Riceyman Steps(Including 'Elsie and the Child'), page 4
He made no reply.
‘You promise me, darling Joe?’ she insisted.
He nodded; he could not speak in his desolation and in his servitude to her. She smiled her lovely thanks for his obedience.
‘Now let me see ye start off,’ she cajoled him. ‘I know ye. I know what you’ll do if I don’t see you start with me own eyes.’
‘Then it’s to-morrow night?’ he said gruffly.
She nodded. They kissed again. Elsie pushed him away, and then stood watching until he had vanished round the corner of the disused Mission Hall into King’s Cross Road. She stood watching, indeed, for some moments after that. She was crying.
‘My word!’ said Mrs Arb vivaciously. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you meant to come back, after all. You’ve been that long your tea’ll be cold. Here’s the ham, and very nice it is too.’
8
The Carving-Knife
The two women were working together in a living-room over the shop. An oil-lamp had been hung on a hook which would have held a curtain loop had there been any curtains. The lamp, tilted slightly forward, had a round sheltered reflector behind it. Thus a portion of the lower part of the room was brilliantly lighted and all the rest of the room in shadow. Elsie was scrubbing the floor in the full glare of the reflector. She scrubbed placidly and honestly, with no eagerness, but with no sign of fatigue. Mrs Arb sat in the fireplace with her feet upraised out of the damp on the rail of a chair, and cleaned the mantelpiece. She had worked side by side with Elsie through the evening, silent sometimes, vivaciously chatty sometimes – desirous generally of collecting useful pieces of local information. Inevitably a sort of community had established itself between the two women. Mrs Arb would talk freely and yet give nothing but comment. Elsie talked little and yet gave many interesting facts.
‘Let me see,’ said Mrs Arb with a casual air. ‘It’s that Mr Earlforward you say you work for in the mornings, isn’t it?’
‘But I told you I did when you sent me in about the book, ’m. And I told you before that, too,’ Elsie answered, surprised at such forgetfulness.
‘Oh, of course you did. Well, does he live all alone?’
‘Oh, yes, ’m.’
‘And what sort of a gentleman is he?’
Elsie, instinctively loyal, grew cautious.
‘He’s a very nice gentleman, ’m.’
‘Treats you well, does he?’
‘Well, of course, ’m, he has his ways. But he’s always very nice.’
‘Nice and polite, eh?’
‘Yes, ’m. And I’ll say this, too: he never tries to take any liberties. No, that he doesn’t!’
‘And so he has his ways. Is he eccentric?’
‘Oh, no, ’m! At least, I don’t know what you mean, ’m, I’m sure I don’t. He’s very particular in some things; but, then, in plenty of things he takes no notice of you, and you can do it or leave it as you choose.’ Elsie suspected and mildly resented a mere inquisitiveness on the part of Mrs Arb, and added quickly: ‘I think this floor’s about done.’
She wrung a cloth out in the pail at her right hand. The clock below struck its quick, wiry, reverberating note. It kept on striking.
‘That’s never eleven o’clock!’ Mrs Arb exclaimed, completely aware that it was eleven o’clock. ‘How time flies when you’re hard at it, doesn’t it?’
Elsie silently disagreed with this proposition. In her experience of toil she had found that time lagged.
‘Well, Elsie, I’m sure I’m much obliged to you. I can finish myself. Don’t you stay a minute longer.’
‘No, ’m,’ said Elsie, who had exchanged three hours’ overtime for sixpence and a slice of ham.
At this moment, and before Elsie had raised her damp knees from the damp floor, a very sharp and imperious tapping was heard.
‘My gracious! Who’s that?’
‘It’s the shop-door,’ said Elsie.
‘I’ll go.’ Mrs Arb decided the procedure quite cheerfully. She was cheerful because the living-room, with other rooms, was done, and in a condition fit to be seen by possible purchasers of her premises and business; she had no intention to live in the living-room herself. And also she was cheerful because of a wild and silly, and yet not wholly silly, idea that the rapping at the shop-door came from Mr Earlforward, who had made for himself some absurd man-like excuse for calling again that night. She had, even thus early, her notions about Mr Earlforward. The undying girl in her ran downstairs with a candle and unlocked the shop-door. As she opened it a man pushed forward roughly into the shop – not Mr Earlforward; a young man with a dangerous look in his burning eyes, and gestures indicating dark excitement.
‘What do you want?’ she demanded, trying to control the situation firmly and not succeeding.
The young man glanced at her. She perceived that he carried a torn umbrella and that his clothes were very wet. She heard the heavy rain outside.
‘You can’t come in here at this time of night,’ she added. ‘The shop’s closed.’
She gave a sign for him to depart. She actually began to force him out; mere temerity on her part. She thought:
‘Why am I doing this? He might attack me.’
Instead of departing the young man dropped his umbrella and sprang for the big carving-knife which she had left on the counter after cutting the slice of ham for Elsie. In that instant Mrs Arb decided absolutely and without any further vacillation that she would sell the place, sell it at once, and for what it would fetch. Already she had been a little alarmed by the sinister aspect of several of her customers. She remembered the great Clerkenwell murder. She saw how foolish she had been ever to come to Clerkenwell at all. The man waved the carving-knife over his head and hers.
‘Where’s Elsie?’ he growled savagely, murderously.
Mrs Arb began dimly to understand.
‘This comes of taking charwomen you don’t know,’ she said pathetically to herself. ‘And yet I could have sworn by that girl.’
Then a strong light shone in the doorway leading to the back-room. Elsie stood there holding the wall-lamp in her hand. As soon as he caught sight of her the man, still brandishing the knife, ran desperately towards her. She hesitated and then retreated a little. The man plunged into the room and banged the door.
After that Mrs Arb heard not a sound. She was nonplussed, helpless and panic-stricken. Ah! If the late Mr Arb had been alive, how he would have handled the affair! Not by force, for he had never been physically strong. But by skill, by adroitness, by rapid chicane. Only she could not imagine precisely what the late Mr Arb would have done in his unique and powerful sagacity. She was overwhelmed by a sudden and final sense of the folly, the tragedy, of solitary existence for a woman like her. She had wisdom, energy, initiative, moral strength, but there were things that women could do and things that women could not do; and a woman who was used to a man needed a man for all sorts of purposes, and she resolved passionately that she would not live alone another day longer than she could help.
This resolve, however, did not mitigate her loneliness in the candle-lit shop with the shut door in front of her hiding dreadful matters and the rain pelting on the flagstones of Riceyman Steps. She looked timidly forth; a policeman might by Heaven’s mercy be passing. If not, she must run in the wet, as she was, to the police-station. She then noticed a faint light in Mr Earlforward’s shop, and dashed across. Through the window she could see Mr Earlforward walking in his shop with a candle in his hand. She tattooed wildly on the window. A tramcar thundered down King’s Cross Road, tremendously heedless of murders. After a brief, terrible interval the lock of Mr Earlforward’s portal grated, and Mr Earlforward appeared blandly in the doorway holding the candle.
‘Oh, Mr Earlforward!’ she cried, and stepped within, and clutched his sleeve and told him what had occurred. And as she poured out the words, and Mr Earlforward kept apparently all his self-possession and bland calm, an exquisite and intense feeling of relief filled her whole being.
‘I’ll come over,’ said Mr Earlforward. ‘Rather wet, isn’t it?’
He cut a fine figure in the eyes of Mrs Arb. He owed his prestige at that moment, however, not to any real ability to decide immediately and courageously upon the right, effective course to follow, but to the simple fact that his reactions were very slow. Mr Earlforward was always afraid after the event. He limped vigorously into the dangers of Mrs Arb’s dwelling with his placidity undisturbed by the realization of those dangers. And he had no conception of what he should do. Mrs Arb followed timorously.
The door into Mrs Arb’s back-room was now wide open; the lamp near the carving-knife burnt on the white table there. Also the candle was still burning in the shop, but the umbrella had vanished from the shop floor. The back-room was empty. No symptom of murder, nor even of a struggle! Only the brief, faint rumble of an Underground train could be heard and felt in the silence.
‘Perhaps he’s chased her upstairs.’
‘I’ll go and see. Anyhow, he’s left the knife behind him.’ Mr Earlforward picked up the carving-knife, and thereby further impressed Mrs Arb.
‘Take the lamp,’ said Mrs Arb.
‘Nobody up here!’ he called from the first floor. Mrs Arb ascended. Together they looked into each room.
‘She’s taken her jacket!’ exclaimed Mrs Arb, noticing the empty peg behind the door when they came down again to the back-room.
‘Ah! That’s better,’ Mr Earlforward commented, expelling breath.
‘I’ve left my candle lighted,’ he said a moment later. ‘I’ll go and blow it out.’
‘But—’
‘Oh! I’m coming back. I’m coming back.’
While he was gone Mrs Arb had a momentary lapse into terror. Suppose—! She glimpsed again the savage and primeval passion half-disclosed in the gestures and the glance of the young man, hints of forces uncontrollable, terrific and fatal.
‘I expect he’s that young fellow that’s running after her,’ said Mr Earlforward when he returned. ‘Seems he’s had shell-shock! So I heard. She’ll have to leave him alone – that’s clear!’ He was glad to think that he had found a new argument to help him to persuade Elsie not to desert him.
‘She seemed to be so respectable!’ observed Mrs Arb.
‘Well, she is!’
‘Poor girl!’ sighed Mrs Arb; she felt a genuine, perturbing compassion for Elsie. ‘Ought I to go and tell the police, Mr Earlforward?’
‘If I were you I shouldn’t have the police meddling. It’s all right. It’s all right.’
‘Well, anyhow, I can’t pass the night here by myself. No, I can’t. And that’s flat!’ She smiled almost comically.
‘You go off to bed,’ said Mr Earlforward, with a magnificent wave of the hand. ‘I’ll make myself comfortable in this rocking-chair. I’ll stop till daylight.’
Mrs Arb said that she couldn’t think of such a thing, and that he was too kind. He mastered her. Then she said she would put a bit of coal on the fire.
‘You needn’t.’ He stopped her. ‘I’ll go across and get my overcoat and a quilt, and lock up there. It’ll be all right. It’ll be all right.’
He reappeared with his overcoat on and the quilt a little rain-spotted. Mrs Arb was wearing a long thick mantle.
‘What’s this?’ he asked. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’
‘I couldn’t leave you to sit up by yourself. I couldn’t, really. I’m going to sit up too.’
9
Sunday Morning
‘She never came to you this morning?’ questioned Mr Earlforward with eager and cheerful interest.
‘No. Did she to you?’
Mr Earlforward shook his head, smiling.
‘You seem to be quite the philosopher about it,’ said Mrs Arb. ‘But it must be most inconvenient for a man.’
‘Oh, no! I can always manage, I can.’
‘Well, it’s very wonderful of you – that’s all I say.’
This was Sunday morning, the third day after the episode of the carving-knife.
‘What’s so funny,’ said Mrs Arb, ‘is that she should come yesterday and Friday, just as if nothing had happened, and yet she doesn’t come to-day! And yet it was settled plainly enough she was to come – early, an hour to you and an hour to me, wasn’t it now? I do think she might have sent round a message or something – even if she is ill.’
‘Yes, but you see it never strikes them the inconvenience they’re causing. Not that she’s a bad girl. She’s a very good girl.’
‘They always work better for gentlemen,’ remarked Mrs Arb with an air vivacious and enigmatic.
Mr Earlforward, strolling towards the steps, had chanced – if in this world there is such a thing as chance – to see Mrs Arb, all dressed, presumably, for church – standing in her shop and regarding the same with the owner’s critical, appreciative eye. Mr Earlforward had a good view of her, as anybody else might have had, because only the blue blind of the door was down, this being the recognized sufficient sign to the public of a shut shop. The two small windows had blinds, but they were seldom drawn, except to protect butter against sunshine. The pair had exchanged smiles, Mrs Arb had hospitably unlocked, and Mr Earlforward had entered. To him she presented a finely satisfactory appearance, dressed in black, with vermilion flowers in her hat, good shoes on her feet, and good uncreased gloves held in her ringed hand. She was slim – Mr Earlforward thought of her as petite – but she was imposing, with all her keen restlessness of slight movements and her changing glance. No matter how her glance changed it was always the glance of authority and of intelligence.
On her part, Mrs Arb beheld Mr Earlforward with favour. His pointed short beard, so well trimmed, seemed to give him the status of a pillar of society. She still liked his full red lips and his fresh complexion. And he was exceedingly neat. True, he wore the same black, shirt-hiding tie as on weekdays, and his wristbands were still invisible; his hat and overcoat were not distinguished! But he had on a distinguished new blue suit; she was quite sure that he was inaugurating it that day. His slight limp pleased and touched her. His unshakeable calmness impressed her. Oh! He was a man with reserves, both of character and of goods. Secure in these reserves he could front the universe. He was self-reliant without being self-confident. He was grave, but his little eyes had occasionally a humorous gleam. She had noticed the gleam even when he picked up the carving-knife on Thursday night. His demeanour in that dreadful crisis had been perfect. In brief, Mr Earlforward, considered as an entity, was nearly faultless.
Mr Earlforward, on the other hand, was still secretly trembling as he realized more and more clearly the dangers which he had narrowly escaped in the Thursday night affair; and he had not begun to tremble until Friday morning!
‘Rather early, isn’t it, if you’re going to church?’ he suggested.
‘I always like to be early if it’s a strange church, and I’ve not been in there at all yet.’
‘St Andrew’s?’
‘I don’t know what its name is. The one up the steps in the middle of the Square.’
‘Yes. St Andrew’s, that is.’
Without another word they then by a common impulse both moved out of the shop, which Mrs Arb smartly locked up. In spite of the upset caused by Elsie’s defection, and the prospect of future trouble and annoyance in this connexion, they were very happy, and they had quite overlooked the fact that their combined years amounted to ninety, or thereabouts. The sun was feebly shining on the Sabbath scene. The bells of St Andrew’s were jangling.
‘I see you have some plant-pots on your top window-sill,’ observed Mrs Arb. ‘Do you ever water them?’
An implied criticism! Mr Earlforward enjoyed it, for it proved that they were getting intimate, as, indeed, became two people who had slept (well) opposite one another in two chairs through the better part of a coldish night.
‘I do not,’ said Mr Earlforward, waggishly, stoutly.
The truth was that for years he had seen the plant-pots without noticing them. They were never moved, never touched. The unconquerable force of nature was illustrated in the simple fact that one or two of the plants still sturdily lived, displaying a grimy green.
‘I love plants,’ said Mrs Arb.
They passed up the steps, Mr Earlforward a foot or so behind his heroine.
‘Now what I don’t understand,’ said she, turning upon him and stopping, ‘is why the Square should be so much higher than the road. It means that all the carts and things, even the milk-carts, have to go all the way round by Gilbert Street to get into the Square from the side. Why couldn’t they have had it all on the same level?’
Exquisitely feminine! he thought. ‘Why couldn’t they have had it all on the same level?’ Absurd! Delicious! He adored the delicious, girlish absurdity.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s like this. You see, in the old days they used to make tiles in Clerkenwell, and they scooped out the clay for the tiles in large quantities – and this is the result.’
With a certain eagerness he amplified the explanation.
‘I should never have thought of that,’ said Mrs Arb ingenuously but archly. ‘What sort of church is St Andrew’s?’
‘Oh! It was built in the ’thirties and cost £4,541. Cheap! I doubt if you’d build it today for twenty thousand. Supposed to hold eleven hundred people.’
‘Really! But I mean, is it High or Low, or Broad? I must say I don’t like ’em very High or very Low. I do hope it’s Broad.’
