It was quite dark when the train pulled into Paddington Station in
London. It was raining, too, and the wet asphalt streets became mirrors
underfoot, reflecting the myriad lights of the city. There was great
confusion at the depot. Luggage must be identified and collected;
steamer friends parted with and cabs engaged.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Miss Campbell, who had not been in London for
twenty years, "I feel so lonesome all of a sudden in this crush. I do
wish we had a man to help us."
The wish was no sooner uttered than it was granted by the kind and
merciful providence who has a special tenderness for helpless,
middle-aged spinsters.
Feargus O'Connor, the only one of their steamer friends whom they had
missed on the way up to London,--chiefly because he had traveled third
class and hidden himself away,--now approached.
"How may I help the ladies?" he asked.
"My dear Mr. O'Connor, you are as welcome as the flowers in spring," the
little lady cried. "I am afraid to trust my girls out of my sight for a
minute in this enormous city for fear they might be kidnapped, and I
simply cannot face those luggage people myself."
"Let me be your guide, counsellor and friend, then," said Feargus.
"First, let's get the luggage business straightened, and then I'll see
you safe to your cab, or your hotel, if you wish."
"We are going into lodgings," cried the Motor Maids in unison.
It seemed to the four young girls at that time that life could not offer
a more romantic experience than lodgings in London. The rooms had been
engaged long ago, and the landlady notified from Liverpool to have the
supper prepared and all things ready. It was to be a chapter out of
Dickens. They did not mind the wet sheet of rain that blew in their
faces, nor the glimmering mud puddles. The cries of the cab-men were
music to their ears. A lonely little boy in the station reminded them of
David Copperfield. The cockney accent was a strange new language to
them, and the throngs of travelers in rough ulsters and fore-and-aft
caps filled them with the most profound interest.
At last the luggage, collected and identified, was piled on top of a
hackney coach and the bags stored inside with Miss Campbell, Elinor and
Mary. Billie and Nancy were in a hansom waiting just behind.
"Thank you a thousand times; you're a nice boy," said Miss Campbell,
giving her hand to Feargus. "I hope you'll come and see us while we are
in London."
Feargus was about to reply when a splendid carriage with footman and
coachman on the box slowly approached. Just as it came opposite the two
cabs, a child's voice called:
"Feargus, Billie, please don't forget me," and little Arthur, leaning
from the window, waved his cap at them. Inside were his three "keepers,"
as Billie called them, who took not the slightest notice of the
Americans or the young Irishman.
"Good-by, Arthur, dear, I shall never forget you," cried Billie. "We
shall meet again, some day."
Arthur leaned out of the window farther.
"Good-by, dear Billie," he called again, when some one pulled him
roughly back on the seat, and the carriage disappeared in the darkness.
During this episode, Miss Campbell had called out the address to the
coachman, who had flicked his horses sharply with his whip and they had
started on. The hansom in which were Billie and Nancy was delayed a
moment while the two girls said farewell to their steamer friend, who
with a last wave of his hat was soon lost in the throng on the station
platform. All this is very important, because of what happened later. In
the meantime, the two girls settled back comfortably on the seat and
clasped hands.
"Isn't it wonderful, Billie?" cried Nancy, as the cab rolled along the
slippery street. "It is London, really London."
"And we are alone in London, too," continued Billie. "Isn't it like a
play? Two young girls just arrived from another country suddenly find
themselves alone, without friends or money, in a great city. It is
night, and the rain is beating on the wet asphalt. In a great rumbling
carriage crouch the two orphans, their hands clasped----"
"Wot h'address, Miss?" broke in a harsh voice.
The cab had stopped on a street corner and the coachman was leering at
them through the trap door above.
"What address?" repeated Billie, bewildered.
"Certainly, Miss. Them was the words I used. Wot h'address? A'n't it an
ord'nary question for a cabbie to awsk his fare?"
The two girls looked at each other speechless with amazement.
"But, weren't you told?" demanded Nancy, when she could collect her
thoughts. "Didn't the lady in the other cab tell you?"
"Now, Miss, w'y need I be awskin' if I wuz told?"
"But why didn't you follow the other cab?" cried Billie.
"I wasn't told to, Miss. I wasn't told to do anythink but do as I was
bid."
"Where were you going, then?" demanded Nancy, who was a sprightly young
person when it came to cabbies and stewardesses.
"Ah, ma'am, now you've awsked me somethink I cawn't tell you. Not havin'
no address, how can I?"
"Idiot!" exclaimed Nancy under her breath. What could they do with this
incorrigible man?
"Can't you even remember the street, Nancy?" whispered Billie.
They wrinkled their brows and sat in deep thought for a moment. Their
young minds were like travelers on a dark road stumbling blindly through
a host of misty names.
At last Nancy exclaimed triumphantly:
"I've got it! Miss Rivers."
"Do you happen to know of a Miss Rivers who has a lodging house,
driver?" asked Billie, trying to appear calm and unafraid.
"No, Miss," answered the cabbie with a queer laugh; "Miss Rivers and I
a'n't personally acquainted."
"What are we going to do, Billie?" whispered Nancy.
"Let's look in a city directory and see if we can't find Miss Rivers'
Lodgings or Chambers or whatever it is," suggested Billie. "Drive us to
a city directory, cabbie."
Once more the hansom started on its way.
"The worst of it is, Nancy," observed Billie, after an uneasy pause,
"the most terrible part of it is, I haven't any money. I had given what
I had to Cousin Helen on the ship to be changed with hers into English
money, and I never got it back. I thought it would be time when we
reached our lodgings."
"And I did the same thing," whispered Nancy. "I haven't a copper cent."
It was not long before the cab drew up at a pharmacy and the two girls
jumped out. There were many "Rivers" in the city directory--"oceans of
Rivers," as Nancy remarked. At last they settled on Mrs. Hannah Rivers,
Beekman Terrace, and Miss Felicia Rivers, 14 Jetson Row.
"Does either one of those sound like the address to you, Nancy?" asked
Billie.
"I don't know," replied the other wearily. "I've lost all sense of sound
and memory. We might try Hannah, anyhow. She sounds hopeful."
Billie wrote the numbers down in her note book and gave the order curtly
to the coachman, who winked one eye profoundly at the two young girls
and gave a knowing smile.
"Beekman Terrace? H'it's a good w'ys from 'ere."
Billie was provoked.
"That's none of your affair," she said impatiently. "We don't ask you to
do it without paying you. Only do hurry. If you had never been so slow,
we shouldn't have got in this mess."
"I awn't no charioteer, Miss, and I awn't no four-in-'and driver with
race-'orses at me whip's-end. I awn't in the 'orse-killin' business,
either. If h'I'm to drive fifteen miles, h'I'll tyke it at me own time."
"Fifteen miles?" repeated Billie in great uneasiness.
"Is that very far from Westminster Abbey?" asked Nancy innocently.
"H'it's a good distance, Miss."
"Well, we're very near to the Abbey, and I'm sure that can't be the
place, then."
The cabbie roared out a great mirthful laugh.
"Where is this address?" demanded Billie, taking no notice of his
amusement. "Miss Felicia Rivers, No. 14 Jetson Row?"
"That's a bit nearer."
"Go ahead, then," called Billie, feeling suddenly quite hopeful and
happy. "I'm sure that's it, Nancy. It's bound to be. Our lodgings were
so near to everything and it does seem to me the lodging house keeper's
name was 'Felicia.'"
"She was a Miss, I'm certain," continued Nancy. "It comes back to me
now, because I remember making a picture in my mind of a thin old maid
who kept lodgers in her upper rooms, and had a cat and drank tea in the
back parlor."
It seemed a long way, however, to the abode of Miss Felicia Rivers.
Through a network of dark, roughly paved streets they drove slowly. They
were very tired and hungry and the cold damp air seemed to penetrate
through their heavy ulsters. At last they drew up in front of a
shabby-looking old house with the usual basement and a curved flight of
steps leading up to the front door, which was opened at the very moment
the cab stopped, and a woman ran down to the sidewalk.
"You've been a long time gettin' here," she said. "The Missus was that
uneasy."
"Will you ask my cousin to pay the cab bill?" Billie said. "We haven't
any money."
"It was expected she'd pay the bill, Miss," said the maid, pulling a
worn old purse from her apron pocket.
If Billie had not been so tired and bewildered, she would have felt some
surprise at this rejoinder. However, the maid paid the cabbie, who
cracked his whip and drove off in the darkness. Then the two young girls
hastened up the curved flight of steps and plunged into a hall of utter
blackness, followed by the maid, who closed the door with a rattling
bang and led them into the parlor.
"Where is my cousin?" demanded Billie.
"She says you're to wyte. She'll be up in a jiffy."
With that the maid departed, and the two girls sat down much dejected in
front of a tiny little grate filled with dead ashes of past fires. A dim
light from one gas jet turned low cast great fantastic shadows on the
wall, and a deadly quiet pervaded the old house.