Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (60 page)

As he returned, smiling and bright as ever, with two medium-sized glasses of draught champagne she smiled back and decided that she really must get it out of him. But as he now had to take off his hat, his coat, his scarf, and his gloves, in the leisurely and methodical succession to which she had become used (it was rather like watching a surgeon getting ready for an operation), it was some time before the decks were clear for renewed discussion. At last, however, he lifted his glass and she lifted hers.

‘Well, here’s to –’ he began, and paused (maddeningly, for her problem would be solved if he would but tell her to what they were drinking), ‘What shall we say?’

‘I don’t know quite,’ she said, ostensibly jocular, actually grimly questioning.

‘Well, just to both of us in general, then,’ he said, and they both drank. ‘I suppose we’re not Engaged until I’ve given you a ring.’

Then they
were
Engaged! So taken aback was she by this sudden confirmation and its vast implications, that she again forgot herself.

‘But
Mr. Eccles
–’ she said, not knowing what she was going to follow it with.

‘Mr. Who?’

‘
Ernest
,’ she said, correcting herself again by use of hydraulic machinery, but unable to go any further.

‘Ah – I love to hear you say “
Ernest
” – just like that,’ said Mr. Eccles, imperturbably mistaking the deep groaning of the machinery for the ringing throb of awakened passion. ‘Well – what have you to say to your – “
Ernest
”?’

‘But we can’t be just engaged – just like that – can we?’

‘Can’t we?’ said Mr. Eccles, taking more wine. ‘I can. Why can’t we? Are you ashamed of it?’

‘No – it’s not I’m ashamed. It’s just –’

‘I’m not. I want to tell the whole world, myself. And I’m going to.’

‘What?’ said Ella.

‘The whole world,’ Mr. Eccles went on, ‘that I’m engaged to the most beautiful girl in the world. How about that?’

And as Ella’s blood was now freezing as she realized that the ‘whole world’ would undoubtedly include ‘The Midnight Bell,’ Bob, the Governor and everybody, and that unless she could stop him he would be in the bar in the rôle of her fiancé (fiancé!) blandly broadcasting his and her shame to the whole world (for, however much she had got used to the idea, she was still too near her first emotions not to have a deep underlying sense of shame in this inexplicable affair), and that therefore before she knew where she was she would be being Congratulated (Congratulated!) and committed publicly and eternally to this stranger, and that her mother would Find Out, and so on and so forth – as Ella was realizing all these things at one stroke, she made no attempt to reply, but gazed at him as though fascinated.

‘Shout it from the housetops!’ said Mr. Eccles.

‘Oh no,’ said Ella, panic overcoming all else. ‘I don’t think we’d better do that.’

And then, seeing that his enthusiasm for publicity was intended with the utmost benevolence, deriving purely from his good-natured desire to ‘show’ her that he was not ashamed to declare generally that a man of his standing and wealth was going to marry a barmaid, she felt that she could not return kindness with affront, and risk Wounding him, and added (fatally, as she saw a moment after), ‘Let’s keep it Secret.’

‘What? Keep it secret? Why should we want to keep it secret?’

‘Oh – I don’t know. I’d like it to be a Secret.’

‘Would you then?’ said Mr. Eccles, suddenly putting out his hand under the table, and touching her knee. ‘Very well – it shall be a Secret. Our Secret – eh?’

‘Yes – that’s right,’ said Ella, but of course she had really got herself into the soup for good and all now, for in admitting, nay, stressing, the existence of a Secret between them, she had moved from tacit to articulate consent, and had pledged herself beyond honourable recall. Good Heavens! – how had it all happened, and what was she to do now? She wished he would take his hand away from her knee. His very touch proclaimed a sort of new Secretive sense of ownership.

‘Little Ladies like to have their little Secrets, don’t they,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘I know all their little ways.’

She wished he wouldn’t call her a Little Lady. Particularly as she was about twice his size – twice his size, that was to say, as masculine should compare to feminine – actually they were about the same in height and weight. Also she believed that, in his present fondling of her knee, he was by some subconscious process of sensuous symbolism transferring his thoughts and utterances concerning Secrets, to thoughts and utterances concerning Knees, and was getting a trifle lascivious. But she hoped she was mistaken.

‘Don’t they?’ said Mr. Eccles, and, seeing her look thoughtful, ‘Well – what’s going on in its little head now?’

‘Oh – nothing much,’ said Ella. ‘Nothing much – eh? Come along, now. What is it? You mustn’t have any secrets from me, you know.’ And he moved his hand from her knee in order to drink some more champagne.

At last it seemed as though she had an opportunity to voice her reservations, and she rushed to seize it before it went.

‘Well . . .’ she said, ponderously, toying thoughtfully with her glass.

‘Well?’

‘Well, you seem to talk as though our Engagement was all fixed. . . .’

‘Well – isn’t it?’

‘But it
can
’
t
be. Can it?’

‘And why can’t it – little Grey-Eyes-Puzzle-Head?’ said Mr. Eccles, putting his head on one side in a rapture of poetic quizzicality.

‘No,’ said Ella, ‘I’m Serious. . . .’

‘Are you? I
love
you when you’re Serious!’

She suspected, among other things, that the drink had gone to his head already – there were people like that, she knew from experience in the bar – in which case she would never divert him from this overbearing flippancy.

‘No. I am serious,’ said Ella. ‘You mustn’t mind what I say. . . .’

‘I shan’t mind. I don’t mind what anybody says,’ said Mr. Eccles, and she was certain he was drunk.

‘But it’s so Impossible,’ she said. ‘It might be all right if I was in your Class. But I’m not.’

‘Aren’t you in my class? What would that matter, if it’s true?’

‘Well, I’m not Educated. I should let you down. We could never be married and Set Up.’

‘Educated? What’s education. Do you mean Aitches?’ said Mr. Eccles, with surprising, and perhaps slightly painful frankness.

‘No – it’s not Aitches,’ said Ella, who, in fact, had always taken great pride in her management of these, ‘it’s other things.’

‘Grammar?’ suggested Mr. Eccles.

‘Yes. Grammar, if you like. And it’s not only Grammar that gives you away, is it?’

‘What else does, then?’

‘Well – everything. I’m not a
Lady
– that’s what it amounts to,’ said Ella, glad to have got this out. ‘And that’s all there is to it.’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Mr. Eccles, neither exactly denying nor exactly confirming this accusation against herself, but just pooh-poohing her in general.

‘But it’s true. And when you come to think about it quietly you’ll see it is.’

‘Will I?’

‘And what about all your people?’

‘What people?’ ‘Well, all your Army People, and all that,’ said Ella, shyly. . . .

‘Oh bother my Army people.’

‘But you can’t just bother them. Imagine me being introduced to them at a Tea Party.’ Not usually an articulate person, she was now rather pleased with her argumentative power, and even had a dim hope that she might yet prevail upon him to grant her some Stay of Engagement, or other concession, which would give her time to think about it all and discover some line of escape if necessary.

‘But you wouldn’t have to be introduced to them.’ ‘But I would, if we were married.’

‘Yes. I suppose you would,’ said Mr. Eccles.

‘Besides there’s
my
people, too,’ she said, playing her trump card. ‘They’re only poor people, you know.
They
haven’t got an Aitch to their name.’

‘Haven’t they?’

‘No, of course they haven’t,’ she said, feeling justified in sacrificing her mother in her cause. ‘And I don’t expect you’d like that.’

‘But would I have to meet them?’ said Mr. Eccles, perhaps a faint gleam of dismay showing in his eyes.

‘Well – that’s marriage, isn’t it. I don’t want to Deceive you about myself you know – just because I Pass.’ She knew now that she was being rather a humbug, and she paid for it instantly.

‘Ah – but that’s what’s so wonderful about you,’ he said. ‘You’re so Honest. I can See it.’

‘Yes, that’s all very well . . .’ said Ella, but now she had lost the thread. ‘You see –’

‘Besides, I don’t see what you’re getting at. If we love each other what do people matter?’

‘Yes – but –’

‘Well. What?’

‘Well, I think we ought to
think
about it, that’s all.’

And with those words she knew that she had come to the end of her resources, and as it were bowed her head, looking at her wine glass, and awaiting sentence in the pause that followed.

‘You darling,’ she heard Mr. Eccles saying. ‘Do you know what’ll be happening to you in a moment?’

‘What?’

‘I’ll be coming round and kissing you in front of all these people if you’re not careful.’

She did not answer but looked at her glass.

‘Or giving you a good spanking. I don’t know which,’ said Mr. Eccles with indescribable roguishness. ‘What about some more champagne?’

So ended Ella’s last attempt that evening to break through the walls of his imperturbability and gaiety – her principal concern thenceforward being to see that he did not drink too much and make fools of them both in public – a feat which she accomplished with some success on the strength of her barmaid’s experience – eventually leading him to dinner at the Corner House again, and doing her utmost, as he escorted her back, to avoid Railings – at any rate Railings as near ‘The Midnight Bell’ as before. But here she had no success, for he had by now got those Railings, and no others, established in his conservative mind as the fixed and rightful Embracing Station, and manoeuvred towards them inexorably.

N
EXT DAY ELLA
went over to see her mother. This was Friday. No word ever passed between them as to why she seemed to have taken to coming over on Friday instead of Thursday, her day off, and Ella suspected her mother of suspecting that she was devoting her one stretch of liberty in
the week to Mr. Eccles, which of course she was. Ella’s mother was a little more cheerful, or less acutely miserable, this week, her Stiff Neck having left her. When asked if it was better, ‘Oh yes, that’s gone,’ she said, in the peculiarly disinterested and ungrateful tone people have when agonizing inflictions, which they groan under while in progress, have the grace to leave them.

‘Well, – how’s the Gentleman?’ said Ella’s mother, the very first moment after they had fixed the tea things to their liking and had settled down in front of the fire for their chat in the gloaming. Thus she unwittingly revealed the main stream of her thought throughout the entire past week, and confirmed Ella’s suspicions.

Ella wished that her mother could have chosen some other epithet than ‘the Gentleman’ – there was something half-awed and furtive about it, something respectful yet anticipatory, which put the absurd Mr. Eccles she knew into so utterly false and romantic a light that she felt ashamed both of him and her mother. But then she wished, really, that her mother would not talk about him at all.

‘Oh – he’s all right,’ she said, and looked into the fire, knowing that the topic could not drop here.

‘Has he taken you to the theatre and dinner again?’ asked her mother.

How these poor old people rushed ahead of themselves in their expectations! Had not one theatre and dinner been enough for her? On the one hand so ready to be cast down, on the other they were so intemperate in their hopes, urged by their longing and belief in their children, that no miracle could unduly impress or suffice them.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Just to the Pictures. . . .’

‘Oh well,’ said Mrs. Prosser, ‘That’s something. . . .’

‘And to tea once or twice,’ said Ella, with all the mixed emotions of one seeing her mother spiritually transformed into a starved dog, and having reluctantly to grant it the bones and scraps which were its due.

‘Really,’ said Mrs. Prosser, ‘I think he must be Taken – don’t you?’

‘Yes. I suppose he is,’ said Ella, ‘a bit.’

‘I should say more than a bit,’ said Mrs. Prosser, ‘if he takes you out like that. I should say he’s
really
Taken.’

And the metaphorical lapping-up noise she made over this conclusion made Ella feel quite abased. And what a meal it was in her power to provide if she cared! If she only told the whole truth, and confided to her mother the degree in which Mr. Eccles was actually Taken! But no – at all costs she had to withhold the remotest suspicion of where the land really lay from her mother. If once that came out, and her mother was told that so far from his being merely Taken, they were already Engaged, or as good as Engaged, then, unless she was to break her poor heart later, the door would be shut even further against any of those corridors of escape which she still felt must appear in this unaccountable situation. Not that she really believed she was Engaged, or, being so, that she knew she wanted to escape. All that had happened was that he had succeeded in bringing her to implying that they were Engaged. Beyond that she could look no further at present.

‘Well, we’ll see,’ she said, hoping her mother might take a barely perceptible hint to stop questioning her.

‘Has it come to Christian names yet?’ asked Mrs. Prosser, evidently meaning to make this the topic of the afternoon.

‘Well, I suppose it has, really.’

‘What
is
his Christian name by the way?’

‘
Ernest
,’ said Ella, having to use hydraulic pressure even here.

‘Ernest, eh? Well – that’s a very nice name.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes. I do, and let’s hope he really
is
in earnest.’ And Mrs. Prosser gave a weak and awkward little laugh.