CHAPTER I

"MAN MADE THE TOWN"

"What's this dull town to me? Robin's not near. What was't I wished to see? What wished to hear? Where's all the joy and mirth made this town a Heav'n on earth? Oh, they are all fled with thee, Robin Adair!" --SCOTS SONG.

"There! I told you what kind of a young man he was, Joan."

I only groaned; my elbows on the breakfast-table and my head buried in my hands. What does it matter what "kind" of young man he is, when you're in love with him?

"He's a beauty," declared my chum Elizabeth. She pushed back the letter which had come as such a knockout to me. "Who's this 'Muriel' who writes to tell you that she's just seen Harry Markham off to Salonika, when you didn't even know he'd got his orders?"

"It's Muriel Elvey; I introduced him to her myself at the theatre about a fortnight ago," I explained, stunned. "That very pretty girl who was at school in Germany with me. I didn't know they'd met again.... He didn't say good-bye to me! ..."

"Rotter," snorted Elizabeth boyishly.

But some of us would rather be happy with a charming "rotter" than be bored for life by one of those prigs who never do anything wrong.

Haggardly I stared at that letter with its gold-printed "Muriel" at the top, its whiff of Chaminade. Little Elizabeth scowled sympathetically. She always had had a grimace for the name of Captain Harry Markham, who had been my idol for the last year.

(A rotter! What difference does that make!)

For that year life was a whirl of thrills and pangs because of one young soldier-man's black eyes and red tabs. At first it was all thrill. That's bound to be when the Harry-type--a born fighter and philanderer--leader of men and misleader of women--fills up a girl's horizon with his telephone-calls, his invitations, his flatteries--and himself.

Feverishly happy, I blessed the job that kept me where he was.

(And now this! This!)

My job was one of those that are described as "thundering good for a girl." It brought me in nearly three pounds a week, for I was secretary to a quite important official in one of those big rabbit-warren buildings in Whitehall that we call Ministries. It kept me indoors from ten A.M. until half-past six or seven or--if we'd a rush of work--eight o'clock at night.

It kept nerve and brain on the stretch, too! My chief insisted upon taking the last ounce out of his under-strappers. Also, he had a horrible temper. But I accepted that as cheerfully as I accepted the stuffiness of that rabbit-warren, and the rushed lunches, and the work that was draining all the go-stuff out of me.

You see, my people lived in the country, and--because of Harry--I simply had to live in town. It would have killed me, I thought, to tear myself away from London and from our flat near Golder's Green. This had been let, furnished, by an officer, now at the front, to me and my old school-chum, Elizabeth Weare, who was clerk at my rabbit-warren. We did our own housework and marketing and cooking, tired as we were, after our office-day was done. Sounds rather like all work and no play? But it wasn't.

There was play, to take it out of me more than work. Play turned my days into a succession of wild jumps across stepping-stones. The stones, of course, were the times when Harry took me out. I would have worked underground and consented never to see the light of day, provided that I still saw him. Ah, I'm not the first girl who has made Paradise out of bricks and mortar, just because they hold a Harry!

I thought I was growing to mean to him as much as he meant to me. Elizabeth did warn me, but who ever takes any notice of these warnings from the looker-on who sees the game? And Elizabeth was by way of being a Man-Hater anyhow, so how put any trust in her opinion of my Prince Charming?

Gradually there slipped through the thrill of it all the first pang of doubt. Surely he meant to propose? No? Yes? No?

The pangs came oftener. Could he mean nothing? Just the flirtation that camouflages itself under the name of being great pals? Or would he presently say something? This was a wearing time, I can tell you. Presently the thrills grew fewer, the pangs more frequent. This is also bound to be when the Harry-type cools off again. Was he cooling? Wasn't he? A see-saw of agony!

Slowly zest and colour began to fade out of the life that saw less and less of the young staff officer whose fancy I had amused for some months.

Hope dies hard.

Then a whole fortnight--this last one--went by without a sign from him. I hoped on, wildly, that something would happen, and, finally, this very morning, something had happened with a vengeance! It had killed hope with a sledge-hammer.

Devastating news came from that girl to whom I'd introduced him myself! I might have known that Harry the Susceptible would fall to Muriel's lovely little Lily-Elsie-like face! At that German school they had all raved about it, I remember; walking down Unter den Linden, Muriel had always been put between the two severest governesses, and even so the tightly-uniformed Prussian officers had followed and had jostled us in passing to try to steal one glance from "_die bild-hübsche Engländerin's_" demure big eyes.

So those eyes had been the last into which Harry had smiled before he left Blighty again! I had never had another look; I who adored him, who had been given to suppose that he returned it.

Harry had gone. Gone! Without a good-bye. Well--it was all over--finished--na poo!

I was left to make what I could of the situation.

What could I do?

Apparently nothing but gulp down my sugarless tea, push aside the stale war-bread with its one scrape of margarine that represented my breakfast, and set off for my day's work, leaving Elizabeth to wash up. She had a day off from the rabbit-warren. I wished I had; I scarcely felt like coping with the office.

"Poor old kid! Such is men," grunted Elizabeth. "You look absolutely played out."

"Do I? I needn't ever bother again about how I look. That's one comfort," I sighed, as I crammed on my hat.

This had an impertinent little wreath of coloured buds, and was lined with rose, because Harry said pink next to my face always suited me. I'd bought it to wear up the river with him.

Oh, the pathos of these hats, these pretty frocks that have been specially bought for "some" man! Long after that man has ceased to care a button what one wears the hat is still fresh, the frock seems to go on and on. Things remain. It's the people who change. I must have changed, too, after a blow in the face like that! What had it done to me? I gave one deliberate and searching glance at myself in the sitting-room looking-glass.

It showed me a plain and weary girl, with ten years added to her actual age. A slim, stooping figure that moved without zest. Eyes without brightness. Hair ditto--where were "the goldy lights" that Harry once praised in my hair? It was as drab and dull as the whole of my outlook had grown in the last half-hour.

I'd had what is called a ripping time, you see. Here was the bill I had to pay--low, secret misery, dark heaviness of heart, looks and girlishness lost--as I thought--for ever!

I stuffed into my bag the fateful letter that had knocked the bottom out of my world for me.

"You're forgetting these," Elizabeth reminded me, handing me a couple of other envelopes that lay unopened by my plate. I hadn't even noticed them.

"Haven't time," I said, pocketing them as I dashed down the four flights of brass-bound steps from our flat to the entrance.

There was no sign that either of those unopened letters held anything out of the ordinary. In my own mind I had no presentiment of wonder to come. I thought I knew my fate, thanks.

Let this be a lesson to any young woman who thinks the like. For when she is quite, quite sure that "all is over" for her, that is the moment when "All" is preparing to begin.

* * * * * * *

Here I've given you my picture as I was all those weeks ago. Now skip those weeks and see the contrast; the picture of me as I am today. A straight and supple body, all conscious of the Jest of living. Limbs rounded and firm. Face joyous, glowing, and clean-skinned under the tan. Hair glossy and full of gleams; eyes bright as the morning, with the atmosphere of sunshine and clean airs all round me. A new self, in fact, made by a new life. Thousands of girls all over the country at this moment can show the same miracle.

I am going to tell you the story of how it happened to me.

* * * * * * *

I had to rush for my Tube train, only in time to be held up by that exasperating wooden barrier, while the corncrake voice of the official rasped out: "Stand back, there!" And the train did not move out for another good half-minute.

Fuming, I waited on the platform, squashed against that barrier by the crowd who pressed behind me--a crowd who looked nervy and strained, and who--to put it mildly--smelt. Well, any business girl who glances at her light blouse after a day's work in town will know what I mean. I myself must have looked about as cheery as that face one sometimes catches sight of at the small square window of a black prison-van.

The only air and exercise I ever got in those days were in the three hundred yards' walk from our Mansions to the Tube, and in the two minutes' scurry at the other end from the Tube station to the rabbit-warren.

I hung on to a strap all the way to Charing Cross, hating everything. That letter seemed to have laid open all my nerves; they were jarred by the jostling passengers, by the conductor's raucous shouts, by the very advertisements of patent medicines and boot polish on the Tube walls, by the steps, the lift, in fact, everything to do with the loathsome journey.

At the office I got a black look from my chief, Mr. Winter, and a stinging comment on my lateness. I'd had them before, but then I'd scarcely noticed them. Now the daily round seemed unbearable.

When I had Harry to look forward to in the evening, it scarcely mattered how my day was spent. But now--ye gods! I suddenly found everything rankling--the look of the rabbit-warren's dingy corridors and annexes, the click of the typewriters, the whir of the telephone bells, and the Cockney accents of some of the workers!

And worst of all was the inevitable office smell, made up of so many horrors. I put them in their order of unpleasantness:--

The hot iron of the water pipes.

Ink.

Dust.

Common yellow soap.

The sink.

Stale office towels.

Cigars.

All this sounds an unmitigated grouse! But I have to get it over, showing you the perfectly revolting time I had. Sunlight and sweet air have since streamed into my days. But how can I forget the stuffiness of Mr. Winter's room?

"Can't we keep that window shut?" was my chief's motto.

The one extremely grimy window gave on to Whitehall, and to open even a crack of it let in all the noise of the traffic.

"Can't we have that window kept SHUT?"

The last word rang out like the crack of a whip almost before I got in, on this particular morning.

I shut the window and got to work, suddenly wondering, "Shall I go on like this until I'm eighty?" My job for that beastly morning was to check long columns of figures on blue paper, with a form-number at the top, from duplicate lists.

Thrilling!

My eyes swam and my head throbbed as I muttered to myself over the table: "Nine thousand three hundred and sixty-five pounds nineteen shillings and a penny. Nine thousand three hundred and sixty-five pounds nineteen and a penny. (Tick off.) Two thousand four hundred and ten pounds eleven shillings," and so on. The lists almost invariably tallied, but one dared not risk an error. "Nine thousand three hundred and----!"

What a life! I saw it now as it was. That letter had opened my eyes. Oh, to get away from it all!

At lunch-time I went out, avoiding the chattering throng of girls. It was one of those sultry early-Spring days that seem hotter than July. All the luncheon-places were as full up as the Tube had been. I could not wait for a seat in that atmosphere of not-too-cheap but nasty food.

Eggs that were "fresh in places," badly poached, on toast limp with water, and never a suspicion of butter--fish that had said good-bye to the sea many days ago; or burnt pieces of bacon swimming in thin fat--all these presented unpalatable realities which I felt absolutely unable to face that day of days.

Sickened, I turned back into the glare of Trafalgar Square. I sat down listlessly in the only patch of shade that I could find, on the steps of the National Gallery. I looked across the bone-dry fountains where wounded soldiers were swinging their bluer-trousered legs. I gazed gloomily past the Nelson Column, down Whitehall, with its 'buses and people.

Ants on a human ant-heap, struggling for life--but was it worth living? Deep in my heart the thought persisted, "I must get out of this. I can't stand it. How can I get away?"

Half-consciously my hand went to my bag to feel for the letter that had blackened existence. I hadn't looked at it again since Elizabeth had indignantly pushed it back to me. My fingers met the two other letters, not yet opened.

"May as well see what they are," I thought, drearily.

One was a rather terrifying bill for shoes. Well, it would be the last of its kind--it's love that comes so ruinously expensive in nice shoes and stockings!

The other was in a clear, strong hand-writing that I didn't know, and it had been forwarded on from my home.

I opened it.

Picture me, a speck of navy-blue and white on the grey steps. London glaring and blaring beyond me, and in my hand the scrap of paper--the second letter that was to fall upon me like a thunderbolt. First, Muriel's about Harry. Now this. I'd been actually carrying it about with me all the morning unopened, cheek-by-jowl with that other letter!

Listen to it!

Except that it was dated from some barracks, I didn't notice the address. My eye had at once caught the first sentence:

"My dear Joan,--They say a woman never forgets the first man who has kissed her----"

Wouldn't those words give any girl a jolt? They, startled me, even in my stricken state. "The first man who'd ever kissed me"--but the first and only man had been Harry himself! What on earth was the meaning of this, in a stranger's handwriting? It went on:

"That is why I have the cheek to write to you. Now you'll turn to the end of this letter to see who I am."

Exactly what I found myself doing, breathlessly!