Читать книгу The Princess Galva - David Whitelaw - Страница 6

It was nine o'clock when Edward Povey pushed open the little iron gate of No. 8, Belitha Villas, Clapham, thereby announcing his return to the other eleven villas in the same row. For the twelve little iron gates of Belitha Villas had each its own peculiar squeak and clang, a fact that added considerably to the scandal-mongering of the little community, and had caused a certain old reprobate at No. 3 to make liberal use of the oil-can.

The master of No. 8 let himself in with his latch-key, and groping his way down the dark and narrow passage pushed open the dining-room door. The room was in darkness save for a little evil-smelling oil-lamp which shed a dismal radiance upon a cloth spread half across the table. An unsympathetic slab of red topside of beef glared aggressively from a dish in which the gravy had set to an unhealthy-looking fat-ringed jelly. This, flanked by the remains of a cottage loaf and a glass of ale, constituted the meal that Charlotte had left for the refreshment of her lord and master. The ale had long been drawn, and stood dead and listless, showing a surface destitute of foam. Edward took one sip, then sat down and lit a cigarette.

His gaze wandered round the little room, the corners of which were in a dingy shadow, and contrasted it in his mind with the grill-room of the Blue Dragon. And then his eye lighted upon a letter propped up against the brass lamp and put there evidently so that it should attract his early attention. He took it up and read it through, then with a few uncomplimentary remarks he thrust it into his pocket and, taking up the lamp, made his way up-stairs. Another moment and he was back again, holding the lamp above his head and searching the dim corners of the room.

A large unwieldy form that had been stretched upon a sofa in the shadow of the window recess roused itself and sat upright. It was clad in a shabby dressing-gown of some dark material and it had a stern eye.

"You're late, Edward."

"Yes, my dear, I am a little, I think. I thought you were up-stairs or had run along to have a chat with Mrs. Oakley. I didn't see you in the shadow there."

"I saw you, Edward, and I saw you read the letter, and I—I heard what you called uncle, and I am not in the habit of running along and having a chat with my neighbours in the middle of the night."

"Well, my dear woman, I didn't know you were there when I read his letter or I wouldn't have said it,—and it's only nine o'clock."

"That's enough, Edward; you've said what you've said. I'm astonished, but it can't be mended; they say men speak their true thoughts when they're in drink."

"I beg your pardon, Charlotte, I——"

"I'm not angry, Edward, but don't bang the lamp down like that, you'll splash the oil out. I repeat I'm not angry, only sorry. When I see a man come home at this hour and turn up his nose at a glass of good honest ale I know what it means. But that doesn't excuse what you said about uncle."

"Well, he's a rotten nuisance. I know as well as you do that we can't afford to upset the old chap, but he shouldn't come down on us like this, especially——"

"Especially what——?"

"——especially when it's—it's not convenient. The fact is, Charlotte, we'll have to draw in our horns a bit. I've got the sack, my dear, the push—the bullet—after twenty-two years—curse 'em."

"Edward, you forget you're speaking to me."

"Oh, no, I don't, my dear. I'm talking exactly how I feel. I'll get even with 'em yet. I'm going to draw some fresh beer."

When Edward returned, Charlotte had lit the hanging lamp with the green shade over the centre of the table and had settled herself in the one saddle-bag chair. Her husband sat opposite to her on a shiny horsehair stool and poured out a glass of foaming ale.

"Your health, my dear," he said, and drank deep.

"Umph! you seem to take it coolly, Edward; I suppose you think it's the easiest thing in the world to get employment at your age. Look at Mr. Hardy at No. 4, out for fifteen months and speaks Portuguese, they say, like a native——"

Edward held up a protesting hand.

"Mr. Hardy, my dear, doesn't enter into this. What's happened to-day has made me do a bit of hard thinking. Forty's not old, Charlotte, it's young. I feel like a boy just let out of school. I'll be full of schemes in a day or two."

Mrs. Povey waved her hands unconvincedly.

"But the present," she remarked with a sinister sweetness. "I suppose that hasn't entered into your head, eh? How about uncle? he's a self-made man and thinks everyone should succeed. When he hears you're sacked he'll cut us off without the shilling. He always says he's got no use for failures."

Mrs. Povey paused, and getting no reply went on.

"Besides, I've written to Aunt Eliza plenty of times and said how well we were doing; in fact, I'm afraid I've exaggerated, and now, here he is coming to visit us. I'm afraid he'll have a sort of awakening—and so will we."

Sitting forward with his hands on his knees, Edward Povey was staring into the little heap of cinders in the heart of which still glowed a dull red. His lips were parted and his eyes were dilated. Mrs. Povey leant over and shook him roughly by the shoulder. Then she moved the jug of beer out of his reach.

"Edward Povey, ain't you ashamed of yourself—the state you're in—go to bed—you hear me?"

Her husband drew his eyes from the contemplation of the fire and motioned to his wife to sit down.

"It's working out," he said, and stretched out his hand for the jug that wasn't there. Then he cleared his throat and told his wife about his adventure of the evening. Charlotte listened in a forbidding silence, and when he had finished:

"I don't know what all this gallivanting about in restaurants has to do with me," she said sharply, "a few shillings a week—it'll hardly pay your fare."

"One moment, dear? You say that uncle comes to us on Monday—you know what his visits are, only business trips, and at the most he'll stay two nights. And, Charlotte, Mr. Kyser goes to Switzerland to-morrow for a month—see?"

"See what?"

"My dear Charlotte, I've always thought that women as a class are inferior to us men, but for sheer unadulterated stupidity and criminal density commend me to Charlotte Povey."

"Edward—you dare to——"

"Dare, my dear, I dare anything. Fifteen years of being compared to Brown, Jones and Robinson and Hardy is enough, madam. The men you have thrown in my face are worms, Charlotte, worms. I dare anything," he repeated, and walked round the table and recovered the jug.

"Now listen, Charlotte," he went on more quietly, when he had reseated himself. "I said that uncle is coming to us on Monday, and that Kyser goes to Switzerland or Sweden, or somewhere to-morrow."

Mrs. Povey was leaning back in her chair, her eyes closed to denote that to her at least the proceedings had lost all interest. Something, however, in the tone of her husband's voice brought her sharply to herself.

"Bushey is a fine place, nice and high, and healthy, Charlotte, and will suit uncle down to the ground. He'll find us living there in style—it'll impress him—and——"

"Edward! are you mad? Bushey—we don't live at Bushey."

Her husband smiled sarcastically.

"Don't we, my dear? really you surprise me—but we're going to, Charlotte, we're going to—for two nights only, as the play-bills say. We are going to borrow Adderbury Cottage. The firm owes me a bit, and I'll take it out in Adderbury Cottages."

Charlotte was fully roused now.

"Edward Povey, I'll not do it."

Her husband brought his fist down on the table with a thump that rattled the crockery and even infused a little flickering life into the surface of the glass of dull supper beer.

"You'll do as I say, Charlotte; I'm master here now, and new brooms sweep clean, you know. Now, put some more coals on, and go to bed."

With a strange sense of awe Mrs. Povey, for the first time in her married life, did as she was bid, and, with a look of wonderment on her vacant face, glided slowly from the room. For perhaps another hour Edward sat over the replenished fire elaborating his scheme. Really it was absurdly simple; of risk there was none. A kind fate had shown them a simple way out of their difficulties, and it would be criminal to ignore it. He knew Uncle Jasper far too well to think of admitting to him that he was a failure in the world. He knew, too, that the old man held him in some little contempt, and he welcomed this chance of showing him his mistake. As for Charlotte, she had evidently committed herself pretty deeply in her correspondence with Aunt Eliza, and Edward anticipated no sustained opposition from that quarter.

It was past midnight when Edward rose and opened the little fumed oak bureau that stood in the recess by the fire-place, and taking a sheet of the notepaper of Messrs. Kyser, Schultz & Company, wrote to Mr. Jasper Jarman telling him how glad Charlotte and himself were to hear that he proposed paying them a visit. He said that the firm for which he had the honour to work had at last awakened to the value of his services, and that a substantial increase of salary had given him the opportunity to receive his dear wife's uncle in a manner more fitted to his position, and that he remained with all good wishes, his uncle's most affectionate nephew, Edward Povey.

The little iron gate creaked again that night, and as Edward dropped the letter into the box at the corner of the terrace he told himself that his new life promised infinitely more possibilities than that to which he had been accustomed for the past fifteen years.