The broken laugh

CHAPTER I Croydon I

It was a hopeless case. The only thing that remained to be done was to get rid of it as suavely as possible and hope that it would return later ; some day in September perhaps, when the autumn fashions would be in. In that case, God send that the autumn fashions be more suitable to its ungainliness.

For the third time that afternoon, Madame Estelle hid behind the showroom screen and sought refreshment from her powder-puff. A fatigued, almost powderless, and very greasy powder-puff. It moulted when Madame scrubbed it over her face, leaving bits of fluff that stuck to eyelashes and eyebrows, and had to be removed with a licked finger-tip.

In the centre of the showroom, in front of a cheval glass that shuddered on its pivots as the trams rumbled up and down the High Street, its rich contours oozing over the sides of a fragile gilt chair, determinedly sat the hopeless case.

The sales-ladies, with despair in their eyes contradicting the mechanical smile seccotined to their lips, stood round in limp lop-sided attitudes. One could divine from each bulging hip the effort to ease tormented feet in smart high-heeled one-and-eleven-penny-ha’penny “ patent ” leather slippers. At the end of each dangling 9 arm, held carelessly by slack fingers, were hats : little hats, big hats, imposing Gainsboroughs, roguish niniches, floppy Leghorns, prim “ boaters,” missish “ sailors,’ tulle hats, spangled hats — “ spangles are being greatly worn in Paris this season, Madam ” — chiffon hats, hats of lace, hats of glacS ; and odd shapes to which vivid trimmings had been tentatively pinned. There were even bonnets. Bonnets with bugles and ribbon strings, and bonnets that recklessly did without strings and called themselves toques. It was a mass meeting of hats. They barnacled overwhelmingly. On the floor, on the tables, on the sister-chairs to the one that groaned under its taxing burden. They topped the columns between which the mirror swung, hung drunkenly askew from brass, cushion-topped stands ; were piled on the shelves of an open cupboard, climbed over the edges of circular white -cardboard boxes branded, in golden cursive, as the property of Madame Estelle ; and finally was there one, the most impossible monstrous creation of all, perched precariously on the tightly drawn, scant grey top-knot of the hopeless case in the chair.

The bulging curves, the dress, the jewellery were the fit attributes that stamped their owner as the wife of a rich self-made tradesman. Only the excessively fat, after lean, years could account for the gelatinous plumpness and general air of uncomfortable but patiently borne repletion. In the over- corpulent, over-dressed, over -jewelled creature on the chair one regretted the active woman she might have been, possibly she regretted it herself, and would have willingly exchanged the flowered brocade for a serge gown, and the gold chatelaine for a sackcloth apron, so long as she could keep enough from the renounced splendour to ensure that always there would be a bit o’ prime meat for the Sunday dinner.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror and sighed.

CROYDON IX

The monstrous mauve hat with its purple pleureuse plumes was a cruel absurdity perched above her damp red face with its double chins and sad little blue eyes, and yet Madame Estelle, the sales-ladies chorusing, had declared how charming Madam looked in it. The victim recognized the lie, and writhed under the insult to her intelligence ; “ but, poor things,” she was thinking with unexpected sympathy and understanding, “ ’ow sick they must be of me.” She had been there since tea-time and the closing hour was very near. She was loathe to leave without buying, but really those hats were impossible, they made her look like a Greater Silly than ever was. Seizing her courage in both pudgy hands, she diffidently suggested, as Madame Estelle glided swishingly from behind the screen, that she had “ best be gettin’ along : I’m afraid I’ll *ave to be going as I can’t find anything to suit. It’s really too bad, ain’t it ? ”

What the Hopeless Case meant was that it was too bad to have wasted so much of Madame’s valuable time ; but Madame Estelle understood herself to be blamed.

“ If Madam will only spare me a few minutes more I am certain I can suit Madam,” she boasted ; but there was a discouraging want of conviction in her voice ; nevertheless, she walked to the cupboard and began to turn over, for the twentieth time that afternoon, the untrimmed shapes, searching the void of her dazed brain for inspiration.

A little apprentice crept into the showroom, and looked at Madame with inquiring eyes to see if she might commence to clear away and put tidy. A child-girl of seventeen whose white apron dangled longer than her short brown skirt ; and whose thick black hair still flapped in a double pig-tail between her shoulders ; she had the white face that comes of sewing for long hours in close workrooms, but her thin, daintily curved little mouth was wholesomely pink, and grey eyes looked squarely and confidently at the world.

In one hand she carried a hat ; in the other a veil. Madame Estelle stared, hot at the apprentice, not at the veil, but at the HAT ; the only hat in the place that the Hopeless Case had not tried on! She tore it from the child’s grasp and hurried to her patient customer. No one had thought of that hat. It was, properly speaking, not a hat at all ; but merely something with which to cover one’s head. In millinery parlance, it was a joke ; it was a scream, a freak ; it would never have dared to come out of its box unless for a wager. It was, in fact, the last attempt at creation the little apprentice had made. She had aimed at simplicity, she explained to the other girls in the workroom : they screamed at her that she had only achieved dowdiness.

The sales-ladies, forgetting their tired feet, sprang to attention ; one removed the mauve and purple creation ; the other patted gently into place a wisp of hair that had strayed, and then Madame Estelle herself, eyes intent and with the proper dosage of deference and authority, placed the joke on its appointed place ; she stepped back, her head on one side ; the sales-ladies assumed ecstatic attitudes.

But no sound came from the half -open lips that were preparing to enthuse with professional insincerity ! For the miracle had happened.

The “ joke ” suited. Where Paris models from Jane, Lewis, and Alex had failed, the “freak” had succeeded, and the Hopeless Case was hopeless no longer.

The flat, moderately brimmed little blue hat fitted neatly over the smooth unwaved hair that it covered ; two modest white wings jutted on either side with discreet jauntiness, it was the ideal middle-aged hat for a middle-aged woman. In the amazed silence the little apprentice stepped up to the customer. All the satisfaction of an artist who has won recognition shone in her eyes while, at the same time, instinct prompted her to perfect her success.

“ Try it with a veil, m’am,” she said, offering the veil she held in her needle-pricked fingers.

Madame Estelle coughed to hide her embarrassment, the sales-ladies rustled indignantly, and somebody whispered : “ Gracious, Kissy, you've got a bit of cheek, you have ! ” But the little apprentice was deaf to all, while the veil — white net embroidered with blue — was draped over the wonderful hat.

The result subsequently proved the crown of Kissy- Girl’s career as a milliner. Under the light layer of tulle the greasy red face appeared less greasy and less red. Two of the unnecessary chins were hidden under the white fullness that was draped to the nape of the neck. The blue eyes, opening in delighted surprise, beamed in the glass with an enchanting middle-aged twinkle :

“ If it isn’t just the spit image of the hat I wore the day my John proposed to me, only it was a brown with yeller bows — an’ I didn’t need no veil,” she added wistfully.

Madame Estelle rallied and rose to the occasion. “ This is the copy of a Lewis model, Madam,” she said. “ I really cannot understand how it slipped my memory till now. Indeed it suits Madam perfectly — and only four guineas ! Shall I have it sent home or will Madam wear it at once ? ”

“ I’ll wear it ” — the speaker surged heavily to her feet — “A copy is it?” she remarked dryly, “and ’oo copied it, may I ask ? Did you ? ” she demanded abruptly of the little apprentice before Madame Estelle or the ever rustling sales-ladies could answer.

“Ye . . .” Kissy-Girl began to reply, but Madame

Estelle’s pink varnished finger nails nipping through the flimsy blouse sleeve changed the final “ s ” to a stammered incoherent “ er . . . er . . . ! ”

“ Well anyway, *oo ever copied it, you brought it along, with the veil, so this is for you, my dear.”

Fat fingers groped in an immense gold-and-platinum meshed bag and brought forth a little gold coin that was deposited in Kissy-GirPs palm. The girl, astonished and gauche, stared in open-mouthed confusion till, prompted by Madame Estelle’s “ Really, Madam is too kind,” she blushed and whispered with shy simplicity : “ Thank you very much.”

“ That’s all right, my dear, but don’t spend it all on sweeties ; best buy something that’ll last,” said the kind soul, and then, gathering her belongings together, she bustled ponderously out of the shop and out of Kissy- Girl’s life, and Kissy remained to receive the sneers of the sales-ladies and Madame Estelle’s reprimand for he “ forwardness,” and then to put the hats back in the cupboards and their cardboard prisons. To stack the brass rods together and draw the holland, guipure-edged blinds, while the youth who was to put up the shutters stood outside on the pavement impatiently staring at her through the plate-glass windows, when she paused in her work and, unwrapping the swathing of tissue paper in which she had carefully folded it, stared delightedly at the little gold disc that looked so innocent . . .

II

One of the workroom hands — Polly was her undistinguished name — waited for Kissy-Girl at the corner of the High Street.

“ Well, you have been a time,” she grumbled crossly as Kissy hurried to join her, picking snippings of white cotton from her skirt as she half ran, half walked : a scrambling mode of progress.

“ Look,” said Kissy joyously, opening her hand under the other’s nose.

“ My ! Where d’you get it ? ” was the astonished question.

Kissy doubled her fist over the precious coin and, snatching her hand away, cradled it under her chin for an instant before taking one last glance at the treasure, and then finally hiding it in the inmost compartment of her shabby purse.

“ I got it . . .” she said, and taking a deep breath and pausing dramatically before plunging into the story, told Polly “ just how ” it happened.

When she arrived, breathlessly, at the end of the tale, Polly’s first comment was an echo of the indignant sales-lady’s :

“ Well, you’ve got cheek and no mistake ! ” But her voice rang with admiration, not with blame, and Kissy began to feel uplifted. “ What did Madame say ? ” Polly added.

“ Oh, she jawed before she let me put away — that’s why I’m late — and said things like that c’d happen once but not twice, and that anyway I was never, never , NEVAH to speak to customers, and if I did I wasn’t to say 6 you ’ to them. Silly, I call it ! Don’t you ? ”

But Polly had no opinion on the subject, she was bursting with the great question.

“ What’ll you do with it ? ”

“ Give it to Aunt Liz of course ! ”

Polly made a noise suggestive of disgust and contempt.

“ I’ll always have to give her my wages . . . when I get any,” said Kissy in self-defence.

“ That’s just it, this isn’t wages — how’s she to know you’ve got it unless you tell her ? ”

“ Brrt I think I ought to tell her. She’s not any too sweet in her ways I know, but she’s always been good to me all right, she gives me my clothes and my outings, and she paid my premium to Madame so’d I learn a good trade.”

“ You’re just a cure, Elizabeth Dalton, that’s what you are,” cried the disappointed Polly. “You told me once yourself there was twenty pounds a year coming to you when you’ll be twenty-one, and it ? s your aunt keeps it safe for you. D’you suppose it’s out of her pocket she buys your tuppen’apenny frocks an’ pays your premium ! It’s out uv those twenty quid. And as for those outings ! My, 1 wouldn’t care to live that kind uv Gay Life. Tram rides to the free Recreation Grounds on fine Sundays and threppenny seats at the 4 Pictures ’ when it’s wet ! A lot of 4 outings ’ she treats you, I don't think ! "

“ Well . . .” began Kissy ; but the other hurried on :

“You never bring sweets to the shop ; but you do have your dip into our bags- -not that we grudge it I’m sure, dear,” she hastily added as Kissy flushed ; “ but there’s a good deal of spending in ten bob, and you might have paid off old debts to the girls. What d’you say to ices to-morrow for tea ? There’s that new place in George Street. John’ll fetch ’em in and take back the cups after we’re finished. You cud get fourpenny ones — there’s ten of us, you wouldn’t invite those uppish showroom girls, would you ? That ’ud be three an’ fourpence — Or we might have threppenny ones and some French pastry besides. It ’ud be a regular Al treat that any one ud be proud to stand. ICES ! Um — just think of it 1 Bang in the middle of a hot afternoon when you’ve been sewing and sewing hats for swells to wear at garden-parties, where they'll eat strawberries and cream and Nee-apolitan ices like slices of rainbow. It gives you a cold taste under your tongue just only to talk of it . .

Kissy could no more have resisted the idea of standing an Al treat than Polly could have resisted cadging for it !

CROYDON IT

“But what’ll I do with the rest of the money?” she asked, when Polly’s enthusiastic hugs were over.

“ Put it aside for when you want it, stupid ; but I’ll tell you what, you might spend another bob next Saturday night. My gentleman-friend’s taking me to a F6te down to his tennis club. It’s shilling tickets, and there’ll be refreshments and Ven-ee-shun lantens and dancing-— with a real band. My friend ’ll introduce you to partners all right. What price that after Auntie’s treat, eh ? ”

Kissy-Girl was dazzled, the “ Ven-ee-shun lantens ” and the real band did it, but a sneaking doubt that maybe she would find these pleasures too overwhelming, prompted her to make one more objection.

“ Aunt never lets me go out alone of nights ! ”

“ Yes, she will if I ask her ! I’ll say there’ll be company to our house, and Ma’s compliments, and may you stay to supper ? ”

“ And s’posing Auntie meets your Ma ? ”

Polly disposed of that weak-kneed objection with all the scorn due to it. Kissy-Girl lived in the suburbs of East Croydon, Polly in the heart of West Croydon. The antipodes.

Therefore a little later, when Polly hopped in to the clanging tram that was to take her to meet the gentleman-friend of the tennis club, Kissy-Girl was pledged to the venture and, transgression being new to her, she was rather more anxious than elated as she thought of the riotous times coming. There was an uneasy crease between her eyes, and her heart beat faster than usual as she turned and started to rim home ; it was getting very late.

As she passed the post office at the comer of her street she paused, hesitated, then, with a panic-stricken air of recklessness, she hurried into the building.

It was deep dusk when Kissy finally reached home — one of those jerry-built truncated specimens of architecture made of spit and plaster that look more like a slice of house than an entire building ; she skirted the front and side and made her entrance by the scullery.

She was met by a strong smell of yellow soap and coffee. By the kitchen window two small children were hunched over lesson books. They could not possibly see, but they pretended to.

“ You'll catch it,” said one of them, looking up, and then crouching over her book precipitately as a firm tread tramped grimly down the passage.

“ I’ll thank you,” began Kissy’s Aunt from the door, “ to tell me the meaning of this, my girl. Three-quarters of an hour late if it’s a minute.” She came into the kitchen, folded her hands energetically over her stomach, and waited.

Kissy told, and the children, all pretence of study abandoned, listened, open-mouthed. Kissy brought her story to its climax with the proud boast :

“ And she kept it on and wore it out of the shop and had the old one sent home ! ”

It was not Aunt Liz’s nature to put up with boasting.

“ I dare say she thought it wasn’t fine enough to keep for Sundays,” she disparaged, “ and I must say that showed a very forward spirit, Kissy^ ; it’s not many fine ladies ud put up with such ways from an apprentice.”

There was a deep silence that lasted long enough to register three loud ticks from a sonorous cuckoo-clock, and several bubbling drips in the coffee pot, then :

“ She gave me this,” said Kissy, with all the meekness of youth that has been thoroughly wet-blanketed.

Two half-crowns clinked into Aunt Liz’s strong hand.

“ Five shillings ! Well, I never. It’s a lot of money,

Kissy ” — and Aunt Liz spoke with heavy reluctance of some one who finds if difficult to pay a compliment — “ Kissy, you’re a good girl.”

It was too dark to see whether Kissy blushed.

IV

Two of the slats of the Venetian blind that screened Kissy-GirPs window were broken, and an impertinent sunbeam, peering through, shone boldly on Kissy’s face with an air of treating the matter as rather a good joke.

The girl moved uneasily. The patch of light shifted from her nose and mouth to her eyes and forehead. She muttered and made a little brushing gesture with the hand that was flung outside the bed on the sheets. The evidence of a summer night lay in the blanket and “ crazy- work ” coverlet that had been pushed over the foot of the bed and straggled to the floor.

The sunbeam darted with mischievous persistence. The summer morning was too glorious for a cloud to come to Kissy-GirPs rescue.

The skirmish was short and decisive, though at one moment it seemed almost as if Kissy would win ; she had so stirred on the pillow that the light hovered over her ear, and her eyes were again in the shadow, but a tiny breeze came frisking out of space, the blind stirred at the open window, and as the patch of sun, shining with more mischievous vehemence than ever, beat on Kissy’s closed lids, she rolled over and said “ O-o-oh ! ” It was the softest sigh ; then she rolled back, opened her eyes, blinked painfully, and said “ Bother ! ” very loudly.

She sleepily sat up and, dangling her legs over the edge of the bed, slowly slid to the floor. The skimpy, outgrown night-gown slipped upwards, revealing her knees. Round, polished, childish knees, a little pathetic because they were so white. She pattered across the bare boards to the washstand and, snatching a towel from the rickety wooden towel-horse that rocked protestingly and finally fell drunkenly against the wall, pattered back to the window, where she hung the greywhite wisp of city -washed linen over the gap in the blind ; she hurried back into bed and, throwing herself back on the pillow, stretched luxuriously as if she had achieved the acme of comfort., then she closed her eyes.

But Kissy’s rising had banished sleep as effectually as the sunbeam.

She kicked at the sheet impatiently ; sprawled crossways in the bed, and looked at the clock. A cheap tin alarm-clock — usually set to rouse Kissy at six o’clock on weekdays — its severe black hands pointed to half-past seven.

On Sundays, Kissy-Girl enjoyed the inestimable privilege of staying in bed till eight o’clock ; a grudging concession to her early rising other days and to her debut as prospective wage-earner, but an indulgence described by Aunt Liz as “ lazin’ away half the morning 1 ”

Kissy’s eyes roved possessively over the small closet she was so proud to call “ my room.” It was small and bare. To the whitewashed walls she had nailed : the soulful and smackable “ Bubbles,” picture post cards of Pauline Chase, Lord Kitchener, Baden Powell, Lily Elsie, “ Bobs,” and “ Caesar — the King’s dog ! ”

A pink chintz curtain, whose bright colours had faded in vertical streaks, stretched across one corner and hid the pegs that supported Kissy’s everyday clothes. Highday-holiday garb lived in Aunt Liz’s cupboard under lock and key. A chest of drawers of chipped mahogany supported a small adjustable looking-glass, the screws of which were so worn that Kissy always had to wedge the mirror in position with a wad of paper — or a pair of stockings — before it would consent to reflect anything except the floor or the ceiling. The deal wash-hand stand and towel-horse were varnished and grained to imitate some wonderfully ornate kind of wood ; the result looked more like a good imitation of orange marmalade, gone a little mouldy, than anything else. The floor was bare but for an oil-cloth mat in front of the wash-hand stand, and one chair sufficed for Kissy’s needs.

This chair had started life as a frivolous gilt affair with a fragile cane bottom, but by the time it reached Kissy’s domain it had been painted brown, and a hard wooden seat bored with a circular pattern of little holes had been nailed into position with brass-topped nails.

As Kissy’s eye fell on the chair she smiled. In reality it was not at the chair, but at the frock that hung limply over it, that she smiled. Her best white muslin frock with the old rose moir6 belt, and the edging of real Valenciennes lace to the low collar : a frock much too good to be worn “ just for spending the evening at Polly’s place,” had declared Aunt Liz as she took it from the cupboard the night before and gave it grudgingly to Kissy.

Kissy sat up in bed and with a sudden, shy, movement hid her face in her hands. “ Of course ... it was last night ...” and she tingled and blushed.

Behind closed lids, in the darkness of her hot little palms, Kissy saw, in catherine-wheel flashes of fire, the bright coloured lights of the Venetian lanterns that had so enchanted her. In her ears rang the memories of mawkish waltz tunes and sentimental coon songs. The plaintive wailing of a violin that was heard from a distance while the pungent night smell of mown hay that has basked in the sun all day, brought the easy emotional tears of innocent foolish girlhood to her eyes — then other memories, other sensations, rushed overwhelmingly through brain and body.

V

At first Kissy had felt entirely “ out of it ” at the Fete. She was utterly disconcerted by the “ young gentlemen ” introduced to her by Polly and Polly’s young man. They all asked her if she’d seen that week’s Musical Comedy Company at the Theatre Royal and what she thought of the Fete ; to which she replied that :

(a) She had never been to the Theatre Royal ;

(b) It was fine.

Having made such bright overtures the young gentlemen relaxed all efforts and expected, in their turn, to be entertained. They were used to flamboyant girls in indiscreet blouses. Girls with powder-puffs concealed in lace edged handkerchiefs that smelled of violent oppopanax or nauseous Trifle incarnat. To shop-girls who knew what was what, who could use their eyes and make a fellow feel he was an out-of-stock-sized pebble on the beach. Solemn-eyed flappers in white muslin who had never read the front page jokes of the Winning Post , who only knew the polka and the barndance, who shook their head and blushed when asked to waltz, and admitted utter ignorance of the tw r o-step, were undesirable riddles and not worth deciphering. So, after her fourth partner abandoned her under the plea of fetching her an ice, and, like his predecessors, did not return, Kissy remained, plantee la, forlornly in a corner.

The site of the Tennis Club was a mere fraction of a field hedged off from a checker-board of other fields. The Pavilion, modestly rustic, stood at the north side of the high wire-netting that enclosed four tennis courts. In the centre of the field was a cricket pitch, the wickets of which had not been improved by the rolling that had been undertaken by giggling girls wearing Louis XV heels. On the evening of the Fete, panache paper lanterns hung at inexpensively discreet distances round the edge of the low roof and in the doorway and windows of the Pavilion ; also on the ropes linking the four poles that marked off the dancing floor that had been put down for the occasion. The orchestra — piano, violin, and cornet — performed in the veranda, and was sustained by little dark bottles that clinked together in a pail of tepid water that had” once been ice. Inside the Pavilion were refreshments ; that ranged from anchovy paste sandwiches to ices, and bottled beer to an unholy mixture that the hired waiter, in connivance with the club steward, called “claret cup” — a mixture that nevertheless justified its existence by being cold, sweet, and insidious.

Polly, in the generous mood of a girl who dangles an overcrowded dance programme from her elbow, sent her partner to Kissy with a brimming glass of the sticky stuff. The boy was in a hurry — he wanted to get back to Polly — and the waiter being busy he had seized a large tumbler and helped himself.

When Kissy found herself again alone with a fragile sponge cake in one hand and a clammy cold glass that dripped in the other, she became conscious of but one desire ; to get away from the mocking or pitying stares of the brilliant young ladies that swung past her in the arms of equally brilliant young gentlemen, who neither mocked nor pitied Kissy, but only hastily averted their eyes — especially those who had already danced with her.

Precautiously, stiffly — the glass was so very full — Kissy sidled towards the reassuring darkness outside the halo of golden light that filtered from the lanterns.

There was no moon, yet the darkness was only dark relatively to the illuminations of the Fete ; in the distance tall billowy trees stood out clearly against the pale summer night sky ; great banks of trees that were broken by remote angular shapes of masonry from which lights twinkled tinily.

“ Swells’ houses ! ” Kissy subconsciously recognized, classified, and disposed of them as she would have passing trams she had no wish to ride in.

Wandering towards the hedge that hemmed in the field she stumbled against a tuft of grass ; the liquid in the glass slopped over, splashed, and dripped. Craning forward so that her frock should not be stained, Kissy gingerly licked the drips that were chasing each other down the sides of the tumbler and collecting in big, dangerous drops on the lower edge.

The taste was — Kissy had no means of describing it except as scrumptious. She sipped tentatively. Again, then more boldly ; the glass would be easier to carry now.

In all proper hedges that guard property there should be a gap ; there was in this one.

On the other side of the gap was a hayfield ; the grass had been mown, but not stacked ; it lay in great soft heaps, smelling of clover and imprisoned sunshine. Kissy kicked a heap together near the hedge, sat down, ate her cake and finished the pink mixture in the glass. Then she snuggled back on her soft couch in perfect contentment to wait there till it would be time to go home.

Out of one of the “ swells* houses ” a swell came strolling. From the terrace, where he had lolled over an after-dinner cigar, he saw the lights and faintly heard the strains of a Berger waltz. Lazily he “ supposed ” that “ some of those low Croydon shopkeepers were havin’ a bean-feast,” and that there might be a bit of fun to be got out of a girl or two over there ! He was the kind of man — and he may be a lord, a bourgeois, or a brewer — who imagines that girls — of what he calls the lower class — exist merely for a chap’s amusement.