Sparrows Part 95

"Good morning."

"Say I made it four and six?"

Mavis made no reply, at which Mrs Bale sat down and began to weep.

"What about the trouble and expense of coming all the way here?" asked Mrs Bale.

"I never asked you to come."

"Well, I shan't leave this room till you give me six-pence for refreshment to get me to the station."

"I won't give it to you; I'll give it to Mrs Gowler."

"An' a lot of it I'd see."

Mrs Gowler, who had been listening at the door, came into the room and demanded to know what Mrs Bale meant.

Then followed a stream of recriminations, in which each accused the other of a Newgate calendar of crime. Mavis at last got rid of them by giving them threepence each.

Three nights before Mavis left Durley Road, she was awakened by the noise of Jill's subdued growling. Thinking she heard someone outside her room, she went stealthily to the door; she opened it quickly, to find Mrs Gowler on hands and knees before her box, which she was trying to open with a bunch of keys.

"What are you doing?" asked Mavis.

The woman entered into a confused explanation, which Mavis cut short by saying:

"I've heard about your tricks. If I have any more bother from you, I shall go straight from here to the police station."

"Gawd's truth! Why did I ever take you in?" grumbled Mrs Gowler as she waddled downstairs. "I might 'ave known you was a cat by the colour of your 'air."

The time came when Mavis was able to leave Durley Road. Whither she was going she knew not. She paid her bill, refusing to discuss the many extras which Mrs Gowler tried to charge, had her box taken by a porter to the cloak room at the station, dressed her darling baby, said good-bye to Piggy and went downstairs, to shudder as she walked along the pa.s.sage to the front door. She had not walked far, when an ordinary-looking man came up, who barely lifted his hat.

"Can I speak to you, m'am?"

"What is it?"

"You have just left 9 Durley Road?"

"Y-yes."

"I'm a detective officer. I'm engaged in watching the house. Have you any complaint to make?"

"I don't wish to, thank you."

"We know all sorts of things go on, but it's difficult to get evidence."

"I don't care to give you any because--because--"

"I understand, ma'm," said the man kindly. "I know what trouble is."

Mavis was feeling so physically and mentally low with all she had gone through, that the man's kindly words made the tears course down her cheeks.

She wiped them away, resettled the baby in her arms, and walked sorrowfully up the road, followed by the sympathetic glance of the plain-clothes detective.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

PIMLICO

Mavis found a resting-place for her tired body in the unattractive district of Pimlico, which is the last halting-place of so many of London's young women before the road to perdition is irretrievably taken. Mavis had purposed going to Hammersmith, but the fates which decide these matters had other views. On the tedious underground journey from New Cross, she felt so unwell that she got out at Victoria to seek refuge in the ladies' cloak room. The woman in charge, who was old, wizened, and despondent, gave Mavis some water and held her baby the while she lamented her misfortunes: these were embodied in the fact that "yesterday there had only been three 'washies' and one torn dress"; also, that "in the whole of the last month there had been but three 'faints' and six ladies the worse for drink." Acting on the cloak-room attendant's advice, Mavis sought harbourage in one of the seemingly countless houses which, in Pimlico, are devoted to the letting of rooms. But Mavis was burdened with a baby; moreover, she could pay so little that no one wished to accommodate her. Directly she stated her simple wants, together with the sum that she could afford to pay, she was, in most cases, bundled into the street with scant consideration for her feelings. After two hours' fruitless search, she found refuge in a tiny milk-shop in a turning off the Vauxhall Bridge Road, where she bought herself a scone and a gla.s.s of milk; she also took advantage of the shop's seclusion to give her baby much-needed nourishment. Ultimately, she got a room in a straight street, flanked by stucco-faced high houses, which ran out of Lupus Street. Halverton Street has an atmosphere of its own; it suggests shabby vice, unclean living, as if its inhabitants' lives were mysterious, furtive deviations from the normal. Mavis, for all her weariness, was not insensible to the suggestions that Halverton Street offered; but it was a hot July day; she had not properly recovered from her confinement; she felt that if she did not soon sit down she would drop in the street. She got a room for four shillings a week at the fifth house at which she applied in this street. The door had been opened by a tall, thin, flat-chested girl, whose pasty face was plentifully peppered with pimples. The only room to let was on the ground floor at the back of the house; it was meagre, poorly furnished, but clean. Mavis paid a week's rent in advance and was left to her own devices. For all the presence of her baby and Jill, Mavis felt woefully alone. She bought, and made a meal of bloater paste, bread, b.u.t.ter, and a bottle of stout, to feel the better for it. She then telephoned to the station master at New Cross, to whom she gave the address to which he could forward her trunk. On her return from the shop where she had telephoned, she went into a grocer's, where, for twopence, she purchased a small packing case. With this she contrived to make a cradle for her baby, by knocking out the projecting nails with a hammer borrowed from the pimply-faced woman at her lodging. If the extemporised cradle lacked adornment, it was adorable by reason of the love and devotion with which she surrounded her little one. Her box arrived in the course of the evening, when Mavis set about making the room look as homelike as possible. This done, she made further inroads on her midday purchases of bread and bloater paste, washed, fed her baby, and said her prayers before undressing for the night. At ten o'clock, mother and child were asleep.

Mavis had occupied her room for some days before she learned anything of the house in which she lodged. It was kept by a Mr, Mrs, and Miss Gussle, who lived in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It was Miss Gussle who had opened the door to Mavis on the day she came. Mrs Gussle was never seen. Mavis heard from one source that she was always drunk; from another, that she was a teetotaller and spent her time at devotions; from a third, that she neither drank nor prayed, but pa.s.sed the day in reading novelettes.

But it was Mr Gussle who appealed the most to Mavis's sense of character. He was a wisp of a bald-headed, elderly man, who was invariably dressed in a rusty black frockcoat suit, a not too clean d.i.c.ky, and a made-up black bow tie, the ends of which were tucked beneath the flaps of a turned down paper collar. He had no business or trade, but did the menial work of the house. He made the beds, brought up the meals and water, laid the tables and emptied the slops; but, while thus engaged, he never made any remark, and when spoken to replied in monosyllables. The ground floor front was let to a third-rate Hebraic music-hall artiste, who perfunctorily attended his place of business. The second and third floors, and most of the top rooms, were let to good-looking young women, who were presumed to belong to the theatrical profession. If they were correctly described, there was no gainsaying their devotion to their calling. They would leave home well before the theatre doors were open to the public, with their faces made up all ready to go on the stage; also, they were apparently so reluctant to leave the scene of their labours that they would commonly not return till the small hours. The top front room was rented by an author, who made a precarious living by writing improving stories for weekly and monthly journals and magazines. Whenever the postman's knock was heard at the door, it was invariably followed by the appearance of the author in the pa.s.sage, often in the scantiest of raiment, to discover whether the post had brought him any luck.

Although his stories were the delight of the more staid among his readers, the writer was on the best of terms with the "theatrical"

young women, he spending most of his time in their company. The lodgers at Mrs Gussle's were typical of the inhabitants of Halverton Street.

And if a house influences the natures of those who dwell within its walls, how much more does the character of tenants find expression in the appearance of the place they inhabit? Hence the shabbiness and decay which Halverton Street suggested.

Mavis heard from Perigal at infrequent intervals, when he would write sc.r.a.ppy notes inquiring after her health, and particularly after his child. Once, he sent a sovereign, asking Mavis to have the boy photographed and to send him a copy. Mavis did as she was asked. The photographs cost eight shillings. Although she badly wanted a few shillings to get her boots soled and heeled, she returned the money which was over after paying for the photographs, to Perigal. She was resolved that no sordid question of money should soil their relationship, however attenuated this might become.

Much of Mavis's time was taken up with her baby. She washed, dressed, undressed, and took out her little one, duties which took up a considerable part of each day. From lack of means she was compelled to wash her own and the baby's body-linen, which she dried by suspending from cords stretched across the room. All these labours were an aspect of maternity which she had never encountered in books. Much of the work was debasing and menial; its performance left her weak and irritable; she believed that it was gradually breaking the little spirit she had brought from Mrs Gowler's nursing home. When she recalled the glowing periods she had chanced upon in her reading, which eulogised the supreme joys of motherhood, she supposed that they had been penned by writers with a sufficient staff of servants and with means that made a formidable laundry bill of no account. She wondered how working-cla.s.s women with big families managed, who, in addition to attending to the wants of their children, had all the work of the house upon their hands. Mavis's spare time was filled by the answering of advertis.e.m.e.nts in the hope of getting sorely needed work; the sending of these to their destination cost money for postage stamps, which made sad inroads on her rapidly dwindling funds. But time and money were expended in vain. The address from which she wrote was a poor recommendation to possible employers. She could not make personal application, as she dared not leave her baby for long at a stretch. Sometimes, her lover's letters would not bring her the joy that they once occasioned; they affected her adversely, leaving her moody and depressed. Conversely, when she did not hear from Melkbridge for some days, she would be cheerful and light-hearted, when she would spend glad half-hours in reading the advertis.e.m.e.nts of houses to let and deciding which would suit her when she was married to Perigal. Sometimes, when burdened with care, she would catch sight of her reflection in the gla.s.s, to be not a little surprised at the strange, latent beauty which had come into her face. Maternity had invested her features with a surpa.s.sing dignity and sweetness, which added to the large share of distinction with which she had originally been endowed. At the same time, she noticed with a sigh that sorrow had sadly chastened the joyous light-heartedness which formerly found constant expression in her eyes.

Mavis had been at Mrs Gussle's about three weeks when she made the acquaintance of one of the "theatrical" young women upstairs. They had often met in the pa.s.sage, when the girl had smiled sympathetically at Mavis. One afternoon, when the latter was feeling unusually depressed, a knock was heard at her door. She cried "Come in," when the girl opened the door a few inches to say:

"May I?"

"I didn't know it was you," remarked Mavis, distressed at her poverty being discovered.

"I came to ask if I could do anything for you," said the girl.

"That's very nice of you. Do come in."

The girl came in and stayed till it was time for her to commence the elaborate dressing demanded by her occupation. Mavis made her some tea, and the girl (who was called "Lil") prevailed upon her hostess to accept cigarettes. If the girl had been typical of her cla.s.s, Mavis would have had nothing to do with her; but although Lil made a brave show of cynicism and gay worldliness, Mavis's keen wits perceived that these were a.s.sumed in order to conceal the girl's secret resentment against her habit of life. Mavis, also, saw that the girl's natural kindliness of heart and refined instincts ent.i.tled her to a better fate than the one which now gripped her. Lil was particularly interested in Mavis's baby. She asked continually about him; she sought him with her eyes when talking to Mavis, conduct that inclined the latter in her favour.

When Lil was going she asked:

"May I come again?"

"Why not?" asked Mavis.

"I didn't know I--I--So long," cried Lil, as she glanced in the direction of the baby.

On the occasion of her next visit, which took place two afternoons later, Lil asked:

"May I nurse your baby?" to add, as Mavis hesitated, "I promise I won't kiss him."

Mavis consented, greatly to Lil's delight, who played with the baby for the rest of the afternoon.