Читать книгу Moss Rose - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 12

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Belle tried to cheat the cold, the half-dark, her own dreadful thoughts, by persistently conning over the things for which she lusted; a warm, luxurious room, a soft bed with down pillows and silken coverlets, a shaded lamp, fine, fashionable clothes, delicate foods, rare wines, attentive servants, a lover devoted and reverent—music, a box at the Opera, a carriage and pair...all these things were in the world and she had none of them and no chance of ever being able to obtain them—no chance. Yet they were enjoyed and despised by thousands of women no wiser than herself—no cleverer, no prettier, no more unscrupulous.

A low hum of talk in the next room to hers distracted her. Daisy Arrow and the foreigner, of course. Belle frowned with ugly distaste.

She had a front room that looked, from the top of the three-storeyed house, on to the straight, prim street. Daisy had the corresponding room at the back, which looked on to the gritty, sooty garden, the backs of dark houses and ash-bins. The other side of the small landing at the stair-head were the empty rooms reserved by Mrs. Bulke for occasional use, or for transient lodgers.

Belle, moving about to keep herself warm, detected the man's tones, and sorted them from those of the woman—a warm, pleasant, manly voice—she could not distinguish what he was saying, not even in what language he spoke—but English, of course, what other tongue did Daisy Arrow understand?

"My God! What have they to talk about? How could he, who speaks so well, have even looked at Daisy with her cough, her broken teeth, her gawdy rags and her vulgar air?"

She felt vicariously disgraced by the thought of this man of her own class in the next room with Daisy Arrow, as if he had been a brother—at least a relative, and angrily she tried to reason herself out of this folly.

"To-morrow is Christmas Day—I'll pile all my clothes on the bed and try to sleep until it is time for me to go to the Cambridge on Boxing Night. Moll will bring me up a cup of tea. Yes, I'll try to sleep."

She wondered where she could get opium—wasn't that a short cut to the inevitable end? Totty Belville had got some opium, but Belle did not know where, and Totty had long since disappeared. The East End, no doubt—but Belle was afraid of the East End with the sailors and Chinamen, she was still an alien to the underworld, still shuddered on the edge of those filthy morasses that soon she must sink into—unless she had the courage—"Curse Daisy for taking that knife away, I believe I could have done it now."

She began to undress, but the room was so cold that she huddled on her clothes again. She intended to wash her face and hands, but Moll had not emptied the soiled soapy water in the hand-basin, nor put fresh water in the lipless ewer. The short candle was fast burning out, there was only just sufficient uncertain light to see the gaunt shape of the iron bed with the bleak white cotton coverlet and thin blanket, the worn piece of drugget on the floor, the rain stains and marks on the ceiling, the broken window pane patched with brown paper, the chairs with the rushes of the seats sprouting from the frames beneath, the tilting chest of drawers with the top used as a dressing-table.

Throwing her shawl and a rubbed fur jacket on the bed, Belle blew out the candle and still in her clothes got between the ragged sheets, and forced herself, with the obstinacy of despair, to sleep. "Wanderer to the Moon—Wanderer to the Moon."