Читать книгу The Three Lovers - Frank Swinnerton - Страница 20

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Breakfast was another blow for Patricia. There were bacon and eggs, and both were depressingly cold. The tea was strong and cold. Not so would breakfast be, she decided, in any home truly her own; though if, as she had long ago assumed, her future home were to be one in which servants played a leading part, she had no notion of the way in which cold breakfasts were to be avoided. Were there not such things as spirit lamps? Patricia had not stayed often enough in large houses to know that cold breakfasts are inevitable there unless the meal is eaten in the kitchen. She merely felt sure that Monty had hot breakfasts. But she did not associate her confident belief with the fact that he was an autocrat with a man-servant. It is the woman's lot to be ill-served wherever she goes. One has only to lunch at a woman's club in London to have this truth emphasised.

So breakfast this morning was a disappointment. Only good digestion—which she fortunately possessed—could have dealt with it effectively. And with breakfast finished, and the dish with solid streaks of grease upon it mercifully concealed by the cracked dish-cover, Patricia wondered what she would do next. She was at leisure, which meant that she was not in a situation; and her ambition exceeded her powers of performance. Her father and mother had both died long ago, and Patricia had lived the greater part of her life with Uncle Roly until his death a year since. He had been a casual man, subsisting from week to week upon a large salary which his habits converted into a small one. What he had done, except to go to an office every day, Patricia had never known; but while she had been with him there had always been plenty to eat, idleness and chocolates for herself, and drinks for Uncle Roly; and a holiday each year at the seaside or in the country. And then he had died, to Patricia's great but quite short-lived grief, and with his death ended the salary from which nothing had been saved. Patricia had exactly two hundred pounds, and the world to face. No relatives barred her path with offers of homes or advice. There followed a situation as typist at a time when even young girls were able to find remunerative situations. Dancing, suburban gaiety, restlessness, and boredom lasted as long as the situation. That too had ended; and Patricia, with only one hundred pounds of inheritance and savings left (for she had not been thrifty, any more than her fellow-workers and -players had been), was confronted with a new problem.

The alternatives were another situation, which was difficult to find, and a life of vague splendour derived from her talent. Search for the situation being tiresome, and therefore not very sedulously pursued, she was inclined to stake everything upon her talent, as yet unproved. A novel was undertaken—a very autobiographical novel, in which the heroine was extraordinarily charming; and short stories, small poems, little sketches and essays, were all produced from her brain and typed by her busy fingers. When one or two of the stories were accepted and paid for, she had no real fear for the future. She was sanguine with youthful confidence; and her remaining hundred pounds seemed an inexhaustible sum. As she thought of these things Patricia could not help feeling rather conceited. Sometimes, when she dreamed of her ultimate fame, she could almost suppose that those who passed her in the street were already conscious of it.