Twopence Coloured (5 page)

And the fog was worse still, and now they were getting very near to their destination — Victoria. And the realization of this gave another sudden shock to Jackie — she scarcely knew why. She had forgotten there was an end to this, that she would soon have to get out and grapple again with
existence
. Victoria! The mere decayed, ponderous sound of that irrevocable terminus, where she would have to shift for herself, filled her with apprehension. And at this point the train, with a sudden clattering laughter at her, dashed over Vauxhall Bridge, under which dimly flowed the sluggish and unwelcoming Thames, and panted deeply onwards to the dreaded appointment.

Then came the slowing down, which was the slowing down of Jackie’s pulses as well. Uncanny gliding moments of enforced patience and chill eagerness — hoardings, and brick, and dead, disused trains, and the submissive bump of hitherto buoyant rails beneath. And then at last, and suddenly, the Station itself! It was not apprehension that Jackie felt, as the train puffed with funereal and exhausted grandeur under this giant, looming roof; it was fear. It was a child’s fear of the dark, the half-dark — of evil noises and nightmare
transactions
. It was the mouth of some gaunt hell: it was
Destination
. The roar of the porter’s trucks might have been the roar of lions, to whom she and her fellow-travellers were to be delivered, and all the shoutings might have been instructions for the rough-and-ready handling of this grim cargo. The young man flicked open the door: there was a sudden
expansion
and particularization of noise; and Jackie stood up and mistily pretended to busy herself with her suitcase. By the time she looked round the young man had vanished. “Well, now for it,” said Jackie, and stepped on to the platform.

Her next object was her luggage at the back of the train. She made for this in a thick crowd streaming against her, and had some relief in espying the young man, bobbing up ahead, at the same thing. This left her with one straw to keep her from submergence under the massive indifference of her fellow-creatures; and she quickened her pace to get nearer him. The train was of enormous length, and under that
glim
mering
, smoky roof, where, it seemed, lingered all the sorrows and all the terrors of all journeyings since the beginning of time, Jackie chased a bobbing head.

Was her luggage in that van? Was there anything save ticketed perambulators, kit-bags, fishing-rods, hold-alls,
packing
cases, other people’s gloriously initialled trunks and bicycles? Was there (should she ever be lucky enough to see her poor belongings again) the likelihood of ever impressing one of those callous porters with the need of getting them to the cloak-room? No, there was not. But the young man was standing by, with the same patience, though he showed no signs of speaking to her. He had no sense of beauty in
distress
, had this young man.

A moment came when Jackie could stand this no longer, and she went up to him.

“Can one get a porter here, do you think?”

“Well. I think you can. Yes,” he replied. This was uttered with just a trace of sarcasm, but he immediately rectified it. “I think I’ve got one. Will you come on me?”

“I can’t see mine here…. Oh yes, there they are. The two of them. All the time.”

“Which? The J.M’s?”

“Yes.”

“And the two J.M’s please, porter. Over there….”

(“Thanks awfully” … said Jackie.)

But the young man was not listening. “No. Not the A.D.C.F.’s please. The J.M’s.”

“The J.M’s, sir?”

“Yes. The J.M’s.”

They were walking down the platform, behind the man, in silence.

“Julia Marsden?” suggested the young man, by way of conversation.

“No,” said Jackie. “Mortimer.”

“Janet?”

“No,” said Jackie. “Jacqueline.”

“Jacqueline Mortimer, in fact?”

“Yes.” There was a silence.

“Any more?”

“Yes. A beastly one. Rose.”

He seemed to think about that. “Yes. I don’t like that,” he said.

This cross-examination was stimulating her beyond
measure
, and it was with the utmost misery that she drew nearer to the barrier, where he would for certain leave her, and where she would be cast alone again into the outer world.

“Do you know where one can get some tea here?” she asked.

“Yes. We’ll have it together, shall we?”

“Oh yes. Let’s,” said Jackie, and if there were not tears of gratitude in her eyes as she looked up at him, there were in her voice.

It was after they had each received checks for their luggage at the cloak-room, and were walking back across the station again at a rapid pace (set by the elder), she holding his little case and he grasping her suitcase, that he altered her existence again, and set her heart throbbing with joyous, trembling potentialities. He had asked her where she was going in London, and she had replied, “West Kensington.”

“Oh, West Kensington?” he said. “I’m coming over that way on Monday.”

“Oh — are you?”

“Yes. I’m playing at the King’s.”

Jackie did not quite understand this allusion at first, but something of its awe-inspiring implications crept into her soul as she answered vaguely:

“The King’s?”

“Yes,” he said, and looked at her. “Hammersmith,” he added, as though to make himself clear.

“Oh,” said Jackie, and then the truth filled her. The man was an actor, and all her troubles were at an end. That she would have not the slightest difficulty in using this man for her own ends, that she had found her protector, that all her problems had been solved by the calm will of Providence, and
that nothing remained to be done save the exquisite
preliminaries
and fixing of the details of her immediate attack, Jackie was brimmingly confident. And he was coming to West Kensington! This all was, in fact, too felicitous to bear thought, and with joy she decided to eke it out, as it were, and put it away from her until tea, when she would pick it up again and handle it slowly and luxuriously. She therefore changed the subject.

He took her to a little tea-shop nestling high in a building overlooking the thronged thoroughfares outside the station. A crow’s nest of a tea-shop, in fact, above a roaring yellow ocean of traffic — climbed up to by endless wooden stairs, and enlivened by blue-curtained windows and blue neat waitresses, and as warm and grateful to the senses as the sparkling tea and oozing toast provided were to the taste. And here, after a little (and very noticeably thawed) conversation, Jackie lingered deftly, but at last led round to the subject nearest her heart.

“Did you say you were coming to West Kensington next week?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“Did you say you were Playing somewhere there, or
something
?” asked Jackie, finding this not quite so easy as she had thought it would be.

“Yes. ‘The Devil’s Disciple.’ The King’s. Why?”

“Oh,” said Jackie, as though this had just struck her. “So you’re a ——” There was a pause.

“Nactor?” he suggested.

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose I am. Why, though? Are you?”

“Oh no;
I’m
not. I just thought how interesting, that’s all.”

“How, exactly,” said her friend, who appeared to take everything at its face value, “interesting?”

“Oh, just interesting. That’s all.”

He did not reply to this, but busied himself with pouring out the tea. And in the long silence that followed Jackie knew that she was up against it, and must speak now or never.

“Tell me,” she said. “What would one do if one wanted to become one?”

Her manner of saying this implied much more detachment than personal interest, but there was sufficient of the latter quality to cause her companion’s eyes to come up and meet hers with some seriousness.

“’Tor or ’Tress?” he asked.

“’Tress‚” she said, and laughed.

“Do
you
want to become one, then?”

“Yes.” Jackie laughed again.

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Miss Mortimer.”

Now Jackie had been prepared for some sort of rebuff like this. She had sufficient shrewdness to recognize and allow for the mystery-mongering and priest-hood of a professional, and although she had hoped for better things from this young man, she was not surprised. Nevertheless, she liked him less.

“Why?” she said softly.

“Well, I don’t think you’d be at all happy.”

“Oh — but I’m prepared for that. I know the hardships.”

There was a silence.

“How do you know
them?”
he asked.

“Oh,” said Jackie, “I
know
them.”

“But how?”

“I can
imagine
them, then,” protested Jackie, quietly.

At this point he offered her a cigarette, which she took, and he lit a match. His hand was firm as he held it out for her, but her lips were not.

“And the hardships are a sort of added attraction?” he suggested.

Now this was the truth. But Jackie would not let him see that. “Of course not,” she said. These soft, slightly
constrained
, cigarette-lighting moments, Jackie did not find unpleasant, and she was confident of getting all she wanted from him before she was through. But he apparently was aware of the dangers of intercourse of this kind, and he changed its tone.

“I say,” he said abruptly. “Where on earth are you going to-day?”

“I’m going to West Kensington. I’m going to stay with an old nurse there.”

“An Old Nurse?”

“Yes. An Old Nurse.”

“A Holiday with an Old Nurse?”

“Well — sort of. I might go on to stay with friends later. But I’m wanting to set up on my own, if I can. You see, I’m by myself. My father’s died, you see, and I’ve got to do
something.”

“Do you mean you’ve got to earn your living?”

“Well — yes. You see, that’s why I want to do — what I told you about.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I say,” said Jackie, who after a fairly serious “I see” like that thought she had better play her best card and win hands down. “Will you help me?”

“With all the pleasure in the world,” he said, with great sincerity, but she detected something mocking in this glib assurance.

“I mean over That?”

“But that would n’t be helping you.”

“Oh yes, it would,” said Jackie, softly leading back to the quietudes of discourse.

“Why don’t you learn to type or something? Secretary and that sort of thing. You‘d do just as well, and work less, probably.”

“I
can
type, as a matter of fact. I’Ve only just learnt. But that’s nothing in itself. And I’m not going to spend all my time in a stuffy office.”

“How do you know it’d be stuffy? They might be
freshair
fiends.”

“Oh — it
would
‚”
said Jackie.

“It’s not proved, anyway. But if you could do it at home, would you?”

“Yes. I rather love typing, as a matter of fact. But who’s going to give me typing to do?”

“I’ll give you some, if you like. I’ve got a book.”

“Really? What sort? …”

“A Book by Me.”

“Really?” Jackie was shocked out of her own
preoccupations
by this. “Do you write, then?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, do you — publish them?” Jackie blushed.

“Yes.”

“How frightfully interesting. What sort of books are they?” Jackie was still blushing.

“Sort of books on Sociology.”

“Really?”

“The kind of things in which the Italics are always being Mine,” he said. Jackie laughed.

“And Sincerest Thanks are due to Tireless Energies of people, in forewords,” he said. There was a silence.

“What’s your name, then?”

“Gissing.”

“Gissing? No relation to ——”

“Yes.”

“The?”

“No.”

“What’s your first name?”

“Richard,” he said firmly, and looked at his watch. “I say, I ought to be going soon.”

“Oh — must you?”

“Is there any special time you want to arrive at West Kensington?”

“No. You see, I said I probably would n’t be there till about seven. I meant to have a sort of look round in London before going on. I did n’t think of a fog and all that. I thought I might have a jolly afternoon by myself.”

“Oh dear. Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ve a date in Piccadilly. Let’s walk across Buckingham Palace way. The fog’s not so bad, and you’ll get your look round after all. Then I’ll see you to your train.”

“Oh yes. Let’s.”

“And you’re going to have your luggage sent for
tomorrow
?”

“Yes,” said Jackie. “That’ll be all right — won’t it?”

“Yes,” he said. “It will.”

In a few moments they were out in the street. Mr. Gissing walked at the same rapid pace as before, and there was the same arrangement with respect to the suitcase and
attaché-case
. They talked about nothing in particular for some time, and then another surprise came.

“Have you never been up here before?” he asked.

“Yes. I have been up once. My father brought me up for a week. He was always coming up and down. He was an artist.” Jackie brought out this last fact with some small pride, and as a measure of minor self-defence against the talents and achievements of her companion; and she watched the results in his face.

“An artist?” he said.

“Yes,” said Jackie.

“
Punch
,” added Jackie….

“Oh! I see light,” said Mr. Gissing. “
Your
father was
Gerald
Mortimer.”

“Why? Have you heard of him?”

“Yes. Rather. I remember him well.”

“Why? Did you know him?”

“No. Not really. I met him at a dinner once, that’s all: and we walked most of the way home together.”

“Good Heavens,” said Jackie….

The prestige which he had now acquired in her eyes was boundless. For if he was not old enough to be her father, he was old enough to have known her father, on equal terms, and yet young enough, if so he wished, to be her own lover, though the thought only entered her mind to be dismissed. And the blending of these two things, like the blending of youth and sorrow in his face, captured her imagination marvellously.