Of course, there was an awful row next morning—a breakfast-table row. Uncle George, Aunt Mildred, the would-be placatory voice of Mum, and the shrill piping of Elsa. Disgustingly insanitary habits—dirty habits—a dog to sleep in your room, on your bed, taking up all the oxygen—give you all his fleas. Had Julia ever observed what dogs did when they were out? Think of the things they licked, and then came home and licked her. The things they ate, the places they put their feet in. Dogs weren’t even clean as cats were clean. They were thoroughly dirty.
Julia sat, white and still, through breakfast, but when it was over she pushed back her chair.
“Well, you can do exactly what you like,” she said, “but either Bobby sleeps with me or Elsa doesn’t. I don’t want Elsa, and I do want Bobby, and after all, it’s my room. I’ll sleep in the sitting-room on the sofa, but Bobby shall sleep with me. Elsa can have my room to herself; after all, why not? Uncle George is paying the rent now.”
As she was leaving the house a sudden thought struck her. How could she leave Bobby to these angry people? She went back, fastened his lead to his collar, and started out with him. Bobby, enchanted, jumped all about her. Laboriously Julia lugged his elephantine weight on to the top, first of a tramcar and then of an omnibus. It was a wet day, and she was chilled to the bone by the time she reached the shop. Bobby, who had never been up and down the stairs of a moving vehicle before, was extremely alarmed, and held on with all his claws at each step. Julia took him straight through to the back of the house in George Street and tied him up to the runaway basin in the lavatory, and went to find Gipsy.
“Mrs. Danvers,” she said, “I’m in the most dreadful trouble. May I tell you about it?”
Gipsy looked at her out of her bright, rather sweet eyes. Julia had been with them for nearly three years now, and had never troubled them with anything personal. Gipsy felt she owed Julia something, and nodded her head. “Tell me all about it.”
“It’s this way,” said Julia. “You know father died a couple of months ago? Well, our only way of keeping on living, mother and me, was to have Uncle George and his wife and their horrid little girl to live with us, and they’ve come. And the little girl, Elsa her name is, shares my room. I don’t want to bother you, Mrs. Danvers, but you can’t think what that means to me. Whenever I get home tired, or whenever things haven’t been right at home, I’ve always had my room. When I was a little girl I won a scripture prize once, and the only thing I remember about it is that I wrote a long answer to the question, ‘What were the Cities of Refuge?’ Well, my room was my city of refuge, and now I’ve got to share it with Elsa. Well, I don’t want to bother you with all that, but they’ve taken my dog away. You don’t know Bobby, but he’s always slept with me. I’ve always taken him out for a walk when I’ve got home, however tired I was”—this wasn’t strictly true, but it seemed true to Julia at the moment—“and now he’s been put to sleep in the scullery. I brought him up here to-day. I hope you don’t mind. He’ll be as good as gold. What I wanted to ask you is this, if they still won’t listen to me, may I sleep here on the divan in the fitting-room to-night with Bobby, until I can find somewhere to go to? I’ll try and find a lodging-house, or something. I don’t know much about these things, but I can’t go on at home if it’s going to be like this,” and to Julia’s horror, the slow tears began to fall from her eyes.
“You poor child,” said Gipsy unexpectedly, “how perfectly horrible for you to have to share your room. Where’s Bobby, I’d like to see him?”
“He—he’s in the lavatory,” said Julia, between her sobs.
The thing, of course, was as good as done. Bobby practically told Gipsy that she was his long-lost mother. He at once tried to be a lap-dog, and he shook hands at least twenty times.
Gipsy gazed at him entranced. It seemed to her incredible that there should be a dog so vulgar, so plain, and so fascinating. If Julia had come to her complaining that she had had a baby from which she had been separated, or a mother, or sister, or a little crippled brother, or a husband, she might have had very little sympathy; but a dog, even a dog like Bobby, with a cocoa-coloured nose and the most amazing lack of shape, was a sure pass to the heart of anyone of Gipsy’s or Marian’s kind. A dog was a dog.
At lunch-time Julia went out and sent a prepaid telegram to Two Beresford. She addressed it to Almond, and not to Beale. Will come back to-night if can have Bobby otherwise will not return—Julia.
Just before the shop closed at six the answer came: Expect you both supper.—Beale.
Julia and Gipsy studied the telegram solemnly together. “Does he mean Bobby can sleep with me?” said Julia. “You see, he only says supper. Still, after all, I sent the telegram to mother, and Uncle George has answered it.”
“From what you have told me,” said Gipsy, “I imagine your Uncle George would have answered it, whoever you had sent it to.” She fumbled in her bag and produced a Yale key. “Look here, Julia, if you find after supper that they won’t let you have your own way, come back here. Here’s the key; the first time I’ve ever let you have it. It’s a spare one and you can keep it. Bring some sheets with you and make up your bed on the divan in the fitting-room, and you can bath somehow in the runaway basin in the morning.”
Very slowly Julia put out her hand and took the key. “Mrs. Danvers,” her voice shook a little, “I can’t tell you what I think of you for this.”
“Nonsense, Julia, of course, you know I trust you by now. Why, you’re part of the firm. If you can’t have the key, who can? and by the way, your salary goes up to thirty shillings. You can’t really live on it, but it’ll enable you to pay them enough to keep them a bit quiet. Perhaps you can get the box-room cleared out after all, and stick your little cousin in it.”
Julia and Gipsy stood looking at each other. Julia realised for a moment how good Gipsy really was, though she was nothing like as kind and gushing as Ruby. Gipsy had her own troubles; she had never got over the loss of her husband, she had the boy to educate, she had masses of bad debts; but she really cared about Julia because Julia had given of her very best work to the shop.
Once again Julia fastened the lead on to Bobby’s collar. This time she took him home by the District Railway, and bought a ticket for him. Bobby ate half the ticket before they arrived at Stamford Brook Green, and the chewed remains had to be rescued from his mouth and presented to the ticket-collector.
Rather to Julia’s disappointment everything was peaceful at Two Beresford. Her announcement of her rise in salary was greeted with awe and admiration. Certainly Bobby could sleep with her; nobody had meant to be unkind. Julia, who had pictured herself going back for the night, with a tooth-brush and a roll of sheets and blankets, to the shop in George Street, was disappointed.
But she had to sleep again with the little pert face of Elsa present to her consciousness. Even after the light had been put out in her room, even with Bobby’s head pressing against her feet, she remained conscious of this intrusion. Her room had gone, it was no longer hers. Why had she made the mistake of basing her ultimatum on Bobby’s presence rather than Elsa’s absence?
Gipsy gave Julia the thirty shillings a week, and still Julia didn’t go away and live “on her own.” Soft living had taken hold of Julia by now. How could she live anywhere on thirty shillings a week, and have Bobby with her—and how could she leave Bobby in the disgruntled household of Two Beresford? Thirty shillings a week! A room and breakfast at a Bloomsbury boarding-house; nobody to fill her hot-water bottle when she came in each night. After all, Mum might not be much good at running a house, but she did get Julia’s supper when she came in dead tired, and Two Beresford had been run more or less to suit Julia. She simply couldn’t face going off into the void and slaving for herself; doing her own bits of mending, that Mum did at present, and living in squalor. The weakness of the flesh that had always pursued her, was hers now. Passion and comfort are, after all, more or less al
lied, and Julia, who had known passion, couldn’t give up comfort. It was weakness rather than strength that enabled her to go on day after day at Two Beresford.
No one ever knew, except Julia herself, how the presence of Elsa in her bedroom pressed upon her in the weeks that followed. It wasn’t that Elsa was inconsiderate —she was only too careful not to give offence.
“Of course, Julia, I know this is your room really, do you mind if I put my brush down here? Did I wake you, Julia, in the night when I had to get up? I’m so sorry if I did. I know you work so hard.”
Julia’s instinct told her, although she could never have made either Mum or the Beales understand it, that Elsa was just pretending all that consideration, that she was pretending everything. She knew how seldom Elsa was really asleep when she came up at night after an evening out. She knew quite well that through those golden up-curled eyelashes, Elsa’s light-blue eyes were watching her. Always there would be a different reception. As the nights grew warmer, Elsa would be the innocent young girl who thought no ill, and would be lying practically nude upon her bed, arms outflung, sleeping with the innocent smile of a child upon her pretty, insipid little mouth. Sometimes on a cooler night she would be curled up like a dormouse, looking younger than ever. Once she had even fallen asleep upon Julia’s bed, as though slumber had overtaken her while waiting for the elder girl’s arrival, half undressed, book fallen from her hand. Julia knew perfectly well that she wasn’t really asleep, that she had put down the book just as she heard her coming, but she couldn’t possibly say so.
It began to get upon Julia’s nerves, this wondering how she was going to find her cousin when she came in late at night. Sometimes Elsa was sprightly, anxious to know whether Julia had been enjoying herself, sometimes studious and martyr-like, doing some work, not able to get to sleep because she was expecting Julia. And then the time came when Bobby’s heavy breathing began to disturb Elsa.
“It’s the hot weather, I suppose,” she’d say, with a wan little smile. “He can’t help it, poor dog, he just has to get off Julia’s bed and fling himself down on the floor. He can’t help the noise it makes.”
Julia, also, would have been glad if Bobby had not insisted on sleeping on her bed during the summer weather, but she simply just hadn’t dared to do it.
She let herself in quietly, and went upstairs and into her room. The gas was burning full on, and Elsa was lying asleep in bed with Bobby in her arms, his face on her shoulder, his pink mouth half open, his pink eyelids tightly closed. A few crumbs of sweet biscuit lying on the floor told their own story. Elsa had been coaxing Bobby to sleep on her bed. Julia laughed, and snapped her fingers loudly, regardless of whether she woke Elsa or not. Bobby opened one sleepy, yellow eye, gave a few perfunctory thumps with the white tip of his tail, closed the eye and went to sleep again. Julia sat quite still, with murder in her heart. She went towards the bed to pull Bobby off it by the collar, and then suddenly realised that if Elsa woke up and saw her, or if Elsa was already awake, which was quite likely, she would be playing right into her hands. With the greatest self-control she had yet exercised in her life, she got into bed and turned out the light. Her reward came in the morning, when Bobby, who had plumped, as usual, on to the linoleum in the small hours, crept on to her bed at about six.
Neither Julia nor Elsa said anything to each other about his defection, but when next night Julia found the same state of affairs obtaining, Bobby once again asleep in Elsa’s arms, she knew that the whole arrangement was a deliberate scheme. She had refused to sleep without Bobby, had she? Well, now she should see that Bobby loved Elsa more than he loved her. She was out all day, Elsa attended a school near-by, came home to lunch, took him out for a walk afterwards, fed him at meal-times, and made a fuss of him without cease. Bobby, at first languid under these attentions, became rather struck by them. Here was a pleasant person who would give him everything he wanted. Why should he lie in the hall waiting for Julia, when he could be on Elsa’s bed, stuffed with sweet biscuits, until he fell asleep?
Julia bore it for a few days, and then, just as she was feeling she could do something desperate, Herbert Starling telephoned her at the shop. He wanted to take her out to dinner, and to see the new play at the Haymarket, The Freedom of the Seas, the following night.
“Oh dear,” lamented Julia on the telephone, “and I’ve promised to go out with Ruby, you know Ruby Safford, the actress?”
“Oh yes,” came Herbert’s voice, “you’ve told me about her. Well, look here, why couldn’t she come, too, and bring a friend, of course. I’d like to give a dinner-party for a friend of yours, Julia.”
Julia’s cheeks began to burn with pleasure as she sat with the receiver in her hand. How wonderful, she could produce a friend, a man friend, an officer, who would give a party for her and her friends. It was the first time such a thing had ever happened to Julia.
“Well, what do you say?” came Herbert’s voice impatiently over the telephone.
“Yes, I think that’ll be all right. I’ll telephone Ruby. I don’t think she’d made any special plans.”
“Right oh,” said Herbert Starling. “If you don’t let me know, I’ll conclude it’s O.K. We’ll dine at the Pall Mall, it’s next door to the Haymarket. Where shall I call for you?”
“Oh,” Julia said, thinking for a moment. She had better dress at the shop. She’d never have time to get out to Heronscourt Park and back, and besides, there’d be the usual endless questions to answer.
“Call for me here,” she said, “I’ll change here. The shop door will be shut, but knock at the house door, I’ll be ready.”
“Right oh,” said Herbert. “Seven o’clock, then, so as to give us plenty of time for dinner.”
“That’ll be lovely,” said Julia, hanging up the receiver.
It was the luncheon-hour, and there was no one in the lower part of the shop but herself. She rang up Ruby, who was still in bed, and told her the change of plans. Ruby was charmed. She’d bring the flying boy, such a dear boy, as Julia knew, and Ruby really thought that he really did love her. Didn’t Julia think so, too? The Pall Mall at seven-thirty, that would be lovely. And again Julia hung up the telephone.
She determined to put all her troubles out of her mind for the time being and enjoy the dinner and theatre. Thank heaven, he had the sense not to bring that gloom-pots of a sister with him; and she could forget her existence, and the existence of the Beale family as well. As a matter of fact, Aunt Mildred, not without guile, had asked Miss Starling to supper that night. Julia, laughing to herself, could guess at Bertha’s fears when she discovered Julia was out … and at Aunt Mildred’s reassurances. Of course, nothing would suit Aunt Mildred’s book better than that Julia should marry Herbert Starling, and the Beale family would have Two Beresford to themselves—for no one counted Mum. Marry Herbert Starling … it was the first time Julia had put the possibility into words even to herself, and her heart began to beat faster. She thought of Herbert as she had seen him the other night, jovial, masculine, authoritative, very much of a man in his uniform. He’d always been interested in her; she’d known that even in the days when he had been married, and when, anyway, she’d thought him too old to be worth considering. Julia had lived in the world since then, she no longer thought a man of thirty-five old, and after all, she herself was twenty, nearly twenty-one …
She had always had an extraordinary terror of age. Though when she was a child she had wished to be grown up, simply because she thought to be grown up meant freedom, she had yet felt the fear of age as soon as she had got into her ’teens, and on her twentieth birthday had had a gloomy feeling that she had left youth behind her.
She dressed with care at the shop after closing hours, putting on the black lace frock, which she had brought up to date by shortening it and adding a transparent hem. Then she put on a black and silver cloak, given her by Ruby.
It flashed across her mind now
that if she married somebody—say, Herbert, for the sake of argument—she would be able to “buy in” more clothes, for, of course, she would still go on working at the shop—catch her giving up her independence! and there would be an allowance from her husband as well. Come to that, it would almost be worth marrying Herbert to see the face of that old cat, Bertha, who thought she’d got her claws into him for good.
The years of overhearing the conversation of the Darlings, and watching how they lived, had not been without their effect on Julia; she no longer had the notion of marriage as necessarily being for life, that had been hers in an uninstructed youth. You could always get out of it somehow or other if it turned out too badly. Economic independence, that was the thing that mattered for women, more and more she saw that. Look at Mum, who now had to have the Beale family in her house for the rest of her days, simply because Uncle George could support her and she couldn’t support herself. Look at Anne, she got on with her father, but she would be independent of him once she was through her training, and if she chose to go, she could. Look at Marian, everyone knew she was only waiting for the end of the war to get a divorce. Billy wouldn’t want it, but he’d have to agree, and just because she had private means she could get on quite all right without him, and could choose someone who amused her more next time. Tired of “the Front,” Marian was back again at the shop, and having an affair with an “indispensable” young man who was in the Foreign Office. Even Gipsy, hard-up as she was, had her husband’s pension and earned enough extra by the shop to support herself, and would send her boy into the Navy, though she had to work tirelessly to do it. Soon she, Julia, would be economically independent, too, but with nothing put by … how could she put by? She would always be at the mercy of an extra bad go of flu, of any long illness. … That was where a husband would come in so useful, it gave you a sort of background, something other than yourself to depend on. … She wondered just how much she could have depended on Alfie … not much, perhaps, but, anyway, what was the good of thinking of Alfie? Herbert wasn’t Alfie, but he had come on wonderfully this past year, in spite of Bertha. Being a widower, and then going into training, had done marvels for him, thought Julia, not realising how much was due to his uniform.
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