Still holding her hand, I dropped down on my knees by her be

[Illustration: Cover art]

Wilhelmina in London

By

Barry Pain

Author of “Eliza,” “Eliza Getting On,”

“Exit Eliza,” etc.

NEW EDITION

London

John Long, Limited

Norris Street, Haymarket

1912

Contents

I. STRANDED

II. MR. NATHAN GOULD

III. THE MAN OF MEANS

IV. THE MAN BEHIND THE DOOR

V. THE SPIRITS OF HANFORD GARDENS

VI. UNREWARDED

VII. A QUEER COMMISSION

VIII. THE PEGASUS CAR

IX. A LOSS AND A GAIN

Wilhelmina in London

I

STRANDED

It is quite possible to love a person whom one does not respect, of

whom one even disapproves. I loved my father, but I certainly did

not respect him. He did not even respect himself.

When he married my mother, much against the wishes of his family, my

grandfather bought him an annuity of two hundred a year, and desired

to have nothing more to do with him. My mother died when I was quite

a little girl, but I have a vivid recollection that she was just

about as helpless as my father. In times of financial crisis--and,

thanks to my father, these were very frequent--the two would sit

staring at one another over the fire, and say that this was the

beginning of the end, or exhort each other to hope and courage, but

never, by any chance, take any practical way of dealing with the

situation. On these gloomy occasions my father generally made a

will. I do not think he, at any time, had anything to leave us worth

mentioning, but the sonorous phrases and the feeling that he was

doing something business-like seemed to give him a melancholy

satisfaction. I have the last will that he made before me now. It

begins: “I, Bernard Castel, being of sound mind and understanding,

and at peace with God and man, do hereby give and bequeath all my

real and personal estate, of whatsoever kind, to my only beloved

daughter, Wilhelmina.” There followed directions as to the ways of

disposing of this estate, supposing it should exceed twenty-five

thousand pounds at the time of his death, and further directions if

it should exceed fifty thousand. At that time we were as usual

skating on the very edge of bankruptcy. I remember my father

returned in triumph from dealing with the local tradesman who was his

principal creditor. “I have done it, Wilhelmina,” he said. “And I

doubt if any other man in the world could have done it. Another coat

of paint and there would have been a collision.”

I suppose he really loved me. He often told me, especially when a

financial crisis was at its worst, that I was all he had in the

world. But he never insured his life, and never made any provision

for me after his death. After all, I believe that a father and a

girl of sixteen, even if they happen to be gentle-folks, can live in

the country on two hundred a year, and even put by a few pounds for

insurance. The trouble was that my father could not let his income

alone. Every quarter-day brought some new scheme, generally of a

wildly speculative and gambling character. And before next

quarter-day we were terribly hard up. At first my father confided

these schemes to me, but I am quite practical, and I hated them, and

told him so. Then he kept his schemes to himself, merely observing,

in the deepest despondency when the bottom had dropped out of them,

“Wilhelmina, I fear that I have made a fool of myself again.” He

sometimes earned a little money by writing, and I think might have

earned more. He wrote stories of the most extreme sentimentality and

of the most aggressively moral character; and one of the Sunday

magazines used to publish them. He and I have screamed over them

many a time. Shortly after one quarter-day he went down to a land

auction in Essex and bought a small plot for ten pounds. When I

remonstrated, he said feebly that an excellent free luncheon had been

provided for all who attended the sale, and that, after all, much

money had been made by poultry farming. I asked him if either he or

I knew one single fact about poultry, except that they never laid as

many eggs as one expected. He admitted it, and in a rare fit of

remorse sat down at once and wrote a story about a girl with

consumption which brought him in nearly enough to cover the

difference between the price he had paid for the land and the price

he sold it for a few days later.

He was popular, as most extravagant men with a sense of humour are,

but his sense of humour had a blind point. He could never see that

any of his wild-cat business was utterly ridiculous, or understand

why sometimes in the middle of our deepest distress I could not help

laughing at him. Yet he did not take his literary work seriously at

all, and it used to be my chief amusement to get him to read out his

own stories, with his own parenthetical comments. His popularity

certainly served him at some of the times of crisis, and made his

creditors lenient with him. During his last illness several people

to whom he owed money, and had owed money for a long time, sent him

presents. I thought it was rather touching. We were living then at

a village called Castel-on-Weld, and we lived there simply and solely

because my father happened to come upon the name in an old Bradshaw,

and thought that it would be nice and hereditary to be Bernard

Castel, Esq., of Castel-on-Weld. I am not aware that any of his

ancestors had ever lived within a hundred miles of the place.

On the day after the funeral I got the only letter I ever received

from my grandfather. It did not pretend to any grief over the dead,

and it informed me, in a courteously acidulated way, that he did not

wish to see me and that I had nothing to expect from him. But it

enclosed a cheque for two hundred pounds, to cover present expenses

and until I was able to get work.

Now, I think a really fine and high-spirited girl out of a penny book

would have torn that cheque in half and sent it back to him with a

few dignified words. But I did not see why my butcher and baker and

candlestick maker should be called upon to finance my exhibition of a

proud and imperious nature. That was what it would have come to, for

we owed money to the butcher and the baker, and I do not doubt we

should have owed it to the candlestick maker as well, but for the

fact that there was no candlestick maker in the village. So I

wrote:--

“DEAR GRANDPAPA,--Thanks very much for the two hundred pounds, which

will be most useful, but you don’t seem to know how to write a letter

to a girl who has just lost her father. I shan’t bother you.--Your

affectionate granddaughter,

“WILHELMINA.”

Then the parson and the doctor came round, and they were two good

men. The doctor said that medical etiquette did not permit him to

make any charge to an orphan girl, and that if he took my money he

would be hounded out of the profession, and quite properly. But I

told him that I thought he was lying, and made him take the money.

As it was, he had given us any amount of his care and time and

charged about half nothing for it. He was not a rich man either.

The parson said that his wife wanted someone to act as a companion

and to assist in looking after the little girls. I thanked him very

much, but I said that I believed, if she thought it over, she would

find that she didn’t. They gave me lots of good advice, and when I

sold all the furniture and effects they bid frantically against one

another for the six bottles of distinctly inferior sherry which at

that time constituted our entire cellar. Other friends did similar

acts of kindness at the sale. I had meant it to be a perfectly

genuine sale, but all the time I felt that I was passing round the

hat. I do not think the auctioneer has ever forgotten it. The way

that sherry, with the maker’s name giving it away on every bottle,

fetched the price of a vintage Chateau d’Yquem of great age, must

have made an indelible impression.

I had thought it all out. I really did not want to take from these

good people what was given in the merest charity. I was not, as a

matter of fact, very intimate with any of them. I did not want to be

a companion, even if the parson’s wife had had any sort of use for a

companion. I had quite clearly made up my mind that there was no

work in the world that I should be ashamed to do, if I could do it;

but that I would not take up anything which could not possibly lead

to anything. Now, nearly every feminine occupation recommended to

the distressed but untrained gentlewoman is a _cul-de-sac_, and when

you get over the wall at the end of the _cul-de-sac_ you are in the

workhouse. I had also decided that I must get out of Castel-on-Weld,

because things did not happen there, and in consequence I could not

take advantage of things happening. I determined to go to London.

Beyond the general principles which I have indicated I had no clear

idea of what I was going to do, but I had got new clothes, no debts,

and about seventy-five pounds in cash. I think I was well educated,

though rather in a general and erratic way. My father, who had never

been in France in his life, spoke the most idiomatic, and even the

most argotic, French, with the vilest of accents. He infinitely

preferred French fiction to English, and I will do him the justice to

say that he generally remembered to look it up. It is possible that,

with my knowledge of French, music and literature, I might have

become a governess, but to become a governess is to walk deliberately

into the _cul-de-sac_. I had vague ideas that I should like to get

into some kind of business, and by cleverness, and practicality, and

temperance, and early rising, and the rest of the bag-of-tricks, worm

my way slowly upwards until I was a manageress and indispensable.

All the time I should be saving money, and should then be ready to

start for myself. I had not decided what the business was to be;

once in London I should have time to look about me.

I had also thought of marriage. Even if I had not thought of it, the

fact that the doctor proposed to me twice would have reminded me of

it. I was pretty enough, and though the idea of falling in love

never occurred to me, I thought that I might marry rather well one

day. That was an additional reason for leaving Castel-on-Weld. I

had already twice refused the only marriageable man in the

neighbourhood. But in any case I was only eighteen and I did not

mean to marry for some time to come.

I was going to play a lone hand, and the honest truth is that I

rather enjoyed the prospect. I was going to London, a place where

things happen, and I was going to do what I wanted in the way I

wanted. And perhaps I should starve, and perhaps I should have fun.

So one morning I got into a third-class railway carriage, and an old

woman talked to me at length about her somewhat unseemly physical

infirmities. I hope I was sympathetic, but my mind was already in

London, looking out for the possibility of adventure.

I did not have to wait long in London to discover that strange things

happen there. The first thing that I noticed on my arrival at

Charing Cross was that on the platform, under the clock, there were

some fifteen girls, all of whom wore the closest possible physical

resemblance to myself. We might all have been sisters.

II

MR. NATHAN GOULD

It was something of a surprise.

If on my arrival in London I had found waiting on the platform at

Charing Cross one girl of the same height as myself, the same colour

of hair, the same type of face, and the same style of clothes, I

might have thought it merely a coincidence. But here were fifteen

girls, all, so far as I could see, exactly similar. They were not in

groups, but scattered about the platform under the clock. They never

spoke to one another, but it struck me that they looked at one

another curiously and with something like veiled hostility. I saw

the same expression on their faces whenever one of them happened to

pass me. I could not imagine what it meant, and I wanted to find

out. I sent a porter to the cloak-room with my belongings, and stood

against the bookstall waiting events. It was then two minutes to one.

At one o’clock precisely a man of about thirty-five, in a light

overcoat, with a folded newspaper in his hand, walked rapidly into

the station and stood still, looking about him. His personal

appearance was not in his favour. He wore too much jewellery, and

the expression on his face was one of furtive spite. One of the

girls who were waiting walked close past him very slowly. He looked

at her intently, but made no sign, and she then passed out of the

station. A second girl did the same thing, except that she lingered

at a little distance from him. A third was just approaching, when he

came rapidly forward to me and raised his hat.

“I think,” he said, in a slightly foreign accent, “I am right in

presuming that you are here in response to my advertisement in this

morning’s _Mail_.”

“No,” I said, “I have seen no advertisement. I don’t know you, and

don’t understand why you should speak to me.”

“I hope,” he said, “you will give me an opportunity of explaining.

It can do you no harm, and may be very profitable to you. It is a

matter of life and death, or I would not trouble you. I assure you

that I mean no disrespect whatever.”

By his tone and manner it was perfectly evident that he was not

talking to me merely because I was a pretty girl. He was the kind of

man whom anyone would distrust at sight, but of whom no one could

have been afraid. I was not in the least afraid. I shrugged my

shoulders.

“This is wildly unusual,” I said, “and I don’t like it. You may

begin your explanations. If at any moment I think them at all

unsatisfactory, I shall send you away. Begin by showing me the

advertisement.”

He handed me the paper in his hand, with the advertisement marked,

and I read as follows:--

“If the lady of eighteen with dark hair and blue eyes, pale

complexion, good-looking, height five-foot-seven, will be on the

platform of Charing Cross, under the clock, at 1 p.m. precisely this

morning, the man in the light overcoat, with the folded newspaper,

will meet her there and liberally reward her services.”

“Well?” I said.

“The advertisement was not addressed to any particular lady. I

merely wanted to find one who would bear a close resemblance to my

half-sister, who died about a month ago. My mother is seriously ill,

and the death of my half-sister, to whom she was devoted, has been

kept from her. If she knew of that death there is no doubt that she

would succumb at once. She has been told that my half-sister is away

in the country, but she has begun to suspect, and we have had to

promise to produce her. You are exactly like her, you have the same

tone of voice, you spoke to me exactly as she would have spoken if a

stranger had addressed her. The impersonation will be a very easy

one; you will have to be in the same room with my mother for a few

moments, and will have little to say. The room will not be brightly

lit, and the doctor would not permit any but the briefest interview.

You will be prolonging her life for a few days--at the best I fear it

cannot be for more than that--and you will remove a load of terrible

suffering from her mind. For this I am ready to pay you five pounds

now, and one pound for every day that you remain at my house. My

name is Gould--Mr. Nathan Gould. Here is my card.”

The card bore an address in Wilbraham Square, Bloomsbury. I thought

the matter over for a few seconds. One can do a great deal of

thinking in a few seconds. “Mr. Gould,” I said, “if I believed your

story entirely I would do what you want for nothing. I neither

believe it nor disbelieve it entirely. I have the impression that

you are keeping something back.”

“Not intentionally. I explained myself as quickly and briefly as

possible, but I am ready to answer any questions.”

“Possibly I am not in a position to ask the questions which would be

material.” At this I thought he winced slightly. “I consider that I

take a great risk, and I do not take a great risk unless the

consideration is proportionately great. If you will pay me fifty

pounds in cash now, and five pounds for every day that I remain in

your house, I will come. I have only just arrived in London, have no

friends here, and was on the point of going to an hotel. If you

accept my terms I can come at once. If not, there is no more to be

said.”

He did not seem much surprised. “Is that your last word?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Very well. You shall have my cheque for fifty pounds as soon as we

reach my house, and the rest of the money will be paid you day by

day.”

“That will not do,” I said. “We will drive now to your bank, and you

will draw fifty pounds in notes or gold. We shall then go on to my

bank, where I shall deposit the money. After that I am at your

service.”

“You are a business-like woman,” he said. “It is queer to be

distrusted when one is really perfectly honest, but it shall be as

you wish. If you will come with me I will call a cab.”

“You will call two,” I said. “A four-wheeler for myself and my

luggage, and a hansom for yourself.”

My programme was punctually carried out. As it happened, we both

banked in Lombard Street, and it was not long before that part of the

business was concluded and we had arrived at the house in Wilbraham

Square. It was a good Georgian house, and looked well kept. Gould

paid the cabman and introduced his latch-key.

“No,” I said, “ring. I prefer it.” I wanted particularly to see who

would answer the door. An extremely commonplace and honest-looking

parlourmaid answered it. When she saw me she staggered back aghast.

“That’s all right, Annie,” said Mr. Gould reassuringly. “The

resemblance is striking, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” said the maid. “It took me very much by surprise.”

“All right upstairs?” asked Gould.

“I believe so. The doctor is just leaving.”

By this time the man had brought my luggage into the hall. At the

same moment a grey-headed old gentleman came down the stairs,

slipping a stethoscope into his side-pocket. He also seemed startled

at seeing me.

I trusted that old gentleman, and I trusted the maid who had opened

the door, and I did not trust Mr. Nathan Gould a bit. At this moment

his air was far more that of a man who has recently pulled off a

clever financial coup than of a son who has succeeded in saving a

mother to whom he is devoted from a great sorrow. Gould went forward

to the doctor at once.

“How is she?” he asked eagerly.

“No change,” said the doctor. He looked across at me. “Really,” he

said, “the resemblance is astounding.”

Gould brought him up to me. “This is our doctor,” he said. “Dr.

Wentworth.” Gould hesitated. I had not given him my name.

“I am Miss Tower,” I said.

The doctor bowed. “May I ask,” I said, “if you have been attending

Mrs. Gould for some time?”

“Certainly,” he said. “For the last five years.”

“I should like very much to speak with you alone for a few minutes.

Have you the time, and would you be so very kind as to do this for

me?”

The doctor looked inquiringly at Gould. Gould was furious. He knew,

of course, that I was about to ask for his character. But he

restrained himself. “Miss Tower,” he said, with a touch of

bitterness, “has already made it quite clear to me that she must have

her own way. I believe there is no one in the drawing-room.” The

doctor held open the door for me.

“I will give you as many minutes as you want, with pleasure,” he said.

I gave him my story as briefly as I could, and told him all that had

passed between Mr. Gould and myself. “I am going to be quite frank,”

I went on. “I do not trust the man in the least. I do not believe

he has one atom of love or respect for his mother.”

“He has not,” said the doctor.

“Why then does he want this impersonation?”

“What he has told you is true. Mrs. Gould is very ill. There are

various complications, but it is the heart which we have to fear

principally. It is impossible to cure her, but I confidently believe

that by coming here you will prolong her life and make her last days

much happier. As to Mr. Gould’s motives, I have perhaps no right to

speak. He has not confided in me. I will only give you the facts.

Mrs. Gould is one of two sisters, of equal fortune, and bitterly

jealous of one another. The elder sister died in her seventy-fourth

year. She did not wish Mrs. Gould to have any advantage over her,

and left her money to accumulate until Mrs. Gould’s seventy-third

birthday, when Mrs. Gould comes into it. She was a cranky old woman,

and did not like the idea of her sister having any more money than

she had. Mrs. Gould is a wealthy woman now, and on her seventy-third

birthday, which will be in a few days’ time, will be twice as

wealthy. If she does not live till her seventy-third birthday, the

whole of her sister’s money goes to the London Hospital. Do you see?”

“Yes,” I said, “I see. She has doubtless left her money to her son,

and in the event of her surviving until her seventy-third birthday he

will profit.”

“Precisely. Her entire estate is left equally between Mr. Gould and

his half-sister, and in the event of the death of either the whole

goes to the survivor. That is the situation in a nutshell.”

“Then what have I to fear?”

“Nothing at all until after that seventy-third birthday.”

“I see,” I said meditatively. I could imagine that after that date

Mr. Gould’s filial affection might undergo some remarkable changes.

The doctor gave me some useful information about the half-sister and

explained to me exactly what I was to do when I was admitted to his

patient’s room. He also gave me his address. “You may find that

useful in a week’s time,” he said.

My luggage had already been taken up and the maid showed me the way

to my room. On the stairs we met Mr. Gould. “It is all right,” he

said in a low voice, “I have just come from my mother’s room. She is

overjoyed. You will see her this evening.” He paused and added,

“And have you heard the worst of me?”

“Not yet,” I said. “That will come.”

Then he guessed how much I knew, and hated me almost as much as I

hated him.

The maid who was unpacking for me asked me if I would lunch

downstairs with Mr. Gould, or if I preferred to lunch in my own room.

It is always well to get to know one’s enemy, and I did not hesitate.

A few minutes later I was sitting down to lunch alone with a man whom

two hours before I had never seen in my life, and of whom I now knew

very little, and nothing which was not dead against him.

He was really very clever. He hardly spoke of his mother at all, he

was quiet in his manner, and showed himself most attentive to my

personal comfort. I was not to consider myself a prisoner at all. I

could have the brougham that afternoon and go anywhere I liked. If

it was convenient to me to be back at six o’clock, that would be the

best time for me to see his mother. But if not, some other

arrangement might be made. Did I like the room that had been given

me? If not, it could be changed. There was another little room just

opposite to it in the same passage, which was being got ready to

serve as a private sitting-room for me.

I thanked him, and said I was not going out. Turning the

conversation away from myself, I made him talk to me about his

half-sister. He talked about her in the most easy and matter-of-fact

way. I do not suppose he ever cared for her or for anybody except

himself. All the same, the information that I got as to minute

points of her personal appearance and her manner of speaking were

very useful.

At six o’clock I was quite ready. Mr. Gould now seemed a little

nervous and excited. He kept on giving me fragments of stupid advice

and telling me things that he had told me before. The interview was

to be a very short one, and the doctor and the nurse were both in the

dimly lit room when I entered it, though they stood at some distance

from the bed. On the bed lay the dying woman--a handsome old Jewess,

with white-yellow skin of one even tint, colourless lips, and blazing

eyes. I went straight up to the bed and took her claw of a hand and

bent over her and kissed her. She spoke in a very low voice, and I

just caught the words, “Thought I’d lost you.”

“No,” I said, “I’m here, and I will not leave you again until you get

better.”

Her eyes closed and opened again and fixed themselves on me. “Pray

for me,” she said.

Still holding her hand, I dropped down on my knees by her bedside.

My thoughts flew frantically in unlikely directions. I remembered my

own mother sitting before the fire and saying with helpless solemnity

that it was the beginning of the end. I was not quite sure where I

had put my watch-key, and puzzled about it. I recalled vividly a fat

old woman who had travelled up in the same compartment with me and I

wondered where she had gone. And all the time I was holding the old

woman’s hands and trying to pray, and hearing the clock on the

mantelpiece tick, as it seemed to me, constantly quicker and quicker.

Presently the doctor touched me on the shoulder. I opened my eyes

and saw that the old woman had fallen asleep. I released her hand

gently, and slipped out of the room. When I got outside I was

shaking like a leaf, and there was Mr. Gould full of eager questions.

I answered him as well as I could. He was delighted.

“Now,” I said, “let me go to my own rooms for the rest of the day.”

He looked at me curiously. “Why,” he said, “you seem upset. I

suppose you are not as used to it as we are. You ought to have a

brandy-and-soda. Let me get it for you.”

I refused that, went off to my own room, lay down on the bed, and

began to cry. I had not the faintest idea what I was crying about.

It was all so strange and horrible. But soon I sat up and bullied

myself. I could see that there might be much to do which would want

all my sense and none of my emotion. I dined in my own room, and

with my dinner there was brought to me a letter from Mr. Gould,

thanking me for my kindness and enclosing a five-pound note.

The next two days passed quietly enough. I now saw the old woman two

or three times a day. The third day was the day before the birthday.

In the afternoon Mrs. Gould, who had been getting much better, became

rapidly worse, fainted, and was unconscious for quite a long time.

Gould made a fool of himself. He whipped the doctor off into the

dining-room, and talked so loudly that I could hear in the

drawing-room. “Look here, doctor,” he said, “you must keep her alive

for another nine hours. You can do it if you like, you know. Use

more stimulants. You want to flog that heart. Keep it going

somehow. Were you trying oxygen?”

“Mr. Gould,” said the doctor, “you know that your mother refuses to

see any other doctor, and that any attempt to force one upon her

would certainly be fatal. Otherwise I should have thrown up this

case before. As it is, I am not going to enter into any consultation

with yourself or any other ignorant and unqualified person. And it

would help me to keep my temper, and would therefore facilitate my

work, if I had no interviews with you of any kind. Send your

inquiries through the servant.”

The doctor came out and shut the door. He looked into the

drawing-room for a moment. “Miss Tower,” he said, “if Mrs. Gould

lives until after twelve to-night, look out.”

“I had meant to,” I said.

Then he went up to his patient.

At twelve that night Mrs. Gould was alive and sleeping peacefully.

As soon as Mr. Gould had heard this glad news he went up to bed.

That night, for the first time, I had not received my fee. At

breakfast next morning he was distinctly disrespectful in his manner.

“Look here,” he said, “the best of friends must part. You’ve done

all I wanted, and there is no doubt my mother will get on all right

without you now. She has got rid of the idea that my half-sister is

dead, and that was the main point. I’ve told them to pack your

things, and as soon as you’re ready to go you shall have that last

fiver you managed to screw out of me. You’ve been paid a sight too

well, but I’m a man of my word.”

“I’m not going,” I said.

“Not going? Don’t talk in that silly way. You’ll have to go. I can

starve you out--I can throw you out by force if you like. Still, I

don’t want a scene. I suppose I must make it two fivers instead of

one. That’s what you’re after.”

I took out the slip of paper on which Dr. Wentworth had written down

his address for me. “It’s quite true,” I said. “You may have my

things packed and put on a cab, and may ask me to leave the house.

If I do so that will be the address to which the cabman will drive,

and the consequences are likely to be serious for you.”

He raved and abused like a drunken cad for a few moments, and then

went out of the room--and, a moment later, out of the house.

At eleven that morning Mrs. Gould died suddenly in my arms. It was a

quick and painless ending. A telegram was sent to Mr. Gould’s office

in the City, and the reply came back that he was not there. Dr.

Wentworth came down to the drawing-room with me and seemed slightly

hesitating. “Excuse me,” he said, “for asking the question, but have

you any friends in London?”

“None,” I said.

“And have you any plans?”

“None; except to leave this place immediately. I shall see what

happens. It was through seeing what happened that I came here. At

any rate, I’m not going to take on any of the underpaid work leading

to nothing of which women seem to be so fond.”

“I don’t quite like this,” he said. “I rather wish you’d go and talk

things over with my wife. But you won’t, and after all, I don’t know

that it would do much good. You’re playing a lone hand and you

rather like it, and you can take care of yourself.”

I talked to him a little longer and then my cab came. As I drove

away I saw Mr. Gould approaching the house. He was not helpless, but

he was a little more than half drunk. I wondered for what act he had

been trying to find the courage.

III

THE MAN OF MEANS

My principal feeling on leaving Mr. Gould’s house was one of extreme

weariness. The emotions wear one out more than work does. I had

been living idly and even luxuriously, but I was more tired than I

used to be in the days when I lived with my father and during some

financial or domestic crisis the whole of the housework fell to my

lot. I had Mr. Gould’s five-pound notes in my pocket, and I drove to

a good hotel. I stopped there for three days, and I think I spent

most of my time in bed and asleep. Then I said to myself,

“Wilhelmina, this will not do. You are spending too much, and you

are earning nothing, and you are not even looking about you.” So I

left my good hotel and went to a cheap boarding-house. And on the

second night that I was there a young Hindoo proposed marriage to me.

Also the cooking was very bad. So I left.

While I was there I had calculated that I had enough money to furnish

a very small flat and to live for very nearly a year. I found my

flat in a Brompton back street. It was not one of the mansions with

lifts and liveried porters and electric light and lots of white

paint. It was a little thirty-pound house which had been ingeniously

converted into three flats. One was in the basement, and you entered

it down the area steps, and paid seven shillings a week when you got

there. The ground-floor flat was eight shillings, and the upstairs

flat seven-and-six. I went in for luxury and eight shillings. I had

a separate entrance, and when I shut my front door I was alone in my

own little world. The world contained a sitting-room, bedroom and

kitchen, and was extremely dirty and horrible until I set to work on

it. I need not say that I spent more money than I had intended on

cleaning, furnishing and decorating. Everybody does that. As an

economy and a punishment I did everything for myself. The flat above

me was occupied by a horse-keeper from one of the ’bus-yards and his

wife. The wife did a little intermittent cheap dressmaking. They

both drank, used improper language, and occasionally flung paraffin

lamps at one another. The flat below had been occupied by an old man

who lived alone, and had got tired of it and died. I met his dead

body coming up those area steps as I moved in. After that the flat

remained untenanted. Every Saturday a knowing-looking young man with

a pencil behind his ear, and an account book and a black bag, called

for the eight shillings. And as long as you paid that, nobody cared

who you were, or what you did, or why you did it. I rather liked

that.

When I was comfortably installed I began to think things out. I

decided at first to go in for the gratitude of the aged. You know

the kind of thing. You render the old gentleman or old lady some

slight service in a ’bus or railway carriage, and a month later they

die and leave you all their money. I think I was right in believing

in the gratitude of the aged. Compared with the young they are very

grateful. But I fancy they have a great tendency to have wives and

children or other near relations, and to abstain from leaving their

money to the entire stranger who has opened the carriage door for

them. One day, in Chancery Lane, a horse in a hansom cab came down

rather excessively, and a very aged solicitor shot out in a

miscellaneous heap into the middle of the road. I helped him up,

saved his hat from the very jaws of an omnibus, so to speak, and said

I was sorry for him. He did not even ask for my name and address,

and at the moment of going to press I have heard nothing further from

him. The other old people to whom I was able to offer some slight

service seemed to think that a few words of warm thanks would be all

I required. I began to disbelieve in the familiar stories of the

wills of the wealthy.

And then I embarked on a business which I am afraid must prove

conclusively that I was a daughter of my father, for it was just the

mad, wild-cat kind of thing that he would certainly have embarked on

himself, if he had ever thought of it. Briefly, I put an

advertisement in one of the most popular of the Sunday papers, and

also in the _Morning Post_, addressed to all who were unhappy in

love. “I know the heart, and I know the world,” was the way I began.

I pointed out cunningly that however much one might need advice in

these matters, there was always a feeling of embarrassment in

consulting anyone who knew you. The only person in whom one could

confide was the entire stranger. I pointed out, moreover, that real

names and addresses need never be given to me. I only required to

know the facts, and I would send a letter of advice specially written

for each case for the sum of half a crown. Their letters were to be

directed to “Irma.” And I gave the address of a little newsagent,

who took in letters for me.

I ran this business for about two months. It began slowly, but after

the first fortnight I really had as much as I could do. I always

asked the people to whom I sent letters to recommend me to their

friends, and in many cases I know that they did so. I gave the best

advice that I could, and I had a small shilling book on the marriage

laws which I found very useful. Not one couple in a hundred that

wants to get married really knows how it may or may not be done. My

clients were chiefly women, and I have grave doubts as to the

seriousness of some of the few men who applied to me. But I did not

mind in the least so long as their postal orders were enclosed. The

women seemed to belong almost exclusively to two sets--domestic

servants and foolish people in smart society. The middle-class would

have nothing to do with me, and I am not sure, although I always gave

the best advice I could, that the middle-class was not right. Only

once or twice, in the curious confessions that were poured out on me,

did I come upon anything that I should have called real romance.

There was plenty of vanity, there was plenty of sentimentality, and

there was a good deal of acute money-grubbing. It was really

interesting work, though it kept me a great deal indoors, and though

I am not sure even now that it was quite honest.

At the end of the first month some blessed young man, whom I am glad

to have this opportunity of thanking, wrote a short and chaffing

article about my advertisement. For days after this I was simply

inundated with letters, and I had to send out post cards to my

clients explaining that, owing to the pressure of business, my

letters of advice to them would probably be delayed for some days.

Among those letters was one bearing the address of a house in

Berkeley Square, which was so extraordinary that I give it in full.

It was one of the few letters that I received from men:--

“DEAR MADAM,--I have seen your advertisement, and also the short

article upon it in the _Daily Courier_, and my own case is so curious

that I have decided to address you. I enclose a postal order for

half a crown as required, but I am a man of means, and in the event

of your being able to assist me I shall, as you will see, propose a

more adequate remuneration. I have been a great traveller and

sportsman, and you may possibly have come upon my recent work on

_Sport in Thibet_. I have now returned to England and am anxious to

marry. But I am prevented by a strange psychological characteristic

of my own.

“The fact, put briefly, is that I cannot stand fear. Any evidence of

timidity in a man inspires me with rage, and in a woman with disgust.

However attractive she may be, at the slightest sign that she fears

me, love vanishes completely. I cannot stand her, I cannot bear to

be with her. This is the more unfortunate because I am by nature a

dominant person. I have been told that my eyes are mesmeric. I do

not believe in this nonsense, but certainly women seem to find it

difficult to meet my gaze fairly and squarely. I have a somewhat

hasty temper, and nothing exasperates it more than the attempt to

smooth it down, accompanied as it always is by fear of what I may do

next. I want a woman who does not care one straw what I do next--who

will be absolutely free from every form of cowardice, physical or

moral, as I am myself. The mother of my children must not be a

coward.

“I am thirty-seven years of age, wealthy, and not, I believe, much

uglier than other men, and I cannot find the woman that I require.

Possibly, among the many cases which must have been brought to your

notice, you will have come across some such woman. If so, and if you

will arrange a meeting between her and me, I will pay you the sum of

one hundred pounds, provided, of course, that I am satisfied on the

question of her courage. If, though satisfied on this point, I do

not wish to marry her, I will pay her also the sum of one hundred

pounds for the trouble which I have given her. She must, of course,

not be older than I am myself, and I confess that good looks are a

great consideration with me. Social standing is of no importance

whatever. I do not allow popular prejudices to interfere with my

actions, even when they are of the least importance, and far less do

I admit of such interference in my choice of a wife.--I am, my dear

madam, faithfully yours, ----.”

I do not give his signature. It is a name that you will find in

Debrett, though I did not look it up at the time. That letter gave

me a great deal to think over. There was a queer mixture of bragging

and modesty about it. Yet, I asked myself, how could he give me the

facts which it was necessary for me to know without appearing to

brag? The commission of one hundred pounds was certainly tempting,

but none of my correspondents occurred to me as being likely to meet

his requirements, even if they had not had their own affairs on their

hands. Fear is a feminine quality. Women have a right to it;

without being cowardly, they may be able to realise a danger, and

they may have delicate nerves. Nor can I see that they are any the

worse for it. After a little reflection I wrote to say that I

believed I should be able to assist him if he could wait for about a

fortnight. And I had a reply on the following day to say that he

would wait with pleasure.

I was not, decidedly not, thirty-seven, and I was as pretty as I

thought he had any right to expect. I was not the creature of steel

that he required, but, none the less, my nerves were in fairly good

order, and I thought that I could get through, at any rate, any of

the preliminary tests to which he might subject me. Two hundred

pounds are better than one hundred. Possibly I might marry this man.

I did not know, and did not want to marry anybody. But he might take

his chance and, in case of failure, fall in line with the doctor at

Castel-on-Weld and the young Hindoo in the boarding-house. It is

wonderful how many excuses one can find for an action which brings in

two hundred pounds.

At the end of the fortnight I wrote and gave him an appointment for

the afternoon of two days later, outside the Stores in Victoria

Street, when I said that the young lady whom I had selected as likely

to meet his requirements would meet him. I suggested that there

should be some sign by which he might be known. Next day I received

a telegram in these words:--

“I shall come dashing up. The red rose is, and always has been, my

sign.”

I thought over that telegram for a long time, and I did not quite

like it. It was altogether too queer. But I meant to see the thing

through. After all, I had given him no sign by which he could

recognise me, and I could always back out at the last moment if I

thought it necessary. So, at the time appointed, which was at three

in the afternoon, I was in Victoria Street at some little distance

from the Stores, waiting to see what might happen.

What actually happened was rather grotesque. A four-wheeled cab

drove up, and an old gentleman got out. He wore a red rose in his

button-hole and another in his hat. He took four rosebushes in pots

from the interior of the cab and placed them on the pavement; dived

back into his cab once more, and came out with a large florist’s box.

This was packed with red roses which he proceeded to scatter

broadcast. His cabman laughed till he nearly fell off the box, and a

large crowd quickly gathered round. The crowd seemed to annoy the

old gentleman. I heard him shouting in a querulous voice, “I am here

for a special purpose. Kindly go away. I require this street for

the afternoon.” A small boy knocked over one of the little

rose-bushes, and this exasperated the old gentleman still further.

In a moment he had whipped a revolver out of his pocket, and began

firing it up into the air in an indiscriminate manner. The police

very promptly got him. And I said nothing to anybody and went home.

Naturally the case was reported in all the papers. The old man had

been strange in his manner for some time, but his relations had not

apprehended anything serious. This afternoon he had been

particularly enraged because he could not get a four-wheeler, and he

was too nervous to ride in hansoms.

I never heard any more of the case, but it gave me a dislike of the

business which I was engaged upon and the dislike was increased a few

days later. I was looking out of my windows when I saw a woman of

common appearance give an almost imperceptible nod to a passing

policeman. She then came on to my flat and knocked. I let her in.

“You are the lady who advertises as ‘Irma’?” she said.

“I am. How did you know that I lived here?”

“They told me at the tobacconist’s where your letters are sent. Now,

I want you to give me some help. I have got the money here, and I

can pay well.”

“What is it you want?” I asked.

“Well, I’m told that you are a wise woman and know the future. A

man, rather younger than myself, has every appearance of being

attracted by me, but I don’t know whether he means anything serious

or not. I thought perhaps you’d look at my hand and tell me what was

destined.”

I sent her away at once. It was a police trap, of course. When you

receive many letters, containing many postal orders, and you cash

those orders all at one office, I suppose the police become

interested. It seemed degrading, and I hated it. Also I had

reflected that this was not really work that would lead to anything.

I sat down there and then and wrote letters withdrawing the “Irma”

advertisements. My total profit, after all expenses were paid,

amounted to a little over twenty pounds.

IV

THE MAN BEHIND THE DOOR

Being still young and passably beautiful, I had no wish to become a

cynic. But the events of the next fortnight tended to make me so. I

reverted to my old idea of making a conquest of some big business

firm in my belief that I had ideas and could make suggestions and

that these were worth money.

I still believe that ideas and suggestions are worth money--pots of

money. I also believe that it is extremely difficult to get a guinea

for the best of them.

I tried an inflated and gigantic shop, one of the stores where you

buy everything, and I asked to see the manager. I do not suppose I

did see the manager, but I saw someone who was more or less in

authority in a back office. There was a clerk at work in that

office, and the clerk made me nervous. If I could have rung and had

him removed I might have got on better. As I was pretty and well

dressed and did not look poor, and might have called to complain of

the quality of the bacon supplied, the managerial person was at first

extremely polite, and asked in what way he could serve me.

“I believe,” I said, “that this is a business in which new ideas are

of value.”

“Yes,” he said suavely, “in fact, we’ve already noticed it.” He was

still polite, but one could detect a slight shade of irony.

“Well,” I said blunderingly, “I am a woman with ideas--heaps of

ideas. I have thought about your business particularly, and I am

full of suggestions. I believe them to be valuable, but before I

hand them over to you I should like to come to some business

arrangement; either in the way of a cash payment, or, where

practicable, a percentage on profits. In the latter case, of course,

I should expect permission to inspect your books and----”

At this moment the clerk, who had been writing at a side table, with

his back to me, went off like a soda-water bottle. I am inclined to

think now that for some moments he must have been suffering severely.

“Shut up, or get out!” said the manager to the clerk.

The clerk, being unable to shut up, got out at once. Then the

manager turned to me.

“Extraordinary!” he said seriously. “Most extraordinary. And yet

you don’t look as if you’d been drinking.”

Then I got up. “My proposal seems to you very silly,” I said. “And,

because I was nervous, I put it all very badly. But I do not think

that justifies you in behaving like a cad.”

He gave a jump in his chair. Being a person in authority, he did not

get a chance to hear the plain truth about himself often.

“Nor do I,” he said reflectively. “I beg your pardon. Still, the

thing was so outrageous; you must see, my dear young lady, that we

could not dream for one moment----”

“Thanks,” I said. “I won’t trouble you any further.”

If I had stuck to that man and given him one or two of my ideas in

advance, reserving the question of terms, I am not sure that I might

not have done something. He would have liked to compensate for his

rudeness, if he could have done it. But, being proud and angry and

an idiot, I walked out. My one idea was to get out of the awful

place.

I tried two or three other shops, and began at the right end, but did

very little better. One man listened to three of my ideas for

Christmas novelties, very politely regretted that he could not avail

himself of them, and showed me out. He used two of those ideas

subsequently and made money with them, and I hope it may choke him.

Another man listened to a still longer list and, while disclaiming

any legal liability, offered me five shillings for my trouble.

So, as things were going rather badly, I was particularly glad of the

windfall which came to me in connection with the man behind the door.

It was one of those queer things that cannot happen except in big

cities. It is part of the fascination of London that every moment of

the day and night something more wicked and more strange is happening

than one could ever invent.

I had been into the North End Road to do a little shopping. I had

got six eggs and a pound of tomatoes and a new tooth-brush and some

other luxuries, and my hands were full. I managed to get my door

open with the latch-key, but in trying to get it out again I nearly

dropped those eggs. So I went through into my little sitting-room,

put my parcels down carefully, and was just going back to shut the

outer door and get my key, when I distinctly heard the door shut. It

did not shut with a bang, as if it had been blown to; it was shut

very gently and carefully, as if the object had been to avoid noise.

So I was just about as frightened as a school girl in a barrel of

live mice. But I went out into the passage all the same.

There, in the passage behind the door, stood a tall and extremely

well-dressed gentleman of about forty. His frock-coat was buttoned

and fitted his good figure to perfection. In one hand he held the

glossiest of silk hats, and in the other his gloves and

walking-stick. His appearance was foreign; his hair was not

grotesque, but it was longer than an Englishman generally wears it.

He wore a pointed beard and, for a man, he was by no means ugly. He

spoke good enough English, though with a slight accent.