“It was terrible! Terrible! The filthy lodging-houses! The dreadful food…. and then no food at all. Your poor father used to say: “Kitty, it would have been better had you stayed at Haredon!” I answered: “Indeed not! My place is by your side, Darrell. No matter what I must suffer, that is where my place is!” ‘ Was it really true, wondered Carolan, or was she playing another part the faithful lover? No I There must be a modicum of truth in it.
“Did he do no work then, Mamma?”
“He worked for a merchant. He worked along the wharfside.” She shivered and covered her face with her hands. Then she removed them and smiled radiantly.
“But why do we talk of it? Now all is well.”
“Ah, Mamma! Are you sure all is well?”
“My child! Oh, my solemn little darling! Of course all is well. We have the shop now. Your father says the shop will make our fortunes, and your father was never a man to adorn a tale. He says that after a short stay here in this perfectly frightful neighbourhood … And let me tell you, Carolan, it is frightful, and you must always remember should I and your father forget to lock up the doors and lower windows every night…”
“There is so much I do not understand,” said Carolan.
“It is such a queer sort of shop… without any customers.”
“You must not worry your head over it, Carolan - I do not. I trust in your father. He has promised me a house in the country with servants to wait upon me, and he is not a man to make promises lightly, that much I know. Oh, Carolan, what a happy day when we leave this place! I can see the house I shall have … I can see it clearly …” Her manner changed suddenly. Now she was gracious, full of dignity, receiving her guests at the top of a wide staircase; and that image was more real to her than this tawdry room and her daughter, sitting there on the bed.
Kitty stopped dreaming abruptly and said: “My dear, pass me that wrap, and I will have a little more of the bacon.”
She ate heartily.
“I am glad,” said Carolan, watching her, ‘that you do not regret leaving Haredon.”
Kitty laughed.
“That place! That beast there! Ah, how he tormented me! And should I be the one to pine for a country life? No! No! Now if I had a carriage… I cannot get about as I would, but your father will not get me a carriage; he says we cannot afford it. He has said we must save… save… so that we can leave this wretched business behind us. But when I get my own house, servants to wait on me … ah! Then you shall see. Perhaps I could get Therese … Dear Therese. With her lotions and concoctions, what she could do with me now. In the country I shall bloom again.” She smiled at her daughter appraisingly, a little complacently.
“You have charm yourself, my dear, but you will never be what I was. Your looks are modern. Looks are not what they were in my young days. Ah! We knew how to be beautiful then. But you have a look of me about you, Carolan. A pity your eyes are so green; blue would have been so much more appealing. And if your hair had been fair like mine … But you have my nose, darling, and my chin, and though not quite my mouth. You have a lot of me in you, Carolan.”
Carolan curtsied.
“Thank you kindly, Mamma.” She stooped and kissed her mother.
“I will leave you to dress now, and perhaps soon my father will be home, and he will take me walking.”
“Do not expect me too soon,” warned Kitty.
“I miss my dear Therese And darling, bring me hot water, please. I loathe cold, and I declare that if either your father or Millie did not bring me hot, I often could not resist the temptation not to wash at all.”
“You shall have hot water, Mamma.”
Thank you. I will wait for it. Ah, my darling, how good it is to have you home! If you could but know how deep was my longing to have you here during those years of separation!”
It was during the afternoon that the idea came to Carolan. Not a single customer had come into the shop. She had listened eagerly for the sound of the bell all the afternoon. Kitty sat in the parlour, idly turning the leaves of Madame D’Arblay’s Evelina, and talking now and then to Carolan. Millie was dusting the upstairs rooms.
Carolan said: “Mamma! I have an idea. I am going into the shop; I want to tidy things a bit. It is very gloomy out there, and I am sure it is wrong to go all day without a single customer. It will be a surprise for my father.”
Kitty laughed.
“My darling, how difficult you find it to sit still, do you not! You are not like I was … even at your age; I was not nearly so restless. But if you would like to…”
“Do you think my father would be pleased?”
“Of course he would be pleased, dear man!”
Then I shall go. Leave the parlour door open and I can talk to you as I work.”
“Yes,” said Kitty, ‘leave the door open.”
Carolan stood in the dark interior of the shop, and wondered where to begin. Such a hotchpotch! And how typical of her father to show the most unattractive of his goods in the most prominent positions! Those old clothes hanging in the doorway; shabby things green with age! And the window chock-full of unwholesome looking garments, while in odd trays he had quite an assortment of pretty, though apparently cheap, jewellery. And if some of the old silver were polished up, what an attractive face the little shop could show the world!
First of all she would take the old coats from the doorway; then she would clear the window. Cheerfully she set to work, and in a short time she had a pile of unsavoury garments laid out on the floor. The window space was clear, but very dirty. She would dust it for today, and tomorrow she would get Millie to help her and they would get to work in earnest.
“Darling,” wailed Kitty, ‘such a dust is floating through!”
“It shows how badly it needed cleaning!” called Carolan excitedly.
There was a smear of dust on her nose; her eyes were brilliant. Now and then she would click her tongue indulgently, as some fresh example of her father’s carelessness came to light. She found a piece of black velvet and enjoyed herself, laying out the jewellery on it. The shop was going to be tasteful, as alluring as the shops she had passed on her way here. She tried to visualize her father’s pleasure when he saw the alterations.
She stood, her head on one side, surveying her handiwork. She frowned at the great bunch of old coats hanging against the wall just behind the counter. An eyesore! As soon as she touched them a moth flew out. She began to pull them down, but they were heavy and not easy to move. She had to get a chair to stand on and unhook them. And when she had them down, a door was disclosed; she tried it, but it was locked!
“Mammal’ she called.
“What door is this?”
“What door, my love?”
“A door here in the shop. There were a lot of coats hanging over it. It is locked!”
“A door …” mused Kitty.
“Oh, I remember. We never use it; we always keep it locked. At least I think your father uses it sometimes… I do not know.”
“Where does it lead to, Mamma?”
“I think to a basement room! I’m not sure.”
Carolan went to the door between the shop and the parlour. She surveyed her mother with exasperation.
“Mamma, do you mean to say you have never been through that door?”
“Why should I go through it?” asked Kitty.
“But surely, when you came to the house…”
Kitty yawned indolently.
“My darling, shut the door. The dust is worrying my throat, and my throat was never really strong. I often thought that, had it been, my mother would have had me trained to sing. She said my voice was exactly like Elizabeth Sheridan’s.” She smiled, flushed with the applause of an enthusiastic audience.
“But when you looked over the house,” persisted Carolan impatiently, ‘did you not open that door and see what was beyond it?”
“My dear,” said Kitty, “I was not as inquisitive as you. I do not worry myself where this leads, and what is beyond that. It is a mistake to worry about things that are of no importance.”