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Riceyman Steps

<hr />[Pg 146] <h2>V</h2> <h3>TEA</h3> Tea was late; it was indeed very late—for tea. But Mr. Earlforward, down in the office, gave no sign of hunger, or even of impatience. He had to be called to the meal, and he responded without any alacrity. Husband and wife, he in his overcoat and she in her mantle, took their places at the glass-covered table in the fireless room; and the teapot was there and the bread-and-margarine was there, and everything seemed as usual, save in one point—a knife and fork had been set for Mr. Earlforward and another for Violet. As a fact, the appearance of such cutlery on the tea-table was the most extraordinary phenomenon in the history of the Earlforward marriage. Violet recognized this; and beneath a superficial, cheerful calm she was indeed very nervous and very excited. Moreover, she had suffered nerve-racking ordeals from breakfast onwards. Therefore she watched anxiously for Henry's reactions to the cutlery. But she could perceive no reactions, unless his somewhat exaggerated scrutiny of the high piles of books occupying the unglazed half of the dining-table might be interpreted as a reaction. The blinds were drawn, the curtains were drawn; electric current was burning, if not the gas-fire; despite the blackness of the hearth the room had an air, or half an air, of domestic cosiness. Violet poured out the tea, an operation simplified by the total absence of sugar. "Come, come!" Violet murmured as if to herself, fretfully, and Henry glanced at her. Then Elsie entered. "Come along, Elsie! Come along!" said Violet. "What have you been doing?"[Pg 147] She made this remark partly to prove to Mr. Earlforward that if he imagined she cared twopence for him, or that she feared for the unusualness of the plate covered by another plate which Elsie carried, or that she was not perfectly mistress of herself—if he imagined any of these things he was mistaken. But Violet, expecting to startle Henry, was herself considerably startled. Elsie was wearing a cap. Now Elsie never wore a cap. And the sight of her in a cap was just as gravely disturbing as the impossible, incredible sight of a servant without a cap would be in the more western parts of London. In a word, it shocked. Violet could make nothing out of it at all. Where had the girl obtained the cap? And why in the name of sense had she chosen this day of all days, this evening when the felicity of domestic life was balanced perilously on a knife-edge, to publish the cap? Violet knew not that Elsie had bought the cap before the marriage, but had lacked the audacity to put it on. And Violet knew not that Elsie was now wearing it as a sort of sign of repentance for sin, and in order to give solemnity and importance to the excessively unusual tea. Elsie undoubtedly had the dramatic instinct, but the present manifestation of it was ill-timed. "Put it here! Put it here!" said Violet, indicating the space between her own knife and fork, and stopping Elsie with a jerk in her progress towards the master of the house. When Elsie had gone Violet displayed the contents of the under-plate, and showed that noses had not been wrong in assuming them to be a beef-steak; the steak was stewed; it was very attractive, seductive, full of sound nourishment; one would have deemed it irresistible. Violet rose and deposited the plate in front of Henry, who said nothing. She then bent over him, and with his knife and fork cut off a little corner from the meat. "You're going to give this bit to your little wife," she whispered endearingly, and kissed him, and sat down again with the bit, which she at once began to eat. "It's very tender," said she, pretending that the steak was a[Pg 148] quite commonplace matter, that it was not unique, breathtaking, in the annals of tea-time in Riceyman Steps. "I don't think I can eat any," said Henry amiably. "To please me," Violet cajoled again, as at breakfast, changing her voice with all the considerable sexual charm at her disposition. "I'm really not hungry," said Henry. "I shan't finish mine till you begin yours." Her voice was now changing. She waited for him to begin. He did not begin. The point with Henry was, not that he disliked the steak, but that for reasons of domestic policy he was absolutely determined not to eat it. Meat for tea! What an insane notion! The woman was getting ideas into her head! He saw in the steak the thin edge of a wedge. He felt that the time was crucial. He had been married for little less than a year, and he knew women. Placidly he continued with his bread-and-margarine. "Henry!" she admonished him. "I've got indigestion already," said he. Strange that such a simple remark should have achieved the crisis; but it did. "Yes. That's right!" Violet exclaimed sharply, in rasping tones. "That's right! Tell me you've got indigestion. You never have indigestion. You never have had indigestion. And you know perfectly well it's only an excuse. And you think any excuse is good enough for your wife. She's only a blind fool. Believe anything, your wife will—if you say it! God Almighty to your wife, aren't you!" Just as the voyager at sea, after delighting in an utterly clear, soft sky and going below, may come on deck again to find the whole firmament from rim to rim hidden by dark, menacing clouds created inexplicably out of nothing, so did Henry find the sky of his marital existence terribly transformed in an instant. All had been well; all was ill. The bread-and-margarine stuck in his throat. Violet's features were completely altered as she gazed glassily at her plate. Henry saw in them[Pg 149] the face of the unreasonable schoolgirl that Violet long ago must have been. He understood for the first time that her vivacity and energy had another and a sinister side. He felt himself to be amid formidable dangers; he was a very courageous man, and like nearly all courageous men in danger he was frightened. "A nice way I'm treated!" Violet continued grimly. "All I think of is you. All I want is your happiness, and look at me! I'm always snubbed, always! So long as you do everything you want, and I do everything you want, it's all right. But if I suggest anything—look at you! I have to have my meals in my mantle because you grudge me a bit of fire! It isn't as if I didn't pay my share of everything. I pay my share right enough, and more—you see to that, trust you! But I have to catch my death of cold every day, because we're so poor, I suppose! Oh, yes! We haven't a penny in the world to bless ourselves with!" Henry felt in his pockets, and then left the room in silence. Alone, Violet busily fed her angry resentment. She was in a rage, and knew she was in a rage, and her rage was dear to her. She cared for nothing but her rage, and she was ready to pay for it with all her possible future happiness and the future happiness of her husband. Henry returned with a match-box and lit the gas-fire. Still no word. No sound but the plop of igniting gas. Violet sprang up in fury, rushed to the stove and extinguished it with a vehement, vicious gesture. "No! I couldn't have it before, and I won't have it now!" She pulled off her mantle and threw it to the floor. "If I'm to be cold I'll be cold. Here I've been in the shop all day, shivering. Why? How many wives would do it? There isn't another in this dreadful Clerkenwell that you're so fond of, I swear! You're the stingiest man in London, and don't you make any mistake. You think I can't see through you and your excuses! Ha!" She began to walk up and down the[Pg 150] room now. "I'm a slave, same as Elsie is a slave. More than Elsie. She does get an afternoon off. But me? When? Night and day! Night and day! Love? A lot you know about it! Cold by day and cold by night! And so now you know! I've often wanted to tell you, but I wouldn't, because I thought it was my duty to struggle on. Besides, I didn't want to upset you. Well, now I do want to upset you!... And why wouldn't you eat the steak? I'll tell you. Because I asked you to eat it." "You know that's rather unfair," Henry muttered. "'Unfair,' is it? 'Unfair'? A nice word for you to use. So I know it's unfair, do I? I'm being 'unfair,' am I?" She looked straight at him. Her eyes blazed at him, and she added solemnly: "Henry, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, the way you go on. What do you think Elsie thinks? The marvel is that she stays here. Supposing she left us and started to talk! You ought to be ashamed of yourself." She dropped back into her chair and sobbed loudly. If Elsie heard her, what matter? In her rage she had put facts into words, and thereby given them life, devastating life. In two minutes she had transformed the domestic interior from heaven into hell. She had done something which could never be undone. Words had created that which no words could destroy. And he had driven her to it. She gazed at him once more, across the ruins of their primitive and austere bliss. "You're shortening your life. That's what you're doing," she said, with chill ferocity. "Not to speak of mine. What's mine? What did you have for your dinner out to-day' You daren't tell me because you starved yourself. I defy you to tell me." She laid her head on the table just like a schoolgirl abandoning herself utterly to some girlish grief, and went on crying, but not angrily and rebelliously now—mournfully, self-pityingly, tragically. And then she sat up straight again, with suddenness, and shot new fire from her wet eyes at the tyrannic monster.[Pg 151] "Yes, and you needn't think I've been spending money on servant's caps, either! Because I haven't. I know no more about that cap of Elsie's than you do. God alone knows where she's got it from, and why she's wearing it. But I give servants up." (Here Henry had an absurd wild glimmer of hope that she meant to give Elsie up, do without a servant, and so save wages and food. But he saw the next instant that he had misunderstood her words.) "They're past me, servants are! Only, of course, you think it's me been buying caps for the girl!" This was the last flaring of her furious resentment. Instead of replying to it, Henry softly left the room. Violet's sobs died down, and her compassion for herself grew silent, since there was no longer need for its expression. She tried hard to concentrate on the hardships of her lot, but she could not. Another idea insisted on occupying her mind, and compared to this idea the hardships of her lot were trifles. "I've lost my power over him." If he had only responded to her cajolings, and recognized in some formal way her power! If he had only caressed her and pleaded with her not to exercise her power too drastically upon him. If he had only said: "Vi, let me off. I'll eat just a little bit to please you, but I really can't eat it all. You know you can do what you like with me, but let me off!" That would have been marvellous, delicious, entirely satisfactory. But she had lost her power. And yet, while mourning that she had lost her power, she knew very well that she had never had any power. He was in love with her, but he was more in love with his grand passion and vice, which alone had power over him, and of which he, the bland tyrant over all else, was the slave. She had pretended to herself that she had power, and she had been able to maintain the pretence because she had never till that day attempted to put her imagined power really to the test. Twice now she had essayed it, and twice failed.[Pg 152] Fool! She was a fool! She had irreparably damaged her prestige. She had but one refuge, the refuge of yielding. "I must yield! I must yield!" she thought passionately. And the voluptuous pleasure of yielding presented itself to her temptingly.... She must submit. She must cling still closer to him, echo faithfully his individuality, lose herself in him. There was nothing else. Elsie entered to clear the table. Violet jumped up, seized the discarded mantle, and put it on. She was not young enough—that is to say, her body was not young enough—to scorn the inclement evening cold of the room. Averting her face from the cap-wearer, she departed. But at the door another idea occurred to her. "Elsie," she said. "I must leave you to see to everything to-night. I'm going to lie down." She spoke in a hard, dry voice, without turning her face towards Elsie. And in a few minutes she was getting into the sheetless and empty bed in the dark bedroom. She must yield! She must yield! Elsie had had the experience of her own brief marriage, and had seen a very great deal of other people's. Mrs. Earlforward's efforts to deceive her were a complete failure. She knew at once, on entering the dining-room, that there must have been trouble. Mr. Earlforward's visit to the office during tea was unusual. Then there was the singular spectacle of Mrs. Earlforward putting on her mantle at the end of the meal. Why had she taken it off? The only explanation that Elsie could think of was that Mrs. Earlforward had taken off the mantle in order to have a dust-up with Mr. Earlforward. That was the natural explanation, but Elsie was sure that it could not be the true one. Then there was the appearance of Mrs. Earlforward's features, and the fact that in speaking to Elsie she departed from her habit of looking Elsie straight in the face. And further, there was the uneaten steak on Mr. Earlforward's plate, and the fragment of it on Mrs. Earlforward's plate. And further, there was the very disconcerting retirement to bed of[Pg 153] Mrs. Earlforward. Elsie could not conceive what the trouble had been about. But she managed to think that both the antagonists were in the right, and to feel sorry for both of them—and so much so that her eyes filled with tears. When she reached her kitchen with the remains of tea, the steak was to her a sacrosanct object. Even the fragment of it was a sacrosanct object; she put the fragment with her fingers on the same plate as the steak, and then she licked her fingers—not a very wise action—and proceeded to wash up. She was still full of remorse for the theft—yes, it was a theft!—of the egg. That incident was to be a lesson to her; it was to teach her the lamentable weakness of her character. Never again would she fall into sin. Absurd to fancy that she did not have enough to eat at Riceyman Steps, and that she was continually hungry! She had more to eat, and more regularly, than many persons in her experience. Appetite was a sign of good health, and she ought to be thankful for good health; good health was a blessing. She ought not to be greedy, and above all she ought not to seek to excuse her greed by false excuses about appetite and lack of food. She continued calmly with her washing-up. The steak, during its cooking, had caused her a lot of inconvenience; the smell of it had awakened desires which she had had difficulty in withstanding; it had made her mouth water abundantly; and she had been very thankful to get the steak safely into the dining-room without any accident happening to it. But now the steak did not challenge her weakness. Resolution had triumphed over the steak. Her too active and ingenious mind became, however, entangled in the conception of the tiny fragment lying by the steak itself. She examined the fragment. A mouthful; no more! In the morning it would be dried up and shrunk to nothing. It would be wasted. She picked up the fragment out of curiosity, just to see exactly what it was like, and in an instant the fragment had vanished. The fragment did not seem[Pg 154] to go into her stomach; it sub-divided itself into a thousand parts, which ran through all her veins like fire, more potent than brandy, more dreadfully inspiring than champagne. From this moment the steak was turned into a basilisk, with a devilish, sinister fascination for her. She ceased to wash up. She was saddened by the domestic infelicity of her employers; she was cast down and needed a tonic. She felt that without some pick-me-up she could not bear the vast grief of the world. She went through the agonies of the resisting drunkard dragged by ruthless craving nearer and nearer to the edge of the fatal precipice. Would her employers themselves eat the steak on the morrow? Very probably not. Very probably Mrs. Earlforward on the morrow would authorize her, Elsie, to eat the steak. If she might eat it to-morrow she might eat it to-night. What difference to her employers whether she ate it to-morrow or to-night? Moreover, if Mrs. Earlforward had not been upset she would quite possibly have given Elsie express permission to eat the steak. Elsie began to feel her self-respect slipping away, her honour slipping away, all right-mindedness slipping away, under the basilisk's stare of the steak. A few minutes later she knocked at the bedroom door, and, receiving no answer, went in. The room was dark, but she could distinguish the form of Mrs. Earlforward in the bed. "What is it? What is it?" demanded a weak, querulous, mournful voice. Mrs Earlforward vaguely extended her hand, and it touched something which for several seconds she could not identify. It touched Elsie's cap. Elsie had sunk to her knees by the bedside. She burst into weeping. "Oh, 'm!" sobbed Elsie. "Oh, 'm! I've gone and eaten the steak. I don't know what made me do it, 'm, but I've eaten the steak and I run straight in to tell you, 'm." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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