"Fancy you being like this," said Mavis, when she had dried her eyes.
"Like what?"
"Not minding my having a baby without being married."
"I'm not such a fool as to believe in that 'tosh,'" declared Miss
Toombs.
"What 'tosh,' as you call it?"
"About thinking it a disgrace to have a child by the man you love."
"Isn't it?"
"How can it be if it's natural and inevitable?"
Mavis looked at Miss Toombs wide-eyed.
"Does the fact of people agreeing to think it wrong make it really
wrong?" asked Miss Toombs, to add, "especially when the thinking what
you call 'doing wrong' is actuated by selfish motives."
"How can morality possibly be selfish?" inquired Mavis.
"It's never anything else. If it weren't selfish it wouldn't be of use;
if it weren't of use it couldn't go on existing."
"I'm afraid I don't follow you," declared Mavis, as she lit a cigarette.
"Wait. What would nearly all women do if you were mad enough to tell
them what you've done?"
"Drop on me."
"Why?"
"Because I've done wrong."
"Are women 'down' on men for 'getting round' girls, or forgery, or
anything else you like?"
Mavis was compelled to acknowledge her sex's lack of enthusiasm in the
condemnation of such malpractices.
"Then why would they hunt you down?" cried Miss Toombs triumphantly.
"Because, in doing as you've done, you've been a traitress to the
economic interests of our sex. Women have mutually agreed to make
marriage the price of their surrender to men. Girls who don't insist on
this price choke men off marrying, and that's why they're never
forgiven by other women."
"Is it you talking?"
"No, my dear Keeves; women, in this world, who look for marriage, have
to play up to men and persuade them they're worth the price of a man
losing his liberty."
"But fancy you talking like that!"
"If they're pretty, and play their cards properly, they're kept for
life. If they're like you, and don't get married, it's a bad look-out.
If they're pretty rotten, and have business instincts, they must make
hay while the sun shines to keep them when it doesn't."
"And you don't really think the worse of me?"
"I think the more. It's always the good girls who go wrong."
"That means that you will."
"I haven't the chance. When girls are plain, like me, men don't notice
them, and if they've no money of their own they have to earn a pittance
in Melkbridge boot factories."
"I can't believe it's you, even now."
"I don't mind giving myself away, since you've done the same to me. And
it's a relief to let off steam sometimes."
"And you really don't think the worse of me for having--having this?"
"I'd do the same myself to-morrow if I'd the chance and could afford to
keep it, and knew it wouldn't curse me when it grew up."
Mavis winced to recover herself and say:
"But I may be married any day now."
"Whoever the father is, he seems a bit of a fool," remarked Miss
Toombs, as she took the baby on her knee.
"To love me?"
"In not marrying you and getting you for life. From a man's point of
view, you're a find, pretty Mavis."
"Nonsense!"
"I don't call it nonsense. Just look at your figure and your hips and
the colour of your hair, your lovely white skin and all, to say nothing
of the passion in your eyes."
"Is it staid Miss Toombs talking?"
"If I'm staid, it's because I have to be. No man 'ud ever want me. As
for you, if I were a man, I'd go to hell, if there were such a place,
if I could get you for all my very own."
"Don't you believe in hell?"
"Do you?"
"I don't know. Don't you?"
"The only hell I know is the jealous anger in a plain woman's heart. Of
course there are others. You've only to dip into history to read of the
hells that kings and priests, mostly priests, have made of this earth."
"What about Providence?" asked Mavis.
"Don't talk that 'tosh' to me," cried Miss Toombs vehemently.
"But is it 'tosh'?"
"If I were to give you a list of even the few things I've read about,
the awful, cruel, blood-thirsty, wicked doings, it would make your
blood boil at the injustice, the wantonness of it all. Read how the
Spaniards treated the Netherlanders once upon a time, the internal
history of Russia, the story of Red Rubber, loads of things, and over
and over again you'd ask, 'What was God doing to allow such unnecessary
torture?'"
Miss Toombs paused for breath. Seeing Mavis looking at her with
open-mouthed astonishment, she said:
"Have I astonished you?"
"You have."
"Haven't you heard anyone else talk like that?"
"What I was thinking of was, that you, of all people, should preach
revolt against accepted ideas. I always thought you so straitlaced."
"Never mind about me."
"But I do. If you believe all you say, why do you go to church and all
that?"
"What does it matter to anyone what an ugly person like me thinks or
does?"
"Anyway, you're quite interesting to me."
"Really: really interesting?" asked Miss Toombs, with an inflection of
genuine surprise in her voice.
"Why should I say so if I didn't think so?"
A flush of pleasure overspread the plain woman's face as she said:
"I believe you're speaking the truth. If ever I play the hypocrite,
it's because I'm a hopeless coward."
"Really!" laughed Mavis, who was beginning to recover her spirits.
"Although I believe my cowardice is justified," declared Miss Toombs.
"I haven't a friend or relation in the world. If I were to get ill, or
lose my job to-morrow, I've no one to turn to. I've a bad circulation
and get indigestion whenever I eat meat. I've only one pleasure in
life, and I do all I know to keep my job so that I can indulge in it."
"What's that?"
"You'll laugh when I tell you."
"Nothing that gives a human being innocent pleasure can be ridiculous,"
remarked Mavis.
"My happiness comes in winter," declared Miss Toombs. "I love nothing
better than to go home and have tea and hot buttered toast before the
blazing fire in my bed-sitting room. Then, about seven, I make up the
fire and go to bed with my book and hot-water bottles. It's stuffy, but
it's my idea of heaven."
Mavis did not offer any comment.
"Now laugh at me," said Miss Toombs.
Instead of doing any such thing, Mavis bent over to kiss Miss Toombs's
cheek.
"No one's ever wanted to kiss me before," complained Miss Toombs.
"Because you've never let anyone know you as you really are," rejoined
Mavis.
"Now we've talked quite enough about me. Let's hear a little more about
yourself."
"My history is written in this room."
"Don't talk rot. I suppose it all happened when you went away for your
holidays last year?"
"You didn't think--"
"No. I didn't think you had the pluck."
"It doesn't require much of that."
"Doesn't it? There are loads of girls, nice girls too, who'd do as
you've done to-morrow if they only dared," declared Miss Toombs. "And
why not?" she added defiantly.
"You take my breath away," laughed Mavis.
"Don't laugh, dear. It's much too serious to laugh at," remonstrated
Miss Toombs. "We're here for such a short time, and so much of that is
taken up with youth and age and illness and work that it's our duty to
get as much happiness as we can. And if two people love each other--"
"The woman can be brought down to this."
"And wasn't it worth it?" cried Miss Toombs hotly.
"Worth it!" echoed Mavis.
"Didn't you have a lovely time when you were away?"
"Heavenly!"
"Didn't he kiss your hands and feet and hair and tell you you were the
most beautiful woman in the whole world, as they do in books?"
Mavis nodded.
"And didn't he hold you to his heart all the night through, and didn't
you think you were in heaven? No--no, don't tell me. It would make me
miserable and jealous for weeks."
"Why should it?"
"Who's ever wanted to love and kiss my feet and hands? But there it
is--you're a pretty girl, and all that, but you can't have everything
in this world. You've had to pay one of the chief penalties for your
attractiveness."
Just then Mavis's baby began to cry.
"It's my hard knee," remarked Miss Toombs ruefully. "They always cry
when I nurse them."
"I think he's hungry," remarked Mavis.
"Then give the boy his supper. Don't mind me."
Mavis busied herself with the preparations for sterilising the milk,
but the boy cried so lustily that, to quiet him, Mavis blushingly undid
her bodice to put the nipple of her firm, white breast in his mouth.
"It's the only thing to quiet him," explained Mavis.
"No wonder. He's got taste, has that boy. Don't turn away. It's all so
beautiful, and there's nothing wrong in nature."
"What are you thinking of?" asked Miss Toombs presently, after Mavis
had been silent for a while. "Don't you feel at home with me?"
"Don't be silly! You know you profess not to believe in Providence."
"What of it?"
"I've been in a bad way lately and I've prayed for help. Surely meeting
with you in a huge place like London is an answer to my prayer."
"Meeting you, when you were hard up, was like something out of a book,
eh?"
"Something out of a very good book," replied Mavis.
"Well, it wasn't chance at all. These sort of things never happen when
they're wanted to. I've been up in town looking for you."
"What!"
"And thereby hangs a very romantic tale."
"You've been looking for me?"
"What's the time?"
"You're not thinking of going yet? Why were you looking for me?"
"It's nearly ten," declared Miss Toombs, as she looked at her watch.
"Unless I stay the night here, I must be off."
"Where are you staying?"
"Notting Hill. I beg its pardon--North Kensington. They're quiet
people. If I'm not back soon, my character will be lost and I shall be
locked out for the night."
"I'd love you to stay. But there's scarcely room for you in this poky
little hole."
"Can't I engage another room?"
"But the expense?"
"Blow that! See if they can put me up."
Mavis talked to Miss Gussle on the subject. Very soon, Mr Gussle could
be heard panting up the stairs with an iron chair bedstead, which was
set up, with other conveniences, in the music-hall agent's office.
"Nice if he comes back and came into my room in the night," remarked
Miss Toombs.
"What on earth would you do?" asked Mavis.
"Lock the door to keep him in," replied Miss Toombs quickly, at which
the two friends laughed immoderately.
As Miss Toombs was leaving the room to wire to her landlady to tell her
that she was staying with friends for the night, she kissed her hand to
Mavis's baby.
"What are you going to call him?" she asked.
"Charlie, of course," promptly replied Mavis.
The next moment, she could have bitten off her tongue for having given
Miss Toombs a possible clue to her lover's identity: she had resolved
never to betray him to a living soul.
But Mavis comforted herself on the score that her friend received her
information without betraying interest or surprise. Twenty minutes
later, Miss Toombs came back, staggering beneath the weight of an
accumulation of parcels, which contained a variety of things that Mavis
might want.
"How could you spend your money on me?" asked Mavis, as the different
purchases were unpacked.
"If one can't have a romance oneself, the next best thing is to be
mixed up in someone else's," replied Miss Toombs.
Mavis and her friend sat down to a supper of strawberries and cream,
whilst they drank claret and soda water. Jill was not forgotten; Miss
Toombs had bought her a pound of meat scraps from the butcher's, which
the dog critically consumed in a corner.
"Let me hear about your romance and all the Melkbridge news," said
Mavis, as she stopped her friend from pouring more cream upon her plate
of strawberries.
"Blow Melkbridge!" exclaimed Miss Toombs, her face hardening.
"But I love it. I'm always thinking about it, and I'd give anything to
go back there."
"Eh!"
"I said I'd give anything to be back there."
"Rot!"
"Why rot?"
"You mustn't dream of going back," cried Miss Toombs anxiously.
"Why on earth not?"
"Eh! Oh, because I say so."
"Does anyone down there know?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Then why shouldn't I go back?"
"There's no reason, only--"
"Only what?"
"Let me tell you of my romance."
"Very well, only--"
"When I tell you I'm in love, I don't think you ought to interrupt,"
remarked Miss Toombs.
"I only wanted to know why I mustn't dream of going back to
Melkbridge," said Mavis anxiously.
"Because I can get you a better job elsewhere. There now!"
"Let's hear of your love affair," said Mavis, partly satisfied by Miss
Toombs's reason for not wishing her to return to the place where her
lover was.
"Five weeks ago, a man strode into our office at the factory; tall,
big, upright, sunburned."
"Who was he?" asked Mavis.
"He wasn't a man at all; he was a god. And his clothes! Oh, my dear, my
heart came up in my mouth. And when he gave me his card--"
"Who was he?" interrupted Mavis.
"Can't you guess?"
"Give it up."
"Captain Sir Archibald Windebank."
"Really!"
"I wish it hadn't been. I've never forgotten him since."
"What did he want?"
"You!"
"Me?"
"You, you lucky girl! Has he ever kissed you?"
"Once."
"Damn you! No, I don't mean that. You were made for love. But why
didn't you hold him in your arms and never let him go? I should have."
"That's not a proper suggestion," laughed Mavis. "What did he want me
for?"
"He wanted to find out what had become of you."
"What did you tell him?"
"I didn't get much chance. Directly he saw Miss Hunter was
nice-looking, he addressed all his remarks to her."
"Not really?"
"A fact. Then I got sulky and got on with my work."
"What did she say?"
"What could she say? But, my goodness, wouldn't she have told some lies
if I hadn't been there, and she had had him all to herself!"
"Lies about me?"
"She hated the sight of you. She never could forgive you because you
were better born than she. And, would you believe it, she started to
set her cap at him."
"Little cat!"
"He said he would come again to see if we heard any more of you, and,
when he went, she actually made eyes at him. And, if that weren't
enough, she wore her best dress and all her nick-knacks every day till
he came again."
"He did come again?"
"This time he spoke to me. He went soon after I told him we hadn't
heard of you."
"Did he send you to town to look for me?"
"I did that on my own. I traced you to a dancing academy, then to North
Kensington, and then to New Cross."
"Where at New Cross?" asked Mavis, fearful that her friend had inquired
for her at Mrs Gowler's.
"I'd been given an address, but I lost it on the way. I described you
to the station master and asked if he could help me. He remembered a
lady answering your description having a box sent to an address in
Pimlico. When I told him you were a missing relative, he turned it up."
"Why didn't you call?"
"I didn't know if you were Mrs Kenrick, and, if you were, how you would
take my 'nosing' into your affairs."
"Why did you bother?"
"I always liked you, and when I feared you'd got into a scrape for love
of a man, my heart went out to you and I wanted to help you."
Mavis bent over to kiss her friend before saying: "I only hope I live
to do you a good turn."
"You've done it already by making friends with me. But isn't Hunter a
pig?"
"I hate her," said Mavis emphatically.
"She tried to get my time for her holidays, but it's now arranged that
she goes away when I get back."
"Where is she going?" asked Mavis absently.
"Cornwall."
"Cornwall? Which part?"
"South, I believe. Why?"
"Curiosity," replied Mavis.
Then Miss Toombs told Mavis the rest of the Melkbridge news. She
learned how Mr and Mrs Trivett had given up Pennington Farm and were
now living in Melkbridge, where Miss Toombs had heard that they had a
hard struggle to get along. Miss Toombs mentioned several other names
well known to Mavis; but she did not speak of Charlie Perigal.
It was a long time before Mavis slept that night. She had long and
earnestly thanked her Heavenly Father for having sent kindly Miss
Toombs to help her in her distress. She then lay awake for quite a long
while, wondering why Miss Toombs had been against her going to
Melkbridge. Vague, intangible fears hovered about her, which were
associated with her lover and his many promises to marry her. He also
was at Melkbridge. Mavis tried to persuade herself that Miss Toombs's
objection to her going to the same place could have nothing in common
with the fact of her lover's presence there.
The next morning, while the two friends were breakfasting, Mavis again
spoke of the matter.
"I can't make out why you were so against my going to Melkbridge," she
said.
"Have you been worrying about it?" asked Miss Toombs.
"Yes. Is there any reason why I shouldn't go back?"
"You great big silly! The reason why I didn't want you to go there is
because I might get you a better job in town."
"But you told me last night you were friendless. Friendless girls can't
get others work in town. So don't try and get over me by saying that."
Miss Toombs explained how the manager of a London house, which had
extensive dealings with Devitt's boot factory, was indebted to her for
certain crooked business ways that she had made straight. She told
Mavis that she had gone to see this man on Mr Devitt's behalf since she
had been in town, and that he was anxious to keep in her good books.
She thought that a word from her would get Mavis employment.
Mavis thanked her friend; she made no further mention of the matter
which occasionally disturbed her peace of mind.
For all her friend's kindly offer, she longed to tread the familiar
ways of the country town which was so intimately associated with the
chief event of her life.
During the five unexpired days of Miss Toombs's holiday, the two women
were rarely apart. Of a morning they would take the baby to the grounds
of Chelsea Hospital, which, save for the presence of the few who were
familiar with its quietude, they had to themselves. Once or twice, they
took a 'bus to the further side of the river, when they would sit in a
remote corner of Battersea Park. They also went to Kew Gardens and
Richmond Park. Mavis had not, for many long weeks, known such happiness
as that furnished by Miss Toombs's society. Her broad views of life
diminished Mavis's concern at the fact of her being a mother without
being a wife.
The time came when Mavis set out for Paddington (she left the baby
behind in charge of Jill), in order to see her friend go by the
afternoon train to Melkbridge. Mavis was silent. She wished that she
were journeying over the hundred miles which lay between where she
stood and her lover. Miss Toombs was strangely cheerful: to such an
extent, that Mavis wondered if her friend guessed the secret of her
lover's identity, and, divining her heart's longings, was endeavouring
to distract her thoughts from their probable preoccupation. Mavis
thanked her friend again and again for all she had done for her. Miss
Toombs had that morning received a letter from her London boot
acquaintance in reply to one she had written concerning Mavis. This
letter had told Miss Toombs that her friend should fill the first
vacancy that might occur. Upon the strength of this promise, Miss
Toombs had prevailed on Mavis to accept five pounds from her; but Mavis
had only taken it upon the understanding that the money was a loan.
While they were talking outside Miss Toombs's third class compartment,
Mavis saw Montague Devitt pass on his way to a first, followed by two
porters, who were staggering beneath the weight of a variety of
parcels. Mavis hoped that he would not see her; but the fates willed
otherwise. One of the porters dropped a package, which fell with a
resounding thwack at Mavis's feet. Devitt turned, to see Mavis.
"Miss Keeves!" he said, raising his hat.
Mavis bowed.
"May I speak to you a moment?" he asked, after glancing at Miss Toombs,
and furtively lifting his hat to this person.
Mavis joined him.
"What has become of you all this time?"
"I've been working in London."
"I've often thought of you. What are you doing now?"
"I'm looking for something to do."
"I suppose you'd never care to come back and work for me in Melkbridge?"
"Nothing I should like better," remarked Mavis, as her heart leapt.
They talked for two or three minutes longer, when, the train being on
the point of starting, Devitt said:
"Send me your address and I'll see you have your old work again."
Mavis thanked him.
"Just met Miss Toombs?" he asked.
"She's been staying with me. Thank you so much."
Mavis hurried from the man's carriage to that containing her friend,
who was standing anxiously by the window.
"It's all right!" cried Mavis excitedly.
"What's all right, dear?" cried Miss Toombs as the train began to move.
"I'm coming to work at Melkbridge. It's au revoir, dear!"
Mavis was astonished, and not a little disquieted, to see the
expression of concern which came over her friend's disappearing face at
this announcement.