i
Gradually Emmy's tearless sobs diminished; she began to murmur broken,
meaningless ejaculations of self-contempt; and to strain away from
Jenny. At last she pushed Jenny from her, feverishly freeing herself, so
that they stood apart, while Emmy blew her nose and wiped her eyes. All
this time they did not speak to each other, and when Emmy turned blindly
away Jenny mechanically took hold of the kettle, filled it, and set it
to boil upon the gas. Emmy watched her curiously, feeling that her nose
was cold and her eyes were burning. Little dry tremors seemed to shake
her throat; dreariness had settled upon her, pressing her down; making
her feel ashamed of such a display of the long secret so carefully
hoarded away from prying glances.
"What's that for?" she miserably asked, indicating the kettle.
"Going to steam my hat," Jenny said. "The brim's all floppy." There was
now only a practical note in her voice. She, too, was ashamed. "You'd
better go up and lie down for a bit. I'll stay with Pa, in case he falls
into the fire. Just the sort of thing he _would_ do on a night like
this. Just because you're upset."
"I shan't go up. It's too cold. I'll sit by the fire a bit."
They both went into the kitchen, where the old man was whistling under
his breath.
"Was there any noos on the play-cards?" he inquired after a moment,
becoming aware of their presence. "Emmy--Jenny."
"No, Pa. I told you. Have to wait till Sunday. Funny thing there's so
much more news in the Sunday papers: I suppose people are all extra
wicked on Saturdays. They get paid Friday night, I shouldn't wonder; and
it goes to their heads."
"Silly!" Emmy said under her breath. "It's the week's news."
"That's all right, old girl," admonished Jenny. "I was only giving him
something to think about. Poor old soul. Now, about this hat: the girls
all go on at me.... Say I dress like a broker's-man. I'm going to
smarten myself up. You never know what might happen. Why, I might get
off with a Duke!"
Emmy was overtaken by an impulse of gratitude.
"You can have mine, if you like," she said. "The one you gave me ... on
my birthday." Jenny solemnly shook her head. She did not thank her
sister. Thanks were never given in that household, because they were a
part of "peliteness," and were supposed to have no place in the domestic
arena.
"Not if I know it!" she humorously retorted. "I made it for you, and it
suits you. Not my style at all. I'll just get out my box of bits. You'll
see something that'll surprise you, my girl."
The box proved to contain a large number of "bits" of all sizes and
kinds--fragments of silk (plain and ribbed), of plush, of ribbon both
wide and narrow; small sprays of marguerites, a rose or two, some
poppies, and a bunch of violets; a few made bows in velvet and silk;
some elastic, some satin, some feathers, a wing here and there ... the
miscellaneous assortment of odds-and-ends always appropriated (or, in
the modern military slang, "won") by assistants in the millinery. Some
had been used, some were startlingly new. Jenny was more modest in such
acquirements than were most of her associates; but she was affected, as
all such must be, by the prevailing wind. Strangely enough, it was not
her habit to wear very smart hats, for business or at any other time.
She would have told you, in the event of any such remark, that when you
had been fiddling about with hats all day you had other things to do in
the evenings. Yet she had good taste and very nimble fingers when
occasion arose. In bringing her box from the bedroom she brought also
from the stand in the passage her drooping hat, against which she
proceeded to lay various materials, trying them with her sure eye,
seeking to compose a picture, with that instructive sense of cynosure
which marks the crafty expert. Fascinated, with her lips parted in an
expression of that stupidity which is so often the sequel to a fit of
crying, Emmy watched Jenny's proceedings, her eyes travelling from the
hat to the ever-growing heap of discarded ornaments. She was dully
impressed with the swift judgment of her sister in consulting the
secrets of her inner taste. It was a judgment unlike anything in her own
nature of which she was aware, excepting the measurement of ingredients
for a pudding.
So they sat, all engrossed, while the kettle began to sing and the
desired steam to pour from the spout, clouding the scullery. The only
sound that arose was the gurgling of Pa Blanchard's pipe (for he was
what is called in Kennington Park a wet smoker). He sat remembering
something or pondering the insufficiency of news. Nobody ever knew what
he thought about in his silences. It was a mystery over which the girls
did not puzzle, because they were themselves in the habit of sitting for
long periods without speech. Pa's broodings were as customary to them
as the absorbed contemplativeness of a baby. "Give him his pipe," as
Jenny said; "and he'll be quiet for hours--till it goes out. _Then_
there's a fuss! My word, what a racket! Talk about a fire alarm!" And on
such occasions she would mimic him ridiculingly, to diminish his
complaints, while Emmy roughly relighted the hubble-bubble and patted
her father once more into a contented silence. Pa was to them, although
they did not know it, their bond of union. Without him, they would have
fallen apart, like the outer pieces of a wooden boot-tree. For his sake,
with all the apparent lack of sympathy shown in their behaviour to him,
they endured a life which neither desired nor would have tolerated upon
her own account. So it was that Pa's presence acted as a check and
served them as company of a meagre kind, although he was less
interesting or expansive than a little dog might have been.
When Jenny went out to the scullery carrying her hat, after sweeping the
scraps she had declined back into the old draper's cardboard box which
amply contained such treasures and preserved them from dust, Emmy, now
quite quiet again, continued to sit by the fire, staring at the small
glowing strip that showed under the door of the kitchen grate. Every now
and then she would sigh, wearily closing her eyes; and her breast would
rise as if with a sob. And she would sometimes look slowly up at the
clock, with her head upon one side in order to see the hands in their
proper aspect, as if she were calculating.
ii
From the scullery came the sound of Jenny's whistle as she cheerily held
the hat over the steam. Pa heard it as something far away, like a
distant salvationists' band, and pricked up his ears; Emmy heard it, and
her brow was contracted. Her expression darkened. Jenny began to hum:
"'Oh Liza, sweet Liza,
If you die an old maid you'll have only yourself to blame ...'"
It was like a sudden noise in a forest at night, so poignant was the
contrast of the radiating silences that succeeded. Jenny's voice stopped
sharply. Perhaps it had occurred to her that her song would be
overheard. Perhaps she had herself become affected by the meaning of the
words she was so carelessly singing. There was once more an air of
oblivion over all things. The old man sank back in his chair, puffing
slowly, blue smoke from the bowl of the pipe, grey smoke from between
his lips. Emmy looked again at the clock. She had the listening air of
one who awaits a bewildering event. Once she shivered, and bent to the
fire, raking among the red tumbling small coal with the bent kitchen
poker. Jenny began to whistle again, and Emmy impatiently wriggled her
shoulders, jarred by the noise. Suddenly she could bear no longer the
whistle that pierced her thoughts and distracted her attention, but went
out to the scullery.
"How are you getting on?" she asked with an effort.
"Fine. This gas leaks. Can't you whiff it? Don't know which one it is.
Pa all right?"
"Yes, he's all right. Nearly finished?"
"Getting on. Tram nearly ran over a kid to-night. She was wheeling a pram
full of washing on the line. There wasn't half a row about it--shouting
and swearing. Anybody would have thought the kid had laid down on the
line. I expect she was frightened out of her wits--all those men
shouting at her. There, now I'll lay it on the plate rack over the gas
for a bit.... Look smart, shan't I! With a red rose in it and a red
ribbon...."
"Not going to have those streamers, or any lace, are you?"
"Not likely. You see the kids round here wearing them; but the kids
round here are always a season late. Same with their costumes. They
don't know any better. I do!"
Jenny was cheerfully contemptuous. She knew what was being worn along
Regent Street and in Bond Street, because she saw it with her own eyes.
Then she came home and saw the girls of her own district swanking about
like last year's patterns, as she said. She couldn't help laughing at
them. It made her think of the tales of savages wearing top hats with
strings of beads and thinking they were all in the latest European
fashion. That is the constant amusement of the expert as she regards the
amateur. She has all the satisfaction of knowing better, without the
turmoil of competition, a fact which distinguishes the superior spirit
from the struggling helot. Jenny took full advantage of her situation
and her knowledge.
"Yes, you know a lot," Emmy said dryly.
"Ah, you've noticed it?" Jenny was not to be gibed at without retort.
"I'm glad."
"So _you_ think," Emmy added, as though she had not heard the reply.
There came at this moment a knock at the front door. Emmy swayed, grew
pale, and then slowly reddened until the colour spread to the very edges
of her bodice. The two girls looked at one another, a deliberate
interchange of glances that was at the same time, upon both sides, an
intense scrutiny. Emmy was breathing heavily; Jenny's nostrils were
pinched.
"Well," at last said Jenny, drawlingly. "Didn't you hear the knock?
Aren't you going to answer it?" She reached as she spoke to the hat
lying upon the plate rack above the gas stove, looking fixedly away from
her sister. Her air of gravity was unchanged. Emmy, hesitating, made as
if to speak, to implore something; but, being repelled, she turned, and
went thoughtfully across the kitchen to the front door. Jenny carried
her hat into the kitchen and sat down at the table as before. The
half-contemptuous smile had reappeared in her eyes; but her mouth was
quite serious.
iii
Pa Blanchard had worked as a boy and man in a large iron foundry. He had
been a very capable workman, and had received as the years went on the
maximum amount (with overtime) to be earned by men doing his class of
work. He had not been abstemious, and so he had spent a good deal of his
earnings in what is in Kennington Park called "pleasure"; but he had
also possessed that common kind of sense which leads men to pay money
into sick and benefit clubs. Accordingly, his wife's illness and burial
had, as he had been in the habit of saying, "cost him nothing." They
were paid by his societies. Similarly, when he had himself been attacked
by the paralytic seizure which had wrecked his life, the societies had
paid; and now, in addition to the pension allowed by his old employers,
he received a weekly dole from the societies which brought his income up
to fifty shillings a week. The pension, of course, would cease upon his
death; but so long as life was kept burning within him nothing could
affect the amounts paid weekly into the Blanchard exchequer. Pa was
fifty-seven, and normally would have had a respectable number of years
before him; his wants were now few, and his days were carefully watched
over by his daughters. He would continue to draw his pensions for
several years yet, unless something unexpected happened to him.
Meanwhile, therefore, his pipe was regularly filled and his old pewter
tankard appeared at regular intervals, in order that Pa should feel as
little as possible the change in his condition.
Mrs. Blanchard had been dead ten years. She had been very much as Emmy
now was, but a great deal more cheerful. She had been plump and
fresh-coloured, and in spite of Pa Blanchard's ways she had led a happy
life. In the old days there had been friends and neighbours, now all
lost in course of removals from one part of London to another, so that
the girls were without friends and knew intimately no women older than
themselves. Mrs. Blanchard, perhaps in accord with her cheerfulness, had
been a complacent, selfish little woman, very neat and clean, and
disposed to keep her daughters in their place. Jenny had been her
favourite; and even so early had the rivalry between them been
established. Besides this, Emmy had received all the rebuffs needed to
check in her the same complacent selfishness that distinguished her
mother. She had been frustrated all along, first by her mother, then by
her mother's preference for Jenny, finally (after a period during which
she dominated the household after her mother's death) by Jenny herself.
It was thus not upon a pleasant record of personal success that Emmy
could look back, but rather upon a series of chagrins of which each was
the harder to bear because of the history of its precursors. Emmy,
between eighteen and nineteen at the time of her mother's death, had
grasped her opportunity, and had made the care of the household her lot.
She still bore, what was a very different reading of her ambition, the
cares of the household. Jenny, as she grew up, had proved unruly; Pa
Blanchard's illness had made home service compulsory; and so matters
were like to remain indefinitely. Is it any wonder that Emmy was restive
and unhappy as she saw her youth going and her horizons closing upon her
with the passing of each year? If she had been wholly selfish that fact
would have been enough to sour her temper. But another, emotionally
more potent, fact produced in Emmy feelings of still greater stress. To
that fact she had this evening given involuntary expression. Now, how
would she, how could she, handle her destiny? Jenny, shrewdly thinking
as she sat with her father in the kitchen and heard Emmy open the front
door, pondered deeply as to her sister's ability to turn to account her
own sacrifice.
iv
Within a moment Alf Rylett appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, Emmy
standing behind him until he moved forward, and then closing the door
and leaning back against it. His first glance was in the direction of
Jenny, who, however, did not rise as she would ordinarily have done. He
glanced quickly at her face and from her face to her hands, so busily
engaged in manipulating the materials from which she was to re-trim her
hat. Then he looked at Pa Blanchard, whom he touched lightly and
familiarly upon the shoulder. Alf was a rather squarely built young man
of thirty, well under six feet, but not ungainly. He had a florid,
reddish complexion, and his hair was of a common but unnamed colour,
between brown and grey, curly and crisp. He was clean-shaven. Alf was
obviously one who worked with his hands: in the little kitchen he
appeared to stand upon the tips of his toes, in order that his walk
might not be too noisy. That fact might have suggested either mere
nervousness or a greater liking for life out of doors. When he walked it
was as though he did it all of a piece, so that his shoulders moved as
well as his legs. The habit was shown as he lunged forward to grip
Jenny's hand. When he spoke he shouted, and he addressed Pa as a boy
might have done who was not quite completely at his ease, but who
thought it necessary to pretend that he was so.
"Good evening, Mr. Blanchard!" he cried boisterously. "Sitting by the
fire, I see!"
Pa looked at him rather vacantly, apparently straining his memory in
order to recognise the new-comer. It was plain that as a personal matter
he had no immediate use for Alf Rylett; but he presently nodded his
head.
"Sitting by the fire," he confirmed. "Getting a bit warm. It's cold
to-night. Is there any noos, Alf Rylett?"
"Lots of it!" roared Alf, speaking as if it had been to a deaf man or a
foreigner. "They say this fire at Southwark means ten thousand pounds
damage. Big factory there--gutted. Of course, no outside fire escapes.
_As_ usual. Fully insured, though. It'll cost them nothing. You can't
help wondering what causes these fires when they're heavily insured. Eh?
Blazing all night, it was. Twenty-five engines. Twenty-five, mind you!
That shows it was pretty big, eh? I saw the red in the sky, myself.
'Well,' I thought to myself, 'there's somebody stands to lose
something,' I thought. But the insurance companies are too wide to stand
all the risk themselves. They share it out, you know. It's a mere
flea-bite to them. And ... a ... well then there's a ... See, then
there's a bigamy case."
"Hey?" cried Pa sharply, brightening. "What's that about?"
"Nothing much. Only a couple of skivvies. About ten pound three and
fourpence between the pair of them. That was all he got." Pa's interest
visibly faded. He gurgled at his pipe and turned his face towards the
mantelpiece. "And ... a ... let's see, what else is there?" Alf racked
his brains, puffing a little and arching his brows at the two girls, who
seemed both to be listening, Emmy intently, as though she were repeating
his words to herself. He went on: "Tram smash in Newcastle. Car went off
the points. Eleven injured. Nobody killed...."
"I don't call _that_ much," said Jenny, critically, with a pin in her
mouth. "Not much more than I told him an hour ago. He wants a murder, or
a divorce. All these little tin-pot accidents aren't worth printing at
all. What he wants is the cross-examination of the man who found the
bones."
It was comical to notice the change on Alf at Jenny's interruption.
From the painful concentration upon memory which had brought his
eyebrows together there appeared in his expression the most delighted
ease, a sort of archness that made his face look healthy and honest.
"What's that you're doing?" he eagerly inquired, forsaking Pa, and
obviously thankful at having an opportunity to address Jenny directly.
He came over and stood by the table, in spite of the physical effort
which Emmy involuntarily made to will that he should not do so. Emmy's
eyes grew tragic at his intimate, possessive manner in speaking to
Jenny. "I say!" continued Alf, admiringly. "A new hat, is it? Smart!
Looks absolutely A1. Real West End style, isn't it? Going to have some
chiffong?"
"Sit down, Alf." It was Emmy who spoke, motioning him to a chair
opposite to Pa. He took it, his shoulder to Jenny, while Emmy sat by the
table, looking at him, her hands in her lap.
"How is he?" Alf asked, jerking his head at Pa. "Perked up when I said
'bigamy,' didn't he!"
"He's been very good, I will say," answered Emmy. "Been quiet all
day. And he ate his supper as good as gold." Jenny's smile and little
amused crouching of the shoulders caught her eye. "Well, so he did!"
she insisted. Jenny took no notice. "He's had his--mustn't say it,
because he _always_ hears that word, and it's not time for his
evening ... Eight o'clock he has it."
"What's that?" said Alf, incautiously. "Beer?"
"Beer!" cried Pa. "Beer!" It was the cry of one who had been malignantly
defrauded, a piteous wail.
"There!" said both the girls, simultaneously. Jenny added: "Now you've
done it!"
"All right, Pa! Not time yet!" But Emmy went to the kitchen cupboard as
Pa continued to express the yearning that filled his aged heart.
"Sorry!" whispered Alf. "Hold me hand out, naughty boy!"
"He's like a baby with his titty bottle," explained Emmy. "Now he'll be
quiet again."
Alf fidgeted a little. This contretemps had unnerved him. He was less
sure of himself.
"Well," he said at last, darkly. "What I came in about ... Quarter to
eight, is it? By Jove, I'm late. That's telling Mr. Blanchard all the
news. The fact is, I've got a couple of tickets for the theatre down the
road--for this evening, I thought ... erum ..."
"Oh, extravagance!" cried Jenny, gaily, dropping the pin from between
her lips and looking in an amused flurry at Emmy's anguished face
opposite. It was as though a chill had struck across the room, as though
both Emmy's heart and her own had given a sharp twist at the shock.
"Ah, that's where you're wrong. That's what cleverness does for you."
Alf nodded his head deeply and reprovingly. "Given to me, they were, by
a pal o' mine who works at the theatre. They're for to-night. I
thought--"
Jenny, with her heart beating, was stricken for an instant with panic.
She bent her head lower, holding the rose against the side of her hat,
watching it with a zealous eye, once again to test the effect. He
thought she was coquetting, and leaned a little towards her. He would
have been ready to touch her face teasingly with his forefinger.
"Oh," Jenny exclaimed, with a hurried assumption of matter of fact ease
suddenly ousting her panic. "That's very good. So you thought you'd take
_Emmy_! That was a very good boy!"
"I thought ..." heavily stammered Alf, his eyes opening in a surprised
way as he found himself thus headed off from his true intention. He
stared blankly at Jenny, until she thought he looked like the bull on
the hoardings who has "heard that they want more." Emmy stared at her
also, quite unguardedly, a concentrated stare of agonised doubt and
impatience. Emmy's face grew pinched and sallow at the unexpected strain
upon her nerves.
"That was what you thought, wasn't it?" Jenny went on impudently,
shooting a sideways glance at him that made Alf tame with helplessness.
"Poor old Em hasn't had a treat for ever so long. Do her good to go. You
did mean that, didn't you?"
"I ..." said Alf. "I ..." He was inclined for a moment to bluster. He
looked curiously at Jenny's profile, judicial in its severity. Then some
kind of tact got the better of his first impulse. "Well, I thought _one_
of you girls ..." he said. "Will you come, Em? Have to look sharp."
"Really?" Emmy jumped up, her face scarlet and tears of joy in her eyes.
She did not care how it had been arranged. Her pride was unaroused; the
other thought, the triumph of the delicious moment, was overwhelming.
Afterwards--ah, no no! She would not think. She was going. She was
actually going. In a blur she saw their faces, their kind eyes....
"Good boy!" cried Jenny. "Buck up, Em, if you're going to change your
dress. Seats! My word! How splendid!" She clapped her hands quickly,
immediately again taking up her work so as to continue it. Into her eyes
had come once more that strange expression of pitying contempt. Her
white hands flashed in the wan light as she quickly threaded her needle
and knotted the silk.