Kenneth turned up his coat collar and set out for Number 14, which he perceived to be right at the end of the row. It was still raining steadily and his rheumatic shoulder ached and he was shocked to find Vartouhi living in such a poor and dirty neighbourhood. If anyone had told him that before the Nazi War Ardley Street had had a frowsty comfort, and, on a soft clear summer’s day, even a beauty, of its own, he would not have believed it. There were still standards of a kind in Ardley Street and the strange face of something dimly recognizable as beauty, but such an unstraightforward beauty that only a Sickert or a Verlaine could have perceived it.
Kenneth walked up the long garden of Number 14. There had once been a solid iron gate there, set in solid iron railings, but now there was nothing to protect a row of sturdy spinach from the cupidity of man except the honesty of the people in Ardley Street. Kenneth glanced at it and his heart lifted a little. Whatever sort of creatures lived in this dreadful house they understood how to grow spinach and therefore they could not be so bad.
The front door stood open. The inside of the passage into which he peered was like some black tunnel, greasy and worn with the pressure of bodies and the passing of time. It looked as if people were continually banging against the walls as they hurried in and out. There was not a vestige of furniture in the passage and no covering on the filthy floor and none on the stairs; the only sign that this was not a den inhabited by animals was a dreadful black-out which hung lopsidedly at a landing window half-way up the flight. The centre pane of the window was broken and had been filled up with black paper but at either side there was a row of little panel-pictures in coloured glass; doves intertwined on a bough of myrtle, a wreath of white convolvulus, an urn with ivy escaping from it, and the like, and the sill of the window was shapely and wide. This had once been a solid, comfortable, dignified house.
Kenneth turned to the front door with a snort of disgust and gave the knocker a bang, and the sound echoed flatly in the hall. He thought that no one would come, but he was prepared to wait patiently for some time, and after a long time he thought he heard shuffling noises, and then he was sure that someone was coming; and at last a door at the end of the tunnel opened and a little old woman came creeping along towards him.
She had a black skirt down to her ankles and a nightgown which appeared to be of yellow flannel tucked into it, and over this and her head she had a coarse black dusty shawl. Her grey hair was loose and she peered up at Kenneth from under elflocks. She had no teeth. He removed his hat and opened his mouth to inquire for Vartouhi, but before he could speak she piped:
“Yes? What is it? Oh, I don’t expect you want me; I expect you want Mr. Perzetti. That’s three knocks. I live on the ground floor and that’s one knock.”
“I’m sorry to have brought you out——” said Kenneth. The faint sickly odours from the hall and the old woman were very disagreeable.
“Quite all right. I wasn’t in bed. Excuse me being not dressed,” and she pulled the yellow flannel closer round her yellow wrinkled neck. “Just having a cup of tea. It’s three knocks for Mr. Perzetti,” and she smiled dimly at him, as if she could not quite see him, and turned away.
“Is Mr. Perzetti the landlord?” he called after her, not sure that he had heard the name correctly.
“That’s right; Mr. Perzetti,” said the old woman, and shuffled down to the end of the passage and disappeared through the door.
Kenneth turned to the knocker again, and this time gave three loud bangs. He glanced at his watch while waiting for Mr. Perzetti to appear. It was just three o’clock.
Mr. Perzetti did not take so long to answer his knocks as the old woman had. Within half a minute there was a bustling step on the landing and down came a stout dark man in the fifties with a red face and dark eyes. He was bald and wore shirt-sleeves and had the racing edition of the Star in one hand.
“Yes?” he said sharply, then took a closer look at Kenneth, and said less sharply, “Did you want to see me? I’m Mr. Perzetti. You aren’t from the A.R.P., are you? Is it about showing a light last night? We told the warden ’ow it was.”
“Oh no, I’ve nothing to do with that,” answered Kenneth, feeling that it would be helpful if he could smile but quite unable to because he was so disgusted with the house. “It’s a private matter. Does a Miss Annamatta live here?”
“That’s right,” interrupted Mr. Perzetti at once, again belligerently. “She’s got my top floor back. No trouble, I ’ope? She’s a good, quiet girl. Mrs. Perzetti won’t have the other sort in the place. This is a respectable ’ouse.”
“Oh—it’s nothing of that sort,” exclaimed Kenneth, now really horrified at the depths he was plumbing: it was twenty-five years since he had experienced how ugly life can be. “She’s a friend of my sister’s and I’ve brought her a message from her—in fact——”
He hesitated. If the whole situation had not been so repugnant to him he would have found Mr. Perzetti’s appearance and manner not unpleasant. He was clean (at least, clean compared with his house), his expression was alert and his manner of speech was businesslike. He also had that indefinable quality which we call trustworthiness. Kenneth gave him another scrutiny, and decided to take Mr. Perzetti in his confidence.
“I want to see her,” he said, “because my sister and I are very anxious to persuade her to come back to us. She was with us as—er—mother’s help for eight months and we found her very satisfactory. But I had to come to London to be with my father, who was ill, and while I was away some—er—there was a little misunderstanding, and my sister and Miss Annamatta had a few words—“
Mr. Perzetti suddenly gave a quick nod, as if to say that he knew what women were. This dismayed rather than encouraged Kenneth, but as it did not seem likely that he could see Vartouhi this afternoon without Mr. Perzetti’s collaboration, he continued with this distasteful revelation of his private affairs.
“—and my sister—er—dismissed Miss Annamatta. We are most anxious to persuade her to return to her former position. Er—is she in now?”
Mr. Perzetti shook his head.
“It’s her afternoon off, sir,” he said. The word was not emphasized, but Kenneth felt more comfortable after he had heard it and better disposed towards Mr. Perzetti.
“And I expect she’s out with her boy friend,” went on Mr. Perzetti. “Rowl, his name is, and a very good name for him too, if you ask me. He’s one of these here French-Canadians,” he concluded, in a tone completely lacking in Imperial family feeling.
“And I don’t expect she’ll be back until black-out,” added Mr. Perzetti.
“Oh,” said Kenneth, not knowing quite what to do or say next.
“As a matter of fact, sir,” said Mr. Perzetti suddenly, “she told us about you and your sister (not giving any names, of course; foreigners are a close lot unless they’re the sort that tells you all their parst ’istory on top of a bus like Jews), and me and Mrs. Perzetti didn’t believe it. Thought she was making it up, like girls do. Well, as Mrs. Perzetti said, was it likely she’d be working in a milk bar after she’d ’ad a good place in a big ’ouse in the country? Of course, we didn’t let on to her we didn’t believe her. Didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”
Kenneth’s own feelings towards Mr. Perzetti grew warmer.
“What’ll you do, sir?” went on Mr. Perzetti, who evidently, like everybody else whose help Kenneth had enlisted, now took a personal interest in the story. “Wait here till she comes in? Mrs. Perzetti could give you a cup of tea——”
Here there was a rather surprising interruption. It took the form of a low cough which seemed to come from the landing. Mr. Perzetti pulled himself up in mid-hospitality, and continued in a more subdued tone:
“Well, as a matter of fact, sir, I don’t know if we could rise to a cup of tea. Mrs. Perzetti’s very fond of her cup of tea, and you know how it is, the ration doesn’t go far when there’s only two of you. But——”
“It’s very kind of you but I’ll get a
cup somewhere later,” interrupted Kenneth. “You say you think Miss Annamatta should be back somewhere round about black-out? That’s about seven o’clock, isn’t it?”
“Seven-two, sir,” answered Mr. Perzetti promptly. “I’m a taxi driver when I’m working (I’m just out of hospital after six weeks with the pleurisy), and you get into the habit of knowing what time black-out is in my job.”
“That gives me about three hours to fill up,” said Kenneth. “Let me see—I can telephone my sister—and have a cup of tea somewhere—and perhaps drop in at a cinema—yes, all right, I’ll come back about seven.”
“I’m sorry I can’t offer you a cup ’ere, sir,” said Mr. Perzetti in a lowered tone, and a glance up the stairs. “But you know ’ow it is. It’ll be a good thing when it’s all over and we can ’ave a bath in tea if we feel like it.”
Kenneth smiled, and agreed that it would.
“Two wars in one life’s enough for anybody,” went on Mr. Perzetti feelingly. “I was all through the larst one—Somme, Wipers, all the lot. Four years in France.”
There followed an exchange, interesting to them both, of personal reminiscences of the First World War. By the time they were over, Kenneth and Mr. Perzetti were on a different footing.
“Yes, and now it’s all got to be done all over again,” concluded Mr. Perzetti. “Cor, sometimes even now I carn’t believe it; I just carn’t believe we can ’ave been such blinking, bleeding mugs. Well, sir, you’ll want to be getting along. The best thing I can do when you come back about seven is to show you up to ’er room and you can wait for ’er there.”
“Oh—very well—thank you—if you don’t think Mrs. Perzetti will mind?”
Mr. Perzetti made an indescribably lively gesture, perhaps a legacy from some Latin ancestor, which expressed impatience, dismissal, contempt and ribald amusement, though all he said was:
“That’ll be all right, sir. You come back about seven and she’s almost bound to be here. She’s never out after black-out. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Perzetti had a talk with her about this here Rowl, Peggy (that’s what we call her, Peggy) being alone in England. Mrs. Perzetti hasn’t any of her own and she took quite a fancy to Peggy. And Mrs. Perzetti doesn’t like this Rowl at all,” and Mr. Perzetti shook his head.
Kenneth was so painfully interested that he could only look inquiring. He felt that he should not listen to such low opinions and gossip, yet he could not help himself.
“Not at all, she doesn’t. Mrs. Perzetti’s a good judge of character, and she says he’s nothing but a bad lot.”
“Is—er—Peggy actually engaged to him?”
“’E hasn’t given her a ring, if that’s what you mean, sir. (And never will, if he can get what he wants without, Mrs. Perzetti says.) And he doesn’t say much, either. He just hangs round here whenever he’s got leave, staring at the ’ouse and wandering round the back. He follows Peggy about like a shadow. It gives Mrs. Perzetti the creeps. Peggy, she only laughs. Well, you know her way, sir.”
Kenneth knew it too well. He began to feel, as he came away from 14 Ardley Street, that he had arrived just in time. The creatures inhabiting that ruined den of a house had turned out to be human beings, who enjoyed a cup of tea and tried to protect a girl from vague yet ominous dangers; he was not afraid of Vartouhi being with them. But the Perzettis and their kindness could not give her solid protection and safety from poverty, illness, and the dangerous love of wild young men. He began to long to have her by his side, laughing and safe, going home in the train to the peace and comfort of Sunglades.
He telephoned his sisters; to Miss Fielding, ignoring her irritated exclamations, he explained what had happened and warned her that he might have to spend the night at Joan’s flat in town, and then he got through to Mrs. Miles and said that he would probably want a bed that night; anywhere would do, of course. Oh, that would be all right, said Mrs. Miles bluffly; Henry could turn out onto the chesterfield; he had been sleeping so badly lately that it made no difference to him where he slept.
Kenneth had a cup of tea and a roll and margarine in a little café in Camden Town High Street, and then found his way up to Camden Town itself and went to the pictures for an hour or so. He was so worried and disturbed that he hardly noticed the film; the hall was just a place where he could sit still and be quiet and try to think.
When he came out, at a quarter to seven, it was already blue twilight. Rain was still falling steadily.
CHAPTER 34
HE WALKED QUICKLY down the High Street, past the ruinous gaping spaces where houses had been and the little shops showing gaudy dresses in a brief brilliant display of colour and light before the black-out came down. Low grey clouds scudded over the sky and the wind was freezing. It was a city of shabbiness and ruins, battered, scarred and dismal beyond belief; and he did not see the honour and pride and courage that covered it like the violet blue veil of the spring dusk. To Kenneth, cheap shops were cheap shops, and ruins were ruins, and a beastly evening was a beastly evening. Except during the 1914 war, his life had been passed in pleasant places and he had never had to look for beauty in the heart of squalor.
Mr. Perzetti was in the hall when he arrived and led him upstairs, pausing to adjust the macabre black-out on the landing as they went, and apologizing for the condition of the house. It appeared that they had a landlord who would not do any more repairs than were imperative to keep his property from collapsing, and they had been unlucky since the war in their lodgers, while Mrs. Perzetti was not robust and the shopping took up most of the time that might have been spent on house-cleaning.
They looked in on Mrs. Perzetti on the way up; she was sitting in an apartment filled to capacity with large bursting sofas and arm-chairs, before a bright fire where supper for two was arranged, and nodded graciously to Kenneth with her mouth full. She was rather pretty, with brown eyes and a fuzzy fringe. The room smelt strongly of warm horsehair from the sofas and arm-chairs, and kippers. Kenneth said “Good evening,” conscious that he was being judged, and could not help being relieved when her manner remained cordial. A bright cloth covered a birdcage on a corner of the table and he caught a faint sweet “cheep” from beneath it, as their voices disturbed its occupant. “Mrs. Perzetti’s pets,” explained Mr. Perzetti indulgently, as he shut the door. He glanced up the stairs. “This way, sir, please.”
It was not quite dark. Blue light came faintly down the well of the stairs from some window higher up, and cast a sheen on an expanse of wall that bulged unevenly beneath its flowery paper. In the uncertain dusk it seemed to heave slightly, as if something alive were behind it. Kenneth had no doubt that something was; the faint sour smell that drifts out from open doors in French villages was here too; the reek of thick, ground-in, eighty-year-old dirt. He held his breath as they mounted the stairs and answered Mr. Perzetti (who was telling him that they had had to paper the staircase and bedroom at their own expense), by nods.
“Here’s Peggy’s room, sir,” said Mr. Perzetti, opening a door. He made a sound of annoyance. “There! she’s left the window open, silly girl. Rain all over the floor.” He went across and shut it. Kenneth was only aware that the room was very small, with a little bed with shabby coverings, and that it smelt fresh. Her few treasures on a table by the window had been blown over and scattered by the wind. Her rucksack was arranged over a chair with a broken seat and the corner of one of her bright scarves hung out of a little chest of drawers with only one castor.
“Eight and sixpence a week, Peggy pays for this,” said Mr. Perzetti, “and it’s a bargain, sir. She’d have to pay twelve and six anywhere else, since the war, for a furnished room in a nice position like this—gets all the sun when there is any—but me and Mrs. Perzetti didn’t want to be hard on her. She gets twenty-five shillings a week. It isn’t much.”
“No indeed,” muttered Kenneth.
“She’ll be in any minute now, sir,” said Mr. Perzetti. “The front door’s open, and I’ll just pop out and speak to her on her
way up and tell her you’re here.”
“Thank you,” said Kenneth, and as Mr. Perzetti went out of the room he crossed over to the window.
He slid up the shrunken frame and leant out, letting the cold rain beat against his face. Then he looked down.
Very far below, dim in the rising dusk, was a grey waste. It was shut in by dark houses; some towered in gaunt ruin against the sky, others were shapeless masses of masonry without a light or sign of human life. He could make out square pits in the surface filled with weeds, and pools of water where the rain steadily splashed, and mounds of darker bricks, and a pile of square objects which he thought must be the doors of the fifteen houses that had stood here. At one end was a brimming pond, surrounded by a wall, that reflected the dark blue sky, and farther off still there gaped against a pallid expanse where half a house had been torn away, two black caves that must be cellars. The rain pattered lightly against the window where he leant and some tall trees kept up a perpetual sighing. There were no other sounds and the ruins and the weeds were cold and soaked with rain, and the place seemed dead.
Yet violence lingered here. He felt it, even he, who was not imaginative. If the strong passions of human beings can leave ghosts in the place where they were suffered, the strange sighing of blast and the terror of fire and of unbelievable force can leave ghosts too. Here was the place where these powers, blind and made by men, had struck. The place was haunted; it was as haunted as any quiet room in an empty rectory or corridor in an eight-hundred-year-old Scottish castle, and as he drew back into the room Kenneth shivered. His shoulder ached and he was hungry. “Beastly hole,” he muttered, “the sooner I get her out of here the better.”
But as he was turning away from the window, something moving by the wall surounding the reservoir caught his attention, and he leant out again to see what it was.
Two figures were approaching the waste land from the path beside the reservoir. They were a man and a woman and Kenneth thought that the man was a soldier. He came first, with a slow yet springing walk, and the woman came after him as if unwillingly; hanging back, and now jumping onto a pile of bricks and waiting until he turned to look at her, then putting her hand up to her mouth—ah, there was only one woman who did that; now holding out her hand as if inviting him to take it. She had something odd on her head. Kenneth thought that it was one of Vartouhi’s queer little caps and that the woman was she, and he leant further out of the window into the deepening dusk to see more clearly.