Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (62 page)

‘You’re rather quiet this afternoon,’ she said,’ aren’t you?’

‘Am I?’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘I didn’t think so.’

‘Yes you are. You’ve been ever so quiet.’

‘Have I?’ said Mr. Eccles, in the tone of one who intended to go on being as quiet as he wished, which rather enraged Ella.

‘Yes. You have,’ she said. ‘Is there anything on your mind?’

To her surprise Mr. Eccles, instead of sinking further into himself, here took hold of her arm and became companionable. ‘Now what should make you think that?’ he said. ‘Eh?’ And he gave her arm a little pressure (he would call it a squeeze!).

Did she detect a confessing eagerness in his manner, an admission that he had been silent, and a desire to confide in her the real causes thereof?

‘Go on,’ he said, ‘what made you think that?’

She was now certain of his anxiety to get something off his chest, and felt relief mixed with a not displeasing sense of agitation. What if something was coming to light? It was about time, after three weeks of silent evasion of main issues. They had got to come out into the open sooner or later, and whereas he was possibly in a state of perturbation, she at the moment felt triumphantly ready for anything.

‘I didn’t think,’ she said, ‘I knew.’

‘Ah – you understand me so perfectly – don’t you?’ said Mr. Eccles.

She had never understood any man less in her entire experience of men, but that was by the way. She gathered that he was trying to flatter her, which was itself possibly ominous
of the gravity of what was on his mind, and which gave her the hope that this was going to be anything but a dull Sunday afternoon, after all.

‘Yes. I understand you all right,’ she said, flattering his flattery. ‘Go on. What is it?’

‘Oh – it’s nothing.’

‘Yes it is. Go on.’

‘No, there isn’t anything really.’

‘Yes, there is,’ said Ella. ‘Is it anything about Us?’

‘Now what should make you think that?’ said Mr. Eccles, renewing his pressure on her arm, and giving the show away.

‘Go on. What is it?’

‘Oh, nothing much. . . .’

‘Do you want to give it all up?’ said Ella, with a sudden frankness which surprised herself. But, glancing at him, she had seen him looking so evasively puzzled and thoughtful, and she had suddenly felt so bored with his silliness and the whole thing in general, that so simple and rapid a denouement had offered itself spontaneously to her mind.

‘Oh no,’ said Mr. Eccles, ‘I don’t think I want to do ‘that. . . .’

Which was an even more surprising answer, and one which, when the shock had passed, she found angering her.
Think
, indeed! Had he been remaining coolly and autocratically undecided all this time, wasting her time and his, and making a fool of her? She was sure she wouldn’t mind if he gave it all up, and she had a good mind to tell him so.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I should have thought you would have made up your mind by now.’ And that was actually the first harsh word she had ever spoken to him.

‘So I have. . . . I didn’t mean that, exactly.’

‘What did you mean then?’ she said, more gently, ‘go on.’

‘Well, it’s not so much a question of Us, so much, is it?’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No. You see, it’s the other people that make the trouble, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’ said Ella, smelling sisters-in-law in the air, but saying nothing.

‘Yes. But what’s the use of talking about it. Let’s change the subject.’

‘Go on. Who is it?’

‘No. Let’s change the subject.’

‘No. Go on,’ said Ella, ‘is it your sister-in-law?’

‘Now, how did you guess that?’

‘What has she been saying?’ said Ella, feeling very resentful. She might not desire Mr. Eccles herself, but it was not in human nature to like the thought of Mr. Eccles’ relations not desiring her, however well she could see their point of view. In fact nothing in the world can be more calculated upon to make any person feel as Good as Anybody Else (or Better) than this sort of thing.

‘Oh – there’s been a fine old How-d’ye-do,’ said Mr. Eccles.

‘Has there?’ said Ella, sternly. ‘How’s that?’

‘Well, of course,
They
think I’m making a fool of myself,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘That’s all.’

And there was in his voice so strong and basely unloverlike a hint that he himself saw and with certain qualifications subscribed to their point of view, that Ella had a notion that this was going to be the last, and fatal, walk with Mr. Eccles, and she got ready for battle. If there was the smallest relaxation on his part, she was only too willing to be rid of him, and she was going to see that she was not humiliated.

‘And what do
you
think?’ she said.

‘Oh – it’s nothing to do with myself. I’m only telling you what
they
think.’

‘But I’d’ve thought it was what you think that mattered.’

‘Are you Angry?’ asked Mr. Eccles.

‘No, I’m not a bit Angry. I only want to know.’

‘You musn’t be Angry, you know,’ said Mr. Eccles, with an air or consoling her. ‘You mustn’t think I want to back out.’

The patronage and condescension which this implied – the impudence with which this pursuing little man in his Sunday bowler hat and dark overcoat, dared, from the superior height of his wealth and connections, to turn the tables and play the kindly rôle of the pursued, was too much for Ella.

‘Perhaps I might want to Back Out,’ she said.

‘Oh – now you’re not being reasonable.’

‘Well, what’s so unreasonable in that?’

‘No,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘Let’s talk about it reasonably. I can’t help what other people say, can I?’

‘What have they been saying, then?’ asked Ella, moved to curiosity in spite of herself.

‘Well, I suppose they don’t think it’d be a suitable match. I’m sure I don’t know why.’

That was more happily put, and Ella relented somewhat.

‘Well, perhaps, they’re right, you know,’ she said. ‘I’ve always said so, haven’t I?’

‘I don’t see why they’re right. Why do you say they’re right?’

‘Well, I’m not – Educated, am I? What’d you think if one of
your
relations went and married a barmaid?’

‘I wouldn’t think anything.’

‘Oh yes, you would. You would think she was after their money.’

‘Well, that’s absurd. I know you’re not after
that
,’ said Mr. Eccles.

The weird, circuitous, and paradoxical thing about the whole situation, reflected Ella, was that she was after nothing else. Would she have suffered Mr. Eccles so long if he had not been comparatively a millionaire, if she had not resolutely reproached herself for her abnormality and fastidiousness in not jumping at so unexampled a Catch? Upon what lies and misunderstandings, therefore, this affair had its foundation. But how could she explain this to him?

‘I don’t know why you’re so sure,’ she said, having to pretend she was speaking half in jest.

‘Don’t be so silly. Do you think I don’t understand you?’

‘Do you?’

‘Of course I do. I know every little thought that’s going on in your dear little head,’ said Mr. Eccles, again pressing her to him, and Ella was too dumbfounded to reply.

‘I thought we were getting into the Tantrums for a moment,’ went on Mr. Eccles, ushering in the reconciliation, ‘and that would never do – would it? We’ve got to discuss these things some time, haven’t we?’

‘Yes. I suppose we have.’

‘You see, I thought we might fix up a meeting sometime, and then she could see for herself – couldn’t she?’

‘What?’ said Ella. ‘Me meet your sister-in-law?’

‘Yes. Suppose you came along to tea one day? I’m sure she’d like you if she saw you.’

‘Oh – I don’t think that’s necessary, do you?’ said Ella, thunderstruck. She had never remotely taken into account the material prospect of a début amongst his relations – she supposed she had never really taken him seriously enough. And now she recoiled in frightened self-mistrust.

‘Why not?’ said Mr. Eccles.

‘She wouldn’t want to see me, would she?’ ‘Of course she would. In fact I’m sure she’d be most interested.’

Then she was to be taken up and shown off like some doubtful horse or ox on approval? She could see that Mr. Eccles, for all he inferred to the contrary, was desperately anxious to get an outside opinion on her.

‘If you wore that dark hat and coat of yours,’ said Mr. Eccles, ‘you’d make a great impression, I’m sure.’

That, she also saw, was a shy hint as regards impressing the aristocracy of Chiswick. He had praised the sober style of that dark hat and coat before. ‘All right,’ she wanted to say, ‘I know how to dress myself – thank you.’ But of course she did not say it.

‘But I thought we were going to keep it a Secret,’ she said instead.

‘Yes, we
Were
’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘But we can’t go on like that for ever, can we? If we’re going to be married you’ll have to meet them.’

‘But when did you think, then,’ said Ella, making herself ask him what she had never dared ask him before, ‘that we would be married exactly?’

‘Oh, in two or three months,’ said Mr. Eccles, and caused the whole of Regent’s Park to recede from Ella in surprise and confusion.

‘Two or three months?’

‘Yes. We could do it before if we could get things in order.’

Two or three months! With the warily manoeuvring, cautiously advancing Mr. Eccles, she had thought of this consummation in terms of years – of tens of years! And here he had brought it down to a matter of weeks – eight weeks or less! Eight weeks only in which to make up her mind, when she thought she had the greater part of eternity.

‘You see that’s why I wanted to talk about it,’ said Mr. Eccles, all of whose doubts now seemed to have fled. ‘I want to get the Ring some time next week.’

The Ring! The Ring, and after eight weeks, enslavement for life – a life of Sundays in which she walked respectably round Regent’s Park with this rather elderly, rather good-looking, arch, often irritable, self-conscious bowler-hatted maniac who had never rightly understood a single thought going on in her head! How could she decide such a thing in eight weeks? No – she had decided already – she could not go through with it.

‘And then you’ll be really mine,’ said Mr. Eccles. ‘You needn’t think I’m going to let you go.’

‘Aren’t you?’ said Ella, faintly. How was she going to tell him? Was ever anyone more complacent, purblind, and inaccessible? Could she write him a letter? Yes – that was an idea. She would write him a letter.

‘Doesn’t the lake look lovely?’ said Mr. Eccles, for by now they had walked right round into view of the lake. ‘I shall never forget this lake.’

‘Won’t you?’

‘No. That was where we walked when we first
Knew
,’ said Mr. Eccles, giving her another nudge, while Ella concentrated gropingly on a Letter. A postman alone could curb this prodigious man.

E
LLA HAD AN
aunt, on her father’s side, who dwelt at Clapham. This was a cheerful woman, early widowed and in ‘a good way’ comparatively, with a small house of her own and a back garden. In the summer Ella would often spend her whole afternoons and evenings off in this garden, thinking of it as a refuge of laziness and peace, but in the siege of winter she seldom got over there. When she did she was made warmly welcome, given muffins or hot toast in an indescribably cosy tea, and made achingly to sense the innumerable amenities and minute blisses of an independent income, however small. But the hour came to go, and she was back in the bleakness and slavery of the week.

Needless to say, Ella Loved her Aunt (she would have Loved her in any case because she was her Aunt, but she loved her over and above this) and her Aunt loved her. In fact Ella was known to be her aunt’s ‘Favourite,’ whatever that might mean. She was a younger woman than Ella’s mother, and for that reason Ella was sometimes able to confide in her certain matters which she was not fully able to confide to the latter. In fact Ella had often thought of confiding properly in her aunt about Mr. Eccles.

This did not mean, of course, that Ella Loved her Aunt more than she Loved her Mother, for in Ella’s sternly conventional hierarchy of Love, it would be a crime of the first water to place one’s Aunt in the same category as one’s Mother, who took precedence over all others, including even Father, if you had one. And Ella, in her orthodoxy, did not regard this as a purely personal classification, but one that applied to all families all over the world.

It was next Thursday that Ella decided to make a long-deferred journey over to Clapham to see this Aunt Winnie, having written her a letter the week before announcing her intention. After her last Sunday with Mr. Eccles, she really felt she could go on no longer without advice, and she fully intended, if she could lead the conversation round that way and take the plunge, to come out with the whole story, and
throw herself upon her Aunt’s verdict – perhaps requisitioning her aid in the composition of that Letter, which she had no idea how to begin, but which she still felt was her only rock to cling to in that submerging flood of indefatigability which was Mr. Eccles.

But this was not to be. For no sooner had Ella, on her arrival at her aunt’s house, been welcomed and kissed in the hall way, than she was swept into the sitting-room and acquainted with the fact that instead of having her life clarified this afternoon, it was to be further confused by what her aunt with warm and innocent pleasure described as a Bit of Good News for her.

At first Ella thought that this might really be a bit of good news, though she could not conceive from what source good news could befall her; but it soon turned out to be about as middling a piece of news as she had ever heard. What it amounted to was that there was a
Chance
, said Aunt Winnie.

‘Oh yes?’ said Ella, looking politely bright-eyed and avid for further enlightenment.

A real
Chance
, said Aunt Winnie, and where did Ella think
she
might be packing off to before long? ‘Where?’ said Ella, a remote glaze already stealing into her eyes at the thought of her involvement with Mr. Eccles in relation to all this. ‘
India!
’ said Aunt Winnie, ‘What do you think of that?’