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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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"NOW I should love to give that girl a good square meal!" This was the thought that daily animated the precise little lawyer as he took his modest lunch in the A.B.C. The girl who was the object of this charitable wish sat at the opposite table, and had done so ever since her first appearance, three weeks previously.
At first sight it would seem that the positions should have been reversed, for Brayne was thin and spare, while the girl was big and bony. The little lawyer's hair had grown thin in his efforts to make his income fat, and he had never had the time to notice anything so frivolous as a petticoat. Therefore, his interest in this particular girl was a novelty that both charmed and worried him.
When she first of all invaded the dingy shop, he had admired the fresh colour and vitality of the girl. She was so essentially wholesome and English—just the typical Outdoor Girl that appealed to Brayne's fancy. He soon began to take a furtive interest in her actions, and he grew familiar with her daily request for "A small tea and a bun."
Brayne smiled the superior smile of his sex.
"Just like a girl," he mused. "What a mad lunch! Pity she hasn't got more sense. She looks the sort that plays golf and hockey all day, and she ought to have a good, healthy appetite."
It was quite a red-letter day when the little lawyer had the joy of passing the sugar to the girl. He did this silently for three consecutive days, and on the fourth he plucked up heart and ventured to remark that the day was cold. The girl assented, and Brayne felt spurred on to allude lightly to the fog. But fearful of being mistaken for a bold man-about-town, he remained silent, and reserved the fog for the next day, when the girl agreed with him that it was an unpleasant feature of London.
Brayne proceeded cautiously for a week with his new acquaintance, averaging one sentence a day until, one morning, when searching for an original remark, he took for text%mdash;a woman's lunch.
"I wonder how it is,". he remarked reflectively, "that so few women understand the importance of a proper lunch? They seem to think a cup of tea and a bun sufficient to sustain them for hours."
The girl looked round the shop, and suddenly became eloquent.
"That is quite a man's point of view." she said quickly, "Take the case of most of the girls who are lunching here. From their appearance they all look like girls who work, and I don't suppose they earn many shillings a week. Divide that up into the necessaries of life, and what does it leave over for lunch? And remember that, in many cases, before everything, appearances have to be kept up. Think of that and the long struggle it involves."
Brayne was startled by the feeling in her voice. The girl's eyes fell upon the plate of cold meat lying in front of the lawyer, and they suddenly were dimmed by. tears. With a shock oŁ horror the man recognised the look. The girl was obviously hungry.
For some minutes Brayne could not entertain the idea. This healthy, bonny young woman was so unlike the conventional pathetic figure of the superfluous typist or the unnecessary- governess. He looked again with keen attention, and he noted that the rounded features were somewhat worn, and that the plain, tailor-made costume was obviously far from new, while the girl did not wear one single article of jewellery.
The incident made Brayne feel sick at heart. His nature was a particularly tender one. If his profession demanded that his acquisitive side was called into play, the lawyer certainly disgorged liberally, and it was rarely that the most repulsive beggar appealed to him in vain. But in the case of the girl who had latterly come between Brayne and his former mistress, the Law, the poor man felt powerless.
All that afternoon he worried over the possibilities of the case, and he devoted almost as much time to the solution of the problem as he did to the difficulties of a new client that Fate sent to him that day.
For fully a week he bothered himself ceaselessly. The girl's pathetic face haunted him and came constantly between his enjoyment of his meals. The wildest plans came to him in the night hours. He had visions of begging for her confidence, of slipping money into her pockets, of ordering a sumptuous meal, and praying her to honour him by sharing it.
One cold, dreary day he came in as usual, and was rewarded for his respectful greeting with a bright smile.
"Glad that Christmas is over?" he hazarded.
"Very," replied the girl. "You see the last signs of the festive season are not yet sold out."
She pointed to a row of dark-looking moulds as she spoke.
"Those are Blankley's lucky puddings," he explained. "They put so many coins into them, to create excitement and to push the sale."
"Really! What a lucky find it would be to some people! Quite a godsend!"
Brayne looked at her in his bird-like, speculative manner, and a sudden smile flickered over his face, which vanished as quickly as it came, leaving just the shadow of a pucker round the corners of his thin mouth. He suddenly spoke, quickly and nervously.
"Let's try our luck, and have some pudding to-day. I'm always lucky on a Friday. Do! One never knows, and it will be really exciting."
The girl looked regretfully at the tea, and then at the man's eager face.
"Very well," she said kindly.
Brayne himself crossed to the counter and waited for the waitress to cut the pudding. He would entrust those precious plates to no other hands, and as he returned from his journey no one could have guessed that into the portion of his unknown charmer he had just dexterously slipped a sovereign.
"She wouldn't guess, and it may save the situation later on," he thought But his throat was dry, and his face twitched nervously as he watched her attack her share.
The long-suffering door of the A.B.C. banged once more, and a clergyman entered. Brayne's face lit up with a smile of welcome as he recognised his old friend, the hard-working vicar of an East End parish. But to his surprise, when the clergyman reached the little marble-topped table, he greeted two friends. instead of one, and his first friendly handshake was for Brayne's hungry divinity.
"Miss Armstrong! I am delighted to see you! Brayne, you must let me introduce you to Miss Armstrong. She is my right hand in the parish, and I don't know what St. Michael's would do without her."
But at that moment Brayne's only thought was a prayer that St. Michael could do with him, and waft him away from a world of misunderstandings. For he realised, with a sinking of his heart, and a wild mixture of culinary metaphors, that, whilst tampering with the pudding, he had slipped into the soup. Hear of Miss Armstrong? He should think he had heard of her. The charming, strong-willed girl, who, after being disillusioned by her engagement with a mercenary peer, was now devoting her time, talents, and a considerable income in the parish of St. Michael.
"You two ought to know each other," beamed the Rev. Miles. "Brayne is very keen on the things that interest us, Miss Armstrong."
Vera Armstrong smiled. "Are you? That's capital! Strangely enough, we have been meeting lately in a casual way, but now we know each other we shall be able to exchange ideas. Just lately I have been trying an experiment for six weeks. I have been living on the wage of an ordinary typist. I have some sort of an idea for a model club. Oh, dear, you have no idea how hungry I get!"
Brayne had no idea for his mind was paralysed into a blank as he watched the play of her spoon and fork.
The Rev. Miles stretched out his hand.
"I must be off," he said. "By the by, Brayne, have you had the joy yet of standing a lunch to the girl you were so struck with? Ho! Well, good-bye."
Brayne ground his teeth, for the jocularity of the Church had proved his undoing. The next minute the blow fell. "Oh, look, Mr. Brayne, I've actually found something! Why, a sixpence! Now I must put this by for my ragged breakfasts."
Brayne tried to smile. Then Miss Armstrong's voice sharpened with excitement.
"Good gracious, here's another! A sovereign this time. How extraordinary!"
Brayne eyed the coin out of the corner of a deceitful eye, and, with an inward groan, owned that it was extraordinary. For, just in the same manner that a professional shows up an amateur, so the wretched sixpence completely gave away the masquerading sovereign. The one was dull and coated, and the other brazen in its brilliancy.
Miss Armstrong suddenly looked at the little lawyer with a growing suspicion in her eye, for the man bore the air of a detected criminal.
"Did you put this sovereign here?" she asked.
And Brayne meekly nodded.
Vera looked puzzled, and then she frowned.
"Is this a contribution towards my charities?"
Brayne grasped desperately at the loophole of escape.
"Yes," he said mendaciously. But the frown grew blacker. Miss Armstrong's money-bags had proved the honey around which so many wasps gathered that the girl was suspicious of any overture towards her favour. She remembered the clergyman's last remark and she wrote down the incident as an impertinent attempt to ingratiate.
"You have taken a liberty, Mr Brayne," she said coldly. "Still, as you meant it as a kindness, you shall have your reward. You may take me out to lunch, as I gather you wished."
"With pleasure. Where?"
"Ritz," she said.
Now Brayne was a homely man, with a weak digestion and a modest income. The next hour was a time of torture for the poor man. The gorgeous restaurant, the crowd of smart people, the officious waiters, and the food disguised in strange ways and under unknown names, shattered his already sorely-tried nerves. He was acutely conscious of his shabby suit and his awkward manner, and under the scornful hostility of Miss Armstrong's manner he went to pieces. He ordered everything, as he could not trust himself to discriminate, and after leaving his own portions, he tipped madly to cover his confusion. He did not draw an easy breath until he was once more outside the building, hopelessly insolvent and mentally crushed.
"Well, have you enjoyed yourself?" asked Vera sarcastically.
"Not particularly, thanks," was the dry answer. "But I deserved the penance. Before we part for ever let me confess one more crime. I told you a falsehood just now to cover something worse. I know you will consider it an insult to your looks and clothes and all that, but I thought you were just a girl down on her luck, with a jolly appetite, and I—I—"
His voice failed, but Miss Armstrong suddenly gripped the lawyer's hand warmly.
"Did you really? That was kind of you! You must forgive me this time."
Friday really was Brayne's lucky day, for the Fates had in store for him a rich marriage and a happy life-time of philanthropy. But one of his most cherished memories was of the happy Friday when he took Miss Vera Armstrong to a restaurant and treated her to a good square meal.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.