"Mr Thorold would find out and be furious. You must help openly, or
not at all. You have helped by keeping him company all these weeks."
He hitched his shoulders, and made a grimace of disparagement.
"It's a long time since my company could be called cheering, I'm afraid.
Thorold is `down and out' himself, and he ought to have happy people
about him." He turned his dark eyes upon me with sudden interest.
"Like _you_!" he said emphatically, "like _you_! Excuse a personal
remark, Miss Harding, but you seem to have an eternal flow of vitality.
Thorold and I were talking about you last night, comparing you with
other women of your--er--your generation. We agreed that you left an
extraordinary impression of youth!" He looked at me with wistful eyes.
He was a lonely man, and I was a woman, conveniently at hand, and
possessed of a "feeling heart". An impulse towards confidence struggled
to birth. In his eyes I could see it grow.
"I suppose," he began tentatively, "you have had an easy life?"
"In a material sense--yes! But I have had my trials." A wave of
self-pity engulfed me and quivered in my voice. "I have been separated,
by death or distance, from all my relatives. My best friend is abroad."
"Death--or distance!" he repeated the words in his deep, slow tones, as
though they had struck a note in his own heart. "But distance _is_
death, Miss Harding! The worst kind of death. Desolation without
peace! Thorold thinks himself brokenhearted, but there are men who
would envy him his clean, sweet grief. His sorrow is for himself alone.
She is at peace!"
"Ah," I said quickly, "I know what you mean. When we are quite young,
death seems the crowning loss, but there are worse things--I've
discovered that! I realised it in those terrible days when we feared
for Billie's brain. When you love people very much, it would be a daily
death to know that they were suffering."
He gazed gloomily into the fire.
"It is extraordinary--the capacity for suffering of the human heart!
Physically we are so easily destroyed. An invisible germ will do it,
the prick of a finger, a draught of cold air; but a man can live on,
suffering mental torture, month after month, year after year, and his
weight will hardly decrease by a pound. You read of broken hearts, but
there are no such things! Hearts are invulnerable, torture-proof,
guaranteed to endure all shocks!"
It occurred to me that it was time that Miss Harding exerted her
vitality and stopped this flow of repining. The poor man had evidently
had some tragedy in his life which had warped his outlook. He needed
cheering--we all needed cheering; proverbially the surest way of
cheering yourself is to cheer other people; therefore the sane and
obvious way of spending his money was in providing cheer for the
company. I said as much, and he said, "Certainly; but how? It was
winter time. A winter's day in London holds an insuperable barrier
against any possibility of enjoyment." I said, "Not at all! There were
heaps of things--heaps of ways." He said, "Would I kindly specify one
or two of the `heaps'?" I said, "Certainly not! The essence of a treat
lay in its quality of surprise. It was for him to think." He smiled at
me with whimsical amusement, and cried, "You said that just like a girl.
You are a girl at heart, Miss Harding, in spite of your grey hairs.
What a pity you did not marry, you would have given some man and some
kiddies such a thundering good time. I know, of course, that it was
your own doing. There must have been--"
"Oh, there were!" I cried glibly. "Several!"
"But you couldn't--You were never tempted?"
"No, never. At least--" Suddenly I found that it was necessary to
qualify that denial. "There are two things which are always tempting to
a woman, Mr Hallett--love and strength! Every woman would be glad to
have a strong, loving man to take care of her--if he were the right
man!"
"Well!" he sighed, and rose heavily from his seat. "No doubt you knew
best, but--I hope you gave him his chance! We men have many sides, but
the best side is apt to remain hidden until some woman brings it out.
If he loved you, you owed him something. I hope you played fair and
gave him his chance!"
He turned towards the door; we shook hands, and he left without another
word. I turned back to the fire, sat me down, and thought.
Ralph Maplestone had demanded his chance, and I had thought myself noble
and brave in refusing to give it. He was strong and he was loving; he
had asked nothing better than to take care of me. Would the time ever
come, when I was really old, when I should sit by a lonely hearth and
look back and regret? I thought of Mr Hallett's voice as he spoke
those last words, and saw a vision of his face. It is a beautiful face,
and I dearly love beauty. What a satisfaction it would be to go through
life looking at the curve of that nose and the modelling of that chin
and jaw! I thought of the Squire's stern voice, and his blunt,
plain-featured face. Always, always, so long as I lived, I should long
to take a pair of pincers and tweak that nose into shape, and nip little
pieces of flesh from the neck, and pad them on the hollows beneath the
cheek-bones. Suddenly I began to laugh. I imagined myself doing it--
saw the expression in the blue, startled eyes.
Strange how plain faces can fascinate more than beautiful ones! My
laughter died away. It is difficult to keep on laughing by oneself. I
was tired, and had been giving out sympathy all day; depression clutched
me, and a restless irritability. At this auspicious moment the orphan
knocked at the door and announced that Number 19 would be glad to speak
a few words.
"Show her in!" I said, and in she came--a pretty, thin, little woman,
with a tempery eye.
"I am sorry to intrude, but you must really understand that this is too
much! When people live in flats, it is essential that they show some
consideration for their neighbours. Will you kindly listen to that?"
I listened. Winifred and Marion were playing at "bears," and chasing
Bridget to her death. Engrossed in my own thoughts, I had paid no
attention, beyond a subconscious satisfaction that they were enjoying
themselves. The roars did not annoy me, but they were certainly fairly
loud. I tendered a civil explanation.
"It's Mr Thorold's little girls. Their brother has been dangerously
ill. They are staying with me."
"Is there any necessity for them to shriek at the pitch of their
voices?"
"They are out for hours every day. This is their play-time before they
go to bed. They go at seven."
"And wake at six! For the last fortnight we have been disturbed every
morning. My husband wishes me to say that if it goes on he will
complain to the landlord. I have complained before, as you know, but
without effect. Ever since you came we have been annoyed."
I was furious. Whatever had happened during the last fortnight, no one
could have been quieter before. "And what about themselves?" I said
coldly. "Do you imagine that the landlord will be able to make children
sleep beyond their usual hour?"
"Certainly not, but they can be kept quiet. When people go to bed
late"--she stopped short, arrested by my expression, stared for a
moment, and then concluded--"they naturally object to being disturbed in
the morning. We breakfast at nine. This morning we were kept awake by
quarrelling voices for over an hour."