Sparrows Part 14

"Taste and try: you've only to go right to the bottom of the 'ouse.

Excuse me."

Here the swarthy young woman leaned so far out of the window that Mavis feared she would lose her balance and fall into the street. Then Mavis heard footsteps and the clatter of a pail in the pa.s.sage. The door opened, and the misshapen person who had been rude to her when she was waiting downstairs appeared.

"Here she is," called this person, at which two men entered with Mavis's trunks; these they dumped on the floor.

"Thank you," said Mavis.

"Heavy work, miss," remarked one of the men.

"Be off with you," cried the servant.

"Now then, beauty," laughed the other of the men.

"Be off with you; none of your cadging here."

"But they're heavy, and if--" began Mavis.

"It's what they're paid for. Be off with you," snorted the servant.

"There he is!" cried the girl who had been leaning out of the window.

"Motor and all?" asked Mavis.

"Eh! Oh, he hasn't brought the motor; we'll 'ave to take a 'an'som.

Good-bye for the present. My name's Impett--Rose Impett."

"Mine's Keeves," said Mavis, thinking she may as well be agreeable to those she had to live with. She then went to her boxes and saw that the odd-looking servant had uncorded them.

"Thank you," said Mavis.

"I dessay it's more than you deserve," remarked the servant.

"I daresay," a.s.sented Mavis.

"Let's have a look at you."

"What?"

"You needn't be jealous of me; let's have a look."

The servant urged Mavis to stand by the flaring gas, where she looked her up and down, Mavis thought maliciously.

"H'm! Wonder how long it'll be before I have to pray for you?"

"Eh!"

"Same as I has to for the others."

"I don't understand."

"Look on the bed; see 'ow they leave their clothes, and such clothes.

That's what their souls is like."

"Indeed!" said Mavis, scarcely knowing what to say.

"All the same, I prays for them, though what G.o.d A'mighty thinks o' me for all the sinners I pray for, I can't think. Supper's downstairs, if you can eat it; and my name's Bella."

Bella left the room. Mavis thought that she rather liked her than otherwise, despite her rudeness earlier in the evening. Mavis unpacked her more immediate requirements before seeking supper in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

She descended to the floor on which was the pa.s.sage communicating with the street, but the staircase leading to the supper-room was unlit, therefore she was compelled to grope her way down; as she did so, she became aware of a disgusting smell which reminded Mavis of a time at Brandenburg College when the drains went wrong and had to be put right.

She then found herself in a carpetless pa.s.sage lit by gas flaming in a wire cage; here, the smell of drains was even more offensive than before. There was a half-open door on the right, from which came the clatter of knives and plates. Mavis, believing that this was the supper-room, went in.

She found herself in a large, low room, the walls of which were built with glazed brick. Upon the left, the further wall receded as it approached the ceiling, to admit, in daytime, the light that straggled from the thick gla.s.s let into the pavement, on which the footsteps of the pa.s.sers-by were ceaselessly heard. The room was filled by a long table covered by a scanty cloth, at which several pasty-faced, unwholesome-looking young women were eating bread and cheese, the while they talked in whispers or read from journals, books, or novelettes. At the head of the table sat a dark, elderly little woman, who seemed to be all nose and fuzzy hair: this person was not eating. Several of the girls looked with weary curiosity at Mavis, while they mentally totted up the price she had paid for her clothes; when they reached their respective totals, they resumed their meal.

"Miss Keeth?" said the dark little woman at the head of the table, who spoke with a lisp.

"Yes," replied Mavis.

"If you want thupper, you'll find a theat."

"Thank you."

Mavis sank wearily in the first empty chair. "Dawes'" had already got on her nerves. She was sick at heart with all she had gone through; from the depths of her being she resented being considered on an equality with the two young women she had met and those she saw about her. She closed her eyes as she tried to take herself, for a brief moment, from her surroundings. She was recalled to the present by a plate, on which was a hunk of bread and a piece of cheese, being thrust beneath her nose. She was hungry when she came downstairs; now, appet.i.te had left her. Her gorge rose at the pasty-faced girls, the brick-walled cellar, the unwholesome air, and the beady-eyed little woman seated at the head of the table. She thought it better, if only for her health's sake, to try and swallow something. She put a piece of cheese in her mouth. Mavis, by now, was an authority on cheap cheese; she knew all the varieties of flavour to be found in the lesser-priced cheeses. Ordinarily, she had been enabled to make them palatable with the help of vinegar, mustard, or even with an onion; but tonight none of these resources were at hand with which to make appetising the soapy compound on her plate. Miss Striem, the dark little woman at the head of the table, noted her disinclination to tackle the cheese.

"You can have anything exthra if you care to pay for it," she remarked.

"What have you?" asked Mavis.

"Ham, bloater, or chicken pathte, and an exth.e.l.lent brand of thardines."

"I'll try the ham paste," said Mavis.

An opened tin of ham paste was put before her. Mavis noticed that the other girls were looking at her out of the corners of their eyes.

She put some of the paste on to her plate; it looked unusual, even for potted meat; but ascribing its appearance to the effect of the light, Mavis spread some on a bit of bread and put this in her mouth. Only for a moment; the next, she had removed it with her handkerchief. One of the girls t.i.ttered. Miss Striem looked sharply in this person's direction.

"I can't eat this: it's bad!" cried Mavis.

"Perhaps you would prefer a thardine."

"Anything, so long as it's fit to eat."

Some of the girls raised their eyebrows at this remark. All of them were more or less frightened of Miss Striem, the housekeeper.

An opened tin of sardines was set before Mavis. She had only to glance inside to see that its contents were mildewed.

"Thanks," she said, pushing the tin away.