THOMAS FARWELL collected three volumes from his desk, two pamphlets and
a banana. It was six o'clock and, the partners having left, he was his
own master half an hour earlier than usual.
'You off?' said the junior from the other end of the desk.
'Yes. Half an hour to the good.'
'What's the good of half an hour,' said the youth superciliously.
'No good unless you think it is, like everything else,' said Farwell.
'Besides, I may be run over by half past six.'
'Cheerful as ever,' remarked the junior, bending his head down to the
petty cash balance.
Farwell took no notice of him. Ten times a day he cursed himself for
wasting words upon this troglodyte. He was a youth long as a day's
starvation, with a bulbous forehead, stooping narrow shoulders and
narrow lips; his shape resembled that of an old potato. He peered
through his glasses with watery eyes hardly darker than his grey face.
'Good night,' said Farwell curtly.
'Cheer, oh!' said the junior.
Farwell slammed the door behind him. He felt inclined to skip down the
stairs, not that anything particularly pleasant had happened but because
the bells of St Botolph's were pealing out a chime of freedom. It was
six. He had nothing to do. The best thing was to go to Moorgate Street
and take the books to Victoria. On second thoughts, no, he would wait.
Six o'clock might still be a busy time.
Farwell walked down the narrow lane from Bishopsgate into St. Botolph's
churchyard. It was a dank and dreary evening, dark already. The wind
swept over the paths in little whirlwinds. Dejected sparrows sought
scraps of food among the ancient graves where office boys munch buns and
read of woodcarving and desperate adventure. He sat down on a seat by
the side of a shape that slept, and opened one of the books, though it
was too dark to read. The shape lifted an eyelid and looked at him.
Farwell turned over the pages listlessly. It was a history of
revolutionists. For some reason he hated them to-day, all of them. Jack
Cade was a boor, Cromwell a tartuffe, Bolivar a politician, Mazzini a
theorist. It would bore Victoria.
Farwell brought himself up with a jerk. He was thinking of Victoria too
often. As he was a man who faced facts he told himself quite plainly
that he did not intend to fall in love with her. He did not feel capable
of love; he hated most people, but did not believe that a good hater was
a good lover.
'Clever, of course,' he muttered, 'but no woman is everlastingly clever.
I won't risk finding her out.'
The shape at his side moved. It was an old man, filthy, clad in
blackened rags, with a matted beard. Farwell glanced at him and turned
away.
'I'd have you poisoned if I could,' he thought. Then he returned to
Victoria. Was she worth educating? And supposing she was educated, what
then? She would become discontented, instead of brutalised. The latter
was the happier state. Or she would fall in love with him, when he would
give her short shrift. What a pity. A tiny wave of sentiment flowed into
Farwell's soul.
'Clever, clever,' he thought, 'a little house, babies, roses, a fox
terrier.'
'Gov'nor,' croaked a hoarse voice beside him.
Farwell turned quickly. The shape was alive, then, curse it.
'Well, what d'you want?'
'Give us a copper, gov'nor, I'm an old man, can't work. S'elp me, Gawd,
gov'nor, 'aven't 'ad a bite. . . .'
'That'll do, you fool,' snarled Farwell, 'why the hell don't you go and
get it in gaol?'
'Yer don't mean that, gov'nor, do yer?' whined the old man, 'I always
kep my self respectable; 'ere, look at these 'ere testimonials, gov'nor,
. . .' He drew from his coat a disgusting object, a bundle of papers
tied together with string.
'I don't want to see them,' said Farwell. 'I wouldn't employ you if I
could. Why don't you go to the workhouse?'
The old man almost bridled.
'Why? Because you're a stuck up. D'you hear? You're proud of being poor.
That's about as vulgar as bragging because you're rich. If you and all
the likes of you went into the House, you'd reform the system in a week.
Understand?'
The old man's eyes were fixed on the speaker, uncomprehending.
'Better still, go and throw any bit of dirt you pick up at a policeman,'
continued Farwell. 'See he gets it in the mouth. You get locked up.
Suppose a million of the likes of you do the same, what d'you think
happens?'
'I dunno,' said the old man.
'Well, your penal system is bust. If you offend the law you're a
criminal. But what's the law? the opinion of the majority. If the
majority goes against the law, then the minority becomes criminal. The
world's upside down.' Farwell smiled. 'The world's upside down,' he said
softly, licking his lips.
'Give us a copper for a bed, guv'nor,' said the old man dully.
'What's the good of a bed to you?' exploded Farwell. 'Why don't you have
a drink?'
'I'm a teetotaller, guv'nor; always kep' myself respectable.'
'Respectable! You're earning the wages of respectability, that is
death,' said Farwell with a wolfish laugh. 'Why, man, can't you see
you've been on the wrong tack? We don't want any more of you
respectables. We want pirates, vampires. We want all this society of
yours rotted by internal canker, so that we can build a new one. But we
must rot it first. We aren't going to work on a sow's ear.'
'Give us a copper, guv'nor,' moaned the old man.
Farwell took out sixpence and laid it on the seat. 'Now then,' he said,
'you can have this if you'll swear to blow it in drink.'
'I will, s'elp me Gawd,' said the old man eagerly.
Farwell pushed the coin towards him.
'Take it, teetotaller,' he sneered, 'your respectable system of bribery
has bought you for sixpence. Now let me see you go into that pub.'
The old man clutched the sixpence and staggered to his feet. Farwell
watched the swing doors of the public bar at the end of the passage
close behind him. Then he got up and walked away; it was about time to
go to Moorgate Street.
As he entered the smoking-room, Victoria blushed. The man moved her,
stimulated her. When she saw him she felt like a body meeting a soul. He
sat down at his usual place. Victoria brought him his tea, and laid it
before him without a word. Nelly, lolling in another corner, kicked the
ground, looking away insolently from the elaborate wink of one of the
scullions.
'Here, read these,' said Farwell, pushing two of the books across the
table. Victoria picked them up.
'_Looking Backwards?_' she said. 'Oh, I don't want to do that. It's
forward I want to go.'
'A laudable sentiment,' sneered Farwell, 'the theory of every Sunday
School in the country, and the practice of none. However, you'll find it
fairly soul-filling as an unintelligent anticipation. Personally I
prefer the other. _Demos_ is good stuff, for Gissing went through the
fire.'
Victoria quickly walked away. Farwell looked surprised for a second,
then saw the manageress on the stairs.
'Faugh,' he muttered, 'if the world's a stage I'm playing the part of a
low intriguer.'
He sipped his tea meditatively. In a few minutes Victoria returned.
'Thank you,' she whispered. 'It's good of you. You're teaching me to
live.'
Farwell looked at her critically.
'I don't see much good in that,' he said, 'unless you've got something
to live for. One of our philosophers says you live either for experience
or the race. I recommend the former to myself, and to you nothing.'
'Why shouldn't I live for anything?' she asked.
'Because life's too dear. And its pleasures are not white but piebald.'
'I understand,' said Victoria, 'but I must live.'
'_Je n'en vois pas la necessite_,' quoted Farwell smiling. 'Never mind
what that means,' he added, 'I'm only a pessimist.'
The next few weeks seemed to create in Victoria a new personality. Her
reading was so carefully selected that every line told. Farwell knew the
hundred best books for a working girl; he had a large library composed
mostly of battered copies squeezed out of his daily bread. Victoria's
was the appetite of a gorgon. In another month she had absorbed _Odd
Women_, _An Enemy of the People_, _The_ _Doll's House_, _Alton Locke_,
and a translation of _Germinal_. Every night she read with an intensity
which made her forget that March chilled her to the bone; poring over
the book, her eyes a few inches from the candle, she soaked in
rebellion. When the cold nipped too close into her she would get up and
wrap herself in the horsecloth and read with savage application, rushing
to the core of the thought. She was no student, so she would skip a hard
word. Besides, in those moods, when the spirit bounds in the body like a
caged bird, words are felt, not understood.
Betty was still hovering round her, a gentle presence. She knew what was
going on and was frightened. A new Victoria was rising before her, a
woman very charming still, but extraordinary, incomprehensible. Often
Victoria would snub her savagely, then take her hand as they stood
together at the counter bawling for food and drink. And as Victoria grew
hard and strong, Betty worshipped her more as she would have worshipped
a strong man.
Yet Betty was not happy. Victoria lived now in a state of excitement and
hunger for solitude. She took no interest in things that Betty could
understand. Their Sunday walks had been ruthlessly cut now and then, for
the fury was upon Victoria when eating the fruits of the tree. When they
were together now Victoria was preoccupied; she no longer listened to
the club gossip, nor did she ask to be told once more the story of
Betty's early days.
'Do you know you're sweated?' she said suddenly one day.
Betty's eyes opened round and blue.
'Sweated,' she said. 'I thought only people in the East End were
sweated.'
'The world's one big East End,' snapped Victoria.
Betty shivered. Farwell might have said that.
'You're sweated if you get two pounds a week,' continued Victoria.
'You're sweated when you buy a loaf, sweated when you ride in a bus,
sweated when they cremate you.'
'I don't understand,' said Betty.
'All profits are sweated,' quoted Victoria from a pamphlet.
'But people must make profits,' protested Betty.
'What for?' asked Victoria.
'How are people to live unless they make profits?' said Betty. 'Aren't
our wages profits?'
Victoria was nonplussed for a moment and became involved. 'No, our wages
are only wages; profit is the excess over our wages.'
'I don't understand,' said Betty.
'Never mind,' said Victoria, 'I'll ask Mr Farwell; he'll make it clear.'
Betty shot a dark blue glance at her.
'Vic,' she said softly, 'I think Mr Farwell. . . .' Then she changed her
mind. 'I can't, I can't,' she thought. She crushed the jealous words
down and plunged.
'Vic, darling,' she faltered, 'I'm afraid you're not well. No, and not
happy. I've been thinking of something; why shouldn't I leave the Club
and come and live with you.'
Victoria looked at her critically for a moment. She thought of her
independence, of this affection hovering round her, sweet, dangerously
clinging. But Betty's blue eyes were wet.
'You're too good a pal for me, Betty,' she said in a low voice. 'I'd
make you miserable.'
'No, no,' cried Betty impulsively. 'I'd love it, Vic dear, and you would
go on reading and do what you like. Only let me be with you.'
Victoria's hand tightened on her friend's arm.
'Let me think, Betty dear,' she said.
Ten days later, Betty having won her point, the great move was to take
place at seven o'clock. It certainly lacked solemnity. For three days
preceding the great change Betty had hurried away from the P.R.R. on the
stroke of nine, quickly kissing Victoria and saying she couldn't wait as
she must pack. Clearly her wardrobe could not be disposed of in a
twinkling. Yet, on moving day, at seven o'clock sharp (the carrier
having been thoughtfully commanded to deliver at five) a tin trunk kept
together by a rope, a tiny bath muzzled with a curtain, and a hat box
loudly advertising somebody's tea, were dumped on the doorstep. The cart
drove off leaving the two girls to make terms with a loafer. The latter
compromised for fourpence, slammed their door behind him and lurched
down the creaking stairs. Betty threw herself into Victoria's arms.
Those first days were sweet. Betty rejoiced like a lover in possession
of a long-desired mistress; stripping off her blouse and looking very
pretty, showing her white neck and slim arms, she strutted about the
attic with a hammer in her hand and her mouth full of nails. It took an
evening to hang the curtain which had muzzled the bath; Betty's art
treasures, an oleograph of 'Bubbles' and another of 'I'se Biggest,' were
cunningly hung by Victoria so that she could not see them on waking up.
Betty was active now as a will o' the wisp. She invented little feasts,
expensive Sunday suppers of fried fish and chips, produced a basket of
oranges at three a penny; thanks to her there was now milk with the tea.
In a moment of enthusiasm Victoria heard her murmur something about
keeping a cat. In fact the only thing that marred her life at all was
Victoria's absorption in her reading. Often Betty would go to bed and
stay awake, watching Victoria at the table, her fingers ravelling her
hair, reading with an intentness that frightened her. She would watch
Victoria and see her face grow paler, except at the cheeks where a flush
would rise. A wild look would come into her eyes. Sometimes she would
get up suddenly and, thrusting her hair out of her eyes, walk up and
down muttering things Betty could not understand.
One night Betty woke up suddenly, and saw Victoria standing in the
moonlight clad only in her nightgown. Words were surging from her lips.
'It's no good. . . . I can't go on. . . . I can't go on until I die or
somebody marries me. . . . I won't marry: I won't do it. . . . Why
should I sell myself? . . . at any rate why should I sell myself
cheaply?'
There was a pause. Betty sat up and looked at her friend's wild face.
'What's it all mean after all? I'm only being used. Sucked dry like an
orange. By and by they'll throw the peel away. Talk of brotherhood! . .
. It's war, war . . . It's climbing and fighting to get on top . . .
like crabs in a bucket, like crabs. . .'
'Vic,' screamed Betty.
Victoria started like a somnambulist aroused and looked at her vaguely.
'Come back to bed at once,' cried Betty with inspired firmness. Victoria
obeyed. Betty drew her down beside her under the horsecloth and threw
her arms round her; Victoria's body was cold as ice. Suddenly she burst
into tears; and Betty, torn as if she saw a strong man weep, wept too.
Closely locked in one another's arms they sobbed themselves to sleep.