‘I’d give somethin’,’ he would say, ‘if we could be togither always.’
‘Never mind, old chap!’ Liza would answer, herself half crying, ‘it can’t be ‘elped, so we must jolly well lump it.’
But notwithstanding all their precautions people in Vere Street appeared to know. First of all Liza noticed that the women did not seem quite so cordial as before, and she often fancied they were talking of her; when she passed by they appeared to look at her, then say something or other, and perhaps burst out laughing; but when she approached they would immediately stop speaking, and keep silence in a rather awkward, constrained manner. For a long time she was unwilling to believe that there was any change in them, and Jim who had observed nothing, persuaded her that it was all fancy. But gradually it became clearer, and Jim had to agree with her that somehow or other people had found out. Once when Liza had been talking to Polly, Jim’s daughter, Mrs. Blakeston had called her, and when the girl had come to her mother Liza saw that she spoke angrily, and they both looked across at her. When Liza caught Mrs. Blakeston’s eye she saw in her face a surly scowl, which almost frightened her; she wanted to brave it out, and stepped forward a little to go and speak with the woman, but Mrs. Blakeston, standing still, looked so angrily at her that she was afraid to. When she told Jim his face grew dark, and he said: ‘Blast the woman! I’ll give ‘er wot for if she says anythin’ ter you.’
‘Don’t strike ‘er, wotever ‘appens, will yer, Jim?’ said Liza.
‘She’d better tike care then!’ he answered, and he told her that lately his wife had been sulking, and not speaking to him. The previous night, on coming home after the day’s work and bidding her ‘Good evenin’,’ she had turned her back on him without answering.
‘Can’t you answer when you’re spoke to?’ he had said.
‘Good evenin’,’ she had replied sulkily, with her back still turned.
After that Liza noticed that Polly avoided her.
‘Wot’s up, Polly?’ she said to her one day. ‘You never speaks now; ‘ave you ‘ad yer tongue cut aht?’
‘Me? I ain’t got nothin’ ter speak abaht, thet I knows of,’ answered Polly, abruptly walking off. Liza grew very red and quickly looked to see if anyone had noticed the incident. A couple of youths, sitting on the pavement, had seen it, and she saw them nudge one another and wink.
Then the fellows about the street began to chaff her.
‘You look pale,’ said one of a group to her one day.
‘You’re overworkin’ yerself, you are,’ said another.
‘Married life don’t agree with Liza, thet’s wot it is,’ added a third.
‘’Oo d’yer think yer gettin’ at? I ain’t married, an’ never like ter be,’ she answered.
‘Liza ‘as all the pleasures of a ‘usband an’ none of the trouble.’
‘Bli’me if I know wot yer mean!’ said Liza.
‘Na, of course not; you don’t know nothin’, do yer?’
‘Innocent as a bibe. Our Father which art in ‘eaven!’
‘’Aven’t been in London long, ‘ave yer?’
They spoke in chorus, and Liza stood in front of them, bewildered, not knowing what to answer.
‘Don’t you mike no mistake abaht it, Liza knows a thing or two.’
‘O me darlin’, I love yer fit to kill, but tike care your missus ain’t round the corner.’ This was particularly bold, and they all laughed.
Liza felt very uncomfortable, and fiddled about with her apron, wondering how she should get away.
‘Tike care yer don’t git into trouble, thet’s all,’ said one of the men, with burlesque gravity.
‘Yer might give us a chanst, Liza, you come aht with me one evenin’. You oughter give us all a turn, just ter show there’s no ill-feelin’.’
‘Bli’me if I know wot yer all talkin’ abaht. You’re all barmy on the crumpet,’ said Liza indignantly, and, turning her back on them, made for home.
Among other things that had happened was Sally’s marriage. One Saturday a little procession had started from Vere Street, consisting of Sally, in a state of giggling excitement, her fringe magnificent after a whole week of curling-papers, clad in a perfectly new velveteen dress of the colour known as electric blue; and Harry, rather nervous and ill at ease in the unaccustomed restraint of a collar; these two walked arm-in-arm, and were followed by Sally’s mother and uncle, also arm-in-arm, and the procession was brought up by Harry’s brother and a friend. They started with a flourish of trumpets and an old boot, and walked down the middle of Vere Street, accompanied by the neighbours’ good wishes; but as they got into the Westminster Bridge Road and nearer to the church, the happy couple grew silent, and Harry began to perspire freely, so that his collar gave him perfect torture. There was a public-house just opposite the church, and it was suggested that they should have a drink before going in. As it was a solemn occasion they went into the private bar, and there Sally’s uncle, who was a man of means, ordered six pots of beer.
‘Feel a bit nervous, ‘Arry?’ asked his friend.
‘Na,’ said Harry, as if he had been used to getting married every day of his life; ‘bit warm, thet’s all.’
‘Your very good ‘ealth, Sally,’ said her mother, lifting her mug; ‘this is the last time as I shall ever address you as miss.’
‘An’ may she be as good a wife as you was,’ added Sally’s uncle.
‘Well, I don’t think my old man ever ‘ad no complaint ter mike abaht me. I did my duty by ‘im, although it’s me as says it,’ answered the good lady.
‘Well, mates,’ said Harry’s brother, ‘I reckon it’s abaht time to go in. So ‘ere’s to the ‘ealth of Mr. ‘Enry Atkins an’ ‘is future missus.’
‘An’ God bless ‘em!’ said Sally’s mother.
Then they went into the church, and as they solemnly walked up the aisle a pale-faced young curate came out of the vestry and down to the bottom of the chancel. The beer had had a calming effect on their troubled minds, and both Harry and Sally began to think it rather a good joke. They smiled on each other, and at those parts of the service which they thought suggestive violently nudged one another in the ribs. When the ring had to be produced, Harry fumbled about in different pockets, and his brother whispered:
‘Swop me bob, ‘e’s gone and lorst it!’
However, all went right, and Sally having carefully pocketed the certificate, they went out and had another drink to celebrate the happy event.
In the evening Liza and several friends came into the couple’s room, which they had taken in the same house as Sally had lived in before, and drank the health of the bride and bridegroom till they thought fit to retire.
X
IT WAS NOVEMBER. The fine weather had quite gone now, and with it much of the sweet pleasure of Jim and Liza’s love. When they came out at night on the Embankment they found it cold and dreary; sometimes a light fog covered the river-banks, and made the lamps glow out dim and large; a light rain would be falling, which sent a chill into their very souls; foot passengers came along at rare intervals, holding up umbrellas, and staring straight in front of them as they hurried along in the damp and cold; a cab would pass rapidly by, splashing up the mud on each side. The benches were deserted, except, perhaps, for some poor homeless wretch who could afford no shelter, and, huddled up in a corner, with his head buried in his breast, was sleeping heavily, like a dead man. The wet mud made Liza’s skirts cling about her feet, and the damp would come in and chill her legs and creep up her body, till she shivered, and for warmth pressed herself close against Jim. Sometimes they would go into the third-class waiting-rooms at Waterloo or Charing Cross and sit there, but it was not like the park or the Embankment on summer nights; they had warmth, but the heat made their wet clothes steam and smell, and the gas flared in their eyes, and they hated the people perpetually coming in and out, opening the doors and letting in a blast of cold air; they hated the noise of the guards and porters shouting out the departure of
the trains, the shrill whistling of the steam-engine, the hurry and bustle and confusion. About eleven o’clock, when the trains grew less frequent, they got some quietness; but then their minds were troubled, and they felt heavy, sad and miserable.
One evening they had been sitting at Waterloo Station; it was foggy outside—a thick, yellow November fog, which filled the waiting-room, entering the lungs, and making the mouth taste nasty and the eyes smart. It was about half-past eleven, and the station was unusually quiet; a few passengers, in wraps and overcoats, were walking to and fro, waiting for the last train, and one or two porters were standing about yawning. Liza and Jim had remained for an hour in perfect silence, filled with a gloomy unhappiness, as of a great weight on their brains. Liza was sitting forward, with her elbows on her knees, resting her face on her hands.
‘I wish I was straight,’ she said at last, not looking up.
‘Well, why won’t yer come along of me altogether, an’ you’ll be arright then?’ he answered.
‘Na, that’s no go; I can’t do thet.’ He had often asked her to live with him entirely, but she had always refused.
‘You can come along of me, an’ I’ll tike a room in a lodgin’ ‘ouse in ‘Olloway, an’ we can live there as if we was married.’
‘Wot abaht yer work?’
‘I can get work over the other side as well as I can ‘ere. I’m abaht sick of the wy things is goin’ on.’
‘So am I; but I can’t leave mother.’
‘She can come, too.’
‘Not when I’m not married. I shouldn’t like ‘er ter know as I’d—as I’d gone wrong.’
‘Well, I’ll marry yer. Swop me bob, I wants ter badly enough.’
‘Yer can’t; yer married already.’
‘Thet don’t matter! If I give the missus so much a week aht of my screw, she’ll sign a piper ter give up all clime ter me, an’ then we can get spliced. One of the men as I works with done thet, an’ it was arright.’
Liza shook her head.
‘Na, yer can’t do thet now; it’s bigamy, an’ the cop tikes yer, an’ yer gits twelve months’ ‘ard for it.’
‘But swop me bob, Liza, I can’t go on like this. Yer knows the missus—well, there ain’t no bloomin’ doubt abaht it, she knows as you an’ me are carryin’ on, an’ she mikes no bones abaht lettin’ me see it.’
‘She don’t do thet?’
‘Well, she don’t exactly sy it, but she sulks an’ won’t speak, an’ then when I says anythin’ she rounds on me an’ calls me all the nimes she can think of. I’d give ‘er a good ‘idin’, but some’ow I don’t like ter! She mikes the plice a ‘ell ter me, an’ I’m not goin’ ter stand it no longer!’
‘You’ll ave ter sit it, then; yer can’t chuck it.’
‘Yus I can, an’ I would if you’d come along of me. I don’t believe you like me at all, Liza, or you’d come.’
She turned towards him and put her arms round his neck.
‘Yer know I do, old cock,’ she said. ‘I like yer better than anyone else in the world; but I can’t go awy an’ leave mother.’
‘Bli’me me if I see why; she’s never been much ter you. She mikes yer slave awy ter pay the rent, an’ all the money she earns she boozes.’
‘Thet’s true, she ain’t been wot yer might call a good mother ter me—but some’ow she’s my mother, an’ I don’t like ter leave ‘er on ‘er own, now she’s so old—an’ she can’t do much with the rheumatics. An’ besides, Jim dear, it ain’t only mother, but there’s yer own kids, yer can’t leave them.’
He thought for a while, and then said:
‘You’re abaht right there, Liza; I dunno if I could get on without the kids. If I could only tike them an’ you too, swop me bob, I should be ‘appy.’
Liza smiled sadly.
‘So yer see, Jim, we’re in a bloomin’ ‘ole, an’ there ain’t no way aht of it thet I can see.’
He took her on his knees, and pressing her to him, kissed her very long and very lovingly.
‘Well, we must trust ter luck,’ she said again, ‘p’raps somethin’ ‘ll ‘appen soon, an’ everythin’ ‘ll come right in the end—when we gets four balls of worsted for a penny.’
It was past twelve, and separating, they went by different ways along the dreary, wet, deserted roads till they came to Vere Street.
The street seemed quite different to Liza from what it had been three months before. Tom, the humble adorer, had quite disappeared from her life. One day, three or four weeks after the August Bank Holiday, she saw him dawdling along the pavement, and it suddenly struck her that she had not seen him for a long time; but she had been so full of her happiness that she had been unable to think of anyone but Jim. She wondered at his absence, since before wherever she had been there was he certain to be also. She passed him, but to her astonishment he did not speak to her. She thought by some wonder he had not seen her, but she felt his gaze resting upon her. She turned back, and suddenly he dropped his eyes and looked down, walking on as if he had not seen her, but blushing furiously.
‘Tom,’ she said, ‘why don’t yer speak ter me.’
He started and blushed more than ever.
‘I didn’t know yer was there,’ he stuttered.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, ‘wot’s up?’
‘Nothin’ as I knows of,’ he answered uneasily.
‘I ain’t offended yer, ‘ave I, Tom?’
‘Na, not as I knows of,’ he replied, looking very unhappy.
‘You don’t ever come my way now,’ she said.
‘I didn’t know as yer wanted ter see me.’
‘Garn! Yer knows I likes you as well as anybody.’
‘Yer likes so many people, Liza,’ he said, flushing.
‘What d’yer mean?’ said Liza indignantly, but very red; she was afraid he knew now, and it was from him especially she would have been so glad to hide it.
‘Nothin’,’ he answered.
‘One doesn’t say things like thet without any meanin’, unless one’s a blimed fool.’
‘You’re right there, Liza,’ he answered. ‘I am a blimed fool.’ He looked at her a little reproachfully, she thought, and then he said ‘Good-bye,’ and turned away.
At first she was horrified that he should know of her love for Jim, but then she did not care. After all, it was nobody’s business, and what did anything matter as long as she loved Jim and Jim loved her? Then she grew angry that Tom should suspect her; he could know nothing but that some of the men had seen her with Jim near Vauxhall, and it seemed mean that he should condemn her for that. Thenceforward, when she ran against Tom, she cut him; he never tried to speak to her, but as she passed him, pretending to look in front of her, she could see that he always blushed, and she fancied his eyes were very sorrowful. Then several weeks went by, and as she began to feel more and more lonely in the street she regretted the quarrel; she cried a little as she thought that she had lost his faithful gentle love and she would have much liked to be friends with him again. If he had only made some advance she would have welcomed him so cordially, but she was too proud to go to him herself and beg him to forgive her—and then how could he forgive her?
She had lost Sally too, for on her marriage Harry had made her give up the factory; he was a young man with principles worthy of a Member of Parliament, and he had said:
‘A woman’s plice is ‘er ‘ome, an’ if ‘er old man can’t afford ter keep ‘er without ‘er workin’ in a factory—well, all I can say is thet ‘e’d better go an’ git single.’
‘Quite right, too,’ agreed his mother-in-law; ‘an’ wot’s more, she’ll ‘ave a baby ter look after soon, an’ thet’ll tike ‘er all ‘er time, an’ there’s no one as knows thet better than me, for I’ve ‘ad twelve, ter sy nothin’ of two stills an’ one miss.’
Liza quite envied Sally her happiness, for the bride was brimming over with song and laughter; her happiness overwhelmed her.
‘I am ‘appy,’ she said to Liza
one day a few weeks after her marriage. ‘You dunno wot a good sort ‘Arry is. ‘E’s just a darlin’, an’ there’s no mistikin’ it. I don’t care wot other people sy, but wot I says is, there’s nothin’ like marriage. Never a cross word passes his lips, an’ mother ‘as all ‘er meals with us an’ ‘e says all the better. Well I’m thet ‘appy I simply dunno if I’m standin’ on my ‘ead or on my ‘eels.’
But alas! it did not last too long. Sally was not so full of joy when next Liza met her, and one day her eyes looked very much as if she had been crying.
‘Wot’s the matter?’ asked Liza, looking at her. ‘Wot ‘ave yer been blubberin’ abaht?’
‘Me?’ said Sally, getting very red. ‘Oh, I’ve got a bit of a toothache, an’—well, I’m rather a fool like, an’ it ‘urt so much that I couldn’t ‘elp cryin’.’
The Great Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham Page 71
