The following Friday morning, Mavis Keeves sprang from bed on waking. It was late when she had gone to sleep the previous night, for she had been kept up by the festivities pertaining to breaking-up day at Brandenburg College, and the inevitable "talk over" the incidents of the event with Miss Helen and Miss Annie Mee, which conversation had been prolonged till nearly twelve o'clock; but the excitement of travelling to the place of her birth, and the certainty of getting an engagement in some capacity or another (Mavis had no doubt on this point) were more than enough to curtail her slumbers. She had fallen asleep laughing to herself at the many things which had appealed to her sense of humour during the day, and it was the recollection of some of these which made her smile directly she was awake. She tubbed and dressed quickly, although she had some bother with her hair, which, this morning, seemed intent on defying the efforts of her fingers. Having dressed herself to her somewhat exigent satisfaction, she went downstairs, passing the doors of those venerable virgins, the Misses Helen and Annie Mee, as she descended to the ground-floor, on which was the schoolroom. This was really two rooms, but the folding doors, which had once divided the apartment, had long since been removed from their hinges; they were now rotting in the strip of garden behind the house.
The appearance of Brandenburg College belied its pretentious name. Once upon a time, its name-plate had decorated the gates of a stately old mansion in the Fulham of many years ago; here it was that Mrs Devitt, then Miss Hilda Spraggs, had been educated. Since those fat days, the name-plate of Brandenburg College had suffered many migrations, always in a materially downward direction, till now it was screwed on the railings of a stuffy little road in Shepherd's Bush, which, as Mavis was in the habit of declaring, was called West Kensington Park for "short."
The brass plate, much the worse for wear, told the neighbourhood that Brandenburg College educated the daughters of gentlemen; perhaps it was as well that this definition, like the plate, was fallen on hard times, inasmuch as it was capable of such an elastic interpretation that it enabled the Misses Mee to accept pupils whom, in their prosperous days, they would have refused. Mavis looked round the familiar, shabby schoolroom, with its atmosphere of ink and slate pencil, to which she was so soon to say "good-bye."
It looked desolate this morning, perhaps because there leapt to her fancy the animated picture it had presented the day before, when it had been filled by a crowd of pupils (dressed in their best), their admiring parents and friends.
Yesterday's programme had followed that of all other girls' school breaking-up celebrations, with the difference that the passages selected for recital had been wholly culled from the writings of Mr Ruskin. Reference to the same personage had occurred in the speech to the prize-winners (every girl in the school had won a prize of sorts) made by Mr Smiley, the curate, who performed this office; also, the Misses Mee, when opportunity served, had not been backward in making copious references to the occasion on which they had drunk tea with the deceased author. Indeed, the parents and friends had breathed such an atmosphere of Ruskin that there were eight requests for his works at the local free library during the following week.
"Good old Ruskin!" laughed Mavis, as she ran downstairs to the breakfast room, which was situated in the basement. Here, the only preparation made for the meal was a not too clean table-cloth spread upon the table. Mavis went into the kitchen, where she found Amelia, the general servant, doing battle with a smoky kitchen-fire.
"How long before breakfast is ready?" asked Mavis.
"Is that you, miss? Oi can't see you properly," said Amelia, as she turned her head. "This 'ere smoke had got into my best oye."
Amelia spoke truly; there was a great difference between the seeing capacity of her two eyes, one of these being what is known as "walled." Amelia was an orphan; she had been dragged up by the "Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants," known to its familiars as the "Mabys," such designation being formed by the first letter of each word of the title. Every week, dozens of these young women issued from the doors of the many branches of this institution, who became, to their respective mistresses, a source of endless complaint; in times of domestic stress, one or two of these "generals" had been known to keep their situations for three months. Amelia was a prodigy of success, a record in the annals of the society, inasmuch as she had been at Brandenburg College for two years and a half. She kept her situation because she was cheap; also, because she did her best to give satisfaction, as she appreciated the intellectual atmosphere of the place, which made her hope that she, too, might pick up a few educational crumbs; moreover, she was able to boast to her intimates, on the occasions when she visited her parent home, how her two mistresses could speak four languages, which was certainly true.
"Wasn't it all beautiful, miss?" asked Amelia, who had listened to yesterday's entertainment halfway down the stairs leading to the basement.
"Wonderful," replied Mavis, as she tied on a kitchen apron, a preliminary to giving Amelia a helping hand with the breakfast.
"And the 'reverend'! He did make me laugh when he gave four prizes to fat Miss Robson, and said she was a good all round girl."
This joke had not been intentional on Mr Smiley's part; he had been puzzled by the roar of laughter which had greeted his remark; when he divined its purport, he was quite willing to take credit for having deliberately made the sally.
"You managed to hear that?" asked Mavis.
"Yes, miss; an' what the 'reverend' said about dear Mr Fuskin. I 'eard that too."
"Ruskin," corrected Mavis, as she set about making coffee.
Amelia, with a hurt expression on her face, turned to look at Miss Keeves, who, noticing the girl's dejection, said:
"Call him what you like, Amelia. It's only the Miss Mees who're so particular."
"Dear gentleman," continued Amelia. "Next to being always with you, miss, I should like to have been with 'im."
"I'm afraid you can't even be with me. I have to earn my own living."
"Yes, miss; but when you marry a rich gentleman, I should like to come with you as 'general.'"
"Don't talk nonsense, Amelia."
"But it ain't, miss; didn't the music master, 'im with the lovely, long, shiny 'air, promise me a shillin' to give you a note?"
"Did he?" laughed Mavis. "It's nearly eight: you'd better take in the breakfast things."
"Oh, well, if I can't be here, or with you, I'd sooner be with that dear Mr—"
"Ruskin, Amelia," interrupted Mavis. "Try and get it right, if only for once."
Amelia took no notice of the interruption, but went on, as she dusted the cups, before putting them on the tray:
"Dear Mr Fuskin! 'Ow I would have looked after 'im, and 'ow carefully I'd 'ave counted 'is washing!"
Punctually, as the clock struck eight, the two Miss Mees entered the breakfast room; they kissed Mavis on the cheek before sitting down to the meal. They asked each other and Mavis how they had slept, as was their invariable custom; but the sensitive, observant girl could not help noticing that the greetings of her employers were a trifle less cordial than was their wont. Mavis put down this comparative coldness to their pride at the success of yesterday's festival.
To the indifferent observer, the Miss Mees were exactly alike, being meagre, dilapidated, white-haired old ladies, with the same beaked noses and receding chins; both wore rusty black frocks, each of which was decorated with a white cameo brooch; both walked with the same propitiatory shuffle. They were like a couple of elderly, moulting, decorous hens who, in spite of their physical disabilities, had something of a presence. This was obtained from the authority they had wielded over the many pupils who had passed through their hands.
Nearer inspection showed that Miss Annie Mee was a trifle stouter than her sister, if this be not too robust a word to apply to such a wisp of a woman; that her eyes were kinder and less watery than Helen's; also, that her face was less insistently marked with lines of care.
The Miss Mees' dispositions were much more dissimilar than their appearance. Miss Helen, the elder, loved her home and, in her heart of hearts, preferred the kitchen to any other part of the house. It was she who attended to the ordering of the few wants of the humble household; she arranged the meals, paid the bills, and generally looked after the domestic economy of the college; she took much pride in the orderliness of her housekeeper's cupboard, into which Amelia never dared to pry. In the schoolroom, she received the parents, arranged the fees and extras, and inflicted the trifling punishment she awarded to delinquents, which latter, it must be admitted, gave her a faint pleasure.
Annie Mee, her sister, had a natural inclination for the flesh-pots of life. She liked to lie abed on Sunday and holiday mornings; she spread more butter on her breakfast toast than Helen thought justified by the slenderness of their resources; she was indulgent to the pupils, and seized any opportunity that offered of going out for the evening. She frequented (and had been known to enjoy) entertainments given in schoolrooms for church purposes she welcomed the theatre or concert tickets which were sometimes sent her by the father of one of the pupils (who was behind with his account), when, however paltry the promised fare, she would be waiting at the door, clad in her faded garments, a full hour before the public were admitted, in order not to miss any of the fun. Mavis usually accompanied her on these excursions; although she was soon bored by the tenth-rate singers and the poor plays she heard and saw, she was compensated by witnessing the pleasure Miss Annie Mee got from these sorry dissipations.
The two sisters' dispositions were alike in one thing: the good works they unostentatiously performed. The sacrifices entailed by these had much contributed to their declining fortunes. This unity of purpose did not stay them from occasionally exchanging embittered remarks when heated by difference of opinion.
When they sat down to breakfast, Helen poured out the coffee.
"What day does the West London Observer come out?" asked Annie, presently, of Mavis.
"Friday, I believe."
"There should be some account of yesterday's proceedings," said Miss Helen. "The very proper references which Mr Smiley made to our acquaintance with the late Mr Ruskin are worthy of comment."
"I have never known the applause to be so hearty as it was yesterday," remarked Annie, after she had eaten her first piece of toast.
"What is the matter, Mavis?" asked Miss Helen.
"A crumb stuck in my throat," replied Mavis, saying what was untrue, as she bent over her plate. This action was necessary to hide the smile that rose to her lips and eyes at the recollection of yesterday's applause, to which Miss Annie had referred. It had amused Mavis to notice the isolated clapping which followed the execution of an item, in the programme by a solitary performer; this came from her friends in the room. The conclusion of a duet would be greeted by two patches of appreciation; whilst a pianoforte concerto, which engaged sixteen hands, merged the eight oases of applause into a roar of approval.
"How do you get to Paddington, Mavis?" asked Miss Helen, after she had finished her meagre breakfast.
"From Addison Road," replied Mavis, who was still eating.
"Wouldn't Shepherd's Bush be better?" asked Annie, who was wondering if she could find accommodation for a further piece of toast.
"I always recommend parents to send their daughters from Paddington via Addison Road," remarked Helen severely.
"There are more trains from Shepherd's Bush," persisted Annie.
"Maybe, dear Annie" (when relations between the sisters were strained, they made use of endearing terms), "but more genteel people live on the Addison Road connection."
"But, Helen dear, the class of residence existing upon a line of railway does not enable a traveller to reach his or her destination the quicker."
"I was not aware, dear Annie, that I ever advanced such a proposition."
"Then there is no reason, dearest Helen, why Mavis shouldn't reach Paddington by going to Shepherd's Bush."
"None, beyond the fact that it is decided that she shall travel by way of Addison Road. Besides, Addison Road is nearer, dear."
"But the exercise of walking to Shepherd's Bush would do Mavis good after the fatigues of yesterday, Helen."
"That is altogether beside the point, dear Annie."
"I am never listened to," complained her sister angrily.
"You argue for the sake of talking," replied the other crossly.
They continued in that strain for some moments, and were still at it when Mavis went upstairs to put on her hat; here, she gave a last look at herself in the glass.
"I wonder if I'll do?" she thought, as she dealt with one or two strands of tawny coloured hair, which were still inclined to be rebellious.
"I wonder if I'll meet anyone who remembers me?" she thought, as she left the room.
Downstairs, the two old ladies were awaiting her in the hall. Miss Helen was full of good advice for the journey, whilst Miss Annie dangled a packet of sandwiches, "In case dear Mavis should need refreshment on the way."
"Thanks so much," said Mavis, as she took the little packet, the brown-paper covering of which was already grease-stained from the fat of the sandwiches.
"Don't fail to remember me to Mrs Devitt," urged Helen.
"I won't forget," said Mavis.
"I put salt and mustard in the sandwiches," remarked Annie.
"Thanks so much," cried Mavis, as she opened the front door.
"And don't forget to be sure and travel in a compartment reserved for ladies," quavered Helen.
"I won't forget; wish me luck," answered Mavis.
"We do; good-bye," said the two old ladies together.
Directly the door was closed, Miss Annie, followed at a distance by Miss Helen, hurried into the schoolroom, where, pulling aside the Venetian blind of the front window, they watched the girl's trim figure walk down the street. The two old ladies were really very fond of her and not a little proud of her appearance.
"She has deportment," remarked Helen, as Mavis disappeared from their ken.
"Scarcely that—distinction is more the word," corrected Annie.
"I fear for her in the great world," declared Helen with trembling lips; "they say that good looks are a girl's worst enemy."
"But Mavis has profited by the example of our lives, Helen."
"There is much in that, Annie. Also, she should have derived much benefit from being, in school hours, and often out of them, in an atmosphere influenced by the writings of the late Mr Ruskin."
With these consolations, the two old ladies toiled upstairs, and set about packing for a fortnight's stay they proposed making with an old friend at Worthing, for which place they proposed starting in two days' time.
Meanwhile, the subject of their thoughts was walking to Addison Road Station, happily ignorant of the old ladies' fears concerning the perils of her path. To look at her, she seemed the least likely girl in London who was about to take a journey on the chance of obtaining a much-needed engagement. Her glowing eyes, flushed cheeks, and light step were eloquent of a joyousness not usually associated with an all but penniless girl on the look-out for something to do. Her clothes, also, supported the impression that she was a young woman well removed from likelihood of want. She was obliged to be careful with the few pounds that she earned at Brandenburg College: being of an open-handed disposition, this necessity for economy irked her; but however much she stinted her inclinations in other directions, she was determined, as are so many other young women who are thrown on their own resources, to have one good turn-out in which to make a brave show to the world. Not that Mavis spent her money, shop-girl fashion, in buying cheap flummery which was, at best, a poor and easily recognisable imitation of the real thing; her purchases were of the kind that any young gentlewoman, who was not compelled to take thought for the morrow, might becomingly wear. As she walked, most of the men she met looked at her admiringly; some turned to glance at her figure; one or two retraced their steps and would have overtaken her, had she not walked purposefully forward. She was so used to these tributes to her attractiveness, that she did not give them heed. She could not help noticing one man; he glanced at her and seemed as if he were about to raise his hat; when she looked at him to see if she knew him, she saw that he was distinguished looking, but a stranger. She hurried on; presently, she went into a draper's shop, where she bought a pair of gloves, but, when she came out, the good-looking stranger was staring woodenly at the window. She hastened forward; turning a corner, she slipped into a tobacconist's and newsagent's, where she bought a packet of her favourite cigarettes, together with a box of matches. When she got to the door, her good-looking admirer was entering the shop. He made way for her, and, raising his hat, was about to speak: she walked quickly away and was not troubled with him any more. When she got to Paddington, she disobeyed Miss Helen's injunctions to travel in a compartment reserved for ladies, but went into an ordinary carriage, which, by the connivance of the guard, she had to herself. When the train left Paddington, she put her feet on the cushions of the opposite seat, with a fine disregard of railway bye-laws, and lit a cigarette.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that the girl's thoughts should incline to the time and the very different circumstances in which she had last journeyed to Melkbridge. This was nine years ago, when she had come home for the holidays from Eastbourne, where she had been to school. Then, she had had but one care in the world, this on account of a jaundiced pony to which she was immoderately attached. Then she suffered her mind to dwell on the unrestrained grief with which she had greeted her favourite's decease; as she did so, half-forgotten fares, scenes, memories flitted across her mind. Foremost amongst these was her father's face—dignified, loving, kind. Whenever she thought of him, as now, she best remembered him as he looked when he told her how she should try to restrain her grief at the loss of her pet, as her distress gave him pain. She had then been a person of consequence in her little world, she being her father's only child; she had been made much of by friends and acquaintances, amongst whom, so far as she could recollect, no member of the Devitt family was numbered. Perhaps, she thought, they have lately come to Melkbridge. Then aspects of the old home passed through her mind. The room in which she used to sleep; the oak-panelled dining-room; the garden, which was all her very own, passed in rapid review; then, the faces of playmates and sweethearts, for she had had admirers at that early age. There was Charlie Perigal, the boy with the steely blue eyes and the pretty curls, with whom she had quarrelled on the ground that he was in the habit of catching birds in nasty little brick traps; also, because, when taxed with this offence, he had defended his conduct and, a few moments later, had attempted to stone a frog in her highly indignant presence.
Then there was Archie Windebank, whose father had the next place to theirs; he was a fair, solemn boy, who treated her with an immense deference; he used to blush when she asked him to join her in play. The day before she had left for school, he had confessed his devotion in broken accents; she had thought of him for quite a week after she had left home. How absurd and trivial it all seemed, now that she was to face the stern realities of life!
The next thing she recalled was the news of her father's ruin. This calamity was more conveyed to her by the changed look in his face, when she next saw him, than by anything else.
She had been, at once, taken away from the expensive school at which she was being educated and had been sent to Brandenburg College, then languishing in Hammersmith Terrace, while her father went to live at Dinan, in Brittany, where he might save money in order to make some sort of a start, which might ultimately mean a provision for his daughter.
Next, she remembered—this she would never forget—the terrible day on which Miss Helen Mee had called her into the study to tell her that she would never again see her dear father in this world. Tears came to Mavis's eyes whenever she thought of it. Orphaned, friendless, with no one to give her the affection for which her lonely soul craved, Mavis had stayed on at Brandenburg College, where the little her father had left sufficed to pay for her board and schooling. This sum lasted till she was sixteen, when, having passed one or two trumpery examinations, she was taken on the staff of the college. The last few months, Mavis's eyes had been opened to the straitened circumstances in which her employers lived; she had lately realised that she owed her bread and butter more to the kindness of the Miss Mees, than to the fact of her parts as a teacher being in request at the school. She informed the kind ladies that she was going to seek her bread elsewhere; upon their offering the mildest of protests, she had made every effort to translate her intentions into performance.
This was by no means an easy matter for a comparatively friendless girl, as Mavis soon discovered. Her numerous applications had, so far, only resulted in an expenditure of stationery and postage stamps. Then, Miss Annie Mee kindly volunteered to write to the more prosperously circumstanced of the few one-time pupils with whom she had kept up something of a correspondence. Those who replied offered no suggestion of help, with the exception of Mrs Devitt. So much for the past: the future stretched, an unexplored country, before her, which, to one of her sanguine disposition, seemed to offer boundless opportunities of happiness. It appeared a strange conjunction of circumstances that she should have been sent for by a person living in her native place. It seemed fortuitous to Mavis that she should earn her bread in a neighbourhood where she would be known, if only because of the high reputation which her dear father had enjoyed. It all seemed as if it had been arranged like something out of a book. Amelia's words, referring to the certainty of her marrying, came into her mind; she tried to dismiss them, but without success. Then, her thoughts flew back to Charlie Perigal and Archie Windebank, youthful admirers, rivals for her favours. She wondered what had become of them; if she should see them again: a thousand things in which she allowed her imagination to wing itself in sentimental flight.
She was of an ardent temperament; men attracted her, although, since she had been grown up, she had never exchanged anything that could be construed into a love passage with a member of the opposite sex, opportunities for meeting those whom she considered her equals being wanting in her dull round of daily teaching. Sometimes, a face she had seen in the street, or a character she encountered in a book attracted her, when she would think of her hero, allowing her mind to place him in tender situations with herself, for the few hours her infatuation lasted, showing her to be of an impressionable and romantic disposition. Although she often felt her loneliness, and the consequent need of human companionship, her pride would never suffer her to take advantage of the innumerable facilities which the streets of London offer a comely girl to make chance friendships, facilities which, for thousands of friendless young women in big towns, are their only chance for meeting the male of their species.
Mavis's pride was not of the kind with which providence endows millions of foolish people, apparently by way of preventing them from realising their insignificance, or, at the worst, making their smallness tolerable. It arose from knowledge of the great and inexhaustible treasure of love which was hers to bestow; so convinced was she of the value of this wealth, that she guarded it jealously, not permitting it to suffer taint or deterioration from commerce with those who, if only from curiosity, might strive to examine her riches.
She feared with a grave dread the giving of the contents of this treasure house, knowing full well that, if she gave at all, she would bestow with a lavish hand, believing the priceless riches of her love to be but a humble offering upon the shrine of the loved one.
For all this consciousness that she would be as wax in the hands of the man she would some day love, she had much of a conviction that, somehow, things would come right.
Beyond thanking the Almighty for the beauties of nature, sunlight, and the happiness that danced in her veins, she did not bother herself overmuch with public religious observances. She had a fixed idea that, if she did her duty in life, and tried to help others to the best of her small ability, God would, in some measure, reward her very much as her dear father would have done, if he had been spared; also, that, if she did ill, she would offend Him and might be visited with some sign of His displeasure, just as her own father might have done if he had been still on earth to advise and protect her.
Then, all such thoughts faded from her mind; she looked out of the carriage window as the train rushed through Didcot Junction. She felt hungry after the meagre breakfast she had made; she remembered the sandwiches, and, untying the greasy little parcel, was glad to eat them. When she had finished the sandwiches, she lit another cigarette; after smoking this, she closed her eyes the better to reflect.
Then she remembered nothing till the calling of "Melkbridge!" "Melkbridge!" seemed to suffuse her senses. She awoke with a start, to find that she had reached her destination.
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