To Love Part 12

Joan looked round on a moderately large, dust-smothered room. Dust, that is to say, was the first thing to strike the eye of the beholder. The windows were thick in dust, it lay on tables and chairs and on the two typewriters standing unused in a corner of the room. The room gave one the impression of being singularly uninhabited. Then the door opened and shut again, and Joan turned to face the owner.

Miss Bacon's figure, like her furniture, seemed to have taken on a coating of dust. Timid eyes looked out at Joan from behind pince-nez set rather crookedly on a thin nose. One side of her face, from eye to chin, was disfigured by an unsightly bruise. Miss Bacon dabbed a handkerchief to it continually and started explaining its presence at once.

"You may be surprised at my face"--her voice, like her eyes, was timid--"but I am short-sighted and last night stumbled on the stairs, hitting my face against the top step. It was exceedingly painful, but it is better now. What can I do for you?"

Joan murmured something sympathetic about the top step, and explained that she had come in answer to the advertis.e.m.e.nt. Miss Bacon's face fell. "I had hoped you were a client," she owned. Then she pulled forward a chair for herself and asked Joan to be seated.

It appeared that Joan would receive excellent tuition in shorthand and free use of the typewriters. If any typing work came in she would be expected to help with it, but for the rest she could devote the whole of her time to studying and practising on the machines. Miss Bacon was a little vague as to the other pupils, but Joan gathered that there was a shorthand cla.s.s and two other typewriters in another room.

"My other pupils are, of course, on a different footing," Miss Bacon told her. "Generally I require a fee of at least ten guineas, but in your case, as I shall require you to do a little work for me, I shall be content to take less. That is to say, four guineas, everything included."

"There is nothing about paying in the advertis.e.m.e.nt," Joan ventured. "I am afraid it is quite impossible for me to pay that."

Miss Bacon took off her gla.s.ses and polished them with nervous hands. "I do not want to seem unreasonable," she said; "after you have worked for me you will certainly be able to obtain a well-paid post elsewhere; my pupils invariably move on in that way. I guarantee, of course, to find situations. If I could meet you in any way--supposing you paid me two guineas now and two guineas when you moved on?"

"It is awfully kind of you"--Joan hesitated on the words--"but I am afraid I can't really afford it, not even that."

Miss Bacon relinquished the idea with a heartfelt sigh. "My dear," she confided suddenly, "I know what poverty is. Shall we say one pound to begin with?--you must remember that these are very exceptional terms."

Joan thought a moment. It seemed almost certain, from what she had gleaned from the various agencies, that getting a post without training was an impossibility, and most of the training centres asked for at least twenty-five guineas. Perhaps in refusing this offer she was letting a good chance slip by her, and, though she hated to make free use of it, there was always Uncle John's money, to fall back on.

"I think I will come if you will let me do it in that way," she decided finally; "when would you like me to start?--to-morrow?"

"The sooner the better." Miss Bacon rose with a smile of almost intense relief. "I have had no one for the last fortnight and the place is getting very untidy. You will pay the first pound in advance," she added; "I hope you will bring it with you to-morrow."

She seemed painfully anxious for the money; if Joan had not been so tired she might have thought the fact suspicious. As it was she went back to Shamrock House with a lightened heart. It was not a very attractive or promising post; if she were to judge by outside appearances and by Miss Bacon's last remark her chief duties were to include those of general cleaning up and dusting. But that would be all in the day's work. Some little confidence and hope were beginning to creep back into her heart. She had secured her first post; Miss Bacon held out vague visions of the triumphs to which it might lead. Surely in time she would get away from the nightmare of the last two months; in time even Aunt Janet would forgive her, and meanwhile her foot was on the lowest rung of the ladder; work should be her world in future. She would work and fight and win. There was still, as Miss Abercrombie would have said, a banner to be carried. She would carry it now to the end.

CHAPTER XII

"Our life is spent in little things, In little cares our hearts are drowned; We move with heavy laden wings In the same narrow round."

For the first week in her new post Joan was kept very busy putting things--as Miss Bacon described it--to rights. She had also, she discovered, to run errands for Miss Bacon several times during the course of a day; to buy paper for the typewriters, to fetch Miss Bacon's lunch, on one occasion to buy some cooling lotion for Miss Bacon's bruise. Of the other pupils she saw no sign, and even the girl who had admitted her on the first night did not put in an appearance, but this Miss Bacon explained by saying that Edith was delicate and often forced to stay away through ill health.

Joan refrained from asking questions; she realized herself that she had stumbled on to something that was nearly a tragedy. The hunted look in Miss Bacon's face, the signs of poverty, the absolute lack of work told their own tale. As a running business 2, Baker Street, was an evident failure, but there was no reason why, with a little application, she should not make it serve her purpose as a school. The lack of tuition was its one great drawback; there seemed no signs whatsoever of the promised shorthand lessons. Finally Joan plucked up her courage one morning in the second week, and invaded Miss Bacon's private office.

"What about my shorthand?" she inquired from just within the doorway; "when shall I begin?"

Miss Bacon had changed her shoes for a pair of bedroom slippers and was occupying the arm-chair, immersed in the newspaper. She started at Joan's abrupt question, the movement jerking the gla.s.ses from off her nose. She picked them up nervously and blinked at Joan.

"What did you say?--shorthand? Oh, yes, of course! It is really Edith's duty to take you in that; still, as she is not here, I propose to dictate to you myself after lunch. My first duty in the mornings is to master the newspaper; there might be some openings advertised." She turned again to her news-sheet. "Why not employ yourself practising on the typewriter?" she suggested.

Joan would have liked to reply that she was tired of practising sentences on the typewriter and hungry for some real work to do, but she had not the heart to be unkind to the poor little woman. She spent a disconsolate morning and stayed out for lunch longer than usual. On her return Miss Bacon was waiting for her on the top of the stairs.

"My dear," she said in an excited voice, "some work has come in. A man has just brought it, and he must have it by to-morrow morning. I hope you will be able to get it done, for I have promised, and a lot may depend on it."

So much depended on it that she herself decided to help Joan with the work. She was not, it appeared, even as experienced as Joan, and by 6.30 the two of them had only completed about half the typing. Joan's back ached and her fingers tingled, but Miss Bacon's eyes behind the gla.s.ses were strained to the verge of tears, two hectic spots of colour burned in her cheeks and her fingers stumbled and faltered over the keys.

As the clock struck seven Joan straightened herself with a sigh of relief.

"It is no use," she said, "we cannot get it done; he will have to wait for his silly old papers."

The blood died suddenly out of Miss Bacon's face, her mouth trembled.

"It must be done," she answered; "you do not understand. It is the first work that has been brought to us for weeks. The man is a stranger; if it is well done and up to time he will give us some more; besides he will pay"--for a second she lifted her eyes and looked at Joan--"I must have the money," she said.

Her face, working under the stress of some strong emotion, was painful to see. She was so weak, so useless, so driven. Joan looked away hastily and went on with her work. From time to time, though, she stole a glance at Miss Bacon. It was dreadful to know that the poor old woman was crying; quietly, hopelessly, great drops that splashed on to her fingers as they stumbled over the keys.

At last Joan could bear it no longer, she rose quickly and crossed over to Miss Bacon, putting her hands over the useless fingers.

"Don't you bother with it any more, Miss Bacon," she said. "I am nearly through with my share now and I can come early to-morrow and get it all done before breakfast. It is silly to work away at it now when we are both tired out."

Miss Bacon gulped down her tears and looked up nervously. "You think you can," she asked; "you have realized how important it is?"

"Yes," Joan told her, "and I know I can. I won't disappoint you, really I won't. Let us go across the road and get some tea before we go home,"

she suggested.

Miss Bacon looked away again hastily. "You go," she muttered, "I don't need tea, I----"

"You are going to come and have tea with me," Joan interrupted. It had flashed on her that Miss Bacon had not even the money for that.

Over the hot b.u.t.tered toast and the tea Miss Bacon poured out her troubles to Joan. They came, once she had started, in an unquenchable flood of reminiscences. The little woman had reached the last inch of endurance; the kindly sympathy, the touch of Joan's hands broke down all barriers of reserve or caution. She had been a governess, it appeared, and during all her years of service she had laid by enough money to buy the business at Baker Street.

"I got it cheap," she owned. "I can see now that the other people must have failed too, and I have no head for business. I am absolutely at the end of things now; if I died to-morrow it would be a pauper's funeral. I often think of that when I see a gorgeous hea.r.s.e and procession pa.s.sing through the street."

Her words were ridiculous, but real tragedy looked out of her eyes.

"Ruin stares me in the face," she went on, "from every paper I read, from every person I meet. I have no money, not even enough to buy food, as you have guessed. Ruin! and I have not the courage to get out of it all. I have never been very brave."

"But I think you have been brave," Joan tried to rea.s.sure her. "You have held on for so long alone. And I expect we have turned a corner now, things will be better to-morrow."

Miss Bacon stared at her teacup with hopeless eyes. "That is what I used to think at first," she said, "to-morrow will be better than to-day--it never has been yet."

She rose to go, and Joan, prompted by a sudden quick desire to help, leant forward and caught hold of her coat. The tragedy of the withered figure, the stupid, aimless face, struck her as the cruellest thing she had yet seen in life. What were her own troubles compared to this other's dull facing of loneliness, failure and death.

"You must cheer up, you really must," she begged; "and as for the money part, let me pay down the rest of my fee now. I have got three pounds out with me; do take it, please do, you see it really is yours."

Taking the money seemed to add an extra gloom to Miss Bacon's outlook; none the less she did not require very much persuading, and Joan, pressing it into her hand, piloted her across the road and saw her into the Underground station.

It was the last glimpse she was to have of the quaint figure which had crossed her life for so short a time, but that she did not realize. She only knew that her heart ached because she had been able to do so little to help, and because Miss Bacon's story had brought suddenly to her mind a knowledge of how terribly hard life can be to those who are not strong enough to stand against it.

True to her word, she arrived at Baker Street very early the next morning and the momentous piece of typewriting was finished before Miss Bacon's usual hour of arrival. Joan put it on the table with the old lady's paper and went out to get some breakfast, as she had had to leave Shamrock House before seven.

She was greeted on her return by the girl who had let her in on the first night. There was a man with her who had taken possession of Miss Bacon's chair and who was reading the paper morosely, both elbows on the table.

He glanced up at Joan as she entered. "Is this Miss Bacon, by any chance?" he asked, bringing out the words with a certain grim defiance.