CHAPTER XXVII
Wherein a Dainty Little Lady, looking out of the Window of a Shabby Home at a Shabbier Destiny, joins the Streaming Crowd whose Faces pass in the Street, drifting towards the Strange Riot of Living
Wherein a Dainty Little Lady, looking out of the Window of a Shabby Home at a Shabbier Destiny, joins the Streaming Crowd whose Faces pass in the Street, drifting towards the Strange Riot of Living
Forthe first time, Betty reeled beneath the buffets of her destiny—for a moment the world swung away from before her feet—she clutched the mantel, or would have fallen.
Passing her slender hand over her head, uttering a pitiful little moan, with the courage of her blood she stood at gaze with the cruelty—faced it—and overcame it....
Practising her wonted and deliberate caution, she considered her next move; before the dusk had taken possession of the town she was dressed for walking; she went out to the shops to buy some needful frills and stuff; she brought the package home with her, and locked herself into her room.
It had come to her that morning, indeed she had been at work upon the problem but a few hours before this last blow had been struck at her, that she must still further narrow her narrow expenditure.
All that night Betty sewed, her deft fingers lengthening one of her gowns.
When she had done, the chill dawn was stealing up the smoky heavens.
She put out the lamp, and packed.
The memories would come crowding, treading on each other’s heels importunately. Betty remembered only the happinesses; and these, because they made her lip tremble, she put from her with stern and dogged fortitude, bending her wits only on the details of her coming actions, on the things she must do; and it was thus that, when the time came, every move she made fitted into its calculated place with appointed precision, and she was prepared for every event before it nudged at her attention.
The sun was well up, and yawning housemaids clumsily astir, before she had put away her last little belongings in the big black trunk. Even at her tender years she had learnt in the harsh school of experience the value that the world sets upon the having of possessions, and the credit that landlords give to such as show responsible luggage.
Wisdom is thrust upon some at sixteen.
The room looked sadly desolate when she had put away the last of her small belongings; and it was with a strenuous effort that she sat down before the mirror and gathered up and coiled her nut-brown hair about her head for the first time. She stared wide-eyed at the years it added to her age.
She dressed herself in her lengthened gown; put on her hat and jacket. When she was finished she stood before the glass a woman—and a very beautiful woman.
Yet her brows clouded—at the dread that she looked too young!
She wrote a short note to her landlady to say she might be away all day; stole stealthily on to the landing to see that there was no one about; locked her door; put the key in her pocket; ran down the stairs; and let herself out into the street....
All day she spent in the purlieus of Soho, in the search for a room; and it was near upon nightfall when she made a choice.
When darkness had come down upon the street, Betty drove up to the door of her old home in a cab; she took the hungry tatterdemalion of a cabman upstairs for her baggage; and, whilst the shabby fellow was getting it down and on to the cab, she herself sought out the landlady in her little office. She put the money for her rooms into the hands of the amazed woman, tried to tell her that she was going away, and broke down into a hoarse murmur.
“Go-ing away?” gasped the good creature.
Betty squeezed the old body’s hand. She could say nothing.
“Miss Betty,” said the other—“you mustn’t go away.... What will the house be without you? Pay when you can, my dear——”
But the girl shook her head sadly. She was glad to find that they would only think she had left for lack of means.
The old woman patted her shoulder, thrust back the money into her purse, and said that nothing on God’s earth would prevail on her to touch it. She kissed the unhappy girl; and Betty, making a stern effort to check her sobs, stood up, kissed the old face on each cheek, stepped out into the night, and was gone....
Noll had knocked impatiently at the locked door twice that day, and now as the darkness fell, seeing the door open, he leaped up the stairs, calling Betty by name; sprang through the open door; and came to a sudden halt, bewildered to find the room deserted and dismantled.
He turned roughly to the landlady’s daughter, who stood at the window weeping.
“Where is Miss Modeyne?” he asked hoarsely.
“Gone,” sobbed the girl.
“Where?”
She shook her head:
“No one knows, Mr. Noll.”
Noll went to the little bed, flung himself down beside it, and sobbed like a child....
The landlady’s daughter slipped a-tiptoe from the room and brought down the young fellow’s mother.
Caroline went and seated herself on the bed beside the lad, and stroked the handsome head with her gentle fingers:
“Ah, Noll,” said she—“so you too are to taste the bitters of life early!”
The young fellow stayed by the bed all night, and would not be comforted.
And Caroline most wisely stayed with him.