E. Nesbit.
"You have got your back against the wall, you have got to fight, you have got to fight, to fight!"
The words pounded across Joan's mind over and over again. She struggled in obedience to their message against the waves of sleep that lapped her round. Struggled and fought, till at last, after what seemed like centuries of darkness, she won back to light and opened her eyes.
She was lying in a long narrow bed, one of many, ranged on both sides down the hospital walls. Large windows, set very high up, opened on to grey skies and a flood of rather cold sunshine. At the foot of her bed, watching her with impartial eyes, stood a man, and beside him two nurses, their neat pink dresses and starched aprons rustling a little as they moved.
Joan's eyes, wide and bewildered, met the doctor's, and he leant forward and smiled.
"That's better," he said, "you have got to make an effort towards living yourself, young lady." He nodded and turned to the nurse at his right hand. "How long has she been in now, Nurse?"
"Ten days to-morrow," the woman answered, "and except for the first day, when she moaned a good deal and talked about having to fight, she has scarce seemed to be conscious."
Joan's lips, prompted by the insistent voice within her, repeated, "I have got to fight," stiffly.
The doctor came a little nearer and stooped to hear the words, "Yes," he agreed, "that is right, you have got to fight. See if you can get her to talk now and again, Nurse," he added; "she wants rousing, otherwise there is nothing radically to keep her back."
Joan's face, however, seemed to linger in his mind, for, as he was about to leave the ward after his tour of inspection, he turned again to the elder nurse in charge.
"Have you been able to find out anything about bed 14?" he asked.
"No, sir. We have had no inquiries and there was nothing in any of her pockets except a cloak-room ticket for Victoria Station."
"Humph," he commented, "yet she must have relations. She does not look the friendless waif type."
Nurse Taylor pursed up her lips. She had her own opinion as to the patient in bed 14. "There was the unfortunate circumstance of her condition," she mentioned; "the girl may very well have been desperate and lonely."
"Anyway, she hasn't any right to be left like this," the doctor retorted. "If you can get her to talk about relations, find out where they are and send for them. That is my advice."
Nurse Taylor owned a great many excellent qualities; tact and compassion were not among them. Long years spent in a profession which brought her daily into contact with human sin and human suffering had done nothing to soften her outlook or smooth down the hard, straight lines which she had laid down for her own and everyone else's guidance. She disapproved of Joan, but obedience to the doctor's orders was a religion to her; even where she disapproved she always implicitly carried them out.
Next day, therefore, she stopped for quite a long time at Joan's bed, talking in her toneless, high voice. Had Joan any people who could be written to, what was her homeaddress, would they not be worried at hearing nothing from her?
Joan could only shake her head to all the questions. Very vaguely and in detached fragments she was beginning to remember the time that had preceded her accident. The memory of Aunt Janet's face and Uncle John's parting words was like an open wound, it bled at every touch and she shrank from Nurse Taylor's pointed questions. She remembered how she had sat on the top of the bus with the black weight of misery on her heart and of how the tears had come. She had been looking for rooms; that recollection followed hard on the heels of the other.
When she was well enough to get about she would have to start looking for rooms again, for she had quite definitely made up her mind not to be a burden to Miss Abercrombie. It was her own fight; when she had gathered her strength about her, she would fight it out alone and make a success of it. Half wistfully she looked into the future and dreamt about the baby that was coming into her life. She would have to learn to live down this feeling of shame that burnt at her heart as she thought of him. He would be all hers, a small life to make of it what she pleased. Well, she would have to see that she made it fine and gay and brave. Shame should not enter into their lives, not if she fought hard enough.
Nurse Taylor described her to the junior afterwards as a most stubborn and hardened type of girl.
"The poor thing has hardly got her wits about her yet," the other answered; "she is very little trouble in the wards, we have had worse."
"Well, the doctor can question her himself next time," Nurse Taylor snorted. "I am not here to be snubbed by her sort."
She did not, however, let the matter drop entirely. At the end of her third week Joan was promoted to an armchair in the verandah and there one afternoon, after the teas had been handed round, Nurse Taylor brought her avisitor. A tall, sad-faced, elderly woman, who walked with a curiously deprecating movement, seeming to apologize for every step she took. Yet kindliness and a certain strength shone at Joan from behind the large, round-rimmed glasses she wore, and her mouth was clean cut and sharp.
"This is Mrs. Westwood." Nurse Taylor introduced them briefly. "She wants to have a little talk with you, Miss Rutherford. If I were you I should tell her about things," she added pointedly. "I do not know if you have any plans made, but you are up for discharge next week."
She bustled off and Mrs. Westwood drew up a chair and sat down close to Joan, staring at the girl with short-sighted, pink-lidded eyes.
"You will wonder who I am," she said at last. "Perhaps you have never noticed me before, but I am a very frequent visitor. We run a mission in the South-West of London, with the object of helping young girls. I want you to talk to me about yourself, to be quite frank with me and to remember, if I seem to usurp on your privacy, that I am an older woman and that my only wish is to help you."
"It is very kind of you," began Joan, "but——"
"You may not need material help," the woman put in hastily; "but, spiritually, who is not in need of help from God."
Joan could think of no suitable reply for this and they sat in silence, the woman studying her face intently. Then presently, flushing with the earnestness of her purpose, she put out a cold hand and took Joan's.
"I think they have left it to me to tell you," she said. "The little life that was within you has been killed by your accident."
The colour flamed to Joan's face. A sense of awe and a feeling of intense relief surged up in her. "Oh, what a good thing!" she gasped, almost before she realized what she said.
Mrs. Westwood sat back in her chair, her eyes no longerlooked at Joan. "The child which God had given you even in your sin," she said stiffly.
Joan leaned forward quickly. "I did not mean just that," she said, "and yet I did. You do not know, you can't guess, how afraid I was getting. Everyone's hand against me, and even the people who had most loved me seeming to hate me because of this."
Her voice trailed into silence before the stern disapproval of the other woman's face. Yet once having started, she was driven on to speak all the jumble of thoughts that had lain in her mind these last two months.
"I was not ashamed or afraid, to begin with," she hurried the words out. "It had not seemed to me wrong. I lived with him because I thought I loved him and we did not want to get married. Then one day he let me see—oh, no, I am not being quite truthful, for I had seen it before—that he was in reality ashamed of our life together. He was acting against his convictions because it amused him. I could not bear that, it seemed to drag our life together through the mud, and I left him."
She could see that Mrs. Westwood was not making the slightest attempt to understand her; still she went wildly on:
"I went home and it seemed all right. My life with him faded away; I suppose I had never really loved him. Then, then they found out about what was going to happen and they turned against me, even Aunt Janet;" her voice broke on the words, she buried her face in her arms, crying like a child. "Aunt Janet, Aunt Janet," she whispered again and again through her tears.
Mrs. Westwood waited till the storm had spent itself, there was no sign of softening upon her face. Remorse and regret she could understand and condone, but this excusing of self, as she called Joan's explanation, struck her as being inexcusably bad.
"And do you now congratulate yourself that by thisaccident," she laid special stress on the word, "you are to escape the punishment of your sin?"
Joan raised tear-drowned eyes. "Haven't I been punished enough," she asked, "for something that I did not think was a sin?"
"We cannot make or unmake God's laws in our thoughts," the other answered; "you were wilfully blind to the knowledge that was in your heart."
"Oh, no," Joan began. Mrs. Westwood swept the remark aside and stood up.
"We will not argue about it," she said; "I realize that you are not yet looking for the comfort or promise of pardon which I could lead you to. But, my child, do not delude yourself into the belief that thus easily have you set aside the consequences of your evil. God is not mocked, neither does He sleep. If you should ever be in any real need of help," she ended abruptly, "help which would serve to make you strong in the face of temptation, come to us, our doors are always open."
She dropped a card bearing the address of the mission on Joan's lap and turned to go. Joan saw her call Nurse Taylor and say a few words to her on the way out. For herself she sat on in the dusk. Outside the lamps had been lit, they shone on wet pavements and huge, lurching omnibuses, on fast-driven taxis and a policeman standing alone in the middle of the road. To-morrow she would have to write to Miss Abercrombie and tell her there was no further need for her very kindly assistance; then she would have to make new plans and arrangements for herself in the future. She would try for a room in one of the girls' clubs that Miss Abercrombie had given her a letter to. She had been shy of going there before, but it would be different now. She could slip back into life and take up her share, forgetting, since the fear was past, the nightmare of terror which had held her heart before. For she had been afraid, what was the use of trying to blind her eyes to the truth? She had not had the courage of herconvictions, she had not even wanted to carry her banner through the fight. She was glad, to the very bottom of her heart she was glad, that there was no more need for fighting.
A. Swinburne.
Dick could not bring himself to approve of his sister's marriage. He made no attempt to conceal his real opinion on the subject. In one very heated interview with Mabel herself he labelled it as disgusting to marry a man whom you disliked for his money, or for the things his money can give you.
"But I do not dislike him," Mabel answered, as once before. She was sitting in a low armchair by the window, a piece of sewing in her hands. She laid her work down to look up at him. "He is very fond of me and he will be very good to Mother and myself. There are worse reasons than that for marrying, surely."
"It is Mother, then," stormed Dick. "You are doing it because of Mother."
Mabel shook her head. "No," she said; "I am doing it because to me it seems right and as if it would bring most happiness to all of us. I am not even quite sure that Mother approves."
She need not have had any misgivings on that point. Mrs. Grant was absolutely in her element arranging for the marriage. Mabel had never been quite the beautiful daughter that Mrs. Grant would have liked, that she should marry a Mr. Jarvis was to be expected; he had atleast got money, which was always something to be thankful for. She took over the refurnishing and redecorating of his house with eager hands.
"Mabel has always been accustomed to luxury, Tom," she told Mr. Jarvis; "until Harry died she never wanted for a thing which money could give her."
"And she shall not want now," he answered gravely.
Only once he remarked to Mabel afterwards, showing perhaps the trend of his thoughts: "We appear to be furnishing our house to please your mother, Mabel; seems a pity I cannot save you the trouble of marrying me by asking her instead."
Mabel stirred a little uneasily. "In pleasing her you are pleasing me," she answered, and with a shrug of his shoulders he turned away from the subject.
Mrs. Grant had her own rooms papered with white satin paper and very delicately outlined in gold; she ransacked the Jarvis heirlooms to find appropriate furniture for such a setting, and succeeded very well. The bills for her various suggested improvements passed through Mr. Jarvis' hands, and he commented on them to Mabel with a grim smile.
"She knows how to spend money," he said. "Dick must certainly have found the responsibility heavy."
"She has never learned how not to spend," Mabel explained; "but you must not pass what you think unnecessary."
"My dear, it is part of our bargain," he answered; "I shall not shrink from my share any more than you will."
Mrs. Grant fought very strenuously for a wedding in London, but here for once Mabel opposed her firmly, and the idea had to be abandoned.
"It means, of course, that most of my dearest friends will not be able to come, but I suppose I need not expect that to weigh against your determination," was one of the many arguments she tried, and: "I never dreamed thata daughter of mine would insist upon this hole-and-corner way of getting married" another.
"It almost looks as if you were ashamed of the man," she said somewhat spitefully to Mabel, the day the wedding-dress was tried on. "When your father and I were married the church was simply packed. I had a lovely gown"—her thoughts wandered into kindlier channels—"and Harry was very much in love. I remember his hand shaking as he tried to slip the ring on to my finger. I suppose you love Mr. Jarvis?"
The abrupt question coming after the vague memories startled Mabel into sudden rigidness. "I suppose I do," she answered, her white-clad figure mocked her from the glass. "One does love one's husband, doesn't one?"
"Mabel"—Mrs. Grant's voice sounded righteous indignation—"you do say such extraordinary things sometimes and about such solemn subjects. But if you do really love him, then why this desire for secrecy?"
"Dear Mother, being married in the parish church instead of in St. Paul's is not exactly secrecy or a wild desire to hide something on my part. I have always hated big fashionable weddings."
She slipped out of the dress and laid it down on the bed. Mrs. Grant viewed her with discontented eyes.
"I cannot pretend to understand you," she grumbled, "and I don't know why you talk of St. Paul's. I never suggested such a place; Harry and I were married at St. Mary's, Kensington."
Dick, when consulted on the matter, proved even less amenable. "I dislike the whole affair," he answered gruffly; "please don't ask me where it should take place."
He ran up to London himself the week before the wedding. A vague and rather incoherent wish to meet Joan again had kept him restless ever since her abrupt departure. He did not attempt to define his thoughts in any way. The girl had interested him, and startled him out of the even tenor of his beliefs. He hated to think ofher turned adrift and left, as the possibility was she had been left, to fend for herself. He had not seen the elder Miss Rutherford since his visit, but rumour in the village ran that Miss Joan had got into disgrace of sorts and been sent away. The servants from the Manor spoke with bated breath of the change which had come over the household; of how Miss Joan's rooms had been locked and her pictures taken down. The world is horribly hard to women when they leave the beaten paths of respectability; he could not bear to think of what she might be suffering, of where it might lead her.
He walked about somewhat aimlessly for his few days in town, but the chance of meeting anyone in this way is very remote, and of course he did not succeed. He could not, however, shake away the depression which the thought of her brought him.
Mabel came to sit in his smoking-room the night before her wedding, Mrs. Grant having gone early to bed.
"Did you see anyone up in town?" she asked.
Dick shook his head, puffing at his pipe. "Not a soul I knew," he commented, "except Mathews about my job. Wish I hadn't gone; London is a depressing place."
"You rather hoped to meet someone, didn't you?" asked Mabel.
Dick glanced up at her and away again quickly. "What makes you ask that?" he said.
Mabel let the curtain fall back into place; she had been peering out into the street, and turned to face him. "You have shut me outside things, Dick," she spoke slowly, "this last month, ever since my engagement; but shutting me out can't keep me from knowing. You only saw that girl over at the Manor once, but she has been in your thoughts ever since." She came forward, perching herself on the arm of his chair as had been her habit in the old days, one arm thrown round his shoulders to support herself. "Little brother," she asked, "did you think I should not know when you fell in love?"
Fell in love! How completely the thought startled him. Of course Mabel was utterly mistaken in her wild conjectures. To throw aside the doubt he turned quickly, and put a hand over hers where it lay near him.
"Why do you say I have shut you out?" he parried her question. "Because I lost my temper over your engagement?"
"No." Mabel shook her head. "It was not exactly because of that. I know you have not understood, Dick; I am not even sure that I want you to; and I know that that helped to build a wall between us, but that was not what began it. Never mind"—she bent and kissed the top of his head—"if your secret is not ready to share you shall keep it a little longer to yourself. You will go up to London, won't you, Dick, after Tom and I have come back and Mother has settled down?"
"I suppose so," he agreed; "but I want to get away for a bit first, if I can. Spoke to Mathews when I was in town and he has promised to keep his eyes open for a job on one of those P. and O. liners for me."
"I see," she said; "but when you come back you will settle in town and sometimes you will spare us week-ends from your very strenuous career, won't you?"
"Of course," he answered; his hand tightened on hers. "Mabel," he said suddenly, "you are happy, aren't you; it isn't because of me or anyone else that you are getting married, is it?"
He was not looking at her, therefore she did not have to lie with her eyes. "I am quite happy," she answered softly. "Dear, stupid Dick, how you have fretted your heart out about my happiness."
"I know," he admitted, "I could not bear to think—I mean, love somehow stands for such a lot in people's lives, I——" he broke off, and stood up abruptly. "You will think I am a sentimental ass, but I have always wanted you to have the best of things, Mabel, and I have beenhorribly afraid that Fate, or Mother, or perhaps even I, were shoving you into taking the second best."
"You have wanted the best for me, Dick," she answered, "that counts for a lot."
Then one of those dull silences fell between them that come sometimes to two people who love with their whole hearts and who have been trying to speak some of their thoughts to each other—a silence that stood between them almost as it were with a drawn sword, while Dick puffed at his pipe and Mabel stared at her white hands, showing up against the darkness of her dress. Then finally she moved, standing up, and just for a second their eyes met.
"Good-night," she said across the silence, "it is late, Dick, I meant to be in bed ages ago."
"Good-night," he answered, and she turned quickly and went from the room.
Mrs. Grant kept everyone, including herself, in a state of unexplained fuss from the moment when early morning light woke her on the day of Mabel's marriage till the moment when, much to Dick's embarrassment, she collapsed into his arms, sobbing bitterly, in the vestry where they had all gone to sign their names.
At the reception she slightly recovered her spirits, but broke down again when the time came for the couple to depart. They were going to Paris for a fortnight's honey-moon; Mabel had stipulated that they should not be away for longer than that. Jarvis Hall was ready for their return; already Mrs. Grant was using one of the motors and ordering crested paper with the address on it for her own letters. But Dick, Mabel knew, was simply aching to be quit of it all, and away on his own. He had arranged to hand over the practice and proposed to take a two years' trip abroad. It was only in the complete freedom of Dick that she would know that part of her plan was being fulfilled.
When she drew back her head after the final farewells had been waved and the house was out of sight it was tomeet Jarvis' intent, short-sighted stare. His glasses magnified the pupils of his eyes to an unusual extent when he was looking straight at anyone.
"Well," he said, "that's done. Till the last moment, Mabel, I rather wondered if you would go through with it. But I might have known," he went on quickly, "you are not the sort to shrink from a bargain once it is made."
Her hand lay passive in his, she did not even stir when he leaned forward to kiss her. What he had said was perfectly true, the bargain had been made, she was not one of those who shirk payment.
D. G. Rossetti.
There are some natures which cannot live with any happiness in drab surroundings. Atmosphere affects everyone more or less; but whereas there are a few fortunate ones who can rise triumphant to a certain contentment through squalor and ugliness, there are a great many more who find even cheerfulness very hard to attain to under like circumstances.
The shut-in dinginess of Digby Street, the gloomy aspect of Shamrock House, cast such a chill across Joan's spirits that, as she stood hesitating with her hand on the bell, the instinct came to her to scramble back into the cab and tell the man to drive her anywhere away from such a neighbourhood. Of course it was absurd, and the cabman did not look as if he would be in the least willing to comply. He had treated her with a supercilious disbelief in there being any tip for him as soon as he had heard of her destination. Joan had gone to Victoria Station to collect her luggage, and it had been both late and dark before the needfor a cab had arisen. She had elected not to leave the hospital till after tea; somehow, when it had come near to going, her courage, which she had been bolstering up with hope and promises of what she should do in her new life, had vanished into thin air. Perhaps more than anything else she lacked the physical strength which would have enabled her to look cheerfully into the future. The hospital had been a place of refuge, she hated to leave it.
This feeling grew upon her more and more as she sat back in a corner of the cab while it rumbled along the Vauxhall Bridge Road. There seemed always to be a tram passing, huge giant vehicles that shook the earth and made a great deal of noise in their going. The houses on either side were dingy, singularly unattractive-looking buildings, and the further the cab crawled away from Victoria Street the deeper the shade of poverty and dirt that descended on the surroundings. Digby Street and Shamrock House were the culminating stroke to Joan's depression.
Miss Abercrombie had written recommending it to her as a Girls' Club where she would probably get companionship and advice on the question of work. "You won't like it," she had added, "but it is very conveniently situated and ridiculously cheap." So Joan had described her destination to the cabman as a ladies' club, somewhere in Digby Street. He had answered with a sniff, for it was here that he had lost sight of his tip, that he supposed she meant the Home for Working Girls that lay in those parts. Looking up at the large, red-fronted building, with its countless uncurtained windows, Joan realized that the man's description was probably nearer the truth than her own.
She was to learn later that on this particular occasion she saw Digby Street at its very worst, for it was Saturday night, and barrows of fish, meat and vegetables stood along the pavements, illuminated by flares of light so that all the ugliness was only too apparent. Little children played in and out, under the barrows and along the gutters; a public-house stood at the corner near Shamrock House, and exactlyopposite the Salvation Army added its brass band and shrill voices to the general tumult.
Joan's first timid attempt at the bell produced no answer, nor her second. By this time the cabman had dismounted her box and stood staring at her in sullen disapproval, while a couple of very drunk but cheerful costers argued with each other as to whether they ought not to help the young lady to get in. Her third effort was perhaps more violent, for, to her relief, she could see the dim light in the hall being turned up and the door was opened on the chain and very slightly ajar. A couple of bright eyes peered at her through this opening, then, having apparently satisfied their owner that Joan was neither dangerous nor drunk, the door was further opened, and Joan could see into the red-tiled hall and passage with its numbered, white-painted doors.
"What do you want?" asked the lady of the eyes; a small, plump person with grey hair brushed back very straight from an apple-red face.
"I want a room," Joan explained. "I have been recommended to come here. I do hope you have one to spare."
The little lady moved aside and beckoned to the cabman. "You can come in," she said, "and the man had better fetch in your box. I thought it was one of those troublesome children when you first rang, it was so very violent, and they make a point of trying to break the bells."
"I am so sorry," Joan murmured meekly, an apology she realized was expected from her. "I was so dreadfully tired and no one seemed to be going to answer."
"We do not keep a staff of servants to answer the bell day and night," the woman answered. "Still, I am sorry you were kept waiting. Will you come in here"—she opened a door a little way down the passage—"this is my office. I must see your letter of recommendation before I let you talk about the rooms, that is one of our rules."
Joan paid the cabman and followed her inquisitor intothe office. Miss Nigel let down the front of the desk, opened a large ledger and donned a pair of spectacles. "Now," she said, "who are you, what are your references, and who recommended you?"
Fortunately Miss Abercrombie had remembered to send a letter of introduction. Joan produced it and handed it to Miss Nigel. "My name is Joan Rutherford," she added; "I did not know about having to have references."
Miss Nigel peered at her over the tops of her glasses; she only used them for reading and could not see out of them for other purposes. "We have to make a point of it in most cases," she answered, "but also I judge by appearances. In your case this letter from Miss Abercrombie—her name is in our books although I do not know her personally—will be quite sufficient. Now, how much do you want to pay?"
"As little as possible," Joan confessed, "only I would like to have a room to myself."
"Quite so," the other agreed, "and in any case, all our cubicles are taken. They are, of course, cheaper than anything else." She ran her finger down the lines of the ledger. "I can let you have a room on the top floor which will work out to fifteen and six a week. That includes breakfast, late dinner, lights and baths. There is a certain amount of attendance, but we expect the girls to make their own beds and keep the rooms tidy."
Fifteen and six a week. Joan attempted to make a rapid calculation in her head, but gave up the idea. It sounded at least quite absurdly cheap, she would not have to spend very much of Uncle John's allowance before she got some work to do for herself. The future seemed suddenly to shut her in to a life enclosed by the brick walls of Shamrock House with its attendant neighbourhood of Digby Street.
"That will do," she answered, "it sounds very nice."
"Yes," agreed Miss Nigel; she closed the desk and stood up, "for the price, we offer exceptional advantages. If youwill carry up what you need for to-night, I will show you to your rooms."
It occurred to Joan as she followed her guide up flights of carpetless stone stairs that her new abode resembled a prison more than anything else. The long bare passages were broken up by countless doors all numbered and painted white in contrast to the brick-coloured walls. The sound of their footsteps echoed mournfully through the bareness and seeming desolation of the place. From one of the landing windows she caught a blurred picture of the streets outside, the lit-up barrows, the crowd just emerging from the public-house. She was to get very used and very hardened to the life in Digby Street, but on this, her first evening, it caught at her senses with a cold touch of fear.
On the top floor of all Miss Nigel opened the first door along the passage and ushered Joan into the room that was to be hers. It was so small that its one window occupied practically the whole space of the front wall. A narrow bed stood along one side, and between this and the opposite wall there was scarce room for a chair. At the foot of the bed stood the wash-stand and the chest of drawers facing each other, with a very narrow space in between them. But it was all scrupulously clean, with white-washed walls and well-scrubbed furniture, and the windows opened over the roofs of the neighbouring houses. Very far up in the darkness of the sky outside a star twinkled and danced.
Miss Nigel looked round at the room with evident satisfaction. "You will be comfortable here, I think," she said; "we do our best to make the girls happy. We expect them, however, to conform to our rules; you will find them explained in this book." She placed a little blue pamphlet on the dressing-table. "Lights are put out at ten, and if you are later than that, you have to pay a small fine for being let in, a threepenny door fee, we call it. Everyone is requested to make as little noise as possible in their rooms or along the passages, and to be punctual for dinner."
With one more look round she turned to go.Half-wayout, however, a kindly thought struck her, and she looked back at Joan.
"Dinner is at seven-thirty," she said. "I expect you will be glad to have it and get to bed. You look very tired."
Joan would have liked to ask if she could have dinner upstairs, but one glance at the book of rules and regulations decided her against the idea. Shamrock House evidently admitted of no such luxury, and on second thoughts, how ridiculous it was to suppose that dinner could be carried up five flights of stairs for the benefit of someone paying fifteen and six a week all told. She was too tired and too depressed to face the prospect of a meal downstairs, she would just have to go to bed without dinner, she concluded.
The House woke to life as she lay there, evidently the inhabitants returned about this time. Joan remembered the cabman's somewhat blunt description and smiled at the memory. A Home for Working Girls. That was why it had seemed so silent and deserted before, shops and offices do not shut till after six. But now the workers were coming home, she could hear their feet along the passages, the slamming of doors, voices and laughter from the room next hers. Home! This narrow, cold room, those endless stairs and passages outside, they were to be home for the future. The hot tears pricked in her eyes, but she fought against tears. After all, she had been very lucky to find it, it was cheap, it was clean; other girls lived here and were happy, someone had laughed next door.
"I have got to take you firmly in hand," Joan argued with her depression. "It is no use making a fuss about things that are all my own fault. I tried to play with life and I did not succeed. It is too big and hard. If I had wanted to work it out differently I ought to have been very strong. But I am not strong, I am only just ordinary. This is my chance again, and in the plain, straight way I must win through." She spoke the words almost aloud, as if challenging fate: "I will win through."
H. C. Beeching.
Youth can nearly always rely upon sleep to build up new strength, new hope, new courage. If you have got to a stage in your life when sleep fails you, if night means merely a long tortured pause from the noises of the world, in which the beating of your heart seems unbearably loud, then indeed you have reached to the uttermost edge of despair. Joan slept, heavily and dreamlessly, save that there was some vague hint of happiness in her mind, till she was wakened in the morning by a most violent bell ringing. The dressing-bell at Shamrock House, which went at seven o'clock, was carried by a maid up and down every passage, so that there was not the slightest chance of anyone oversleeping themselves.
Joan dressed quickly; the faint aroma of happiness which her sleep had brought her, and which amounted to cheerfulness, stayed with her. She remembered how Miss Abercrombie had once said to her: "Oh, you are a Browningite," and smiled at the phrase, repeating to herself another verse of the same poem:
"And I shall thereuponTake rest ere I be gone,Once more on my adventure brave and new."
She felt almost confident of success this morning; her mind was busy with plans of the work she would find. She was glad to feel herself one in a giant hive of workers, all girls like herself, cutting out their lives for themselves, earning their own living.
Breakfast brought with it a slight disillusionment. Thedining-room in Shamrock House is in the basement; chill and dreary of aspect, its windows always dirty and unopenable, because at the slightest excuse of an open window the small boys of the neighbourhood will make it their target for all kinds of filth. Rotting vegetables, apple-cores, scrapings of mud; there is quite sufficient of all that outside the windows without encouraging it to come in. Six long deal tables occupy the space of the room, and it is one of the few amusements which the children of Digby Street possess to gather at the railings and watch the inhabitants of Shamrock House being fed.
It was the last flight of stairs into the basement which damped Joan's enthusiasm for her new home. As she stood hesitating in the doorway, for there were a great many people in the room, and the tables seemed crowded, she caught Miss Nigel's eye.
"You will find a seat over there," the lady called out to her, waving a hand in the direction of the furthest table. "Help yourself to bacon, which is on the hot case near the fire, and come here for your tea or coffee. By the way, which do you like?"
Joan asked for tea, and having secured her cup and a small piece of unappetizing bacon, she found her way over to the indicated table. A girl sat at the head of it, and since she was ensconced behind a newspaper and apparently paying no attention to anybody, Joan chose the chair next her. She felt on the sudden shy and unwilling to make friends with anyone, the chill of the room was striking into her heart.
She had presently to rouse her neighbour, however, to ask her to pass the salt, and at that the girl lifted a pair of penetrating eyes and fixed Joan with an intent stare.
"New arrival?" she asked.
"Yes," Joan admitted. "I came last night."
"Humph!" the girl commented. "Well, don't touch the jam this morning. It is peculiar to Shamrock House—plum-stones, raspberry-pips and glue." She swept the information at Joan and returned to her paper.
She was a big girl with rather a heavy face and strong, capable-looking hands. Despite her manners, which were undeniably bad, Joan would almost have described her as distinguished but for the fact that the word sounded ridiculous amid such surroundings.
"Looking for work?" the girl asked presently.
"Yes," Joan answered again, "only I am not sure what sort of work to look for, or what I should like to do."
The girl lifted her eyes to stare at her once again. "It isn't generally a case of 'like,'" she said, "more often it is necessity. In that case"—she reached out a long arm for the bread—"Fate does not as a rule give you much time in which to make up your mind; she pushes you into something which you hate like hell for the rest of your life."
"You aren't very cheerful," remonstrated Joan.
"Oh, well, I never am that," agreed the other, "nor polite. You ask Miss Nigel if you want a true estimate of my manners. But I have lived here ten years now and I have seen girls like you drift in and out by the score. The feeding or the general atmosphere doesn't agree with them, and our ranks are maintained by beings of a coarser make, as you may see for yourself."
She rose, crumpling her paper into a ball and throwing it under the table.
"My name is Rose Brent," she said. "What is yours?"
"Rutherford," Joan answered, "Joan Rutherford. I hope I shan't drift quite as quickly as you foretell," she added.
Secretarial work was what she had really made up her mind to try for, though she had not had the courage to confess as much to her breakfast companion. She had, after all, had a certain amount of training in that and hoped not to find it so very impossible to get a post as a beginner somewhere. Her first visit to the nearest registryoffice, however, served to show her that her very slight experience was going to be of little use to her. The registry lady was kind, sufficiently interested to appear amiable, but not at all reassuring in her views as to Joan's prospects.
"I am afraid I cannot hold out very much hope," she said, after five minutes' crisp questioning of Joan. "You have, you see, so very few qualifications, and the market is rather over-stocked with girls who can do just a little. My strong advice to you is to continue your shorthand; when you are a little more experienced in that we ought to have no difficulty in placing you. Good morning; please see that the hall door shuts properly, the latch is very weak."
Her business-like manner, the absolute efficiency which shone around her, and the crowded aspect of the waiting-room—all girls who could do just a little, Joan presumed—caused her heart to sink. Finding work was not going to be as easy as she had first supposed.
She roamed from office to office after that for several days, to be met everywhere with the same slight encouragement and frail promises to help. Finally, thoroughly discouraged, she bought papers instead, and turned to a strict perusal of their various advertisements.
One in particular caught her eye.
"Wanted a pupil shorthand typist. Tuition in return for services.—Apply Miss Bacon, 2, Baker Street, W."
It was late in the afternoon of the day before Joan found her way to Baker Street, for she had had several other places to call at and she was in addition very tired. Going from place to place in search of work had reduced her to a painful knowledge of her own absolute incompetency and the general uselessness of life. A brass plate on the door of No. 2 conveyed the information: "Miss Bacon. Fourth floor. Shorthand and Typing. Please ring and walk up."
Joan rang and followed the instructions. On the verytop landing a girl stood, holding a candle in her hand, for up here there was no light of any sort. The grease dripped down her skirt and on to the floor.
"Do you want Miss Bacon?" she asked.
Joan nodded, too breathless to say anything.
The girl turned into the dim interior and threw open a door, snuffing the candle at the same time.
"If you will wait here," she said, "Miss Bacon will be with you in a minute."
Joan looked round on a moderately large, dust-smothered room. Dust, that is to say, was the first thing to strike the eye of the beholder. The windows were thick in dust, it lay on tables and chairs and on the two typewriters standing unused in a corner of the room. The room gave one the impression of being singularly uninhabited. Then the door opened and shut again, and Joan turned to face the owner.
Miss Bacon's figure, like her furniture, seemed to have taken on a coating of dust. Timid eyes looked out at Joan from behind pince-nez set rather crookedly on a thin nose. One side of her face, from eye to chin, was disfigured by an unsightly bruise. Miss Bacon dabbed a handkerchief to it continually and started explaining its presence at once.
"You may be surprised at my face"—her voice, like her eyes, was timid—"but I am short-sighted and last night stumbled on the stairs, hitting my face against the top step. It was exceedingly painful, but it is better now. What can I do for you?"
Joan murmured something sympathetic about the top step, and explained that she had come in answer to the advertisement. Miss Bacon's face fell. "I had hoped you were a client," she owned. Then she pulled forward a chair for herself and asked Joan to be seated.
It appeared that Joan would receive excellent tuition in shorthand and free use of the typewriters. If any typing work came in she would be expected to help with it,but for the rest she could devote the whole of her time to studying and practising on the machines. Miss Bacon was a little vague as to the other pupils, but Joan gathered that there was a shorthand class and two other typewriters in another room.
"My other pupils are, of course, on a different footing," Miss Bacon told her. "Generally I require a fee of at least ten guineas, but in your case, as I shall require you to do a little work for me, I shall be content to take less. That is to say, four guineas, everything included."
"There is nothing about paying in the advertisement," Joan ventured. "I am afraid it is quite impossible for me to pay that."
Miss Bacon took off her glasses and polished them with nervous hands. "I do not want to seem unreasonable," she said; "after you have worked for me you will certainly be able to obtain a well-paid post elsewhere; my pupils invariably move on in that way. I guarantee, of course, to find situations. If I could meet you in any way—supposing you paid me two guineas now and two guineas when you moved on?"
"It is awfully kind of you"—Joan hesitated on the words—"but I am afraid I can't really afford it, not even that."
Miss Bacon relinquished the idea with a heartfelt sigh. "My dear," she confided suddenly, "I know what poverty is. Shall we say one pound to begin with?—you must remember that these are very exceptional terms."
Joan thought a moment. It seemed almost certain, from what she had gleaned from the various agencies, that getting a post without training was an impossibility, and most of the training centres asked for at least twenty-five guineas. Perhaps in refusing this offer she was letting a good chance slip by her, and, though she hated to make free use of it, there was always Uncle John's money, to fall back on.
"I think I will come if you will let me do it in that way,"she decided finally; "when would you like me to start?—to-morrow?"
"The sooner the better." Miss Bacon rose with a smile of almost intense relief. "I have had no one for the last fortnight and the place is getting very untidy. You will pay the first pound in advance," she added; "I hope you will bring it with you to-morrow."
She seemed painfully anxious for the money; if Joan had not been so tired she might have thought the fact suspicious. As it was she went back to Shamrock House with a lightened heart. It was not a very attractive or promising post; if she were to judge by outside appearances and by Miss Bacon's last remark her chief duties were to include those of general cleaning up and dusting. But that would be all in the day's work. Some little confidence and hope were beginning to creep back into her heart. She had secured her first post; Miss Bacon held out vague visions of the triumphs to which it might lead. Surely in time she would get away from the nightmare of the last two months; in time even Aunt Janet would forgive her, and meanwhile her foot was on the lowest rung of the ladder; work should be her world in future. She would work and fight and win. There was still, as Miss Abercrombie would have said, a banner to be carried. She would carry it now to the end.
For the first week in her new post Joan was kept very busy putting things—as Miss Bacon described it—to rights. She had also, she discovered, to run errands for Miss Bacon several times during the course of a day; to buy paper forthe typewriters, to fetch Miss Bacon's lunch, on one occasion to buy some cooling lotion for Miss Bacon's bruise. Of the other pupils she saw no sign, and even the girl who had admitted her on the first night did not put in an appearance, but this Miss Bacon explained by saying that Edith was delicate and often forced to stay away through ill health.
Joan refrained from asking questions; she realized herself that she had stumbled on to something that was nearly a tragedy. The hunted look in Miss Bacon's face, the signs of poverty, the absolute lack of work told their own tale. As a running business 2, Baker Street, was an evident failure, but there was no reason why, with a little application, she should not make it serve her purpose as a school. The lack of tuition was its one great drawback; there seemed no signs whatsoever of the promised shorthand lessons. Finally Joan plucked up her courage one morning in the second week, and invaded Miss Bacon's private office.
"What about my shorthand?" she inquired from just within the doorway; "when shall I begin?"
Miss Bacon had changed her shoes for a pair of bedroom slippers and was occupying the arm-chair, immersed in the newspaper. She started at Joan's abrupt question, the movement jerking the glasses from off her nose. She picked them up nervously and blinked at Joan.
"What did you say?—shorthand? Oh, yes, of course! It is really Edith's duty to take you in that; still, as she is not here, I propose to dictate to you myself after lunch. My first duty in the mornings is to master the newspaper; there might be some openings advertised." She turned again to her news-sheet. "Why not employ yourself practising on the typewriter?" she suggested.
Joan would have liked to reply that she was tired of practising sentences on the typewriter and hungry for some real work to do, but she had not the heart to be unkind to the poor little woman. She spent a disconsolatemorning and stayed out for lunch longer than usual. On her return Miss Bacon was waiting for her on the top of the stairs.
"My dear," she said in an excited voice, "some work has come in. A man has just brought it, and he must have it by to-morrow morning. I hope you will be able to get it done, for I have promised, and a lot may depend on it."
So much depended on it that she herself decided to help Joan with the work. She was not, it appeared, even as experienced as Joan, and by 6.30 the two of them had only completed about half the typing. Joan's back ached and her fingers tingled, but Miss Bacon's eyes behind the glasses were strained to the verge of tears, two hectic spots of colour burned in her cheeks and her fingers stumbled and faltered over the keys.
As the clock struck seven Joan straightened herself with a sigh of relief.
"It is no use," she said, "we cannot get it done; he will have to wait for his silly old papers."
The blood died suddenly out of Miss Bacon's face, her mouth trembled. "It must be done," she answered; "you do not understand. It is the first work that has been brought to us for weeks. The man is a stranger; if it is well done and up to time he will give us some more; besides he will pay"—for a second she lifted her eyes and looked at Joan—"I must have the money," she said.
Her face, working under the stress of some strong emotion, was painful to see. She was so weak, so useless, so driven. Joan looked away hastily and went on with her work. From time to time, though, she stole a glance at Miss Bacon. It was dreadful to know that the poor old woman was crying; quietly, hopelessly, great drops that splashed on to her fingers as they stumbled over the keys.
At last Joan could bear it no longer, she rose quickly and crossed over to Miss Bacon, putting her hands over the useless fingers.
"Don't you bother with it any more, Miss Bacon," she said. "I am nearly through with my share now and I can come early to-morrow and get it all done before breakfast. It is silly to work away at it now when we are both tired out."
Miss Bacon gulped down her tears and looked up nervously. "You think you can," she asked; "you have realized how important it is?"
"Yes," Joan told her, "and I know I can. I won't disappoint you, really I won't. Let us go across the road and get some tea before we go home," she suggested.
Miss Bacon looked away again hastily. "You go," she muttered, "I don't need tea, I——"
"You are going to come and have tea with me," Joan interrupted. It had flashed on her that Miss Bacon had not even the money for that.
Over the hot buttered toast and the tea Miss Bacon poured out her troubles to Joan. They came, once she had started, in an unquenchable flood of reminiscences. The little woman had reached the last inch of endurance; the kindly sympathy, the touch of Joan's hands broke down all barriers of reserve or caution. She had been a governess, it appeared, and during all her years of service she had laid by enough money to buy the business at Baker Street.
"I got it cheap," she owned. "I can see now that the other people must have failed too, and I have no head for business. I am absolutely at the end of things now; if I died to-morrow it would be a pauper's funeral. I often think of that when I see a gorgeous hearse and procession passing through the street."
Her words were ridiculous, but real tragedy looked out of her eyes. "Ruin stares me in the face," she went on, "from every paper I read, from every person I meet. I have no money, not even enough to buy food, as you have guessed. Ruin! and I have not the courage to get out of it all. I have never been very brave."
"But I think you have been brave," Joan tried to reassure her. "You have held on for so long alone. And I expect we have turned a corner now, things will be better to-morrow."
Miss Bacon stared at her teacup with hopeless eyes. "That is what I used to think at first," she said, "to-morrow will be better than to-day—it never has been yet."
She rose to go, and Joan, prompted by a sudden quick desire to help, leant forward and caught hold of her coat. The tragedy of the withered figure, the stupid, aimless face, struck her as the cruellest thing she had yet seen in life. What were her own troubles compared to this other's dull facing of loneliness, failure and death.
"You must cheer up, you really must," she begged; "and as for the money part, let me pay down the rest of my fee now. I have got three pounds out with me; do take it, please do, you see it really is yours."
Taking the money seemed to add an extra gloom to Miss Bacon's outlook; none the less she did not require very much persuading, and Joan, pressing it into her hand, piloted her across the road and saw her into the Underground station.
It was the last glimpse she was to have of the quaint figure which had crossed her life for so short a time, but that she did not realize. She only knew that her heart ached because she had been able to do so little to help, and because Miss Bacon's story had brought suddenly to her mind a knowledge of how terribly hard life can be to those who are not strong enough to stand against it.
True to her word, she arrived at Baker Street very early the next morning and the momentous piece of typewriting was finished before Miss Bacon's usual hour of arrival. Joan put it on the table with the old lady's paper and went out to get some breakfast, as she had had to leave Shamrock House before seven.
She was greeted on her return by the girl who had let her in on the first night. There was a man with her whohad taken possession of Miss Bacon's chair and who was reading the paper morosely, both elbows on the table.
He glanced up at Joan as she entered. "Is this Miss Bacon, by any chance?" he asked, bringing out the words with a certain grim defiance.
Edith interrupted Joan's disclaimer by a shrill laugh. "Lor' bless you, no, she is one of the pupils, same as me." She turned to Joan. "Did you pay anything to join?" she asked. Joan resented the familiarity of her tone. "Would have liked to have warned you the other night, but Bacon was too nippy."
Joan flushed slightly. Disregarding the interruption she spoke quickly, answering the man's question:
"Miss Bacon must be ill, I am afraid," she said; "it is so very late for her, she is nearly always here by ten. She will probably be here to-morrow if you care to come again."
Again Edith giggled and the man frowned heavily.
"Well, she probably won't," he answered. "She has done a bunk, that's the long and short of it, and there is not a blasted penny of what she owes me paid. Damn the woman with her whining, wheezing letters, 'Do give me time—I'll pay in time.' Might have known it would end in her bunking."
"I don't think you ought to speak of her like that," Joan attempted; "after all, it is only that she does not happen to be here this morning. She would have let me know if she had not been coming back."
"Oh, would she?" growled the man; "well, I don't care a blasted hell what you think. I don't need to be taught my business by the likes of you."
From the passage to which she had retired Edith attracted Joan's attention by violent signs. "There is no use arguing with him," she announced in an audible whisper, "he's fair mad; this is about the tenth time he's missed her. Come out here a minute, I want to talk to you."
Joan went reluctantly. She disliked the girl instinctively, she disliked the dirty white blouse from which the red neck rose, ornamented by a string of cheap pearls, and the greasy black ribbon which bound up Edith's head of curls.
"Are you being a fool?" the girl asked, "or are you trying to kid that man? Haven't you cottoned to old Bacon's game yet?"
"I am sorry for Miss Bacon, if that is what you mean," Joan answered stiffly.
"Sorry!" Edith's face was expressive of vast contempt. "That won't save you from much in this world. I tell you one thing, if you lent the old hag any money yesterday you won't see her again this side of the grave, so there isn't any use your hanging about here waiting for that."
Joan favoured her with a little collected stare. "Thank you," she said, "it is very thoughtful of you to think of warning me." She left her and walked back deliberately into the room where the man was sitting. "There were some typed sheets lying on the top of the paper," she said; "do you mind letting me have them back."
"Yes I do," he answered briefly; "man called in for them a little while back and that is five shillings towards what the old hag owes me, anyhow."
It was in its way rather humorous that she should have worked so hard to put five shillings into such an objectionable pocket. Joan felt strongly tempted to argue the matter with him, but discretion proving wiser than valour, she left him to his spoils and retired into the other room. She would not leave the place, she decided, in case Miss Bacon did turn up; it would be very disagreeable for her to have to face such a man by herself.
By lunch time the man stalked away full of threats as to what he would do, and Edith went with him. Joan stayed on till six, and there was still no sign of Miss Bacon. It was strange that she should neither have telephoned nor written.
Over dinner at Shamrock House that night she toldRose Brent the story of her fortnight's adventure, ending up with the rash impulse which had led her to pay up the four guineas because Miss Bacon had seemed in such bitter need. The girl met her tale with abrupt laughter.
"I am afraid what your unpleasant acquaintance of this morning told you is probably true," she said. "After all, if you went and handed out four guineas it was a direct temptation to the poor old woman to get away on."
"I don't believe she would take it just for that," Joan tried to argue. "I know she wanted it awfully badly, but it was to help her pull through and things were going to run better afterwards. I don't believe she would just take it and slip away without saying a word to me."
"Faith in human nature is all very well," the other answered, "but it is awfully apt to let you down, especially in the working world."
"I shall go on believing for a bit," Joan said; "she was looking so awfully ill yesterday, it may just be that she could not come up to office to-day."
"May be," Rose agreed. "When you are tired of waiting for the return of the prodigal let me know and I will see if I cannot get you in somewhere. I ought to be able to help. And look here, my child, never you pay another penny for tuition on those lines; you could get all the learning you need at the County Council Night Schools, and it is a good deal cheaper."
Joan put in two days at No. 2, Baker Street, waiting for the return of Miss Bacon or for some message which might explain her absence, but nothing and no one came. On the morning of the third day she found that the stout and bad-tempered man had carried out his vague threats. The place had been taken possession of, already they were removing the typewriters and tables under the direction of a bailiff. Even the plate bearing Miss Bacon's name had vanished, and boards announcing the top flat to let flaunted themselves from the area railings.
After that Joan gave up the hope. Sometimes shewondered if after all Miss Bacon had found the necessary courage to be done with it all, and if her silence betokened death. It was more likely though that the poor old lady had merely sunk one rung lower on the ladder of self-esteem and was dragging out a miserable existence somewhere in the outside purlieus of London.