II
Mr. Polly translated his restless craving for joy and leisure into
Harold Johnsonese by saying that he meant to look about him for a bit
before going into another situation. It was a decision Johnson very
warmly approved. It was arranged that Mr. Polly should occupy his
former room and board with the Johnsons in consideration of a weekly
payment of eighteen shillings. And the next morning Mr. Polly went out
early and reappeared with a purchase, a safety bicycle, which he
proposed to study and master in the sandy lane below the Johnsons'
house. But over the struggles that preceded his mastery it is humane
to draw a veil.
And also Mr. Polly bought a number of books, Rabelais for his own, and
"The Arabian Nights," the works of Sterne, a pile of "Tales from
Blackwood," cheap in a second-hand bookshop, the plays of William
Shakespeare, a second-hand copy of Belloc's "Road to Rome," an odd
volume of "Purchas his Pilgrimes" and "The Life and Death of Jason."
"Better get yourself a good book on bookkeeping," said Johnson,
turning over perplexing pages.
A belated spring was now advancing with great strides to make up for
lost time. Sunshine and a stirring wind were poured out over the land,
fleets of towering clouds sailed upon urgent tremendous missions
across the blue seas of heaven, and presently Mr. Polly was riding a
little unstably along unfamiliar Surrey roads, wondering always what
was round the next corner, and marking the blackthorn and looking out
for the first white flower-buds of the may. He was perplexed and
distressed, as indeed are all right thinking souls, that there is no
may in early May.
He did not ride at the even pace sensible people use who have marked
out a journey from one place to another, and settled what time it will
take them. He rode at variable speeds, and always as though he was
looking for something that, missing, left life attractive still, but a
little wanting in significance. And sometimes he was so unreasonably
happy he had to whistle and sing, and sometimes he was incredibly, but
not at all painfully, sad. His indigestion vanished with air and
exercise, and it was quite pleasant in the evening to stroll about the
garden with Johnson and discuss plans for the future. Johnson was full
of ideas. Moreover, Mr. Polly had marked the road that led to Stamton,
that rising populous suburb; and as his bicycle legs grew strong his
wheel with a sort of inevitableness carried him towards the row of
houses in a back street in which his Larkins cousins made their home
together.
He was received with great enthusiasm.
The street was a dingy little street, a _cul-de-sac_ of very small
houses in a row, each with an almost flattened bow window and a
blistered brown door with a black knocker. He poised his bright new
bicycle against the window, and knocked and stood waiting, and felt
himself in his straw hat and black serge suit a very pleasant and
prosperous-looking figure. The door was opened by cousin Miriam. She
was wearing a bluish print dress that brought out a kind of sallow
warmth in her skin, and although it was nearly four o'clock in the
afternoon, her sleeves were tucked up, as if for some domestic work,
above the elbows, showing her rather slender but very shapely
yellowish arms. The loosely pinned bodice confessed a delicately
rounded neck.
For a moment she regarded him with suspicion and a faint hostility,
and then recognition dawned in her eyes.
"Why!" she said, "it's cousin Elfrid!"
"Thought I'd look you up," he said.
"Fancy! you coming to see us like this!" she answered.
They stood confronting one another for a moment, while Miriam
collected herself for the unexpected emergency.
"Explorations menanderings," said Mr. Polly, indicating the bicycle.
Miriam's face betrayed no appreciation of the remark.
"Wait a moment," she said, coming to a rapid decision, "and I'll tell
Ma."
She closed the door on him abruptly, leaving him a little surprised in
the street. "Ma!" he heard her calling, and swift speech followed, the
import of which he didn't catch. Then she reappeared. It seemed but an
instant, but she was changed; the arms had vanished into sleeves, the
apron had gone, a certain pleasing disorder of the hair had been at
least reproved.
"I didn't mean to shut you out," she said, coming out upon the step.
"I just told Ma. How are you, Elfrid? You _are_ looking well. I didn't
know you rode a bicycle. Is it a new one?"
She leaned upon his bicycle. "Bright it is!" she said. "What a trouble
you must have to keep it clean!"
Mr. Polly was aware of a rustling transit along the passage, and of
the house suddenly full of hushed but strenuous movement.
"It's plated mostly," said Mr. Polly.
"What do you carry in that little bag thing?" she asked, and then
branched off to: "We're all in a mess to-day you know. It's my
cleaning up day to-day. I'm not a bit tidy I know, but I _do_ like to
'_ave_ a go in at things now and then. You got to take us as you find
us, Elfrid. Mercy we wasn't all out." She paused. She was talking
against time. "I _am_ glad to see you again," she repeated.
"Couldn't keep away," said Mr. Polly gallantly. "Had to come over and
see my pretty cousins again."
Miriam did not answer for a moment. She coloured deeply. "You _do say_
things!" she said.
She stared at Mr. Polly, and his unfortunate sense of fitness made him
nod his head towards her, regard her firmly with a round brown eye,
and add impressively: "I don't say _which_ of them."
Her answering expression made him realise for an instant the terrible
dangers he trifled with. Avidity flared up in her eyes. Minnie's voice
came happily to dissolve the situation.
"'Ello, Elfrid!" she said from the doorstep.
Her hair was just passably tidy, and she was a little effaced by a red
blouse, but there was no mistaking the genuine brightness of her
welcome.
He was to come in to tea, and Mrs. Larkins, exuberantly genial in a
floriferous but dingy flannel dressing gown, appeared to confirm that.
He brought in his bicycle and put it in the narrow, empty passage, and
everyone crowded into a small untidy kitchen, whose table had been
hastily cleared of the _débris_ of the midday repast.
"You must come in 'ere," said Mrs. Larkins, "for Miriam's turning out
the front room. I never did see such a girl for cleanin' up. Miriam's
'oliday's a scrub. You've caught us on the 'Op as the sayin' is, but
Welcome all the same. Pity Annie's at work to-day; she won't be 'ome
till seven."
Miriam put chairs and attended to the fire, Minnie edged up to Mr.
Polly and said: "I _am_ glad to see you again, Elfrid," with a warm
contiguous intimacy that betrayed a broken tooth. Mrs. Larkins got out
tea things, and descanted on the noble simplicity of their lives, and
how he "mustn't mind our simple ways." They enveloped Mr. Polly with a
geniality that intoxicated his amiable nature; he insisted upon
helping lay the things, and created enormous laughter by pretending
not to know where plates and knives and cups ought to go. "Who'm I
going to sit next?" he said, and developed voluminous amusement by
attempts to arrange the plates so that he could rub elbows with all
three. Mrs. Larkins had to sit down in the windsor chair by the
grandfather clock (which was dark with dirt and not going) to laugh at
her ease at his well-acted perplexity.
They got seated at last, and Mr. Polly struck a vein of humour in
telling them how he learnt to ride the bicycle. He found the mere
repetition of the word "wabble" sufficient to produce almost
inextinguishable mirth.
"No foreseeing little accidentulous misadventures," he said, "none
whatever."
(Giggle from Minnie.)
"Stout elderly gentleman--shirt sleeves--large straw wastepaper basket
sort of hat--starts to cross the road--going to the oil shop--prodic
refreshment of oil can--"
"Don't say you run 'im down," said Mrs. Larkins, gasping. "Don't say
you run 'im down, Elfrid!"
"Run 'im down! Not me, Madam. I never run anything down. Wabble. Ring
the bell. Wabble, wabble--"
(Laughter and tears.)
"No one's going to run him down. Hears the bell! Wabble. Gust of wind.
Off comes the hat smack into the wheel. Wabble. _Lord! what's_ going
to happen? Hat across the road, old gentleman after it, bell, shriek.
He ran into me. Didn't ring his bell, hadn't _got_ a bell--just ran
into me. Over I went clinging to his venerable head. Down he went with
me clinging to him. Oil can blump, blump into the road."
(Interlude while Minnie is attended to for crumb in the windpipe.)
"Well, what happened to the old man with the oil can?" said Mrs.
Larkins.
"We sat about among the debreece and had a bit of an argument. I told
him he oughtn't to come out wearing such a dangerous hat--flying at
things. Said if he couldn't control his hat he ought to leave it at
home. High old jawbacious argument we had, I tell you. 'I tell you,
sir--' 'I tell _you_, sir.' Waw-waw-waw. Infuriacious. But that's the
sort of thing that's constantly happening you know--on a bicycle.
People run into you, hens and cats and dogs and things. Everything
seems to have its mark on you; everything."
"_You_ never run into anything."
"Never. Swelpme," said Mr. Polly very solemnly.
"Never, 'E say!" squealed Minnie. "Hark at 'im!" and relapsed into a
condition that urgently demanded back thumping. "Don't be so silly,"
said Miriam, thumping hard.
Mr. Polly had never been such a social success before. They hung upon
his every word--and laughed. What a family they were for laughter! And
he loved laughter. The background he apprehended dimly; it was very
much the sort of background his life had always had. There was a
threadbare tablecloth on the table, and the slop basin and teapot did
not go with the cups and saucers, the plates were different again, the
knives worn down, the butter lived in a greenish glass dish of its
own. Behind was a dresser hung with spare and miscellaneous crockery,
with a workbox and an untidy work-basket, there was an ailing musk
plant in the window, and the tattered and blotched wallpaper was
covered by bright-coloured grocers' almanacs. Feminine wrappings hung
from pegs upon the door, and the floor was covered with a varied
collection of fragments of oilcloth. The Windsor chair he sat in was
unstable--which presently afforded material for humour. "Steady, old
nag," he said; "whoa, my friskiacious palfry!"
"The things he says! You never know what he won't say next!"
