Volume Ii Part 65 (2/2)

”Let's walk a bit of the way together.”

He could say nothing to her, and if he hurried on, he would hear her voice whining after him like a cat in a yard. He did not wish to let her know where he was living; for every evening he would expect to see her materialize from a quivering circle of lamplight so close to Leppard Street.

”Why don't you come back with me? I live quite near here,” she murmured.

”Go on. You look as if you wanted someone to make a fuss of you.”

Already they were beside the five houses that rose jet-black against the star-incrusted sky.

”Come on, dear. I live in the corner house.”

Michael looked at her in astonishment, and she mistaking his scrutiny smiled in pitiable allurement. He felt as if a marionette were blandis.h.i.+ng him. The woman evidently thought he was considering the question of money, and she sidled close up to him.

”Go on, dear, you've got some money with you?”

”It's not that,” said Michael. ”I don't want to come in with you.”

Yet he knew that he must enter Number One with her in order to find in what secret room she lived. And to-morrow morning he would leave the house forever, since it would be unimaginable to stay there longer with the consciousness that perhaps they were creatures like this, who slammed the doors in pa.s.sages far upstairs. He would not sleep comfortably again with the sense that women like this were creeping about the stairs like spiders. He must probe her existence, and he put his foot on the steps of the front door.

”Not that door,” she said. ”Down here.”

She pushed back the gate of the area-steps, and led the way down into the bas.e.m.e.nt. It was incredible that she could live on the same floor as the Cleghornes. Yet obviously she did.

”Don't make a noise,” she whispered. ”Because the woman who keeps the house sleeps down here.”

She opened the back door, and he followed her into the frowsty pa.s.sage.

When the door was dosed behind them, the blackness was absolute.

”Got a vesta with you?” she whispered.

Michael felt her hands pawing him, and he shrank back against the greasy wall.

”Here you are. Here you are.”

The match flamed, but went out before he could light the nodulous candle she proffered. In the darkness he felt her spongy lips upon his cheek, but disengaging himself from her a.s.siduousness, he managed to light the candle. They went along the corridor past the front room where Cleghorne snored the day away; past the kitchen whose open door exhaled an odorous breath of habitation; and through a stone pantry. Then she led him down three steps and up another, unlocked a rickety door, and welcomed him.

”I'm quite on my own, you see,” she said, in a voice of tentative satisfaction.

Michael looked round at the room which was small and smelt very damp.

The ceiling sloped to a window closely curtained with the cretonne of black and crimson fruits which Michael recognized as the same stuff he had seen in Barnes' room above. He tried to recall how much of this room he could see from his bedroom window, and he connected it in his mind with a projecting roof of cracked slates which he had often noticed. The action of the rain on the plaster had made it look like a map of the moon in relief. The furniture consisted of a bed, a washstand and a light blue chest. There was also a narrow shelf on which was a lamp with a reflector of corrugated tin, a bald powder-puff, and two boot-b.u.t.tons.

The woman lit the lamp, and as she stooped to look at the jagged flame, Michael saw that her hair was as iridescent as oil on a ca.n.a.l with what remained of henna and peroxide.

”That's more cheerful. Though I must say it's a pity they haven't put the gas in here. Oh, don't sit on that old box. It makes you look such a stranger.”

Michael said he had a great fondness for sitting on something that was hard; but he thought how absurd he must appear sitting like this on a pale blue chest next to a washstand.

”Are you looking at my cat?” she asked.

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