Bliss, and other stories
will,’ she says. ‘She may have had a College eddication and sung in
West End concerts,’ says she, ‘but if your Lizzie says what’s true,’
she says, ‘and she’s washing her own wovens and drying them on the
towel rail, it’s easy to see where the finger’s pointing. And it’s high
time you had done with it,’ says she.”
Miss Moss gave no sign of having heard this. She sat up in bed, tore
open her letter and read:
“Dear Madam,
Yours to hand. Am not producing at present, but have filed photo
for future ref.
Yours truly,
BACKWASH FILM CO.”
This letter seemed to afford her peculiar satisfaction; she read it
through twice before replying to the landlady.
“Well, Mrs. Pine, I think you’ll be sorry for what you said. This is
from a manager, asking me to be there with evening dress at ten o’clock
next Saturday morning.”
But the landlady was too quick for her. She pounced, secured the
letter.
“Oh, is it! Is it indeed!” she cried.
“Give me back that letter. Give it back to me at once, you bad, wicked
woman,” cried Miss Moss, who could not get out of bed because her
nightdress was slit down the back. “Give me back my private letter.”
The landlady began slowly backing out of the room, holding the letter
to her buttoned bodice.
“So it’s come to this, has it?” said she. “Well, Miss Moss, if I don’t
get my rent at eight o’clock to-night, we’ll see who’s a bad, wicked
woman—that’s all.” Here she nodded, mysteriously. “And I’ll keep this
letter.” Here her voice rose. “It will be a pretty little bit of
evidence!” And here it fell, sepulchral, “_My lady._”
The door banged and Miss Moss was alone. She flung off the bed clothes,
and sitting by the side of the bed, furious and shivering, she stared
at her fat white legs with their great knots of greeny-blue veins.
“Cockroach! That’s what she is. She’s a cockroach!” said Miss Moss. “I
could have her up for snatching my letter—I’m sure I could.” Still
keeping on her nightdress she began to drag on her clothes.
“Oh, if I could only pay that woman, I’d give her a piece of my mind
that she wouldn’t forget. I’d tell her off proper.” She went over to
the chest of drawers for a safety-pin, and seeing herself in the glass
she gave a vague smile and shook her head. “Well, old girl,” she
murmured, “you’re up against it this time, and no mistake.” But the
person in the glass made an ugly face at her.
“You silly thing,” scolded Miss Moss. “Now what’s the good of crying:
you’ll only make your nose red. No, you get dressed and go out and try
your luck—that’s what you’ve got to do.”
She unhooked her vanity bag from the bedpost, rooted in it, shook it,
turned it inside out.
“I’ll have a nice cup of tea at an A B C to settle me before I go
anywhere,” she decided. “I’ve got one and thrippence—yes, just one and
three.”
Ten minutes later, a stout lady in blue serge, with a bunch of
artificial “parmas” at her bosom, a black hat covered with purple
pansies, white gloves, boots with white uppers, and a vanity bag
containing one and three, sang in a low contralto voice:
Sweet-heart, remember when days are forlorn
It al-ways is dar-kest before the dawn.
But the person in the glass made a face at her, and Miss Moss went out.
There were grey crabs all the way down the street slopping water over
grey stone steps. With his strange, hawking cry and the jangle of the
cans the milk boy went his rounds. Outside Brittweiler’s Swiss House he
made a splash, and an old brown cat without a tail appeared from
nowhere, and began greedily and silently drinking up the spill. It gave
Miss Moss a queer feeling to watch—a sinking—as you might say.
But when she came to the A B C she found the door propped open; a man
went in and out carrying trays of rolls, and there was nobody inside
except a waitress doing her hair and the cashier unlocking cash-boxes.
She stood in the middle of the floor but neither of them saw her.
“My boy came home last night,” sang the waitress.
“Oh, I say—how topping for you!” gurgled the cashier.
“Yes, wasn’t it,” sang the waitress. “He brought me a sweet little
brooch. Look, it’s got ‘Dieppe’ written on it.”
The cashier ran across to look and put her arm round the waitress’
neck.
“Oh, I say—how topping for you.”
“Yes, isn’t it,” said the waitress. “O-oh, he is brahn. ‘Hullo,’ I
said, ‘hullo, old mahogany.’”
“Oh, I say,” gurgled the cashier, running back into her cage and nearly
bumping into Miss Moss on the way. “You are a _treat!”_ Then the man
with the rolls came in again, swerving past her.
“Can I have a cup of tea, Miss?” she asked.
But the waitress went on doing her hair. “Oh,” she sang, “we’re not
_open_ yet.” She turned round and waved her comb at the cashier.
“_Are_ we, dear?”
“Oh, no,” said the cashier. Miss Moss went out.
“I’ll go to Charing Cross. Yes, that’s what I’ll do,” she decided. “But
I won’t have a cup of tea. No, I’ll have a coffee. There’s more of a
tonic in coffee. . . . Cheeky, those girls are! Her boy came home last
night; he brought her a brooch with ‘Dieppe’ written on it.” She began
to cross the road. . . .
“Look out, Fattie; don’t go to sleep!” yelled a taxi driver. She
pretended not to hear.
“No, I won’t go to Charing Cross,” she decided. “I’ll go straight to
Kig and Kadgit. They’re open at nine. If I get there early Mr. Kadgit
may have something by the morning’s post. . . . I’m very glad you
turned up so early, Miss Moss. I’ve just heard from a manager who wants
a lady to play. . . . I think you’ll just suit him. I’ll give you a
card to go and see him. It’s three pounds a week and all found. If I
were you I’d hop round as fast as I could. Lucky you turned up so early
. . .”
But there was nobody at Kig and Kadgit’s except the charwoman wiping
over the “lino” in the passage.
“Nobody here yet, Miss,” said the char.
“Oh, isn’t Mr. Kadgit here?” said Miss Moss, trying to dodge the pail
and brush. “Well, I’ll just wait a moment, if I may.”
“You can’t wait in the waiting-room, Miss. I ’aven’t done it yet. Mr.
Kadgit’s never ’ere before ’leven-thirty Saturdays. Sometimes ’e don’t
come at all.” And the char began crawling towards her.
“Dear me—how silly of me,” said Miss Moss. “I forgot it was Saturday.”
“Mind your feet, _please_, Miss,” said the char. And Miss Moss was
outside again.
That was one thing about Beit and Bithems; it was lively. You walked
into the waiting-room, into a great buzz of conversation, and there was
everybody; you knew almost everybody. The early ones sat on chairs and
the later ones sat on the early ones’ laps, while the gentlemen leaned
negligently against the walls or preened themselves in front of the
admiring ladies.
“Hello,” said Miss Moss, very gay. “Here we are again!”
And young Mr. Clayton, playing the banjo on his walking-stick, sang:
“Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.”
“Mr. Bithem here yet?” asked Miss Moss, taking out an old dead powder
puff and powdering her nose mauve.
“Oh, yes, dear,” cried the chorus. “He’s been here for ages. We’ve all
been waiting here for more than an hour.”
“Dear me!” said Miss Moss. “Anything doing, do you think?”
“Oh, a few jobs going for South Africa,” said young Mr. Clayton.
“Hundred and fifty a week for two years, you know.”
“Oh!” cried the chorus. “You _are_ weird, Mr. Clayton. Isn’t he a
_cure?_ Isn’t he a _scream_, dear? Oh, Mr. Clayton, you do make me
laugh. Isn’t he a _comic?_”
A dark, mournful girl touched Miss Moss on the arm.
“I just missed a lovely job yesterday,” she said. “Six weeks in the
provinces and then the West End. The manager said I would have got it
for certain if only I’d been robust enough. He said if my figure had
been fuller, the part was made for me.” She stared at Miss Moss, and
the dirty dark red rose under the brim of her hat looked, somehow, as
though it shared the blow with her, and was crushed, too.
“Oh, dear, that was hard lines,” said Miss Moss trying to appear
indifferent. “What was it—if I may ask?”
But the dark, mournful girl saw through her and a gleam of spite came
into her heavy eyes.
“Oh, no good to you, my dear,” said she. “He wanted someone young, you
know—a dark Spanish type—my style, but more figure, that was all.”
The inner door opened and Mr. Bithem appeared in his shirt sleeves. He
kept one hand on the door ready to whisk back again, and held up the
other.
“Look here, ladies——” and then he paused, grinned his famous grin
before he said—“_and bhoys._” The waiting-room laughed so loudly at
this that he had to hold both hands up. “It’s no good waiting this
morning. Come back Monday; I’m expecting several calls on Monday.”
Miss Moss made a desperate rush forward. “Mr. Bithem, I wonder if
you’ve heard from . . .”
“Now let me see,” said Mr. Bithem slowly, staring; he had only seen
Miss Moss four times a week for the past—how many weeks? “Now, who are
you?”
“Miss Ada Moss.”
“Oh, yes, yes; of course, my dear. Not yet, my dear. Now I had a call
for twenty-eight ladies to-day, but they had to be young and able to
hop it a bit—see? And I had another call for sixteen—but they had to
know something about sand-dancing. Look here, my dear, I’m up to the
eyebrows this morning. Come back on Monday week; it’s no good coming
before that.” He gave her a whole grin to herself and patted her fat
back. “Hearts of oak, dear lady,” said Mr. Bithem, “hearts of oak!”
At the North-East Film Company the crowd was all the way up the stairs.
Miss Moss found herself next to a fair little baby thing about thirty
in a white lace hat with cherries round it.
“What a crowd!” said she. “Anything special on?”
“_Didn’t_ you know, dear?” said the baby, opening her immense pale
eyes. “There was a call at nine-thirty for _attractive_ girls. We’ve
all been waiting for _hours._ Have you played for this company before?”
Miss Moss put her head on one side. “No, I don’t think I have.”
“They’re a lovely company to play for,” said the baby. “A friend of
mine has a friend who gets thirty pounds a day. . . . Have you _arcted_
much for the _fil_-lums?”
“Well, I’m not an actress by profession,” confessed Miss Moss. “I’m a
contralto singer. But things have been so bad lately that I’ve been
doing a little.”
“It’s _like_ that, isn’t it, dear?” said the baby.
“I had a splendid education at the College of Music,” said Miss Moss,
“and I got my silver medal for singing. I’ve often sung at West End
concerts. But I thought, for a change, I’d try my luck . . .”
“Yes, it’s _like_ that, isn’t it, dear?” said the baby.
At that moment a beautiful typist appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Are you all waiting for the North-East call?”
“Yes!” cried the chorus.
“Well, it’s off. I’ve just had a phone through.”
“But look here! What about our expenses?” shouted a voice.
The typist looked down at them, and she couldn’t help laughing.
“Oh, you weren’t to have been _paid._ The North-East never _pay_ their
crowds.”
There was only a little round window at the Bitter Orange Company. No
waiting-room—nobody at all except a girl, who came to the window when
Miss Moss knocked, and said: “Well?”
“Can I see the producer, please?” said Miss Moss pleasantly. The girl
leaned on the window-bar, half shut her eyes and seemed to go to sleep
for a moment. Miss Moss smiled at her. The girl not only frowned; she
seemed to smell something vaguely unpleasant; she sniffed. Suddenly she
moved away, came back with a paper and thrust it at Miss Moss.
“Fill up the form!” said she. And banged the window down.
“Can you aviate—high-dive—drive a car—buck-jump—shoot?” read Miss Moss.
She walked along the street asking herself those questions. There was a
high, cold wind blowing; it tugged at her, slapped her face, jeered; it