“You would, at any rate, be within the reach of assistance.”
“No more so than we are now, because, quite probably, the kind of neighbours we should be likely to have in the sort of flat we should be able to afford would be worse — much worse — than none at all. The truth is that two lonely, hard-up girls — desperately hard-up girls — will be lonely wherever they are. We are quite prepared for that. Only we intend to choose the particular kind of loneliness which we happen to prefer — don’t we, Madge?”
“Of course we do.”
“It makes me wild to hear you say such things. Rather than you should feel like that, I’d marry on nothing.”
“Thank you, but I wouldn’t. I find it quite hard enough to be single on nothing.”
“You know what I mean; I don’t mean actually on nothing. I was reckoning it up the other night. My income ——”
“Your income’s like mine, Jack — capable of considerable increment. And would you be so kind as to change the subject?”
But the thing was easier said than done. Jack’s thoughts had been started in a groove, and they kept in it; the conversation was continually reverting to the subject of the girls’ loneliness. His last words as he left the room were on the familiar theme.
“I grant that there are advantages in having a pretty little place like this all to yourselves, especially when you get it at a peppercorn rent; and that it’s nice to be your own mistresses, and all that kind of thing. But in the case of you two girls the disadvantages are so many and so serious, that I wonder you don’t see them more clearly for yourselves. Anyhow, Madge has had her first peep at them today, and I sincerely hope it will be her last; though I am persuaded that before very long you will discover that, as a place of residence for two lone, lorn young women. Clover Cottage has its drawbacks.”
When Ella returned from saying farewell to Mr. Martyn in the hall, she glanced 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 at Clover Cottage has its drawbacks; I’ve lighted on one or two of them already.”
Ella leaned against the edge of the table, regarding the speaker with twinkling eyes and smiling lips.
“My dear, you don’t mean to say that that crazy creature has left such an impression on your mind?”
“You see, my dear Ella, I haven’t told you all the story. I felt that I had given Mr. Martyn a sufficient handle against us as it was; so I refrained.”
“Pray what else is there to tell? To judge from your looks and manner one 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 seeking music lessons: of his fear of the seedy loafer in the street; of his undignified exit through the back door; and the whole of his singular behaviour.
“And you say he could play?”
“Play! He played like an — I was going to say an angel, but I’ll substitute 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 was positively 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’t think 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 a policeman.”
There was malice in the lady’s tones.
“Not at all; but even a policeman of that type would hardly have jumped out of his skin with fright at the sight of that horrible woman. 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. My dear Ella, she — she was — beyond expression.”
Ella came and seated herself on a stool at Madge’s feet. Leaning her arms 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 of how she had said and done it — details which she had omitted, for reasons of her own, in Mr. Martyn’s presence. By the time she had finished 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 the house was peopled with ghosts.”
“Madge, don’t! You’ll make me want to sleep with you if you go on like that. Poor old chap! I’m sorry if I seemed to chaff you.” She reflected before she spoke again. “I can see that it can’t be nice for you to be alone in the house while I’m away in town all day, earning my daily bread — especially now that the days are drawing in. If you like, 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 happen again. But I tell you frankly, that, if my experiences of today do recur, it won’t take much to persuade me that I have an inclination towards the society of my fellows, and that I prefer even the crushes of 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 own lips, “what do you say to bed?” And it was bed. “Would you like me to sleep with you,” inquired Ella as they went upstairs; “because if you would like me to very much, I would.”
“No,” said Madge, “I wouldn’t. I never did like to share my bed with any one, and I never shall. I like to kick about, and I like to have plenty of room to do it in.”
“Very good — have plenty of room to do it in. Ungrateful creature! If you’re haunted, don’t call to me for aid.”
As it happened, Madge did call to her for aid, after a fashion; though it was not exactly because she was haunted.
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