CHAPTER VI
Miss Rowland lay on the sofa in her drawing-room at 16 Varley Street. The blinds were down and the curtains were drawn—those wine-coloured velvet curtains with the fringed pelmets which Flossie Palmer had thought handsome but too sober for her taste. Both the electric wall-brackets were lighted, but they were so heavily shaded that the room seemed to be full of a greenish twilight. Miss Rowland’s sofa was drawn up at right angles to the fire. About the head of it a tall, light screen which displayed golden storks upon a black ground was so arranged as to shade her still further from the light.
Kay came timidly up to the sofa and set the tea-tray down upon the small walnut table which stood ready for it. This was the first time she had seen her new mistress, and she did not quite know whether to look at her or not. She put down the tray, and then she did look up, because Miss Rowland was speaking. She had a very low, weak voice.
“You are the new maid?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Your name?”
“Kay, madam.”
“That’s a very unusual name. I suppose you have a surname?”
A deep carnation colour rose in Kay’s cheeks.
“I should have said Kay Moore, madam.”
All this time she had not looked directly at Miss Rowland. She had seen the pillows heaped in the shadow behind her, the crimson silk eiderdown which hid all the lower part of her body and was drawn up above her waist, the fringed edges of the shawl about her shoulders. She had seen these coverings and adjuncts, but Miss Rowland herself she had not seen. Now she looked at her. The shadow of the screen was reinforced by the shadow of an old-fashioned cap. It was made of lace and muslin and tied under the chin with a large bow of lilac ribbon. It hid all the hair and half the forehead and cheeks. There remained in the twilight a long pale nose, two half closed eyes, and a pale drawn-in mouth.
Just as Kay looked, the eyelids lifted and the eyes met hers. They were pale too, but Kay didn’t think of this at the time, because when Miss Rowland looked at her she was shaken by a sudden vivid sense of recognition. It came and went in a flash and left her with shaking knees.
Miss Rowland did not speak again, and she went out of the room wondering what had startled her so. She hadn’t ever seen Miss Rowland before. But she had recognized her—or been recognized. She didn’t know which. Something had happened in her mind when she looked at Miss Rowland and Miss Rowland looked at her, but it had happened so quickly that she hadn’t been able to get hold of it. That is the case sometimes with a word or a name that you have known and then forgotten. It hovers on the very edge of consciousness, and sometimes flashes across the conscious field, and you snatch at it, but it is gone before you can hold it. It was like that.
Kay went down into the kitchen and found Mrs Green stirring the teapot.
“Well, did you see her?” she asked.
Kay said, “Yes.”
“Nurse there?”
Kay said, “No.”
“Nice and chatty you are, I don’t think!” said Mrs Green. “I suppose you got a tongue, ’aven’t you? What did you think of her?”
“Is she very ill?” said Kay in a shrinking voice.
Mrs Green began to pour out the tea.
“Five years I been here, and she’s never been out. Doctor comes every week reg’lar—and not a nordinary doctor neither, but one of those high up specialists. But there—she’s got plenty of money and nothing to spend it on, pore thing. Once in a way she’ll be down like she is to-day, but mostly she’s in ’er room and ’as to be kep’ that quiet—not a sound in the ’ouse. And that’s a thing you’ll ’ave to remember, my girl—you don’t go up on Miss Rowland’s landing, not for nothing, you don’t, except when you’re rung for and when you takes ’er Benger’s up at night like I told you. I don’t mind it myself, but it makes a dull ’ouse for a girl. Now how many girls d’you suppose we’ve ’ad ’ere since I come? Eight or nine a year, I reckon, and you can do the sum yourself. Most of them goes at the month, and if they don’t go of themselves they get the sack. Two month’s the limit. So now you know. Why d’you leave your last place?”
“I didn’t like it.”
“You’re not a London girl?”
“No.”
Mrs Green pushed the jam across.
“Oh, find your tongue—come! The last girl we ’ad wasn’t ’ere only a couple of hours and she’d told me all about ’er boy friend before she run away. And it’s no use your asking me why she run, for I don’t know, nor no one else. But anyhow open your mouth a bit and let’s ’ave the story of your life, as they say.”
Kay’s lips parted. The dimple showed. Some pretty white teeth showed.
“I haven’t got a story—yet,” she said.
Mrs Green put a fourth lump of sugar in her tea. She was a fat woman with a pale, moist skin and a great many rolling curves. Her cheeks rolled into her chin, and her chin by way of two or three subsidiary chins rolled into her neck, and so to a vast bosom, a waist which still attempted to be a waist, and monumental hips. She stirred her sweet, strong tea with a vigorous spoon.
“Well, I suppose you were born like the rest of us, and I suppose you were brought up somehow by someone or other? You’re not going to tell me you were found under a gooseberry bush, are you?”
The bright carnation colour came again.
“No,” said Kay—“it wasn’t a gooseberry bush.” Then, quickly, “I don’t really know anything about my father and mother. I don’t remember them.”
Mrs Green finished her first cup of tea and poured herself out another, horribly black. This time she put in five lumps.
“Then ’ow were you brought up? Relations? You don’t look like a norphanage girl.”
“An aunt brought me up. I haven’t any other relations.”
“Oh, come on!” said Mrs Green. “This isn’t a police court, for me to be asking you questions and you to be saying just as little as you can for fear of what might come out. Unless such was the case,” she added darkly and stirred her tea again.
Kay looked down at her piece of bread and jam and began to cut it into strips.
“There isn’t anything to tell,” she said. “My aunt wasn’t well off. We moved about a good deal. She taught me, and I helped in the house. I didn’t go to school. She died two years ago, and there wasn’t any money, so I went as mother’s help to the Vicar’s wife—we were in a village then.”
“Mother’s ’elp!” said Mrs Green, in a tone of scorn. “’Eaven ’elp them is what I say! All ’elp and no wages—work from six in the morning till eleven at night in return for a kind ’ome! That’s about the size of it as a rule!”
“Oh no!” said Kay warmly. “They were most awfully kind to me, and they paid me ten pounds a year. They had six children and very little money, so they couldn’t pay me any more. I only left because they couldn’t afford to go on having me.”
Mrs Green scooped up the remains of her sugar lumps and ate them out of her spoon.
“Did you go for another ’elp?”
“Yes. I only stayed a few months. They were rather like you said.”
Mrs Green nodded.
“They mostly is.”
“So then I thought I’d try being a house-parlour-maid. I thought I could do the work, and I should get a proper day out and get much more money. But I didn’t like the place I got, and now I’ve come here.”
“And ’ow did you come ’ere?” said Mrs Green. “That’s what I want to know, my girl. That there Ivy Hodge, she come yesterday, and so far as anyone knew we were all fixed up. Well, she takes and runs away—banged the area door and off like a mad thing. And lunch-time to-day Nurse comes in in ’er outdoor things and she says as cool as a cucumber, ‘There’s a new ’ouse-parlour-maid coming in, Green, and I ’ope you’ll find ’er satisfactory.’ Now that’s what I call a quick bit of work.”
Kay hesitated. Her colour rose. Then she said,
“I wanted a place, and you wanted a house-par
lour-maid. That’s how it happened, Mrs Green.”
CHAPTER VII
Whilst Mrs Green was sugaring her strong tea, Flossie Palmer was entertaining Mr Ernest Bowden. It was the first time he had been officially received in the family circle—Aunt being so pertickler. Flossie’s return after a mere twelve hours absence had not been at all well received. In sheer self-defence she had secured another situation, and the tea-party had been conceded by Mrs Palmer as a send-off. Not to anyone except that chance-met stranger in the fog had Flossie spoken of her headlong flight from No. 16 Varley Street. Her ordinarily voluble tongue became dry and silent under Aunt’s questioning. She hadn’t liked the place and she had come away, and that was all. For one thing, if Aunt knew she had been out all night, the fat would be in the fire. She bought herself another brush and comb, and said nothing about the hat, the night-dress, and the change of underclothes which she had left behind in the basement bedroom. Not for anything in the world would she go back and fetch them away. She came all over goose flesh at the mere idea, and by exhibiting an unusual amount of energy and securing a place as housemaid at Mrs Freddy Gilmore’s she stopped Aunt’s mouth, and was graciously permitted to ask Ernie to tea.
Ernie was finding the occasion rather formidable. He was wearing a high stiff collar which hurt his neck, and his best suit, which had not kept pace with his vigorous development. He was a large young man—a motor-mechanic by trade. He had advanced political opinions and a good deal of bony wrist and thick dark hair. Flossie’s aunt made him come over hot about the ears and moist about the hands. She kept a steely eye upon him, as if she expected at any moment to find him out in something he shouldn’t be doing, and she called him Mr Bowden at least once in every sentence. It was quite horribly daunting. During tea she talked about all the promising girls she had known who had married drunkards and declined prematurely into their graves. Even Flossie was subdued.
It was a little better after tea when the table had been cleared. He and Flossie were allowed to sit up to it side by side whilst she showed him the photographs in the family album, an immensely thick and heavy book with an embossed leather binding, gilt edges, and a portentous clasp. It was possible to hold Flossie’s hand when she was not turning a leaf. Mrs Palmer, knitting by the hearth, could only see the table-cloth and the heavy album tilted on an aged copy of Stepping Heavenward. She had stopped talking, and he gathered, to his immense relief, that it was now Flossie’s business to entertain him.
They lingered over the faded pictures of whiskered young men and chignoned young women, hairy old gentlemen with beards flowing down over their waistcoats, and old ladies, all shawl and cap and skirt.
“That’s Auntie’s grandfather,” said Flossie. “A builder in a very good way of business he was—wasn’t he, Aunt?”
Mrs Palmer’s needles clicked.
“And a life-long teetotaller,” she said.
Flossie trod on Ernie’s foot.
“Had a lovely house up in Hampstead—hadn’t he, Aunt?” she said.
“Took the pledge at five years old and never broke it,” said Mrs Palmer. She drew out a needle and stabbed it into the sock she was knitting. “And a pity there are not more like him, Mr Bowden.”
Flossie tossed her head.
“You needn’t think Ernie drinks, Aunt, because he doesn’t!”
“So he says,” said Mrs Palmer. She sat bolt upright in a chair with a leather seat and a curly walnut back, her firm, high-busted figure tightly cased in a black stuff dress with a high-collared front of cream net over white silk. A gold locket with raised initials hung down upon the front, and an agate brooch which was exactly like a bull’s eye fastened the collar. Her thick wiry grey hair was brushed tightly back from her forehead and temples and fastened in a plaited coil about half way up the back of her head. She had a high, fixed colour, sharp grey eyes, and practically no lashes. A formidable person.
Flossie passed quickly to the next page.
“That’s my mother,” she said. “D’you think I’m like her? I’m called after her, you know. I don’t remember her hardly at all. I’m Florence after her, but they called her Flo, and me Flossie. I like Flossie best—don’t you?”
The enamoured Ernie turned a deep puce in reply to this challenge. He squeezed the hand which he found conveniently near his own and said nothing. Neither of them noticed that Mrs Palmer had stopped knitting. Her lips were pressed together. She was frowning as if she had dropped a stitch. Presently the needles clicked again.
“My dad was killed in the war, you know,” pursued Flossie. “No, of course I don’t remember him! Coo, Ernie—however old d’you think I am? That’s my mother’s photograph we’ve been looking at, not me! See that brooch she’s got on? Ever so pretty it was—two hearts twined together, a white one and a blue one, pearl and turquoise. I had it stolen in my first place. Wasn’t it a shame? So now I’ve only got these old beads that I’ve wore and wore till I’m sick of them.”
“I like them,” said the infatuated Ernie.
Flossie tossed her head and fingered the beads. Her bright pink dress was upstairs in a drawer. She wouldn’t have dared to wear it under Aunt’s eye. She had on a dark blue jumper suit in which she looked very pretty indeed. It threw up her fair, bright tints and the whiteness of her skin. She looked down at the beads with discontent.
“They’d be all right if they were white,” she said. “I’d like a nice white pearl string—it’d suit me. I’d have thrown these old grey things away long ago if they hadn’t been my mother’s. Dingy, I call them. Look here, this photo’s slipped. I’ll have to pull it out or it won’t go in straight.”
The photo showed a buxom middle-aged woman in an outdoor coat and an excruciatingly unbecoming hat. The hat dominated the picture. It was trimmed with about a dozen yards of ribbon and a whole pheasant. Its forward tilt obscured the sitter’s features and gave the impression that it had just fallen upon her head.
“Coo!” said Flossie, giggling. “Who’s this Aunt?” She held the photo out, saw as she turned it that there was something written on the back, and read aloud: “‘Yours truly, Agnes Smith’. Who’s that, Aunt?”
“Why, your Aunt Ag of course. You ought to know that, Flossie, I must say. Flo’s own half-sister Ag.”
“Well, it says Agnes Smith. Ooh!” Flossie’s finger tightened on the old carte-de-visite. She turned it over and stared at the high-sleeved coat, the plump featureless face, and the hat with its load of millinery. She had a funny giddy feeling as if she were in two places at once, because whilst she looked at the photograph here in Aunt’s warm parlour, she had the cold taste of fog in her mouth and she could hear Mr Miles saying “‘Please send money for funeral expenses and my account and oblige yours truly Agnes Smith’.” It was really a very horrid sort of feeling.
“What’s the matter?” said Ernie in what he intended for a whisper.
Flossie caught her breath.
“Nothing. Aunt Ag’s name isn’t Smith, Aunt? It’s never been Smith since I heard tell of her.” She dragged her eyes away from the photograph and fixed them upon Aunt’s unresponsive profile.
Without looking up from her knitting, Mrs Palmer said,
“Well then, you don’t know everything, though I’ve no doubt you think you do.”
“Was her name Smith, Aunt?”
“For about twenty years it was—and a bad bargain she had. Had to leave him in the end and keep herself letting apartments. Then he died and she married again, and how she’d the courage, I don’t know. You’d think one man would be enough for any woman, let alone one like Jacob Smith. But there—she’d not been a widow a twelve-month before she married again. Put the photograph back tidy, Flossie, and don’t bend the corners.” Mrs Palmer’s needles clicked vigorously. “Why any woman born wants a man tracking dirt into her house, coming in all hours with muddy feet, and as like as not smelling of drink and tobacco, passes me.”
Flossie turned the page. She didn’t want to talk about yours t
ruly Agnes Smith. She wanted to get away from her. She nudged Ernie with her elbow and said daringly,
“Ooh! What about Syd?”
Mrs Palmer’s face relaxed. She did not actually smile, but she came within measurable distance of it. The locket which reposed upon her cream lace front contained two photographs of Syd, one taken at the age of four, and the other on his twenty-first birthday a couple of months ago. In the former he had long curling fair hair and a white muslin frock. In the latter he had rather the air of a girl dressed up in her brother’s clothes. Mrs Palmer had brought him up as much like a girl as possible. He had studious tastes, which he was able to gratify, as he worked in a bookshop. She certainly never thought of him as a man. He was her Syd, and the core of her heart.
“Syd’s different,” she said, and with that the door opened and Syd came in.
He was not much taller than Flossie, and his complexion was almost as pink and white as hers. He came in now more quickly than usual and shut the door.
Mrs Palmer put down her knitting and looked anxiously at him.
“What’s the matter, Syd?”
“Haven’t you heard—about Ivy Hodge? Haven’t you heard anything?”
“Coo!” said Flossie. “She hasn’t broke it off with Billy again, has she? Anyhow, Syd, if she has, she won’t take you, so you don’t need to get all worked up about it.”
Mrs Palmer frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but Syd got in first.
“Haven’t you heard?” he said again in his rather high voice.
Flossie pushed back her chair and got up.
“Ooh, Syd—what’s happened?” she said. “Don’t say anything dreadful’s happened—not to Ivy!”
Syd nodded. He was still standing by the door, his face working and his colour coming and going.
“They found her in the river,” he whispered.
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