The Cruise of the Make-Believes

"And what, for example, is Aubrey doing?" demanded Mrs. Stocker, turning suddenly on that youth. "What are his prospects?"

"What he's doing at the present time is this," said the youth, opening the door at the end of the garden – "he's goin' out. And the prospects, as far as you're concerned, are that you won't see him again this evenin'. I'm goin' to have a hundred up at the Arcadia Arms. Good night!"

As he was swinging out of the door Mr. Daniel Meggison seized his arm, and held him for a moment. "How dare you address a relative in such a fashion, sir!" he cried. "Above all, how dare you suggest that you will waste money upon such a pursuit. Your aunt is right; you should by this time have decided what work you will seize upon in the world. There are many maxims I might employ in such a case as yours – but I – "

"I wouldn't trouble, if I was you," said Aubrey, shaking himself free. "As I've said before, I'm ready for anything in the way of work, if I can only see it before me, and know what I've got to look forward to. If it isn't there, don't blame me."

He went out of the door, slamming it behind him; his father, in a sudden access of virtue, pulled open the door, and called after him down the narrow alley which ran at the back of the houses – "Understand, I will not permit you to frequent any such place as the Arcadia Arms – a mere ordinary pot-house – "

His voice died away, and he contented himself by shaking a fist in the direction of the retreating youth. He slammed the door, and turned again to his sister.

"I think that I shall be compelled to go out myself, Julia," he said, while his fingers lovingly caressed that small gold coin in his pocket. "I must really look in at my club."

"Club? I didn't know you had one," said the lady, rising. "However, we won't detain you; so soon as I know that Edward commands me to return home I shall be quite willing to leave Arcadia Street."

Mr. Daniel Meggison took the hint at once, and hurried into the house; a minute or two later he might have been observed shuffling down the street in the direction of the Arcadia Arms, having exchanged his smoking-cap for a grimy grey felt that was stuck jauntily on the side of his head. Mrs. Stocker, having brought Mr. Stocker to his feet by the simple expedient of turning to look at him, shook hands with Bessie, and gave that young lady at parting a few words of much-needed advice.

"Call things by their right names, my child," she said sternly. "A garden's a garden – and a yard's a yard; this is a yard, and an untidy one at that. Don't pretend; when you haven't got enough to eat, don't eke it out with coffee badly served that nobody wants. Come out of your dreams, and wake up to the realities of life. Don't forget, whenever you feel inclined to think that you are any better off than you really are, or have anything to be grateful for, that you're a mere ordinary commonplace girl – or woman, if you like it better – and that your mission in life is to slave from morning to night for people that don't care a button about you. My advice to you is: clear away this rubbish, and keep chickens or something of that sort. Good night."

It is probable that Mr. Stocker would have said something more cheering, but for the fact that at the very moment he had grasped Bessie's hand Mrs. Stocker looked back from the doorway, and called to him; he departed hurriedly and obediently. The girl looked at the sorry array of cups and saucers, and then at the poor wilderness about her; all in a moment it seemed poor and mean and childish. She sank down on to that box that was covered by the dingy old rug, and covered her face with her hands.

The shadows were falling all about her, and the Princess next door, as Gilbert Byfield had called her, was crying softly to herself.

CHAPTER III

THE PRINCE JUMPS OVER THE WALL

JUST how long Bessie might have sat there in the dusk of the garden it is impossible to say; an interruption was to be provided. Almost the last of her sobs had died away, and she was beginning to realize that this kind of thing would not do at all, if her small world was to be kept going, when the door leading into the little alley was opened cautiously, and a young man came in. A very presentable young man, with an honest face inclined to laughter, over which a look of relief was stealing as he saw the girl sitting there. He closed the gate quietly, and took a few steps towards her; paused and coughed. Instantly she sprang to her feet, and faced him.

"Good evening!" he said. "Did I startle you?"

"Very much; I did not know there was anyone there. How long have you been here?" she asked suspiciously.

"I came in this very moment," he assured her. "You see, I'm obliged to come in that way, because there might be somebody – somebody looking out for me at the front. Very handy house in that respect." He grinned cheerfully, and she laughed for very sympathy.

"Haven't you any good news, Mr. Dorricott?" she asked, forgetting her own troubles for a moment.

He shook his head. "I went down to the theatre, just to let them know I was about, you know, and almost with the hope that someone might fall ill – or be run over – "

"Don't!" she whispered with a shiver.

"I'm sorry, Miss Meggison – but a fellow gets absolutely murderous at times, when he thinks of the people who stand in his way. Here am I, without a shilling to bless myself with – "

"Everyone that I have ever known, and everyone that I ever shall know, has been and will be in that state," exclaimed Bessie with conviction. "I don't believe in all the stories about people having more money than they know what to do with; I simply can't believe them. All the world is poor and struggling – and everybody fights for money that they never by any chance get. I know it!" she said with deep dejection.

"Well, it isn't quite like that," he replied. "There are fellows in the profession, for instance, who are known to touch three figures a week, and who simply live in motor-cars; it's a known fact. Other poor devils like myself walk on with the crowd, or get an understudy – or something of that kind."

"It must be nice to be an actor," said Bessie, looking at him with awe.

"It is – when you are an actor," he replied solemnly. He moved away a step or two restlessly, and then came back to her. "I say, Miss Meggison – there's something I'd like to say to you."

"Not about the bill!" she pleaded.

"About the bill – yes; and about something else," he replied earnestly. "The bill worries me horribly – and it worries me more in your case than it would in the case of anyone else. I haven't any money, and I've got a large appetite – which I endeavour to suppress as much as is consistent with keeping a figure fit to be seen behind the footlights. Many and many a tasty dish, Miss Meggison, which you may think I scorn, I pass by because I simply feel that I have no right to touch it; it would not be fair. I never come into your little dining-room without seeing the figures of my bill in huge white characters on the wall; I'm ashamed of myself."

"I wish you wouldn't speak of it," she urged.

"But I must speak of it; it haunts me," he exclaimed. "I know that in time it will be all right; I know that in time I shall be able to pay you in full – and pay other people as well. More than that, the time will come when you will be proud of me – really proud of me."

"We're all proud of you now; I laugh still when I think of that time when you gave me tickets for the pantomime, and I saw you as the front part of the donkey."

"Don't!" he said in a low tone. "I know I was funny. Everyone said so – but I could get no real expression into it; you can't when the only way in which you can move your jaws is by a string. But I shall do finer things than that. In the years to come I shouldn't be a bit surprised if Arcadia Street was the scene of a rather imposing little ceremony – on my account."

"Ceremony?" She looked at him in a bewildered fashion.

"Yes. They may in all probability affix a tablet to the house, recording the fact that Harry Dorricott once lived here; it's frequently done – there's a society for it. They will probably refer to me then as 'poor Harry Dorricott' – and will say how much greater things I might have done had I lived."

"Mr. Dorricott! You're not ill?"

"Oh dear, no; but I have a sort of feeling that I shall die young – or at least comparatively young. So very many of our best people have done that. I beg you won't alarm yourself, Miss Meggison," he added hastily – "because I'm quite all right at the present moment; never felt better in my life. The only thing that worries me is about you."

"About me?"

"Yes – because you see I'm actually living on you – and that's a shameful thing. Perhaps you may wonder that I don't go away, and live on somebody else – some fat and uninteresting old landlady, for instance, who wouldn't matter so much."

"I shouldn't like you to do that, because she mightn't be kind to you," said Bessie.

"Oh – that isn't the reason," he replied, coming near to her, and looking into her eyes. "You have been kind to me; there's never been anyone in all the world that has done so much for me as you have – helped me, and urged me on, and cheered me up. That's why, although I owe you this money, I can't go away; I'd rather be a slave to you than to anyone else. You didn't understand that – did you, dear?" he whispered, not daring even to take her hands. "From the very first moment, when I saw you looking out of the window into Arcadia Street, my heart gave a sort of jump, and I knew exactly what had happened to me. Bessie – it's because I love you that I can't go away."

"No – it isn't that; it's only because you're sorry for me, just as quite a lot of other people are sorry for me," she said softly. "You mustn't think that I don't understand, or that I'm ungrateful; I shouldn't be telling the truth if I didn't say that it's quite the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me in all my life. But I don't love anyone – except my father – and Aubrey; I don't think I've got time to love anyone. So you mustn't speak about it again, please; you must forget it. And you can stay as long as you like – and the bill won't matter."

"But you'll give me some better comfort than that, Bessie," urged the boy. "I shan't always be poor; I shall make a great name for myself some day, and then I shall be able to lift you out of all this, and make you happy."

"I'm not sure that I want to be lifted out of it," she told him, smiling. "Good night – and forget all about it. You're my friend always, I know – and I want friends."

There in the dark garden, with perhaps an idea in his mind not wholly theatrical, he lifted her hand to his lips before he turned away; and she stood there, looking after him, with that warm touch still upon her fingers, and with her heart beating a little more rapidly than usual.

After all, it must be nice to be loved, she thought; to be made much of, and shielded from the cold, and from hunger and poverty; never to listen to anything but gentle kindly words; never to have to meet frowning tradesmen, or duns of any sort; never to trudge through the streets on Saturday nights, with the certain knowledge that your skirts were bedraggled, and your feet cold and wet, and that the money in the thin worn purse had come perilously near to nothingness. Oh – that must be good indeed!

She went back into the house – with a strange feeling that to-night something had happened that had changed her; she would never be able to make-believe any more as she had done. The touch of the boy's lips upon her hand had wakened something in her that had merely lain dormant; she cried out dumbly for her natural and proper birthright. The world held something better for her, and it was denied her; she found herself wondering, without being able to put the question into words, whether she would ever get that which belonged to her, by right of the fact that she was a woman, and young.

Mr. Aubrey Meggison came in presently, and insisted on telling her of a few shots he had taken that night on the billiard-table – illustrating his words by means of a walking-stick on the shabby cover of the dining-room table – and how he had completely "wiped the floor" with his opponent, to the unbounded astonishment of a choice circle which seemed to consist of a billiard-marker, a bookmaker, and a long-dethroned music-hall star. The triumphs of the evening, however, had not smoothed his temper; he complained bitterly about the monotony of bread and cheese, and pushed his food from him with a few elegant expressions of disgust.

"Tact and forethought – that's what you're lackin', Bess," he suggested. "You don't think to yourself what's the best thing to suit your brother, and your brother's appetite. Not you; the first thing that comes along'll do for him."

She bore his reproaches meekly, until presently he restlessly wandered out of the house again. He encountered his father on the doorstep; and Bessie heard a little wordy warfare between the two – Daniel Meggison protesting virtuously that his son should be in bed at ten o'clock to the minute – and that son suggesting airily that he knew what was best for himself. Then Daniel came into the room, not too steadily, but perhaps with the greater dignity on that account.

"What I've done this night will not soon be forgotten," he said, with a roll of the head. "On their knees, they were, in a manner of speaking – on their knees, my child. Nothing good enough for me; apologies flying about everywhere. Haughty with them, mind you; no sudden giving way on my part. At the same time – condescending; that's the right word – condescending." He sat down, and waved his hand to show exactly what manner he had adopted for the subjugation of the Arcadia Arms, and fell asleep.