Part 79 (1/2)

”Two guineas a week!”

”You've perfec' liberty to bring in who you like.”

Mavis stared at her in astonishment.

”An' no questions asked, my dear.”

Mavis wondered if the woman were in her right senses.

”I thought you'd jump at it,” she went on. ”I could see it when you saw the bed. The gentlemen like a nice clean bed.”

Mavis understood; clutching her bag, she walked to the door.

”Not goin' to 'ave 'em?” screeched the landlady.

Mavis hurried on.

”Guinea a week and what extries you like. There!”

Mavis ran down the stairs.

”Won't they give you more than five s.h.i.+llings?” shouted the woman over the banisters as Mavis reached the door.

”I s'pose your beat is the Park,” the woman shrieked, as Mavis ran down the steps.

Mavis ran a few yards, to stop short. She trembled from head to foot; tears scalded her eyes, which, with a great effort, she kept back. She was crushed with humiliation and shame. At once she thought of the loved one, and how deeply he would resent the horrible insult to which his tenderly loved little Mavis had been subjected. But there was no time for vain imaginings. With the landlady's foul insinuations ringing in her ears, she set about looking for a house where she might get what she wanted. The rain, that had been threatening all day, began to fall, but her umbrella was at Paddington. She was not very far from the Tottenham Court Road. Fearful of catching cold in her present condition, she hurried to this thoroughfare, where she thought she might get shelter. When she got there, she found that places of vantage were already occupied to their utmost capacity by umbrellaless folk like herself. She hurried along till she came to what, from the pseudocla.s.sic appearance of the structure, seemed a place of dissenting wors.h.i.+p. She ran up the steps to the lobby, where she found the shelter she required. A door leading to the chapel was open, which enabled her to overhear the conclusion of the sermon. As the preacher's words fell on her ears, she listened intently, and edged nearer to the door communicating with the chapel. His message seemed meant expressly for her. It told her that, despite anything anyone might presume to urge to the contrary, G.o.d was ever the loving Father of His children; that He rejoiced when they rejoiced, suffered when they sorrowed; however much the faint-hearted might be led to believe that the world was ruled by remorseless law, that much faith and a little patience would enable even the veriest sinner to see how the seemingly cruellest inflictions of Providence were for the sufferer's ultimate good, and, therefore, happiness.

Presently, when the rain stopped, Mavis came away feeling mentally refreshed. As is usual with those in trouble, she applied anything pertinent she read or heard about sorrow to herself. The fact of her intercourse with Perigal having been in the nature of deadly sin did not trouble her so much as might have been expected. She felt that G.o.d would understand, and believed that to know all was to forgive all.

Also, try as she might, she could not see that her sin was of such a deadly nature as it is made out to be by the Church. It seemed that her surrender to her lover at Polperro had been the natural and inevitable consequence of her love for him, and that, if the one were condemned, so also should love be itself, inasmuch as it was plainly responsible for what had happened. Now, she was glad to learn, on the authority of the pulpit, that, however much she suffered from her present extremity, it would be for her ultimate happiness.

She started afresh to look for a lodging. She needed all the resolution she could muster. Repulsive-looking foreign women opened most of the doors at which she knocked, whilst surly-looking men hovered in the background.

Mavis wished she had started earlier for Hammersmith, to see what she could find there. At last she went into a chemist's shop which she saw open, to ask if she could be recommended to any rooms. A burly, blotchy-faced, bearded man stood behind the bottle-laden counter. Mavis stated her wants.

”Married?” asked the man.

”Y--yes--but I'm living by myself for the present.”

”Of course. But your husband would visit you,” remarked the man with a leer.

Mavis looked at him in surprise.

”Well, we'll call it your husband,” suggested the chemist.

Mavis walked from the shop.

It seemed that everyone was in league to insult her. Her heart was heavy with grief. She could not help thinking how the presence of the loved one, a word of encouragement from him, would instantly dissipate her soreness of heart and growing physical exhaustion.

She gave up the idea of looking for rooms in this disreputable corner of London. Her only concern was to get lodging for the night, so that she could resume her quest on the morrow in a more likely part of the great city. She stopped a policeman and asked to be directed to a reasonable hotel. The man told her that she would find what she wanted in the Euston Road. She walked along this depressing and sordid thoroughfare, where what were once front gardens before comfortable houses were now waste s.p.a.ces, given over to the display of dilapidated signboards of strange and unfamiliar trades. Here she dragged herself up the steps of the hotels that abound in this road, to learn at each one she applied at that they were full for the night. If she had not been so tired, she would have wondered if they were speaking the truth, or if they divined her condition and did not consider her to be a respectable applicant. At the last at which she called, she was asked to write her name in the hotel book. She commenced to write Mavis Keeves, but remembered that she had decided to call herself Mrs Kenrick while in London. She crossed out what she had written, to subst.i.tute the name she had elected to bear. Whether or not this correction made the hotel people suspicious, she was soon informed that she could not be accommodated. Mavis, heartsore and weary, went out into the night. A different cla.s.s of person to the one that she had met earlier in the evening began to infest the streets. Bold-eyed women, dressed in cheap finery, appeared here and there, either singly or in pairs. The vague, yet familiar fear, which she had experienced when she began to look for rooms, again took possession of her with gradually increasing force.