Love at Paddington.

by W. Pett Ridge.

CHAPTER I.

Children had been sent off to Sunday school, and the more conscientious reached that destination; going in, after delivering awful threats and warnings to those who preferred freedom of thought and a stroll down Edgware Road in the direction of the Park. As a consequence, in the streets off the main thoroughfare leading to Paddington Station peace and silence existed, broken only by folk who, after the princ.i.p.al meal of the week, talked in their sleep. Praed Street was different. Praed Street plumed itself on the fact that it was always lively, ever on the move, occasionally acquainted with royalty. Even on a Sunday afternoon, and certainly at all hours of a week-day, one could look from windows at good racing, generally done by folk impeded by hand luggage who, as they ran, glanced suspiciously at every clock, and gasped, in a despairing way, "We shall never do it!" or, optimistically, "We shall only just do it!" or, with resignation, "Well, if we lose this one we shall have to wait for the next."

Few establishments were open in Praed Street, shutters were up at the numerous second-hand shops, and at the hour of three o'clock p.m. the thirst for journals at E. G. Mills's (Established 1875) was satisfied; the appet.i.te for cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco had scarcely begun.

Now and again a couple of boys, who had been reading stories of wild adventure in the Rocky Mountains, dashed across the road, upset one of Mrs. Mills's placard boards, and flew in opposite directions, feeling that although they might not have equalled the daring exploits of their heroes in fiction, they had gone as far as was possible in a country hampered by civilization.

"Young rascals!" said Mrs. Mills, coming back after repairing one of these outrages. The shop had a soft, pleasing scent of tobacco from the brown jars, marked in gilded letters "Bird's Eye" and "s.h.a.g" and "Cavendish," together with the acrid perfume of printer's ink. "Still, I suppose we were all young once. Gertie," raising her voice, "isn't it about time you popped upstairs to make yourself good-looking?

There's no cake in the house, and that always means some one looks in unexpectedly to tea."

No answer.

"Gertie! Don't you hear me when I'm speaking to you?"

"Beg pardon, aunt. I was thinking of something else."

"You think too much of something else, my dear," said Mrs. Mills persuasively. "I was saying to a customer, only yesterday, that you don't seem able lately to throw off your work when you've finished.

You keep on threshing it out in your mind. And it's all very well, to a certain extent, but there's a medium in all things." Mrs. Mills went to the half-open door, that was curtained only in regard to the lower portion. "Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a hat," she cried protestingly. "Oh, my dear, and to think your mother was a Wesleyan Methodist. Before she came to London, I mean."

Her niece surveyed the work at arm's length. "I've done all I want to do to it," she said.

Mrs. Mills ordered the hat to be put on that she might ascertain whether it suited, and this done, and guarded approval given, asked to be allowed to try it on her own head. Here, again, the results, inspected in the large mirror set in a narrow wooden frame above the mantelpiece, gained commendation; Mrs. Mills declared she would feel inclined to purchase a similar hat, only that Praed Street might say she was looking for a second husband. Besides, she never went out.

"Your poor mother was just as handy with her needle as what you are.

We'd go along together to have a look at the shops in Oxford Street, and the moment she returned home, she'd set to work, and alter something to make it look fashionable." Mrs. Mills sighed. "Little good it brought her, though, in the long run."

"I am sure," remarked the girl quickly, "it never brought her any harm."

"Didn't help to get hold of anybody better than your father, at any rate. But they're both gone, and it's no use talking."

Some one entered the shop.

"Your friend Miss Radford," she announced. "Now there won't be a chance for any one else to speak."

The visitor justified the prophecy, by entering the parlour with a breathless "Oh, I've got such news!" checking herself on encountering Mrs. Mills. Mrs. Mills asked, with reserve, concerning the health of Miss Radford's mother, and mentioned (not apparently for the first time) that the lady, in her opinion, ought to be living on a gravel soil. Miss Radford, obviously suffering from repressed information, promised to deliver the advice, word for word, and in the meantime gave her own warm thanks.

"Old nuisance!" she remarked, as the half-curtained door closed. "I wonder how you can put up with her."

"My aunt is very good to me."

"Isn't it a pity," said the visitor inconsequently, "that you're so short? Well, not exactly short, but certainly only about middle height. I think"--she glanced at the mirror complacently--"my idea is it's partly because I'm tall that I attract so much notice. I'm sure the way they gaze round after I'm gone by--Well, it used to make me feel quite confused, but I've got over that. You don't have to put up with such experiences, Gertie."

"Afraid I forget to turn to see if they're looking."

"You've got rather a thoughtless disposition," agreed the other. "Once or twice lately, when I've been telling you things that I don't tell to everybody, it's struck me that you've been scarcely listening." The door was closed, but Miss Radford verified this before proceeding.

"What do you think?" she asked in an awed voice. "Whatever do you think? Two of my old ones have met. Met at a smoking concert apparently. And they somehow started talking, and my name cropped up, and," tearfully, "they've written me such a unkind letter, with both their names to it. On the top of it all, the latest one caught sight of me yesterday afternoon, dressing the window at our establishment, so that he won't put in an appearance at the Marble Arch this evening."

"Why not?"

"Because I told him I was an artist. Said I had a picture in the Royal Academy the year before last."

"You are rather foolish at times, aren't you?"

"I wish, darling," wailed Miss Radford, "that you could tell me something I don't know."

The clock on the mantelpiece struck the half-hour, and Mrs. Mills's niece, suddenly alarmed, said she would not be absent for more than ten minutes, an announcement the visitor received with an incredulous shake of the head. As a fact, Gertie returned in five minutes fully apparelled, to discover Miss Radford improved in spirits and ready for more conversation.

"A new blouse?" she cried, interrupting herself. "And you never told me. Gertie Higham," solemnly, "this isn't what I call friendship."

The girl went straight through the shop, and looking up and down Praed Street, remarked to Mrs. Mills that it intended to be a fine evening.

The elder lady said it was high time Gertie found a young man to take her out; the girl answered composedly that perhaps Mr. Trew might call and do her this service.

"Or Fred Bulpert?" remarked the aunt pointedly.

"No," she answered, "not Mr. Bulpert, thank you. Mr. Trew is different."

"He isn't the man he was when I first knew him."

"I like him because he's the man he is."

She turned quickly at the sound of a deep, husky voice. Mr. Trew, on the mat, opened his arms at sight of her, and beamed with a face that was like the midday sun; she took his sleeve and pulled him to the pavement.

"At five minutes to five," she whispered urgently, "you're going to take me for a walk in Hyde Park."

"At four fifty-five to the minute," he agreed. "What's the game, may I kindly ask?"

"I'll tell you later on."

"I hadn't noticed it," he said loudly, re-entering the shop, "until my attention was drawed to it by the little missy here. But there it is right enough on the playcards. 'Motor omnibuses for London.'" He shook his head, and, leaning across the counter, addressed Mrs. Mills.

"Light of my life, sunshine of my existence--"

"Don't you begin your nonsense," ordered the lady, not displeased.

"--And sweetheart when a boy, I warn you against putting any of your ill-gotten gains into that sort of speculation. They may perhaps start one from the Elephant and it'll get about as fur as the Obelisk, and there it'll stick. And they'll have to take it to pieces, and sell it for sc.r.a.p iron. I know what I'm talking about."

"That's unusual in your case," said Mrs. Mills.

"I get light-headed when I see you," explained Mr. Trew. "I was took like it the first time I ran across you up in the gallery of the old Princess's, seeing 'Guinea Gold,' and you've had the same effect on me ever since. What's more, you glory in it. You're proud of the wonderful influence you exercise over me. And all I get out of you is a 'aughty smile."

"The fact is," declared Mrs. Mills, "you get too much attention from the ladies. It spoils you!"

"See how she spurns me," he cried, turning to Gertie. "You wouldn't treat a gentleman like that, would you, missy? You wouldn't play football with an honest, loving heart, I'm sure. Oh, come on," with pretended desperation, "let's have a cigar, and try to forget all about it. A twopenny one; same as you sell to members of the House of Lords."

"You're staying to tea," suggested Mrs. Mills, allowing him to make a selection from a box.