Flames Part 36

"Please bring up tea for me and this gentleman."

The lady a.s.sumed the voice of a sucking dove.

"Tea! Why, I thought you'd be out to--"

The lady shot into the pa.s.sage and shut the door behind her. After a moment she put her head in and said to Julian:

"I'll be back in a minute. She's in a rare tantrum. I must go down and help her. Pardon."

And she vanished like a flash.

Julian sat feeling rather guilty. To distract himself he got up and looked at the photographs on the mantelpiece. Most of them were of men, but there were two or three girls in tights, and there was one of a stout and venerable woman, evidently highly respectable, seated in an arm-chair, with staring bead-like eyes, but a sweet and gentle mouth. Her hair was arranged in glossy bands. Her hands held a large book, probably a Bible. Julian looked at her and wondered a little how she chanced to be in this _galere_. Then he started and almost exclaimed aloud. For there, at the end of the mantelpiece, was a cabinet photograph of Marr. He was right then in his suspicion. The lady of the feathers was also the lady at the "European."

"Sorry to keep you waiting," said a voice behind him.

There was a clatter of crockery. His hostess entered bearing a tray, which held a teapot, cups, a large loaf of bread, and some b.u.t.ter, and a milk-jug and sugar-basin. She plumped it down on the table.

"Mrs. Brigg _wouldn't_ make toast," she explained. "And I didn't like to keep you."

"Let's make some ourselves," said Julian, with a happy inspiration.

He felt that to perform a common and a cosey act must draw them together, and awaken in the lady's breast a happy and progressive confidence. She was evidently surprised at the suggestion.

"Well, I never!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "You are a queer one. You are taking a rise out of me now!"

"Not at all. I like making toast. Give me a fork. I'll do it, and you sit there and direct me."

She laughed and produced the fork from a mean cupboard which did duty as a sideboard.

"Here you are, then. 'Cut it pretty thick. It ain't so high cla.s.s, but it eats better. That's it. Sit on this stool, dear."

She kicked an ancient leather one to the hearth, and Julian, tucking his long-tailed frock coat under him, squatted down and thrust forward the bread to the bars of the grate. The lady opened the lid of the teapot and examined the brew with an anxious eye.

"It's drawin' beautiful," she declared. "Well, I'm d--" she caught herself up short. "Well this is bally funny," she said. "Turn it, dearie."

Julian obeyed, and they began to talk. For the ice was broken now, and the lady was quite at her ease, and simple and human in her hospitalities.

"This is better than the bun," Julian said.

"I believe you, dear. And yet that bun did me a deal of good that mornin'."

Her voice became suddenly reflective.

"A deal of good."

"Are you often out at such a time?"

"Not I. But that night I'd--well, I didn't feel like bein' indoors.

There's things--well, there, it don't matter. That toast's done, dearie.

Bring it here, and let me b.u.t.ter it."

Julian brought it, and cut another slice from the loaf. He toasted while the lady b.u.t.tered, a fine division of labour which drew them close together. Jessie, meanwhile, attracted by these pleasant preparations, hovered about, wriggling in pathetic anxiety to share the good things of life.

"Anything wrong that night?" Julian said, carelessly.

The lady b.u.t.tered, like an angry machine.

"Oh no, dearie," she said. "Make haste, or the tea'll be as black as coal. Jessie, you're a pig! I do spoil her."

Julian called the little dog to him. She came voraciously, her minute and rat-like body tense with greed.

"She's a pretty dog," he said.

"Yes," the lady rejoined proudly. "She's a show dog. She was give to me, and I wouldn't part with her for nuts, no, nor for diamonds neither.

Would I, Jessie? Ah, well, dogs stick to you when men don't."

She was trying to be arch, but her voice was really quivering to tears, and in that sentence rang all the tragedy of her poor life. Julian looked across at her as she sat by the tray, b.u.t.tering now almost mechanically.

She was naturally a pretty girl, but was growing rapidly haggard, and was badly made up, rouged in wrong places consumptively, powdered everywhere disastrously. Her eyes were pathetic, but above them the hair was dreadfully dyed, and frizzed into a desolate turmoil. She had a thin young figure and anxious hands. As he looked Julian felt a profound pity and a curious manly friendship for her. She had that saddest aspect of a human being about whom it doesn't matter. Only it matters about every living creature so much.

The lady caught his eye, and extended her lips in a forced smile.

"You never know your luck!" she cried. "So it don't do to be down on it.

Come on, dearie. Now then for the tea."

She poured it out, and Julian drew up to the table. Already he felt oddly at home in this poor room, with this poor life, into which he longed to bring a little hope, a little safety. Jessie sprang to his knees, and thence, naughtily, to the table, snuffling towards the plate of toast.

The lady drew it away and approached it to her nose by turns, playfully.

"She is a funny one," she said. "Is your tea right, dearie?"

"Perfect," said Julian. "Is my toast right?"

"Right as ninepence, and righter."

She munched.

"I like you," she said. "You're a gentleman."

She spoke naturally, without coquetry. It was a fine experience for her to be treated with that thing some women never know--respect. She warmed under it and glistened.

"We must be friends," Julian said.

"Pals. Yes. Have some more sugar?"

She jumped two lumps into his cup, and laughed quite gaily when the tea spouted over into the saucer. And they chatted on, and fed Jessie into joy and peace. Gradually Julian drew the conversation round to the photographs. The lady was expansive. She gave short histories of some of the men, summing them up with considerable shrewdness, kodaking their characters with both humour and sarcasm. Julian and she progressed along the mantelpiece together. Presently they arrived at the old lady with the Bible.

"And this?" Julian said.

The lady's fund of spirits was suddenly exhausted.