Seven weeks passed quickly for Mavis, during which her horizon sensibly
widened. She learned many things, the existence of which she would
never have thought possible till the knowledge stared her in the face.
To begin with, she believed that the shabby treatment, in the way of
food and accommodation, that the girls suffered at "Dawes'" would bind
them in bonds of sympathy: the contrary was the case. The young women
in other departments looked down on and would have nothing to do with
girls, such as she, who worked in the shop. These other departments had
their rivalries and emulation for social precedence, leading to feuds,
of which the course of action consisted of the two opposing parties
sulking and refusing to speak to each other, unless compelled in the
course of business. The young women in the showroom were selected for
their figures and general appearance; these, by common consent, were
the aristocracy of the establishment. After a time, Mavis found that
there was another broad divergence between her fellow-workers, which
was quite irrespective of the department in which they were. There was
a type of girl, nearly always the best-looking, which seemed to have an
understanding and freemasonry of its own, together with secrets,
confidences, and conversations, which were never for the ears of those
who were outsiders--in the sense of their not being members of this
sisterhood. Miss Potter, Miss Allen, and Miss Impett all belonged to
this set, which nearly always went out after shop hours in evening
dress, which never seemed to want for ready money or pretty clothes,
and which often went away for the weekend ("Dawes'" closed at two on
Saturdays). When Mavis had first been introduced to the three girls
with whom she shared her bedroom, she had intuitively felt that there
was a broad, invisible gulf which lay between her and them; as time
went on, this division widened, so far as Miss Impett and Miss Potter
were concerned, to whom Mavis rarely spoke. Miss Allen, who, in all
other respects, toadied to and imitated Miss Potter, was disposed to be
friendly to Mavis. Miss Impett, who on occasion swore like any street
loafer, Mavis despised as a common, ignorant girl. Miss Potter she knew
to be fast; but Miss Allen, when alone with Mavis, went out of her way
to be civil to her; the fact of the matter being that she was a weak,
easily led girl, whose character was dominated by any stronger nature
with which she came in contact.
Another thing which much surprised Mavis was the heartless cruelty the
girls displayed to any of their number who suffered from any physical
defect. Many times in the day would the afflicted one be reminded of
her infirmity; the consequent tears incited the tormentors to a further
display of malignity.
Bella, the servant, was an object of their attentions; her gait and
manner of breathing would be imitated when she was by. She was always
known by the name of "Pongo," till one of the "young ladies" had
witnessed The Tempest from the upper boxes of His Majesty's Theatre;
from this time, it was thought to be a mark of culture on the part of
many of the girls at "Dawes'" to call her "Caliban." Mavis sympathised
with the afflicted woman's loneliness; she made one or two efforts to
be friendly with her, but each time was repulsed.
One day, however, Mavis succeeded in penetrating the atmosphere of
ill-natured reserve with which "Pongo" surrounded herself. The servant
was staggering upstairs with two big canfuls of water; the task was
beyond her strength.
"Let me help you," said Mavis, who was coming up behind her.
"Shan't," snorted Bella.
"I shall do as I please," remarked Mavis, as she caught hold of one of
the cans.
"Leave 'old!" cried Bella; but Mavis only grasped the can tighter.
"Go on now; don't you try and get round me and then turn an' laugh at
me."
"I never laugh at you, and I only want to help you up with the water."
"Straight?"
"What else should I want?"
"Don't be kind to me," cried Bella, suddenly breaking down.
"Bella!" gasped Mavis in astonishment.
"Don't you start being kind to me. I ain't used to it," wept Bella.
"Don't be a fool, Bella!"
"I ain't a fool. I'm onny ugly and lopsided, and everyone laughs at me
'ceptin' you, and I've no one or--or nothin' to care for."
Mavis thought it advisable to take Bella into her room, which happened
to be empty; here, she thought, Bella would be free from eyes that
would only find food for mirth in her tears.
"I've never had a young man," sobbed Bella. "An' that's why I turned to
Gawd and looked down on the young ladies here, as 'as as many young men
as they want; too many sometimes. An' speaking of Gawd, it's nice to
'ave Someone yer know as cares for you, though you can't never see 'Im
or walk out with 'Im."
From this time, she tried to do Bella many little kindnesses, but,
saving this one instance, the servant was always on her guard and never
again opened her heart to Mavis.
Miss Striem did not carry out her threat of charging Mavis for the
extras she refused to eat. In time, Mavis got used to the food supplied
by "Dawes'"; she did not swallow everything that was put upon her
plate, indeed, she did not eat with good appetite at three consecutive
meals; but she could sit at the table in the feeding-room without
overwhelming feelings of repulsion, and, by shutting her eyes to the
unconcealed mastication of the girl opposite, could often pick enough
to satisfy her immediate needs. The evening was the time when she was
most hungry; after the walk which she made a point of taking in all
weathers, she would get quite famished, when the morsel of Canadian
cheese and sour bread supplied for supper was wholly insufficient. At
first, she was tempted to enter the cheaper restaurants with which the
streets about Oxford Street abound; but these extravagances made
serious inroads on her scanty capital and had to be given up,
especially as she was saving up to buy new boots, of which she was in
need.
She confided in Miss Meakin, who was now looking better and plumper,
since nearly every evening she had taken to supping with her "boy's"
mother, who owned a stationery business in the Holloway Road.
"I know, it's dreadful. I used to be like that before I met Sylvester,"
Miss Meakin answered to Mavis's complaint.
"But what am I to do?" asked Mavis.
"Have you ever tried brisket?"
"What's that?"
"Beef!"
"Beef?"
"You get it at the ham and beef shop. You get quite a lot for five
pence, and when they get to know you they give you good weight."
"But you must have something with it," remarked Mavis.
"Then you go to a baker's and buy a penn'orth of bread."
"But where am I to eat it?" asked Mavis.
"In some quiet street," replied Miss Meakin. "Why not?"
"With one's fingers?"
"There's no one to see you."
Mavis looked dubious.
"It's either that or picking up 'boys,'" remarked Miss Meakin.
"Picking up boys!" echoed Mavis, with a note of indignation in her
voice.
"It's what the girls do here if they don't want to go hungry."
"But I don't quite understand."
"Didn't you come here through old Orgles's influence?" asked Miss
Meakin guardedly.
"Nothing of the kind; one of the partners got me in."
"Sorry! I heard it was that beast Orgles. But most of the 'boys' who
try and speak to you in the street are only too glad to stand a girl a
feed."
"But why should they?"
"Don't you know?"
"It would put me under an obligation to the man," remarked Mavis.
"Of course; that's what the gentlemen want."
"But it might lead silly girls into all sorts of trouble."
"I think most of us know how to behave like ladies and drop the
gentleman when he wants to go too far."
"Good heavens!" cried Mavis, who was taken aback by the vulgarity of
Miss Meakin's point of view.
Perhaps the latter resented the moral superiority contained in her
friend's exclamation, for she said with aggrieved voice:
"There's Miss Searle and Miss Bone, who're taken everywhere by a REEL
swell; they even went to Paris with him at Easter; and no matter what
he wants, I'm sure no one can say they're not ladies."
Mavis thought for a moment before saying:
"Is that quite fair to the man?"
"That's his look-out," came the swift retort.
"I don't fancy the brisket and I don't fancy picking up men. Can't one
get on and get in the showroom and earn more money?" asked Mavis.
"One can," replied Miss Meakin, much emphasising the "can."
"How is it done?"
"You ask your friend Miss Allen; she'll tell you all about it."
"She's no friend of mine. Can't you tell me?"
"I could, but don't want to; you look at things so funny. But, then,
you don't like Browning," replied Miss Meakin.
Mavis was filled with blind rage at the indifference of "Dawes'" to the
necessities of those they engaged; as long as the firm's big dividend
was made, they were careless to what questionable shifts and expedients
their staff was reduced in order to have sufficient strength to bring
to the daily task of profit-earning. She pondered on the cruelty and
injustice of it all in odd moments; she could not give much thought to
the matter, as Christmas was approaching, which meant that "Dawes'"
would be hard at work to cope with the rush of custom every minute of
the working day, and for some time after the doors were closed to the
public. The class of customer had, also, changed. When Mavis first went
to "Dawes'," the people whom she served were mostly visitors to London
who were easily and quickly satisfied; then had followed the rough and
tumble of a remnant sale. But now, London was filling with those women
to whom shopping is at once an art, a fetish, and a burden. Mavis found
it a trying matter to satisfy the exigent demands of the experienced
shopper. She was now well accustomed to the rudeness of women to those
of their own sex who were less happily placed; but she was not a little
surprised at a type of customer whom she was now frequently called upon
to serve. This was of the male sex; sometimes young; usually, about
forty; often, quite old; it was a smart, well-dressed type, with
insinuating manners and a quiet, deferential air that did not seem to
know what it came to buy or cared what it purchased so long as it could
engage Mavis in a few moments' conversation. She soon got to know this
type at a glance, and gave it short shrift. Others at "Dawes'" were not
so coy. Many of the customers she got to know by sight, owing to their
repeated visits. One of these she disliked from the first; later
experience of her only intensified this impression. She was a tall,
fine woman, well, if a trifle over-dressed; her complexion was a little
more aggressive than most of the females who shopped at "Dawes'." Her
name was Mrs Stanley; she appeared well known to the girls for whom
Bella the servant declared she was in the habit of praying. From the
first, Mrs Stanley was attracted by Mavis, into whose past life she
made sympathetic and tactful inquiries. Directly she learned that Mavis
was an orphan, Mrs Stanley redoubled her efforts to win the girl's
confidence. But it was all of no use; Mavis turned a deaf ear to all
Mrs Stanley's insinuations that a girl of her striking appearance was
thrown away in a shop: it was as much as Mavis could do to be coldly
civil to her. Even when Mrs Stanley gave up the girl as a bad job, the
latter was always possessed by an uneasy sensation whenever she was
near, although Mavis might not have set eyes on her.
Another customer who attracted much attention was the Marquis de
Raffini; he was old, distinguished-looking, and the last survivor of an
illustrious French family.
Mavis saw him come into "Dawes'" soon after she had commenced work,
when he was accompanied by a showy, over-dressed girl, whom he referred
to as Madame the Marquise, and for whom he ordered a costly and
elaborate trousseau. He seemed well known to the girls, who told Mavis
that he appeared every few months with a different young woman; also,
that when, in the ordinary course of nature, the condition of the
temporary Madame the Marquise could no longer be concealed, the Marquis
was in the habit of providing a lump sum of some hundreds of pounds as
dowry in order to induce someone (usually a working man) to marry his
mistress. Mavis was shocked at what she heard; it seemed strange to her
that such things should exist and be discussed as if they were the most
everyday occurrences.
Often, while busily engaged in serving customers or in hearing and
seeing things which, before she came to "Dawes'," she would never have
believed to be possible, she had a strong suspicion that old Orgles was
watching her from the top of a flight of stairs or the tiny window in
his room; it seemed that he was a wary old spider, she a fly, and that
he was biding his time. This impression saddened her; it also made her
attend carefully to her duties, it being his place to deal with those
of the staff who were remiss in their work. It was only of an evening,
when she was free of the shop, that she could be said to be anything
like her old, light-hearted self. She would wash, change her clothes,
and scurry off to a ham and beef warehouse she had discovered in a
turning off Oxford Street, where she would get her supper. The shop was
kept by a man named Siggers. He was an affected little man, who wore
his hair long; he minced about his shop and sliced his ham and beef
with elaborate wavings of his carving knife and fork. Mavis proving a
regular customer, he let her eat her supper in the shop, providing her
with knife, fork, tablecloth, and mustard. Although married and
henpecked, he affected to admire Mavis; while she ate her humble meal,
he would forlornly look in her direction, sigh, and wearily support his
shaggy head with his forefinger; but she could not help noticing that,
when afflicted with this mood, he would often glance at himself in a
large looking glass which faced him as he sat. His demonstrations of
regard never became more pronounced. It was as much as Mavis could do
to stop herself from laughing outright when she paid him, it being a
signal mark of his confidence that he did not exact payment from her
"on delivery of goods in order to prevent regrettable mistakes," as
printed cards, conspicuously placed in the shop, informed customers--or
clients, as Mr Siggers preferred to call them.
One night, Mavis, by the merest chance, made a discovery that gladdened
her heart: she lighted upon Soho. She had read and loved her Fielding
and Smollett when at Brandenburg College; the sight of the stately old
houses at once awoke memories of Tom Jones, Parson Adams, Roderick
Random, and Lady Bellaston, She did not immediately remember that those
walls had sheltered the originals of these creations; when she realised
this fact she got from the nearest lending library her old favourites
and carefully re-read them. She, also, remembered her dear father
telling her that an ancestor of his, who had lived in Soho, had been
killed in the thirties of the eighteenth century when fighting a famous
duel; this, and the sorry dignity of the Soho houses, was enough to
stir her imagination. Night after night, she would elude the men who
mostly followed her and walk along the less frequented of the sombre
streets. These she would people with the reckless beaux, the headstrong
ladies of that bygone time; she would imagine the fierce loves, the
daring play, the burning jealousies of which the dark old rooms, of
which she sometimes caught a glimpse, could tell if they had a mind.
Sometimes she would close her eyes, when the street would be again
filled with a jostling crowd of sedan chairmen, footmen, and linkboys;
she could almost smell the torches and hear the cries of their bearers.
It gave her much of a shock to realise how beauties, lovers, linkboys,
and all had disappeared from the face of the earth, as if they had
never been. She wondered why Londoners were so indifferent to the
stones Soho had to tell. Then she fell to speculating upon which the
house might be where her blood-thirsty ancestor had lived; also, if it
had ever occurred to him that one of his descendants, a girl, would be
wandering about Soho with scarce enough for her daily needs. In time,
she grew to love the old houses, which seemed ever to mourn their
long-lost grandeur, which still seemed full of echoes of long-dead
voices, which were ill-reconciled to the base uses to which they were
now put. Perhaps she, also, loved them because she grew to compare
their fallen state with that of her own family; it seemed that she and
they had much in common; and shared misfortunes beget sympathy.
Thus Mavis worked and dreamed.