elsie's bedroom was a servant's bedroom, and always had been, though not used as such for many years. its furniture comprised one narrow iron bedstead, one small yellow washstand, one small yellow chest of drawers with a small mirror, one windsor chair, and nothing else in the way of furniture—unless three hooks behind the door could be called furniture. no carpet. no apparatus of illumination except a candle. the flowery wallpaper was slowly divorcing itself from the walls in several places. the sash-cord of the window having been broken many years ago and never repaired, the window could only be made to stay open by means of a trick. it had, in fact, been closed for many years. when, early, she had finished her work, elsie retired with an inch and a half of candle to this bedroom and shut the door, and could scarcely believe her good luck. happy she was not, for she had a great grief, the intensity of which few people suspected and still fewer attempted to realize and none troubled about; but she was very grateful to the fate which had provided the bedroom. the room was extremely cold, but elsie had never known of, or even conceived, a warm bedroom in winter. it was bare, but not to elsie's sight, which saw in it the main comforts of nocturnal existence. it was small, but not according to elsie's scale of dimensions. it was ugly, but elsie simply could not see ugliness. (nor could she see beauty, save in a child's face, a rich stuff, a bright colour, a pink sunset and things of that kind.)
she looked round and saw a bed in which you slept. she saw a chest of drawers—which would hold three or[pg 87] four times as much as her trunk, which trunk held all she possessed except an umbrella. she saw a washstand, which if it was duly fitted out with water, soap and towel might one day be useful in an emergency. she saw a chair, which was strong. she saw hooks, which were useful. she saw a window, which was to look through. she knew that many books were piled against the wall between the window and the door, but she didn't see them. they were merely there, and one day would go downstairs. she thought of them as mysterious and valuable articles. although she herself had the magic gift to decipher their rather arbitrary signs and so induce perplexing ideas in her own head, she would not have dreamed of doing so.
but do not suppose that the bedroom had no grand, exciting quality for elsie. it had one. it was solely hers. it was the first bedroom she had ever in all her life had entirely to herself. more, in her personal experience, it was the first room that was used as a bedroom and nothing else. elsie had never slept alone in a room, and she had very rarely slept in a bed alone. she had had no privacy. she now gazed on every side, and what she saw and felt was privacy; a luxurious sensation, exquisite and hardly credible. she abandoned herself to it as mrs. arb had abandoned herself to the kiss of henry earlforward. it was a balm to her grief. it was a retreat in which undisturbed she could enjoy her grief.
unpacking her trunk, she moved about, walked, stooped, knelt, rose, opened drawers, shut drawers, with the magnificent movements of a richly developed and powerful body. the expression on her mild face and in her dark-blue eyes, denoted a sweet, unconscious resignation. no egotism in those features! no instinct to fight for her rights and to get all she could out of the universe! no apprehension of injustice! no resentment against injustice! no glimmer of realization that she was the salt of the earth. she thought she was in a nice, comfortable, quiet house, and appointed[pg 88] to live with kindly people of superior excellence. she was still touched by mrs. arb's insistence on helping her upstairs with her box.
she looked at her post office savings bank book. an enormous sum ready to her hand in the post office! enough to keep her for a month if anything should "happen" to her. she looked at her late husband's two silver medals and their ribbons. they were what she called beautiful. she laid them at the back of one of the small top-drawers. her feeling in regard to her late husband was now purely pious. he had lost reality for her. she took a letter out of a dirty envelope and read, bending to the candle: "darling elsie, i feel as how i must go right away until i am better. i feel it is not easy for you to forgive me. all you say is quite true. and it is best for you not to know where i am. i know i shall get better, and then i shall write to you and ask you——" she cried.... "joe." this man was real to her, far more real than her husband had ever been. she could feel him standing by her. she could feel his nervous arm on her waist, and she was as familiar with the shape and pressure of his arm as a blind man with his accustomed chair. she had an ardent longing to martyrize herself to joe, to relax her dominion over him so that he might exult in ill-treating her in his affliction. but she knew that her dominion over him could alone be his salvation, and she had firmly exercised it. and she thought:
"how awkward it must have been for poor dr. raste. he's got another now, but not so good—no, and never will have!"
the letter was two months old and more. she had read it at least fifty times. it was the dearest, bitterest, most miraculous phenomenon in the world. it was not a letter at all. it was a talisman, a fetish.
there came a rap on the door, shattering the immaterial fabric of her private existence and changing elsie back into the ex-charwoman promoted to "general." she shuddered under the shock.[pg 89]
"elsie, are you going to burn that candle all night?" mr. earlforward's bland, gentle, authoritative voice! he must have seen light shining under the door, and crept upstairs in his slippers.
"no, sir. i'm just going to blow it out." she was conscience-stricken.
"did you finish off all that loaf?"
"yes, sir. i'm sorry, sir." she was still more conscience-stricken.
"tut-tut.... tut-tut."
elsie put the letter under her pillow. she was undressed in a minute. she had no toilet to perform. she no more thought of washing than a saxon queen would have thought of washing. she did not examine the bed to see if it was comfortable. she had never failed to sleep. any bed was a bed. as she slipped in between the blankets her brow puckered with one anxiety. could she wake at six in that silent house? she must! she must! she extinguished the candle. and as she smelt its dying fumes in the darkness and explored with her sturdy limbs the roominess of the bed, a sudden surprising sensation impaired her joy in exclusive privacy. she missed the warm, soft body of the furniture-polisher's child, with whom she had slept so long. some people are never satisfied.
