HARD LUCK
But although Evarne would not have deemed it possible, worse still
remained for her upon the knees of the gods.
Jean Brodie returned home one Sunday in a state of unconcealed
excitement.
"Miss Stornway, I'm going to be married. The banns are to be called for
the first time next Sabbath. My young man's regiment is going out to
India in six weeks, and he's just got leave to marry 'on the strength,'
so he can take me with him."
After suitable congratulations, and so on, the conversation veered round
to Evarne.
"If you follow my advice, Miss Stornway, you'll carry on my business.
You've done a lot of good work for me, my dear, so in memory of that
I'll give you all--well, nearly all--the furniture of the room. I must
take a few things with me, and I can't let you have my sewing-machine,
but you can procure a nice one on the hire system. Then get a young girl
as an apprentice. I'll introduce you to the City firm I work for, and
you'll be comfortably settled. What do you say?"
Evarne naturally thanked her, whereupon Miss Brodie set forth the
expenditure of the establishment.
"The work brings in above seventeen shillings weekly. Two shillings is
enough to pay the apprentice, a young girl, you know. There's
three-and-six for rent, add to which you must allow three-and-six for
your machine, that's nine shillings. That leaves you with eight
shillings for food for the two of you, candles, a bit of firing, the
goose club, the church collection, twopence for a hot bath--everything
else, in fact. It seems very little somehow! I know, it's the hiring of
the machine takes your money. I've managed to save some every week, and
so will you in time."
Thus the matter was settled. Evarne was present at Jean's marriage, and
a few days later waved her farewell from the station as the good
Scotswoman departed with the other soldiers' wives. Then the girl walked
back to her now empty room with a fresh sense of depression. After all,
Jean had been a friend in need, and had remained her only intimate
acquaintance in London.
As she wended her way upstairs a sudden stumble was heard on the upper
flight, and immediately after half a dozen rosy apples came bounding
down. At the same time the disreputable Mrs. Harbert's voice was heard
calling shrilly--
"'Ere, Smithkins! Come to the rescue! Buck up! Everything's a-goin'."
Thus abjured, Mrs. Smithkins hurried out from her room and lent her aid.
Evarne, having gathered up the apples, joining the group.
"Here's something of yours," she said.
"Good retriever! 'Ave one," was the response.
Somewhat objecting to be thus described, the girl declined the gift, and
was continuing her way upstairs.
"Wait a bit. I must give yer somethin' for yer trouble, me dear. I'll
learn yer some cookin'. Best and quickest way to make a sausage roll.
D'you know it?"
"No."
"Take a sausage to the top of the stairs and chuck it down--like them
apples rolled. See? Ha, ha! Shakespeare! No, not 'im this time. That was
the clown at the pantomime last year."
Evarne certainly thought the old dame was slightly incoherent, and
smiling indulgently took another step upstairs.
"Done it!" declared Mrs. Harbert triumphantly.
"What 'ave yer done now?" inquired Mrs. Smithkins.
"Made 'er laugh! Said I would. I fair 'ate to see a glum look on a
pretty face. You've lost yer friend, Miss Stornway. Now, won't yer come
in an' 'ave a cosy cup o' tea along o' me?"
"An' see 'er wunnerful pictures," sniggered Mrs. Smithkins.
"Jist be off with yer. To the pure all things is white as wool.
Shakespeare! Miss Stornway's a real laidy. She knows Shakespeare, I bet.
You ask 'er."
All this certainly succeeded in distracting Evarne's mind.
"Thank you," she said. "I shall very much like to come."
The visit turned out very successful, though it was perforce but brief,
as the girl had to be back at her labours again. Only by uninterrupted
industry could the requisite number of blouses be finished, and Evarne,
with only a few weeks' practice at machining, was far less rapid than
had been Miss Brodie with her ten years' experience. Milly, the new
fourteen-year-old apprentice, was clumsy and somewhat idle, so that
there was now less time than ever in Evarne's life for protracted
afternoon calls.
Day after day she worked with a will, and though at first her uttermost
endeavours only brought in about fourteen-and-sixpence each week, she
rapidly grew more skilful. Milly, too, became quicker and more useful,
and things were thus promising to become decidedly easier when an
unforeseen accident occurred. It was just one of those foolish little
mishaps that nobody can always succeed in guarding against. This one was
very unromantic in its origin. Evarne was seated on the side of one of
the public baths, polishing and paring and generally attending to her
pretty pink feet and nails, when somehow she lost her balance and fell.
In saving herself from splashing half-dressed into the water, she
contrived to drive the point of the scissors into her finger, right down
to the bone.
It only left a little wound, which Mrs. Harbert tied up with a piece of
rag, and although it was the right hand, the girl continued her work
next day as if nothing had happened. But in the night the pain grew so
bad that it awoke her and prevented her sleeping again, while the
daylight showed the wounded finger to be ominously blue and swollen.
This spread with terrible rapidity and ere long her hand was totally
useless. Full of alarm she hurried off to the hospital, and had her
suspicions of blood-poisoning confirmed. The poor hand was carefully
bandaged up and put into a sling, and, almost overwhelmed by this new
anxiety, the girl returned home to see what could be done about her
work.
Everything now devolved upon Milly. Evarne contrived to cut out the
blouses with her left hand, and to do a little tacking, but all else had
to be left to the apprentice. Evarne could but encourage and supervise,
and wearying work that proved. Even in these new circumstances Milly was
still slow and idle, and if she was pressed to work faster, she ceased
sewing altogether and whimpered.
Thus a miserable three shillings was all that could be earned in the
first week, and the next six days showed an increase of but ninepence.
Evarne had about half a sovereign laid by, and out of this she paid
Milly's wages and the hire of the all-precious machine. But in the
second week, when the landlord made his usual Monday rent-collecting
visit, she was forced to beg his indulgence, showing her blue and
bandaged hand as an excuse and explanation. At first he told her roughly
enough that he did not run his houses as a philanthropic undertaking,
and that if his tenants could not pay they just had to go. But finally
he grew more sympathetic, and at last quite kind. He actually promised
to take no steps whatsoever for a month, and if she stayed on after that
she could make it up at the rate of a shilling a week.
She recovered the partial use of her hand in less than the stipulated
time, and resumed her place at the machine. But she had now got
thoroughly backward with money matters. Only by pawning everything in
the room that was not absolutely essential could she pay both rent and
machine hire, and the eight to ten shillings that was all her still
crippled hand was able to earn seemed to be swallowed up immediately she
received it. Only about eighteen-pence at the outside could she manage
to retain to buy food for herself and her apprentice.
Now, Miss Milly was not particular, and had made few complaints at being
reduced to a diet of potatoes and bread and scrape; tea made of leaves
used a second time; rice boiled in water and sweetened by a little
condensed milk, and so on. When, however, the quantity came to be also
unpleasantly restricted her hearty appetite, unappeased, rendered her
decidedly fractious.
Her honorarium had been reduced by Miss Stornway to a shilling weekly,
on the promise that it should be more than made up later, but now she
was apparently expected to spend even this miserable half-pay on
sustaining life. True, Miss Stornway always took far the smaller portion
of every meagre meal, but unfortunately even that fact did not fill the
cavity in Milly's stomach. So the day came when that damsel, being
entrusted with a penny and sent out to purchase an ounce of tea,
returned no more. In the evening came a note:
"DERE MISS,
"i've gorn ome to my mother Because i wants more to eat. it aint
your forlt miss nor it aint mine and mother Says its rite if you
works ard you ort to ave Enuf to eat two shillings you Ows me
dont trubble about miss Eat it.
"Yours respeckful,
"MILLY."
Whether a sting or a kindness lay in the closing sentence, Evarne knew
not, but all the statements in the letter were as clearly undeniable as
was the fact that Milly had deserted her. She felt both ashamed and
strangely forsaken, and crushing the scrap of paper in her hand, rested
her pale cheek on the bare boards of the table, while tears of
feebleness and helplessness rolled from her weary eyes and slowly soaked
their way into the wood.
Hampered as she was by her still awkwardly swollen and painful hand,
with those terrible debts clinging like leeches, and with the imperative
need there had been for every penny that she and her assistant had
earned by their united efforts, she could not conceive how she was
possibly to manage without any help whatsoever. Milly might have stood
by her a little longer, she thought sadly.
There was no chance of economising on anything save food, and to such
lengths was she now forced to carry this disastrous self-denial, that
the uninitiated might have supposed she was trying to solve the problem
of how to live without eating. Naturally dainty, she had, in Jean's day,
often left untouched much of the indifferent food provided. Now she
consumed far rougher and more unpalatable meals to the last crumb with
avidity, and once or twice even ignobly consumed what should have been
her supper at the same time as her dinner.
She bravely persevered with her work, cutting-out and machining and
stitching from early morning until darkness descended. Even then she
continued her weary labours with the work held close up to the light of
a guttering candle, until practical inability to see longer forced her
to cease, to throw herself upon her bed and sleep.
But the night time brought very imperfect rest. Constantly she was
awakened by the vividness of dreams of banquets; well-stored provision
shops; food lying in the very gutter while people held her back from
reaching it; boards lavishly spread, whence every dish faded immediately
she thrust forth her hand to grasp its contents.
Scarcely ever did she leave the four bare walls of her room, save for
necessary business. Not only had she neither time nor strength, but now
the soles of her shoes were worn into great holes and her stockings were
no longer mendable, so that her bare feet trod the pavement, and became
bruised and blistered.
And every effort, additional to the day's routine, was to be avoided.
Scarcely could she drag herself up of a morning, repeatedly would she
find that the treadle of the machine was being worked slower and yet
more slowly, as a dull stupor and inertness crept like a fog over her
mind. Once she wasted a whole afternoon by fainting, and came to herself
to find that nightfall had set in while she was lying unconscious upon
the floor.
"I wonder if I'm going to die? Perhaps I ought to warn somebody or--or
do something. I wonder?" She asked herself this question one late
afternoon as she finished tying up the parcel of completed blouses, and
found that she could not walk across the room with them without
staggering and reeling.
She recalled a ghastly account she had read in the paper, of a man who
had died in a locked-up flat, and was never discovered until his corpse
decomposed and soaked through the floor to the ceiling below.
"Mrs. Harbert is just underneath me. I wonder if she would move if that
happened?" Evarne grimly and wretchedly pondered as she commenced to
descend the stairs.
Ere she was half-way down she suddenly stood still. What was happening?
Why was there that vast yawning pit below? It wasn't real--no, she knew
it--but all the same it made her dizzy. She grew blind, and her brain
seemed to heave madly. Dropping her parcel, she pressed both hands over
her eyes. Was she swaying to and fro, or were the stairs rocking beneath
her feet? She made a wild clutch at the banisters, but her fingers
closed only upon the air. She was falling--falling--yet could not save
herself, and a scream of terror rang through the house ere
unconsciousness closed in upon her, and she fell with a dull thud down
to the landing below.