Mavis' heart seemed to stop. She knew the bag contained her trinkets, her reserve capital of twenty-three pounds, Perigal's letters, her powder-puff, and other feminine odds and ends. What she could not remember was if she had posted her note to Perigal, which contained the money she was returning to him. As much as her consternation would permit, she rapidly passed over in her mind everything that had happened since she had left the restaurant in Oxford Street. For the life of her, she could not recall going into a postoffice to purchase the stamp of which she had been in need. Her next thought was the quickest way to get back her property, at which the word police immediately suggested itself. Once outside the house, she made careful note of its number; she then walked quickly till she came upon a policeman, to whom she told her trouble.
"Was you there alone?" asked the constable.
Mavis looked at him inquiringly.
"I mean was you with a gentleman?"
Mavis bit her lip, but saw it would not help her to be indignant. She told the man how she got there, a statement which made him civil and sympathetic.
"It's a bad place, and we've had many complaints about it. You'd better complain to the inspector at the station, miss."
He directed her to where she should go. Exhausted with hunger and the fear of losing all her possessions, she followed the policeman's instructions, till she presently found herself telling an inspector at the station of the theft; he advised her to either make a charge, or, if she disliked the publicity of the police court, to instruct a solicitor. Believing that making a charge would be more effectual, besides speedier, she told the inspector of her decision.
"Very well. Your name, please?"
"Mavis Kenrick."
"Mrs," he wrote, as he glanced at the wedding ring which she now wore on her finger.
"What address, please?" was his next question.
"I haven't one at present."
The man looked at her in surprise, at which Mavis explained how she had come from Melkbridge the day before.
"At least you can give us your husband's address."
"He's abroad," declared Mavis, with as much resolution as she could muster.
"Then you might give me the address of your friends in Melkbridge."
"To write to?" asked Mavis.
"In case it should be necessary."
Mavis was at once aware of the inconvenient consequences to which an application for references to anyone at Melkbridge would give rise, especially as her name and state were alike incorrectly given. She hesitated for a few moments before telling the inspector that, disliking the publicity of the police court, she would prefer to instruct a solicitor. As she left the station, she would have felt considerably crestfallen, had she not been faint from want of food. She dragged her way to a tea-shop, to feel the better for a cup of tea and some toast. The taste of the room in which she had passed the night still fouled her mouth; its stench clung to her clothes. She asked her way to the nearest public baths, where she thought a shilling well spent in buying the luxury of a hot bath. Her next concern was to seek out a solicitor who would assist her to recover her stolen property. She had a healthy distrust of the tribe, and was wondering if, after all, it would not have been better to have risked the inspector's writing to any address she may have given at Melkbridge, rather than trust any chance lawyer with the matter, when she remembered that her old acquaintance, Miss Meakin, was engaged to a solicitor's clerk. She resolved to seek out Miss Meakin, and ask her to get her betrothed's advice and assistance. As she did not know Miss Meakin's present address, she thought the quickest way to obtain it was to call on her old friend Miss Nippett at Blomfield Road, Shepherd's Bush, who kept the register of all those who attended "Poulter's."
She had never quite lost touch with the elderly accompanist; they had sent each other cards at Christmas and infrequently exchanged picture postcards, Miss Nippett's invariably being a front view of "Poulter's," with Mr Poulter on the steps in such a position as not to obscure "Turpsichor" in the background.
Mavis travelled by the Underground to Shepherd's Bush, from where it was only five minutes' walk to Miss Nippett's. The whole way down, she was so dazed by her loss that she could give no thought to anything else. The calamities that now threatened her were infinitely more menacing than before her precious bag had been stolen. It seemed as if man and circumstance had conspired for her undoing. Her suspense of mind was such that it seemed long hours before she knocked at the blistered door in the Blomfield Road where Miss Nippett lived.
Miss Nippett was in, she learned from the red-nosed, chilblain-fingered slut who opened the door.
"What nyme?"
"Mrs Kenrick, who was Miss Keeves," replied Mavis.
"Will you go up?" said the slut when, a few minutes later, she came downstairs.
Mavis went upstairs, past the cupboard containing Miss Nippett's collection of unclaimed "overs," to the door directly beyond.
"Come in" cried a well-remembered voice, as Mavis knocked.
She entered, to see Miss Nippett half rising from a chair before the fire. She was startled by the great change which had taken place in the accompanist's appearance since she had last seen her. She looked many years older; her figure was quite bent; the familiar shawl was too ample for the narrow, stooping shoulders.
"Aren't you well?" asked Mavis, as she kissed her friend's cheek.
"Quite. Reely I am but for a slight cold. Mr Poulter, 'e's well too. Fancy you married!"
"Yes," said Mavis sadly.
But Miss Nippett took no notice of her dejection.
"I've never 'ad time to get married, there's so much to do at 'Poulter's.' You know! Still, there's no knowing."
Mavis, distressed as she was, could hardly restrain a smile.
"I've news too," went on Miss Nippett.
"Have you?" asked Mavis, who was burning to get to the reason of her call.
"Ain't you heard of it?"
"I can't say I have."
By way of explanation, Miss Nippett handed Mavis one of a pile of prospectuses at her elbow; she at once recognised the familiar pamphlet that extolled Mr Poulter's wares.
"See! 'E's got my name on the 'pectus. 'All particulars from Poulter's or Miss Nippett, 19 Blomfield Road, W.' Isn't that something to talk about and think over?"
Mavis hastily assented; she was about to ask for Miss Meakin's address, but Miss Nippett was too quick for her.
"D'ye think he'll win?"
"Who?"
"Mr Poulter, of course. 'Aven't you 'eard?"
"Tell me."
"Oh, I say, you are ignorant! He's competing for the great cotillion prize competition. I thought everybody knew about it."
"I think I've heard something. But could you tell me Miss Meakin's address?"
"11 Baynham Street, North Kensington, near Uxbridge Road station," Miss Nippett informed Mavis, after referring to an exercise book, to add: "This is the dooplicate register of 'Poulter's.' I always keep it here in case the other should get lost. Mr. Poulter, like all them great men, is that careless."
"Come again soon," said Miss Nippett, as Mavis rose to go.
Mavis promised that she would.
"How long have you been married?"
"Not long. Three months."
"Any baby?"
"After three months!" blushed Mavis.
"Working so at 'Poulter's' makes one forget them things. No offence," apologised Miss Nippett.
"Good-bye. I'll look in again soon."
"If you 'ave any babies, see they're taught dancing at 'Poulter's.'"
Between Notting Hill and Wormwood Scrubbs lies a vast desert of human dwellings. Fringing Notting Hill they are inhabited by lower middle-class folk, but, by scarcely perceptible degrees, there is a declension of so-called respectability, till at last the frankly working-class district of Latimer Road is reached. Baynham Street was one of the ill-conditioned, down-at-heel little roads which tenaciously fought an uphill fight with encroaching working-class thoroughfares. Its inhabitants referred with pride to the fact that Baynham Street overlooked a railway, which view could be obtained by craning the neck out of window at risk of dislocation. A brawny man was standing before the open door of No. 11 as Mavis walked up the steps.
"Is Bill coming?" asked the man, as he furtively lifted his hat.
Mavis looked surprised.
"To chuck out this 'ere lodger for Mrs. Scatchard wo' won't pay up," he explained.
"I know nothing about it," said Mavis.
"Ain't you Mrs Dancer, Bill's new second wife?"
Mavis explained that she had come to see Miss Meakin, at which the man walked into the passage and knocked at the first door on the left, as he called out:
"Lady to see you!"
"Who?" asked Miss Meakin, as she displayed a fraction of a scantily attired person through the barely opened door.
"Have you forgotten me?" asked Mavis, as she entered the passage.
"Dear Miss Keeves! So good of you to call!" cried Miss Meakin, not a little affectedly, so Mavis thought, as she raised her hand high above her head to shake hands with her friend in a manner that was once considered fashionable in exclusive Bayswater circles.
She then opened the door wide enough for Mavis to edge her way in. Mavis found herself in an apartment that was normally a pretentiously furnished drawing-room. Just now, a lately vacated bed was made up on the sofa; a recently used washing basin stood on a chair; whilst Miss Meakin's unassumed garments strewed the floor.
"And what's happened to you all this long time?" asked Miss Meakin, as she sat on the edge of a chair in the manner of one receiving a formal call.
"To begin with, I'm married," said Mavis hurriedly, at which piece of information her friend's face fell.
"Any family?" she asked anxiously.
"N-no—not yet."
"I could have married Mr Napper a month ago—in fact he begged me on his knees to," bridled Miss Meakin.
"Why didn't you?"
"We're going to his aunt's at Littlehampton for the honeymoon, but I'm certainly not going till it's the season there."
Mavis smiled.
"Would you?" asked Miss Meakin.
"Not if that sort of thing appealed to me."
When Miss Meakin had explained that she had got up late because she had been to a ball the night before, Mavis told her the reason of her visit, at which Miss Meakin declared that Mr Napper was the very man to help her. Mavis asked for his address. While her friend was writing it down, a violent commotion was heard descending the stairs and advancing along the passage. Mavis rightly guessed this was caused by the forcible ejection of the lodger who had failed with his rent.
To Mavis' surprise, Miss Meakin did not make any reference to this disturbance, but went on talking as if she were living in a refined atmosphere which was wholly removed from possibility of violation.
"There's one thing I should tell you," said Miss Meakin, as Mavis rose to take her leave. "Mr Napper's employer, Mr Keating, besides being a solicitor, sells pianos. Mr N. is expecting a lady friend, who is thinking of buying one 'on the monthly,' so mind you explain what you want."
"I won't forget," said Mavis, making an effort to go. But as voices raised in angry altercation could be heard immediately outside the front door, Miss Meakin detained Mavis, asking, in the politest tone, advice on the subject of the most fashionable material to wear at a select dinner party.
"I've quite given up 'Browning,'" she told Mavis, "he's so old-fashioned to up-to-date people. Now I'm going to be Mrs Napper, when the Littlehampton season comes round, I'm going in exclusively for smartness and fashion."
Mavis making as if she would go, and the disturbance not being finally quelled, Miss Meakin begged Mavis to stay to lunch. She repeatedly insisted on the word lunch, as if it conveyed a social distinction in the speaker.
Mavis had got as far as the door, when it burst open and an elderly woman of considerable avoirdupois broke into the room, to sink helplessly upon a flimsy chair which creaked ominously with its burden.
Miss Meakin introduced this person to Mavis as her aunt, Mrs Scatchard, and reminded the latter how Mavis had rescued her niece from the clutches of the bogus hospital nurse in Victoria Street so many months back.
"That you should call today of all days!" moaned the perspiring Mrs Scatchard.
"Why not today?" asked her niece innocently.
"The day I'm disgraced to the neighbourhood by a 'visitor' being turned out of doors."
"I knew nothing of it," protested Miss Meakin.
"And Mr Scatchard being a government official, as you might say."
"Indeed!" remarked Mavis, who was itching to be off.
"Almost a pillar of the throne, as you might say," moaned the poor woman.
"True enough," murmured her niece.
"A man who, as you might say, has had the eyes of Europe upon him."
"Ah!" sighed Miss Meakin.
"And me, too, who am, as it were, an outpost of blood in this no-class neighbourhood," continued Mrs Scatchard.
Mavis wondered when she would be able to get away.
"My father was a tax-collector," Mrs Scatchard informed Mavis.
"Indeed!" said the latter.
"And in a most select London suburb. Do you believe in blood?"
"I think so."
"Then you must come here often. Blood is so scarce in North Kensington."
"Thank you."
"Why not stay and have a bit of dinner?"
"Lunch," corrected Miss Meakin with a frown.
"We've a lovely sheep's heart and turnips," said Mrs Scatchard, disregarding her niece's pained interruption.
Mavis thanked kindly Mrs Scatchard, but said she must be off. She was not permitted to go before she promised to let Miss Meakin know the result of her visit to Mr Napper.
Mavis spent three of her precious pennies in getting to the office of Mr Keating, which was situated in a tiny court running out of Holborn. Upon the first door she came to was inscribed "A.F. Keating, Solicitor, Commissioner for Oaths," whilst upon an adjacent door was painted "Breibner, Importer of Pianofortes." She tried the handle of the solicitor's door, to find that it was locked. She was wondering what she should do when a tall, thin, podgy-faced man came in from the court. Mavis instinctively guessed that he was Mr Napper.
"'Ave you been waiting long, madam?" he asked.
"I've just come. Are you Mr Napper?"
"It is. Everybody knows me."
"I've come from Miss Meakin."
"Today?" he asked, as his white face lit up.
"I've come straight from her."
"And after what I said at last night's 'light fantastic,' she has sent you to me!" he cried excitedly, as he opened the door on which was inscribed "Breibner."
"RE consultation, madam. If you will be good enough to step this way, I shall be 'appy to take your instructions."
Mavis, despite her distress of mind, was not a little amused at this alteration in Mr Napper's manner. She followed him into Mr Keating's office, where she saw a very small office-boy, who, directly he set his eyes on Mr Napper, made great pretence of being busy. She was shown into an inner room, where she was offered an armchair. Upon taking it, Mr Napper gravely seated himself at a desk and said:
"Mr Keating is un'appily absent. Any confidence made to me is the same as made to 'im."
Mavis recited her trouble, of which Mr Napper put down the details.
When he had got these, Mavis waited in suspense. Mr Napper looked at his watch.
"Do you think you can do anything?" Mavis asked.
"I'm going to do my best, quite as much for Miss Meakin's sake as for the dignity of my profession," replied Mr Napper. "Please read through this, and, if it is correct, kindly sign."
Here he handed Mavis a statement of all she had told him in respect of her loss. After seeing that it was rightly set down, she signed "Mavis Kenrick" at the foot of the document.
"Vincent!" cried Mr Napper, as Mavis handed it back.
"Yessur," answered the tiny office-boy smartly, as he made the most of his height in the doorway.
"I am going out on important business."
"Yessur."
"I shan't be back for the best part of an hour."
"Yessur."
"If this lady cares to, she will wait till my return."
"Yessur."
Mr Napper dismissed Vincent and then turned to Mavis.
"If I may say so, I can see by your face that you're fond of literature," he said.
"I like reading."
"Law and music is my 'obby, as you might say. The higher literature is my intellect."
"Indeed!"
"Let me lend you something to read while you're waiting."
"You're very kind. But I've had nothing to eat. Would you mind if I took it out with me?"
"Delighted! What do you say to Locke's Human Understanding?" he asked, as he produced a book.
"Thank you very much."
"Or here's Butler's Anatomy of Melancholy."
"But—"
"Or 'Obbes's Leviathan," he suggested, producing a third volume.
"Thank you, but Locke will do to begin upon."
"Ask me to explain anything you don't understand," he urged.
"I won't fail to," she replied, at which Mr Napper took his leave.
Mavis went to a neighbouring tea-shop, where she obtained the food of which she was in need. When she returned to Mr Keating's office, she was shown into the inner room by Vincent, who shut the door as he left her. She was still a prey to anxiety, and succeeded in convincing herself how comparatively happy she would be if only she could get back her stolen goods. To distract her thoughts from her present trouble, she tried to be interested in the opening chapter of the work that Mr Napper had lent her. But it proved too formidable in her present state of mind. She would read a passage, to find that it conveyed no meaning; she was more interested in the clock on the mantel-piece and wondering how long it would be before she got any news. One peculiarity of Mr Napper's book attracted her attention: she saw that, whereas the first few pages were dog's-eared and thumb-marked, the succeeding ones were as fresh as when they issued from the bookseller's hands.
While she was thus waiting in suspense, she heard strange sounds coming from the office where Vincent worked. She went to the door, to look through that part of it which was of glass. She saw Vincent, who, so far as she could gather, was talking as if to an audience, the while he held an inkpot in one hand and the office cat in the other. When he had finished talking, he caused these to vanish, at which he acknowledged the applause of an imaginary audience with repeated bows. After another speech, he reproduced the cat and the inkpot, proceedings which led Mavis to think that the boy had conjuring aspirations.
Her heart beat quickly when Mr Napper re-entered the office.
"It's all right!" he hastened to assure her. "You're to come off with me to the station to identify your property."
Mavis thanked him heartfully when she learned that the police, having received a further complaint of the house where she had spent the night, had obtained a warrant and promptly raided the place, with the result that her bag (with other missing property) had been recovered. As they walked in the direction of the station, Mr. Napper asked her how she had got on with Locke's Human Understanding. Upon her replying that it was rather too much for her just then, he said:
"Just you listen to me."
Here he launched into an amazing farrago of scientific terms, in which the names of great thinkers and scientists were mingled at random. There was nothing connected in his talk; he seemed to be repeating, parrot fashion, words and formulas that he had chanced upon in his dipping into the works that he had boasted of comprehending.
Mavis looked at him in astonishment. He mistook her surprise for admiration.
"I'm afraid you haven't understood much of what I've been saying," he remarked.
"Not very much."
"You've paid me a great compliment," he said, looking highly pleased with himself.
Then he spoke of Miss Meakin.
"You'll tell her what I've done for you?"
"Most certainly."
"Last night, at the 'light fantastic' I told you of, we had a bit of a tiff, when I spoke my mind. Would you believe it, she only danced twenty hops with me out of the twenty-three set down?"
"What bad taste!"
"I'm glad you think that. Her sending you to me shows she isn't offended at what I said. I did give it her hot. I threw in plenty of scientific terms and all that."
"Poor girl!" remarked Mavis.
"Yes, she was to be pitied. But here we are at the station."
Mavis went inside with Mr Napper, where she proved her title to her stolen property by minutely describing the contents of her bag, from which she was rejoiced to find nothing had been taken. Her unposted letter to Perigal was with her other possessions.
As they were leaving the station, Mr Napper remarked:
"The day before yesterday I had the greatest compliment of my life paid me."
"And what was that?" asked Mavis.
"A lady told me that she'd known me three years, and that all that time she never understood what my scientific conversation was about."
If Mavis had believed that the recovery of her property would give her peace of mind, she soon discovered how grievously she was mistaken.
Directly she left the police station with Mr Napper, all her old fears and forebodings for the future resumed sway over her thoughts. As before, she sought to allay them by undiminished faith in her lover. She accepted Mr Napper's hospitality in the form of tea and toast at a branch of the Aerated Bread Company, where she asked him how much she was in his debt for his services. To her surprise, he replied, "Nothing at all," and added that he was only too glad to assist her, not only for Miss Meakin's sake, but because he felt that Mavis dimly appreciated his intellectuality. Upon Mavis untruthfully replying that she did, Mr Napper gave a further effort to impress, not only her, but others seated about them; he talked his jargon of scientific and philosophical phrases at the top of his voice. She was relieved when she was rid of his company. She then took train to Shepherd's Bush, where she called on Miss Meakin as promised. Much to her surprise, Miss Meakin, who was now robed in a flimsy and not too clean teagown, had not the slightest interest in knowing if Mavis had recovered her property; indeed, she had forgotten that Mavis had lost anything. She was only concerned to know what Mavis thought of Mr Napper, and what this person had said about herself: on this last matter, Mavis was repeatedly cross-questioned. Mavis then spoke of a matter she had thought of on the way down: that of engaging a room at Mrs Scatchard's if she had one to let. Miss Meakin, however, protested that she had nothing to do with the business arrangements of the house, and declared that her aunt had better be consulted.
Upon Mavis interviewing Mrs Scatchard on the matter, the latter declared that her niece had suggested the subject to her directly after Mavis had left in the morning, a statement which Miss Meakin did not appear to overhear. Mrs Scatchard showed Mavis a clean, homely little room. The walls were decorated with several photographs of celebrations, which, so far as she could see, were concerned with the doings of royalty. When it came to the discussion of terms, Mrs Scatchard pointed out to Mavis the advantage of being in a house rented by a man like Mr Scatchard, who was "so mixed up with royalty," as she phrased it; but, partly in consideration of the timely service which Mavis had once rendered Miss Meakin, and largely on the score that Mavis boasted of blood (she had done nothing of the kind), Mrs Scatchard offered her the room, together with use of the bathroom, for four-and-sixpence a week. Upon Mavis learning that the landlady would not object to Jill's presence, she closed with the offer. At Mrs Scatchard's invitation, she spent the evening in the sitting-room downstairs, where she was introduced to Mr Scatchard. If, as had been alleged, Mr Scatchard was a pillar of the throne, that august institution was in a parlous condition. He was a red-headed, red-eyed, clean-shaven man, in appearance not unlike an elderly cock; his blotchy face, thick utterance, and the smell of his breath, all told Mavis that he was addicted to drink. Mavis wondered how this fuddled man, whose wife let lodgings in a shabby corner of Shepherd's Bush, could be remotely associated with Government, till it leaked out that he had been for many years, and still was, one of the King's State trumpeters.
Mavis was grateful to the Scatchards for their humble hospitality, if only because it prevented her mind from dwelling on her extremity. She was so tired with all she had gone through, that, directly she got to bed, she fell asleep, to awake about five with a mind possessed by fears for the future. Try as she could, faith in her lover refused to supply the relief necessary to allow her further sleep.
About seven, kindly Mrs Scatchard brought her up some tea, her excuse for this attention being that "blood" could not be expected to get up without a cup of this stimulant. Mrs Scatchard, like most stout women, was of a nervous, kindly, ingenuous disposition. It hurt Mavis considerably to tell her the story she had concocted, of a husband in straitened circumstances in America, who was struggling to prepare a home for her. Mrs Scatchard was herself a bereaved mother. Much moved by her recollections, she gave Mavis needed and pertinent advice with reference to her condition.
"There is kindness in the world," thought Mavis, when she was alone.
After breakfast, that was supplied at a previously arranged charge of fourpence, Mavis, fearing the company of her thoughts, betook herself to Miss Nippett in the Blomfield Road.
She found her elderly friend in bed, a queer, hapless figure in her pink flannel nightgown.
"I haven't heard anything," said Miss Nippett, as soon as she caught sight of Mavis.
"Of what?"
"What luck Mr Poulter's had at the dancing competition! Haven't you come about that?"
"I came to see how you were."
"Don't you worry about me. I shall be right again soon; reely I shall."
Mavis tried to discover if Miss Nippett were properly looked after, but without result, Miss Nippett's mind being wholly possessed by "Poulter's" and its chief.
"He promised to send me a postcard to say how he got on, but I suppose he was too busy to remember," sighed Miss Nippett.
"Surely not!"
"He's like all these great men: all their 'earts in their fame, with no thought for their humble assistants," she complained, to add after a few moments' pause, "A pity you're married."
"Why?"
"'Cause, since I've been laid up, he's been in want of a reliable accompanist."
Mavis explained that she would be glad of some work, at which her friend said:
"Then off you go at once to the academy. He's often spoken of you, and quite nicely, and he's asked for you in family prayers. If he's won the prize, it's as sure as 'knife' that he'll give you the job. And mind you come and tell me if he's won."
Mavis thanked her wheezing, kind-hearted friend, and promised that she would return directly she had any news. Then, with hope in her heart, she hurried to the well-remembered academy, where she had sought work so many eventful months ago. As before, she looked into the impassive face of "Turpsichor" while she waited for the door to be answered.
A slatternly servant of the charwoman species replied to her summons. Upon Mavis saying that she wanted to see Mr Poulter immediately, she was shown into the "Ladies' Waiting Room," from which Mavis gathered that Mr Poulter had returned.
After a while, Mr Poulter came into the room with a shy, self-conscious smile upon his lovable face.
"You've heard?" he asked, as she shook hands.
Mavis looked at him in surprise.
"Of course you have, and have come to congratulate me," he continued.
"I'm glad you've been successful," said Mavis, now divining the reason of his elation.
"Yes" (here he sighed happily), "I've won the great cotillion prize competition. Just think of it!" Here he took a deep breath before saying, "All the dancing-masters in the United Kingdom competed, even including Gellybrand" (here his voice and face perceptibly hardened), "but I won."
"I congratulate you," said Mavis.
Mr Poulter's features weakened into a broad smile eloquent of an immense satisfaction.
"You can tell people you've been one of the first to congratulate me," he remarked.
"I won't forget. I was sorry to see that Miss Nippett is so unwell."
"It's most unfortunate; it so interferes with the evening classes."
"But she may get well soon."
"I fear not."
"Really?" asked Mavis, genuinely concerned for her friend's health.
"It's a great pity. Accompanists like her are hard to find. Besides, she was well acquainted with all the many ramifications of the academy."
Mavis recalled that, in the old days of her association with "Poulter's," she had noticed that otherwise kindly Mr Poulter took Miss Nippett's body and soul loyalty to him quite as a matter of course. Time, apparently, had not caused him to think otherwise of the faithful accompanist than as a once capable but now failing machine.
Mr Poulter asked Mavis what had happened to her since he had last seen her. She told him the fiction of her marriage; it hurt her to see how glibly the lie now fell from her lips.
After Mr Poulter had congratulated her and her absent husband, he said:
"I fear you would not care to undertake any accompanying."
"But I should."
"As you did before?"
"Certainly!"
It was then arranged that Mavis should commence work at the academy on that day, for much the same terms she was paid before. This matter being settled, she asked for notepaper and envelope, on which she wrote to Mrs Farthing, asking her to be so good as to send Jill at once, and to be sure to let her know by what train she would arrive at Paddington. Mavis was careful to head the notepaper with the address of the academy; she did not wish anyone at Melkbridge to know her actual address. After taking leave of Mr Poulter and posting her letter, she repaired to Miss Nippett's as arranged. The accompanist was now out of bed, in a chair before the fire. Directly she caught sight of Mavis, she said:
"'As he won?"
"Yes, he's won the great cotillion prize competition."
A look of intense joy illumined Miss Nippett's face.
"Isn't he proud?" she asked.
"Very!"
"An' me not there to see him in his triumph." A cloud overspread Miss Nippett's features.
"What's the matter?" asked Mavis.
"Did he—did he send and tell you to tell me as 'ow he'd won."
The wistful old eyes were so pleading, that Mavis fibbed.
"Of course he sent me."
"I thought he wouldn't forget his old friend," she remarked with a sigh of relief. "'E'd surely know I was anxious to know."
Mavis told Miss Nippett of her engagement to play at "Poulter's" during the latter's absence.
"Don't you count on it being for long," said Miss Nippett.
"I hope it won't be, for your sake."
"I'm counting the minute' till I shall be back again at the academy," declared Miss Nippett.
Mavis, as she looked at the eager, pinched face, could well believe that she was speaking the truth.
"I shall buy you a bottle of port wine," said Mavis.
"What say?"
Mavis repeated her words.
"Oh, I say! Fancy me 'avin' port wine! I once 'ad a glass; it did make me feel 'appy."
Two days later, in accordance with the contents of a letter she had received from Mrs Farthing, Mavis met the train at Paddington that was to bring her dear Jill from Melkbridge. She discovered her friend huddled in a corner of the guard's van; her grief was piteous to behold, her eyes being full of tears, which the kindly attentions of the guard had not dissipated. Directly she saw her mistress, Jill uttered a cry that was almost human in its gladness, and tried to jump into Mavis' arms.
When Jill was released, Mavis hugged her in her arms, careless of the attention her devotion attracted.
With her friend restored to her, that evening was the happiest she had spent for some time.
For many succeeding weeks, Mavis passed her mornings with Jill, or Miss Nippett, or both; and most of her afternoons and all of her evenings at the academy. The long hours, together with the monotonous nature of the work, greatly taxed her energies, lessened as these were by the physical stress through which she was passing.
She obtained infrequent distraction from the peculiarities of the pupils. One, in particular, who was a fat Jewess, named Miss Hyman, greatly amused her. This person was desperately anxious to learn waltzing, but was handicapped by bandy legs. As she spun round and round the room with Mr Poulter, or any other partner, she would close her eyes and continually repeat aloud, "One, two, three; one, two, three," the while her feet kept step with the music.
Otherwise, her days were mostly drab-coloured, the only thing that at all kept up her spirits being her untiring faith in Perigal—a faith which, in time, became a mechanical action of mind. Strive as she might to quell rebellious thoughts, now and again she would rage soul and body at the web that fate, or Providence, had spun about her life. At these times, it hurt her to the quick to think that, instead of being the wife she deserved to be, she was in her present unprotected condition, with all its infinite possibilities of disaster. Again and again the thought would recur to her that she might have been Windebank's wife at any time that she had cared to encourage his overtures, and if she were desirable as a wife in his eyes, why not in Charlie Perigal's! Gregarious instincts ran in her blood. For all her frequent love of solitude, there were days when her soul ached for the companionship of her own social kind. This not being forthcoming-indeed (despite her faith in Perigal) there being little prospect of it—she avoided as much as possible the sight of, or physical contact with, those prosperous ones whom she knew to be, in some cases, her equals; in most, her social inferiors.
It was at night when she was most a prey to unquiet thoughts. Tired with her many hours' work at the piano, she would fall into a deep sleep, with every prospect of its continuing till Mrs Scatchard would bring up her morning cup of tea, when Mavis would suddenly awaken, to remain for interminable hours in wide-eyed thought. She would go over and over again events in her past life, more particularly those that had brought her to her present pass. The immediate future scarcely bothered her at all, because, for the present, she was pretty sure of employment at the academy. On the very rare occasions on which she suffered her mind to dwell on what would happen after her child was born, should Perigal not fulfil his repeated promises, her vivid imagination called up such appalling possibilities that she refused to consider them; she had enough sense to apply to her own case the wisdom contained in the words, "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."
In these silent watches of the night, so protracted and awesome was the quiet, that it would seem to the girl's preternatural sensibilities as if the life of the world had come to a dead stop, and that only she and the little one within her were alive. Then she would wonder how many other girls in London were in a like situation to hers; if they were constantly kept awake obsessed by the same fears; also, if, like her, they comforted themselves by clasping a ring which they wore suspended on their hearts—a ring given them by the loved one, even as was hers. Then she would fall to realising the truth of the saying, "How easily things go wrong." It seemed such a little time since she had been a happy girl at Melkbridge (if she had only realised how really happy she was!), with more than enough for her everyday needs, when her heart was untrammelled by love; when she was healthful, and, apart from the hours which she was compelled to spend at the office, free. Now—An alert movement within her was more eloquent than thought.
Sometimes she would believe that her present visitation of nature was a punishment for her infringement of God's moral law; whilst at others she would rejoice with a pagan exultation that, whatever the future held in store, she had most gloriously lived in these crowded golden moments which were responsible for her present plight.
Once or twice her distress of mind was such that she could no longer bear the darkness; she would light the candle, when the confinement of the walls, the sight of the orderly and familiar furniture of the room, would suggest an imprisoning environment from which there was no escape. As if to make a desperate effort to free herself, she would jump out of bed, and, throwing the window up, would look out on the night, as if to implore from nature the succour that she failed to get elsewhere. If the night were clear, she would gaze up at the heavens, as if to wrest from its countless eyes some solution of, or, failing that, some sympathy for her extremity of mind. But, for all the eagerness with which her terror-stricken eyes would search the stars, these looked down indifferently, unpityingly, impersonally, as if they were so inured to the sight of sorrow that they were now careless of any pain they witnessed. Then, with a pang at her heart, she would wonder if Perigal were also awake and were thinking of her. She convinced herself again and again that her agonised communing with the night would in some mysterious way affect his heart, to incline it irresistibly to hers, as in those never-to-be-forgotten nights and days at Polperro.
She heard from him fairly regularly, when he wrote letters urging her for his sake to be brave, and telling of the many shocks he had received from the persistent ill luck which he was seeking to overcome. If he had known how eagerly she awaited the familiar writing, how she read and re-read, times without number, every line he wrote, how she treasured the letters, sleeping with them under her pillow at night, he would have surely written with more persistency and at greater length than he did. Occasionally he would enclose money; this she always returned, saying that, as she was now in employment, she had more than enough for her simple needs. Once, after sending back a five-pound note he had sent her, she received a letter by return of post—a letter which gave a death blow to certain hopes she had cherished. She had long debated in her mind if she should apply the gold-mounted dressing case which Windebank had sent her for a wedding present to a purchase very near to her heart. She knew that, if he could know of the purpose to which she contemplated devoting it, and of her straightened circumstances, he would wish her to do as she desired. Having no other money available, she was tempted to sell or pawn the dressing case, to buy with the proceeds a handsome outfit for the expected little life, one that should not be unworthy of a gentlewoman's child. She felt that, as, owing to the unconventional circumstances of its birth, the little one might presently be deprived of many of life's advantages, it should at least be appropriately clad in the early days of its existence. She had already selected the intended purchase, and was rejoicing in its richness and variety, when the reply came to her letter to Perigal that returned the five-pound note. This told Mavis what straitened circumstances her lover was in. He asked what she had done with the gold-mounted dressing case, and, if it were still in her possession, if she could possibly let him have the loan of it in order to weather an impending financial storm. With a heart that strove valiantly to be cheerful, Mavis renounced further thought of the contemplated layette, and sent off the dressing case to her lover. It was a further (and this time a dutiful) sacrifice of self on the altar of the loved one. Most of her spare time was now devoted to the making of the garments, which, in the ordinary course of nature, would be wanted in about two months. Sometimes, while working, she would sing little songs that would either stop short soon after they were started, or else would continue almost to the finish, when they would end abruptly in a sigh. Often she would wonder if the child, when born, would resemble its father or its mother; if her recent experiences would affect its nature: all the thousand and one things that that most holy thing on earth, an expectant, loving mother, thinks of the life which love has called into being.
At all times she told herself that, if her wishes were consulted, she would prefer the child to be a boy, despite the fact that it was a more serious matter to launch a son on the world than a daughter. But she knew well that, if anything were to happen to her lover (this was now her euphemism for his failing to keep his promise), a boy, when he came to man's estate, might find it in his heart to forgive his mother for the untoward circumstances of his birth, whereas a daughter would only feel resentment at the possible handicap with which the absence of a father and a name would inflict her life. Thus Mavis worked with her needle, and sang, and thought, and travailed; and daily the little life within her became more insistent.