第40章

"Could yer come with me now,an'pick me a piano?I can tell a boot by the smell of the leather,but pianos are out of my line.Clara's manner changed instantly as she thought of the commission she would get from Kramer's,where she had a running account for music.""I shall be only too pleased,"she said.

As they left the house she remembered,with a slight repugnance,Jonah's deformity.She hoped people wouldn't notice them as they went down the street.But to her surprise and relief,Jonah hailed a passing cab.

"Time's money to me,"he said,with an apologetic look.

Cabs were a luxury in Buckland Street,and Clara was delighted.She felt suddenly on the level of the rich people who could afford to ride where others trudged afoot.She leaned forward,hoping that the people would notice her.

At Kramer's she took charge of Jonah as a guide takes charge of tourists in a foreign land,anxious to show him that she was at home among this display of expensive luxuries.The floor was packed with pianos,glittering with varnish which reflected the strong light of the street.

From another room came a monotonous sound repeated indefinitely,a tuner at work on a piano.

The salesman stepped up,glancing at the hunchback with the quick look of surprise which Clara had noticed in others.They stopped in front of an open piano,and Clara,taking off her gloves,ran her fingers over the keys.The rich,singing notes surprised Jonah,they were quite unlike those he had heard on Clara's piano.Clara played as much as she could remember of "The Wind Among the Pines",and Jonah decided to buy that one.

"'Ow much is that?"he inquired.

"A hundred guineas,"replied the shopman,indifferently.

"Garn!Yer kiddin'?"cried Jonah,astounded.

The salesman looked in surprise from Jonah to Clara.She coloured slightly.Jonah saw that she was annoyed.The salesman led them to another instrument,and,with less deference in his tone,remarked that this was the firm's special cheap line at fifty guineas.But Jonah had noticed the change in Clara's manner,and decided against the cheaper instrument instantly.They thought he wasn't good for a hundred quid,did they?Well,he would show them.But,to his surprise,Clara opposed the idea.The Steinbech,she explained,was an instrument for artists.

It would be a sacrilege for a beginner to touch it.Jonah persisted,but the shopman agreed with Clara that the celebrated Ropp at eighty guineas would meet his wants.A long discussion followed,and Jonah listened while Clara tried to beat the salesman down below catalogue price for cash.Here was a woman after his own heart,who could drive a bargain with the best of them.At the end of half an hour Jonah filled in a cheque for eighty guineas,and the salesman,reading the signature,bowed them deferentially out of the shop.

Clara walked out of the shop with the air of a millionaire.To be brought in contact even for a moment with this golden stream of sovereigns excited her like wine.All her life she had desired things whose price put them beyond her reach,and she felt suddenly friendly to this man who took what he wanted regardless of cost.She thought pleasantly of the ride home in the cab,but she was pulled up with a jerk when Jonah led the way to the tram.He wore an anxious look,as if he had spent more than he could afford,and yet the money was a mere flea-bite to him.But whenever he spent money,a panic terror seized him--a survival of the street-arab's instinct,who counted his money in pennies instead of pounds.

ADA MAKES A FRIEND

Ada moved uneasily,opened her eyes and stared at the patch of light on the opposite wall.As she lay half awake,she tried to remember the day of the week,and,deceived by the morning silence,decided that it was Sunday.She thought,with lazy pleasure,that a day of idleness lay before her,and felt under the pillow for the tin of lollies that she hid there every night.This movement awakened her completely,and stretching her limbs luxuriously between the warm sheets,she began to suck the lollies,at first slowly revolving the sticky globules on her tongue,and then scrunching them between her firm teeth with the tranquil pleasure of a quadruped.

This was her only pleasure and the only pleasant hour of the day.She looked at Jonah,who lay on his side with his nose buried in the pillow,without repugnance and without liking.That had gone long ago.And as she looked,she remembered that he was to be awakened early and that it was Friday the hardest day of the week,when she must make up her arrears of scrubbing and dusting.Her luxurious mood changed to one of dull irritation,and she looked sullenly at the enormous wardrobe and dressing-table with their speckled mirrors.These had delighted her at first,but in her heart she preferred the battered,makeshift furniture of Cardigan Street.A few licks with the duster and her work was done;but here the least speck of dust showed on the polished surface.Jonah,too,had got into a nasty habit of writing insulting words on the dusty surface with his finger.

Well,let him!There had been endless trouble since he bought the piano.

As sure as Miss Grimes came to give Ray his lesson,he declared the place was a pigsty and tried to shame her by taking off his coat and dusting the room himself.Not that she blamed Miss Grimes.She was quite a lady in her way,and had won Ada's heart by telling her that she hated housework.

She thought Ada must be a born housekeeper to do without a servant,and Ada didn't trouble to put her right.Anyhow,Jonah should keep a servant.

He pretended that their servants in Wyndham Street had made game of her behind her back,and robbed her right and left.What did that matter?she thought--Jonah could afford it.

The real reason was that he wanted no one in the house to see how he treated his wife.She cared little herself whether she had a girl or not,for she had always been accustomed to make work easy by neglecting it.