"And you've been going with Miriam Leivers?" the mother asked him.
"Well--" he answered.
"Yes, she's a nice girl," she continued. "She's very nice,but she's a bit too much above this world to suit my fancy."
"She is a bit like that," he agreed.
"She'll never be satisfied till she's got wings and can flyover everybody's head, she won't," she said.
Clara broke in, and he told her his message. She spoke humblyto him. He had surprised her in her drudgery. To have her humblemade him feel as if he were lifting his head in expectation.
"Do you like jennying?" he asked.
"What can a woman do!" she replied bitterly.
"Is it sweated?"
"More or less. Isn't ALL woman's work? That's another trickthe men have played, since we force ourselves into the labour market."
"Now then, you shut up about the men," said her mother. "If thewomen wasn't fools, the men wouldn't be bad uns, that's what I say. No man was ever that bad wi' me but what he got it back again. Not but what they're a lousy lot, there's no denying it."
"But they're all right really, aren't they?" he asked.
"Well, they're a bit different from women," she answered.
"Would you care to be back at Jordan's?" he asked Clara.
"I don't think so," she replied.
"Yes, she would!" cried her mother; "thank her stars if shecould get back. Don't you listen to her. She's for ever on that'igh horse of hers, an' it's back's that thin an' starved it'llcut her in two one of these days."
Clara suffered badly from her mother. Paul felt as if his eyeswere coming very wide open. Wasn't he to take Clara's fulminationsso seriously, after all? She spun steadily at her work. He experienceda thrill of joy, thinking she might need his help. She seemeddenied and deprived of so much. And her arm moved mechanically,that should never have been subdued to a mechanism, and her headwas bowed to the lace, that never should have been bowed. She seemedto be stranded there among the refuse that life has thrown away,doing her jennying. It was a bitter thing to her to be put asideby life, as if it had no use for her. No wonder she protested.
She came with him to the door. He stood below in the mean street,looking up at her. So fine she was in her stature and her bearing,she reminded him of Juno dethroned. As she stood in the doorway,she winced from the street, from her surroundings.
"And you will go with Mrs. Hodgkisson to Hucknall?"
He was talking quite meaninglessly, only watching her. Her grey eyes at last met his. They looked dumb with humiliation,pleading with a kind of captive misery. He was shaken and at a loss. He had thought her high and mighty.
When he left her, he wanted to run. He went to the stationin a sort of dream, and was at home without realising he had movedout of her street.
He had an idea that Susan, the overseer of the Spiral girls,was about to be married. He asked her the next day.
"I say, Susan, I heard a whisper of your getting married. What about it?"
Susan flushed red.
"Who's been talking to you?" she replied.
"Nobody. I merely heard a whisper that you WERE thinking---"
"Well, I am, though you needn't tell anybody. What's more,I wish I wasn't!"
"Nay, Susan, you won't make me believe that."
"Shan't I? You CAN believe it, though. I'd rather stophere a thousand times."
Paul was perturbed.
"Why, Susan?"
The girl's colour was high, and her eyes flashed.
"That's why!"
"And must you?"
For answer, she looked at him. There was about him a candourand gentleness which made the women trust him. He understood.
"Ah, I'm sorry," he said.
Tears came to her eyes.
"But you'll see it'll turn out all right. You'll make the bestof it," he continued rather wistfully.
"There's nothing else for it."
"Yea, there's making the worst of it. Try and make it all right."
He soon made occasion to call again on Clara.
"Would you," he said, "care to come back to Jordan's?"
She put down her work, laid her beautiful arms on the table,and looked at him for some moments without answering. Gradually theflush mounted her cheek.
"Why?" she asked.
Paul felt rather awkward.
"Well, because Susan is thinking of leaving," he said.
Clara went on with her jennying. The white lace leapedin little jumps and bounds on to the card. He waited for her. Without raising her head, she said at last, in a peculiar low voice:
"Have you said anything about it?"
"Except to you, not a word."
There was again a long silence.
"I will apply when the advertisement is out," she said.
"You will apply before that. I will let you know exactly when."
She went on spinning her little machine, and did not contradict him.
Clara came to Jordan's. Some of the older hands, Fanny among them,remembered her earlier rule, and cordially disliked the memory. Clara had always been "ikey", reserved, and superior. She had nevermixed with the girls as one of themselves. If she had occasionto find fault, she did it coolly and with perfect politeness,which the defaulter felt to be a bigger insult than crassness. Towards Fanny, the poor, overstrung hunchback, Clara was unfailinglycompassionate and gentle, as a result of which Fanny shedmore bitter tears than ever the rough tongues of the other overseershad caused her.
There was something in Clara that Paul disliked, and muchthat piqued him. If she were about, he always watched her strongthroat or her neck, upon which the blonde hair grew low and fluffy. There was a fine down, almost invisible, upon the skin of her faceand arms, and when once he had perceived it, he saw it always.
When he was at his work, painting in the afternoon,she would come and stand near to him, perfectly motionless. Then he felt her, though she neither spoke nor touched him. Although she stood a yard away he felt as if he were in contactwith her. Then he could paint no more. He flung down the brushes,and turned to talk to her.
Sometimes she praised his work; sometimes she was criticaland cold.
"You are affected in that piece," she would say; and, as therewas an element of truth in her condemnation, his blood boiledwith anger.
Again: "What of this?" he would ask enthusiastically.
"H'm!" She made a small doubtful sound. "It doesn't interestme much."
"Because you don't understand it," he retorted.
"Then why ask me about it?"
"Because I thought you would understand."
She would shrug her shoulders in scorn of his work. She maddened him. He was furious. Then he abused her, and went intopassionate exposition of his stuff. This amused and stimulated her. But she never owned that she had been wrong.
During the ten years that she had belonged to the women's movementshe had acquired a fair amount of education, and, having had someof Miriam's passion to be instructed, had taught herself French,and could read in that language with a struggle. She consideredherself as a woman apart, and particularly apart, from her class. The girls in the Spiral department were all of good homes. It was a small, special industry, and had a certain distinction. There was an air of refinement in both rooms. But Clara was aloofalso from her fellow-workers.
None of these things, however, did she reveal to Paul. She was not the one to give herself away. There was a sense ofmystery about her. She was so reserved, he felt she had much to reserve. Her history was open on the surface, but its inner meaning was hiddenfrom everybody. It was exciting. And then sometimes he caughther looking at him from under her brows with an almost furtive,sullen scrutiny, which made him move quickly. Often she met his eyes. But then her own were, as it were, covered over, revealing nothing. She gave him a little, lenient smile. She was to him extraordinarilyprovocative, because of the knowledge she seemed to possess,and gathered fruit of experience he could not attain.
One day he picked up a copy of Lettres de mon Moulin fromher work-bench.
"You read French, do you?" he cried.
CHAPTER X
CLARA （II）
Clara glanced round negligently. She was making an elasticstocking of heliotrope silk, turning the Spiral machine with slow,balanced regularity, occasionally bending down to see her work or toadjust the needles; then her magnificent neck, with its down and finepencils of hair, shone white against the lavender, lustrous silk. She tumed a few more rounds, and stopped.
"What did you say?" she asked, smiling sweetly.
Paul's eyes glittered at her insolent indifference to him.
"I did not know you read French," he said, very polite.
"Did you not?" she replied, with a faint, sarcastic smile.
"Rotten swank!" he said, but scarcely loud enough to be heard.
He shut his mouth angrily as he watched her. She seemedto scorn the work she mechanically produced; yet the hose shemade were as nearly perfect as possible.
"You don't like Spiral work," he said.
"Oh, well, all work is work," she answered, as if she knewall about it.
He marvelled at her coldness. He had to do everything hotly. She must be something special.
"What would you prefer to do?" he asked.
She laughed at him indulgently, as she said:
"There is so little likelihood of my ever being given a choice,that I haven't wasted time considering."
"Pah!" he said, contemptuous on his side now. "You only saythat because you're too proud to own up what you want and can't get."
"You know me very well," she replied coldly.
"I know you think you're terrific great shakes, and that youlive under the eternal insult of working in a factory."
He was very angry and very rude. She merely tumed away fromhim in disdain. He walked whistling down the room, flirted andlaughed with Hilda.
Later on he said to himself:
"What was I so impudent to Clara for?" He was rather annoyedwith himself, at the same time glad. "Serve her right; she stinkswith silent pride," he said to himself angrily.
In the afternoon he came down. There was a certain weighton his heart which he wanted to remove. He thought to do itby offering her chocolates.
"Have one?" he said. "I bought a handful to sweeten me up."
To his great relief, she accepted. He sat on the work-benchbeside her machine, twisting a piece of silk round his finger. She loved him for his quick, unexpected movements, like a young animal. His feet swung as he pondered. The sweets lay strewn on the bench. She bent over her machine, grinding rhythmically, then stoopingto see the stocking that hung beneath, pulled down by the weight. He watched the handsome crouching of her back, and the apron-stringscurling on the floor.
"There is always about you," he said, "a sort of waiting. Whatever I see you doing, you're not really there: you arewaiting--like Penelope when she did her weaving." He could not helpa spurt of wickedness. "I'll call you Penelope," he said.
"Would it make any difference?" she said, carefully removingone of her needles.
"That doesn't matter, so long as it pleases me. Here, I say,you seem to forget I'm your boss. It just occurs to me."
"And what does that mean?" she asked coolly.
"It means I've got a right to boss you."
"Is there anything you want to complain about?"
"Oh, I say, you needn't be nasty," he said angrily.
"I don't know what you want," she said, continuing her task.
"I want you to treat me nicely and respectfully."
"Call you 'sir', perhaps?" she asked quietly.
"Yes, call me 'sir'. I should love it."
"Then I wish you would go upstairs, sir."
His mouth closed, and a frown came on his face. He jumpedsuddenly down.
"You're too blessed superior for anything," he said.
And he went away to the other girls. He felt he was beingangrier than he had any need to be. In fact, he doubted slightlythat he was showing off. But if he were, then he would. Clara heardhim laughing, in a way she hated, with the girls down the next room.
When at evening he went through the department afterthe girls had gone, he saw his chocolates lying untouchedin front of Clara's machine. He left them. In the morningthey were still there, and Clara was at work. Later on Minnie,a little brunette they called Pussy, called to him:
"Hey, haven't you got a chocolate for anybody?"
"Sorry, Pussy," he replied. "I meant to have offered them;then I went and forgot 'em."
"I think you did," she answered.
"I'll bring you some this afternoon. You don't want themafter they've been lying about, do you?"
"Oh, I'm not particular," smiled Pussy.
"Oh no," he said. "They'll be dusty."
He went up to Clara's bench.
"Sorry I left these things littering about," he said.
She flushed scarlet. He gathered them together in his fist.
"They'll be dirty now," he said. "You should have taken them. I wonder why you didn't. I meant to have told you I wanted you to."
He flung them out of the window into the yard below. He just glanced at her. She winced from his eyes.
In the afternoon he brought another packet.
"Will you take some?" he said, offering them first to Clara. "These are fresh."
She accepted one, and put it on to the bench.
"Oh, take several--for luck," he said.
She took a couple more, and put them on the bench also. Then she turned in confusion to her work. He went on up the room.
"Here you are, Pussy," he said. "Don't be greedy!"
