PIMLICO

Mavis found a resting-place for her tired body in the unattractive

district of Pimlico, which is the last halting-place of so many of

London's young women before the road to perdition is irretrievably

taken. Mavis had purposed going to Hammersmith, but the fates which

decide these matters had other views. On the tedious underground

journey from New Cross, she felt so unwell that she got out at Victoria

to seek refuge in the ladies' cloak room. The woman in charge, who was

old, wizened, and despondent, gave Mavis some water and held her baby

the while she lamented her misfortunes: these were embodied in the fact

that "yesterday there had only been three 'washies' and one torn

dress"; also, that "in the whole of the last month there had been but

three 'faints' and six ladies the worse for drink." Acting on the

cloak-room attendant's advice, Mavis sought harbourage in one of the

seemingly countless houses which, in Pimlico, are devoted to the

letting of rooms. But Mavis was burdened with a baby; moreover, she

could pay so little that no one wished to accommodate her. Directly she

stated her simple wants, together with the sum that she could afford to

pay, she was, in most cases, bundled into the street with scant

consideration for her feelings. After two hours' fruitless search, she

found refuge in a tiny milk-shop in a turning off the Vauxhall Bridge

Road, where she bought herself a scone and a glass of milk; she also

took advantage of the shop's seclusion to give her baby much-needed

nourishment. Ultimately, she got a room in a straight street, flanked

by stucco-faced high houses, which ran out of Lupus Street. Halverton

Street has an atmosphere of its own; it suggests shabby vice, unclean

living, as if its inhabitants' lives were mysterious, furtive

deviations from the normal. Mavis, for all her weariness, was not

insensible to the suggestions that Halverton Street offered; but it was

a hot July day; she had not properly recovered from her confinement;

she felt that if she did not soon sit down she would drop in the

street. She got a room for four shillings a week at the fifth house at

which she applied in this street. The door had been opened by a tall,

thin, flat-chested girl, whose pasty face was plentifully peppered with

pimples. The only room to let was on the ground floor at the back of

the house; it was meagre, poorly furnished, but clean. Mavis paid a

week's rent in advance and was left to her own devices. For all the

presence of her baby and Jill, Mavis felt woefully alone. She bought,

and made a meal of bloater paste, bread, butter, and a bottle of stout,

to feel the better for it. She then telephoned to the station master at

New Cross, to whom she gave the address to which he could forward her

trunk. On her return from the shop where she had telephoned, she went

into a grocer's, where, for twopence, she purchased a small packing

case. With this she contrived to make a cradle for her baby, by

knocking out the projecting nails with a hammer borrowed from the

pimply-faced woman at her lodging. If the extemporised cradle lacked

adornment, it was adorable by reason of the love and devotion with

which she surrounded her little one. Her box arrived in the course of

the evening, when Mavis set about making the room look as homelike as

possible. This done, she made further inroads on her midday purchases

of bread and bloater paste, washed, fed her baby, and said her prayers

before undressing for the night. At ten o'clock, mother and child were

asleep.

Mavis had occupied her room for some days before she learned anything

of the house in which she lodged. It was kept by a Mr, Mrs, and Miss

Gussle, who lived in the basement. It was Miss Gussle who had opened

the door to Mavis on the day she came. Mrs Gussle was never seen. Mavis

heard from one source that she was always drunk; from another, that she

was a teetotaller and spent her time at devotions; from a third, that

she neither drank nor prayed, but passed the day in reading novelettes.

But it was Mr Gussle who appealed the most to Mavis's sense of

character. He was a wisp of a bald-headed, elderly man, who was

invariably dressed in a rusty black frockcoat suit, a not too clean

dicky, and a made-up black bow tie, the ends of which were tucked

beneath the flaps of a turned down paper collar. He had no business or

trade, but did the menial work of the house. He made the beds, brought

up the meals and water, laid the tables and emptied the slops; but,

while thus engaged, he never made any remark, and when spoken to

replied in monosyllables. The ground floor front was let to a

third-rate Hebraic music-hall artiste, who perfunctorily attended his

place of business. The second and third floors, and most of the top

rooms, were let to good-looking young women, who were presumed to

belong to the theatrical profession. If they were correctly described,

there was no gainsaying their devotion to their calling. They would

leave home well before the theatre doors were open to the public, with

their faces made up all ready to go on the stage; also, they were

apparently so reluctant to leave the scene of their labours that they

would commonly not return till the small hours. The top front room was

rented by an author, who made a precarious living by writing improving

stories for weekly and monthly journals and magazines. Whenever the

postman's knock was heard at the door, it was invariably followed by

the appearance of the author in the passage, often in the scantiest of

raiment, to discover whether the post had brought him any luck.

Although his stories were the delight of the more staid among his

readers, the writer was on the best of terms with the "theatrical"

young women, he spending most of his time in their company. The lodgers

at Mrs Gussle's were typical of the inhabitants of Halverton Street.

And if a house influences the natures of those who dwell within its

walls, how much more does the character of tenants find expression in

the appearance of the place they inhabit? Hence the shabbiness and

decay which Halverton Street suggested.

Mavis heard from Perigal at infrequent intervals, when he would write

scrappy notes inquiring after her health, and particularly after his

child. Once, he sent a sovereign, asking Mavis to have the boy

photographed and to send him a copy. Mavis did as she was asked. The

photographs cost eight shillings. Although she badly wanted a few

shillings to get her boots soled and heeled, she returned the money

which was over after paying for the photographs, to Perigal. She was

resolved that no sordid question of money should soil their

relationship, however attenuated this might become.

Much of Mavis's time was taken up with her baby. She washed, dressed,

undressed, and took out her little one, duties which took up a

considerable part of each day. From lack of means she was compelled to

wash her own and the baby's body-linen, which she dried by suspending

from cords stretched across the room. All these labours were an aspect

of maternity which she had never encountered in books. Much of the work

was debasing and menial; its performance left her weak and irritable;

she believed that it was gradually breaking the little spirit she had

brought from Mrs Gowler's nursing home. When she recalled the glowing

periods she had chanced upon in her reading, which eulogised the

supreme joys of motherhood, she supposed that they had been penned by

writers with a sufficient staff of servants and with means that made a

formidable laundry bill of no account. She wondered how working-class

women with big families managed, who, in addition to attending to the

wants of their children, had all the work of the house upon their

hands. Mavis's spare time was filled by the answering of advertisements

in the hope of getting sorely needed work; the sending of these to

their destination cost money for postage stamps, which made sad inroads

on her rapidly dwindling funds. But time and money were expended in

vain. The address from which she wrote was a poor recommendation to

possible employers. She could not make personal application, as she

dared not leave her baby for long at a stretch. Sometimes, her lover's

letters would not bring her the joy that they once occasioned; they

affected her adversely, leaving her moody and depressed. Conversely,

when she did not hear from Melkbridge for some days, she would be

cheerful and light-hearted, when she would spend glad half-hours in

reading the advertisements of houses to let and deciding which would

suit her when she was married to Perigal. Sometimes, when burdened with

care, she would catch sight of her reflection in the glass, to be not a

little surprised at the strange, latent beauty which had come into her

face. Maternity had invested her features with a surpassing dignity and

sweetness, which added to the large share of distinction with which she

had originally been endowed. At the same time, she noticed with a sigh

that sorrow had sadly chastened the joyous light-heartedness which

formerly found constant expression in her eyes.

Mavis had been at Mrs Gussle's about three weeks when she made the

acquaintance of one of the "theatrical" young women upstairs. They had

often met in the passage, when the girl had smiled sympathetically at

Mavis. One afternoon, when the latter was feeling unusually depressed,

a knock was heard at her door. She cried "Come in," when the girl

opened the door a few inches to say:

"May I?"

"I didn't know it was you," remarked Mavis, distressed at her poverty

being discovered.

"I came to ask if I could do anything for you," said the girl.

"That's very nice of you. Do come in."

The girl came in and stayed till it was time for her to commence the

elaborate dressing demanded by her occupation. Mavis made her some tea,

and the girl (who was called "Lil") prevailed upon her hostess to

accept cigarettes. If the girl had been typical of her class, Mavis

would have had nothing to do with her; but although Lil made a brave

show of cynicism and gay worldliness, Mavis's keen wits perceived that

these were assumed in order to conceal the girl's secret resentment

against her habit of life. Mavis, also, saw that the girl's natural

kindliness of heart and refined instincts entitled her to a better fate

than the one which now gripped her. Lil was particularly interested in

Mavis's baby. She asked continually about him; she sought him with her

eyes when talking to Mavis, conduct that inclined the latter in her

favour.

When Lil was going she asked:

"May I come again?"

"Why not?" asked Mavis.

"I didn't know I--I--So long," cried Lil, as she glanced in the

direction of the baby.

On the occasion of her next visit, which took place two afternoons

later, Lil asked:

"May I nurse your baby?" to add, as Mavis hesitated, "I promise I won't

kiss him."

Mavis consented, greatly to Lil's delight, who played with the baby for

the rest of the afternoon.

"You're fond of children?" commented Mavis.

The girl nodded, the while she bit her lip.

"I can see you've had baby brothers or sisters," remarked Mavis.

"How do you know?"

"By the way you hold him."

"What do you think of Gertie?" asked Lil quickly.

"Who's Gertie?"

"Mr Gussle. Upstairs we always call him Gertie."

"I can't make him out," said Mavis, at which she learned from Lil that

Mr Gussle loathed his present means of earning a livelihood; also, that

he hungered for respectability, and that, to satisfy his longing, he

frequented, in his spare time, a tin tabernacle of evangelical

leanings. Mavis also learned that the girls upstairs, knowing of Mr

Gussle's proclivities, tempted him with cigarettes, spirits, and

stimulating fleshly allurements.

One day, when Mavis had left her sleeping baby to go out for a few

minutes, she returned to find Lil nursing her boy, the while tears fell

from her eyes. Mavis pretended not to notice the girl's grief. She

busied herself about the room, till Lil recovered herself. Later, when

Mavis was getting seriously pressed for money, she came across odd half

sovereigns in various parts of the room, which she rightly suspected

had been put there by her friend. For all Lil's entreaties, Mavis

insisted on returning the money. Lil constantly wore a frock to which

Mavis took exception because it was garish. One day she spoke to Lil

about it.

"Why do you so often wear that dress?" she asked.

"Don't you like it?"

"Not a bit. It's much too loud for you."

"I don't like it myself."

"Then why wear it?"

"It's my 'lucky dress.'"

"Your what?"

"'Lucky' dress. Don't you know all we girls have their 'lucky' dresses?"

This was news to Mavis.

"You mean a dress that--"

"Brings us luck with the gentlemen," interrupted Lil.

The subject thus opened, Lil became eloquent upon many aspects of her

occupation. Presently she said:

"It isn't always the worst girls who are 'on the game.'"

"Indeed!"

"So many are there through no fault of their own."

"How is that?" asked Mavis.

"They get starved into it. It's all these big shops and places. They

pay sweating wages, and to get food the girls pick up men. That's the

beginning."

Mavis nodded assent. She remembered all she had heard and seen on this

matter when at "Dawes'."

"And the small employers are getting just as bad. And of them the women

are the worst. They don't care how much they grind poor girls down. If

anything, I b'lieve they enjoy it. And if once a girl goes wrong,

they're the ones to see she don't get back. Why is it they hate us so?"

"Give it up," replied Mavis, who added, "I should think it wanted an

awful lot of courage."

"Courage! courage! You simply mustn't think. And that's where drink

comes in."

Mavis sighed.

"Don't you ever take to the life," admonished Lil.

"I'm not likely to," shuddered Mavis.

"'Cause you ain't the least built that way. And thank God you ain't."

"I do; I do," said Mavis fervently.

"It's easy enough to blame, I know; but if you've a little one and no

one in the wide world to turn to for help, and the little one's crying

for food, what can a poor girl do?" asked Lil, as she became thoughtful

and sad-looking.

A time came when Mavis was sorely pressed for money to buy the bare

necessaries of life. She could not even afford soap with which to wash

her own and her baby's clothes. Of late, she had made frequent visits

to Mrs Scatchard's, where she had left many of her belongings. All of

these that were saleable she had brought away and had disposed of

either at pawnshops or at second-hand dealers in clothes. She had at

last been constrained to part with her most prized trinkets, even

including those which belonged to her father and the ring that Perigal

had given her, and which she had worn suspended from her neck.

She now had but one and sixpence in the world. The manifold worries and

perplexities consequent upon her poverty had affected her health. She

was no longer able to supply her baby with its natural food. She was

compelled to buy milk from the neighbouring dairy and to sterilise it

to the best of her ability. To add to her distress, her boy's health

suffered from the change of diet. Times without number, she had been on

the point of writing to Perigal to tell him of all she had suffered and

to ask for help, but pride had held her back. Now, the declension in

her boy's health urged her to throw this pride to the winds, to do what

common sense had been suggesting for so long. She had prayed

eloquently, earnestly, often, for Divine assistance: so far, no reply

had been vouchsafed. When evening came, she could bear no longer the

restraint imposed by the four walls of her room. She had had nothing to

eat that day; all she had had the day before was a crust of bread,

which she had gleefully lighted upon at the back of her cupboard. This

she would have shared with Jill, had not her friend despised such plain

fare. Jill had lately developed a habit of running upstairs at meal

times, when, after an interval, she would come down to lick her chops

luxuriously before falling asleep.

Mavis was faint for lack of nourishment; hunger pains tore at her

stomach. She felt that, if she did not get some air, she would die of

the heat and exhaustion. Her baby was happily sleeping soundly, so she

had no compunction in setting out. She crossed Lupus Street, where her

nostrils were offended by the smell of vegetable refuse from the

costermonger stalls, to walk in the direction of Victoria. The air was

vapid and stale, but this did not prevent the dwellers in Pimlico from

sitting at open windows or standing on doorsteps in order to escape the

stuffiness of their houses. They were mostly vulgar lodging-house

people, who were enjoying their ease following upon the burden of the

day; but Mavis found herself envying them, if only for the fact that

their bodies were well supplied with food. Hunger unloosed a savage

rage within her, not only against everyone she encountered, but also

against the conditions of her life. "What was the use of being of

gentle birth?" she asked herself, if this were all it had done for her.

She deeply regretted that she had not been born an ordinary London

girl, in which case she would have been spared the possession of all

those finer susceptibilities with which she now believed herself to be

cursed, and which had prevented her from getting assistance from

Perigal. She lingered by the cook shop in Denbigh Street, where she

thought that she had never smelt anything so delicious as the greasy

savours which came from the eating-house. It was only with a great

effort of will that she stopped herself from spending her last one and

sixpence (which she was keeping for emergency) in food. When she

reached the Wilton Road, she walked of a set purpose on the station

side of that thoroughfare. She feared that the restaurants opposite

might prevail against her already weakened resolution. By the time she

reached the Victoria Underground Station, her hunger was no longer

under control. Her eyes searched the gutters greedily for anything that

was fit to eat. She glared wolfishly at a ragged boy who picked up an

over-ripe banana, which had been thrown on the pavement. The thought of

the little one at home decided her. She turned in the direction of the

post-office, having at last resolved to wire to her lover for help.

"Well, I'm blowed!" said a familiar voice at her side. Mavis turned, to

see the ill-dressed figure of flat-chested, dumpy Miss Toombs.

"Miss Toombs!" she faltered.

"Didn't you see me staring at you?"

"Of course not. What are you doing in London?"

"I'm up here on a holiday. I am glad to see you."

"So am I. Good night."

"Eh!"

"I must go home. I said good night."

"You are a pig. I thought you'd come and have something to eat."

"I'm not--I'm not hungry."

"Well, sit down by me while I feed. I feel I want a jolly good blow

out."

They had reached the doors of the restaurant opposite the main entrance

to the underground railway. The issuing odours smote Mavis's hesitation

hip and thigh.

"I--I really must be off," faltered Mavis, as she stood stockstill on

the pavement.

By way of reply, Miss Toombs shoved the unresisting Mavis through the

swing doors of the eating house; then, taking the lead, she piloted her

to a secluded corner on the first floor, which was not nearly so

crowded as the downstair rooms.

"It's nice to see good old Keeves again," remarked Miss Toombs, as she

thrust a list of appetising foods under Mavis's nose.

"I'm really not a bit hungry," declared Mavis, who avoided looking at

the toothsome-looking bread-rolls as far as her ravening hunger would

permit. She grasped the tablecloth to stop herself from attacking these.

"Got any real turtle soup?" asked Miss Toombs of the polyglot waiter

who now stood beside the table.

"Mock turtle," said the man, as he put his finger on this item in the

menu card.

"Two oxtail soups," Miss Toombs demanded.

"Apres?"

"Two stewed scallops, and after that some lamb cutlets, new potatoes,

and asparagus."

"Bon! Next, meiss," said the waiter, who began to think that the

diner's prodigality warranted an unusually handsome tip.

Miss Toombs ordered roast ducklings and peas, together with other

things, which included a big bottle of Burgundy, the while Mavis stared

at her wide-eyed, open-mouthed; the starving girl could scarcely

believe her ears.

"Is it--is it all true?" she murmured.

"Is what true?"

"Oh, meeting with you."

"Why? Have I altered much?"

It seemed a long time to Mavis till the soup was placed before her.

Even when its savoury appeal made her faint with longing, she said:

"I'm--I'm really not a bit--"

She got no further. She had taken a mouthful of the soup, to hold it

for a few moments in her mouth. She had no idea till then that it was

possible to enjoy such delicious sensations. Once her fast was broken,

the floodgates of appetite were open. She no longer made pretence of

concealing her hunger; she would not have been able to if she had

wished. She swallowed great mouthfuls of food greedily, silently,

ravenously; she ate so fast that once or twice she was in danger of

choking. If anyone had taken her food away, she would have fought to

get it back. Thus Mavis devoured course after course, unaware, careless

that Miss Toombs herself was eating next to nothing, and was watching

her with quiet satisfaction from the corners of her eyes.

At last, Mavis was satisfied. She lay back silent and helpless on her

plush seat, enjoying to the full the sensation of the rich, fat food

nourishing her body. She closed her eyes and was falling into a deep

sleep.

"Have some coffee and brandy," said Miss Toombs.

Mavis pulled herself together and drank the coffee.

"I'd give my soul for a cigarette," murmured Mavis, as she began to

feel more awake.

"Blow you!" complained Miss Toombs, as she signalled to the waiter.

Mavis looked at her surprised, when her hostess said:

"You're prettier than ever. When I first saw you, I was delighted to

think you were 'going off.'"

Mavis, regardless what others might think of her, lit the cigarette.

Although she took deep, grateful puffs, which she wholly enjoyed, she

soon let it go out; neither did she trouble to relight it, nor did she

pay any attention to Miss Toombs's remarks. Mavis's physical content

was by no means reflected in her mind. Her conscience was deeply

troubled by the fact of her having, as it were, sailed with her

benefactress under false colours.

Her cogitations were interrupted by Miss Toombs putting a box of

expensive cigarettes (which she had got from the waiter) in her hand.

"Why are you so good to me?" asked Mavis.

"I've always really liked you."

"You wouldn't if you knew."

"Knew what?"

"Come. I'll show you."

After Miss Toombs had settled with the waiter, they left the

restaurant. Miss Toombs accompanied Mavis along the Wilton Road and

Denbigh Street. Halverton Street was presently reached. Mavis opened

the door of Mrs Gussle's; with set face, she walked the passage to her

room, followed by plain Miss Toombs. She unlocked the door of this and

made way for her friend to enter. Clothes hung to dry from ropes

stretched across the room: the baby slept in his rough, soap-box cradle.

Miss Toombs seemed to disregard the appearance of the room; her eyes

sought the baby sleeping in the box.

"There!" cried Mavis. "Now you know."

"A baby!" gasped Miss Toombs.

"You've been kind to me. I had to let you know."

"Oh, you damn beast!" cried Miss Toombs.

Mavis looked at her defiantly.

"Oh, you damn beast!" cried Miss Toombs again. "You were always lucky!"

"Lucky!" echoed Mavis.

"To go and have a little baby and not me. Oh, it's too bad: too bad!"

Mavis looked inquiringly at her friend to see if she were sincere. The

next moment, the two foolish women were weeping happy tears in each

other's arms over the unconscious, sleeping form of Mavis's baby.