"My father was a country schoolmaster; I don't remember my mother, but my father died when I was, I suppose, about fourteen. My only relative, an uncle, found me a situation in a draper's shop, where I got no pay because I was so young, but where they worked me from the first thing in the morning till the last thing at night, and gave me in return my food and lodging--such lodging and such food. When I had been there three years they turned me out because I objected to the attentions of the master's son. I knew my uncle wouldn't have me; I'd known that all along. I should have been without a penny, absolutely, if it hadn't been for one of the a.s.sistants who lent me a sovereign. With that I came to town--I had ever an adventurous spirit. I went to a big shop, a famous shop; they took me on at once. A sale was coming on, they were in want of extra hands; with people of that sort they didn't want references; the a.s.sistants there never had a chance of being dishonest, they were too well looked after. They wanted no character when you came, and they gave you none when you left; you were liable to be discharged at a moment's notice, without any cause being given, and a.s.sistants were being discharged like that continually, and they gave you no character though you had been there ten years; they never do give characters, it's a rule of the house. I was there rather more than two years. I was in the mantles when I left. One afternoon just as I was going down for tea, they called me into the office, gave me my wages, and told me I could go; trade was slack, the season was over; they gave me no reason, but that was the only one I could guess that they had for sacking me."

She stopped to knock the ash off her cigarette, smiling to herself as she did so.

"I got another berth after--well, after experiences something like those which you have lately had; I was looking a nice sort of drab by the time I got it. It was in a shop which did a cutting trade, a low-cla.s.s shop, an open-to-all-hours-of-the-night sort of shop, in a low-cla.s.s neighbourhood in which people did not start buying till an hour when the shops ought to be closed. What a life I had there! You talk about what you've been doing, and you're a man."

Her thoughts seemed to be harking back, but she still smiled.

"I've seen columns of gush in the papers about the woes of shop a.s.sistants; if the British public only knew--if every woman had to serve a term as a.s.sistant in some of the shops I could tell them of, things would be altered pretty quick."

She leaned towards him over the table.

"You say you'd like to wring my neck; if you only knew the number of people there were in that shop to whom I would have given almost anything for the chance of wringing theirs--I almost did wring one woman's, who was, ironically, called a housekeeper, and who was an unspeakable thing! You talk of the swine with whom you've herded; you've never had to a.s.sociate with the likes of her, and be under her thumb--and that's why I left."

Restlessness seemed all at once to seize her. She rose from her seat and stood in front of the fire.

"I did some more starving, and--that sort of thing, then I got another berth, no better than the other. They said my accounts were wrong--they couldn't prove it, and I don't believe they were, but they sent me packing that very day. You've no notion for how little, for nothing at all, a draper's a.s.sistant, who may have given months and years good service, is thrown into the ditch, no reason vouchsafed, no remedy obtainable, no character to be had."

She swept out her hands, as if she were brushing from her a flood of memories.

"Oh, I had all sorts of experiences; I was in the place you mentioned for years, although I'm not an old woman now; you see, I got there first when I was so very young; that does make a difference. Oh, I saw the drapery in all its phases; to this hour I can't enter a draper's shop without feeling a chill at the bottom of my spinal column; my skin goes all goose-fleshy; I think of what drapers' shops once meant to me.

But there came a time when I had done with them--I'll take care that it's for ever; that was when I reached the very lowest circle in the pit. How many circles were there in Dante's h.e.l.l? I'm convinced I reached the bottom one."

CHAPTER X

The Woman Tempted Me

"I'd been out of a berth for practically a year; not all the time--I'd been taken on for a few days here, for a week of two there, as odd hand when the rush of the sales was on; but for a year I had had no regular work. How I lived I can't tell you; you know, I had to live, and--well, you talk of the things you've endured, you have no conception how much worse that sort of thing is for a woman than for a man. At last I came down to selling flowers--yes I that was a nice profession, wasn't it?"

She put her hands up to her brow, pressing back her hair; she presented a sufficiently dainty picture then, with her well-fitting gown and her look of perfect health.

"One evening--I'd had a bad day--I was hawking in the Strand, just where I met you when I saw you with those boards upon your back. How it all came back to me! My flowers had not been in very good condition in the morning, they had not grown fresher as the day went on. I offered them to a man who came sauntering along; he stopped to look at them, he soon spotted the state that they were in. 'Why,' he said, 'these things are only fit for throwing away.' Then he looked at me. 'Bertha!' he exclaimed, 'surely it must be you?'"

She laughed. Turning, she stood looking down into the fire, tapping her toe against the curb.

"If I'd only had a peep at him in time I should have let him pa.s.s; I shouldn't have tried to make of him a customer, but I hadn't. I had just seen that he was well dressed and looked as though he had money, and, in the dim light, that was all."

She paused for so considerable a s.p.a.ce of time that one wondered if she proposed to carry the story any farther. When she did go on it was in an altered tone of voice; she spoke very quietly, very coldly, as if she wished to make a mere statement of facts.

"In one of the shops in which I had had the honour of being an a.s.sistant he had acted as shopwalker. We had been on quite decent terms, which was not the case with most of the gentlemen of his sort that I had come across. Rather than that he should have seen me, in my rags, hawking faded flowers in the streets, I would--I would have done anything. When I tried to get away from him he wouldn't hear of it. He called a cab, put me in it, and took me home with him, to his wife; they had quite a nice little house Peckham way. I recognised her as one of the girls who had been at the opposite counter to mine. It was not strange that he had married her; what was queer was that they should be living in such a house, unless one of them had come into a fortune."

Again she paused, staring at the fire as if she were seeking words among the burning coals. Then, turning, she faced the man who was still seated at the table. He had scarcely moved since she had begun her story, as if he found in it a fascination that was not upon the surface, as if he were looking forward, with eager interest, to what he felt was coming.

"n.o.body could have been kinder to me than those two people. They gave food, and drink, and clothing, and shelter, and, something more, they gave me the secret of the philosopher's stone; told me how it was that, though no one had left them a fortune, they came to be living there."

Holding her shapely hands in front of her she kept pressing the tips of the fingers together, and then withdrawing them.

"A piece of silk was missing at the shop. She was charged with stealing it. She a.s.sured me that she had not stolen it, that she did not know who had, that she knew nothing at all about it; they had not the slightest real evidence that she was the guilty party, but they sacked her all the same. And because the shop-walker sided with her, they chose to a.s.sume that he was at least in part responsible for its disappearance, and they sacked him too. So they married. That's a funny sort of love story, isn't it?"

The man spoke, for the first time since she had begun her story.

"It's as good as others I've heard."

"No doubt, love stories are the funniest things. For what would you marry?"

She was looking at him with laughing eyes.

"I shall never marry."

"Sure? Nothing's ever a certainty in that sort of thing. It was only after they were married that they thought of ways and means. They had about twenty pounds between them; they tried and tried, but neither could get a berth; so they decided to throw up the drapery--probably because it had thrown them up--and try another trade. They had given honesty a trial; they decided to try the other, and see if it couldn't be made to pay. It paid uncommonly well; the house in which they were living, the way in which it was furnished, the style in which they did things, was proof enough of that. They told me all about it, quite frankly; then they suggested that I should join them in their new profession. The occasions were not infrequent on which they wanted a partner of my s.e.x, who had her wits about her, and upon whom they could absolutely rely. I did not need much persuasion; like them, I had had enough of honesty; and--here I am--flourishing like a green bay tree."

"Do you mean that you're a thief?"

"A professional thief, exactly; just as you're a gutter-snipe--a much less creditable, and a very much less profitable profession than mine."

She spoke in the airiest of tones, as if the thing that she admitted was a trifle of no account. When she saw that he kept silent she went on.

"I'm about to suggest that you come into the business as a partner of mine."

"What prompts you to suggest it--affection?"

"Not altogether--no." Her eyes were dancing. "What prompts a woman to do anything? She seldom knows, really and truly; I don't believe there ever was a woman who was able to give all the reasons which moved her to do anything. I've had you in my mind ever since I saw you last. I did not do you anything like the ill turn you seem to imagine; I vow and declare to you that when we parted you were, if anything, better off than when we met. But sometimes--oh, sometimes--I think that I must be the very queerest woman that ever was; but then I know better, because all women are queer, and, when she's in the mood, every woman can be the very queerest that ever was."

Quitting the fire, perching herself upon the side of the table, with one foot upon a chair, she began to light another cigarette.

"Sometimes I've felt very bad about you; I didn't like to think of what might have become of you after we had parted. Then when I began to learn certain little facts about your personal history, I was conscious of feeling a sympathy for you which you might have found amusing. I told myself that if ever chance did throw us across each other's path again, I would, if I could, if you stood in need of it, do you a real good turn. When I saw you just now, in that dreary procession of six, and realised that it was you, I knew that my opportunity had come. So now I hope you understand."

"Only very dimly. I am still not so clear-headed as I might be. I want to have things made very plain."

"I will try to make them as plain as you can possibly want them. First of all, I want a partner; do you want to know why?"

"If it wouldn't be troubling you too much."

"I'm not altogether without a.s.sociates, though I do miss my two first friends."

"What became of them?"

"They brought off a big coup, got bags full of money, went off with it to America, where they started a business of their own, in which I believe they are now doing very well."

"Why didn't they take you with them? Didn't you get your share?"

"Rather, and a first-cla.s.s time I had with it; one of the times of my life; and I may mention, between ourselves, that, of late years, I've had some good ones. I may tell you about some of them one fine day."

She seemed to be laughing to herself, as if the recollection tickled her. He sat stark, stiff and silent, his strange hollow eyes fixed on her face. She enjoyed her cigarette in silence for some seconds before she went on.

"And as for why they didn't take me with them, one reason is that I wouldn't have gone. Why should I? I should have been in their way, and they most certainly would have been in mine. We parted on the very best of terms; we correspond; one of these days I'm going to pay them a long visit. But, from a purely professional point of view, I've never been able to fill their place, especially his. You've very nearly finished that cigar. Won't you have another?"