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Riceyman Steps

[Pg 77] <hr /> <h2>PART II</h2> <hr /> <h2>I</h2> <h3>THE DAY BEFORE</h3> Cytherea reigned in Mr. Earlforward's office behind the shop—invisible, but she was there—probably reclining—ask not how!—on the full red lips (which fascinated Mrs. Arb) of Mr. Earlforward. It was just after four o'clock in the January following their first acquaintance. They sat on opposite sides of Henry's desk, with the electric light extravagantly burning above them. At the front of the shop the day was expiring in faint gleams of grey twilight. Dirt was nothing; disorder was nothing; Mr. Earlforward loved. For weeks he had been steadfastly intending to put the place to rights for his bride, and he had not put it to rights. Dirt and disorder were repugnant to Mrs. Arb, but she had said not a word. She would not interfere or even suggest, before the time. She knew her place; she was a bit prim. The time was approaching, and she could wait. "I suppose we can use that ring," said Henry, pointing to the wedding-ring on Mrs. Arb's hand, which lay on the desk like the defenceless treasure of an invaded city. Despite a recent experience, Mrs. Arb was startled by this remark delivered in a tone so easy, benevolent and matter-of-fact. The recent experience had consisted in Mr. Earlforward's bland ultimatum, after a discussion in which Mrs. Arb had womanishly and prettily favoured a religious ceremony, that they would be married at a Registry because it was on the whole cheaper. Upon[Pg 78] that point she had taken pleasure in yielding to him. So long as you were genuinely married, the method had only a secondary importance. She admitted—to herself—that in desiring the church she might have been conventional, superstitious. She was eager to yield, as some women are eager to be beaten. Morbidity, of course! But not wholly. Self-preservation was in it, as well as voluptuousness. Mr. Earlforward's individuality frightened while enchanting her. She found she could cure the fright by intense acquiescence. And why not acquiesce? He was her fate. She would grasp her fate with both hands. And there was this point: if he was her fate, she was his; she had already been married once, whereas he was an innocent; he had to learn. She saw an advantage there. Her day was coming—at least, she persuaded herself that it was. Thus the question of the wedding ceremony had been quite satisfactorily dissolved; and so well that Mrs. Arb now scorned the notion of marriage in a church. But the incident of the ring touched her closer; it touched the aboriginal cave-woman in the very heart of her. Do you know, she had faintly suspected that to purchase a wedding-ring formed no part of his programme! An absurd, an impossible suspicion! How could he espouse without a ring? But there the suspicion had lain! She ought to have been revolted by the idea of a second husband marrying her with the ring of the first. However, she was not. Mr. Earlforward's natural, casual tone precluded that. And she answered quietly, as it were hypnotized, with a smile: "We can't use this. It won't come off." She displayed the finger. Obviously the ring would not pass the joint. Mrs. Arb was slim, but she had been slimmer. He said: "But you can't be married with that on. You can't wear two." (Something of the cave-creature in him also!)[Pg 79] "I know. But I was going to have it filed off to-morrow morning. There wouldn't be time to have it made larger." He took the supine hand and thrilled it. "I tell you what," said he. "What carat is it?" "Eighteen." "Soft!" he murmured. "I've got a little file. I'll file it off now. I'm rather good at odd jobs. Oh no, I shan't hurt you! I wouldn't hurt you for anything." He found the file, after some search, in a drawer of his desk. "It must feel like this to be manicured," she said, with a slight, nervous giggle, when again he held her hand in his, and began to operate with the file. He had not boasted; he was indeed rather good at odd jobs. Such delicate, small movements! Such patience! He was standing over her. She was his prisoner, and the ray of the bulb blazed down on the timorous yielded hand. At the finish the skin was scarcely perceptibly abraded. He pulled apart the ends of the severed band and removed it. "Soft as butter!" he smiled. "Now lend me that other ring of yours, will you? For size, you know. And I'll just slip across to Joas's in Farringdon Road. Shan't be long. Will you look after the shop while I'm gone? If anyone comes in and there's any difficulty, ask 'em to wait. But all the prices are marked. I'll leave the light on in the shop. You won't feel lonely." "Oh, but——!" she protested. Leave her by herself in his house—and without the protection of the ring! And before marriage! What would people think? "Well, Elsie 'll be here in a minute. So there's nothing to worry over." He spoke most soothingly, as to an irrational child. "I'd better see to it to-night. And they close at six, same as me—except the pawnbroking. No time to lose!" He was gone. She was saved from too much reflection by the entry of Elsie. At the sight of Elsie Mrs. Arb's demeanour immediately became normal—that is to say, the strange[Pg 80] enchantment which had held her was dissipated, blown away. She was no longer morbid; she was not supine. Her body resumed all its active little movements, her glance its authority, cheerfulness, liveliness and variety. She rose from the chair, smoothed her dress, and was ready to deal with the universe. "Oh, Elsie! So you've come! Mr. Earlforward was expecting you. He's just slipped out on urgent business for a minute or two, and he said you'd be in to attend to customers, and I must say I didn't much fancy being left here alone, because you see—— But, of course, business must be attended to. We all know that, don't we?" She gave a poke to the dull embers of the stove which warmed the shop in winter; Mr. Earlforward rarely replenished it after four o'clock; he liked it to be just out at closing time. "Yes'm." Elsie, although wearing her best jacket and hat, and looking rather Sundayish, had carried—not easily—into the shop a sizeable tin trunk with thin handles that cut uncomfortably into the hands. This box contained her late husband's medals, and all that was hers, including some very strange things. The french-polisher's wife, by now quite accustomed to having three infants instead of two, had procured for herself a pleasant little change from the monotony of home-life by helping Elsie to transport the trunk from Riceyman Square to Mr. Earlforward's shop-door. The depositing of the dented trunk on the uneven floor of the shop constituted Elsie's "moving in." "I'll take this upstairs now, shall I, m'm?" Elsie suggested, somewhat timidly, because she was beginning a new life and didn't quite know how she stood. "Well, it certainly mustn't be here when Mr. Earlforward returns," said Mrs. Arb gravely. Elsie fully concurred. Masters of households ought not to be offended by the quasi-obscene sight of the private belongings of servants.[Pg 81] "No! You can't carry it up by yourself. You might hurt yourself. You never know. Come, come, Elsie!" as Elsie protested. "Do you suppose I've never helped to carry a box upstairs before? Now take the other handle, do! Where's your umbrella? I know you've got one." "It's coming to-morrow, 'm. I've lent it." Mrs. Arb was extremely cheerful, kindly and energetic over the affair of the trunk, and Elsie extremely apologetic. "Now nip your apron on and come down as quick as you can—there might be a customer. You must remember I'm not mistress here until to-morrow. I'm only a visitor." Thus spoke Mrs. Arb gaily and a little breathless at the door of the small bedroom which Elsie was to share with a vast collection of various sermons in eighty volumes, some State Trials in twenty volumes, and a lot of other piled sensationalism. When Elsie, still impressed by the fact of having a new home and by Mrs. Arb's benevolent demeanour, came rather self-consciously downstairs in a perfectly new apron (bought for this great occasion), Mrs. Arb went to the foot of the stairs to meet her, and employing a confidential and mysterious tone, said: "Now don't forget all I told you about that cleaning business to-morrow, will you?" "Oh, no, 'm. I suppose it will be all right?" Elsie's brow puckered with conscientiousness. Mrs. Arb laughed amiably. "What do you mean, my girl—'it'll be all right'? You must remember that when I come back to-morrow I come back Mrs. Earlforward. And you'll call me 'Mrs. Earlforward' too." "I'd sooner call you mum, 'm, if it's all the same to you." "Of course. But when you're speaking about me." "I shall have to get into it, 'm." "Now I expect Mr. Earlforward's settled your wages with you?"[Pg 82] "No, 'm." "Not said anything at all?" "No, 'm. But it'll be all right." Mrs. Arb was once again amazed at Henry's marvellous faculty for letting things go. "Oh, well, perhaps he was leaving it to me, though I've nothing to do with this house till to-morrow. Now, what wages do you want, Elsie?" "I prefer to leave it to you, 'm," said Elsie diffidently. "Well, of course, Elsie, being a 'general' is a very different thing from being a char. You have a good home and all your food. And a regular situation. No going about from one place to another and being told you aren't wanted to-day, or aren't wanted to-morrow, and only half a day the next day and so on and so on! A regular place. No worries about shall I or shan't I earn my day's wage to-day.... You see, don't you?" "Oh yes, 'm." "I'll just show you what I cut out of the West London Observer yesterday." She drew her purse from her pocket, and from the purse an advertisement of a Domestic Servants' Agency, offering innumerable places. "'Generals £20 to £25 a year,'" she read. "Suppose you start with £20? Of course it's very high, but wages are high in these days. I don't know why. But they are. And we have to put up with it." "Very well, 'm," Elsie agreed gratefully. Twenty pounds seemed a big lump of money to her, and she could not divide by fifty-two. Besides, there it was, printed in the paper! No arguing against that. The two talked about washing and the kitchen and the household utensils which Mrs. Arb had abstracted from the schedule of possessions sold to the purchaser of the business opposite. Elsie sold a couple of books. During this transaction Mrs. Arb retired to the office, and after it she refused to take charge of the money which Elsie dutifully offered to her.[Pg 83] "Elsie, haven't I just told you I'm not mistress here? You must give the money to your master." Then Mr. Earlforward returned; and Mrs. Arb gave Elsie a sign to withdraw upstairs; and Elsie, having placed the money on the paper containing the titles of the sold books, went discreetly upstairs. "I've taken on myself to settle that woman's wages," said Mrs. Arb, while Henry was removing his overcoat in the back room. "She told me you hadn't said anything." "No, I hadn't." "Well. I've settled twenty pounds a year." "Eight shillings a week. Rather less. Anyhow, it's better than half a crown every morning of your life for half a day's work." "Did you give her half a crown? I only used to give her two shillings. Did you give her any food?" "Certainly not." "Neither did I. Unless she stayed late." Mrs. Arb felt upon her Mr. Earlforward's glance of passionate admiration, and slipped into the enchantment again. She was very content; she was absurdly content. The fact was that Mr. Earlforward had been under the delusion of having driven a unique bargain with Elsie in the matter of wages. For he knew that the recognized monstrous rate was five shillings a day and food. And here this miraculous creature, so gentle, submissive and girlish, had beaten him by sixpence a half-day. What a woman! What a wife! She had every quality. He gloated over her.... He sat on the desk by her chair, boyishly to watch her girlishness. Then he interrupted the tête-à-tête to go and turn off the light in the shop—because the light in the office gave sufficient illumination to show that the shop was open. And he called out to Elsie: "Elsie, come down and bring the bookstand inside. It ought to have been brought in before. It's quite dark—long since.... Oh! She won't look this way," he murmured, with a shrug in answer to Mrs. Arb's[Pg 84] girlish alarm as he sat down on the desk by her once more. "Now here's the ring I've got." He pulled from his waistcoat pocket a hoop of glittering gold. "And here's your finger-ring—keeper, do you call it? See! They're exactly the same size. It's a very good ring, and it'll last much longer than the old one. Harder. Nine carat. Looks better too, I think." Mrs. Arb, examining the ring, kept a smiling, constrained silence. The nine carat was a blow to her. But, of course, he was right; he was quite right. He put the new ring back in his pocket. "But where's my old wedding-ring?" "Oh, I sold that to Joas. Flinty fellow, but I don't mind telling you I sold it to him for six and sixpence more than what I paid for this one." He spoke, very low—because of Elsie, with a contented and proud calm, his little eyes fixed on her. "I suppose that six and six is by right yours. Here it is." And he handed her the six and sixpence. "Oh, that's all right," said Mrs. Arb weakly, as if to indicate that he could keep the money. "Oh, no!" said he. "Right's right." She put the coins in her purse. Then she said it was time for her to be "going across." (Part of the bargain with the purchaser of her business was that he should provide her with a room and food until the day of the wedding.) "I hope you'll slip in again to-night," he urged. "Not to-night, Henry. It's the night before. It wouldn't be quite nice." He yielded. They discussed all the arrangements for the morrow. As they were leaving the back-room side by side, Henry switched off the light. Elsie had completed her task and gone upstairs. Total darkness—for a few moments! Mrs. Arb felt Henry's rich lips on hers. She was sensible of the mystery of the overcrowded shop stretching from bay to bay in front of her to the gradually appearing yellow twilight from the gas-[Pg 85]lamp of Riceyman Steps. She abandoned herself, in an ecstasy that was perhaps less, perhaps more, than what is called happiness, to the agitating uncertainties of their joint future. Useless for her to recall to herself her mature years, her experience, her force, her sagacity. She was no better than a raw girl under his kiss. Well, it was a loving kiss. He worshipped the ground she trod on, as the saying was. A point in her favour! He switched on the light. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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