_Wherein a Dainty Little Lady, looking out of the Window of a Shabby
Home at a Shabbier Destiny, joins the Streaming Crowd whose Faces
pass in the Street, drifting towards the Strange Riot of Living_
For the first time, Betty reeled beneath the buffets of her
destiny--for a moment the world swung away from before her feet--she
clutched the mantel, or would have fallen.
Passing her slender hand over her head, uttering a pitiful little moan,
with the courage of her blood she stood at gaze with the cruelty--faced
it--and overcame it....
Practising her wonted and deliberate caution, she considered her next
move; before the dusk had taken possession of the town she was dressed
for walking; she went out to the shops to buy some needful frills and
stuff; she brought the package home with her, and locked herself into
her room.
It had come to her that morning, indeed she had been at work upon the
problem but a few hours before this last blow had been struck at her,
that she must still further narrow her narrow expenditure.
All that night Betty sewed, her deft fingers lengthening one of her
gowns.
When she had done, the chill dawn was stealing up the smoky heavens.
She put out the lamp, and packed.
The memories would come crowding, treading on each other’s heels
importunately. Betty remembered only the happinesses; and these,
because they made her lip tremble, she put from her with stern and
dogged fortitude, bending her wits only on the details of her coming
actions, on the things she must do; and it was thus that, when the
time came, every move she made fitted into its calculated place with
appointed precision, and she was prepared for every event before it
nudged at her attention.
The sun was well up, and yawning housemaids clumsily astir, before she
had put away her last little belongings in the big black trunk. Even
at her tender years she had learnt in the harsh school of experience
the value that the world sets upon the having of possessions, and the
credit that landlords give to such as show responsible luggage.
Wisdom is thrust upon some at sixteen.
The room looked sadly desolate when she had put away the last of her
small belongings; and it was with a strenuous effort that she sat down
before the mirror and gathered up and coiled her nut-brown hair about
her head for the first time. She stared wide-eyed at the years it added
to her age.
She dressed herself in her lengthened gown; put on her hat and jacket.
When she was finished she stood before the glass a woman--and a very
beautiful woman.
Yet her brows clouded--at the dread that she looked too young!
She wrote a short note to her landlady to say she might be away all
day; stole stealthily on to the landing to see that there was no one
about; locked her door; put the key in her pocket; ran down the stairs;
and let herself out into the street....
All day she spent in the purlieus of Soho, in the search for a room;
and it was near upon nightfall when she made a choice.
When darkness had come down upon the street, Betty drove up to the
door of her old home in a cab; she took the hungry tatterdemalion of
a cabman upstairs for her baggage; and, whilst the shabby fellow was
getting it down and on to the cab, she herself sought out the landlady
in her little office. She put the money for her rooms into the hands of
the amazed woman, tried to tell her that she was going away, and broke
down into a hoarse murmur.
“Go-ing away?” gasped the good creature.
Betty squeezed the old body’s hand. She could say nothing.
“Miss Betty,” said the other--“you mustn’t go away.... What will the
house be without you? Pay when you can, my dear----”
But the girl shook her head sadly. She was glad to find that they would
only think she had left for lack of means.
The old woman patted her shoulder, thrust back the money into her
purse, and said that nothing on God’s earth would prevail on her to
touch it. She kissed the unhappy girl; and Betty, making a stern effort
to check her sobs, stood up, kissed the old face on each cheek, stepped
out into the night, and was gone....
Noll had knocked impatiently at the locked door twice that day, and now
as the darkness fell, seeing the door open, he leaped up the stairs,
calling Betty by name; sprang through the open door; and came to a
sudden halt, bewildered to find the room deserted and dismantled.
He turned roughly to the landlady’s daughter, who stood at the window
weeping.
“Where is Miss Modeyne?” he asked hoarsely.
“Gone,” sobbed the girl.
“Where?”
She shook her head:
“No one knows, Mr. Noll.”
Noll went to the little bed, flung himself down beside it, and sobbed
like a child....
The landlady’s daughter slipped a-tiptoe from the room and brought down
the young fellow’s mother.
Caroline went and seated herself on the bed beside the lad, and stroked
the handsome head with her gentle fingers:
“Ah, Noll,” said she--“so you too are to taste the bitters of life
early!”
The young fellow stayed by the bed all night, and would not be
comforted.
And Caroline most wisely stayed with him.