THE COURAGE OF DESPAIR
Grace Cameron was making a pretence of breakfast when Mary and Connie
arrived. Her pallid face was more flushed than usual, her cough very
distressing. But she had no thought for herself directly the story
came to be told.
"You poor dears!" she cried. "What a cruel misfortune! To have lost
everything in this way is doubly terrible. Oh, if it were only
possible for you to stay here! The house is almost full up, and my
landlady is independent accordingly. I am expecting every day that she
will ask me to go--the breakfast in bed and my late rising give a
great deal of trouble. There seems to be nothing that I can do."
"Oh, yes, there is," Connie said cheerfully. "You can help us
wonderfully. For the moment we are absolutely penniless. Our idea is
to take a bed sitting-room together, for a few shillings a week, and
restore confidence, in lieu of personal belongings, by paying the rent
in advance. I want you to lend me a sovereign for about a week."
"But my dear, I haven't got it," Grace said in deep distress. "I only
kept a few shillings out of the money you gave me yesterday, the rest
I posted to my mother not an hour ago. If I had only known! And I
suppose you can't possibly draw any more money from the _Wheezer_ till
the end of the week!"
"I might have done so," Connie said. "I had the week's drawings
finished. They must be in tomorrow or I shall certainly do no more
work in that quarter. They were all lying ready on my table when I
came round here last night."
"Oh, this is dreadful," Grace cried, with the tears in her eyes. "If
you had not returned here then, this dreadful thing would never have
happened. To think that your kindness and goodness to me should have
produced a result like this! Oh, Connie, what are you going to do,
what can you do?"
"Oh, please don't," Connie said unsteadily. "It was no fault of yours.
I daresay we shall manage to muddle through some way or another. It is
a great pity that so many of our circle are so hard up just at
present."
"And Miss Dashwood is as badly off?" Grace asked.
"Please don't call me Miss Dashwood," Mary said. "It makes me feel as
if I were not one of you. Yes, I am in the same boat. Still, I dare
say----"
Mary's voice trailed off into a whisper. An idea had come to her. She
was quite ready to humble her pride now; she no longer shrank from the
idea with a pain that was almost physical. If the worst came to the
worst, she could telegraph to Lady Dashwood and ask for a few pounds
by wire. And yet that seemed a weak thing to do, seeing that she had
left the dower house so short a time before, determined to make her
way in the world. But that would have to be done before nightfall,
unless----
Unless! There was yet another way out of it. The recollection of the
dramatic scene between the so-called Sir Vincent Dashwood and Mrs.
Speed came with vivid force to Mary. The man had come for some
important letter. What the letter was and what it had to do with the
Dashwood succession mattered nothing at that moment. At any rate the
letter was needed, and Vincent Dashwood had promised to come back for
it. And Mary did not fail to remember now what Mrs. Speed had had to
say about the trouble she was in over her rent. That trouble had
culminated with disastrous swiftness, and to save her furniture the
woman had vanished in the night.
With a mind full of her own troubles, she had probably given no heed
to Vincent Dashwood. But it was necessary to his success that he
should find her.
No doubt he was hanging about now somewhere in the locality of Keppel
Terrace waiting for a sign. And here was the desperate chance that
Mary needed.
She, too, would spend the next few hours in the neighbourhood of
Keppel Terrace. Her mind was made up and she resolved to act without
delay. She rose to her feet with a smile and made her way towards the
door.
"Where are you going?" Connie asked.
"I have a little idea of my own," Mary said. "I can't tell you
everything, because it is in a way mixed up with my private affairs.
But I think that I shall be able to get everything back before we
sleep tonight. I am not going to be a helpless burden on you two poor
dear things. I want you to feel that you have been entertaining the
proverbial angel unawares. I may not be back till late, but you need
not be anxious. After my experience of last night, I am not afraid of
anything."
"Let her go," Grace said, as Connie would have detained the speaker.
"She is anxious to do something, and I feel that she will succeed."
Mary went down stairs with a firm, steady tread. She was not in the
least afraid now. Whatever she lacked, there was no question of her
courage. And she was going off now on an errand of mercy and relief.
The knowledge thrilled her, she was conscious of emotions and feelings
now that she had never felt before. The warm hot blood was coursing
through her veins; there was a gladness about her heart that made her
feel strangely young and buoyant. She would have liked to meet Ralph
Darnley now and tell him many things that had not occurred to her
before. She was ashamed of the way that she had treated that man. And
he was good enough for her; as Connie had said, he was good enough for
any girl. What did birth matter, what did anything matter, so long as
the man was good and true and the woman sweet and tender? It came to
Mary with a crushing force that the Dashwood pride was a poor and
feeble thing by comparison.
She was still turning these new sensations over in her mind when she
arrived at Keppel Terrace. The empty house seemed to look at her with
blank, mocking eyes. For a long time she walked up and down before the
house. An hour, two hours, passed before Mary noted anything to
attract her attention. Then she thrilled as she saw Vincent Dashwood
come swaggering along the terrace. He paused at the step of No. 16,
and looked up at the house. Mary could see his gesture of passion. As
he stood there, evidently nonplussed by his discovery, a boy came up
to him and handed him a card, which he read and then tore up.
Greatly daring, Mary came along the pathway. She pulled her veil down
and pretended to ring the bell at No. 17. Her back was to Dashwood;
she calculated that he would not notice her, that she would be the
last person in the world he was likely to meet. But Mary was trembling
from head to foot.
"All right," she heard Dashwood say. "I suppose the lady told you what
I was like?"
"That's it sir," the boy said. "The lady knew as you would come. She
gave me a shilling for this job. I've been hanging about here since
dinner time."
"Well, here's another shilling for you," Dashwood said in great good
humour. "Tell the lady that you delivered the card properly and that
I'll call after dark. As it happens, I know the address on the card
you gave me."
The boy went whistling off down the road and Dashwood swaggered away.
Here was a piece of luck that Mary had not expected. She had made up
her mind to loiter about the street till she saw Dashwood, provided
that he had not come and gone already. But she knew perfectly well
that Dashwood and early hours did not go together, and upon that fact
she had acted. Her idea was to follow the man, knowing that sooner or
later he was certain to look for Mrs. Speed. But here was a piece of
real good fortune on which she had not reckoned at all. Dashwood had
read the address, and then, with his usual carelessness, had torn up
the card. Mary was off the doorstep as soon as it was safe, and the
pieces of torn card were in her hand. She had only to put them
together and the address was here.
This was splendid! Here was a way of proving to Connie and Grace
Cameron that she was a friend to be relied upon. Mary's heart warmed
at the idea of it. Her fingers trembled as she pieced the fragments of
the card together and read the address. It was clearly set out in a
neat handwriting.
No. 24 Hamerton Gardens, N.W.--surely the new house was some distance
away. Mary had yet to learn that these midnight flittings necessitated
a change of neighbourhood at a considerable distance as to locality. A
friendly policeman directed Mary into the Strand, and another told her
which 'bus to take. By the time the girl arrived at her destination
she had fourpence in her possession.
But she did not care about that. She was on the right track now, and
if luck were dead against her she could walk home. Here was Hamerton
Gardens at length, and the litter of straw and refuse before the house
testified to the fact that somebody had recently occupied the house or
left it. With a courage that was all her own, Mary walked up the steps
and rang the bell. As nobody responded to the summons, she opened the
door and walked in. She had made no mistake, she recognised the
umbrella stand at a glance. There was no linoleum down in the hall as
yet and the stair carpets were rolled up on the floor.
Somebody crossed the hall and entered a little room on the right. Mary
fairly gasped as she noted the tall figure in the grey silk. She
wondered if she could credit her eyes. For the tall figure in the grey
silk was Lady Dashwood!