CHAPTER V
When Madame Querterot left the cool, airy house, which reminded her so unpleasantly of one which was associated principally in her inmost consciousness with the sensation of corporal punishment applied in no niggardly spirit, she turned her steps towards her own home, which was situated in the remotest part of Pimlico.
By the time she got off her bus and set out on foot into the dreary labyrinth of dingy streets, in one of which she lived, the shadows were lengthening fast and the pavement was losing some of the blistering heat accumulated during the day. Madame Querterot climbed rather wearily the flight of steps before her door. When she entered the little shop where Julie sat sewing behind the counter, she passed through it without a word to her daughter, and going into the tiny room, which served as a sitting-room, threw herself into the one arm-chair with something like a groan.
Julie, whose smile of welcome had faded on her lips when she saw the expression on her mother’s face, bent again over her work, and for a little while all was still in the tiny, two-storied house.
There was not room for many customers in the shop. Julie often wondered what she would do if more than two came in at the same time, but such an embarrassing contingency had not so far occurred. Quite half the space was taken up by the counter, on which stood a tray containing hair-pins and hair-nets. In one corner a space was curtained off for such clients as should wish to have their hair dressed or washed. No one had as yet requested this last service. In the window Madame Querterot displayed a few superior articles which had survived the wreck of the Bond Street establishment.
There was a waxen lady, with fair hair wonderfully curled and twisted, who obscured the light a good deal as she stood with her shoulders disdainfully turned to the interior of the room and her snow white nose close against the plate glass, which separated her from the street. Plainly she felt it a come-down to look out on to this gloomy Pimlico roadway. Around her were strewn combs and brushes, bottles of brillantine and china pots containing creams for the complexion, curls and tails of false hair – in some cases attached to gruesome scalps of pink wax – and half a dozen elaborately carved tortoise-shell combs, which the luckless Eugène had invested in in a fit of mistaken enthusiasm shortly after his arrival in England, but which had never received so much as a comment or an inquiry as to price from any of those who had since looked on them.
They had remained, however, a source of pride to Madame Querterot, who would often remark to Julie what an air they bestowed.
Presently, after a glance at the clock, Julie put down her work and came to the door between the two rooms.
“You are back, mother,” she said, looking at her gravely.
“So it appears,” snapped her mother without raising her eyes.
“I am afraid you must be tired,” went on Julie calmly. “The day has been so hot. Will you not take a glass of lemonade before supper?”
“Have you got a lemon?” asked Madame Querterot somewhat less crossly.
“Yes,” said Julie.
She opened the cupboard and taking out a lemon, a tumbler, and a lemon squeezer, went about the business of preparing a cool drink for her heated parent.
“Has anyone bought anything to-day?” Madame Querterot asked when after a few minutes the beverage was handed to her. “Put a little more sugar in the glass.”
“A boy came in for a bottle of hair-oil,” replied Julie, “and a few women have bought hair-pins and hair-curlers. It has been a dull day.”
“We shall soon be in the street at this rate,” said Madame Querterot despairingly. “One cannot live on a few packets of hair-pins and a bottle of hair-oil. No. If only we could move to a fashionable locality. Here no one ever comes and we have but to die of hunger.”
“We haven’t been here very long. We may do better presently. It is the customers whom you massage that keep us from starvation.” Julie propped open the door into the shop and taking up her work sat down by the table in the parlour.
“Bah! Who knows how long they will continue? They have the skin of crocodiles, all of them. What can I do with it? Nothing. And in time they will find that out, and I shall be put to the door. What will happen then? You, I suppose, think you will be safe in your religious house. And your poor mother, you will be able to mock yourself of her then, hein!”
“Mother, you know I shall not leave you while you want me. I have not spoken of becoming a nun since father died, have I?”
“Your father!” exclaimed Madame Querterot with emotion. “Your father was a poltroon. No sooner did I need his assistance than he deserted me!”
“Mother!” cried Julie, and there was that in her tone which made Madame Querterot’s lamentations die away into inaudible mumblings.
The girl did not say any more, but went on quietly with her sewing, till after a while her mother rose to go upstairs.
At the door she paused.
“Bert is coming to supper,” she said over her shoulder. “You have not forgotten that it is to-night we go with him to the theatre? He will be here soon, I should think,” and she went on up the narrow stairs without waiting for an answer.
Half an hour later, when they sat down to a cold meal, which Julie had carefully prepared – for Madame Querterot was particularly fond of eating and had seen that her daughter early acquired the principles of good cookery – they had been joined by the guest to whom she had alluded.
This was a young man of anæmic aspect, with fair hair that lay rather untidily across a high, narrow forehead. His face, which was pale and thin, was not at first sight particularly prepossessing. The contour of it was unusually pointed, though the chin receded so much that it could hardly be said to exhibit a point. The mouth was weak and large and always half open, so that the teeth, stained brown by the smoking of continuous cigarettes, were not completely hidden when he talked under the straggling little moustache, the end of which he had an unpleasant habit of chewing. The nose was prominent and looked too large for the rest of his face, the eyes, dark and deep-set, seemed to flash with unsuspected fires when talk turned on a subject that interested him. It was they that redeemed the whole man from total insignificance. They were the eyes of an enthusiast, almost of a fanatic. He did not talk much, but seemed content to devour the food set before him and to gaze untiringly at Julie who sat opposite him at the small square table.
Julie was a very good-looking girl in her way, which was not at all an English way, although the English language came more naturally to her lips than her mother tongue. To tell the truth, she was not very proficient in that, her mother and father having both found it easier, after she began to go to school, to talk to her in broken English. Indeed, after twenty years or so of residence in London that language became as natural to them as their own tongue, and Madame Querterot’s French had by now grown quite as anglicised as that of many linguists in her adopted country. She found, however, that many of her customers preferred her to talk in broken English; they liked to feel that here was some one come straight from the gay city to do their pleasure.
Her daughter inherited her mother’s oval face and arched eyebrows, but there the likeness ceased. Julie was tall while Madame Querterot was short; she was dark, while her mother was fair, and of a fairness that owed nothing to art. Julie had a straight, short nose and a little rosebud of a mouth, her skin was dark but glowing with health, and the brown eyes, set far apart under the low brow, had a wide-open look of sorrowful surprise as if she found herself in a world that failed continually to come up to her expectations. Bert, it was plain to see, found all this very much to his liking, and was so taken up with the contemplation of it that a great deal of Madame Querterot’s conversation fell unheeded on his ears, and his answers, when he made any, were for the most part quite irrelevant.
Madame Querterot had by this time completely recovered her good temper, or at all events displayed the amiability habitual to her in intercourse with strangers. She prattled away about the weather, the letter she had that day received from her relations in Paris, asked about Bert’s work, and showed, and possibly felt, great interest in his meagre replies. Presently she began to talk about the occupation of her own day.
“There is an old lady whom I visit for the massage,” she said, “who would make you laugh to see. She is ugly, she is fat, she has the complexion of a turkey! Yet there is no one so anxious as she to become young again. Was she ever beautiful? I do not know; but it is certain that she will not be so again. Every day I find her with a mirror in her hand and every day as I leave her she takes it up again to see if there is any improvement. For all I know she sits like that, gazing at her unsympathetic reflection till the next day when I come once more.”
Madame Querterot paused and took a draught of her lemonade.
“A little more sugar, Julie, my cherished, and it would be better still,” she said. “In this country sugar is less dear and you are unnecessarily careful of it. If we were in France I would not say so; there, there are impôts. But this, one must admit it, is the cheapest place one can live in. That is why one finds here so many Jews. Bah! the Jews! Why does one suffer them? In England as in France one sees nothing else; but even more in England since l’affaire Dreyfus. There is one lady to whom I go daily who would gladly live in France, I think, if it had not become less disagreeable for her race here since that business. But perhaps it is not only on that account that she stays here, now that I reflect. She is not one of those who amuse themselves well in a republic.”
“How is that, mother?” asked Julie without much interest, while their guest, for his part, merely grunted indifferently.
“She is more than a Royalist,” said Madame Querterot; “she loves to see a head which knows how it feels to wear a crown. She goes every day to watch the Queen drive through the park. Mon Dieu! I think she lives only for that. To-day a Prince passed below her window, and as chance had it he looked up at her as he went. She was mad with joy; one would have said it was the happiest hour of her existence. She said nothing, but I have my eyes! And it is a woman who has everything to make her enjoy life. She is not bad-looking, not at all bad-looking; for a Jewess, even handsome; she is still young, and rich. Oh, but rich!”
Madame Querterot put down her knife and fork and raised both hands in the air to convey the extent of the wealth enjoyed by the lucky Jewess.
For the first time Bert displayed some interest in the conversation, or monologue, as one might more properly call it.
“It’s disgraceful,” he said, “it ought to be put a stop to. These people! They suck the blood of the poor!”
“The Jews, yes; it is their métier,” agreed Madame Querterot.
“I don’t refer to the Jew especially. What I’m alluding to at the present moment is all these useless rich folk. The drones of the hive, as you may say. These bloated capitalists who occupy the land that ought by rights to jolly well belong to the people. They’d better look out for themselves, I can tell them. There’s a day coming when society won’t stand it any longer. In other words, we’re going to drive them out. Tax them out of their very existence. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Bert glared triumphantly round as he brought his hand down on the table with a conclusive emphasis which made the glasses on the table jump nervously.
“This Mrs. Vanderstein of whom I speak,” resumed Madame Querterot composedly, “has no land so far as I know. She has only a house in London. But she is rich all the same. One sees it at each step. In the house, what luxury! Such pictures! such furniture! such flowers! And automobiles, and boxes at the opera! Such dresses! And above all, such jewels! Oh, she is very rich, that one.”
“It’s all the same,” declared Bert, “whether she spends her money on land, or on clothes, or what not. The point I want to impress on you is that she does spend it, and that while she’s living on the fat of the land the rest of us may starve!”
He helped himself as he spoke to another plateful of œufs à la neige.
Julie watched him, the shadow of a smile playing about her mouth.
“Have you seen this lady’s jewels, mother?” she asked. “I adore precious stones.”
“I have seen some of them,” said her mother. “To-night her maid brought to her a necklace and bracelets of diamonds, besides a coiffure and rings of great beauty, no doubt without price. But she sent them away again, saying that she would wear others. Those I did not see, but it is certain that she has many, and all wonderful. Every day she wears different ones and, constantly, a string of enormous pearls. Without those last I have never seen her. They are as large as marbles and, to tell the truth, not much more pretty, for my taste. When I tell you that she employs a night watchman, whose sole duty is to patrol the house every night, you will understand that the value of what it contains must be large.”
“That’s just what these capitalists do,” cried Bert excitedly. “They lock away thousands of pounds like that when the money ought to be out in the world paying just and equal wages. I should like to see it made a criminal offence to wear jewellery.”
“But what would happen to the people who make it?” asked Julie. “They would all lose their means of earning a livelihood, is it not so? What would the pearl fisher do, or those who dig precious stones out of the earth? And the polishers and setters? Every industry has a host depending on it for a demand for its labour.”
“There would be less need for labour,” said Bert more gently, as was always the case when he spoke to her, “if the money was taken from the capitalists and divided among the people.”
“Still – ” objected Julie again.
Madame Querterot, however, did not propose to listen to an argument on the benefits to be expected from Socialism; she had frequently heard all that Bert had to say on the subject, and it had bored her very considerably. She pushed back her chair and stood up.
“It is half-past seven,” she said, “we must put on our hats for the theatre. It begins at nine, but we shall take twenty minutes getting there, and I want to have good places. Come and get ready, Julie.”
CHAPTER VI
The two women went upstairs; Bert lit a cigarette, and retired to smoke in the tiny yard behind the house. Soon he heard footsteps descending, and hastily throwing away his cigarette he entered the little room again just as Julie came into it. She had been quicker than her mother.
Bert did not waste time in preambles. He knew he only had a few minutes at the best.
“Joolie,” he began hurriedly, “why do you never let me see you alone? Will you never be any nicer to me?”
“Aren’t I nice to you, Bertie? I don’t mean not to be.”
“You know quite well what I mean. I want you to like me better. Oh, Joolie, you haven’t a notion how fond I am of you. It seemed to come over me all of a sudden that day we walked in the Park, when your mother for once didn’t come with us. And since then I haven’t had a moment’s peace. Not a single solitary moment. Wherever I look, whether it’s going to the office, or at my work, or after it’s done, I seem to see nothing but you, Joolie, and I don’t want to see anything else either.”
He moved closer to her and she retreated instinctively.
“Don’t be afraid! I won’t touch you,” he said with a certain bitterness. “I know you can’t bear the sight of me, but I’d give my life to make you happy.”
“Oh, Bert,” she said, and her tone was full of contrition. “It isn’t true that I can’t bear the sight of you. I like you very much, I do indeed. We are such old friends. And it is so nice of you to like me so much, but why can’t we go on just being friends?”
“Joolie, Joolie,” cried the young man. “You don’t understand. I love you, Joolie. I love you so much, dear! Don’t you think you could marry me some day? There, I didn’t mean to ask you now,” he went on quickly, seeing the look on the girl’s face, “don’t answer me now. I know what you’re going to say and I can’t bear to hear it. Wait a while and perhaps I shall be able to get you to care for me in time.”
Before she could reply Madame Querterot’s foot was on the stair, and in another moment she came in smiling and arrayed in her best.
They set out without further delay and proceeded by a succession of buses to the Strand. Descending there, they made their way into one of the neighbouring streets and took their places in a queue of people who were already waiting for the doors of the theatre to open.
Though not by any means the first to enter, they secured good places in the pit and settled down in them to await the beginning of the performance, each of them, in his or her different way, prepared to enjoy the evening to the utmost.
When at length the curtain rose they followed the fortunes of the characters with a breathless intensity of interest, and the play itself formed the subject of a heated discussion afterwards, which lasted all the way home, Julie maintaining that an honest course was always desirable whatever excuses might be adduced for other conduct.
Bert and Madame Querterot held, it appeared, more elastic opinions, Bert declaring that there were people it was a sin to leave in possession of their ill-gotten gains, and Madame Querterot inclining to the view that if anyone was so stupid as not to be able to keep what they had, small blame need attach to those who were clever enough to take it from them.
She upheld this contention by pointing out that no one did blame the gentleman burglar who formed the central figure of the play; the heroine herself, who was assuredly in a high degree the pattern of all the virtues, had easily forgiven his little lapses, slips which had been made entirely for her sake.
“For my part,” she asserted, “I admire a man of that sort. Not that it is common to find one like him. Most men have too high a regard for the safety of their own skins. But one must admit that the young girl, for whom this brave man took all those risks, was of no ordinary beauty. It is possible that if there were more like her there would also be more lovers, young and ardent, ready to chance prison and the gallows to win the wealth that should make her theirs. Ah, there is no chivalry nowadays,” and Madame Querterot heaved a heavy sigh. Possibly she was thinking of the base way in which Eugène had deserted her in the hour of need.
“Wealth is not always enough,” said Bert disconsolately, “and, anyhow, wealth is an abomination and a snare. In the ideal socialistic state there won’t be any such thing. All riches will be equally divided and every one will have enough to live on, but no more. Anyone who wants luxuries will just have to work for them.”
“You look too far ahead, my young friend,” returned Madame Querterot philosophically. They were walking up the dark streets that led to her house, Bert having insisted on seeing them home in spite of protests as to the lateness of the hour and the necessity for his getting up early next morning.
“You have brains,” she continued, “and you use them, which is not too general. But in this world it is a mistake to show that one is clever. The stupid only dislike one for differing from them in a way that they cannot understand, and clever people actually hate others who dare in this manner to resemble them. If you wish to be loved it is best to appear foolish. No one desires a lover too intelligent to care for their opinions. If you wish to obtain respect do not show yourself unusually brilliant. You will only be thought eccentric or even mad. And finally if you want to make money never allow anyone to suspect that you are not perfectly an idiot. People will be on their guard if they think they have to do with a clever man, but if they think you a fool precautions will seem unnecessary and it will be very easy for you to deal with them to your own advantage.”
Bert listened to these remarks with more attention than he usually displayed.
“Do you really think a man has more chance with a girl if he is foolish and rich?” he asked in a low tone. They were walking behind Julie, the pavement having narrowed so as to make it impossible to continue three abreast.
Madame Querterot slackened her pace and fell back a little.
“Run on, Julie, my angel,” she called out, “and prepare me a cup of coffee. I feel a kind of faintness and will walk more slowly if Bertie will give me his arm.”
Bert made a gesture of annoyance, and would have left her in pursuit of Julie, who hurried on as she was told, but Madame Querterot clutched at his arm and held him back.
“Stay with me, I wish to speak to you,” she said, clinging so tightly to him that without roughness he could not have shaken her off.
“What is it? I want to speak to Joolie,” he said crossly.
“You can speak to her any time; listen to me now. You asked me a minute ago if I thought one had more chance with a girl if one was rich.”
“Yes.” He spoke with returning interest. “You do think so, I suppose?”
“Bert, let me speak. I must tell you that for some time I have seen clearly that you have a tenderness for my daughter. You wish to marry her, is it not so?”
“It is the only wish of my life.”
“It is easy to see. You show it in each word, in your whole manner towards her. But let me tell you, my friend, that in my country it is not only the consent of a young girl that is sought by a would-be husband. It would have been more convenable if you had approached me, her mother, in this matter.”
“Madame Querterot, will you help me? Joolie doesn’t seem to care about me. Is there any other man?”
“There is no other man. Julie has an absurd idea of entering into a religious house, but she is a dutiful daughter and will not go against my wishes in that or any other matter. As regards this question of marriage she will, I am convinced, be guided by me. Ah, how she loves me, that child! There is nothing she would not do to please me. I say to you that Julie is not a girl. She is an angel!”
“I know that,” grunted Bert; “if you’ll help me with her, Madame Querterot, and there’s ever anything I can do to show my gratitude, why, you can take it that I’ll do it, that’s all.”
“Ah, Bert, now is the time to prove that. Words, words, words! But if it came to the point what would you do, not to show gratitude, but to win the hand of Julie? That is what I ask myself.”
“I’d do anything. By Jove, I believe there’s nothing I would stick at.”
“Very well. Now, with me as your friend and ally I think you might make certain that my daughter will consent to the marriage. But I, Bert, will never agree to her marrying a poor man. I have other ideas for her, I assure you.”
“You know I am poor,” said Bert. “I despise riches, but for Joolie I wouldn’t raise an objection to them if they were in my reach. But you know very well I shall always be poor as long as this beastly capitalist government has its own way. Some day perhaps things will change.”
“Bert,” said Madame Querterot, dropping her voice, “it is yourself who have suggested to me a way by which one might become rich. Supposing I were to tell you that I had a plan; that I knew a way by which in a flash you might gain both riches and Julie, and at the same time show your faith in the truth of your own gospel? What then, Bert? Have you a little courage, my boy? Girls do not understand your modern ideas, that every one should be of an equal poverty; they like to have money, they like what money can give them. Did you not hear Julie say this evening that she adored jewels?”
They had reached the door of the shop and Bert turned towards it without answering. But Madame Querterot made as if to continue their walk, and after a moment’s hesitation he turned and paced beside her.
“I would give her all the diamonds in the world,” he said, “if she wanted them and I could get them for her. What do you suppose I care for my ideas, as you call them? Nothing! Oh, nothing matters beside Joolie! Still, I’m hanged,” said Bert, “if I can see what you’re driving at.”
“I see a way,” replied his companion, “of doing a little good business. For it I need the assistance that a young man like yourself can give. Some one with courage, with determination, and who will not be discouraged by a few apparent difficulties. But to succeed the affair must be kept secret. It is indeed of the most private character. Before I say more, swear to me by your love for Julie that you will die before you repeat a word of what I am going to tell you.”
“I swear it,” said Bert solemnly.
Madame Querterot gave one more quick, penetrating glance at his pale face and, apparently reassured by the light that burned in the dark eyes, began to talk again in low, persuasive tones as they paced up and down before the little house.
Julie came to the door and cried to them that the coffee was ready; then despairing of an answer she retired to her bedroom, where a light burned for a little while; presently it was extinguished, and Julie in a few minutes was peacefully asleep.
But still her mother and her lover walked and turned on the pavement beneath her window.