THE TWO ROADS
On Monday morning with a lighter heart than she had known for many
weeks Nancy left Miss Fewkes. She had ten shillings and a few odd
coppers when she stepped out of the tall thin house in Blackboy
Passage, carrying her dressing-case in her hand; but she had not to
worry about Letizia at present, and the removal of this anxiety had
revived her confidence in being soon able to get a “shop.” Meanwhile,
she had to find a cheap room somewhere. This proved to be much less
easy than she had expected. At first all the owners of the houses
announcing apartments seemed to regard her with equal suspicion.
“I don’t keep the kind of room you want,” said one.
“I wouldn’t mind taking you in myself,” said another. “But my husband
don’t like having women in the house.”
“If you’re looking for gay rooms,” said a third with brutal directness,
“you’d better try the other side of Oxford Street. You won’t find
anything to suit you round here. We have to be too careful of the
police.”
When at last Nancy did reach a quarter where landladies appeared less
dismayed by the prospect of letting to a single woman, she found that
the most exorbitant prices were asked in every house.
“Two pounds a week for a bedroom only,” said one. “Or if you have a
latchkey, three pounds.”
“But why should I pay a pound a week for a latchkey?” Nancy asked in
astonishment.
“Well, if you have your own latchkey, I shouldn’t make any extra charge
for the gentlemen you brought home. Otherwise I’d have to charge you
five shillings a head.”
Nancy laughed.
“But I don’t want to bring gentlemen home with me. I’m on the stage,”
she explained.
The stolid countenance of the woman with whom she was negotiating did
not change its expression.
“If you don’t want to bring men back, you don’t want a room in my
house.”
With this she slammed the door in Nancy’s face, obviously annoyed at
the waste of her time.
Another landlady was quite distressed by the suggestion that Nancy
should have a bedroom for ten shillings a week.
“A nice-looking girl like you doesn’t want to come down to that,” she
exclaimed. “You trust your luck a bit, my dear. Why don’t you take my
two nice rooms on the ground floor and cheer up? They’ve always been
lucky rooms to girls like you. The last one who had them got off with a
wine-merchant somewhere up North, and he’s fitted her out with a lovely
little flat of her own. He only comes up to London for a day or two
every month, so she has a nice easy time of it. I’m sure I don’t know
whether it’s me or my rooms, but certainly I’ve seen a lot of luck come
the way of girls like you.”
At last after a peregrination of various apparently economical quarters
Nancy found a tiny garret at the top of a tumbledown house in Unicorn
Street, which joined Red Lion Square to Theobalds Road. This was the
third time in succession that she had taken lodgings in a thoroughfare
for foot passengers only, and superstition began to suggest a hidden
significance in this collocation. The third time? It might be from here
that she would discover the main thoroughfare of her future life.
Unicorn Street was dark and narrow, and the upper portions of several
of the houses overhung the pavement so far as almost to meet. These
relics of London before the Great Fire had by this date already been
condemned, although they were not actually pulled down for another ten
years. The majority of the shops belonged to second-hand booksellers,
whose wares seemed as tattered and decrepit as the mouldering old
houses above. Their trade was mostly done from shelves outside the
shops containing books labelled at various prices from one penny
to a shilling. There were of course other books inside, but these
were usually stacked anyhow in tottering heaps and simply served to
replenish the shelves and boxes on the contents of which, when the
weather allowed it, seedy men of various ages browsed slowly, humping
their backs from time to time like caterpillars when they thought they
had caught sight of a rarity. Mr. Askin, the owner of the shop high
above which Nancy found her cheap room, resembled the English idea of
an elderly German professor before the war destroyed that pleasantly
sentimental conception. His lanky white hair hung over his collar like
greasy icicles; he wore blue glasses, carpet slippers, and a frock
coat; he even smoked a long china pipe. The prospect of seeing his shop
pulled down to make way for blocks of eligible offices did not disturb
him, because he had made up his mind that within two years he was going
to be drowned. As he apparently never moved a yard away from his shop,
Nancy was puzzled by this confident belief, and ventured to ask him on
what it was based.
“Have you studied the effects of the moon?” he inquired contemptuously.
Nancy admitted that she never had.
Whereupon he put his forefinger against his nose and said very solemnly:
“Then don’t meddle in what you don’t understand. If I say I’m going to
be drowned before two years are out, then it means I’ve studied the
question and come to my own conclusions and resigned myself to what
must be. And that’s that, isn’t it? So try and not talk so silly, young
lady.”
Mr. Askin had bought enough books, according to his calculations, to
outlast him and leave a trifle over for his widow. These had at one
time filled every room in the house; but as soon as they were sold the
empty rooms were furnished with a few odds and ends and let. The top
stories were now completely void of books, which was how Nancy managed
to rent one of the garrets in the roof for the sum of seven shillings
a week. The other garret was inhabited by Maudie Pridgeon, the Askins’
maid-of-all-work, who could not do enough for Nancy once she heard she
was a real actress.
“Oh, Miss O’Finn,” she begged. “I wonder if you’d be kind enough to
hear me recite _The Lighthouse-Keeper’s Daughter_ some afternoon, and
tell me if I’ve got a chance to get on the stage myself. It’s the dream
of my life. I may not be a Sarah Burnhard or an Elling Terry, but it’s
in me, Miss O’Finn. I feel shore it’s in me. Sometimes I feel I could
burst with what’s in me. I was afraid it might be wind for a time after
I’d been reading about some medicine or other. But it ain’t, Miss
O’Finn, it’s acting. It is reelly. So some time, when we have a moment
to ourselves, I do wish you’d hear me recite and give me a bit of good
advice. And of course I can rely on you not to say a word to Mrs. Askin
about my ambishing or she might pass some nasty remark about it. She
never moves out of the back room behind the shop herself, and she’d
never believe as I might be a star hiding my light under a bushel.”
The reason why Mrs. Askin never moved out of that back room was her
profound conviction that all men were thieves, and collectors of
old books the greatest. So, day in day out, she sat in a flocculent
armchair which at night was turned into her bedstead, watching with a
suspicious eye the behaviour of prospective customers. She was a dark
unwieldy woman with a hairy chin, a profusion of tufted moles, and
what was almost a heavy moustache. It was agreed when Nancy took the
garret that she was not to expect any cooking to be done for her; and
when she saw the Askins’ meals being prepared in that back room and Mr.
and Mrs. Askin and Maudie each eating a disgusting plateful balanced
on different heaps of incredibly dusty books, she did not regret the
arrangement. She managed to make her own garret fairly clean; and
though it was perishingly cold up there under the ancient roof, though
the bed was hard and the rats scampered round inside the raw-boned
plaster walls, she had the satisfaction of feeling perfectly sure that
nowhere in London could she be lodged more cheaply. The solitude of
the long, long evenings when she used to go to bed at eight o’clock in
order to keep warm was immense; and yet she liked it, for she seemed,
high up in this garret, to be as near to Bram as she could reach on
earth. There was no blind to the decayed window of the dormer and,
blowing out her candle, Nancy used to lie for hours staring out at the
tawny London sky, while beneath her pillow Bram’s watch was always
ticking, his watch that she had never allowed to run down. And once in
sleep he held her in his arms, and once she woke with his kisses warm
upon her lips; but mostly when she dreamed of that beloved lost one it
was of running with him along endless platforms to catch fantastic and
unattainable trains, and of acting with him in nightmare plays without
having studied the part in which she was being suddenly called upon to
appear. Meanwhile, it seemed that the tangible and visible world was
fast dissolving into an unstable dream when Nancy, after three weeks of
pawnshops and agents’ offices and of apparently being as far away as
ever from any engagement, was persuaded by Maudie to hear her recite
_The Lighthouse-Keeper’s Daughter_ and was asked at the end of it to
advise her about a dramatic future.
“I think you said it very well, Maudie,” Nancy assured the little maid,
whose cheeks were flushed and whose eyes were flashing with excitement.
“But I must really advise you to give up all idea of the stage as a
profession. Look at me. I am an experienced actress and yet I can’t get
an engagement. I’ve been trying ever since January, and now it’s nearly
April. All the managers say I’m too tall; and you know, Maudie dear,
you’re just as much the other way, aren’t you? You and I want special
parts written for us, that’s the trouble.”
The little maid’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, Miss O’Finn,” she sobbed, “you’ve been and gone and shattered my
life’s ambishings with them words. You see, when I’m reciting I feel as
if my head was going through the ceiling, but of course what you feels
and what you is ain’t the same, is they? Still, it’s always the darkest
hour before the dawn, they say, and I’ve still got my young man. When
I see him on Sunday night I’ll tell him as I’ve given up my life’s
ambishings, and he can start saving up for merridge as soon as he
likes. It’s broke _my_ heart, but he’ll be happy. He was always afraid
he’d lose me, Miss O’Finn. He never could believe I’d remain a simple
milkman’s wife when I become famous, and on’y last week he let a lovely
double-bed go by because he didn’t want to have it on his hands and me
out of his reach.”
A few days after Nancy had destroyed Maudie’s dramatic ambitions she
received a letter from Mrs. Pottage.
3 Starboard Alley,
Greenwich.
April 1st
!
My dear Mrs. Fuller,
Its’ a nice day to choose to write a letter to any one but there you
won’t get it till April 2nd so you won’t think any one’s sending you
a live mouse or any silly joke like that. Well, here we are as well
as we can be thank God—Letitsha is in the pink there’s no doubt about
it and so am I but this is not what I am writing about. Last week we
had the _Lights of Home_ company at the Royal and Mr. Plimmer who was
acting in it was lodging with me and this week they finished and he’s
staying on with me because he says he’s never been so comfortable
in his life but he’s took a great fancy to Letitchia and that’s a
fact—He raves about her and I won’t say I’m surprised because she’s
been on the Top of her Form and making us all laugh fit to Bust. Mrs.
B. says she’s laughed a lot in her life and which is a fact but she
don’t think she ever laughed so much as what she has this week. She
split her stays one afternoon—They went off like a Cannon—Talk about
a royal Salute—And Mr. Plimmer says she’s a born actress and ought
to be on the boards without delay—well, he’s taking out a company
himself in a drama he’s written something after the stile of _East
Lynne_ well about the same as far as I can see only a bit more East
in it from what I can make out and he wants Letissia for the child
and you for the Mother. He’ll write plenty of stuff for her because
he says She’ll Knock Them. Well, I’m bound to say I think she will
and Mrs. B’s convinsed of it: So I gave him your address and he’s
going to pop up to London to-morrow if you’ll make arrangements to
be in I’ve given him your address. What a voice that Kid has he said
to me Mrs. Pottage. Good God it would reach to the back row of the
gallery in any theatre. Well I hope this’ll be the end of all your
troubles and which I think it will dearie—
Letitsia sends her love and so do I and I hope this is an end of all
your worries even if it is April Fools Day. Mrs. B. sends all the
best and so do I.
Your loving old
Johanna Pottage.
Here was a most unmistakable turning out of this long lane, Nancy
thought, a turning at so sharp an angle that the prospect of taking
it alarmed her imagination, so far did it seem likely to lead Letizia
and herself away from the direction in which Bram and she had been
travelling together. Nancy’s mind went back to her own appearance at
the age of six in _Green Bushes_. Her mother was no longer alive to
witness that first performance of a squeaky-voiced little boy in the
old-fashioned melodrama, of which she could remember nothing except
the hazy picture of the heroine dressed in a Fenimore Cooper get-up
as she came running down the bank, gun in hand. Her father had made
arrangements for her to live with the baggage man and his wife during
that tour. She had liked Mr. Ballard, a big fat man with a very much
waxed moustache, but little Mrs. Ballard with her cold hooked nose,
pink and half-transparent at the tip, had been antipathetic. She could
see her now sighing and sewing all day. If Letizia did go on the stage
as a child, she should not act away from her mother at any rate. It
would always have to be a joint engagement.
Maudie interrupted Nancy’s pictures of the past by coming up to say
that a gentleman was down in the shop and wanted to see her.
“I didn’t know if you’d have liked me to have brought him up here, Miss
O’Finn? I hope I done right in asking him to wait a minute in the shop?”
“Good gracious, yes, Maudie! He couldn’t come up here. I’ll be down
very soon.”
Nancy looked at the card: _Rodney Plimmer. “Custody of the Child”
Company._ Evidently that was the play he was presently going to take
out on tour. Nancy put on her hat and coat, for if she was going to
talk business with Mr. Plimmer they would certainly have to talk
elsewhere than in Unicorn Street.
The actor was turning over the pages of one of Mrs. Askin’s tattered
folios when she came down into the shop.
“Now don’t tell me you’ve got another appointment, Miss O’Finn,” he
said. “I’ve been hoping you would come out to lunch with me.”
“Oh, no, I haven’t any appointment, and I’ll be delighted to lunch with
you.”
“Capital! Then, if you’re ready, shall we wend our way toward some
little place where we can talk far from the madding crowd?”
There was nothing remarkable about Mr. Plimmer’s appearance. The
clean-shaven face, the full mobile lips, the tendency toward sleekness,
the suggestion that his clothes were being worn with a little too
much of an air, the moist impressionable eyes, all these traits were
sufficiently familiar to Nancy among the men of her profession.
“Now, have you any prejudices on the subject of restaurants?” Mr.
Plimmer inquired with rich voice and elaborate manner.
“None whatever.”
“You don’t pine for music and such like gaieties?”
She shook her head.
“Then, let me see.” He paused with such dramatic abruptness in the
middle of the pavement that an errand-boy who was just behind bumped
into his broad back. “Why don’t you look where you’re going, my lad?”
he asked with exaggerated dignity.
“Why don’t you look where you’re stopping?” the errand-boy retorted and
hurried on, whistling indignantly.
“Self-possession is nine points of the law,” said Mr. Plimmer. “By the
way, that’s not bad, eh, Miss O’Finn? I think I’ll note that down as
rather a good line.” He took out a small pocket-book, and entered the
remark. “A word in the hand is worth two in the head,” he observed with
a smile; and as he did not bother to enter this line under the other
Nancy supposed that he used it frequently.
“Then, let me see,” said Mr. Plimmer, returning to the original
attitude which had provoked this diversion. “I have it! Kettner’s.
You’ve no prejudice against Kettner’s?”
“None whatever. I’ve never been there,” Nancy replied.
“Never been to Kettner’s? Oh, then of course we must go to Kettner’s.
No music at Kettner’s. And if there’s one thing I hate it’s chops and
sonata sauce.”
Mr. Plimmer blinked his moist eyes as if he were dazzled by the
brilliancy of his own wit.
“And now what about a hansom?”
The drive from the corner of Theobalds Road to Kettner’s was a strain
on Nancy, because Mr. Plimmer was evidently extremely nervous in
hansoms and talked all the time of the close shaves he had had when
driving in them. If ever their driver showed the least audacity in
passing another vehicle, Mr. Plimmer would draw in his breath with
a hiss, or put his hand out over the apron as if he would seize the
too urgent horse by the tail and stop his going too fast. However,
Kettner’s was reached in safety, and Mr. Plimmer was no sooner on the
pavement than he recovered all his suave composure so that he entered
the restaurant with the air of knowing exactly where to go and what to
order, whenever he should choose to eat in London.
“They know me here,” he whispered to Nancy. “Ah, good morning, Gaston.”
The waiter who had just placed the menu before him looked slightly
astonished at being thus addressed; but he was too urbane to put his
client out of countenance by pointing out, as Nancy felt sure he could
have pointed out, that his name was not Gaston.
“Now, let me see, what is it I always have here?” said Mr. Plimmer.
“Will you take ze table-d’hôte lunch, sare?” the waiter suggested.
“Oh, you recommend that, do you? Let me see....” The waiter began to
translate rapidly the meaning of the various items, so rapidly that Mr.
Plimmer did not even have time to say “cheese” instead of “fromage.”
“Gaston always makes himself responsible for my lunch here,” he
explained to his guest. “He knows my tastes, and you can be sure he’s
going to give us something special.”
The waiter, having taken the order for the table-d’hôte, returned with
the wine list.
“Ah-ha, now this will take a bit of thought,” said Mr. Plimmer. “Let me
see now. Let—me—see. White or red wine, Miss O’Finn?”
Nancy chose white.
“What woman ever chose red?” he laughed romantically. “Now let—me—see.
What’s the number of that Chambertin I usually drink here, Gaston?”
“Number 34 is a very nice wine, sare.”
“That’s it! That’s it! A bottle of 34. Extraordinary, isn’t it, the
way these fellows remember every customer’s likes and dislikes?” he
observed to Nancy when the waiter had retired to fetch the wine. “It
must be quite a year since I was in Kettner’s, and yet he remembered
which was my particular tipple. But of course I always tip him well.
Oh, yes, old Gaston has good reason to remember my tipple.”
Mr. Plimmer winked solemnly to indicate that the pun was intentional.
After a little more talk about the advantages of establishing a
personal relationship with waiters if you wished to fare well at
restaurants, Mr. Plimmer came to business.
“I think our excellent old landlady Mrs. Pottage has already written
to you something of what I wanted to talk about. The fact is, Miss
O’Finn, I have been completely subjugated by your little girl. And what
an actress! I don’t know if you’ve met Mrs. Pottage’s friend with the
queer name?”
“Mrs. Bugbird?”
“Just so. Well, your daughter’s imitation of Mrs. Bugbird is simply
marvellous. She has genius, that child. And genius is not a word that
one uses lightly in our profession. No, Miss O’Finn, it is a word
that one uses with caution, with extreme caution. But I don’t mind
telling you that during the last week I have been staggered by her
possibilities.”
“I’m afraid she comes of precocious parents,” said Nancy. “My husband
went on the stage when he was only sixteen, and I made my first
appearance ten years earlier. In my case, I’m afraid that such early
promise was fatal.”
“I’m sure you do yourself an injustice,” said Mr. Plimmer. “You are
feeling discouraged at the moment. It is not to be wondered at. But I
venture to think that the proposal I am going to make to you will open
a brighter vista. How do you find the wine?”
“Delicious,” said Nancy, who might as well have been drinking water, so
little was she aware of her glass.
“It is good, isn’t it? I’m bound to say Gaston never lets me down. I
don’t know if Mrs. Pottage told you that the occasion of my finding
myself under her hospitable roof was my engagement with the _Lights
of Home_ company. A queer old-fashioned melodrama, one at which we
are tempted to laugh nowadays. But I accepted the engagement with a
purpose. One is never too old to learn, in our profession. I wanted
to get the feeling of the audience for melodrama. Of course, in my
early days I played a good deal in melodrama, but during the last ten
years I have been mostly on tour with London successes. Last year, I
had an idea for an original play, and while I was resting I embodied
my wandering fancies in tangible shape. I have written, Miss O’Finn,
what I do not hesitate to call the finest domestic drama of our time,
_The Custody of the Child_. A striking title, eh? The subject is, as
you may guess, divorce, but treated, I need hardly say, in a thoroughly
pleasant manner. I abominate these modern plays—Ibsen and all that kind
of thing. Thank goodness, the great majority of our countrymen are
with me there. We don’t want that kind of raking in muckheaps. No, the
moment that the British drama forgets that it is founded upon British
family life, the British drama is dead. I hope you agree with me?”
Nancy supposed that he was more likely to stop talking if she agreed
with him than if she argued with him. So she nodded her head in
emphatic approval.
“I knew the mother of that child must be an intelligent woman.”
“Surely you haven’t been discussing the present state of the drama with
Letizia?” said Nancy.
Mr. Plimmer laughed solemnly.
“Not exactly. But, by Jove! that child would be quite capable of
discussing it. She’d talk a great deal more sense about it than most
of these confounded dramatic critics. Don’t speak to me about dramatic
critics, Miss O’Finn. They disgust me. I can’t bring myself to speak
about them. I regard dramatic critics and wife-beaters as the most
contemptible beings on earth. By what right does a man who knows no
more about acting than a graven image set himself up to criticise
people who do? There he sits in the front row of the stalls with last
night’s shirt and a perpetual sneer—but don’t ask me to go on talking
about such rascals. My gorge rises against them. I despise them. I
regard them with contempt and aversion. I wish you hadn’t brought up
this topic, Miss O’Finn. I can’t even enjoy Gaston’s excellent lunch
when I think about dramatic critics. It’s their ignorance that is so
appalling, their ignorance, their lack of taste, their dishonesty,
their ... but, no, I cannot speak about them! Do let me pour you out
another glass of wine.”
“You were telling me about your play, Mr. Plimmer.”
The actor-author mopped his brow, and after reviving himself with a few
mouthfuls of food was able to continue.
“This play of mine, Miss O’Finn, might seem to bear a superficial
resemblance in the main theme to _East Lynne_. But it is only very
superficial. Until the excellent Mrs. Pottage to whom I read it said
that the great scene in the third act reminded her of a similar scene
in the dear old-fashioned drama at which we have all wept in our day, I
confess that even this superficial likeness had not struck me. However,
Mrs. Pottage was right. There undoubtedly is a faint resemblance. But
what of that? Did not somebody or other, some great writer whose name
escapes me for the moment, say that there were only six original plots
in the world? After all, it’s the treatment that counts. But let us
be practical. I did not invite you out to lunch to hear me discuss
abstract theories of art. At the end of this month _The Custody of the
Child_ will be presented for the first time on any stage at the Prince
of Wales’ Theatre, Leeds. Will you and your daughter accept what I am
tempted to call the two leading parts? I have engaged an excellent
young actor for the husband—Clarence Bullingdon. Do you know him? No?
He’s very sound. My own part is a comparatively small one. Well, I
didn’t want to give the critics a chance of saying that I had written a
play to show off my own acting.”
“But would I suit the part?” Nancy asked.
“Exactly what I require. You might have served as the model for my
inspiration.”
Nancy wavered. The last thing she had intended was to allow Letizia to
act. Yet, would it hurt her so much to be acting with her mother?
“What salary are you suggesting, Mr. Plimmer?”
“I had allotted five pounds a week to your part, Miss O’Finn, but if
your little girl will appear with you, I am prepared to double that.”
Ten pounds a week! It was as much as she and Bram had ever earned
together, and a good deal more than they had earned sometimes. It would
be madness to refuse. Besides, work was necessary if she was not to
break down under this anxiety. Yet Letizia was very young to be acting.
“What time would my little girl be finished?” she asked.
“Ah, you’re thinking of her bedtime. Well, of course, she would be
late. In fact, her scene in the last act is the crux of the whole play.
But surely she could lie down every afternoon? We shall only have one
matinée in the week.”
“You are tempting me, Mr. Plimmer. And yet I don’t really think I ought
to let my little girl act. Couldn’t you engage me at five pounds a week
without Letizia?”
The actor shook his head.
“Candidly, that would be a bit awkward, Miss O’Finn. The fact is that I
have already half promised your part elsewhere, and if it were not for
your little girl I should not care to break my word.”
“But I wouldn’t like to keep another girl out of the part,” said Nancy
quickly.
“That is being quixotic—unnecessarily quixotic; and quixotic,
dear lady, rhymes with idiotic. No, the other lady would perfectly
understand my point of view in doing anything within reason to
obtain the services of a good child actress in a play where so much,
everything, in fact—depends on that child actress. I understand from
Mrs. Pottage that you have been out of an engagement for some time,
Miss O’Finn, and you will pardon me if I say that I judged from your
lodgings that you are perhaps not in too healthy a financial condition.
I am willing if you accept the engagement for your daughter and
yourself to pay you half-salary until we open at Leeds. Come, I think I
have shown how really anxious I am to have your little daughter.”
“I’ll let you know to-night,” Nancy began.
“No, no, don’t wait till to-night. Say ‘yes’ now. Come, give me your
purse and I’ll put your first week’s salary inside and post you the
contract to-night.”
There was sixpence-halfpenny in that purse, and to-morrow, Nancy
thought, her last brooch would have to go to the pawnshop. After that
there would only be a few dresses, and then Bram’s watch must go and
perhaps even her wedding-ring. It would be madness to refuse. She
pushed her purse toward Mr. Plimmer.
“All right. Consider us engaged,” she sighed.
The actor was frankly delighted. He ordered a fresh bottle of
Chambertin and talked for another half-hour enthusiastically about
his play and the success that Letizia was going to make. But Nancy
could not be merry. She was wondering what Bram would have said about
Letizia’s acting. The people in the restaurant faded out of sight;
the noise of knives and forks died away; the conversation sank to
less than a whisper, to less than the lisp of wind in grass. There
stood Bram in the entrance, his eyebrows arched in a question, his
eyes half-laughing, half-critical, his lips pursed. It seemed to Nancy
that she rose from her seat and cried out to him; but in that instant
the people in the restaurant reappeared and the noise of talk and
plates was louder than ever. There was no Bram in the entrance of the
restaurant, no Bram anywhere in the world.
Mr. Plimmer offered to drive Nancy to Unicorn Street; but she refused
and bade him good-bye outside Kettner’s. She wanted to be alone, and
finding herself in Soho she thought that she would look in at her late
lodgings and inquire if there were any unforwarded letters waiting
for her, not that she expected any, but it might be that somebody had
written to her at that address. It would be cheerful to find a letter
from the Kinos. The Kinos? Ah, but it was not the same thing. It was
quite another matter for Letizia to act in the same play as her mother.
Miss Fewkes was ungracious when she opened the door to her late lodger.
She had not let any of her rooms since the Kinos and Nancy went away.
“There was a letter and a parcel came for you some days ago, but I
don’t know if I can find them. If you’d have left your address I could
have forwarded it on. But I’m too busy to keep an eye on stray letters
kicking about and getting in the way when I’m dusting.”
However, in the end she found what turned out to be a postcard from
Mrs. Kino sending messages from herself and her husband. The parcel
was a set of Japanese boxes, one inside the other down to the last one
which was hardly bigger than a pin’s head. These were for Letizia to
play with.
There was nothing about Miss Fewkes that invited one to stay and gossip
with her. So Nancy went away with her post, and as she did not want to
visit Blackboy Passage again she left her address behind her in case
any more letters did happen to come.
That night Nancy lay awake for a long time, puzzling over the wisdom
and morality of the step she had taken. Was it due to selfishness? Was
it due to her own desire to be at work again? At work! At work again!
No longer to lie here night after night, staring out of the curtainless
window at the tawny London sky, her heart sick for his arms about her.
The evenings might not be so long when she was working again. There
would be indeed the poignancy of once more treading boards that he and
she had trod together; there would be the agony of seeing again the
familiar platforms along which he had run with cups of tea for her;
there would be continuous reminders of what she had lost. Reminders?
What reminders were needed to make more empty this empty world? At work
again! At work! Every week a new town. Always something to distract
her from this eternal ache, some poor little futile change, but still
change—change and work. Was it very selfish of her to sacrifice Letizia
to her own need? Very wrong and very selfish? Yet even from a practical
point of view, surely it was right to take this money when she had the
chance? She could not leave Letizia with Mrs. Pottage indefinitely. To
refuse an offer like this while she accepted the old landlady’s charity
would put her in such a humiliating position. Bram surely would not
blame her. He would remember what had happened when she went to his
brother, and she would know that she had tried to put her own feelings
on one side. It made such a difference to open her purse and hear
the crackle of that five-pound note when she put in her hand to find
a penny for the bus-conductor. It was as comforting and warm as the
crackling of a fire in wintertime.
“Oh, my darling,” she cried toward the stars that were visible again at
last after that unending black frost, “my precious one, I don’t think
I have any more courage left. I can’t live alone any longer and wonder
what I shall have to pawn of ours next.”
In the morning Maudie came in with two letters. The first envelope she
opened held the contract from Mr. Rodney Plimmer with a note asking
her to sign it and return to him at Greenwich. The handwriting on the
outside of the second, which had been forwarded from Blackboy Passage,
was unfamiliar, and the postmark showed that it was a week old. Miss
Fewkes must have thought yesterday that she had lost it, and had
therefore said nothing about it. It was lucky that she had called at
her old lodgings. Or was it so lucky? The unfamiliar writing filled
Nancy with foreboding, and her heart beat very fast as she tore open
the envelope.
St. Joseph’s School,
Sisters of the Holy Infancy,
5 Arden Grove,
N. W.
Annunciation B. V. M.
Dear Mrs. Fuller,
After our talk in the train two weeks ago I wrote to the Reverend
Mother about you and your little girl. Unfortunately she has been
laid up with a bad chill, so that only to-day I have had her answer.
She gladly authorises me to offer you the protection of the Holy
Child for little Letizia. This would mean that the Community will be
utterly responsible for her education until she reaches the age of
eighteen. I do not know of course if you will be willing to let her
come to us so young. I did not speak to you on the subject, because I
did not want to make any kind of half-promise without the authority
of the Reverend Mother. We should perfectly understand your not
wanting to lose her yet a while, and we shall be willing to accept
the care of her at any time during the next three years. But if I may
advise you, I think you would do right to send her to us now. You
will not consider me too narrow-minded if I say that life on tour
with all sorts of changing influences, some good and some perhaps
bad, is not the best early influence for a little girl, especially
an intelligent and forward little girl like yours. However, this
you must decide for yourself. Of course, she will have a very good
education, and by being relieved of all financial responsibility you
will be able to save money for her when she leaves us.
Will you let me know what you decide? We are ready to take her
immediately. I have thought a great deal about you this fortnight,
dear child, and I humbly pray to Almighty God that He will give you
His grace to choose what is best for yourself and for your little
girl.
Yours affectionately in J. C.
Sister Catherine.
Here was another wide turning out of that long lane, every bit as
wide and important as the first, but leading in exactly the opposite
direction.
Nancy looked at the contract from Mr. Plimmer and at the letter from
Sister Catherine. Why was she hesitating which road to take? Was it
the dread of parting with Letizia? A little. Was it the thought of
the disappointment of Mr. Plimmer, who with all his absurdity had
appreciated Letizia and thus endeared himself to her mother? A little.
Was it the fancy that Mrs. Pottage might be hurt by the rejection of
an offer that she would have supposed so welcome? A little. Or was it
cowardice about her own immediate future? That most of all. It was
the dread of tempting fortune by a refusal of this engagement. It
was the dread of sending back that comfortably crackling five-pound
note and having to pawn her last brooch before she could even pay for
the registered letter in which it ought to be sent. It was dread of
the tawny London sky louring at her through that curtainless window,
of tumbledown wooden stairs in Maiden Lane and weary stone steps in
Garrick Street, of seeing her wedding-ring appraised by a pawnbroker’s
thick and grimy fingers, of loneliness, eternal, aching loneliness.
There recurred the picture of that old lady framed by vermilion
cushions, and the sound of her high thin voice repeating, “Educate
your child. Educate her.” There came back the old lady’s confident
interpretation of her grandson’s unuttered wish. Whatever the cost,
Bram would surely choose the convent. Nancy was once more in that
silent tunnel, listening to Sister Catherine’s voice plangent with the
echoes of her passionate fled youth. She remembered how deeply fraught
with significance that conversation had seemed. And the impulse that
had drawn her footsteps to Blackboy Passage to inquire for letters she
did not expect? Who should dare to say it was not Bram himself who had
guided her thither? So that between Letizia and the future offered her
stood nothing except her mother’s cowardice.
Nancy took her brooch to the pawnbroker’s and raised upon it the sum of
fifteen shillings and sixpence. Of this she spent a shilling in sending
this telegram.
Sister Catherine
5 Arden Grove.
N. W.
Your letter just received gratefully accept your kind offer will call
and see you this afternoon
Nancy Fuller.
Then she bought a registered envelope and slipped the five-pound note
inside it with a letter of apology to Mr. Plimmer.
Fourteen shillings and threepence in the world, but Letizia was safe.
She found a Catholic church and spent the odd coppers lighting three
penny candles to Our Lady of Victories.