Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (64 page)

Also there was no sign of her mother in the kitchen, but instead a young lady whom she at once recognized as the Floor Above (in other words the Top Floor) who was washing up. This young lady (whom Ella afterwards ascertained had rendered assiduous and invaluable assistance) was about thirty-seven years of age, and had not previously been on friendly terms either with the Prossers or any of the other floors – this on account of the frightful way she painted her face, and smuggled gentlemen up to her room when others had gone to bed, leading them warily down again by candlelight and bolting the door on them in the early hours of the morning – a furtive sound by night, bringing a keen sense of further and subtle degradation to all those who, sufficiently downcast merely by the day-time circumstances of this lowly lodging-house, might be awake and listening in those zero hours. But Poverty strikes in a thousand underhand ways. Moreover, she had been no friend of Mr. Prosser himself, who had been known publicly to storm at her and Show her Up (as the phrase was) from his landing, although, oddly enough, he
had himself acquired the sinister reputation of having been Seen with her in a public-house not far away, and even of having been in the early days one of the actual smuggled concupiscent gentlemen in the nightly Takings-Place Above – but this was gossip. Anyway, here she was, making herself useful, and, as Ella was to discover soon, being intensely sentimental about the whole thing, and frantically Helping everybody on all sides, in that rather maudlin and too highly charged emotional manner common to those of her loveless calling when they are given the opportunity to prove their worth by participating in the affairs of those whose instinct it is to despise them.

Directly she saw Ella, she smiled and put her hand to her lips, to enforce quiet, and explained that Mrs. Prosser was at this moment lying down on the sofa in the next room trying to get a little sleep, as she had been up two nights without a wink. Ella then asked about the patient, and so as her mother should not be disturbed, a whispering conversation was held in the kitchen for something like ten minutes. Ella learned that her stepfather had been taken ill with great pain three nights ago, and had since sunk into a coma. The Takings-Place Above (this was how Ella, who did not know her name, could only think of the woman) had done everything she possibly could to Help, to be of Assistance, to Do what she Could, but they had had a bad time of it. There was every reason to Hope, of course (one had to Hope, didn’t one?), but the doctor had been rather despondent, and the Takings-Place Above Knew how Ella must be Feeling. All this while Ella gazed in a rather fascinated way at the Takings-Place Above’s longish nose, pasty face, and rather dirty neck, and wondered what the smuggled gentlemen saw in her. Finally Ella learned again that everything had been done that possibly could have been done by solicitous nursing, and that her mother was Solid Gold. Solid Gold, if ever anyone was. Ella had previously thought of her mother in numerous lights, as a trustworthy and lovable woman, but never exactly as Solid Gold. She nodded her head appreciatively, however.

At this moment Solid Gold herself appeared, not having
been lying down at all – this being simply another sentimental fiction created by the Takings-Place Above in her anxiety to have everybody Lying Down while she Helped – but in the sick room and wondering why Ella had not arrived. They then all went into the sitting-room, and Ella was given further news of the history and circumstances of the illness, the Takings-Place Above providing the more graphic and dramatic details, and every now and again adjuring Mrs. Prosser to Take it Easy and to Lie Down. But this Mrs. Prosser would not do.

‘She’s Solid Gold, isn’t she?’ said the Takings-Place Above, looking at her smilingly and appraisingly. . . . And there was a silence in which both she and Ella gazed at Mrs. Prosser, who had all the confused air of one who had perforce to be gracious under the compliment, but didn’t quite know whether it was the proper thing to stand there being called Solid Gold (or indeed to be assisted at all) by one with a reputation which would bear so little looking into by respectable people.

It was then suggested that Ella should go in and see the sick man, and this she did. But she did not stay for long, as he was breathing heavily in sleep or unconsciousness and there could be no question of recognition. Ella’s heart was indeed touched as she saw the deathly white, and at this moment not ignoble countenance of the bitter man she had known, grappling with this sudden reality, which dissolved all the other painful realities of his querulous being, and left her soul free of all feelings save one of wishing him well in whatever contest that intent look and steady breathing implied.

When she came out the Takings-Place Above already had tea in preparation, and was all for Leaving them. In addition to Lying Down, and Taking it Easy, and being Helped, there was a vitally important sentimental rule that people in these circumstances should, periodically and with great ostentation, be Left.

‘Oh, must you go?’ said Ella, politely, but the Takings-Place Above was adamant. No, she would Leave them. She Knew what they were Feeling, and she would Leave them. And
Leave them she did – suggesting, without definitely stating, that a proper obedience to the regulations here necessitated our dear old friend the Good Cry, than which there was Nothing that did you more Good in the World, but which she was too tactful to stay and witness.

‘She’s been very helpful,’ said Ella’s mother, when she had gone, and her expression and tone betrayed the reservation in her appreciation of this socially dubious and emotionally rather importunate lady who had stepped into their lives in so strange a way, and at so strange a time.

Ella was glad to be sitting down alone with her mother, and asked her what she really thought of the case.

‘I don’t really think there’s much hope,’ said Mrs. Prosser, in a voice which shook slightly, and added that the doctor had said that he might go on in this way for a week or a fortnight.

Ella looked at her mother as she brought out the word ‘hope’ and could not help wondering for a moment whether that queer shake in the voice would have been very different if she had been using the word ‘fear’ instead, and whether her mother was also susceptible to such uncontrollable thoughts as had beset herself coming along in the bus. Remembering her mother’s terrible life with the man in the next room, she could not honestly see how it could be otherwise. But she hastily crushed the thought, as one which, even if it existed underground must never gain conscious recognition in either of their souls.

‘I’ve been through his papers to-day,’ said Mrs. Prosser a little later.

‘Oh yes?’ said Ella.

‘You knew there was a Little Something Coming,’ said Ella’s mother, again with a slight quaver in her voice. ‘Didn’t you?’. . .

‘Yes,’ said Ella. ‘I did know there was a little something . . . as a matter of fact. . . .’

‘It’s something like five hundred pounds,’ said Mrs. Prosser. ‘He had a lot put by.’

Five hundred pounds! Before she could control herself, her heart was seized and lifted up in lyrical exultation and
surprise at this news, and she had the greatest difficulty in preserving a steady voice.

‘Really,’ she said quietly. ‘All that? . . .’

‘M’m,’ said her mother, and Ella wondered whether it was in human nature to maintain indefinitely this funereal and disinterested posture in the vicinity of so vast and universe-transforming a sum. She herself could scarcely keep a straight face – being beset, in the conflict of her natural emotions with her sense of right and decency, by something uncommonly like a desire to giggle in a silly way.

‘When’s the doctor coming again?’ she asked, to get away from her thoughts.

‘He said he’d look in again to-night,’ said Mrs. Prosser. ‘Of course he
may
get better.’

‘Well – let’s hope he will,’ said Ella, using the same sort of hydraulic pressure as she applied when calling Mr. Eccles ‘Ernest.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Prosser. ‘We can only do our best.’

Ella decided that she must be the wickedest young woman in the world, and consoled herself with the certain knowledge that her mother would indeed do her best – would, in fact, slave her life out in order to achieve a recovery, and that therefore any vile thoughts on either of their parts were of no account. A little later she went in again to see the sick man, and in repentance held his limp hand which lay over the sheet. Again she was moved by his tragedy and pathetic helplessness – both rendered more poignant by the fact that he was unwanted and she came out with a refreshed impulse to selflessness in a sorrowing and helpless world.

There was little else she could do, and the time soon came to return to work. She would come over to-morrow afternoon and her mother would send her a message if there was any change. She left her mother with the greatest reluctance, as she had never seen her look so ill and worn in her life before.

When all this was over, she reflected in the bus going home, she would really have to see that her mother got out of the fog and smoke for a real holiday. A real long holiday. Which brought her back (how could it do otherwise?) to the five
hundred pounds. Which brought her back to the future in general. Which in turn brought her back to Mr. Eccles – and to India – in fact the entire family of perplexities in whose ever-present and tireless company her thoughtful life in London was lived. Sometimes she wished she could give up thinking altogether.

A
T THIS POINT
it should be stated that Mr. Eccles had a Tooth in his head. This was a large one right in the centre of the upper front row, and gained eminence in his mouth less from its size than from its crooked tendencies, inasmuch as it came pointedly forth and hung down over the next tooth on the left-hand side as though anxious to conceal the defaults of its partner and to take all the dental glory to itself. Ella had noticed it the first time she had seen Mr. Eccles. Not that this defect reached the proportions of being a blemish upon Mr. Eccles’ appearance as a whole. One did not say to oneself for instance, as one watched Mr. Eccles smiling, ‘Ah, yes – a nice-looking man – but he has a funny tooth.’ No, no – nothing as bad as that. It was a question rather of ‘Ah, yes – a nice-looking man –
and
he has a funny tooth.’ The tooth was a curious addition, rather than an identifiable exception, to the youthful comeliness of the rather elderly man. Nevertheless it was capable of exercising a partially hypnotic effect upon those who looked at it for too long, and at moments made him look rather like a tiger.

Ella had always done her utmost to ignore or forget this tooth, but sometimes it got the upper hand of her. And never had this been so much so as when, three or four days later, she sat opposite Mr. Eccles in Lyons’.

This was the first afternoon she had not spent in Pimlico since the news of her stepfather’s illness. On that front there had been no change; he lay and breathed in the same way; and
with the extraordinary adaptability with which people in forty-eight hours can become hardened and cold concerning what were formerly the most agonizing states of suspense, she had practically swallowed the whole Pimlico catastrophe (including the victim’s pain from hour to hour), and had allotted this afternoon to expenditure of energy on another front – that of Mr. Eccles, whom she had not seen for nearly a week.

They had just been for another walk in Regent’s Park, and had come into this small Lyons’ in Baker Street to have a cup of tea before she returned to her work. This had become an almost established routine with them by now, and Ella had noticed that he never took her to the theatre nowadays. In fact, although she had got the impression that he was so rich and generous, and that she was going to have such a splashing time with him, when you came to think about it he had only taken her to the theatre once ever since she had known him. They had twice gone to the pictures – that was all. Such were the steadying influences of familiarity. She wondered if she would ever go to the theatre if she was married to him.

Having been duly solemn for about two minutes concerning her relative’s illness, Mr. Eccles was in a jolly, smiling mood this afternoon; consequently the Tooth was being given a more pronounced airing than usual, which was probably responsible for augmenting Ella’s hypnosis concerning it. She could hardly listen to him, as he talked across the marble-topped table, so fascinated, so intrigued, so impressed, was she by her fresh realization of this Tooth’s size and angle in regard to its relations. Not that he was talking about anything important. He had been going on for a long while about one of his Funny Little Habits. She was stalely familiar with the Funny Little Habit Series, the discussion of each Funny Little Habit forming, as it were, exercises in the Short Elementary Course in Ecclesry he was giving her. There was his Funny Little Habit of Getting his Own Way, there was his Funny Little Habit of Speaking the Truth, there was his Funny Little Habit of Returning other people’s rudeness with Interest; there were his Funny Little Habits of Summing People up on
the Quiet, of Making Decisions Quickly, of Knowing his Own Mind, of Gently but Firmly putting others in their Place, of not Saying much but thinking a Lot, and so on indefinitely.

The Funny Little Habit under immediate scrutiny was his Funny Little Habit of being Rather Careful in his Choice of Words – in other words his objection to swearing.

‘I mean to say it’s not Necessary, is it?’ he was saying.

‘No . . .’ said Ella, tooth-gazing.

‘I do think it’s so unnecessary to be
Unnecessary
,’ said Mr. Eccles, getting into slight tautological difficulties. ‘You know what I mean – don’t you?’

‘Yes. I do.’ She wondered if it would have been any better if it had come down straight. Even then it would have wanted the point filed off to get into line with the rest.

‘I mean to say if you’ve got to use expletives why not use just ordinary, decent, everyday words?’

‘Yes. Why not?’ (His other teeth of course were in excellent condition for his age.)