after she had written to john parfit, eve kept the promise she had made to kate duveen, but qualified her confession by an optimism that took the sting out of the truths that she had to tell. she made light of the massinger affair, even though she had some bitter things to say about miss champion. “one learns to expect certain savageries from the ordinary sort of man, but it shocks one when a woman makes you bear all the responsibility, so that she may not offend a patron. that was the really sordid part of the experience.” she hinted vaguely that someone wanted to marry her, but that she had no intention of marrying. she made light of her illness, and wrote of her financial experiences with cynical gaiety. “my landlady’s face is a barometer that registers the state of my weather. of late, the mercury has been low. another woman whom i can manage to pity! do not think that i am in a parlous and desperate state. i want to go through these experiences. they give one a sense of proportion, and teach one the value of occasional recklessness. we are not half reckless enough, we moderns. we are educated to be too careful. in future, i may contemplate adventures.”
it is probable that john parfit’s proposal and its psychological effects on her rallied her pride, for she threw off the lethargy of convalescence, and turned anew to meet necessity. john parfit had answered her letter by return, and he had succeeded in fully living up to his ideal of what was “sport.” “playing the game,”—that is the phrase that embodies the religion of many such a man as john parfit.
“nothing could have made me admire you more than the straight way you have written. nothing like the truth. it may be bitter, but it’s good physic. well, i shall be here. think it over. it’s the afterwards in marriage that counts, not the courting, and i’d do my best to make the afterwards what it should be.
“you’ll let me see you sometimes, won’t you? i shan’t bother you. i’m not a conceited ass, and i’ll wait and take my chance.”
march winds and more sunshine were in evidence, and the weather had a drier and more energetic temper. eve started out on expeditions. she took two rings, a gold watch, and a coral necklace to a pawnshop in holloway, and raised three pounds on the transaction. it amused her, tucking the pawn-ticket away in her purse. these last refuges are supposed to have a touch of the melodramatic, but she discovered that expectation had been harder to bear than the reality, and that just as one is disappointed by some eagerly longed for event, so the disaster that one dreads turns out to be a very quiet experience, relieved perhaps by elements of humour.
she paid mrs. buss’s weekly bill, and studied the woman’s recovered affability with cynical tolerance. mrs. buss still believed her to be on the way towards matrimony, and somehow a woman who is about to be married gains importance, possibly because other women wonder what she will make of that best and most problematical of states.
it is easy to raise money on some article of value, but it is a much harder matter to persuade people to offer money in return for the activities that we call work. eve went the round of the agencies without discovering anything that could be classed above the level of cheap labour. there seemed to be no demand for artistic ability. at least, she did not chance upon the demand if it happened to exist. her possibilities seemed to be limited to such posts as lady help or companion, posts that she had banned as the uttermost deeps of slavery. a factory worker was far more free. she could still contemplate sinking some of her pride, and starting life as a shop-girl, a servant, or a waitress.
at one agency the manageress, whose lack of patience made her tell the brusque truth on occasions, went so far as to suggest that eve might take a place as parlourmaid in a big house. she had a smart figure and a good appearance. some people were dispensing with menservants, and were putting their maids into uniform and making them take the place of butler and footman. the position of such a servant was preferable to the lot of a lady-help. wouldn’t eve think it over?
eve said she would. she agreed with the manageress in thinking that there were gleams of independence in such a life, especially when one had gained a character and experience, learnt to look after silver and to know about wines.
none the less, she was discouraged and rebellious, and on her way home after one of these expeditions, she fell in with john parfit. it was the man of six-and-forty who blushed, not eve. she had to help him over the stile of his self-consciousness.
“yes, i am ever so much better. won’t you walk a little way with me? i’ve had tea, and i thought of having a stroll round the fields.”
he put himself at her side with laborious politeness, and because of his shyness he could do nothing more graceful than blurt out questions.
“got what you want yet?”
“no, not yet.”
he frowned to himself.
“not worrying, are you?”
“i’m learning not to worry. nothing is as bad as it seems.”
he looked at her curiously, puzzled, and troubled on her account.
“it’s a matter of temperament. perhaps you are not one of the worrying sort.”
“but i am. one finds that one can learn not to worry about the things that just concern self. the thing that does worry us is the thought that we may make other people suffer any loss.”
he said bluntly, “bills?”
eve laughed.
“in brief, bills. but i am perfectly solvent, and i could get work to-morrow if i chose to take it.”
“but you don’t. it’s pride.”
“yes, pride.”
he walked on beside her in his solid, broad-footed way, staring straight ahead, and keeping silent for fully half a minute.
then he said abruptly:
“it hasn’t made any difference, you know.”
it was her turn to feel embarrassed.
“but you understood——”
“yes, i understood all right. but i want to say just this, i respect you all the more for having been straight with me, and if you’ll let me have a waiting chance, i’ll make the best of it. i won’t bother you. i’ve got a sense of proportion. i’m not the sort of man a woman would get sentimental over in a hurry.”
her eyes glimmered.
“you are one of the best men i have ever met. in a city of cads, it is good to find a man who has a sense of honour.”
he went very red, and seemed to choke something back.
“i shan’t forget that in a hurry. but look here, put the other thing aside, and let’s just think of ourselves as jolly good friends. now, i want you to let me do some of the rough and tumble for you. i’m used to it. one gets a business skin.”
“i am not going to bother you.”
“bosh! and if you happen to want—well, you know what, any of the beastly stuff we pay our bills with——”
she began to show her distress.
“don’t, please. i know how generously you mean it all, but i’m so made that i can’t bear to be helped, even by you. just now my pride is raw, and i want to go alone through some of these experiences. you may think it eccentric.”
he stared hard at nothing in particular.
“i don’t know. i suppose it’s in the air. women are changing.”
“no, don’t believe that. it’s only some of the circumstances of life that are changing, and we are altering some of our methods. that’s what life is teaching me. that’s why i want to go on alone. i shall learn so much more.”
“i should have thought that most people would fight shy of learning in such a school.”
“yes, and that is why most of us remain so narrow and selfish and prejudiced. we refuse to touch realities, and we won’t understand. i want to understand.”
he walked on, expanding his chest, and looking as though he were smothering a stout impulse to protest.
“all right; i see. anyway, i shall be round the corner. you won’t forget that, will you?”
“no, for you have helped me already.”
“have i?”
“of course. it always helps to be able to believe in someone.”
three days later eve rang for mrs. buss and had an interview with the woman. she was amused to find that she herself had hardened perceptibly, and that she could lock her sentiments away when the question was a question of cash.
her frankness astonished mrs. buss.
“i want to explain something to you. i mean to stay here for another three weeks, but i have no more money.”
the landlady gaped, not knowing whether this was humour or mere barefaced self-confidence.
“you’re going to be married, then?”
“no.”
“you say you haven’t any money, and you expect me——”
“there is the studio.”
“a shed like that’s no use to me.”
“it cost me about twenty-five pounds, with the stove and fittings, and it is only a few months old. it is made to take to pieces. shall i sell it, or will you? i was thinking that it might be worth your while.”
mrs. buss discovered glimmerings of reason. an incipient, sly smile glided round her mouth.
“oh, i see! you think i could drive a better bargain?”
“i do.”
the middle-class nature was flattered.
“you’ll be owing me about four pounds ten. and we might get twelve or thirteen pounds for the studio.”
it was studio now, not shed.
“yes. i shall pay your bill, and give you a fifteen per cent. commission on the sale. do you know anyone who might buy it?”
“i’m not so sure, miss, that i don’t.”
mrs. buss’s eyes were so well opened that she put on her bonnet, went round to a local builder’s, and, telling him a few harmless fibs, persuaded him to buy the studio and its stove for thirteen pounds ten. the builder confessed, directly they had completed the bargain, that the studio was the very thing a customer of his wanted. he said he would look round next day and see the building, and that if he found it all right, he would hand over the money. he came, saw, and found nothing to grumble at, and before the day was out he had resold the studio for twenty pounds, stating blandly that it had originally cost thirty-five pounds, and that it was almost new, and that the gentleman had got a bargain.
mrs. buss brought the money to eve, one five pound note, eight sovereigns, and ten shillings in silver, and eve handed over four pounds, and the commission.
“we can settle for any odds and ends when i go.”
“thank you, miss. i may say you have treated me very fairly, miss. and would you mind if i put up a card in the window?”
“no.”
“you see, it’s part of my living. if one loses a week or two, it’s serious.”
“of course.”
so a card with “apartments” printed on it went up in eve’s window, helping her to realise that the term of her sojourn in bosnia road was drawing to a close.
