Christina Part 5

"Don't scorn them too much. Everybody has different ideals, and it takes all sorts to make a world. Your sort don't advertise for husbands and wives, but our section of society is not so faultless that we can afford to throw stones even at people who marry through a matrimonial bureau."

"It's so low. The sort of thing a shop girl might do."

"Not lower than displaying your daughters in the best market, as the Society mother does," Rupert answered sternly; "not lower than running a man to earth, as shoals of women do, and do it without an ounce of shame."

"But, answering an advertis.e.m.e.nt like that is almost asking a man to marry you."

"Perhaps, and when poor old Donkin lost his wife a year ago, a lot of women wrote and proposed to him. Yes, _actually wrote and offered to marry him_! He told me so himself, and those were women of your cla.s.s, well born and well educated. Well, we have the consolation of knowing that he refused the lot."

"Horrid beasts! no wonder you men lose your respect for women, if you think we are all capable of doing that sort of thing."

"We don't think so," Rupert's contemptuous tones grew gentle again; "we know the difference between the womanly woman and the others. Thank G.o.d, there are plenty of the right sort left," and Rupert stooped suddenly and took his cousin's two small hands into his.

"You aren't going?" she exclaimed. "I wanted you to see Baba, and there are thousands of things I meant to say to you."

"So sorry, but the thousands of things must be postponed. I have an appointment at five, and I must keep it."

"You will advertise for the 'young person'?"

"Yes; I won't forget the 'young person'--and--by the way, Cicely," a slight trace of embarra.s.sment showed on his face, "didn't you tell me you wanted to find a sort of nursery governess for Baba?"

"Certainly, I do; but, my dear boy, what do you know about nursery governesses?"

"I don't know anything about them," was the reply, but Cicely's quick eyes still noted embarra.s.sment in both voice and manner, "but I heard the other day of a girl who--who might be wanting a post."

"A girl who might be wanting a post," Cicely exclaimed mockingly; "the person I engage for Baba, would have to be somebody much less vague than that, and she must have unimpeachable references."

"Unimpeachable references," Mernside reflected as he left his cousin's house; and, side by side with Cicely's words, other words tossed to and fro in his brain, words written in a clear, girlish hand that had an odd character of its own.

"I cannot find work, and I need a home very much."

"Probably she is quite impossible," his reflections ran on. "Cicely had a good deal of right on her side when she talked about shop girls and matrimonial advertis.e.m.e.nts. I daresay I shall find C.M. belongs to that cla.s.s of girl, and if so, what am I going to do about her? Ah!

well; Margaret will help."

It was this thought that buoyed him up during his walk across the park from the Redesdale's mansion in Eaton Square, to the small white house in Bayswater; but as he pushed open the familiar gate and walked up the garden path, a shock of surprise awaited him. The blinds of the room to the right of the front door were pulled down, and his repeated ringing of the bell brought no response from within. The bell clanged in the kitchen regions, its echoes dying away forlornly, but no footstep sounded in the hall, no hand lifted the latch of the door, and as he stepped back and looked up at the house, Rupert saw that no smoke was coming from the chimneys. A sick fear smote at his heart. What had happened? What could have happened? The day before, he had been here, sitting with Margaret in that very room over whose windows the blinds were now so closely drawn. She had seemed tired, it was true, but not more tired than he had often seen her, and he had no reason to suppose that she was more ill than usual. She was always fragile; he was accustomed to find her one week on the sofa, another week sufficiently strong to be moving about the room, and even going out of doors. But that her house should be barred and bolted against him was inexplicable. He felt as though the ground had been cut away from under his feet, as if the very foundations of his life had been shaken.

Why! to-day was the day she had herself fixed for his interview in her house with the girl of the advertis.e.m.e.nt. Margaret had arranged the hour; it was by her suggestion that he had written to C.M., proposing a meeting at 100, Barford Road, and now he found the house locked up and apparently empty, with no word of explanation or apology. Could Margaret have been suddenly taken ill? If so, why had she not let him know? Yet, if she was ill, she would be in the house, and Elizabeth with her. Somebody would have answered his ringing, which had grown more and more imperative as each ring remained unanswered. Could she have gone away? Gone away without letting him have the slightest hint of her intended going? Was that more conceivable than his theory of sudden illness? Again, sick dismay knocked at the door of his heart, and with it came a wave of hot anger against Margaret. Surely his years of faithful devotion, of willing service, had ent.i.tled him to more consideration than this at her hands. He had made few demands upon her, but this sudden and unexplained disappearance was a strain which even the merest friendship should not be called upon to bear.

Once again he pealed the bell, and even knocked vigorously at the knocker, but neither sound produced the slightest effect, and he was perforce turning away, when the gate clicked and he saw a breathless personage of the charwoman cla.s.s hurrying up the path.

"I'm sure I beg your parding, sir," she panted; "just like my luck to a' popped out for a minute twice in the afternoon, and each time somebody called."

"Are you in charge of this house?" Rupert asked, his own agitation making him speak more sternly than the occasion quite warranted.

"Yes, sir; and I'm truly sorry, sir," the woman whimpered, wiping her much-heated face with a grimy ap.r.o.n; "come here yesterday, I did, all of a sudden, Mrs. Stanforth and Miss Herring, her maid, going away unexpected, and me havin' a extra lot of washin' and all. But I says to Jem, my son, 'Jem,' I says----"

"Yes, yes," Rupert interrupted impatiently, "but where is Mrs.

Stanforth? Did she leave any message? Any note? Did she tell you to say anything to people who called?"

"Lor', no, sir. Went off in a hurry and didn't leave no messages nor nothin'. And I'm sure I'm sorry I wasn't 'ere when you come, but I'd popped out for a minute, and let out the kitchen fire, too, and I just 'ad to see to my bit o' washin', and there, I run back a half an 'our ago, and there was a young lady in a rare takin' then, and so----"

"A young lady," Rupert again broke into her stream of words.

"Pore young thing, she did seem upset over it, too. Said she was expected, and she was to be 'ere at five, and all. There! I was sorry for 'er. Seemed to strike 'er all of an 'eap when she see the shut up 'ouse. She says quite 'urt like: 'Well, I s'pose it was an 'oax.'

Them was 'er very words."

"I suppose you explained to her that the lady had gone away unexpectedly?" Rupert exclaimed with growing irritation; "you didn't let the young lady think she had been brought here for a _joke_?"

"Well, o' course, sir, I didn't know nothin' about it," was the offended retort; "if you ask me, I should say there was somethin' queer in tellin' somebody to come to an 'ouse at five o'clock, and then for the 'ouse to be shut up. Which I should say it was a pore joke meself.

She says: 'Ain't Mr. Mernside 'ere?' and I says, 'I don't know nothin'

about n.o.body o' that name,' and she looks as took aback as if I'd 'it 'er, and so----"

Rupert uttered a smothered oath, then mastered himself, and asked more quietly:

"And how long has the young lady been gone?"

"Best part of a quarter of a hour. Quiet young lady she was, too; dressed very plain; you might say shabby; and went orf lookin' fit to cry with disappointment. And I just popped out agin to git me bit o'

relish for tea, and _you_ come; lor', it do seem strange."

The good lady was left to address her rambling remarks to the shrubs in the garden, for Rupert, unable to bear more of her discursiveness, turned and fled, shutting the garden gate with a sharp clang behind him, and feeling that his world had all at once gone wrong, very wrong indeed.

CHAPTER V.

"I KNOW THIS IS WORTH A LOT OF MONEY."

"I suppose I was stupid to think it could be anything but a hoax. But the letter seemed so kind, not as if it were written by a horrid person who would want to play a practical joke."

Christina, having climbed the stairs to her room with weary, dragging footsteps, sat down on her one chair, feeling tired, depressed, and indignant. The dire necessity of saving her every penny, drove her to walk from Bayswater to her far-off lodgings in the S.W. district, and as a fine rain had begun to fall long before she was half-way across the park, she was not only worn out and miserable, but very wet as well. In their best days her serge coat and skirt had not been thick; much wear and tear had reduced them to a threadbare condition quite incapable of resistance to weather. The drizzling rain had penetrated her inadequate coat and thin blouse; her skirt hung limply about her legs; she felt, what she actually was, wet to the skin, and too tired even to exert herself to make some tea over her spirit-lamp.

"I expect it is true what Mrs. Jones says," she reflected; "she says men are all brutes, and you can't trust one of them. I used to think she only said it because Mr. Jones drank himself to death, and drank away her earnings first, and beat her. But, now, I don't know." With cold fingers she drew the hatpins from her sodden hat, threw off the wet coat that clung so chillily to her shivering form, and took from her pocket a letter addressed in a bold, masculine hand.

"C.M., c/o Mrs. Cole, Newsagent, "10, Cartney Street, S.W."

"It looks like the handwriting of a gentleman," the poor little girl's reflections ran on; "I shouldn't have thought a man who wrote like that could be a brute, and his letter isn't a brute's letter either," she added pathetically, drawing the letter from its envelope and reading the words, which were already engraved upon her mind.

"DEAR MADAM,

"I think perhaps I may be able to be of some use to you if you could make it convenient to call at 100, Barford Road, Bayswater, at five o'clock to-morrow (Wednesday). We might have a little talk. My friend to whom the house belongs, will be very glad to see you.

"Yours faithfully, "R. MERNSIDE."

"And then I find the house shut up," Christina said shakily, and aloud, "and an old charwoman tells me she never heard of Mr. Mernside; and I suppose it was just all a mean practical joke." Two tears, tears of sheer fatigue and of bitter disappointment, welled up in the girl's eyes, and dropped slowly down her cheeks. She was so tired--so tired and cold and miserable--and she had built more hopes than she quite knew upon the answer to her timid little letter. The entire absence of any allusion to matrimonial prospects in Mr. Mernside's note had quieted her fears, and many hopes had mingled with the nervous doubts that had filled her soul as she set out that afternoon on her strange expedition. Some faint idea that this unknown Mr. Mernside might be instrumental in helping her to find work, sustained her through the long walk to Barford Road; she had been so sure, so very sure, that the writer of the terse, kindly letter, was a gentleman, and a good man to boot, that the sight of the shut-up house came to her with the force of an actual blow, whilst the caretaker's unfeigned ignorance of anybody of the name of Mernside, made Christina's theory of a hoax seem more than probable.