The Woman's Way.

by Charles Garvice.

CHAPTER I

Celia climbed up the steps to her room slowly; not because she was very tired, but because her room was nearly at the top of Brown's Buildings and she had learnt that, at any rate, it was well to begin slowly. It was only the milk boy and the paper boy who ran up the stairs, and they generally whistled or sang as they ran, heedless of feminine reproofs or masculine curses. There was no lift at Brown's; its steps were as stony and as steep as those of which Dante complained; the rail on which Celia's hand rested occasionally was of iron; and Brown's whitewashed corridors, devoid of ornament, were so severe as to resemble those of a prison; indeed, more than one of the inhabitants of the Buildings spoke of them, with grim facetiousness, as The Jail. Without having to pause to gain her breath, for at twenty-two, when you are well and strong, even sixty steep steps do not matter very much, Celia unlocked a door, bearing the number "105," and entered her room.

It was not large; to descend to detail, it measured exactly ten feet by fifteen feet; but scantily furnished as it was, it contrasted pleasantly with the prison-like corridor on which it opened. Like that of the Baby Bear, everything in the apartment was small; a tiny table, a diminutive armchair, a miniature bookcase; the one exception was a wardrobe, which was not in reality a wardrobe; it served a double purpose; for when the doors were opened, they disclosed a bed, standing on its head, which came down at night and offered Celia repose. The room had a cheerful air; there was a small fire in the tiny grate, and the light of the flickering coal was reflected on one or two cheap, but artistically good, engravings, and on the deep maroon curtains--"Our celebrated art serge, _1s. 6d._ a yard, double width"--which draped the windows looking down on Elsham Street, which runs parallel with its great, roaring, bustling brother, Victoria Street.

There were few prettier rooms in Brown's than Celia's; but then, compared with the other inhabitants of The Jail, she was quite well-to-do, not to say rich; for she earned a pound a week; and a pound a week is regarded as representing affluence by those who are earning only fifteen shillings; and that sum, I fancy, represented the top income of most of Celia's neighbours.

You can do a great deal with a pound a week. Let us consider for a moment: rent, which includes all rates and taxes, five shillings a week; gas, purchased on the beautiful and simple penny-in-the-slot system, say, one shilling and threepence, and firing one shilling and sixpence--at Brown's you only have a fire when it is really cold, and it is wonderful how far you can make a halfpenny bundle of wood go when you know the trick of it. Now we come to the not unimportant item of food.

It is quite easy; breakfast, consisting of an egg, which the grocer, with pleasing optimism, insists upon calling "fresh," one penny; bread and b.u.t.ter, per week, one shilling and sixpence; tea, milk, and sugar, per week, one and fourpence. Lunch, a really good, substantial meal, of savoury sausage or succulent fish and mashed potato, and a bun. If you are a lady the bun is indispensable; for if there is one faith implanted firmly in the feminine breast, it is that which accepts the penny bun as a form of nutrition not to be equalled. Thrones totter and fall, dynasties stagger and pa.s.s away, but the devotion of Woman to the Penny Bun stands firm amidst the cataclysms of nature and nations. This substantial lunch costs sixpence. On Sundays, you dine sumptuously at home on a chop, or eggs and bacon, cooked over your gas-ring, and eaten with the leisure which such luxury deserves. Tea, which if you are in Celia's case, you take at home, consists of the remains of the loaf and the milk left from breakfast, enhanced by a sausage "Made in Germany,"

or, say, for a change, half a haddock, twopence. Of course, this meal is supper and tea combined.

If you tot all this up, you will find it has now reached the not inconsiderable sum of fifteen shillings and tenpence. This is how the rich person like Celia lives. There still remains a balance of four shillings and twopence to be expended on clothing, bus fares, insurance and amus.e.m.e.nt. Quite an adequate--indeed, an ample sum. At any rate, it seemed so to Celia, who, at present, was well set up with clothes, and found sufficient amus.e.m.e.nt in the novelty of her life and her surroundings; for, only a few months back, she had been living in comfort and middle-cla.s.s luxury, with a larger sum for pocket-money than had now to suffice for the necessaries of existence.

The kettle was boiling, she set the tea; and while she was arranging in a vase--"Given away with every half-pound of our choice Congo!"--the penny bunch of violets which she had been unable to resist, her lips were moving to the strains of the hackneyed but ever beautiful intermezzo in "Cavalleria Rusticana," which floated up from the room immediately underneath hers; but as she drew her chair up to the fire, the music of the violin ceased, and presently she heard footsteps ascending the stairs slowly. There came a knock at the door, and she opened it to an old man with a frame so attenuated that it appeared to be absolutely fleshless. His hair was white and almost touching his shoulders, and his face so colourless and immobile that it looked as if it were composed of wax; but the dark eyes under the white, s.h.a.ggy brows were full of life, and piercing.

"Oh, good evening, Mr. Clendon!" said Celia, in the tone a woman uses when she is really pleased, and not affecting to be pleased, at the advent of a visitor. "Come in."

"Thank you, Miss Grant," said the old man, in a peculiar voice that was quite low and yet strangely vibrant, like the note of a muted violin. "I have come to ask you if you could oblige me with a couple of pieces of sugar. I have run out, and somehow--one has one's foolish weaknesses--I dislike my tea without sugar."

"Why of course," said Celia, with a touch of eagerness. "But--but won't you come in and have your tea with me?"

The old man shook his head; but his eyes, taking in the comfort of the tiny, fire-lit room, the aspect of home, grew wistful; besides, there was a note of entreaty in the invitation; and "Thank you," he said, simply.

With a nod of satisfaction Celia insisted upon his taking the easy chair, gave him a cup of tea--"Three lumps, please," he said--and seated herself opposite him and smiled on him with the sweetness that is as indefinable as it is irresistible. Mr. Clendon, who played in the orchestra at the Hilarity Theatre of Varieties, just below Brown's Buildings, being a gentleman as well as a broken-down fiddler, was conscious of, and appreciated, the subtle manner. He sat quite silent for a time, then, as his eyes wandered to the violets, he said:

"They smell of the country."

Celia nodded. "Yes; that is why I bought them. It doesn't often run to the luxury of flowers; but I could not resist them."

"You are fond of the country?" he said.

"Oh, yes!" she responded, turning her eyes to the fire. "I have lived there all my life, until--until quite recently--until I came here." She was silent for a moment or so. This old man was the only person she knew in Brown's Buildings; they had made acquaintance on the stairs, and they had now and again borrowed little things--sugar, salt, a candle--from each other. She liked him, and--she was a woman and only twenty-two--she craved for some companionship, someone on whom she could bestow the gentle word and the smile which all good women and true long to give. At this moment she wanted to tell him something of her past life; but she hesitated; for when one is poor and alone in the world, one shrinks keenly from speaking of the happiness that is past. But the longing was too much for her. "I used to live in Berkshire."

She paused, and stifled a sigh.

"My father bought a house there; we had plenty of money--I mean, at that time." She coloured and was silent again for a moment. "My father was a business man and very lucky--for a time. Then luck changed. When he died, nearly six months ago, we found that he was ruined; he left very little, only a few pounds."

The old man nodded again.

"I understand," he said, with neither awkward sympathy nor intrusive curiosity.

"I was an only child, and suddenly found myself alone in the world.

Oh, of course, there were relatives and friends, and some of them were kind, oh, very kind"--once more Mr. Clendon nodded, as if he understood--"but--but I felt that I would rather make my own way. I dare say it was foolish; there have been times when I have been tempted to--to accept help--throw up the sponge," she smiled; "but--well, Mr.

Clendon, most of us dislike charity, I suppose."

"Some of us," he admitted, dryly. "You found it hard work at first?

Sometimes, when I hear stories like yours, Miss Grant, when I pa.s.s young girls, thin, white-faced, poorly-clothed, going to their work, with the look of old men on their faces--I mean old men, not women, mind!--I ask myself whether there is not some special place, with a special kind of punishment, appointed for selfish fathers, who have consigned their daughters to life-long toil and misery. I beg your pardon!"

"No, I don't think my father was selfish," said Celia, more to herself than to her listener. "Not consciously so; he was sanguine, too sanguine; he lived in the moment----"

"I know," said Mr. Clendon. "Some men are born like that, and can't help themselves. Well, what did you do?"

"Oh, it was what I tried to do," said Celia, with a laugh. "I tried to do all sorts of things. But no one seemed inclined to give me a chance of doing anything; and, as I say, I was on the point of giving in, when I met in the street, and quite by chance, an old acquaintance of my father. He is a literary man, an antiquarian, and he is writing a big book; he has been writing it, and I think will continue to write it, all his life. He wanted, or said he wanted, a secretary, someone to look up facts and data at the British Museum; and he offered me the work.

I--well, I just jumped at it. Fortunately for me, I have had what most persons call a good education. I know French and one or two other foreign languages, and although I have 'little Latin and less Greek,' I manage to do what Mr. Bishop wants. He gives me a pound a week; and that's a very good salary, isn't it? You see, so many persons can do what I am doing."

"Yes, I suppose so," Mr. Clendon a.s.sented; he glanced at the slight, girlish figure in its black dress, at the beautiful face, with its clear and sweetly-grave eyes, the soft, dark hair, the mobile lips with a little droop at the ends which told its story so plainly to the world-worn old man who noted it. "And you work in the Reading Room all day?"

"Yes," said Celia, cheerfully, and with something like pride. "It is a splendid place, isn't it? Sometimes I can scarcely work, I'm so interested in the people there. There are so many types; and yet there is a kind of sameness in them all. One seems to lose one's ident.i.ty the moment one enters, to become merged in the general--general----"

"Stuffiness," he said. "I know; I have been there. Do you manage to keep your health? I have noticed that you are rather pale."

"Oh, I am quite well and strong," she said, with a laugh. "I always walk there and back, unless it rains very hard; and I take long walks, sometimes in the early morning; sometimes at night, when it is fine. I think London is wonderful in the moonlight. You know the view from Westminster Bridge?"

"Yes," he said. "And you are always alone?"

"Why, yes," she a.s.sented. "I know no one in London, excepting yourself; for Mr. Bishop lives in the country, in Suss.e.x, and we work by correspondence. Oh, yes; I am lonely sometimes," she added, as if he had asked a question. "But then, I am very busy. I am very much interested in what I am doing, and besides--well, when one is poor, after 'seeing better days'"--she laughed apologetically--"it is, perhaps, better--one can bear it better--to be alone."

He gave another nod which indicated his complete comprehension.

"And there is so much to interest one in the people one sees and lives amongst. Now here, in Brown's Buildings, in The Jail, one finds quite a large amount of amus.e.m.e.nt in--well, in noticing one's neighbours and fitting a history to them. There is the young girl who lives on your floor; the girl who, you told me, is in the chorus of the 'Baby Queen'; I am sure she is dreaming of, and looking forward to, the time when she will be--princ.i.p.al lady, don't you call it?--and there is the lady who lives opposite her; the old lady who always wears a black silk dress, a satin cloak, and a c.r.a.pe bonnet. I am sure she has been 'somebody' in her time. I met her one day on the stairs, carrying a milk-can. I should have been cowardly enough to put it under my jacket or behind me; but she held it out in front of her and stared at me with haughty defiance.

And there is my opposite neighbour"--she jerked her head, with a pretty, graceful motion, towards the door fronting her own--"that handsome, good-looking young fellow who comes up the steps two at a time and bangs his door after him, as if he were entering a mansion."

"I know the young man you mean," said Mr. Clendon. "Have you fitted a history to him?"

"Well, no; he puzzles me rather. I am sure he is a gentleman, and, of course, he must be poor, or he would not be here. Sometimes I think he is a clerk looking for a situation; but he has not the appearance of a clerk, has he? He looks more like an--an engineer; but then, his hands are always clean. He is well groomed, though his clothes are old."

She paused a moment.

"Do you know, Mr. Clendon, I fancy that he has been in trouble lately; I mean, that something is worrying him. Yesterday, I heard him sigh as he unlocked his door. He used to sing and whistle; but, for the last few days, he has been quite quiet, and as I came in last evening I heard him walking up and down his room, as men do when they have something on their minds. Do you know his name?"

"No," said Mr. Clendon, shaking his head; "he is a comparatively new-comer. I could find out for you, if you like."

"Oh, no, no!" she said, quickly, and with a touch of colour. "I am not at all curious. I mean," she explained, "that knowing his name would not increase my interest in him; quite the reverse. You know what I mean?

But I fancy I am interested in him because I think he may be in trouble.

You see, when one has suffered oneself----"

"Yes, that is the way with you women," said the old man. "In fact, I suppose that, until you have suffered, you do not become women." He glanced at the sheets of paper which lay on the little writing-desk and added, "I am afraid I am keeping you from your work. It was very kind of you to ask me to stay to tea--and to tell me what you have told me. I wish I could help you----. But, no, I don't; for, if I could be of any a.s.sistance to you, you would not let me; you are too proud, Miss Grant.

I like you all the better for the fact."

"Oh, but you have helped me, more than you know," Celia said, quickly.

"You don't know what a delight it is to me to hear the violin you play so beautifully; but, of course, you are an artist."

"Thank you," he said, his voice almost inaudible, and yet with that peculiar vibrance in it. "I was afraid I worried you."