Another smile broke over her face, and when she smiled, Christina's face was very sweet.
"It may be just some dreadful trap to catch a silly girl," she reflected sagely, "and if—if I did really think of answering it, I should have to be very careful what I said—and where I arranged to meet R.M. Of course I—shan't really answer it at all—only—if I did—and if he were nice—and if—it all came right—there wouldn't be any more of this dreadful struggle!"
She noted the address of this advertisement amongst the others in her little pocket-book, and then made her way out of the library and trudged homewards through the yellow murk, buttoning her very inadequate coat tightly about her and shiveringly speculating whether, if she really answered R.M.'s advertisement, there might be a chance of obtaining clothing more fitted to resist the penetrating chill of a November fog. Her own small room looked dingier than usual when she entered it, and it was so full of fog and damp, that she rolled a blanket round her before lighting a candle and seating herself at the tiny table, to answer some of the advertisements she had copied. The room was bare of all but the most necessary furniture. A camp bedstead stood against the wall, whose paper was of that indeterminate drabness affected by lodging-house keepers; a deal table occupied the centre of the room, with the common cane-chair on which Christina sat; and a painted chest of drawers nearly blocked up the one tiny window. There was no wash-hand stand; a cracked white basin and a still more cracked jug stood upon the top of the drawers, a looking-glass of ancient and battered appearance hung over the mantelpiece, and an open cupboard in the wall served Christina as sideboard and larder combined. Beside the bed was a narrow strip of much-faded carpet, but of comfort and homeliness the room showed no trace whatever, save in the tiny touches of home the girl had herself striven to impart to it, by hanging on the walls one or two sketches of the Devonshire village she loved, and by putting on the mantelpiece a few treasured photographs. But her best endeavours had failed to make the room other than a most dreary and dispiriting abode, and the view from the window, of the backs of other houses looming darkly through the fog, was not calculated to lift the cloud of despair that for the moment had settled heavily upon her. She felt listlessly disinclined to state her qualifications as nursery governess, or mother's help, to the various ladies who hankered after such commodities. Involuntarily, but continually, her thoughts returned to that paragraph from the Sunday Recorder, which was not only engraved upon her mind, but which she had actually copied also into her book.
"Quiet and cultivated gentleman of means is anxious to meet a young lady of good birth, who needs a home. No fortune is necessary." At that point in her reading, Christina paused.
"No fortune is necessary," she said aloud, in an oddly deprecating voice. "R.M., whoever he may be, only asks for a young lady of good birth, who needs a home. Well," she turned her eyes towards the foggy roofs just visible outside her dirty window-panes, "well, as far as I know I am of good birth, even though father only taught music; and some people seem to look down on musicians. And—I certainly need a home."
Her glance left the gloomy world without, and went ruefully round the scarcely less gloomy prospect within. "And if I suited R.M.—perhaps—perhaps, he would be good to me. Should I suit him, I wonder? I'm not pretty, and certainly not amusing, and I'm dreadfully shabby, and nearly as poor as it is possible to be. There is not one single thing to recommend me." She pushed back her chair; and, rising from the table, moved slowly to the mantel-piece, over which hung the tarnished glass whose powers of reflecting objects satisfactorily had long since departed. Into this unpromising mirror, poor little Christina, holding the candle far above her head, peered long and earnestly, her small white face looking all the whiter, because of the background of yellow fog; her eyes seeming more green than was their wont, because of the dark shadows that underlay them.
She had thrown off her hat, and the soft masses of her hair lay in curly confusion about her head. It was a shapely little head, and particularly well put on, but these were points of which Christina took no special account, being intent on finding beauties in her face, and failing to notice that there was anything admirable in the turn of her neck, in the poise of her firm chin, and in the straightforward glance of her eyes.
"If R.M. met me casually in the street, he wouldn't look at me twice—no man would," she exclaimed with a sigh, as she turned away from the glass, "I am horribly ordinary. The only thing is—if I could screw up my courage to answer him—and then to meet him—he might like to find a girl who didn't want anything but a quiet home; who would be satisfied to go without gaiety or amusement." She sighed again, and a wistful look crept into her eyes. "I haven't really ever had any fun, so I shouldn't miss it, and I could just try to make a happy home for R.M., if that is all he wants. And—after all," she went on, still speaking aloud, "there isn't any harm in answering his letter. It may all come to nothing; and yet—it might be worth while—and—it almost seems presidential that I just happened to see that paragraph in the Sunday Recorder."
The letter she sat down to write as the outcome of all these conflicting meditations, was the most difficult she had ever written in her young life; and before it was finished, and finally consigned to its envelope, she had torn up many sheets of paper, and allowed fully two hours of the morning to pass by. Twelve o'clock was chiming from all the clocks in the neighbourhood, when, with her answers to some of the other advertisements in her hand, she once more pinned on her hat, and ran downstairs to the post. The fog had thickened considerably during the morning, and Christina found the street lamps alight—tiny points of brightness set high above the prevailing gloom, and producing very little effect upon the darkness. Indeed, there was something almost bewildering about those far-off lights; they seemed to heighten, rather than diminish, the all-pervading blackness, which deepened every moment.
The girl walked slowly, feeling her way along the area railings, and guiding herself as far as possible by the rumble of traffic along the roadway, though the confusion of sounds made even this guidance a very uncertain one. Drivers shouted, horses slipped and stumbled; and the shrill voices of boys carrying flaring torches, added to the pandemonium. Earlier in the morning the fog had merely been of the familiar yellow variety known to every Londoner. It was now a black and total darkness that seemed to engulf the world. To cross the road to the pillar-box was a matter of no small difficulty, but Christina, with a dogged determination not to be outwitted by the elements, stepped off the kerb and into the seething mass of carts, cabs, and other vehicles, that jostled and struggled with one another in apparently inextricable confusion.