A Pin to See the Peepshow

by F. Tennyson Jesse

  Herbert blushed with genuine, offended modesty. He was not used to the conversation that was a common-place among the Darlings.

  “If you don’t let me alone to go to sleep,” said Julia—“and when I say ‘sleep’ I don’t mean anything else—then I’ll have to go away and leave you.”

  “Now you’re talking tripe,” said Herbert, “you can’t go away and leave me, not just like that, and you know it.

  Julia did know it, she realised it couldn’t be done. There’d be Mum and Uncle George and Aunt Mildred and the piping questions of Elsa, and perhaps, most horrible thought of all, Herbert coming round to the shop and making her life there impossible.

  “Oh, you’re miles behind the times, Herbert,” she said, “nobody sleeps in the same room now, and besides you know you did promise me.”

  “Beastly bacon,” muttered Herbert, “might as well try and eat shavings. Well, we’ll see. I’ve got to go now or I shall be late. Are you coming too, Julia?”

  “No, I go by ’bus.”

  He stood shrugging himself into his overcoat in the hall, and suddenly looked pathetic to Julia, and she felt very sorry for him. She took down his bowler hat and gave it a little rub with the cuff of her frock, feeling terribly like a little wife out of Home Chat as she did so.

  “I’m sorry, Herbert,” she said softly, “I didn’t mean to be a beast. It isn’t that, you saw that last night, didn’t you? It’s just that I must get my sleep.”

  Herbert’s face softened, and yet there was something greedy in his eyes as he stared down at her.

  “All right, Julia,” he said, “I’m a bit of a blundering ass, I expect. Is it all right, old girl?”

  “Of course it’s all right, Herbert.” She raised her lips to his, and he kissed them hungrily. Oh yes, he thought, he had been a bit of an ass. After all, if she cared to play the fine lady a bit, why shouldn’t she? She was good enough, heaven knew, and it wasn’t, as she said, as though she’d refused him anything that mattered. He wouldn’t stand for any nonsense like that, and she knew it. He ran lumberingly down the stairs. With a feeling of exquisite relief, Julia heard the front door slam.

  They accommodated themselves, as any two human beings, forced by pressure of circumstances to share a life together, must accommodate themselves.

  Herbert told himself that all was well, that he had a fine wife, that business was going splendidly; and if sometimes he regretted the yielding, glamorous girl who had once been beyond his reach, he soon forgot about it in the solid satisfaction of those things which he did possess. Julia didn’t forget love, although she had never met it, but instead of imagining it as waiting round the corner for herself, as she had been wont to do in the days when she had first gone out into the world, she reverted more and more to the childish habit of identifying herself with the heroines of the books she read, and of the plays and cinemas that she saw.

  Gradually, without observing it, she came to use Saint Clement’s Square as she had used Two Beresford, as a place in which she died to all save her dreams. Her actual daily life was at the shop, her life at Saint Clement’s Square was an opportunity for carrying on her second life, that of her imagination. Herbert, of course, was there, but she had won the great battle of the bedroom, and his love-making, although it didn’t interest her, she bore with patiently. After all, that apparently was what love-making was like. She had been right when she had imagined, as a young girl with Alfie, that this was a wonderful secret, forgotten for generations, rediscovered by him, and that other people, apparently, didn’t seem to know.

  The shop was becoming more and more interesting, for Marian hardly ever came and Gipsy was now the head and Julia her second-in-command. She was now earning fifty shillings a week, and commission, and Herbert was still only making his five hundred. This put her definitely on an equality with him, for though he was responsible for the rent and the ordinary housekeeping, Julia paid all her own expenses and all the extras such as flowers and fruit, to which Herbert objected, and this gave her a certain authority in the household, which would not otherwise have been hers.

  Marian, in her cool, casual, easy fashion, was divorcing Billy Embury who, lean and haggard, more streamlike than ever, had consented to pass a night at a hotel with a woman who made her living after this fashion. Marian had met somebody else who amused her a great deal more than poor Billy had ever amused her. He was, to the horror of her parents, an actor, but there was no holding Marian once she had set her mind on anything; and Julia watched with admiring envy, and yet with a touch of distaste for such heartlessness, the easy progression of Marian Embury towards the state of being Marian Bellingham. Frank Bellingham came once or twice to the shop—tense, dark and eager. Julia liked him, and felt oddly sorry for him. There was somebody who believed in Marian, and who believed in his job, and he was going to have great difficulty in running the two together. Marian, for the moment, was interested in the stage, but Julia knew by now that Marian would never really be interested in anything but herself. She had never really cared about the shop. She didn’t understand now when Frank Bellingham talked the jargon of his profession, but it amused her for the time being. He would be one of the sequence of men whom she would take and discard. Meanwhile, he thought her wonderful, as Billy Embury had thought her wonderful, and looking more of a Mona Lisa than ever with her up-curled mouth, and her long eyes, Marian proceeded, with that languor of hers which seemed half boredom and half pleasure, on her way. She married Frank Bellingham as soon as her decree was made absolute, and enthusiastically took up life in Bloomsbury.

  Ruby was frankly contemptuous of the whole affair.

  “I know that sort of woman, my dear,” she said to Julia. “She’ll amuse herself with poor Frank for as long as she chooses, then she’ll throw him away, and Frank will go to the dogs, and that’ll be the end of his career. You’ll see if I’m not right.”

  Later Julia discovered that Ruby was not altogether unbiassed. She had lived with Frank Bellingham herself long ago on tour in the days before even Mr. Gordon, whom Julia had always looked upon as Ruby’s pioneer, and Ruby had thrown Frank away—as Julia had learned to express it—for Mr. Gordon and his flat in Maida Vale. Now Frank Bellingham had set up in management. He had done well in the war, had come back with a good deal of glamour attached to his name, played lead in a play where he had made a great hit, and his star was for the moment in the ascendant.

  How unfair life was, thought Julia. If she had been in Marian’s position she felt sure she could have made Frank fall in love with her. If she had been free to drift in and out of the theatre in beautiful clothes, and ask him to parties, and show him how really interested she was in the stage, he might have fallen in love with her instead of Marian. That sort of half-world of the theatre she had occasionally touched with Ruby wasn’t the real thing. She could see that now.

  Julia liked working with Gipsy. She felt more at ease with her than she ever had with Marian. They had become really friendly, though Gipsy always knew how to keep a little touch of dignity in their relations.

  One of the great moments in Julia’s life came when Gipsy first told her she was going to send her to Paris. During the war it had not been possible to buy from Paris, and London wholesale model-houses had done their own designing. But now Paris was once again supreme.

  “I’d go myself,” said Gipsy, “but I’m just getting my boy ready for Dartmouth, and I want his last week in London to be as nice as I can make it.”

  Julia was thrilled. Paris. … At once life sprung into bright colours for her again. It was nearly time for Herbert’s holiday, but she wouldn’t let that disturb her.

  “Oh, Mrs. Danvers, I’d love to go. But shall I be able to do it all right? I should hate to let you down.”

  “You may make some mistakes,” said Gipsy cheerfully, “but after all you’ve got to learn sooner or later. I’ll send you to a little hotel I know of, and t
ell them to look after you. The commission agent will come along to you in the morning, and you can tell him the sort of things you want to look at. I’ll make a list out for you before you go, then he’ll take you to the dress shows and various wholesale houses. He pays your taxi-cabs, lunches, and all that sort of thing and keeps an expense account. If you do all right this time you shall go again. I’m not particularly keen on leaving England, and you’ve really more flair for clothes than I have. I’m better at this end of it. I’ll give you a list of the wholesale places to go to for wools and silks. When you have chosen your models, then you can go to the wholesale houses for materials. They all keep books of the patterns chosen by the model-houses. Now look at this suit,” and Gipsy, rapidly turning over the pages of a fashion paper, pointed out a little tailor-made street-suit with a bright-striped scarf round the neck. “I think we ought to do that one. You see it’s called ‘Petite Chose.’ Just tell them you want that model, and they’ll produce materials for it at once. Now when can you go?”

  “Whenever you like,” said Julia.

  “Well, the new models are just out, so if we’re going to get them ready for the autumn you’d better go now. What about next Sunday? and then you can start right in on Monday morning.”

  Julia went home on wings. Paris … freedom, adventure. She would make a success of it, she must. If she made a success of it she’d be sent again to Paris. It meant escape for a few lovely days.

  Herbert sulked when she told him the news. He didn’t think a married woman ought to go gadding about as though she were single, and what did she know of Paris anyway? Anything might happen to her. Men had no respect for a decent woman over there.

  “I have respect for myself,” said Julia; “that ought to be enough, I should imagine.”

  “I’ve a good mind not to let you go,” fumed Herbert.

  “Let?” Julia’s soft, short-sighted eyes looked dangerous for a moment.

  “I don’t like it at all,” went on Herbert, “and I’ve a good mind to go and tell your Mrs. What’s-her-name so.”

  How history repeated itself, thought Julia! It seemed such a short time since she had coaxed Herbert into the lobby of his flat to tell him that Dad insisted on going to l’Etrangère’s, and had begged him to help her. … Now here was Herbert, who had been so sporting then, threatening to do the same thing. It was maddening work being a woman, if you had to be a daughter or a wife.

  She sat down on the arm of his chair—they still had only the one big arm-chair—and did what she very seldom did—began to coax him.

  “Do be reasonable, darling,” she said. “I’ve got to go if it’s my job, haven’t I? And it’s such a chance, too. If I’m a success at this my salary will go up again. I promise you I can look after myself. Why, I’ve been going about London now for over five years, and I don’t suppose Paris is very different, and I speak French quite well, you know, or did once, so I shall understand what anybody is saying to me. Oh, Herbert, don’t you see? It’s the chance of a lifetime. Emily will look after you beautifully while I’m away.”

  “It isn’t that,” said Herbert, “I don’t like your going to Paris alone.”

  She knew perfectly well the thoughts that were going on behind his slightly-flushed forehead. He could see her in his mind’s eye, at a little restaurant-table having a meal with some attractive Frenchman in the trade, being taken to the theatre, enjoying herself, exercising all those arts she’d once used on him, and which now she was too tired most days to employ. She would be out of his ken. He couldn’t keep track of her. She might be unfaithful to him, who could say? He realised suddenly how little he knew of her, after all, how secret and hidden away from him was her life, although they lived in the same house and he paid for the food she ate. What, after all, he asked himself angrily, did she do for him? She was out all day, either very tired when she got back at night or eager to go out to a theatre or picture palace, or even dancing at this new place at Hammersmith, and then he was always too tired for any such nonsense. That wasn’t his idea of home. He wanted a nice, warm, loving wife ready for him when he came back in the evening, willing to sit opposite him and listen when he read bits out of the paper, and willing to lie by his side all night, so that if he flung out his arm he could feel her there beside him. But he couldn’t make Julia become this sort of wife. He had been weak with her, that’s what it was. He ought to have taken up a stronger line from the start, but when, as now, she leaned her cheek against his head, and the scent she used came to his nostrils, he found himself unable to deal with her as he ought; for one thing he was only too afraid he wouldn’t win. This Paris business, he supposed she’d have to go, but next time he’d manage to go over with her. He couldn’t at this short notice, but, after all, they appreciated him pretty well at Dick Dash’s, and if he gave them plenty of warning, they wouldn’t grudge him a couple of days, but he wouldn’t tell Julia of his plan beforehand.

  “All right,” he said aloud, “you can try just this once.”

  “That’s sweet of you, Herbert,” she slipped off the arm of his chair, “I do hope Emily’s got something nice for your supper, because you deserve it. I’ll go and see.”

  Julia approached Paris with a far stronger sense of adventure than she had approached her marriage. It was stronger even than that with which she had faced going to an hotel with Alfie. Both these things had seemed so inevitable, so to grow out of circumstances, that she had felt as though a current were bearing her along, and all she could do was to go with it. But Paris broke into her life from without, sharp and clear as a wedge of sunlight cutting through shutters.

  Calais she adored; the red, fluted roofs, the old grey houses, the French porters in the blue blouses, shouting their numbers. She was “abroad,” that was what mattered. It wasn’t England. She was going abroad at last. Even the low platform, and having to climb up high to get into the train was a delightful change.

  She forgot everything to do with her life in England. She forgot Two Beresford, and Saint Clement’s Square, and the only thing she remembered about the shop was that she was going to do her best for it. It was always going to be a success, and always she’d be sent over to Paris.

  The little hotel in Paris to which Gipsy had sent Julia was a quiet, modest, flat-faced house, tall and thin, with green shutters. It was larger than it looked from the street, for it was built round a courtyard, where there were a few wicker-work chairs and tables and trees in tubs. To Julia’s delight her room looked out on this courtyard. Accustomed only to the boarding-houses of England, whenever she and her parents had been able to take a holiday, it seemed to her a paradise. Dinner was delicious—all sorts of odd lovely dishes and white wine out of a carafe. The wine made her feel exquisitely clear in her mind, sure of herself and of life, although at the same time it gave her a floating feeling, as though she were light as a balloon. The dining-room was dark, but she could look through the big windows and see the slant of the evening sunlight in the courtyard. It must be lovely to live in France, this sunlight set life to music, just as the wine set the meals to sunlight.

  Julia enjoyed that solitary dinner, though for the thousandth time she bitterly regretted her short sight and astigmatism. She couldn’t watch her fellow guests and wonder about them, because she would have had to put on her spectacles to see them, neither could she read a book at dinner without wearing her glasses, because of her astigmatism. It was tiresome being a woman if there were anything wrong with your sight; you had to choose between seeing and being seen. Julia chose to be seen.

  There was running water, hot and cold, in her bedroom, though for the same price in England she would only have had a heavy china toilet set, and been obliged to ring for a small can of hot water. Julia, who had always thought that the French were a dirty race, was surprised at this.

  The sun was still shining next morning, and Julia went down to the rather gloomy little lounge with the dusty palms,
in a statement of excitement and exhilaration. She felt quite impatient waiting for the agent who was to take her the rounds, and she kept looking at herself in a big dark mirror with a curly gilt frame, that hung at the end of the lounge, to make sure that she looked all right. It would be dreadful if she were considered dowdy in Paris. She thought she looked all right. Gipsy had given her a little thin black frock with a lacquer-red sash, and a little black turban that she wore pulled down over one eye, trimmed with a swirl of greeny-black cock’s feathers, tipped with red; the feathers swept down past her cheek, one lying softly against her cheek-bone, and the others curving down the side of the long thick neck, which was her only claim to classic beauty. Yes, her clothes were all right, and she thought she wore them well; of course, Gipsy had given them to her in the way of business, because the representative of l’Etrangère must look well-dressed, but Julia was grateful to Gipsy all the same.

  As she studied herself in the dark glass, which was rather like trying to look at yourself in the depths of the sea—for you discovered in its depths, by careful peering, a drowned Julia deep in green water—she heard the roundabout door revolve and she turned to see a thin, pale young man, dressed in grey, enter, limping slightly. He caught her eye at the same moment, and they stood hesitant, each guessing who the other was. Julia took a step forward, the young man swept off his pale-grey felt hat.

  “Mademoiselle Almond?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Julia, smiling at him. Of course, she thought to herself, that is how they would write about me from the shop. I suppose they’ve not thought about passports. A nice thing. I’ve given my name as Mrs. Starling at this hotel, and he might easily have asked for me as Miss Almond. What would they have thought then? But she was pleased. It was part of this new freedom in the new world, that she should be Miss Almond.