The Eye of Love by Margery Sharp Read Free Book Online Page B

commonplace; so that it needed a figure of fun indeed to attract ribald comment …
    â€œ O Skinny Lizzie,” breathed a wicked voice, “how’s Scraggy Sister Maggie?”
    â€œCareful! You’ll put Lizzie in a tizzy!”
    â€œCareful! Sister Maggie’ll come and scrag-you-all!”
    They squealed with laughter, four young girls enchanted by their own wit, while Miss Diver looked about in perplexity. It was the kindest among them who enlightened her, a little creature of sixteen or so, suddenly moved to compassion. “Poor old thing, it’s a shame!” Dolores heard her hiss rebukingly—and with astonishment felt a bag of peppermints pressed into her hand. “Go on, have one!” adjured the Samaritan. “And don’t you take no notice—Skinny Lizzies themselves!”
    After this Dolores was afraid to queue again. She had a valid excuse; even a week had taught her that there was no demand for shop-assistants over thirty—there was no demand for anyone, over thirty—and this saved her from examining her fear too closely, so that she was able to forget the incident quite soon. In fact, what had rightly terrified her was no less than a threat to her identity.
    The queues of job-hunters found ways to keep their spirits up. Each familiar face—and how many grew familiar!—had its sobriquet; Miss Diver herself could already recognise Ginger, and Russian Boots, and Once-I-Had-My-Own-Shop; a hilarity in the circumstances admirable fixed them like characters in a comic strip. In such company there was a place ready-made for Skinny Lizzie; Dolores’ instinct warned her to flee while she was still a Spanish rose.
    Not to betray the past: not to shoddy (even though he would never know it) King Hal’s image of his love, was now Dolores’ only ambition; and not an ignoble one. That it led her to risk a more fatal metamorphosis still, by advertising for a lodger, was in the circumstances inevitable.
    Originally it was a blow to Miss Diver to discover that she couldn’t after all sub-let. The terms of the lease, of the little house in Alcock Road, she found didn’t allow it. This now appeared a rare piece of fortune. Only behind those pink curtains could she find refuge from the unkind world; and luckily she hadn’t, speaking to the agent, mentioned lodgers.
    3
    Martha lettered the card beautifully—the single word “Apartments” in a fancy script copied out of a Tatler . It was her first encounter with Indian ink, and to employ its turgid blackness on smooth white pasteboard ravished her. That she made more cards than one was still due mainly to a search after perfection; when the fourth and last appeared in the dining-room window, it was a master-piece.
    Miss Diver meanwhile arranged the empty bedroom opposite her own, under Martha’s attic, as the hybrid known technically as a bedsit. This involved the purchase of a bed, but the rest of the furnishings came from the dining-room—two oak chairs, one with arms, and the sideboard translated into a bureau-cum-dressing-table—and the hall, denuded of its coat-cupboard. Miss Diver wished to lay out as little cash as possible, and was prepared, so long as the sitting-room remained inviolate, to strip the rest of the house to the bone. Actually nothing was missed, in a practical way; only twice a week had the dining-room been put to its proper use, in honour of Mr Gibson, the hall-cupboard was always kept empty, sacred to Mr Gibson’s big overcoat. Dolores and Martha ate commonly in the kitchen, and the lodger was to be fed from trays …
    â€œPut ‘With Service,’” instructed Dolores.
    Martha willingly took down the card and made another more beautiful still. It looked practically irresistible.
    â€œWhat happens if we get two lodgers?” asked Martha.
    â€œThen we must let the dining-room as well,” said Dolores, looking brighter than