The nuns in Rome, with whom she had spent the few weeks previous to her return to England, had sent in their account for her board and lodging, for the few clothes she had purchased, and for the advance made her for her travelling expenses. The sum total, in francs, looked enormous.
At last Alex, trembling, managed to arrive at the approximate amount in English money.
Twenty pounds.
It seemed to her exorbitant, and she realized, with fresh dismay, that she had never taken such a debt into consideration at all. How could she tell Cedric?
She thought how angry he would be at her strange omission in never mentioning it to him before, and how impossible it would be to explain to him that she had, as usual, left all practical issues out of account. Suddenly Alex remembered with enormous relief that twenty-five pounds lay to her credit at the bank. She had received her new cheque-book only two days ago. She would go to the bank today and make them show her how she could send the money to Italy.
Then Cedric and Violet need never know. They need never blame her.
Full of relief, Alex took the cheque-book that morning to the bank. She did not like having to display her ignorance, but she showed the bill to the clerk, who was civil and helpful, and showed her how very simple a matter it was to draw a cheque for twenty pounds odd. When it was done, and safely posted, Alex trembled with thankfulness. It seemed to her that it would have been a terrible thing for Cedric to know of the expenses she had so ignorantly incurred, and of her incredible simplicity in never having realized them before, and she was glad that he need never know how almost the whole of her half-year’s allowance of money had vanished so soon after she had received it.
She telephoned to Barbara that night, and said that she could not go abroad with her.
“Oh, very well, my dear, if you think it wiser not. Of course, if you don’t mind London at this time of year, it’s a tremendous economy to stay where you are.... Are the servants looking after you properly?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, do just as you like, of course. I think I shall get hold of some friend to join forces with me, if you’re sure you won’t come....”
“Quite sure, Barbara,” said Alex tremulously. She felt less afraid of her sister at the other end of the telephone.
She went and saw Barbara off the following week, and Barbara said carelessly:
“Good-bye, Alex. You look a shade better, I think. On the whole you’re wiser to stay where you are — I’m sure you need quiet, and when once the rush begins for Pam’s wedding, you’ll never get a minute’s peace. Are you staying on when they get back?”
“I’m not sure,” faltered Alex.
“You may be wise. Well, come down to my part of the world if you want economy — and to feel as though you were out of London. Good-bye, dear.”
Alex was surprised, and rather consoled, to hear Barbara alluding so lightly to the possibility of her seeking fresh quarters for herself. Perhaps, after all, they all thought it would be the best thing for her to do. Perhaps there was no need to feel guilty and as though her intentions must be concealed.
But Alex, dreading blame or disapproval, or even assurances that the scheme was unpractical and foolish, continued to conceal it.
She wrote and told Violet that she had decided that it would be too expensive to go abroad with Barbara. Might she stay on in Clevedon Square for a little while?
But she had secretly made up her mind to go and look for rooms or a boarding-house in Hampstead, as Barbara had suggested. As usual, it was only by chance that Alex realized the practical difficulties blocking her way.
She had now only five pounds.
On the following Saturday afternoon she found her way out by omnibus to Hampstead. She alighted before the terminus was reached, from a nervous dread of being taken on too far, although the streets in which she found herself were not prepossessing.
For the first time Alex reflected that she had no definite idea as to where she wanted to go in her search for lodgings. She walked timidly along the road, which appeared to be interminably long and full of second-hand furniture shops. Bamboo tables, and armchairs with defective castors, were put out on the pavement in many instances, and there was often a small crowd in front of the window gazing at the cheaply-framed coloured supplements hung up within. The pavements and the road, even the tram-lines, swarmed with untidy, clamouring children.
Alex supposed that she must be in the region vaguely known to her as the slums.
Surely she could not live here?
Then the recollection of her solitary five pounds came to her with a pang of alarm.
Of course, she must live wherever she could do so most cheaply. She had no idea of what it would cost.
It was very hot, and the pavement began to burn her feet. She did not dare to leave the main road, fearing that she should never find her way to the ‘bus route again, if once she left it, but she peeped down one or two side-streets. They seemed quieter than Malden Road, but the unpretentious little grey houses did not look as though lodgers were expected in any of them. Alex wondered desperately how she was to find out.
Presently she saw a policeman on the further side of the street.
She went up to him and asked:
“Can you tell me of anywhere near here where they let rooms — somewhere cheap?”
The man looked down at her white, exhausted face, and at the well-cut coat and skirt chosen by Barbara, which yet hung loosely and badly on her stooping, shrunken figure.
“Somebody’s poor relation,” was his unspoken comment.
“Is it for yourself, Miss? You’d hardly care to be in this neighbourhood, would you?”
“I want to be somewhere near Hampstead — and somewhere very, very cheap,” Alex faltered, thinking of her five pounds, which lay at that moment in the purse she was clasping.
“Well, you’ll find as cheap here as anywhere, if you don’t mind the noise.”
“Oh, no,” said Alex — who had never slept within the sound of traffic — surprised.
“Then if I was you, Miss, I’d try No. 252 Malden Road — just beyond the Gipsy Queen, that is, or else two doors further up. I saw cards up in both windows with ‘apartments’ inside the last week.”
“Thank you,” said Alex.
She wished that Malden Road had looked more like Downshire Hill, which had trees and little tiny gardens in front of the houses, which almost all resembled country cottages. But no doubt houses in Downshire Hill did not let rooms, or if so they must be too expensive. Besides, Alex felt almost sure that Barbara would not want her as a very near neighbour.
She was very tired when she reached No. 252, and almost felt that she would take the rooms, whatever they were like, to save herself further search. After all, she could change later on, if she did not like them.
Like all weak people, Alex felt the urgent necessity of acting as quickly as possible on her own impulses.
She looked distastefully at the dingy house, with its paint cracking into hard flakes, and raised the knocker slowly. A jagged end of protruding wire at the side of the door proclaimed that the bell was broken.
Her timid knock was answered by a slatternly-looking young woman wearing an apron, whom Alex took to be the servant.
“Can I see the — the landlady?”
“Is it about a room? I’m Mrs. ‘Oxton.” She spoke in the harshest possible Cockney, but quite pleasantly.
“Oh,” said Alex, still uncertain. “Yes, I want rooms, please.”
The woman looked her swiftly up and down. “Only one bed-sittin’-room vacant, Miss, and that’s at the top of the ‘ouse. Would you care to see that?”
“Yes, please.”
Mrs. Hoxton slammed the door and preceded Alex up a narrow staircase, carpeted with oil-cloth. On the third floor she threw open the door of a room considerably smaller than the bath-room at Clevedon Square, containing a low iron bed, and an iron tripod bearing an enamel basin, a chipped pitcher and a very
small towel-rail. A looking-glass framed in mottled yellow plush was hung crookedly on the wall, and beneath it stood a wooden kitchen chair. There was a little table with two drawers in it behind the door.
Alex looked round her with bewilderment. A convent cell was no smaller than this, and presented a greater aspect of space from its bareness.
“Is there a sitting-room?” she inquired.
“Not separate to this — no, Miss. Bed-sitting-room, this is called. Small, but then I suppose you’d be out all day.”
For a moment Alex wondered why.
“But meals?” she asked feebly.
“Would it be more than just the breakfast and supper, and three meals on Sunday?”
Alex did not know what to answer, and Mrs. Hoxton surveyed her.
“Where are you working, Miss? Anywhere near?”
“I’m not working anywhere — yet.”
Mrs. Hoxton’s manner changed a little.
“If you want two rooms, Miss, and full board, I could accommodate you downstairs. The price is according, of course — a week in advance, and pay by the week.”
Alex followed the woman downstairs again. She was sure that this was not the kind of place where she wanted to live.
Mrs. Hoxton showed her into a larger bedroom on the first floor, just opening the door and giving Alex a glimpse of extreme untidiness and an unmade bed.
“My gentleman got up late today — he don’t go to ‘is job Saturdays, so I ‘aven’t put the room to rights yet. But it’s a nice room, Miss, and will be vacant on Monday. It goes with the downstairs sitting-room in the front, as a rule, but that’s ‘ad to be turned into a bedroom just lately. I’ve been so crowded.”
“Will that be empty on Monday, too?” asked Alex, for the sake of answering something.
“Tonight, Miss. I let a coloured gentleman ‘ave it — a student, you know; a thing I’ve never done before, either. Other people don’t like it, and it gives a name, like, for not being particular who one takes. So he’s going, and I shan’t be sorry. I don’t ‘old with making talk, and it isn’t as though the room wouldn’t let easy. It’s a beautiful room, Miss.”
The coloured gentleman’s room was tidier than the one upstairs, but a haze of stale tobacco fumes hung round it and obscured Alex’ view of a short leather sofa with horsehair breaking from it in patches, a small round table in the middle of the room, and a tightly-closed window looking on to the traffic of Malden Road.
“About terms, Miss,” Mrs. Hoxton began suggestively in the passage.
“Oh, I couldn’t afford much,” Alex began, thinking that it was more difficult than she had supposed to walk out again saying that she did not, after all, want the rooms.
“I’d let you ‘ave those two rooms, and full board, for two-ten a week!” cried the landlady.
“Oh, I don’t think—”
Mrs. Hoxton shrugged her shoulders, looked at the ceiling and said resignedly:
“Then I suppose we must call it two guineas, though I ought to ask double. But you can come in right away on Monday, Miss, and I think you’ll find it all comfortable.”
“But—” said Alex faintly.
She felt very tired, and the thought of a further search for lodgings wearied her and almost frightened her. Besides, the policeman had told her that this was a cheap neighbourhood. Perhaps anywhere else they would charge much more. Finally she temporized feebly with the reflection that it need only be for a week — once the step of leaving Clevedon Square had been definitely taken, she could feel herself free to find a more congenial habitation at her leisure, and when she might feel less desperately tired. She sighed, as she followed the line of least resistance.
“Well, I’ll come on Monday, then.”
“Yes, Miss,” the landlady answered promptly. “May I have your name, Miss? — and the first week in advance my rule, as I think I mentioned.”
“My name is Miss Clare.”
Alex took two sovereigns and two shillings, fumbling, out of her purse and handed them to the woman. It did not occur to her to ask for any form of receipt.
“Will you be wanting anything on Monday, Miss?”
Alex looked uncomprehending, and the woman eyed her with scarcely veiled contempt and added, “Supper, or anything?”
“Oh — yes. I’d better come in time for dinner — for supper, I mean.”
“Yes, Miss. Seven o’clock will do you, I suppose?”
Alex thought it sounded very early, but she did not feel that she cared at all, and said that seven would do quite well.
She wondered if there were any questions which she ought to ask, but could think of none, and she was rather afraid of the strident-voiced, hard-faced woman.
But Mrs. Hoxton seemed to be quite satisfied, and pulled open the door as though it was obvious that the interview had come to an end.
“Good afternoon,” said Alex.
“Afternoon,” answered the landlady, as she slammed the door again, almost before Alex was on the pavement of Malden Road. She went away with a strangely sinking heart. To what had she committed herself?
All the arguments which Alex had been brooding over seemed to crumble away from her now that she had taken definite action.
She repeated to herself again that Violet and Cedric did not want her, that Barbara did not want her, that there was no place for her anywhere, and that it was best for her to make her own arrangements and spare them all the necessity of viewing her in the light of a problem.
But what would Cedric say to Malden Road? Inwardly Alex resolved that he must never come there. If she said “Hampstead” he would think that she was somewhere close to Barbara’s pretty little house.
But Barbara?
Alex sank, utterly jaded, into the vacant space in a crowded omnibus. It was full outside, and the atmosphere of heat and humanity inside made her feel giddy. Arguments, self-justification and sick apprehensions, surged in chaotic bewilderment through her mind.
XXVII
The Embezzlement
Alex, full of unreasoning panic, made her move to Malden Road.
She was afraid of the servants in Clevedon Square, all of them new since she had left England, and only told Ellen, with ill-concealed confusion, that she was leaving London for the present. She was unaccountably relieved when Ellen only said, impassively, “Very good, Miss,” and packed her slender belongings without comment or question.
Suddenly she remembered the cheque which Cedric had given her for the servants. She looked at it doubtfully. Her own money was already almost exhausted, thanks to that unexpected claim from the convent in Rome, and Alex supposed that the sum still in her purse, amounting to rather less than three pounds, would only last her for about a fortnight in Malden Road. She decided, with no sense of doubt, that she had better keep Cedric’s cheque. It was only a little sum to him, and he would send money for the servants. He had said that he was ready to advance money to his sister. Characteristically, Alex dismissed the matter from her mind as unimportant. She had never learnt any accepted code in dealings with money, and her own instinct led her to believe it an unessential question. She judged only from her own feelings, which would have remained quite unstirred by any emotions but those the most matter-of-fact at any claim, direct or indirect, justifiable or not, upon her purse.
She had never learnt the rudiments of pride, or of straight-dealing in questions of finance. But in Malden Road Alex was, after all, to learn many things.
There were material considerations equally unknown to Clevedon Square and to the austere but systematic doling-out of convent necessities, which were brought home to her with a startled sense of dismay from her first evening at 252. She had never thought of bringing soap with her, or boxes of matches, yet these commodities did not appear as a matter of course, as they had always done elsewhere. There was gas in both the rooms, but there were no candles. There was no hot water.
“You can boil your own kettle on the gas-ring on the landing,” Mrs. Hoxton sai
d indifferently, and left her new lodger to the realization that the purchase of a kettle had never occurred to her at all.
Buying the kettle, and a supply of candles and matches and soap, left her with only just enough money in hand for her second week’s rent, and when she wanted notepaper and ink and stamps to write to Barbara, Alex decided that she must appropriate Cedric’s cheque for the servants’ wages to her own uses. She felt hardly any qualms.
This wasn’t like that bill from Rome, which she would have been afraid to let him see. He would have talked about the dishonesty of convents, and asked why she had not told him sooner of their charges against her, and have looked at her with that almost incredulous expression of amazed disgust had she admitted her entire oblivion of the whole consideration.
But this cheque for the servants.
It would enable her to pay her own expenses until she could get the work which she still vaguely anticipated, and the sum meant nothing to Cedric. She would write and tell him that she had cashed the money, sure that he would not mind, in fulfilment of his many requests to her to look upon him as her banker.
But she did not write, though she cashed the cheque. The days slipped by in a sort of monotonous discomfort, but it was very hot, and she learnt to find her way to Hampstead Heath, where she could sit for hours, not reading, for she had no books, but brooding in a sort of despairing resignation over the past and the nightmare-seeming present. The conviction remained with her ineradicably that the whole thing was a dream — that she would wake up again to the London of the middle ‘nineties and find herself a young girl again, healthy and eager, and troubling Lady Isabel, and, more remotely, Sir Francis, with her modern exigencies and demands to live her own life, the war-cry of those clamorous ‘eighties and ‘nineties, of which the young new century had so easily reaped the harvest. She could not bring herself to believe that her own life had been lived, and that only this was left.
Alex sometimes felt that she was not alive at all — that she was only a shade moving amongst the living, unable to get into real communication with any of them.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 121