Mavis found a resting-place for her tired body in the unattractive district of Pimlico, which is the last halting-place of so many of London's young women before the road to perdition is irretrievably taken. Mavis had purposed going to Hammersmith, but the fates which decide these matters had other views. On the tedious underground journey from New Cross, she felt so unwell that she got out at Victoria to seek refuge in the ladies' cloak room. The woman in charge, who was old, wizened, and despondent, gave Mavis some water and held her baby the while she lamented her misfortunes: these were embodied in the fact that "yesterday there had only been three 'washies' and one torn dress"; also, that "in the whole of the last month there had been but three 'faints' and six ladies the worse for drink." Acting on the cloak-room attendant's advice, Mavis sought harbourage in one of the seemingly countless houses which, in Pimlico, are devoted to the letting of rooms. But Mavis was burdened with a baby; moreover, she could pay so little that no one wished to accommodate her. Directly she stated her simple wants, together with the sum that she could afford to pay, she was, in most cases, bundled into the street with scant consideration for her feelings. After two hours' fruitless search, she found refuge in a tiny milk-shop in a turning off the Vauxhall Bridge Road, where she bought herself a scone and a glass of milk; she also took advantage of the shop's seclusion to give her baby much-needed nourishment. Ultimately, she got a room in a straight street, flanked by stucco-faced high houses, which ran out of Lupus Street. Halverton Street has an atmosphere of its own; it suggests shabby vice, unclean living, as if its inhabitants' lives were mysterious, furtive deviations from the normal. Mavis, for all her weariness, was not insensible to the suggestions that Halverton Street offered; but it was a hot July day; she had not properly recovered from her confinement; she felt that if she did not soon sit down she would drop in the street. She got a room for four shillings a week at the fifth house at which she applied in this street. The door had been opened by a tall, thin, flat-chested girl, whose pasty face was plentifully peppered with pimples. The only room to let was on the ground floor at the back of the house; it was meagre, poorly furnished, but clean. Mavis paid a week's rent in advance and was left to her own devices. For all the presence of her baby and Jill, Mavis felt woefully alone. She bought, and made a meal of bloater paste, bread, butter, and a bottle of stout, to feel the better for it. She then telephoned to the station master at New Cross, to whom she gave the address to which he could forward her trunk. On her return from the shop where she had telephoned, she went into a grocer's, where, for twopence, she purchased a small packing case. With this she contrived to make a cradle for her baby, by knocking out the projecting nails with a hammer borrowed from the pimply-faced woman at her lodging. If the extemporised cradle lacked adornment, it was adorable by reason of the love and devotion with which she surrounded her little one. Her box arrived in the course of the evening, when Mavis set about making the room look as homelike as possible. This done, she made further inroads on her midday purchases of bread and bloater paste, washed, fed her baby, and said her prayers before undressing for the night. At ten o'clock, mother and child were asleep.
Mavis had occupied her room for some days before she learned anything of the house in which she lodged. It was kept by a Mr, Mrs, and Miss Gussle, who lived in the basement. It was Miss Gussle who had opened the door to Mavis on the day she came. Mrs Gussle was never seen. Mavis heard from one source that she was always drunk; from another, that she was a teetotaller and spent her time at devotions; from a third, that she neither drank nor prayed, but passed the day in reading novelettes. But it was Mr Gussle who appealed the most to Mavis's sense of character. He was a wisp of a bald-headed, elderly man, who was invariably dressed in a rusty black frockcoat suit, a not too clean dicky, and a made-up black bow tie, the ends of which were tucked beneath the flaps of a turned down paper collar. He had no business or trade, but did the menial work of the house. He made the beds, brought up the meals and water, laid the tables and emptied the slops; but, while thus engaged, he never made any remark, and when spoken to replied in monosyllables. The ground floor front was let to a third-rate Hebraic music-hall artiste, who perfunctorily attended his place of business. The second and third floors, and most of the top rooms, were let to good-looking young women, who were presumed to belong to the theatrical profession. If they were correctly described, there was no gainsaying their devotion to their calling. They would leave home well before the theatre doors were open to the public, with their faces made up all ready to go on the stage; also, they were apparently so reluctant to leave the scene of their labours that they would commonly not return till the small hours. The top front room was rented by an author, who made a precarious living by writing improving stories for weekly and monthly journals and magazines. Whenever the postman's knock was heard at the door, it was invariably followed by the appearance of the author in the passage, often in the scantiest of raiment, to discover whether the post had brought him any luck. Although his stories were the delight of the more staid among his readers, the writer was on the best of terms with the "theatrical" young women, he spending most of his time in their company. The lodgers at Mrs Gussle's were typical of the inhabitants of Halverton Street. And if a house influences the natures of those who dwell within its walls, how much more does the character of tenants find expression in the appearance of the place they inhabit? Hence the shabbiness and decay which Halverton Street suggested.
Mavis heard from Perigal at infrequent intervals, when he would write scrappy notes inquiring after her health, and particularly after his child. Once, he sent a sovereign, asking Mavis to have the boy photographed and to send him a copy. Mavis did as she was asked. The photographs cost eight shillings. Although she badly wanted a few shillings to get her boots soled and heeled, she returned the money which was over after paying for the photographs, to Perigal. She was resolved that no sordid question of money should soil their relationship, however attenuated this might become.
Much of Mavis's time was taken up with her baby. She washed, dressed, undressed, and took out her little one, duties which took up a considerable part of each day. From lack of means she was compelled to wash her own and the baby's body-linen, which she dried by suspending from cords stretched across the room. All these labours were an aspect of maternity which she had never encountered in books. Much of the work was debasing and menial; its performance left her weak and irritable; she believed that it was gradually breaking the little spirit she had brought from Mrs Gowler's nursing home. When she recalled the glowing periods she had chanced upon in her reading, which eulogised the supreme joys of motherhood, she supposed that they had been penned by writers with a sufficient staff of servants and with means that made a formidable laundry bill of no account. She wondered how working-class women with big families managed, who, in addition to attending to the wants of their children, had all the work of the house upon their hands. Mavis's spare time was filled by the answering of advertisements in the hope of getting sorely needed work; the sending of these to their destination cost money for postage stamps, which made sad inroads on her rapidly dwindling funds. But time and money were expended in vain. The address from which she wrote was a poor recommendation to possible employers. She could not make personal application, as she dared not leave her baby for long at a stretch. Sometimes, her lover's letters would not bring her the joy that they once occasioned; they affected her adversely, leaving her moody and depressed. Conversely, when she did not hear from Melkbridge for some days, she would be cheerful and light-hearted, when she would spend glad half-hours in reading the advertisements of houses to let and deciding which would suit her when she was married to Perigal. Sometimes, when burdened with care, she would catch sight of her reflection in the glass, to be not a little surprised at the strange, latent beauty which had come into her face. Maternity had invested her features with a surpassing dignity and sweetness, which added to the large share of distinction with which she had originally been endowed. At the same time, she noticed with a sigh that sorrow had sadly chastened the joyous light-heartedness which formerly found constant expression in her eyes.
Mavis had been at Mrs Gussle's about three weeks when she made the acquaintance of one of the "theatrical" young women upstairs. They had often met in the passage, when the girl had smiled sympathetically at Mavis. One afternoon, when the latter was feeling unusually depressed, a knock was heard at her door. She cried "Come in," when the girl opened the door a few inches to say:
"May I?"
"I didn't know it was you," remarked Mavis, distressed at her poverty being discovered.
"I came to ask if I could do anything for you," said the girl.
"That's very nice of you. Do come in."
The girl came in and stayed till it was time for her to commence the elaborate dressing demanded by her occupation. Mavis made her some tea, and the girl (who was called "Lil") prevailed upon her hostess to accept cigarettes. If the girl had been typical of her class, Mavis would have had nothing to do with her; but although Lil made a brave show of cynicism and gay worldliness, Mavis's keen wits perceived that these were assumed in order to conceal the girl's secret resentment against her habit of life. Mavis, also, saw that the girl's natural kindliness of heart and refined instincts entitled her to a better fate than the one which now gripped her. Lil was particularly interested in Mavis's baby. She asked continually about him; she sought him with her eyes when talking to Mavis, conduct that inclined the latter in her favour.
When Lil was going she asked:
"May I come again?"
"Why not?" asked Mavis.
"I didn't know I—I—So long," cried Lil, as she glanced in the direction of the baby.
On the occasion of her next visit, which took place two afternoons later, Lil asked:
"May I nurse your baby?" to add, as Mavis hesitated, "I promise I won't kiss him."
Mavis consented, greatly to Lil's delight, who played with the baby for the rest of the afternoon.
"You're fond of children?" commented Mavis.
The girl nodded, the while she bit her lip.
"I can see you've had baby brothers or sisters," remarked Mavis.
"How do you know?"
"By the way you hold him."
"What do you think of Gertie?" asked Lil quickly.
"Who's Gertie?"
"Mr Gussle. Upstairs we always call him Gertie."
"I can't make him out," said Mavis, at which she learned from Lil that Mr Gussle loathed his present means of earning a livelihood; also, that he hungered for respectability, and that, to satisfy his longing, he frequented, in his spare time, a tin tabernacle of evangelical leanings. Mavis also learned that the girls upstairs, knowing of Mr Gussle's proclivities, tempted him with cigarettes, spirits, and stimulating fleshly allurements.
One day, when Mavis had left her sleeping baby to go out for a few minutes, she returned to find Lil nursing her boy, the while tears fell from her eyes. Mavis pretended not to notice the girl's grief. She busied herself about the room, till Lil recovered herself. Later, when Mavis was getting seriously pressed for money, she came across odd half sovereigns in various parts of the room, which she rightly suspected had been put there by her friend. For all Lil's entreaties, Mavis insisted on returning the money. Lil constantly wore a frock to which Mavis took exception because it was garish. One day she spoke to Lil about it.
"Why do you so often wear that dress?" she asked.
"Don't you like it?"
"Not a bit. It's much too loud for you."
"I don't like it myself."
"Then why wear it?"
"It's my 'lucky dress.'"
"Your what?"
"'Lucky' dress. Don't you know all we girls have their 'lucky' dresses?"
This was news to Mavis.
"You mean a dress that—"
"Brings us luck with the gentlemen," interrupted Lil.
The subject thus opened, Lil became eloquent upon many aspects of her occupation. Presently she said:
"It isn't always the worst girls who are 'on the game.'"
"Indeed!"
"So many are there through no fault of their own."
"How is that?" asked Mavis.
"They get starved into it. It's all these big shops and places. They pay sweating wages, and to get food the girls pick up men. That's the beginning."
Mavis nodded assent. She remembered all she had heard and seen on this matter when at "Dawes'."
"And the small employers are getting just as bad. And of them the women are the worst. They don't care how much they grind poor girls down. If anything, I b'lieve they enjoy it. And if once a girl goes wrong, they're the ones to see she don't get back. Why is it they hate us so?"
"Give it up," replied Mavis, who added, "I should think it wanted an awful lot of courage."
"Courage! courage! You simply mustn't think. And that's where drink comes in."
Mavis sighed.
"Don't you ever take to the life," admonished Lil.
"I'm not likely to," shuddered Mavis.
"'Cause you ain't the least built that way. And thank God you ain't."
"I do; I do," said Mavis fervently.
"It's easy enough to blame, I know; but if you've a little one and no one in the wide world to turn to for help, and the little one's crying for food, what can a poor girl do?" asked Lil, as she became thoughtful and sad-looking.
A time came when Mavis was sorely pressed for money to buy the bare necessaries of life. She could not even afford soap with which to wash her own and her baby's clothes. Of late, she had made frequent visits to Mrs Scatchard's, where she had left many of her belongings. All of these that were saleable she had brought away and had disposed of either at pawnshops or at second-hand dealers in clothes. She had at last been constrained to part with her most prized trinkets, even including those which belonged to her father and the ring that Perigal had given her, and which she had worn suspended from her neck.
She now had but one and sixpence in the world. The manifold worries and perplexities consequent upon her poverty had affected her health. She was no longer able to supply her baby with its natural food. She was compelled to buy milk from the neighbouring dairy and to sterilise it to the best of her ability. To add to her distress, her boy's health suffered from the change of diet. Times without number, she had been on the point of writing to Perigal to tell him of all she had suffered and to ask for help, but pride had held her back. Now, the declension in her boy's health urged her to throw this pride to the winds, to do what common sense had been suggesting for so long. She had prayed eloquently, earnestly, often, for Divine assistance: so far, no reply had been vouchsafed. When evening came, she could bear no longer the restraint imposed by the four walls of her room. She had had nothing to eat that day; all she had had the day before was a crust of bread, which she had gleefully lighted upon at the back of her cupboard. This she would have shared with Jill, had not her friend despised such plain fare. Jill had lately developed a habit of running upstairs at meal times, when, after an interval, she would come down to lick her chops luxuriously before falling asleep.
Mavis was faint for lack of nourishment; hunger pains tore at her stomach. She felt that, if she did not get some air, she would die of the heat and exhaustion. Her baby was happily sleeping soundly, so she had no compunction in setting out. She crossed Lupus Street, where her nostrils were offended by the smell of vegetable refuse from the costermonger stalls, to walk in the direction of Victoria. The air was vapid and stale, but this did not prevent the dwellers in Pimlico from sitting at open windows or standing on doorsteps in order to escape the stuffiness of their houses. They were mostly vulgar lodging-house people, who were enjoying their ease following upon the burden of the day; but Mavis found herself envying them, if only for the fact that their bodies were well supplied with food. Hunger unloosed a savage rage within her, not only against everyone she encountered, but also against the conditions of her life. "What was the use of being of gentle birth?" she asked herself, if this were all it had done for her. She deeply regretted that she had not been born an ordinary London girl, in which case she would have been spared the possession of all those finer susceptibilities with which she now believed herself to be cursed, and which had prevented her from getting assistance from Perigal. She lingered by the cook shop in Denbigh Street, where she thought that she had never smelt anything so delicious as the greasy savours which came from the eating-house. It was only with a great effort of will that she stopped herself from spending her last one and sixpence (which she was keeping for emergency) in food. When she reached the Wilton Road, she walked of a set purpose on the station side of that thoroughfare. She feared that the restaurants opposite might prevail against her already weakened resolution. By the time she reached the Victoria Underground Station, her hunger was no longer under control. Her eyes searched the gutters greedily for anything that was fit to eat. She glared wolfishly at a ragged boy who picked up an over-ripe banana, which had been thrown on the pavement. The thought of the little one at home decided her. She turned in the direction of the post-office, having at last resolved to wire to her lover for help.
"Well, I'm blowed!" said a familiar voice at her side. Mavis turned, to see the ill-dressed figure of flat-chested, dumpy Miss Toombs.
"Miss Toombs!" she faltered.
"Didn't you see me staring at you?"
"Of course not. What are you doing in London?"
"I'm up here on a holiday. I am glad to see you."
"So am I. Good night."
"Eh!"
"I must go home. I said good night."
"You are a pig. I thought you'd come and have something to eat."
"I'm not—I'm not hungry."
"Well, sit down by me while I feed. I feel I want a jolly good blow out."
They had reached the doors of the restaurant opposite the main entrance to the underground railway. The issuing odours smote Mavis's hesitation hip and thigh.
"I—I really must be off," faltered Mavis, as she stood stockstill on the pavement.
By way of reply, Miss Toombs shoved the unresisting Mavis through the swing doors of the eating house; then, taking the lead, she piloted her to a secluded corner on the first floor, which was not nearly so crowded as the downstair rooms.
"It's nice to see good old Keeves again," remarked Miss Toombs, as she thrust a list of appetising foods under Mavis's nose.
"I'm really not a bit hungry," declared Mavis, who avoided looking at the toothsome-looking bread-rolls as far as her ravening hunger would permit. She grasped the tablecloth to stop herself from attacking these.
"Got any real turtle soup?" asked Miss Toombs of the polyglot waiter who now stood beside the table.
"Mock turtle," said the man, as he put his finger on this item in the menu card.
"Two oxtail soups," Miss Toombs demanded.
"Apres?"
"Two stewed scallops, and after that some lamb cutlets, new potatoes, and asparagus."
"Bon! Next, meiss," said the waiter, who began to think that the diner's prodigality warranted an unusually handsome tip.
Miss Toombs ordered roast ducklings and peas, together with other things, which included a big bottle of Burgundy, the while Mavis stared at her wide-eyed, open-mouthed; the starving girl could scarcely believe her ears.
"Is it—is it all true?" she murmured.
"Is what true?"
"Oh, meeting with you."
"Why? Have I altered much?"
It seemed a long time to Mavis till the soup was placed before her. Even when its savoury appeal made her faint with longing, she said:
"I'm—I'm really not a bit—"
She got no further. She had taken a mouthful of the soup, to hold it for a few moments in her mouth. She had no idea till then that it was possible to enjoy such delicious sensations. Once her fast was broken, the floodgates of appetite were open. She no longer made pretence of concealing her hunger; she would not have been able to if she had wished. She swallowed great mouthfuls of food greedily, silently, ravenously; she ate so fast that once or twice she was in danger of choking. If anyone had taken her food away, she would have fought to get it back. Thus Mavis devoured course after course, unaware, careless that Miss Toombs herself was eating next to nothing, and was watching her with quiet satisfaction from the corners of her eyes.
At last, Mavis was satisfied. She lay back silent and helpless on her plush seat, enjoying to the full the sensation of the rich, fat food nourishing her body. She closed her eyes and was falling into a deep sleep.
"Have some coffee and brandy," said Miss Toombs.
Mavis pulled herself together and drank the coffee.
"I'd give my soul for a cigarette," murmured Mavis, as she began to feel more awake.
"Blow you!" complained Miss Toombs, as she signalled to the waiter.
Mavis looked at her surprised, when her hostess said:
"You're prettier than ever. When I first saw you, I was delighted to think you were 'going off.'"
Mavis, regardless what others might think of her, lit the cigarette. Although she took deep, grateful puffs, which she wholly enjoyed, she soon let it go out; neither did she trouble to relight it, nor did she pay any attention to Miss Toombs's remarks. Mavis's physical content was by no means reflected in her mind. Her conscience was deeply troubled by the fact of her having, as it were, sailed with her benefactress under false colours.
Her cogitations were interrupted by Miss Toombs putting a box of expensive cigarettes (which she had got from the waiter) in her hand.
"Why are you so good to me?" asked Mavis.
"I've always really liked you."
"You wouldn't if you knew."
"Knew what?"
"Come. I'll show you."
After Miss Toombs had settled with the waiter, they left the restaurant. Miss Toombs accompanied Mavis along the Wilton Road and Denbigh Street. Halverton Street was presently reached. Mavis opened the door of Mrs Gussle's; with set face, she walked the passage to her room, followed by plain Miss Toombs. She unlocked the door of this and made way for her friend to enter. Clothes hung to dry from ropes stretched across the room: the baby slept in his rough, soap-box cradle.
Miss Toombs seemed to disregard the appearance of the room; her eyes sought the baby sleeping in the box.
"There!" cried Mavis. "Now you know."
"A baby!" gasped Miss Toombs.
"You've been kind to me. I had to let you know."
"Oh, you damn beast!" cried Miss Toombs.
Mavis looked at her defiantly.
"Oh, you damn beast!" cried Miss Toombs again. "You were always lucky!"
"Lucky!" echoed Mavis.
"To go and have a little baby and not me. Oh, it's too bad: too bad!"
Mavis looked inquiringly at her friend to see if she were sincere. The next moment, the two foolish women were weeping happy tears in each other's arms over the unconscious, sleeping form of Mavis's baby.
"Fancy you being like this," said Mavis, when she had dried her eyes.
"Like what?"
"Not minding my having a baby without being married."
"I'm not such a fool as to believe in that 'tosh,'" declared Miss Toombs.
"What 'tosh,' as you call it?"
"About thinking it a disgrace to have a child by the man you love."
"Isn't it?"
"How can it be if it's natural and inevitable?"
Mavis looked at Miss Toombs wide-eyed.
"Does the fact of people agreeing to think it wrong make it really wrong?" asked Miss Toombs, to add, "especially when the thinking what you call 'doing wrong' is actuated by selfish motives."
"How can morality possibly be selfish?" inquired Mavis.
"It's never anything else. If it weren't selfish it wouldn't be of use; if it weren't of use it couldn't go on existing."
"I'm afraid I don't follow you," declared Mavis, as she lit a cigarette.
"Wait. What would nearly all women do if you were mad enough to tell them what you've done?"
"Drop on me."
"Why?"
"Because I've done wrong."
"Are women 'down' on men for 'getting round' girls, or forgery, or anything else you like?"
Mavis was compelled to acknowledge her sex's lack of enthusiasm in the condemnation of such malpractices.
"Then why would they hunt you down?" cried Miss Toombs triumphantly. "Because, in doing as you've done, you've been a traitress to the economic interests of our sex. Women have mutually agreed to make marriage the price of their surrender to men. Girls who don't insist on this price choke men off marrying, and that's why they're never forgiven by other women."
"Is it you talking?"
"No, my dear Keeves; women, in this world, who look for marriage, have to play up to men and persuade them they're worth the price of a man losing his liberty."
"But fancy you talking like that!"
"If they're pretty, and play their cards properly, they're kept for life. If they're like you, and don't get married, it's a bad look-out. If they're pretty rotten, and have business instincts, they must make hay while the sun shines to keep them when it doesn't."
"And you don't really think the worse of me?"
"I think the more. It's always the good girls who go wrong."
"That means that you will."
"I haven't the chance. When girls are plain, like me, men don't notice them, and if they've no money of their own they have to earn a pittance in Melkbridge boot factories."
"I can't believe it's you, even now."
"I don't mind giving myself away, since you've done the same to me. And it's a relief to let off steam sometimes."
"And you really don't think the worse of me for having—having this?"
"I'd do the same myself to-morrow if I'd the chance and could afford to keep it, and knew it wouldn't curse me when it grew up."
Mavis winced to recover herself and say:
"But I may be married any day now."
"Whoever the father is, he seems a bit of a fool," remarked Miss Toombs, as she took the baby on her knee.
"To love me?"
"In not marrying you and getting you for life. From a man's point of view, you're a find, pretty Mavis."
"Nonsense!"
"I don't call it nonsense. Just look at your figure and your hips and the colour of your hair, your lovely white skin and all, to say nothing of the passion in your eyes."
"Is it staid Miss Toombs talking?"
"If I'm staid, it's because I have to be. No man 'ud ever want me. As for you, if I were a man, I'd go to hell, if there were such a place, if I could get you for all my very own."
"Don't you believe in hell?"
"Do you?"
"I don't know. Don't you?"
"The only hell I know is the jealous anger in a plain woman's heart. Of course there are others. You've only to dip into history to read of the hells that kings and priests, mostly priests, have made of this earth."
"What about Providence?" asked Mavis.
"Don't talk that 'tosh' to me," cried Miss Toombs vehemently.
"But is it 'tosh'?"
"If I were to give you a list of even the few things I've read about, the awful, cruel, blood-thirsty, wicked doings, it would make your blood boil at the injustice, the wantonness of it all. Read how the Spaniards treated the Netherlanders once upon a time, the internal history of Russia, the story of Red Rubber, loads of things, and over and over again you'd ask, 'What was God doing to allow such unnecessary torture?'"
Miss Toombs paused for breath. Seeing Mavis looking at her with open-mouthed astonishment, she said:
"Have I astonished you?"
"You have."
"Haven't you heard anyone else talk like that?"
"What I was thinking of was, that you, of all people, should preach revolt against accepted ideas. I always thought you so straitlaced."
"Never mind about me."
"But I do. If you believe all you say, why do you go to church and all that?"
"What does it matter to anyone what an ugly person like me thinks or does?"
"Anyway, you're quite interesting to me."
"Really: really interesting?" asked Miss Toombs, with an inflection of genuine surprise in her voice.
"Why should I say so if I didn't think so?"
A flush of pleasure overspread the plain woman's face as she said:
"I believe you're speaking the truth. If ever I play the hypocrite, it's because I'm a hopeless coward."
"Really!" laughed Mavis, who was beginning to recover her spirits.
"Although I believe my cowardice is justified," declared Miss Toombs. "I haven't a friend or relation in the world. If I were to get ill, or lose my job to-morrow, I've no one to turn to. I've a bad circulation and get indigestion whenever I eat meat. I've only one pleasure in life, and I do all I know to keep my job so that I can indulge in it."
"What's that?"
"You'll laugh when I tell you."
"Nothing that gives a human being innocent pleasure can be ridiculous," remarked Mavis.
"My happiness comes in winter," declared Miss Toombs. "I love nothing better than to go home and have tea and hot buttered toast before the blazing fire in my bed-sitting room. Then, about seven, I make up the fire and go to bed with my book and hot-water bottles. It's stuffy, but it's my idea of heaven."
Mavis did not offer any comment.
"Now laugh at me," said Miss Toombs.
Instead of doing any such thing, Mavis bent over to kiss Miss Toombs's cheek.
"No one's ever wanted to kiss me before," complained Miss Toombs.
"Because you've never let anyone know you as you really are," rejoined Mavis.
"Now we've talked quite enough about me. Let's hear a little more about yourself."
"My history is written in this room."
"Don't talk rot. I suppose it all happened when you went away for your holidays last year?"
"You didn't think—"
"No. I didn't think you had the pluck."
"It doesn't require much of that."
"Doesn't it? There are loads of girls, nice girls too, who'd do as you've done to-morrow if they only dared," declared Miss Toombs. "And why not?" she added defiantly.
"You take my breath away," laughed Mavis.
"Don't laugh, dear. It's much too serious to laugh at," remonstrated Miss Toombs. "We're here for such a short time, and so much of that is taken up with youth and age and illness and work that it's our duty to get as much happiness as we can. And if two people love each other—"
"The woman can be brought down to this."
"And wasn't it worth it?" cried Miss Toombs hotly.
"Worth it!" echoed Mavis.
"Didn't you have a lovely time when you were away?"
"Heavenly!"
"Didn't he kiss your hands and feet and hair and tell you you were the most beautiful woman in the whole world, as they do in books?"
Mavis nodded.
"And didn't he hold you to his heart all the night through, and didn't you think you were in heaven? No—no, don't tell me. It would make me miserable and jealous for weeks."
"Why should it?"
"Who's ever wanted to love and kiss my feet and hands? But there it is—you're a pretty girl, and all that, but you can't have everything in this world. You've had to pay one of the chief penalties for your attractiveness."
Just then Mavis's baby began to cry.
"It's my hard knee," remarked Miss Toombs ruefully. "They always cry when I nurse them."
"I think he's hungry," remarked Mavis.
"Then give the boy his supper. Don't mind me."
Mavis busied herself with the preparations for sterilising the milk, but the boy cried so lustily that, to quiet him, Mavis blushingly undid her bodice to put the nipple of her firm, white breast in his mouth.
"It's the only thing to quiet him," explained Mavis.
"No wonder. He's got taste, has that boy. Don't turn away. It's all so beautiful, and there's nothing wrong in nature."
"What are you thinking of?" asked Miss Toombs presently, after Mavis had been silent for a while. "Don't you feel at home with me?"
"Don't be silly! You know you profess not to believe in Providence."
"What of it?"
"I've been in a bad way lately and I've prayed for help. Surely meeting with you in a huge place like London is an answer to my prayer."
"Meeting you, when you were hard up, was like something out of a book, eh?"
"Something out of a very good book," replied Mavis.
"Well, it wasn't chance at all. These sort of things never happen when they're wanted to. I've been up in town looking for you."
"What!"
"And thereby hangs a very romantic tale."
"You've been looking for me?"
"What's the time?"
"You're not thinking of going yet? Why were you looking for me?"
"It's nearly ten," declared Miss Toombs, as she looked at her watch. "Unless I stay the night here, I must be off."
"Where are you staying?"
"Notting Hill. I beg its pardon—North Kensington. They're quiet people. If I'm not back soon, my character will be lost and I shall be locked out for the night."
"I'd love you to stay. But there's scarcely room for you in this poky little hole."
"Can't I engage another room?"
"But the expense?"
"Blow that! See if they can put me up."
Mavis talked to Miss Gussle on the subject. Very soon, Mr Gussle could be heard panting up the stairs with an iron chair bedstead, which was set up, with other conveniences, in the music-hall agent's office.
"Nice if he comes back and came into my room in the night," remarked Miss Toombs.
"What on earth would you do?" asked Mavis.
"Lock the door to keep him in," replied Miss Toombs quickly, at which the two friends laughed immoderately.
As Miss Toombs was leaving the room to wire to her landlady to tell her that she was staying with friends for the night, she kissed her hand to Mavis's baby.
"What are you going to call him?" she asked.
"Charlie, of course," promptly replied Mavis.
The next moment, she could have bitten off her tongue for having given Miss Toombs a possible clue to her lover's identity: she had resolved never to betray him to a living soul.
But Mavis comforted herself on the score that her friend received her information without betraying interest or surprise. Twenty minutes later, Miss Toombs came back, staggering beneath the weight of an accumulation of parcels, which contained a variety of things that Mavis might want.
"How could you spend your money on me?" asked Mavis, as the different purchases were unpacked.
"If one can't have a romance oneself, the next best thing is to be mixed up in someone else's," replied Miss Toombs.
Mavis and her friend sat down to a supper of strawberries and cream, whilst they drank claret and soda water. Jill was not forgotten; Miss Toombs had bought her a pound of meat scraps from the butcher's, which the dog critically consumed in a corner.
"Let me hear about your romance and all the Melkbridge news," said Mavis, as she stopped her friend from pouring more cream upon her plate of strawberries.
"Blow Melkbridge!" exclaimed Miss Toombs, her face hardening.
"But I love it. I'm always thinking about it, and I'd give anything to go back there."
"Eh!"
"I said I'd give anything to be back there."
"Rot!"
"Why rot?"
"You mustn't dream of going back," cried Miss Toombs anxiously.
"Why on earth not?"
"Eh! Oh, because I say so."
"Does anyone down there know?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Then why shouldn't I go back?"
"There's no reason, only—"
"Only what?"
"Let me tell you of my romance."
"Very well, only—"
"When I tell you I'm in love, I don't think you ought to interrupt," remarked Miss Toombs.
"I only wanted to know why I mustn't dream of going back to Melkbridge," said Mavis anxiously.
"Because I can get you a better job elsewhere. There now!"
"Let's hear of your love affair," said Mavis, partly satisfied by Miss Toombs's reason for not wishing her to return to the place where her lover was.
"Five weeks ago, a man strode into our office at the factory; tall, big, upright, sunburned."
"Who was he?" asked Mavis.
"He wasn't a man at all; he was a god. And his clothes! Oh, my dear, my heart came up in my mouth. And when he gave me his card—"
"Who was he?" interrupted Mavis.
"Can't you guess?"
"Give it up."
"Captain Sir Archibald Windebank."
"Really!"
"I wish it hadn't been. I've never forgotten him since."
"What did he want?"
"You!"
"Me?"
"You, you lucky girl! Has he ever kissed you?"
"Once."
"Damn you! No, I don't mean that. You were made for love. But why didn't you hold him in your arms and never let him go? I should have."
"That's not a proper suggestion," laughed Mavis. "What did he want me for?"
"He wanted to find out what had become of you."
"What did you tell him?"
"I didn't get much chance. Directly he saw Miss Hunter was nice-looking, he addressed all his remarks to her."
"Not really?"
"A fact. Then I got sulky and got on with my work."
"What did she say?"
"What could she say? But, my goodness, wouldn't she have told some lies if I hadn't been there, and she had had him all to herself!"
"Lies about me?"
"She hated the sight of you. She never could forgive you because you were better born than she. And, would you believe it, she started to set her cap at him."
"Little cat!"
"He said he would come again to see if we heard any more of you, and, when he went, she actually made eyes at him. And, if that weren't enough, she wore her best dress and all her nick-knacks every day till he came again."
"He did come again?"
"This time he spoke to me. He went soon after I told him we hadn't heard of you."
"Did he send you to town to look for me?"
"I did that on my own. I traced you to a dancing academy, then to North Kensington, and then to New Cross."
"Where at New Cross?" asked Mavis, fearful that her friend had inquired for her at Mrs Gowler's.
"I'd been given an address, but I lost it on the way. I described you to the station master and asked if he could help me. He remembered a lady answering your description having a box sent to an address in Pimlico. When I told him you were a missing relative, he turned it up."
"Why didn't you call?"
"I didn't know if you were Mrs Kenrick, and, if you were, how you would take my 'nosing' into your affairs."
"Why did you bother?"
"I always liked you, and when I feared you'd got into a scrape for love of a man, my heart went out to you and I wanted to help you."
Mavis bent over to kiss her friend before saying: "I only hope I live to do you a good turn."
"You've done it already by making friends with me. But isn't Hunter a pig?"
"I hate her," said Mavis emphatically.
"She tried to get my time for her holidays, but it's now arranged that she goes away when I get back."
"Where is she going?" asked Mavis absently.
"Cornwall."
"Cornwall? Which part?"
"South, I believe. Why?"
"Curiosity," replied Mavis.
Then Miss Toombs told Mavis the rest of the Melkbridge news. She learned how Mr and Mrs Trivett had given up Pennington Farm and were now living in Melkbridge, where Miss Toombs had heard that they had a hard struggle to get along. Miss Toombs mentioned several other names well known to Mavis; but she did not speak of Charlie Perigal.
It was a long time before Mavis slept that night. She had long and earnestly thanked her Heavenly Father for having sent kindly Miss Toombs to help her in her distress. She then lay awake for quite a long while, wondering why Miss Toombs had been against her going to Melkbridge. Vague, intangible fears hovered about her, which were associated with her lover and his many promises to marry her. He also was at Melkbridge. Mavis tried to persuade herself that Miss Toombs's objection to her going to the same place could have nothing in common with the fact of her lover's presence there.
The next morning, while the two friends were breakfasting, Mavis again spoke of the matter.
"I can't make out why you were so against my going to Melkbridge," she said.
"Have you been worrying about it?" asked Miss Toombs.
"Yes. Is there any reason why I shouldn't go back?"
"You great big silly! The reason why I didn't want you to go there is because I might get you a better job in town."
"But you told me last night you were friendless. Friendless girls can't get others work in town. So don't try and get over me by saying that."
Miss Toombs explained how the manager of a London house, which had extensive dealings with Devitt's boot factory, was indebted to her for certain crooked business ways that she had made straight. She told Mavis that she had gone to see this man on Mr Devitt's behalf since she had been in town, and that he was anxious to keep in her good books. She thought that a word from her would get Mavis employment.
Mavis thanked her friend; she made no further mention of the matter which occasionally disturbed her peace of mind.
For all her friend's kindly offer, she longed to tread the familiar ways of the country town which was so intimately associated with the chief event of her life.
During the five unexpired days of Miss Toombs's holiday, the two women were rarely apart. Of a morning they would take the baby to the grounds of Chelsea Hospital, which, save for the presence of the few who were familiar with its quietude, they had to themselves. Once or twice, they took a 'bus to the further side of the river, when they would sit in a remote corner of Battersea Park. They also went to Kew Gardens and Richmond Park. Mavis had not, for many long weeks, known such happiness as that furnished by Miss Toombs's society. Her broad views of life diminished Mavis's concern at the fact of her being a mother without being a wife.
The time came when Mavis set out for Paddington (she left the baby behind in charge of Jill), in order to see her friend go by the afternoon train to Melkbridge. Mavis was silent. She wished that she were journeying over the hundred miles which lay between where she stood and her lover. Miss Toombs was strangely cheerful: to such an extent, that Mavis wondered if her friend guessed the secret of her lover's identity, and, divining her heart's longings, was endeavouring to distract her thoughts from their probable preoccupation. Mavis thanked her friend again and again for all she had done for her. Miss Toombs had that morning received a letter from her London boot acquaintance in reply to one she had written concerning Mavis. This letter had told Miss Toombs that her friend should fill the first vacancy that might occur. Upon the strength of this promise, Miss Toombs had prevailed on Mavis to accept five pounds from her; but Mavis had only taken it upon the understanding that the money was a loan.
While they were talking outside Miss Toombs's third class compartment, Mavis saw Montague Devitt pass on his way to a first, followed by two porters, who were staggering beneath the weight of a variety of parcels. Mavis hoped that he would not see her; but the fates willed otherwise. One of the porters dropped a package, which fell with a resounding thwack at Mavis's feet. Devitt turned, to see Mavis.
"Miss Keeves!" he said, raising his hat.
Mavis bowed.
"May I speak to you a moment?" he asked, after glancing at Miss Toombs, and furtively lifting his hat to this person.
Mavis joined him.
"What has become of you all this time?"
"I've been working in London."
"I've often thought of you. What are you doing now?"
"I'm looking for something to do."
"I suppose you'd never care to come back and work for me in Melkbridge?"
"Nothing I should like better," remarked Mavis, as her heart leapt.
They talked for two or three minutes longer, when, the train being on the point of starting, Devitt said:
"Send me your address and I'll see you have your old work again."
Mavis thanked him.
"Just met Miss Toombs?" he asked.
"She's been staying with me. Thank you so much."
Mavis hurried from the man's carriage to that containing her friend, who was standing anxiously by the window.
"It's all right!" cried Mavis excitedly.
"What's all right, dear?" cried Miss Toombs as the train began to move.
"I'm coming to work at Melkbridge. It's au revoir, dear!"
Mavis was astonished, and not a little disquieted, to see the expression of concern which came over her friend's disappearing face at this announcement.