With a sigh May Maylands cast her eyes on the uppermost telegram. It
ran thus:--
"Buy the horse at any price. He's a spanker. Let the pigs go for what
they'll fetch."
This was enough. Romance, domesticity, and home disappeared, probably
with the message along the wire, and the spirit of business descended on
the little woman as she applied herself once more to the matter-of-fact
manipulation of the keys.
That evening as May left the Post-Office and turned sharply into the
dark street she came into collision with a letter-carrier.
"Oh! Miss," he exclaimed with polite anxiety, "I beg your pardon. The
sleet drivin' in my face prevented my seeing you. You're not hurt I
hope."
"No, Mr Flint, you haven't hurt me," said May, laughing, as she
recognised the voice of her own landlord.
"Why, it's you, Miss May! Now isn't that good luck, my turnin' up just
in the nick o' time to see you home? Here, catch hold of my arm. The
wind's fit to tear the lamp-posts up by the roots."
"But this is not the way home," objected the girl.
"That's true, Miss May, it ain't, but I'm only goin' round a bit by St.
Paul's Churchyard. There's a shop there where they sell the sausages my
old 'ooman's so fond of. It don't add more than a few yards to the road
home."
The old 'ooman to whom Solomon Flint referred was his grandmother.
Flint himself had spent the greater part of his life in the service of
the Post-Office, and was now a widower, well stricken in years. His
grandmother was one of those almost indestructible specimens of humanity
who live on until the visage becomes deeply corrugated, contemporaries
have become extinct, and age has become a matter of uncertainty. Flint
had always been a good grandson, but when his wife died the love he had
borne to her seemed to have been transferred with additional vehemence
to the "old 'ooman."
"There's a present for you, old 'ooman," said Flint, placing the paper
of sausages on the table on entering his humble abode, and proceeding to
divest himself of his waterproof cape; "just let me catch hold of a
fryin'-pan and I'll give you to understand what a blow-out means."
"You're a good laddie, Sol," said the old woman, rousing herself and
speaking in a voice that sounded as if it had begun its career far back
in the previous century.
Mrs Flint was Scotch, and, although she had lived from early womanhood
in London, had retained something of the tone and much of the
pronunciation of the land o' cakes.
"Ye'll be wat, lassie," she said to May, who was putting off her bonnet
and shawl in a corner. "No, Grannie," returned the girl, using a term
which the old woman had begged her to adopt, "I'm not wet, only a little
damp."
"Change your feet, lassie, direc'ly, or you'll tak' cauld," said Mrs
Flint in a peremptory tone.
May laughed gently and retired to her private boudoir to change her
shoes. The boudoir was not more than eight feet by ten in size, and
very poorly furnished, but its neat, methodical arrangements betokened
in its owner a refined and orderly mind. There were a few books in a
stand on the table, and a flower-pot on the window-sill. Among the pegs
and garments on the walls was a square piece of cardboard, on which was
emblazoned in scarlet silk, the text, "God is love." This hung at the
foot of the bed, so as to be the first object to greet the girl's eyes
on awaking each morning. Below it hung a row of photographs, embracing
the late Reverend James Maylands, his widow, his son Philip, his distant
relative Madge, and the baby. These were so arranged as to catch the
faint gleam of light that penetrated the window; but as there was a
twenty-foot brick wall in front of the window at a distance of two
yards, the gleam, even on a summer noon, was not intense. In winter it
was barely sufficient to render darkness visible.
Poor May Maylands! It was a tremendous change to her from the free air
and green fields of Ireland to a small back street in the heart of
London; but necessity had required the change. Her mother's income
could not comfortably support the family. Her own salary, besides
supporting herself, was devoted to the enlargement of that income, and
as it amounted to only 50 pounds a year, there was not much left to pay
for lodgings, etcetera. It is true Miss Lillycrop would have gladly
furnished May with board and lodging free, but her house was in the
neighbourhood of Pimlico, and May's duties made it necessary that she
should live within a short distance of the General Post-Office. Miss
Lillycrop had heard of the Flints as being good-hearted and trusty
people, and advised her cousin to board with them, at least until some
better arrangement could be made for her. Meanwhile May was to go and
spend part of every Sunday with Miss Lillycrop at Number 9 Purr Street.
"Well, Grannie," said May, returning to the front room, where the
sausages were already hissing deliciously, "what news have you for me
to-night?"
She sat down beside the old woman, took her hand and spoke in that
cheery, cosy, confidential way which renders some women so attractive.
"Deed, May, there's little but the auld story--Mercies, mornin', noon,
and night. But, oo ay, I was maist forgettin'; Miss Lillycrap was here,
an left ye a message o' some sort."
"And what was the message, Grannie?"
"She's gone and forgot it," said Solomon Flint, putting the sausages on
the table, which had already been spread for supper by a stout little
girl who was the sole domestic of the house and attendant on Mrs Flint.
"You've no chance of getting it now, Miss May, for I've noticed that
when the old 'ooman once forgets a thing it don't come back to her--
except, p'r'aps, a week or two afterwards. Come now, draw in and go to
work. But, p'r'aps, Dollops may have heard the message. Hallo!
Dollops! come here, and bring the kettle with you."
Dollops--the little girl above referred to--was particularly small and
shy, ineffably stupid, and remarkably fat. It was the last quality
which induced Solomon to call her Dollops. Her hair and garments stuck
out from her in wild dishevelment, but she was not dirty. Nothing
belonging to Mrs Flint was allowed to become dirty.
"Did you see Miss Lillycrop, Dollops?" asked Solomon, as the child
emerged from some sort of back kitchen.
"Yes, sir, I did; I saw'd 'er a-goin' hout."
"Did you hear her leave a message?"
"Yes, sir, I did. I 'eard 'er say to missis, `Be sure that you give May
Maylands my love, an tell 'er wotever she do to keep 'er feet dry, an'
don't forgit the message, an' say I'm so glad about it, though it's not
much to speak of arter all!'"
"What was she so glad about?" demanded Solomon.
"I dun know, sir. She said no more in my 'earin' than that. I only
comed in w'en she was a-goin' hout. P'r'aps it was about the findin' of
'er gloves in 'er pocket w'en she was a talkin' to missis, which she
thought she'd lost, though they wasn't wuth pickin' up out of the--"
"Pooh! be off to your pots an' pans, child," said Flint, turning to his
grandmother, who sat staring at the sausages with a blank expression.
"You can't remember it, I s'pose, eh?"
Mrs Flint shook her head and began to eat.
"That's right, old 'ooman," said her grandson, patting her shoulder;
"heap up the coals, mayhap it'll revive the memory."
But Mrs Flint's memory was not so easily revived. She became more
abstracted than usual in her efforts to recover it. Supper passed and
was cleared away. The old woman was placed in her easy chair in front
of the fire with the cat--her chief evening amusement--on her knee; the
letter-carrier went out for his evening walk; Dollops proceeded
miscellaneously to clean up and smash the crockery, and May sat down to
indite an epistle to the inmates of Rocky Cottage.
Suddenly Mrs Flint uttered an exclamation.
"May!" she cried, and hit the cat an involuntary slap on the face which
sent it with a caterwaul of indignant surprise from her knee, "it wasn't
a message, it was a letter!"
Having thus unburdened her mind the old woman relapsed into the previous
century, from which she could not be recalled. May, therefore, made a
diligent search for the letter, and found it at last under a cracked
teapot on the mantelpiece, where Mrs Flint had told Miss Lillycrop to
place it for safety.