Whatsoever a Man Soweth

With Budd’s ready assistance I slipped out of my chambers into Bolton Street, and half an hour later arrived by omnibus at the obscure hotel where Tibbie awaited me.

When she saw me she smiled merrily; and when we were alone together in the Waterloo Bridge Road she burst out laughing, saying, —

“What an interesting pair we really do make. Your get-up is delightful, Wilfrid. You look a real compositor. But just put your cap a little on one side – it’s more graceful. What does Budd say?”

“He first thought I’d taken leave of my senses; but I’ve allayed all his suspicions.”

And so we went jauntily on along the wide road to the Obelisk and then up the London Road, where the costermongers’ barrows were ranged and hoarse-voiced men were crying their cheap wares to thrifty housewives.

All was strange to her. She knew nothing of working London, and viewed everything with keen interest. I could not help smiling at her demure little figure in the cheap black dress.

At the bottom of the London Road we entered a tram and went as far as Camberwell Gate, the neighbourhood where she had decided to establish herself as Mrs William Morton.

Leaving the main road we turned down a long, dreary street of uniform smoke-blackened houses with deep areas in search of a card showing “apartments to let furnished,” and at last discovering one, we ascended the steps with considerable trepidation and knocked.

“You talk to them,” I whispered. “You want three rooms furnished,” and next second the door opened and we were face to face with a big, red-faced woman whose bloated countenance was certainly due to the undue consumption of alcohol – probably that spirit so dear to the lower class feminine palate – Old Tom.

Sybil explained that we were in search of apartments, and we were conducted up to the second floor and shown three dirty, badly-furnished rooms, the very sight of which was depressing.

Tibbie’s gaze met mine, and then she inquired the price.

“Of course, you’d want the use of the kitchen. That’s downstairs,” replied the woman.

“Oh! there’s no kitchen, I see,” Tibbie remarked quickly, seizing that defect as a means of escape from the miserable place. “I’m afraid then they won’t suit us. My husband is always so very particular about having the kitchen on the same floor.”

And then with many regrets we withdrew, and found ourselves once more out upon the pavement.

House after house we visited, some very poor but clean, others dirty, neglected and malodorous. Surely there are no more dismal dwelling-places in England than furnished lodgings in South London. Through the Boyson and Albany Roads, through Villa Street and Faraday Street we searched, but discovered no place where Tibbie could possibly live. Tousled-haired women were mostly the landladies, evil-faced scowling creatures who drank gin, and talked with that nasal twang so essentially the dialect of once-rural Camberwell.

At last in Neate Street, a quiet thoroughfare lying between the Camberwell and Old Kent Roads, we saw a card in the parlour window of a small house lying back from the street behind a strip of smoke-dried garden. On inquiry the landlady, a clean, hard-working, middle-aged woman, took us upstairs, and there we found three cheaply-furnished rooms with tiny kitchen all bearing the hall-mark of the hire system.

The woman, who seemed a respectable person, told us that she had been a parlour-maid in the employ of a lady at Kensington, and her husband was foreman in a mineral-water factory in the neighbourhood.

Tibbie was struck with the woman’s homely manner. She was from Devonshire, and the way she spoke of her own village showed her to be a true lover of the country.

“My husband, Mr Morton, is a compositor on a newspaper in Fleet Street and is always away at nights,” Tibbie explained. “We’ve been married nearly a year. I, too, was in service – a lady’s-maid.”

“Ah! I thought you ’ad been,” replied the landlady, whose name was Williams. “You speak so refined.”

So after re-examining the rooms Tibbie seated herself in the wicker armchair of the little parlour, and leaning back suggested that we should engage the apartments.

To this I, of course, agreed, and having given Mrs Williams half a sovereign as deposit, we left promising to take possession with our personal belongings – that same evening.

Outside, Tibbie expressed herself well pleased.

“I rather like that woman. She’s honest and genuine, I’m sure,” she declared. “Now I must buy a second-hand trunk and some clothes suited to my station as your humble and obedient wife,” she laughed.

So we went through into the Old Kent Road, and there purchased two big old travelling trunks, into which we afterwards placed the parcels which she had purchased at a cheap draper’s. Then, just before dusk, we returned to our new abode and entered into possession. We had tea together, prepared for us by Mrs Williams.

“You really make a model husband, Wilfrid,” she laughed when we were alone, holding her cup in her hand. “I suppose you’ll have to go to work very soon. I wonder what time compositors go to work at night?”

“I haven’t the ghost of an idea,” I declared. “I must find out. I suppose about seven or eight. But,” I added, “I hope you will be comfortable, and that you won’t be too dull.”

“I shall work,” she said. “I’ll keep the rooms clean and dusted, and when I’ve got nothing to do there’s always needlework.”

“We must pretend to be very frugal, you know,” I urged. “A compositor’s wages are not high.”

“Of course. Leave that to me. You’ll have to buy some more clothes. A Sunday suit, for instance, and a pair of squeaky boots.”

She had made no mention of the affair in Charlton Wood, but on the excuse that she might be lonely when I had left her, she had bought both the morning and evening papers, although as yet she had not glanced at them.

Besides posing as William Morton I had much else to do, and many inquiries to make. I intended to lose no time in ascertaining who was the man living on Sydenham Hill, and whether he had any acquaintance with the dead unknown.

For quite an hour we were alone in the rather cosy little parlour, the blind down and the gas lit. The furniture was indeed a strange contrast to that at Ryhall, yet the couple of wicker armchairs were decidedly comfortable, and the fire gave out a pleasant warmth as we sat near it.

“Ours is a curious position, Wilfrid, isn’t it?” she whispered at last, looking at me with those wonderful eyes of hers.

“What would the world think if they knew the truth?”

“If they knew the truth,” she said, seriously, “they would admire you for your self-sacrifice in assisting a helpless woman. Yet it is really very amusing,” and Tibbie, so well known and popular in the smart set of London, leaned back and smiled.

I was about to refer to the mystery of her flight, yet I hesitated. There was time for that, I thought, when she was more settled in her hiding-place.

It was certainly a novel experience to pose as the husband of Tibbie – the gay, merry, vivacious Tibbie Burnet, who was the life and soul of the go-ahead set in which she moved, and as we sat chatting we had many a good laugh over the ludicrous situation in which we found ourselves.

“You’ll have to pretend, in any case, to be very fond of me,” she laughed.

“I suppose I ought to call you ‘dear’ sometimes,” I remarked humorously.

“Yes, dear,” she responded, with the final word accentuated. “And I shall call you William – my dear Willie.”

“And what am I to call you?”

“Oh! Molly would be a good name. Yes. Call me Molly,” and she held her new wedding ring before my eyes with a tantalising laugh.

“We shall have to be very careful to keep up the fiction,” I said. “These people will, no doubt, watch us at first.”

“I shall soon make friends of Mrs Williams,” she said. “Leave that to me. I can be circumspect enough when occasion requires. But – oh – I’d so love to smoke a cigarette.”

“A cigarette!” I cried, horrified; “women don’t smoke in this neighbourhood. Whatever you do, don’t smoke when I’m not here, they’ll smell it at once.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “The ideas of the poor people are quite different to ours, aren’t they?” she reflected.

At that moment there was a tap at the door, and the landlady begged leave to introduce her husband, a rather tall, well-set-up man with a closely-cropped dark beard.

He greeted me pleasantly, and expressed a hope that we should be comfortable.

“The missis will do all she can for Mrs Morton, I’m sure,” she said. “I hear you’re on night-work.”