The Foolish Lovers Part 27

"You're a terrible cod," said John, laughing at him.

"d.a.m.n the cod there's about it! You listen to these c.o.c.kney fellows talking, and then you'll understand me. It's worse nor the Dublin adenoids voice. There's no people in the earthly world talks as fine as the Ulster people. Here's the man with your luggage!" The porter wheeled a truck, bearing John's trunk and bag, up to them as he spoke.

"Is that all you have?"

"Aye," said John.

"And enough, too! What anybody wants with more, I never can make out, unless they're demented with the mania of owning things! That's a bit out of Walt Whitman. Ever read any of him?"

"No," said John.

"It's about time you begun then. Put this stuff in the hansom, will you?" he went on to the porter, and while the porter did so, he continued his conversation with John. "Miss Squibb ... that's the name of the landlady ... comic name, isn't it? ... like a name out of d.i.c.kens ... and she's a comic-looking woman, too ... hasn't got a spare sitting-room to let you have, but you can share mine 'til she has. My bedroom's on the same floor as the sitting-room, but yours is on the floor above. We're a rum crew in that house. There's a music-hall man and his wife on the ground-floor ... a great character altogether ...

Cream is their name ... and a Mr. and Mrs. Tarpey ... but you'll see them all for yourself. I'll be back on Tuesday night. Give this porter sixpence, and the cabman's fare'll be three and sixpence, but you'd better give him four bob. If he tries to charge you more nor that, because you're a stranger, take his number. Good-bye, now, and don't forget I'll be back on Tuesday night!"

He helped John into the hansom, and after giving instructions to the cabman, stood back on the pavement, smiling and waving his hand, while the cab, with a flourish of whip from the driver and a jingle of harness, drove out of the station.

"I like that man," said John to himself, as he lay back against the cushions and gave himself up to the joy of riding in a hansom cab.

II

The house to which John was carried was in the Brixton Road, near to the White House public-house. Fifty years ago it had been a rich merchant's home and was almost a country house, but now, like many similar houses, it had fallen to a dingy estate: it was, without embroidery of description, a lodging-house. Miss Squibb, who opened the door to him, had a look of settled depression on her face that was not, as he at first imagined, due to disapproval of him, but, as he speedily discovered, to a deeply-rooted conviction that the rest of humanity was engaged in a conspiracy to defraud her. She eyed the cabman with so much suspicion that he became uneasy in his mind and deposited the trunk and the bag in the hall in silence, nor did he make any comment on the amount of his fare.

Miss Squibb helped John to carry the luggage to his room. Her niece, Lizzie, who usually performed such work, was spending the week-end with another aunt in North London, so Miss Squibb said, and she was due to return before midnight, but Miss Squibb would expect her when she saw her. It would not surprise her to find that Lizzie did not return to her home until Monday evening. Nothing would surprise Miss Squibb. Miss Squibb had long since ceased to be surprised at anything. No one had had more cause to feel surprised than Miss Squibb had had in the course of her life, but now she never felt surprised at anything. She prophesied that a time would come when John would cease to feel surprise at things....

She stood in the centre of his bedroom in a bent att.i.tude, with her hands folded across her flat chest, and regarded him with large, protruding eyes. "You're Irish, aren't you?" she said, accusingly.

"Yes, Miss Squibb," he said, using her name with difficulty, because it created in him a desire to laugh.

"Like Mr. 'Inde?"

"Inde!" he repeated blankly, and then comprehension came to him. "Oh, Mr. Hinde! Yes! Oh, yes, yes!"

"I thought so," she continued. "You have the syme sort of talk. Funny talk, I calls it. Wot time du want your breakfis?"

"Eight o'clock," he said.

"I s'pose you'll do syme as Mr. 'Inde ... leave it to me to get the things for you, an' charge it up?"

"Oh, yes," John replied. "I'll do just what Mr. Hinde does!"

He looked around the dingy room, and as he did so, he felt depression coming over him; but Miss Squibb misjudged his appraising glance.

"It's a nice room," she said, as if she were confirming his judgment on it.

"Yes," he said dubiously, glancing at the bed and the table and the ricketty washstand. There were pictures and framed mottoes on the walls. Over his bed was a large motto-card, framed in stained deal, bearing the word: ETERNITY; and on the opposite wall, placed so that he should see it immediately he awoke, was a coloured picture of Daniel in the Lions' Den, in which the lions seemed to be more dejected than Daniel.

"A gentleman wot used to be a lodger 'ere done that," said Miss Squibb when she saw that he was looking at the picture. "'E couldn't py 'is rent an' 'e offered to pynt the bath-room, but we 'aven't got a bath-room so 'e pynted that instead. It used to be a plyne picture 'til 'e pynted it. 'E sort of livened it up a bit. Very nice gentleman 'e was, only 'e did get so 'orribly drunk. Of course, 'e was artistic!"

The drawing was out of perspective, and John remarked upon the fact, but Miss Squibb, fixing him with her protruding eyes, said that she could not see that there was anything wrong with the picture. It was true, as she admitted, that if you were to look closely at the lion on the extreme right of the picture, you would find he had two tails, or rather, one tail and the remnant of another which the artist had not completely obliterated. But that was a trifle.

"Pictures ain't meant to be looked at close," said Miss Squibb, "an'

any'ow you can't expect to 'ave everythink in this world. Some people's never satisfied without they're finding fault in things!"

John, feeling that her final sentence was a direct rebuke to himself, hurriedly looked away from the picture.

"There's a good view from the window," he said to console her for his depreciation of the picture.

"That's wot I often says myself," she replied. "People says it's 'igh up 'ere an' a long way to climb, but wot I says is, it's 'ealthy when you get 'ere, _and_ you 'ave a view. I'll leave you now," she concluded. "When you've 'ad a wash, your supper'll be waitin' for you.

in Mr. 'Inde's sitting-room. I expect you'll be glad to 'ave it!"

"I shall," he replied. "I'm hungry!"

"Yes, I expect so," she said, closing the door.

He sat down on the bed and again looked about the room, and the dreariness of it filled him with nostalgia. He had not yet unpacked his trunk or his bag, and he felt that he must immediately carry them down the stairs again, that he must call for a cabman and have his luggage and himself carried back to Euston Station so that he might return to his home. The clean air of Ballyards and the bright sunlit bedroom over the shop seemed incomparably lovely when he looked about the dingy Brixton bedroom. If this was the beginning of adventure!... He gazed at the picture of Daniel in the Lions' Den, and wished that a lion would eat Daniel or that Daniel would eat a lion!...

Then he went to the washstand and washed his face and hands, and when he had done so, he went downstairs and ate his supper.

III

In the morning, there was a thump on his bedroom door, and before he had had time to consider what he should do, the door opened and a girl entered, carrying a tray. "Eight o'clock," she said, "an' 'ere's your breakfast! Aunt said you'd better 'ave it in bed 'smornin', after your journey!"

She set the tray down on the table so carelessly that she spilled some of the contents of the coffee-pot.

"Aunt forgot to ask would you have tea or coffee, so she sent up coffee. Mr. 'Inde always 'as coffee, so she thought you would, too! An'

there's a 'add.i.c.k. Mr. 'Inde likes 'add.i.c.k. It ain't a bad fish!"

John looked at her as she arranged the table. Her abrupt entry into the room, while he was in bed, startled him. No woman, except his mother, had ever been in his bedroom before, and it horrified him to think that this strange young woman could see him sitting in his nightshirt in bed. He had never in his life seen so untidy a woman as this. Her hair had been hastily pinned together in a shapeless lump on the top of her head, and loose ends straggled from it. Her dress was _on_ her ...

that was certain ... but _how_ it was on her was more than he could understand. She seemed to bristle with safety-pins!...

Her total lack of shame, in the presence of a man, undressed and in bed, caused him to wonder whether she was one of the Bad Women against whom Mr. McCaughan had so solemnly warned him. If she, were, the warning was hardly necessary!...

"I think you got everythink?" she said briskly, glancing over the table to see that nothing was missing.

He saw now that, she bore some facial resemblance to Miss Squibb. She was not, as that lady was, ashen-hued, but her eyes, though less prominently, bulged. This must be Lizzie!...

"Who are you?" he asked, as she turned to leave the room. "Eih?"

"What's your name? I've not seen you before!"

"Naow," she exclaimed, "I've been awy! I'm Lizzie. 'Er niece!"

She nodded her head towards the door, and he interpreted this to mean Miss Squibb.

"Oh, yes," he said. "She told me about you. Were you very late last night?"