Poor Caroline

by Winifred Holtby

  In the Earl's Court Road is a small foreign restaurant, open till midnight. There Roger took Eleanor, and they sat together at a table beside the window, lit by a pink-shaded lamp. He ordered coffee and sandwiches, and while they waited for their order to be carried out, Eleanor smoked.

  'I want to know something,' Roger said at last. 'You needn't tell me unless you like, but my curiosity is piqued.'

  'What is it?'

  'Why did you say, when I first met you, that you could not forget me, and you might not forgive?'

  She smiled at him quizzically over her cigarette. 'You remember that? Oh-Well.' Then to his surprise a sudden rosy blush poured over her cheeks and neck, and she pressed out the stump of her cigarette with firm brown fingers. 'Well -' she began again.

  'Don't tell me if it's only absurd - or embarrassing. I assure you that it's the idlest curiosity tempting me to ask. Also I should hate to feel unforgiven by you, if it were possible to rectify the evil.'

  'Well, the position's this,' she said at length. 'You've cost me three thousand pounds.'

  'I've what? I beg your pardon -'

  'Well - it was like this. Caroline took me to church. I don't often go. I'm really a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and anyway, I'm an agnostic.' She looked up with a sort of challenge, but he only nodded gravely.

  'Yes?'

  'Well. I'd been rather unhappy and very dissatisfied with a good many things, myself most of all. But you preached about the dishonesty of compromise, and the young man who went away sorrowful because he had great possessions. It wasn't - excuse my saying so - an awfully good sermon. But I'm a Socialist. And I was tired of doing things by halves. So I took your advice.'

  'I - see.'

  He did not pour out the coffee, but sat looking at her.

  'And now that I've done it, it all seems rather stupid, because I've got to work much harder than I used to do, simply to get my own living, whereas, when I was a capitalist, I could do quite a lot for other people. I believe I was more useful before.'

  'Do you mean to say that you gave away all your money?'

  'Not quite all. I reserved enough to finish my training and keep me till I could keep myself. I shall have to sell the car, though.'

  'You gave it all to the Christian Cinema Company?'

  'Caroline calls it an investment. But I don't suppose I shall ever see any of it again. What do you think?'

  'I don't know. I really don't know much about the company. But -'

  'But?'

  'Aren't you interested in the company?'

  'No. I think it's rather a frost really, don't you?'

  'Then why on earth -?'

  'Oh, I don't know. It's difficult to explain. I suppose that I wanted to play providence a little. That's what most charity is - a way of making oneself an amateur God. I don't think it's the right way, though. It's too easy. And it doesn't bring any real satisfaction. You'd better register that for future sermons. One can't buy peace of mind like a block of shares in government securities. It doesn't work.'

  'Will you sell your shares then?'

  'Would you?'

  'That's hardly to the point. I seem to have done enough damage without inflicting any more of my opinions upon you.'

  'Damage?'

  'Well -'

  'How typical of the Church! You preach the most uncompromising doctrine that was ever invented and as soon as anyone takes you literally, you're shocked beyond expression. I suppose you're not accustomed to converts. Am I your first?'

  'If you were a convert, I suppose you would be. But I'm not going to put you down to my credit yet.'

  'Yet?'

  'Well - Hope as well as Faith and Charity were commended to us.'

  She sighed, as though she were tired, and dropped her chin on to her hands.

  'You don't seem very jubilant about it. I don't know that I expected anyone would be, except Caroline. And of course, you're right. If all the members of your Church obeyed its precepts literally there'd be the most frightful economic revolution to-morrow. We'd all be taking off our coats and giving them away with our cloak also. Every working man paid to walk one mile would walk two, and so upset the foreign markets by undercutting all our commercial rivals. The banks would crash, because everyone would be selling all their securities and giving to the poor, and the only hope left to us would be an immediate Second Coming to get us all out of the mess we'd fallen into.'

  'Ah, but that is where the Catholic Church has learned wisdom. She safeguards us so cautiously from the consequences of our impetuosity.'

  'Humph. You think then that my running amok and flinging away my capital is the result of being an unbalanced agnostic individualist, and that if I'd belonged to your Holy Mother the Church I should have known that you didn't really mean what you said about refusing to compromise, because every saying has its symbol, and only the barbarians have not learned how to avoid their literal interpretation. Is that it?'

  'Something like that, perhaps. But I really didn't want to score points at the moment. I'm wondering what can be done. I feel a certain responsibility about your investments. Of course, if the Christian Cinema Company were to turn out a financial success you'd be all right.'

  'And God's mysterious ways would be justified, I suppose? Well, Caroline of course says I'm going to make my fortune. I doubt it, and still I think that Macafee is a clever fellow and there really may be something in his inventions. What do you think?'

  Roger did not want to talk about Macafee. He wanted to discuss Eleanor and her predicament. He was distressed and at the same time excited to discover that he should have exerted, however unconsciously, a decisive influence upon her actions. He was perturbed about her possible difficulties.

  He pressed her for further information about herself, about her home in South Africa, and her brother in the States.

  'But of course, he's practically a stranger to me now,' she said. 'And I never had much in common with him. What a farce it is, all this talk about family feeling and blood being thicker than water. I am quite prepared to accept the physiological fact that blood is thicker than water. But what does that prove? That I can make my brother understand how I feel about things? Nonsense!'

  The sleepy waiter was hovering by their table. It was long after eleven, but Eleanor made no move to go, and Roger was well content that he should sit and watch the pink light from the lamp flushing her grave and rather stubborn face. He thought her casual, grave, reckless, and a little scornful. Her contempt for the Church, her indifference to her own interests, and her half-mocking admiration for her cousin Caroline attracted him. When at last she rose, pulling on her big gauntlets, and yawning, he was conscious of acute regret. 'Must we go?' he said.

  'It's nearly midnight, and I've got to garage my car - and work to-morrow.'

  'So have I - to work to-morrow, I mean. Can't I garage your car for you?' 'Can you drive?'

  'My people had an Austin - and I had a tumbledown Singer for some years.'

  'I forgot that clergymen did those sort of ordinary things that real men do.' 'And I am not a real man?'

  'Well, clergymen somehow aren't quite proper men, are they?'

  'Aren't they? The devil they aren't,' he laughed, but he was stung. He could have borne deliberate insult, but this indifferent assumption infuriated him. Not quite a proper man? He'd like to show her.

  Inwardly raging, outwardly polite, he walked back with her to the car, escorted her from the garage to the club and said good night. Then he set off to walk home through the empty lamplit and moonlit streets.

  Somehow or other, he told himself, he was responsible for Eleanor de la Roux's rash investment. It was therefore his duty to inquire into the prospects of the Christian Cinema Company and make quite sure what damage he had done. Eleanor must not be allowed to lose all her money. It was absurd - a girl like her, throwing away her capital like that. He became quite excited about it, and determined to call upon Miss Denton-Smyth as soon as possible, extract the
whole truth from her and prevent her robbery of orphans.

  Then he called himself a fool, for the girl was perfectly capable of looking after her own interests. She was hard and keen and efficient. She did not want interference in her affairs, especially by someone who was not quite a proper man. The comic curate, he said to himself. That is how she sees me - the comic curate, living on milk and buns.

  He strode home to bed, his long legs devouring the distance between Eleanor's club and his Clergy House. He went to his bleak, cell-like room and spent a very long time in rather violent prayer. When he fell asleep he dreamed that he attended again the Women's Social Evening of an East End Club in which he once had worked.

  In the gaunt whitewashed hall a band played jazz music. On the floor three couples of young girls were dancing together, their charming faces intent, their young slim bodies moving with grave precision. Their hair was waved, their lips scarlet, their dresses of cheap satin or mercerized cotton symbolized their youth, their pride, their vitality and self-respect. They danced with sensuous yet sober pleasure, proud, sweet, slim, lovely, unbroken things. Against the wall sat a row of older women. Their wedding rings had sunk into the flesh of their crippled fingers. Their grey sagging faces drooped into slackened necks which slid into huge, shapeless bosoms and distended stomachs. Their swollen legs bulged out of broken shoes. Life, work, child-bearing and poverty had torn their bodies, making hideous what had been lovely, draining their vitality and robbing them of self-respect. They laughed with toothless pleasure over bawdy jokes; they tapped their feet in response to the music; they clapped their gnarled, grime-stained hands. They watched the young girls dancing, making from time to time unseemly jests in husky undertones.

  And it seemed to Roger that as he watched one gross and toothless and misshapen hag, she changed slowly before his eyes into the straight, clean, definite personality of Eleanor de la Roux, and began to dance, gravely and quietly, among the girls. He rushed out to greet her, calling to her, 'Eleanor, Eleanor. Dance with me. Dance with me!' But she turned her indifferent contemptuous face towards him, and said, 'A comic curate. Not even a proper man.' In fury he leapt at her, catching her by the shoulders and shaking her, until she changed again, while in his arms, to the toothless, shapeless, quavering old woman.

  He woke up suddenly, sweating with terror, to find himself alone with a sword of moonlight falling across his bed.

  §3

  Three or four days passed before he found time to call upon Miss Denton-Smyth. He found himself at about six o'clock one evening passing close to Lucretia Road, and decided to find out if she were in. He would insist upon knowing just what was the position of the Christian Cinema Company. After all, she had frequently asked him to help her. He could not be expected to give his support to a movement that he did not understand.

  He hardly noticed the external appearance of 40 Lucretia Road. He was accustomed to dark staircases and grimy corridors. He knocked at her door, but heard no answer. He knocked again.

  This time there was a faint movement inside the room.

  'Is Miss Denton-Smyth in?' he asked. 'It's Mortimer -Roger Mortimer here.'

  'Oh, wait a minute. I've only just got in. I'll put the light on.'

  'Is it an awkward time to come? Shall I go away?'

  'Oh, no, no, no.'

  She opened the door now, and he moved forward into an unlighted room.

  'I can't - I can't find the matches,' half-whispered a muffled voice.

  'It's all right. I've got some."

  He felt for his matches.

  'Shall I light the gas?'

  'Oh, please.'

  He lit the gas. He saw the comfortless disorder of her room. He saw her coat and hat flung on to the bed where she too had obviously been lying until he came. He saw her face working and quivering with emotion.

  'I - hadn't time -' she gasped. 'Just in from the office. Rather tired.'

  And she crumpled up into a chair and began to cry.

  'Ah - look here - you're tired - can't I light your fire for you?'

  He had encountered similar situations before and invented a technique with which to face them. He lit the fire, plumped out the cushions and drew the faded curtains. She could not speak, though her tears were drying, and she could lie back against the armchair into which he had pressed her, and wait there for more miracles to happen.

  Gradually she recovered her self-possession, laughed a little, and asked him to fill the kettle, explaining that she had come in from the office too tired to make the tea, or shop, or do anything.

  'Well, you'll have to let me be your errand-boy. What do you get for tea?'

  'Anything. Everything. I don't think there's anything in the house at all. But there's about sevenpence halfpenny in my purse.'

  'Very good. I'll see what one can do on sevenpence halfpenny.'

  He ran down the stairs again, thinking rapidly. Caroline's condition had entirely destroyed his earlier intention. She looked really ill as she lay back in her chair, unable to control her tears of exhaustion. This was not the moment for stern reproaches and the high hand of pastoral indignation.

  He went from shop to shop, buying recklessly milk, eggs, cheese, butter, bread, tea, a bottle of brandy and a large Madeira cake, a box of crystallized fruits and a pound of sugar. Returning, laden with parcels, he passed a boy wheeling a barrow bright with mauve, pink and scarlet tulips. His purse was almost empty, but on an impulse he stopped, bought a tight scarlet bunch of tulips, and ran back to Caroline's room, dropping butter and the Madeira cake on the stairs.

  She heard him coming and opened the door. She had recovered a little by this, tidied her hair and spread the tablecloth. The fire blazed; the kettle puffed. With a child's pleasure she watched him unpack his parcels; but when she saw the tulips she almost wept again.

  'Oh, flowers-'she cried. 'Oh, flowers.' And buried her face in them.

  Embarrassed now by his exuberance, uncertain if it had been in the best of taste, he murmured, 'Oh well, when one is tired flowers are rather pleasant. And I am always looking for an excuse to buy them.'

  He cut the bread and butter, boiled the eggs and insisted that she should drink one tablespoonful of brandy in strong tea before she filled her cup up properly. 'My mother swore by it as a pick-me-up.' 'Won't you have some?' 'I'm not tired.'

  'Your hair's wet. Is it raining?'

  'No. I've been bathing-in the Victoria Baths-rather absurd it sounds, doesn't it? But it's about the quickest means of getting exercise, and I take a batch of young urchins on Thursday afternoons straight after school and make 'em dive. All my scouts are going in for their swimmers' badges.' 'Do you dive?' 'Mildly.'

  He was a brilliant diver. Too short-sighted for proficiency at games, he had specialized in running, swimming and hurdling. Since he came to London he had found that his athletic accomplishments gave him a greater hold over the boys' clubs and young men's classes than either his learning or his asceticism.

  'I'll tell you something, Miss Denton-Smyth,' he confessed, chasing an egg round the pan with a small teaspoon. 'I use my diving purely for effect. It's the only spectacular accomplishment I have. The Boy Scouts and Young Men's Guilds and so forth think me rather a poor worm, for I'm no good at all at Bright Brief Brotherly talks. But I learnt to swim in the Cher when I was about four, I should think, and diving and so on are almost second nature to me. Salt? Salt? Where do you keep it? In this cupboard? Are the eggs hard enough? It's a disquieting reflection upon the influence of the Church, that one can't really do anything with these young creatures by precept or practice, but if one says "Come and see me do swallow-dives on Thursday" they sink into the most complete docility.'

  'I should like to see you do it.'

  'Oh, it's a remarkable performance, I assure you. The trouble is that I had the arrogance to think that my work was to lead souls to God, whereas what I can really do is to lead bodies to the bathing-pool, -

  "And all that teacheth man to dread . . . .
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  The bath as little as the bed." '

  He was talking nonsense to gain time while she recovered her strength and spirit under the influence of tulips, tea, and miracles. She squared her shoulders again and a bright spot of colour burned in each cheek. She began to make jokes, to talk jubilantly and criticize his latest sermon. In the face of such recovery, he felt able to get to business.