14
“Tea up?”
“Don’t know” said Miriam irritably, passing the open door. He could see she had only just come down and could not possibly know. The soft jingling of the cups shaken together on a tray by labouring footsteps came from the basement stairs. Mr. Leyton’s hurried clattering increased. Miriam waited impatiently by her table. The maid padded heavily through swinging the door of the den wide with her elbow. When she had retired, Miriam sauntered warm and happy almost before she was inside the door into the den. With her eyes on the tea-tray she felt the afternoon expand.... “There’s a Burma girl a settin’ and I know she thinks of me.” ... “Come you back you British soldier, come you back to Mandalay.” Godfrey’s tune was much the best; stiff, like the words, the other was only sing-song. Pushing off the distraction she sat down near the gently roaring blaze of the gas fire in a low little chair, upholstered in cretonne almost patternless with age. The glow of the fire went through and through her. If she had tea at once, everything would be richer and richer, but things would move on, and if they came back she would have finished and would have to go. The face of the railway clock fixed against the frontage of the gallery at the far end of the room said four-fifteen. They had evidently ordered tea to be a quarter of an hour late and might be in any minute ... this curious feeling that the room belonged to her more than to the people who owned it, so that they were always intruders.... Leaving with difficulty the little feast untouched ... a Dundee cake from Buszards ... she browsed rapidly, her eyes roaming from thing to thing ... the shields and assegais grouped upon the raised dull gold papering of the high opposite wall, the bright beautiful coloured bead skirts spread out amongst curious carved tusks and weapons, the large cool placid gold Buddha reclining below them with his chin on his hand and his elbow on a red velvet cushion, on the Japanese cabinet; the Japanese cupboard fixed above Mrs. Orly’s writing table, the fine firm carved ivory on its panels; the tall vase of Cape gooseberries flaring on the top of the cottage piano under the shadow of the gallery; the gallery with its upper mystery, the happy clock fastened against its lower edge, always at something after four, the door set back in the wall, leading into her far-away midday room, the light falling from the long high frosted window along the confusion of Mr. Orly’s bench, noisy as she looked at it with the sound of metal tools falling with a rattle, the drone and rattle of the motor lathe, Mr. Orly’s cheerful hummings and whistlings, the bench swept down the length of the room to her side ... the movable shaded electric lamp; Mr. Orly’s African tobacco pouch bunched underneath it on the edge of the bench near the old leather armchair near to the fire, facing the assegais; the glass-doored bookcase on either side of the fireplace, the strange smooth gold on the strips of Burmese wood fastened along the shelves, the clear brown light of the room on the gold, the curious lettering sweeping across the gold.
“Tea? Good.”
Mr. Leyton pulled up a chair and plumped into it digging at his person and dragging out the tails of his coat with one hand, holding a rumpled newspaper at reading length. When his coat-tails were free he scratched his head and scrubbed vigorously at his short brown beard.
“You had tea?” he said to Miriam’s motionlessness, without looking up.
“No—let’s have tea,” said Miriam. Why should he assume that she should pour out the tea....
“I say that’s a nasty one” said Mr. Leyton hysterically and began reading in a high hysterical falsetto.
Miriam began pouring out. Mr. Leyton finished his passage with a little giggling shriek of laughter and fumbled for bread and butter with his eyes still on the newspaper. Miriam sipped her hot tea. The room darkled in the silence. Everything intensified. She glanced impatiently at Mr. Leyton’s bent unconscious form. His shirt and the long straight narrow ends of his tie made a bulging curve above his low-cut waistcoat. The collar of his coat stood away from his bent neck and its tails were bunched up round his hips. His trousers were so hitched up that his bent knees strained against the harsh crude Rope Brothers cloth. The ends of his trousers peaked up in front, displaying loose rolls of black sock and the whole of his anatomical walking-shoes. Miriam heard his busily masticating jaws and dreaded his operations with his tea-cup. A wavering hand came out and found the cup and clasped it by the rim, holding it at the edge of the lifted newspaper. She busied herself with cutting stout little wedges of cake. Mr. Leyton sipped, gasping after each loud quilting gulp; a gasp, and the sound of a moustache being sucked. Mr. Hancock’s showing out bell rang. Mr. Leyton plunged busily round, finishing his cup in a series of rapid gulps. “Kike?” he said.
“M” said Miriam, “jolly kike—did you finish Mr. Buck?”
“More or less——”
“Did you boil the remains?”
“Boiled every blessed thing—and put the serviette in k’bolic.”
Miriam hid her relief and poured him out another cup.
Mr. Hancock came in through the open door and quickly up to the tea-tray. Pouring out a cup he held the teapot suspended, “another cup?”
“No thanks, not just at present” said Miriam getting to her feet with a morsel of cake in her fingers.
“Plenty of time for my things” said Mr. Hancock sitting down in Mr. Orly’s chair with his tea, his flat compact slightly wrinkled and square-toed patent leather shoes gleamed from under the rims of his soft dark grey beautifully cut trousers with a pleasant shine as he sat back comfortable and unlounging, with crossed knees in the deep chair.
Mr. Leyton had got to his feet.
“Busy?” he said rapidly munching. “I say I’ve had that man Buck this afternoon.”
“Oh yes” said Mr. Hancock brushing a crumb from his knee.
“You know—that case I told you about.”
“Oh yes?” said Mr. Hancock with a clear glance and a slight tightening of the face.
Miriam made for the door. Mr. Hancock was not encouraging the topic. Mr. Leyton’s cup came down with a clatter. “I’m fearfully rushed” he said. “I must be off.” He caught Miriam up in the hall. “I say tea must have been fearfully late. I’ve got to get down to headquarters by five sharp.”
“You go on first” said Miriam standing aside.
Mr. Leyton fled up through the house three steps at a time.