They waited in gloomy silence for what seemed an age. Never in all their
lives had they experienced such forlorn sensations as they felt in that
shabby parlor. They listened with strained ears for sounds through the
house. Down in some subterranean, cavernous place they could hear a
voice, loud, shrill and scolding, and presently the maid returned
bearing a gas-lighter, with which she turned the taper on to its full
powers.
What a room that was, as revealed now by the light! It reminded the
girls of a hospital for broken-down furniture:--rickety chairs and
tables; pictures that hung crooked on the walls; a musty, dusty carpet.
They took it all in with one frightened, comprehensive glance, and they
knew that if Miss Campbell were there, it would only be for one
night,--perhaps only for one hour.
"My cousin, where is she?" demanded Billie abruptly, feeling that
something must be done at once. "Will you take me to her room, please?"
The maid, who, by the light of the gas, proved to be a wretched little
object, down at the heel, shabby, with her cap awry and a smut across
one cheek, turned on her fiercely.
"Your cousin, the Missus as is, is a-comin' when she gits ready to come
_h'and_ no sooner," she said, giving a fair imitation of Billie's manner
and voice. "She awn't ready yet h'and I'd like to see her as would myke
her come afore she is."
"But what is she doing?" demanded Nancy.
"She is a-eaten' of her supper, Miss, h'and she says when I tells her
you wuz come: 'Tell 'em to wyte. Beggars awn't choosers,' says she. 'If
I've got to look awfter them while they're in Lundon,' says she, 'I'll
look awfter them in me own w'y, h'and if they're lyte, I'll be lyter,'
she says, h'and no mistykes."
Billie's face flushed a brilliant scarlet.
"My cousin said that?" she said. She walked over and looked the girl
squarely in the face. "How dare you repeat a message of that sort as
coming from my cousin? Take me to her instantly or I'll find her myself,
if I have to look over the whole house from cellar to garret."
At these words of authority, the slavey wilted into a cringing,
obsequious creature.
"I awsk your pardon, Miss," she whimpered. "An' I awsk you not to go and
tell the Missus. She's that strict. I'm only a poor slyvey, Miss, an'
work is poor paid for me and the lykes of me. I thowt you wuz different,
Miss. 'Onest, I did."
"Just take us to my cousin, please, and never mind what you think,"
ordered Billie, too exasperated and anxious to feel any human pity for
the miserable little slavey.
They followed her into a black passage leading Heaven knows where,--down
into the bowels of the earth, the young girls believed for a moment; for
they now descended a narrow flight of stairs so dark and narrow that
they could touch the wall on each side. At last in the basement hall
they perceived a glimmering light through a crack in a door which the
slavey opened fearfully.
"Down't scowld, ma'am. Your relytion would come down. H'I couldn't help
it. 'Onest I couldn't."
The two girls walked boldly into the circle of light and stood blinking
their eyes after the darkness outside.
Before a fairly comfortable coal fire in a grate as absurdly small as
the one in the room above, sat an enormous woman eating her supper from
a little table drawn up beside her arm chair. The supper was
comfortable, and the fragrance of hot buttered toast mingling with the
appetizing fumes of bacon and sausage suddenly reminded the two forlorn
young girls that they were ravenously hungry.
Too amazed to utter a word, they stood gaping at the strange woman, who
appeared to show no surprise whatever.
"You're a nice pair of young women," she said sharply, "getting here at
this hour when I expected you at six o'clock. I suppose you are hungry,
too. Marty, make some more toast and another pot of tea. Sit down. As
long as you're here, we might as well make the best of it. Draw up two
chairs. I should never have recognized you, Eva. You used to look like
your mother, but you have lost even those good looks. You are much too
tall. The Smithsons and Rivers are all medium-sized----"
The girls looked at her pityingly. Medium-sized was hardly the word to
use in connection with this gigantic female.
"But there is some mistake----" began Billie. "I am looking for my
cousin----"
The woman groaned aloud.
"Don't you know your own cousin whose bread and butter you expect to eat
for the next six months and whose roof you expect to sleep under?"
"My cousin is Miss Helen Campbell," exclaimed Billie desperately. "We
only arrived from America the other day. Didn't she engage lodgings from
you and telegraph we were coming this evening?"
"What is this you're telling me?" cried the woman. "You mean to say
you're not my two cousins, Eva and Laura Smithson? Who are you?" she
demanded fiercely. "Where did you come from? Give me back the three
shillings I paid for your cab fare, and a big price it was, too."
Her small pale eyes gleamed angrily at them and her enormous bulk fairly
trembled with rage.
Billie explained that their cab had missed the one in front, and without
any address they were lost.
"We thought we remembered the name of 'Rivers'," she continued, "and we
got your address from the directory and came here. Now, what shall we
do? We have no address, no money, nothing. If I could only let my cousin
know to-night we were safe. She will be wild with anxiety."
"Do you think I believe your story?" cried the obstinate fat woman. "How
can I tell you're speaking the truth? How do I know that you are not a
pair of young spies, sent here by the police to pry into my secrets and
the secrets of my lodgers,--not that we have any, but poor people are
always suspected, while the rich go free. It's the poor that has the
hard time in this wicked world, and the rich that flourishes, and it's
the well-dressed ones with the innocent faces that's the most dangerous
of all, and the most noticing,--not that there's anything to notice
about my lodging house nor any secrets to hide. Everything is open and
above board in this house, but I'm poor, and my lodgers is poor, and the
police never lets the poor alone."
The fat woman paused breathless after this peroration and Nancy burst
out indignantly:
"We are not spies. We are just two American girls lost in London."
"You won't regret being kind to us," put in Billie hotly. "When we get
back to our friends, we shall be glad to pay you for your trouble."
The woman's pig eyes twinkled. She looked the two girls up and down,
took in their neat traveling ulsters, their pretty hats. Even their trim
boots came in for a share of notice, and their gloves and small
handbags, minus a penny.
"Umph! Umph!" she exclaimed in a low voice. "So!"
In spite of themselves the girls could not help feeling terribly
frightened. It was a scene of which they were reminded much later when
they saw Hansel and Gretel and the old witch. Nancy's knees began to
tremble violently.
But suddenly the temperature of Miss Felicia Rivers' manners took an
unexpected rise.
"Come, dearies," she said, "take chairs, both of you. 'Are you weary,
are you dreary, are you hungry, are you sad?' as the ballad says. Marty,
some supper for these ladies. Now, dearies, a little tea and toast, just
to please Felicia Rivers, and because you remind her of her own sweet
little lamb cousins who are out in the rain somewhere to-night."
The girls sat down timidly and silently. Outside they could hear the
rain beating against the walls of the old house.
Where was Miss Campbell? Would she arouse the whole of London in her
search for her two lost girls? Oh, heavens, what a terrible thing it was
to have neither money nor friends in the biggest city in the world!
Billie made up her mind to one thing then and there. When she got back
to Miss Helen Campbell--if ever she did get back--she intended to sew
the largest piece of gold money in the English coinage in the lining of
her coat for emergencies such as this; although she prayed heaven there
would be no more such emergencies.
"Don't you think it would be a good idea to call a policeman?" suggested
Nancy, breaking the long silence which had fallen on them after Miss
Felicia Rivers had hospitably invited them to sit down.
"Police!" screamed the enormous woman, giving her great bulk a violent
shake, which made everything in the room rattle as if an earthquake had
struck it. The mercury had dropped ten degrees. But it went up again in
a hurry. "No, no, my dearies. A policeman would surely arrest you as
suspicious characters. Take it from me, and leave the police alone.
There's not one who would believe your story. No, what you need is a
kind gentleman to advise you. Marty, go and tell Mr. Dinwiddie I wish to
speak with him. Tell him there's tea brewing in the kitchen."
The girls exchanged a long meaning glance. Then Billie rose.
"I'm very sorry, Miss Rivers, but I think we won't wait to see your
friend. We'd better be going. Perhaps a policeman can show us the way
to--to----"
To where? Billie did not know herself. She choked down a sob and tried
to think. Her father's teaching had covered many things, but he had
never told her what to do when lost in a big city.
"When two young persons incurs debts which they can't pay, it awn't for
them to say what they must and must not do. Young woman, take my advice
and sit right where you are. No harm will come to you. Listen to the
rain. Would you care to leave these beautiful rooms, every convenience,
splendid location, candles and service, and go out on such a night as
this? You'd be as mad as a March hare to do such a foolish thing. I'll
keep you here to-night. There's an empty fourth-floor-middle. You can
just as well put up there for to-night."
"You are very kind, but----" began Billie, when Marty, the slavey,
hurried in, and behind her came a shabby middle-aged man, with a weak,
delicate face, pale watery eyes and an ingratiating smile. There was
something of the dandy in his appearance at second glance, and if the
light had been less bright, he might have looked really well-dressed.
But his black and white checked trousers were fringed around the hems;
his black cutaway coat was shiny and rubbed in the seams; his shoes down
at the heels and his white gaiters soiled and spotted.
"Your servant, ladies," he said, making a low bow and placing his hand
on his heart.
For some reason, the two girls felt more confidence in this shabby old
dandy than in Miss Felicia Rivers. The amiability of his smile and a
certain kindly gleam in his pale eyes made them more hopeful.
The lodging-house keeper explained the situation so rapidly and glibly
that the young girls were startled by her sudden alertness.
"Now, Mr. Dinwiddie, what's to be done? I've paid their cab fare and I
now offer to give them supper and lodgings. A'n't that 'ospitality? And
do you think they accept the invitation? Not they!"
Mr. Dinwiddie glanced at a clock on the mantel.
"It's past eleven," he said. "I think you had better do as the lady
says. You'll be safer here than you would be, lost out there in the
storm, and we'll turn in and find your friends in the morning."
Past eleven o'clock! Who would have believed that all those hours had
passed since they parted with their beloved friends at the station?
"We will stay, then," said Billie, sighing miserably. "But we wish you
would have helped us find our friends to-night."
"We are willing to do w'ot we can, young woman," said Miss Felicia
Rivers emphatically. "But we awn't willing to take the influenzy and the
pneumonia for the sake of a pair of foolish girls who goes and gits
lost."
They tried to swallow down a cup of tea and eat a bit of toast, but they
were too wretched and uneasy to feel the pangs of hunger now; and it was
almost a relief presently to follow the slavey, carrying a lighted
candle, to the upper regions of the house, preceded by the vast bulk of
Miss Felicia Rivers.
The stairs leading to the upper floors were not carpeted and their
footsteps resounded on the bare boards with a dismal hollow sound.
The fourth-floor-middle was not such a miserable place, however, as they
had expected. In the dimness of one flickering candle they could see
that it was fairly well furnished with a big double bed, a rickety chest
of drawers, a table and two chairs.
"Good night, my dears, sleep well," said Miss Felicia Rivers. "You won't
be sorry in the morning that you accepted Felicia Rivers' 'ospitality."
Then the great creature removed herself into the hall and Billie quickly
locked and bolted the door. There was another door in the room already
locked, but from which side it was impossible to say. At any rate there
was no key in the keyhole. After taking the precaution to look through,
and seeing nothing whatever, Billie went over and placed her hands on
Nancy's shoulders.
"Nancy, dear, I have decided not to be frightened," she exclaimed. "It
will only make matters worse for us to go off so. I know I've been just
as terrified as you, but, after all, what else could the woman do? She
couldn't turn us into the rain at this hour and she couldn't go herself.
I am afraid Cousin Helen will have an awful night, but I really think
the only thing for us to do is to go to bed and try to get a little
rest."
"I don't see how we can sleep," said Nancy. "How do we know whether the
sheets are clean?"
They examined the linen. It appeared perfectly fresh, and in their
extreme weariness the bed indeed looked almost comfortable. At the end
of another ten minutes they had crawled wearily under the strange
covers, having removed only their shoes and dresses. What few pieces of
jewelry they had, they had tied into a handkerchief and put under
Billie's pillow. At last, worn out with their strange adventures, they
fell into a deep sleep.