Love at Paddington/Chapter 1

HILDREN had been sent off to Sunday school, and the more conscientious reached that destination; going in, after delivering awful threats and warnings to those who preferred freedom of thought and a stroll down Edgware Road in the direction of the Park. As a consequence, in the streets off the main thoroughfare leading to Paddington Station peace and silence existed, broken only by folk who, after the principal meal of the week, talked in their sleep. Praed Street was different. Praed Street plumed itself on the fact that it was always lively, ever on the move, occasionally acquainted with royalty. Even on a Sunday afternoon, and certainly at all hours of a week-day, one could look from windows at good racing, generally done by folk impeded by hand luggage who, as they ran, glanced suspiciously at every clock, and gasped, in a despairing way, "We shall never do it!" or, optimistically, "We shall only just do it!" or, with resignation, "Well, if we lose this one we shall have to wait for the next."

Few establishments were open in Praed Street, shutters were up at the numerous second-hand shops, and at the hour of three o'clock p.m. the thirst for journals at E. G. Mills's (Established 1875) was satisfied; the appetite for cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco had scarcely begun. Now and again a couple of boys, who had been reading stories of wild adventure in the Rocky Mountains, dashed across the road, upset one of Mrs. Mills's placard boards, and flew in opposite directions, feeling that although they might not have equalled the daring exploits of their heroes in fiction, they had gone as far as was possible in a country hampered by civilization.

"Young rascals!" said Mrs. Mills, coming back after repairing one of these outrages. The shop had a soft, pleasing scent of tobacco from the brown jars, marked in gilded letters "Bird's Eye" and "Shag" and "Cavendish," together with the acrid perfume of printer's ink. "Still, I suppose we were all young once. Gertie," raising her voice, "isn't it about time you popped upstairs to make yourself good-looking? There's no cake in the house, and that always means some one looks in unexpectedly to tea."

No answer.

"Gertie! Don't you hear me when I'm speaking to you?"

"Beg pardon, aunt. I was thinking of something else."

"You think too much of something else, my dear," said Mrs. Mills persuasively. "I was saying to a customer, only yesterday, that you don't seem able lately to throw off your work when you've finished. You keep on threshing it out in your mind. And it's all very well, to a certain extent, but there's a medium in all things." Mrs. Mills went to the half-open door, that was curtained only in regard to the lower portion. "Trimming a hat," she cried protestingly. "Oh, my dear, and to think your mother was a Wesleyan Methodist. Before she came to London, I mean."

Her niece surveyed the work at arm's length. "I've done all I want to do to it," she said.

Mrs. Mills ordered the hat to be put on that she might ascertain whether it suited, and this done, and guarded approval given, asked to be allowed to try it on her own head. Here, again, the results, inspected in the large mirror set in a narrow wooden frame above the mantelpiece, gained commendation; Mrs. Mills declared she would feel inclined to purchase a similar hat, only that Praed Street might say she was looking for a second husband. Besides, she never went out.

"Your poor mother was just as handy with her needle as what you are. We'd go along together to have a look at the shops in Oxford Street, and the moment she returned home, she'd set to work, and alter something to make it look fashionable." Mrs. Mills sighed. "Little good it brought her, though, in the long run."

"I am sure," remarked the girl quickly, "it never brought her any harm."

"Didn't help to get hold of anybody better than your father, at any rate. But they're both gone, and it's no use talking."

Some one entered the shop.

"Your friend Miss Radford," she announced. "Now there won't be a chance for any one else to speak."

The visitor justified the prophecy, by entering the parlour with a breathless "Oh, I've got such news!" checking herself on encountering Mrs. Mills. Mrs. Mills asked, with reserve, concerning the health of Miss Radford's mother, and mentioned (not apparently for the first time) that the lady, in her opinion, ought to be living on a gravel soil. Miss Radford, obviously suffering from repressed information, promised to deliver the advice, word for word, and in the meantime gave her own warm thanks.

"Old nuisance!" she remarked, as the half-curtained door closed. "I wonder how you can put up with her."

"My aunt is very good to me."

"Isn't it a pity," said the visitor inconsequently, "that you're so short? Well, not exactly short, but certainly only about middle height. I think"—she glanced at the mirror complacently—"my idea is it's partly because I'm tall that I attract so much notice. I'm sure the way they gaze round after I'm gone by— Well, it used to make me feel quite confused, but I've got over that. You don't have to put up with such experiences, Gertie."

"Afraid I forget to turn to see if they're looking."

"You've got rather a thoughtless disposition," agreed the other. "Once or twice lately, when I've been telling you things that I don't tell to everybody, it's struck me that you've been scarcely listening." The door was closed, but Miss Radford verified this before proceeding. "What do you think?" she asked in an awed voice. "Whatever do you think? Two of my old ones have met. Met at a smoking concert apparently. And they somehow started talking, and my name cropped up, and," tearfully, "they've written me such a unkind letter, with both their names to it. On the top of it all, the latest one caught sight of me yesterday afternoon, dressing the window at our establishment, so that he won't put in an appearance at the Marble Arch this evening."

"Why not?"

"Because I told him I was an artist. Said I had a picture in the Royal Academy the year before last."

"You are rather foolish at times, aren't you?"

"I wish, darling," wailed Miss Radford, "that you could tell me something I don't know."

The clock on the mantelpiece struck the half-hour, and Mrs. Mills's niece, suddenly alarmed, said she would not be absent for more than ten minutes, an announcement the visitor received with an incredulous shake of the head. As a fact, Gertie returned in five minutes fully apparelled, to discover Miss Radford improved in spirits and ready for more conversation.

"A new blouse?" she cried, interrupting herself. "And you never told me. Gertie Higham," solemnly, "this isn't what I call friendship."

The girl went straight through the shop, and looking up and down Praed Street, remarked to Mrs. Mills that it intended to be a fine evening. The elder lady said it was high time Gertie found a young man to take her out; the girl answered composedly that perhaps Mr. Trew might call and do her this service.

"Or Fred Bulpert?" remarked the aunt pointedly.

"No," she answered, "not Mr. Bulpert, thank you. Mr. Trew is different."

"He isn't the man he was when I first knew him."

"I like him because he's the man he is."

She turned quickly at the sound of a deep, husky voice. Mr. Trew, on the mat, opened his arms at sight of her, and beamed with a face that was like the midday sun; she took his sleeve and pulled him to the pavement.

"At five minutes to five," she whispered urgently, "you're going to take me for a walk in Hyde Park."

"At four fifty-five to the minute," he agreed. "What's the game, may I kindly ask?"

"I'll tell you later on."

"I hadn't noticed it," he said loudly, re-entering the shop, "until my attention was drawed to it by the little missy here. But there it is right enough on the playcards. 'Motor omnibuses for London.'" He shook his head, and, leaning across the counter, addressed Mrs. Mills. "Light of my life, sunshine of my existence—"

"Don't you begin your nonsense," ordered the lady, not displeased.

"—And sweetheart when a boy, I warn you against putting any of your ill-gotten gains into that sort of speculation. They may perhaps start one from the Elephant and it'll get about as fur as the Obelisk, and there it'll stick. And they'll have to take it to pieces, and sell it for scrap iron. I know what I'm talking about."

"That's unusual in your case," said Mrs. Mills.

"I get light-headed when I see you," explained Mr. Trew. "I was took like it the first time I ran across you up in the gallery of the old Princess's, seeing 'Guinea Gold,' and you've had the same effect on me ever since. What's more, you glory in it. You're proud of the wonderful influence you exercise over me. And all I get out of you is a 'aughty smile."

"The fact is," declared Mrs. Mills, "you get too much attention from the ladies. It spoils you!"

"See how she spurns me," he cried, turning to Gertie. "You wouldn't treat a gentleman like that, would you, missy? You wouldn't play football with an honest, loving heart, I'm sure. Oh, come on," with pretended desperation, "let's have a cigar, and try to forget all about it. A twopenny one; same as you sell to members of the House of Lords."

"You're staying to tea," suggested Mrs. Mills, allowing him to make a selection from a box.

"I've got to leave just before five o'clock. Going to take the little missy here out for a promenade."

"Now that is kind and thoughtful of you," declared the other. "With all your silliness, you're not half a bad sort. Gertie, go in and lay the table."

Miss Radford, after inspecting the newcomer over the half-curtain, decided to leave, although, as she pointed out, this was an opportunity for enjoying her company that rarely occurred. In confidence, the young woman remarked that what she hoped might happen at a future date was that she would meet some one possessing a disengaged brother, in which case she guaranteed to bring all her influence to bear in favour of Gertie Higham. Gertie said this was kind, and Miss Radford mentioned that she always felt ready to do a favour whenever she happened to be in good spirits.

The three sat at table, with Mrs. Mills in a position that commanded a view of the shop. Mr. Trew had brought a bag of prawns in the tail-pocket of his coat, secured, he asserted, after enormous trouble and expense from the sea coast of Marylebone Road that very afternoon; they were, anyway, good prawns, and went admirably with thin bread and butter, and Gertie would have eaten more but for anxiety concerning progress of the hands of the clock. Mr. Trew, discussing the products of the sea, regretted that he was bound, by his work, to London—

"Horses is my occupation," he said, "but the ocean's my hobby."

—And derided town, charging it with stuffiness in this month of August, and moreover empty. He wished he were on the pier at Southend, or at Margate, or at any place, in fact, where he might see the waves rolling in and rolling out again, and shy pebbles at them.

"Gertie could have had her holiday this month," remarked Mrs. Mills, glancing with pride at her niece, "but she preferred not. I don't feel sure whether she did right or whether she did wrong in giving them up. There's more unlikely places than a seaside boarding-house to pick up a future husband." She gave details of a case of a young woman living in Harrow Road, who, in the summer of 1900, met at Eastbourne a gentleman with one arm, invalided home from the war; an engagement immediately followed. Later, the girl discovered he was already married, and that he had gone away from his wife and children, taking with him the compensation given to him by his employers, a firm of builders at Willesden.

"I expect the missy is keeping her eyes open, if the truth was known."

"But no definite results," contended Mrs. Mills. "That's what I complain of. At her age I had three after me."

"This was long before I came on the scene," explained Mr. Trew to Gertie; "otherwise there would have been bloodshed. Is this meal ad lib., or do I have to pay extra for another cup of tea?"

"I don't want her to worry about it; I only want her to keep it in view. What I should like more than anything would be to see a young man who was fond of her come in here, at a time like this, and take his piece of bread and butter, fold it, enjoy it, and sing to us afterwards."

"You're certain about that, aunt?"

"Providing he had a decent voice." The shop bell rang. Mrs. Mills half rose and recognized the customer. "We are now about to get all the news of the neighbourhood," she said desolately.

Gertie anticipated her, and, going in, served the lady with a copy of Fireside Love Stories. Returned with an imperative message.

"I shall have to see her," admitted Mrs. Mills. "She won't be happy until she gets some piece of scandal off her mind."

"Fair one," said Trew, with a wave of his hand, "every moment will seem like a century until you return!"

Gertie was fixing her newly-trimmed hat with the aid of the mirror, and Mr. Trew was describing an accident witnessed the day before near Hyde Park corner, when sound of commotion came from the street; he seized his peaked cap and hurried through the shop. Gertie followed. Conversation between the two ladies had been interrupted by the same cause and they were outside the doorway, looking on at a small crowd that acted as escort to an ambulance in charge of two policemen; the aim of every one appeared to be to snatch the privilege of securing a view of the man partly hidden by the brown hood of the conveyance. Mrs. Mills sent the customer across to obtain particulars, and remarking cheerfully to Mr. Trew and the girl, "You two off? Don't be late back, mind!" turned to the more interesting subject. Children were running up from side streets, grateful for anything likely to break the serenity of the afternoon.

"If he's damaged hisself," said Mr. Trew, as the ambulance stopped at the hospital, "he's going to the right place to get repaired."

"It's to be hoped he has friends."

"Everybody's got the friends they deserve to have. Are we going the direction to suit you, missy, or would you rather have gone Edgware Road way?"

"Let's turn down London Street," she suggested. "It will be quiet there. I've something to tell you." She rolled her parasol carefully. "And I want your help, Mr. Trew."

Three youths near the underground station, with apparently no urgent occupation, came forward hopefully on seeing Gertie; detecting the fact that she was in the company of a big, burly man, they had to pretend a sudden interest in a shuttered window. The two, going into Norfolk Square, walked on the narrow pavement near the railings of the garden.

"Mr. Trew, I've got a young man!"

"That's the best news," he exclaimed heartily, "I've heard this summer!"

"And I want somehow to get him asked indoors. Once aunt sees him and hears him talk, it will be all right. But I'm nervous about it, and I don't know how to manage."

"This," he said, holding up a forefinger, "is just where old Harry Trew comes in. This is exactly the sort of job he's fitted for. If he hadn't took up with another occupation he'd have found himself by this time in the Foreign Office. Do you want it arranged for to-night?"

"Please!"

"Right you are! You're going to meet him, I take it, presently. You asked me to come out with you simply as an excuse for that purpose. Very well, then. I've got a standing invite, as you very well know, to drop in at the nine o'clock meal any Sunday evening I like. Your aunt expects me." The forefinger became emphatic. "You simply arrange for him to meet me, say, outside the Met. at ten minutes to the hower; I shall be carrying a Lloyd's in my right hand. I brings him along," continued Mr. Trew exultantly; "I introduces him as a young personal friend of mine that I met on the steamer going to Clacton, year before last. Your aunt says at once that any friend of mine is a friend of her'n. You and him pretend not to know each other, but you gradually become acquainted, and your aunt asks him, at the finish, to look in again. Does that sound all right, or can you suggest a better plan?"

"It's splendid," she cried.

"I think," he continued, "I shall mention in the course of the evening that his father was the best friend I ever had in the world. When I was in a slight financial difficulty once, his father—your young man's father, I mean—came to my assistance. And him not well off neither. Turning-point of my life. But for that help I should, likely enough, have gone down, and down, and down." He looked at her for approval. "What's wrong with that?"

"He's a gentleman!"

Mr. Trew gazed for a few moments at a baby in a perambulator.

"I was born in 'fifty-five, the year of the Crimea War," he said deliberately, "and if my mother had had her way, I sh'd have been christened Sebastopol, which wouldn't have been any catch to a public man like myself. If I'm spared till next year, I shall be celebrating my jubilee, and all London will be illuminated, I expect, with military troops lining the streets. But what I want to tell you, missy, is that, all that time, I've never seen any good resulting from a girl in your position of life becoming friendly with any chap who was considerably above her in regard to what we call social status. On the other hand, I've seen harm come from it."

"There's going to be none in my case," she said quickly.

"I know, I know! I'm perfectly sure of that. That is to say, I'm absolutely certain that is your view now. I can't quite explain what I mean to any one of your age and your sex. If I was a well-educated man"—here he took off his cap and rubbed the top of his head with the peak—"I could find words to wrop it up somehow. The long and the short of it is, you relinquish the idea. To oblige me"—persuasively—"and to gratify your aunt, who's been pretty good to you since you were a child—"

"I don't forget that."

"—And for your own peace of mind in the future, give it all up, and you wait a bit until you find some one belonging to your own set."

"There isn't the distance between the sets there used to be," she argued.

He took hold of the railings with both hands, and tried to shake them in an effort of thought.

"What's the young chap's name?"

"I don't know."

"There you are!"—with gloomy triumph—"don't that prove the truth of everything I've been saying?"

"He doesn't know mine."

"That isn't an argument."

"Quite so," the girl agreed. "It's only a statement of fact. He will tell me his name directly I ask him, and I shall tell him my name the moment he asks me."

"No occupation, I suppose?"

"He works for his living."

"Then," turning reproachfully upon her, "what did you mean by saying he was a gentleman, and upsetting me to this extent?"

"He is a gentleman," persisted Gertie. "I can tell the difference."

Mr. Trew sighed, and took out his watch. Gertie glanced at it.

"I must go," she said. "I promised to meet him not far from the shop at half-past."

"I'd do anything to help you, missy," he declared, "because I like you. And it's just because I like you that I don't feel particular inclined to assist him. He ought to keep to his own sphere. There's a lot of talk about breaking down the barriers that divide one class from another, but, I tell you, it's a job that wants very careful handling. And I've got as much sense as most, and I rather enjoy interfering with other people's affairs, but this is an undertaking I don't care to tackle. You'll excuse me for speaking my mind, won't you? It's a habit I've got into."

"It's a good habit," said Gertie. "I practise it myself."

On the return, Mr. Trew, cap now at the back of his head, and his rubicund face bearing indications of seriousness, pointed out that the girl was in a berth in Great Titchfield Street, which he described as not so dusty, earning twenty-five shillings a week, and with Saturday afternoons and Sundays free; a good home, and everything ready for her when she returned, tired out, at night; first-class feeding, able to dress well. Mr. Trew, without daring to say whether he was right or whether he was wrong, begged to suggest there were many girls worse treated by fortune; it did seem to him that these advantages ought not to be given up lightly.

"There he is!" she cried excitedly. "Across there. Near the second-hand furniture shop."

"Your aunt's calling you," he said.

Mrs. Mills was out on the pavement, scooping at the air with her right arm. Gertie instinctively obeyed the order; Mr. Trew kept pace with her. The three entered the shop, and Mrs. Mills, with a touch of her heel, closed the door, went inside the tobacco counter, and, across it, spoke rapidly and vehemently, with the aid of emphatic gesture, for five minutes by the clock. Mr. Trew, disregarding rules of etiquette, sat down, whilst the two stood, and became greatly interested in the mechanism of a cigar-cutter.

"Who told you all this, aunt?" asked the girl calmly, when Mrs. Mills had finished.

"The lady customer who was here when you went out. Do you deny it? Of course, if it isn't correct that you've been seen walking about with a young swell, I've lost my temper for nothing."

"Girls will be girls," interposed Mr. Trew.

"Not in my house."

"It's all perfectly correct," announced Gertie.

Mrs. Mills looked around in a dazed way.

"Trew," she cried, "what's to be done?"

"You've had your say, old beauty," he remarked slowly. "Now let me and her go into the parlour and have some music—music of a different kind."

The girl hesitated, and looked through the window. He touched her shoulder. "I sh'd take it as a special favour."

He came out a few minutes later, and mentioned to Gertie's aunt that he had a message to deliver. The music within ceased; the lid of the pianoforte closed.

"Trew," she said.

"Queen of my heart."

"This isn't the only upset I've had. Who do you think it was in that ambulance cart this afternoon? I hopped across to have a look." Leaning over the counter, she whispered.

"That complicates matters, so far as she is concerned," he admitted. "I hoped he'd vanished for good. We shall want all the diplomacy that we've got stored away to deal with this."