A Bed of Roses

Victoria pulled herself together with a start. 'This will never do,' she said, 'there's lots of time to worry in. Now I must pack.' She got up, drew the trunk into the middle of the room, opened it and took out the tray. Then, methodically, as she had been taught to do by her mother, she piled her belongings on the bed. In a few minutes it was filled with the nondescript possessions of the nomad. Skirts, books, boots, underclothing, an inkpot even, jostled one another in dangerous proximity. Victoria surveyed the heap with some dismay; all her troubles had vanished in the horror that comes over every packer: she would never get it all in. She struggled for half an hour, putting the heavy things at the bottom, piling blouses on the tray, cunningly secreting scent bottles in shoes, stuffing handkerchiefs into odd corners. Then she dropped the tray in, closed the lid and sat down upon it. The box creaked a little and gave way. Victoria locked it and got up with a little sigh of satisfaction. But she suddenly saw that the cupboard door was ajar and that in it hung her best dress and a feather boa; on the floor stood the packer's plague, shoes. It was quite hopeless to try and get them in.

Victoria surveyed the difficulty for a moment; then she regretfully decided that she must ask Mrs Holt for a cardboard box, for her hat-box was already mortgaged. A nuisance. But rather no, she would ask the parlourmaid. She went to the door and was surprised to find it locked. She turned the key slowly, looking round at the cheerful little room, every article of which was stupid without being offensive. It was hard, after all, to leave all this, without knowing where to go.

Victoria opened the door and jumped back with a little cry. Before her stood Jack. He had stolen up silently and waited. His face had flushed as he saw her; in his eyes was the misery of a sorrowful dog. His mouth, always a little open, trembled with excitement.

'Jack,' cried Victoria, 'oh! what do you want?'

'I've come to say.. oh! Victoria.' Jack broke down in the middle of his carefully prepared sentence.

'Oh! go away,' said Victoria faintly, putting her hand on her breast. 'Do go away. Can't you see I've had trouble enough this morning?'

'I'm sorry,' muttered Jack miserably. 'I've been a fool. Vic, I've come to ask you if you'll forgive me. It's all my fault. I can't bear it.'

'Don't talk about it,' said Victoria becoming rigid. 'That's all over. Besides you'll have forgotten all about it to-morrow,' she added cruelly.

Jack did not answer directly, though he was stung. 'Vic,' he said with hesitation, 'I can't bear to see you go, all through me. Listen, there's something you said this morning. Did you mean it?'

'Mean what?' asked Victoria uneasily.

'You said, if I'd asked you to marry me you.. I know I didn't, but you know, Vic, I wanted you the first time I saw you. Oh! Vic, won't you marry me now?'

Victoria looked at him incredulously. His hands were still trembling with excitement. His light eyes stared a little. His long thin frame was swaying. 'I'd do anything for you. You don't know what I could do. I'd work for you. I'd love you more than you've ever been loved.' Jack stopped short; there was a hardness that frightened him in the set of Victoria's jaw.

'You didn't say that yesterday,' she answered.

'No, I was mad. But I wanted to all along, Vic. You're the only woman I ever loved. I don't ask more of you than to let me love you.'

Victoria looked at him more gently. His likeness to her brother grew plainer than ever. Kind but hopelessly inefficient. Poor boy, he meant no harm.

'I'm sorry, Jack,' she said after a pause, 'I can't do it. You know you couldn't make a living.'

'Oh, I could, I could!' cried Jack clinging at the straw, 'if I had you to work for. You can't tell what it means for me.'

'Perhaps you could work,' said Victoria with a wan little smile, 'but I can't marry you, Jack, you see. I like you very much, but I'm not in love with you. It wouldn't be fair.'

Jack looked at her dully. He had not dared to expect anything but defeat, yet defeat crushed him.

'There, you must go away now,' said Victoria, 'I must go downstairs. Let me pass please.' She squeezed between him and the wall and made for the stairs.

'No, I can't let you go,' said Jack hoarsely. He seized her by the waist and bent over her. Victoria looked the space of a second into his eyes where the tiny veins were becoming bloodshot. She pushed him back sharply and, wrenching herself away, ran down the stairs. He did not follow her.

Victoria looked up from the landing. Jack was standing with bent head, one hand on the banister. 'The only thing you can do for me is to go away,' she said coldly. 'I shall come up again in five minutes with Effie. I suppose you will not want us to find you outside my bedroom door.'

She went downstairs. When she came up again with the maid, who carried a large brown cardboard box, Jack was nowhere to be seen.

A quarter of an hour later she followed the butcher's boy who was dragging her box down the stairs, dropping it with successive thuds from step to step. As she reached the hall, while she was hesitating as to whether she should go into the dining-room to say good-bye to Mrs Holt, the door opened and Mrs Holt came out. The two women looked at one another for the space of a second, like duellists about to cross swords. Then Mrs Holt held out her hand.

'Good-bye, Victoria,' she said, 'I'm sorry you're going. I know you're not to blame.'

'Thank you,' said Victoria icily. 'I'm sorry also, but it couldn't be helped.'

Mrs Holt heaved a large sigh. 'I suppose not,' she said.

Victoria withdrew her hand and went towards the door. The butcher's boy had already taken her box down, marking the whitened steps with two black lines.

'Shall I call a cab, mum?' he asked.

'Yes please,' said Victoria dreamily.

The youth went down the drive, his heels crunching into the gravel. Victoria stood at the top of the steps, looking out at the shrubs, one or two of which showed pale buds, standing sharp like jewels on the black stems. Mrs Holt came up behind her softly.

'I hope we don't part in anger, Victoria,' she said guiltily.

Victoria looked at her with faint amusement. True, anger is a cardinal sin.

'Oh! no, not at all,' she answered. 'I quite understand.'

'Don't be afraid to give me as a reference,' said Mrs Holt.

'Thank you,' said Victoria. 'I shan't forget.'

'And if ever you're in trouble, come to me.'

'You're very kind,' said Victoria. Mrs Holt was kind, she felt. She understood her better now. Much of her sternness oozed out of her. A mother defending her son knows no pity, thought Victoria; perhaps it's wrong to resent it. It's nature's way of keeping the young alive.

The cab came trotting up the drive and stopped. The butcher's boy was loading the trunk upon the roof. Victoria turned to Mrs Holt and took her hand.

'Good-bye,' she said, 'you've been very good to me. Don't think I'm so bad as you thought me this morning. Your son has just asked me to marry him.'

Mrs Holt dropped Victoria's hand; her face was distorted by a spasm.

'I refused him,' said Victoria.

She stepped into the cab and directed the cabman to Portsea Place. As they turned into the road she looked back. At the head of the steps Mrs Holt stood frozen and amazed. Victoria almost smiled but, her eyes wandering upwards, she saw, at her dormer window, Jack's head and shoulders. His blue eyes were fixed upon her with unutterable longing. A few strands of hair had blown down upon his forehead. For the space of a second they gazed into each other's eyes. Then the wall blotted him out suddenly. Victoria sighed softly and sank back upon the seat of the cab.

At the moment she had no thought. She was at such a point as one may be who has turned the last page of the first volume of a lengthy book: the next page is blank. Nothing remained even of that last look in which Jack's blue eyes had pitifully retold his sorry tale. She was like a rope which has parted with many groans and wrenchings; broken and its strands scattering, its ends float lazily at the mercy of the waves, preparing to sink. She was going more certainly into the unknown than if she had walked blindfold into the darkest night.

The horse trotted gently, the brakes gritting on the wheels as it picked its way down the steep. The fresh air of April drove into the cab, stinging a little and yet balmy with the freshness of latent spring. Victoria sat up, clasped her hands on the doors and craned out to see. There was a little fever in her blood again; the spirit of adventure was raising its head. As fitful gleams of sunshine lit up and irradiated the puddles a passionate interest in the life around seemed to overpower her. She looked almost greedily at the spire, far down the Wellington Road, shining white like molten metal with almost Italian brilliancy against a sky pale as shallow water. The light, the young wind, the scents of earth and buds, the men and women who walked with springy step intent on no business, all this, and even the horse who seemed to toss his head and swish his tail in sheer glee, told her that the world was singing its alleluia, for, behold, spring was born unto it in gladness, with all its trappings and its sumptuous promise.

Everything was beautiful; not even the dreary waste of wall which conceals Lords from the vulgar, nor the thousand tombs of the churchyard where the dead jostle and grab land from one another were without their peculiar charm. It was not until the cab crossed the Edgware Road that Victoria realised with a start that, though the world was born again, she did not share its good fortune. Edgware Road had dragged her down to the old level; a horrible familiarity, half pleasurable, half fearful, overwhelmed her. This street, which she had so often paced carrying a heart that grew heavier with every step, had never led her to anything but loneliness, to the cold emptiness of her room. Her mood had changed. She saw nothing now but tawdry stationer's shops, meretricious jewellery and, worse still, the sickening plenty of its monster stores of clothing and food. The road had seized her and was carrying her away towards its summit, where the hill melts into the skies between the houses that grow lower as far as the eye can see.

Victoria closed her eyes. She was in the grip once more; the wheels of the machine were not moving yet but she could feel the vibration as it got up steam. In a little the flywheel would slowly revolve and then she would be caught and ground up. Yes, ground up, cried the Edgware Road, like thousands of others as good as you, ground into little bits to make roadmetal of, yes, ground, ground fine.

The cab stopped suddenly. Victoria opened her eyes. Yes, this was Portsea Place. She got out. It had not changed. The curtains of the house opposite were as dirty as ever. The landlady from the corner was standing just under the archway, dressed as usual in an expansive pink blouse in which her flowing contours rose and fell. She interrupted the voluble comments on the weather which she was addressing to the little faded colleague, dressed in equally faded black, to stare at the newcomer.

'There ain't no more room at Bell's,' she remarked.

'She is very fortunate,' said the faded little woman. 'Dear me, dear me. It's a cruel world.'