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Riceyman Steps

<hr />[Pg 274] <h2>VIII</h2> <h3>A CLIMAX</h3> Mr. Earlforward woke up after what seemed to him a very long sleep, feeling appreciably better. He had less pain; at moments he had no pain. And his mind, he thought, was surprisingly clear and vigorous. He had ideas on all sorts of things. Most invalids got their perspective awry—he knew that—but his own perspective had remained absolutely true. Rising out of bed for a moment he found that he could stand without difficulty, which was yet another proof of his theory that people ate a vast deal too much. The doctor had been utterly wrong about him. The doctor had made a mystery about ordinary chronic indigestion. The present attack was passing, as the sufferer had always been convinced it would. A nice old mess of a complication they would have made of it at the hospital! Or more probably he would have been bundled out of the place with contumely as a malingering fraud! He straightened the bed a little, and then, slipping back into it with a certain eagerness, he began to concert plans, to reorganize and resume his existence. The day was darkening. Four o'clock, perhaps. Elsie? Where was that girl? She ought to be coming. Had she got a bit above herself? Thought she was the boss of the whole place, no doubt, and could do as she chose! An excellent creature, trustworthy, devoted.... And yet—in some things they were all alike. Give them an inch and they'd take an ell. He must be after her. Now what was it he had noticed, or thought he had noticed, when he was last awake? Oh, yes! That was it. His keys. He had missed them from the top of the chest of drawers. He peered in the gloom. They were there right enough.[Pg 275] Perhaps hidden before by something else. The room had been tidied, dusted, while he slept. He didn't quite care for that, but he supposed it couldn't be helped. Anyhow, it showed that she was not being utterly idle. Of course the girl was not going to bed properly, but she had ample opportunity to sleep. With the shop closed she had practically nothing to do.... "Fibroid growth." Fibroid—like fibre, of course. He scarcely understood how a growth could be like fibre; but it was a name, a definition, and therefore reassuring. Much better than "cancerous," at the worst! An entirely different thing from cancer! But he was dreadfully concerned, frightened, for Violet. If she died—not that it was conceivable—but if she died, what a blank! Sickening! No! He could not contemplate it. Yet simultaneously in his mind was a little elusive thought: as a widower, freed from the necessity of adapting himself to another, and of revealing to another to some extent his ideas, intentions, schemes—what freedom! The old freedom! And he would plunge into it as into an exquisite, warm bath, voluptuously. He would be more secretive, more self-centred, more prudent, more fixed in habit than ever! A great practical philosopher, yes! In no matter what event he would discover compensations. And there were still deeper depths in the fathomless pit of his busy mind, depths into which he himself would do no more than glance—rather scared. Elsie came in and saw a sinister sick man, pale as the dying, shrunk by starvation, with glittering, suspicious little eyes. "Oh! So you've come, miss!" He wished that he had not said "miss." It was a tiny pleasantry of reproof, but too familiar. Another inch, another ell! "Why! You've been making your bed again!" she exclaimed. But she exclaimed so nicely, so benevolently, that he could not take offence. And yet—might she not be condescending to him? Withal, he enjoyed her presence in the bedroom. Her youth, her reliability, her prettiness (he[Pg 276] thought she was growing prettier and prettier every day—such dark eyes, such dark hair, such a curve of the lips), and her physical power and health! Her mere health seemed miraculous to him. Oh! She was a god-send. ... She had said nothing about Violet. Well, if she had had news she would have told him. He hesitated to mention Violet. He could wait till she began. "I'll run and make you some food," she said. "Here! Not so fast! Not so fast!" he stopped her. He was about to give an order when, for the second time, he noticed that her apron was wet in several places. "Why is your apron all wet?" he demanded sharply. "Is it?" she faltered, looking down at it. "So it is! I've been doing things." (She appeared to have dropped the "sir" completely.) The fact was that she had been sponging Joe. Mr. Earlforward became suspicious. He suspected that she was wasting warm water. "Why are you always running upstairs?" he asked in a curious tone. "Running upstairs, sir?" (Ha! "Sir." He was recovering his grip on her.) She blushed red. She had something to hide. Hordes of suspicions thronged through his mind. "Well, sir, I have to go to the kitchen." "I don't hear you so often in the kitchen," said he drily. 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.[Pg 277] 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[Pg 278] 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[Pg 279] 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[Pg 280] 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.[Pg 281] 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[Pg 282] 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[Pg 283] 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 up[Pg 284]lifted 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[Pg 285] 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."[Pg 286] 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 man&oelig;uvre 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[Pg 287] 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."[Pg 288] 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[Pg 289] 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. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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