Читать книгу Sparrows - Horace W. C. Newte - Страница 10

"You can have anything exthra if you care to pay for it," she remarked.

"What have you?" asked Mavis.

"Ham, bloater, or chicken pathte, and an exthellent brand of thardines."

"I'll try the ham paste," said Mavis.

An opened tin of ham paste was put before her. Mavis noticed that the other girls were looking at her out of the corners of their eyes.

She put some of the paste on to her plate; it looked unusual, even for potted meat; but ascribing its appearance to the effect of the light, Mavis spread some on a bit of bread and put this in her mouth. Only for a moment; the next, she had removed it with her handkerchief. One of the girls tittered. Miss Striem looked sharply in this person's direction.

"I can't eat this: it's bad!" cried Mavis.

"Perhaps you would prefer a thardine."

"Anything, so long as it's fit to eat."

Some of the girls raised their eyebrows at this remark. All of them were more or less frightened of Miss Striem, the housekeeper.

An opened tin of sardines was set before Mavis. She had only to glance inside to see that its contents were mildewed.

"Thanks," she said, pushing the tin away.

"I beg your pardon," remarked Miss Striem severely.

"They're bad too. I'm not going to eat them."

"You'll have to pay for them juth the thame."

"What?" cried Mavis.

"If you order, you pay. Ith a rule in the houth," said Miss Striem, as if the matter were forthwith dismissed from her mind.

"To sell girls bad food?" asked Mavis.

"I cannot discuth the matter; the thum due will be deducted from your wageth."

Mavis's blood was up. Her wage was small enough without having anything deducted for food she could not eat.

"I shall go to the management," she remarked.

"You'll what?"

"Go to the management. I'm not going to be cheated like that."

"You call me a cheat?" screamed the little woman, as she rose to her feet.

Mavis was, for the moment, taken aback by Miss Striem's vehemence. The girl next to her whispered, "Go it," under her breath.

"You call me a cheat?" repeated Miss Striem.

"I shall say what I have to say to the management," replied Mavis coolly.

"And I'll thay what I have to thay; and you'll find out who is believed in a way you won't like."

"I shall prove my case," retorted Mavis, as she grabbed the ham paste and the tin of sardines.

Miss Striem sat down. A giggle ran round the table.

"Can you tell me where the sitting-room is, please?" Mavis asked of the girl next to her.

"What?" replied the girl whom she had spoked to.

Mavis repeated her question.

"There's no such thing; there's only this place open at meal times and your bedroom."

"Thanks; I'll go there. Good night."

Mavis, carrying her ham paste and sardines, walked the evil-smelling passage and up the stairs to her room. Once outside the supper-room, she repented of having had words with Miss Striem, who was, doubtless, a person of authority; but it was done now, and Mavis reflected how she had justice and evidence on her side. The bedroom was empty. Mavis placed the ham paste and sardines on her washing-stand; she then took advantage of the absence of the other girls to undress and get into bed. She fell into a heavy slumber, which gave place to a state of dreamy wakefulness, during which she became conscious of others being in the room; of hearing herself discussed; of a sudden commotion in the apartment. A sequence of curious noises thoroughly awoke her. The unaccustomed sight of three other girls in the room in which she slept caused her to sit bolt upright. The girl, Miss Impett, to whom she had already spoken, was sitting on her bed, yawning as she pulled off her stockings. Another, a fine, queenly-looking girl, in evening dress, was sitting on a chair with her hands pressed to her stomach; her eyes were rolling as if she were in pain. The third girl, also in evening dress, but not so handsome as the sufferer, was whispering consoling words.

"Is she ill?" asked Mavis.

"It's the indigestion," replied the last girl Mavis had noticed.

"Can I do anything?" asked Mavis.

"She always has it dreadful when she goes out to supper; now she's paying for it and—" She got no further; her friend was seized with another attack; all her attention was devoted to rubbing the patient's stomach, the while the latter groaned loudly. It was a similar noise which had awakened Mavis.

"I suppose we shan't get to sleep for an hour," yawned Miss Impett, as she struggled into a not too clean nightdress.

"Oh, you cat, you!" gasped the sufferer.

"It's your own fault," retorted Miss Impett. "You always over-eat yourself and drink such a lot of that filthy creme de menthe."

"Don't you wish you had the chance?" snapped the girl who was attending her friend.

"I always drink Kummel; it's much more ladylike," remarked Miss Impett.

"You'd drink anything you can bally well get," the sufferer cried at a moment when she was free of pain.

"I am a lady. I know how to be'ave when a gentleman offers me a drink," retorted Miss Impett.

"You a lady—you—!" began the sufferer's ministering angel. She got no further, being checked by her friend casting a significant glance in Mavis's direction.

Half an hour later, Mavis fell asleep. It was a strange experience when, the next morning, she had to wash and dress with three other girls doing the same thing in the little space at their disposal.

She had asked if there were any chance of getting a bath, to be surprised at the astonished looks on the faces of the others. At a quarter to eight, they scurried down to breakfast, at which meal Miss Striem presided, as at supper.

Breakfast consisted of thick bread, salt butter, and the cheapest of cheap tea. It was as much as Mavis could do to get any of it down, although she was hungry. She could not help noticing that she was the object of much remark to the other girls present, her words with Miss Striem on the previous evening having attracted much attention. After breakfast, Mavis was taken upstairs to the department in which she was to work. It was on the roomy ground floor, for which she was thankful; she was also pleased that the girl selected to instruct her in her duties was her Browning friend of last night. Her work was not arduous, and Mavis enjoyed the handling of dainty things; but she soon became tired of standing, at which she sat on one of the seats provided by Act of Parliament to rest the limbs of weary shop assistants.

"You mustn't do that!" urged Miss Meakin.

"Why not?"

"You'll get yourself disliked if you do."

"What are they here for, if not to sit on?"

"They have to be there; but you won't be here long if you're seen using them, 'cept when the Government inspector is about."

"It's cruel, unfair," began Mavis, but her friend merely shrugged her shoulders as she moved away to wait on a customer.

Mavis was disposed to rebel against the unwritten rule that seats are not to be made use of, but a moment's reflection convinced her of the unwisdom of such a proceeding.

Later on in the morning, Miss Meakin said to Mavis:

"I hear you had a dust up with old Striem last night."

Mavis told her the circumstances.

"She's an awful beast and makes no end of money out of the catering. But no one dare say anything, as she's a relation of one of the directors. All the young ladies are talking of your standing up to her."

"I suppose she'll report me," remarked Mavis.

"She daren't; she's too keen on a good thing; but I'll bet she has her knife into you if she gets a chance."

Presently, Miss Meakin got confidential; she told Mavis how she was engaged to be married; also, that she met her "boy" by chance at a public library, where they both asked the librarian for Browning at the same time, and that this had brought them together.

The girls went down to dinner in two batches. When it was time for Mavis to go (she was in the second lot), she was weary with exhaustion; the continued standing, the absence of fresh air, her poor breakfast, all conspired to cause her mental and physical distress.

The contaminated air of the passage leading to the eating-room brought on a feeling of nausea. Miss Meakin, noticing Mavis change colour, remarked:

"We're all like that at first: you'll soon get used to it."

If the atmosphere of the downstair regions discouraged appetite, the air in the glazed bricked dining-room was enough to take it away; it was heavy with the reek arising from cooked joints and vegetables. Mavis took her place, when a plate heaped up with meat and vegetables was passed to her. One look was enough: the meat was cag mag, and scarcely warm at that; the potatoes looked uninvitingly soapy; the cabbage was coarse and stringy; all this mess was seemingly frozen in the white fat of what had once been gravy. Mavis sickened and turned away her head; she noticed that the food affected many of the girls in a like manner.

"No wonder," she thought, "that so many of them are pasty-faced and unwholesome-looking."

She realised the necessity of providing the human machine with fuel; she made an effort to disguise the scant flavour of the best-looking bits she could pick out by eating plenty of bread. She had swallowed one or two mouthfuls and already felt better for the nourishment, when her eye fell on a girl seated nearly opposite to her, whom she had not noticed before. This creature was of an abnormal stoutness; her face was covered with pimples and the rims of her eyes were red; but it was not these physical defects which compelled Mavis's attention. The girl kept her lips open as she ate, displaying bloodless gums in which were stuck irregular decayed teeth; she exhibited the varying processes of mastication, the while her boiled eyes stared vacantly before her. She compelled Mavis's attention, with the result that the latter had no further use for the food on her plate. She even refused rice pudding, which, although burned, might otherwise have attracted her.

The air of the shop upstairs was agreeably refreshing after the vitiated atmosphere of the dining-room; it saved her from faintness. Happily, she was sent down to tea at a quarter to four, to find that this, by a lucky accident, was stronger and warmer than the tepid stuff with which she had been served at breakfast. As the hours wore on, Mavis noticed that most of the girls seemed to put some heart into their work; she supposed that this elation was caused by the rapidly approaching hour of liberty. When this at last arrived, there was a rush to the bedrooms. Mavis, who was now suffering tortures from a racking headache, went listlessly upstairs; she wondered if she would be allowed to go straight to bed. When she got into the room, she found everything in confusion. Miss Potter, Miss Allen, and Miss Impett were frantically exchanging their working clothes for evening attire. Mavis was surprised to see the three girls painting their cheeks and eyebrows in complete indifference to her presence. They took small notice of her; they were too busy discussing the expensive eating-houses at which they were to dine and sup. Miss Potter, in struggling into her evening bodice, tore it behind. Mavis, seeing that Miss Allen was all behind with her dressing, offered to sew it.

"Thank you," remarked Miss Potter, in the manner of one bestowing a favour. Mavis mended the rent quickly and skilfully. Perhaps her ready needle softened the haughty Miss Potter's heart towards her, for the beauty said:

"Where are you off to to-night?"

"Nowhere," answered Mavis.

"Nowhere!" echoed Miss Potter disdainfully, while the other occupants of the room ejaculated "My!"

"Haven't you a 'boy'?" asked Miss Potter.

"A what?"

"A young man then," said Miss Potter, as she made a deft line beneath her left eye with an eye pencil.

"I don't know any young men," remarked Mavis.

"Hadn't you better be quick and pick up one?" asked Miss Impett.

"I don't care to make chance acquaintances," answered Mavis.

To her surprise, her remark aroused the other girls' ire; they looked at Mavis and then at one another in astonishment.

"I defy anyone to prove that I'm not a lady," cried Miss Impett, as she bounced out of the room.

"I'm as good as you any day," declared Miss Potter, as she went to the door.

"Yes, that we are," cried Miss Allen defiantly, as she joined her friend.

Mavis sat wearily on her bed. Her head ached; her body seemed incapable of further effort; worst of all, her soul was steeped in despair.

"What have I done, oh, what have I done to deserve this misery?" she cried out.

This outburst strengthened her: needs cried for satisfaction in her body, the chief of these being movement and air. She walked to the window and looked out on the cloudless September night; there was a chill in the air, imparting to its sweetness a touch of austerity. Mavis wondered from what peaceful scenes it came, to what untroubled places it was going. The thought that she was remote from the stillness for which her heart hungered exasperated her; she closed the window in order to spare herself being tortured by the longing which the night air awoke in her being. The atmosphere of the room was foul when compared with the air she had just breathed; it seemed to get her by the throat, to be on the point of stifling her. The next moment she had pinned on her hat, caught up her gloves, and scurried into the street. Two minutes later she was in Oxford Street, where she was at once merged into a stream of girls, a stream almost as wide as the pavement, which was sluggishly moving in the direction of the Park. This flow was composed of every variety of girl: tall, stumpy, medium, dark, fair, auburn, with dispositions as varied as their appearances. Many were aglow with hope and youthful ardour; others were well over their first fine frenzy of young blood. There were wise virgins, foolish virgins, vain girls, clever girls, elderly girls, dull girls, laughing girls, amorous girls, spiteful girls, girls with the toothache, girls radiantly happy in the possession of some new, cheap finery: all wending their way towards the Marble Arch. Most walked in twos and threes, a few singly; some of these latter were hurrying and darting amongst the listless walk of the others in their eagerness to keep appointments with men. Whatever their age, disposition, or condition, they were all moved by a common desire—to enjoy a crowded hour of liberty after the toil and fret of the day. As Mavis moved with the flow of this current, she noticed how it was constantly swollen by the addition of tributaries, which trickled from nearly every door in Oxford Street, till at last the stream overflowed the broad pavement and became so swollen that it seemed to carry everything before it. Here were gathered girls from nearly every district in the United Kingdom. The broken home, stepmothers, too many in family, the fascination which London exercises for the country-grown girl—all and each of these reasons were responsible for all this womanhood of a certain type pouring down Oxford Street at eight o'clock in the evening. Each of them was the centre of her little universe, and, on the whole, they were mostly happy, their gladness being largely ignorance of more fortunate conditions of life. Ill-fed, under-paid, they were insignificant parts of the great industrial machine which had got them in its grip, so that their function was to make rich men richer, or to pay 10 per cent, dividends to shareholders who were careless how these were earned. Nightly, this river of girls flows down Oxford Street, to return in an hour or two, when the human tide can be seen flowing in the contrary direction. Meantime, men of all ages and conditions were skilfully tacking upon this river, itching to quench the thirst from which they suffered. It needed all the efforts of the guardian angels, in whose existence Mavis had been taught to believe, to guide the component parts of this stream from the oozy marshland, murky ways, and bottomless quicksands which beset its course.