It Began in Vauxhall Gardens - Plaidy Jean - Страница 61

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"I'll say you have!" said Polly admiringly.

"I have had my lovers, and because I know men of all kinds in all their moods, I am more suited to look after the daughters of gentlemen than a Mother Superior who knows nothing of the world. We should temper austerity with voluptuousness, virtue with broadmindedness.''

"Now, Madam dear, I am not one of your circle with advanced views. I'm not a gentleman buying a powder to make the ladies love me, nor a lady wanting lotions to knock years off my age. I'm not a sterile old couple wanting a night in your magic bed."

"Be silent, you ugly old woman. What do you know of such things? How could you be a gentleman in search of virility! And let me tell you no amount of lotions would be of any use to you; and what would be the good of knocking years off your age! You were as repulsive at fourteen as you are at forty. As for a night in my magic bed—who in their right senses would want to perpetuate you?"

Polly sat down on the chaise longue, her eyes shining with affection and adoration.

Fenella smiled back at her.

They were completely delighted with the fascinating world which they had created. They were content with each other.

Melisande had been at the house in the square for a week. It was the most extraordinary week of her life; it was just what she needed to help her to forget her experiences in Cornwall. Nothing could have been more different from Trevenning than the house of Fenella Cardingly. It seemed that Fenella had said: "Such and such a thing is normal; therefore my house will do the opposite." That made an exciting if bewildering manage.

The room Melisande shared with the three girls was a large and airy one overlooking the square. It was on the third floor of the tall house; there were two other floors above it, as well as the attics where the servants had their sleeping quarters. In the room were four narrow beds with coloured sheets and counterpanes—greens and mauves. A long mirror was fixed on the wall, and there were others on the dressing tables. The chairs and commode were eighteenth century and elegant; the rugs of mauve and green. The room always smelt of mingling perfumes used by the young ladies who inhabited it.

These young ladies accepted Melisande as one of them. Their numbers, they said, were always being depleted and made up again. Few girls stayed with Madam long. They married or went away for other reasons. The girls laughed when they said 'other reasons.* They were continually laughing at something which was said.

Exciting and amusing things happened to these girls; indeed everything that happened to them seemed to be amusing and exciting. Melisande had never known there were such people. They had no modesty, it seemed. They would walk about the room wearing nothing but a pair of shoes and a necklace, admiring themselves in the long mirror or listening to the comments of the others.

In the Convent when one of them had taken a bath, Melisande remembered, they had been warned not to look at themselves. God and the saints were watching, they had been led to understand; and any sly peep would have been recorded against them. But these girls were frankly curious about themselves and others; and when Melisande told them of the Convent attitude to nudity they were amused and laughed heartily.

"Well," said Genevra, who never minced her words and was not quite a lady, "if old Sir Frances didn't like to look at me, he'd be the first man who didn't."

"Saint Francis," corrected Lucie, who, as the daughter of a wellborn man and a village girl, chose to remember the paternal parent rather than the other.

Genevra retorted: "Saints or Sirs, you can't trust any of them. I reckon those old nuns weren't worth looking at any way."

After those bewildering evenings, when Melisande mingled with Fenella's guests wearing dresses which had been selected for her, the girls would lie in their beds talking of the evening. They talked with a frankness which at first amazed Melisande. They were frank about themselves. Melisande learned that Genevra had known terrible poverty in her early days. Genevra made no secret of her beginnings. Her mother, as a girl, had worked in a factory from the early hours of the morning until late at night; she had been shaken out of her sleep of exhaustion to start work again, beaten as she was dragged along to the factory, for she was ready to fall asleep on her feet; she had stood at her work through long hours, brutally treated by the overseer who had given her two children—Genevra and Genevra's young brother.

One morning, in the attic which had been their home, Genevra had awakened to find her mother still in bed; she had shaken her and been unable to awaken her when she had realized with cold surprise that she was dead. Genevra could not feel sorrow. Her mother had ill-treated her. The overseer, who sometimes visited the attic had begun to notice the extraordinary beauty of Genevra. Genevra had no great horror of incest—nor even any knowledge of it as such—but she was terrified of the overseer. She was conscious of the sudden change of manner in a man from whom hitherto she had received nothing but blows.

She knew that her brother had been sold, when he was three, to a master of chimney sweeps. One thing Genevra would never forget as long as she lived was the piteous crying of her brother as he was taken away. She had seen him once afterwards—that was a year later—deformed, grimed with soot, and burned on his arms and legs. That was her brother—her little brother who to her had seemed so pretty when he was a year old and she was three. • "Something happened to me," said Genevra. "Don't ask me what. I only knew that whatever happened to me, I wasn't going to work in a factory."

But Genevra took her tragedy lightly. Her life was a gay one. Others suffered in this terrible world, yes; but not Genevra; and if Genevra did better than others it was not due to luck, it was due to Genevra and her own unbounded energy and superior powers.

She talked more than the others.

"When we were in the attic a lady used to come sometimes. She'd bring us soup and bread. We used to have to say after her:

'Though I am but poor and mean I will move the rich to love me If I'm modest neat and clean And submit when they reprove me.'

2o8 IT BEGAN IN VAUXHALL GARDENS

"I never forgot that. I made up my mind I'd make the rich love me. There's a bit of sense in it, but like most things they tell you, you have to make it suit yourself.''

"You moved the rich to love you!" said Clotilde, and they laughed again.

"I'm clean, I'm sure," said Genevra. "Could you call me neat?"

"No," said Lucie. "Gaudy."

"And modest?"

"He whom we're thinking of wouldn't look for modesty. Do you submit when he reproves you?"

"But he reproves me for not submitting."

The 'rich' to whom they referred was a noble lord with a vast estate in the country. He had taken one look at Genevra and had found her enchanting; he had pursued her ever since. Genevra kept the little company informed of the progress of her love affair.

Before she met Fenella her name had been Jenny; but there were too many Jennys, said Fenella; and she christened her Genevra. Jenny had picked Fenella's pocket one day when Fenella had paid a visit to a mercer's shop. There had been Jenny near the entrance of the shop—a very hungry Jenny, pausing to look at the beautiful lady descending from her carriage and wondering whether there was a handkerchief she could quickly steal and take along to a man in the rookeries who would pay for such things. Jenny had been caught, but Fenella had intervened and had her brought to stand before her while she sat in the shop. Jenny, never at a loss for words, had poured the whole story into what her quick wits told her would be a sympathetic ear. Fenella heard of the overseer and his unwholesome advances, the brother crippled by his employers, and Jenny's present hunger.

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