"I refused him," said Victoria.
She stepped into the cab and directed the cabman to Portsea Place. As they turned into the road she looked back. At the head of the steps Mrs Holt stood frozen and amazed. Victoria almost smiled but, her eyes wandering upwards, she saw, at her dormer window, Jack"s head and shoulders. His blue eyes were fixed upon her with unutterable longing. A few strands of hair had blown down upon his forehead. For the s.p.a.ce of a second they gazed into each other"s eyes. Then the wall blotted him out suddenly. Victoria sighed softly and sank back upon the seat of the cab.
At the moment she had no thought. She was at such a point as one may be who has turned the last page of the first volume of a lengthy book: the next page is blank. Nothing remained even of that last look in which Jack"s blue eyes had pitifully retold his sorry tale. She was like a rope which has parted with many groans and wrenchings; broken and its strands scattering, its ends float lazily at the mercy of the waves, preparing to sink. She was going more certainly into the unknown than if she had walked blindfold into the darkest night.
The horse trotted gently, the brakes gritting on the wheels as it picked its way down the steep. The fresh air of April drove into the cab, stinging a little and yet balmy with the freshness of latent spring.
Victoria sat up, clasped her hands on the doors and craned out to see.
There was a little fever in her blood again; the spirit of adventure was raising its head. As fitful gleams of sunshine lit up and irradiated the puddles a pa.s.sionate interest in the life around seemed to overpower her. She looked almost greedily at the spire, far down the Wellington Road, shining white like molten metal with almost Italian brilliancy against a sky pale as shallow water. The light, the young wind, the scents of earth and buds, the men and women who walked with springy step intent on no business, all this, and even the horse who seemed to toss his head and swish his tail in sheer glee, told her that the world was singing its alleluia, for, behold, spring was born unto it in gladness, with all its trappings and its sumptuous promise.
Everything was beautiful; not even the dreary waste of wall which conceals Lords from the vulgar, nor the thousand tombs of the churchyard where the dead jostle and grab land from one another were without their peculiar charm. It was not until the cab crossed the Edgware Road that Victoria realised with a start that, though the world was born again, she did not share its good fortune. Edgware Road had dragged her down to the old level; a horrible familiarity, half pleasurable, half fearful, overwhelmed her. This street, which she had so often paced carrying a heart that grew heavier with every step, had never led her to anything but loneliness, to the cold emptiness of her room. Her mood had changed.
She saw nothing now but tawdry stationer"s shops, meretricious jewellery and, worse still, the sickening plenty of its monster stores of clothing and food. The road had seized her and was carrying her away towards its summit, where the hill melts into the skies between the houses that grow lower as far as the eye can see.
Victoria closed her eyes. She was in the grip once more; the wheels of the machine were not moving yet but she could feel the vibration as it got up steam. In a little the flywheel would slowly revolve and then she would be caught and ground up. Yes, ground up, cried the Edgware Road, like thousands of others as good as you, ground into little bits to make roadmetal of, yes, ground, ground fine.
The cab stopped suddenly. Victoria opened her eyes. Yes, this was Portsea Place. She got out. It had not changed. The curtains of the house opposite were as dirty as ever. The landlady from the corner was standing just under the archway, dressed as usual in an expansive pink blouse in which her flowing contours rose and fell. She interrupted the voluble comments on the weather which she was addressing to the little faded colleague, dressed in equally faded black, to stare at the newcomer.
"There ain"t no more room at Bell"s," she remarked.
"She is very fortunate," said the faded little woman. "Dear me, dear me.
It"s a cruel world."
"Them lidies" maids allus ketches on," said the large woman savagely.
"Tell yer wot, though, p"raps they wouldn"t if they was to see Bell"s kitching. Oh, Lor"! There ain"t no black-beetles. I don"t think."
The little faded woman looked longingly at Victoria standing on the steps. A loafer sprung from thin air as is the way of his kind and leant against the area railings, touching his cap whenever he caught Victoria"s eye, indicating at times the box on the roof of the cab. From the silent house came a noise that grew louder and louder as the footsteps drew nearer the door. Victoria recognised the familiar shuffle. Mrs Bell opened the door.
"Lor, mum," she cried, "I"m glad to see you again." She caught sight of the trunk. "Oh, are you moving, mum?"
"Yes, Mrs Bell," said Victoria. "I"m moving and I want some rooms. Of course I thought of you."
Mrs Bell"s face fell. "Oh, I"m so sorry, mum. The house is full. If you"d come last week I had the first floor back." She seemed genuinely distressed. She liked her quiet lodger and to turn away business of any kind was always depressing.
Victoria felt dashed. She remembered Edward"s consternation on discovering the change in Gower Street and, for the first time, sympathised.
"Oh, I"m so sorry too, Mrs Bell. I should like to have come back to you."
"Couldn"t you wait until next month, mum!" said Mrs Bell, reluctant to turn her away. "The gentleman in the second floor front, he"s going away to Rhodesia. It"s your old room, mum."
"I"m afraid not," said Victoria with a smile. "In fact I must find lodgings at once. Never mind, if I don"t like them I"ll come back here.
But can"t you recommend somebody?"
Mrs Bell looked right and left, then into the archway. The little faded woman had disappeared. The landlady in the billowy blouse was still surveying the scene. Mrs Bell froze her with a single look.
"No, mum, can"t say I know of anybody, leastways not here," she said slowly. "It"s a nice neighbourhood of course, but the houses here, they look all right, but oh, mum, you should see their kitchens! Dirty ain"t the word, mum. But wait a bit, mum, if you wouldn"t mind that, I"ve got a sister who"s got a very nice room. She lives in Castle Street, mum, near Oxford Circus. It"s a nice neighbourhood, of course not so near the Park," added Mrs Bell with conscious superiority.
"I don"t mind, Mrs Bell," said Victoria. "I"m not fashionable."
"Oh, mum," cried Mrs Bell, endeavouring to imply together the superiority of Portsea Place and the respectability of any street patronised by her family, "I"m sure you"ll like it. I"ll give you the address."
In a few minutes Victoria was speeding eastwards. Now she was rooted up for good. She was leaving behind her Curran"s and Mrs Bell, slender links between her and home life, links still, however. The pageant of London rolled by her, heaving, bursting with rich life. The sunshine around her bade her be of good cheer. Then the cab turned a corner and, with the suddenness of a stage effect, it carried its burden into the haunts of darkness and malodour.
CHAPTER XI
"_Telegraph_, mum," said a voice.
Victoria started up from the big armchair with a suddenness that almost shot her out of it. It was the brother of the one in Portsea Place and shared its const.i.tutional objection to being sat upon. It was part of the "sweet" which Miss Briggs had divided with Mrs Bell when their grandmother died.
"Thanks, Miss Briggs," said Victoria. "By the way, I don"t think that egg is quite fresh. And why does Hetty put the armchair in front of the cupboard every day so that I can"t open it?"
"The s.l.u.t, I don"t see there"s anything the matter with it," remarked Miss Briggs, simultaneously endorsing the complaint against Hetty and defending her own marketing.
"Oh, yes there is, Miss Briggs," snapped Victoria with a sharpness which would have been foreign to her some months before. "Don"t let it happen again or I"ll do my own catering."
Miss Briggs collapsed on the spot. The profits on the three and sixpence a week for "tea, bread and b.u.t.ter and anything that"s going," formed quite a substantial portion of her budget.
"Oh, I"m sorry, mum," she said, "it"s Hetty bought "em this week. The s.l.u.t, I"ll talk to her."
Victoria took no notice of the penitent landlady and opened the _Telegraph_. She absorbed the fact that Consols had gone up an eighth and that contangoes were in process of arrangement, without interest or understanding. She was thinking of something else. Miss Briggs coughed apologetically. Victoria looked up. Miss Briggs reflectively tied knots in her ap.r.o.n string. She was a tall, lantern-jawed woman of no particular age; old looking for thirty-five perhaps or young looking for fifty. Her brown hair, plentifully sprinkled with grey, broke out in wisps over each ear and at the back of the neck. Her perfectly flat chest allowed big bags of coa.r.s.e black serge to hang over her dirty white ap.r.o.n. Her hands played mechanically with the strings, while her water-coloured eye fixed upon the _Telegraph_.
"You shouldn"t read that paper, mum," she remarked.
"Why not?" asked Victoria, with a smile, "isn"t it a good one?"
"Oh, yes, mum, I don"t say that," said Miss Briggs with the respect that she felt for the buyers of penny papers. "There"s none better. Mine"s the _Daily Mail_ of course and just a peep into _Reynolds_ before the young gent on the first floor front. But you shouldn"t have it.
_Tizer"s_ your paper."
"_Tizer_?" said Victoria interrogatively.
"_Morning Advertiser_, mum; that"s the one for advertis.e.m.e.nts."
"But how do you know I read the advertis.e.m.e.nts, Miss Briggs?" asked Victoria still smiling.
"Oh, mum, excuse the liberty," said Miss Briggs in great trepidation.
"It"s the only sheet I don"t find when I comes up to do the bed.
_Tizer"s_ the one for you, mum; I had a young lady "ere, once. Got a job at the Inverness Lounge, she did. Married a clergyman, they say. He"s divorced her now."
"That"s an encouraging story, Miss Briggs," said Victoria with a twinkle in her eye. "How do you know I want to be a barmaid, though?"
"Oh, one has to be what one can, mum," said Miss Briggs sorrowfully.
"Sure enough, it ain"t all honey and it ain"t all jam keeping this house. The bells, they rings all day and it"s the breakfast that"s bad and their ain"t blankets enough, and I never "ad a scuttle big enough to please "em for sixpence. But you ain"t doing that, mum," she added after a pause devoted to the consideration of her wrongs. "A young lady like you, she ought to be behind the bar."
Victoria laughed aloud. "Thanks for the hint, Miss Briggs," she said, "I"ll think it over. To-day however, I"m going to try my luck on the stage. What do you think of that?"
"Going on tour?" cried Miss Briggs in a tone of tense anxiety.