Mavis' heart seemed to stop. She knew the bag contained her trinkets, her reserve capital of twenty-three pounds, Perigal's letters, her powder-puff, and other feminine odds and ends. What she could not remember was if she had posted her note to Perigal, which contained the money she was returning to him. As much as her consternation would permit, she rapidly passed over in her mind everything that had happened since she had left the restaurant in Oxford Street. For the life of her, she could not recall going into a postoffice to purchase the stamp of which she had been in need. Her next thought was the quickest way to get back her property, at which the word police immediately suggested itself. Once outside the house, she made careful note of its number; she then walked quickly till she came upon a policeman, to whom she told her trouble.
"Was you there alone?" asked the constable.
Mavis looked at him inquiringly.
"I mean was you with a gentleman?"
Mavis bit her lip, but saw it would not help her to be indignant. She told the man how she got there, a statement which made him civil and sympathetic.
"It's a bad place, and we've had many complaints about it. You'd better complain to the inspector at the station, miss."
He directed her to where she should go. Exhausted with hunger and the fear of losing all her possessions, she followed the policeman's instructions, till she presently found herself telling an inspector at the station of the theft; he advised her to either make a charge, or, if she disliked the publicity of the police court, to instruct a solicitor. Believing that making a charge would be more effectual, besides speedier, she told the inspector of her decision.
"Very well. Your name, please?"
"Mavis Kenrick."
"Mrs," he wrote, as he glanced at the wedding ring which she now wore on her finger.
"What address, please?" was his next question.
"I haven't one at present."
The man looked at her in surprise, at which Mavis explained how she had come from Melkbridge the day before.
"At least you can give us your husband's address."
"He's abroad," declared Mavis, with as much resolution as she could muster.
"Then you might give me the address of your friends in Melkbridge."
"To write to?" asked Mavis.
"In case it should be necessary."
Mavis was at once aware of the inconvenient consequences to which an application for references to anyone at Melkbridge would give rise, especially as her name and state were alike incorrectly given. She hesitated for a few moments before telling the inspector that, disliking the publicity of the police court, she would prefer to instruct a solicitor. As she left the station, she would have felt considerably crestfallen, had she not been faint from want of food. She dragged her way to a tea-shop, to feel the better for a cup of tea and some toast. The taste of the room in which she had passed the night still fouled her mouth; its stench clung to her clothes. She asked her way to the nearest public baths, where she thought a shilling well spent in buying the luxury of a hot bath. Her next concern was to seek out a solicitor who would assist her to recover her stolen property. She had a healthy distrust of the tribe, and was wondering if, after all, it would not have been better to have risked the inspector's writing to any address she may have given at Melkbridge, rather than trust any chance lawyer with the matter, when she remembered that her old acquaintance, Miss Meakin, was engaged to a solicitor's clerk. She resolved to seek out Miss Meakin, and ask her to get her betrothed's advice and assistance. As she did not know Miss Meakin's present address, she thought the quickest way to obtain it was to call on her old friend Miss Nippett at Blomfield Road, Shepherd's Bush, who kept the register of all those who attended "Poulter's."
She had never quite lost touch with the elderly accompanist; they had sent each other cards at Christmas and infrequently exchanged picture postcards, Miss Nippett's invariably being a front view of "Poulter's," with Mr Poulter on the steps in such a position as not to obscure "Turpsichor" in the background.
Mavis travelled by the Underground to Shepherd's Bush, from where it was only five minutes' walk to Miss Nippett's. The whole way down, she was so dazed by her loss that she could give no thought to anything else. The calamities that now threatened her were infinitely more menacing than before her precious bag had been stolen. It seemed as if man and circumstance had conspired for her undoing. Her suspense of mind was such that it seemed long hours before she knocked at the blistered door in the Blomfield Road where Miss Nippett lived.
Miss Nippett was in, she learned from the red-nosed, chilblain-fingered slut who opened the door.
"What nyme?"
"Mrs Kenrick, who was Miss Keeves," replied Mavis.
"Will you go up?" said the slut when, a few minutes later, she came downstairs.
Mavis went upstairs, past the cupboard containing Miss Nippett's collection of unclaimed "overs," to the door directly beyond.
"Come in" cried a well-remembered voice, as Mavis knocked.
She entered, to see Miss Nippett half rising from a chair before the fire. She was startled by the great change which had taken place in the accompanist's appearance since she had last seen her. She looked many years older; her figure was quite bent; the familiar shawl was too ample for the narrow, stooping shoulders.
"Aren't you well?" asked Mavis, as she kissed her friend's cheek.
"Quite. Reely I am but for a slight cold. Mr Poulter, 'e's well too. Fancy you married!"
"Yes," said Mavis sadly.
But Miss Nippett took no notice of her dejection.
"I've never 'ad time to get married, there's so much to do at 'Poulter's.' You know! Still, there's no knowing."
Mavis, distressed as she was, could hardly restrain a smile.
"I've news too," went on Miss Nippett.
"Have you?" asked Mavis, who was burning to get to the reason of her call.
"Ain't you heard of it?"
"I can't say I have."
By way of explanation, Miss Nippett handed Mavis one of a pile of prospectuses at her elbow; she at once recognised the familiar pamphlet that extolled Mr Poulter's wares.
"See! 'E's got my name on the 'pectus. 'All particulars from Poulter's or Miss Nippett, 19 Blomfield Road, W.' Isn't that something to talk about and think over?"
Mavis hastily assented; she was about to ask for Miss Meakin's address, but Miss Nippett was too quick for her.
"D'ye think he'll win?"
"Who?"
"Mr Poulter, of course. 'Aven't you 'eard?"
"Tell me."
"Oh, I say, you are ignorant! He's competing for the great cotillion prize competition. I thought everybody knew about it."
"I think I've heard something. But could you tell me Miss Meakin's address?"
"11 Baynham Street, North Kensington, near Uxbridge Road station," Miss Nippett informed Mavis, after referring to an exercise book, to add: "This is the dooplicate register of 'Poulter's.' I always keep it here in case the other should get lost. Mr. Poulter, like all them great men, is that careless."
"Come again soon," said Miss Nippett, as Mavis rose to go.
Mavis promised that she would.
"How long have you been married?"
"Not long. Three months."
"Any baby?"
"After three months!" blushed Mavis.
"Working so at 'Poulter's' makes one forget them things. No offence," apologised Miss Nippett.
"Good-bye. I'll look in again soon."
"If you 'ave any babies, see they're taught dancing at 'Poulter's.'"
Between Notting Hill and Wormwood Scrubbs lies a vast desert of human dwellings. Fringing Notting Hill they are inhabited by lower middle-class folk, but, by scarcely perceptible degrees, there is a declension of so-called respectability, till at last the frankly working-class district of Latimer Road is reached. Baynham Street was one of the ill-conditioned, down-at-heel little roads which tenaciously fought an uphill fight with encroaching working-class thoroughfares. Its inhabitants referred with pride to the fact that Baynham Street overlooked a railway, which view could be obtained by craning the neck out of window at risk of dislocation. A brawny man was standing before the open door of No. 11 as Mavis walked up the steps.
"Is Bill coming?" asked the man, as he furtively lifted his hat.
Mavis looked surprised.
"To chuck out this 'ere lodger for Mrs. Scatchard wo' won't pay up," he explained.
"I know nothing about it," said Mavis.
"Ain't you Mrs Dancer, Bill's new second wife?"
Mavis explained that she had come to see Miss Meakin, at which the man walked into the passage and knocked at the first door on the left, as he called out:
"Lady to see you!"
"Who?" asked Miss Meakin, as she displayed a fraction of a scantily attired person through the barely opened door.
"Have you forgotten me?" asked Mavis, as she entered the passage.
"Dear Miss Keeves! So good of you to call!" cried Miss Meakin, not a little affectedly, so Mavis thought, as she raised her hand high above her head to shake hands with her friend in a manner that was once considered fashionable in exclusive Bayswater circles.
She then opened the door wide enough for Mavis to edge her way in. Mavis found herself in an apartment that was normally a pretentiously furnished drawing-room. Just now, a lately vacated bed was made up on the sofa; a recently used washing basin stood on a chair; whilst Miss Meakin's unassumed garments strewed the floor.
"And what's happened to you all this long time?" asked Miss Meakin, as she sat on the edge of a chair in the manner of one receiving a formal call.
"To begin with, I'm married," said Mavis hurriedly, at which piece of information her friend's face fell.
"Any family?" she asked anxiously.
"N-no—not yet."
"I could have married Mr Napper a month ago—in fact he begged me on his knees to," bridled Miss Meakin.
"Why didn't you?"
"We're going to his aunt's at Littlehampton for the honeymoon, but I'm certainly not going till it's the season there."
Mavis smiled.
"Would you?" asked Miss Meakin.
"Not if that sort of thing appealed to me."
When Miss Meakin had explained that she had got up late because she had been to a ball the night before, Mavis told her the reason of her visit, at which Miss Meakin declared that Mr Napper was the very man to help her. Mavis asked for his address. While her friend was writing it down, a violent commotion was heard descending the stairs and advancing along the passage. Mavis rightly guessed this was caused by the forcible ejection of the lodger who had failed with his rent.
To Mavis' surprise, Miss Meakin did not make any reference to this disturbance, but went on talking as if she were living in a refined atmosphere which was wholly removed from possibility of violation.
"There's one thing I should tell you," said Miss Meakin, as Mavis rose to take her leave. "Mr Napper's employer, Mr Keating, besides being a solicitor, sells pianos. Mr N. is expecting a lady friend, who is thinking of buying one 'on the monthly,' so mind you explain what you want."
"I won't forget," said Mavis, making an effort to go. But as voices raised in angry altercation could be heard immediately outside the front door, Miss Meakin detained Mavis, asking, in the politest tone, advice on the subject of the most fashionable material to wear at a select dinner party.
"I've quite given up 'Browning,'" she told Mavis, "he's so old-fashioned to up-to-date people. Now I'm going to be Mrs Napper, when the Littlehampton season comes round, I'm going in exclusively for smartness and fashion."
Mavis making as if she would go, and the disturbance not being finally quelled, Miss Meakin begged Mavis to stay to lunch. She repeatedly insisted on the word lunch, as if it conveyed a social distinction in the speaker.
Mavis had got as far as the door, when it burst open and an elderly woman of considerable avoirdupois broke into the room, to sink helplessly upon a flimsy chair which creaked ominously with its burden.
Miss Meakin introduced this person to Mavis as her aunt, Mrs Scatchard, and reminded the latter how Mavis had rescued her niece from the clutches of the bogus hospital nurse in Victoria Street so many months back.
"That you should call today of all days!" moaned the perspiring Mrs Scatchard.
"Why not today?" asked her niece innocently.
"The day I'm disgraced to the neighbourhood by a 'visitor' being turned out of doors."
"I knew nothing of it," protested Miss Meakin.
"And Mr Scatchard being a government official, as you might say."
"Indeed!" remarked Mavis, who was itching to be off.
"Almost a pillar of the throne, as you might say," moaned the poor woman.
"True enough," murmured her niece.
"A man who, as you might say, has had the eyes of Europe upon him."
"Ah!" sighed Miss Meakin.
"And me, too, who am, as it were, an outpost of blood in this no-class neighbourhood," continued Mrs Scatchard.
Mavis wondered when she would be able to get away.
"My father was a tax-collector," Mrs Scatchard informed Mavis.
"Indeed!" said the latter.
"And in a most select London suburb. Do you believe in blood?"
"I think so."
"Then you must come here often. Blood is so scarce in North Kensington."
"Thank you."
"Why not stay and have a bit of dinner?"
"Lunch," corrected Miss Meakin with a frown.
"We've a lovely sheep's heart and turnips," said Mrs Scatchard, disregarding her niece's pained interruption.
Mavis thanked kindly Mrs Scatchard, but said she must be off. She was not permitted to go before she promised to let Miss Meakin know the result of her visit to Mr Napper.
Mavis spent three of her precious pennies in getting to the office of Mr Keating, which was situated in a tiny court running out of Holborn. Upon the first door she came to was inscribed "A.F. Keating, Solicitor, Commissioner for Oaths," whilst upon an adjacent door was painted "Breibner, Importer of Pianofortes." She tried the handle of the solicitor's door, to find that it was locked. She was wondering what she should do when a tall, thin, podgy-faced man came in from the court. Mavis instinctively guessed that he was Mr Napper.
"'Ave you been waiting long, madam?" he asked.
"I've just come. Are you Mr Napper?"
"It is. Everybody knows me."
"I've come from Miss Meakin."
"Today?" he asked, as his white face lit up.
"I've come straight from her."
"And after what I said at last night's 'light fantastic,' she has sent you to me!" he cried excitedly, as he opened the door on which was inscribed "Breibner."
"RE consultation, madam. If you will be good enough to step this way, I shall be 'appy to take your instructions."
Mavis, despite her distress of mind, was not a little amused at this alteration in Mr Napper's manner. She followed him into Mr Keating's office, where she saw a very small office-boy, who, directly he set his eyes on Mr Napper, made great pretence of being busy. She was shown into an inner room, where she was offered an armchair. Upon taking it, Mr Napper gravely seated himself at a desk and said:
"Mr Keating is un'appily absent. Any confidence made to me is the same as made to 'im."
Mavis recited her trouble, of which Mr Napper put down the details.
When he had got these, Mavis waited in suspense. Mr Napper looked at his watch.
"Do you think you can do anything?" Mavis asked.
"I'm going to do my best, quite as much for Miss Meakin's sake as for the dignity of my profession," replied Mr Napper. "Please read through this, and, if it is correct, kindly sign."
Here he handed Mavis a statement of all she had told him in respect of her loss. After seeing that it was rightly set down, she signed "Mavis Kenrick" at the foot of the document.
"Vincent!" cried Mr Napper, as Mavis handed it back.
"Yessur," answered the tiny office-boy smartly, as he made the most of his height in the doorway.
"I am going out on important business."
"Yessur."
"I shan't be back for the best part of an hour."
"Yessur."
"If this lady cares to, she will wait till my return."
"Yessur."
Mr Napper dismissed Vincent and then turned to Mavis.
"If I may say so, I can see by your face that you're fond of literature," he said.
"I like reading."
"Law and music is my 'obby, as you might say. The higher literature is my intellect."
"Indeed!"
"Let me lend you something to read while you're waiting."
"You're very kind. But I've had nothing to eat. Would you mind if I took it out with me?"
"Delighted! What do you say to Locke's Human Understanding?" he asked, as he produced a book.
"Thank you very much."
"Or here's Butler's Anatomy of Melancholy."
"But—"
"Or 'Obbes's Leviathan," he suggested, producing a third volume.
"Thank you, but Locke will do to begin upon."
"Ask me to explain anything you don't understand," he urged.
"I won't fail to," she replied, at which Mr Napper took his leave.
Mavis went to a neighbouring tea-shop, where she obtained the food of which she was in need. When she returned to Mr Keating's office, she was shown into the inner room by Vincent, who shut the door as he left her. She was still a prey to anxiety, and succeeded in convincing herself how comparatively happy she would be if only she could get back her stolen goods. To distract her thoughts from her present trouble, she tried to be interested in the opening chapter of the work that Mr Napper had lent her. But it proved too formidable in her present state of mind. She would read a passage, to find that it conveyed no meaning; she was more interested in the clock on the mantel-piece and wondering how long it would be before she got any news. One peculiarity of Mr Napper's book attracted her attention: she saw that, whereas the first few pages were dog's-eared and thumb-marked, the succeeding ones were as fresh as when they issued from the bookseller's hands.
While she was thus waiting in suspense, she heard strange sounds coming from the office where Vincent worked. She went to the door, to look through that part of it which was of glass. She saw Vincent, who, so far as she could gather, was talking as if to an audience, the while he held an inkpot in one hand and the office cat in the other. When he had finished talking, he caused these to vanish, at which he acknowledged the applause of an imaginary audience with repeated bows. After another speech, he reproduced the cat and the inkpot, proceedings which led Mavis to think that the boy had conjuring aspirations.
Her heart beat quickly when Mr Napper re-entered the office.
"It's all right!" he hastened to assure her. "You're to come off with me to the station to identify your property."
Mavis thanked him heartfully when she learned that the police, having received a further complaint of the house where she had spent the night, had obtained a warrant and promptly raided the place, with the result that her bag (with other missing property) had been recovered. As they walked in the direction of the station, Mr. Napper asked her how she had got on with Locke's Human Understanding. Upon her replying that it was rather too much for her just then, he said:
"Just you listen to me."
Here he launched into an amazing farrago of scientific terms, in which the names of great thinkers and scientists were mingled at random. There was nothing connected in his talk; he seemed to be repeating, parrot fashion, words and formulas that he had chanced upon in his dipping into the works that he had boasted of comprehending.
Mavis looked at him in astonishment. He mistook her surprise for admiration.
"I'm afraid you haven't understood much of what I've been saying," he remarked.
"Not very much."
"You've paid me a great compliment," he said, looking highly pleased with himself.
Then he spoke of Miss Meakin.
"You'll tell her what I've done for you?"
"Most certainly."
"Last night, at the 'light fantastic' I told you of, we had a bit of a tiff, when I spoke my mind. Would you believe it, she only danced twenty hops with me out of the twenty-three set down?"
"What bad taste!"
"I'm glad you think that. Her sending you to me shows she isn't offended at what I said. I did give it her hot. I threw in plenty of scientific terms and all that."
"Poor girl!" remarked Mavis.
"Yes, she was to be pitied. But here we are at the station."
Mavis went inside with Mr Napper, where she proved her title to her stolen property by minutely describing the contents of her bag, from which she was rejoiced to find nothing had been taken. Her unposted letter to Perigal was with her other possessions.
As they were leaving the station, Mr Napper remarked:
"The day before yesterday I had the greatest compliment of my life paid me."
"And what was that?" asked Mavis.
"A lady told me that she'd known me three years, and that all that time she never understood what my scientific conversation was about."
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