Frank Swinnerton

“ Savagely, Emmy betrayed herself again. She was trembling from head to foot, her mind blundering hither and thither for help against a quicker-witted foe. “It’s only you he’s not good enough for,” she said passionately. “What’s the matter with him?”
Jenny considered, her pale face now deadly white, all the heat gone from her cheeks, though the hard glitter remained in her eyes, cruelly indicating the hunger within her bosom.
“Oh, he’s all right in his way,” she drawlingly admitted. “He’s clean. That’s in his favour. But he’s quiet ... he’s got no devil in him. ”

“ She was not a young girl, to be agreeably fluttered and to pass on to the next admirer without a qualm. She loved him, blindly but painfully; without the ease of young love, but with all the sickness of first love. And she had jealousy, the feeling that she was not his first object, to poison her feelings. She could not think of Jenny without tremors of anger. And still, for pain, her thoughts went throbbing on about Jenny whenever, in happiness, she had seen a home and Alf and a baby and the other plain clear consequences of earning his love—of taking him from Jenny. ”

“ That was the thing, Jenny felt, that kept poor people in dread of the consequences of their own acts. And Jenny felt that if they might live apart from the busy world, enduring together whatever ills might come to them from their unsophisticated mode of life, they would be able to be happy. She thought that Keith would have no temptations that she did not share; no other men drawing him by imitativeness this way and that, out of the true order of his own character; no employer exacting in return for the weekly wage a servitude that was far from the blessed ideal of service. ”

“ Got a right to live, haven’t I? Why should I be somebody’s servant all my life? I won’t! If Alf doesn’t want to marry Emmy, he can go and whistle somewhere else. There’s plenty of girls who’d jump at him. But just because I don’t, he’ll worry me to death. If I was to be all over him—see Alf sheer off! He’d think there was something funny about me. Well, there is! I’m Jenny Blanchard; and I’m going to keep Jenny Blanchard. If I’ve got no right to live, then nobody’s got any right to keep me from living. If there’s no rights, other people haven’t got any more than I have. ”

“ To herself Jenny felt that it was no good—crying was no good, thinking was no good, loving and sympathising and giving kindness—all these things were in this mood as useless as one another. There was nothing in life but the endless sacrifice of human spirit.
“Oh!” she groaned passionately. “If only something would happen. I don’t care what! But something ... something new ... exciting. Something with a bite in it!”
She stared at the kicking clock, which every now and again seemed to have a spasm of distaste for its steady record of the fleeting seconds. “Wound up to go all day!” ”

“ It may have been that Jenny belonged to that class of persons who are called, self-sufficient. She plunged through a crisis with her own zest, meeting attack with counter-attack, keeping her head, surveying with the instinctive irreverence and self-protective wariness of the London urchin the possibilities and swaying fortunes of the fight. Emmy, so much slower, so much less self-reliant, had no refuge but in scolding that grew shriller and more shrill until it ended in violent weeping, a withdrawal from the field entirely abject. She was not a born fighter. ”

“ Presently, when she grew calmer, Jenny wiped her eyes, her face quite pale and her hands still convulsively trembling. She was worn out by the stress of the evening, by the vehemence of her rebellious feelings. When she again spoke to herself it was in a shamed, giggling way that nobody but Emmy had heard from her since the days of childhood. She gave a long sigh, looking through the blur at that clear glow from beneath the iron door of the kitchen grate. ”

“ If he didn’t love her she need not have come. It would have been better to go on as she had been doing, dreaming of him until—until what? Jenny sighed at the grey vision. Only hunger had driven her to his side on this evening—the imperative hunger of her nature upon which Keith had counted. He had been sure she would come—that was unforgivable. He had welcomed her as he might have welcomed a man; but as he might also have welcomed any man or woman who would have relieved his loneliness upon the yacht. Not a loved friend. ”

“ Those were hard moments in the Blanchard home, for the two girls had grown almost manlike in abhorrence of tears, and with this masculine distaste had arisen a corresponding feeling of powerlessness in face of emotion which they could not share. It was as though Pa had become something like an old and beloved dog, unable to speak, pitied and despised, yet claiming by his very dumbness something that they could only give by means of pats and half-bullying kindness. At such times it was Jenny who left her place at the table and popped a morsel of food into Pa’s mouth ”

“ In her perplexity Jenny fell once more into a kind of dream, an argumentative dream. She went back over the earlier rows, re-living them, exaggerating unconsciously the noble unselfishness of her own acts and the pointed effectiveness of her speeches, until the scenes were transformed. They now appeared in other hues, in other fashionings. This is what volatile minds are able to do with all recent happenings whatsoever, re-casting them in form altogether more exquisite than the crude realities. ”

“ A long way away they heard a sharp panting as a motor boat rushed through the water, sending out a great surging wave that made all other craft rise and fall and sway as the river’s agitation subsided. The boat came nearer, a coloured light showing; and presently it hastened past, a moving thing with a muffled figure at its helm; and the Minerva rocked gently almost until the sound of the motor boat’s tuff-tuff had been lost in the general noise of London. Nearer at hand, above them, Jenny could hear the clanging of tram-gongs and the clatter and slow boom of motor omnibuses ”

“ For Keith might ply from port to port, seeing in her only one girl for his amusement; but he had spoilt her for another man. No other man could escape the withering comparison with Keith. To Jenny he was a king among men, incomparable; and if he did not love her, then the proud Jenny Blanchard, who unhesitatingly saw life and character with an immovable reserve, was the merest trivial legend of Kennington Park. ”

“ And they can’t stand that!”
“Well, but Keith! Who is it that’s free?”
“Nobody,” he said.
“I thought perhaps it was only poor people ... just because they were poor.”
“Well, Jenny.... That’s so. But when people needn’t do what they’re told they invent a system that turns them into slaves. They have a religion, or they run like the Gadarine swine into a fine old lather and pretend that everybody’s got to do the same for some reason or other. They call it the herd instinct, and all sorts of names. But there’s nobody who’s really free. Most of them don’t want to be. ”

“ The cold air played with the water, and flickered upon the Minerva’s deck; strong enough only to appear mischievous, too soft and wayward to make its presence known to those within. And in the Minerva’s cabin, set as it were in that softly rayed room of old gold and golden brown, Jenny was clinging to Keith, snatching once again at precarious happiness. Far off, in her aspirations, love was desired as synonymous with peace and contentment ”

“ Of their inner, truer, selves it would be more rash to speak, for in times of peace Jenny had innumerable insights and emotions that would be forever unknown to the elder girl. The sense of rivalry, however, was acute: it coloured every moment of their domestic life, unwinking and incessant. When Emmy came from the scullery into the kitchen bearing her precious dish of stew, and when Jenny, standing up, was measured against her, this rivalry could have been seen by any skilled observer. ”

“ Keith cried. “Up you go! It’s quite steady. Hold the brass rail....”
After a second in which her knees were too weak to allow of her moving, Jenny conquered her tremors, rose unsteadily in the boat, and cast herself at the brass rail that Keith had indicated. To the hands that had been so tightly clasped together, steeling her, the rail was startlingly cold; but the touch of it nerved her, because it was firm. She felt the dinghy yield as she stepped from it, and she seemed for one instant to be hanging precariously in space above the terrifying waters. ”

“ In the middle of the cabin stood a square table; and on the table, arrayed in an exquisitely white tablecloth, was laid a wondrous meal. The table was laid for two: candles with amber shades made silver shine and glasses glitter. Upon a fruit stand were peaches and nectarines; upon a tray she saw decanters; little dishes crowding the table bore mysterious things to eat such as Jenny had never before seen. ”

“ Half suffocated, she was yet thrilled with delight in Keith’s strength, with belief in his love because it was ardently shown. Strength was her god. She worshipped strength as nearly all women worship it. And to Jenny strength, determination, manhood, were Keith’s attributes. She loved him for being strong; she found in her own weakness the triumph of powerlessness, of humiliation. ”

“ And the next time Alf took Jenny, Em had stayed at home, and thought herself sick about it, supposing that Alf and Jenny were happy and that she was unhappy, supposing they had all the fun, envying them the fun, hating them for having what she had not got, hating Jenny for monopolising Alf, hating Alf had monopolising Jenny; then, as she was a woman, hating Jenny for being a more pleasing woman than herself, and having her wounded jealousy moved into a strong craving for Alf, driven deeper and deeper into her heart by long-continued thought and frustrated desire. ”

“ Her eyes were liquid, the pupils dilated; her whole appearance was one of suppressed excitement. She had chagrin, not only because she felt that her appearance was unattractive, but because it seemed to her that her face kept no secrets. Had she seen it as that of another, Jenny would unerringly have read its painful message.
“Eh, dear,” she said aloud. “You give yourself away, old sport! Don’t you, now!” The mirrored head shook in disparaging admission of its own shortcoming. Jenny bent nearer, meeting the eyes with a clear stare. ”

“ The silvered blackness of the Minerva was disturbed. A long streak of yellow light showed from the door leading into the cabin while yet the sounds of the clock hung above the river. It became ghostly against the moonlight that bleached the deck, a long grey-yellow finger pointing the way to the yacht’s side.
Jenny and Keith made their way up the steps and to the deck, and Jenny shivered a little in the strong light. Her face was in shadow. She hurried, restored to sanity by the sounds and the thought of her father. Horror and self-blame were active in her mind—not from the fear of discovery ”

“ If only she had been mentally at ease, and free from distraction, she would have enjoyed every instant of her journey. Even as it was, she could not restrain her eagerness as they overtook a tramcar, and the chauffeur honked his horn, and they glided nearer and nearer, and passed, and seemed to leave the tram standing. Each time this was in process of happening Jenny gave a small excited chuckle, thinking of the speed, and the ease, and of how the people in the tram must feel at being defeated in the race. ”

“ Her voice, whenever she did not immediately hear some word fall from Alf, became sharp and self-conscious—almost “managing.”
It was a relief to both of them, and in both the tension of sincere feeling had perceptibly slackened, when the ignored orchestra gave way before the rising curtain. Again the two drew together in the darkness, as all other couples were doing, comforted by proximity, and even by the unacknowledged mutual pleasure of it; again they watched the extraordinary happenings upon the stage. ”

“ Funny thing there’s so much more news in the Sunday papers: I suppose people are all extra wicked on Saturdays. They get paid Friday night, I shouldn’t wonder; and it goes to their heads.”
“Silly!” Emmy said under her breath. “It’s the week’s news.”
“That’s all right, old girl,” admonished Jenny. “I was only giving him something to think about. Poor old soul. Now, about this hat: the girls all go on at me.... Say I dress like a broker’s-man. I’m going to smarten myself up. You never know what might happen. Why, I might get off with a Duke!”
Emmy was overtaken by an impulse of gratitude. ”

“ On the one hand lay brutality; a hundred imitative louts could have written a similar chapter brutally, with the soul left out, we’ve loads of such “strong stuff” and it is nothing; on the other side was the still more dreadful fall into sentimentality, the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming glimpse of “better things” in Alf or Emmy that would at one stroke have converted their reality into a genteel masquerade. ”