Sparrows Part 81

Mavis promised that she would.

"How long have you been married?"

"Not long. Three months."

"Any baby?"

"After three months!" blushed Mavis.

"Working so at 'Poulter's' makes one forget them things. No offence,"

apologised Miss Nippett.

"Good-bye. I'll look in again soon."

"If you 'ave any babies, see they're taught dancing at 'Poulter's.'"

Between Notting Hill and Wormwood Scrubbs lies a vast desert of human dwellings. Fringing Notting Hill they are inhabited by lower middle-cla.s.s folk, but, by scarcely perceptible degrees, there is a declension of so-called respectability, till at last the frankly working-cla.s.s district of Latimer Road is reached. Baynham Street was one of the ill-conditioned, down-at-heel little roads which tenaciously fought an uphill fight with encroaching working-cla.s.s thoroughfares.

Its inhabitants referred with pride to the fact that Baynham Street overlooked a railway, which view could be obtained by craning the neck out of window at risk of dislocation. A brawny man was standing before the open door of No. 11 as Mavis walked up the steps.

"Is Bill coming?" asked the man, as he furtively lifted his hat.

Mavis looked surprised.

"To chuck out this 'ere lodger for Mrs. Scatchard wo' won't pay up," he explained.

"I know nothing about it," said Mavis.

"Ain't you Mrs Dancer, Bill's new second wife?"

Mavis explained that she had come to see Miss Meakin, at which the man walked into the pa.s.sage and knocked at the first door on the left, as he called out:

"Lady to see you!"

"Who?" asked Miss Meakin, as she displayed a fraction of a scantily attired person through the barely opened door.

"Have you forgotten me?" asked Mavis, as she entered the pa.s.sage.

"Dear Miss Keeves! So good of you to call!" cried Miss Meakin, not a little affectedly, so Mavis thought, as she raised her hand high above her head to shake hands with her friend in a manner that was once considered fashionable in exclusive Bayswater circles.

She then opened the door wide enough for Mavis to edge her way in.

Mavis found herself in an apartment that was normally a pretentiously furnished drawing-room. Just now, a lately vacated bed was made up on the sofa; a recently used washing basin stood on a chair; whilst Miss Meakin's una.s.sumed garments strewed the floor.

"And what's happened to you all this long time?" asked Miss Meakin, as she sat on the edge of a chair in the manner of one receiving a formal call.

"To begin with, I'm married," said Mavis hurriedly, at which piece of information her friend's face fell.

"Any family?" she asked anxiously.

"N-no--not yet."

"I could have married Mr Napper a month ago--in fact he begged me on his knees to," bridled Miss Meakin.

"Why didn't you?"

"We're going to his aunt's at Littlehampton for the honeymoon, but I'm certainly not going till it's the season there."

Mavis smiled.

"Would you?" asked Miss Meakin.

"Not if that sort of thing appealed to me."

When Miss Meakin had explained that she had got up late because she had been to a ball the night before, Mavis told her the reason of her visit, at which Miss Meakin declared that Mr Napper was the very man to help her. Mavis asked for his address. While her friend was writing it down, a violent commotion was heard descending the stairs and advancing along the pa.s.sage. Mavis rightly guessed this was caused by the forcible ejection of the lodger who had failed with his rent.

To Mavis' surprise, Miss Meakin did not make any reference to this disturbance, but went on talking as if she were living in a refined atmosphere which was wholly removed from possibility of violation.

"There's one thing I should tell you," said Miss Meakin, as Mavis rose to take her leave. "Mr Napper's employer, Mr Keating, besides being a solicitor, sells pianos. Mr N. is expecting a lady friend, who is thinking of buying one 'on the monthly,' so mind you explain what you want."

"I won't forget," said Mavis, making an effort to go. But as voices raised in angry altercation could be heard immediately outside the front door, Miss Meakin detained Mavis, asking, in the politest tone, advice on the subject of the most fashionable material to wear at a select dinner party.

"I've quite given up 'Browning,'" she told Mavis, "he's so old-fashioned to up-to-date people. Now I'm going to be Mrs Napper, when the Littlehampton season comes round, I'm going in exclusively for smartness and fashion."

Mavis making as if she would go, and the disturbance not being finally quelled, Miss Meakin begged Mavis to stay to lunch. She repeatedly insisted on the word lunch, as if it conveyed a social distinction in the speaker.

Mavis had got as far as the door, when it burst open and an elderly woman of considerable avoirdupois broke into the room, to sink helplessly upon a flimsy chair which creaked ominously with its burden.

Miss Meakin introduced this person to Mavis as her aunt, Mrs Scatchard, and reminded the latter how Mavis had rescued her niece from the clutches of the bogus hospital nurse in Victoria Street so many months back.

"That you should call today of all days!" moaned the perspiring Mrs Scatchard.

"Why not today?" asked her niece innocently.

"The day I'm disgraced to the neighbourhood by a 'visitor' being turned out of doors."

"I knew nothing of it," protested Miss Meakin.

"And Mr Scatchard being a government official, as you might say."

"Indeed!" remarked Mavis, who was itching to be off.

"Almost a pillar of the throne, as you might say," moaned the poor woman.

"True enough," murmured her niece.

"A man who, as you might say, has had the eyes of Europe upon him."

"Ah!" sighed Miss Meakin.