"You see, I didn"t get enough exercise before. Lived too close to the works. In fact, a silly existence. I saw it all plain enough as soon as I got back from South Africa.... Exercise! What you want is for your skin to act at least once every day. Don"t you think so?" He seemed to be appealing to her for moral support in some revolutionary theory.
"Well--I"m sure I don"t know."
Julian continued--
"If you ask me, I believe there are some people who never perspire from one year"s end to another. Never! How can they expect to be well?
How can they expect even to be clean? The pores, you know. I"ve been reading a lot about it. Well, I walk up here from Knype full speed every day. Everybody ought to do it. Then I have a bath."
"Oh! Is there a bathroom?"
"No, there isn"t," he answered curtly. Then in a tone of apology: "But I manage. You see, I"m going to save. I was spending too much down there--furnished rooms. Here I took two rooms--this one and a kitchen--unfurnished; very much cheaper, of course. I"ve just fixed them up temporarily. Little by little they"ll be improved. The woman upstairs comes in for half an hour in the morning and just cleans up when I"m gone."
"And does your cooking?"
"Not much!" said Julian bravely. "I do that myself. In the first place, I want very little cooking. Cooking"s not natural. And what bit I do want--well, I have my own ideas about it, I"ve got a little pamphlet about rational eating and cooking. You might read it.
Everybody ought to read it."
"I suppose all that sort of thing"s very interesting," Rachel remarked at large, with politeness.
"It is," Julian said emphatically.
Neither of them felt the necessity of defining what was meant by "all that sort of thing." The phrase had been used with intention and was perfectly understood.
"But if you want to know what I really came up here for," Julian resumed, "I"ll show you."
"Where?"
"Outside." And he repeated, "I"ll show you."
III
She followed him as, bareheaded, he hurried out of the room into the street.
"Shan"t you take cold without anything on your head in this wind?" she suggested mildly.
He would have snapped off the entire head of any other person who had ventured to make the suggestion. But he treated Rachel more gently because he happened to think that she was the only truly sensible and kind woman he had ever met in his life.
"No fear!" he muttered.
At the front gate he stopped and looked back at his bay-window.
"Now--curtains!" he said. "I won"t have curtains. Blinds, at night, yes, if you like. But curtains! I never could see any use in curtains.
Fallals! Keep the light out! Dust-traps!"
Rachel gazed at him. Despite his beard, he appeared to her as a big schoolboy, blundering about in the world, a sort of leviathan puppy in earnest. She liked him, on account of an occasional wistful expression in his eyes, and because she had been kind to him during his fearful visit to Bycars. She even admired him, for his cruel honesty and force. At the same time, he excited her compa.s.sion to an acute degree.
As she gazed at him the tears were ready to start from her eyes. What she had seen, and what she had heard of the new existence which he was organizing for himself made her feel sick with pity. But mingled with her pity was a sharp disdain. The idea of Julian talking about cleanliness, dust-traps, and rationality gave her a desire to laugh and cry at once. All the stolid and yet wary conservatism of her character revolted against meals at odd hours, brown bread, apples, orange-sucking, action of the skin, male cooking, camp-beds, the frowsiness of casual charwomen, bare heads, and especially bare windows. If Rachel had been absolutely free to civilize Julian"s life, she would have begun by measuring the bay-window.
She said firmly--
"I must say I don"t agree with you about curtains."
His gestures of impatience were almost violent; but she would not flinch.
"Don"t ye?"
"No."
"Straight?"
She nodded.
He drew breath. "Well, I"ll get some--if it"ll satisfy you."
His surrender was intensely dramatic to her. It filled her with happiness, with a consciousness of immense power. She thought: "I can influence him. I alone can influence him. Unless _I_ look after him his existence will be dreadful--dreadful."
"You"d much better let me buy them for you." She smiled persuasively.
"Have it your own way!" he said gloomily. "Just come along up here."
He led her up to the top of the street.
"Ye"ll see what I live up here for," he muttered as they approached the summit.
The other half of the world lay suddenly at their feet as they capped the brow, but it was obscured by mist and cloud. The ragged downward road was lost in the middle distance amid vaporous grey-greens and earthy browns.
"No go!" he exclaimed crossly. "Not clear enough! But on a fine day ye can see Axe and Axe Edge.... Finest view in the Five Towns."
The shrill cries of the footballers reached them.
"What a pity!" she sympathized eagerly. "I"m sure it must be splendid." His situation seemed extraordinarily tragic to her. His short hair, ruffled by the keen wind, was just like a boy"s hair and somehow the sight of it touched her deeply.
He put his hands far into his pockets and drummed one foot on the ground.
"What brought ye up here?" he demanded, with his eyes on an invisible town of Axe.
She opened her hand-bag.
"I came to bring you this," she said, and offered him an envelope, which he took, wonderingly.
Then, when he had it in his hands, he said abruptly, angrily, "If it"s that money, I won"t take it."
"Yes you will."
"Has Louis sent ye?" This was the first mention of Louis, though he was well aware of the accident.
She shook her head.