Busses jogged by her laden with sober-faced men and women, bound for the vocations that sustained the white elephant of life. Shops already gave evidence of trade, and children with uncovered heads sped along the curb with a "ha'porth o' milk," or mysterious breakfasts folded in scraps of newspaper. Each atom of the awakening bustle passed her engrossed by its own existence, operated by its separate interests, revolving in its individual world. London looked to her a city without mercy or impulse, populated to brimfulness, and flowing over. Every chink and crevice seemed stocked with its appointed denizens, and the hope of finding bread here which nobody's hand was clutching appeared presumption.
Eleven o'clock had struck—that is to say, she had been walking for more than three hours—when she saw a card with "Furnished Room to Let" suspended from a blind, and her efforts to gain shelter succeeded at last. It was an unpretentious little house, in an unpretentious turning; and a sign on the door intimated that it was the residence of "J. Shuttleworth, mason."
A hard-featured woman was evoked by the dispirited knock. Seeing a would-be lodger who was dressed like a lady, she added eighteenpence to the rent that she usually asked. She asked five shillings a week, and the applicant agreed to it and was grateful.
"About your meals, miss?" said Mrs. Shuttleworth, when Mary had sunk on the upright wooden chair at the head of the truckle-bed-stead. "Dinners I can't do for yer, but as far as breakfas', and a cup o' tea in the evening goes, you can 'ave a bit of something brought up when we 'as our own. I suppose that'll suit you, won't it?"
"A cup of tea and some bread-and-butter," answered Mary, "in the morning and afternoon, if you can manage it, will do very nicely, thank you." She roused herself to the exigencies of the occasion. "How much will that be?"
"Oh, well, we shan't break yer! You'll pay the first week now?"
The rent was forthcoming, and one more superfluity in the jostle of existence profited by the misfortunes of another: going back to the wash-tub cheerful.
Upstairs the lodger remained motionless; she was so tired that it was a luxury to sit still, and for awhile she was more alive to the bodily relief than the mental burden. It was afternoon by the time she faced the necessity for returning to St. Pancras for her bag; and, pushing up the rickety window to admit some air during her absence, she proceeded to the basement, to ascertain the nearest route.
She learnt that she was much nearer to the station than she had supposed, and in a little while she had her property in her possession again. Her head felt oddly light, and she was puzzled by the dizziness until she remembered she had had nothing to eat since eight o'clock. The thought of food was sickening, though; and it was not till five o'clock, when the tea was furnished, with a hunch of bread, and a slap of butter in the middle of a plate, that she attempted to break her fast.
And now ensued a length of dreary hours, an awful purposeless evening, of which every minute was weighted with despair. Fortunately the weather was not very cold, so the absence of a fire was less a hardship than a lack of company; but the fatigue, which had been acting as a partial opiate to her trouble, gradually passed, and her brain ached with the torture of reflection. With nothing to do but think, she sat in the upright chair, staring at the empty grate and picturing Tony during the familiar waits at the theatre. An evil-smelling lamp burned despondently on the table; outside, the street was discordant with the cries of children. To realise that it was only this morning that the blow had fallen upon her was impossible; an interval of several days appeared to roll between the poky attic and her farewell; the calamity seemed already old. "Oh, Tony!" she murmured. She got out his likeness. "Yours ever"—the mockery of it! She did not hate him, she did not even tell herself that she did; she contemplated the faded photograph quite gently, and held it before her a long time. It had been taken in Manchester, and she recalled the afternoon that it was done. All sorts of trivialities in connection with it recurred to her. He was wearing a lawn tie, and she remembered that it had been the last clean one and had got mislaid. Their search for it, and comic desperation at its loss, all came back to her quite clearly. "Oh, Tony!" Her fancies projected themselves into his future, and she saw him in a score of different scenes, but always famous, and in his greatness with the memory of her flitting across his mind. Then she wondered what she would have done if she had borne him a child—whether the child would have been in the garret with her. But no, if he had been a father this wouldn't have happened! he was always fond of children; to have given him a child of his own would have kept, his love for her aglow.