"Now," said Kincaid, when she opened her eyes, "what's the matter with
you? No nonsense; I'm a doctor; you mustn't tell lies to me! What's the
matter with you?"
There are some things a woman cannot say; this was one of them.
"You're very exhausted?"
"Oh," she said weakly, "I--just a little."
"When had you food last?"
She gave no answer. He scrutinised her persistently, noting her
hesitation, and shot his next question straight at the mark.
"Are you hungry?"
The eyes closed again, and her lips quivered.
"Boor!" he said to himself, "she's starving, and you wouldn't buy her
book. Beast! she's starving, and you tried to turn her out."
But his sympathy was hardly communicated by his voice; indeed, in her
shame she thought him rather rough.
"You stop here a minute," he continued; "don't you go and faint again,
because I forbid it! I'm going to order a prescription for you. Your
complaint isn't incurable--I've had it myself."
He left her in quest of the housekeeper, whom he interrogated on the
subject of eggs and coffee. A shilling brightened her wits.
"Mr. Corri's room; hurry!"
His patient was sitting in the arm-chair when he went back; he saw
tear-stains on her cheek, though she turned away her face at his
approach.
"The prescription's being made up," he said. "Would you like the window
shut again? No? All right, we'll keep it open. Don't talk if you'd
rather not; there's no need--I know all you want to say."
He ignored her ostentatiously till the tray appeared, and then,
receiving it at the doorway, brought it over to her himself.
"Come," he said, "try that--slowly."
"Oh!" she murmured, shrinking.
"Don't be silly; do as I tell you! There's nothing to be bashful about;
I know you're not an angel--your having an appetite doesn't astonish
me."
"How good you are!" she muttered; "what must you think of me?"
"Eat," commanded Kincaid; "ask me what I think of you afterwards."
She was evidently in no danger of committing the mistake that he had
looked for--his difficulty was, not to restrain, but to persuade her;
nor was her reluctance the outcome of embarrassment alone.
"It has gone," she said, shaking her head; "I am really not hungry now."
He encouraged her till she began. Then he retired behind the newspaper,
to distress her as little as might be by his presence. At the end of a
quarter of an hour he put _The Times_ down. The eggshells were empty,
and he stretched himself and addressed her:
"Better?"
"Much better," she said, with a ghost of a smile.
"Have you been having a long experience of this sort of thing?"
"N--no," she returned nervously, "not very."
He caressed his moustache; she was ceasing to be a patient and becoming
a woman, and he didn't quite know what he was to do with her. Somehow,
despite her situation, the offer of a sovereign looked as if it would
be coarse. Mary divined his dilemma, and made as if to rise.
"Sit down," he said authoritatively. "When you're well enough to go
I'll tell you; till I do, stay where you are!"
She felt that she ought to say something, proffer some explanation, but
she was at a loss how to begin. There was a pause. And then:
"Is there any likelihood of this business of yours improving?" inquired
Kincaid. "Suppose you were able to hold out--is there anything to look
forward to?"
"No," she said; "I don't think there is. I'm afraid I am no use at it."
"Was it an attractive career, that you made the attempt?"
"Not in the least; but it was a chance."
"I see!"
He saw also that she was a gentlewoman fitted for more refined
pursuits. How had she reached this pass? he wondered. Would she
volunteer the information, or should he ask her? He failed to perceive
what assistance he could render if he knew; yet if he did not help her
she would go away and die, and he would know that she was going away to
die as he let her out.
"I was introduced to the firm by a very old connection of theirs. I
couldn't find anything to do, and he fancied that as I was--well, that
as I was a lady--it sounds rather odd under the circumstances to speak
of being a lady, doesn't it----?"
"I don't see anything odd about it," he said.
"He fancied I might do rather well. But I think it's a drawback, on the
contrary. It's not easy to me to decline to take 'No' for an answer;
and nobody can do any good at work she's ashamed of."
"But you shouldn't be ashamed," he said; "it's honest enough."
"That's what the manager tells me. Only when la woman has to go into a
stranger's office and bother him, and be snubbed for her pains, the
honesty doesn't prevent her feeling uncomfortable. You must have found
me a nuisance yourself."
"I'm afraid I was rather brusque," he said quickly. "I was busy; I hope
I wasn't rude?"
Her colour rose.
"I didn't mean that at all," she stammered; "I shouldn't be very
grateful to remind you of it even if you had been!"
"I should have thought a book of that sort would have been tolerably
easy to sell. It's a useful work of reference. What's the price?"
"Two pounds ten altogether. It isn't dear, but people won't buy it, all
the same."
"Yes, it's got up well," he said, taking it from the desk and turning
the leaves. "How many volumes, did you say?"
"Four."
She made a little tentative movement to recover it, but he went on as
if the gesture had escaped him.
"If it's not too late I'll change my mind and subscribe for a copy. Put
my name down, please, will you?"
She clasped her hands tightly in her lap.
"No," she said, "thank you, I'd rather not."
"Why?"
"You don't want the book, I know you don't. You've fed me and done
enough for me already; I won't take your money too; I can't!"
Her bosom began to swell tempestuously. He saw by the widened eyes
fixed upon the fire that she was struggling not to cry again.
"There," he said gently, "don't break down! Let's talk about something
else."
"Oh!"--she sneaked a tear away--"I'm not used ... don't think----"
"No, no," he said, "_I_ know, _I_ understand. Poke it for me, will you?
let's have a blaze."
She took the poker up, and prolonged the task a minute while she hung
her head.
Remarked Kincaid:
"It's awful to be hard up, isn't it? I've been through all the stages;
it's abominable!"
"_You_ have?"
"Oh yes; I know all about it. So I don't tell you that 'money's the
least thing.' Only people who have always had enough say that."
"One wants so little in the world to relieve anxiety," she said; "it
does seem cruel that so few can get enough for ease."
"What do you mean by 'ease'?"
"Oh, I should call employment 'ease' now."
"Did you ask for more once, then?"
"Yes, I used to be more foolish. 'Experience teaches fools.'"
"No, it doesn't," said Kincaid. "Experience teaches intelligent people;
fools go on blundering to the end. 'Once----?' I interrupted you."
"Well, it used to mean a home of my own, and relations to care for me,
and money enough to settle the bills without minding if they came to
five shillings more than I had expected. It's a beautiful regulation
that the less we have, the less we can manage with. But the horse
couldn't live on the one straw."
"How did you come to this?" asked Kincaid; "couldn't you get different
work before the last straw?"
"If you knew how I tried! I haven't any friends here; that was my
difficulty. I wanted a situation as a companion, but I had to give the
idea up at last, and it ended in my going to Pattenden's. Don't think
they know! I mean, don't imagine they guess the straits I'm in: that
would be unfair. They have been very kind to me."
"You've never been a companion, I suppose?"
"No; but I hoped, for all that. Everything has to be done for the first
time; every adept was a novice once.".
"That's true, but there are so many adepts in everything to-day that
the novices haven't much chance."
"Then how are they to qualify?"
"That's the novices' affair. You can't expect people to pay
incompetence when skilled labour is loafing at the street corners."
"I expect nothing," she answered; "my expectations are all dead and
buried. We've only a certain capacity for expectation, I think; under
favourable conditions it wears well and we say, 'While there's life
there's hope;' but; when it's strained too much, it gives out."
"And you drift without a fight in you?"
"A woman can't do more than fight till she's beaten."
"She shouldn't acknowledge to being beaten."
"Theory!" she said between her teeth; "the breakfast-tray is fact!"
"What do you reckon is going to become of; you?"
"I don't anticipate at all."
"Oh, that's all rubbish! Answer straight!"
"I shall starve, then," she said.
"Sss! You know it?"
"I know it, and I'm resigned to it. If I weren't resigned to it, it
would be much harder. There's nothing that can happen to provide
for me; there isn't a soul in the world I can--'will,' to be
accurate--appeal to for help. You've delayed it a little by your
kindness, but you can't prevent its coming. Oh, I've hoped and
struggled till I am worn out!" she went on, her; voice shaking. "If
there were a prospect, I could rouse myself, weak as I am, to reach
it; but there isn't a prospect, not the glimmer of a prospect! I'm not
cowardly; I'm only rational. I admit what is; I've finished duping
myself."
She could express her despair, this woman; she had education and
manner. He contemplated her attentively; she interested him.
"You speak like a fatalist, for all that," he said to her.
"I speak like a woman who has reached the lowest rung of destitution
and been fed on charity. I----Oh, don't, _don't_ keep forcing me to
make a child of myself like this; let me go! Perhaps you're quite
right--things 'll improve."
"You shall go presently; not yet--not till I say you may."
There was silence between them once more. He lay back, with his hands
thrust deep into his trouser-pockets, and his feet crossed, pondering.
"You weren't brought up to anything, of course?" he said abruptly.
"Never been trained to anything? You can't do anything, or make
anything, that has any market value?"
"I lived at home."
"And now you're helpless! What rot it is! Why didn't your father teach
you to use your hands?"
"I think you said you were a doctor?" she returned, lifting her head.
"Eh? Yes, my name is 'Kincaid.'"
"My father was Dr. Anthony Brettan; he never expected his daughter to
be in such want."
"You don't say so--your father was one of us? I'm glad to make your
acquaintance. Is it 'Miss Brettan'?"
She nodded, warming with an impulse to go further and cry, "Also I have
been a nurse: you are a doctor, can't you get me something to do?"
But if she did, he would require corroboration, and, in the absence
of her certificate, institute inquiries at the hospital; and then the
whisper would circulate that "Brettan was no longer living with her
husband"--they would soon ascertain that he had not died--and from
that point to the truth would be the veriest step. "Never married at
all--the disgrace! Of course, an actor, but fancy _her_!" She could see
their faces, the astonishment of their contempt. Narrow circle as it
was, it had been her world--she could not do it!
"But surely, Miss Brettan," he said, "there must be someone who
can serve you a little--someone who can put you in the way of an
occupation?"
Immediately she regretted having proclaimed so much as she had.
"My father lived very quietly, and socially he was hardly a popular
man. For several reasons I wouldn't like my distress to be talked about
by people who knew him."
"Those people are your credentials, though," he urged; "you can't
afford to turn your back on them. If you'll be guided by advice, you
will swallow your pride."
"I couldn't; I made the resolve to stand alone, and I shall stick to
it. Besides, you are wrong in supposing that any one of them would
exert himself for me to any extent; my father did not have--was not
intimate enough with anybody."
A difficult woman to aid, thought Kincaid pityingly. A notion had
flashed across his mind, at her reference to the kind of employment she
had desired, and the announcement of her parentage was strengthening
it; but there must be something to go upon, something more than mere
assertion.
"If a post turned up, who is there to speak for you?"
"Messrs. Pattenden; I believe they'd speak for me willingly."
"Anybody else?"
"No; but the manager would see anyone who went to him about me, I'm
almost sure."
"You need friends, you know," he said; "you're very awkwardly placed
without any."
"Oh, I do know! To have no friends is a crime; one's helpless without
them. And a woman's helplessness is the best of reasons why no help
should be extended to her. But it sounds a merciless argument,
doctor--horribly merciless, at the beginning!"
"It's a merciless life. Look here, Miss Brettan, I don't want to beat
about the bush: you're in a beastly hole, and if I can pull you out of
it I shall be glad--for your own sake, and for the sake of your dead
father. It's like this, though; the only thing I can see my way to
involves the comfort of someone else. You were talking about a place as
companion; I can't live at home now, and my mother wants one."
"Doctor!"
She caught her breath.
"If I were to take the responsibility of recommending you, it's
probable she'd engage you; I think you'd suit her, but----Well, it's
rather a large order!"
"Oh, you should never be sorry!" she cried. "You shall never be sorry
for trusting me, if you will!"
"You see, it's not easy. It's not usual to go engaging a lady one meets
for the first time."
"Why, you wouldn't meet anybody else oftener," she pleaded eagerly;
"if you advertised, you'd take the woman after the one interview. You
wouldn't exchange a lot of visits and get friendly before you engaged
her."
He pulled at his moustache again.
"But of course she wouldn't--wouldn't be starving," she added; "she
wouldn't have fainted in your room. It'd be no more judicious, but it
would be more conventional."
"You argue neatly," he said with a smile.
The smile encouraged her. She smiled response. He could not smile if he
were going to refuse her, she felt.
"Dr. Kincaid----"
"One minute," he said; "I hear someone coming, I think. Excuse me!"
It was Corri; he met him as he turned the handle, and drew him outside.
"There's a woman in there," he said, "and a breakfast-tray. Come down
on to the next landing; I want to speak to you."
"What on earth----" said Corri. "Are you giving a party? What do
you mean by a woman and a breakfast-tray? Did the woman bring the
breakfast-tray?"
"No, she brought a book. It's serious."
They leant over the banisters conferring, while Mary, in the arm-chair,
remained trembling with suspense. The vista opened by Kincaid's words
had shown her how tenaciously she still clung to life, how passionately
she would clutch at a chance of prolonging it. Awhile ago her one
prayer had been to die speedily; now, with a possibility of rescue
dangled before her eyes, her prayer was only for the possibility to be
fulfilled. Would he be satisfied, or would he send her away? Her fate
swung on the decision. She did not marvel at the tenacity; it seemed to
her so natural that she did not question it at all. Yet it is of all
things the oddest--the love of living which the most life-worn preserve
in their hearts. Every day they long for sleep, and daily the thought
of death alarms them--terrifies their inconsistent souls, though few
indeed believe there is a Hell, and everybody who is good enough to
believe in Heaven believes also that he is good enough to go to it.
"O God," she whispered, "make him take me! Forgive me what I did; don't
let me suffer any more, God! You know how I loved him--how I loved him!"
"Well," said Corri, on the landing, "and what are you going to do?"
"I'm thinking," said Kincaid, "of letting my mother go to see her."
"It's wildly philanthropic, isn't it?"
"It looks wild, of course." He mused a moment. "But, after all, one
knows where she comes from; her father was a professional man; she's a
lady."
"What was her father's name, again?"
"Brettan--Anthony."
"Ever heard it before?"
"If there wasn't such a person, one can find it out in five minutes.
Besides, my mother would have to decide for herself. I should tell her
all about it, and if an interview left her content, why----"
"Well," said Corri, "go back to the Bench and sum up! You'll find me on
the bed. By the way, if you could hand my pipe out without offending
the young lady, I should take it as a favour."
"You've smoked enough. Wait! here's a last cigar; go and console
yourself with that!"
Kincaid returned to the room; but he was not prepared to sum up at
the moment. Mary looked at him anxiously, striving to divine, by his
expression, the result of the consultation on the stairs. The person
consulted had been Mr. Corri, she concluded, the man that she had been
sent to importune. Old or young? easy-going or morose? On which side
had he cast the weight of his opinion--this man that she had never seen?
"We were talking about the companion's place, Miss Brettan," began
Kincaid. "Now, what do you say?"
Instantly she glowed with gratitude towards the unknown personage, who,
in reality, had done nothing.
"Never should you regret it, Dr. Kincaid, never!"
"Understand, I couldn't guarantee the engagement in any case," he said
hastily. "The most I could do would be to mention the matter; the rest
would depend on my mother's own feelings."
"I should be just as thankful to you if she objected. Don't think I
under-estimate my draw-backs--I know that for you even to consider
engaging me is generous. But----Oh, I'd do my best!--I would indeed!
The difficulty's as clear to me as to you," she went on rapidly, "I see
it every bit as plainly. See it? It has barred me from employment again
and again! I'm a stranger, I've no credentials; I can only look you in
the face and say: 'I have told you the truth; if I were able to take
your advice and pocket my pride, I could _prove_ that I have told you
the truth,' And what's that?--anybody might say it and be lying! Oh
yes, I know! Doctor, my lack of references has made me suspected till
I could have cried blood. Doors have been shut against me, not because
I was ineligible in myself, but because I was a woman who hadn't
had employers to say, 'I found her a satisfactory person.' Things I
should have done for have been given to other women because they had
'characters,' and I hadn't. At the beginning I thought my tones would
carry conviction--I thought I could say: 'Honestly, this tale is
true,' and someone--one in a dozen, perhaps, one in twenty--would be
found to believe me. What a mistake, to hope to be believed! Why, in
all London, there's no creature so forsaken as a gentleman's daughter
without friends. A servant may be taken on trust; an educated woman,
never!"
"She may sometimes," said Kincaid. "Hang it! it isn't so bad as all
that. What I can do for you I will! Very likely my mother will call on
you this afternoon. Where are you staying?"
A hansom had just discharged a fare at one; of the opposite houses, and
he hailed it from the window.
"The best thing you can do now is to go home and rest, and try not to
worry. Cheer up, and hope for the best, Miss Brettan--care killed a
cat!"
She swallowed convulsively.
"That is the address," she said. "God bless you, Dr. Kincaid!"
He led the way down to the passage, and put her into the cab. It was,
perhaps, superfluous to show her that he remembered that cabs were
beyond her means; yet she might be harassed during the drive by a dread
of the man's demand, and he paid him so that she should see.
The occurrence had swelled his catalogue of calls. He told Corri they
had better drop in at Guy's, and glance at a medical directory; but in
passing a second-hand bookstall they noticed an old copy exposed for
sale, and examined that one. He found Anthony Brettan's name in the
provincial section with gladness, and remarked, moreover, that Brettan
had been a student of his own college.
"'Brettan' is going up!" he observed cheerfully. "Now step it, my son!"
Mary's arrival at the lodging was an event of local interest. Mrs.
Shuttleworth, who stood at the door conversing with a neighbour,
watched her descent agape. Two children playing on the pavement
suspended their game. She told Mrs. Shuttleworth that a lady might ask
for her during the day, and, mounting to the garret, shut herself in to
wrestle unsuccessfully with her fears of being refused, or forgotten
altogether. Would this mother come or not? If not--she shivered;
she had been so near to ignominious death that the smell of it had
reached her nostrils--if not, the devilish gnawing would be back again
directly, and the faint sick craving would follow it; and then there
would be a fading of consciousness for the last time, and they would
talk about her as "it" and be afraid.
But the mother did come. It seemed so wonderful that, even when
she sat beside her in the attic, and everything was progressing
favourably, Mary could scarcely realise that it was true. She came,
and the engagement was made. There are some women who are essentially
women's women; Mary was one of them. Mrs. Kincaid, who came already
interested, sure that her Philip could make no mistake and wishful to
be satisfied, was charmed with her. The pleading tones, the repose of
manner, the--for so she described it later--"Madonna face," if they
did not go "straight to her heart," mightily pleased her fancy. And of
course Mary liked her; what more natural? She was gentle of voice, she
had the softest blue eyes that ever beamed mildly under white hair,
and--culminating attraction--she obviously liked Mary.
"I'm a lonely old woman now my son's been appointed medical officer at
the hospital," she said. "It'll be very quiet for you, but you'll bear
that, won't you? I do think you'll be comfortable with me, and I'm sure
I shall want to keep you."
"Quiet for me!" said Mary. "Oh, Mrs. Kincaid, you speak as if you were
asking a favour of me, but your son must have told you that--what----I
suppose he saved my life!"
"That's his profession," answered the old lady brightly; "that's what
he had to learn to do."
"Ah, but not with hot breakfasts," Mary smiled. "I accept your offer
gratefully; I'll come as soon as you like."
"Can you manage to go back with us the day after to-morrow? Don't if it
inconveniences you; but if you can be ready----"
"I can; I shall be quite ready."
"Good girl!" said Mrs. Kincaid. "Now you must let me advance you a
small sum, or--I daresay you have things to get--perhaps we had better
make it this! There, there! it's your own money, not a present; there's
nothing to thank me for. Good-afternoon, Miss Brettan; I will write
letting you know the train."
"This" was a five-pound note. When she was alone again Mary picked it
up, and smoothed it out, and quivered at the crackle. These heavenly
people! their tenderness, their consideration! Oh, how beautiful it
would be if they knew all about her and there were no reservations! She
did wish she could have, revealed all to them--they had been so nice
and kind.
She sought the landlady and paid her debt--the delight she felt in
paying her debt!--and said that she would be giving up her room after
the next night. She went forth to a little foreign restaurant in Gray's
Inn Road, where she dined wholesomely and well, treating herself to
cutlets, bread-crumbed and brown, and bordered with tomatoes, to
pudding and gruyere, and a cup of black coffee, all for eighteenpence,
after tipping the waiter. She returned to the attic--glorified attic!
it would never appal her any more--and abandoned herself to meditating
upon the "things." There was this, and there was that, and there
was the other. Yes, and she must have a box! She would have had her
initials painted on the box, only the paint would look so curiously
new. Should she have her initials on it? No, she decided that she would
not. Then there were her watch, and the bag to be redeemed at the
pawnbroker's, and she must say good-bye to Mr. Collins. What a busy day
would be the morrow! what a dawn of new hope, new peace, new life! Her
anxieties were left behind; before her lay shelter and rest. Yet on
a sudden the pleasure faded from her features, and her lips twitched
painfully.
"Tony!" she murmured.
She stood still where she had risen. A sob, a second sob, a torrent of
tears. She was on her knees beside the bed, gasping, shuddering, crying
out on God and him:
"O Tony, Tony, Tony!"