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The Lion's Share, a novel by Arnold Bennett |
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Chapter 8. Exploitation Of Widowhood |
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_ CHAPTER VIII. EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD The carriage had emptied, and the two adventurers stood alone among empty compartments. The platform was also empty. Not a porter in sight. One after the other, the young widow and the elderly spinster, their purses bulging with money, got their packages by great efforts down on to the platform. An employee strolled past. "_Porteur?_" murmured Audrey timidly. The man sniggered, shrugged his shoulders, and vanished. Audrey felt that she had gone back to her school days. She was helpless, and Miss Ingate was the same. She wished ardently that she was in Moze again. She could not imagine how she had been such a fool as to undertake this absurd expedition which could only end in ridicule and disaster. She was ready to cry. Then another employee appeared, hesitated, and picked up a bag, scowling and inimical. Gradually the man, very tousled and dirty, clustered all the bags and parcels around his person, and walked off. Audrey and Miss Ingate meekly following. The great roof of the station resounded to whistles and the escape of steam and the clashing of wagons. Beyond the platforms there were droves of people, of whom nearly every individual was preoccupied and hurried. And what people! Audrey had in her heart expected a sort of glittering white terminus full of dandiacal men and elegant Parisiennes who had stepped straight out of fashion-plates, and who had no cares--for was not this Paris? Whereas, in fact, the multitude was the dingiest she had ever seen. Not a gleam of elegance! No hint of dazzling colour! No smiling and satiric beauty! They were just persons. At last, after formalities, Audrey and Miss Ingate reached the foul and chilly custom-house appointed for the examination of luggage. Unrecognisable peers and other highnesses stood waiting at long counters, forming bays, on which was nothing at all. Then, far behind, a truck hugely piled with trunks rolled in through a back door and men pitched the trunks like toys here and there on the counters, and officials came into view, and knots of travellers gathered round trunks, and locks were turned and lids were lifted, and the flash of linen showed in spots on the drabness of the scene. Miss Ingate observed with horror the complete undoing of a lady's large trunk, and the exposure to the world's harsh gaze of the most intimate possessions of that lady. Soon the counters were like a fair. But no trunk belonging to Audrey or to Miss Ingate was visible. They knew then, what they had both privately suspected ever since Charing Cross, that their trunks would be lost on the journey. "Oh! My trunk!" cried Miss Ingate. Beneath a pile of other trunks on an incoming truck she had espied her property. Audrey saw it, too. The vision was magical. The trunk seemed like a piece of home, a bit of Moze and of England. It drew affection from them as though it had been an animal. They sped towards it, forgetting their small baggage. Their _porteur_ leaped over the counter from behind and made signs for a key. All Audrey's trunks in turn joined Miss Ingate's; none was missing. And finally an official, small and fierce, responded to the invocations of the _porteur_ and established himself at the counter in front of them. He put his hand on Miss Ingate's trunk. "Op-en," he said in English. Miss Ingate opened her purse, and indicated to the official by signs that she had no key for the trunk, and she also cried loudly, so that he should comprehend: "No key! ... Lost!" Then she looked awkwardly at Audrey. "I've been told they only want to open one trunk when there's a lot. Let him choose another one," she murmured archly. But the official merely walked away, to deal with the trunks of somebody else close by. Audrey was cross. "Miss Ingate," she said formally, "you had the key when we started, because you showed it to me. You can't possibly have lost it." "No," answered Winnie calmly and knowingly. "I haven't lost it. But I'm not going to have the things in my trunk thrown about for all these foreigners to see. It's simply disgraceful. They ought to have women officials and private rooms at these places. And they would have, if women had the vote. Let him open one of your trunks. All your things are new." The _porteur_ had meanwhile been discharging French into Audrey's other ear. "Of course you must open it, Winnie," said she. "Don't be so absurd!" There was a persuasive lightness in her voice, but there was also command. For a moment she was the perfect widow. "I'd rather not." "The _porteur_ says we shall be here all night," Audrey persisted. "Do you know French?" "I learnt French at school, Winnie," said the perfect widow. "I can't understand every word, but I can make out the drift." And Audrey went on translating the porter according to her own wisdom. "He says there have been dreadful scenes here before, when people have refused to open their trunks, and the police have had to be called in. He says the man won't upset the things in your trunk at all." Miss Ingate gazed into the distance, and privately smiled. Audrey had never guessed that in Miss Ingate were such depths of obstinate stupidity. She felt quite distinctly that her understanding of human nature was increasing. "Oh! Look!" said Miss Ingate casually. "I'm sure those must be real Parisians!" Her offhandedness, her inability to realise the situation, were exasperating to the young widow. Audrey glanced where Miss Ingate had pointed, and saw in the doorway of the custom-house two women and a lad, all cloaked but all obviously in radiant fancy dress, laughing together. "Don't they look French!" said Miss Ingate. Audrey tapped her foot on the asphalt floor, while people whose luggage had been examined bumped strenuously against her in the effort to depart. She was extremely pessimistic; she knew she could do nothing with Miss Ingate; and the thought of the vast, flaring, rumbling city beyond the station intimidated her. The _porteur_, who had gone away to collect their neglected small baggage, now returned, and nudged her, pointing to the official who had resumed his place behind the trunks. He was certainly a fierce man, but he was a little man, and there was an agreeable peculiarity in his eye. Audrey, suddenly inspired and emboldened, faced him; she shrugged her shoulders Gallically at Miss Ingate's trunk, and gave a sad, sweet, wistful smile, and then put her hand with an exquisite inviting gesture on the smallest of her own trunks. The act was a deliberate exploitation of widowhood. The official fiercely shrugged his shoulders and threw up his arms, and told the _porteur_ to open the small trunk. "I told you they would," said Miss Ingate negligently. Audrey would have turned upon her and slain her had she not been busy with the tremendous realisation of the fact that by a glance and a gesture she had conquered the customs official--a foreigner and a stranger. She wanted to be alone and to think. Just as the trunk was being relocked, Audrey heard an American girlish voice behind her: "Now, you must be Miss Ingate!" "I am," Miss Ingate almost ecstatically admitted. The trio in cloaked fancy dress were surrounding Miss Ingate like a bodyguard. _ |
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