Evening star. [volume], October 22, 1939, Page 9, Image 99

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
"This person is a thief," raged Miss Stuff,
pointing at Virginia."! caught her redhanded"
A Short Story Complete in This Issue
★ ★ ★
The long, low comfortable house called
“Sparrows” was covered with honey
suckle and winter jasmine, and had red
blinds. Lamplight shining through them gave
it a very cosy and comfortable appearance.
Miss Anstey and Miss Stuff dwelt there
together, but not in unity, on account of
Miss Stuff’s temper. Miss Stuff was rich,
rheumatic, and incredibly old. So old that she
forgot sometimes whereabouts she had got to
in time, and said that “the Kaiser ought tp be
put in his place, upsetting everything like
this.” It was with a colossal effort that she
tore herself from the conviction that Queen
Victoria was still on the throne.
This made her difficult to live with. When
the wind blew from the sea and the rain came
over the Downs like clouds descending. Miss
Anstey’s heart went into her boots, for she
knew what she was in for. Then it was that
the rheumatics tweaked Miss Stuff badly, and
she took it out on Miss Anstey. What else is a
companion for?
^ Not that Miss Stuff was always disagree
able. She had, at times, a sort of Puckish
humor, and unexpected bouts of kindness of
heart. But they got rarer as she got older.
Virginia A stey must have been beautiful
once. She still had a Dresden china com
plexion, and her eyes were blue and slightly
surprised, as if to this day life took her aback a
little. Her lips were still red as the lips of a
girl, though her fortieth birthday was in sight
just over the hills!
“Go upstairs and take the paint off. Go
upstairs,” Miss Stuff would fume insultingly.
“It’s ridiculous for a woman of your age to
paint herself up — it’s disgusting. You are a
figure of fun, Virginia . . . You have been
blacking your eyebrows again.”
Virginia would go to her room obediently,
though there was nothing she could rub off.
God had been kind to her in little ways, and
she had her bright color and her penciled
eyebrows straight from Him. It was useless
saying that to Miss Stuff, who for some reason
thought all God ever gave you was varicose
veins and disabilities.
Virginia was by nature honest as the day,
but living with Miss Stuff had driven her to
subterfuges. She never argued or reasoned, or
she would not have been there. Lady com
panions had whizzed through the house at the
rate of three a month — until Virginia came.
She remained because she had this golden
gift of silence. When Miss Stuff said, “Do
this,” Virginia departed and pretended to do
it, instead of pointing out how impossible it
was to write a letter to Disraeli, dead these
many years.
Miss Stuff was worth three thousand pounds
a year. “Sparrows” was hers and all that
therein was. She also had a seaside bungalow
called "Foxholes,” (though mouse-holes would
h§ve been more to the point) and a flat in
town to which they sometimes went for a
dismal frolic.
She also had a large Daimler, and a little
runabout, and a chauffeur. Cupboards full of
rare china she had, and safes full of silver,
and holdings in practically every company
that paid ten per cent. She came of a long
line of good providers, who had scavenged
about the world and left their fortunes to
their female heirs forever.
v ii £iilid was auuy iui nci, mtjugu, auu
always thought of herself as rich in com
parison. For Miss Stuff had not got Ronald.
No one had ever loved her. She said so herself,
proudly. She did not hold with such goings on.
“Love?” she said. “Disgusting! Pah!”
So Virginia was sorry for her, and con
sidered her very poor, and thought of herself
as rich, on sixty pounds a year. Because she
had Ronald, and he loved her.
They still hoped that one day they would
be able to get married. Hope dies hard.
Ronald, though Virginia hated to remember
it, was getting on. So little time left, and
they weren’t spending it together. Because of
money. Ronald had been very badly wounded
ip the last war, and there was little he could
do. He lived on a tiny pension, always hoping
— well it is really difficult to'say what it was
they did hope for.
His photograph stood on Virginia’s dressing
table. She used to sit and look at it, smiling
tier pretty smile, when she was supposed to
be rubbing off her high color and black eye
brows. It had been taken when he was twenty
:wo, but Virginia didn’t see any change in
lim. He still had those pleasant eyes, humor
busly creased at the corners, that thick, vital
:urly hair, though now it was going white.
He had had a brilliant career ahead of him
once. Everybody had said so. He was a
chartered accountant, but the War came and
smashed all that. It made you a bit sick,
now, to hear all this new war talk.
Once a fortnight Virginia had a day out.
With some difficulty'she wrung it from Miss
Stuff, who said, “What do you want a day
out for? You go out every day, with me ... ”
Virginia had one of her occasional brain
waves over that. She said she wanted to go to
London to continue her German lessons.
That had appeal. Miss Stuff was all for cul
ture.
“She’s making me into a liar against my
will,” thought Virginia sadly. But what else
was there to do? Many things one will sacri
fice on the altar of truth, but not love. She
spent the day with Ronald.
He had a small room in a dingy side street.
He eked out a living doing accounts for dif
ferent people, but the jobs got few and far
between. Younger, able-bodied men competed
with him, who could do it in half the time.
Ronald had been hit in the arm and the knee.
It left him stiff. His figures were slightly
shaky.
After a trying week with Miss Stuff — who
quite suddenly went back into the Boer War
and insisted that last night’s passionate
speech on the wireless had been made by
Kruger — Virginia was bound for Ronald’s
lodgings, carrying a pot of shrimp paste and
a bag of sticky buns. As it was such a nice
day, she had a plan to carry tea into Kew
Gardens, not far away, and sit in the sunshine.
Ronald did not get out enough. He hadn’t
the heart to go alone, and he was very sen
sitive about his lameness, which of late was
getting worse.
He was waiting for her at the top of the
narrow stairs. Perhaps it was because they
had had so little of each other, that love
remained forever new. They might have been
eighteen and twenty, clinging together, in
stead of a couple who would not see thirty
again.
“Take'off your hat,” he whispered. “Let
me touch your hair.” Such pretty hair it was,
soft and curly. He never noticed how Miss
Stuff’s antics were turning it gray.
Today the clinging touch of his hands,
and the way he held her to him, hiding his
face, told her something had gone wrong.
“Ronnie, what is it?”
“I didn’t mean to tell you. Not at first.
Not to spoil our day. I’ve got to move,
darling. Sickening, isn’t it? This place has
got too expensive for me. I just heard last
week that the Morvennas don’t want me any
more. They’ve got someone else for the job.
On my pension, of course, I can’t...”
Of course he couldn’t. She looked round the
dingy little room and wondered with sinking
heart where he was going to find anything
cheaper than this. Panic seized her. It wasn’t
right that he should have to be so uncomfort
able — that he should have to fend for him
self. It wasn’t right that they should still be
separated like this.
Yet if she gave up her job with Miss Stuff,
she hadn’t anything but her rather gloomy
little savings account. And besides, while she
stayed with Miss Stuff there was hope. For
Miss Stuff, in one of her rare moments of
good humor, had shown her her will, with a
codicil leaving five hundred pounds to Virginia
Meryl Anstey “if still in my service.” That
had bred in Virginia a tenacity really foreign
to her nature.
“Let’s go out into the sun,” she said. “We’ll
think of something or other. ”
She thought, as they made their way to
gether over the sunlit grass, “He is lamer
than he used to be.” What if he really got
worse — what if he should not be able to get
about at all — what then? Her breath caught
in her throat and she felt sick. And there was
Miss Stuff with “Sparrows,” “Foxholes” and
the London flat, acres of ground she never
looked at, and cupboards full of valuables she
would never miss. “Another minute,” thought
Virginia, shaken, “and I shall be planning to
steal something.”
They sat, their shoulders touching. She
watched him make a good tea, with satisfac
tion, and as she watched him, there began to
seethe in her mind most unusual thoughts.
“Don’t do anything about finding another
room for a bit, Ronnie. Not till you hear from
me. I might be able to — arrange something.”
He leaned against her, as if suddenly tired.
“I wish we could be together, Virginia.
Sometimes I begin to think now that our day
never will come. I’ve just wasted your life,
keeping you hanging on like this.”
(Continued on pag• 12)