The Odd Women Part 7

'We meet in this casual way, and talk, and then say good-bye. Why mayn't I tell you that you interest me very much, and that I am afraid to trust only to chance for another meeting? If you were a man'--he smiled--'I should give you my card, and ask you to my house. The card I may at all events offer.'

Whilst speaking, he drew out a little case, and laid a visiting-card on the bench within Monica's reach. Murmuring her 'thank you,' she took the bit of pasteboard, but did not look at it.

'You are on my side of the river,' he continued, still with scrupulous modesty of tone. 'May I not hope to see you some day, when you are walking? All days and times are the same to me; but I am afraid it is only on Sunday that you are at leisure?'

'Yes, only on a Sunday.'

It took a long time, and many circ.u.mlocutions, but in the end an appointment was made. Monica would see her acquaintance next Sunday evening on the river front of Battersea Park; if it rained, then the Sunday after. She was ashamed and confused. Other girls were constantly doing this kind of thing--other girls in business; but it seemed to put her on the level of a servant. And why had she consented? The man could never be anything to her; he was too old, too hard-featured, too grave.

Well, on that very account there would be no harm in meeting him. In truth, she had not felt the courage to refuse; in a manner he had overawed her.

And perhaps she would not keep the engagement. Nothing compelled her.

She had not told him her name, nor the house where she was employed.

There was a week to think it over.

All days and times were the same to him--he said. And he drove about the country for his pleasure. A man of means. His name, according to the card, was Edmund Widdowson.

He was upright in his walk, and strongly built. She noticed this as he moved away from her. Fearful lest he should turn round, her eyes glanced at his figure from moment to moment. But he did not once look back.

'And now to G.o.d the Father.' The bustle throughout the church wakened her from reverie so complete that she knew not a syllable of the sermon. After all she must deceive her sisters by inventing a text, and perhaps a comment.

By an arrangement with Mrs. Conisbee, dinner was down in the parlour to-day. A luxurious meal, moreover; for in her excitement Virginia had resolved to make a feast of Monica's birthday. There was a tiny piece of salmon, a dainty cutlet, and a cold blackcurrant tart. Virginia, at home a constant vegetarian, took no share of the fish and meat--which was only enough for one person. Alice, alone upstairs, made a dinner of gruel.

Monica was to be at Queen's Road, Chelsea, by three o'clock. The sisters hoped she would return to Lavender Hill with her news, but that was left uncertain--by Monica herself purposely. As an amus.e.m.e.nt, she had decided to keep her promise to Mr. Edmund Widdowson. She was curious to see him again, and receive a new impression of his personality. If he behaved as inoffensively as at Richmond, acquaintance with him might be continued for the variety it brought into her life. If anything unpleasant happened, she had only to walk away. The slight, very slight, tremor of antic.i.p.ation was reasonably to be prized by a shop-girl at Messrs. Scotcher's.

Drawing near to Queen's Road--the wrapped-up Keble in her hand--she began to wonder whether Miss Nunn would have any serious proposal to offer. Virginia's report and ecstatic forecasts were, she knew, not completely trustworthy; though more than ten years her sister's junior, Monica saw the world with eyes much less disposed to magnify and colour ordinary facts.

Miss Barfoot was still from home. Rhoda Nunn received the visitor in a pleasant, old-fas.h.i.+oned drawing-room, where there was nothing costly, nothing luxurious; yet to Monica it appeared richly furnished. A sense of strangeness amid such surroundings had more to do with her constrained silence for the first few minutes than the difficulty with which she recognized in this lady before her the Miss Nunn whom she had known years ago.

'I should never have known you,' said Rhoda, equally surprised. 'For one thing, you look like a fever patient just recovering. What can be expected? Your sister gave me a shocking account of how you live.'

'The work is very hard.'

'Preposterous. Why do you stay at such a place, Monica?'

'I am getting experience.'

'To be used in the next world?'

They laughed.

'Miss Madden is better to-day, I hope?'

'Alice? Not much, I'm sorry to say.'

'Will you tell me something more about the "experience" you are getting? For instance, what time is given you for meals?'

Rhoda Nunn was not the person to manufacture light gossip when a matter of the gravest interest waited for discussion. With a face that expressed thoughtful sympathy, she encouraged the girl to speak and confide in her.

'There's twenty minutes for each meal,' Monica explained; 'but at dinner and tea one is very likely to be called into the shop before finis.h.i.+ng. If you are long away you find the table cleared.'

'Charming arrangement! No sitting down behind the counter, I suppose?'

'Oh, of course not. We stiffer a great deal from that. Some of us get diseases. A girl has just gone to the hospital with varicose veins, and two or three others have the same thing in a less troublesome form.

Sometimes, on Sat.u.r.day night, I lose all feeling in my feet; I have to stamp on the floor to be sure it's still under me.'

'Ah, that Sat.u.r.day night!'

'Yes, it's bad enough now; but at Christmas! There was a week or more of Sat.u.r.day night--going on to one o'clock in the morning. A girl by me was twice carried out fainting, one night after another. They gave her brandy, and she came back again.'

'They compelled her to?'

'Well, no, it was her own wish. Her "book of takings" wasn't very good, poor thing, and if it didn't come up to a certain figure at the end of the week she would lose her place. She lost it after all. They told her she was too weak. After Christmas she was lucky enough to get a place as a lady's-maid at twenty-five pounds a year--at Scotcher's she had fifteen. But we heard that she burst a blood-vessel, and now she's in the hospital at Brompton.'

'Delightful story! Haven't you an early-closing day?'

'They had before I went there; but only for about three months. Then the agreement broke down.'

'Like the a.s.sistants. A pity the establishment doesn't follow suit.'

'But you wouldn't say so, Miss Nunn, if you knew how terribly hard it is for many girls to find a place, even now.'

'I know it perfectly well. And I wish it were harder. I wish girls fell down and died of hunger in the streets, instead of creeping to their garrets and the hospitals. I should like to see their dead bodies collected together in some open place for the crowd to stare at.'

Monica gazed at her with wide eyes.

'You mean, I suppose, that people would try to reform things.'

'Who knows? Perhaps they might only congratulate each other that a few of the superfluous females had been struck off. Do they give you any summer holiday?'

'A week, with salary continued.'

'Really? With salary continued? That takes one's breath away.--Are many of the girls ladies?'

'None, at Scotcher's. They nearly all come from the country. Several are daughters of small farmers and those are dreadfully ignorant. One of them asked me the other day in what country Africa was.'

'You don't find them very pleasant company?'

'One or two are nice quiet girls.'

Rhoda drew a deep sigh, and moved with impatience.

'Well, don't you think you've had about enough of it--experience and all?'

'I might go into a country business: it would be easier.'

'But you don't care for the thought?'