"You needn't be afraid of that, May." There was a suspicion of scorn, and more than a suspicion of anger, in his voice. "It doesn't make much difference if I don't write under my own name, so long as I can get the dollars, which are what I'm out for."
Mrs. Marlow gave in with a sigh. After all, so long as he kept the family name out of print, there would not be much harm done; and it was a relief to find that he looked at matters from a practical point of view. Of course, he ought to have accepted Henry's assistance and gone into the City; but if he would not do so, as seemed to be the case, it was some consolation to find that he was apparently anxious to make money in other ways.
But when she talked the matter over with her husband after Jimmy had gone up to bed, Henry Marlow shook his head. His opinions coincidedexactly with those of Walter Grierson. "A most precarious occupation," he said, "and one which I should certainly not allow our boys to take up. It's a great pity, as I believe I could have got him into Foulger's office—Foulger and Hilmon, you know, the jobbers."
Upstairs, Jimmy was smoking and staring into his fire. Somehow, he felt very disappointed, as though he had been working on a false assumption, and must readjust his ideas and then start afresh. He was little more at home than he had been the previous night in the hotel.
The hours of Jimmy's stay with the Marlows dragged by slowly. The children, four boys, proved uninteresting in the extreme, whilst between himself and Laura Marlow, May's sister-in-law, there was little in common. Two other guests, an elderly aunt and uncle of Henry's, arrived in time for dinner on the second night, and Jimmy retired more and more into the background, or, rather, he found himself in the background by a kind of natural sequence. No one wanted to put him there; in fact, both his brother-in-law and his sister were kindness itself; but he was the outsider in the party, sharing none of the interests of the others.
He had been invited for a week, at least, longer if possible; yet at the end of three days he was longing for an excuse to get back to town, where he intended to take rooms; but no excuse presented itself, and so he stayed on, spending most of his time in the billiard-room, a part of the house seldom used in the daytime, writing, or trying to write, some of the articles which Douglas Kelly had suggested. He had sent his copy in to theRecord, and each morning, immediately after breakfast, he strolled down to the little news agent's shop to buy a copy of the paper—Mr. Marlow took no halfpenny journals—but when Sunday came round it had not appeared.
The Marlows were regular church-goers, at least Mrs. Marlow was, and her husband always accompanied her when he was not away at the seaside, golfing. May took her religion as part of her settled order of existence. She had been bred up in it, and she would have resented any attack on it as fiercely as she would have resented the abolition of class distinctions. She believed in it, and, in a sense, she loved it; but, with the one exception of her father's tragic death, her way through life had been so smooth that she had never felt the need of its consolations, and, consequently, had never analysed it in any way. Doubt had never entered into her mind, because her creed seemed to suit her circumstances so admirably. The well-dressed congregation, the well-trained choir, the cushioned seats and reserved pews, the suave, optimistic rector, and deferential curates—these were all part of a nicely balanced state of society which kept motor-cars, or at least broughams, and paid its tradesmen's bills by cheque on the first of the month.
Henry Marlow seldom, if ever, gave the mattera thought; but he subscribed generously when asked by the rector, and he kept the Ten Commandments scrupulously, so far as his home life was concerned. He respected the Church, as something which stood for solidity and the security of property, like Consols and the Mansion House, and he regarded Dissenters in much the same light as he did outside brokers, as persons who should be watched by the police. He did not try to worship both God and Mammon simultaneously; but, wholly unconsciously, he divided his life into two parts, that which he spent in the City, and that which he spent outside the Square Mile, and so avoided the difficulty.
Jimmy, on the other hand, had heard very few services during the last ten years, and of those the majority had been read by a layman, and had begun with the words "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord." Lack of opportunity had kept him from attending in the first case, and, after a while, having lost the habit of his boyhood, he had ceased to think of taking such opportunities as did offer.
"I think it must be five years at least since I went to anything but a funeral service," he remarked to May, as they walked towards the big red-brick church.
Mrs. Marlow threw a swift glance over hershoulder, fearing her other guests, who were following, might have heard. "Hush, Jimmy," she said. "It sounds so bad. Never say that again, especially before the servants. The rector's housemaid is sister to my parlour-maid, and it would be sure to get round to him. Of course, I know you have been in wild places where there were no churches, and we understand, but others might not. And all our friends are Church-people."
Jimmy dropped the subject, and a few minutes later he was following her rustling skirts up the broad centre aisle to the pew four rows back from the pulpit. He wished it had not been so far forward, because the worshippers interested him, if only by reason of their sameness of type. You could see they were all people of position, with regular incomes and hereditary political convictions, solid people of that slow-moving, tenacious class which is the real backbone of the country, holding, as it does, the greater part of the wealth, and producing, often by a kind of apparent accident, the greater part of the intellect.
Jimmy belonged to them by birth, and yet, as he sat amongst them, listening to the lisping voice of the senior curate, he found it hard to realise the fact. He tried his best to follow the service, to keep his mind on it, but, somehow, the whole atmosphere seemed wrong. The church was amodern one, the work of a famous architect, and, therefore, grossly inartistic, lacking every feature which makes for solemnity and beauty. The detail was coarse and roughly finished, the red-brick walls, as always, an offence to the eye; big texts seemed to squirm, like semi-paralysed eels, over the chancel arch and round the East window. The latter, off which Jimmy could hardly take his eyes, was a veritable triumph of the Victorian tradition. Its colouring was gruesome, its design grotesque; and yet it was a source of great pride to the congregation as a whole, having been put in to the memory of a banker who had left nearly a million. They no more dreamed of doubting its artistic merits than they did of questioning the religion it was supposed in some vague way to typify.
The singing was good, the sermon grammatical and well delivered, and yet Jimmy left the church with a feeling of dissatisfaction. He had expected that this, his first service in England after ten years, would have carried him back to the days when he knew nothing of the Tree of Knowledge; but, instead of that, it had made no appeal to him. Its poetry was destroyed by the hideousness of the surroundings; whilst even the glorious words of the Benediction seemed but a perfunctory dismissal, giving the congregation leave to hasten awayto the heavy dinners which were awaiting it at home.
He was very silent on his way back, thinking of the past, and he was only recalled to the present when May, seeing him producing his cigarette case, thought it time to speak.
"Jimmy," she said, rather severely, "it is hardly correct to smoke on your way home from church. People notice that sort of thing so much."
Her brother coloured, and thrust the case back into his pocket. A minute later, he heard his sister's name spoken, and a tall, well-dressed woman hurried up from behind.
"I have been trying to overtake you for the last five minutes, May," she said. "Only you have been walking as if you were very, very hungry," then, disregarding Mrs. Marlow's little snort of annoyance, she turned to Jimmy, "Don't you remember me, Jimmy—Mr. Grierson I suppose I ought to say—I'm Ethel Grimmer, Ethel Jardine that was."
Jimmy laughed and took the outstretched hand.
"Of course I remember you now; but when I saw you in church where I could only catch your profile obliquely, I was not quite sure who you were. I didn't know you lived down here."
Mrs. Grimmer laughed too, but mentally sheregistered another grievance against May. So this Jimmy Grierson, who dressed quite decently after all, and had a distinctly interesting face, was to be kept in the background.
"I suppose you and May have found so much to talk about," she said. "I'm sure you must, after being apart all these years, and you have such a lot to tell." She was a handsome woman with fine eyes, and she knew how to use them. "When May has done with you, or rather when she can spare you for an hour or two, you must come and see us—Jimmy." She blushed a little. "When will you let him come, May? How would dinner on Tuesday do? I know you and Henry are going to the Foulgers' that night, and this poor boy will be alone."
May bit her lip to repress an exclamation of annoyance. She did not want Jimmy to go to the Grimmers', but it was impossible to deny the engagement with the Foulgers, and equally impossible to say that Jimmy was going there with her—Ethel Grimmer knew how many people the Foulger dining table would seat; so she gave in, and Jimmy arranged to go, showing rather more eagerness over his acceptance than May considered necessary. Indeed, she remarked so much to her husband whilst she was taking off her hat; then a sudden thought struck her, and she paused,with her fingers still grasping a half-withdrawn hatpin.
"Henry, do you remember what a silly fuss Ethel used to make over Jimmy, just before he went abroad, how they used to go cycling together. Of course, she's years older than he is, but still——"
Marlow nodded solemnly; he had never really liked the Grimmers, and he knew that, several times lately, Ethel had gone out of her way to annoy his wife, whilst Grimmer himself had behaved like a fool over the Gold Dredging Company, actually hinting that, because they knew each other socially, he ought to have been warned when the thing was going wrong. As if sentiment of that sort could be allowed to intrude on business. Billy Grimmer had been in the City over twenty years, and it was quite time he knew its ways.
"Ethel is a vain, flighty woman," Marlow said, in reply to his wife's remark. "She likes to have young men like Jimmy trailing after her; and Grimmer only laughs. I suppose it's what they call being 'smart.' Pity he doesn't put a little more smartness into his business affairs." He chuckled slightly at the recollection of the dredging shares, which had been some of those he, himself, had received as vendor. "Still, Jimmy isold enough to take care of himself now," he went on, "and, after all, he will be going back to town a day or two later."
But May shook her head. "I must warn him not to talk too much—he seems terribly indiscreet—and I think I shall give him a plain hint about falling in love, and so on. From what Ethel said the other day, she is quite capable of getting some silly girls with money to meet him."
Meanwhile, Jimmy was staring out of the window of the billiard-room, and smiling a little grimly at the memories which his meeting with Mrs. Grimmer had reawakened. They had been very great friends in his Sandhurst days, although she was several years his senior; and, for a month or two after his departure from England, he had slept with her photo under his pillow, and tried to imagine her warm farewell kisses on his lips; and then, somehow, the photo had got mislaid, and the other recollections had begun to lose their actuality, and when, a year later, he had received the news of her engagement, he had written her a hearty, and perfectly sincere, letter of congratulation. It would be distinctly amusing to meet her under the new conditions, and see how much she was disposed to remember.
On Tuesday morning Jimmy opened theRecordas usual at page 4, and the first thing that caught his eye was his own article. He glanced down it quickly, with an unusual sense of exaltation: never before had anything of his appeared in a great London daily; and theRecord'scirculation ran to a considerable fraction of a million. There was no one with him to whom he could show it; but he was passing an hotel, the "Railway Tavern," and he turned in at the door, to celebrate his luck, and read his work through quietly.
The barmaid, who was polishing her spirit measures, looked at him curiously. "You seem mighty pleased about something," she said at last, perhaps a little resentfully, as though feeling that her own rather, full-blown charms deserved more attention than the paper.
Jimmy glanced up with a smile. "There's an article of mine here," he said, holding out the sheet.
The girl knit her brow and spelled out the heading. "My! Is that your writing? What's itall about. Anything spicy?" But, though she was regarding him with more interest than before, she made no attempt to read his work.
Jimmy finished his drink and folded up the paper. Somehow, at the second reading, it had not seemed so good. There were at least two clumsy sentences, and the fool of a printer had chopped out half a dozen commas. He could see now where he could have made several improvements, and he had little doubt that Dodgson would see too, and, perhaps, reckon him a careless workman. He had yet to learn how much, or how little, the public recks of either grammar or punctuation, how it prefers semi-truths tempered by split infinitives to facts stated in balanced prose.
As he came out of the hotel, his mind was full of the career which seemed to lie ahead of him, and he did not notice Laura Marlow walking up the other side of the road; but Miss Marlow saw him, saw too where he had been, and duly reported the fact to May when she returned to the house.
Jimmy found his sister in her boudoir, busy with her tradesmen's books, searching for the errors which certainly would have been there had the butcher and the baker and the grocer not learned long since that Mrs. Marlow was in the habit of checking her accounts, a habit whichthey viewed with a mixture of scorn and wrath, tempered by not a little fear. They regarded her much as a municipal politician regards a chartered accountant; but they knew it was useless to add up two and five as eight, or to charge for fresh butter when cooking butter had been ordered. May allowed no one to rob her husband, even of a halfpenny. They called her a hard woman, and said many bitter things about her as they foregathered outside the chapel after service; but, none the less, they supplied her with far better goods than those they sent to Mrs. Grimmer, who paid her bills spasmodically, without attempting to check them.
May glanced at the paper her brother held out, but she did not attempt to take it. "I will read it by and by, when I've time," she said; then she noticed his name below the heading and frowned. "I thought you were going to write under an assumed name," she added.
Jimmy coloured slightly. "I've changed my mind," he said, rather shortly. "I don't see why I should disguise myself. It's nothing to be ashamed of, as you'll see if you read it."
His sister sighed and picked up her pencil again. "I must get on with these tiresome tradesmen's books. Oh, don't leave that paper there, Jimmy." He had put it down on the table. "There's somuch litter about already. I'll ask you for it later."
Jimmy picked up theRecordagain and left the room without another word. His sister's apparent lack of interest hurt him more than he cared to acknowledge, even to himself; and his sense of grievance deepened as the day went by without her making any other reference to his article. Yet, after lunch, she found time to put in an hour studying a children's fashion paper with the greatest attention. He had the cutting from theRecordin his pocket-book, ready for her or any of the other guests to see, but it remained there until the evening, and when he dressed to go to the Grimmers' he left it behind deliberately. He was not going to risk another snub.
On entering the Grimmer drawing-room, however, Ethel met him with a copy of the paper in her hand.
"Billy just brought this home from town," she said. "A man showed it to him in the train. I like it very much indeed, and so does my husband." She paused and gave a little laugh. "It's awfully nice of you to come, Jimmy, and—and, not be jealous or anything silly. Still, that was all years ago, wasn't it?"
"You look just the same," he answered, smiling back at her.
She laughed again, flattered, and yet relieved at his tone—some men do remember such a stupidly long time, and she had half feared lest her guest might be one of them. "Now you are being silly," she answered, lightly. "I am sure May wouldn't approve of that. But I know you're going to be good, and, as a reward, I've got two very nice girls for you to meet. Ah, here's Billy." Then she introduced the two men, adding, "Billy knows all about you already."
The nice girls proved to be respectively Miss Farlow, the daughter of the rector, and Miss Barton, whose mother had a large house next to that of the Marlows, for whom she entertained that measure of good will which usually exists between near neighbours; but, none the less, she was very pleasant to Jimmy, knowing nothing of his financial position. Young men were by no means plentiful in the neighbourhood.
The rector, too, was pleasant, for very similar reasons, although, as a matter of fact, he was affable to all his parishioners and their relatives. There were no poor amongst his flock, no self-evident black sheep, and, consequently, he was able to know every member of his congregation socially, which, as he was never tired of repeating, was most comforting to a conscientious man.
Mrs. Grimmer, having secured Jimmy, did notmean to allow his light to remain hidden, as May apparently intended it should be; consequently, dinner had scarcely begun before she started to draw him out scientifically, and, after the dullness of the last few days, her guest was not loath to talk. He was always interesting, but this time he was almost brilliant; and when Ethel gave the signal to the other ladies, she left the room feeling that she had scored greatly over Mrs. Marlow, who would now have to explain why she had kept this distinctly interesting brother in the background. Grimmer, too, was pleased, foreseeing a chance of annoying Marlow in the train by bringing up the subject of Jimmy's adventures.
Ethel managed to keep her guest until the others had gone, and even then she did not seem inclined to let him go.
"Stay and have a whisky and soda and another cigar with Billy. I know you would like one, and I'm quite sure it won't hurt that fat butler of May's to sit up an extra half-hour to let you in. I don't suppose May has given you a latchkey."
Jimmy shook his head at the latter suggestion, then followed her into the smoking-room.
"I think I shall have a cigarette, too, Billy," she said to her husband, after she had settled her rather elaborate draperies into a big leather chair, "only you mustn't tell May, Jimmy. I am quitesure she never smoked. I didn't myself until this husband of mine taught me." She took a few whiffs, then, "Which did you like best?" she asked, suddenly. "Mary Barton will have the most money; but Vera Farlow is the better looking, and, they say, her father will probably be a bishop some day. You see, he has private means, and married an earl's granddaughter."
Her guest parried the question, a little awkwardly; whereupon Mrs. Grimmer, seeing his embarrassment, let the matter drop, and went on to ask about his plans for the future. "I wonder you don't live with some of your own people," she said, when he told her of his intention to take rooms. "But, still, I suppose it would be dull for you. What do you say, Billy?... You must come down here for a week-end as soon as you can find time."
It was an hour later when Jimmy left; and the fat butler had already finished the bottle of port and gone to sleep, with the result that only at the third ringing of the bell did he awaken and stumble upstairs to the front door. Jimmy was feeling more than ever disappointed at the attitude of his own people, more than ever ready to disregard both their wishes and their advice. After all, Ethel Grimmer had far more brains and sympathy than May; whilst Grimmer, though notover-brilliant, was more interesting than Henry Marlow. He woke up next morning with his sense of grievance still unabated; and his disappointment changed to something very like anger when May called him into her boudoir after breakfast, and proceeded to cross-examine him as to whom he had met at the Grimmers'.
"I hope you will remember these people are all our friends, even more than they are Ethel's, Jimmy," she said severely, "and I trust you will not let Ethel fill your head with her own silly ideas about getting married and so on. Both Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Farlow will only allow their girls to marry men of means and position."
"And you mean that I have neither." Her brother laughed bitterly. "Good heavens, May, do you think I came home to get married, and live on a stodgy father-in-law? I've got plenty of other things to think about." But although he brushed the matter aside scornfully, May's words remained in his memory. Only men of means and position were wanted in their circle.
Jimmy's original intention had been to take a couple of rooms of which Douglas Kelly had told him. They were somewhere in that queer maze of little streets and courts which lies at the back of Fleet Street, and would have suited him admirably. But May had objected strongly to the idea. No one they knew had ever dwelt in such a quarter; and both she and Henry agreed that it was not the thing for any young man, especially for a young man of Jimmy's temperament, to live in a place where nobody would know what he was doing, or what hours he kept. So she had written to a former maid of hers, who had married and settled in a South London suburb, and arranged for her to board and lodge Jimmy for a fixed weekly sum.
Jimmy had given in reluctantly, though he had not shown his reluctance openly. Abroad, he had gone his own way, doing just as it seemed good to him; but in England it was different. He was not afraid of his own people; but he was anxious not to shock them in any way; and, at the same time, contact with them had brought backmuch of his respect for those conventions which had governed his boyhood. He was a Bohemian by habit, and largely so by nature, yet when he was amongst those who lived settled lives their influence and example seemed to revive some latent instinct of staid respectability within himself, and, to a certain extent, he came to see things with their eyes. True, the phase passed quickly, so quickly that often during the ensuing months his own people wondered whether he were not a hypocrite. They were used to men with fixed temperaments, men you could rely upon to maintain a suitable standard of propriety. The other kinds they ignored socially, as they certainly would have ignored Jimmy, had he not been of their own blood; but they belonged to a class which reckons family as second only to property, which, though it may quarrel with its relations, always remembers the relationship, and the sacred right of interference which relationship gives.
Jimmy's new lodgings were half an hour's journey from the City. You reached them by means of an uncleanly train, whose driver seemed to be perpetually on the look-out for an excuse to stop with a jolt. You got out—usually ten minutes late—at a smoke-grimed station, and emerged into a wide thoroughfare, lined on either side with shops of the margarine-and-spot-cash variety, andhorrible with the screeching and rattling of gigantic municipal trams, which appeared to run solely for the pleasure of the motorman and conductor. The third turning on the right and then the second on the left brought you to Mrs. Benn's house, semidetached and severe looking, with heavy curtains and a brass plate on a front door bearing the single word "Apartments."
Jimmy groaned inwardly as the cab drew up at the little iron gate, and he wished, once more, that he had not given way to his sister. A band, obviously the product of a happy and musical Fatherland, was just packing up its music stands some fifty yards lower down the street; whilst, as he mounted the steps of the house, two Dagos appeared round the next corner, trundling a piano organ, on the top of which was seated what was apparently a small and long-tailed relative of their own. His rooms, however—two on the first floor—though small, were quite cheerful for their kind, whilst the meat tea, which the landlady presently brought up, was distinctly promising.
He had no stuff of his own, beyond the clothes in his trunks, not even a book or a photograph; and during his wandering days the lack of such things had never struck him; but now he found himself registering a mental vow to buy some pictures as soon as possible, if only to have an excuse forbanishing the German reproductions of mid-Victorian art which disfigured the walls of his sitting-room. The painters of the originals had all borne great names, or at least had been accounted great in their generation; but as he sat smoking after tea, and staring at these glazed abominations, he wondered who had been the greater sinner, the English artist or the Teutonic engraver; probably the former, he told himself, for, after all, the latter had only spoiled what detail there might have been; he had copied the smugness and the false sentiment, perhaps rejoiced in them as being essentially the products of Teutonic thought, but it had been the Englishman who had put that smugness on to the canvas in the first case.
Unfortunately, it was easier to want new pictures than to get them, even though they might cost but a few shillings apiece. Jimmy's total capital amounted to a bare fifteen pounds, and his means of subsistence so far appeared to consist of the introduction to Dodgson of theRecord. Not that the fact troubled him greatly. A more sanguine man would have been haunted by the fear of his money giving out before any earnest of future success came to him; a less experienced man would never have dreamed of making the attempt at all; but Jimmy was used to being hard pressed for cash, and had learnt in a rough school not toexpect very much. He was used to drifting, and, in any case, he had practically nothing to lose.
On the first morning Jimmy went out to have a look at the neighbourhood, but after an hour's walk he had seen enough to kill any desire he might have felt for further exploration. The whole district was prosaic and unlovely, saturated with the spirit of municipal government. There were rows and rows of jerry-built houses running at right angles to the High Street, houses with small rooms and big rates, occupied by tired-looking men who hurried to the station about half-past eight every morning, and did not get back again till after seven in the evening, when you would meet them walking homewards rather slowly, shuffling a little perhaps, as overworked clerks are prone to do, and still carrying the halfpenny paper which they had bought on their way to town. They had read every word in it, and their wives would be too busy, or too worn-out, to give it a glance; but still it had a value as fire-lighting material. Halfpennies were not negligible factors in those desirable villa residences. You could see that when the women folk went out to do their morning shopping. Some of them were flashily-smart, some, most perhaps, drab and weary like their husbands; but all had to pay cash to those prosperous tradesmen in the High Street, everyone of whom looked like a councillor, or, at the very least, a guardian, having the air of growing rich at the expense of the multitude.
There seemed to be a council school, aggressive in its hideousness, up every second side street; the grinding whirr of the municipal trams was always in your ears, to remind you of the poverty of the neighbourhood in case our eyes should play you false, that worst form of poverty which has to wear a decent black suit and possesses the mockery of a vote; whilst the only alternative to the pavements—laid by a councillor-contractor, and kept in repair by means of a special rate—was the recreation ground, in which a plethoric and guardian-like official spent his days in keeping the embryo ratepayers off the sacrosanct municipal grass. You felt you were in the clutch of a horrible machine, or rather of two machines, unallied perhaps, yet very similar in operation, for both took as much as possible and grudged giving anything in return. From nine till six you were part of the mechanism of the City, wearing yourself out for the bare means of subsistence, often without the slightest hope of further advancement, always with the dread of dismissal as soon as your hair began to turn grey, when a younger, cheaper man, or a German volunteer, would take your place. There was nothing in the present, save theeternal necessity for economy; nothing in the future, save the fear of unemployment. At night, you returned home, to be gripped by the municipal Frankenstein's monster, which you and your fellows had helped to make. You were never free man, you never could be free; because in London the price of freedom is usually starvation for your children and prison for yourself, if you cannot satisfy the demands of the "Guardians of the Poor."
Jimmy smiled grimly to himself as he noted the new Town Hall. He had met a good many robber-politicians during his wanderings in the Dago Republics; but all of them had, at least, the saving grace of frankness. The aim and end of their policy was to arrive safely in Paris, with the contents of the national treasury as their baggage. They did not hunger after honours, such as knighthoods, or aspire to speak at Sunday afternoon gathering in pseudo-places of worship. Certainly, they told a number of flamboyant falsehoods before getting into office, but that was the only respect in which they copied civilised political methods; and they did run a risk from which their English counterparts would have shrunk in a cold sweat of fear. The price of failure was death.
The one tour of inspection satisfied Jimmy. Hesaw the tragedy underlying the lives of these people, saw it far more clearly, perhaps, than they did themselves, for he had known so many other phases, whilst they were inured to the drab monotony, most had been born to it, and so its full meaning was mercifully hidden from them. They would have waxed wrath at hearing it called a poor locality, in fact it was not one, being eminently respectable, as any house agent could tell you. Why, the late mayor, who died during his third term of office, had left nearly a hundred thousand pounds.
For three days Jimmy wrote steadily, doing no less than five articles of the type which theRecordhad accepted. One he sent to Dodgson, the others to papers which Douglas Kelly had mentioned, and then, suddenly, inspiration seemed to fail him. He could not write a line, could not even think of a subject; and, for a whole day, he felt something nearly akin to dismay. If his ideas ran out as quickly as this his prospects were small indeed; and when the postman brought back two of his manuscripts, with printed slips conveying the editor's thanks and regrets, he began to curse his own folly in ever coming home.
That evening, the craving for companionship he had felt in the hotel the night he landed came back to him again. He had spoken to no one,save his landlady, for the better part of a week, and the loneliness seemed unbearable. He sent his supper away, practically untasted, then, without giving Mrs. Benn a chance to come up and comment on the smallness of his appetite, took his hat and went out.
It was Early Closing Day, and the High Street was thronged, mainly with the liberated shop assistants. Jimmy walked slowly, and, owing perhaps to that fact, he got more than one glance, encouraging him to begin an acquaintance with young ladies in cheap and showy raiment. But none of them made the slightest appeal to him. He had no taste for an insipid flirtation with a girl who would probably play havoc with the aspirates. He had met many women far less innocent than these, and there had been more than one passage in his life which he did not recall with pride; and yet, withal, he was still fastidious where women were concerned. The only one who had interested him since his return home was the girl whom he had seen entering the cab in the Strand. Somehow, her face remained fixed in his memory, and many times since that evening he had found himself wondering who she was, what her story could be.
He walked down to the bottom of the High Street, to where the trams swerved round acorner with a whirr and a jolt into the domain of the next borough council. There was a large public house at that point, with much brass work and mahogany about its swing doors, and he turned in, not so much because he wanted anything to drink, but because it seemed the obvious alternative to the dreariness of his own rooms or the boredom of the street.
The presiding deity welcomed him with the smile she reserved for new customers. Trade was not very brisk in the saloon bar—there were eight other licensed houses in the street—and she tossed her peroxide-dyed curls and flashed her new teeth at him as she poured out his whisky.
"You look pretty doleful about something," she remarked.
Jimmy laughed. "I was till I came in here." Then he began to chat to her, about nothing in particular, and somehow the time passed so quickly that it was closing time before he took his leave. She had not interested him in the least; but she was someone to talk to, and the five or six drinks he had taken had cheered him up temporarily. It was only when he got out into the now-emptying street that he remembered that he had not got a latchkey.
Mrs. Benn was sitting up for him, and received him with a rather sour face.
"I didn't know you was going to be late, sir," she said severely. "Mrs. Marlow wrote that you would always be in in good time."
Jimmy muttered an apology and took his candle. On the top stair of the first flight he caught his foot in a loose piece of carpet, and stumbled, dropping the candlestick, which broke off at the base. In silence, Mrs. Benn fetched another, and handed it to him with an air of resignation, then, "You'll be sure and put it out safe, sir," she said.
Jimmy saw what was in her mind, and laughed, though there was a note of annoyance in his voice as he attempted to reassure her; but his annoyance would have changed to wrath had he known that the early post next morning carried a letter to May describing how he returned home the worse for liquor.
The morning post consisted of a manuscript returned from theDaily Herald. Jimmy tossed the package on to the side table, with an exclamation of disgust, not even troubling to ascertain if there were any enclosure beyond the ordinary printed slip. Then, suddenly, he decided to go up to town to see if he could find Douglas Kelly.
"Will you be late again, sir?" Mrs. Benn asked, severely.
"I think not," Jimmy answered, then, remembering his former experience with Kelly, he added, "still you might let me have a latchkey on the chance. I meant to have asked you for one before."
Mrs. Benn sighed, fumbled in a pocket, took a key off her own bunch, and handed it to her lodger with an air of resignation.
"Mrs. Marlow said as you would always be in early." She repeated her remark of the previous evening. "But if you are going to be late, sir, I must ask you to be very careful with the candle. One does read of such awful things,folks burnt in their beds. I'm sure I'm afraid to look at the papers in these days."
Jimmy tried to laugh, but the sound spoke of irritation rather than of amusement. "I don't think you need be afraid of me, Mrs. Benn, though I did twist my ankle on that loose piece of carpet last night."
The landlady sniffed, and descended to the basement, where she relieved her feelings, and conveyed a moral lesson, by smacking the head of her youngest son, who was not wearing his Band of Hope ribbon.
"Poor children, can't they keep sober without joining a temperance society?" a young lady lodger had once said, with a show of sympathy, and since then the badges had not been greatly in evidence; but now they should be brought out again as a rebuke to Mrs. Marlow's brother.
Jimmy went to the club which he knew Kelly used most, but the journalist was not there. The waiter on duty surveyed the caller critically through a window, then, having grown grey and wise in the ways of literary men, he decided that Jimmy was not a creditor, and volunteered some information. "Mr. Kelly's not been in yet, sir; but he's sure to come to get his letters. So you might call again."
Jimmy strolled about until two o'clock—he wasnot of the kind which calls just before lunch-time—then went back to the club.
"Not in yet, sir," the waiter said. "But he may come about four o'clock for a cup of tea. He usually does, if he's in town."
Jimmy sighed. He was sick of waiting about; but he craved for the society of someone he knew, and the idea of going back to spend the rest of the day in those suburban lodgings seemed intolerable. So he decided to wait, and walked down the narrow side street into the Strand, and thence westwards, in more or less aimless fashion. He had never known town sufficiently well to note the changes which the last ten years had brought; possibly, they would not have interested him greatly in any case, for he was a Londoner by birth, and the true Londoner looks at the people and ignores the buildings.
He walked slowly, up to Piccadilly Circus, and thence along Regent Street to Oxford Circus, where he turned eastwards again.
"Are you saved?" A tall gaunt man, in shabby clerical costume and black woollen gloves, whispered the words in his ear, endeavoured to thrust a tract into his hand, then hurried on towards the Circus. Jimmy looked round quickly to see him repeat the process with an obviously astonished German, then forgot all about the crank and hisways, for, coming up behind him, clad just as she had been the night he saw her getting into the cab in the Strand, was the tall girl whose face had been haunting his memory.
Jimmy turned aside quickly and stared into a shop whilst she was passing, then started to follow her at a little distance, not with the least idea of making her acquaintance, but because some curious instinct seemed to compel him to do so. She was walking rather fast, holding her head erect, and looking neither to the right nor to the left; and, a moment later, Jimmy saw the reason, for, just behind her, obviously dogging her steps, was a great, overdressed African native, typical of those who are sent by scores to England, to have a so-called education wasted on them, sensual and lickerous savages, who may be quite admirable as carriers in the West Coast jungles, but are wholly abominable when allowed loose in the streets of London.
In common with every sane Englishman who has travelled, Jimmy had no illusions left on the colour question. To him, the bare idea of a coloured man speaking to a white woman was horrible, and here was the worst form of coloured man, the son of the cannibal and the devil-worshipper, trying to force himself on a white girl. Jimmy went hot suddenly, a woman who was passing gavea little gasp as she saw the look in his eyes; then he quickened his pace to catch up the two in front, coming behind them in time to see the native deliberately jostle the girl, then raise his glossy silk hat with a lascivious smile and begin an apology. With flaming cheeks, the girl turned quickly, coming face to face with Jimmy; but her persecutor's blood was up, and he followed, still hat in hand. In a moment, Jimmy saw red, and, almost before he knew what he was doing, he had caught the other on the point of the jaw with his fist. The black man staggered, but recovered himself, and for an instant it looked as though he were going to show fight; but his colour told, and he looked round for a line of retreat, just as a policeman, seeing the rapidly-gathering knot of spectators, came up to investigate.
Jimmy, white-faced and fierce-eyed, listened in contemptuous silence whilst the coloured man was giving his version, which was corroborated by a rather long-haired person with a small white tie, who professed to have seen the incident.
"This person"—he indicated Jimmy with a wave of a podgy hand—"this person struck the dark gentleman a most cruel blow, entirely unprovoked. I shall be most happy to give evidence," and he produced a card, a printed one, stating that he was the Rev. Silas Lark, whilstthe address indicated that his business was the conversion of the heathen.
The constable gave him a keen look, and took the slip of pasteboard rather doubtfully. "I see," he said, then he turned to Jimmy. "What have you got to say to it all, sir?"
Jimmy told his story in a few words, then he glanced round to where the girl had been standing; but, with a mingled sense of disappointment and relief, he saw that she had slipped away. "I don't want to bring the lady's name into it, of course," he added, as he gave his own name and address.
"Now, then, move on there." The constable closed his notebook and dispersed the little crowd; then he turned to Jimmy again, "I don't expect you'll hear any more of this, sir. We've had one or two complaints about that black man and his friends, and as for the Reverend Mr. Silas," he smiled, grimly, "we've been told to watch him as a pickpocket." He glanced at Jimmy again. "You look as if you've come from abroad, sir, or else I shouldn't have told you so much. Take it from me, Oxford Street is just alive with wrong 'uns in the afternoon, women as well as men." Then he drew himself up, and went on to superintend the raising of a fallen cab-horse, which served also to draw off the few who were still staring atJimmy. He was looking for the tall girl; and, a moment later, he was rewarded by seeing her coming out of a tea-shop with a paper-bag in her hand. She gave him a frank little smile of recognition, and, emboldened, he raised his hat and went up to her.
"Thank you so much," she said. "I—I hope there won't be trouble for you. I couldn't be in it, you see, so I slipped in there on the excuse of buying a bun."
"Oh, it'll be all right," Jimmy answered lightly. "I don't mind paying a fine for the pleasure of teaching a nigger manners," then, seeing she looked tired and upset, he asked suddenly, "Will you come and have some tea in here?" indicating a large restaurant they were passing.
The girl nodded. "Thank you. I should like some," she answered simply. Her voice was sweet and refined, and, seeing her closely, Jimmy found that she was even better-looking than he had imagined, whilst her carriage was perfection.
Nothing more was said until they were seated at one of the little tables in the palm court, then, suddenly, "Oh, how I loathe those black men." She brought the words out with a little shudder. "There are three or four of them haunt Oxford Street."
"Are you often about town?" Jimmy asked.She looked at him with a kind of grave surprise; then she turned away as she answered, "I am always about town. I have to be. You understand?" Her voice was very low, but the words were perfectly distinct.
Unconsciously, Jimmy twisted his gloves in his two hands so fiercely that one of them tore nearly in half. The daylight seemed to have gone suddenly, leaving the gilding of the place dull and heavy. He understood. Her words had killed all the romance of their meeting; yet, when he looked at her again, he could hardly believe she was speaking the truth.
The waiter brought the tea, and she poured it out, with far more grace of manner and movement than Mrs. Marlow would have shown. Moreover, she made no affectation about not wanting the dainty little sandwiches and cakes. "They are so delicious that I feel it's a sin to leave them," she said, when he declared he would have no more.
"What is your name?" he asked abruptly, breaking what had been rather a long silence. She was dusting some minute crumbs off her dress, and she answered without looking up, "Penrose, Lalage Penrose."
She did not ask for his name, but he volunteered it; then, "May I come and see you?" he added.
The girl hesitated a moment. "Why not?"she asked at last, but she flushed at her own words, and her hand was unsteady as she wrote down the address, which was one of a block of flats near Baker Street.
"Can I come to-morrow afternoon?"
She nodded and got up. At the entrance of the restaurant she stopped and held out her hand. "Good-bye, and thank you."
"It's onlyau revoir, isn't it?" he answered, as he raised his hat, then without looking back, for fear she would think he was watching her, he walked away rapidly, his feelings a mixture of elation and of something very nearly akin to misery.
Douglas Kelly was in when Jimmy called again at the club. "The waiter gave me your card and I supposed you would come along soon. You look a bit doleful. What are you going to drink?... That was a good article of yours in theWhitehall Gazettethis evening."
Jimmy set his glass down suddenly. "I haven't seen it; in fact, I was expecting to find the manuscript waiting for me when I got back."
Kelly laughed. "So that's the reason of the dumps? The postman drops 'em through the letter-box with a kind of sickening thud, and you feel there's nothing left to live for, unless it's to kill the editor. I went through it all, until I made'em understand they must have my signature at my own price. Still, you haven't done so badly in the few days you've been home. Dodgson tells me they've got another article of yours in type. Here, Romsey," he hailed a man who had just come in, whose face somehow seemed familiar to Jimmy, "I want to introduce you to an old colleague of mine, Grierson, who is going to knock spots out of you all."
The new-comer grinned. "I've seen him knocking spots out a nigger in Oxford Street already. It'll be in the next edition of theEvening Post, 'Outrageous assault on an African Prince.' I happened to be passing and got seven shillings-worth of copy out of it," he added, turning to Jimmy. "I left your name out, though. But, you see, theEvening Postbelieves in a man and a brother, and sacks its boys if it finds they have been vaccinated; so the story exactly suited them. The Prince, too, has just sold the gold-mining rights of his native swamp, and has held a reception in Exeter Hall, so he in himself was good stuff for us." Then he gave Kelly a moderately truthful account of what had occurred.
Kelly did not laugh. "It won't go down here, Jimmy, that sort of thing. Of course you were right; it's an abominable scandal to let these niggers loose; but at home people'll never understandit. If your name were to come out, you would be done, right away. And," he looked at him keenly, "your lady friends should know better than to be alone in that part of Oxford Street. Well, Romsey, are you going to pay for the drinks out of your seven shillings, or am I? Then I'm going to put Jimmy up for the club, and you can second him."
That day Jimmy did not go back to his lodgings. Instead, he sent a wire to Mrs. Benn, and went to dine and spend the night with the Kellys, although he did not get away from the club until he had been introduced to a score of journalists to whom his host described him as an old colleague. As a result they were an hour late for dinner when they reached the flat.
"It doesn't matter; my wife won't mind," Kelly remarked cheerfully as they went up in the lift, and, a few moments later, when he met Mrs. Kelly Jimmy saw that her husband was speaking the truth.
Dora Kelly was a pretty, thrifty little woman, with a mass of rather untidy fair hair. She was still in the tea-gown which, apparently, she had been wearing all the day, whilst her foot-gear consisted of a pair of Japanese slippers; and yet the whole effect was charming, possibly because she was entirely unaffected and obviously happy. The flat reflected the character of its mistress. It was full of good things, all in wonderful disarray. Even the drawing-room had an air of havingundergone a strenuous straightening up a month previously, since which event it had not been touched again.
"Dinner won't be long, Douglas," Mrs. Kelly said. "But the cook went out at four o'clock and hasn't come in yet; I'm afraid she must have got drunk again; so I borrowed the Harmers' servant," she turned to Jimmy. "Servants are such a nuisance, Mr. Grierson, yet one daren't discharge them, and our cook is a treasure when she's sober. Douglas says you live in lodgings in some suburb, so you don't have those worries, I suppose. Here it's dreadful." She shook her head dolefully; but a moment later she was smiling again and chattering gaily about her own experiences in lodgings. She had been on the Press herself prior to her marriage, and she knew, only too well, the ways of the London landlady.
If he had not chanced to saunter up Oxford Street that afternoon Jimmy would have enjoyed immensely his dinner and the long talk which followed it. He had been craving for the society of his own kind; yet now he had got it it did not seem such a very great thing after all; for Lalage Penrose had come into his life, and the thought of her was uppermost in his mind. Even whilst he was talking over old times with Kelly, or listening to Dora Kelly's laughing descriptions of thestruggles of their early married life, he was wondering how Lalage was spending the evening, and the thought was making him sick at heart. Mentally, he cursed himself for a fool, and tried hard to put the memory away from him; but it was an effort all the time; and when Kelly finally allowed him to go to bed, long after midnight, he shut his door with a sigh of relief. But he did not undress. Instead, he sat in a big armchair, staring into the fire, which, having been lighted by the borrowed servant just before she left, a full three hours previously, had now died down to a red glow.
He was a fool, and he knew it. The stronger part of his nature, that which came of the alien streak in his father, warned him of the danger of thinking seriously of chance female acquaintances, told him that no man of the world ever did so; whilst to the Grierson strain in him anything in the way of an intrigue was an unpardonable offence against the canons of respectability. Douglas Kelly, the Bohemian, and Walter Grierson, the city man, would both have called him mad, agreeing on this point, if on none other; for they would argue that only a madman could feel that he had any regard for a strange girl, who, by her own showing, was without the pale. Suddenly he resolved to have no more to do with Lalage. He would destroy her address, avoid those parts ofthe town where he might possibly see her, drop the acquaintance before it went any further.
He got up suddenly, took the slip of paper Lalage had given him out of his pocket, and stood staring at words on it. It was well-written, in the hand of an educated girl; but there was a shakiness in it which suddenly destroyed all his wise resolutions, making an irresistible appeal to his chivalry. After all, he himself, if not actually an outcast, was one of life's failures. He had touched bed-rock, more than once, and he knew too much of the bitterness of life to judge either man or woman harshly. It is only those who have never suffered who show no mercy to others.
What was it that American girl had said to him in Iquique, when she insisted on lending him one hundred dollars, the time he was absolutely penniless and too weak from fever to refuse? "The best thanks you can give me, Jimmy, will be to help another girl if you ever get the chance." He had returned the money a couple of months later, and he had neither seen nor heard of her again; but the memory of her words had remained, and now he seized on them as an excuse for the course he wanted to follow. And so the slip of paper went back into his pocket-book, tucked in carefully, though he knew every word that was on it; and he sat down again, and remained, thinking andwondering, until the fire had ceased to show even a spark of red, and the chill of the room sent him shivering to bed, to dream of Lalage.
Jimmy came out of his room at nine o'clock next morning to find Mrs. Kelly sweeping the dining-room. "The cook has not come back yet," she remarked cheerfully. "I do hope the police haven't taken her, for she is really a treasure when she's sober. And I can't very well borrow the Harmers' servant again. So breakfast will be late; but you said last night you weren't in a hurry, and Douglas isn't either. Won't you have a whisky and soda, Mr. Grierson, whilst you're waiting. The decanter is on the sideboard, or it should be—oh, no, I remember, Douglas has got it in the dressing-room. I'll fetch it."
Breakfast was finally over about eleven o'clock. "We're not usually so late, though it's always a movable feast," Mrs. Kelly explained, and then Douglas prepared to go down to the office.
"They can always call me on the telephone if they want me specially," he remarked, "and showing my independence is part of my scheme. I don't think you'll ever be able to bluff, Jimmy. It isn't in you. At the back of your mind, really, you're staid and respectable, with a reverence for those set in authority over you, even for those who'll setthemselves there. So you'll have to trust to the merit of your work alone, and it's a slow job getting recognition that way. What do you say, Dora?"
Mrs. Kelly smiled, and then suddenly her face grew grave, almost sad. "Yes, it is a slow job sometimes," she said, softly. "Only Mr. Grierson's old enough not to go under whilst he's waiting, and, of course, he has the knowledge. It's those raw boys from the provinces I pity." She shook her head as if at some memory, then followed her husband to the front door. "Come again, Mr. Grierson, won't you," she said as she shook hands. "Of course, you'll see Douglas often at the club, and if he gives me longer warning I'll make sure the cook doesn't get out. Douglas, dear, you might ask them at the police station if they've got her. I've got a kind of creepy feeling which tells me that they have, and, you know, the magistrate said he wouldn't fine her next time."
"You're lucky," Jimmy said abruptly, as they came down the steps of the mansions into the street.
Kelly looked up with a grin. "Do you mean in having our cook?"
Jimmy disregarded the question, and went on,"Were you lonely when you first came home, before you married? Did you have to go through it, or had you people of your own?"
He did not put it clearly, but the other showed he understood when he answered, "My people are all in the North, and they're Nonconformists and teetotallers. I went up once, and the governor and I quarrelled. I haven't seen them since. Dora's never seen them. We were married six months after I came home, on nothing. I wouldn't have risked it, but she insisted for my sake. I was at the old game, you know."
Jimmy nodded. He understood, remembering vividly certain wild drinking bouts which, incidentally, had given him some practical experience in newspaper work, for on more than one occasion he had taken Kelly's place, and brought out the little sheet.
They walked on a little way in silence, then, "Women are a confounded sight better than we are," Kelly jerked out. "They see so much further. We reckon we are being unselfish when we're only cowards; but they're ready to back their own opinion and run the risk; and when they win they let us take the credit."
"Some of them do, the right sort. But there are others——" Jimmy was thinking of the girls to whom Ethel Grimmer had introduced him,those whose parents had trained them in a due appreciation of the value of men of position.
Kelly stopped suddenly and looked at him anxiously. "James Grierson," he said, "I shall put you in a book some day when you're developed. At present you're about twenty-one years old in many respects. Probably you'll marry stodgily, or else you'll go to the other extreme and make an even bigger ass of yourself."
Jimmy flushed uncomfortably, remembering Lalage; then went hot at the thought of his own folly. He had only spoken to the girl once.
Lalage Penrose's flat was on the second floor of a small block of flats in a narrow and grimy street. Opposite the main entrance was a fried fish shop, and next door to that a coal and greengrocery stores, with the latest price per hundredweight of what were untruthfully called the "Best Household Coals" displayed in huge numerals on each of the windows. Unwashed children from the uncleanly houses which made up the rest of the street seemed to spend the whole day, and half the night, dancing to barrel organs. Garbage and paper littered the roadway, except where there was sufficient slimy black mud to cover these; but, on the other hand, there was a large and gaudy public house at the corner, opposite a similar block of flats, and a cab rank just down the side turning.
Lalage's flat consisted of three very small rooms, for which she paid fifty pounds a year. "Inclusive of rates," the agent had said; but, as the landlord himself was on the Borough Council, his assessment was, of course, not unduly high. By trade, the owner was a butcher in Maida Vale,though his friends in Tooting did not know that; moreover, besides being a councillor, he was a German by extraction; consequently, with these two qualifications, it was quite natural that he should own flats of that kind. In Capetown, where men are crude or brutal in their ways, a judge and jury between them would probably have assessed his merits at fifty lashes and two years' hard labour; in London, on the other hand, not only was his person sacred and his property safe from police raids, but he also had reasonable grounds for expecting to be mayor in due course—which often meant a knighthood—whilst even the greatest prize of all, the chairmanship of the new Electricity Committee, a body having the giving of six-figure contracts, was not beyond his grasp. He was quite a personage in the municipal life of West London, as well as in the social life of Tooting, and, being a married man with a family, he treated his tenants with righteous severity, distraining on the slightest excuse when he suspected they possessed anything of value, knowing well that his victims would not dare seek redress in the Courts.
It was four o'clock exactly when Jimmy knocked at the door of the flat, which was opened by Lalage herself. "I've no servant," she explained, "only a woman who comes in once or twice a week."Then she led the way into the tiny slip of a sitting-room, where she had tea laid out. "I'm glad you've come," she added, "I was half afraid you wouldn't."
"Why?" he asked with a smile.
She looked at him seriously, her head a little on one side, as though she were trying to read his character. "You seemed shy, different from most men. Are you an Englishman?"
He nodded, and gave her a brief sketch of who he was. She listened with evident interest. "It must be splendid to travel and see things. I have always longed to, at least I did once, but now——" She broke off with a hopeless little sigh, and got up abruptly. "I'll fetch the tea now."
The tea things, like everything else in the place, were of the simplest, cheapest kind, yet as tasteful as was possible considering their price; but, on the other hand, the tea itself was good, and there was a plate of daintily-cut bread and butter and another of sandwiches.
"I was so glad of that tea yesterday." Lalage looked up suddenly. "I hadn't had anything since some bread and milk at breakfast time, and that horrible black man made me feel quite shaky."
Jimmy frowned. "Why do you starve yourself in that way?" he asked.
In after years, he often thought of this questionand her answer. He had been hungry himself more than once, and he knew, only too well, what it meant; but, somehow, he had never pictured a well-dressed girl as suffering that way.
"I only had a penny left, the one I spent on that bun, and no one will trust you with as much as a loaf round here. I was afraid you would notice how greedy I was at tea." Then, as he flushed awkwardly and began to speak, she stopped him with a little gesture. "Why should you have thought of it? You were very good, as it was. And I'm all right now. I got a postal order last night," she added rather hurriedly; then she changed the subject abruptly, and went on to talk of one or two matters of passing interest, which the papers had been booming for want of anything of real importance. She had evidently received an average education, Jimmy could see that plainly, and yet he was puzzled, for in many of her ideas, and especially in her strong prejudices, she belied her apparent age; for they were those of a child of fourteen, rather than of a girl of some two or three and twenty. Insensibly, he found himself listening to her as one would to a child, and then, a moment later, she would bring out some cynical scrap of wisdom, evidently the fruit of bitter experience, which sounded strange coming from her lips. Yet, despite the utterunconventionality, there was no hint of fastness about her, and even when she touched by implication on her way of life, she did so with a kind of frank simplicity, hiding nothing and trying to excuse nothing.
"What do you think of my little flat?" she asked suddenly, after what had been rather a long pause. "It's very tiny, of course; but it's a home, and when you've had nowhere to go to, not even a lodging——" She broke off, and stared into the fire. "It's simply awful to have nowhere," she went on after a while. "To walk about hour after hour with the mud squelching through your shoes, and nothing to eat; and getting more hopeless as midnight comes on. I was out two whole nights."
Jimmy breathed heavily; he had often heard the same sort of thing from men; but it sounded very different coming from the lips of a girl.
"And then one day I got ten pounds," Lalage continued, "and I made up my mind I would have a home. I paid a month's rent in advance—they don't worry over references if you do that—and I went to some hire-purchase people for furniture. Then I bought a kettle at the sixpenny halfpenny shop, and a cup and saucer and plate in the next street, where the barrows are. By the time I had got curtains and some sheets and one or two odd things like a lamp, there were only a few shillingsleft." She looked up seriously. "You wouldn't think till you try how expensive furnishing is; but I was so proud of my little home. I am still; and you know, when you've a place of your own, if you only have bread and milk no one is any the wiser. I've often been hard up since, but I've always managed to scrape up the rent and the hire-purchase instalment. One must do that; they don't give you a day's grace."
Jimmy was chewing savagely at the ends of his moustache. It never entered into his head that she was trying to play upon his sympathies. There was some curious quality of simplicity in her manner which forbade that supposition. She interested him as no woman had ever interested him before, and, suddenly, he was filled with a desire to know her past, and, in that, to find excuses for the present.
"Where do you come from?" he asked.
"Hampshire," she answered, adding, "My people are dead. I'm quite alone in the world." Then, as if to change the subject, she got up from her seat. "You must have a look round my tiny place."
Jimmy felt almost guilty as he noted her obvious pride in the few little articles she had collected together. May's cook would have rejected with scorn the kettle from the sixpenny halfpennybazaar, and the one or two pots and pans which had since been bought at the same shop; whilst none of the Marlow servants would have deigned to use the thick earthenware plates on the dresser. Yet everywhere there was a perfect cleanliness, which, possibly, those same servants would never have succeeded in attaining in the smoke-laden atmosphere of that street.
"I do hate dirt and untidiness," Lalage explained when he made a remark on the subject. "I do everything myself, except the scrubbing; and I wouldn't have a woman in for that if it wasn't for my hands; I want to keep them nice."
She held them out for Jimmy to inspect, with the first touch of vanity he had seen in her. Perhaps, her pride was justifiable, for they were well worth looking at, being small and perfectly shaped. She wore no rings, nor, for the matter of that, any jewellery at all, whilst her dress was of the simplest.
When they went back to the sitting-room he asked her the time. "I never carry a watch," he said. "Mine went the way of a good many other things when I was first knocked out with fever, and I've never managed to afford another one."
Lalage nodded with sympathetic comprehension. "I know; but it's worst when you've nothing left to pawn. As for clothes, they give you nothing on them, at least round here. But you want toknow the time." She opened the window and listened a moment. "It's just on six. I can hear the periwinkle man coming, and he's never late. This is the last part of his round, you see, because he doesn't expect to sell much here; then he goes to a stall for the evening. I know them all, and I think they like me, because I chat to them. But the people in the other flats," she shook her head with an air of disgust, "most of them are dreadful; a lot of horrid foreigners, you know. Still, the caretaker sees they don't fight on the stairs, and when I shut my door, I feel I shut them all out."
Jimmy smiled a little grimly; he could picture those other tenants and their ways. Then, "Will you put your hat on, and we'll go out and get some dinner?"
She reflected a moment. "Why not get something and bring it in here? It won't cost nearly so much, though it will be much nicer. Oh, in six months I've got simply to loathe the smell of a café. There's a nice ham and beef shop where we can get everything we want." She laughed rather ruefully. "I remember yesterday when I was so hungry looking in there and wishing I could get a roast chicken they had, all beautiful and brown, you know, with jelly on it. But they wouldn't have trusted me with even a quarter of a pound ofbeef. I suppose they've been robbed so often. Well, I'll put on my hat, and we'll get what we want. Really, honestly, I would much sooner have it like that than go to one of the best restaurants. Don't you yourself think cafés are hateful?"