Victoria punched the dogs in the ribs, rolled them over. It was no good.
They would do nothing but gently wag their tails. She felt she would like to swear, when suddenly the front door was slammed, a cheerful voice rang in the hall.
"Hulloa, here"s Duckie," said Lissa.
The door opened loudly and Duckie seemed to rush in as if seated on a high wind.
"Here we are again!" cried the buxom presence in white. Every one of her frills rattled like metal. "Late as usual. Oh, Vic, what angel pups!"
Duckie was on her knees. In a moment she had stirred up the Pekingese.
They forgot their manners. They barked vociferously; and Zoe"s starch was taken out of her by Poo, who rushed under her skirts. Lissa laughed and jumped up.
"Here Vic," said Duckie ponderously, "give us a hand, old girl. Never can jump about after gin and bitters," she added confidentially as they helped her up.
The ice was effectually broken. They filed into the dining-room in pairs, Victoria and Lissa being slim playing the part of men. How they gobbled up the hors d"oeuvres and how golden the John Dory was; the flanks of the fish shone like an old violin. Augusta flitted about quick but noisy. There was a smile on her face.
"Steady on, old love," said Duckie to her as the maid inadvertently poured her claret into a tumbler.
"Never you mind, Gussie," cried Zoe, bursting with familiarity, "she"ll be having it in a bucket by and by."
Augusta laughed. What easy going _herrschaft_!
The talk was getting racier now. By the time they got to the dessert the merriment was rather supper than lunch-like.
"Victoria plums," said Lissa, "let us name them _Bonne Hotesse_."
The idea was triumphant. Duckie insisted on drinking a toast in hock, for she never hesitated to mix her wines. Victoria smiled at them indulgently. The youth of all this and the jollity, the ease of it; all that was not of her old cla.s.s.
"Confusion to the puritans," she cried, and drained her gla.s.s. Snoo and Poo were fighting for sc.r.a.ps, for Duckie was already getting uncertain in her aim. Lissa and Zoe, like nymphs teasing Bacchus, were pelting her with plum stones, but she seemed quite unconscious of their pranks. They had some difficulty in getting her into the boudoir for coffee and liqueurs; once on the sofa she tried to go to sleep. Her companions roused her, however; the scent of coffee, acrid and stimulating, stung their nostrils; the liqueurs shone wickedly, green and golden in their gla.s.s bottles; talk became more individual, more reminiscent. Here and there a joke shot up like a rocket or stuck quivering in Duckie"s placid flanks.
"Well Vic," said Zoe, "you are very well _installee_." She slowly emptied of cigarette smoke her expanded cheeks and surveyed the comfortable little room.
"Did you do it yourself?" asked Lissa. "It must have cost you a lot of money."
"Oh, I didn"t pay." Victoria was either getting less reticent or the liqueur was playing her tricks. "I began with a man who set me up here," she added; "he was . . . he died suddenly" she went on more cautiously.
"Oh!" Zoe"s eyebrows shot up. "That"s what I call luck. But why do you not have a flat? It is cheaper."
"Yes, but more inconvenient," said Lissa. "Ah, Vic. I do envy you. You don"t know. We"re always in trouble. We are moving every month."
"But why?" asked Victoria. "Why must you move?"
"Turn you out. Neighbours talk and then the landlord"s conscience begins to p.r.i.c.k him," grumbled Duckie from the sofa.
"Oh, I see," said Victoria. "But when they turn you out what do you do?"
"Go somewhere else, softy," said Duckie.
"But then what good does it do?"
All the women laughed.
"Law, who cares?" said Duckie. "I dunno."
"It is perfectly simple," began Zoe in her precise foreign English. "You see the landlord he will not let flats to ladies. When the police began to watch it would cause him _des ennuis_. So he lets to a gentleman who sublets the flats, you see? When the trouble begins, he doesn"t know."
"But what about the man who sublets?" asked the novice.
"Him? Oh, he"s gone when it begins," said Lissa. "But they arrest the hall porter."
"Justice must have its way, I see," said Victoria.
"What you call justice," grumbled Duckie, "I call it d.a.m.ned hard lines."
For some minutes Victoria discussed the housing problem with the fat jolly woman. Duckie was in a cheerful mood. One could hardly believe, when one looked at her puffy pink face, that she had seen fifteen years of trouble.
"Landladies," she soliloquised, "it"s worse. You take my tip Vic, you steer clear of them. You pay as much for a pigsty as a man pays for a palace. If you do badly they chuck you out and stick to your traps and what can you do? You don"t call a policeman. If you do well, they raise the rent, steal your clothes, charge you key money, and don"t give "em any lip if you don"t want a man set at you. Oh, Lor!"
Duckie went on, and as she spoke her bluntness caused Victoria to visualise scene after scene, one more horrible than another: a tall dingy house in Bloomsbury with unlit staircases leading up to black landings suggestive of robbery and murder; bedrooms with blinded windows, reeking with patchouli, with carpets soiled by a myriad ign.o.ble stains. The house Duckie pictured was like a warren in every corner of which soft-handed, rosy-lipped harpies sucked men"s life-blood; there was drinking in it, and a piano played light airs; below in the ground floor, through the half open door, she could see two or three foreigners, unshaven, dirty-cuffed, playing cards in silence like hunters in ambush. She shuddered.
"Yes, but Fritz isn"t so bad," broke in Lissa. She had all this time been wrangling with Zoe.
"No good," snapped Zoe, "he"s a . . . a _bouche inutile_." Her pursed-up lips tightened. Fritz was swept away to limbo by her practical French philosophy.
"I like him because he is not useful" said Lissa dreamily. Zoe shrugged her shoulders. Poor fool, this Lissa.
"Who is this Fritz you"re always talking about?" asked Victoria.
"He"s a . . . you know what they call them," said Duckie brutally.
"You"re a liar," screamed Lissa jumping up. "He"s . . . oh, Vic, you do not understand. He"s the man I care for; he is so handsome, so clever, so gentle . . ."
"Very gentle," sneered Zoe, "why did you not take off your long gloves last week, _hein_? Perhaps you had blue marks?"
Lissa looked about to cry. Victoria put her hand on her arm.
"Never mind them," she said, "tell me."
"Oh, Vic, you are so good." Lissa"s face twitched, then she smiled like a child bribed with a sweet. "They do not know; they are hard. It is true, Fritz does not work, but if we were married he would work and I would do nothing. What does it matter?" They all smiled at the theory, but Lissa went on with heightened colour.
"Oh, it is so good to forget all the others; they are so ugly, so stupid. It is infernal. And then, Fritz, the man that I love for himself . . ."
"And who loves you for . . ." began Zoe.
"Shut up, Zoe," said Duckie, her kindly heart expanding before this idealism, "leave the kid alone. Not in my line of course. You take my tip, all of you, you go on your own. Don"t you get let in with a landlady and don"t you get let in with a man. It"s _them_ you"ve got to let in."
"That"s what I say," remarked Zoe. "We are successful because we take care. One must be economical. For instance, every month I can. . . ."
She stopped and looked round suspiciously; with economy goes distrust, and Zoe was very French. "Well, I can manage," she concluded vaguely.
"And you need not talk, Duckie," said Lissa savagely. "You drink two quid"s worth every week."