She drew it from him, phrase by phrase.
‘You don’t like Ned, d’y’, Sal?’ he asked afterwards and saw the angry colour mount her cheeks.
‘Him,’ she answered: ‘He’s a dirty pig. Him an’ Sam Grundy’s a pair.’
‘Sam Grundy? Why?’ murmured Harry, staring. Surely …! There returned to mind a memory of the evening Sam Grundy had paid him the winnings: until now he had never dreamed that there might have been an ulterior motive in his inquiries concerning Sally and in the adjuration: ‘Tell her as Ah’ve said that she’s t’ have a couple o’ quid out o’ y’ winnings for new clo’es.’ A suspicion dawned. Hateful beast. It was common knowledge that Sam had kept women up and down the place; everybody knew of his house in Wales where, so people said, his mistress of the moment resided. It was perplexing to know that one could act so with such amazing impunity. Money, it seemed, could do anything. But to think of Sally’s having anything to do with such…! ‘You ain’t …’ began Harry, falteringly: ‘You ain’t …? He ain’t…?’ His cheeks burned.
‘Ach, he’s allus on to me, the fat pig,’ in imitation of Sam Grundy: ‘Y’ve no need t’ work, Sally. Y’d have all y’ want,’ curling her lip: ‘Puh! Ah’d want summat t’ do t’ let a thing like him or Narkey muck about wi’ me.’
Imagine it! Men regarding her with desire! She, Sally, his sister! She, who, previously, he never had suspected her being a woman as, say Helen. And such men: it was shameful: he experienced a bitter hatred towards both of them; such a sensation of disgust as though they had made an improper suggestion to him. He clutched the remembrance of Larry Meath, gratefully. He had confidence in him; his unaffected superiority inspired it.
He said, gazing at her: ‘And won’t Larry …?’ and left his question unfinished. How mature she looked. Why, she was a woman: he had not noticed it before.
She was staring into the fire, head drooping slightly, one foot resting on the steel fender. She shook her head slowly, mechanically as she revolved memories which reopened the wounds of her discontent; memories of conversations with Larry, of confidences exchanged, of ideas expressed on his part - sometimes incomprehensible, otherwise depressing - ideas on and against marriage which rebuked her high hopes. She could have reconciled herself more easily to her disappointment had she known him to harbour no affection for her; it would have been inevitable, then. But he did not, could not deceive her; intuitively she felt him to be wilfully suppressing, evading his love of her, that he was as unhappy about it as she, and she responded, thrilling, to the remembrances of those times when it refused to be suppressed, times when it looked out of his kindly eyes eloquently and ravished her with an agonizing, hopeful happiness. At the thought she tingled with dissatisfaction and impatience; her heart expanded in an overwhelming desire to be in his company. She turned from the fender, picked up her hat and coat and made towards the door without a word to Harry. She knew where Larry would be.
‘Where y’ goin’, Sal?’ Harry asked, anxious in the face of this sudden activity. She must not have heard him; she went out without answering. He stared at the door, perturbed. What an uncomfortable state of affairs. Ned’s threats to Larry: Sally’s revelation of Sam Grundy’s proposals. What a hopeless tangle; made his head swim to think about it. Oh, it didn’t concern him, anyway; he’d his own worries. They came crowding back to him at the thought: he groaned, inwardly, reached for his cap and went in search of Helen.
2
Larry was not at the Labour Club where Sally guessed he would be.
‘He’ll ha’ gone down cut bank, shouldn’t wonder,’ said one of the men at the club: ‘He’d them there field-glasses wi’ him an’ that’s where he gen’ly gus. Thee be careful a-goin’ down theer, lass. ‘Tain’t fit place fr lass t’ be alone.’
That people might suspect her of ‘running after’ Larry, as the saying goes in the Two Cities, did not occur to her: even though it had she would not have been deterred. She never made a pretence of her infatuation, could not have dissembled it; rather was she proud of it and was naively, disarmingly frank with Larry concerning it
In a sense she was relieved that Larry was not at the club; confidential talk was not possible there. And she knew the spot Larry generally affected on the canal side. It was about two miles west of Pendleton.
Anybody seeing a snapshot of some select comer might imagine it as being representative of the heart of the country. Beauty was there, doubtless, but not to the eyes of slum dwellers who walked there. They take with them what exists two miles away to the east. Still, beauty is there in the tall, limp-leaved beeches and hairy elms, the long grass and sedge and the water meadow sweeping down to the serpentine river a quarter-mile distant. Beauty, pockmarked by glimpses of gaunt, pit headstocks rising between trees and scarecrow electric pylons sprawling across the meadows’ bosoms.
Often the eye is offended by the ribald handiwork of obscene boys and youths who, with lumps of chalk make crude suggestive drawings on the canal bridges’ masonry, write disgusting doggerels and phrases and inscribe the names of girls beneath. Sometimes the songs of the lark and blackbird are overwhelmed by raucous screams of counterfeit shocked laughter from groups of mill and factory girls parading the banks who have been surprised by louts from the slums lying in the grass peeping at lovers, and, on occasions such as when they are encouraged by the presence of groups of girls, exposing themselves then bursting into raucous, hysterical laughter. Less egregious pastimes are indulged: colliers use the banks as training tracks for their whippets; gamblers hold ‘schools’ for the pitching and tossing of coins: in season the bat slogs the ball in adjoining meadows: racing pigeons are loosed; ferrets put down holes to start up squeaking rats and bolting-eyed rabbits which are chased to a bloody death by pitiless greyhounds. Here and there patient sportsmen puff pipes as they contemplate their floats bobbing on the still water, hook diminutive roach and gudgeon, carry their catches home alive in tins of water, put the fish in glass bowls when they arrive home then throw them into the midden two or three days later when they are dead.
Altogether, a pleasant place, marred by the activities of unpleasant people whose qualities, perhaps, are sad reflections of sadder environments.
As she walked the canal bank she brooded on Narkey’s threats to Larry, flushed, resentfully. Then her spirits leapt as a wild hope warmed her. Perhaps these threats of Narkey’s would set Larry on his mettle, as it were! Instantly she rebuked herself. Such would not be Larry. Not he whom she had followed round from street corner to street corner, blessed in the privilege of giving out - what were to her - dry-as-dust pamphlets, watching him as he mounted the seat of a borrowed chair wherefrom to proclaim his political faith to an audience of street-corner mouchers, who, for the most part, stood awhile then drifted to the pubs or where not. Nearly always she thought on him thus; it pleased her, charmed her so to do: as such she saw him ‘attired in brightness as a man inspired’, a character full of such qualities as those of an ideal. The very thought of having his caresses was stifling, ecstatic. There would be no giving on her part, only taking: she would be the receiver, he the giver. What had she to give? Who was she? Sal Hardcastle, an insignificant weaver at Marlowe’s cotton mills. She shrank from the acknowledgement of her abysmal negligibility: by comparison Larry seemed more remote than ever.
The moment passed; she remembered occasions when the gentle expression on his face and the soft light in his eyes had told her all that she wished to know; occasions when he had made a confidante of her; although some of his confessions had been, in a sense, akin to warnings. How dreadfully disenchanting his repudiation of marriage when he spoke of it in general as concerning people in their circumstances. Yet, she told herself, he must have contemplated it in regard to himself else why should he bother talking to her about it? She was on shifting sands, here; was full of doubts of her surmisings, failed, entirely, to agree with his strange notions, but would not permit her courage to be shaken in her hope that, ultimately, all this
perplexing tangle would be straightened. His notions were so perverse. Yet, she told herself, setting her chin, if he didn’t want marriage then neither did she: it was Larry Meath she desired and not so much marriage. But even that, so it seemed, was not suitable to him: ‘No, no, Sal, you misunderstand me. It isn’t this marriage business that matters: marriage is only for hogs anyway. It’s this damned poverty. My wages. What are they? Forty-five shillings a week. How on earth could we live decently on that? It isn’t enough to keep us decently clothed and fed: it means a life of doing without the things that make life worth while. And - ‘ a gesture of helplessness: ‘It can’t be explained, Sal. If you don’t see it as I then you just don’t see it, that’s all.’
What a supremely bewildering person he was. It was marriage, then it wasn’t marriage but poverty. Imagine that, too! His wage was forty-five shillings a week regularly. And here he was crying poverty! Why, who in North Street could depend on forty-five shillings every week? Nobody, There never was a week but what the family income fluctuated. Yet these people ventured into matrimony.
‘Doing without the things that make life worth while.’ What did he mean by that? And by all his other incomprehensible talk which he uttered when addressing the crowds at street corners. Words and phrases of which she was jealous since they meant so much to him; jealous of them because they meant something to him whose secret was hid from her; jealous of them because she wished to be the inspiration in him of such animation as they occasioned. She could only have blind faith in his beliefs. She resented them, yet, at the same time, acknowledged them as the medium by which, in her eyes, he was elevated above other men. She wished him an ordinary type whilst preserving his extraordinary qualities. She …
‘But what do you want, Larry?’ the remembrance of her questioning him interrupted her thoughts. He had answered: ‘What do I want eh? Ha! What I’m not likely to get,’ an impatient gesture indicative of the street and neighbourhood in general: ‘Aw, having to live amongst all this. Blimey, day after day and no change at all. Work and bed and work again. … Oh,’ an expression of intense disgust: ‘It’s enough to drive a man mad.’
Mad! Enough to drive a woman mad too. She found herself in a bog of conflicting emotions. Out of the chaos rose the question: ‘What could be denied a home that had a constant income of forty-five shillings a week?’ She could not think of anything. Then what was it that Larry referred to: ‘doing without the things that make life worth while?’ There’d be enough for food, rent and clothes, surely. What else was there? He must be wrong. She could not be sure. He was so different from others. If only she could understand.
Still, to meet him this evening meant more confidences. It occurred to her that she should consider herself fortunate; he might have chosen some more intellectual girl in whom to confide. She smiled, reassured: an impelling force surged in her heart: she quickened her pace; her lustrous eyes took on an added glow as she gazed expectantly into the distance.
She did not find him. Three-quarters of an hour later saw her retracing her steps, dawdling along, her listless fingers holding a sprig of hawthorn blossom. She had visited all Larry’s customary haunts: the meadows where he had shown her larks’ nests in the deep grass, the nettle beds by the river side colonized by the Red Admirals, and the sand deposits there, pitted with holes into and out of which sand martins darted like shadows. Disconsolate and further depressed by the melancholy cries of the wheeling lapwings, she returned, and, passing a flowering thorn, idly plucked a sprig of blossom.
It was deeply disappointing, especially so when she dwelt on the delectable image of the pleasure that had been denied her; that, doubtless, he had traversed this path this evening and that she had missed him perhaps by only a few moments, was an irritating thought. As she left the canal bank and set her face towards Hanky Park she remembered that if she waited at the street corner she would, likely enough, meet him returning.
Until then she knew that this present irksome feeling of bleak loneliness would remain with her. Imagine it! At one time, not very long ago, she had found pleasure in dances and the picture theatres. What had come over her? Those diversions gave only a transitory pleasure: she saw herself returning home when pictures or dance were done, returning to the dreariness of No. 17 North Street. It wasn’t that kind of life she wanted: she wanted something real and permanent, not the mere whiling away of time watching flickering shadows on a screen or the trumpery gaiety of a dance-room. She wanted Larry and a home of her own… ._Dreariness of No. 17 North Street A stupendous suspicion pounced upon her. The dreariness of her home represented marriage, to her father and mother both of whom, before their marriage must surely have been as she now was, desirous of homes of their own. They now had obtained it and, to her, it represented something that filled her with overwhelming dreariness. Could it be possible that Larry in his condemnation of marriage, was really suggesting that her mother’s and father’s married life with all its scratchings and scrapings was only removed from a newly married couple’s experiences by the matter of a few years? Her mother and father had never been away from North Street on even a day’s holiday since their honeymoon: Hardcastle himself was a smouldering volcano ready to erupt the moment she or Harry suggested expenditure on clothes: ‘D’y’ think bloody money grows on trees?’ He was worried eternally over money. And Larry had said: ‘It isn’t this marriage business that matters. … It’s this damned poverty … doing without the things that make life worth while… . ‘ Was this understanding. She crushed all her thoughts. ‘I want Larry … I want Larry,’ she defied herself.
Night was falling. She was on Broad Street now passing the parish church. Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a hoarse voice speaking her name. She turned her head. Sam Grundy’s fat, apoplectic visage smirked at her from the illuminated rear windows of his car. It kept pace with her walking; doubtless the chauffeur was obeying Sam’s instructions. He put his face out of the window: ‘Hey, Sal,’ he cried, winking: ‘Wharra bout a little ride, eh?’ he nodded and winked again: ‘Ah’ll get y’ back, early… . Go on… . What’j’say, eh?’ Another grin and a wink.
She scowled at him, voiced a contemptuous exclamation, walked behind the car and crossed the road without even another glance. Surlily she turned into Hanky Park. The fool to think that his most tempting offers could ever be of interest to her. She put him from her mind.
The public-houses were closing. Slatternly women, dirty shawls over their heads and shoulders, hair in wisps about their faces, stood in groups congregated on the pavements in the shafts of light thrown from the open doors of the public-house. Now and then they laughed, raucously, heedless of the tugs at their skirts from their wailing, weary children.
In front of Sally was gloomy Mrs Dorbell, tiny Mrs Jike, fat Mrs Bull and the resourceful Mrs Nattle who ‘obligded’ her ‘naybores’. Mrs Dorbell was saying, as the party turned into North Street: ‘… an’ Ah say agen it’s a fair sin an’ a shame that they should be closed at ten o’clock,’ she referred to the public-houses. Mrs Nattle answered, in reference to the bottle she kept at home: ‘An Ah say there’s nowt t’ stop workin’ folk from havin’ a nip i’ their own homes sociable like. Them as mek laws g’ nowt short, Ah’ll bet … ‘ Mrs Dorbell tripped, tipsily, and clutched Mrs Bull’s arm which caused Mrs Bull to suggest that Mrs Dorbell had had enough for one evening. Mrs Dorbell thought otherwise since she continued walking with them to Mrs Nattle’s home.
Sally was disgusted. It did not occur to her that they had been as she now was, young, once upon a time. She saw them as she saw them, four ragged old women, creatures divorced from the species, institutions, as part and parcel of the place as the houses themselves.
As she passed the clog shop next the Duke of Gloucester public-house a hand stole out from the doorway’s dark recess and touched her arm. She started and turned. It was Kate Malloy, one of the girls who worked in the same shed at Marlowe’s.
‘Oh,’ cried Sally: ‘Ah wondered w
ho it was. What a turn you gave me,’ curiously: ‘Whatever are y’ doin’ there, Kate?’ She stared at her, searchingly.
A thin, pale-faced girl, Kate’s facial expression reminded one of a hunted animal; always there was a light of furtive nervousness in her eyes. She rarely spoke to anybody at the mill save Sally for whom she nursed a dog-like devotion, which, sometimes, became something of a nuisance. Though, since she had no parents and lived in lodgings, which, Sally thought, may have been the cause of her nervousness and reticence, Sally never could find it in her heart to rebuff her.
Kate whispered: ‘Is he there?’ She inclined her head towards the crowd just loosed from the Duke of Gloucester.
‘Who?’
Kate reproached her with a glance: ‘Ned, o’ course.’
Sally sniffed: ‘Ah dunno. Why, what d’y want him for?’
‘Oh, Sally,’ again, reproachfully: ‘An’ all Ah’ve told y’ about how he ses he likes me.’
‘Yaa,’ replied Sally. ‘What d’y’ listen t’ his gab for? He tells same to anybody as’ll listen. Ah’ve told y’ before. Leave him alone. All he wants y’ for is what he can get out o’ y’,’ imperiously: ‘Come on, now. Get off home wi’ y’.’
‘Oh, no, no, Sal,’ alarmed: ‘Oh, no. He told me to wait here.’
Sally sneered: ‘H’m. Fine ‘un he is, makin’ a girl wait till he’s finished his boozin’. Yaa, ain’t y’ got no sense? What’ll he be like if ever y’ was daft enough t’ wed him, which y’ won’t … he ain’t that kind.’
‘Oh, Sal. He promised.’
Impatiently: ‘You - make - me - sick, Kate. Hangin’ around after a feller. Y’d catch me doin’ it. … Not for best man alive. How long have y’ bin waiting there?’
‘Not long. … On’y since half eight. … Ah guess they kep’ him talkin’ an’ he forgot…. We was goin’ t’ go t’ t’ pictures.’
Love on the Dole Page 15