"Out," said Sally, bluntly. Unheeding the outcry that followed, she was out of the door and down the stairs before her mother could check her; and with a new ugly sense of revolt was on her way to see Mrs. Perce in a mood of reckless despair. Left alone, Mrs. Minto washed feebly up, and sighingly dried the cups and plates and rearranged them in the cupboard. Presently she sat in a limp curve over the fire, in a kind of stupor, dreaming of she knew not what. Every now and then she would give a jerk in anger at Sally's rudeness and recently uncontrollable highhandedness, which recurred to her attention whenever her thoughts touched reality. For the rest she sat motionless, until the coal-blocks subsided and the fire went black.
x
Out in the dark streets, Sally was as if enveloped. First she looked this way and that for Toby; but he was gone. A wave of hysteria passed over her. She hated him. She hated him for such loutish cruelty. He didn't care. And because he did not care, although she tried to feel indifferent, she loved him the more. Blindly she walked away from the house, and heard the trams grinding, and the rattle of carts over the rough paving. Holloway Road at this point is at its worst—dull and ugly, with an air of third-rate respectable indigence. She crossed the road, and passed into a squalid thoroughfare called Grove Road, and marched past the ugly houses with her head in the air, pretending that she had no interest whatever in Toby. All her thoughts were busy inventing indifference; and her consciousness was at each turn confusing and contradicting her thoughts. If solitude had been possible to her, Sally would have cried; but as a rule she cried very little, both because she was rarely alone and because she was not naturally hysterical. Fighting, therefore, against what she felt to be weakness, she proceeded on her way, trying to laugh at rival butchers shouting insults and challenges across the street. At the post office near her old home she changed her open postal-order, and was given a half-sovereign and ten shillings-worth of silver. This money she carefully put, in paper, inside her blouse. She was then ready for her interview.
At the old address new tenants already occupied the first floor flat, and Mr. Clancy stood at the gate smoking his pipe. The man who lived in the ground floor flat next door still showed his glass-covered sign "Why Pay Rent?" Children littered the few inches of asphalt which served as front garden to the two houses. Seeing Sally, Mr. Clancy took his pipe out of his mouth, spat, and nodded at her in a friendly way.
"Hello, Sally. Keepin' well? Look fine."
"I've come to see Mrs. Perce— Mrs. Barrow, you know."
Mr. Clancy jerked his head, receptive of the news, and as Sally passed him continued to smoke and to regard the traffic. He must have been bitterly cold, she thought; but she knew he must be standing outside either because Mrs. Clancy was out or because she was in. The stairs were just as steep as of old, and as dark. Sally had absolutely no memory of her father's fall. She was merely curious about the new people in the flat. But she did not see them, for all the doors were closed, and she kicked her feet against the stairs, stumbling a little in the darkness.
At her further progress a door flew open above, and Mrs. Perce looked out.
"Sally! Well I never!" she ejaculated. "Perce! Here's Sally come to see you!" Perce's reply did not reach Sally, but there was an exchanged kiss with Mrs. Perce, and then her coat and hat were off and she was conscious of overpowering warmth and kippers and a general sizzle of comfort and plenty. "Had your tea?" demanded Mrs. Perce. "Have another. Come on. Plenty of kippers. Perce! Sally's eating your kippers!"
Perce appeared, rubbing the back of his neck with a towel—a large fair red-faced man with a broad grin. He put his hand on Sally's shoulder, and shook her. Then he went out of the room again, and Sally began almost immediately upon the feast. It was such a jolly, cosy, close room, so bright and gaudy in its decoration, that it was Sally's idea of what a kitchen should be. The walls were a varnished brown, so that they shone in the lamplight. Polished candlesticks stood by a shiny clock on the mantelpiece. There were bright pictures and a brilliant lamp and a glittering tablecloth covered with polished dishes and silver. She had a great admiration for old Perce and Mrs. Perce. They both loved comfort and food and drink, and both had hearty laughs that showed all their teeth. Both had shrewd, glistening, money-engrossed eyes; both were large and stout and cheerful and noisy. To anybody as young as Sally noise goes a long way towards cheeriness, because it deadens thought. So when old Perce came and took his place at the table she suddenly threw off her despair with the volatility of childhood, and laughed aloud and ate and drank, and made sly remarks, until she became an altogether different Sally from the one who had taken an earlier tea with her mother. She was now in high spirits. All sorts of funny things came into her head—things she had seen and thought since their last meeting; and when she repeated them the Barrows laughed in great roars that filled her with conceited exultation. It was so long since she had laughed. It was so long since she had fed properly. This was like a dream, a riotous dream of noise and colour. She looked from old Perce's red face to Mrs. Perce's almost equally florid cheeks, her eyes travelling like dragon-flies, as bright and eager as possible.