Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky

  Jenny’s room was barely furnished with a small bed, a few mats, a deal chest of drawers with a mirror, and a washing stand. Bare and chill as it was, it was her nest, enclosing her virginal plots and secrets.

  There were no pictures on the walls save one – a portrait of Rudolph Valentino taken from a picture magazine and stuck to the wall with a single drawing pin. The charmer’s drooping lids and sensuously ominous gaze followed her around the room; but it was impossible to conjecture in what frame of mind she had put this up, and for the rest the room was singularly characterless.

  It is doubtful whether Jenny could be said to be the owner either of a character or conscience. Though not frequently inspired with true generosity, she had no active evil in her soul, and her gift of pleasing was as yet an invaluable discipline upon her conduct. It often happens that to make people good it is advisable not to tell them to be good, but to tell them that they are good. If Jenny desired to continue pleasing (and she desired) this keenly, since pleasing people was by now almost her hobby, she had to live up to her reputation. Many people, particularly women, believed her to be the epitome of unselfishness, sweetness, and modesty.

  All the same, these virtues were imposed from without rather than flowing naturally from within, and Jenny was, in fact, beginning to find their exactions a little confining. Also the unreliable nature of this self-imposed discipline was revealed by its complete disappearance when for some reason she no longer desired to please, or found herself able to please by merely existing in any state, as in the case of Tom.

  But such people as Tom were exceptions, and to the rest of the world she was as good as her word. As she undressed tonight Tom had vanished from her mind (he had very little place in it at any time) and she was thinking solely of her new employment.

  If Marion and Bella had been able to get inside her mind at this moment, they might have found much to surprise and alarm them, but search as they might they would have been unable to come across the minutest resemblance of dishonesty in her attitude and intentions towards them. They thought her a treasure; and that was the impression she had laboured witb all her might to give. But that did not mean that she did not propose being a treasure. She had been acting a part, certainly, but it was a part she fully intended to go on acting, and so, in reality, to live.

  There was perhaps even a touch of chivalry in her feelings towards them. Like most apparently simple-minded people, Jenny had, in her heart, a perfect apprehension of the subtleties of situation and character, and it had not taken her long to realize that the old people were indeed old, and being weak and ill, were neurotically anxious to retain and placate a decent servant. She therefore saw that no really rigid discipline could ever be exercised over her: that she had, on the whole, the upper hand already; and that it would be in her power to ‘take advantage,’ if she cared.

  But this flattering knowledge of power filled Jenny merely with a warmth of heart, and a serene resolution to give full measure in return for her board and wages. The evening, in fact, presented to her mind exactly the same flawless pattern it had presented to Marion and Bella: and, having snuffed out her candle, she in two minutes relapsed sweetly into oblivion of those two, Tom, all-surrounding London, the far-stretching and unknown future, the entire world and its temptations.

  * * *

  At half-past eight to the moment next morning, another just audible knock upon the front door proclaimed to Marion and Bella that last night had been no dream, and that the delightful turn of events set in motion then was to survive and continue in the sober light of day.

  It was, all the same, day time, and the atmosphere was charged less with emotion as Marion came down and let Jenny in. After an affable but curtailed greeting, for she was in her dressing gown and the passage was cold, Marion went up to her room again. Jenny went straight through into the kitchen, and in two minutes’ time the day’s work was in normal progress. An hour later breakfast was ready.

  Breakfast, to Marion and Bella, was a critical and dangerous period. If it passed off well there were some hopes of a reasonably cheerful day ahead, but if the opposite was the case things generally went from bad to worse. As at all other times of the day the nerves of both were agonizingly on edge, but the greatest weight rested upon Marion, who suffered trom insomnia. Silence and heroism did not alter this fact, and there are many subtle methods of self-expression open to the stoic.

  In fact, it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that at moments Bella suffered from Marion’s insomnia almost as much as Marion, and that there were certain breakfast times when she would have given a great deal to have slept badly herself. Disconcertingly in this respect, she invariably slept like a log.

  ‘Well – what sort of a night? . . .’ was Bella’s first and necessary query each morning, as Marion handed her her tea: and though she did not show it, she waited with racked apprehension for the reply.

  Because she did all the work and was responsible for the running of the house, Marion was at times inclined to snub and intimidate her foolish and impractical sister, adopting towards her something of the attitude of a nursemaid with her charge, and being goaded into administering little mental smackings from time to time.

  If there were any smackings coming, this question about sleep was the habitual opening for them. If Marion was not in a good temper, a deep breath and suffering expression, signifying that she was not likely to survive the day on her feet, would be her only reply.

  This placed Bella in a miserable pass. If she suspected Marion of exaggeration, it was impossible to voice that suspicion: and if Marion had indeed slept as badly as she had indicated, the suffering expression was natural enough. She was in the hideous predicament of having to try and assess the real amount of insomnia endured by Marion and diagnose whether it was in fair proportion to the petulance displayed. But as there is no conceivable criterion of pain, and degrees of which can be estimated only personally and arbitrarily by the sufferer, Bella was hopelessly nettled, and at Marion’s mercy.

  Her only means of defence, indeed, was an attack of her own. And she had, of late years, when occasion or temperament called for it, taken to going into the enemy’s camp of a morning with a Strange Weight on the Head. As a rival to insomnia, this Strange Weight never quite came off, but it was at any rate some sort of reprisal. Marion had perforce to show outward deference to the visitations of the weight, and was inwardly driven mad (as Bella with the insomnia) by being hopelessly in the dark as to how strange and how heavy it was in comparison to Bella’s despondency.

  All this does not mean that Marion did not sleep badly, or that Bella did not suffer in her head: it merely was that neither knew quite how far the other was playing the game according to the rules. The trouble with both was that they never had a resounding quarrel and made peace afterwards; but went on year after year, and day after day, and hour after hour, in their tardy progress to the grave, adjusting their little differences in this petty manner. They differed neither in their habits nor on any larger issue, and when they woke up each morning they bore no grudge and were perfectly unaware that anything but perfect harmony was to ensue. They were merely on each other’s nerves.

  This morning, however, the sun shone, and there was a new servant to divert the mind from malady and counter-malady. Marion was down first, and Bella followed just as the girl was coming in with the tea.

  ‘Good-morning, madam,’ she said, with her bright, warm smile, and in the clear light of day Bella perceived the same brilliant paragon that had dawned upon her life last night – the same neatness, air of competence, ravishing prettiness, humility and cheerfulness.

  And Jenny, in her soul, was, and felt the same. That she had, since she last saw them, substantiated with living deeds and flesh-and-blood reality that fugitive conception of their treasure’s life apart which had visited Marion and Bella last night as they heard her going down the street and away from them: that she had been taken and fed by her frantic adorer: that she had freel
y alluded to both those in the room with her now as ‘old girls,’ and the masculine god upstairs as a ‘funny old boy’: that the omelette-maker had partaken of crude quantities of Turkish Delight in the cinema – all these things were of no account, had already been dispelled for ever, like the night itself, in the sober propriety and business of the morning.

  ‘Good-morning, Jenny,’ Bella returned. ‘Colder this morning, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ said Jenny. ‘I’m afraid we’ve seen the last of the warm weather now.’

  And having gracefully fixed the cosy well over the pot, she slid erectly from the room.

  ‘Such an old-fashioned little thing!’ murmured Bella, in the tone of sheer incredulousness she had employed ever since yesterday evening, and then she put the fatal question about sleep.

  To her joy Marion conceded that she could not complain. In these pleasant circumstances no enquiry was made, nor testimony furnished, concerning the Strange Weight, and they went on to consume their food practically without speaking.

  But now it was Marion’s turn to suffer. At this period she gritted her teeth for what was perhaps the main ordeal of her day – Bella’s ‘eating.’

  At what period Bella’s eating had begun slowly to take on its present intolerable character, or at which period Marion’s nerves had at first become aware of what was taking place, it was impossible to say. Now it was beyond remedy, and Bella seemed to go from bad to worse.

  It was too horrible for words. She clattered: she licked: she smacked. She seemed to lean over her plate with a peculiar gloating and concentrated expression: she savoured all with senile relish of its succulence: she gathered in the remotest morsels and made no pause: she was unaware that aught was amiss. Electric drills, rending glass, screams of burning victims – none of these could have so pierced and torn at Marion’s sensibilities as those little sharp sounds, not so loud as the chirrup of a sparrow, coming across the dining-room table three times a day. And never, never could she protest, or ‘say’ anything. For some reason this matter was sacred to the unconscious perpetrator, and to remark upon it, with whatever subtlety or diplomacy, would be to commit a blushing and unforgettable affront, and violate the inner sanctuaries of personal pride.

  Breakfast over, another torment impended – this time one which they shared equally. It was now necessary to decide what they were going to have for lunch.

  Since they had only this moment finished breakfast, and were filled out and weighed down with the load of that repast, there could have been no more perfectly loathsome moment to set aside for grappling with this theme. Nevertheless, experience had never taught them to arrange things otherwise.

  Marion always complained of Bella that she never ‘helped.’ But why should she help? So far as she knew at present, she never intended to eat again. After seventy-eight years’ eating experience, she was once more disillusioned by food.

  Marion, if the truth were known, was in like case, and she generally ended by enlisting the aid of the servant, in the hope that the latter had not overeaten herself, and might be in a condition sincerely to exercise her critical and selective faculties.

  Accordingly, when Jenny came in, Marion asked her what she thought might be nice for lunch.

  Jenny, who was also full to the brim, paused and replied ‘Well – there were a lot of things, weren’t there?’ – and added that calves’ liver and bacon made ‘a very nice change.’ Jenny conceived of food almost exclusively in terms of mutation.

  As this dish had not been seen or smelt in the house for a long time, and so carried no near memories wherewith to make more wan the wan imagination, it was instantly acclaimed as an excellent idea.

  ‘Yes. I think that would be very nice,’ said Marion, and Bella was even more enthusiastic. And, to look at them and hear them, an illusion was created that the insides of all three were not doing what actually they were doing – turning over in nauseated repugnance at the thought of one o’clock.

  They then got ready for shopping.

  Before they got out there was a great deal of losing, and running up, and finding and shouting down, and general commerce from room to room, but at last they were in the hallway putting on their gloves and taking their last apprehensive survey of things before departure.

  Then the front door closed, and Jenny realized that she was alone in the house. She then realized that she was not alone, of course, for the Doctor was upstairs wrapped in mystery. Jenny did not quite know how she stood in regard to him. ‘Then, of course, the Doctor’s always upstairs in his room,’ Marion had said, with a rather ambiguous glance, while giving her instructions on another head, and Jenny did not fully understand whether she was looking after him or he was looking after her – which was supposed to be likely to get into mischief.

  It mattered not to Jenny, who had weighty work on hand – that is not to say weighty in the figurative sense of the term – but work which involved hauling out mighty bedsteads so as to get round and make the bed, dragging out monstrous furniture so as to dust behind it, emptying vast Edwardian basins of their brimming soap-grey lakes, lifting enormous and replenished jugs and lowering them at arm’s length slowly lest they smashed the massive crockery, transporting wabbling pails, as heavy as children but not so tractable, down stairs and along passages, and carrying piled trays about in a world wherein practically everything was breakable, and only terrific muscular exertion and an agonized striving after balance could avert the impending crash – in brief, ‘woman’s work.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Good-night, then, madam.’

  ‘Good-night, Jenny.’

  ‘Good-night, madam.’

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

  ‘Makes up, of course,’ said Bella.

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

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

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

  II

  A GLASS OF PORT

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

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

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