E-text prepared by Annie McGuire
COQUETTE
* * * * *
THE NOVELS OF
FRANK SWINNERTON
THE HAPPY FAMILY
ON THE STAIRCASE
THE CHASTE WIFE
SHOPS AND HOUSES
NOCTURNE
SEPTEMBER
COQUETTE
COQUETTE
FRANK SWINNERTON
* * * * *
BY FRANK SWINNERTON
COQUETTE
SEPTEMBER
SHOPS AND HOUSES
NOCTURNE
THE CHASTE WIFE
ON THE STAIRCASE
THE HAPPY FAMILY
THE CASEMENT
THE YOUNG IDEA
THE MERRY HEART
GEORGE GISSING
_A Critical Study_
R. L. STEVENSON
_A Critical Study_
* * * * *
COQUETTE
by
FRANK SWINNERTON
Author of "September," "Shops and
Houses," "Nocturne," Etc.
New York
George H. Doran Company
Copyright, 1921,
by George H. Doran Company
CONTENTS
PAGE
BOOK ONE
TOBY 9
BOOK TWO
GAGA 89
BOOK THREE
CONSEQUENCES 209
BOOK ONE: TOBY
i
It was Saturday night--a winter night in which the wind hummed through
every draughty crevice between the windows and under the doors and down
the chimneys. Outside, in the Hornsey Road, horse-omnibuses rattled by
and the shops that were still open at eleven o'clock glistened with
light. Up the road, at the butcher's just below the Plough public-house,
a small crowd lingered, turning over scraps of meat, while the butcher
himself, chanting "Lovely, lovely, lovely!" in a kind of ecstasy,
plunged again into a fresh piece of meat the attractive legend, "Oh,
mother, look! Three ha'pence a pound!" Just over the way, at the Supply
Stores, they had begun to roll down the heavy shutter, hiding the bright
windows, and leaving only a narrow doorway, through which light streamed
and made rainbow colours on the pavement outside. The noise of the
street was a racketting roar, hardly lower now than it had been all the
evening. Sally crouched at the window of the first floor flat, looking
down at the black roadway, and watching the stragglers from the Supply
Stores.
In the flat above there was the sound of one who sang, vamping an
accompaniment upon the piano and emphasising the simple time of his
carol by a dully stamped foot upon the floor. His foot--making in soft
slippers a dead "dump-dump-dump"--shook the ceiling of the Mintos'
flat. They could hear his dry voice huskily roaring, "There you are,
there you are, there you ain't--ain't--ain't." They had heard it a
thousand times, always with the familiar stamp. It was very gay. Old
Perce, as he was called, was a carver in a City restaurant. It was he
who received orders from the knowing; and in return for apparent
tit-bits he received acknowledgments in coin--twopence or threepence a
time. Therefore, when he reached home each evening, nicely cheery and
about a quarter drunk, his first act after having tea was to withdraw
from his pockets a paper bag or two--such as those supplied by banks for
the carriage of silver--which he would empty of greasy coppers. He piled
these coppers in mounds of twelve, and counted them over several times.
He then smoked his pipe, went into his front room, and played, "There
you are, there you are, there you ain't--ain't--ain't." Sally did not
remember ever having heard him sing anything else. He was singing it:
now with customary gusto. Sally thought he must be a very rich man. Old
Perce's wife, who let her practise on their piano, hinted as much. His
wages were low, she said, but in a week his tips often came to three or
four pounds. Three or four pounds! Whew! Sally's father only made
thirty-five shillings in a week, everything included. Mrs. Perce told
Sally many other things, which Sally shrewdly treasured in memory. It
was well to know these things, Sally thought: any day they might be ...
useful. For a girl not yet seventeen, Sally had a strangely abundant
sense of possible utilities. All old Perce's relatives were licensed
victuallers, she had learned; and one day he too would take a "little
'ouse" and stand behind his own bar, instead of behind the counter of a
city restaurant. Those would be days! "'Ave a trap and go outa Sunday
afternoons," Mrs. Perce said. "Oo, I wish you'd take me!" Sally cried.
"Course I will!" answered Mrs. Perce, with the greatest good-humour.
Meanwhile old Perce had money out on loan. "I'd like," thought Sally,
with considering eyes, "to have money out on loan. I will, too. One day.
Why shouldn't I?"
Sally's mother, Mrs. Minto, was yawning by the small fire in the grate.
She was a meagre little woman of about forty, tired and energetic. The
Mintos' flat, although very bare, was very clean. Even when there was
nothing to eat, there was water for scouring; and Mrs. Minto's hands
were a sort of red-grey, hard and lined, all the little folds of the
discoloured skin looking as if they had been bitten deep with acid that
made them black. Her hair was very thin, and she drew it closely back
from her forehead into a tiny knob like a bell-pull, leaving the brow
high and dry as if the tide of hair had receded. Her lids were heavy
over anxious eyes; her mouth was a bitter stroke across her face, under
the small, inquiring nose. Her breast was flat, and her body bent
through daily housework and too little care of herself, too little
personal pride.
Sally resembled her mother. She too was small and thin. Her hair was
pale brown, an insipid colour with a slight sandiness in it. Her cheeks
were faintly freckled just under the eyes, and her nose, equally small
and inquiring, had some freckles upon it too. Her eyelashes were light;
her eyes a grey with splashes of amber. She was sitting huddled up near
the window, breathing intently, looking out of it with eager, fascinated
interest. The streets were full of lures. Outside, there was something
which drew and absorbed her whole nature. The noise and the lights
intoxicated her; the darkness was even more bewilderingly full of
dangerous attractiveness. It was night, and night was the time when
thrills came, when her heart beat closely with a sense of timid
impudence, a sort of leashed daring. In darkness she brushed hands
against the hands of boys, and got into conversation with strangers, and
felt herself romantically transfigured. They couldn't see how plain she
was in the dark: she herself forgot it. In the dark she felt that she
was bolder, with nobody to observe her and carry tales to her mother.
Boys who wouldn't look at her in daylight followed her at night along
dark streets. She was getting very experienced with boys. She could look
after herself with them. Her eyes interestedly and appraisingly scanned
every male, so that she came to know a great deal about the ways of men,
although she never put her knowledge into words. She scrutinised them.
In daylight her plainness was a help in that, because they did not take
any notice of so insignificant a figure, and she absorbed every detail
of the "fellows" she met, without having to do it under their return
observation, by means of side-glances. This was a benefit, and at heart
made her bolder, more ruthless.
At this moment, watching the people come out from the little door in the
shutter of the Supply Stores, Sally ignored the silhouettes of women;
but she peered quite intensely at those of the men. Men filled her
thoughts. She was always choosing which men she liked, and which did not
interest her, and which were weak and easily exploited. Or, if she were
prevented from doing that, she could still look at them, seeing that
they were men, and not women. The noise was good, the lights were good;
but the darkness, such as there now was in the street below, in all the
diminished labour of late traffic, was best of all. She saw the last
customer at the Stores shown to the door by Mr. Beddow, the keeper of
the shop; and the narrow door in the shutters closed. The last stream of
light was abruptly cut off. The face of the Stores was black. All the
opposite side of the roadway was now black. There were no more
silhouettes.
Mr. Beddow's cheeks were very fat, and when he smiled his eyes
disappeared into slits just behind the top of his bulging cheeks. He
wore a light frizzly beard. Once Mr. Beddow had given her a little
bottle of acid-drops. All the acid-drops were gone now. She had given
some of them to May Pearcey, who worked with her. They had eaten the
remainder next day over their work, while Miss Jubb was out of the room;
and the drops had made them thirsty and had given them hot, sweet
breath. Funny she should remember it all so clearly.
May Pearcey and she were both learners at a small dressmaker's shop in a
street off Holloway Road. They used to walk together along Grove Road in
the mornings, and at dinner-time, and in the evenings. But the boys all
looked at May, who was a big girl with rosy cheeks and eyes that were
bold with many conquests. Sally only got the soppy ones. That was her
luck. Sally wondered why a good-looking boy so often had a soppy one
with him. She wasn't soppy herself. The boys thought she was; they never
looked at her. But May picked up the good-looking ones, and Sally had to
take what was left. She hated to see her boy always looking on at the
others, at May, and never at herself; she hated to know that her boy
didn't like the look of her, and that he couldn't think of anything to
say to her; and didn't take the trouble to think very hard. It made
Sally snap her teeth. One day, she reassured herself, it would be
different. One day, they'd _know_.
Slowly she stretched, with her arms high above her head and her mouth
stretched sideways in a yawn. Was mother asleep? She felt cramped and
tired, and as she turned round to the light her eyes blinked at the
contrast with the outer darkness.
ii
"Oo!" groaned Sally. "Tired!"
She yawned again, a yawn that ended in a breathless gasp. Mrs. Minto
looked across the room at her.
"D'you want any supper?" she asked.
"Wotcher got? Peaches and cream, and a glass of champagne?"
Mrs. Minto wriggled her skinny shoulders and fingered her chin.
"Don't you be saucy to me, my gel. There's a bit of dry bread on the
plate there. And half a glass of stout. You might think yourself lucky
to get _that_."
"Well, I s'pose I might. But somehow I don't. Dry bread! It's Saturday,
ain't it? What I mean, pay-day."
There was a sour glance. Mrs. Minto sighed, and looked at the clock,
frowning and wriggling her shoulders. It was a form of constant drill or
shudder that affected her.
"Yes," she said. "And your father not home. Pubs are closed. Wonder
where he is. Come on, Sally. Get your supper and get to bed. Sharp,
now."
Sally rose to her feet and walked across the room. She cut a hunk of
bread, and stood about munching it, little crumbs gathering upon her
lips. You could see how thin she was when her arm was raised. Yet she
made a few little dancing steps as she ate, and her face was not without
a comical air of mischief. She was an urchin, and she looked it. She was
unscrupulous, and a liar; but she knew a great deal for her years, and
she never shrank from knowledge, because she was athirst for it.
Knowledge which could be turned to account was her preoccupation. She
stood looking at her mother, weighing her up, and in the midst of her
daughterly contempt she had room for a little admiration also. They were
not altogether unlike; but Mrs. Minto had taken the wrong turning. She
had married a drinker, and was a slave. Well, Sally had benefited by
knowledge of that. She might marry a fool--probably would have to do so,
as the wily ones took what they could get and went off on their own; but
she would never marry so incautiously as her mother had done. Why should
she? If one generation does not react to the follies of the earlier
generation, and seek an exactly contrary evil, what becomes of progress?
Sally had her wits. She thought they would never fail her.
As she sat down near her mother, they both heard a sudden slamming of
the front door, two flights of stairs below. Their eyes flew in an
exchanged glance that held trepidation. It was probably dad, and at this
time on a Saturday night dad was usually the worse for wear. Both
listened. There was a heavy step. Then the sound of voices--a woman's
raised voice, and dad's. It was evidently a row. Sally ran to the door,
and they listened to what was passing. Down the half-lighted stairway
they could just discern two figures, faintly outlined in the wavering
flutter of gas. Obviously dad was drunk, for he was haranguing a rather
hysterical Mrs. Clancy, who stood at the foot of the stairs and shouted
after him. She said that he was drunk, that he ought not to come in at
that time of night stumbling about like an ostrich, that decent people
liked a little quiet, if he pleased. Mr. Minto said he would come in
when he chose, and in what state he preferred. He was not obliged to
consult such an indiscriminate mother as Mrs. Clancy, and he would not
do it. Far from it. Far from it. He stood for liberty. He had as good a
right to the staircase as anybody else in the house. More right, in
fact. Let her bring out Mr. Clancy if she wanted a fight.... He then
proceeded to the top of the first flight of stairs. He climbed with
difficulty, missing a stair once in a while, and breathing hard. He was
pursued by an outcry. A third voice was heard--that of Mr. Clancy. It
was directed at first entirely to the woman, and begged her to come back
into the kitchen. They could see her arm caught by Mr. Clancy, from whom
she freed herself by a blow. There was a pause. But Mrs. Clancy broke
out afresh. She was beyond control, passionately shrill, and quite
wildly resentful of what had been said and done in her despite.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" cried Mrs. Minto, with inadequate petulance. She
stepped out on to the landing, fingering her mouth. Sally tiptoed after,
hardly moved, but intensely curious. She was grinning, but nervously and
with contempt of the row. "Joe!" called Mrs. Minto. "Joe! Come upstairs.
Don't get quarrelling like that. Ought to be ashamed of yourself. Come
upstairs!" She looked over the rails at her husband, like a sparrow on a
twig. He was a flight below. "Come up here!"
There was a fresh outburst from Mrs. Clancy.
"You put your 'usband to bed, Mrs. Minto. Pore woman! Pore soul! Fancy
'aving a thing like that for a 'usband! 'Usband, indeed! A great noisy
drunkard, a great beastly elephant, boozing all his money away. Drunken
fool, stamping about...."
"You shut your mouth!" bawled dad, thickly. "You shut your mouth. See?
When I want.... You shut your bloody jaw. See?"
"Joe!" called Mrs. Minto, urgently, a mean little slip peering over the
bannisters.
"Joe!" mimicked Mrs. Clancy. "You take him to bed, Mrs. Minto. Take his
boots off. He's not safe. He's a danger, that's what he is. I shall tell
the police, Mr. Minto. It's got to come. You got to stop it. I shall
tell the police. I will, I swear it...."
Mr. Minto retorted. His retort provoked Mrs. Clancy to rebuke. The
quarrel was suddenly intensified. It became rougher. Even Sally was
excited, and her hands were clasped together. Mr. Minto lost his temper.
He became mad. A fierce brutality seized him in its unmanageable grip.
They heard him give a kind of frenzied cry of passion, saw him raise his
hands, heard a hurried scuffle at the foot of the stairs, where the
Clancys, both alarmed, drew back towards their room. And then the rattle
of an arm against a rail, a slither, a bumping, and a low thud. Dad,
overbalancing in his rage, had pitched and fallen headlong down the
stairs. Mrs. Minto and Sally set up a thin screaming. The gas flickered
and burned steadily again. A shriek came from Mrs. Clancy. It was
repeated. Mr. Minto lay quite still in a confused heap in the lower
passage.
iii
Dad was dead. It was the end of that stage in Sally's life. After the
funeral, Sally and her mother were quite without money. Everything was
so wretched and unforeseen that the two were lost in this miserable new
aspect of poverty and improvidence. For a time Mrs. Perce was good to
them, and Mrs. Clancy would have been the same if Mrs. Minto had not
stared through her as through a pane of glass. But when that was done,
and the funeral was over, they had nothing. Together they sat in their
bare room above the noisy traffic of Hornsey Road, not speaking much,
but all the time turning and turning in their heads all possible ways of
making money. In another two or three years Sally might have earned
more; but she was not now much above sixteen, and at sixteen, in the
dressmaking, one does not earn a living. And while at first they thought
that Mrs. Minto might get needlework to do, with which Sally could help,
they found this out of the question. Mrs. Minto's eyes were weak, and
she could not keep her seams straight. The machine they had was
ricketty. Sewing, for her, was impossible. For a few days she was
stunned with the new demand for which she was unprepared. She was
nerveless. It made Sally sick to watch her mother and to realise from
the vacancy which so soon appeared upon her face that memory and a kind
of futile pondering had robbed her brains of activity. With a bitter
sense of grudge against life, a tightening of lips already thin, and a
narrowing of eyes already discomfitingly merciless, Sally savagely told
herself that she had to do everything alone. It was she who must save
the situation. The arrogant grasp of this fact made a great impression
upon her mind and her character. Henceforward she no longer dreamed
about men, but was alert in her intention to make everything her tool,
and everybody. From a young girl she had been converted into an
unscrupulous taker from all. The death of her father was a blow which
had suddenly drawn together all those vague determinations which had
lain concealed. There was nothing except dangerous theft from which her
mind shrank. Looking afresh at her mother, she felt stirred by a new
impatience, and a succeeding indifferent contempt. Love had been killed,
and from now onwards she would play for her own hand. Small teeth met
with a snap. Her thin lips were drawn back. Mrs. Minto shrank from the
strange venomous snarl which she saw disfiguring Sally's face.
It was as though Sally felt trapped. Everything had been spoilt by this
unexpected happening, and Sally's unconscious helplessness revealed. It
was a blow to her vanity, a douche to her crude romanticism. She had
felt cramped and irritable before; but now she was made to realise how
little she had with which to fight against calamity and the
encroachments of others. Compared with this new danger, of starvation or
slavery, all old discomforts were shown to have been trivial, because
they had been accidents in a life which, however rough and ugly had been
at least absorbed in plans for enjoyment. Now plans for enjoyment gave
place to expedients for protection. Sally was indeed fierce and
resentful. It was with animosity that she put together the few sticks of
rubbish which remained to them and helped her mother to rearrange these
things in a single room which they had taken on the other side of
Holloway Road. No more for them the delights of Hornsey Road and three
rooms; but the confined space surrounded by these four dingy walls. What
wonder that Sally was desperate for fresh air, for escape, and ran out
of doors as soon as she could wriggle free! What wonder that she walked
quickly about the dark streets! Tears came to her eyes, and with
clenched fists she secretly whimpered in this new angry despair. Of what
avail? She was alone, and the streets were dark; and behind her lay that
one room, gloomy and wretched, with a speechless ruminating mother for
solitary welcome; and no hope ... no hope.
The roads she now so wildly trod were familiar ground to Sally. They
were all gravelled roads, upon which in the evenings boys and girls
cycled and flirted, and in which on Saturdays and after school hours
children bowled their hoops and played together. As the darkness grew,
the roads were more deserted, for the children were in bed, and the boys
and girls were not allowed out. Then appeared young men and girls of
slightly greater age and of a different class, the girls walking two by
two, the young men likewise. The young men cleared their throats, the
girls peeped and a little raised their voices, a relation was
established, and still the pairs continued to promenade, safe in
couples, and relishing the thought that they were enjoying stolen
acquaintance. Sally knew the whole thing through and through. She had
walked so with May. She had tried to talk to the boys and found them
soppy, and herself soppy, and everything soppy. She had wanted more and
more excitement, and all this strolling and holding hands in the dark,
and snatching them away, and running, and being caught, was tame to her
eager longing for greater adventure. And now she walked rapidly about
the roads, her eyes full of despair, her heart heavy, her brain active
and contemptuous. She knew her own cleverness. She knew it too well. And
it was smarting now at being proved such an ignominiously valueless
possession. She might be clever, she might have brains enough to despise
May Pearcey; but she had not the power to make a living. She must still
pinch and starve beside her mother. Trapped! Trapped!
It was a matter of weeks, this mood of indignant despair, of baffled
powerlessness in face of reality. And each night, after such a lonely
walk, in such a vehement mood, Sally would return to the miserable room
in which for the present she was to spend her life. It was at the back
of the house, on the second floor, and there was another floor above.
The room had a stained ceiling and a wallpaper that had discoloured in
streaks. The original pattern had been of small flowers on a
pseudo-primrose background. Now all was merged in a general stagnation
of Cambridge blue and coffee colour. Mrs. Minto had carefully put the
washstand beneath a patch that had been washed nearly white by splashes;
and Sally had insisted that it should stand in another part of the room.
"But that's where a washstand's stood before," wailed Mrs. Minto.
"That's _why_," explained Sally, brutally. "Put the chest-of-drawers
there. _I_ don't want to splash exactly where other people have
splashed. Not likely! The place ought to have been papered new."
When their bed and the washstand and a table and the chairs and
chest-of-drawers were in there was not much to arrange. Nor was there
room for very much, because the bed took up about a quarter of the
space. The Mintos had no pictures. They thus anticipated the best modern
taste. But the consequence was that if Sally happened to be irritable
she saw the wallpaper, and the wallpaper drove her crazy. It was a
constant exasperation to her. Her extremely good taste was beginning to
bud, and wallpaper is as vital an aesthetic test as any other. She had
not yet the power or the knowledge to dress effectively, but she was
already learning intuitively such things as harmony and colour-values.
She gave an eye to neatness and cleanliness, and knew how to riddle the
costumes of girls of her own class, beginning with May Pearcey. She also
was becoming aware of all Miss Jubb's deficiencies. Higher than her own
class she could not well go, because she never had opportunities for
seeing well-dressed women. It was so much the Minto habit to rise late
on Sundays, to sit about during the afternoon, and to go out only when
other people were generally indoors, that Sundays were wasted days.
Moreover, Sally had not in the past thought much of other girls. She had
thought only of boys. Even her new spruceness was a comparatively recent
manifestation. She was growing.
She was growing so fast that her old knowledges had been undermined. She
felt raw. She felt merely exasperated with the past, so that she desired
only to forget it. All she had seemed to know and to relish had become
insipid to Sally. She was chafing at her new position, and was
unconsciously looking round and round her, bewildered, for a new path to
follow. She could no longer take the old silly pleasure in hearing of
May's fresh conquests, which gave May such monotonous delight. She
abandoned "boys," and was rewarded for her emancipation by May's
indignant sniffs at her loss of spirit. May was driven to take a new
comrade, a girl prettier than Sally, and therefore more of a rival. So
May was equally dissatisfied with the present position. She had lost
ground, and some of her victories were invented. Nellie Cavendish had a
sharp tongue, and that helped May; but Nellie was less coarsely
confident than May, and annexed the boys by means of her demureness in
face of double meanings. May could not refrain from turning away to hide
a burst of laughter. That gave Nellie an advantage, and May secretly
longed to hunt once more with Sally. When the old times could not be
recaptured, May sneered in self-defence. The two girls did not chatter
over their work now when they were left alone. They became hostile, each
aggrieved, and both mutually contemptuous. Sally kept to her stitching,
and glowered. May thought to herself. Sally abruptly announced the
soppiness of May's continued exploits. When asked by her mother if she
were not going out with May, Sally returned the cold answer that May was
soft, and continued to walk alone, much disturbed, and privately
indignant that her mother should be so blind as to ignore the alteration
that had come about. She was lonely and wretched, spoiling for any
mischief that might offer.
Material for the use of such desperation never lacks. It arose
naturally. Toby came into her life.
Toby was a young man of about twenty years of age, who lived in the
house. She caught sight of him one night as she returned home, for he
was running down the stairs as she went up them. He was of middle
height, very dark and rather stoutly built; and he wore a cap. That was
all she noticed at their first encounter, since the stairs were dark:
that, and the fact that he did not draw to one side as they met. The
contact filled her mind with sudden interest. She thought about him as
she munched her supper, and wondered what he was really like. She
wreathed around Toby quite a host of guesses--not very deep or vivid,
but sufficiently so to make her think of him still as she undressed and
slipped into bed beside her mother. Her last thought before sleep came
was a faint enjoyment of the knowledge that a young man lived in the
same house. It was the faintest of thoughts, due solely to her
restlessness; but in the gloom she was conscious of him and of the
conviction that they would meet again upon the stairs. For that time
this was as far as speculation could carry her. Sally did not think of
herself at all--only that there was a young man, and that she should see
him again. The rest of her attention was absorbed in the endeavour to
remember all she had noticed of his appearance in that hasty meeting.
She had seen enough to be sure of recognising him again with the house
as associative background. That was all. Knowing it, she feel asleep,
and dreamed of a sudden gift of beauty and attractiveness.
iv
For several days Sally did not see the young man, and so she half forgot
him, lost him in the mixture of her more pressing preoccupations. Every
morning she rose at eight o'clock, after her mother had left the house
for her first situation, and then, breakfasting slowly, she had just
time to reach Miss Jubb's by nine. She did not like Miss Jubb, who was a
thin-faced and fussy person who always wore a grey pinafore and felt
that her untidy grey hair looked as though it might hint a sorrow rather
than betray advancing years. Miss Jubb was full of the futile vanity of
the elderly spinster, her mouth full of pins, and her head full of paper
patterns. She lived with her mother on two floors of an old house, and
one of the downstairs rooms was used on Sundays for sitting in and
during the week for trying on. The work she did never suggested
anything of the enormous pains Miss Jubb took in fitting, in fastening
pins and cutting out. She was incurably a bad dressmaker; but she gave
her clients the impression that she knew her business. This was because
she was so careful, and because they knew no better than she did what
women may and may not wear with propriety. The backs of all skirts
coming from Miss Jubb drooped lower than the fronts. Her bodices always
went wrong upon the shoulders. She was great on tucks. But she was
cheap, and she was Sybil-like in her mysterious assurance. So she
supported herself and her mother; while May and Sally did the rough
basting and all sorts of odd jobs in the room behind the parlour. Here
were the big cutting-out table, the treadled sewing machine, three or
four chairs, many fragments of material, several half-made garments,
and, upon the walls, a number of coloured prints from fashion papers. In
such surroundings Sally spent her days. She ate her lunch at twelve
o'clock, and had her tea at four. And as her fingers worked, or her feet
occasionally by special permission propelled the sewing machine, she
thought of the future and planned to get into the West End.
It was the West End that now lured her. If only she could get into the
West End all her troubles would be wiped away at once, she felt. She
could possibly make more money there; but even if she did not succeed in
that aim she would still be in the running for better work. That she
could do better work she never doubted. And she knew that as long as she
was with Miss Jubb she would never do anything at all. Some instinct
told her that. She knew it. She knew it as clearly as if she had
surveyed the future from above. It was not that she was suddenly wise;
but only that ambition had come into her consciousness. The blow she had
received by her father's death had struck deep into her character. She
had now to make something of her life, or starve. With a quick circle of
thought she imagined her mother dead. What would happen then? What
chance had she? Only vaguely did Sally glimpse the possibilities. She
knew she could not keep herself. She had one aunt--her mother's
sister--with two boy children who were both younger than Sally; but Aunt
Emmy had a rough time herself, and could hardly be a help. Sally saw
clearly enough that she had to fight alone. Very well, if she had to
fight alone she would do it, and fight hard. As she scowled, it became
evident that Sally would in this fight unscrupulously use every weapon
that she could seize. She would not shrink from anything that put
opportunity into her head. She was already hardened--a kind of hardening
on the surface, or in strata, which left curious soft places in her
nature, streaks of good and layers and patches of armour and grit and
callous cruelty. Above all, she was determined upon having money. Money
was the essential thing. Money meant safety. And safety, when starvation
threatens, becomes the one imperious if ignominious ideal. Once one has
known physical hunger, no act is inconceivable as a means of averting
the risk of a similar experience.
Thus Sally's thoughts ran, not coherently or explicitly, but in vehement
revolts and resolves. Thus she ruminated, while Miss Jubb was out of the
room or had her attention so distracted that she could not observe an
idle apprentice. When Miss Jubb came back to the room or to supervision
work had a little to be hurried, so that she might not find occasion for
complaint. For Miss Jubb had a sharp tongue, and although she took the
pins out of her mouth before she talked she showed that they had left
their influence upon her tongue, which was sharp to a fault. And there,
across the room, was the rosy-cheeked May Pearcey, so silly, so
incapable of more than momentary resentment, that she was always
forgetting that Sally and she no longer spoke, but was always trying to
encourage Sally into a return to their former relation. Sometimes Sally
would glower across at May, bitterly hating her and riddling her
plumpness and folly with the keen eye of malice. May, unconscious of the
scrutiny, would go on with her work, self-satisfied, much coarser and
more physical in her appetites than Sally, still in spite of all the
rebuffs she had received grinning about her boys and what they had said
and what they had meant....
"Oo, he is awful!" she would burst out to Sally. "The things he said. I
dint half blush."
May had enjoyed his boldness, it seemed. She told Sally what he had
said. She told her things and things in the irresistible splurge of the
silly girl whose mind is full of adolescent impurity. Well, Sally knew
all that. She knew all the things that boys said; and a few more things
she had noticed and thought for herself. She was not a prude. May didn't
know anything that Sally did not know; but she talked about it. Sally
did not talk. Her sexual knowledges, so far as they went, were as close
and searching as a small-tooth comb, and collected as much that was
undesirable. She despised May. May was a fool. She was soppy, talking
about all these things as if they were new marvels, when they were as
old as the hills and as old as the crude coquetries of boys and girls.
May was the soppiest girl in Holloway. Yet the boys liked her for her
plump face and arms and legs, and her red cheeks, and her self-conscious
laugh, and her eyes that held guilt and evil and general silliness
and vanity. The boys liked May. They did not like Sally. She was too
small and sandy; too obviously critical and contemptuous in face of
their small stock of talk, and too greedy of their poor and
pompously-displayed schemes for economical entertainment. Sally's teeth
showed like the teeth of a cat, very small and sharp, emblems of her
nature. Conceit took firmer root in her heart because of her contempt
for May and her inevitable suppressions of pain and resentment in face
of neglect, as well as her suppressions of knowledge gained by a mental
process so quick that May could never have had the smallest notion of
it. Sally became secret, and her determination was made more emphatic.
She began to study her face, and her body. One day her mother found her
naked in front of a mirror, twisting herself so that she could see the
poise of her figure. It was a pretty figure, if underdeveloped, and from
that time of thorough examination onwards Sally never had the smallest
doubt of her own attractiveness and its principal constituents. Only her
face was wrong, she felt with bitter chagrin; her face and her hair. If
her face were fatter and less freckled, and if her hair were not so
sandy and pale, she would be pretty. Really pretty. Pretty enough to
make a man go silly. Well, such things could be cured, couldn't they?
Or, if not cured, then at least improved.... That was a notion that
dwelt constantly in Sally's thoughts.
v
The point was, that she must have actual experience in rousing men. It
was not that she had determined upon marriage as a way out of her
present difficulties. At the back of her mind, perhaps, was always the
knowledge that she must get a man to work for her; but this never became
an obsession. She was simply a growing girl, hungry for experience, and
at the outset hampered by circumstance. Unless something happened to
her, Sally was doomed to poverty and suffering. Therefore, full of raw
confidence, she was determined that she should be the heroine of her own
romance. Her impulse was not to give, but to take. She did not long to
be the loving help of a good man, but was ever craftily bent upon
exploiting the weaker sides of those she met for the furtherance of her
own ends.
It was several days before she met Toby again; but she waited with a
kind of patience wholly in keeping with the rest of her nature. She
always expected to meet him upon the stairs, and never did so. In the
streets she looked for him. Nights, however, were dark and Toby
apparently elusive. But one evening she was running down the three steps
at the front door just as he arrived home. With a quick breath she
ventured a "good evening." When he answered, she was filled with a
pleasure which she would have found it hard to explain. "Evening," said
Toby, surlily, and passed on. Sally gave a small grimace, a faint jerk
of the head. That was done. A few more days passed. Still in the
darkness she saw him a third time, now as she closed the door of the
room, while Toby hurried to the floor above. By questions, she had found
out that he lived exactly over them, and that his aunt had the room next
to his, in the front of the house. This aunt she never saw, as she was
very exclusive, and did not associate at all with her neighbours. Toby's
surname she could not learn; but his aunt was called Mrs. Tapping. The
aunt had an annuity. Toby worked somewhere in the neighbourhood; and
Sally soon discovered the time of his departure and return. She knew
these so well that she could have told you to the minute when his foot
might be expected upon the stairs. If he happened to be late she could
have remarked upon it to her mother if she had been in the habit of
telling her mother anything at all.
Later, when they had been in the house about three weeks, she had a
triumph. She was going out one evening and was barely down the first
two or three stairs when she heard him running behind her. He was forced
to pull up, and, from a peep, she saw that he was still half a flight
above. Their progress from that instant coincided. They reached the
front door almost at the same time. She left it open, and as Toby came
out she turned and smiled "good evening." He replied. Sally followed
with "Beautiful, isn't it!" and then went slowly towards Tollington
Park. Would he follow? She was almost breathless, her eyes downcast, her
ears strained. He did not follow. Sally frowned. A sneer came to her
lips. Then a pensiveness succeeded, and resolve became fixed. All right;
he did not follow. He was a man. All the more worthy of her address.
Moreover, she had noticed him more clearly than ever before, because the
gas in the hall had lighted his face as she turned upon the threshold.
He was strong, and she adored strength. He was broad and muscular and
dark. He had dark eyes under heavy brows. His age she supposed to be
about twenty or slightly above. As she recollected these details Sally's
face became inscrutable. All the same, her walk had lost its savour, and
she returned home earlier than usual. How miserable it was that she had
no other girl of her own age to go about with. Boys always went in twos.
So did girls. The one gave the other courage. Yet Sally was done with
May. May was soppy. She did not, in thinking this, do anything but envy
May; but all the same she knew that Toby's solitariness matched her own.
It was an augury. She lay awake until he came home, listening to her
mother breathing; and then, in a few minutes, heard eleven o'clock
strike.
vi
The next time this happened, and they met so definitely, Toby looked
sharply at her. Sally did nothing, but paused an instant. He followed
her with his eyes. Then, he stepped to her side. It was the moment and
Sally stopped sharply, shrinking a little from him.
"Going out alone?" Toby said. "Mind if I come too?" He walked beside
her. "I mean ... live in the same house."
Oh, he had plenty of assurance.
"All right; you can come," Sally vouchsafed. She was not going to show
eagerness; but she was thrilling with excitement. She moistened her
lips, her nostrils pinched and her eyes suddenly shrewd. She felt her
heart beating terribly in her breast, and was half the calculating
victor and half a genuinely shrinking young girl engaged in her first
serious exploit.
For a few moments both Toby and Sally were silent. Everything depended
upon the establishment of some instant connection between them, for
otherwise the nerve of both might fail, and a fiasco result. Toby's step
hesitated, as though he was beset by an impulse to leave her. Sally shot
a quick glance. He was wavering, and must be held.
"Nice night, isn't it?" she remarked, in a ladylike way.
The inclination to fly was checked. Toby remained by her side. They
walked together about the streets for an hour, he smoking cigarette
after cheap cigarette, and every now and then saying something that was
nothing. He was not a good talker. He could not express himself, but
said "er" between words, and moved his hands. Partly it was nervousness.
Sally often grinned at knowledge of this and of his bad way of speaking,
which made him sometimes appear almost loutish. But behind every
roughness there lay a hidden strength that she was ready to worship. She
walked beside him with steps quicker than his own, but a good swing;
exulting in their power to walk in unison, a thin little figure beside
his stoutness, her large black straw hat hiding her every expression
except when she tilted up her head and in the light of a street lamp
showed a tiny white face. Toby slouched along, one hand sometimes in a
trouser pocket, but more often with both hands in restless motion. She
could hear him: "I mean to say ... these yobs go about ... penn'orth of
chocolates and a drink at the fountain. That's all the dinner they get.
Wear a tiddy little bowler hat and never brush their boots.... Office
boys, they are; and call 'emselves junior clurks. And what's it come to?
I mean to say.... I'd rather work with my hands, like a man.... What's
the matter with a little dirt? Comes off, doesn't it?"
"Oo ... yes ..." sighed Sally, admiringly.
At last, pursuing this theme, Toby told her an anecdote about one of the
other fellows at his work. Sally listened with a breathless interest
that was only half-feigned. She wanted him to think she understood. She
wanted him to like her. She even wanted to sympathise. It was such a
mixture of feelings she had--some good, some mischievous and deliberate.
All her vanities were involved. Her nerves were taut with the strain of
such a show of absorption, while her mind ran on at top speed. She asked
pseudo-timid questions, just to show her interest and her cleverness,
and to encourage Toby to keep on telling her things that threw light
upon himself and his likes and dislikes. She walked delicately, stifled
yawns, interjected "fancy" and "there" as if she understood all he said.
She beguiled him. And all the time, under the design, her heart was
soft towards him, soft and admiring.
They walked along the darkened streets at a slow pace, and the passers
were few. Once or twice they encountered hushed couples, sometimes
laughing groups. Always Sally glanced stealthily, and summed up those
whom they saw; and had a tail glance for Toby. He appeared to ignore
everything, and slouched along at her side, as he must have done when
alone, with his head lowered. She could not make him out. In some ways
he was so self-confident, in others so much as though he had never
looked at a girl before. Did he know girls? Did he know what they were
like? What a mystery--a delicious mystery! He wasn't soppy, yet he
hardly looked at her. Funny ... funny! So she mused; continuing to give
his talk quite half her attention.
At last ten o'clock struck, and, although both wanted to stay out
longer, Sally was prudent and firm. She said "mother would wonder what
had happened," and laughed a little in her excitement, at the innuendo,
and in encouraging flattery. "_Must_ go," she added, lingering. So Toby
took her back to the corner of their road, it being a strict unspoken
covenant that they should not enter the house together, in case they
should be seen. There was no handshake; but Sally had the satisfaction
of seeing Toby awkwardly move the peak of his cap in parting. That was
ever so good, she thought. Her hard scrutiny of his manner found as yet
no cause for suspicion, but only for a renewal of her curiosity
concerning him. Toby showed no sign of any feeling beyond satisfaction
with her, and this was an irresistible flattery. She ran in, full of
excitement.
vii
What was the truth about him? Sally's thoughts bit into her observation
with intense gusto. She turned and twisted all her impressions during a
couple of wakeful hours; and she remained full of glee. What a piece of
luck. Toby! Toby, Toby, Toby! How quickly her mind worked! It was like
acid, testing and comparing; and yet its action was soft and caressing
when she remembered his figure and his voice--some of the little
gestures, some turns of speech, his sturdy contempt for what he called
"yobs," which she discovered to be the word "boys" spelt in an
unfamiliar way. Those were the things she loved. The rest she had
exploited. The mixture of pleasure and tactics filled her with delicious
dread and hunger.
When the following evening came, Sally deliberately waited until she
heard Toby go out. Only after a delay of five minutes did she put on her
hat and coat in opposition to her mother's command. What was mother?
There was a faint flush on Sally's cheeks, and a new sparkle in her
eyes. She was engaged upon an adventure. She dallied as she went down
the stairs. At the door she checked herself once more. What if he were
not there? To herself she said that she would not mind; but that was a
lie which she told to her wits. Her heart gave a different message.
How dark it was! At first Sally could see nothing. The moon, if there
was one, hid itself behind black clouds. Only specks of light came from
street lamps and between the slats of Venetian blinds. A wind hustled
about, blowing up for rain, and uncomfortably draughty. As Sally stood
on the step the door slammed behind her, and she heard a rattling run
all through the house, a banging of other doors and trembling of
window-panes. And then, as she lowered her head to meet the dusty
breeze, she felt Toby beside her, at her elbow, expectant. Sally gave a
start and a cry, for he had been so silent in the midst of all these
alarms as to come unexpectedly.
"How you startled me!" she exclaimed coquettishly. "Thought you'd gone
out _long_ ago!"
Toby gave a sort of half-confused laughing grunt.
"Hours ago I went out," he said, very close to her, deliciously bold.
"Didn't think you'd remember.... I didn't _say_ I'd come.... Have you
been waiting?" Sally sounded very nearly affected in her unplanned
speech. Toby answered with a sort of off-hand nonchalance.
"Only a minute. That's all right. I was afraid you weren't coming."
Afraid! What a lovely word! He continued, with his hand quickly at her
elbow: "Shall we go round Fairmead?"
When he spoke as he was doing now, Toby's rough voice dropped to a low
note that he believed to be gentle. It was in fact still vibrant; but
Sally liked everything about his tone and his manner. It made her feel
that he was a man; and manliness was everything to her. She longed while
she was with him to meet May ... to show her.... It would have given
Sally fierce joy. For the rest, she was content. He was by her side.
Their arms touched from time to time. When the wind blew extra strong,
she clutched him, and they stood together to resist the onset. And at
every touch Sally had fresh sense of strength and adventure.
"What you been doing to-day?" she asked, as talk flagged. He told her.
He told her a great deal more about himself, and about his aunt. He had
had the most marvellous adventures. Sally could not believe them all;
but she was charmed by the narrative. Toby talked more freely. He
hesitated less, and was more confident. Sally felt sure he must have
known other girls. You didn't talk like that if you were new to it. She
was again curious. Once she almost blurted out the question; but she
stayed the words in time. It would have been a mistake to ask anything
at this stage. It would have seemed possessive. It might have alarmed
him. Anyway, she thought, if he _has_, what does that matter? To her it
was an added pleasure, that he _might_ be wise and experienced. It was a
greater flattery; it called for greater resource in herself.
Once, when they had stopped and Sally had stood close to him so that he
might light a fresh cigarette under the shelter of her body, Toby blew
forth a puff of smoke and put his arm round her. Very coolly did Sally
free herself, perfectly mistress of the situation; but she liked him the
better for his boldness. It was the sort of thing she had dreamed--a
lover who was ardent, a lover who had to be repelled, so that the
delight of ultimate surrender should be fully savoured. Was he a lover?
Sally shivered. The attempt and the rebuff made them more intimate, as
though an understanding had been reached between them. They walked along
elbow to elbow, at first silent, and then talking freely, both in
good-humor and with continued interest. In the safe darkness Sally's
eyes glistened. The very faintest smile made her mouth enigmatic.
Already she carried herself with fresh assurance. She was conscious of
her power, and altogether resolved to maintain it by prudence.
viii