While the Billy Boils Part 26

"We must go now," she said quickly. "They will be waiting for tea."

He stood up before her, and held her there by both hands.

"There is plenty of time. Lizzie--"

"Mis-ter Br-o-o-k-er! Li-i-z-zee-e-e! Come ter yer tea-e-e!" yelled a boy from the house.

"We must really go now."

"Oh, they can wait a minute. Lizzie, don't be frightened"--bending his head--"Lizzie, put your arms round my neck and kiss me--now. Do as I tell you, Lizzie--they cannot see us," and he drew her behind a bush.

"Now, Lizzie."

She obeyed just as a frightened child might.

"We must go now," she panted, breathless from such an embrace.

"Lizzie, you will come for a walk with me after tea?"

"I don't know--I can't promise. I don't think it would be right. Aunt mightn't like me to."

"Never mind aunt. I'll fix her. We'll go for a walk over to the school-teacher's place. It will be bright moonlight."

"I don't like to promise. My father and mother might not--"

"Why, what are you frightened of? What harm is there in it?" Then, softly, "Promise, Lizzie."

"Promise, Lizzie."

She was hesitating.

"Promise, Lizzie. I'm going away to-morrow--might never see you again.

You will come, Lizzie? It will be our last talk together. Promise, Lizzie.... Oh, then, if you don't like to, I won't press you.... Will you come, or no?"

"Ye-es."

"One more, and I'll take you home."

It was nearly dark.

Brook was moved to get up early next morning and give the girl a hand with the cows. There were two rickety bails in the yard. He had not forgotten how to milk, but the occupation gave him no pleasure--it brought the past near again.

Now and then he would turn his face, rest his head against the side of the cow, and watch Lizzie at her work; and each time she would, as though in obedience to an influence she could not resist, turn her face to him--having noted the pause in his milking. There was a wonder in her expression--as if something had come into her life which she could not realize--curiosity in his.

When the spare pail was full, he would follow her with it to the little bark dairy; and she held out the cloth which served as a strainer whilst he poured the milk in, and, as the last drops went through, their mouths would come together.

He carried the slop-buckets to the pigsty for her, and helped to poddy (hand feed) a young calf. He had to grip the calf by the nape of the neck, insert a forefinger in its mouth, and force its nose down into an oil-drum full of skim milk. The calf sucked, thinking it had a teat; and so it was taught to drink. But calves have a habit, born of instinct, of b.u.t.ting the udders with their noses, by way of reminding their mothers to let down the milk; and so this calf b.u.t.ted at times, splas.h.i.+ng sour milk over Brook, and barking his wrist against the sharp edge of the drum. Then he would swear a little, and Lizzie would smile sadly and gravely.

Brook did not go away that day, nor the next, but he took the coach on the third day thereafter. He and Lizzie found a quiet corner to say good-bye in. She showed some emotion for the first time, or, perhaps, the second--maybe the third time--in that week of her life. They had been out together in the moonlight every evening. (Brook had been fifteen years in cities.) They had scarcely looked at each other that morning--and scarcely spoken.

He looked back as the coach started and saw her sitting inside the big kitchen window. She waved her hand--hopelessly it seemed. She had rolled up her sleeve, and to Brook the arm seemed strangely white and fair above the line of sunburn round the wrist. He hadn't noticed it before.

Her face seemed fairer too, but, perhaps, it was only the effect of light and shade round that window.

He looked back again, as the coach turned the corner of the fence, and was just in time to see her bury her face in her hands with a pa.s.sionate gesture which did not seem natural to her.

Brook reached the city next evening, and, "after hours," he staggered in through a side entrance to the lighted parlour of a private bar.

They say that Lizzie broke her heart that year, but, then, the world does not believe in such things nowadays.

BOARD AND RESIDENCE

One o'clock on Sat.u.r.day. The unemployed's one o'clock on Sat.u.r.day!

Nothing more can be done this week, so you drag yourself wearily and despairingly "home," with the cheerful prospect of a penniless Sat.u.r.day afternoon and evening and the long horrible Australian-city Sunday to drag through. One of the landlady's clutch--and she _is_ an old hen--opens the door, exclaims:

"Oh, Mr Careless!" and grins. You wait an anxious minute, to postpone the disappointment which you feel by instinct is coming, and then ask hopelessly whether there are any letters for you.

"No, there's nothing for you, Mr Careless." Then in answer to the unspoken question, "The postman's been, but there's nothing for you."

You hang up your hat in the stuffy little pa.s.sage, and start upstairs, when, "Oh, Mr Careless, mother wants to know if you've had yer dinner."

You haven't, but you say you have. You are empty enough inside, but the emptiness is filled up, as it were, with the wrong sort of hungry vacancy--gnawing anxiety. You haven't any stomach for the warm, tasteless mess which has been "kep' 'ot" for you in a cold stove. You feel just physically tired enough to go to your room, lie down on the bed, and s.n.a.t.c.h twenty minutes' rest from that terrible unemployed restlessness which, you know, is sure to drag you to your feet to pace the room or tramp the pavement even before your bodily weariness has nearly left you. So you start up the narrow, stuffy little flight of steps call the "stairs." Three small doors open from the landing--a square place of about four feet by four. The first door is yours; it is open, and--

Decided odour of bedroom dust and fluff, damped and kneaded with cold soap-suds. Rear view of a girl covered with a damp, draggled, dirt-coloured skirt, which gapes at the waistband from the "body,"

disclosing a good glimpse of soiled stays (ribs burst), and yawns behind over a decidedly dirty white petticoat, the slit of which last, as she reaches forward and backs out convulsively, half opens and then comes together in an unsatisfactory, startling, tantalizing way, and allows a hint of a red flannel under-something. The frayed ends of the skirt lie across a hopelessly-burst pair of elastic-sides which rest on their inner edges--toes out--and jerk about in a seemingly undecided manner.

She is damping and working up the natural layer on the floor with a piece of old flannel petticoat dipped occasionally in a bucket which stands by her side, containing about a quart of muddy water. She looks round and exclaims, "Oh, did you want to come in, Mr Careless?" Then she says she'll be done in a minute; furthermore she remarks that if you want to come in you won't be in her road. You don't--you go down to the dining-room--parlour--sitting-room---nursery--and stretch yourself on the sofa in the face of the painfully-evident disapproval of the landlady.

You have been here, say, three months, and are only about two weeks behind. The landlady still says, "Good morning, Mr Careless," or "Good evening, Mr Careless," but there is an unpleasant accent on the "Mr,"

and a still more unpleasantly p.r.o.nounced stress on the "morning"

or "evening." While your money lasted you paid up well and regularly--sometimes in advance--and dined out most of the time; but that doesn't count now.

Ten minutes pa.s.s, and then the landlady's disapproval becomes manifest and aggressive. One of the little girls, a sharp-faced little larrikiness, who always wears a furtive grin of cunning--it seems as though it were born with her, and is perhaps more a misfortune than a fault--comes in and says please she wants to tidy up.

So you get up and take your hat and go out again to look for a place to rest in--to try not to think.

You _wish_ you could get away up-country. You also wish you were dead.

The landlady, Mrs Jones, is a widow, or gra.s.s-widow, Welsh, of course, and clannish; flat face, watery grey eyes, shallow, selfish, ignorant, and a hypocrite unconsciously--by instinct.

But the worst of it is that Mrs Jones takes advantage of the situation to corner you in the pa.s.sage when you want to get out, or when you come in tired, and talk. It amounts to about this: She has been fourteen years in this street, taking in boarders; everybody knows her; everybody knows Mrs Jones; her poor husband died six years ago (G.o.d rest his soul); she finds it hard to get a living these times; work, work, morning, noon, and night (talk, talk, talk, more likely). "Do you know Mr Duff of the Labour Bureau?" He has known her family for years; a very nice gentleman--a very nice gentleman indeed; he often stops at the gate to have a yarn with her on his way to the office (he must be hard up for a yarn). She doesn't know hardly n.o.body in this street; she never gossips; it takes her all her time to get a living; she can't be bothered with neighbours; it's always best to keep to yourself and keep neighbours at a distance. Would you believe it, Mr Careless, she has been two years in this house and hasn't said above a dozen words to the woman next door; she'd just know her by sight if she saw her; as for the other woman she wouldn't know her from a crow. Mr Blank and Mrs Blank could tell you the same.... She always had gentlemen staying with her; she never had no cause to complain of one of them except once; they always treated her fair and honest. Here follows story about the exception; he, I gathered, was a journalist, and she could never depend on him. He seemed, from her statements, to have been decidedly erratic in his movements, mode of life and choice of climes. He evidently caused her a great deal of trouble and anxiety, and I felt a kind of sneaking sympathy for his memory. One young fellow stayed with her five years; he was, etc. She couldn't be hard on any young fellow that gets out of work; of course if he can't get it he can't pay; she can't get blood out of a stone; she couldn't turn him out in the street. "I've got sons of my own, Mr Careless, I've got sons of my own."... She is sure she always does her best to make her boarders comfortable, and if they want anything they've only got to ask for it. The kettle is always on the stove if you want a cup of tea, and if you come home late at night and want a bit of supper you've only got to go to the safe (which of us would dare?). She never locks it, she never did.... And then she begins about her wonderful kids, and it goes on hour after hour. Lord! it's enough to drive a man mad.

We were recommended to this place on the day of our arrival by a young dealer in the furniture line, whose name was Moses--and he looked like it, but we didn't think of that at the time. He had Mrs Jones's card in his window, and he left the shop in charge of his missus and came round with us at once. He a.s.sured us that we couldn't do better than stay with her. He said she was a most respectable lady, and all her boarders were decent young fellows-gentlemen; she kept everything scrupulously clean, and kept the best table in town, and she'd do for us (was.h.i.+ng included) for eighteen s.h.i.+llings per week; she generally took the first week in advance. We asked him to have a beer--for the want of somebody else to ask--and after that he said that Mrs Jones was a kind, motherly body, and understood young fellows; and that we'd be even more comfortable than in our own home; that we'd be allowed to do as we liked--she wasn't particular; she wouldn't mind it a bit if we came home late once in a way--she was used to that, in fact; she liked to see young fellows enjoying themselves. We afterwards found out that he got so much on every boarder he captured. We also found out--after paying in advance---that her gentlemen generally sent out their white things to be done; she only did the coloured things, so we had to pay a couple of bob extra a week to have our "biled" rags and collars sent out and done; and after the first week they bore sad evidence of having been done on the premises by one of the frowsy daughters. But we paid all the same. And, good Lord! if she keeps the best table in town, we are curious to see the worst. When you go down to breakfast you find on the table in front of your chair a cold plate, with a black something--G.o.d knows what it looks like--in the centre of it. It eats like something sc.r.a.ped off the inside of a hide and burnt; and with this you have a cup of warm grey slush called a "cup of tea." Dinner: A slice of alleged roast beef or boiled mutton, of no particular colour or taste; three new spuds, of which the largest is about the size of an ordinary hen's egg, the smallest that of a bantam's, and the middle one in between, and which eat soggy and have no taste to speak of, save that they are a trifle bitter; a dab of unhealthy-looking green something, which might be either cabbage leaves or turnip-tops, and a gla.s.s of water. The whole mess is lukewarm, including the water--it would all be better cold. Tea: A thin slice of the aforesaid alleged roast or mutton, and the pick of about six thin slices of stale bread--evidently cut the day before yesterday. This is the way Mrs Jones "does" for us for eighteen s.h.i.+llings a week. The bread gave out at tea-time this evening, and a mild financial boarder tapped his plate with his knife, and sent the bread plate out to be replenished. It came back with _one_ slice on it.