The Lady of the Basement Flat Part 23

"Well, Mary, you and I are going to give her plenty more!" I said graciously, and Mary made me a slice of b.u.t.tered toast on the spot to seal the partners.h.i.+p.

Tea was over when the door opened, and a sleepy, flushed face peeped round the door to look at the clock. When she saw the hands pointing to five, she looked as guilty as if she had robbed the bank.

Oh, it's a glorious thing to be able to help other people! It gives one a warm, glowey feeling about the heart which comes in no other way.

These last days I have just lived for the moment when I could tuck that poor little woman in her cosy bed, and the other moment when I saw her rested, freshened face on rising. Even at the end of one week she looked a different creature, and felt it too.

"Actually, dear Miss Harding, I begin to feel as if I--I should like a new hat!" she said to me one day over tea. "Do you know the feeling? I think it is the best sign of convalescence a woman could have. For months, almost for years, I have not cared what I wore. Something to cover my head--that was all that was needed. To be always tired-- deadly, hopelessly tired--takes the spirit out of one."

"No one should go on being too tired. It's very wrong to allow it."

She looked at me; a long look, affectionate, grateful, reproachfully amused.

"My dear, you live alone, and you have two maids. Evidently--excuse me--you have a comfortable income. My husband's business has been steadily falling off for the last two years. It is not his fault; he works like a horse; no man could have done more, but circ.u.mstances have been against him. We keep one maid, who washes, bakes, and cooks, while I tend the babies, make their clothes and my own, knit, and mend, and patch, and darn, take the children out, bathe them, put them to bed, attend to them through the night, do the housekeeping by day, and struggle over the bills when they are in bed. Bobby is three years and a half old, and has had bronchitis and measles. Baby is eleven months, and cuts her teeth with croup. Between them came the little one who died. And then you sit there and tell me I ought not to be tired!"

"I beg your pardon. I'm sorry. I spoke without thinking. You are quite right--I know nothing about it. People who preach to others very often don't. Forgive me!"

"Don't be so penitent! It is really almost a relief to meet a woman who _doesn't_ understand. All my friends are in pretty much the same case as myself, and they haven't got"--she stretched out her hand and timidly patted my arm--"my kind neighbour to help. Miss Harding, I think you must have been a fascinating girl!"

"Oh, I was!" I said warmly, and then made haste to change the conversation. "What about that hat? I'm quite a good amateur milliner.

Look out your oddments and let me see what I can do."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

NEIGHBOURS--AND REAL WORK.

The fame of me has gone abroad. I have been observed taking the Manners' infants in and out, and the result has been a simultaneous increase of interest, and--loss of prestige. Number 22, like Mrs Manners, pushes her own "pram," but there the resemblance ends. She is a healthy, full-blown young woman, smartly--and unsuitably--attired in the very latest fas.h.i.+on of Kensington High Street. She wears large artificial pearls round her neck, and wafts a strong odour of lily of the valley perfume. Never for the fraction of a second did it occur to me to offer to relieve _her_ of any of her duties; but she cast a pale-blue eye at me, and wove her own little schemes. One afternoon, as I was tucking the coverings round Baby Margaret's feet, she came up to my side, and said in an exceedingly casual manner:--

"Oh, good afternoon. You are Miss Harding? I was just wondering--have you any engagement for the mornings?"

I looked at her calmly, and said I had. Several! Most householders had. She jerked her head, and said impatiently:--

"I didn't mean that. You take Mrs Manners' children out, I see. I might be glad of a little help myself. It's such a bore pram-pus.h.i.+ng every day. How much do you charge?"

It is difficult to look haughty through blue spectacles, and while I was trying, it occurred to me that it was a waste of time. It was a plain business question. She did not mean to be insulting, so I smiled instead--rather feebly, I confess--and said:--

"I don't charge. Mrs Manners is not well. It is a pleasure to me to take charge of the children, so that she may have a little rest."

She "begged pardon" hastily, and with repet.i.tion, staring the while with incredulous eyes. Quite evidently she considered me a benevolent lunatic, and marked me down as a useful prey. I might not be willing to push her pram, but--The very next evening a small servant knocked at the door with Mrs Lorrimer's compliments, and could Miss Harding lend her a fresh egg? (Her name is Lorrimer, and the children are called Claudia, Moreen, and Eric, and look it.) A fortnight has pa.s.sed since that encounter, and the tale of her indebtedness to me is now as follows:--

One egg.

A cup of sugar.

Two lemons.

"A bit of b.u.t.ter, as we're run out."

A box of matches and a candle.

"One scuttle of nice cobbles, please. We have only slack left."

Three stamps.

"Just a pinch or two of tea, as we forgot to order over Sunday."

Bridget opines that it will go from bad to worse, and recommends putting a foot down. Gossip from the "Well" has it that if you "give in to them, they'll take the very dinner off the table". When it comes to that point, I shall certainly stamp hard; but in the meantime I let things slide. I suspect Mrs Lorrimer of being too much engrossed in herself to trouble about such a detail as providing meals for her spouse. Without my aid he would probably have eaten his pancakes without any lemons, and feasted on dry bread by a smouldering fire. I like myself in the _role_ of an unknown benefactor!

Number 19, who lives directly overhead, does not borrow my food or hire my services, but she does something far worse. Whenever I dare to poke a fire, or play on the piano, or shut a window, or let a door bang, as any ordinary domestic door is bound to bang in the course of a windy day, rap, rap, rap comes a premonitory knocking on the floor, as if to say, "Inconsiderate and selfish worm! How dare you attend to your own comfort at the expense of your neighbours overhead? Have the goodness to be quiet at once!" It's awfully unfair, because when they stoke their anthracite stoves, or throw their boots on the floor at 1 a.m.

over my sleeping head, I could only retaliate by climbing to the top of my wardrobe, and knocking the whitewash off my own ceiling. Such are the ironies of life for the tenants of bas.e.m.e.nt flats.

Besides the shoe-dropping, I am often kept awake at night by the sound of angry voices. I sadly fear that Mr and Mrs 19 do not live together in the peace and harmony which could be desired. Subjects of dissension seem generally to arise about 10 p.m., and thereafter deep masculine growls and shrill feminine yaps alternate until the small hours. On these occasions I make up my mind never, never to marry. Especially a bad-tempered man. Especially _one_ bad-tempered man! But, of course, that question was settled long ago.

Hurrah! I am getting on. A most exciting thing has happened. The Manners know Mr Thorold, and last night, when I was sitting with then after dinner (by request!) he came in to call, and we were introduced.

He is a delicate, wearied-to-death, and wish-I-were-out-of-it-looking man, but when he smiles or gets interested his face lights up, and he is handsome and interesting. He looked profoundly bored at finding me installed by the fire, but thawed later on, and asked my advice on various domestic problems which lie heavily on his soul.

"My housekeeper has such sensitive feelings. If I find fault, or even mildly suggest an improvement, she collapses into tears, and the children have a poor time of it for the rest of the day. Sometimes I think I must send her away, but I might get some one worse; and I am busy in the city, and have no time to look round."

I did not feel capable of giving advice on this subject, but said soothingly:--

"I wish you would allow the little girls to come to tea with me sometimes. I have seen them coming in and out, and have longed to know them. I'm fond of children, and Mrs Manners will tell you that I can be trusted."

His face lit up; he actually beamed.

"It is good of you! They get so few changes. It would be the greatest treat! If I may I'll bring them myself next Sat.u.r.day."

Shades of Aunt Eliza! For a moment I felt quite guilty; then I raised my eyes to the Chippendale mirror hanging on the opposite wall, and beheld the douce figure of Miss Harding with a Paisley shawl draped over her black silk shoulders, and I breathed again, and said primly that I should be very pleased, and were the dear little ones allowed currants, or were they limited to plain sponge cake? He said impatiently:--

"Oh, poor kiddies! Anything you like. If they're ill afterwards, it's worth it. I'm afraid I am not much of a disciplinarian, Miss Harding.

Life takes that _role_ out of one's hands. Let them be happy--that's what I ask."

His face puckered; he looked so sad, so helpless, so baffled, poor, big, helpless thing, that my heart just ached for him. Aunt Eliza was right--Evelyn Wastneys is _not_ a suitable person to play good fairy to good-looking widowers! If this one looked particularly helpless and hara.s.sed for an hour at a stretch, and then asked her to marry him on Tuesday week, she would not have the strength of mind to say no, however much she dreaded the prospect. As he is a susceptible, appealing type of a man, and tired to death of that housekeeper, and Evelyn has--she really has!--a "way with her," it would probably have come to that in the end. But Evelyn Harding may serenely do her best. She will never be put to the test.

The little girls are called Winifred and Marion. They have long pale faces, long fair hair, and charming dark-lashed eyes. Winifred looks delicate, and has an insinuating little lisp; Marion, when amused, has a deep, fat chuckle, which makes one long to hug her on the spot. They are badly dressed, badly shod, their stockings lie in wrinkles all the way up, but they look thorough little ladies despite of all, and "behave as sich". They came to tea on Sat.u.r.day, and we had hot scones, and jam sandwiches, and cake, and biscuits, and a box of crackers containing gorgeous rings and brooches and tie-pins and bracelets, and of the whole party I honestly believe "Father" enjoyed himself the most. He had four cups of tea, and ate steadily from every plate; and we all played games together afterwards, in the most happy, domestic fas.h.i.+on. Quite evidently he is a home lover, a man whose deepest interests will always centre round his own fireside.

Poor little dead wife! It seems sad that she should be taken away, while unhappy women like Mrs 19 live on and on. If the issues of life and death were in mortal hands, how differently we should arrange things! I know at this moment half a dozen weary old creatures whose lives are no pleasure to themselves or to anyone else, but they live on, while the young and the happy fall by the way. Oh, how many mysteries there are around us! How wonderful, how absorbingly interesting it will be, when the time comes, to hear the explanation of all that seems so tangled to our present understanding! When I realise how uncertain life is, I am all in a tingle to be up and doing, to make myself of real, real use while I am still here. A married woman has her work cut out to make a home; a real happy home is as big an achievement as any one can wish, but when one is single and lonely--

Pause to shed a few self-pitying tears. Pause to wonder if it might not be better to make a man happy rather than to live alone, even if one were not really in love?

Pause to decide. Certainly not! Don't be weak-minded. A grave injustice to him, as well as to yourself.

Pause to dream of Charmion and Kathie, and feel lone and lorn because they don't write.

Grand decision. Always to be kind and considerate. To write regularly to lonely friends. Never to wax cross or impatient, neglect a duty, nor fail to render a service. To devote special attention and lavish special sympathy on spinsters in bas.e.m.e.nt flats.

The orphan came into the room just as I was in the full flush of my resolutions. I snapped her head off, and found fault for five minutes on end. She departed--in tears.

Three weeks have pa.s.sed by. I have written to Charmion, a letter full of love, and without one complaining word. I have written to Kathie, taking an interest in all the details of her new life; I have written to Delphine, dropping words in season. I have worked hard for the Red Cross cla.s.ses. I have wheeled out the small Manners, and dispensed various teas to Winifred and Marion Thorold. I have met their father several times at the Manners' flat, and have likewise--low be it spoken--received two evening calls from him in my own domain. He says it is such a comfort to find a kind, motherly woman with whom to talk over his difficulties! He hesitates to trouble Mrs Manners, who is already overworked. Winifred holds one shoulder a little higher than the other. Does that mean anything wrong with the spine? Ought she to lie down flat? Billie, the curly two-year-old, is always catching cold.