CHAPTER XVIII

'I'm glad we're going away, Jack,' said Victoria leaning back in the cab and looking at him critically. 'You look as if you wanted a change.'

'Perhaps I do,' said Jack.

Victoria looked at him again. He had not smiled as he spoke to her, which was unusual. He seemed thinner and more delicate than ever, with his pale face and pink cheekbones. His black hair shone as if moist; and his eyes were bigger than they had ever been, blue like silent pools and surrounded by a mauve zone. His mouth hung a little open. Yet, in spite of his weariness, he held her wrist in both his hands, and she could feel his fingers searching for the opening in her glove.

'You are becoming a responsibility,' she said smiling. 'I shall have to be a mother to you.'

A faint smile came over his lips.

'A mother? After all, why not? Phedra. . . .' His eyes fixed on the grey morning sky as he followed his thought.

The horse was trotting sharply. The winter air seemed to rush into their bodies. Jack, well wrapped up as he was in a fur coat, shrank back against the warm roundness of her shoulder. In an excess of gentleness she put her free hand in his.

'Dear boy,' she said softly bending over him.

But there was no tenderness in Jack's blue eyes, rather lambent fire. At once his grasp on her hand tightened and his lips mutely formed into a request. Casting a glance right and left she kissed him quickly on the mouth.

Up on the roof their bags jolted and bumped one another; milk carts were rattling their empty cans as they returned from their round; far away a drum and fife band played an acid air. They were going to Ventnor in pursuit of the blanketed sun; and Victoria rejoiced, as they passed through Piccadilly Circus where moisture settled black on the fountain, to think that for three days she would see the sun radiate, not loom as a red guinea. They passed over Waterloo Bridge at a foot pace; the enormous morning traffic was struggling in the neck of the bottle. The pressure was increased because the road was up between it and Waterloo Station. On her left, over the parapet, Victoria could see the immense desert of the Thames swathed in thin mist, whence emerged in places masts and where massive barges loomed passive like derelicts. She wondered for a moment whether her familiar symbol, the old vagrant, still sat crouching against the parapet at Westminster, watching rare puffs of smoke curling from his pipe into the cold air. The cab emerged from the crush, and to avoid it the cabman turned into the little black streets which line the wharf on the east side of the bridge, then doubled back towards Waterloo through Cornwall Road. There they met again the stream of drays and carts; the horse went at a foot pace, and Victoria gazed at the black rows of houses with the fear of a lost one. So uniformly ugly these apartment houses, with their dirty curtains, their unspeakable flowerpots in the parlour windows. Here and there cards announcing that they did pinking within; further, the board of a sweep; then a good corner house, the doctor's probably, with four steps and a brass knocker and a tall slim girl on her hands and knees washing the steps.

The cab came to an abrupt stop. Some distance ahead a horse was down on the slippery road; shouts came from the crowd around it. Victoria idly watched the girl, swinging the wet rag from right to left. Poor thing. Everything in her seemed to cry out against the torture of womanhood. She was a picture of dumb resignation as she knelt with her back to the road. Victoria could see her long thin arms, her hands red and rigid with cold, her broken-down shoes with the punctured soles emerging from the ragged black petticoat.

There was a little surge in the crowd. The girl got up, and with an air of infinite weariness stretched her arms. Then she picked up the pail and bucket and turned towards the street. For the space of a second the two women looked into one another's faces. Then Victoria gave a muffled cry and jumped out of the cab. She seized with both hands the girl's bare arms.

'Betty! Betty!' she faltered.

A burning blush covered the girl's face and her features twitched. She made as if to turn away from the detaining hands.

'Vicky, what are you doing . . . what does this mean?' came Jack's voice from the cab.

'Wait a minute, Jack. Betty, my poor little Betty. Why are you here? Why haven't you written to me?'

'Leave me alone,' said Betty hoarsely.

'I won't leave you alone. Betty, tell me, what's this? Are you married?'

A look of pain came over the girl's face, but she said nothing.

'Look here, Betty, we can't talk here. Leave the bucket, come with me. I'll see it's all right.'

'Oh, I can't do that. Oh, let me alone; it's too late.'

'I don't understand you. It's never too late. Now just get into the cab and come with me.'

'I can't. I must give notice . . .' She looked about to weep.

'Come along.' Victoria increased the pressure on the girl's arms. Jack stood up in the cab. He seemed as frightened as he was surprised.

'I say, Vicky . . .' he began.

'Sit down, Jack, she's coming with us. You don't mind if we don't go to Ventnor?'

Jack's eyes opened in astonishment but he made no reply. Victoria pulled Betty sharply down the steps.

'Oh, let me get my things,' she said weakly.

'No. They'd stop you. There, get in. Drive back to Elm Tree Place, cabman.'

Half an hour later, lying at full length on the boudoir sofa, Betty was slowly sipping some hot cocoa. There was a smile on her tear-stained face. Victoria was analysing with horror the ravages that sorrow had wrought on her. She was pretty still, with her china blue eyes and her hair like pale filigree gold; but the bones seemed to start from her red wrists, so thin had she become. Even the smile of exhausted content on her lips did not redeem her emaciated cheeks.

'Betty, my poor Betty,' said Victoria, taking her hand. 'What have they done to you?'

The girl looked up at the ceiling as if in a dream.

'Tell me all about it,' her friend went on, 'what has happened to you since April?'

'Oh, lots of things, lots of things. I've had a hard time.'

'Yes, I see. But what happened actually? Why did you leave the P.R.R.?'

'I had to. You see, Edward . . .' The flush returned.

'Yes?'

'Oh, Vic, I've been a bad girl and I'm so, so unhappy.' Betty seized her friend's hand to raise herself and buried her face on her breast. There Victoria let her sob, gently stroking the golden hair. She understood already, but Betty must not be questioned yet. Little by little, Betty's weeping grew less violent and confidence burst from her pent up soul.

'He didn't get a rise at Christmas, so he said we'd have to wait . . . I couldn't bear it . . . it wasn't his fault. I couldn't let him come down in the world, a gentleman . . . he had only thirty shillings a week.'

'Yes, yes, poor little girl.'

'We never meant to do wrong . . . when baby was coming he said he'd marry me . . . I couldn't drag him down . . . I ran away.'

'Betty, Betty, why didn't you write to me?'

The girl looked at her. She was beautiful in her reminiscence of sacrifice.

'I was ashamed . . . I didn't dare . . . I only wanted to go where they didn't know what I was. . . . I was mad. The baby came too early and it died almost at once.'

'My poor little girl.' Victoria softly stroked the rough back of her hand.

'Oh, I wasn't sorry . . . it was a little girl . . . they don't want any more in the world. Besides I didn't care for anything; I'd lost him . . . and my job. I couldn't go back. My landlady wrote me a character to go to Cornwall Road.'

'And there I found you.'

'I wonder what we are going to do for you,' she went on. 'Where is Edward now?'

'Oh, I couldn't go back; I'm ashamed. . . .'

'Nonsense, you haven't done anything wrong. He shall marry you.'

'He would have,' said Betty a little coldly, 'he's square.'

'Yes, I know. He didn't beg you very hard, did he? However, never mind. I'm not going to let you go until I've made you happy. Now I'll tuck you up with a rug, and you're going to sleep before the fire.'

Betty lay limp and unresisting in the ministering hands. The unwonted sensations of comfort, warmth and peace soothed her to sleepiness. Besides, she felt as if she had wept every tear in her racked body. Soon her features relaxed, and she sank into profound, almost deathlike slumber.

Victoria meanwhile told her story to Jack, who sat in the dining room reading a novel and smoking cigarettes. He came out of his coma as Victoria unfolded the tale of Betty's upbringing, her struggle to live, then love the meteor flashing through her horizon. His cheeks flushed and his mouth quivered as Victoria painted for him the picture of the girl half distraught, bearing the burden of her shame, unable to reason or to forsee, to think of anything except the saving of a gentleman from life on thirty bob a week.

'Something ought to be done,' he said at length, closing his book with novel vivacity.

'Yes, but what?'

'I don't know.' His eyes questioned the wall; they grew vaguer and vaguer as his excitement decreased, as a ship in docks sinks further and further on her side while the water ebbs away.

'You think of something,' he said at length, picking up his book again. 'I don't care what it costs.'

Victoria left him and went for a walk through the misty streets seeking a solution. There were not many. She could not keep Betty with her, for she was pure though betrayed; contact with the irregular would degrade her because habit would induce her to condone that which she morally condemned. It would spoil her and would ultimately throw her into a life for which she was not fitted because gentle and unspoiled.

'No,' mused Victoria as she walked, 'like most women, she cannot rule: a man must rule her. She is a reed, not an oak. All must come from man, both good and evil. What man has done man must undo.'

By the time she returned to Elm Tree Place she had made up her mind. There was no hope for Betty except in marriage. She must have her own fireside; and, from what she had said, her lover was no villain. He was weak, probably; and, while he strove to determine his line of conduct, events had slipped beyond his control. Perhaps, though, it was not fair to deliver Betty into his hands bound and defenceless, bearing the burden of their common imprudence. She was not fit to be free, but she should not be a slave. It might be well to be the slave of the strong, but not of the weak.

Therefore Victoria arrived at a definite solution. She would see the young man; and, if it was not altogether out of the question, he should marry Betty. They should have the little house at Shepherd's Bush, and Betty should be made a free woman with a fortune of five hundred pounds in her own right, enough to place her for ever beyond sheer want. It only struck Victoria later that she need not, out of quixotic generosity, deplete her own store, for Holt would gladly give whatever sum she named.

'Now, Betty,' she said as the girl drained the glass of claret which accompanied the piece of fowl, that composed her lunch, 'tell me your young man's name and Anderson & Dromo's address. I'm going to see him.'

'Oh, no, no, don't do that.' The look of fear returned to the blue eyes.

'No use, Betty, I've decided you're going to be happy. I shall see him to-day at six, bring him here to-morrow at half past two, as it happens to be Saturday. You will be married about the thirtieth of this month.'

'Oh, Vic, don't make me think of it. I can't do it . . . it's no good now. Perhaps he's forgotten me, and it's better for him.'

'I don't think he's forgotten you,' said Victoria. 'He'll marry you this month, and you'll eat your Christmas dinner at Shepherd's Bush. Don't be shy, dear—you're not going empty handed; you're going to have a dowry of five hundred pounds.'

'Vic! I can't take it; it isn't right . . . you need all you've got . . . you're so good, but I don't want him to marry me if . . . if. . . .'

'Oh, don't worry, I shan't tell him about the money until he says yes. Now, no thanks; you're my baby, besides it's going to be a present from Mr Holt. Silence,' she repeated as Betty opened her mouth, 'or rather give me his name and address and not another word.'

'Edward Smith, Salisbury House, but. . . .'

'Enough. Now, dear, don't get up.'

The events of that Friday and Saturday formed in later days one of the sunbathed memories in Victoria's dreary life. It was all so gentle, so full of sweetness and irresolute generosity. She remembered everything, the wait in the little dark room into which she was ushered by an amazed commissionaire who professed himself willing to break regulations for her sake and hand Mr Smith a note, the banging of her heart as she realised her responsibility and resolved to break her word if necessary and to buy a husband for Betty rather than lose him, then the quick interview, the light upon the young man's face.

'Where is she,' he asked excitedly. 'Oh, why did she run away? You can't think what I've been going through.'

'You should have married her,' said Victoria coldly, though she was moved by his sincerity. He was handsome, this young man, with his bronzed face, dark eyes, regular features and long dark hair.

'Oh, I would have at once if I'd known. But I couldn't make up my mind; only thirty bob a week. . . .'

'Yes, I know,' said Victoria softly, 'I used to be at the P. R. R.'

'You?' The young man looked at her incredulously.

'Yes, but never mind me. It's Betty I've come for. The baby is dead. I found her cleaning the steps of a house near Waterloo.'

'My God,' said the young man in low tones. He clenched his hands together; one of his paper cuff protectors fell to the floor.

'Will you marry her now?'

'Yes . . . at once.'

'Good. She's had a hard time, Mr Smith, and I don't say it's entirely your fault. Now it's all going to be put square. I'm going to see she has some money of her own, five hundred pounds. That will help won't it?'

'Oh, it's too good to be true. Why are you doing all this for us? You're. . . .'

'Please, please, no thanks. I'm Betty's friend. Let that be enough. Will you come and see her to-morrow at my house? Here's my card.'

On the last day of November these two were married at a registry office in the presence of Victoria and the registrar's clerk. A new joy had settled upon Betty, whose shy prettiness was turning into beauty. Victoria's heart was heavy as she looked at the couple, both so young and rapt, setting out upon the sea with a cargo of glowing dreams. It was heavy still as the cab drove off carrying them away for a brief week-end, which was all Anderson and Dromo would allow. She tasted a new delight in this making of happiness.

Holt had not attended the ceremony, for he felt too weak. His interest in the affair had been dim, for he looked upon it as one of Victoria's whims. He was ceasing to judge as he ceased to appreciate, so much was his physical weakness gaining upon him; all his faculty of action was concentrated in the desire which gnawed at his very being. Victoria reminded him of his promise, and, finding his cheque book for him, laid it on the table.

'Five hundred pounds,' she said. 'Better make it out to me. It's very good of you, Jack.'

'Yes, yes,' he said dully, writing the date and the words 'Mrs Ferris.' Then he stopped. Concentrating with an effort he wrote the word 'five.'

'Five . . . five . . .' he murmured. Then he looked up at Victoria with something like vacuousness.

A wild idea flashed through her brain. She must act. Oh, no, dreadful. Yet freedom, freedom. . . . He could not understand . . . she must do it.

'Thousand,' she prompted in a low voice.

'Thousand pounds,' went Jack's voice as he wrote obediently. Then, mechanically, reciting the formula his father had taught him. 'Five, comma, 0, 0, 0, dash, 0, dash, 0. John Holt.'

Victoria put her hands down on the table to take the cheque he had just torn out. All her fingers were trembling with the terrible excitement of a slave watching his fetters being struck off. As she took it up and looked at it, while the figures danced, Holt's eyes grew more insistent on her other hand. Slowly his fingers closed over it, raised it to his lips. With his eyes closed, breathing a little deeper, he covered her palm with lingering kisses.