"To me?" asked Joan; "what about?"
"I see, then, she hasn"t," Rose answered, "but she will soon. Did you notice that the night before last Miss Wembly, who sits at the next table to ours, had a guest to dinner?"
"No," Joan admitted; "but why? What has it got to do with me?"
"I am coming to that," the other answered; she stood with her head averted, looking for a cigarette. "I am always a d.a.m.ned silent person myself," she went on, "and I do not think anyone can accuse me of being curious about their pasts. I do not want to know a blessed thing about yours, for instance, but that guest of Miss Wembly"s was a nurse from St. George"s Hospital."
"Oh," said Joan blankly; she was standing just within the door, her back against the clothes that hung on it.
"Well," Rose hurried on, "it has gone all round the place like lightning. They aren"t fond of you because they hate me and we are friends. Yesterday one of them took the story to Miss Nigel and she is going to ask you to leave."
"What story?" asked Joan; she had not followed the other"s swift deduction.
Rose lit a cigarette and held out the case to Joan. "Have one," she said, "and come and sit down. As I said before, I am not asking for personal history, I am telling you the facts as they affect this place.
They say you were to have had a baby, and you are not married."
She shrugged her shoulders and sank into a chair.
"You mean," whispered Joan, "that the nurse told them that?"
"I suppose so," Rose admitted; "anyway, Miss Nigel spoke of it to me to-day. She is not a bad sort, Miss Nigel, she was very kind to me once, but she is going to tell you to go."
"What have you thought of it?" asked Joan.
"I don"t think about other people"s affairs," Rose answered. "Come and sit down, I have got some jam for you after the powder, for I believe I have found a job for you. But first you must move into diggings, these clubs are all in a league, every one of them will be shut to you."
"You are not bothering to ask if it is true," said Joan. She moved forward and sat down, her hands clenched on her lap. "I suppose----"
Rose interrupted, putting a swift hand on hers. "Don"t," she said, "don"t deny it or tell me the truth, whichever you were thinking of doing. It does not matter to me. Because I like you I have interfered as much as I have so that you may be prepared for Miss Nigel"s attack." She smiled. "It will be an attack too--having a baby and no husband to people like Miss Nigel is worse than any criminal offence."
"Yes," Joan admitted. A vision of Aunt Janet"s horror-stricken face came across her mind. "When I heard that it had been killed in the accident, I was glad, glad. I had not got the courage to go on and brave it out. I was glad to think that I could start life again, that no one would know or look at me like the people at home had looked at me when they knew.
And now----"
"And now?" Rose repeated; she was studying Joan"s face with her eyes half closed, a peculiar trick she had when her thoughts were unpleasant.
"And now it doesn"t seem worth while going on any longer," Joan burst forth. "There must be other lives that are better worth living than this. Do you know that for the last ten days I have made fifteen shillings addressing envelopes from nine till six. It would be better, surely it would be better, to be what people call bad!"
Rose watched the flushed face. "If a life of that sort would give you any pleasure," she spoke slowly, "I should say live it by all means. The trouble is, it would not please you. If you care to listen, I will tell you a bit of my own story. It is not altogether pleasant, but in your present frame of mind it will not do you any harm to hear it."
She paused a moment, head thrown back, blowing smoke-rings to the ceiling.
"I came to London ten years ago," she began presently, "and I was twenty-one at the time. I had been keeping house for a brother in India, and I had had a good time, but a spirit of restlessness had come upon me and I would not leave him alone till he let me come home and start on my own. I had, of course, no people. Poor brother, he gave way after many arguments, knowing as little as I did about the life here, and I came.
He died the year afterwards of enteric. I had been on an allowance from him before, but when he died that stopped and I was left absolutely penniless. You have had a bad time in that way, but I had a worse one.
Still I was young and strong, and, above all, I was a fighter, so I won through. I got a post as typist in a city office and I drifted to Shamrock House. My working hours were lengthy, sometimes it was after half-past seven before I came out of office. Then I would hurry through the crowded streets, as you do now, and always that walk, through gaily lighted pleasure-seeking crowds, would end for me in the dark dreariness where Great Smith Street turns away from Victoria Street, a ten-minute walk through one of London"s poorest neighbourhoods, and--Shamrock House! Those were the days in which I did my hardest kicking against fate; it was so unjust, so unfair, and all the while youth and power to enjoy, which is the heritage of youth, were slipping past me. That is how you feel, isn"t it?" she asked suddenly.
"Yes," Joan said.
"I know," Rose answered softly; "well, wait and hear. I was in this mood, and feeling more than usually desperate, when I met the woman. I need not give her a name, not even to you; I doubt if I ever knew her real one. I had seen her several times, perhaps she had noticed me, though she had quaint, unseeing eyes that appeared to gaze through you blankly. She was a beautiful woman with an arresting beauty hard to define, and she used, as far as I could see, neither paint nor powder.
One evening, just as I was turning into Great Smith Street, I found her at my elbow.
""You live down there," she asked in a curious, expressionless way as if she hardly expected an answer.
"I was startled at her talking to me and at the same time interested.
""Yes," I said.
""It is dark and very dreary," she went on, talking almost to herself, "why do you choose such a life?"
"I think the bitterness of my mood must have sounded in my answer, for suddenly she turned to me and laid a hand on my arm.
""Leave it then," she whispered, her face close up against mine, "leave it, come home with me."
""Home with you," I repeated, thoroughly astonished, and at that moment a policeman, tall and stolid, strolled across the road towards us.
""Don"t let him hear what we are saying," whispered the extraordinary woman; "just turn back with me a little way and I will explain to you."
"Well, I went. Perhaps you can realize why, and I saw for a little into the outside edge of life as lived by these women. I wonder how I can best convey to you the horror and pity of it, for we--despite the greyness of our lives--have something within ourselves to which we can turn, but they have weighed even hopes and dreams with the weights of shame, and found their poor value in pounds, shillings and pence. That is why their eyes as they pa.s.s you in the streets are so blank and expressionless. Each new day brings them nothing, they have learnt all things, and the groundwork of their knowledge is--sin."
She rose abruptly and moved across to the window, pulling aside the blue-tinted curtains, staring out over miles and miles of roof-covered London. From far in the distance Big Ben shone down on her, a round, dim face in the darkness.
"You are wondering why I stayed with the woman," she went on presently.
"The answer is easy and may make you smile. I met a man, one of the many she brought to the house, and fell in love with him. I was stupid enough to forget my surroundings and the circ.u.mstances under which he had met me, or I dreamt that to him also they were only the outside wrappers of fate, easy to fling aside. Does it sound like a thrilling romance, and am I making myself out to be the heroine of one crowded hour of glorious life? Because my hour was never glorious."
She repeated the last word with a wry laugh and turned to face Joan. "I don"t know why I have raked up all this," she said. "I thought it had lost its power to hurt; but I was mistaken. I have liked you, perhaps that is the reason, and I have wanted to save you from making the same mistake as myself. For before you plunge out of monotony you must see that there is nothing in your heart that can be hurt, as these women have to be hurt every hour of their lives."
Joan could find nothing to say; the other girl"s confidence had been so overpowering, it left her tongue-tied and stupid. Rose came back after a little silence and sat down opposite her again.
"I am sorry," she said, "I have talked you into a mood of black depression; never mind, perhaps you will have learnt something from it none the less. And meanwhile, things are going to be better for you; it is no loss having to leave Shamrock House, otherwise you might grow into the house as I have. You will have to see about getting a room to-morrow, and then if you can meet me in the afternoon, I will take you and introduce you to your job. It is quite a nice one, I hope you will like it."
Joan stood up. "I don"t know what to say," she began; "you--oh, if only we could wipe out the past," she flamed into sudden rebellion, "and start afresh."
Rose laughed. "I don"t know about that," she said--the inevitable cigarette was in her mouth again--"_I_ for one would be very unwilling to lose a wisdom which has been so dearly bought."
CHAPTER XV
"No one has any more right to go about unhappy than he has to go about ill bred."
R. L. STEVENSON.
Joan was not to start her new work till the following Monday. She was to be typist--her first real post filled her with some degree of self-conscious pride--to the Editor of the _Evening Herald_. Rose had herself worked on the paper some years ago and was a friend of the Editor"s.
"I want you to give a girl I know a chance, Mr. Strangman," she had pleaded; "she is clever and well-educated, but she needs experience.
Take her, there is a good man, while your slack time is on, and she will be game for anything when you get busy again."
Mr. Strangman twisted long nervous fingers into strange positions.