The Horses' Mouth, page 25
‘All my things,’ said Sara, ‘two armchairs, two tables, the carpet that Monday gave me for my drawing-room, seven silver teaspoons and the tea caddy, four damask tablecloths and nine napkins, three silk cushions——’
‘They can’t do that, Sara. You must get a lawyer.’
‘They said there wouldn’t be enough to pay and I didn’t want an argument. Well, that Doris said she’d go to the police, and I didn’t want any more trouble. I suppose it was my own fault. You’ll have some tea, Gulley? I wish I could give you something better, but there isn’t anything in the house.’
And as she turned round to fill the kettle at the sink I saw that she had a black eye. A real damson. Blue with a bloom. And shut right up. A blinder. ‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with your glim, Sail?’
‘A wasp stung it. I haven’t got any cake. But wouldn’t you like a piece of bread and jam, or bread and bacon?’
‘A wasp in April,’ I said. ‘More like a friend. What is Mr. Byles like as a master—is he particular about drinking level?’
‘Mr. Byles has always stood by me,’ said Sara, ‘and he took me in at short notice when I’d nowhere to go and didn’t know where to turn.’
‘Why didn’t you come to me, Sara?’
‘What would you want with me when you hadn’t enough to feed yourself much less a useless old woman that’s only fit for a coffin? No, even when Mr. Byles was lodging with us he always stood up for me against that Doris, and he said that if ever I was in trouble I’d only got to come to him, and so I did, and he took me in. He may be a bit rough, but he’s a Christian in his inside, Gulley, and I won’t hear a word against him.’
The old lady was getting warmed up and forgetting the weight of her grey hairs. ‘No, Gulley, I honour a man like Byles that stands by his word to a woman when he might fairly take it back, for the truth is that when he gave it to me, I still had a young bone or two in my flesh, but when I came round to his door and asked for a bed, I was a poor old castaway and a sight to boot, for I’d been crying my eyes away over poor little Dicky and my things and it all happening so sudden. Well, it makes me cold still to think what I must have looked like—I wasn’t fit for the gypsies much less human company. And Mr. Byles just threw open the door and said, “Mrs. Monday, I said I’d make you welcome, and so you are, so come in and say no more about it. Least said,” he said, “soonest mended.” And here I’ve been ever since.’
‘A man of few words, Mr. Byles,’ I said, ‘his fist is quicker than his tongue. But I’d sooner he tried it on Fred than you. And I’ve half a mind to tell him so. I know you sometimes have a provoking way with you, one way or another, but I don’t like to see you with that eye, Sara. Even if you aren’t my property any longer I’ve got a kind of husband’s feeling about your amenities.’
‘I never said Mr. Byles hit me in the eye, for I’m sure he never meant to, and even if he had I’m sure he had excuse with the amount of trouble they give in the department. The young ones putting all the heavy work on him just out of spite because he won’t admit he’s getting a bit stiff and short of breath. I shouldn’t wonder if they didn’t kill him one of these days, with his heart. He’s often as blue as this apron after only climbing the steps, but it’s no good telling him he ought to see a doctor. He can’t bear doctors, and though I tell him doctors aren’t hospitals, you can’t expect him to change his ways at his time of life. I can only thank God he’ll never make me go to hospital, and if my time is due it will come on me in my own home. I have to thank Byles for that, even if he does go and kill himself out of obstinacy.’
‘Come on, Sail,’ I said. ‘We’re not dead yet, unless we like to think so. And I daresay you had a few pounds put away in your box—they didn’t get your box, I suppose.’
‘They didn’t leave me a shilling, Gulley. Even to bury me. Well, would you believe it, they came upon me in my bed, and that woman, God forgive her, she even went through my stays. Yes, she took seventeen golden sovereigns out of my stays, my funeral money that had been saving up for eleven years, ever since poor Rozzie died. Why, they even took up the floor, and they’d have broken in my box, but Fred thought it might be against the law. Not but what they didn’t keep my box—yes, with all my things, even my mother’s Bible. They kept the whole box, and if it hadn’t been that Mr. Byles went to fetch it for me and threatened to break the door in, and wring that Doris’s neck——’
‘So you got your box.’
‘Byles brought it away, thank God, or I really don’t know how I should have got over it. Well, Gulley, you may say it’s a sign of being old, and perhaps it is, and I know I’m an old woman, but I don’t think I could have borne it, to lose my box. Why, I got that box when I first went out to service in the year before the old Queen’s jubilee and it’s been with me ever since. In my grand days when indeed poor Monday wouldn’t let it out of the attic for shame of it’s being such a poor servanty kind of thing, and in all my coming-down days since.’
‘I seem to remember, Sara, that you used to keep some of my old drawings and sketches in your box—sketches of yourself——’
Sara began to shake her head, so I held up my hand and went on talking fast. I knew my Sara. Never to let her tell any lies until she understood the position. Because afterwards she might feel obliged to stick to them, even when she didn’t want to. Sara was a woman all through. She had a sense of honour even in drink, and she was always particular not to change her mind or admit to a lie, on the same day. ‘Wait a minute, Sara,’ I said. ‘There’s money in this——Do you want to make twenty pounds?’
Sara’s face changed and she turned her good eye on me with quite a sharp look. ‘I should indeed,’ she said, ‘if I could do it honestly and without upsetting Byles. For ‘tis the least I can do for him, not to put him out. But how can you get twenty pounds, Gulley? I’m sure you yourself could do with a new fit out from top to toe——’
‘It’s an offer, Sail. For one of those canvases which don’t belong to you, anyhow. But Hickson seems to have said that you could keep my property, and you and I are old friends.’
‘Canvases. What canvases?’
‘The ones in your box.’
Sara looked me in the eyes. She was trying to make out if I knew anything, or was only guessing. But of course by the way she looked, I knew that she had something in her box. Sara was never a good deceiver because she never took enough trouble. She had the natural art; but she never improved on it. Relied too much on her charm and the inspiration of the moment.
‘There’s nothing in my box,’ said Sara.
‘No? Hickson seemed to think there might be. And there certainly was when you first went off from me and took up with old Mr. W. Drawings at least. You admitted it.’
‘Oh no, Gulley. I couldn’t have. I never went off from you. It was you went off from me. And as for poor Mr. Wilcher, I never thought but to be his housekeeper only. Oh dear. But there’s the gas going down, and goodness knows if I’ve got a shilling.’ And she went bobbing about again. She was in such a fluster what with the pictures and Byles in the background, and my talk of Mr. W., that I could have laughed. She never could bear me to talk of Mr. W., because she would always swear she had never been anything but a housekeeper to him. But she knew that I knew differently.
‘It’s funny you should forget about the drawings, Sara,’ I said. ‘Because it was the day I had that explanation with Mr. W. about you.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear, I’ll never get done.’ And she went clump, clump down the cellar steps with two brooms clattering on the walls and a pail creaking in her hand. Strategic retreat, with equipment intact.
But it was ten minutes to eleven and I knew she would be back to her tea. Not the devil himself could keep her from her morning tea.
28
Wilcher was a rich lawyer, with a face like a bad orange. Yellow and blue. A little grasshopper of a man. Five feet of shiny broadcloth and three inches of collar. Always on the jump. Inside or out. In his fifties. The hopping fifties. And fierce as a mad mouse. Genus, Boorjwar; species, Blackcoatius Begoggledus Ferocissimouse. All eaten up with lawfulness and rage; ready to bite himself for being so respectable. He popped in one day when I’d called on Sara, and I thought he was going to run me through with his umbrella. His little hornet’s eyes were shooting fiery murder. But I rushed up to him on the front door mat and seized him by the hand. ‘How de do, sir? My name’s Gulley Jimson. I hope you’re quite well—quite.’
Sara had slipped away and he brought his umbrella to the order. Armistice. ‘How do do, sir? I know your name. As an artist. I am honoured,’ with a little clockwork bow, as if to say, ‘You are ticked off.’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I called to see Mrs. Jimson about some drawings.’ This had a good effect. The little black devil put his umbrella in the stand and you could see that he was surveying his ground. Like a lawyer. His insect face became as blank as an insect’s. Which meant that he was planning something—a lawyer’s face always gives warning of an ambush. Like a blockhouse. Used to conceal the artillery.
‘Mrs. Jimson,’ he said. ‘Or Mrs. Monday,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what flag she’s sailing under now.’ ‘She came to me as Mrs. Jimson, but the registry office gave the name as Monday.’ ‘Both flags, in fact.’ ‘She was a widow, I believe.’ ‘Not mine, not yet.’ ‘Ahem. Then I understand that her name legally is Mrs. Jimson.’ ‘No sir, legally, her name is Mrs. Monday. Though, of course, she lived with me as Mrs. Jimson.’
There was a short pause while this news filtered through the loopholes of the blockhouse to Mr. W. within. Who then stood on one leg, put his finger in his ear and gave a loud halloo, followed by uproarious and uncontrollable laughter; that is to say, he wanted to do so; but being a respectable blackcoat, he could only place his hands together, press them so hard that they cracked, and remark, ‘In-deed. Ahem. In-deed. As Mrs. Jimson. Ahem. As Mrs. Jimson.’
And I nearly burst out laughing in his face. It’s easy to see, I thought, your kind. A housekeeper-keeper every inch. But I looked very grave and reserved, that is to say, demure, which was the proper move at this stage of the game, as played among the blackcoats. And Hot Nobless. ‘As Mrs. Jimson,’ I said.
‘Not being, ahem, in point of fact, legally speaking, ahem——’
‘I quite agree, Mr. Wilcher.’
‘And yet, I should have thought—I feel sure, a woman of principle.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘very much so. The best. Sara was quite ready to go to church. Always has been. The impediment was on the other side of the family. If I may say so.’
At this Mr. W. sprang clean through the ceiling, turned several somersaults in mid-air, sang a short psalm of praise and thanksgiving out of the Song of Solomon, accompanied on the shawm, and returned through the letter-box draped in celestial light. That is to say, he raised his right toe slightly from the carpet, said ‘indeed’ in mi-fa, and relaxed his ceremonial smile into an expression of tolerance. ‘Indeed,’ he repeated, this time in me-do, ‘an impediment.’
‘I had the misfortune to be married before,’ I said, ‘several times, in fact.’
‘So that Mrs. Monday was in no way to blame.’
‘Not for not being married. Certainly not. By no means, never.’
‘A truly religious woman,’ said Mr. W. using vox humana.
‘Yes, you might say Sara had some religion, female religion.”
‘I esteem Mrs. Monday very highly,’ he said then. He was now preparing for the general assault. ‘Very highly indeed.’ ‘She always had a something,’ I said, ‘and so on.’ ‘A true woman, Mr. Jimson.’ ‘You’ve only got to look at her.’ ‘The true old country stock.’ ‘Let us say breed.’ ‘Now, Mr. Jimson, I have a suggestion to make to you,’ charging down on me with all arms. Yes, a regular Boorjwarrior. London is full of them. Infuriated blackcoats. Lying low in some ambush with a dagger in one hand and a bomb in the other. And the fires of death and hell burning under their dickies. When you meet them, they’re all clockwork bows and hems and how-de-do’s, until they’ve got you where they want you, and then out come the claws, and bang, they’re at your throat like a Bengal tiger.
Mr. W. ‘s proposition was that if I came near Sara again or wrote to her for the money she owed me, he’d put me in charge; but on the other hand, if I would undertake to leave her unmolested, he was prepared to come to an arrangement.
‘A financial one,’ I said.
‘Certainly.’
‘You want to buy Sara—cash, I presume.’
‘Nothing of the sort, sir.’ And he burst into stars and rockets. For of course I’d dropped my match right on the spot where the gun-powder was kept. ‘A most abominable suggestion. I have the deepest respect for Mrs. Monday. My object, sir, is to protect her from a ruffian, sir, a blackguard. Which I intend to do, in any case, whether you accept my terms, or not.’ And he folded his arms and stood on tip-toe and fairly crushed me with his glance. Or at least that was the intention.
‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘So long as you don’t expect me to protect you from Sara or versa vice. And the price is satisfactory.’
‘A pound a week. And you will sign an undertaking not to write or communicate in any manner.’
‘Thirty shillings for the whole property as a going concern.’
‘I do not intend to bargain with a person of your sort. A pound is my highest offer. A pound or the police.’
And do what I would, I couldn’t get him above twenty-two and six. But to tell the truth, men like Wilcher, the real old blackcoat breed, out of Hellfire by the Times, get on my nerves. They frighten me. They’re not normal. You never know what they’ll do next. They’re always fit for rape and murder, and why not? Because they don’t look upon you as human. You’re a Lost Soul, or a Bad Husband, or a Modern Artist, or a Good Citizen, or a Suspicious Character, or an Income Tax Payer. They don’t live in the world we know, composed of individual creatures, fields and moons and trees and stars and cats and flowers and women and saucepans and bicycles and men; they’re phantoms, spectres. And they wander screaming and gnashing their teeth, that is, murmuring to themselves and uttering faint sighs, in a spectrous world of abstractions, gibbering and melting into each other like a lot of political systems and religious creeds.
But all within is opened into the deeps of Entuthon Benython,
A dark and unknown night, indefinite, unmeasurable, without end,
Abstract philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination.
I was glad to get away from that little black scorpion. Ringed with hellfire. I feel my hair rise still all over, where it used to be, when I think of him. No wonder they invented religion. Nothing but the heaviest dogma cast in the thickest metal can keep such demons, afreets and poltergeists bottled in their own juice, which is the only acid strong enough to disinfect their virtues.
29
Sara was still knocking pails and brooms about in the cellar, and I saw that she was trying to drown the voice of conscience with household noises, a common trick among the ladies. But it gave me an idea. If she can’t hear herself, perhaps she won’t hear me. And I went out very quietly into the passage and tried the first door.
But a woman doesn’t need to hear somebody prowling through her domains uninvited; she has a special organ, situated just under the diaphragm, which detects him five miles away even when disguised as a relation by marriage. I had barely half opened the door, before crash went the broom, bang went the pail, and Sara was coming up the steps like a gas explosion.
‘I was just looking round,’ I said. ‘Nice place you have here.’ In fact, it was a dusty bare little room with nothing in it except one cane armchair, a new wheelbarrow, some matting on the floor, and a lot of empty beer bottles. ‘The parlour?’
‘It could be,’ said Sara, sighing and panting. ‘If they’d only let me have a bit of carpet and a soft chair.’
‘Nice photograph on the mantelpiece—nice girl. Where did it come from?’
‘It’s me—it was in my parlour at Fred’s. It’s always been in my parlour. I used to have one in a silver frame, but somebody took it.’
‘That silver frame. The one you gave me for your photograph. Well, Sara, to tell the truth, I picked it up again. I needed a little cash, and I thought you wouldn’t mind.’
Sara took it like an old lady. She only drew in her lips and wrinkled her forehead. ‘A good thing I had another copy,’ she said. ‘That’s me in my wedding frock—the one I had when I married you. I mustn’t say married, I suppose. But that’s what I meant, God knows.’
‘Of course it’s you,’ I said, ‘now I look again. It’s sunk in a bit, that’s all. I couldn’t forget that figure—a real figure. Ah, you were a woman, Sail, in the times when there were women who even looked like women. And I’ll get that frame back for your picture.’
‘Oh well,’ said Sara, not believing me, ‘I’ve got the photo, and it was a nice dress. I had a piece of the silk for a long time. I always had a feeling for it. But there, I was properly in love with you.’
‘Or in love with getting married.’
And Sara didn’t contradict me any more. She was too tired. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there was that too, I daresay. What woman doesn’t? But not because of what you thought, Gulley. No, it wasn’t the bedding part of it. It was being your wife.’
‘Anybody’s wife.’
‘Well, a home needs a man I suppose, just like a cosy needs a teapot. And I always did like someone to do for. It’s natural.’
‘There’s something boiling over,’ for I’d had a good look round, and I knew the box wasn’t in that room.
Sara listened and said, ‘Bother it,’ and hopped out quicker than you might expect. But she’d always had a dislike to things boiling over. And as she went into the kitchen, I skipped through the other door. Sure enough, the family bedroom. Italian brass bed with three knobs missing and most of the brass. Yellow cupboard with blisters. Little crooked table with a tin basin and a blue jug. Strip of worn-out carpet in front of the fireplace. Christmas supplements pinned on the walls. Cherry Ripe. Christmas Eve, with snow and postman and little girl. Raphael Madonna. Smell of matrimony. Two burst hat-boxes on top of cupboard. Two boxes under bed. One solid wood bound with black iron strips. Old navigator’s chest. Byles. One yellow tin, battered like crumpled glove-paper. Slavey’s first trunk. Sara.
