Still the slow train bumped on, loath to drag itself away from the happy
harvest fields. Darkness was near when we ourselves alighted at our
destination, mounted into a four-wheeled cab, and once more were in
motion in the rain-laid dust. On and on rolled Pollie and I and our
luggage together, in such ease and concealment after the hard wooden
seats and garish light that our journey began to seem--as indeed I
wished for the moment it might prove--interminable. One after another
the high street lamps approached, flung their radiance into our musty
velvet cabin, and went gliding by. Ever and again the luminous square of
a window beyond the outspread branches of a tree would float on. Then
suddenly our narrow solitude was invaded by the bright continuous flare
flung into it from a row of shops.
Never before had I been out after nightfall. I gazed enthralled at the
splendours of fruit and cakes, silks and sweetmeats packed high behind
the glass fronts. Wasn't I myself the heiress of L110 a year? Indeed I
was drinking in Romance, and never traveller surveyed golden Moscow or
the steeps of Tibet with keener relish than I the liquid amber, ruby,
and emerald that summoned its customers to a wayside chemist's shop.
Twenty--what a child I was! I smile now at these recollections with an
indulgence not unmixed with envy. It is Moscow survives, not the artless
traveller.
After climbing a long hill--the wayside houses steadily thinning out as
we ascended--the cab came to a standstill. The immense, shapeless old
man who had so miraculously found our way for us, and who on this mild
August evening was muffled up to his eyes in a thick ulster, climbed
down backwards from his box and opened the door. At the same moment, as
if by clockwork, opened another door--that of the last house on the
hill. I was peering out of the cab, then, at my home; and framed in
that lighted oblong stood Mrs Bowater. All utterly different from what I
had foreseen: this much smaller house, this much taller landlady,
and--dear me, how fondly I had trusted that she would not for the first
time set eyes on her lodger being _carried_ into her house. I had in
fancy pictured myself bowing a composed and impressive greeting to her
from her own hearthrug. But it was not to be.
Pollie lifted me out, settled me on her arm, and my feet did not touch
_terra firma_ again until she had ascended the five stone steps and we
were within the passage.
"Lor, miss; then here we are," she sighed breathlessly, then returned to
the cabman to pay him his fare. Even dwarfed a little perhaps by my
mourning, there I stood, breathed upon by the warm air of the house, in
the midst of a prickly doormat, on the edge of the shiny patterned
oilcloth that glossed away into the obscurity from under the gaslight in
front of me; and there stood my future landlady. For the first time,
with head thrown back, I scanned a countenance that was soon to become
so familiar and so endeared. Mrs Bowater's was a stiff and angular
figure. She, too, was in black, with a long, springside boot. The bony
hands hung down in their peculiar fashion from her elbows. A large cameo
brooch adorned the flat chest. A scanty velvet patch of cap failed to
conceal the thin hair sleekly parted in the middle over the high narrow
temples. The long dark face with its black, set eyes, was almost without
expression, except that of a placid severity. She gazed down at me, as I
up at her, steadily, silently.
"So this is the young lady," she mused at last, as if addressing a
hidden and distant listener. "I hope you are not over-fatigued by your
journey, miss. Please to step in."
To my ear, Mrs Bowater's was what I should describe as a low, roaring
voice, like falling water out of a black cloven rock in a hill-side; but
what a balm was its sound in my ear, and how solacing this dignified
address to jaded nerves still smarting a little after my victory on the
London, Chatham, and Dover Railway. Making my way around a grandfather's
clock that ticked hollowly beside the door, I followed her into a room
on the left of the passage, from either wall of which a pair of
enormous antlers threatened each other under the discoloured ceiling.
For a moment the glare within and the vista of furniture legs confused
my eyes. But Mrs Bowater came to my rescue.
"Food was never mentioned," she remarked reflectively, "being as I see
nothing to be considered except as food so-called. But you will find
everything clean and comfortable; and I am sure, miss, what with your
sad bereavements and all, as I have heard from Mr Pellew, I hope it will
be a home to you. There being nothing else as I suppose that we may
expect."
My mind ran about in a hasty attempt to explore these sentiments. They
soothed away many misgivings, though it was clear that Mrs Bowater's
lodger was even less in dimensions than Mrs Bowater had supposed.
_Clean_: after so many months of Mrs Sheppey's habits, it was this word
that sang in my head. Wood, glass, metal flattered the light of gas and
coal, and for the first time I heard my own voice float up into my new
"apartment": "It looks _very_ comfortable, thank you, Mrs Bowater; and I
am quite sure I shall be happy in my new abode." There was nothing
intentionally affected in this formal little speech.
"Which being so," replied Mrs Bowater, "there seems to be trouble with
the cabman, and the day's drawing in, perhaps you will take a seat by
the fire."
A stool nicely to my height stood by the steel fender, the flames played
in the chimney; and for a moment I was left alone. "Thank God," said I,
and took off my hat, and pushed back my hair.... Alone. Only for a
moment, though. Its mistress gone, as fine a black cat as ever I have
seen appeared in the doorway and stood, green-eyed, regarding me. To
judge from its countenance, this must have been a remarkable experience.