Читать книгу Old Wine and New - Warwick Deeping - Страница 23

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In his bedroom Scarsdale found that everything possible had been done for him. His coats hung in the wardrobe; his trousers were in their press; shirts, pyjamas, underclothing, collars, ties, handkerchiefs were all in order. A pair of well polished black shoes waited at the bottom of the bed. A jug of hot water covered with a clean towel stood in the basin.

But he had observed that the chest-of-drawers was not the same, and that a painted piece had taken the place of the mahogany chest. Also, as he removed the towel from the jug he noticed a neat darn in it, the work of Miss Gall’s hands.

He poured out water and washed.

Someone knocked at the door.

“Yes?”

“Will you have tea as usual at half-past four Mr. Scarsdale?”

“Please.”

He felt troubled about Miss Gall. He had known her for some fifteen years as the daughter of a Civil Service clerk who had left her a minute annuity and no relatives of any importance. Always she had appeared to him as one of those changeless women, never young and never old, supremely sexless, plain, reliable, a sort of clock or automaton. Never before had he been moved to consider Miss Gall as a person, live flesh and spirit, but the Miss Gall of 1919 had ceased to be a mere provider of life’s necessities.

He changed into civilian clothes. He felt strangely awkward in them; the stiff white collar was very much a collar, and he had trouble with his tie. Even the pockets were different. He looked at himself in the glass as though to greet his old, original self, but somehow the familiar self was not there. He too was subtly different, perhaps because he saw things differently, without wishing to see them differently. He was conscious of a sense of protest, of vague dissatisfaction, of newness even in these trappings of the past. The coat did not fit him sleekly; it looked hunched up at the shoulders.

The thought came to him suddenly—“I’m nearly four years older. I must go to my tailor, and get something new.”

Crossing the landing to the sitting-room he stood by the right-hand window, and looked down into the square. It had not changed. The row of houses opposite were the houses of 1914, or outwardly so. The grey railings enclosed the same garden with its grass and its asphalt paths, and the same chestnut trees, thorns, lilacs. The very lilac shoots and the daffodils might have been those of yesterday, the sparrows the birds of a pre-war spring, and yet in some disturbing way this north London square had changed.

Miss Gall entered with the tea-tray. This—too—was an innovation, for in the old days Miss Gall had been very much the refined person in the background. And what was he to infer, that this was a personal oblation, a welcoming gesture, or that she had no maid?

He watched her place the tray on the table. Her hands looked cold and congested. There were four pieces of thin bread and butter on a dish, and two obscure little yellow rice cakes on another dish. No buttered toast, and no fire!

She looked at him anxiously. She withdrew towards the door, and hesitated.

“One has to do one’s best, Mr. Scarsdale.”

Scarsdale sat down. He was becoming aware of Miss Gall as a woman whose bleached and anxious face was a mask behind which many distressful realities concealed themselves. He had a feeling that she had something to say to him, that she was a human knot that yearned to unravel itself before him, and that at the same time she was afraid of offending him. Yes, horribly and pathetically afraid. She looked hungry. She made him feel uneasy. She prepared to go and yet tarried.

He noticed that there were just four lumps of sugar in the basin, and suddenly he found his voice and his inspiration.

“Food shortage still rather acute?”

Her pale lips moved.

“Everything has been very acute.”

“Everything? Your rooms,—have you let—?”

“No one since 1916.”

“No one?”

“No, sir. Of course—one doesn’t complain. One has felt that one has to try and bear—”

Scarsdale glanced at her quickly. To him Miss Gall had suddenly become woman, a pale streak of tired, scared, starved humanity, gentility enduring. He felt that it was grossly discourteous and unkind of him to keep her standing there.

He said—“Won’t you shut the door and sit down.”

She looked at him half questioningly for a moment; she was so hesitant, so apprehensive, and then she closed the door gently, and sat down self-consciously on a chair by the far wall. Her long, red hands lay in her lap. An oval mirror in a black and gold frame hung behind her head.

“Thank you, Mr. Scarsdale.”

He removed the tea-cosy. He, too, was self-conscious, and at the same time very conscious of her.

“Things are rather strange even here.”

She echoed the word. Strange! Her voice seemed to falter.

“Some people don’t understand. I’ve felt frightened.”

“No need to feel frightened with me. By the way, have you a maid in the house?”

She hesitated.

“No.”

“You have done everything yourself?”

“Yes.”

Scarsdale looked at her with his big, brown eyes.

“Well,—thank you. There are things—Yes, one doesn’t realize at first; change and all that. It’s just occurring to me. You might like some money on account.”

Her hands twisted in her lap.

“I should.—It sounds so—ungracious and greedy. You have always been—”

“O, that’s all right. What about a girl?”

“A girl? O, they—well—girls—different. Munitions and office work. Girls, Mr. Scarsdale—”

“But you must get someone.”

And then another thought came to him.

“Money has changed, hasn’t it? I mean—the value—?”

She nodded.

“Prices. Everything going up.”

“I see. One has to adapt to a new scale. Obviously, you will have to charge me more.”

He saw her flush, and then grow pale.

“Oh,—I couldn’t do that, you just back, and—”

She looked at him inarticulately, confusedly.

“I—”

Scarsdale’s eyes were on the four lumps of sugar. He took just one lump.

“O, yes, but you must. Obviously. We have got to get things straightened out. They’ll come straight in time.”