Riceyman Steps

thefts should be covered. She had admitted to Mr. Earlforward that she got enough to eat. She could not possibly deny that her employers allowed her more food, or at any rate more regular food, than many of her acquaintances managed to exist on from day to day. With an empty stomach and a tight throat she toiled upon her routine conscientiously, and more than conscientiously, because she felt herself in the presence of final calamity. For her the house and shop had become “the pale court of kingly death”; though she was as ignorant of the mighty phrase as of the Sermon on the Mount, and even less capable of understanding it. The bedroom was sealed against her. Mrs. Earlforward herself went out to purchase special light food. Afterwards she cooked some of the light food and carried it into the bedroom⁠—and carried it out again untouched. Only towards evening did Mrs. Earlforward leave the mysterious and terrible bedroom with an empty basin. Elsie could not comprehend why the doctor had not come, or why, not having come, he had not been fetched. And she dared not ask. No! And she dared not ask how Mr. Earlforward was going on. And Mrs. Earlforward vouchsafed nothing. This withholding of news was Violet’s punishment for Elsie. She wore a mask, which announced to Elsie all the time that Elsie was for the present outside the pale of humanity. Elsie had an intense desire to share fully Violet’s ordeal, to suffer openly with her; she admitted that the frustration of this desire was no more than her deserts.

At five o’clock, in a clean apron, she was put into the shop. The stove was black out. The shop was full of the presence and intimidation of death. Customers seemed to have avoided it that day, as if they had been magically warned to keep away. Business had been negligible. Elsie hoped much that none would come in the last hour. She had lost the habit of serving in the shop, and was uncertain of her capability to handle the humblest customer without making a fool of herself. Then an old gentleman entered and stood silent, critically surveying her and the shop.

“Yes, sir? What can I⁠—”

The old gentleman saw a fat, fairly sensible face, and young, timid, kind eyes, and was rather attracted and mollified by the eyes; but he did not allow Elsie’s gaze to soften more than a very little his just resentment at the spectacle of an aproned charwoman, or at best a general servant, in charge of a bookshop.

“You can’t!” he said sharply, moving his ancient head slowly from side to side in a firm negative. “I see Mr. Earlforward.”

“The master isn’t very well, sir.”

“Oh! Then Mrs. Earlforward.”

“Missis is looking after master, sir.”

“You don’t mean to say he’s ill?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ill in bed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good God! I’ve known him for over twenty years, and never knew him ill yet. What’s the matter? What’s the matter with him?”

“I couldn’t exactly say, sir.”

“What do you mean⁠—you couldn’t exactly say?”

“He’s very ill indeed, sir.”

“Not seriously ill?”

Elsie drooped her head and showed signs of crying.

“Not in danger?”

Elsie replied with a sob:

“He’ll never get up again, sir.”

“Good God! Good God! What next? What next? Er⁠—I⁠—er⁠—I’m sorry to hear this. I’m⁠—er⁠—tell him, tell Mrs. Earlforward, I⁠—” And, murmuring to himself, he walked rapidly out of the dim shop. He was at an age when the distant shuffling and rumbling of death could positively frighten. In an instant he had seen the folly, the futility, of collecting books. You could not take first editions with you when you⁠—went. Death loomed enormous over him, like a whole firmament threatening to fall.

Elsie heard a footfall on the stairs, and Mrs. Earlforward came with deliberation down to such light as there was, her fixed eyes glinting and blazing on the sinner submissive in disgrace. Elsie stood tremulous before those formidable eyes. She could scarcely believe that they were the same eyes which had melted in confidences to her on the previous morning. And they were not the same eyes. They were the eyes of an old woman with harsh, implacable features, petrified and incapable of mobility.

“What were you saying to that gentleman?”

“I was only telling him he couldn’t see you or master because master was ill, ’m.”

“But didn’t I hear you say your master would never get up again?”

Elsie quivered and made no response, no defence.

“What do you mean by saying such a thing? How dare you say such a thing? It isn’t true; it isn’t true! And even if it was true, do you suppose I want everybody to know about our private affairs? You must have gone out of your mind!”

She waited for an answer from Elsie. None came. Elsie could not articulate. Then Mrs. Earlforward finished, abrupt and tyrannical:

“Shut the shop!”

Elsie found speech:

“It’s only a quarter to six, ’m. There’s a quarter of an hour yet,” she said weakly, but bravely.

“Shut the shop, I tell you!”

Elsie went outside and began to wheel in the bookstand. A vision of Joe leaped up in her mind, and she gazed east and west to see if by chance he might be arriving a day late at that moment. The vision of Joe vanished from her mind. She thought: “This will be the last time I shall ever wheel in the bookstand.” Then, from habit, she raked down the ashes from the stove.

“What’s the good of raking the stove when you know it’s out!” Mrs. Earlforward exclaimed. “Nothing can burn away if it’s out. Where are your brains, wasting time?” Mrs. Earlforward marched across the shop, banged the door to, and fastened it violently, definitely. And Elsie thought: “That door’ll never open for master’s customers again.”

“Get upstairs!” ordained Mrs. Earlforward. Within ten seconds the shop and the office were in darkness.

That evening Elsie had none but strictly official communication with Mrs. Earlforward, who never once removed her mask, nor by any sign invited Elsie to come back within the warm pale of humanity.