The Romance of A Pair of Socks.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 16, 27 February 1917, Page 7

The Romance of A Pair of Socks.

(By E. BURROWES.) Advertisement from the “Morning Post,”

4th December :

Wanted—Gentlemen’s .underclothing to mend. Moderate charges ; neat work ; prompt execution. Socks a speciality. Apply 11. D., Model Buildings, Marylebone.” Montague Rollestone threw down the paper in which he had just read the above advertisement, and thrust his hands through his hair with a rueful laugh. “ Jove ! ” he muttered, “ the very thing. * Socles a speciality.’ My giddy aunt !” He tossed off one slipper, revealing a huge hole in the toe of his sock ; the removal of the other slipper showed a similar state of things. Then he glanced down at his hands ; below his shabby coat there peeped a pair of frayed cuffs ; a button missing here and there was a mere trifle as compared with other repairs which were glaringly needed. “Jove!” he said again, “I wonder whether. . . . Yes ! I’ll do it.” Ten minutes later an answer winged its way to the writer of the advertisement asking for gentlemen’s underclothing to mend, and Rollestone took up the pen with which he was valiantly struggling to carve his way to fortune, and settled down to another dreary morning’s work. The morning was dark and foggy ; outside a chill drizzle descended, and turned the pavements into a horrible state of grease ; inside the Model Buildings in which Rollestone had taken up his abode the fog lingered creeping through crevices and illfitting windows, and filling the air with a horrible pungent smell. From the window at which he sat the view was not inspiring. On the opposite side of the street stretched another block of Model Buildings : it seemed as if the little world in which he lived at present was composed of nothing but. such buildings ; but as he glanced absently out at the grim gray walls, smoke blackened, and set with many windows, like eyes in a dreary face, his eye quickened, and he threw down his pen with a sudden exclamation.

“Jove!” he said for the third time. “Of course, that is where the mender of socks lives. A stone’s throw from me. Well ... I wonder what will come of it !”

What came of it was a gentle knock at his door late that afternoon. “ Come in,” he said sleepily. He was sitting before his small fire, with a pipe in his mouth, and his feet—in the ragged socks and ancient slippers—on the fender. The room was full of gloom, for there was no light but that given out by the fire, and that was only a dull red glow. He turned his head lazily, but as he glanced at the open door he sprang to his feet, and thrust his pipe into his pocket. " I beg your pardon,” he said : “ I thought it was the woman who does out my rooms ! Can I do anything for you ?" The girl on the threshold looked at him with a flickering smile dancing in her eyes. She had apparently a sense of humour, and her quick eyes—they were very blue, with lovely shadows in them, as he found out later on their acquaintance—lit on the bareness of the room, seen through the dim light, and the clever, clear-cut features of the shabby young man who had jumped up in such a hurry from his chair. “ You can give me your—socks to mend,” she said demurely. Rollestone started, then a light broke into the bewilderment in his face.

“Socks!” he repeated, “then you are ” “ Rachel Durand. I got your letter, and I thought as it was so near I had better come over and see what you wanted at once. Perhaps you will tell me exactly what things you have to mend, and how soon you will want them back.” Rollestone looked helplessly at the girl. Even in that dim light he could see how pretty she was—far, far too pretty to be mending hnen and socks for any fellow who chose to send them to her ! Far too pretty to- 1 — , , , . , “ I’ll light the gas, if you don t mind. Miss Durand,” he said cheerfully, “ and then you shall see what a shocking state my wardrobe is in. Especially the hosiery line." ~. , There was a momentary pause while he put a match to the gas. When it flared up he turned round with a smile. “ Now, Miss Durand since you are so kind to do it, let me show you the things I want mended.” • She looked with a smile twitching the corners of her pretty lips at the appalling row of ragged socks, which he spread out for her inspection ; noted, too, the hopeless state of chaos which reigned in the cupboard from which he extracted them, and some equally ancient shirts, with horribly frayed cuffs, and then turned her blue eyes on Rollestone himself. “Is this all ?” she asked. He thought he had never heard such a charming voice. It was like music in his ears, which had been for so long deaf to anything as pleasant as a woman’s laughter. “Yes, that’s about the lot. I suppose thev are almost past mending, eh ?” Miss Durand looked them over with a critical eye. They are pretty bad, she confessed, “but I think I can manage them. If I let you have them back in three days will that do, Mr. Rollestone ?” “ Splendidly. I am afraid they will give you a lot of trouble though.” “It is what I am paid for,” she said practically, gathering up the things in a neat basket, which she slung on her arm, " and may I give you my list of charges, Mr. Rollestone ? Perhaps if you know anyone else in the same condition as yourself you would kindly mention me to them? It is bold of me to ask for a recommendation before you have seen my work, but ” , “Of course, I’ll recommend you, he said heartily, “ I’m sure you are a godsend to humanity in general. But—forgive me for being so inquisitive—do do a great deal of this sort of thing ?’’ “ I—l earn my living this way, she said shyly, “and mending, together with typewriting, brings me in quite a little income.” „ “By Jove ! Does it ? Well . . . it’s raining hard, Miss Durand. You have an umbrella ? That’s right. I’m ever so much obliged to you. Good-night.” She was gone, leaving behind her a smile which seemed to brighten up the dull room as he went back to his seat by the fare, and the pipe which had gone out. As he sat down his eyes fell on the little slip of paper which Miss Durand had deposited on the table. He took it up and read it over with a whimsical smile touching his handsome lips. “Plucky little, woman! he muttered, and then read : , “ Miss Rachel Durand mends and repairs gentlemen’s underclothing at a moderate price. Socks a speciality, one penny a pair. Shirts re-cuffed, threepence each. Coats re-lined and faced, sixpence. Waistcoats, fourpence. Neat work and prompt execution guaranteed. Apply by letter : 140 Model Buildings, Marylebone. “Starvation wages!” muttered Rollestone, as he struck a match and applied the flame to his half-smoked pipe. “ Now, I wonder what has brought her to this ! She looks worlds above such a life, and yet . Well. I suppose that, like myself, it must oe a case of beggars can’t he choosers. And with that Montague Rollestone went back to his writing table, on which lay the first clean sheets of an article entitled “ Altruism Among the Masses,” which lie was writing in the hope that it might he accepted by a leading review, and thus bring a little sadly-wanted grist to his deP *Over "the way in those other Model Buildings Rachael Durand sat herslf down before her capacious workbasket, and the mournful bundle of torn hose and frayed shirts which she had brought with triumph from her neighbour on the other side of the street.

As she thrust the first needleful of black mending wool into one of the socles, a fleeting smile lit'up her pretty eyes.

“ Poor itllow f' : siie said 10 herself, “ what a state his things are in ! 1 wonder what has brought him to such a pass ? He looks as ii he was cut out for better things.

Heigh-ho ! So was I, X suppose, only 1 threw away the chance of the fleshpots of Egypt for the sake of independence. And —j'y suis : j’y reste !” Shutting his windows for the night, and pulling across them the thick, coarse curtains which kept the room warm, Montague Rollestone glanced over the’way. By the light of the lamp in her room he caught a glimpse of the mender bending over her work. He saw the gleam of her hair and the quick flash of her white fingers as they darted backwards and forwards through his socks. Then he turned away with an unaccustomed feeling of interest and pleasure. It was as if he had suddenly discovered the existence of a kindred spirit in the busy worker over the way. CHAPTER 11. The acquaintance founded on a beginning which dated from the mending of torn socks and frayed shirts grew apace, and Montague Rollestone found himself falling further and further down that abyss at the bottom of which he knew he should find— Love. Of course, it was an absurd state of things ; here he was earning a mere pittance by writing and doing a good deal of most uncongenial hack work, while Rachel, on the other hand, was in much the same position. Between them it was hardly possible to scrape ‘enough together to home and feed and clothe one of them in a proper manner. Yet —he loved her ; for after all, it came to that.

He looked back on the days when !ie bad been in the land of Goshen, as far as creature comforts went. He remembered how he had thrown up all the ease and comfort which could have surrounded him for the rest of his natural life for the cake of a principle. He had quarrelled irrevocably with the woman who could and would have enriched him at- her death ; she cast him off with a sneer, and a jest on her lips, and since then she had died, leaving her wealth he knew not where. He only heard that she had left the greater part of ner millions in trust for someone or something, and then he put her and her concerns out of his head for ever.

Had he followed her wishes and commands, and joined with the man whose partnership had been offered him, all would have been well. But the life of literature called him, and he would listen to no other voice.

So the winter drew on towards spring, that time of eternal hope ; and in the streets below those dull dreary Model Buildings the baskets of the flower sellers sent out whiffs of early violets and sweet pale primroses, till the heart of Rachel Durand grew- sick within her, with the wild longing for the clean, pure country again. By this time, Rollestone’s wardrobe had bean completely renovated by her clever fingers. No longer did his socks show immense rents in every direction ; no longer were his cuffs frayed and his coats possessed of torn linings, and a new hope seemed to have come to the man himself together with his improved appearance. It was one sunny day when the March wind had given way to April showers and gleams of delicious blue sky above the chimneys and tiles, of which Rollestone a rooms commanded such an interminable view, that a stranger knocked at the door, bearing a begrimed little card with his name printed upon it. Rollestone, seated as usual at his writing barely turned round as the door opened in response to his “Come in.” But a pause of footsteps brought him from his chair. A tall, legal-looking man was standing on the threshold surveying the bareness of the land through a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez which ornamented his aquiline nose. . “ Mr. Rollestone ?” he queried. Rollestone bowed. 1

“ At your service.” For one wild moment visions of a seeker after articles came to him, but the stranger’s next words dismissed that at once. “ I am your late aunt’s legal adviser, Mr. Rollestone. You may have heard of me ; what you probably have not heard is that the greater part of her vast wealth was bequeathed to .me in trust for some one. That some one, 1 may as well tell you at once, is yourself.” Rollestone stared at the lawyer with amazement frankly visible in his face. “To me !” he stammered. But 1 . . . understood that ■. • • The lawyer raised his hand. “One moment. There are conditions: your late aunt was ... I may put it plainly ... an eccentric woman ; her affection for you received a great shock when you found it impossible to follow her wishes and choose as a profession that of company promoting, in which she unfortunately at that time took a very deep interest. Before her death her views underwent a marked change ; it is not necessary for me to give you her reasons m detail, but it will be sufficient for me to say that she found out that those she trusted were unworthy of her confidence. She then took precautions to tie up her wealth in the following manner :—On me she laid her commands to watch your career, and for the space of two years to hold no communication with you whatever. If at the end of that time 1. was satisfied with my investigations as to your mode of living ; occupation and so forth and if m addition on calling upon you I found you willing to give up your present life entirely ; its associates and its labours she devised , the whole of her wealth, which has hitherto been held in trust by me, to you absolutely, solely on the conditions which I have named to you. It is for you, Mr. Rollestone, to say whether I may congratulate you upon your accession to a fortune which inay be computed roughly at some twenty thousand per annum.” ' ... Had a bombshell descended at his feet, Rollestone could hardly have been more astonished. He listened to the lawyer as ff in a dream. Twenty thousand a year! Vast wealth ! All his . . . if • • • he gave up now and for ever all his old associations with Model Buildings ; with hack-writing, with mended hose . . . with . . . Rachel ! It was not possible. The lawyer watched him with keen eyes. “ Vet —you hesitate ?” he said dryly. • A soft footstep paused outside the door ; there was a gentle knock and , th ® . opened to admit Rachel Durand, with a tinv parcel in her hand. „ “ 1 will not disturb you, Mr. Rollestone, she said, with a quick glance at the strauger “ but 1 have brought back the few things I had still of yours. And before he could speak she laid the parcel on the table, and went out, closing the door behind he For a moment the two men looked at each other. “ It is not necessary for me to make my decision at once, I suppose . • said RolleM< means ; yet it. should be made as soon as possible. Perhaps you will communicate with me at your earliest convem--0 n“ Certainly. In three days’ time at the most, I am very much obliged to you but —you will understand that there are some things which it is difficult, if not impossible, to give up without an effort. The lawyer nodded. . “A woman in it,’ he said to himself, then picked up his gloves, and laid a card 0I “ livin''leave you my address, Mr. Rollestone, and shall hope to hear Trom you soon. Good-morning. By the way, who was the lady who called a moment ago “ Miss Rachel Durand.” . “ Durand ?” The lawyer visibly started, then bent a keen eye upon Rollestone. “ Can you oblige me with her address . “ Certainly I can, but . . . The lawyer laughed dryly at his TiesitaU “"Vou wonder why I want it, eh ?” he said “Well, it has struck me that she may be a person for whom I have been commissioned to search. In which case —sm-mu my surmise prove correct—i may have a piece of good news for her too. - 1 hen it it is good fortune which waits upon Her. itever was it more richly deserved" said Rollestona ; “ she lives just over the way at No. 140—those rooms opposite.” , . “Ah ! indeed. She is —in straitened circumstances ?” . , „ “ iihe works for her living, at any rate, said Rollestone, and the lawyer nodded.

“It conics to llig same thing in nine cases out of ten/' he remarked. Weil, good morning, Mr. Kollestone.” When he had gone, Kollestone threw himself into his chair by the smouldering fue, and so sat for the space of nearly an hour, plunged in the profouudest thought. This accession to sudden and overwhelming fortune was no unmixed blessing, since it required at his hands a sacnlice of independence—of perhaps an ideal—of—of Rachel. The thing was—could he give her up V Was it possible that any other woman could so fill* his life as sho had done for the past four months '( No ; it was not to be thought of for a moment. Yet —was ever man in such a horrible quandary '! Far into the afternoon he sat and wrestled with it, leaving bis frugal dinner untouched—his pen unheeded, though a new article was only just begun, and ought to have been finished by nightfall. , Then, glancing out of his window, be saw Kachel. She was closing her window, for the April wind blew chill, and the sun had gone down into an amethyst and daffodil eolou’-cd sky. . . And before night fell Kollestone s decision was made. He would ask Kachel to sharo with him—not poverty, for he would not drag her young life to misery—his life of patient waiting, till the day, when without fear or shame, he could call her wife. And as to the fortune—love, they say, laughs at locksmiths ; it also on occasions laughs at bankers.

“ Kachel, will you be my wife —some day ?” , ... He said it after the manner of men, with his eyes fixed on his boots, and an air of speaking to anything in the room rather than to the woman before him for whom the words were obviously meant. “ What can we live on ?” were the first audible words she said, and she spoke them from the safe shelter of his arms.

• It was a day later, and the scene was the bare though delightfully dainty little room in which Miss Durand did her typewriting and her mendfhg of gentlemen s underclothing. On a table stood the familiar black japanned cover, which hid her beloved machine*; on another stood the capacious work basket with its reels of thread, its banks of mending wool, and its pile of socks —Kollestone’s. “As for that, darling heart, we must wait awhile,” he said happily. Who knows but that I may yet get on to the staff ot a paper, or make a hit somewhere, as others have done before me ? And for the present I’ll work like a nigger. He sure of that, Rachel.” “And 1, dear; but listen. Do you know, a stranger came yesterday to see me ! A lawyer. He asked me a good many questions about my parents, &c., and then went away hinting that 1 should to quote the papers—hear of ‘ something to my ad,vantage’ before long. Do you think it could bo that I have suddenly come into a fortune ? But no—that is too impossible. ’ Kollestone grew grave. Then he drew the girl to him, and kissed her pink cheek. “ Why impossible, dear ? Have i not come into a fortune with you ?” So they entered into their Aden, and Rachel at least was able to enjoy its bliss to the full. On Kollestone’s mind lay the letter which must be written to the lawyer announcing his decision. It was written before night, and reached the office in Lincoln's Inn by the first post in the morning. Mr. Greaves read it through with a grim “Ah ! What a miraculous solution of all the difficulties. Miss Rachel Durand ! H’m. 1 must get there this morning. Poor fellow. Well, 1 think all the better of him, for it e not many men who would have withstood such a temptation ; yet the love for woman —Ah ! well.” A few hours later the lawyer stood once more in the room in which Kollestone had heard for’ the first time of the fortune which lay waiting for him. ... . He was as usual at his writing-table ; he must work the harder now that there was some one else to work for, and he bent to his labours with a will. “ Mr. Greaves !” he said. “ Yes ! 1 came round at once ; there is one little point on which I must enlighten you, Mr. Kollestone. In your lettermay 1 sit down ? Thanks. In your letter you say you must renounce the fortune, on account of the fact that you are unable to fulfil your late aunt’s conditions. Ton also have informed me that you intend to marry Miss Rachel Durand, who, being one of your associates in your present life, obviously debars you from attaining to the position of a gentleman of fortune. Very good ; 1 have nothing to say to that except to offer you my most sincere congratulations ; to" inform you that I have already made the acquaintance of the charming young lady in question, and to give you this paper to read. You will note that it is in the handwriting of your late hunt.” Mr. Greaves leant back in his Windsor chair with a twinkle in his keen eyes, and fell to humming a nondescript tune, while Kollestone read with amazement . incredulity, and finally a gasp of unspeakable delight, the few words scrawled on a sheet of legal note-paper, and signed with his aunt’s name. . “If it be possible, I wisa my nephew to seek out a certain Rachel Durand . . the only child of the man I loved years ago' . . and to marry her. Should he do this, all the other conditions pertaining to my fortune are revoked, and he shall be my heir unconditionally.” - , , “ Well ?” Mr. Greaves spoke twice before Kollestone raised his stupified eyes from the fateful slip of paper. Well, Mr. Kollestone ? May I congratulate you now . . . again ?” . “ i ... I can’t believe it. Are you sure . . . but . . . The lawyer laughed. . “ There, thero, my dear fellow. Of course it is a shock, but a pleasant one, eh t You are not only the future husband of that charming young lady over the way, but the possessor of an income amounting to, roughly, twenty thousand a year. No more mending of socks, eh -? Lucky socks ! “ I can’t believe it !” “Then ask Miss Durand to help you to do so. I believe i see her at the window. Will you come ? I must be the first to • wish her joy. No—lTl follow more leisurely ; young legs you know . . . and lover's legs especially are difficult to keep up with. Ah ! Well !” Thus did fortune and happiness como to Kollestone and Rachel Durand, and the latter keeps with tender care a pair of veryragged socks, which he declares are the originals of the first pair Rachel had taken to mend. He declares he owes his life’s happiness to them —and a certain advertisement which he had read with careless eyes on that dreary December day- in the Model Buildings. ■