Snobbery With Violence (26 page)

“I would like to make it plain, Miss ... er ...”

“Levine.”

“Miss Levine. We only take ladies of impeccable reputation here.”

The clothes, thought Daisy—she thinks I might be a kept woman, as if a kept woman would want to live here!

“I can assure you,” said Daisy primly, “that me and my friend, Miss Summer, lead very hard-working lives. No gentleman callers, I can assure you.”

“And where do you work?”

“At Drevey’s merchant bank in the City. We’re office workers.”

“I expect payment in advance.”

“How much in advance?”

Miss Harringey said, “Three months.”

“All right,” said Daisy.

“I have one double room available at the top of the house.”

“Can’t we have separate rooms?”

“None are available.”

“I’d better see this room.”

“Follow me.”

And so Daisy followed Miss Harringey up a narrow flight of stairs to the top of the house. There was a mixture of odours: gas, disinfectant, dry rot, baked potatoes, baked beans, and sour milk And the all-pervasive smell of cabbage. “No cooking in the rooms,” said Miss Harringey as she reached the top of the stairs. Daisy sniffed the air and wondered how many of the tenants obeyed that law.

“This is it.” Miss Harringey threw open the door.

In the middle of the room stood an iron bedstead covered in thin, worn blankets. There was a rickety dressing table by the window with a chipped marble top which held a china ewer
and basin decorated in fat roses and a mirror. The ‘wardrobe’ was simply a recess with a curtain over it. A table and two chairs stood by the grimy window. There was a small gas fire.

“The bathroom is two floors down at the end of the passage,” said Miss Harringey. “You will need two pennies for the meter and the bathroom is not to be used after ten at night.”

Daisy walked into the room. She crouched down before the mirror and adjusted her hat. Her rather protruding green eyes in her small face stared back at her.

Rose will hate this, she thought. Good, it might bring her to her senses.

“HI take it.”

“In that case, we shall descend to my sanctum and I will give you a receipt.”

“Oh, good work,” said Rose when Daisy returned with the news of the room.

“It means we’ll need to sleep together,” warned Daisy.

“Oh, things will be fine.” Rose had overcome her fears and was now looking forward to the new adventure. “I have received a letter from Mr. Drevey. We are both to start work next Monday. Eight in the morning until five-thirty in the evening. We are each to receive fifteen shillings a week.”

“Won’t go far,” cautioned Daisy. “Not after what you’ve been used to.”

“You have paid three months rent in advance, have you not? So we will have thirty shillings a week between us. We have our clothes. We can eat cheap food.”

“That Miss Harringey said there was to be no cooking in the rooms but from the smell of the place, I don’t think anybody pays any attention to that.”

“The smell?”

“Well, it does smell a bit. But that’s life on the lower side. I mean, it isn’t as if we have to stick at it, now does it?”

“We must stick at it. I’ll wager that horrible Captain Cath-cart is laying bets at the moment that we won’t be able to last the pace.”

“He wouldn’t do that. I don’t know why you are so agin him.”

“Against,” corrected Rose. “He did not even have the courtesy to acknowledge our visit.”

“Stands to reason. That old frump of a secretary doesn’t want to lose her job. She probably never even told him.”

“Oh ... well, no matter. We’ll probably be very happy in our new life at Drevey’s bank.”

Rose had expected her parents to be worried, but they seemed quite cheerful as she and Daisy packed up what they would need that weekend. She did not know that the earl had already called on Harry and had given him the address of Rose’s hostel or that Peter Drevey had promised to give Harry weekly reports of their daughter’s wellbeing. They were also cheered by the captain’s belief that Rose would not last very long in her new life. But mindful of the fact that they did not want Rose returning to Eaton Square in their absence, only to be minded by a maid whom both the earl and countess distrusted, they refused to give her a set of keys to the town house.

Mildly hurt, Rose said loftily that she would not need them

The weekend finally arrived. Lord and Lady Hadfield seemed indecently cheerful as they supervised arrangements for their
journey to Nice. Rose was feeling even more uneasy about her new venture. She had rather hoped that her parents might shed a few tears and beg her not to go ahead with the scheme so that she could capitulate gracefully.

But at last her luggage along with Daisy’s was placed on the outside steps—two suitcases and one large steamer trunk— while a footman fetched a hack.

If this were a novel, thought Rose sadly, as the hack jerked forward, my parents would be waving a tearful farewell from the steps. The farewell had taken place half an hour earlier in the drawing room and had taken the form of a stern lecture.

At last the hack turned down a narrow back street in Blooms-bury, Bryant’s Court.

“Is this it?” asked Rose nervously.

“This is it,” said Daisy. “I hope they gave you money to pay for this hack.”

“I still have some of my pin money left,” said Rose.

The cabbie thanked her so effusively and said, “Good day, my lady,” that Rose was alarmed.

“He recognised me!”

“Nah!” said Daisy. “You tipped too much.”

The delighted cabbie had carried their luggage to the front door. Daisy rang the bell. The door opened and Miss Harringey stared at Rose.

“Don’t expect me to help you up the stairs with that luggage,” she said. “Come into my sanctum and I’ll give you your keys.”

Rose stood nervously while Daisy collected two sets of keys, one each to the front door, one each to the room.

“Miss Devine knows the way,” said Miss Harringey.

Rose was too depressed to say anything. Inside her head, a voice was crying, “What have I done? Oh, what have I done?”

They decided to carry the suitcases up first and then return for the trunk. Their suitcases were light because they contained nothing but their “working clothes,” but the trunk was heavy because it was not only packed with underwear but piles of books which Rose considered essential and Daisy thought were a waste of time and energy.

Daisy unlocked the door to their room. “There you are,” she said cheerfully. “New home.”

Rose bit her Up. She would not cry. But the sight of the room depressed her so much that she felt a lump rising in her throat.

She forced herself to say, “I suppose it will do. Let’s get the trunk.’’

Miss Harringey, hands folded on her rigid bosom, watched curiously as they struggled back up the stairs, carrying the trunk between them. Rose turned on the first landing and saw her watching and gave her a haughty, glacial stare. Miss Harringey sniffed and retreated to her parlour.

When they laid the trunk in a corner, Rose straightened up and looked around again.

“There are no curtains,” she said.

“That’s cos we’re at the top of the house,” said Daisy. “Nobody can look in.”

“I want curtains,” said Rose. “Good, lined curtains.”

“You do that, and then the old bat will become suspicious if she starts snooping around. Look, we’ll buy some cheap ones.”

“And a vase for flowers. I need fresh flowers.”

“My lady... I mean Rose ... you’ll need to get used to the new life.”

“A cheap vase and cheap flowers,” said Rose stubbornly.

“There aren’t any cheap flowers in winter.”

“We’ll get a vase anyway and prepare for spring. But curtains, right now. Run down and get us a hack.”

“People like us don’t take carriages,” said Rose patiently. “We’ll walk up to Lower Oxford Street and then if you’re tired, we’ll take the omnibus and not first class either.”

Rose sat down on the bed. “Perhaps we shouldn’t rush into things. Light that fire, Daisy. This room is abominably cold.”

“I need a penny for the meter.”

Rose opened her handbag and took out her purse. “Here’s a penny. I suppose we’ll need to save a stock of pennies for the fire and the bath. Oh, we can’t even have a cup of tea.”

“Yes, we can!” said Daisy triumphantly. “You packed books, I packed essentials.” She put a penny in the meter and lit the gas. She unlocked the trunk and pulled out a small kettle, a teapot, a packet of tea and a paper twist of sugar. “No milk, but we can have it without. I’ve brought a pot and frying pan as well.”

Rose began to laugh. “Anything else?”

“Six sausages and two rashers of bacon and a loaf of bread.”

“But how on earth can you cook?”

“See!” Daisy pulled out a gas ring from the side of the fire. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

Rose began to feel almost cheerful. Daisy lit the gaslight and made a pot of tea. She wondered if Rose realised that a hostel which boasted gaslight
and
a bathroom was above the common order.

“I am such a fool,” said Rose. “When I saw this shabby room, I almost wanted to run back to Eaton Square and hammer on the door and say I had made a dreadful mistake. We will go out and find somewhere to eat and then we will spend the evening in practising our Pitman shorthand. I wish to surprise papa by making myself indispensable to the bank. I wonder what the other women will be like?”