The café had sprung up like a mushroom in five years, and the only one who seemed entirely unconcerned was Julius himself who took the affair for granted. He had known he could not fail, and far from being proud and contented with this achievement at the age of thirty, for he was certainly the envy and the thorn in the flesh of the smaller shop-keepers, he considered the Holborn café as nothing more nor less than the little fountain-head from which a thousand rivers would spring. Now that he had a capable staff working under him and need no longer himself be in constant supervision, he had time to look about him, and to gauge the market value of property, to note the growing importance of the West End of London as a commercial centre. The Strand, Leicester Square, Piccadilly. In ten or fifteen years’ time these were the spots which would be most congested, theatres, restaurants, people crowding here to be fed and entertained. He had no concern with the far end of Piccadilly, of Bond Street and Mayfair; he looked towards Oxford Street as his most certain proposition. Oxford Street which would become the shopping Mecca of the middle classes, with their thick-headed, good-humoured love of a bargain, their sheep-like tendency to be driven, their grasping, inherent desire to snatch ‘something for nothing,’ who would bring to Julius the fullest measure of prosperity.
Every year ground rent was increasing and property doubled in value; he would have to buy early and buy quickly, he must get in first, and before the lesser sharks came sniffing at his heels. Lévy’s of Holborn was serving his purpose, the profits came rolling in to be checked and put aside, profit to be used for the opening up of Lévy’s of Oxford Street and Lévy’s of the Strand. He knew they would be small at first, ignored perhaps, laughed at by people who fed in hotels and restaurants, but he could afford to wait, he could enjoy his patience, and sooner or later the great herd of the middle classes would come to him, and they represented, though they did not know it, the wealth and the whole meaning of England.
Nobody had heard of him yet, he was only a Jewish fellow, another of those foreigners, who ran a café somewhere down in Holborn where the clerks and office boys gobbled their midday meals. But give me ten years, he thought; ten years, fifteen years, and I’ll put a chain around England that nobody will break.
Julius was a boy sailing his first boat upon a pond, he was a boy at a carpenter’s bench with a tool in his hand singing as he worked, he was a child with his castle of bricks built firmly within walls. Life was a game to him, a game of pen and paper and a hundred figures jotted here and there; figures that were shaped as pounds and shillings and pence. It was a game when to win you must buy first and buy low and cheat the other fellow, when you must come first before the whole world and think just a fraction ahead of your opponent. He would not relax, not for a moment would he pause and say: ‘I have done this,’ but must continue unwavering and straight, reaching out to the skies like an arrow flying to the face of the sun. In one of his rare communicative moods he showed Elsa a drawing of his plans. It was a sheet of paper drawn to the scale of a map of London, and the streets and quarters were marked into divisions. Here and there he had marked certain thoroughfares with crosses. He pointed to them with his finger. ‘There - that dot in the Strand, there’s a site there I want for building. I shall get it in two years, they’ll be sending the traffic along this side street to avoid congestion by Charing Cross. See that cross in red ink in Oxford Street? The green omnibuses stop there now and there’s a row of small-window-fronted shops. They’ll have to come down for me. Right over there, in the south-west, in Kensington, there’s property going for a song. It can wait for a few years until I’m ready. The Strand will be my first.’
He had one hand in his pocket and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. His hair flopped over one eye. He was a boy, he couldn’t mean what he said.
‘You haven’t the money to do all that, Julius,’ she said slowly. ‘Why, you’ll be ruined. Once you get entangled into schemes of that sort you’ll be out of your depth and no one to help you. Why can’t you be content with the one café? I expect in time, if you are careful, it will be quite a big sort of place.’
He looked at her curiously. She did not seem to understand that even now the café in Holborn was a great money-making concern, that the profits this year seemed enormous for a comparatively new business and that he could, if he wished, buy his Strand site to-morrow, only he was waiting for the psychological moment. There were no original expenses here, he had bought Grundy’s and the adjacent block at the lowest possible price. Something for nothing - something for nothing. He lived no more comfortably than the original baker, he had no expenses, he scarcely spent a penny - every profit went into the café. He would not let Elsa suspect the truth.
‘Oh! I’ll find some capital,’ he said, ‘even if I have to borrow or steal. Don’t you bother your head about that.’
As he watched her grave face it came to him that she never smiled or was merry with him now, she was greatly changed from the old days when they first came to London. She was no longer a playful, restless, sensitive kitten who curled upon his chest, she had grown into a placid, dull little cat, a quiet, sleepy tabby cat who blinked her great eyes and was surely rather stupid. He wondered why she should be so changed. He would have liked someone beside him to share his enthusiasm, to see ahead as he did and to glory in his success. A mind attuned to his and receptive. A woman with sense and intuition who could hear him talk without bewilderment. A woman of depth and culture who possessed health and vitality. Yes, health above all things, vigorous blood in a strong body, a capacity for laughter. What had happened to Elsa? Had he outgrown her? He wanted to see her smile and chatter as she used to do. She was like an unused garment left hanging in a dark cupboard; she was dusty and stale.
‘Go out and buy yourself some clothes,’ he said suddenly and quite unexpectedly, surprised at his own words. ‘Go this afternoon, never mind the expense. I’ll pay.’
She looked shocked and uncertain, she was afraid he would mock her.
‘Don’t be an owl,’ he said, ‘I mean what I say. I’m tired of seeing you go about like a drab.’
After that she went from his mind, he had business to do, and it was not until the evening that he saw her again. She was waiting for him in the dull sitting-room, sitting nervously in a chair, her hands in her lap. She wore a pink flowered summer dress, the bodice fitting tight to her waist and the sleeves full above the elbow as was the fashion. Her hat was large, with a single rose, and she wore it above the mass of her dark hair that had been waved and washed for the first time for many years. The excitement had brought a touch of colour to each cheek, and she glanced away from him shyly as though she were some girl he had not met before.
‘Why, Mimitte,’ he began in wonder, using his old name for her unconsciously; ‘why, Mimitte, what have you done to yourself ?’
And she answered him hastily, ‘Are you angry with me? You told me I could,’ like a child, afraid she should be scolded.
‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t understand, that’s how I wanted you to be - you ought to have done this before,’ and he went to her and lifted her up from the chair and stood her upon it.
‘Do you like me - the dress I mean?’ she asked, forgetting he was the manager of Lévy’s, and she nothing but a cloakroom attendant, one of his staff. ‘Do you like it, Julius? - I wasn’t sure about the colour, and then the price they charged seemed wicked to me, but you said never mind about that. That’s scent I’ve put on the bodice, extravagant of me I know, but you always liked the scent of amber in the Kasbah - put your head there, smell. We used to be like this often, didn’t we? It seems such ages ago. Stay with me a little, like that, holding me and your head against my breast, it’s so lovely and makes me happy and queer. Why, Julius - why, Julius - so silly of me - I believe I’m going to cry.’
He stood quite still with his face hidden in her dress. The scent was the old Alger scent, disturbing and mysterious and sweet, and she felt warm in his arms and clean and good; she was
once more a woman, a child, a young thing to be loved. Why couldn’t she have been like this all these months and the last years? Something was wasted and gone. It could not have been his fault. He felt a tear splash on to his head, she was crying, then. He did not know how he felt, but he was stirred and touched in some way that did not explain itself.
‘You funny little thing,’ he said, and kept repeating it over and over again, half to himself, ‘you funny little thing.’
They were together that night, and the next night, and after that, and each day she grew younger and prettier and closer to him, and was happy with a last tender rush of happiness like the last intoxicating warmth of an Indian summer. He told her she need not work any more, that was over and finished, all she had to do was to look as she did, and be with him. No work, no scolding, no insults hurled at her, no meek acceptance of the paltry tips left on the cloakroom table; all she need do was to wear pretty clothes, and to care for her hands, and be fresh and smiling when he turned to her, and to hold her head high before company. She would have him proud of her, she thought, if she took pains to look her best, she would have him showing her off, perhaps, watching her with a smile, she would learn to be smart and clever and she would be his lady.
He began to take her out in the evening. They went to the Lyceum and had the front seats in the upper circle.
She wore her new dress, and her cheeks were flushed like the rose in her hat, her eyes shone and she trembled with excitement.
‘Is this the end?’ she asked after each act. ‘Will there be any more?’
And when the play was finished they drove back to Holborn in a hansom and she held his hands close to her heart.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she told him, and he laughed, for the fun of it to him had been in watching her eyes.
‘I wonder why I’m doing all this?’ he thought. ‘I shan’t want to for long; there’ll be other things.’ But he said to her: ‘You’re my lovely, aren’t you?’
One day in September they rode out in an omnibus to Hampton Court, and he took her on the river, she prattling all the time in delight and trailing one hand in the water, watching the glances of other women at her dress, and he laughingly told her to put up her parasol because the men’s eyes were following them and he was jealous.
The next day she was tired, she woke heavy and unrefreshed, she found her nightgown was wringing wet, she must have sweated much in the night. Her old worrying cough had started again.
‘I must have caught a chill on the river,’ she thought. ‘I won’t tell Julius, it will irritate him.’
She felt cold and hot in turn, she had a fever, she sat indoors the whole day, rather wretched and miserable.
‘You look pasty,’ he told her that evening, and the next day she put rouge on her cheeks, saying she was better, and went out and did some shopping. She came back very tired again, coughing a good deal.
Julius came up full of enthusiasm and vitality, he had been discussing the price of his site in the Strand. For three hours he had argued and he had won his point, the sum was agreed - large, of course, but he could afford it - and he had only to sign the agreement and the site would be his. Building would start in November.
‘Fancy,’ she said, and tried to smile and show pleasure, but this silly weakness that had come upon her made her feel faint and queer. She touched nothing and watched him while he ate an enormous meal. He was in a great humour, boisterous and rough, and sweeping aside her complaint of feeling tired he made love to her.
She awoke suddenly - just before dawn - with a feeling of fear and dread that could not be explained. It was as though a blanket hung above her, and would fall at any moment and suffocate her.There was a weight on her chest, and something tearing and scratching at her, something that called out to her to cough, and cough, and yet if she did she knew a wound would open, gaping like a sponge. She sat up in bed, her head swimming, and she felt her way on to the floor and went to the washstand for a glass of water. As she lifted the jug the thing inside her broke, and a torrent of coughing rose up in her from her chest, sweeping her like a suffocating tide. She leant against the washstand fainting and exhausted, and came suddenly to her senses with the realisation of the stale dull taste in her mouth, something that came from the depths of her, frothy and strangely warm, the taste of a rusty knife. She opened her mouth, shuddering in nausea, and let it pass from her, and then she lit a candle and looked into the basin and saw the blood. She was wide awake, and her mind was clear.
‘It’s come,’ she thought. ‘The doctor said it would. Why did it wait so long? Why did it have to wait till I was happy?’
She wiped her mouth and sat down on a chair. Julius stirred in his sleep, and muttered something and was awakened by the light.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said.
‘I’ve been ill,’ she told him after a moment.
‘Eaten something that’s sent you sick?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Well, you’d better come back to bed,’ he said. She felt helpless and very tired. She wanted him to lift this thing from her mind and to tell her she was safe.
‘There’s blood in the basin,’ she said, and her voice sounded far away from her, not her voice at all. ‘I think you had better send for the doctor.’
‘Blood?’ he repeated, still heavy from sleep. ‘Have you cut yourself?’
She shook her head; she began to shiver now, she was very cold.
‘It came from me when I coughed,’ she said; ‘it’s not just a little, my mouth was full. It’s haemorrhage. One of the girls in Ahèmed’s house had this - we used to take turns in nursing her. It isn’t anything I could make a mistake about.’
He stared at her, got slowly out of bed and stared down at the basin.
‘It’s blood,’ he said stupidly; ‘it’s all frothy,’ and he tipped the basin sideways. ‘How could all this come from your chest?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said; ‘it’s haemorrhage. It’s always like that.’
He poured her out a glass of water. He wondered what he ought to do.
‘Drink this; perhaps you’ll feel better,’ he said. She drank a sip and then put it away.
‘Carry me to bed,’ she said, and two tears rolled slowly down her cheeks and into her mouth. It was weakness, he supposed. She felt very light in his arms. Her nightdress smelt stale, of sweat. He laid her in the bed and covered her up with the blanket. ‘If you lay quietly, you may get some sleep,’ he suggested after a while. ‘If you’re not better in the morning I’ll get hold of a doctor.’
She did not answer for a moment and then she said: ‘A doctor will want to order in all sorts of things, there will be so much expense. Supposing he says I should have a nurse?’
‘Oh! come,’ he said, ‘it can’t be as bad as that. Just rest for a day or so, and slops to eat. A doctor will soon put you right.’
She reached out for his hand and held it between hers.
‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘This isn’t just a little thing of resting for a few days. I ought to have started resting before - months ago; two, three years ago. I’ve always been near this - ready - and now it’s come. Hæmorrhage, I mean. To get well you would have to have sent me to Switzerland, you would have to have me nursed by the cleverest doctors in the world. It would have meant months of care and trouble and expense. You couldn’t afford it.’
‘You’re exaggerating,’ he told her stubbornly, ‘it can’t be as bad as that.’
‘It’s no use,’ she said. ‘We can’t make things any better by pretending. I’m willing to face what’s ahead. It isn’t anybody’s fault, it had to happen. Only - coming now, just when I was being happy ...’ she broke off suddenly, and was silent, and stared up at the ceiling. She thought of the girl in Ahèmed’s house lying on the little strip of coloured blanket, and she remembered her poor face wasted and terrible, and the suffering she had endured for three months, and how at the end she had thrown her arms above he
r head . . .
‘I’ll talk to the doctor,’ repeated Julius; ‘he’ll know what to say. I’m bad at this sort of thing - I’ve never been ill, it’s queer to me. I’ll talk to the doctor. He’ll know about the treatment, he’ll tell you what to do.’
He was thinking about the agreement for the site in the Strand and how it would be signed in the morning. Why did she have to fall ill at just this time? He had to buy that site in the Strand. He had always said that nothing and no one should stand between him and his plans.
‘I don’t suppose it will be such a long business,’ he went on; ‘if you’re taken care of properly you’ll soon be all right again. It’s this heat in late September, that’s helped against you I expect.’
‘I believe there are places in Switzerland not so expensive,’ she said later; ‘of course the getting out there would be difficult, and then having a nurse - it would all mount up.’ She was struggling in her mind for some loophole of escape. Not the girl in Ahèmed’s house, not like that.
But he was thinking of the site in the Strand. He would not give up his site in the Strand. The agreement was to be signed to-morrow.
‘If it’s really consumption,’ he said, ‘there are ways of curing that now. Anyway, it’s nothing to be afraid of. Lots of people go about with consumption. My father had it for years; he was always coughing. He didn’t suffer, either, not even at the end, and then it was only his heart that carried him off.’ He went on talking, stroking her hand, watching the curtain to see if the light were breaking.
‘You needn’t be frightened, there’s no suffering with consumption; it only needs rest and quiet,’ and he was thinking, ‘Tomorrow I shall sign the agreement for the site in the Strand.’
‘No, I’m not frightened, you mustn’t worry about me. I’m all right,’ she reassured him, but she was thinking, ‘I was with her when she died - I saw her face - I was with her when she died.’