Peter Binney: A Novel

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Introduction

It is over twenty years since ^^ Peter Binney *' was first published in England, and I should be unwilling to offer it to my American readers at this time of day without some plea for leniency towards a young man's book, which contains perhaps more than the average number of crudities to be found in such beginnings. A few of the crudities I have been able to soften, but if you begin tampering with early work in the light of maturer knowledge, you are very apt to rub off the bloom that attaches to it just because it is early work, written with spirit and freshness, though with little skill. So I have left '^ Peter Binney *' much as it was, with most of its imperfections on its head, and I trust some compensating merits.

One merit I know it to possess. It presents a picture of the lighter side of undergraduate life as it was in Oxford and Cambridge, and as it still exists, in spite of superficial changes; and that is something that can only be done by a young man, whose memories are still fresh, and to whom that life is still important enough to make it the basis of a story.

New York, July, 1921

Contents

CHAPTEB PAOI

I Mb. Binney Makes Up His Mind . • 1

II Mb. Binney Intebviews One Tutob,

Chapter I

MB. BINNET MAKES UP HIS MIKB

" I'l.!. do it to-daj,'' said Peter Binnej.

He had been sitting deep in thought ever since he had climbed on to the omnibus outside his place of business in the Whitechapel Road. As the vehicle pursued its ponderous way through the crowded streets of the Citj^ stopping now and again to add to its load of homewardbound business men, Mr. Binney sat in his seat, silent and preoccupied, his eyes on the ground and a thoughtful frown qp his face. As it left the Post Office, full inside and out, and bowled smartly along the broad asphalted road towards the Viaduct, his face cleared, the light of determination shone in his eye, and looking up, he said aloud: —

" rU do it to-day.''

His fellow passengers gazed at him in surprise, and a young lady who sat by his side, heavily fringed and feathered, and laden with a huge cardboard box, laughed a coarse laugh, and said :

** That's right, guv'nor, don't you put it off no longer."

Mr. Binney had not intended to express his determination aloud, and the notice his remark had drawn ft PETER BINNEY

annoyed him. As the young lady was apparently turning oyer in her mind further witticisms, he decided to leave the omnibus and walk the rest of the way to his house in Russell Square. He made his way slowly down the unsteady stairs, and the young lady said :

** A good cup o' beef tea's what you want, George, and don't forgit the 'ot-water bottle," and as the omnibus pursued its way, leaving him walking briskly along the pavement, she leant over the side and called out, " Git Mariar to put a mustard plaster on yer chest," which made the people on the omnibus laugh, although Mr. Binney could see no humour in the remark.

He had come, however, to such a momentous decision during the last half-hour that by the time he had gone a dozen steps he had ceased to feel any irritation at the young lady's pleasantries, and walked smartly along, his brain all on fire with his mighty purpose.

Peter Binney was a small man of about forty-five years of age. His hair was gingery, and his whiskers decidedly red. He looked rather like a little bantamcock as he strutted along, and this was a curious coincidence, for he had made his fortune by selling poultry food.

Every one has heard of Binney's Food for Poultry. Indeed it would be quite impossible for anybody who is able to read to be unaware of its existence, for its fame is blazoned on every hoarding in the United King* dom. It was Peter Binney who first conceived the idea of advancing the •cause of art and advertising his wares at the same thne. In the early days, when the future world-famed business was just emerging from its chrysalis state of a little comchandler's shop in the ndgfabourhood of the East India Docks, he was content to publish a picture of a simpering young woman in a quilted satin petticoat and dancing shoes, feeding a number of plethoric hens in a very clean farmyard. But when the shop became a factory and Mr. Binney's keen business capacity began to teU, he issued his celebrated series of '^ Raphael's Cartoons for the Home," across the sky of each of which ran the inscription, ** Binney's Food for Poultry." After a little time he published an edition of the ** Plays of Shakespeare," in which all the passages that Mr. Bowdler would have omitted were ingeniously converted by Mr. Binney into eulogies on his Food for Poultry. Poultry and taste were alike fed by Mr. Binney, and his business flourished accordingly. At the age of forty-five he found himself a rich man, with a house in Russell Square, a family tomb in Kensal Green Cemetery (tenanted at present only by his wife), and a son who was being educated at Eton.

But to return to the present time and Mr. Binney's purpose. When he had let himself into the house in Russell Square, he rang the bell and inquired of the parlour-maid who answered it if Mr. Lucius was at home. Hearing that he was not, Mr. Binney seemed somewhat relieved, and went straight up into his dressing-room, where he put on the coat and trousers generally reserved for Sunday wear, and exchanged^ his dark tie for a brilliant red one. Then he looked at his bootsy and hesitated. They were neat enough, but they had lost the sober brilliance of the morning. There was a row of similar boots freshly blacked under the dressing-table, but even these must have wanted something in Mr. Binney's eyes, for after looking at them thoughtfully he shook his head, and opening the door stole quietly out and upstairs into a room above his own. It was rather an untidy room and evidently oc* cupied by a young man of athletic tastes, to judge by the dumb-bells and Indian clubs, cricket-bats, guncases and fishing-rods that littered the corners. There was a row of boots and shoes under the dressing-table here too, and among them a pair of shining patent leathers. Mr. Binney made his way across the room on tiptoe, and seizing the boots, trees and all, retreated with them hurriedly to his own room, where he sat down and put them on. They were a good deal too big, but an extra pair of winter socks set that right, and when Mr. Binney had buttoned them he stood up on a chair and surveyed himself in the glass with considerable satisfaction. ** I must get a pair like that," he said. Then he went downstairs, and putting on his best hat and gloves, and taking his best umbrella out of the stand, he left the house.

Turning to the left, Mr. Binney made his way towards Wobum Square. If he had looked the other way as he came out of his house he would have seen his son Lucius coming towards him not fifty yards off. Lucius was very unlike his father. He was a goodlooking boy of about eighteen, tall and slim, with Uue eyes and a pleasant smiling mouth fringed with a few fair downy hairs, of which he always spoke collectively. He was very popular among his school-fdlows, and was commonly known by the name of ** Lucy.**

^^ Halloa ! " he said to himself as he caught sight of his father coming down the steps of the parental mansion. " Where's the governor off to, I wonder ! Looks joDy smart, too. S'pose he's going to call on that old woman. Jove! he's got a pair of shiny boots on. I Bay, governor, you're going it ! They're a bit too big for you though, my boy. Shall I give him a hail? Think I won't. He might want me to go and call on the old tabby with him."

So Lucius let himself into the house and went upstairs. As he passed his father's room, the door of which was open, he looked in and saw that the floor was littered with the component parts of a pair of boottrees. *^ Didn't know the governor went in for those luxuries," he said to himself. Then a sudden thought struck him ; he went in and took up one of the pieces. ^* Well, I'm hanged ! " he said in a tone of deep annoyance. *^ They are mine. And he's actuaDy got on my boots. There's a piece of nerve for you ! There'll be a row when you get home, young man. I really can't stand that, you know." And Lucius went out of his father's room very much annoyed.

We left Mr. Binney making his way towards Wobum Square. He walked on until he came to a house with a brightly-painted blue door, where he rang the bell and asked if Mrs. Higginbotham was at home. The maid treated him with the subdued cordiality of an old acquaintance and led him straight upstairs to Mrs. Higginbotham's drawing-room, where her mistress was discovered warming her feet at a bright fire, and reading the Christian World, She was a stout, middle-aged lady, and wore a dress of rich black silk. The room wore an air of warm, solid comfort. Its decorations would not have satisfied the late Mr. William Morris, it is true, but as they completely satisfied Mrs. Higginbotham, that was not a matter of great importance.

**Dear me, Mr. Binney, this is very kind of you," said Mrs. Higginbotham, rising to greet her visitor.

Mr. Binney shook hands with her and took the chair to which she had motioned him. He did not speak, but the compressed upper lip and the thoughtful look with which he regarded Mrs. Higginbotham caused a slight fluttering In that lady's ample bosom. With a woman's instinct she immediately knew as surely as if he had already told her what he had come to say. ^He's going to do it to-day,'' she said to herself, and true to the tactics of her sex she set herself at once to ward off the critical moment as long as possible. She plunged into conversation of the sprightly religious order, for Mrs. Higginbotham was a good woman and could talk by the hour together of preachers and movements and causes, in which conversation Mr. Binney was quite capable of holding his own, for he and Mrs. Higginbotham sat under the same preacher and held the same theological views. There was another point in common between them, and while Mrs. Higginbotham is struggling to maintain a bright and lively conversation, to which Mr. Binney replies only by terse monosyllables, there will be time to explain what this was.

Both Mr. Binney and Mrs. Higginbotham had a soul above their surroundings. In the case of Mr. Binney this has already been indicated by the way in which, while conducting his business on the most approved lines of commercial progress, he essayed to import into it something better and nobler than the mere pushing of his wares and the piling up of a fortune. Those cartoons from Raphael had infused a love of art into many humble homes, and not a few minds had been enriched by the perusal of Binney's Shakespeare (a play given away with every sack of his food for poultry), to such an extent that the deterioration of eyesight brought about by the quality of paper and print with which those masterpieces were issued was a very small matter in consideration of the mental enlightenment ^ which had been diffused throughout the country.

Mrs. Higginbotham's aspirations were not of so educational a character. Her literary yearnings were satisfied by the weekly appearance of the Family Herald ^ Supplement, to which event she looked forward regu- j larly with great pleasure. That excellent periodical never made its appearance in her drawing-room, al- | though sundry works of fiction from the lending library ^ round the corner, dealing with the habits and customs of the aristocracy, did. Mrs. Higginbotham's father had been a draper in a small way of business, and her husband, beginning life in her father's shop, by the time he died had become a draper in a very large way. Wealth and luxury had been Mrs. Higginbotham's lot for many years, but what she yearned for was the larger, freer life led by those happy beings of whom she read in her chosen novels. To be able to look upon a lord without blinking; to be able to look upon lords every day of your life ; to have it said in a newspaper, *'I saw Mrs. * Fluffy' Higginbotham " (Fluffy had been the term of endearment enjoyed by the late Mr. Higginbotham) *^ sitting under the Achilles Statue in a plum-coloured gown with lettuce-green revers; *' to have cards of invitation pouring in, every other one illuminated by a title ; to regard the London season as something more than the time of year when the days were getting longer and it would soon be time to think about going to the seaside — comfortable as Mrs. Higginbotham's circumstances were, her life had been singularly devoid of these delights.

And this was not all. Mrs. Higginbotham was romantic. She revelled in a love-story. She adored the Apollo-like heroes of her favourite fiction with an ungrudging wealth of admiration, and she envied hardly less the blushing heroines on whom they lavished the stores of their magnificent affections. Mrs. Higginbotham felt that it ought to be the lot of every girl to be a blushing heroine at one time of her life. She felt that she herself had been unjustly deprived of that privilege, although she had been ah attractive girl, and, if she read the expression in Peter Binney's eyes rightly, was attractive still. The late Mr. Higginbotham had been a good husband to her, but his actual proposal had been of the ** Here I am — ^Take me if you like — If you don't there are plenty that will, and only too glad to get the chance" order. She had taken him, but he had never satisfied the romantic cravings of her nature. She, on her part, had been a good wife to him, but so far as she was aware he had never, from first to last, regarded her as a heroine, or if he had he had never shown it.

Would Peter Binney do more? Was it too late to hope that a whiff of the fragrant breezes of romance might yet blow upon her? Mrs. Higginbotham scarcely knew. There was a scMnething in the little man that inclined her to think that he would not be averse to dally in the Indian summer of a romantic courtship* if she made it quite plain to him that that was what she required; and there was a something, in spite of his diminutive stature and the byegone forty-five years of his successful life, in the fire of his eye and in his erect and proud bearing, that whispered to Mrs. Higginbotham's heart that she might, by guarding the sensation with extreme care, bring herself to regard him as a very good substitute for the youthful adorer who it was almost too much to hope would come forward at this time of day.

While these questions passed through her mind, Mrs. Higginbotham went on talking, and Mr. Binney, answering her without knowing in the least what she was talking about, mentally braced himself up for the proposal he was about to make. At last he broke into the middle of one of Mrs. Higginbotham's sentences and said in a firm and resolute voice, *^ Mrs. Higginbotham, ma'am."

Mrs. Higginbotham saw that the time had come, and gave up the struggle.

"Yes, Mr. Binney?*^ she said in as cool a tone as «he could muster.

"I am not so young as I was, ma'am," said Mr. Binney.

" We are none of us that," said Mrs. Higginbotham. " At least not people at our time of life."

** You have no reason to complain, ma'am/' said Mr. Binney gallantly.

^^My heart is young," said Mrs. Higginbotham, greatly pleased at the compliment, ^ and if I am not very much mistaken, yours is also."

** I hope it is," said Mr. Binney, greatly pleased in his turn ; ^ and on that account I have a proposal to make to you, ma'am, which I hope you will consider favourably."

^ I'm sure I shall do that, whatever it is," said Mrs. Higginbotham comfortably.

^^ I hope so," said Mr. Binney again. ** The fact is, ma'am, that I have long regarded you with feelings of interest, which have in the course of time developed into feelings of affection. I can scarcely hope that those feelings are returned, but I should wish to ask, ma'am, if there is any chance in the near or distant future that they might be."

^^Oh, Mr. Binney!" exclaimed Mrs. Higginbotham with a lively recollection of the heroines of fiction. ^ This is so sudden."

^^ It is, ma'am," said Mr. Binney. '^ I am aware of that. This sort of thing mu$t be sudden at some time or another, if it is to result in bus — I mean if anything is to come of it. I don't wish to press you for an answer yet. I merely wish to lay my ideas before you. I might say that*I wish to marry again in order to obtain those advantages which— er — ^which cam$

I \% PETER BINNEY from marrying again. I might saj that I want an agreeable companion to sit at the head of my table, to entertain me with her society in my leisure hours, and to act in the capacity of mother to my only son« I do want that, but that is not all. I have worked hard all my life, ma'am, and am now a comparatively rich man. But I have had very little pleasure in my life. I married my first wife to please her. I want to marry my second to please myulj. And I want above all to impart into the affair some of that — er — glamour, which, in my opinion, should envelop aD courtship. I therefore come to you, ma'am, an agreeable and charming woman, and ask you, not to accept me as a man of good position able to offer you a comfortable home, which I am aware you have already, but as a man who, although no longer young, is younger than a good many people, and who loves you for yourself alone, and would like to take an opportunity of proving it.*'

Could Mrs. Higginbotham believe her ears? If Peter Binney had asked her to marry him in the way he had suggested, and scouted, she would have accepted him with a sigh for lost illusions now no longer tenable. But it really seemed as if that romance for which the poor lady had so longed was going to be opened up for her, and an ardent swain, in the person of Peter Binney, Manufacturer of Poultry Food, was ready to throw himself at her feet and plead for her favour.

Mro. Higginbotham could scarcely yet grasp the happiness that seemed to be dawning on her horizon.

•* Do you really love me for myself, Mr. Binney ? " she asked with faltering lips.

" Say Peter/' corrected Mr. Binney.

^' Peter/' said Mrs. Higginbotham submissively, with a delicious thrill.

'* Yes, I do," said that gentleman. *« But I don't want you to accept me in a hurry, you know," he added hastily. " I want you to try me, to prove me, to see what I'm made of." He slapped his little breast with a determined air, and looked round the room as if in search of some object by means of which he might be proved on the spot.

Mrs. Higginbotham might have replied that she knew him tolerably well already, having met him with some frequency for the last twenty years. But his attitude caused her such a degree of pleasure that she was by no means prepared to spoil the sensation by reminding him of that fact. At the same time she was a little nervous and flurried. She had all the will in the world to prove him, but she didn't quite know how to set about it. If there had been a crusade handy she might have sent him off to that, but she could think of no nineteenth century substitute on the spur of the moment. Mr. Binney had been a Volunteer in his youth, as he had often told her, but he was one no longer, so she could not set him to watch his accoutrements all night in a church. Besides, Mr. Binney went to chapel, and the minister wouldn't have liked it. She didn't reaUy quite know what he did want, but fortunately Mr. Binney himself came to the rescue and made himself a little clearer.

"Now, Mrs. Higginbotham," he began. "By-thebye, may I call you Martha? "

" Yes, do,** said Mrs. Higginbotham.

" Now, my dear Martha," began Mr. Binney again, ^ what you have got to do is to tell me what in your opinion the behaviour of an ideal lover should be, and what / have got to do is to endeavour to the best of my ability to act up to your opinion."

" Well, Peter,*' began Mrs. Higginbotham, " I must confess that I have always wished that I had had in my youth a devoted lover who should be something of a hero/'

"Quite so, quite so," assented Mr. Binney with an energetic nod. " I shall do my best to be that, my very best."

"One," continued Mrs. Higginbotham, "whom I could admire for — er — manliness and — er — lightheartedness, and— er — beauty, both of form and feature.'*

" Exactly so," nodded her wooer.

'* One who would regard me as the most beautiful — er — female in the world ; not that I should be that, of course, but I should like him to think so."

*^0f course, of course/' said Mr. Binnej. *^ Quite natural."

^ And who would try to make little opportunities of meeting me, and being where I was."

^^ Exactly," said Mr. Binney, who had been admitted into Mrs. Higginbotham's house any time these last twenty years whenever he liked to present himself.

** Whose heart would beat quicker when he did see me, and who would be quite rewarded for any trouble he might have taken over the matter by seeing me."

** I quite see, ma'am, I quite see," said Mr. Binney. " The truth of it is, you want to renew your youth, I take it. Not that it requires much renewing," he added gallantly.

^^ Oh, Peter ! " exclaimed Mrs. Higginbotham coyly.

^ And I want to renew my youth, Martha," continued Mr. Binney with some fervour. " I've worked very hard ever since I was a boy, as you know, and I nev£r had the fun that I should like to have had, or that the young fellows I see about me now have — ^my son, for instance."

^* Dear boy," murmured Mrs. Higginbotham.

** Dear boy, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Binney, " and lucky boy, too, Martha. Look what Fve done for that boy. Fve sent him to Eton, where / never had a chance of going, or anywhere like it. Why, Martha, life is one continuous round of pleasure at Eton. And now he is going to Cambridge. There* g a place for you! Why, I assure you, you could hardly believe the fun that young fellows have at a place like Cambridge." ^^Yes, I can. I've read books about it," said Mrs. Higginbotham, ** and I had a nephew there once who used to tell me things. Ah, Mr. Binney, if I were only what I used to be twenty years ago, and you were at Cambridge ! "

*

" Pooh, Martha," said Mr. Binney. *' You weren't half so attractive as you are now, I'll be bound. And as for me, though I am forty-five, I'm as active as ever and could hold up my head with the best of them."

^' I know you could, Peter," said Mrs. Higginbotham.

"Now, Martha, I've got something in my mind," said Mr. Binney. " It's been there for some time, but I haven't liked to mention it to you because I was afraid — ^well, I didn't know how you might take it. But really, you've taken what I "have said in such a way as — ^as to be extremely gratifying to me, and upon my word I don't believe you'll think my idea so very absurd after all."

Mrs. Higginbotham looked at him with deep interest depicted in her face.

Mr. Binney squared himself and sat up in his chair. ** Lucius is going to Cambridge in October," he said. ** Now what do you say to my going with him? '*

Mrs. Higginbotham's look of interest gradually

MSL BINNEY MAKES UP HIS MIND 17

brightened into cme of delisted agreement. ^Oh, Peter," she said, ''if you only could! Isn't it too late?"

** Not a bit," said Mr. Binney. ^ There's no limit of age. I found that out long ago. I could go up there and be treated in all respects as if I was five-andtwenty years younger than I am. And do you know, Martha," added the little man confidentially, '' such is my freshness of mind that I believe in time I should come to believe that I was five-and-twenty years younger."

Mrs. Higginbotham looked at him in speechless admiration. " It would be lovely," she said. ** What an interest I should take in your doings, Peter ! "

This speech was as a spark to the tinder of Mr. Binney's inclinations. ^^ If you think about it like that, Martha, 111 do it," he cried delightedly. ''And now I must be getting home. I'll have a talk to Lucius about it to-night, and come and tell you what I have decided to-morrow."

Mr. Binney took a tender farewell of Mrs. Higginbotham, and left her to spend the evening in roseate dreams of returning youth and a wider horizon than that visible from her windows in Wobum Square.

Chapter II Anothee

Mb. Biknet and his son sat over their wine that evening in the seclusion of the dining-room in Russell Square. Mr. Binney had been somewhat silent during dinner, thinking over the disclosure he was about to make. Somehow, now that it came to the point, he felt a certain diffidence in mentioning it. Lucius also had something to saj, but waited until the servants were out of the room.

" I say, father,'' he said, when they were left alone, " I've ordered a new pair of patent leather boots from Peal's, and asked them to send the bill in to you."

Mr. Binney, immersed in his thoughts, had forgotten

the occurrence of the afternoon, or he would not have

rushed with such haste to his own destruction. ^* Bill

into me, Lucius?" he exclaimed angrily. "What do

you mean? You've got your own allowance, and a

very handsome one it is. I'm not going to pay your

bilk for you besides. If it comes into me I shall tear

it up."

•* You've got your own boots," retorted Lucius, " and

▼ery handsome ones they are. If you take a fancy to mine I don't mind you wearing them a bit, only I haven't got enough for us both, so I thought you wouldn't mind my getting another pair, as I can't do without."

*^H'm! Ah! yesP' said Mr. Binney, a trifle confused. ^No, I don't mind really, my boy, though I don't think there are many fathers who would take it like that."

** There aren't many fathers who would take their sons' boots," said Lucius. ^ By the way, father, talking about allowances, what allowance are you going to make me at Cambridge? "

'*Ah, Cambridge!" echoed Mr. Binney, as if that ancient seat of learning had just been brought to his notice for the first time. ^ Yes, we must talk about Cambridge."

** I should like to have it settled before I go back to Eton for my last half, if you don't mind," said Lucius. *'A lot of my friends are going up, and we shall be sure to be talking over it a good deal. I should like to know what I shall be able to do and what I shan't."

^ You ought to think yourself very lucky to be going to Cambridge at all," said Mr. Binney with a shake of the head. ^I never had the chance of going to Cambridge when I was a young fellow."

^Oh, I daresay it's a jolly enough place," said Lucius, ^ although I shall be sorry to leave Eton.