“What’s ’e got in the box?”
“Rabbits.”
“Don’t be silly—’i, mister, give yer a ’and?”
Scarsdale ascended the steps and rang the bell. He was ready with his explainings and his apologies, and then the door opened, and she was there.
“I’m afraid I have rather a lot of luggage.”
He looked at her anxiously. Apparently she was quite calm, and not in the least put out by the accumulation at the bottom of the steps. She took no notice of the children pressing against the railings; she did not appear to see them. Her air of tranquillity was somehow profoundly reassuring.
“I’ll help you in with it.”
“O, no, you must not do that.”
“O, yes, I will. I’m used to moving things.”
She had her way, and Scarsdale became her supernumerary. She directed him, but without any air of authority. “You take one handle. The upper one. It’s easier to go backward in trousers. We’ll carry them all into the passage.” They carried in the first trunk, and he was surprised at her strength and at the ease with which she handled her end of the burden. She did not get flushed or out of breath. She was deliberate and capable and unflurried. And suddenly he felt less afraid of her. It seemed to him that she had an inevitableness, a kind of meaning in a world of muddle and disharmony and unexplainable physical excitement. She did not appear to get excited about things.
The sugar-box sustained its cantankerous reputation, and perhaps Scarsdale was clumsy, but it was one of her fingers that was pinched between the box and the door. A white knuckle showed a red blur; the skin had been broken.
He looked shocked.
“You’ve hurt yourself.”
“Just the knuckle, that’s all.”
“I believe it was my fault. I’m—”
She smiled; she looked amused; and then she put the knuckle to her lips and sucked it. The act fascinated him; it seemed so natural and human in her, whereas if anybody else had done it he would have had qualms.
He said, “Hadn’t you better go and wash it. I can manage the rest. Only odds and ends.”
“I’ll put a piece of linen round it. I heal well.”
He looked at her, at the wholesome, firm-fleshed pallor of her. She was not all raddled like most of the working women; her hair had a glossiness. Yes, she looked supremely healthy; her movements had a kind of deliberate rightness. Her co-ordination was perfect, and no little inward frettings and disharmonies seemed to disturb it.
He was conscious of surprise. No longer was he afraid of her, or not in that particular way. She was so inevitable in her reactions, in her words and her movements. So—sensible. Yet that was not quite the word. He went down the steps and carried in the rest of his belongings, and closed the door on the irreverent faces of those children. And when he had closed the door he was aware of a silence, and of being shut in alone with her.
3
Yes, the house was extraordinarily silent. Scarsdale had carried the suitcase and the Gladstone bag up the stairs and into the room that was his, and had unpacked them, and stowed them away under the bed. He had examined the towels, and the sheets and the pillow-case, and found them after Miss Gall’s own heart. Meanwhile, the heavy baggage lay in the passage, and dusk was arriving, and he could not make up his mind about the trunks and the sugar-box. Should he unpack them down there, and carry up their contents piecemeal? Also, he needed a light, and he had mislaid his matches.
Where the devil had he put those matches? He wandered about the little room, searching for the box, and could not find it, and the dusk deepened. He saw windows opening their yellow eyes across the way. Perhaps Mrs. Richmond would supply him with matches? He went out on to the landing and stood at the top of the stairs.
“Mrs. Richmond.”
But he did not call her by name. The silence of the house had a queer, inhibiting effect upon him. He felt shy of it. He stood there and wondered. It was as though the silence was intimately and strangely her. What was she doing? Had she gone out?
He drifted back into the room and sat down upon the bed. It creaked; it continued to creak in time with his breathing. The room grew darker and darker, and more lights were lit in the ribbon of brickwork across the way. He heard children shouting and quarrelling in the Row. Why was it that common children always shouted and quarrelled. He was glad that Mrs. Richmond had no children. He supposed that she was a widow.
The silence in the house continued. It was mysterious. From the very beginning he had felt the house to be mysterious. But why? Was it because it was her house? He became restless. He felt rather foolish sitting there in the darkness. He got up, and the bed creaked. He walked to the head of the stairs.
Suddenly he heard a faint clinking sound from below, familiar yet strangely exciting. A ray of light traversed the darkness. A door creaked.
“Mr. Scarsdale.”
He felt absurdly foolish standing there in mute expectancy at the top of the stairs. He lowered his voice so that she might think that it came from his room.
“Yes?”
“The kettle’s just boiling. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Yes,—I should—very much, thank you.”
“I’ll put it in the sitting-room for you. Oh; one of your trunks is across the door.”
“I’ll move it.”
He hurried down the stairs.
4
Afterwards she helped him to carry the two trunks and the sugar-box. He noticed that she had a piece of clean linen wrapped round her finger. He felt very apologetic about her helping him with the luggage, but she appeared to be in no need of his pity or his excuses.
She found him a box of matches.
“Didn’t you light the gas?”
“No. I couldn’t find my matches.”
She lit the gas-jet for him, and lowered the blinds, and then quietly left him to solve the problem of distributing his belongings. She went down the stairs on easy, noiseless feet. It was extraordinary how silently she moved.
Scarsdale unpacked. He dealt with one trunk at a time, and realizing from the smallness of the room and the very limited dimensions of the chest of drawers and the wardrobe that a nice orderliness would be essential, he began by apportioning a place to the various articles. There should be a drawer for collars, handkerchiefs, and ties, a drawer for socks, another for shirts, and yet another for underclothing and pyjamas, and in theory the scheme was admirable, but it was rendered more complex by the existence of such articles as trousers and waistcoats. He began by hanging up coats in the wardrobe. It occurred to him that the trouser-press might find a place in the bottom of the wardrobe, but once again this piece of mechanism proved contumacious and unsympathetic, so he put it aside for a while and concentrated upon other matters. He filled the drawers of the chest, and was left with a credit balance of three dress-shirts, all his waistcoats, a woollen cardigan, a blue scarf, his boots, his boxful of books, and a collection of oddments. He had no table upon which to arrange his pipes and tobacco tin, manuscript paper, letters, stationery, pocket dictionary and notebook. The mantelpiece had been appropriated by his hairbrushes, razor, sundry bottles, a clothes-brush, a patent strop, a calendar, and a shaving-mirror.
His possessions overflowed. Obviously, the books would have to be left in the sugar-box, for—after all—literature is a luxury, and it occurred to him that the confounded trouser-press could repose on the top of the box. Also, he could use his suitcase for some of the superfluous garments. Such was the solution, a compromise, and when he had stowed the empty trunks away under the bed, and hung his overcoat and a mackintosh and a dressing-gown on two hooks that were fastened to the door, he felt that he had accomplished great things.
But what next? He sat down on the bed, and once more he became aware of the silence, of that other presence which withdrew into a kind of mysterious shell, and yet sent out a murmuring. He looked at his watch. It was six o’clock, and he had no table to write at, and no fire, and
the solitary gas-jet was aloof and unsympathetic. Yes, he would have to get hold of a table; he could edge it in there by the window between the washhand-stand and the wardrobe. He might buy some candles. Meanwhile, what next? He could not sit on his bed until it was time to get into it. The room had a chilliness, and he had nothing to do.
But how extraordinarily silent that woman was. He sat and listened and was moved to wonder what she was doing? What did women do with themselves? Was she sitting by the fire sewing? But that was the old tradition, and though he knew no other, and was nothing but a theorist, he felt his consciousness groping its way down the dark stairs. He did not tell himself that he knew nothing about women and their ways, perhaps because he had yet to discover his fundamental ignorance. He was a book man, a scribbler, a fellow who had had to pretend that he knew about everything. He had even written nice little, literary articles on “Woman”, and he knew as much about woman as Adam did before the purloining of his rib. As a journalist and sub-editor he had not dealt with realities. Life was a question of copy.
But what was that woman doing? What did she do for a living? Who was she, what was she? Why did she live here? What was her history? He sat on his bed and listened, and felt rather like a small boy shut up in a cupboard. He felt lonely. The lower regions of the small, dark house assumed an immensity, the strangeness of the unknown, and perhaps of the unknowable. Mrs. Richmond. It had a pleasant sound. And what was her other name? He supposed that she had a fire to sit by, and her own thoughts to think. What did a woman think about, a woman like Mrs. Richmond? Did she think? Obviously she had a life of her own, and rather capable hands, and an air of being able to deal with her own particular problems.
But this silence! He got up at last, and opened the door, and tiptoed to the top of the stairs. He stood and listened. The loneliness in him seemed to strain toward that other live presence.
Yes, he could hear something, and the sound puzzled him. It was a sort of whirr-whirr-whirr, and his uneducated bachelor ears could make nothing of it. He had not lived with such things as sewing-machines.
He returned to his room. He decided to go out. He put on his hat and overcoat, and turned out the gas, and groped his way down the stairs. He made a good deal of noise, and there was a vacant space in him that wanted to be filled. He rather hoped that the door at the end of the passage would open, and let out light and life. But it remained closed. He found himself in the small garden. The night seemed very dark in spite of the lights across the way.
Chapter Twenty-two
Mrs. Richmond’s alarum woke her at six. She was not the mere slave of this mechanism, for she lay in bed for five minutes and enjoyed the warmth and the softness of it before reaching for the matches and lighting the candle beside her bed. Her working day began at eight, yet, always she slipped into it as she slipped into her clothes, with a feeling of sleekness and of ease. Nature had made her that way, quiet and dark of eye, and shapely and strong in body, and limbs. She was a Dorsetshire woman; her people had been small farmers.
There was much to do before she put on her hat and coat and went out to her work. There were two breakfasts to get, her lodger’s and her own, the kitchen grate to be cleaned and laid ready for the evening. She used a gas-ring in the morning, and a monster kettle that could satisfy two teapots and supply Mr. Scarsdale’s shaving-water. She allowed him his shaving-water. When doing the rough work she wore housemaid’s gloves, and the gaslight would shine upon her white and well-shaped forearms. Her skin was like herself, of a fine, firm texture.
She rather liked these dark winter mornings. They had an air of secrecy, and woman is a creature of secrecies where the soul of her dwells like a bird in a deep wood. She did not feel the cold. She went smoothly about the accomplishing of things, while the cat lay on the rug and watched her with eyes that were green or yellow. At a quarter to seven she knocked at Scarsdale’s door.
“Your hot water.”
The summons was abrupt, but her voice had a fluidity. It was never in a hurry.
“Thank you, Mrs. Richmond.”
She called him at a quarter to seven, because she had to give him his breakfast at half-past seven. She had her own at a quarter after the hour. Most women would have rushed clattering at the day, but she was deliberate, and because of it the day obeyed her. It drew its breath steadily and followed.
At a quarter to eight she passed down the passage and out of the front door. She closed it gently. She wore black, and carried a black shopping bag. Her neck was white under her dark hair.
From his table in the sitting-room Scarsdale could see her walk to the gate, pass out, and disappear along the Row. He watched her until she passed out of his view. He wondered about her. Where did she go;—what did she do? She was mysterious, though to the casual eye there was nothing mysterious about her. She was a woman who went out to work and returned, and was quietly busy about the house, and who went to bed and rose again in the morning. She moved to the rhythm of a routine, and yet the monotone of her day was like the single, wayward note of a blackbird.
She seemed so apart, so mysteriously self-sufficient. He heard her about the house; she did things for him; her life seemed to consist of doing simple things. They appeared to satisfy her, or that was his feeling about it. The house was full of her presence, and yet to him she was almost invisible. At night she sat alone in that back room, and it was like some secret place into which he would never penetrate. He had had a glimpse of her bedroom when the door had happened to be open, and he had seen a strip of brown carpet, a white quilt, and a pillow with a nightdress neatly folded upon it.
The house was full of her even when she was not in it. The silence watched with round, dark eyes. He would get up from the breakfast-table and stroll to the window, and wonder what to do with the day. Work, or go out in quest of work? He had a strange feeling of helplessness. It seemed that he depended upon something.
One morning he realized that the breakfast-things were left upon the table, and that when she came back at four o’clock she had to clear those things away and wash them up. She did it each day. She was paid to do it,—and yet—!
He remembered that his unmade bed waited for her, and the water in his basin.
How superfluous! He stood looking at the plate that had presented him with two rashers of bacon. He was conscious of feeling futile and useless, like a large and helpless child. Surely he had hands, hands that could do other things than scribble?
He pondered it all day while wandering rather aimlessly in search of possibilities. He went home early and emptied his basin, and made his bed. It was a much more puzzling job than he had imagined it to be. The result lacked precision, and smoothness.
He waited for her to come in. He heard her go into the sitting-room kitchen. He descended the stairs quietly and stood in the passage. The door was half open, and he could see her bending down in front of the grate. She struck a match; the light played upon her face.
He cleared his throat self-consciously.
“Mrs. Richmond.”
She turned her head slightly.
“Yes.”
“It has struck me as rather—rather silly—that you should have to do things when you come back.”
“What things?”
“Clear away breakfast-things. And my room.”
She was watching the flames lick the wood. She remained motionless.
“O, well, I do them. Why not?”
He watched her; he felt very large and awkward. He said, “I’ve made my bed. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t clear away those things in the morning?”
She looked at him. Her eyes were two dark pits.
“Well, you could. Put them on the table here. I wash up when I come back.”
She rose and disappeared from his view; she was taking off her hat, and he, feeling vaguely superfluous, went and sat in the sitting-room. It was growing dark, and it was chilly, and he sat there of sufferance.
She came in with his tea.
> “Why didn’t you light the gas?”
He smiled vaguely in the darkness.
“Yes, I ought to have done. But one shouldn’t waste gas.”
She lit it, and left him to his tea. He heard her go upstairs. She was in his room. What was she doing? Remaking his bed? He ate bread and butter slowly. Yes, probably he had made rather an apple pie of that bed.
She came downstairs again; she paused at the door.
“You had better leave it to me.”
She was decisive, but her voice had a gentleness.
“Probably takes me half the time, and I—”
“Yes—you do it better. But I might learn, you know.”
It was the first hopeful thing that she had heard him say.
2
For, regarded as a self-supporting, autonomous creature, he was rather hopeless, and yet his helplessness did not annoy her. She accepted it as she had accepted him as a lodger, divining him to be one of those men who were born to failure as the sparks fly upward. She thought about him as she walked to her work at Highbury Terrace and St. Mary’s Road. She had been married, and she understood men, but not just because she had been married. She understood many things, because it seemed to be her nature to understand them, and because she was never in a hurry, and did not read too much, and talked even less than she read.
She had married a man who had been a motor-engineer before the war, and who had joined the Air Force, and risen to the rank of sergeant before he had been killed by an aeroplane bomb miles behind the line in France. She had a pension, and she earned some thirty shillings a week working as help at houses in Highbury Terrace, St. Mary’s Road and Aylwin Place. She let a room. She was by no means a grievous widow. It is possible that she had begun to tire of her motor-mechanic’s shallow assertiveness and his little waxed mustachios and his advanced opinions. He had been one of those men who talk like a stone rattling in an empty tin. It is possible that she had begun to wonder why she had married him.
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