At a later hour, soon after the workmen and the engines and the hose and all the apparatus of purification had vanished from Riceyman Steps, to the regret of a persistent crowd which had been enjoying an absolutely novel sensation, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Earlforward, who were alone and rather self-conscious and rather at a loss for something to do in the beautiful shut shop, heard steps on the upper stairs. Elsie! They had forgotten Elsie! It was not a time for them to be thoughtful of other people. Elsie presently appeared on the lower stairs, and was beheld of both her astonished employers. For Elsie was clothed in her best, and it was proved that she indeed had a best. Neither Henry nor Violet had ever seen the frock which Elsie was wearing. Yet it was obviously not a new frock. It had lain in that tin trunk of hers since more glorious days. Possibly Joe might have seen it on some bright evening, but no other among living men. Its colour was brown; in cut it did not bear, and never had borne, any relation to the fashions of the day. But it was unquestionably a best dress. Over the façade of the front Elsie displayed a garment still more surprising; namely, a white apron. Now in Clerkenwell white aprons were white only once in their active careers, and not always even once. White aprons in Clerkenwell were white (unless bought “shop-soiled” at a reduction) for about the first hour of their first wearing. They were, of course, washed, rinsed and ironed, and sometimes lightly starched, but they never achieved whiteness again, and it was impossible that they should do so. A whitish grey was the highest they could reach after the first laundry. Elsie therefore was wearing a new apron; and, in fact, she had purchased it with her own money under the influence of her modest pride in forming a regular part of a household comprising a gentleman and lady freshly united in matrimony. She had also purchased a cap, but at the last moment, after trying it on, had lacked the courage to keep it on; she felt too excessively odd in it. She was carrying a parcel in her left hand, and the other was behind her back. Mrs. Earlforward, at sight of her, guessed part of what was coming, but not the more exciting part.
“Oh, Elsie!” cried Mrs. Earlforward. “There you are! I fancied you were out.”
“No, ’m,” said Elsie, in her gentle, firm voice. “But I wasn’t expecting you and master home so early, and as soon as you came I run upstairs to change.”
With that Elsie, from the advantage of three stairs, suddenly showed her right hand, and out of a paper bag flung a considerable quantity of rice on to the middle-aged persons of the married. She accomplished this gesture with the air of a benevolent priestess performing a necessary and gravely important rite. Some of the rice stuck on its targets, but most of it rattled on the floor and rolled about in the silence. Indeed, there was quite a mess of rice on the floor, and the pity seemed to be that the vacuum-cleaners had left early.
Violet was the first to recover from the state of foolish and abashed stupefaction into which the deliberate assault had put man and wife. Violet laughed heartily, very heartily. Her mood was transformed again in an instant into one of gaiety, happiness, and natural ease. It was as if a sinister spell had been miraculously lifted. Henry gradually smiled, while regarding with proper regret this wanton waste of a health-giving food such as formed the sole nourishment of many millions of his fellow-creatures in distant parts of the world. Sheepishly brushing his clothes with his hand, he felt as though he was dissipating good rice-puddings. But he, too, suffered a change of heart.
“I had to do it, because it’s for luck,” Elsie amiably explained, not without dignity. Evidently she had determined to do the wedding thoroughly, in spite of the unconventionalities of the contracting parties.
“I’m sure it’s very kind of you,” said Mrs. Earlforward.
“Yes, it is,” Mr. Earlforward concurred.
“And here’s a present from me,” Elsie continued, blushing, and offering the parcel.
“I’m sure we’re very much obliged,” said Mrs. Earlforward, taking the parcel. “Come into the back room, Elsie, and I’ll undo it. It’s very heavy. No, I’d better not hold it by the string.”
And in the office the cutting of string and the unfolding of brown paper and of tissue paper disclosed a box, and the opening of the box disclosed a wedding cake—not a large one, true, but authentic. What with the shoe and the rice and the cake, Elsie in the grand generosity of her soul must have spent a fortune on the wedding, must have exercised the large munificence of a Rothschild—and all because she had faith in the virtue of the ancient proprieties appertaining to the marriage ceremony. She alone had seen Mrs. Earlforward as a bride and Mr. Earlforward as a bridegroom, and the magic of her belief compelled the partners also to see themselves as bride and bridegroom.
“Well, Elsie,” Violet burst out—and she was deeply affected—“I really don’t know what to say.
