Chapter Ten.
The Girl who Wished for Work.
Norah Boyce was one of numerous young women who have seen better days. During the seven years which had elapsed since she had bidden farewell to a Parisian boarding-school, she had enjoyed all the sweets of existence which fall to the lot of a girl whom nature has endowed with beauty and a deceased parent with an income of five hundred pounds a year. And then, of a sudden, catastrophe overtook her. Societies collapsed, banks failed, labourers went on strike and brought down dividends on railway investments. The five hundred pounds was reduced to something considerably under one, and Norah spent her nights in tears, and her days in studying the newspapers in search of “something to do.”
Being still young in experience, she started by spending a small fortune on advertisements in which she expressed her willingness to undertake secretarial duties, to act as companion to an invalid lady—as governess to young children, or as instructress in the arts of poker-work, marquetry, and painting on china; then as time went on and the public continued to treat her overtures with contempt, she abandoned this mode of procedure, and contented herself with reading the notices for which other people had paid, and in wasting postage-stamps in reply.
It was when this occupation had been continued for several months and her spirits had fallen to the lowest possible ebb that her eye was attracted by a paragraph which awakened new hopes. A lady wished to meet with a young person of good principles and cheerful disposition, who would accompany her to church on Sundays, spend some hours of every morning in reading aloud, playing upon the harmonium, and making herself useful and agreeable; and applicants were directed to apply in person at Number 8 Berrington Square, between three and five o’clock in the afternoon.
“I shall try for it!” cried Norah instantly. “It will be horribly humiliating. I shall be shown into the dining-room, and expected to take a seat between the sideboard and the door, as servants do when they are applying for a situation, but anything is better than sitting here, doing nothing! I don’t feel remarkably cheerful at present, but it is in the old lady’s power to put me in the wildest spirits, if she is so inclined. She must be old—no human creature under sixty could have written that advertisement. She can’t have any children, or she would not be advertising for a companion; she must be well off, or she could not afford to pay for ‘extras’ in this rash fashion; she would have to put up with being dull as I have done the last month. Heigho! It would be very pleasing if she took a fancy to me, and adopted me as her heir! I don’t in the least see why she shouldn’t! I can be very charming when I choose. I shall put on my sealskin coat, and my best hat!”
A few hours later, Miss Boyce knocked at the door of Number 8 Berrington Square, was informed that Mrs Baker was at home, and shown into a room on the right of the entrance hall. It was the dining-room. “Of course! I knew it!” said Norah to herself, and straightway proceeded to take stock of her surroundings. A red flock wall-paper, a heavy mahogany sideboard, on which were flanked an imposing array of biscuit-boxes and cruets; mahogany chairs upholstered in black haircloth; an india-rubber plant in the centre of the table, and an American organ in the corner! The visitor rolled her eyes to the ceiling, and went through an expressive pantomime of despair, for she was an artistic, beauty-loving creature, whose spirits were sensibly affected by the colour of a wallpaper, and to whom it was a real trial to live in ugly surroundings.
She had barely time to compose herself before the door opened, and the mistress of the house made her appearance.
Mrs Baker was an old lady of the white rabbit type, weak-eyed, anaemic, and kindly, and evidently unaccustomed to the engagement of “young persons,” for she shook hands with Norah, seated herself in an easy chair by the fire, and waited developments with a blandly inquiring smile.
It was evident that Norah was expected to advertise her capabilities without the aid of the usual cross-questionings, so, taking her courage in both hands, she launched forth into explanations, prefaced, it must sorrowfully be admitted, by a reference to better days; confessed to a passion for reading aloud and playing on the harmonium, and dwelt at length on the advantages of her scholastic training. When at last she paused for breath, after having talked for a good five minutes on end, the old lady blinked her eyes, and said:
“What, love?—I didn’t quite catch what you were saying. I am a little hard of hearing!”
“I might have known it!” Norah told herself reproachfully. “Deaf, of course! It just completes the character,” and in a heightened voice she proceeded to repeat every word of her former statement. Signs of impatience became visible on the listener’s face as she proceeded, and she hurried on in order to announce the name of her musical professor before she should be interrupted by the question which was evidently hovering on the old lady’s lips.
“Did you ever happen to meet a family named Henstock, who lived in Finsbury Park? A corner house it was—white, with green posts at the gate?” queried Mrs Baker, bending forward with an expression of breathless curiosity.
Norah gasped, and shook her head. The connection between the family of Henstock in the corner house in Finsbury Park, and her own application for the post of companion, was so exceedingly remote as to reduce her to a condition of petrified silence.
“How very extraordinary! You are so like Mary Ellen, the very image of Mary Ellen! She was a great favourite of mine, was Mary Ellen, and she married a very worthy young man, an assistant in a bank at Bradford. Yes! She had two lovely little boys. It was very good of you to come and see me, my dear, and I should like very much to have you with me. I am reading a most interesting biography at present, and I take in several periodicals. Yes! Perhaps you could come on Monday morning. At eleven o’clock.”
Three months’ experience of answering advertisements had left Norah so little prepared for this speedy acceptance of her services, that she was surprised into protest.
“But I do not wish to hurry your decision! Perhaps you would like to have references, or to consult your—”
“No, love! I have no one to consider but myself, and you have such a strong resemblance to Mary Ellen! It is in this way: My nephew has been in the habit of going to church with me. I cannot hear very much; but I like to go all the same, and John was in the habit of repeating the sermon to me in the afternoon. Yes! He is a very estimable-minded young man, and very good to his old aunt! It was he who suggested that I should advertise for a companion. He said it would be so lonely for me if he ever went out of town, but he will be very pleased when I tell him that I have found someone so like Mary Ellen. He has such a dislike for these new-fashioned, strong-minded girls who are always calling out for their rights. I am sure, my dear, that you have too much sense for such notions. You look far too pretty and amiable. Now about the little matter of remuneration! ... Would half a crown a day be agreeable?”
Norah gasped again, with a sensation as if a pail of water had been suddenly douched over her head. Half a crown a day! It was what people paid to charwomen. Good Gracious! She tried to calculate what sum was represented by seven half-crowns, and the delay which took place before she succeeded in settling the point convinced her that, after all, she would be wise to accept Mrs Baker’s offer, since in another situation she might possibly be required to teach arithmetic and mathematics! She perjured herself, therefore, by declaring that half a crown would be very agreeable indeed, and returned home undecided between hilarity and depression.
For the next three weeks Norah earned her half-crown a day with equal satisfaction to herself and her employer. The biographies were a trifle dull, it is true, and the harmonium decidedly creaky and out of tune, but the old lady was kindly and affectionate, and her companion had the pleasure of feeling that her services were appreciated. By this time, however, she had fully grasped the fact that seven half-crowns equal seventeen-and-six, and in the conviction that further effort was required to secure herself from anxiety, had recommenced the daily searchings of the newspaper columns. Then it was that she discovered an advertisement which filled her with a sense of delighted amusement, because of its strange likeness and yet contrast to the one of a month before. Another lady, it appeared, was desirous of finding a companion, but this time the advertiser was a champion of women’s rights, who wished to meet with someone of like opinions, who would walk with her in the afternoons and discuss the problems and difficulties of the sex.
“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’” quoted Norah to herself. “What a droll coincidence. Now, if I had not—but of course as I have, I could not possibly... And yet, why not? I am sure after being shut up in that stuffy room all morning reading those dull, old-fashioned books, I am in a most daring and revolutionary mood in the afternoons. I should not be pretending to take an interest in the suffrage question; I should really and truly feel it... It would be instructive to hear what this lady has to say for herself, and then, after marching about the country listening to her tirades, I should probably be quite thankful to get back to medievalism and my dear old lady in the morning.—I’ll do it! I will! I’ll go and see her without an hour’s delay...”
The advertisement had not asked for a personal application, but Norah had gained experience by this time, and was perfectly aware of the advantage possessed by Miss Boyce in her sealskin coat and best hat, over the “young persons” who, as a rule, applied for situations. She intended to be not only heard but seen.
The advanced lady lived in a flat which was as artistic as the house in Berrington Square was commonplace. She was a spinster of uncertain age, tall and angular, and so formidable in appearance that at the sight of her Norah was overcome with a panic of nervousness.
“Good afternoon,” she stammered. “I—I saw your advertisement in the Daily News, and thought that I would—that is to say, that I would apply—that I would try to—to.—I hope I have not inconvenienced you by calling in person!”
“Not at all, not at all. I have already received several replies, but it is far more satisfactory to have a personal interview,” returned the spinster, staring very hard at Norah’s hat, and craning her neck to see how the bows were arranged at the back. “I am ordered to take a certain amount of outdoor exercise daily, and as my friends are not able to accompany me, I wish to meet with a lady who is interested in the same subjects as myself, and with whom I can enjoy exchange of ideas as we walk. You look rather young, but I gather from the fact of your having replied to my advertisement, that you are—”
“I am very much interested. I should enjoy hearing your views, and, though I am young, I have seen a great deal of life. I have travelled more than most people, and am now alone in the world, and obliged to earn my own living.”
Norah had been in haste to reply, in order to avoid a more compromising statement, but now she stopped short, surprised by a flash of delight which illumined the listener’s face.
“Ah-h!” cried Miss Mellor, in the rapturous tone of one who has suddenly been granted a long-craved-for opportunity. “Then you have had experience! You know! You fed! You agree with me that the history of the human race, the throng of events, the multifarious forms of human life are only the accidental form of the Idea; they do not belong to the Idea itself, in which alone lies the adequate objectivity of the Will, but only to that phenomenon which appears to the knowledge of the individual, and which is just as foreign and unessential to the Idea itself as the figures which they assume are to the clouds, or the foam flakes to the brooks! So true! So deeply true! You agree with me, I feel sure!”
“Certainly. Quite so. I mean to say—naturally! Oh, yes. By all means!” gasped Norah weakly, and her head fell back against the chair. She was not to know that the speaker had discovered her little speech in a book only one short half-hour before, and had learned it off by heart in the fond hope of being able to introduce it incidentally into conversation, and she felt faint and dizzy with the effort of trying to understand.
Miss Mellor saw that she had made an impression, and beamed with complacent delight.
“Ah, yes; I see that we are at one!” she cried. “And is it not a comfort to feel that, having once grasped this idea, we shall now be able to distinguish between the Will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation? The events of the world will now have significance for us, inasfar only as they are the letters out of which we may read the Idea of man. We can never again believe with the vulgar—”
“Oh, my goodness!” cried Norah to herself. “To think that it should have come to this! I’m vulgar! I must be; and I never knew it! I don’t understand one word she is saying. If I ever get out of this room alive—”
She sank still farther back in her chair and stared at Miss Mellor with fascinated, unblinking eyes, like a poor little rabbit beneath the spell of the boa-constrictor. In a dim, far-off way, she heard the stream of unmeaning eloquence, but her one supreme longing was to bring the interview to an end, to crawl home and lie down upon the sofa, and put wet cloths on her head, and go to sleep and forget all about her sufferings... Suddenly the dock chimed, and she awoke to the fact that it was over half an hour since she had entered the room. She rose to her feet, and was about to falter forth apologies for her ignorance, when, to her astonishment, the advanced lady bore down upon her, and grasping her hand in fervent fashion, declared that she was enchanted to have discovered a kindred spirit, and that, suffering as she did from constant coldness and misunderstanding, it was soul-refreshing to meet with one whose mind was as her own, and that she would henceforth live in anticipation of their afternoon communions!
For one moment Norah was stupefied with amazement, the next her eyes shone, and the dimples dipped in her cheeks, for with a flash of intuition she had grasped the significance of the situation! What the advanced lady really desired was not a companion who would talk and air her own opinions, but a dummy figure to whom she herself could lay down the law; a target at which she could let fly the arrows of her newly-acquired wisdom. An occasional murmur of assent would therefore be the extent of the companion’s duties, which feat Norah felt herself well able to accomplish.
For the next few months the enterprising Miss Boyce fulfilled her two daily engagements with equal satisfaction to herself and her employers. In the morning, within the fusty confines of Number 8 Berrington Square, she read aloud extracts from antiquated volumes which had been the favourites of the old lady’s youth; likewise retrimmed caps, sprayed the leaves of the india-rubber plant, retrieved dropped stitches in knitting, droned out voluntaries and national airs on the wheezy old harmonium, and listened to endless reminiscences of the Henstock family, and other worthies equally unknown.
In the afternoons Norah roamed the different parks in company with Miss Mellor, preserving an attentive silence while that good lady quoted the opinions of her friends, or paraphrased the leading articles in the Radical press. Her first feeling towards this, the second of her employers, had been largely tinged with impatience and lack of sympathy, but as time went on, she relented somewhat in the hardness of her judgment, and felt the dawning of a kindly pity. She was a very lonely woman—this tall angular spinster who talked so loudly of her rights; love had never come into her life, and in all the breadth of the land she had hardly a relation whom she could take by the hand.
Once, in the middle of a heated argument on the suffrage, Miss Mellor paused to look longingly at a curly-headed baby toddling across the path; and beside the duck-pond in Regent’s Park she invariably lost the thread of her argument in watching the crowds of merry children feeding their pets. Norah reflected that had Miss Mellor been a happy wife and mother she might not have troubled her head about a vote. All the same, the result of education on the woman’s question had been to convince Norah that the demand for “rights” had been founded on some very definite wrongs. After the long walk the two ladies would return to tea in the flat, where the companion consumed the wafer-like bread and butter and dainty cakes with Philistine enjoyment, and even Miss Mellor herself descended from her high horse, and inquired curiously:
“Where do you get your hats?”
Of her two employers Norah had distinct preference for the old lady, Mrs Baker. She was of a more lovable nature than the voluble Miss Mellor, and, moreover, as she herself had announced—she had a nephew! The nephew was a handsome, well-set-up man of thirty, who possessed considerable culture and refinement, and a most ingratiating kindliness of demeanour towards his homely old aunt.
The first Sunday after Norah entered upon her duties, young Mr Baker did not call at Berrington Square; on the second Sunday he came to midday dinner; on the third, he met the two ladies at the church door after morning service, and remained with them for the whole of the afternoon; on the fourth, he was already seated in the pew when they entered the church, and he persisted in these good habits until it became a matter of course that he should spend the whole day in Berrington Square, as Norah herself had done from the beginning of her engagement. In the afternoon Mrs Baker would invariably make the hospitable suggestion that “if John liked” he could descend to a chill, fireless room in the basement to indulge in an after-dinner weed, but John refused to move until Miss Boyce had given her repetition of the morning’s service. He said that he was afraid she might forget an important point, in which case he should be at hand to jog her memory. “John is so thoughtful!” said his aunt proudly.
As a matter of fact, John never once volunteered a suggestion on any one of these occasions. He seemed to be fully occupied in using his eyes and ears, and in truth it was both a pretty and touching sight to see the young fresh face bent close to the withered countenance of the deaf old woman, and to listen to the thrush-like tones of the girl’s voice, as with a sweet and simple eloquence she gave her brief résumé of the morning’s sermon. The old lady nodded and wagged her head to enforce the points, while the tears trickled down her cheeks. From time to time John also would take a promenade to the window, and clear his throat loudly as he stared at the dusty trees. Strange how much more powerful those sermons appeared in the repetition!
After the recital was over, young Mr Baker would take Miss Boyce to examine the ferns in the tiny conservatory, while his aunt enjoyed her forty winks; in the evening he escorted her back to her lodgings. He was a most attentive young man!
In Mrs Baker’s opinion “John” was infallible, and by and by Norah became so much infected with this view that her afternoon’s occupation became fraught with misery, as she thought of what “John” would say if he knew to what heresies she was lending her ears. One Sunday afternoon returning to the Berrington Square drawing-room after a short absence, she overheard a few words which sent an added pang through her heart.
”—Most fortunate indeed!” John was saying. “You might have searched the world over, and not found another like her. I had begun to fear that the type was extinct. A sweet, modest, old-fashioned girl!”
That evening Norah wet her pillow with her tears, and astonished the advanced lady the next afternoon by contradicting assertions, and raising up objections in a most unprecedented fashion. These signs of backsliding were very distressing to Miss Mellor, who had been encouraged by her companion’s unfailing acquiescence to imagine herself unanswerable in argument, but she was encouraged to believe that example might perhaps accomplish what precept had failed to inspire.
“You will, I know, rejoice with me on a great honour which has been conferred upon me by my fellow-workers,” she announced proudly one day. “I have been promoted from the reserves to a foremost position in the fighting line. I am nominated for active service on Friday next!”
Norah’s eyes were exceptionally large and expressive, and the saucer-like stare of curiosity which she turned upon the speaker was very gratifying to that good lady’s feelings.
“On Friday evening. At the Albert Hall. The Chancellor is to speak. We shall be there. Twenty are nominated for service. I am Number Nine!”
Norah stared harder than ever. This sounded rather perilously like the story of a Nihilist Plot which she had read in a shilling shocker some weeks before. She had visions of bomb explosions and wholesale arrests, and, as ever, the thought of John obtruded itself into the foreground of her mind. What would John think if Miss Mellor were arrested, and gave the name of Norah Boyce as her chosen friend and confidante?
“Number Nine, for what?” she gasped nervously, and Miss Mellor was hurried into unthinking reply:
“For screaming—I mean protesting. The first eight champions will raise their voices in rotation. They will be silenced, probably ejected. Then it will be My Turn.”
“Ejected!” Norah looked scared. “Turned out. Oh-h! How dreadful! They will seize hold of you—men will seize hold of you, and pull and drag. They will pinch your arms... It must be horrid to be pinched!”
“What would have become of the world if other great reformers had ceased their struggles through dread of being pinched?” demanded Miss Mellor sternly; and Norah felt snubbed, and looked it. She had no courage left for further argument.
On the next Friday afternoon Norah took her way to the flat to accompany her fighting employer on the walk abroad which should invigorate her for the evening’s fray, but to her dismay found the good lady stretched upon the sofa, very flushed as to face, and husky as to voice.
“It is quinsy,” she announced. “I’m subject to it. I felt it coming on, but I would not give in. I have gargled and fomented all morning, but it is too late. I couldn’t scream to save my life. It’s a terrible, terrible disappointment, but I am thankful that I need not upset the Committee’s plans. You shall take my place!”
“I?” cried Norah shrilly. “No, no—I can’t! I couldn’t—I wouldn’t—not for anything in the whole wide world! Call out before a whole meeting, have them all staring at me, strange men catching hold of me, dragging my sleeves, crushing my hat—never! I’d sooner die!”
“Then,” croaked Miss Mellor hoarsely, “I shall go myself!” And from this point she refused to budge. She was ill; in the natural course of events she would grow worse; if she went out into the damp and the cold, and endured the excitement of a crowded political meeting, she would most certainly be very ill indeed; but she had promised; she could not disappoint the Committee at the eleventh hour; she had no energy to seek further for a substitute. Then her voice took a pathetic turn, and she sighed feebly.
“I have been kind to you, Norah. I have tried to be your friend. Danvers (the maid) would accompany you to the Hall. You have nothing to do but to sit still and interrupt when your turn arrives. How can you be so selfish and unkind?”
As time went on and argument and appeal alike failed to move Miss Mellor from her position, a paralysis of helplessness seized Norah in its grip. She knew that in the end she would be compelled to consent, for of two horrifying alternatives it seemed the least to dare a certain amount of buffeting for herself, rather than allow another woman to run the risk of serious, even fatal, consequences. At nine o’clock that evening, then, behold a trembling and faint-hearted Number Nine seated at the end of one of the rows of stalls at the Albert Hall, the faithful Danvers by her side, listening with all her ears, not to the eloquence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but to the shrill interruptions from feminine tongues which punctuated his utterances. Numbers One and Two had been escorted from the gallery by indulgent, if somewhat contemptuous, stewards. Numbers Pour and Five had received less consideration; Number Six had been undeniably hustled; Number Seven had squealed aloud. Norah realised with a dread sinking of the heart that the temper of the meeting was rising, and that each fresh disturber of the peace would receive less consideration. Only one more, and then... The great building whirled before her eyes, the faces on the platform became faint and blurred, her heart pounded so loudly that it seemed impossible that her neighbours should not hear its thuds. She turned her head to look at the nearest door and examine the faces of the group of stewards waiting in readiness at its portal. Were they very big, very fierce, very formidable? Which of the number would be the first to tear her from her seat? Her pretty face was blanched and drawn beneath her flower-wreathed hat; one of the stewards meeting her glance moved forward to her side with a stifled exclamation of dismay. He bent low over her, whispering in her ear:
“Miss Boyce! what are you doing here? Are you alone? You ought not to be here without a man to look after you. It is getting too noisy—too excited. If there are any more interruptions things will become dangerous. Let me take you out quietly, while there is time—”
John Baker, by all that was confounding and terrible! John, the last man on earth whom she would have wished to witness her humiliation! John, who had called her a “modest, old-fashioned girl.” ... It was the last straw to poor Norah’s composure; her fluttering heart gave one sickening leap, and then appeared to stop altogether; she held out her hands with a feeble, despairing gesture, and collapsed in a limp little heap in John Baker’s arms.
When Norah came back to consciousness she was lying on a form in a bare, boarded room, and John was engaged in sprinkling water from a water-jug over the front of her best silk blouse. She sat up hastily, brushed the hair from her forehead, and stared around with bewildered eyes. A roar of applause from the great hall broke the silence, and brought back struggling remembrance.
“Did you—did you turn me out?”
“I carried you out! You fainted, and I brought you in here. It was no wonder; you were not accustomed to such sights. Did you imagine in your faintness that you had been turned out like those other screaming women, you poor little frightened girl?” asked John’s big voice in its most caressing tones.
Norah shivered with dismay.
“I was—I am—I mean I should have been, if I had stayed five minutes longer! I’m Number Nine!” she cried; and then seeing John’s stare of stupefied dismay, promptly threw up her hands to her face, and burst into weak-minded tears.
“Oh—oh! What will you think of me—what will you say!—I was obliged to earn some money—and half a crown a day was not enough,—Mrs Baker gives me half a crown. I—I go to another lady in the afternoons, and she is a Suffragette. She is very kind to me, and very patient, because I’m stupid, and can’t understand, and—and I don’t seem to care! I don’t want a vote, but she was Number Nine to-night, and she is ill—her throat is very bad, she might be dangerously ill if she came out. She would only stay at home if I promised to take her place, and, she has been very kind.—I promised, and now I’ve failed. I was too terribly frightened. And then I saw your face... Oh, what do you think of me?”
But John Baker refused to give any expression of opinion. All he said was:
“Half a crown a day! She offered you that! Oh, my poor little girl!” And his voice was so low and tender that at the sound of it Norah sobbed afresh.
“Don’t cry. Put on your hat. I will take you into the air, and drive you home in a taxi. You will feel better in the air,” said John quietly.
He gave her his arm, and escorted her into the corridor, and as they walked along, another roar sounded from within the precincts of the hall, and through an open doorway shot a dishevelled female form, struggling in the grasp of half a dozen stewards. Danvers herself! The faithful Danvers, who, seeing the collapse of her mistress’ proxy, had gallantly taken upon herself the duties of Number Nine. Norah shuddered, and grasped more tightly John’s protecting arm.
“Oh, what must you think of me?” she demanded once more; and John, looking down at her as they reached the cool air of the street, replied sturdily:
“I think that no woman can serve two masters. Can’t you make up your mind to take one instead?”