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Riceyman Steps

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<hr />[Pg 123] <h2>PART III</h2> <hr /> <h2>I</h2> <h3>EARLY MORNING</h3> Elsie it always was who every morning breathed the breath of life into the dead nocturnal house, and revived it, and turned it once again from a dark, unresponsive, meaningless and deathlike keep into a human habitation. The dawn helped, but Elsie was the chief agent. On this morning, which was a Monday, she arose much earlier than in the rest of the week, and even before the dawn. She arose with her sorrow, which left her only when she slept and which was patiently and ruthlessly waiting for her when she awoke. Few people save certain bodily sufferers and certain victims of frustration know the infernal, everlasting perseverance of which pain, physical or mental, is capable. Nevertheless, Elsie's sorrow was lightening by hope. Nearly a year had passed since Joe's departure, and she had invented a purely superstitious idea, almost a creed, that he would reappear on the anniversary of his vanishing. This idea was built on nothing whatever; and although it shot her sorrow through with radiance it also terrified her—lest it should prove false. If it proved false her sorrow would close her in like the black grave. She raised the blind of her window and dressed; she was dressed in three minutes; she propped the window open to the frosty air, lit the candle, and went downstairs to the bathroom, and as she went the house seemed to resume life under her tread. The bathroom contained nothing but Mrs. Earlforward's safe, under the window,[Pg 124] a clothes-horse, a clothes-line or two stretched from window to door, and an orange-box and an oval galvanized iron bath-tub, both of which were in the bath proper. The week's wash lay in the orange-box and in the oval bath. It comprised no large articles—no sheets, no table-cloths, only personal linen (including one grey flannel shirt of Henry's and two collars), a few towels, aprons, cloths, and two pillow-slips. Elsie fearfully lit the ancient explosive geyser, cried "Oh!" and rushed to the window because she had omitted the precaution of opening it, put nearly all the linen into the bath, set the bath on the orange-box in the bath proper, left the bathroom, and returned to it with another "Oh!" to blow out the candle, which she had forgotten. It was twilight now. In the first-floor front-room, which Mrs. Earlforward called the dining-room and Elsie the parlour, all objects stood plainly revealed as soon as Elsie had drawn up the two blinds. Half of the large table was piled several feet high with books, and the other half covered with a sheet of glass that was just a little small for its purpose. Elsie dusted this glass first, and she dusted it again after she had cleaned the room; not a long operation, the cleaning; she was "round" the room like an express train. When she opened one of the windows to shake her duster the sun was touching the top of the steeple of St. Andrew's, Daphut's yard was unlocked, and trams and lorries were in movement in King's Cross Road. A beautiful October morning, thought Elsie as she naughtily lingered for ten seconds at the window instead of getting on with her job. She enjoyed the fresh, chill air blowing through Riceyman Steps. Conscience pricked her; she shut the window. Taking crockery and cutlery from the interior of the sideboard, she rapidly laid breakfast on the glass for two. The parlour was now humanized, despite the unlit gas-fire. With a glance at the clock, which rivalled Greenwich in exactitude, but which had a mysterious and disconcerting habit of hurrying when she wanted it to loiter, Elsie hastened away back to the bathroom and gave a knock on the bedroom door[Pg 125] as she passed. The bathroom was beautifully warm. She rolled up her tight sleeves, put on a rough apron, and pushed the oval tub under the thin trickle of steaming water that issued from the burning geyser. She was absorbed utterly in her great life-work, and in the problem of fitting the various parts of it into spaces of time which would scarcely hold them. She had the true devotee's conviction that something very grave, something disastrously affecting the whole world, would happen if she fell short of her ideal in labour. As she bent over the linen in the tub she hummed "God Save the King" to herself. In the darkened bedroom Violet leaned over from her side of the bed and placed her lips on Henry's in a long, anxious, loving kiss, and felt the responsive upward pressure of his rich, indolent lips. They were happy together, these two, so far as the dreadful risks of human existence would allow. Never a cross word! Never a difference! "How are you?" she murmured. "I'm all right, Vi." "You've got a heavy day in front of you." "Yes. Fairly. I'm all right." "Darling, I want you to do something for me, to please me. I know you will." "I expect I shall." "I want you to eat a good breakfast before you start. I don't like the idea of you——" "Oh! That!" he interrupted her negligently. "I always eat as much as I want. Nothing much the matter with me." "No. Of course there isn't. But I don't like——" "I say," he interrupted her again. "I tore the seat of my grey trousers on Saturday. I wish you'd just mend it—now. It won't show, anyhow. You can do it in a minute or two." "You never told me." The fact was he seldom did tell her anything until he had to tell her. And his extraordinary gift for letting[Pg 126] things slide was quite unimpaired by the influence of marriage. Her face was still close to his. "You never told me," she repeated. Then she rose and slipped an old mantle over her night-dress. "Oh, Harry," she cried, near the window, examining the trousers, "I can't possibly mend this now. It will take me half the morning. You must put on your blue trousers." "To go to an auction? No. I can't do that. You'll manage it well enough." "But you've got seven pairs of them, and six quite new!" Years ago he had bought a job lot of blue suits, which fitted him admirably, for a song. Yes, for a song! At the present rate of usage of suits some of them would go down unworn to his heirs. He had had similar luck with a parcel of flannel shirts. On the other hand, the expensiveness and the mortality of socks worried him considerably. "I don't think I'll wear the blue," he insisted blandly. "They're too good, those blue ones are." "Well, I shall mend it in bed," said Violet, brightly yielding. "There must have been a frost in the night." She got back into bed with the trousers and her stitching gear, and lit the candle which saved the fantastic cost of electric light. As soon as she had done so Mr. Earlforward arose and drew up the blind. "I think you won't want that," said he, indicating the candle. "No, I shan't," she agreed, and extinguished the candle. "You're a fine seamstress," observed Mr. Earlforward with affectionate enthusiasm, "and I like to see you at it." Violet laughed, pleased and flattered. Simple souls, somehow living very near the roots of happiness—though precariously! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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