Sinister Street · Book IV · Chapter 4 2 (4/4)

“Hark at her!” Poppy cried, in a horrible screaming laugh. “Why don’t you go back on the streets yourself? Why, I can remember you as one of the old fourpenny Hasbeens when I was still dressmaking; a dirty drunken old teat that couldn’t have got off with a blind tramp.”

Michael punctuated each fresh taunt and accusation with a step forward to interfere; and every time he held himself back, pondering the impossibility of extracting from these charges and countercharges any logical assignment of blame. It made him laugh to think how extraordinarily in the wrong they all three were and at the same time how they were all perfectly convinced they were right. The only factor left out of account was Mrs. Murdoch’s own behavior. He wondered rather what effect that gentleman friend would produce on the husband. He decided that he had better go back to bed until the racket subsided. Then, just as he was turning away in the midst of an outpouring of vileness far more foul than anything uttered so far, he heard what sounded like a blow. That of course could not be tolerated, and he descended to intervene.

The passage was the field of battle, and the narrow space seemed to give not only an added virulence to the fight, but also an added grotesquery. When Michael arrived at the head of the staircase, Alf had pinned his wife to the wall and was shouting to Poppy over his shoulder to get back into her own room. Poppy would go halfway, but always a new insult would occur to her, and she would return to fling it at Mrs. Murdoch, stabbing the while into its place again a hatpin which during her retreats she always half withdrew.

As for Mrs. Murdoch, she was by now weeping hysterically and occasionally making sudden forward plunges that collapsed like jelly.

Michael paused at the head of the stairs, wondering what to say. It seemed to him really rather a good thing that Alf was restraining his wife. It would be extremely unpleasant to have to separate the two women if they closed with each other. He had almost decided to retire upstairs again, when Poppy caught sight of him and at once turned her abuse in his direction.

“What’s it got to do with you?” she screamed. “What’s the good in you standing gaping there? We all know what you are. We all know what she’s always going up to your room for.”

Mrs. Murdoch was heaving and puffing and groaning, and while Alf held her, his rolling eye with fierce and meaningless stare nearly made Michael laugh. However, he managed to be serious, and gravely advised Poppy to go to bed.

“Don’t you dare try to order me about!” she shrieked. “Keep your poncified ways for that fat old maggot which her husband can’t hardly hold, and I don’t blame him. She’s about as big as a omnibus.”

“Oh, you wicked woman,” sobbed Mrs. Murdoch. “Oh, you mean, hateful snake-in-the-grass! Oh, you filth!”

“Hold your jaw,” commanded Alf. “If you don’t want me to punch into you.”

“All day she’s in his room. Let him stand up and deny it if he can, the dirty tyke. Why don’t you punch into him, Alf?” Poppy screamed.

Still that wobbling eye, blank and ferocious, was fixed upon vacancy.

“Let me look after Mrs. Murdoch I don’t think!” shouted Poppy. “And be a man, even if you can’t keep your old woman out of the lodger’s room. ⸻ ⸻! I wouldn’t half slosh his jaw in, if I was a man, the ⸻ ⸻!”

It was a question for Michael either of laughing outright or of being nauseated at the oaths streaming from that little woman’s thin magenta lips. He laughed. Even with her paint, she still looked so respectable. When he began to laugh, he laughed so uncontrollably that he had to hold on to the rail of the balusters until they rattled like ribs.

Michael’s laughter stung the group to frenzied action. Mrs. Murdoch spat in her husband’s face, whereupon he immediately loosed his grip upon her shoulders. In a moment she and Poppy were clawing each other. Michael, though he was still laughing unquenchably, rushed downstairs to part them. He had an idea that both of the women instantly turned and attacked him. The hatstand fell over: the scurfy front-door mat slid up and down the oil cloth: there was a reek of stale scent and dust and spirituous breath.

At last Michael managed to secure Poppy’s thin twitching arms and to hold her fast, though she was kicking him with sharp-heeled boots and he was weak with inward laughter. Mrs. Murdoch in the lull began fecklessly to gather together the strands of her disordered hair. Alf, who had gone to peep from the window of the ground-floor front in case a policeman’s bull’s-eye were glancing on Neptune Crescent, reappeared in the doorway.

“What a smell of gas!” he exclaimed nervously.

There was indeed a smell of gas, and Michael remembered that Poppy in her struggle had grasped the bracket. She must have dislocated the lead pipe rather badly, for the light was already dimming and the gas was rushing out fast. The tumultuous scene was allayed. Mr. Murdoch hurried to cut off the main. Poppy retired into her room, slammed and locked the door. Michael went upstairs to bed, and just as darkness descended upon the house he saw his landlady painfully trying to raise the hatstand, while with the other arm she felt aimlessly for strands of tumbled hair.

Next morning Michael was surprised to see Mrs. Murdoch enter very cheerfully with his tea; her hair that so short a time since had seemed eternally intractable had now shriveled into subjugatory curl-papers: of last night’s tear-smudged face remained no memory in this beaming countenance.

“Quite a set-out we had last night, didn’t we?” she said expansively. “But that Poppy, really, you know, she is the limit. Driving home with my old man in a hansom cab. There’s a nice game to get up to. I was bound to let her have it. I couldn’t have held myself in.”

“I suppose you’ll get rid of her now,” said Michael.

“Oh, well, she’s not so bad in some ways, and very quiet as a rule. She was a bit canned last night, and I suppose I’d had one or two myself. Oh, well, it wouldn’t do, would it, if we never had a little enjoyment in this life?”

She left him wondering how he would ever be able to readjust his standards to the topsyturvy standards of the underworld, the topsyturvy feuds and reconciliations, the hatreds; the loves and jealousies and fears. But today he must leave this looking-glass world for a time.

Mrs. Murdoch was very much upset by his departure from Neptune Crescent.

“It seems such a pity,” she said. “And just as I was beginning to get used to your ways. Oh, well, we’ll meet again some day, I hope, this side of the cemetery.”

Michael felt some misgivings about ordering a hansom after last night, but Mrs. Murdoch went cheerfully enough to fetch one. He drove away from Neptune Crescent, waving to her where she stood in the small doorway looking very large under that rusty frail veranda. He also waved rather maliciously to Poppy, as he caught sight of her sharp nose pressed against the panes of the ground-floor front.