Coquette Read online

up the good-looking ones, and Sally had totake what was left. She hated to see her boy always looking on at theothers, at May, and never at herself; she hated to know that her boydidn't like the look of her, and that he couldn't think of anything tosay to her; and didn't take the trouble to think very hard. It madeSally snap her teeth. One day, she reassured herself, it would bedifferent. One day, they'd _know_.

  Slowly she stretched, with her arms high above her head and her mouthstretched sideways in a yawn. Was mother asleep? She felt cramped andtired, and as she turned round to the light her eyes blinked at thecontrast with the outer darkness.

  ii

  "Oo!" groaned Sally. "Tired!"

  She yawned again, a yawn that ended in a breathless gasp. Mrs. Mintolooked across the room at her.

  "D'you want any supper?" she asked.

  "Wotcher got? Peaches and cream, and a glass of champagne?"

  Mrs. Minto wriggled her skinny shoulders and fingered her chin.

  "Don't you be saucy to me, my gel. There's a bit of dry bread on theplate there. And half a glass of stout. You might think yourself luckyto get _that_."

  "Well, I s'pose I might. But somehow I don't. Dry bread! It's Saturday,ain't it? What I mean, pay-day."

  There was a sour glance. Mrs. Minto sighed, and looked at the clock,frowning and wriggling her shoulders. It was a form of constant drill orshudder that affected her.

  "Yes," she said. "And your father not home. Pubs are closed. Wonderwhere he is. Come on, Sally. Get your supper and get to bed. Sharp,now."

  Sally rose to her feet and walked across the room. She cut a hunk ofbread, and stood about munching it, little crumbs gathering upon herlips. You could see how thin she was when her arm was raised. Yet shemade a few little dancing steps as she ate, and her face was not withouta comical air of mischief. She was an urchin, and she looked it. She wasunscrupulous, and a liar; but she knew a great deal for her years, andshe never shrank from knowledge, because she was athirst for it.Knowledge which could be turned to account was her preoccupation. Shestood looking at her mother, weighing her up, and in the midst of herdaughterly contempt she had room for a little admiration also. They werenot altogether unlike; but Mrs. Minto had taken the wrong turning. Shehad married a drinker, and was a slave. Well, Sally had benefited byknowledge of that. She might marry a fool--probably would have to do so,as the wily ones took what they could get and went off on their own; butshe would never marry so incautiously as her mother had done. Why shouldshe? If one generation does not react to the follies of the earliergeneration, and seek an exactly contrary evil, what becomes of progress?Sally had her wits. She thought they would never fail her.

  As she sat down near her mother, they both heard a sudden slamming ofthe front door, two flights of stairs below. Their eyes flew in anexchanged glance that held trepidation. It was probably dad, and at thistime on a Saturday night dad was usually the worse for wear. Bothlistened. There was a heavy step. Then the sound of voices--a woman'sraised voice, and dad's. It was evidently a row. Sally ran to the door,and they listened to what was passing. Down the half-lighted stairwaythey could just discern two figures, faintly outlined in the waveringflutter of gas. Obviously dad was drunk, for he was haranguing a ratherhysterical Mrs. Clancy, who stood at the foot of the stairs and shoutedafter him. She said that he was drunk, that he ought not to come in atthat time of night stumbling about like an ostrich, that decent peopleliked a little quiet, if he pleased. Mr. Minto said he would come inwhen he chose, and in what state he preferred. He was not obliged toconsult such an indiscriminate mother as Mrs. Clancy, and he would notdo it. Far from it. Far from it. He stood for liberty. He had as good aright to the staircase as anybody else in the house. More right, infact. Let her bring out Mr. Clancy if she wanted a fight.... He thenproceeded to the top of the first flight of stairs. He climbed withdifficulty, missing a stair once in a while, and breathing hard. He waspursued by an outcry. A third voice was heard--that of Mr. Clancy. Itwas directed at first entirely to the woman, and begged her to come backinto the kitchen. They could see her arm caught by Mr. Clancy, from whomshe freed herself by a blow. There was a pause. But Mrs. Clancy brokeout afresh. She was beyond control, passionately shrill, and quitewildly resentful of what had been said and done in her despite.

  "Oh dear, oh dear!" cried Mrs. Minto, with inadequate petulance. Shestepped out on to the landing, fingering her mouth. Sally tiptoed after,hardly moved, but intensely curious. She was grinning, but nervously andwith contempt of the row. "Joe!" called Mrs. Minto. "Joe! Come upstairs.Don't get quarrelling like that. Ought to be ashamed of yourself. Comeupstairs!" She looked over the rails at her husband, like a sparrow on atwig. He was a flight below. "Come up here!"

  There was a fresh outburst from Mrs. Clancy.

  "You put your 'usband to bed, Mrs. Minto. Pore woman! Pore soul! Fancy'aving a thing like that for a 'usband! 'Usband, indeed! A great noisydrunkard, a great beastly elephant, boozing all his money away. Drunkenfool, stamping about...."

  "You shut your mouth!" bawled dad, thickly. "You shut your mouth. See?When I want.... You shut your bloody jaw. See?"

  "Joe!" called Mrs. Minto, urgently, a mean little slip peering over thebannisters.

  "Joe!" mimicked Mrs. Clancy. "You take him to bed, Mrs. Minto. Take hisboots off. He's not safe. He's a danger, that's what he is. I shall tellthe police, Mr. Minto. It's got to come. You got to stop it. I shalltell the police. I will, I swear it...."

  Mr. Minto retorted. His retort provoked Mrs. Clancy to rebuke. Thequarrel was suddenly intensified. It became rougher. Even Sally wasexcited, and her hands were clasped together. Mr. Minto lost his temper.He became mad. A fierce brutality seized him in its unmanageable grip.They heard him give a kind of frenzied cry of passion, saw him raise hishands, heard a hurried scuffle at the foot of the stairs, where theClancys, both alarmed, drew back towards their room. And then the rattleof an arm against a rail, a slither, a bumping, and a low thud. Dad,overbalancing in his rage, had pitched and fallen headlong down thestairs. Mrs. Minto and Sally set up a thin screaming. The gas flickeredand burned steadily again. A shriek came from Mrs. Clancy. It wasrepeated. Mr. Minto lay quite still in a confused heap in the lowerpassage.

  iii

  Dad was dead. It was the end of that stage in Sally's life. After thefuneral, Sally and her mother were quite without money. Everything wasso wretched and unforeseen that the two were lost in this miserable newaspect of poverty and improvidence. For a time Mrs. Perce was good tothem, and Mrs. Clancy would have been the same if Mrs. Minto had notstared through her as through a pane of glass. But when that was done,and the funeral was over, they had nothing. Together they sat in theirbare room above the noisy traffic of Hornsey Road, not speaking much,but all the time turning and turning in their heads all possible ways ofmaking money. In another two or three years Sally might have earnedmore; but she was not now much above sixteen, and at sixteen, in thedressmaking, one does not earn a living. And while at first they thoughtthat Mrs. Minto might get needlework to do, with which Sally could help,they found this out of the question. Mrs. Minto's eyes were weak, andshe could not keep her seams straight. The machine they had wasricketty. Sewing, for her, was impossible. For a few days she wasstunned with the new demand for which she was unprepared. She wasnerveless. It made Sally sick to watch her mother and to realise fromthe vacancy which so soon appeared upon her face that memory and a kindof futile pondering had robbed her brains of activity. With a bittersense of grudge against life, a tightening of lips already thin, and anarrowing of eyes already discomfitingly merciless, Sally savagely toldherself that she had to do everything alone. It was she who must savethe situation. The arrogant grasp of this fact made a great impressionupon her mind and her character. Henceforward she no longer dreamedabout men, but was alert in her intention to make everything her tool,and everybody. From a young girl she had been converted into anunscrupulous taker from all. The death of her father was a blow whichhad suddenly drawn together all those vague determinations whi
ch hadlain concealed. There was nothing except dangerous theft from which hermind shrank. Looking afresh at her mother, she felt stirred by a newimpatience, and a succeeding indifferent contempt. Love had been killed,and from now onwards she would play for her own hand. Small teeth metwith a snap. Her thin lips were drawn back. Mrs. Minto shrank from thestrange venomous snarl which she saw disfiguring Sally's face.

  It was as though Sally felt trapped. Everything had been spoilt by thisunexpected happening, and Sally's unconscious helplessness revealed. Itwas a blow to her vanity, a douche to her crude romanticism. She hadfelt cramped and irritable before; but now she was made to realise howlittle she had with which to fight against calamity and theencroachments of others. Compared with this new