Читать книгу Delight - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 7

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Upstairs, in a small room, lighted by a smoky oil lamp, the two girls were getting ready for bed. May Phillips, in pink stays and a short, wrinkled green silk petticoat, was trying to drag a comb through her frizzed hair. Hairpins flew in all directions.

“Ow, damn my ’air!” she exclaimed. “I ’ave to pull it out by the roots almost, to comb it. I ’ope I don’t reely look the speckled beauty this glass shows me. Where’s my curling-pins now? Kid! Do you know?”

“In the little pink bag. Why don’t you give your hair a rest? It never gets out of one frizz till you put it in another. It ’ud be pretty a little bit straight like.”

“It’s all very well for you to talk with a crop of natural curls as thick as a seryphim’s. If I didn’t frizz my ’air there’d be nothing of it.”

“Well, frizz away, but do hurry. Oo-er, I’m tired.” She had been sitting on the side of the bed pulling off her stockings, and now she flung herself back on to the pillow, opening her mouth in a wide yawn and stretching her arms above her head. Her chemise, drawn upward, disclosed her strong, white thighs, glistening in the lamplight. She rocked her body from side to side in an abandon of relaxation.

“Oo-er, it’s nice to get your duds off! What do you think of this place, May?”

“It’s ’ard to tell the first night. Old Jessop’s on ’er good be’aviour. I make a guess that she’s a tartar. The other two girls seem nice, but you can’t never tell. Cook’s got a pleasant way wiv ’er. I think I’ll like cook.”

“Oh, May, ain’t her tooth funny?”

“If I ’ad it, I’d bite that soft-’eaded ’usband of ’ers, Charley, wiv it. I can’t stand a simple man.”

Delight rolled over on her face and smothered her laughter. “Oh, you are a rip, May!”

“Stop your laughing or you’ll ’ave old Jessop in ’ere arter us. Stow it now, or I’ll be over to you wiv the brush. You’re pretty ’andy, lying like that. Did your Granny ever take the brush to you, Delight?”

“No. She never gave me more than a little tap with her hand.”

“You’d be a better girl if she ’ad.”

“Oh, May, I’m not bad.”

“Well, perhaps not, but I bet your Granny would be glad you’d got me to look arter you.”

“I bet she would.” She lay still a moment, then rolled over on her back again and looked up at her friend with dancing eyes. “I say, May, what do you think of the brawny Scot? ‘Fine nicht!’ he said. I’m going to call him ‘Fine Nicht.’ Isn’t it a good name for him? Isn’t he a scream?”

“I think ’e’s ’andsome. And look ’ow kind ’e was, carrying your basket and all. You’re too uppish, Delight.”

“He wasn’t just kind, May; he was curious. He made me tell him my name, out there in the passage. I mean to have a little fun with him.”

May, now in her nightdress, her head covered with curling-pins, said solemnly: “You better be careful of men out ’ere. You’re in a strange country, and you ’aven’t no one to look arter you but me.”

“You hop into bed, old Lady Croak. You hate men yourself, don’t you?”

May turned out the light and got into the narrow, lumpy bed beside her. She had not opened the window, and the air was filled with the smell of the charred wick. A steady hum of voices rose from the bar. She turned towards the young girl and laid her arms across her supple hips.

“Is my tea-set safe?” whispered Delight.

“In a corner of the clothes cupboard. I laid a petticoat over it in case anyone comes nosing around in the morning.”

“I think I’ll put it under the bed tomorrow. It’d be safer there.”

“Oh, you silly, under the bed’s the first place any burglar ’ud look.”

“Under the bed! Oo—May, s’pose there was someone under the bed now! S’pose he’d been there waitin’ for us!” She wriggled frantically against May. “S’pose it was Fine Nicht! Oo—May.” They laughed hysterically, clutching each other.

“Well, I’m not going to get out and look,” said May. “If he wants to sleep under the bed he can.”

“Oh, May, do strike a light and see.”

“You settle down. You’re worse than a kid.” She administered a slight smack.

They lay still save for an occasional giggle that quivered through their muscles. At last the elder spoke, seriously: “Delight, I’m going to tell you a secret. I never intended to, but now, just at the last minute, I must. I can’t go asleep till I do. Ain’t it funny?”

“How can I tell till I hear it?”

“Oh, the secret ain’t a bit funny. You wait till you ’ear it.”

“Get it out, old girl.”

May buried her face in Delight’s curls, and, with her mouth against her ear, whispered: “I’m married.”

“Married! Oh, May, and you never told me!”

“Ssh! Don’t talk out loud. I couldn’t make up my mind to before. I wanted to see wot the plice was like first. But now I’ve got to. I’m so worried.”

“Is he here? Are you coming out to him?”

“Yes. ’E works in the tannery. ’E boards in this very hotel. Ain’t it thrillin’? But the trouble is I got Annie to tell me the nimes of the boarders tonight, and she never mentioned ’is. I’m frightened. S’pose ’e’s gone away! Wouldn’t it be awful?”

“Why wasn’t he at the station to meet you?”

“ ’E don’t know I’m comin’. ’E was to send for me when ’e ’ad saved up enough, but ’e kept putting me off and I’d worked ’ard myself and saved every penny I could till I’d enough for my passage and to furnish a couple of rooms, then I didn’t write or nothink but just come straight out to surprise ’im.”

“Lord, May, I can’t think of you as married. What’s his name?”

“Albert. Albert Masters.”

“You’re May Masters, then, reely, not May Phillips.”

“Yes.”

“What’s he like? Handsome as Fine Nicht?”

“ ’E’s not ’andsome at all. ’E’s a little thickset fellow wiv bulgy blue eyes and a space between ’is two front teeth wot makes ’is smile sort of infantile, too. Oh, ’e ain’t wot you’d ever call ’andsome, Delight, but ’e’s charmin’, ’e reely is.”

“H’m,” said Delight, pondering deeply.

“And ’e’s got a masterful way wiv ’im, too, that a girl likes. ’E quite scares me sometimes, ’specially when ’e ’as a bit o’ drink inside ’im. But then, again, ’e’ll cry if I look cross at ’im.”

“Oh, May, it must be funny to be married.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s awful. When you don’t know where ’e is, or wot ’e’s up to. Just s’pose ’e’s gone off wiv another woman.”

“He’d never leave you for a Canadian girl.”

“You can’t tell wot they’ll do when they gets out to Canader. Oh, I feel it in my bones there’s something wrong. W’y ain’t ’e ’ere?” She began to sob hysterically.

Delight pressed her to her breast. “Don’t you take on, May,” she whispered. “Tomorrow night it’ll be Albert ’stead of me.”

“Oh, if I only were sure,” sobbed May. But she was too tired to cry for long. The heaving of her shoulders ceased. She lay supine in Delight’s arms. The girl still rhythmically patted her back. She drew her head back on the pillow, for one of May’s curling-pins pressed cruelly into her cheek. “Poor old girl,” she thought. “It must be awful to be married.”

Faces of men floated before her half-closed eyes. The pimply face of the son of the publican for whom she had last worked. He had squatted beside her on the floor she was wiping up, and had put his heavy arm around her and tried to kiss her. How funny his face had looked when she had slopped the soapy water over his shiny shoes. Then there came the face of Artie Blythe who had come to see her off at Southampton. Poor little Artie with his pasty clerk’s face all woebegone and a funny bunch of flowers held out towards her. Then the waiter on the steamship who used to glide to her in the dark with dainties stolen from the first-cabin pantries. Then the trainman who leant over her seat to point out mountains and valleys, and teach her to say the names of the French villages. How he laughed at the way she said them! Funny creatures, men! Now, here was Kirke. She saw his piercing eyes, the pink spots on his cheek-bones, his red tie, tied just so. She couldn’t help it if men liked her, wanted to stare at her and get close to her. She couldn’t help it any more than her mother could. Her mother could not have been very much ashamed of having her or she would not have called her Delight. It sounded as though she’d been glad to have her. Well, anyway, God had made her the same as other folk. She began to laugh softly, opening her mouth wide in the darkness, making little clucking noises. What fun God must have had making her! Her hair for one thing. Well, even God would laugh to think of all those tight yellow curls. And her eyes—God must have laughed into them, for there was always a laugh behind them.

Oh, it was wicked to think of God in that way! Just as though He would laugh like other folk! Or even smile! No wonder Gran had worried about her. As soon as she could find time she would unpack Gran’s tea-set and see if it had got a crack or chip coming over.

Down in the bar someone was playing a fiddle. She had often heard that queer, jiggy tune at home. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so different here, after all.... Like waves the men’s voices rose and fell, and, at last, submerged her in sleep.