It was true. And all footsteps in the kitchen could be heard overhead in
the bedroom. He suspected that she was carrying on conversations from
her own bedroom window with new-made friends in the yard of the next
house or the next house but one, and giving away the secrets of the
house. But he did not utter the suspicion; he kept it to himself for the
present. Yes, they were all alike.
"You haven't inquired, Elsie, but I'm much better," he said.
"Oh! I can _see_ you are, sir!" she responded brightly.
But whether she really thought so, or whether she was just humouring
him, he could not tell.
"Yes. And I'm going to get up."
"Not to-day you aren't, sir," she burst out.
He said placidly:
"No. To-morrow morning. And I think I shall put on one of my new suits
and a new shirt. I think it's about time. I don't want to get shabby.
Just show them to me."
Elsie was evidently amazed at the suggestion. And he himself did not
know why he had made it. But, at any rate, it was not a bad idea. He
fancied that he might feel better in a brand new suit. He indicated the
right drawers to her, and one by one she had to display on the bed the
carefully preserved garments which he had bought for a song years ago
and never persuaded himself into the extravagance of wearing. The bed
was covered with new merchandise. He thought that he would have to wear
the clothes some time, and might as well begin at once. It would be
uneconomic to waste them, and worn or unworn they would go for far less
than a song after his death. He must be sensible; he must keep his
perspective in order. He regarded this decision to have out a new suit
as a truly great feat of considered sagacity on the part of a sick man.
Elsie with extreme care restored all the virgin clothes to their drawers
except one suit and one shirt, which for convenience she put separately
into Mrs. Earlforward's wardrobe. As all the suits were the same and all
the shirts were the same, it did not matter which suit and which shirt
were selected. But this did not prevent him from choosing, and
hesitating in his choice.
Elsie seemed to be alarmed by the scene--he could not understand why.
"Of course," he said, "being new they'll hang a bit looser on me than my
old suit; that's all wrinkled up. I'm not quite so stout as I was, am
I?"
Elsie turned round to him from the wardrobe with a nervous movement,
and then quickly back again. The fading light glinted for a second on a
tear-drop that ran down her cheek. This tear-drop annoyed Mr.
Earlforward; he resented it, and was not in the least touched by it. He
had not perceived the extraordinary pathos in the phrase "not quite so
stout," coming from a man who had never been stout (or slim either), and
who was now a stick, a skeleton; he thought she was merely crying
because he had lost flesh. As if people weren't always either putting on
flesh or losing it! As a fact, Elsie had not felt the pathos of the
phrase either, and her tears had no connexion whatever with Mr.
Earlforward's wasting away. Nor had they sprung from the still more
tragic pathos of his caprice about a new suit. In depositing the chosen
suit in Mrs. Earlforward's wardrobe Elsie had caught sight of the satin
shoe which on the bridal night she had tied to the very bedstead whereon
the husband was now lying alone. She thought of the husband lying alone
and desperately ill and desperately determined not to be ill, and the
wife far off in the hospital, and of her own helplessness, and she
simply could not bear to look at the shabby old shoe--which some unknown
girl had once worn in flashing pride. All the enigma of the universe was
in that shoe, with its curved high heel perched lifeless on a mahogany
tray of the everlasting wardrobe. Elsie had never heard of the enigma of
the universe, but it was present with her in many hours of her
existence.
Mr. Earlforward said suddenly:
"Was the operation going to be done this morning or this afternoon?" He
knew that the operation had been fixed for the morning, but he had to
account to Elsie for his apparent lack of curiosity.
"This morning, sir."
"We ought to be getting some news soon, then."
"Well, sir. That's just what I was wondering. I don't hardly think as
they'll send up--not unless it was urgent. So I suppose it's gone off
all right." A pause. "But we ought to know for certain, sir. I was
thinking I could run out and get someone to go down and find out--I
mean someone who _would_ find out and tell us all about it--not a child.
I dare say a shilling or two----"
With her experience Elsie ought not to have mentioned money, but she was
rather distraught. The patient reacted instantly. It was evident to him
that Elsie had old friends in the Square, or near by, upon whom she
wanted to confer benefits through the medium of her employer's
misfortunes. They were always bent on lining their pockets, those people
were. He was not going to let them pick up shillings and florins as
easily as all that. His shop was perforce closed; his business was
decaying; his customers would transfer their custom to other shops; not
a penny was coming in; communism was rife; the political and trade
outlook was menacing in the extreme; there was no clear hope anywhere;
he saw himself as an old man begging his bread. And the girl proposed
gaily to scatter shillings over Riceyman Square for a perfectly
unnecessary object! She had not reflected at all. They never did. They
were always eager to spend other people's money. Not their own! Oh, no!
He alone had kept a true perspective, and he would act according to his
true perspective. He was as anxious as anybody for news of the result of
the operation and Violet's condition; but he did not see the need to
engage an army of special messengers for the collecting of news. An hour
sooner or an hour later--what difference could it make? He would know
soon enough, too soon if it was to be bad news; and if it was to be good
news a little delay would only increase joy.... And, moreover, you would
have thought that even the poorest and most rapacious persons would not
expect money for services rendered in a great crisis to the sick and the
bedridden.
"I see no reason for doing that," he said placidly and firmly. "Let me
think now----"
"Shall I run down there myself? It won't take me long."
She was ready in the emergency, and in deference to his astounding
whims, to take the fearful risks of leaving the two men alone together
in the house. Suppose Joe should rise up violent? Suppose Mr.
Earlforward should begin in his weakness to explore the house? He was
already suspecting something; and she knew him for the most inquisitive
being ever born. She trembled. Still, she was ready to go, and to run
all the way there and all the way back.
"Oh, no!" he forbade positively. "That won't do at all." He was afraid
to lose her. He, so seriously ill (he was now seriously ill again!), to
be left by himself in the house! It was unthinkable. "Look here. Step
across to Belrose's" (Belrose--the man who had purchased Violet's
confectionery business). "I hear he's got the telephone now. Ask him to
telephone for us to the hospital. Then we shall know at once."
"We don't do much with them," Elsie objected, diffident. The truth was
that the Earlforward household bought practically nothing at Belrose's,
Belrose's not being quite Violet's "sort of shop" under its new
ownership.
Mr. Earlforward almost sat up in his protest against the horrible
suggestion contained in Elsie's remark. What! Would Belrose say: "'No,
you don't deal with me, and therefore I won't oblige you by telephoning
to the hospital to find out whether Mrs. Earlforward is alive or dead"?
A monstrous notion!
"Don't be silly," he chid her gravely. "Do as I tell you and run down at
once."
"And would you like me to ask them to telephone for another doctor for
you while I'm about it? There's Dr. Adhams, he's in Myddelton Square
too. They do say he's very good."
"When I want another doctor I'll let you know, Elsie," said Mr.
Earlforward with frigid calm. "There's a great deal too many doctors.
What has Raste done for me, I should like to know?"
"You wouldn't _let_ him do anything," said Elsie sharply.
He had never heard her speak with less benevolence. Of course he was
entitled to give her a good dressing-down, and it might even be his duty
to do so. But he lacked confidence in himself. Strange, but he was now
in the last resort afraid of Elsie! She was like an amiable and
tractable animal which astonishingly shows its teeth and growls.
"Leave the door open," he muttered.
As Elsie descended to the shop there was a peremptory and loud rat-tat,
and then a tattoo on the glass of the shop door. It frightened her. She
thought naturally of the possibility of bad news by special messenger or
telegraph from the hospital. But Mrs. Perkins's boy Jerry was at the
door. He wore his uniform, of which the distinguishing characteristics
were a cap with brass letters on the peak and a leathern apron
initialled in black. In King's Cross Road an enormous motor-lorry
throbbed impatiently in attendance upon the gnome.
"Here's yer umbrella, Elsie," said Jerry proudly. "I thought you might
be wanting of it."
He made no inquiry as to sick persons. He was only interested in the
romantic fact that he had used the vast resources of his company to
restore the umbrella to his queen, carrying it all day through all
manner of streets in his long round, and finally persuading that
important personage the motor-driver to stop at Riceyman Steps on no
business of the company's. Elsie took the umbrella from his dirty little
hands, which were, however, no dirtier than his grinning face, and he
ran off almost before she could thank him.
"Jerry!" she summoned him back, and he came, risking the wrath of the
driver. "Come along to-night, will yer, after ye've done? Rap quiet on
the door. I might want yer."
"Right O, Elsie!" He was gone. The lorry was gone.
Elsie went upstairs again with the umbrella, not because the umbrella
would not have been safe in the shop, but because she felt that she must
give another glance at Joe before she left the premises. It was an
unconsidered movement. She had forgotten that Mr. Earlforward's bedroom
door was open.
"Elsie," he called out, as she passed on the landing, "who was that?"
Her tired and exasperated brain worked with extraordinary swiftness. She
decided that she could not enter into a long explanation concerning the
umbrella and Jerry. Why should she? "He" was already suspicious.
"Postman," she answered, without the slightest hesitation, lying as
glibly and lightly as a born, lifelong liar, and continued her way
upstairs. She was somehow vaguely, indirectly, defending the secrecy of
Joe.
In her room she put the umbrella in its paper again under her bed,
gazing at Joe as she did so. Joe was very ill. She had given him two
doses of quinine (which Dr. Raste, making Elsie ashamed of her
uncharitable judgments on him, had had sent direct from a chemist's
within an hour and a half of his departure), and she was disturbed that
the medicine had not produced an immediate and marked effect on the
patient.
Joe had got one arm through the ironwork at the head of the bed, and was
tearing off little slips of the peeling wallpaper in the corner. She
took hold of his hot hand, and silently guided it back through the
ironwork on to the bed.
"Shall I give you another dose?" she suggested tentatively, with brow
creased.
He nodded. He knew malaria and he knew quinine; and, fortified by his
expert approval, she gave him another dose. Both of them had the belief
that if five grains of a medicine did you ten per cent. of "good," ten
grains would assuredly do you twenty per cent. of good, and so on in
proportion.
"I'm coming in again in a minute or two. I've just got to go across the
Steps on an errand," she said, and kissed him. Both of them had also the
belief that her kisses did him good; and this conviction was better
founded than the other one. She had said nothing to him about Mrs.
Earlforward's operation. He had learnt only that Elsie was mistress
because Mrs. Earlforward was in hospital; the full story might have
aggravated his mental distress.
"Elsie!" It was Mr. Earlforward's summons as she crossed the landing on
her way down.
She put no more than her face--a rather mettlesome face--into the room.
"What do you keep on going upstairs for?"
Yes. He suspected. With strange presence of mind she replied promptly:
"I've just been up for the key of the shop, sir. I left it up in my
room. I can't go out and leave the shop door on the latch, can I?"
"Well, bring me all the letters."
"Oh, very well. Very well!" She was hostile again.
This time she shut the bedroom door, ignoring his protest. Then she went
upstairs once more and locked her own door on the outside and carried
off the key. At any rate, if in some impossible caprice he should take
it into his head to prowl about the house in her absence, he should not
pry into her room. He had no right to do so. And she was absolutely
determined to defend her possession of Joe. A moment later she bounced
into Mr. Earlforward's bedroom, and carelessly dropped all the letters
on to the bed--a regular shower of envelopes and packets.
"There!" she exclaimed, on a hard and inimical note, as if saying: "You
asked for them. You've got them. And I wash my hands of it all."
Mr. Earlforward saw that he must walk warily. She was a changing Elsie,
a disagreeably astonishing Elsie. He did not quite know where he was
with her.
As she emerged from the shop into the Steps a young woman with a young
dog, stopping suddenly, addressed her in soft, apprehensive,
commiserating accents:
"How is Mr. Earlforward this evening?"
"He seems to think as he's a bit better, 'm, thank you, _in himself_,"
Elsie answered brightly. She was uplifted by the mere concern in the
voice, and at once felt more kindly towards her master, was indeed
rather ashamed of her recent harshness to him.
Dusk had now fallen, and she could not see very clearly, but the next
instant she had recognized both the woman and the dog". Quite a lady! A
sort of a seal-skin coat! Gloves! Utterly different from the savage
creature of the previous night. The dog, too, was different. A dog
lacking yet in experience of the world, and apt to forget that a dog's
business is to keep an eye on its guardian if it sets any store on a
quiet and safe existence; but still well disposed towards its guardian,
and apparently in no fear of her. More remorse for Elsie.
"Oh! I'm _so_ glad!... And Mrs. Earlforward?"
"Oh, 'm! We haven't heard. We're expecting news."
"I do hope everything'll be all right. Operation--internal trouble,
isn't it?"
"Yes, 'm."
"Yes. So I heard. Well, thank you. Good night. Skip--Skip!"
Skip was the disturber of repose, and he responded, leaping. The two
disappeared round the corner.
It was wonderful to Elsie how everybody knew, and how kind everybody
was. She was touched. The woman had given her the illusion that the
whole of Clerkenwell was filled with anxiety for the welfare of her
master and her mistress. Her sense of responsibility was intensified. If
the whole of Clerkenwell knew that she was secretly harbouring her young
man in her bedroom!... She went hot. The complexity of her situation
frightened her afresh.
Belrose's was at its old royal game of expending vast quantities of
electric current. The place had just been lighted up, and had the air of
a popular resort; it warmed and vitalized all the Steps by its radiance,
which seemed to increase from month to month. What neither Mr.
Earlforward nor anybody else of the old Clerkenwell tradition had ever
been able to understand or approve was the continual illumination of
the upper storeys. And yet the solution of the mystery was simple, and
lay in a fact with which most of the district was familiar. Belrose had
"gone in for wholesale." Elsie entered the shop very timidly, for she
regarded her errand as "presuming," and in the midst of all her
anxieties she had diffidence enough to be a little ashamed of it.
The shop was most pleasantly warm; its warmth was a greeting which would
have overpowered some folk; and there was a fine rich odour of cheese
and humanity. Also the shop was full. You could scarcely move in it. The
stock was plenteous, and the character of the stock had changed.
Advertised brands of comestibles of universal consumption were far less
prominent than under previous régimes, and there was a great deal more
individuality. The travellers and the collectors of advertised brands
now called at the establishment with a demeanour different from of old;
they had to leave their hard-faced, bullying manner on the doorstep. Two
enormous and smiling young, mature women stood behind the counter. Their
magnificently rounded façades were covered with something that was only
white on Saturdays and Wednesdays, and certainly was not white to-night.
Like the shop itself the servers were neither tidy nor clean; but they
were hearty, gay and active, and they had authority, for one of them was
Mr. Belrose's sister, and the other Mrs. Belrose's sister; nevertheless,
they looked like sisters; they both had golden, rough hair and ruddy
complexions, and the same experienced, comprehending, jolly expression,
and fat, greasy hands.
There were four customers in the shop, of course all women, and the six
women seemed to be all chatting together. The interior was the interior
of a shop in full swing, but it showed in addition the better qualities
of a bar parlour whose landlord knows how to combine respectability with
freedom of style. Miss Belrose, who was nearest the door, smiled
benignantly at Elsie on her entrance, as if saying: "You are one of us,
and we are yours."
When two outgoing customers squeezed themselves between Elsie and a pile
of cheeses, and her turn came to be served, Elsie suddenly discovered
that she could not straight away execute Mr. Earlforward's command. She
had a feeling that shops did not exist in order to supply telephone
accommodation gratis to non-customers, and she was simply unable to
articulate the request; nor did the extreme seriousness of the case
inspire her to boldness. She asked for a quarter of a pound of cheese,
and was immediately requested to name any cheese that she might fancy,
the implication being that no matter what her fancy it could and would
be satisfied on the most advantageous terms.
Now Elsie did not want any cheese; she wanted nothing at all. Mrs.
Earlforward, before vanishing into the hospital, had bought for the
master a generous supply of invalid foods, which, for the most part
refused by the obstinate master, would suffice Joe for several days, and
of all such eatables as Belrose's sold Elsie had in hand enough also for
several days.
She said "Cheddar," reacting quite mechanically to the question put; and
then she was confronted with another problem. She had no money, not a
penny. It would be necessary for her to say, "I must run back for some
money," and having said that to return and somehow manœuvre Mr.
Earlforward's keys off the chest of drawers and rifle the safe once
more. And already he was suspicious! How could she do it? She could not
do it. But she must do it. She saw the cheese weighed and slipped into a
piece of paper. The moment of trial was upon her.
Then the back door of the shop opened--she recognized the old peculiar,
familiar sound of the latch--and a third enormous, white-clad,
golden-haired, jolly, youngish woman appeared in the doorway. This was
Mrs. Belrose herself, and you at once saw, and even felt, that her
authority exceeded the authority of her sister and her sister-in-law.
Mrs. Belrose was a ruler. As soon as she saw Elsie her gigantic face
softened into a very gentle smile of compassion, a smile that conveyed
nothing but compassion, excluding all jollity. She raised a stout finger
and without a word beckoned Elsie into the back-room and shut the door.
The ancient kitchen-parlour was greatly changed. It was less clean than
Elsie had left it, but it glittered with light. More cheeses! And in the
corner by the mantelpiece was the telephone. And through the window
Elsie saw an oldish, thin little man moving about in the yard with a
lantern against a newly erected shed. Still more cheeses--seemingly as
many cheeses as Mr. Earlforward possessed books! The oldish man was Mr.
Belrose, guardian and overlord of the three women, and original
instigator of this singular wholesale trade in cheeses which he had
caused to prosper despite the perfect unsuitability of his premises and
other difficulties. Individuality and initiative had triumphed. People
asked one another how the Belroses had contrived to build up such a
strange success, but they had only to look at the mien and gestures of
the Belroses to find the answer to the question.
"How are you getting on, my dear?" demanded Mrs. Belrose, who had
scarcely spoken to Elsie in her life before.
"Master wished me to ask you if you'd mind telephoning to the hospital,
'm," said Elsie, after she had given some details.
"Of course I will. With the greatest pleasure."
Mrs. Belrose grabbed at the tattered telephone-book, and whetting her
greasy thumb whipped over the pages rapidly.
"Where's them Saints now? Oh! 'Saintsbury's.' 'Saint.' 'St.
Bartholomew's Football and Cricket Ground.' I expect that's for the
doctors and students. 'St. Bartholomew's Hospital.' This is it. Here we
are. City 510.... Oh, dear! oh, dear! 'No telephone information given
respecting patients.' Oh, dear, oh, dear!" She looked at Elsie. "Never
mind," she went on brightly. "We can get over that, I should think."
She obtained the number and got into communication with the reception
office of the hospital.
"I want you to be kind enough to give a message to Mrs. Violet
Earlforward from her husband. She's in your hospital for an
operation.... Oh, but you must, please. He's very ill. But he's a bit
better, and it will do Mrs. Earlforward ever so much good to know....
Oh, _please_! Yes, I know, but they can't send anyone down. Oh, you
don't count rules when it's urgent. It might be life and death. But you
can telephone up to the ward. You're starred, so you must have a private
exchange. Oh, yes. To _oblige_. Yes, Earlforward, Violet. And you might
just ask how she is while you're about it. You _are_ good."
She held the line and waited, sitting down on a chair to rest herself.
And to Elsie:
"They're very nice, really, at those hospitals, once you get on the
right side of them. I suppose _you_'ve got about all you can do?"
"Well, there isn't much nursing, and the shop's closed."
"Oh, yes, and the Steps do look so queer with it closed. Somehow it
makes it look like Sunday. Doctor has been to-day, I suppose?"
"Yes, 'm. This morning," said Elsie, and stopped there, not caring to
divulge the secret of Mr. Earlforward's insane obstinacy.
"Yes. I'm here. I'm listening. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! She's---- Oh, dear!
Owing to what? 'Under-nourishment'?... He's rung off."
Mrs. Belrose sniffed as she hung up the receiver.
"Oh, Elsie! Your poor mistress has died under it. She died about half an
hour ago. According to what _they_ say, she might have pulled through,
but she hadn't strength to rally owing to--under-nourishment.... Well,
I'm that cut up!" Mrs. Belrose cried feebly.
Elsie stared at her and did not weep.
"Ought I to _tell_ him, 'm?"
"Oh, yes, you must tell him. There's no sense in hiding them
things--especially as he's a little better. He's _got_ to know. And he'd
be very angry, and quite rightly, if he wasn't told, _and_ at once."
"I'll go and tell him."
"Would you like me to come with you?"
"You're very kind, 'm," said Elsie, cunning even in disaster. "I can
manage. He's very peculiar, but I know how to manage him. There won't be
nothing to be done till to-morrow, anyway."
She had another and a far more perilous secret to keep, that of Joe.
Therefore she dared not admit a stranger to the house. Of course, soon
she would have to admit strangers--but not to-night, not to-night! She
must postpone evil.
Mrs. Belrose lifted her immense bulk and kissed Elsie, and then Elsie
cried. Saying not a word more, she turned, opened the door, and passed
through the shop, rapt, totally ignoring the servers and the quarter of
a pound of cheese.
"To-morrow," she said to herself, "I shall tell her" (Mrs. Belrose) "all
about Joe. She'll understand." The mere thought of Mrs. Belrose was a
refuge for her. "But missis can't be dead. It was only yesterday
morning----"
"Leave me alone. Leave me!" breathed Henry Earlforward in a dismaying
murmur when she gave him the news. She obeyed.
IX
THE KISS
That night Elsie sat in the parlour (as she still to herself called the
dining-room) by the gas-fire which she had lighted on her own
responsibility. An act and a situation which a few days earlier, two
days earlier, would have been inconceivable to her! But Joe's clothes
had refused to dry in the kitchen; the gas-ring there was incapable of
drawing the water out of them in the damp weather. Now they were dry;
some of them were folded on a chair; upon these were laid the braces
which she had given to him on his birthday, and which evidently he had
worn ever since. To Elsie now these soiled and frayed braces had a magic
vital quality. They seemed, far more than the clothes, to have derived
from him some of his individuality, to be a detached part of him; she
was sewing a button on the lifeless old trousers, and she had taken the
button, and the thimble, needle, and thread from Mrs. Earlforward's
cardboard sewing-box in the left-hand drawer of the sideboard. She was
working with the tools of a dead lady. At moments this irked and
frightened her; at other moments she thought that what must be must be,
and that, anyhow, the clothes ought to be put in order; and she could
not go upstairs and disturb Joe by searching for her own
apparatus--which certainly did not comprise trouser buttons. She tried
to be natural and not to look ahead. She would not, for instance, dwell
upon the apparently insoluble problem of arranging a proper funeral for
Mrs. Earlforward. How could she, the servant, do anything towards that?
She dared not leave her patients. She knew nothing about the
organization of funerals. She had never even been to a funeral. She had
no knowledge of possible relatives of the Earlforwards.
"To-morrow! To-morrow! Not till to-morrow--all that!" she said doggedly.
But she failed to push away everything. In the midst of her great grief
for the death of Mrs. Earlforward (a perfect woman and a martyr) the
selfish thought of her own future haunted her and would not be
dismissed. Would Joe ever again wear those clothes which she was
mending? He had taken some Bovril (Mr. Earlforward also), but she could
not persuade herself that he was really better. She was terror-struck by
the varied possibilities attending his death. A dead man secretly in her
bed! What a plight for her! She determined afresh to confide the secret
of Joe to Mrs. Belrose to-morrow morning. Not that the mere
inconveniences of death deeply troubled her. No! In truth they were
naught. Or rather, if he died they would have absolutely no importance
to her compared with the death itself. Having found Joe, was she to lose
him again? She could not face such a prospect....
And then Mr. Earlforward. She was beginning to be convinced that the
master really was better. He had taken the Bovril. He had opened one or
two of his letters. The shock of the news about Mrs. Earlforward,
instead of shattering him to pieces, had strengthened him, morally if
not physically. He might recover--he was an amazing man! And, of course,
she desired him to recover. Could she wish anyone's death? She could not
be so cruel, so wicked! And yet, and yet, if he lived, she was his slave
for ever; she was a captive with no hope of escape. A slave, either
bowed down by sorrow for the death of Joe, or fatally desolated by the
eternal reflection that Joe was alive and she could not have him because
of her promise to Mr. Earlforward! She saw no hope; she made no reserves
in the interpretation of her vow to the master. She could not see that
circumstances inevitably, if slowly, alter cases.
She yawned heavily in extreme exhaustion.
Then her ear caught a faint, cautious tapping below. All trembling she
crept downstairs. Jerry was at the shop-door. In the turmoil of distress
she had forgotten that she had commanded him to call for orders. She was
glad to have someone to talk to for a little while, and she brought him
into the office. She saw in front of her, on the opposite side of the
desk, a young lad who had most surprisingly and touchingly put on his
best clothes for important events. Also he had washed himself. Also he
was smoking a cigarette.
Jerry, who was thin and pinched in the face, saw in front of him an
ample and splendid young woman--not very young to him, for his notion of
youthfulness was rather narrow, but much younger than his mother, though
much older than Nell, his fancy of the Square, whose years did
correspond with his notion of youthfulness. Elsie was slightly taller
than himself. He thought she had the nicest, kindest face he had ever
seen. He loved her brow when she frowned in doubt or anxiety; for him
even her aprons were different from any other woman's aprons. He was
precocious, in love as in other matters, but he did not love Elsie, did
not aspire to love her. She was above him, out of his reach; he went in
awe of her; he liked to feel that she was his tyrant. She was the most
romantic, mysterious, and beautiful of all women and girls. Elsie very
well understood his attitude towards her.
"I thought I might want yer to run down to the hospital for me, Jerry my
boy," she said. "But I shan't now. Mrs. Earlforward died this
afternoon."
"It's all over the Square," said Jerry, spitting negligently into the
dark fireplace, and pushing his cap further back on his head.
Elsie saw that he did not understand death.
"Yes," said she, "I suppose it is." She said no more, because of the
uselessness of talking about death to a simple-minded youth like Jerry.
"It was very nice of you to bring me my umbrella like that," she said.
"Oh!" said he, falsely scornful of himself. "It was easiest for me to
bring it along like that."
He had been standing with his legs apart; at this point he sat down
familiarly and put his elbows on the desk and his jaw in his hands; the
cigarette hung loosely in his very mobile lips. They were silent; Jerry
was proud and happy, and had nothing in particular to say about it.
Elsie had too much to say to be able to talk.
"Then ye haven't got anything for me to do?" he asked.
"No, I haven't."
"Oo!" He was disappointed.
"But I might have to-morrow. You'll be off at two o'clock to-morrow,
won't yer?"
"That's me."
"Very well then." She rose.
Jerry was extraordinarily uplifted by this brief sojourn alone with Elsie
in the private office of T. T. Riceyman's. He felt that he was more of a
grown man than ten thousand cigarettes and oaths and backchat with
fragile virgins in the Square could make him. He sprang from the chair.
"Give me a kiss, Elsie," he blurted out audaciously. He was frightened
by his own cheek.
"Jerry Perkins!" Elsie admonished him. "Aren't ye ashamed of yerself?
Mrs. Earlforward dead! And them two so ill upstairs!"
"What two?" Jerry asked, rather to cover his confusion than from
curiosity.
"I mean Mr. Earlforward," said Elsie. She was not abashed at her slip.
With Jerry she had a grandiose rôle to play, and no contretemps could
spoil her performance.
Jerry guessed instantly that she had got Joe hidden in the house, but he
never breathed a word of it. He even tried to look stupid and
uncomprehending, which was difficult for him.
"Aren't ye ashamed of yerself?" she solemnly repeated.
He moved towards the door. Elsie's glance followed him. She was sorry
for him. She wanted to be good to somebody. She could not help Mr.
Earlforward. She could do very little for Joe. Mrs. Earlforward was
dead, and she could so easily give Jerry delight.
"Here!" she said.
He turned. She kissed him quietly but fully. There were no reservations
in her kiss. Jerry, being too startled by unexpected joy, could not give
the kiss back. He lost his nerve and went off so absorbed in his
sensations that he forgot even to thank the sweet benefactress. In the
Square his behaviour to the attendant Nell was witheringly curt. Nell
did not know that she now had to cope with a genuine adult.
X
THE SAFE
Not a sound in the house; nor outside the house. Not a clock nor a watch
going in the house. Mr. Earlforward had listened interminably to get the
time from the church, but without success. He knew only from the
prolonged silence of the street that the hour must be very late. "Work!"
he murmured to himself in the vast airless desert and void created by
the death of Violet. "That's the one thing--the one thing." His faculty
for compromising with destiny aroused itself for a supreme achievement.
It was invincible. He would not think himself into hell or madness or
inanition by yielding feebly to the frightful grief caused by the
snatching away of that unique woman so solicitous about him, so
sensible, so vivacious, so agreeable, so energetic, so enterprising, so
ready to adopt his ideas--and yet so independent. Her little
tantrums--how exquisite, girlish! There had always been a girl in her.
The memory of her girlishness desolated him more than anything.
"Insufficient nourishment"? No! It could not have been that. Had he
ever, on any occasion, in the faintest degree, discouraged her from
satisfying her appetite? Or criticized her housekeeping accounts? No!
Never had he interfered. Moreover she had plenty of money of her own and
the absolutely unfettered use of it. He would give her such a funeral as
had not been seen in Clerkenwell for many a year. The cost, of course,
might be charged to her estate, but he would not allow that--though, of
course, it would all be the same in the end.
He could not bear to lie in the bed which she had shared with him. The
feel of the empty half of it, when he passed his hand slowly over the
lower blanket in the dark, tortured him intolerably, and yet he must
somehow keep on passing his hand over it. Futile and sick indulgence! He
got out of bed, drew aside the curtains and drew up the blind. He could
not see the moon, but it was lighting the roofs opposite, and its light
and that of the gas-lamp lit the room sufficiently to reveal all the
principal features of it. Animated by the mighty power of his resolution
to withstand fate he felt strong--he _was_ strong. His cold legs were
quite steady. Yes, though he still had a dull pain, the attack of
indigestion was declining. He had successfully taken Bovril. To work,
seated at his desk, could not tire him, and ought to do him good.
A queer affair, that indigestion! He had never suffered from indigestion
until the day after his wedding-night, when he had eaten so immoderately
of Elsie's bride-cake. The bride-cake seemed to have been the
determining cause, or perhaps it was merely the occasion, of some change
in his system. (But naturally he had said nothing of it.) However, he
was now better. A little pain in the old spot--no more.
He opened the wardrobe to get his new shirt and new suit, and saw in the
pale gloom Violet's garments arranged on their trays. The sight of them
shook him terribly. He must assuredly save himself by the labour of
reconstituting his existence. It was impossible for him to remain in the
bedroom. He dressed himself in the new clothes, putting a muffler round
his neck instead of a collar. Then he filled his pockets with his
personal belongings from the top of the chest of drawers. None was
missing. He picked up the pile of correspondence, which he had laid
neatly on the pedestal. He could walk without discomfort. He must work.
The grim intention to work was irresistibly monopolizing his mind, and
driving all else out of it. He left the bedroom--a deed in itself.
On the landing, as he looked upwards, he could see light under Elsie's
bedroom door. The candles that girl must be burning! He would correct
her. Should he? Supposing she rebelled! Elsie had changed; he did not
quite know where he was with her; and he did not want to lose her. She
was his mainstay in the world. Still, it would never do to be afraid of
correcting a servant. He would correct her. He would knock at her door
and tell her--not for the first time. He mounted two steps, but his legs
nearly failed him. He could walk downstairs but not up. Besides, if she
knew that he was out of bed there might be trouble, and he wished to
avoid trouble. Therefore, he turned and limped downstairs into the shop
and lit it.
To see the shop was like revisiting after an immense period the land of
his youth. He recognized one by one the landmarks. Here was the loaded
bookstand, with its pair of castors, which _she_ had devised. The shop
was like a mausoleum of trade. His trade had ceased. It had to be
brought back to life, galvanized into activity. Could he do it? He must
and he would do it. He was capable of the intensest effort. His very
sorrow was inspiring him. On the floor at the entrance lay some
neglected correspondence which bore footmarks. Servants were astounding.
Elsie had been too negligent even to pick the letters up. She probably
never would have picked them up. She would have trod and trod them into
the dirty boards--demands for books, offers of books, possibly
cheques--the stuff itself of trade. He picked them up with difficulty,
and padded into the office, which also he lit. Cold! He shivered.
"I'm not entirely cured yet," he thought, and began to doubt himself.
The fire was prepared--Violet's influence again. Fires had never been
laid in advance till she came. He put a match to the fire and felt
better. Undecided, he stroked his cheek. Stubble! How long was it since
he had shaved? His face must look a pretty sight. Happily there was no
mirror in either the office or the shop, so that he could not inspect
himself. Work! Work! Memories were insinuating themselves anew in his
mind. He must repulse them. Fancy her running off like that, without a
word of good-bye, to the hospital, and now she was irrevocably gone! It
was incredible, monstrous, the most sinister piece of devil's magic that
ever happened.... Chloroform. The knife. Fibroid growth.... Dead.
Vanished. She with her vivacity and her optimism.... He was fatigued.
The pain had recurred. It was very bad. Perhaps he had been ill-advised
to come downstairs, for he could not get upstairs again. He cautiously
skirted the desk, holding on to it, and sat in his chair. Work! Work!
The reconstruction of his life!
He fingered the letters. With one of them was a cheque, and it must go
into the safe for the night. He would endorse it to-morrow. Never
endorse a cheque till you paid it into the bank, for an endorsed cheque
might be the prey of thieves. He bent down sideways to his safe with a
certain pleasure. _Her_ safe was upstairs in the bathroom. He would have
to obtain her keys and open it and examine its contents. He took his own
keys from his pocket, and, not very easily, unlocked his safe, and swung
forward its door. The familiar act soothed him. The sublime spectacle of
the safe, sole symbol of security in a world of perils, enheartened him.
After all ...
Then he noticed that the silver bag was not precisely in its customary
spot on the ledge over the nest of drawers. He started in alarm and
clutched at the bag. It was not tied with his knot. He unloosed it and
felt crumpled paper within it. "6d"! Elsie's clumsy hand-writing, which
he knew so well from having seen it now and then on little lists of
sales on the backs of envelopes! No! It was not the loss of sixpence
that affected him. He could have borne that. What so profoundly, so
formidably, shocked him was the fact that Elsie had surreptitiously
taken his keys, rifled the safe, and returned the keys--and smiled on
him and nursed him! There was no security at all in the world of perils.
The foundations of faith had been destroyed. Elsie!
But in the agony of the crisis he did not forget his wife. He moaned
aloud:
"What would Violet have thought? What would my poor Violet have thought
of this?"
His splendid fortitude, his superhuman courage to recreate his existence
over the ruins of it and to defy fate, were broken down. Life was
bigger, more cruel, more awful than he had imagined.
XI
PRISON
"Joe," inquired Elsie, "where's your papers?"
She had brought his clothes--dry, folded, and possibly
wearable--back into her bedroom. She had found nothing in the
pockets of the suit except some cigarette-card portraits of famous
footballers, a charred pipe, three French sous, and a broken
jack-knife. These articles, the raiment, and a pair of battered
shoes which she had pushed under the bed and forgotten, seemed to be
all that Joe had to show for more than twenty years of strenuous and
dangerous life on earth--much less even than Elsie could show. The
paucity of his possessions did not trouble her, and scarcely
surprised her, for she knew that very many unmarried men, with no
incentive to accumulate what they could immediately squander in
personal use, had no more reserves than Joe; but the absence of
the sacred "papers" disturbed her. Every man in her world could,
when it came to the point, produce papers of some sort from
somewhere--army-discharge, pension documents, testimonials,
birth-certificate, etc., etc. Even the tramps who flitted in and out
of Rowton House had their papers to which they rightly attached the
greatest importance. No man in Elsie's world could get far along
without papers, unless specially protected by heaven; and, sooner or
later--generally sooner than later--heaven grew tired of protecting.
All day Elsie had been awaiting an opportunity to speak to Joe about his
papers. The opportunity had now come. Mr. Earlforward could be left for
an hour or so. Joe was apparently in less pain. The two bedrooms were
tidied up. Both men had been fed. Joe had had more quinine. She could
not sponge him again till the morrow. She herself had drunk two cups of
tea, and eaten the last contents of the larder. She had lighted a new
candle--the last candle--in the candlestick. She had brought coal and
mended the fire. The next morning she would have a great deal to do and
to arrange--getting money, marketing, seeing the doctor and Mrs.
Belrose, discussing the funeral with Mr. Earlforward--terrible
anxieties--but for the present she was free.
Joe made no answer. He seemed to be trying to frame sentences. She
encouraged him with a repetition:
"Where's your papers? I can't find 'em nowhere. You haven't lost them,
have ye?" Her brow contracted in apprehension.
"I sold 'em," said Joe, in his deep, vibrating and yet feeble voice. He
looked away.
"Sold 'em, Joe? Ye never sold 'em!"
"Yes I have, I tell ye. I sold 'em yesterday morning."
"But, Joey----"
"I sold 'em yesterday morning to a man as came to meet a man as came out
of Pentonville same time as me."
"Pentonville! Joe, d'ye mean ye've been to prison?" He nodded. "What a
shame!" she exclaimed in protest, not at his having done anything wicked
enough to send him to prison, but at the police having been wicked
enough to send him to prison. She assumed instinctively and positively
that he was an innocent victim of the ruthless blue men whom some people
know only as pilots of perambulators across busy streets.
"There was no option, ye know, so I had fourteen days."
She dropped on her knees at the bedside, and put her left arm under his
neck and threw her right arm over his waist, and with it felt again the
familiar shape of his waist through the bedclothes, and gazed into his
homely, ugly face upon which soft, dark hair--a beard on the chin--was
sprouting. This faith and tenderness made Joe cry.
"Tell me," she murmured, scarcely hoping that he would succeed in any
narrative.
"Oh, it's nothin'," Joe replied gloomily. "Armistice Day, ye know. I had
my afternoon, and I went out."
"Were ye in a place, Joe?"
"I had a part-time place in Oxford Street--carrying coal upstairs, and
cleaning brasses and sweeping and errands. And a bed. Yes, in the
basement. Sort of a watchman. Doctor he give me a testimonial. Least, he
sent it me when I wrote and asked him." (No doubt whatever that she had
been unjust to that doctor!) "I went down to Piccadilly to see the
sights, and when it was about dark I see our old divisional general in a
damn big car with two young ladies. There was a block, ye see, in
Piccadilly Circus, and he was stopped by the kerb where them
flower-girls are, ye know, by the fountain, and I was standing there as
close as I am to you, Elsie. We used to call him the Slaughterer. That
was how we called him. We never called him nothin' else. And there he
was with his two rows o' ribbons and his flash women, perhaps they
weren't flash, and I didn't like the look of his face--hard, ye know.
Cruel. We knowed him, we did. And then I thought of the two minutes'
silence, and hats off and stand at 'tention, and the Cenotaph, and it
made me laugh. I laughed at him through the glass. And he didn't like
it, he didn't. I was as close to him as I am to you, ye see. And he lets
down the glass and says something about insultin' behaviour to these
ladies, and I put my tongue out to him. That tore it, that did. That
fair put the lid on. I felt something coming over me--ye know. Then
there was a crowd, and I caught a policeman one on the shoulder. Oh,
they marched me off, three of 'em! The doctor at the station said I was
drunk, me as hadn't had a drop for three days! Next morning the beak he
said he'd treat me lenient because it was Armistice Day, and I'd had
some and I'd fought for the old country, but assaulting an officer of
the law, he couldn't let that pass. No option for that, so he give me
fourteen days."
"But yer master, Joe?"
"It was an old woman."
"Wouldn't she----?"
"No, she wouldn't," said Joe roughly. "And another thing, I didn't go
back there either, afterwards."
"Did ye leave yer things there?"
"Yes. A bag and some things. And I shan't fetch it either."
"_I_ shall!" said Elsie resolutely. "I won't let _'er_ have 'em. I shall
tell her you was taken ill, and I shall bring 'em away."
Joe offered no remark.
"But why did ye sell yer papers, Joe?"
"He give me four-and-six for 'em. I was on me uppers; he give me
four-and-six, and then we went and had a meal after all that skilly and
cocoa and dry bread. No good me going back. I'd left without notice, I
had."
"But why didn't ye come to me straight, Joey?"
Joe didn't answer. After all this inordinate loquacity of his, he had
resumed his great silence.
Elsie still gazed at him. The candle light went down and up. A burst of
heavy traffic shook the bed. And now Elsie had a desire to tell Joe all
about her own story, all about Mr. Earlforward and the death of Mrs.
Earlforward, and the troubles awaiting her in the morning. She wanted to
be confidential, and she wanted to discuss with him a plan for putting
him on his feet again after he was better--for she was sure she could
restore his self-respect to him, and him to his proper position in the
world. But he did not seem interested in anything, not even in herself.
He was absorbed in his aches and pains and fever. And she was very
tired. So, without moving her arms, she just laid her head on his
breast, and was indignant against the whole of mankind on his behalf,
and regarded her harsh, pitiless self as the author of all his
misfortunes and loved him.
XII
ASLEEP
Mr. and Mrs. Belrose occupied a small bedroom at the top of their house.
As for her sister and his sister, they fitted their amplitudes into some
vague "somewhere else," and those of the curious who in the way of
business or otherwise knew how nearly the entire house was devoted to
"wholesale," wondered where the two sisters-in-law did in fact stow
themselves. The servant slept out.
In the middle of the night Mrs. Belrose raised her magnificent form out
of the overburdened bed and went to the window to look forth on the
Steps.
"Charlie," said she, coming back to the bed and shaking her husband. He
awoke unwillingly and grunted, and muttered that she was taking cold; an
absurd suggestion, as he knew well, for she never took cold, and it was
inconceivable that she should take cold.
"That light's still burning at T. T.'s--in the shop. I don't like the
look of it."
She lit the room, and the fancies of night seemed to be dispelled by an
onrush of realism, dailiness and sagacity. Mr. and Mrs. Belrose
considered themselves to be two of the most sagacious and imperturbable
persons that ever lived, and they probably were.
No circumstances were too much for their sagacity and their presence of
mind. Each had complete confidence in the kindly but unsentimental
horse-sense of the other. Mrs. Belrose, despite her youngishness, was
the more impressive. She it was who usually said the final word in
shaping a policy; yet in her utterances there was an implication that
Charles had a super-wisdom which she alone could inspire, and also that
he, being a man, could do certain things that she, being a woman, was
ever so slightly incapable of.
"I don't like the look of it at all," she said.
"Well, I don't see we can do anything till morning," said Charles. Not
that he was allowing his judgment to be warped by the desire to sleep.
No; he was being quite impartial.
"That girl's got too much on her hands, looking after that funny old man
all by herself, day and night. She isn't a fool, far from it; but it's
too much for one girl."
"You'd better go over, perhaps, and have a look at things."
"I was thinking you'd go, Charlie."
"But I can't do anything if I do go. I can't help the girl."
"I'm afraid," said the authoritative and sagacious wife simply.
"What of?" asked the wizened slip of a husband.
"Well, I don't know; but I am. It'll be better for you to go--anyway
first. I could come afterwards. We can't leave the girl in the lurch."
Nevertheless Mrs. Belrose did know what she was afraid of and so did Mr.
Belrose. She helped him to put on some clothes; it was a gesture of
sympathy rather than of aid. And she exhorted him not to waken "those
girls," meaning her sister and his.
He went out, shivering. A fine night with a harsh wind moving dust from
one part of the Steps to another. Nobody about. The church clock struck
three. Mr. Belrose peered through the slit between the edge of the
door-blind and the door-frame, but could see nothing except that a light
was burning somewhere in the background. He rapped quietly and then
loudly on the glass. No response. The explanation of the scene doubtless
was that Elsie had come down into the shop on some errand and returned
upstairs, having forgotten to extinguish the light. Mr. Belrose was very
cold. He was about to leave the place and report to his wife when his
hand discovered that the door was not fastened. (Elsie, in the
perturbation caused by doing a kindness to the boy Jerry, had forgotten
to secure it.) Mr. Belrose entered and saw Mr. Earlforward, wearing a
smart new suit, moveless in a peculiar posture in his office-chair. He
now knew more surely than before what his wife had been afraid of. But
he had a very stout and stolid heart, and he advanced firmly into the
office. A faint glow of red showed in the ash-strewn grate. The electric
light descended in almost palpable rays on Mr. Earlforward's grizzled
head. The safe was open and there was a bag of money on the floor. Mr.
Earlforward's chair was tilted and had only been saved from toppling
over, with Mr. Earlforward in it, by the fact that its left arm had
caught under the ledge of the desk. The electric light was patient; so
was Mr. Earlforward. He was leaning over the right arm of the chair, his
body at half a right angle to the perpendicular, and his face towards
the floor.
"I've never seen anything like this before," thought Mr. Belrose. "This
will upset the Steps, this will."
He was afraid. He had what he would have called the "creeps." Gingerly
he touched Mr. Earlforward's left hand which lay on the desk. It was
cold and rather stiff. He bent down in order to look into Mr.
Earlforward's averted face. What a dreadful face! White, blotched, hairy
skin drawn tightly over bones and muscles--very tightly. An expression
of torment in the tiny, unseeing eyes! None of the proverbial repose of
death in that face!
"Mustn't touch it! Mustn't disturb anything!" thought Mr. Belrose,
straightening his knees.
He left the office and peered up the dark stairs. No light. No sound. He
felt for his matches, but he had come away without them, and he
suspected that he was not sufficiently master of himself to look
effectively for matches. Still, the house must be searched. Although
much averse from returning into the office, he did return, on the chance
of finding a box of matches, and the first thing he saw was a box on the
mantelpiece. Striking matches, he stumbled up the stairs and came first
to the bathroom. Empty. Nothing unusual therein except thick strings
stretched across it and an orange box in the bath. A bedroom, well
furnished, the bed unmade; a cup and saucer on the night-table; one door
of the wardrobe ajar. Everything still, expectant. Then he found the
living-room similarly still and expectant. He went back to the landing.
No sound. The second flight of stairs dreadfully invited him to ascend.
As he reached and pushed against the door at the head of those stairs
another of his matches died. He struck a fresh one, and when it slowly
flamed he stepped into the faintly fire-lit room and was amazed,
astounded, thrilled, shocked and very seriously shaken to descry a young
man lying on the bed in the corner and a young woman, Elsie, lying in
abandonment across him, her head sunk in his breast. And he heard a
regular sound of breathing. There was something in the situation of the
pair which penetrated right through Mr. Belrose's horse-sense and
profoundly touched his heart. Never had he had such a sensation at once
painful and ravishing (yes, ravishing to the awed cheesemonger) as he
had then. The young man raised his head an inch from the pillow and
dropped it again.
"She's asleep," said the young man in a low, deep, tired voice. "Don't
wake her."
XIII
DISAPPEARANCE OF T. T.'S
The transience of things human was wonderfully illustrated in the next
fortnight. A short and drab account of the nocturnal discoveries of Mr.
Belrose at T. T.'s appeared in one morning paper, and within six hours
the evening papers, with their sure instinct for the important, had
lifted Riceyman Steps to a height far above prize-fighting, national
economics and the embroiled ruin of Europe. Such trivialities vanished
from the contents-bills, which displayed nothing but "Mysterious Death
of a Miser in Clerkenwell" (the home of Bolshevism), "Astounding Story
of Love and Death," "Midnight Tragedy in King's Cross Road," and similar
titles, legends and captions. Riceyman Steps was filled with ferreting
special reporters and photographers. The morning papers next following
elaborated the tale. The Steps became the cynosure of all England and
the subject of cables to America, South Africa and the antipodes. The
Steps rose dizzily to unique fame. The coroner's inquest on the body of
Henry Earlforward was packed like a divorce court on an illustrious day
and stenographed verbatim. Jurymen who were summoned to it esteemed
themselves fortunate.
The Reverend Augustus Earlforward, a Wesleyan Methodist missionary, home
for a holiday from his labours in the West Indies, and brother of the
deceased, found himself in a moment extremely famous. He had nearly
missed the boat at Kingston, Jamaica, and he saw the hand of Providence
in the fact that he had not missed it. He had not met his younger
brother for over thirty years, nor heard from him; did not even know
his address; had scarcely thought of trying to hunt him up. And then at
tea in the Thackeray Hotel, Bloomsbury, his stern eyes had seen the name
of Earlforward written large in a newspaper. The affair was the most
marvellous event, the most marvellous coincidence, of his long and
honourable career. Wisely he flew to a solicitor. He caused himself to
be represented at the inquest. He had reached England in a critical
mood, for, like many colonials, he suspected that all was not well with
the blundering and decadent old country. And the revelations of life in
Clerkenwell richly confirmed his suspicions, which did not surprise him,
because much commerce with negroes had firmly established in his mind
the conviction that he could never be wrong. From the start he had his
ideas about Elsie, the servant-girl asleep with a young man in her
bedroom. They were not nice ideas, but it is to be remembered that he
was taking a holiday from the preaching and practice of Christian
charity. His legal representative put strange questions to Elsie at the
inquest (during which it was testified, after post-mortem, that Henry
had died of a cancer at the junction of the gullet and the cardiac end
of the stomach), and these questions were reinforced by the natural
cynicism and incredulity of the coroner. Elsie was saved from opprobrium
by Dr. Raste's statement that she had called him in to the young man.
Elsie indeed was cheered by her inflamed friends as she left the court.
She said never a word about the coroner or the missionary afterwards,
and, inexcusably, she never forgave either of them. But the missionary
forgave Elsie and permitted her and the sick young man to remain in the
house. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Earlforward had made a will, and the
missionary was put into a good humour by the proof that the wealthy
Violet had left no next-of-kin. Thus the whole of her property, in
addition to the whole of Henry's, went to Augustus, whereas if Violet
had had next-of-kin Augustus would have got only half of Violet's
property.
Clerkenwell expected that the world-glory of the Steps would continue
indefinitely; but it withered as quickly as it had flowered, and by the
afternoon of the morrow of the inquest it had utterly died. The joint
funeral of the Earlforwards did not receive a line in the daily press.
Nevertheless it constituted a great spectacle in King's Cross Road--not
by reason of its intrinsic grandeur (for it fell short of Henry's
conception of the obsequies which he would bestow on his wife), but by
reason of the vast multitude of sightseers and followers.
The Reverend Augustus, heir to a very comfortable competency unwittingly
amassed for him by the devices of Mr. Arb the clerk of works, the
prudent policy of Mr. Earlforward and the imitativeness of Violet, found
himself seriously inconvenienced for ready cash, because before he could
touch the heritage he had to fulfil all sorts of expensive and tedious
formalities and tiresomely to prove certain facts which he deemed to be
self-evident--as, for instance, that he himself was legitimate. He saw
no end to the business, and he cabled to the Connexional authorities in
Jamaica that he should take extra leave. He did not ask for extra leave;
in his quality of a rich man he merely took it, and heavenly propaganda
had to be postponed. The phrasing of that cable was one of his
compensations in a trying ordeal.
He had various other compensations, of which the chief was undoubtedly
the status of landlord with unoccupied property at his disposition. Not
only all Clerkenwell, but apparently all London, learnt in a few hours
that he had this status. Scores of people, rendered desperate by the
house-famine, telegraphed to him; many scores of people wrote to him;
and some dozens personally called upon him at his hotel, and they all
supplicated him to do them the great favour of letting to them the T. T.
Riceyman premises on lease at a high rent. A few desired to buy the
property. The demand was so intense and widespread as to induce in
Augustus the belief that he was a potential benefactor of mankind.
Preferring to enjoy the fruits of riches without being troubled by the
more irksome responsibilities thereof, he decided to sell and not to
let. And he entered into a contract for sale to Mr. Belrose. He chose
Mr. Belrose because Mr. Belrose and all his women were Wesleyan
Methodists, and also perhaps because Mr. Belrose did not haggle and was
ready and anxious to complete the transaction, and, indeed, paid a
substantial deposit before the legal formalities of Augustus' title to
the property were finished.
Thenceforward event succeeded event with increasing rapidity. The entire
stock of books was sold by private treaty to a dealer in Charing Cross
Road, who swallowed it up and digested it with gigantic ease. The books
went away quietly enough in vans. Then the furniture and the clothes
were sold (including Mr. Earlforward's virgin suits and shirts) to
another sort of dealer in Islington. And a pantechnicon came for the
furniture, etc., including the safe and the satin shoe, and it obtained
permission from the highways authorities to pass over the pavement and
stand on the flagstones of the Steps at the shop-door. And furniture was
swept into it almost like leaves swept by the wind. And on that
afternoon Mr. Belrose arrived from "across" with a group of shop-fitting
and decorating contractors, and in the emptying interiors of the home
and amid the flight of pieces of furniture Mr. Belrose discussed with
the experts what he should do, and at what cost, to annihilate the very
memory of T. T. Riceyman's by means of improvements, fresh dispositions,
and paint.
Idlers sauntered about watching the gorging of the pantechnicon and the
erasing of T. T. Riceyman's from the Steps. And what occupied their
minds was not the disappearance of every trace of the sojourn on earth
of Henry and Violet Earlforward, but the conquering progress of that
powerful and prosperous personage, Charles Belrose, who was going to
have two shops, and who would without doubt make them both pay
handsomely. Henry and Violet might never have lived. They were almost
equally strangers to the Reverend Augustus, who, moreover, was lying
somewhat ill at his hotel--result of the strain of inheriting. Violet
had always been regarded as a foreigner by the district; she had had no
roots there. And as for Henry, though he was not a foreigner but of the
true ancient blood of Clerkenwell, and though the tale of his riches
commanded respect, he had never won affection, and was classed
sardonically as an oddity, which designation would have puzzled and
annoyed him considerably.
Violet and Henry did, however, survive in one place, Elsie's heart. She
arrived now in the Steps, dressed in mourning--new black frock, new
black hat, the old black coat, and black gloves. She had bought mourning
from a sense of duty and propriety. She had not wished to incur the
expense, but conscience forced her to incur the expense. She was
carrying a shabby grip-bag, which seemed rather heavy for her, and she
was rather flushed and breathless from exercise of an unaccustomed sort.
A dowdy, over-plump figure, whom nobody would have looked twice at. A
simple, heavy face, common except for the eyes and lips; with a harassed
look; fatigued also. She had been out nearly all day. She pretended not
to notice it, but the sight of the formidable pantechnicon, squatted in
the Steps, brought moisture into her eyes.
She sturdily entered the shop, which, Charles Belrose and his company of
renovators having left, was empty save for one or two pieces of
furniture waiting their proper niches in the pantechnicon. A man was
pulling down the shelves and thus destroying the bays. Dead planks which
had once been living, burden-bearing shelves, were stacked in a pile
along one wall. She had to wait at the foot of the stairs while a
section of Violet's wardrobe awkwardly descended in the hairy arms of
two Samsons. Then she went up, and on the first floor peeped into all
the rooms one after another; they were scenes of confusion, dirt, dust,
higgle-de-piggledyness; difficult to believe that they had ever made
part of a home, been regularly cleaned, watched over like helpless
children incapable of taking care of themselves. She lugged the grip-bag
up the second flight, and went into the spare-room, which was quite
empty, stripped to the soiled and damaged walls--even the plant-pots
were gone from the window-sills; and she went into the kitchen, where
the tap kept guard with its eternal drip-drip over perfect desolation.
At last she went into her bedroom, which by a magic ukase from on high
in the Thackeray Hotel had been preserved from the sack. A fire was
cheerfully burning; all was as usual to the casual glance, but the shut
drawers were empty, and Elsie's box and umbrella had gone back to
Riceyman Square, where she had been sleeping since the funeral. Joe was
sufficiently recovered to sleep alone in the house, and had had no
objection to doing so. Joe, fully dressed for the grand exodus, sat
waiting on the sole chair. He smiled. Dropping the bag, she smiled. They
kissed. With his limited but imaginative intelligence Joe did not see
that Elsie was merely Elsie. He saw within the ill-fitting mourning a
saviour, a powerful protectress, a bright angel, a being different from,
and superior to, any other being. They were dumb and happy in the island
of homeliness around which swirled the tide of dissolution and change.
Elsie picked up a piece of bread-and-butter from a plate and began to
eat it.
"Didn't yer get any dinner?" Joe asked anxiously. She nodded, and the
nod was a lie.
"I got your bag and all your things in it," she said. "There's a clean
collar. Ye'd better put it on."
Munching, she unfastened the bag.
"And I've got the licence from the Registry Office," she said. He
scrutinized the licence, which by its complexity and incomprehensibility
intimidated him. He was much relieved and very grateful that he had not
had to go forth and get the licence himself. The clean collar, which
Elsie affixed, made a wonderful improvement in Joe's frayed and
dilapidated appearance.
"Has the doctor been to look at ye?" Elsie asked. Joe shook his head.
"Well, ye can't go till he's been to look at ye."
The doctor had re-engaged Joe, who was to migrate direct to Myddelton
Square that afternoon and would take up his duties gradually, as health
permitted. He had already been tentatively out in the morning, but only
to the other side of King's Cross Road to get a shave. Perhaps it was to
be regretted that Joe was going off in one of Mr. Earlforward's grey
flannel shirts. Elsie, had she been strictly honest, would have washed
this shirt and returned it to the wardrobe, but she thought that Joe
needed it, and her honesty fell short of the ideal.
There was a step on the stair. The doctor came into the island. And he
himself was an island, detached, self-contained, impregnable as ever. He
entered the room as though it was a room and not the emptying theatre of
heroic and unforgettable drama, and as though nothing worth mentioning
had happened of late in Riceyman Steps.
"Has my daughter called here for me?" he asked abruptly, deposing his
prim hat on the little yellow chest of drawers.
"No, sir."
"Ah! She was to meet me here," he said in a casual, even tone. And yet
there was something in his voice plainly indicating to the observant
that deep down in his recondite mind burned a passionate pride in his
daughter.
"I think you'll do, Joe," he decided, after some examination of the
malaria patient. "I see you've had a shave."
"Elsie said I'd better, sir."
"Yes. Makes you feel brighter, doesn't it? Well, you can be getting
along. By the way, Elsie"--he coughed. "We've been wondering at home
whether you'd care to go and have a chat with Mrs. Raste?"
"Yes, sir. But what about, sir? Joe?"
"Well, the fact is, we thought perhaps you'd like"--he gave a short,
nervous laugh--"to join the staff. I don't know what they call it.
Cook-general. No. Not quite that, because there'd be Joe. There'd be you
and Joe, you see."
Elsie drew back, alarmed--so alarmed that she did not even say "Thank
you."
"Oh! I couldn't do that, sir! I couldn't cook--for you, sir. I couldn't
undertake it, sir. I'm really only a charwoman, sir. I couldn't face it,
sir."
"But I thought you'd been learning some cookery from--er--Mrs.
Earlforward?"
"Oh, no, sir. Not as you might say. Only gas-ring, sir."
This was the once ambitious girl who had dreamed of acquiring the skill
to wait at table in just such a grand house as the doctor's. Extreme
diffidence was not the only factor in her decision, which she made
instantly and positively as a strong-minded, sensible, masterful woman
without any reference to the views of her protected, fragile idol,
Joe--for a quality of independence, hardness, had begun to appear in
Elsie Sprickett. The fact was that she wanted a separate home as a
refuge for Joe in case of need, and she was arranging to rent a room in
the basement of her old abode in Riceyman Square. Out of the measureless
fortune of £32 which she had accumulated in the Post Office Savings
Bank, she intended to furnish her home. It had been agreed with the
doctor that after the marriage Joe should have one whole night off per
week. She would resume charing, which was laborious but more "free" than
a regular situation. If Joe should have a fit of violence it could spend
itself on her in the home. She even desired to suffer at his hands as a
penance for the harshness of her earlier treatment of him, of her
well-meant banishing of the innocent victim deranged by his experiences
in the war. With her earnings and his they would have an ample income.
The fine sagacious scheme was complete in her brain. And the doctor's
suggestion attacked it in its fundamentals. At Myddelton Square, worried
by unaccustomed duties and the presence of others, she might have scenes
with Joe and be unable to manage him. No! She must be independent; she
must have liberty of action; and this could not be if she was a servant
in a grand house.
"Oh! Very well, very well," said the doctor, frigid as usual, but not
offended. Joe said no word, knowing that he must not meddle in such high
matters of policy.
Scatterings, expostulations, reproofs on the stairs. Miss Raste entered,
with the excited dog Jack. Her father had told her that if she saw no
one familiar below she must mount two flights of stairs and knock at the
door facing her at the top; but, in her eagerness, she had forgotten to
knock. Miss Raste was growing in stature daily. Her legs were fabulously
long, and it was said of her at home that in time she would be in a
position to stoop and kiss the crown of her father's head. To everyone's
surprise she impulsively rushed at Elsie with thin arms outstretched and
kissed her. Elsie blushed, as well she might. Miss Raste had spoken to
Elsie only once before, but out of the memory of Elsie's face and that
brief meeting she had constructed a lovely fairy-tale, and a chance word
of her mother's had set her turning it into reality. She had dreamed of
having the adorable, fat, comfortable, kind Elsie for a servant in the
house, and her parents were going to arrange the matter. For twenty-four
hours she had been in a fever about it.
"Is she coming, papa?" the child demanded urgently.
"No, she can't. She says she can't cook, and so she won't come."
Miss Raste burst into tears. Her lank body shook with sobs. Everybody
was grievously constrained. Nobody knew what to do, least of all the
doctor. Jack stood still in front of the fire.
"Mummy would have taught you to cook," Miss Raste spluttered, almost
inarticulately. "Mummy's awfully nice."
Elsie's sagacious scheme for her married life was dissipated in a
moment. The scheme became absurd, impossible, inconceivable. Elsie was
utterly defeated by the child's affection, ardour, and sorrow. She felt
nearly the same responsibility towards the child as towards Joe. She was
the child's for ever. And she had kissed the child. Having kissed the
child, could she be a Judas?
"Oh, then I'll go and see Mrs. Raste," said Elsie, half smiling and half
crying.
This was indeed a very strange episode, upsetting as it did all
optimistic theories about the reasonableness of human nature and the
influence of logic over the springs of conduct. No one quite knew where
he was. Dr. Raste was intensely delighted and proud, and yet felt that
he ought to have a grievance. Joe was delighted, but egotistically.
Elsie was both happy and sad, but rather more happy than sad. Miss Raste
laughed with glee, while the tears still ran down her delicate cheeks.
Jack barked once.
Not that Jack had that very mysterious intuitive comprehension of the
moods of others which in the popular mind is usually attributed to dogs,
children, and women. No! Jack had heard footsteps on the stairs. A
tousled, white-sleeved man in a green apron entered.
"We're ready for here now, miss," he announced to Elsie.
And without waiting for permission he began rapidly to roll up the
bedclothes in one vast bundle. Next he collected the crockery. The
bedroom had ceased to be immune from the general sack.
"They didn't have a lot of luck," said Mr. Belrose to Elsie and Joe that
night in the Steps at the locked door of T. T.'s. It was the decent,
wizened little old fellow's epitaph on Henry Earlforward and Violet. It
was his apology for dropping the keys of T. T.'s into his pocket, and
for the blaze of electricity from his old shop, and for the forlorn
darkness of T. T.'s, and for the fact that he was prospering while
others were dead. He did not attribute the fate of the Earlforwards to
Henry's formidable character. He could not think scientifically, and
even had he been able to do so good nature would have prevented him.
And even if he had attempted to do so he might have thought wrong. The
affair, like all affairs of destiny, was excessively complex.
Elsie, for her part, laid much less stress than Mr. Belrose on luck.
"With a gentleman like he was," she thought, meaning Henry Earlforward,
"something was bound to happen sooner or later." She held Mr.
Earlforward responsible for her mistress's death, but her notions of the
value of evidence were somewhat crude. And, similarly, she held herself
responsible for her master's death. She had noticed that he had never
been the same since the orgy of her wedding-cake, and she had a terrible
suspicion that immoderate wedding-cake caused cancer. Thus she added one
more to the uncounted theories of the origin of cancer, and nobody yet
knows enough of the subject to be able to disprove Elsie's theory.
However, that night Elsie, with the sensations of a homicide, the ruin
of a home and family behind her, a jailbird on her left arm and his
heavy grip-bag on her right, could still be happy as she went up the
Steps into Riceyman Square, and called at her old home to make certain
dispositions, and passed on in the chill darkness to Myddelton Square.
She was apprehensive about future dangers and her own ability to cope
with them; but she was always apprehensive.
Joe, belonging to the contemplative and passionate variety of mankind,
was not at all apprehensive. He knew his soul as intimately as a pretty
woman knows the externals of her body. He was conscious of joy in
retreading with Elsie the old familiar streets. He had a perfect,
worshipping faith in Elsie's affection and in her powers. His one
affliction was to see Elsie lugging the heavy grip-bag; but even this
was absurd, for he had not yet the strength to carry it, and he well
knew that she would never have permitted him to try.
People saw a young, humble, mutually-absorbed couple strolling along and
looking at one another. More correctly, people did not see a humble
couple, any more than people at a Court ball see a fashionably dressed
and self-sure couple. Elsie and Joe were characteristic of the
district. They would have had to look much worse than they did in order
to be classed as humble in Clerkenwell. Nor were people shocked at the
spectacle of the woman lugging a heavy grip-bag while the man carried
naught. Such dreadful things were often witnessed in Clerkenwell.
PRINTED BY
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE,
LONDON, E.C.4.
F 120.923
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| |
| Transcriber's Note:-- |
| |
| Punctuation errors have been corrected. |
| |
| The following suspected printer's error has been addressed. |
| |
| Page 293. Joe changed to Jerry. |
| (Jerry was extraordinarily uplifted) |
| |
| Page 317. be changed to he. |
| (even had he been able) |
| |
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