A Bed of Roses

'Well, Betty,' said her hostess suddenly, 'when's the wedding?'

'Oh, Vic, I didn't say.. how can you.' Her face had blushed a tell-tale red.

'You didn't say,' laughed Victoria, 'of course you didn't say, shy bird! But surely you don't think I don't know. You've met somebody in the City and you're frightfully in love with him. Now, honest, is there anybody?'

'Yes.. there is, but.'

'Of course there is. Now, Betty, tell me all about it.'

'Oh, I couldn't,' said Betty, gazing into the fire. 'You see it isn't quite settled yet.'

'Then tell me what you're going to settle. First of all, who is it?'

'Nobody you know. I met him at.. well he followed me in Finsbury Circus one evening..'

'Oh, naughty, naughty! You're getting on, Betty.'

'You mustn't think I encouraged him,' said Betty with a tinge of asperity. 'I'm not that sort.' She stopped, remembering Victoria's profession, then, inconsequently: 'You see, he wouldn't go away and.. now..'

'And he was rather nice, wasn't he?'

'Well, rather.' A faint and very sweet smile came over Betty's face. Victoria felt a little strangle in her throat. She too had thought her bold partner at the regimental dance at Lympton rather nice. Poor old Dick.

'Then he got out of me about the P. R. R.,' Betty went on more confidently. 'And then, would you believe it, he came to lunch every day! Not that he was accustomed to lunch at places like that,' she added complacently.

'Oh, a swell?' said Victoria.

'No, I don't say that. He used to go to the Lethes, before they shut up. He lives in the West End too, in Notting Hill, you know.'

'Dear, dear, you're flying high, Betty. But tell me, what is he like? and what does he do? and is he very handsome?'

'Oh, he's awfully handsome, Vic. Tall you know and very, very dark; he's so gentlemanly too, looks like the young man in First Words of Love. It's a lovely picture, isn't it?'

'Yes, lovely,' said Victoria summarily. 'But tell me more about him.'

'He's twenty-eight. He works in the City. He's a ledger clerk at Anderson and Dromo's. If he gets a rise this Christmas, he.. well, he says.'

'He says he'll marry you.'

'Yes.' Betty hung her head, then raised it quickly. 'Oh, Vic, I can't believe it. It's too good to be true. I love him so dreadfully.. I just can't wait for one o'clock. He didn't come on Wednesday. I thought he'd forgotten me and I was going off my head. But it was all right, they'd kept him in over something.'

'Poor little girl,' said Victoria gently. 'It's hard isn't it, but good too.'

'Good! Vic, when he kisses me I feel as if I were going to faint. He's strong, you see. And when he puts his arms round me I feel like a mouse in a trap.. but I don't want to get away: I want it to go on for ever, just like that.'

She paused for a moment as if listening to the first words of love. Then her mind took a practical turn.

'Of course we shan't be able to live in Notting Hill,' she added. 'We'll have to go further out, Shepherd's Bush way, so as to be on the Tube. And he says I shan't go to the P. R. R. any more.'

'Happy girl,' said Victoria. 'I'm so glad, Betty; I hope.'

She restrained a doubt. 'And as you say you can't stay to tea I think I know where you're going.'

'Well, yes, I am going to meet him,' said Betty laughing.

'Yes.. and you're going to look at little houses at Shepherd's Bush.'

Betty looked up dreamily. She could see a two-storeyed house in a row, with a bay window, and a front garden where, winter or summer, marigolds grew.

After lunch, as the two women sat once more in the boudoir, they said very little. Victoria, from time to time, flicked the ash from her cigarette. Betty did not smoke, but, her hands clasped together in her lap, watched a handsome dark face in the coals.

'And how are you getting on, Vic?' she asked suddenly. Swamped by the impetuous tide of her own romance she had not as yet shown any interest in her friend's affairs.

'I? Oh, nothing special. Pretty fair.'

'But, I mean.. you said you wanted to make a lot of money and.'

'Yes, I'm not badly off, but I can't go on, Betty. I shall never do any good like this.'

Betty was silent for some minutes. Her ingrained modesty made any discussion of her friend's profession intolerable. Vanquished in argument, grudgingly accepting the logic of Victoria's actions, she could not free her mind from the thought that these actions were repulsive, that there must have been some other way.

'Oh? You want to get out of it all.. you know.. I have never said you weren't quite right, but.'

'But I'm quite wrong?'

'No.. I don't mean that.. I don't like to say that.. I'm not clever like you, Vic, but.'

'We've done with all that,' said Victoria coldly. 'I do want to get out of it because it's getting me no nearer to what I want. I don't quite know how to do it. I'm not very well, you know.'

Betty looked up quickly with concern in her face.

'Have those veins been troubling you again?'

'Yes, a little. I can't risk much more.'

'Then what are you going to do?'

Victoria was silent for a moment.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I never thought of all this when the Major was alive.'

'Ah, there never was anybody like him,' said Betty after a pause.

Victoria sat up suddenly.

'Betty,' she cried, 'you're giving me an idea.'

'I? an idea?'

'There must be somebody like him. Why shouldn't I find him?'

Betty said nothing. She looked her stiffest, relishing but little the fathering upon her of this expedient.

'But who?' soliloquised Victoria. 'I don't know anybody. You see Betty, I want lots and lots of money. Otherwise it's no good. If I don't make a lot soon it will be too late.'

Betty still said nothing. Really she couldn't be expected… Then her conscience smote her; she ought to show a little interest in dear, kind Vic.

'Yes,' she said. 'But you must know lots of people. You never told me, but you're a swell and all that. You must have known lots of rich men when you came to London.'

She stopped abruptly, shocked by her own audacity. But Victoria was no longer noticing her; she was following with lightning speed a new train of thought.

'Betty,' she cried, 'you've done it. I've found the man.'

'Have you? Who is it,' exclaimed Betty. She was excited, unable in her disapproval of the irregular to feel uninterested in the coming together of women and men.

'Never mind. You don't know him. I'll tell you later.'

An extraordinary buoyancy seemed to pervade Victoria. The way out! she had found the way out! And the two little words echoed in her brain as if some mighty wave of sound was rebounding from side to side in her skull. She was excited, so excited that, as she said goodbye to Betty, she forgot to fix their next meeting. She had work to do and would do it that very night.

As soon as Betty was gone she dressed quickly. Then she changed her hat to make sure she was looking her best. She went out and, with hurried steps, made for the Finchley Road. There was the house with the evergreens, as well clipped as ever, and the drive with its clean gravel. She ran up the steps of the porch, then hesitated for a moment. Her heart was beating now. Then she rang. There was a very long pause during which she heard nothing but the pumping of her heart. Then distant shuffling footsteps coming nearer. The door opened. She saw a slatternly woman.. behind her the void of an empty house. She could not speak for emotion.

'Did you want to see the house, mum,' asked the woman. She looked sour. Sunday afternoon was hardly a time to view.

'The house?'

'Oh.. I thought you come from Belfrey's, mum. It's to let.'

The caretaker nodded towards the right and Victoria, following the direction, saw the house agents' board. Her excitement fell as under a cold douche.

'Oh! I came to see.. Do you know where Mr Holt is?'

'Mr Holt's dead, mum. Died in August, mum.'

'Dead.' Things seemed to go round. Jack was the only son.. then?'

'Yes, mum. That's why they're letting. A fine big 'ouse, mum. Died in August, mum. Ah, you should have seen the funeral. They say he left half a million, mum, and there wasn't no will.'

'Where is Mrs Holt and.. and Mr Holt's son.'

The caretaker eyed the visitor suspiciously. There was something rakish about this young lady which frightened her respectability.

'I can't say, mum,' she answered slowly. 'I could forward a letter, mum,' she added.

'Let me come in. I want to write a note.'

The caretaker hesitated for a moment, then stood aside to let her pass.

'You'll 'ave to come downstairs mum,' she said, 'sorry I'm all mixed up. I was doing a bit of washing. Git away Maria,' to a small child who stood at the top of the stairs.

In the gaslit kitchen, surrounded by steaming linen, Victoria wrote a little feverish note in pencil. The caretaker watched her every movement. She liked her better somehow.

'I'll forward it all right, mum,' she said. 'Thank you mum… Oh, mum, I don't want you to think – ' She was looking amazedly at the half sovereign in her palm.

'That's all right,' said Victoria, laughing loudly. She felt she must laugh, dance, let herself go. 'Just post it before twelve.'

The woman saw her to the door. Then she looked at the letter doubtfully. It was freshly sealed and could easily be opened. Then she had a burst of loyalty, put on a battered bonnet, completed the address, stamped the envelope and, walking to the pillar box round the corner, played Victoria's trump card.

CHAPTER XV

'And so, Jack, you haven't forgotten me?'

For a minute Holt did not answer. He seemed spellbound by the woman on the sofa. There she lay at full length, lazy grace in every curve of her figure, in the lines of her limbs revealed by the thin sea-green stuff which moulded them. This new woman was a very wonderful thing.

'No,' he said at length, 'but you have changed.'

'Yes?'

'You're different. You used to be simple, almost shy. I used to think you very like a big white lily. Now you're like – like a big white orchid – an orchid in a vase of jade.'

'Poet! artist!' laughed Victoria. 'Ah, Jack, you'll always be the same. Always thinking me good and the world beautiful.'

'I'll always think you good and beautiful too.'

Victoria looked at him. He had hardly changed at all. His tall thin frame had not expanded, his hands were still beautifully white and seemed as aristocratic as ever. Perhaps his mouth appeared weaker, his eyes bluer, his face fairer owing to his black clothes.

'I'm glad to see you again, Kathleen Mavourneen,' she said at length.

'Why did you wait so long?' asked Holt. 'It was cruel, cruel. You know what I said – I would – '

'No, no,' interrupted Victoria fearing an avowal. 'I couldn't. I've been through the mill. Oh, Jack, it was awful. I've been cold, hungry, ill; I've worked ten hours a day – I've swabbed floors.'

A hot flush rose in Holt's fair cheeks.

'Horrible,' he whispered, 'but why didn't you tell me? I'd have helped, you know I would.'

'Yes, I know, but it wouldn't have done. No, Jack, it's no good helping women. You can help men a bit; but women, no. You only make them more dependent, weaker. If women are the poor, frivolous, ignorant things they are, it's because they've been protected or told they ought to want to be protected. Besides, I'm proud. I wasn't coming back to you until I was – well I'm not exactly rich, but – '

She indicated the room with a nod and Holt, following it, sank deeper into wonder at the room where everything spoke of culture and comfort.

'But how – ?' he stammered at last, 'how did you – ? what happened then?'

Victoria hesitated for a moment.

'Don't ask me just now, Jack,' she said, 'I'll tell you later. Tell me about yourself. What are you doing? and where is your mother?'

Holt looked at her doubtfully. He would have liked to cross-question her, but he was the second generation of a rising family and had learned that questions must not be pressed.

'Mother?' he said vaguely. 'Oh, she's gone back to Rawsley. She never was happy here. She went back as soon as pater died; she missed the tea fights, you know, and Bethlehem and all that.'

'It must have been a shock to you when your father died.'

'Yes, I suppose it was. The old man and I didn't exactly hit it off but, somehow – those things make you realise – '

'Yes, yes,' said Victoria sympathetically. The similarity of deaths among the middle classes! Every woman in the regiment had told her that 'these things make you realise' when Dicky died. 'But what about you? Are you still in – in cement?'

'In cement!' Jack's lip curled. 'The day my father died I was out of cement. It's rather awful, you know, to think that my freedom depended on his death.'

'Oh, no, life depends on death,' said Victoria smoothly. 'Besides, we are members of one another; and when, like you, Jack, we are a minority, we suffer.'

Holt looked at her doubtfully. He did not quite understand her; she had hardened, he thought.

'No,' he went on, 'I've done with the business. They turned it into a limited liability company a month ago. I'm a director because the others say they must have a Holt in it; but directors never do anything, you know.'

'And you are going to do like the charwoman, going to do nothing, nothing for ever?'

'No, I don't say that. I've been writing – verses you know, and some sketches.'

'Writing? You must be happy now, Jack. Of course you'll let me see them? Are they published?'

'Yes. At least Amershams will bring out some sonnets of mine next month.'

'And are you going to pass the rest of your life writing sonnets?'

'No, of course not. I want to travel. I'll go South this winter and get some local colour. I might write a novel.'

His head was thrown back on the cushion, looking out upon the blue southern sky, the bluer waters speckled as with foam by remote white sails.

'You might give me a cigarette, Jack,' said Victoria. 'They're in that silver box, there.'

He handed her the box and struck a match. As he held it for her his eyes fastened upon the shapely whiteness of her hands, her pink polished finger nails, the roundness of her forearm. Soft feminine scents rose from her hair; he saw the dark tendrils over the nape of her neck. Oh, to bury his lips in that warm white neck! His hand trembled as he lit his own cigarette and Victoria marked his heightened colour.

'You'll come and see me often, Jack, won't you?'

'May I? It's so good of you. I'm not going South for a couple of months.'

'Yes, you can always telephone. You'll find me there under Mrs Ferris.'

Holt looked at her once more.

'I don't want you to think I'm prying. But, you wrote me saying I was to ask for Mrs Ferris. I did, of course, but, you.. you're not..?'

'Married? No, Jack. Don't ask me anything else. You shall know everything soon.'

She got up and stood for a moment beside his chair. His eyes were fixed on her hands.

'There,' she said, 'come along and let me shew you the house, and my pictures, and my pack of hounds.'

He followed her obediently, giving its meed of praise to all her possessions. He did not care for animals; he lacked the generation of culture which leads from cement-making to a taste for dogs. The French engravings on the stairs surprised him a little. He had a strain of puritanism in him running straight from Bethlehem, which even the reading of Swinburne and Baudelaire had not quite eradicated. A vague sense of the fitness of things made him think that somehow these were not the pictures a lady should hang; she might keep them in a portfolio. Otherwise, there were the servants..

'And what do you think of my bedroom?' asked Victoria opening the door suddenly.

Holt stood nervously on the threshold. He took in its details one by one, the blue paper, the polished mahogany, the flowered chintzes, the long glass, the lace curtains; it all looked so comfortable, so luxurious as to eclipse easily the rigidly good but ugly things he had been used to from birth onwards. He looked at the dressing table too, covered with its many bottles and brushes; then he started slightly and again a hot flush rose over his cheeks. With an effort he detached his eyes from the horrid thing he saw.

'Very pretty, very pretty,' he gasped. Without waiting for Victoria he turned and went downstairs.

Within the next week they met again. Jack took no notice of her for four days, and then suddenly telephoned asking her to dine and to come to the theatre. She was still in bed and she felt low-spirited, full of fear that her trump would not make. She accepted with an alacrity that she regretted a minute later, but she was drowning and could not dally with the lifebelt. Her preparation for the dinner was as elaborate as that which had heralded her capture of Cairns, far more elaborate than any she made for the Vesuvius where insolent beauty is a greater asset than beauty as such. This time she put on her mauve frock with the heavily embroidered silver shoulder straps; she wore little jewellery, merely a necklet of chased old silver and amethysts, and a ring figuring a silver chimera with tiny diamond eyes. As she surveyed herself in the long glass, the holy calm which comes over the perfectly-dressed flowed into her soul like a river of honey. She was immaculate, and from her unlined white forehead to her jewel-buckled shoes she was beautiful in every detail. Subtle scent followed her like a trainbearer.

The entire evening was a tribute. From the moment when Holt set eyes upon her and reluctantly withdrew them to direct the cabman, until they drove back through the night, she was conscious of the wave of adulation that broke at her feet. Men's eyes followed her every movement, drank in every rise and fall of her breast, strove to catch sight of her teeth, flashing white, ruby cased. Her progress through the dining hall and the stalls was imperial in its command. As she saw men turn to look at her again, women even grudgingly analyse her, as homage rose round her like incense, she felt frightened; for this seemed to be her triumphant night, the zenith of her beauty and power, and perhaps its very intensity showed that it was her swan song. She felt a pain in her left leg.

Jack Holt passed that evening at her feet. A fearful exultation was upon him. The neighbourhood of Victoria was magnetic; his heart, his senses, his æsthetic sense were equally enslaved. She realised everything he had dreamed, beauty, culture, grace, gentle wit. It hurt him physically not to tell that he loved her still, that he wanted her, that she was everything. He revelled in the thought that he had found her again, that she liked him, that he would see her whenever he wanted to, perhaps join his life with hers; then fear gripped his uneven soul, fear that he was only her toy, that now she was rich she would tire of him and cast him into a world swept by the icy blasts of regret. And all through ran the horribly suggestive memory of that which he had seen on the dressing table.

Victoria was conscious of all this storm, though unable to interpret its squalls and its lulls. Without effort she played upon him; alternately encouraging the pretty youth, bending towards him to read his programme so that he could feel her breath on his cheek, and drawing up and becoming absorbed in the play. In the darkness she felt his hand close over hers; gently but firmly she freed herself. As they drove back to St John's Wood they hardly exchanged a word. Victoria felt tired; for in the dark, away from the crowds, the music, the admiration of her fellows, reaction had full play. Holt found he could say nothing, for every nerve in his body was tense with excitement. A hundred words were on his lips but he dared not breathe them for fear of breaking the spell.

'Come in and have a whisky and soda before you go,' said Victoria in a matter of fact tone as he opened the garden gate.

He could not resist. A wonderful feeling of intimacy overwhelmed him as he watched her switch on the lights and bring out a decanter, a syphon and glasses. She put them on the table and motioned him towards it, placing one foot on the fender to warm herself before the glowing embers. His eyes did not leave hers. There was a surge of blood in his head. One of his hands fixed on her bare arm; with the other he drew her towards him, crushed her against his breast; she lay unresisting in his arms while he covered her lips, her neck, her shoulders, with hot kisses, some quick and passionate, others lingering, full of tenderness. Then she gently repulsed him and freed herself.

Jack,' she said softly, 'you shouldn't have done that. You don't know.. you don't know.'

He drew his hand over his forehead. His brain seemed to clear a little. The maddening mystery of it all formed into a question.

'Victoria, why are those two razors on your dressing table?'

She looked at him a brief space. Then, very quietly, with the deliberation of a surgeon,

'Need you ask? Do you not understand what I am?'

His eyes went up towards the ceiling; his hands clenched; a queer choked sound escaped from his throat. Victoria saw him suffer, wounded as an æsthete, wounded in his traditional conception of purity, prejudiced, un-understanding. For a second she hated him as one hates a howling dog on whose paw one has trodden.

'Oh,' he gasped, 'oh.'

Victoria watched him through her downcast eyelashes. Poor boy, it had to come. Pandora had opened the chest. Then he looked at her again with returning sanity.

'Why didn't you tell me before? I can't bear it. You, whom I thought… I can't bear it.'

'Poor boy.' She took his hand. It was hot and dry.

'I can't bear it,' he repeated dully.

'I had to. It was the only way.'

'There is always a way. It's awful.' His voice broke.

'Jack,' she said softly, 'the world's a hard place for women. It takes from them either hard labour or gratification. I've done my best. For a whole year I worked. I worked ten hours a day, I've starved almost, I've swabbed floors..'

He withdrew his hand with a jerk. He could bear that even less than her confession.

'Then a man came,' she went on relentlessly, 'a good man who offered me ease, peace, happiness. I was poor, I was ill. What could I do? Then he died and I was alone. What could I do? Ah, don't believe mine is a bed of roses, Jack!'

He had turned away, and was looking into the dying fire. His ideals, his prejudices, all were in the melting pot. Here was the woman who had been his earliest dream, degraded, irretrievably soiled. Whatever happened he could not forget; not even love could break down the terrific barrier which generations of hard and honest men of Rawsley had erected in his soul between straight women and the others. But she was the dream still: beautiful, all that his heart desired; such that (and he felt it like an awful taunt) he could not give her up.

He looked at her, at her sorrowful face. No, he could not let her pass out of his life. He thought of disjointed things. He could see his mother's face, the black streets of Rawsley; he thought of the pastor at Bethlehem denouncing sin. All his standards were jarred. He had nothing to hold on to while everything seemed to slip: ideals, resolutions, dreams; nothing remained save the horrible sweetness of the mermaid's face.

'Let me think,' he said hoarsely, 'let me think.'

Victoria said nothing. He was in hands stronger than hers. He was fighting his tradition, the blood of the Covenanters, for her sake. Nothing that she could say would help him; it might impede him. He had turned away; she could see nothing of his face. Then he looked into her eyes.

'What was can never be again,' he said, 'what I dreamed can never be. You were my beacon and my hope. I have only found you to lose you. If I were to marry you there would always be that between us, the past.'

'Then do not marry me. I do not ask you to.' Her voice went down to a whisper and she put her hands on his shoulders. 'Let me be another, a new dream, less golden, but sweet.'

She put her face almost against his, gazing into his eyes. 'Do not leave this house and I will be everything for you.'

She felt a shudder run through him as if he would repel her, but she did not relax her hold or her gaze. She drew nearer to him, and inch by inch his arms went round her. For a second they swayed close locked together. As they fell into the deep arm chair her loose black hair uncoiled, and, falling, buried their faces in its shadow.