Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (25 page)

‘We’ll have tea and muffins,’ he said joyously. ‘I can’t tell you, Bessie, how glad I am to find you again. What made you go away so suddenly?’

‘I didn’t think you’d want me any more,’ she said, emboldened by his ignorance.

‘I didn’t, as a matter of fact — but afterwards — At any rate I’m glad you’ve come. You know the stairs.’

So Bessie led him home to his own place — there was no one to hinder — and shut the door of the studio.

‘What a mess!’ was her first word. ‘All these things haven’t been looked after for months and months.’

‘No, only weeks, Bess. You can’t expect them to care.’

‘I don’t know what you expect them to do. They ought to know what you’ve paid them for. The dust’s just awful. It’s all over the easel.’

‘I don’t use it much now.’

‘All over the pictures and the floor, and all over your coat. I’d like to speak to them housemaids.’

‘Ring for tea, then.’ Dick felt his way to the one chair he used by custom.

Bessie saw the action and, as far as in her lay, was touched. But there remained always a keen sense of new-found superiority, and it was in her voice when she spoke.

‘How long have you been like this?’ she said wrathfully, as though the blindness were some fault of the housemaids.

‘How?’

‘As you are.’

‘The day after you went away with the check, almost as soon as my picture was finished; I hardly saw her alive.’

‘Then they’ve been cheating you ever since, that’s all. I know their nice little ways.’

A woman may love one man and despise another, but on general feminine principles she will do her best to save the man she despises from being defrauded. Her loved one can look to himself, but the other man, being obviously an idiot, needs protection.

‘I don’t think Mr. Beeton cheats much,’ said Dick. Bessie was flouncing up and down the room, and he was conscious of a keen sense of enjoyment as he heard the swish of her skirts and the light step between.

‘Tea and muffins,’ she said shortly, when the ring at the bell was answered; ‘two teaspoonfuls and one over for the pot. I don’t want the old teapot that was here when I used to come. It don’t draw. Get another.’

The housemaid went away scandalised, and Dick chuckled. Then he began to cough as Bessie banged up and down the studio disturbing the dust.

‘What are you trying to do?’

‘Put things straight. This is like unfurnished lodgings. How could you let it go so?’

‘How could I help it? Dust away.’

She dusted furiously, and in the midst of all the pother entered Mrs.

Beeton. Her husband on his return had explained the situation, winding up with the peculiarly felicitous proverb, ‘Do unto others as you would be done by.’ She had descended to put into her place the person who demanded muffins and an uncracked teapot as though she had a right to both.

‘Muffins ready yet?’ said Bess, still dusting. She was no longer a drab of the streets but a young lady who, thanks to Dick’s check, had paid her premium and was entitled to pull beer-handles with the best. Being neatly dressed in black she did not hesitate to face Mrs. Beeton, and there passed between the two women certain regards that Dick would have appreciated. The situation adjusted itself by eye. Bessie had won, and Mrs. Beeton returned to cook muffins and make scathing remarks about models, hussies, trollops, and the like, to her husband.

‘There’s nothing to be got of interfering with him, Liza,’ he said. ‘Alf, you go along into the street to play. When he isn’t crossed he’s as kindly as kind, but when he’s crossed he’s the devil and all. We took too many little things out of his rooms since he was blind to be that particular about what he does. They ain’t no objects to a blind man, of course, but if it was to come into court we’d get the sack. Yes, I did introduce him to that girl because I’m a feelin’ man myself.’

‘Much too feelin’!’ Mrs. Beeton slapped the muffins into the dish, and thought of comely housemaids long since dismissed on suspicion.

‘I ain’t ashamed of it, and it isn’t for us to judge him hard so long as he pays quiet and regular as he do. I know how to manage young gentlemen, you know how to cook for them, and what I says is, let each stick to his own business and then there won’t be any trouble. Take them muffins down, Liza, and be sure you have no words with that young woman. His lot is cruel hard, and if he’s crossed he do swear worse than any one I’ve ever served.’

‘That’s a little better,’ said Bessie, sitting down to the tea. ‘You needn’t wait, thank you, Mrs. Beeton.’

‘I had no intention of doing such, I do assure you.’

Bessie made no answer whatever. This, she knew, was the way in which real ladies routed their foes, and when one is a barmaid at a first-class public-house one may become a real lady at ten minutes’ notice.

Her eyes fell on Dick opposite her and she was both shocked and displeased. There were droppings of food all down the front of his coat; the mouth under the ragged ill-grown beard drooped sullenly; the forehead was lined and contracted; and on the lean temples the hair was a dusty indeterminate colour that might or might not have been called gray. The utter misery and self-abandonment of the man appealed to her, and at the bottom of her heart lay the wicked feeling that he was humbled and brought low who had once humbled her.

‘Oh! it is good to hear you moving about,’ said Dick, rubbing his hands.

‘Tell us all about your bar successes, Bessie, and the way you live now.’

‘Never mind that. I’m quite respectable, as you’d see by looking at me.

You don’t seem to live too well. What made you go blind that sudden? Why isn’t there any one to look after you?’

Dick was too thankful for the sound of her voice to resent the tone of it.

‘I was cut across the head a long time ago, and that ruined my eyes. I don’t suppose anybody thinks it worth while to look after me any more.

Why should they? — and Mr. Beeton really does everything I want.’

‘Don’t you know any gentlemen and ladies, then, while you was — well?’

‘A few, but I don’t care to have them looking at me.’

‘I suppose that’s why you’ve growed a beard. Take it off, it don’t become you.’

‘Good gracious, child, do you imagine that I think of what becomes of me these days?’

‘You ought. Get that taken off before I come here again. I suppose I can come, can’t I?’

‘I’d be only too grateful if you did. I don’t think I treated you very well in the old days. I used to make you angry.’

‘Very angry, you did.’

‘I’m sorry for it, then. Come and see me when you can and as often as you can. God knows, there isn’t a soul in the world to take that trouble except you and Mr. Beeton.’

‘A lot of trouble he’s taking and she too.’ This with a toss of the head.

‘They’ve let you do anyhow and they haven’t done anything for you. I’ve only to look and see that much. I’ll come, and I’ll be glad to come, but you must go and be shaved, and you must get some other clothes — those ones aren’t fit to be seen.’

‘I have heaps somewhere,’ he said helplessly.

‘I know you have. Tell Mr. Beeton to give you a new suit and I’ll brush it and keep it clean. You may be as blind as a barn-door, Mr. Heldar, but it doesn’t excuse you looking like a sweep.’

‘Do I look like a sweep, then?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry for you. I’m that sorry for you!’ she cried impulsively, and took Dick’s hands. Mechanically, he lowered his head as if to kiss — she was the only woman who had taken pity on him, and he was not too proud for a little pity now. She stood up to go.

‘Nothing o’ that kind till you look more like a gentleman. It’s quite easy when you get shaved, and some clothes.’

He could hear her drawing on her gloves and rose to say good-bye. She passed behind him, kissed him audaciously on the back of the neck, and ran away as swiftly as on the day when she had destroyed the Melancolia.

‘To think of me kissing Mr. Heldar,’ she said to herself, ‘after all he’s done to me and all! Well, I’m sorry for him, and if he was shaved he wouldn’t be so bad to look at, but... Oh them Beetons, how shameful they’ve treated him! I know Beeton’s wearing his shirt on his back to-day just as well as if I’d aired it. To-morrow, I’ll see... I wonder if he has much of his own. It might be worth more than the bar — I wouldn’t have to do any work — and just as respectable as if no one knew.’

Dick was not grateful to Bessie for her parting gift. He was acutely conscious of it in the nape of his neck throughout the night, but it seemed, among very many other things, to enforce the wisdom of getting shaved.

He was shaved accordingly in the morning, and felt the better for it. A fresh suit of clothes, white linen, and the knowledge that some one in the world said that she took an interest in his personal appearance made him carry himself almost upright; for the brain was relieved for a while from thinking of Maisie, who, under other circumstances, might have given that kiss and a million others.

‘Let us consider,’ said he, after lunch. ‘The girl can’t care, and it’s a toss-up whether she comes again or not, but if money can buy her to look after me she shall be bought. Nobody else in the world would take the trouble, and I can make it worth her while. She’s a child of the gutter holding brevet rank as a barmaid; so she shall have everything she wants if she’ll only come and talk and look after me.’ He rubbed his newly shorn chin and began to perplex himself with the thought of her not coming. ‘I suppose I did look rather a sweep,’ he went on. ‘I had no reason to look otherwise. I knew things dropped on my clothes, but it didn’t matter. It would be cruel if she didn’t come. She must. Maisie came once, and that was enough for her. She was quite right. She had something to work for. This creature has only beer-handles to pull, unless she has deluded some young man into keeping company with her.

Fancy being cheated for the sake of a counter-jumper! We’re falling pretty low.’

Something cried aloud within him: — This will hurt more than anything that has gone before. It will recall and remind and suggest and tantalise, and in the end drive you mad.

‘I know it, I know it!’ Dick cried, clenching his hands despairingly; ‘but, good heavens! is a poor blind beggar never to get anything out of his life except three meals a day and a greasy waistcoat? I wish she’d come.’

Early in the afternoon time she came, because there was no young man in her life just then, and she thought of material advantages which would allow her to be idle for the rest of her days.

‘I shouldn’t have known you,’ she said approvingly. ‘You look as you used to look — a gentleman that was proud of himself.’

‘Don’t you think I deserve another kiss, then?’ said Dick, flushing a little.

‘Maybe — but you won’t get it yet. Sit down and let’s see what I can do for you. I’m certain sure Mr. Beeton cheats you, now that you can’t go through the housekeeping books every month. Isn’t that true?’

‘You’d better come and housekeep for me then, Bessie.’

‘Couldn’t do it in these chambers — you know that as well as I do.’

‘I know, but we might go somewhere else, if you thought it worth your while.’

‘I’d try to look after you, anyhow; but I shouldn’t care to have to work for both of us.’ This was tentative.

Dick laughed.

‘Do you remember where I used to keep my bank-book?’ said he. ‘Torp took it to be balanced just before he went away. Look and see.’

‘It was generally under the tobacco-jar. Ah!’

‘Well?’

‘Oh! Four thousand two hundred and ten pounds nine shillings and a penny! Oh my!’

‘You can have the penny. That’s not bad for one year’s work. Is that and a hundred and twenty pounds a year good enough?’

The idleness and the pretty clothes were almost within her reach now, but she must, by being housewifely, show that she deserved them.

‘Yes; but you’d have to move, and if we took an inventory, I think we’d find that Mr. Beeton has been prigging little things out of the rooms here and there. They don’t look as full as they used.’

‘Never mind, we’ll let him have them. The only thing I’m particularly anxious to take away is that picture I used you for — when you used to swear at me. We’ll pull out of this place, Bess, and get away as far as ever we can.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said uneasily.

‘I don’t know where I can go to get away from myself, but I’ll try, and you shall have all the pretty frocks that you care for. You’ll like that.

Give me that kiss now, Bess. Ye gods! it’s good to put one’s arm round a woman’s waist again.’

Then came the fulfilment of the prophecy within the brain. If his arm were thus round Maisie’s waist and a kiss had just been given and taken between them, — why then... He pressed the girl more closely to himself because the pain whipped him. She was wondering how to explain a little accident to the Melancolia. At any rate, if this man really desired the solace of her company — and certainly he would relapse into his original slough if she withdrew it — he would not be more than just a little vexed.

It would be delightful at least to see what would happen, and by her teachings it was good for a man to stand in certain awe of his companion.

She laughed nervously, and slipped out of his reach.

‘I shouldn’t worrit about that picture if I was you,’ she began, in the hope of turning his attention.

‘It’s at the back of all my canvases somewhere. Find it, Bess; you know it as well as I do.’

‘I know — but — ’

‘But what? You’ve wit enough to manage the sale of it to a dealer.

Women haggle much better than men. It might be a matter of eight or nine hundred pounds to — to us. I simply didn’t like to think about it for a long time. It was mixed up with my life so. — But we’ll cover up our tracks and get rid of everything, eh? Make a fresh start from the beginning, Bess.’

Then she began to repent very much indeed, because she knew the value of money. Still, it was probable that the blind man was overestimating the value of his work. Gentlemen, she knew, were absurdly particular about their things. She giggled as a nervous housemaid giggles when she tries to explain the breakage of a pipe.