Some Short Stories | Page 5

none of that
vulgarity--his touch was infinitely fine. The delicacy of it was clear to
me on the first occasion my eyes rested, as they were so often to rest
again, on the domestic revealed, in the turbid light of the street, by the
opening of the house-door. I saw on the spot that though he had plenty
of school he carried it without arrogance--he had remained articulate
and human. L'Ecole Anglaise Mr. Offord used laughingly to call him
when, later on, it happened more than once that we had some
conversation about him. But I remember accusing Mr. Offord of not
doing him quite ideal justice. That he wasn't one of the giants of the
school, however, was admitted by my old friend, who really understood
him perfectly and was devoted to him, as I shall show; which doubtless
poor Brooksmith had himself felt, to his cost, when his value in the
market was originally determined. The utility of his class in general is
estimated by the foot and the inch, and poor Brooksmith had only about
five feet three to put into circulation. He acknowledged the inadequacy
of this provision, and I'm sure was penetrated with the everlasting
fitness of the relation between service and stature. If HE had been Mr.

Offord he certainly would have found Brooksmith wanting, and indeed
the laxity of his employer on this score was one of many things he had
had to condone and to which he had at last indulgently adapted himself.
I remember the old man's saying to me: "Oh my servants, if they can
live with me a fortnight they can live with me for ever. But it's the first
fortnight that tries 'em." It was in the first fortnight for instance that
Brooksmith had had to learn that he was exposed to being addressed as
"my dear fellow" and "my poor child." Strange and deep must such a
probation have been to him, and he doubtless emerged from it tempered
and purified. This was written to a certain extent in his appearance; in
his spare brisk little person, in his cloistered white face and
extraordinarily polished hair, which told of responsibility, looked as if
it were kept up to the same high standard as the plate; in his small clear
anxious eyes, even in the permitted, though not exactly encouraged,
tuft on his chin. "He thinks me rather mad, but I've broken him in, and
now he likes the place, he likes the company," said the old man. I
embraced this fully after I had become aware that Brooksmith's main
characteristic was a deep and shy refinement, though I remember I was
rather puzzled when, on another occasion, Mr. Offord remarked: "What
he likes is the talk--mingling in the conversation." I was conscious I
had never seen Brooksmith permit himself this freedom, but I guessed
in a moment that what Mr. Offord alluded to was a participation more
intense than any speech could have represented-- that of being
perpetually present on a hundred legitimate pretexts, errands,
necessities, and breathing the very atmosphere of criticism, the famous
criticism of life. "Quite an education, sir, isn't it, sir?" he said to me one
day at the foot of the stairs when he was letting me out; and I've always
remembered the words and the tone as the first sign of the quickening
drama of poor Brooksmith's fate. It was indeed an education, but to
what was this sensitive young man of thirty-five, of the servile class,
being educated?
Practically and inevitably, for the time, to companionship, to the
perpetual, the even exaggerated reference and appeal of a person
brought to dependence by his time of life and his infirmities and always
addicted moreover--this was the exaggeration--to the art of giving you

pleasure by letting you do things for him. There were certain things Mr.
Offord was capable of pretending he liked you to do even when he
didn't--this, I mean, if he thought YOU liked them. If it happened that
you didn't either--which was rare, yet might be--of course there were
cross-purposes; but Brooksmith was there to prevent their going very
far. This was precisely the way he acted as moderator; he averted
misunderstandings or cleared them up. He had been capable, strange as
it may appear, of acquiring for this purpose an insight into the French
tongue, which was often used at Mr. Offord's; for besides being
habitual to most of the foreigners, and they were many, who haunted
the place or arrived with letters--letters often requiring a little worried
consideration, of which Brooksmith always had cognisance--it had
really become the primary language of the master of the house. I don't
know if all the malentendus were in French, but almost all the
explanations were, and this didn't a bit prevent