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

Transscribed and Published by Jacson Keating (editor)

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1

“Where’s the gels gone to?” asked Mr Gosling.

“Up the ’Igh Road to look at the shops. I’m expectin’ ’em in every minute.”

“Ho!” said Gosling. He leaned against the dresser; the kitchen was hot with steam, and he fumbled for a handkerchief in the pocket of his black tail coat. He produced first a large red bandanna with which he blew his nose vigorously. “Snuff ’andkerchief; brought it ’ome to be washed,” he remarked, and then brought out a white handkerchief which he used to wipe his forehead.

“It’s a dirty ’abit snuff-taking,” commented Mrs Gosling.

“Well, you can’t smoke in the orfice,” replied Gosling.

“Must be doin’ somethin’, I suppose?” said his wife.

When the recital of this formula had been accomplished—it was hallowed by a precise repetition every week, and had been established now for a quarter of a century—Gosling returned to the subject in hand.

“They does a lot of lookin’ at shops,” he said, “and then nothin’ ’ll satisfy ’em but buyin’ somethin’. Why don’t they keep away from ’em?”

“Oh, well; sales begin nex’ week,” replied Mrs Gosling. “An’ that’s a thing we ’ave to consider in our circumstances.” She left the vicinity of the gas-stove, and bustled over to the dresser. “’Ere, get out of my way, do,” she went on, “an’ go up and change your coat. Dinner’ll be ready in two ticks. I shan’t wait for the gells if they ain’t in.”

“Them sales is a fraud,” remarked Gosling, but he did not stop to argue the point.

He went upstairs and changed his respectable “morning” coat for a short alpaca jacket, slipped his cuffs over his hands, put one inside the other and placed them in their customary position on the chest of drawers, changed his boots for carpet slippers, wetted his hair brush and carefully plastered down a long wisp of grey hair over the top of his bald head, and then went into the bathroom to wash his hands.

There had been a time in George Gosling’s history when he had not been so regardful of the decencies of life. But he was a man of position now, and his two daughters insisted on these ceremonial observances.

Gosling was one of the world’s successes. He had started life as a National School boy, and had worked his way up through all the grades—messenger, office-boy, junior clerk, clerk, senior clerk, head clerk, accountant—to his present responsible position as head of the counting-house, with a salary of £26 a month. He rented a house in Wisteria Grove, Brondesbury, at £45 a year; he was a sidesman of the church of St John the Evangelist, Kilburn; a member of Local Committees; and in moments of expansion he talked of seeking election to the District Council. A solid, sober, thoroughly respectable man, Gosling, about whom there had never been a hint of scandal; grown stout now, and bald—save for a little hair over the ears, and that one persistent grey tress which he used as a sort of insufficient wrapping for his naked skull.

Such was the George Gosling seen by his wife, daughters, neighbours, and heads of the firm of wholesale provision merchants for whom he had worked for forty-one years in Barbican, E.C. Yet there was another man, hardly realized by George Gosling himself, and apparently so little representative that even his particular cronies in the office would never have entered any description of him, if they had been obliged to give a detailed account of their colleague’s character.

Nevertheless, if you heard Gosling laughing uproariously at some story produced by one of those cronies, you might be quite certain that it was a story he would not repeat before his daughters, though he might tell his wife—if it were not too broad. If you watched Gosling in the street, you would see that he took a strange, unaccountable interest in the feet and ankles of young women. And if many of Gosling’s thoughts and desires had been translated into action, the Vicar of St John the Evangelist would have dismissed his sidesman with disgust, the Local Committees would have had no more of him, and his wife and daughters would have regarded him as the most depraved of criminals.

Fortunately, Gosling had never been tempted beyond the powers of his resistance. At fifty-five, he may be regarded as safe from temptation. He seldom put any restraint upon his thoughts, outside business hours; but he had an ideal which ruled his life—the ideal of respectability. George Gosling counted himself—and others counted him also—as respectable a man as could be found in the Metropolitan Police area. There were, perhaps, a quarter of a million other men in the same area, equally respectable.

2

As he was drying his hands, Gosling heard the front door slam and his daughters’ voices in the passage below, followed by a shrill exhortation from the kitchen: “Now, gels, ’urry up, dinner’s all ready and your father’s waitin’!”

Gosling trotted downstairs and received the usual salute from his two girls. He noted that they were a shade more effusive than usual. “Want more money for fal-lals,” was his inward comment. They were always wanting money for “fal-lals.”

He adopted his usual line of defence through dinner and constantly brought the subject of conversation back to the need for a reduction of expenses. He did not see Blanche wink at Millie across the table, during these strategic exercises; nor catch the glance of understanding which passed between the girls and their mother. So, as his dinner comforted and cheered him, Gosling began to relax into his usual facetiousness; incredibly believing, despite the invariable precedents of his family history, that his daughters had been convinced of the hopelessness of approaching him for money that evening.

The credulous creature even allowed them to make their opening, and then assisted them to a statement of their petition.

They were talking of a friend’s engagement to be married, and Gosling with an obtuseness he never displayed in business remarked, “Wish my gels ’ud get married.”

“Talking about us, father?” asked Blanche.

“Well, you’re the only gels I’ve got—as I know of,” said Gosling.

“Well, how can you expect us to get married when we haven’t got a decent thing to put on?” returned Blanche.

Gosling realized his danger too late. “Pooh! That don’t make any difference,” he said hastily, adopting a thoroughly unsound line of defence; “I never noticed what your mother was wearing when I courted ’er.”