A Woman Perfected

"I am sorry to hear that. If you were to make an exception in my case I would try not to make myself more objectionable than I could help."

The girl remained unsoftened.

"That may be; but you never can tell. Some give more trouble than they're worth, and some aren't worth anything; this is a respectable house. Still there's no harm in letting you see what we have got."

On the upper floor were a small sitting-room in front and a still smaller bedroom behind; barely, poorly furnished, with many obvious makeshifts, but scrupulously clean.

"What rent are you asking?"

"Ten shillings a week, and not a penny less; it ought to be fourteen."

"I'm afraid I can't pay fourteen shillings a week just yet, but I think I can manage ten; I like the rooms because they seem so clean."

"They are clean; no one can say they're not clean; I defy 'em to."

"Can I see the landlady?"

"My mother's the landlady; she's not very well just now; I can make all arrangements."

"Then in that case don't you think that if I were to take the rooms for a week on trial, at the end of that time we might find out if we were likely to suit each other?"

"We might; there's no knowing. When would you want them?"

"At once; my luggage is at the door."

"Then mind you make the cabman bring it up before you pay him; I know them cabmen."

But the cabman would not be made; he pleaded inability to leave his horse. An individual had appeared who offered to carry up the box for threepence; so Nora let him. After the cabman had been paid there remained of her capital less than eight pounds. When they were again up-stairs she said to the girl-

"What's your name? I'm Miss Lindsay."

"I'm Miss Gibb."

Nora smiled; the child said it as if she wished the fact to be properly appreciated.

"I meant, what is your Christian name?"

"Angelina; though I'm generally known as Angel, you see it's shorter; though I don't pretend that there's anything of the angel about me, because there isn't."

"I fancy I'm tired, my head aches; do you think you could let me have some tea?"

"Course I could; are you going to do for yourself, or are we going to do for you?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Are we going to do your marketing, or are you going to do it for yourself? If you take my advice you'll do it for yourself; it'll save you trouble in the end, and then there won't be no bother about the bills. The last lodger we had in these rooms he never could be got to see that he'd had what he had had, there was always a rumpus. Quarter of a pound of tea a week he used to have, yet he never could understand how ever it got into his bill. I'll let you have a cup of tea, and some bread and butter, and perhaps an egg; then afterwards I dare say you might like to go out and lay in a few stores for yourself." The girl turned as she was leaving the room to supply the new-comer with a piece of information. "Number 1, Swan Street, Stoke Newington, S.E., that's the address you're now in, in case you might be wanting to tell your friends."

In Swan Street Nora continued to reside, while the days went by, though she never told her friends. From Cloverlea, and the position of a great heiress, with all the world at her feet to pick and choose from, to Swan Street and less than eight pounds between her and beggary, was a change indeed. Used only to a scale of expenditure in which cost was never counted she was incapable of making the best of such resources as she had. Miss Gibb took her to task, on more than one occasion, for what that young woman regarded as her extravagance.

"Don't want it again? What's the matter with the bread? Why, there's the better part of half a loaf here."

"Yes, but I had it the day before yesterday."

Nora spoke with something like an air of timidity, as she stood rather in awe of Miss Gibb when that young person showed a disposition to expand herself on questions of domestic economy.

"Day before yesterday? Let's hope you'll never be wanting bread. I've known the time when I'd have been glad to have the week before last's. Then look at those two rashers of bacon you told me to take away yesterday, what was the matter with them?"

"They weren't-quite nice."

"Not nice?"

"I didn't think they were-quite fresh."

"Not fresh? I know I cooked them for my dinner and there didn't seem to be anything wrong about them to me. Then there was that lump of cheese which you said was all rind, it made me and Eustace a handsome supper. Of course I know it's none of my business, and of course any one can see you're a lady from the clothes you send to the wash; but if there's one thing I can't stand it's waste; perhaps that's because I've known what want is."

Nora had been in the house more than a week without seeing or hearing anything of her landlady, or of any managing person except Miss Gibb. She made constant inquiries, but each time it seemed that Mrs. Gibb was "not very well just now," though what ailed her Miss Gibb did not explain. One afternoon, as she was removing the tea-things, Nora was struck by the look of unusual weariness which was on the preternaturally old young face; something in the look determined her to make an effort to solve the mystery of the invisible and inaudible landlady.

"Angel, whenever I ask you how your mother is you always say she's not very well just now; but the only person I've seen or heard moving about the house is you. I'm beginning to wonder if your mother is a creature of your imagination." Angel said nothing; she continued to scrape the crumbs off the tablecloth with the blunt edge of a knife. "Are you alone in the house?"

"Course I'm not; how about my brother, Eustace? You've seen and heard him, haven't you?"

Eustace, it appeared, was only slightly his sister's senior, and almost as old; though Nora felt that no one could really be as old as Angel seemed; she admitted that she had seen Eustace.

"Very well then; he don't go till after nine and he's back most days before six, so how can I be alone in the house?"

"I know about Eustace; as you say, I've seen him. But I was thinking of your mother. Where is she; or have you reasons why you would rather not tell me?"

"What do you mean by have I reasons?"

The light of battle came into the child's eyes; it was extraordinary how soon it did come there.

"I was wondering if, for any reason, you would prefer to keep your own counsel."

"We don't all of us care to turn ourselves inside out; seems to me you don't for one."

The accusation was so true that Nora was routed.

"I beg your pardon, Angel; I didn't mean to seem to pry."

"No harm done that I know of; bones aren't broke by questions." She folded the tablecloth. As she placed it in its drawer, and her back was turned to Nora, she said, as with an effort, "Mother's paralyzed."

"Paralyzed? Oh, Angel, I'm so sorry; where is she?"

Miss Gibb faced round, again all battle.

"Where is she? This is her own house, isn't it? In whose house do you suppose she'd be if she wasn't in her own? I can't think what you mean by keeping on asking where is she?"

Nora was properly meek.

"You see, I only asked because I never hear her moving about; I never hear any one but you, and Eustace."

"Mean I make a clatter?"

"Angel! you know I don't. You are nearly, as quiet as a mouse; but your mother is so very quiet. I hope the paralysis is only slight."

"That's the trouble, it isn't. It's been coming on for years; during the last three years it's been downright bad; and during the last twelve months she's hardly been able to move so much as a finger."

Nora reflected; how old could the child have been when the mother was taken "downright bad"?

"Can she do nothing for herself?"

"Can't even feed herself."

"But how does she manage?"

"What do you mean, how does she manage?"

"Who does everything for her?"

"I never heard such questions as you do ask! Who do you suppose does everything for her? Isn't there me? and isn't there Eustace? Me and Eustace always have done everything for her; she wouldn't have anybody else do anything for her not if it were ever so."

"Has she any income of her own?"

"I wish she had; that would be heaven below."

"But on what do you live?"

"Don't we let lodgings? What do you think we let 'em for? We live on our lodgings, that's what we live on; leastways mother and me; Eustace keeps himself, and a bit over now that Mr. Hooper's started giving him his old clothes. I only hope he'll keep on giving him them. The way Eustace wears out his clothes is something frightful; it always has been Eustace's weakness, wearing out his clothes."

Later Nora did a sum in arithmetic. Miss Gibb had previously told her that, including rent, rates, and taxes the house cost more than forty pounds a year. Nora paid ten shillings a week; Mr. Carter, on the floor below, paid twelve and six; which meant twenty-two and sixpence a week, or fifty-eight pounds ten shillings a year; so that when rent, rates, and taxes had been paid under eighteen pounds per annum were left for the support of the Gibb family, or less than seven shillings a week. And this when times were flourishing! The rooms Nora had had been vacant more than a month before she came; small wonder Miss Gibb-as she would have put it-had "chanced" a lady.

More than another week elapsed before Nora was permitted to see her landlady. She found her in the front room in the basement, which was used by Miss Gibb as well as herself to live and sleep in. There, also, were performed most of the necessary cooking operations.

"Mother," explained Miss Gibb, "always does feel the cold; we can't have a fire going both in the kitchen and in here, so that's how it is. Besides, mother likes to see what's going on, don't you, mother?"

Mother said she did; for she could talk, and that was the only thing she still could do; it seemed to Nora that even the faculty of speech was threatened. Mrs. Gibb spoke very quietly and very slowly, and sometimes she paused, even in the middle of a word; as she listened Nora wondered how long it would be before that pause remained unbroken. Her landlady lay on a chair bedstead. Miss Gibb and her brother, between them, had contrived a method, of which every one was proud, by means of an arrangement of sloping boards, to raise her head and shoulders, when she desired to be raised. Nora was not surprised to find that, in common with the rest of the house, she was spotlessly neat and clean; but she was conscious of something akin to a feeling of surprise when she observed the expression which was on her face; and the more attentively she observed the more the feeling grew. Although she seemed so old-the cares of this world had pressed heavily on her-still, in a sense, she seemed younger than her daughter; for on her face was a look of peace, as on the face of those who are conscious that they also serve although they only stand and wait.

"I have nothing of which to complain," she told her lodger; "only-it's hard on Angelina." Nora noticed that she always referred to her daughter by her full Christian name. Angelina remonstrated.

"Now, mother, don't you be silly; if you are going to say things like that I shall have to send Miss Lindsay away."

The mother looked at her daughter with a look in her eyes which, when she saw it, brought the tears into Nora's; there was in it an eloquence which she wondered if, with all her wisdom, Angelina comprehended. If she had only been able to take the burden of the mother off the daughter's shoulders, how gladly she would have done it. But the days when she was able to bear the burdens of others were gone; it seemed not unlikely that she would be crushed out of existence by her own.

CHAPTER XIX

A YOUNG LADY IN SEARCH OF A LIVING

The more Nora sought for means to earn her own livelihood, the more they seemed to evade her. In her time she had heard a good deal about how difficult it sometimes is to earn one's own living, but she never realized what that meant until she started to earn hers. To begin with, she had only the very vaguest notions of how to set about it. She could not serve in a shop; at least she did not feel as if she could; she was conscious that she was not qualified to be a governess; she had no leaning towards domestic service, though she would have preferred that to serving in a shop; she had no woman's trade at her fingers' ends, so that she was unfit for a workroom. What remained? It seemed to her very little, except some sort of clerkship; she had heard that thousands of women were employed as clerks; or if she could get a post as secretary. That was the objective she had in her mind when she left Cloverlea, a secretaryship; for that she believed herself to have two necessary qualifications-she wrote a very clear hand, and she had some knowledge of typewriting. She had once started a typewriting class in the village; she had taken lessons herself. She had bought a machine and practised on that, until she gave it away to one of the pupils, who wished to take advantage of the information she had acquired to earn something for herself. That was nearly a year ago; she had not practised since; but she did not doubt that if she came within reach of a machine it would all come back to her; and she had attained to a state of considerable proficiency.

So she bought the daily papers and answered all the advertisements for secretaryships which they contained. There were not as many as she would have wished; some days there were none; and the only answers she received were from agents, who offered to place her name upon their books, in consideration of a fee, which she did not see her way to give them. The way those eight pounds were slipping through her fingers was marvellous; when three weeks had gone she had scarcely thirty shillings left, between her and destitution. Of course, she had been extravagant-monstrously extravagant, as Miss Gibb occasionally told her; but when you have been accustomed all your life to an establishment kept up at the rate of some twelve thousand pounds a year, to say nothing of having five hundred a year for pocket money, it is not easy, all at once, to learn the secret of how to make a shilling do the work of eighteenpence; that is a secret which takes a great deal of learning; by many temperaments it can never be learnt at all.

She had been a month in Swan Street; had paid three weeks' bills; the fourth lay in front of her. It was such a modest bill-Miss Gibb's bills were curiosities; yet when it was paid she would not have six shillings left in the world. It frightened her to think of it; the effort to think seemed to set her head in a whirl; her heart was thumping against her ribs; it made her dizzy. What was she to do? where was she to go? She could not stay in Swan Street; she had not enough to pay next week's rent, to say nothing of food. Yet, what was the alternative? With less than six shillings in the world what could she do?

In a sense, since her coming to Newington Butts she had kept herself to herself. She had this much in common with her father, she could not wear her heart upon her sleeve. She had kept her own counsel; told no one of the straits she was in, of the efforts she was making to find a way to earn her daily bread. But it was plain even to her, as she regarded her few shillings, that the time had come when she must take counsel of some one. If she had to go out into the highways and byways, with her scanty capital, she must learn of some one what highways and byways there were for her to go out into; of herself she knew nothing. As she cast about in her mind for some way out of her trouble, it seemed to her that the only person to whom she could unbosom herself was Miss Gibb.

She rang the bell, paid her bill, and as she watched Angelina, with her tongue out and her head on one side, making magnificent efforts to affix her signature to the receipt, she prepared herself for the ordeal. When the receipt was signed, and Angelina was about to go, Nora stopped her.

"If you have nothing particular to do just now, and you don't mind, there is something which I should like to say to you."

"I don't know that there's anything you might call particular that I've got to do, but there's always something."

Which was true enough; from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night, Miss Gibb was always doing something; and sometimes also, Nora suspected, in the silent watches of the night. Nora hesitated; she found the subject a difficult one to broach.

"I'm in rather an uncomfortable position; I-I'm afraid I shall have to leave you."

"Why? Aren't we giving satisfaction?"

"If I give you as much satisfaction as you give me there'd be no trouble on that score."

"Oh, you give us satisfaction all right enough; although, of course, any one can see you're several cuts above our place."

"You are likely to be several cuts above me; I am having to leave you because I have not money enough left to pay you next week's rent."

"Not enough money left? How much have you?"

"Five and eightpence halfpenny, to be precise." Miss Gibb changed countenance. "Five and eightpence halfpenny! That's not much."

"No one can appreciate the fact better than I do."

"But however come you to have so little?"

"I hadn't much when I came, and I suppose I've been extravagant."

"You have been that."

"You see," – despite herself Nora sighed-"I haven't been used to economy."

"Any one could see that with half-an-eye; I shouldn't be surprised to learn that you're one of those who've been used to spend as much as five pounds a week."

"I'm afraid I am.

"Then of course there's excuses. We can't get out of ways like that with a hop, skip and a jump; it's not to be expected. But haven't you got any friends who'd help you?"

"I haven't a friend to whom I can apply for help."

"I should have thought you were the kind who'd have had lots of friends. Have you fell out with them?"

"I thought my father was a rich man; but when he died-it was only a very little while ago-it appeared that he wasn't; so I have to make my own way in the world, and that is how I came to Swan Street."

"I know them fathers; I had one of my own, and he wasn't of any account; though I will say this, I always liked him."

"I have been trying to find something by means of which I could earn enough money to keep me. I hoped to have found it before now, but I haven't, and that's the trouble."

"What sort of work have you been looking for?"

"I've been endeavouring to get a post as secretary, among other things, and I've answered no end of advertisements, but nothing has come of one of them."

"Secretary? what's that? The notices that the water'll be cut off if it's not paid for, they're signed by a secretary; I always took him to be some kind of a bailiff."

Nora endeavoured to explain, but her explanation was not very lucid, and Miss Gibb was not extremely impressed.

"Is that the only kind of work you want?" she asked; "a secretary?"

"Indeed it isn't; I should be glad to do anything."

"Some people, when they say they'd be glad to do anything, mean nothing, which is about all they're good for; I know. How would you like to go out charing?"

"Charing? Well, I may be glad to have an opportunity of doing that."

"Yes, no doubt; I fancy I see you at it! you charing! My word! Strikes me you're the kind who'll find it difficult to get work of any sort."

"You're not very reassuring."

"Facts is facts."

"That's true enough; and it's no use blinking them. I fear you're right; I shall find it hard; anyhow while I'm looking for work it's clear that I can't continue to be your lodger. That's what I wanted to explain."

"And pray why not?"

"Isn't it pretty obvious? With five and eightpence halfpenny, and no prospect of more, how am I to pay you next week's rent?"

"I did think you'd have talked better sense than that."

"Angel!"

"If there's one thing I cannot stand it is to hear people talk right-down silly; I never could stand it, and I never shall. I wouldn't take this week's bill if it wasn't that we were so short; but if that there poor-rate isn't paid next week we shall have the brokers in, so paid it must be; them there poor-rates is demons; they'll turn me grey yet before I've done. But as for your next week's rent-we'll talk about that when it's due."

"Are you proposing that I should run up debts with you, which I may never be able to pay? Do you call that sense?"

"As it happens that's not what I'm proposing; though if I were as sure of most things as I am of that you'll pay me first chance you get, it might be better for me; but you can hardly say you've got no money when you've got plenty of things you can get money on."

"I don't understand."

"Look at your clothes-lovely some of them are; you can get money on them."

"Get money on my clothes? How?"

"Why, bless me, aren't there pawnbrokers? What do you think they're for? Taken to the proper place, by the proper person, you'd get a lot of money on those things of yours; I know. I always say that so long as you've something to pawn it's like having money at the bank."

It was to Nora as though Miss Gibb's words had opened out to her a new world, of which she had not dreamed. In none of the country towns within miles of Cloverlea was there a pawnshop; to her knowledge she had never seen one; there were plenty within an easy stroll of Swan Street; she had passed and re-passed them, but her attention had not been called to what they were; they had escaped her notice. In her mind the word pawnshop stood for almost the lowest word in the scale of degradation; it was the drunkard's last hope; the friend of the felon; the resource of those to whom there was no resource left; that gate into the unthinkable which was associated only with despair. And that it should be suggested to her that she should enter a pawnbroker's den-she had heard it spoken of as a "den" – to "raise" money on the clothes she had worn yesterday, and had hoped to wear again to-morrow-in her blackest hours she had not anticipated such a fate for herself as that. The proposal actually appalled her; filled her with a fear of she knew not what; shamed her; hurled her from a pedestal into a morass. She stammered as she replied, conscious of the crass banality of what she was saying-

"I-I don't think I-I should like to pawn any-any of my things if-if I could help it."

Miss Gibb's scorn was monumental, as if she resented something which the other implied, though it had been left unuttered.

"And who do you think does like to pawn their things if they can help it? Do you suppose people pawn their boots because they've got their pockets full of money? I am surprised to hear you talk, I really am; should have thought at your time of life you'd have known better. Wouldn't you rather pawn your clothes than starve?"

"If you-if you put it in that crude way, I suppose I would."

Nora smiled; a horrible libel on what a smile ought to be. There was no pretence of a smile about Miss Gibb; there never was; she was always like a combatant, who, armed at all points, is ever ready for the fray.

"Very well, then; you say you've got no money, and I say how do you make that out when you have got things that you can pawn? If you like to go hungry rather than put away a lace petticoat-which you can get out again, mind you, whenever you've a chance-all I can say is I don't; I've known what it is to be hungry, I have."

"But I fear that I-I shouldn't know how to set about pawning a lace petticoat even if I wanted to save myself from going hungry."

"Who said you would? Who said anything about your setting about it? Not me; I do hope I have more sense than that. Why, you'd be worse than a baby at the game; it needs some knowing. I'll do all in that way that's wanted; if I don't know pretty well all about pawning that there is to know I ought to, I've been pawning pretty nearly ever since I could walk. What's more, I've pawned pretty nearly every blessed thing that there is to pawn, down to a towel-horse and a kitchen fender. Mother and Eustace and me would have been a case for a coroner's inquest long ago if I hadn't; and I will say this for them there pawnbrokers, that, considering the class they've got to do with, and that they have got to make a living, they've got as much of the milk of human kindness in them as most. You're going to stop here, that's what you're going to do, and mother and Eustace and me will put our heads together to see about finding you some work to do, though I don't know about that there secretary. Only for goodness' sake don't you lose heart; no one ever gained anything by doing that. I've seen as much of the world as most, and I know from my own experience that when things are tightest is just the moment when help comes. Mother says it comes from heaven; but I don't know, it may or it may not; but it comes from somewhere, and that often from where you least expected it. When next week's bill comes due, if nothing's turned up, you give me something, and I'll take it round to Mr. Thompson-he's about as good as any-and I'll get as much on it as ever I can, and you'll be able to pay all right; you see, I'm not concealing from you that we've got to live as well as you, and them poor-rates there's no shirking. But don't you fear; mother and Eustace and me will have found you something to do between us long before you've spent all the money you've got in the bank; but whatever you do do, don't you go losing heart."