a glimpse under the flickering hall gas, and again from time to time in
the shine of street lamps; but he had never once been with her in
daylight. She herself was conscious of this, at first accidental, but
now deliberate, mystification; and she dreaded the disclosure that was
bound to come. It was not, she knew, that she was ugly; but only that to
a man like Toby her small face and sandy hair might mark her down and
ruin everything. She feared to notice a change in him, a change from
their present and increasingly confidential relation to an indifference,
a contempt, which she might find unbearable. The feeling was acute. It
was not solely due to dependence upon Toby, but was a part of her
long-suffered self-disparagement and a fear, almost fatalistic, that she
could never keep a man's interest. The fear grew more intense as she
fell into the bitter-sweets of a lover's doubtings. The day must come,
and then what would happen? She longed to twine herself into his life
before he could see her clearly. Perhaps then he would not notice?
Perhaps even now he knew, and did not mind?
That was one mood. Another was a recognition of her own piquancy. In
this stronger mood, she concentrated upon her own prettiness, the
slimness of her body, her power to please him. But the confidence did
not last, because he had become a necessity to her. Having
half-determined to snare him, Sally was herself snared by the gins of
love. She was hard, but she was soft. She was cold, but she was warm.
And as each day she used the sewing machine or roughly stitched the raw
material for Miss Jubb's costumes, Sally always looked to the nights.
When it rained, and she had to stay indoors, she chafed irritably and
went early to bed. When she met Toby she was full of unwonted high
spirits. For a long time she did not know what had happened to her. Then
at last the truth flashed out one morning as she lay in bed, and with a
little laughing sound Sally knew that she was in love.
She was in love. And Toby, how did he feel? A new stage had been
reached, when her caution was directed to an altogether different end.
She did not now seek so coolly to play with his inclinations. She had
great need for care lest she should betray her own secret. The
occasional contacts with him had become an eager need, and must be
checked so as to make them appear as accidental as they were deliberate.
Sally was not withholding from coquetry, but from dread lest she should
give herself away and show herself over-willing. She noticed everything
he did, without watchful scrutiny, and with the merest quickness of her
caressing glance. She loved everything in him, his speech and his
movements, his strength, his stubbornness, his rough carriage and
silence. She loved him. She feared him. She did not dare to risk losing
him. Above all, she longed to be in Toby's arms, to be desired by him.
Once, when she was examining her face in the mirror, and trying to
imagine just how pretty Toby might be made to think her, Sally lost her
nerve. She was tearful all that day, tearful and speechless, so that a
rebuke from Miss Jubb brought about a real fit of crying. Miss Jubb,
astounded at such a collapse, instantly abandoned blame and showed true
kindness of heart, while May Pearcey looked on with round saucer eyes
above her round apple cheeks. And Sally went home early, ashamed of
herself, once more irritable to viciousness, and spent the time before
her mother's return lying upon the bed and trying to sleep. There was no
walk that night. Toby went out as usual, and even ventured a whistle
when she did not come; but Sally remained indoors. She did not, indeed,
hear the whistle, as she was at the back of the house; but she knew he
was waiting. She dared not go. In half an hour she heard Toby return,
and go tramping indignantly up to his room directly above. The sound
made her cry more than ever, but very quietly, in case her mother should
hear and awaken.
The next night was even more wretched, for Toby went out and was nowhere
to be seen when Sally followed him. She walked fruitlessly in the
directions they had taken upon previous evenings, and came back
disconsolate and exhausted. Pale and ill, Sally could not sleep. She had
been living poorly, and her spirit was low. The future was dismal. Toby
must have thrown her over. It was in vain that her wits consoled her
with the certainty that he must have missed her, that a boy who did not
care about her would never have shown such surly pique as his. So great
had her love become that she could not listen to such reassurance. Only
the worst was convincing enough for her misery. He was gone. He was done
with her. She had lost him. No wonder then when she was alone Sally's
eyes filled with weak tears.
Fortunately enough the next day was a Saturday, and she was able to go
alone up to Waterlow Park, on Highgate Hill. She walked up the Holloway
Road alone, and saw the autumn sun flashing upon the cross which stands
erect above St. Joseph's dome. The air was already murky with the
heaviness of the season. Leaves lay upon the ground and in the pathways.
The cable-cars grunted and groaned upon the hill, and the Park looked
bleak in the daylight. But the exercise did Sally good, and she saw
other people, and watched some children playing touch until the Park
bell rang to show that the gates were going to be closed. Even then she
lingered, watching the moving figures and noticing the greenness of the
grass under the shrivelling leaves.
From that walk she returned more healthy and in better spirits. She
determined to go out marketing with her mother in the evening, and
walked back past the flaring lamps, at which women were already
crowding, with her head in the air and her courage high. She almost
forgot Toby while she was bathed in this flustering brilliance of light
and noise. Only far below, in her heart, continued that inexhaustible
consciousness of her love. Even in this temporary oblivion she shivered
as she came to the darker part of the road.
Sally was once again among shops; and then she went down a side road.
And her heart was beating rather fast as she approached the house, in
case Toby should meet her. It was with a mingled relief and chagrin that
she reached the house alone. She was inside the door now, and the woman
on the ground floor was just standing on a chair to light the gas. Sally
had to wait for a minute until she plunged heavily down and dragged the
chair aside.
"Oh," said the woman. "There's a letter for you. It's just come. This
minute."
It was not often that Sally had a letter. Had Toby written to her? She
pounced upon the envelope. Fancy his doing that! Oh, no. It was only
from Aunt Emmy, at Brixton. Well, perhaps Aunt Emmy knew somebody in the
West End. What could she have written about?
"Is mother in, d'you know?" Sally asked the woman.
"I _fancy_ ... yes, I _fancy_ she just went out. Shoppin', I expect.
It's a nice evening. You know, what I call crisp. Not that sort of muggy
... ugh...." She gave a great shudder, as the man in the fairy tale did
when his wife poured gudgeon upon him while he slept.
Sally, threatened with a lengthy conversation, made for the stairs. She
reached their room, which was lighted; and so she knew that her mother
would not be long. A kettle was singing on a small fire of coal blocks,
and the teapot was laid to warm. Sally looked round the room, guessed
that her mother had gone out for tea or sugar, and tore open her letter.
In ugly crude writing she read the kind words Aunt Emmy had sent.
"Dear Sally. How are you and your mother? She takes no notice when
I write to her, so perhaps I'd better start writing to you. Such
news I've got. I've won thirty-five pounds in a competition. I
don't know how I did it any more than you do. Anyway, Sally, I
don't want to forget my little niece, and so here's a little
something for you. I'm giving the boys some, and buying a new
dress, and then I'm going to bank the rest against a rainy day.
Waste not, want not, you know. Don't tell mummy I've sent you
anything, but spend it on yourself, love. Get a bit of something
nice. Your affectionate Aunt Emmy."
Enclosed was a postal-order for a pound. Sally's heart seemed to stop
beating for an instant. She looked again at the postal-order, and with a
sharp movement put it inside her blouse. Then she put the letter in the
fire, and watched it flame and blacken and flick to pieces in the
draught. Slowly, thinking with all her might, she took off her
out-of-doors jacket and hung it up. A pound! She was rich! With a pound
you could do a lot. You could ... you could buy material for a frock.
You could buy underclothes, stockings, shoes. Not all of them, but what
you wanted. Or you could buy a hat and sweets and scent and ... oh, lots
of things! A whole pound to spend! Slowly, slowly came Sally's mind
round to something from which it instantly darted away. It crept back
again. It seized upon her will. With a pound you could ... you could
make your hair look nice and your face....
After the resolve, Sally was quite cool. She turned to greet her mother
with entire self-possession. But her ears were strained, because
overhead she heard a heavy footstep.
ix
The thing determined, Sally was faced with a great difficulty. She did
not know how to do things. She had to find out. You couldn't make a fool
of yourself and ask at a shop. She had talked to May once or twice about
... making your hair look nice ... well, dyeing it, if you wanted to
know; and May could only show her advertisements clipped from the Sunday
paper. She had not kept those advertisements: she had not liked the look
of them. Mother wouldn't know. She must do it at once. A bold plan had
come into her mind. She was near the end of her second year with Miss
Jubb. She could go into the West End if only she looked nice enough. If
she could do it to-night or to-morrow she could meet May Pearcey first
thing on Monday morning, get her to tell Miss Jubb Sally was ill, and
perhaps go after some situation during the day. What a game! But how was
she to get the stuff? That was the difficulty. No, it was the easiest
thing of all. Mrs. Perce! Mrs. Perce used peroxide, because she had once
been a barmaid. But that meant a long time. Sally must have something
quick in its action. Mrs. Perce would know. Mrs. Perce knew everything
of that kind. The notion of going shopping with her mother was
abandoned. She had more important things to do. She would go and see
Mrs. Perce immediately after tea. Then, while old Perce was playing the
piano, she would get to know everything. Sally became wildly animated.
She glimpsed the future. Transformed, she would conquer. Toby would be
won. She would be in the West End. A whole new vista opened before her,
glittering with promise. Never had she been so excited, even when Toby
first spoke to her.
Mrs. Minto wearily threw off her dingy cloak and raked the fire, so that
the kettle began to boil. She looked in a lethargic way at Sally, as a
cat looks at a stranger in whom it is not at all interested; and then
mechanically took down the tea-caddy from the mantelpiece. As she
stooped over the kettle there seemed to be cramp in all her limbs. The
little bell-pull of hair was smaller than ever, and the hair itself was
more grey. Her whole bearing expressed a lifeless dejection. Panting
faintly as the result of her late posture, Mrs. Minto brought the teapot
to the spotless table, and clumsily touched the teacups and spoons so
that they jarred upon Sally's nerves. Everything her mother did now
annoyed Sally. The slow motions, the awkward way in which her fingers
turned to thumbs, the shortsightedness that made her unable to thread a
needle or read a paper except through an old magnifying glass, the
general air of debility and discouragement. Sally felt furious with her
all the time--"Old fool ... old fool!" she would frantically murmur to
herself; and then would fall again into despair at her own sensation of
frustrate youth. She had lost love for her mother, had no pity to give
in its place; and only awoke in these moments of dreadful exasperation
to the sense that she was still dependent upon Mrs. Minto for her
existence. During this tea-time, while her mother mutely ate bread and
margarine, Sally was away in the clouds, dreaming of all that her
windfall was to produce. It was to produce beauty, opportunity,
happiness. So much for a pound to do! Sally was so impatient to call on
Mrs. Perce that she could hardly eat anything or drink her tea.
"You _are_ worritting and fidgetting, Sally," cried Mrs. Minto,
peevishly. "Sit still, there's a good girl. I don't know what's come to
my 'ead. It feels all funny inside, and if I put my hand there it's like
I got a bruise. And yet I don't remember knockin' myself anywheres, and
I can't understand it at all, because it's not as if I'd taken anything
to disagree with me; and yet there it is, a nasty pain all inside my
'ead and a feeling as though I'd got a bruise on the outside. I was
telling Mrs. ... oh, dear, what is her name?... Mrs. ... Roberson about
it, and she said that's what her 'usband used to suffer from, and ...
_he_ took...."
Sally ignored the rest of the speech. Her mother rambled on; and Sally
looked at the clock. She'd get to Hornsey Road about six. That would be
time enough. There would be the Clancy kids playing in the doorway, so
she would go straight upstairs to Mrs. Perce; and she would say....
Self-absorbed, both went mechanically on with the unappetising meal.
Upstairs Toby walked once more into his own room; and then came running
heavily down the stairs and past their door and then right down to the
street. Sally's heart was in a flutter, and her eyes flew once again to
the clock. It was so early for Toby to be going out. She would not see
him, then. She would not see him, and all her excitement was gone like
an exploded toy balloon. The heart was taken out of her enterprise. He
was going out: he did not want her: he was finished with her. Sally
could not repress the single sob that rose to her lips.
"... so I asked Mr. Flack if they'd ever kep' it, and he said no, they
never had, and told me to try at Boots's, down by the Nag's Head...."
"Oh, _mother_," cried Sally, beside herself. "Do shut up about your
head. It gives me the hump." Then, as she became aware of what she had
said, she defensively proceeded. "Well, you keep on talking about it,
and it doesn't do any _good_ to talk about it. If you want to know, I'm
ill myself. I've got a headache, and I've got the rats...."
"You got no call to speak to your mother that way," said Mrs. Minto. "If
I'd a spoke to _my_ mother like that, I should have got the strap. So
mind that, Sally. It's not nice. I've noticed you getting very
unmannerly and out of hand lately. Very rude. I don't know what to do
with you, you're so rude. It's not right, and it worries me so that I
can't think what I'm doing. I was talking about it the other day to Mrs.
Roberson, and _she_ says...."
"Yes, ma," said Sally, rising, and going to the door to take her hat
down from the peg. "She seems to have got a lot to say. Doesn't seem to
be much sense in what she says."
"Now, you're not to...." By this time Sally had one sleeve on and was
feeling for the other. In a glance at her little peaked determined face,
and obstinate mouth, Mrs. Minto's spirit suddenly failed. Where she had
meant to be maternally peremptory she became querulous. "Wherever you
going now?" she asked weakly. "Oh, you _are_ a naughty wilful girl."
"Out," said Sally, bluntly. Unheeding the outcry that followed, she was
out of the door and down the stairs before her mother could check her;
and with a new ugly sense of revolt was on her way to see Mrs. Perce in
a mood of reckless despair. Left alone, Mrs. Minto washed feebly up, and
sighingly dried the cups and plates and rearranged them in the cupboard.
Presently she sat in a limp curve over the fire, in a kind of stupor,
dreaming of she knew not what. Every now and then she would give a jerk
in anger at Sally's rudeness and recently uncontrollable highhandedness,
which recurred to her attention whenever her thoughts touched reality.
For the rest she sat motionless, until the coal-blocks subsided and the
fire went black.
x
Out in the dark streets, Sally was as if enveloped. First she looked
this way and that for Toby; but he was gone. A wave of hysteria passed
over her. She hated him. She hated him for such loutish cruelty. He
didn't care. And because he did not care, although she tried to feel
indifferent, she loved him the more. Blindly she walked away from the
house, and heard the trams grinding, and the rattle of carts over the
rough paving. Holloway Road at this point is at its worst--dull and
ugly, with an air of third-rate respectable indigence. She crossed the
road, and passed into a squalid thoroughfare called Grove Road, and
marched past the ugly houses with her head in the air, pretending that
she had no interest whatever in Toby. All her thoughts were busy
inventing indifference; and her consciousness was at each turn confusing
and contradicting her thoughts. If solitude had been possible to her,
Sally would have cried; but as a rule she cried very little, both
because she was rarely alone and because she was not naturally
hysterical. Fighting, therefore, against what she felt to be weakness,
she proceeded on her way, trying to laugh at rival butchers shouting
insults and challenges across the street. At the post office near her
old home she changed her open postal-order, and was given a
half-sovereign and ten shillings-worth of silver. This money she
carefully put, in paper, inside her blouse. She was then ready for her
interview.
At the old address new tenants already occupied the first floor flat,
and Mr. Clancy stood at the gate smoking his pipe. The man who lived in
the ground floor flat next door still showed his glass-covered sign "Why
Pay Rent?" Children littered the few inches of asphalt which served as
front garden to the two houses. Seeing Sally, Mr. Clancy took his pipe
out of his mouth, spat, and nodded at her in a friendly way.
"Hello, Sally. Keepin' well? Look fine."
"I've come to see Mrs. Perce-- Mrs. Barrow, you know."
Mr. Clancy jerked his head, receptive of the news, and as Sally passed
him continued to smoke and to regard the traffic. He must have been
bitterly cold, she thought; but she knew he must be standing outside
either because Mrs. Clancy was out or because she was in. The stairs
were just as steep as of old, and as dark. Sally had absolutely no
memory of her father's fall. She was merely curious about the new people
in the flat. But she did not see them, for all the doors were closed,
and she kicked her feet against the stairs, stumbling a little in the
darkness.
At her further progress a door flew open above, and Mrs. Perce looked
out.
"Sally! Well I never!" she ejaculated. "Perce! Here's Sally come to see
you!" Perce's reply did not reach Sally, but there was an exchanged kiss
with Mrs. Perce, and then her coat and hat were off and she was
conscious of overpowering warmth and kippers and a general sizzle of
comfort and plenty. "Had your tea?" demanded Mrs. Perce. "Have another.
Come on. Plenty of kippers. Perce! Sally's eating your kippers!"
Perce appeared, rubbing the back of his neck with a towel--a large fair
red-faced man with a broad grin. He put his hand on Sally's shoulder,
and shook her. Then he went out of the room again, and Sally began
almost immediately upon the feast. It was such a jolly, cosy, close
room, so bright and gaudy in its decoration, that it was Sally's idea of
what a kitchen should be. The walls were a varnished brown, so that they
shone in the lamplight. Polished candlesticks stood by a shiny clock on
the mantelpiece. There were bright pictures and a brilliant lamp and a
glittering tablecloth covered with polished dishes and silver. She had a
great admiration for old Perce and Mrs. Perce. They both loved comfort
and food and drink, and both had hearty laughs that showed all their
teeth. Both had shrewd, glistening, money-engrossed eyes; both were
large and stout and cheerful and noisy. To anybody as young as Sally
noise goes a long way towards cheeriness, because it deadens thought. So
when old Perce came and took his place at the table she suddenly threw
off her despair with the volatility of childhood, and laughed aloud and
ate and drank, and made sly remarks, until she became an altogether
different Sally from the one who had taken an earlier tea with her
mother. She was now in high spirits. All sorts of funny things came into
her head--things she had seen and thought since their last meeting; and
when she repeated them the Barrows laughed in great roars that filled
her with conceited exultation. It was so long since she had laughed. It
was so long since she had fed properly. This was like a dream, a riotous
dream of noise and colour. She looked from old Perce's red face to Mrs.
Perce's almost equally florid cheeks, her eyes travelling like
dragon-flies, as bright and eager as possible.
And all the time she was taking in Mrs. Perce's appearance. Mrs. Perce
wore a black silk dress, very plain, but well-cut. She had a gold
brooch at her throat, and a thin gold chain round her neck. Her hair was
abundant, and was dressed in a great blob upon the top of her head. It
was a noticeable colour, fair and startling. She did not decorate her
eyebrows and eyelashes, which were darker than her hair. And she wore
high corsets, because her bosom, although firm, was inclined to be
over-flowing. The bodice of her dress fitted closely and emphasised what
was still a very shapely figure. She was what would be called a fine
woman. Her eyes were full and clear; her lips were well-moulded; her
teeth, rather protruding, were unimpaired. Sally was filled with renewed
envy of her personal advantages. Then her eyes went back to Mrs. Perce's
hair. It was too obviously doctored. She didn't want anything like that.
She wanted something more delicate....
The truth flashed upon her. Mrs. Perce was a trifle on the coarse side.
Sally quickly compared Mrs. Perce's plump hands with her own lean ones.
At the scrutiny, she put her hands below the table, for they were not
clean. But if they had been clean she would have taken pride in them;
for where the fingers of Mrs. Perce were stubby her own were slim and
pretty. She understood her own shortcomings, but in the quick
observations and comparisons she had been making, Sally had learnt a
great deal more clearly than ever before how careful she must be to
avoid exaggeration in all she did. Dressed and adorned as Mrs. Perce was
dressed and adorned, she would have looked a guy. It was a new lesson to
her, and a valuable one.
"Have you noticed," said Mrs. Perce, "how me and Perce's dressed up
to-day?"
Sally was staggered. She looked quickly at old Perce and saw that he was
in his best clothes, with a lovely new spotted blue and white tie, and
a dahlia in his buttonhole.
"Of course," she said. "I noticed everything. Didn't like to ask. What
is it? Is it your birthday? Wish I'd known," she added, half-truthfully.
"I'd a brought you a present."
"No," laughed Mrs. Perce. "Very good guess. Not a birthday. It's the
anniversary of our wedding-day. Been married nine years, we have."
"Nine years!" echoed Sally, awestruck. "Nine years! And you haven't had
a baby yet!"
There was a startling guffaw. Old Perce slapped his leg and bayed. Mrs.
Perce threw herself back in her chair, showing every brilliant tooth.
The noise was tremendous.
"The things she says!" shrieked Mrs. Perce. "Perce, I always said that
child was a caution!" They both laughed until they were in an extremity
of mirth.
Sally recognised herself as a wit, flushed, and laughed as heartily as
they. She had spoken incautiously, as a child, and without
sophistication. But she accepted responsibility for her joke. She was
not in the least flurried, but was pleased at being considered an adept
in the ways of marriage. At heart she was despising herself for not
having been more truly observant of their clothes, because in reality
she had been so concentrated upon Mrs. Perce that she had never thought
to spare an eye for Mrs. Perce's husband. She was thankful to have
ridden off so easily upon her naivete. Meanwhile, having laughed amply,
the Barrows had resumed their tea.