'I'M very sorry you can't come,' said Mrs Holt.
'Last Sunday, Mr Baker was so nice. I never heard anything so
interesting as his sermon on the personal devil. I was quite frightened.
At least I would have been if he had said all that at Bethlehem. You
know, when we were at Rawsley we had such nice lantern lectures. I do
miss them.'
Victoria looked up with a smile at the kindly red face. 'I'm so sorry,'
she said, 'I've got such a headache. Perhaps it'll pass over if I go for
a little walk while you are at Church.' She was not unconscious, as she
said this, of the subtle flattery that the use of the word 'church'
implies when used to people who dare not leave their chapel.
'Do, Victoria, I'm sure it will do you good,' said Mrs Holt, kindly. 'If
the sun keeps on, we'll go to the Zoo this afternoon. I do like to see
the children in the monkey house.'
'I'm sure I shall be glad to go,' said Victoria quietly. 'It's very kind
of you to take me.'
'Nonsense, my dear,' replied Mrs Holt, gently beaming. 'You are like the
sunshine, you know. Dear me! I don't know what I should have done if I
hadn't found you. You can't imagine the woman who was here before you.
She was the daughter of a clergyman, and I did get so tired of hearing
how they lost their money. But, there, I'm worrying you when you've got
a headache. I do wish you'd try Dr Eberman's pills. All the papers are
simply full of advertisements about them. And these German doctors are
so clever. Oh, I shall be so late.'
Victoria assured her that she was sure her head would be better by
dinner time. Mrs Holt fussed about the room for a moment, anxiously
tested the possible dustiness of a bracket, pulled the curtains and
picked up the Sunday papers from the floor. She then collected a small
canvas bag decorated with a rainbow parrot, a hymn and service book, her
spectacle case, several unnecessary articles which happened to be about
and left the room with the characteristic rustle which pervades the
black silk dresses of well-to-do Rawsley dames.
Victoria sat back in the large leather armchair. Her head was not very
bad but she felt just enough in her temples a tiny passing twinge to
shirk chapel without qualms. She toyed with a broken backed copy of
_Charlton on Book-Keeping_ which lay in her lap. It was a curious fate
that had landed her into Charlton's epoch making work. Mrs Holt, that
prince of good fellows, had a genius for saving pennies and had been
trained in the school of a Midland household, but the fortunes of her
husband had left her feebly struggling in a backwash of pounds. So much
had this been the case that Mr Holt had discovered joyfully that he had
at last in his house a woman who could bring herself to passing an
account for twenty pounds for stabling. Little by little Victoria had
established her position. She was Mrs Holt's necessary companion and
factotum. She could apparently do anything and do it well; she could
even tackle such intricate tasks as checking washing or understanding
Bradshaw. She was always ready and always bright. She had an unerring
eye for a good quality of velvet; she could time the carriage to a
nicety for the Albert Hall concert. Mrs Holt felt that without this
pleasant and competent young woman she would be quite lost.
Mr Holt, too, after inspecting Victoria grimly every day for an entire
month, had decided that she would do and had lent her the work on
book-keeping, hoping that she would be able to keep the house accounts.
In three months he had not addressed her twenty times beyond wishing her
good morning and good night. He had but reluctantly left Rawsley and his
beloved cement works to superintend his ever growing London business. He
was a little suspicious of Victoria's easy manners; suspicious of her
intentions, too, as the northerner is wont to be. Yet he grudgingly
admitted that she was level headed, which was 'more than Maria or his
fool of a son would ever be.'
Victoria thought for a moment of Holt, the book-keeping, the falling due
of insurance premiums; then of Mrs Holt who had just stepped into her
carriage which was slowly proceeding down the drive, crunching into the
hard gravel. A gleam of sunshine fitfully lit up the polished panels of
the clumsy barouche as it vanished through the gate.
This then was her life. It might well have been worse. Mr Holt sometimes
let a rough kindness appear through an exterior as hard as his own
cement. Mrs Holt, stout, comfortable and good-tempered, quite
incompetent when it came to controlling a house in the Finchley Road,
was not of the termagant type that Victoria had expected when she became
a companion. Her nature, peaceful as that of a mollusc, was kind and had
but one outstanding feature; her passionate devotion to her son Jack.
Victoria thought that she might well be content to pass the remainder of
her days among these good folk. From the bottom of her heart mild
discontent rose every now and then. It was a little dull. Tuesday was
like Monday and probably like the Tuesday after next. The glories of the
town, which she had caught sight of during her wanderings, before she
floated into the still waters of the Finchley Road, haunted her at
times. The motor buses too, which perpetually carried couples to the
theatre, the crowds in Regent Street making for the tea-shops, while the
barouche trotted sedately up the hill, all this life and adventure were
closed off.
Victoria was not unhappy. She drifted in that singular psychological
region where the greatest possible pain is not suffering and where the
acme of possible pleasure is not joy. She did not realise that this
negative condition was almost happiness, and yet did not precisely
repine. The romance of her life, born at Lympton, now slept under the
tamarinds. The stupefaction of the search for work, the hopes and fears
of December, all that lay far away in those dark chambers of the brain
into which memory cannot force a way but swoons on the threshold.
Yes, she was happy enough. Her eyes, casting through the bay window over
the evergreens, trimly stationed and dusty, strayed over the low wall.
On the other side of the road stood another house, low and solid as this
one, beautiful though ugly in its strength and worth. It is not the
house you live in that matters, thought Victoria, unconsciously
committing plagiarism, but the house opposite. The house she lived in
was well enough. Its inhabitants were kind, the servants respectful,
even the mongrel Manchester terrier with the melancholy eyes of some
collie ancestor did not gnaw her boots.
She let her hands fall into her lap and, for a minute, sat staring into
space, seeing with extraordinary lucidity those things to come which a
movement dispels and swathes with the dense fog of forgetfulness. With
terrible clarity she saw the life of the last three months and the life
to come, as it was in the beginning ever to be.
The door opened softly. Before she had time to turn round two hands were
clapped over her eyes. She struggled to free herself, but the hands grew
more insistent and two thumbs softly touched her cheeks.
'Dimple, dimple,' said a voice, while one of the thumbs gently dwelled
near the corner of her mouth.
Victoria struggled to her feet, a little flushed, a strand of hair
flying over her left ear.
'Mr Jack,' she said rather curtly, 'I don't like that. You know you
mustn't do that. It's not fair. I really don't like it.' She was angry;
her nostrils opened and shut quickly; she glared at the good looking boy
before her.
'Naughty temper,' he remarked, quite unruffled. 'You'll take a fit one
of these days, Vicky, if you don't look out.'
'Very likely if you give me starts like that. Not that I mind that so
much, but really it's not nice of you. You know you wouldn't do that if
your mother was looking.'
'Course I wouldn't,' said Jack, 'the old mater's such a back number, you
know.'
'Then,' replied Victoria with much dignity, 'you ought not to do things
when we're alone which you wouldn't do before her.'
'Oh Lord! morals again,' groaned the youth. 'You are rough on me,
Vicky.'
'And you mustn't call me Vicky,' said Victoria. 'I don't say I mind, but
it isn't the thing. If anybody heard you I don't know what they'd
think.'
'Who cares!' said Jack in his most dare devil style, putting his hand on
the back of hers and stroking it softly. Victoria snatched her hand away
and went to the window, where she seemed absorbed in the contemplation
of the evergreens. Jack looked a little nonplussed. He was an attractive
youth and looked about twenty. He had the fresh complexion and blue
eyes of his father but differed from him by a measure of delicacy. His
tall body was a little bent; his face was all pinks and whites set off
by the blackness of his straight hair. He well deserved his school
nickname of Kathleen Mavourneen. His long thin hands, which would have
been aristocratic but for the slight thickness of the joints, branded
him a poet. He was not happy in the cement business.
Jack stepped up to the window. 'Sorry,' he said, as humbly as possible.
Victoria did not move.
'Won't never do it again,' he said, pouting like a scolded child.
'It's no good,' answered Victoria, 'I'm not going to make it up.'
'I shall go and drown myself in the Regent Canal,' said Jack dolefully.
'I'd rather you went for a walk along the banks,' said Victoria.
'I will if you'll come too,' answered Jack.
'No, I'm not going out. I've got a headache. Look here, I'll forgive you
on condition that you go out now and if you'll do that perhaps you can
come with your mother and me to the Zoo this afternoon.'
'All right then,' grumbled the culprit, 'you're rather hard on me.
Always knew you didn't like me. Sorry.'
Victoria looked out again. A minute later Jack came out of the house
and, pausing before the window, signed to her to lift up the sash.
'What do you want now?' asked Victoria, thrusting her head out.
'It's a bargain about the Zoo, isn't it?'
'Yes, of course it is, silly boy. I've got several children's tickets.'
Jack made a wry face, but walked away with a queer little feeling of
exultation. 'Silly boy.' She had called him 'silly boy.' Victoria
watched him go with some perplexity. The young man was rather a
problem. Not only did his pretty face and gentle ways appeal to her in
themselves, but he had told her something of his thoughts and they did
not run on cement. His father had thrust him into his business as men of
his type naturally force their sons into their own avocation whatever it
be. Victoria knew that he was not happy and was sorry for him; how could
she help feeling sorry for this lonely youth who had once printed a
rondeau in the _Westminster Gazette_.
Jack had taken to her at once. All that was delicate and feminine in him
called out to her square chin and steady eyes. Often she had seen him
look hungrily at her strong hands where bone and muscle plainly showed.
But, in his wistful way, Jack had begun to embarrass her. He was making
love to her in a sense, sometimes sportively, sometimes plaintively, and
he was difficult to resist.
Victoria saw quite well that trouble must ensue. She would not allow the
boy to fall in love with her when all she could offer was an almost
motherly affection. Besides, they could not marry; it would be absurd.
She was puzzled as to what to do. Everything tended to complicate the
situation for her. She had once been to the theatre with Jack and
remembered with anxiety how his arm had rested against hers in the cab
and how, when he leaned over towards her to speak, she had felt him
slowly inhaling the scents of her hair.
She had promised herself that Jack should be snubbed. And now he played
pranks on her. It must end in their being caught in an ambiguous
attitude and then she would be blamed. She might tell Mrs Holt, but then
what would be her position in the household? Jack would sulk and Mrs
Holt would watch them suspiciously until the situation became
intolerable and she had to leave. Leave! no, no, she couldn't do that.
With sudden vividness Victoria pictured the search for work, the silence
of Portsea Place, the Rialto-like archway, Mrs Bell, and the cold, the
loneliness. Events must take their course.
Like the rasp of a corncrake she heard the wheels of the barouche on the
gravel. Mrs Holt had returned from the discourse on the personal devil.