But anyhow, cramped and squalid and dingy though 9 Greville Street might be, it held security and peace.
"The Snuggery, that's what we call it at fifty-one," said Miss Clegson, who sometimes looked in to rally them.
Fifty-one was getting less of a snuggery than ever. Fifty-one, Peter feared, was going down the hill. The Berovieri goblet had made a little piece of level road for it, but that was soon over, and the descent began again. Peggy, try as she would, could not make both ends meet. Hilary, despise his job as he might, found it slipping from him more and more. Week by week he seemed to earn a little less; week by week they seemed to spend a little more. Peggy, as Hilary had frequently remarked, was not a good manager. One or two of the boarders left, to seek more commodious quarters elsewhere. More frequently, as the winter advanced, Peggy wailed, "Whatever is to become of us, dear only knows! What with Larry drinking pints of cough-syrup, and Micky rolling in the gutter in his best suit, and Norah, the creature, letting the crockery fly about as if it was alive, and Hilary insisting on the table cloth being cleaner than it ever is, and the boarders having to have food they can eat, and now Lent's coming on and half of them don't take any notice of it but eat their joints just the same, bad manners to them for heretics. Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear!"
Whenever Peter could spare any money he gave it to Peggy. But his own fortunes were not exactly on the make. He was not proving good at his job. Recommended to his employers by Leslie, he had begun, of course, on a very small salary, to learn his trade; he hadn't so far learnt enough of it to justify his promotion. Every day he went through the same drudgery, with the same lack of intelligence,—(it is odd how discernment and talent in one trade serve so little for another)—and every week came home with the same meagre sum.
As far as he hated anything, he hated this work of his; long ago, had he been alone concerned, he would have dropped it, and taken to tramping the roads with boot-laces to sell, or some other equally unstrenuous and unlucrative avocation. But he had not, from the first, been alone concerned; first he had had to help Hilary and Peggy, and now he had to keep a wife too. Eventually there would probably be also children to keep; Peter didn't know how much these cost, but vaguely believed them to be expensive luxuries. So there seemed no prospect of his being able to renounce his trade, though there was a considerable prospect of its renouncing him, as he was from time to time informed.
The winter dragged quietly through, and the spring came; the queer London ghost of spring, with its bitter winds and black buds and evasive hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change. Peter dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible. Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So Peter hinted to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see her more often, and Peggy made what time she could to come round. Their circle of friends was limited; they chiefly consisted of the inhabitants of fifty-one, and a few relatives of Rhoda's, who amused and pleased Peter but vexed Rhoda by being common.
"But I like them," said Peter.
"You like to see me put to shame, I suppose," said Rhoda, with tears in her eyes. "As if it was my fault that my parents came of common people. I've cried myself sick over it sometimes, when I was younger, and now I just want to forget it."
Peter said no more. It was one of the sides of Rhoda with which he felt he had no connexion; it was best let alone, as Peter always let alone the things he could not like. But he was sorry she felt like that, for her nice, common, friendly relations might have been company for her.
Peter sometimes brought friends home from his office; Peter could not have been in an office without collecting friends, having the social instinct strongly developed. But Rhoda didn't much care about seeing his fellow-clerks; they hadn't, she was sure, great minds, and they made silly jokes.