CHAPTER XVIII
Meanwhile, under grey skies, in a gloomy room near Primrose Hill, another young man faced (with dismay) a definite tide in his affairs.
He sat in a shabby dressing-gown before a table covered with papers, sorted now in grim piles of unpaid bills, reading a writ.
Stephen Somerfield stared at it, his weak good-looking face drawn into lines of hopeless disgust.
"It's a deuce of a mess!" So he summed it up. "What an unlucky beggar I am!—I thought it was pretty bad, but this"—he threw down the document—"is the limit!"
For months past he had postponed a thorough survey of his liabilities, with the shallowness of his character, preferring to ignore the worst. Even now, when he found himself hopelessly involved in debt, he could raise no better reason for it than his own "chronic ill-luck!"
With this phrase he stifled his conscience. Where another man would have realized the necessity for immediate action, he sat there numbed, half unbelieving, a martyr in his own opinion.
He felt no spur toward work as a means to solve the enigma. He could only look back and vent his anger on those concerned in his career who had failed at length to come forward to the assistance of a wastrel.
He cursed his father, his hand clenched, his green eyes full of spite.
He could see him now, still erect despite the heavy burden of years, at that final painful interview, when heart-sore at his son's extravagance he had flatly refused further help.
He allowed Stephen two hundred a year, in addition to the eighty pounds his mother had left him, annually, considering this a fair arrangement, and had told him crudely to "go and work!"
But work was the last thing Stephen sought. He had had the misfortune when barely twenty to meet a rich widow, double his age, who had taken a fancy to the boy.
She had made him a home in her pleasant house, petted and fed him much in the fashion she would have treated a favourite spaniel, but secretly amused by his pretensions.
With his sentimental, greenish eyes under their long, fair lashes, his clear complexion and pointed chin he had seemed not unlike a pretty girl.
He suited her purpose very well, not important enough to cause scandal, and this rich and somewhat lonely woman had paid gladly for his companionship.
It suited Stephen Somerfield, too.
He escorted her everywhere, enjoying the luxury of her car, executing her commissions, buying theatre tickets and planning facilities for her continual round of pleasure.
But she never made the signal mistake of sharing her purse with the man. There were no "perquisites" to be gleaned, save an occasional lonely "fiver" handed over for Bridge at her house.
She paid his expenses only when with him; and, when she died suddenly, after a bare two days' illness, every penny of her money went back to her husband's people.
Before this disaster fell, Stephen had been caught up in the movement, then new, of Woman's Suffrage, in his liege lady's train.
He turned it to account in the lean days that followed, glad to augment his slender income by becoming the paid secretary to one of the most prominent branches.
Here fortune sent him Mrs. Uniacke, eager, hypnotized in turn by the shrill cry of woman's wrongs, but ignorant of business matters, glad to turn to him for advice. Little by little he strengthened the tie, slipping into her daily life; inwardly sore at the "chronic ill-luck" which forced him to accept her poor hospitality after a course of Ritz dinners, yet too shrewd to miss the economy, under the present heavy cloud.
But nothing could check his love of show. He ran up tailor bills galore; hatters and bootmakers learned to know him, credit was failing everywhere. Now the day of reckoning had dawned, tradesmen's patience at an end.
Something must be done at once. He swore moodily at his bills.
He got up from his seat at the table, went to the cupboard, found a cork-screw and opened a bottle of brandy there with this typical reflection:
"I'm jolly glad now I ordered a dozen! A stroke of luck meeting Charlie like that..." He referred to a school friend of narrow means who had lately entered a wine merchant's business and had run against Stephen in the street and parted from him with an order.
He filled his glass up with water—the grocer had flatly refused to deliver further syphons to his credit—and, on his way back to the table, he paused for a moment thoughtfully to study his pale face in the glass.
"I wonder?" He smiled at the reflection, smoothing back his sleek hair.
"You never know ... I've a mind to try it!—Women are queer kittle-cattle. It's just on the cards she'd rise to it. Anyhow, it can do no harm."
He sat down, drank thirstily, then took up his pen and with knit brows.
"Dear Mrs. Uniacke," he began at the top of a plain sheet of paper. (No date and no address; he was not without a certain method!)
"Will you excuse my dining with you? I'm so sorry and disappointed, but the fact is I am faced to-night with harassing business of my own and really quite unfit for company.
"For some time past I've longed to tell you of all these painful worries of mine. You're so awfully kind and understanding..."
He broke off and drained his glass.
"She'll like that—they always do!" then picked up his pen again.
"I'm really in a dreadful hole. I think I explained to you once that my father has never been quite fair to me—a hard man, fond of his money—and my sister is his favourite child. I lost my mother years ago and have no one to turn to in my trouble except yourself—so I hope you'll forgive me—but I'm feeling so utterly wretched to-night.
"The fact is I can't go on living in London on my means. It's impossible with my small salary and the result is pressing debts.
"I'm seriously thinking of cutting it all——" ("She won't like that!"—he smiled as he wrote) "and trying again in a new land—Australia—perhaps, or Canada. This country is played out—the competition too strong—and, unless I can see my way clear to raising——"
he paused—"a hundred pounds ... (I daren't ask more at the start, and this would prove a useful sop...) I'm afraid I shall have to throw up my work and, what is more painful still—to say good-bye to my few real friends and start afresh overseas.
"I've written and written to my father!—but he simply ignores my prayer for help. If only my mother were alive how different life would be for me!"
He smiled sourly over the phrase. For Mrs. Somerfield's early death had been accelerated by drink—one of the many crushing blows his hard-working father had survived.
"I know," he started to write again, "you will treat this letter as strictly private. I am bound to come in for a good round sum when my father dies, and with help now I could guarantee to return the loan—with the usual interest, of course.
"I feel I have not the slightest excuse for turning to you in my need—but I can't bear to think of parting with the one true friend life has brought me.
"You have been more than ... a sister to me (I can't say 'Mother'—it's too absurd), and, if ever a man were grateful for it, that man is
"Your ... broken,
"STEPHEN."
He read it through thoughtfully, smiling a little at the finale.
"'Broke' would be better!—but, on the whole, I think it's a pretty useful epistle."
He fastened and sealed it carefully, then glanced at the clock and rang the bell.
"It ought to catch Mrs. Uniacke before Jill gets back from college."
An untidy maid answered the summons, thrusting her head round the door, with a soiled collar, elaborate hair and a certain pretty anæmic fairness.
"Well—what now, Mr. Stephen?"
"Come here, Letty." He beckoned to her. "Would you like to do something for me?" He smiled, laying a hand on her arm. The girl coloured at his touch.
"You're always wantin' somethin'," she said.
"And get it sometimes—eh, Letty? There—don't be cross! Give us a kiss..."
But she drew herself away from him with a toss of her averted head.
"I'm not that sort—I've told you so." Her voice was sullen, her face strained.
"You've no call to talk like that—I'd lose my place if the Missus knew—it ain't fair..."
She wavered suddenly under the sentimental eyes.
"Well—I'll do it. A letter, I s'pose? To that 'ouse in the Terrace where you go night after night to meet yer ... 'Jill'!" She brought the name out with a snap.
"Wrong this time——" he still smiled, looking up at the moody face, faintly coloured under its curls of puffed-out, ashen hair.
"Jill is no friend of mine, my dear. She hates me—and it's mutual! This is a letter to her mother—business for the Woman's Cause."
The girl brightened visibly.
"Well—I 'ope we gets the vote. It's time we did and better wages. I'm sick of being called 'Skivvy! Skivvy!' by every shop boy in Chalk Farm. We'll make them 'skivvies' by-and-bye! I'm tired o' men—they're all alike! They gets the fun while we slave—it's a dog's life to be a girl!"
"Not always." Stephen answered softly. "Not when you're pretty—eh, Letty?"
He placed the letter in her hand, and, stooping quickly, stole a kiss.
She sprang back with a little cry. Then stood there, her lip quivering, tears not far from her hazel eyes.
"I told you ... I wouldn't. Never again!"
"Oh! a kiss!—what's a kiss?" He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "There—run away—can't you see I'm busy?" He sat down again at the table.
For a moment the child hesitated—for child she was by the test of time—love and resentment struggling within her; then, with tight lips, she flung away.
"Good Lord!" Stephen yawned. "Bother the girl. I've turned her head. I'd like to leave these beastly rooms—only there's that confounded bill. And Letty's useful, after a fashion."
His eyes fell on the fire. He knew she stole many a lump of coal when his meagre scuttle failed—pitying the improvident man she had made the hero of her dreams; under the spell of his green eyes and careless familiarity.
Meanwhile, as he sat and smoked one of Mrs. Uniacke's cigarettes, with which he had carefully filled his case after his last meal with her, the servant crossed Primrose Hill, through the damp evening air, and, gaining the terrace near the park, delivered her lord's begging letter.
Jill had not yet returned home. Roddy was far away at school and a silence hung about the house with its dingy blinds and fogged windows.
Mrs. Uniacke was upstairs, mending the edge of a shabby skirt that had suffered during a rainy day from a long tramp in a procession.
Indeed, the wear and tear of 'the Cause' reflected itself in her very clothes; but the thin face, with its bird-like look of brightness and vivid emotion, its high cheek-bones, and quick flush, was filled with the inner fire of hope.
They were getting nearer to their goal. She said the words softly aloud as she bent her frail shoulders over the bed, pinning together the frayed edges.
"Pioneers, O Pioneers..." She could hear the throb of marching steps, see at last the faint line of the distant hills where freedom lay. What mattered, then, if the road were long, and the sharp rock cut her weary feet, when on the horizon a new day dawned—an era of justice for her sex?
Something achieved, something done...
There came a knock at her bedroom door and Lizzie entered with a letter between a dirty finger and thumb.
An odd premonition of disaster seized Mrs. Uniacke as she took it. She waited for the servant to go before she broke the careful seal. And, as she read, she gave a gasp. Stephen—leaving her? ... deserting the Cause...? Here was a shattering of her dreams, a swift blow out of the dark.
She left her sewing and sat down, the letter open on her knees.
One definite thought held her now—this must be stopped—at any cost!
But where was she to find the money? She crossed to the table by the window, unlocked a drawer and drew out her pass-book, turning the pages feverishly.
There was Roddy, clamouring for clothes, household bills in abeyance, Jill's music lessons to pay ... Then, like a flash, it came to her. Her diamond star! Yes—that must go.
Anything—to keep Stephen!
She felt like a man who for many months has moved on crutches and finds himself suddenly bereft of them, helpless, without support ...
But was it fair?—fair to Jill. The star had been her husband's gift—she had meant to leave it to her child.
The fight began. In reality, it resolved itself into a choice between the pair—Stephen, her friend, and Jill ... that "independent" daughter.
The adjective betrayed her mood.
For, proud as she was in her mother's heart of the bright young girl with her clever brain, the rankling fact was hidden there—her offspring had outgrown the nest.
She could not realize that the age was mainly responsible for the lack of what she called "proper respect"—that mid-Victorian subservience.
She held that what she considered fit was the natural guidance for the girl; that the latter should shape her every thought in the mould of the past generation.
Yet she, herself, had broken loose. It did not occur to her to weigh the question of militant suffrage in the same scales her own mother had used...
Marriage had given her the right to an independent judgment, she thought—the full authority of the woman.
She did not see that life had changed. That the youth of to-day asserted their claim to a freedom of thought unknown in her time, upheld by a sounder education.
She hated in secret the very word. It had been sufficient in her day for a girl to possess a smattering of surface knowledge from old-fashioned primers. A little French, history, grammar, needlework and "good manners": of music enough to produce "pieces" when required for home consumption. But no training for the brain—little logic or reasoning power—the arts neglected for fear they should bring an alarming hint of Bohemianism. And "what mother says is right." This was an axiom, weighty, approved; stifling all further argument, the Alpha and Omega of the question.
Jill's intensely modern attitude, fostered by her college life, her alarming tendency to revoke old standards of convention—even her religious doubts, honestly faced, shocked her mother and threatened her authority. She mourned in secret over her child.
Stephen, now—her face relaxed—was always attentive, glad to learn ... With a charming courtesy he bent to her will, respecting her every opinion.
With her delicate purity of intention it never occurred to her to see that the fact of sex was involved here, Nature at work in her hidden ways.
She would have shrunk from the suggestion that it flattered her woman's heart to find that a man, much younger than herself, could turn to her for inspiration.
And then there was the link between them—'the Cause'—daily growing stronger, and Jill's open scepticism, that cut her mother to the quick. Roddy, of course, was only a boy! Mrs. Uniacke smiled faintly. You expected your son to break away early or later from "home" opinions.
Never once in this tangled maze did she see the weakness of her position: a champion of woman's rights—refusing the same to her only daughter.
Again she read Stephen's letter. Then, with a determined hand, she drew her cheque book nearer to her. The parasite had gained the day. She told herself it was for the Cause. The faint suspicion of dishonesty she thrust rigidly from her mind, realizing subconsciously that to place her action on other grounds was to open up a dangerous question.
But, for the first time in her life, sentiment stole into the friendship. The fault—if it were—was an error of love; she could not bear to part from Stephen.
Then she raised her head and listened, hearing the front door open and shut, and Jill's voice, happy, young:
"Mother!—Mother ... Where are you, Mother?"
She slipped the cheque book in the drawer with the open letter and turned the key, her cheeks flushed, her head high. She did not need Jill's advice!
"Here I am——" she went to the stairs and the girl raced up, two steps at a time.
"Oh, Mother—I've got such a lot to tell you—it's been such a lovely day!"
Impulsively her arms went out, seizing the slight, waiting figure in a childish hug, her fresh mouth pressed upon her mother's cheek.
"There!—I'm feeling so happy. I got 'Excellent' for Ancient History and I'm top at Algebra this week. And Judy Severn's giving a party—and she wants me to come and bring a man. Peter's away, but I thought, perhaps, I'd ask Mr. Bethune—what do you think? It's on the 9th. A real dance." Madly she waltzed her mother round.
"Stop, Jill!" Mrs. Uniacke laughed—the girl's gaiety was infectious. She dropped breathless into a chair, Jill on her knees by her side.
"Isn't it ripping?" She pulled off her cap and threw it neatly on the bed, her dark, ruffled hair like a cloud round her excited, pretty face.
"Jill—your hat!" Her mother frowned.
"Well, it's so old—it can't hurt—and rabbit skin!"
Her happy laugh took the sting out of the words.
"But that reminds me—about my frock...? I've not a single thing to wear."
"And what about your white muslin?" An anxious look crept into Jill's eyes at the note in Mrs. Uniacke's voice.
"Oh—Mother—I can't ... not to Judy's party! And it's so short—up to my knees." She sighed. "I wish I'd stop growing. I let it down, with a false hem, you remember—when Aunt Elizabeth came here?"
"It will have to do." Unconsciously, her mother glanced across the room to the locked drawer where the cheque lay, signed and payable to Stephen.
Jill drew away slightly. She clasped her hands round her knees, with a sombre face, staring down at her mended shoes and a darn in her stocking.
"Then I can't go." Her voice was hard. "I won't wear that old frock. It's so tight over the chest I can hardly breathe." She bit her lips.
Mrs. Uniacke, watching her, wavered. "You could make a fichu, couldn't you? I could find you a piece of lace, perhaps—and add a frill?"
Jill scowled.
"Sounds like an early Victorian picture." She rose to her feet. "With a crinoline and black mittens—thanks, awfully. I'll tell Judy the party's off."
This was the mood her mother disliked—slangy and impertinent. So she summed it up to herself, resenting her daughter's manner.
"It's entirely your own fault if you do. I am quite prepared to help you, Jill. We could easily alter the frock between us. It isn't as if you were really 'out.'"
Jill gave her a quick glance.
"I could make one myself for thirty shillings—I know I could. And it isn't much. I haven't had a new dress this year..." Her grey eyes were wistful.
"It can't be done." At this fresh attack Mrs. Uniacke's mouth tightened—"there's Roddy to think of beside yourself..."
"To say nothing of Stephen's expenses?"
The words escaped Jill against her will. Little she guessed their significance, but Mrs. Uniacke flushed crimson. For a moment she could have boxed Jill's ears.
"That will do." She turned away and, with hands that shook, took up her work, leaning over the torn skirt, her back turned to her daughter.
Jill closed the door behind her. She stood for a moment on the stairs, her dark brows drawn together, her mouth a narrow scarlet line.
"Oh!" she said—"I'd like ... I'd like——" she stamped her foot—"to murder Stephen!"