THE LANDLORD
Alf's great scheme indeed was prospering.
Thwarted by the Woman, and driven back upon himself, he had taken up
the career of action at the point where he had left it to pursue an
adventure that had brought him no profit and incredible bitterness.
Fortune had favoured him.
Just at the moment Ruth had baffled him, another enemy of his, the Red
Cross Garage Syndicate, which in the early days of his career had
throttled him, came to grief.
Alf saw his chance, and flung himself into the new project with such
characteristic energy as to drown the bitterness of sex-defeat. He had
no difficulty in raising the necessary capital for the little Syndicate
he proposed to start. Some he possessed himself; his bank was quite
prepared to give him accommodation up to a point; and there was a third
source he tapped with glee. That source was Captain Royal. Alf was in
a position to squeeze the Captain; and he was not the man to forego an
advantage, however acquired.
Royal put a fifth of his patrimony into the venture, and was by no
means displeased to do so. Thereby he became the principal shareholder
in the concern, with a predominant voice in its affairs. That gave him
the leverage against Alf, which, with the instinct of a commander, he
had seen to be necessary for the security of his future directly that
young man showed a blackmailing tendency. Moreover Royal was not blind
to the consideration that the new Syndicate, under able management, bid
fair to be a singularly profitable investment.
Backed then by Royal and his bank, Alf bought up certain of the garages
of the defaulting company at knockout prices. Thereafter, if he still
coveted Ruth, he was far too occupied to worry her; while she on her
side, purged by the busyness and natural intercourse of married life of
all the disabling morbidities that had their roots in a sense of
outlawry and the forced restraint put upon a roused and powerful
temperament, had completely lost her fear of him.
Ruth, surely, was changing rapidly now. At times in family life she
assumed the reins not because she wished to, but because she must; and
on occasion she even took the whip from the socket.
Ernie had, indeed, climbed a mountain peak and with unbelievable effort
and tenacity won to the summit, which was herself. But then, instead
of marching on to the assault of the peak which always lies beyond, he
had sat down, stupidly content; with the inevitable consequence that he
tended to slither down the mountain-side and lose all he had gained in
growth and character by his hard achievement.
The pair had been married four years now; and Ruth knew that her house
was built on sand. That comfortable sense of security which had
accompanied the first years of her married life, affording her
incalculable relief after the hazards which had preceded them, had long
passed. Dangers, less desperate perhaps in the appearance than in the
days of her darkness, but none the less real, were careering up from
the horizon over a murky sea like breakers, roaring and with wrathful
manes, to overwhelm her. In particular the threat that haunts through
life the working-woman of all lands and every race beset her
increasingly. Her man was always skirting now the bottomless pit of
unemployment. One slip and he might be over the edge, hurtling heavily
down into nothingness, and dragging with him her and the unconscious
babes.
The home, always poor, began to manifest the characteristics of its
tenants, as homes will. When the young man came for the rent on Monday
mornings, Ruth would open just a crack so that he might not see inside,
herself peeping out of her door, wary as a woodland creature. Apart
from Joe Burt, whom she did not count, there was indeed only one
visitor whom Ruth now received gladly; and that was Mr. Edward Caspar,
whose blindness she could depend upon.
There had grown up almost from the first a curious intimacy between the
dreamy old gentleman, fastidious, scholarly, refined, and the young
peasant woman whom destiny had made the mother of his grandchildren.
Nothing stood between them, not even the barrier of class. They
understood each other as do the children of Truth, even though the
language they speak is not the same.
The old man was particularly devoted to little Alice.
"She's like a water-sprite," he said,--"so fine and delicate."
"She's different from Ernie's," answered Ruth simply. "I reck'n it was
the suffering when I was carrying her."
"She's a Botticelli," mused the old man. "The others are Michael
Angelos."
Ruth had no notion what he meant--that often happened; but she knew he
meant something kind.
"I'd ha said Sue was more the bottled cherry kind, myself," she
answered gently.
Her visitor came regularly every Tuesday morning on the way to the
Quaker meeting-house, shuffling down Borough Lane past the _Star_, his
coat-tails floating behind him, his gold spectacles on his nose, with
something of the absorbed and humming laziness of a great bee. Ruth
would hear the familiar knock at the door and open. The old man would
sit in the kitchen for an hour by the latest baby's cot, saying
nothing, the child playing with his little finger or listening to the
ticking of the gold watch held to its ear.
After he was gone Ruth would always find a new shilling on the dresser.
When she first told Ernie about the shilling, he was surly and ashamed.
"It's his tobacco money," he said gruffly. "You mustn't keep it."
Next Tuesday she dutifully handed the coin back to the giver,
"I don't like to take it, sir," she said.
The old man was the grandfather of her children, but she gave him
always, and quite naturally, the title of respect.
He took it from her and laid it back on the dresser with the other he
had brought. Then he put his hand on her arm, and looked at her
affectionately through dim spectacles.
"You go to the other extreme," he said. "_You're_ too kind."
After that she kept the money and she was glad of it too, for she was
falling behind with her rent now.
Then one Monday morning, the rent-collector making his weekly call,
little brown book in hand, gave her a shock.
He was a sprightly youth, cocky and curly, known among his intimates as
Chirpy; and with a jealously cherished reputation for a way with the
ladies.
"Say, this is my last visit," he announced sentimentally, as he made
his entry in the book, and poised his pencil behind his ear. "We can't
part like this, can we?--you and me, after all these years. Too cold
like." He drew the back of his hand significantly across his mouth.
Ruth brushed his impertinence aside with the friendly insouciance which
endeared her to young men.
"Got the sack for sauce, then?" she asked.
Chirpy shook his head ruefully.
"Mr. Goldmann's sold the house."
"Over our heads!" cried Ruth, aghast.
She hated change, for change spelt the unknown, which in its turn meant
danger.
"Seems so," the youth replied. "No fault o mine, I do assure you." He
returned to his point. "Anythink for Albert?"
Ruth was thoroughly alarmed. Even in those days cottages in Old Town
were hard to come by.
"Who's our new landlord?" she asked.
"Mr. Caspar, I heard say in the office."
Ruth felt instant relief.
"Mr. Edward Caspar?--O, _that's_ all right."
"No; Alf--of the Garridges. Him they call All-for-isself Alfie!"
Ruth caught her breath.
"Thank you," she said, and closed the door swiftly.
The youth was left titupping on the door-step, his nose against the
panel like a seeking spaniel.
Within, Ruth put her hand to her heart to stay its tumult. She was
thankful Ernie was not there to witness her emotion, for she felt like
a rabbit in the burrow, the stoat hard on its heels. All her old
terrors revived....
The new landlord soon paid his first visit, and Ruth was ready for him.
"You want to see round?" she asked, with the almost aggressive
briskness of the woman who feels herself threatened.
"Yes, as your landlord I got the right of entry." He made the
announcement portentously like an emperor dictating terms to a
conquered people.
Ruth showed him dutifully round. He paid no attention to his property:
his eyes were all for her; she did not look at him.
Then they went upstairs where it was dark.
There was a closed door on the left. Alf thrust it open without asking
leave; but Ruth barred his passage with an arm across the door.
"What's that?" he asked, prying.
"Our room. You can't go in there. That's where my children was born."
Alf tilted his chin at her knowingly.
"All but little Alice," he reminded her. His eyes glittered in the
dark. "Does _he_ stand you anything for her?" he continued
confidentially. "Should do--a gentleman. Now if you could get an
affiliation order against him that'd be worth five or six bob a week to
you. And that's money to a woman in your position--pay me my rent and
all too. Only pity is," he ended, thoughtfully, "can't be done. You
and me know that if Ern don't."
Ruth broke fiercely away.
Leisurely he followed her down the stairs with loud feet. He was
greatly at his ease. His hat, which he had never taken off, was on the
back of his big head. He was sucking a dirty pencil, and studying his
rent-book, as he entered the kitchen.
"You're a bit behind, I see," casually.
"Only two weeks," as coldly.
"As yet."
He swaggered to the door with a peculiar roll of his shoulders.
"If you was to wish to wipe it off at any time you've only got to say
the word. I might oblige."
He stood with his back to her, looking out of the door, and humming.
She was over against the range.
"What's that?" she panted.
Standing on the threshold he turned and leered back at her out of
half-closed eyes.
She sneered magnificently.
"Ah, I knaw you," she said.
"What's it all about?" he answered, cleaning his nails. "Only a little
bit of accommodation. No thin out o the way."
"Thank you. I knaw your accommodation," she answered deeply.
"Well," he retorted, picking his teeth. "There's no harm in it.
What's the fuss about?"
"I'll tell Mr. Trupp," Ruth answered. "That's all."
Alf turned full face to her, jeering.
"What's old Trupp to me, then?" he cried. "I done with him. I done
with em all. I'm me own master, I am--Alfred Caspar, Hesquire, of
Caspar's Garridges, Company promoter. Handlin me thousands as you
handle coppers."
He folded his arms, thrust out a leg, and looked the part majestically
without a snigger. It was clear he was extraordinarily impressive to
himself.
Ruth relaxed slowly, deliciously, like an ice-pack touched by the
laughing kiss of spring.
She eyed her enemy with the amused indifference of some big-boned
thoroughbred mare courted by an amorous pony.
"You're mad," she said. "That's the only why I don't slosh the
sauce-pan over you. But I shall tell Ern all the same. And he'll tell
em all."
"And who's goin to believe Ern?" jeered her tormentor. "'Old Town
Toper,' they call him. Fairly sodden."
"Not to say Archdeacon Willcocks and Mr. Chislehurst," continued Ruth,
calmly.
Alf shot his finger at her like a crook in a melodrama, looking along
it as it might have been a pistol and loving his pose.
"And would they believe _you_ against me? Do you attend mass? Are you
a sidesman?"
"I was confirmed Church afore ever you was," retorted Ruth with spirit.
"I've as good a right to the sacraments, as you have then. And I'll
take to em again if I'm druv to it--that I will!"
Something about this declaration tickled Alf. The emperor was
forgotten in the naughty urchin.
"So long, then!" he tittered. "Appy au-revoir! Thank-ye for a
pleasant chat. This day week you can look forward to. I'll collect me
rent meself because I know you'd like me to."
He turned, and as he was going out ran into a man who was entering.
"Now then!" said a surly voice. "Who are you? O, it's _you_, is
it?--I know all about you."
"What you know o me?" asked Alf, aggressively.
"Why, what a beauty you are."
The two men eyed each other truculently. Then Joe barged through the
door. The entrance cleared, Alf went out, but as he passed on the
pavement outside he beat a rat-tan on the window with insolent knuckles.
Joe leaped back to the door and scowled down the road at the back of
the little chauffeur retreating at the trot. Alf excelled physically
in only one activity: he could run.
The engineer returned to the kitchen, savage and smouldering. Ruth,
amused at the encounter, met him with kind eyes. There was in this man
the quality of the ferocious male she loved. He marched up to her, his
head low between his shoulders like a bull about to charge.
"Is yon lil snot after you?" he growled, almost menacing.
She regarded him with astonishment, amused and yet defensive.
"_You're_ not my husband, Mr. Burt," she cried. "_You've_ no grievance
whoever has."
The engineer retreated heavily.
"Hapen not," he answered, surly and with averted eyes. "A coom next
though."
She looked up, saw his face, and trembled faintly.
He prowled to the door without a word, without a look.
"Won't you stop for Ern?" she asked.
"Nay," he said, and went out.