Old Wine and New

by Warwick Deeping

  He saw her opening a door, and the shape of her was silhouetted against the window between the hang of two lace curtains. Her short and shapely throat seemed to match the compass of her shoulders and bosom. Her very black hair was like a wreath. Her short nose, and firm full lips and chin had the reposefulness of curves cut out of marble. She was just woman, and yet somehow strangely mysterious.

  He was afraid of her, more in awe than he had been ever of any human being. She was so still, so right, just a woman in an apron, a working woman. There was something about her and the house, what it was he could not say, that was both soothing and fearful.

  She stood aside. She was expecting him to view the room, and he stepped inside and looked about him with bright, shy eyes. She observed him. She smiled very faintly to herself, or at her understanding of this creature.

  He said, “It’s a very nice room. Rather small.”

  The old brown carpet had a tinge of gold. The wall paper was stippled over with faded pink roses. He noticed that the ewer was cracked and had been riveted. As for the furniture it appeared to have been bought piece by piece, an ugly mahogany wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a washhand-stand painted white, a bent cane chair, a yellow towel-horse, a mirror with a piece of the wood veneer missing from the frame. An American clock and two pink vases stood on the mantelpiece. The iron bedstead had a white quilt. There were no pictures.

  “How much do you charge a week?”

  “Seven and sixpence.”

  “Just for the room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are there any other lodgers?”

  “No.”

  He stood hesitant. It had struck him that her voice was not the voice of a London woman. It was not a common voice. He walked across to the window and looked out, and she observed the thinness of his neck and the stoop of his shoulders.

  “What about meals?”

  “I could give you breakfast and supper. That would be extra, of course.”

  “Of course. No others?”

  She was silent for a moment or two, as though the still mirror of her was gathering impressions.

  “Don’t you go to work?”

  She saw his lips move, but no sound came. She explained.

  “You see, I go out to work myself from half-past eight till four.”

  He turned to face her, but his eyes looked at her obliquely, and with a kind of questioning shyness. So, she went out to work. Did that mean—? Then he would have the house to himself for hours; he would be able to write. And again he felt the little house to be permeated by her, woman, a calm, mysterious presence, something that was strange to him. He was very much afraid of her, but this fear of his had a spell.

  He said, “Just at present I do most of my work at home. I write for the papers.”

  Her eyes remained dark and still.

  “I see.”

  “Could you give me a day or two to decide?”

  She looked past him through the window.

  “No. Someone else may call.”

  “Of course, naturally—”

  His decision was sudden, and yet it was not he who made the decision, but something other than himself. It was as though he felt willed and was made to utter certain words, while his conscious self listened to them and was vaguely surprised.

  “I’ll take the room. I shall be able to move in in a day or two. I had better leave you something.”

  He felt for his wallet, brought it out, and extracted a pound note. She watched his long and rather ineffectual fingers.

  “A deposit. My name is Scarsdale.”

  She took the note.

  “Thank you. Shall I give you a receipt?”

  “I don’t think it is necessary.”

  She turned and redescended the stairs, and Scarsdale followed her, still wondering at himself, and puzzled by a feeling of inevitableness. He saw her pause in the passage and open a door.

  “You could take your meals in here.”

  She showed him a sitting-room furnished with one of those cheap, stereotyped suites, sideboard, sofa, six chairs, armchair, table, very red as to the wood and plushy as to the fabric.

  “That would be extra, of course?”

  “Not unless you had a fire. I shall have to charge you something for service and cooking.”

  “Naturally.”

  He looked a little frightened, and she reassured him.

  “Perhaps five shillings a week. Would that—?”

  “O, quite all right. Very reasonable.”

  She reclosed the door, and moving along the passage, opened the front door. She gave him a sense of calm, of somehow being completely and vividly herself. He met her eyes for a moment.

  “So, that’s settled. I’ll let you know the exact day.”

  “Yes, I shall have to get food in.”

  He descended the steps, and then turning suddenly smiled up at her with an air of deprecating and whimsical self-consciousness.

  “O, by the way,—I don’t know your name.”

  “Richmond, Mrs. Richmond.”

  “Thank you.”

  He raised his hat to her, and walked to the gate as though he knew that her dark, still eyes were watching him.

  4

  She returned to the room at the back of the house, which was both sitting-room and kitchen. The deal table, with half its surface covered by a red cloth, had been drawn up close to the grate. A sewing-machine with a length of white flannel attached to it stood on the red-clothed half of the table. The window showed the dirty grey backs of other houses. On the grate a kettle talked to itself, and a very large tabby cat mused on the hearthrug.

  She leaned against the table and looked at the fire. A tram went by in the Canonbury Road, clanging its bell, and a tremor seemed to pass through the house. She smiled. Her dark eyes stared.

  So, she had let the room. She had not been very eager to have another person in the house, especially a man and a man who did not go to work. She was one of those women who, like the cat on the hearthrug, was very good friends with herself. Life had taught her to be separative and to be silent, and to prefer silence to all the back-door philosophers. She went to her work and returned from it, and like her eyes, her thoughts and emotions had a stillness.

  But this Mr. Scarsdale would not give her any trouble. She was intuitive. It would have surprised Scarsdale very considerably had he known how clearly she had seen him. To her he was no mere flat surface but a figure in high relief. She saw people like that. She saw into them and round them.

  “Poor man.”

  She had noticed his hesitant hands, and his anxious and rather prominent brown eyes, and the grizzle of his hair, and the length and the loneness of him. Hard up, probably. A gentle and ineffectual creature, and desperately afraid of hurting people’s feelings. She was conscious of a little tinge of pity.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Scarsdale broke the news to Miss Gall. He called her back as she was leaving the room after placing the tea-tray on the table.

  “Just a moment.”

  He sat down at the table. He wished to appear casual. He lifted the tea-cosy from the teapot; Miss Gall still insisted upon tea-cosies.

  “Sorry to say—I shall have to leave here in a few days. Very sorry to have to go. After all these years. You have always looked after me so—so kindly. But it is a question of business, new responsibilities. Quite essential that I should be close to the office.”

  She stood by the door, rather like a piece of thin, black thread, pendant. Her hands fidgeted, and then came to rest clasped over the lower part of her figure. There was something in her silence and in her rigidity that made Scarsdale hurry on.

  He slopped milk into his tea.

  “Sorry I could not give you longer notice, but then I understand that—the gentleman below—Mr. Bartlet—”

  He glanced at her nervously. Her face looked funny. It surprised and distressed him, and he reached for the sugar-bowl.

  “As I was saying—Mr. Bar
tlet hinted to me that he would like both floors. No business of mine—of course, but I don’t want you to suffer financially. I have always been most comfortable here. Home—But then—business is business.”

  He glanced at her again. Good lord,—she was—! Hurriedly he began to eat bread and butter.

  “It’s a great blow to me, sir.”

  “O, come, I know; I’m afraid I’ve always given you a lot of trouble. I’m sure—”

  Her lips moved; her eyelids flickered. She seemed to be about to say something, but either the words would not come, or she felt that she had to consider the appearances. His appearances. For she was quite sure that he was in trouble, a ship in distress, and that he was leaving her because he was in difficulties. He was short of money, and she wanted to tell him that she would not mind waiting for her money, and that Mr. Bartlet with all his ready cash was nothing but an interloper.

  But she could not tell him. The very way he stirred his tea made her feel that he was making the best of a bitter business. He was always so considerate, so correct. Her throat quivered; her hands clasped each other.

  “I can’t say how sorry I am, sir. Yes, it will be quite all right about the let Mr. Bartlet—”

  And then she let out a little, unpardonable gulp. She saw Scarsdale’s eyes—O, how disgraceful of her! She turned sharply to the door, and seemed to slip round the edge of it.

  “If ever—you think of—wanting the room—again—I’m sure—I shall be—”

  Miss Gall closed the door on the broken surface of her self-control, and Scarsdale heard her go down the stairs. He raised his teacup and drank. His eyes stared down over the rim of the cup. He looked shocked. He felt hot.

  “Beastly to have to tell lies, but I didn’t want her to think—What a good soul!”

  Later in the evening he went downstairs and knocked at Mr. Bartlet’s door, and the fat and jocund voice bade him enter. Mr. Bartlet was very much at ease. He had his feet on a chair in front of the fire, and a small table at his elbow, and he was reading a novel, a mystery tale.

  “Come in, sir, come in.”

  He took his feet off the chair, and Scarsdale noticed the colour of Bartlet’s socks.

  “Please don’t disturb yourself. But I promised to let you know about my rooms.”

  “Sit down, sir. Have a drink.”

  “Really, no thanks. I mustn’t stay. Letters to write. I shall be giving up my rooms, on Saturday. I thought you—”

  Mr. Bartlet’s pipe kept up a bubbling. He was a smoker of big and curly pipes, calabash or briar, and he did not trouble to clean them. He had a strong stomach. His face glistened after his supper and a stiff whiskey; he liked a room well heated.

  “Very much obliged. Do sit, sir. No? Have a cigar?”

  “No, thank you very much. The fact is, I have had to arrange this move rather suddenly on account of professional responsibilities. I don’t want Miss Gall to suffer.”

  “My dear sir,—no need to worry. I’ll take over from you.”

  “Both floors?”

  “Most certainly. This place is going to suit me very well.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Once again Mr. Bartlet pressed a drink and a chair upon him, but Scarsdale was finding Bartlet’s room very hot, and the reek of his pipe unpleasant. The succulence and the success of Bartlet oppressed him, and there were those twinkling black and white silk socks, and red-leather slippers. He faded out of the room, and Mr. Bartlet replaced his feet on the chair.

  “Funny,—awkward fellah. All tied up with string.”

  Scarsdale spent the Thursday in packing, and not till he set about the business did he realize how much he had to pack. A trouser-press was an awkward and unaccommodating article, and books could not be compressed; he had to appeal to Miss Gall, and from somewhere she produced a Tate’s sugar-box. It accepted his books, but refused the trouser-press, so the trouser-press had to be attached to the top of the case with lengths of stout string. All through that Thursday Miss Gall hovered. She came and went upon the stairs. She was as troubled and uneasy as a cat that hears the rustle of tissue paper and knows that some upheaval is in the air, and that rooms will be fireless and empty. She would appear in the doorway of Scarsdale’s bedroom, looking as though she had some message to deliver, and had forgotten how to use her tongue.

  “Is there anything I can do, sir?”

  “No, nothing, thank you.”

  “I have pressed your trousers for you.”

  After his tea he went out and walked to Astey’s Row, for Mrs. Richmond would expect to be warned of his arrival on Saturday. It was raining, and a strong south-westerly wind snored in the branches of the big plane-tree. Lights flickered, and their reflections trembled in the puddles and on the wet flagstones. Astey’s Row was less than a quarter of a mile from Canonbury Square, and their nearness to each other troubled Scarsdale. So many unnecessary things troubled him; his sensitive consciousness was like a pool on which feathers blew about. He did not want Miss Gall to know that he had moved himself no farther than Astey’s Row.

  He found himself at Mrs. Richmond’s gate, and as he opened it and looked at the dark windows of the little house he became a creature of indecision. His mood vacillated like wind-shaken bushes in Mrs. Richmond’s front garden. Almost he was like a privet-bush in a panic.

  He stood, hesitant, with one hand on the gate. There were no lights in the windows. He walked up the path to the steps, paused, looked about him. He was afraid. But of what was he afraid? Of this little dark house, and of the newness of this adventure, and of woman, and of the wind, and of the unknown future? And at his age! But something in him shivered. He began to tell himself that Mrs. Richmond was out, and that he could come down to-morrow. He would come down, early in the morning. He returned to the gate, and was closing it when he heard a voice. It startled him.

  “I’m sorry. Have you been ringing?”

  She was part of the wind and the darkness and the flickering lights. She carried a bag. He saw her dim white face, and the hollows that were eyes. And to him, in all the blurred, windy, wet unrest of that London night, she appeared strangely still and set, a figure that was unshaken.

  “O,—I just came to let you know. I shall be here on Saturday.”

  She could see little points of light in his prominent eyes, and the curve of his sharp and anxious chin. Her previous impression of him was renewed. He was so easily blown about. Somehow he reminded her of a piece of paper caught by the wind and pressed against the railings.

  She said, “Saturday. Very good. About what time?”

  “What time will suit you?”

  “Any time in the afternoon.”

  He stood aside to allow her to enter the gate.

  “Thank you. About three o’clock, then. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  2

  Scarsdale’s taxi was at the door. The driver had helped him with the luggage, and from his expression it might be gathered that he was not impressed by Scarsdale’s luggage. Out of the corner of a bibulous eye he watched Scarsdale shaking hands with Miss Gall. His drooping moustache was wet beneath his cynical blue snout, and he wiped them both with the back of a dirty glove.

  Miss Gall closed the door of No. 24A. She did it abruptly as though repressing subconscious emotion, but she hurried into Mr. Bartlet’s room, and watched through the window. She saw Scarsdale get into the taxi and close the door.

  But the machine did not move off. The driver leant out and opened the off door, and from under the contemptuous brush of that moustache asked Scarsdale a question.

  “Goin’ somewhere, are you?”

  Scarsdale’s long body swayed forward.

  “O, yes, King’s Cross station.”

  The driver closed the door, and Miss Gall, half-hidden behind a curtain, and dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, understood that Scarsdale had forgotten to give the driver an address. How like him! She wiped the eyes of her compassion.

  Such was
Scarsdale’s subterfuge. It cost him sundry shillings, but Miss Gall and Astey’s Row had to be dissociated. He was driven to King’s Cross station, and his luggage was deposited in the cloakroom. He disappeared for a couple of hours; he walked up the Pentonville Road, and through Claremont and Middlesex Squares, and back through an intricacy of sodden, and obscure streets. He ate a boiled egg and a roll and butter, and drank a cup of coffee in a tea-shop, and returned to the station and extracted his luggage, and had it loaded on to another taxi. It carried him back up the Pentonville Road into Upper Street, and past Islington Green into the Essex Road. The trees of Islington Green trailed black tentacles against a smirched sky. For the first time in his life he noticed the statue of a gentleman, wearing a ruff and Tudor small clothes, posed on a pedestal with his back to the Green. It occurred to him to wonder why he had not observed this gentleman before. And there was Collins’ Music Hall! Memories! Lottie Collins and “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay.” How old and how new everything was. And how strange!

  The taxi drew up at the Canonbury end of Astey’s Row, and again Scarsdale’s luggage became a problem. He appealed to the driver.

  “Will you give me a hand?”

  “ ’Ow fur?”

  “Only just down the Row.”

  Between them they manhandled the two trunks and the sugar-box and a suitcase and an old Gladstone bag, and dumped them at the bottom of Mrs. Richmond’s steps. That was the taxi-driver’s limit; he was old and fat and short-winded.

  “I don’t carry upstairs, gov’nor; m’heart’s not what it was.”

  Scarsdale paid him and he departed. Meanwhile Mrs. Richmond’s door remained closed, and Scarsdale became worried about his baggage. There was such a damned lot of it, and possibly Mrs. Richmond would not be pleased when she came to appreciate the bulk and the finality of his arrival. And where would he stow it all in that upper room? Already a group of children had gathered. They were watching him. Extraordinary thing how rude children arrived just when you were feeling embarrassed.