Chapter XII: _Growing Old_

In her twentieth year, when the Covent Garden season of balls was over, the dread of growing old sometimes affected Jenny. It came upon her in gusts of premonition and, like a phantom, intruded upon the emptiness of her mind. The nervous strain of perpetual pleasure had made her restless and insecure. Day by day she was forced into a still greater dependence on trivial amusement, notwithstanding that every gratified whim added the lean ghost of another dread hour to haunt her memory. Headaches overtook her more easily now, and fits of depression were more frequent. She was vaguely aware that something could cure her discontent, and once or twice in moments of extreme weakness caught herself envying the girls who seemed so happy with their mild lovers. She began to contemplate the prospect of mating with one of the swains who inhabited, awkwardly enough, the desolation of Sunday evenings. She even went so far as to award the most persistent an afternoon at the Hackney Furnishing Company; but when, blushful and stammering, he discussed with the shopman the comparative merits of brass and iron bedsteads, Jenny, suddenly realizing the futility of the idea, fled from the jungle of furniture.

These negotiations with domesticity drove her headlong into a more passionate pursuit of folly, so that, with the colorless shadow of mere matrimony filling her soul, her clutch upon the sweet present became more feverish. She watched the adventures of girlhood fall prettily about her; saw them like unsubstantial snowflakes that are effective only in accumulation. Yet the transitory lovers of the stage door were beginning also to become intolerable. She could not brook, so slim and proud was she, their immediate assumption of proprietorship. She hated the cheapening of her kisses and their imperviousness to her womanhood.

Where among these eager-handed wooers was the prince of destiny? Not he with box-pleats underneath his eyes, nor he with the cold, slick fingers, nor he peppered with blackheads. Love was a myth, a snare, a delusion of women, who sacrificed their freedom in marriage. She remembered how in old days Santa Claus had turned into her mother on tiptoe. Love was another legend. The emotion that begot the fancy of armed boyhood mischievous to man was as incredible to her as the dimpled personification is to a Hyde Park materialist.

Jenny asked Irene if the love of Danby had brought her satisfaction. When her friend said she rather liked him, she inquired what was the good of it all.

"I think he's making a proper fool of you. Why don't _I_ fall in love? Because I'm not so soft. Besides, you're not in love. You're just walking round yourselves having a game with each other."

"Oh, well, what of it?" said Irene sulkily.

"Don't be silly. I never knew such a girl as you. You can't talk sensible for a minute. I want to know what this love is."

"You'll find out one day."

"Ah, one day. _One_ day I shall go and drown myself. Irene Dale, I think I'm funny. I do really. Sometimes I can dance all over the place and kick up a shocking row, laughing and that. And then I cry. Now what about? I ask you. What have I got to cry about? Nothing. I just sit and cry my eyes out over nothing."

Jenny was beginning to take an interest in herself. Introspection was dawning on her mind. She did not practice the meditation of age, infirmity and death; when these spectres confronted her, she dismissed them as too impalpable to count. Nor did she examine her conscience arduously like a Catholic neophyte. Unreasonable fits of weeping and long headaches were, nevertheless, very disconcerting; and she was bound to search her mind for the cause.

The first explanation that presented itself was age; but she was unwilling to admit the probability of growing old at twenty, and turned to health for the reason. She could not honestly assert that she was ill. Then she asked herself if disappointment was the cause, and wondered whether, if she were suddenly invited to head the Orient playbill, she would be exhilarated out of tears forever. Finally she decided, breathless in the solitude of a warm May dusk, that she wanted to fall in love. Desire, winged with the scent of lilac blossom, stole in through the sapphire window. Desire flooded her soul with ineffable aspirations. Desire wounded her heart as she whispered, timidly, faintly, "darling, my darling." From that moment she began to seek the unknown lover in the casual acquaintance. She began to imagine the electric light shining in the blue eyes of some newly-met fellow was not electric light at all. She would meet him on the next day, and, beholding him starkly dull, would declare again that men were "awful." The readiness with which they all capitulated puzzled her. Why was she attractive? Irene told her she made eyes; but this was false, or, if she did make eyes, they were made unconsciously. Men told her she led them on. There must be some lure in her personality fatal long before she attempted to exercise it; for, though latterly she had been deliberately charming to most men at first, she was so very ungracious the following day that anybody else but a man would have left her alone. The poor fools, however, seemed actually to rejoice in her hardness of heart. Moreover, why had this fascination never helped her to renown? She could dance better than many of the girls who were given _pas seuls_; but she had never escaped from the front line of boys. What was the good of working? Nothing came of it. She remained obscure and undefined to the public. It was not hers to trip from a rostrum into the affection of an audience. It was not hers to acknowledge the favor of applause by taking a call. There was no shower of carnations or rain of violets round her farewell curtseys. If she never danced again, it would not matter. Half bitterly she recalled the spangled dreams of childhood, and revived the splendor of a silver and pink ballet-skirt that now would seem such tawdry, trumpery apparel.

"Fancy," she said to May; "I used to want to be a Columbine and dance about Islington. Think of it. What an unnatural child!"

Columbine appeared fitfully in the Ballet-divertissements that opened the Orient's entertainment, but Jenny never portrayed that elusive personage. Certainly she played Harlequin once, when a girl was ill; and very gay and sweet she looked in the trim suit checkered with black and gold.

Jenny wondered why she had longed to grow up.

"I used to think that it was glorious to be grown up. But there's nothing in it. There might be, but there isn't. I wish I could be what I thought I would be as a kid."

"Oh, Jenny, don't talk so much, and get dressed," said Irene. "Aren't you coming out to-night?"

"I suppose so," Jenny answered. "I wish I couldn't. I wish I'd _got_ to meet somebody. There, now I've told you."

"Hark at her. Hark at Jenny Pearl."

"Oh, well, I'm sick of going out with _you_."

Irene sulked awhile; then asked:

"Have you seen the peroxide they've sent up for our arms?"

"Oo-er! Why?"

"Mr. Walters said all the girls was to use it."

"Oh, aren't they shocking, Irene? I do think they're awful."

"Somebody said the Hesperides didn't look nice from the front."

Jenny examined the purple bottle which would idealize their forms to an Hellenic convention. After the first indignation had worn itself out, she began to be amused by the transformations of the drug. Lying in bed next morning, she began to play with the notion of dyeing her hair. The tradition of youthful fairness from the midst of which glowed her deep blue eyes, was still vital in Hagworth Street. Other girls dyed their hair, and already once or twice Jenny had considered the step; but the exertion of buying the peroxide had hitherto stifled the impulse. Here, however, was the opportunity, and surely the experiment was worth the trial. She jumped out of bed and examined herself critically in the toilet-glass; tried to picture the effect of fairness. It would be a change, anyhow it would be something to vary the monotony of existence. It would be interesting to learn if her new appearance provoked admiration greater than ever. It would be interesting to see if the change impressed the authorities of the Orient. Best of all, perhaps, would be the exclamations of surprise when the dressing-room first beheld the alteration.

Having conceived the plan, she began to hate her present appearance, to ascribe to her present shade all the boredom that was clinging round her like a fog. Her own hair, paradoxically enough, came to be considered an unnatural color. After all, she was really fair, and had been cheated of her natural hue merely by the freak of time. It was not as if she were truly dark. She could herself remember the glories of her complexion before they paled in the gloomy airs of the Orient. For a moment, however, the birth of artifice dismayed her. She wondered if, in addition to going fair, she would also go magenta, like some of the girls who always made up. Again the phantom of age laughed over her shoulder; but the contemplation of futurity was fleeting, and she decided that if she was going fair, the sooner she went the better it would be; if she waited till thirty the world might laugh with reason. She would chance it. Jenny appropriated a bottle of the management's peroxide that very night, and excited by the prospect of entertainment, came home immediately after the performance, alarming Mrs. Raeburn so much by her arrival that the latter exclaimed:

"You _are_ early. Is anything the matter?"

"Anything the matter? Whatever should be the matter?"

"Well, it's only a quarter to twelve."

"Who cares?"

"Don't say that to me."

"I shall say _what_ I like, and I'm going to bed."

May, however, was wide awake when Jenny reached their room; so the deed had to be postponed. May, elated by her sister's unaccustomed earliness, chattered profusely, and it was two o'clock in the morning before she fell asleep. Then Jenny crept out of bed and by the faintest glimmer of gaslight achieved the transformation.

She woke up in the morning to May's cries of disgust.

"Oh, you sight! Whatever have you done?"

"_Don't_ make such a shocking noise. I've gone fair."

"Gone fair!" exclaimed her sister. "Gone white, you mean. Get up and look at yourself. You look terrible."

"What do you mean?" asked Jenny. "Here, give me hold of the hand-glass."

Her reflection upset her. She must have put on too much in the uncertain light.

"It's like milk," cried May.

"Don't annoy me."

"Oh, Jenny, it's awful. It's like that canary of Alfie's who died so sudden. It's shocking. What _will_ all my friends say?"

"Who cares about your friends? _They're_ nobody. Besides, it'll be quite all right soon. It's bound to sink in."

"What will Alfie say?"

"Oh, damn Alfie!"

"There's a lady. Now swear."

"Well, you annoy me. It's my own hair, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's your own hair right enough. Nobody else wouldn't own it."

"I don't think I'll come down to breakfast this morning. Say I've got a most shocking headache, and fetch me up a cup of tea, there's a little love."

"Mother'll only come up and see what's the matter, so _don't_ be silly. You've got to go downstairs some time."

"Oo-er, May, I wish I hadn't done it now. It's going whiter all the time. Look at it. Oh, what unnatural stuff. It can't go lighter than white, can it?"

Mrs. Raeburn, in the act of pouring out tea, held the pot suspended, and, shaking with laughter, looked at her daughter. Charlie, too, happened to be at home.

"Good gracious alive!" cried the mother.

"I thought I'd see how it looked," Jenny explained, with apologetic notes in her voice.

"You'll think your head right off next time," said Charlie profoundly.

Jenny was seized with an idea.

"I had to do it for the theater. At least, I thought--oh, well--_don't_ all stare as if you'd never seen a girl with fair hair. You'll get used to it."

"I sha'n't," said Charlie hopelessly. "I shouldn't never get used to that, not if I lived till I was a hundred. Not if I never died at all."

"Depend upon it," said Mrs. Raeburn, "her Aunt Mabel will come and see us this very day and ask what I've been doing."

"What about it?" said Jenny defiantly. "Who's she? Surely I can do what I like with my own hair without asking _her_."

"Now, what 'ud you say if I went and dyed my hair?" asked Charlie, "and come down with it the color of an acid drop. That's what I'd like to know."

A silence of pent-up laughter held the breakfast party, while, under the mirthful glances of her mother and sister, Jenny began to regret the change. At last she volunteered:

"Oh, well, it's done now."

"Done in, I should say," corrected Charlie.

It was a gusty morning of clouds in early June, and the Hagworth Street kitchen was dark. The sun, however, streamed in for a moment in the wake of Charlie's correction, and Jenny's new hair was lighted up.

"Why, it's worse than I thought," said Mrs. Raeburn.

"You look like a funny turn."

"It looks like that ginger-beer we had on Whit-Monday," said her father.

"Oh, who cares?" cried Jenny, flouncing upstairs out of the room. When she came down again, she was dressed to go out.

"You're never going out in broad daylight?" asked May.

"Let her go," said Mrs. Raeburn. "Her hat covers it up a _bit_. I only hope if we have company, she'll have the goodness to keep her hat on all the time."

"Oh, yes, that would be a game of mine. I don't think!" protested Jenny.

The latter's belief in herself was restored by the attitude of the dressing-room. The girls all vowed the change improved her. There was an epidemic of peroxide, and Irene actually tarnished her own rich copper with the dye, so that for a while her hair seemed streaked with verdigris. Moreover, the unnatural fairness wore off as the weeks went by, and at last even the family was compelled to admit that she had not made a mistake. Only Alfie remained unconvinced, declaring she deserved a hiding for messing herself about. As for the suitors, they ran faster than before, but never swiftly enough to catch Jenny.

"I'm bound to get off with a nice young chap, now," she told the girls. "I wish I could fall in love."

"How would you like my Willie?" asked Elsie Crauford proudly.

"Your Willie? I don't think he's anything to tear oilcloth over."

"Didn't you think he looked nice in his evening dress?"

"Your Willie's never bought himself an evening dress! _What!_ Girls, listen. The Great Millionaire's bought himself an evening dress."

"You are rude, Jenny Pearl."

"Well, I call it silly. Swanking round in evening dress with a bent halfpenny and his latchkey. And you needn't give me those perishing looks, young Elsie."

"You are a hateful thing."

"Your _Willie_ in evening dress. Oh, no, it can't be done."

"Shut up, Jenny Pearl," cried Elsie, stamping her foot.

"Now get in a paddy. I suppose it was you edged him on to go without his dinner for a week to buy it."

"I hope you'll fall in love, and I hope he'll go away to New Zealand the same as Nelly Marlowe's Jack did."

"Oh! There's an unnatural girl! _Don't_ you worry yourself. Not this little girl. Not Jenny Pearl. I wouldn't let any _man_ make a fool of me."

That night a thunderstorm ruined Jenny's hat.

Next day she bought another, pale green with rosy cherries bobbing at each side. "I think this hat's going to bring me luck," she announced.

"The cherries is all right, but green isn't lucky," said Irene.

"Oh, well," said Jenny, "I'll chance it, any old way."