Esther Waters Part 50

They met Ketley at Waterloo, and every one wanted to hear from his own lips the story of the packet of Turkish Delight. So William proposed they should all come up to the "King's Head" for a drink. The omnibus took them as far as Piccadilly Circus; and there the weight of his satchel tempted William to invite them to dinner, regardless of expense.

"Which is the best dinner here?" he asked the commissionaire.

"The East Room is reckoned the best, sir."

The fas.h.i.+on of the shaded candles and the little tables, and the beauty of an open evening bodice and the black and white elegance of the young men at dinner, took the servants by surprise, and made them feel that they were out of place in such surroundings. Old John looked like picking up a napkin and asking at the nearest table if anything was wanted. Ketley proposed the grill room, but William, who had had a gla.s.s more than was good for him, declared that he didn't care a d.a.m.n--that he could buy up the whole blooming show. The head-waiter suggested a private room; it was abruptly declined, and William took up the menu. "Bisque Soup, what's that? You ought to know, John." John shook his head. "Ris de veau! That reminds me of when----" William stopped and looked round to see if his former wife was in the room. Finally, the head-waiter was cautioned to send them up the best dinner in the place. Allusion was made to the dust and heat. Journeyman suggested a sluice, and they inquired their way to the lavatories. Esther and Sarah were away longer than the men, and stood dismayed at the top of the room till William called for them. The other guests seemed a little terrified, and the head-waiter, to rea.s.sure them, mentioned that it was Derby Day.

William had ordered champagne, but it had not proved to any one's taste except, perhaps, to Sarah, whom it rendered unduly hilarious; nor did the delicate food afford much satisfaction; the servants played with it, and left it on their plates; and it was not until William ordered up the saddle of mutton and carved it himself that the dinner began to take hold of the company. Esther and Sarah enjoyed the ices, and the men stuck to the cheese, a fine Stilton, which was much appreciated. Coffee no one cared for, and the little gla.s.ses of brandy only served to augment the general tipsiness. William hiccupped out an order for a bottle of Jamieson eight-year-old; but pipes were not allowed, and cigars were voted tedious, so they adjourned to the bar, where they were free to get as drunk as they pleased. William said, "Now let's 'ear the blo----the b.l.o.o.d.y omen that put ye on to Sultan--that blood--packet of Turkish Delight."

"Most extra--most extraordinary thing I ever heard in my life, so yer 'ere?" said Ketley, staring at William and trying to see him distinctly.

William nodded. "How was it? We want to 'ear all about it. Do hold yer tongue, Sarah. I beg pardon, Ketley is go--going to tell us about the b.l.o.o.d.y omen. Thought you'd like to he--ar, old girl."

Allusion was made to a little girl coming home from school, and a piece of paper on the pavement. But Ketley could not concentrate his thoughts on the main lines of the story, and it was lost in various dissertations. But the company was none the less pleased with it, and willingly declared that bookmaking was only a game for mugs. Get on a winner at forty to one, and you could make as much in one bet as a poor devil of a bookie could in six months, f.a.gging from race-course to race-course. They drank, argued, and quarrelled, until Esther noticed that Sarah was looking very pale. Old John was quite helpless; Journeyman, who seemed to know what he was doing, very kindly promised to look after him.

Ketley a.s.sured the commissionaire that he was not drunk; and when they got outside Sarah felt obliged to step aside; she came back, saying that she felt a little better.

They stood on the pavement's edge, a little puzzled by the brilliancy of the moonlight. And the three men who followed out of the bar-room were agreed regarding the worthlessness of life. One said, "I don't think much of it; all I live for is beer and women." The phrase caught on William's ear, and he said, "Quite right, old mate," and he held out his hand to Bill Evans. "Beer and women, it always comes round to that in the end, but we mustn't let them hear us say it." The men shook hands, and Bill promised to see Sarah safely home. Esther tried to interpose, but William could not be made to understand, and Sarah and Bill drove away together in a hansom. Sarah dozed off immediately on his shoulder, and it was difficult to awaken her when the cab stopped before a house whose respectability took Bill by surprise.

x.x.xIV

Things went well enough as long as her savings lasted. When her money was gone Bill returned to the race-course in the hope of doing a bit of wels.h.i.+ng. Soon after he was "wanted" by the police; they escaped to Belgium, and it devolved on Sarah to support him. The hue and cry over, they came back to London.

She had been sitting up for him; he had come home exasperated and disappointed. A row soon began; and she thought that he would strike her.

But he refrained, for fear, perhaps, of the other lodgers. He took her instead by the arm, dragged her down the broken staircase, and pushed her into the court. She heard the retreating footsteps, and saw a cat slink through a grating, and she wished that she too could escape from the light into the dark.

A few belated women still lingered in the Strand, and the city stood up like a prison, hard and stark in the cold, penetrating light of morning.

She sat upon a pillar's base, her eyes turned towards the cabmen's shelter. The horses munched in their nose-bags, and the pigeons came down from their roosts. She was dressed in an old black dress, her hands lay upon her knees, and the pose expressed so perfectly the despair and wretchedness in her soul that a young man in evening clothes, who had looked sharply at her as he pa.s.sed, turned and came back to her, and he asked her if he could a.s.sist her. She answered, "Thank you, sir." He slipped a s.h.i.+lling into her hand. She was too broken-hearted to look up in his face, and he walked away wondering what was her story. The disordered red hair, the thin, freckled face, were expressive, and so too was the movement of her body when she got up and walked, not knowing and not caring where she was going. There was sensation of the river in her thoughts; the river drew her, and she indistinctly remembered that she would find relief there if she chose to accept that relief. The water was blue beneath the sunrise, and it seemed to offer to end her life's trouble. She could not go on living. She could not bear with her life any longer, and yet she knew that she would not drown herself that morning.

There was not enough will in her to drown herself. She was merely half dead with grief. He had turned her out, he had said that he never wanted to see her again, but that was because he had been unlucky. She ought to have gone to bed and not waited up for him; he didn't know what he was doing; so long as he didn't care for another woman there was hope that he might come back to her. The spare trees rustled their leaves in the bright dawn air, and she sat down on a bench and watched the lamps going out, and the river changing from blue to brown. Hours pa.s.sed, and the same thoughts came and went, until with sheer weariness of thinking she fell asleep.

She was awakened by the policeman, and she once more continued her walk.

The omnibuses had begun; women were coming from market with baskets on their arms; and she wondered if their lovers and husbands were unfaithful to them, if they would be received with blows or knocks when they returned. Her slightest mistakes had often, it seemed, merited a blow; and G.o.d knows she had striven to pick out the piece of bacon that she thought he would like, and it was not her fault that she couldn't get any money nowhere. Why was he cruel to her? He never would find another woman to care for him more than she did.... Esther had a good husband, Esther had always been lucky. Two hours more to wait, and she felt so tired, so tired. The milk-women were calling their ware--those l.u.s.ty short-skirted women that bring an air of country into the meanest alley. She sat down on a doorstep and looked on the empty Haymarket, vaguely conscious of the low vice which still lingered there though the morning was advancing. She turned up Shaftesbury Avenue, and from the beginning of Dean Street she watched to see if the shutters were yet down. She thought they were, and then saw that she was mistaken. There was nothing to do but to wait, and on the steps of the Royalty Theatre she waited. The sun was s.h.i.+ning, and she watched the cab horses, until the potboy came through and began cleaning the street lamp. She didn't care to ask him any questions; dressed as she was, he might answer her rudely. She wanted to see Esther first. Esther would pity and help her. So she did not go directly to the "King's Head," but went up the street a little way and came back. The boy's back was turned to her; she peeped through the doors. There was no one in the bar, she must go back to the steps of the theatre. A number of children were playing there, and they did not make way for her to sit down. She was too weary to argue the point, and walked up and down the street. When she looked through the doors a second time Esther was in the bar.

"Is that you, Sarah?"

"Yes, it is me."

"Then come in.... How is it that we've not seen you all this time? What's the matter?"

"I've been out all night. Bill put me out of doors this morning, and I've been walking about ever since."

"Bill put you out of doors? I don't understand."

"You know Bill Evans, the man we met on the race-course, the day we went to the Derby.... It began there. He took me home after your dinner at the 'Criterion.'... It has been going on ever since."

"Good Lord! ...Tell me about it."

Leaning against the part.i.tion that separated the bars, Sarah told how she had left her home and gone to live with him.

"We got on pretty well at first, but the police was after him, and we made off to Belgium. There we was very hard up, and I had to go out on the streets."

"He made you do that?"

"He couldn't starve, could he?"

The women looked at each other, and then Sarah continued her story. She told how they had come to London, penniless. "I think he wants to turn honest," she said, "but luck's been dead against him.... It's that difficult for one like him, and he's been in work, but he can't stick to it; and now I don't know what he's doing--no good, I fancy. Last night I got anxious and couldn't sleep, so I sat up. It was about two when he came in. We had a row and he dragged me downstairs and he put me out. He said he never wanted to see my ugly face again. I don't think I'm as bad as that; I've led a hard life, and am not what I used to be, but it was he who made me what I am. Oh, it don't matter now, it can't be helped, it is all over with me. I don't care what becomes of me, only I thought I'd like to come and tell you. We was always friends."

"You mustn't give way like that, old girl. You must keep yer p.e.c.k.e.r up.

You're dead beat.... You've been walking about all night, no wonder. You must come and have some breakfast with us."

"I should like a cup of tea, Esther. I never touches spirits now. I got over that."

"Come into the parlour. You'll be better when you've had breakfast. We'll see what we can do for you."

"Oh, Esther, not a word of what I've been telling you to your husband. I don't want to get Bill into trouble. He'd kill me. Promise me not to mention a word of it. I oughtn't to have told you. I was so tired that I didn't know what I was saying."

There was plenty to eat--fried fish, a nice piece of steak, tea and coffee. "You seem to live pretty well," said Sarah, "It must be nice to have a servant of one's own. I suppose you're doing pretty well here."

"Yes, pretty well, if it wasn't for William's health."

"What's the matter? Ain't he well?"

"He's been very poorly lately. It's very trying work going about from race-course to race-course, standing in the mud and wet all day long....

He caught a bad cold last winter and was laid up with inflammation of the lungs, and I don't think he ever quite got over it."

"Don't he go no more to race meetings?"

"He hasn't been to a race meeting since the beginning of the winter. It was one of them nasty steeplechase meetings that laid him up."

"Do 'e drink?"

"He's never drunk, but he takes too much. Spirits don't suit him. He thought he could do what he liked, great strong-built fellow that he is, but he's found out his mistake."

"He does his betting in London now, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Esther, hesitating--"when he has any to do. I want him to give it up; but trade is bad in this neighbourhood, leastways, with us, and he don't think we could do without it."

"It's very hard to keep it dark; some one's sure to crab it and bring the police down on you."

Esther did not answer; the conversation paused, and William entered.

"Halloa! is that you, Sarah? We didn't know what had become of you all this time." He noticed that she looked like one in trouble, and was very poorly dressed. She noticed that his cheeks were thinner than they used to be, and that his broad chest had sunk, and that there seemed to be strangely little s.p.a.ce between it and his back. Then in brief phrases, interrupting each other frequently, the women told the story. William said--

"I knew he was a bad lot. I never liked to see him inside my bar."