Joan reached town in safety. Willie Hood called for her box as he had promised, and conveyed it to the station before anybody at the inn was up, whither she followed after breakfast. It gave Joan a new and strange sensation to sit opposite her aunt, who took the opportunity of a têteàtête to scold and grumble at her from one end of the meal to the other, and to reflect that they were about to separate, for aught she knew, never to meet again. She could not pretend any affection for Mrs. Gillingwater, and yet the thought moved her, for after all she belonged to the familiar round of daily life from which Joan was about to cut herself adrift. Still more did it move her, yes, even to silent tears, when for the last time she looked upon the ancient room that had been hers, and in which she had nursed Henry back to health. Here every chair and picture was an old friend, and, what is more, connected with his presence, the presence which to-day she finally refused.
In turning her back upon that room she forsook all hope of seeing him again, and not till she had closed its door behind her did she learn how bitter was this renunciation.
Finding her luggage at the station, she saw it labelled, and took her seat in the train. Just as it was about to start Willie Hood sauntered up.
“Oh! there you are, Joan Haste,” he said. “I thought that you would be following your box, so I’ve just dropped round to say good-bye to you. Good-bye, Joan: I hope that you will have a pleasant time up in London. Let me know your address, and I shouldn’t wonder if I looked you up there one day, for somehow I don’t feel as though there were room for another smart young man in Bradmouth, and the old place won’t seem the same without you. Perhaps, as you ain’t going to marry him after all,” and Willie jerked his red head in the direction of Rosham, “if you’ll have the patience to wait a year or two, we might set up together yonder in the grocery line.”
“You impudent young monkey!” said Joan, laughing in spite of herself; and then the train steamed off, leaving Master Willie on the platform, kissing his hand in the direction of her carriage.
On arriving at Liverpool Street, Joan took a cab and directed the man to Kent Street, Paddington, whither she came after a drive that seemed interminable.
Kent Street, Paddington, was a shabby little place in the neighbourhood of the Edgware Road. The street itself ended in a cul-de-sac, a recommendation to the lover of quiet, as of course no traffic could pass through it; but, probably on this account, it was the happy hunting ground of hundreds of dirty children, whose shrill voices echoed through it from dawn to dark, as they played and fought and screamed. The houses were tall, and covered with a dingy stucco, that here and there had peeled away in flakes, exposing patches of yellow brick; the doors were much in need of paint, some of the area railings were broken, and the window curtains for the most part presented the appearance of having been dried in a coal cellar. Indeed, the general squalor and the stuffy odours of the place filled Joan’s heart with dismay, for she had never before visited the poorer quarters of a large town.
“Are you sure that this is Kent Street, Paddington?” she asked feebly of the driver.
“If you don’t believe me, miss, look for yourself,” he answered gruffly, pointing to the corner of a house upon which the name was painted. “No. 13, you said, didn’t you? Well, here it is, and here’s your box,” he added, bumping her luggage down upon the steps; “and my fare is three-and-six, please.”
Joan paid the three-and-sixpence, and the sulky cabman drove off, yelling at the children in front to get out of the way of his horse, and lashing with his whip at those who clung behind.