The Sunday week after Mavis' meeting with Perigal at Dippenham, she
left the train at Paddington a few minutes after six in the evening.
She got a porter to wheel her luggage to the cloak-room, reserving a
small handbag for her use, which contained her savings.
She then made for the refreshment room, where she ordered and sipped a
cup of tea. She would have liked more, but as she had so much to do
with her money, she did not think she dare afford the threepence which
she would have to pay for another cup. As she rested for some moments
in the comparative seclusion of the refreshment room, she derived
satisfaction from the fact that she had got away from Melkbridge before
any suspicions had arisen of her condition. Upon her return to her
lodging after seeing Perigal, she had, at his instigation, written to
Mr Devitt, telling him that she would be leaving his employment in a
week's time. She gave no reason for throwing up her work, beyond saying
that the state of her health necessitated a change of occupation. She
had also given notice to Mrs Farthing, and had spent her spare time in
packing up and saying goodbye to her few friends. Her chief difficulty
was with her dear Jill, as she knew how many London landladies objected
to having dogs in lodgings. At last, she arranged for Mrs Trivett to
look after her pet till such time as she could be sent for. Mavis had
offered the farmer's wife a shilling or two a week for Jill's keep, but
her kind friend would not hear of any such arrangement being made. Then
had followed Mavis' goodbye to her dog, a parting which had greatly
distressed her. Jill had seemed to divine that something was afoot, for
her eyes showed a deep, pleading look when Mavis had clasped her in her
arms and covered her black face with kisses. She thought of her now as
she sat in the waiting room; tears welled to her eyes. With a sigh she
realised that she must set about looking for a lodging. She left the
waiting room in order to renew the old familiar quest. Mavis walked
into the depressing ugliness of Eastbourne Terrace, at the most dismal
hour of that most dismal of all days, the London Sunday in winter. The
street lamps seemed to call attention to the rawness of the evening
air. The roads, save for a few hurrying, recently released servants,
were deserted; every house was lit up--all factors that oppressed Mavis
with a sense of unspeakable loneliness. She became overwhelmed with
self-consciousness; she believed that every passer-by, who glanced at
her, could read her condition in her face; she feared that her secret
was known to a curious, resentful world. Mavis felt heartsick, till,
with something of an effort, she remembered that this, and all she had
to endure in the comparatively near future, should be and were
sacrifices upon the shrine of the loved one. She had walked some
distance along Praed Street, and was now in the wilderness of
pretentious, stucco-faced mansions, which lie between Paddington and
the north side of Hyde Park. She knew it was useless to seek for
lodgings here, so pressed on, hoping to arrive at a humbler
neighbourhood, where she would be more likely to get what she wanted.
As she walked, the front doors of the big houses would now and again
open, when she was much surprised at the vulgar appearance of many of
those who came out. It seemed to her as if the district in which she
found herself was largely tenanted by well-to-do, but self-made people.
After walking for many minutes, she reached the Bayswater Road, which
just now was all but deserted. The bare trees on the further side of
the road accentuated the desolation of the thoroughfare. She turned to
the left and pressed on, fighting valiantly against the persistent
spirit of loneliness which seemed to dog her footsteps. Men and girls
hurried by to keep appointments with friends or lovers. Buses jogged
past her, loaded with people who all had somewhere to go, and probably
someone who looked for their coming. She was friendless and alone. Ever
since her interview with Perigal she had realised how everything she
valued in life, if not life itself, depended on her implicit faith in
him. He had told her that there could be no love without trust; she had
believed in this assertion as if it had been another revelation, and it
had enabled her to go through the past week with hardly a pang of
regret (always excepting her parting from Jill) at breaking with all
the associations that had grown about her life during her happy stay at
Melkbridge.
Now doubts assailed her mind. She knew that if she surrendered to them
it meant giving way to despair; she thought of any and all of Perigal's
words which she could honestly construe into a resolve on his part to
marry her before her child was born. As she thus struggled against her
unquiet thoughts, two men (at intervals of a few minutes) followed and
attempted to speak to her. Their unwelcome attentions increased her
uneasiness of mind; they seemed to tell her of the dubious ways by
which men sought to entangle in their toils those of her own sex who
were pleasing to the eye: just now, she lumped all men together, and
would not admit that there was any difference between them. Arrived in
the neighbourhood of the Marble Arch, she was sure of her ground. She
was reminded of her wanderings of evenings from "Dawes'," when, if not
exploring Soho, she had often walked in this direction. Memories of
those long-forgotten days, which now seemed so remote, assailed her at
every step. Then she had believed herself to be unhappy. Now she would
have given many years of her life to be able to change her present
condition (including her trust in Perigal) to be as she was before she
had met him. Directly she crossed Edgware Road, the pavement became
more crowded. Shop-girls (the type of young woman she knew well) and
hobbledehoyish youths, the latter clad in "reach-me-down" frockcoat
suits, high collars, and small, ready-made bow ties, thronged about
her. She could not help contrasting the anaemic faces, the narrow,
stooping shoulders of these youths with the solidly-built,
ruddy-cheeked men whom she had seen in Wiltshire. She was rapidly
losing her old powers of physical endurance; she felt exhausted, and
turned into the small Italian restaurant on the left, which she had
sometimes gone to when at "Dawes'."
"It hasn't changed one bit," she thought, as she entered and walked to
the inner room. There was the same bit of painted canvas at the further
end of the place, depicting nothing in particular. There were the same
shy, self-conscious, whispering couples seated at the marble-topped
tables, who, after critically looking over the soiled bill of fare,
would invariably order coffee, roll and butter, or, if times were good,
steak and fried potatoes. The same puffy Italian waiter stood by the
counter, holding, as of old, coffee-pot in one hand and milk-pot in the
other. Mavis always associated this man with the pots, which he never
relinquished; she remembered wondering if he slept, still holding them
in his grasp.
She ordered a veal cutlet and macaroni, for which the place was famous
among the epicures of "Dawes'." While it was being prepared, she
brought notepaper, envelope, and pencil from her bag, to write a short
note to Perigal.
The morning post had brought her a letter from him, which had enclosed
notes to the value of ten pounds towards the expenses of her enforced
stay in London. Her reply told him that, as she had enough for present
needs, she returned his money. She suggested that if he had no use for
it, he could put it towards the expenses of providing their home; that
she had arrived safely in London; that she was about to look for a
lodging. She ended with passionately affectionate wishes for his
wellbeing. When she had put the money and letter into the envelope, and
this into her bag, her meal was banged down before her. She ordered a
bottle of stout, for had she not to nourish another life beside her
own? After Mavis had finished, she did not feel in the least disposed
to go out. She sat back on the dingy plush seat, and enjoyed the
sensation of the food doing her good. It was seven o'clock when she
paid the waiter and joined the crowd now sauntering along Oxford
Street. She walked towards Regent Circus, hoping to find a post-office,
where she could get a stamp for Perigal's letter. She wondered if she
should go to church, if only for a few minutes, but decided to keep
away from a place of worship, feeling that her thoughts were too
occupied with her troubles to give adequate attention to the service. A
new, yet at the same time familiar dread, oppressed her. She seemed to
get relief from hurrying along the crowded pavement. She longed to get
settled for the night, but was still uncertain where to seek a lodging.
She had some thought of taking the Tube, and looking about her in the
direction of Hammersmith, but her one thought now was to get indoors
with as little delay as possible. She remembered that there was a maze
of private houses along the Tottenham Court Road, in many of which she
had often noticed that there was displayed a card, announcing that
apartments were to let. She took a 'bus to the Tottenham Court Road.
Arrived there, she got out and walked along it, to turn, presently, to
the right. Most of the houses, for all their substantial fronts, had an
indefinable atmosphere of being down at heel, perhaps because many were
almost in darkness. They looked like houses that were in no sense of
the word homes. She selected one of the least forbidding and knocked at
the door. After waiting some time, she heard footsteps scuffling along
the passage. A blowsy, elderly, red-faced woman opened the door. She
was clad in a greasy flannel dressing gown; unbrushed hair fell on her
shoulders; naked, unclean toes protruded through holes in her stockings
and slippers.
"Good evening, dear," said the woman. Mavis turned to go.
"Was you wanting rooms, my dear?"
"I was."
"I've the very thing you want. Don't run away."
Mavis hesitated.
"Don't judge of 'em by me. I ain't been quite myself, as you, being
another lady, can quite understand, an' I overslep' myself a bit; but
if you'll walk inside, you'll be glad you didn't go elsewhere."
Mavis was so tired, that she persuaded herself that the landlady's
appearance might not be indicative (as it invariably is) of the
character of the rooms.
"One moment. Oo sent yer?" asked the woman.
"No one. I saw--"
"Didn't Foxy?"
"No one did. I saw the card in the window."
"Please to walk upstairs."
Mavis followed the woman up unswept stairs to the first floor, where
the landlady fumbled with a key in the lock of a door.
"S'pose you know Foxy?" she queried.
"No. Who is he?"
"'E goes about the West End and brings me lady lodgers."
"I'm from the country," remarked Mavis.
"You a dear little bird from far away? You've fallen on a pretty perch,
my dear, an' you can thank Gawd you ain't got with some as I could
mention."
By this time, they had got into the room, where the landlady lighted
one jet of a dirty chandelier.
"There now!" cried the landlady triumphantly.
Mavis looked about her at the gilt-framed glass over the mantelpiece,
the table, the five chairs (including one arm), the sofa and the
chiffonnier, which was pretty well all the furniture that the room
contained. The remains of a fire untidied the grate; the flimsiest
curtains were hung before the windows. The landlady was quick to notice
the look of disappointment on the girl's face.
"See the bedroom, my dear, before you settle."
This proved to be even less inviting than the sitting-room: hardly any
of the furniture was perfect; a dirty piece of stuff was pinned across
the window; dust lay heavy on toilet glass and mantel. Happily
contrasted with this squalor was the big bed, which was invitingly
comfortable and clean.
Mavis was very tired; she looked longingly at the bed, with its
luxurious, lace-fringed pillows. The landlady marked her indecision.
"It's very cheap, miss."
"What do you call cheap?"
"Two guineas a week; light an' coals extry."
"Two guineas a week!"
"You've perfec' liberty to bring in who you like."
Mavis stared at her in astonishment.
"An' no questions asked, my dear."
Mavis wondered if the woman were in her right senses.
"I thought you'd jump at it," she went on. "I could see it when you saw
the bed. The gentlemen like a nice clean bed."
Mavis understood; clutching her bag, she walked to the door.
"Not goin' to 'ave 'em?" screeched the landlady.
Mavis hurried on.
"Guinea a week and what extries you like. There!"
Mavis ran down the stairs.
"Won't they give you more than five shillings?" shouted the woman over
the banisters as Mavis reached the door.
"I s'pose your beat is the Park," the woman shrieked, as Mavis ran down
the steps.
Mavis ran a few yards, to stop short. She trembled from head to foot;
tears scalded her eyes, which, with a great effort, she kept back. She
was crushed with humiliation and shame. At once she thought of the
loved one, and how deeply he would resent the horrible insult to which
his tenderly loved little Mavis had been subjected. But there was no
time for vain imaginings. With the landlady's foul insinuations ringing
in her ears, she set about looking for a house where she might get what
she wanted. The rain, that had been threatening all day, began to fall,
but her umbrella was at Paddington. She was not very far from the
Tottenham Court Road. Fearful of catching cold in her present
condition, she hurried to this thoroughfare, where she thought she
might get shelter. When she got there, she found that places of vantage
were already occupied to their utmost capacity by umbrellaless folk
like herself. She hurried along till she came to what, from the
pseudoclassic appearance of the structure, seemed a place of dissenting
worship. She ran up the steps to the lobby, where she found the shelter
she required. A door leading to the chapel was open, which enabled her
to overhear the conclusion of the sermon. As the preacher's words fell
on her ears, she listened intently, and edged nearer to the door
communicating with the chapel. His message seemed meant expressly for
her. It told her that, despite anything anyone might presume to urge to
the contrary, God was ever the loving Father of His children; that He
rejoiced when they rejoiced, suffered when they sorrowed; however much
the faint-hearted might be led to believe that the world was ruled by
remorseless law, that much faith and a little patience would enable
even the veriest sinner to see how the seemingly cruellest inflictions
of Providence were for the sufferer's ultimate good, and, therefore,
happiness.
Presently, when the rain stopped, Mavis came away feeling mentally
refreshed. As is usual with those in trouble, she applied anything
pertinent she read or heard about sorrow to herself. The fact of her
intercourse with Perigal having been in the nature of deadly sin did
not trouble her so much as might have been expected. She felt that God
would understand, and believed that to know all was to forgive all.
Also, try as she might, she could not see that her sin was of such a
deadly nature as it is made out to be by the Church. It seemed that her
surrender to her lover at Polperro had been the natural and inevitable
consequence of her love for him, and that, if the one were condemned,
so also should love be itself, inasmuch as it was plainly responsible
for what had happened. Now, she was glad to learn, on the authority of
the pulpit, that, however much she suffered from her present extremity,
it would be for her ultimate happiness.
She started afresh to look for a lodging. She needed all the resolution
she could muster. Repulsive-looking foreign women opened most of the
doors at which she knocked, whilst surly-looking men hovered in the
background.
Mavis wished she had started earlier for Hammersmith, to see what she
could find there. At last she went into a chemist's shop which she saw
open, to ask if she could be recommended to any rooms. A burly,
blotchy-faced, bearded man stood behind the bottle-laden counter. Mavis
stated her wants.
"Married?" asked the man.
"Y--yes--but I'm living by myself for the present."
"Of course. But your husband would visit you," remarked the man with a
leer.
Mavis looked at him in surprise.
"Well, we'll call it your husband," suggested the chemist.
Mavis walked from the shop.
It seemed that everyone was in league to insult her. Her heart was
heavy with grief. She could not help thinking how the presence of the
loved one, a word of encouragement from him, would instantly dissipate
her soreness of heart and growing physical exhaustion.
She gave up the idea of looking for rooms in this disreputable corner
of London. Her only concern was to get lodging for the night, so that
she could resume her quest on the morrow in a more likely part of the
great city. She stopped a policeman and asked to be directed to a
reasonable hotel. The man told her that she would find what she wanted
in the Euston Road. She walked along this depressing and sordid
thoroughfare, where what were once front gardens before comfortable
houses were now waste spaces, given over to the display of dilapidated
signboards of strange and unfamiliar trades. Here she dragged herself
up the steps of the hotels that abound in this road, to learn at each
one she applied at that they were full for the night. If she had not
been so tired, she would have wondered if they were speaking the truth,
or if they divined her condition and did not consider her to be a
respectable applicant. At the last at which she called, she was asked
to write her name in the hotel book. She commenced to write Mavis
Keeves, but remembered that she had decided to call herself Mrs Kenrick
while in London. She crossed out what she had written, to substitute
the name she had elected to bear. Whether or not this correction made
the hotel people suspicious, she was soon informed that she could not
be accommodated. Mavis, heartsore and weary, went out into the night. A
different class of person to the one that she had met earlier in the
evening began to infest the streets. Bold-eyed women, dressed in cheap
finery, appeared here and there, either singly or in pairs. The vague,
yet familiar fear, which she had experienced when she began to look for
rooms, again took possession of her with gradually increasing force.
She was soon on such familiar terms with this obsession, that she
remembered when and how it had first originated in her mind. It was
after her adventure with Mrs Hamilton and her chance meeting with the
never-to-be-forgotten Mrs Ewer, when a horrid fear of London had
possessed her soul. Now she saw, even plainer than before, the deep
pitfalls and foul morasses which ever menace the feet of unprotected
girls in London who have to earn their daily bread. If it were an
effort for her to snatch a living from the great industrial machine
when she was last in London, now, in her condition, it was practically
hopeless to look for work. Mind and body were paralysed by a great
fear. To add to her discomfiture, the rain again began to fall.
Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she walked up a pathway, running
parallel with the road, which flanked a row of forlorn-looking houses.
Here she felt so faint that she was compelled to cling to the railings
to save herself from falling. Two children passed, one of whom carried
a jug, who stopped to stare at her.
"Please!" called Mavis weakly, at which one of the children approached
her.
"Can you tell me where I can get a room?"
"I'll ask fader," replied the child, who spoke with a German accent.
Mavis remembered little beyond waiting an eternity of suspense, and
then of being assisted into a house, up a flight of stairs to a room
where she sank on the nearest thing handy. She opened her frock to
clutch, as if for protection, the ring Perigal had given her, and which
she always wore suspended on her heart. Then she was overtaken by
unconsciousness.
When she awoke, she rubbed her eyes again and again, whilst a horrible
pungent smell affected her nostrils. She could scarcely believe that
she had got to where she found herself. She saw by the morning light,
which was feebly straggling into the room, that she was lying, fully
dressed, on an untidy, dirty bed. The room looked so abjectly wretched
that she sprang from her resting-place and attempted to draw the
curtains, in order to take complete stock of her
surroundings--attempted, because the dark, cheap cretonne, of which
they were made, refused to move, their tops being nailed to the upper
woodwork of the window by tintacks. She tried the second window (the
room boasted two), with the same result, owing to a like cause. For her
safety's sake, she was relieved to find that the room overlooked the
Euston Road.
After turning back the chintz curtains, she looked about her. She had
never been in such a truly awful-looking room before. She had never
imagined that any four walls could enclose such hopeless, dejected
desolation as she saw. A round table stood in the middle of the
carpetless room. There were several other tables about this one. Upon
one stood a basin, in which was water that had some time ago been used
for the ablutionary purposes of someone sadly in need of a wash. Thick
rims of dirt encrusted the sides of the basin where the water had not
reached. The looking glass was pimpled with droppings from lighted
candles. Upon a further table was a tumbler filthy to look upon. The
bed was painted iron; it wanted a leg, and to supply the deficiency a
grocer's box had been thrust underneath. The blankets of the bed (which
contained two pillows) were as grubby as the sheets. The pillows beside
the one on which she had slept bore the impress of somebody's head.
Over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and floor, lay a thick
deposit of dust and grime. Misspelt lewd words were fingered on the
dirt of the window-panes. The horror of the room seemed to grip Mavis
by the throat. She coughed, to sicken at a foul feeling in her mouth,
which seemed to be gritty from the unclean air of the room. This
atmosphere was not only as if the windows had not been opened for
years; it was as if it had been inhaled over and over again by
alcohol-breathing lungs; also, the horrid memories of sordid lusts, of
unnumbered bestial acts, seemed to lie heavy on the polluted fuggy air.
To get away from the all-pervading stench, Mavis hurried to the door.
This, she could not help noticing, hung loosely on its hinges; also,
that about the doorplate were innumerable lock marks and screw holes,
as if the door had been furnished with fastenings, times out of number,
till the rotten wood refused to support any more. Mavis pulled open the
door and walked on to a carpetless landing and stairs. She stamped with
her foot, but this not attracting any attention, she called aloud. Her
voice echoed as if she were in a vault. After some time, she heard a
door unbolted, and a rough, unkempt man came up the stairs.
"How much?" asked Mavis.
"Five shillin'."
"For that?"
"Five shillin'," repeated the man doggedly.
Mavis did not further argue the point, as, when she opened her mouth,
the stench of the room she had quitted seemed to fasten on her throat.
She paid the money and was about to fly down the stairs. Then she
remembered her precious bag. Again holding her nose, she hurried back
into the room where she had unwittingly passed the night. The bag was
nowhere to be seen, although its outline was to be easily traced in the
dust on the table where she had put it.
"My bag! my bag!" she cried.
"Vot bag?"
"The one I had last night. Here's its mark upon the table."
"I know nodinks about it," replied the man, as he disappeared down the
stairs.