J. D. Beresford - Goslings (John Davys (J.D.) Beresford) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

Gosling had forgotten his economic problems, and his daring abstractions concerning a world despoiled of male activity, especially of that essential activity, as he figured it, the making of money—the wage-earner was enjoying his after-dinner nap, hedged about, protected and cared for by his womankind.

There may have been a quarter of a million wage-earners in Greater London at that moment, who, however much they differed from Gosling on such minor questions as Tariff Reform or the capabilities of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, would have agreed with him as a matter of course, on the essentials he had discussed that evening.

3

At half-past nine the click of the letter-box, followed by a resounding double-knock, announced the arrival of the last post. Millie jumped up at once and went out eagerly.

Mr Gosling opened his eyes and stared with drunken fixity at the mantelpiece; then, without moving the rest of his body, he began to grope automatically with his left hand for the fallen newspaper. He found it at last, picked it up and pretended to read with sleep-sodden eyes.

“It’s the post, dear,” remarked Mrs Gosling.

Gosling yawned enormously. “Who’s it for?” he asked.

“Millie! Millie!” called Mrs Gosling. “Why don’t you bring the letters in?”

Millie did not reply, but she came slowly into the room, in her hands a letter which she was examining minutely.

“Who’s it for, Mill?” asked Blanche, impatiently.

“Father,” replied Millie, still intent on her study. “It’s a foreign letter. I seem to remember the writing, too, only I can’t fix it exactly.”

“’Ere, ’and it over, my gel,” said Gosling, and Millie reluctantly parted with her fascinating enigma.

“I know that ’and, too,” remarked Gosling, and he, also, would have spent some time in the attempt to guess the puzzle without looking up the answer within the envelope, but the three spectators, who were not sharing his interest, manifested impatience.

“Well, ain’t you going to open it, father?” asked Millie, and Mrs Gosling looked at her husband over her spectacles and remarked, “It must be a business letter, if it comes from foreign parts.”

“Don’t get business letters to this address,” returned the head of the house, “besides which it’s from Warsaw; we don’t do nothin’ with Warsaw.”

At last he opened the letter.

The three women fixed their gaze on Gosling’s face.

“Well?” ejaculated Millie, after a silence of several seconds. “Aren’t you going to tell us?”

“You’d never guess,” said Gosling triumphantly.

“Anyone we know?” asked Blanche.

“Yes, a gentleman.”

“Oh! tell us, father,” urged the impatient Millie.

“It’s from the Mr Thrale, as lodged with us once,” announced Gosling.

“Oh! dear, our Mr Fastidious,” commented Blanche, “I thought he was dead long ago.”

“It must be over four years since ’e left,” put in Mrs Gosling.

“Getting on for five,” corrected Blanche. “I remember I put my hair up while he was here.”

“What’s he say?” asked Millie.

“’E says, ‘Dear Mr Gosling, I expect you will be surprised to ’ear from me after my five years’ silence——’”

“I said it was five years,” put in Blanche. “Go on, dad!”

Dad resumed “... ‘but I ’ave been in various parts of the world and it ’as been quite impossible to keep up a correspondence. I am writing now to tell you that I shall be back in London in a few days, and to ask you whether you can find a room for me in Wisteria Grove?’”

“Well! I should ’ave thought he’d ’ave written to me to ask that!” said Mrs Gosling.

“So ’e should ’ave, by rights,” agreed Gosling. “But ’e’s a queer card is Mr Thrale.”

“Bit dotty, if you ask me,” said Blanche.

“’S that all?” asked Mrs Gosling.

“No, ’e says: ‘I can’t give you an address as I go on to Berlin immediately, but I will look you up the evening after I arrive. Eastern Europe is not safe at the present time. There ’ave been several cases of the new plague in Moscow, but the authorities are doing everything they can—which is much in Russia—to keep the news out of the press, yours sincerely, Jasper Thrale,’ and that’s the lot,” concluded Gosling.

“I do think he’s a cool hand,” commented Blanche. “Of course you won’t have him as a paying guest now?”

Gosling and his wife looked at each other, thoughtfully.

“Well——” hesitated Gosling.

“’E might bring the infection,” suggested Mrs Gosling.

“Oh! no fear of that,” returned her husband, “but I dunno as we want a boarder now. Five years ago I ’adn’t got my big rise——”

“Oh, no, father; what would the neighbours think of us if we started to take boarders again?” protested Blanche.

“It wouldn’t look well,” agreed Mrs Gosling.

“Jus’ what I was thinking,” said the head of the house. “’Owever, there’s no ’arm in payin’ us a friendly visit.”

“O’ course not,” said Mrs Gosling, “though I do think it odd ’e shouldn’t ’ave written to me in the first place.

“He’s dotty!” said Blanche.

Gosling shook his head. “Not by a very long chalk ’e ain’t,” was his firm pronouncement....

“Well, girls, what about bed?” asked Mrs Gosling, putting away the “bit of mending” she had been engaged upon.

Gosling yawned again, stretched himself, and rose grunting to his feet. “I’m about ready for my bed,” he remarked, and after another yawn he started his nightly round of inspection.

When he returned to the sitting-room the others were all ready to retire. Gosling kissed his daughters, and the two girls and their mother went upstairs. Gosling carefully took off the larger pieces of coal from the fire and put them under the grate, rolled up the hearthrug, saw that the window was securely fastened, extinguished the lamp and followed his “womenfolk.”

As he was undressing his thoughts turned once more to the threat of the new disease which was devastating China.

“Rum thing about that new plague,” he remarked to his wife. “Seems as it’s only men as get it.”

“They’d never let it spread to England,” replied Mrs Gosling.

“Oh! there’s no fear of that, none whatever,” said Gosling, “but it’s rum that about women never catching it.”

The attitude of the Goslings faithfully reflected that of the immense majority of English people. The faith in the hygienic and scientific resources which were at the disposal of the authorities, and the implicit trust in the vigilance and energy of those authorities, were sufficient to allay any fears that were not too imminent. It was some one’s duty to look after these things, and if they were not looked after there would be letters in the papers about it. At last, without question, the authorities would be roused to a sense of duty and the trouble, whatever it was, would be stopped. Precisely what authority managed these affairs none of the huge Gosling family knew. Vaguely they pictured Medical Boards, or Health Committees; dimly they connected these things with local government; at the top, doubtless, was some managing authority—in Whitehall probably—something to do with the supreme head of affairs, the much abused but eminently paternal Government.

1

“Lord, how I do envy you,” said Morgan Gurney.

Jasper Thrale sat forward in his chair. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t do what I’ve done—and more,” he said.

“Theoretically, I suppose not,” replied Gurney. “It’s just making the big effort to start with. You see I’ve got a very decent berth and good prospects, and it’s comfortable and all that. Only when some fellow like you comes along and tells one yarns of the world outside, I get sort of hankerings after the sea and adventure, and seeing the big things. It’s only now and then—ordinary times I’m contented enough.” He stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth and stared into the fire.