A Bed of Roses

'Nothing like, old dear! Have one with me, Lissa? No? No offence. You, Zoé, have a tord boyaux?'

'No thanks.' Zoé was a good-looking short girl; her French nationality written in every line of her round face, plump figure, and hands. Her hair was pulled away from the fat nape of her neck. She looked competent and wide awake. A housewife gone astray. Lissa, dark and Italian looking in her red dress and coral earrings, was more languid than the others. She was really a Greek, and all the grace of the East was in every movement of her slim figure. In a moment the four women had clustered together, forgetting strife.

Lissa had had a 'Bank of Engraving' note palmed off on her by a pseudo-South American planter, and was rightly indignant. They were still talking of Camille de Valenciennes and of her misfortunes with the barber. Boys, the latest tip for Gatwick, 'what I said to him,' the furriers' sales, boys again.. Victoria listened to the conversation. It still seemed like another world and yet her world. Here they were, she and the other atoms, hostile every one, and a blind centripetal force was kneading them together into a class. Yet any class was better than the isolation in which she lived. Why not go further, hear more?

'I say, you girls,' she said suddenly, 'you've never been to my place. Come and.. no, not dine, it won't work.. come and lunch with me next week.'

Duckie smiled heavily.

'I don' min',' she said thickly.

Zoé looked suspicious for a moment.

'Can I bring Fritz?' asked Lissa.

'No, we can't have Fritz,' said Victoria smiling. 'Ladies only.'

'I'm on,' said Zoé suddenly. 'I was afraid you were going to have a lot of swells in. Hate those shows. Never do you any good and you get so crumpled.'

'You might let me bring Fritz,' said Lissa querulously.

'No men,' said Victoria firmly. 'Wednesday at one o'clock. All square?'

'Thatawright,' remarked Duckie. 'Shut it Lissa. Fritzawright. Tellm its biz.. bizness.'

With some difficulty they hoisted Duckie into a cab and sent her off to Bloomsbury. As it drove off she popped her head out.

'Carriage paid,' she spluttered, 'or C. O. D.?'

Zoé and Lissa walked away to the circus. On her little hall table, as Victoria went into her house, she found a note scrawled in pencil on some of her own notepaper. It was from Betty. It said that Farwell had been stricken down by a sudden illness and was sinking fast. His address followed.

CHAPTER X

In a bed sitting-room at the top of an old house off the Waterloo Road three women were watching by the bedside of a man. One was dressed in rusty black; she was pale faced, crowned with light hair; the other, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, was middle-aged and very stout; her breast rolled like a billow in her half buttoned bodice. The third was beautiful, all in black, her sumptuous neck and shoulders bare. None of them moved for a moment. Then the beautiful woman threw back her cloak and her long jade earrings tinkled. The face on the pillow turned and opened its eyes.

'Victoria,' said a faint voice.

'Yes.. are you better?' Victoria bent over the bed. The face was copper coloured; every bone seemed to start out. She could hardly recognise Farwell's rough hewn features.

'Not yet.. soon,' said Farwell. He closed his eyes once more.

'What is it, Betty?' whispered Victoria.

'I don't know.. hemorrhage they say.'

'It's all up mum,' whispered the landlady in Victoria's ear. 'Been ill two days only. Doctor said he wouldn't come again.'

Victoria bent over the bed once more. She could feel the eyes of the landlady probing her personality.

'Can't you do something?' she asked savagely.

'Nothing.' Farwell opened his eyes again and faintly smiled. 'And what's the good, Victoria?'

Victoria threw herself on her knees by the side of the bed. 'Oh, you musn't!' she whispered. 'You.. the world can't spare you!'

'Oh, yes.. it can.. you know.. the world is like men.. it spends everything on luxuries.. it can't afford necessaries.'

Victoria smiled and felt as if she were going to choke. The last paradox.

'Are you in pain?' she asked.

'No, not just now… I shall be, soon. Let me speak while I can.' His voice grew firmer suddenly.

'I have asked you to come so that you may be the last thing I see; you, the fairest. I love you.'

Not one of the three women moved.

'I have not spoken before, because when I could speak we were slaves. Now you are free and I a slave. It is too late, so it is time for me to speak. For I cannot influence you.'

Farwell shut his eyes. But soon his voice rose again.

'You must never influence anybody. That is my legacy to you. You cannot teach men to stand by giving them a staff. Let the halt and the lame alone. The strong will win. You must be free. There is nothing worth while..' A shiver passed over him, his voice became muffled.

'No, nothing at all.. freedom only..'

He spoke quicker. The words could not be distinguished. Now and then he groaned.

'Wait,' whispered Betty, 'it will be over in a minute.' For two minutes they waited.

Victoria's eyes fastened on a basin by the bedside, full of reddish water. Then Farwell's face grew lighter in tone. His voice came faint as the sound of a spinet.

'There will be better times. But before then fighting.. the coming to the top of the leaders.. gold will be taken from the rich.. given to the vile.. pictures burnt.. chaos.. woman rise as a tyrant.. there will be fighting.. the coming to the top…' His voice thinned down to nothing as his wandering mind repeated his prediction. Then he spoke again.

'You are a rebel.. you will lead.. you have understood.. only by understanding are you saved. I asked you to come here to tell you to go on.. earn your freedom.. at the expense of others.'

'Why at the expense of others?' asked Betty, leaning over the bed. Farwell was hypnotising her. His eyes wandered to her face.

'Too late.' he said, 'you do not see.. you are a slave.. a woman has only one weapon.. otherwise, a slave.. ask.. ask Victoria.' He closed his eyes but went on speaking.

'There is not freedom for everybody.. capitalism means freedom for a few.. you must have freedom, like food.. food for the soul.. you must capture the right to respect.. a woman may not toil.. make money.'

Then again. 'I am going into the blackness.. before Death.. the Judge.. Death will judge me..'

''E's thinking of his Maker, poor genelman,' said the landlady hoarsely.

Victoria and Betty looked at one another. Agnostic or indifferent in their cooler moments, the superstition of their ancestors worked in their blood, powerfully assisted by the spectacle of this being passing step by step into an unknown. There must be life there, feeling, loving. There must be Something.

The voice stopped. Betty had seized Victoria's arm and now clutched it violently. Victoria could feel through her own body the shudders that shook the girl's frame. Then Farwell's voice rose again, louder and louder, like the upward flicker of a dying candle.