She held the pose for a minute or two, and without talking, so that the room was suddenly and blissfully quiet. I’ll do the white feathers next, he was thinking, when she stood up, did her best to smooth down the creases in her gown and strode across to the fireplace to ring the bell.
‘Ah have a surprise for you, Mr Cheifitz,’ she said. As if she hadn’t surprised him enough!
‘Should I continue?’ he said, brush in hand, hesitating.
‘No, no.’
He began to clean his brushes, relieved that his ordeal was so nearly over. And the butler entered, followed by an anxious man in a cook’s hat, who was pushing a dinner wagon laden with covered dishes. ‘A little supper, Mr Cheifitz. You will join me, will you not?’
It was almost impossible to refuse her. The butler opened a bottle of wine with an explosion that made him jump, then the servants retreated and the covers were removed, but by now he was so tense and nervous he had no idea what food was being offered.
‘Champagne, mah dear,’ the lady said, pouring out a glass full of white bubbles. ‘Cold beef, ham, tongue, a little Russian salad? Or would you like me to choose for you?’ He took the fizzy liquid and nodded helplessly at her, and at that she patted the sofa and smiled at him archly. ‘You must come and sit beside me, you know,’ she ordered.
It was like a nightmare, slow-moving but inevitable. He took a sip of the champagne and found that the bubbles were sharp. He set the glass down quickly on a little table beside the sofa. Then because he couldn’t think how to avoid it, and she was bullying him with her eyes, he sat down beside her, like a mouse in a trap, and was given a table napkin to cover his knees and received a plate piled with unfamiliar meats and salads, and an unwieldy fork to eat it all with. And his heart was thumping with fear of her.
‘Ah have the greatest admiration for the artist,’ she told him, forking cold meat into her mouth. ‘The greatest.’
He ate some potato salad politely and tried to smile.
‘Ah really do feel the artist should have our permission to live in total freedom. If a man of talent takes a mistress, well what of that? It is only natural, after all. In America we take a more liberal view of such things, Mr Cheifitz. Have some more of that Waldorf salad, it’s very good.’
He helped himself to the salad, and realized that she’d given him a thick slice of ham. But that was the least of his troubles at the moment.
Then, to his horror, she leaned across and patted him on the knee. ‘A young man like you, Mr Cheifitz,’ she said. ‘A young man of talent should have a patron, wouldn’t you say so? Or a patroness. A rich American, maybe, with a husband out of the country. Wha’d’you think?’
It was intolerable. He couldn’t bear any more. She was ogling him, leaning at him, holding his knee in fingers like claws, so that the flesh all over his body cringed as it contracted away from her. He put his plate on the side table and stood up so abruptly that her clutching fingers were dislodged and trailed down his trouser leg dragging the table napkin with them. He was white in the face and trembling. ‘No, Mrs Stellenbosch,’ he said. ‘No, no, no,’ blundering towards the door, stumbling over stools, bumping into chairs, but escaping. He could hear her voice behind him, ‘Mr Cheifitz, mah dear!’ but nothing mattered now except getting away from her. And getting away as quickly as possible. ‘Her end is bitter as wormwood. The strange woman. Jezebel.’
It wasn’t until he was on the tram and rocking past the People’s Palace that he realized he’d left his paints and brushes behind him. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now except getting away. Getting away and going safely home to Ellen, to his own dear, modest, beautiful Ellen who was everything Mrs Stellenbosch was not.
He ran through Mrs Undine’s open door and hurtled up the stairs, careless of the noise he was making. His heart was still beating fearfully as he opened his own front door and rushed the last few steps into his own front room. Ellen was sitting beside their modest fire, in her modest white blouse, with her thick dark hair loose down her back and her boots on the rag rug, patiently sewing, the little pieces of white cloth in her hands clearly illuminated by the gaslight above her. The relief he felt was so overpowering he had to sit down. He folded his long legs under him and knelt on the rug at her feet, dropping his head onto her lap, and clasping the rough wool of her skirt with both hands. ‘Ellen bubeleh, I do love yer.’
She put the sewing down at once and held his head between her hands as though he were a child in need of comfort. ‘What is it? What’s up? Tell your Ellen.’
The words poured out, unstoppable. He told of insinuations, ham, champagne, being given the eye, rouge, Jezebel, fire-heat, embarrassment, the awful moment when that awful woman grabbed his knee, all jumbled up with no sense or sequence, and she held his head and listened, watching his eyes. It wasn’t always possible to understand his words, but his emotions were as clear as daylight. ‘My poor Davey,’ she said when he finally stopped for breath. ‘It’s no fun bein’ pawed about. Don’ I know it! Then what ’appened?’
‘I ran. Straight out the house.’
‘’Ere, she said, noticing he’d returned empty-handed, ‘where’s yer paints an’ things?’
‘I left ’em behind,’ he admitted sheepishly.
She withdrew her hands and looked at him crossly. ‘You never! Whatcher want ter go an’ do a thing like that for? All the money you spent.’
‘I jest ran,’ he said, feeling a bit aggrieved that she didn’t understand. ‘You wouldn’t a’ wanted me to stay an’ run risks, would yer?’
‘Risks!’ she said, and her eyes were brightening as though she was going to laugh. Surely she couldn’t be going to laugh. ‘Oh Davey! You wasn’t in any risk. You on’y ’ad ter say “no”. After all, she couldn’t very well make you do nothink, now could she?’
‘I couldn’t a’ stayed!’ He was horrified that she should even suggest it. ‘She was making advances!’
‘If you’d been a shop gel you’d a’ been fightin’ off advances every day a’ yer life,’ she said, tartly. ‘How d’yer think we managed? That’s daft, runnin’ off an’ leavin’ all yer things. Well, you’ll jest ’ave ter go back tomorrow an’ get ’em.’
The idea filled him with such horror he let go of her skirt and sat back on his heels to get a good look at her. He could hardly believe his ears. He’d run home so fast, aching for her sympathy, and now she was mocking him. ‘I ain’t goin’ back,’ he said, and the truculent note of his childhood darkened his voice.
‘An’ did you get yer fee?’
He’d forgotten all about his fee. ‘No.’
‘You’ll go back fer that then, surely ter goodness.’
‘No,’ he insisted. ‘Don’t you understand? I can’t go there ever again. Not after this.’
‘That’s ten guineas you’re throwing away. How am I supposed to get this place decent? You want your mother ter come an’ see it, dontcher?’
What had his mother got to do with it? ‘We ain’t poor, Ellen,’ he said. ‘I earn a good wage. I don’t have to go grovelling to a woman like that fer money.’
‘If we ain’t poor,’ she said fiercely, ‘it’s because I work an’ all, don’t ferget. S’pose I couldn’t go on workin’. We’d be poor enough then. We’d need them ten guineas right enough then.’
‘But you are workin’,’ he said, baffled by the turn the conversation had suddenly taken.
‘Not fer long,’ she said, and now she was glaring at him, almost hatefully. ‘That’s the point. ‘Nother couple a’ months I shan’t be workin’ no more. What then?’
‘Why not, Ellen?’ he asked, still bewildered but feeling anxious too.
‘We got a baby on the way,’ she said flatly. ‘That’s why not. Now can you see why you got ter to go an’ get them things?’
It took a little while for the information to percolate through the dullness of misery this first unexpected row had pressed down upon him. But when it did he was filled with exploding happiness. ‘A baby! You clever, c
lever girl! You sure?’
Despite her annoyance, his delight was infectious. ‘Yes,’ she said laughing at him. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure.’ She’d missed three times now, and by the evening she felt so queasy there really wasn’t any doubt. ‘I was tryin’ ter find the right time to tell yer.’ An’ I done that with a vengeance, she thought ruefully. But it was too late now.
He threw his arms round her and cuddled her protectively. A child. It was the best piece of news a man could ever be given. ‘When?’ he asked.
‘Beginnin’ a’ June.’
‘You clever, clever girl.’
For the next half hour they spoke of nothing but the baby, rejoicing with kisses, and happy with hope. But then she asked a question that plummeted them both down into misery again.
‘So you’ll go back fer the fee?’ It was almost a rhetorical question now, she felt so sure the answer would be yes.
‘I can’t, bubeleh. I would if I could, but I can’t.’
All her joy ebbed away. He said he loved her, and he couldn’t even do that for her. ‘We’d better get ter bed,’ she said wearily, removing herself from his arms. ‘We shall never get up in the morning else.’ Perhaps she’d have more energy to argue in the morning.
For the first time in their married life they slept back to back and miserable. Neither of them felt inclined to cuddle, he because he still felt humiliated and unclean, she because she was hurt by what she saw as pig-headed selfishness. He could make an effort if he wanted to, she thought. It ain’t much to ask, specially when you compare it to carryin’ a baby fer nine months. We shall be ever so short a’ money if ’e goes on like this. I’ll go back to that woman tomorrer an’ get ’is things. She don’t scare me. I’ll give her such a piece a’ my mind. ’E won’t get no more commissions anyway. Not after carryin’ on like that. Well, there’s on’y one thing for it. I shall ’ave ter go on workin’ for as long as I can, that’s all.
But that was easier thought than done. She went to Tredegar Square the very next afternoon and was told to wait, by a very snooty butler, who presently returned with a brown paper parcel that contained all his things. But there was no fee, and despite all her pleading he wouldn’t go and ask for it. It took them more than two weeks before they could recover their balance with one another and begin to forget what had happened. And in the meantime her pregnancy had become just a little more obvious.
Hiding her marriage from the staff of Hopkins and Peggs had been easy enough. She’d simply gone on answering to ‘Miss White’, and taken off her wedding ring before she left the house in the morning. She’d worn it, of course, but on a ribbon round her neck, hidden away under her blouse. It had upset David the first time he saw what she was doing.
‘So now you’re ashamed of me, nu?’ he’d said, face darkening. ‘You want to hide we’re married?’
‘Davey, Davey,’ she cried, running into his arms to bombard him with kisses. ‘You ain’t never ter think that. Never. Never. Never.’
‘So you hide your ring,’ he said, holding his body stiffly, unyielding.
‘It’s fer work,’ she said. ‘If I tell them I’m married, they’ll give me the sack. Jest fer bein’ married. That ain’t fair.’
He had to agree it wasn’t, and after that it was relatively easy to persuade him. ‘It ain’t deceit,’ she said. ‘I just don’t tell ’em, that’s all. You don’t want us to be poor, do yer? Not when we’re goin’ on so well and gettin’ everything so lovely.’ And she kissed him again, so lovingly that he put his doubts aside and kissed her back.
But hiding a pregnancy was another matter. She could obscure the increasing size of her breasts simply by pouching the bodice of her blouse. It was high fashion to wear a blouse in this way and as half the other girls quickly copied her example, there was nothing remarkable about her appearance. At the start. Besides, Christmas kept them all too busy for gossip, and after Christmas there were the New Year sales.
But soon it was February and trade was slack, and the difficulties of disguise increased with her girth. As her waist grew thicker and her belly swelled, she tried every trick she knew. She let out all the seams of her skirt as far as they would go, she gave up wearing a belt, and finally, when it was no longer possible to fasten the waistband, she made herself a second looser band and wore it over the top, hoping that no one would notice that the two materials didn’t match. It was a vain hope, for gossip was already doing its work.
Jimmy Thatcher started it by remarking to his boss one afternoon that Miss Icy White was looking mighty plump these days. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if she wasn’t in the pudden club.’
‘Nah!’ his boss said. ‘Not our Miss White.’
‘Be a fine thing if the customers was ter find out,’ Mr Thatcher insinuated. ‘Dontcher think you oughter say sommink?’
Three days later Ellen was summoned upstairs to ‘see Miss Elphinstone’.
‘It has been brought to my attention, Miss White,’ that formidable lady said, looking through her pince-nez at the top of Ellen’s skirt, that you are in “a condition”. Is this so?’ The girl’s original application form lay on the table between them, with its damning query ‘Illegitimate?’ She looked at the skirt again. Oh yes, history was repeating itself. What a shame. ‘Well?’
Panic fluttered in Ellen’s chest. ‘It ain’t what you think, ma’am.’
‘You are not in “a condition”?’
She couldn’t avoid the truth. ‘Well, yes. But I’m a married woman, Miss Elphinstone. See!’ And she hooked her wedding ring out of her blouse and removed it from its ribbon and put it on her finger.
‘Dear me,’ Miss Elphinstone said, ‘and how long has this been going on, pray?’
‘Since August, ma’am.’
‘Ah!’ Miss Elphinstone said, consulting the file again. So that was why she would live out. ‘I see. Well, my dear, you realize you can’t go on working in this store.’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘You should have left us in August by rights, of course, but I shan’t say anything about that, considering what excellent service you’ve given us until now. We will give you a week’s pay in lieu of notice. Leave by the back stairs if you please. It wouldn’t do to have you walking through the shop.’
And that was that. It was so sudden and implacable, she was in the street and walking home before she’d taken it in. Then the tears welled into her eyes in an equally sudden rush, obscuring her vision like a waterfall. She was crying so much she didn’t even see Aunty Dumpling waddling towards her. But Dumpling saw her and bundled her into a cushiony embrace, vociferously sympathetic. ‘Vhy you veepin’, dolly? Vhat they done to my liddle chicken? You ain’t sick, bubeleh? It ain’t the baby, nu?’ her fat face creased with concern.
‘They give me the sack,’ Ellen sobbed.
‘Vhat a lot a’ shysters!’ Dumpling said indignantly. ‘They vant their heads examine. You come home vid your old Aunty Dumpling, dolly. Ve don’t take no notice a’ them.’
And home they went, to lemon tea and muffins, and an extraordinary sense that she had suddenly become one of the family.
‘Ve don’t take no notice of that Miss Elphinstone,’ Dumpling said, nodding so hard all three of her chins were wobbling. ‘Ve feed you up good, nu? Look after the liddle one. You got a cradle, nu?’
‘I do like your Aunty Dumpling,’ she said to David when he got home that night. ‘She made such a fuss a’ me.’
‘Well ‘course,’ he said. ‘You’re one a’ the family.’
And so it seemed to be. That Friday Dumpling invited them both to the Shabbas meal, which was the first Ellen had ever attended, and which she found curiously moving, although she didn’t like the food much. And on Sunday Emmanuel arrived with a little wooden crib, and the bedding to go with it.
Within a week she’d almost forgotten Hopkins and Peggs. Within a month it was as if she’d never done anything else except stay at home and keep house. Somehow or other they seemed to be managing on his wage. T
hey went to Aunty Dumpling’s nearly every Friday and now and then they walked down to the Rothschild Building and paid a call on Emmanuel, who welcomed them lovingly, and Rachel, who was distant but at least asked them in.
‘It’s a great step forward,’ David said, as they walked home arm in arm. ‘She wasn’t going to see me ever again. I think you’ve done wonders, you an’ the baby.’ Ellen didn’t feel she’d done anything at all, but pregnancy was making her too lethargic to want to argue with anyone, and especially not with David. The baby was making itself felt now, kicking and squirming and very much alive, and that was absorbing and miraculous and far more important than petty family squabbles. As Aunty Dumpling said, ‘Vhat joy they bring, these liddle ones!’
Unfortunately, this little one brought a problem.
One afternoon in May, David came home rather later than she expected and announced that he and his father had ‘been to see the mohel to arrange the brit for the baby’. They both knew the child could only be Jewish if Ellen were to convert but that could happen. In time.
It was a hot afternoon and there was very little air up in their attic rooms. She had let the top half of the kitchen window right down in a vain attempt to disperse the heat from the stove. But all that had done was to suck in the sour fumes from the breweries.
‘Well I ’ope it’s cool whatever it is,’ she said, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
He laughed at her lack of knowledge. ‘You are lovely!’ he said, kissing the top of her head as he passed her on his way to the bowl of water she’d set ready for him. He hung up his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and plunged his arms into the water. ‘Oy! That’s better. You’re a good wife, bubeleh.’
‘So what’s this brit when it’s at home?’ she asked, pleased by his praise.
‘It’s for our son, when he’s eight days old,’ he said, throwing water onto his face with both hands. ‘Circumcision, you’d call it.’ And he groped behind him for the towel.
Usually she would be standing behind him at this point with the towel ready and outstretched. Now she was so surprised and shocked she forgot to offer it. ‘Cuttin’ him about, do yer mean?’ she said.
A Time to Love Page 34
