Читать книгу The Patchwork Papers - E. Temple Thurston - Страница 6

II

THE MOUSE-TRAP, HENRIETTA STREET

In Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, there is a mouse-trap, a cunningly devised contrivance in which many a timid little mouse is caught. You will find them in other streets than this. They are set in exactly the same way, the same alluring bait, the same doors that open with so generous an admission of innocence, the same doors that close with so final and irrevocable a snap.

I have never watched the other ones at work. But I have seen four mice caught at different times in Henrietta Street. Therefore, it is about the mouse-trap in Henrietta Street that I feel qualified to speak.

One of these little mice I knew well. I knew her by name, where she lived—the little hole in this great labyrinth of London down which she vanished when the day’s work was done, or when any one frightened her little wits and made her scamper home for safety. She even came once and sat in my room, just on the edge of an armchair, taking tea and cake in that frightened way, eyes ever peering, head ever on the alert, as mice will eat their food.

So you will see I knew a good deal about her. It was through no accident of chance that I saw her walk into the trap. I had heard that such an event was likely. I was on the lookout for it.

During the day-time, she waited at the tables in an A.B.C. shop. Don’t ask me what they paid her for it. I marvel at the wage for manual labour when sometimes I am compelled to do a little job for myself. I wonder why on earth the woman comes to tidy my rooms for ten shillings a week. But she does. What is more, I find myself on the very point of abusing her when she breaks a piece of my Lowestoft china, coming with tears in her eyes to tell me of it.

Whatever it was they paid this little mouse of a child, she found it a sufficient inducement to come there day after day, week after week, with just that one short, marvellous evening in the six days and the whole of the glorious seventh in which to do what she liked.

I suppose it would have gone on like that for ever. She would have continued creeping in and out amongst the tables, her body on tip-toe, her voice on tip-toe, the whole personality of her almost overbalancing itself as it worked out its justification on the very tip of its toes.

She would have continued waiting on her customers, writing her little checks in a wholly illegible handwriting, which only the girl at the desk could read. She would have continued supplying me with the three-pennyworth of cold cod steak for my kitten until I should have been ordering five cold cod steaks for the entire family that was bound to come. All these things would have gone on just the same, had not the tempter come to lure her into the mouse-trap in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.

I saw him one morning, a dandy-looking youth from one of the hosier’s shops in the Strand near by. He was having lunch—a cup of coffee and some stewed figs and cream. Taste is a funny thing. And she was serving him. She had served him. He was already hustling the food into his mouth as he talked to her. But it was more than talking. He was saying things with a pair of large calf eyes and she was laughing as she listened.

I would sooner see a woman serious than see her laugh; that is, if some one else were making love to her. For when she is serious there are two ways about it; but when she laughs there is only time for one.

When she saw me, the little mouse came at once to the counter and took down the piece of cold cod steak without a word. As she handed me the bag and the little paper check, she said—

“How’s the kitten to-day?”

Then I knew she felt guilty, and was trying to distract my mind from what she knew I had seen.

“Why are you ashamed of talking to the young man?” I asked.

“I’m not,” said she.

“Did you notice his eyes?” said I.

She looked at me for a moment, quite frightened, then she scampered away into a corner and began wetting her pencil with her lips and scribbling things. When the young man tapped his coffee-cup, she pretended not to hear. But as soon as I stepped out into the street, I turned round and saw her hurrying back to his table.

You guess how it went along. He asked her to marry him—then—there—at once. You might have known he was a man of business.

She told me all about it when she came on one of those short evenings, and nibbled a little piece of cake as she sat on the edge of my chair.

He wanted to marry her at once, but he was earning only eighteen shillings a week and, as far as I could see, spent most of that on neckties, socks and hair oil. He would no doubt begin to save it directly they were married; but eighteen shillings was not enough to keep them both.

“He’d better wait, then,” said I.

“He’s so afraid he’d lose me,” she whispered.

“And would he?” I asked.

She picked up a crumb from the floor, seeming thereby to suggest that it was not in the nature of her to waste anything.

“Then I suppose you’ll be married in secret and go on just the same?”

She nodded her head.

“Where does he propose you should be married?”

“At the registry office in Henrietta Street.”

“The mouse-trap,” said I.

“No; the registry office,” she replied.

“And when’s it to be?” I asked.

“My next evening after this.”

Well, it came to that next evening. I got permission from a firm of book-buyers to occupy a window opposite. And there I observed that little parlour tragedy which you can see in the corner of any old wainscotted room if only you keep quiet long enough.

It did not happen successfully that first time. For half an hour he walked her up and down Henrietta Street. I saw my publisher come out of his door, little dreaming of the comedy that was being played as he passed them by. And every time they stopped outside the Registry Office windows, she stood and read the notices of soldiers deserted the army, of children that were lost, while he talked of the great things that life was offering to them both just inside those varnished doors.

After a time they walked away and I came out from my hiding-place. Something must have upset her, I thought, and I went across to look at the notices in the window. There was nothing to frighten her there; yet she had scampered away home to that little hole in Clapham, and there vanished out of sight.

But it came at last. It came the very next of her short evenings. I was on the lookout again. I saw them march up to the door. No hesitation this time. He must have been eloquent indeed to have led her so surely as that.

I saw him lift the spring of the trap. I saw her enter with tip-toe steps, but more full of confidence now. Then I heard the sharp snap of the door as it fell.

“They’ve caught a mouse,” said I to the book-buyer as I came downstairs.

“’Tis a good thing,” said he; “they’re the very devil for eating my bindings.”