I have rather nice diggings. I got them last year, just after you went on that Egyptian racket. They are on the embankment, within sight of Cleopatra’s Needle.1 I like that anachronism of a monument; it has a certain fascination for me. I can see it at night, if I lean out of my window, outlined above the light-flecked river sacred to our sewer goddess that runs so sullenly under its canopy of foggy blue.
To me the embankment has beauties unsurpassed in any city in Europe. I never tire of it at night. The opaque blotches of the plane-trees’ foliage, the glistening water, the dotted lines of golden light, the great blocks of buildings rearing to the clouds like shadow monuments, the benches laden with human flotsam and jetsam.
I was leaning out of my window one night in November, in a lull in the rainfall; big Ben had just boomed out one, when I noticed a woman rise from a seat below. She had been sitting there an hour, for I had seen the light shine on her hair, yellow hair like a child’s, when I went down to the pillar box at midnight.
Her carriage was that of a gentlewoman. Curious how gait tells. She walked a little way, stumbled, stood with her hand pressed to her heart, – a drunken woman would have lurched again. Then she went to the parapet, and leant against it, staring into the water.
A good many women I have known could not gaze steadily into running water, or look down from a height without feeling more than an impulse to throw themselves over – something impelled them to it, so they have assured me. I don’t know the reason for it any more than I know why a man always buttons from left to right; a woman from right to left. It’s a fact, though. The buttonholes on a woman’s garments are always made on the right side, never on the left; and it is just as awkward for her to button our way, as for us to try hers. – Hang it, man, I know it’s so. I got a poor woman to make me some pyjamas, and she put the darned buttonholes wrong side. I had to get the beastly things changed. – Well, to come back to the story, I didn’t like the way that lady looked into the river; it had rained all day, the streets glistened with water, and a north-east wind scooped round the corners. I went down to have a look at her. Just as I crossed over she dropped her head in an odd sort of way, took a step out, then fell back against the wall. The measured beat of a policeman’s step struck the pavement a little farther down. I steadied her, and asked:
‘Are you ill, madam; can I help you?’
She lifted the strangest face I ever saw to mine. It was like some curious mask – more than a flesh and blood phiz. Her eyes were beautifully set and burned sombrely; they looked as live eyes might through the sockets of a mask. Her yellow hair seemed like a wig against her forehead and temples. She started and shrank as I touched her; her teeth chattered.
‘Yes, I am ill; I feel faint, strangely faint…’
She evidently suffered from some heart trouble. There was a bluish tinge around her mouth. She rocked on her feet, her lids drooped. I put my arm through hers; the steps came nearer; she roused and moaned mutteringly:
‘Yes, I’m only resting; I’ll move on in a few minutes.’
‘Come with me,’ I said; ‘you can’t stay here; try and walk.’
She came all right, in a dazed sort of way, though. All the under floors of the building in which I have my rooms are offices, so we met no one. She panted a bit as she mounted the stairs. I kept close behind, in case of a fall. Her boots must have been broken, for she left little wet splotches on each step. I showed her into the room. The electric light roused her; she hesitated and coloured up, – it was the most curious thing I ever saw, the way her face thawed and quickened. She turned round, and looked straight at me; I braced myself to meet her eyes, miserable, honest eyes they were too, that probed me like steel; she would have detected the least sign of bad faith, like a shot.
I pushed an armchair nearer the fire; she sat down, leant back her head against the cushion, and before she could say whatever she intended to, fainted dead away. Faith, it gave me an uncomfortable sensation. I forced some brandy between her teeth and tried to pull her round. I like doing things for women, – any kind of woman almost, – they all interest me tremendously. I don’t think I do them. Women seem at fault some way in their choice of men, they so often give themselves to brutes or sneaks – it may be these types don’t scruple to seize the opportune moment with them.
I took off her hat, a quiet, little black felt affair, positively soaked with rain. She had lovely hair, glossy yellow, not ‘brown at the roots’ kind, you know; it had a crinkle in it, and the line down the middle of her head was white as an almond. I hate the type of blonde that has a pink skin to her scalp. I concluded she couldn’t have been long in the streets, for the bit of white at her neck and the handkerchief in her lap were clean, – a day’s soil at most. She wore woollen gloves; I pulled them off; she opened her eyes, closed them again. She wore an old-fashioned thin wedding ring on her right hand, perhaps her mother’s; she had pretty, long hands; but hands don’t attract me like feet or ears. I belong to the race of men to whom temptation comes in the guise of little feet. An instep or ankle appeals irresistibly to my senses; I acknowledge it frankly; it’s damned odd, but I can’t help it – the appeal, I mean. My friend Foote says, delicately perfumed lingerie is his weak spot; his fall is sure at a flutter of lace and ribbon. To be virtuous, he would have to live in a land where the drying of women’s frillikins on a clothes-line would be prohibited by law. Her feet were not pretty, although her boots were decently cut. What an odd face she had; I can see it in white relief on the red of the leather. A bit like Christine Nilsson2 about the forehead, big clever nose, tremendous jaw, – a devil or a saint, or I’m no judge. She opened her eyes at last. I held out the glass; she shuddered, pushed it away almost roughly and said:
‘No, please not that, I am afraid of it; I daren’t touch it, it would be so easy to get to want it – when one is miserable.’
‘Quite right; suppose you have some tea instead.’
She flushed and smiled; the saint was certainly uppermost just then.
‘You are very good; yes, I should like some.’
I am rather a dab at making tea. Lloyd gets me the best in the market; never get good tea in a woman’s house, – afraid of the price or something.
‘You had better take off that wet jacket.’
Odd woman that; she stood up at once – she was still shaking – and took it off, hanging it over an oak stool. She was a well set up woman, of the thoroughbred flat, spare English type; getting on for the age the lady novelists find interesting, – thirty, perhaps. They may say what they like though, there is nothing like milk-fresh youth. By the Lord Harry, it’s a beauty in itself ! The plainest fresh-skinned wench with the dew of life in her eyes is worth ten of any beauty of thirty-five. Her dress was literally soaked, it hung heavily about her ankles; there were two wet patches too, where her feet had rested. I dug the poker into the fire, and said, without looking round:
‘You’ll be laid up tomorrow if you keep that skirt on; go into the other room and take it off; don’t mind me, I’ve seen petticoats before now. Hang it to dry before the fire and put your boots in the fender. You’ll see a collection of Eastern footwear – it’s rather a fad of mine – on the wall, find a pair to fit and slip them on…’
Didn’t see her face, busy with the kettle. A moment’s silence, then I heard the door shut softly. Admirable woman that! when I come to think of it, the only woman I ever met who could do a thing without arguing about it; never wanted a reason, never gave any. It’s curious, the inclination women have to gab about everything; they spoil a caress by asking you if you liked it. The weather had not improved; I felt quite glad I had kept on my diggings. The adventure was one after my own heart. I would honour my unknown lady with my best china. I took down an old Worcester cup and saucer, tipped the sugar into my prettiest lacquer bowl, put out some sandwiches and biscuits, and was surveying my arrangements when the door behind me opened. By Jove, how rarely that woman changed when she smiled! it reminded me of the first spray of almond bloom one sees in spring in some dingy, sordid London street. It youthened her, melted the stark, hungry grip about her mouth. I suppose the petticoat was too short or something – women are so devilishly illogical. I have seen halfway down a woman’s back and bosom, and she didn’t mind in the least; yet she’d have fainted at the idea of showing the calf of her decently stockinged leg.
She had taken down an old Jap kimono, once a gorgeous affair, but time had faded the flowery broidery on the plum-blue ground to mellow half-tones.
Her embarrassment was pretty to see; what a fetching thing a woman is when she is perfectly natural. I pointed to the chair, and uncovered the teapot.
She sat down and poured out the tea rather awkwardly, I don’t fancy it lay much in her line. She drank it eagerly, but paled a bit when I offered her a sandwich. I know that sensation, I had it during the last days of the Siege of Paris;3 ask me to tell you about that some other time – the poor thing was faint with hunger, the very sight of food made her feel sick, she put her handkerchief to her mouth; I took the sandwiches away and got out some dry biscuits.
‘Have some more tea?’ I said, ‘and try these dry biscuits by and by, when you feel better.’
She leant back; she had the prettiest line of throat I ever saw, quite white and soft, under that jaw, too. I poured out some more tea for her.
‘You have been fasting too long; when did you eat last?…’
‘Not since yesterday morning!’
Good God! She forgot that the hour made it over two days.
She put the tea down and said simply:
‘May I ask you for a cigarette? I think I should feel better if I were to smoke one or two. I don’t feel as if I could eat just now.’
‘Of course,’ I said; ‘how jolly that you smoke! You must have some of my special baccy.’ She was smoking tranquilly when a gust of wind howled and shook the window sash viciously, and the rain rattled like gravel thrown against the panes. She started and looked at the clock, the hands pointed to 1–45; the colour rushed to her face; I took the bull by the horns.
‘My dear lady, don’t bother about the hour, time is an entirely artificial arrangement. You can’t go out in that rain, it’s not to be thought of. You wouldn’t be out on that seat, if you had any shelter to go to. I don’t want to know anything you don’t volunteer to tell me. You do me proud in accepting my hospitality, such as it is; indeed you do, it’s a charity; I hate going to bed. When you have had a good rest you’ll think of some way out of the snarl, whatever it is. Good baccy, ain’t it?’
She held out her hand and gave mine an honest grip, as a nice lad might have done. Those big, grey eyes of hers got black when the tears filled them.
She was a vexatious sort of contradictory person; there was a tantalizing lack of finality about her – just as you had made up your mind that she was really deuced ugly, she flushed and bloomed and sparkled into downright charm, and before you had time to drink it in she was plain again. Her voice too was twin to her face. It was deep, and at times harsh with sudden soft rushing inflections and tender lilts in it.
‘You have Irish blood in you?’ I ventured.
‘Yes, on the distaff side; how did you know?’
‘Oh, voice, and I suppose it’s the kin feeling of race.’
We talked of a good many things during the next hour. I noticed that her eyes wandered wistfully to my books. I rather pride myself on some of my specimens of rare binding – two little shelves represent a good many years’ income.
‘Do you like books?’ I asked. She caught what I meant at once, and her face lit up. I gave her my only heirloom, an, from me at least, unpurchasable, Aldine classic.4 She positively handled it lovingly. The more I think of that woman, the more I am persuaded of her rarity; one is almost afraid to give one of one’s book pets into most women’s hands. She knew it at once – didn’t say anything banal or gushing, only, ‘I love the peculiar olive colour of the leather.’
‘Have you ever seen any of Le Gaston’s work? Look how well the lines of gold dot-work tell upon the scarlet of the morocco. How it has kept its colour. Machinery and cloth have played the deuce with the art of it.’
‘If I were a rich woman I’d have any book I cared to keep especially bound for myself.’
Funny situation! Well, I suppose it was, rather. But if you come to think of it, the rummiest situations and most unlikely incidents in life are just those that don’t get treated in fiction. Most poor devils have to write with one eye fixed on the mental limitations of their publisher or the index expurgatorius5 of the booksellers; that is, if they want to pay income tax.
She dropped off to sleep with a book in her lap. I covered her knees with a rug, turned out the light; the glow of the fire surrounded her with a magic circle. I went and lay down; I can sleep or wake at will. I decided to sleep till five. She had never stirred. I made up the fire; it was jolly to think of her there in the warmth instead of being out in that awful night, perhaps bobbing under a barge or knocking against the arches in the swirl of that filthy water.
I went back and slept till seven, tubbed, and took a peep at her. Her face looked good as a child’s in her sleep, but a child that had suffered under bad treatment and grown prematurely old. It was dreadfully haggard; that woman had been slowly starving to death.
It was one of those beastly mornings, fine under protest, with a sun that looked as if he had been making a night of it. I hate the mornings, except out in wild nature; someway in civilization they are always a sort of ill-natured comment on the night before. Like some excellent women, there is a brutal lack of semi-tone about them. I slipped the bolt on the door; Bates never came up unless I rang for him, but sometimes fellows drop in for a pick me up or a devil, – by the way, a red herring done in whisky isn’t half bad.
She woke in a fright with a fearsome sort of half cry. I expect she thought she had been asleep on that seat. I knew the beastly morning would unsettle her, she was right as a trivet the night before. She flushed horribly when she realized where she was, and the time, and stammered:
‘I’m so sorry, oh, I am so sorry! I was so tired, I really couldn’t help myself. I haven’t slept for many nights, you know, and one gets so stupid – ’
‘That’s all right. I’ve been asleep, slept like a top; always do. Suppose you freshen up a bit in my dressing room; your frock is dry. You will find hot water and things if you look about, – help yourself. I am going to lock you in if you don’t mind: I want my man to fix things up a bit…’
She flushed again. I’ll stake my oath that kind of blush hurts a woman.
My usual hour is eleven, but Bates cleared up and laid breakfast without an atom of expression in his face or voice. Odd man, Bates! He brought enough for two; makes a good living, that fellow, by an expedient regulation of the organs of sight and hearing. He finished at last, never knew him take so long; he asked:
‘Shall you want me again, sir?’
‘No, I’ll shove the tray outside, I am going out later on, not in to anyone.’
‘All right, sir.’
I knocked at the door as I unlocked it. She came out, self-possessed, straight and somewhat stiffly slim in her black frock. I bet she could ride.
‘You look better already,’ I cried; ‘would you like tea better than coffee? No! come, then.’
She took her seat, outwardly unembarrassed, anyhow. I opened the papers and glanced at the headings. The ‘Globe’6 was lying on a chair; I don’t know why I got it; she asked me might she see it. She glanced at the first page, and whatever she saw pleased her. I dawdled through my meal, for I did not know how to get any further with her. She was not the sort, you see, one could give a kiss and a quid and say, ‘Now, run along Polly, and don’t get into any more trouble than you can help.’ However, she gave me a lead herself, for when we had finished she came over, put out her hand and – well what she said don’t matter, anyway, it made me feel a bally idiot. I put her into the armchair without any ceremony and pushed over the cigarettes, saying:
‘Can’t talk unless I smoke. Now, my dear lady, granted you consider you owe me something, suppose you take it out in as much confidence as you care to give away. How did you come to be without a bed last night?’
‘Simply enough; to explain, I must go back a bit. Some years ago a younger brother and I were left almost penniless. Neither of us had been brought up to do anything except to get rid of money in the most happy-go-lucky way. That makes it difficult to get a living when even the trained people are crowded out. We got it as best we could. I’ve played the piano at bean feasts, “devilled” at 6d. an hour, done whatever offered itself, don’t you know,’ she had a trick of ending her statement that way. ‘We kept together, were saving to emigrate. Then he was ill for months; he died at Christmas. That broke me up, don’t you know; I was very fond of him; and left me without a penny. I went as nurse companion to a Christian gentlewoman in Bath at £12 a year; pay for my own washing. I broke down under it in six months. Came to town ill, and went into the fever hospital three days after, stayed there six weeks; had to go to a convalescent home for a month. It was very cheap, but it took all I had left. I couldn’t get anything to do. I tried for a place as domestic; I didn’t look it, so they said. Things have been going steadily from bad to worse, don’t you know? I used to work at the British Museum. A fortnight ago my landlady gave me notice; she wasn’t a bad sort, but she had the brokers in herself, and there was a sale. I had to leave; she let me take my box to her sister’s for a few days. I sat in St James’ Park the night before last, and sent a description of it to a paper – ’ She hesitated. ‘I have been trying journalism, paragraphs, and articles,’ and with the most abject tone of apology, ‘verse, rubbish, you know; but sometimes it gets taken. Only one has to wait such a time before one knows. I have had a turnover7 in the “Globe”; it’s a guinea, and there was another last night…’
(I had skimmed it, not half a bad one on ‘Adder lore in the Fens,’…) ‘I’ll get along all right now; it was rather bad last night; I was overtired or…’
I interrupted her.
‘My dear woman, you can’t go far on a guinea with arrears of rent, however small, to pay out of it.’
To cut it all short, I proposed to give her a note to an editress I know, a jolly, good little woman, who would stretch more than a point to serve me. I hinted as delicately as I could that she had better not let her feelings rush her ever, and give away the genesis of our acquaintance; sort of thing, you know, might be annotated badly. She gave me her word of honour that she would let me know the result, and see me next day if nothing came of the interview. She took my pasteboard. I got Bates out of the way with an empty gladstone bag and a note to Paddy Foote, to take it in and say nothing. She put on her things whilst I wrote the note; I watched her put on her hat; she looked better without it.
‘I am going to speak of you as “bearer”,’ I said. ‘I won’t ask your name now; I’d like to learn it just when you like – or leave it to chance – I’ve an idea you’d rather…’
She nodded gravely; we shook hands – she has lovely eyes, as I said before – and went, leaving one the poorer by herself.
I haven’t a thing belonging to her except the ashes of her cigarette. I tipped it into my match-box; I suppose I am a damned fool; most Irishmen are, in one way or another.
It’s curious how things have a knack of running twos; I had never met her before that night, and yet, that same evening, as I came out of the Charing Cross post office, I felt a touch on my arm, turned round, and, by Jove, there she was. The little woman had fixed her up all right, and things were going to hum, so she said.
Sometimes, when the rain beats, and that beastly old river yawns like a grave, I stand up at the window and look down. I never felt a want in my old digs before. It was jolly to have a woman – a woman of that kind, you know – taking an interest in one’s first editions.