Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.A Talk in London.The aunts expressed a mitigated approval of Charmion’s proposal. Mrs Fane came of a good family, and was “very well left”. Her married estate, moreover, gave her the privilege of chaperonage, so that the dual establishment might be quite a good arrangement, all things considered, “until—”“Until!” echoed Aunt Eliza eloquently, nodding coyly at me, while I stared into space with basilisk calm. I object to references to my problematical marriage—especially by aunts. The great “until” never arrived for them, yet they feel quite annoyed because twenty-six has found me still a spinster!I made my journey to London with a sense of great adventure, Bridget going with me in the dual rôle of maid and mentor. She was the only person who was to accompany me into the new life, and experience had proved that her sound common sense might be trusted to act as a brake on the wheels of my own impetuosity. We stayed the morning in town, when I interviewed a house agent, and set him on the search for suitable flats, and then we adjourned to the West End to buy a becoming new hat. It always soothes me to buy hats. In times of doubt and depression it is an admirable tonic to the feminine mind. At three o’clock we left Waterloo for our two hours’ journey, and arrived at the old-fashioned inn, which was to act as rendezvous, before half-past five.Charmion was awaiting us in a private sitting-room, long, oak-beamed, spotlessly clean, and a trifle musty, with that faint but unmistakable mustiness which hangs about old rooms and old furniture. Tea was set out on one half of the oak dining-table. The china was of the old-fashioned white and gold order, the cups very wide at the brim and cramped at the handle, and possessing a dear little surprise rose at the base, which peeped out through a hoar frost of sugar as you drained the last gulp. Charmion laughed at my delight over that rose, but I was in the mood to be pleased, to see happy auguries in trivial happenings. I hailed that rose as a type of unexpected joys.Charmion was dressed in business-like grey tweeds, with a soft grey felt hat slouched over her head. She looked very pale, very frail, intensely, vibratingly alive. This extraordinary contradiction between body and mind made a charm and mystery which it is difficult to express in words. One longed to protect and shield her, to tuck her up on a sofa, and tend her like a fragile child, at the very same moment that mentally one was sitting at her feet, domineered by the influence of a master mind!I ate an enormous tea, and Charmion crumbled a piece of cake upon her plate; then we had the things taken away, and drew up to the fire, and toasted our toes, and looked into each other’s eyes, and exclaimed simultaneously—“Well?”Hitherto we had talked on general subjects, Kathleen’s marriage, the break-up of the old home, my own journey, etcetera, but now we were free from interruption for an hour at least, and the great subject could be safely tackled.“Evelyn! Do you realise thatnothingis settled, and that nothing need be, unless you are absolutely, whole-heartedlysure?”“I am absolutely whole-hearted about several things already. What sort of things wereyouthinking about?”“Well, take the house first. It meets my ideal, but it mayn’t be yours. You must promise to give an unvarnished opinion.”“Make your mind easy! If there is one thing that I may claim to be above all others, it is ‘unvarnished’. I have a brutal frankness in expressing my own opinion. If, through nice feeling, I try to disguise it, my manner shrieks it aloud!”“That’s all right then. I’m glad to hear it. Next comes the question of time. We should have to take a lease of three years. I don’t know if you’d care to bind yourself for so long.”That reminded me of the aunts’ “until”, and I said solemnly, “Charmion, tell me the worst.Isthere an eligible bachelor who owns the next ‘place’ ready to discover me picking his roses, or trespassing on his side of the stream, and to make love to me forthwith? They alwaysdoin books, you know, when girls go to live in country houses.”Charmion smiled her slow, languorous smile.“I have amused myself with looking up the names of the people living in all the big houses around: They seem uniformly made up of couples. To the best of my belief, there is not a single man, bachelor or widower, within many miles.”I said, “Oh!” and felt the faint, natural dismay which any human girl would feel in the circumstances. Charmion herself was enough romance for the present, and a precipitate “lover next door” would for the moment have beende trop, but still—My expression (unvarnished!) evidently betrayed my feelings, for Charmion smiled, sighed, and stretched out a caressing hand.“Let’s be honest. It is foolish to set up a partnership in the dark. Is thereanyone, Evelyn, who may swoop down upon us at a moment’s notice, and carry you off to sharehishouse?”“To the best of my knowledge there is not a solitary one. I’m quite sure of one thing, and that is, that however wildly he swooped, I wouldn’t go!”“But there must be—you are so pretty, Evelyn, and so attractive—there musthavebeen.”“Oh yes; two. But not real lovers, Charmion, only—pretendus. One was young and needy and ambitious, and thought that I should look very well sitting at the head of his table. Incidentally, that my money would be useful to provide the table and the things upon it. The other—he was rather a dear, and he cared enough to give me a pang. But he was happily married last year to a girl who is asun-like me in every respect as you can possibly imagine. They are both ancient history now.”“And you? You yourself? You have never been in love?”If any other woman had asked me such a question there would have been short shrift with her. Charmion herself had never before attempted such personalities; but now, when she deemed it necessary, she spoke without a flicker of hesitation, her grey eyes staring full into mine. It would have seemed ridiculous to take offence.“Once. At first sight. Quite bowled over. We met at an hotel.”She knew what I meant, made a dainty little grimace, and bent her head in a small bow of acknowledgment, which somehow managed to look quite regal and stately. I longed to put one or two questions in return. Widowshavebeen known to marry again! Why should I not wish to be reassured on my own account? Why should it be wrong for me to force confidences, when she herself had led the way? It wouldnotbe wrong; it would be right, and prudent, and praiseworthy. The only objection was,I could not do it. After that little bow of acknowledgment, Charmion threw back her head until it rested on the high cushioned back of her chair.“That’s settled then,” she said quietly.Her heavy lids drooped over her eyes, her fine white hands were folded in her lap. There was in voice and manner an air of finality, which was as impervious as a barrier of barbed wire. Not for any bribe in the world would I have attempted to scale it.The next morning, bright and early, we chartered a “fly,” and lumbered along two miles of country lanes, and then, suddenly turning a corner, found ourselves at the gate of Pastimes. It was a dull, grey day, of which I was glad, foranyplace can look attractive in spring sunshine. I have seen even a third-rate London square look quite frisky and inviting with a shimmer of green over the black trees, and the spring-cleaned windows sending out flashes of light; it’s a very different spectacle on a November afternoon. Five minutes’ acquaintanceship with Pastimes showed, however, that its predominating quality was cheerfulness. There was a great deal of panelling on the walls, but it was of white wood, not oak, and the old, small latticed windows had been converted into deep bays, filled with great panes of plate glass—a pagan proceeding from an artistic point of view, but infinitely cheerful and healthy. There was a large central hall from either side of which opened two rooms of medium size, facing respectively east and west; a quaint descent of two steps led the way to a really spacious drawing-room, through the great windows of which was a lovely vista of velvet lawn, and a great cedar drooping its green branches to the ground.Parallel with the drawing-room, and also facing south, was a long glassed-in apartment which had evidently been used to harbour plants, garden-chairs, and impedimenta, but which revealed itself to our eyes as an ideal sun-parlour for chilly days. Sheltered from draughts by the outstanding walls, yet with a glass roof and frontage to catch every ray of sun, the parlour would be an ideal refuge for spring and autumn. So far as public rooms went, we were well off with five apartments at the disposal of two people.“Mine!—yours!—ours!” cried Charmion, waving her hands descriptively, first towards the two smaller rooms, and then to the other three in turn.“In the hall we will eat; the big room shall be no ordinary formal drawing-room, but a living-roomà deux. The sun-parlour also we shall share, but the ‘sulkies’ shall be private ground, hermetically sealed against intruders! There is a spare room upstairs which can be spared for muddles. I have a fastidiously tidy eye. Itoffendsme to see things scattered about, but my handswillgo on scattering them, so it is necessary for my peace of mind to have a muddle-room where I can deposit bundles at a moment’s notice, and feel sure that they will not be tidied away. Well, shall we go upstairs and see the bedrooms?”“Wherearethe stairs?” I asked curiously, for from no corner of the hall was there a glimpse of staircase visible. I had not thought about it before, but now I realised that it was just this absence which gave that touch of comfort and privacy which is wanting in the ordinary entrance “lounge”. There was no draughty well, no galleried space overhead, from which curious ears could overhear private confidences. I stared round mystified, till Charmion opened yet another doorway, and behold! there was the staircase, the oddest, curliest specimen of its kind, mounting up and up within a narrow well, for all the world like the steps in a church tower, except that these were wide and shallow, and that a thick brass rod had been placed on the outer wall to act as a banister in the case of need. Whoever had built Pastimes had plainly believed that stairs were needed for the purpose of transit only, and had refused to waste space on their adornment.On the first landing were several good bedrooms, two of which possessed big sunny balconies, facing south.“That settles it!” I told Charmion. “If I had had any doubts before, the balconies would have decided me, once for all. All my life I have yearned to have a bedroom opening on to a really big balcony. I’m crazy about balconies! Think of the happy hours one has spent on balconies in Switzerland and Italy! To have been in a room without one would have been to lose half the joy. And even in England—think of all the things one can do on a balcony of one’s very own. Sleep out when it is hot. Air your mattress. Hang up your sponge. Grow your pet flowers. Dry your hair. Cry it out quietly when you feel blue. Sentimentalise over the railings when you feelrose.”Charmion’s fine brows arched, her lids drooped over her eyes. I recognised the same expression which her face had worn the night before, when for a moment I had seemed on the point of questioning her about her own romance. Once more I felt myself up against an impenetrable wall of reserve, and hastily switched the conversation to the more prosaic topic of cupboards. The very sound of a balcony bristles with romance, but cupboards may be discussed with safety under the most lacerating circumstances. There is something comfortably safe and stodgy about them. And Pastimes was so rich in this respect that we spent a happy half-hour appointing their future uses, and jotting down notes for their improvement.Later on we visited the gardens, beautiful even in their sleep, and promising a very paradise for summer days. The lawns and flower beds immediately around the house were exquisitely in order, but by far the greater part of the grounds was uncultivated. There was a strip ofrealwoodland, where the light filtered down through the branches of tall old trees on to a carpet of dried leaves and bracken, through which could be seen the close-growing green shoots which foretold a harvest of bulbs. Later on no doubt there would be primroses and bluebells, and when summer came, if I knew anything about it, there would be two hammocks swinging between spreading branches, and two happy women reposing therein. It was thisrealcountry air which gave Pastimes its chief charm.That evening Charmion came to my room, and we sat together by the fire and talked for three solid hours. As a rule, I get fidgety in the evening when talk is the only amusement, but I can sit and listen to Charmion for as long as she chooses to go on. She is—interesting! She says things in an interesting way, and has interesting things to say. I have met extraordinarily clever and well-informed people who are terrible bores. Charmion would be interesting if she told one how to make an egg flip! As I watched the delicate play of expression on the tired face, which was yet so thrillingly alive, as I listened to the slow soft drawl of her voice, I felt a sudden rush of thankfulness and exhilaration.“Charmion!” I cried suddenly, “aren’t youthankfulto be rich?”She flinched as though I had struck her, and turned upon me a wild-eyed look of affront.“Rich? Who says I am rich? Who has been talking about my affairs? Have you—have you been making inquiries to find out what I am worth?”I stared, deeply offended.“I have not. Perhaps it would have been more business-like if Ihad, but I accepted your word. I asked a simple question because at the moment I happened to be feeling particularly thankful that I could afford to share Pastimes with you, and I imagined that you might possibly feel the same.”I paused, waiting expectantly for words of apology and excuse, but none came. Charmion stared at me below knitted brows, and said shortly:—“Yes, it is true. You ought to have business references. You shallhavethem! My lawyer shall write to you at once. I was a wretch to speak so sharply, Evelyn, but—you touched a sore point! Thankful? No, indeed! Money is a curse. The greatest handicap a woman can have. If I had my life to live again, I should choose to be a penniless working girl!”She had taken off her rings and dropped them in a sparkling little heap on her lap, the while she softly polished her long pink nails. Her padded kimona was of pink silk, heavily embroidered with roses, her feet were thrust into slippers of the same shade and material. A more luxurious figure it would be difficult to imagine. I rolled an expressive eye, and she shrugged her shoulders in response.“Oh, of course, I am an artificial product, and the chains hold fast. I don’t take any particular interest in my appearance, but it is an ingrained habit to go through a certain routine. It would annoy me to have dull nails, so I polish them as you see; also, though I am dead tired, I shall have my hair brushed for half an hour before going to bed, and then steam my foolish face. It bores me profoundly, but it would bore me more to feel unkempt. So far as that goes, I should do exactly the same on twopence a week!”“Minus a maid and appliances?”Charmion shrugged daintily.“Soap and water are cheap, fortunately.”“I beg your pardon! Notyourkind of soap. You might find even hot water a difficulty. I imagine that girls on twopence a week have to consider the price of boiling a kettle. Their hot water is not ‘laid on’. Moreover, the poor dears must be ‘dead tired,’ in a way which you and I cannot even imagine.”“It is their life,” Charmion said loftily.“Excuse me—I mean tolive! That’s why I am thankful to have money, because it gives me more scope to live thoroughly.”“Poor innocent! What a delusion. Money shuts the door of your cage. A golden cage, excellently padded, but—its bars shut out all the best things of life!”I laughed again, for the statement was so opposed to all accepted theories.“Whatbest things, for example?”“Confidence,” said Charmion solemnly. “Trust in one’s fellow-creatures.” She lifted her heavy lids as she spoke, and her eyes looked into mine. In their grey depths was a blank, empty expression, which once seen is never forgotten, for it speaks of a hurt so deep and keen that the memory of it breaks the heart. I leapt from my seat and wrapped Charmion in my arms.“Oh, my dear, my dear, there is one person you can trust! Whatever happens, Charmion, you can count on me! Darling! I know you have had troubles. I don’t ask to hear about them. I only want to be allowed to love you, and to do all I can to help and to comfort. Never, never be afraid to ask for anything I can do. I would put you before myself, Charmion, if it ever came to a choice between our different interests—I would indeed! Don’t you believe it is true?”She laid her two hands on my shoulders and smiled.“You dear thing! I believe it is. You would sacrifice yourself for me, and I should accept the sacrifice. It is the way we are made. You to give, and I to demand. Let us pray, my dear, that the day may never come when our interests do clash. Of a certainty, poor Evelyn, you would come off worse!”

The aunts expressed a mitigated approval of Charmion’s proposal. Mrs Fane came of a good family, and was “very well left”. Her married estate, moreover, gave her the privilege of chaperonage, so that the dual establishment might be quite a good arrangement, all things considered, “until—”

“Until!” echoed Aunt Eliza eloquently, nodding coyly at me, while I stared into space with basilisk calm. I object to references to my problematical marriage—especially by aunts. The great “until” never arrived for them, yet they feel quite annoyed because twenty-six has found me still a spinster!

I made my journey to London with a sense of great adventure, Bridget going with me in the dual rôle of maid and mentor. She was the only person who was to accompany me into the new life, and experience had proved that her sound common sense might be trusted to act as a brake on the wheels of my own impetuosity. We stayed the morning in town, when I interviewed a house agent, and set him on the search for suitable flats, and then we adjourned to the West End to buy a becoming new hat. It always soothes me to buy hats. In times of doubt and depression it is an admirable tonic to the feminine mind. At three o’clock we left Waterloo for our two hours’ journey, and arrived at the old-fashioned inn, which was to act as rendezvous, before half-past five.

Charmion was awaiting us in a private sitting-room, long, oak-beamed, spotlessly clean, and a trifle musty, with that faint but unmistakable mustiness which hangs about old rooms and old furniture. Tea was set out on one half of the oak dining-table. The china was of the old-fashioned white and gold order, the cups very wide at the brim and cramped at the handle, and possessing a dear little surprise rose at the base, which peeped out through a hoar frost of sugar as you drained the last gulp. Charmion laughed at my delight over that rose, but I was in the mood to be pleased, to see happy auguries in trivial happenings. I hailed that rose as a type of unexpected joys.

Charmion was dressed in business-like grey tweeds, with a soft grey felt hat slouched over her head. She looked very pale, very frail, intensely, vibratingly alive. This extraordinary contradiction between body and mind made a charm and mystery which it is difficult to express in words. One longed to protect and shield her, to tuck her up on a sofa, and tend her like a fragile child, at the very same moment that mentally one was sitting at her feet, domineered by the influence of a master mind!

I ate an enormous tea, and Charmion crumbled a piece of cake upon her plate; then we had the things taken away, and drew up to the fire, and toasted our toes, and looked into each other’s eyes, and exclaimed simultaneously—“Well?”

Hitherto we had talked on general subjects, Kathleen’s marriage, the break-up of the old home, my own journey, etcetera, but now we were free from interruption for an hour at least, and the great subject could be safely tackled.

“Evelyn! Do you realise thatnothingis settled, and that nothing need be, unless you are absolutely, whole-heartedlysure?”

“I am absolutely whole-hearted about several things already. What sort of things wereyouthinking about?”

“Well, take the house first. It meets my ideal, but it mayn’t be yours. You must promise to give an unvarnished opinion.”

“Make your mind easy! If there is one thing that I may claim to be above all others, it is ‘unvarnished’. I have a brutal frankness in expressing my own opinion. If, through nice feeling, I try to disguise it, my manner shrieks it aloud!”

“That’s all right then. I’m glad to hear it. Next comes the question of time. We should have to take a lease of three years. I don’t know if you’d care to bind yourself for so long.”

That reminded me of the aunts’ “until”, and I said solemnly, “Charmion, tell me the worst.Isthere an eligible bachelor who owns the next ‘place’ ready to discover me picking his roses, or trespassing on his side of the stream, and to make love to me forthwith? They alwaysdoin books, you know, when girls go to live in country houses.”

Charmion smiled her slow, languorous smile.

“I have amused myself with looking up the names of the people living in all the big houses around: They seem uniformly made up of couples. To the best of my belief, there is not a single man, bachelor or widower, within many miles.”

I said, “Oh!” and felt the faint, natural dismay which any human girl would feel in the circumstances. Charmion herself was enough romance for the present, and a precipitate “lover next door” would for the moment have beende trop, but still—

My expression (unvarnished!) evidently betrayed my feelings, for Charmion smiled, sighed, and stretched out a caressing hand.

“Let’s be honest. It is foolish to set up a partnership in the dark. Is thereanyone, Evelyn, who may swoop down upon us at a moment’s notice, and carry you off to sharehishouse?”

“To the best of my knowledge there is not a solitary one. I’m quite sure of one thing, and that is, that however wildly he swooped, I wouldn’t go!”

“But there must be—you are so pretty, Evelyn, and so attractive—there musthavebeen.”

“Oh yes; two. But not real lovers, Charmion, only—pretendus. One was young and needy and ambitious, and thought that I should look very well sitting at the head of his table. Incidentally, that my money would be useful to provide the table and the things upon it. The other—he was rather a dear, and he cared enough to give me a pang. But he was happily married last year to a girl who is asun-like me in every respect as you can possibly imagine. They are both ancient history now.”

“And you? You yourself? You have never been in love?”

If any other woman had asked me such a question there would have been short shrift with her. Charmion herself had never before attempted such personalities; but now, when she deemed it necessary, she spoke without a flicker of hesitation, her grey eyes staring full into mine. It would have seemed ridiculous to take offence.

“Once. At first sight. Quite bowled over. We met at an hotel.”

She knew what I meant, made a dainty little grimace, and bent her head in a small bow of acknowledgment, which somehow managed to look quite regal and stately. I longed to put one or two questions in return. Widowshavebeen known to marry again! Why should I not wish to be reassured on my own account? Why should it be wrong for me to force confidences, when she herself had led the way? It wouldnotbe wrong; it would be right, and prudent, and praiseworthy. The only objection was,I could not do it. After that little bow of acknowledgment, Charmion threw back her head until it rested on the high cushioned back of her chair.

“That’s settled then,” she said quietly.

Her heavy lids drooped over her eyes, her fine white hands were folded in her lap. There was in voice and manner an air of finality, which was as impervious as a barrier of barbed wire. Not for any bribe in the world would I have attempted to scale it.

The next morning, bright and early, we chartered a “fly,” and lumbered along two miles of country lanes, and then, suddenly turning a corner, found ourselves at the gate of Pastimes. It was a dull, grey day, of which I was glad, foranyplace can look attractive in spring sunshine. I have seen even a third-rate London square look quite frisky and inviting with a shimmer of green over the black trees, and the spring-cleaned windows sending out flashes of light; it’s a very different spectacle on a November afternoon. Five minutes’ acquaintanceship with Pastimes showed, however, that its predominating quality was cheerfulness. There was a great deal of panelling on the walls, but it was of white wood, not oak, and the old, small latticed windows had been converted into deep bays, filled with great panes of plate glass—a pagan proceeding from an artistic point of view, but infinitely cheerful and healthy. There was a large central hall from either side of which opened two rooms of medium size, facing respectively east and west; a quaint descent of two steps led the way to a really spacious drawing-room, through the great windows of which was a lovely vista of velvet lawn, and a great cedar drooping its green branches to the ground.

Parallel with the drawing-room, and also facing south, was a long glassed-in apartment which had evidently been used to harbour plants, garden-chairs, and impedimenta, but which revealed itself to our eyes as an ideal sun-parlour for chilly days. Sheltered from draughts by the outstanding walls, yet with a glass roof and frontage to catch every ray of sun, the parlour would be an ideal refuge for spring and autumn. So far as public rooms went, we were well off with five apartments at the disposal of two people.

“Mine!—yours!—ours!” cried Charmion, waving her hands descriptively, first towards the two smaller rooms, and then to the other three in turn.

“In the hall we will eat; the big room shall be no ordinary formal drawing-room, but a living-roomà deux. The sun-parlour also we shall share, but the ‘sulkies’ shall be private ground, hermetically sealed against intruders! There is a spare room upstairs which can be spared for muddles. I have a fastidiously tidy eye. Itoffendsme to see things scattered about, but my handswillgo on scattering them, so it is necessary for my peace of mind to have a muddle-room where I can deposit bundles at a moment’s notice, and feel sure that they will not be tidied away. Well, shall we go upstairs and see the bedrooms?”

“Wherearethe stairs?” I asked curiously, for from no corner of the hall was there a glimpse of staircase visible. I had not thought about it before, but now I realised that it was just this absence which gave that touch of comfort and privacy which is wanting in the ordinary entrance “lounge”. There was no draughty well, no galleried space overhead, from which curious ears could overhear private confidences. I stared round mystified, till Charmion opened yet another doorway, and behold! there was the staircase, the oddest, curliest specimen of its kind, mounting up and up within a narrow well, for all the world like the steps in a church tower, except that these were wide and shallow, and that a thick brass rod had been placed on the outer wall to act as a banister in the case of need. Whoever had built Pastimes had plainly believed that stairs were needed for the purpose of transit only, and had refused to waste space on their adornment.

On the first landing were several good bedrooms, two of which possessed big sunny balconies, facing south.

“That settles it!” I told Charmion. “If I had had any doubts before, the balconies would have decided me, once for all. All my life I have yearned to have a bedroom opening on to a really big balcony. I’m crazy about balconies! Think of the happy hours one has spent on balconies in Switzerland and Italy! To have been in a room without one would have been to lose half the joy. And even in England—think of all the things one can do on a balcony of one’s very own. Sleep out when it is hot. Air your mattress. Hang up your sponge. Grow your pet flowers. Dry your hair. Cry it out quietly when you feel blue. Sentimentalise over the railings when you feelrose.”

Charmion’s fine brows arched, her lids drooped over her eyes. I recognised the same expression which her face had worn the night before, when for a moment I had seemed on the point of questioning her about her own romance. Once more I felt myself up against an impenetrable wall of reserve, and hastily switched the conversation to the more prosaic topic of cupboards. The very sound of a balcony bristles with romance, but cupboards may be discussed with safety under the most lacerating circumstances. There is something comfortably safe and stodgy about them. And Pastimes was so rich in this respect that we spent a happy half-hour appointing their future uses, and jotting down notes for their improvement.

Later on we visited the gardens, beautiful even in their sleep, and promising a very paradise for summer days. The lawns and flower beds immediately around the house were exquisitely in order, but by far the greater part of the grounds was uncultivated. There was a strip ofrealwoodland, where the light filtered down through the branches of tall old trees on to a carpet of dried leaves and bracken, through which could be seen the close-growing green shoots which foretold a harvest of bulbs. Later on no doubt there would be primroses and bluebells, and when summer came, if I knew anything about it, there would be two hammocks swinging between spreading branches, and two happy women reposing therein. It was thisrealcountry air which gave Pastimes its chief charm.

That evening Charmion came to my room, and we sat together by the fire and talked for three solid hours. As a rule, I get fidgety in the evening when talk is the only amusement, but I can sit and listen to Charmion for as long as she chooses to go on. She is—interesting! She says things in an interesting way, and has interesting things to say. I have met extraordinarily clever and well-informed people who are terrible bores. Charmion would be interesting if she told one how to make an egg flip! As I watched the delicate play of expression on the tired face, which was yet so thrillingly alive, as I listened to the slow soft drawl of her voice, I felt a sudden rush of thankfulness and exhilaration.

“Charmion!” I cried suddenly, “aren’t youthankfulto be rich?”

She flinched as though I had struck her, and turned upon me a wild-eyed look of affront.

“Rich? Who says I am rich? Who has been talking about my affairs? Have you—have you been making inquiries to find out what I am worth?”

I stared, deeply offended.

“I have not. Perhaps it would have been more business-like if Ihad, but I accepted your word. I asked a simple question because at the moment I happened to be feeling particularly thankful that I could afford to share Pastimes with you, and I imagined that you might possibly feel the same.”

I paused, waiting expectantly for words of apology and excuse, but none came. Charmion stared at me below knitted brows, and said shortly:—

“Yes, it is true. You ought to have business references. You shallhavethem! My lawyer shall write to you at once. I was a wretch to speak so sharply, Evelyn, but—you touched a sore point! Thankful? No, indeed! Money is a curse. The greatest handicap a woman can have. If I had my life to live again, I should choose to be a penniless working girl!”

She had taken off her rings and dropped them in a sparkling little heap on her lap, the while she softly polished her long pink nails. Her padded kimona was of pink silk, heavily embroidered with roses, her feet were thrust into slippers of the same shade and material. A more luxurious figure it would be difficult to imagine. I rolled an expressive eye, and she shrugged her shoulders in response.

“Oh, of course, I am an artificial product, and the chains hold fast. I don’t take any particular interest in my appearance, but it is an ingrained habit to go through a certain routine. It would annoy me to have dull nails, so I polish them as you see; also, though I am dead tired, I shall have my hair brushed for half an hour before going to bed, and then steam my foolish face. It bores me profoundly, but it would bore me more to feel unkempt. So far as that goes, I should do exactly the same on twopence a week!”

“Minus a maid and appliances?”

Charmion shrugged daintily.

“Soap and water are cheap, fortunately.”

“I beg your pardon! Notyourkind of soap. You might find even hot water a difficulty. I imagine that girls on twopence a week have to consider the price of boiling a kettle. Their hot water is not ‘laid on’. Moreover, the poor dears must be ‘dead tired,’ in a way which you and I cannot even imagine.”

“It is their life,” Charmion said loftily.

“Excuse me—I mean tolive! That’s why I am thankful to have money, because it gives me more scope to live thoroughly.”

“Poor innocent! What a delusion. Money shuts the door of your cage. A golden cage, excellently padded, but—its bars shut out all the best things of life!”

I laughed again, for the statement was so opposed to all accepted theories.

“Whatbest things, for example?”

“Confidence,” said Charmion solemnly. “Trust in one’s fellow-creatures.” She lifted her heavy lids as she spoke, and her eyes looked into mine. In their grey depths was a blank, empty expression, which once seen is never forgotten, for it speaks of a hurt so deep and keen that the memory of it breaks the heart. I leapt from my seat and wrapped Charmion in my arms.

“Oh, my dear, my dear, there is one person you can trust! Whatever happens, Charmion, you can count on me! Darling! I know you have had troubles. I don’t ask to hear about them. I only want to be allowed to love you, and to do all I can to help and to comfort. Never, never be afraid to ask for anything I can do. I would put you before myself, Charmion, if it ever came to a choice between our different interests—I would indeed! Don’t you believe it is true?”

She laid her two hands on my shoulders and smiled.

“You dear thing! I believe it is. You would sacrifice yourself for me, and I should accept the sacrifice. It is the way we are made. You to give, and I to demand. Let us pray, my dear, that the day may never come when our interests do clash. Of a certainty, poor Evelyn, you would come off worse!”

Chapter Five.Pastimes—And Mr Maplestone.The next morning, bright and early, we called on the house-agent to sign and seal the agreement which should make us the happy owners of Pastimes for a term of years agreeably elastic.Mr Edwards was a small, dapper little man, typically house-agenty in manner, even to the point of assuring us gravely that another tenant was urgently in the field, and that we had secured our lease by the very skin of our teeth.Charmion lifted incredulous eyebrows.“But, Mr Edwards, you wrote to me a second time, only a fortnight ago, to say the house was still on your hands!”“Quite so, madam. And it was. But only on Monday Mr Maplestone motored over from Wembly. Mr Maplestone is Squire there—a very influential gentleman in these parts. He is looking out a house for a relative, and had only just heard that Pastimes was vacant. He drove over, as I say, and telegraphed to his friend that the house was too good to lose. He expected a reply this evening.”“When it will be too late!” Charmion said calmly. “You told him, of course, that you were in treaty with another tenant?”“I did, madam. Quite so. But”—the little man hesitated, and fidgeted uncomfortably—“Mr Maplestone is—er—accustomed to get his own way! I explained that I must accept a definite offer, and that you had the first option, but I am afraid that he hardly realises—”Charmion waved an imperial hand.“We are not concerned with Mr Maplestone, or what he expects. Pastimes is ours, and that settles the question. To-morrow morning Miss Wastneys and I will meet you at eleven o’clock, to go over the house together. It is in good order, but we shall require a little decoration and painting here and there. You will be able to advise us how to get it done well and quickly. When I say quickly Imeanquickly! Plenty of men must be put on to begin the work and finish it in a few days’ time, not one or two who will drag on for weeks. You can get us an estimate for time, as well as for cost.”Mr Edwards bowed, murmured, and waved his hands. He looked overcome, poor man, as well he might, for if one would-be client demanded his own way, the other was obviously determined to have hers. Between the two his path was not easy! I smiled at him ingratiatingly, just to help things along, but he took little notice of me. Obviously, in Charmion’s company I didnot“take the eye!”On the way home I expressed sympathy for the disappointed Mr Maplestone, but Charmion refused to agree.“I don’t know the man, so his pleasures and disappointments don’t enter into my sphere. Promiscuous universal sympathy is too great a tax on the nervous system. Why should I distress myself about a man I have never seen?”“Not distress yourself exactly, but you might cast a kindly thought. He will be disappointed, and the poor little agent will have a bad half-hour.”“Now you are asking sympathy for the agent, too! Evelyn, aren’t you the least little bit in the world inclined to wear your heart on your sleeve?”“Charmion, aren’t you the least little bit inclined to be hard?”She agreed with unflinching candour.“I am. It’s the safer plan if one doesn’t want to be hurt!”“But—what about the other people? Mayn’t they be hurt instead?”She looked at me gravely for a moment, then with a smile which grew gradually broad and roguish.“We ought to strike a happy mean between us, eh, Evelyn? You are all credulity and gush, and I refuse to disturb myself about other people, or their affairs.”“That’s not true! You disturbed yourself about me!”“Because it affected myself. I had grown fond of you, and so you entered into my life. Pure selfishness, my dear!”“I don’t believe it! I won’t believe it! It’s no good trying to disillusion me, Charmion. I’ve put you on a topmost pinnacle, and it would take a mighty effort to tumble you down!”“Dear thing!” murmured Charmion fondly. “Well—suppose we talk of the drawing-room walls? I’m a great believer in occupying oneself with the next step. Revelations of character will follow in due course—I plump for white!”“White certainly. A warm cream white, with not a touch of blue in it. And the prevailing colour?”“Let’s count three quickly, and then each say what we think!”We counted, and the two words leapt crisply forth.“Rose!” said I.“Purple!” said Charmion. Then we looked at one another beneath puckered brows.“Rose lights up better!”“Purple is more uncommon.”“Rose is more cheerful in winter!”“Purple is restful in summer!”It seemed for a moment as if we had reached animpasse, then came an illuminating thought.“Why not—both? They harmonise well. Purple curtains and carpet—the plain colour, very soft and subdued, and cushions and shades of the right rose. With our united treasures we ought to have a lovely room. Whereareyour things, Charmion?”“Stored,” she said shortly. “I tried a house for a few months, but it was too lonely an experience. But I have a passion for beautiful furniture. It has amused me to pick up good specimens here and there. Now we shall enjoy them together! Wait till you see my Spanish leather screen!”“Wait till you see my Chinese cabinet!” I retorted, and we talked “things” industriously for the next hour.After luncheon Charmion settled herself to write business letters, drawing a big screen round her writing-table, the better, as she informed me, to protect herself against my chatter.“You promise to be quiet, but in five minutes’ time you begin again! Now please to remember that to all intents and purposes I am in another room, and that until I choose to come forth, I am dead to you and everyone else! Do you understand? These letters positively must get off to-night!”“Dear me! I don’t want to talk! I shall be thankful to sit by the fire and enjoy a quiet read,” I said loftily, and promptly drew up an old arm-chair, and buried myself in the book which I had bought to while away the hours of my journey, and then left unread, because my own affairs were at the moment so much more absorbing than those of a fictitious heroine. Now that my mind was more at ease, I found the story interesting enough, and had read on for about an hour with undisturbed enjoyment, when suddenly the door was flung open, and a voice announced:—“Mr Maplestone!”I leapt up, putting up a hasty hand to smooth my ruffled hair. That was the worst of having only one sitting-room! Visitors were hurled in upon one without a moment’s warning. Happy Charmion behind the screen! I stared across the room and beheld a tall—very tall—thin man, with short reddish hair and light blue, angry-looking eyes. He was dressed in riding costume, which, so far as his figure went, became him exceedingly well. He was probably somewhere about thirty-five, and one glance at his tightly-set lips and firm square chin was enough to demonstrate the truth of Mr Edwards’ assertion that he was “a gentleman who likes his own way”. He had probably heard by now that for once he was to be thwarted, and had come to tell me what he thought about it. At this moment I forgot to be sorry for his disappointment in my exceeding sympathy for myself! I glanced helplessly at the screen.“Mrs Fane, I believe.”“I am Miss Wastneys. Mrs Fane is engaged. Perhaps it is something that I—”He laid his hat and stick on the table.“May I have a few minutes’ conversation? You will allow me to sit down?”“Certainly.”I pushed aside the easy-chair and seated myself on one of the six “uprights” which were ranged about the room. It felt so much more business-like and supporting. Mr Maplestone seated himself opposite to me, and rested his hands on his knees.“I am told that you have some idea of renting a house called Pastimes, near here!”“We have taken Pastimes. Mrs Fane and myself have this morning signed the lease.”He waved an impatient hand.“This morning! So I am told. Edwards has behaved very badly. I warned him that things should not be hurried through.”“They have not been hurried. It is several months since Mrs Fane first saw the house, and three weeks since negotiations were opened a second time.”“I only heard this week that the house was vacant.”“And should Mr Edwards”—(the innocent inquiry of my voice was growing more and more marked)—“was it his duty to have told you?”His eyes sent out a flash. I could see the muscles of his hand clench against his knee. I had scored a point, and his anger was correspondingly increased.“Perhaps I had better explain,” he began in a tone of elaborate forbearance. “I live at Wembly. Most of the land between here and there belongs to me. Pastimes happens to be outside the limit, and so it escaped my memory. I have not been over it before. I did not know the last tenants. For the last few weeks I have been looking for a house for my friend—a member of the family who is returning from abroad. Invalided!”He pronounced the last word with emphasis, staring fixedly at me the while. I adapted my features to express polite commiseration.“It is natural that he should wish to live within driving distance of his friends.”“Oh, quite!”“The moment that I saw Pastimes I knew for a sure thing that it would be just his house—”“I am sorry, but as he has not seen it, he can’t be disappointed. There must be other houses—”“I have already said I have been searching round for—the—last—three—weeks,” Mr Maplestone repeated, in the carefully deliberate tone which disguises irritation. “Nothing else will suit anything like so well.”I murmured indefinitely, and glanced at the screen. Mentally I could see Charmion leaning back in her chair, smiling her slow fine smile, inquisitively waiting to see just how firm or how weak I could be. I was not inclined to be weak. There was something in the personality of this big domineering man which roused an imp of contradiction. We sat silent, eyeing one another across the room.“I believe you and—er—Mrs Fane are strangers to this neighbourhood?”“Yes! That is so.”“You have no—er—special link or attraction?”I saw the trap, and protested blandly.“Oh, yes! We are delighted with Pastimes. It exactly suits our requirements.”Mr Maplestone frowned, and fidgeted to and fro, then suddenly leant forward, straightening his face into what was obviously intended to be a smile.“Miss Wastneys! Will you forgive me if I am perfectly frank and honest, and tell you exactly what is in my mind?”“Of course I will. I am sure,” I declared mendaciously, “there can be nothing to forgive!”He had the grace to look a trifle ashamed, but his resolution did not waver. Not a bit! He looked straight in my eyes, and said deliberately:—“I want Pastimes! For the moment it has slipped through my fingers, but a couple of hours cannot seriously affect your arrangements. On my cousin’s behalf I am anxious to take over the lease. It would be an act of grace on your part if you would agree to this arrangement, and deal with me as his representative!”The audacity of it! For a moment I was silent for sheer want of breath, but I could feel the blood rushing into my cheeks, and knew that my eyes were sending out flashes to meet his own. My appearance must have prepared him for my answer before it came, uttered in a very calm, very haughty, aggravatingly deliberate tone.“We are not in the habit of changing our plans in a couple of hours. Pastimes suits us. It is unnecessary to look for another house. The matter was decided this morning.”“You understand that my cousin is an invalid, and that he has a special reason for wishing to live in this neighbourhood?”“There are other houses. Pastimes is not the only one that is vacant.”“It is the only one that is suitable,” he repeated doggedly, and there followed a silence during which he sat back in his chair, staring at me with the light blue eyes, which of all eyes in the world can look at once the coldest and the most angry. If he could have done what he wanted at that moment, he would have taken me by the shoulders and shaken me well. To have made up his mind that a thing must be, and to find himself thwarted by a bit of a girl—it was unsupportable!—so unsupportable, that even now he refused to believe it could be true. Giving himself a little shake, like a dog who rouses himself to fresh efforts, he again made that industrious attempt at a smile, and began slowly:—“I am afraid I have made a bad beginning! Please forgive me if I have seemed discourteous. When we have talked things over quietly, I have no doubt that we shall be able to reach a satisfactory agreement.”“I’m afraid I can’t see how that can be! There is only one Pastimes, so one of us is bound to be disappointed!”He pounced on that as if scenting a hopeful weakness.“Exactly. Yes; but the disappointment would vary in intensity. That is what I am anxious to point out. When Edwards told me that the tenant was a lady I felt reassured, for it is a matter in which a woman’s kindliness and good heart—”My eyes roved to the screen. Charmion’s ears were assuredly open at this moment, straining to hear my reply. I raised my eyebrows, and said frostily:—“We are speaking of a business arrangement. I am afraid that is the only light in which we can consider the matter. We shall honourably fulfil our part of the agreement which we have signed.”“You refuse to show any consideration for an invalid returning home—after many years?”“Not at all. If it is ever in our power, as neighbours, to show him any kindness, we shall be eager to do all that is possible—short of giving up our own house for his benefit. Would you do it yourself, Mr Maplestone—for the sake of a stranger you had never seen?”He stood staring at me, his cheeks bulging with the moving lumps which show that people are swallowing down words which they dare not allow themselves to say. With the same air of elaborate patience which he had shown before, he explained slowly:—“My cousin has been stationed in India. In a border regiment. He has served his country for thirty years. Now he has had a paralytic stroke, and is making his way home by slow stages. A man who has worked and suffered as he has done deserves a home, and the gratitude of his fellow-countrymen.”“There are two sides to every question, Mr Maplestone. If I chose to go into details, I might convince you that Mrs Fane and I have our own claims, which seem to us equally strong.”He leapt from his seat, and advanced until he stood directly facing my chair.“That finishes it! It is no use appealing to your feelings. Let us make it pure business then! I offer you a hundred pounds down for the reversion of the lease!”So it had come to this. Bribery undisguised! I lowered my eyelids, and sat silent, an image of outraged dignity.“You refuse! It is not enough? Two hundred then! Three!”Still silence. But my listening ears caught a threatening rustle behind the screen.“Three hundred! It is a good offer. You are not bound to this neighbourhood. You can find other houses to suit you. Still not enough? Name your own terms then. How much will you take?”“A million pounds!”The words leapt out of my mouth as it seemed of their own volition. I was tired of this farcical bargaining, and determined to put an end to it, once for all. I stood up and faced his blank stare of amazement, without at least any outward shrinking.“Surely it is useless to prolong this bargaining. It is very unpleasant and humiliating.”Mr Maplestone set his square jaw.“You are only one partner to this transaction. Mrs Fane is probably your senior. If I were to see her, she might be induced to name a more—er—shall I say reasonable (oh, the cutting sarcasm of that tone!) figure.”“Twomillions.”The high clear tone struck across the room. Mr Maplestone wheeled round and beheld Charmion standing just outside the opening of the screen, one hand raised to rest lightly on the curved wood coping. She might have posed as a picture of graceful, imperturbed ease, so calm, so smiling, so absolutely unflurried and detached in both manner and bearing did she appear. Mr Maplestone looked at her and—this was a curious thing—at one glance realised his defeat. All my efforts at dignity and firmness had failed to convince him, but behind Charmion’s frail, essentially feminine exterior, those keen eyes had at once detected that strain of inflexibility which I was only slowly beginning to realise.It was hopeless to bandy words. The Squire knew as much, and turned to the table to lift his hat and whip. He gave a short scornful laugh.“The terms seem a trifle—high! I am afraid I must retire from the bidding. Pastimes is yours. I hope”—he looked from me to Charmion, and his expression was not pleasant to see—“I hope you may not have cause to repent your bargain!”We bowed. He bowed. The door opened and shut. Charmion looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.“A declaration of war! We have begun our campaign by quarrelling with the most ‘influential gentleman in these parts!’ Things are getting exciting, Evelyn!”I did not speak. Reaction had set in, and I felt a pang of remorse. I did not want to quarrel with anyone, influential or uninfluential. I was sorry I had been ungracious. I felt a pang of sympathy for the poor, big, bad-tempered man riding homeward after his defeat.I wondered when and how we should meet him again.

The next morning, bright and early, we called on the house-agent to sign and seal the agreement which should make us the happy owners of Pastimes for a term of years agreeably elastic.

Mr Edwards was a small, dapper little man, typically house-agenty in manner, even to the point of assuring us gravely that another tenant was urgently in the field, and that we had secured our lease by the very skin of our teeth.

Charmion lifted incredulous eyebrows.

“But, Mr Edwards, you wrote to me a second time, only a fortnight ago, to say the house was still on your hands!”

“Quite so, madam. And it was. But only on Monday Mr Maplestone motored over from Wembly. Mr Maplestone is Squire there—a very influential gentleman in these parts. He is looking out a house for a relative, and had only just heard that Pastimes was vacant. He drove over, as I say, and telegraphed to his friend that the house was too good to lose. He expected a reply this evening.”

“When it will be too late!” Charmion said calmly. “You told him, of course, that you were in treaty with another tenant?”

“I did, madam. Quite so. But”—the little man hesitated, and fidgeted uncomfortably—“Mr Maplestone is—er—accustomed to get his own way! I explained that I must accept a definite offer, and that you had the first option, but I am afraid that he hardly realises—”

Charmion waved an imperial hand.

“We are not concerned with Mr Maplestone, or what he expects. Pastimes is ours, and that settles the question. To-morrow morning Miss Wastneys and I will meet you at eleven o’clock, to go over the house together. It is in good order, but we shall require a little decoration and painting here and there. You will be able to advise us how to get it done well and quickly. When I say quickly Imeanquickly! Plenty of men must be put on to begin the work and finish it in a few days’ time, not one or two who will drag on for weeks. You can get us an estimate for time, as well as for cost.”

Mr Edwards bowed, murmured, and waved his hands. He looked overcome, poor man, as well he might, for if one would-be client demanded his own way, the other was obviously determined to have hers. Between the two his path was not easy! I smiled at him ingratiatingly, just to help things along, but he took little notice of me. Obviously, in Charmion’s company I didnot“take the eye!”

On the way home I expressed sympathy for the disappointed Mr Maplestone, but Charmion refused to agree.

“I don’t know the man, so his pleasures and disappointments don’t enter into my sphere. Promiscuous universal sympathy is too great a tax on the nervous system. Why should I distress myself about a man I have never seen?”

“Not distress yourself exactly, but you might cast a kindly thought. He will be disappointed, and the poor little agent will have a bad half-hour.”

“Now you are asking sympathy for the agent, too! Evelyn, aren’t you the least little bit in the world inclined to wear your heart on your sleeve?”

“Charmion, aren’t you the least little bit inclined to be hard?”

She agreed with unflinching candour.

“I am. It’s the safer plan if one doesn’t want to be hurt!”

“But—what about the other people? Mayn’t they be hurt instead?”

She looked at me gravely for a moment, then with a smile which grew gradually broad and roguish.

“We ought to strike a happy mean between us, eh, Evelyn? You are all credulity and gush, and I refuse to disturb myself about other people, or their affairs.”

“That’s not true! You disturbed yourself about me!”

“Because it affected myself. I had grown fond of you, and so you entered into my life. Pure selfishness, my dear!”

“I don’t believe it! I won’t believe it! It’s no good trying to disillusion me, Charmion. I’ve put you on a topmost pinnacle, and it would take a mighty effort to tumble you down!”

“Dear thing!” murmured Charmion fondly. “Well—suppose we talk of the drawing-room walls? I’m a great believer in occupying oneself with the next step. Revelations of character will follow in due course—I plump for white!”

“White certainly. A warm cream white, with not a touch of blue in it. And the prevailing colour?”

“Let’s count three quickly, and then each say what we think!”

We counted, and the two words leapt crisply forth.

“Rose!” said I.

“Purple!” said Charmion. Then we looked at one another beneath puckered brows.

“Rose lights up better!”

“Purple is more uncommon.”

“Rose is more cheerful in winter!”

“Purple is restful in summer!”

It seemed for a moment as if we had reached animpasse, then came an illuminating thought.

“Why not—both? They harmonise well. Purple curtains and carpet—the plain colour, very soft and subdued, and cushions and shades of the right rose. With our united treasures we ought to have a lovely room. Whereareyour things, Charmion?”

“Stored,” she said shortly. “I tried a house for a few months, but it was too lonely an experience. But I have a passion for beautiful furniture. It has amused me to pick up good specimens here and there. Now we shall enjoy them together! Wait till you see my Spanish leather screen!”

“Wait till you see my Chinese cabinet!” I retorted, and we talked “things” industriously for the next hour.

After luncheon Charmion settled herself to write business letters, drawing a big screen round her writing-table, the better, as she informed me, to protect herself against my chatter.

“You promise to be quiet, but in five minutes’ time you begin again! Now please to remember that to all intents and purposes I am in another room, and that until I choose to come forth, I am dead to you and everyone else! Do you understand? These letters positively must get off to-night!”

“Dear me! I don’t want to talk! I shall be thankful to sit by the fire and enjoy a quiet read,” I said loftily, and promptly drew up an old arm-chair, and buried myself in the book which I had bought to while away the hours of my journey, and then left unread, because my own affairs were at the moment so much more absorbing than those of a fictitious heroine. Now that my mind was more at ease, I found the story interesting enough, and had read on for about an hour with undisturbed enjoyment, when suddenly the door was flung open, and a voice announced:—

“Mr Maplestone!”

I leapt up, putting up a hasty hand to smooth my ruffled hair. That was the worst of having only one sitting-room! Visitors were hurled in upon one without a moment’s warning. Happy Charmion behind the screen! I stared across the room and beheld a tall—very tall—thin man, with short reddish hair and light blue, angry-looking eyes. He was dressed in riding costume, which, so far as his figure went, became him exceedingly well. He was probably somewhere about thirty-five, and one glance at his tightly-set lips and firm square chin was enough to demonstrate the truth of Mr Edwards’ assertion that he was “a gentleman who likes his own way”. He had probably heard by now that for once he was to be thwarted, and had come to tell me what he thought about it. At this moment I forgot to be sorry for his disappointment in my exceeding sympathy for myself! I glanced helplessly at the screen.

“Mrs Fane, I believe.”

“I am Miss Wastneys. Mrs Fane is engaged. Perhaps it is something that I—”

He laid his hat and stick on the table.

“May I have a few minutes’ conversation? You will allow me to sit down?”

“Certainly.”

I pushed aside the easy-chair and seated myself on one of the six “uprights” which were ranged about the room. It felt so much more business-like and supporting. Mr Maplestone seated himself opposite to me, and rested his hands on his knees.

“I am told that you have some idea of renting a house called Pastimes, near here!”

“We have taken Pastimes. Mrs Fane and myself have this morning signed the lease.”

He waved an impatient hand.

“This morning! So I am told. Edwards has behaved very badly. I warned him that things should not be hurried through.”

“They have not been hurried. It is several months since Mrs Fane first saw the house, and three weeks since negotiations were opened a second time.”

“I only heard this week that the house was vacant.”

“And should Mr Edwards”—(the innocent inquiry of my voice was growing more and more marked)—“was it his duty to have told you?”

His eyes sent out a flash. I could see the muscles of his hand clench against his knee. I had scored a point, and his anger was correspondingly increased.

“Perhaps I had better explain,” he began in a tone of elaborate forbearance. “I live at Wembly. Most of the land between here and there belongs to me. Pastimes happens to be outside the limit, and so it escaped my memory. I have not been over it before. I did not know the last tenants. For the last few weeks I have been looking for a house for my friend—a member of the family who is returning from abroad. Invalided!”

He pronounced the last word with emphasis, staring fixedly at me the while. I adapted my features to express polite commiseration.

“It is natural that he should wish to live within driving distance of his friends.”

“Oh, quite!”

“The moment that I saw Pastimes I knew for a sure thing that it would be just his house—”

“I am sorry, but as he has not seen it, he can’t be disappointed. There must be other houses—”

“I have already said I have been searching round for—the—last—three—weeks,” Mr Maplestone repeated, in the carefully deliberate tone which disguises irritation. “Nothing else will suit anything like so well.”

I murmured indefinitely, and glanced at the screen. Mentally I could see Charmion leaning back in her chair, smiling her slow fine smile, inquisitively waiting to see just how firm or how weak I could be. I was not inclined to be weak. There was something in the personality of this big domineering man which roused an imp of contradiction. We sat silent, eyeing one another across the room.

“I believe you and—er—Mrs Fane are strangers to this neighbourhood?”

“Yes! That is so.”

“You have no—er—special link or attraction?”

I saw the trap, and protested blandly.

“Oh, yes! We are delighted with Pastimes. It exactly suits our requirements.”

Mr Maplestone frowned, and fidgeted to and fro, then suddenly leant forward, straightening his face into what was obviously intended to be a smile.

“Miss Wastneys! Will you forgive me if I am perfectly frank and honest, and tell you exactly what is in my mind?”

“Of course I will. I am sure,” I declared mendaciously, “there can be nothing to forgive!”

He had the grace to look a trifle ashamed, but his resolution did not waver. Not a bit! He looked straight in my eyes, and said deliberately:—

“I want Pastimes! For the moment it has slipped through my fingers, but a couple of hours cannot seriously affect your arrangements. On my cousin’s behalf I am anxious to take over the lease. It would be an act of grace on your part if you would agree to this arrangement, and deal with me as his representative!”

The audacity of it! For a moment I was silent for sheer want of breath, but I could feel the blood rushing into my cheeks, and knew that my eyes were sending out flashes to meet his own. My appearance must have prepared him for my answer before it came, uttered in a very calm, very haughty, aggravatingly deliberate tone.

“We are not in the habit of changing our plans in a couple of hours. Pastimes suits us. It is unnecessary to look for another house. The matter was decided this morning.”

“You understand that my cousin is an invalid, and that he has a special reason for wishing to live in this neighbourhood?”

“There are other houses. Pastimes is not the only one that is vacant.”

“It is the only one that is suitable,” he repeated doggedly, and there followed a silence during which he sat back in his chair, staring at me with the light blue eyes, which of all eyes in the world can look at once the coldest and the most angry. If he could have done what he wanted at that moment, he would have taken me by the shoulders and shaken me well. To have made up his mind that a thing must be, and to find himself thwarted by a bit of a girl—it was unsupportable!—so unsupportable, that even now he refused to believe it could be true. Giving himself a little shake, like a dog who rouses himself to fresh efforts, he again made that industrious attempt at a smile, and began slowly:—

“I am afraid I have made a bad beginning! Please forgive me if I have seemed discourteous. When we have talked things over quietly, I have no doubt that we shall be able to reach a satisfactory agreement.”

“I’m afraid I can’t see how that can be! There is only one Pastimes, so one of us is bound to be disappointed!”

He pounced on that as if scenting a hopeful weakness.

“Exactly. Yes; but the disappointment would vary in intensity. That is what I am anxious to point out. When Edwards told me that the tenant was a lady I felt reassured, for it is a matter in which a woman’s kindliness and good heart—”

My eyes roved to the screen. Charmion’s ears were assuredly open at this moment, straining to hear my reply. I raised my eyebrows, and said frostily:—

“We are speaking of a business arrangement. I am afraid that is the only light in which we can consider the matter. We shall honourably fulfil our part of the agreement which we have signed.”

“You refuse to show any consideration for an invalid returning home—after many years?”

“Not at all. If it is ever in our power, as neighbours, to show him any kindness, we shall be eager to do all that is possible—short of giving up our own house for his benefit. Would you do it yourself, Mr Maplestone—for the sake of a stranger you had never seen?”

He stood staring at me, his cheeks bulging with the moving lumps which show that people are swallowing down words which they dare not allow themselves to say. With the same air of elaborate patience which he had shown before, he explained slowly:—

“My cousin has been stationed in India. In a border regiment. He has served his country for thirty years. Now he has had a paralytic stroke, and is making his way home by slow stages. A man who has worked and suffered as he has done deserves a home, and the gratitude of his fellow-countrymen.”

“There are two sides to every question, Mr Maplestone. If I chose to go into details, I might convince you that Mrs Fane and I have our own claims, which seem to us equally strong.”

He leapt from his seat, and advanced until he stood directly facing my chair.

“That finishes it! It is no use appealing to your feelings. Let us make it pure business then! I offer you a hundred pounds down for the reversion of the lease!”

So it had come to this. Bribery undisguised! I lowered my eyelids, and sat silent, an image of outraged dignity.

“You refuse! It is not enough? Two hundred then! Three!”

Still silence. But my listening ears caught a threatening rustle behind the screen.

“Three hundred! It is a good offer. You are not bound to this neighbourhood. You can find other houses to suit you. Still not enough? Name your own terms then. How much will you take?”

“A million pounds!”

The words leapt out of my mouth as it seemed of their own volition. I was tired of this farcical bargaining, and determined to put an end to it, once for all. I stood up and faced his blank stare of amazement, without at least any outward shrinking.

“Surely it is useless to prolong this bargaining. It is very unpleasant and humiliating.”

Mr Maplestone set his square jaw.

“You are only one partner to this transaction. Mrs Fane is probably your senior. If I were to see her, she might be induced to name a more—er—shall I say reasonable (oh, the cutting sarcasm of that tone!) figure.”

“Twomillions.”

The high clear tone struck across the room. Mr Maplestone wheeled round and beheld Charmion standing just outside the opening of the screen, one hand raised to rest lightly on the curved wood coping. She might have posed as a picture of graceful, imperturbed ease, so calm, so smiling, so absolutely unflurried and detached in both manner and bearing did she appear. Mr Maplestone looked at her and—this was a curious thing—at one glance realised his defeat. All my efforts at dignity and firmness had failed to convince him, but behind Charmion’s frail, essentially feminine exterior, those keen eyes had at once detected that strain of inflexibility which I was only slowly beginning to realise.

It was hopeless to bandy words. The Squire knew as much, and turned to the table to lift his hat and whip. He gave a short scornful laugh.

“The terms seem a trifle—high! I am afraid I must retire from the bidding. Pastimes is yours. I hope”—he looked from me to Charmion, and his expression was not pleasant to see—“I hope you may not have cause to repent your bargain!”

We bowed. He bowed. The door opened and shut. Charmion looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.

“A declaration of war! We have begun our campaign by quarrelling with the most ‘influential gentleman in these parts!’ Things are getting exciting, Evelyn!”

I did not speak. Reaction had set in, and I felt a pang of remorse. I did not want to quarrel with anyone, influential or uninfluential. I was sorry I had been ungracious. I felt a pang of sympathy for the poor, big, bad-tempered man riding homeward after his defeat.

I wondered when and how we should meet him again.

Chapter Six.Hunting the Flat.Leaving the workmen to carry out the necessary decorations at Pastimes, Charmion and I adjourned to London to buy carpets and curtains, and a score of necessary oddments. We found it a fascinating occupation, and grew more and more complimentary to each other as each day passed by.“Charmion, you have exquisite taste! That’s just the shade I had chosen myself.”“You have a perfect eye for colouring, Evelyn. I always know that your choice will be exactly my own.”Sometimes we saw the humour of these self-satisfied compliments, sometimes we were so busy and engrossed that we accepted them open-mouthed. I suppose in every mind personal preference is magnified into the standard of perfection, and all the arguing in the world will fail to convince A that he is—artistically speaking—colour-blind, or B that her drawing-room is a bazaar of trumpery odds and ends! All the more reason to be thankful that we agreed. We were convinced that our taste was unique; but supposing for one moment that it was bad, we should at least share a comfortable delusion!The oak entrance hall was to be ornamented with old delft. The curtains and chair coverings were to be of the same shade of blue. The parquet floor was to be supplied with rugs of warm Eastern colours. Exactly the right shade of violet-purple had been found for the drawing-room, and I should be ashamed to say how many shops we ransacked for the chair coverings, until at last we found the identical pattern to satisfy our demands. Certainly I should be ashamed to confess what we paid for the piece. Charmion was appallingly extravagant! That was another discovery which I had made in the last days. It seemed as if she found a positive satisfaction in paying abnormal prices, not with the purse-proud bombast of thenouveau riche, but rather with the almost savage relief of a slave who shakes off a few links of a hated chain. I was a little alarmed at the total to which our purchases amounted; but I comforted myself with the thought, nothing new would be required for a long, long time, and that, if I found my income running short, I could always retire to my flat, and live on a figurative twopence under Bridget’s clever management.Charmion had heard all about the flat by this time, and had hurt my feelings by treating the whole proposal as a ridiculous joke. She made no attempt to dissuade me—had we not agreed never to interfere in each other’s doings?—but she laughed, and said, “Dear goose,” and arched her fine brows expressively as she asked how long a lease I proposed to take, “Or, rather, I should say, howshort?”Now I had myself inclined to a short lease with the option of staying on, but opposition stiffened my back, and I there and then decided to go and look at several possibilities which I had hitherto put aside as impracticable because they had to be taken for a term of three to five years. Bridget would go with me—dear, lawless, laughter-loving Bridget, who entered into the play with refreshing zest. Bridget had the real characteristic Irish faculty of looking upon life as an amusing game, and the more novel and unorthodox the game was, the better she was pleased. “Sure it’s your own face! It’s for you to do what you please with it!” was the easy comment with which she accepted my proposed disguise. She undertook to do most of the work of the flat without a qualm, and shed an easy tear of emotion over the sorrows and difficulties which it was to be my mission to reduce. “Oh, the poor creatures! Will they be starving around us, Miss Evelyn, and the little children crying out for bread?”“N–not exactly that,” I explained. “I want to work among gentlefolk, Bridget—poor gentlefolk, who suffer most of all, because they are too proud to ask for help. But they will probably be short of time, and service, and probably of strength, too, and when I get to know them, they will let me help them in these ways, though they would not accept my money—”Bridget looked sceptical.“I wouldn’t put it past them!”I laughed, and dropped the subject.“Oh, well, time will show. Meantime you understand, don’t you, Bridget, that they are notcheerfulplaces that we are going to see? Cheerful positions in London mean big rents, and I mean to live among people who have to count every penny several times over, and try hard to make it into a sixpenny bit. You and I will have sunshine and light at Pastimes—you won’t mind putting up with dullness for part of the year?”“What would be the good of minding? You’d go, whether or not, now you’d got your head set!” returned Bridget bluntly. She added after a pause, “And besides, we’ll be getting our own way. I’m thinking we shall be glad of the change. It’s not as much as a thought of your own will be left to you, with Mrs Fane by your side.”“You are entirely wrong, Bridget, and it is not your place to make remarks about Mrs Fane. Please don’t let me hear you do it again.”“Yes, ma’am,” murmured Bridget, turning instantly from a friend into an automaton, as was her custom on the rare occasions when I hardened myself to find fault. The words were submissive enough, but her manner announced that she had said her say, and would stick to it, though Herself, poor thing, must be humoured when she took the high horse. As usual, I retired from the conflict with a consciousness of coming off second best!The next day I told Charmion that I was “engaged,” and true to our delightful agreement, she asked no questions, but quietly disappeared into space. Then, with a ponderous feeling of running the blockade, I put on wig and spectacles and the venerable costume which had been provided for the occasion. Appropriately enough, it had originally belonged to an aunt—Aunt Eliza, to wit—who had handed it to me in its mellowed age, to be bequeathed to one of my manyprotégées. It was brown in colour—I detest brown, and it cordially detests me in return—and by way of further offence the material was roughened and displayed a mottled check. The cut was that of a country tailor, the coat accentuating the curve of Aunt Eliza’s back, while the skirt showed a persistent tendency to sag at the back. When I fastened the last button of the horror and surveyed myself in the glass, I chuckled sardonically at the remembrance of heroines of fiction whose exquisite grace of outline refused to be concealed by the roughest of country garments. Certainly my grace did not survive the ordeal. What good looks I possessed suffered a serious eclipse even before wig and spectacles went on, and as a crowning horror, a venerable “boat-shaped” hat (another relic of Aunt Eliza) and a draggled chenille veil.Bridget was hysterical with enjoyment over the whole abject effect, but I descended the stairs and passed through the great hall of the hotel with a miserable feeling of running the blockade. Suppose I met anyone! Suppose anyoneknewme! Suppose—I flushed miserably at the thought—Charmion herself was discovered sitting in the hall, and raised her lorgnon to quiz me as I passed by!I need not have troubled. Not a soul blinked an eye in my direction. If by chance a wandering glance met mine, it stared past and through me as though I were impalpable as a ghost. My disguise was a success in one important respect at least—there was no longer anything conspicuous about me; I was just a humble member of society, one of the throng of dun-coloured, ordinary-looking females, who may be seen by the thousand in every thoroughfare in the land, but who, as a matter of fact, are not seen at all, because no one troubles to look. By Bridget’s side I passed through the streets of London as through a desert waste.Half an hour’s journey by tube brought us to the first of the flats on my list. It was also the first specimen of its kind which Irish Bridget had ever seen, and the shock was severe. I found myself in the painful position of expecting “a decent body” to live in a kitchen two yards square, with a coal “shed” under the table on which she was supposed to cook, and to sleep in a cupboard, screened in merciful darkness, since, when the electric light was turned on, the vista seen through the grimy panes was so inimitably depressing that one’s only longing was to turn it off forthwith!“Preserve us! Indeed, if it was to die in it we were trying, it would be easy enough, but I’m thinking we’d make a poor show of living, Miss Evelyn! And used to the best as we are, too,” said poor Bridget dolefully.I sprang a good ten pounds in rent at the sound of her pitiful voice, and ran my pencil through every address below that figure.Ten separate flats did we visit in the course of that day, and it was a proof of what Aunt Emmeline would call my stubbornness that I came through the ordeal without wavering. Regardless of Bridget’s appealing eyes, I led the way forward, always affecting a buoyant hope that our next visit would be successful, while mentally I was holding a Jekyll and Hyde argument with my inner self, as follows:—“Impossible to live in such warrens!”“Other peoplemanage to live in them all the year round!”“But, as Bridget says, I have been used to the best.”“Quite time, then, that you take your share of the worst!”“My health might suffer—”“You have a good chance to recruit.”“I might lose my looks—”“Disagreeable—but the world would go on, even if you did. Incidentally, you might improve the looks of other women!”“It would be awfully dull!”“At first—yes! Not when you get into stride. Helping other people is the most exhilarating of tonics.”“I have never lived in a town. I should feel cramped, prisoned, stifled for air.”“But think how you would feel when the day came to return to Pastimes! Wouldn’t that first hour in the garden be glorious enough to repay you for all the exile?”Bridget’s wheedling voice broke in on my argument:—“Miss Evelyn, dear, I’ve been thinking—wouldn’t it be a duty-like, to be having a bit of sun? Seems like we could wrestle along a bit better if we faced the right way!”Poor dear! Above all the drawbacks, it was the darkness of the interiors of those small flats which most perplexed the good countrywoman: the passages lighted only through the ground glass panels of bedroom doors; the windows shadowed by walls of other buildings, which towered up at but a few yards’ distance; the kitchens staring blankly into a “well,” ornamented with the suggestive spirals of a fire-escape.“If we could maybe face somewhere where there was a bit of green!” pleaded the eloquent Irish voice. “Sure the leddies and gentlemen you are meaning to help—you’ll be more likely to find them in the place you’d choose yourself, if you were settling in earnest?” Bridget rolled an eye at blocks E, F, and G of a colossal pile of buildings which stretched their inky length over the two blocks of a narrow thoroughfare. “Cast your eye over them window curtains!” said she scathingly. “Ye can tell what’s inside without troubling to look. A dirty, idle set that will sponge on you, and laugh behind your back!”I looked, and shuddered, and was thankfully convinced. In my efforts not to aim too high, my standard had fallen impossibly low, and Bridget’s keen common sense had been right in prophesying that I was more likely to find a congenial type of people in a neighbourhood which appealed to my own taste.No sooner said than done! I escorted Bridget to a restaurant, and fed her and myself with lots of good hot food, and then straightway hired a taxi, and drove back to the agents to demand addresses of flats a little further afield, which should have at least a modicum of light and air.It appeared that I had demanded the thing above all others for which tens of thousands of other women were already clamouring!“Everybody wants a cheap flat in an open and airy situation. For one that is to let we have a hundred applicants. Of course, if you are prepared to pay a long price—”“But I am not.”“Quite so. Otherwise I have some fine sites in Campden Hill. Lift. Central heating. Every convenience.”“Seventy pounds is the utmost—”“Quite so. Then we must rule out Campden Hill, or Hampstead, or Kensington.” The agent switched over the leaves of his book, ran his finger down a list, and hesitated, frowning. “There isonevacancy which might suit—a small block of flats on the borders of Hammersmith. The postal address is Kensington. I don’t know if you are particular as to address?”“Not a bit.”“Ah!” The agent evidently thought small beer of me for the admission. “Most ladies are. In this case we can ask an extra five pounds a year because of the Kensington address, and the class of tenants is much better than in the adjoining blocks a few hundred yards off, where the postal address is Hammersmith.”Bridget coughed in an impressive fashion which was intended to say, “Better class! Hark to that now! That’s the place for us!” As for me, I was torn between amusement at the rank snobbery of it all, and a tender pity for the pathos that lay behind! Poor strugglers, clinging on to the fringe of society, squeezing out the extra pounds so badly needed for necessities, for—what? The satisfaction of seeing a certain word written on an envelope, or of impressing a shop assistant with its sound. In some cases no doubt there were deeper reasons than snobbishness, and it was thought of them which supplied the pathos. Some careworn men and women had weighed that extra rent in the balance, and had considered that it was “worth while,” since a good address might prove an asset in the difficult fight for existence, or perchance some loved one far away had vicariously suffered in past privations, and might be deluded into believing in a false prosperity by the high-sounding address. My ready imagination pictured the image of an invalid mother contentedly informing her neighbours: “My daughter has moved to Kensington. Yes! Such a charming neighbourhood. The gardens, you know.Andthe royal palace!” Five pounds a year might be worthily expended on such a gain as this!Well, there seemed nothing for it but to prospect Weltham Mansions at once, so we chartered yet another taxi, and hurried off without delay to have daylight for our inspection. We drove for miles, through streets at first wide and handsome, then growing ever dingier and more “decayed”. Is there anything in the world more depressing than a third-rate English suburb? I can imagine being poor contentedly in almost every other land—in India, for instance, I know of impecunious couples who have lived in two tents beneath two mango trees with comfort and enjoyment, but it takes a super Mark Tapley to enjoy poverty in London!We had left the gardens a long way behind before at long last we reached a block of dull red buildings, the various doorways of which were decorated with different letters and numbers. A 1 to 40—C 41 to 80—D 81 to 120—etcetera, etcetera. The windows were flat, giving a prison-like effect to the exterior, and I was just saying devoutly to myself, “Thank goodness,that’snot—” when the taxi stopped, and my eyes caught the fateful letters carved on a dull grey stone!ItwasWeltham Mansions, and there were two flats to be let. The porter produced the keys and led us up, up, endless flights of stairs to a crow’s nest near the roof, and then down, down again to what was described as the “sub-basement,” which, being interpreted, meant that the level of the rooms was a few feet beneath that of the road. Now I had always set my affections on a basement flat, chiefly—let me confess—because the sound of it appealed to my ears as so suitable and appropriate to my new rôle. Also, to be able to walk in and out, without mounting the stairs, minimised the risk of discovery, which was no light point under the circumstances, but it was a distinct surprise to find that the flat itself appealed to me more than any which I had yet seen. Why? Not because of the rooms themselves, for they were ordinary and prosaic enough, but because the bank which sloped from the floor of the area to the street railings was ofgrass, closely-growing, well-conditioned grass, broken here and there by tiny, sprouting leaves of—yes! extraordinary as it seems, there could be no doubt about it, for both Bridget and I recognised them in one lightning glance—primroses! Some former tenant who loved the country had planted those roots in a hopeful mood, and they had taken hold, and grown, and multiplied. When spring came the owner of that basement flat would have a primrose bank between herself and the world outside those high railings. She had also a strip of cement area in which she could place tubs filled with soil which would provide blossom for later days. The exposure was south, and the railings were high, so that the tiny garden would be assured of sun and security. The soot would fall, and the dust lie thick, but there would be colour and life, and on the air faint wafts of perfume.We went back to the porter’s room to hear the particulars of the lease, and on my way I stopped to read the list of names printed on little slides on a mahogany board. There were forty in all, and they were as illuminating as such names usually are, when suddenly, three parts down the list, I came upon one which made my heart leap into my mouth. I stood reading the few words over and over, actuallyspellingthe letters in my incredulous surprise, but there it was; there was no doubt about it—the words plainly printed for every one to see—“Number 32. Mr Wenham Thorold.”Well, talk about fate! There are some circumstances under which one realises at once that it is useless to struggle. This was one! I turned to the porter with an air of resignation.“I will take the flat. Please prepare the necessary papers, and send them to me to sign.” Then I gave him my new name. After due deliberation I had determined to be “Miss Mary Harding,” as Wastneys is unusual, and might draw undesirable attention. Miss Mary Harding, of a basement flat!

Leaving the workmen to carry out the necessary decorations at Pastimes, Charmion and I adjourned to London to buy carpets and curtains, and a score of necessary oddments. We found it a fascinating occupation, and grew more and more complimentary to each other as each day passed by.

“Charmion, you have exquisite taste! That’s just the shade I had chosen myself.”

“You have a perfect eye for colouring, Evelyn. I always know that your choice will be exactly my own.”

Sometimes we saw the humour of these self-satisfied compliments, sometimes we were so busy and engrossed that we accepted them open-mouthed. I suppose in every mind personal preference is magnified into the standard of perfection, and all the arguing in the world will fail to convince A that he is—artistically speaking—colour-blind, or B that her drawing-room is a bazaar of trumpery odds and ends! All the more reason to be thankful that we agreed. We were convinced that our taste was unique; but supposing for one moment that it was bad, we should at least share a comfortable delusion!

The oak entrance hall was to be ornamented with old delft. The curtains and chair coverings were to be of the same shade of blue. The parquet floor was to be supplied with rugs of warm Eastern colours. Exactly the right shade of violet-purple had been found for the drawing-room, and I should be ashamed to say how many shops we ransacked for the chair coverings, until at last we found the identical pattern to satisfy our demands. Certainly I should be ashamed to confess what we paid for the piece. Charmion was appallingly extravagant! That was another discovery which I had made in the last days. It seemed as if she found a positive satisfaction in paying abnormal prices, not with the purse-proud bombast of thenouveau riche, but rather with the almost savage relief of a slave who shakes off a few links of a hated chain. I was a little alarmed at the total to which our purchases amounted; but I comforted myself with the thought, nothing new would be required for a long, long time, and that, if I found my income running short, I could always retire to my flat, and live on a figurative twopence under Bridget’s clever management.

Charmion had heard all about the flat by this time, and had hurt my feelings by treating the whole proposal as a ridiculous joke. She made no attempt to dissuade me—had we not agreed never to interfere in each other’s doings?—but she laughed, and said, “Dear goose,” and arched her fine brows expressively as she asked how long a lease I proposed to take, “Or, rather, I should say, howshort?”

Now I had myself inclined to a short lease with the option of staying on, but opposition stiffened my back, and I there and then decided to go and look at several possibilities which I had hitherto put aside as impracticable because they had to be taken for a term of three to five years. Bridget would go with me—dear, lawless, laughter-loving Bridget, who entered into the play with refreshing zest. Bridget had the real characteristic Irish faculty of looking upon life as an amusing game, and the more novel and unorthodox the game was, the better she was pleased. “Sure it’s your own face! It’s for you to do what you please with it!” was the easy comment with which she accepted my proposed disguise. She undertook to do most of the work of the flat without a qualm, and shed an easy tear of emotion over the sorrows and difficulties which it was to be my mission to reduce. “Oh, the poor creatures! Will they be starving around us, Miss Evelyn, and the little children crying out for bread?”

“N–not exactly that,” I explained. “I want to work among gentlefolk, Bridget—poor gentlefolk, who suffer most of all, because they are too proud to ask for help. But they will probably be short of time, and service, and probably of strength, too, and when I get to know them, they will let me help them in these ways, though they would not accept my money—”

Bridget looked sceptical.

“I wouldn’t put it past them!”

I laughed, and dropped the subject.

“Oh, well, time will show. Meantime you understand, don’t you, Bridget, that they are notcheerfulplaces that we are going to see? Cheerful positions in London mean big rents, and I mean to live among people who have to count every penny several times over, and try hard to make it into a sixpenny bit. You and I will have sunshine and light at Pastimes—you won’t mind putting up with dullness for part of the year?”

“What would be the good of minding? You’d go, whether or not, now you’d got your head set!” returned Bridget bluntly. She added after a pause, “And besides, we’ll be getting our own way. I’m thinking we shall be glad of the change. It’s not as much as a thought of your own will be left to you, with Mrs Fane by your side.”

“You are entirely wrong, Bridget, and it is not your place to make remarks about Mrs Fane. Please don’t let me hear you do it again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” murmured Bridget, turning instantly from a friend into an automaton, as was her custom on the rare occasions when I hardened myself to find fault. The words were submissive enough, but her manner announced that she had said her say, and would stick to it, though Herself, poor thing, must be humoured when she took the high horse. As usual, I retired from the conflict with a consciousness of coming off second best!

The next day I told Charmion that I was “engaged,” and true to our delightful agreement, she asked no questions, but quietly disappeared into space. Then, with a ponderous feeling of running the blockade, I put on wig and spectacles and the venerable costume which had been provided for the occasion. Appropriately enough, it had originally belonged to an aunt—Aunt Eliza, to wit—who had handed it to me in its mellowed age, to be bequeathed to one of my manyprotégées. It was brown in colour—I detest brown, and it cordially detests me in return—and by way of further offence the material was roughened and displayed a mottled check. The cut was that of a country tailor, the coat accentuating the curve of Aunt Eliza’s back, while the skirt showed a persistent tendency to sag at the back. When I fastened the last button of the horror and surveyed myself in the glass, I chuckled sardonically at the remembrance of heroines of fiction whose exquisite grace of outline refused to be concealed by the roughest of country garments. Certainly my grace did not survive the ordeal. What good looks I possessed suffered a serious eclipse even before wig and spectacles went on, and as a crowning horror, a venerable “boat-shaped” hat (another relic of Aunt Eliza) and a draggled chenille veil.

Bridget was hysterical with enjoyment over the whole abject effect, but I descended the stairs and passed through the great hall of the hotel with a miserable feeling of running the blockade. Suppose I met anyone! Suppose anyoneknewme! Suppose—I flushed miserably at the thought—Charmion herself was discovered sitting in the hall, and raised her lorgnon to quiz me as I passed by!

I need not have troubled. Not a soul blinked an eye in my direction. If by chance a wandering glance met mine, it stared past and through me as though I were impalpable as a ghost. My disguise was a success in one important respect at least—there was no longer anything conspicuous about me; I was just a humble member of society, one of the throng of dun-coloured, ordinary-looking females, who may be seen by the thousand in every thoroughfare in the land, but who, as a matter of fact, are not seen at all, because no one troubles to look. By Bridget’s side I passed through the streets of London as through a desert waste.

Half an hour’s journey by tube brought us to the first of the flats on my list. It was also the first specimen of its kind which Irish Bridget had ever seen, and the shock was severe. I found myself in the painful position of expecting “a decent body” to live in a kitchen two yards square, with a coal “shed” under the table on which she was supposed to cook, and to sleep in a cupboard, screened in merciful darkness, since, when the electric light was turned on, the vista seen through the grimy panes was so inimitably depressing that one’s only longing was to turn it off forthwith!

“Preserve us! Indeed, if it was to die in it we were trying, it would be easy enough, but I’m thinking we’d make a poor show of living, Miss Evelyn! And used to the best as we are, too,” said poor Bridget dolefully.

I sprang a good ten pounds in rent at the sound of her pitiful voice, and ran my pencil through every address below that figure.

Ten separate flats did we visit in the course of that day, and it was a proof of what Aunt Emmeline would call my stubbornness that I came through the ordeal without wavering. Regardless of Bridget’s appealing eyes, I led the way forward, always affecting a buoyant hope that our next visit would be successful, while mentally I was holding a Jekyll and Hyde argument with my inner self, as follows:—

“Impossible to live in such warrens!”

“Other peoplemanage to live in them all the year round!”

“But, as Bridget says, I have been used to the best.”

“Quite time, then, that you take your share of the worst!”

“My health might suffer—”

“You have a good chance to recruit.”

“I might lose my looks—”

“Disagreeable—but the world would go on, even if you did. Incidentally, you might improve the looks of other women!”

“It would be awfully dull!”

“At first—yes! Not when you get into stride. Helping other people is the most exhilarating of tonics.”

“I have never lived in a town. I should feel cramped, prisoned, stifled for air.”

“But think how you would feel when the day came to return to Pastimes! Wouldn’t that first hour in the garden be glorious enough to repay you for all the exile?”

Bridget’s wheedling voice broke in on my argument:—

“Miss Evelyn, dear, I’ve been thinking—wouldn’t it be a duty-like, to be having a bit of sun? Seems like we could wrestle along a bit better if we faced the right way!”

Poor dear! Above all the drawbacks, it was the darkness of the interiors of those small flats which most perplexed the good countrywoman: the passages lighted only through the ground glass panels of bedroom doors; the windows shadowed by walls of other buildings, which towered up at but a few yards’ distance; the kitchens staring blankly into a “well,” ornamented with the suggestive spirals of a fire-escape.

“If we could maybe face somewhere where there was a bit of green!” pleaded the eloquent Irish voice. “Sure the leddies and gentlemen you are meaning to help—you’ll be more likely to find them in the place you’d choose yourself, if you were settling in earnest?” Bridget rolled an eye at blocks E, F, and G of a colossal pile of buildings which stretched their inky length over the two blocks of a narrow thoroughfare. “Cast your eye over them window curtains!” said she scathingly. “Ye can tell what’s inside without troubling to look. A dirty, idle set that will sponge on you, and laugh behind your back!”

I looked, and shuddered, and was thankfully convinced. In my efforts not to aim too high, my standard had fallen impossibly low, and Bridget’s keen common sense had been right in prophesying that I was more likely to find a congenial type of people in a neighbourhood which appealed to my own taste.

No sooner said than done! I escorted Bridget to a restaurant, and fed her and myself with lots of good hot food, and then straightway hired a taxi, and drove back to the agents to demand addresses of flats a little further afield, which should have at least a modicum of light and air.

It appeared that I had demanded the thing above all others for which tens of thousands of other women were already clamouring!

“Everybody wants a cheap flat in an open and airy situation. For one that is to let we have a hundred applicants. Of course, if you are prepared to pay a long price—”

“But I am not.”

“Quite so. Otherwise I have some fine sites in Campden Hill. Lift. Central heating. Every convenience.”

“Seventy pounds is the utmost—”

“Quite so. Then we must rule out Campden Hill, or Hampstead, or Kensington.” The agent switched over the leaves of his book, ran his finger down a list, and hesitated, frowning. “There isonevacancy which might suit—a small block of flats on the borders of Hammersmith. The postal address is Kensington. I don’t know if you are particular as to address?”

“Not a bit.”

“Ah!” The agent evidently thought small beer of me for the admission. “Most ladies are. In this case we can ask an extra five pounds a year because of the Kensington address, and the class of tenants is much better than in the adjoining blocks a few hundred yards off, where the postal address is Hammersmith.”

Bridget coughed in an impressive fashion which was intended to say, “Better class! Hark to that now! That’s the place for us!” As for me, I was torn between amusement at the rank snobbery of it all, and a tender pity for the pathos that lay behind! Poor strugglers, clinging on to the fringe of society, squeezing out the extra pounds so badly needed for necessities, for—what? The satisfaction of seeing a certain word written on an envelope, or of impressing a shop assistant with its sound. In some cases no doubt there were deeper reasons than snobbishness, and it was thought of them which supplied the pathos. Some careworn men and women had weighed that extra rent in the balance, and had considered that it was “worth while,” since a good address might prove an asset in the difficult fight for existence, or perchance some loved one far away had vicariously suffered in past privations, and might be deluded into believing in a false prosperity by the high-sounding address. My ready imagination pictured the image of an invalid mother contentedly informing her neighbours: “My daughter has moved to Kensington. Yes! Such a charming neighbourhood. The gardens, you know.Andthe royal palace!” Five pounds a year might be worthily expended on such a gain as this!

Well, there seemed nothing for it but to prospect Weltham Mansions at once, so we chartered yet another taxi, and hurried off without delay to have daylight for our inspection. We drove for miles, through streets at first wide and handsome, then growing ever dingier and more “decayed”. Is there anything in the world more depressing than a third-rate English suburb? I can imagine being poor contentedly in almost every other land—in India, for instance, I know of impecunious couples who have lived in two tents beneath two mango trees with comfort and enjoyment, but it takes a super Mark Tapley to enjoy poverty in London!

We had left the gardens a long way behind before at long last we reached a block of dull red buildings, the various doorways of which were decorated with different letters and numbers. A 1 to 40—C 41 to 80—D 81 to 120—etcetera, etcetera. The windows were flat, giving a prison-like effect to the exterior, and I was just saying devoutly to myself, “Thank goodness,that’snot—” when the taxi stopped, and my eyes caught the fateful letters carved on a dull grey stone!

ItwasWeltham Mansions, and there were two flats to be let. The porter produced the keys and led us up, up, endless flights of stairs to a crow’s nest near the roof, and then down, down again to what was described as the “sub-basement,” which, being interpreted, meant that the level of the rooms was a few feet beneath that of the road. Now I had always set my affections on a basement flat, chiefly—let me confess—because the sound of it appealed to my ears as so suitable and appropriate to my new rôle. Also, to be able to walk in and out, without mounting the stairs, minimised the risk of discovery, which was no light point under the circumstances, but it was a distinct surprise to find that the flat itself appealed to me more than any which I had yet seen. Why? Not because of the rooms themselves, for they were ordinary and prosaic enough, but because the bank which sloped from the floor of the area to the street railings was ofgrass, closely-growing, well-conditioned grass, broken here and there by tiny, sprouting leaves of—yes! extraordinary as it seems, there could be no doubt about it, for both Bridget and I recognised them in one lightning glance—primroses! Some former tenant who loved the country had planted those roots in a hopeful mood, and they had taken hold, and grown, and multiplied. When spring came the owner of that basement flat would have a primrose bank between herself and the world outside those high railings. She had also a strip of cement area in which she could place tubs filled with soil which would provide blossom for later days. The exposure was south, and the railings were high, so that the tiny garden would be assured of sun and security. The soot would fall, and the dust lie thick, but there would be colour and life, and on the air faint wafts of perfume.

We went back to the porter’s room to hear the particulars of the lease, and on my way I stopped to read the list of names printed on little slides on a mahogany board. There were forty in all, and they were as illuminating as such names usually are, when suddenly, three parts down the list, I came upon one which made my heart leap into my mouth. I stood reading the few words over and over, actuallyspellingthe letters in my incredulous surprise, but there it was; there was no doubt about it—the words plainly printed for every one to see—

“Number 32. Mr Wenham Thorold.”

Well, talk about fate! There are some circumstances under which one realises at once that it is useless to struggle. This was one! I turned to the porter with an air of resignation.

“I will take the flat. Please prepare the necessary papers, and send them to me to sign.” Then I gave him my new name. After due deliberation I had determined to be “Miss Mary Harding,” as Wastneys is unusual, and might draw undesirable attention. Miss Mary Harding, of a basement flat!

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