working listlessly amid the hum of girls' chatter, which proceeded
unchecked while Miss Summers was out of the room, when she had a
singular knowledge of something in store. She was struck almost by fear.
Quickly she looked up, and across at Rose Anstey, and beyond Rose to the
door of Madam's room. Miss Summers stood in the doorway, smiling, and
beckoning to Sally. Smiling--so it could not be anything.... Madam
wanted Sally; but Madam would not tell Miss Summers.... Had she found
out about Gaga? Sally's heart was like lead. But Miss Summers was
smiling kindly and significantly, which she would not have done if she
had thought the interview promised to be unpleasant. Besides, Gaga had
said Miss Summers called Sally her best worker. It was nevertheless a
nervous girl who went into the room, heard the door close behind her,
and found herself alone with Madam.
The room was that tawny one in which Sally had first seen Madame Gala.
It was lighted by one large window and it was not really a large room,
although it contained Madam's enormous table and a bureau and a number
of shelves upon which reference books stood. It was very quiet and cool
in summer, and warm in winter; and Madam sat at her writing desk in a
stylish costume unconcealed by any overall. Seated, she did not look so
terrifyingly tall; but her faded eyes had still that piercing scrutiny
which had disturbed Sally at the first encounter. Her face was lined;
her hair bleached and brittle; but the long thin nose, and hard thin
mouth, and parched thin cheeks all gave to her glance a chilling quality
hard to endure. Her hands were those of a skeleton: all the bones could
be seen white under the cream skin. Sally, abashed and full of
flutterings of secret guilt, stood before her as she might have stood
before one omniscient; but her brain was not abashed, and her hearing
was as strained as her alert wits. So the two hard personalities
encountered. Presently Madam smiled--a smile that was tortured, like
Gaga's, and showed anaemic gums but a row of astonishingly good teeth.
"Sally," she said. "Sit down there, will you. Now, you've been here
nearly a year. D'you know that? You were seventeen when you came. You're
eighteen now.
"Nearly," interjected Sally.
"Well, when you came you had seven shillings a week. We're going to make
it ten shillings from now. And of course overtime as usual. You
understand that I don't want you to talk outside about your wages. At
the end of what we call the financial year we may be able to give you
more. I can't promise that. But Miss Summers tells me that you are a
good and willing worker; and I can tell for myself that you are
intelligent. I think it will be worth while for you to stay here; and if
you go on as you have begun I shall hope to keep you. Now don't get the
idea that you're indispensable. Don't get conceited. But be encouraged
by knowing that I take an interest in you. That will do, Sally, thank
you...."
"Thank you, Madam," responded Sally, demurely. She stood in an attitude
of humility, a tremulous smile of candid satisfaction playing round her
mouth.
Nobody in the workroom could have guessed from her manner the turbulence
of Sally's emotions. Pleasure, relief, self-confidence struggled within
her. She felt an enormous creature surveying a pigmy world; and yet,
mechanically, she resumed her sewing at the point where she had left it.
The other girls all turned inquisitive faces in her direction. Was it
the sack? A row? A rise? Nothing at all? Sally was a baffling creature
... a white-faced cocket. She was deep. That word of Miss Rapson's had
entered the hearts of the girls. Sally had heard it; she knew that they
felt her superiority, and gaped at it with faint resentment. A flash
told her now that they were all on tiptoe, and her nonchalance was a
piece of acting which she enjoyed for its effect upon the others. She
most mischievously enjoyed her privilege. And she had a new cause for
triumph, a double success. She felt herself a schemer, an intriguer,
which she was not. She was merely an opportunist, seizing the main
chance. Not only had she a secret understanding with Gaga; she had also
a secret understanding with Gaga's mother. She was most marvellously
Sally Minto. The world was open to her. It was not the extra three
shillings a week that intoxicated her: it was the sense of a difficult
and engaging future. Her ambition had never been so strong. She turned
her thoughts to the miserable room at home, to her mother, to Mrs.
Perce. She wandered afield to the dinners with Gaga, to her recent talk
with Madam. Not merely wealth, but power, seemed to lie ahead. She saw
once more Madam's bad health; the probable exaltation of Miss Summers.
If she took care, she would presently lie in the very heart of the
business. Its accounts would be under her hand in the evenings; its work
visible to her eye in the daytime. Miss Summers liked her and trusted
her; she was sure of her own ability, her own shrewdness; without
deliberately planning it, she had earned the good-will of the three
people who really mattered, so far as her progress was concerned.
What if Madam were away ill? What if she died? Sally trembled at the
prospect. She trembled lest some accident should interfere with what was
otherwise inevitable. She knew that with Miss Summers she had no rival;
her compact with Gaga was secure, unless his weakness betrayed them.
Even here, she knew she might rely upon his integrity. Gaga would keep
to his word. Sally saw herself installed as bookkeeper--oh, if she were
only older! If she were older, if she were twenty-five, she would hold
the business in the hollow of her hand. She was already learning how to
speak to the ladies who came to give orders; her shrewdness would
quickly show her which were good accounts and which required watching;
and her work never grew careless. With each perception Sally's brain and
her capacity for adapting herself to every circumstance seemed to
expand. She was already much older than her years. With a little more
experience she would be in a commanding position. But Madam must be ill,
Madam must.... Madam must be very ill; and yet not before Sally had made
sure of Gaga. Gaga was the key with which she would enter into her
proper sphere. He must be her mascot.
With her head bent Sally stitched busily on, never allowing ambition to
distract her from the immediate task. Baffled, the girls fell again to
their work. That Sally Minto was deep--you couldn't tell what she was
doing, what she was thinking. She was deep. Under her breath Sally was
humming a tune, a familiar tune. A slow grin spread over her white face,
and faded again. Looking up, she caught Miss Summers's eye, and smiled
faintly, gratefully, reassuringly. She recognised at once how pleased
and proud Miss Summers was at Sally's progress. If her mind had not been
so busy, Sally would have felt a little warmth stealing into her heart;
but she was not aware of anything except Sally Minto and her plans for
worldly advancement. She for this moment saw Miss Summers also merely as
an instrument, a plump, pussy-faced woman with an eternally cold nose
and a heart quick to respond to the best efforts of her favourite hand.
xv
It was with a jump of excitement that Sally heard, in the following
week, that Madam was very ill indeed. Gaga came in the morning with a
haggard face, having spent the night by his mother's bedside. He had a
few words with Miss Summers, who came out of the room with a comically
solemn look upon her plump face. She made no remark to the girls, but at
lunch time, when the others were out, or were dispersed in the part of
the building where they were allowed to eat whatever they had brought
for lunch, Sally stole into Madam's room and found Gaga there, sitting
at the desk with his hands covering his face. When Sally approached him
he did not seem to have heard her, but continued sitting thus lost in a
depressed stupor. Sally knew that there was nobody in the room behind
her: they were quite alone.
"Mr. Bertram!" she said, quietly. Still he made no response. Her heart
quickened. Was he asleep? Was he--was he dead? She took a further step,
and then spoke his name again. There was a slight movement. He was
awake, and merely very unhappy and perhaps exhausted. With the slightest
feeling of self-consciousness she advanced to Gaga's side, and laid a
hand upon his shoulder. She could see the thinning hair upon the top of
his head, and the long slim fingers pressed to his temples.
"Mr. Bertram, I'm so sorry," whispered Sally. Her arm slipped farther
round his shoulders, and her breast was against his head, so gently
pressing there that Gaga was only conscious of the faintest contact. He
relaxed slightly, and his hands fell. Two gloomy eyes looked up into
Sally's face. She withdrew her arm, standing now beside him, altogether
apart.
"You made me feel queer," Sally went on. "Thought you were in a faint or
something. Are you ill? Oh, say something, say _something_!"
All Sally's little thin body grew rigid as she spoke, for Gaga looked at
her with an air of distraction. He seemed not to recognise her. His eyes
were yellow and suffused, his mouth was open, his appearance that of one
who was hardly sane.
"I'm all right," came at last with an effort from his dry lips. "All
right, Sally. Only tired ... ever so tired." There followed a stiff
attempt to smile, and then his face was hidden once again by the long
hands. "My head's throbbing. It's like pincers in my head."
"Have you got any medicine?" she asked, quite moved by his weakness. "Go
out and get some. Quick! Get a chemist to...." The head was slowly
shaken. "You _ought_ to. You can't do anything if you're ill. Can't do
any work, or help Madam, or anything."
"Better presently," groaned Gaga. "That's ... that's all right, Sally.
Good little girl to be so kind. I've been up all night. She's very bad,
Sally; very bad. I've been up all night. Never mind; I'll be better
presently." He relapsed into his former comatose state, nerveless and
lethargic.
"You ought to get some sleep now. Go home to bed," urged Sally. "It's no
good trying to work if you're sick. Go home now." She did not know how
motherly, how caressing and wise, her voice had become. She was absorbed
in his state of exhaustion and passivity. "It's not right," she went on.
"You can't do any good. Get the doctor to give you something to make you
sleep."
Gaga groaned again, still lost in his own sensations.
"No good," he murmured. "I can't sleep. That's what's the matter.
Nothing does any good. I can't sleep--can't forget. Only sit here like
this, and feel stupid. Never mind, Sally. Good little girl." He spoke
thickly, like a man who has been drinking; but he was stupidly
unshakable. She could do nothing with him. Having withdrawn her arm she
could not again lay it upon his shoulders; but stood silent, feeling
helpless and on tiptoe, with a sense of strain. She was not miserable
nor anxious about him; she could almost hear her own voice, so nearly
had detachment come upon her. And with something like cramp in her
limbs, and paralysis of her ingenuity, she remained by his side, one
hand resting for support upon Gaga's desk. Presently he withdrew one of
his own hands, and patted hers; and as if that released her Sally went
very quietly back to the workroom. There she saw two or three of the
girls busy reading a paper, and in a little while Miss Summers came back
and work was resumed. By the time Sally could again go into Madam's room
Gaga had disappeared, and they did not see him all the following day.
xvi
Two days later he returned, and dully went on with his work as though it
had no interest for him. Miss Summers had several times to suffer the
ordeal of debilitating interviews; and towards the end of the afternoon
was exasperated to tears. Sally could tell this from the sniffs and
nose-rubbings that became more and more frequent. Miss Summers's
eye-rims were quite pink, and her funny eyes were moist. She looked more
than ever like a disconsolate tabby, and her hands were restless and
clumsy. She had to ask Sally to thread her needle, and even to finish
work that she was doing badly because of her agitation.
"Thank you, my dear," murmured Miss Summers. "So kind." Then, in a low
tone, "Do for goodness' sake go in and see what Mr. Bertram's doing.
He's quite absurd, like somebody mad. He's not in his senses, that's
clear; and it's enough to drive anybody crazy."
Sally left the girls and slipped into Madam's tawny room. At her
entrance Gaga gave a start, and his ruler fell clattering to the floor.
But when he saw who was there his face brightened. A faint smile spread
across the grey cheeks, making Gaga look so charming, in spite of his
illness, that Sally was unexpectedly relieved. Her own smile was
instantly responsive, and she stood almost roguishly before him in her
short frock, and the demure pinafore which she was wearing over it.
"Miss Summers sent me," she explained. "Thought you might want some
help."
Gaga shook his head, the smile still apparent. He shook his head again,
trying to find words to express himself, and failing.
"No, Sally," he at last ventured. "No help. I'm better ... almost
better, to-day. I can understand ... understand what I'm doing. I'm
afraid ... er ... afraid I was very stupid the other day. I've thought
of that since. Er.... I say.... I wish you'd ... come out to dinner
to-night."
"Really?" Sally beamed upon him. She gave her little grin, and nodded.
"If you'd like me to, of course I will. I'll be ready. Thank you very
much."
Gaga made a heroic effort. He began to stammer, checked himself, and at
last succeeded in imposing coherence upon his wandering words.
"It's you who ... ought to be thanked," he answered. "You cheer me up."
"Do I?" Sally's tone was eager, her reply instant. "I'm so glad. I like
to feel I ... you know, cheer you. Does _me_ good."
They exchanged shy smiles, and parted; Gaga to resume his labours, Sally
to report his increasing sanity to Miss Summers. And then there followed
the unwanted hours that always lie between the making of a desired
appointment and the enjoyment of its arrival. Sally stitched with a
will, for her anticipations for this evening were not of an ambitious
kind. She knew all the time she was working that she looked forward to
the outing, and she was not at all puzzled at her own expectancy,
because in any case a dinner with Gaga would always make a break in her
often monotonous days and evenings. But she could never altogether fail
to make impulsive plans and it was as the result of unconscious
reflection that she checked Gaga in the course of their walk together.
"Don't let's go to the Rezzonico," she said, quickly. "Let's go
somewhere quiet."
As a result, they turned eastward, into the region of the smaller
restaurants, and looked at several before Sally picked one called "Le
Chat Blanc." It seemed to her to be the quietest and cleanest they had
seen, and at any rate it would be a new experience to dine there. The
doorway was modest, and the windows curtained low enough (in a red and
white check) to permit a glimpse of the small but shining interior.
Within, all was grey and white. Sally led the way into the place, and to
a remote table, and seated herself with an air of confidence remarkable
in one who dined, as it were, for the third time only. She glanced at
the two waitresses--both very dark girls with earrings, who wore their
black hair coiffed high upon their heads. They were Italians, agreeable
and inquisitive; and the food-smells also were Italian and full
flavoured. As soon as the two were seated they became the property of
one of the two waitresses, who stood over them so maternally that she
seemed to have no desire but for their good-fortune in choosing the meal
aright. She plunged both Sally and Gaga into a muddle by her persuasive
translations of the menu, but she made up for her linguistic
deficiencies by this anxious interest and by a capricious smile. Scared
and curious, they looked round the plain grey walls of the clean little
room, and at the four or five other people who sat near them, and at the
ceiling, and at each other.
"It's funny!" whispered Sally, exultingly. "Never seen anything like
it."
"I.... I've never seen one ... so ... so clean," stammered Gaga.
Near them a conceited young man with a hard voice and small eyes was
talking impressively to an untidy-looking girl in green with a mauve
chiffon scarf. While he talked, the girl smoked his cigarettes, and
interjected remarks of superior quality. Sally heard her say "Ah," in
sign of agreement, and once "Oh, yes, of course Flaubert...."
"What's Flaubert?" she asked Gaga. He appeared startled.
"Er ... I don't know," he answered. "What put it into your head?"
"That girl said it. Listen." They listened. The young man was arguing
about something. He was arguing about something of which neither Sally
nor Gaga could discover the purport. Sally said: "They're both woolly.
Woolly-wits, they are. Both got maggots. What's 'art,' anyway? Pitchers?
And all that about values?"
Gaga was buried. He had a sudden inspiration.
"Don't listen to them," he said. "It's something they ... they
understand."
"I bet they don't," remarked Sally. "You don't talk about things you
understand."
"Well, let's talk about what _we_ don't understand...." He was
beseeching in his tone, and his soft eyes glowed. The waitress
approached, bearing two large plates piled high with spaghetti.
"Golly!" ejaculated Sally. "Howjer eat it? Fingers?"
They had little time to talk while they were engaged with the capers of
this surprising food; but when both were tired of playing with the
spaghetti they turned their attention to the straw-covered bottle of
Chianti which had been brought. Sally made a wry mouth at her first
venture. She had yet to learn that the wine was heavier than any she had
yet drunk. She strained her ears to catch more of what the
fascinatingly conceited young man was saying about his inexhaustible
topic. Good-looking boy, if he cut his hair and shaved his moustache
off. She saw Gaga look anxiously and wonderingly across at her, with a
kind of hunger; and she was shaken by a mischievous notion. She had
never done such a thing before, but she put her foot forward so that it
touched one of his, and smiled right into Gaga's chocolate eyes. The
slow red crept up under his skin, and they had no need to talk. Sally
was laughing to herself, and eating some beautifully cooked veal, and
she knew that Gaga was glowing with contentment. She at last observed
the two talkers slouch out of the restaurant, the man in very
baggy-kneed trousers and a loose coat, and the girl in a dress of home
make. A quick wrinkle showed in Sally's grimacing nose as she brought
her professional eye to bear; and then the two talkers were gone and
were forgotten. Sally and Gaga were quite alone at their end of the
room, in a corner, favorably remote for intimate conversation from the
remaining diners.
"Funny us not knowing what they were talking about," mused Sally. "You
don't, you know. It's very hard to know what anybody talks about. To
understand it, I mean. Hard to know anybody, too."
"I shouldn't have thought I was hard to know," ventured Gaga.
"I wasn't thinking about you," said Sally, with unconscious cruelty. "I
was thinking.... I've forgotten. Isn't this wine sour! No, I'm getting
used to it--getting to like it. Hasn't half-- I mean, it's got a nice
smooth way of going down." As Sally checked herself she realised that
she was now so much at ease with Gaga that she no longer worried about
her pronunciation or her words when she was with him. Worry? Sally's
conceitedness soared into the air and frowned down upon the faltering
Gaga with something like scorn. Poor Gaga! thought Sally. Instantly her
hardness returned, and she looked at his lined face and the pale lips
that hung a little away from his teeth in sign of ill-health. She saw
his dark grey morning coat, and the slip inside the waistcoat, and his
sober tie. And it seemed to Sally that she saw right into the simple
mind of Gaga. He was so simple, like the hire purchase system. He was
about the simplest man she had ever seen, for his tongue could hardly
utter more than the tamest of words and phrases, and he never seemed to
Sally to keep anything back.
"And yet, you know," she went on, following Gaga's remark and this train
of thought, "there's lots more to know about people than just what you
see--and what they do and say. If you know them ever so well, you only
know a bit of them. You don't know me. You think I'm a little girl in
the workroom, and a worker, and all that."
"I think you're a marvel!" ejaculated Gaga.
"Yes, well, when you've got to the end of thinking I'm a marvel, what
happens? You don't _know_ me any better. I might be a poisoner, or a ...
or a...." Sally's invention failed her. "I might keep a shop, or serve a
bar, or be an actress," she went on, recovering fertility. "I mean, in
the evenings."
"Yes," said Gaga, dubiously. "I suppose you might." He was struck with a
rather superfine notion. "But you're not," he concluded. He enjoyed a
manifest triumph.
"No." Sally raised a declamatory finger. "But if I _was_, you wouldn't
know it."
They had reached an impassable spot in their talk. Sally had confounded
Gaga. Neither he nor she was quite as mentally alert as they had both
been when hungry; and the Chianti was beginning to make them drowsy and
rather slow-witted. But having embarked upon the question of possible
knowledge of character they could not, in consideration of their slight
heaviness, be expected to relinquish a topic so circular and so
suggestive of personal intimacy. As the wine acted more powerfully upon
them it was more and more to themselves that their thoughts and speeches
turned.
"I feel sometimes that I'm a great fool," confessed Gaga. "But I'm not
really a fool. I see a lot, and ... I don't seem able to act on it.
D'you understand what I mean?"
"Weak," Sally vouchsafed, wine-candid. Gaga glanced quickly at her.
"I don't think I'm weak. I...." His thoughts strayed. "See, I've never
had much of a chance to show what I can do. My mother's such a much
stronger character than I am."
Sally nodded, and sipped again at the thick glass from which she was
drinking.
"I'm strong," she said. "I'm hard ... tough. If I make up my _mind_...."
"Yes. I'm like that," insisted Gaga. It was so preposterous that Sally
could only look measuringly at him with a puzzled contempt that might
have been read.
"I'm stronger'n you are," she answered. "I'm small; but I don't mind
what I do. You're a _good_ boy. I'm not. I'm bad. I'm ... you don't know
what goes on in my head." Suddenly exasperated, she went on: "That's
what I meant. You think I'm just a quiet little thing. I'm not. You
don't know _what_ I think about. I want to do all sorts of things. I
want to be rich, and have a good time, and have lots of ... lots of
_power_. I want to get on. If anybody gets in my way I push 'em out of
it. If anybody gets in _your_ way you stand aside."
"I don't. I get my own way, but not by fighting," Gaga said.
"Oho! I don't fight," retorted Sally. "They're afraid to fight me."
Gaga smiled.
"They're afraid of hurting you," he suggested. "But I know just what you
mean." His confidence was unshakable.
"I kick 'em in the stomach," Sally asserted. "Anywhere."
"Yes. They wouldn't take liberties with you."
"Not unless I wanted them to," said Sally, abruptly sober. "They
wouldn't try it on. None of the girls ever worry me. When I first came
they did. They were saucy. I soon stopped that. I got a tongue, and they
found it out. Now Miss Summers----"
"Don't let's talk about the business," pleaded Gaga. Sally was arrested.
"Funny!" she exclaimed. "We haven't, have we!"
"It's so much nicer being ... friends."
One of Gaga's hands was stretched across the table. With a sense of
mischief Sally allowed him to take her own hand. Then she moved it
quickly.
"They're looking at us," she whispered to him. "Those waitress girls."
Instantly she was free. She had the thought that a real man would have
held her hand for a moment longer. All the same, she enjoyed her power
over Gaga. The little unreadable smile that so excited him was upon her
face, and the knowledge of power was in her heart.