Then, half-past seven, a young man and a middle-aged woman shouldering through the wedged mass, the fierce rush into the shop and there the gasp behind closed doors among the other winners, hatless, their clothes torn, their bodices ripped open to the stays, one with her hair down and her neck marked here and there by bleeding scratches. Then, after the turmoil of the day among the strangeness, without rest or food, to make holiday for the Londoners, a night heavy as lead and a week every day more mechanical, Victoria had returned to the treadmill and, within a week, knew it.
. . . . The clock struck five. Victoria awoke from her dream epic. She had won her battle and sailed into harbour. Its waters were already as horribly still as those of a stagnant pool. The old chestnut vendor sat motionless on her seat of firewood and string. Not a thought chased over her gnarled brown face. From the stove came the faint pungent smell of the charring peel.
A fortnightlater Victoria had returned to the City. Most of the old P.R's had reopened, after passing under the yoke. A coat of paint had transformed them into P.R.R's. In fact their extinction was complete; nothing was left of them but the P. and the chairmanship of the amalgamated company, for their chairman was an earl and part of the goodwill. The P.R. had apparently been bought up at a fair rate. Its shares having fallen to sixpence, most of the shareholders had lost large sums; whereas the directors and their friends, displaying the acumen that is sometimes found among directors, had quietly bought the shares up by the thousand and by putting them into the new company had realised large profits. As the failure had happened during the old year and most of the shops had been reopened in the new, it was quite clear that the catering trade was expanding. It was a startling instance of commercial progress.
Within a week the P.R.R. decided to start once more in the City. Victoria, by her own request, was transferred to Moorgate Street. She did not like the neighbourhood of Oxford Circus; it was unfamiliar without being stimulating. She objected too to serving women. If she must serve at all she preferred serving men. She did not worship men; indeed the impression they had left on her was rather unpleasant. The subalterns at the mess were dull, Mr Parker a stick, Bobby was Bobby, Burton a cur, Stein a lout, Beauty, well perhaps Beauty wasa little better and Cairns worthy of a kind thought; but all the others, boys and half men with their futile talk, their slang cribbed from the music halls, their affectations, their loud ties, were nothing but the ballast on which the world has founded its permanent way. Yet a mysterious sex instinct made Victoria prefer even them to the young ladies who frequented Princes Street. It is better to be made love to insolently than to be ordered about.
The Moorgate P.R.R. was one of the curious crosses between the ice cream shop and the chop house where thirty bob a week snatches a sixpenny lunch. It was full of magnificent indifference. You could bang your twopence for a small coffee, or luxuriate in steak and kidney pie, boiled (i.e.potatoes), stewed prunes and cream, and be served with the difference of interest that the recording angel may make between No. 1,000,000 and 1,000,001. You were seldom looked at, and, if looked at, forgotten. It was as blatant as the 'Rosebud' had been discreet. Painted pale blue, it flaunted a plate glass window full of cakes, packets of tea, pounds of chocolate, jars of sweets; some imitation chops garnished with imitation parsley, and a chafing dish full of stage eggs and bacon held out the promise of strong meats. Enormous urns, polished like silver, could be seen from the outside emitting clouds of steam; under the chafing dish too came up vaporous jets.
Inside, the P.R.R. recalled the wilderness and the animation of a bank. To the blue and red tesselated floor were fastened many marble-topped tables squeezed so close together that when a customer rose to leave he created an eddy among his disturbed fellows. The floor was swamped with chairs which, during the lunch hour, dismally grated on the tiled floor. It was clean; for, after every burst of feeding, the appointed scavenger swept the fallen crusts, fragments of pudding, cigarette ends and bananaskins into a large bin. This bin was periodically emptied and the contents sent to the East End, whether to be destroyed or to be used for philanthropic purposes is not known.
The girls were trained to quick service here. Victoria found no difficulty in acquiring the P.R.R. swing, for she had not to memorise the variety of dishes which the more fastidious Rosebudders demanded. Her mental load seldom went beyond small teas, a coffee or two, half a veal and ham pie, sandwiches and porridge. There was no considering the bill of fare. It stood on every table, immutable as a constitution and as dull. At the P.R.R., a man absorbed a maximum of stodgy food, paid his minimum of cash and vanished into an office to pour out the resultant energy for thirty bob a week. As there were no tips Victoria soon learned that courtesy was wasted, so wasted none.
The P.R.R. did not treat its girls badly—in this sense, that it treated them no worse than its rivals did theirs; it practised commercial morality. Victoria received eight shillings a week, to which good Samaritans added an average of fourteen pence, dropped anonymously into the unobtrusive box near the cash desk. At the 'Rosebud' tips averaged fourteen shillings a week, but then they were given publicly.
Besides her wages she was given all her meals, on a scale suited to girls who waited on Mr Thirty Bob a Week. Her breakfast was tea, bread and margarine; her dinner, cold pudding or pie, according to the unpopularity of the dishes among the customers, washed down once more with tea and sometimes followed by stewed fruit if the quantity that remained made it clear that some would be left over. The day ended with supper, tea, bread and cheese—a variety of Cheddar which the company bought by the ton on account of its peculiar capacityfor swelling and producing a very tolerable substitute for repletion.
As Victoria was now paid less than half her former wages she was expected to work longer hours. The P. R. R. demanded faithful service from half-past eight in the morning to nine in the evening, except on one day when freedom was earned at six. Victoria was driven to generalise a little about this; it struck her as peculiar that an increase of work should synchronise with a decrease of pay, but the early steps in any education always fill the pupil with wonderment.
Yet she did not repine, for she remembered too well the black days of the old year when the wolf slunk round the house, coming every day nearer to her door. She had beaten him off and there still was joy in the thought of that victory. Her frame of mind was quiescent, tempered still with a feeling of relief. This she shared with her companions, for every one of them had known such straits as hers and worse. They had come back to the P. R. R. filled with exceeding joy; craving bread they had been given buns.
The Moorgate P. R. R. was a big depot. It boasted, in addition to the ground floor, two smoking rooms, one on the first floor and one underground, as well as a ladies' dining-room on the second floor. It had a staff of twenty waitresses, six of whom were stationed in the underground smoking-room; Victoria was one of these. A virile manageress dominated them and drove with splendid efficiency a concealed kitchen team of four who sweated in the midst of steam in an underground stokehole.
Victoria's companions were all old P. R's except Betty. They all had anything between two and five years' service behind them. Nelly, a big raw boned country girl, was still assertive and loud; she had good looks of the kind that last up to thirty, made upof fine coarse healthy flesh lines, tending to redden at the nostrils and at the ears; her hands were shapely still, though reddened and thickened by swabbing floors and tables. Maud was a poor little thing, small boned with a flaccid covering of white flesh, inclined to quiver a little when she felt unhappy; her eyes were undecidedly green, her hair carroty in the extreme. She had a trick of drawing down the corners of her mouth which made her look pathetic. Amy and Jenny were both short and darkish, inclined to be thin, always a little tired, always willing, always in a state neither happy nor unhappy. Both had nearly five years' experience and could look forward to another fifteen or so. They had no assertiveness, so could not aspire to a managerial position, such as might eventually fall to the share of Nelly.
Betty was an exception. She had not acquired the P. R. R. manner and probably never would. The daughter of a small draper at Horley, she had lived through a happy childhood, played in the fields, been to a little private school. Her father had strained every nerve to face on the one hand the competition of the London stores extending octopus-like into the far suburbs, on the other that of the pedlars. Caught between the aristocracy and the democracy of commerce he had slowly been ground down. When Betty was seventeen he collapsed through worry and overwork. His wife attempted to carry on the business after his death, bravely facing the enemy, discharging assistants, keeping the books, impressing Betty to dress the window, then to clean the shop. But the pressure had become too great, and on the day when the mortgagees foreclosed she died. Nothing was left for Betty except the clothes she stood in. Some poor relatives in London induced her to join the 'Lethe.' That was three years ago and now she was twenty.
Betty was the tall slim girl into whose breast Victoria had thrust her elbow when they were fighting for bread among the crowd which surged round the door of the Princes Street depot. She was pretty, perhaps a little too delicately so. Her sandy hair and wide open china blue eyes made one think of a doll; but the impression disappeared when one looked at her long limbs, her slightly sunken cheeks. She had a sweet disposition, so gentle that, though she was a favourite, her fellows despised her a little and were inclined to call her 'poor Betty.' She was nearly always tired; when she was well she was full of simple and honest merriment. She would laugh then if a motor bus skidded or if she saw a Highlander in a kilt. She had just been shifted to the Moorgate Street P.R.R. From the first the two girls had made friends and Victoria was deeply glad to meet her again. The depth of that gladness is only known to those who have lived alone in a hostile world.
'Betty,' said Victoria the first morning, 'there's something I want to say. I've had it on my mind. Do you remember the first time we met outside the old P.R. in Princes Street?'
'Don't I?' said Betty. 'We had a rough time, didn't we?'
'We had. And, Betty, perhaps you remember . . . I hit you in the chest. I've thought of it so often . . . and you don't know how sorry I am when I think of it.'
'Oh, I didn't mind,' said Betty, a blush rising to her forehead, 'I understand. I was about starving, you know, I thought you were the same.'
'No, not starving exactly,' said Victoria, 'mad rather, terrified, like a sheep which the dog's driving. But I beg your pardon, Betty, I oughtn't to have done it.'
Betty put her hand gently on her companion's.
'I understand, Vic,' she said, 'it's all over now; we're friends, aren't we?'
Victoria returned the pressure. That day established a tender link between these two. Sometimes, in the slack of three o'clock, they would sit side by side for a moment, their shoulders touching. When they met between the tables, running, their foreheads beaded with sweat, they exchanged a smile.
The customers at the P.R.R. were so many that Victoria could hardly retain an impression of them. A few were curious though, in the sense that they were typical. One corner of the room was occupied during the lunch hour by a small group of chess players; five of the six boards were regularly captured by them. They sat there in couples, their eyes glued to the board, allowing the grease to cake slowly on their food; from time to time one would swallow a mouthful, sometimes dropping morsels on the table. These he would brush away dreamily, his thoughts far away, two or three moves ahead. Round each table sat a little group of spectators who now and then shifted their plates and cups from table to table and watched the games. At times, when a game ended, a table was involved in a fierce discussion: gambits, Morphy's classical games, were thrown about. On the other side of the room the young domino-players noisily played matador, fives and threes, or plain matching, would look round and mutter a gibe at the enthusiasts.
Others were more personal. One, a repulsive individual, Greek or Levantine, patronised one of Betty's tables every day. He was fat, yellow and loud; over his invariably dirty hands drooped invariably dirty cuffs; on one finger he wore a large diamond ring.
'It makes me sick sometimes,' said Betty to Victoria, 'you know he eats with both hands and drops his food; he snuffles too, as he eats, like a pig.'
Another was an old man with a beautiful thin brown face and white hair. He sat at a very smalltable, so small that he was usually alone. Every day he ordered dry toast, a glass of milk and some stewed fruit. He never read or smoked, nor did he raise his eyes from the table. An ancient bookkeeper perhaps, he lived on some principle.
Most of the P. R. R. types were scheduled however. They were mainly young men or boys between fifteen and twenty. All were clad in blue or dark suits, wore flannel shirts, dickeys and no cuffs. They would congregate in noisy groups, talk with furious energy, and smoke Virginia cigarettes with an air of daredevilry. Now and then one of these would be sitting alone, reading unexpected papers such as theTimes, borrowed from the office. Spasmodically, too, one would be seen improving his mind. Victoria, within six months, noticed three starts on the part of one of the boys; French, book-keeping and electrical engineering.
Many were older than these. There were little groups of young men rather rakishly but shabbily dressed; often they wore a flower in their buttonhole. The old men were more pathetic; their faces were expressionless; they came to eat, not to feast.
Victoria and Betty had many conversations about the customers. Every day Victoria felt her faculty of wonder increase; she was vaguely conscious already that men had a tendency to revert to types, but she did not realise the influence the conditions of their lives had upon them.
'It's curious,' she once said to Betty, as they left the depot together, 'they're so much alike.'
'I suppose they are,' said Betty. 'I wonder why?'
'I'm not sure,' said Victoria, 'but it seems to me somehow that they must be born different but that they become alike because they do the same kind of work.'
'It's rather awful, isn't it,' said Betty.
'Awful? Well, I suppose it is. Think of it,Betty. There's old Dry Toast, for instance. I'm sure he's been doing whatever he does do for thirty or forty years.'
'And'll go on doing it till he dies,' murmured Betty.
'Or goes into the workhouse,' added Victoria. A sudden and horrible lucidity had come over her. 'Yes, Betty, that's what it means. The boys are going to be like the old man; we see them every day becoming like him. First they're in the twenties and are smart and read the sporting news; then they seem to get fat and don't shave every day, because they feel it's getting late and it doesn't matter what they look like; their hair grows grey, they take up chess or German, or something equally ridiculous. They don't get a chance. They're born and as soon as they can kick they're thrust in an office to do the same thing every day. Nobody cares; all their employers want them to do is to be punctual and do what they're paid thirty bob a week for. Soon they don't try; they die, and the employers fill the billet.'
'How do you know all this, Vic?' said Betty, eyeing her fearfully. 'It seems so true.'
'Oh, I just felt it suddenly, besides . . .' Victoria hesitated.
'But is it right that they should get thirty bob a week all their lives while their employers are getting thousands?' asked Betty, full of excitement.
'I don't know,' said Victoria slowly. Betty's voice had broken the charm. She could no longer see the vision.
Thedays passed away horribly long. Victoria was now an automaton; she no longer felt much of sorrow or of joy. Her home life had been reduced to a minimum, for she could no longer afford the luxury of 'chambers in the West End' as Betty put it. She had moved to Finsbury; where she had found a large attic for three shillings a week, in a house which had fallen from the state of mansion for a City merchant to that of tenement dwelling. For the first time since she returned to London she had furnished her own room. She had bought out the former tenant for one pound. For this sum she had entered into possession of an iron bedstead with a straw mattress, a thick horse cloth, an iron washstand supplied with a blue basin and a white mug, an old armchair and red curtains. She had no sheets, which meant discomfort but saved washing. A chair had cost her two shillings; she needed no cupboard as there was one in the wall; in lieu of a chest of drawers she had her trunk; her few books were stacked on a shelf made out of the side of a packing case and erected by herself. She got water from the landing every morning except when the taps were frozen. There was no fireplace in the attic, but in the present state of Victoria's income this did not matter much.
Every morning she rose at seven, washed, dressed. As time went on she ceased to dust and sweep every morning. First she postponed the work to the evening, then to the week end. On Sundays shebreakfasted off a stale loaf bought among the roar of Farrington Street the previous evening. A little later she introduced a spirit lamp for tea; it was a revolution, even though she could never muster enough energy to bring in milk.
After the first flush of possession, the horrible gloom of winter had engulfed her. Sometimes she sat and froze in the attic, and, in despair, went to bed after vainly trying to read Shakespeare by the light of a candle: he did not interest her much. At other times the roaring streets, the flares in the brown fog, the trams hurtling through the air, their headlights blazing, had frightened her back to her home. On Sundays, after luxuriating in bed until ten, she usually went to meet Betty who lived in a club in Soho. Together they would walk in the parks, or the squares, wherever grass grew. At one o'clock Betty would introduce her as a guest at her club and feast her for eightpence on roast beef and pudding, tea, and bread and butter. Then they would start out once more towards the fields, sometimes towards Hampstead Heath, or if it rained seek refuge in a museum or a picture gallery. When they parted in the evening, Victoria kissed her affectionately. Betty would then hold the elder woman in her arms, hungrily almost, and softly kiss her again.
The only thing that parted these two at all was the mystery which Betty guessed at. She knew that Victoria was not like the other girls; she felt that there was behind her friend's present condition a past of another kind, but when she tried to question Victoria, she found that her friend froze up. And as she loved her this was a daily grief; she looked at Victoria with a question in her eyes. But Victoria would not yield to the temptation of confiding in her; she had adopted a new class and was not going back on it.
Besides Betty there was no one in her life. Noneof the other girls were able to meet her on congenial ground; Beauty had not got her address; and, though she had his, she was too afraid of complicating her life to write to him. She had sent her address to Edward as a matter of form, but he had not written; apparently her desire for freedom had convinced him that his sister was mad. None of the men at the P.R.R. had made any decided advances to her. She could still catch every day a glitter in the eye of some youth, but her maturity discouraged the boys, and the older men were mostly too deeply sunk in their feeding and smoking to attempt gallantry. Besides: Victoria was no longer the cream-coloured flower of olden days; she was thinner; her hands too were becoming coarse owing to her having to swab tables and floors; much standing and the fetid air of the smoking-room were making her sallow.
Soon after Victoria entered into possession of her 'station' she knew most of her customers, knew them, that is, as much as continual rushes from table to counter, from floor to floor, permits. The casuals, mostly young, left no impression; lacking money but craving variety these youths would patronise every day a different P.R.R., for they hoped to find in a novel arrangement of the counter, a new waitress, larger or smaller quarters, the element of variety which the bill of fare relentlessly denied them. The older men were more faithful if no more grateful. One of them was a short thin man, looking about forty, who for some hidden reason had aroused Victoria's faded interest. His appearance was somewhat peculiar. His shortness, combined with his thinness and breadth, was enough to attract attention. Standing hardly any more than five foot five, he had disproportionately broad shoulders, and yet they were so thin that the bones showed bowed at the back. Better fed, he would have been a bulky man. His hair was dark, streaked with grey; and, as it wasgetting very thin and beginning to recede, he gave the impression of having a very high forehead. His eyes were grey, set rather deep under thick eyebrows drawn close together into a permanent frown. Under his rather coarse and irregular nose his mouth showed closely compressed, almost lipless; a curious muscular distortion had tortured into it a faint sneer. His hands were broad, a little coarse and very hairy.
Victoria could not say why she was interested in this man. He had no outward graces, dressed poorly and obviously brushed his coat but seldom; his linen, too, was not often quite clean. Immediately on sitting down at his usual table he would open a book, prop it up against the sugar bowl, and begin to read. His books did not tell Victoria much; in two months she noted a few books she did not know,News from Nowhere,Fabian Essays,The Odyssey, and a book with a long title the biggest printed word of which wasNiestzeorNiesche.Victoria could never remember this word, even though her customer read the book every day for over a month.The Odysseyshe had heard of, but that did not tell her anything.
She had found out his name accidentally. One day he had brought down three books and had put two under his seat while he read the third. Soon after he had left, reading still while he went up the stairs. Victoria found the books under the chair. One was aLife of William Morris, the other theVindication of the Rights of Women. On the flyleaf of each was written in bold letter. 'Thomas Farwell.'
Victoria could not resist glancing at the books during her half hour for lunch. TheLife of William Morrisshe did not attempt, remembering her experiences at school with 'Lives' of any kind: they were all dull. Marie Wollstonecraft's book seemed more interesting, but she seemed to have to wade through so much that she had never heard of and to have toface a style so crabbed and congested that she hardly understood it. Yet, something in the book interested her, and it was regretfully that she handed the volumes back to Farwell when he called for them at half-past six. He thanked her in half a dozen words and left.
Farwell continued regular in his attendance. He came in on the stroke of one, left at half-past one exactly, lighting his pipe as he got up. He never spoke to anyone; when Victoria stood before his table he looked at her for a moment, gave his order and cast his eyes down to his book.
It was about three weeks after the incident of the books that he spoke to Victoria. As he took up the bill of fare he said suddenly:
'Did you read theVindication?'
'I did glance through it,' said Victoria, feeling, she did not know why, acutely uncomfortable.
'Ah? interesting, isn't it? Pity it's so badly written. What do you think of it?'
'Well, I hardly know,' said Victoria reflectively; 'I didn't have time to read much; what I read seemed true.'
'You think that a recommendation, eh?' said Farwell, his lips parting slightly. 'I'd have thought you saw enough truth about life here to like lies.'
'No,' said Victoria, 'I don't care for lies. The nastier a thing is, the better everybody should know it; then one day people will be ashamed.'
'Oh, an optimist!' sniggered Farwell. 'Bless you, my child. Give me fillets of plaice, small white and cut.'
For several days after this Farwell took no notice of Victoria. He gave his order and opened his book as before. Victoria made no advances. She had talked him over with Betty, who had advised her to await events.
'You never know,' she had remarked, as a clinching argument.
A day or two later Victoria was startled by Farwell's arrival at half-past six. This had never happened before. The smoking-room was almost empty, as it was too late for teas and a little too early for suppers. Farwell sat down at his usual table and ordered a small tea. As Victoria returned with the cup he took out a book from under two others and held it out.
'Look here,' he said a little nervously. 'I don't know whether you're busy after hours, but perhaps you might like to read this.' The wrinkles in his forehead expanded and dilated a little.
'Oh, thank you so much. I would like to read it,' said Victoria with the ring of earnestness in her voice. She took the book; it was a battered copy ofNo. 5 John Street.
'No. 5? What a queer title,' she said.
'Queer? not at all,' said Farwell. 'It only seems queer to you because it is natural and you're not used to that. You're a number in the P.R.R. aren't you? Just like the house you live in. And you're just number so and so; so am I. When we die fate shoves up the next number and it all begins over again.'
'That doesn't sound very cheerful, does it?' said Victoria.
'It isn't cheerful. It's merely a fact.'
'I suppose it is,' said Victoria. 'Nobody is ever missed.'
Farwell looked at her critically. The platitude worried him a little; it was unexpected.
'Yes, exactly,' he stammered. 'Anyhow, you read it and let me know what you think of it.' Thereupon he took up another book and began to read.
When he had gone Victoria showed her prize to Betty.
'You're getting on,' said Betty with a smile. 'You'll be Mrs Farwell one of these days, I suppose.'
'Don't be ridiculous, Betty,' snapped Victoria, 'why, I'd have to wash him.'
'You might as well wash a husband as a dish,' said Betty smoothly. 'Anyhow, the other girls are talking.'
'Let them talk,' said Victoria rather savagely, 'so long as they don't talk to me.'
Betty took her hand gently.
'Sorry, Vic dear,' she said. 'You're not angry with me, are you?'
'No, of course not, you silly,' said Victoria laughing. 'There run away, or that old gent at the end'll take a fit.'
Farwell did not engage her in conversation for a few days, nor did she make any advances to him. She read throughNo. 5 John Streetwithin three evenings; it held her with a horrible fascination. Her first plunge into realistic literature left her shocked as by a cold bath. In the early days, at Lympton, she had subsisted mainly on Charlotte Young and Rhoda Broughton. In India, the mess having a subscription at Mudie's, she had had good opportunities of reading; but, for no particular reason, except perhaps that she was newly married and busy with regimental nothings, she had ceased to read anything beyond theSketchand theSporting and Dramatic. Thus she had never heard of the 'common people' except as persons born to minister to the needs of the rich. She had never felt any interest in them, for they spoke a language that was not hers.No. 5 John Street, coming to her a long time after the old happy days, when she herself was struggling in the mire, was a horrible revelation; it showed her herself, and herself not as 'Tilda towering over fate but as Nancy withering in the indiarubber works for the benefit of the Ridler system.
She read feverishly by the light of a candle. At times she was repelled by the vulgarity of LowCovey, by the grossness which seemed to revel in poverty and dirt. But when she cast her eyes round her own bare walls, looked at her sheetless bed, a shiver ran over her.
'These are my people,' she said aloud. The candle, clamouring for the snuffers, guttered, sank low, nearly went out.
Shivering again before the omen, she trimmed the wick. She returned the book to Farwell by slipping it on the table next day. He took it without a word but returned at half past six as before.
'Well?' he asked with a faint smile.
'Thank you so much,' said Victoria. 'It's wonderful.'
'Wonderful indeed? Most commonplace, don't you think?'
'Oh, no,' said Victoria. 'It's extraordinary, it's like . . . like light.'
Farwell's eyes suddenly glittered.
'Ah,' he said dreamily, 'light! light in this, the outer darkness.'
Victoria looked at him, a question in her eyes.
'If only we could all see,' he went on. 'Then, as by a touch of a magician's wand, flowers would crowd out the thistles, the thistles that the asses eat and thank their God for. It is in our hands to make this the Happy Valley and we make it the Valley of the Shadow of Death.'
He paused for a moment. Victoria felt her pulse quicken.
'Yes,' she said, 'I think I understand. It's because we don't understand that we suffer. We're not cruel, are we? we're stupid.'
'Stupid?' A ferocious intonation had come into Farwell's voice. 'I should say so! Forty million men, women and children sweat their lives out day by day so that four million may live idly and become too heavy even to think. I could forgive them ifthey thought, but the world contains only two types: Lazarus with poor man's gout and Dives with fatty degeneration of the brain.'
Victoria felt nervous. Passion shook the man's hands as he clutched the marble top of the table.
'Mr Farwell,' she faltered, 'I don't want to be stupid. I want to understand things. I want to know why we slave twelve hours a day when others do nothing and, oh, can it be altered?'
Farwell had started at the mention of his name. His passion had suddenly fallen.
'Altered? oh, yes,' he stammered, 'that's if the race lasts long enough. 'Sometimes I think, as I see men struggling to get on top of one another, like crabs in a bucket . . . Like crabs in a bucket,' he repeated dreamily, visualising the simile. 'But I cannot draw men from stones,' he said smiling; 'it is not yet time for Deucalion. I'll bring you another book to-morrow.'
Farwell rose abruptly and left Victoria singularly stirred. He was a personality, she felt; something quite unusual. He was less a man than a figment, for he seemed top heavy almost. He concentrated the hearer's attention so much on his spoken thought that his body passed unperceived, receded into the distance.
While Victoria was changing to go, the staff room somehow seemed darker and dirtier than ever. It was seldom swept and never cleaned out. The management had thoughtfully provided nothing but pegs and wooden benches, so as to discourage lounging. Victoria was rather late, so that she found herself alone with Lizzie, the cashier. Lizzie was red-haired, very curly, plump, pink and white. A regular little spark. She was very popular; her green eyes and full curved figure often caused a small block at the desk.
'You look tired,' she said good-naturedly.
'I suppose I am,' said Victoria. 'Aren't you?'
'So so. Don't mind my job.'
'Mm, I suppose it isn't so bad sitting at the desk.'
'No,' said Lizzie, 'pays too.'
'Pays?'
Lizzie flushed and hesitated. Then the desire to boast burst its bonds. She must tell, she must. It didn't matter after all. A craving for admiration was on her.
'Tell you what,' she whispered. 'I get quite two and a kick a week out of that job.'
Victoria's eyebrows went up.
'You know,' went on Lizzie, 'the boys look at me a bit.' She simpered slightly. 'Well, once one of them gave me half a bar with a bob check. He was looking at me in the eye, well! that mashed, I can tell you he looked like a boiled fish. Sort of inspiration came over me.' She stopped.
'Well?' asked Victoria, feeling a little nervous.
'Well . . . I . . . I gave him one half crown and three two bob pieces. Smiled at him. He boned the money quick enough, wanted to touch my hand you see. Never saw it.'
Victoria thought for a moment. 'Then you gave him eight and six instead of nine shillings?'
'You've hit it. Bless you,henever knew. Mashed, I can tellyou.'
'Then you did him out of sixpence?'
'Right. Comes off once in three. Say "sorry" when I'm caught and smile and it's all right. Never try it twice on the same man.'
'I call that stealing,' said Victoria coldly.
'You can call it what you like,' snarled Lizzie. 'Everything's stealing. What's business? getting a quid for what costs you a tanner. I'm putting a bit extra on my wages.'
Victoria shrugged her shoulders. She might have argued with Lizzie as she had once argued with Gertie, but the vague truth that lurked in Lizzie'seconomics had deprived her of argument. Could theft sometimes be something else than theft? Were all things theft? And above all, did the acceptance of a woman's hand as bait justify the hooking of a sixpence?
As Victoria left for home that night she felt restless. She could not go to bed so soon. She walked through the silent city lanes; meeting nothing, save now and then a cat on the prowl, or a policeman trying doors and flashing his bull's eye through the gratings of banks. The crossing at Mansion House was still busy with the procession of omnibuses converging at the feet of the Duke of Wellington. Drays, too heavily loaded, rumbled slowly past towards Liverpool Street. She turned northwards, walked quickly through the desert. At Liverpool Street station she stopped in the blaze of light. A few doors away stood a shouting butcher praying the passers-by to buy his pretty meat. Further: a fishmonger's stall, an array of glistening black shapes on white marble, a tobacconist, a jeweller—all aglow with coruscating light. And over all, the blazing light of arc lamps, under which an unending stream of motor cabs, lorries, omnibuses passed in kaleidoscopic colours. In the full glare of a lamp post stood a woman, her feet in the gutter. She was short, stunted, dirty and thin of face and body. Round her wretched frame a filthy black coat was tightly buttoned; her muddy skirt seemed almost falling from her shrunken hips. Crushed on her sallow face, hiding all but a few wisps of hair, was a battered black straw hat. With one arm she carried a child, thin of face too, and golden-haired. On its upper lip a crusted sore gleamed red and brown. In her other hand she held out a tin lid, in which were five boxes of matches.
Victoria looked at the silent watcher and passed on. A few minutes later she remembered her and a fearful flood of insight rushed upon her. The child? Thenthis, this creature had known love? A man had kissed those shrivelled lips. Something like a thrill of disgust ran through her. That such things as these could love and mate and bear children was unspeakable; the very touch of them was loathsome, their love akin to unnatural vice.
As she walked further into Shoreditch the impression of horror grew on her. It was not that the lanes and little streets abutting into the High Street were full of terrors when pitch dark, or more sinister still in the pale yellow light of a single gas lamp; the High Street itself, filled with men and women, most of them shabby, some loudly dressed in crude colours, shouting, laughing, jostling one another off the footpath was more terrible, for its joy of life was brutal as the joy of the pugilist who feels his opponent's teeth crunch under his fist.
At a corner, near a public house blazing with lights, a small crowd watched two women who were about to fight. They had not come to blows yet; their duel was purely Homeric. Victoria listened with greedy horror to the terrible recurrence of half a dozen words.
A child squirmed through the crowd, crying, and caught one of the fighters by her skirt.
'Leave go . . . I'll rive the guts out 'o yer.'
With a swing of the body the woman sent the child flying into the gutter. Victoria hurried from the spot. She made towards the West now, between the gin shops, the barrows under their blazing naphtha lamps. She was afraid, horribly afraid.
Sitting alone in her attic, her hands crossed before her, questions intruded upon her. Why all this pain, this violence, by the side of life's graces? Could it be that one went with the other, indissolubly? And could it be altered before it was too late, before the earth was flooded, overwhelmed with pain?
She slipped into bed and drew the horsecloth over her ears. The world was best shut out.
Thomas Farwellcollected three volumes from his desk, two pamphlets and a banana. It was six o'clock and, the partners having left, he was his own master half an hour earlier than usual.
'You off?' said the junior from the other end of the desk.
'Yes. Half an hour to the good.'
'What's the good of half an hour,' said the youth superciliously.
'No good unless you think it is, like everything else,' said Farwell. 'Besides, I may be run over by half past six.'
'Cheerful as ever,' remarked the junior, bending his head down to the petty cash balance.
Farwell took no notice of him. Ten times a day he cursed himself for wasting words upon this troglodyte. He was a youth long as a day's starvation, with a bulbous forehead, stooping narrow shoulders and narrow lips; his shape resembled that of an old potato. He peered through his glasses with watery eyes hardly darker than his grey face.
'Good night,' said Farwell curtly.
'Cheer, oh!' said the junior.
Farwell slammed the door behind him. He felt inclined to skip down the stairs, not that anything particularly pleasant had happened but because the bells of St Botolph's were pealing out a chime of freedom. It was six. He had nothing to do. Thebest thing was to go to Moorgate Street and take the books to Victoria. On second thoughts, no, he would wait. Six o'clock might still be a busy time.
Farwell walked down the narrow lane from Bishopsgate into St. Botolph's churchyard. It was a dank and dreary evening, dark already. The wind swept over the paths in little whirlwinds. Dejected sparrows sought scraps of food among the ancient graves where office boys munch buns and read of woodcarving and desperate adventure. He sat down on a seat by the side of a shape that slept, and opened one of the books, though it was too dark to read. The shape lifted an eyelid and looked at him.
Farwell turned over the pages listlessly. It was a history of revolutionists. For some reason he hated them to-day, all of them. Jack Cade was a boor, Cromwell a tartuffe, Bolivar a politician, Mazzini a theorist. It would bore Victoria.
Farwell brought himself up with a jerk. He was thinking of Victoria too often. As he was a man who faced facts he told himself quite plainly that he did not intend to fall in love with her. He did not feel capable of love; he hated most people, but did not believe that a good hater was a good lover.
'Clever, of course,' he muttered, 'but no woman is everlastingly clever. I won't risk finding her out.'
The shape at his side moved. It was an old man, filthy, clad in blackened rags, with a matted beard. Farwell glanced at him and turned away.
'I'd have you poisoned if I could,' he thought. Then he returned to Victoria. Was she worth educating? And supposing she was educated, what then? She would become discontented, instead of brutalised. The latter was the happier state. Or she would fall in love with him, when he would give her short shrift. What a pity. A tiny wave of sentiment flowed into Farwell's soul.
'Clever, clever,' he thought, 'a little house, babies, roses, a fox terrier.'
'Gov'nor,' croaked a hoarse voice beside him.
Farwell turned quickly. The shape was alive, then, curse it.
'Well, what d'you want?'
'Give us a copper, gov'nor, I'm an old man, can't work. S'elp me, Gawd, gov'nor, 'aven't 'ad a bite. . . .'
'That'll do, you fool,' snarled Farwell, 'why the hell don't you go and get it in gaol?'
'Yer don't mean that, gov'nor, do yer?' whined the old man, 'I always kep my self respectable; 'ere, look at these 'ere testimonials, gov'nor, . . .' He drew from his coat a disgusting object, a bundle of papers tied together with string.
'I don't want to see them,' said Farwell. 'I wouldn't employ you if I could. Why don't you go to the workhouse?'
The old man almost bridled.
'Why? Because you're a stuck up. D'you hear? You're proud of being poor. That's about as vulgar as bragging because you're rich. If you and all the likes of you went into the House, you'd reform the system in a week. Understand?'
The old man's eyes were fixed on the speaker, uncomprehending.
'Better still, go and throw any bit of dirt you pick up at a policeman,' continued Farwell. 'See he gets it in the mouth. You get locked up. Suppose a million of the likes of you do the same, what d'you think happens?'
'I dunno,' said the old man.
'Well, your penal system is bust. If you offend the law you're a criminal. But what's the law? the opinion of the majority. If the majority goes against the law, then the minority becomes criminal. The world's upside down.' Farwell smiled. 'The world's upside down,' he said softly, licking his lips.
'Give us a copper for a bed, guv'nor,' said the old man dully.
'What's the good of a bed to you?' exploded Farwell. 'Why don't you have a drink?'
'I'm a teetotaller, guv'nor; always kep' myself respectable.'
'Respectable! You're earning the wages of respectability, that is death,' said Farwell with a wolfish laugh. 'Why, man, can't you see you've been on the wrong tack? We don't want any more of you respectables. We want pirates, vampires. We want all this society of yours rotted by internal canker, so that we can build a new one. But we must rot it first. We aren't going to work on a sow's ear.'
'Give us a copper, guv'nor,' moaned the old man.
Farwell took out sixpence and laid it on the seat. 'Now then,' he said, 'you can have this if you'll swear to blow it in drink.'
'I will, s'elp me Gawd,' said the old man eagerly.
Farwell pushed the coin towards him.
'Take it, teetotaller,' he sneered, 'your respectable system of bribery has bought you for sixpence. Now let me see you go into that pub.'
The old man clutched the sixpence and staggered to his feet. Farwell watched the swing doors of the public bar at the end of the passage close behind him. Then he got up and walked away; it was about time to go to Moorgate Street.
As he entered the smoking-room, Victoria blushed. The man moved her, stimulated her. When she saw him she felt like a body meeting a soul. He sat down at his usual place. Victoria brought him his tea, and laid it before him without a word. Nelly, lolling in another corner, kicked the ground, looking away insolently from the elaborate wink of one of the scullions.
'Here, read these,' said Farwell, pushing two of the books across the table. Victoria picked them up.
'Looking Backwards?' she said. 'Oh, I don't want to do that. It's forward I want to go.'
'A laudable sentiment,' sneered Farwell, 'the theory of every Sunday School in the country, and the practice of none. However, you'll find it fairly soul-filling as an unintelligent anticipation. Personally I prefer the other.Demosis good stuff, for Gissing went through the fire.'
Victoria quickly walked away. Farwell looked surprised for a second, then saw the manageress on the stairs.
'Faugh,' he muttered, 'if the world's a stage I'm playing the part of a low intriguer.'
He sipped his tea meditatively. In a few minutes Victoria returned.
'Thank you,' she whispered. 'It's good of you. You're teaching me to live.'
Farwell looked at her critically.
'I don't see much good in that,' he said, 'unless you've got something to live for. One of our philosophers says you live either for experience or the race. I recommend the former to myself, and to you nothing.'
'Why shouldn't I live for anything?' she asked.
'Because life's too dear. And its pleasures are not white but piebald.'
'I understand,' said Victoria, 'but I must live.'
'Je n'en vois pas la nécessité,' quoted Farwell smiling. 'Never mind what that means,' he added, 'I'm only a pessimist.'
The next few weeks seemed to create in Victoria a new personality. Her reading was so carefully selected that every line told. Farwell knew the hundred best books for a working girl; he had a large library composed mostly of battered copies squeezed out of his daily bread. Victoria's was the appetite of a gorgon. In another month she had absorbedOdd Women,An Enemy of the People,TheDoll's House,Alton Locke, and a translation ofGerminal. Every night she read with an intensity which made her forget that March chilled her to the bone; poring over the book, her eyes a few inches from the candle, she soaked in rebellion. When the cold nipped too close into her she would get up and wrap herself in the horsecloth and read with savage application, rushing to the core of the thought. She was no student, so she would skip a hard word. Besides, in those moods, when the spirit bounds in the body like a caged bird, words are felt, not understood.
Betty was still hovering round her, a gentle presence. She knew what was going on and was frightened. A new Victoria was rising before her, a woman very charming still, but extraordinary, incomprehensible. Often Victoria would snub her savagely, then take her hand as they stood together at the counter bawling for food and drink. And as Victoria grew hard and strong, Betty worshipped her more as she would have worshipped a strong man.
Yet Betty was not happy. Victoria lived now in a state of excitement and hunger for solitude. She took no interest in things that Betty could understand. Their Sunday walks had been ruthlessly cut now and then, for the fury was upon Victoria when eating the fruits of the tree. When they were together now Victoria was preoccupied; she no longer listened to the club gossip, nor did she ask to be told once more the story of Betty's early days.
'Do you know you're sweated?' she said suddenly one day.
Betty's eyes opened round and blue.
'Sweated,' she said. 'I thought only people in the East End were sweated.'
'The world's one big East End,' snapped Victoria.
Betty shivered. Farwell might have said that.
'You're sweated if you get two pounds a week,'continued Victoria. 'You're sweated when you buy a loaf, sweated when you ride in a bus, sweated when they cremate you.'
'I don't understand,' said Betty.
'All profits are sweated,' quoted Victoria from a pamphlet.
'But people must make profits,' protested Betty.
'What for?' asked Victoria.
'How are people to live unless they make profits?' said Betty. 'Aren't our wages profits?'
Victoria was nonplussed for a moment and became involved. 'No, our wages are only wages; profit is the excess over our wages.'
'I don't understand,' said Betty.
'Never mind,' said Victoria, 'I'll ask Mr Farwell; he'll make it clear.'
Betty shot a dark blue glance at her.
'Vic,' she said softly, 'I think Mr Farwell. . . .' Then she changed her mind. 'I can't, I can't,' she thought. She crushed the jealous words down and plunged.
'Vic, darling,' she faltered, 'I'm afraid you're not well. No, and not happy. I've been thinking of something; why shouldn't I leave the Club and come and live with you.'
Victoria looked at her critically for a moment. She thought of her independence, of this affection hovering round her, sweet, dangerously clinging. But Betty's blue eyes were wet.
'You're too good a pal for me, Betty,' she said in a low voice. 'I'd make you miserable.'
'No, no,' cried Betty impulsively. 'I'd love it, Vic dear, and you would go on reading and do what you like. Only let me be with you.'
Victoria's hand tightened on her friend's arm.
'Let me think, Betty dear,' she said.
Ten days later, Betty having won her point, the great move was to take place at seven o'clock. Itcertainly lacked solemnity. For three days preceding the great change Betty had hurried away from the P.R.R. on the stroke of nine, quickly kissing Victoria and saying she couldn't wait as she must pack. Clearly her wardrobe could not be disposed of in a twinkling. Yet, on moving day, at seven o'clock sharp (the carrier having been thoughtfully commanded to deliver at five) a tin trunk kept together by a rope, a tiny bath muzzled with a curtain, and a hat box loudly advertising somebody's tea, were dumped on the doorstep. The cart drove off leaving the two girls to make terms with a loafer. The latter compromised for fourpence, slammed their door behind him and lurched down the creaking stairs. Betty threw herself into Victoria's arms.
Those first days were sweet. Betty rejoiced like a lover in possession of a long-desired mistress; stripping off her blouse and looking very pretty, showing her white neck and slim arms, she strutted about the attic with a hammer in her hand and her mouth full of nails. It took an evening to hang the curtain which had muzzled the bath; Betty's art treasures, an oleograph of 'Bubbles' and another of 'I'se Biggest,' were cunningly hung by Victoria so that she could not see them on waking up.
Betty was active now as a will o' the wisp. She invented little feasts, expensive Sunday suppers of fried fish and chips, produced a basket of oranges at three a penny; thanks to her there was now milk with the tea. In a moment of enthusiasm Victoria heard her murmur something about keeping a cat. In fact the only thing that marred her life at all was Victoria's absorption in her reading. Often Betty would go to bed and stay awake, watching Victoria at the table, her fingers ravelling her hair, reading with an intentness that frightened her. She would watch Victoria and see her face grow paler, except at the cheeks where a flush would rise. A wild lookwould come into her eyes. Sometimes she would get up suddenly and, thrusting her hair out of her eyes, walk up and down muttering things Betty could not understand.
One night Betty woke up suddenly, and saw Victoria standing in the moonlight clad only in her nightgown. Words were surging from her lips.
'It's no good. . . . I can't go on. . . . I can't go on until I die or somebody marries me. . . . I won't marry: I won't do it. . . . Why should I sell myself? . . . at any rate why should I sell myself cheaply?'
There was a pause. Betty sat up and looked at her friend's wild face.
'What's it all mean after all? I'm only being used. Sucked dry like an orange. By and by they'll throw the peel away. Talk of brotherhood! . . . It's war, war . . . It's climbing and fighting to get on top . . . like crabs in a bucket, like crabs. . .'
'Vic,' screamed Betty.
Victoria started like a somnambulist aroused and looked at her vaguely.
'Come back to bed at once,' cried Betty with inspired firmness. Victoria obeyed. Betty drew her down beside her under the horsecloth and threw her arms round her; Victoria's body was cold as ice. Suddenly she burst into tears; and Betty, torn as if she saw a strong man weep, wept too. Closely locked in one another's arms they sobbed themselves to sleep.
Everyday now Victoria's brain grew clearer and her body weaker. A sullen spirit of revolt blended with horrible depression was upon her, but she was getting thinner, paler; dark rings were forming round her eyes. She knew pain now; perpetual weariness, twitchings in the ankles, stabs just above the knee. In horrible listlessness she dragged her weary feet over the tiled floor, responding to commands like the old cab horse which can hardly feel the whip. In this mood, growing churlish, she repulsed Betty, avoided Farwell and tried to seclude herself. She no longer walked Holborn or the Strand where life went by, but sought the mean and silent streets, where none could see her shamble or where none would care.
One night, when she had left at six, she painfully crawled home and up into the attic. At half-past nine the door opened and Betty came in; the room was in darkness, but something oppressed her; she went to the mantlepiece to look for the matches, her fingers trembling. For an eternity she seemed to fumble, the oppression growing; she felt that Victoria was in the room, and could only hope that she was asleep. With a great effort of her will she lit the candle before turning round. Then she gave a short sharp scream.
Victoria was lying across the bed dressed in her bodice and petticoat. She had tucked this up to her knees and taken off her stockings; her legs hung dead white over the edge. At her feet was the tin bath fullof water. Betty ran to the bed, choking almost, and clasped her friend round the neck. It was some seconds before she thought of wetting her face. After some minutes Victoria returned to consciousness and opened her eyes; she groaned slightly as Betty lifted up her legs and straightened her on the bed.
It was then that Betty noticed the singular appearance of Victoria's legs. They were covered with a network of veins, some narrow and pale blue in colour, others darker, protruding and swollen; on the left calf one of the veins stood out like a rope. The unaccustomed sight filled her with the horror bred of a mysterious disease. She was delicate, but had never been seriously ill; this sight filled her with physical repulsion. For her the ugliness of it meant foulness. For a moment she almost hated Victoria, but the sight of the tin bath full of water cut her to the heart; it told her that Victoria, maddened by mysterious pain, had tried to assuage it by bathing her legs in the cold water.
Little by little Victoria came round; she smiled at Betty.
'Did I faint, Betty dear?' she asked.
'Yes, dear. Are you better now?'
'Yes, I'm better; it doesn't hurt now.'
Betty could not repress a question.
'Vic,' she said, 'what is it?'
'I don't know,' said Victoria fearfully, then more cheerfully,
'I'm tired I suppose. I shall be all right to-morrow.'
Then Betty refused to let her talk any more, and soon Victoria slept by her side the sleep of exhaustion.
The next morning Victoria insisted upon going to the P. R. R. in spite of Betty suggesting a doctor.
'Can't risk losing my job,' she said laughing. 'Besides it doesn't hurt at all now. Look.'
Victoria lifted up her nightshirt. Her calves were again perfectly white and smooth; the thin networkof veins had sunk in again and showed blue under the skin. Alone one vein on the left leg seemed dark and angry. Victoria felt so well, however, that she agreed to meet Farwell at a quarter-past nine. This was their second expedition, and the idea of it was a stimulant. He went with her up to Finsbury Pavement and stopped at a small Italian restaurant.
'Come in here and have some coffee,' he said, 'they have waiters here; that'll be a change.'
Victoria followed him in. They sat at a marble topped table, flooded with light by incandescent gas. In the glare the waiters seemed blacker, smaller and more stunted than by the light of day. Their faces were pallid, with a touch of green: their hair and moustaches were almost blue black. Their energy was that of automata. Victoria looked at them, melting with pity.
'There's a life for you,' said Farwell interpreting her look. 'Sixteen hours' work a day in an atmosphere of stale food. For meals, plate scourings. For sleep and time to get to it, eight hours. For living, the rest of the day.'
'It's awful, awful,' said Victoria. 'They might as well be dead.'
'They will be soon,' said Farwell, 'but what does that matter? There are plenty of waiters. In the shadow of the olive groves to-night in far off Calabria, at the base of the vine-clad hills, couples are walking hand in hand, with passion flashing in their eyes. Brown peasant boys are clasping to their breast young girls with dark hair, white teeth, red lips, hearts that beat and quiver with ecstasy. They tell a tale of love and hope. So we shall not be short of waiters.'
'Why do you sneer at everything, Mr Farwell?' said Victoria. 'Can't you see anything in life to make it worth while?'
'No, I cannot say I do. The pursuit of a living debars me from the enjoyments that make livingworth while. But never mind me: I am over without having bloomed. I brought you here to talk of you, not of me.'
'Of me, Mr Farwell?' asked Victoria. 'What do you want to know?'
Farwell leant over the table, toyed with the sugar and helped himself to a piece. Then without looking at her:
'What's the matter with you, Victoria?' he asked.
'Matter with me? What do you mean?' said Victoria, too disturbed to notice the use of her Christian name.
The man scrutinised her carefully. 'You're ill,' he said. 'Don't protest. You're thin; there are purple pockets under your eyes; your underlip is twisted with pain, and you limp.'
Victoria felt a spasm of anger. There was still in her the ghost of vanity. But she looked at Farwell before answering; there was gentleness in his eyes.
'Well,' she said slowly, 'if you must know, perhaps there is something wrong. Pains.'
'Where?' he asked.
'In the legs,' she said after a pause.
'Ah, swellings?'
Victoria bridled a little. This man was laying bare something, tearing at a secret.
'Are you a doctor, Mr Farwell?' she asked coldly.
'That's all right,' he said roughly, 'it doesn't need much learning to know what's the matter with a girl who stands for eleven hours a day. Are the veins of your legs swollen?'
'Yes,' said Victoria with an effort. She was frightened; she forgot to resent this wrenching at the privacy of her body.
'Ah; when do they hurt?'
'At night. They're all right in the morning.'
'You've got varicose veins, Victoria. You must give up your job.'
'I can't,' whispered the girl hoarsely. 'I've got nothing else.'
'Exactly. Either you go on and are a cripple for life or you stop and starve. Yours is a disease of occupation, purely a natural consequence of your work. Perfectly normal, perfectly. It is undesirable to encourage laziness; there are girls starving to-day for lack of work, but it would never do to reduce your hours to eight. It would interfere with the P. R. R. dividends.'
Victoria looked at him without feeling.
'What am I to do?' she asked at length.
'Go to a hospital,' said Farwell. 'These institutions are run by the wealthy who pay two guineas a year ransom for a thousand pounds of profits and get in the bargain a fine sense of civic duty done. No doubt the directors of the P.R.R. contribute most generously.'
'I can't give up my job,' said Victoria dully.
'Perhaps they'll give you a stocking,' said Farwell, 'or sell it you, letting you pay in instalments so that you be not pauperised. This is called training in responsibility, also self-help.'
Victoria got up. She could bear it no longer. Farwell saw her home and made her promise to apply for leave to see the doctor. As the door closed behind her he stood still for some minutes on the doorstep, filling his pipe.
'Well, well,' he said at length, 'the Government might think of that lethal chamber—but no, that would never do, it would deplete the labour market and hamper the commercial development of the Empire.'
He walked away, a crackling little laugh floating behind him. The faint light of a lamp fell on his bowed head and shoulders, making him look like a Titan born a dwarf.
Two days later Victoria went to the Carew. Shehad never before set foot in a hospital. Such intercourse as she had had with doctors was figured by discreet interviews in dark studies filled with unspeakably ugly and reassuringly solid furniture. Those doctors had patted her hand, said she needed a little change or may be a tonic. At the Carew, fed as it is by the misery of two square miles of North East London, the revelation of pain was dazzling, apocalyptic. The sight of the benches crowded with women and children—some pale as corpses, others flushed with fever, some with faces bandaged or disfigured by sores—almost made her sick. They were packed in serried rows; the children almost all cried persistently, except here and there a baby, who looked with frightful fixity at the glazed roof. From all this chattering crowd of the condemned rose a stench of iodoform, perspiration, unwashed bodies, the acrid smell of poverty.
The little red-haired Scotch doctor dismissed Victoria's case in less than one minute.
'Varicose veins. Always wear a stocking. Here's your form. Settle terms at the truss office. Don't stand on your feet. Oh, what's your occupation?'
'Waitress at the P.R.R., Sir.'
'Ah, hum. You must give it up.'
'I can't, Sir.'
'It's your risk. Come again in a month.'
Victoria pulled up her stockings. Walking in a dream she went to the truss office where a man measured her calves. She felt numb and indifferent as to the exposure of her body. The man looked enquiringly at the left calf.
'V.H. for the left,' he called over his shoulder to the clerk.
At twelve o'clock she was in the P.R.R., revived by the familiar atmosphere. She even rallied one of the old chess players on a stroke of ill-luck. Towards four o'clock her ankles began to twitch.