Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky

  ‘It’s not a question of affording,’ he said. ‘Here are these two seats going, and so one might as well take advantage of them.’

  ‘Well –’ said Ella, but Mr. Eccles interrupted her.

  ‘They’ll only be wasted otherwise,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ said Ella, ‘that’s ever so kind of you, but I don’t see how I can manage it. I can’t just take an evening off to go to the theatre, can I?’

  ‘Oh – this isn’t at night. This is for the afternoon.’

  ‘Oh – is it?’

  ‘Yes It’s a matinée.’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact that’s not much better, is it? I’m only off from about three to half-past four in the afternoon.’

  ‘But isn’t Thursday your afternoon off?’

  ‘Oh yes – Thursday is.’

  ‘Well – there you are.’

  ‘Why?’ said Ella. ‘Are these tickets for Thursday?’

  ‘Yes. Of course they are. That’s why I thought you might like it. I knew Thursday was your day off.’

  What was this man after? Ella once more was overwhelmed by the terrific detail and firmness of his attack. He had now forced her back to her last line – the weak, wavering line of pure falsehood – a line at which she was least adept.

  ‘Well, on Thursday I’ve got to go somewhere,’ she said, ‘as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Oh – have you?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks ever so much all the same. It’s ever so kind of you.’

  ‘Can’t you put the other thing off?’

  ‘Well, it’d be rather difficult.’

  ‘But not impossible, surely?’

  Fool, thought Ella, for merely saying it would be rather difficult. She ought to have learnt by now that he wedged himself in to the smallest opening she gave him.

  ‘Well . . .’ she said, at a loss.

  ‘Don’t you want to come?’

  ‘Oh yes. . . . I want to come. . . .’

  ‘Then why not. It’s a very good show, I believe. Don’t you like the theatre?’

  ‘Oh yes. I like going all right. . . . There’s nothing I like better.’

  And this was true if all else was lies. Ella did more than like the theatre – she adored the theatre. Perhaps because she went so seldom, going to the theatre was an event of enormous, indeed historical magnitude to Ella. She anticipated it days ahead. As soon as the curtain went up she surrendered to and prostrated herself before its illusions with the freshness and gravity of a child. Plays were neither bad nor good to Ella, merely absorbing, frightening almost, with their terrible power of letting you in through the key-hole at real human beings and passions. After such a stimulus her serious, ruminative soul could think about little else for days afterwards. But, of course, she could hardly ever afford it. When she did, she generally saved up and took someone else.

  ‘Then I would come, if I were you,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘It seems a pity to miss the chance.’

  And it struck Ella, for the first time, that it did seem a pity to miss the chance. And she was instantly tempted to rationalize her desires, and to argue again that she was absurdly exaggerating the seriousness of all this, that Mr. Eccles was a perfectly harmless and friendly old gentleman who ‘liked’ her, just as she used to think she ‘liked’ him. What would be the harm of going to the theatre with such an old gentleman? But was he, exactly, old, and was he, in that new hat, harmless? In his new hat he looked as if he might have all sorts of very funny, though possibly tentative, ideas about himself and his age.

  ‘Oh well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know, I’m sure. . . .’

  That left the door open, and gave him further opportunity for persuasion. She could almost believe she desired to be persuaded. Also it gave her a little more time to think.

  ‘Well, you do what you like,’ he said, ‘but here are these two seats going.’

  With her last line shaken and in dismay, she was saved from immediate capitulation by Bob, the waiter, who now came from the Lounge into the Saloon Bar.

  CHAPTER IV

  ‘GOOD EVENING, SIR,’ said Bob to Mr. Eccles, in that rather harshly cordial manner he had of greeting customers whom he had not singled out as special favourites. And picking up a copy of The Evening News, he glanced his eye over the front page, and then settled down on a high stool near Ella and Mr. Eccles to read it inside. In the ordinary way, when customers were in the bar, Bob never outraged proper deference by allowing himself a stool like this. He evidently did not regard Mr. Eccles as ‘customers.’

  ‘Good evening, Bob,’ said Mr. Eccles, taking the liberty of using the waiter’s Christian name, in somewhat the same convention as that in which public-schoolboys call all the butlers and attendants a generic ‘George’ (or whatever it is) patronizingly, and indiscriminatingly. He thus contrived, without tangible offence, to assume a height and to put Bob in his place. Whether this was deliberate it was not easy to say: but it was quite clear, from his glance, that he liked Bob’s looks little, and his present company less.

  In appearance Bob was a formidably yet casually attractive young man looking anything between twenty and thirty (he was actually twenty-six). He was tall, with dark well-kept hair, dark brown eyes, set rather far back, and firm efficient clean-shaven features which bespoke his partially American origin. He had been at sea a great part of his early life, he was motherless and fatherless, and he had long adopted England as his country, speaking with a definite London accent and with London idiom. He had a resolute and independent air which, to one who understood him, did nothing to mitigate his real transparency. Ella, who understood him, loved him. She loved him largely because after due consideration she had decided that he was divinely good-looking, and largely because after due consideration she had decided that he was divinely transparent. Though she did not realize it, her whole daily life centred around Bob – his comings, his goings, his moods, his reticences, his absurdities. That he did not return her love in the smallest measure caused no resentment in her whatever. The superb mechanism of her healthy character enabled her to tie up any package of what was not to be, and to shelve it for good. Not that she could always resist casting wistful eyes upon it on the shelf. When she was unhappy, or run down, or in a nervous state, she found Bob’s continual proximity a little painful and disquieting. But no mechanism can function perfectly all the time. In addition to all this Bob dominated her existence purely by virtue of his companionship. Since she was so seldom away from ‘The Midnight Bell,’ and had so few friends whom she cared to meet, or who were accessible, she relied more and more upon Bob. She realized now that when he came to ‘The Midnight Bell’ four or five months ago, something had definitely entered her life. On the score of reciprocation of companionship alone she had nothing to complain of in Bob. He clearly liked and respected her, and they had reached a wonderful intimacy. That this for the greater part took the form of playful rallying and semi-flirtatious non-commitment did not detract from its stability and charm. They often talked seriously. In her heart Ella (the incurably serious-minded) liked best of all to talk seriously, and her serious talks with Bob were a great, and glowing, pleasure. Also, she had her work in common with Bob, and stood with Bob in close conspiracy and muttered rebellion against certain injustices and disorders descending almost daily upon them from a higher quarter in ‘The Midnight Bell.’ In fact she often thought she could not do without Bob now.

  No wonder, then, that she had a feeling of support and safety, of being on comparatively dry land, now that her friend and loved object, Bob, had entered the bar. Also this abruptly terminated all the air of low-toned clandestinity of her colloquy with Mr. Eccles, and gave her a chance to convey to Bob that no secrets had been in the making. Above all things, she desired to keep no secrets from Bob.

  ‘Well, Bob,’ she said, ‘what have you been up to?’

  ‘I’ve been mending the switch in there,’ said Bob, without looking up from his paper.

  ‘No, I don’t mean just now,’ said El
la. ‘I mean this afternoon.’

  She knew that this frantic attempt to change the subject with the appearance of Bob could avail her nothing, that, unless she intended flatly to insult Mr. Eccles by not mentioning the theatre again, it had to be assumed that she was speaking to Bob purely parenthetically, on the score of politeness to a newcomer. And a brief look on her part at Mr. Eccles – at his half-smiling, glazed, unconsciously almost tigerish side-glance at the reading Bob, revealed that he bore the same fact in mind.

  ‘Oh, this afternoon . . .’ said Bob. ‘I went to the pictures.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ella, and there was a pause.

  ‘So you have time to go to the pictures in the afternoon, do you?’ said Mr. Eccles, smiling upon both of them.

  Ella felt that her half-truths were finding her out. And her only weapon of defence now was the half-true, subtle, and involved excuse that the Pictures (as distinguished from the theatre with its fixed matinée) began early, ran continuously, and were split up into different features, thus enabling one to apply all the free time at one’s disposal and to witness at least one complete artistic unit of the whole, to say nothing of various possible odds and ends of news-reels, comedies, and beginnings.

  Bob, who of course did not understand that Mr. Eccles had made a friendly thrust, looked up and vaguely said ‘What?. . .’

  In answer Mr. Eccles smiled at Ella, as though to refer Bob to her. Bob looked at her. They both looked at her.

  What was she to do now – launch upon that tiresome defence? She had no heart for it. Also she had to explain matters to Bob.

  ‘Mr. Eccles,’ she said to Bob, ‘has just been very kind. . . .’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Bob, politely. But as the other two were too flustered to say anything, and just looked at each other like a couple of schoolgirls caught doing something they shouldn’t in a passage, things were very coy and suspended. . . .

  ‘How’s that?’ tried Bob. . . .

  Mr. Eccles smiled greenly, but his mouth was shut. It was Ella’s funeral.

  ‘He’s been asking me,’ she said, ‘whether I’d like to go to the theatre.’

  She wondered why the mere utterance of such a statement cost her such intense humiliation. Was it because the mere conception of going to the theatre with someone like Mr. Eccles was humiliating? Or was it because the blushing secret of the seriousness of Mr. Eccles’ advances was now unmasked before Bob? Or was it because she was so utterly impotent to convey to Bob that she had played no part in this, and was no part of it now – instead of conveying, as she did, with her talk of Mr. Eccles being ‘very kind,’ the glad and unreflecting complacence of a simpleton?

  But Bob had quite a different way of looking at things.

  ‘Oh – really?’ he said warmly. ‘You’re in luck then. What’s the show?’

  Was Bob just trying to help her out, or was his enthusiasm genuine? She honestly believed the latter, and she felt a load rising from her spirit. It was characteristic of Bob, to put her at her ease like this.

  ‘What is the show, Mr. Eccles?’ she asked. (She was Mr. Ecclesing him like anything now – quite the new acquaintance!)

  ‘It’s called “The Lost Guard,” I believe,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘At the “Empress.”’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Bob. ‘I know about that. Got a very good press. That ought to be fine.’

  She noticed that he not only took it for granted that she had already accepted, but regarded acceptance as an act fully in accordance with nature and all the proprieties. Moreover his keenness on her behalf, which she now was certain was sincere, had instantly infected her. Why should she not regard herself as one in luck – in great luck? She had few enough chances to go to the theatre, and from her own (and the sane) point of view there was no harm in being taken out by a friendly middle-aged customer. If there had been any harm or humiliation it would have been in reference to the opinion of others – particularly, of course, to the opinion of that supremely, that only momentous arbitrator of her values – Bob. And here was Bob himself giving her his sanction! She had made a fool of herself. She was always reading things into things, and making a fool of herself.

  ‘The point is,’ said Mr. Eccles,’ are you coming?’

  ‘Well . . .’ said Ella, with seeming doubt. But there was a kind of smile on her lips and tremor in her voice which showed that she was about to surrender. And ‘What’s the matter?’ said Bob, in the slightly bewildered way of one to whom the notion that she could be such a fool as to turn such an opportunity down had never occurred.

  ‘I thought I couldn’t manage it at first,’ she said. ‘But as it’s Thursday . . .’ She paused.

  ‘Yes – that’s good,’ said Bob. ‘You won’t be so rushed, then.’

  ‘Yes – that’s what I thought,’ said Mr. Eccles, and he caught Bob’s eye fairly for the first time, and spoke in a rich friendly tone which denoted that Bob, in addition to being elevated from his inferior sphere, had been forgiven handsomely, and was in warm favour.

  ‘Well – it’s very kind of you indeed,’ said Ella. ‘I’ll enjoy it very much.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Mr. Eccles, delightedly. ‘It’d have been a pity to have wasted the seats in any case.’

  ‘Yes, it would really,’ said Ella, in the same delighted way, and Bob chimed in ‘It certainly would.’

  And now that the thing was done, and acknowledgments had been proffered and accepted, an astonishing feeling of gladness, of breathing freely once more after battle, of glowing reconciliation almost, filled the air. And it dawned upon Ella that not something horrible, but something entirely pleasing had occurred to-night. With this she at once realized that she ‘liked’ Mr. Eccles again – ‘liked’ him better than ever, in fact – should never have stopped ‘liking’ him. And he, beyond doubt, ‘liked’ her.

  ‘Is that next Thursday?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Mr. Eccles, and there was another pause.

  ‘Do you go to the theatre a lot, then, Mr. Eccles?’ said Ella, resorting happily to that charming privilege of the newly reconciled, that of changing the subject, and entering the realms of sheer detachment.

  ‘No . . .’ said Mr. Eccles, rounding his mouth on the negative with a reflective and judicial air in full accordance with the new psychology. ‘I don’t go very often, as a matter of fact. Just now and again when there’s a good show.’

  ‘It’s a question of affording with me,’ said Bob, scarcely less sensitive than the other two to the spirit of the situation. ‘With the price they charge these days.’

  ‘Yes, it’s scandalous,’ said Mr. Eccles, and ‘I know – something dreadful,’ said Ella. (But, of course, people like Mr. Eccles, and the lucky friends they invited out, were not so immediately and painfully subject to such scandals!)

  ‘But then everything’s so expensive nowadays,’ said Mr. Eccles.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Bob, and ‘You’re right,’ said Ella, both imagining that Mr. Eccles was merely keeping the ball of conversation rolling. Oddly, however, with Mr. Eccles’ next observation the ball came to a sudden standstill.

  ‘Unless one’s looked to the matter,’ said Mr. Eccles. . . .

  Unless one’s looked to the matter. Now what, wondered Bob and Ella, did that mean? How might a private person have looked to the social matter of the cost of commodities nowadays? ‘M’m’ murmured Bob, and ‘Yes’ said Ella, feigning comprehension, but both in so obviously feeble and vague a manner that the door was left open for further elucidation – which came the next moment.

  ‘I’ve got something comfortable put by,’ said Mr. Eccles, italicizing his ‘I’ve’ in a purely scientific and self-effacing distinction between himself and the poor devils who hadn’t. . . .

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Bob politely, having gathered Mr. Eccles’ meaning without having gathered his exact object. And Ella did not reply.

  There was, therefore, a rather uncomfortable silence in which the Comfortable (and yet slightly myste
rious and foreboding) Something which Mr. Eccles had contrived to Put By, permeated the amicable and expectant air.

  As for Ella, she had not replied because she (unlike Bob) had caught Mr. Eccles’ import as well as his meaning, and had again taken fright. There was something so eccentric, so uncalled-for, so ponderous and inelegant in Mr. Eccles’ allusion to what he had put by, that she had not the slightest doubt that he was doing what was known as Getting it In. Or Letting her Know. And that meant Advances again. And she had almost hoped, in the last few minutes, that she had expelled the demon of Advances. So he had something comfortable, had he? That might mean anything. It would be extremely interesting to know his criterion of comfort.

  Still no one spoke, and Ella began to feel that it devolved upon her to start the conversation again, when that happened which, had it happened a little earlier, might have prevented, or at least postponed, the whole series of alternative misgivings and reassurances of which Ella had been the well-meaning vessel in the last quarter of an hour – another customer entered.

  And directly after this other customer, another customer entered – and then shortly afterwards another. It was nearly always so – ‘The Midnight Bell,’ at a certain instant of the evening, becoming uncommonly like an accident which had just occurred, and upon whose scene people materialized from nowhere in complete dramatic awareness of the event. In ten minutes Ella was working hard.

  It would have been doubtful whether Mr. Eccles would have had any further chance to hold any sustained conversation with Ella during the rest of the evening: certainly there was an end to any soft impasses and portentous silences. In any case, Mr. Eccles managed to leave well alone, and after drinking up the rest of his beer, he raised his new hat with a cheerful ‘Good night’ and went out. ‘Good-night, Mr. Eccles,’ cried Ella, cordially, but she was too busy to experience relief or aught else at his departure.