The Horses' Mouth, page 10
But pretty soon the chairs came knocking up against the door. Just as I was opening the first bottle they knocked it ajar. As the people in front made themselves comfortable and stretched their legs and pushed backwards to snatch a little floor from the people behind. As happens at all meetings, except in a church with good Christian traditions, where they screw the pews to the floor. In the end they pushed one chair backwards right through my door, and when I tried to push it back again, Plantie got up and began to shake his moustache and introduce Professor Ponting, who turned out to be the moon-coloured young gentleman against the wall; the skate.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Plantie, ‘we have tonight the great privilege——’
I pushed the chair forwards and the Christians pushed it back; ten to one. But still I might have got the door shut if just then the old crawfish hadn’t come working sideways along the row, apologizing and groaning, and sticking her umbrella into everybody’s eyes; until she got her backside wedged up against the scullery door. Then everybody began to hiss at her and she got her umbrella jammed between a chair and an old man’s waistcoat, and some good Christian, looking carefully the other way, gave her a hard shove with his shoulder and she tumbled into the scullery. She fell on the empty chair, panting like a steamboat, and then began to push her dress about and pull her bonnet and jerk her legs and elbows, as old women do when they’re flustered. But all at once she felt me just behind her and gave a jump and turned half round. And I said, ‘Sara.’
‘Oh Gulley,’ she said. ‘You did give me a start.’ And she went on panting and heaving and pushing herself about. ‘Oh dear, I do get so breathless.’
‘And what are you doing here, Sall? In a bonnet too.’
‘Well, didn’t you get my card, or my letter?’
I remembered then that I had had a card from Sara, care of the Eagle, saying that she had to visit an old friend’s grave on the Saturday in my part of town, and not to trouble about being in, as very likely she wouldn’t have time to call. A real Sara card, meaning just the opposite. And then there had been a letter. But I had forgotten to open it.
‘There was a card,’ I said. ‘But it said not to expect you. So I didn’t tell my staff to prepare dinner.’
‘The Eagle said you were here. But I didn’t know about the meeting. And then I couldn’t find you. Oh, Gulley, aren’t you glad to see me, when I’ve come all this way?’ Now I looked at Sara, I could see she was in more than a fluster. It wasn’t only that her nose was redder than before, but her eye was wet. And her panting wasn’t all due to exercise.
‘Have another one with me,’ I said, holding up the bottle.
‘Oh no, Gulley, I couldn’t. I’ve had enough already. Well, you can see I have—what with the worry and the cold wind. And how are you, Gulley?’ she said, looking at me as if I were a landscape about twenty miles away. ‘How are you? In that awful shed all alone with no one to look after you.’
‘I’m all right, Sara,’ I said. ‘Don’t you worry about me. It’s how you are.’
‘Oh, I don’t know why I came. And look how late it is. But being only a mile off, at the graveyard, and wondering how you were managing——’
I poured out the bottle into two glasses and held out one to Sara. Her hand closed round it, without noticing. The sensitive plant. ‘And it being Fred’s day on. Oh dear, what’s the time——?’
‘Eight, just gone. What time is Fred coming home?’
‘Ten, but I’m getting back by half-past nine. Not a minute after. Not while the poor boy’s so upset.’
‘And what’s wrong with Fred?’
‘Oh everything—but it’s really his stomach, poor mannie. And his married sister that lives opposite. She never liked me doing for him. Though how he would do for himself, I don’t know. As nervous as a maiden. It’s those engines in the yard. Running backwards when you’re not looking. Oh dear, I shouldn’t have come, should I?’ But she kept looking at me like a young lass when she first feels her front and wonders what she wants.
‘He’s a bit jealous is he, your Fred? Well, I’m not surprised. I should think he’d better.’
‘I’ve been good to him, Gulley, truly I have. But you oughtn’t to have come like that—not to the house, I mean.’
‘How did he know?’
‘There’s plenty to tell him down our street—not forgetting the sister. And of course he likes to know who comes to the house—it’s natural for a man. And where I am.’
‘And where he is.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Sara, taking a pull at the porter, as if by accident. And wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Reflex action. ‘I oughtn’t to have come, really. It does make you feel old, acting silly. But it seemed such a chance. Don’t you hate to feel old, Gulley?’
‘No, what I hate is to feel young, and then my arms and legs go back on me.’
‘Oh, it’s different for a man. But I feel so old, I could cry. And I feel it all the time. Everything seems to say to me: You’re an old woman, Sara Monday. No more fun for you in this life. You’d better go and bury yourself.’ And there were tears in her eyes.
‘We’re not so old, Sara.’
She shook her cheeks at me. ‘An old apple and an old wife have but a creaking life.’
‘Why Sara, what’s wrong with you? Tough as an old saddle.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sara. ‘But I’m so breathless Fred keeps on saying I ought to go to hospital.’
‘What for?’
‘Well, I had a little pain—in my inside.’
‘Growing pains. Was it your stomach?’
‘That isn’t it—it’s one of those pains you can’t quite tell where it is.’
‘I know them. Forget them, Sall.’
‘So I should if only Fred would forget them. But he’ll drive me into hospital at last and then they’ll find something. Trust them. Oh, those hospitals. They gave little Morris Hagberg the wrong anaesthetic only last week burnt his throat to cinders—that’s two in a month.’ And she looked so sadly at me I was quite surprised. ‘Come, Sara,’ I said. ‘You never used to talk like this.’
‘And there was Rozzie—I’ll never forget Rozzie lying there in the infirmary without her leg.’
Rozzie was an old friend of Sara’s and of mine, who had died in the workhouse infirmary after an accident.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Don’t go and get run over by a bus on the way to the local, like Rozzie.’
‘Rozzie crying because they wouldn’t even let her have her stays or put a little powder on her poor face. Oh, Gulley, if I could trust you to keep me out of those hospitals and infirmaries, I believe I’d go off with you.’
So that’s it, I thought. She wants a change. The last flutter of the old candle. But no, I’m too busy.
‘I should think he’s fond of you, Fred,’ I said.
‘But he’s so set on those places. He’s so scientific. And what does he know about how a woman feels to be dragged about on a slab like butcher’s meat, and left to die among strange walls, in sheets that never belonged to any human soul, much less her own self. I’d rather be drowned or poisoned.’
I put my arm round the old thing. ‘Come, Sall, you’re not dead yet.’
‘It’s not the being dead—it’s the dying. And being so helpless. Look at poor Rozzie, she was so big and gay. She was bigger than I was, and never cared for anything till she lost her leg and her money.’
‘Rozzie wasn’t so tough as you are, Sall. She may have been bigger and noisier, but she was softer.’
‘All the same, Gulley, you’d have picked Rozzie first if you could have got her.’
‘Never,’ I said. Though, in fact, I had been on pretty close terms with Rozzie and there were times when I did prefer her to Sara. Her hips and legs were better, and her temperament more placid. You always found Rozzie where you left her, and she didn’t intrude on your private character, like Sara. She stayed on the outside.
‘You proposed to Rozzie once?’ said Sara.
‘Never,’ I said, which was true. I hadn’t proposed because it hadn’t been necessary. ‘Do you ever go back to the grave?’ said Sara and I knew she had found out something. ‘I have been,’ I said. For in the last two years I had had a kind of understanding with my son Tom, who was also Rozzie’s only son, to keep her grave decent. ‘That is,’ I said, ‘I’ve passed that way. It’s a short cut to the Red Lion.’
‘It wasn’t you left all the flowers last year on her funeral day? The sexton said it was a gentleman in a blue overcoat.’
‘A gentleman—come, Sall. I haven’t been a gentleman for forty years.’
Sara shook her head at me. But she was a little more cheerful. ‘Poor Rozzie, she had a terrible skin. It was a cross to her.’ ‘Oh terrible.’ ‘And her face was all crooked.’ ‘I remember.’ ‘Her mouth was on one side.’ ‘Poor Rozzie.’ ‘She was a dear,’ said Sara, ‘and I wish I’d gone to see her oftener in the infirmary.’ ‘Don’t blame yourself, Sall, it’s all over long ago’ ‘That doesn’t make it any better. Oh dear, I wish poor Rozzie was back again. I’d be a better friend to her.’ ‘No, you wouldn’t, because you wouldn’t know she was going to fall under a bus and die in the infirmary.’ ‘That’s true, I wouldn’t,’ said Sara, and she gave a great sigh. ‘Oh dear, why can’t we know before?’
‘And there’s another thing,’ I said. ‘Rozzie would never have lasted as you have done. She was too soft and too lazy. She would have been an old woman by now.’
‘And so am I an old woman.’
‘Come on, Sall,’ I said, squeezing my arm round her. ‘Drink up, and you’ll feel better.’
‘Drinking up won’t do any good to thoughts. They’re too deep.’
‘No, but it’ll do good to your feelings, and then your feelings will do good to your thoughts.’
‘Oh, Gulley,’ said Sara, taking off the rest of her glass. She was crying and smiling all at once. ‘You’ll be the ruin of me all over again. Why, look at me, coming all this way, and upsetting Fred and everything. I ought to be pole-axed.’
‘I hope you haven’t been imprudent, Sara,’ I said.
‘A lot you care,’ she said, ‘but there, if you were a woman, you’d know what it feels like to get older and older, and to know that nothing will ever happen to you any more. Nothing nice, that is.’
‘Go on, Sall,’ I said. ‘You’re not so old as all that or you wouldn’t be here today.’
‘Oh no, Gulley, it’s because I’m old I’m acting so silly; yes, and it’s worse than just coming out of my way. Well, you didn’t get my letter, and a good thing too. I kept on thinking of the good times we had. Oh dear, you were a bad husband to me, Gulley, but you did know how to enjoy yourself, and I do like people that know how to enjoy themselves, man or boy. And, oh dear, look at your boots and your socks. Well, I meant to bring you some socks, but then I wasn’t sure if you wouldn’t think I was being a nuisance and trying to make up to you after the last time.’
‘Bring me all the socks you like, Sall. I’ve no meanness about me. I’ll never refuse a gift from a friend. I’d take ‘em even from my enemies, if they offered. So thank you, my dear, and drink up.’ And I filled her glass.
‘No. No, Gulley, it’s bad for me. Though why I should want to do good to myself I don’t know. Oh dear, that time at Bournemouth. With that sweet sunset the first day. Roses and violets. And the waves just whisking the pebbles. Oh dear, and the policeman nearly caught us——’
She dipped her nose again, and then gave a sigh like a grampus when he breaks surface. I gave her old stays another tender pressure; I doubt if she felt it through the armour. And the voice of the skate came through the yard window.
‘The boundless possibilities of human happiness when guided by those natural loves and fraternal sympathies planted in the soul.’
‘Oh well,’ said Sara, ‘I suppose I’ll get used to it in time. Time slow but sure will all your troubles cure.’
‘The nature of man is love. Look at the little helpless child, born so utterly dependent. Dependent only on love.’
‘He speaks nicely, the young man,’ said Sara. ‘I shouldn’t think he’d been married, do you? I’m glad it’s about religion. I haven’t been to a church for a long time, I’ve been so busy.’
‘And so it is to love alone that Nature entrusts her most important task. Love, the source and guarantee of all our hopes.’
‘That’s right,’ said Sara. ‘Though goodness knows, children are a work too. But it would be better in church. Church is more homely. Well, after all, it is the house of God. Yes, I always liked church, even on a week-day, and it saves time without a sermon. Oh dear, that awful service when Rozzie died—in that cemetery chapel. I’d rather drown myself than a pauper funeral.’
‘Come, Sara, you’ve had a good innings—you’ve squeezed the lemon. Three husbands and five children—not counting the stand-ins, the Freds and the Dickies—it’s a lot of happiness for one woman.’
‘Don’t talk of happiness like that, Gulley, as if it was all over. I never was happy unless I was with you, and you gave me a chance. I always say there was no one like you for gaiety. Oh dear, when I saw you on that Wednesday, it did bring back the old times, and what times they were.’ And there she was looking at me as if she could eat me without sauce, the old crocodile. I’ve set the tow alight in the old cask, I thought. It’s the last flare of the old bonfire; and there may be a lot of combustible there still. You can’t tell by the bung, I’ll get my face singed unless I’m careful.
‘And you couldn’t have done better than Fred for a quiet billet,’ I said.
‘Yes, indeed. Fred is a good home. Only for the worry about the bills. Well, what if there are a few little set-offs, after four years? Why, I always give him the best of everything. And if we had to get rid of the lodger, that wasn’t my fault. There! jealousy as they say is the mustard to a good meat. But I wish I’d met you first, Gulley, in my maiden time.’
‘You made a very good match with old Monday—plenty of money and he doted on you.’
‘I’ll never say a word against him. And, indeed, I blessed myself, Gulley. I thought I was well enough. But now I know better. You know what it is with a man like that—so nervous and weak in his spirits. You have to be keeping it up all the time and working at yourself lest you fall away—and then with the children coming as fast as mine did, it was work, work, work, and no end till they got married and my dear Edith went to China, and so it was goodbye. But there, I knew it was ordained. And if I didn’t know what was due to my teens and had to learn artfulness and contrivance in my bridal moon when even the plainest pug may give herself the right to put off her brains with her suspenders. What did I know but it went with the service? Like the second housemaid to clean the upstairs door handles, and thank God and my dear good mother if I was foolish I was dutiful and took my gaiety as the tinker’s donkey takes grass, between the kicks and the hard pull-ups.’
‘In that kingdom of love which is the home, does any father ask for laws to assist his authority? Does the mother send for the police?’
‘I like the young man, he ought to be a preacher,’ said Sara, stopping. ‘Yes, indeed,’ she said, giving another gentle sigh that made her stays creak like an old shutter. ‘I ought to go to church—it always did me good. But then the people will look at you if you’re keeping house for a widower, or perhaps I only think they do.’
‘And Fred didn’t like the lodger?’
‘Now, Gulley, you mustn’t think anything against the poor man—he was old enough to be my father almost—and a great wen on his neck. And if he was with the Cleansing Department, I always think it a shame the hard dirty work they have which somebody has to do. I’m sure Fred would make enough fuss if the dustbin wasn’t emptied. But there, I’m not going to say anything against Fred, being particular. I’d always rather Sir Whimsy in a clean shirt, than Master Easy to lie in dirt.’
‘Meaning me,’ I said, for I remembered how Sara had made me set up a night-shirt instead of sleeping in my winter drawers.
‘Oh no, Gulley, for you know how I took you; you hadn’t got a whole pair of trousers. Well, I’ve never been sorry, for if I hadn’t gone to you, I would never have known the true sweet joys of life. But there, you’re laughing at me. I know I’m acting silly. It’s being old and seeing Rozzie’s grave and thinking of the hospital, and perhaps I’ve had a drop. Well, I know I’ve let myself go, Gulley. You may well look at me, a regular old jelly. Sliding round like aspic on a hot plate. Yes, I always needed a man to peg me down, a real man. And I only found one. But, I mustn’t say that, must I? And now it’s all over, I’m only fit for a warning.’
‘Don’t say that, Sara,’ I said, giving her another squeeze. And meaning it. For you couldn’t help liking the old trout. The very way she was speaking; easy from her soul as a jug runs when you tilt it to a wet lip; it made me tingle all over; it made me laugh and sing in the calves of my legs. It made my toes curl and my fingers itch at the tops. It made me want to go bozo with the old rascal. What a woman. The old original. Clear as a glass-eye and straight as her own front. The very way she worked her great cook’s hand, jointed like a lobster, round her glass; and lolled her head on one side, and turned up her eyes and heaved up her bosom when she sighed, enjoying the feel of herself inside her stays; it made me want to squeeze her till she squealed.
‘Don’t believe it,’ I told her. ‘You’d still walk away from any hop-pole girl, in a light breeze. You’ve got the genius, Sall, if that’s what it is.’
‘Oh dear, but they were good times, weren’t they—sweet, lovely times.’
‘And not so bad now—does Fred go out every Tuesday and Saturday night?’
‘But, Gulley. You wouldn’t have to come to the house again. It’s the sister—she watches all the time, and it does upset Fred so much when anyone comes, it’s not fair to a man with his delicate stomach——’
‘No, and you don’t want to lose a good home, do you—and I don’t blame you. Why should you with your mornings off and every Saturday?’
