Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

He scowled at her. He was only too well aware that Sally loathed him, however much he tried he could not win her round. He had the uncomfortable feeling, under her dark eyes, that Sally saw through him; sometimes her shrill derisive laugh cutting into his manly conversation would take him completely aback, rend his composure from him, make him blush horribly.

His scowl gratified her; her eyes sparkled. Though she was only eleven, her sense of drollery was acute. Gaily she went on with the game of taking him off.

“You ought to be a good dancer, too, you’ve such big feet. Can you reverse, Miss Sunley? Yes indeed, Joe, I mean Mr. Gowlan, excuse the liberty. Shall we try? Please do, Mr. Gowlan, dear. Isn’t the music too lovelee? Ouch! ye beggor, ye tramped on me corn.”

She was really very funny, screwing up her comic little face, rolling her big black eyes, mimicking Jenny’s fastidious accent to perfection.

“Shall I stand you an ice, my deah? Or would you prefer tripe? Beautiful tripe. Straight from the cow. You can have all the curly bits.” She jerked her head upwards. “She’s curling her hair upstairs. Miss Sunley. Jenny, the lady toff what sleeps with the clothes-peg on her nose. Been at it for an hour. Come straight from in the millineree, not serving mind you, that’s what the slaveys do, that’s comming! Made me heat the irons, she did, caught me a cuff on the ear for the good of the house. There’s temper for you, Joseph, take a stitch in time before you leap!”

“Ah, be quiet will you… you cheeky little brat.” He rose from the table, made for the door.

She pretended to blush, remarking mincingly:

“Don’t be so formal, Mr. Gowlan, dear. Just call me plain Maggie. With such lovelee eyes ain’t it a shame you smoke. Oh, don’t think of leaving me so soon,” deliberately she got in his way, “just let me sing you a song before you go, Mr. Gowlan. One tiny little song.” Folding her hands in coy imitation of Jenny standing at the piano she began, very falsetto:

“See the little pansy faces,

Growing in the garden there…”

She stopped when the door banged behind him, burst into a peal of delighted laughter, then took a flying header on to the sofa. She lay curled up on the edge whanging the springs with her own delight.

Upstairs Joe shaved, scrubbed himself, robed carefully in the best blue serge, knotted a new green tie, neatly laced his shiny brown boots. Even so he was ready before Jenny; he waited impatiently in the hall. Yet when she did come down she took his breath away, knocked the puff right out of him: dressed in a pink frock, white satin shoes, a white crochet shawl — known in the vogue of the moment as a fascinator —over her hair. Her grey eyes had a cool lustre in her clear, petalled face. She was delicately sucking a scented cachou.

“By gum, Jenny, you look a treat!”

She accepted his homage as a matter of course, slipped her everyday cloth coat over her finery, took the front door key with a womanly air and put it in her coat pocket. Then she caught sight of his brown boots. Her lip dropped.

“I wish, Joe,” she said peevishly, “that you had got yourself a pair of pumps. I told you to a week ago.”

“Ah, all the fellows wear these at the Social, I asked them.”

“Don’t be a fool! As if I didn’t know! You’ll make me look ridiculous with these brown boots. Have you got the cab?”

“Cab!” His jaw fell; did she think he was Carnegie? he said sulkily: “We’re going by tram.”

Her eyes frosted with temper.

“I see! So that’s what you think of me! I’m not good enough to have a cab.”

From the landing above Ada called out:

“Don’t be late, you two. I’ve taken a Daisy powder and I’m going to bed.”

“Don’t you worry, ma,” Jenny answered in a mortal huff. “We certainly shan’t be late.”

They caught a red tram which was, unfortunately, very full. The tram’s fullness made Jenny more sulky, she stared the conductor out of countenance when he asked Joe for something smaller. During the whole journey she did not speak. But at last they reached Yarrow, got out of the crowded red tram. They approached the Oddfellows’ Hall in the chill silence of her offended dignity. When they entered the hall the Social had already begun.

Actually, it was not a bad Social, an intimate informal affair rather like the annual gathering of a large and happy middle-class family. At one end of the hall were tables set out with the supper: cakes, sandwiches, biscuits, green jellies, lots of small hard oranges that looked full of pips and were, bright red bottles of kola and two huge brass urns for tea and coffee. At the other end on a very high platform, screened by two aspidistras and a palm, was the orchestra, a grand orchestra, it had a full bass drum, used without stint, and Frank McGarvie at the piano. No one could put in more wonderful “twiddley-bits” than Frank. And the time? Impossible to put a foot wrong with Frank McGarvie’s time, it was so wonderful, as though bunged out with a hammer— La de dee, La de dee, La de dee — the floor of the Oddfellows’ Hall went up on the la and down, reverberating, on that final dee.

Every one was matey, there was no side, no nonsense of pencil and programme. Two foolscap sheets — beautifully written out by Frank McGarvie’s sister — were pasted on opposite walls indicating the number and order of the dances! Valse … Nights of Gladness, 2 Valetta … In a Gondola with You , and so on. Much companionable crowding took place round the lists, giggling, craning of necks, linking of arms, commingling of perfume, perspiration and exclamations: “Hey, Bella, hinny, can ye do the military two-step?”: in which fashion partners were achieved. Or a young husky, having scanned the list, might take a gallant slide across the slippy powdered floor, his impetus carrying him straight on to the bosom of his beloved. “It’s the lancers, lass, diddent ye know? Come on an’ dance it wi’ us.”

Jenny took a look at the assembly. She saw the poor refreshments, the pasted programmes on the steamy walls, the cheap and gaudy dresses, bright red, blue and green, the ridiculous dress suit of old Mike McKenna, the honoured master of ceremonies; she saw that gloves and slippers were considered by many to be non-essential; she saw the coterie of fat elderly puddlers’ wives seated in a corner, conversing amicably while their offspring skipped and hopped and slid upon the floor before them. Jenny saw all this in one long look. Then she turned up her pretty nose.

“This,” she sniffed to Joe, “gives me the pip.”

“What?” he gaped.

She snapped at him then, “It’s not nice , it’s not classy, it’s low .”

“But aren’t you going to dance?”

She tossed her head indifferently.

“Oh, we might as well, I suppose, take the benefit of the floor. The tickets are paid for, aren’t they?”

So they danced, but she held herself well away from him, and well apart from all the hand-clapping and stamping and screeches of merriment round about.

“Who’s that?” said she disdainfully as they two-stepped past the door.

Joe followed her eyes. That was an inoffensive looking fellow, a middle-aged man, with a round head, a compact figure and slightly bandy legs.

“Jack Lynch,” Joe said. “He’s a blacksmith in the shop. Seems to have a notion of you.”

“Him!” Jenny said, smirking stiffly at her own wit. “I’ve seen better in a cage.”

She lapsed into her monosyllabic mood, lifting her eyebrows, keeping her head well up in the air, condescending. She wanted it to be seen that she was, in her own phrase, above all this.