Riceyman Steps

On an autumn afternoon of 1919 a hatless man with a slight limp might have been observed ascending the gentle, broad acclivity of Riceyman Steps, which lead from King’s Cross Road up to Riceyman Square, in the great metropolitan industrial district of Clerkenwell. He was rather less than stout and rather more than slim. His thin hair had begun to turn from black to grey, but his complexion was still fairly good, and the rich, very red lips, under a small greyish moustache and over a short, pointed beard, were quite remarkable in their suggestion of vitality. The brown eyes seemed a little small; they peered at near objects. As to his age, an experienced and cautious observer of mankind, without previous knowledge of this man, would have said no more than that he must be past forty. The man himself was certainly entitled to say that he was in the prime of life. He wore a neat dark-grey suit, which must have been carefully folded at nights, a low, white, starched collar, and a “made” black tie that completely hid the shirtfront; the shirt-cuffs could not be seen. He was shod in old, black leather slippers, well polished. He gave an appearance of quiet, intelligent, refined and kindly prosperity; and in his little eyes shone the varying lights of emotional sensitiveness.

Riceyman Steps, twenty in number, are divided by a half-landing into two series of ten. The man stopped on the half-landing and swung round with a casual air of purposelessness which, however, concealed, imperfectly, a definite design.

The entrance-gates to the yard of Daphut, the builder and stonemason, which lay between Mrs. Arb’s shop and the steps proper, were set back a little from the general frontage of the north side of Riceyman Steps, so that there was a corner at that point sheltered from east and northeast winds. In this corner stood a young man under an old umbrella; his clothes were such as would have entitled him to the newspaper reporter’s description, “respectably dressed”⁠—no better. His back was against the blind wall of Mrs. Arb’s. It was raining again, with a squally wind, but the wind being in the northeast the young man was only getting spotted with rain. A young woman ran out of Mrs. Arb’s and joined him. She placed herself close to him, touching him, breast to breast; it was the natural and rational thing to do, and also she had to receive as much protection as possible from the umbrella. The girl was wearing all Elsie’s clothes. Elsie’s sack-apron covered her head and shoulders like a bridal veil. But she was not Mrs. Arb’s Elsie nor Mr. Earlforward’s! She was not the drudge. She had suddenly become a celestial visitant. The attributes of such an unearthly being were in her shining face and in the solace of her little bodily movements; and her extraordinary mean and ugly apparel could not impair them in the least. The man, slowly, hesitatingly, put one arm round her waist⁠—the other was occupied with the umbrella. She yielded her waist to him, and looked up at the man, and he looked down at her. Not a word.

“I’ll go.” Mrs. Arb decided the procedure quite cheerfully. She was cheerful because the living room, with other rooms, was done, and in a condition fit to be seen by possible purchasers of her premises and business; she had no intention to live in the living room herself. And also she was cheerful because of a wild and silly, and yet not wholly silly, idea that the rapping at the shop door came from Mr. Earlforward, who had made for himself some absurd manlike excuse for calling again that night. She had, even thus early, her notions about Mr. Earlforward. The undying girl in her ran downstairs with a candle and unlocked the shop door. As she opened it a man pushed forward roughly into the shop⁠—not Mr. Earlforward; a young man with a dangerous look in his burning eyes, and gestures indicating dark excitement.

“What do you want?” she demanded, trying to control the situation firmly and not succeeding.

The young man glanced at her. She perceived that he carried a torn umbrella and that his clothes were very wet. She heard the heavy rain outside.

“You can’t come in here at this time of night,” she added. “The shop’s closed.”

She gave a sign for him to depart. She actually began to force him out; mere temerity on her part. She thought:

“Why am I doing this? He might attack me.”

Instead of departing the young man dropped his umbrella and sprang for the big carving-knife which she had left on the counter after cutting the slice of ham for Elsie.

For potent municipal or administrative reasons the tramcar carrying Henry and his bride would not stop at Riceyman Steps, but it stopped fifty yards farther down the road. As Henry was whisked thunderingly past his home and the future nest of his love, he glimpsed in the Steps such a spectacle as put a strain on the credibility of his eyes. Only on the rarest occasions do men refuse to believe their eyes; they are much more likely to allow themselves to be deluded by their deceitful eyes. The vision was come and gone in a moment, and Henry, who had great confidence in his eyes, did, in fact, accept, though with difficulty, their report, which was to the effect that a considerable crowd had collected in front of his house, that the house was blazing with light, and that forms resembling engines, with serpentine hose rising therefrom, stood between the shop-door and the multitude of spectators.

“Did you see that?” he demanded, sharply but calmly.

“See what, dear?” said Violet, self-consciously.

“The house is on fire.”

“Oh, no! It can’t be on fire.”

A strange colloquy! It seemed unreal to him. And the strangest thing was that he did not honestly think the house was on fire. He did not know what to think. But he suspected his angel of some celestial scheming against him; and he considered that she was beginning rather early and that his first business must be to set her in the true, wifely path.