36
PARTISAN REVIEW
Here the management balked. What! Would there be infringement
of the girls' freedom-? No, positively-!
A great to-do burst forth.
But the kernel of the core was this:
If
the girls received only
seventeen and a half shilling weekly and paid fifteen for a company super–
vised room, how could they go on on two and a half shillings for clothes,
for tram fare, a midday meal and entertainment? And what about their
families in the depressed areas, to whom they occasionally were forced
to send money?
"But look," said the social service people, "it costs them fifteen shil–
lings for a room in unsanitary lodging houses now-"
Yes, but- but the girls had their fr.eedom, they did not have to be
in at a certain hour at night-
And slowly, slowly the truth began to unfold, the social service people
learned what has been known among the poor for a long time-that these
wretched girls, two or three times a week, in order ·to send money home,
go out upon the streets ...
So the plan was dropped, the blue-prints folded up. It was impossible,
impossible. The freedom of the girls could not be tampered with. So now
no one talks about the hostles any more, only the old hands, a few girls of
twenty-five or so. The plans; a brief wavelet from the office let it be
known, were not "practical."
However, the firm can ease its consci·ence by giving money to charity,
this year thirty thousand pounds. It's a fine gesture, the employees gasp
and gossip and it gets the company in ·all the papers. People read about it,
people who buy- Anyway, it is always better to give away money
to
charity rather than to raise the salaries of employees. Any man can see
the sense in that. Employees are like monkeys, if you raise them once,
they'll want more. Besides, the thirty thousand was not a dead loss, it
came out of surplus profits. And the income tax returns have a special
provision for that ...
"\Y,e got our wraps and made our way toward the nearest exit.
My
companion told me later that my face was getting ·red. At the door, stand–
ing to one side, waiting, was the girl in the saffron dress, her hands clasped
quietly in front of her. 'She glanced wonderingly at my early departure,
then, getting over her wonderment, nodded farewell and smiled. But I
guess I must still have looked sore, for when I turned around and our
eyes met I saw she had stiffened into coldness and hostility, and that her
glance, which was defensive, glittered with the pride of the English.
