The splendid irresponsibility of the music hall was wasted on Victoria. She had the mind of a schoolmistress grafted on a social sense. She saw nothing before her but the gross riot of the drunken. She saw no humour in that cockney cruelty, capable though it be of absurd generosity. She resented too Cairns's boyish pleasure in it all; he revelled, she felt, as a buffalo wallows in a mud bath. He was gross, stupid, dull. It was degrading to be hisinstrument of pleasure. But, after all, what did it matter? He was the narrow way which would lead her to the august.
Though Cairns was not thin-skinned he perceived a little of this. Without a word he watched the cross-talk comedians, then the 'Dandy Girl of Cornucopia,' a rainbow of stiff frills with a voice like a fretsaw. As the lights went down for the bioscope, the idea of reconciliation that springs from fat cheery hearts overwhelmed him. He put his hand out and closed it over hers. With a tremendous effort she repressed her repulsion, and in so doing won her victory. In the darkness Cairns threw his arms round her. He drew her towards him, moved, the least bit hysterical. As if fearful of losing her he crushed her against his shirt front.
Victoria did not resist him. Her eyes fixed on the blackness of the roof she submitted to the growing brutality of his kisses on her neck, her shoulders, her cheeks. Pressed close against him she did not withdraw her knees from the grasp of his.
'Kiss me,' whispered Cairns imperiously.
She cast down her eyes; she could hardly see his face in the darkness, nothing but the glitter of his eyeballs. Then, unhurried and purposeful, she pressed her lips to his. The lights went up again. Many of the crowd were stirring; Victoria stretched out her arms in a gesture of weariness.
'Let's go home, Vic,' said Cairns, 'you're tired.'
'Oh, no, I'm not tired,' she said. 'I don't mind staying.'
'Well, you're bored.'
'No, not at all, it's quite interesting,' said Victoria judicially.
'Come along, Vic,' said Cairns sharply. He got up.
She looked up at him. His face was redder, more swollen than it had been half-an-hour before. Hiseyes followed every movement of her arms and shoulders. With a faint smile of understanding and the patience of those who play lone hands, she got up and let him put on her wrap. As she put it on she made him feel against his fingers the sweep of her arm; she rested for a moment her shoulder against his.
In the cab they did not exchange a word. Victoria's eyes were fixed on the leaden sky; she was this man's prey. But, after all, one man's prey or another? The prey of those who demand bitter toil from the charwoman, the female miner, the P.R.R. girl; or of those who want kisses, soft flesh, pungent scents, what did it all amount to? And, in Oxford Street, a sky sign in the shape of a horse-shoe advertising whisky suddenly reminded her of the half hoop, a step towards that capital which meant freedom. No, she was not the prey—at least not in the sense of the bait which finally captures the salmon.
Cairns had not spoken a word. Victoria looked at him furtively. His hands were clenched before him; in his eyes shone an indomitable purpose. He was going to the feast and he would foot the bill. On arriving at Elm Tree Place he walked at once into his dressing room, while Victoria went into her bedroom. She knew his mood well and knew too that he would not be long. She did not fancy overmuch the scene she could conjure up. In another minute or two he would come in with the culture of a thousand years ground down, smothered beneath the lava-like flow of animalism. He would come with his hands shaking, ready to be cruel in the exaction of his rights. She hovered between repulsion and an anxiety which was almost anticipation; Cairns was the known and the unknown at once. But whatever his demands they should be met and satisfied, for business is business and its justification is profits. So Victoria braced herself and, withfeverish activity, twisted up her hair, sprayed herself with scent, jumped into bed and turned out the light.
As she did so the door opened. She was conscious for a fraction of a second of the bright quadrilateral of the open door where Cairns stood framed, a broad black silhouette.
'Yes, I'm a lucky beggar,' soliloquised Cairns. He gave a tug to the leads at which two Pekingese spaniels were straining. 'Come along, you little brutes,' he growled. The spaniels, intent upon a piece of soiled brown paper in the gutter, refused to move.
'Obstinate, sir,' said a policeman respectfully.
'Devilish. Simply devilish. Fine day, isn't it?'
'Blowing up for rain, sir.'
'Maybe. Come along, Snoo; that'll do.'
Cairns dragged the dogs up the road. Snoo and Poo, husband and wife, had suddenly fascinated him in Villiers Street that morning. He was on his way to offer them at Victoria's shrine. Instinctively he liked the smart dog, as he liked the smart woman and the American novel. Snoo and Poo, tiny, fat, curly, khaki-coloured, with their flat Kalmuck faces, unwillingly trundled behind him. They would, thought Cairns, be in keeping with the establishment. A pleasant establishment. A nice little house, in its quiet street where nothing ever seemed to pass, except every hour or so a cab. It was better than a home, for it offered all that a home offers, soft carpets, discreet servants, nice little lunches among flowers and well-cleaned plate, and beyond, something that no home contains. It was adventurous. Cairns had knocked about the world a good deal and had collected sensations as finer natures collect thoughts. The women of the pastmet and caressed on steam-boats, in hotels at Cairo, Singapore and Cape Town, the tea gardens of Kobe and the stranger mysteries of Zanzibar, all this had left him weary and sighing for something like the English home. Indeed he grew more sentimental as he thought of Dover cliffs every time his tailor called the measurement of his girth. An extra quarter of an inch invariably coincided with a sentimental pang. Cairns, however, would not yet have been capable of settling down in a hunting county with a well-connected wife, a costly farming experiment and the shilling weeklies. A transition was required; he had no gift of introspection, but his relations with Victoria were expressions of this mood. Thus he was happy.
He never entered the little house in Elm Tree Place without a thrill of pleasure. Under the placid mask of its respectability and all that went with it, clean white steps, half curtains, bulbs in the window boxes, there flowed for him a swift hot stream. And in that stream flourished a beautiful white lily whose petals opened and smiled at will.
'I wonder whether I'm in love with her?' This was a frequent subject for Cairns's meditations. Victoria was so much more for him than any other woman had been that he always hesitated to answer. She charmed him sensually, but other women had done likewise; she was beautiful, but he could conceive of greater beauty. Her intellect he did not consider, for he was almost unaware of it. For him she was clever, in the sense that women are clever in men's eyes when they can give a smart answer, understand Bradshaw and order a possible combination at a restaurant. What impressed him was Victoria's coolness, the balance of her unhurried mind. Now and then he caught her reading curious books, such asSmiles's Self-Help,Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to his SonandThus Spake Zara . . .Something, by a man with a funny name; but this was all part of her character and of its novelty. He did not worry to scratch the surface of this brain; virgin soils did not interest him in the mental sense. Sometimes, when he enounced a political opinion or generalised on the problems of the day as stated in the morning paper, he would find, a little uneasily, her eyes fixed on him with a strangely interested look. But her eyelids would at once be lowered and her lips would part, showing a little redder and moister, causing his heart to beat quicker, and he would forget his perplexity as he took her hand and stroked her arm with gentle insistence.
Cairns dragged Snoo and Poo up the steps of the little house still grumbling, panting and protesting that, as drawing-room dogs, they objected to exercise in any form. He had a latchkey, but always refrained from using it. He liked to ring the bell, to feel like a guest. It would have been commonplace to enterhishall and hang uphishat onhispeg. That would have been home and home only. To ask whether Mrs Ferris was in was more adventurous, for she might be out. And if she expected him, then it was an assignation; adventure again.
The unimposing Mary let him in. For a fraction of a second she looked at the Major, then at the floor.
'Mrs Ferris in?'
'Yes, sir, Mrs Ferris is in the boudoir.' Mary's voice fell on the last necessary word like a dropgate. She had been asked a question and answered it. That was the end of it. Cairns was the master of her mistress. What respect she owed was paid.
Cairns deposited his hat and coat in Mary's hands. Then, lifting Snoo under one arm and Poo under the other, both grumbling vigorously and kicking with their hind legs, he walked to the boudoir and pushed it open with his shoulder. Victoria was sitting atthe little bureau writing a letter. Cairns watched her for two seconds, rejoicing in the firm white moulding of her neck, in the dark tendrils of hair clustering low, dwindling into the central line of down which tells of breeding and health. Then Victoria turned round sharply.
'Oh,' she said, with a little gasp. 'Oh, Tom, the ducks!'
Cairns laughed and, walking up to her, dropped Snoo on her lap and Poo, snuffling ferociously, on the floor. Victoria buried her hands in Snoo's thick coat; the dog gurgled joyfully and rolled over on its side. Victoria laughed, muzzling Snoo with her hand.
Cairns watched the picture for, a moment. He was absurdly reminded of a girl in Java who nursed a black marmoset against her yellow breast. And as Victoria looked up at him, her chin now resting on Snoo's brown head, a soft wave of scent rose towards him. He knelt down, throwing his arms round her and the dog, gathering them both into his embrace. As his lips met hers and clung to them, her perfume and the ranker scent of the dog filled his nostrils, burning aphrodisiac into his brain.
Victoria freed herself gently and rose to her feet, still nursing Snoo, and laughingly pushed him into Cairns's face.
'Kiss him,' she said, 'no favours here.'
Cairns obeyed, then picked up Poo and sat down on the couch.
'This is sweet of you, Tom,' said Victoria. 'Theyarelovebirds.'
'I'm glad you like them; this is Poo I'm holding, yours is Snoo.'
'Odd names,' said Victoria.
'Chinese according to the dealer,' said Cairns, 'but I don't pretend to know what they mean.'
'Never mind,' said Victoria, 'they're lovebirds, and so are you, Tom.'
Cairns looked at her silently, at her full erect figure and smiling eyes. He was a lucky beggar, a damned lucky beggar.
'And what is this bribe for?' she asked.
'Oh, nothing. Knew you'd like them, beastly tempers and as game as mice. Women's dogs, you know.'
'Generalising again, Tom. Besides I hate mice.'
Cairns drew her down by his side on the couch. Everything in this woman interested and stimulated him. She was always fresh, always young. The touch of her hand, the smell of her hair, the feel of her skirts winding round his ankles, all that was magic; every little act of hers was a taking of possession. Every time he mirrored his face in her eyes and saw the eyelids slowly veil and unveil them, something like love crept into his soul. But every passionate embrace left him weak and almost repelled. She was his property; he had paid for her; and, insistent thought, what would she have done if he had not been rich?
Half an hour passed away. Victoria lay passive in his arms. Snoo and Poo, piled in a heap, were snuffling drowsily. There was a ring at the front door, then a slam. They could hear voices. They started up.
'Who the deuce . . . .?' said Cairns.
Then they heard someone in the dining-room beyond the door. There was a knock at the door of the boudoir.
'Come in,' said Victoria.
Mary entered. Her placid eyes passed over the Major's tie which had burst out of his waistcoat, Victoria's tumbled hair.
'Mr Wren, mum,' she said.
Victoria staggered. Her hands knotted themselves together convulsively.
'Good God,' she whispered.
'Who is it? What does he want? What name did you say?' asked Cairns. Victoria's excitement was infecting him.
Victoria did not answer. Mary stood before them, her eyes downcast before the drama. She was waiting for orders.
'Can't you speak?' growled Cairns. 'Who is it?'
Victoria found her voice at last.
'My brother,' she said hoarsely.
Cairns did not say a word. He walked once up and once down the room, stopped before the mirror to settle his tie. Then turned to Mary.
'Tell the gentleman Mrs Ferris can't see him!'
Mary turned to go. There was a sound of footsteps in the dining-room. The button of the door turned twice as if somebody was trying to open it. The door was locked but Cairns almost leaped towards it. Victoria stopped him.
'No,' she said, 'let me have it out. Tell Mr Wren I'm coming, Mary.'
Mary turned away. The incident was fading from her mind as a stone fades away as it falls into an abyss. Victoria clung to Cairns and whispered in his ear.
'Tom, go away, go away. Come back in an hour. I beg you.'
'No, old girl, I'm going to see you through,' said Cairns doggedly.
'No, no, don't.' There was fear in her voice. 'I must have it out. Go away, for my sake, Tom.'
She pushed him gently into the hall, forced him to pick up his hat and stick and closed the door behind him. She braced herself for the effort; for a second the staircase shivered before her eyes like a road in the heat.
'Now for it,' she said, 'I'm in for a row.'
A pleasant little tingle was in her veins. She opened the dining-room door. It was not very light.There was a slight singing in her ears. She saw nothing before her except a man's legs clad in worn grey trousers where the knees jutted forward sharply. With an effort she raised her eyes and looked Edward in the face.
He was pale and thin as ever. A ragged wisp of yellow hair hung over the left side of his forehead. He peered at her through his silver-mounted glasses. His hands were twisting at his watch chain, quickly, nervously, like a mouse in a wheel. As she looked at his weak mouth his insignificance was revealed to her. Was this, this creature with the vague idealistic face, the high shoulders, something to be afraid of? Pooh!
'Well, Edward?' she said, involuntarily aggressive.
Wren did not answer. His hands suddenly stopped revolving.
'Well, Edward?' she repeated. 'So you've found me?'
'Yes,' he said at length. 'I . . . . Yes, I've found you.' The movement of his hands began again.
'Well?'
'I know. I've found out. . . . I went to Finsbury.'
'Oh? I suppose you mean you tracked me from my old rooms. I suppose Betty told you I . . . my new occupation.'
Wren jumped.
'Damn,' he growled. 'Damn you.'
Victoria smiled. Edward swearing. It was too funny. What an awful thing it was to have a sense of humour.
'You seem to know all about it,' she said smoothly. 'But what do you want?'
'How dare you,' growled Edward. 'A woman like you. . . . .'
A hard look came into Victoria's eyes.
'That will do Edward, I know my own business.'
'Yes, a dirty business.' A hot flush spread over the man's thin cheeks.
'You little cur.' Victoria smiled; she could feel her lips baring her eye teeth. 'Fool.'
Edward stared at her. Passion was stifling his words.
'It's a lot you know about life, schoolmaster,' she sneered. 'Who are you to preach at me? Is it your business if I choose to sell my body instead of selling my labour?'
'You're disgraced.' His voice went down to a hoarse whisper. 'Disgraced.'
Victoria felt a wave of heat pass over her body.
'Disgraced, you fool? Will anybody ever teach you what disgrace is? There's no such thing as disgrace for a woman. All women are disgraced when they're born. We're parasites, toys. That's all we are. You've got two kinds of uses for us, lords and masters! One kind is honourable labour, as you say, namely the work undertaken by what you call the lower classes; the other's a share in the nuptial couch, whether illegal or legal. Yes, your holy matrimony is only another name for my profession.'
'You've no right to say that,' cried Edward. 'You're trying to drag down marriage to your level. When a woman marries she gives herself because she loves; then her sacrifice is sublime.' He stopped for a second. Idealism, sentimentalism, other names for ignorance of life, clashed in his self-conscious brain without producing light. 'Oh, Victoria,' he said, 'you don't know how awful it is for me to find you like this, my little sister . . . of course you can't love him . . . if you'd married him it would have been different.'
'Ah, Edward, so that's your philosophy. You say that though I don't love him, if I'd married him it would have been different. So you won't let me surrender to a man unless I can trick him or goad him into binding himself to me for life. If I don'tlove him I may marry him and make his life a hell and I shall be a good woman; but I mustn't live with him illegally so that he may stick to me only so long as he cares for me.'
'I didn't say that,' stammered Edward. 'Of course, it's wrong to marry a man you don't care for . . . but marriage is different, it sanctifies.'
'Sanctifies! Nothing sanctifies anything. Our deeds are holy or unholy in themselves. Oh, understand me well, I claim no ethical revelation; I don't care whether my deeds are holy or not. I judge nothing, not even myself. All I say is that your holy bond is a farce; if women were free—that is, trained, able and allowed to earn fair wages for fair labour—then marriage might be holy. But marriage for a woman is a monetary contract. It means that she is kept, clothed, amused; she is petted like a favourite dog, indulged like a spoiled child. In exchange she gives her body.'
'No, no.'
'Yes, yes. And the difference between a married woman and me is her superior craft, her ability to secure a grip upon a man. You respect her because she is permanent, as you respect a vested interest.'
The flush rose again in Edward's cheeks. As he lost ground he fortified his obstinacy.
'You've sold yourself,' he said quickly, 'gone down into the gutter . . . . Oh!'
'The gutter.' Victoria was so full of contempt that it almost hurt her. 'Of course I'm in the gutter. I always was in the gutter. I was in the gutter when I married and my husband boarded and lodged me to be his favourite. I was in the gutter when I had to kow-tow to underbred people; to be a companion is to prostitute friendship. You don't mind that, do you? I was in the gutter in the tea shops, when I decoyed men into coming to the place because they could touch me, breathe me. I'm in the gutter now,but I'm in the right one. I've found the one that's going to make me free.'
Edward was shaken by her passion.
'You'll never be free,' he faltered, 'you're an outcast.'
'An outcast from what?' sneered Victoria. 'From society? What has society done for me? It's kicked me, it's bled me. It's made me work ten hours a day for eight bob a week. It'd have sucked me dry and offered me the workhouse, or the Thames at the end. It made me almost a cripple.'
Edward stared.
'Yes,' said Victoria savagely. 'That makes you squirm, sentimentalist. Look at that!'
She put her foot on a chair, tucked up her skirt, tore down the stocking. Purplish still, the veins stood out on the firm white flesh.
Edward clenched both his hands and looked away. A look of pain was in his eyes.
'Yes, look at that,' raged Victoria. 'That's what your society's done for me. It's chucked me into the water to teach me to swim, and it's gloated over every choke. It's fine talking about chivalry, isn't it, when you see what honest labour's done for me, isn't it? It's fine talking about purity when you see the price your society pays me for being what I am, isn't it? Look at me. Look at my lace, look at my diamonds, look at my house . . . and think of the other side: eight bob a week, ten hours work a day, a room with no fire, and a bed with no sheets. But I know your society now, and as I can't kill it I'll cheat it. I've served it and it's got two years of my life; but I'm going to get enough out of it to make it crawl.'
She strode towards Edward.
'So don't you come preaching to me,' she hissed.
Edward's head bent down. Slowly he walked towards the door.
'Yes,' she said, 'go. I've no use for you. I'm out for stronger meat.'
He opened the door, then, without looking up,
'Good-bye,' he said.
The door closed behind him. Victoria looked about her for some seconds, then sat down in the carving chair, her arms outstretched on the table. Her teeth were clenched now, her jaw set; with indomitable purpose she looked out into the darkening room where she saw the battle and victory of life.
Victoriahad never loved adventure for its own sake. The change from drudgery to leisure was grateful as was all it brought in the shape of pretty clothes, jewels and savoury dishes; but she realised every day better that, taking it as a profession, her career was no great success. It afforded her a fair livelihood, but the wasting asset of her beauty could not be replaced; thus it behoved her to amortize its value at a rapid rate. She felt much better in health; her varicose veins had gone down a good deal, but she still preserved a dark mystery about them; after six months of intimate association, Cairns did not yet know why he had never seen Victoria without her stockings. Being man of the world enough to know that discretion is happiness, he had never pressed the point; a younger or more sensitive man would have torn away the veil, so as to achieve total intimacy at the risk of wrecking it. He was not of these, and vaguely Victoria did not thank him for a sentiment half discreet, half indifferent; such an attitude for a lover suggested disregard for essentials. As she grew stronger and healthier her brain worked more clearly, and she began to realise that even ten years of association with this man would yield no more than a pittance. And it would be difficult to hold him for ten years.
Victoria certainly went ably to work to preserve for Cairns the feeling of novelty and adventure. It was practically in deference to her suggestions that heretained his chambers; he soon realised her wisdom and entered into the spirit of their life. He still understood very well the pleasure of being her guest. Victoria found no decline in his desire; perhaps it was less fiery, but it was as coarse and as constant. Certainly she was woman for him rather than merely a woman; moreover she was a habit. Victoria saw this clearly enough and resolved to make the most of it.
In accordance with her principles she kept her expenses down. She would not even allow herself the luxury of a maid; she found it cheaper to pay Mary higher wages. When Cairns was not expected her lunch was of the simplest, and Charlotte discovered with amazement that her rakish mistress could check a grocer's book. Victoria was not even above cheating the Water Board by omitting to register her garden tap. All these, however, were petty economies; they would result in a saving of perhaps three hundred a year, a beggarly sum when pitted against the uncertainties of her profession.
She realised all this within three or four months of her new departure, and promptly decided that Cairns must be made to yield a higher revenue. She felt that she could not very well tell him that a thousand a year was not enough; on the face of it it was ample. It was necessary therefore to launch out a little. The first step was to increase her visible supply of clothes, and this was easily done by buying the cheap and effective instead of the expensive and good. Cairns knew enough about women's clothes to detect this now and then, but the changes bewildered him a little and he had some difficulty in seeing the difference between the latest thing and the cheapest. Whenever she was with him she affected the manners of a spendthrift; she would call cabs to carry her a hundred yards, give a beggar a shilling, or throw a pair of gloves out of the window because they had been worn once.
Cairns smiled tolerantly. She might as well have her fling, he thought, and a lack of discipline was as charming in a mistress as it was deplorable in a wife. He was therefore not surprised when, one morning, he found Victoria apparently nervous and worried. She owned that she was short of cash. In fact the manager of her bank had written to point out that her account was overdrawn.
'Dear me,' said Cairns with mock gravity, 'you've been going it, old girl! What's all this? "Self," "Self," why all these cheques are to "Self." You'll go broke.'
'I suppose I shall,' said Victoria wearily. 'I don't know how I do it, Tom. I'm no good at accounts. And I hate asking you for more money . . . but what am I to do?'
She crossed her hands over her knees and looked up at him with a pretty expression of appeal. Cairns laughed.
'Don't worry,' he said, curling a lock of her hair round a fat forefinger. 'I'll see you through.'
Victoria received that afternoon a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds which she paid into her account. She did not, however, inform Cairns that the proceeds of the "Self" cheques had been paid into a separate account which she had opened with another bank. By this means, she was always able to exhibit a gloomy pass book whenever it was required.
Having discovered that Cairns was squeezable Victoria felt more hopeful as to the future. She was his only luxury and made the most of his liking for jewellery and furs. She even hit upon the more ingenious experiment of interesting Barbezan Soeurs in her little speculations. The device was not novel: for a consideration of ten per cent these bustling dressmakers were ready to provide fictitious bills and even solicitor's letters couched in frigidly menacingterms. Cairns laughed and paid solidly. He had apparently far more money than he needed. Victoria was almost an economy; without her he would have lost a fortune at bridge, kept a yacht perhaps and certainly a motor. As it was he was quite content with his poky chambers in St James', a couple of clubs which he never thought of entering, the house in Elm Tree Place and a stock of good cigars.
Cairns was happy, and Victoria labouring lightly for large profits, was contented too. Theirs were lazy lives, for Cairns was a man who could loaf. He loafed so successfully that he did not even think of interfering with Victoria's reading. She now read steadily and voraciously; she eschewed novels, fearing the influence of sentiment. 'It will be time for sentiment by and by,' she sometimes told herself. Meanwhile she armoured her heart and sharpened her wits. The earlier political opinions which had formed in her mind under the pressure of toil remained unchanged but did not develop. She recognised herself as a parasite and almost gloried in it. She evolved as a system of philosophy that one's conduct in life is a matter of alternatives. Nothing was good and nothing was evil; things were better than others or worse and there was an end of her morality. Victoria had no patience with theories. One day, much to Cairns surprise, she violently flung Ingersoll's essays into the fender.
'Steady on,' said Cairns, 'steady on, old girl.'
'Such rot,' she snarled.
'Hear, hear,' said Cairns, picking up the book and looking at its title. 'Serve you right for reading that sort of stuff. I can't make you out, Vic.'
Victoria looked at him with a faint smile, but refused to assign a cause for her anger. In fact she had suddenly been irritated by Ingersoll's definition of morality. 'Perceived obligation,' she thought.'And I don't perceive any obligation!' She consoled herself suddenly with the thought that her amorality was a characteristic of the superman.
The superman preoccupied her now and then. He was a good subject for speculation because imponderable and inexistent. The nearest approach she could think of was a cross between an efficient colonial governor and a latter-day prophet. She believed quite sincerely that the day must come when children of the light must be born, capable of ruling and of keeping the law. She saw very well too that their production did not lie with an effete aristocracy any more than with a dirty and drunken democracy; probably they would be neo-plutocrats, men full of ambition, lusting for power and yet imbued with a spirit of icy justice. Her earliest tendency had been towards an idealistic socialism. Burning with her own wrongs and touched by the angelic wing of sympathy, she had seen in the communisation of wealth the only means of curbing the evils it had hitherto wrought. Further observation showed her however that an idealism of this kind would not lead the world speedily into a peaceful haven. She saw too well that covetousness was still lurking snakelike in the bosom of man, ready to rear its ugly head and strike at any hand. Thus she was not surprised to see the chaos which reigned among socialists, their intriguing, their jealousies, their unending dissensions, their apostacies. This did not throw her back into the stereotyped philosophy of individualism; for she could not help seeing that the system of modern life was absurd, stupidly wasteful above all of time, labour and wealth. To apply Nietzscheism to socialism was, however, beyond her; to reconcile the two doctrines which apparently conflict and really only overlap was a task too difficult for a brain which had lain fallow for twenty-five years. But she dimly felt that Nietzscheism did not mean a glorified imperialism,but a worship of intellectual efficiency and the stringent morality ofnoblesse oblige.
Where Victoria began to part issue with her own thoughts was when she considered the position of women. Their outlook was one of unrelieved gloom; and it one day came upon her as a revelation that Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, following in a degree on Rousseau, had forgotten women in the scheme of life. There might be supermen but there would be no superwomen: if the supermen were true to their type they would have to crush and to dominate the women. As the latter fared so hard at the hands of the pigmies of to-day, what would they do if they could not develop in time to resist the sons of Anak? Victoria saw that the world was entering upon a sex war. Hitherto a shameful state of peace had left women in the hands of men, turning over the other cheek to the smiter. The sex war, however, held forth no hopes to her; in the dim future, sex equality might perhaps prevail; but she saw nothing to indicate that women had sown the seeds of their victory. She had no wish to enrol herself in the ranks of those who were waging an almost hopeless battle, armed with untrained intellects and unathletic bodies. She could not get away from the fact that the best woman athletes cannot compete with ordinary men, that even women with high intellectual qualifications had not ousted from commanding positions men of inferior ability.
All this, she thought, was unjust; but why hope for a change? There was nothing to show that men grew much better as a sex; then why pin faith to the coming of better times? Women were parasites, working only under constraint, badly and at uncongenial tasks; their right to live was based on their capacity to please. This brought her to her own situation. The future lay before her in the shape of two roads. One was the road which led to the struggle for life; ending, she felt it too well, in acrawl to death on crippled limbs. The other was the road along which grew roses, roses which she could pluck and sell to men; at the end of that was the heaven of independence. It had golden gates; it was guarded by an angel in white garments with a palm leaf in his hands and beyond lay the pleasant places where she had a right of way. And as she looked again the heaven with the golden gates turned into a bank with a commissionaire at the door.
Her choice being made, she did not regret it. For the time being her life was pleasant enough, and if it could be made a little more profitable it would soon be well worth living, and her freedom would be earned. Meanwhile she took pleasure in small things. The little house was almost a show place, so delicate and refined were its inner and outer details. Victoria saw to it that frequently changed flowers decorated the beds in the front garden; Japanese trees, dwarfed and gnarled, stood right and left of the steps, scowling like tiny Titans; all the blinds in the house were a mass of insertion. These blinds were a feature for her; they implied secrecy. Behind the half blinds were thick curtains of decorated muslin; behind these again, heavy curtains which could be drawn at will. They were the impenetrable veil which closed off from the world and its brutalities this oasis of forbidden joys.
In the house also she was ever elaborating, sybaritising her life. She had a branch telephone fixed at the head of her bed; the first time that Cairns used it to tell his man to bring up his morning coat she had the peculiar sensation that her bed was in touch with the world. She could call up anybody, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Governor of the Bank of England or the headquarters of the Salvation Army. Her bed was the centre of the world. She fitted the doors of her bedroom and her boudoir with curious little locks which acted on the pressure of a fingerfor her mind was turned on delicacies and the sharp click of a bolt, the grating of a key savoured of the definite, therefore of the coarse. A twist of the knob between two fingers and the world was silently shut out.
Now too that she was beautiful once more she revelled in mirrors. The existing ones in her bedroom and in the boudoir were not enough; they were public, unintimate. She had a high mirror fixed in the bathroom, so that she could see herself in her freshness, covered with pearly beads like a naiad. She rejoiced in her beauty, in her renewed strength; she often stood for many minutes in the dim steamy light of the room, analysing her body, its grace and youth, with a growing consciousness of latent power. Then, suddenly, the faint violet streaks of the varicose veins would intrude upon the rite and she would wrap herself up jealously in her bath robe so that not even the mirror should be a confidant of the past.
Weekafter week passed on, and now monotony drew her stifling cloak over Victoria. Cairns was still in a state of beatitude which made him an unexciting companion; satisfied in his egoism, it never came into his mind that Victoria could tire of her life. He spent many afternoons in the back garden under a rose-covered pergola. By his side was a little table with a syphon, a decanter of whisky, and a box of cigars; he read desultorily, sometimes the latest motor novel, at other times the improving memoirs of eighteenth century noblewomen. Now and then he would look approvingly at Victoria in plain white drill, delightfully mischievous under a sun-bonnet, and relapse into his book. Once he quoted 'A flask of wine, a book of verse. . . .' and Victoria went into sudden fits of laughter when she remembered Neville Brown. The single hackneyed line seemed to link malekind together.
Cairns was already talking of going away. June was oppressively hot and he was hankering after some quiet place where he might do some sea-fishing and get some golf. He was becoming dangerously fat; and Victoria, foreseeing a long and very cheap holiday, favoured the idea in every way. They could go up to Scotland later too; but Cairns rather hesitated about this, for he neither cared to show off Victoria before the people he knew on the moors, nor to leave her for a fortnight. He was paying the penalty of Capua. His plans were set back, however, by serious troublewhich had taken place on his Irish estate, his though still in the hands of Marmaduke Cairns's executors. There had been nightriding, cattle driving, some boycotting. The situation grew so tense that the executors advised Cairns to sell the estate to the tenants but the latter declined the terms; matters came to a deadlock and it was quite on the cards that an application might be made under the Irish Land Act. It was clear that in this case the terms would be bad, and Cairns was called to Limerick by telegram as a last chance. He left Victoria, grumbling and cursing Ireland and all things Irish.
Left to herself, Victoria felt rather at a loose end. The cheerful if uninteresting personality of Major Cairns had a way of filling the house. He had an expansive mind; it was almost chubby. For two days she rather enjoyed her freedom. The summer was gorgeous; St John's Wood was bursting everywhere into flower; the trees were growing opaque in the parks. At every street corner little whirlwinds of dry grit swayed in the hot air. One afternoon Victoria indulged in the luxury of a hired private carriage, and flaunted it with the best in the long line on the south side of the Park. Wedged for a quarter of an hour in the mass she felt a glow come over her. The horses all round her shone like polished wood, the carriage panels were lustrous, the harness was glittering, the brass burnished; all the world seemed to radiate warmth and light. Gaily enough, because not jaded by repetition, she caused the carriage to do the Ring, twice. She felt for a moment that she was free, that she could vie with those women whose lazy detachment she stirred for a moment into curiosity by her deep eyes, dark piled hair and the audacity of her diaphanouscrèpe de chine.
Cairns was still in Ireland, struggling conscientiously to pile up unearned increment; and Victoria, thoroughly aimless, suddenly bethought herself ofFarwell. She had been remiss in what was almost a duty. Surely she ought to report progress to the man who had helped to open her eyes to the realities of life. She had misapplied his teaching perhaps, or rather remoulded it, but still it was his teaching. Or rather it was what a woman should know, as opposed to what Thomas Farwell preached; if men were to practise that, then she should revise her philosophy.
At ten minutes to one she entered the Moorgate Street P.R.R. with a little thrill. Everything breathed familiarity; it was like coming home, but better, for it is sweeter to revisit the place where one has suffered, when one has emerged, than to brood with gentle sorrow on the spot, where there once was joy. She knew every landmark, the tobacconist, the picture shop, still full of 'Mother's Helps' and of 'artistic' studies in the nude; there was the red-coated bootblack too, as dirty and as keenly solicitous as ever. The P.R.R. itself did not chill her. In the crude June sunlight its nickel shone gaily enough. Everything was as before; the cakes had been moulded in the old moulds, and here was the old bill of fare, unchanged no doubt; even the marble-topped tables and the half cleaned cruets looked kindly upon her; but the tesselated red and blue floor aroused the hateful memory of another Victoria on her hands and knees, an old sack round her waist, painfully swaying from right to left, swabbing the tiles. Little rivulets of water and dirt flowed slowly across the spectre's hand.
As she went down the steps into the smoking-room she crossed with the manageress, still buxom and erect; but she passed unnoticed, for this was the busy hour when the chief tried to be simultaneously on three floors. The room was not so full as it had once been. She sat down at a little table and watched the familiar scene for some minutes. She told thegirl she would wait a minute, for she did not want to miss Farwell. The world had gone round, but apparently the P.R.R. was the axis. There in the corner were the chess players; to-day they only ran four boards, but at one of them a fierce discussion was going on as to a variation of the queen's pawn opening. On the other side of the room were the young domino players, laughing and smoking cigarettes. The fat and yellow Levantine was missing. Victoria regretted him, for the apocalyptic figure was an essential part of the ugly past. But there was 'old dry toast' all alone at his little table. He had not changed; his white hair still framed thickly his beautiful old brown face. There he sat, still silent and desolate, waiting for the end. Victoria felt a pang of sorrow. She was not quite hardened yet and she realised it angrily. There must be no sympathy and no quarter in her game of life. It was too late or too soon for that. Victoria let her eyes stray round the room. There were the young men and boys or some of the same breed, in their dark suits, brilliant ties, talking noisily, chaffing one another, gulping down their small teas and toasted scones. A conversation between two older men was wafted in to her ears.
'Awful. Have you tried annelicide?'
At that moment a short broad figure walked smartly down the steps. It was Thomas Farwell, a thin red book under his arm. He went straight through to the old table, propped his book against the cruet and began to read. Victoria surveyed him critically. He was thinner than ever; his hair was more plentifully sprinkled with grey but had receded no further. He was quite near her, so she could see his unbrushed collar and his frayed cuffs. After a moment the girl came and stood before him; it was Nelly, big and raw-boned as ever, handsome still like the fine beast of burden she was. She wore no apronnow in proud token of her new position as head waitress. Now the voices by her side were talking holidays.
'No, Ramsgit's good enough for me. Broadstairs and all these little places, they're so tony—'
Maud passed quickly before Victoria. The poor little girl was as white as ever; her flaccid cheeks danced up and down as she ran. The other voice was relating at length how its owner had taken his good lady to Deal. Nelly had left Farwell, walking more slowly than the other girls, as befitted her station. Victoria felt herself pluck up a little courage, crossed the room followed by many admiring glances, and quickly sat down at Farwell's table. He looked up quickly. The book dropped suddenly from the cruet.
'Victoria,' he gasped.
'Yes,' she said smiling.
'Well . . .' His eyes ran over her close fitting tussore dress, her white kid gloves.
'Is that all you've got to say to me?' she asked. 'Won't you shake hands?'
Farwell put out his hand and held hers for a second. He was smiling now, with just a touch of wistfulness in his eyes.
'I'm very glad to see you,' he said at length.
'So am I,' said Victoria. 'I hope you don't mind my coming here, but I only thought of it this morning.'
'Mind,' snapped Farwell. 'People who understand everything never mind anything.'
Victoria smiled again. The bumptious aphorism was a sign that Farwell was still himself. For a minute or so they looked at one another. Victoria wondered at this man; so powerful intellectually and physically; and yet content to live in his ideals on a pittance, to do dull work, to be a subordinate. Truly a caged lion. Farwell, on the other hand, waslooking in vain for some physical ravishes to justify Victoria's profession, for some gross development at least. He looked in vain. Instead of the pale dark girl with large grey eyes whom he had known, he now saw a healthy and beautiful woman with a clear white skin, thick hair, red lips.
'Well,' he said with a laugh, 'can I invite you to lunch with me?'
'You may,' she said. 'I'll have a small coffee and . . . a sunny side up.'
Farwell laughed and signed to Nelly. After a minute he attracted her attention and gave the order without Nelly taking any interest in Farwell's guest. It might be rather extraordinary, but her supervisory duties were all-absorbent. When she returned, however, she stole a curious look at Victoria while placing before her the poached egg on toast. She looked at her again, and her eyes dilated.
'Law,' she said. 'Vic!'
'Yes, Nelly, how are you?' Victoria put out her gloved hand. Nelly took it wonderingly.
'I'm all right,' she answered slowly. 'Just been made head waitress,' she added with some unction. Her eyes were roving over Victoria's clothes, valuing them like an expert.
'Congratulations,' said Victoria. 'Glad you're getting on.'
'I seeyou'regetting on,' said Nelly, with a touch of sarcasm.
'So, so, things aren't too bad.' Victoria looked up. The women's eyes crossed like rapiers; Nelly's were full of suspicion. The conversation stopped then, for Nelly was already in request in half a dozen quarters.
'She knows,' said Victoria smoothly.
'Of course,' said Farwell. 'Trust a woman to know the worst about another and to show it up. Every little helps in a contest such as life.'
Farwell then questioned her as to her situation, but she refused him all details.
'No,' she said, 'not here. There's Nelly watching us, and Maud has just been told. Betty's been shifted, I know, and I suppose Mary and Jennie are gone, but there's the manageress and some of the girls upstairs. I've nearly done. Let me return the invitation. Dine with me to-night. . .' She was going to say 'at home,' but changed her mind to the prudent course. . . . 'at, well, anywhere you like. Whereabouts do you live, Mr Farwell?'
'I live in the Waterloo Road,' said Farwell, 'an artery named after the playing fields of Eton.'
'I don't know it well,' said Victoria, 'but I seem to remember an Italian place near Waterloo Station. Suppose you meet me at the south end of Waterloo Bridge at seven?'
'It will do admirably,' said the man. 'I suppose you want to go now? Well, you've put out my habits, but I'll come too.'
They went out; the last Victoria saw of the P.R.R. was the face of the cook through the hole in the partition, red, sweating, wrinkled by the heat and hurry of the day. They parted in the churchyard. Victoria watched him walk away with his firm swing, his head erect.
'A man,' she thought, 'too clever to succeed.'
Being now again at a loose end and still feeling fairly hungry, she drove down to Frascati's to lunch. She was a healthy young animal, and scanty fare was now a novelty. At three o'clock she decided to look up Betty at her depôt in Holborn; and by great good luck found that Betty was free at half past five, as the Holborn depôt for unknown reasons kept shorter hours than Moorgate Street. She whiled away the intervening time easily enough by shop-gazing and writing a long letter to Cairns on the hospitable paper of the Grand Hotel. Athalf-past five she picked up Betty at the door of the P. R. R.
'Thank you again so very, very much for the sweater and the dressing gown,' said Betty as she slipped her arm through that of her friend.
'Don't be silly, Betty, I like giving you things.' Victoria smiled and pressed the girl's arm. 'You're not looking well, Betty.'
'Oh, I'm all right,' said Betty wearily.
Victoria looked at her again. Under the pretty waved sandy hair Betty's forehead looked waxen; her cheeks were too red. Her arm felt thinner than ever. What was one to do? Betty was a weakling and must go to the wall. But there was a sweetness in her which no one could resist.
'Look here, Betty,' said Victoria, 'I've got very little time; I've got to meet Mr Farwell at Waterloo Bridge at seven. It's beautifully fine, let's drive down to Embankment Gardens and talk.'
Betty's face clouded for a moment at the mention of Farwell's name. She hated him with the ferocity of the weak; he had ruined her friend. But it was good to have her back. The cab drove down Chancery Lane at a spanking rate, then across the Strand and through a lane. The unaccustomed pleasure and the rush of air brought all her face into pink unison with her cheeks.
The two women sat side by side for a moment. This was the second time they had met since Victoria had entered her new life. There had been a few letters, the last to thank Victoria for her Christmas present, but Betty did not say much in them. Her tradition of virtue had erected a barrier between them.
'Well, Betty,' said Victoria suddenly, 'do you still think me very bad?'
'Oh, Vic, how can you? I never, never said that.'
'No, you thought it,' answered Victoria a little cruelly. 'But never mind, perhaps you're right.'
'I never said so, never thought so,' persisted Betty. 'You can't go wrong, Vic, you're . . . you're different.'
'Perhaps I am,' said Victoria. 'Perhaps there are different laws for different people. At any rate I've made my choice and must abide by it.'
'And are you happy, Vic?' Anxiety was in the girl's face.
'Happy? Oh, happy enough. He's a good sort.'
'I'm so glad. And . . . Vic . . . do you think he'll marry you?'
'Marry me?' said Victoria laughing. 'You little goose, of course not. Why should he marry me now he's got me?'
This was a new idea for Betty.
'But doesn't he love you very, very much?' she asked, her blue eyes growing rounder and rounder.
'I suppose he does in a way,' said Victoria. 'But it doesn't matter. He's very kind to me but he won't marry me; and, honestly, I wouldn't marry him.'
Betty looked at her amazed and a little shocked.
'But, dear,' she faltered, 'think of what it would mean; you . . . he and you, you see . . . you're living like that . . . if he married you. . . .'
'Yes, I see,' said Victoria with a slight sneer, 'you mean that I should be an honest woman and all that? My dear child, you don't understand. Whether he marries me or not it's all the same. So long as a woman is economically dependent on a man she's a slave, a plaything. Legally or illegally joined it's exactly the same thing; the legal bond has its advantages and its disadvantages and there's an end of the matter.'
Betty looked away over the Thames; she did notunderstand. The tradition was too strong. Time went quickly. Betty had no tale to unfold; the months had passed leaving her doing the same work for the same wage, living in the same room. Before her was the horizon on which were outlined two ships; 'ten hours a day' and 'eight bob a week.' And the skyline?
As they parted, Victoria made Betty promise to come and see her. Then they kissed twice, gently and silently, and Victoria watched her friend's slim figure fade out of sight as she walked away. She had the same impression as when she parted with Lottie, who had gone so bravely into the dark. A wave of melancholy was upon her. Poor girls, they were without hope; she at least was viewing life with her eyes open. She would wrench something out of it yet. She shook herself; it was a quarter to seven.
An hour later she was sitting opposite Farwell. They were getting to the end of dinner. Conversation had flagged while they disposed of the earlier courses. Now they were at the ice and coffee stage. The waiters grew less attentive; indeed there was nobody to observe them save the olive-skinned boy with the mournful eyes who looked at the harbour of Palermo through the Waterloo Road door. Farwell lit the cigar which Victoria forced upon him, and leant back, puffing contentedly.
'Well,' he said at length, 'how do you like the life?'
'It is better than the old one,' she said.
'Oh, so you've come to that. You have given up the absolutes.'
'Yes, I've given them up. A woman like me has to.'
'Yes, I suppose you've got to,' pondered Farwell. 'But apart from that, is it a success? Are you attaining your end? That's the only thing that matters, you know.'
'I am, in a sense; I'm saving money. You see, he's generous.'
'Excellent, excellent,' sneered Farwell. 'I like to see you making out of what the bourgeois call vice that which will enable you to command bourgeois respect. By-and-by I suppose you'll have made a fortune.'
'Well, no; a competency perhaps, with luck.'
'With luck, as you say. Do you know, Victoria, this luck business is grand! My firm goes in for mines: they went prospecting in America twenty years ago and they happened to strike copper. That was good. Other men struck granite only. That was bad. But my boss is a City Sheriff now. Frightfully rich. There used to be four of them, but one died of copper poisoning, and another was found shot in a gulch. Nobody knows how it happened, but the other two got the mines.'
Victoria smiled. She liked this piratical tit bit.
'Yes,' she said, 'luck's the thing. And merit . . . well I suppose the surviving partners had merit.'
'Anyhow, I wish you luck,' said Farwell. 'But tell me more. Do you find you've paid too high a price for what you've got?'
'Too high a price?'
'Yes. Do you have any of that remorse we read about; would you like to be what you were? Unattached, you know . . . eligible for Young Women's Christian Associations?'
'Oh, no,' Victoria laughed. 'I can't pay too high a price for what I think I'll get. I don't mean these jewels or these clothes, that's only my professional uniform. When I've served my time I shall get that for which no woman can pay too much: I shall be economically independent, free.'
'Free.' Farwell looked towards the ceiling through a cloudlet of smoke. 'Yes, you're right. With the world as it is it's the only way. To be independentyou must acquire the right to be dependent on the world's labour, to be a drone . . . and the biggest drone is queen of the hive. Yet I wish it had been otherwise with you.' He looked at her regretfully.
Victoria toyed with a dessert knife.
'Why?' she asked.
'Oh, you had possibilities . . . but after all, we all have. And most of them turn out to be impossibilities. At any rate, you're not disgusted with your life, with any detail?'
'No, I don't think so. I don't say I'll go on any longer than I need, but it's bearable. But even if it were repulsive in every way I'd go on if I saw freedom ahead. If I fight at all I fight to a finish.'
'You're strong,' said Farwell looking at her. 'I wish I had your strength. You've got that force which makes explorers, founders of new faiths, prophets, company promoters.' He sighed.
'Let's go,' he added, 'we can talk in the warm night.'
For an hour they talked, agreeing always in the end. Farwell was cruelly conscious of two wasted lives: his, because his principles and his capacity for thought had no counterweight in a capacity for action; Victoria's, because of her splendid gifts ignobly wasted and misused by a world which had asked her for the least of them.
Victoria felt a peculiar pleasure in this man's society. He was elderly, ugly, ill-clad; sometimes he was boorish, but a halo of thought surrounded him, and the least of his words seemed precious. All this devirilised him, deprived him of physical attractiveness. She could not imagine herself receiving and returning his caresses. They parted on Waterloo Bridge.
'Good-bye,' said Farwell, 'you're on the right track. The time hasn't come for us to keep the law,for we don't know what the law is. All we have is the edict of the powerful, the prejudice of the fool; the last especially, for these goaled souls have their traditions, and their convictions are prisons all.'
Victoria pressed his hand and turned away. She did not look back. If she had she would have seen Farwell looking into the Thames, his face lit up by a gas lamp, curiously speculative in expression. His emotions were not warring, but the chaos in his brain was such that he was fighting the logical case for and against an attempt to find enlightenment on the other slope of the valley.
Victoriastretched herself lazily in bed. Her eyes took in a picture of Cairns on the mantelpiece framed between a bottle of eau-de-cologne and the carriage clock; then, little by little, she analysed details, small objects, powderpuffs, a Chelsea candlestick, an open letter, the wall paper. She closed her eyes again and buried her face in the pillow. The lace edge tickled her ear pleasantly. She snuggled like a stroked cat. Then she awoke again, for Mary had just placed her early cup of tea on the night table. The tray seemed to come down with a crash, a spoon fell on the carpet. Victoria felt daylight rolling back sleep from her brain while Mary pulled up the blinds. As light flooded the room and her senses became keener she heard the blinds clash.
'You're very noisy, Mary,' she said, lifting herself on one elbow.
The girl came back to the bed her hands folded together.
'I'm sorry, mum . . . I . . . I've . . .'
'Yes? what's the matter?'
Mary did not answer, but Victoria could see she was disturbed. Her cap was disarranged; it inclined perhaps five degrees from the vertical. There was a faint flush on her cheeks.
'What's the matter,' said Victoria sharply. 'Is there anything wrong?'
'No, mum. . . . Yes mum. . . . They say in the paper . . . . There's been trouble in Ireland, mum. . . .'
'In Ireland?' Victoria sat bolt upright. Her heart gave a great bang and then began to go with a whirr.
'At Rossbantry, mum . . . last night . . . he's shot. . . .'
'Shot? Who? can't you speak?'
'The Major, mum.'
Mary unfolded her hands suddenly and drew them up and down her apron as if trying to dry them. Victoria sat as if frozen, looking at her wide-eyed. Then she relapsed on the pillow. Everything swam for a second, then she felt Mary raising her head.
'Go away,' whispered Victoria. 'Leave me for a minute. I'm all right.'
Mary hesitated for a moment, then obeyed, softly closing the door. Victoria lay staring at the ceiling. Cairns was dead, shot. Awful. A week ago his heavy frame was outlined under these very blankets. She shuddered. But why, how? It wasn't true, it couldn't be true. She sat up as if impelled by a spring, and rang the bell violently. The broken rope fell on her face in a coil. With both hands she seized her chin as if to stop a scream.
'The paper! get me the paper!' she gasped as Mary came in. The girl hesitated. Victoria's face frightened her. Victoria looked at her straight, and she ran out of the room. In another minute she had laid the open paper before her mistress.
Victoria clutched at it with both hands. It was true. True. It was true. The headlines were all she could see. She tried to read the text, but the letters danced. She returned to the headlines.
Shocking Outrage in Ireland
Landlord Shot
In the next column:—
M. C. C.'sHard Task
Her heart's action was less violent now. She understood; every second increased her lucidity. Shot. Cairns was shot. Oh, she knew, he had carried strife with him and some tenant had had his revenge. She took up the paper and could read it now. Cairns had refused to make terms, and on the morning of his death had served notices of eviction on eighteen cottagers. The same night he was sitting at a window of his bailiff's house. Then two shots from the other side of the road, another from lower down. Cairns was wounded twice, in the lung and throat, and died within twenty minutes. A man was under arrest.
Victoria put down the paper. Her mind was quite clear again. Poor old Tom! She felt sorry but above all disturbed; every nerve in her body seemed raw. Poor old Tom, a good fellow! He had been kind to her; and now, there he was. Dead when he was thinking of coming back to her. He would never see her again, the little house and things he loved. Yes, he had been kind; he had saved her from that awful life . . . . Victoria's thoughts turned into another channel. What was going to become of her.
'Old girl,' she said aloud, 'you're in the cart.'
She realised that she was again adrift, alone, face to face with the terrible world. Cairns was gone; there was nobody to protect her against the buffeting waves. A milkman's cart rattled by; she could hear the distant rumble of the Underground, a snatch carried by the wind from a German band. Well, the time had come; it had to come. She could not have held Cairns for ever; and now she had to prove her mettle, to show whether she had learned enough of the world, whether she had grit. The thought struck cold at her, but an intimate counsellor in her brain was already awake and crying out:
'Yes, yes, go on! you can do it yet.'
Victoria threw down the paper and jumped outof bed. She dressed feverishly in the clothes and linen she had thrown in a heap on a chair the night before, twisting her hair up into a rough coil. Just before leaving the room she remembered she had not even washed her hands. She did so hurriedly; then, seeing the cold cup of tea, drank it off at a gulp; her throat felt parched.
She pushed back the untasted dish on the breakfast table. Her head between her hands, she tried to think. At intervals she poured out cups of tea and drank them off quickly.
Snoo and Poo, after vainly trying to induce her to play with them, lay in a heap in an armchair snuffling as they slept.
The better she realised her position the greater grew her fears. Once more she was the cork tossed in the storm; and yet, rudderless, she must navigate into the harbour of liberty. If Cairns had lived and she had seen her power over him wane, she would have taken steps; she did not know what steps, but felt she surely would have done something. But Cairns was dead; in twenty minutes she had passed from comparative security into the region where thorns are many and roses few.
Poor old Tom! She felt a tiny pang; surely this concern with herself when his body still lay unburied was selfish, ugly. But, pooh! why make any bones about it? As Cairns had said himself, he liked to see her beautiful, happy, well clad. His gifts to her were gifts to himself: she was merely his vicar.
Victoria drank some more cold tea. Good or bad, Cairns belonged to the past and the past has no virtues. None, at any rate, for those whose present is a wind-swept table-land. Men must come and go, drink to the full of the cup and pay richly for every sip, so that she might be free, hold it no longer to their lips. There was no time to waste, for already she was some hours older; some of those hours whichmight have been transmuted into gold, that saving gold. She must take steps.
The 'steps to be taken,' a comforting sentence, were not easy to evolve. But another comforting catch ward, 'reviewing the situation,' saved her from perplexity. She went into the little boudoir and took out her two pass books. The balance seemed agreeably fat, but she did not allow herself to be deluded; she checked off the debit side with the foils of her cheque book and found that two of the cheques had not been presented. These she deducted, but the result was not unsatisfactory; she had exactly three hundred pounds in one bank and a few shillings over fifty pounds in the other. Three hundred and fifty pounds. Not so bad. She had done pretty well in these nine months. Of course that banker's order of Cairns would be stopped. She could hardly expect the executors to allow it to stand. Thus her capital was three hundred and fifty pounds. And there was jewellery too, worth a couple of hundred pounds, perhaps, and lace, and furs. The jewellery might come in handy; it could be 'gopherised.' The furniture wasn't bad either.
Of course she must go on with the house. It was no great responsibility, being held on a yearly agreement. Victoria then looked through her accounts; they did not amount to much, for Barbezan Soeurs, though willing to assist in extracting money by means of bogus invoices, made it a rule to demand cash for genuine purchases. Twenty pounds would cover all the small accounts. The rent was all right, as it would not be due until the end of September. The rates were all right too, being payable every half year; they could be ignored until the blue notice came, just before Christmas.
Victoria felt considerably strengthened by this investigation. At a pinch she could live a year on the present footing, during which something mustturn up. She tried to consider for a moment the various things that might turn up. None occurred to her. She settled the difficulty by going upstairs again to dress. When she rang for Mary to do her hair, the girl was surprised to find her mistress perfectly cool. Without a word, however, Mary restored her hair to order. It was a beautiful and elegant woman, perhaps a trifle pale and open mouthed, who, some minutes later, set out to walk to Regent's Park.
Victoria sat back in her chair. Peace was upon her soul. Perhaps she had just passed through a crisis, perhaps she was entering upon one, but what did it matter? The warmth of July was in the clear air, the canal slowly carried past her its film of dust. No sound broke through the morning save the cries of little boys fishing for invisible fishes, and, occasionally, a raucous roar from some prisoner in the Zoo. Now that she had received the blow and was recovering she was conscious of a curious feeling of lightness; she felt freer than the day before. Then she was a man's property, tied to him by the bond of interest; now she was able to do what she chose, know whom she chose, so long as that money lasted. Ah, it would be good one day when she had enough money to be able to look the future in the face and flaunt in its forbidding countenance the fact that she was free, for ever free.