Sparrows Part 46

"Thank you very much. Would you kindly show me the way out?"

"You've forgotten something, ain't yer?"

"What?"

"A little present for me."

"I've no money on me: really I haven't."

"Go on!"

"See!" cried Mavis, as she turned out the pockets of her cloak.

To her great surprise, many gold coins rolled on to the floor.

"Gawd in 'Eaven!" cried Miss Ewer, as she stooped to pick them up.

Mavis wondered how they had got there, till it occurred to her how Windebank, pitying her poverty, must have taken the opportunity of putting the money in her pocket when he insisted upon getting and helping her into her coat at the restaurant.

She at once told herself that she could not touch a penny piece of it, indeed the touch of it would seem as if it burnt her fingers. Her present concern was to get away as far from the money as possible.

"'Ow much can I 'ave?" cried Miss Ewer, who was on her knees greedily picking up the coins.

"All."

"All? Gawd's trewth!"

"Every bit. Only let me go; at once."

"'Ere, if you're so generous, ain't you got no more?" said Miss Ewer, the while her eyes shone greedily.

"I'll see," said Mavis, as she thoroughly turned out her pockets.

Another gold piece fell out; also, a bunch of violets.

"Vilets!" laughed Miss Ewer.

"Don't touch those. No one else shall have them," cried Mavis, as she wildly s.n.a.t.c.hed them.

"You're welcome to that rubbage, and as you've given me all this, in return I'll give you a tip as is worth a king's money box."

"You needn't bother."

"You shall 'ave it. I've never told a soul. It's 'ow you can earn a living on the streets like me, and keep, like me, as good a maid as any lady married at St George's, 'Anover Square."

"Thank you, but--".

"Listen; listen; listen! It's dress quiet, pick up soft-looking gents, refuse drink, and pitch 'em a Sunday school yarn," said Miss Ewer impressively.

"But--".

"It's four pound a week I'm giving away. Tell 'em it's the first time you're going wrong; talk about your dead 'usband in 'is grave, an' the innocent little lovely baby girl in 'er cot (the gentlemen like baby girls better'n boys), as prayed for 'er mummy before she went to sleep.

Then, squeeze a tear an' see if that don't touch their 'earts an' their pockets."

"Let me go! Let me go!" cried Mavis, horrified at the woman's communication.

"I thought I'd astonish you," said Miss Ewer complacently.

"Let me go. This way?"

"Too grateful to thenk me! Never mind; leave it till nex' time we meet.

You can thenk me then. I thought I'd take your breath away."

"Let me out! Let me out!" cried Mavis, as she fumbled at the chain of the front door.

"Lemme. Good night, and Gawd bless yer," said Miss Ewer, furtively counting the gold pieces in her pocket.

Mavis did not reply.

"Thought I'd astonish yer. Fer Gawd's sake, don't whisper what I told you to a livin' soul. An' work 'ard and keep virtuous like me. Before Gawd, I'm as good a maid--"

These were the last words Mavis heard as she hurried away from Miss Ewer.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SURRENDER

Four weeks later, Mavis got out of the train at Melkbridge. She breathed a sigh of relief when her feet touched the platform; her one regret was that she was not leaving London further away than the hundred miles which separated Melkbridge from the metropolis. It seemed to her as if the great city were exclusively peopled with Mr. Orgles', Mrs Hamiltons, Miss Ewers, and their like. Ignorant of London's kindness, she had only thought for its wickedness. With the exception of one incident, she had resolved to forget as much as possible of her existence since she had left Brandenburg College; also, to see what happiness she could wrest from life in the capacity of clerk in the Melkbridge boot manufactory, a position she owed to her long delayed appeal to Mr Devitt for employment. The one incident that she cared to dwell upon was her meeting with Windebank and the kindly concern he had exhibited in her welfare. The morning following upon her encounter with him, she had long debated, without arriving at any conclusion, whether she had done well, or otherwise, in leaving him as she had done. As the days pa.s.sed, if things seemed inclined to go happily with her, she was glad that she had put an end to their budding friendship, to regret her behaviour when vexed by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Her few hours' acquaintance with Windebank had ruffled the surface of the deep, unexplored waters of the girl's pa.s.sion, which, rightly or wrongly, caused her to surrender her personal preferences and to regard the matter entirely from the man's point of view. This self-abas.e.m.e.nt was, largely, the result of the girl's natural instincts where her affections were concerned; these had been reinforced by the sentimental pabulum which enters so much into the fiction that is devoured by girls of Mavis' age and habit of thought. She argued how it would be criminally selfish of her to presume on his boyish attachment of the old days, which might lead him to believe that it was a duty for him to extend to his old-time playmate the lifelong protection of marriage.

Her lack of personal vanity was such that it never once occurred to her that she was eminently desirable in his eyes; that he wished for nothing better than for her to bestow herself, together with her affections, upon him for lifelong appreciation. She resolved to stifle her inclinations in order that the man's career should not suffer from legal companionship with a portionless, friendless girl.

Her unselfish resolutions faltered somewhat when, in resuming the weary search for chances of employment in the advertising columns of the newspapers, she came across the following, which was every day repeated for the remainder of the week:--

"To M...s, who foolishly lost herself in the fog on the night of last Thursday. She is earnestly urged to write to me, care of Taylor & Wintle, 43 Lincoln's Inn Fields. Do not let foolish scruples delay you from letting me hear from you."

She had got as far as writing a reply, but could never quite bring herself to post it.

A miserable Sunday had urged her to send it to its destination; the chance purchase of a Sunday paper decided the letter's, and, incidentally, her own fate. In it she read how, owing to threatened disturbance on the Indian frontier, Sir Archibald Windebank, D.S.O., would shortly leave Aldershot by S.S. Arabia with a reinforcing draft of the Rifle Brigade.

Mavis tore up her letter, to write another, which she addressed to the steamer which was to carry him the greater part of his long journey.