Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (36 page)

All these activities were subject to incessant interruptions from the bell below, which exacted immediate and breathless attention, whatever was taking place. When Marion and Bella returned, which was at about half-past eleven, Jenny was
nowhere near the end of her work. And by twelve o’clock it was time to think about lunch.

For while all this was taking place, the gastric juices within, unknown and in secret but just as busily, had been at their unending toil of assimilating what had come their way in the body, which now worked yet another change of opinion in the mind, which now perceived that lunch, after all, was a credible occurrence in the future. If only the gastric juices had not done this there would have been no trouble – no deciding, no shopping, no tradesmen, no cooking, no digestion, no indigestion – in fact no bother whatever in the long run, since the old ladies would have starved and so achieved the only thing they really in their heart of hearts desired to achieve – death. But there is no controlling or stopping gastric juices.

Jenny did wonders with the calves’ liver and bacon – the Doctor making his pilgrimage downstairs in order to partake of it. Then, as usual, each departed to sleep in private; and Jenny, having washed up the lunch things, spent the afternoon clearing out and making ready the room at the top of the house which she would occupy to-morrow.

She then made tea for them, and afterwards Marion sent her out to do some odd shopping. She was out about three-quarters of an hour, and when she came back she knocked softly upon the door. It was just on six (the same time as that at which she had arrived last night) and Bella, in the same manner, rose from her chair and let her in.

In this way the wheel of day and night had, uneventfully and insensibly, completed a single revolution, and now appeared to be running smoothly. Jenny was less of a ravishing stranger, more of an ordinary servant. A perfect joy, a treasure, a paragon – but all the same it was becoming less impossible for the mind to divert to other mundane matters.

As for supper, how could one do better than another omelette? It had really been such a treat last night. Jenny did another.

It was again perfection, though of course it had not just that added gusto of novelty which distinguished it last night, and
Marion did not see fit to yield any further instalment of Praise from the store she so zealously hoarded for use on more appropriate occasions.

Jenny, it was noticed (but not openly remarked), did not take quite so long over her washing-up as she had taken last night: but then supper had come in a little later. She entered the dining-room, as she had done last night, to pay her respects before going. She did not look exactly the same as she looked last night, but she was not a whit less affable and respectful.

‘Good-night, then, madam.’

‘Good-night, Jenny.’

‘Good-night, madam.’

And she was gone. Wherein, exactly, her appearance tonight differed from her appearance last night, they were unable at first to fix in their minds; and Bella, oddly enough, was the first to tumble to it.

‘Makes up, of course,’ said Bella.

‘Yes,’ said Marion. ‘I noticed that.’ And there was a pause.

‘But then they all do, nowadays,’ added Marion, and Bella agreed without hesitation.

‘
Including absolutely perfect treasures
?’ was the sudden query which leaped up in the minds of both old ladies. But it was not voiced, and fled instantly away.

II

A G
LASS OF
P
ORT

J
ENNY HAD BEEN
fully aware that her face was made up a little more lavishly than it was last night, and she had purposely let it be seen. It was necessary, sooner or later, to break them in to the fact that she did make up. She saw no sin in the use of cosmetics, and she doubted whether they did. Marion’s rather disparaging ‘They all do nowadays,’ however, did not
convey Jenny’s way of looking at the matter. As Jenny saw it, it was ‘the fashion,’ and she suspected the old ladies, in their suburban retreat, of being ‘old-fashioned.’ Such was her calm estimate, and Marion and Bella would have been surprised if they could have realized that she had in this manner coolly turned the tables on them.

In Jenny’s mind, there were, of course, degrees and varieties of the practice. There was a great difference between being ‘made up’ and being ‘dolled up,’ and it was possible to be made up in a ‘common’ way. Jenny tolerated nothing even savouring of the ‘common.’

When Tom, last night, had asked Jenny whether he might have her company for to-night, she had at last consented provided she arrived an hour late, bringing with her her friend Violet, whom she was meeting at Hammersmith. She was therefore now on her way to the Broadway.

That Jenny should have bothered little about her make-up when meeting Tom, but have taken some pains in the case of Violet, was an apparent contradiction of feminine tendency. The explanation was to be found in the character of Violet herself. Violet was always made up to the nines, and she expected the same thing from her friends.

Actually Jenny had some doubts as to the wisdom of coming out with Violet to-night, and, indeed, of continuing the friendship at all. To begin with Violet was a perfect example of one beyond all dispute ‘common.’ Jenny had first become acquainted with her at the factory, whence, in Jenny’s time, she had been dismissed for impudence to her immediate superior. She was a violent, frank, disconcertingly outspoken girl, obsessed by one topic alone – Boys. By these she contrived not to be entirely neglected, less by virtue of her appearance (her face, though painted and powdered, was quite hideous) than by sheer high spirits, personality, cheerfulness, and the practice of raillery. She acted, indeed, as a tonic upon those who had the nerves to stand her, and if you shared her enthusiasm for Boys, there was no reason why you should not hit it off very well with her, for she had great experience, method, and initiative in that matter.

In Jenny’s mentality, however, Boys were relegated to a much more reasonable and proportionate niche, and she had long ago decided, for her own good, to ‘give Violet up.’ Whatever might have taken place in the past, Violet was certainly not the sort of friend she desired now in her new employment.

Jenny told herself, in fact, that she would not be meeting Violet to-night had that employment properly begun. But it did not properly begin until to-morrow, Saturday, when she was to sleep in. So long as she was sleeping out, she felt, she yet belonged to the world outside, and might, without damage to her conscience, have final commerce with associations and things that were, before definitely launching upon the things that were to be.

Violet’s faults did not embrace unpunctuality – she was much too anxious to be out on any sort of spree to be a moment late for it – and when Jenny came in to the Arcade entrance to Hammersmith Underground Station, where they had arranged to meet, she was already standing there.

Jenny had not seen her friend for a few months, and she was not prepared for what she now witnessed. ‘Common,’ she had always known Violet to be. But to-night, so it seemed, she was more than common. Jenny was not certain that she was not ‘glaring’ – the final epithet of impeachment in Jenny’s genteel vocabulary.

Violet was in a black lustre coat: she wore cheap, gaudy silk stockings of a reddish-brown colour, a small black hat and a skirt up to her knees. Her face, with its long nose, resembled rich confectionery.

Quite unaware of the impression she gave, she welcomed Jenny with fervour, and affably comparing notes as to how each had got there, they wandered aimlessly up in the direction of Baron’s Court, where the crowd was less dense.

But it did not take long for Violet to abandon small talk and enter upon the theme which dominated her.

‘Well – I don’t know why we’re walkin’ up here,’ she said. ‘There’s no Boys up this end.’

Subtlety, or a delicate sense of approach, were means unknown to Violet. This announcement rendered transparent at once her unambiguous conception of the evening they were to spend.

‘Ain’t there?’ was all Jenny was able to reply.

‘No. They don’t come up this way,’ said Violet, with the kindly, shrewd air of an old campaigner in this particular neighbourhood. ‘Let’s go back.’

And they turned round.

Jenny was filled with shame for her friend, and reproach against herself for having allowed this meeting to come to pass. But she knew how impossible it was to convey her feelings to the innocent and cheerful Violet, and so she tried to change the subject.

‘That’s a nice brooch you got in your hat, Vi,’ she said. ‘I ain’t seen that before.’

‘Yes, it is nice, ain’t it?’ said Violet. ‘A Boy gave it to me.’

Thus Jenny’s lead was serenely countered, and there was another silence as they walked along.

‘By the way,’ said Violet, ‘What’s happened to that pale Boy you was walkin’ out with?’

Violet never minced matters. A pale boy to her was a pale boy.

‘What pale boy?’ said Jenny. ‘Who do you mean?’

‘You know,’ said Violet. ‘That pale boy.’

And Jenny did know. Violet meant Tom. But there could be few things more perfectly calculated to throw a proud young girl out of countenance than the bland allegation that she is walking out with a pale boy, and Jenny was exasperated with Violet for dragging her into this despicably ‘common’ topic, and forcing her to defend herself.

‘No,’ said Jenny, persistently. ‘What pale boy?’

‘You know,’ returned Violet. ‘That
pale
boy.’

She seemed to think that the more she underlined his pallor, the easier it would be for Jenny to identify him. But actually this was aggravating the affront.

‘You don’t mean
Tom
, do you,’ said Jenny. ‘ By any chance?’

‘That’s the Boy,’ said Violet. ‘Tom.’

‘What!’ cried Jenny. ‘Me walking out with Tom! I should like to see myself.’

‘Oh, I thought perhaps you might be. I knew you went about with him.’

‘Well, I might go about with him sometimes,’ Jenny allowed. ‘But that ain’t walkin’ out.’

Their idiom required no further comment to illustrate the vast distance between these two procedures, and Violet said she was sorry for making the mistake.

‘He’s in consumption, ain’t he?’ she casually added.

‘What? Tom in consumption? I’ve never heard of it. Who told you that?’

‘Oh, I may be wrong,’ said Violet. ‘I thought I heard he was inclined that way, though. He looks it, anyway.’

It was typical of Violet to throw out a fantastic rumour in this inconsequent way, and Jenny knew that she was talking nonsense. All the same, she did briefly wonder whether Tom’s ill look derived from unsuspected disease. Also she began to wonder how she was to explain to Violet that she had already arranged to meet the pale boy himself to-night. In fact she was trying to think of some excuse whereby she could get away without telling her at all, when Violet cut into her thoughts.

‘I know those two,’ she said suddenly, having turned her head round in continuation of a self-conscious and mocking glance she had bestowed upon a passing couple. ‘But they ain’t no good. Specially that soppy one with a moustache.’

‘That so?’ was all Jenny could say, and there was another silence.

All at once Violet cheerfully espied a fresh problem.

‘Do you like moustaches on Boys?’ she said. ‘Some girls don’t.’

Moustaches on Boys!
Really, Violet was nauseating.

‘I don’t know anything about ’em,’ said Jenny.

‘I like ’em myself,’ said Violet. ‘So long as they’re not too Prickly.’

Prickly!
This was really intolerable. Jenny felt she must make some sort of stand about it.

‘Well, where are we goin’, Vi,’ she said. ‘We don’t seem to be movin’ nowhere at present.’

‘Going? Where d’you want to go, then, Jen?’

‘Well, I thought we might go an’ have a cup of coffee at Lyons or something.’

A puzzled look came over Violet’s face.

‘What – do you want to go into Lyons, Jen?’

‘Yes. Why not?’

‘Go on,’ said Violet. ‘You don’t want to go stuffin’ yourself up in Lyons a lovely fine night like this. You want to get the air while you can.’

This deceitful and transparent attempt to identify herself with the cause of pure hygiene would have beguiled not a soul in the world. Environed by Boys, the depths of the Black Hole of Calcutta would have awakened few misgivings in Violet.

‘I’ll tell you what your trouble is, Vi,’ said Jenny. ‘You can’t think of nothing but boys.’

‘Oo – Jenny, what a thing and a half to say! I never think about them.’

‘Yes, you do. You know you do.’

‘No, I don’t. And you ain’t the one to talk, anyway.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, other girls ain’t got much chance with you hangin’ around.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Jenny.

‘If I had a part of
your
looks,’ continued Violet. ‘I shouldn’t be worrying.’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Jenny. ‘You’re pretty enough yourself, ain’t you?’

‘No I ain’t,’ said Violet. ‘I’m as ugly as the devil. It’s a wonder what I do – with what I got to work on.’

In her odd way she had hit the nail on the head.

‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Jenny.

‘But you’re different. You’re lovely. You’re as pretty as a Picture. Yes you are. You’re a real
Picture
.’

There returned to Jenny a glimmering of what she had once had in common with Violet.

‘Come on, Vi,’ she said, cajolingly. ‘Let’s go to Lyons.’

‘Well, what’s the sense of going to Lyons,’ said Violet, ‘if you can get taken?’

‘You mean you want to get off?’

‘No. I don’t want to get off. But you never know what might happen.’

‘Well, I don’t want to. It’s too near where I Am.’

‘What’s the matter with that?’

‘Well – I might be seen. And in any case I don’t want to.’

‘Come on, Jen. Let’s hang about a bit,’ said Violet, and at this moment a startling thing occurred.

‘
Pardonnay mwa
!’ came a masculine voice from behind, and they turned round.

‘My word!’ said Violet. ‘You didn’t half give me a turn.’