Hilda Lessways

icity

ead wrapped day and night in flannel was offensively ridiculous. Moreover, Hilda in these crises was further and still more acutely exasperated by the pillage of her handkerchiefs. Although she possessed a supply of handkerchiefs far beyond her own needs, she really hated to lend to her mother in the hour of necessity. She did lend, and she lent without spoken protest, but with frigid bitterness. Her youthful passion for order and efficiency was aggrieved by her mother’s ne

oquettishly shod feet. Absurdly young, of course; wistfully young! She was undeveloped, and did not even look nearly twenty-one. You are at liberty to smile at her airs; at that careless critical glance which pityingly said: “Ah! if this were my room, it would be different from what it is;” at that serious worried expression, as if the anxiety of the whole world’s deficiencies oppressed the heart within; and at that supreme convicti

er part was filled with sliding trays, each having a raised edge to keep the contents from falling out. These trays were heaped pell-mell with her mother’s personal belongings—small garments, odd indeterminate trifles, a muff, a bundle of whalebone, veils, bags, and especially cardboard boxes. Quantities of various cardboard boxes! Her mother kept everything, could not bear that anything which had once been useful should be abandoned or destroyed; whereas Hilda’s propensity was to throw away with an impatient gesture whatever threatened to be an encumbrance. Sighing, she began to arrange the contents of the trays in some kind of method. Incompetent and careless mother! Hilda wondered how the old thing managed to conduct her life from day to d

tion that she could not be genuinely harsh. She had been thrilled by the audacity of the visit to Mr. Cannon. And though she hoped from it little but a negative advantage, she was experiencing the rare happiness of adventure. She had slipped out for a moment from the confined and stifling circle of domestic dailiness

her handkerchief. Giving it to her mother, and concealing her triumph beneath a mask of wise, long-suffering benevolence, she would say: “I’ve found ten of your handkerchiefs, mother. Here’s one!” And her mother, ingenuously sta

al of it, was lacking in the dramatic pungency necessary for a really effective triumph; the reason being that the thoughts

and she enjoyed working hard. “Don’t you, Florrie?” “Yes, aunt,” with a delightful smiling, whispering timidity. She was the eldest of a family of ten, and had always assisted her mother in the management of a half-crown house and the nurture of a regiment of infants. But at thirteen and a half a girl ought to be earning money for her parents. Bless you! She knew what a pawnshop was, her father being often out of a job owing to potter’s asthma; and she had some knowledge of cookery, and was in particular very good at boiling potatoes. To take her would be a real kindness on the part of Mrs. Lessways, for the ‘place’ was not merely an easy place, it was a ‘good’ place. Supposing that

the manner of a horse’s tail on May Day. She had arrived all by herself in the morning, with a tiny bundle, and she made a remarkably neat appearance—if you did not look at her b

water, and in her red coarse little hands, which did not seem to belong to those gracile arms, she held a dripping clout. In front of her, on a half-dried space of clean, shining floor, stood Mrs. Lessways, her head wrapped in a flannel petticoat. Nearer to the child stretched a small semi-circle of

beyond a whisper. But the whisper was delicate and agreeable; and perh

course you’ll get your coal up first. And then you’ll do your boots. Now the bacon—b

orrie’s whispe

hough. But I didn’t tell you—except on Wednesdays. On Wednesdays you give your parlour a thoroug

s,

n Hilda interrupted her about the handkerchief, and afterwards with an exhortation to beware of the dampness of the floor, which exhortatio

he interminable and rambling instruction.

whatever. And if you’re quick and handy —and I’m sure you are—you’ll have plenty of time in the afte

s,

ess itself absolutely disgusted her. It disgusted her to such a point that she would have preferred to do it with her own hands in secret rather than see others do it openly in all its squalor. The business might be more efficiently organized—for example, there was no reason why the sitting-room should be made uninhabitable between breakfast and dinner once a week—but it could never be other than odious. The kitchen floor must inevitably be washed every day by a girl on her knees in sackcloth with terrible hands. She was witnessing now the first stage in the progress of a victim of the business of domesticity. To-day Florrie was a charming young creature, full of slender grace. Soon she would be a dehumanized drudge. And Hilda could not stop it! All over the town, in every stree

i

k at the front door,—rare p

thickly from the folds o

s, will you?... knocking li

ide, to view the troublesome disturber and to inform him, if as was probable h

annon at the

short if her mother was to be prevented from commencing rent-collector on the Monday; she had perhaps ingenuously expected from him some kind of miracle; but of a surety she had never dreamed that he would call in person at her home. “He must be mad!” she would have exclaimed

miling confidently and yet with cere

, but she was whispering qui

I com

at once, so anxious was she to destroy any impression c

sily dominated her. His bigness subdued her, and the handsomeness of his face and his attire was like a moral intimidation. He had a large physical splendour that was well set off and illustrated by the bril

red when, after an immense effort to keep full control

s,” he

vre his bigness through the drawing-room doorway, he gave her a glance half benign and half politely malic

ickly, as he seemed to have no intention of spe

hand and an ebony walking-stick in the other. His presence had a disastrous effect on the

endid being! Hilda went as a criminal into the kitchen. Mrs. Lessways with violent movements signalled her to clo

that’s Mr. Cannon!” Mrs. Le

now him?” Hi

im!... What

ts to s

t ab

ng,” Hilda replied, blushing. Never had s

ring, must face the rigour and the risk unprotected. No matter if she caught bronchitis! The thing had to be done. Even Hilda did not think of accusing her mother of folly. Mrs. Lessways having patted her hair, emptied several handkerchiefs from the twin pockets of her em

reverberations of the sufferer’s nose. She desired to go into the drawing-roo

ling your Calder Street property, Mrs. Lessways.” And then the drawing-room door was