“You might have come here for ninepence, third class. You paid that cabman three shillings, and you took, I don't mind betting, half an hour longer. Now, don't make a mess, do wipe your feet; we don't keep a servant, and it gives the missus a lot of trouble cleaning up.”
Not a book nor a picture nor a single flower, and every worn carpet suggested the bare necessaries of life. There was the drawing-room, kept for show, never entered, barren and blank; there was the room—a little more alive—where Willy smoked his pipe and kept his accounts, but there the crumbs, three or four, seemed to speak of the dry, bread-like days that wore themselves away; life there was too obviously dry and bare, joyless and mean.
Had Frank's mind been philosophic and deep-seeing, he would have mused on the admirable patience of the woman who lived here, seeing no one, making entire sacrifice of her life; he would have contrasted the humbleness, nay, the meanness, of this unknown house with the reception rooms of the Manor House; one life wasting in darkness and poverty, another burning out in light and riches; timeworn truths float on the surface of this little pool of life, and so modernised are they that they appear for a moment “new and original.” But further than a regret that there were no flowers in the window, and a sense of the horrible when his eyes fell on a piece of Swiss scenery, his thoughts did not wander; they soon were fixed and absorbed in the consideration of the happiness that Willy had attained by “doing the right thing by the woman.” He was hers, she was his. Dreams of things marital, the endearments of husband and wife, are the essence of the being of some men and women, and are to them a perennial delight. Frank was such a one.
He had brought Cissy a doll, and the child came and sat on his knees, and put her arms round his neck. He kissed the long face, hollow-eyed, and stroked the beautiful gold ringlets that cloaked the shoulders.
They went to the theatre in a 'bus. Frank carried Cissy, and he called indignantly to the crowd not to press him. “Did they not see that he was carrying a child?” He did not think that his friends might recognise him, nor would he have felt any shame had he caught sight of some face in the stalls he knew. He would not have put Cissy aside; nor would he have pretended that he was not with the pale, worn, shabbily-dressed woman by his side. He was wholly filled with his friends, their interests and concerns; so complete was the investment of himself that Lizzie Baker did not snatch a fugitive thought from them; and it was not until he sat smoking with Willy in the back parlour that he said:
“I wonder what has become of her? She was a nice girl.”
“You mean Lizzie Baker? You lost sight of her all of a sudden, didn't you? Do you think she went off to live with some one?”
“No, I don't think she was a girl who would do that. By Jove, she was a pretty girl! Once I took her up the river, up to Reading. We had such a jolly day in the woods and on the water—amid the water-lilies and bulrushes, or the shade of the cedars. I wonder you never go up the river.”
“I have no time. Besides, I hate the water. I never go on the water if I can help it—I am too nervous.”
“How odd! Oh, we had a jolly day!”