"That's Imam. He comes from India too. I think she brought him with her when she came home ... with Ayesha, of course."
"Gives me the creeps. Them outlandish clothes and black eyes and talking a sort of gibberish."
"It's not gibberish, Polly. It's their own language."
"Why didn't she have a nice British couple to look after her? Then there's that haunted room and something about a nun. Love trouble there, too. I don't know. I think love's something to keep away from, if you ask me."
"You didn't feel like that when you had Tom."
"You can't find men like my Tom two a penny, I can tell you."
"But everyone hopes you can. That's why they fall in love."
"You're getting too clever, my girl. Look at our Eff."
"Is he still as bad?"
Polly just clicked her tongue.
Oddly enough, after that conversation, there was news of Him. Apparently he had been suffering, as Polly said, from "Chest" for some time. I remember the day when news came that he was dead.
Polly was deeply shocked. She wasn't sure what this was going to mean to Eff.
"I'll have to go up for the funeral," she said. "After all, you've got to show a bit of respect."
"You didn't have much for him when he was alive," I pointed out.
"It's different when people are dead."
"Why?"
"Oh, you and your 'whys' and 'whats.' It just is ... that's all."
"Polly," I said. "Why can't I come to the funeral with you.”
She stared at me in amazement.
"You! Eff wouldn't expect that."
"Well, let's surprise her."
Polly was silent. I could see she was turning the idea over in her mind.
"Well," she said at length, "it would show respect."
I learned that respect was a very necessary part of funerals.
"We'd have to ask your father," she announced at length.
"He wouldn't notice whether I had gone or not."
"Now that's not the way to speak about your father."
"Why not, if it's the truth? And I like it that way. I wouldn't want him taking a real interest. I'll tell him."
He did look a little startled when I mentioned it.
He put his hands up to his spectacles, which he expected to have on his head. They weren't there, and he looked helpless, as though he couldn't possibly deal with the matter until he found them. They were, fortunately, on his desk, and I promptly brought them to him.
"It's Polly's sister and it shows respect," I told him.
"I hope this does not mean she will want to leave us."
"Leave us!" The idea had not occurred to me. "Of course she won't want to leave us."
"She might want to live with her sister."
"Oh no," I cried. "But I think I ought to go to this funeral."
"It could be a morbid affair. The working classes make a great deal of them ... spending money they can ill afford."
"I want to go, Father. I want to see her sister. She's always talking about her."
He nodded. "Well, then you should go."
"We shall be there for a few days."
"I daresay that will be all right. You will have Polly with you."
Polly was delighted that I was going with her. She said Eff would be pleased.
So I shared in the funeral rites, and very illuminating I found it.
I was surprised by the size of Eff's house. It faced a common, round which the four-storied houses stood like sentinels. "Eff always liked a bit of green," Polly told me. "And she's got it there. A little bit of the country and the horses clopping by to let her know she's not right out in the wilds."
"It's what you call the best of both worlds," I said.
"Well, I won't quarrel with that," agreed Polly.
Eff was about four years older than Polly but looked more. When I mentioned this Polly replied, "It's the life she's led." She did not mention Him because he was dead, and when people died, I realized, their sins were washed away by the all-important respect; but I knew it was life with Him that had aged Eff beyond her years. I was surprised, for she did not seem to be the sort of woman who could be easily cowed, even by Him. She was like Polly in many ways; she had the same shrewd outlook on life and the sort of confidence that declared that none was going to get the better of her before anyone had attempted to do so. During my brief stay I recognized the same outlook in others. It was what is referred to as the cockney spirit; and it certainly seemed to be a product of the streets of London.
That visit was a great revelation to me. I felt I had entered a different world. It excited me. Polly was part of it and I wanted to know more of it.
Eff was a little nervous of me at first. She kept apologizing for things. "Not what you're used to, I'm sure," until Polly said, "Don't you worry about Drusilla, Eff. Me and her get. on like a house afire, don't we?" I assured Eff that we did.
Every now and then Polly and Eff would laugh and then remember Him lying in state in the front parlour.
"He makes a lovely corpse," said Eff. "Mrs. Brown came in to lay him out and she's done a good job on him."
We sat in the kitchen and talked about him. I did not recognize him as the monster of the past; I was about to remind Polly of this, but when I attempted to, she gave me a little kick under the table to remind me in time of the respect owed to the dead.
I shared a room with Polly. We lay in bed that first night and talked about funerals and how they hadn't known how ill He had been until He had been "took sudden." I was comforted in this strange house to be close to Polly, because below us in the parlour lay "the corpse."
The great day came. Vaguely I remember now those solemn undertakers in their top hats and black coats, the plumed horses, the coffin, "genuine oak with real brass fittings," as Eff proudly explained.
It was piled with flowers. Eff had given him "The Gates of Heaven Ajar," which I thought a little optimistic for one of his reputation—before death, that was. Polly and I had hurried to the flower shop and bought a wreath in the shape of a harp which seemed hardly suitable either. But I was learning that death changed everything.
There was a solemn service, with Eff being supported on one side by Polly and on the other by Mr. Branley, to whom she let rooms in the house. She drooped and kept touching her eyes with a black-bordered handkerchief. I began to think that Polly had not told me the truth about Him.
There were ham sandwiches and sherry, which were taken in the parlour—blinds now drawn up and looking quite different without the coffin—a little prim and unlived-in, but without the funereal gloom.
I learned that there was a great bond between Polly and Eff, though they might be a little critical of each other—Polly of Eff for marrying Him and Eff of Polly because she had "gone into service." Father, Eff hinted, would never have approved of that. Mind you, Eff conceded, it was a special sort of service and Polly was almost one of the family, with that rector who never seemed to know whether he was standing on his head or his heels, and Eff admitted that I was "a nice little thing."
I gathered that Eff was in no financial difficulties. Polly told me that it was Eff who had kept things going in the house on the common. He hadn't worked for years because of his Chest. Eff had taken lodgers. The Branleys had been with her for two years and they were more like friends than tenants. One day, of course, when the little nipper grew up they would have to consider getting a place of their own with a garden, but just now the Branleys were safe.
I realized that Eff's fondness for the Branleys was largely due to "the nipper." The nipper was six months old and he dribbled and bawled without reason. Eff allowed them to keep his perambulator in the hall—a great concession of which Father would never have approved—and Mrs. Branley would bring him down so that he could have his airing in the garden. Eff liked that; and I gathered so did Polly. When he lay in his pram Eff would find some excuse to go into the garden and gaze at him. If he were crying—which was often—they would babble nonsense at him: "Didums want his Mumums then?" or something like that, which sounded so strange on their lips, as they were both what Mrs. Janson would have called "sharp tongued." They were completely changed by this baby.