by George Moore
That’s 54 again, one of the maids called from the end of the passage, and when Albert had received 54’s order and executed it, she returned to her seat in the passage, her napkin over her shoulder, and resumed her reverie. It seemed to her that Hubert had mentioned that her wife was a milliner; she may not have spoken the word milliner, but if she hadn’t, it was strange that the word should keep on coming up in her mind. There was no reason why the wife shouldn’t be a milliner, and if that were so it was as likely as not they owned a house in some quiet, insignificant street, letting the diningroom, back room and kitchen to a widow or to a pair of widows. The drawing-room was the workroom and showroom; Page and his wife slept in the room above. On second thought it seemed to Albert that if the business were millinery it might be that Mrs Page would prefer the ground floor for her showroom. A third and fourth distribution of the rooms presented itself to Albert’s imagination. On thinking the matter over again it seemed to her that Hubert had not spoken of a millinery business; that was a mistake; she had said her wife was a seamstress. Now if that were so, a small dressmaker’s business in a quiet street would be in keeping with all Hubert said about the home. Albert was not sure, however, that if she found a girl willing to share her life with her, it would be a seamstress’s business she would be on the look-out for. She thought that a sweetmeat shop, newspapers and tobacco would be her choice.
Why shouldn’t she make a fresh start? Hubert had foreseen no difficulties. She had said — Albert could recall the very words — I didn’t mean you should marry a man, but a girl. She had saved, oh! how she had tried to save, for she didn’t wish to end her days in the workhouse. She had saved upwards of five hundred pounds, which was quite enough to purchase a little business, and her heart dilated as she thought of her two successful investments in house property. In six months’ time she hoped to have six hundred pounds, and if it took her two years to find a partner and a business, she would have at least seventy or eighty pounds more, which would be a great help, for it would be a mistake to put one’s money into a falling business. If she found a partner! she’d have to do like Hubert; for marriage would put a stop to all tittle-tattle; she’d be able to keep her place at Morrison’s Hotel, or perhaps leave Morrison’s and rely on jobs; and with her connection it would be a case of picking and choosing the best: ten and sixpence a night, nothing under. She dreamed of a round. Belfast, Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford rose up in her imagination, and after a month’s absence, a couple of months maybe, she would return home, her heart anticipating a welcome — a real welcome, for though she would continue to be a man to the world, she would be a woman to the dear one at home. With a real partner, one whose heart was in the business, they might make as much as two hundred pounds a year — four pounds a week! And with four pounds a week their home would be as pretty and happy as any in the city of Dublin. Two rooms and a kitchen were what she foresaw. The furniture began to creep into her imagination little by little. A large sofa by the fireplace covered with a chintz! But chintz dirtied quickly in the city; a dark velvet sofa might be more suitable. It would cost a great deal of money, five or six pounds; and at that rate fifty pounds wouldn’t go very far, for they must have a fine doublebed mattress; and if they were going to do things in that style, the home would cost them eighty pounds. With luck these eighty pounds could be earned within the next two years at Morrison’s Hotel.
Albert ran over in her mind the tips she had received: the people in 34 were leaving to-morrow. They were always good for half-a-sovereign, and she decided there and then that to-morrow’s half sovereign must be put aside as a beginning of a sum of money for the purchase of a clock to stand on a marble chimney-piece or a mahogany chiffonier. A few days after she got a sovereign from a departing guest, and it revealed a pair of pretty candlesticks and a round mirror. Her tips were no longer mere white and yellow metal stamped with the effigy of a dead king or a living queen, but symbols of the future life that awaited her. An unexpected crown set her pondering on the colour of the curtains in their sitting-room, and Albert became suddenly conscious that a change had come into her life: the show was the same — carrying plates and dishes upstairs and downstairs, and taking orders for drinks and cigars; but behind the show a new life was springing up — a life strangely personal and associated with the life without only in this much, that the life without was now a vassal state paying tribute to the life within. She wasn’t as good a servant as heretofore. She knew it. Certain absences of mind, that was all; and the servants as they went by with their dusters began to wonder whatever Albert could be dreaming of.
It was about this time that the furnishing of the parlour at the back of the shop was completed, likewise that of the bedroom above the shop, and Albert had just entered on another dream — a dream of a shop with two counters, one at which cigars, tobacco, pipes and matches were sold, and at the other all kinds of sweetmeats, a shop with a door leading to her wife’s parlour. A changing figure the wife was in Albert’s imagination, turning from fair to dark, from plump to slender, but capturing her imagination equally in all her changes; sometimes she was accompanied by a child of three or four, a boy, the son of a dead man, for in one of her dreams Albert married a widow. In another and more frequent dream she married a woman who had transgressed the moral code and been deserted before the birth of her child. In this case it would be supposed that Albert had done the right thing, for after leading the girl astray he had made an honest woman of her. Albert would be the father in everybody’s eyes except the mother’s, and she hoped that the child’s mother would outgrow all the memory of the accidental seed sown, as the saying runs, in a foolish five minutes.
A child would be a pleasure to them both, and a girl in the family way appealed to her more than a widow; a girl that some soldier, the boot-boy or the hotel porter had gotten into trouble; and Albert kept her eyes and ears open, hoping to rescue from her precarious situation one of those unhappy girls that were always cropping up in Morrison’s Hotel. Several had had to leave the hotel last year but not one this year. But some revivalist meetings were going to be held in Dublin. Many of our girls attend them, and an unlucky girl will be in luck’s way if we should run across one another. Her thoughts passed into a dream of the babe that would come into the world some three or four months after their marriage, her little soft hands and expressive eyes claiming their protection, asking for it. What matter whether she calls me father or mother? They are but mere words that the lips speak, but love is in the heart and only love matters.
CHAPTER 49.
NOW WHATEVER CAN Albert be brooding? an idle housemaid asked herself as she went by, flicking her duster. Is he in love? is he brooding a marriage? Which of us? or perhaps it’s some girl outside!
That Albert was brooding something, that there was something on his mind, became the talk of the hotel, and soon after it came to be noticed that Albert, who till now had showed little desire to leave the hotel, was eager to avail himself of every excuse to absent himself from duty in the hotel. He had been seen in the smaller streets looking up at the houses. He had saved a good deal of money, and some of his savings were invested in house property, so it was possible that his presence in these streets might be explained by the supposition that he was investing new sums of money in house property, or, and it was the second suggestion that stimulated the imagination, that Albert was going to be married and was looking out for a house for his wife.
Albert had been seen talking with Annie Watts; but she was not in the family way after all, and despite her wistful eyes and gentle voice she was not chosen. Her heart is not in her work, Albert said; she thinks only of when she can get out, and that isn’t the sort for a shop, whereas Dorothy Keyes was a glutton for work, but Albert couldn’t abide the tall, angular woman, built like a boy, with a neck like a swan’s. Besides her unattractive appearance, her manner was abrupt. But Alice’s small, neat figure and quick intelligence marked her out for the job. Alas! Alice was hot-tempered. We should quarre
l, Albert said, and picking up her napkin, which had slipped from her knee to the floor, she fell to thinking of the maids on the floor above. A certain stateliness of figure and also of gait put the thought into her mind that Mary O’Brien would make an attractive shop woman. But her second thoughts were that Mary O’Brien was a Papist, and the experience of Irish Protestants shows that Papists and Protestants don’t mix.
She had just begun to consider the next housemaid, when a voice interrupted her musing. That lazy girl, Annie Watts, on the lookout for an excuse to chatter the time away instead of being about her work, were the words that crossed Albert’s mind as she raised her eyes, and so unwelcoming were they that Annie in her nervousness began to hesitate and stammer, unable for the moment to find a subject, plunging at last, and rather awkwardly, into the news of the arrival of the new kitchen-maid, Helen Dawes, but never dreaming that the news could have any interest for Albert. To her surprise, Albert’s eyes lighted up, Do you know her? Annie asked. Know her? Albert answered. No, I don’t know her, but — At that moment a bell rang. Oh, bother, Annie said, and while she moved away idling along the banisters, Albert hurried down the passage.
No. 47 wanted writing-paper and envelopes; he couldn’t write with the pens the hotel furnished, would Albert be so kind as to ask the page-boy to fetch some J’s. With pleasure, Albert said; with pleasure. Would you like to have the writing-paper and envelopes before the boy returns with the pens, sir? The visitor answered that the writing-paper and envelopes would be of no use to him till he had gotten the pens. With pleasure, sir; with pleasure; and whilst waiting for the page to return she passed through the swing doors and searched for a new face among the different young women passing to and fro between the white-aproned and white-capped chefs, bringing the dishes to the great zinc counter that divided the kitchen-maids and scullions from the waiters. She must be here, she said, and returned again to the kitchen in the hope of meeting the new-corner, Helen Dawes, who, when she was found, proved to be very unlike the Helen Dawes of Albert’s imagination. A thick-set, almost swarthy girl of three and twenty, rather under than above the medium height, with white, even teeth, but unfortunately protruding, giving her the appearance of a rabbit. Her eyes seemed to be dark brown, but on looking into them Albert discovered them to be grey-green, round eyes that dilated and flashed wonderfully while she talked. Her face lighted up; and there was a vindictiveness in her voice that appeared and disappeared; Albert suspected her, and was at once frightened and attracted. Vindictiveness in her voice! How could such a thought have come into my mind? she said a few days after. A more kindly girl it would be difficult to find. How could I have been so stupid? She is one of those, Albert continued, that will be a success in everything she undertakes, and dreams began soon after that the sweetstuff and tobacco shop could hardly fail to prosper under her direction. One thing was certain; nobody could befool that girl. A girl with a head on her shoulders, she continued, is a pearl. I shall feel certain when I am away at work everything will be all right at home.
It’s a pity that she isn’t in the family way. It would be pleasant to have a little one running about the shop asking for lemon drops and to hear him calling us father and mother. And it was with a wrench that Albert renounced for ever hope of a son. At that moment a strange thought flitted across Albert’s mind — after all, it could not matter to her if Helen were to get into the family way later, when they were settled. But she wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t matter. It is a man always that divides women, and sets the friendship of years at naught. It might be better to choose an older woman; it might be better, but Albert was unable to keep herself from asking Helen to walk out with her, and the next time they met the words slipped out of her mouth: I shall be off duty at three to-day, and if you’re not engaged —
I’m off duty at three, Helen answered. Are you engaged? Albert asked. Helen hesitated, it being the truth that she had been and was still walking out with one of the scullions, and was not sure how he’d look upon her going out with another, even though that one was such a harmless fellow as Albert Nobbs. Harmless in himself, she thought, and with a good smell of money rising out of his pockets, very different from Joe, who seldom had a train fare upon him. But she hankered after Joe, and wouldn’t give Albert a promise till she had asked him. Wants to walk out with you? Why, he’s never been known to walk out with man, woman or child before. Well, that’s a good one! I’d like to know what he’s after, and I’m not jealous; you can go out with him, there’s no harm in Albert. I’m on duty: just go for a turn with him. Poke him up and see what he’s after, and take him into a sweetshop and bring back a box of chocolates; we’ll share them together. Do you like chocolates? Helen asked, and, her eyes flashing, she stood looking at Joe, who, thinking that her temper was rising, and wishing to quell it, asked hurriedly where she was going to meet him. At the corner, she answered. He’s there already. Then be off, he said, and his tone grated. You wouldn’t like me to keep him waiting? Helen said. Oh, dear no, not for Joe, not for Joseph, if he knows it, the scullion replied, lilting the song.
Helen turned away, hoping that none of the maids would peach upon her, and Albert’s heart rejoiced at seeing her on the other side of the street waiting for the tram to go by before she crossed it. Were you afraid I wasn’t coming? she asked, and Albert, not being ready with words, answered shyly: not very. A stupid answer this seemed to be to Helen, and it was in the hope of shuffling out of a tiresome silence that Albert asked her if she liked chocolates. Something under the tooth will help the time away, was the answer she got; and they went in search of a sweetmeat shop, Albert thinking that a shilling or one and sixpence would see her through it. But in a moment Helen’s eyes were all over the shop, and spying out quickly some large pictured boxes, she asked Albert if she might have one, and it being their first day out, Albert answered, yes; but she could not keep back the words: I’m afraid they’d cost a lot.
Helen’s face blackened, and she shook up her shoulders disdainfully, so frightening Albert that she pressed a second box on Helen — one to pass the time with, another to take home. To such a show of good will Helen felt she must respond and her tongue rattled on pleasantly as she walked, crunching the chocolates, two between each lamp-post, Albert stinting herself to one, which she sucked slowly, hardly enjoying it at all, so worried was she by the loss of three and sixpence. As if Helen guessed the cause of Albert’s disquiet, she called on her suitor to admire the damsel on the box, but Albert could not disengage her thoughts sufficiently from Helen’s expensive tastes. If every walk were to cost three and sixpence there wouldn’t be a lot left for the home in six months’ time. And she fell to calculating how much it would cost her if they were to walk out once a week. Three fours are twelve and four sixpences are two shillings, fourteen shillings a month, twice that is twenty-eight; twenty-eight shillings a month, that is if Helen wanted two boxes a week. At this rate she’d be spending sixteen pounds, sixteen shillings a year. Lord amassy! But perhaps Helen wouldn’t want two boxes of chocolates every time they went out together — If she didn’t, she’d want other things, and catching sight of a jeweller’s shop, Albert called Helen’s attention to a cyclist that had only just managed to escape a tram car by a sudden wriggle. But Albert was always unlucky. Helen had been wishing this long while for a bicycle, and if she did not ask Albert to buy her one it was because another jeweller’s came into view. She stopped to gaze for a moment. Albert’s heart seemed to stand still, but Helen continued her chocolates, secure in her belief that the time had not yet come for substantial presents.
At Sackville Street bridge Helen thought she would like to turn back, having little taste for the meaner parts of the city, but Albert wished to show her the north side, and she began to wonder what he could find to interest him in these streets, and why he should stand in admiration before all the small newspaper and tobacco shops, till she remembered suddenly that he had invested his savings in house property. Could these be his houses? All his ow
n? and, moved by this consideration, she gave a more attentive ear to his account of the daily taking of these shops.
Albert was a richer man than anybody believed him to be, but he was a mean one. The idea of his thinking twice about a box of chocolates! I’ll show him, and she began to regret she had not stopped in front of a big draper’s shop in Sackville Street and asked him for a pair of six-button gloves, and resolved to make amends for her slackness, and would ask Albert for a parasol the next time they went out together. She needed one, and some shoes and stockings, and a silk kerchief would not be amiss, and at the end of the third month of their courtship it seemed to her that the time had come for her to speak of bangles, saying that for three pounds she could have a pretty one — one that would be a real pleasure to wear, it would always remind her of him. Albert coughed up with humility, and she felt that she had “got him,” as she put it to herself, and afterwards to Joe Mackins.
So he parted easily, Joe remarked, and pushing Helen aside he began to whip up the rémoulade, that had begun to show signs of turning, saying he’d have the chef after him. But I say, old girl, since he’s coughing up so easily you might bring me something back; and a briar-wood pipe and a pound or two of tobacco seemed the least she might obtain for him. And Helen answered that to get these she would have to ask Albert for money. And why shouldn’t you? Joe returned. Ask him for a thin ‘un, and mayhap he’ll give you a thick ‘un. It’s the first quid that’s hard to get; every time after it is like shelling peas. Do you think he’s that far gone on me? Helen asked. Well, don’t you? Why should he give you these things if he wasn’t? Joe answered.
