“I thought I might want yer to run down to the hospital for me, Jerry my boy,” she said. “But I shan’t now. Mrs. Earlforward died this afternoon.”
“It’s all over the Square,” said Jerry, spitting negligently into the dark fireplace, and pushing his cap further back on his head.
Elsie saw that he did not understand death.
“Yes,” said she, “I suppose it is.” She said no more, because of the uselessness of talking about death to a simple-minded youth like Jerry.
“It was very nice of you to bring me my umbrella like that,” she said.
“Oh!” said he, falsely scornful of himself. “It was easiest for me to bring it along like that.”
He had been standing with his legs apart; at this point he sat down familiarly and put his elbows on the desk and his jaw in his hands; the cigarette hung loosely in his very mobile lips. They were silent; Jerry was proud and happy, and had nothing in particular to say about it. Elsie had too much to say to be able to talk.
“Then ye haven’t got anything for me to do?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Oo!” He was disappointed.
“But I might have tomorrow. You’ll be off at two o’clock tomorrow, won’t yer?”
“That’s me.”
“Very well then.” She rose.
Jerry was extraordinarily uplifted by this brief sojourn alone with Elsie in the private office of T. T. Riceyman’s. He felt that he was more of a grown man than ten thousand cigarettes and oaths and backchat with fragile virgins in the Square could make him. He sprang from the chair.
“Give me a kiss, Elsie,” he blurted out audaciously. He was frightened by his own cheek.
“Jerry Perkins!” Elsie admonished him. “Aren’t ye ashamed of yerself? Mrs. Earlforward dead! And them two so ill upstairs!”
“What two?” Jerry asked, rather to cover his confusion than from curiosity.
“I mean Mr. Earlforward,” said Elsie. She was not abashed at her slip. With Jerry she had a grandiose role to play, and no contretemps could spoil her performance.
Jerry guessed instantly that she had got Joe hidden in the house, but he never breathed a word of it. He even tried to look stupid and uncomprehending, which was difficult for him.
“Aren’t ye ashamed of yerself?” she solemnly repeated.
He moved towards the door. Elsie’s glance followed him. She was sorry for him. She wanted to be good to somebody. She could not help Mr. Earlforward. She could do very little for Joe. Mrs. Earlforward was dead, and she could so easily give Jerry delight.
“Here!” she said.
He turned. She kissed him quietly but fully. There were no reservations in her kiss. Jerry, being too startled by unexpected joy, could not give the kiss back. He lost his nerve and went off so absorbed in his sensations that he forgot even to thank the sweet benefactress. In the Square his behaviour to the attendant Nell was witheringly curt. Nell did not know that she now had to cope with a genuine adult.
X
The Safe
Not a sound in the house; nor outside the house. Not a clock nor a watch going in the house. Mr. Earlforward had listened interminably to get the time from the church, but without success. He knew only from the prolonged silence of the street that the hour must be very late. “Work!” he murmured to himself in the vast airless desert and void created by the death of Violet. “That’s the one thing—the one thing.” His faculty for compromising with destiny aroused itself for a supreme achievement. It was invincible. He would not think himself into hell or madness or inanition by yielding feebly to the frightful grief caused by the snatching away of that unique woman so solicitous about him, so sensible, so vivacious, so agreeable, so energetic, so enterprising, so ready to adopt his ideas—and yet so independent. Her little tantrums—how exquisite, girlish! There had always been a girl in her. The memory of her girlishness desolated him more than anything.
“Insufficient nourishment”? No! It could not have been that. Had he ever, on any occasion, in the faintest degree, discouraged her from satisfying her appetite? Or criticized her housekeeping accounts? No! Never had he interfered. Moreover she had plenty of money of her own and the absolutely unfettered use of it. He would give her such a funeral as had not been seen in Clerkenwell for many a year. The cost, of course, might be charged to her estate, but he would not allow that—though, of course, it would all be the same in the end.
He could not bear to lie in the bed which she had shared with him. The feel of the empty half of it, when he passed his hand slowly over the lower blanket in the dark, tortured him intolerably, and yet he must somehow keep on passing his hand over it. Futile and sick indulgence! He got out of bed, drew aside the curtains and drew up the blind. He could not see the moon, but it was lighting the roofs opposite, and its light and that of the gas-lamp lit the room sufficiently to reveal all the principal features of it. Animated by the mighty power of his resolution to withstand fate he felt strong—he
