CHAPTER III
TWO LONE, LORN YOUNG WOMEN
Ella and Jack eyed each other. Madge took refuge in a chair, consciousof a feeling of irritation at her weakness now that the provocationhad passed. Ella regarded her curiously.
"What's the matter with you, Madge? What's happened?"
"It's nothing--only that horrible woman has upset me."
"Who is she? and what's she been doing? and what's she want?"
"I don't know who she is, or what she wants, or anything at all abouther. I only know that she's prevented me getting anything for yourtea."
"That's all right--we've got something, haven't we, Jack?" Jack waveda parcel. "But whatever did you let such an extraordinary-lookingcreature into the house for? and whatever did she mean by screamingout that she's a ghost's wife? Is she very mad?"
"I think she is--and I didn't let her in."
Then, while they were preparing tea, the tale was told, or at least apart of it. But even that part was enough to make Jack Martyn grave.As the telling proceeded, he grew graver and graver, until, at theend, he wore a face of portentous gloom. When they seated themselvesto the meal he made precisely the remark which they had expected himto make. He rested his hands on his knees, and he solemnly shook hishead.
"This comes of your being alone in the house!"
Ella laughed.
"There! now you've started him on his own particular crotchet; he'llnever let you hear the last of this."
Jack went on.
"I've said before, and I say again, and I shall keep on saying, thatyou two girls ought not to live alone by yourselves in a house in thisout-of-the-way corner of the world."
"Out-of-the-way corner of the world!--on Wandsworth Common!"
"For all practical intents and purposes you might as well be in themiddle of the Desert of Sahara; you might shriek and shriek and Idoubt if any one would hear you. This agreeable visitor of Madge'smight have cut her throat from ear to ear, or chopped her intomincemeat, and she would have been as incapable of summoningassistance as if she had been at the top of Mont Blanc."
"That's it. Jack--pile it on!"
"I don't think it's fair of you to talk like that, Ella; I'm notpiling it on; I'm just speaking the plain and simple truth. Honestly,Madge, when you've been alone in the house all day long, haven't youfelt that you were at the mercy of the first evil-disposed person whochose to come along; or, if you haven't felt it before, don't youthink you'll feel it now?"
"No--to both your questions."
"Supposing this woman comes back again to-morrow?"
Madge had to bite her lip to repress a shudder; the idea was not apleasant one.
"She won't come back."
"But suppose she does?--and from what you say I think it very probablethat she will; if not to-morrow, then the day after."
"If she comes the day after to-morrow she'll find me out; I shall beout all day."
"There's a confession! It's only because you know that you will be outthat you're able to face the prospect with equanimity."
"You are not entitled to infer anything of the kind."
Ella interposed, perceiving that the girl was made uncomfortable bythe man's persistence.
"Don't do quite so much supposing, Jack; let me do a littlefor a change. Suppose we lived in one of those flats in thecharming neighbourhood of Chancery Lane or Bloomsbury, afterwhich--vicariously--your soul so hankers, how much better off shouldwe be there?"
"You would, at any rate, be within the reach of assistance."
"No more so than we are now, because, quite probably, the kind ofneighbours we should be likely to have in the sort of flat we shouldbe able to afford would be worse--much worse--than none at all.The truth is that two lonely, hard-up girls--desperately hard-upgirls--will be lonely wherever they are. We are quite prepared forthat. Only we intend to choose the particular kind of loneliness whichwe happen to prefer--don't we, Madge?"
"Of course we do."
"It makes me wild to hear you say such things. Rather than you shouldfeel like that, I'd marry on nothing."
"Thank you, but I wouldn't. I find it quite hard enough to be singleon nothing."
"You know what I mean; I don't mean actually on nothing. I wasreckoning it up the other night. My income----"
"Your income's like mine, Jack--capable of considerable increment. Andwould you be so kind as to change the subject?"
But the thing was easier said than done. Jack's thoughts had beenstarted in a groove, and they kept in it; the conversation wascontinually reverting to the subject of the girls' loneliness. Hislast words as he left the room were on the familiar theme.
"I grant that there are advantages in having a pretty little placelike this all to yourselves, especially when you get it at apeppercorn rent; and that it's nice to be your own mistresses, and allthat kind of thing. But in the case of you two girls the disadvantagesare so many and so serious, that I wonder you don't see them moreclearly for yourselves. Anyhow, Madge has had her first peep at themto-day, and I sincerely hope it will be her last; though I ampersuaded that before very long you will discover that, as a place ofresidence for two lone, lorn young women. Clover Cottage has itsdrawbacks."
When Ella returned from saying farewell to Mr. Martyn in the hall, sheglanced at Madge and laughed.
"Jack's in his prophetic mood."
"I shouldn't be surprised if his prophecy's inspired."
Her tone was unexpectedly serious. Ella stared.
"What do you mean?"
"What I say."
"You're oracular, my dear. What do you say?"
"That I think it quite possible that we shall find that residence atClover Cottage has its drawbacks; I've lighted on one or two of themalready."
Ella leaned against the edge of the table, regarding the speaker withtwinkling eyes and smiling lips.
"My dear, you don't mean to say that that crazy creature has left suchan impression on your mind?"
"You see, my dear Ella, I haven't told you all the story. I felt thatI had given Mr. Martyn a sufficient handle against us as it was; so Irefrained."
"Pray what else is there to tell? To judge from your looks and mannerone would think that there was something dreadful."
"I don't know about dreadful, but there certainly is something--odd.To begin with, that wretched woman was not my only visitor."
Then the rest of the tale was told--and this time the whole of it.Ella heard of the stranger who had intruded on the pretence of seekingmusic lessons: of his fear of the seedy loafer in the street; of hisundignified exit through the back door; and the whole of his singularbehaviour.
"And you say he could play?"
"Play! He played like an--I was going to say an angel, but I'llsubstitute artist."
"And he looked like a gentleman?"
"Certainly, and spoke like one."
"But he didn't behave like one?"
"I won't go so far as to say that. He said or did nothing that waspositively offensive when he was once inside the house."
"But you called him a thief?"
"Yes; but, mind you, I didn't think he was one. I felt so angry."
"I should think you did. I should have felt murderous. And you don'tthink the man in the road was a policeman?"
"Not he. He was as evil-looking a vagabond as ever I saw."
"It doesn't follow merely on that account, my dear, that he wasn't apoliceman."
There was malice in the lady's tones.
"Not at all; but even a policeman of that type would hardly havejumped out of his skin with fright at the sight of that horriblewoman. He knew her, and she knew him. There's a mystery somewhere."
"How nice!"
"Nice? You think so? I wish you had interviewed her instead of me. Mydear Ella, she--she was--beyond expression."
Ella came and seated herself on a stool at Madge's feet. Leaning herarms on her knees she looked up at her face.
"Poor
old chap! It wasn't an agreeable experience."
Madge's answer was as significant as it was curt.
"It wasn't."
She gave further details of what the woman had said and done, and ofhow she had said and done it--details which she had omitted, forreasons of her own, in Mr. Martyn's presence. By the time she hadfinished the listener was as serious as the narrator.
"It makes me feel creepy to hear you."
"It would have made you creepy to have heard her. I felt as if thehouse was peopled with ghosts."
"Madge, don't! You'll make me want to sleep with you if you go on likethat. Poor old chap! I'm sorry if I seemed to chaff you." Shereflected before she spoke again. "I can see that it can't be nice foryou to be alone in the house while I'm away in town all day, earningmy daily bread--especially now that the days are drawing in. If youlike, we'll clear out of this, this week--we could do it at a pinch--and we'll return to the seething masses."
Madge reflected, in her turn, before she answered.
"Nothing of the sort has happened before, and nothing may happenagain. But I tell you frankly, that, if my experiences of to-day dorecur, it won't take much to persuade me that I have an inclinationtowards the society of my fellows, and that I prefer even the crushesof Petticoat Lane to the solitudes of Wandsworth Common."
"Well, in that case, it shall be Petticoat Lane."
There was silence. Presently Madge stretched herself--and yawned.
"In the meantime," suggested Ella, putting her hand up to her ownlips, "what do you say to bed?" And it was bed. "Would you like me tosleep with you," inquired Ella as they went upstairs; "because if youwould like me to very much, I would."
"No," said Madge, "I wouldn't. I never did like to share my bed withany one, and I never shall. I like to kick about, and I like to haveplenty of room to do it in."
"Very good--have plenty of room to do it in. Ungrateful creature! Ifyou're haunted, don't call to me for aid."
As it happened, Madge did call to her for aid, after a fashion; thoughit was not exactly because she was haunted.