Читать книгу The Land of Afternoon: A Satire - Gilbert Knox - Страница 5

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Byward Market had been freshened during the night by a heavy fall of powdery snow, that knew no peace from a bitter wind which drove it, in stinging clouds, up and down the street. The thermometer had made its record drop of the season.

Marjorie Dilling stood on the outskirts of a tight-packed group and shivered. The strangeness of the scene struck her afresh; the sense of loneliness was almost overpowering. She simply could not bring herself to push and jostle as the other women did—and a few men, too!—consequently she was always thrust away from the curb and prevented from seeing what lay beneath the furs and blankets and odd bits of cloth in the carts. Only now and again could she catch a glimpse of a tower of frozen beef, or rigid hogs which were trundled by their hind legs through the thronged streets, in a manner strongly suggestive of a wheelbarrow. Or, as the crowds broke and parted, she could occasionally see a stiff fringe of poultry and rabbits strung across the ends of the wagons. Eggs, butter, vegetables and cream were well covered, and spared in so far as possible, the rigours of the morning.

Byward was an open market which attracted farmers from districts as remote as the Upper Gatineau—across the river, in the Province of Quebec. Behind the line of carts or sleighs—automobiles, now!—there ran a row of nondescript buildings that rarely claimed the attention of the marketers; a confusion of second-hand stores, an occasional produce shop, and third-rate public houses, whose broad windows revealed a cluster of dilapidated chairs flanked by battered crachoirs, which had seen many years of unspeakable service. Behind these, a narrow passage led to the abode of spirits, of the kind latterly and peculiarly called departed. Here, the farmers gathered for warmth in winter and coolness in summer, and to slake—or intensify—their thirst in either season, while their women-folk remained in discomfort outside, and attended to the practical issues of the day.

The sigh that fluttered from Marjorie’s lips took form like a ghostly balloon and floated away on the frosty air. Her basket was light and her spirits were heavy. She found it incredibly difficult to shop in the Ottawa market. She simply dreaded Saturday mornings.

At the corner, where the wind whipped down the street and few people cared to linger, she found herself standing before an ancient crone, who sat amid an assortment of roughly-cured hides, and under a huge, weather-stained umbrella. At her feet lay a rusty pail overflowing with a curious mass that looked like bloated sausages in the last stages of decay.

“What—what is that?” asked Marjorie, in her soft timid voice.

The old woman made unintelligible sounds from between toothless gums.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I tol’ you, it is sang pouding. ’Ow much you want?”

“I don’t want any, thank you,” answered Marjorie. “I was looking for some sweetbreads. Have you any?”

“Sweet bread?” echoed the ancient, grumpily. “Well, why you don’ look on de store, hein? W’at you t’ink I am—de baker’s cart?”

Although unaware of the complexities of the French tongue and the French character, Marjorie perceived a rebuff in the old woman’s words. She apologised hastily and moved away. What, she kept asking herself, could she substitute for sweetbreads? Chickens were expensive and eggs, a fabulous price. Nobody in Ottawa seemed to keep hens ...

“Have you any sweetbreads?”

She began to feel a little hysterical. It was a funny question! No wonder the old woman answered her crossly. Have you any sweetbreads? How many times had she asked it? She thought of the game the children played—Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool? And what on earth should she get in place of sweetbreads? Raymond was so difficult about his food. He had such a tiny and pernickety appetite ...

By wriggling, she gained the curb before another cart.

“Have you any sweetbreads?”

No one paid her the slightest heed. The centre of the stage was held by a tall, spare woman with a stridulous voice. Marjorie knew her slightly. Two weeks ago she had called—not as people called at home, in Pinto Plains—but sternly and coldly, neither giving nor receiving pleasure by the visit, save when she had laid three bits of pasteboard on the corner of the table and left the house. Mrs. Pratt was the wife of a cheerfully ineffectual professional man with political aspirations, and she felt her position keenly. So did Marjorie; and she backed away while summoning her courage to speak.

“A dollar and a half?” Mrs. Pratt was saying. “Outrageous! I can’t think what you people are coming to! I’ll give you a dollar and a quarter, and not one penny more.” She indicated a pair of frozen chickens, each with a large mauve face, that lay exposed on an old red blanket.

“Can’t do it, lady,” said the farmer, with chattering teeth, “it cost me mor’n that to feed them this three year,” and he winked heavily at the surrounding circle.

“Oh, they’re fowl! Well then, of course, they’re not worth that much! There’s a woman across the road,”—Mrs. Pratt swept her muff vaguely towards the horizon and unconsciously disarranged Marjorie’s hat,—“who is selling her fowl for eighty cents!”

“I’ll take them,” cried a woman at this juncture. “It’s too cold to haggle over a few cents. Giv’um to me!” She thrust a dollar and a half into the man’s hand, seized the chickens and started off.

“Those are mine!” called Mrs. Pratt, in a tone that rivalled the sharpness of the atmosphere.

“You take the others at eighty cents,” returned the woman, amid a ripple of laughter.

“Impertinence!” snapped Mrs. Pratt, as she turned away.

Marjorie drifted on, her basket still empty. These awful Saturday mornings! They seemed to accentuate her loneliness. Of course, the cold discouraged long conversations and the exchange of tittle-tattle that makes shopping, to some people, so delightful, but she was aware of the greetings that passed between women as they met—a tip, perhaps, as to some bargain, or a brief reference to some impending social function—and she would have been grateful for even the smallest sign of friendly recognition. Frequently, she saw people who had called upon her, but evidently she had made too little impression to be remembered. How different from Pinto Plains, where everybody knew her and cordiality was mutual!

She noticed that many of the ladies who came into church richly dressed on Sundays, wore the most dreadfully shabby clothes at market, but it was not until long afterwards, she understood that this was part of a scheme for economy—for beating the farmers at their own game. They disguised themselves that they might give no hint as to the fatness of their bank account, thus implying that well-to-do shoppers were asked a higher price than those of obviously modest means. These same shabbily-clad ladies never seemed to buy very much, and Marjorie often wondered how it was worth their while to spend the morning with so little result. In those days, she didn’t realise that they had left their motors round the corner, and that their parcels were transferred, two or three at a time, to a liveried chauffeur who sat in a heated car and read stimulating items from the Eye-Opener.

Others, she learned, dragged overflowing baskets into one of the “Market Stores,” whose prices were known to be a few cents in excess of those demanded by the owners of the carts. Here, they made an insignificant purchase, thereby placing the onus of free delivery on the shoulders of the management. The degree to which this practice was employed varied with the temperament of the shopper. Those of a less sensitive nature, felt no hesitation in asking Lavalee, the aristocratic Purveyor of Sea Food and Game, to send home six dollars’ worth of marketing with a pound of smelts. Likewise, Smithson suffered the exigencies of trade, not only delivering the type of foodstuffs that he didn’t keep, but every week of the year he was asked to send home the very things that were purchasable in his own store and which had been bought for a few cents less, half a block away. Seeing the baskets of produce that were piled high on the sidewalk every Saturday morning, Marjorie wondered how it was worth while for him to carry on his business or maintain his livery, at all!

Having made a few purchases, she set off down Mosgrove Street for the tram as fast as her burden would permit, when she came for the second time upon Mrs. Pratt, still searching for a bargain in chickens.

“One seventy-five?” she was saying. “Sheer piracy! I refused a much better pair for a dollar fifty!”

“Call it a dollar fifty, ma’am,” agreed the farmer, between spasms of coughing. “The wife’ll give me the devil, but I’m ’most dead with cold, and I wanta go home.”

Pity for the man, coupled with a touch of innocent curiosity, tempted Marjorie to linger close at hand and see the end of the transaction.

“But that’s what I’m telling you,” cried Mrs. Pratt. “They’re not worth a dollar fifty. They’re miserable things. Half fed ...” Her eyes rested upon the owner resentfully, as though emphasising a definite resemblance between him and his produce. “I’ll give you a dollar and a quarter and not one penny more!”

“Oh, lady! I’ve gotta live!”

Something in the man’s tone told the astute lady that he was weakening, that he needed the money, that the chickens were hers. She pushed a dollar and a quarter into his hand, seized her purchase, and disappeared round the corner, into a waiting limousine.

A little later that same morning, Marjorie, finding that the children were all right in the care of Mrs. Plum, who “charred” her on Saturdays, went down town to The Ancient Chattellarium. Her errand was simple. She wished to have a piece of furniture repaired. It had been broken in the moving, and one of her callers had given her this address.

The Chattellarium could not, even by the most vulgar, be called a shop. It was an opulent apartment where elegant furniture was displayed—and sold—at dignified prices. Marjorie Dilling paused uncertainly on the threshold, feeling that she must, through error, have strayed into someone’s residence.

But she hadn’t! A lady glanced over the rim of a lampshade she was making, and invited her to enter.

“Just looking around?” she asked, with the instinct of one who recognises the difference between a shopper and a buyer. “I’ve got some rather nice things just unpacked,” and she went on sticking pins into the dull-rose silk with which she was covering a huge wire frame.

“Thank you, very much,” answered Marjorie, stealing a timid glance over her shoulder, “but I haven’t a great deal of time, and I really came to see—if—if—to ask about getting a piece of furniture repaired. I was told that I might have it done, here.”

The young lady took several pins from her mouth and looked up. She was quite pretty and had a pleasant manner in spite of her way of addressing most people as though they were her inferiors, and a few very prominent people as though they were her equals. She talked incessantly, and it had become her custom to illumine her speech with Glittering Personalities.

She discovered Marjorie’s name and that her husband was a recently-elected Back Bencher from an obscure little Western town, as well as the nature of the repairs required, so cleverly, that she seemed to be answering questions instead of asking them, and she was ever so kind in promising to help.

“Of course, I don’t do this sort of thing as a rule,” she explained, “I simply couldn’t! My men are dreadfully overworked as it is, and we are three months behind in our orders. But because I have just recently repaired a dressing-table for Government House, and repolished a china cabinet for Lady Elton, at Rockcliffe, I haven’t the conscience to refuse you.”

Marjorie was rather uncomfortable after this speech. She had no earthly wish to ask a favour, and felt unduly exalted by “being repaired” in such impressive company. She tried to make this clear, and urged the young lady to suggest some much more humble establishment or person.

“I feel at such a loss,” she explained, “not knowing where to turn ...” and then, when Miss Brant had insisted upon helping her out of the difficulty, she said, “I wouldn’t dare trust it to just anyone, you know. It’s such a lovely thing! Solid mahogany, a sort of what-not design, with some of the little compartments enclosed in glass, and mirrors at the back—and each shelf ending in a decoration like a wee, little carved steeple. It’s one of the steeple things that is broken, and one of the glass doors. I told Mr. Dilling,”—the young lady winced when she spoke of her husband as “Mr. Dilling”—“that it reminded me of a beautiful doll’s house, and that we would have to collect heaps of souvenir spoons and things to fill it.”

“How interesting,” observed the other.

“And the association counts for so much, you see. The townspeople—our friends—gave it to us when we left Pinto Plains; a kind of testimonial it was, in the church. They said such beautiful things, I’ll never forget it.” Her voice was husky.

“Charming,” murmured the young lady, wondering how such a pretty woman could be so plain.

Marjorie asked to be given some idea of the price, but her enquiry was waved airily aside. “Oh, don’t bother about that,” she was told. “It will only be a matter of my workman’s time—” an implication that translated itself to Mrs. Dilling in the terms of cents, but which to the young lady resolved itself into about fifteen dollars.

Marjorie’s thanks were cut short by the entrance of two Arresting Personalities.

One of them was Lady Fanshawe, the wife of a retired lumber magnate, and the other—Mrs. Blaine—assisted her husband to discharge his social duties as a Minister of the Crown.

“Well, well,” cried Miss Brant, assuming her other manner, “this is a surprise! I’m simply thrilled! Only yesterday, I was saying to Lady Elton that I hadn’t seen you since the House opened. I’m dying to tell you all about my trip in England, and my dear, such things as I’ve brought back! That’s one!” She indicated a red lacquer table. “Isn’t it a perfect dream? And there’s another—no, no—not the mirror, the table! It was positively and absolutely taken from Bleakshire Castle where Disraeli used to visit, and there he sat to write some of his marvellous speeches! Isn’t it thrilling?”

The ladies agreed that she had done very well, and moved about the apartment under the spur of her constant direction. Marjorie, feeling that she ought to go, but not knowing whether to slip away unnoticed or to shake hands and say goodbye, had just decided upon the former course, when Mrs. Pratt made a flamboyant entrance.

Seeing the group at the farther end of the room, she bewildered Marjorie with a nod that was like a rap over the knuckles, and rustled self-consciously forward.

“Good morning,” she cried, so graciously that Marjorie could scarcely recognise her voice. “Cold, isn’t it? I’ve just come from market. It was simply perishing down there—perishing!” She left an entire syllable out of this word, pronouncing it as though speaking the name of a famous American General, then continued, “I’m a perfect martyr when it comes to marketing! I can’t overcome a sense of duty towards the fermers, who depend on us for encouragement and support; and when all’s said and done, the only char’ty worth while is the kind that helps people to help themselves. Don’t you agree with me, Lady Fanshawe?”

Lady Fanshawe supposed so, and turned to the examination of a Meissen bowl. Mrs. Blaine caught sight of an old French print on the far wall and appeared to lose interest in all else. Miss Brant discovered a blemish of some sort on the red lacquer table and bent anxiously over it, using the corner of her handkerchief in lieu of a duster.

No one considered Marjorie at all. Each was engrossed in her part, playing a little scene in the successful Comédie Malice which has been running without a break since June 8th, 1866, in the Capital.

If Mrs. Pratt was conscious of any lack of cordiality in the attitude of the others, she gave no sign. Hers was an ebullient part. All she had to do was to gush over the people who snubbed her, and to inveigle them into her house (making sure that their visits were chronicled in the Press). Incidentally, she had to provide them with as much as they wished to drink, and more than they wished to eat, and to acquire the reputation for liberal spending when and where her extravagance would be noted and commented upon.

Lady Fanshawe and Mrs. Blaine were cast in simpler parts. They had merely to preserve an air of well-bred disdain, merging now and again into restrained amazement.

Miss Brant, on the other hand, had a very difficult role to play. Marjorie scarcely realised how difficult. It devolved upon her to take advantage of Mrs. Pratt’s effort to impress the others, to sell her the most expensive and unsaleable articles in the establishment, and, at the same time, to convey subtly to Lady Fanshawe and Mrs. Blaine, her contempt for this monied upstart.

The conversation progressed in this vein:

Mrs. Pratt.—Now, do help me pick up some odds and ends for my new home.

Miss Brant.—Oh, have you moved?

Mrs. Pratt.—Dear me, yes! Our old house was much too cramped for entertaining.

Miss Brant (Half confidentially to Lady Fanshawe).—Speaking of entertaining, shall I see you, by any chance, at the Country Club, to-morrow?

Lady Fanshawe (Distantly).—I am going to Mrs. Long’s luncheon, if that is what you mean.

Miss Brant (Burbling).—It’s exactly what I mean! I’m so thrilled at being asked—humble little me—with all you impressive personages.

Mrs. Long was the wife of the owner of The Chronicle and it was suspected that she found the columns—both social and political—of her husband’s paper a convenient medium for the maintaining of discipline and the administration of justice. She was naturally held in very high esteem, and persons of astuteness made much of her.

“I never know what’s going on,” she was fond of saying, “for I can’t endure the sight of a newspaper. It’s so much easier to blame than to read them,” she said, paraphrasing Dr. Johnson.

Notwithstanding her professed disinterestedness, however, the arm of coincidence seemed longer than usual when it was observed that the recently-distinguished Lady Elton, who had overlooked her when issuing invitations to a reception in honour of her husband’s knighthood, appeared on the following day as “Mrs. Elton”. And, furthermore, that on the day succeeding this, her letter of protest, which was never intended for other than editorial eyes, was published under the heading “Regrettable Error in ignoring a New Tittle!” This was only one of many such incidents that entertained the subscribers and suggested that there might be a subtle influence behind the typographical errors which occurred in the composing room.

Mrs. Pratt’s voice rolled like a relentless sea over that of the others, as she announced: “We’ve bought the Tillington place.”

Miss Brant.—Oh, that charming old house! Tudor, isn’t it? I used to go there as a child. They had some wonderful things. I recall the bookcase especially, that stood opposite the bow-window in the library. Er—er—something like that one, it was. And one knob was off the drawer—I remember it distinctly.

Mrs. Pratt (examining the piece indicated).—I think I’ll take this one.

Miss Brant (evidently much embarrassed).—Oh, really now—I didn’t mean to suggest—this is really too dreadful! I assure you, I was only reminiscencing.

Mrs. Pratt.—Well, I’ll take it. It’s much more suitable than my old one. Do you like it, Lady Fanshawe?

Lady Fanshawe (as though not having heard the question).—Delightful!

Miss Brant.—Well, you’re awfully good, I’m sure! I’m really ever so glad you’ve got it. It’s rather a good thing, you know—only, I don’t want you to think ... However, if you change your mind after you get it home, of course, I’ll take it back. I mean, you may find it out of tune with your old—er—er—your own things.

Mrs. Pratt.—What would you suggest in the way of a chair, and a table, perhaps?

Miss Brant (tearing herself from a whispered pæon on the subject of Mrs. Blaine’s hat).—Well, of course, if you want something good, that’s rather nice! A little heavy for the modern home, but the thing for the Tillington library. And there’s rather a decent chair—see, Lady Fanshawe? Isn’t that cross-stitch adorable?—that harmonises perfectly with the other two pieces. I don’t deny that it would be a bit stiff for the tired business man to sit in, but for the person who can afford to have a well-balanced room ...

Mrs. Pratt (promptly).—I’ll take the chair!

Quietly, Marjorie left the room, and as the door closed behind her, Mrs. Pratt was saying in an attempt at playful graciousness.

“A hundred and seventy-five? Vurry reasonable! And it’s such a satisfaction to get the best! I hope, Lady Fanshawe, and you, too, Mrs. Blaine, that you’ll drop in on Tuesday afternoon for a cuppa-tea, and tell me how you like my new home!”