George took a cigarette and lit it.
“Well, you know she’s always suffered with ’er inside ever since Floss was born, and to-day it’s something chronic.” Mouse made a sympathetic sound, and then went out to put his hat in the hall and call Flossie. “Great sufferer, Mrs. Elk ’as always been,” he added when she came back.
Mouse made the same sympathetic sound.
“How’s the allotment? Those were lovely apples you gave me.”
“It’s not really an allotment, it’s a bit I rent from a gentleman private, it’s a garden really. It’s done a treat this year, I did mean to have brought you up some of my peas, but it’s not easy for me to get away middle weeks, and, of course, young Floss was home week-ends——” There was a footstep, he looked up and nodded at his daughter standing in the doorway. “Hullo, my girl, come and give your Dad a kiss.”
Only by a faint flush did Flossie show the dismay she felt at sight of her father. She managed her usual sweet smile.
“Hullo, Dad. Where’s Mum?”
“I just been telling Miss Shane. She’s got one of ’er nasty turns. She’s pleased you done so well last night.”
Mouse patted Flossie’s shoulder.
“Well, I’ll leave you two to talk. I’ll see you before you go, Mr. Elk.”
George looked at Flossie. Very restless she seemed, walking about the room and fiddling with the ornaments.
“You wanted to see your Mum. Anything wrong?” Flossie stood on one leg. It made her suddenly childish and like the little Flossie who had played on the shop floor. His voice softened. “Come and sit down and let’s have it whatever it is, things go bad with keepin’.”
Flossie sat on a stool, she pulled it near her father’s chair and patted his knee,
“I’m so glad you could come, it was you I would have asked, but I thought you wouldn’t be able to get away.”
“Well, it’s ‘ard, as you know well, but I’ve managed it this once seein’ your mother’s queer. Now what is it?”
Flossie ran her finger backwards and forwards across his knee; she looked at the carpet.
“It’s about them calling me Virginia.”
George looked surprised.
“Is that all? Well, telling us to-day is a bit cryin’ after the milk’s spilt, isn’t it? It’s a bit of silliness. Elk’s always been good enough for me and it’s good enough for you. But you can call yourself what you like, your Mum and I won’t stand in the way of that.”
Flossie raised shocked eyes.
“I never wanted to change. It was Mr. Low and the others, they made me. You see, Mr. Low said not knowing who my father was, made it exciting.”
George felt his time was being wasted.
“Come on, my girl. I don’t mind what you call yourself, but don’t talk silly. You say Mr. Low called you Virginia because he didn’t know who your father was. But you did. Couldn’t you tell him?”
“Oh I did, but he said if people didn’t know they might think things.”
“Think what things?”
“That my father was royal.”
George gave her a puzzled stare. He had come to think of Flossie as unstable, but he began now to have doubts as to her intelligence. He tapped her hand.
“That’s not at all the way to talk. I don’t know what the King and Queen would say if they ’eard you. Royal indeed! I knew this dancin’ would lead to silliness, but I never thought it’d make you as silly as this. Elk’s our name and there’s plenty as knows it, and they never ’ave thought us belongin’ to the Royal Family and they aren’t likely to think it now.”
“Not that sort of Royalty,” Flossie snapped, for she felt she was making very little headway. “Foreign. I do wish you’d listen so I could explain.”
“Well, explain if you can. What you’ve said so far is that you were called Virginia so that not havin’ a name, people would think your mother and me belonged to a foreign royal family. If you can make sense of that I’ll be glad to hear it. But there’s one thing I’d like to say first. Nobody’ll take you for anything better than what you are, no matter what you call yourself, and you shouldn’t be wishful that they should.”
Flossie got up; she moved to the window.
“But suppose I do wish it. A greengrocer’s shop in the Fordham Road is a pretty sordid background for a girl, don’t you think? And whatever you may think, Mr. Low and Miss Lynd and everybody know that I might be anybody.”
“Lot of silliness. Don’t you believe them, my girl. Call yourself what you like; you were born in the Fordham Road of respectable but very ordinary people, and it’s only because you’re nobody that they’re putting this silliness into your head. If you were a real lady born you wouldn’t allow it, and they wouldn’t try it on.”
“It’s not true.” Her eyes extraordinarily blue with temper, she stood in front of him. Gone was Mouse’s careful training, her voice rose to a scream. “I am different. I’m beautiful. God knows how I managed it with yours and Mum’s ugly dials as a start, but I’ve managed it, and I mean to make something of it. I’ll be who I like, and I’ll climb up in the world. And I’ll tell you something else, I’m not trailing you and Mum behind me so’s everybody can laugh and say: ‘She thinks a lot of herself but look at her father and mother, couple of scarecrows.’ Miss Lynd has spread it about that Mr. Low found me in a convent, he’s let them think I might have some royal blood in me, and so I might too, and that’s the story I’m sticking to. And what I wanted to say to Mum was I hoped you’d both keep your mouths shut, and not come bothering me, and I won’t come bothering you. And now you’ve got it straight.”
She stood there panting, ready to burst out again if George should argue, but he did not. He got up and looked round in a blind way for his hat. Not seeing it, he went to the door without it. He turned before he opened it, he spoke quite quietly.
“You’re independent, and earning a good livin’, and I shan’t interfere with you, neither will your mother, and we expect nothing. There’s a parable in the Scriptures about the prodigal son, you’ll remember that. If anything should ’appen, no money or trouble of any kind, you’ve only got to come ’ome, you’ll always be welcome.”
Mouse was standing in the passage, she had been drawn there with the intention of quieting Flossie, who must surely have been heard in all the other flats. She looked pityingly at George as he came out. She put her hand on his arm.
“There’s just two things I want to say. Flossie can go on living here, we’ve arranged that, but I’ve told her, I’m just a roof, I’m not responsible for her behaviour. But as a matter of fact, I don’t think that need worry you, she seems to me well able to take care of herself. Then I wanted to send a message to Mrs. Elk. Tell her I’ll keep in touch with her, she shall have all the news from me. I shall be inviting myself to tea one day soon.”
George walked to Charing Cross Station. He tried to puzzle things out. It must be a judgment. ‘I don’t question the Lord’s ways,’ he thought, ‘but sometimes they’re hard to understand. What am I to say to Fanny?’ Outside the station he passed a fruit shop; almost unconsciously he paused to look, and his eyes were fixed on a bunch of purple grapes. He never stocked grapes himself, there was no demand for them down his way; to him they were the quintessence of luxury. He went in, and though appalled at the price, bought the bunch. As he crossed to the station, he looked at the box that held them with some comfort. A nice bit of fruit like that would be sure to be a help to Fan.
Part III
CHAPTER XIV
Jasmine was decorating the Christmas tree. Mouse knelt by a box of ornaments and passed them to her to hang. Jasmine loved a tree.
“I shall hate it,” she said, “when the children are too old to have one. Of course they nearly are already; when you think of it Meriel’s fifteen and Lucia’s twelve.”
“Avis is still a baby.
”
“Yes, ten’s a nice Christmas-treeish age, but they grow up so quickly. I seemed to be a child for hundreds of years and they seem to be children for about five minutes.”
“No one would ever think Meriel was fifteen.”
“No, she’s not a bit a grown-up miss, thank goodness. All the same, in no time now we shall be doing courts and dances and the paper will say: ‘I saw Lady Menton, one of our sourest hostesses, yawning her head off while she waited for her debutante daughter.’ And when you think I’ve three daughters and will be doing it for years, it’s frightful.”
“Don’t pretend to me, my sweet.” Mouse passed her a gold apple. “You’ve got a throbbing mother-heart, you’ll adore it.”
She spoke lightly, but there was an undercurrent in her tone which made Jasmine look at her. She sat back on her haunches.
“This being the season of goodwill,” she stammered over the last word, “I think it might be nice to say a little something. Do you realise it’s not been dog-in-the-mangerish all these years?”
Mouse handed her a blue glass swan with a green feather tail.
“Here’s a handsome creature. Of course I’ve always understood and thought you perfectly right, homes are homes.”
“It’s not homes, it’s the children.” She stood up and hung the swan so that it looked as though it were swimming on fir leaves. “That’s rather sweet there, isn’t it? Jim’s an awfully nice father and they don’t see anything wrong. Anyway, you’ve got everything that matters.”
Mouse with great care selected a silver ball with red stripes running across it. She swung it to and fro on her finger.
“I haven’t, of course. You’ve got everything that matters. It’s such idiotic things that do matter. It’s always been a puzzle to me the purely physical business holding the place it does in law, and in the minds of the average person.”
“I didn’t mean that entirely, it’s the understanding of each other that comes from it. You’d think with three children Jim and I would have got to it.” She flushed and took the silver ball off Mouse’s finger. “I hated the business, it was my fault things were a failure, and that’s why I sometimes think I’m being mean.”
Mouse was still sitting with one finger stretched out, she had never noticed Jasmine had removed the ornament from it.
“How silly it is, what one envies. Just the way you throw letters across the table to each other to read, and plan surprises for the children, and have long silly arguments about whether you must invite so-and-so to dinner, and sit on the edge of each other’s baths discussing life. For me it’s always hectic, there’s very little of that sort of companionship.”
Jasmine smiled.
“It may be that I’ve kept the glamour going for you both, keeping you apart. A lot of bath conversations are on constipation. Give me a piece of tinsel.” Mouse passed it to her and she climbed up the step ladder and hung it. She looked down through a branch. “I hope I’ve not muddled my motives, it’s so difficult to be sure.”
Mouse stood up and stretched.
“I’m sure you haven’t. It’s just the way life goes.”
Jasmine climbed down the ladder.
“Let’s have a rest and a cigarette before we put on the candle clips.” She looked up at the tree. “It does look nice and it’s a good thing. A bloodsome Christmas this will be.”
Mouse lit both their cigarettes.
“Well, if you will invite the Virgin Queen. What came over you? You said you’d never have her inside the house. When she said you’d rung up to invite her, I thought it was a dream fulfilment; after all, she’s been angling for an invitation ever since she’s lived with me.”
“It’s bait she’s invited as. You know about Derwent, Jim’s nephew and incidentally, since I couldn’t make a boy, his heir?”
“I knew there was a Derwent.”
“He’s a thorn in the family flesh. Very gay he is, lives like a millionaire on about seven hundred a year. His father, Jim’s younger brother, was killed in the war, so everybody sort of feels responsible. It was obvious he’d get into debt in the Army, so they made him a member of the Stock Exchange so he could make lots of money. But he hated it, so his week-ends covered every day but Wednesdays, and on Wednesdays he played shove-halfpenny with the other members; he got very good at it. He never made any money; hardly could, considering. Of course as Jim’s heir his credit was good, and people were willing to wait to be paid, but early this year things came to a pretty pass and he missed the bankruptcy court by a hair.”
“Jim’s hair?”
“Of course. He paid everything up on condition he got a job at a weekly wage.”
“And did he?”
“No, but that’s not his fault. You see he can’t do anything except shoot and fish and play cricket, golf, and shove-halfpenny. So Jim says to me: ‘What’ll we do with nephew Derwent?’ And I had a brainwave. ‘Let’s get Ossie Bone to make him a reporter,’ I said, so Jim says, ‘How do we get Ossie Bone to do that?’ And I said, ‘Let’s ask him here and we’ll get Derwent to meet him.’ ‘Will Ossie Bone come?’ says Jim; ‘he doesn’t like me, and he hardly knows you, so why should be?’ And that’s when I had my brainwave.”
“Virginia?”
Jasmine sighed and took a pull at her cigarette.
“Now you’ve spoilt my story, I hate people who say the end for me. But that’s quite right. So I rang the girl up at the theatre—I took a risk there because if she had said ‘yes’ and then Ossie Bone said ‘no’ I was landed with the little wretch for nothing. So I wrote to him and said who was coming, just ourselves, and you and Myra Lynd, nephew Derwent, and Virginia. I almost underlined her name. It worked a treat.”
Mouse flicked some ash at the tree.
“He’d hardly got your letter before he was on the telephone to the Virgin Queen asking if he could bring her down.”
“Myra nearly wrecked everything by suggesting that she might cadge a lift off him, but I nipped that in the bud; we don’t want him arriving soured. Jim’s bringing Myra, did he tell you?”
Mouse nodded.
“Who’s bringing nephew Derwent? Awful if he didn’t turn up.”
“He will, he wants his car back, he’s being made to live within his income, and he couldn’t have his little flat and his man to look after him and a car, so the car went. He’s coming by train. Do you know the ins and outs of l’affaire Ossie? Ought they to have adjoining rooms?”
“Mercy! The Virgin Queen? She’s terribly respectable, she’d have a fit. Do you know it’s over two years now he’s known her, and he’s never allowed inside the flat unless I’m in.”
“Yet folks do say he’s spent a pretty penny on her. How’s she do it?”
“How does she ever do it if it comes to that? Look at the other men who’ve spent money on her. She’s got the most incredible amount of jewellery, and all come by honest—if you call it honest. Look at the unlucky Bobby Kite: he spent every penny he earned on her and then, getting nothing, he took to drowning his sorrows, and of course his voice went off and now he’s out of work. But believe me, the moment he’s working once more, he’ll start all over again. She won’t see him at present, she believes in the simple plan of never knowing a poor man.”
“Don’t any of her young men ever get on to her?”
“She doesn’t as a rule know them very young, for the young haven’t control of their incomes. Of course, she met her match in L.L,; he spent God knows what on her for a month or two, and then he rumbled the lady, and I believe told her a few home truths, because she said to me in the wistful way she does when she’s angling for sympathy, that it was awful the way managers thought they could do anything they liked, and were angry if a girl said they couldn’t.”
“But she must be earning quite a lot, she doesn’t need the support of all these men.”
�
�Twenty pounds a week; she started the third year of her contract in September. She pays me three pounds a week, but as far as I know that’s all she spends.”
“She dresses marvellously, that must cost a bit.”
“Don’t you believe it, she has a deep conviction that beauty like hers ought to be supported on public funds, and she sees to it that they are. I don’t suppose she ever pays her own dressmaker’s bills.”
“Whatever makes you put up with her? Why don’t you turn her out, and make her get a place of her own?”
“Poverty. The three pounds is useful. Besides, she makes me laugh. Nobody has ever handed me the laughs that girl has.”
“But she’s such a little beast, I’d hate people to think she was my friend.”
“The people who know me know what I think about her, and the people who don’t know me don’t matter. As a matter of fact, with a little imagination I can guess what they say, and of course that’s not pleasant, but three pounds is three pounds. You know, Jasmine, I admire her in a sort of way, she’s the stuff of which greatness is made.”
“My God!”
“It’s true, all the really great have singleness of purpose, and that’s what she’s got.”
“What’s her purpose?”
“To see that Flossie Elk, now called Virginia, is treated as befits her perfection. If you or I were half as sure of anything as she is, that her beauty and brilliance give her divine right to the best of everything, we’d be much happier. And believe me, she doesn’t pretend, that’s how she really feels, and she’s quite incapable of believing that other people don’t feel the same way about her.”
Jasmine stubbed out her cigarette and picked up a handful of candle clips and began to fix them to the lower branches of the tree.
“If you’d been like her you’d have taken Jim, you could have. He’d do anything if you insisted.”
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