A WEEK had elapsed and Victoria was beginning to feel the strain. She
looked out from the window into the little street where fine rain fell
gently as if it had decided to do so for ever. It was deserted, save by
a cat who shivered and crouched under the archway of the mews. Sometimes
a horse stirred. Through the open window the hot alcaline smell of the
animals filtered slowly.
Victoria had found her lodgings. They were not quite the ideal, but she
had not seen the ideal and this little den in Portsea Place was not
without its charms. Her room, for the 'rooms' had turned from the plural
into the singular, was comfortable enough. It occupied the front of the
second floor in a small house. It had two windows, from which, by
craning out a little, the trees of Connaught Square could be seen
standing out like black skeletons against a white house. Opposite was
the archway of the mews out of which came most of the traffic of the
street. Under it too was the mart where the landladies who have invaded
the little street exchange notes on their lodgers and boast of their
ailments.
Victoria inspected her domain. She had a very big bed, a little inclined
to creak; she had a table on a pedestal split so cunningly at the base
that she was always table-conscious when she sat by it; she had a
mahogany wash-stand, also on the triangular pedestal loved by the
pre-Morrisites, enriched by a white marble top and splasher. A large
armchair, smooth and rather treacherous, a small mahogany chest of
drawers, every drawer of which took a minute to pull out, some chairs of
no importance, completed her furniture. The carpet had been of all
colours and was now of none. The tablecloth was blue serge and would
have been serviceable if it had not contracted the habit of sliding off
the mahogany table whenever it was touched. Ugly as it was in every
detail, Victoria could not help thinking the room comfortable; its light
paper saved it and it was not over-loaded with pictures. It had escaped
with one text and the 'Sailor's Homecoming.' Besides it was restrained
in colour and solid: it was comfortable like roast beef and boiled
potatoes.
Victoria looked at all these things, at her few scattered books, the
picture of Dick and of a group of school friends, at some of her boots
piled in a corner. Then she listened and heard nothing. Once more she
was struck by the emptiness, the darkness around her. She was alone. She
had been alone a whole week, hardly knowing what to do. The excitement
of choosing lodgings over, she had found time hang heavy on her hands.
She had interminably walked in London, gazed at shop windows, read
hundreds of imbecile picture postcards on bookstalls, gone continually
to many places in omnibuses. She had stumbled upon South Kensington and
wandered in its catacombs of stone and brick. She had discovered
Hampstead, lost herself horribly near Albany Street; she had even
unexpectedly landed in the City where rushing mobs had hustled and
battered her.
Faithful to her resolve she had sedulously read the morning papers and
applied for several posts as housekeeper without receiving any answers.
She had realised that answering advertisements must be an art and had
become quite conscious that employment was not so easy to find as she
thought. Nobody seemed to want secretaries, except the limited
companies, about which she was not quite clear. As these mostly required
the investment of a hundred pounds or more she had not followed them up.
She paced up and down in her room. The afternoon was wearing. Soon the
man downstairs would come back and slam the door. A little later the
young lady in the City would gently enter the room behind hers and,
after washing in an unobtrusive manner, would discreetly leave for an
hour. Meanwhile nothing broke the silence, except the postman's knock
coming nearer and nearer along Portsea Place. It fell unheeded even on
her own front door, for Victoria's ears were already attuned to the
sound. It meant nothing.
She walked up and down nervously. She looked at herself in the glass.
She was pretty she thought, with her creamy skin and thick hair; her
eyes too were good; what a pity her chin was so thick. That's why Dicky
used to call her 'Towzer.' Poor old Dicky!
Shuffling footsteps rose up the stairs. Then a knock. At Victoria's
invitation, a woman entered. It was Mrs Bell, the landlady.
'Why, ma'am, you're sitting in the dark! Let me light the lamp,' cried
Mrs Bell, producing a large wooden box from a capacious front pocket.
She lit the lamp and a yellow glow filled the room, except the corners
which remained in darkness.
'Here's a letter for you, ma'am,' said Mrs Bell holding it out. As
Victoria took it, Mrs Bell beamed on her approvingly. She liked her new
lodger. She had already informed the gathering under the archway that
she was a real lady. She had a leaning for real ladies, having been a
parlourmaid previous to marrying a butler and eking out his income by
letting rooms.
'Thank you, Mrs Bell,' said Victoria, 'it was kind of you to come up.'
'Oh! ma'am, no trouble I can assure you,' said Mrs Bell, with a mixture
of respect and patronage. She wanted to be kind to her lodger, but she
found a difficulty in being kind to so real a lady.
Victoria saw the letter was from Edward and opened it hurriedly. Mrs
Bell hesitated, looking with her black dress, clean face and grey hair,
the picture of the respectable maid. Then she turned and struggled out
on her worn shoes, the one blot on her neatness. Victoria read the
letter, bending perilously over the lamp which smoked like a funnel. The
letter was quite short; it ran:
'My dear Victoria,--I am sorry I could not write before now, but I
wanted to have some news to give you. I am glad to say that I have
been able to interest the vicar on your behalf. He informs me that
if you will call at once on Lady Rockham, 7a Queen's Gate, South
Kensington, S.W., she may be in a position to find you a post in a
family of standing. He tells me she is most capable and kind. He is
writing to her. I shall come to London and see you soon.--Yours
affectionately,
EDWARD.'
Victoria fingered the letter lovingly. Perhaps she was going to have a
chance after all. It was good to have something to do. Indeed it seemed
almost too good to be true; she had vaguely resigned herself to
unemployment. Of course something would ultimately turn up, but the what
and when and how thereof were dangerously dim. She hardly cared to face
these ideas; indeed she dismissed them when they occurred to her with a
mixture of depression and optimism. Now, however, she was buoyant again.
The family of standing would probably pay well and demand little. It
would mean the theatres, the shops, flowers, the latest novels, no end
of nice things. A little work too, of course, driving in the Park with a
dear dowager with the most lovely white hair.
She ate an excellent and comparatively expensive dinner in an Oxford
Street restaurant and went to bed early for the express purpose of
making plans until she fell asleep. She was still buoyant in the
morning. Connaught Square looked its best and even South Kensington's
stony face melted into smiles when it caught sight of her. Lady
Rockham's was a mighty house, the very house for a family of standing.
Victoria walked up the four steep steps of the house where something of
her fate was to be decided. She hesitated for an instant and then, being
healthily inclined to take plunges, pulled the bell with a little more
vigour than was in her heart. It echoed tremendously. The quietude of
Queen's Gate stretching apparently for miles towards the south,
increased the terrifying noise. Victoria's anticipations were half
pleasureable, half fearsome; she felt on the brink of an adventure and
recalled the tremor with which she had entered the New Gaiety for the
first time. Measured steps came nearer and nearer from the inside of the
house; a shape silhouetted itself vaguely on the stained glass of the
door.
She mustered sufficient coolness to tell the butler that she wished to
see Lady Rockham, who was probably expecting her. As the large and solid
man preceded her along an interminable hall, she felt rather than saw
the thick Persian rug stretching along the crude mosaic of the floor,
the red paper on the walls almost entirely hidden by exceedingly large
and new pictures. Over her head a ponderous iron chandelier carrying
many electric lamps blotted out most of the staircase.
For some minutes she waited in the dining-room into which she had been
shown; for the butler was not at all certain, from a look at the
visitor's mourning, that she was quite entitled to the boudoir.
Victoria's square chin and steady eyes saved her, however, from having
to accommodate her spine to the exceeding perpendicularity of the
high-backed chairs in the hall. The dining-room, ridiculous thought,
reminded her of Curran's. In every particular it seemed the same. There
was the large table with the thick cloth of indefinite design and
colour. The sideboard too was there, larger and richer perhaps, of
Spanish mahogany not an inch of which was left bare of garlands of
flowers or archangelic faces. It carried Curran's looking-glass;
Curran's cruets were replaced by a number of cups which proclaimed that
Charles Rockham had once won the Junior Sculls, and more recently, the
spring handicap of the Kidderwick Golf Club. The walls were red as in
the hall and profusely decorated with large pictures representing
various generations having tea in old English gardens, decorously garbed
Roman ladies basking by the side of marble basins, and such like
subjects. Twelve chairs, all high backed and heavily groined, were
ranged round the walls, with the exception of a large carving chair,
standing at the head of the table, awaiting one who was clearly the head
of a household. Victoria was looking pensively at the large black marble
clock representing the temple in which the Lares and Penates of South
Kensington usually dwell, when the door opened and a vigorous rustle
entered the room.
'I am very glad to see you, Mrs Fulton,' remarked the owner of the
rustle. 'I have just received a letter from Mr Meaker, the vicar of
Cray. A most excellent man. I am sure we can do something for you.
Something quite nice.'
Victoria looked at Lady Rockham with shyness and surprise. Never had she
seen anything so majestic. Lady Rockham had but lately attained her
ladyhood by marrying a knight bachelor whose name was a household word
in the wood-paving world. She felt at peace with the universe. Her large
silk clad person was redolent with content. She did not vulgarly beam.
She merely was. On her capacious bosom large brooches rose and fell
rhythmically. Her face was round and smooth as her voice. Her eyes were
almost severely healthy.
'I am sure it is very kind of you,' said Victoria. 'I don't know anybody
in London, you see.'
'That will not matter; that will not matter at all,' said Lady Rockham.
'Some people prefer those whose connections live in the country, yes,
absolutely prefer them. Why, friends come to me every day, and they are
clamouring for country girls, absolutely clamouring. I do hope you are
not too particular. For things are difficult in London. So very
difficult.'
'Yes, I know,' murmured Victoria, thinking of her unanswered
applications. 'But I'm not particular at all. If you can find me
anything to do, Lady Rockham, I should be so grateful.'
'Of course, of course. Now let me see. A young friend of mine has just
started a poultry farm in Dorset. She is doing very well. Oh! very well.
Of course you want a little capital. But such a very nice occupation for
a young woman. The capital is often the difficulty. Perhaps you would
not be prepared to invest much?'
'No, I'm afraid I couldn't,' faltered Victoria, wondering at what figure
capital began.
'No, no, quite right,' purred Lady Rockham, 'I can see you are quite
sensible. It is a little risky too. Yet my young friend is doing well,
very well, indeed. Her sister is in Johannesburg. She went out as a
governess and now she is married to a mine manager. There are so few
girls in the country. Oh! he is quite a nice man, a little rough, I
should say, but quite suitable.'
Victoria wondered for a moment whether her Ladyship was going to suggest
sending her out to Johannesburg to marry a mine manager, but the
Presence resumed.
'No doubt you would rather stay in London. Things are a little difficult
here, but very pleasant, very pleasant indeed.'
'I don't mind things being difficult,' Victoria broke in, mustering a
little courage. 'I must earn my own living and I don't mind what I do;
I'd be a nursery governess, or a housekeeper, or companion. I haven't
got any degrees, I couldn't quite be a governess, but I'd try anything.'
'Certainly, certainly, I'm sure we will find something very nice for
you. I can't think of anybody just now but leave me your address. I'll
let you know as soon as I hear of anything.' Lady Rockham gently crossed
her hands over her waistband and benevolently smiled at her protegee.
Victoria wrote down her address and listened patiently to Lady Rockham
who discoursed at length on the imperfections of the weather, the
noisiness of London streets and the prowess of Charles Rockham on the
Kidderwick links. She felt conscious of having to return thanks for what
she was about to receive.
Lady Rockham's kindness persisted up to the door to which she showed
Victoria. She dismissed her with the Parthian shot that 'they would find
something for her, something quite nice.'
Victoria walked away; cold gusts of wind struck her, chilling her to the
bone, catching and furling her skirts about her. She felt at the same
time cheered and depressed. The interview had been inconclusive.
However, as she walked over the Serpentine bridge, under which the wind
was angrily ruffling the black water, a great wave of optimism came over
her; for it was late, and she remembered that in the Edgware Road, there
was a small Italian restaurant where she was about to lunch.
It was well for Victoria that she was an optimist and a good sleeper,
for November had waned into December before anything happened to disturb
the tenor of her life. For a whole fortnight she had heard nothing from
Lady Rockham or from Edward. She had written to Molly but had received
no answer. All day long the knocker fell with brutal emphasis upon the
doors of Portsea Place and brought her nothing. She did not think much
or hope much. She did nothing and spent little. Her only companion was
Mrs Bell, who still hovered round her mysterious lodger, so ladylike and
so quiet.
She passed hours sometimes at the window watching the stream of life in
Portsea Place. The stream did not flow very swiftly; its principal
eddies vanished by midday with the milkman and the butcher. The postman
recurred more often but he did not count. Now and then the policeman
passed and spied suspiciously into the archway where the landladies no
longer met. Cabs trotted into it now and then to change horses.
Victoria watched alone. Beyond Mrs Bell, she seemed to know nobody. The
young man downstairs continued to be invisible, and contented himself
with slamming the door. The young lady in the back room continued to
wash discreetly and to snore gently at night. Sometimes Victoria
ventured abroad to be bitten by the blast. Sometimes she strayed over
the town in the intervals of food. She had to exercise caution in this,
for an aspect of the lodging house fire had only lately dawned upon her.
If she did not order it at all she was met on the threshold by darkness
and cold; if she ordered it for a given time she was so often late that
she returned to find it dead or kept up wastefully at the rate of
sixpence a scuttle. This trouble was chronic; on bitter days it seemed
to dog her footsteps.
She had almost grown accustomed to loneliness. Alone she watched at her
window or paced the streets. She had established a quasi-right to a
certain seat at the Italian restaurant where the waiters had ceased to
speculate as to who she was. The demoralisation of unemployment was upon
her. She did not cast up her accounts; she rose late, made no plans. She
slept and ate, careless of the morrow.
It was in the midst of this slow settling into despond that a short note
from Lady Rockham arrived like a bombshell. It asked her to call on a Mrs
Holt who lived in Finchley Road. It appeared that Mrs Holt was in need
of a companion as her husband was often away. Victoria was shaken out of
her torpor. In a trice her optimism crushed out of sight the flat
thoughts of aimless days. She feverishly dressed for the occasion. She
debated whether she would have time to insert a new white frill into the
neck of a black blouse. Heedless of expenditure she spent two and eleven
pence on new black gloves, and twopence on the services of a shoeblack
who whistled cheerful tunes, and smiled on the coppers. Victoria sallied
out to certain victory. The wind was blowing balmier. A fitful gleam of
sunshine lit up and reddened the pile of tangerines in a shop window.