Wearily tossing on her bed, waiting for the dawn, she pictured that mistress of a comfortable home, pursuing her with threats; while babies, cheques, Mrs. Dumaresq, and the medical lady whirled wildly past in a waking dream.
At four, she rose, and beguiled the weary hours until the breakfast bell rang, by watching the gardener sharpening his scythe to cut the grass, and observing the sleepy maids unfastening the shutters of the opposite houses, shaking mats, and washing the steps. She wished to go then and there in search of her sister, her anxiety and impatience grew every minute, and she fretted, as we all have done, at the restrictions that prevent one paying a casual call at six in the morning, and the laziness that fails to enforce the running of trains the twenty-four hours through.
Not even a cab could she see. Many a time had she opened her window, looked out, closed it again, taken a novel, put it by, looked at her watch, walked up and down, re-arranged her hair, fidgeted, opened her door, listened if anyone was moving, shut it and sat down, before the welcome boom of the gong, struck by Müller’s stout arm, announced the first meal of the day.
Poor Miss Prudence made but a dismal pretence at eating. She knew that her queer visitor of the previous evening was remembered and discussed, and she felt that every morsel of bread would choke her. She crumbled a slice on her plate, drank a cup of tea, and then rose hastily from table. Consciousness of terrible guilt could scarcely have made her more miserable than she, good innocent creature, was at the moment.
Guilty people usually have a certain hardness of nature that makes them indifferent to the opinion of others, while Prudence, with all her woes upon her head, was a timid, unsheltered, soft-hearted body, to whom an angry or contemptuous glance was as bad as a blow.
By half-past nine she had donned a black bonnet and mantle, and had left the house, carrying in her hand an envelope on which she had written “good Mrs. Brown’s” address. She hailed a passing omnibus that was going in the direction, and, still pursued by her sombre thoughts, tried to imagine what she should do with Augusta if, as she feared, Mrs. Brown’s house was not the happy home she had anticipated.
Plummer’s Cottages were not easy to find. No one knew where they, were; but then every civilian of whom one asks the way in London is sure to be a stranger, so Prudence applied to a stalwart policeman.
“If I was you, mum, I shouldn’t wenture,” he said, “they’re a low lot down there.”
“But I must,” urged Prudence nervously.
“Well, if you must, take the fourth to the right, and then the second to the left, and the first to the right again. That’s Barker’s Rents. You walks straight past the Model Dwellings, which models they are, and you’ll find Plummer’s Cottages.”