Coquette Page 4

in her mysterious assurance. So shesupported herself and her mother; while May and Sally did the roughbasting and all sorts of odd jobs in the room behind the parlour. Herewere the big cutting-out table, the treadled sewing machine, three orfour chairs, many fragments of material, several half-made garments,and, upon the walls, a number of coloured prints from fashion papers. Insuch surroundings Sally spent her days. She ate her lunch at twelveo'clock, and had her tea at four. And as her fingers worked, or her feetoccasionally by special permission propelled the sewing machine, shethought of the future and planned to get into the West End.

  It was the West End that now lured her. If only she could get into theWest End all her troubles would be wiped away at once, she felt. Shecould possibly make more money there; but even if she did not succeed inthat aim she would still be in the running for better work. That shecould do better work she never doubted. And she knew that as long as shewas with Miss Jubb she would never do anything at all. Some instincttold her that. She knew it. She knew it as clearly as if she hadsurveyed the future from above. It was not that she was suddenly wise;but only that ambition had come into her consciousness. The blow she hadreceived by her father's death had struck deep into her character. Shehad now to make something of her life, or starve. With a quick circle ofthought she imagined her mother dead. What would happen then? Whatchance had she? Only vaguely did Sally glimpse the possibilities. Sheknew she could not keep herself. She had one aunt--her mother'ssister--with two boy children who were both younger than Sally; but AuntEmmy had a rough time herself, and could hardly be a help. Sally sawclearly enough that she had to fight alone. Very well, if she had tofight alone she would do it, and fight hard. As she scowled, it becameevident that Sally would in this fight unscrupulously use every weaponthat she could seize. She would not shrink from anything that putopportunity into her head. She was already hardened--a kind of hardeningon the surface, or in strata, which left curious soft places in hernature, streaks of good and layers and patches of armour and grit andcallous cruelty. Above all, she was determined upon having money. Moneywas the essential thing. Money meant safety. And safety, when starvationthreatens, becomes the one imperious if ignominious ideal. Once one hasknown physical hunger, no act is inconceivable as a means of avertingthe risk of a similar experience.

  Thus Sally's thoughts ran, not coherently or explicitly, but in vehementrevolts and resolves. Thus she ruminated, while Miss Jubb was out of theroom or had her attention so distracted that she could not observe anidle apprentice. When Miss Jubb came back to the room or to supervisionwork had a little to be hurried, so that she might not find occasion forcomplaint. For Miss Jubb had a sharp tongue, and although she took thepins out of her mouth before she talked she showed that they had lefttheir influence upon her tongue, which was sharp to a fault. And there,across the room, was the rosy-cheeked May Pearcey, so silly, soincapable of more than momentary resentment, that she was alwaysforgetting that Sally and she no longer spoke, but was always trying toencourage Sally into a return to their former relation. Sometimes Sallywould glower across at May, bitterly hating her and riddling herplumpness and folly with the keen eye of malice. May, unconscious of thescrutiny, would go on with her work, self-satisfied, much coarser andmore physical in her appetites than Sally, still in spite of all therebuffs she had received grinning about her boys and what they had saidand what they had meant....

  "Oo, he is awful!" she would burst out to Sally. "The things he said. Idint half blush."

  May had enjoyed his boldness, it seemed. She told Sally what he hadsaid. She told her things and things in the irresistible splurge of thesilly girl whose mind is full of adolescent impurity. Well, Sally knewall that. She knew all the things that boys said; and a few more thingsshe had noticed and thought for herself. She was not a prude. May didn'tknow anything that Sally did not know; but she talked about it. Sallydid not talk. Her sexual knowledges, so far as they went, were as closeand searching as a small-tooth comb, and collected as much that wasundesirable. She despised May. May was a fool. She was soppy, talkingabout all these things as if they were new marvels, when they were asold as the hills and as old as the crude coquetries of boys and girls.May was the soppiest girl in Holloway. Yet the boys liked her for herplump face and arms and legs, and her red cheeks, and her self-consciouslaugh, and her eyes that held guilt and evil and general sillinessand vanity. The boys liked May. They did not like Sally. She was toosmall and sandy; too obviously critical and contemptuous in face oftheir small stock of talk, and too greedy of their poor andpompously-displayed schemes for economical entertainment. Sally's teethshowed like the teeth of a cat, very small and sharp, emblems of hernature. Conceit took firmer root in her heart because of her contemptfor May and her inevitable suppressions of pain and resentment in faceof neglect, as well as her suppressions of knowledge gained by a mentalprocess so quick that May could never have had the smallest notion ofit. Sally became secret, and her determination was made more emphatic.She began to study her face, and her body. One day her mother found hernaked in front of a mirror, twisting herself so that she could see thepoise of her figure. It was a pretty figure, if underdeveloped, and fromthat time of thorough examination onwards Sally never had the smallestdoubt of her own attractiveness and its principal constituents. Only herface was wrong, she felt with bitter chagrin; her face and her hair. Ifher face were fatter and less freckled, and if her hair were not sosandy and pale, she would be pretty. Really pretty. Pretty enough tomake a man go silly. Well, such things could be cured, couldn't they?Or, if not cured, then at least improved.... That was a notion thatdwelt constantly in Sally's thoughts.

  v

  The point was, that she must have actual experience in rousing men. Itwas not that she had determined upon marriage as a way out of herpresent difficulties. At the back of her mind, perhaps, was always theknowledge that she must get a man to work for her; but this never becamean obsession. She was simply a growing girl, hungry for experience, andat the outset hampered by circumstance. Unless something happened toher, Sally was doomed to poverty and suffering. Therefore, full of rawconfidence, she was determined that she should be the heroine of her ownromance. Her impulse was not to give, but to take. She did not long tobe the loving help of a good man, but was ever craftily bent uponexploiting the weaker sides of those she met for the furtherance of herown ends.

  It was several days before she met Toby again; but she waited with akind of patience wholly in keeping with the rest of her nature. Shealways expected to meet him upon the stairs, and never did so. In thestreets she looked for him. Nights, however, were dark and Tobyapparently elusive. But one evening she was running down the three stepsat the front door just as he arrived home. With a quick breath sheventured a "good evening." When he answered, she was filled with apleasure which she would have found it hard to explain. "Evening," saidToby, surlily, and passed on. Sally gave a small grimace, a faint jerkof the head. That was done. A few more days passed. Still in thedarkness she saw him a third time, now as she closed the door of theroom, while Toby hurried to the floor above. By questions, she had foundout that he lived exactly over them, and that his aunt had the room nextto his, in the front of the house. This aunt she never saw, as she wasvery exclusive, and did not associate at all with her neighbours. Toby'ssurname she could not learn; but his aunt was called Mrs. Tapping. Theaunt had an annuity. Toby worked somewhere in the neighbourhood; andSally soon discovered the time of his departure and return. She knewthese so well that she could have told you to the minute when his footmight be expected upon the stairs. If he happened to be late she couldhave remarked upon it to her mother if she had been in the habit oftelling her mother anything at all.

  Later, when they had been in the house about three weeks, she had atriumph. She was going out one evening and was barely down the firsttwo or three stairs when she heard him running behind her. He was forcedto pull up, and, from a peep, she saw that he was still half a flightabove. Their progress from that instant coincided. They reached thefront door alm
ost at the same time. She left it open, and as Toby cameout she turned and smiled "good evening." He replied. Sally followedwith "Beautiful, isn't it!" and then went slowly towards TollingtonPark. Would he follow? She was almost breathless, her eyes downcast, herears strained. He did not follow. Sally frowned. A sneer came to herlips. Then a pensiveness succeeded, and resolve became fixed. All right;he did not follow. He was a man. All the more worthy of her address.

  Moreover, she had noticed him more clearly than ever before, because thegas in the hall had lighted his face as she turned upon the threshold.He was strong, and she adored strength. He was broad and muscular anddark. He had dark eyes under heavy brows. His age she supposed to beabout twenty or slightly above. As she recollected these details Sally'sface became inscrutable. All the same, her walk had lost its savour, andshe returned home earlier