“’Twasn’t kind, you. You ought to ’a’ come; I asked you, but you was sick o’ me, Frank, sick o’ me and mine. I didn’t want any help, neither, ’twasn’t that I wanted.”
“Would you ’a’ married me then?” Sharply but persuasively he probed for what she neither admitted nor denied. “Yes, yes, you would, Mary. ’Twould ’a’ bin a scandal if I’d gone and married someone else.”
When at last the truth about her own birth came out between them, oh, how ironically protestant he was! “God a’mighty, girl, what did you take me for! There’s no sense in you. I’ll marry you now, for good and all (this minute if we could), honour bright, and you know it, for I love you always and always. You were his mother, Mary, and I were his father! What was he like, that little son?”
Sadly the girl mused. “It was very small.”
“Light hair?”
“No, like mine, dark it was.”
“What colour eyes?”
She drew her fingers down through the long streams of hair. “It never opened its eyes.” And her voice moved him so that he cried out: “My love, my love, life’s before us; there’s a many good fish in the sea. When shall us marry?”
“Let me go, Frank. And you’d better go now, you’re hindering me, and father will be coming in, and—and—the cakes are burning!”
Snatching up a cloth, she opened the oven door and an odour of caraway rushed into the air. Inside the oven was a shelf full of little cakes in pans.
“Give us one,” he begged, “and then I’ll be off.”
“You shall have two,” she said, kneeling down by the oven. “One for you—mind, it’s hot!” He seized it from the cloth and quickly dropped it into his pocket. “And another, from me,” continued Mary. Taking the second cake, he knelt down and embraced the huddled girl.
“I wants another one,” he whispered.
A quick intelligence swam in her eyes: “For?”
“Ah, for what’s between us, dear Mary.”
The third cake was given him, and they stood up. They moved towards the door. She lifted the latch.
“Good night, my love.” Passively she received his kiss. “I’ll come again tomorrow.”
“No, Frank, don’t ever come any more.”
“Aw, I’m coming right enough,” he cried cheerily and confidently as he stepped away.
And I suppose we must conclude that he did.
Fishmonger’s Fiddle (1925)
Fifty Pounds
AFTER TEA PHILLIP REPTON AND EULALIA BURNES DISCUSSED their gloomy circumstances. Repton was the precarious sort of London journalist, a dark deliberating man, lean and drooping, full of genteel unprosperity, who wrote articles about Single Tax, Diet and Reason, The Futility of this that and the other, or The Significance of the other that and this; all done with a bleak care and signed P. Stick Repton. Eulalia was brown-haired and hardy, undeliberating and intuitive; she had been milliner, clerk, domestic help, and something in a canteen; and P. Stick Repton had, as one commonly says, picked her up at a time when she was drifting about London without a penny in her purse, without even a purse, and he had not yet put her down.
“I can’t understand! It’s sickening, monstrous!” Lally was fumbling with a match before the penny gas fire, for when it was evening, in September, it always got chilly on a floor so high up. Their flat was a fourth-floor one and there was—oh, fifteen thousand stairs! Out of the window and beyond the chimney you could see the long glare from lights in High Holborn and hear the hums and hoots of buses. And that was a comfort.
“Lower! Turn it lower!” yelled Phillip. The gas had ignited with an astounding thump; the kneeling Lally had thrown up her hands and dropped the matchbox saying “Damn” in the same tone as one might say good morning to a milkman.
“You shouldn’t do it, you know,” grumbled Repton. “You’ll blow us to the deuce.” And that was just like Lally, that was Lally all over, always: the gas, the nobs of sugar in his tea, the way she . . . and the, the . . . oh dear, dear! In their early life together, begun so abruptly and illicitly six months before, her simple hidden beauties had delighted him by their surprises; they had peered and shone brighter, had waned and recurred; she was less the one star in his universe than a faint galaxy.
This room of theirs was a dingy room, very small but very high. A lanky gas tube swooped from the middle of the ceiling towards the middle of the tablecloth as if burning to discover whether that was pink or saffron or fawn—and it was hard to tell—but on perceiving that the cloth, whatever its tint, was disturbingly spangled with dozens of cup-stains and several large envelopes, the gas tube in the violence of its disappointment contorted itself abruptly, assumed a lateral bend, and put out its tongue of flame at an oleograph of Mona Lisa which hung above the fireplace.
Those envelopes were the torment to Lally; they were the sickening monstrous manifestations which she could not understand. There were always some of them lying there, or about the room, bulging with manuscripts that no editors—they couldn’t have perused them—wanted; and so it had come to the desperate point when, as Lally was saying, something had to be done about things. Repton had done all he could; he wrote unceasingly, all day, all night, but all his projects insolvently withered, and morning, noon, and evening brought his manuscripts back as unwanted as snow in summer. He was depressed and baffled and weary. And there was simply nothing else he could do, nothing in the world. Apart from his own wonderful gift he was useless, Lally knew, and he was being steadily and stupidly murdered by those editors. It was weeks since they had eaten a proper meal. Whenever they obtained any real nice food now, they sat down to it silently, intently, and destructively. As far as Lally could tell, there seemed to be no prospect of any such meals again in life or time, and the worst of it all was Phillip’s pride—he was actually too proud to ask anyone for assistance! Not that he would be too proud to accept help if it were offered to him: oh no, if it came he would rejoice at it! But still, he had that nervous shrinking pride that coiled upon itself, and he would not ask; he was like a wounded animal that hid its woe far away from the rest of the world. Only Lally knew his need, but why could not other people see it—those villainous editors! His own wants were so modest and he had a generous mind.
“Phil,” Lally said, seating herself at the table. Repton was lolling in a wicker armchair beside the gas fire. “I’m not going on waiting and waiting any longer, I must go and get a job. Yes, I must. We get poorer and poorer. We can’t go on like it any longer, there’s no use, and I can’t bear it.”
“No, no, I can’t have that, my dear . . .”
“But I will!” she cried. “Oh, why are you so proud?”
“Proud! Proud!” He stared into the gas fire, his tired arms hanging limp over the arms of the chair. “You don’t understand. There are things the flesh has to endure, and things the spirit too must endure . . .” Lally loved to hear him talk like that; and it was just as well, for Repton was much given to such discoursing. Deep in her mind was the conviction that he had simple access to profound, almost unimaginable wisdom. “It isn’t pride, it is just that there is a certain order in life, in my life, that it would not do for. I could not bear it, I could never rest; I can’t explain that, but just believe it, Lally.” His head was empty but unbowed; he spoke quickly and finished almost angrily. “If only I had money! It’s not for myself. I can stand all this, any amount of it. I’ve done so before, and I shall do so again and again I’ve no doubt. But I have to think of you.”
That was fiercely annoying. Lally got up and went and stood over him.
“Why are you so stupid? I can think for myself and fend for myself. I’m not married to you. You have your pride, but I can’t starve for it. And I’ve a pride, too. I’m a burden to you. If you won’t let me work now while we’re together, then I must leave you and work for myself.”
“Leave! Leave me now? When things are so bad?” His white face gleamed his perturbation up at her. “Oh well, go, go.” But then, mo
urnfully moved, he took her hands and fondled them. “Don’t be a fool, Lally; it’s only a passing depression, this. I’ve known worse before, and it never lasts long, something turns up, always does. There’s good and bad in it all, but there’s more goodness than anything else. You see.”
“I don’t want to wait for ever, even for goodness. I don’t believe in it, I never see it, never feel it, it is no use to me. I could go and steal, or walk the streets, or do any dirty thing—easily. What’s the good of goodness if it isn’t any use?”
“But, but,” Repton stammered, “what’s the use of bad, if it isn’t any better?”
“I mean—” began Lally.
“You don’t mean anything, my dear girl.”
“I mean, when you haven’t any choice it’s no use talking moral, or having pride; it’s stupid. Oh, my darling”—she slid down to him and lay against his breast—“It’s not you, you are everything to me; that’s why it angers me so, this treatment of you, all hard blows and no comfort. It will never be any different. I feel it will never be different now, and it terrifies me.”
“Pooh!” Repton kissed her and comforted her: she was his beloved. “When things are wrong with us our fancies take their tone from our misfortunes, badness, evil. I sometimes have a queer stray feeling that one day I shall be hanged. Yes, I don’t know what for, what could I be hanged for? And, do you know, at other times I’ve had a kind of intuition that one day I shall be—what do you think?—Prime Minister of the country! Yes, well, you can’t reason against such things. I know what I should do, I’ve my plans, I’ve even made a list of the men for my Cabinet. Yes, well, there you are.”
But Lally had made up her mind to leave him; she would leave him for a while and earn her own living. When things took a turn for the better she would join him again. She told him this. She had friends who were going to get her some work.
“But what are you going to do, Lally? I—”
“I’m going away to Glasgow,” said she.
“Glasgow?” He had heard things about Glasgow! “Good heavens!”
“I’ve some friends there,” the girl went on steadily. She had got up and was sitting on the arm of his chair. “I wrote to them last week. They can get me a job almost any when, and I can stay with them. They want me to go—they’ve sent the money for my fare. I think I shall have to go.”
“You don’t love me, then!” said the man.
Lally kissed him.
“But do you? Tell me!”
“Yes, my dear,” said Lally, “of course.”
An uneasiness possessed him; he released her moodily. Where was their wild passion flown to? She was staring at him intently, then she tenderly said: “My love, don’t you be melancholy, don’t take it to heart so. I’d cross the world to find you a pin.”
“No, no, you mustn’t do that,” he exclaimed idiotically. At her indulgent smile he grimly laughed too, and then sank back in his chair. The girl stood up and went about the room doing vague nothings, until he spoke again.
“So you are tired of me?”
Lally went to him steadily and knelt down by his chair. “If I was tired of you, Phil, I’d kill myself.”
Moodily he ignored her. “I suppose it had to end like this. But I’ve loved you desperately.” Lally was now weeping on his shoulder and he began to twirl a lock of her rich brown hair absently with his fingers as if it were a seal on a watch-chain. “I’d been thinking that we might as well get married, as soon as things had turned round.”
“I’ll come back, Phil”—she clasped him so tenderly—“As soon as you want me.”
“But you are not really going?”
“Yes,” said Lally.
“You’re not to go!”
“I wouldn’t go if—if anything—if you had any luck. But as we are now I must go away, to give you a chance. You see that, darling Phil?”
“You’re not to go; I object. I just love you, Lally, that’s all, and of course I want to keep you here.”
“Then what are we to do?”
“I—don’t—know. Things drop out of the sky, but we must be together. You’re not to go.”
Lally sighed: he was stupid. And Repton began to turn over in his mind the dismal knowledge that she had taken this step in secret, she had not told him while she was trying to get to Glasgow. Now here she was with the fare, and as good as gone! Yes, it was all over.
“When do you propose to go?”
“Not for a few days, nearly a fortnight.”
“Good God,” he moaned. Yes, it was all over, then. He had never dreamed that this would be the end, that she would be the first to break away. He had always envisaged a tender scene in which he could tell her, with dignity and gentle humour that—Well, he never had quite hit upon the words he would use, but that was the kind of setting. And now here she was with her fare to Glasgow, her heart towards Glasgow, and she as good as gone to Glasgow! No dignity, no gentle humour—in fact he was enraged—sullen but enraged, he boiled furtively. But he said with mournful calm:
“I’ve so many misfortunes, I suppose I can bear this too.”
Gloomy and tragic he was.
“Dear, darling Phil, it’s for your own sake I’m going.”
Repton sniffed derisively. “We are always mistaken in the reasons for our commonest actions; Nature derides us all. You are sick of me; I can’t blame you.”
Eulalia was so moved that she could only weep again. Nevertheless she wrote to her friends in Glasgow promising to be with them by a stated date.
TOWARDS THE EVENING OF THE FOLLOWING DAY, AT A time when she was alone, a letter arrived addressed to herself. It was from a firm of solicitors in Cornhill inviting her to call upon them. A flame leaped up in Lally’s heart: it might mean the offer of some work that would keep her in London after all! If only it were so she would accept it on the spot, and Phillip would have to be made to see the reasonability of it. But at the office in Cornhill a more astonishing outcome awaited her. There she showed her letter to a little office boy with scarcely any fingernails and very little nose, and he took it to an elderly man who had a superabundance of both. Smiling affably, the long-nosed man led her upstairs into the sombre den of a gentleman who had some white hair and a lumpy yellow complexion. Having put to her a number of questions relating to her family history, and appearing to be satisfied and not at all surprised by her answers, this gentleman revealed to Lally the overpowering tidings that she was entitled to a legacy of eighty pounds by the will of a forgotten and recently deceased aunt. Subject to certain formalities, proofs of identity and so forth, he promised Lally the possession of the money within about a week.
Lally’s descent to the street, her emergence into the clamouring atmosphere, her walk along to Holborn, were accomplished in a state of blessedness and trance, a trance in which life became a thousand times aerially enlarged, movement was a delight, and thought a rapture. She would give all the money to Phillip, and if he very much wanted it she would even marry him now. Perhaps, though, she would save ten pounds of it for herself. The other seventy would keep them for . . . it was impossible to say how long it would keep them. They could have a little holiday somewhere in the country together, he was so worn and weary. Perhaps she had better not tell Phillip anything at all about it until her lovely money was really in her hand. Nothing in life, at least nothing about money, was ever certain; something horrible might happen at the crucial moment and the money be snatched from her very fingers. Oh, she would go mad then! So for some days she kept her wonderful secret.
Their imminent separation had given Repton a tender sadness that was very moving. “Eulalia,” he would say, for he had suddenly adopted the formal version of her name; “Eulalia, we’ve had a great time together, a wonderful time, there will never be anything like it again.” She often shed tears, but she kept the grand secret still locked in her heart. Indeed, it occurred to her very forcibly that even now his stupid pride might cause him to reject her money altogether. Silly, sil
ly Phillip! Of course, it would have been different if they had married; he would naturally have taken it then, and really it would have been his. She would have to think out some dodge to overcome his scruples. Scruples were such a nuisance, but then it was very noble of him: there were not many men who wouldn’t take money from a girl they were living with.
Well, a week later she was summoned again to the office in Cornhill and received from the white-haired gentleman a cheque for eighty pounds drawn on the Bank of England to the order of Eulalia Burnes. Miss Burnes desired to cash the cheque straightway, so the large-nosed elderly clerk was deputed to accompany her to the Bank of England close by and assist in procuring the money.
“A very nice errand!” exclaimed that gentleman as they crossed to Threadneedle Street past the Royal Exchange. Miss Burnes smiled her acknowledgment, and he began to tell her of other windfalls that had been disbursed in his time—but vast sums, very great persons—until she began to infer that Blackbean, Carp & Ransome were universal dispensers of largesse.
“Yes, but,” said the clerk, hawking a good deal from an affliction of catarrh, “I never got any myself, and never will. If I did, do you know what I would do with it?” But at that moment they entered the portals of the bank, and in the excitement of the business Miss Burnes forgot to ask the clerk how he would use a legacy, and thus she possibly lost a most valuable slice of knowledge. With one fifty-pound note and six five-pound notes clasped in her handbag she bade good-bye to the long-nosed clerk, who shook her fervently by the hand and assured her that Blackbean, Carp & Ransome would be delighted at all times to undertake any commissions on her behalf. Then she fled along the pavement, blithe as a bird, until she was breathless with her flight. Presently she came opposite the window of a typewriter agency. Tripping airily into its office, she laid a scrap of paper before a lovely Hebe who was typing there.
“I want this typed, if you please,” said Lally.
The beautiful typist read the words of the scrap of paper and stared at the heiress.
The Hurly Burly and Other Stories Page 27