Coquette

could alter her will.Therefore, if she lived, she must be kept ignorant. It would be atrouble. And yet in spite of her assurance Sally was still suspicious ofher own ability to master every detail in time to carry on the wholeestablishment without a great lapse into momentary failure. She plannedas a middle-aged woman. At eighteen her plans were profound. Butinstinctively, and in spite of colossal conceit, she understood thateighteen was not an age at which control can successfully be taken of alarge business. Therefore she was fighting against unacknowledged fear.

  During that day she hardly saw Gaga at all. He was at home with hismother, and did not come to business until the afternoon. Only in theevening did she creep into his room and submit to his endearments. Shethen left, and went to the hotel at which for the present they were tostay; and here, in the little sitting-room attached to their bedroom,she was for the first time able to be alone for half-an-hour with herpost-nuptial reflections. They were not all pleasant, and they calledfor the exercise of her natural resoluteness. She had comfort, and theknowledge that she need never again trouble about food and clothing. Butshe also knew that a husband is a different sort of person from a lover.He seemed to her to be a sort of omnipresent nuisance. Her trouble wasthat thoughts and ambitions were in conflict with Gaga's amorousness.He could never understand her. He could understand her no better thanToby, and as she had no use for him otherwise than as the instrument ofher ambition, she was already, within two days of marriage, bored withhim. Sally awaited Gaga's arrival with calm unwillingness. She did notrealise how rapid would be her instinctive progress to repugnance; butshe had no illusions about her marriage.

  At last Gaga arrived, his own eagerness unabated, but he was stillshaken by the fact that his mother was seriously ill. With Sally in hisarms he whispered or murmured alternately professions of love andanxiety. She was all the time secretly astonished at his devotion toMadam, because it corresponded to nothing in her own nature; but shecomforted Gaga because it was her impulse to do so. She did not dislikehim in this mood. She felt pity for him. It was only for his tremulouspersistency in caress that Sally felt contempt. Gradually she began tobe able to divert his mind to other matters--to their own future, andthe flat they were to take and to furnish; and to the plans they mustmake for a slow change of her position in the business. Already Sallywas obtaining a grasp of the details, but she could go little furtheruntil her access to the books and accounts was free. She could donothing until some scheme had been made. So the two sat together afterdinner and discussed what they were to do, and where they were to live,and how the rooms of the flat were to be furnished. It was all, uponSally's side, practical and clear; and for Gaga a wonderful revelationof Sally's wisdom. He became more and more infatuated, as Sally becamemore and more cool. And they talked the whole evening through, withoutrealising that with each moment Sally's dominion was more firmlyestablished.

  It was only towards the end of the evening that Gaga, unhinged byexcitement, became desperately pale, and confessed to a headache. Hefound his customary drugs, and took them. But to Sally this headache wasa new and emphatic indication of Gaga's troublesome temperament.Ugliness and squalor she knew; but sickliness was new to her. In face ofa groaning and prostrate man, she turned away. Her heart sank a little.Then, with a shrug, she turned to the advertisements of flats to let inLondon which she found in various newspapers; and made notes of theaddresses of house agents. This occupation she continued until Gagacalled almost fretfully from the next room, when she turned off theelectric light and joined him. An hour later, while Gaga still laystaring into the darkness, Sally was fast asleep. She had no dreams. Forthe present she was occupied with facts alone; and she did not suspectthat she was unhappy, because she had been absorbing too many details tobe able to reflect upon the sinking of her heart and its meaning.

  v

  The next evening Sally went to see her mother. Her first object was toget Mrs. Minto away from the room in which they had lived; because itwas essential that if Toby came back, as she believed he could not dofor some days, he should be unable to trace Sally or her mother. It wasfor fear of Toby that the removal was to be made. Once get Mrs. Mintoaway, to some other part of North London, and Toby might seek news ofSally in vain. Only if he came and waited outside Madam's would he beable to find her; and in that case she could still baulk him, as she wasgoing to stay late every evening for the future in order to work withGaga. But first of all, Sally must arrange to get her mother out of theold house. She would not want to go. She must go. She would pretendthat she could keep herself. She would show the stubborn pride of manyold people of the working class, who will work until they killthemselves rather than accept charitable doles. Very well, Sally knewthat Mrs. Minto could not keep herself; and she knew also that thesesame old people have no similar delicacy in taking from their children'searnings. She was going to explain that she was still working, and thatwhat Mrs. Minto would receive came from Sally herself, and not fromSally's husband. And she would herself find a room for her mother inStoke Newington, a suburb which is farther from Holloway than many moredistant places for the reason that no dweller in Holloway has anycuriosity about Stoke Newington or any impulse to go there as anadventure.

  Sally found Mrs. Minto in a familiar attitude, stooping over a verysmall fire; but as she ran up the stairs very softly, with a nervousdread of Toby, she had no conception of the welcome which awaited her.She opened the door and went into the dingy room, and stood smiling; andto her great surprise she saw her mother rise almost wildly and cometowards her. Two thin arms pressed and fondled her, and a thin old cheekwas pressed hard against her own. To herself Mrs. Minto was ejaculatingin a shivering way: "My baby, my baby!" Only then did Sally understandhow much the separation had meant to her mother. She herself had neveronce thought of that lonely figure at home.

  "Poor old thing!" Sally found herself saying. "Was she lonely then?" Shepatted her mother's bony shoulders, and hugged her, affected by thisinvoluntary betrayal of love. Mrs. Minto had never been demonstrative."I wish I'd brought you something, now. A present. I never thought ofit."

  "Is it all right? Are you happy, my dearie?" demanded Mrs. Minto, with asearching glance.

  "I knew what I was doing, ma," proclaimed Sally. "There's not much Idon't know."

  It was an evasion; a confession of something quite other than thehappiness about which she had been asked.

  "Ah, that's what I was afraid of...." breathed her mother. "That's whatyoung people always think. You don't know nothing at all, Sally."

  "I know more'n you do!" It was a defiance.

  "You think you do. Why, you're only a baby...." Mrs. Minto shook herhead several times, with lugubrious effect. But her last words had beenfull of a smothered affection, more truly precious than a hundred ofGaga's kisses or a dozen of Toby's animal hugs.

  "In your days I should have been." Sally withdrew herself, and led hermother back to her chair. "Not know! Why, the girls know a lot more nowthan they used to when _you_ was a girl. No more timid littlecreatures."

  "They only _think_ they know more," declared Mrs. Minto, trembling. "Andit takes 'em longer to find out they don't know nothing at all. It takesa lot of time to get to know. You're in too much of a hurry, my gel. Youdon't know nothing. Nothing whatever, for all your talk of it. I beenthinking about it all these days--frantic, I've been."

  "All these _years_!" jeered Sally. "Look here, ma.... Here's my marriagelicense!" And as she spoke she waved the folded paper before hermother's eyes in such a way that it fell open and showed the officialentries. Even as she did this so lightly, Sally was able to catch thesharply hidden expression of relief which crossed Mrs. Minto's face atthe reassurance. She made no pretence of misunderstanding. "Say I don'tknow anything?" she demanded. "Think I don't know enough for that? Sillyold fool? What did I tell you? There's about twenty million things Iknow that you don't know. And never _will_ know, what's more. Wake up! Itell you one thing, ma. The people who _don't_ know think a lot worsethan the people who do. They fancy mo
re. See? It's a little way theygot. All goes on inside their heads, and shakes about. People like mehaven't got time to think a lot of muck. We _do_ things ... and do themthorough."

  Mrs. Minto, reproved, sank into contemplation.

  "Well, I don't know, Sally," she went on, after a pause. "You talk alot. I'd rather think than talk. You say he's rich. Sometimes girls getleft."

  "Not me, though," Sally assured her. "Soppy ones do. I'm not soppy. AndI'll tell you what. I'm going to get you out of this place."

  "I ain't going to live with you and him!" declared Mrs. Minto in alarm."I