Reginald Cruden by Talbot Baines Reed (free e novels .txt) 📕
Nevertheless, no one ever questioned the wealth of the Crudens, least of all did the Crudens themselves, who took it as much for granted as the atmosphere they breathed in.
On the day on which our story opens Mr Cruden had driven down into the City on business. No one knew exactly what the business was, for he kept such matters to himself. It was an ordinary expedition, which consisted usually of half a dozen calls on half a dozen stockbrokers or secretaries of companies, with perhaps an occasional visit to the family lawyer or the family bank.
To-day, however, it had consisted of but one visit, and that was to the bank. And it was whilst returning thence that Mr Cruden was suddenly seized with the stroke which ended in his death. Had immediate assistance been at hand the calamity might have been averted, but neither the coachman nor footman was aware of what had happened till the carriage was some distance on its homeward journey, and a passer-by caught sight of the senseless figure wi
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Tossing the broom unceremoniously into a corner, he opened the door and walked out of the room. Barber was already out of sight, chuckling inwardly over the delicious task he had been privileged to set to his dandy subordinate, and none of the men working near knew or cared what this pale, handsome new boy did either in or out of the back case-room.
Reginald walked through them to the passage outside, not much caring where he went or whom he met. If he were to meet Mr Barber, or Mr Durfy, or the manager himself, so much the better. As it happened, he met Horace, looking comparatively cheerful, with some papers in his hand.
“Hullo, Reg,” said he; “have they promoted you to a ‘printer’s devil’ too? Fancy what Bland would say if he saw us! Never mind, there’s four hours gone, and in about another six we shall be home with mother again.”
“I shall be home before then,” said Reg. “I’m going now. I can’t stand it, Horace.”
Horace stared at his brother in consternation.
“Oh, Reg, old man, you mustn’t; really you mustn’t. Do let’s stick together, however miserable it is. It’s sure to seem worse at first.”
“It’s all very well for you, Horace, doing messenger work. You haven’t been set to sweep out a room.”
Horace whistled.
“Whew! that is a drop too much! But,” he added, taking his brother’s arm, “don’t cut it yet, old man, for mother’s sake, don’t. I’ll come and help you do it if I can. Why couldn’t they have given it me to do, and let you go the messages!”
Reginald said nothing, but let his brother lead him back slowly to the big room presided over by Mr Durfy.
“Where is it?” Horace inquired of him at the door.
“That little room in the corner.”
“All right. I’ll come if I possibly can. Do try it, old man, won’t you?”
“I’ll try it,” said Reginald, with something very like a groan as he opened the door and walked grimly back to the back case-room.
Horace, full of fear and trembling on his brother’s account, hurried with his copy to Mr Durfy, and waited impatiently till that grandee condescended to relieve him of it.
“Is there anything else?” he inquired, as he gave it up.
“Anything else? Yes, plenty; but don’t come bothering me now.”
Horace waited for no more elaborate statement of Mr Durfy’s wishes, but thankfully withdrew, and made straight for Reginald.
He found him half hidden, half choked by the dust of his own raising, as he drew his broom in a spiritless way across the black dry floor.
He paused in his occupation as Horace entered, and for a moment, as the two stood face to face coughing and sneezing, a sense of the ludicrous overcame them, and they finished up their duet with a laugh.
“I say,” said Horace, as soon as he could get words, “I fancy a little water would be an improvement here.”
“Where are we to get it from?” said Reg.
“I suppose there must be some about. Shall I go and see?”
“We might tip one of those fellows outside a sixpence to go and get us some.”
“Hold hard, old man!” said Horace, laughing again. “We’re not so flush of sixpences as all that. I guess if we want any water we shall have to get it ourselves. I’ll be back directly.”
Poor Reg, spirited up for a while by his brother’s courage, proceeded more gingerly with his sweeping, much amazed in the midst of his misery to discover how many walks in life there are beyond the capacity even of the captain of the fifth of a public school.
He was not, however, destined on the present occasion to perfect himself in the one that was then engaging his attention. Horace had scarcely disappeared in quest of water when the door opened, and no less a personage than the manager himself entered the room.
He was evidently prepared neither for the dust nor the duster, and started back for a moment, as though he were under the impression that the clouds filling the apartment were clouds of smoke, and Reginald was another Guy Fawkes caught in the act. He recovered himself shortly, however, and demanded sharply,—
“What are you doing here, making all this mess?”
“I’m trying to carry out Mr Durfy’s instructions,” replied Reginald, leaning on his broom, and not at all displeased at the interruption.
“Durfy’s instructions? What do you mean, sir?”
“Mr Durfy’s—”
“That will do. Here you,” said the manager, opening the door, and speaking to the nearest workman, “tell Mr Durfy to step here.”
Mr Durfy appeared in a very brief space.
“Durfy,” said the manager, wrathfully, “what do you mean by having this room in such a filthy mess? Aren’t your instructions to have it swept out once a week? When was it swept last?”
“Some little time ago. We’ve been so busy in our department, sir, that—”
“Yes, I know; you always say that. I’m sick of hearing it. Don’t let me find this sort of thing again. Send some one at once to sweep it out; this lad doesn’t know how to hold a broom. Take care it’s done by four o’clock, and ready for use. Pheugh! it’s enough to choke one.”
And the manager went off in a rage, coughing.
Satisfactory as this was, in a certain sense, for Reginald, it was not a flattering way of ending his difficulties, nor did the spirit in which Mr Durfy accepted his chief’s reprimand at all tend to restore him to cheerfulness.
“Bah, you miserable idiot, you! Give up that broom, and get out of this, or I’ll chuck you out.”
“I don’t think you will,” said Reginald, coolly dropping the broom and facing his enemy.
He was happier at that moment than he had been for a long time. He could imagine himself back at Wilderham, with the school bully shouting at him, and his spirits rose within him accordingly.
“What do you say? you hugger-mugger puppy you—you—”
Mr Durfy’s adjectives frequently had the merit of being more forcible than appropriate, and on the present occasion, what with the dust and his own rage, the one he wanted stuck in his throat altogether.
“I said I don’t think you will,” repeated Reginald.
Mr Durfy looked at his man and hesitated. Reginald stood five foot nine, and his shoulders were square and broad, besides, he was as cool as a cucumber, and didn’t even trouble to take his hands out of his pockets. All this Mr Durfy took in, and did not relish; but he must not cave in too precipitately, so he replied, with a sneer,—
“Think! A lot you know about thinking! Can’t even hold a broom. Clear out of here, I tell you, double quick; do you hear?”
Reginald’s spirits fell. It was clear from Mr Durfy’s tone he was not going to attempt to “chuck him out,” and nothing therefore could be gained by remaining.
He turned scornfully on his heel, knowing that he had made one enemy, at any rate, during his short connection with his new business.
And if he had known all, he could have counted two; for Mr Durfy, finding himself in a mood to wreak his wrath on some one, summoned the ill-favoured Barber to sweep out the back case-room, and gave his orders so viciously that Barber felt distinctly aggrieved, and jumping to the conclusion that Reginald had somehow contrived to turn the tables on him, he registered a secret vow, there and then, that he would on the first opportunity, and on all subsequent opportunities, be square with that luckless youth.
Caring very little about who hated him or who liked him, Reginald wandered forth, to intercept the faithful Horace with the now unnecessary water; and the two boys, finding very little to occupy them during the rest of the day, remained in comparative seclusion until the seven o’clock bell rang, when they walked home, possibly wiser, and certainly sadder, for their first day with the Rocket Newspaper Company, Limited.
If anything could have made up to the two boys for the hardships and miseries of the day, it was the sight of their mother’s bright face as she awaited them that evening at the door of Number 6, Dull Street. If the day had been a sad and lonely one for Mrs Cruden, she was not the woman to betray the secret to her sons; and, indeed, the happiness of seeing them back was enough to drive away all other care for the time being.
Shabby as the lodgings were, and lacking in all the comforts and luxuries of former days, the little family felt that evening, as they gathered round the tea-table and unburdened their hearts to one another, more of the true meaning of the word “home” than they had ever done before.
“Now, dear boys,” said Mrs Cruden, when the meal was over, and they drew their chairs to the open window, “I’m longing to hear your day’s adventures. How did you get on? Was it as bad as you expected?”
“It wasn’t particularly jolly,” said Reginald, shrugging his shoulders—“nothing like Wilderham, was it, Horrors?”
“Well, it was a different sort of fun, certainly,” said Horace. “You see, mother, our education has been rather neglected in some things, so we didn’t get on as well as we might have done.”
“Do you mean in the literary work?” said Mrs Cruden. “I’m quite sure you’ll get into it with a little practice.”
“But it’s not the literary work, unluckily,” said Reginald.
“Ah! you mean clerk’s work. You aren’t as quick at figures, perhaps, as you might be?”
“That’s not exactly it,” said Horace. “The fact is, mother, we’re neither in the literary not the clerical department. I’m a ‘printer’s devil’!”
“Oh, Horace! what do you mean?” said the horrified mother.
“Oh, I’m most innocently employed. I run messages; I fetch and carry for a gentleman called Durfy. He gives me some parliamentary news to carry to one place, and some police news to carry to another place—and, by-the-way, they read very much alike—and when I’m not running backwards or forwards I have to sit on a stool and watch him, and be ready to jump up and wag my tail the moment he whistles. It’s a fact, mother! Think of getting eighteen shillings a week for that! It’s a fraud!”
Mrs Cruden could hardly tell whether to laugh or cry.
“My poor boy!” she murmured; then, turning to Reginald, she said, “And what do you do, Reg?”
“Oh, I sweep rooms,” said Reg, solemnly; “but they’ve got such a shocking bad broom there that I can’t make it act. If you could give me a new broom-head, mother, and put me up to a dodge or two about working out corners, I might rise in my profession!”
There was a tell-tale quaver in the speaker’s voice which made this jaunty speech a very sad one to the mother’s ears. It was all she could do to conceal her misery, and when Horace came to the rescue with a racy account of the day’s proceedings, told in his liveliest manner, she was glad to turn her head and hide from her boys the trouble in her face.
However, she soon recovered herself, and by the time Horace’s story was done she was ready to join her smiles with those which the history had drawn even from Reginald’s serious countenance.
“After all,” said she, presently, “we must be thankful for what we have. Some one was saying the other day there never was a time when so many young fellows were out of work and thankful to get anything to do. And it’s very likely too, Reg, that just now, when they seem rather in confusion at the office, they really haven’t time to see about what your
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