A Bachelor Girl in London

Chapter I

Two great incandescent gas burners beat and glowed on the heads of half a hundred men and women in a lighted restaurant, and the mingled odours of various forms of cooked meat and vegetables rose with the heated air in one vast unappetising smell toward the ceiling. The room was filled with small tables fit only for two persons, and, in spite of the fact that at many of them one woman sat alone, the penetrating din of chatter rang with the clatter of knives and forks into every corner of the room. There was a certain indifference of attitude about some of the solitary ones, which showed that the place was a home to them ; they did not wear their public manners, but read, or rested their elbows on the tables. One of them replaced the page of her book several times as it fluttered over with the hurrying to and fro of the waitresses, but at last she gave up the attempt, and closed it.

She had hardly done a JBacbelor (Birl in Xon&ott 2 so before a woman, some years her senior in appearance, and probably more so in years, sat down opposite to her. " Got any work yet, Miss Danville ? " she asked abruptly. The girl shook her head. The newcomer, who earned her living by interviewing, looked at her keenly to fill up the gap, as she had often filled gaps before, by what she called intuition, but by what was in reality the work of her own imagination. The strong, pale face opposite gave her no encouragement to proceed. " What shall you do if you can't get work _ " "I have not yet decided." " Shall you stay on here ? " " Possibly." " These are wonderful places, these great mansions for women ; one has all the freedom of rooms, and the comforts of a club. Do you find it economical ?

" " I have not tried any other place in London, so I have no means ot judging," answered Judith Danville calmly. Miss Wilton was not to be baffled. One of her theories was that the " science " of interviewing might be practised in daily life ; and it was not so much the value of the information abstracted as the cleverness of the abstraction that fascinated her. " You are on the fourth floor ? " " Yes." Judith did not betray that she too was playing the game consciously. " Those rooms are cheaper than the lower ones? a Bacbelor (Btrl in Xonbon 3 " Are they 3 " " I think so. What do you pay for yours ? " " I pay rather more because they are furnished." The conversation came abruptly to an end, for an attendant announced that a gentleman was waiting for Miss Wilton, and with a forcible exclamation to the effect that she had asked him to dinner and forgotten all about it she vanished hastily.

Judith watched her retreat with a faint smile, then she paid her reckoning, and mounted leisurely to her room. The room was in darkness save for the broad reflection of the street lamps below thrown on the ceiling through the unshuttered window. Judith groped for the matches, found the box, and shook it ; it was empty. She was helpless in the darkness, and went down on her knees to find a fresh box among the biscuit tins, where she kept her stores. A hook on her sleeve caught in the table-cloth ; this she released with an impa tient jerk, and immediately heard something fall with a crash on the floor ; too late she remembered the jam pot had been there ; slowly its sticky contents oozed out over the linoleum. She made no attempt to repair the damage. After looking at it hopelessly for a moment, she gave up her quest, and climbing on the box, which stood in her broad window recess, she settled down there.

A sullen sense of despair crept into the girl's heart ; she had been in London three weeks now, and she felt more homesick than she could have believed possible. Judith belonged by birth and training to the a Bacbelor (Btrl in Xonbon 4 county of North Miningshire in the far north country. Her father had been a doctor near the market town of Ellerton. At one period of his career Dr. Danville had achieved something re sembling success ; he had become the fashion at a certain seaside place much frequented by rich invalids. It was then that he had met and married his wife, Lucy Helsham. Her family had been bitterly opposed to the match, and after the death of her parents her only brother, Sir Edward Helsham, had dropped her altogether. Dr. Dan ville's spell of prosperity had been brief, he had invested in a country practice, and bought the Grange, an old house near Ellerton ; but it was a change from bad to worse.

Poor Mrs. Danville had quickly felt the grind of poverty to which she was not accustomed, and changed into a disappointed and over-burdened mother. Four little girls were born to her in succession, and of these Judith was the second. She was of quite a different type from the others, who were sharp, pretty, fair-haired children with much of the Helsham charm of manner. Judith's hair always hung in the lank, brown wisps known in nursery parlance as "rats' tails," — rats' tails, which have more infantine and girlish misery to answer for than any other physical defect — her nose was large and prominent, and her hands awkward and generally red. Mrs. Danville employed a governess as the cheapest method of education, and left the children entirely under her authority, seldom seeing them or interfering with them in any way.

The governess was consequently a minor deity with unlimited powers of punishment. Judith was reserved, morbid, excitable ; she had all the most difficult of a child's defects, and the governess utterly failed to understand her. By way of punishment she took the child's pleasures from her one by one until she had reduced her to a threadbare state of existence. Judith was an inveterate reader, therefore in the limited play-hours all books were prohibited. She wove prodigious romances which had no beginning and no end, in which she and her sisters figured in various heroic characters — generally masculine. These romances were placed under a solemn ban ; Miss Evans said that by their means she was corrupting her sisters. When the serious midday walk along the country roads took place Judith was sent on twenty yards ahead, and walked with the burning consciousness of being pilloried.

A child has none of the self respect which is such a barrier to this sort of tyranny, it has not learnt that one condemnation is by no means exhaustive. The schoolroom was Judith's world, and if its opinion pronounced judgment against her she had no appeal. At times she thought herself a very demon out of hell, a thought which grew when she shut herself up between the great double doors of the school room, and stamped and kicked in silence, calling Miss Evans every expletive in her limited voca bulary. These outbursts relieved her heated feelings for a time, but she recalled them with shame, believing that in them she found proof of her unregenerate condition. Miss Evans frightened her. When she attempted <$irl in Xonbon to repeat a " lesson by heart " she broke down from nervousness, though she could have said it perfectly to one of her sisters five minutes before.

" This is not stupidity, it is pure naughtiness," announced Miss Evans, after a repetition of these failures. " You can do things better than any of the others when you try." This dictum was always followed by weary sitting on a high backed chair in the stuffy room when the child was longing for the fresh air, the delights of " nutting " or doll roasting over an improvised fire in the back garden. Even in those days the wild fires of impetuosity burned brightly in Judith ; she could not take her ostracism dully, but moped and fretted. Her pillow was constantly soaked with tears. Once Miss Evans accused her of lying. "I didn't," Judith persisted. Night after night the governess came into the room, and, after kissing and fondling Winny, Judith's junior, approached the victim. " Did you tell a lie ?

" and receiving the quiver ing answer " No," went away in silence. But children are not made of stern stuff; Judith yearned for love, and choked herself with sorrow because Miss Evans would not love her. One night she varied the formula. " I'll say I did, if you like " That won't do." " Oh, then I did, and do love me, please, Miss Evans." She earned a cold kiss, but slept no better, because of a sensitive conscience. When Judith was fourteen her mother died. A sort of gloomy interregnum followed, a period of black frocks and extreme depression, when a smile was naughtiness and a laugh a crime. Looked upon from the heights of successive years this time always seemed like a strip of coarse black stuff cutting across the pattern of life. In four years' time Dr. Danville married again. Nothing in after life ever seemed quite so won derfil and incomprehensible as this news to the Dan/ille girls.

They looked upon their father as an old, old man, he had been considerably the senior of his first wife ; his second marriage had not entered into their calculations at all, and they went about publishing the news as a phenomenon of world-wide interest. The new Mrs. Danville was about six-and thirtT, had about five hundred pounds a year of her own, and one of her sisters was married to a very wealthy man and lived in London. This was all her step-daughters knew about her. When she came to live at the Grange they rather liked her. Kate had a heart — a fact which Judith discovered at once. She had also a singularly good opinion of herself, and matched her pre decessor in egotism ; but she was young, bright, and cheerful. She took the eldest girl, Dora, up to London for a season, and tried to make a good match for her ; but Dora returned to Ellerton and married the son of a neighbouring clergyman, who had a berth as a civil engineer near Sheffield.

The London experiment was not repeated, but Mrs. Danville did the best for her step-daughters in local society. She made no secret of the fact that Judith was her favourite, though she had occasional passages of arms with her. Mrs. Danville was passionately fond of driving, and imbued her step-daughter with her own love for it ; together they flew about the country in a high dogcart. Yet the idleness of the life had few attractions for Judith ; she wanted to be, to do, not to stagnate. She was by this time quite as good-looking as her sisters, a straight-limbed girl with a pale face and shining grey eyes, yet she gave no encouragement to the youths of the neighbouring town, though Connie and Winny always had some budding love affair on hand. Judith had secret literary aspirations — at once the hope and despair of every girl whose mind is vider than her environment ; she learnt shorthand and type-writing, but all her scribblings returned to her, and stamps for further trials were hatd to obtain.

When she was twenty-three Dr. Danville died. He had become very much of a recluse in the last year or two, but his worn face lost its lines in death. Kate and Judith shed hot tears, and clung together with the memory of many unkind words rising up in judgment against them. For all his scraping, the doctor had left but an annuity of twenty pounds apiece to each daughter, and to his wife the house. Mrs. Danville was very generous, assuring the girls that while she lived they should never need a home, yet it seemed to Judith that the jolt for which she had been vaguely waiting had come at last, and that she was to be lifted out of her rul by some external power. She tentatively sug gested to Mrs. Danville that she should go up to Town to earn her own living, but, as she hae expected, she met with much opposition, and the matter remained in abeyance for about six months.

Yet the time was not wasted ; with a quiet per sistence Judith perfected herself in shorthand — which she had already learnt — and mastered the art of type-writing ; then at Christmas she broached the subject a second time. Mrs. Danville gave a half-hearted assent ; perhaps she had found the task of supporting three girls was a more serious drain on her resources than she had anticipated, and though she would rather have spared one of the others they had no equipment with which to fight their own battles. Therefore Judith had flung herself into that great whirlpool which has swept so many girls out of the country with souls full of a certain melancholy ambition. At first there had been an eager determination to win ; she had money which, with care, would last her five weeks, partly advanced by her step mother from that which would be due to her in April, and partly saved from what she had already had ; but by the end of three weeks her hopes had been somewhat dashed.

She had been over whelmed by discovering what herds of poverty stricken, unattached women there were in the world. They were all striving and scraping in order to live decently ; some had grown old and wizened in the struggle, others went sullenly on day by day, doing work which was toilsome, un congenial, and poorly paid, hating their lives, but seeing no hope, and uncomplaining from mere want of any surplus vitality. During the three weeks Judith had made many weary pilgrimages after appointments relating to clerkships and type-writing ; she had climbed up many a long flight of stairs, had bearded clerks in editorial offices, and had struggled to make herself a footing in this seething world. Some times access to editorial sanctums had been altogether denied her, but frequently a young assistant editor, whose courtesy was only equalled by his lack of authority, had been sent to her.

He could promise nothing, and arrange nothing, but he would see that the manuscript received every consideration, and as for regular work, that was out ofthe question. "We have difficulty in finding employment for our permanent staff as it is." Sometimes, rarely, Judith saw the editor him self. These occasions she enjoyed, and her only anxiety was to state her business as briefly as possible, so as not to make him repent his clemency in admitting her. She gained some useful hints from these interviews, as to the sort of work which might find a market, but the unattainable word " topical " haunted her. How could she write topical articles ? An event happened, and she never knew of it until she read it described by armies of special reporters in the papers, and on what subject save her own dear home-country had she any special knowledge ?

On the evening in question she was doubly depressed, because she had made a fool of herself. She had that afternoon been admitted to an editor's room, and had been, as usual, courteously received. She had been seized with desperate nervousness — not a common failing of hers — and had knocked some papers off his table as she rose to go. When she reached the door, she recollected leaving a book behind, and stepped back to get it ; the editor found it and handed it to her. Halfway across the room again she dropped some thing, and, in stooping to pick it up, down fell the book. She ended by inadvertently banging the door, and retired into the street in an abject state of mortification. This sort of external trifle is far more irritating to recall than many a deeper trouble ; do what she would Judith could not get rid of the prickles.

The editor had told her to leave the manuscript for his perusal, but she had no hope of a successful issue ; she could imagine his smiling at the recollection of her awkwardness every time he looked at it ; how could he expect anything worth reading from such a gauche, uncouth, country girl ? All at once at this remembrance she broke down, and began to cry slowly and hopelessly as a child cries when it thinks it is left quite alone in the dark ; there was no apparent reason why she should not indulge in this pastime until the morning, it was out of the question that any one should come to disturb her, and directly the lone liness of it dawned upon her, and the futility of looking for any chance of external comfort, she wiped her eyes and leaned out, looking into the street below. It was the month of February, and the weather was cold and unsettled.

It had been raining and the pavements were wet, but the street boys were playing as usual, wild, vigorous games with method and organisation in them, not such games as country children play. When Judith had first come up to Town she had spent whole evenings watching them, with a delighted fascination, and she had often ached to join in their sport and forget herself in the excitement of childhood once more ; to-night the ache was worse than usual. She had learned all the lads' names from hearing them call to each other, and she knew all the inhabitants who lived in the alleys and courts of the somewhat squalid tenements opposite — there was " Elf," synonym for Alf, a keen-faced, red haired little mortal, with twisted legs and indomit able spirit, who wore shoes so much too large for him that half his time was occupied in running after them in reclamation, and Dick, a good natured, round boy, who liked standing about and adding to the polish on the iron post by the corner of the public-house, and Charlie, a tiny little brat with the temper of a devil.

It was a world of character and circumstance, within a larger world. They, at all events, were all friendly and happy and had no care for the future so long as present wants were satisfied ; but the future pressed very heavily on Judith. The sense of being alone was new to her. At home every one knew her by sight, and even if she were not instantly recognised by the shopkeepers in the country town, she had only to mention her name to be served without any request for payment. Here she was only one person of no particular importance among crowds of others ; rules would not be relaxed in her favour ; if she could not pay for a thing she must go without it. Then the future hung over her, she seemed only to-night to have realised that she could look forward to no tn Xonbon 13 safe and certain future.

It would be absolutely impossible to live on her step-mother's bounty ; besides, Kate might marry at any time. As it was, Winny and Connie were pensioners and had no claim to the bread they ate. There were a few uncles and aunts, relations of their father's, who might perhaps give them a temporary home if they were ever quite destitute, but these had families of their own, and were by no means well off; of her mother's relations Judith knew nothing. What then was to happen to her eventually ? What did happen to girls who had lived on at home until their parents died, and then were left practically penniless ? They sank down somewhere in odd holes and corners, and one heard no more of them. One of them might perhaps go to cousins ; another obtain a situation as housekeeper — for which she was quite incompetent — through the influence of friends ; a third might be taken in by a married sister, if the family boasted such a thing : but all would be more or less dependent burdens on unwilling purses.

Heaven defend her from such a fate ! It seemed to Judith that all her life she had been sitting on the shore looking out over the sea. She had seen and heard of piteous shipwrecks taking place, but it had never occurred to her that the solid ground might be cut away from under her own feet, and she set afloat on a ramshackle raft, with the depth of the green water below the frail planks. She thought she had not been so careful of that precious store of money as she might have been ; every shilling gained more than its intrinsic value when it could not be replaced by any means. She had no right to think of dining in the restaurant, and eating heartily. Treacle was cheaper than jam, and a 2lb. packet of Quaker oats for breakfast porridge cost only sixpence ! She crept humbly to bed in the dark, bruised by a terrible sense of her own incompetency.

Yet the morning brought hope. There were two letters for her. One from her step-mother, cheery and bright, saying that her sister, Mrs. Amoore, had returned to Town and had written very kindly about Judith ; she would be glad to see her for supper on Sunday evening at her house on Chelsea Embankment, and would Judith take this as an invitation. The other was from a self important person who signed herself Mrs. Eves, editress of Our Personal News. She said she had heard of Judith, through a mutual friend, as a person likely to do good journalistic work, and she would be glad to see her. She was only passing through London, and was staying a couple of nights at the First Avenue Hotel, Holborn ; if Judith would go there that evening at nine-thirty she would give her what work she could. This was so exciting that the girl's heart beat high.

Go ? Of course she would, she would have walked there barefoot to get work. She racked her brains to discover the unknown friend who had done her such service. Was this really the first rung on the ladder of success ? She wrote to Mrs. Amoore accepting the in vitation for Sunday night, and thought joyfully that by that time she might be able to say, off hand, that she was attached to the staff of Our Personal News. The fact that she could not obtain that celebrated periodical at a news shop, and that the shopman had never heard of it, did not damp her ardour a whit ; it might have a provincial circulation of thousands.

Chapter II

Punctually at the time stated in Mrs. Eves' letter Judith arrived at the top of Chancery Lane ; as she was quick at finding her way about, and an earnest student of maps, she already knew the main arteries of the great body of London. She had never been in an hotel before, and consequently felt a little nervous; but she was not given to betraying nervousness, except on very rare occasions, and with only a shade more than the usual stiffness in her manner she entered the hall of the hotel. She went forward and addressed the first attendant that she saw, by whom she was waved to the inquiry bureau, and while a page-boy was despatched to find Mrs. Eves she sat waiting on a settee. Everything was new to her, the big plants, the tesselated floor, the brilliant light, and the people who passed for ever in and out ; a strange, dreamlike excitement possessed her, she did not hear the page-boy until he had addressed her twice, and then she followed him upstairs.

The corridor above was large, and there was only one person in it, who looked continually back over her shoulder with a restless, hurried glance ; she came forward at Judith's appearance. " I am Mrs. Eves," she said ; " I conclude you are Miss Danville — quite right. I feel sure you will excuse my taking you into my bedroom ; we professional women have no ease of life, I assure you ; my husband is interviewing some one in the sitting-room, and there are so many claims. You don't mind ? That is very good of you, pray be seated. Now, Miss Danville, you know who I am, the editress of Our Personal News. I am sure you have heard of it? " Judith hesitated at the pause, but her blunt country training had not yet been softened and shaped to finesse by the world of London, and though she might have said truthfully she had heard of it, though the knowledge were but a day old, she preferred the deliberate truth and said no. Mrs. Eves did not seem much perturbed.

" Here is a copy," she said, producing a little broadside, rather resembling a parish magazine in size and shape. " Our great aim and object is to bring people into touch with one another, the craving for a knowledge of individuality is one of the most hopeful signs of the present day. I see you, I form an opinion of you, I have touched you, henceforth I know you ; yet if I had never seen you, and had heard some characteristic habits or sayings of yours, I might also have formed an individual conception of you. We cannot all meet, therefore we try, by circulating this little paper, which flies, from you, from me, to the end of the earth, to produce that unanimity, that glow of personal feeling, which helps the world forward." Directly the woman began to speak Judith knew instinctively that there was no chance of work through her, for her mind was on a different plane, her requirements would not be those of common-sense and sincerity ; but at all events she was interesting as a type, a specimen.

She waited, therefore, patiently for the flow of elo quence to cease, and then asked quietly, " And what was the personal link in our case ? How did you hear of me ? " " Your brother-in-law mentioned to me your struggles and aspirations. I live near Sheffield. I have frequently met him. I understand you have fashionable connections, you will probably be going about in good society ? " Judith shook her head very decidedly. " Bread first," said she. " But surely Sir Edward Helsham is your mother's brother ? " " I don't know anything about him. What work were you going to suggest that I should do ? " " The work which I imagined you would be capable of undertaking is something of this sort. Our Personal News is largely made up of delight ful chit-chat as follows : — ' We understand that the Duchess of Dachsund has just dismissed a footman, who had been for ten years in her Grace's service, for impertinence to her tiny dog Miss Moffat.

It is rumoured that the man was heard to address the dog without the prefix to its name, and the intelligent little creature shed tears of mortification, and refused the chicken and cream especially prepared for its luncheon in consequence.' That is, of course, rather a special tit-bit, they aren't all quite equal to that, in fact I wrote that one myself; but any little trifling anecdotes of the kind, anecdotes which seem to bring one into touch with the aristocracy, would be accept able. We pay u. 6d. apiece for each item, and do not transmit postage." She rose, and Judith rose too, understanding that she was dismissed ; she did not know whether she felt more inclined to laugh or to cry. As she turned into Holborn the ludicrousness of the woman's pretensions were lost sight of in view of her cruelty ; she had summoned a girl from one end of London to the other at night, merely to add to her own self-importance and bustle, to the number of her clients, without any intention of giving her definite work, and there was a feeling of nausea at having been in contact with such a woman : was she a conscious caricature of the loathsome passion of the public for details of the private life of great persons ? or was she really interested in these trivial items ?

It was now after ten o'clock, and as Judith walked slowly down the street she began to feel a slight stirring of emotion at the new experience of being out alone in London at night. The omnibuses, like great barges, were towed hither and thither by unwilling horses, crossing and re crossing endlessly. The loafer, the sensualist, and the colourless man stood about on the pavement — obstacles to those who were trying to hurry. Crowds of lads with light-coloured caps and shoes, the shrimps of the great London shore, filled the byways and eddies of the crowd — shrimps, who lived with a freedom from every restraint not granted to mortals in any higher social position. Their dearest friends were lads similar to them selves, whom they could never meet without previous arrangement, and whom they knew only by strange nicknames.

They had their consolation ; like flies they were carried about on every chance current, but if they missed their regular acquaintances, others were easy to find. Here and there they might knock up against a bully, but on the whole there existed among them a certain good fellowship born of the community of interest ; they needed no credentials, a lad of the streets might hail another with impunity. They had also no responsibility in the way of personal encumbrances ; the clothes they wore were all they had, their sole detachable valuable a cap, which served as a receptacle for treasure-trove, a handkerchief, purse, duster, or weapon of offence, as the case might be. Judith noted these lads and thought of them vaguely, their very poverty was refreshing after the sickening trivialities of the woman she had just left.