CHAPTER I
Mr Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop
nominally in charge of his brother-in-law. It could be done, because there was very little business at any time, and
practically none at all before the evening. Mr Verloc cared but little about his
ostensible business. And, moreover, his wife was in charge of his brother-in-law.
The shop was small, and so was the house. It was one of those
grimy brick houses which existed in large quantities before the
era of
reconstruction dawned upon London. The shop was a square box of a place, with the front glazed in small panes. In the daytime the door remained closed; in the evening it stood discreetly but suspiciously
ajar.
The window contained photographs of more or less undressed dancing girls;
nondescript packages in wrappers like
patent medicines; closed yellow paper envelopes, very
flimsy, and
marked two-and-six in heavy black figures; a few numbers of
ancient French comic publications hung across a string as if to dry; a
dingy blue china bowl, a
casket of black wood, bottles of marking ink, and rubber stamps; a few books, with titles hinting at
impropriety; a few
apparently old copies of
obscure newspapers, badly printed, with titles like The Torch, The Gong-rousing titles. And the two gas jets inside the panes were always turned low, either for
economy's sake or for the sake of the customers.
These customers were either very young men, who hung about the window for a time before slipping in
suddenly; or men of a more
mature age, but looking generally as if they were not in funds. Some of that last kind had the collars of their overcoats turned
right up to their moustaches, and traces of mud on the bottom of their
nether garments, which had the
appearance of being much worn and not very
valuable. And the legs inside them did not, as a
general rule, seem of much
account either. With their hands plunged deep in the side pockets of their coats, they dodged in sideways, one shoulder first, as if afraid to start the bell going.
It clattered; and at that
signal,
through the
dusty glass door behind the painted deal
counter, Mr Verloc would
issue hastily from the parlour at the back. His eyes were naturally heavy; he had an air of having wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed. Another man would have felt such an
appearance a
distinct disadvantage. In a
commercial transaction of the
retail order much depends on the seller's
engaging and
amiable aspect. But Mr Verloc knew his business, and remained undisturbed by any sort of æsthetic
doubt about his
appearance. With a firm, steady-eyed
impudence, which seemed to hold back the
threat of some
abominable menace, he would
proceed to sell over the
counter some
object looking
obviously and scandalously not worth the money which passed in the
transaction: a small cardboard box with
apparently nothing inside, for
instance, or one of those carefully closed yellow
flimsy envelopes, or a soiled
volume in paper covers with a promising
title. Now and then it happened that one of the faded, yellow dancing girls would get sold to an
amateur, as though she had been alive and young.
The evening visitors-the men with collars turned up and soft hats rammed down-nodded
familiarly to Mrs Verloc, and with a muttered greeting, lifted up the
flap at the end of the
counter in order to pass into the back parlour, which gave
access to a
passage and to a
steep flight of stairs. The door of the shop was the only means of
entrance to the house in which Mr Verloc carried on his business of a seller of
shady wares, exercised his
vocation of a protector of
society, and
cultivated his
domestic virtues. These last were pronounced. He was
thoroughly domesticated. Neither his
spiritual, nor his
mental, nor his
physical needs were of the kind to take him much
abroad. He found at home the
ease of his body and the peace of his
conscience, together with Mrs Verloc's wifely attentions and Mrs Verloc's mother's
deferential regard.
Winnie's mother was a
stout, wheezy woman, with a large brown face. She wore a black wig under a white cap. Her swollen legs rendered her
inactive. She
considered herself to be of French
descent, which
might have been true; and after a good many years of married life with a
licensed victualler of the more
common sort, she provided for the years of widowhood by letting furnished apartments for gentlemen near Vauxhall Bridge Road in a square once of some splendour and still included in the
district of Belgravia. This topographical
fact was of some
advantage in
advertising her rooms; but the patrons of the
worthy widow were not exactly of the
fashionable kind. Such as they were, her daughter Winnie helped to look after them. Traces of the French
descent which the
widow boasted of were
apparent in Winnie too. They were
apparent in the
extremely neat and
artistic arrangement of her
glossy dark hair. Winnie had also other charms: her youth; her full, rounded form; her clear
complexion; the
provocation of her
unfathomable reserve, which never went so far as to
prevent conversation, carried on on the lodgers' part with
animation, and on hers with an
equable amiability. It must be that Mr Verloc was
susceptible to these fascinations. Mr Verloc was an
intermittent patron. He came and went without any very
apparent reason. He generally arrived in London (like the
influenza) from the Continent, only he arrived unheralded by the Press; and his visitations set in with great
severity. He breakfasted in bed, and remained wallowing there with an air of quiet enjoyment
till noon every day-and sometimes even to a later hour. But when he went out he seemed to
experience a great
difficulty in finding his way back to his
temporary home in the Belgravian square. He left it late, and returned to it early-as early as three or four in the morning; and on waking up at ten addressed Winnie, bringing in the breakfast tray, with
jocular,
exhausted civility, in the
hoarse, failing tones of a man who had been talking
vehemently for many hours together. His
prominent, heavy-lidded eyes rolled sideways amorously and
languidly, the bedclothes were pulled up to his chin, and his dark
smooth moustache covered his thick lips
capable of much honeyed
banter.
In Winnie's mother's
opinion Mr Verloc was a very nice gentleman. From her life's
experience gathered in
various "business houses" the good woman had taken into her
retirement an
ideal of gentlemanliness as exhibited by the patrons of private-saloon bars. Mr Verloc approached that
ideal; he attained it, in
fact.
"Of course, we'll take over your furniture, mother," Winnie had remarked.
The lodging-house was to be given up. It seems it would not answer to
carry it on. It would have been too much trouble for Mr Verloc. It would not have been
convenient for his other business. What his business was he did not say; but after his
engagement to Winnie he took the trouble to get up before noon, and descending the basement stairs, make himself
pleasant to Winnie's mother in the breakfast-room downstairs where she had her
motionless being. He stroked the cat, poked the fire, had his lunch served to him there. He left its slightly
stuffy cosiness with
evident reluctance, but, all the same, remained out
till the night was far advanced. He never offered to take Winnie to theatres, as such a nice gentleman ought to have done. His evenings were occupied. His work was in a way
political, he told Winnie once. She would have, he warned her, to be very nice to his
political friends.
For he was
difficult to
dispose of, that boy. He was
delicate and, in a
frail way, good-looking too, except for the
vacant droop of his lower lip. Under our
excellent system of
compulsory education he had
learned to read and write,
notwithstanding the unfavourable
aspect of the lower lip. But as errand-boy he did not turn out a great
success. He forgot his messages; he was easily diverted from the
straight path of
duty by the attractions of
stray cats and dogs, which he followed down
narrow alleys into unsavoury courts; by the comedies of the streets, which he contemplated open-mouthed, to the
detriment of his
employer's interests; or by the dramas of
fallen horses, whose
pathos and
violence induced him sometimes to
shriek pierceingly in a
crowd, which disliked to be disturbed by sounds of
distress in its quiet enjoyment of the
national spectacle. When led away by a
grave and protecting policeman, it would often become
apparent that poor Stevie had forgotten his
address-at least for a time. A
brusque question caused him to
stutter to the point of suffocation. When startled by anything
perplexing he used to
squint horribly. However, he never had any fits (which was encouraging); and before the
natural outbursts of
impatience on the part of his father he could always, in his childhood's days, run for
protection behind the short skirts of his sister Winnie. On the other hand, he
might have been suspected of hiding a
fund of
reckless naughtiness. When he had reached the age of fourteen a friend of his late father, an
agent for a
foreign preserved milk firm, having given him an opening as office-boy, he was discovered one foggy afternoon, in his chief's
absence, busy letting off fireworks on the staircase. He touched off in quick
succession a set of
fierce rockets,
angry catherine wheels, loudly exploding squibs-and the
matter might have turned out very
serious. An awful
panic spread through the whole building. Wild-eyed, choking clerks stampeded
through the passages full of smoke,
silk hats and
elderly business men could be seen rolling independently down the stairs. Stevie did not seem to
derive any
personal gratification from what he had done. His motives for this
stroke of
originality were
difficult to
discover. It was only later on that Winnie obtained from him a
misty and
confused confession. It seems that two other office-boys in the building had worked upon his feelings by tales of
injustice and
oppression till they had
wrought his
compassion to the
pitch of that
frenzy. But his father's friend, of course, dismissed him summarily as
likely to
ruin his business. After that
altruistic exploit Stevie was put to help wash the dishes in the basement kitchen, and to black the boots of the gentlemen patronising the Belgravian
mansion. There was
obviously no
future in such work. The gentlemen tipped him a
shilling now and then. Mr Verloc showed himself the most
generous of lodgers. But altogether all that did not amount to much either in the way of
gain or prospects; so that when Winnie announced her
engagement to Mr Verloc her mother could not help wondering, with a
sigh and a
glance towards the
scullery, what would become of poor Stephen now.
It appeared that Mr Verloc was ready to take him over together with his wife's mother and with the furniture, which was the whole
visible fortune of the family. Mr Verloc gathered everything as it came to his
broad, good-natured breast. The furniture was disposed to the best
advantage all over the house, but Mrs Verloc's mother was
confined to two back rooms on the first floor. The luckless Stevie slept in one of them. By this time a growth of
thin fluffy hair had come to
blur, like a golden mist, the
sharp line of his small lower jaw. He helped his sister with
blind love and docility in her
household duties. Mr Verloc
thought that some
occupation would be good for him. His
spare time he occupied by drawing circles with
compass and pencil on a piece of paper. He applied himself to that
pastime with great
industry, with his elbows
spread out and bowed low over the kitchen
table. Through the open door of the parlour at the back of the shop Winnie, his sister, glanced at him from time to time with
maternal vigilance.