‘She is like all the others,’ he told himself, with a shrug of his shoulders; ‘they play the very devil with you until they begin to get frightened of the consequences, and then they fight shy. And I’m hanged if I even know her name!’
And the days wore on, and the autumn grew into winter, and Oxford Street no longer saw the playing of a comedy at nine o’clock in the morning. And Tom Unwin found other interests in life, and if a chance occurrence reminded him of a determined little figure in russet brown, the passing thought brought nothing but an amused smile to his lips.
Then the spring came, suddenly and completely, on the heels of a six weeks’ frost; and chance took him down Piccadilly one morning in March, where the budding freshness of the trees drew him into the Green Park. The impression of spring met him everywhere, in the fragrance of the almond-trees, and the quarrelling of the sparrows, and the transparency of the blue haze over Westminster; and, indifferent though he was to such things, there was a note of familiarity in it all that affected him strangely, and left him with a lazy sensation of pleasure. What that something was he did not realise until his eyes fell on one of the chairs under the trees, and then, as he stood quite still and wondered whether she would know him again, he discovered what there was in the air that had seemed to him so familiar and so pleasant.
‘I was just thinking about you,’ he said deliberately, when she had shown very decidedly that she did mean to know him. He spoke with an easy indifference that she showed no signs of sharing.
‘Oh, I have been wondering—’ she began, in a voice that trembled with eagerness.
‘Yes? Supposing we sit down. That’s better. You have been wondering—?’
She leaned back in her chair, and looked up through the branches at the pale blue sky beyond. There was an odd little look of defiance on her face.
‘So, after all, you did find that the Strand was the quickest way,’ she said abruptly.
‘Possibly. And you?’ he asked, with his customary smile.
‘How often did you go down Oxford Street after – the last time I saw you?’
‘As far as I can remember, the measure of my endurance was a week. And how much longer did you take the precaution of avoiding such a dangerous person as myself?’
She turned round and stared at him with great wondering eyes, into which a look of comprehension was slowly creeping.
‘You actually thought I did that? And all the time I was ill, I was having visions of you—’
‘Ill? You never told me you had been ill,’ he interrupted.
‘You didn’t exactly give me the chance, did you? It was the fog, I suppose. I am all right now. They thought I should never go down Oxford Street again. But I take a good deal of killing, and so here I am again.’ She ended with a cynical smile. He was making holes in the soft turf with his walking-stick. She went on speaking to the pale blue sky and the network of branches above her.
‘And the odd part is that I did not mind the illness so much as—’ And she paused again.
‘Yes?’ he said, in a voice that had lost some of its jauntiness.
‘I think it won’t interest you.’
‘How can you say that unless you tell me?’
‘I am sure it won’t,’ she said decidedly. ‘And I couldn’t possibly tell you, really.’
‘Go on, please,’ he said, looking round at her; and she went on meekly.
‘The thing that bothered me was my having been cross the last time we met. You see, it was not the being cross that I minded exactly; that wouldn’t have mattered a bit if I had seen you again the next day, but—’
‘I quite understand. Bad temper is a luxury we keep for our most familiar friends. I am honoured by the distinction,’ he said, and his smile was not a sneer.
‘I wish you wouldn’t laugh at me,’ she said, a little wistfully.
‘I am not laughing at you, child,’ he hastened to assure her, and he took one of her hands in his. ‘I have missed you, too,’ he went on, in a low tone that he strove to make natural.
‘Did you really? I thought you would at first, perhaps, and then I thought you would just laugh, and forget. And you really did think of me sometimes? I am so glad.’
He had a twinge of conscience. But a reputation once acquired is a tender thing, and must be handled with delicacy.
‘I have not forgotten,’ he said, and tried to change the conversation. ‘And you never even told me your name, you perverse little person,’ he added playfully.
‘You told me yours,’ she said, and laughed triumphantly.
‘And yours, please?’
‘It will quite spoil it all,’ she objected.
‘Is it so bad as that, then? Never mind, I can bear a good deal. What is it – Susan, Jemima, Emmelina?’
There was a little pause, and then she nodded at the pale blue sky above and said ‘Jean’ in a hurried whisper. And he was less exigent than she had been, for he did not ask for any more.
When he left her on her own doorstep she lingered for a moment in the sunlight before she went in to Nancy.
‘And he really is coming to see me to-morrow,’ she said out loud with a joyous laugh; ‘I wonder, shall I tell Nancy or not?’ After mature consideration she decided not to tell Nancy, though if Nancy had been less unsuspicious she would certainly have noticed something unusual in the manner of her practical little eldest sister, when she started for Berners Street on the following morning, and twice repeated that she would be back to tea should any one call and ask for her.
‘Nobody is likely to ask for you,’ said Nancy with sisterly frankness, ‘nobody ever does. You needn’t bother to be back to tea unless you like,’ she added with a self-conscious smile. ‘Jimmy said he might look in.’
‘So much the better,’ thought Jean; ‘I can bring in a cake without exciting suspicion.’ And she started gaily on her way, and wondered ingenuously why all the people in the street seemed so indifferent to her happiness. At Berners Street, a shock was awaiting her. Would Miss Moreen kindly stay till five to-day as the children’s mother was obliged to go out, and nurse had a holiday? And as the children’s mother had already gone out and nurse’s holiday had begun before breakfast, there was no appeal left to poor Jean, and she settled down to her day’s work with a sense of injustice in her mind and a queer feeling in her throat that had to be overcome during an arithmetic lesson. But as the day wore on her spirits rose to an unnatural pitch; she spent the afternoon in romping furiously with her pupils; and when five o’clock came, she was standing outside in the street counting the coins in her little purse.
‘I can just do it, and I shall!’ she cried, and a passing cabby pulled up in answer to her graphic appeal and carried her away westwards. He whistled when she paid him an extravagant fare, and watched her with a chuckle as she flew up the steps and fumbled nervously at the keyhole before she was able to unlock the door. He would have wondered more, or perhaps less, had he seen her standing on the mat outside the front room on the first floor, giving her hat and hair certain touches which did not affect their appearance in the least, and listening breathlessly to the sound of voices that came from within. Then she turned the handle suddenly and went in.
The lamp was not yet lighted and the daylight was waning. The room was in partial darkness, but the fire was burning brightly, and it shone on the face of a man as he leaned forward in a low chair, and talked to the beautiful girl who lay on the sofa, smiling up at him in a gentle deprecating manner, as if his homage were new and overwhelming to her.
The man was not the expected Jimmy, and Jean took two swift little steps into the room. The spell was broken and they looked round with a start.
‘Oh, here you are,’ cried Nancy, gliding off the sofa and putting her arms round her in her pretty affectionate manner. ‘Poor Mr Unwin has been waiting quite an hour for you. Whatever made you so late?’
Jean disengaged herself a little roughly, and held out her hand to Tom.
‘Have you been ve
ry bored?’ she asked him with a slight curl of her lip.
‘That could hardly be the case in Miss Nancy’s company,’ he replied in his best manner; ‘but if she had not been so kind to me your tardiness in coming would certainly have been harder to bear.’
The carefully picked words did not come naturally from the boyish fellow who had talked slang to her on the top of the omnibus, but Tom Unwin never talked slang when there was a situation of any kind. Jean was bitterly conscious of being the only one of the three who was not behaving in a picturesque manner. The other two vied with each other in showing her little attentions, a fact that entirely failed to deceive her.
‘Do they think I am a fool?’ she thought scornfully. ‘Why should they suppose that I need propitiating?’
And she insisted curtly on pouring out her own cup of tea, and sat down obstinately on a high chair, without noticing the low one he was pulling forward for her.
‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ she said calmly; ‘you made such a charming picture when I came in.’
They only seemed to her to be making a ridiculous picture now. She was conscious of nothing but the satirical view of the situation, and she had a mad desire to point at them and scream with laughter at their fatuity in supposing that she did not see through their discomfiture.
‘We thought you were never coming,’ began Nancy in her gentle tired voice; ‘I was afraid you had been taken ill or something.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ added Tom with strained jocularity; ‘it was all I could do to restrain Miss Nancy from sending a telegram to somebody about you. She only gave up the idea when I got her to acknowledge that she didn’t even know where to send it.’
‘Now, that is really too bad of you,’ exclaimed Nancy with a carefully studied pout; ‘you know quite well—’
‘Indeed, I appeal to you, Miss Moreen—’
‘Don’t listen to him, Jean.’
‘It doesn’t seem to me to matter very much,’ said Jean with much composure; ‘I am very glad that I gave you so much to talk about.’
They made another attempt to conciliate her.
‘Do have some cake. It isn’t bad,’ said Nancy invitingly.
‘Or some more tea?’ added Tom anxiously. ‘You must be so played out with your long day’s work. Have the little brats been very trying?’
‘Oh, you needn’t worry about the little brats, thanks,’ said Jean, eating bread and butter voraciously for the sake of an occupation.
‘Come nearer the fire,’ said Nancy coaxingly; ‘Mr Unwin will move up that other chair.’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Unwin with alacrity, glad of any excuse that removed him for a moment from the unpleasant scrutiny of her large cold eyes.
‘You are both very kind to bother about me like this. I am really not used to it,’ said Jean with a hard little laugh. ‘Won’t you go on with your conversation while I write a postcard?’
She made a place for her cup on the tea-tray, strolled across the room to the bureau, and sat down to look vacantly at a blank postcard. The other two seated themselves stiffly at opposite ends of the hearthrug, and manufactured stilted phrases for the ears of Jean.
‘Your sister draws, I believe?’
‘Oh, yes. Jean is fearfully clever, you know. She used to win prizes and things. I never won a prize in my life. Oh, yes; Jean is certainly very clever indeed.’
‘I am sure of it. It must be charming to be so clever.’
‘Yes. Nothing else matters if you are as clever as all that. It doesn’t affect Jean in the least if things happen to go wrong, because she always has her cleverness to console her, don’t you see.’
‘Brains are a perennial consolation,’ said Tom solemnly; ‘I always knew, Miss Nancy, that your sister was very exceptional.’
‘Exceptional! Yes, I suppose I am that,’ thought Jean with a curious feeling of dissatisfaction. The burden of her own cleverness was almost too much for her, and she would have given worlds, just then, to have been as ordinary as Nancy – and as beautiful.
‘Will you forgive me if I go upstairs and finish a drawing?’ she said, coming forward into the firelight again. They uttered some conventional regrets, and Tom held the door open for her. ‘Good-bye,’ she said, smiling, ‘I am sorry my drawing won’t wait. It has to go in to-morrow morning.’
‘I envy you your charming talent,’ he said with a sigh that was a little overdone.
‘Do you? It prevents me from being domesticated, you know, and that is always a pity, isn’t it?’ she said, and drew her hand away quickly.
Upstairs with her head on an old brown cloak she lay and listened to the hum of voices below.
‘Why wasn’t I born a fool with a pretty face?’ she murmured. ‘Fools are the only really happy people in the world, for they are the only people the rest of us have the capacity to understand. And to be understood by the majority of people is the whole secret of happiness. No one would take the trouble to understand me. Of course, it is unbearably conceited to say so, but there is no one to hear.’
When Nancy came up to bed, she found her sister working away steadily at her drawing.
‘It was very mean of you to leave me so long with that man, Jean; he stayed quite an hour after you left,’ she said, suppressing a yawn.
‘Oh, I thought you wouldn’t mind; I don’t get on with him half so well as you do. Stand out of the light, will you?’
‘He thinks you’re immensely clever,’ said Nancy; ‘he says he never met any one so determined and plucky in his life. Of course you will get on, he says.’
‘Yes,’ said Jean with a strange smile, as she nibbled the top of her pencil; ‘I suppose I shall get on. And to the end of my days people will admire me from a distance, and talk about my talent and my determination, just as they talk about your beauty and your womanly ways. That is so like the world; it always associates us with a certain atmosphere and never admits the possibility of any other.’
Nancy was perched on the end of the bed in her white peignoir, with her knees up to her chin and a puzzled expression on her face.
‘How queer you are to-night, Jean,’ she said; ‘I don’t think I understand.’
‘My atmosphere,’ continued Jean in the same passionless tone, ‘is the clever and capable one. It is the one that is always reserved for the unattractive people who have understanding, the sort of people who know all there is to know, from observation, and never get the chance of experiencing one jot of it. They are the people who learn about life from the outside, and remain half alive themselves to the end of time. Nobody would think of falling in love with them, and they don’t even know how to be lovable. It is a very clinging atmosphere,’ she added sadly; ‘I shall never shake it off.’
Nancy stopped making a becoming wreck of her coils of hair, and looked more bewildered than before.
‘I don’t understand, Jean,’ she said again.
Jean looked at her for a moment with eyes full of admiration.
‘Don’t worry about it, child,’ she said slowly; ‘you will never have to understand.’
T. Baron Russell
A Guardian of the Poor
I
Borlase and Company did not aspire, like certain other drapers in the Southern Suburbs, to be universal providers. Neither did they seek, otherwise than passively, to rival these powerful neighbours in the esteem of villadom and the superior order of suburban society. The wares that changed hands across Borlase’s many counters were modestly content to assimilate, at a respectful interval, those examples of last year’s mode which found their way to the more ambitious emporia, where they were exhibited to the wives and daughters of retired tradesmen and head-clerks, as Parisian innovations, almost sinfully novel. The raw material of feminine adornment was what Borlase and Company dealt in, uncostly chiffons and faced ribbons, which with the Penny Dressmaker and the Amateur Bonnet Journal to aid, produced under deft hands a sort of jerry-built finery, whose characteristic a sensitive instinct might divine, in a s
ympathetic glance, from the ‘groves’ of dingy two-storeyed houses, which sent forth their hundreds a-Saturday’s to Borlase’s shop. The possibilities latent in shoddy (or débris of old cloth) and of cotton warps in a fabric guaranteed ‘all wool’, and so demonstrated to unconfiding customers, on a triumphant withdrawal of weft by Mr Borlase, had been deeply explored by the mercers who supplied him; for the acts of Parliament which forbid adulteration do not apply to wares otherwise than edible, and the later statute against fraudulent misdescription is beneficently evasible, as having no particular officer to set it in motion. Thus, ‘full-fashioned’ stockings, owing their form to judicious blocking after manufacture, and double-width calicoes at four pence three farthings, which yield on agitation a rich dressing of clay-like powder, are quite securely vendible, without danger to the repute of the retailer as a pillar of society and a local vestryman.
Since you cannot be a vestryman and a guardian of the poor, even in the suburbs, for nothing, it is to be gathered that Mr Borlase – the sole constituent of Borlase and Company – went not unrewarded, even in this world’s corruptible profit, for the benefits which he bestowed on society. It was his pride to be referred to as the cheapest draper in the neighbourhood. You could purchase at his shop, on astonishingly economical terms, goods which only a very acute and highly trained perception could distinguish at sight from others, which, in less favoured markets, were priced at twice those rates, an advantage secured by the frequent conferences of Borlase and Company with hungry looking German wholesalers in Jewin Street and other recondite thoroughfares of the E.C. district.
The purchasing capacity in the individual, among Mr Borlase’s clientage, being small, it follows that the number of his transactions, to be lucrative, must be also large. Hence the sixty-odd ‘young people’ (‘who,’ as a local paper worded it ‘constituted the personnel of Messrs. Borlase and Co’s staff’) had all their work cut out for them on a Saturday night. But practice, and the consciousness that lapse or error entailed fines not conveniently spared from scanty wages, soon taught new-comers the art of managing two customers at a time, and four on Saturday. Thus the crowded shop full of buyers was kept pretty constantly on the move, even at the busiest of times. Lest any should go empty away, Borlase and Company in person – pompous, full-fed, and evaporating venality at every pore – mingled with his patrons near the exit; and woe to the shop girl who had failed to cajole her customer! This duty of shop-walking Mr Borlase divided at busy times with a lean man, grey-headed and stooping at the shoulders, who rubbed lank hands together when addressed by a customer (he never ventured to accost one, in the Borlasian manner) and was summoned quickly from counter to counter to ‘sign’. From Monday to Friday he docketed invoices, checked sales-books, and drudged through the other routine of account-keeping, day by day; on Saturday, from two o’clock onward, he relieved his proprietor of the duty of initialling bills, so that the latter might stand guard at the door. He picked up the arrears of his afternoon work after the shop closed at eleven-thirty.
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1 Page 50