CHAPTER VI
Victoria stretched herself lazily in bed. Her eyes took in a picture of Cairns on the mantelpiece framed between a bottle of eau-de-cologne and the carriage clock; then, little by little, she analysed details, small objects, powderpuffs, a Chelsea candlestick, an open letter, the wall paper. She closed her eyes again and buried her face in the pillow. The lace edge tickled her ear pleasantly. She snuggled like a stroked cat. Then she awoke again, for Mary had just placed her early cup of tea on the night table. The tray seemed to come down with a crash, a spoon fell on the carpet. Victoria felt daylight rolling back sleep from her brain while Mary pulled up the blinds. As light flooded the room and her senses became keener she heard the blinds clash.
'You're very noisy, Mary,' she said, lifting herself on one elbow.
The girl came back to the bed her hands folded together.
'I'm sorry, mum.. I.. I've.'
'Yes? what's the matter?'
Mary did not answer, but Victoria could see she was disturbed. Her cap was disarranged; it inclined perhaps five degrees from the vertical. There was a faint flush on her cheeks.
'What's the matter,' said Victoria sharply. 'Is there anything wrong?'
'No, mum… Yes mum… They say in the paper.. There's been trouble in Ireland, mum..'
'In Ireland?' Victoria sat bolt upright. Her heart gave a great bang and then began to go with a whirr.
'At Rossbantry, mum.. last night.. he's shot..'
'Shot? Who? can't you speak?'
'The Major, mum.'
Mary unfolded her hands suddenly and drew them up and down her apron as if trying to dry them. Victoria sat as if frozen, looking at her wide-eyed. Then she relapsed on the pillow. Everything swam for a second, then she felt Mary raising her head.
'Go away,' whispered Victoria. 'Leave me for a minute. I'm all right.'
Mary hesitated for a moment, then obeyed, softly closing the door. Victoria lay staring at the ceiling. Cairns was dead, shot. Awful. A week ago his heavy frame was outlined under these very blankets. She shuddered. But why, how? It wasn't true, it couldn't be true. She sat up as if impelled by a spring, and rang the bell violently. The broken rope fell on her face in a coil. With both hands she seized her chin as if to stop a scream.
'The paper! get me the paper!' she gasped as Mary came in. The girl hesitated. Victoria's face frightened her. Victoria looked at her straight, and she ran out of the room. In another minute she had laid the open paper before her mistress.
Victoria clutched at it with both hands. It was true. True. It was true. The headlines were all she could see. She tried to read the text, but the letters danced. She returned to the headlines.
Shocking Outrage in Ireland
Landlord Shot
In the next column: —
M. C. C.'s Hard Task
Her heart's action was less violent now. She understood; every second increased her lucidity. Shot. Cairns was shot. Oh, she knew, he had carried strife with him and some tenant had had his revenge. She took up the paper and could read it now. Cairns had refused to make terms, and on the morning of his death had served notices of eviction on eighteen cottagers. The same night he was sitting at a window of his bailiff's house. Then two shots from the other side of the road, another from lower down. Cairns was wounded twice, in the lung and throat, and died within twenty minutes. A man was under arrest.
Victoria put down the paper. Her mind was quite clear again. Poor old Tom! She felt sorry but above all disturbed; every nerve in her body seemed raw. Poor old Tom, a good fellow! He had been kind to her; and now, there he was. Dead when he was thinking of coming back to her. He would never see her again, the little house and things he loved. Yes, he had been kind; he had saved her from that awful life.. Victoria's thoughts turned into another channel. What was going to become of her.
'Old girl,' she said aloud, 'you're in the cart.'
She realised that she was again adrift, alone, face to face with the terrible world. Cairns was gone; there was nobody to protect her against the buffeting waves. A milkman's cart rattled by; she could hear the distant rumble of the Underground, a snatch carried by the wind from a German band. Well, the time had come; it had to come. She could not have held Cairns for ever; and now she had to prove her mettle, to show whether she had learned enough of the world, whether she had grit. The thought struck cold at her, but an intimate counsellor in her brain was already awake and crying out:
'Yes, yes, go on! you can do it yet.'
Victoria threw down the paper and jumped out of bed. She dressed feverishly in the clothes and linen she had thrown in a heap on a chair the night before, twisting her hair up into a rough coil. Just before leaving the room she remembered she had not even washed her hands. She did so hurriedly; then, seeing the cold cup of tea, drank it off at a gulp; her throat felt parched.
She pushed back the untasted dish on the breakfast table. Her head between her hands, she tried to think. At intervals she poured out cups of tea and drank them off quickly.
Snoo and Poo, after vainly trying to induce her to play with them, lay in a heap in an armchair snuffling as they slept.
The better she realised her position the greater grew her fears. Once more she was the cork tossed in the storm; and yet, rudderless, she must navigate into the harbour of liberty. If Cairns had lived and she had seen her power over him wane, she would have taken steps; she did not know what steps, but felt she surely would have done something. But Cairns was dead; in twenty minutes she had passed from comparative security into the region where thorns are many and roses few.
Poor old Tom! She felt a tiny pang; surely this concern with herself when his body still lay unburied was selfish, ugly. But, pooh! why make any bones about it? As Cairns had said himself, he liked to see her beautiful, happy, well clad. His gifts to her were gifts to himself: she was merely his vicar.
Victoria drank some more cold tea. Good or bad, Cairns belonged to the past and the past has no virtues. None, at any rate, for those whose present is a wind-swept table-land. Men must come and go, drink to the full of the cup and pay richly for every sip, so that she might be free, hold it no longer to their lips. There was no time to waste, for already she was some hours older; some of those hours which might have been transmuted into gold, that saving gold. She must take steps.
The 'steps to be taken,' a comforting sentence, were not easy to evolve. But another comforting catch ward, 'reviewing the situation,' saved her from perplexity. She went into the little boudoir and took out her two pass books. The balance seemed agreeably fat, but she did not allow herself to be deluded; she checked off the debit side with the foils of her cheque book and found that two of the cheques had not been presented. These she deducted, but the result was not unsatisfactory; she had exactly three hundred pounds in one bank and a few shillings over fifty pounds in the other. Three hundred and fifty pounds. Not so bad. She had done pretty well in these nine months. Of course that banker's order of Cairns would be stopped. She could hardly expect the executors to allow it to stand. Thus her capital was three hundred and fifty pounds. And there was jewellery too, worth a couple of hundred pounds, perhaps, and lace, and furs. The jewellery might come in handy; it could be 'gopherised.' The furniture wasn't bad either.
Of course she must go on with the house. It was no great responsibility, being held on a yearly agreement. Victoria then looked through her accounts; they did not amount to much, for Barbezan Soeurs, though willing to assist in extracting money by means of bogus invoices, made it a rule to demand cash for genuine purchases. Twenty pounds would cover all the small accounts. The rent was all right, as it would not be due until the end of September. The rates were all right too, being payable every half year; they could be ignored until the blue notice came, just before Christmas.
Victoria felt considerably strengthened by this investigation. At a pinch she could live a year on the present footing, during which something must turn up. She tried to consider for a moment the various things that might turn up. None occurred to her. She settled the difficulty by going upstairs again to dress. When she rang for Mary to do her hair, the girl was surprised to find her mistress perfectly cool. Without a word, however, Mary restored her hair to order. It was a beautiful and elegant woman, perhaps a trifle pale and open mouthed, who, some minutes later, set out to walk to Regent's Park.
Victoria sat back in her chair. Peace was upon her soul. Perhaps she had just passed through a crisis, perhaps she was entering upon one, but what did it matter? The warmth of July was in the clear air, the canal slowly carried past her its film of dust. No sound broke through the morning save the cries of little boys fishing for invisible fishes, and, occasionally, a raucous roar from some prisoner in the Zoo. Now that she had received the blow and was recovering she was conscious of a curious feeling of lightness; she felt freer than the day before. Then she was a man's property, tied to him by the bond of interest; now she was able to do what she chose, know whom she chose, so long as that money lasted. Ah, it would be good one day when she had enough money to be able to look the future in the face and flaunt in its forbidding countenance the fact that she was free, for ever free.
Victoria was no longer a dreamer; she was a woman of action. The natural sequence of her thoughts brought her up at once against the means to the triumphant end. Three hundred and fifty pounds, say six hundred if she realised everything, would not yield enough to feed a superannuated governess. She would need quite eight or ten thousand pounds before she could call herself free and live her dreams.
'I'll earn it,' she said aloud, 'yes, sure enough.'
A little Aberdeen terrier came bounding up to her, licked her hand and ran away after his master. A friendly omen. Six hundred pounds was a large sum in a way. She could aspire to a partnership in some business now. A vision arose before her; Victoria Ferris, milliner. The vision grew; Victoria Ferris and Co., Limited, wholesalers; then Ferris' Stores, for clothes and boots and cheese and phonographs, with a branch of Cook's agency, a Keith Prowse ticket office; Ferris' Stores as an octopus, with its body in Knightsbridge and a tentacle hovering over every draper from Richmond to Highgate.
Yes, that was all very well, but what if Victoria Ferris failed? 'No good,' she thought, 'I can't afford to take risks.' Of course the idea of seeking employment was absurd. No more ten hours a day for eight bob a week for her. Besides, no continuous references and a game leg.. The situations crowded into and out of Victoria's brain like dissolving views. She could see herself in the little house, with another man, with other men, young men, old men; and every one of them was rocked in the lap of Delilah, who laughingly shore off their golden locks.
'By Jove,' she said aloud, bringing her gloved fist down on her knee, 'I'll do it.'
Of course the old life could not begin again just now. She did not know a man in London who was worth capturing. She must go down into the market, stand against the wall as a courtesan of Alexandria and nail a wreath of roses against the highest bid. The vision she saw was now no longer the octopus. She saw a street with its pavements wet and slithering, flares, barrows laden with greens; she could smell frying fish, rotting vegetables, burning naptha; a hand opened the door of a bar and, in the glare, she could see two women with vivid hair, tired eyes, smiling mouths, each one patiently waiting before a little table and an empty glass. Then she saw once more the courtesan of Alexandria, dim in the night, not lit up by the sun of sweet Egypt, but clad in mercerised cotton and rabbit's fur, standing, watching like a shadow against a shop door in Regent Street.
No, she had not come to that. She belonged to the upper stratum of the profession, and, knowing it, could not sink. Consciousness was the thing. She was not going into this fight soft-handed or softhearted. She knew. There was high adventure in store for her yet. If she must fish it should be for trout not chub. Like a wise woman, she would not love lightly, but where money is. There should be no waiting, no hesitating. That very night she would sup at the Hotel Vesuvius.. all in black.. like an ivory Madonna set in ebony.. with a tea rose in her hair as a foil to her shoulders.. and sweeping jade earrings which would swim like butterflies in the heavy hair. Ah, it would be high adventure when Demetrious knelt at the feet of Aphrodite with jewels in his sunburnt palm, when Croesus bargained away for a smile a half of his Lydian wealth.
She got up, a glow in her veins as if the lust of battle was upon her. Quickly she walked out of the park to conquer the town. A few yards beyond the gates newspaper placards shouted the sensation of the day; placards pink, brown, green, all telling the tale of murder, advertising for a penny the transitory joy of the fact. Victoria smiled and walked on. She let herself into the house. It was on the stroke of one. She sat down at the table, pressing the bell down with her foot.
'Hurry up, Mary,' she said, 'I'm as hungry as a hunter.'
A voice floated through the window like an echo: 'Irish murder; latest details.'
'Shut the window, Mary,' she said sharply.
CHAPTER VII
The Hotel Vesuvius is a singular place. It stands on the north side of Piccadilly, and for the general its stuccoed front and severe sash windows breathe an air of early Victorian respectability. Probably it was once a ducal mansion, for it has all the necessary ugliness, solidity and size; now it is the most remarkable instance of what can be done by a proprietor who remembers that an address in Piccadilly exempts him from the rules which govern Bloomsbury. One enters it through a small hall all alight with white and gold paint. Right and left are the saloon bar and the buffet; this enables the customer to select either without altering the character of his accommodation, while assuming superiority for a judicious choice. A broad straight staircase leads up to the big supper room on the first floor. Above are a score of private dining-rooms.
Victoria jumped out of the cab and walked up the steps, handing the liveried commissionaire two shillings to pay the cabman. This was an inspiration calculated to set her down at once with the staff as one who knew the ropes. In the white and gold hall she halted for a moment, puzzled and rather nervous. She had never set foot in the Vesuvius; she had never heard it mentioned without a smile or a wink. Now, a little flushed and her heart beating, she realised that she did not know her way about.
Victoria need have had no fears. Before she had time to take in the scene, a tall man with a perfectly groomed head and a well fitting evening dress bowed low before her.
'Madame wishes no doubt to deposit her wrap,' he said in gentle tones. His teeth flashed white for a moment.
'Yes,' said Victoria… 'Yes, where is the cloak room?'
'This way, madame. If madame will permit me..' He pointed towards the end of the hall and preceded her steps. An elderly woman behind the counter received Victoria's wrap and handed her a brass token without looking at her. While she pulled up her gloves she looked round curiously. The cloak room was small; behind the counter the walls were covered by a mahogany rack with some hundred pigeon-holes. The fiercer light of an unshaded chandelier beat down upon the centre of the room. Victoria was conscious of an extraordinary atmosphere, a blend of many scents, tobacco smoke, leather; most of the pigeon-holes were bursting with coloured wraps, many of them vivid blue or red; here and there long veils, soiled white gloves hung out of them; a purple ostrich feather hung from an immense black hat over a white and silver Cingalese shawl. Victoria turned sharply. The man was inspecting her coolly with an air of intentness that showed approval.
'Where does madame wish to go?' he asked as they entered the hall. 'In the buffet perhaps?'
He opened the door. Victoria saw for a second a long counter laden with bottles, at which stood a group of men, some in evening dress, some in tweed suits; she saw a few women among them, all with smiles upon their faces. Behind the counter she had time to see the barmaid, a beautiful girl with dark eyes and vivid yellow hair.
'No, not there,' she said quickly. It reminded her of the terrible little bar of which Farwell had given her a glimpse. 'You are the manager, I believe.. I want to go up into the supper room.'
'Certainly, madame; will madame come this way?'
The manager preceded her up to the first floor. On the landing, two men in tweeds suddenly stopped talking as she passed. A porter flung the glazed door open. A short man in evening dress looked at her, then at the manager. After a second's hesitation the two men in tweeds followed her in.
The manager put his hands in his pockets, walked up to the other man and nodded towards the door.
'Pas mal, hein?'
'Epatante,' said the short man. 'Du chic. Et une peau!'
The manager smiled and turned to go downstairs. 'Surveillez moi ça Anatole,' he said.
Victoria, meanwhile, had stopped for a moment on the threshold, a little dazed by the scene. Though it was only half-past ten, the eighty tables of the Vesuvius were almost every one occupied; the crowd looked at first like a patchwork quilt. The room was all white and gold like the hall; a soft radiance fell from the lights hidden in the cornice; two heavy chandeliers with faintly pink electric bulbs and a few pink shaded lights on the table diffused a roseate glow over the scene. Victoria felt like an intruder, and her discomfiture was heightened by the gripping hot perfume. But already a waiter was by her side; she let him be her pilot. In a few seconds she found herself sitting at a small table alone, near the middle of the room. The waiter reappeared almost at once carrying on a tray a liqueur glass containing some colourless fluid. She had ordered nothing, but his adroitness relieved her. Clearly the expert had divined her inexperience and had resolved to smooth her way.
She lifted the glass to her lips and sipped at it. It was good stuff, rather strong. The burn on her palate seemed to brace her; she looked round the room. It was a peculiar scene; for the Vesuvius is a luxurious place, and a provincial might well be excused for thinking it was the Carlton or the Savoy; indeed there was something more outwardly opulent about it. It suggested a place where men not only spent what they had but spent more. But for a few men in frock-coats and tweeds it would have been almost undistinguishable from the recognised resorts of fashion. Victoria took stock of her surroundings; of the shining plate and glass, the heavy red carpet, the red and gold curtains, drawn but fluttering at the open windows. The guests, however, interested her more. At half the tables sat a woman and a man, at others a woman alone before a little glass. What struck her above all was the beauty of the women, the wealth they carried on their bodies. Hardly one of them seemed over thirty; most of them had golden or vivid red hair, though a few tables off Victoria could see a tall woman of colour with black hair stiffened by wax and pierced with massive ivory combs. They mostly wore low-necked dresses, many of them white or faintly tinted with blue or pink. She could see a dark Italian-looking girl in scarlet from whose ears long coral earrings drooped to her slim cream-coloured shoulders. There was an enormously stout woman with puffy pink cheeks, strapped slightly into a white silk costume, looking like a rose at the height of its bloom. There were others too! short dark women with tight hair; minxish French faces and little shrewd dark eyes; florid Dutch and Belgian women with massive busts and splendid shoulders, dazzlingly white; English girls too, most of them slim with long arms and rosy elbows and faintly outlined collar bones. Many of these had the aristocratic nonchalance of 'art' photographs. Opposite Victoria, under the other chandelier, a splendid creature, white as a lily, with flashing green eyes, copper coloured hair, had thrown herself back in her armchair and was laughing at a man's joke. Her head was bent back, and as she laughed her splendid bust rose and fell and her throat filled out. An elderly man with a close clipped grey moustache, immaculate in his well-cut dress clothes, leaned towards her with a smile on his brown face.
Victoria turned her eyes away from the man, (a soldier, of course), and looked at the others. They, too, were a mixed collection. There were a good many youths, all clean shaven and mostly well-groomed; these talked loudly to their partners and seemed to fill the latter with merriment; now and then they stared at other women with the boldness of the shy. There were elderly men too; a few in frock coats in spite of the heat, some very stout and red, some bald and others half concealing their scalps under cunning hair arrangements. The elderly men sat mostly with two women, some with three, and lay back smiling like courted pachas. By far the greater number of the guests, however, were anything between thirty and forty; and seemed to cover every type from the smart young captain with the tanned face, bold blue eyes and a bristly moustache, to ponderous men in tweeds or blue reefer jackets who looked about them with a mixture of nervousness and bovine stolidity.
From every corner came a steady stream of loud talk; continually little shrieks of laughter pierced the din and then were smothered by the rattling of the plates. The waiters flitted ghostly through the room with incredible speed, balancing high their silver trays. Then Victoria became conscious that most of the women round her were looking at her; for a moment she felt her personality shrivel up under their gaze. They were analysing her, speculating as to the potentialities of a new rival, stripping off her clothes too and her jewels. It was horrible, because their look was more incisive than the merely brutal glance by which a man takes stock of a woman's charms.
She pulled herself together however, and forced herself to return the stares. 'After all,' she thought, 'this is the baptism of fire.' She felt strengthened, too, as she observed her rivals more closely. Beautiful as most of them seemed at first sight, many of them showed signs of wear. With joyful cruelty Victoria noted here and there faint wrinkles near their eyes, relaxed mouths, cheekbones on which rosacia had already set its mark. She could not see more than half a dozen whose beauty equalled hers; she threw her head up and drew back her shoulders. In the full light of the chandelier she looked down at the firm white shapeliness of her arms.
'Well, how goes it?'
Victoria started and looked up from her contemplation. A man had sat down at her table. He seemed about thirty, fairish, with a rather ragged moustache. He wore a black morning coat and a grey tie. His hands and wrists were well kept and emerged from pale blue cuffs. There was a not unkindly smile upon his face. His tip tilted nose gave him a cheerful, rather impertinent expression.
'Oh, I'm all right,' said Victoria vaguely. Then with an affectation of ease. 'Hot, isn't it?'
'Ra-ther,' said the man. 'Had your supper?'
'No,' said Victoria, 'I don't want any.'
'Now, come, really that's too bad of you. Thought we were going to have a nice little family party and you're off your feed.'
'I'm sorry,' said Victoria smiling. 'I had dinner only two hours ago.' This man was not very attractive; there was something forced in his ease.
'Well, have a drink with me,' he said.
'What's yours?' asked Victoria. That was an inspiration. The plunge braced her like a cold bath. The man laughed.
'Pop, of course. Unless you prefer a Pernot. You know "absinthe makes the."' He stopped and laughed again. Victoria did likewise without understanding him. She saw that the other women laughed when men did.
They filled their glasses. Victoria liked champagne. She watched the little bubbles rise, and drank the glass down. It was soft and warm. How strong she felt suddenly. The conversation did not flag. The man was leaning towards her across the table, talking quickly. He punctuated every joke with a high laugh.
'Oh, I say, give us a chance,' floated from the next table. Victoria looked. It was one of the English girls. She was propped up on one elbow on the table; her legs were crossed showing a long slim limb and slender ankle in a white open work stocking. A man in evening dress with a foreign looking dark face was caressing her bare arm.
'Penny for your thoughts,' said Victoria's man.
'Wasn't thinking,' she said. 'I was looking.'
'Looking? are you new here?'
'Yes, it's the first time I've come.'
'By Jove! It must be an eye-opener.' He laughed.
'It is rather. It doesn't seem half bad.'
'You're right there. I'm an old stager.' A slightly complacent expression came over his face. He filled up the glasses. 'You don't spoil the collection, you know,' he added. 'You're a bit of all right.' He looked at her approvingly.
'Am I?' She looked at him demurely. Then, plunging once more, 'I hope you'll still think so by and by.' The man's eyes dwelled for a moment on her face and neck, his breath became audible suddenly. She felt his foot softly stroke hers. He drew his napkin across his lips.
'Well,' he said with an assumption of ease, 'shall we go?'
'I don't mind,' said Victoria getting up.
It was with a beating heart that Victoria climbed into the cab. As soon as he got in the man put his arm round her waist and drew her to him. She resisted gently but gave way as his arm grew more insistent.
'Coy little puss.' His face was very near her upturned eyes. She felt it come nearer. Then, suddenly, he kissed her on the lips. She wanted to struggle; she was a little frightened. The lights of Piccadilly filled her with shame. They spoke very little. The man held her close to him. As the cab rattled through Portland Place, he seized her once more. She fought down the repulsion with which his breath inspired: it was scented with strong cigars and champagne. Victoriously she coiled one arm round his neck and kissed him on the mouth. In her disgust there was a blend of triumph; not even her own feelings could resist her will.
As she waited on the doorstep while he paid the cabman a great fear came upon her. She did not know this man. Who was he? Perhaps a thief. She suddenly remembered that women of her kind were sometimes murdered for the sake of their jewellery. As the man turned to come up the steps she pulled herself together. 'After all,' she thought, 'it's only professional risk.'
They stood for a moment in the hall of the silent house. She felt awkward. The man looked at her and mistook her hesitation.
'It's all right,' he faltered. He looked about him, then, quickly whipping out a sovereign purse, he drew out two sovereigns with a click and laid them on the hall table.
'You see,' he said '.. a girl like you… three more to-morrow morning… I'm square you know.'
Victoria smiled and, after a second's hesitation, picked up the money.
'So'm I,' she said. Then she switched on the light and pointed upstairs.