Nocturne

CHAPTER II: THE TREAT

i

Gradually Emmy’s tearless sobs diminished; she began to murmur broken, meaningless ejaculations of self-contempt; and to strain away from Jenny. At last she pushed Jenny from her, feverishly freeing herself, so that they stood apart, while Emmy blew her nose and wiped her eyes. All this time they did not speak to each other, and when Emmy turned blindly away Jenny mechanically took hold of the kettle, filled it, and set it to boil upon the gas. Emmy watched her curiously, feeling that her nose was cold and her eyes were burning. Little dry tremors seemed to shake her throat; dreariness had settled upon her, pressing her down; making her feel ashamed of such a display of the long secret so carefully hoarded away from prying glances.

“What’s that for?” she miserably asked, indicating the kettle.

“Going to steam my hat,” Jenny said. “The brim’s all floppy.” There was now only a practical note in her voice. She, too, was ashamed. “You’d better go up and lie down for a bit. I’ll stay with Pa, in case he falls into the fire. Just the sort of thing he would do on a night like this. Just because you’re upset.”

“I shan’t go up. It’s too cold. I’ll sit by the fire a bit.”

They both went into the kitchen, where the old man was whistling under his breath.

“Was there any noos on the play-cards?” he inquired after a moment, becoming aware of their presence. “Emmy—Jenny.”

“No, Pa. I told you. Have to wait till Sunday. Funny thing there’s so much more news in the Sunday papers: I suppose people are all extra wicked on Saturdays. They get paid Friday night, I shouldn’t wonder; and it goes to their heads.”

“Silly!” Emmy said under her breath. “It’s the week’s news.”

“That’s all right, old girl,” admonished Jenny. “I was only giving him something to think about. Poor old soul. Now, about this hat: the girls all go on at me.... Say I dress like a broker’s-man. I’m going to smarten myself up. You never know what might happen. Why, I might get off with a Duke!”

Emmy was overtaken by an impulse of gratitude.

“You can have mine, if you like,” she said. “The one you gave me ... on my birthday.” Jenny solemnly shook her head. She did not thank her sister. Thanks were never given in that household, because they were a part of “peliteness,” and were supposed to have no place in the domestic arena.

“Not if I know it!” she humorously retorted. “I made it for you, and it suits you. Not my style at all. I’ll just get out my box of bits. You’ll see something that’ll surprise you, my girl.”

The box proved to contain a large number of “bits” of all sizes and kinds—fragments of silk (plain and ribbed), of plush, of ribbon both wide and narrow; small sprays of marguerites, a rose or two, some poppies, and a bunch of violets; a few made bows in velvet and silk; some elastic, some satin, some feathers, a wing here and there ... the miscellaneous assortment of odds-and-ends always appropriated (or, in the modern military slang, “won”) by assistants in the millinery. Some had been used, some were startlingly new. Jenny was more modest in such acquirements than were most of her associates; but she was affected, as all such must be, by the prevailing wind. Strangely enough, it was not her habit to wear very smart hats, for business or at any other time. She would have told you, in the event of any such remark, that when you had been fiddling about with hats all day you had other things to do in the evenings. Yet she had good taste and very nimble fingers when occasion arose. In bringing her box from the bedroom she brought also from the stand in the passage her drooping hat, against which she proceeded to lay various materials, trying them with her sure eye, seeking to compose a picture, with that instructive sense of cynosure which marks the crafty expert. Fascinated, with her lips parted in an expression of that stupidity which is so often the sequel to a fit of crying, Emmy watched Jenny’s proceedings, her eyes travelling from the hat to the ever-growing heap of discarded ornaments. She was dully impressed with the swift judgment of her sister in consulting the secrets of her inner taste. It was a judgment unlike anything in her own nature of which she was aware, excepting the measurement of ingredients for a pudding.

So they sat, all engrossed, while the kettle began to sing and the desired steam to pour from the spout, clouding the scullery. The only sound that arose was the gurgling of Pa Blanchard’s pipe (for he was what is called in Kennington Park a wet smoker). He sat remembering something or pondering the insufficiency of news. Nobody ever knew what he thought about in his silences. It was a mystery over which the girls did not puzzle, because they were themselves in the habit of sitting for long periods without speech. Pa’s broodings were as customary to them as the absorbed contemplativeness of a baby. “Give him his pipe,” as Jenny said; “and he’ll be quiet for hours—till it goes out. Then there’s a fuss! My word, what a racket! Talk about a fire alarm!” And on such occasions she would mimic him ridiculingly, to diminish his complaints, while Emmy roughly relighted the hubble-bubble and patted her father once more into a contented silence. Pa was to them, although they did not know it, their bond of union. Without him, they would have fallen apart, like the outer pieces of a wooden boot-tree. For his sake, with all the apparent lack of sympathy shown in their behaviour to him, they endured a life which neither desired nor would have tolerated upon her own account. So it was that Pa’s presence acted as a check and served them as company of a meagre kind, although he was less interesting or expansive than a little dog might have been.

When Jenny went out to the scullery carrying her hat, after sweeping the scraps she had declined back into the old draper’s cardboard box which amply contained such treasures and preserved them from dust, Emmy, now quite quiet again, continued to sit by the fire, staring at the small glowing strip that showed under the door of the kitchen grate. Every now and then she would sigh, wearily closing her eyes; and her breast would rise as if with a sob. And she would sometimes look slowly up at the clock, with her head upon one side in order to see the hands in their proper aspect, as if she were calculating.

ii

From the scullery came the sound of Jenny’s whistle as she cheerily held the hat over the steam. Pa heard it as something far away, like a distant salvationists’ band, and pricked up his ears; Emmy heard it, and her brow was contracted. Her expression darkened. Jenny began to hum:

“‘Oh Liza, sweet Liza, If you die an old maid you’ll have only yourself to blame ...’”

It was like a sudden noise in a forest at night, so poignant was the contrast of the radiating silences that succeeded. Jenny’s voice stopped sharply. Perhaps it had occurred to her that her song would be overheard. Perhaps she had herself become affected by the meaning of the words she was so carelessly singing. There was once more an air of oblivion over all things. The old man sank back in his chair, puffing slowly, blue smoke from the bowl of the pipe, grey smoke from between his lips. Emmy looked again at the clock. She had the listening air of one who awaits a bewildering event. Once she shivered, and bent to the fire, raking among the red tumbling small coal with the bent kitchen poker. Jenny began to whistle again, and Emmy impatiently wriggled her shoulders, jarred by the noise. Suddenly she could bear no longer the whistle that pierced her thoughts and distracted her attention, but went out to the scullery.

“How are you getting on?” she asked with an effort.

“Fine. This gas leaks. Can’t you whiff it? Don’t know which one it is. Pa all right?”

“Yes, he’s all right. Nearly finished?”

“Getting on. Tram nearly ran over a kid to-night. She was wheeling a pram full of washing on the line. There wasn’t half a row about it—shouting and swearing. Anybody would have thought the kid had laid down on the line. I expect she was frightened out of her wits—all those men shouting at her. There, now I’ll lay it on the plate rack over the gas for a bit.... Look smart, shan’t I! With a red rose in it and a red ribbon....”

“Not going to have those streamers, or any lace, are you?”

“Not likely. You see the kids round here wearing them; but the kids round here are always a season late. Same with their costumes. They don’t know any better. I do!”

Jenny was cheerfully contemptuous. She knew what was being worn along Regent Street and in Bond Street, because she saw it with her own eyes. Then she came home and saw the girls of her own district swanking about like last year’s patterns, as she said. She couldn’t help laughing at them. It made her think of the tales of savages wearing top hats with strings of beads and thinking they were all in the latest European fashion. That is the constant amusement of the expert as she regards the amateur. She has all the satisfaction of knowing better, without the turmoil of competition, a fact which distinguishes the superior spirit from the struggling helot. Jenny took full advantage of her situation and her knowledge.

“Yes, you know a lot,” Emmy said dryly.

“Ah, you’ve noticed it?” Jenny was not to be gibed at without retort. “I’m glad.”

“So you think,” Emmy added, as though she had not heard the reply.

There came at this moment a knock at the front door. Emmy swayed, grew pale, and then slowly reddened until the colour spread to the very edges of her bodice. The two girls looked at one another, a deliberate interchange of glances that was at the same time, upon both sides, an intense scrutiny. Emmy was breathing heavily; Jenny’s nostrils were pinched.

“Well,” at last said Jenny, drawlingly. “Didn’t you hear the knock? Aren’t you going to answer it?” She reached as she spoke to the hat lying upon the plate rack above the gas stove, looking fixedly away from her sister. Her air of gravity was unchanged. Emmy, hesitating, made as if to speak, to implore something; but, being repelled, she turned, and went thoughtfully across the kitchen to the front door. Jenny carried her hat into the kitchen and sat down at the table as before. The half-contemptuous smile had reappeared in her eyes; but her mouth was quite serious.

iii

Pa Blanchard had worked as a boy and man in a large iron foundry. He had been a very capable workman, and had received as the years went on the maximum amount (with overtime) to be earned by men doing his class of work. He had not been abstemious, and so he had spent a good deal of his earnings in what is in Kennington Park called “pleasure”; but he had also possessed that common kind of sense which leads men to pay money into sick and benefit clubs. Accordingly, his wife’s illness and burial had, as he had been in the habit of saying, “cost him nothing.” They were paid by his societies. Similarly, when he had himself been attacked by the paralytic seizure which had wrecked his life, the societies had paid; and now, in addition to the pension allowed by his old employers, he received a weekly dole from the societies which brought his income up to fifty shillings a week. The pension, of course, would cease upon his death; but so long as life was kept burning within him nothing could affect the amounts paid weekly into the Blanchard exchequer. Pa was fifty-seven, and normally would have had a respectable number of years before him; his wants were now few, and his days were carefully watched over by his daughters. He would continue to draw his pensions for several years yet, unless something unexpected happened to him. Meanwhile, therefore, his pipe was regularly filled and his old pewter tankard appeared at regular intervals, in order that Pa should feel as little as possible the change in his condition.

Mrs. Blanchard had been dead ten years. She had been very much as Emmy now was, but a great deal more cheerful. She had been plump and fresh-coloured, and in spite of Pa Blanchard’s ways she had led a happy life. In the old days there had been friends and neighbours, now all lost in course of removals from one part of London to another, so that the girls were without friends and knew intimately no women older than themselves. Mrs. Blanchard, perhaps in accord with her cheerfulness, had been a complacent, selfish little woman, very neat and clean, and disposed to keep her daughters in their place. Jenny had been her favourite; and even so early had the rivalry between them been established. Besides this, Emmy had received all the rebuffs needed to check in her the same complacent selfishness that distinguished her mother. She had been frustrated all along, first by her mother, then by her mother’s preference for Jenny, finally (after a period during which she dominated the household after her mother’s death) by Jenny herself. It was thus not upon a pleasant record of personal success that Emmy could look back, but rather upon a series of chagrins of which each was the harder to bear because of the history of its precursors. Emmy, between eighteen and nineteen at the time of her mother’s death, had grasped her opportunity, and had made the care of the household her lot. She still bore, what was a very different reading of her ambition, the cares of the household. Jenny, as she grew up, had proved unruly; Pa Blanchard’s illness had made home service compulsory; and so matters were like to remain indefinitely. Is it any wonder that Emmy was restive and unhappy as she saw her youth going and her horizons closing upon her with the passing of each year? If she had been wholly selfish that fact would have been enough to sour her temper. But another, emotionally more potent, fact produced in Emmy feelings of still greater stress. To that fact she had this evening given involuntary expression. Now, how would she, how could she, handle her destiny? Jenny, shrewdly thinking as she sat with her father in the kitchen and heard Emmy open the front door, pondered deeply as to her sister’s ability to turn to account her own sacrifice.

iv

Within a moment Alf Rylett appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, Emmy standing behind him until he moved forward, and then closing the door and leaning back against it. His first glance was in the direction of Jenny, who, however, did not rise as she would ordinarily have done. He glanced quickly at her face and from her face to her hands, so busily engaged in manipulating the materials from which she was to re-trim her hat. Then he looked at Pa Blanchard, whom he touched lightly and familiarly upon the shoulder. Alf was a rather squarely built young man of thirty, well under six feet, but not ungainly. He had a florid, reddish complexion, and his hair was of a common but unnamed colour, between brown and grey, curly and crisp. He was clean-shaven. Alf was obviously one who worked with his hands: in the little kitchen he appeared to stand upon the tips of his toes, in order that his walk might not be too noisy. That fact might have suggested either mere nervousness or a greater liking for life out of doors. When he walked it was as though he did it all of a piece, so that his shoulders moved as well as his legs. The habit was shown as he lunged forward to grip Jenny’s hand. When he spoke he shouted, and he addressed Pa as a boy might have done who was not quite completely at his ease, but who thought it necessary to pretend that he was so.

“Good evening, Mr. Blanchard!” he cried boisterously. “Sitting by the fire, I see!”

Pa looked at him rather vacantly, apparently straining his memory in order to recognise the new-comer. It was plain that as a personal matter he had no immediate use for Alf Rylett; but he presently nodded his head.

“Sitting by the fire,” he confirmed. “Getting a bit warm. It’s cold to-night. Is there any noos, Alf Rylett?”

“Lots of it!” roared Alf, speaking as if it had been to a deaf man or a foreigner. “They say this fire at Southwark means ten thousand pounds damage. Big factory there—gutted. Of course, no outside fire escapes. As usual. Fully insured, though. It’ll cost them nothing. You can’t help wondering what causes these fires when they’re heavily insured. Eh? Blazing all night, it was. Twenty-five engines. Twenty-five, mind you! That shows it was pretty big, eh? I saw the red in the sky, myself. Well,’ I thought to myself, ‘there’s somebody stands to lose something,’ I thought. But the insurance companies are too wide to stand all the risk themselves. They share it out, you know. It’s a mere flea-bite to them. And ... a ... well then there’s a ... See, then there’s a bigamy case.”

“Hey?” cried Pa sharply, brightening. “What’s that about?”

“Nothing much. Only a couple of skivvies. About ten pound three and fourpence between the pair of them. That was all he got.” Pa’s interest visibly faded. He gurgled at his pipe and turned his face towards the mantelpiece. “And ... a ... let’s see, what else is there?” Alf racked his brains, puffing a little and arching his brows at the two girls, who seemed both to be listening, Emmy intently, as though she were repeating his words to herself. He went on: “Tram smash in Newcastle. Car went off the points. Eleven injured. Nobody killed....”

“I don’t call that much,” said Jenny, critically, with a pin in her mouth. “Not much more than I told him an hour ago. He wants a murder, or a divorce. All these little tin-pot accidents aren’t worth printing at all. What he wants is the cross-examination of the man who found the bones.”

It was comical to notice the change on Alf at Jenny’s interruption. From the painful concentration upon memory which had brought his eyebrows together there appeared in his expression the most delighted ease, a sort of archness that made his face look healthy and honest.

“What’s that you’re doing?” he eagerly inquired, forsaking Pa, and obviously thankful at having an opportunity to address Jenny directly. He came over and stood by the table, in spite of the physical effort which Emmy involuntarily made to will that he should not do so. Emmy’s eyes grew tragic at his intimate, possessive manner in speaking to Jenny. “I say!” continued Alf, admiringly. “A new hat, is it? Smart! Looks absolutely A1. Real West End style, isn’t it? Going to have some chiffong?”

“Sit down, Alf.” It was Emmy who spoke, motioning him to a chair opposite to Pa. He took it, his shoulder to Jenny, while Emmy sat by the table, looking at him, her hands in her lap.

“How is he?” Alf asked, jerking his head at Pa. “Perked up when I said bigamy,’ didn’t he!”

“He’s been very good, I will say,” answered Emmy. “Been quiet all day. And he ate his supper as good as gold.” Jenny’s smile and little amused crouching of the shoulders caught her eye. “Well, so he did!” she insisted. Jenny took no notice. “He’s had his—mustn’t say it, because he always hears that word, and it’s not time for his evening ... Eight o’clock he has it.”

“What’s that?” said Alf, incautiously. “Beer?”

“Beer!” cried Pa. “Beer!” It was the cry of one who had been malignantly defrauded, a piteous wail.

“There!” said both the girls, simultaneously. Jenny added: “Now you’ve done it!”

“All right, Pa! Not time yet!” But Emmy went to the kitchen cupboard as Pa continued to express the yearning that filled his aged heart.

“Sorry!” whispered Alf. “Hold me hand out, naughty boy!”

“He’s like a baby with his titty bottle,” explained Emmy. “Now he’ll be quiet again.”

Alf fidgeted a little. This contretemps had unnerved him. He was less sure of himself.

“Well,” he said at last, darkly. “What I came in about ... Quarter to eight, is it? By Jove, I’m late. That’s telling Mr. Blanchard all the news. The fact is, I’ve got a couple of tickets for the theatre down the road—for this evening, I thought ... erum ...”

“Oh, extravagance!” cried Jenny, gaily, dropping the pin from between her lips and looking in an amused flurry at Emmy’s anguished face opposite. It was as though a chill had struck across the room, as though both Emmy’s heart and her own had given a sharp twist at the shock.

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. That’s what cleverness does for you.” Alf nodded his head deeply and reprovingly. “Given to me, they were, by a pal o’ mine who works at the theatre. They’re for to-night. I thought—”

Jenny, with her heart beating, was stricken for an instant with panic. She bent her head lower, holding the rose against the side of her hat, watching it with a zealous eye, once again to test the effect. He thought she was coquetting, and leaned a little towards her. He would have been ready to touch her face teasingly with his forefinger.

“Oh,” Jenny exclaimed, with a hurried assumption of matter of fact ease suddenly ousting her panic. “That’s very good. So you thought you’d take Emmy! That was a very good boy!”

“I thought ...” heavily stammered Alf, his eyes opening in a surprised way as he found himself thus headed off from his true intention. He stared blankly at Jenny, until she thought he looked like the bull on the hoardings who has “heard that they want more.” Emmy stared at her also, quite unguardedly, a concentrated stare of agonised doubt and impatience. Emmy’s face grew pinched and sallow at the unexpected strain upon her nerves.

“That was what you thought, wasn’t it?” Jenny went on impudently, shooting a sideways glance at him that made Alf tame with helplessness. “Poor old Em hasn’t had a treat for ever so long. Do her good to go. You did mean that, didn’t you?”

“I ...” said Alf. “I ...” He was inclined for a moment to bluster. He looked curiously at Jenny’s profile, judicial in its severity. Then some kind of tact got the better of his first impulse. “Well, I thought one of you girls ...” he said. “Will you come, Em? Have to look sharp.”

“Really?” Emmy jumped up, her face scarlet and tears of joy in her eyes. She did not care how it had been arranged. Her pride was unaroused; the other thought, the triumph of the delicious moment, was overwhelming. Afterwards—ah, no no! She would not think. She was going. She was actually going. In a blur she saw their faces, their kind eyes....

“Good boy!” cried Jenny. “Buck up, Em, if you’re going to change your dress. Seats! My word! How splendid!” She clapped her hands quickly, immediately again taking up her work so as to continue it. Into her eyes had come once more that strange expression of pitying contempt. Her white hands flashed in the wan light as she quickly threaded her needle and knotted the silk.

CHAPTER III: ROWS

i

After Emmy had hurried out of the room to change her dress, Alf stood, still apparently stupefied at the unscrupulous rush of Jenny’s feminine tactics, rubbing his hand against the back of his head. He looked cautiously at Pa Blanchard, and from him back to the mysterious unknown who had so recently defeated his object. Alf may or may not have prepared some kind of set speech of invitation on his way to the house. Obviously it is a very difficult thing, where there are two girls in a family, to invite one of them and not the other to an evening’s orgy. If it had not previously occurred to Alf to think of the difficulty quite as clearly as he was now being made to do, that must have been because he thought of Emmy as imbedded in domestic affairs. After all, damn it, as he was thinking; if you want one girl it is rotten luck to be fobbed off with another. Alf knew quite well the devastating phrase, at one time freely used as an irresistible quip (like “There’s hair” or “That’s all right, tell your mother; it’ll be ninepence”) by which one suggested disaster—“And that spoilt his evening.” The phrase was in his mind, horrible to feel. Yet what could he have done in face of the direct assault? “Must be a gentleman.” He could hardly have said, before Emmy: “No, it’s you I want!” He began to think about Emmy. She was all right—a quiet little piece, and all that. But she hadn’t got Jenny’s cheek! That was it! Jenny had got the devil’s own cheek, and this was an example of it. But this was an unwelcome example of it. He ruminated still further; until he found he was standing on one foot and rubbing the back of his head, just like any stage booby.

“Oh, damn!” he cried, putting his raised foot firmly on the ground and bringing his wandering fist down hard into the open palm of his other hand.

“Here, here!” protested Jenny, pretending to be scandalised. “That’s not the sort of language to use before Pa! He’s not used to it. We’re awfully careful what we say when Pa’s here!”

“You’re making a fool of me!” spluttered Alf, glaring at her. “That’s about the size of it!”

“What about your pa and ma!” she inquired, gibing at him. “I’ve done nothing. Why don’t you sit down. Of course you feel a fool, standing. I always do, when the manager sends for me. Think I’m going to get the sack.” She thought he was going to bellow at her: “I hear they want more!” The mere notion of it made her smile, and Alf imagined that she was still laughing at her own manoeuvre or at her impertinent jest.

“What did you do it for?” he asked, coming to the table.

“Cause it was all floppy. What did you think? Why, the girls all talk about me wearing it so long.”

“I’m not talking about that,” he said, in a new voice of exasperated determination. “You know what I’m talking about. Oh, yes, you do! I’m talking about those tickets. And me. And you!”

Jenny’s eyes contracted. She looked fixedly at her work. Her hands continued busy.

“Well, you’re going to take Emmy, aren’t you!” she prevaricated. “You asked her to go.”

“No!” he said. “I’m going with her, because she’s said she’ll go. But it was you that asked her.”

“Did I? How could I? They weren’t mine. You’re a man. You brought the tickets. You asked her yourself.” Jenny shook her head. “Oh, no, Alf Rylett. You mustn’t blame me. Take my advice, my boy. You be very glad Emmy’s going. If you mean me, I should have said ‘No,’ because I’ve got to do this hat. Emmy’s going to-night. You’ll enjoy yourself far more.”

“Oh ——!” He did not use an oath, but it was implied. “What did you do it for? Didn’t you want to come yourself? No, look here, Jenny: I want to know what’s going on. You’ve always come with me before.” He glared at her in perplexity, puzzled to the depths of his intelligence by a problem beyond its range. Women had always been reported to him as a mystery; but he had never heeded.

“It’s Emmy’s turn, then,” Jenny went on. She could not resist the display of a sisterly magnanimity, although it was not the true magnanimity, and in fact had no relation to the truth. “Poor old Em gets stuck in here day after day,” she pleaded. “She’s always with Pa till he thinks she’s a fixture. Well, why shouldn’t she have a little pleasure? You get her some chocs ... at that shop. ... You know. It’ll be the treat of her life. She’ll be as grateful to you for it. ... Oh, I’m very glad she’s got the chance of going. It’ll keep her happy for days!” Jenny, trying with all her might to set the affair straight and satisfy everybody, was appealing to his vanity to salve his vanity. Alf saw himself recorded as a public benefactor. He perceived the true sublimity of altruism.

“Yes,” he said, doggedly, recovering himself and becoming a man, becoming Alf Rylett, once again. “That’s all bally fine. Sounds well as you put it; but you knew as well as I did that I came to take you. I say nothing against Em. She’s a good sort; but—”

Jenny suddenly kindled. He had never seen her so fine.

“She’s the best sort!” she said, with animation. “And don’t you forget it, Alf. Me—why, I’m as selfish as ... as dirt beside her. Look a little closer, my lad. You’ll see Em’s worth two of me. Any day! You think yourself jolly lucky she’s going with you. That’s all I’ve got to say to you!”

She had pushed her work back, and was looking up at him with an air of excitement. She had really been moved by a generous impulse. Her indifference to Alf no longer counted. It was swept away by a feeling of loyalty to Emmy. The tale she had told, the plea she had advanced upon Emmy’s behalf, if it had not influenced him, had sent a warm thrill of conviction through her own heart. When she came thus to feel deeply she knew as if by instinct that Emmy, irritable unsatisfied Emmy, was as much superior to Alf as she herself was superior to him. A wave of arrogance swept her. Because he was a man, and therefore so delectable in the lives of two lonely girls, he was basely sure of his power to choose from among them at will. He had no such power at that moment, in Jenny’s mind. He was the clay, for Emmy or herself to mould to their own advantage.

“You can think yourself jolly lucky; my lad!” she repeated. “I can tell you that much!”

ii

Jenny leant back in her chair exhausted by her excitement. Alf reached round for the chair he had left, and brought it to the table. He sat down, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped; and he looked directly at Jenny as though he were determined to explode this false bubble of misunderstanding which she was sedulously creating. As he looked at her, with his face made keen by the strength of his resolve, Jenny felt her heart turn to water. She was physically afraid of him, not because he had any power to move her, but because in sheer bullock-like strength he was too much for her, as in tenacity he had equally an advantage. As a skirmisher, or in guerrilla warfare, in which he might always retire to a hidden fastness, baffling pursuers by innumerable ruses and doublings, Jenny could hold her own. On the plain, in face of superior strength, she had not the solid force needed to resist strong will and clear issues. Alf looked steadily at her, his reddish cheeks more red, his obstinate mouth more obstinate, so that she could imagine the bones of his jaws cracking with his determination.

“It won’t do, Jen,” he said. “And you know it.”

Jenny wavered. Her eyes flinched from the necessary task of facing him down. Where women of more breeding have immeasurable resources of tradition behind them, to quell any such inquisition, she was by training defenceless. She had plenty of pluck, plenty of adroitness; but she could only play the sex game with Alf very crudely because he was not fine enough to be diverted by such finesse as she could employ. All Jenny could do was to play for safety in the passage of time. If she could beat him off until Emmy returned she could be safe for to-night; and if she were safe now—anything might happen another day to bring about her liberation.

“Bullying won’t do. I grant that,” she retorted defiantly. “You needn’t think it will.” She jerked her head.

“We’re going to have this out,” Alf went on. Jenny darted a look of entreaty at the kicking clock which lay so helplessly upon its side. If only the clock would come to her aid, forgetting the episode of the tea-cosy!

“Take you all your time,” she said swiftly. “Why, the theatre’s all full by now. The people are all in. They’re tuning up for the overture. Look at it!” She pointed a wavering finger at the clock.

“We’re going to have this out—now!” repeated Alf. “You know why I brought the tickets here. It was because I wanted to take you. It’s no good denying it. That’s enough. Somehow—I don’t know why—you don’t want to go; and while I’m not looking you shove old Em on to me.”

“That’s what you say,” Jenny protested. Alf took no notice of her interruption. He doggedly proceeded.

“As I say, Em’s all right enough. No fault to find with her. But she’s not you. And it’s you I wanted. Now, if I take her—”

“You’ll enjoy it very much,” she weakly asserted. “Ever so much. Besides, Alf,”—she began to appeal to him, in an attempt to wheedle—“Em’s a real good sort.... You don’t know half the things ...”

“I know all about Em. I don’t need you to tell me what she is. I can see for myself.” Alf rocked a little with an ominous obstinacy. His eyes were fixed upon her with an unwinking stare. It was as though, having delivered a blow with the full weight of party bias, he were desiring her to take a common-sense view of a vehement political issue.

“What can you see?” With a feeble dash of spirit, Jenny had attempted tactical flight. The sense of it made her feel as she had done, as a little girl, in playing touch; when, with a swerve, she had striven to elude the pursuer. So tense were her nerves on such occasions that she turned what is called “goosey” with the feel of the evaded fingers.

Alf rolled his head again, slightly losing his temper at the inconvenient question, which, if he had tried to answer it, might have diverted him from the stern chase upon which he was engaged. The sense of that made him doubly resolved upon sticking to the point.

“Oh, never you mind,” he said, stubbornly. “Quite enough of that. Now the question is—and it’s a fair one,—why did you shove Em on to me!”

“I didn’t! You did it yourself!”

“Well, that’s a flat lie!” he cried, slapping the table in a sudden fury, and glaring at her. “That’s what that is.”

Jenny crimsoned. It made the words no better that Alf had spoken truly. She was deeply offended. They were both now sparkling with temper, restless with it, and Jenny’s teeth showing.

“I’m a liar, am I!” she exclaimed. “Well, you can just lump it, then. I shan’t say another word. Not if you call me a liar. You’ve come here ...” Her breath caught, and for a second she could not speak. “You’ve come here kindly to let us lick your boots, I suppose. Is that it? Well, we’re not going to do it. We never have, and we never will. Never! It’s a drop for you, you think, to take Emmy out. A bit of kindness on your part. She’s not up to West End style. That it? But you needn’t think you’re too good for her. There’s no reason, I’m sure. You’re not!... All because you’re a man. Auch! I’m sick of the men! You think you’ve only got to whistle. Yes, you do! You think if you crook your little finger.... Oh no, my lad. That’s where you’re wrong. You’re making a big mistake there. We can look after ourselves, thank you! No chasing after the men! Pa’s taught us that. We’re not quite alone. We haven’t got to take—we’ve neither of us got to take—whatever’s offered to us ... as you think. We’ve got Pa still!”

Her voice had risen. An unexpected interruption stopped the argument for the merest fraction of time.

“Aye,” said Pa. “They’ve got their old Pa!” He had taken his pipe out of his mouth and was looking towards the combatants with an eye that for one instant seemed the eye of perfect comprehension. It frightened Jenny as much as it disconcerted Alf. It was to both of them, but especially to Alf, like the shock of a cold sponge laid upon a heated brow.

“I never said you hadn’t!” he sulkily said, and turned round to look amazedly at Pa. But Pa had subsided once more, and was drinking with mournful avidity from his tankard. Occupied with the tankard, Pa had neither eye nor thought for anything else. Alf resumed after the baffled pause. “Yes. You’ve got him all right enough....” Then: “You’re trying to turn it off with your monkey tricks!” he said suddenly. “But I see what it is. I was a fool not to spot it at once. You’ve got some other fellow in tow. I’m not good enough for you any longer. Got no use for me yourself; but you don’t mind turning me over to old Em....” He shook his head. “Well, I don’t understand it,” he concluded miserably. “I used to think you was straight, Jen.”

“I am!” It was a desperate cry, from her heart. Alf sighed.

“You’re not playing the game, Jen old girl,” he said, more kindly, more thoughtfully. “That’s what’s the matter. I don’t know what it is, or what you’re driving at; but that’s what’s wrong. What’s the matter with me? Anything? I know I’m not much of a one to shout the odds about. I don’t expect you to do that. Never did. But I never played you a trick like this. What is it? What’s the game you think you’re playing?” When she did not answer his urgent and humble appeal he went on in another tone: “I shall find out, mind you. It’s not going to stop here. I shall ask Emmy. I can trust her.”

“You can’t ask her!” Jenny cried. It was wrung from her. “You just dare to ask her. If she knew you hadn’t meant to take her to-night, it ud break her heart. It would. There!” Her voice had now the ring of intense sincerity. She was not afraid, not defiant. She was a woman, defending another woman’s pride.

Alf groaned. His cheeks became less ruddy. He looked quickly at the door, losing confidence.

“No: I don’t know what it is,” he said again. “I don’t understand it.” He sat, biting his under lip, miserably undetermined. His grim front had disappeared. He was, from the conquering hero, become a crestfallen young man. He could not be passionate with Pa there. He felt that if only she were in his arms she could not be untruthful, could not resist him at all; but with the table between them she was safe from any attack. He was powerless. And he could not say he loved her. He would never be able to bring himself to say that to any woman. A woman might ask him if he loved her, and he would awkwardly answer that of course he did; but it was not in his nature to proclaim the fact in so many words. He had not the fluency, the dramatic sense, the imaginative power to sink and to forget his own self-consciousness. And so Jenny had won that battle—not gloriously, but through the sheer mischance of circumstances. Alf was beaten, and Jenny understood it.

“Don’t think about me,” she whispered, in a quick pity. Alf still shook his head, reproachfully eyeing her with the old bull-like concern. “I’m not worth thinking about. I’m only a beast. And you say you can trust Emmy.... She’s ever so ...”

“Ah, but she can’t make me mad like you do!” he said simply. “Jen, will you come another night ... Do!” He was beseeching her, his hands stretched towards her across the table, as near to making love as he would ever be. It was his last faint hope for the changing of her heart towards him. But Jenny slowly shook her head from side to side, a judge refusing the prisoner’s final desperate entreaties.

“No,” she said. “It’s no good, Alf. It’ll never be any good as long as I live.”

iii

Alf put out his hand and covered Jenny’s hand with it; and the hand he held, after a swift movement, remained closely imprisoned. And just at that moment, when the two were striving for mastery, the door opened and Emmy came back into the room. She was fully dressed for going out, her face charmingly set off by the hat she had offered earlier to Jenny, her eyes alight with happiness, her whole bearing unutterably changed.

“Now who’s waiting!” she demanded; and at the extraordinary sight before her she drew a quick breath, paling. It did not matter that the clinging hands were instantly apart, or that Alf rose hurriedly to meet her. “What’s that?” she asked, in a trembling tone. “What are you doing?” As though she felt sick and faint, she sat sharply down upon her old chair near the door. Jenny rallied.

“Only a kid’s game,” she said. “Nothing at all.” Alf said nothing, looking at neither girl. Emmy tried to speak again; but at first the words would not come. Finally she went on, with dreadful understanding.

“Didn’t you want to take me, Alf? Did you want her to go?”

It was as though her short absence, perhaps even the change of costume, had worked a curious and cognate change in her mind. Perhaps it was that in her flushed happiness she had forgotten to be suspicious, or had blindly misread the meanings of the earlier colloquy, as a result of which the invitation had been given.

“Don’t be so silly!” quickly cried Jenny. “Of course he wanted you to go!”

“Alf!” Emmy’s eyes were fixed upon him with a look of urgent entreaty. She looked at Alf with all the love, all the extraordinary intimate confidence with which women of her class do so generally regard the men they love, ready to yield judgment itself to his decision. When he did not answer, but stood still before them like a red-faced boy, staring down at the floor, she seemed to shudder, and began despairingly to unfasten the buttons of her thick coat. Jenny darted up and ran to check the process.

“Don’t be a fool!” she breathed. “Like that! You’ve got no time for a scene.” Turning to Alf, she motioned him with a swift gesture to the door. “Look sharp!” she cried.

“I’m not going!” Emmy struggled with Jenny’s restraining hands. “It’s no good fussing me, Jenny.... I’m not going. He can take who he likes. But it’s not me.”

Alf and Jenny exchanged angry glances, each bitterly blaming the other.

“Em!” Jenny shouted. “You’re mad!”

“No, I’m not. Let me go! Let me go! He didn’t want me to go. He wanted you. Oh, I knew it. I was a fool to think he wanted me.” Then, looking with a sort of crazed disdain at Jenny, she said coolly, “Well, how is it you’re not ready? Don’t you see your substitute’s waiting! Your land lover!”

“Land!” cried Alf. “Land! A sailor!” He flushed deeply, raising his arms a little as if to ward off some further revelation. Jenny, desperate, had her hands higher than her head, protestingly quelling the scene. In a loud voice she checked them.

“Do ... not ... be ... fools!” she cried. “What’s all the fuss about? Simply because Alf’s a born booby, standing there like a fool! I can’t go. I wouldn’t go—even if he wanted me. But he wants you!” She again seized Emmy, delaying once more Emmy’s mechanical unfastening of the big buttons of her coat. “Alf! Get your coat. Get her out of the house! I never heard such rubbish! Alf, say ... tell her you meant her to go! Say it wasn’t me!”

“I shouldn’t believe him,” Emmy said, clearly. “I know I saw him holding your hand.”

Jenny laughed hysterically.

“What a fuss!” she exclaimed. “He’s been doing palmistry—reading it. All about ... what’s going to happen to me. Wasn’t it, Alf!”

Emmy disregarded her, watching Alf’s too-transparent uneasiness.

“You always were a little lying beast,” she said, venomously. “A trickster.”

“You see?” Jenny said, defiantly to Alf. “What my own sister says?”

“So you were. With your sailor.... And playing the fool with Alf!” Emmy’s voice rose. “You always were.... I wonder Alf’s never seen it long ago....”

At this moment, with electrifying suddenness, Pa put down his tankard.

“What, ain’t you gone yet?” he trembled. “I thought you was going out!”

“How did he know!” They all looked sharply at one another, sobered. So, for one instant, they stood, incapable of giving any explanation to the meekly inquiring old man who had disturbed their quarrel. Alf, so helpless before the girls, was steeled by the interruption. He took two steps towards Emmy.

“We’ll have this out later on,” he said. “Meanwhile ... Come on, Em! It’s just on eight. Come along, there’s a good girl!” He stooped, took her hands, and drew her to her feet. Then, with uncommon tenderness, he re-buttoned her coat, and, with one arm about her, led Emmy to the door. She pressed back, but it was against him, within the magic circle of his arm, suddenly deliriously happy.

Jenny, still panting, stood as she had stood for the last few minutes, and watched their departure. She heard the front door close as they left the house; and with shaky steps went and slammed the door of the kitchen. Trembling violently, she leant against the door, as Emmy had done earlier. For a moment she could not speak, could not think or feel; and only as a clock in the neighbourhood solemnly recorded the eighth hour did she choke down a little sob, and say with the ghost of her bereaved irony:

“That’s done it!”