CHAPTER FIVE.
MISS RHODES, POISONER.
It is a somewhat dreary feeling to arrive even at a friend's housebefore seven o'clock in the morning, and be received by sleepy-lookingpeople who have obviously been torn unwillingly from their beds indeference to the precepts of hospitality, but it is infinitely worse toarrive at a lodging-house at the same hour, ring several times at thebell before a dingy servant can be induced to appear, and to realise amoment later that in a tireless parlour you perceive your journey'sgoal!
Claire Gifford felt a creep of the blood at the sight of that parlour,though if her first introduction had been at night, when the curtainswere drawn and the lamps lit, she would have found it cosy enough.There was no sign of her room-mate; perhaps it was too much to expecther to get up at so early an hour to welcome a stranger, but Claire_had_ expected it, felt perfectly sure that--had positions beenreversed--she herself would have taken pains to deck both herself andher room in honour of the occasion, and so felt correspondinglydowncast.
Presently she found herself following the dingy maid up three separatenights of stairs, and arriving at a tiny box of a bedroom on the topfloor. There was a bed, a washstand, a chest of drawers doing serviceas a dressing-table, two chairs and a sloping roof. Claire would havebeen quite disappointed if that last item had been missing, for whoeverheard of a girl who set out to make her own living who had not slept ina room with a sloping roof? On the whole, despite its tiny proportions,the little room made a pleasant impression. It was clean, it wasbright, walls and furniture were alike of a plain unrelieved white, andthrough the open casement window could be seen a distant slope of greenovertopping the intervening chimney tops. Claire's eyes roved here andthere with the instinct of a born home-maker, saw what was lacking here,what was superfluous there, grasped neglected possibilities, andmentally re-arranged and decorated the premises before a slower personwould have crossed the floor.
Then she took up her stand before the small mirror, and devoted a wholeminute to studying her own reflection from the point of view of CaptainErskine Fanshawe of unknown address. By her own deliberate choice shehad cut herself off from future chance of meeting this acquaintance ofan hour; nevertheless it was distinctly reviving to discern that her hatwas set at precisely the right angle, and that for an all-night voyagerher whole appearance was remarkably fresh and dainty.
Claire first smiled, and then sighed, and pulled out the hat-pins withimpatient tugs. To be prudent and self-denying is not always anexhilarating process for sweet and twenty.
Presently the maid came staggering upstairs with the smaller boxes, andClaire busied herself in her room until the clock had struck eight, whenshe again descended to the joint sitting-room. This time the fire waslighted, and the table laid for breakfast, and behind the tea-tray satMiss Rhodes, the English mistress, already halfway through her meal.She rose, half smiling, half frowning, and held out a thin hand inwelcome.
"Morning. Hope you've had a good crossing. Didn't know when you'd bedown. Do you take coffee?"
"Please!" Claire felt that a cup of coffee would be just what sheneeded, but missed the familiar fragrant scent. She seated herself atthe table, and while Miss Rhodes went on with her preparation, studiedher with curious eyes.
She saw a woman of thirty-two or three, with well-cut features, darkeyes, and abundant dark hair--a woman who ought to have been distinctlygood-looking but who succeeded in being plain and commonplace. She wasbadly-dressed, in a utility blouse of grey flannel, her expression wastired and listless, and her hair, though neat, showed obvious lack ofcare, having none of the silky sheen which rewards regular systematicbrushing. So far bad, but, in spite of all drawbacks, it was aninteresting face, and Claire felt attracted, despite the preliminarydisappointment.
"There's some bacon in that dish. It will be cold, I'm afraid. You canring, if you like, and ask them to warm it up, but they'll keep youwaiting a quarter of an hour out of spite. I've given it up myself."
"Oh, I'm accustomed to French breakfasts. I really want nothing butsome bread and coffee." Claire sipped at her cup as she finishedspeaking, and the sudden grimace of astonishment which followed rousedher companion to laughter.
"You don't like it? It isn't equal to your French coffee."
"It isn't coffee at all. It's undrinkable!" Claire pushed away her cupin disgust. "Is it always as bad as that?"
"Worse!" said Miss Rhodes composedly. "They put in more this morningbecause of you. Sometimes it's barely coloured, and it's alwayschicory." She shrugged resignedly. "No English landlady can makecoffee. It's no use worrying. Have to make the best of what comes."
"Indeed I shan't. Why should I? I shan't try. There's no virtue indrinking such stuff. We provide the coffee--what's to hinder us makingit for ourselves?"
"No fire, as a rule. Can't afford one when you are going outimmediately after breakfast."
Claire stared in dismay. It had never occurred to her that she mighthave to be economical to this extent.
"But when it's very cold? What do you do then?"
"Put on a jersey, and nurse the hot-water jug!"
Claire grimaced, then nodded with an air of determination.
"I'll buy a machine! There can be no objection to that. You wouldprefer good coffee, wouldn't you, if you could get it without any moretrouble?"
"Oh, certainly. I'll enjoy it--while it lasts!"
"Why shouldn't it last?"
Miss Rhodes stared across at the eager young face. She looked tired,and a trifle impatient.
"Oh, my dear girl, you're _New_. We are all the same at first--bubblingover with energy, and determined to arrange everything exactly as welike. It's a phase which we all live through. Afterwards you don'tcare. You are too tired to worry. All your energy goes on your day'swork, and you are too thankful for peace and quietness to bother aboutdetails. You take what comes, and are thankful it's not worse."
Claire's smile showed an elaborate forbearance.
"Rather a poor-spirited attitude, don't you think?"
"Wait and see!" said the English mistress.
She rose and threw herself in a chair by the window, and Claire left thedespised coffee and followed her example. Through the half-opened panesshe looked out on a row of brick houses depressingly dingy, depressinglyalike. About every second house showed a small black card on which theword "Apartments" was printed in gilt letters. Down the middle of thestreet came a fruiterer's cart, piled high with wicker baskets. The cryof "Bananas, cheap bananas," floated raucously on the air. Claireswiftly averted her eyes and turned back to her companion.
"It is very good of you to let me share your _appartement_. MissFarnborough said she had arranged it with you, but it must be horridtaking in a stranger. I will try not to be too great a bore!"
But Miss Rhodes refused to be thanked.
"I'm bound to have somebody," said she ungraciously. "Couldn't affordthem alone. You know the terms? Thirty-five shillings a week for thethree rooms. That's cheap in this neighbourhood. We only get them atthat price because we are out all day, and need so little catering."She looked round the room with her tired, mocking smile. "Hope youadmire the scheme of decoration! I've been in dozens of lodgings, but Idon't think I've ever struck an uglier room; but the people are cleanand honest, and one has to put that before beauty, in ourcircumstances."
"There's a great _deal_ of pattern about. It hasn't what one could calla restful effect!" said Claire, looking across at an ochre wallbespattered with golden scrawls, a red satin mantel-border painted withlustre roses, a suite of furniture covered in green stamped plush, acollection of inartistic pictures, and unornamental ornaments. Even herspirit quailed before the hopelessness of beautifying a room in whichall the essentials were so hopelessly wrong. She gave it up in despair,and returned to the question of finance.
"Then my share will be seventeen and six! That seems very cheap. I amto begin at a hundred and ten pounds. How much extr
a must I allow forfood?"
"That depends upon your requirements. We have dinner at school; quite agood meal for ninepence, including a penny for coffee afterwards."
"The same sort of coffee we have had this morning?"
"Practically. A trifle better perhaps. Not much."
"Hurrah!" cried Claire gaily. "That's a penny to the good! Eightpencefor me--a clear saving of fivepence a week!"
Miss Rhodes resolutely refused to smile. She had the air of thinking itribald to be cheerful on the serious question of pounds, shillings andpence.
"Even so, it's three-and-four, and you can't do breakfast and supper andfull board on Saturday and Sunday under seven shillings. It's tightenough to manage on that. Altogether it often mounts up to twelve."
"Seventeen and twelve." Claire pondered deeply before she arrived at asolution. "Twenty-nine. Call it thirty, to make it even, and I am tobegin at a hundred and ten. Over two pounds a week. I ought to do itcomfortably, and have quite a lot over."
Miss Rhodes laughed darkly.
"What about extras?" she demanded. "What about laundry, and fires, andstationery and stamps? What about boot-mending, and Tubes on wet days,and soap and candles, and dentist and medicines, and subs, at school,and collections in church, and travelling expenses on Saturdays andSundays, when you invariably want to go to the very other side of thecity? London is not like a provincial town. You can't stir out of thehouse under fourpence or sixpence at the very least. What aboutillness, and amusement, and holidays? What about--"
Claire thrust her fingers in her ears with an air of desperation.
"Stop! Stop! For pity's sake don't swamp me any more. I feel in thebankruptcy court already, and I had imagined that I was rich! A hundredand ten pounds seemed quite a big salary. Everybody was surprised at mygetting so much, and I suppose you have even more?"
"A hundred and fifty. Yes! You must remember that we don't belong tothe ordinary rut of worker--we are experts. Our education has been along costly business. No untrained worker could take our place; we areentitled to expert's pay. Oh, yes, they are quite good salaries if youhappen to have a home behind you, and people who are ready to help overrough times, instead of needing to be helped themselves. The pity of itis that most High School-mistresses come from families who are _not_rich. The parents have made a big effort to pay for the girls'education, and when they are fairly launched, they expect to be helpedin return. Some girls have been educated by relations, or havepractically paid for themselves by scholarships. Three out of four ofus have people who are more in need of help than able to give it. Igive my own mother thirty pounds a year, so we are practically on thesame salary. Have _you_ a home where you can spend your holiday?Holidays run away terribly with your money. They come to nearly fourmonths in the year."
For the first time those prolonged holidays appeared to Claire as aprivilege which had its reverse side. Friends in Brussels mightpossibly house her for two or three weeks; she could not expect, shewould not wish them to do more; and at the end there would still remainover three months! It was a new and disagreeable experience to lookforward to holidays with _dread_! For a whole two minutes she lookedthoroughly depressed, then her invincible optimism came to the top, andshe cried triumphantly--
"I'll take a holiday engagement!"
The English mistress shook her head.
"That's fatal! I tried it myself one summer. Went with a family to theseaside, and was expected to play games with the children all day long,and coach them in the evening. I began the term tired out, and nearlycollapsed before the end. Teaching is nerve-racking work, and if youdon't get a good spell off, it's as bad for the pupils as yourself. Yousnap their heads off for the smallest trifle. Besides, it's folly towear oneself out any sooner than one need. It's bad enough to think ofthe time when one has to retire. That's the nightmare which haunts usmore and more every year."
"Don't you think when the time comes you will be _glad_ to rest?" askedinnocent Claire, whereupon Miss Rhodes glared at her with indignanteyes.
"We should be glad to rest, no doubt, but we don't exactly appreciatethe prospect of resting in the workhouse, and it's difficult to seewhere else some of us are to go! There is no pension for High School-mistresses, and we are bound to retire at fifty-five--if we can manageto stick it out so long. Fifty-five seems a long way off to you--notquite so long to me; when you reach forty it becomes to feel quite near.Women are horribly long-lived, so the probability is that we'll live onto eighty or more. Twenty-five years after leaving off work,and--_where is the money to come from to keep us_? That's the questionwhich haunts us all when we look into our bank-books and find that, withall our pains, we have only been able to save at the utmost two or threehundred pounds."
Claire looked scared, but she recovered her composure with a swiftnesswhich her companion had no difficulty in understanding. She pouncedupon her with lightning swiftness.
"Ah, you think you'll get married, and escape that way! We all do whenwe're new, and pretty, and ignorant of the life. But it's fifty to one,my dear, that you _won't_? You won't meet many men, for one thing; andif you do, they don't like school-mistresses."
"Doesn't that depend a good deal on the kind of school-mistress?"
"Absolutely; but after a few years we are all more or less alike. Wedon't _begin_ by being dowdy and angular, and dogmatic and prudish; webegin by being pretty and cheerful like you. I used to change my blouseevery evening, and put on silk stockings."
"Don't you now?"
"I do _not_! Why should I, to sit over a lodging-house table correctingexercises till ten o'clock? It's not worth the trouble. Besides, I'mtoo tired, and it wears out another blouse."
Claire's attention was diverted from clothes by the shock of thereference to evening work. She had looked forward to coming home toread an interesting book, or be lazy in whatever fashion appealed to hermost, and the corrections of exercises seemed of all things the mostdull.
"Shall I have evening work, too?" she inquired blankly, and Miss Rhodeslaughed with brutal enjoyment.
"Rather! French compositions on the attributes of a true woman, or,`How did you spend your summer holiday?' with all the tenses wrong, andthe idioms translated word for word. And every essay a practicalrepetition of the one before. It's not once in a blue moon that onecomes across a girl with any originality of thought. Oh, yes! that'sthe way we shall spend five evenings a week. You will sit at that sideof the table, I will sit at this, and we'll correct and yawn, and yawnand correct, and drink a cup of cocoa and go to bed at ten. Lively,isn't it?"
"Awful! I never thought of homework. But if Saturday is a wholeholiday there will still be one night off. I shall make a point ofdoing something exciting every Saturday evening."
"Exciting things cost money, and, as a rule, when you have paid up thevarious extras, there's no money to spare. I stay in bed till teno'clock on Saturday, and then get up and wash blouses, and do mymending, and have a nap after lunch, and if it's summer, go and sit on apenny chair in the park, or take a walk over Hampstead Heath. In theevening I read a novel and have a hot bath. Once in a blue moon I havean extravagant bout, and lunch in a restaurant, and go to anentertainment--but I'm sorry afterwards when I count the cost. OnSunday I go to church, and wish some one would ask me to tea. Theydon't, you know. They may do once or twice, when you first come up, butyou can never ask them back, and your clothes get shabby, and you knownothing about their interests, so they think you a bore, and quietly letyou drop."
A smothered exclamation burst from Claire's lips; with a sudden,swirling movement she leapt up, and fell on her knees before MissRhodes's chair, her hands clasping its arms, her flushed face upturnedwith a desperate eagerness.
"Miss Rhodes! we are going to live together here, we are going to sharethe same room, and the same meals. Would you--if any one offered you amillion pounds, would you agree to poison me slowly, day by day,dropping little drops of poison into e
verything I ate and everything Idrank, while you sat by and watched me grow weaker and weaker till I_died_?"
"Good heavens, girl--are you mad! What in the world are you ravingabout?"
Miss Rhodes had grown quite red. She was indignant; she was also morethan a little scared. The girl's sudden change of mood was startling initself, and she looked so tense, so overwhelmingly in earnest. Whatcould she mean? Was it possible that she was a little--_touched_?
"I suppose you don't realise it, but it's insulting even to put such aquestion."
"But you _are_ doing it! It's just exactly what you are beginningalready. Ever since I arrived you've been poisoning me drop by drop.Poisoning my _mind_! I am at the beginning of my work, and you've beendiscouraging me, frightening me, painting it all black. Every word thatyou've said has been a drop of poison to kill hope and courage andconfidence--and oh, don't do it! don't go on! I may be young andfoolish, and full of ridiculous ideas, but let me keep them as long as Ican! If all that you say is true, they will be knocked out of me soonenough, and I--I've never had to work before, or been alone, and--andit's only two days since my mother left me to go to India--all that longway--and left me behind! It's hard enough to go on being alone, andbelieving it's all going to be _couleur de rose_, but it will be fiftytimes harder if I don't. Please--please don't make it any worse!"
With the last words tears came with a rush, the tears that had beenresolutely restrained throughout the strain of the last week. Clairedropped her head on the nearest resting-place she could find, whichhappened to be Miss Rhodes's blue serge lap, and felt the quick pressureof a hand over the glossy coils.
"Poor little girl!" said the English mistress softly. "Poor littlegirl! I'm sorry! I'm a beast! Take no notice of me. I'm a sour,disagreeable old thing. It was more than half jealousy, dear, becauseyou looked so pretty and spry, so like what I used to look myself. Thelife's all right, if you keep well, and don't worry too much ahead.There, don't cry! I loathe tears! You will yourself, when you have todeal with silly, hysterical girls. Come, I'll promise I won't poisonyou any more--at least, I'll do my best; but I've a grumbling nature,and you'd better realise it, once for all, and take no notice. We'llget on all right. I like you. I'm glad you came. My good girl, if youdon't stop, I'll shake you till you do!"
Claire sat back on her heels, mopped her eyes, and gave a strangledlaugh.
"I hate crying myself, but I'll begin again on the faintest provocation.It's always like that with me. I hardly ever cry, but when I oncebegin--"
Miss Rhodes rose with an air of determination.
"We'd better go out. I am free till lunch-time. I'll take you roundand show you the neighbourhood, and the usual places of call. It willsave time another day. Anything you want to buy?"
Claire mopped away another tear.
"C-certainly," she said feebly. "A c-offee machine."