The Doll Part 6

'I'm going to answer it today,' I told him.

'We'll see,' he said.

He said he'd come with me. We went to the Underground and booked to Down Street. I was fussed and worried, I wondered if I was doing the right thing answering that advertis.e.m.e.nt.

'Look here,' said Jim, 'let's make a bargain. Either you go to Park Lane or you come and live with me, work with me. You can't do both; quick now, decide.' He said this as we got into the train. I shut my eyes tight. I thought, 'If only there could be a sign to tell me what to do.' Then I opened my eyes, I glanced at the platform as the train carried us away. Suddenly I saw the words flash up at me in lights on a board: 'Pa.s.sing Down Street.'

Then I said aloud to Jim, 'All right. I'll come to you.'

Yes, you can call it superst.i.tion. Each thing has happened to me in that way. In the Underground, too. Funny, isn't it? Never up in the air, never up in the world. Always below, beneath the ground. I was with Jim for about six months. He trained me so I could steal women's handbags without their noticing. It was quite easy. I was expert after a time.

We worked the Underground. I got to know every station, every lift all the network of pa.s.sages. Sometimes it was exciting, and dangerous, making me want to laugh, but more often it was h.e.l.l. Sometimes I'd tremble so I'd come over faint. 'Pull yourself together,' Jim would whisper, 'do you want to give us away?'

Sometimes he'd make me go alone. Then I'd be scared. It seemed as though everyone must be looking, and that I was there, all alone, no one near, nowhere to hide if things went wrong.

'You're not bold enough,' Jim told me, 'how d'you think we're ever going to get rich if you act timid the way you do? Handbags don't bring us in much unless you get a lucky haul. You've got to learn an' be more snappy. Most women nowadays wear bracelets. Why can't you have a try at them?' He'd always be worrying at me.

'Can't you lift a bracelet?' he'd say. He'd complain all the time. He was lazy now, he made me do the work.

One evening when I'd only lifted one bag the whole day he turned nasty. 'I'm coming out with you tonight,' he said, 'and we're going to get a bracelet.' I began to cry. 'I can't,' I said. 'I don't feel sure of my fingers.'

'You'll do as I tell you or I'm finished with you,' he said.

We started to work the Central London line shortly after eleven. We counted on getting the after-theatre crowd. It was at Oxford Circus he saw the old lady in the fur coat walk to the booking office. She booked to Lancaster Gate. Jim nudged me, pointed to her hands.

She wore a large ring on her little finger. It looked valuable, too. We also booked to Lancaster Gate. I was trembling all over, and my hands were slippery with sweat. 'I can't do it,' I whispered. 'I can't do it.' He held my arm so tight I nearly screamed. We didn't sit next to her in the carriage. We were in another part of the train.

When we got out at Lancaster Gate she was walking up the platform. There were few people about, I saw it was going to be difficult. There wouldn't be the excuse of jostling in a crowd.

She was in evening dress. It was long at the back. She couldn't manage it proper. I thought that perhaps if she tripped in some way . . . I brushed against her she dropped her bag. We both groped for it on the floor. The bag opened and her powder-box and purse and odds and ends fell out in a mess. I talked loudly, fussing her, pretending to help, b.u.mping her against the wall but I had the ring. Then I left her, and ran on to catch the lift, Jim just behind me. 'Something is going to happen,' I thought, 'something is going to happen . . .' I felt I could see prison in front of me, and I couldn't escape. If the old lady missed her ring in the lift I was done for. I wondered if I had better turn back and get through to the other platform. I knew if I went up in that lift I was finished. And as though to prove it as though there really was something true in superst.i.tion I saw the notice: 'Stand clear of the Gates.'

I turned to Jim. 'I'm going back,' I said. He was rough, he shook my arm. 'Get in quick you little fool,' he said. But he was scared, too. I could see the whites of his eyes. He pushed me inside the lift. I saw the old lady running along the pa.s.sage waving her hand. 'I've been robbed,' she shouted, 'I've been robbed. Stop that girl.'

People turned to look at me. I tried to get to the other side of the lift, but it was barred. Then they began to crowd round me and to question me.

You don't want me to tell you about gaol, do you? You can squeeze that out of somebody else. There's plenty of ex-convicts who like to get into the newspapers. I've got nothing to say . . . Oh! Yes they treated me kind. That's right, isn't it?

And a lady visited me once a week and asked me if I'd been a bad girl, and wouldn't I be happier with Jesus? I told her 'No,' I didn't care how dirty he'd been to me I'd go with Jim and no one else. That was true, too. Maybe he'd turned me down, but I was his girl. I only wanted to get clear of gaol to be with him again. He told me it was the same for him. He came and saw me once. You stand in a kind of place with bars around, and they let you talk to your friends. 'Why, Mazie,' he said. 'You know I didn't mean to get you in here, don't you?'

'That's all right I haven't split,' I said.

'You aren't sore at me, Mazie, are you?' he said, 'it just happened that way, and it couldn't be helped. I tried to save my skin. You won't let on to them here we were working together, will you?' he said.

I told him he needn't worry.

'You're a sweet kid,' he told me, 'I'm fond of you. It's lonely without you.'

He didn't talk no more after that, and he went away. He never came back again neither. But somehow I pictured him waiting for me outside. I guessed he'd be helpless without me fiddling with his things and just being near him.

A man likes to have a girl around if it's only to treat her rough and swear at her, don't you think? It gives him a queer kind of comfort. And loving a girl makes a man forget to wonder why it was he was born.

I guess that's what it was like for Jim, anyway. So back in gaol I'd make plans of what we'd do when I was out again. I thought we'd have to lie low for a bit because of my coming from gaol. They keep a pretty sharp eye on you, so I was told by one of the girls. It's no use working your old game again until they've slacked off from watching you. I didn't want to land Jim into trouble either.

There was a kid in there with me who said she was going to go straight when she was out. She believed in the stuff that the visiting lady handed her. I was wise, though. 'You'll never be free of this,' I said, 'it clings like mud, don't you know that?'

'Oh! Mazie,' she said, crying, too young she was 'I wish you'd come with me, and we'd go out to the colonies together.'

'What? and be treated worse than a servant, and scrubbing floors, and people above you?' I said. 'I've had enough scrubbing inside here to last me a lifetime. When I get outside I'm going to live like a princess. I've got a boy waiting for me,' I said.

She was free before me. 'I'm going to Canada,' she said. 'I'm starting fresh.'

Funny thing they put her with a clergyman's wife up in Bristol, and found out a month later she had started her old tricks again, so they gave her three years.

It just shows you, doesn't it?

I got out in the spring. They talked to me before I left about duty, and citizenship, and humanity, and G.o.d. They gave me some money, too. I went out and bought a pair of camiknickers trimmed with lace. I wanted Jim to find me smart. There never was a day like the day I came out. Blue sky and the sun, and people smiling for no reason. I felt like dancing, and screaming with laughter, and being looked at by fellows, and running away in a corner to cry at the same time.

I kept saying to myself, 'Soon I'll be seeing him, soon soon.' I had myself kind of worked up. D'you see? He'd be somewhere around. I knew that. I'd only got to go and find him; he wouldn't be far.

So I looked up at the sky and talked like a baby. 'Here you be off you aren't any use to me,' and I went down into the Underground where I belonged.

I looked for him all day, and I was getting tired, and sore, too. I felt myself thinking, superst.i.tious like 'Maybe there'll be a sign soon to show me what's going to happen.' Yes, it was six o'clock, what they call the rush hour in the Underground. I guessed if Jim was still working he'd be busy at that time. I took a ticket at Bond Street. I had to stand nearly five minutes in a queue. I was hot, my clothes sticking to me, my hat at the back of my head.

I wanted to lie down and die . . .

And the crowd pushing into me, breathing down my neck, straining to get past me, to go their way. I got my feet on the moving stairway I leaned against the rail. We were taken downwards, away from the light above, down into the Underground. And then I saw Jim. He was across the rail, on the other side, on the same staircase but coming up. We drew nearer, we were level and I called out to him, over the barrier that separated us: 'Jim here I am Jim.' He didn't look. He didn't speak. He heard me, but he didn't do anything. He seemed smarter, different and there was a girl with him hanging on his arm. I turned, I tried to push back, but there were people coming down behind me all the time and it wasn't any use. I called out to him once more 'Jim Jim.'

There wasn't anything I could do. I let the moving stair take me where it wanted down down. And he, the last I saw of him was a figure right at the very top, blotted against a girl going out into the air.

She stretched across to a table and picked up a bottle of nail varnish.

'So that was my sign,' she said; 'he going up the staircase and me going down. That's what you wanted to know, wasn't it? It'll make a pretty picture for your newspaper. Tell me, do they pay you well for this sort of thing?'

Still she tilted on the edge of her chair, swinging her legs.

'Aren't you satisfied yet? D'you like every single sc.r.a.ppy detail? You ask me why I didn't go back to being a servant? Because, little newspaper boy, servants can't have the things I want. Why didn't I go on being a thief? Because I was scared, and I had to have a job that was easy to do. Why did I choose, beyond anything else in the world, to be what I am? Is that what you want, to put it in headlines?' She laughed, she shrugged her shoulders, she was no longer the Mazie who had told her story, but the Mazie of the moment ugly, older, hard, false, and without feeling.

She said: 'Because when I got to the bottom of that moving stairway I walked to a train, and I got out at a station, and I got in another train, and I got out at another station and as I stood on the platform I prayed hard to G.o.d that He should give me a sign. And He did.'

She finished her nails. She dabbed her face with powder, her lips with rouge. She pulled on her coat and her hat, she stood ready with her bag under her arm. She opened her mouth and laughed.

'What was the sign?' she said. 'Why, it came straight from G.o.d written big above my head, in letters of fire at the end of the platform "Follow The Red Light For Piccadilly".'

Tame Cat.

It was difficult to believe that she had grown up at last. She had looked forward to this moment all her life, and now it had come. The little petty worries of childhood lay behind her for ever. No more French, no more hateful plodding round the Louvre, with Mademoiselle in charge, no more sitting at the round table in the pet.i.t salon an English novel surrept.i.tiously concealed behind the volume of history.

Already the life at the pension seemed dim and quite unreal. The child who cried herself to sleep because Mademoiselle had frowned was a stranger to her, a lost shadow. And the chatter of the girls, the little fierce intimacies of day to day, once so important, were now empty, nonsensical things scarce remembered. She was grown up.The wonderful things of life lay before her. To say what she liked, to go as she pleased, to stay at a dance until three in the morning, perhaps, and drink champagne. She might be seen home in a taxi by a young man who would want to kiss her (she would refuse, of course), and the next morning he would send her flowers. Oh! and there would be so many new friends, new things, and new faces. It would not be all dancing and theatres, of course; she knew that. Later on she must settle down seriously to her music; but just for a while she wanted to fill herself with this warm, happy flood of excitement, so new, so tremulous; like the carefree flight of a b.u.t.terfly, on a May morning, she would dance and she would sing.

'I'm grown up! I'm grown up!' The words sang in her ears, and the clatter of the train took the theme and thundered it loud, over and over again. 'I'm grown up! I'm grown up!'

She thought of the welcome that awaited her. Mummy, exquisitely dressed and more beautiful than ever, lovelier than she could ever hope to be, hugging her carelessly and rumpling her hair, 'Darling, you're like a fat puppy go away and play.' But Mummy would not be able to say that this time, because she had grown so slim since last holidays, and then, having her hair waterwaved had made such a difference to the shape of her face. The new dress, too, and the touch of colour on her lips. Mummy would be proud of her at last. What fun they would have, going about together everywhere, doing the same things, meeting the same people! This was, perhaps, the thing to which she had looked forward most in her life being with Mummy. They would be such companions. Darling Mummy was so generous, so hopelessly extravagant; she really needed someone to look after her. They would be like sisters.

Of course, there was Uncle John . . . She could not remember the time when there had not been Uncle John. He was not really any relation at all, but it was just the same as though he were. It was at Frinton they had met him first, she believed, when she was a tiny girl, bathing with Mummy in shallow water; but it was all so very long ago. Uncle John had been part of the household now for years. He was useful to Mummy in a hundred ways. It was Uncle John who answered letters for Mummy and argued with tradesmen when the bills were too heavy. It was Uncle John who saw to the tickets on journeys and booked rooms at hotels. Although he did not actually live in the house, he was nearly always in to meals, and when he was not there for lunch or dinner, it meant that he had taken Mummy to a restaurant or to the theatre. It was Uncle John who had made Mummy buy so many new cars at different times, but of course he was a very good driver.

Yes, Uncle John was useful to Mummy, and rather a dear quite old, though; well over forty. Poor old Uncle John! What was it that one of the girls at the pension had said about him when they had pa.s.sed through Paris in the summer, on their way to Cannes? 'That your mother's tame cat?' What a good expression! Tame cat. Perhaps Uncle John was rather like a cat, a dear, harmless old tabby tom-cat, purring quietly in a corner, never showing his claws, lapping away peacefully at his saucer of milk. Well, he would carry their coats for them and take them to the theatre and act partner at dances they were going to be so happy, she and Mummy and Uncle John.

And now she was getting almost too excited to sit still. The cold dark evening did not matter; the stuffy Pullman car did not matter. The train was drawing near to Victoria. Her heart was thumping, and a little pulse beat in her temple. The great, friendly roar of London, the rumble of buses, the yellow light of shops bursting with Christmas decorations if this was being grown up, then she was younger than she had ever been in her life, young with a hope born of inexperience, a glow within her bright as the unseen paradise. Now was the supreme moment, never equalled and never surpa.s.sed, as the train drew into Victoria.

She stepped out on to the platform, eager, flushed, her eyes very bright and blue, her velvet beret on the side of her head. 'Mummy, Mummy, darling, I'm so happy, so terribly happy to be back!' But something had happened; something was wrong. Mummy was looking at her in astonishment, almost in dismay, and then as though she were angry, were afraid.

'Baby what on earth . . .' she began, but her voice trailed off uncertainly, and then she laughed, a little too brightly, a little too gay. 'You've done something to yourself, haven't you?' and, changing abruptly to a hard, careless tone: 'I suppose you've got a ma.s.s of luggage. Go and cope with it, John. I'm freezing. I'll wait in the car.'

The girl watched her go, a little sick feeling of disappointment in her heart, and turned to the man who waited beside her, his hat in his hand, his eye on her face.

'Hullo, Uncle John!' But why must he stare like that, the old sleepy expression gone and a new one in its place, alert, beady, queer?

It was being so different from what she had expected. The breathless feeling of antic.i.p.ation had fled, and in its place had come a horrid sense of staleness, almost of boredom. She felt lonely and shut within herself. It was something to do with Mummy. Mummy was not well; ever since she had come back from school Mummy had been cold, easily irritated, snappy with her.

And she herself had taken so much trouble to please Mummy. She had been extra careful about her appearance, worn the new dress that suited her, chatted and laughed with Mummy's friends as though she had been 'out' for years. They were charming to her, and made much of her, inviting her to dances, to week-ends, to house-parties, all the gaieties she had hoped for in the train. But now everything was spoilt, because Mummy was not pleased.

From the very beginning, Mummy had been cold to her. The first morning, when they had gone to buy the evening dress, Uncle John in attendance, as usual, and she had wanted the lovely peach velvet with the low back. 'My dear Baby, don't be such a little fool; it's years too old for you,' brushing her timid question aside. 'No, Louise,' to the attendant; 'something much more simple, in white'; and then, turning round to Uncle John in irritation: 'Well, what are you gaping at? I suppose you'd like to see the child dolled-up like a tart?'

She had never heard Mummy speak like that in her life before. Quickly, shamefully, she whispered: 'Yes, let me have the white; it looks very nice,' hating it in her heart: the band at the waist, the thick shoulder-straps, so school-girlish; but she would wear anything if it would change the expression on Mummy's face, so hard, with peeved lines at the corner of her mouth.

And then, when Mummy was not looking, Uncle John had whispered in her ear: 'It's a d.a.m.ned shame! You'd look lovely in the velvet, lovely,' smiling at her, patting her hand, as though they were allies, ranging himself on her side as it were, furtively, like an accomplice. 'If you want anything, come to me,' he had told her later that day, pulling her into a corner, glancing over his shoulder through the crack in the door. 'Don't worry your mother, just come along to me.' And for a moment she had felt like laughing, he was so much the tabby cat, sleek and well fed, purring slightly and arching his back. 'Thank you, Uncle John, you're a lamb,' she said, kissing him impulsively; when, to her surprise, he went dark red, hesitated a moment, then kissed her back. 'We're going to be friends, aren't we, Baby?' he said, squeezing her hand. 'But we always have been,' she answered, feeling, for the first time in her life, shy and uncomfortable, as though he were a stranger.

The days which should have been filled with joy and new interests pa.s.sed slowly, like the old school holidays, and, for all the change, she might still be the child at the pension. Mummy made excuses for the many invitations they received. 'Later on, perhaps,' she would say vaguely, and then go off with Uncle John alone, leaving her to ring up a school friend and spend half a crown at the Plaza.

Christmas Day was spent with Granny in the country, as usual: a heavy mid-day lunch, followed by a walk in the rain in the afternoon; and Boxing Day was relieved by the Circus and a cousin to dinner. But after that the week stretched dully on until New Year's Eve. Surely nothing would happen to spoil that? Mummy's funny mood would leave her; Uncle John would be himself again. There was to be a big party at the Savoy; a party given entirely for her, when everyone would know she was grown up and a child no longer. Most pa.s.sionately she prayed that it would be a success, this, her first party, and Mummy would be the old Mummy, careless and affectionate, proud of her daughter so like a younger sister; and she would wear her new dress, even if it were a little too full, a little too young. 'Please, G.o.d, let everything be all right,' she whispered at bed-time, rocking on her knees in a fervour of faith; and, going to the window, pulled aside the curtain, where bright in the sky a star shone, as she would shine, fairer than the others, on New Year's Eve.

Mummy went to bed early the night before the party. She had her dinner taken up to her on a tray. She felt tired, she said, worn out. She hoped she would be better by to-morrow, but, really, if she wasn't, the whole thing would have to be put off, even if it meant disappointing Baby. Better that than the whole house down with 'flu. Her throat was sore, and it might easily be 'flu. One could not be too careful, this time of the year. Her daughter kissed her good-night and wandered, disconsolate, into the drawing-room.

She sat down at the piano and played softly, for fear of disturbing Mummy. It couldn't be going to be 'flu, not suddenly like this, the night before the party. Sometimes she wondered if Mummy behaved like this on purpose, and, for some queer, unknown reason, did not want her to be happy. And then the door opened, and Uncle John came into the room. He looked flushed and rather excited; he beckoned to her in a mysterious manner.

'Come on,' he said, 'be a sport. When the cat's away . . .' Had he been to a c.o.c.ktail party, and drunk one too many? Poor Uncle John. 'What's the matter?' she said. 'Mummy's in bed, you know; she's not well.'

'Of course I know,' he said. 'That's why I'm here. Going to take you out to dinner.'

For a moment she stared at him in wonder, and then she smiled. Why, it really was rather sweet of him to think of her all alone. He had guessed her Christmas had been a failure, and now he had called for her, in evening dress and everything, because he was sorry for her. Besides, it must be so boring for him, when there were probably heaps of people he could go out with, to put up with her chatter.

'Where shall we go?' she asked, suddenly happy, suddenly excited; and 'Can I put on my new dress?' and 'Could we go to a theatre?'

She ran upstairs, remembering just in time to tiptoe past Mummy's door. Really, she looked rather nice, she thought, glancing at herself in the long looking-gla.s.s, and with a shaky hand she put just a little too much lipstick on her mouth. Uncle John, more of a tabby-cat than ever, waited for her in the hall. He positively purred in satisfaction, tugging at his little moustache.

'You monkey!' he said. 'They've taught you a thing or two in Paris, haven't they?' And this was what he kept hinting all the evening, suggesting she knew so much, egging her on to make confessions to him.

'But, honestly, we didn't go anywhere,' she told him for the tenth time. 'It was lessons and lectures all the time.'

'Oh, don't tell me . . .' he retorted, filling her gla.s.s. 'I can see by your eyes, you're entirely changed.'

How silly he was, grinning away like the Cheshire Cat in Alice! Should she tell him the Tame Cat story? But perhaps it would hurt him, and he was really being so kind, such a dear, and giving her the happiest evening since she had been home.

The champagne made her giggle, made her chatter too much, but he did not seem to mind. He laughed loudly, whatever she said; and 'I know, I understand,' he kept saying. 'A pretty girl like you wants to have a good time, and why not? A girl can do as she likes these days. You know that, don't you, Baby? I'll see to it, too, in spite of-' But he did not go on with his sentence; he pulled himself up short with a jerk, avoiding her eye.

It seemed to her that everyone was smiling at her as they left the restaurant. They knew she was Mummy's daughter; they stopped Uncle John; they asked to be introduced.

'I remember you as a little girl. How lovely you've grown!' Rather embarra.s.sing and overwhelming, perhaps, but nice of them, and kind.

'Enjoying yourself?' asked Uncle John, and she smiled back at him, flushed, excited.

'I'm having a lovely evening. If only Mummy were here!'

He looked at her foolishly, his mouth open, his head slightly on one side. Then he guessed she must be joking. He burst into a loud cackle of laughter.

'I say, you're a bit thick for a youngster; you really are!'

But she was not listening to him; she was looking around her, her eyes dancing, drinking in the new sights and sounds, already in her mind miles away from him and alone with somebody else, somebody new, somebody young. And what fun it was to sit in the third row of the stalls, and go out during the intervals and smoke a cigarette, when the last time she had been to the theatre it was in a cramped loge with Mademoiselle and three girls, to see L'Avare, and they had actually eaten chocolates! How odious, how childish! But in this play there was music, there was dancing, there was a golden-haired girl who pirouetted against a background of stars; there was a slim, dark boy who sang a song to the sea; and through it all a mad, jigging tune was whispered on a violin, inserting itself in the memory, persistent, unforgettable.

Oh, dear! she was feeling it all too deeply, she told herself; it couldn't last so much beauty and romance. How glad she was that the couple came together at the end, after that bitter quarrel in the second act! And now it was 'G.o.d Save the King', mournful, throbbing. A sob rose in her throat, and she thought how easily she could die for her country; but in a minute it was over, forgotten. They were crowding out of the theatre into a taxi, pushing through the Piccadilly traffic all ablaze with electric signs and flashes, stopping with a jerk as the purple-uniformed commissionaire of the night club opened the door.

What was Uncle John muttering? Something about it being d.a.m.n slow after Paris? How obstinate he was! Almost a bore. It was his age, she supposed. For she was tingling all over with impatience as the band struck up the tune that had been singing in her head all evening, and it seemed as though a hundred faces shone up at her from the crowded tables bare arms, silver dresses, dark eyes, white shirt-fronts; so much bustle and clatter and laughter. Now they were dancing at last, the lights a little dim; she turning her face to right and to left, searching the faces of the pa.s.sing couples.

And a boy smiled at her over his partner's shoulder, infectious, gay. She had to smile back. Surely they were both thinking the same thing. 'Why aren't we dancing together?' They could not drag their eyes away from each other; he followed with his partner behind her, lost in a dream. She never even heard Uncle John whisper in her ear: 'You know, we'll have to be d.a.m.n careful, Baby if she suspects there's anything between us . . .'

Of course, it had to come to an end. She did not know if it was three or four o'clock she had lost all count of time, and she could have gone on dancing for ever. She stood in the drawing-room at home, saying good-night to him, too full and happy to speak. He wondered why she was silent; he kept peering down at her anxiously. 'What's the matter? Are you angry with me? Disappointed?' Silly Uncle John! He seemed quite humble, and anxious to please; at times almost sentimental.

'You've given me the most wonderful evening I've ever had in my life,' she told him.

Suddenly a door closed overhead, and steps sounded on the landing. Uncle John started, went white, then turned and seized her by the shoulders. His expression had entirely changed. Gone were the sleek, smooth creases from nose to chin; gone was the bland smile, the light in the round, beady eyes. Into his face something furtive had crept, something creeping and sly; his mouth curved, his eyes half-shut. He looked like a cat, a sly, slinking tom-cat, crouching in its own shadow against a dark, damp wall.

'She's heard us,' he whispered. 'She's coming downstairs. Whatever happens, we've got to put her off the scent. She mustn't guess about us, d'you hear? We must lie like h.e.l.l, invent some story. Keep quiet; leave it to me.'

She looked at him, bewildered.

'Why on earth should Mummy mind-?' she began. But he stopped her impatiently; his eyes towards the door.

'Don't pretend to be so d.a.m.ned innocent,' he said. 'You know perfectly well it's an appalling situation. Oh, my G.o.d! . . .' He turned away, fumbling with a cigarette, his hands trembling.

The girl heard her mother's voice outside the room.

'Is that you, John? What are you doing down here? I've had an awful evening. I couldn't sleep . . .'