Miss Jill Read online

  II

  To work at Annette’s was supposed to be the aim of all the girls who came to the China Coast by that direct route known as the Oldest Profession. Annette kept up the tone of her house and boasted with reason that it was exclusive. None of the girls who stayed down in Kiangse Road, for example, at the well-known establishments across from the waterworks were welcome at Annette’s. Some of them, it is true, had the same claims to superiority as Annette’s girls; they came from the same houses in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Honolulu, with equally good references from the madames there, but on reaching Shanghai they were ill advised, or hasty, or desirous of being near the shops–anyway, they made the great blunder and appeared elsewhere than at Annette’s for their debuts, and according to her, they were doomed from that time on. In her moodier moments Jill visualized a similar downfall for herself, first to Kiangse Road, then to Love Lane, and then–then she shuddered and made up her mind to move to another city before the worst could happen.

  “You don’t have to think of that kind of thing,” said Annette severely. “A girl like you, if her head’s screwed on right, can do anything she likes. Don’t be more of a fool than you can help, Jill.”

  She spoke tartly, for Jill was enough to make an angel impatient, and Annette, though she thought well of herself, had never claimed to be an angel. She disliked having to give pep talks, and she resented Jill’s lack of confidence in her favor. For many months now she had given that girl the best of everything–meals at all hours when she wanted them, the best rooms, the best introductions. Annette would have admitted that she was actuated by what was always her first reason in such cases of favoritism; Jill was a good drawing card and generally popular with the clients. But she liked the girl anyway. Jill was a lady. Annette liked a lady. She was very refined herself; where anyone else of her bulk would have looked like a cook or a shopkeeper, Annette in her sober brown, with just a touch of pink or white Irish crochet, could have been a comfortable auntie without a care in the world. She never allowed rough talk where she was, and she insisted on nice table manners. In that way Jill never troubled her.

  The girl was tiresome, however; she had many moods and sometimes went into hysterics at awkward moments. Once she had left the house flat for weeks on end. Annette, after years of experience, was inured to the usual difficulties of her trade. Vain as peacocks, most of those girls; you had to keep jollying them along or they went into fits of depression. And most of them were so incredibly stupid, long years ago Annette just wouldn’t believe how stupid they could be. Some of them had no more idea than monkeys of taking care of themselves; they drank too much, they played with dope, they fell in love–and some of them, even in a high-class establishment like hers, were light-fingered. Among the girls themselves thievery didn’t make so much difference; there were screaming scenes and accusations, but at least it was all in the family and could be kept quiet. It was when the clients lost things that trouble might start. Annette was very severe about stealing. She always made a great fuss over police officials when they dropped in. Her husband had been a Shanghai policeman, and he still kept in touch with the boys.

  Jill, at least, had never given her any trouble that way, and Annette, remembering her intention in taking the girl out that afternoon, went on with her lecture.

  “You don’t want to even think about that sort of thing,” she said. The car was driving slowly in choked traffic; it was a bright cold day, and even the beggars looked cleaner than usual, though there were far more of them than there had been a month before. The little Chinese booths were doing a rushing business in luggage, packable provisions, and clothes; a good many people had decided to go south, to Hong Kong or even Singapore. Nobody believed that Nanking would really hold out very long, but the Shanghai Chinese had never thought that war would not overtake them again, and their preparations, though hurried, were not made in any spirit of dazed surprise. Most of them were definitely upset, however, by reports of Japanese behavior over across Soochow Creek. As for the foreigners, the Council was in constant conference, and there was a lot of talk about international law.

  “Now is the time of life for you to make something of yourself,” said Annette. “Right now. A pretty young girl like you.”

  Jill began to smile unwillingly.

  “The trouble with you, you waste your time,” continued Annette. “I told you so when I first met you, didn’t I? When the count first started bringing you around?”

  “Mmmm-hmmmm,” said Jill obligingly, though she could not remember anything of the sort. Annette in those early days had most decidedly not said Jill was wasting her time, whatever her private opinion had been. It was all cordial welcome and approval in those days. However, arguing would only make Annette angry, so she kept quiet.

  “What you ought to do is pick out a few steady men,” continued Annette, “and encourage them. But don’t be a bloody fool with any one of them. You’ve had your fling; settle down now. The way it is, you’re so vague. You lose track of what you tell a chap, and then he probably overhears you telling somebody else the same thing; that puts a man off. This business isn’t the same as going to a boarding-school party, Jill; you’ve got to take yourself seriously if you want to get along. A few steady friends is what you want, and then someday”–but here Annette herself was vague, deliberately–”someday some fellow might feel like setting you up for himself.”

  “I could do that tomorrow,” said Jill, stung to indignation. “I could have another flat at Broadway Mansions tomorrow if I liked.”

  “Sure, sure,” Annette soothed her. “Only, I don’t know, Jill, I don’t think you’re ready for that yet. You don’t know enough; you can’t seem to get along on your own. Remember what happened last time. You’d be in some mess again inside a month, on your own.”

  “Yes.” Quietly, humbly, Jill admitted it.

  “But you’ll learn.” Annette patted the slim knee next to her massive thigh. “There’s plenty of time for all that. And here we are. Now I think what we want for you is something blue; not too dark, quite light, but plain. Tanya’s good at line. What do you say to short sleeves?”

  “Oh, lovely!”

  Annette, with a groan, pulled herself from her cushioned corner and waddled across the pavement into the shop, Jill following in her majestic wake. Jill’s face was all sunny now, eager and smiling. Though Annette hated to go shopping and usually made the tailor call on her and her girls for his orders, she felt that her effort had not been wasted. At least her star boarder’s next nervous breakdown had been postponed.

  In consideration of the narrowly averted crisis, Annette refrained from a lecture that evening when Jill announced her immediate plans, though she was not well pleased.

  “I’m going out for dinner,” Jill said, “with Teddy Jarrett.”

  “Jarrett?” Annette did not have the factotum Tony’s infallible memory for names and reputed incomes. “Who’s he?”

  “The man who came in last night with that fellow Beasley. Nina took care of him because I was busy, but he called this morning,” said Jill rather smugly. “He’s English.”

  “Well–all right.”

  Annette was not displeased so much that Jill was going out–she had a fixed fee for such borrowings, of course–as she was dubious about the nationality of the borrower. Englishmen were not Jill’s best bet. Her make-up was better suited to the Asiatics; her combination of blond, childish prettiness and a malleability remarkable in a white girl was something the Chinese bankers and the Japanese officers seemed to appreciate. They were always delighted with Jill; she had, they said, such good manners. When she told them she had spent three years in Japan among Japanese women, they would nod wisely, as if that explained everything. For the English, it seemed to Annette, Jill was too soft and silly. The English were not good customers as a rule. They were better off in the honky-tonks; they had been brought up to expect and to delight in an obvious roughness in their bought women. They wanted the type they called
“French” —rowdy, coarse girls who could coax them into forgetting their stiffness. And their pockets.

  “I should have thought Chu would drop in tonight,” was all Annette permitted herself to say with a slight note of disapproval.

  “Yes, but–well, he’s safe. I ought to be back by eleven. Tell him I’m at the movies.”

  “All right, but I don’t understand you sometimes, Jill. What’s the use of a fellow like Jarrett?”

  “After all, I’m British too.”

  Annette snorted and ambled off to the kitchen. Jill could not have expressed herself any more definitely than that, and she was a bit ashamed of herself for it. Whenever she looked at the American and Englishwomen who moved with what she knew as Society she was assailed by a mixture of feelings: resentment, envy, longing, pride, and loneliness. Perhaps by spending a few hours with Teddy Jarrett she could assuage some of those disturbing emotions, either by pretending she, too, was a Society Girl, or by the sensation of revenge on Teddy’s wife, or fiancée, whoever she might be.

  She greeted Teddy with a pleasure which was only in part simulated. He was a good-looking young man, much in demand for parties in Shanghai, and popular among other men for his golf, which was excellent, but it was not his charm which made Jill forsake her Chinese clients for a part of the evening. She was no longer interested in pretty young men as such; he was a symbol. As they drove through the streets she chattered mechanically, wondering where they were going to dine, and it was with disappointment that she saw him draw up before a neat little house outside the International Settlement.

  “Well, here we are,” he said.

  “Your house? Oh, it’s cute!”

  “It’s not too bad,” said Teddy. “We’ll have a decent quiet dinner, at any rate. I thought that would be better than Ciro’s, where you can’t hear yourself think.”

  “Oh yes, that band is frightfully noisy.…”

  “Then I needn’t have dressed up,” she said to herself; “he’s afraid to be seen with me. Well, one can’t blame him, but it’s a washout.” Surreptitiously she glanced at her wrist and noted the time. “I can easily be back by eleven,” she thought.

  She realized long before dinner was over that Annette, as usual, knew best. She would have been better off at home. Teddy’s talk was tiresome; he spoke half the time of golf and boating, of which she had no experience, and the rest of the time he boasted or talked down to her as from a high altitude. Jill liked to feel that she was being Improved. She wanted to be told about books, pictures, music–any sort of books, pictures, or music, so long as she could feel that she was gaining “culture”–or to be taught something she knew might be useful in her work; a new language, for example. She was always keen to practice new tongues. It had been considered very chic in Australia to speak French, and she had discovered in herself a talent for languages. She had a smattering of French and Italian; she was really fluent in Japanese, and she liked to practice German. It was always pleasant to surprise a new man with these accomplishments; it went down well. But Teddy had nothing to teach her, and he was oh, so conceited. Jill had particular reason for disliking cocky young men. She peered again at her watch when the coffee came. It was nine o’clock. If he got down to business soon, which he showed signs of doing, she could be back by eleven, surely. Jill very nearly yawned.

  “You’re really awfully sweet, you know,” said Teddy, coming around the table and pulling out a chair next to hers. “Awfully sweet, do you know that?”

  Jill tried to feel she was blushing. She bit her lip shyly and continued to think about her watch. She was almost sure it was right; she had set it at noon. Somewhat later she began to hope it was fast. If it weren’t, she would surely be late and Mr. Chu wouldn’t believe the story about the movies. Mr. Chu had not yet acquired any financial right to dictate her activities, but one likes to be tactful.

  “I’ll have to be going,” she said.

  “Oh no! Can’t you stay all night?” said Teddy. “Why, I love you, Jill.” She noted with displeasure that he said it as if he were making her a valuable present, but she was used to that. It seemed unnecessary to be unpleasant about it, and she remained silent. “In a little while,” said Teddy, “I’ll be wanting you again!”

  Mechanically Jill tried to express demure gratitude, but her attempt was not convincing, for she continued to dress as fast as possible. Teddy gave up trying to tempt her; he put on dressing gown and slippers and stood scowling at her, very sulky. “It’s ridiculously early, you know,” he said.

  “Yes, but I’m so tired. It isn’t as if you hadn’t had a good deal of the evening already. We didn’t go dancing first or anything–and I was out late last night.”

  “Well … I’ll let the boy drive you back if you don’t mind, then.”

  He rang for the servant and gave orders, and then there was a pause in the dim bedroom, a pause which did not seem to trouble Teddy in the least. For Jill, however, it was a hateful moment; it always was. Teddy showed no signs of understanding why she stood there waiting. He didn’t even seem to wonder. Under pretense of wanting a powder puff, Jill peered into her handbag. No, he had not slipped it in there, discreetly folded. She would have to ask.

  “Would you rather sign a chit than pay me direct?” she asked.

  Teddy stared at her in amazed disgust. “What?” he cried. “Is that the sort of girl you are?”

  “Now that’s a silly sort of a question,” said Jill wearily. “What sort of a girl did you think I was? Didn’t you meet me at Annette’s? Didn’t you toss a coin for me with your friend?”

  “Yes, but look here, I thought you too good for that sort of thing. Why, that’s why I asked you to come out with me tonight–to get you out of all that sordid atmosphere.” His voice was aggrieved. “I thought you loved me,” he said. “You’ve been like a different sort of girl until now; you weren’t like the others. And now—Oh, this is dreadful. I do wish you hadn’t said that. Now be sweet, Jill, be more like your real self. Why, I had all sorts of plans; I thought perhaps you might be my real girl and I’d be your only friend.”

  “I don’t know about your thoughts,” said Jill in a crisp voice he had never heard, “and I don’t much want to. It’s always more money when you take one of us out, you know–fifty dollars outside, thirty at the house. You must have known that; you must understand the way these things are. Annette wouldn’t let you get away with this for a minute. She’ll be furious.”

  He went on looking at her as if she were a trodden worm which had proved itself unexpectedly slippery. He shook his head in sorrow. “Never in my life,” he murmured. “Never in my life…”

  Jill waited, burning.

  “So that’s the sort of a girl you are,” said Teddy. “Tell me, haven’t you ever given yourself to anyone just for love?”

  “Never!” she snapped. “Never in all my life. Money’s the only thing I care about.” She stamped her foot. “Don’t make me wait any more,” she said. “Pay what you owe me and let me go.”

  “Fifty dollars! You’re not worth it, if it comes to that. You’re cold. Now I know why.”

  “Ah, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Jill. “You show me a nice fat bank roll and I’ll show you how passionate I can be. You don’t know your way around, my lad, that’s the trouble with you. I thought when I first saw you that you didn’t belong in a high-priced establishment like Annette’s, and now I know it. Why, never in all my life have I met a man so cheap he’d expect me to sleep with him for nothing. I’m a professional, I am. I’ve never done that, never, never!”

  “Then chalk up this time to experience,” snarled Teddy.

  Annette would never believe her, Jill told herself sadly. She would have to pay the old bitch her share regardless, and nobody could say, either, that Annette hadn’t warned her. Moreover, it was nearly twelve and Mr. Chu would certainly never wait that long.

  “Oh, the hell with Mr. Chu,” said Jill. That part of it didn’t trouble her too much, for she ha
d lied to Teddy when she said she loved money. The trouble was, she didn’t love money nearly enough. It was the rest of it, the things he had said, that still hurt. He had opened old wounds instead of helping to cover them over.

  “I’m off Englishmen,” she said wrathfully to Nina when she got home. Nina was not busy, which was a good thing, for Jill wanted to talk it over, and Nina was her favorite among the girls at the house. “The dirty tightwad. What’s more, it was a jolly bad dinner, too–sausages and mashed, and a cold pie, and beer. Give me a Chinese any time.” She brooded bitterly. “How do they get by, fellows like that? Why hasn’t somebody bashed his nose in for him years ago?”

  “Never mind. Even if he’d signed a chit that one would never have paid up,” said Nina.

  “Yes, but then Annette would have had to meet her part of the loss, and anyway, it isn’t so much that, it’s— Damn it, Nina, he was so rude.”

  “Puh.” It was half a snort, half a spit, and wholly Russian, the noise Nina made.

  Dr. Levy looked pained when Jill suggested they take their drinks right there in the house. She misunderstood him.

  “Oh, come on, nobody’s going to catch you here,” she said impatiently. “It’s too early for anybody you know to come in.”

  “Yes, but my dear little girl, it’s so expensive!”

  “Why, no, it isn’t. It’s the same price as anywhere, just about.”

  “I was charged ten dollars the first time I came,” said Lionel. “Was that a mistake or just that I have a kind face?”

  “Oh, that!” She laughed. “No, that’s just for the first time, and if you’d known the ropes you wouldn’t have had to. Annette puts that ten dollars on just to keep the country cousins out.”

  “Country cousins?”

  “Yes, the men from the country, mostly the Chinese, you know. They would treat us like a singsong house if they dared; they like to come in early and order tea and just sit around for hours, feeling the girls up and pinching their legs and all, and never going upstairs. It takes up our time, you see, when we ought to be with regular customers. So Annette charges them ten dollars, and that keeps them out. You shouldn’t have paid it.”