Chapter IV: What the Tooo-Firty Winner Brought Mrs. Erps

I

Come to her in the month of January. Bridge those long weeks wherein she lived from mail day to mail day--as one not strong that has a weary mile to cover and walks from seat to seat--and come to her there.

She was at this time not in good health, suffered much from headaches and was oppressed with a constant fatigue. In this condition fresh air without exertion had become very desirable to her, and she formed the daily habit of long rides outside the leisurely horsed tramcars of those days. Study of a guide acquainted her with their routes. She had a particular one for each day of the week, counting from Saturday to Friday, and arranged on a little plan by which (as she made believe) each journey was part of a long journey whose end was Friday's ride, whence she returned home to find the Indian mail. Not only fresh air was obtained by this means, but a sense of actively advancing towards the day that brought the letters, round which she lived.

On an afternoon of this January her ride was from Holborn, through Islington and Holloway, to Highgate Archway. On the near side of the Holloway road, half a mile perhaps below the stopping place, there is a group of houses approached by shallow steps that have resisted the overpowering inclination of the district to become shops and instead support their tenants by providing apartments. The car that carried her had stopped here. She had learnt to eke out the amusement of these rides by attention to all manner of little incidents, and--employed with one such--was wondering if her car would restart before it was reached by a newsboy who ran towards them from the distance, his pink contents-bill fluttering apronwise before him. Some one was a terribly long time over the business of alighting or entering. The newsboy won. A few yards from where she sat above him he stopped to sell a paper and to fumble for change. The halt caused his fluttering pink apron to come to rest.

PEER
KILLED IN
FRONTIER
FIGHTING

Had something actually struck her throat? Was a hand actually strangling there? Could they see she was fighting for breath? Was the car really rocking--right up so she could not see the street, right down and all the street circling? Could others hear that shrill and enormous din that threatened to split her brain?

Through the tremendous hubbub and the dizzy rocking she got down. If this strangle at her throat did not relax, if this dizzy whirling did not cease, this immense din silence....

A curious voice, leagues away, said: "Yer've got ter pye fer it, y'know."

She put her fingers in her purse and held out what she could gather. A figure that had been going up and down in front of her seemed to take a tremendous sidelong sweep and vanished. She was left with a paper in her hands and knew what she must do. But if this din, this giddy circling....

It suddenly stopped. Everything stopped. There was not a sound, there was not a movement.

II

London stands stock still in the middle of a windy, crowded pavement to open its evening paper and to peer at the stop-press space for only one particular purpose. While she thus stood and peered (and suddenly knew this icy silence was the gathering of an immense tide that was coming--coming) a woman who wore an apron over a capitally developed figure, and a rakish cloth cap over a headful of curl papers, opened the door of the house immediately beside her (appearing with the air of one shot at immense velocity out of a trap) and called "I! Piper!" She then exclaimed nearly as loudly "Ennoyin'!" and then saw Audrey.

This lady's name was Mrs. Erps, and she knew perfectly well, and rejoiced to observe an example of, the peculiarity in regard to London's evening paper that has been noted above. Mrs. Erps rolled her solid hands in her apron and came down ingratiatingly. A model of correctness. "Excoose me, my dear," she began, "Excoose me, wot 'orse won the tooo-firty? My old man--Ho, thenks, I'm sure--Ho, gryshus!"

Relating the incident later in the evening to a lady friend, and acting it with considerable dramatic power: "'Ands me the piper she does," said Mrs. Erps, "as natural as I 'ands this apring to you and then looks at me jus' as if I mightn't had been there, and then she says in a whissiper 'Oh, dear!' she says. 'O Gawd!' and _dahn_ she goes plump--dahn like that!" explained Mrs. Erps from the floor, very nearly carrying her friend with her in the stress of dramatic illustration.

But Mrs. Erps was more than a great tragedy actress; she was also a kindly soul and there is to be added to this quality the genial warmth aroused in her by the fact that the tooo-firty winner was Lollipop, that Lollipop had cantered home at what she called sevings, and that her old man was seving times arf a dollar the richer for the performance. "Carry 'er in there," said Mrs. Erps in a very loud voice to a policeman in particular and to a considerable area of the street in general. "Young man, that's my 'ouse, and Mrs. Elbert Erps my nime, and dahn in front of it the pore young thing's fell jus' as she was 'anding me this very piper wot 'ad come aht to see the tooo-firty winner. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'"

The policeman: "All right, mother. Now, then, you boys."

Mrs. Elbert Erps, going backwards up the steps, hands beneath the arms of that poor stricken creature: "There's a cleeng, sweet bed in my first front, well-haired and wool blenkits, that lets eight and six and find yer own, and could ask ten, and there she'll rest, the poor pretty thing, dropped on me very doorstep, as yer might say, and standin' there with the piper same as you might. 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'"

Mrs. Erps shot open her front door with a backward plunge of her foot, the policeman closed it with a backward kick of his foot; and to the continued recital in great detail of how it all happened, their burden was carried to the first front and laid upon the cleeng, sweet bed, well-haired, wool blenkits, eight and six and find yer own.

They loosened her dress at her throat; beneath the constable's direction made use of water and chafed her hands. "Marrit," said Mrs. Erps, denoting the wedding ring. "Marrit, she is."

Presently Audrey opened her eyes.

"Why, _there_ you are!" cried Mrs. Erps in high delight. "There you are, my pretty. Safe and sahnd as ever you was. There you are! You recolleck me, don't you, my love? Wot you gave the piper to? 'Excoose me,' I says to yer, 'excoose me,' I says--"

Audrey's eyes went meaninglessly from Mrs. Erps to the constable, her eyelids fluttered above them and closed.

"_Stand_ aht of it!" said Mrs. Erps to the constable in a very sharp whisper. "_Stand_ aht of it, frightenin' her. 'E won't 'urt you, my pretty. 'E only carried of yer up. _Dahn_ you went, yer know, right dahn. Where's your 'usbing, my pretty?"

Her lips just parted. She moaned "Oh, dear! O God!"

Mrs. Erps communicated to the constable: "Jus' 'er very words. _Dahn_ she went--"

The eyes opened again.

"Your 'usbing, dear, I'm askin'. 'Usbing. Ain't you got a ma, my dear? Ain't you got a pa?"

She said: "Dead ... dead ... Oh, dear..."

"Orfing," communicated Mrs. Erps.

"Rambling in her mind," said the constable. "Not answering you, she wasn't."

"You pop off, young man," commanded Mrs. Erps with sudden hostility. "Ramberling! Didn't I ask her, and didn't she give answer back to me? Ramberling! You pop off. I'll fine where she lives, and my old man 'll come to the station if so need be. 'E ain't afraid of yer, so don't you think it. Served on a joory, he has, before now. Ramberling! I'm going to rub 'er pore feet. That's what I'm goin' to do. Ramberling! She knows me as spoke 'er fair before ever you came. 'Excoose me,' I says to her, 'excoose me--'"

The policeman, from the door: "Yes, I've heard that."

Mrs. Erps, bending over the stairs: "Pop off! That's what I'm telling you. Pop off!"

III

Mrs. Erps rubbed the "pore feet," put a hot bottle to them, covered the poor, motionless form with two of the wool blenkits, called up her old man when he came in; and in his presence and in that of the lady second floor lodger and the young man first back lodger, trembling with witnessed honesty, she opened the pretty dear's purse and searched her pocket for any clue to her home. There was none. Mrs. Erps, having counted the money in the purse, written down the amount and had the paper signed by her old man, by second floor and by first back, bade them pop off, and sat beside her patient with soothing words and frequently a kiss to the reiterated "Oh, dear ... oh, dear ... O God!" that came in scarcely audible sighs as from one numbed with pain and utterly tired.

So, only now and then sighing, eyes closed, she lay for close upon three hours. Mrs. Erps stole away to cook up a nice bit of fried fish for 'er old man, revisiting the first front at intervals, waiting to hear that weary moan, and returning down-stairs increasingly troubled with: "I don't like to hear her. Fair wrings my 'art, it does."

A visit paid towards seven o'clock was better rewarded. Audrey opened her eyes, looked full and intelligently at Mrs. Erps, standing there with a lighted candle, and quite naturally addressed her. She questioned nothing. She seemed fully to understand where she was and why. In tones weak but quite clear and collected she made two requests. Please let her stay here for the night and leave her quite alone; she wanted nothing, just to be alone; and please send a telegram for her.

She dictated the message and it was sent--to Maggie, and with Mrs. Erps' address added, and running: "Please come at once. He is dead. Audrey."

IV

Miss Oxford arrived in the early afternoon of the next day. All the devotion of the years she had mothered Audrey, all the longing--longing--longing of the past months for news, all the agony of suspense in the train journey (the papers informing her as they informed new Lady Burdon at Miller's Field), all a breaking heart's distress was in the little cry she gave when she entered first front and saw that strangely white, strangely impassive face lying on the pillow.

"My darling! Oh, my darling"--arms about the still form, tears raining down.

No responsive movement; just "Dear Maggie--dear Maggie."

"Why did you never write?"

"Dear Maggie..."

There was no more of explanation between them.

"Maggie, I want to be quite, quite still. Not to talk, Maggie darling. Just hold my hand and let me lie here. Are you holding it?"

"Audrey! Audrey! Yes--yes. In both mine."

"I don't feel you."

She seemed to feel nothing, to want nothing, and, though she lay now with wide eyes, to see nothing. She just lay, scarcely seeming to breathe. Once she said, in a very fond voice, "Yes, Roly," as if she were in conversation with him. No other sound.

After a long time Maggie told her: "Darling, I'm going to bring a doctor to see you."

No reply nor movement when Maggie released the hand she held and left the room to seek Mrs. Erps. No interest nor response when the doctor came, or while he examined her. He took Maggie aside. "She's very young. How long has she been married?"

"In June--the first of June."

They spoke in whispers. When he was going, he repeated what he had most impressed. "No fear of it happening so far as I can see. She doesn't seem in pain. That numbness? Mental. Her mind is too occupied. I don't think movement would bring it on; but don't move her yet. We mustn't run risks. It would be fatal--almost certainly fatal if it happened. Another shock would do it; nothing else, I think. Well, there's no likelihood of shock, is there? You can guard against that. See to that and you've no need to worry. She couldn't possibly live through it in her present state. Otherwise--why, we'll soon be on the right road and getting strong for it. I'll look in to-night."

This was in the passage, and with Mrs. Erps in waiting at the front door rehearsing in her mind: "As I was telling you when you come, doctor, 'Excoose me,' I says to 'er, 'excoose me--'" But what Mrs. Erps overheard caused her to let him escape and to say instead to Miss Oxford, "Oh, the pore love! If any one makes a sahnd to shock 'er--not if I knows it, they don't."

Mrs. Erps knew quite well the meaning of that recurrent "it" in the doctor's words.

V

But it was not in Mrs. Erps's power to prevent the shock that came.

It came in direct train of action from that "Yes, Roly" that Maggie had heard, separated from it by the days of high fever, the mind wandering, that almost immediately supervened. As one that falls asleep upon a resolution and wakes at once to remember it and to act upon it, so, the fever releasing her to her senses, Audrey took up immediately that which lay in those words of hers.

She had fallen into a natural sleep that promised the end of her fever. She awoke, and directly she awoke sat up in bed. She was alone. Only the one thought was in her mind; she got up and began to dress.

The resolution of her mind governed the extreme weakness of her body. She was no more aware of her feebleness than one strung up in battle notices a wound not immediately crippling. She knew exactly what she must do. She found her purse on the mantelpiece and took it and left the house without being noticed--or thinking to escape or to give notice. Only that one thought occupied her; a few yards down the street she met a cab and hailed it. "Burdon House, Mount Street," she directed the driver.

"Yes, Roly," had been when Roly, visiting her more clearly, more real than any other figure about her during that numb and impassive period when she desired to be quiet in order to talk with him, had told her to go to Gran, to comfort Gran, and to be comforted.

VI

Old butler Noble admitted her. Events had caused old butler Noble to be considerably shaken in his wits. A week ago the door would have been closed to a young woman who asked for Lady Burdon and refused her name. To-day, on the explanation, "The name does not matter. Lady Burdon will be glad to see me," it was held open and the visitor taken to the library.

This was the second day of new Lord and Lady Burdon's visit for the latter to make Jane Lady Burdon's acquaintance. Only that morning old butler Noble had made the mistake of turning away a Miller's Field friend who had called to see new Lady Burdon, carrying out a promise to report how baby Rollo, left behind, was getting on. "Her ladyship is seeing no one," Noble had informed her. The excellent Miller's Field friend had been too overawed by his manner to explain exactly whom it was she wished to see. She sent a note of explanation by messenger. Noble delivered it to his mistress, who read it and sent him with it to new Lady Burdon. The note was foolishly worded. New Lady Burdon, ill at ease in this house, crimsoned to think it had been read. From the outset, hostile and prepared for hostility, she had taken a sharp dislike to this old man-servant; angry and mortified, she questioned him and spoke to him as he was unaccustomed to be addressed.

It was beneath the lesson of this incident that he admitted Audrey without question. She was none of his mistress's friends. In the first place he knew all such; in the second they did not call at the impossible hour of half-past six in the evening, nor present the strange appearance--white, not very steady, faltering in voice--that she bore.

He took the news of her arrival to new Lady Burdon.

"Gave no name, do you say?"

"She said your ladyship would be glad to see her."

Lady Burdon hesitated a moment. She tingled with fresh hostility against this man because she wondered whether he expected her to accept that statement or to send him again for the name. She did not know and hated him the more, and hated all the fancied resentment for which he stood, because she did not know.

Her mind sought a way out. She said with a little laugh: "Oh, I think I know. Very well."

She went to the library.