Ella keeps house

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR

JIMMY’S WIFE

THE FOOLISHNESS OF LILIAN

SUNSHINE IN

UNDERWOOD

THE RAMSHACKLE ADVENTURE

BY

JESSIE CHAMPION

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXXI x\

Printed at The Devonshire Press, Torquay, England rm

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A

Chapter I

T HOROUGH-BRED!” exclaimed Jim Parsons, who was fond of horses, as he watched Ella Danesford thread her way amongst the lathes with the careless ease of one long accustomed to machinery.

Good as any man,” added George Ramsey, nodding his head several times to give emphasis to the astounding compliment.

A damn sight better’n any man I ever knowed,” affirmed Spud Clarke, scowling fiercely at his companions.

‘‘ Come now. Spud,” pleaded young Billy Fearn, ‘‘ that’s laying it on a bit thick.”

Is it, by ” Spud began, with a rasp in his

voice like one of his own files. Then he remembered.

You’ve been through the war,” he continued in a gentler tone, addressing Billy, from start to finish, or as near as no matter. You’ve seen some queer things over there. But we’ve worked in this dashed factory beside that girl all the time, and we know the stuff she’s made on. You ’ad the excitement of the fightin’ to keep you up, Billy, I and you always was fond of a fight ; but that there gel kept us up. There ain’t no ’arm now in sayin’ we needed it too.”

‘‘ Not a bit, Spud,” Billy agreed.

More’n that,” Spud continued as Ella, after a last glance round the workshop, disappeared through the door, ‘‘ when my missus and three of the kids were down with the flu last November, an’ not a soul would come near ’em for fear of catchin’ it, she was the one as came in and pulled them through. Sat up nights in my ’ouse, she did, when everybody else was peace-rejoicin’, and never missed a quarter ’ere.”

Good for ’er ! ” said Billy with genuine enthusiasm.

“ And that ain’t all,” Spud resumed after a momentary pause. ‘‘ Not by a long chalk. You’d ’ardly believe it, but she made my supper for me every night for a week and set it out on a white cloth with knives and forks and things like a

bl like a waiter. Did you ever know a man

as would do that ? ”

‘‘ Never,” replied Billy with a twinkle in his eye.

Nor me neither. That’s why I say she’s better’n any man I ever knowed. Tell you wot it is, that there gel knows as we ain’t ruddy machines. She knows we’re men with ’omes and wives and kiddies to be worried about the same as other folk.”

Well, boys,” said Tod Smith, putting on his coat, ‘‘ I guess this blamed old shop won’t be the same place to-morrer. She’s the last of the gels to go — and the best.”

“ If the boss could ha’ kept her ” somebody

began hesitatingly.

Never mind that,” another interrupted. The boss knows ’is own business best. It’s time we was off.”

Meanwhile Ella was hurrying homewards. A blustering March day had settled down, with low scurrying clouds, biting wind, and occasional showers of cold sleet, to a remorselessly dreary night. An occasional electric light in the main thoroughfare through which she proceeded, emphasized the pervading dreariness and made utterly hopeless the dark side-streets down which she sometimes peered as she passed. Ella had often said that the Spirit of the Place was both dull and dirty ; to-night she thought that even a dull and dirty Spirit, not bound by material chains, would surely have sufficient good sense to depart from the place altogether.

Thanks to sensible boots, a thick coat, and a hat that did not matter, Ella successfully defied the weather. Her youth, health and abundant good spirits battled bravely with the gloom. But it was a losing fight. As she turned into the cavernous darkness of River Street sudden tears filled her eyes. She hung her head, although it was physically impossible for anyone to see the shameful signs of surrender.

Using a latch-key, Ella noiselessly entered number 57. She hung up her coat and hat in the hall, involuntarily puffed out her hair where it had been flattened by her hat, and opened the kitchen door. Her mother started and looked up after Ella had closed the door behind her.

“ I didn’t hear you come in, dear,” Mrs Danesford said apologetically.

No wonder,” Ella replied, kissing her. The wind is making a fearful row.”

Yes. It’s wretched weather, and this house is so draughty that one can scarcely keep warm. Are you cold, too, dear ? You look rather queer.”

I’m fed up. That’s all.”

‘‘ Good gracious ! Where did you go ? And I have kippers for tea.”

“ I mean, to-night’s the limit.”

‘‘ The limit of what, darling ? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Of course you don’t. Your vocabulary is behind the times because for over five years you have lived in a back street in Darchester and never spoken to a soul except myself. It has been beastly rotten for you, dear old mumsie.”

‘‘ It might have been worse,” said Mrs Danesford philosophically but without any spirit. And I have spoken to Mrs Murphy and a few others.”

‘‘ To none of your own class anyhow,” Ella asserted.

My dear, there are no classes to-day,” Mrs Danesford corrected with a tired smile.

‘‘ Aren’t there ? ” Ella asked, raising her eyebrows. “ There are just as many as there used to be. No ! There is one class more — the wealthy

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profiteer. It is quite stupid of the men at the works to say that the Great War has done nothing except raise the prices of everything. It has created a new class for a people who delight in classes.”

“ Do you want any tea ? ” Mrs Danesford asked, obviously unwilling to tackle social conditions.

Of course I do. When I remarked that I was fed up, I meant that my mind was clogged with stodgy, indigestible thoughts. My stomach, thank goodness, is still active and empty.”

Although the window and the two doors, one leading into the hall the other into a little scullery, rattled abominably, and the curtains bulged frequently as the wind forced an entrance, the kitchen was by no means a cheerless apartment. The walls were distempered a light terra-cof ta colour, the floor was covered with well polished linoleum, a good fire blazed in a shining stove, and an incandescent gas burner threw searching light on a snowy table cloth and excellent china. The fish-knives, tea-spoons and tea-pot, were silver — the salvage of better days — and Ella appreciated thoroughly the few daffodils that not only gave a touch of colour to the tea-table, but suggested unutterable things to a soul hungry for beauty and rest.

Ella herself, as she gently pushed her mother back into her cane chair and put the singing kettle on the fire, was good to look at. She wore a navyblue dress of serviceable serge ; it was not in the latest fashion, but it was well cut and showed to advantage the graceful lines and soft curves of the girl’s maturing figure. Her hair was black and abundant, but it was also fine and fluffy and given to throw out fascinating tendrils in unexpected places. A poet could not truthfully have compared her mouth to a rosebud, but if he happened to be acquainted with a red flower of moderate size which gave one the impression of humour and good nature he might have captured a simile for what the youths in the factory, untroubled by poetical searching of mind, were content to style clinking.” Most people, however, found that Ella’s eyes banished from their minds all thought of similes for her other features. They were blue, occasionally the colour of a deep sea in summer, but frequently darkening almost to violet ; and they were fringed with long lashes, lighter by a mere trifle than her hair. Ella had a proportion of Irish blood in her veins, and the Irish legend of ‘‘ a bit of blue sky put in with smutty fingers ” held good.

As Ella, with characteristic rapidity, completed the preparation of the meal, she had the strange and startling experience of seeing her mother as a stranger might see her. Hitherto Ella had alw^ays seen her mother as she was in the old days before the break-up : a well-preserved, middle-aged woman, with fresh complexion, hair turning a becoming grey ; intensely interested in her social life, piously given to good works, and passionately devoted to her husband and daughter. Now she saw a prematurely aged woman, with hair almost white and entirely lifeless, shrunken features and figure, pale complexion, and listless arms and hands. There were no signs of interest or of devotion, but every sign of a dull acquiescence with unmerited evil fortune. The gesture with which she drew her woollen shawl over her shrunk bosom revealed to Ella’s unsealed eyes the weariness and despondency of a woman with no fight left in her.

Five years ago, in this same unlucky month of March, Ella’s father. Dr Danesford, a big happy man whose very presence had benefited his patients more than his drugs, had set out across the moors to assist a farm-labourer’s wife to bring another soul into the world. His task completed, he had set out cheerfully for home and warmth and rest. On the lonely road he had let the car out, glad that the mother had done her duty so nobly as to permit him to reach his home in time for supper and a pipe, or perhaps two, before Ella would scamper off to bed. A stray sheep in the middle of the road was the cause of the catastrophe. In the grey dawn, through thick-falling snow flakes, his bruised body was carried home.

Mrs Danesford and Ella remained for a few months in the old home. Then they had to leave. The doctor had worked a large practice, but his bills to the strugglers outside the panel had been absurdly small. Sometimes, indeed, instead of sending a bill to a poor parson or a harassed widow, he sent game or poultry which he pretended he had killed or reared himself. With the proceeds of the sale of the practice and the assurance on the doctor’s life — he had meant to increase this every year — Mrs Danesford had about a year. She and

Ella moved to Darchester and were straightway swamped in the multitude.

When the war broke out Ella^ then studying shorthand and typewriting with a view to a clerical career, wished to do something useful. She could not afford to take up nursing, but a munition factory offered her both money and the opportunity to help on the war. For a whole week she fought her mother, but the issue was never really in doubt. Ella’s chin was much more prominent than her mother’s. In a few weeks her wages mounted to four pounds a week and, although they sometimes exceeded, they never fell below that figure.

After tea, Ella lit the gas in the scullery, tucked up her sleeves, enveloped herself in a great white overall, and proceeded to wash up. She did not pretend that she liked washing up. She hated it. But she did it all the better for that. Things that we love and things that we hate are well done ; it is the thing to which we are indifferent that we scimp. Even when a final glance round revealed a dish or a plate that had been overlooked, Ella never put it aside for the next time. She merely muttered a gentle expletive and paid the wretched thing out by scrubbing it until not a speck of grease remained.

The sink’s a good place to think at,” Ella remarked when she had drawn her mother’s chair to the front of the fire where draughts were less strenuous and taken her own seat in the corner.

‘‘ It is, dear. But when I begin to think the water gets cold. And it’s perfectly horrid to wash up with lukewarm water.”

I work all the harder when I’m thinking,” said Ella. I expect I washed up in record time to-night.”

“ You were certainly not very long.”

I did a power of thinking.”

“ What was it all about ? ”

I’ll tell you in a minute. Just wait a second.”

Ella was obviously excited. She proved it, not only by mixing her units of time, but by rushing upstairs to her bedroom at break-neck speed. When she came down again — and her flight downstairs caused her mother to clutch her chest convulsively — she had a bank pass-book in her hand.

“ Mother I ” she exclaimed, after she had performed some arithmetical feat or other on the back of an old envelope. I have just over ;^8oo.”

“ Splendid ! ” cried her mother.

“ That includes, of course, Aunt Emily’s legacy.”

“ Of course. I never heard of a girl who made £Soo all by herself. If you invest it in War Bonds, as I think you ought to do because it would be quite safe, it would bring in — let me see, five times eight arc thirty-five — no, no — forty. It would bring in forty pounds a year. That added to my seventy would make — seven and four are — I always hate to do anything with a seven, it’s quite the nastiest figure of all — eleven, I think. That’s over two pounds a week. We should never starve at all events. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to know that. And if anything happened to me, you would have ”

Mother ! ’’ Ella interrupted savagely. “ You must not talk like that.’’

‘‘ Why not, my dear child ? I often feel that my course is nearly run and ”

“ You’re talking utter rot,” Ella again interrupted. She was very pale, because her mother was putting into words the very thought that had been hammering insistently at her own brain and had so hastened the process of washing-up.

Mrs Danesford smiled wanly and fell silent.

What I want to say is this,” said Ella hurriedly, ‘‘ I feel that I have the right to a jolly good holiday.”

“ You have, undoubtedly,” Mrs Danesford agreed.

And I mean to have one,” said Ella, looking very fierce about it.

‘‘ Would you care for Rhyl again ? ” Mrs Danesford asked rather fearfully.

‘‘ The best thing in Rhyl was Boots’s library. They had quite a decent collection of books. Good thing they had, because it rained nearly all the time we were there. Do you remember Miss Ryder in our boarding-house ? And her bag of shrimps for tea ? ‘ I really do not know what to do with these things. Some people have the knack, the same as some people can make light pastry. I never could. My pastry is always as heavy as lead. First of all you break the poor thing’s back, like that. Then you take his head and tail off. There ! That’s not so bad. Can you do it, Mr Evans ? I never could. Not that I often have shrimps for

II tea, but in Rhyl one must do something. That’s a horrid one. He’s all smushy. Still you get a good many for threepence.’ ”

Mrs Danesford laughed at Ella’s imitation.

“ I remember her perfectly,” she said, “ and her daily bag of shrimps. She talked a great deal, but then she saved other people the trouble. The sands are excellent.”

‘‘ For children,” Ella added. I believe I have grown out of my bucket and spade. Besides, when it was dry, the sands had a nasty trick of getting into the air instead of remaining in their proper place.”

“ Would you prefer Llandudno ? ”

I don’t want Wales at all.”

Buxton perhaps ? We once had a very pleasant fortnight ”

“ Too many bath-chairs. I should develop rheumatism on the spot and be wheeled about the gardens every day. Besides, I want the sea.”

Mrs Danesford, by a gesture, declared that she was at the end of her suggestions. She was too tired to think and too exhausted to be deeply interested.

Ella had braced herself to begin again when a knock at the front door caused a diversion. She expected that it was Mrs Murphy, the charwoman, to say that she could not come to-morrow because one of her many children had broken a leg or something. Mrs Murphy’s children had as great a genius for breaking bones as their mother had for breaking crockery.

Good gracious ! ” Ella exclaimed when she opened the door and found Jack Challenor, her late employer, on the step.

“ May I come in ? ” Jack asked a little nervously.

“ Why, certainly,” Ella replied. I hope you didn’t consider my exclamation extremely rude. I expected to find our Irish charwoman. You will have to come into the kitchen. It’s the only place where we have a fire.”

‘‘ Thank you,” Jack replied. I shall be ”

Oh, look here ! ” Ella interrupted hastily, lowering her voice. ‘‘ When we go inside I want you to back me up in anything I say.”

‘‘ But I don’t ” • Jack began.

“ Bother your buts,” Ella again interrupted, an unwonted excitement explaining, no doubt, her new method of addressing her old employer.

‘‘ Very well, I promise,” he said, and followed her into the room.

Mrs Dancsford received Jack politely and without referring to the kitchen. She knew that he had served in the Air Force and had been brought down over the German lines. She had heard of his daring escape from a prisoners’ camp and knew that he had been immensely popular with the men at the factory when his father died from overwork, and he had taken up the reins, without even a holiday, after demobilization. But she had not seen him previously. She liked him. He looked strong and clean. He had kind eyes, especially when he looked at Ella. And his slight limp was scarcely noticeable.

‘‘We were talking about a holiday,” Ella informed Jack as soon as formalities were completed.

“ An interesting subject,” Jack hazarded with rather a wry smile.

“ I want a nice long one,” Ella continued with a swift glance at her mother.

“ A short holiday is really very little good,” Jack responded, sending a message to Ella that he quite understood.

“ Nothing less than a year will satisfy me,” Ella announced in the tone one would imagine an ambassador to use in presenting an ultimatum.

“ A year, Ella I ” Mrs Danesford exclaimed, roused once again out of a reverie. “ You cannot mean ”

“ I do, mother,” Ella interrupted. “ I am going to have a full year and not a day less.”

Mrs Danesford sighed.

“ The young people of to-day are quite beyond me,” she said to Jack Challenor. “ Of course 1 don’t know very much about them except what 1 gather from the newspapers. But I did hope that Ella would not be spoilt when she went out to work in a munition factory. I am afraid it has not done her any good. A year’s holiday ! Who ever heard of such a thing ? ”

“ A year soon passes,” Jack replied lightly and confidently.

Ella glared at him. He had promised to back her up and probably thought that he was fulfilling his pledge. Obviously she didn’t think much of his effort.

H

£lla Keeps hoUsE

1 mean a year is not so very long,” he corrected, growing rather red under Ella’s flashing eyes. I could do with a year or so myself.”

And you are a man,” commented Mrs Danesford. “ Really I cannot understand it. My poor husband never had more than a fortnight and thought himself lucky to get even that. I have feared for some time that the world is growing more selfish. Still I never expected that Ella would demand — — ”

“ And I’m not going into rooms to be at the mercy of some scheming landlady or other,” Ella interrupted.

‘‘ I hate rooms and landladies,” Jack remarked, backing her up this time with a good conscience.

What are you going to do ? ” Mrs Danesford demanded, sitting up in her chair.

“ I am going to take a house,” Ella announced with the greatest determination. It will be a real dream-house, with a lounge hall and a tennis-court and a cedar tree ”

‘‘ All in the house ? ” Jack asked slyly.

‘‘ You may laugh at me,” Ella retorted, tears forcing their way into her eyes, ‘‘ but I am in deadly earnest. I am going to have a house like the one we used to have when father was with us. Mother will help me to entertain my friends. I know I have no friends here. How could I ? But I can make friends and I will. We will be happy — for a year.”

‘‘ I say,” Jack exclaimed, now very red in the face and extremely uncomfortable. I beg your pardon. I wasn’t laughing at you. I shouldn’t think of such a thing. I have the utmost sympathy with you. And you needn’t say you have no friends here. That’s rather unkind, you know, to ”

“ I have no friends,” Ella insisted. ‘‘ And neither has mother. We are poor and live in a back street. How could we have friends ? But I have done with it, and with everybody belonging

to it. To-morrow I shall ”

Hang it all 1 ” Jack exclaimed, twisting his chair round to face the angry girl. Hang it all ! ” Exactly,” Ella retorted, growing calmer as Challoner grew more confused. Hang it all 1 ”

‘‘ Whatever is the matter ? ” Mrs Danesford intervened. “ I do hope you two are not going to quarrel.”

Oh dear no,” Ella replied with a bewitching smile. We are quite good friends. And Mr Challoner agrees with me about the house and the holiday. Don’t you, Mr. Challoner ? ”

‘‘ Um — 'Certainly,” Jack replied. I think it’s an excellent idea.”

‘‘ But it will take every penny of your money,” Mrs Danesford exclaimed, addressing Ella.

‘‘ Very probably,” Ella replied as if that were a mere trifle.

“ But what will you do when the year is up and your money all spent ? ” the mother asked anxiously.

‘‘ I have not even ” Ella began.

But Jack interrupted her.

“ I can reassure you on that point,” he said i6 ELLA KEEPS HOUSE

turning with a smile to Mrs Danesford. I came up to-night to offer Miss Danesford a post as secretary in our business. The offer will remain open for a year.”

Ella flashed a look at Jack which said plainly :

Now you are indeed backing me up and I am grateful.” Mrs Danesford seemed satisfied and obviously believed that business houses were in the habit of keeping appointments open for years. When the conversation drifted into other channels the elderly lady again sank back in her chair and turned her mind away from the present.

You are anxious about your mother,” Jack said sympathetically in the hall while he was putting on his overcoat.

Horribly,” Ella replied with a tremor in her voice. ‘‘ I am quite sure that, if she stays here, she will die.”

But why this roundabout method of getting her away ? Why not tell her that her state of health necessitates a change of air and that kind ' of thing ? ”

Tell her ! ” exclaimed Ella, flashing a scornful glance at his face. ‘‘ How like a man ! She would simply refuse to go. She would much rather die here in this odious street than spend my money. I know Mother.”

‘‘ It’s rather silly of her,” Jack said.

Of course it’s silly of her,” Ella agreed, but with some scorn in her voice. Women are all silly. That’s why they are so much better than men.”

Some men are silly enough,” Jack said feelingly.

No, they’re not. That’s where they fail. They are silly, but not silly enough. They will sacrifice a little, but not everything. When a woman loves she will give all she possesses without a thought. A man sits down and counts the cost.”

Jack was apparently unable to make any reply.

‘‘ It w^as very good of you,” Ella went on, to invent a secretaryship for me. It will set mother’s mind at rest about my future and make it ever so much easier for me to get her away.”

I was quite serious about that,” Jack replied hastily. After you had gone to-night I discovered that I Couldn’t do without you. I mean — you know — the men all like you, and orders for the light car are simply tumbling in. It won’t be the same place without you, and I find I can’t keep my mind fixed — I mean there’s so much unrest about that — well, something will happen. I wish you weren’t going aw^ay.”

“ You are very kind,” Ella replied rather stiffly and with her brows knitted. “ But I must go. You see that yourself.”

I suppose you must,” he admitted grudgingly. ‘‘ But I hope,” he added as he fumbled for the latch, “ that you won’t go and fall in love with some damned — I beg your pardon— I mean I hope you will stick to business. Hang it all ! that’s not it either. I hope you won’t forget. Good night.”

Ella did not return immediately to the kitchen. She stood in the cold hall for quite three minutes with her head on one side and her eyes half closed. What did Jack Challoner really mean ?

Finally Ella gave up the riddle. She went to bed thoroughly satisfied with her project. She had sufficient confidence in herself to believe that she could reconstruct her mother’s life and bring back, with the old interests, the former health and happiness. And if, at the back of her mind, there lurked romantic possibilities for herself, when her mother should be well again, who could blame her ?

Jack Challoner, on the other hand, wandered about the dull cold streets till three o’clock in the morning. The cats that slunk along the deserted foot-paths took no notice of him, but a policeman, meeting his mate, remarked that, although he had heard a good many men curse women, he had never before heard a young feller damn a woman so completely and whole-heartedly as that there chap was doing.

Chapter II

W HEN Ella awoke, next morning, she wondered for a moment what delightful thing had happened to her. Remembrance came and with it a surge of warm blood to heart and face. She sat up and smiled at the wall over the foot of her bed. Usually she hated that wall. It was so offensively, so immodestly, close to her. And when she was run down in health or depressed in spirits the wall-paper appeared to be covered with innumerable ghoulish faces that mocked her until she was on the verge of screams. This morning the wall was modest, if not actually retiring. And there was not a jeering face on the whole of its forty-eight square feet.

She was going to take a house. And she was going to spend £Soo, Of course, in the idiom of the factory, the spending of such a large sum of money would take a lot of doing. But she was young and vigorous. She believed that she could accomplish the task And if, at the end of the year, she had a good deal of money left she decided, then and there, that she would gather together, in her own house, all the young men and maidens of her acquaintance and give them, as a sort of farewell festivity, such a dinner and dance as they had never known. It would not be exactly a freak dinner, like those she had read about in books and newspapers. She would not, for example, hire an actress to step out of a plum-pudding on the dining table. Nor would she present each guest with a rope of pearls or anything like that. But she would give them goodness knows how many expensive courses for dinner, and possibly champagne, if it could be obtained, to drink.

Then she thought of some of the poor girls whom she had known or heard about. Poor devils who drew fashion-plates for a living and borrowed money every month from their landladies. Poorer creatures still who wrote books that did not pay the benevolent publishers even for the paper they were printed on. Pitiable spinsters who taught tricky little imps and still more tricky flappers in secondary schools under the implacable eye of an ancient head-mistress who had long since forgotten her own youth. How she pitied them all. Not one of them had the luck to be possessed of a house and £Soo,

Having thus congratulated herself and commiserated others she jumped out of bed, dressed in two minutes, rushed downstairs, and cooked the breakfast.

Ella took her mother’s breakfast up to her bedroom. She lit a fire in the tiny grate and informed the protesting lady that she was going to enjoy a day in bed. Mrs. Murphy had arrived and, as the children were all sound in bone and cuticle, would probably remain all day. Ella did not venture to say that the charwoman had not considered it worth while to take off her bonnet ; the children had been so good ever since they awoke that something particularly dreadful was sure to happen before very long.