Sinister Street

"What cat?"

"He's under the bed, I'll be bound."

She called, and a small black cat came out.

"Isn't he lovely? But, fancy, he's afraid of me. He always gets under the bed like that."

Michael felt he ought to make up to the cat what his cordiality had lacked toward the mistress, and he paid so much attention to it that finally the animal lost all fear and jumped on his knee.

"Well, there!" the woman exclaimed. "Did you ever? I've never seen him do that before. He knows you're a gentleman. Oh, yes, they know. His mother ran away. But she comes to see me sometimes and always looks very well, so she's got a good home. But _he_ isn't stinted. Oh, no. He gets his milk every day. What I say is, if you're going to have animals, look after them."

Michael nodded agreement.

"Because to my mind," she went on, "a great many animals are better than human beings."

"Oh, yes, I think they probably are," said Michael.

"Poor Peter!" she crooned. "I wouldn't starve you, would I?"

The cat left Michael and went and sat beside her on the bed.

"Why do you call it Peter?" he asked. The name savored rather of the deliberate novelist.

"After my boy."

"Your boy?" he echoed.

"Oh, he's a fine boy, and a good boy." The mention of her son stiffened the woman into a fleeting dignity.

"I suppose he's about twelve?" Michael asked. Her age had puzzled him.

"Well, thirteen really. Of course, you see, I'm a little older than what I look." As she looked about forty-five, Michael thought that the converse was more probable.

"He's not living with you?"

"Oh, no, certainly not. Why, I wouldn't have him here for anything--not ever. Oh, no, he's at school with the Jesuits. He's to go in the Civil Service. I lived with his father for many years--in fact, from the time I was sixteen. His father was a Frenchman. A silk-merchant he was. He's been dead about six years now."

"I suppose he left money to provide for the boy."

"Oh no! No, he left nothing. Well, you see, silk merchants weren't what they used to be, when he died; and before that his business was always falling off bit by bit. No, the Jesuits took him. Of course I'm a Catholic myself."

As she made her profession of faith, he saw hanging from the k.n.o.b of the bed a rosary. With whatever repulsion, with whatever curiosity he had entered, Michael now sat here on the pale blue chest in perfect humility of spirit.

"I suppose you don't care for this life?" he asked after a short silence.

"Well, no, I do not. It's not at all what I should call a refined way of living, and often it's really very unpleasant."

Somehow their relation had entirely changed, and Michael found himself discussing her career as if he were talking to an old maid about her health.

"For one thing," she continued, "the police are very rough with one, and if anyone doesn't behave just as they'd like for them to behave, they make it very awkward. They really take it out of anyone. That isn't right, is it? It's really not as it should be, I don't think."

Michael thought of the police in Leicester Square.

"It's d.a.m.nable!" he growled. "And I suppose you have to put up with a good deal from some of the men?"

"Undoubtedly," she said, shaking her head, and becoming every moment more and more like a spinster who kept a stationer's shop in a provincial town. "Undoubtedly. Well, for one thing, I'm at anyone's mercy in here. Of course, if I called out, I might be heard and I might not. Really, if it wasn't for the woman who keeps the house being always so anxious for her rent, I might be murdered any time and stay in here for days without anyone knowing about it. Last Wednesday--or was it Thursday?--time goes by so fast, it seems hardly worth while to count the days, does it? One day last week I did what I've never done before: I accepted six s.h.i.+llings. Well, it was late and what with one thing and another I wanted the money. Will you believe it, I very carefully, as I thought, hid it safe away in my bag, and this man--a very rough sort of a man he was, I'm not surprised poor Peter runs away from them--I heard him walking about the room when I woke up in the middle of the night.

And will you believe it, he'd gone to my bag and taken out

"I suppose you'd be glad to give up the life," said Michael, and as he asked the question, it seemed to him in this room and in the presence of this woman a very futile one.

"Oh, I should be glad to give it up. Yes. You see, as I say, I'm really at anyone's mercy in here. But really what else could I do? You see, in one way, the harm's done."

Michael looked at her tarnished hair; at her baggy cheeks raddled and powdered; at the clumsy black upon her lashes that made so much the more obvious the pleated lids beneath; at her neck already flaccid, and at her dress plumped out like an ill-stuffed pillow to conceal the arid flesh beneath. It certainly seemed as if the harm had been done.

"You see," she went on, "though I have to put up with a great deal, it's only to be expected, after all. Now I was very severely brought up by my father, and my mother being--well, it's no use to mince matters as they say--my mother really was a saint. Then of course after this occurred with the Frenchman I told you about--that really was a downward step, though at the time I was happy and though he was always very good to me from the beginning to the end. Still, I'm used to refinement, and I have a great deal to put up with here in this house. Not that I dislike the woman who keeps it. But having paid my rent regular--eight-and-six, that is...."

"Quite enough, too," said Michael, looking up at the ceiling that was so like the scarred surface of the moon.

"You're right. It is enough. It is quite enough. But still I'm my own mistress. No one interferes with me. At the same time I don't interfere with anybody else. I have the right to use the kitchen for my cooking, but really Mrs. Cleghorne--that is the woman who keeps the house--really she is not a clean cook, and very often my stomach is so turned that I go all day with only a cup of tea."

Michael was grateful to the impulse which had led him to cook his own breakfast on a chafing dish.

"I interrupted you," he said. "You were going to tell me something about Mrs. Cleghorne."

"Well, you must know, I had a friend who was very good to me, and this seemed to annoy her. Perhaps she disliked the independence it gave me.

Well, she really caused a row between us by telling me she'd seen him going round drinking with another woman. Now that isn't a nice thing to do, is it? One doesn't want to go round drinking in public-houses. It looks so bad. I spoke to him about it a bit sharp, and we've fallen out over it. In fact, I haven't seen him for some months. Still I shouldn't complain, but just lately what with one thing and another I had some extras to get for my boy which was highly necessary you'll understand--well, as I was saying--what with one thing and another my rent has been a little bit behind. Still, after you've paid regular for close on two years, you expect a little consideration."

"Have you lived in this burrow for two years?" Michael asked in amazement.

"In the week before Christmas it'll be two years. Yes. Not that Mrs.

Cleghorne herself has been so nasty, but she lets her mother come round here and abuse me. Her mother's an old woman, you'll understand, and her language--well, really it has sometimes made me feel sick." She put her hand up to her face with a gesture of disgust. "She stands in that doorway and bullies me until I'm ashamed to sit on this bed and stand it. I really am. You'd hardly believe there was such things to say to anyone. I think I have a right to feel aggravated, and I've made up my mind she isn't going to do it again. I'm not going to _have_ it." She was nodding at Michael with such energetic affirmation that the springs of the bed creaked.

"The mother doesn't live here?" he asked.

"Oh, no; she simply comes here for the purpose of bullying me. But I'm not going to let it occur again. I don't consider I've been well treated. If I'd spent the money on gin, I shouldn't so much object to what the old woman calls me, for I don't say my life isn't a bit of a struggle. But there's so many things to use up the money, when I've got what's wanted for my boy, and paid the policeman on this beat his half-crown which he expects, and tried to keep myself looking a little bit smart--really I have to buy something occasionally, or where should I be?--and I never waste money on clothes for clothes' sake, as they say--well, after that it's none so easy to find eight-and-six for the week's rent and buy myself a bit of food and the cat's milk."

Michael had nothing to say in commentary. It seemed to him that even by living above this woman he shared in the responsibility for her wretchedness.

"I hope your boy will turn out well," he ventured at last.

"Oh, he's a good boy, he really is. And I have had hopes that perhaps the Fathers will make him a Brother. I should really prefer that to his being in the Civil Service."

"Or even a priest," Michael suggested.

"Well, you see, he wasn't born in wedlock. Would that make a difference?"

"I don't think so," said Michael gently. "Oh, no, I hope that wouldn't make a difference."

He was finding the imagination of this woman's life too poignant, and he rose from the light blue chest to bid her good-bye. He begged inwardly that she would not attempt to remind him of the relation in which she had expected to stand to him. He feared to wound her, but he would have to repulse her or go mad if she came near him. He plunged down into his pocket for the two sovereigns. Half of this money he had thought an exaggerated and cowardly bribe to buy off her importunity when she had stood in the circle of lamplight, owlishly staring. Now he wished he had five times as much. His pocket was empty! He felt quickly and hopelessly in his other pockets. He could not find the gold. She must have robbed him. He looked at her reproachfully. Was that the thief's and liar's film glazing her eyes as they stared straight into his own? Was it impossible to believe that he had pulled the sovereigns out of his pocket, when nervously he had first seen her. But she had pawed him with her hands in the black pa.s.sage, and if the money had fallen on the road, he must have heard it. He ought to tax her with the unjust theft; he ought to tell her that what she had taken he had meant to give her. And yet supposing she had not taken the money? She had said the cat recognized him as a gentleman. Supposing she had not taken the sovereigns, he would add by his accusation another stone to the weight she bore. And if she had taken them, why not? The cat was not at hand to warn her that he was to be trusted. She had not wanted the money for herself. She had been preyed upon, and had learned to prey upon others in self-defense.