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:
“Will you come in?”
She took a deep breath, and went. Once in the presence, she looked from Michael to his secretary and back again, subtly daring his youth, his chivalry, his sportsmanship, to refuse her a private interview. Through Michael passed at once the thought: ‘Money, I suppose. But what an interesting face!’ The secretary drew down the corners of her mouth and left the room,
“Well, Miss—er—Manuelli?”
“Not Manuelli, please—Mrs. Bicket; my husband used to be here.”
“What!” The chap that had snooped ‘Copper Coin!’ Phew! Bicket’s yarn—his wife—pneumonia! She looked as if she might have had it.
“He often spoke of you, sir. And, please, he hasn’t any work. Couldn’t you find room for him again, sir?”
Michael stood silent. Did this terribly interesting-looking girl know about the snooping?
“He just sells balloons in the street now; I can’t bear to see him. Over by St. Paul’s he stands, and there’s no money in it; and we do so want to get out to Australia. I know he’s very nervy, and gets wrong with people. But if you COULD take him back here…”
No! she did not know!
“Very sorry, Mrs. Bicket. I remember your husband well, but we haven’t a place for him. Are YOU all right again?”
“Oh! yes. Except that I can’t get work again either.”
What a face for wrappers! Sort of Mona Lisa-ish! Storbert’s novel! Ha!
“Well, I’ll have a talk with your husband. I suppose you wouldn’t like to sit to an artist for a book-wrapper? It might lead to work in that line if you want it. You’re just the type for a friend of mine. Do you know Aubrey Greene’s work?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s pretty good—in fact, very good in a decadent way. You wouldn’t mind sitting?”
“I wouldn’t mind anything to save some money. But I’d rather you didn’t tell my husband I’d been to see you. He might take it amiss.”
“All right! I’ll see him by accident. Near St. Paul’s, you said? But there’s no chance here, Mrs. Bicket. Besides, he couldn’t make two ends meet on this job, he told me.”
“When I was ill, sir.”
“Of course, that makes a difference.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, let me write you a note to Mr. Greene. Will you sit down a minute?”
He stole a look at her while she sat waiting. Really, her sallow, large-eyed face, with its dead-black, bobbed, frizzy-ended hair, was extraordinarily interesting—a little too refined and anaemic for the public; but, dash it all! the public couldn’t always have its Reckitt’s blue eyes, corn-coloured hair, and poppy cheeks. “She’s not a peach,” he wrote, “on the main tree of taste; but so striking in her way that she really might become a type, like Beardsley’s or Dana’s.”
When she had taken the note and gone, he rang for his secretary.
“No, Miss Perren, she didn’t take anything off me. But some type, eh?”
“I thought you’d like to see her. She wasn’t an authoress, was she?”
“Far from it.”
“Well, I hope she got what she wanted.”
Michael grinned. “Partly, Miss Perren—partly. You think I’m an awful fool, don’t you?”
“I’m sure I don’t; but I think you’re too soft-hearted.”
Michael ran his fingers through his hair.
“Would it surprise you to hear that I’ve done a stroke of business?”
“Yes, Mr. Mont.”
“Then I won’t tell you what it is. When you’ve done pouting, go on with that letter to my father about ‘Duet’: ‘We are sorry to say that in the present state of the trade we should not be justified in reprinting the dialogue between those two old blighters; we have already lost money by it!’ You must translate, of course. Now can we say something to cheer the old boy up? How about this? ‘When the French have recovered their wits, and the birds begin to sing—in short, when spring comes—we hope to reconsider the matter in the light of—of’—er—what, Miss Perren?”
“‘The experience we shall have gained.’ Shall I leave out about the French and the birds?”
“Excellent! ‘Yours faithfully, Danby and Winter.’ Don’t you think it was a scandalous piece of nepotism bringing the book here at all, Miss Perren?”
“What is ‘nepotism’?”
“Taking advantage of your son. He’s never made a sixpence by any of his books.”