EARNING A LIVING
The affair of Hugh Massinger, and Miss Champion’s attitude towards it,
provided Eve with an experience that threw a glare of new light upon the
life of a woman who sets out to earn her own living. She had no need to
go to the dramatists to be instructed, for she had touched the problem
with her own hands, and discovered the sexual hypocrisy that Kate Duveen
had always railed at. Here was she, lonely and struggling on the edge of
life, and a man of Hugh Massinger’s reputation and intelligence could do
nothing more honourable to help her than to suggest the advantages of a
sentimental seduction. Miss Champion, the woman, had failed to take the
woman’s part. Her middle-class cowardice was all for hushing things up,
for accusing the insulted girl of indiscretions, for reproaching her
with not failing to be a temptation to men. No smoke without some fire.
It was safer to discharge such a young woman than to defend her. And
Miss Champion’s nostrils were very shy and sensitive. She was an
automatic machine that reacted to any copper coin that could be called a
convention. Certain things never ought to happen, and if they happened
they never ought to be mentioned.
This affair inaugurated hard times for Eve, nor did the bitterness that
it aroused in her help her to bear the new life with philosophy. It had
had something of the effect on her that the first discovery of sex has
upon a sensitive child. She felt disgusted, shocked, saddened. Life
would never be quite the same, at least, so she told herself, for this
double treachery had shaken her trust, and she wondered whether all men
were like Hugh Massinger, and all women careful hypocrites like Miss
Champion.
She longed for Kate Duveen’s sharp and acrid sincerity. Hers was a
personality that might take the raw taste out of her mouth, but Eve did
not write to Kate to tell her what had happened. Her pride was still
able to keep its own flag flying, and it seemed contemptible to cry out
and complain over the first wound.
One thing was certain, her income had stopped abruptly. She had about
thirty-five pounds left to her credit at the bank. The rent of her rooms
was a pound a week, and she found that her food cost her about twelve
shillings, this sum including the sixpenny lunches and fourpenny teas
that she had in the City. Putting her expenditure at thirty-five
shillings a week, she had enough money to last her for twenty weeks,
granted, of course, that nothing unexpected happened, and that she had
not to face a doctor’s bill.
It behoved her to bustle round, to cast her net here, there, and
everywhere for work. She entered her name at several “Agencies,” but
found that the agents were none too sanguine when she had to confess
that she could neither write shorthand nor use a typewriter. Her
abilities were of that higher order whose opportunities are more
limited. People did not want artistic cleverness. The need was all for
drudges.
During her first workless week at Bosnia Road, she designed a number of
fashion plates, and painted half a dozen little pictures. She called at
one of the despised picture shops, and suggested to the proprietor that
he might be willing to sell these pictures on commission. The
proprietor, a depressed and flabby dyspeptic, was not encouraging.
“I could fill my window with that sort of stuff if I wanted to. People
don’t want flowers and country cottages. Can’t you paint pink babies and
young mothers, and all that?”
Eve went elsewhere, and after many wanderings, discovered a gentleman in
the West Central district who was ready to show her pictures in his
window. He was a little more appreciative, and had a better digestion
than the man who had talked of babies.
“Yes, that’s quite a nice patch of colour. I don’t mind showing them.
People sometimes like to get the real thing—cheap.”
“What would one ask for a thing of this kind?”
“Oh, half a crown to five shillings. One can’t expect much more.”
“Not so much as for a joint of meat!”
He was laconic.
“Well, you see, miss, we’ve all got digestions, but not many of us have
taste.”
Her next attempt was to dispose of some of her dress designs, and since
she had become familiar at Miss Champion’s with the names of certain
firms who were willing to buy such creations, she knew where to find a
possible market. It seemed wiser to call in person than to send the
designs by post, and she spent a whole day trying to interview
responsible persons in West End establishments. One firm rebuffed her
with the frank statement that they were over-supplied with such
creations. At two other places she was told to leave her designs to be
looked at. At her last attempt she succeeded in obtaining an interview
with a hungry-looking and ill-tempered elderly woman who was writing
letters in a little glass-panelled office at the back of a big shop.
Eve disliked the woman from the first glance, but she was grateful to
her for having taken the trouble to give her an interview.
“I wondered whether Messrs. Smith might have any use for designs for new
spring and summer frocks?”
The woman looked at her from under cunning eyelids.
“Sit down. Let me see.”
Eve unwrapped the drawings and handed them to the person in authority,
who glanced through them as though she were shuffling a pack of cards.
“Had any technical training? Not much, I think.”
“I have lived in Paris.”
“That’s an excuse, I suppose. There are one or two possible ideas here.
Leave the designs. I’ll consider them.”
She laid them down on her desk and looked at Eve in a way that told her
that she was expected to go.
“I had better leave my address.”
“Isn’t it on the cards?”
“No!”
“Then write it.”
She pushed a pen and ink towards Eve, and turned to resume the work that
had been interrupted.
When Eve had gone, the good lady picked up the designs, looked them
carefully through, and then pushed the button of a bell in the wall
behind her. A flurried young woman with a snub nose, and untidy yellow
hair, came in.
“Here, Miss Rush, copy those two. Then pack them all up and send them
back to the address written on that one. Say we’ve looked at them, and
that none are suitable.”
The snub-nosed young woman understood, and two of Eve’s designs were
appropriated, at a cost to Messrs. Smith of twopence for postage. That
was good business. The whole batch was returned to Eve in the course of
three days, with a laconic type-written statement that the designs had
received careful consideration, but had been found to be unsuitable.
She had not seen Mr. Parfit since the loss of her secretaryship, in
fact, not since Christmas, the morning walks to Highbury Corner having
become unnecessary. On the afternoon of the second Saturday in January,
Eve happened to be standing at her window, dressed to go out, when she
saw him strolling along the path on the other side of the road. He
glanced at her window as he passed, and, turning when he had gone some
thirty yards, came slowly back again.
A sudden hunger for companionship seized her, a desire to listen to a
friendly voice, and to feel that she was not utterly alone. She hurried
out, drawing on her gloves, and found “the Bourgeois of Clarendon Grove”
on the point of repassing her doorway.
He raised his hat, beamed, and came across.
“Why, here you are! I hope you haven’t been ill?”
“No.”
“I began to get quite worried.”
It gave her pleasure to find that someone had troubled to wonder what
had happened.
“I have given up my post, and so I have no reason for starting out
early.”
His round eyes studied her attentively.
“Oh, that’s it!”
He had sense enough not to begin by asking questions.
“I was just going to take a breather round by the Fields. Suppose you’re
booked for something?”
“No.”
“Well, why shouldn’t I tell you all about Christmas! Jane’s coming to
look you up.”
“That’s very good of her.”
They started off together with a tacit acceptance of the situation, Mr.
Parfit showing an elaborate politeness in taking the outside of the
pavement. His whole air was that of a cheery and paternal bachelor on
his very best and most benignant behaviour. And Eve, without knowing
quite why, trusted him.
“We had a gorgeous time down at Croydon.”
“I’m so glad. I enjoyed the chocolates and the books. I suppose the
sugar-box was a great success?”
“Rather! I had a joke with the kids. I had two lots of presents, one lot
on top, the other down below. Up above there were two pairs of socks for
Percy, a prayer-book for Fred, a box of needles and cottons for Beatie,
and a goody-goody book for Mab. You should have seen their faces, and
the way the little beggars tried to gush and do the polite. ‘Oh, uncle,
it’s just what I wanted!’ But it was all right down below. They found
the right sort of loot down there.”
Eve laughed, and was surprised at the spontaneity of her own laughter.
She had not laughed like that for many weeks.
“I think you must be a delightful uncle.”
“Now, do you, really? It really makes it seem worth doing, you know.
You’d like the kids.”
“I’m sure I should.”
“They’re little sports, the lot of them.”
She found presently that he was trying to turn the conversation towards
herself, and he manœuvred with more delicacy than she had imagined him
to possess. She met the attempt by making a show of frankness.
“I did not like my berth, so I threw it up. Meanwhile I am trying to do
a little business in paintings and fashion plates, while I look out for
something else.”
“Suppose you are rather particular?”
“I don’t want to take just anything that comes, if I can help it.”
“Of course not. You’ve got brains.”
“I can’t do the ordinary things that women are supposed to do—type and
write shorthand and keep books.”
She noticed that his expression had grown more serious.
“We’re all for utility in these days, you know. Beastly unromantic
world. We can only get our adventures by reading novels. I’m sorry for
the girls who have to work. They don’t get fair opportunities, or a fair
starting chance, except the few who can afford to spend a little money
on special education. It’s no fun supplying cheap labour.”
“I suppose not.”
He drew a very deep and mind-deciding breath.
“No offence meant, but if I can be of use at any time, just give me the
word.”
“It’s very kind of you to say that.”
“Nonsense, not a bit of it. We are both workers, aren’t we?”
Some days Eve got panic. A great cloud shadow seemed to be drifting
towards her, and already she felt it chilling her, and shutting out the
sunlight. She asked herself what was going to happen if she spent all
her capital before she found a means of earning money regularly, and she
lay awake at night, plotting all manner of schemes. Her sense of
loneliness and isolation became a black cupboard into which Fate shut
her ever and again as a harsh nurse shuts up a disobedient child. She
thought of leaving Bosnia Road and of moving into cheaper quarters, and
she cut her economies to the lowest point. Even Mrs. Buss’s face
reflected her penuriousness, for the florid woman was less succulently
urbane, and showed a tendency to be curt and off-hand.
Eve had begun to realise what a great city meant, with its agonies and
its struggles. It was like a huge black pool in which one went drifting
round and round with thousands of other creatures, clutching at straws,
and even at other struggling things in the effort to keep afloat. There
was always the thought of the ooze below, and the horror of submergence.
Sometimes this troubled mind-picture reminded her of the wreck of the
Titanic, with hundreds of little black figures swarming like beetles in
the water, drowning each other in the lust to live. It was when the
panic moods seized her that she was troubled by these morbid visions,
for one loses one’s poise at such times, and one’s fears loom big and
sinister as through a fog.
She had sold one picture in a fortnight, and it had brought her exactly
three and sixpence. Her fashion-plates were returned. The various
agencies were able to offer her situations as a domestic servant, the
reality being indecently disguised under the description of “lady help.”
She rebelled at the suggestion, and even a panic mood could not reduce
her to considering that particular form of slavery, her pride turning
desperate and aggressive, and crying out that it would be better for her
to indulge in any sort of adventure, to turn suffragette and break
windows, rather than go into some middle-class household as an anomaly,
and be the victim of some other woman’s moods and prejudices.
Certain assertions that Canterton had made to her developed a sharp and
vital significance. It ought not to be necessary for sensitive women to
have to go down and work in the shambles. Money is a protective
covering; art a mere piece of beautiful flimsiness that cannot protect
the wearer from cold winds and contempt. The love of money is nothing
more than the love of life and the harmony of full self-expression. Only
amazing luck or a curious concatenation of coincidences can bring
ability to the forefront when that ability starts with an empty pocket.
People do not want art, but only to escape from being bored. Most of
those who patronise any form of art do so for the sake of ostentation,
that their money and their success may advertise themselves.
She realised now what she had lost in abandoning that life at Fernhill,
and she looked back on it as something very near the ideal, green,
spacious, sympathetic, free from all the mean and petty anxieties, a
life wherein she could express all that was finest in her, without
having to dissipate her enthusiasm on the butter-dish or the coal-box.
It had meant protection and comradeship. She was sufficiently human in a
feminine sense to feel the need of them, and there was a sufficiency of
the clinging spirit in her to make her regret that she had gained a
so-called independence. She was nearer now to discovering why some women
are loved and others ignored. Evolution has taught the male to feel
protective, and the expressing of this protective tenderness provides
man with one of the most beautifying experiences that life can give. The
aggressive and independent woman may satisfy a new steel-bright pride,
but she has set herself against one of the tendencies of Nature. Argue
as one may about evolving a new atmosphere, of redistributing the
factors of life, this old fact remains. The aggressive and independent
woman will never be loved in the same way. No doubt she will protest
that her aim is to escape from this conception of love—sexual
domination, that is what it has been dubbed, and rightly so in the
multitude of cases. But a cloud of contentions cannot damp out the
under-truth. The newmade woman will never challenge all that is best in
man. She will continue to remain in ignorance of what man is.
Even in her panic moments Eve could not bring herself to write to
Canterton. She felt that she could not reopen the past, when it was she
who had closed it. She recoiled from putting herself in a position that
might make it possible for him to offer her money.
One of the hardest parts of it all was that she had to live the whole
time with her anxious economies. She could not afford to escape from
them, to pay to forget. A shilling was a big consideration, a penny
every bit a penny. Once or twice, when she was feeling particularly
miserable, she let herself go to the desperate extent of a half-crown
seat in the pit. And the next day she would regret the extravagance, and
lunch on a scone and a glass of milk.
Then Mr. Parfit appeared in the light of a provider of amusements. One
Thursday evening she had a note from him, written in his regular,
commercial hand.
“DEAR MISS CARFAX,—I have three dress-circles for a matinée of
‘The Lost Daughter’ on Saturday afternoon. Jane is coming up
from Croydon. Will you honour me by joining us? We might have a
little lunch at Frascati’s before the theatre. I shall be proud
if you accept, and I want you to meet Jane.
“Very sincerely yours,
“JOHN PARFIT.”
She did accept, glad to escape from herself for an afternoon, and
refusing to ask herself any serious questions. Mr. Parfit was in great
spirits. Eve discovered “Sister Jane” to be a stout, blonde,
good-humoured woman with an infinite capacity for feeling domestic
affection. She studied Eve with feminine interest, and meeting her
brother’s eyes, smiled at him from time to time with motherly approval.
The play was a British Public play, sentimentally sexual, yet guardedly
inoffensive. Eve enjoyed it. She found that John Parfit had to use his
handkerchief, and that he became thick in the throat. She did not like
him any the less for being capable of emotion. It seemed to be part of
his personality.
Afterwards they had tea together, and Mr. Parfit’s benevolence became
tinged with affectionate playfulness. He made jokes, teased his sister,
and tried to make Eve enter into a guessing competition as to which
fancy cakes each would choose.
She appreciated his discretion when he put her in a taxi, gave the
driver four shillings, and packed her off to Bosnia Road. He himself was
going to see Jane off at Charing Cross. Also, he and Jane had something
to discuss.
“Well, old thing, how does she strike you?”
“I’m a cautious soul, John, but I’m a woman, and we’re quick about other
women. She’s the right stuff, even if she’s clever, and a little proud.
It doesn’t do a girl any harm to have a little pride. Fine eyes, too,
and good style.”
“I knew you’d think that.”
“Did you now? What do you know about women, you great big baby?”
* * * * *