Riceyman Steps(Including 'Elsie and the Child'), page 3
There were dozens of such little shops in and near King’s Cross Road. The stock, and also the ornamentation, of the shop came chiefly from the wholesalers of advertised goods made up into universally recognizable packets. Several kinds of tea in large quantities, and picturesque, bright tea-signs all around the shop. Several kinds of chocolate, in several kinds of fancy polished-wood glazed stands. (But the chocolate of one maker was in the stand of another.) All manner of patent foods, liquid and solid, each guaranteed to give strength. Two competitors in margarine. Scores of paper bags of flour. Some loaves; two hams, cut into. A milk-churn in the middle of the shop. Tinned fruits. Tinned fish. Tinned meats. And in the linoleum-lined window the cakes and bon-bons which entitled the shop to style itself ‘confectioner’s’. Dirty ceiling; uneven dark wood floor; frowsy, mysterious corners; a shabby counter covered with linoleum in black-and-white check, like the bottom of the window. One chair; one small, round, iron table. No cash-desk. No writing apparatus of any sort. A smell of bread, ham and biscuits. A poor little shop, showing no individuality, no enterprise, no imagination, no potentiality of reasonable profits. A shop which saved the shopkeeper from the trouble of thinking for himself. The inevitable result of big advertising, and kept up to the average mark by the constant visitation of hurried commercial travellers and collectors who had the magic to extract money out of empty tills.
And Mrs Arb, thin, bright, cheerful, with scintillating eyes; in a neat check dress and a fairly clean white apron! Yes, she was bright, she was cheerful, she had a keen face. Perhaps that was what had attracted Mr Earlforward, who was used to neither cheerfulness nor brightness. Yet he thought: ‘It would have been just about the same if she’d been a gloomy woman.’ Perhaps he had been attracted because she had life, energy, down-rightness, masterfulness.
‘Good evening, Mr Earlforward. And what can I do for you?’ She greeted him suddenly, vivaciously, as the fat customer departed.
She knew him, then! She knew his real name. She knew that his name did not accord with the sign over his shop. Her welcoming smile inspired him, as alcohol would have inspired him had he ever tasted it. He was uplifted to a higher plane of existence. And also, secretly, he was a little bit flurried; but his demeanour did not betray this. A clock struck rapidly in some room behind the shop, and at the sound Mrs Arb sprang from behind the counter, shut and locked the shop-door, and drew down its blind for a sign to the world that business was over for the day. She had a fine movement with her. In getting out of her way Mr Earlforward strove to conceal his limp as much as possible.
‘I thought I’d just look in about that cookery-book you wanted,’ said he.
‘It’s very kind of you I’m sure,’ said she. ‘But I really don’t think I shall need it.’
‘Oh!’
‘No! I think I shall get rid of this business. There’s no doing anything with it.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Mr Earlforward. And he was.
‘It isn’t as if I didn’t enjoy it – at first. Quite a pleasant change for me to take something in hand. My husband died two years ago and left me nicely off, and I’ve been withering up ever since, till this came along. It’s no life, being a widow at my age. But I couldn’t stand this either, for long. There’s no bounce to this business, if you understand what I mean. It’s like hitting a cushion.’
‘You’ve soon decided.’
‘I haven’t decided. But I’m thinking about it … You see, it’s a queer neighbourhood.’
‘Queer?’ He was shocked, perhaps a little hurt, but his calm tone disclosed nothing of that. He had a desire to explain to Mrs Arb at great length that the neighbourhood was one of almost unique interest.
‘Well, you know what I mean. You see, I come from Fulham – Chelsea you might call it. I’m not saying that when I lived in this shop before – eighteen years ago, is it? – I’m not saying I thought it was a queer neighbourhood then. I didn’t – and I was here for over a year, too. But I do now.’
‘I must confess it hasn’t struck me as queer.’
‘You know this King’s Cross Road?’ Mrs Arb proceeded with increased ardour. ‘You know it? You’ve walked all along it?’
‘Yes.’
‘So have I. Oh! I’ve looked about me. Is there a single theatre in it? Is there one music-hall? Is there once dance-hall? Is there one picture theatre? Is there one nice little restaurant? Or a tea-shop where a nice person could go if she’d a mind? … And yet it’s a very important street; it’s full of people all day. And you can walk for miles round here and see nothing. And the dirt and untidiness! Well, I thought Fulham was dirty. Now look at this Riceyman Square place, up behind those funny steps! I walked through there. And I lay there isn’t one house in it – not one – without a broken window! The fact is, the people about here don’t want things nice and kept … I’m not meaning you – certainly not! But people in general. And they don’t want anything fresh, either. They only want all the nasty old things they’ve always had, same as pigs. And yet I must say I admire pigs, in a way. Oh, dear!’ She laughed, as if at herself, a tinkling laugh, and looked down, with her steady agreeable hand still on the door.
Twice before she had looked down. It was more than coyness, better than coyness, more genuinely exciting. When she laughed her face crinkled up very pleasantly. She had energy. All the time her body made little movements. Her glance varied, scintillating, darkling. Her tone ceaselessly varied. And she had authority. She was a masterful woman, but masterful in a broad-minded, genial manner. She was experienced, and had learnt from experience. She must be over forty … And still, somehow girlish! Best of all, she was original; she had a point of view. She could see. Mr Earlforward hated Clerkenwell to be damned. Yet he liked her to damn it … And how natural she was, dignified, but not ceremonious, willing to be friends at once! He repeated to himself that from the first sight of her he had known her to be a highly remarkable creature.
‘I brought the book along,’ he said, prudently avoiding argument. She took it amiably from him, and out of politeness inspected it again.
‘You shall have it for ninepence. And you might be needing it after all, you know.’
With her face still bent towards ‘Snacks and Titbits’ she raised her eyes to his eyes – it seemed roguishly.
‘I might! I might!’ She shut the book with a smart snap. ‘But I won’t go beyond sixpence, thank you all the same. And not as I don’t think it’s very kind of you to bring it over.’
What a woman! What a woman! She was rapidly becoming the most brilliant, attractive, competent, and comfortable woman on earth; and Mr Earlforward was rapidly becoming a hero, a knight, a madman capable of sublime deeds. He felt an heroical impulse such as he had never felt. He fought it, and was beaten.
‘See here,’ he said quietly, and with unconscious grandeur. ‘We’re neighbours. I’ll make you a present of the book.’
Did she say, as a silly little creature would have said: ‘Oh, no! I couldn’t possibly. I really couldn’t’? Not a bit. She said simply:
‘It’s most kind of you, Mr Earlforward. It really is. Of course I accept it with pleasure. Thank you.’
And she looked down, like a girl who has received a necklace and clasped it on her neck. Yes, she looked down. The moment was marvellous to Mr Earlforward.
‘But I do think you’re a little hard on Riceyman Square,’ he said, as she unlocked the door for his departure.
She replied gaily and firmly: ‘Not one house without a broken pane!’ she insisted and held out her hand.
‘Well, we must see one day,’ said he.
She nodded.
‘And if there is,’ she said, ‘I shall pay you a shilling for the book. That’s fair.’
She shook hands. Mr Earlforward crossed the space between her shop and his with perfect calmness, and as he approached his door he took from his pocket with the mechanical movement of regular habit a shining key.
6
Mrs Arb’s Case
You would have thought, while Mrs Arb was talking to Mr Earlforward, that the enigma of the universe could not exist in her presence. Yet as soon as she was alone it was there, pervading the closed little shop. By letting Mr Earlforward out she had let the enigma in; she had re-locked the door too late. She stood forlorn, apprehensive, and pathetically undecided in the middle of the shop, and gazed round at the miserable contents of the shop with a dismayed disillusion. Brightness had fallen from her. Impossible to see in her now the woman whose abundant attractive vitality had vitalized Mr Earlforward into a new and exalted frame of mind!
She had married, raising herself somewhat, in her middle twenties, a clerk of works, popular not only with architects, but with contractors. Mr Arb had been clerk of works to some of the very biggest erections of the century. His vocation carried him here and there – wherever a large building was being put up; it might be a provincial town hall, or a block of offices in London, or a huge hydro on some rural country-side, or an explosives factory in the middle of pasture land. And Mr Arb’s jobs might last any length of time, from six months to three or four years. Consequently he had had no fixed residence. As there were no children his wife would always go about with him, and they would live in furnished rooms. This arrangement was cheaper than keeping a permanent home in London, and much more cheerful and stimulating. For Mr Arb it had the advantages (with the disadvantages) of living with a wife whose sole genuine interest, hobby, and solicitude was her husband; all Mrs Arb’s other social relations were bound to be transitory and lukewarm. When Mr Arb died he left a sum of money surprisingly large in view of the fact that clerks of works do not receive high salaries. Architects, hearing of the nice comfortable fortune, were more surprised than contractors. A clerk of works has great power. A clerk of works may be human.
Mrs Arb found herself with an income but no home, no habit of home life, and no masculine guidance or protection. She was heart-stricken, and – what was worse – she was thoroughly disorganized. Her immense vitality had no outlet. Time helped her, but she lived in suspense, undecided what to do and not quite confident in her own unaided wisdom. An incredible letter from a solicitor announcing that she had inherited the confectioner’s business and premises and some money in Riceyman Steps shook and roused her. These pleasant and promising things had belonged to her grandmother’s much younger half-sister, whom she had once helped by prolonged personal service in a great emergency. The two had not met for many years, owing to Mrs Arb’s nomadic existence; but they had come together at the funeral of Mr Arb, and had quarrelled magnificently, because of Mrs Arb’s expressed opinion that the old lady’s clothes showed insufficient respect for the angelic dead. The next event was the solicitor’s letter; the old lady had made a death-bed repentance for the funeral costume. Mrs Arb abandoned the furnished rooms in Fulham, where she had been desiccating for two years, and flew to Clerkenwell in an eager mood of adventure. She did not like Clerkenwell, nor the look of the business, and she was beginning to be disappointed, but at worst she was far happier and more alive than she had ever been since Mr Arb’s death.
She had, nevertheless, a cancer – not a physical one: a secret abiding terror lest despite all her outward assurance she might be incapable of managing her possessions. The more she inherited, the more she feared. She had a vision of the business going wrong, of her investments going wrong, and of herself in poverty and solitude. This dread was absurd, but not less real for that. It grew. She tried to counter it by the practice of severe economy.
The demeanour of Mr Earlforward, and his gift, had suddenly lightened her horizon. But the moment he departed she began saying to herself that she was utterly silly to indulge in such thoughts as she had been thinking, that men were not ‘like that’, that men knew what they were about and what they wanted – and she looked gloomily in the fancy mirror provided by a firm of cocoa manufacturers and adorned with their name at the top and their address at the bottom.
She put pieces of gauze over the confectionery in the window and over the two bony remnants of ham, placed the chair seat downwards on the counter, and tilted the little table against the counter; then extinguished the oil-lamp, which alone lit the shop, and went into the back room, lighted by another similar oil-lamp. In this room, which was a parlour-kitchen, and whose principal table had just been scrubbed, Elsie, a helot withdrawn from the world and dedicated to secret toil, was untying her sack apron preparatory to the great freedom of the night.
‘Oh, Elsie – you did say your name was Elsie, didn’t you?’
‘Yes’m.’
‘I should take it very kindly if you could stay a bit longer this evening.’
Elsie was dashed; she paused on the knot of the apron-string.
‘It’s a quarter of an hour past my time now, ’m,’ she said apologetically and humbly.
‘It is? So it is. Well, not quite.’
‘I had an engagement, ’m.’
‘Couldn’t you put it off for this once? You see, I’m very anxious to get straight after all this mess I’ve been in. I’m one that can’t stand a mess. I’ll give you your supper – I’ll give you a slice of ham – and sixpence extra.’
‘I’m sure it’s very kind of you, ’m, but—’
Mrs Arb coaxed, and she could coax very effectively.
‘Well, ’m, I always like to oblige.’ Elsie yielded, not grudgingly nor with the air of conferring a favour, but rather with a mild and pure kindliness. She added, coaxing in her turn: ‘But I must just run out half a minute, if you’ll let me.’
‘Oh, of course. But don’t be long, will you? Look, here’s your half-day and the extra sixpence. Take it now. And while you’re out I’ll be cutting the ham for you. It’s a pity I’ve turned out the shop lamp, but I daresay I can see if I leave this door open.’ She gave the girl some silver.
‘I’m sure it’s very kind of you, ’m.’
Mrs Arb cut an exceedingly thin slice of ham quite happily. She had two reasons for keeping Elsie; she wanted to talk to somebody, and she felt that, whether she talked or not, she could not bear to be alone in the place till bed-time. Her good spirits returned.
7
Under an Umbrella
The entrance-gates to the yard of Daphut, the builder and stonemason, which lay between Mrs Arb’s shop and the steps proper, were set back a little from the general frontage of the north side of Riceyman Steps, so that there was a corner at that point sheltered from east and north-east winds. In this corner stood a young man under an old umbrella; his clothes were such as would have entitled him to the newspaper reporter’s description, ‘respectably dressed’ – no better. His back was against the blind wall of Mrs Arb’s. It was raining again, with a squally wind, but the wind being in the north-east the young man was only getting spotted with rain. A young woman ran out of Mrs Arb’s and joined him. She placed herself close to him, touching him, breast to breast; it was the natural and rational thing to do, and also she had to receive as much protection as possible from the umbrella. The girl was wearing all Elsie’s clothes. Elsie’s sack-apron covered her head and shoulders like a bridal veil. But she was not Mrs Arb’s Elsie nor Mr Earlforward’s! She was not the drudge. She had suddenly become a celestial visitant. The attributes of such an unearthly being were in her shining face and in the solace of her little bodily movements; and her extraordinary mean and ugly apparel could not impair them in the least. The man, slowly, hesitatingly, put one arm round her waist – the other was occupied with the umbrella. She yielded her waist to him, and looked up at the man, and he looked down at her. Not a word. Then he said in a deep voice:
‘Where’s your hat – and things?’
He said this as one who apprehended calamity.
‘I haven’t finished yet,’ she answered gently. ‘I’m that sorry.’
‘How long shall you be?’
‘I don’t know, Joe. She’s all by herself, and she begged and prayed me to stop on and help her. She’s all by herself, and strange to it. And I couldn’t find it in my heart to refuse. You have to do what’s right, haven’t you?’
The man’s chin fell in a sort of sulky and despairing gloom; but he said nothing; he was not a facile talker, even on his best days. She took the umbrella from him without altering its position.
‘Put both arms round me, and hold me tight,’ she murmured.
He obeyed, reluctantly, tardily, but in the end fiercely. After a long pause he said:
‘And my birthday and all!’
‘I know! I know!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Joe! It can’t be helped!’
He had many arguments, and good ones, against her decision; but he could not utter them. He never could argue. She just gazed up at him softly. Tears began to run down his cheeks.
‘Now, now!’ she soothed him. With her free hand she worked up the tail of her apron between them, and, while still fast in his clutch, wiped his eyes delicately. She kissed him, keeping her lips on his. She kissed him until she knew from the feel of his muscles everywhere that the warm soft contact with her had begun to dissolve his resentment. Then she withdrew her lips and kissed him again, differently. They stood motionless in the dark corner under the umbrella, and the rain pattered dully on the umbrella and dropped off the umbrella and round them, and pattered with a brighter sound on the flagstones of Riceyman Steps. A few people passed at intervals up and down the steps. But the clasped pair ignored them; and the wayfarers did not look twice, nor even smile at the lovers, who, in fact, were making love as honest love is made by lovers whose sole drawing-rooms and sofas are the street.
‘Look here, Joe,’ Elsie whispered. ‘I want you to go home now. But you must call at Smithson’s on yer way – they don’t close till nine o’clock – and get them braces as I’m giving you for a birthday present. I see ’em still in the window this morning. I should have slipped in and bought ’em then, but I was on an errand for Mr Earlforward, and, besides, I didn’t like to, somehow, without you, and me with my apron on too. But you must buy ’em to-night so as you can wear ’em to-morrow. I want to say to myself to-morrow morning, “He’s wearing them braces.” I’ve brought you the money.’ She loosed one of his hands from her waist, got at the silver in her pocket, and inserted it into his breast pocket. ‘You promise me, Joe? It’s a fair and square promise?’
