A Little Treachery

17

After that, it was something of a surprise to find the guest in funds, and to find that her art was a paying reality. That this art consisted mainly of the manufacture of strip cartoons for various publications of the gutter press was a little disillusioning. Moreover, these works were crude and vulgar to an astonishing degree, a fact which at first overwhelmed Catherine. But very well aware of herself as something of a prude by upbringing, she attempted to adjust her ideas, and, seeing that Emmy displayed her achievements with complete frankness, with no thought in the world but that her new friend would approve their competence, acknowledge them for a conscientious piece of work – a good performance cleverly attuned to public taste, which indeed they all too truly were – Catherine had not the heart to do anything but praise her ability. This attitude went well enough. Oh, no, Emmy had not expected Catherine to find her output funny. For she did not find it so herself. She shrugged. Indeed, she was no natural pornographer; she had trouble with her ‘ideas’, as she confessed. She was a hard-headed businesswoman by instinct. ‘Myself, I’d just as soon keep it clean. But what people like is dirt, so there you are. An artist just has to do the best he can with it.’ So the artistic conscience worked itself out in Emmy.

But to see with what celerity she drew, at what a pace and with what sureness the little black and white drawings came rattling forth, was fascinating in itself; and to consider under what impossible conditions she had always been obliged to work, to consider the fact that no one had ever taught her anything, was to feel admiration and a pained regret for something excellent wasted. Catherine felt quite saddened, it seemed to her horrible to see that sparkling, powerful line-work, which wonderfully flowed from Emmy’s little fingers, put to such unspeakably base use. Emmy was a clever young woman, so much was plain; she was perhaps even better than that, she was intelligent, she had brains. But Catherine thought the girl was unaware of the extent to which her talent was abused – or was she merely unregretful?

‘Fortunately I’ve got several friends who feed me ideas,’ she confided. ‘It’s the ideas that don’t come easy. If ever you get any ideas of the kind, you’ll pass them on, won’t you, dear?’ Catherine gravely promised.

‘But I can see you’re a bit shocked,’ the girl added quickly, with her head tipped to one side. ‘In fact, I can’t see, myself, what people get out of it.’

‘Not shocked. But you’re really very clever – look at that little serious sketch you have there! That’s a lovely line! It does seem a shame that such real talent shouldn’t be better employed.’ Emmy appeared to gather this in somewhat anxiously, but from some obscure angle which eluded Catherine. She said, in a tone of surprise, she considered the pay quite good, taking into account the little she put into it. However, she would drop it any minute if she found something which paid better. She’d have to – with Mumsie and all the rest of it. No choice. But she was doing quite well, she repeated, as if anxious to impress this point on her hostess; she was in the money.

Well, no, perhaps it was vain to attempt the apotheosis of Emmy as a wasted genius.

Meanwhile, it was plain to Catherine, and it was somewhat mystifying, that her young guest quite seriously desired to keep in her good graces.

It suited Emmy, for the present, to be where she was. She had fled from something other than her wild, sponging family, Mumsie’s old lad and Mumsie’s tantrums – these were but subsidiaries. She wished to keep out of reach of Ferdy for some little while.

And now, on top of that, she was interested. She had immense natural zest and that intense, ferreting, all-round curiosity which shows keen intelligence of a kind. She was amused. She had a youthful pleasure in novelty and a picturesque situation. The thing had caught her fancy. A wonderful little outfit! She dramatized everything. She was thrilled. She loved it! So weird, so crazy-gang! She was not in the least put off by the discomforts of the cottage in severe weather, as Catherine had feared she would be. Emmy was tough. She was old in such comfortless ways of living as Catherine had never known, and to her mind domestic hardships and disasters merely provided matter for the sardonic joke.

Besides, she was beginning thoroughly to enjoy herself in the role of champion and castigator, in being on the side of righteousness and taking a high moral tone about the villainy of certain people; and nothing gave her greater satisfaction than further evidences of weakness in the cottage, when she would cry, with a meaning wag of the head, ‘And whose fault is it?’

But it was all really enjoyment, an exciting game, even the genuine indignation. There were so many things at which she ‘couldn’t help laughing’; she would never be able to regard Old Flytton’s cottage in itself with becoming gravity. But then Emmy did not know what had happened there.

She still did not know. Or at least Catherine had not told her.

Weekly, without a word of explanation, unobtrusively as possible, Catherine continued to make her preparations for the visit to the hospital, concealing these as well as she could, went and returned and kept her own counsel, kept her lips tight shut on all the trouble and on the dreadful imbroglio and frightening confusion which the small business affairs now harrying her appeared to her. And yet here Emmy’s practical wits, though uninstructed, could probably have given her sensible assistance, and were ready to do so – Catherine suspected it but could not admit it.

For could all this go on under Emmy’s keen eyes without her understanding? Catherine hardly knew or cared, as long as she had not to speak.