PART III

I

EARLY MORNING

Elsie it always was who every morning breathed the breath of life into

the dead nocturnal house, and revived it, and turned it once again from

a dark, unresponsive, meaningless and deathlike keep into a human

habitation. The dawn helped, but Elsie was the chief agent.

On this morning, which was a Monday, she arose much earlier than in the

rest of the week, and even before the dawn. She arose with her sorrow,

which left her only when she slept and which was patiently and

ruthlessly waiting for her when she awoke. Few people save certain

bodily sufferers and certain victims of frustration know the infernal,

everlasting perseverance of which pain, physical or mental, is capable.

Nevertheless, Elsie's sorrow was lightening by hope. Nearly a year had

passed since Joe's departure, and she had invented a purely

superstitious idea, almost a creed, that he would reappear on the

anniversary of his vanishing. This idea was built on nothing whatever;

and although it shot her sorrow through with radiance it also terrified

her--lest it should prove false. If it proved false her sorrow would

close her in like the black grave.

She raised the blind of her window and dressed; she was dressed in three

minutes; she propped the window open to the frosty air, lit the candle,

and went downstairs to the bathroom, and as she went the house seemed to

resume life under her tread. The bathroom contained nothing but Mrs.

Earlforward's safe, under the window, a clothes-horse, a clothes-line

or two stretched from window to door, and an orange-box and an oval

galvanized iron bath-tub, both of which were in the bath proper. The

week's wash lay in the orange-box and in the oval bath. It comprised no

large articles--no sheets, no table-cloths, only personal linen

(including one grey flannel shirt of Henry's and two collars), a few

towels, aprons, cloths, and two pillow-slips. Elsie fearfully lit the

ancient explosive geyser, cried "Oh!" and rushed to the window because

she had omitted the precaution of opening it, put nearly all the linen

into the bath, set the bath on the orange-box in the bath proper, left

the bathroom, and returned to it with another "Oh!" to blow out the

candle, which she had forgotten. It was twilight now.

In the first-floor front-room, which Mrs. Earlforward called the

dining-room and Elsie the parlour, all objects stood plainly revealed as

soon as Elsie had drawn up the two blinds. Half of the large table was

piled several feet high with books, and the other half covered with a

sheet of glass that was just a little small for its purpose. Elsie

dusted this glass first, and she dusted it again after she had cleaned

the room; not a long operation, the cleaning; she was "round" the room

like an express train. When she opened one of the windows to shake her

duster the sun was touching the top of the steeple of St. Andrew's,

Daphut's yard was unlocked, and trams and lorries were in movement in

King's Cross Road.

A beautiful October morning, thought Elsie as she naughtily lingered for

ten seconds at the window instead of getting on with her job. She

enjoyed the fresh, chill air blowing through Riceyman Steps. Conscience

pricked her; she shut the window. Taking crockery and cutlery from the

interior of the sideboard, she rapidly laid breakfast on the glass for

two. The parlour was now humanized, despite the unlit gas-fire. With a

glance at the clock, which rivalled Greenwich in exactitude, but which

had a mysterious and disconcerting habit of hurrying when she wanted it

to loiter, Elsie hastened away back to the bathroom and gave a knock on

the bedroom door as she passed. The bathroom was beautifully warm. She

rolled up her tight sleeves, put on a rough apron, and pushed the oval

tub under the thin trickle of steaming water that issued from the

burning geyser. She was absorbed utterly in her great life-work, and in

the problem of fitting the various parts of it into spaces of time which

would scarcely hold them. She had the true devotee's conviction that

something very grave, something disastrously affecting the whole world,

would happen if she fell short of her ideal in labour. As she bent over

the linen in the tub she hummed "God Save the King" to herself.

In the darkened bedroom Violet leaned over from her side of the bed and

placed her lips on Henry's in a long, anxious, loving kiss, and felt the

responsive upward pressure of his rich, indolent lips. They were happy

together, these two, so far as the dreadful risks of human existence

would allow. Never a cross word! Never a difference!

"How are you?" she murmured.

"I'm all right, Vi."

"You've got a heavy day in front of you."

"Yes. Fairly. I'm all right."

"Darling, I want you to do something for me, to please me. I know you

will."

"I expect I shall."

"I want you to eat a good breakfast before you start. I don't like the

idea of you----"

"Oh! _That!_" he interrupted her negligently. "I always eat as much as I

want. Nothing much the matter with me."

"No. Of course there isn't. But I don't like----"

"I say," he interrupted her again. "I tore the seat of my grey trousers

on Saturday. I wish you'd just mend it--now. It won't show, anyhow. You

can do it in a minute or two."

"You never told me."

The fact was he seldom did tell her anything until he had to tell her.

And his extraordinary gift for letting things slide was quite

unimpaired by the influence of marriage. Her face was still close to

his.

"You never told me," she repeated. Then she rose and slipped an old

mantle over her night-dress.

"Oh, Harry," she cried, near the window, examining the trousers, "I

can't possibly mend this now. It will take me half the morning. You must

put on your blue trousers."

"To go to an auction? No. I can't do that. You'll manage it well

enough."

"But you've got seven pairs of them, and six quite new!"

Years ago he had bought a job lot of blue suits, which fitted him

admirably, for a song. Yes, for a song! At the present rate of usage of

suits some of them would go down unworn to his heirs. He had had similar

luck with a parcel of flannel shirts. On the other hand, the

expensiveness and the mortality of socks worried him considerably.

"I don't think I'll wear the blue," he insisted blandly. "They're too

good, those blue ones are."

"Well, I shall mend it in bed," said Violet, brightly yielding. "There

must have been a frost in the night."

She got back into bed with the trousers and her stitching gear, and lit

the candle which saved the fantastic cost of electric light. As soon as

she had done so Mr. Earlforward arose and drew up the blind.

"I think you won't want that," said he, indicating the candle.

"No, I shan't," she agreed, and extinguished the candle.

"You're a fine seamstress," observed Mr. Earlforward with affectionate

enthusiasm, "and I like to see you at it."

Violet laughed, pleased and flattered. Simple souls, somehow living very

near the roots of happiness--though precariously!

II

AFTER BREAKFAST

By chance Violet went down into the shop just after the first-post

delivery and just before Henry came. She was always later in the shop on

Monday mornings than on other mornings because on that day she prepared

the breakfast herself and also attended personally to other "little

matters," as she called them. Henry had already been into the shop, for

such blinds as there were had been drawn up, and he had replenished the

bookstand, but too soon for the letters. She noticed the accumulation of

dirt in the shop, very gradual, but resistless. Although the two women

cleaned the shop, and, indeed, the whole establishment, section by

section, with a most regular periodicity, they could not get over the

surface fast enough to cope with the unceasing deposit of dirt. And they

could not cope at all with, for instance, the grime on the ceiling; to

brush the ceiling made it worse. In Henry's eyes, however, the shop was

as clean as on the wedding night, and he was as content with it as then;

he deprecated his wife's lamentations about its condition. Certainly no

one could deny that it still was cleaner than before her advent, and

anyhow he could never again have tolerated another vacuum-cleaning, with

its absurd costliness; he knew the limits of his capacity for suffering.

Violet unlocked the door and let in the morn, and shivered at the tonic.

This act of opening the shop-door, though having picked up the milk she

at once closed the door again, seemed to mark another stage in the

process which Elsie had begun more than two hours earlier; it broke the

spell of night by letting in not only the morn but dailiness. She

gathered the envelopes together from the floor, and noticed one with a

halfpenny stamp, which she immediately opened--furtively. Yes, it was

the gas bill for the September quarter, the quarter which ought to be

the lightest of the year. And was not! She deciphered the dread total;

it affected her like an accusation of crime, like an impeachment for

treason. She felt guilty, yet she had done her utmost to "keep the gas

down." What would Henry say? She dared not let him see it.... And the

electricity bill to follow it in a few days!... Unquestionably Elsie was

wasteful. They were all alike, servants were, and even Elsie was not an

exception.

At that moment Henry limped down the stairs. Violet hid the bill and

envelope in the pocket of her pinafore-apron.

"Here are the letters," she said, seizing the little milk-can and moving

forward to meet him. "Just put a match to the stove, will you? I'm

late."

She went on towards the stairs.

"We surely shan't want the stove to-day," he stopped her. "We haven't

needed it yet. It's going to be a beautiful day."

She had had the fire laid in the stove more than a week ago, perceiving,

with her insight into human nature, that a fire laid is already half

lighted.

"That's all very well for you--for you to talk like that," she laughed,

hiding her disquiet with devilish duplicity under a display of

affectionate banter. "You're going out, but _I_ have to keep shop."

He was dashed.

"Well, you'll see later on. I won't light it now, at any rate. You'll

see later on. Of course you must use your own judgment, my dear," he

added, courteously, judicial, splendidly fair.

"Elsie," said Violet, peeping into the bathroom on her way upstairs. "Do

you really need that geyser full on all the time?" She spoke with

nervous exasperation.

"Well, 'm----"

"I don't know what your master will say when he sees the gas-bill

that's come in this very moment. I really don't. I daren't show it him."

She warningly produced the impeachment.

"Well, 'm, I must make the water hot."

"Yes, I know. But please do be as careful as you can."

"Well, 'm, I've nearly finished." And Elsie dramatically turned off the

gas-tap of the geyser.

The gloomy bathroom was like a tropic, and the heat very damp. Linen

hung sodden and heavy along the line. The panes of the open window were

obscured by steam. The walls trickled with condensed steam. And Elsie's

face and arms were like bedewed beetroot. But to Violet the excessive

warmth was very pleasant.

"You didn't have any tea this morning," said she, for she had noticed

that nobody had been into the kitchen before herself.

"No, 'm. It's no use. If I'm to get through with my work Monday mornings

I can't waste my time getting my tea. And that's all about it, 'm."

Elsie, her brow puckered, seemed to be actually accusing her mistress of

trying to tempt her from the path of virtue. The contract between

employers and employed in that house had long since passed, so far as

the employed was concerned, far beyond the plane of the commercial. The

employers gave £20 a year; the employed gave all her existence,

faculties, energy; and gave them with passion, without reserve open or

secret, without reason, sublimely.

"It's her affair," muttered Violet as she mounted to the kitchen to

finish preparing breakfast. "It's her affair. If she chooses to work two

hours on a Monday morning on an empty stomach, I can't help it." And

there followed a shamed little thought: "It saves the gas."

When the breakfast tray was ready she slipped off her blue apron. At the

bedroom door she set the tray down on the floor and went into the

bedroom to put on the mantle which she had already worn that morning as

a seamstress in bed. Before taking the tray again she called out to

Elsie:

"Your breakfast's all ready for you, Elsie."

Mr. Earlforward was waiting for her at the dining-room table. He wore

his overcoat. In this manner, at his instigation, they proved on chilly

mornings that they could ignore the outrageous exactions of coal trusts

and striking colliers.

"What's that?" demanded Henry with well-acted indifference as he

observed an unusual object on the tray.

"It's a boiled egg. It's for you."

"But I don't want an egg. I never eat eggs."

"But I want you to eat this one." She smiled, cajolingly.

Useless! She was asking too much. He would not eat it.

"It'll be wasted if you don't."

It might be; but he would not be the one to waste it. He calmly ate his

bread and margarine, and drank his tea.

"I do think it's too bad of you, Harry. You're wasting away," she

protested in a half-broken voice, and added with still more emotion,

daringly, defiantly: "And what's the use of a husband who doesn't eat

enough, I should like to know?"

A fearful silence. Thunder seemed to rumble menacingly round the

horizon; nature itself cowered. Henry blushed slightly, pulling at his

beard. Then his voice, quiet, bland, soothing, sweet, inexorable:

"Up to thirty, eat as much as you can. After thirty, as much as you

want. After fifty, as little as you can do with."

"But you aren't fifty!"

"No. But I eat as much as I want. I'm the only judge of how much I want.

We're all different. My health is quite good."

"You're thinner."

"I was getting stout."

"I prefer you to _be_ a bit stout--much. It's a good sign in a man."

"Question of taste," he said with a humorous, affectionate glance at

her.

"Oh, Harry!" she exclaimed violently. "You're a funny man." Then she

laughed.

The storm had dissipated itself, save in Violet's heart. She knew by

instinct, by intuition, beyond any doubt, that Henry deprived himself in

order to lessen the cost of housekeeping--and this although by agreement

she paid half the cost out of her separate income! The fact was, Henry

was just as jealous of her income as of his own. She trembled for the

future. Then for safety, for relief, she yielded to him in her heart;

she trusted; her hope was in the extraordinary strength of his

character.

Mr. Earlforward ate little, but he would seldom hurry over a meal. At

breakfast he would drink several cups of tea, each succeeding one weaker

and colder than the last, and would dally at some length with each. He

was neither idle nor unconscientious about his work; all that could be

charged against him was leisureliness and a disinclination to begin; no

urgency would quicken him, because he was seriously convinced that he

would get through all right; as a rule, his conviction was justified; he

did get through all right, and even when he didn't nothing grave seemed

to result. He loved to pick his teeth, even after a meal which was no

meal. One of the graces of the table was a little wineglass containing

toothpicks; he fashioned these instruments himself out of spent matches.

He would calmly and reflectively pick his teeth while trains left

stations without him and bargains escaped him. Violet, actuated by both

duty and desire, would sit with him at meals until he finally nerved

himself to the great decision of leaving the table and passing on to the

next matter; but as she never picked her teeth before her public, which

was himself, she grew openly restive sometimes. Not, however, this

morning. No, this morning she would not even say: "I know you're never

late, dear, but----"

When they did arrive in the shop Elsie, having had her breakfast and

changed her apron, had already formally opened the establishment and

put the bookstand outside in front of the window. The bookstand, it

should be mentioned, could now be moved, fully loaded, by one person

with ease, for brilliant Violet had had the idea of taking the castors

off the back legs of an old arm-chair and screwing them on to two of the

legs of the bookstand, so that you had merely to raise one end of the

thing and it slid about as smoothly as a perambulator. Do not despise

such achievements of the human brain; such achievements constituted

important events in the domestic history of the T. T. Riceyman firm;

this one filled Violet with exultation, Henry with pride in his wife,

and Elsie with wondering admiration; Elsie never moved the bookstand

without glee in the ingenious effectiveness of the contrivance.

Violet, despite the chill, had removed her mantle. She could not

possibly wear it in the shop, whatever the temperature, because to do so

would be to admit to customers that the shop was cold. Nor would she

give an order to light the stove; nor would she have the stove lighted

when the master had gone forth on his ways; after the stifled scene at

breakfast she must act delicately; moreover, she contemplated a further

dangerous, desperate move which might be prejudiced if she availed

herself of Henry's authorization to use her own judgment in regard to

the stove. So she acquired warmth by helping Elsie with the cleaning and

arranging of the shop for the day. The work was done with rapidity....

Customers might now enter without shaming the management. An age had

passed since Elsie, preceding the dawn, arose to turn night into day.

Looking at it none could suppose that the shop had ever been sheeted and

asleep, or that a little milk-can was but recently squatting at the foot

of its locked door. Mysterious magic of a daily ritual, unperceived by

the priest and priestesses!

Mr. Earlforward was writing out the tail-end of a long bill in the

office. He could not use his antique typewriter for bills, because it

would not tabulate satisfactorily. He wore his new eyeglasses, memorial

of Violet's sole victory over him. She had been forced to make him a

present of the eyeglasses, true; but he did wear them.

"My dear," he summoned her in a rather low voice, and she hastened to

him, duster in hand. "Here's this bill for Mr. Bauersch; £148 18s." He

blotted the bill with some old blotting-paper which spread more ink than

it absorbed. "And here's the stamp. I haven't put it on in case there's

any hitch. I asked him if he'd mind paying in cash. Of course he's a

very big dealer, but you never know with these New Yorkers, and he's

sailing to-morrow, and I've not done any business with him before. He

said he wouldn't mind at all."

"I should hope not, indeed!" said Violet, who, nevertheless, was well

aware that the master had asked for cash, not from any lack of

confidence in the great Bauersch, but because he had a powerful

preference for cash; the sight of a cheque did not rouse Henry's

imagination.

"It's all ready," said Henry, pointing to two full packing-cases in

front of his desk.

"But are we to nail them up, or what?"

"I haven't fastened them. He might want to run through them with the

bill."

"Yes," agreed Violet, who nevertheless was well aware that the master

had not fastened them because he had postponed fastening them till too

late.

"He'll take them away in a car; probably have them re-packed with his

other purchases. I hear he's bought over twenty thousand pounds' worth

of stuff in London these last three weeks."

"Oh, my!"

"And you can put the money in your safe till I get back."

Henry stood up, took his hat from the top knob of the grandfather's

clock, and buttoned his overcoat. He was going to a book auction at

Chingby's historic sale-rooms in Fetter Lane. For years he had not

attended auctions, for he could never leave the shop for the best part

of a day; he had to be content with short visits to ragged sub-dealers

in Whitechapel and Shoreditch, and with such offers of "parcels" as came

to him uninvited. He always bought cheap or not at all; but he would

sell cheap, with very rare exceptions. If he picked up a first edition

worth a pound for two shillings he would sell it for five shillings.

Thus he had acquired a valuable reputation for bargains. He was shrewd

enough--shrewder than most--and ready to part with money in exchange for

stock. Indeed, his tendency was to overstock his shop. Violet's instinct

for tidiness and order had combated this tendency, whose dangers he

candidly admitted. He had applied the brake to buying. No longer was the

staircase embarrassed with heroic and perfect girls in paper

dust-jackets! And save in the shop and the office all floors had been

cleared of books. A few hundred volumes, in calculated and admired

disorder, still encumbered the ground-floor and the lower steps of the

staircase, to the end explained by the master to his wife on the morrow

of the honeymoon. Stock was now getting a little low, and the master

went to certain sales with his wife's full encouragement. He was an

autocrat, but where is the autocrat who can escape influence?

"Now do take care of yourself, darling," Violet murmured, almost in a

whisper. "And if you go to that A.B.C. shop be sure to order some cold

beef. What does it matter if you do miss a few lots?"

"I'll see."

They parted at the shop-door on a note of hard, cheerful indifference:

note struck for the sake of the proprieties of a place of business--and

utterly false. For Henry loved his wife to worry about him, and Violet's

soul was heavy with apprehensions. She saw herself helpless in a

situation growing ever more formidable.

III

INTERNATIONAL

Violet was attending to another customer when Mr. Bauersch came into the

shop. She ignored him until she had sped the first customer, who

happened also to be "in the trade." According to Violet's code, all

customers were equal in the sight of the shopkeeper, and although the

first customer was shabby and dirty, and carried for his acquisitions a

black stuff sack which he slung over his shoulder, Violet would not

abate one comma of her code. Nevertheless, while ignoring, she appraised

Mr. Bauersch, whom on his previous visits she had only glimpsed once.

She was confirmed in her original lightning impression that he bore a

resemblance to Henry. He was of about the same age and build; he had the

same sort of pointed beard, and the same mild demeanour; and also his

suit was of the same kind and colour of cloth as Henry wore on Sundays.

But what a different suit from Henry's! It had a waist. Violet did not

like that. Unaware that Mr. Bauersch clothed himself in London, she

attributed the waist to the decadent eccentricity of New York. Nor did

she like the excessive width of the black ribbon which held Mr.

Bauersch's pince-nez. Nor did she like the boldly exposed striped

shirt--(nobody except Violet and Elsie ever saw even the cuffs of Mr.

Earlforward's shirt, to say nothing of the front)--nor the elegant,

carefully studied projecting curve of the necktie. In short, Mr.

Bauersch failed utterly to match Violet's ideal of a man of business.

She turned to him at last, as he was strolling about curiously, and

greeted him with the hard, falsely genial, horrible smile of the

suspicious woman who is not going to be done in the eye in a commercial

matter. This was not at all the agreeable Violet of the confectioner's

shop. And the reason for the transformation was that she had a husband

to protect, that the prestige and big transactions of the great Bauersch

made her nervous, and that Mr. Bauersch was from New York. Violet, I

regret to say, had fixed and uncharitable notions about foreigners. Mr.

Bauersch acknowledged her greeting with much courtesy, and with no

condescension whatever.

"My name's Bauersch, Mrs. Earlforward," said he. (Why should he so

certainly assume that she was Mrs. Earlforward?)

"Oh, yes!" she murmured, simpering. "You've called about the books, I

suppose?" Her tone indicated that there was just a chance of his having

called about the gas or the weather.

"Yes. Are they all ready for shipping?" (What did he mean by "shipping"?

They were ready for him to take away, ready for dispatch.)

She nodded vaguely.

"Those are the cases, no doubt," said Mr. Bauersch, pointing to the

office, and walking into it without invitation.

"People aren't supposed to come in here," said Violet, smiling harshly,

as she followed him.

He examined the packing of the cases rather negligently, and then turned

to the shelves and adjusted his pince-nez.

"Mr. Earlforward left the bill. I don't know whether you'd like to check

the volumes."

Mr. Bauersch appeared to be a man of few words. In another minute he had

paid down the money in Bank Notes and Treasury Notes. Violet counted and

temporarily locked the money away in a drawer of the desk. Strange that

this reassuring episode did not soften her attitude!

"May I go and explore a little upstairs?" asked Mr. Bauersch, while she

was preparing the receipt.

Evidently Henry, as sometimes he did to customers, had given Mr.

Bauersch the freedom of the house during Violet's absence. The house was

still very full of books, and free exploration was good for trade; but

Violet the house-mistress objected to free exploration.

"I'm afraid I can't go up with you now," said she. "I'm all alone in the

shop."

"I quite see." Mr. Bauersch accepted the rebuff with grace, and turned

back again to the shelves, and then to the mounds of books on the floor.

Having receipted the bill, Violet ahemmed in the direction of the

absorbed Mr. Bauersch, who ignored the signal. Then two young women

entered the shop, and Violet decided to punish Mr. Bauersch by attending

to them. They wanted "sevenpennies." There were no sevenpennies, and

Violet spent at least five minutes with them, making a profit of one

penny on the sale of a soiled copy of "The Scapegoat"; she displayed no

impatience, and continued to chat after the deal was done and finished;

she seemed to part from them with lingering pain.

"How much is this?" Mr. Bauersch demanded, somewhat urgently, holding

out a volume; he had come into the shop.

The book was a copy of an eighteenth-century Dutch illustrated edition,

octavo, of La Fontaine's Tales. Violet, looking at it, inspected it. She

did not know what the book was. But Henry had taught her some general

principles: for instance, that any book printed before 1600 is "worth

money," that any book of verse printed before 1700 is worth money, and

that most illustrated books printed before 1800 are worth money. Also

she had learnt to read Roman date numerals. Indeed she had left Elsie

out of sight in the race for knowledge. The price of the book was marked

in cipher, inside the front-cover--ten shillings. In Elsie's viceroyalty

all prices had been marked in plain figures--largely for the

convenience of Elsie. But under Violet plain figures were gradually

being abolished; there was no need for them, and they were apt to

interfere with Violet's freedom of action in determining prices to suit

the look and demeanour of customers.

"A pound," she answered.

"Put it in, please." Mr. Bauersch pulled out a Treasury Note. "We won't

haggle. Now I must have these cases sent down to the American Express

Company's at once, please, at once. I'll have the books checked there.

I've got a pile of stuff collected there, and they must leave London

to-night, sure."

"Mr. Earlforward told me you would take the cases away with you in your

car."

"Me take them away with me!... Well, in the first place, I've come in a

taxi. And in the second place, I couldn't put those in a car. And they

won't hold in a taxi either. I'll be glad if you'll send them down."

"I'm very sorry, but I don't see how I can send them. I haven't anybody

here, as I've told you." She was unhelpful, adamantine.

"Mr. Earlforward isn't in?" Mr. Bauersch's tone had begun to roughen in

impatience.

"Oh no!" She swept aside such an absurd impossibility. "But I'm sure he

understood you were taking them away." (She perceived, however, that

Henry had involved her in this difficulty in order to escape the cost of

delivery.)

"Do you know where he is?"

"I couldn't say exactly; he might be at a sale at Chingby's."

"Well, will you mind telephoning to him and saying----"

"We don't have the telephone here," she replied, with cold triumph,

remembering Henry's phrase, "those New Yorkers."

"Well, can you send to a garage and get a van or something for me?"

"I couldn't unless I went myself."

"Well, where _is_ the nearest garage?"

"I'm sure I couldn't tell you."

Using words in a sense in which Violet had never heard them used, Mr.

Bauersch dashed out of the shop to speak to his taxi-driver. He returned

in ten minutes. In the meantime Violet had hammered the lids on the two

cases. In possession of both the money and the books she had maintained

all her tranquillity. Mr. Bauersch had come back with a Ford van in

addition to his taxi. He led the driver of the taxi and the driver of

the van into the office, and instructed them to remove the cases.

"The receipt, if you please," he said dryly to Violet, who handed him

the receipt, but showed none of the clemency due from a conqueror to the

defeated.

Mr. Bauersch moralized (to himself) about English methods.

"Why _do_ they hate the sight of a customer?" he asked himself, puzzled.

"I'll never come into this damned store again!" he said to himself.

But he well knew that on his next visit he would come into the damned

shop again, because the shop had the goods he wanted, and didn't care

whether he bought them or not. If he could have ruined the shop by never

coming into it again he would perhaps have ruined the shop. But it was

the shop's cursed indifference that spiritually beat him and ensured the

triumph of the astonishing system.

IV

AFTERNOON

When Henry came home, limping, taciturn and absorbed, in the afternoon,

Violet examined him carefully with her glance, and, asking no questions,

gave him the written list of the day's transactions, which he always

wanted, and which to-day was quite a good one. He, on his part, asked no

questions either--he said not an inquiring word even about the visit of

Mr. Bauersch; the name and the sum noted on the list sufficed his

curiosity for the moment. (Out of compassion for his fatigue, Violet

said not a word about his trickery in the matter of the removal of Mr.

Bauersch's books.) After a sale he would sit down to his desk and study

the catalogue marked with his purchases, and he would transfer the

details into a special book; he must do this before anything else.

Violet went upstairs, leaving him alone in the office to guard the shop.

She went upstairs to the kitchen and to her conspiracies and to the

secret half of her double life which had recently commenced. Although

apparently she had accomplished little in the way of modifying the daily

routine of the establishment and household, that little amounted

spiritually to a great deal. And it had been done almost without

increased expense--save for gas. Her achievement generally was

symbolized and figured in the abolition of the thermos flask from which

Henry was used to take his tea, made many hours earlier when the gas was

"going." The abolition of the thermos flask had been an event in the

domestic annals. (Henry afterwards sold the contrivance for half a

crown.) Violet would have tea set on the table in the dining-room; she

would have fresh tea; she refused to drink thermos-preserved tea; she

would have plates and bread and margarine on the table. And, considering

that tea--now served immediately on the closing of the shop--was the

last meal or snack of the day in that abode, none could fairly accuse

her of innovating in an extravagant manner. Still, the disappearance of

the thermos flask was regarded by everybody in the house as the crown of

a sort of revolution. Such was the force of the individuality of Mr.

Earlforward, who had scarcely complained, scarcely argued, scarcely

protested! He had opposed simply his quiet blandness and had

yielded--and the revolutionary yet marvelled at her own courage and her

success, and had a sensation akin to being out of breath.

She had never been able to reorganize the kitchen department

fundamentally; the problem of doing so was insoluble. In the

young days of the house what was now the office had been a

parlour-kitchen-scullery. The site of a little range was still

distinguishable in it. Henry's bachelor uncle had transferred the

kitchen to the top floor; it could not possibly be brought down

again; there was no other room capable of serving as a kitchen. But

Violet had humanized the long, narrow cubicle a little by means of

polished utensils and white wood, and she had hung a tiny wire-cage

larder outside the window, where it was the exasperation of foiled

cats. The gas-ring remained, solitary cooker. She had not dared to

suggest a small gas-stove or even an oil-stove, and two mere rings

would not, in her opinion, have been much better than one. There

were things she could dare and things she could not dare. For

another example, she could not dare to bring in a plumber to cure

the water-tap, which still ceaselessly dripped on to the sink. But

the kitchen, with all its defects, had one great quality--it was

gratefully warm in the cold months. Violet came into it again now,

after hours in the haunting chill of the shop, with a feeling of

deep physical relief. Elsie stood warm and supine, her back to the

window. The two women filled the room. Violet had gradually come to

find pleasure, chiefly no doubt unconsciousness, in Elsie's mere

presence and nearness. Elsie was so young, so massive, so mild, so

honest, so calm. She might be somewhat untidy in her methods and

forgetful, but Violet was extremely well content with her. And

Elsie, though she liked Violet less, liked her. They mutually

suspected one another of occasional insincerity and ruse, and for

Elsie's taste Violet was a bit over-sugary when she had an end to

gain; but, then, common self-devotion to the welfare of Henry drew

them together quite as fast as suspicions pushed them apart.

"Is that all right?" Violet asked, pointing to a bright contraption

perched on the gas-ring and emitting the first hints of a lovely odour.

This contraption, new in Elsie's experience, and doubtfully regarded by

her, was an important item in the double life of Violet, who had bought

it exclusively with her own money, and, far from letting it appear in

the household accounts which Henry expected from her as a matter of

course, had not even mentioned it to him. Henry seldom or never entered

the kitchen nowadays, being somehow aware that women did not welcome men

in kitchens.

"Oh, yes, 'm," Elsie cheerfully and benevolently answered. She had not

quite seen the point of the contraption. She knew that it was divided

into two compartments, one above another, but why it should be so

divided she had not fully understood, despite explanations administered

to her.

Violet thought:

"How nice this is! How warm! What a comfort Elsie is! What a dear Henry

is! And I shall have my way with him to-night, and having my way with

him will make us both happier. And we're very happy, I'm sure; much

happier than most people; and everything's so secure; and we've got

plenty to fall back on. And how lovely and warm it is in here. And what

a lovely smell. ... I hope he won't smell it till I'm ready for him."

She looked to see that the door was shut and the window a little open.

Thus did Violet's thoughts run. And then she noticed, by chance as it

seemed, a particle of something or other detach itself from the lower

rim of the contraption and fall on the wooden shelf on which the

gas-ring stood. Then another particle; then another. She was spellbound

for a moment.

"Elsie!" she cried, aghast, desperate, and whipped the contraption off

the ring.

"What, 'm?"

"You've not put any water in the bottom part and the solder's melted.

You've ruined it! You've ruined it! How any girl can be so stupid, so

_stupid_--after all the trouble I took to tell you--I cannot imagine.

No, I cannot!"

And she could not. She knew that Elsie was stupid. In two days Violet

had learnt more about the contents of the shop than Elsie had ever

learnt or ever could learn. She knew that Elsie was conservative, set

hard in her ways, and opposed to new knowledge. But she had not guessed

that even Elsie could be so stupid as to leave the lower compartment of

the contraption without water and then stick it on a lighted gas-ring!

The phenomenon passed her comprehension.

"Stand away, do!" she exclaimed, as Elsie, puckered and gloomy,

approached the region of disaster. "I shall have to have it repaired.

And I can't cook this now as I wanted to. And I shall have to begin it

all over again. And your master comes home tired out and this is all you

can manage to do!"

Elsie, though severely conscience-stricken, was confirmed in her opinion

that these new-fangled dodges were worthless--you never knew where you

were with them.

"I should like to pay for the repairing, 'm," she at last broke the

silence.

"Yes! And I should think you _would_ like to pay for the repairing, my

girl! You _shall_ pay for it, whether you like or not! But what would

your master say to such careless waste if he knew?" And Violet proceeded

with the heart-breaking work of salvage.

"Now pass me that saucer, do!"

Elsie passed the saucer. Violet stared at the saucer, withheld from

taking it by a sudden thought.

"What did you do with that egg?"

"What egg, 'm?"

"You know what egg. The egg your master couldn't eat this morning at

breakfast. I put it in that saucer, I'm sure I did."

Violet gazed formidably at Elsie. Elsie's eyes dropped and her lips fell

and she crimsoned.

"Have you put it in the cage?" No answer. "You don't mean to tell me

you've eaten it!"

"Well, 'm. There it was all the time. And I felt so sinking like this

afternoon. And I don't know what I was thinking of----"

"Elsie, your master always did say you were greedy! And I suppose you'll

say I starve you. I suppose you'll say I don't give you enough to eat."

Violet burst into tears, to her own surprise and shame. Of late she had

been less gay, less vivacious and more nervous than at the beginning of

the year. She had not wanted the egg for her own need. But she had

wanted to eat it, warmed up afresh, so as to keep Henry company while he

ate the dish which Elsie's negligence had so nearly spoilt. And now

Elsie had gluttonously swallowed the egg. Nobody could make out these

servants. They might be very faithful and all that, but there was always

something--always something. Yes, she cried openly! She was bowed down.

And Elsie, seeing the proud, commanding spirit bowed down, melted and

joined her in tears. And they were very close together in the narrow,

warm cubicle and in the tragedy; and the contrast between the wrinkled,

slim, mature woman and the sturdy, powerful ingenuous young widowed girl

was strangely touching to both of them. And twilight was falling, and

the gas-ring growing brighter.

And Elsie was thinking neither of the ruined contraption nor of the egg.

She was most illogically crying because of her everlasting sorrow, and

because, with constant folding and unfolding, Joe's letter, which she

read every night, had begun to tear at the creases. Her greed, and the

accident due to her carelessness, and Mrs. Earlforward's breakdown had

mystically reinforced her everlasting sorrow and eclipsed her silly,

fond hope that on the approaching anniversary of his disappearance Joe

would reappear.

V

TEA

Tea was late; it was indeed very late--for tea. But Mr. Earlforward,

down in the office, gave no sign of hunger, or even of impatience. He

had to be called to the meal, and he responded without any alacrity.

Husband and wife, he in his overcoat and she in her mantle, took their

places at the glass-covered table in the fireless room; and the teapot

was there and the bread-and-margarine was there, and everything seemed

as usual, save in one point--a knife and fork had been set for Mr.

Earlforward and another for Violet. As a fact, the appearance of such

cutlery on the tea-table was the most extraordinary phenomenon in the

history of the Earlforward marriage. Violet recognized this; and beneath

a superficial, cheerful calm she was indeed very nervous and very

excited. Moreover, she had suffered nerve-racking ordeals from breakfast

onwards. Therefore she watched anxiously for Henry's reactions to the

cutlery. But she could perceive no reactions, unless his somewhat

exaggerated scrutiny of the high piles of books occupying the unglazed

half of the dining-table might be interpreted as a reaction.

The blinds were drawn, the curtains were drawn; electric current was

burning, if not the gas-fire; despite the blackness of the hearth the

room had an air, or half an air, of domestic cosiness. Violet poured out

the tea, an operation simplified by the total absence of sugar.

"Come, come!" Violet murmured as if to herself, fretfully, and Henry

glanced at her. Then Elsie entered.

"Come along, Elsie! Come along!" said Violet. "What have you been

doing?"

She made this remark partly to prove to Mr. Earlforward that if he

imagined she cared twopence for him, or that she feared for the

unusualness of the plate covered by another plate which Elsie carried,

or that she was not perfectly mistress of herself--if he imagined any of

these things he was mistaken.

But Violet, expecting to startle Henry, was herself considerably

startled. Elsie was wearing a cap. Now Elsie never wore a cap. And the

sight of her in a cap was just as gravely disturbing as the impossible,

incredible sight of a servant without a cap would be in the more western

parts of London. In a word, it shocked. Violet could make nothing out of

it at all. Where had the girl obtained the cap? And why in the name of

sense had she chosen this day of all days, this evening when the

felicity of domestic life was balanced perilously on a knife-edge, to

publish the cap? Violet knew not that Elsie had bought the cap before

the marriage, but had lacked the audacity to put it on. And Violet knew

not that Elsie was now wearing it as a sort of sign of repentance for

sin, and in order to give solemnity and importance to the excessively

unusual tea. Elsie undoubtedly had the dramatic instinct, but the

present manifestation of it was ill-timed.

"Put it here! Put it here!" said Violet, indicating the space between

her own knife and fork, and stopping Elsie with a jerk in her progress

towards the master of the house.

When Elsie had gone Violet displayed the contents of the under-plate,

and showed that noses had not been wrong in assuming them to be a

beef-steak; the steak was stewed; it was very attractive, seductive,

full of sound nourishment; one would have deemed it irresistible. Violet

rose and deposited the plate in front of Henry, who said nothing. She

then bent over him, and with his knife and fork cut off a little corner

from the meat.

"You're going to give this bit to your little wife," she whispered

endearingly, and kissed him, and sat down again with the bit, which she

at once began to eat. "It's very tender," said she, pretending that the

steak was a quite commonplace matter, that it was not unique,

breathtaking, in the annals of tea-time in Riceyman Steps.

"I don't think I can eat any," said Henry amiably.

"To please me," Violet cajoled again, as at breakfast, changing her

voice with all the considerable sexual charm at her disposition.

"I'm really not hungry," said Henry.

"I shan't finish mine till you begin yours." Her voice was now changing.

She waited for him to begin. He did not begin. The point with Henry was,

not that he disliked the steak, but that for reasons of domestic policy

he was absolutely determined not to eat it. Meat for tea! What an insane

notion! The woman was getting ideas into her head! He saw in the steak

the thin edge of a wedge. He felt that the time was crucial. He had been

married for little less than a year, and he knew women. Placidly he

continued with his bread-and-margarine.

"Henry!" she admonished him.

"I've got indigestion already," said he.

Strange that such a simple remark should have achieved the crisis; but

it did.

"Yes. That's right!" Violet exclaimed sharply, in rasping tones. "That's

right! Tell me you've got indigestion. You never have indigestion. You

never have had indigestion. And you know perfectly well it's only an

excuse. And you think any excuse is good enough for your wife. She's

only a blind fool. Believe anything, your wife will--if _you_ say it!

God Almighty to your wife, aren't you!"

Just as the voyager at sea, after delighting in an utterly clear, soft

sky and going below, may come on deck again to find the whole firmament

from rim to rim hidden by dark, menacing clouds created inexplicably out

of nothing, so did Henry find the sky of his marital existence terribly

transformed in an instant. All had been well; all was ill. The

bread-and-margarine stuck in his throat. Violet's features were

completely altered as she gazed glassily at her plate. Henry saw in

them the face of the unreasonable schoolgirl that Violet long ago must

have been. He understood for the first time that her vivacity and energy

had another and a sinister side. He felt himself to be amid formidable

dangers; he was a very courageous man, and like nearly all courageous

men in danger he was frightened.

"A nice way I'm treated!" Violet continued grimly. "All I think of is

you. All I want is your happiness, and look at me! I'm always snubbed,

always! So long as you do everything you want, and _I_ do everything you

want, it's all right. But if _I_ suggest anything--look at you! I have

to have my meals in my mantle because you grudge me a bit of fire! It

isn't as if I didn't pay my share of everything. I pay my share right

enough, and more--you see to that, trust you! But I have to catch my

death of cold every day, because we're so poor, I suppose! Oh, yes! We

haven't a penny in the world to bless ourselves with!"

Henry felt in his pockets, and then left the room in silence. Alone,

Violet busily fed her angry resentment. She was in a rage, and knew she

was in a rage, and her rage was dear to her. She cared for nothing but

her rage, and she was ready to pay for it with all her possible future

happiness and the future happiness of her husband. Henry returned with a

match-box and lit the gas-fire.

Still no word. No sound but the plop of igniting gas. Violet sprang up

in fury, rushed to the stove and extinguished it with a vehement,

vicious gesture.

"No! I couldn't have it before, and I won't have it now!" She pulled off

her mantle and threw it to the floor. "If I'm to be cold I'll _be_ cold.

Here I've been in the shop all day, shivering. Why? How many wives would

do it? There isn't another in this dreadful Clerkenwell that you're so

fond of, I swear! You're the stingiest man in London, and don't you make

any mistake. You think I can't see through you and your excuses! Ha!"

She began to walk up and down the room now. "I'm a slave, same as Elsie

is a slave. More than Elsie. She does get an afternoon off. But me?

When? Night and day! Night and day! Love? A lot you know about it! Cold

by day and cold by night! And so now you know! I've often wanted to tell

you, but I wouldn't, because I thought it was my duty to struggle on.

Besides, I didn't want to upset you. Well, now I _do_ want to upset

you!... And _why_ wouldn't you eat the steak? I'll tell you. Because _I_

asked you to eat it."

"You know that's rather unfair," Henry muttered.

"'Unfair,' is it? 'Unfair'? A nice word for you to use. So I know it's

unfair, do I? I'm being 'unfair,' am I?" She looked straight at him. Her

eyes blazed at him, and she added solemnly: "Henry, you ought to be

_ashamed_ of yourself, the way you go on. What do you think Elsie

thinks? The marvel is that she stays here. Supposing she left us and

started to talk! You ought to be _ashamed_ of yourself."

She dropped back into her chair and sobbed loudly. If Elsie heard her,

what matter? In her rage she had put facts into words, and thereby given

them life, devastating life. In two minutes she had transformed the

domestic interior from heaven into hell. She had done something which

could never be undone. Words had created that which no words could

destroy. And he had driven her to it. She gazed at him once more, across

the ruins of their primitive and austere bliss.

"You're shortening your life. That's what you're doing," she said, with

chill ferocity. "Not to speak of mine. What's mine? What did you have

for your dinner out to-day' You daren't tell me because you starved

yourself. I defy you to tell me."

She laid her head on the table just like a schoolgirl abandoning herself

utterly to some girlish grief, and went on crying, but not angrily and

rebelliously now--mournfully, self-pityingly, tragically. And then she

sat up straight again, with suddenness, and shot new fire from her wet

eyes at the tyrannic monster.

"Yes, and you needn't think I've been spending money on servant's caps,

either! Because I haven't. I know no more about that cap of Elsie's than

you do. God alone knows where she's got it from, and why she's wearing

it. But I give servants up." (Here Henry had an absurd wild glimmer of

hope that she meant to give Elsie up, do without a servant, and so save

wages and food. But he saw the next instant that he had misunderstood

her words.) "They're past me, servants are! Only, of course, you think

it's me been buying caps for the girl!"

This was the last flaring of her furious resentment. Instead of replying

to it, Henry softly left the room. Violet's sobs died down, and her

compassion for herself grew silent, since there was no longer need for

its expression. She tried hard to concentrate on the hardships of her

lot, but she could not. Another idea insisted on occupying her mind, and

compared to this idea the hardships of her lot were trifles.

"I've lost my power over him."

If he had only responded to her cajolings, and recognized in some formal

way her power! If he had only caressed her and pleaded with her not to

exercise her power too drastically upon him. If he had only said: "Vi,

let me off. I'll eat just a little bit to please you, but I really can't

eat it all. You know you can do what you like with me, but let me off!"

That would have been marvellous, delicious, entirely satisfactory. But

she had lost her power. And yet, while mourning that she had lost her

power, she knew very well that she had never had any power. He was in

love with her, but he was more in love with his grand passion and vice,

which alone had power over him, and of which he, the bland tyrant over

all else, was the slave. She had pretended to herself that she had

power, and she had been able to maintain the pretence because she had

never till that day attempted to put her imagined power really to the

test. Twice now she had essayed it, and twice failed. Fool! She was a

fool! She had irreparably damaged her prestige. She had but one refuge,

the refuge of yielding. "I must yield! I must yield!" she thought

passionately. And the voluptuous pleasure of yielding presented itself

to her temptingly.... She must submit. She must cling still closer to

him, echo faithfully his individuality, lose herself in him. There was

nothing else.

Elsie entered to clear the table. Violet jumped up, seized the discarded

mantle, and put it on. She was not young enough--that is to say, her

body was not young enough--to scorn the inclement evening cold of the

room. Averting her face from the cap-wearer, she departed. But at the

door another idea occurred to her.

"Elsie," she said. "I must leave you to see to everything to-night. I'm

going to lie down." She spoke in a hard, dry voice, without turning her

face towards Elsie. And in a few minutes she was getting into the

sheetless and empty bed in the dark bedroom. She must yield! She must

yield!

Elsie had had the experience of her own brief marriage, and had seen a

very great deal of other people's. Mrs. Earlforward's efforts to deceive

her were a complete failure. She knew at once, on entering the

dining-room, that there must have been trouble. Mr. Earlforward's visit

to the office during tea was unusual. Then there was the singular

spectacle of Mrs. Earlforward putting on her mantle at the end of the

meal. Why had she taken it off? The only explanation that Elsie could

think of was that Mrs. Earlforward had taken off the mantle in order to

have a dust-up with Mr. Earlforward. That was the natural explanation,

but Elsie was sure that it could not be the true one. Then there was the

appearance of Mrs. Earlforward's features, and the fact that in speaking

to Elsie she departed from her habit of looking Elsie straight in the

face. And further, there was the uneaten steak on Mr. Earlforward's

plate, and the fragment of it on Mrs. Earlforward's plate. And further,

there was the very disconcerting retirement to bed of Mrs. Earlforward.

Elsie could not conceive what the trouble had been about. But she

managed to think that both the antagonists were in the right, and to

feel sorry for both of them--and so much so that her eyes filled with

tears.

When she reached her kitchen with the remains of tea, the steak was to

her a sacrosanct object. Even the fragment of it was a sacrosanct

object; she put the fragment with her fingers on the same plate as the

steak, and then she licked her fingers--not a very wise action--and

proceeded to wash up. She was still full of remorse for the theft--yes,

it was a theft!--of the egg. That incident was to be a lesson to her; it

was to teach her the lamentable weakness of her character. Never again

would she fall into sin. Absurd to fancy that she did not have enough to

eat at Riceyman Steps, and that she was continually hungry! She had more

to eat, and more regularly, than many persons in her experience.

Appetite was a sign of good health, and she ought to be thankful for

good health; good health was a blessing. She ought not to be greedy, and

above all she ought not to seek to excuse her greed by false excuses

about appetite and lack of food. She continued calmly with her

washing-up.

The steak, during its cooking, had caused her a lot of inconvenience;

the smell of it had awakened desires which she had had difficulty in

withstanding; it had made her mouth water abundantly; and she had been

very thankful to get the steak safely into the dining-room without any

accident happening to it. But now the steak did not challenge her

weakness. Resolution had triumphed over the steak. Her too active and

ingenious mind became, however, entangled in the conception of the tiny

fragment lying by the steak itself. She examined the fragment. A

mouthful; no more! In the morning it would be dried up and shrunk to

nothing. It would be wasted. She picked up the fragment out of

curiosity, just to see exactly what it was like, and in an instant the

fragment had vanished. The fragment did not seem to go into her

stomach; it sub-divided itself into a thousand parts, which ran through

all her veins like fire, more potent than brandy, more dreadfully

inspiring than champagne.

From this moment the steak was turned into a basilisk, with a devilish,

sinister fascination for her. She ceased to wash up. She was saddened by

the domestic infelicity of her employers; she was cast down and needed a

tonic. She felt that without some pick-me-up she could not bear the vast

grief of the world. She went through the agonies of the resisting

drunkard dragged by ruthless craving nearer and nearer to the edge of

the fatal precipice. Would her employers themselves eat the steak on the

morrow? Very probably not. Very probably Mrs. Earlforward on the morrow

would authorize her, Elsie, to eat the steak. If she might eat it

to-morrow she might eat it to-night. What difference to her employers

whether she ate it to-morrow or to-night? Moreover, if Mrs. Earlforward

had not been upset she would quite possibly have given Elsie express

permission to eat the steak. Elsie began to feel her self-respect

slipping away, her honour slipping away, all right-mindedness slipping

away, under the basilisk's stare of the steak. A few minutes later she

knocked at the bedroom door, and, receiving no answer, went in. The room

was dark, but she could distinguish the form of Mrs. Earlforward in the

bed.

"What is it? What is it?" demanded a weak, querulous, mournful voice.

Mrs Earlforward vaguely extended her hand, and it touched something

which for several seconds she could not identify. It touched Elsie's

cap. Elsie had sunk to her knees by the bedside. She burst into weeping.

"Oh, 'm!" sobbed Elsie. "Oh, 'm! I've gone and eaten the steak. I don't

know what made me do it, 'm, but I've eaten the steak and I run straight

in to tell you, 'm."

VI

EVENING

Violet laughed in the dark: an unusual laugh, not vivacious nor hearty,

but a laugh.

"I'm glad, Elsie," she said, withdrawing her hand as though Elsie's cap

had been red-hot.

Elsie, dismissed, felt relieved, but at the same time she was

disappointed of her rich, tearful penitence, and she went away with the

sensation that the world was an incomprehensible and arid place. Violet

got out of bed and turned on the light, and the light somehow cured her

perspective of a strange distortion. What! Make a tragedy because a man

preferred not to eat a bit of steak for his tea! Absurd! Childish!

Surely he had the right to refuse steak without being insulted, without

being threatened with the destruction of his happiness! It was not as if

he had forbidden his wife to eat steak. Thus did Violet try to nullify

to herself the effect of her wild words in the dining-room and to create

that which they had destroyed. Fortunately, Henry did not know that she

had retired to bed, and so she could rise again without loss of dignity.

She was very courageous at first, but when she had finished dressing,

and was ready to go downstairs and face Henry once more, she was no

better than a timorous young thing, defenceless and trembling.

As for Henry, he was working, and really working, in his office; but, as

he worked, the idea pervading his mind was that he had had a serious

shock. He had won; but had he won? He had deemed himself to be secure on

the throne, and the throne was shaking, toppling. He had miscalculated

Violet and under-estimated the possibilities of the married state. He

saw, for the first time clearly, that certain conjugal problems are not

to be solved by reason, and that if he wished to survive the storms of a

woman's temperament he must be a traitor to reason and intellectual

uprightness. In brief, the game must obviously be catch-as-catch-can.

Ah! He was deceived in Violet. Because she would not pay more than

sixpence for a needed book, and because she had surpassed himself in

sweating a charwoman, he had been fool enough to believe that she was

worthy to be his partner in the grand passion of his life. Well, he was

wrong. He must count her in future as the enemy of his passion, and plot

accordingly.

Then at length the weak creature, the broken reed upon which he had

depended, reappeared in the doorway of his office, and she was not

wearing her mantle. Henry had in that moment a magnificent inspiration.

He limped from his chair at the desk and put a match to the fire, which

was laid--which had been laid for many months. The fuel seemed anxious

to oblige, and flared up eagerly. Violet was touched by the attention,

whose spirit she comprehended and welcomed. All warm and melting from

the bed and her tears, she let him masterfully take her in his clasp.

And he felt her acquiescence, and the moment was the most exquisite of

his whole life. Her frailty, her weakness, merely adorned and enhanced

her--were precious, were the finest part of her charm. Reason was not.

But whether he had won, or she, he could not decide; he could only hope

for the best. Not a word said! They held each other near the warmth of

the mounting fire in the office, with the dark shop stretching behind

for a background. And Violet remembered how once she had jauntily told

herself that at any rate she possessed one advantage over him--her long

experience of marriage against his inexperience--and she saw that the

advantage was quite illusory, and she was humbled, deliciously rueful!

He said:

"I think you've got the key of my desk, haven't you?"

She nodded, gave a precarious smile, and ardently produced the key. The

next moment he had taken the day's receipts, save Mr. Bauersch's money,

from the tin box which was their appointed place in the top middle

drawer, and husband and wife counted them together, checking one

another, and checking the total with the written list of sales already

delivered to Henry by Violet.

"Correct," said he, and was about to open his safe, when he stopped and

added:

"Better get that Bauersch money first. I suppose you put it in your

safe?"

"Yes. I'll run up for it." As instructed, she had transferred the

important sum for safety during the day from the drawer to her own safe.

"I'll go with you," said he, as if anxious not to deprive himself of her

society even for one minute. As they were entering the bathroom he saw

Elsie in the obscurity of the upper stairs.

"Elsie," he called, "run out and buy me the _Evening Standard_, will

you? You'll get it opposite the Rowton House, you know. Here's a penny."

His tone was carefully matter-of-fact. Both women were astounded; they

were almost frightened. Violet had never known him to buy a paper, and

Elsie scarcely ever. Violet was grateful for this proof that when the

greatness of the occasion demanded it he was capable of sublime

extravagance. First the fire! Now the paper! It was not credible.

In the bathroom, where nobody ever had a bath, but of which the bath was

at any rate empty of books and very clean, Henry bent his head to avoid

the clothes-lines, and Violet kneeled down and unlocked her safe. It was

like a little picnic, a little pleasure excursion. It was the first time

Henry had been present at the opening of Violet's battered old safe. She

swung the steel door; the shadow of her head remained stationary, though

the door swung, and fell across the pale interior of the safe in a shape

as distorted as Violet's perspective had been half an hour earlier. A

fair pile of securities tied up with white tape lay in the embrasure

above the twin drawers. Violet drew forth the right-hand drawer; there

was nothing in it but Mr. Bauersch's money--ten-pound notes, five-pound

notes, one-pound Treasury notes, all new and lovely, with a soiled

ten-shilling Treasury note, and some silver wrapped in a bit of brown

paper. Violet placed the entire mass on the top of the safe, and Henry,

settling his spectacles more firmly on his nose, began to count slowly,

accurately, passionately. Violet watched him.

"Why!" he exclaimed with a contented smile, after two countings, "he's

given you a pound too much. The bank-notes are all right, but there's

nine pound notes instead of eight. One, two, three, four, five, six,

seven, eight, nine. Only ought to be eight. One hundred and forty-eight

pounds, eighteen shillings, it ought to be all together."

"Well, that's funny, that is," said Violet. "I made sure I counted them

right. Oh, I know! There was another pound for a French book I sold him.

I forgot to enter it in the list. It was marked ten shillings, but I

asked him a pound and he took it."

"Oh!" murmured Henry, disillusioned.

"Yes."

"And he took it at a pound, did he? Well, then, you made ten shillings

for yourself that time, Vi." And he gave her the ten-shilling note, a

glint of humour in his voice and glance.

Princely munificence! She was deliciously dumbfounded. She had misjudged

him. Heaven was established again in the sealed home. She thanked him

with a squeeze of the arm, and then put the note in the left-hand drawer

of the safe, where were a lot of other notes.

"So that's your stand-by, in case?" said Henry.

"That's my stand-by, in case," said Violet, pleased by the proud

approval in his voice, and she snapped-to the drawer and the brass

handle rattled against the front of it.

"And I suppose those are your securities?"

"Like to look at them, darling?" She was still warm and melting.

He nodded. He undid the binding tape and examined the securities one by

one, unfolding them, reading, scrutinizing, with respect--with immense

respect. In each instance her surname had been altered from Arb to

Earlforward in an official hand and initialled. She gazed up into his

face like a satisfied child who has earned good marks.

"Well," he murmured at last, re-tying the tape. "For gilt-edged,

fixed-interest-bearing securities...."

He nodded several times, almost ecstatic. Yes, he was as proud of her

possessions as of herself. Violet was exceedingly happy. He then

examined the few oddments in the safe, such as certain receipts, some

coupons, the marriage-certificate, the birth-certificate. He smiled

benignantly as in a sort of triumph she locked the safe. He was a

wonderful husband. No covetousness, no jealousy in his little eye. They

departed from the bathroom, leaving the magical income-producing

apparatus inviolate in the eternal night of its tomb.

When they had felt their way downstairs again Violet exclaimed, happy

and careless:

"I wonder what's happened to Elsie all this time?" Few things could have

worried her then.

Mr. Earlforward, having lighted the office, limped through the gloom of

the unlit shop to the entrance-door.

"Tut, tut!" His tongue clicked against the back of his teeth. "She's

left this door unlocked. She knew perfectly well she ought to have taken

the key with her. Leaving the door unfastened like that! One of these

nights we shall be let in for it." He locked the door sharply.

"Oh, Henry!" Violet laughed easily; but a minute later she exclaimed

again, with the faintest trace of apprehension in her voice: "I wonder

what _has_ happened to that girl?"

Husband and wife could "settle to nothing" until Elsie came back. The

marvel of Henry sending for a paper at all returned upon Violet, and she

began to imagine that he had some very special purpose in doing so. She

felt the first subtle encroachments of the fear without a name.

"_Well!_" she burst out later, and went to the door and opened it, and

looked forth into King's Cross Road. No Elsie. She came in again and

secured the door, and entered the office humming. Henry stood with his

back to the fine fire, luxuriating grandly in its heat and in his own

splendid extravagance. His glance at Violet seemed to say:

"See how I prove that I can refuse you nothing! See what follies I will

perpetrate to please you!"

Then the shop-door shook, and the next instant there was a respectful

tap-tap on it. Violet ran like a girl.

"Elsie, you know perfectly well you ought to have taken the key with

you."

Elsie apologized. She was out of breath.

"You've been a long time, Elsie. We couldn't think what had happened to

you!" added Violet, locking the door finally for the night.

"I couldn't get no paper, 'm," Elsie explained. "I had to go down nearly

to the Viaduct before I could get one. And now it isn't the _Evening

Standard_--it's the _Star_. They were all sold out, 'm."

She advanced towards the office, and in her deferential hands the white

newspaper became the document of some mysterious and solemn message to

the waiting master. Her demeanour, indeed, showed that she knew it to be

such. She had not been reading the paper--that, somehow, for her, would

have been to pry--but as she passed under the sole gas-lamp of Riceyman

Steps she had by accident noticed one word on the _Star's_ front page.

That word was "Clerkenwell." Something terrible had been occurring in

Clerkenwell. Mr. Earlforward, whose habits she knew well, must have seen

a reference to Clerkenwell on the _Evening Standard's_ poster on his way

home, and after careful reflection he had decided to buy a copy of the

paper.

"Wait a moment! Wait a moment!" said Mr. Earlforward to Elsie as she

turned to leave the office. Elsie stood still. Violet sat on the chair

behind the desk. Mr. Earlforward maintained his position by the fire,

and created expectancy.

"'Further slump in the franc,'" he read, his eye negligently wandering

over the paper.

Elsie had not the least idea what this meant or signified. Violet was by

no means sure of its import, but she knew positively that it was bad

news for decent investing persons.

"'Belgian franc falls in sympathy.'"

Happily Elsie did not even know what a franc was; but whatever a franc

might be she vaguely wondered in the almost primeval night of her brain

how its performances could be actuated by such a feeling as sympathy.

For Violet the financial situation grew still gloomier.

"'Over a million doomed to starvation in the Volga region.' That's

communism, I'd like you to know; that's the result of communism, that

is," observed Mr. Earlforward, looking over his glasses and including

both women in an equal glance. "That's what communism leads to. And what

it must lead to wherever it's tried."

He had suddenly become an oracle. The women were impressed. They felt as

if they had been doing something wrong, perhaps defending communism or

trying to practise it. Elsie could not believe that he had bought the

paper in order to obtain the latest results of communism. She waited for

the word "Clerkenwell," but Mr. Earlforward was never in a hurry and

could not be hurried. As usual he was postponing.

"'Fatal Affray in a Clerkenwell Communist Club,'" he announced at

length. "Ah! So that's it ... Great Warner Street. Just across the road

from here. Not five minutes away. 'The Millennium Club.' ..." He nodded

scornfully at the name. "'Girl's heroism.' ... Girls in it, too!... Oh!

She was the waitress. 'Threw herself very courageously between the

assailants and seized the revolver, which, however, Vicenza wrenched

from her and then fired, wounding Arthur Trankett in the abdomen. When

the police effected an entrance at midnight'--that's last night--'Smith

was lying dead on the floor in front of the bar, and Trankett was

unconscious by his side.... Vicenza was subsequently apprehended in a

house in Coldbath Square.'"

Mr. Earlforward continued calmly and intimidatingly to read the account

of the police-court proceedings, and then went on:

"There you are, you see. At our door, as you may say! But don't think

Clerkenwell's the only place. It's everywhere, communism is. Ask

Glasgow. It's what we're coming to. It's what all Europe's coming to.

You may be sure if it's as bad as this in England, it's far worse on the

Continent.... Oh, yes'. 'The magistrate warmly commended the girl Pieta

Spinelly for her heroism and congratulated her on her lucky escape.' ...

Yes, but she won't always be so lucky. And will any of us?"

Violet was just reflecting that to eat steaks with communism at the door

was an act showing levity of mind and not seriously to be defended, when

Elsie remarked, with surprising equanimity:

"Pieta Spinelly. That's my cousin."

Mr. Earlforward, profoundly agitated, crushed the paper together.

"Your cousin?"

"Your cousin, Elsie?" Mrs. Earlforward stood up.

The shock of learning that Elsie had any relatives or connexions of any

kind, that she had any human interests outside Riceyman Steps, that she

was not cut off utterly from the world and devoted exclusively to

themselves--this alone would have sufficed to overthrow her employers,

who had never since she entered their house, as a novice enters a

nunnery, thought of her as anything but a "general." But that she should

be connected by blood with communists and foreigners! ... Communists

seemed to have invaded the very house, and civilization itself was

instantly threatened.

"Yes, 'm. She's my Aunt Maria's daughter. My Aunt Maria married an

Italian, an iceman, and his name was Spinelly.... Not as I ever saw

them."

"Oh! So you don't see this girl what's-her-name?"

"Shouldn't know her if I saw her, 'm. But I know they always had to do

with clubs like. There's a lot of clubs round here. But I'm glad she's

not dead or anything. You see, 'm, her being half Italian I _shouldn't_

see her!... And me Aunt Maria's been dead nearly five years. It must be

Pieta, that must. There couldn't be two of 'em. And it was just like her

too, because I remember her at school. Oh, she was a one! But then what

could you expect, poor thing? But I'm glad she's not dead, nor cut

about. Fancy her being in the papers!"

Elsie showed no perturbation. In spite of herself she felt pride in a

foreign connexion and the appearance of an heroic cousin in the papers;

but the more serious part of her was rather ashamed of the foreign

connexion. Mrs. Earlforward informed her that she might retire to bed if

she had left the kitchen all straight and ready for to-morrow morning.

She retired, quite unaware of the fact that practically she had brought

communism right into the house.

All this while the day's takings had lain on the desk unprotected and

unconcealed! Even during the unlocked shop-door interval they had lain

there! The little heaps of paper and coins seemed to accuse somebody of

criminal negligence, almost of inviting communism to ruin the structure

of society. Husband and wife were still gravely under the shock of the

communist murder (of course communists would be murderers--they always

killed everyone who had the misfortune to disagree with them) so near to

Riceyman Steps, and the shock of Elsie's evil communications; and as for

Violet herself, she was further thrilled by the perception of the

deliberate dramatic quality of Henry's purchase of the paper and

announcement of the news, and by the mysterious man's power of biding

his time, and by his generosity in the fire gift and the money gift, and

by his loving embrace--all these matters working upon the embers of the

burning episode of the steak. Violet, indeed, that sagacious, bright,

energetic and enterprising woman of the world, was in a state of

quivering, confused emotion whose intensity she scarcely realized. When

Henry brought out his safe-key she was strangely relieved, and her

glittering eyes seemed to say: "This money's been lying here on the desk

too long. Hide it quickly, quickly! Secure it without another moment's

delay, for heaven's sake!"

Having unlocked his safe, Henry pulled out two of the drawers (it was a

much larger safe than Violet's, with four drawers) and placed them on

the desk. One of them was full of pound notes and the other of

ten-shilling notes, and all the notes were apparently equal to new. He

never kept a dirty note for more than a few days, and usually he managed

to exchange it for a clean one on the day of receipt. At the bottom of

the drawer containing the Treasury notes lay a foolscap linen envelope

which he had once had by registered post. It bulged with bank-notes.

Into this he forced Mr. Bauersch's excellent tale of bank-notes. As he

dealt methodically, slowly, precisely with the rest of the money Violet

wondered how much cash the drawers held. It might be hundreds, it might

be thousands of pounds; she could not estimate. It was a very marvellous

and reassuring sight. She had seen it before, but not in such solemn

circumstances nor so fully. It reassured her against communism. With

that hoard well gripped, what could communists do to you after all? Of

course to keep the cash thus was to lose interest, but you couldn't have

it both ways. And the cash was so beautiful to behold.... Stocks! Dead

flesh! Bodily desires, appetites!... Negligible! This lovely cash

satisfied the soul. Ah, how she admired Henry! How she shared his

deepest instincts! How she would follow his example! How right he

was--always!

He said suddenly, but with admirable calm:

"Of course if things do come to the worst, as they certainly will, in

my opinion, all this will be worth nothing at all!" "This" was the

contents of the two drawers. "Nothing. Or just as much as a Russian

rouble. If some of those fellows across the road in Great Warner Street

get their way a five-pound note won't buy a loaf of bread. I'm not

joking. It's happened in other countries and it'll happen here. And the

first thing will be the banks closing. And then where will you be, with

your gilt-edged securities? Where will you be then? But I'll tell you

one thing that communism and socialism and murder and so on won't spoil,

and it'll always be good value."

He took a third drawer out of the safe, lifting it with both hands

because of its weight, and put it on the table. It was full of gold

sovereigns. Violet had never seen this gold before, nor suspected its

existence. She was astounded, frightened, ravished. He must have kept it

throughout the war, defying the Government's appeal to patriots not to

hoard. He was a superman, the most mysterious of supermen. And he was a

fortress, impregnable.

"Nothing like it!" he said blandly, running his fingers through the

upper sovereigns as through water that tinkled with elfin music.

She too ran her fingers through the gold. A unique sensation! He had

permitted it to her as a compensation for her silly sufferings in regard

to the steak. She looked down, moved.... With regret she saw him put the

drawers back and close the safe. They stayed a very long time in the

office. Henry had clerical work to do, and she helped him, eagerly, in a

lowly capacity.... The crumpled newspaper was carefully folded. The

light was extinguished. They climbed the dark stairs, leaving behind

them the shop, with the faint radiance near the window from the

gas-lamp. She slipped. She grasped his arm. He knew the stairs far more

intimately than she did. On the first landing she exclaimed:

"Now, has that girl fastened the dining-room windows? Or hasn't she?"

She had new fears for the security of the house. Not surprising that he

had previously breathed no word as to the golden contents of his safe!

What a proof of confidence in her that he had let her into the dangerous

secret! Suppose that the truth should get about? Burglars! Homicides!

(Madame Tussaud's!) She shut her knowledge up with triple locks in

herself. They passed into the dining-room, groping. The windows had been

duly fastened. There was plenty of light through them. The upper windows

of the confectioner's nearly opposite, her old shop, were blazing as

usual with senselessly extravagant illumination. That business would not

last long. She had been fortunate to get the last instalment of her

money. The purchaser was a middle-aged man with a youngish wife. Fatal

combination! Violet had not found him directly through her advertisement

in the _News of the World_, but through one of those business-transfer

agents who had written to her about the advertisement. How right Henry

had been in insisting that she should not pay the agent's commission

until she had received the last instalment of the purchase-money! Henry

had told her that most business-transfer agents were quite honest, but

that a few weren't, because it was a calling that could be embraced

without any capital and therefore specially tempting to the adventurer.

Henry knew all those things.

A tram-car thundered up King's Cross Road, throwing sparks from its

heels and generally glowing with electricity. It was crammed and jammed

with humanity--exhausted pleasure-seekers returning home northwards from

theatre, music-hall, cinema and restaurant. Pathetic creatures; stupid,

misguided, deluded, heedless, improvident--sheltered in no strong

fortress, they! Violet thought of the magic gold.

"Come. Come to bed," she said. "It's very cold here after the office."

He obeyed.