Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (48 page)

‘Ah – here we are,’ he said, and handed the card across the bar to her.

Were her senses deceiving her in making her believe that his whole frame evidenced a state of suppressed nervousness, that his hand trembled as he gave her the card? And if his hand trembled, what prompted its trembling? Love? And if love, what a perplexing, what an unhappy means of overture – his card. A new hat and a visiting card!

‘Ta,’ she said, and cast her eye over it.
Mr. Ernest Eccles
, she read, and in the corner was his address. ‘Mr. Ernest Eccles, eh?’ she said in her friendly way. ‘I’ll remember that.’

What now? What was she to do with it? Was she supposed to give it back, or was it a sort of mad present? He himself provided no clue to these mysteries. He was standing there, in a shaky silence, lighting a cigarette. She had to take the matter into her own hands.

‘I’ll keep that,’ she said, wretchedly attempting to set some sort of facetiousness in motion. ‘So as I can refer to it.’ And she stood it up against a bottle on a shelf behind her.

‘I certainly hope you will,’ he said, and he met her eyes in a kind of sustained glare which nettled her beyond measure.

‘Oh well . . .’ she said, having absolutely nothing to say, and she began to hum, and drum her fingers lightly upon the bar. Oh,
why
didn’t Bob come in, and put an end to this?

‘Oh well
what?
’ said Mr. Eccles.

There he went again. He had evidently made up his mind to hound down her every utterance and gesture to-night.

‘Oh well
what
?’ And he looked at her quizzingly for an answer. And to what, indeed, had her ‘Oh well’ had reference? Nothing whatever. It had risen up unsummoned, like a blush, from her prevailing subconscious embarrassment. If she had meant anything, she had meant ‘Oh well, we really can’t go on like this, you know.’ But how could she tell him that? She decided to feign denseness to his implications.

‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘Oh well, what?’

‘Oh, just “Oh well what,”’ said Mr. Eccles, still looking at her.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Ella, smiling, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ But although she smiled, there was a slightly nasty look in her eyes – the look of one who, though this presumably was all fun, objected to being made to look a fool in the course of a dalliance she did anything but desire herself.

‘You said “Oh well,”’ said Mr. Eccles smiling back with sweet reasonableness, ‘so I asked you what you were thinking of.’

She noticed that there was a decidedly glassy look in his eyes, too. At the same time it dawned upon her that all this bore an astounding resemblance to a quarrel. Worse still – with all its silences and evasions, it bore an astounding resemblance to a lover’s quarrel. Hideous thought – but how could she escape it? The fact was clear that he believed himself to be flirting with her. And what sign had she yet given him that she was not flirting back? How had he managed to inveigle her thus, and what was she to say now?

‘Oh well,’ she said, ‘one often says “Oh well” – doesn’t one?’

‘Does one?’

He came back at her and followed her up for all the world more like a prosecuting counsel than as a presumable admirer. She could stand it no longer.

‘Yes, of course one does,’ she said, and, with a pretence of indifference she picked up a tumbler, and began to wipe it with a rag. She then called through into the Lounge to Bob.

‘What are
you
doing in there, Bob?’ she called.

‘Me?’ said Bob, who was still fooling with the switch. ‘Nothing. What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Ella, and went on wiping her tumbler. So there was no help coming from Bob. She brusquely dismissed from her mind the thought that his delay was in some measure intentional, that he entertained the objectionable notion that some sort of tact was required of him here; Bob would not humiliate her by being so absurd.

A silence followed. She picked up another glass, wiped it, and held it up to the light to see if it was clean. She thus avoided looking at Mr. Eccles, but she had the knowledge that Mr. Eccles was looking at her. She had the knowledge as someone sightless might have the knowledge of being in a Turkish Bath. The silence and Mr. Eccles’ unwavering gaze wrapped her around. She felt the warmth of a slow blush all over her body.

How could she put an end to this? She must pull herself together. She must take a new line. She, at her age, blushing! Plainly she was making a mountain out of a molehill. If an old gentleman wanted to flirt with the barmaid, why shouldn’t he? Was it not an essential part of her duty to sustain light banter with gentlemen of all kinds? She was never behindhand in the ordinary way. Why had this particular old gentleman with his ridiculous new hat, thrown her off her stroke? Her course was plain: she must flirt back. If he wanted to make a fool of himself, it was her business to oblige him. She had, now, then, to find the best way of beginning. His hat! Obviously his hat!

‘You’ve got a new hat, haven’t you?’ said Ella, and, conscious of having used exactly the light tone and vaguely mocking look which the situation demanded, she felt instantaneous relief.

‘Ah,’ said Mr. Eccles, ‘You notice everything – don’t you?’

That was all right. It looked as though they had got away at last.

‘Bit audacious,’ said Ella. ‘Isn’t it? ‘There was a slight pause.

‘What? The Hat? Or me?’ said Mr. Eccles.

These staccato questions, of course, meant nothing, and did not actually call for an answer. Flirtatious questions and answers were not supposed to mean anything. There was, however, for all his apparent flirtatiousness, a slightly intent look in Mr. Eccles’ eye, and a slightly harsh (or did she imagine it?) note in Mr. Eccles’ voice, which made Ella wonder whether she had overstepped the mark. The unfortunate man, undoubtedly, was terribly tender, indeed beyond all description neurotic, concerning anything relating to his hat. And she had called it, or at any rate put herself in a position where he might think she had called it, ‘audacious.’ She hastened to extract herself.

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘It’s ever so nice. I was thinking you were getting too extravagant, though.’

‘Oh well. You’re responsible, you know.’

‘What?’ said Ella. ‘Me? How?’

But the words were no sooner out of her mouth than she gathered his meaning and knew what was to follow. In a flash she recalled something she had utterly forgotten – something which she had no cause to remember, since it had appeared utterly insignificant at the time. Yes, some nights ago, well over a week ago, nearly a fortnight ago, he
had
commented humorously, in front of her, upon the dilapidated state of his old hat. And she
had
humorously agreed with him. She had said ‘Yes, you could do with a new one’ or ‘Yes, perhaps it is about time you made a change’ – how could she be expected to know the exact words? And here he was, summoning them up, like a magician, from the night of vanished small talk, to
use against her. What solemn and sustained brooding on his part this implied she dared not think. Possibly he was a little mad. Or again, possibly (she had to face it), he was enamoured. That, she knew, was the same as being a little mad. At any rate, all the seriousness and awkwardness of the situation, which she had thought to lift into flirtatiousness, returned upon her. What was it she had said a fortnight ago? Had she, after all, ‘encouraged’ him?

Again he had not answered her, and was looking at her in the same way.

‘How am I responsible?’ she added. ‘Eh?’

‘Well – you told me to get another – didn’t you?’

‘Me? I didn’t!’

‘Yes, you did. Surely you remember.’

‘I
didn
’
t
,’ said Ella, with a kind of protesting softness on her lips which was agonisingly near to a self-conscious maidenly pout. But what could she do, if he went on flatly contradicting her and she was not to be rude to a customer, but pout self-consciously. And yet what else did such pouting give him signs of but her own willingness to persevere in this awful flirtation? So far as she could see, he had every right to say that she was ‘encouraging’ him with a vengeance now. At every step, it seemed, he implicated her more deeply, and gave her less opportunity of freeing herself.

‘Oh yes, you did,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘Don’t you remember telling me I ought to get a new one?’

‘Oh well,’ said Ella, ‘“
Ought
”. . . that’s not telling you.’

‘Well,
I
thought so. I took it as a command.’

Oh, why wouldn’t Bob come in, thought Ella.

‘It’s not for me,’ she said, ‘to command you.’

‘Oh – isn’t it?’ said Mr. Eccles in the vague and preoccupied tone of one whose intentions of dalliance with her were now too manifest to be disputed.

Since every answer she made was used as a weapon against her, Ella now thought it best to make no answer. So she went on wiping her tumblers. Even the Turkish Bath sensations of his gaze, she decided, were a lesser evil than the commitments engendered by talking to him. But even this was of no avail.
When Mr. Eccles next spoke, which was after a long Turkish Bath pause (in the hottest room), he struck her soul with paralytic alarm.

‘Are you interested,’ said Mr. Eccles, ‘in the theatre at all?’

I
F MR. ECCLES
had seized her hand and kissed it fervently, or rushed round behind the bar to embrace her with a torrent of words, it is doubtful whether he would have caused a more staggering sensation in the breast of the barmaid of ‘The Midnight Bell’ than by casually asking her if she was interested in the theatre at all.

In an instant she had seen in a blinding, unmistakable light all that she had been unable fully to discern in the mysterious and dangerous dusk of his new hat, his self-consciousness, his quizzing gaze, and enclosing silences. She comprehended his whole tendency; she foresaw exactly what was to come. This was an invitation to go to the theatre with him. He had known he was going to invite her to go to the theatre with him before he had come in. He was probably wearing, had probably waited to wear, his new hat as a means of redoubling his impression and onslaught upon her. This was nothing but an onslaught – a strategic onslaught upon her.

For what did an invitation to go to the theatre mean? An invitation to the theatre played no part in a common flirtation. It belonged to a category of manoeuvres in quite another campaign – one which had different objects and which could be adequately expressed in no word save one – ‘
Advances!
’ Flirtation began and ended, and was located, purely in the bar: ‘Advances’ might lead anywhere outside, acknowledged a kind of social equality, suggested permanence and evolution, contained the seeds of all base and transitory, or all honest and stable, proposals. Advances opened up worlds – but what sort of worlds were not
revealed. What conceivable worlds had Mr. Eccles in mind, with his new hat, and casual remark about the theatre? Looking at him it was difficult, nay, impossible, to say.

All these thoughts flowed through Ella as she replied ‘The theatre? Yes – I like to go to the theatre.’

And there was another pause. Should she now say ‘Why do you ask?’ or let him get ahead with it himself? And what line was she to take in any case.

‘I had a reason in asking,’ said Mr. Eccles, ‘as I happened to have two seats given me just lately.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Ella, as though all this had not the remotest bearing upon herself, and inwardly marvelling at his transparency. He
happened
, did he, to have two seats given him just lately? And yet she could not help admiring, and being a little grateful for, the humility and caution of his approach. To say (and she knew he was lying) that he had had two seats given him, which in any case had to be taken advantage of, was a great deal less bold, less like a lord of creation, than to ask the barmaid off-hand to come to the theatre with him. It bespoke a respect for her, and for subtle formalities, which she in turn respected. But go to the theatre with him! What a terrible idea!

‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘whether you might like to come.’

‘
Me?
’ she said, in feigned shocked surprise, and added ‘I can’t afford such luxuries.’

She knew now that she was not treating him fairly, that she was purposely misunderstanding him – disingenuously assuming, in blunt fact, that he was trying to sell a seat to her, and that no one could possibly be so disinterested as to offer such a thing free. If he had said ‘you might like to
go
’ there might have been some slight justification for throwing this interpretation on the offer. But he hadn’t: he had said ‘You might like to
come
.’ Actually, of course, her sole object was to gain time to refuse decently.

‘It’s not a question of affording,’ he said. ‘Here are these two seats going, and so one might as well take advantage of them.’

‘Well –’ said Ella, but Mr. Eccles interrupted her.

‘They’ll only be wasted otherwise,’ he said.

‘Well,’ said Ella, ‘that’s ever so kind of you, but I don’t see how I can manage it. I can’t just take an evening off to go to the theatre, can I?’

‘Oh – this isn’t at night. This is for the afternoon.’

‘Oh – is it?’

‘Yes It’s a matinée.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact that’s not much better, is it? I’m only off from about three to half-past four in the afternoon.’

‘But isn’t Thursday your afternoon off?’

‘Oh yes – Thursday is.’

‘Well – there you are.’

‘Why?’ said Ella. ‘Are these tickets for Thursday?’

‘Yes. Of course they are. That’s why I thought you might like it. I knew Thursday was your day off.’

What was this man after? Ella once more was overwhelmed by the terrific detail and firmness of his attack. He had now forced her back to her last line – the weak, wavering line of pure falsehood – a line at which she was least adept.

‘Well, on Thursday I’ve got to go somewhere,’ she said, ‘as a matter of fact.’

‘Oh – have you?’

‘Yes. Thanks ever so much all the same. It’s ever so kind of you.’

‘Can’t you put the other thing off?’