While Henry was inquiring into the market value of the dirt which he himself had amassed, the new Mrs. Earlforward went upstairs to inspect her best bedroom. It was empty, but electric current was burning away in a manner to call forth just criticism from her husband. The room was incredibly clean, and had a bright aspect of freshness and gaiety which delighted Violet. She said to herself: "This vacuum business was a great idea of mine. Dangerous; but it's gone off very well." Already she realized, though not quite fully, that she had passed under the domination of her bland Henry. It was as if she had entered a fortress and heard the self-locking gates thereof clang behind her. No escape! But in the fortress she was sheltered; she was safe.
According to a prearrangement, certain dispositions had been made in the bedroom. On the bed was spread a luxurious and brilliant eiderdown quilt—Violet's private possession, almost her only possession beyond clothes, cash, and money invested. Her three trunks were deposited in a corner. The wardrobe had been cleared of books, and one chest of drawers cleared of Earlforwardian oddments, and Violet, having doffed her street attire, began to unpack in the cold, which she did not notice.
She hoped that Henry would give her time to feel at home in the chamber. She was sure, indeed, that he would, for he could practise the most delicate considerations. Before deciding which drawers should hold which clothes, she laid out some of the garments on the bed, and this act seemed to tranquillize her. Then she noticedthat an old slipper had been tied by a piece of pink ribbon to the head-rail of the bed. It was a much-worn white satin slipper, and had once shod the small foot of some woman who understood elegance. Elsie's thought! Elsie's gift! It could have come from none but Elsie. Elsie must have bought it, and perhaps its fellow, at the second-hand shop up the King's Cross Road, past the police-station. And Elsie must also have bought the pink ribbon.
Violet was touched. She wanted to run out and say something nice to Elsie, wherever Elsie might be, but she wanted still more to stay in the bedroom and think. She enjoyed being in the bedroom alone. She glanced with pleasure at the shut door, the drawn blind, the solidity of the walls and of the furniture. And she thought of her first honeymoon. A violent, extravagant and passionate week at Southend! What excursions. What distractions! What fishings! What tragi-comical sea-sickness! What winkle-eatings! What promenades and rides on the pier! What jocularities! What gigglings and what enormous laughter! What late risings! What frocks and hats! What hair-brushings! What fastenings of frocks! What arrogant confidence in one's complexion! What emancipations! What grand, free, careless abandonments to the delight of life! What sudden tendernesses! What exhaustless energy! What youth!... And then the swift change in the demeanour of the late Mr. Arb when they got into the London train. Realization then that the man who could play and squander magnificently could also work and save magnificently! A man, in fact, the late Mr. Arb; and never without a grim humour unlike anybody else's! And he was the very devil sometimes, especially at intervals during the few days when he was making up his mind to cut his corns....
She did not gaze backward on that honeymoon with pangs of regret. No! She was not that kind of woman. As she advanced from one time of life to another she had the commonsense of each age. She did not mourn theSouthend hoydenish bride who knew nothing. She had a position now, both moral and material. She could put honeymoons in their right perspective. The honeymoon which she was at that moment in the midst of had certainly some remarkable characteristics. That is to say, it was a rather funny sort of honeymoon. But what matter? She was happy—not as the Southend bride had been happy, but still happy. She knew that she could comprehend Henry just as well as she had comprehended the late Mr. Arb. On the subject of men she was catholic. She could submit in one way to one and in another way to another; and the same for manœuvring them. Look at what she had by audacity accomplished in the very first hours of this second marriage! Cleanliness! The brilliance of the results of scientific cleaning astonished even herself, far surpassing her expectations.
And the old satin shoe influenced her. There was something absurd, charming, romantic and inspiring about that shoe. It reminded Violet that security and sagacity and affectionate constancy could not be the sole constituents of a satisfactory existence. Grace, fancifulness, impulsiveness, some foolishness, were needed too. She saw the husband, the house, and even the business, as material upon which she had to work, constructively, adoringly, but also wilfully, and perhaps a bit mischievously. What could be more ridiculous than an old shoe tied to a respectable bedstead? And yet it had changed Violet's mood. For her it had most mysteriously changed the mood of the domestic interior, of all Clerkenwell. It helped Violet to like Clerkenwell, an unlikeable place in her opinion.
After a long time, and reluctantly, she went downstairs again. Nobody had disturbed her—neither her husband nor Elsie nor the workmen. She had heard various movements beyond the citadel of the bedroom—ascents, descents, bumpings—and she now found the upper floors in darkness; the upper floors were finished. The shop also was apparently finished, with the exception of the principal window. She paused at the turnof the stairs and watched her husband attentively watching the operation on the windowful of books. Two workmen were engaged upon it. One handled the books in batches of ten or a dozen; the other manipulated the cleansing, swishing nozzle. Both men seemed to be experts, laborious, conscientious and exact. The volumes were replaced with precision. Mr. Henry Earlforward, in a critical temper, as became a merchant over an important affair which affected him closely but upon which he had been in no wise consulted, stood ready to pounce upon the slightest error or carelessness. Well, he found no occasion to pounce; the bland demon in him was foiled of its spring. He moved away, disappointed, admiring, and caught sight of Violet. His face welcomed her appearance. Undoubtedly he was pleased with and impressed by her capacity, in addition to being in love with her. She looked down demurely, perturbed by the ardour of his glance.
"Been putting things to right in the bedroom?" he murmured, approaching her.
She nodded. He lifted his hand to her shoulder, and there it rested for a moment. She wished to heaven the interminable job was finished and they could walk about the transformed shop alone together.
"Look here," he murmured; the men at the window could not possibly distinguish what he was saying.
"Yes?"
He led her to a corner. One of the sacks in which books were delivered hid a fairly large cubical object. He pulled off the sack and disclosed an old safe which she had never seen before.
"I bought it yesterday," said he, "and they delivered it this morning, I suppose." Bending down, he took a key from his pocket, unlocked the safe, and swung open the massive door. "Two drawers, you see, and two compartments besides."
"Very nice, I'm sure."
He relocked the safe and handed her the key, which was very bright.
"It's for you," he said. "A little wedding-present. You must decide where you'd like to have it. If you want it upstairs, I might get some of these chaps to carry it up before they go. Cheaper than getting men in on purpose. And it's no featherweight, that safe isn't."
Violet was startled almost out of her self-possession. She held the key as though she did not know what to do with it. She gave a mechanical smile, very unlike the smile whose vivacity drew crinkling lines from all parts of her face to the corners of her eyes and of her mouth. The present was totally unexpected. He had said not one word as to presents; certainly he had not questioned her about her preferences, nor shown even indirectly any kind of curiosity in this regard. She had comprehended that he wished neither to bestow nor to receive, and she was perfectly reconciled to his idiosyncrasy. After all, was she not at that moment wearing, without resentment or discomfort, the wedding-ring to obtain which he had sold its predecessor? And yet he had conceived the plan of giving her a present and had executed it in secret, as such plans on such occasions ought to be executed. And he was evidently pleased with his plan and proud of it.
How many husbands would have given a safe to their wives so that the dear creatures might really possess their property in privacy and independence? Very few. The average good husband would have expected his wife to hand over all that she had into his own safe-keeping—not for his own use—but she would have had to ask him for what was hers, and in giving her what was hers he would have had the air of conferring a favour. Henry was not like that. Henry, she knew, admired her for her possessions as well as for her personality. And he had desired to insist on them in a spectacular manner. She was touched. Yes, she was touched; because she understood his motives; saw the fineness, the chivalry, in his motives.
When she had thanked him she said:
"I think I shall have it in the bathroom, under the window; there is plenty of room there."
Her practical sagacity had not failed her. In the bathroom she could employ her safe, study the contents of her safe, and take from them or add to them, unsurveyed, according to her most free fancy. Whereas, if the safe was in the bedroom or in the dining-room, or side by side with Henry's safe in the office—well, you never knew! He agreed instantly with her suggestion.
"If I were you," said he, "I should get your things out of that Cornhill safe-deposit place at once."
The late Mr. Arb had always been in favour of a "safe-deposit place" for securities and valuables. The arrangement was beyond doubt best for a nomad, but in addition, with his histrionic temperament, he had loved the somewhat theatrical apparatus of triple security with which safe-deposit companies impressed their clients. He had loved descending into illuminated steel vaults, and the smooth noise of well-oiled locks and the signing and countersigning, and the surveillance, and the surpassing precautions. Violet had loved it also. It magnified riches. It induced ecstatic sensations.
But Mr. Henry Earlforward had other views. He held that the rent which you had to pay for a coffer in a safe-deposit was excessive, and that to pay it was a mere squandering of money in order to keep money, and quite irrational, quite ridiculous—indeed, a sort of contradiction in terms. That Mrs. Arb should patronize a safe-deposit company had seemed to offend him; that his wife should patronize a safe-deposit company gave him positive pain. Imagine having to take motor-buses and trams and spend money and half a day of time whenever you wanted to open your own coffer! Violet had listened to him at length on this topic.
She was pleasantly touched now, but simultaneously she was frightened again. Standing close to him in the gloom of the corner, dangling the key on its bit of string, glancing at his fresh, full-lipped, grey-bearded, kindly face, and at his bland little eyes which rested on her withlove, she was frightened and even appalled. She had made him a present of a scientific spring-cleaning, and he had given her a safe, on their wedding day! It was terrible, it was horrible! Why? Eminently sensible gifts, both, surely! Not more prosaic than those very popular and well-accepted presents, a pair of fish-carvers, a patent carpet-sweeper, a copper coal-scuttle! No, possibly not more prosaic than those.... And yet, terrible! No doubt she would not have thought them so horrible if she had not seen that second-hand satin shoe hanging on the bedstead by a piece of pink ribbon. She knew that the excellent, trustworthy and adoring man who was the safe-deposit in which she had deposited herself had no suspicion of the nature of her thoughts. And his innocence, his simplicity, his blindness—call it what you please—only intensified her perturbation. He turned away to speak to the workmen about moving the safe.
At a later hour, soon after the workmen and the engines and the hose and all the apparatus of purification had vanished from Riceyman Steps, to the regret of a persistent crowd which had been enjoying an absolutely novel sensation, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Earlforward, who were alone and rather self-conscious and rather at a loss for something to do in the beautiful shut shop, heard steps on the upper stairs. Elsie! They had forgotten Elsie! It was not a time for them to be thoughtful of other people. Elsie presently appeared on the lower stairs, and was beheld of both her astonished employers. For Elsie was clothed in her best, and it was proved that she indeed had a best. Neither Henry nor Violet had ever seen the frock which Elsie was wearing. Yet it was obviously not a new frock. It had lain in that tin trunk of hers since more glorious days. Possibly Joe might have seen it on some bright evening, but no other among living men. Its colour was brown; in cut it did not bear, and never had borne, any relation to the fashions of the day. But it was unquestionably a best dress. Over the façade of the front Elsie displayed agarment still more surprising; namely, a white apron. Now in Clerkenwell white aprons were white only once in their active careers, and not always even once. White aprons in Clerkenwell were white (unless bought "shop-soiled" at a reduction) for about the first hour of their first wearing. They were, of course, washed, rinsed and ironed, and sometimes lightly starched, but they never achieved whiteness again, and it was impossible that they should do so. A whitish grey was the highest they could reach after the first laundry. Elsie therefore was wearing a new apron; and, in fact, she had purchased it with her own money under the influence of her modest pride in forming a regular part of a household comprising a gentleman and lady freshly united in matrimony. She had also purchased a cap, but at the last moment, after trying it on, had lacked the courage to keep it on; she felt too excessively odd in it. She was carrying a parcel in her left hand, and the other was behind her back. Mrs. Earlforward, at sight of her, guessed part of what was coming, but not the more exciting part.
"Oh, Elsie!" cried Mrs. Earlforward. "There you are! I fancied you were out."
"No, 'm," said Elsie, in her gentle, firm voice. "But I wasn't expecting you and master home so early, and as soon as you came I run upstairs to change."
With that Elsie, from the advantage of three stairs, suddenly showed her right hand, and out of a paper bag flung a considerable quantity of rice on to the middle-aged persons of the married. She accomplished this gesture with the air of a benevolent priestess performing a necessary and gravely important rite. Some of the rice stuck on its targets, but most of it rattled on the floor and rolled about in the silence. Indeed, there was quite a mess of rice on the floor, and the pity seemed to be that the vacuum-cleaners had left early.
Violet was the first to recover from the state of foolish and abashed stupefaction into which the deliberate assault had put man and wife. Violet laughed heartily, very heartily. Her mood was transformed again in aninstant into one of gaiety, happiness, and natural ease. It was as if a sinister spell had been miraculously lifted. Henry gradually smiled, while regarding with proper regret this wanton waste of a health-giving food such as formed the sole nourishment of many millions of his fellow-creatures in distant parts of the world. Sheepishly brushing his clothes with his hand, he felt as though he was dissipating good rice-puddings. But he, too, suffered a change of heart.
"I had to do it, because it's for luck," Elsie amiably explained, not without dignity. Evidently she had determined to do the wedding thoroughly, in spite of the unconventionalities of the contracting parties.
"I'm sure it's very kind of you," said Mrs. Earlforward.
"Yes, it is," Mr. Earlforward concurred.
"And here's a present from me," Elsie continued, blushing, and offering the parcel.
"I'm sure we're very much obliged," said Mrs. Earlforward, taking the parcel. "Come into the back-room, Elsie, and I'll undo it. It's very heavy. No, I'd better not hold it by the string."
And in the office the cutting of string and the unfolding of brown paper and of tissue paper disclosed a box, and the opening of the box disclosed a wedding-cake—not a large one, true, but authentic. What with the shoe and the rice and the cake, Elsie in the grand generosity of her soul must have spent a fortune on the wedding, must have exercised the large munificence of a Rothschild—and all because she had faith in the virtue of the ancient proprieties appertaining to the marriage ceremony. She alone had seen Mrs. Earlforward as a bride and Mr. Earlforward as a bridegroom, and the magic of her belief compelled the partners also to see themselves as bride and bridegroom.
"Well, Elsie," Violet burst out—and she was deeply affected—"I really don't know what to say. It's most unexpected, and I don't know how to thank you. But run and get a knife, and we'll cut it."
"It must be cut," said Elsie, again the priestess, and she obediently ran off to get the knife.
"Well, well!... Well, well!" murmured Henry, flabbergasted, and blushing even more than his wife had blushed. The pair were so disturbed that they dared not look at each other.
"You must cut it, 'm," said Elsie, returning with the knife and a flat dish.
And Mrs. Earlforward, having placed the cake on the dish, sawed down into the cake. She had to use all her strength to penetrate the brown; the top icing splintered easily, and fragments of it flew about the desk.
"Now, Elsie, here's your slice," said Violet, lifting the dish.
"Thank ye, 'm. But I must keep mine. I've got a little box for it upstairs."
"But aren't you going to eat any of it?"
"No, 'm," with solemnity. "Butyoumust.... I'll just taste this white part," she added, picking up a bit of icing from the desk.
The married pair ate.
"I think I'll go now, 'm, if you'll excuse me," said Elsie. "But I'll just sweep up in the shop here first." She was standing in the doorway.
They heard her with hand-brush and dustpan collecting the scattered food of the Orient. She peeped in at the door again.
"Good night, 'm. Good night, sir." She saluted them with a benignant grin in which was a surprising little touch of naughtiness. And then they heard her receding footfalls as she ascended cautiously the dark flights of stairs and entered into her inviolable private life on the top floor.
"It would never have done not to eat it," said Violet.
"No," Henry agreed.
"She's a wonder, that girl is! You could have knocked me down with a feather."
"Yes."
"I wonder where she bought it."
"Must have gone up to King's Cross. Or down to Holborn. King's Cross more likely. Yesterday. In her dinner-hour."
"I'm hungry," said Violet.
And it was a fact that they had had no evening meal, seeing that they had expressly announced their intention of "eating out" on that great day.
"So must you be, my dear," said Violet.
There they were, alone together on the ground-floor, with one electric bulb in the back room and one other, needlessly, lighting the middle part of the cleansed and pleasant shop. They could afford to be young and to live perilously, madly, absurdly. They lost control of themselves, and gloried in so doing. The cake was a danger to existence. It had the consistency of marble, the richness of molasses, the mysteriousness of the enigma of the universe. It seemed unconquerable. It seemed more fatal than daggers or gelignite. But they attacked it. Fortunately, neither of them knew the inner meaning of indigestion. When Henry had taken the last slice, Violet exclaimed like a child:
"Oh, just one tiny piece more!" And with burning eyes she bent down and bit off a morsel from the slice in Henry's hand.
"I am living!" shouted an unheard voice in Henry's soul.
The next morning, before the first church-bells had begun to ring for early communion, and before the sun had decided whether or not it would shine upon Riceyman Square and Steps that day, Violet very silently came out of the bedroom and drew the door to without a sound; even the latch was not permitted to click. She was wearing her neat check frock, the frock of industry, and she carried in her hand a large blue pinafore-apron, clean and folded, and an old pair of gloves. Her hair, in a large cap, was as hidden as a nun's. Her face had the expression, and her whole vivacious body the demeanour, of one who is dominated by a grandiose idea and utterly determined to execute it. She went upstairs, in the raw, chilly twilight, to the narrow room over the bathroom, which, in her mind, she called the kitchen, not because it was a kitchen, but because it alone in the house served the purpose of a kitchen.
Elsie, her hair still loose, was already there, boiling water on the gas-ring. The jets of blue flame helped to light the place, and also comfortably warmed it and made it cosy. Violet greeted the girl with a kindly smile, which was entirely matter-of-fact—as though this morning was a morning just like any other morning.
"Your master's fast asleep," she solemnly whispered; from her tone she might have been saying "our master."
"Yes, 'm," Elsie whispered solemnly.
And it was instantly established that the basic phenomenon of the household was their master's heavy and sacred slumber.
"I'll have some of that tea, too," said Violet. "What is there for dinner?"
She had expressly refrained from showing any curiosity whatever about domestic arrangements until she should have acquired the status entitling her to take charge; no one could be more discreet, more correct, on important occasions, than Violet.
"He told me to buy this bit of mutton," answered Elsie, indicating a scrag-end on a plate, "and then there's them potatoes and the cheese."
"But how shall you cook it?"
"Boil it, 'm. He never has flesh meat, not often that is, but when he does I boil it."
"Oh, well, that will be all right. Of course I shall have to fix things up here, Elsie, and we may as well begin as we mean to go on."
"Yes, 'm."
"And you know my ways, don't you? That's fortunate."
"Yes, 'm."
While they were drinking the tea and eating pieces of bread, Violet nicely pretending to be Elsie's equal in the sight of God, and Elsie gently firm in maintaining the theory of the impassableness of the social chasm which separated them. Violet said:
"I'm sure we shall understand one another, Elsie. Of course you've been here on and off for a long while, and you've got your little habits here, and quite right too, and I've no doubt very good habits, because I'm convinced you're very conscientious in your work; if you hadn't been I shouldn't have kept you; but we've got to start afresh in this house, haven't we?"
"Oh,yes, 'm!" Elsie eagerly concurred.
"Yes, and the first thing to do is to get straight and tidy. I know it's Sunday, and I'm as much for rest and church as anybody, and I hope you'll go to church yourself every Sunday evening regular. But tradespeople aren't like others, and they can't be. There's certain things that can only be done on Sundays in a place ofbusiness—same as they have to lay railway lines on Sundays, you see. And what's more, I'm one of those that can'trestuntil what has to be doneisdone. They do say, the better the day the better the deed, don't they? Now all those books lying about on the floor and so on everywhere—they've got to be put right."
"Master used to say so, 'm, but somehow——"
"Yes," Violet broke in, anticipating some implied criticism of the master. "Yes. But, of course, he simply hasn't been able to do it. He's been dreadfully overworked as it is. Now there's all those books in the bathroom to begin with. I'm going to have them in the top front-room, next to yours, you know.... I wish there were some spare shelves, but I suppose we must arrange the books on the floor."
"There's a lot of shelves slanting down the cellar steps, 'm," said Elsie, with the joy of the bringer of glad tidings.
"Oh! I didn't know we had a cellar."
"Oh, yes, 'm, there's a cellar."
Violet enveloped herself in the pinafore-apron and put on the gloves. The bride on her honeymoon and the girl crept softly downstairs, and one by one, with miraculous success in the avoidance of any sound, the planks—they were no more than planks—were transported from the bottom of the house to the top. No uprights for the shelves could be discovered, but Violet, whose natural ingenuity had been intensified by the resistless force of her grandiose idea, improvised supports for the shelves out of a lot of shabby old volumes ofThe Illustrated London News. She laid a shelf on three perpendicular tomes—one at either end and one in the middle—and then three more tomes on the shelf, and then another shelf on them, and so on, till the whole of the empty wall in the front room was a bookcase ready to receive books. Violet was well pleased, and Elsie marvelled at Violet's magical creative power.
The house was sealed up from the world. Not a door open; not a window open! Hours passed. The suncoldly shone. The faint jangle of church-bells was the only sound within the house where the two devotees laboured in a tiptoeing silence upstairs and downstairs while the master reposed unconscious. Violet filled Elsie's stout apron with books, and, bearing a handful of books herself, followed her upstairs; the books were ranged; the devotees descended again. The work was simplified by the fact that the vacuum-cleaners had remedied the worst disorder on the previous day; they had, for example, emptied the bath of all its learning. At intervals Violet listened anxiously at the bedroom door. Once she peeped in. No sign of life. And the devotees were happy because in their rage of constructive energy they had contrived not to wake the master. The bathroom was cleared; the chief obstructions on the stairs were cleared; and there was still some space available on the improvised shelves.
"We'll move on to that dark corner of the shop-floor by the stairs," said Violet, triumphing more and more.
This decision meant still more stair-climbing. When Elsie, breathless, had lifted the first load out of the shop to the top-floor, Violet said thoughtfully as she emptied the apron: "I suppose your master is still asleep? Does he ring? Is there a bell?"
"Yes, there's a bell, 'm, but it's been out of order ever since I was here, and I don't know where it would ring if it wasn't out of order. He's never slept like this before, 'm."
Anxiety passed across their intent faces. Such sleeping was unnatural. Then they heard his footsteps on the stairs.... He had gone down into the shop, probably into his office.
"Better go and make some more tea," said Violet gravely.
"Yes, 'm."
The bride preceded the girl down the stairs. She felt suddenly guilty in well-doing. She wondered whether she was a ministering angel or a criminal. Henry stood inthe bright, clean shop, gazing at the disturbed corner from which books had been taken.
"My dear, you're ruining my business," he said mildly and blandly.
"Henry!" She stopped near the foot of the stairs, as it were thunderstruck by a revelation.
"You don't understand how much of it depends on me having lots of books lying about as if they weren't anything at all. That's just what book-collectors like. If everything was ship-shape they wouldn't look twice at the place. Whenever they see a pile of books in the dark they think there must be bargains."
He did not say he was sure she meant for the best, nor praise her enterprise and energy. He merely stated baldly, simply, quietly, impartially, dispassionately a psychological fact. And he asked no questions.
"Oh, Henry! I never thought of that. I'm so sorry."
And she for her part did not try to justify herself. In her self-confident ignorance she had sinned. His perfect tranquillity intimidated her. And he was so disturbingly sure of his position. He stood there in his neat blue Sunday suit, with the necktie hiding all the shirt-front, and the shirt-cuffs quite invisible, and his leather slippers, and his trim, greying beard and full, heavy, crimson lips, and his little eyes (rather fatigued now), and he put the plain truth before her, neither accusing nor excusing. She saw that, witless, she had been endangering the security of their joint future. She felt as though she had had the narrowest escape from actually ruining the business! In her vivacity and her proud carriage she was humbled. She came forward and took his hand.
"How cold your hand is, darling!" (She had never called the late Mr. Arb "darling." She had called him "old josser" and things like that.)
"That's cold water," said he.
"You ought to have warm water to wash in."
He laughed grimly. She knew that so long as the gas-meter clicked he would never allow her to heat wateron the gas-ring for him. He bent and kissed her, and kept his mouth on hers for ages of eternity. They were happy together; they were bound to be happy together. As for her, she would be happy in yielding her will to his, in adopting all his ideas, and in being even more royalist than the king. Her glance fell. She experienced a sensuous pleasure in the passionate resolution to be his disciple and lieutenant. When Elsie, celestially benevolent, appeared with a tray on the stairs, Violet seized her husband's arm to lead him to the back-room. And as she did so she bridled and slightly swayed her body, and gave a sidelong glance at Elsie as if saying: "I am his slave, but I own him, and he belongs to no woman but me."
"Elsie," she said sternly. "You'd better bring that last lot of books down again. Mr. Earlforward thinks they should stay where they were." The indisputable fiat of the sultan, published by his vizier!
"Yes, 'm."
She sat him down in his desk-chair, and as she dispensed his tea she fluttered round him like a whole flock of doves.
"Let me see," said he, with amiable detachment. "Did you give me the account of that one pound you had for spending yesterday?"
Outside, London was bestirring itself from the vast coma of Sunday morning. But inside the sealed house London did not exist. This was the end of the honeymoon; or, if you prefer it, their life was one long honeymoon.
Elsie it always was who every morning breathed the breath of life into the dead nocturnal house, and revived it, and turned it once again from a dark, unresponsive, meaningless and deathlike keep into a human habitation. The dawn helped, but Elsie was the chief agent.
On this morning, which was a Monday, she arose much earlier than in the rest of the week, and even before the dawn. She arose with her sorrow, which left her only when she slept and which was patiently and ruthlessly waiting for her when she awoke. Few people save certain bodily sufferers and certain victims of frustration know the infernal, everlasting perseverance of which pain, physical or mental, is capable. Nevertheless, Elsie's sorrow was lightening by hope. Nearly a year had passed since Joe's departure, and she had invented a purely superstitious idea, almost a creed, that he would reappear on the anniversary of his vanishing. This idea was built on nothing whatever; and although it shot her sorrow through with radiance it also terrified her—lest it should prove false. If it proved false her sorrow would close her in like the black grave.
She raised the blind of her window and dressed; she was dressed in three minutes; she propped the window open to the frosty air, lit the candle, and went downstairs to the bathroom, and as she went the house seemed to resume life under her tread. The bathroom contained nothing but Mrs. Earlforward's safe, under the window,a clothes-horse, a clothes-line or two stretched from window to door, and an orange-box and an oval galvanized iron bath-tub, both of which were in the bath proper. The week's wash lay in the orange-box and in the oval bath. It comprised no large articles—no sheets, no table-cloths, only personal linen (including one grey flannel shirt of Henry's and two collars), a few towels, aprons, cloths, and two pillow-slips. Elsie fearfully lit the ancient explosive geyser, cried "Oh!" and rushed to the window because she had omitted the precaution of opening it, put nearly all the linen into the bath, set the bath on the orange-box in the bath proper, left the bathroom, and returned to it with another "Oh!" to blow out the candle, which she had forgotten. It was twilight now.
In the first-floor front-room, which Mrs. Earlforward called the dining-room and Elsie the parlour, all objects stood plainly revealed as soon as Elsie had drawn up the two blinds. Half of the large table was piled several feet high with books, and the other half covered with a sheet of glass that was just a little small for its purpose. Elsie dusted this glass first, and she dusted it again after she had cleaned the room; not a long operation, the cleaning; she was "round" the room like an express train. When she opened one of the windows to shake her duster the sun was touching the top of the steeple of St. Andrew's, Daphut's yard was unlocked, and trams and lorries were in movement in King's Cross Road.
A beautiful October morning, thought Elsie as she naughtily lingered for ten seconds at the window instead of getting on with her job. She enjoyed the fresh, chill air blowing through Riceyman Steps. Conscience pricked her; she shut the window. Taking crockery and cutlery from the interior of the sideboard, she rapidly laid breakfast on the glass for two. The parlour was now humanized, despite the unlit gas-fire. With a glance at the clock, which rivalled Greenwich in exactitude, but which had a mysterious and disconcerting habit of hurrying when she wanted it to loiter, Elsie hastened away back to the bathroom and gave a knock on the bedroom dooras she passed. The bathroom was beautifully warm. She rolled up her tight sleeves, put on a rough apron, and pushed the oval tub under the thin trickle of steaming water that issued from the burning geyser. She was absorbed utterly in her great life-work, and in the problem of fitting the various parts of it into spaces of time which would scarcely hold them. She had the true devotee's conviction that something very grave, something disastrously affecting the whole world, would happen if she fell short of her ideal in labour. As she bent over the linen in the tub she hummed "God Save the King" to herself.
In the darkened bedroom Violet leaned over from her side of the bed and placed her lips on Henry's in a long, anxious, loving kiss, and felt the responsive upward pressure of his rich, indolent lips. They were happy together, these two, so far as the dreadful risks of human existence would allow. Never a cross word! Never a difference!
"How are you?" she murmured.
"I'm all right, Vi."
"You've got a heavy day in front of you."
"Yes. Fairly. I'm all right."
"Darling, I want you to do something for me, to please me. I know you will."
"I expect I shall."
"I want you to eat a good breakfast before you start. I don't like the idea of you——"
"Oh!That!" he interrupted her negligently. "I always eat as much as I want. Nothing much the matter with me."
"No. Of course there isn't. But I don't like——"
"I say," he interrupted her again. "I tore the seat of my grey trousers on Saturday. I wish you'd just mend it—now. It won't show, anyhow. You can do it in a minute or two."
"You never told me."
The fact was he seldom did tell her anything until he had to tell her. And his extraordinary gift for lettingthings slide was quite unimpaired by the influence of marriage. Her face was still close to his.
"You never told me," she repeated. Then she rose and slipped an old mantle over her night-dress.
"Oh, Harry," she cried, near the window, examining the trousers, "I can't possibly mend this now. It will take me half the morning. You must put on your blue trousers."
"To go to an auction? No. I can't do that. You'll manage it well enough."
"But you've got seven pairs of them, and six quite new!"
Years ago he had bought a job lot of blue suits, which fitted him admirably, for a song. Yes, for a song! At the present rate of usage of suits some of them would go down unworn to his heirs. He had had similar luck with a parcel of flannel shirts. On the other hand, the expensiveness and the mortality of socks worried him considerably.
"I don't think I'll wear the blue," he insisted blandly. "They're too good, those blue ones are."
"Well, I shall mend it in bed," said Violet, brightly yielding. "There must have been a frost in the night."
She got back into bed with the trousers and her stitching gear, and lit the candle which saved the fantastic cost of electric light. As soon as she had done so Mr. Earlforward arose and drew up the blind.
"I think you won't want that," said he, indicating the candle.
"No, I shan't," she agreed, and extinguished the candle.
"You're a fine seamstress," observed Mr. Earlforward with affectionate enthusiasm, "and I like to see you at it."
Violet laughed, pleased and flattered. Simple souls, somehow living very near the roots of happiness—though precariously!
By chance Violet went down into the shop just after the first-post delivery and just before Henry came. She was always later in the shop on Monday mornings than on other mornings because on that day she prepared the breakfast herself and also attended personally to other "little matters," as she called them. Henry had already been into the shop, for such blinds as there were had been drawn up, and he had replenished the bookstand, but too soon for the letters. She noticed the accumulation of dirt in the shop, very gradual, but resistless. Although the two women cleaned the shop, and, indeed, the whole establishment, section by section, with a most regular periodicity, they could not get over the surface fast enough to cope with the unceasing deposit of dirt. And they could not cope at all with, for instance, the grime on the ceiling; to brush the ceiling made it worse. In Henry's eyes, however, the shop was as clean as on the wedding night, and he was as content with it as then; he deprecated his wife's lamentations about its condition. Certainly no one could deny that it still was cleaner than before her advent, and anyhow he could never again have tolerated another vacuum-cleaning, with its absurd costliness; he knew the limits of his capacity for suffering.
Violet unlocked the door and let in the morn, and shivered at the tonic. This act of opening the shop-door, though having picked up the milk she at once closed the door again, seemed to mark another stage in the process which Elsie had begun more than two hours earlier; it broke the spell of night by letting in not only the morn but dailiness. She gathered the envelopes together fromthe floor, and noticed one with a halfpenny stamp, which she immediately opened—furtively. Yes, it was the gas bill for the September quarter, the quarter which ought to be the lightest of the year. And was not! She deciphered the dread total; it affected her like an accusation of crime, like an impeachment for treason. She felt guilty, yet she had done her utmost to "keep the gas down." What would Henry say? She dared not let him see it.... And the electricity bill to follow it in a few days!... Unquestionably Elsie was wasteful. They were all alike, servants were, and even Elsie was not an exception.
At that moment Henry limped down the stairs. Violet hid the bill and envelope in the pocket of her pinafore-apron.
"Here are the letters," she said, seizing the little milk-can and moving forward to meet him. "Just put a match to the stove, will you? I'm late."
She went on towards the stairs.
"We surely shan't want the stove to-day," he stopped her. "We haven't needed it yet. It's going to be a beautiful day."
She had had the fire laid in the stove more than a week ago, perceiving, with her insight into human nature, that a fire laid is already half lighted.
"That's all very well for you—for you to talk like that," she laughed, hiding her disquiet with devilish duplicity under a display of affectionate banter. "You're going out, butIhave to keep shop."
He was dashed.
"Well, you'll see later on. I won't light it now, at any rate. You'll see later on. Of course you must use your own judgment, my dear," he added, courteously, judicial, splendidly fair.
"Elsie," said Violet, peeping into the bathroom on her way upstairs. "Do you really need that geyser full on all the time?" She spoke with nervous exasperation.
"Well, 'm——"
"I don't know what your master will say when hesees the gas-bill that's come in this very moment. I really don't. I daren't show it him." She warningly produced the impeachment.
"Well, 'm, I must make the water hot."
"Yes, I know. But please do be as careful as you can."
"Well, 'm, I've nearly finished." And Elsie dramatically turned off the gas-tap of the geyser.
The gloomy bathroom was like a tropic, and the heat very damp. Linen hung sodden and heavy along the line. The panes of the open window were obscured by steam. The walls trickled with condensed steam. And Elsie's face and arms were like bedewed beetroot. But to Violet the excessive warmth was very pleasant.
"You didn't have any tea this morning," said she, for she had noticed that nobody had been into the kitchen before herself.
"No, 'm. It's no use. If I'm to get through with my work Monday mornings I can't waste my time getting my tea. And that's all about it, 'm."
Elsie, her brow puckered, seemed to be actually accusing her mistress of trying to tempt her from the path of virtue. The contract between employers and employed in that house had long since passed, so far as the employed was concerned, far beyond the plane of the commercial. The employers gave £20 a year; the employed gave all her existence, faculties, energy; and gave them with passion, without reserve open or secret, without reason, sublimely.
"It's her affair," muttered Violet as she mounted to the kitchen to finish preparing breakfast. "It's her affair. If she chooses to work two hours on a Monday morning on an empty stomach, I can't help it." And there followed a shamed little thought: "It saves the gas."
When the breakfast tray was ready she slipped off her blue apron. At the bedroom door she set the tray down on the floor and went into the bedroom to put on the mantle which she had already worn that morning as aseamstress in bed. Before taking the tray again she called out to Elsie:
"Your breakfast's all ready for you, Elsie."
Mr. Earlforward was waiting for her at the dining-room table. He wore his overcoat. In this manner, at his instigation, they proved on chilly mornings that they could ignore the outrageous exactions of coal trusts and striking colliers.
"What's that?" demanded Henry with well-acted indifference as he observed an unusual object on the tray.
"It's a boiled egg. It's for you."
"But I don't want an egg. I never eat eggs."
"But I want you to eat this one." She smiled, cajolingly.
Useless! She was asking too much. He would not eat it.
"It'll be wasted if you don't."
It might be; but he would not be the one to waste it. He calmly ate his bread and margarine, and drank his tea.
"I do think it's too bad of you, Harry. You're wasting away," she protested in a half-broken voice, and added with still more emotion, daringly, defiantly: "And what's the use of a husband who doesn't eat enough, I should like to know?"
A fearful silence. Thunder seemed to rumble menacingly round the horizon; nature itself cowered. Henry blushed slightly, pulling at his beard. Then his voice, quiet, bland, soothing, sweet, inexorable:
"Up to thirty, eat as much as you can. After thirty, as much as you want. After fifty, as little as you can do with."
"But you aren't fifty!"
"No. But I eat as much as I want. I'm the only judge of how much I want. We're all different. My health is quite good."
"You're thinner."
"I was getting stout."
"I prefer you tobea bit stout—much. It's a good sign in a man."
"Question of taste," he said with a humorous, affectionate glance at her.
"Oh, Harry!" she exclaimed violently. "You're a funny man." Then she laughed.
The storm had dissipated itself, save in Violet's heart. She knew by instinct, by intuition, beyond any doubt, that Henry deprived himself in order to lessen the cost of housekeeping—and this although by agreement she paid half the cost out of her separate income! The fact was, Henry was just as jealous of her income as of his own. She trembled for the future. Then for safety, for relief, she yielded to him in her heart; she trusted; her hope was in the extraordinary strength of his character.
Mr. Earlforward ate little, but he would seldom hurry over a meal. At breakfast he would drink several cups of tea, each succeeding one weaker and colder than the last, and would dally at some length with each. He was neither idle nor unconscientious about his work; all that could be charged against him was leisureliness and a disinclination to begin; no urgency would quicken him, because he was seriously convinced that he would get through all right; as a rule, his conviction was justified; he did get through all right, and even when he didn't nothing grave seemed to result. He loved to pick his teeth, even after a meal which was no meal. One of the graces of the table was a little wineglass containing toothpicks; he fashioned these instruments himself out of spent matches. He would calmly and reflectively pick his teeth while trains left stations without him and bargains escaped him. Violet, actuated by both duty and desire, would sit with him at meals until he finally nerved himself to the great decision of leaving the table and passing on to the next matter; but as she never picked her teeth before her public, which was himself, she grew openly restive sometimes. Not, however, this morning. No, this morning she would not even say: "I know you're never late, dear, but——"
When they did arrive in the shop Elsie, having had her breakfast and changed her apron, had already formallyopened the establishment and put the bookstand outside in front of the window. The bookstand, it should be mentioned, could now be moved, fully loaded, by one person with ease, for brilliant Violet had had the idea of taking the castors off the back legs of an old arm-chair and screwing them on to two of the legs of the bookstand, so that you had merely to raise one end of the thing and it slid about as smoothly as a perambulator. Do not despise such achievements of the human brain; such achievements constituted important events in the domestic history of the T. T. Riceyman firm; this one filled Violet with exultation, Henry with pride in his wife, and Elsie with wondering admiration; Elsie never moved the bookstand without glee in the ingenious effectiveness of the contrivance.
Violet, despite the chill, had removed her mantle. She could not possibly wear it in the shop, whatever the temperature, because to do so would be to admit to customers that the shop was cold. Nor would she give an order to light the stove; nor would she have the stove lighted when the master had gone forth on his ways; after the stifled scene at breakfast she must act delicately; moreover, she contemplated a further dangerous, desperate move which might be prejudiced if she availed herself of Henry's authorization to use her own judgment in regard to the stove. So she acquired warmth by helping Elsie with the cleaning and arranging of the shop for the day. The work was done with rapidity.... Customers might now enter without shaming the management. An age had passed since Elsie, preceding the dawn, arose to turn night into day. Looking at it none could suppose that the shop had ever been sheeted and asleep, or that a little milk-can was but recently squatting at the foot of its locked door. Mysterious magic of a daily ritual, unperceived by the priest and priestesses!
Mr. Earlforward was writing out the tail-end of a long bill in the office. He could not use his antique typewriter for bills, because it would not tabulate satisfactorily. He wore his new eyeglasses, memorial of Violet's sole victory over him. She had been forced to makehim a present of the eyeglasses, true; but he did wear them.
"My dear," he summoned her in a rather low voice, and she hastened to him, duster in hand. "Here's this bill for Mr. Bauersch; £148 18s." He blotted the bill with some old blotting-paper which spread more ink than it absorbed. "And here's the stamp. I haven't put it on in case there's any hitch. I asked him if he'd mind paying in cash. Of course he's a very big dealer, but you never know with these New Yorkers, and he's sailing to-morrow, and I've not done any business with him before. He said he wouldn't mind at all."
"I should hope not, indeed!" said Violet, who, nevertheless, was well aware that the master had asked for cash, not from any lack of confidence in the great Bauersch, but because he had a powerful preference for cash; the sight of a cheque did not rouse Henry's imagination.
"It's all ready," said Henry, pointing to two full packing-cases in front of his desk.
"But are we to nail them up, or what?"
"I haven't fastened them. He might want to run through them with the bill."
"Yes," agreed Violet, who nevertheless was well aware that the master had not fastened them because he had postponed fastening them till too late.
"He'll take them away in a car; probably have them re-packed with his other purchases. I hear he's bought over twenty thousand pounds' worth of stuff in London these last three weeks."
"Oh, my!"
"And you can put the money in your safe till I get back."
Henry stood up, took his hat from the top knob of the grandfather's clock, and buttoned his overcoat. He was going to a book auction at Chingby's historic sale-rooms in Fetter Lane. For years he had not attended auctions, for he could never leave the shop for the best part of a day; he had to be content with short visitsto ragged sub-dealers in Whitechapel and Shoreditch, and with such offers of "parcels" as came to him uninvited. He always bought cheap or not at all; but he would sell cheap, with very rare exceptions. If he picked up a first edition worth a pound for two shillings he would sell it for five shillings. Thus he had acquired a valuable reputation for bargains. He was shrewd enough—shrewder than most—and ready to part with money in exchange for stock. Indeed, his tendency was to overstock his shop. Violet's instinct for tidiness and order had combated this tendency, whose dangers he candidly admitted. He had applied the brake to buying. No longer was the staircase embarrassed with heroic and perfect girls in paper dust-jackets! And save in the shop and the office all floors had been cleared of books. A few hundred volumes, in calculated and admired disorder, still encumbered the ground-floor and the lower steps of the staircase, to the end explained by the master to his wife on the morrow of the honeymoon. Stock was now getting a little low, and the master went to certain sales with his wife's full encouragement. He was an autocrat, but where is the autocrat who can escape influence?
"Now do take care of yourself, darling," Violet murmured, almost in a whisper. "And if you go to that A.B.C. shop be sure to order some cold beef. What does it matter if you do miss a few lots?"
"I'll see."
They parted at the shop-door on a note of hard, cheerful indifference: note struck for the sake of the proprieties of a place of business—and utterly false. For Henry loved his wife to worry about him, and Violet's soul was heavy with apprehensions. She saw herself helpless in a situation growing ever more formidable.
Violet was attending to another customer when Mr. Bauersch came into the shop. She ignored him until she had sped the first customer, who happened also to be "in the trade." According to Violet's code, all customers were equal in the sight of the shopkeeper, and although the first customer was shabby and dirty, and carried for his acquisitions a black stuff sack which he slung over his shoulder, Violet would not abate one comma of her code. Nevertheless, while ignoring, she appraised Mr. Bauersch, whom on his previous visits she had only glimpsed once. She was confirmed in her original lightning impression that he bore a resemblance to Henry. He was of about the same age and build; he had the same sort of pointed beard, and the same mild demeanour; and also his suit was of the same kind and colour of cloth as Henry wore on Sundays. But what a different suit from Henry's! It had a waist. Violet did not like that. Unaware that Mr. Bauersch clothed himself in London, she attributed the waist to the decadent eccentricity of New York. Nor did she like the excessive width of the black ribbon which held Mr. Bauersch's pince-nez. Nor did she like the boldly exposed striped shirt—(nobody except Violet and Elsie ever saw even the cuffs of Mr. Earlforward's shirt, to say nothing of the front)—nor the elegant, carefully studied projecting curve of the necktie. In short, Mr. Bauersch failed utterly to match Violet's ideal of a man of business.
She turned to him at last, as he was strolling about curiously, and greeted him with the hard, falsely genial,horrible smile of the suspicious woman who is not going to be done in the eye in a commercial matter. This was not at all the agreeable Violet of the confectioner's shop. And the reason for the transformation was that she had a husband to protect, that the prestige and big transactions of the great Bauersch made her nervous, and that Mr. Bauersch was from New York. Violet, I regret to say, had fixed and uncharitable notions about foreigners. Mr. Bauersch acknowledged her greeting with much courtesy, and with no condescension whatever.
"My name's Bauersch, Mrs. Earlforward," said he. (Why should he so certainly assume that she was Mrs. Earlforward?)
"Oh, yes!" she murmured, simpering. "You've called about the books, I suppose?" Her tone indicated that there was just a chance of his having called about the gas or the weather.
"Yes. Are they all ready for shipping?" (What did he mean by "shipping"? They were ready for him to take away, ready for dispatch.)
She nodded vaguely.
"Those are the cases, no doubt," said Mr. Bauersch, pointing to the office, and walking into it without invitation.
"People aren't supposed to come in here," said Violet, smiling harshly, as she followed him.
He examined the packing of the cases rather negligently, and then turned to the shelves and adjusted his pince-nez.
"Mr. Earlforward left the bill. I don't know whether you'd like to check the volumes."
Mr. Bauersch appeared to be a man of few words. In another minute he had paid down the money in Bank Notes and Treasury Notes. Violet counted and temporarily locked the money away in a drawer of the desk. Strange that this reassuring episode did not soften her attitude!
"May I go and explore a little upstairs?" asked Mr. Bauersch, while she was preparing the receipt.
Evidently Henry, as sometimes he did to customers, had given Mr. Bauersch the freedom of the house during Violet's absence. The house was still very full of books, and free exploration was good for trade; but Violet the house-mistress objected to free exploration.
"I'm afraid I can't go up with you now," said she. "I'm all alone in the shop."
"I quite see." Mr. Bauersch accepted the rebuff with grace, and turned back again to the shelves, and then to the mounds of books on the floor.
Having receipted the bill, Violet ahemmed in the direction of the absorbed Mr. Bauersch, who ignored the signal. Then two young women entered the shop, and Violet decided to punish Mr. Bauersch by attending to them. They wanted "sevenpennies." There were no sevenpennies, and Violet spent at least five minutes with them, making a profit of one penny on the sale of a soiled copy of "The Scapegoat"; she displayed no impatience, and continued to chat after the deal was done and finished; she seemed to part from them with lingering pain.
"How much is this?" Mr. Bauersch demanded, somewhat urgently, holding out a volume; he had come into the shop.
The book was a copy of an eighteenth-century Dutch illustrated edition, octavo, of La Fontaine's Tales. Violet, looking at it, inspected it. She did not know what the book was. But Henry had taught her some general principles: for instance, that any book printed before 1600 is "worth money," that any book of verse printed before 1700 is worth money, and that most illustrated books printed before 1800 are worth money. Also she had learnt to read Roman date numerals. Indeed she had left Elsie out of sight in the race for knowledge. The price of the book was marked in cipher, inside the front-cover—ten shillings. In Elsie's viceroyalty allprices had been marked in plain figures—largely for the convenience of Elsie. But under Violet plain figures were gradually being abolished; there was no need for them, and they were apt to interfere with Violet's freedom of action in determining prices to suit the look and demeanour of customers.
"A pound," she answered.
"Put it in, please." Mr. Bauersch pulled out a Treasury Note. "We won't haggle. Now I must have these cases sent down to the American Express Company's at once, please, at once. I'll have the books checked there. I've got a pile of stuff collected there, and they must leave London to-night, sure."
"Mr. Earlforward told me you would take the cases away with you in your car."
"Me take them away with me!... Well, in the first place, I've come in a taxi. And in the second place, I couldn't put those in a car. And they won't hold in a taxi either. I'll be glad if you'll send them down."
"I'm very sorry, but I don't see how I can send them. I haven't anybody here, as I've told you." She was unhelpful, adamantine.
"Mr. Earlforward isn't in?" Mr. Bauersch's tone had begun to roughen in impatience.
"Oh no!" She swept aside such an absurd impossibility. "But I'm sure he understood you were taking them away." (She perceived, however, that Henry had involved her in this difficulty in order to escape the cost of delivery.)
"Do you know where he is?"
"I couldn't say exactly; he might be at a sale at Chingby's."
"Well, will you mind telephoning to him and saying——"
"We don't have the telephone here," she replied, with cold triumph, remembering Henry's phrase, "those New Yorkers."
"Well, can you send to a garage and get a van or something for me?"
"I couldn't unless I went myself."
"Well, whereisthe nearest garage?"
"I'm sure I couldn't tell you."
Using words in a sense in which Violet had never heard them used, Mr. Bauersch dashed out of the shop to speak to his taxi-driver. He returned in ten minutes. In the meantime Violet had hammered the lids on the two cases. In possession of both the money and the books she had maintained all her tranquillity. Mr. Bauersch had come back with a Ford van in addition to his taxi. He led the driver of the taxi and the driver of the van into the office, and instructed them to remove the cases.
"The receipt, if you please," he said dryly to Violet, who handed him the receipt, but showed none of the clemency due from a conqueror to the defeated.
Mr. Bauersch moralized (to himself) about English methods.
"Whydothey hate the sight of a customer?" he asked himself, puzzled. "I'll never come into this damned store again!" he said to himself.
But he well knew that on his next visit he would come into the damned shop again, because the shop had the goods he wanted, and didn't care whether he bought them or not. If he could have ruined the shop by never coming into it again he would perhaps have ruined the shop. But it was the shop's cursed indifference that spiritually beat him and ensured the triumph of the astonishing system.