Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Jenny, conscious of the effect she was producing, was flattered. And when Jenny felt flattered she was at her very best. Yet actually she was not greatly attracted to David, when their fingers met she knew no answering thrill. Jenny was in love with Joe.

Jenny had begun by despising Joe, his bad manners, his roughness, the fact, as she expressed it, that “he worked dirty.” Strange as it may seem, these were the very qualities which had subdued her. Jenny was made to be bullied, deep down in her being lay an unconscious recognition of the brutality which had mastered her. Meanwhile, however, Jenny was very pleased with this new conquest: it would “learn” Joe, when he heard of it, not to treat her so casually.

Supper over, Alf suggested music. They went into the parlour. Outside was the subdued evening hum of the street, inside it was pleasantly cool and airy. While Sally played her accompaniments, Jenny sang Juanita and Sweet Marie, come to me . Though her voice was thin and rather forced Jenny was very effective by the piano. When she finished Sweet Marie she offered to sing Passing By , but Alf, loudly supported by Clarry and Phyllis, had begun to clamour for Sally.

“Sally’s the top of the bill,” he remarked confidentially to David. “If we can get her started you’ll see some fun. She’s a great little comedienne. Her and me go to the Empire regularly every week.”

“Come on, Sally,” Clarry begged. “Do Jack Pleasants.”

Phyllis urged:

“Yes, Sally, please. And Florrie Forde.”

But Sally, perched apathetically on the piano stool, refused. Picking out melancholy bass notes with one finger:

“I’m not in the mood. He,” jerking her head towards David, “he wants to hear Jenny, not me.”

Aside, Jenny gave a superior little laugh:

“She only wants to be coaxed.”

Sally flared instantly:

“All right, then, Miss Sweet Marie Sunley, I’ll do it without the coaxing.” She straightened herself upon the stool.

At fifteen, Sally was still small and tubby, but she had something, a queer something that gripped and fascinated. Now her short figure became electric. She frowned, then into her plain little face there flowed an irresistible mockery. She struck a frightful discord.

“By special request,” she mimicked, “the other Miss Sunley will sing Molly o’ Morgan .” And she let herself go.

It was good, terribly good. The song was nothing, just a popular number of the day, but Sally made it something. She did not sing the song; she parodied it: she burlesqued it; she went falsetto; she suddenly went soulful: she wept almost, for the tragedy of Molly’s forsaken lovers.

Forgetting what Jenny would have called her manners, she concluded with a disgraceful impersonation of the monkey which might reasonably have been expected to accompany Miss o’ Morgan’s organ.

Everyone but Jenny was convulsed. But Sally, without giving them time to recover, dashed into I was standing at the corner of the street . She ceased to be the monkey. She became Jack Pleasants; she became a dull bumpkin, sluggish as a turnip, supporting the wall of the village pub. You saw the straw in her hair as she sang:

Vociferously Alf clapped his appreciation. Sally smiled at him wickedly from the corner of her eye; she winked, restoring her sex, and sang Yip I addy I ay . She developed a bosom, a rich deep voice and wonderful hips. It was Florrie Forde. Florrie, to the life.

She ended suddenly. She slid from the stool, swung round, and faced them, smiling.

“Rotten,” she exclaimed, screwing up her nose. “Not worth a slab of toffee. Let me get out before the ripe tomatoes come.” And she skipped out of the room.

Later, Jenny apologised to David for Sally’s oddity.

“You must excuse her, she’s often terribly queer. And temper. My! I’m afraid,” lowering her voice. “It’s very stupid, but I’m afraid she’s rather inclined to be jealous of me.”

“Surely not,” David smiled. “She’s just a kid.”

“She’s getting on for sixteen,” Jenny contradicted primly. “And she really does hate to see anyone paying me attention. I can tell you it makes things pretty difficult for me. As if I could help it.”

Assuredly Jenny could not help it: Heavens! that was like blaming a rose for its perfume, a lily for its purity.

David went home that night more convinced than ever that she was adorable.

He began to call regularly, to drop in of an evening. Occasionally he encountered Joe; more often he did not. Joe, with an air of tremendous preoccupation, was working overtime feverishly and seldom in evidence at No. 117A. Then David asked Jenny to go out with him: they began to take excursions together, curious excursions for Jenny, walks on the Aston Hills, a ramble to Liddle, a picnic, actually to Esmond Dene. Secretly, Jenny was contemptuous of all this junketing. She was accustomed to Joe’s lordly escort, to the Percy Grill, the Bioscope, Carrick’s—“going places” meant, for Jenny, crowds, entertainment, a few glasses of port, money spent upon her. David had no money to spend upon her. She did not for a moment doubt that he would have taken her to all her favourite resorts had his purse permitted. David was a nice young man, she liked him, though occasionally she thought him very odd. On the afternoon they went to Esmond Dene he quite bewildered her.

She was not very keen to visit Esmond, she thought it a common place, a place where it costs nothing to get in, and the very lowest people sprawled upon the grass and ate out of paper bags. Some of the commonest girls from the shop went there with their fellows on Sundays. But David appeared so much to wish her to go that she agreed.

He began by taking her the long way round so that he might show her the swallows’ nests. Quite eagerly he asked:

“Have you ever seen the nests, Jenny?”

She shook her head.

“I’ve only been here once, and I was a kid then, about five.”

He seemed astounded.

“But it’s the loveliest spot, Jenny! I take a walk here every week. It’s got moods, this place, just like the human soul, sometimes dark and melancholy, sometimes sunny, full of sunshine. Look! Just look at these nests, under the eaves of the lodge.”

She looked very carefully; but she could see only some daubs of mud plastered against the wall. Baffled, feeling rather angrily that she was missing something, she accompanied him past the banqueting hall, down the rhododendron walk to the waterfall. They stood together on the little arched stone bridge.

“See these chestnuts, Jenny,” he exclaimed happily. “Don’t they open out the sky? And the moss there on these stones. And the mill there, look, isn’t it wonderful? It’s exactly like one of the early Corots!”

She saw an old ruin of a house, with a red tiled roof and a wooden mill-wheel, covered with ivy and all sorts of queer colours. But it was a queer kind of tumbled-down place, and in any case it was no good now, it wasn’t working. She felt angrier than ever. They had tramped quite a long way, her feet were swollen, hurting her in her new tight shoes which she had thought such a bargain, four and eleven reduced from nine shillings, at the sales. She had seen nothing but grass, trees, flowers and sky, heard nothing but the sound of water and birds, eaten nothing but some damp egg sandwiches and two Canary bananas — they were not even the big waxy Jamaica kind which she preferred. She was confused, puzzled, all “upside down”; cross with David, herself, Joe, life, her shoes — was she really getting a corn? — cross with everything. She wanted a cup of tea, a glass of port, something! Standing there, on that lovely arched stone bridge, she compressed her rather pale lips, then opened them to say something extremely disagreeable. But at that moment she caught sight of David’s face.