Читать книгу Sackcloth into Silk - Warwick Deeping - Страница 16

Table of Contents

Emily had been throwing out hints.

Emily, whose temperament rendered her incapable or living in peace with a landlady, had compelled Augustus to rent a house in Chalfont Street. It was a very small house, and Emily and her husband were content with furnishing two rooms and the kitchen. Augustus had saved a little money, though a clerk on two pounds ten or so a week could not be expected to control much capital, and Augustus disapproved of capital. Emily had money in the Post Office savings bank.

So, Emily was throwing out hints. Emily considered herself subtle, but her dispensing of suggestions could be as bold and oblique as the accosting eye of the lady of the streets. She might insinuate, but her smile was crackle-ice. The direct and the positive could be applied to her husband’s employers, Messrs. Benskin & Brown; they were sharks, mean exploiters, and Emily said what she thought about them. She was beginning to say things to Augustus about his mother.

“What’s she done for us,—I’d like to know?”

Emily had a way of asking questions and of answering them to her own satisfaction.

“A second-hand chest of drawers!—That’s all she could rise to.—And that house—full of furniture, and just the two of them in it.”

Augustus was learning not to obstruct his wife. Emily carried the horns, and when she put her head down Augustus stood aside and gave her the wall.

“Mean—I call it.—She must have money put away, and she hasn’t done a thing for you.—Of course I’ve got a pair of eyes.—All she cares about is that little brother of yours.”

Augustus agreed with her. Karl had always been the favoured child.

“Well, why don’t you ask her for something?—You’re a regular Esau—you are. She’s put young Karl in the business, and you’re the eldest.”

Said Augustus—“I wasn’t going to waste my ability on selling old clothes.”

Emily was sarcastic. Socialism was all very well, and Emily was ready to accept it provided it would prove good business. Meanwhile, Emily became active on her own account. Rebecca began to see more of Emily than their natural affinities required. Emily tried insinuations. Augustus was a delicate young man, and tender in the stomach. And couldn’t Emily help her dear mother with the washing and the mending, or even in the shop?

Rebecca was bland. She contemplated the sandiness of Emily and her sly solicitations. Emily’s mean mouth smeared itself with honey. Emily flattered.

“A young woman’s got enough to do in her own home, my dear. I always had.”

Balked by Rebecca’s impregnable and robust cheerfulness Emily began to throw out hints. She no longer strewed them about her mother-in-law’s slippers. The old woman refused to see them; she walked over them. Caltrops were needed. Emily became a little injured and shrill. Emily wanted so many things, a new sofa, personal adornments, a gas stove, a gramophone; her conviction was that Rebecca was able to supply her with these articles. Young Karl was kept on jam. The little amateur gentleman! Karl was reserved and silent with Emily; he did not like his sister-in-law; she was boiled mutton and caper sauce, and Emily knew when she was not liked.

Rebecca remained impenetrable. She was wise. She knew her Emily, and Rebecca had suffered from Emilies in her shop. Rebecca was a little deaf; Rebecca was stupid; Rebecca smiled over the most obvious hint and did not stoop to pick it up.

She caught glimpses of Emily in a mirror. Emily had an air of saying things to herself about Rebecca. Emily’s face looked pinched.

“Hoity-toity, my girl,” thought Rebecca; “I’m a stupid old woman. I—don’t—see—anything. And you are working up for a row, aren’t you? And I’m not going to oblige you.”

Emily’s hints became innuendos. Was her mother-in-law being purblind on purpose? Would it be necessary for her to plant a dart in her mother-in-law’s fat person? And then, one March evening Emily lost her temper. It was a ragged virtue and easily mislaid, and Rebecca had been particularly exasperating. Rebecca’s temper had put on Sunday satin, all black and shimmery. She sat with her two hands clasping her beneficent tummy.

The row arrived like half a sackful of soot dislodged from a dirty chimney. Emily had come with the intention of speaking her mind, and of telling the old woman a thing or two. She began by referring to the business, and to the sweetness of her husband’s nature; Gus might feel hurt—because nothing had been done for him, but Gus was not—mean.

Emily was advised to hold her tongue.

“You mind your own business, Emily,—and I’ll mind mine.”

So, Rebecca was coming it high and mighty!

“And what have you done for Augustus, I’d like to know? I’m not going to keep my mouth shut when my man is being treated badly.”

Rebecca’s smile was solid.

“Well, get it out, Emily, get it out.”

“I will.—Disgusting favouritism I call it.—I suppose you think you’re going to make a little gent of Karl.”

“Something better than that, Emily. Ever heard of a genius?”

The cat in the Emily spat. She had claws, and she planted those claws in Rebecca.

“Genius,—poof. I’m not a humbug.—I say what I think, and I tell you——”

“Yes, Emily. Does it matter?”

“Matter?—Why, you’re an old fool. You’ll have Mr. Karl Suck-a-Thumb for a year or two, and then he’ll get a girl.—And where will you be——?”

She began to scream.

“And where will you be?——What will you be?—He’ll want to suck his sweet, and you’ll be just a fat old fool.—Left in the lurch, my dear.”

Rebecca rose slowly from her chair. Her face was like white wax.

“That will do, Emily.—You can go.—When I want you I’ll send for you.—You can go.”

Augustus’s wife flung out of the house, banging both the parlour and the street doors, and suddenly Rebecca’s knees began to tremble. She sat down heavily in her chair. Emily had planted her barb and opened in Rebecca’s consciousness a little secret wound that would refuse to heal, and whose edges would be kept raw with this chafe of perpetual fear. That young shrew had not spoken unadvisedly. Did not the wise book say that a young man should turn from his parents and cleave to the woman of his choice?—Some day Karl would marry.

Rebecca lowered the gas and drew her chair close to the fire. She felt cold. She stirred the coals and held her hands close to the flames. She seemed aware of the shadows and the uncertain flickering light. She was alone in this familiar room, and somehow it had ceased to be intimate and warm. Would the days come when she would be alone like this, an old woman sitting solitary by the fire?

A tram went by, sending a faint tremor through the house. The sound of the iron wheels had scarcely died away when Rebecca heard the street door open. Karl. She sat back in her chair, and tried to feel at ease and to smooth out those creases in her soul.

Karl opened the parlour door. He stood there in the doorway, head up, lips apart. The sensitive surface of him seemed to pick up the vibrations of something that had happened in the room.

“Who’s been here, mother?”

Rebecca gave a little inward shiver.

“Emily.”

“What did she want?”

“What would Emily want, my dear?”

Something in his mother’s voice made Karl go to her quickly, bend down and put his lips to Rebecca’s forehead.