RICEYMAN STEPS. Bennett Arnold
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miscalled "china", standing on bits of embroidery. The floor was covered with oddments of carpet. There were many chairs, Un-assorted; there was a sofa; there was a cradle ; there was a sewing-machine; there was a clothes-horse, on which a man's blue apron with horizontal white stripes was spread out. There were several tables, including a small walnut octagonal table, once a lady's work-table, which stood in the window and upon which a number of cloth-bound volumes of Once a Week were piled carefully, corkscrew-wise. And there was a wardrobe, also a number of kitchen utensils. The place was encumbered with goods, all grimy as the walls and ceilings, many of them cracked and worn like the woodwork and paint, but proving triumphantly that the meat-salesman had no commerce with pawnbrokers.
"I thought I should like to come round and see how you are, Elsie," said Mrs. Arb kindly and forgivingly. "No, don't get up. I can see you aren't well. I'll sit here."
Elsie blushed deeply.
"I've had a bit of trouble, 'm," she apologetically murmured.
Elsie's trouble was entirely due to Mrs. Arb's demand for overtime from her on Thursday night. Mrs. Arb had not considered the convenience nor the private life of this young woman whose services made daily existence tolerable for her and for Mr. Earlforward. The young woman had consequently found herself in a Situation of the gravest difficulty and of some danger. Hence the young woman was apologetic and Mrs. Arb forgiving. Elsie admitted to herself a clear failure of duty with its sequel of domestic embarrassment for her employers, and she dismissed as negligible the excuses which she might have offered. Nor did she dream of criticizing Mrs. Arb. She never consciously criticized anyone but Elsie. And yet somewhere in the unexplored arcana of her mind lay hidden a very just estimate of Mrs. Arb. Strange! No, not strange! A quite common phenomenon in the minds of the humble and conscientious!
"Was the trouble over that young man?" asked Mrs. Arb. "Not that I want to be inquisitive!"
Elsie began to cry. She nodded, unable for the moment to speak. The sound of a snore came through the wall from the next room. There were muffled noises overhead. Mrs. Arb grew aware that a child had peeped in upon her and Elsie. The church bells, after a few single notes, ceased to ring.
"I suppose you couldn't have sent somebody across to tell me you weren't coming?" Mrs. Arb suggested. Elsie shook her head. "Shall you come to-morrow?"
"Oh, yes, 'm. I shall come to-morrow——and punctual."
"Well, Elsie, don't think I'm interfering, but don't you think you'd better give him up? Two upsets in three days, you know." (Four days Mrs. Arb ought to have said; but in these details she took the licence of an artist.) "I haven't said a word to you about Thursday night, have I? I didn't want to worry you. I knew you'd had worry enough. But I don't mind telling you now that I was very much upset and frightened, as who wouldn't be! … What do you want with men? They'll never be any good to you—that is, if you value a quiet life and a good name. I'm telling you for your own sake. I like you, and I'd like you to be happy and respectable." Mrs. Arb seemed to have forgotten that she was addressing a widow and not a young girl.
"Oh, 'm. I'm giving him up. I'll never have anything to do with him again. Never!" Elsie burst out, with intense tragedy in her soul.
"That's right! I'm glad to hear it," said Mrs. Arb with placidity. "And if you really mean it the people that employ you will be able to trust and rely on you again. It's the only way."
Oh, I'm so ashamed, 'm!" said Elsie, with the puckered brow of conscientiousness. "'Specially seeing I couldn't let you know. Nor Mr. Earlforward, either! But it won't occur again, 'm, and I hope you'll forgive me."
"Please, please!" Mrs. Arb exclaimed magnanimously, protesting against this excess of remorse and penitence. "I only thought I'd call to inquire."
After Mrs. Arb had gone out to daily with a man and to reassure him with the news that everything would be all right and they had nothing to fear, the boy crept into the front-room with a piece of bread and jam in his sticky hand. He silently offered the morsel to Elsie, who leaned forward as he held it up to her and bit off a corner to please him. She smiled at him; then broke into a sob, and choked and clutched him violently, bread and jam and all, and there was a dreadful mess.
Chapter 13 The passion
"I think I've put her straight," said Mrs. Arb very cheerfully to Mr. Earlforward, out in the Square, and gave him an account of the interview.
Mr. Earlforward's mind was much relieved. He admired Mrs. Arb greatly in that moment. He himself could never have put Elsie straight. There were things that a woman, especially a capable and forceful woman, could do which no man could possibly do. "Forceful!" Perhaps a sinister adjective to attach to a woman. Yes. But the curious point about this woman was that she was also feminine. Forceful, she could yet (speaking metaphorically) cling and look up. And also she could look down in a most enchanting and disturbing way. She had done it a number of times to Mr. Earlforward. Now Mr. Earlforward, from the plenitude of his inexperience of women, knew them deeply. He knew their characteristic defects and shortcomings. And it seemed to him that Mrs. Arb was remarkably free from such. It seemed to him, as it has seemed to millions of men, that he had had the luck to encounter a woman who miraculously combined the qualities of two sexes, and the talent to recognize the miracle on sight. He would not go so far as to assert that Mrs. Arb was unique (though he strongly suspected that she must be), but there could not be many Mrs. Arbs on earth. He was very happy in youthful dreams of a new and idyllic existence. His sole immediate fear was that he would be compelled to go to church with her. He knew them; they were queer on religious observances. Of course it was because, as she had half admitted, they liked to feel devotional. But you could do nothing with a woman in church. And he could not leave her to go to church alone… . He was unhappy.
"I'm afraid that service of yours has begun," said he. "I saw quite a number of people going in while you were talking to Elsie."
"I'm afraid it has," she replied. He saw a glint of hope.
"It's a nice fresh morning," said he daringly. "And what people like you and me need is fresh air. I suppose you wouldn't care for me to show you some bits of Clerkenwell?"
"I think I should," said she. "I could go to service to-night, couldn't I?"
Triumph! Undoubtedly she was unique.
Both quite forgetting once more that they would never again see forty, they set off with the innocent ardour of youth.
"You know," said Mrs. Arb, returning to the great subject, "I told her plainly she'd be much better off if she kept off men. And so she will!"
"They never know when they are well off," said Mr. Earlforward.
"No … I expect this Square used to belong to your family," Mrs. Arb remarked with deference.
"Oh, I shouldn't say that," answered Mr. Earlforward modestly. "But it was named after my grandfather's brother."
"It must have been very nice when it was new," said Mrs. Arb, tactfully adopting towards the Square a more respectful attitude than aforetime. Clearly she desired to please. Clearly she had a kind heart. "But when the working-class get a hold on a place, what are you to do?"
"You'd scarcely think it," said Mr. Earlforward with grim resignation, "but this district was very fashionable once. There used to be an archery ground where our steps are." (He enjoyed saying "our steps," the phrase united him to her.)
"Really!"
"Yes. And at one time the Duke of Newcastle lived just close by. Look here. I'll show you something. It's quite near."
In a few minutes they were at the corner of a vast square—you could have put four Riceymans into it—of lofty reddish houses, sombre and shabby, with a great railed garden and great trees in the middle, and a wide roadway round. With all its solidity, in that neighbourhood it seemed to have the unreal quality of a vision, a creation of some djinn, formed in an instant and destined