He suddenly perceived that he had been trailing the streets for an hour for this girl, and was now awaiting her pleasure. It gave him rather a shock. He could not understand his own motives.
The two broke away, and she came down towards him. She was smiling, and, it seemed to him, breathlessly pretty. There was no doubt about that. He knew it already.
‘Saw you standin’ there,’ she said.
CHAPTER XVI
HE WAS AT a loss, and anxious to maintain his dignity. He smiled and took her hand.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Saw you standin’ there, an’ thought I might’s well wait. Fancy meetin’ you, of all people!’
They were walking down towards the Palace. He saw, from her silence, that his assumed detachment had not quite washed, and waited for an opportunity to rectify matters. She wanted putting in her place. Seeing that she had not been in to see him, she had, really, no right to be alive – let alone calmly at large like this.
‘’Spect you’re wondering why I haven’t been in,’ she said, in her amiable drawl.
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Never noticed it, as a matter of fact.’
Now he had gone and overdone it. He had been deliberately rude.
‘Why weren’t you in, anyway?’ he asked, trying to pull himself out.
‘Don’t know, dear. Couldn’t get away, I suppose.’
She was angry. Unwarrantably and ungratefully angry, in view of all he had done for her, but there you were. He wasn’t going to have any of her cheek, though. With him she had no right to be anything but submissive. He saw that the whole thing would probably end here.
‘I been busy, too,’ he said. . . .
They walked on in silence until they reached the Palace. There she suddenly stopped.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I got to be going somewhere now, I’m afraid.’
He had never thought she would go as far as this, and he was staggered by her impudence. Apparently he had been right. It was going to end here. All the little excitement of it, and intrigue, and fun, and sentimental stimulation, was over. Henceforward his life would be exactly as it was before – something uninspired by this little diversion. He would never see her again. She was a breathlessly pretty young woman, and he was letting her slip out into the night. He could not do it. He gave in.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Must you?’
‘’Fraid I must,’ she drawled.
Bob’s fate hung in the balance. Could he submit to this second affront? She had managed to strike him down with her first talk of departure: now she had kicked him. He had either to grovel, or come up and settle with her once and for all. He decided to grovel.
‘Oh – must you?’ he said. ‘Can’t you just come an’ have one with me?’
She was looking at the passing people.
‘Well – I might stay just for one,’ she said. . . .
‘Right you are,’ he said. ‘Let’s go that little place what we went before.’ His grammar was in pieces.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t want to go there. . . .’
‘Why not?’ he asked, observing her use of the word ‘want,’ and marvelling at its implications.
‘Had a bit of a bust up in there – the other night,’ she fortunately added.
‘Well what about this one, over the road – here?’
‘Yes – that’s all right,’ she said. . . .
They walked on. He thought that they had, perhaps, better try and be cheerful.
‘I was sorry you didn’t come in, you know,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d be along.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, too,’ she said, confessing, in her tone, that they had just had a row, but that she was as willing as him to patch it up. ‘I’m very sorry. But you don’t know the life I lead – really you don’t. It’s all one thing after another.’
‘Oh, I dunno,’ he said. ‘’Spect I can imagine it.’ He was almost enjoying himself in the old manner.
‘Well, you may,’ she said. ‘But others don’t. . . .’
He, then, was something without precise parallel in her life. . . . They were perfect friends again.
The house he had indicated was at the corner. The main bar was large, with partitions along the wall containing tables and padded seats. The floor was of chequered oil-cloth. It was rather crowded. She went straight to a table: he obtained drinks at the bar, and brought them to her in silence. They were friends again, but there was a difference. She made no attempt to thank him for the drinks, but took her first sip at once, slightly constricting her face as it went down. Then, holding her glass and with her legs crossed, she looked casually around at the people without talking.
He looked at her, and had himself nothing to say. It seemed, as he looked at her, that the tables were queerly turned. The little creature to whom he had given ten shillings a week ago was a quite different little creature from the one whom he was now privileged, after considerable obstruction, to be fortifying with drink.
And this, he realized, was the second of his Thursday evenings off that he was spending in this strange manner. He was puzzled. His own life was becoming unfamiliar to him. . . .
‘So you haven’t had a very bright time of it since I saw you last?’ he tried.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not very.’
She was listless and inattentive. She was, as a matter of fact, interested in a garrulous little man who was holding forth at the bar. . . . There was a long silence, which he eagerly sought, but did not know how, to break.
‘Funny you meetin’ me like that,’ she said suddenly, and smiling. ‘That man I was with thought you was trying to get off with me.’
‘Oh – did he?’
‘Yes.’ She giggled. (She was a vulgar little bitch.) There was a pause.
‘Who’s he, then?’ asked Bob, in as off-hand a manner as possible, and taking a gulp at his beer.
‘Him? Oh, I’ve known him a long time. He’s been very good to me, ’s’matter of fact.’
‘Oh – has he?’
‘Yes.’
Silence.
‘Took me out in his car last Sunday. We went down to Maidenhead. Do you know Maidenhead?’
‘No. Never been there,’ said Bob, and took another gulp.
His mind was in a turmoil. Car? Maidenhead? What was this? She had, then, friends – and powerful friends – on an equality. ‘Do you know Maidenhead?’ It was the off-hand remark of a lady to a gentleman in a drawing-room. So far from being his wistful little protégée, she was his equal and more. Did she not comprehend her own degradation – the fact that she was an outcast?
‘It’s very nice down there, really,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Bob. ‘I expect it is.’
A meaningless reply, to fill in time, and he knew it at once. He decided to steal her thunder. She should not think she could surprise him. He would show her that this was all very natural, and that he knew all about his Maidenhead.
‘Went on the river, I suppose?’ he said, lighting a cigarette.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not this time of year. . . .’
She had not only held her own: she had made him look a fool. He was losing his nerve, and she was getting the best of it all along the line. There was a silence.
He again thought it would be better if they were cheerful.
He had heard that you could generally win their hearts by noting or belauding their attire.
‘That’s ever such a nice sort of dress you’ve got on,’ he said.
Apparently it had worked. She brightened at once.
‘Oh – do you like it?’ she said, fingering the sleeve. ‘It ain’t half bad, is it?’
He forged ahead. ‘Darned fine,’ he said. ‘Suits you like anything.’
‘My! What a price though!’ she said. And, magically, she was sitting up and entering into the conversation. You could hardly credit their vanity and susceptibility.
‘Well, you’ll never get nothin’ to suit you like that,’ said Bob. ‘So it’s well worth it, whatev
er it was.’
She was beaming upon him. His soul strangely rejoiced.
‘M’m,’ she said. ‘Came from Paris.’
‘Gay Paree, eh?’ he said, instantly deploring his own vulgarity.
‘Yes,’ she returned, brightly. ‘I been to Paris.’
‘Been to Paris?’ It shot out of Bob before he could stop himself.
‘Yes. I spent two weeks there.’
She said this with a kind of naïve proudness which saved his own pride; but it was a terrible blow. Maidenhead was a trifle compared to this. It was too great a blow to contemplate even, and he would have to put it away and think about it afterwards.
‘Really?’ he said. ‘You’re a lucky one if you like. How did you manage it?’
‘Oh,’ she said, and smiled a kind of self-reproachful and disillusioned smile. ‘Chap took me. . . .’
He was grateful for that smile, and the humility it contained. She possibly realized it was a blow, and was doing her best to soften it for him. He smiled back, and was friendly.
‘How did you like it?’ he asked.
‘Oh, very well, really,’ she said. ‘Had a fine time.’ And there was another pause. . . .
‘Oo! – but they don’t half jabber over there!’ she added suddenly. . . .
‘Do they?’ asked Bob, amiably.
‘Oo, don’t they half! Jabber, jabber, jabber all the time . . . . I can’t understand their lingo.’
‘Yes, they do seem to go fast,’ said Bob, and there was yet another pause.
‘’Course – I don’t expect they’re really goin’ fast,’ she conceded, with an air of explaining something to herself as well as him. ‘I expect it only seems they do, like. ’Spect if they heard us, they would think we was fast. ’Spect it’s on’y the lingo, like. . . .’
Bob did not think that this was any great subtlety, but agreed with it as though it were. There was another pause.
‘Oo,’ she said. ‘An’ they don’t half treat their horses badly!’
‘Really?’
‘M’m,’ she said. ‘That Crool. . . .’
Bob nodded.
‘I can’t stand Cruelty,’ she said. ‘Can you?’
‘No. Awful.’
‘That’s one of the things I can’t stand,’ she said.
‘Go to any shows?’ he asked.
‘Shows?’ She looked meaningly at him. ‘Oo. I should say I did!’
He smiled.
‘There’s a big place they got there,’ she went on. ‘It’s called the Casino Der Paree.’
‘Oh yes. I heard of that.’
‘Oo, it’s a big fine place! An’ it ain’t half funny inside. An’ you never saw such shows! All them girls coming on half naked. I call it shocking. I do.’
He was baffled by what appeared to be her strangely discrepant standards, but felt elatedly indulgent towards her ingenuousness.
‘They do,’ she insisted, as though he wasn’t going to swallow it too easily. ‘They come on half naked. Breasts an’ all. . . .’
‘Sure of it,’ said Bob.
‘An’ when you get the programme from the girl,’ she threw out, with grave irrelevance, ‘you have to give her a tip.’
‘M’m,’ said Bob. . . .
There was another pause. It was felt that Paris had been succinctly described.
‘But what I really didn’t like was the Cruelty,’ she added. ‘Them whipping those poor horses like that. You know, I don’t really like them foreigners, say what you like. An’ I always used to say so, even when I was there.’
‘Shouldn’t call ’em foreigners,’ offered Bob, amiably. ‘Not when you’re in their own country.’
But this was too much for her. She looked at him.
‘Well,’ she said with sweet reasonableness. ‘They are – aren’t they?’
He decided not to cope with her logic. ‘Well – what about another drink?’ he said.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. Not now.’
CHAPTER XVII
‘OH – SURELY YOU can stay just for another quick one?’
‘No – can’t, I’m afraid – really.’ She looked at him. ‘Sorry. . . .’
So it had really come to this. She was being positively tender with him! She was ‘sorry.’ He marvelled at himself and at her.
‘Well, if you can’t you can’t, I suppose,’ he said, with the friendly air of a man who grins and bears it. ‘Where’ve you got to be now?’
‘Oh – I got to go down Leicester Square way.’
‘Oh.’
He noticed that she made no attempt to tell him what her business was, and that quite inexplicably he did not quite dare to ask her. This wasn’t such a nice evening as the other one, was it?
‘Well . . .’ he said, and they rose, and went out into the air.
It was a quarter to eleven. His evening, evidently, was at an end. A futile thing, petering out here – an unrounded and incomplete evening – without the stamp either of having spent it with her or without her. But her own evening, apparently, was ahead of her: she had merely had him in parentheses. He felt like a child being suddenly banished, at a crucial moment, to bed; and was filled with every kind of dissatisfaction and irritation.
‘Can I walk down with you, then?’ he said. It was all he could say.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Certainly.’
Certainly! But she had broken him in now. He was only grateful. All that mattered was that he had prolonged his evening by five or six minutes. They walked on in silence. He watched her face, as she looked at the traffic, and was reminded once more of her desirability. He again saw people looking at them.
They were nearing Leicester Square. Like the child being banished to bed, he tried to get a sweet before going. He would regard a sweet as full compensation. He asked for it.
‘So you haven’t had a very bright time since I saw you last?’ he asked, in a sympathetic voice, endeavouring, in the little time he had, to beat up their original tender understanding.
But there were no sweets for him. She smiled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You asked me that before, didn’t you?’
She did not say it insolently, but she had made a complete fool of him. Also it dawned upon him, for the first time, that she was no fool. She had a clear memory, and a perfect apprehension of situation. Had she meant deliberately to be unkind, or was she just putting him in his place for conversational fatuousness? He was hurt, but past the desire for revenge. He wanted his sweet.
‘Yes,’ he said, making it clear that she had hurt him. ‘But I only wanted to know.’
She relented. ‘Well, anyway,’ she said, ‘you’re quite right. I’ve never had such a rotten time.’
He put his sweet in his mouth and relished it. ‘Oh well, it’s a funny life,’ he tried. . . . ‘It is,’ she said. ‘An’ my landlady’s a funny landlady, too. . . .’
‘Rent again?’
She smiled an affirmative. ‘I got to get two pounds somewhere before to-morrow night,’ she said.
‘Oh dear. That’s bad.’
It was now all rather strained. They were both conscious, perhaps, of the fact that he was having his sweet – that these confidences were now almost mechanical. They were entering Leicester Square.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘When’ll I be seeing you again?’
‘Any time you like, dear.’
That was better.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a ’phone where I’m staying now. Or I can use it, anyway. It’s downstairs. Why don’t you ring me up one day?’
He breathed a vast relief. She had a ’phone. At any rate she was now at his mercy. At any rate she could not elude him. She was accessible at the end of a line, and he could indulge his whim and pleasure in the matter of ringing her up. She could not now stampede him into an undesirable meeting. He had her just where he wanted her. It was a lovely and satisfactory evening after all.
‘A ’phone?’ he said. ‘Oh – that’s fine. What’s th
e best time for getting you?’
‘Oh – any time, really. In the morning’s best perhaps. Will you ring me up one day then?’
‘Certainly I will.’ (It was his turn to do some Certainly-ing now.) ‘I’ll tell you what – I’ll ring you early next week, shall I? What about Monday? P’raps you might come in an’ see me before then, though.’
‘Well. I might. . . . But it’d be best if you rang me – in case I couldn’t. I don’t want to Say, like – when I couldn’t – like I did before – do I?’
‘No. That’s right. Come in if you can, but anyway I’ll ’phone you Monday. Who do I ask for?’
She smiled again. ‘You ask for Miss Jennie Maple,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you the number.’ She stopped and commenced to fumble in her bag.
(Maple! He had never conceived of her as a thing possessing a surname. Who and what were her progenitors – Mr. and Mrs. Maple? An unimaginable family.)
‘Here you are,’ she said, and handed him a slip of paper with her address and ’phone number. The address was in Doughty Street. They walked on.
‘Oh, I know that,’ he said. ‘That’s just off Theobald’s Road, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. So you’ll ’phone me on Monday, will you?’
‘That’s right.’ They were the soul of cordiality. The memory of their quibblings earlier in the evening had faded from the minds of both. She was completely captivating, he thought – completely captivating, and accessible by ’phone. What more could he ask for?
And all at once, in the gladness of his new security, he was inspired with a project which arose partly from a pure resurrection of his old feelings of pity and generosity, but mostly, perhaps, from a desire to make assurance doubly sure, as it were, and to rivet again what was already so firmly riveted. He offered her some more money.
‘And what about this rent of yours?’ he said. ‘Can’t help you with that?’
They were still walking along. ‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘You haven’t got the money.’
‘Yes I have. Or I can manage it anyway. Come on. I’ll give you a pound to help pay it off with.’
‘You won’t do nothin’ of the sort,’ she said. ‘I can get the money – if I take the trouble. It’s my mess I’m in – not yours.’