One night, close upon the end of the year, a number of young men were standing at the bar in a restaurant of no great repute not far from Leicester Square, delighting their souls with congenial chat. One or two had before them glasses of suspicious-looking wines, others were content with more homely ale, and all soothed their spirits by luxuriant puffing at more or less evil-odoured cigars. Their talk was of the town, towny. One related to a couple of entranced listeners the story of a recent tête-à-tête enjoyed with some second-rate favourite of the ballet, his graphic rendering of certain passages — more entertaining than polite — being received with bursts of Homeric laughter by the youths who were drinking and smoking at his expense. Another group was listening to another conte moral, which had for its subject the exploits of a gentleman referred to as “Brandy Dick,” the climax of whose practical witticisms seemed always to be reached in the Police Court. “Brandy Dick’s” very latest piece of bravery proved to be of that nature usually referred to as “assault and battery,” and, having been practised upon the person of a woman was, of course, worthy of more than ordinary applause. Deserting with regret the company of these humourists, we must pay more particular attention to a third group, consisting of four young men of somewhat more staid demeanour. They were also occupied in smoking and drinking, and their faces bore the unmistakable traces of lax lives; but they evidently belonged to a higher grade in society than the other joyous spirits. Their talk was more earnest and in lower tones. Evidently they were engaged in going to the devil by a more decorous route than that pursued by the eulogists of “Brandy Dick.”
“Oh,” exclaimed one, who wore a spruce chimney-pot and a white waistcoat, “in my opinion Fanny’s played out. Drink plays the very devil with women; when once they begin they never know how to stop. She used to be something like a singer, but you should have heard her at the Alhambra last night. She was screwed to begin with, everybody could see that; and in the last act she was simply blazing drunk.”
“Well, I’m sorry for Fan,” drawled another of the quartette, turning round a diamond ring on his finger. “She’s so devilish good-looking. I s’pose she’ll have nothing else for it now but to take a turn at the poses plastiques. She’ll always draw there.”
“Now dash it, Jack,” interposed the third, with frank directness of manner, “I always did say you were a mean devil! If I’d known Fan as well as you have, hang me if I wouldn’t fork out a quid or two for her. I wonder she don’t bother you more than she does; I would, in her place.”
“Bother me more!” exclaimed Jack, with a curl of the lip. “Why it’s a whole month since I had anything to do with her, and do you think it likely she remembers me? No, no; her acquaintances are too numerous for that.”
The other three laughed quietly, with a refinement of cold-bloodedness which would have made a humane man shudder.
“Tell you what it is, you fellows,” broke in the fourth, who had hitherto occupied himself in alternately sipping his wine and winking at the barmaids, “if Fan has a right to bother anyone, it’s Whiffle. It’s my belief,” he added, lowering his voice, “that that girl has set Whiffle up in a good deal more tin than one ‘ud like to mention. He’s a rum devil, is Whiffle, and how he comes it over the girls as he does, beats me hollow! Why, there was Lily Parker, you know, the girl who did the cheeky business at the Strand! There was good stuff in Lily, let me tell you, and she was fast getting to be a favourite, but she got so spooney on Whiffle that she let him drain her of every penny she made. What’s the result? She’s kicking up her heels at one of the Music Halls for a shilling a night, and Whiffle ‘ud see her hanged before he forked out a tanner for her.”
“Aye,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, after a moment’s silence, “but I’ve a notion Whiffle has met his match.” And he nodded his head, and winked one eye after the other, in an extremely knowing manner.
“Met his match?” asked the one called Jack. “What do you mean, Smales?”
Mr. Smales continued to smoke for a few moments, as if in disregard of the question, only removing his cigar from his lips to exclaim “How do, Polly?” to a woman who entered the restaurant by herself and sat down at one of the tables.
“I know well enough what he means,” said the fourth gentleman, at length, also assuming a deep look. “Yes, I should decidedly say that Whiffle has found his match.”
“What the deuce do you fellows mean?” cried Jack, waxing a trifle warm with impatience. “Why can’t you tell it out at once without so much mystery?”
“Don’t get excited, Jack,” interposed Smales, with a smile. “Haven’t you noticed that Whiffle has fought shy of the Argyle and the other places about here lately?”
“Why, yes. I wondered where the deuce he’d gone to.”
“Well, he has a good reason,” began Smales, when the one who appeared to share the mystery with him broke in like Marcellus in the ghost scene.
“Look!” he whispered. “Here she comes.”
All eyes were turned to the doorway, when there entered a tall girl, showily dressed, with features of considerable beauty, but spoiled by thick daubs of paint applied to conceal the pallor of the cheeks. Her face wore a devil-may-care expression very attractive to those who were not induced to reflect upon its probable significance. Her eyes had that bleared, indistinct appearance so common in girls of the town, and her features afforded numerous indications of the ruin she was bringing upon her constitution by excessive drinking. By her air and dress she appeared to belong to the aristocracy of the demimonde. Her hair was of the colour of dark gold, a hue too rich to be natural, and hung in a long single plait down to her waist. As she entered she threw back a heavy palet?t, which the coldness of the night rendered necessary, and displayed a robe of dark blue silk, the front of which gave to view the curves of a magnificent throat and bosom. After one quick glance round the room, in which she appeared to recognise only one person, she walked straight to the table at which the woman, addressed as Polly, had seated herself, and, after exchanging a few whispers with her, also assumed a seat, demanding two glasses of sherry from a waiter who passed.
Our four friends followed her with glances expressing more or less open admiration.
“Damn me!” exclaimed Jack, in a whisper, “I’ve seen that girl everywhere lately, and I’ve often meant to ask some fellow who the devil she was. Now, Smales, out with this story of yours, and don’t keep a chap so long waiting. Is that Whiffle’s match?”
Mr. Smales replied by an affirmative wink.
“And what’s more,” he added, “I’ll wager a thousand to one she’s after him to-night.”
“Ho, ho!” chuckled one of the others. “She sticks to his heels, does she? But, upon my word, she’s a devilish fine girl!”
“Drinks like a fish!” put in Smales, with an expressive nod of the head. “Didn’t you notice she lurched a little as she came in?”
“But who in the name of fate is she?” asked Jack.
“Don’t know,” replied Smales, “but I’ve a shrewd notion it was Whiffle who first got her into a scrape; and now I’ll bet he’d give a little to be rid of her. She lived with him somewhere up Bayswater way for a month or two. Then, I’ve heard, she gave him the slip with some lord or other — the devil knows who; and now she’s just on the streets again.”
“What’s her name?”
“Carrie — that’s all I know. But just stop a minute, and I’ll go and speak to Polly Hemp. If those two are up to something here, we may as well stop and see the fun.”
So, trimming his hat, and pulling down his white waistcoat, Mr. Smales picked up his cane and sauntered towards the table at which the two girls were sitting. Leaning on the back of a chair he talked to them for some five minutes, during which his companions eyed him impatiently. Then he returned with a peculiar smile about his lips.
“Well?” exclaimed Jack.
“All right, old boy,” returned the other. “It is as I thought. If we stay here a quarter of an hour longer we shall have a lark. You know Whiffle’s strong at the cards; to tell you the truth, I think that’s how he lives chiefly when he’s no miserable devil of a girl to keep him. Well, Polly Hemp knows that, and she’s promised to bring some deluded fool or other with lots of money to meet him here. But that’s only a trick, do you see, to coax Whiffle out of his hole, so that Carrie may get hold of him. It seems Carrie’s devilish hard up just now, and she’s promised Polly so much out of every quid she gets from Whiffle. Good dodge, eh?”
The three laughed in a subdued chorus, then reflected for a moment upon the scene in preparation. All looked at their watches. It was eleven, and at a quarter past Mr. Augustus Whiffle was expected. It was necessary to find some new topic to pass away the intervening time, and this was introduced by the gentleman addressed as Jack.
“Been at the Eau de Vie, lately, Hawker?” he inquired of the most silent of the party; a consumptive-looking youth with a yellow tie and staring gloves to match.
“Was there the other night,” replied Hawker, biting the end off a new cigar. Tremendous row. Jackson — you know him, Smales; Billy Jackson, the big bully you used to meet in the city — he found himself cheated at some game or other by Waghorn, so he got up and shouted out so that all in the room could hear him: ‘You’re an infernal cheat, Waghorn, and that’s all you come here for.’ Waghorn was a little screwed, and jumped out and yelled: ‘And you’re an infernal liar, Jackson, and it’s not the first time I’ve told you so.’ Then there was a scuffle, and Jackson knocked Waghorn down; the cleanest hit from the shoulder I’ve seen for many a day. My stars! It did me good!”
The others laughed heartily.
“That Waghorn’s a rum fellow,” put in Smales. “I could tell you a tale or two about him, and one particularly that Maggie Twill told me the other night at Evans’s. You know Waghorn has a big house somewhere up Regent’s Park way, and plays the nob when he’s at home. I believe he’s devilish rich, or at least was, for I should think wine and women must have made a pretty big hole in his pocket. Well, Maggie Twill and two or three other girls had been having supper with him at Evans’s, and the end of it was, as usual, that Waghorn got pretty well screwed. So Maggie, who was in for a lark, asked him whether he wasn’t going to take them all home with him, it would be so much better than his going home with one of them. And — sure enough! — at last they talked old Waghorn over into taking them all with him. So they squeezed into a cab and went off, and when they got to the old fool’s house he showed them into his drawing-room, and brought out his best wine, and they all began to kick up an awful shindy. This was between one and two in the morning, mind. Well, just when the row had got to its height, and when old Waghorn, with his arm around two of the girls, was dancing round the room, suddenly the door opened, and Mrs. Waghorn made her appearance in a dressing-gown and with a wrapper round her. Maggie says her eyes flashed fire and she looked like the very devil. But she only waited for a minute, then slammed the door terrifically and disappeared. What a joke it must have been!”
The laughter which greeted this story was uproarious, but it was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of no less a person than Mr. Augustus Whiffle. All eyes turned rapidly from him to the table where the girls were sitting. Polly had faced round and was beckoning to the new-comer, but her companion was completely hidden behind a large newspaper she affected to be reading. With a nod to the assembled gentlemen, Augustus, whose “get up” was the perfection of dandyism, sauntered in the direction of the beckoning girl. As soon as he had reached the table, the newspaper which had concealed the other, fell, and his face paled slightly as he found himself before Carrie.
“Awfully sorry,” said Polly, with a rather malicious grin. “I couldn’t persuade the gentleman to come to-night, so I looked in with a lady friend of yours. I thought you’d, maybe, like to see her.”
Whiffle leaned forward on the marble-topped table, with his back to the bar, as if conscious that so many eyes were watching him, and spoke to Carrie with suppressed anger.
“What do you want with me now?” he asked. “You’ll gain nothing, you know, by making a scene here, so you might as well talk quietly.”
“You know very well what I want,” replied Carrie, tossing her head slightly, and avoiding his eye. “You owe me a five-pound note, and want to get out of paying it.”
“Owe it you? For what?”
“Didn’t you promise me a five-pound note when I left you and went to live with you know who? And didn’t I promise you in return that I wouldn’t ask you for any more money as long as I lived?”
“Promise you five pounds!” repeated Whiffle, with quiet scorn. “I never promised you anything at all — except the lock-up if you come pestering me any more.”
Those parts of Carrie’s features which were not smeared with rouge turned deadly pale. Her eyes flashed terrible anger, and for a moment her fist clenched as though she would have struck him.
“You’re a devil!” she hissed out, close to his face. “You’ve been a curse to me twice now. If it hadn’t been for you I might have been a respectable girl still, and when I had a chance of going back to a quiet life you came and enticed me away again.”
And she uttered curse after curse, in a tone clearly audible to the young men at the bar, who laughed aside with the utmost glee.
“Carrie, you’re a —— fool,” replied Whiffle, endeavouring to appear calm. “If you’re short of money you know how to get it, well enough, without sponging on me for it. Go to your husband and get it from him!”
Carrie’s face now flushed a deep red, and for a moment she could not speak. A reply was on her lips when Polly Hemp, who had listened hitherto with a cool smile, broke in with an exclamation of surprise.
“Her husband! Why, I never knew as you was married, Carrie?”
“No more I am!” replied the girl, hoarse with passion. “No more I am! It’s one of that devil’s lies! He’ll say anything to spite me, and to get out of paying what he owes me. I look much like a married woman, don’t I, Polly?”
And she laughed, a bitter laugh at her own expense. Amid all the degradation of her broken life this terrible laugh was a proof that there still existed some fragments of a better nature. In reply to the laugh, Whiffle smiled, and winked at Polly.
“You may think you’ll escape me,” cried Carrie, seeing that the young man stood up as if to go, “and so you may do tonight. But I’ll have the money out of you — if I steal it. You don’t mind stealing all I’ve got, and why shouldn’t I take what I can? So look out! You may laugh, but if I dash this wineglass in your face you’ll laugh in a different way.”
Her excitement had risen so high that she spoke in a voice audible to everyone present. One or two waiters ran up to prevent an outbreak, and, whilst they were enjoining silence, Whiffle quietly turned and walked out of the restaurant. Carne and her companion shortly followed, the former replying with a glance of the haughtiest scorn to one young man who was so daring as to invite her to drink with him.
“What did he mean when he spoke of your husband, Carne?” asked Polly, as they issued together into the street.
“He meant a lie, I tell you!” replied Carrie, turning fiercely on her questioner. “Husband, indeed! What have I got to do with husbands! Perhaps you believe I’m a married woman with children, do you?”
“Well, well, don’t look as though you’d eat me!” exclaimed the other, turning away her head with a laugh. “There’s no harm in asking a question, I hope, is there?”
This Polly Hemp was as evil-looking a personage as one could encounter in the streets of London. Not that she was ugly in her features, for she had, indeed, what some would call a fine face. But it was the expression of this face which impressed the beholder more than its mere outlines, and that was wholly and absolutely evil. She had greenish eyes, out of which gleamed malice, and cunning, and lust, and every bad passion which could be imagined as lurking in a woman’s heart. She had a habit of holding her lips slightly apart, so as to exhibit the remnants of a very fine set of teeth, which now had a fierce, resentful, tigerish air about them. In stature she was short, and rather stout. This woman could never have been other than evil-minded, but long years spent on the streets, and in all those nameless vicissitudes which, as a rule, render the prostitute’s life mercifully brief, had reduced her to something far more akin to beast than man. Of iron constitution, she still, at the age of forty, showed no sign of yielding health, though she drank desperately, and had several times been almost killed in the fierce brawls which were her delight. Among Polly’s numerous friends and acquaintances it was generally believed that she was saving money. Some said that she still looked forward to settling down to an old age of respectable comfort; and wits had been known to assert that she contemplated devoting her money to the erection of a church. In any case it is certain that, among Polly’s endless passions, avarice was that which she most carefully nursed. To obtain money she would do anything, her unscrupulousness being only matched by her skill in avoiding discovery. Such a woman was a hopeful companion for Carrie.
The two sauntered along side by side through some of the back streets of Soho. Carrie was gloomy, and but little disposed for conversation; but her companion seemed especially talkative.
“And what’s to be done now?” she asked, stopping by a public-house at a street corner.
“What do you mean?” replied Carrie, carelessly.
“Where’s tin to be got?”
“I don’t care if I never get it,” returned the other, humming a tune under her breath.
“Don’t you? But I do, I can tell you. You seem to forget as you owe me three weeks board and lodging. Why don’t you look out for money like the other girls do?”
“Never mind what I do and what I don’t do,” replied Carne, impatiently. “You’ll get your money some day, if I have to go and steal it, and that ought to be enough.”
“Well, well; there’s no call to have a row over a few pounds, is there?” rejoined Polly, looking askance at her companion. “Come, it’s near closing time. What are you going to drink, Carrie?”
The girl appeared to hesitate for a moment, but her own pockets were empty and the temptation was irresistible. She followed her evil genius into the gin-palace and they mingled with a thick crowd which was clustering about the bar, all eagerly swallowing as much as they could before the place closed.
Polly had called out in a stentorian voice for “two brandies hot,” and had turned to talk to an acquaintance who stood near, when Carrie, who heeded nothing that was going on around, was suddenly startled by having her arm grasped. A half-drunken woman was standing by her side, calling to her by name and asking her to drink.
“Don’t you know me?” hiccoughed the woman. “You’re too proud to come an see me an my daughters now-a-days, I reckon? Why don’t you come an’ drink a quiet glass like as you used to, eh?”
After some little difficulty Carrie recognised the speaker as her old landlady, Mrs. Pole. Seeing that the latter had no command over herself, and fearing lest some reference to her husband should catch Polly Hemp’s ear, she took hold of the woman’s arm and tried to draw her away to a different bar. But Mrs. Pole, who was at the obstinately merry stage in her cups, refused to budge, and talked on in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. Carrie saw, moreover, that Polly had turned round and was listening.
“And ‘ow’s yer ‘usband?” cried Mrs. Pole, with a jocose wink. “What’s ee got to say to yer comin’ to such-like places as these o’ nights? He-he-he! I ain’t got no ‘usband, I ain’t; ain’t I lucky?”
Polly turned away her head to hide a particularly malicious grin as she heard these remarks. She had no wish to let Carne see that she heard, so she at once began talking to some men who were near her. Nevertheless she kept an eye upon Mrs. Pole, and when, shortly after the lights were lowered, and the crowd of excited drinkers reeled and crushed out into the street, with hideous laughter, and screaming, and yells, Polly eluded her former companion and followed the other woman some distance along the street. At length she went up to her. The formation of an acquaintance between two such individuals is no difficult or ceremonious matter, and Polly Hemp speedily received and accepted an invitation to take a glass in Mrs. Pole’s kitchen. The latter was at present living in Gerrard Street.
The result of this interview was seen on the following morning. Shortly before noon Polly Hemp issued forth from the dingy abode which, with playful reference to the character of its inmates, she was wont to term her “Convalescent Home,” and attired in the manner of a highly respectable matron, wended her way to Huntley Street. Here she speedily found the house in which Arthur’s brief married life had been spent, and in a conversation with worthy Mrs. Oaks, was deeply grieved that the latter could afford her no intelligence whatever as to the whereabouts of her dear nephew, Mr. Golding. On second thoughts, however, Mrs. Oaks recollected that she knew the address of an intimate friend of Mr. Golding, namely, Mark Challenger, and she suggested that in all probability the distressed lady might be able to derive from this latter gentleman the information she desired. Polly Hemp accordingly took her leave with a profusion of thanks, and later in the day waited upon Mr. Challenger, at his lodging in Gower Place.
Here she played a different r?le, namely, that of the aunt of Mrs. Golding. She had known the address in Huntley Street, she said, but, on calling there, had been bitterly disappointed to find her niece departed, no one knew whither. Simple-hearted Mark Challenger was the last person to suspect fraud in such a case. By means of a few carefully-framed questions he elicited, as he thought, the fact that his visitor knew nothing of Carrie’s absconding, and then, unwilling to be the conveyer of such disagreeable intelligence, he contented himself with giving her Arthur’s present address. With a gleam of joyful hope irradiating the melancholy of her countenance, honest Polly Hemp took her leave with many expressions of gratitude.
All this happened a few days after the interview between Helen and Arthur recorded in the last chapter. This afternoon Arthur had hurried home as quickly as possible from his work, and, without thinking of refreshment, had sat down at once at the table in his bedroom, inspired with the utmost ardour for his work. On the previous day he had purchased several plaster casts, and from one of these — a head of a Venus — he was engaged in making a drawing in crayon. He had placed his lamp so as to afford a striking effect of light and shade, and, having roughly sketched in the outlines, was commencing, with a hand which trembled with delight, to work at some of the broad shadows, when he was suddenly interrupted by a tap at his door. Unable to rise, he called out “Come in!” and Lucy Venning responded.
“There is a lady down stairs who wishes to see you, Mr. Golding,” she said, looking, as she spoke, with curiosity at Arthur’s work.
At the word “lady” Arthur had involuntarily started to his feet, and his blood, which had just now been coursing so warmly through his veins, seemed suddenly chilled. Had Lucy been looking at his face she must have noticed that he had suddenly turned pale, but luckily her attention was fixed upon the cast and the drawing.
“A lady?” repeated Arthur, as soon as he could speak, doing his best to make his tone one of mere surprise. “Whoever can it be? Is it an old lady, Miss Venning?”
“Yes; she looks rather old,” replied Lucy.
Arthur sighed with relief; but the next moment a vague fear took possession of him. He stood reflecting.
“How very beautiful that is, Mr. Golding!” exclaimed Lucy, who seemed almost to have forgotten her errand in her admiration of the drawing. “Is this how you always employ yourself? I had no idea that you could draw.”
“A little,” he replied, doing his best to smile. “But I suppose the lady is waiting?”
“Oh yes; she is in the parlour. There is no one in, and I thought it best to take her there.”
“Thank you,” replied Arthur, speaking mechanically. “I will go down at once.”
He turned and went down-stairs, leaving Lucy to close the room door. In the parlour he found the middle-aged, respectably-attired lady whom the reader is of course prepared to recognize as Polly Hemp.
“Mr. Golding, I think?” she began, with a slightly affected cough, as soon as Arthur had entered the room.
The young man bowed acquiescence, assuring himself the while that this visitor was an absolute stranger to him.
“Then,” continued Polly, “I may as well say what I’ve got to say at once. My name’s Mrs. Hemp, and I’m a quiet widow as keeps a lodging-house Piccadilly way. It’s now about a month since a young lady, as called herself Miss Mitchell, came and took a room in my house, which the rent of it, together with two meals a day, was to be twenty-five shillings a week. I don’t as a rule like taking single ladies, they’re often fast-like, you know, sir; but this one seemed so very respectable-looking as I couldn’t think of refusing her. Well, she come to me, and she paid the first week’s rent in advance, as of course I always make it a rule. But, since that, she hasn’t paid no rent at all. And that isn’t the worst. I soon began to find out as she wasn’t at all proper — had gentlemen to visit her at all hours, and such like things, you see, sir. Well, that of course would be the ruin of a respectable house like mine, so I just give her notice, and thought to myself I must just be content to be at the loss of my money. When she was going, the other day, I asked her if she meant to pay me what was due, and she said as she hadn’t no means of paying, but that she was married — a thing I never knew before — and if I liked she’d give me a letter to take to her husband, asking him, you see, to pay the rent as was due. She couldn’t tell me just where her husband lived, but she told me to go to a Mr. Challenger, as lives near the Euston Road, and he would give me your address, you see. So I went, and Mr. Challenger give me your address, and I’ve come to see whether you’ll be so good as to pay me what your wife owes. And here’s the letter.”
So saying, Polly produced a sheet of note-paper, on which was written the following, in a hand very admirably imitated from poor Carrie’s scrawl. This was not the first occasion on which Polly Hemp had found skill in forgery, a very important feature of her stock-intrade: —
“Dear Arthur, —
“Will you please pay Mrs. Hemp three pound fifteen which is what I rightly owe her. I am sorry to trouble you, but I have no money and she says she can get it from you in a cort if it isnt paid.
“Yours afectiontely, “Carrie.”
Arthur held this scrawl in his hand for some minutes after reading it, unable to speak, scarcely to think. Not for a moment did a doubt of its genuineness cross his mind. He recognised too well the old hand-writing which he had striven so hard to improve, and even thought that he remembered some of poor Carrie’s pet faults in spelling. The indelicacy of the act shocked him, and yet he felt that it was only too much in harmony with what he knew, or thought he knew, of Carrie’s character. At this moment there was a strange warfare in heart. Convinced as he was that his old love was dead past reviving, he yet felt a deep pity excited in him by what he had heard. That which we have once intensely loved can never be wholly indifferent to us, and the thought of Carrie, she who was still his wife, fallen into hideous vice and wretchedness, pulled terribly at his heart-strings. And if pity was awakened, a sterner voice, that of conscience, also began to speak within him. He could not forget that he had made no serious effort to discover his wife and bring her back to live with him. In the months which had intervened since their parting he had frequently consoled himself with the reflection that this marriage, which was a mere name, a form, had in reality been rendered null and void by Carrie’s own behaviour. For all that he could not help feeling at times that he had blinded himself by a sophism, and at the present moment he experienced a pang of actual remorse.
“And where is — is she now?” he asked at length, recalled to a sense of the business in hand by a cough from his visitor.
“I don’t know no more than you do, sir,” was the reply, with a shrug. “People as leaves houses without paying their rents ain’t so ready to let one know where they go to.”
Again there was a pause, during which Arthur struggled between his desire to question this woman further with regard to Carrie, and the feeling of disgust which her face and tone excited in him. Polly naturally thought he was reflecting whether he should pay or not, and did her best to assume the look of one patient under injury.
“Did she say anything else to you about me,” asked Arthur, at length, “except that I might perhaps pay her debts?”
“Nothing else as I remember,” replied Polly, after a moment of rapid reflection.
“Did — did she seem in good health when she was in your house?” was Arthur’s next question.
“Moderate well, I think sir,” replied Polly.
“And you know nothing whatever of her at present?”
“No more than you do yourself, sir.”
Arthur sighed as his eye again fell upon the note.
“If you will excuse me for a minute,” he then said, “I will fetch the money for you.”
He went up to his room and returned in a very few minutes, holding the money in his hand. He had of late resumed his habit of parsimonious living, and every penny he could save was put aside in fear of unexpected calls upon him.
“You will write me a receipt on the back of this note,” he said, laying the letter upon the table. “Please to put your address at the top; it might someday be useful to me.”
Polly wrote the desired form, adding, it is needless to say, a fictitious address, and, with a hand which trembled in spite of herself, took the money and dropped it into her purse.
“I hope, sir,” she said, as she rose, in a tone of dignified humility, “I hope as you don’t think I’ve done wrong in coming and troubling you about this little matter. Though I do my best to keep up a respectable appearance I’m only a poor woman, and I could ill afford to lose three weeks’ rent. I hope you understand me, sir.”
“I understand perfectly,” replied Arthur, in an absent manner, without looking at her.
“Then I wish you good-night, with many thanks, sir,” said Polly.
“Good-night,” returned Arthur, leading the way mechanically to the door.
He returned to his room, and for an hour paced the floor in the old manner, grievously troubled in mind. But the absolute silence of the house, the genial warmth of the fire in his grate, the dim light in the room (for the rays of the lamp were concentrated, by means of a reflector, full upon the bust), these at length operated with calming effect upon him. His thoughts slipped from gloomy imaginations of Carrie’s sufferings to the interview with Helen Norman. Here was an antidote for all ills. Opening a drawer, always kept carefully locked, he took out his portrait of Helen, which he had obtained again from Will Noble. Preferring this original drawing to any subsequent copy, he had carefully patched together the torn halves, and had enclosed the whole in a simple frame. He did not venture to hang it openly in his room, but at night, when the house was still, and he alone awake, he hung it up on the wall before him, that the calm, sweet look of the beautiful eyes might afford a never-failing source of courage and inspiration. This he did now, after imprinting a kiss upon the outlined lips, and at once he recovered his interrupted zeal, and so laboured far into the night.
In the meantime Polly Hemp had regained her abode, joy in her heart and money in her purse. Before letting herself In with the latch-key she obeyed her invariable habit and looked up at all the windows on the front of the house. There was no light save in one on the top floor, and Polly smiled to herself as she recognised Carrie’s presence. But the smile was immediately followed by a frown. This was no time for her young lady lodgers to be taking their ease at home. To do so had, however, been frequently Carrie’s custom of late. Polly entered with a determination to speak seriously.
The house was perfectly quiet, and perfectly dark. Polly, who always walked about with an ominously light and cat-like step, seemed also to have the eyes of a cat, for she guided herself without the slightest noise along the passage and down a short flight of steps. Then she stopped and called with a low voice down into the realms of darkness.
“Jo! Jo!”
A species of growl was the only reply. Probably it was a dog whom she thus addressed by his name. And yet that could hardly be so, for she went on to ask questions.
“Anyone been, Jo?”
“Not as I knows on,” replied the voice, with a drunken hiccough.
“Anyone in?”
“Not as I knows on.”
“Then you’re a fool, Jo,” rejoined Polly, still in the same quiet voice, “and you’ll get the sack if you don’t know your business better. Carrie’s in?”
“Don’t reckon her,” replied the man, for such appeared to be the speaker. “She’s always in. She come in above an hour sen’.”
“Alone?”
“Of course.”
“You’re half drunk, Jo,” said Polly, after a moment’s silence. “I shall have to find another bully, mind if I don’t.”
Another growl was the only response, and this terminated the conversation. Polly then retraced her steps with equal silence into the passage, and thence up to the top of the house. She tried the door of Carrie’s room, and it opened.
It was a rather ill-furnished bedroom, with here and there traces of worn-out finery which had probably been removed from the better rooms below. As well as the bed, there was a sofa, and, hung against the wall, a long gilt-framed mirror, cracked across the middle. On the floor was a strip of carpet which had once been gaudy, and the chairs were seated with what had formerly been bright green cloth, now resembling a dingy yellow. In one corner was a spittoon, and a man’s old hat was hanging on a peg behind the door. On the sofa lay the present occupant of this chamber. She had apparently thrown off her palet?t on entering, and she lay in her blue silk dress, which was open at the bosom. She was asleep, a heavy, drunken sleep, more resembling a state of insensibility than ordinary slumber. The cushion had slipped from under her head, which drooped almost to the floor, and her features were terribly distorted and discoloured by the position. One hand was clasped on the back of the sofa, the other lay on the floor. Lying thus, Carrie might have served for a personification of brutal drunkenness.
On the table was the lamp which illumined the room, and, close to it, a spirit bottle and a glass, the former empty, the latter still containing a few drops. But the table showed something more interesting to Polly than these everyday objects. There, glistening in the light of the lamp, lay three bright sovereigns. Polly no longer paid any attention to the sleeping girl, but at once seized on the coins and clasped them in her fist. Then, with a hideous grin upon her face, and still treading with the utmost quietness, she glided from the room, muttering to herself, “At last!”