Sparrows Part 19

"Don't you call me names."

"I shall call you what I please, you dirty upstart, to put yourself on a level with ladies like us! We always said you was common."

"What--what's it you dared me to say?" asked Miss Impett breathlessly, as her face went livid.

"Don't--don't say it," pleaded Miss Allen; but her interference was ineffectual.

"That I picked up gentlemen in evening dress," bawled Miss Potter. "Say it: say it: say it! I dare you!"

"I do say it. I'll tell everyone. I've watched you pick up gentlemen in--"

She got no further. Miss Potter struck her in the mouth.

"You beast!" cried Miss Impett.

Miss Potter struck her again.

"You beast: you coward!" yelled Miss Impett.

"It's you who's the coward, 'cause you don't hit me. Take that and that," screamed Miss Potter, as she hit the other again and again. "And if you say any more, I'll pull your hair out."

"I'm not a coward; I'm not a coward!" wept Miss Impett. "And you know it."

"I know it!"

"If anything, it's you who's the coward."

"Say it again," threatened Miss Potter, as she raised her fist, while hate gleamed in her eyes.

"Yes, I do say it again. You are a coward; you hit me, and you know I can't hit you back because you're going to have a baby."

There was a pause. Miss Potter's face went white; she raised her hand as if to strike Miss Impett, but as the latter stared her in the eyes, the other girl flinched. Then, tears came into Miss Potter's eyes as she faltered:

"Oh! Oh, you story!"

"Story! story!" began Miss Impett, but was at once interrupted by pacific Miss Allen.

"Ss.h.!.+ ss.h.!.+" she cried fearfully.

"I shan't," answered Miss Impett.

"You must," commanded Miss Allen under her breath. "Keeves might hear."

"What if she does! As likely as not she herself's in the way," said Miss Potter.

Mavis, who had been trying not to listen to the previous conversation, felt both hot and cold at the same time. The blood rushed to her head.

The next moment she sprang out of bed.

"How dare you, how dare you say that?" she cried, her eyes all ablaze.

"Say what?" asked Miss Potter innocently.

"That. I won't foul my lips by repeating it. How dare you say it? How dare you say that you didn't say it?"

"Well, you shouldn't listen," remarked Miss Potter sullenly.

Mavis advanced menacingly to the side of the girl's bed.

"If you think you can insult me like that, you're mistaken," said Mavis, with icy calmness, the while she trembled in every limb.

"Haven't you been through Orgles's hands?" asked Miss Potter.

"No, I have not. I say again, how dare you accuse me of that?"

"She didn't mean it, dear," said Miss Allen appeasingly; "she's always said you're the only pretty girl who's straight in 'Dawes'.'"

"Will you answer my question?" asked Mavis, with quiet persistence.

Then, as the girl made no reply, "Please yourself. I shall raise the whole question to-morrow, and I'll ask to be moved from this room. Then perhaps you'll learn not to cla.s.s me with common, low girls like yourself."

It might be thought that Mavis's aspersions might have provoked a storm: it produced an altogether contrary effect.

"Don't be down on me. I don't know what's to become of me," whimpered Miss Potter.

The next moment, the three girls, other than Mavis, were clinging together, the while they wept tears of contrition and sympathy.

Mavis, although her pride had been cruelly wounded by Miss Potter's careless but base accusation, was touched at the girl's distress; the abas.e.m.e.nt of the once proud young beauty, the nature of its cause, together with the realisation of the poor girl's desperate case, moved her deeply: she stood irresolute in the middle of the room. The three weeping girls were wondering when Mavis was going to recommence her attack; they little knew that her keen imagination was already dwelling with infinite compa.s.sion on the dismal conditions in which the promised new life would come into the world. Her heart went out to the extremity of mother and unborn little one; had not her pride forbade her, she would have comforted Miss Potter with brave words. Presently, when Miss Potter whimpered something about "some people being so straitlaced,"

Mavis found words to say:

"I'm not a bit straitlaced. I'm really very sorry for you, and I can't see you're much to blame, as the life we lead here is enough to drive girls to anything. If I'm any different, it's because I'm not built that way."

Mavis was the only girl in the room who got next to no sleep. Long after the other girls had found repose, she lay awake, wide-eyed; her sudden gust of rage had exhausted her; all the same, her body quivered with pa.s.sion whenever she remembered Miss Potter's insult. But it was the shock of the discovery of the girl's condition which mostly kept her awake; hitherto, she had been dimly conscious that such things were; now that they had been forced upon her attention, she was dazed at their presence in the person of one with whom she was daily a.s.sociated. Then she fell to wondering what mysterious ends of Providence Miss Potter's visitation would serve. The problem made her head ache. She took refuge in the thought that Miss Potter was a sparrow, such as she--a sparrow with gaudier and, at the same time, more bedraggled plumage, but one who, for all this detriment, could not utterly fall without the knowledge of One who cared. This thought comforted Mavis and brought her what little sleep she got.

The next morning, Mavis was sent to a City warehouse in order to match some material that "Dawes'" had not in stock. When she took her seat on the 'bus, a familiar voice cried:

"There's 'B. C.'"

"Miss Allen."

"That's what we all call you, 'cos you're so innocent. If you're off to the warehouse, it's where I'm bound."

"We can go together," remarked Mavis.

"I say, you were a brick last night," said Miss Allen, after the two girls had each paid for their tickets.

"I'm only sorry for her."

"She'll be all right."