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<hr />[Pg 140] <h2>IV</h2> <h3>AFTERNOON</h3> 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-[Pg 141]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[Pg 142] 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.[Pg 143] 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.[Pg 144] "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 con[Pg 145]stant 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. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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