Mr Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of hisbrother-in-law. It could be done, because there was very little business at anytime, and practically none at all before the evening. Mr Verloc cared but littleabout his ostensible business. And, moreover, his wife was in charge of hisbrother-in-law.
The shop was small, and so was the house. It was one of those grimy brick houseswhich existed in large quantities before the era of reconstruction dawned uponLondon. The shop was a square box of a place, with the front glazed in smallpanes. In the daytime the door remained closed; in the evening it stooddiscreetly but suspiciously ajar.
The window contained photographs of more or less undressed dancing girls;nondescript packages in wrappers like patent medicines; closed yellow paperenvelopes, very flimsy, and marked two and six in heavy black figures; a fewnumbers 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, andrubber stamps; a few books with titles hinting at impropriety; a few apparentlyold copies of obscure newspapers, badly printed, with titles like the Torch, theGong - rousing titles. And the two gas-jets inside the panes were always turnedlow, 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 timebefore slipping in suddenly; or men of a more mature age, but looking generallyas if they were not in funds. Some of that last kind had the collars of theirovercoats turned right up to their moustaches, and traces of mud on the bottomof their nether garments, which had the appearance of being much worn and notvery valuable. And the legs inside them did not, as a general rule, seem of muchaccount either. With their hands plunged deep in the side pockets of theircoats, they dodged in sideways, one shoulder first, as if afraid to start thebell going.
The bell, hung on the door by means of a curved ribbon of steel, was difficultto circumvent. It was hopelessly cracked; but of an evening, at the slightestprovocation, it clattered behind the customer with impudent virulence.
It clattered; and at that signal, through the dusty glass door behind thepainted deal counter, Mr Verloc would issue hastily from the parlour at theback. His eyes were naturally heavy; he had an air of' having wallowed, fullydressed, all day on an unmade bed. Another man would have felt such anappearance a distinct disadvantage. In a commercial transaction of the retailorder much depends on the seller's engaging and amiable aspect. But Mr Verlocknew his business, and remained undisturbed by any sort of aesthetic doubt abouthis appearance. With a firm, steady-eyed impudence, which seemed to hold backthe threat of some abominable menace, he would proceed to sell over the countersome object looking obviously and scandalously not worth the money which passedin the transaction: a small cardboard box with apparently nothing inside, forinstance, or one of those carefully closed yellow flimsy envelopes, or a soiledvolume in paper covers with a promising title. Now and then it happened that oneof the faded, yellow dancing girls would get sold to an amateur, as though shehad been alive and young.
Sometimes it was Mrs Verloc who would appear at the call of the cracked bell.
Winnie Verloc was a young woman with a full bust, in a tight bodice, and withbroad hips. Her hair was very tidy. Steady-eyed like her husband, she preservedan air of unfathomable indifference behind the rampart of the counter. Then thecustomer of comparatively tender years would get suddenly disconcerted at havingto deal with a woman, and with rage in his heart would proffer a request for abottle of marking ink, retail value sixpence (price in Verloc's shop one andsixpence), which, once outside, he would drop stealthily into the gutter.
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 theflap at the end of the counter in order to pass into the back parlour, whichgave access to a passage and to a steep flight of stairs. The door of the shopwas the only means of entrance to the house in which Mr Verloc carried on hisbusiness of a seller of shady wares, exercised his vocation of a protector ofsociety, and cultivated his domestic virtues. These last were pronounced. He wasthoroughly domesticated. Neither his spiritual, nor his mental, nor his physicalneeds were of the kind to take him much abroad. He found at home the ease of hisbody and the peace of his conscience, together with Mrs Verloc's wifelyattentions and Mrs Verloc's mother's deferential regard.
Winnie's mother was a stout, wheezy woman, with a large brown face. She wore ablack wig under a white cap. Her swollen legs rendered her inactive. Sheconsidered herself to be of French descent, which might have been true; andafter a good many years of married life with a licensed victualler of the morecommon sort, she provided for the years of widowhood by letting furnishedapartments for gentlemen near Vauxhall Bridge Road in a square once of somesplendour and still included in the district of Belgravia. This topographicalfact was of some advantage in advertising her rooms; but the patrons of theworthy widow were not exactly of the fashionable kind. Such as they were, herdaughter Winnie helped to look after them. Traces of the French descent whichthe widow boasted of were apparent in Winnie, too. They were apparent in theextremely neat and artistic arrangement of her glossy dark hair. Winnie had alsoother charms: her youth; her full, rounded form; her clear complexion; theprovocation of her unfathomable reserve, which never went so far as to preventconversation, carried on on the lodger's part with animation, and on hers withan equable amiability. It must be that Mr Verloc was susceptible to thesefascinations. Mr Verloc was an intermittent patron. He came and went without anyvery apparent reason. He generally arrived in London (like the influenza) fromthe Continent, only he arrived unheralded by the press; and his visitations setin with great severity. He breakfasted in bed, and remained wallowing there withan air of quiet enjoyment till noon every day - and sometimes even to a laterhour. But when he went out he seemed to experience a great difficulty in findinghis 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 onwaking 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 talkingvehemently for many hours together. His prominent, heavy-lidded eyes rolledsideways amorously and languidly, the bedclothes were pulled up to his chin, andhis 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 herlife's experience gathered in various `business houses' the good woman had takeninto her retirement an ideal of gentlemanliness as exhibited by the patrons ofprivate-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 iton. It would have been too much trouble for Mr Verloc. It would not have beenconvenient for his other business. What his business was he did not say; butafter his engagement to Winnie he took the trouble to get up before noon, anddescending the basement stairs, make himself pleasant to Winnie's mother in thebreakfast-room downstairs where she had her motionless being. He stroked thecat, poked the fire, had his lunch served to him there. He left its slightlystuffy cosiness with evident reluctance, but, all the same, remained out tillthe night was far advanced. He never offered to take Winnie to theatres, as sucha nice gentleman ought to have done. His evenings were occupied. His work was ina way political, he told Winnie once. She would have, he warned her, to be verynice to his political friends. And with her straight, unfathomable glance sheanswered that she would be so, of course.
How much more he told her as to his occupation it was impossible for Winnie'smother to discover. The married couple took her over with the furniture. Themean aspect of the shop surprised her. The change from the Belgravian square tothe narrow street in Soho affected her legs adversely. They became of anenormous size. On the other hand, she experienced a complete relief frommaterial cares. Her son-in-law's heavy good nature inspired her with a sense ofabsolute safety. Her daughter's future was obviously assured, and even as to herson Stevie she need have no anxiety. She had not been able to conceal fromherself that he was a terrible encumbrance, that poor Stevie. But in view ofWinnie's fondness for her delicate brother, and of Mr Verloc's kind and generousdisposition, she felt that the poor boy was pretty safe in this rough world. Andin her heart of hearts she was not perhaps displeased that the Verlocs had nochildren. As that circumstance seemed perfectly indifferent to Mr Verloc, and asWinnie found an object of quasi-maternal affection in her brother, perhaps thiswas just as well for poor Stevie.
For he was difficult to dispose of, that boy. He was delicate and, in a frailway, good-looking, too, except for the vacant droop of his lower lip. Under ourexcellent system of compulsory education he had learned to read and write,notwithstanding the unfavourable aspect of the lower lip. But as errand-boy hedid not turn out a great success. He forgot his messages; he was easily divertedfrom the straight path of duty by the attractions of stray cats and dogs, whichhe followed down narrow alleys into unsavoury courts; by the comedies of thestreets, which he contemplated open-mouthed, to the detriment of his employer'sinterests; or by the dramas of fallen horses, whose pathos and violence inducedhim sometimes to shriek piercingly in a crowd, which disliked to be disturbed bysounds of distress in its quiet enjoyment of the national spectacle. When ledaway by a grave and protecting policeman, it would often become apparent thatpoor Stevie had forgotten his address - at least for a time. A brusque questioncaused him to stutter to the point of suffocation. When startled by anythingperplexing he used to squint horribly. However, he never had any fits (which wasencouraging); and before the natural outbursts of impatience on the part of hisfather be could always, in his childhood's days, run for protection behind theshort skirts of his sister Winnie. On the other hand, he might have beensuspected of hiding a fund of reckless naughtiness. When he had reached the ageof fourteen a friend of his late father, an agent for a foreign preserved milkfirm, having given him an opening as office-boy, he was discovered one foggyafternoon, in his chiefs absence, busy letting off fireworks on the staircase.
He touched off in quick succession a set of fierce rockets, angry catherinewheels, loudly exploding squibs - and the matter might have turned out veryserious. An awful panic spread through the whole building. Wild-eyed, chokingclerks stampeded through the passages full of smoke; silk hats and elderlybusinessmen could be seen rolling independently down the stairs. Stevie did notseem to derive any personal gratification from what he had done. His motives forthis stroke of originality were difficult to discover. It was only later on thatWinnie obtained from him a misty and confused confession. It seems that twoother office-boys in the building had worked upon his feelings by tales ofinjustice and oppression till they had wrought his compassion to the pitch ofthat frenzy. But his father's friend, of course, dismissed him summarily aslikely to ruin his business. After that altruistic exploit Stevie was put tohelp wash the dishes in the basement kitchen, and to black the boots of thegentlemen patronizing the Belgravian mansion. There was obviously no future insuch work. The gentlemen tipped him a shilling now and then. Mr Verloc showedhimself the most generous of lodgers. But altogether all that did not amount tomuch either in the way of gain or prospects; so that when Winnie announced herengagement to Mr Verloc her mother could not help wondering, with a sigh and aglance 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'smother and with the furniture, which was the whole visible fortune of thefamily. Mr Verloc gathered everything as it came to his broad, good-naturedbreast. The furniture was disposed to the best advantage all over the house, butMrs Verloc's mother was confined to two back rooms on the first floor. Theluckless Stevie slept in one of them. By this time a growth of thin fluffy hairhad come to blur, like a golden mist, the sharp line of his small lower jaw. Hehelped his sister with blind love and docility in her household duties. MrVerloc thought that some occupation would be good for him. His spare time heoccupied by drawing circles with compass and pencil on a piece of paper. Heapplied himself to that pastime with great industry, with his elbows spread outand bowed low over the kitchen table. Through the open door of the parlour atthe back of the shop Winnie, his sister, glanced at him from time to time withmaternal vigilance.