Chapter VI: Part II: I (2)

Violet was startled almost out of her self-possession. She held the key as though she did not know what to do with it. She gave a mechanical smile, very unlike the smile whose vivacity drew crinkling lines from all parts of her face to the corners of her eyes and of her mouth. The present was totally unexpected. He had said not one word as to presents; certainly he had not questioned her about her preferences, nor shown even indirectly any kind of curiosity in this regard. She had comprehended that he wished neither to bestow nor to receive, and she was perfectly reconciled to his idiosyncrasy. After all, was she not at that moment wearing, without resentment or discomfort, the wedding-ring to obtain which he had sold its predecessor? And yet he had conceived the plan of giving her a present and had executed it in secret, as such plans on such occasions ought to be executed. And he was evidently pleased with his plan and proud of it.

How many husbands would have given a safe to their wives so that the dear creatures might really possess their property in privacy and independence? Very few. The average good husband would have expected his wife to hand over all that she had into his own safe-keeping--not for his own use--but she would have had to ask him for what was hers, and in giving her what was hers he would have had the air of conferring a favour. Henry was not like that. Henry, she knew, admired her for her possessions as well as for her personality. And he had desired to insist on them in a spectacular manner. She was touched. Yes, she was touched; because she understood his motives; saw the fineness, the chivalry, in his motives.

When she had thanked him she said:

"I think I shall have it in the bathroom, under the window; there is plenty of room there."

Her practical sagacity had not failed her. In the bathroom she could employ her safe, study the contents of her safe, and take from them or add to them, unsurveyed, according to her most free fancy. Whereas, if the safe was in the bedroom or in the dining-room, or side by side with Henry's safe in the office--well, you never knew! He agreed instantly with her suggestion.

"If I were you," said he, "I should get your things out of that Cornhill safe-deposit place at once."

The late Mr. Arb had always been in favour of a "safe-deposit place" for securities and valuables. The arrangement was beyond doubt best for a nomad, but in addition, with his histrionic temperament, he had loved the somewhat theatrical apparatus of triple security with which safe-deposit companies impressed their clients. He had loved descending into illuminated steel vaults, and the smooth noise of well-oiled locks and the signing and countersigning, and the surveillance, and the surpassing precautions. Violet had loved it also. It magnified riches. It induced ecstatic sensations.

But Mr. Henry Earlforward had other views. He held that the rent which you had to pay for a coffer in a safe-deposit was excessive, and that to pay it was a mere squandering of money in order to keep money, and quite irrational, quite ridiculous--indeed, a sort of contradiction in terms. That Mrs. Arb should patronize a safe-deposit company had seemed to offend him; that his wife should patronize a safe-deposit company gave him positive pain. Imagine having to take motor-buses and trams and spend money and half a day of time whenever you wanted to open your own coffer! Violet had listened to him at length on this topic.

She was pleasantly touched now, but simultaneously she was frightened again. Standing close to him in the gloom of the corner, dangling the key on its bit of string, glancing at his fresh, full-lipped, grey-bearded, kindly face, and at his bland little eyes which rested on her with love, she was frightened and even appalled. She had made him a present of a scientific spring-cleaning, and he had given her a safe, on their wedding day! It was terrible, it was horrible! Why? Eminently sensible gifts, both, surely! Not more prosaic than those very popular and well-accepted presents, a pair of fish-carvers, a patent carpet-sweeper, a copper coal-scuttle! No, possibly not more prosaic than those.... And yet, terrible! No doubt she would not have thought them so horrible if she had not seen that second-hand satin shoe hanging on the bedstead by a piece of pink ribbon. She knew that the excellent, trustworthy and adoring man who was the safe-deposit in which she had deposited herself had no suspicion of the nature of her thoughts. And his innocence, his simplicity, his blindness--call it what you please--only intensified her perturbation. He turned away to speak to the workmen about moving the safe.

At a later hour, soon after the workmen and the engines and the hose and all the apparatus of purification had vanished from Riceyman Steps, to the regret of a persistent crowd which had been enjoying an absolutely novel sensation, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Earlforward, who were alone and rather self-conscious and rather at a loss for something to do in the beautiful shut shop, heard steps on the upper stairs. Elsie! They had forgotten Elsie! It was not a time for them to be thoughtful of other people. Elsie presently appeared on the lower stairs, and was beheld of both her astonished employers. For Elsie was clothed in her best, and it was proved that she indeed had a best. Neither Henry nor Violet had ever seen the frock which Elsie was wearing. Yet it was obviously not a new frock. It had lain in that tin trunk of hers since more glorious days. Possibly Joe might have seen it on some bright evening, but no other among living men. Its colour was brown; in cut it did not bear, and never had borne, any relation to the fashions of the day. But it was unquestionably a best dress. Over the façade of the front Elsie displayed a garment still more surprising; namely, a white apron. Now in Clerkenwell white aprons were white only once in their active careers, and not always even once. White aprons in Clerkenwell were white (unless bought "shop-soiled" at a reduction) for about the first hour of their first wearing. They were, of course, washed, rinsed and ironed, and sometimes lightly starched, but they never achieved whiteness again, and it was impossible that they should do so. A whitish grey was the highest they could reach after the first laundry. Elsie therefore was wearing a new apron; and, in fact, she had purchased it with her own money under the influence of her modest pride in forming a regular part of a household comprising a gentleman and lady freshly united in matrimony. She had also purchased a cap, but at the last moment, after trying it on, had lacked the courage to keep it on; she felt too excessively odd in it. She was carrying a parcel in her left hand, and the other was behind her back. Mrs. Earlforward, at sight of her, guessed part of what was coming, but not the more exciting part.

"Oh, Elsie!" cried Mrs. Earlforward. "There you are! I fancied you were out."

"No, 'm," said Elsie, in her gentle, firm voice. "But I wasn't expecting you and master home so early, and as soon as you came I run upstairs to change."

With that Elsie, from the advantage of three stairs, suddenly showed her right hand, and out of a paper bag flung a considerable quantity of rice on to the middle-aged persons of the married. She accomplished this gesture with the air of a benevolent priestess performing a necessary and gravely important rite. Some of the rice stuck on its targets, but most of it rattled on the floor and rolled about in the silence. Indeed, there was quite a mess of rice on the floor, and the pity seemed to be that the vacuum-cleaners had left early.

Violet was the first to recover from the state of foolish and abashed stupefaction into which the deliberate assault had put man and wife. Violet laughed heartily, very heartily. Her mood was transformed again in an instant into one of gaiety, happiness, and natural ease. It was as if a sinister spell had been miraculously lifted. Henry gradually smiled, while regarding with proper regret this wanton waste of a health-giving food such as formed the sole nourishment of many millions of his fellow-creatures in distant parts of the world. Sheepishly brushing his clothes with his hand, he felt as though he was dissipating good rice-puddings. But he, too, suffered a change of heart.

"I had to do it, because it's for luck," Elsie amiably explained, not without dignity. Evidently she had determined to do the wedding thoroughly, in spite of the unconventionalities of the contracting parties.

"I'm sure it's very kind of you," said Mrs. Earlforward.

"Yes, it is," Mr. Earlforward concurred.

"And here's a present from me," Elsie continued, blushing, and offering the parcel.

"I'm sure we're very much obliged," said Mrs. Earlforward, taking the parcel. "Come into the back-room, Elsie, and I'll undo it. It's very heavy. No, I'd better not hold it by the string."

And in the office the cutting of string and the unfolding of brown paper and of tissue paper disclosed a box, and the opening of the box disclosed a wedding-cake--not a large one, true, but authentic. What with the shoe and the rice and the cake, Elsie in the grand generosity of her soul must have spent a fortune on the wedding, must have exercised the large munificence of a Rothschild--and all because she had faith in the virtue of the ancient proprieties appertaining to the marriage ceremony. She alone had seen Mrs. Earlforward as a bride and Mr. Earlforward as a bridegroom, and the magic of her belief compelled the partners also to see themselves as bride and bridegroom.

"Well, Elsie," Violet burst out--and she was deeply affected--"I really don't know what to say. It's most unexpected, and I don't know how to thank you. But run and get a knife, and we'll cut it."

"It must be cut," said Elsie, again the priestess, and she obediently ran off to get the knife.

"Well, well!... Well, well!" murmured Henry, flabbergasted, and blushing even more than his wife had blushed. The pair were so disturbed that they dared not look at each other.

"You must cut it, 'm," said Elsie, returning with the knife and a flat dish.

And Mrs. Earlforward, having placed the cake on the dish, sawed down into the cake. She had to use all her strength to penetrate the brown; the top icing splintered easily, and fragments of it flew about the desk.

"Now, Elsie, here's your slice," said Violet, lifting the dish.

"Thank ye, 'm. But I must keep mine. I've got a little box for it upstairs."

"But aren't you going to eat any of it?"

"No, 'm," with solemnity. "But _you_ must.... I'll just taste this white part," she added, picking up a bit of icing from the desk.

The married pair ate.

"I think I'll go now, 'm, if you'll excuse me," said Elsie. "But I'll just sweep up in the shop here first." She was standing in the doorway.

They heard her with hand-brush and dustpan collecting the scattered food of the Orient. She peeped in at the door again.

"Good night, 'm. Good night, sir." She saluted them with a benignant grin in which was a surprising little touch of naughtiness. And then they heard her receding footfalls as she ascended cautiously the dark flights of stairs and entered into her inviolable private life on the top floor.

"It would never have done not to eat it," said Violet.

"No," Henry agreed.

"She's a wonder, that girl is! You could have knocked me down with a feather."

"Yes."

"I wonder where she bought it."

"Must have gone up to King's Cross. Or down to Holborn. King's Cross more likely. Yesterday. In her dinner-hour."

"I'm hungry," said Violet.

And it was a fact that they had had no evening meal, seeing that they had expressly announced their intention of "eating out" on that great day.

"So must you be, my dear," said Violet.

There they were, alone together on the ground-floor, with one electric bulb in the back room and one other, needlessly, lighting the middle part of the cleansed and pleasant shop. They could afford to be young and to live perilously, madly, absurdly. They lost control of themselves, and gloried in so doing. The cake was a danger to existence. It had the consistency of marble, the richness of molasses, the mysteriousness of the enigma of the universe. It seemed unconquerable. It seemed more fatal than daggers or gelignite. But they attacked it. Fortunately, neither of them knew the inner meaning of indigestion. When Henry had taken the last slice, Violet exclaimed like a child:

"Oh, just one tiny piece more!" And with burning eyes she bent down and bit off a morsel from the slice in Henry's hand.

"I am living!" shouted an unheard voice in Henry's soul.

VI

THE NEXT DAY

The next morning, before the first church-bells had begun to ring for early communion, and before the sun had decided whether or not it would shine upon Riceyman Square and Steps that day, Violet very silently came out of the bedroom and drew the door to without a sound; even the latch was not permitted to click. She was wearing her neat check frock, the frock of industry, and she carried in her hand a large blue pinafore-apron, clean and folded, and an old pair of gloves. Her hair, in a large cap, was as hidden as a nun's. Her face had the expression, and her whole vivacious body the demeanour, of one who is dominated by a grandiose idea and utterly determined to execute it. She went upstairs, in the raw, chilly twilight, to the narrow room over the bathroom, which, in her mind, she called the kitchen, not because it was a kitchen, but because it alone in the house served the purpose of a kitchen.

Elsie, her hair still loose, was already there, boiling water on the gas-ring. The jets of blue flame helped to light the place, and also comfortably warmed it and made it cosy. Violet greeted the girl with a kindly smile, which was entirely matter-of-fact--as though this morning was a morning just like any other morning.

"Your master's fast asleep," she solemnly whispered; from her tone she might have been saying "our master."

"Yes, 'm," Elsie whispered solemnly.

And it was instantly established that the basic phenomenon of the household was their master's heavy and sacred slumber.

"_I_'ll have some of that tea, too," said Violet. "What is there for dinner?"

She had expressly refrained from showing any curiosity whatever about domestic arrangements until she should have acquired the status entitling her to take charge; no one could be more discreet, more correct, on important occasions, than Violet.

"He told me to buy this bit of mutton," answered Elsie, indicating a scrag-end on a plate, "and then there's them potatoes and the cheese."

"But how shall you cook it?"

"Boil it, 'm. He never has flesh meat, not often that is, but when he does I boil it."

"Oh, well, that will be all right. Of course I shall have to fix things up here, Elsie, and we may as well begin as we mean to go on."

"Yes, 'm."

"And you know my ways, don't you? That's fortunate."

"Yes, 'm."

While they were drinking the tea and eating pieces of bread, Violet nicely pretending to be Elsie's equal in the sight of God, and Elsie gently firm in maintaining the theory of the impassableness of the social chasm which separated them. Violet said:

"I'm sure we shall understand one another, Elsie. Of course you've been here on and off for a long while, and you've got your little habits here, and quite right too, and I've no doubt very good habits, because I'm convinced you're very conscientious in your work; if you hadn't been I shouldn't have kept you; but we've got to start afresh in this house, haven't we?"

"Oh, _yes_, 'm!" Elsie eagerly concurred.

"Yes, and the first thing to do is to get straight and tidy. I know it's Sunday, and I'm as much for rest and church as anybody, and I hope you'll go to church yourself every Sunday evening regular. But tradespeople aren't like others, and they can't be. There's certain things that can only be done on Sundays in a place of business--same as they have to lay railway lines on Sundays, you see. And what's more, I'm one of those that can't _rest_ until what has to be done _is_ done. They do say, the better the day the better the deed, don't they? Now all those books lying about on the floor and so on everywhere--they've got to be put right."

"Master used to say so, 'm, but somehow----"

"Yes," Violet broke in, anticipating some implied criticism of the master. "Yes. But, of course, he simply hasn't been able to do it. He's been dreadfully overworked as it is. Now there's all those books in the bathroom to begin with. I'm going to have them in the top front-room, next to yours, you know.... I wish there were some spare shelves, but I suppose we must arrange the books on the floor."

"There's a lot of shelves slanting down the cellar steps, 'm," said Elsie, with the joy of the bringer of glad tidings.

"Oh! I didn't know we had a cellar."

"Oh, yes, 'm, there's a cellar."

Violet enveloped herself in the pinafore-apron and put on the gloves. The bride on her honeymoon and the girl crept softly downstairs, and one by one, with miraculous success in the avoidance of any sound, the planks--they were no more than planks--were transported from the bottom of the house to the top. No uprights for the shelves could be discovered, but Violet, whose natural ingenuity had been intensified by the resistless force of her grandiose idea, improvised supports for the shelves out of a lot of shabby old volumes of _The Illustrated London News_. She laid a shelf on three perpendicular tomes--one at either end and one in the middle--and then three more tomes on the shelf, and then another shelf on them, and so on, till the whole of the empty wall in the front room was a bookcase ready to receive books. Violet was well pleased, and Elsie marvelled at Violet's magical creative power.

The house was sealed up from the world. Not a door open; not a window open! Hours passed. The sun coldly shone. The faint jangle of church-bells was the only sound within the house where the two devotees laboured in a tiptoeing silence upstairs and downstairs while the master reposed unconscious. Violet filled Elsie's stout apron with books, and, bearing a handful of books herself, followed her upstairs; the books were ranged; the devotees descended again. The work was simplified by the fact that the vacuum-cleaners had remedied the worst disorder on the previous day; they had, for example, emptied the bath of all its learning. At intervals Violet listened anxiously at the bedroom door. Once she peeped in. No sign of life. And the devotees were happy because in their rage of constructive energy they had contrived not to wake the master. The bathroom was cleared; the chief obstructions on the stairs were cleared; and there was still some space available on the improvised shelves.

"We'll move on to that dark corner of the shop-floor by the stairs," said Violet, triumphing more and more.

This decision meant still more stair-climbing. When Elsie, breathless, had lifted the first load out of the shop to the top-floor, Violet said thoughtfully as she emptied the apron: "I suppose your master is still asleep? Does he ring? Is there a bell?"

"Yes, there's a bell, 'm, but it's been out of order ever since I was here, and I don't know where it would ring if it wasn't out of order. He's never slept like this before, 'm."

Anxiety passed across their intent faces. Such sleeping was unnatural. Then they heard his footsteps on the stairs.... He had gone down into the shop, probably into his office.

"Better go and make some more tea," said Violet gravely.

"Yes, 'm."

The bride preceded the girl down the stairs. She felt suddenly guilty in well-doing. She wondered whether she was a ministering angel or a criminal. Henry stood in the bright, clean shop, gazing at the disturbed corner from which books had been taken.

"My dear, you're ruining my business," he said mildly and blandly.

"Henry!" She stopped near the foot of the stairs, as it were thunderstruck by a revelation.

"You don't understand how much of it depends on me having lots of books lying about as if they weren't anything at all. That's just what book-collectors like. If everything was ship-shape they wouldn't look twice at the place. Whenever they see a pile of books in the dark they think there must be bargains."

He did not say he was sure she meant for the best, nor praise her enterprise and energy. He merely stated baldly, simply, quietly, impartially, dispassionately a psychological fact. And he asked no questions.

"Oh, Henry! I never thought of that. I'm so sorry."

And she for her part did not try to justify herself. In her self-confident ignorance she had sinned. His perfect tranquillity intimidated her. And he was so disturbingly sure of his position. He stood there in his neat blue Sunday suit, with the necktie hiding all the shirt-front, and the shirt-cuffs quite invisible, and his leather slippers, and his trim, greying beard and full, heavy, crimson lips, and his little eyes (rather fatigued now), and he put the plain truth before her, neither accusing nor excusing. She saw that, witless, she had been endangering the security of their joint future. She felt as though she had had the narrowest escape from actually ruining the business! In her vivacity and her proud carriage she was humbled. She came forward and took his hand.

"How cold your hand is, darling!" (She had never called the late Mr. Arb "darling." She had called him "old josser" and things like that.)

"That's cold water," said he.

"You ought to have warm water to wash in."

He laughed grimly. She knew that so long as the gas-meter clicked he would never allow her to heat water on the gas-ring for him. He bent and kissed her, and kept his mouth on hers for ages of eternity. They were happy together; they were bound to be happy together. As for her, she would be happy in yielding her will to his, in adopting all his ideas, and in being even more royalist than the king. Her glance fell. She experienced a sensuous pleasure in the passionate resolution to be his disciple and lieutenant. When Elsie, celestially benevolent, appeared with a tray on the stairs, Violet seized her husband's arm to lead him to the back-room. And as she did so she bridled and slightly swayed her body, and gave a sidelong glance at Elsie as if saying: "I am his slave, but I own him, and he belongs to no woman but me."

"Elsie," she said sternly. "You'd better bring that last lot of books down again. Mr. Earlforward thinks they should stay where they were." The indisputable fiat of the sultan, published by his vizier!

"Yes, 'm."

She sat him down in his desk-chair, and as she dispensed his tea she fluttered round him like a whole flock of doves.

"Let me see," said he, with amiable detachment. "Did you give me the account of that one pound you had for spending yesterday?"

Outside, London was bestirring itself from the vast coma of Sunday morning. But inside the sealed house London did not exist. This was the end of the honeymoon; or, if you prefer it, their life was one long honeymoon.