A Pin to See the Peepshow

by F. Tennyson Jesse

  “Oh, Moddom,” said Lily, “I do hope I’m not intruding. I reely do. You were so very kind the other day and said I might bring my friend along to see you. She is wanting a position as apprentice.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the strange lady in a vague voice. “Let me see, have I seen you before?”

  Lily’s face went very red. “I’m at Pompilia’s. I helped with your fitting the other day—the white satin. When it wanted taking in a bit on the hips.”

  “Oh, yes, of course, I thought I knew your face. Yes, I shall want an apprentice. I think we shall open in about a couple of weeks now.” The narrow, slightly oblique eyes of a very pale grey that could look greenish, considered Julia thoughtfully. “Take off your hat, child,” said Miss Lestrange abruptly. Julia blushed deeply and pulled off the offending dark-blue felt.

  “You look nice, not that I suppose it matters much in an apprentice, but I hate people round me who don’t look nice. What can you do?”

  “I—I can draw,” stammered Julia. “I’ve been studying fashion-drawing now for two terms.”

  The pale eyebrows lifted still higher. “Dear me, I think that’s a bit above our station. I hadn’t thought of having an apprentice who could draw. Still it might be useful. Wait a minute. I’ll ask Mrs. Danvers to come. She knows more about this sort of thing than I do,” and raising her voice, Miss Lestrange called out, “Gipsy, come along here for a moment, will you, darling?”

  Again the curtains parted and a dark, rather plump, bright-eyed lady appeared, far more brisk and business-like in manner than Miss Lestrange. Afterwards, Julia learned, Mrs. Danvers had already run a shop which would have been a great success if all her customers had not been her friends, and in consequence, failed to pay her.

  “Here is a girl come for the job as apprentice,” explained Miss Lestrange. “You talk to her about it, Gipsy.”

  Matters went very swiftly, for Mrs. Danvers had Julia’s age and lack of experience out of her in half a minute. “Seems all right,” she said briskly to Miss Lestrange—they both had a curious manner of talking to you, thought Julia, as though you were not there at all—“May as well try her as get in another.” She turned back to Julia.

  “Very well, we will expect you Monday week. Be here at about a quarter to nine. Of course, you will get no salary while you are an apprentice. You might bring some of your drawings with you. Not that you will have much time to do anything like that when once we get going.” She gave a brisk nod and went back between the curtains.

  No one asked Julia whether the arrangement had suited her. Lily plucked her nervously by the elbow. “Thank you very much indeed, Moddom,” said Lily to Miss Lestrange. “I’m sure you’ll find my friend very useful.”

  “I’m sure I shall,” said Miss Lestrange, with a sort of languid impersonal kindness. “Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” began Julia, and found her courage failed her at saying “Miss Lestrange.” “Good-bye, Madam.” At least, she thought, she would show she knew how to speak, not like Lily with her absurd “moddoms.” She picked up her dark-blue felt hat. Miss Lestrange checked her by a gesture. “Your hair,” she murmured, looking thoughtfully at her. “It looks too much that way. A lot of girls are bobbing their hair now. You’d better try it. Get it done by a good hairdresser, or it will look a mess.”

  “All right,” murmured Julia. Inwardly she was horrified … her precious hair!

  Quite calmly, as though she had not suggested anything of overwhelming importance, Miss Lestrange nodded casually and was lost again behind the grey velvet curtains.

  “Well,” said Lily, when the two girls were out on the pavement again, “aren’t you in luck?”

  “I thought they were rather rude,” said Julia.

  “Oh, no,” said Lily, shocked, “I thought Miss Lestrange was ever so nice to you. She’s the real thing, you know; knows all the slap-up people. She’s doing this because she’s bored. I don’t suppose it’ll last long, but it’ll give you a good start. I knew she’d take you if I said you were a friend of mine.”

  Julia felt the least she could do to show her gratitude was to stand lunch to Lily, and indeed with this idea in her head she had stolen half a crown from the vase on the dining-room mantelpiece where her mother kept the current money of the household. They had poached eggs on toast at Lyons’, but at least the Lyons’ was in Bond Street, and Julia felt that a career in the big world had begun for her at last.

  Of course, thought Julia resentfully, Dad and Mum would take it that way, doubtful and critical, throwing cold water, just because she’d found the job for herself and not through them. “It’s quite all right, I tell you,” she said impatiently, “Miss Lestrange is perfectly wonderful.”

  “Wonderful is as wonderful does,” said Mrs. Almond darkly, and Dad said with an air of importance that sat ludicrously upon him: “I’d better go and see her myself. Can’t have people thinking my daughter can take a place just anywhere.”

  In an agonised flash, Julia saw Miss Lestrange’s cold clear face, the tilt of brows and lips accentuated to scornfulness, looking at Dad as though he were some odd insect.

  “You’ll only make a fool of yourself and lose me the job,” she cried angrily; “haven’t you any sense, Dad?”

  Mr. Almond looked deeply offended, and Julia felt the hopelessness of trying to get him to understand this entirely different world of which she had caught a glimpse. The words wouldn’t come to her, and he wouldn’t understand them, anyway. Yet she must, she must, prevent him doing this dreadful thing that would cover her with shame and turn her hot for the rest of her life whenever she thought of it. They were going to supper and whist at Mr. Starling’s that evening, and though Julia generally evaded such entertainments—what fun was there in seeing Dad and Mum and the Starlings play whist—she suddenly decided she would accompany them on this occasion. Mr. Starling admired her, she knew, and if she could get him alone for a minute, without that awful stick of a wife hanging around, with a face as long as a wet week, she could tell him of her dilemma. He would breezily assure Dad that everything was all right, and Dad had a great opinion of Mr. Starling as a man of the world. Anyway, the actual supper would be nicer at Saint Clement’s Square than at home.

  There was the usual squabble about taking Bobby. Mrs. Almond said: “You know quite well Mrs. Starling doesn’t like dogs.” Julia stood firm. It would be Bobby’s first walk that day.

  Eventually they all set off, Bobby leaping and whimpering with joy, making rushes at a lamp-post as he remembered the chief business of a walk, and stopping short, turning, and rushing back to Julia again, jumping up at her and saying over and over again how lovely it was to walk with her.

  She put him on the lead to cross the High Road, and, panting loudly, he walked beside her with great sobriety to the road opposite that led down to Saint Clement’s Square. Then Julia stooped and unfastened the lead, and Bobby shot off, his powerful leg muscles sending him at a terrific pace down the road, the white tip of his tail straight out behind him. “That dog!” complained Mrs. Almond, “he’s always so rough.”

  He was waiting for them when they got into the Square, sitting upright on his haunches and smiling, and looking absurdly like the plaster lions that sat on the pedestals at the foot of the tall white flights of steps. Some of the houses had eagles, but these were not nearly as friendly; the lions had arched backs to their necks just like Bobby, and smiling, upturned mouths.

  Julia had always liked Saint Clement’s Square. The houses told of a more leisurely and spacious age, even now when they were mostly converted into flats, and all rather shabby and in need of fresh plastering. They had verandas coming out from the first floor, supported by slim, green pillars, and capped with green-painted iron roofs. They were rather like the houses Julia had fallen in love with during one holiday in Brighton, that she had found out were called Regency houses. There were some almond-trees in blosso
m in the garden of the Square, looking like sunset clouds caught for an enchanted little space of time in the network of dark twigs. A broken statue of Apollo, green with damp, stood in the middle of the Square, the strings of his lyre were made of whitewashed wire and had snapped, and were now curled up aimlessly, his hand poised over them. There were bird-droppings on his shoulder. Julia loved him, he filled her with a pleasing and impersonal melancholy, and he reminded her of the lost world of the Polytechnic, and the white gods who stood blank-eyed down the cast-room. The Starlings’ maisonette might be prosaic, but the Square itself was incurably romantic.

  Julia managed the minute alone with Herbert Starling. Mrs. Starling was fussing about Bobby, and tying him up to the leg of the kitchen table, to the annoyance of the elderly maid, Emily, who said she would be sure to trip over him, and what harm did the poor dumb animal do, anyway? She was a great one for dumb animals, she was. She persisted in calling Bobby a dumb animal, though all the time he was talking at the top of his voice, explaining that he wasn’t used to being tied up to table-legs.

  “Mr. Starling … I do want to speak to you for a minute alone … it’s ever so important.” His clean-shaven good-natured face flushed, and he said aloud: “Let me take your coat, Julia, and you’ll like to get rid of your hat, I expect. Here’s the lobby, where I’ve had the telephone put in.”

  For a few moments they were in the dim-lit lobby, that smelt of rubber goloshes and overcoats. Julia swiftly told him of her difficulty. He bent his florid face consolingly towards her.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll see to your Dad. Of course you ought to have your chance. I’ve heard of your Miss Lestrange, she’s one of the sort whose photo gets put in the picture papers. ‘Society lady starts a shop,’ and all that sort of thing. You’re a great girl, Julia, you ought to have your chance.”

  The florid face came nearer, looking like a huge red moon. A brotherly kiss was sketched, rather inexpertly, upon Julia’s cheek. She did not like it, but she felt a tiny thrill of triumph all the same.

  The next moment Mrs. Starling’s voice was heard calling sharply: “Herbert … Herbert. …”

  Julia went out into the passage … “and I’ll take him back home now if Mrs. Starling doesn’t like dogs, I will indeed, Mr. Starling. I’d no idea she didn’t. I can easily get myself some supper at home.”

  Herbert Starling’s voice came, grave and pleasant. “That’s all right, no need to worry. The missis doesn’t really dislike dogs, do you, Missis?”

  “I don’t like them,” said Mrs. Starling fretfully, staring at Herbert and Julia as they came into the dining-room, with annoyance, but no suspicion in her pale eyes.

  “She’s a great girl, sharp as a needle,” thought Mr. Starling gratefully, as he watched Julia’s innocent face.

  Supper was already laid on the table, but two more guests were expected, Dr. Ackroyd and his daughter, Anne. They were a little late, for, as usual, a clamorous patient had seized on Dr. Ackroyd at the last moment. Even the children would say: “There goes the doctor,” as they saw his tall form striding along the streets—he walked whenever possible—his thin, clean-shaven face bent, his long, greying hair lying on his coat collar, and his shabby top-hat tilted a little over one ear. He had a reputation for speaking his mind, and seemed blandly unconscious of the fact that anyone’s delicacy could be offended by his so doing.

  Once the Ackroyds had arrived, everyone settled down to supper, which was very good; ham and salad, and trifle with brandy in it, and a big chocolate cake. It must be dreadful to be as delicate as Mrs. Starling and not be able to eat what you liked. There was port wine, too, and Julia had a glass and enjoyed it. It was queer, but delightful, that funny sensation of floating, as though you were lighter than air, and yet of being more poised and clear than ever before, that came to her after drinking the port.

  Dad seemed to grow mellow, too, at Mr. Starling’s. He never looked out for slights, as he was apt to do at his office and in his own house, and when Julia casually introduced the subject of Miss Lestrange’s shop, Dad said quite amiably: “Well, now look here, Starling. Don’t you think I am in the right of it, as one man of the world to another, to want to go and see this Miss Whatever she calls herself? I can’t have my little girl going off just anyhow. Don’t you think I ought to go and see for myself what I think of the place?”

  Julia waited anxiously. Mr. Starling seemed to think the matter over, as though it were entirely news to him, and then gave judgment in his weighty, rather pompous fashion.

  “Well, I don’t know that I should if I were you, Almond,” he said. “Sometimes it’s better to let these young people arrange things for themselves. Then if they make mistakes they’ve nobody but themselves to blame. What did you say the lady’s name is, Julia?”

  “Miss Lestrange,” said Julia; “the Honourable Marian Lestrange.”

  “Oh, she’s all right,” said Herbert Starling casually. “Everybody knows her. Why, you can hardly open a picture paper without seeing her photograph. It’ll be a very good start for Julia, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Well, if you say so …” murmured Dad, evidently, as Julia could see, rather glad to get out of a difficult situation. Once his first annoyance at not having been consulted had passed off, he was not very anxious to go and confront a formidable society lady.

  “After all,” went on Mr. Starling, “we men may consider ourselves lucky nowadays if the ladies want to go in for anything as feminine as dressmaking. Julia might have wanted to be one of these suffragettes and gone about burning churches and hitting policemen.”

  Mrs. Almond looked shocked. “No daughter of mine,” she said with unwonted decision, “would have behaved like that, I should hope. Suffragettes, indeed! I’d suffragette them if I had anything to do with them.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know,” said Herbert Starling, with an air of large-mindedness; “I daresay they’d be all right if they had husbands and homes of their own.”

  “Lots of them have,” pointed out Julia, rather unkindly, considering the way that Mr. Starling had stood by her. She had no brief for suffragettes—the whole question bored her profoundly—even Miss Tracey had been unable to work her up to the idea that it was important for a woman to have a vote and be what she called “a good citizen.” And Miss Tracey herself had always ended her arguments by saying: “But, of course, I don’t like this militant business, that’s all wrong.” Julia had thought to herself that if a thing was worth having at all it was worth fighting for, but she had not been interested enough in the question of the vote to say so.

  Herbert Starling’s face flushed a little. “Then their husbands should see that they stick to their homes,” he said. “Yes, indeed,” said Mr. Almond.

  Julia glanced curiously from one to the other. Why did men always think they were in the right, and that they could make women do things? Mr. Starling had more sense than Dad, but she could make him do exactly what she wanted, and as for Dad, why, you had only to look at him to see that it was all bluster and no power with him.

  “Perhaps they would stay at home,” said Mrs. Starling unexpectedly, “if they had good homes and husbands,” and she looked with real affection in her pale eyes at her rosy-faced Herbert.

  “Some of their husbands agree with them, and want women to have the vote,” said Julia, feeling spurred on by some imp of mischief.

  “Then all I can say is,” said Herbert Starling loudly, “that a man who thinks like that is no man at all. I should not have thought you were one of these shrieking sisterhood, or whatever they call them, Julia.”

  Julia had a sudden little fear lest she had antagonised Mr. Starling. It only needed another word from him to set Dad off being tiresome.

  “I’m not,” she said, “not really,” and she lifted her long, thick lashes in a swift, shy little glance at Herbert Starling. His own eyes met the glance and again that little understan
ding of a secret between them leaped to life. Julia was enjoying herself. It was fun having a little understanding with him that no one else in the room knew anything about. He was a kind man, she decided, and it was rotten luck for him to be married to Mrs. Starling. Julia studied her furtively. She sat at the head of the table, like a faintly disapproving ghost. She wore her faded hair in an old-fashioned pompadour, from which the shorter hairs escaped and hung down in straight wisps. A gold-rimmed pince-nez gave her rather the look of a governess, thought Julia, with a fleeting remembrance of Miss Tracey. She must be three or four years older than Mr. Starling, but there was surely no need to make herself look even older than she was by getting herself up in such an old-fashioned manner.

  “What I can never understand,” remarked Dr. Ackroyd, in the voice that seemed always so unexpectedly deep and booming as it issued from his tall and cadaverous frame, “is why you should imagine that getting the vote should change a woman’s nature. Men will be men, and women will be women to the end of time, one imagines. There’s really nothing specially awful about going to a polling booth. We men have managed to survive it, and women are a great deal tougher than we are.”