Part 41 (2/2)

'Well, mum, we think we'd rather go mum. There's my young man, mum, and--and--'

'And he doesn't like your being a.s.sociated with a woman of my kind? Very right and proper.'

'Oh, mum, I don't mean that. You've always been kind to me. Cook too, she says she feels it very much, mum. When the major was alive, mum, it was different. It didn't seem to matter then, mum, but now--'

Mary stopped. For a moment the eyes behind the gla.s.ses looked as if they were going to cry.

'Don't trouble to explain, Mary,' said her mistress with some asperity.

'I understand. You and cook can't afford to jeopardise your characters.

From the dizzy heights of trained domesticity, experts in your own line, you are justified in looking down upon an unskilled labourer. I have no doubt that you have considered the social problem in all its aspects, that you fully realise the possibilities of a woman wage-earner and her future. By all means go where your moral sense calls you: I shall give you an excellent character and demand none in exchange. There! I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mary, I spoke hastily,' she added as the maid's features contracted, 'you only do this to please your young man; that is woman's profession, and I of all people must approve of what you do. If you don't mind, both of you, you will leave on Sat.u.r.day. You shall have your full month and a month's board allowance. Now send up cook, I want to order lunch.'

She could almost have wept as she lay with her face in the cus.h.i.+on. Her servants had delivered an ultimatum from womankind, and lack of supplies compelled her to pick up the guage of battle. Mary and cook were links between her and all those women who shelter behind one man only, and from that vantage ground hurl stones at their sisters beyond the gates.

The significance of it was not that their services were lost to her, but that she must now be content to a.s.sociate with another cla.s.s. Soon, however, her will was again supreme. 'After all,' she thought, 'I have done with Society. I'm a pirate; Society 'll be keen enough when I've won.'

Within three days she had readjusted her household. She had decided to make matters easy by engaging two German girls. Laura, the cook, said at once that it was all one to her who came to the house and who didn't, so long as they left her alone in the kitchen, and provided she might bring her large tabby cat. Augusta the maid, a long lanky girl with strong peasant hands and carroty hair, declared herself willing to oblige the _herrschaft_ in any way; she thereupon demanded an increase on the wages scheduled for her at the registry office. She also confided to her new mistress that she had a _kerl_ in Germany, and that she would do anything to earn her dowry.

Thus the establishment settled down again. Laura cooked excellently.

Augusta never flinched when bringing in the tea tray. Her big blue Saxon eyes seemed to allow everything to pa.s.s through them leaving her mind unsoiled, so armoured was her heart by the thought of that dowry. As for Snoo and Poo: they chased the tabby cat all over the house most of the day, which very soon improved their figures.

Thus the even tenour of Victoria's life continued. She was quite a popular favourite. As soon as she sat down under the chandelier half-a-dozen men were looking at her. Sometimes men followed her into the Vesuvius; but these she seldom encouraged, for her instinct told her that so beautiful a woman as she was should set a high price on herself, and high prices were not to be found in Piccadilly. Among her faithful was a bachelor of forty, whom she only knew as Charlie. This, by the way, was a characteristic of her acquaintances. She never discovered their names; some in fact were so guarded that they had apparently discarded their watches before coming out, so as to conceal even their initials. None ever showed a pocketbook. Charlie was dark and burned by the sun of the tropics; there was something bluff and good-natured about him, great strength too. He had sharp grey eyes and a dark moustache. He spoke extraordinarily fast, talked loosely of places he had been to: China, Mozambique, South America. Victoria rather liked him; he was totally dull, inclined to be coa.r.s.e; but as he invariably drank far too much before and when he came to the Vesuvius, he made no demands on her patience, slept like a log and went early, leaving handsome recognition behind him.

There was Jim too, a precise top-hatted city clerk who had forced himself on her one Sat.u.r.day afternoon as she crossed Piccadilly Circus.

He seemed such a pattern of rect.i.tude, was so perfectly trim and brushed that she allowed herself to be inveigled into a cab and driven to a small flat in Bayswater. He was too prudent to visit anybody else's rooms, he said; he had his flat on a weekly tenancy. Jim kept rather a hold on her. He was neither rich nor generous; in fact Victoria's social sense often stabbed her for what she considered undercutting, but Jim used to hover about the Vesuvius five minutes before closing time, and once or twice when Victoria had had no luck he succeeded like the vulture on the stricken field.

Most of the others were dream figures; she lost count of them. After a month she could not remember a face. She even forgot a big fellow whom she had called Black Beauty, who came down from somewhere in Devons.h.i.+re for a monthly bust; he was so much offended that she had the mortification of seeing him captured by one of the outer circle who sit beyond the lights.

In the middle of August the streets she called London were deserted.

Steamy air, dust laden, floated over the pavements. The Vesuvius was half empty, and she had to cut down her standards. Just as she was contemplating moving to Folkestone for a month, however, she received a letter from solicitors in the Strand, Bastable, Bastable & Sons, informing her that 're Major Cairns deceased,' they were realising the estate on behalf of the administrators, and that they would be obliged if she would say when it would be convenient for her to convey the furniture of Elm Tree Place into their hands. This perturbed Victoria seriously. The furniture had a value, and besides it was the plant of a flouris.h.i.+ng business.

'Pity he died suddenly,' she thought, 'he'd have done something for me.

He was a good sort, poor old Tom.'

She dressed herself as becomingly and quietly as she could, and, after looking up the law of intestacy in Whitaker, concluded that Marmaduke Cairns's old sisters must be the heirs. Then she sallied forth to beard the solicitor in his den. The den was a magnificent suite of offices just off the Strand. She was ushered into a waiting-room part.i.tioned off from the general office by gla.s.s. It was all very frowsy and hot. There was nothing to read except the _Times_ and she was uncomfortably conscious of three clerks and an office boy who frequently turned round and looked through the part.i.tion. At last she was ushered in. The solicitor was a dry-looking man of forty or so; his parchment face, deeply wrinkled right and left, his keen blue eyes and high forehead impressed her as dangerous. He motioned her to an armchair on the other side of his desk.

'Well, Mrs Ferris,' he said, 'to what do I owe the honour of this visit?' He sat back in his armchair and bit his penholder. A smile elongated his thin lips. This was his undoing, for he looked less formidable and Victoria decided on a line of action. She had come disturbed, now she was on her mettle.

'Mr Bastable,' she said, plunging at once into the subject, 'you ask me to surrender my furniture. I'm not going to.'

'Oh?' The solicitor raised his eyebrows. 'But, my dear madame, surely you must see . . .'

'I do. But I'm not going to.'

'Well,' he said, 'I hardly see . . . My duty will compel me to take steps . . .'

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