Chapter Two
VICTORINE
ALL through December balloons had been slack – hardly any movement about them, even in Christmas week, and from the Bickets Central Australia was as far ever. The girl Victorine, restored to comparative health, had not regained her position in the blouse department of Messrs Boney Blayds & Co. They had given her some odd sewing, but not of late, and she had spent much time trying to get work less uncertain. Her trouble was – had always been – her face. It was unusual. People did not know what to make of a girl who looked like that. Why employ one who without qualification of wealth, rank, fashion, or ability (so far as they knew) made them feel ordinary? For – however essential to such as Fleur and Michael – dramatic interest was not primary in the manufacture or sale of blouses, in the fitting-on of shoes, the addressing of envelopes, making-up of funeral wreaths, or the other ambitions of Victorine. Behind those large dark eyes and silent lips, what went on? It worried Boney Blayds & Co., and the more wholesale firms of commerce. The lurid professions – film-super, or mannequin – did not occur to one, of self-deprecating nature, born in Putney.
When Bicket had gone out of a morning with his tray and his balloons not yet blown up, she would stand biting her finger, as though to gnaw her way to some escape from this hand-to-mouth existence which kept her husband thin as a rail, tired as a rook, shabby as a tailless sparrow, and, at the expense of all caste feeling, brought them in no more than just enough to keep them living under a roof. It had long been clear to them both that there was no future in balloons, just a cadging present. And there smouldered in the silent, passive Victorine a fierce resentment. She wanted better things for herself, for him, chiefly for him.
On the morning when the mark was bumping down, she was putting on her velveteen jacket and toque (best remaining items of her wardrobe), having taken a resolve. Bicket never mentioned his old job, and his wife had subtly divined some cause beyond the ordinary for his loss of it. Why not see if she could get him taken back? He had often said: ‘Mr Mont’s a gent and a sort o’ socialist; been through the war, too; no high-and-mighty about him.’ If she could ‘get at’ this phenomenon! With the flush of hope and daring in her sallow cheeks, she took stock of her appearance from the window-glasses of the Strand. Her velveteen of jade-green always pleased one who had an eye for colour, but her black skirt – well, perhaps the wear and tear of it wouldn’t show if she kept behind the counter. Had she brass enough to say that she came about a manuscript? And she rehearsed with silent lips, pinching her accent: ‘Would you ask Mr Mont, please, if I could see him; it’s about a manuscript.’ Yes! and then would come the question: ‘What name, please?’ ‘Mrs Bicket?’ Never! ‘Miss Victorine Collins?’ All authoresses had maiden names. Victorine – yes! But Collins! It didn’t sound like. And no one would know what her maiden name had been. Why not choose one? They often chose. And she searched. Something Italian, like – like – Hadn’t their landlady said to them when they came in: ‘Is your wife Eyetalian?’ Ah! Manuelli! That was certainly Italian – the ice-cream man in Little Ditch Street had it! She walked on practising beneath her breath. If only she could get to see this Mr Mont!
She entered, trembling. All went exactly as foreseen, even to the pinching of her accent, till she stood waiting for them to bring an answer from the speaking-tube, concealing her hands in their very old gloves. Had Miss Manuelli an appointment? There was no manuscript.
‘No,’ said Victorine, ‘I haven’t sent it yet. I wanted to see him first.’ The young man at the counter was looking at her hard. He went again to the tube, then spoke.
‘Will you wait a minute, please – Mr Mont’s lady secretary is coming down.’
Victorine inclined her head towards her sinking heart. A lady secretary! She would never get there now! And there came on her the sudden dread of false pretences. But the thought of Tony standing at his corner, ballooned up to the eyes, as she had spied out more than once, fortified her desperation.
A girl’s voice said: ‘Miss Manuelli? Mr Mont’s secretary, perhaps you could give me a message.’
A fresh-faced young woman’s eyes were travelling up and down her. Pinching her accent hard, she said: ‘Oh! I’m afraid I couldn’t do that.’
The travelling gaze stopped at her face. ‘If you’ll come with me, I’ll see if he can see you.’
Alone in a small waiting-room, Victorine sat without movement, till she saw a young man’s face poked through the doorway, and heard the words: