said that he looked upon him as a son, and
sometimes it seemed to Peter that the strange man was about to make some
declaration, something that would clear the air, and explain the world--but
he never did.

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