Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky
‘Good evening,’ said the Takings-Place Above, smiling back in a strange, awkward way. Yes, Ella decided as she went on with her work, if she was not mistaken that was a death-bed smile, and she could hardly contain herself in her impatience to get to the woman. But two other men entered and brusquely ordered drinks and cigarettes, and it was three or four minutes before she faced her with a ‘Fancy seeing you.’
The Takings-Place Above said ‘M’m’ and again smiled queerly. ‘Can I have a small Johnny Walker?’ she added.
‘Small Johnny Walker?’ said Ella, and went to get it for her. This did not seem exactly in the death-bed spirit. Unless, of course, she wanted to fortify herself before proclaiming the evil news – that was to say the perfectly glorious news, for Ella had by now given up telling lies to herself in this matter.
‘Soda?’ said Ella, holding the glass under the syphon.
‘Yes, please,’ said the Takings-Place Above, still reticent.
There was a throaty hiss from the syphon, and Ella proffered the glass. Then, the Takings-Place Above, who had a feeling for dramatic effect, spoke.
‘He’s Better,’ said the Takings-Place Above, her face alight with the gleaming joy of the messenger.
CHAPTER XXX
AND HE WAS Better – more than Better – in fact, so far as Ella could see, the unpleasant man was in bouncing health, apart from being in bed. The Takings-Place Above at once launched out into lavish and luxuriously dramatic descriptions of the Turn, which had miraculously taken place last night in fulfilment of the Takings-Place Above’s premonitions, prophecies, Strange Feelings, and Always Having Said so, etc., – and now his temperature had fallen practically to normal, he was sitting up and taking nourishment, and the Doctor had pronounced him out of all danger only that afternoon. In fact, the patient was comparatively in such boisterous health that among other things he had actually spoken quite sharply to Ella’s mother over a question of a pillow which wasn’t to his liking! And the Takings-Place Above had remarked humorously to her mother (who was Solid Gold, if ever anyone was) that it would be nice to hear him Ticking her Off Again, and she would have to Spoil him now! It was all a Miracle really. So delighted had the Takings-Place Above been that she had been unable to resist coming over here to tell Ella. She had thought of her here, poor girl, worrying herself sick at Christmas Time, and not knowing What might have Happened. And so she thought she would bring her over a little Christmas present in the form of this heartening news. Freedom from this terrible worry would do her more good than all the Christmas presents in the world, and this should be the jolliest Christmas she had ever had. The Takings-Place Above Knew what it Meant, and Understood what it Was.
In fact the Takings-Place Above plainly felt justified in indulging in a sort of vicarious celebration of Ella’s emancipation from weeks of stark terror, ordered another whiskey (a large one), and began to get rather drunk. The strain of listening to this emotional and dubious woman, combined with the necessity of pumping up courteous and seemingly enthusiastic answers, of having, in order to save her face, to play up to the farcical rôle of hysterical relief thrust upon her, was nearly more than Ella could stand. The news itself was heartbreaking enough, but this blithe, self-indulgent hypocrisy into the bargain was really the last straw.
About twenty minutes later, and while she was still talking to the woman (for in politeness and seemliness she had to return to her at the conclusion of each order), Master Eric, apparently urged on by the Governor from the door within, stepped up to her, and with a grave yet fiery glance, delivered himself of an apology in which he had evidently been instructed.
‘I’ve come to say,’ he said, meeting a rather frightened Ella’s eyes, ‘that I apologize for Kicking you this morning.’ And he immediately walked away again.
‘Why – what a lovely kid!’ exclaimed the Takings-Place Above, at once alive to the opportunity for sentimental participation in a reconciliation. ‘Has ’e been Naughty?’
‘Yes. He was rather,’ said Ella, who was not displeased. (It was better than getting the sack, anyway.)
‘Did ’e Kick you?’ asked the Takings-Place Above, enchanted by the idea.
‘Yes. He did.’
‘Oo – the naughty boy! And now ’e came to Apologize! Ain’t that lovely? I love kids, don’t you?’
‘Yes. I do.’
‘I mean I’d love to have a child, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes. Of course they’re a trouble at times.’
‘Yes, but it’d be worth it,’ said the Takings-Place Above, and added warmly, ‘just to see that he didn’t make the mistakes you’d made yourself.’
‘Yes,’ said Ella, secretly thinking that if one actually was crusading only against Mistakes, a more simple, effective, and certain method would be for the Takings-Place Above not to have a child at all. But of this she showed nothing.
As the house filled up with people, Ella had an excuse to absent herself more and more from this corner of the bar. But the Takings-Place Above lingered on and on, eventually establishing a connection with a stout middle-aged gentleman, who paid for her drinks and sat down with her.
At a late hour she left the place with him, doubtless, Ella reflected, to return with him to where she had come from – the room above her mother in Pimlico – and to add yet another scandal to those already existing there. A shady ending to the somewhat fulsome benevolence of the impulse which originally brought her over to ‘The Midnight Bell.’ Thus did this murky bee of London go round dispensing and gathering her over-sweet honey from place to place over the town.
Ella lay awake hour upon hour that night. Before going to bed she had slipped into Bob’s room and put his Christmas present from her upon his pillow. This was a silk handkerchief, wrapped around a box of twenty cigarettes. This had been planned months ago, when she had bought the handkerchief at a sale. She had thrown in the cigarettes in case his ‘lordship’ (she could still with amused and loving deprecation think of him as his ‘lordship’ – it somehow summed up his transparent charm for her) did not like the handkerchief, and because cigarettes were always safe.
He was in very late that night. She never dared to think where he was or what he was up to out late at night. But tonight he was so late that she got frightened, and did think, and of course decided miserably that it was Girls. But at last he came in, and she listened breathlessly in the darkness for his pause in undressing when he saw the present, and thought or imagined that she heard it. But in a few minutes, she heard him opening his window, as he always did last thing, and she knew that his light was out and that he was as good as asleep. So much for Christmas presents. And, alas, it was beyond reasonable expectation to imagine that a silk handkerchief wrapped around a box of twenty Players could make a man love you.
Two hours later she was still awake and it was raining in the dark of Christmas Day. It poured down gently with a steady level of dripping murmur on the roof – like something wishing to instil in her, in the quiet blackness of the night, a sense of the hidden but ever present realities of her lonely and meaningless struggle in the world of London – of the endless procession of solitary nights after senseless working days – of the endless procession of meagre triumphs and frustrations in connection with the disinterested agents of her fate – Mr. Eccles, her stepfather, Master Eric, India, Christmas, Bob, the Governor. And though months had passed, with all these playing their stimulating or wearying parts, where was she now? In her cave, at night, with the rain coming down on the roof. And on Christmas Day – like the last Christmas Day, and the next. And still she could not sleep and still the rain came down. She heard Bob get up and close his window.
CHAPTER XXXI
THEY HAD A splendid Christmas Day at ‘The Midnight Bell.’ A terrific midday dinner for all of them in the Governor’s room, and in the evening they were allowed to wear the caps from their crackers in the bar!
And, just as Ella had foreseen, by the Christmas Day Post a letter from Mr. Eccles! In the interval betwee
n dinner and tea, which on this astounding day was also taken in the Governor’s room, by invitation, she took the opportunity to study this in her bed-room.
‘178 Mervyn Avenue,
Chiswick, W.4.
‘Dear “Ella”,
(Still inverted commas, she noted, but perhaps that was because be was angry with her, and she would not become truly Ella until she had been forgiven.)
‘It will be Christmas Day to-morrow, and I am not the man to harbour anything – least of all a grudge. I never was – funny, but there you are.’ (A little subsidiary exercise in the Short Elementary Course in Mr. Eccles, this, in spite of the tenderness of the situation.) ‘Besides, I now see that I was as fully as much in the wrong as you over that little “flare-up” we had that day – you look so pretty when you are in a “pet” by the way! – in fact, I was more in the wrong, as I know I have a most provoking way with me sometimes when I am angry – friends have told me so.’ (More of the Short Course!) ‘I am truly and sincerely sorry if I said anything “unforgivable” and am sure you will realize that it was not meant.
‘The truth is, my dear, that I get attacks of “the blues” at times, and then I am very crotchety. My doctor would tell you it is liver! – such a commonplace complaint!! But if I am ever to be your “hubby” (and we must really weigh up the “pros” and “cons” of the situation when we next meet) you will have to know my moods when they come along and just tease me out of them like the sly little puss you are! A clever woman can do so much if she makes a study of her “man,” and thank Heavens whatever else you can say about me, I have a great sense of humour, and am always the first to laugh at myself.
‘What wretched weather we are having. Hardly “seasonable,” is it? I always feel that at Christmas time the house-tops should be covered with snow as we see in the Christmas cards. But the good, old-fashioned Christmas seems gone forever in this mechanical age!
‘Well, I feel sure that you will take this in the spirit in which it is written and accept my apology if I hurt you. When shall we meet? Remember that I still want to bring you over here to introduce you to my sister-in-law (I am sure, you will like each other) and then the die will be cast! You must not be frightened at the “ordeal” as we will have a talk about it first.
‘Shall it be next Wednesday? We have your Christmas present to think about. I saw some nice fur coats in a window the other day. Expensive – but they looked so cosy for this weather! I can hardly wait to see you again – as you are always in my thoughts – perhaps more than you know or I would care to tell you! Just at the moment, I could hug you and squeeze you till you cried for mercy! So write your toodlums a nice loving letter with a great big kiss, and let us forget the past and look to the future.
‘Your
‘ERNEST.’
Toodlums! What a man! But she supposed he had made amends in his own impervious, ostrich-like way. And was he really going to buy her a fur coat? That would be nice, of course. But what great big kisses her suddenly and idiotically self-styled ‘toodlums’ would expect in sweet payment for this she dared not think! The trouble with the man simply was that he was an idiot – as far as amorous advances went, practically a cretin. But she supposed that that was not his fault, and that he was well-meaning, and loved her.
She had no idea how she was going to answer this. She would have, she imagined, to make it up, and then all the wearing problem would begin again – with Mr. Eccles continuing to make an ass of himself, and her unhappy mother continuing to make hints, and she herself unable to make any decision reinforced by her heart. She found now that she had subconsciously rather enjoyed her brief vacation from him.
Fur coats, indeed! It sounded most proud and sinful. It was awful to think of the things she would be forsaking if she took the opportunity (and it might never come again) of turning him down at this juncture. As she served that night in the crowded bar, and laughingly rebuked the insincere compliments of the men (they all said she looked ‘beautiful’ in her cracker cap) she wondered what they would all think if they knew that there was a gentleman with a rich private income behind her, who really did think she was beautiful, and was prepared to support his opinion with fur coats and legality. It was not a chance which came the way of many barmaids, and there were few who would not rush at it.
Thus the strange and unforeseeable pattern of yet another Christmas Day was lived through. On the next day, Boxing Day – the last stretch in the hateful Christmas tunnel – Ella thought a great deal more about Mr. Eccles, but still had made no attempt to reply to his letter. She somehow excused and felt that he would understand her procrastination on the score of the prevailing irregularity of the Christmas posts, though actually she knew there was one which would reach him tomorrow. She even felt justified in delaying making any decision about Mr. Eccles, for in the Christmas tunnel you felt that all matters were as though suspended, and you could not properly resume your existence and pick up the threads until you came out into the clear mental daylight of Thursday. (After that there was another little tunnel of festivity ahead, in the New Year, but that was not a Severn tunnel, like Christmas.)
On Boxing Day Bob went off for his holiday – without saying good-bye – and she was rather hurt – though it was in the afternoon when she was over at Pimlico, where the fiend had made further miraculous and merciless leaps forward, but her mother was nearly dead with fatigue, overstrained nerves, and overdue rest. Ella gave her her usual ten shillings.
It was rotten – not having Bob to listen to in the next room that night – creepy somehow. The wind howled round the dark house, there was more rain, and she wondered what on earth he was doing with himself on such a stormy night. He was supposed to have gone to Brighton, but she dared not think about that. Anyway it would only be a week – a week went soon enough – sadly soon for the released toiler, and she would have him back fresh for the New Year.
The next day she could still not make up her mind as to the form of her reply to Mr. Eccles, and she took a walk by herself in Regent’s Park to think about it. She rather thought she would make it evasive for the time being, until she had taken some advice. Why not confide in Bob when he came back? It seemed a funny choice, but Bob was young and alone understood her general outlook on life. She had no other young friends. Yes – she would confide in Bob. As she could make nothing else of him, she could at least make a friend of him, and not be silly about him any more. She was going to train herself in not being silly about him any more while he was away. And when he came back they were going to be great friends. That would be a happy evening.
It was with these resolutions that she came down to her evening duties.
It was about five minutes after opening, and she was standing alone wiping glasses in the bar (for the man taking Bob’s place was not coming until to-morrow), when Freda, the barmaid round in the public bar, who did not sleep in, and whom Ella did not know very well or like particularly, came round into Ella’s province to fetch a bottle.
‘Have you heard about Bob?’ she said, as she delved in a cupboard.
‘What?’ said Ella, her heart pounding.
‘He’s gone,’ said Freda.
‘Gone? I know he’s gone.’
‘No. Gone for good,’ said Freda, and having found what she wanted, went out of sight. A customer entered and ordered a bitter.
‘A trifle milder to-night,’ said the customer.
‘Yes. It is,’ said Ella, but she had no idea what she was saying.
CHAPTER XXXII
HE HAD BROKEN her heart – that was all she knew about it. She had got all the details there were from the Governor and the Mrs., but they were both really as mystified as herself. However, a change of waiters meant nothing to them.
He had come in during the afternoon and said that he was going back to sea – he had always wanted to do this, and a chance had come which he felt he could not pass by. It was ‘lucky’ (said the Governor and the Mrs.) coming at this time, as they had a new man to
hand and would be put to no inconvenience in the transition. And packed up and gone to sea he had, all in the space of an hour or so. ‘He left a special message for you,’ the Mrs. said. ‘He sent his love and said he was sorry he couldn’t see you.’ And ‘He was a nice boy,’ said the Governor, ‘we’ll all miss him, I’m sure.’ ‘Yes,’ said the Mrs. ‘and good-looking, too. . . .’
A special message! What was the good of that, after cruelly breaking her heart? How could the Bob she knew have been so thoughtless, so heartless, as to play this trick on her behind her back? To run off while she was not looking, without a word, without warning, without an attempt to confide in his companion in slavery. After all their fun, conspiracy, and intimacy in the bar, after the Christmas present she had given him, after their going to the pictures together, after all those nights she had listened to him in his room, after everything. It was too hard. She would never trust in anybody again. Was no one to be trusted? And he had sent her his ‘love.’ What did that mean? She cherished it, although it meant nothing.
Most poignant disaster of all, they had put her into his room. A considerate thought of the Mrs. as it was actually the better room of the two. And how could she explain to the Mrs. that she adored the vanished waiter, and could not bear being put in his room? The New man would have her old room. His name was John, and she had met him – a measly, weedy, would-be vulgar little man with a thin nose and a tiny grey moustache – but she had to be nice to him as he found his way about.
She had to move in next day. She did it in the afternoon. She had to light the gas (the gas he had so many times lighted!) as it was so dark. It was about a quarter of an hour before she went downstairs for her evening’s work, and she stood there, looking at the vacant, wall-papered cell of the departed spirit.
He had obviously gone in a hurry, for he had left, again with unbearable poignance, many little things behind. . . . A half-used bottle of ink; some old razor blades; and some books and papers. A second-hand copy of Macaulay’s History of England, a little green Volume One of Gibbon’s Roman Empire, and some old numbers of John O’London’s Weekly. Ella had always known that Bob was a great reader, and she had often wondered why he had wanted to stuff his head with such dry things, while secretly admiring him profoundly, and being in a manner proud of him, for his excursions into learned realms beyond her comprehension. He had once told her with naïve pride that there were seven volumes of these Gibbons in all, and he was getting them one by one. But she had never seen another, and now he had left it behind. Why had he forsaken these tokens of some secret ambition to study and improve himself? She picked up the Macaulay, and glanced through its mysterious pages. She saw from the condition of the pages that he had not read it all through, and in a manner which struck her as curiously touching, he had in parts underlined the small print in pencil. Here, for instance: ‘Yet it was plain that no confidence could be placed in the King. Nothing but the want of an army had prevented him from entirely subverting the old constitution of the realm.’ Why had her dear, dear, Bob, who had vanished forever, been so anxious secretly to call attention with his delighted pencil to the truth that no confidence could be placed in the King at this period? And later: ‘The discipline of the navy was of a piece throughout. . . . It was idle to expect that old sailors, familiar with the hurricanes of the tropics and with the icebergs of the Arctic Circle would pay prompt and respectful obedience to a chief who knew no more of winds and waves than could be learned in a gilded barge between Whitehall stairs and Hampton Court.’ That must have appealed to his strange, charming, reticent soul as a sailor. Where was he now – on the high seas, battling with the winds and waves in the dark? Seeing and touching these relics of the inner life of an aspiring, striving and departed presence, she forgave him all his guilt in forsaking her, and was aware only of a gentle pity for the frustration of all souls, including her own, under the dark firmament.