CHAPTER X
GRANNY
There was some constraint upon them both at first, and Max had had time to feel a momentary regret that he had been foolish enough to stay when he was surprised to find the girl's eyes staring fixedly at a small parcel that he had taken from his coat-tail pocket and placed upon the table.
It was a paper of biscuits which he had brought from the public house. He had forgotten them till that moment.
"I brought these for you—" he began.
And then, before he could add more, he was shocked by the avidity with which she almost snatched them from his hand.
"I—I'd forgotten!" stammered he.
It was an awful sight. The girl was hungry, ravenously hungry, and he had been chatting to her and talking about kisses when she was starving!
There was again a faint spot of color in her cheeks, as she turned her back to him and crouched on the hearth with the food.
"Don't look at me," she said, half laughing, half ashamed. "I suppose you've never been without food for two days!"
Max could not at first answer. He sat in one of the wooden chairs, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped, calling himself, mentally, all sorts of things for his idiotic forgetfulness.
"And to think," said he, at last, in a hoarse and not over-steady voice, "that I dared to compare myself to a knight-errant!"
The biscuits were disappearing rapidly. Presently she turned and let him see her face again.
"Perhaps," suggested she, still with her mouth full, "as you say, one didn't hear quite all about those gentlemen. Perhaps they forgot things sometimes. And perhaps," she added, with a most gracious change to gratitude and kindness, "they weren't half so sorry when they forgot as you are."
Max listened in fresh amazement. Where on earth had this child of the slums, in the cheap-stuff frock and clumsy shoes, got her education, her refinement? Her talk was not so very different from that of the West-End dinner tables she had laughed at. What did it mean?
"Do you really feel so grateful for the little I have done?" he asked suddenly.
The girl drew a long breath.
"I don't dare to tell you how grateful."
"Well, then, will you tell me all about yourself? I'm getting more puzzled every moment. I hope it isn't rude to say so, but—you and this place don't fit."
For a moment the girl did not answer. Then she put the paper which had held the biscuits carefully into the cupboard by the fireplace, and as she did so he saw her raise her shoulders with an involuntary and expressive shrug.
"I suppose it is rather surprising," she said at last, as she folded her hands in her lap and kept her eyes fixed upon the red heart of the fire. "It surprises me sometimes."
There was a pause, but Max would not interrupt her, for he thought from her manner that an explanation of some sort was coming. At last, she went on, raising her head a little, but without looking at him:
"And very likely it will astonish you still more to hear that in coming to this place I made a change for the better."
Max was too much surprised to make any comment.
"If you want to know my name, date of birth, parentage, and the rest of it," went on the girl, in a tone of half-playful recklessness, "why, I have no details to give you. I don't know anything about myself, and nobody I know seems to know anymore. Granny says she does, but I don't believe her."
She paused.
"Why, surely," began Max, "your own grandmother—"
"But I don't even know that she is my own grandmother," interrupted the girl, sharply. "If she were, wouldn't she know my name?"
"That seems probable, certainly."
"Well, she doesn't, or she says she doesn't. She pretends she has forgotten, or puts me off when I ask questions, though anyone can understand my asking them."
This was puzzling, certainly. Max had no satisfactory explanation to offer, so he shook his head and tried to look wise. As long as she would go on talking, and about herself, too, he didn't care what she said.
"What does she call you?" asked he, after a silence.
"Carrie—Carrie Rivers. But the 'Rivers' is not my name, I know. It was given me by Miss Aldridge, who brought me up, and she told me it wasn't my real name, but that she gave it to me because it was 'proper to have one.' So how can I believe Granny when she says that it is not my name? Or at least that she has forgotten whether I had any other? If she had really forgotten all that, wouldn't she have forgotten my existence altogether, and not have taken the trouble to hunt me out, and to take me away from the place where she found me?"
"Where was that?" asked Max.
The girl hung her head, and answered in a lower voice, as if her reply were a distasteful, discreditable admission:
"I was a bookkeeper at a hotel—a wretched place, where I was miserable, very miserable."
Max was more puzzled than ever.
Every fresh detail about herself and her life made him wonder more about why she was refined and educated. Presently she looked up and caught the expression on his face.
"That was after Miss Aldridge died," she said, with a sigh. "I had lived with her ever since I was a little girl. I can hardly remember anything before that—except—some things, little things, which I would rather forget." And her face clouded again. "She was a very old lady, who had been rich once, and poor after that. She had kept a school before she had me; and after that, I was the school. I had to do all the learning of a schoolful. Do you see?"
"Ah," said Max, "now I understand! And didn't she ever let you know who placed you with her?"
"She said it was my grandmother," answered Carrie, doubtfully.
"This grandmother? The one you call Granny?"
"I don't know. You see, Mrs. Higgs never turned up till about ten months ago, long after Miss Aldridge had died. She died the Christmas before last."
"And how did you get to the hotel?"
"I had to do something. Miss Aldridge had only her annuity. I had done everything for her, except the very hardest work, that she wouldn't let me do; and when she died, suddenly, I had to find some way of living. And somebody knew of the hotel. So I went."
"Where was it?"
"Oh, not so very far from here. It was a dreadful place. They treated me fairly well because I am quick at accounts, so I was useful. But, oh, it wasn't a place for a girl at all."
"But why didn't you get a better one? Anything would have been better, surely, than coming here, to live like this!"
Max was earnest, impassioned even. The girl smiled mournfully as she just caught his eyes for a moment, and then looked at the fire again.
"You don't understand," she said, simply. "How should you? I should have had no reference to give if I had wanted another situation. The name of the place where I had been living would have been worse than none."
"But there are lots of places where you could have gone, religious and philanthropic institutions I think they call themselves, where they would have listened to what you had to say, and done their best to help you."
Carrie looked dubious.
"Are there?" said she. "Well, there may be, of course. But I think not. Plenty of institutions of one sort and another there are, of course. But those for women are generally for one class—a class I don't belong to."
Max shuddered. This matter-of-fact tone jarred upon him. It was not immodest, but it revealed a mind accustomed to viewing the facts of life, not one nourished on pretty fancies, like those of his sisters.
"And even if," she went on, "there were a home, an institution, a girl like me could go to and obtain employment, it wouldn't be a life one would care for; it would be a sort of workhouse at the best, wouldn't it?"
"Wouldn't it be better than—this?"
"I don't even know that. Granny's fond of me in her way. That's the one thing no sort of institution can give you, the feeling that you belong to someone, that you're not just a number."
"Well, but you're well educated—and—"
He was going to say "pretty," but her look stopped him.
It was almost a look of reproach.
"Do you think I'm the only fairly-educated girl in London who doesn't know how to make a living? Haven't you ever found, in poor, wretched little shops, girls who speak well, and look different from the others? Don't you know that there are lots of girls like me who are provided for, well provided for at the outset, and then forgotten, or neglected, and left to starve, to drift, to get on the best way they can? Oh, surely you must know that! Only people like you don't care to think about these things. And you are quite right, quite right. Why should you?"
Suddenly the girl sprang up and made a gesture with her hands as if to dismiss the subject. Max, watching her with eager interest, saw pass quickly over her face a look which set him wondering on whose countenance he had seen it before. In an instant it was gone, leaving a look of weariness behind. But it set him wondering. Who was she? Who were the mysterious parents of whom she knew nothing?
Carrie glanced at the door which led into the outhouse. The tapping of a stick on the stone-flagged floor announced the approach of "Granny" at last. The girl ran to open the door.
Max had sprung up from his chair, full of curiosity to see the old lady of whom Carrie seemed to be somewhat in awe.
He was rather disappointed. There was nothing at all formidable or dignified about Mrs. Higgs, who was a round-shouldered, infirm old woman in a brown dress, a black-and-white check shawl, and a rusty black bonnet.
She stopped short on seeing Max, and proceeded, still standing in the doorway, to scrutinize with candid interest every detail of his appearance. When she had satisfied herself, she waved her stick as an intimation to him that he could sit down again, and, leaning on the arm of the young girl, crossed the room, still without a word, and took her seat in the one arm-chair.
As Carrie had said, there was nothing singular or marked about her face or figure by which one could have distinguished her from the general run of old women of her modest but apparently respectable class. A little thin, whitish hair, parted in the middle, showed under her bonnet; her eyes, of the faded no-color of the old, stared unintelligently out of her hard, wrinkled face; her long, straight, hairy chin, rather hooked nose, and a thin-lipped mouth made an ensemble which suggested a harmless, tedious old lady who could "nag" when she was not pleased.
Conversation was not her strong point, evidently, or, perhaps, the presence of a stranger made her shy. For, to all Carrie's remarks and inquiries, she vouchsafed only nods in reply, or the shortest of answers in a gruff voice and an ungracious tone.
"Who is he?" she asked at last when she had begun to sip her cup of tea.
She did not even condescend to look at Max as she made the inquiry.
"A gentleman, Granny—the gentleman I told you of, who came in with me because I was afraid to come in by myself."
"But what's he doing here now? You're not by yourself now."
Max himself could hardly help laughing at this question and comment.
"I thought I ought to explain to you my appearance here," said he, modestly.
"Very well, then; you can go as soon as you like."
"Granny!" protested the girl in a whisper; "don't be rude to him, Granny. He's been very kind."
"Kind! I dare say!"
Max thought it was time to go, and he rose and stood ready to make a little speech. At that moment there was a noise in the outhouse, and both Mrs. Higgs and Carrie seemed suddenly to lose their interest in him and to direct their attention to the door.
Then Mrs. Higgs made a sign to Carrie, who went out of the room and into the outhouse. As Max turned to watch her, the light went out.
By this time Carrie had shut the door behind her, and Max was, as he supposed, alone with the old woman. He was startled, and he made an attempt to find the door leading into the outhouse and to follow the girl, but this was not so easy.
While he was fumbling for the door, he found himself suddenly seized in a strong grip, and, taken unawares, he was unable to cope with an assailant so dexterous, so rapid in his movements, that before Max had time to do more than realize that he was attacked, he was forced through an open doorway and flung violently to the ground.
Then a door was slammed, and there was silence.
As Max scrambled to his feet his hand, touched something clammy and cold.
It was a hand—a dead hand.
Max uttered a cry of horror. He remembered all that he had forgotten. He knew now that the girl's story was true, and that he was shut in the front room with the body of the murdered man.
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