How Dear Is Life

by Henry Williamson

  Mr. Hollis demurred. He said that he was not really competent to give advice. But he knew all about the case, insisted Mr. Thistlethwaite. It was rather complicated, said Mr. Hollis. Anyway, he wished him good luck. Phillip signed a receipt for a new £2,400 Domestic policy, made out to an Esquire, and waited quietly to give it to the tall top-hatted figure, who took it without glance or word, Mr. Thistlethwaite being too intent on watching Mr. Hollis’ brown, studious face.

  As soon as Mr. Thistlethwaite had gone out of the glass-panelled door, Mr. Hollis let fly with his real opinion.

  “Thistlethwaite’s a first-class bloody fool, Downham! How can the great ass fight the Metropolitan in the courts for wrongful dismissal, since they’ve given him the excuse of reorganisation and redundancy, and offered him six months’ screw? Well, I tried to tell the silly blighter many times, but he won’t listen. What the devil are you beaming at me for, young Maddison? Get on with your work, you look like one of your own stuffed birds, you horrible taxidermist, you!”

  Phillip had been unconscious of beaming at Mr. Hollis: he liked Mr. Hollis’ face, and was always interested in what he said. Mr. Hollis was already frowning over his own work, so he went on preparing his policy, after a glance at the clock. His time of leaving for Head Office first luncheon was ten minutes to twelve; he had to be back again by half-past.

  Downham left for his luncheon at a quarter-past twelve. He was supposed to be back by ten-past one, but he usually arrived back any time up to half-past one, the time when Mr. Howlett came down the leaden stairs, smoking his pipe; and, after an amiable word to Phillip, and smiling talk with Downham, went to his luncheon, usually at the London Tavern. Mr. Howlett’s time of returning, smoking the same pipe, was between a quarter to three and three o’clock.

  “Lazy blighter,” remarked Mr. Hollis once, to Phillip. “If I didn’t stir my stumps and do most of his work for him, this branch would have to close down.” Downham, on the other hand, never criticised Mr. Howlett, but treated him like a favourite uncle, always careful to call him ‘sir’.

  “Hollis is jealous of Howlett,” said Downham once, quietly, to Phillip, with a kind of satisfaction. The two were alone, Edgar having gone to a sandwich shop in Leadenhall Market for his twopenny meal—cheese sandwich and cup of Camp coffee. “Hollis likes to please himself, so Howlett gives him his head. On the other hand, Hollis thinks that Howlett ought to go out more after new business. I say, look at this! How dare you! Why in the name of all that’s not insane did you sign this endorsement like that?”

  Looking angry suddenly, Downham brought over two policies, both with printed change-of-address labels stuck on the back—notwithstanding anything herein contained to the contrary, it is hereby agreed and allowed that the Insured’s address shall be deemed to be as hereinunder stated. The first endorsement was signed by Phillip with an enormous scrawled signature six inches long, in letters an inch high. “Is this your idea of a joke?” He pointed to the second endorsement, signed with extreme neatness in minute letters barely one-eighth of an inch high, and three-quarters of an inch in length. The first policy was one of Mr. L. Dicks, the fish-and-chips smeller; the second for the neat Mr. J. Konigswinter.

  After Downham’s complaint, he put on a subdued expression and went on with his work. When Mr. Howlett came in, Downham showed him the two endorsements.

  “Look at this, sir, did you ever see such asinine behaviour?” Mr. Howlett appeared to be highly amused. “I’ve ticked him off, sir,” said Downham, in lowered voice.

  “I see,” replied Mr. Howlett, nodding to Phillip, as he went up the leaden stairs to his room. This was a dark place, being lit from the Lane outside only along the floor by the top arc of the bow window below. When Mr. Howlett was there, the electric light was always switched on.

  Mr. Hollis wrote three of the letters which had to be copied by Phillip every afternoon for Mr. Howlett’s one. All were in copying ink, from which an impression was taken when they were laid between damped flimsy sheets in the big leather-bound book and screwed down in the basement press. The letters were then taken out, and when dried, folded by Phillip and put in their envelopes, for Edgar to stamp. There were big sheets of penny and halfpenny stamps in Edgar’s drawer, which once a week Phillip was supposed to check.

  Downham sometimes wrote letters on the Branch Office writing paper, which Phillip copied. They were about his own insurances, for which he received the usual fifteen per cent commission. Mr. Hollis explained that members of the staff were not allowed to be agents for the Moon Fire Office; so they put them through Mr. Potts, of the Accident Department, on the top floor of Head Office. The Accident Department was a recent addition, and the clerks there were not on the staff, so they could be agents for fire business. The commissions on premiums therefore were paid through F. Potts, who obligingly signed the receipts.

  *

  One day Phillip had an ambition to write a letter on Branch Office paper, sign it, press it in the Copy Book, and have it stamped and posted by Edgar. He wrote to T. W. Turney, Esq., of Wespalaer, Hillside Road, Wakenham, Kent, beginning Dear Sir, and suggesting that he should transfer both business and domestic insurances to the Wine Vaults Branch of the above Office, at the same rates of premium as he paid now. He assumed that his present insurance was with a tariff company, and therefore the rate would be the same. But, added the writer, chuckling as he wrote, should it so happen that the firm of Messrs. Carter, Mallard & Turney, Ltd., was on the Black List of the Tariff Companies, then notwithstanding anything herein contained to the contrary, it was hereby understood and agreed that the offer was deemed to be cancelled.

  The letter was duly posted, and Phillip awaited results from his joke.

  They were not long in coming. Downham, who had gone to the basement to wash his hands, came leaping up the stairs again three at a time, Copy Book under an arm. He banged it down beside Phillip, who was making out a short-period policy for merchandise at the Free Trade Wharf.

  “You’ve done it this time, my wildfowling young Christian friend of a first-class bloody fool! What in the name of all that’s holy do you think you are doing?” At that moment the door above opened, as Mr. Howlett prepared to descend. “If this is your idea of a joke, Maddison, all I can say is that you’ve missed your vocation. You should be on the Halls! Here, Hollis, I leave you to deal with our comic genius!” He showed Mr. Hollis the copy of the letter.

  Mr. Hollis exploded. “Who in the name of the devil do you think you are? The Deputy Assistant Undeveloped Moon Calf of Wine Vaults Lane? And take that grin off your face, and that damned pen from behind your ear! What do you think this Office is? A basement bucket shop, run on half commission? And who the hell are you anyway to sign letters on behalf of the Branch?” The explosion ended abruptly: a smile broke over Mr. Hollis’ face as he said, “Don’t look at me like Tiny Tim Cratchit.”

  Almost eagerly Mr. Howlett was descending the leaden stairs to enjoy the latest perturbation of H. Fazackerley Hollis, of whose occasional criticisms of himself he was well aware. He regarded them with tolerance, since he fully appreciated his right-hand man’s ability and drive for new business. There was a difference of eight years in seniority between them.

  Downham placed the open Copy Book on the mahogany slab between Phillip’s desk and that of Mr. Hollis in the corner by the window. Then in his rich baritone voice, with its usual friendly deference whenever he was speaking to the manager, he read aloud the letter. Mr. Howlett listened, looking over Downham’s shoulder, while one wing of his high starched collar stuck in the loose fold of his neck, Phillip noticed. Mr. Howlett seemed to be amused.

  When he had finished reading, Downham turned to Phillip his lean rugger-red face (he played on Saturday afternoons for the Old Merchant Taylors’ first fifteen) and said with slight viciousness, “I don’t think this is at all funny! Do you want to let the Moon Fire Office in for an action for libel-in-trade? Really, you know sir——” he turned complainingly to Mr. Howlett, with an
addition of blandness to his tone. “This is the limit!” Then to Phillip, “Whatever made you do it? It’s like your damned cheek, to write a letter, on Office Paper, too! What is the idea?”

  “I thought it might get some new business.”

  Mr. Howlett, with a smile, had gone to the telephone. This was a single line only, to Head Office. He turned the ringing handle. “Give me the Town Department, will you?” he asked the exchange girl, quietly.

  Phillip felt his insides go black. Mr. Howlett was going to tell Father. So far, he had avoided Father at Head Office. He sat at his desk, listening to Mr. Howlett’s voice.

  “Hullo, is that you, Journend? I say, a little matter of territory has arisen. I wonder if you would confirm that Head Office is on the risk of Mallard, Carter & Turney, of Sparhawk Street, Holborn, manufacturing stationers and printers. Oh they are, are they? Yes, I thought so. What? Oh, is he? Ha ha ha! Oh, nothing, nothing. Most interesting! Oh no, I’ll explain sometime, when I see you. Goodbye.”

  He hung up the black trumpet-like receiver, and turned round with an amused expression on his face.

  “Oh that reminds me, Hollis,” he said. “Head Office has approved your idea that we should get Edgar here into uniform. I’ve arranged with Church the tailor, to get him measured up. Edgar,” said Mr. Howlett, turning to the boy in the corner, “Don’t you go and sprout up suddenly, whatever you do! You’re going to have a messenger’s livery specially made for you.”

  Edgar looked extremely pleased. He smoothed back his half-dry hair with a palm, then swung his legs on his chair, boots rubbing together as though enjoying this reward to the rest of the body.

  Mr. Hollis was writing rapidly. His pen scratched as it travelled decisively. With an extra spurt of scratching, he signed his name with a flourish. Phillip always knew when Mr. Hollis was endorsing a cheque, by the sound it made on paper, H. Fazackerley Hollis, followed by a swift squiggle underneath the name, like a whip cracking, or a snake striking, or a cock pheasant crowing at the moment it drummed its wings. Having signed his name, Mr. Hollis usually sniffed. He could not realise, Phillip thought, that he sniffed, for once he had jumped on him for doing the same thing.

  “We use handkerchiefs in this office,” he had said, shortly, and Phillip had felt inferior.

  Mr. Hollis finished his signature, sniffed, and then, deciding not to pretend indifference at his senior’s exasperating slowness any longer, demanded to know what Journend had said.

  “Oh that. As I thought, Mallard, Garter & Turney already have a policy with Head Office.”

  “I fail to see why that should be amusing,” retorted Mr. Hollis, thumping another cheque with the office rubber stamp, and endorsing it.

  Mr. Howlett came over to Phillip and said, softly, “That’s your grandfather’s firm, isn’t it, Maddison?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  An expression of pure pleasure crossed Mr. Howlett’s face. He turned to Mr. Hollis and said, “Apparently our young colleague was trying to get some new business. Maddison’s grandfather is chairman of the firm!”

  Mr. Hollis did not reply, but went on stamping and endorsing cheques until, suddenly looking up, he said in a terse voice, “In my opinion, Howlett, for what it is worth, of course, I think that you and I should continue to run this Branch as we did on lines approved and laid down before our young genius arrived.”

  With a wink, and sudden smile at Phillip, he said in a lowered, confidential voice, “By all means, Maddison, continue to get all the new business for the Branch that you can. If you care to ask me for advice on any point, I shall always be most pleased to give it, in so far as my limited experience of twenty-eight years in insurance, permits. Furthermore, and without equivocation, lest there be any possible doubt in the matter, I now state definitely that in all such matters you will come to me, as I am the Head Clerk here, Mr. Howlett is the Manager, Downham is your Immediate Senior, and you are still only a Bloody Boy!”

  Mr. Hollis said this in a very dry, comical manner, which made Phillip like him more than he did already.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hollis,” he said.

  “You see, my lad,” said Mr. Hollis, very quietly, “in this office we work as a team.”

  Shortly afterwards the door opened and a man slipped in, deferentially, and with a silent rapid movement closed the door behind him, as though it were his chief care that no cold air from outside should enter. He had a thin grey moustache, waxed to fine points, on a thin almost anxious face. He wore the usual yellow straw-hat and carried a leather bag in one hand.

  “Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Howlett, his eyes almost goggling with pleasure. “The very man I wanted to see! I am down to my last half-ounce!”

  Mr. Hollis looked up from the paying-in book, and said briskly to the newcomer, “A good day to you!”

  The newcomer hesitated a bare moment before opening his bag and putting on the counter, in two separate piles, a number of packets in lead-foil, each partly covered with the picture of a Jacobean horseman in gay colours.

  “There you are gentlemen! Sixteen one-ounce packets of ‘Hignett’s Cavalier’, as usual; thank you very much indeed.”

  Mr. Hollis produced a half-crown and fourpence; so did Mr. Howlett. Pocketing the money, the little man vanished as swiftly and silently as he had entered.

  Mr. Howlett and Mr. Hollis each took eight packages.

  “You haven’t yet come to the fragrant weed, I suppose, Maddison?” asked Mr. Howlett.

  “No, sir,” said Phillip, hoping that Downham would not say anything to make him feel ridiculous.

  “Plenty of time, my boy,” beamed Mr. Howlett, going up the stairs, his tobacco nursed in his arms; while Mr. Hollis, having made out the paying-in book, said to Phillip with a smile, “Here you are, you Mercantile Wonder. I suppose after what Mr. Howlett said to you just now, this Branch will soon be too small to hold you, what?” And handing over the cheques and postal-orders, Mr. Hollis gave Phillip’s forearm a friendly squeeze.

  Chapter 2

  A MAN OF MEANS

  THE DAY which he had been eagerly looking forward to came at last: half-quarter day. Many times he had imagined himself going to the grill of the cashier in the Westminster Bank, presenting his cheque, hearing the cashier say, “How would you like this?” as he had heard him ask others, while he waited to pay in the Branch’s money. Many times had he imagined the joy of being able to jingle golden sovereigns of his own in his pocket, as he walked across the Hill, later to show Mother and Mrs. Neville.

  This was the moment. His heart beat faster as Mr. Howlett came down the stairs with three pink cheques in his hand. He placed one on Phillip’s desk, saying, “Here you are, my boy,” and paused a moment to enjoy the light in his junior’s face.

  Phillip thanked him, before gazing at the magic piece of paper. Pay to Mr. P. S. T. Maddison the sum of Five pounds! Every stroke and curl of the letters of his name, the date of 6 May 1913, the signature of E. Rob Howlett, thin and twirly, the figure of £5 and the written words, the water-mark on the cheque, the myriads of little teeny-weeny lines of joined-up words thewestminsterbankthewestminsterbankthe right across and down the background of the pink paper—every detail was fresh, vivid, and wonderful. So was the moment when, having presented the cheque, he received a glance from the bald-headed cashier behind the grill and heard him say “How would you like this? Gold?”

  “Oh,” said Phillip, as he had rehearsed several times. “Three sovereigns, three half-sovereigns, and ten shillings in silver, please.”

  The gold was weighed on the polished copper scales, and then shovelled in a little copper shovel through the small hole. Three sovereigns, each with naked St. George on a rearing horse spiking the dragon; three smaller gold circles with milled edges; two half-crowns, one florin, two shillings, two sixpences—all new and bright. They jingled in his pocket, as he walked the few steps down the narrow Lane—just wide enough for one horse-dray loaded with crates of wine to pass at a time—away from the office. It wa
s a great moment. Five pounds, earned by himself, in his pocket!

  *

  The narrow gorge between the tall and sombre office buildings was now filled with light. Sooted blocks of stone, glass windows, even the boot-smoothed iron-grills above basement and cellar seemed to be insubstantial, to be dissolved in a dust of soft radiance from the sun standing high in the south-west over the street which was a fen when the Romans came, and still a fen when they had gone, to march no more through their walled city, by the old gate: the Aldgate beyond which, unthought of and unrealised by Phillip on that bright afternoon of a world that was accepted unconsciously as one that would exist as it was for evermore, in streets of tenements and dark courts and blackened slums lived ‘the insured’ of L. Dicks and J. Konigswinter and their like, to whom an annual premium of two shillings was a considerable sum of money, to be saved in pennies and ha’pennies, not all smelling of fish-and-chips—as Theodora Maddison, servant of the poor among whom she now lived, knew daily, almost hourly.

  *

  At Lunn’s the hatters in Fenchurch Street, Phillip bought a cork-lined silk hat for 12s. 6d. about twenty minutes later that afternoon; and the shop assistant, with delicate fingers, put his straw-yard in a cardboard box for him to carry home. Then he bowed Phillip out of the shop. A hundred yards or so from Mr. Lunn’s, was Daniel’s, the watch and clock shop on the corner of Gracechurch Street. There Phillip purchased a tenpenny ha’penny safety razor; a fourpenny ha’penny shaving brush with imitation badger-hair bound by painted string to a brown-painted wooden handle; a twopenny stick of shaving soap; a one-and-threepenny nickel silver watch-chain to replace the plaited horse-hair tether which great-uncle Charley Turney had given him at Beau Brickhill; and with his purchases, turned to the south, feet firm upon pavement and cobble, waiting for the moment of Mother’s face when he arrived home.

  Silk hat on the back of his head, in imitation of Mr. F. E. Smith in a cartoon, Phillip walked past the Monument and over London Bridge with an expression of inhibited superiority on his face, while inwardly thrilling at the sight of white fleecy clouds floating high in the blue sky. He carried his dark-grey raincoat folded on his arm; and entering No. 4 platform, sought an empty carriage, placed the new hat with great care upon the luggage rack, and opening The Globe, feet on cushions opposite, began to read. He had observed that several men who wore silk hats bought this evening paper. Very soon the paper was put aside, it was more interesting to look out of the window. Far away he heard the urgent clanging of the Fire Brigade bell.