VICTORIA had forgotten her latchkey. Miss Briggs opened the door for
her. Her sallow face brightened up.
'There's a gentleman waiting, mum,' she said, 'and 'ere's a telegram.'
Came jest five minutes after you left. I've put him in the front room
what's empty, mum. Thought you'd rather see him there. Been 'ere 'arf an
'our, mum.'
Victoria did not attempt to disentangle the hours of arrival of the
gentleman and the telegram; she tore open the brown envelope excitedly.
It only heralded the coming of Edward who was doubtless the gentleman.
'Thanks, Miss Briggs,' she said, 'it's my brother.'
'Yes, mum, nice young gentleman. He's all right; been reading the _New
Age_, mum, this 'arf hour, what belongs to the lady on the third.'
Victoria smiled and went into the dining-room, where none dine in
lodging houses save ghosts. Edward was standing near the mantlepiece
immersed in the paper.
'Why, Ted, this is nice of you,' cried Victoria going up to him and
taking his hand.
'I had to come up to town suddenly,' said Edward, 'to get books for the
Head. I'm going back this afternoon but I thought I'd look you up. Did
you get the telegram.'
'Just got it now,' said Victoria, showing it, 'so you might have saved
the sixpence.'
'I'm sorry,' said Edward. 'I didn't know until this morning.'
'It doesn't matter. I'm so glad to see you.'
There was an awkward pause. Edward brushed away the hair from his
forehead. His hands flew back to his watch-chain. Victoria had briefly
written to him to tell him why she left the Holts. Fearful of all that
touches women, he was acutely conscious that he blamed her and yet knew
her to be blameless.
'It's a beautiful day,' he said suddenly.
'Isn't it?' agreed Victoria, looking at him with surprise. There was
another pause.
'What are you doing just now, Vic?' Edward breathed more freely, having
taken the plunge.
'I've just got some work,' said Victoria. 'I begin on Wednesday.'
'Oh, indeed?' said Edward with increasing interest. 'Have you got a post
as companion?'
'Well, not exactly,' said Victoria. She realised that her story was not
very easy to tell a man like Edward. He looked at her sharply. His face
flushed. His brow puckered. With both hands he grasped his watch-chain.
'I hope, Victoria,' he said severely, 'that you are not adopting an
occupation unworthy of a lady. I mean I know you couldn't,' he added,
his severity melting into nervousness.
'I suppose nothing's unworthy,' said Victoria; 'the fact is, Ted, I'm
afraid you won't like it much, but I'm going on the stage.'
Edward started and flushed like an angry boy. 'On the . . . the stage?'
he gasped.
'Yes,' said Victoria quietly. 'I've got an engagement for six months to
play at Vichy and other places in France. I only get six pounds a month
but they pay all the expenses. I'll have quite thirty pounds clear when
I come back. What do you think of that?'
'It's . . . it's awful,' cried Edward, losing all self-consciousness.
'How can you do such a thing, Vic? If it were in London, it would be
different. You simply can't do it.'
'Can't?' asked Victoria, raising her eyebrows. 'Why?'
'It's not done. No really Vic, you can't do it.' Edward was evidently
disturbed. Fancy a sister of his . . . It was preposterous.
'I'm sorry, Ted,' said Victoria, 'but I'm going on Wednesday. I've
signed the agreement.'
Edward looked at her almost horror-struck. His spectacles had slid down
to the sharp tip of his nose.
'You are doing very wrong, Victoria,' he said, resuming his pedagogic
gravity. 'You could have done nothing that I should have disapproved of
as much. You should have looked out for something else.'
'Looked out for something else?' said Victoria with the suspicion of a
sneer. 'Look here, Ted. I know you mean well, but I know what I'm doing;
I haven't been in London for six months without finding out that life is
hard on women like me. I'm no good because I'm too good for a poor job
and not suitable for a superior one. So I've just got to do what I can.'
'Why didn't you try for a post as companion?' asked Edward with a half
snarl.
'Try indeed! Anybody can see you haven't had to try, Ted. I've tried
everything I could think of, agencies, societies, papers, everything. I
can't get a post. I must do something. I've got to take what I can get.
I know it now; we women are just raw material. The world uses as much of
us as it needs and throws the rest on the scrap heap. Do you think I
don't keep my eyes open? Do you think I don't see that when you want
somebody to do double work at half rates you get a woman? And she thanks
God and struggles for the work that's too dirty or too hard for a man
to touch.'
Victoria paced up and down the small room, carried away by her
vehemence. Edward said nothing. He was much upset and did not know what
to say; he had never seen Victoria like this and he was constitutionally
afraid of vigour.
'I'm sorry, Ted,' said Victoria stopping suddenly. She laid her hand on
his sleeve. 'There, don't sulk with me. Let's go out to lunch and I'll
go and choose your books with you after. Is it a bargain?'
'I don't want to discuss the matter again,' replied Edward with as much
composure as he could muster. 'Yes, let's go out to lunch.'
The rest of the day passed without another word on the subject of
Victoria's downfall. She saw Edward off at St Pancras. After he had said
good-bye to her, he suddenly leaned out of the window of the railway
carriage as if to speak, then changed his mind and sank back on the
seat. Victoria smiled at her victory.
Next morning she broke the news to Miss Briggs. The landlady seemed
amazed as well as concerned.
'You seem rather taken aback,' said Victoria.
'Well, mum, you see it's a funny thing the stage; young ladies all seems
to think it's easy to get on. And then they don't get on. And there you
are.'
'Well I _am_ on,' said Victoria, 'so I shall have to leave on
Wednesday.'
'Sorry to lose you, mum,' said Miss Briggs, ''ope yer'll 'ave a success.
In course, as you 'aven't given me notice, mum, it'll 'ave to be a
week's money more.'
'Oh, come Miss Briggs, this is too bad,' cried Victoria, 'why, you've
got a whole floor vacant! What would it have mattered if I had given you
notice?'
'Might have let it, mum. Besides it's the law,' said Miss Briggs,
placing her arms akimbo, ready for the fray.
'Very well then,' said Victoria coldly, 'don't let's say anything more
about it.'
Miss Briggs looked at her critically. 'No offence meant, mum,' she said
timidly, 'it's a 'ard life, lodgers.'
'Indeed?' said Victoria without any show of interest.
'You wouldn't believe it, mum, all I've got to put up with. There's
Hetty now . . .'
'Yes, yes, Miss Briggs,' said Victoria impatiently, 'you've told me
about Hetty.'
'To be sure, mum,' replied Miss Briggs, humbly. 'It ain't easy to make
ends meet. What with the rent and them Borough Council rates. There
ain't no end to it, mum. I lives in the basement, mum, and that means
gas all the afternoon, mum.'
Victoria looked at her again. This was a curious outlook. The poor
troglodyte had translated the glory of the sun into cubic feet of gas.
'Yes, I suppose it is hard,' she said reflectively.
'To be sure, mum,' mused Miss Briggs. 'Sometimes you can't let at all.
I've watched through the area railings, mum, many a long day in August,
wondering if the legs I can see was coming 'ere. They don't mostly,
mum.'
'Then why do you go on?' asked Victoria hardening suddenly.
'What am I to do, mum? I just gets my board and lodging out of it, mum.
Keeps one respectable; always been respectable, mum. That ain't so easy
in London, mum. Ah, when I was a young girl, might have been different,
mum; you should have seen me 'air. Curls like anything, mum, when I puts
it in papers. 'Ad a bit of a figure too, mum.'
'Deary me!'
Victoria looked with sympathy at the hard thin face, the ragged hair.
Yes, she was respectable enough, poor Miss Briggs! Women have a hard
life. No wonder they too are hard. You cannot afford to be earthenware
among the brass pots.
'What will you do when you can't run the house any more?' she asked more
gently.
'Do, mum? I dunno.'
Yet another philosophy.
'Miss Briggs,' came a man's voice from the stairs.
'Coming, sir,' yelled Miss Briggs in the penetrating tone that calling
from cellar to attic teaches.
'Where are my boots?' said the voice on the stairs.
'I'll get 'em for you, sir,' cried Miss Briggs shuffling to the door on
her worn slippers.
Life is a hard thing, thought Victoria again. Another woman for the
scrap heap. Fourteen hours work a day, nightmares of unlet rooms, boots
to black and coals to carry, dirt, loneliness, harsh words and at the
end 'I dunno.' Is that to be my fate? she wondered.
However her blood soon raced again; she was an actress, she was going
abroad, she was going to see the world, to enslave it, to have
adventures, live. It was good. All that day Victoria trod on air. She no
longer felt her loneliness. The sun was out and aglow, bringing in its
premature exuberance joyful moisture to her temples. She, with the
world, was young. In a fit of extravagance she lunched at a half crown
table d'hote in Oxford Street, where pink shades softly diffuse the
light on shining glass and silver. The coffee was almost regal, so
strong, so full of sap. The light of triumph was in her eyes, making men
turn back, sometimes follow and look into her face, half appealing, half
insolent. But Victoria was unconscious of them, for the world was at her
feet. She was the axis of the earth. It was in such a frame of mind
that, the next day, she climbed the steps of Soho Place, careless of the
view into the underground kitchen, of the two dogs who under the archway
fought, growling, fouling the air with the scents of their hides, over
a piece of offal. She ran up the stairs lightly. The door was still
ajar.
Two men were sitting in the anteroom, both smoking briar pipes. The
taller of the two got up.
'Yes?' he said interrogatively.
'I . . . you . . . is Mr Carrel here?' asked Victoria nervously.
'No Miss,' said the man calmly, 'he's just gone to Marlborough Street.'
'Oh,' said Victoria, still nervous, 'will he be long?'
'I should say so, miss,' replied the man, 'perhaps twelve months,
perhaps more.'
Victoria gasped. 'I don't understand,' she said, but her heart began to
beat.
'Don't s'pose you would, miss,' said the short man, getting up. 'Fact
is, miss, we're the police and we've had to take him; just about time we
did, too. Leaving for France to-night with a batch of girls. S'pose
you're one of them?'
'I was going to-night,' said Victoria faintly.
'May I have your name?' asked the tall man politely, taking out a pocket
book.
'Fulton,' she faltered. 'Victoria Fulton.'
'M'yes, that's it. 'Gladys Oxford,'' said the tall man turning back a
page. 'Well Miss, you can thank your stars you're out of it.'
'But what has he done?' asked Victoria with an effort.
'Lord, Miss, you're from the country, I can see,' said the short man
amiably. 'I thought everybody knew that little game. Take you over to
Vichy, you know. Make you dance and sing. Provide costumes.' He winked
at his companion.
'Costumes,' said Victoria, 'what do you mean?'
'Costumes don't mean much, Miss, over there,' said the tall man. 'Fact
is you'd have to wear what they like and sing what they like when you
pass the plate round among the customers.'
Something seemed to freeze in Victoria.
'He said it was a theatre of varieties,' she gasped.
'Quite true,' said the tall man with returning cynicism. 'A theatre
right enough, but you'd have supplied the variety to the customers.'
Victoria clenched her hands on the handle of her parasol. Then she
turned to fly.
The short man stopped her and demanded her address, informing her that
she was to attend at Marlborough Street next day at eleven thirty.
'Case mayn't be called before twelve,' he added. 'Sorry to trouble you,
Miss. You won't hear any more about it unless it's a case for the
Sessions.'
Victoria ran down the steps, through the alley and into Charing Cross
Road as if something was tracking her, tracking her down. So this was
the end of the dream. She had stretched her hand out to the roses, and
the gods, less merciful to her than to Tantalus, had filled her palm
with thorns. It was horrible, horrible. She had imagination, and a
memory of old prints after Rowlandson which her father had treasured
came back to her with almost nauseating force. She pictured the French
_cafe chantant_ like the Cave of Harmony; rough boards on trestles,
laden with tankards of foaming beer, muddy lights, a foulness of tobacco
smoke, a raised stage with an enormous woman singing on it, her eye
frightfully dilated by belladonna, her massive arms and legs gleaming
behind the dirty footlights and everywhere around men smoking, with
noses like snouts, bodies like swines, hairy hands--hands, ye gods!
She walked quickly away from the place of revelation. She hurried
through the five o'clock inferno of Trafalgar Square, careless of the
traffic, escaping death ten times. She hurried down the spaces of
Whitehall, and only slackened her pace at Westminster Bridge. There she
stopped for a moment; the sun was setting and gilded and empurpled the
foreshores. The horror of the past half hour seemed to fade away as she
watched the roses and mauves bloom and blend, the deep shadows of the
embankments rise and fall. Near by, a vagrant, every inch of him clothed
in rags, the dirt of his face mimicking their colour, smoked a short
clay pipe, puffing at long intervals small wreaths of smoke into the
blue air. And as Victoria watched them form, rise and vanish into
nothingness, the sun kiss gently but pitilessly the old vagrant hunched
up against the parapet, the horror seemed to melt away. The peace of the
evening was expelling it, but another dread visitor was heralded in.
Victoria felt like lead in her heart, the return of uncertainty. Once
more she was an outcast. No work. Once more she must ask herself what to
do and find no answer.
The river glittered and rose and fell, as if inviting her. Victoria
shuddered. It was not yet time for that. She turned back and, with
downcast eyes, made for St James's Park. There she sat for a moment
watching a pelican flop on his island, the waterfowl race and dive. The
problem of life was upon her now and where was the solution? Must I
tread the mill once more? thought Victoria. The vision of agencies
again, of secretaries courteous or rude, of waits and hopes and
despairs, all rushed at her and convinced her of the uselessness of it
all. She was alone, always alone, because she wanted to be free, to be
happy, to live. Perhaps she had been wrong after all to resist the call
of the river. She shuddered once more. A couple passed her with hands
interlocked, eyes gazing into eyes. No, life must hold forth to her
something to make it worth while. She was cold. She got up and, with
nervous determination, walked quickly towards the gate.
The first thing to be done was to get quit of all the horrors of the
day, to cut away the wreckage. She dared not stay at Castle Street. She
would be tracked. She would have to give evidence. She couldn't do it.
She couldn't. Victoria having regained her coolness was in no wise
uncertain as to her course of action. The first thing to do was for her
to lose herself in London, and that so deep that none could drag her out
and force her to tell her story. She must change her lodgings then.
Nothing could be easier, as she had already given Miss Briggs notice. In
fact the best thing to do would be to keep up the fiction of her
departure for France.