“I’ll go outside,” she said, with a sudden desire for the sky above her head and the dry air on her face. She went with a sure foot up the steps and along the roof, the omnibus still moving, and took the one spare seat immediately behind the driver. Once she had been proud of her coolness and dispatch in climbing an omnibus. That was in the old days, when money was scarce and skirts shabby at the hem: the days when she had carved at table, accompanied songs, and made herself generally useful (attractive, so the advertisement stipulated) at the stuffy boarding-house near the British Museum. Edred had been one of the boarders—had paid thirty shillings a week, which was as much as he could afford out of his two pounds five weekly. Those were the days before he became a—number. She thought of it all, as she was carried by Kensington Gardens—occasional nights at a music-hall, merry waiting at pit doors, Sunday jaunts to Hampton Court—with a fresh summer gown, a smart cheap hat, and a constant dread of a shower.
The women on the seat immediately opposite were talking volubly. They both had cheap black jackets with very big buttons and outstanding sleeves. One, as she talked, kept licking her lips and constantly popping out her tongue with odd vivacity and archness. The other, an older woman, with a severe expression, took an occasional solemn swig at a bottle which was genteelly wrapped to the nose in a confectioner’s paper bag.
As the vivacious woman wriggled on the seat she afforded occasional peeps of a rusty quilted petticoat with a red flannel lining.
“She done it on the Monday as we see her on the Sunday,” Pamela heard her say mysteriously.
She fell to wondering what she had done: something very reprehensible certainly, judging from the shocked expression of the elder woman, who nodded sourly and tilted her paper bag.
“She says to me, ‘Why don’t you take in a lodger?—some young lady as is engaged all day in business. There’s the spare room a-goin’ beggin’,’ she says. But I aint goin’ to do it, Mrs. Whitbourn; would you? Oh, ’e’s a good ’usban’. But there!”—the dusty head with the black chip hat shook sideways and the quick tongue lolled out—“you never knows nothin’, do yer?”
“No, yer never does,” confirmed the solemn woman.
“Lor’! ’ere we are at the church. Well, good-by, Mrs. Whitbourn. See you again some day.”
They kissed lusciously; the sateen petticoat with the frowsy red lining whisked away.
Pamela stared straight in front of her thoughtfully.