Victoria stepped past the cleaner, who was now washing the entrance. Nothing could be seen of her save her back heaving a little in a filthy blue bodice and her hands, large, red, ribbed with flowing rivulets of black dirt and water. As her left hand swung to and fro, Victoria saw upon the middle finger the golden strangle of a wedding ring deep in the red cavity of the swollen flesh.
CHAPTER XIV
'You come back with me, Vic, don't you?'
'You silly,' said Victoria, witheringly, 'I don't go off to-day, Gertie, worse luck.'
'Worse luck! I don't think,' cried Gertie. 'I'll swap with you, if you like. As if yer didn't know it's settling day. Why there's two and a kick in it!'
'Shut it,' remarked a fat, dark girl, placidly helping herself to potatoes, 'some people make a sight too much out of settling day.'
'Perhaps yer'll tell me wot yer mean, Miss Prodgitt,' snarled Gertie, her brown eyes flashing, her cockney accent attaining a heroic pitch.
'What I say,' remarked Miss Prodgitt, with the patronising air that usually accompanies this enlightening answer.
'Ho, indeed,' snapped Gertie, 'then p'raps yer'll keep wot yer've got ter sye to yersel, Miss Prodgitt.'
The fat girl opened her mouth, then, changing her mind, turned to Victoria and informed her that the weather was very cold for the time of the year.
'That'll do, Gertie,' remarked Lottie, 'you leave Bella alone and hook it.'
Gertie glowered for a moment, wasted another look of scorn on her opponent and flounced out of the room into a cupboard-like dark place, whence issued sounds like the growl of an angry cat. Something had obviously happened to her hat.
Victoria looked round aimlessly. She had no appetite; for half-past three, the barbarous lunch hour of the Rosebud girls, seemed calculated to limit the food bill. By her side Bella was conscientiously absorbing the potatoes that her daintier companions had left over from the Irish stew. Lottie was deeply engrossed in a copy of London Opinion, left behind by a customer. Victoria surveyed the room, almost absolutely bare save in the essentials of chairs and tables. It was not unsightly, excepting the fact that it was probably swept now and then but never cleaned out. Upon the wall opposite was stuck a penny souvenir which proclaimed the fact that the Emperor of Patagonia had lunched at the Guildhall. By its side hung a large looking glass co-operatively purchased by the staff. Another wall was occupied by pegs on which hung sundry dust coats and feather boas, mostly smart. Gertie, in the corner, was still fumbling in the place known as 'Heath's' because it represented the 'Hatterie.' It was a silent party enough, this; even the two other girls on duty downstairs would not have increased the animation much. Victoria sat back in her chair, and, glancing at the little watch she carried on her wrist in a leather strap, saw she still had ten minutes to think.
Victoria watched Gertie, who had come out of 'Heath's' and was poising her hat before the glass. She was a neat little thing, round everywhere, trim in the figure, standing well on her toes; her brown hair and eyes, pursed up little mouth, small, sharp nose, all spoke of briskness and self-confidence.
'Quarter to four, doin' a bunk,' she remarked generally over her shoulder.
'Mind Butty doesn't catch you,' said Victoria.
'Oh, he's all right,' said Gertie, 'we're pals.'
Fat Bella, chewing the cud at the table, shot a malevolent glance at her. Gertie took no notice of her, tied on her veil with a snap, and collected her steel purse, parasol, and long white cotton gloves.
'Bye, everybody,' she said, 'be good. Bye, Miss Prodgitt; wish yer luck with yer perliceman, but you take my tip; all what glitters isn't coppers.'
Before Miss Prodgitt could find a retort to this ruthless exposure of her idyll, Gertie had vanished down the stairs. Lottie dreamily turned to the last page of London Opinion and vainly attempted to sound the middle of her back; she was clearly disturbed by the advertisement of a patent medicine. Victoria watched her amusedly.
They were not bad sorts, any of them. Lottie, in her sharp way, had been a kindly guide in the early days, explained the meaning of 'checks,' shown her how to distinguish the inflexion on the word 'bill,' that tells whether a customer wants the bill of fare or the bill of costs, imparted too the wonderful mnemonics which enable a waitress to sort four simultaneous orders. Gertie, the only frankly common member of the staff, barked ever but bit never. As for Bella, poor soul, she represented neutrality. The thread of her life was woven; she would marry her policeman when he got his stripe, and bear him dull company to the grave. Gertie would no doubt look after herself. Not being likely to marry, she might keep straight and end as a manageress, probably save nothing and end in the workhouse, or go wrong and live somehow, and then die as quickly as a robin passing from the sunshine to the darkness. Lottie was a greater problem; in her intelligence lay danger; she had imagination, which in girls of her class is a perilous possession. Her enthusiasm might take her anywhere, but very much more likely to misery than to happiness. However, as she was visibly weak-chested, Victoria took comfort in the thought that the air of the underground smoking-room would some day settle her troubles.
Victoria did not follow up her own line of life because as for all young things, there was no end for her – nothing but mist ahead, with a rosy tinge in it. Sufficient was it that she was in receipt of a fairly regular income, not exactly overworked, neither happy nor miserable. Apart from the two hours rush in the middle of the day, there was nothing to worry her. After two months she had worked up a fair connection; she could not rival the experienced Lottie, nor even Gertie whose forward little ways always 'caught on,' but she kept up an average of some fourteen shillings a week in tips. Thus she scored over Gladys and Cora, whose looks and manners were unimpressive, lymphatic Bella being of course outclassed by everybody. Twenty-one and six a week was none too much for Victoria, whose ideas of clothes were fatally upper middle class; good, and not too cheap. Still, she was enough of her class to live within her income, and even add a shilling now and then to her little hoard.
A door opened downstairs. 'Four o'clock! Come down! Vic! Bella! Lottie! Vat are you doing? gn?'
Bella jumped up in terror, her fat cheeks quivering like jelly. 'Coming, Mr Stein, coming,' she cried, making for the stairs. Victoria followed more slowly. Lottie, secure in her privileges as head waitress, did not move until she heard the door below slam behind them.
Victoria lazily made for her tables. They were unoccupied save by a youth of the junior clerk type.
'Small tea toasted scone, Miss,' said the monarch with an approving look at Victoria's eyes. As she turned to execute his order he threw himself back in the bamboo arm chair. He joined his ten finger tips, and, crossing his legs, negligently displayed a purple sock. He retained this attitude until the return of Victoria.
'Kyou,' she said, depositing his cup before him. She had unconsciously acquired this incomprehensible habit of waitresses.
The young man availed himself of the wait for the scone to inform Victoria that it was a cold day.
'We don't notice it here,' she said graciously enough.
'Hot place, eh,' said the customer with a wink.
Victoria smiled. In the early days she would have snubbed him, but she had heard the remark before and had a stereotyped answer ready which, with a new customer, invariably earned her a reputation for wit.
'Oh, the hotter the fewer.' She smiled negligently, moving away towards the counter. When she returned with the scone, the youth held out his hand for the plate, and, taking it, touched the side of hers with his finger tips. She gave him a faint smile and sat down a couple of yards away on a chair marked 'Attendant.'
The youth congratulated her upon the prettiness of the place. Victoria helped him through his scone by agreeing with him generally. She completed her conquest by lightly touching his shoulder as she gave him his check.
'Penny?' asked Bella, as the youth gone, Victoria slipped her fingers under the cup.
'Gent,' replied Victoria, displaying three coppers.
Bella sighed. 'You've got all the luck, don't often get a twopenny; never had a gent in my life.'
'I don't wonder you don't,' said Cora from the other side of the room, 'looking as pleasant as if you were being photographed. You got to give the boys some sport.'
Bella sighed. 'It's all very well, Cora, I'm an ugly one, that's what it is.'
'Get out; I'm not a blooming daisy. Try washing your hair.'
'It's wrong,' interposed Bella ponderously.
'Oh, shut it, Miss Prodgitt, I've no patience with you.'
Cora walked away to the counter where Gladys was brewing tea. There was a singular similarity between these two; both were short and plump; both used henna to bring their hair up to a certain hue of redness; both had complexions obviously too dark for the copper of their locks, belied as it was already by their brown eyes. Indeed their resemblance frequently created trouble, for each maintained that the other ruined her trade by making her face cheap.
'Can't help it if you've got a cheap face,' was the invariable answer from either. 'You go home and come back when the rhubarb's out,' usually served as a retort.
The July afternoon oozed away. It was cool; now and then an effluvium of tea came to Victoria, mingled with the scent of toast. Now and then too the rumble of a dray or the clatter of a hansom filtered into the dullness. Victoria almost slept.
The inner door opened. A tall, stout, elderly man entered, throwing a savage glance round the shop. There was a little stir among the girls. Bella's rigidity increased tenfold. Cora and Gladys suddenly stopped talking. Alone Victoria and Lottie seemed unconcerned at the entrance of Butty, for 'Butty' it was.
'Butty,' otherwise Mr Burton, the chairman of 'Rosebud, Ltd.,' continued to glare theatrically. He wore a blue suit of a crude tint, a check black and white waistcoat, a soft fronted brown shirt and, set in a shilling poplin tie, a large black pearl. Under a grey bowler set far back on his head his forehead sloped away to his wispy greying hair. His nose was large and veined, his cheeks pendulous and touched with rosacia; his hanging underlip revealed yellow teeth. The heavy dullness of his face was somewhat relieved by his little blue eyes, piercing and sparkling like those of a snake. His face was that of a man who is looking for faults to correct.
Mr Burton strode through the shop to the counter where Cora and Gladys at once assumed an air of rectitude while he examined the cash register. Then, without a word, he returned towards the doorway, sweeping Lottie's tables with a discontented glance, and came to a stop before one of Bella's tables.
'What's this? what the devil do you mean by this?' thundered Butty, pointing to a soiled plate and cup.
'Oh, sir, I'm sorry, I.' gasped Bella, 'I.'
'Now look here, my girl,' hissed Butty, savagely, 'don't you give me any of your lip. If I ever find anything on a table of yours thirty seconds after a customer's gone, it's the sack. Take it from me.'
He walked to the steps and descended into the smoking-room. Cora and Gladys went into fits of silent mirth, pointing at poor Bella. Lottie, unconcerned as ever, vainly tried to extract interest from the shop copy of 'What's On.'
'Victoria,' came Butty's voice from below. 'Where's Mr Stein? Come down.'
'He's washing, sir,' said Victoria, bending over the banisters.
'Oh, washing is he? first time I've caught him at it,' came the answer with vicious jocularity. 'Here's a nice state of things; come down.'
Victoria went down the steps.
'Now then, why aren't these salt cellars put away? It's your job before you come up.'
'If you please, sir, it's settling day,' said Victoria quietly, 'we open this room again at six.'
'Oh, yes, s'pose you're right. I don't blame you. Never have to,' said Butty grudgingly, then ingratiatingly.
'No, sir,' said Victoria.
'No, you're not like the others,' said Butty negligently coming closer to her.
Victoria smiled respectfully, but edged a little away. Butty eyed her narrowly, his lips smiling and a little moist. Then his hand suddenly shot out and seized her by the arm, high up, just under the short sleeve.
'You're a nice girl,' he said, looking into her eyes.
Victoria said nothing, but tried to free herself. She tried harder as she felt on her forearm the moist warmth of the ball of Butty's thumb softly caressing it.
'Let me go, sir,' she whispered, 'they can see you through the banisters.'
'Never you mind, Vic,' said Butty drawing her towards him.
Victoria slipped from his grasp, ran to the stairs, but remembered to climb them in a natural and leisurely manner.
'Cool, very cool,' said Butty, approvingly, 'fine girl, fine girl.' He passed his tongue over his lips, which had suddenly gone dry.
When Victoria returned to her seat Lottie had not moved; Bella sat deep in her own despair, but, behind the counter, Cora and Gladys were fixing two stern pairs of eyes upon the favourite.
CHAPTER XV
'Yes, sir, yes sir; I've got your order,' cried Victoria to a middle aged man, whose face reddened with every minute of waiting. 'Steak, sir? Yes, sir, that'll be eight minutes. And sautées, yes sir. Gladys, send Dicky up to four. What was yours, sir? Wing twopence extra. No bread? Oh, sorry, sir, thought you said Worcester.'
Victoria dashed away to the counter. This was the busy hour. In her brain a hurtle of food stuffs and condiments automatically sorted itself out.
'Now then, hurry up with that chop,' she snapped, thrusting her head almost through the kitchen window.
''Oo are you,' growled the cook over her shoulder. 'Empress of Germany? I don't think.'
'Oh, shut it, Maria, hand it over; now then Cora, where you pushing to?' Victoria edged Cora back from the window, seized the chop and rushed back to her tables.
The bustle increased; it was close on one o'clock, an hour when the slaves drop their oars, and for a while leave the thwarts of many groans. The Rosebud had nearly filled up. Almost every table was occupied by young men, most of them reading a paper propped up against a cruet, some a Temple Classic, its pages kept open by the weight of the plate edge. A steady hum of talk came from those who did not read, and, mingled with the clatter of knives and forks, produced that atmosphere of mongrel sound that floats into the ears like a restless wave.
Victoria stepped briskly between the tables, collecting orders, deftly making out bill after bill, smoothing tempers ruffled here and there by a wrongful attribution of food.
'Yes sir, cutlets. No veg? Cauli? Yes sir.'
She almost ran up and down as half-past one struck and the young men asked for coffees, small coffees, small blacks, china teas. From time to time she could breathe and linger for some seconds by a youth who audaciously played with the pencil and foil suspended from her waist. Or she exchanged a pleasantry.
'Now then, Nevy, none of your larks.' Victoria turned round sharply and caught a hand engaged in forcing a piece of sugar into her belt.
Nevy, otherwise Neville Brown, laughed and held her hand the space of a second. 'I love my love with a V.' he began, looking up at her, his blue eyes shining.
'Chuck it or I'll tell your mother,' said Victoria, smiling too. She withdrew her hand and turned away.
'Oh, I say, Vic, don't go, wait a bit,' cried Neville, 'I want, now what did I want?'
'Sure I don't know,' said Victoria, 'you never said what you wanted. Want me to make up your mind for you?'
'Do, Vic, let our minds be one,' said Neville.
Victoria looked at him approvingly. Neville Brown deserved the nickname of 'Beauty,' which had clung to him since he left school. Brown wavy hair, features so clean cut as to appear almost effeminate, a broad pointed jaw, all combined to make him the schoolgirl's dream. Set off by his fair and slightly sunburnt face, his blue eyes sparkled with mischief.
'Well, then, special and cream. Sixpence and serve you right.'
She laughed and stepped briskly away to the counter.
'You're in luck, Beauty,' said his neighbour with a sardonic air.
'Oh, it's no go, James,' replied Brown, 'straight as they make them.'
'Don't say she's not. But if I weren't a married man, I'd go for her baldheaded.'
'Guess you would, Jimmy,' said Beauty, laughing, 'but you'd be wasting your time. You wouldn't get anything out of her.'
'Don't you be too sure,' said Jimmy meaningly. He passed his hand reflectively over his shaven lips.
'Well, well,' said Brown, 'p'raps I'm not an Apollo like you, Jimmy.'
Jimmy smiled complacently. He was a tall slim youth, well groomed about the head, doggy about the collar and tie, neatly dressed in Scotch tweed. His steady grey eyes and firm mouth, a little set and rigid, the impeccability of all about him, had stamped business upon his face as upon his clothes.
'Oh, I can't queer your pitch, Beauty,' he said a little grimly. 'I know you, you low dog.'
Beauty laughed at the epithet. 'You've got no poetry about you, you North Country chaps, when a girl's as lovely as Victoria – '
'As lovely as Victoria,' he repeated a little louder as Victoria laid the cup of coffee before him.
'I know all about that,' said Victoria coolly, 'you don't come it over me like that, Nevy.'
'Cruel, cruel girl,' sighed Neville. 'Ah, if you only knew what I feel – '
Victoria put her hand on the tablecloth and, for a moment, looked down into Neville's blue eyes.
'You oughtn't to be allowed out,' she pronounced, 'you aren't safe.'
Jimmy got up as if he had been sitting on a suddenly released spring.
'Spoon away both of you,' he said smoothly, 'I'm going over to Parsons' to buy a racquet. Coming, Beauty? No, thought as much. Ta-ta, Vic. Excuse me. Steak and kidney pie is tenpence, not a shilling. Cheer oh! Beauty.'
'He's a rum one,' said Victoria, reflectively, as Jimmy passed the cash desk.
'Jimmy? oh, he's all right,' said Neville, 'but look here Vic, I want to speak to you. Let's go on the bust to-night. Dinner at the New Gaiety and the theatre. What d'you think?'
Victoria looked at him for a second.
'You are a cure, Nevy,' she said.
'Then that's a bargain?' said Brown, eagerly snapping up her non-refusal. 'Meet me at Strand Tube Station half-past seven. You're off to-night, I know.'
'Oh you know, do you,' said Victoria smiling. 'Been pumping Bella I suppose, like the rest. She's a green one, that girl.'
Neville looked up at her appealingly. 'Never mind how I know,' he said, 'say you'll come, we'll have a ripping time.'
'Well, p'raps I will and p'raps I won't,' said Victoria. 'Your bill, Sir? Yessir.'
Victoria went to the next table. While she wrote she exchanged chaff with the customers. One had not raised his eyes from his book; one stood waiting for his bill; the other two, creatures about to be men, raised languid eyes from their coffee cups. One negligently puffed a jet of tobacco smoke upwards towards Victoria.
'Rotten,' she said briefly, 'I see you didn't buy those up West.'
'That's what you think, Vic,' said the youth, 'fact is I got them in the Burlington. Have one?'
'No thanks. Don't want to be run in.'
'Have a match then.' The young man held up a two inch vesta. 'What price that, eh? pinched 'em from the Troc' last night.'
'You are a toff, Bertie,' said Victoria with unction. 'I'll have it as a keepsake.' She took it and stuck it in her belt.
Bertie leaned over to his neighbour. 'It's a mash,' he said confidently.
'Take her to Kew,' said his friend, 'next stop Brighton.'
'Can't run to it, old cock,' said the youth. 'However we shall see.'
'Vic, Vic,' whispered Neville. But Victoria had passed him quickly and was answering Mr Stein.
'Vat you mean by it,' he growled, 'making de gentleman vait for his ticket, gn?'
'Beg your pardon, Mr Stein, I did nothing of the kind. The gentleman was making me wait while he talked to his friend.'
Victoria could now lie coolly and well. Stein looked at her savagely and slowly walked away along the gangway between the tables, glowering from right to left, looking managerially for possible complaints.
Victoria turned back from the counter. There, behind the coffee urn where Cora presided, stood Burton, in his blue suit, tiny beads of perspiration appearing on his forehead. His little blue eyes fixed themselves upon her like drills seeking in her being the line of least resistance where he could deliver his attack. She almost fled, as if she had seen a snake, every facet of her memory causing the touch of his hot warm hand to materialise.
'Vic,' said Neville's voice softly as she passed, 'is it yes?'
She looked down at the handsome face.
'Yes, Beauty Boy,' she whispered, and walked away.