There was only one exit from the T. T. Riceyman premises—through the shop. Once a door had given direct access to King's Cross Road, but so long ago that the new bricks which had bricked it up were now scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding bricks. No one could have guessed at a glance that the main façade of the building had been shifted round, for some reason lost in antiquity, from King's Cross Road to Riceyman Steps; or that the little oblong, railing-enclosed strip of grass, which was never cut nor clipped nor trodden by human foot, had once been a "front garden." The back parts of T. T. Riceyman's provided no escape save through a little yard, over high brick walls, into the back parts of other properties inhabited by unknown and probably pernickety persons and their children.
As there was only the shop exit from the T. T. Riceyman premises, it could not be concealed from the powers that Elsie went forth that same afternoon dressed in her best. Unusual array, for the girl generally began half-holidays by helping her friends, to whom she was very faithful, in Riceyman Square, either by skilled cleansing labour in the unclean dirty house or, as occasion might demand, by taking children out for an excursion into the more romantic leafy regions of Clerkenwell up towards the north-east, such as Myddelton Square, where there was room to play and opportunity for tumbling about in pleasant outdoor dirt. Mrs. Earlforward nodded to Elsie as she departed, and Elsie blushed, smiling. But Mrs. Earlforward asked no curious question, friendly or inquisitive. She knew her place, as Elsie knew Elsie's.She knew that it was not "wise" to meddle. Servants must do what they liked with their own; they were mighty independent, even the best of them, these days. Not a word, save on household matters, had passed between the two women since the scene of the morning. Mr. Earlforward was still dealing with customers in the office; his voice, rather enfeebled, seemed blander than ever.
"I hope it will be fine for you," Violet called after Elsie at the shop-door. Wonderful, the implications in the tone of that briefly-expressed amiability! It was as if Violet had said: "I know you're up to something out of the ordinary. I don't know what it is, and I don't seek to inquire. I believe in people minding their own business. But you might have given me a hint, and anyhow I can see through you, though you mayn't think it. Anyhow, in spite of the cold wind and the big moving clouds, I hope you won't be inconvenienced in your very private affairs by the weather."
Elsie comprehended all that Violet had not said, and her blushes flared out again.
No sooner had she turned the corner into the King's Cross Road than she ceased to be the "general" at T. T. Riceyman's, and became the image of the wife of a superior artisan with a maternal expression indicating a small family left at home, a sense of grave responsibilities, an ability to initiate and execute, considerable dignity. She had put her gloves on. She carried her umbrella. She had massiveness, and looked more than her age; indeed, she looked close on thirty. If she had blushed to Violet, it was because of her errand, which, had Violet known of it, would have set up serious friction. Elsie was going to see Dr. Raste about the state of health of T. T. Riceyman's. An impossible errand, of course! Fancy a servant interfering thus in the most intimate affairs of her employers. But the welfare of her employers was as dear to Elsie as her own. Her finest virtue was benevolence, and she was quite ready to affront danger to a benevolent end. At the same time it has to beadmitted that Elsie's motive in going to Myddelton Square, without a train of children, to see Dr. Raste, was not a single motive. Probably in human activity there is no such a thing as a single motive. For Elsie this day was not chiefly the day on which Mrs. Earlforward had so piteously broken down before her as to Mr. Earlforward's physical and mental condition—it was chiefly the anniversary of Joe's disappearance. The fact of the anniversary filled all the horizon of Elsie's thoughts, and at intervals it surged inwards upon her from every quarter of the compass and overwhelmed her—and then it would recede again. Joe had been in the service of Dr. Raste. He had lived at Dr. Raste's. Therefore, it would be natural for him, if he reappeared, to reappear first at Dr. Raste's. He would not reappear; it was inconceivable that he should reappear. This anniversary notion of hers, as she had often said to herself, was ridiculous. Much more likely that Joe had married some other girl by this time, for Elsie knew that he was not a man capable of doing without women. He had probably settled down somewhere. Where? Where could he be?... And yet hemightreappear. The anniversary notion might not be so ridiculous after all. You never knew. And herein was part of her motive for going to Dr. Raste's.
The doctor's house—or, rather, the house of which he occupied the lower part—was one of the larger houses in the historic Myddelton Square, and stood at the corner of the Square and New River Street. The clock of St. Mark's showed two minutes to the hour, but already patients had collected in the ante-room to the surgery in the side-street. Elsie hesitated exactly at the corner. From detailed and absorbing talks about nothing with Joe, she knew the doctor's habits pretty well. The doctor was due to be entering his surgery for the afternoon session. And there he was—it seemed almost a miracle—approaching from the eastward! A little girl, all thin legs and thin arms, was trotting by his side, and the retinue consisted of a fox-terrier, who was joyfully chasinga few selected leaves among the thousands blown across the square by the obstreperous wind. The doctor and his little girl stopped at their front-door.
"Very well," Elsie heard the doctor say, "you can give Jack his bath, but you must change your frock first, and if there's any mess of any sort I shan't take your part when mummy comes home."
The dog stood still, listening, and the doctor turned to him and ejaculated loudly and mischievously:
"Bath! Bath!"
Jack's tail dropped, and in deep sulks he walked off towards the railings in the middle of the square.
"Come here, sir" commanded the doctor firmly.
"Come here, sir!" shrieked the little girl in imitation.
Jack obeyed, totally disillusioned about the interestingness of dead leaves, and slipped in a flash down the area steps, the child after him. Dr. Raste moved towards the surgery, and saw Elsie in his path.
"No! No!" he said to her, kindly, humanly, for he had not yet had time to lose his fatherhood. "This won't do, you know. You must take your turn with the rest." He raised his hand in protest. He was acquainted with all the wiles of patients who wanted illicitly to forestall other patients.
"It isn't for myself, sir," said Elsie, with puckered brow, very nervous. "It's for Mr. Earlforward—at least, Mrs. Earlforward."
"Oh!" The doctor halted.
"You don't remember me, sir. Mrs. Sprickett, sir. Elsie, sir."
"Yes, of course." He ought to have proceeded: "By the way, Elsie, Joe's come back to-day." It would have been too wonderful if he had said that. But he didn't. He merely said: "Well, what's it all about?" somewhat impatiently, for at that moment the clock struck.
"Mr. Earlforward's that bad, sir. Can't fancy his food. And Mrs. Earlforward's bad too——"
"Mrs. Earlforward? Is he married, then?"
"Oh, yes, sir. He married Mrs. Arb, as was; shekept that confectioner's shop opposite in the Steps. But she sold it. And I'm the servant, sir, now. It'll soon be a year ago, sir."
"Really, really! All right. I'll look in—some time before six. Tell them I'll look in."
"Well, sir," said Elsie, hesitating and blushing very red, "missis didn't exactly send me, in a manner of speaking. She says master won't have a doctor, she says. But I was thinking if you could——"
"Do you mean to say you've come up here to tell me about your master and mistress without orders?"
"Well, sir——"
"But—but—but—but—but," Dr. Raste spluttered with the utmost rapidity, startled for once out of his inhuman imperturbability by this monstrous act of Elsie's. He had no child nor dog now. He was the medico chemically pure. "Did you suppose that I can come like that without being called in? I never heard of such a thing. What next, I wonder?"
"He's very bad, sir, master is."
The slim little man stood up threateningly against Elsie's mighty figure.
"What do I care? If people need a doctor, they must send for him."
Dr. Raste walked off down New River Street, but after a few steps turned again.
"Haven't they got any friends you could speak to?" he asked in a tone still hard, but with a touch of comprehending friendliness in it. This touch brought tears to Elsie's silly eyes.
"No, sir."
"No friends?"
"No, sir."
"Nobody ever calls?"
"No, sir."
"And they never go out?"
"No, sir."
"Not even to the cinema, and so on?"
"Oh, never, sir."
"Well, I'm very sorry, but I can't do anything." He left her and leapt up his surgery steps.
Not a word about Joe. Not a word, even, of inquiry! And yet he knew that Joe and she had been keeping company! And he had been so fond of Joe. He had thought the world of Joe. He might, at least, have said: "Seen anything of poor Joe lately?" But nothing! Nothing! Joe might never have existed for all the interest the doctor showed in him. It was desolating. She was a fool. She was a fool to try to get the doctor to call without a proper summons, and she was thrice a fool to have hoped or fancied that Joe would turn up again, on either the anniversary of his vanishing or any other day. The reaction from foolish hope to despair was terrible. She had known that it would be. The whole sky fell down on her and overwhelmed her in choking folds of night, and there was not a gleam anywhere. No glimmer for T. T. Riceyman's. No glimmer for herself. ... And then she did detect a pin-point of light. The day was not yet finished. Joe might still ... Renewal of utter foolishness!
A dramatic event occurred that same afternoon at the shop. Violet and Henry were together in the office, where the electricity had just been turned on; the shop itself was still depending on nature for light, and lay somewhat obscure in the dusk. Husband and wife were in an affectionate mood, for Violet as usual had been beaten by the man's extraordinary soft obstinacy. She had had more than one scene of desperation with him about his health and his treatment of himself, but nobody can keep on fighting a cushion for ever. Henry had worn her down into a good temper, into a condition of reassurance and even optimism. He had, in fact, by patience convinced her that his indisposition was temporary and such as none can hope to escape; and that he undoubtedly possessed a constitution of iron. The absence of Elsie helped the intimacy of the pair; they enjoyed being alone, unobserved, free from the constraint of the eyes of a third person who was here, there and everywhere. The trouble was that as soon as the affectionate mood had been established Violet wanted to begin her tactics and her antics all over again.
"You know, darling," she said, playful and serious, sitting on the edge of the desk by his side in a manner most unmatronly. "Either you eat to-morrow, or I shall have the doctor in. Oh! I shall have the doctor in! It's for you to decide, but I've made up my mind. You must admit——"
And then the shop door opened and someone entered. Violet sprang off the desk to the switches, illuminated the shop, and beheld Dr. Raste. Henry also beheld Dr.Raste. Although a perfectly innocent woman, Violet's face at once changed to that of a wicked conspirator who has been caught in the act. Try as she would she could not get rid of that demeanour of guilt, and the more she tried the less she succeeded. She dared not look at Henry. Certainly she could not murmur to Henry; "I swear to you I didn't send for him. His coming's just as much a surprise to me as it is to you." She thought: "This is that girl Elsie's doing." And she was angry and resentful against Elsie, and yet timorously glad that Elsie had been interfering. What Henry was thinking no one could guess. Henry's mind to him a kingdom was, and a kingdom never invaded. All that could be positively stated of Henry was that the moment he recognized the doctor he rose vigorously from his chair and limped about with vivacity to prove that he was not an invalid, or in any way in need of any doctor. And, strange to say, he really felt quite well. Dr. Raste startled Violet by offering to shake hands.
"Ha! How d'ye do, Mrs. Earlforward," said he, in his sprightly, professional, high-voiced style. "Not seen you for a long time."
Violet recalled the Sunday morning in Riceyman Square when he had spoken to Henry on the pavement. She was happy then, and expectant of happiness. She was girlish then, exuberant, dominating, self-willed, free. None could withstand her. A year ago! The change in twelve months suddenly presented itself to her with a sinister significance; but she imagined that the change was confined to her circumstances, and that an unchanged Violet had survived.
The doctor with his fresh eyes saw a shrunken woman, subject to some kind of neurosis which he could not diagnose. He greeted the oncoming Mr. Earlforward, and shook a hand of parchment. Mr. Earlforward's appearance indeed astonished him, and he said to himself that perhaps he had done well to call, and that anyhow Elsie had not exaggerated her report, Mr. Earlforward was worse than shrunken—he was emaciated; his jaws were hollowed, his little eyes had receded, his complexion was greyish, his lips were pale and dry—the lower lip had lost its heavy fullness; his ears were nearly white. And there he was moving nervously about in the determination to be in excellent health in the presence of the doctor. Amazing, thought Dr. Raste, that Mrs. Earlforward had not summoned medical assistance weeks earlier! But then Mrs. Earlforward saw her husband every day and nearly all day. Amazing that no customer had dropped a word of alarm! But then Mr. Earlforwaid's amiable and bland relations with customers were not such as to permit any kind of intimacy. You got a certain distance with Mr. Earlforward, but you never got any further.
"You remember I bought a Shakspere here last year," Dr. Raste began cheerily, and somewhat loudly. (He often spoke more loudly than he need: result of imposing himself on the resistant stupidity of the proletariat.) Relief spread through the shop like a sweet odour. The professional man's visit was a pure coincidence after all. Violet ceased to look guilty. Henry ceased to ape the person of vigorous health.
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Earlforward; and to his wife: "Just reach down that 'Shakspere with Illustrations,' will you?"
"Shakspere with Illustrations" was the shop's title for the work (Valpy's edition of Shakspere's plays and poems), because these three words were the only words on the binding.
"You don't mean to say you've not sold it yet—a year, isn't it?" cried Dr. Raste.
And Mr. Earlforward recalled from their previous interview in the shop an impression that the doctor was apt to be impudent. What right had the man to express surprise at the work not having been sold? Mr. Earlforward had in stock books bought ten years ago, fifteen years ago.
"I could have sold it," said he. "But the truth is I've been keeping it for you. I felt sure you'd be lookingin one of these days. I meant to drop you a postcard to say I'd found it; but somehow——"
All this was true. For at least ten months Mr. Earlforward had intended to drop the postcard, and had never dropped it. Yet his conviction that one day he would drop it had remained fresh and strong throughout the period.
"Here! It's up in that corner, my dear," said Mr. Earlforward.
"Yes, I know. I'm just going to get the steps."
"Where are they? They ought to be here."
"I don't know. Elsie must have had them for her windows, and forgotten to bring them back."
"Tut, tut!" Mr. Earlforward blandly expostulated.
"Shakspere's been having considerable success in my house," Dr. Raste went on, when the two men were alone, with an arch smile at his own phrasing. "You'd scarcely believe it, but my little daughter simply devours him. And as it's her birthday next week I thought I'd give her my Globe edition for herself, and get another one with a wee bit larger type for myself. My eyes aren't what they were.... Simply devours him! Scarcely believe it, would you?" The doctor was growing human. His eyes sparkled with ingenuous paternal pride. Then he checked himself.
"I notice your old clock isn't going," said he, in a more conventional, a conversation-making tone, and glanced at his wrist.
"No," Mr. Earlforward quietly admitted, thinking: "What's it got to do with you—my 'old clock' not going?" The clock had not gone for months.
Violet, who had further illuminated the shop as she passed out, was rather long in returning, partly because she had had to hunt for the steps, and partly because she had popped into the bedroom to see that it was in order. Dr. Raste gallantly took the volumes from her as she stood half-way up the steps.
"Fifteen volumes—that's right," said Mr. Earlforward. "I told you there were eight, didn't I?"
"Did you?" said Dr. Raste, wondering at the bookseller's memory.
"Yes. I was mixing it up with another edition. Easy to make a mistake of that kind. Well, just look at it. Biography. Notes. Beautiful clear type. Nice, modest binding, in very good taste. Light and handy to hold. Clean as a pin. Nearly two hundred illustrations—from the Boydell edition. I told you Flaxman's illustrations, didn't I? Yes, I did. That was wrong. I somehow got the idea they were Flaxman's because they're in outline. But I see there's quite a selection of artists." He peered at the names engraved in microscopic characters under the illustrations, and passed on volume after volume to the prospective customer. "Pretty edition."
A silence. Violet stood attendant—an acolyte, submissive, watchful—while Henry did business.
"I'm afraid it'll be too dear for my purse," said the doctor, affrighted by the thought of nearly two hundred illustrations from Boydell.
"Twenty-five shillings."
"I'd better take it," said the doctor, looking up from the books into Mr. Earlforward's little eyes; he was startled at the lowness of the price, and immediately counted out the money—two notes and two new half-crowns, which Mr. Earlforward gazed at passionately, and in a bravura of self-control left lying on the desk.
"Make them up into two parcels, will you?" said the doctor. "I'll carry them home myself. I suppose you wouldn't be able to deliver to-night? Too late?"
"Yes. Too late to-night, I'm afraid," answered Mr. Earlforward calmly, well aware that he had long since ceased to deliver any goods under any circumstances. "My dear, some nice brown paper and string. Oh! The string's here, isn't it?" He bent down to a drawer of the desk, and drew out a tangle of all manner of pieces of string.
Violet now became important in the episode, and tookcharge of the wrapping; her mien showed a conviction that she could make up a parcel as well as her husband.
"Hospitals are getting in a bad way," said Dr. Raste, and Mr. Earlforward thought to himself that the doctor was one of those distressing persons who from nervousness could not endure a silence.
"Yes?"
"Yes. Haven't you read about it in the papers?"
"Well, I may have seen something about it," said Mr. Earlforward. But he had not seen anything about it, nor did he care anything about it. He held the common view that hospitals were maintained by magic, or if not by magic, then by the cheques of millionaires in great houses in the West End who paid subscriptions as they paid their rates and taxes.
"Yes. The London Hospital—our largest hospital—unparalleled work in the East End, you know—the London's thinking of closing a hundred beds. A calamity, but there seems to be no alternative. My wife's interesting herself in Lord Knutsford's special effort to save the beds; she used to be on the staff. I was just wondering whether you'd care to give me something for her list. ... I thought I might mention it—as I'm not here professionally. Here as a customer, you see." He gave one of his little, nervous laughs.
Mr. Earlforward perceived that the doctor had not been merely breaking a silence. He perceived also that Violet, mysteriously excited by the name of the legendary subscription-collecting peer who directed the London Hospital, was "willing" him to practise charity on this occasion. He keenly regretted, as the doctor developed his subject, that he had left the price of the Shakspere on the desk. There it lay, waiting to be given, asking to be given! There it lay and could not be ignored. The doctor was, of course, being impudent again; but there the money lay. Half a crown? Too little. Two half-crowns, those bright and lovely objects? Too little—or at any rate too little so long as the notes lay beside them. A note? Impossible! Fantastic! The situation wasdesperate, and Mr. Earlforward in agony. He could not in decency refuse—he a Londoner, fond of London and its institutions—he an established tradesman; neither could he part with his money. He was about to martyrize himself; his hand, each finger separately suffering, hovered over one of the notes, when deliverance occurred to him.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said he, and picked up a thin, tattered, quarto volume that was lying on the desk. "I'll make you a sporting offer. Here's one of the earliest collected editions of Gray's Poems."
"Gray? Gray?" reflected the doctor, and aloud: "Elegy in a Country Churchyard sort of thing?"
"Yes. This is the Glasgow edition, and I can't remember now whether it or the London edition was the first—the first collected edition, I mean. They are both dated 1768. I'll give you this for your hospital. You take it to Sotherans or Bain, and see what it'll fetch."
The doctor opened the book.
"'Full many a flower is born to blush unseenAnd waste its sweetness on the desart air.'"
he read. "Funny way of spelling 'desert,'a, r, t. But this is very interesting. 'Full many a flower——' So that's Gray, is it? Very interesting." He was quite uplifted by the sight of familiar words in an old book. "It's very cleaninside. Suppose it's worth a lot of money. I'm sure you're very generous, very generous indeed." Violet paused in making up the second parcel.
"Well," said Mr. Earlforward, uplifted in his turn by reason of the epithet "generous" applied to him. "I don't know without inquiring just what itisworth. That's the sporting offer."
"I wouldn't mind giving a couple of pounds for it myself. I should like it.
"'Far from the madding crowd——,'
"Well, well! And one of the earlier editions, you say?"
"Not earliest of the Elegy. Earliest of the collected poems."
"Just so! Just so! Two pounds a fair price?"
"I'm afraid it's worth more than that, at the worst," said Mr. Earlforward, suddenly grieved. He saw to what an extent he was making a fool of himself—losing pounds in order to save a ten-shilling note! Ridiculous! Idiotic! Mad! True, he had bought the book for ten shillings, and he strove to regard the transaction from the angle of his own disbursement. But he could not deny that he was losing pounds. Yes, pounds and pounds. Still, he could not have let the ten-shilling note go. A ten-shilling note was a treasure, whereas a book was only a book. Illogical, but instinct was more powerful than logic.
"Ah!" said the doctor. "If it's worth more than two pounds I must sell it. You're generous. Mr. Earlforward, you're generous. Thank you."
Violet rearranged the second parcel, including the Gray in it, while Dr. Raste expanded further in gratitude.
"That type won't strain anybody's eyes," Mr. Earlforward commented on the Gray as it disappeared within brown paper.
"No."
"I'm thankful to saymyeyesight doesn't give me any trouble now."
"Um!" said the doctor, gazing at the bookseller, and taking the chance to feel his way towards the matter which had brought him into the shop. "I shouldn't say you were lookingquitethe man you were when I saw you last."
"No, he is not!" Violet put in eagerly.
"Oh! I'm all right," Mr. Earlforward, defending himself against yet another example of the doctor's impudence. "All I want is more exercise, and I can't get that because of my knee, you know."
"Yes," said the doctor. "I've always noticed you limp. You ought to go to Barker. I shouldn't be surprised if he could put you right in ten minutes. Not aqualified man, of course; but wonderful cures!... You might never limp again."
"But he charges very heavy, doesn't he? I've heard of fifty pounds."
"I don't know. Supposing he does? Well worth it, isn't it, to be cured? What's money?"
Mr. Earlforward made no reply to this silly question. Fifty pounds, or anything like it, for just pulling your knee about! "What was money," indeed! He seized the money on the table. The doctor understood himself to have been definitely repulsed. Being a philosopher, he felt resigned. He had done what he could at an expense of twenty-five shillings. He lodged one of the parcels under his left arm and he took the other in his left hand and assumed a demeanour, compulsory in a gentleman, to indicate to the world that the parcels were entirely without weight, and that he was carrying them out of caprice and not from necessity.
"Here, doctor," Violet most unexpectedly exclaimed. "As you are here I think I'll consult you."
"Not about me! Not about me!" Mr. Earlforward protested plaintively, imploringly, and yet implacably.
Violet leaned over him with an endearment.
"No, darling, not about you," she cooed. "About myself."
"I didn't know there was anything particular wrong with you."
"Didn't you?" said Violet in a strange tone at once dry and affectionate. "Elsie did. Will you come upstairs, doctor?" She was no longer the packer of books. She had initiative, authority, dominion. Horribly suspecting her duplicity, Henry watched her leave the office in front of the doctor, who had set down his parcels. Never, never, would he have a doctor!
"What do you think of Mr. Earlforward's health?" Violet demanded peremptorily, in the bedroom. Her features were alive with urgent emotion. She almost intimidated the doctor.
"Ha!" he retorted defensively, with an explosive jerk. "I haven't examined him. I have—not—examined him. He strikes me as under-nourished."
"And he is. He refuses food."
"But why does he refuse food? There must be some cause."
"It's because he's set on being economical. He's got drawers full of money, and so have I—at least, I've got a good income of my own. But there you are. He won't eat, he won't eat. He won't eat enough, dowhatI will."
"Is that the only reason?"
"Of course it is. He's never had indigestion in his life."
"Um! Your maid, what's her name, seems to be pretty well nourished, at all events."
"Have you been seeing her?" Violet inquired sharply, her suspicion leaping up.
The doctor appreciated his own great careless indiscretion, and answered with admirable deceitful nonchalance:
"I noticed her one day last week in passing. At least, I took it to be her."
Violet left the point there.
The electric light blazed down upon them; it had no shade; not a single light in the house had a shade. It showed harshly, realistically, Violet half leaning against the foot of the bed, and Dr. Raste, upright as when inuniform he used to give orders in Palestine, on the rag hearthrug. Violet's baffled energy raged within her. She had at hand all the materials for tranquil happiness—affection, money, temperament, sagacity, an agreeable occupation—and they were stultified by the mysterious, morbid, absurd, inexcusable and triumphant volition of her loving husband. Instead of happiness she felt doom—doom closing in on her, on him, on the sentient house.
"My husband is a miser. I've encouraged him for the sake of peace. And so now you know, doctor!"
An astounding confession to a stranger, a man to whom she had scarcely spoken before! But it relieved her. She made it with gusto, with passion. She had begun candour with Elsie in the morning; she was growing used to it. The domestic atmosphere itself had changed within six hours. That which had been tacitly denied for months was now admitted openly. Truth had burst out. A few minutes earlier—vain chatter about hospitals, trifling and vain commercial transactions, make-believes, incredible futilities, ghastly nothings! And now, the dreadful reality exposed! And at that very moment Henry in his office, to maintain to himself the frightful pretence, was squandering the remains of his vitality in the intolerably petty details of business.
"Well," said Dr. Raste primly—the first law of his actions was self-preservation—"there isn't a great deal to be done until you can persuade him to have professional advice.... And you? What is it with you? You don't look much better than your husband."
"Oh, doctor!" Violet cried, suddenly plaintive. "I don't know. You must examine me. Perhaps I ought to have come to you before."
At this point the light went out and they were in darkness.
"Oh, dear!"—a sort of despair in Violet's voice now "I knew that lamp would be going soon." The fact was that the lamps in the house generally had begun to go. All of them had passed their allotted span of a thousand burning hours. Two in the shop had failed.Henry possessed no reserve of lamps, and he would not buy, and Violet had not yet wound herself up to the resolve of buying in defiance of him. Once a fuse had melted. For two days they had managed mainly with candles. Violet, irritated, went forth secretly to buy fuse wire. She returned, and with a half-playful, half-resentful gesture threw the wire almost in his face; but it had happened that during her absence he had inserted a new fuse made from a double thickness of soda-water-bottle wire which he had picked up from somewhere. His reproaches, though unspoken, were hard for her to bear.
The doctor promptly struck a match, and Violet lit the candle on the night-table.
"I'm afraid I can't examine you bythatlight," said the doctor.
"Oh,dear!" She nearly wept, then masterfully took hold of herself. "I know!" She rushed to the bathroom, stood on the orange-box, and detached the bathroom lamp, and returned with it to the bedroom. "Here! This will do."
The doctor climbed on to a chair. As soon as he had fixed the new lamp Violet economically blew out the candle; and then, quaking, she yielded up her body, in the glacial chill of the room, for the trial and verdict which would reassure or agonize her. However, she was neither reassured or agonized; there was no verdict.
When Dr. Raste redescended the dark stairs the shop lay in darkness and the bookseller was wheeling in the bookstand. The doctor entered the still lighted office to get his two parcels, which he arranged on his left side exactly as before.
"Oh?" said Mr. Earlforward, approaching him. It was an interrogation.
"I should prefer not to say anything at present," the doctor announced in loud, prim, clearly articulated syllables. "There may be nothing abnormal, nothing at all. At any rate, it is quite impossible to judge under existing conditions. I shall call again in a week or ten days—perhaps earlier. No immediate cause for anxiety."
He had been but little more communicative than this to Violet herself. He was inhuman again—for his patients. Within him, however, glowed the longing to see his child's eyes kindle when he presented her with the Globe Shakspere for her very own.
That night, contrary to custom, Henry went to bed earlier than Violet. He stated that he felt decidedly better, but that he had finished all his book-keeping and oddments of work, and that it would be a pity to keep the office fire alive for nothing. Violet, in her mantle, had to darn a curtain in the front-room. When she went into the bedroom and switched on the light she saw him, with the counterpane well up to his chin, lying flat on his back, eyes shut, but not asleep. He had the pallor of a corpse, and the corpse-like effect was enhanced by the indications of his straight, thin body under the clothes. She stood bent by the side of the bed and looked at him, as it were passionately, but vainly trying by the intensity of her gaze to wrench out and drag up from hidden depths the inaccessible secrets of his mind.
Though saying little to her about her trouble he had behaved to her through the evening with the most considerate kindliness. He had caressed her with his voice. And about her trouble she had not expected him to say much. He had a very inadequate conception of the physical risks which women by nature are condemned to run. And she had never talked much in such directions, for not only was he a strangely modest man, but she deliberately practised the reserve which he himself practised. She argued, somewhat vindictively: "He tells me nothing. I will tell him nothing." Moreover, the doctor's calm non-committal attitude had given Henry an exceptional occasion to exercise his great genius for postponement. Never would Henry go half-way to meet an ordeal of any sort. Lastly, his reactions were generally slow. Fear, anxiety, seemed to come late to him.
He opened his eyes. She gave him one of the long kisses which he loved. Could he guess (she wondered) that her kiss was absent-minded that night, perfunctory,a kiss that emerged inattentive to him from the dark, virginal fastnesses of her being, which neither he nor any other would or could invade. With intention she pressed her lips on his.
"Come to bed," he murmured gently, "and get that light out."
Half undressed she looked carefully at herself in the mirror of the perfectly made, solid, everlasting Victorian wardrobe. Yes, her face showed evidence of illness; it frightened her. No, she was merely indisposed; she was frightening herself. She had no pain, or extremely little. She thought, as she regarded herself in the glass, how inscrutable, how enigmatic, how feminine she was, and how impossible it was for him to comprehend her. She felt superior to him, as a complex mind to a simple one. She thought that she, far better than he, could appreciate the significance of the terrible day. She was overwhelmed by it. Situations were evolving one out of another. Nothing had happened, and yet all was changed. The night was twenty years away from the morning.
"Do you know about that girl?" he asked with soft weariness when she had slipped into bed and the light was out.
"No. Elsie? What?"
"She's eaten two-thirds of the cheese in the cage—at least two-thirds. Must have eaten it before she went out."
The "cage" was the wire-netted larder hung outside the kitchen window. Henry had taken to buying cheese, because it was as nourishing as meat, and cheaper. He had "discovered" cheese as a food—especially a food for servants. Violet said no word, but she sighed. She was staggered, deeply discouraged, by this revelation of Elsie's incredible greed and guile; it was a blow that somehow finished her off.
"Yes," Henry went on, and his mild voice passed through the darkness into Violet's ear with an uncanny effect. "I happened to go up into the kitchen just beforeI came to bed." (And he had not rushed back to tell her of the calamity. He had characteristically kept it to ripen in his brain. And how characteristic of him to wander ferreting into the kitchen! Naught could escape his vigilance.) "Did you see her when she came home?"
"Yes. She went straight to bed."
A silence.
"Something will have to be done about that girl," he said at length.
"What does he mean?" thought Violet, alarmed anew. "Does he mean we must get rid of her? No, that would be too much." But she was not afraid of the extra work for herself which getting rid of Elsie would entail. She was afraid of being left to live all alone with Henry. She trembled at such a prospect.
Elsie, straight from the street, sat down on the edge of her creaking bed on the second-floor and looked at her best boots, which had lost their polish during the course of the afternoon and were covered with dust. She had paid various brief calls, and in her former home in Riceyman Square she had taken off her jacket and put on a pinafore-apron and vigorously helped with housework in arrear. But most of the time she had spent in walking certain streets. Though she ought to have been tired—what with the morning's labour, the calls, the episode in the pinafore, the long walking—she had almost no sensation of bodily fatigue. Her mind, however, was exhausted by the monotony of thinking one importunate thought, which refused to be dismissed, and which indeed she did not sincerely want to dismiss.
When, on her way upstairs, she had spoken to Mrs. Earlforward at the door of the dining-room, she had hoped that her employer would say: "There's someone been inquiring for you," or, "Elsie,that manhas come pestering again." But no! Nothing but a colourless, preoccupied "Good night." An absurd hope, naturally! She knew it was an absurd hope—and yet would not let it go. She had had the same silly hope upon entering each of the houses which she had visited. She had had it constantly as she walked the streets, examining every distant male figure. The silence of Dr. Raste had nearly killed it, but it could not be killed; it had more lives than a cat.
She had been sitting on the bed for a century when a church clock struck. Eleven! Still another hour! Why exactly an hour? Well, midnight was midnight. Shemust give him till twelve. An hour was an enormous period, full of chances. Suddenly she bent to take off her boots. They were not comfortable, never had been, but she took them off for another reason: so that she might move about noiselessly. She extinguished the candle and passed into the empty front-room, and after some struggles with the front window posted herself at the side window. It was unfortunate that the window giving on to Riceyman Steps simply would not open on just this night, for if Joe came he would probably come by way of the steps, having first called at the house in the Square to get news of her. Nevertheless, he might come along King's Cross Roaden routefor the Square.
King's Cross Road was preparing to go to sleep for the night. No lorries. Not a taxi—even in the day-time taxies were few in King's Cross Road. A tram-car, two tram-cars crammed with passengers. A few footfarers, mostly couples. The Nell Gwynn Tavern was dark, save for a window in the top storey where the barmaids slept. Down to the left a cold, vague glare showed the locality of the loading yard of the big post office. She could not see the pavement beneath the window; thus she might miss him. Cautiously and silently she opened the window wider. The bulb-pots were on the sill. Mrs. Earlforward had forgotten to bring them in. Elsie brought them in. (A transient, sympathetic thought for Mrs. Earlforward in her trouble.) She leaned her body out of the window, and felt the modest feather of her hat brush against the window-frame. She could see everything perfectly now—north and south. No wanderer could escape her vision. At intervals, not a sign of either vehicle or footfarers! The road would be utterly deserted, and the street lamps seemed to be wasted. Then a policeman; he never looked up, never suspected that Elsie had her eye on him. Then a tram-car, empty save for a few woeful figures, a vast waste of tram-car.
She fancied she saw him approaching from the direction of the police-station. No, not a bit like him. Shefancied she heard a sound in the room behind her. Incredible that her first notion should be that Joe had somehow entered the house and meant to surprise her with a long hug; and that the far more obvious explanation of surveillance by Mr. or Mrs. Earlforward should come to her only second! But so it was. Neither was correct. In the excited tension of her nerves she had merely imagined the sound. This delusion made her ashamed of her infatuated vigil. She had withdrawn into the room, but after a moment, despite shame, she resumed her post.
The night was calm and not very cold, but no frost would have driven her inside. The sky was thickly clouded; she did not raise her eyes to it. Weather did not exist for her. Another tram-car thundered past; she did not hear it—only saw it. And, as a fact, nobody in the house ever heard the tram-cars nor felt, save rarely, the vibrations which they caused. Elsie was far gone now in her madness, and yet more sane every minute. She felt herself in Joe's arms, heard herself murmuring to him—and he mute and passionate; and at the same time she well realized that she was merely indulging herself in foolishness. She was happy in the expectation of bliss, and wretched in the assurance of its impossibility.
The church clock began to strike. Could a whole hour have gone by? It seemed more like a quarter of an hour. She had her great sorrow, and superimposed on it a childish regret that the expectant watching was over; she had enjoyed the vigil, and it appeared now that no balm whatever remained to her. Reluctantly she drew in her body and shut the window softly, shutting out the last vestige of hope, and carrying with her, as she padded back to her bedroom, the full sense of her unbelievable silliness. Her mind swerved round to Mrs. Earlforward's ordeal; her heart overflowed with benevolence towards Mrs. Earlforward, and with a sublime determination to stand by Mrs. Earlforward in any crisis that might arise. She forgot herself for a space, and became tranquil and cheerful and uplifted.
Then she felt hungry. Since midday she had eatenlittle, having refused offers of meals on her visits, and accepted only snacks, lest she might deplete larders already very inadequate. She took the candle into the kitchen cautiously, but also with a certain domination; for at nights the entire second-floor was her realm. She opened the kitchen window and the cage, and procured for herself more of the diminished cheese and one or two cold potatoes and a piece of bread crust. Then she arranged the side-flap of sacking on the cage to protect it against possible rain. She ate slowly, enjoying with deliberation each morsel. After all, she had one positive pleasure in life. She knew she was wicked; she knew she was a thief; she did not defend herself by subtle arguments. Of late she had been stealing more and more, and had received no reproach. She thought "they" had given up taking stock of the larder. She was becoming a hardened criminal.
When Violet awoke the next morning at the appointed time for waking, and heard the familiar muffled sounds of Elsie's activity, she was tempted to stay in bed; she had not had a good night, and she felt quite disturbingly unwell; indeed, her physical sensations, although not those of acute pain, alarmed her by a certain fundamental quality involving the very basis of her vitality. But she resisted the temptation, apprehensive of the results, on herself and on the household organism, of any change of habit. The upset would be terrible if she failed in her daily rôle; Henry would maintain his calm, but beneath the calm "what a state he would be in!" She knew him (she said to herself). "I shall be better on my feet, and I shall worry less." So she arose to the cold room and to the cold water. Henry was quite bland and cheerful, and said that he had slept well. It was his custom to get up as soon as Violet had washed. He did not get up.
"Aren't you going to get up? I've finished here." She was folding the towel.
"I think I shall stay where I am for a bit," he announced with tranquillity.
It was just as if he had given her a dizzying blow. This, then, was the beginning of the end. She crossed the room to the bed, and gazed at him aghast.
"Now, Vi!" he admonished her, pulling at his short beard. "Now, Vi!"
There was so much affection, so much loving banter, in his queer tone, that her glance fell before his, as it hadnot fallen for months. She covered her exposed throat with her cold, damp hands.
"I shall send for the doctor at once," she announced with vivacity, all her body tingling in sudden energy.
"You'll do nothing of the sort," he said. "I've told you I'm all right. But I'll promise you one thing. Next time the medicine-man comes to see you he shall see me as well, if you like.... Now"—he changed his tone to the practical—"you can attend to everything in the shop. Surely it can manage without me for a day or two."
"'A dayor two'!" she thought. "Is he taking to his bed permanently? Is that it?"
"And I shall save a clean shirt," he said reflectively.
"But, darling, if you're all right, why must you stay in bed? Please, please, do be open with me. You never are—if you know what I mean." She spoke with a plaintive and eager appeal, as it were girlishly. Her face, with an almost forgotten mobility, showed from moment to moment the varying moods of her emotion; tears hung in her eyes; and she was less than half-dressed. She looked as if she might sob, shriek, and drop in a hysterical paroxysm to the floor.
"Something has to be done about that thief of an Elsie," Henry very calmly explained. "Of course, I could put a lock on the cage, but that might seem stingy, miserly, and I should be sorry if anybody thought we were that. Besides, she's a good sort in some ways. She's got to be frightened; she's got to be impressed. You send her in to me. You can talk to her yourself as much as you like afterwards, but send her in to me first. I'll teach her a lesson."
"How? What are you going to say to her?"
"I shall tell her we've had the doctor, and make out I'm very ill indeed. And we'll see if that won't shake her up! We'll see if she'll keep on picking and stealing after that! That ought to sober her down. And it will, too. Something must be done."
Violet was amazed at this revelation of his mentality. She had a new source of alarm now. No doubt the planwould work; but what a plan! Howfunny! (She meant morbid.) Could she cross him? Could she deride the plan? She dared not. She dared not trifle with a man in his condition. And the worst was that he might, after all, be only pretending to pretend he was very ill. He might really be very ill.
"Elsie," she said shortly in the kitchen, "go to your master. He wants to speak to you."
"Is he in the office already, 'm?"
"No, he isn't in the office already. He's in bed. Now run along, do!"
As soon as Elsie was gone, Violet examined the hanging larder. The ravage was appalling. Where in heaven's name did the girl stow the food? Well might the doctor say that she was well nourished. A good thing if shewasto be frightened! She deserved it.... Ah! Violet did not know which way to turn in the moil of Henry's illness, Henry's morbidity, her own unnamed malady, and Elsie's shocking and incredible vice.
Elsie entered the bedroom with extreme apprehension, as for an afflicting solemnity. She thanked God she had had the wit to remove her working apron. Mr. Earlforward was staring at the ceiling. Nothing of him moved except his eyelids, and he appeared not to notice her presence. She waited, twitching her great, red hands. Violet had seemed like a girl before him. But here was the genuine girl. Elsie's hard experience of life and disaster fell away from her. She was simple and intimidated. Youthfulness was her chief characteristic as she stood humbly waiting. Her candid youthfulness accused the room of age, decay and distemper.
"Elsie, has Mrs. Earlforward told you anything?"
"No, sir."
"Listen." He still did not shift his eyes from the ceiling. "We had the doctor in yesterday afternoon." Elsie's heart thumped. Had the doctor betrayed her meddling? "He came to buy a book, and we kept him." Elsie thought the worst was over. "I'm very ill, Elsie, and I shall probably never get up again. Do you thinkit's right of you to go on stealing food as you do, with a dying man in the house?" He spoke very gently.
Elsie gave a sob; she was utterly overwhelmed.
"Now you must go. I can't do with any fuss, Elsie!" He stopped her at the door. "Do we give you enough to eat? Tell me at once if we don't."
"Yes, yes. Quite enough!" Elsie cried, almost in a shriek, hiding her face in her hands. Her condition was so desperate that she had omitted the ceremonial "sir." The rushing tears ran between her fingers as she escaped. She sat a long time in the kitchen sobbing, sobbing for guilt and sobbing for sorrow at her master's fate.
"Here," said Mrs. Earlforward frigidly to Elsie, handing her two coins. "Slip out now and buy half a pound of bacon and the same quantity as before of that cheese. And please hurry back so as you can take your turn in the shop. Not that you're in a state to be in charge of any shop. You're a perfect sight and a fright. However, they do say it's an ill-wind that blows nobody any good."
Mrs. Earlforward called Elsie a perfect sight and a fright because of her countenance, swollen and blotched with violent weeping. She had not deigned to share with Elsie her fearful anxieties. Elsie was unworthy to share them. She had indeed said not a single word to Elsie about the condition of the sick man. She rarely confided in a servant; servants could not appreciate a confidence, could not or would not understand that it amounted to an honour.... Do Elsie good to believe for a bit that her master was dying! Serve her right! (And supposing Henry reallywasdying!) Nevertheless, Mrs. Earlforward could not be, did not desire to be, too harsh with a girl of Elsie's admirable character. Elsie, even when convicted of theft, inspired respect, willing or unwilling. She had never read the Sermon on the Mount, but without knowing what she was doing she practised its precepts. No credit to her, of course; she had not reasoned her conduct out; it was instinctive; she had little consciousness of being righteous, and much consciousness of sin; and the notion of behaving in such and such a way in order to get to heaven simply had not occurred to her.
It was humiliating for her to go shopping with such a woe-puffed face as she had. But she went, and the mission was part of her penance. The shop-keeping community of the neighbourhood, though they held Mr. and Mrs. Earlforward in scorn, and referred to them with contumely and even detestation, were friendly to Elsie, and privately sympathized with her because she had to do Mr. and Mrs. Earlforward's dirty little errands. Not that Elsie was ever in the slightest degree disloyal to her master and mistress! On the contrary, her loyalty touched the excessive.
"Anything wrong?" the cheesemonger's assistant murmured to her in a compassionate tone, as he was cutting the bacon.
Elsie did not take the inquiry amiss. But unfortunately in her blushing answer she lapsed from entire honesty. She ought to have said: "I've been crying partly because I'm a thief, and partly because Mr. Earlforward is very seriously ill." But with shameful suppression of truth she replied in these words:
"Master's that ill!"
And her tears fell anew.
Within an hour the district had heard that the notorious old skinflint Earlforward of Riceyman Steps was dying at last!
Elsie ate no dinner. She tried to eat but could not. Then it was that she devised an expiatory scheme for fasting until the total amount of her thefts should be covered. She had admitted to Mr. Earlforward that she got enough to eat. She could not possibly deny that her employers allowed her more food, or at any rate more regular food, than many of her acquaintances managed to exist on from day to day. With an empty stomach and a tight throat she toiled upon her routine conscientiously, and more than conscientiously, because she felt herself in the presence of final calamity. For her the house and shop had become "the pale court of kingly death"; though she was as ignorant of the mighty phrase as of the Sermon on the Mount, and even lesscapable of understanding it. The bedroom was sealed against her. Mrs. Earlforward herself went out to purchase special light food. Afterwards she cooked some of the light food and carried it into the bedroom—and carried it out again untouched. Only towards evening did Mrs. Earlforward leave the mysterious and terrible bedroom with an empty basin. Elsie could not comprehend why the doctor had not come, or why, not having come, he had not been fetched. And she dared not ask. No! And she dared not ask how Mr. Earlforward was going on. And Mrs. Earlforward vouchsafed nothing. This withholding of news was Violet's punishment for Elsie. She wore a mask, which announced to Elsie all the time that Elsie was for the present outside the pale of humanity. Elsie had an intense desire to share fully Violet's ordeal, to suffer openly with her; she admitted that the frustration of this desire was no more than her deserts.
At five o'clock, in a clean apron, she was put into the shop. The stove was black out. The shop was full of the presence and intimidation of death. Customers seemed to have avoided it that day, as if they had been magically warned to keep away. Business had been negligible. Elsie hoped much that none would come in the last hour. She had lost the habit of serving in the shop, and was uncertain of her capability to handle the humblest customer without making a fool of herself. Then an old gentleman entered and stood silent, critically surveying her and the shop.
"Yes, sir? What can I——"
The old gentleman saw a fat, fairly sensible face, and young, timid, kind eyes, and was rather attracted and mollified by the eyes; but he did not allow Elsie's gaze to soften more than a very little his just resentment at the spectacle of an aproned charwoman, or at best a general servant, in charge of a bookshop.
"You can't!" he said sharply, moving his ancient head slowly from side to side in a firm negative. "I see Mr. Earlforward."
"The master isn't very well, sir."
"Oh! Then Mrs. Earlforward."
"Missis is looking after master, sir."
"You don't mean to say he's ill?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ill in bed?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good God! I've known him for over twenty years, and never knew him ill yet. What's the matter? What's the matter with him?"
"I couldn't exactly say, sir."
"What do you mean—you couldn't exactly say?"
"He's very ill indeed, sir."
"Not seriously ill?"
Elsie drooped her head and showed signs of crying.
"Not in danger?"
Elsie replied with a sob:
"He'll never get up again, sir."
"Good God! Good God! What next? What next? Er—I—er—I'm sorry to hear this. I'm—er—tell him, tell Mrs. Earlforward, I——" And, murmuring to himself, he walked rapidly out of the dim shop. He was at an age when the distant shuffling and rumbling of death could positively frighten. In an instant he had seen the folly, the futility, of collecting books. You could not take first editions with you when you—went. Death loomed enormous over him, like a whole firmament threatening to fall.
Elsie heard a footfall on the stairs, and Mrs. Earlforward came with deliberation down to such light as there was, her fixed eyes glinting and blazing on the sinner submissive in disgrace. Elsie stood tremulous before those formidable eyes. She could scarcely believe that they were the same eyes which had melted in confidences to her on the previous morning. And they were not the same eyes. They were the eyes of an old woman with harsh, implacable features, petrified and incapable of mobility.
"What were you saying to that gentleman?"
"I was only telling him he couldn't see you or master because master was ill, 'm."
"But didn't I hear you say your master would never get up again?"
Elsie quivered and made no response, no defence.
"What do you mean by saying such a thing? How dare you say such a thing? It isn't true; it isn't true! And even if it was true, do you suppose I want everybody to know about our private affairs? You must have gone out of your mind!"
She waited for an answer from Elsie. None came. Elsie could not articulate. Then Mrs. Earlforward finished, abrupt and tyrannical:
"Shut the shop!"
Elsie found speech:
"It's only a quarter to six, 'm. There's a quarter of an hour yet," she said weakly, but bravely.
"Shut the shop, I tell you!"
Elsie went outside and began to wheel in the bookstand. A vision of Joe leaped up in her mind, and she gazed east and west to see if by chance he might be arriving a day late at that moment. The vision of Joe vanished from her mind. She thought: "This will be the last time I shall ever wheel in the bookstand." Then, from habit, she raked down the ashes from the stove.
"What's the good of raking the stove when you know it's out!" Mrs. Earlforward exclaimed. "Nothing can burn away if it's out. Where are your brains, wasting time?" Mrs. Earlforward marched across the shop, banged the door to, and fastened it violently, definitely. And Elsie thought: "That door'll never open for master's customers again."
"Get upstairs!" ordained Mrs. Earlforward. Within ten seconds the shop and the office were in darkness.
That evening Elsie had none but strictly official communication with Mrs. Earlforward, who never once removed her mask, nor by any sign invited Elsie to come back within the warm pale of humanity. The girl did not even know whether she was at liberty to retire tobed, or whether, in the exceptional circumstances, she ought to stay up on the chance of being needed. At last, in the soundless house, her common sense told her to go to her room. If she was required she could dress in a minute, and it would be just as easy for Mrs. Earlforward to call her in the bedroom as in the kitchen. She had certainly no clear intention, as she closed the bedroom door, of disturbing the ashes of her passion for Joe; and it was almost mechanically, or subconsciously, that she got his letter from its safety in a drawer. Of late she had not been reading it so often. The envelope was no longer an envelope, but two separate pieces of paper held together only by the habit of association. The letter itself was very dirty and worn out at all the creases, some of which were no longer creases but rents. As she held it gingerly in her hands, one of the squares into which the creases divided it fell off from the main body, and sank with flutters to the floor. For weeks she had feared that this would happen. Necessarily she took it for an omen. Something had to be done at once if destiny was to be countered. Her thoughts ran down to the office for aid. But the office was two floors away, and in the night, off duty, she had no right to leave the top-floor. Still less had she the right to leave the top-floor in order to commit a theft. And she might be heard by the sharp, exasperated ears of her mistress and caught. But the letter was so pathetic that she could not resist its appeal. She seized the candle, and in stockinged feet, slowly and with every precaution against noise, descended the stairs like the thief she was.
On the desk in the office was a small cardboard box in which somebody at some time in history had once received false teeth from a dentist. This box was the receptacle for stamp-paper. In the shadowy and reproachful and menacing office Elsie slid open the box and stole from it quite six good inches of stamp-paper. Contrition for sin had perished in her. She was the hardened sinner. She could not learn from experience. It seemed to her that she sinned nightly now. Here hermaster was dying, her mistress ill and in misery, and she was thieving stamp-paper! She arrived upstairs again without discovery. Her nerves were as shaken as if she had crossed Niagara on a tight-rope.
Mr. Earlforward could do marvels of repair with stamp-paper, but Elsie had not his skill. Working on the emptied toilet-table, she did little but make the letter adhere to the surface of the table. Then through a too brusque movement she seriously tore the letter, and not in the line of a crease either. The paper was worn out by use, and had no virtue left. This was too much for Elsie's self-control. She had stood everything, but she could not stand the trifling accident. She scrunched the pieces of the letter in her powerful hand. Why should she keep the letter? She was a perfect fool to keep the letter, reminding her and reminding her.... She held the ball of paper to the candle. It lit slowly, but it lit. The paper spread a little with the heat. She could read: "I know I shall get better." She dropped the burning letter, and it smoked and blackened and writhed on the floor, and nothing survived of it save some charred corners, a lot of smoke, and a strong smell of fire.
Elsie now had the sensation of being alone in the world. The reaction was hunger. Hunger swept over her like a visitation. For twenty-four hours she had not eaten enough to satisfy a cat, to say nothing of a robust and active young woman. Her fancy could taste the lovely taste of bacon. She thought of all other lovely tastes, and there were many. She thought obscurely, perhaps not in actual words: "Eating is my only joy now. All else is vain, but eating is real." She thought of the cage and its contents. But Mr. Earlforward was dying, and Mrs. Earlforward in misery. And death was waiting to spring out from some dark corner of the house. The house was peopled with the mysterious harbingers of death. Still, the idea of the bacon bewitched her.
She raised the candlestick again. She passed out of the bedroom and crept, guilty and afraid, towards the kitchen. She knew the full enormity of her offence,could never, afterwards, offer the excuse that she did not realize it. On the other hand, she was helpless in the grip of the tyrannical appetite which drove her on. At the open door of the narrow kitchen she listened intently, with a guilty and fearful eye on the shadowy staircase, trying to see what was not there. Not a sound. Not a vibration. The last tram-car and the last Underground train had gone. She entered the kitchen, closed the door softly, and shut herself up with her sin. "I will not do it. I cannot do it!" she thought, but she knew that she would do it, and that she was appointed to do it. Her mouth watered; her stomach ravened within her like a tiger.
Ten minutes later the door opened suddenly. Mrs. Earlforward, a mantle over her night-dress, stood in the doorway. In the flickering light of the candle Mrs. Earlforward caught the gluttonous, ecstatic expression on Elsie's face and the curve of her pretty lips before the corners of the lips fell to dismay, and the rapt expression changed to despairing delinquency. Mr. Earlforward's grand bluff had failed after all. Apparently not the atmosphere of death could cure Elsie of her vice. Mrs. Earlforward, on the top of her other thrilling woes, was horrified to see Elsie not merely eating bacon, but eating bacon raw. But in this particular Mrs. Earlforward was unreasonable. The girl could not cook the bacon. To do so would have caused throughout the house a smell to wake even the dead. She had no alternative but to eat the bacon raw. Moreover, it was very nice raw. Mrs. Earlforward tried to speak about the bacon, but failed. Elsie, with her mouth full and no chance of emptying it, could not speak either. The tap, dripping much faster now than aforetime, talked alone. At last Mrs. Earlforward gasped:
"You're dressed. Run for the doctor."