"No, thank you. It would be giving you quite unnecessary trouble.""My apartments have always given satisfaction, I assure you, sir.""Indeed, I have no reason to doubt it. I wish I could afford to take them," said Hugh, thinking it better to be open than to hurt her feelings. "I am sure I should be very comfortable. But a poor--"He did not know what to call himself.
"O-oh!" said the landlady. Then, after a pause--"Well?"interrogatively.
"Well, I was a tutor last, but I don't know what I may be next."She kept looking at him. Once or twice she looked at him from head to foot.
"You are respectable?"
"I hope so," said Hugh, laughing.
"Well!"--this time not interrogatively.
"How many rooms would you like?"
"The fewer the better. Half a one, if there were nobody in the other half.""Well!--and you wouldn't give much trouble, I daresay.""Only for coals and water to wash and drink.""And you wouldn't dine at home?"
"No--nor anywhere else," said Hugh; but the second and larger clause was sotto voce.
"And you wouldn't smoke in-doors?"
"No."
"And you would wipe your boots clean before you went up-stairs?""Yes, certainly." Hugh was beginning to be exceedingly amused, but he kept his gravity wonderfully.
"Have you any money?"
"Yes; plenty for the meantime. But when I shall get more, I don't know, you see.""Well, I've a room at the top of the house, which I'll make comfortable for you; and you may stay as long as you like to behave yourself.""But what is the rent?"
"Four shillings a week--to you. Would you like to see it?""Yes, if you please."
She conducted him up to the third floor, and showed him a good-sized room, rather bare, but clean.
"This will do delightfully," said Hugh.
"I will make it a little more comfortable for you, you know.""Thank you very much. Shall I pay you a month in advance?""No, no," she answered, with a grim smile. "I might want to get rid of you, you know. It must be a week's warning, no more.""Very well. I have no objection. I will go and fetch my luggage.
I suppose I may come in at once?"
"The sooner the better, young man, in a place like London. The sooner you come home the better pleased I shall be. There now!"So saying, she walked solemnly down-stairs before him, and let him out. Hugh hurried away to fetch his luggage, delighted that he had so soon succeeded in finding just what he wanted. As he went, he speculated on the nature of his landlady, trying to account for her odd rough manner, and the real kindness of her rude words. He came to the conclusion that she was naturally kind to profusion, and that this kindness had, some time or other, perhaps repeatedly, been taken shameful advantage of; that at last she had come to the resolution to defend herself by means of a general misanthropy, and supposed that she had succeeded, when she had got no further than to have so often imitated the tone of her own behaviour when at its crossest, as to have made it habitual by repetition.
In all probability some unknown sympathy had drawn her to Hugh. She might have had a son about his age, who had run away thirty years ago. Or rather, for she seemed an old maid, she had been jilted some time by a youth about the same size as Hugh; and therefore she loved him the moment she saw him. Or, in short, a thousand things.
Certainly seldom have lodgings been let so oddly or so cheaply.
But some impulse or other of the whimsical old human heart, which will have its way, was satisfied therein.
When he returned in a couple of hours, with his boxes on the top of a cab, the door was opened, before he knocked, by a tidy maid, who, without being the least like her mistress, yet resembled her excessively. She helped him to carry his boxes up-stairs; and when he reached his room, he found a fire burning cheerily, a muffin down before it, a tea-kettle singing on the hob, and the tea-tray set upon a nice white cloth on a table right in front of the fire, with an old-fashioned high-backed easy-chair by its side--the very chair to go to sleep in over a novel. The old lady soon made her appearance, with the teapot in one hand, and a plate of butter in the other.
"Oh! thank you," said Hugh. "This is comfortable!"She answered only by compressing her lips till her mouth vanished altogether, and nodding her head as much as to say: "I know it is.
I intended it should be." She then poured water into the teapot, set it down by the fire, and vanished.
Hugh sat down in the easy-chair, and resolved to be comfortable, at least till he had had his tea; after which he would think what he was to do next. A knock at the door--and his landlady entered, laid a penny newspaper on the table, and went away. This was just what he wanted to complete his comfort. He took it up, and read while he consumed his bread and butter. When he had had enough of tea and newspaper, he said to himself:
"Now, what am I to do next?"
It is a happy thing for us that this is really all we have to concern ourselves about--what to do next. No man can do the second thing. He can do the first. If he omits it, the wheels of the social Juggernaut roll over him, and leave him more or less crushed behind. If he does it, he keeps in front, and finds room to do the next again; and so he is sure to arrive at something, for the onward march will carry him with it. There is no saying to what perfection of success a man may come, who begins with what he can do, and uses the means at his hand. He makes a vortex of action, however slight, towards which all the means instantly begin to gravitate. Let a man but lay hold of something--anything, and he is in the high road to success--though it may be very long before he can walk comfortably in it.--It is true the success may be measured out according to a standard very different from his.
But in Hugh's case, the difficulty was to grasp anything--to make a beginning anywhere. He knew nobody; and the globe of society seemed like a mass of adamant, on which he could not gain the slightest hold, or make the slightest impression. Who would introduce him to pupils? Nobody. He had the testimonials of his professors; but who would ask to see them?--His eye fell on the paper. He would advertise.