CHAPTER XIV

Victoria lay back in bed, gazing at the blue silk wall. It was ten o'clock, but still dark; not a sound disturbed dominical peace, except the rain dripping from the trees, falling finally like the strokes of time. Her eyes dwelt for a moment on the colour prints where the nude beauties languished. She felt desperately tired, though she had not left the house for thirty-six hours; her weariness was as much a consequence as a cause of her consciousness of defeat. October was wearing; and soon the cruel winter would come and fix its fangs into the sole remaining joy of her life, the spectacle of life itself. She was desperately tired, full of hatred and disgust. If the face of a man rose before her she thrust it back savagely into limbo; her legs hurt. The time had come when she must realise her failure. She was not, as once in the P. R. R., in the last stage of exhaustion, hunted, tortured; she was rather the wounded bird crawling away to die in a thicket than the brute at bay.

As she lay, she realised that her failure had two aspects. It was together a monetary and a physical failure. The last three months had in themselves been easy. Her working hours did not begin before seven o'clock in the evening; and it was open to her, being young and beautiful, to put them off for two or three hours more; she was always free by twelve o'clock in the morning at the very latest, and then the day was hers to rest, to read and think. But she was still too much of a novice to escape the excitement inherent in the chase, the strain of making conversation, of facing the inane; nor was she able without a mental effort to bring herself to the response of the simulator. As she sat in the Vesuvius or stared into the showcase of a Regent Street jeweller, a faint smile upon her face, her brain was awake, her faculties at high pressure. Her eyes roved right and left and every nerve seemed to dance with expectation or disappointment. When she got up now, she found her body heavy, her legs sore and all her being dull like a worn stone. A little more, she felt, and the degradation of her body would spread to her sweet lucidity of mind; she would no longer see ultimate ends but would be engulfed in the present, become a bird of prey seeking hungrily pleasure or excitement.

Besides, and this seemed more serious still, she was not doing well. It seemed more serious because this could not be fought as could be intellectual brutalisation. An examination of her pass books showed that she was a little better off than at the time of Cairns's death. She was worth, all debts paid, about three hundred and ninety pounds. Her net savings were therefore at the rate of about a hundred and fifty a year; but she had been wonderfully lucky, and nothing said that age, illness or such misadventures as she classed under professional risk, might not nullify her efforts in a week. There was wear and tear of clothes too: the trousseau presented her by Cairns had been good throughout but some of the linen was beginning to show signs of wear; boots and shoes wanted renewing; there were winter garments to buy and new furs.

'I shall have stone martin,' she reflected. Then her mind ran complacently for a while on a picture of herself in stone martin; a pity she couldn't run to sables. She brought herself back with a jerk to her consideration of ways and means. The situation was really not brilliant. Of course she was extravagant in a way. Eighty-five pounds rent; thirty pounds in rates and taxes, without counting income tax which might be anything, for she dared not protest; two servants—all that was too much. It was quite impossible to run the house under five hundred a year, and clothes must run into an extra hundred.

'I could give it up,' she thought. But the idea disappeared at once. A flat would be cheaper, but it meant unending difficulties; it was not for nothing that Zoé, Lissa and Duckie envied her. And the rose-covered pergola! Besides it would mean saving a hundred a year or so; and, from her point of view, even two hundred and fifty a year was not worth saving. She was nearly twenty-eight, and could count on no more than between eight and twelve years of great attractiveness. This meant that, with the best of luck, she could not hope to amass much more than three thousand pounds. And then? Weston-super-Mare and thirty years in a boarding-house?

She was still full of hesitation and doubt as she greeted Betty at lunch. This was a great Sunday treat for the gentle P. R. R. girl. When she had taken off her coat and hat, she used to settle in an arm-chair with an intimate feeling of peace and protection. This particular day Betty did not settle down as usual, though the cushions looked soft and tempting and a clear fire burned in the grate. Victoria watched her for a moment. How exquisite and delicate this girl looked; tall, very slim and rounded. Betty had placed one hand on the mantelpiece, a small long hand rather coarsened at the finger tips, one foot on the fender. It was a little foot, arched and neat in the cheap boot. She had bought new boots for the occasion; the middle of the raised sole was still white. Her face was a little flushed, her eyes darkened by the glow.

'Well, Betty,' said her hostess suddenly, 'when's the wedding?'

'Oh, Vic, I didn't say . . . how can you . . .' Her face had blushed a tell-tale red.

'You didn't say,' laughed Victoria, 'of course you didn't say, shy bird! But surely you don't think I don't know. You've met somebody in the City and you're frightfully in love with him. Now, honest, is there anybody?'

'Yes . . . there is, but . . .'

'Of course there is. Now, Betty, tell me all about it.'

'Oh, I couldn't,' said Betty, gazing into the fire. 'You see it isn't quite settled yet.'

'Then tell me what you're going to settle. First of all, who is it?'

'Nobody you know. I met him at . . . well he followed me in Finsbury Circus one evening. . . .'

'Oh, naughty, naughty! You're getting on, Betty.'

'You mustn't think I encouraged him,' said Betty with a tinge of asperity. 'I'm not that sort.' She stopped, remembering Victoria's profession, then, inconsequently: 'You see, he wouldn't go away and . . . now. . . .'

'And he was rather nice, wasn't he?'

'Well, rather.' A faint and very sweet smile came over Betty's face. Victoria felt a little strangle in her throat. She too had thought her bold partner at the regimental dance at Lympton rather nice. Poor old Dick.

'Then he got out of me about the P. R. R.,' Betty went on more confidently. 'And then, would you believe it, he came to lunch every day! Not that he was accustomed to lunch at places like that,' she added complacently.

'Oh, a swell?' said Victoria.

'No, I don't say that. He used to go to the Lethes, before they shut up. He lives in the West End too, in Notting Hill, you know.'

'Dear, dear, you're flying high, Betty. But tell me, what is he like? and what does he do? and is he very handsome?'

'Oh, he's awfully handsome, Vic. Tall you know and very, very dark; he's so gentlemanly too, looks like the young man in First Words of Love. It's a lovely picture, isn't it?'

'Yes, lovely,' said Victoria summarily. 'But tell me more about him.'

'He's twenty-eight. He works in the City. He's a ledger clerk at Anderson and Dromo's. If he gets a rise this Christmas, he . . . well, he says . . .'

'He says he'll marry you.'

'Yes.' Betty hung her head, then raised it quickly. 'Oh, Vic, I can't believe it. It's too good to be true. I love him so dreadfully . . . I just can't wait for one o'clock. He didn't come on Wednesday. I thought he'd forgotten me and I was going off my head. But it was all right, they'd kept him in over something.'

'Poor little girl,' said Victoria gently. 'It's hard isn't it, but good too.'

'Good! Vic, when he kisses me I feel as if I were going to faint. He's strong, you see. And when he puts his arms round me I feel like a mouse in a trap . . . but I don't want to get away: I want it to go on for ever, just like that.'

She paused for a moment as if listening to the first words of love. Then her mind took a practical turn.

'Of course we shan't be able to live in Notting Hill,' she added. 'We'll have to go further out, Shepherd's Bush way, so as to be on the Tube. And he says I shan't go to the P. R. R. any more.'

'Happy girl,' said Victoria. 'I'm so glad, Betty; I hope . . .'

She restrained a doubt. 'And as you say you can't stay to tea I think I know where you're going.'

'Well, yes, I am going to meet him,' said Betty laughing.

'Yes . . . and you're going to look at little houses at Shepherd's Bush.'

Betty looked up dreamily. She could see a two-storeyed house in a row, with a bay window, and a front garden where, winter or summer, marigolds grew.

After lunch, as the two women sat once more in the boudoir, they said very little. Victoria, from time to time, flicked the ash from her cigarette. Betty did not smoke, but, her hands clasped together in her lap, watched a handsome dark face in the coals.

'And how are you getting on, Vic?' she asked suddenly. Swamped by the impetuous tide of her own romance she had not as yet shown any interest in her friend's affairs.

'I? Oh, nothing special. Pretty fair.'

'But, I mean . . . you said you wanted to make a lot of money and . . .'

'Yes, I'm not badly off, but I can't go on, Betty. I shall never do any good like this.'

Betty was silent for some minutes. Her ingrained modesty made any discussion of her friend's profession intolerable. Vanquished in argument, grudgingly accepting the logic of Victoria's actions, she could not free her mind from the thought that these actions were repulsive, that there must have been some other way.

'Oh? You want to get out of it all . . . you know . . . I have never said you weren't quite right, but . . .'

'But I'm quite wrong?'

'No . . . I don't mean that . . . I don't like to say that . . . I'm not clever like you, Vic, but . . .'

'We've done with all that,' said Victoria coldly. 'I do want to get out of it because it's getting me no nearer to what I want. I don't quite know how to do it. I'm not very well, you know.'

Betty looked up quickly with concern in her face.

'Have those veins been troubling you again?'

'Yes, a little. I can't risk much more.'

'Then what are you going to do?'

Victoria was silent for a moment.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I never thought of all this when the Major was alive.'

'Ah, there never was anybody like him,' said Betty after a pause.

Victoria sat up suddenly.

'Betty,' she cried, 'you're giving me an idea.'

'I? an idea?'

'There must be somebody like him. Why shouldn't I find him?'

Betty said nothing. She looked her stiffest, relishing but little the fathering upon her of this expedient.

'But who?' soliloquised Victoria. 'I don't know anybody. You see Betty, I want lots and lots of money. Otherwise it's no good. If I don't make a lot soon it will be too late.'

Betty still said nothing. Really she couldn't be expected. . . . Then her conscience smote her; she ought to show a little interest in dear, kind Vic.

'Yes,' she said. 'But you must know lots of people. You never told me, but you're a swell and all that. You must have known lots of rich men when you came to London.'

She stopped abruptly, shocked by her own audacity. But Victoria was no longer noticing her; she was following with lightning speed a new train of thought.

'Betty,' she cried, 'you've done it. I've found the man.'

'Have you? Who is it,' exclaimed Betty. She was excited, unable in her disapproval of the irregular to feel uninterested in the coming together of women and men.

'Never mind. You don't know him. I'll tell you later.'

An extraordinary buoyancy seemed to pervade Victoria. The way out! she had found the way out! And the two little words echoed in her brain as if some mighty wave of sound was rebounding from side to side in her skull. She was excited, so excited that, as she said goodbye to Betty, she forgot to fix their next meeting. She had work to do and would do it that very night.

As soon as Betty was gone she dressed quickly. Then she changed her hat to make sure she was looking her best. She went out and, with hurried steps, made for the Finchley Road. There was the house with the evergreens, as well clipped as ever, and the drive with its clean gravel. She ran up the steps of the porch, then hesitated for a moment. Her heart was beating now. Then she rang. There was a very long pause during which she heard nothing but the pumping of her heart. Then distant shuffling footsteps coming nearer. The door opened. She saw a slatternly woman . . . behind her the void of an empty house. She could not speak for emotion.

'Did you want to see the house, mum,' asked the woman. She looked sour. Sunday afternoon was hardly a time to view.

'The house?'

'Oh . . . I thought you come from Belfrey's, mum. It's to let.'

The caretaker nodded towards the right and Victoria, following the direction, saw the house agents' board. Her excitement fell as under a cold douche.

'Oh! I came to see . . . Do you know where Mr Holt is?'

'Mr Holt's dead, mum. Died in August, mum.'

'Dead.' Things seemed to go round. Jack was the only son . . . then?'

'Yes, mum. That's why they're letting. A fine big 'ouse, mum. Died in August, mum. Ah, you should have seen the funeral. They say he left half a million, mum, and there wasn't no will.'

'Where is Mrs Holt and . . . and Mr Holt's son.'

The caretaker eyed the visitor suspiciously. There was something rakish about this young lady which frightened her respectability.

'I can't say, mum,' she answered slowly. 'I could forward a letter, mum,' she added.

'Let me come in. I want to write a note.'

The caretaker hesitated for a moment, then stood aside to let her pass.

'You'll 'ave to come downstairs mum,' she said, 'sorry I'm all mixed up. I was doing a bit of washing. Git away Maria,' to a small child who stood at the top of the stairs.

In the gaslit kitchen, surrounded by steaming linen, Victoria wrote a little feverish note in pencil. The caretaker watched her every movement. She liked her better somehow.

'I'll forward it all right, mum,' she said. 'Thank you mum. . . . Oh, mum, I don't want you to think—' She was looking amazedly at the half sovereign in her palm.

'That's all right,' said Victoria, laughing loudly. She felt she must laugh, dance, let herself go. 'Just post it before twelve.'

The woman saw her to the door. Then she looked at the letter doubtfully. It was freshly sealed and could easily be opened. Then she had a burst of loyalty, put on a battered bonnet, completed the address, stamped the envelope and, walking to the pillar box round the corner, played Victoria's trump card.