Sally Bishop. E. Temple Thurston
her.
"I don't know—Turkey red, I think—that's warmest. You know my carpet—well, it used to be nice. It's worn a bit now and there's not so much colour in it as when it was new. That was Turkey red."
"And what else?" He sat on the corner of an old table and smoked his pipe—swinging his legs and looking at her.
"Well, I'd have electric lights instead of these candles—you can't expect a woman to see with candles;—'lectric light's twice as cheap and it's much brighter. And they make lovely new fittings now—quite inexpensive—oxidized copper, I think they call it; I like brass best myself."
"You think brass is better?"
"Yes; don't you? Those brass candlesticks that you've got are all right, only they're so plain."
"You like things more ornate?"
"More what?"
"More ornate—more highly finished—more elaborate?"
"Yes; don't you?"
He took no notice of that question. "What else would you do?" he asked. The smoke curled up in clouds from the bowl of his pipe as he sat listening to her.
She looked round the room contemplatively.
"Oh—lots of things," she said. "I'd have a sofa—one of those settee sort of things—"
"Upholstered in red?"
"Yes—to go with the carpet. And a comfortable armchair—really comfortable, I mean—something that you could chuck your legs about it—less like a straight jacket than this thing I'm sitting in."
"Upholstered in red?" he repeated.
"Um—of course."
"Then how about this wall-paper?" he questioned. "It's green—do you think that would go with all the red?"
She looked round the walls, then tried to blur her eyes in an effort to give scope to her imagination. She put her whole heart into it. This was the chance of her life. Thrilling through her, like some warm current that forces its way through cold water, was the consciousness that she was making him seriously consider the benefits of having a woman to live with him, to look after his needs, attend to his comforts, as she pictured herself so well able to do. After due deliberation, she delivered her opinion.
"I don't think the green would go so badly as you'd think," she said slowly—"I suppose it would be expensive to change. But red would look better of course."
He took his pipe out of his mouth and blew a long scroll of smoke from between his lips as he looked at her.
"In fact," he said at last—"you'd like to make this little room of mine look like hell."
It was a brutal thing to have said. Yet he knew her mind no more than she knew his. He knew but little of women. Her knowledge of men was limited to one point of view. When her flat had been newly decorated, newly furnished for her, she had boasted of its comforts to every man she met. Nearly all of them had said that they liked it. It was clean then, and all they had appreciated was the cleanliness. But she had not known that. She thought they had approved of her taste. So, with this narrow knowledge of the sex, she had made her bid for security and failed.
And he, when he saw the drop in her face, when he saw features and expression fall from the lofty height of anticipation as a pile of cards topple in a mass upon the table, he was sorry. Her mouth opened—gaped. She looked as if a flat hand had struck her.
"I don't mean that unkindly," he said—"but it would be hell—red hell—to me."
She sat and stared at him. "Can't understand you," she said at last.
"Why not?"
"What did you let me go on talking for?"
"It was rather amusing to compare your taste with mine."
"Amusing? God!"
She lifted herself to her feet and went across to the mantelpiece, leaning her elbows on it, her head in her hands. All her exhaustion had returned. She felt a thousand times more tired in that moment than when she had rested on the landing. All that afternoon she had been walking the streets—all that evening too. From Regent Street to Oxford Street, from Oxford Street to Bond Street, from Bond Street through the Burlington Arcade into Piccadilly, then over the whole course again, smiling cheerfully at this man, looking knowingly at that—all a forced effort, all a spurious energy; and pain throbbed in her limbs—a dominant note of pain. She could feel a pulse in her brain that kept time to it. These are the ecstatic pleasures of vice—the charms, the allurements of the gay life.
At last she turned round and faced him. "I don't want any of those damned red carpets and things," she said—"if you'll let me come and live with you—look after you."
She crossed the room and laid her hands heavily on his shoulders; bent towards him to kiss his lips.
"We should be sick to death of each other in a week," he said, meeting her eyes.
"No, we shouldn't."
He gazed steadily at her for a moment. "What makes you think I want any one to live here with me?" he asked curiously.
"I don't know—you do. I saw it the first second I entered the room. I felt it the first moment you asked me to come up here. You know you do yourself. You're sick of this—aren't you?"
"You're right there."
She nodded her head sententiously—proud of her perceptive ability. She wanted to go on saying other things that were just as true, showing how well she understood him; but she could think of nothing. Then she made the fatal mistake. She threw a guess at a hazard.
"And you thought when you saw me that I was just the girl you wanted. I saw that in your face when you turned round."
He smiled. "You've lost the scent," he said, drawing away from her hands. "Lost it utterly. And why do you want to come and live here? You're not fond of me. You don't care a rap for me. Are you hard up?"
Pride—self-respect—they are lost qualities in a lost woman. You must not even look for them. For the moment, she was silent, saying nothing; but there was no moaning of wounded vanity in the heart of her. Two questions were weighing out the issue. If she said she were hard-up, then all opportunity of gaining the chance would be lost. He would give her money—tell her to go. That would be all. If she refused to admit it, the opportunity—slight as it had become—would still be there. Which to do—which course to take? For a perceptible passing of time she rocked—a weary pendulum of doubt—between the two. Then she gave it.
"I'm dead broke," she said thickly.
She saw the last hope vanish with that—looked after it with a curl of bravado on her lip. Lifting her eyes to his, she knew it was gone. There, in the place of it, was the calculation of what he could spare—what he should give.
"How much do you want?" he asked.
The question was ludicrous to her. She wanted all she could get. Now that she had thrown away her chances of the future, her whole mind concentrated with uncontrolled desire upon the present.
"What's the good of asking me that?" she exclaimed bitterly. "I'll take what I can get. Reminds me of a girl—a friend of mine. She's an illegitimate child. Her father's pretty well off. She was down to the bottom of the bag the other day, so she went to her father and asked him for some money. 'My dear child,' he said—'I can't spare you a cent—I've just spent seven hundred and fifty pounds on a motor car—is a sovereign any good to you?'"
There was a bitter sense of humour in the story. She laughed at it—loud, uncontrolled laughter that rang as empty and as hollow as an echo.
"Give me what you can," she added. "Anything above a shilling's better than fourpence."
"Is that what you're down to?"
"Um—"