v
An omnibus carried Patricia to Charing Cross, and she walked over to the National Gallery. It was not open yet. The beginning of her day was inauspicious. It became necessary that she should wander about the streets, looking in shops, unless she could think of some alternative to her first improvised plan. She glanced up at the sky, and the rapid movement of the clouds gave her inspiration. The sky was brilliantly blue, and a draughty day in London might well be delightful in the country. But where, cheaply, could she go? The nearest open space would be the best. It required but a moment's reflection to decide what to do. Another omnibus would take her to Hampstead. And so she was once again in movement, and, looking over the side of the vehicle with a curled lip of distaste and a sharp wonder at the people who could bear to live in such districts, she passed through the dinginess of Camden Town and Gospel Oak. From the point of arrival, where the omnibuses rested awhile before they returned once again on their unsteady journey, she quickly reached the Heath.
It was very windy, and the ground beneath her feet was soggy with the rain; but Patricia trudged on valiantly, looking back from the height over that grey fog of rising smoke which marked the daily life of nearer London. All about her was a wide stretch of green, rising and falling from one round height to a lowland where several large ponds spread their black waters. The Heath, and the Parliament Hill Fields, were deserted. It was not the time of year, nor the day of the week, for this enormous and house-bound green to be peopled. Even children were at school. Only an occasional old gentleman or loitering out-of-work passed her, with hastily averted eyes of resentment and fear, and occasionally a girl or nurse with young children in a perambulator ambled by, munching fruit or studying a novelette as she trusted to the rim of grass to keep her path true. The paths yielded to Patricia's feet; the grass concealed mud, and was treacherous. But the fresh air was most sweet, and the exercise improved her morale, and every trouble in the world seemed to have drifted to a convenient distance. Patricia was breathing deeply with relief.
She walked upon the Heath for a couple of hours, and sat awhile upon a seat, exposed to every wind, until the cold began to make her uncomfortable; and then, with a plunge, she returned to the point from which the omnibuses start. Within half-an-hour Patricia was back in the West End, very much better, very much more able to enjoy the crowds in Regent Street and Oxford Street. A short tour brought her to the end of the shops, and she found it was lunchtime. Still further refreshed by a light meal at a neighbouring teashop, she returned to the National Gallery; and stared at pictures until the extremely tiring pastime made her begin to yawn. Patricia knew that it was now—if she was going to keep to the schedule of her planned day—her duty to call upon Amy, and to Amy's studio in Fitzroy Street she accordingly went on foot.
Arrival at Amy's found her weary and depressed. She had begun once more to take a pessimistic view of her own affairs. When she had rung the bell Patricia had a momentary inclination to run away. To endure a talk here was the last thing for which she was prepared. It had been a ridiculous proposal. She wavered, feeling demoralised. The impulse to flight, however, was frustrated by the appearance at the door of Amy herself, very white and very puffy about the eyes, with a cigarette between her discoloured fingers, and her dress crumpled as though she had been lying down. Her short light-coloured hair was also rough, which strengthened the first quick impression. She looked ill and discontented.
"Oh, it's you," said Amy, not very agreeably. "I thought you'd forgotten I existed."
"Oh, how unkind, Amy. When I've come to see you!" cried Patricia, in rebuke.
"It's about time." Amy, after this laconic protest against neglect, led the way to the studio, and closed the door. Her gas-fire was fully alight, and a book lay face downwards upon a table which bore the remains of a meagre lunch. The bed had been made, and the brilliantly coloured spread was over it, but the studio was untidy and unswept. The early dusk was darkening it, and the whole place had a dispirited air which chilled the visitor to the heart.
"I'm not going to excuse myself," continued Patricia, briskly, to cover her shrinking. "I'm a beast, and I know it, and I'm sorry. Don't be hard on me. I've been having a rushing time. How are you?"
Amy looked at her sourly, and Patricia was shocked to see how thoroughly ill she seemed. There was increased discontent in her expression, and the unkempt air she wore showed that Amy was taking no care of herself or of her person.
"I've seen you; and I've heard about you," Amy said.
"I hope I looked nice." Patricia was being painfully cheeky, because she was afraid. She had never been so afraid as she had been since her parting with Harry. "Are you all right?" The question was not merely perfunctory: it was drawn from her by real pity.
"No. I'm not. Patricia, I feel perfectly awful. Not with you—everything. I can't work, I can't do anything. I don't know what I shall do. I feel desperate."
"What's been happening?" Full of concern, Patricia turned from throwing her mackintosh over a chair, and regarded Amy with eyes in which contempt and dread mingled with her sympathy.
"Nothing's been happening. That's just it. I can't paint. I never could paint. It's all ridiculous. Ridiculous!" The words were blurted out in a breathless voice of pain. "I'm in hell!"
And with that Amy began to cry. Patricia put an arm round her, and felt the poor creature sobbing. But no tears came; the sobs were long drawn and agonised; and Amy could not weep.
"And nobody's come near you!" murmured Patricia, stricken with conscience. "Oh, you poor thing. You poor thing!" Amy jerked herself free, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief that had been soiled with paint. She stood there all puckered, terribly hostile to consolation.
"Don't!" she choked. "I can't stand being pawed! All the damned fools in the world have come. Damn them! Grinning and ... Damn!" She began to blow her nose and to wipe her eyes, looking inexpressibly forlorn in her little linen dress without a waist. It was a piteous sight. An old woman stood there, facing bitter knowledge. Patricia could see that Amy's face was swollen with crying. She was evidently in a state of wretched misery, and yet what could be done? Nothing! Desiring pity, comfort, sympathy, Amy could yield herself to none of these, and her hysterical scorn for them was devastating. There was a long silence, awkward and increasingly embarrassed. Patricia stared downward, biting her lip, oppressed with the knowledge of her helplessness. When she spoke she could hear her own words, and her false voice, and the emptiness of her emotion.
"You'd better go away for a holiday," she suggested. "Go down to Cornwall."
"No." Amy jerked with impatient unhappiness. She was like a desperate animal that snarls at a rescuer. "I don't want to do anything. I don't want to see anybody." She controlled herself with a fierce effort, moving a few steps this way and that, and smoking furiously, until the cigarette was glowing and burning her lips. For a time during this paroxysm of fury there was silence; and then Amy went on in a curious dry disinterested voice: "Sit down, Patricia. Tell me what you've been doing. No, I'm all right. I'll stand up. I can't bear to keep still. Got a cigarette?" She lighted the fresh one from her burning stump, in the same grievous way leaning against the mantelpiece and again starting erect with nervous lack of self-control; and every now and then she was shaken by a sob. Without waiting for Patricia's narrative, Amy went on viciously: "That brute Felix has been spiteful about me—and I don't care. I don't care! I'd like to kill him—all of them. All these grinning apes.... I know I can't paint. I'm no good at it. I never shall be any good. Well? What's it to do with them? They're all as glad ... because I'm a woman. That's what it is. What it comes down to is naked sex jealousy. I know. I've known it all the time. And I've gone on, pretending to believe it, pretending I was taken in. I wasn't. They thought I didn't know they laughed at me. Well, I did. And it's I who laugh at them. I despise them. I'm no good; but they're no good, either! And I've told them so. There's that...."
Her voice had grown louder and more hysterical as she progressed. Patricia stood rooted, quite overcome by this torrential violence of anger and chagrin and revelation. But Amy's voice changed again. Almost beseechingly, she turned to her friend.
"But what am I to do, Patricia? I've spent all this money—pounds and pounds of it—and worked and worked and worked; and kept on and on, hoping ... refusing to see." Then, suddenly again out of all control, she shouted. "And it's no good! D'you see? It's no good!" The suppressed rage in her voice was as if saturated with the bitter tears which she could not shed. The tears started to Patricia's eyes in sympathy. She was suffused with conscience-stricken loyalty.
"Where's Jack?" she demanded, fiercely. "What's he doing?"
"Jack!" It was almost a scream. "God! I hate the sight of him. Hate the sound of his rusty voice."
"D'you see him?"
"Do I not!" Amy was concentrated scorn. "Every evening! He comes to cheer me up; and I could kill him, I'm so bored! He's driving me mad!"
Patricia made a little sound with her tongue. Here, if ever, was the occasion for Jack to be strong, to control matters. He must be stupid—stupid! She shook her head, frowning.
"Amy, dear; it's such a pity for you to be making yourself ill like this. Couldn't you...."
"I'm gloating in it!" came Amy's shrill interruption. "I'm enjoying it. It's not often a woman comes up against the sex war as clearly as this. If it had been a man—oh, very different. They'd have stopped me. They'd have criticised me sick. They'd have had no more consideration for my feelings than for a dog's feelings. But I'm a woman—to be teased and lured and flattered and laughed at. What d'you suppose all the praise of woman is? You see us praised. Yes, and why? To keep us quiet. Like giving sweets to a baby. Praise is our comforter. It's not meant. A man's given a chance to learn that he's a fool. We're not. We're up against honeyed lies. It's cotton-wool everywhere, for us, until we're broken by it. And all the time they're laughing—sniggering at us behind our backs. They don't care. They fool us to the top of our bent. They praise our daubs and our abortions of books; and to themselves they're doubled up with laughter. That's what woman's freedom means. That's what equality of the sexes means. It means broken hearts for women. Broken hearts for bloody failures! Oh, my God, my God, my heart will break!"