Summer Will Show (36 page)

Other workers were squatting on the floor, sorting the scrap, sawing it up for melting. They were of all ages, as many women as men, and their intent and weary expressions gave her the impression that they were all of the same cast of features, that, however long she stayed and looked at them, she would not be able to distinguish between one and another, carry away with her the recollection of any face that was not a composite face.

The gas-jets flared against this general colouring of drab and dusky with the imperious hue of another element; and over all the room hovered the taint of metal smoke. In this lighting, pale faces, red hands, seemed alike livid and unreal. Glancing back at Martin she saw that his face wore the stamp of all the other faces, was intent and weary, and insignificant.

Catching her eye, “Our bakery,” he said, with a little bow. “I hope you will give us your custom.”

The quip sounded hollow and conscientious. It was clear that he had thought of it some time before, had decided to say it, had forgotten it till this moment when it bolted from his lips. No one laughed. The moulders, the men squatting on the floor, went on with their work, still cutting her dead.

How awful for him, she thought. He has got me here, God knows why, and now he doesn’t know how to get rid of me.

And she felt a profound uneasiness, a painful sense of guilt. It seemed terrible to her that this man, so resilient and peremptory, should stand there looking awkward, making jokes that fell flat. For the first time in her life she found no comfort in her sense of the ridiculous. For nearly a week she had been thinking, on and off, of Martin, and always thinking highly of him, more and more highly. Now the bubble was to be pricked; and it was as though she awaited the end of a world.

Well, there was no use in hanging about, waiting to be assured that he was a weakling, just like all the other people in this revolution. She must say something tactful, tactful and feminine, and get away as soon as possible.

“I understand why your young friend goes round with a rag-and-bone barrow.”

“Yes. But it is not a perfect method. The scrap has to be paid for — and we have other things to buy, things that must be bought. Besides, he has to accept a lot of other rubbish, that is inconvenient too.”

“I know. Whatever one wants, one always has to accept a great deal of rubbish along with it.”

“How strong are you?” he asked. “Could you carry that basket there?”

It was astonishingly weighty. As she lifted it she saw a woman turn from her work and watch her superciliously. Mettled, she gave herself more carefully to balancing the basket, walked across the cellar with it, and had the pleasure of seeing the woman’s expression change to surprise.

“In your quarter,” he continued, “there must be a great deal of scrap lying about. A bit picked up here, a bit there — between the two of you in a week you could collect a passable deal.”

He watched her silence.

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t change your laundry. The Alpine Laundry does excellent work.

“Don’t carry too much to begin with,” he recommended. “And don’t let Madame Lemuel accompany you. She would probably wish to tie a handkerchief over her head and walk barefoot. That sort of thing would estrange the other clients of the laundry.”

Meanwhile she was still holding the basket of scrap, and on her hand the veins were standing out blue and swollen. The set indifference of her countenance, too, was rapidly turning into a glare. Now he took the basket from her, saying, “Don’t attempt to carry as much as that. You don’t want chivalrous strangers offering to help you.”

“When shall I come?” she said.

“As soon as you please. But come regularly. And wrap up the stuff so that it doesn’t clatter. And call for the clean clothes four days later. We will leave you to supply your own basket.”

“Thank you,” she said, already with the sourness of the conscript.

“Thank
you
. I assure you, you will be doing us a considerable service. We are abominably short of helpers, or it would not have occurred to me to ask you.”

“I understand. Now I think I had better go. I don’t want to waste your time.”

“I will see you up the ladder.”

His tone was bland, he was working like a well-oiled machine, smoothly, swiftly, powerfully.

As long as you never make another joke — she said to herself. At the foot of the ladder, “What shall I do at the top?” she enquired childishly.

“They’re waiting for you,” he said. “Nine rungs.”

And he was politely removing himself from her ankles when she demanded,

“Do you all come up and down this ladder?”

“Good Lord, no!”

The trap swung open, the smell of steam, the whistle and gush of the pump, came about her once more. Mademoiselle Martin brushed her skirts down, looked over them attentively for any cobwebs or filings.

“I have decided to bring my linen to your laundry. Will you please tell the proprietress?”

“I am so glad,” answered Mademoiselle Martin. “If you will leave the linen with Madame Goulet in the shop she will see to it.”

In the office she looked at the clock (her watch had been pawned some while since). It was eleven — there was time to get back to the rue de la Carabine before Frederick should arrive. But instead she went and sat in the church of St. Paul, trying, among the shuffling Masses, the in-and-out of worshippers, to settle her thoughts. Instead, she fell asleep, and did not get to the rue de la Carabine until well after midday.

But though her thoughts were unsettled still, sleep had perfectly tidied up her sensations. And there was no affectation, only a genuine tactlessness, in the calm with which she walked in and said,

“Well, I have had a very interesting morning.”

“And a nice cup of tea? For pity’s sake, Sophia, do ruffle your hair a little. Frederick has only just gone, spare me any more English phlegm.”

“How is he?”

“Oh, very sleek. Very manly, too. He didn’t bring any flowers this time, not for either of us. But I shouldn’t be surprised if he sends us each a magnanimous shawl. The way he let his eyes stray round this room, Sophia ... the hole in the sofa, the hole in my stocking, the patches on the wall where the trophies were — every glance a fig-leaf.”

“Is that why you brought in the sausage-paper and left it on the table?”

“Yes. But I got into my best clothes before he arrived, except the stockings, he interrupted me there. But I wore gloves all through the interview. I hope you think I look well? — And do you see how beautifully I’ve polished the mirror and the chairs? Well, in he came, and pretended to be sorry to miss seeing you, but really he was immensely relieved. And, Sophia! He’s a Bonapartist now.”

“No doubt that will make a great difference to Europe. Has he changed his hatter too?”

“No, you’re wrong. It’s more significant than that. People like Frederick, people who are perfectly secure and never do anything, never range themselves on one side or another, are good guessers. Just as when you are very rich you always win in the lottery. I don’t like it at all, Frederick being a Bonapartist.”

“Minna. Does it never occur to you that I am one of those people who never do anything, never range themselves on one side or another?”

“No. If you were, you would never have been so angry on the night of the twenty-third of February.”

It was the first time either of them had spoken of that night, tact, sometimes, or prudence, at other times the inattention which happiness has for its past, turning away their talk from the subject.

“I was angry with you, disillusioned with you.”

“Not only with me. For you have forgiven me, but you have never forgiven the Revolution. If you were one of those people who never take sides, it would have been all one to you whether that volley was stage-managed or no.”

“Should it have been?”

Minna’s hands washed themselves.

“How can I answer? How can one tell? But I can assure you that those Communists you have been among would not hesitate at much more drastic dealings. Tell me, what did Martin say, what happened?”

“He asked me to change my laundry. And to collect bits of old iron we found lying about.”

“Oh! For ammunition!”

In her exclamation was excitement, pleasure at the device, pride at so instantly unriddling it; and at the same time an after-sigh of resignation, despairing acceptance.

“So it will come to that.”

She rose, walked about the room, went to the window and stared out as though already there were blood on the cobbles. Then she came back, took Sophia’s hand, kissed her gravely.

“You have not asked what I said to his suggestion.”

“I need not, my dear. It is exactly what would suit you, it is practical, arduous, and rather dangerous. What intuition he has, that Martin!”

She walked about again, sighing, shaking her head. Then she put on her bonnet, took down the shopping bag.

“What do you want, where are you going?”

“To look for scrap iron. I seem to remember an old bell-pull that some children were playing with in the square.”

“You can’t do it in broad daylight.”

Minna winked. “Can’t I? When I was young I could have stolen the hem off your petticoat.”

Thieving did Minna a great deal of good. She began to resume those sleek and sumptuous airs which she had worn as by right on the evening when Sophia first arrived at the rue de la Carabine, but since then only fitfully and incompletely. My poor darling, thought Sophia, I must have been constraining her to respectability without knowing it — all this time she has been pining in my bleak northern climate. For it seemed to her that Minna was thieving for theft’s sake, and with very little attention to the claims of the Alpine Laundry; and sometimes she speculated on the odd concatenation between Minna’s beaming delight over some especially neat filch and the end appointed for these unconsidered trifles — their billet in limb or heart or brain.

She thought too, seeing Minna thieve with such industry and
savoir-faire
, that there had been no justification for that taunt about walking barefoot and tying on a handkerchief, for Minna’s technique was essentially serious. However, she went alone twice a week to carry their gains to the Alpine Laundry, grinning to herself as she remembered all those little ministering Christians of the goody-goody books, the Misses Lucy and Emily Fairchild visiting a deserving tenantry with a basket of viands and bibles, trimly covered over with a white towel.

The deserving tenantry were not up to tradition. However well-laden the basket it was received with a flat impervious civility, and without a word said the woman behind the desk made it clear to her that, the load deposited, the next thing for her to do was to get away immediately. It was only on her third visit that Madame Amélie Goulet looked up with anything like a smile of acquaintanceship, and feared that she must find walking in such heat fatiguing.

“What I don’t like is being stared at. You seem to live in a very observant street.”

“I am so sorry,” said Madame Goulet, as though she would have it put right in the next wash. “The truth is, to be so tall, and if I may say it, so elegant, must make one somewhat conspicuous. In this quarter, we do not see many ladies. And to be patronised by a lady so clearly a lady is a most convincing proof of the respectability of my establishment. One can see at a glance that you would not be connected with anything — with anything unusual.”

“But is it not unusual for ladies to carry their own washing?”

“One can see, too, that you are English. It is well known that English ladies are energetic.”

And not a word of thanks, thought Sophia on the way back, furtively rubbing an aching arm — just to be told that one is conspicuous and eccentric, and that that will do nicely. My God, how patronising they are!

Still irate, she retailed this interview to Minna. Minna listened in silence, looked properly awed and pained — perhaps a trifle too much so, but then she was always pitching herself to an imaginary gallery.

“And she said that you looked respectable! — that any one could see you would have nothing to do with low Communists! No, that is going too far. I don’t wonder that you are annoyed.

“By the way,” she added rapidly. “You remember Égisippe handing out the dog-chains? No doubt he has more — he would not empty himself at one gush, our Égisippe. To-night I mean to explore downstairs. I shall probably walk in my sleep.”

However worthless and neglected other people’s property might be there was no doubt that she preferred it to her own. Letters, increasingly long and noble, came from the lawyer in Rouen, but Sophia had to answer them, frowning over the complications of legal terms in another language, sourly quoting to herself, “But mine own vineyard have I not kept.” For it seemed to her shameful and ridiculous that she should be taking so much trouble over Minna’s affairs, and writing so painstakingly to Minna’s lawyer whilst, in all this lapse of time, she had not written to her own Mr. Wilcox to enquire how much income, if any, Frederick’s assumption of the husband had left her; but for all that, she still could not bring herself to that letter, still too fastidiously furious to risk Mr. Wilcox’s polite confirmation of Frederick’s slap in the face.

How Ingelbrecht would scorn me, she thought. Here am I, hanging round pawnshops, sponging on Minna, living from hand to mouth — and all because I have not the moral courage to write to Mr. Wilcox. Her state was the more pressing since she went out singing no longer. Raoul had said there was no money in it, things must wait until he had another good idea. And it seemed to her that if Ingelbrecht were to appear he would read at one glance her slatternly shame, and that no amount of well-doing in the old-iron business would exculpate her.

He had not visited them for some time — not since Caspar had left them. Apart from her private guilt she could have wished with all her heart that he would come soon, for he might be able to make Minna take her legacy seriously. To Sophia it seemed that a property, however small, however worthless, was a thing to attend to. Its few acres should be walked over with thoughts of crop rotation and manure, its fences examined, its barn ascertained to be rat-proof and rain-proof. “If you will do nothing,” she exclaimed, “I shall have to go there myself.” Minna replied by forecasting the pleasures of a first visit together, the wild flowers, the swallows building their nests, young lambs, wild strawberries, etc. While she was in this frame of mind the visit might as well be postponed. A few injudicious warblings on the beauties of nature to a tenant-farmer might set back the rent for a quarter.