Part 10 (1/2)

”Of course not. Relations never do. Hope you'll get some work,” said the shorthand clerk dubiously. Katharine changed the conversation, to hide her own growing apprehension.

”Where are the newspapers?” she asked, looking round.

”In the prospectus; never saw them anywhere else!” said Phyllis, with a short laugh.

”Did you expect to find any?” asked Polly Newland. ”They all do,” she added gravely. ”It's like the baths, and the boots, and everything else.”

”Surely, the bath-room is not a fallacy?” exclaimed Katharine in dismay.

”Oh, there is one down in the bas.e.m.e.nt; but all the water has to be boiled for it, so only three people can have a bath every evening. You have to put your name down in a book; and your turn comes in about a fortnight.”

”And the boots?” said Katharine, suppressing a sigh.

”You have to clean your own, that's all. They are supposed to provide the blacking and the brushes; but, my eye, what brushes! Of course you get used to it after a bit. When you get to your worst, you will probably wear them dirty.”

”When does one get to one's worst?” asked Katharine.

”That depends,” said Polly Newland, sucking the end of her pencil, and staring across in a curious manner at Katharine. ”I should say you would get to it pretty soon, if you stop long enough.”

”Of course I shall stop!” cried Katharine, a little impatiently. ”Why do you both say that?”

The two girls glanced at one another.

”You're not the sort,” said Phyllis shortly; and Polly returned to her arithmetic.

Katharine relapsed into a dream. All her aspirations, all her hopes of making her father a rich man, had only landed her in number ten, Queen's Crescent, Marylebone! She looked round at the silent occupants of the room,--some of them too tired to do anything but lounge about, some of them reading novelettes, some of them mending stockings. She wondered if her existence would simply become like theirs,--a daily routine, with just enough money to support life, and not enough to buy its pleasures; enough energy to get through its toil, and not enough to enjoy its leisure. Ivingdon, with its recent troubles, its more distant happiness, seemed separated from this rude moment of disillusionment by a long stretch of years. A pa.s.sionate instinct of rebellion against the circ.u.mstances that were answerable for her present situation made her unhappiness seem still more pitiable to her; and a tragic picture of herself, martyred and forgotten, ten years hence, brought sympathetic tears to her own eyes.

A piano began a cheerful accompaniment in the next room, and some one sang a ballad in a fresh, untrained soprano. The piano was out of tune, and the song was of the cheapest and most popular nature; but it made an interruption in the sound of the traffic outside on the cobble-stones, and Katharine glanced round the room characteristically, in search of an answering smile. But the other girls were as unaffected by the music as they had been by the dreariness that preceded it; and n.o.body looked up from what she was doing. Only one of them made a comment; it was Phyllis Hyam. ”How that girl does thump!”

she said.

But on Katharine the effect had been instantaneous. She was not cultured in music: with her it was an emotion, not an art; and the little jingling tune had already turned her thoughts into a happier channel. Her spirits rose insensibly, and the spell that the dingy surroundings had cast over her was broken. Why should she believe what these two girls told her? Surely, her conviction that she would make something of her life was not going to wear itself out in a miserable struggle to keep alive! She was worth something more than that: she was intellectual beyond her years; every one had told her so, until she had come to believe it was true; and her future was in her own hands. She would be a teacher of a new school; she would make a name for herself by her lectures; and then, some day, when she had acquired a fortune, and all the world was talking of her talent, and her goodness, and her beauty,--she was going to be very beautiful, too, in her dream,--these girls would remember that they had doubted her powers of endurance. She was even rehearsing what she would say to them in the hour of her triumph, when a touch on her shoulder brought her back abruptly to her present surroundings, and she looked up to see a little white-haired lady at her side, in a lace cap and a black silk ap.r.o.n.

”Miss Austen? Come down with me, and let us have a little chat together. I was sorry not to be back in time to receive you, my dear.”

It was a sudden awakening; but she was able to smile as she followed her guide downstairs.

”She has the captivating manner of an impostor,” she reflected. ”She is just like Widow Priest! But it accounts for the prospectus.”

CHAPTER VII

The next day, she began a vigorous search for work. She did everything that is generally done by women who come up from the country and expect to find employment waiting for them; she answered advertis.e.m.e.nts, she visited agents, she walked over the length and breadth of London, she neglected no opportunity that seemed to offer possibilities. But she soon found that she had much to learn. She discovered that she was not the only girl in London, who thought there was a future before her because she was more intellectually minded than the rest of her family; and she found that every agent's office was full of women, with more experience than herself, who had also pa.s.sed the Higher Local Examination with honours, and did not think very much of it. And she had to learn that an apologetic manner is not the best one to a.s.sume towards strangers, and that omnibus conductors do not mean to be patronising when they say ”missy,” and that a policeman is always open to the flattery of being addressed as ”Constable.” But what she did not learn was the extravagance of being economical; and it was some time yet before she discovered that walking until she was over-tired, and fasting until she could not eat, were the two most expensive things she could have done.

But she found no work. Either there was none to be had, or she was too young; or, as they sometimes implied, too attractive. When this last objection was made to her by the elderly princ.i.p.al of a girl's school, Katharine stared in complete bewilderment for a moment or two, and then broke into an incredulous laugh.

”But, surely, my looking young and--and inexperienced would not affect my powers of teaching,” she remonstrated.

”It would prevent my taking you,” replied the princ.i.p.al coldly. ”I must have some one about me whom I can trust, and leave safely with the children. Besides, what do I know of your capabilities? You say you have never even tried to teach?”

”But I know I can teach,--I am certain of it; I only want a chance.