Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky
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.
CHAPTER XXIV
AT 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.)
‘I always think it was such a good idea,’ said Mr. Eccles, – ‘a fellow I read about in a book. Instead of saying “Damn” and “Blast” and all the rest, whenever he was annoyed he used to say “Mice and Mumps – Mice and Mumps!”’
‘Oh yes?’ (Couldn’t a dentist break it off halfway down, and then crown it?)
‘Humorous idea – but it always appealed to me. Got it off his chest, and hadn’t said anything he regretted.’
‘No.’ (Or he might have it yanked out altogether. But the gap would be worse.)
‘“My giddy forefathers” is enough for me.’
‘Yes. Same for me.’ (Unless the teeth on each side grew inwards so as to cover it up. She believed they sometimes did that.)
‘But all these – Bees,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘They get on my nerves. . . . I can’t stand Bees, can you?’
‘No. I don’t like them.’ (From her experience in the bar she could herself have included a large variety of initials rivalling or reducing to naught the mild scandal of Bees, but she was not so unmaidenly as to tell him so.)
‘Dees are bad enough,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘But Bees. . . .’
‘Yes. It’s very unnecessary.’ (He might wear a Plate of course, but she didn’t think she could stand that.)
‘And then all this Dragging in of the Deity,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘Why does everybody Drag in the Deity every time they open their mouths?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ said Ella, feeling that he was rather exaggerating the average man’s resort to this form of appeal.
‘Neither do I,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘Not that I’m a Religious man.’
‘No,’ said Ella, non-committally.
‘But I think there’s something There, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I suppose there is.’
‘I mean there must be something There, mustn’t there,’ said Mr. Eccles, painfully unable to specify exactly Where, and leaving Ella rather doubtful as to how she was to show her comprehension.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘A Great First Cause,’ tried Mr. Eccles. ‘– which we Obey.’
‘Yes.’
‘A Spirit of Good.’
‘Yes.’
‘Something which Looks On.’
‘Yes.’
‘And Guides.’
‘Yes.’
‘In fact I suppose you would really say that I am a religious man – though I don’t show it on the surface.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And I certainly believe in going to Church.’
‘Oh – do you?’ (Good Lord, was he going to turn Religious on her now?)
‘And I believe in the Power of Prayer.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes – don’t you?’
‘I don’t really know,’ said Ella. . . .
‘Ah – but you Must – you Must,’ said Mr. Eccles with sudden extemporized Chadbandian fervour. ‘You must let me Help you.’
This was frightful. If he was going to superadd Religion to all the other mental thumbscrews and tortures he had at his disposal in the dungeon of his shameless and enwrapping personality, she really could not bear it. Not that Ella Minded religion, in the ordinary way. Her sole reflection on the matter was that there was just as much religion in Some people as there was in Others – if you knew what she meant. But Religion and Mr. Eccles simply did not go.
‘You must try,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘It all Comes – if you Try.’
‘Does it?’
‘Will you Try, for my sake?’
‘Yes. I must,’ said Ella, and decided, this time she believed for good and all, that she could not marry this monster. And was there the same obligation to marry him now, if there was five hundred pounds coming her way? Or, if she must not be so wicked as to take that into account, what about India?
(She had written
to India, that was to say to Mrs. Thingymajig, only yesterday, as a matter of fact, and she was expecting an answer to-morrow.)
‘It’s so easy when you Start,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘To get in touch with the Spirit of Peace upon the Waters. . . .’ And Mr. Eccles looked at her in a steady, perturbing way, as though here and now he was getting in touch with the Spirit of Peace upon the Waters, amid all the spoon-clinking, order-calling, and china-clanking of the crowded restaurant.
‘Is it?’ she said.
‘Ah,’ said Mr. Eccles with a smile of sickly winsomeness. ‘I see that you will have to let me take charge of your spiritual as well as your bodily welfare!’
And the smile, of course, revealed the Tooth which had now got beyond the passive hypnotic stage, and was nearly driving her mad.
‘Though I don’t know,’ added Mr. Eccles with his head on one side, ‘that Little Ladies need bother their little heads too much about such grave matters.’
What a fool, and what a Tooth! And how she would like to shake up his complacency! In his bland egoism he had shown the minimum of interest in the happenings over at Pimlico, and she wondered what he would think now if he knew how those happenings were likely to change the whole course of events? And what would he think if he knew about India? Well, let him go on dwelling a little longer in his toothy paradise. It was strange, how the combined action of Pimlico and India should have brought to the fore and enabled her at last fully to indulge her previously concealed dislike of a mere tooth, but she was now finding that these two localities had strange and magical influences in all directions.