V
Itwas two days later.
Florrie and Mrs. Woolley were talking in the kitchen. Elsie hung about in the diminutive passage, trying desperately to hear what they were saying. An awful intuition gripped her that they were talking of her.
Florrie’s voice was indistinct, almost inaudible, but snatched phrases rose occasionally from the angry monotone that was Mrs. Woolley’s.
“... My innocent children ... turn my back ... the gutter ... don’t you talk to me ... the gutter ... out of the gutter....”
Elsie tried wildly to persuade herself that Mrs. Woolley was abusing Florrie. Sometimes she lost her temper with her servants, and shouted at them.
On the evening that Mrs. Woolley had gone to see her friend Mrs. Williams, who was reported very ill, Elsie, in her best frock, had boldly gone into the surgery, where a fire blazed, and there was a sofa newly piled with cushions. On the table had been placed a bottle and glasses and a dish of biscuits. Doctor Woolley had locked the door behind her, in spite of Elsie’s half-meant protests, but at first he had been entirely jovial, using catch-phrases that had made her laugh, and drinking heartily.
She herself had begun to feel rather affronted and puzzled at his aloofness, before it suddenly came to an end.
The remembrance of her own surrender rather bewildered Elsie. She had never consciously made up her mind to it, but the doctor’s urgency, her own physical susceptibility, and an underlying, violent curiosity had proved far toostrong for her feeble defences, based on timidity and on the recollection of certain unexplained, and less-than-half-understood, arbitrary axioms laid down during her childhood by her mother.
She supposed that that one half-hour in the surgery had made “a bad girl” of her, but the aspect of the case that really preoccupied her was her terror that Mrs. Woolley should have found it out.
She felt sick with fright as the kitchen door opened, and, turning round, pretended to be looking for something in the housemaid’s closet under the stairs.
She heard Mrs. Woolley brush past her and go into the drawing-room, slamming the door violently behind her.
Elsie, her knees shaking, went upstairs to fetch Gladys and Sonnie and take them to their kindergarten.
She dawdled on the way back, being unwilling to go into the house again, and alternately hoping and dreading that the doctor would be at home for the midday meal.
At one o’clock, however, Mrs. Woolley and Elsie sat down without him.
Mrs. Woolley did not speak to Elsie. She kept on looking at her, and then looking away again. Her hard face was inscrutable, but Elsie noticed that her hands, manipulating her knife and fork, shook slightly. The doctor came in before the meal was over, jaunty and talkative.
“Hallo! Is this Wednesday, or Piccadilly, or what? Which I mean to say is, has the cold meat stage been passed and the rice pudding come on, or contrarywise?”
Elsie burst into nervous laughter, the strident sound of which caused the doctor to glance at her sharply, and Mrs. Woolley said:
“Nonsense, Herbert! The way you talk, sometimes! The girl has got your meat and vegetables keeping hot in the oven, and I’m sure you haven’t seen rice pudding at the table for a fortnight. There’s a nice piece of cheese on the side, too.”
The doctor ate in silence, voraciously, as he always did, and his wife presently said in a thin, vicious voice:
“Of course, you’ve nothing to say to your wife, Herbert.It’s easy enough to talk and be amusing with strangers, isn’t it?—but I suppose it isn’t worth while in your own home.”
“What’s up, Amy?” he growled. He did not look at Elsie, who found herself fixing apprehensive eyes on him, although she knew it was a betrayal.
“Why should anything be up, as you call it? But as it isn’t very amusing for me to sit here all day while you eat, and as I happen to be rather busy, strange though it may seem, I think I’ll ask you to excuse me.”
She turned her head towards Elsie, but spoke without looking at her. “I’ll thank you to come and find that paper pattern for Gladys’s smock. The child isn’t fit to be seen.”
Mrs. Woolley pushed Elsie out of the room in front of her, making it obvious that she meant her to have no opportunity of exchanging a look with the doctor.
Throughout the afternoon she never let the girl out of her sight until Elsie had actually left the house to go and fetch the two children from school.
It was abundantly evident that a crisis impended. The atmospheric tension affected everyone in the house, and Elsie, her nerves on edge, became frantic.
She said, immediately after supper, that she was tired, and should go to bed, and Mrs. Woolley laughed, shortly and sarcastically.
Elsie went up to her room and cried hysterically on her bed until Gladys woke and began to whine enquiries.
It seemed impossible, to Elsie’s inexperience, that the horrors of that day should repeat themselves, but the next one was Sunday, and brought its own miseries.
The doctor, who did not go to church as a rule, announced his intention of accompanying his family, and they set out, a constrained procession: Gladys, in tight black boots and with fair hair crimped round her shoulders, holding her father’s hand, Mrs. Woolley, walking just a little faster than was comfortable for Sonnie’s short legs, clutching the boy’s hand, and Elsie slouching a pace or two behind, cold and wretched.
At the bottom of the Crescent they met an elderly couplewho often came to see them, and whom Elsie knew well by name as Mr. and Mrs. Loman.
The encounter broke up the procession, and caused a readjustment of places. Mrs. Woolley was at once claimed by the sallow, spectacled Mrs. Loman, and the children, with shrill acclamations, ran to her husband, Sonnie’s godfather and the purveyor of many small treats and presents.
The doctor, after a loud and boisterous greeting, boldly joined Elsie, and both of them dropped behind the others.
“Oh, I’ve wanted so to speak to you!” gasped Elsie.
“Shut up—don’t make a fuss now, there’s a good girl. Keep a cheery face on you, for God’s sake, or we shall give the show away worse than we’ve done already.”
Mrs. Woolley turned round. “Herbert, Mrs. Loman is just saying that she hasn’t set eyes on you for ages. Come and give an account of yourself.”
She spoke in a thin, artificial voice, but her eyes blazed a command at him.
The doctor stared back at her, insolent security in his manner. “Thankee, Amy, but I wouldn’t interrupt a ladies’ confab. for the world. Go on about your sky-blue-purple Sunday-go-to-meeting costumes, and I’ll keep Elsie company.”
Mrs. Loman laughed and the doctor grinned back at her.
White patches had appeared on the mottled surface of Mrs. Woolley’s face, but she made no rejoinder.
Doctor Woolley turned to Elsie again, the merriment dropping from his manner. “That’ll shut her up for a bit,” he said between his teeth. “Has she been giving you gyp, Elsie?”
“Oh, it’s been awful. I’m certain she’s found out.”
“How?”
“That Florrie, I suppose.”
“Damn Florrie and her mischief-making! Well, kiddie, the fat’s in the fire. I’m afraid there’s only one thing for it.”
“What?”
“Why—why, my dear child, don’t you see for yourself—you’ll have to clear out of here. No use waiting forAmy to make a bloody row, now is there? If you simply say you’re going home again, she won’t have a leg to stand on. And if it wasn’t for—for the kids, I’d go with you.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Elsie bitterly. “I may be a bit green, but I’m not green enough to swallow that.”
“Don’t talk like that,” said Doctor Woolley. He slipped his hand under her arm, and at the contact, jaded and miserable as she was, her pulses leapt. His fingers squeezed her arm.
“We’ve had some happy times together, little girl, eh?” he murmured in a sentimental voice. “And don’t you see that when you’re on your own again we can meet ever so much more freely. I want—you know what I want, don’t you, Elsie?”
She did not respond. “WhatIwant, is to know what’ll happen to me if I go back to mother and say I’ve left Mrs. Woolley. You don’t suppose she, and my sister and my aunts, aren’t going to ask what’s happened, do you?”
“Well, you can tell them something,” said the doctor impatiently. “A clever girl like you, Elsie, surely you can think of something. Besides, everybody knows that a pretty girl doesn’t always hit it off with a woman older than herself. There’s nothing wonderful in that. Damnation, they’re stopping!”
“Here we are,” said Elsie.
He withdrew his arm hastily from hers after a final pressure.
Mrs. Woolley and her friend were already standing at the church steps, and both of them fixed their eyes on Elsie and the doctor as they came up. Elsie saw Mrs. Woolley touch the other woman’s elbow, and guessed at, rather than heard, the words coming from between her teeth:
“Look at that, now—look at that.”
On Mrs. Loman’s face was an expression of mingled eagerness, curiosity, and disgust. It was evident that Mrs. Woolley had spoken freely of her wrongs.
Elsie spent her time in church in wondering whether it would yet be possible to blunt Mrs. Woolley’s suspicions,or whether she dared face her mother with a made-up story to account for her return.
She was still young enough to have a furtive dread that her mother must be omniscient in her regard, and she was afraid that Mrs. Palmer would somehow guess at her lapse and tax her with it.
Elsie had very often lied to her mother before, but not with any conspicuous success, and she felt just now strangely shaken and unnerved, physically and morally.
When they came out of church, the Lomans hospitably pressed their friends to return with them, share the hot Sunday dinner, and spend the afternoon. The children were specifically included, but Mrs. Loman glanced in Elsie’s direction, and then looked back at Mrs. Woolley, raising her eyebrows.
“You’d better go and see your mother this afternoon,” said Mrs. Woolley coldly. “Go home first and tell Florrie we shall be out, and she can lock up the house and go out for a bit herself. Tell her she must be back by five.”
“All right,” said Elsie lifelessly.
She turned on her heel, when a sudden shout stopped her.
“Post those letters of mine, will you?” said Doctor Woolley very loudly. “You’ll find them in”—he came nearer to her—“wait in till I come,” he muttered almost inaudibly, and rejoined his wife before Elsie had taken in the meaning of his words. It came to her afterwards, and the renewed sense of intrigue very slightly relieved the dull misery pervading her.
At No. 8, Mortimer Crescent, the hot joint was taken out of the oven and left to grow cold, but Florrie had made a Yorkshire pudding, and she and Elsie ate it for their dinner, and added pickles and bread and cheese and cake to the meal. Very soon afterwards, Florrie announced that she was going off at once.
“So am I,” said Elsie. “I toldherI’d lock up the house. Mind you’re in by five.”
“That’s as it may be,” haughtily said Florrie, with a venomous glance. Elsie felt far too tired to quarrel with the maid, as she had often done before, and when Florrie was actually gone she went upstairs and lay down on her bed.It was nearly three o’clock before a cautious sound from below betrayed the return of the doctor.
Elsie rose and automatically glanced at herself in the looking-glass. One side of her face was flushed, her eyes looked small and swollen-lidded, and her hair was disordered. She dabbed powder on her face and pulled her wave of hair further down over her forehead before going downstairs.
The doctor was hanging up his hat on the crowded hooks that lined one side of the wall in the tiny entrance lobby.
“Coast clear?”
Elsie nodded.
“Sure?”
“Absolutely.” She held out the key of the house door. “I’ve locked up at the back.”
“Then I’ll lock up at the front,” said Doctor Woolley, and did so.
“My God, we’re in a bloody mess,” he began, turning round and facing Elsie.
Desperate, she ran forward and threw herself into his arms, instinctively seeking the only reassurance she knew, that of physical contact.
The doctor suddenly buried his face in her hair, then forced her face upwards and kissed her passionately.
They clung to one another.
At last he released his clasp, only keeping one arm round her waist.
“Where can we go? We’ll have to settle something, and Lord knows when I shall get another chance of speaking to you, with that hell-cat on the warpath. I’ve had the deuce and all of a time getting here now, and we must both clear out of the place before she and the kids get back. Put on your hat and coat, old girl, and come along.”
“Where to?”
“Where I take you,” said the doctor brusquely.
When she came down again, he hurried her out of the house, locking the door again behind them, and putting the key under the scraper, where it was always looked for on Sunday.
“Taxi!”
The doctor hailed a passing taxi and made Elsie get into it.
He gave the address of a hotel in a street of which she had never heard.
“Where are we going to?”
“Somewhere where I can talk to you.”
He passed his arm round her again, and she made no pretence of resistance, but lay against him, letting him play with her hand and occasionally bend his head down to kiss her lips.
Elsie had slept very little for the past three nights; she had shed tears, and she had been subject to a continual nervous strain. By the time that the taxi stopped she was almost dozing, and it was in a half-dazed state that she followed Dr. Woolley into the dingy hall of a high building and, after a very short parley with a stout man in evening dress, to an upstairs sitting-room.
She asked nothing better than to sink on to the narrow couch in a corner of the room and let herself be petted and caressed, but after a time her wearied senses awoke, and told her that the man beside her was becoming restive and excited.
“Look here, Elsie,” he said finally, “you’re a beguiling little witch, you are—but we’ve got to come down to hard facts. I’m going to order you a pick-me-up, and have one myself, and then we can talk about what’s to be done next. I’ve got to be home again, worse luck, by seven o’clock. I’m supposed to have had an urgent call to Amy’s friend, Mrs. Williams. She’s ill enough, poor soul, in all conscience, and I’ll have to go there before I go home. Now then, what’ll you have?”
“Tea,” said Elsie.
He laughed. “Women are all alike! You can have your tea—poisonous stuff, tincture of tannin—and I’ll order what I think’s good for you to go with it. Wait here till I come back.”
He went out, and Elsie, already revived and stimulated, flew to the spotted and discoloured looking-glass, and took out her pocket-comb to rearrange her curls.
She actually enjoyed the hot, strong tea when it came, and her spirits suddenly rose to a boisterous pitch.
They both laughed loudly at the faces that Elsie made over the bottle that the doctor had obtained, and from which he repeatedly helped himself and her, and although they kept on telling one another that they must talk seriously, their hilarity kept on increasing. At last he began to make violent love to her, and Elsie responded coquettishly, luring him on by glance and gesture, while her tongue uttered glib and meaningless protests. Very soon, her flimsy defences gave way altogether, and she had ceded to him everything that he asked.
Then the inevitable reaction overtook her, and she cried, and called herself a wicked girl, and finally sank limply into a corner of the taxi that Dr. Woolley had summoned to the door of the hotel.
He got in beside her. “Buck up, little girl!” he cried urgently. “You’ll be at No. 8 in no time, and we don’t want Amy asking awkward questions. Look here, I’ll put you down at the corner of the Crescent, and you can walk to the house. The air’ll do you good, and besides, we can’t be seen together. I’m off to that wretched Williams woman, and I’m not going to be in till late.”
Elsie continued to sob.
“Come, come, come—pull yourself to pieces,” Doctor Woolley tried to make her laugh. “We’ve not settled anything, but we’ve had our time together. Ah, a little love is a great thing in a world like this one, Elsie. Thank you for being so sweet to me, little girl.”
He kissed her hastily, with a perfunctoriness of which she was aware.
When the taxi stopped in the main thoroughfare, a little way before the turning into Mortimer Crescent, he almost shoved her on to the pavement.
“Don’t forget—you’ve been out ever since dinner-time, and you imagine me to have been in the buzzim of my family enjoying back chat with the old Lomans. Don’t say anything about that, though, unless you’re asked. Tell the man to drive like blazes now, will you?”
Elsie mechanically obeyed.
Then she dragged herself to No. 8. Her ring was answered by Florrie.
The little servant girl was grinning maliciously. “She’s in the d—’s own temper and all, and you’re going to catch it hot and strong for leaving her to put the children to bed.”
“Mind your own business, Florrie,” said Elsie, pushing past her.
She affected not to hear the single word that the servant flung at her back, but it made her wince.
In the bedroom she found Gladys already in bed, wide awake.
“Mother put us to bed. She was awfully cross, and she slapped Sonnie twice and me once.”
“What for?”
“Oh, because I whined, she said. And she slapped Sonnie when he told her about Dadda being so funny with you. You didn’t know wesawone day,” giggled Gladys.
“Saw what?”
“One day when Dadda kissed you and Sonnie and I saw, over the banisters, and we laughed, but you didn’t hear us.”
“You little viper!” muttered Elsie between her teeth. “I’d like to kill you, I would.”
Gladys alternately giggled and whined, and Elsie was quite unable to distinguish whether the child was really malicious or simply amused by something to which she attached no meaning.
“Anyway, if she’s told her mother, it’s all up,” thought Elsie.
She saw that there was nothing for it but to leave Mortimer Crescent, and spent a miserable night wondering what to say to her mother and sister.
At midnight she heard the sound of the doctor’s key in the front door and his heavy foot on the stairs. He paused outside her door for some seconds, then she heard him go into his wife’s room.
Elsie tossed about in her narrow bed. Her present dilemma frightened her, and she had a vague, irrational idea that some awful and horrible penalty always descended sooner or later upon girls who had done as she had done. These fears, and her lack of any vivid imagination, had dulledher emotional susceptibilities, and she scarcely felt regret at the thought of no longer seeing the doctor. He now stood to her for the symbol of an assuaged desire, the fulfilment of which had brought about her present miseries. Nevertheless, at the back of her consciousness was latent the conviction that never again would she be satisfied with the clumsy demonstrations and meaningless contacts of her intercourse with the boys and youths whom she had known at home.
It seemed to her next morning that she was wholly ugly. Her complexion looked sodden and her eyes were nearly invisible. Her mouth, in some odd way, seemed to have swollen. No one could have called her pretty, and to anyone who had seen her in good looks she would have been almost unrecognisable. Mrs. Woolley, coming downstairs at ten o’clock, eyed her with a malignant satisfaction.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you won’t be altogether surprised to hear that I’m going to make some changes. You’d better pack your box, and go home to your mother, I think.”
“I was going to tell you that I couldn’t stay on here any longer,” said Elsie swiftly. “The ways of the house aren’t what I’ve been used to, Mrs. Woolley.”
In a flash, Mrs. Woolley had turned nasty, and Elsie had seen her own unwisdom.
“Oh, aren’t they indeed? Perhaps you’d be so kind as to tell me what you are used to—or shallItellyou?”
Then she suddenly raised her voice almost to a scream and poured out a torrent of abuse and invective, and the two children crept in from the hall and began to cry, and to make faces at Elsie, and demonstrations of hitting her with their little hands, and the servant Florrie held the door half open, so that she might see and hear it all.
Elsie screamed back again at Mrs. Woolley, but she had neither the fluency nor the determination of the older woman, and she was unable to prevent herself from bursting into tears and sobs.
Finally Mrs. Woolley drove her out of the room, standing at the foot of the stairs while Elsie ran up to pull on her best hat and coat, and forbidding the children to follow her.
“Don’t go near her, my pets—she’s a wicked girl, that’s what she is—not fit to be in the same house as innocent little children. Now then, out you go, miss, before I send for the police.”
“I’ll go,” said Elsie, shaking from head to foot, “and I’ll never set foot in your filthy house again. And I’ll send for my trunk and for every penny you owe me, and I’ll have the law on you for insinuations on my character.”
Then she dashed out of the house and into the street.