Our conscious actions are as a drop in the sea as compared with
our unconscious ones.
ANN came round in the morning, very petulant and angry because she had
lost half-a-sovereign. This had so upset her that, once she was
satisfied that René was not so ill as he looked, she had no other
interest, and could only give vent to her annoyance in little
splutters of irritation. She sat by René and talked about it until he
had to ask her to go away.
"All right," she said, "I know when I'm not wanted. But I do hate
doing a thing like that. I can't think how I did it."
"There was once," said Kilner, seeing how she was fretting his friend,
"a crooked woman who lived in a crooked house, and she lost a crooked
sixpence."
"I know that story. Only it wasn't a crooked woman. It was Mrs.
Vinegar, and she lived in a bottle, and she lost a sixpence and broke
the bottle sweeping for it. Oh, Renny, he thinks I'm like Mrs.
Vinegar! I am awful, I know."
René smiled at Kilner. Ann said:
"If there's any overtime to-day, I'll take it. Will you--be back
to-night?"
"I think I'll stay here if you don't mind."
"Will you-- You'll let me come and see you?" She seemed to appeal to
Kilner. He nodded. His consent comforted her, and she rose to go. René
took her hand and said:
"Ann, dear, I want you to believe that whatever happens I am always
your friend."
She answered:
"I saw Rita this morning. She's all right."
"That's good."
"I was awful, wasn't I? Something seemed to come over me. I didn't
want to be a beast, really I didn't. Only I do hate it when you can
say what you mean and I can't. I do want to make it up, Renny. Only it
doesn't seem like ordinary rows, does it?"
"Come and see me to-night, Ann. You might tell old Martin I can't take
the car out to-day."
"You're not ill, are you?"
"No. Only what you'd call queer."
Kilner followed her out.
"What's the matter with him?" she asked.
"You."
"Oh!" She was dismayed.
"I don't mean it in any insulting sense. His affections and yours
don't work in the same way."
"I don't understand."
"That's it."
"I do understand more than you think, Mr. Kilner. If a feller wants to
leave a girl, I say she's a fool to try and keep him. I don't believe
Renny's that sort. I don't believe he'd see a girl left."
"He's done it once."
"Oh! Her! That's different. She wasn't fond of him like I am."
"You don't know."
"Don't I? Besides, she was one of your ladies. I'm sorry for them,
always keeping one eye lifting on what other ladies are going to
think."
"Suppose he did leave you."
"That's not your business, Mr. Kilner. If he did, I'd know you'd been
making him upset with your talk."
"It isn't all talk."
"What is it, then?"
"Something just as deep as what you call love; probably deeper."
They had walked down the street leading to the mews, and now came to
the corner. Ann stopped and stood hesitating. Her hand went up, and
she pulled at her lower lip and shifted her feet uneasily.
"I known girls be left," she muttered, "girls like me. They pulled
through somehow. But I don't think they was fond of the men like I am
of him. And you say he's fond of me. I know there isn't anybody else."
"Is that all you care about?"
"He's never looked at anybody else. I'd feel better if he did. What
call has he to go and make trouble if there isn't anybody else? Lots
of girls would have chucked work when they'd found a man like that to
live on. They get sick of being on their own. I've been on my own
since I was sixteen, and I couldn't give it up for anybody."
"And yet you expect him to give it up?"
"No, I don't. I expect him to stand by me, that's all. I have my
feelings too. He's not the only person in the world with feelings. I'm
very fond of him, Mr. Kilner, but sometimes I think he's a bit soft,
and I do hate a softy. Ooh! I'll be late."
She walked swiftly away. Very young she looked. She moved not
gracefully, but with a birdlike energy that was pleasing. Kilner,
surveying her figure, approved of it, until he came to her shoulders.
They were slightly stooping and rounded, and she swung them awkwardly
as she walked.
"Ugly and weak," said Kilner to himself. "Stooping over an infernal
machine. Taken something out of her. Not her spirit. Given her a
cramped habit of body. Nonsense. No good trying to account for it. He
is simply not in love with her, never has been, nor she with him."
He went up to his room and found it empty. No René. No sign of him at
Ann's. He had not been seen at the yard. His car was out with a
temporary driver. A child in the mews had seen him in the main road.
He had gone into a tobacconist's and then climbed on a bus. The
tobacconist remembered his coming in to get change for a sovereign. He
looked rather strange and excited. "It's a fine day," said the
tobacconist. "Fine, be blowed," replied René. "It's as empty as hell."
"I wouldn't say that," said the tobacconist, "with the sun shining."
"But I do say it," insisted René. "You couldn't call that shining."
And then another customer came in.
Kilner had some knowledge of his friend's ways and haunts, but he
sought in vain.
He met Ann in the evening with his news. She looked scared and
protested:
"He's gone to his home. He must have gone to his home. You could tell
he was always fond of his mother."
"What makes you think that?"
"He wouldn't go anywhere else."
"Did he talk about his home?"
"Hardly a word. But he told me he'd met his father. He's gone to his
home. He'll be back."
"I don't feel so sure about that."
"Well, I know he'd never go back to the old life, books and all that.
He said he never would. He said he'd learned more about econ-- What
d'you call it?"
"Economics."
"That's it. He said he'd learned more through being with me than in
four years' work at books and lectures."
"I should call that an exaggerated statement."
"He'll come back. I know he wouldn't see me left."
They met Martin rolling to his home. When they told him, he screwed a
chuckle out of himself and squeezed his eyes up tight.
"Onsettled," he said, "onsettled. I seen it a-coming on. Thinks I to
myself, I thinks, when I sees him coming in in the morning: 'Brewing
up for trouble, you are, young man; but whether it'll be Glory to God
or Down with them as pays wages, or what, I don't know.' I was going
to say he'd better have a holiday, and now he's snoofed it."
"He'll come back," said Ann.
"Don't you go counting on that, my pretty. He ain't our class, and
never could be. You've only to see him drink to know that. If he was
our class he'd be worse'n the rest of us. Don't you go counting on
that."
"He'll come back. He ain't a sneak."
"When it comes to women," said Martin, "any man's neither more nor
less than what he can be. But if you find it lonely waiting you can
come and sit with me. I ain't a-going to see you let down, my pretty,
not for want of money or a helping hand. If your heart's set on him, I
can't do nothing there; but, Lor' bless you, hearts ain't everything."
"Good for you, Mr. Martin," said Kilner.
"Oh, I know a thing or two." The fat man winked. "You don't have to do
with 'orses for nothing. I had a 'orse once took a uncommon fancy to a
goat there was in the mews. Had to see it every day. The goat was
sold, and that there 'orse pined away. I kept on a-telling of him that
no goat in the world was worth losing a feed of oats for, and at last
he got so precious hungry he believed it, and I never did see a 'orse
so glad to eat. Fancies come and go, but your belly lets you know it's
there till you die. Will you come in, too, Mr. Kilner?"
"No, thanks. I must get to bed early. Work in the morning."
When Kilner had gone, old Martin said to Ann with an affectionate
touch on her arm:
"That young man has a 'ead screwed on his shoulders."
"He's all head," said Ann, "and I hate him."
"Lor'! There's talking. How women do like to make a man wriggle. I
never was much in the wriggling line myself, not being the build for
it. But a 'ead's worth having, too. I never had much 'ead myself. Too
affectionate myself. What a pretty little thing you was, to be sure.
Feeling it bad, my pretty?"
"Hellish bad," replied Ann.
"There, there."
"I never thought I'd feel anything so bad. I want to hate him, but I
can't. I do hate that Kilner. I'd like to see him dead."
"There, there. 'Orses has wunnerful strong dislikes, too."
Ann said:
"It's enough to make a woman scream, the way men talk."
Old Martin's huge face expanded in astonishment. He reached out his
hand for a pipe, filled it, conveyed it to his mouth, and sank into a
brooding silence. He broke it at length to say:
"Women has a great scorn o' men, and I don't know but what they
deserve it."
"If there's one thing I hate," said Ann, "it's being dished. I suppose
I always knew it couldn't last. It was too wonderful. You don't know
how kind he was in his ways, never wanting anything you didn't want
yourself. And that was awful, too, because it made you afraid to want
anything. It seemed to shame you. He was always shaming me, and I did
feel awful sometimes. But it was lovely when we went for rides on tops
of buses."
This appreciation of René's qualities as a housemate seemed to bore
old Martin, for he took up a newspaper and began making notes and
calculations from the betting columns.
"Hullo!" he said. "This must be some connection of his. 'Miss Janet
Fourmy of Elgin, N.B.' 'Miss Fourmy,' it says, 'was a distinguished
German and Italian scholar, a Goethe translator, a contributor to the
Scottish Encyclo--' what you may call it. 'In her youth she was
familiar with the famous Edinburgh circle which gathered round _Maga_
and did much valuable philological work, and was for a time governess
to the late Archbishop of Canterbury who never ceased to express his
admiration for her intellect and gifts. She had many friendships with
the interesting figures of her day, and it is believed that she has
left some record of them.'"
"He told me about her," said Ann. "He used to go and stay with her,
and she used to read an Italian book called Dante, with the pages
upside down. She was very old, but good to him, and she thought Lord
John Russell was in love with her."
"Lord who?"
"I don't know who he was, but that's the name. Renny says it was her
weakness. She lived all alone, and it's very dreary in the winter in
Scotland. She had met a lot of lords in her time, and she liked to
remember more than she'd met. And she'd never married, and Renny says
she thought it sounded well to account for it by saying that Lord John
Russell was in love with her. It wasn't always him----"
"Well! the things women do think of. I shall say I remained a widower
because of Madame Tussaud."
"She was fond of Renny," said Ann, and that seemed on her lips the
noblest possible epitaph for old Janet. She added:
"Perhaps that's where he's gone."
"I shouldn't think so. It costs a pile o' money to go to Elgin, N.B.
It's a good deal north o' Bedford, which is the farthest I ever went
with the 'orses. That was in eighteen-eighty-four."
He settled down for a story. Fortunately for Ann, he was allowed to
get no further than clearing his throat, when he was cut short by the
entry of Casey.
"Evening, miss," said he. "I seen your young man in the neighborhood
of Holland Park, standing on a street corner. I nodded to him, but he
looked clean through me. Very queer, I thought. We've been good pals.
When I came back an hour later he was still there. I was empty that
time. So I stopped. 'Keeping the pavement warm,' I said, cheerful
like. 'Trying to warm myself,' said he. 'Draughty weather to be doing
that in the streets,' I said. 'You go home, Casey,' he said. 'Oh,
well,' I thought, 'we're all fools, and every fool to his own folly.'
So I left him. I came home that way just now and he'd gone."
"We been talking about him all evening," said Martin, "me and Annie
here."
"He's one of the best hands at an engine that ever I saw. And that
brings me to what I want to talk to you about, guvnor. I been to see
the doctor again, and he says London's doing me a bit of no good, and
if I go on with it, it'll do me in. Now I've got an idea. Leastways it
isn't all my idea but mostly hisn, young Fourmy's."
"If you knew about 'orses, there's a good livery at Barnet."
Casey persisted:
"My idea is this: There's just a few want motors in London.
Something's happening in the place. Well, one night in the cab-rank
young Fourmy, Young Earnest, as we call him, took out the map of fifty
miles round, and he pointed out how the railways go out of London like
spokes of a wheel. Between the spokes, he says, is where London is
going to live if it is made possible, and motors ought to make it
possible. He says if you choose your place properly, so as to link up
the main roads and two railways, you'd be bound to make a living.
There's enough houses already. Soon there'll be factories and works
out there. Then there'll be more houses. I didn't believe it at first.
I said: 'But if all the people live out there, what's to become of
dear old London?' 'London,' he says, 'will be a clearing-house and
capital, a real center.' I didn't understand altogether what he was
talking about, but I've been out to see for myself, and what he says
is happening. All the little country towns have cinemas and new shops,
and in the suburbs there are whole streets of houses empty. I'm no
good for the West End traffic, and I want to try my luck at the other,
if I can get hold of any capital."
"Ah! Capital!" said Martin. "That wants a bit of getting, capital
does."
Clearly he had not understood a word of what Casey was talking about.
He had his own idea of London, and was not going to change it or admit
the possibility of change. From one year's end to the other he never
left the mews. His yard might actually be filled with motor-cars, but
for him it was really a sanctuary of the 'orses. Their smell still
clung about it. The one horse he had left had little else to do but
provide the smell.
However, he liked Casey, and was distressed to find him taking to
ideas:
"Don't you go worrying your head about what is and is not, Casey.
Heads wasn't made for that. Heads was made to have eyes in, and
mouths, the same as 'orses. All you got to do, all any man's got to
do, is to earn his keep and pay his shot, same as a 'orse. When he's
done that, 'e's got to behave nice to them as is in stable with him.
And every now and then he gets his little canter and may be turned out
to grass."
"I'm no Nebuchadnezzar," retorted Casey, "and I want to be on my own."
"No man can be on his own if he ain't got no capital."
"That's what I've been saying."
"Ah!" said Martin mysteriously, to baffle Casey's obstinacy. "Ah! that
wants getting, that does. If it was 'orses now----"
Casey saw that it was hopeless. Nothing would budge the fat man from
his yard. Cars! They were a necessary evil, not to be encouraged
beyond the limit of necessity.
Ann wanted to know more about René, but Casey could tell her nothing.
He repeated his eulogy of young Fourmy's skill as a driver, and added:
"We've got has-been gentlemen on the ranks, scores of them. But
they're not like him. It's a treat to hear him talk, it is. They
wanted him, a lot of them did, to pitch into the union, but he doesn't
seem to think much of trade-unions. He says they can't do anything
yet, in the way of fighting I mean, because they want to make us all
middle-classes, and that ain't good enough. If I could get him to go
along with me!"
Ann said:
"He hasn't been home all day. Didn't he say anything to you?"
"He did say one day: 'I'm getting sick of this, carting men and women
like cattle.' It seems to have got on his nerves a bit. Too good for
it, I suppose."
"It would be a good thing," said she, "if we went into the country,
though I don't know what I'd do. I do love London and all the lights
and that, and the shops."
Said Casey:
"You should see the nights in Africa. Some parts you can walk a
hundred miles and never see a light. Nothing but stars, and fewer of
them than we have here. Flat and empty as the sea some of the country,
going on forever and ever in the darkness."
Ann shivered:
"Ugh!" she said. "It makes me think of Renny. I don't know why. He'd
like it, I think."
"Yes. I think he likes big things."
It was late. Near twelve o'clock. The lamps in the mews flickered as
Ann returned to her rooms. The post had brought a note from René,
posted in the north of London. He said: "Please tell old Martin I
shall be away three days. I will come back then. I think I have it all
settled in my mind. I want to get it clear for you, too. You have been
so good to me, my dear, and I owe you so much.--R."
There was also a letter for him. She struggled against the desire to
open it, and conquered it for that night. The next morning, however,
the temptation was too strong for her, and she steamed it open. It was
from a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh to say that the late Miss
Janet Fourmy had left René the residue of her estate, which, after
certain small legacies had been paid, would amount to nearly four
thousand pounds. The house in Scotland would also be his, and all the
deceased lady's personal effects.
Ann went to her work that day shivering with excitement. René's
enormous wealth frightened her. She could put up a fight against his
intelligence, his brooding, his silence; but against this she felt
powerless, and knew within her heart that her battle was already lost.
She was a forewoman now, and she gave the girls under her the worst
day they ever remembered.