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Riceyman Steps

<hr />[Pg 58] <h2>XIII</h2> <h3>THE PASSION</h3> "I think I've put her straight," said Mrs. Arb very cheerfully to Mr. Earlforward, out in the Square, and gave him an account of the interview. Mr. Earlforward's mind was much relieved. He admired Mrs. Arb greatly in that moment. He himself could never have put Elsie straight. There were things that a woman, especially a capable and forceful woman, could do which no man could possibly do. "Forceful"! Perhaps a sinister adjective to attach to a woman. Yes. But the curious point about this woman was that she was also feminine. Forceful, she could yet (speaking metaphorically) cling and look up. And also she could look down in a most enchanting and disturbing way. She had done it a number of times to Mr. Earlforward. Now Mr. Earlforward, from the plenitude of his inexperience of women, knew them deeply. He knew their characteristic defects and shortcomings. And it seemed to him that Mrs. Arb was remarkably free from such. It seemed to him, as it has seemed to millions of men, that he had had the luck to encounter a woman who miraculously combined the qualities of two sexes, and the talent to recognize the miracle on sight. He would not go so far as to assert that Mrs. Arb was unique (though he strongly suspected that she must be), but there could not be many Mrs. Arbs on earth. He was very happy in youthful dreams of a new and idyllic existence. His sole immediate fear was that he would be compelled to go to church with her. He knew them; they were queer on religious observances. Of course it was because, as she had half admitted, they liked to feel devotional. But you could do[Pg 59] nothing with a woman in church. And he could not leave her to go to church alone.... He was unhappy. "I'm afraid that service of yours has begun," said he. "I saw quite a number of people going in while you were talking to Elsie." "I'm afraid it has," she replied. He saw a glint of hope. "It's a nice fresh morning," said he daringly. "And what people like you and me need is fresh air. I suppose you wouldn't care for me to show you some bits of Clerkenwell?" "I think I should," said she. "I could go to service to-night, couldn't I?" Triumph! Undoubtedly she was unique. Both quite forgetting once more that they would never again see forty, they set off with the innocent ardour of youth. "You know," said Mrs. Arb, returning to the great subject, "I told her plainly she'd be much better off if she kept off men. And so she will!" "They never know when they are well off," said Mr. Earlforward. "No ... I expect this Square used to belong to your family," Mrs. Arb remarked with deference. "Oh! I shouldn't say that," answered Mr. Earlforward modestly. "But it was named after my grandfather's brother." "It must have been very nice when it was new," said Mrs. Arb, tactfully adopting towards the Square a more respectful attitude than aforetime. Clearly she desired to please. Clearly she had a kind heart. "But when the working-class get a hold on a place, what are you to do?" "You'd scarcely think it," said Mr. Earlforward with grim resignation, "but this district was very fashionable once. There used to be an archery ground where our steps are." (He enjoyed saying "our steps," the phrase united him to her.) "Really!" "Yes. And at one time the Duke of Newcastle lived[Pg 60] just close by. Look here. I'll show you something. It's quite near." In a few minutes they were at the corner of a vast square—you could have put four Riceymans into it—of lofty reddish houses, sombre and shabby, with a great railed garden and great trees in the middle, and a wide roadway round. With all its solidity, in that neighbourhood it seemed to have the unreal quality of a vision, a creation of some djinn, formed in an instant and destined as quickly to dissolve; it seemed to have no business where it was. "Look at that!" said Mr. Earlforward eagerly, pointing to the sign, "Wilmington Square." "Ever heard of it before?" Mrs. Arb shook her astonished head. "No. And nobody has. But it's here. That's London, that is! Practically every house has been divided up into tenements. Used to be very well-to-do people here, you know!" Mrs. Arb gazed at him sadly. "It's tragic!" she said sympathetically, her bright face troubled. "She understands!" he thought. "Now I'll show you another sort of a square," he went on aloud. "But it's over on the other side of Farringdon Road. Not far! Not far! No distances here!" He limped quickly along. Coldbath Square easily surpassed even Riceyman Square in squalor and foulness; and it was far more picturesque and deeper sunk in antiquity, save for the huge, awful block of tenements in the middle. The glimpses of interiors were appalling. At the corners stood sinister groups of young men, mysteriously well dressed, doing nothing whatever, and in certain doorways honest-faced old men with mufflers round their necks and wearing ancient pea-jackets. "I don't like this at all," said Mrs. Arb, as it were sensitively shrinking.[Pg 61] "No! This is a bit too much, isn't it? Let's go on to the Priory Church." "Yes. That will be better," Mrs. Arb agreed with relief at the prospect of a Priory Church. "Oh! There's a News of the World!" she exclaimed. "Now I wonder——" They were passing through a narrow, very short alley of small houses which closed the vista of one of the towering congeries of modern tenement-blocks abounding in the region. The alley, christened a hundred years earlier, "Model Cottages," was silent and deserted, in strange contrast to the gigantic though half-hidden swarming of the granite tenements. The front-doors abutted on the alley without even the transition of a raised step. The News of the World lay at one of the front-doors. It must have been there for hours, waiting for its subscriber to awake, and secure in the marvellous integrity of the London public. "I did want just to look at a News of the World," said Mrs. Arb, stopping. They had seen various newsvendors in the streets; in fact, newspapers were apparently the only articles of commerce at that hour of the Sunday morning; but she had no desire to buy a paper. Glancing round fearfully at windows, she stooped and picked up the folded News of the World. Mr. Earlforward admired her, but was apprehensive. "Yes. Here it is!" she said, having rapidly opened the paper. Over her shoulder Mr. Earlforward nervously read: "Provisions. Confec. Busy W.C. district. £25 wkly. Six rooms. Rent £90. £200 everything. Long lease, or will sell premises. Delay dangerous. Chance lifetime. 7, Riceyman Steps, W.C.1." "Then you've decided!" murmured Mr. Earlforward, suddenly gloomy. "Oh! Quite! I told you," said Mrs. Arb, dropping back the newspaper furtively like a shameful accusing parcel, and walking on with a wonderful air of innocence. "I wasn't altogether sure if you'd decided finally."[Pg 62] "You see," Mrs. Arb continued. "Supposing the business failed. Supposing I lost my money. I've got to think of my future. No risks for me, I say! I only want a little, but I want it certain. And I've got a little." "It's a very clever advertisement." "I didn't know how to put it. Of course it's called a confectioner's. But it isn't really, seeing I buy all the cakes from Snowman's. The whole stock in the shop isn't worth £25, but you see, I count the rest of the price asked as premium for the house. That's how I look at it—and it's quite fair, don't you think?" "Perfectly." They stood talking in front of a shut second-hand shop, where old blades of aeroplane propellers were offered at 3s. 6d. each. Mr. Earlforward said feebly "Yes" and "No" and "Hm" and "Ha." His brain was occupied with the thought: "Is she going to slip through my fingers? Suppose she went to live in the country?" His knee began to ache. His body and his mind were always reacting upon one another. "Why should my knee ache because I'm bothered?" he thought, and could give no answer. But in secret he was rather proud of these mysterious inconvenient reactions; they gave him distinction in his own eyes. In another environment he would have been known among his acquaintances as "highly strung" and "highly nervously organized." And yet outwardly so calm, so serene, so even-tempered! They got to the quarter of the great churches. "Would you care to go in?" he asked her in front of St. James's. For he desired beyond almost anything to sit down. "I think it's really too late now," she replied. "It wouldn't be quite nice to go in just at the end of the sermon, would it? Too conspicuous." There were seats in the churchyard, but all were occupied, despite the chilliness of the morning, by persons who, for private reasons, had untimely left their beds. Moreover, he felt that Mrs. Arb, whose niceties he much admired, would not like to sit in a churchyard with service[Pg 63] proceeding in the church. He had begun to understand her. There were no seats round about St. John's. Mr. Earlforward stood on one leg while Mrs. Arb deciphered the tablet on the west front: "'The Priory Church of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, consecrated by Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 10th March, 1185.' Fancy that, now! It doesn't look quite that old. Fancy them knowing the day of the month too!" He was too preoccupied and tortured to instruct her. He would have led her home then; but she saw in the distance at the other side of St. John's Square a view of St. John's Gate, the majestic relic of the Priory. Quite properly she said that she must see it close. Quite properly she thanked him for a most interesting promenade, most interesting. "And me living in London off and on all my life! They do say you can't see the wood for the trees, don't they?" But the journey across the huge irregular Square cut in two by a great avenue was endless to Mr. Earlforward. Then she must needs go under the gateway into a street that seemed to fascinate her. For there was an enormous twilit shoeing-forge next door to the Chancery of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and though it was Sunday morning the air rang with the hammering of a blacksmith who held a horse's hind leg between his knees. Then she caught the hum of unseen machinery and inquired about it. Then the signs over the places of business attracted her; she became charmingly girlish. "'Rouge. Wholesale only.' 'Glass matchers to the trade.' 'I want five million moleskins and ten million rabbitskins. Do not desert your old friend. Cash on the nail.' And painted too, on a board! Not just written! 'Gorgonzola cheese manufacturers.' Oh! The mere thought of it! No, I shall never touch Gorgonzola again after this! I couldn't! But, of course, I see there must be places like these in a place like London. Only it's too funny seeing them all together. 'Barclay's[Pg 64] Bank.' Well, it would be! Those banks are everywhere in these days. I do believe there are more banks than A.B.C. shops and Lyonses. You look at any nice corner site, and before you can say knife there's a bank on it. I mistrust those banks. They do what they like. When I go into my bank somehow they make me feel as if I'd done something wrong, or at least, I'd better mind what I was about; and they look at you superior as if you were asking a favour. Oh, very polite! But so condescending." A shrewd woman! A woman certainly not without ideas! And he perceived, dimly through the veil of his physical pain, that their intimacy was developing on the right lines. He would have been joyous but for the apprehension of her selling the business and vanishing from him, and but for the pain. The latter was now the worst affliction. Riceyman Steps seemed a thousand miles off, through a Sabbath-enchanted desert of stone and asphalt. When they returned into St. John's Square a taxicab with its flag up stood terribly inviting. Paradise, surcease from agony, for one shilling and perhaps a two-penny tip! But he would not look at it. He could not. He preferred the hell in which he was. The grand passion which had rendered all his career magnificent, and every hour of all his days interesting and beautiful, demanded and received an intense, devotional loyalty; it recompensed him for every ordeal, mortification, martyrdom. He proudly passed the taxicab with death in his very stomach. Nowhere was there a chance of rest! Not a seat! Not a rail! Mrs. Arb had inveighed against the lack of amenities in the parish and district. No cinemas, no theatre, no music-halls, no cafés! But Mr. Earlforward realized the ruthless, stony, total inhospitality of the district far more fully than Mrs. Arb could ever have done. He was like a weakening bird out of sight of land above the surface of the ocean. He led Mrs. Arb down towards the nearest point of[Pg 65] Farringdon Road, though this was not the shortest way home. The tram-cars stopped at the corner. Every one of them would deposit him at his own door. Paradise for one penny! No, twopence; because he would have to pay for Mrs. Arb! He had thought to defeat his passion at this corner. He was mistaken. He could not. He had, after all his experience, misjudged the power of his passion. He was as helpless as the creatures who were beginning to gather at the iron-barred doors of the public-houses, soon to open for a couple of too short hours; and also he had the secret ecstasy which they had. He could scarcely talk now, and each tram that passed him in his slow and endless march gave him a spasm of mingled bitterness and triumph. His fear now was lest his grand passion should on this occasion be overcome by bodily weakness. He did not desire it to be overcome. He desired it to conquer even if it should kill him. "I'm afraid I've walked you too far," said Mrs. Arb. "Why?" "I thought you were limping a bit." "Oh no! I always limp a bit. Accident. Long time ago." And he smartened his gait. They reached Riceyman Steps in silence. He had done it! His passion had forced him to do it! His passion had won! There were two Mr. Earlforwards: one splendidly uplifted, the other ready to faint from pain and fatigue. The friends disappeared, each into the solitude of his own establishment. In the afternoon Mr. Earlforward heard a sharp knock on his front-door; it was repeated before he could get downstairs; and when he opened the door he opened it to nobody; but Mrs. Arb was just entering her shop. He called out, and she returned. "I was a bit anxious about your leg," she said, so brightly and kindly, "so I thought I'd step across and inquire." "Quite all right again now, thank you." (An exaggeration.)[Pg 66] How delightful of her! How feminine! He could hardly believe it! He was tremendously flattered. She could not after all slip through his fingers, whatever happened! They chatted for a few moments, and then each disappeared a second time into the recondite, inviolate solitude of his own establishment. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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