Sparrows Part 79

"Two guineas a week!"

"You've perfec' liberty to bring in who you like."

Mavis stared at her in astonishment.

"An' no questions asked, my dear."

Mavis wondered if the woman were in her right senses.

"I thought you'd jump at it," she went on. "I could see it when you saw the bed. The gentlemen like a nice clean bed."

Mavis understood; clutching her bag, she walked to the door.

"Not goin' to 'ave 'em?" screeched the landlady.

Mavis hurried on.

"Guinea a week and what extries you like. There!"

Mavis ran down the stairs.

"Won't they give you more than five shillings?" shouted the woman over the banisters as Mavis reached the door.

"I s'pose your beat is the Park," the woman shrieked, as Mavis ran down the steps.

Mavis ran a few yards, to stop short. She trembled from head to foot; tears scalded her eyes, which, with a great effort, she kept back. She was crushed with humiliation and shame. At once she thought of the loved one, and how deeply he would resent the horrible insult to which his tenderly loved little Mavis had been subjected. But there was no time for vain imaginings. With the landlady's foul insinuations ringing in her ears, she set about looking for a house where she might get what she wanted. The rain, that had been threatening all day, began to fall, but her umbrella was at Paddington. She was not very far from the Tottenham Court Road. Fearful of catching cold in her present condition, she hurried to this thoroughfare, where she thought she might get shelter. When she got there, she found that places of vantage were already occupied to their utmost capacity by umbrellaless folk like herself. She hurried along till she came to what, from the pseudocla.s.sic appearance of the structure, seemed a place of dissenting worship. She ran up the steps to the lobby, where she found the shelter she required. A door leading to the chapel was open, which enabled her to overhear the conclusion of the sermon. As the preacher's words fell on her ears, she listened intently, and edged nearer to the door communicating with the chapel. His message seemed meant expressly for her. It told her that, despite anything anyone might presume to urge to the contrary, G.o.d was ever the loving Father of His children; that He rejoiced when they rejoiced, suffered when they sorrowed; however much the faint-hearted might be led to believe that the world was ruled by remorseless law, that much faith and a little patience would enable even the veriest sinner to see how the seemingly cruellest inflictions of Providence were for the sufferer's ultimate good, and, therefore, happiness.

Presently, when the rain stopped, Mavis came away feeling mentally refreshed. As is usual with those in trouble, she applied anything pertinent she read or heard about sorrow to herself. The fact of her intercourse with Perigal having been in the nature of deadly sin did not trouble her so much as might have been expected. She felt that G.o.d would understand, and believed that to know all was to forgive all.

Also, try as she might, she could not see that her sin was of such a deadly nature as it is made out to be by the Church. It seemed that her surrender to her lover at Polperro had been the natural and inevitable consequence of her love for him, and that, if the one were condemned, so also should love be itself, inasmuch as it was plainly responsible for what had happened. Now, she was glad to learn, on the authority of the pulpit, that, however much she suffered from her present extremity, it would be for her ultimate happiness.

She started afresh to look for a lodging. She needed all the resolution she could muster. Repulsive-looking foreign women opened most of the doors at which she knocked, whilst surly-looking men hovered in the background.

Mavis wished she had started earlier for Hammersmith, to see what she could find there. At last she went into a chemist's shop which she saw open, to ask if she could be recommended to any rooms. A burly, blotchy-faced, bearded man stood behind the bottle-laden counter. Mavis stated her wants.

"Married?" asked the man.

"Y--yes--but I'm living by myself for the present."

"Of course. But your husband would visit you," remarked the man with a leer.

Mavis looked at him in surprise.

"Well, we'll call it your husband," suggested the chemist.

Mavis walked from the shop.

It seemed that everyone was in league to insult her. Her heart was heavy with grief. She could not help thinking how the presence of the loved one, a word of encouragement from him, would instantly dissipate her soreness of heart and growing physical exhaustion.

She gave up the idea of looking for rooms in this disreputable corner of London. Her only concern was to get lodging for the night, so that she could resume her quest on the morrow in a more likely part of the great city. She stopped a policeman and asked to be directed to a reasonable hotel. The man told her that she would find what she wanted in the Euston Road. She walked along this depressing and sordid thoroughfare, where what were once front gardens before comfortable houses were now waste s.p.a.ces, given over to the display of dilapidated signboards of strange and unfamiliar trades. Here she dragged herself up the steps of the hotels that abound in this road, to learn at each one she applied at that they were full for the night. If she had not been so tired, she would have wondered if they were speaking the truth, or if they divined her condition and did not consider her to be a respectable applicant. At the last at which she called, she was asked to write her name in the hotel book. She commenced to write Mavis Keeves, but remembered that she had decided to call herself Mrs Kenrick while in London. She crossed out what she had written, to subst.i.tute the name she had elected to bear. Whether or not this correction made the hotel people suspicious, she was soon informed that she could not be accommodated. Mavis, heartsore and weary, went out into the night. A different cla.s.s of person to the one that she had met earlier in the evening began to infest the streets. Bold-eyed women, dressed in cheap finery, appeared here and there, either singly or in pairs. The vague, yet familiar fear, which she had experienced when she began to look for rooms, again took possession of her with gradually increasing force.

She was soon on such familiar terms with this obsession, that she remembered when and how it had first originated in her mind. It was after her adventure with Mrs Hamilton and her chance meeting with the never-to-be-forgotten Mrs Ewer, when a horrid fear of London had possessed her soul. Now she saw, even plainer than before, the deep pitfalls and foul mora.s.ses which ever menace the feet of unprotected girls in London who have to earn their daily bread. If it were an effort for her to s.n.a.t.c.h a living from the great industrial machine when she was last in London, now, in her condition, it was practically hopeless to look for work. Mind and body were paralysed by a great fear. To add to her discomfiture, the rain again began to fall.

Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she walked up a pathway, running parallel with the road, which flanked a row of forlorn-looking houses.

Here she felt so faint that she was compelled to cling to the railings to save herself from falling. Two children pa.s.sed, one of whom carried a jug, who stopped to stare at her.

"Please!" called Mavis weakly, at which one of the children approached her.

"Can you tell me where I can get a room?"

"I'll ask fader," replied the child, who spoke with a German accent.

Mavis remembered little beyond waiting an eternity of suspense, and then of being a.s.sisted into a house, up a flight of stairs to a room where she sank on the nearest thing handy. She opened her frock to clutch, as if for protection, the ring Perigal had given her, and which she always wore suspended on her heart. Then she was overtaken by unconsciousness.

When she awoke, she rubbed her eyes again and again, whilst a horrible pungent smell affected her nostrils. She could scarcely believe that she had got to where she found herself. She saw by the morning light, which was feebly straggling into the room, that she was lying, fully dressed, on an untidy, dirty bed. The room looked so abjectly wretched that she sprang from her resting-place and attempted to draw the curtains, in order to take complete stock of her surroundings--attempted, because the dark, cheap cretonne, of which they were made, refused to move, their tops being nailed to the upper woodwork of the window by tintacks. She tried the second window (the room boasted two), with the same result, owing to a like cause. For her safety's sake, she was relieved to find that the room overlooked the Euston Road.

After turning back the chintz curtains, she looked about her. She had never been in such a truly awful-looking room before. She had never imagined that any four walls could enclose such hopeless, dejected desolation as she saw. A round table stood in the middle of the carpetless room. There were several other tables about this one. Upon one stood a basin, in which was water that had some time ago been used for the ablutionary purposes of someone sadly in need of a wash. Thick rims of dirt encrusted the sides of the basin where the water had not reached. The looking gla.s.s was pimpled with droppings from lighted candles. Upon a further table was a tumbler filthy to look upon. The bed was painted iron; it wanted a leg, and to supply the deficiency a grocer's box had been thrust underneath. The blankets of the bed (which contained two pillows) were as grubby as the sheets. The pillows beside the one on which she had slept bore the impress of somebody's head.

Over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and floor, lay a thick deposit of dust and grime. Misspelt lewd words were fingered on the dirt of the window-panes. The horror of the room seemed to grip Mavis by the throat. She coughed, to sicken at a foul feeling in her mouth, which seemed to be gritty from the unclean air of the room. This atmosphere was not only as if the windows had not been opened for years; it was as if it had been inhaled over and over again by alcohol-breathing lungs; also, the horrid memories of sordid l.u.s.ts, of unnumbered b.e.s.t.i.a.l acts, seemed to lie heavy on the polluted fuggy air.

To get away from the all-pervading stench, Mavis hurried to the door.

This, she could not help noticing, hung loosely on its hinges; also, that about the doorplate were innumerable lock marks and screw holes, as if the door had been furnished with fastenings, times out of number, till the rotten wood refused to support any more. Mavis pulled open the door and walked on to a carpetless landing and stairs. She stamped with her foot, but this not attracting any attention, she called aloud. Her voice echoed as if she were in a vault. After some time, she heard a door unbolted, and a rough, unkempt man came up the stairs.

"How much?" asked Mavis.

"Five shillin'."

"For that?"

"Five shillin'," repeated the man doggedly.

Mavis did not further argue the point, as, when she opened her mouth, the stench of the room she had quitted seemed to fasten on her throat.

She paid the money and was about to fly down the stairs. Then she remembered her precious bag. Again holding her nose, she hurried back into the room where she had unwittingly pa.s.sed the night. The bag was nowhere to be seen, although its outline was to be easily traced in the dust on the table where she had put it.

"My bag! my bag!" she cried.

"Vot bag?"

"The one I had last night. Here's its mark upon the table."

"I know nod.i.n.ks about it," replied the man, as he disappeared down the stairs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

Mavis' heart seemed to stop. She knew the bag contained her trinkets, her reserve capital of twenty-three pounds, Perigal's letters, her powder-puff, and other feminine odds and ends. What she could not remember was if she had posted her note to Perigal, which contained the money she was returning to him. As much as her consternation would permit, she rapidly pa.s.sed over in her mind everything that had happened since she had left the restaurant in Oxford Street. For the life of her, she could not recall going into a postoffice to purchase the stamp of which she had been in need. Her next thought was the quickest way to get back her property, at which the word police immediately suggested itself. Once outside the house, she made careful note of its number; she then walked quickly till she came upon a policeman, to whom she told her trouble.