The Boarding House Page #3

								

everyone else’s business. He felt his heart leap warmly in his throat
as he heard in his excited imagination old Mr Leonard calling out in
his rasping voice: “Send Mr Doran here, please.”

All his long years of service gone for nothing! All his industry and
diligence thrown away! As a young man he had sown his wild oats, of
course; he had boasted of his free-thinking and denied the existence of
God to his companions in public-houses. But that was all passed and
done with ... nearly. He still bought a copy of Reynolds’s Newspaper
every week but he attended to his religious duties and for nine-tenths
of the year lived a regular life. He had money enough to settle down
on; it was not that. But the family would look down on her. First of
all there was her disreputable father and then her mother’s boarding
house was beginning to get a certain fame. He had a notion that he was
being had. He could imagine his friends talking of the affair and
laughing. She was a little vulgar; sometimes she said “I seen” and
“If I had’ve known.” But what would grammar matter if he really loved
her? He could not make up his mind whether to like her or despise her
for what she had done. Of course he had done it too. His instinct urged
him to remain free, not to marry. Once you are married you are done
for, it said.

While he was sitting helplessly on the side of the bed in shirt and
trousers she tapped lightly at his door and entered. She told him all,
that she had made a clean breast of it to her mother and that her
mother would speak with him that morning. She cried and threw her arms
round his neck, saying:

“O Bob! Bob! What am I to do? What am I to do at all?”

She would put an end to herself, she said.

He comforted her feebly, telling her not to cry, that it would be all
right, never fear. He felt against his shirt the agitation of her
bosom.

It was not altogether his fault that it had happened. He remembered
well, with the curious patient memory of the celibate, the first casual
caresses her dress, her breath, her fingers had given him. Then late
one night as he was undressing for bed she had tapped at his door,
timidly. She wanted to relight her candle at his for hers had been
blown out by a gust. It was her bath night. She wore a loose open
combing-jacket of printed flannel. Her white instep shone in the
opening of her furry slippers and the blood glowed warmly behind her
perfumed skin. From her hands and wrists too as she lit and steadied
her candle a faint perfume arose.

On nights when he came in very late it was she who warmed up his
dinner. He scarcely knew what he was eating, feeling her beside him
alone, at night, in the sleeping house. And her thoughtfulness! If the
night was anyway cold or wet or windy there was sure to be a little
tumbler of punch ready for him. Perhaps they could be happy
together....

They used to go upstairs together on tiptoe, each with a candle, and on
the third landing exchange reluctant good-nights. They used to kiss. He
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