Sinister Street Volume Ii Part 58

Mrs. Cleghorne's hands were dry now, and she led the way along the pa.s.sage upstairs, sniffing as she pa.s.sed her c.r.a.pulous husband. She unlocked the door of the ground-floor rooms, and they entered. It was not an inspiring lodging as seen thus in its emptiness, with drifts of fluff along the bare dusty boards. The unblacked grate contained some dried-up bits of orange peel; with the last summons of the late tenant the bellrope had broken, and it now lay invertebrate; by the window, catching a shaft of sunlight, stood a drain pipe painted with a landscape in cobalt-blue and probably once used as an umbrella stand.

"That's all I got for two months' rent," said Mrs. Cleghorne bitterly, surveying it. "And it's just about fit for my old man to go and bury his good-for-nothing lazy head in, and that's all. The bedroom's in here, of course." She opened the folding doors whose blebs of paint had been picked off up to a certain height above the floor, possibly as far as some child had been able to reach.

The bedroom was rather dustier than the sitting-room, and it was much darker owing to a number of ferns which had been glued upon the window-panes. Through this mesh could be seen the nettle-haunted square of back garden; and beyond, over a stucco wall pocked with small pebbles, a column of smoke was belching into the sky from a stationary engine on the invisible lake of railway lines.

"Do you want to see the top-floor back?" Mrs. Cleghorne asked.

"Well, if you wouldn't mind." Michael felt bound to apologize to her, whatever was suggested.

She sighed her way upstairs, and at last flung open a door for them to enter the vacant room.

The view from here was certainly more s.p.a.cious, and a great deal of the permeating depression was lightened by looking out as it were over another city across the railway, a city with streamers of smoke, and even here and there a flag flying. At the same time the room itself was less potentially endurable than the ground-floor; there was no fireplace and the few sc.r.a.ps of furniture were more discouraging than the positive emptiness downstairs. Michael shuddered as he looked at the gimcrack washstand through whose scanty paint the original wood was visible in long fibrous sores. He shuddered, too, at the bedstead with its pleated iron laths furred by dust and rust, and at the red mattress exuding flock like cl.u.s.tered maggots.

"This is furnished, of course," said Mrs. Cleghorne, complacently sucking a tooth. "Well, which will you have?"

"I think perhaps I'll take the ground-floor rooms. I'll have them done up."

"Oh, they're quite clean. The last people was a bit dirty. So I gave them an extra-special clear-out."

"But you wouldn't object to my doing them up?" persisted Michael.

"Oh, no, I shouldn't _object,"_ said Mrs. Cleghorne, and in her accent was the suggestion that equally she would not be likely to derive very much pleasure from the fruition of Michael's proposal.

They were going downstairs again now, and Mrs. Cleghorne was evidently beginning to acquire a conviction of her own importance, because somebody had contemplated with a certain amount of interest those two empty rooms on the ground floor; in the gratification of her pride she was endowing them with a value and a character they did not possess.

"I've always said that, properly cared for, those two rooms are worth any other two rooms in the house. And of course that's the reason I'm really compelled to charge a bit more for them. I always say to everyone right out--if you want the two best rooms in the house, why, you must pay according. They're only empty now because I've always been particular about letting them. I won't have anybody, and that's a fact.

Mr. Barnes here knows I'm really fond of those rooms."

They had reentered them, and Mrs. Cleghorne stood with arms admiringly akimbo.

"They really are a beautiful lodging," she declared. "When would you want them from?"

"Well, as soon as I can get them done up," said Michael.

"I see. Perhaps you could explain a little more clearly just what you was thinking of doing?"

Michael gave some of his theories of decoration, while Mrs. Cleghorne waited in critical audience; as it were, feeling the pulse of the apartments under the stimulus of Michael's sketch of their potentiality.

"All white?" the landlady echoed pessimistically. "That sounds very gloomy, doesn't it? More like a outhouse or a coal-cellar than a nice couple of rooms."

"Well, they couldn't look rottener than what they do at present," Barnes put in. "So if you take my advice, you'll say 'yes' and be very thankful. They'll look clean, anyway."

The landlady threw back her head and surveyed Barnes like a snake about to strike.

"Rotten?" she sniffed. "I'm sure this gentleman here isn't likely to find a nicer and cheaper pair of rooms or a more convenient and a quieter pair of rooms anywhere in Pimlico. A lot of people is very anxious to be in this neighborhood."

Mrs. Cleghorne was much offended by Barnes' criticism, and there was a long period of dubiety before it was settled that Michael should be accepted as a tenant.

"I've never cared for white," she said, in final protest. "Not since I was married."

Reminded of Mr. Cleghorne's existence in the bas.e.m.e.nt, she hurried forthwith to rout him out. As she disappeared, Michael saw that she was searching in the musty folds of her skirt in order to deposit in her purse the month's rent he had paid in advance.

A couple of weeks pa.s.sed while the decorators worked hard; and Michael returned from an unwilling visit to Scotland to find them ready for him.

He got together a certain amount of furniture, and toward the end of August he moved into Leppard Street.

Barnes on account of the prosperity which had come to him through Michael's money had managed to dress himself in a series of outrageously new and fashionable suits, and on the afternoon of his patron's arrival he strutted about the apartments.

"Very nice," he said. "Very nice, indeed. I reckon old Ma Cleghorne ought to be very pleased with herself. Some of these pictures are a bit too religious for me just at present, but everyone to their own taste, that's what I always say. To their own taste," he repeated. "Otherwise, what's the good in being given an opinion of your own?"

Michael felt it was time to explain to Barnes more particularly his quest of Lily.

"You don't know a girl called Lily Haden?" he asked.

"Lily Haden," said Barnes thoughtfully. "Lily Hopkins. A great fat girl with red...."

"No, no," Michael interrupted. "Lily Haden. Tall. Slim. Very fair hair.

Of course she may have another name now."

"That's it, you see," said Barnes wisely.

"Wherever she is, whatever she's doing, I must find her," Michael went on.

"Well, if you go about it in that spirit, you'll soon find her," Barnes prophesied.

Michael looked at him sharply. He thought he noticed in Barnes' manner a suggestion of humoring him. He rather resented the way in which Barnes seemed to encourage him as one might encourage a child.

"You understand I want to marry her?" Michael asked fiercely.

"That's all right, old chap. I'm not trying to stop you, am I?"

"But why are you talking as if I weren't in earnest?" Michael demanded.

"When I first told you about it you were evidently very pleased, and now you've got a sneer which frankly I tell you I find extraordinarily objectionable."

Barnes looked much alarmed by Michael's sudden attack, and explained that he meant nothing by his remarks beyond a bit of fun.

"Is it funny to marry somebody?" Michael demanded.

"Sometimes it's very funny to marry a tart," said Barnes.

Michael flushed. This was a directness of speech for which he was not prepared.

"But when I first told you," Michael said, "you seemed very pleased."

"I was very pleased to find I'd evidently struck a nice-mannered lunatic," said Barnes. "You offered me five quid a week, didn't you?

Well, you didn't offer me that to give you good advice, now did you?"

Michael tried to conceal the mortification that was being inflicted upon him. He had been very near to making a fool of himself by supposing that his announcement had aroused admiration. Instead of admiring him, Barnes evidently regarded him as an idiot whom it were politic to encourage on account of the money this idiot could provide. It was an humiliating discovery. The chivalry on which he congratulated himself had not touched a single chord in Barnes. Was it likely that in Lily herself he would find someone more responsive to what he still obstinately maintained to himself was really rather a fine impulse?

Michael began to feel half sorry for Barnes because he could not appreciate n.o.bility of motive. It began to seem worth while trying to impose upon him the appreciation which he felt he owed. Michael was sorry for his uncultivated ideals, and he took a certain amount of pleasure in the thought of how much Barnes might benefit from a close a.s.sociation with himself. He did not regret the whim which had brought them to Leppard Street. Whatever else might happen, it would always be consoling to think that he would be helping Barnes. In half a dream Michael began to build up the vision of a newer and a finer Barnes, a Barnes with sensitiveness and decent instincts, a Barnes who would forsake very willingly the sordid existence he had hitherto led in order to rise under Michael's guidance and help to a wider and better life.