the more nora sought for means to earn her own livelihood, the more they seemed to evade her. in her time she had heard a good deal about how difficult it sometimes is to earn one's own living, but she never realized what that meant until she started to earn hers. to begin with, she had only the very vaguest notions of how to set about it. she could not serve in a shop; at least she did not feel as if she could; she was conscious that she was not qualified to be a governess; she had no leaning towards domestic service, though she would have preferred that to serving in a shop; she had no woman's trade at her fingers' ends, so that she was unfit for a workroom. what remained? it seemed to her very little, except some sort of clerkship; she had heard that thousands of women were employed as clerks; or if she could get a post as secretary. that was the objective she had in her mind when she left cloverlea, a secretaryship; for that she believed herself to have two necessary qualifications--she wrote a very clear hand, and she had some knowledge of typewriting. she had once started a typewriting class in the village; she had taken lessons herself. she had bought a machine and practised on that, until she gave it away to one of the pupils, who wished to take advantage of the information she had acquired to earn something for herself. that was nearly a year ago; she had not practised since; but she did not doubt that if she came within reach of a machine it would all come back to her; and she had attained to a state of considerable proficiency.
so she bought the daily papers and answered all the advertisements for secretaryships which they contained. there were not as many as she would have wished; some days there were none; and the only answers she received were from agents, who offered to place her name upon their books, in consideration of a fee, which she did not see her way to give them. the way those eight pounds were slipping through her fingers was marvellous; when three weeks had gone she had scarcely thirty shillings left, between her and destitution. of course, she had been extravagant--monstrously extravagant, as miss gibb occasionally told her; but when you have been accustomed all your life to an establishment kept up at the rate of some twelve thousand pounds a year, to say nothing of having five hundred a year for pocket money, it is not easy, all at once, to learn the secret of how to make a shilling do the work of eighteenpence; that is a secret which takes a great deal of learning; by many temperaments it can never be learnt at all.
she had been a month in swan street; had paid three weeks' bills; the fourth lay in front of her. it was such a modest bill--miss gibb's bills were curiosities; yet when it was paid she would not have six shillings left in the world. it frightened her to think of it; the effort to think seemed to set her head in a whirl; her heart was thumping against her ribs; it made her dizzy. what was she to do? where was she to go? she could not stay in swan street; she had not enough to pay next week's rent, to say nothing of food. yet, what was the alternative? with less than six shillings in the world what could she do?
in a sense, since her coming to newington butts she had kept herself to herself. she had this much in common with her father, she could not wear her heart upon her sleeve. she had kept her own counsel; told no one of the straits she was in, of the efforts she was making to find a way to earn her daily bread. but it was plain even to her, as she regarded her few shillings, that the time had come when she must take counsel of some one. if she had to go out into the highways and byways, with her scanty capital, she must learn of some one what highways and byways there were for her to go out into; of herself she knew nothing. as she cast about in her mind for some way out of her trouble, it seemed to her that the only person to whom she could unbosom herself was miss gibb.
she rang the bell, paid her bill, and as she watched angelina, with her tongue out and her head on one side, making magnificent efforts to affix her signature to the receipt, she prepared herself for the ordeal. when the receipt was signed, and angelina was about to go, nora stopped her.
"if you have nothing particular to do just now, and you don't mind, there is something which i should like to say to you."
"i don't know that there's anything you might call particular that i've got to do, but there's always something."
which was true enough; from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night, miss gibb was always doing something; and sometimes also, nora suspected, in the silent watches of the night. nora hesitated; she found the subject a difficult one to broach.
"i'm in rather an uncomfortable position; i--i'm afraid i shall have to leave you."
"why? aren't we giving satisfaction?"
"if i give you as much satisfaction as you give me there'd be no trouble on that score."
"oh, you give us satisfaction all right enough; although, of course, any one can see you're several cuts above our place."
"you are likely to be several cuts above me; i am having to leave you because i have not money enough left to pay you next week's rent."
"not enough money left? how much have you?"
"five and eightpence halfpenny, to be precise." miss gibb changed countenance. "five and eightpence halfpenny! that's not much."
"no one can appreciate the fact better than i do."
"but however come you to have so little?"
"i hadn't much when i came, and i suppose i've been extravagant."
"you have been that."
"you see,"--despite herself nora sighed--"i haven't been used to economy."
"any one could see that with half-an-eye; i shouldn't be surprised to learn that you're one of those who've been used to spend as much as five pounds a week."
"i'm afraid i am.
"then of course there's excuses. we can't get out of ways like that with a hop, skip and a jump; it's not to be expected. but haven't you got any friends who'd help you?"
"i haven't a friend to whom i can apply for help."
"i should have thought you were the kind who'd have had lots of friends. have you fell out with them?"
"i thought my father was a rich man; but when he died--it was only a very little while ago--it appeared that he wasn't; so i have to make my own way in the world, and that is how i came to swan street."
"i know them fathers; i had one of my own, and he wasn't of any account; though i will say this, i always liked him."
"i have been trying to find something by means of which i could earn enough money to keep me. i hoped to have found it before now, but i haven't, and that's the trouble."
"what sort of work have you been looking for?"
"i've been endeavouring to get a post as secretary, among other things, and i've answered no end of advertisements, but nothing has come of one of them."
"secretary? what's that? the notices that the water'll be cut off if it's not paid for, they're signed by a secretary; i always took him to be some kind of a bailiff."
nora endeavoured to explain, but her explanation was not very lucid, and miss gibb was not extremely impressed.
"is that the only kind of work you want?" she asked; "a secretary?"
"indeed it isn't; i should be glad to do anything."
"some people, when they say they'd be glad to do anything, mean nothing, which is about all they're good for; i know. how would you like to go out charing?"
"charing? well, i may be glad to have an opportunity of doing that."
"yes, no doubt; i fancy i see you at it! you charing! my word! strikes me you're the kind who'll find it difficult to get work of any sort."
"you're not very reassuring."
"facts is facts."
"that's true enough; and it's no use blinking them. i fear you're right; i shall find it hard; anyhow while i'm looking for work it's clear that i can't continue to be your lodger. that's what i wanted to explain."
"and pray why not?"
"isn't it pretty obvious? with five and eightpence halfpenny, and no prospect of more, how am i to pay you next week's rent?"
"i did think you'd have talked better sense than that."
"angel!"
"if there's one thing i cannot stand it is to hear people talk right-down silly; i never could stand it, and i never shall. i wouldn't take this week's bill if it wasn't that we were so short; but if that there poor-rate isn't paid next week we shall have the brokers in, so paid it must be; them there poor-rates is demons; they'll turn me grey yet before i've done. but as for your next week's rent--we'll talk about that when it's due."
"are you proposing that i should run up debts with you, which i may never be able to pay? do you call that sense?"
"as it happens that's not what i'm proposing; though if i were as sure of most things as i am of that you'll pay me first chance you get, it might be better for me; but you can hardly say you've got no money when you've got plenty of things you can get money on."
"i don't understand."
"look at your clothes--lovely some of them are; you can get money on them."
"get money on my clothes? how?"
"why, bless me, aren't there pawnbrokers? what do you think they're for? taken to the proper place, by the proper person, you'd get a lot of money on those things of yours; i know. i always say that so long as you've something to pawn it's like having money at the bank."
it was to nora as though miss gibb's words had opened out to her a new world, of which she had not dreamed. in none of the country towns within miles of cloverlea was there a pawnshop; to her knowledge she had never seen one; there were plenty within an easy stroll of swan street; she had passed and re-passed them, but her attention had not been called to what they were; they had escaped her notice. in her mind the word pawnshop stood for almost the lowest word in the scale of degradation; it was the drunkard's last hope; the friend of the felon; the resource of those to whom there was no resource left; that gate into the unthinkable which was associated only with despair. and that it should be suggested to her that she should enter a pawnbroker's den--she had heard it spoken of as a "den"--to "raise" money on the clothes she had worn yesterday, and had hoped to wear again to-morrow--in her blackest hours she had not anticipated such a fate for herself as that. the proposal actually appalled her; filled her with a fear of she knew not what; shamed her; hurled her from a pedestal into a morass. she stammered as she replied, conscious of the crass banality of what she was saying--
"i--i don't think i--i should like to pawn any--any of my things if--if i could help it."
miss gibb's scorn was monumental, as if she resented something which the other implied, though it had been left unuttered.
"and who do you think does like to pawn their things if they can help it? do you suppose people pawn their boots because they've got their pockets full of money? i am surprised to hear you talk, i really am; should have thought at your time of life you'd have known better. wouldn't you rather pawn your clothes than starve?"
"if you--if you put it in that crude way, i suppose i would."
nora smiled; a horrible libel on what a smile ought to be. there was no pretence of a smile about miss gibb; there never was; she was always like a combatant, who, armed at all points, is ever ready for the fray.
"very well, then; you say you've got no money, and i say how do you make that out when you have got things that you can pawn? if you like to go hungry rather than put away a lace petticoat--which you can get out again, mind you, whenever you've a chance--all i can say is i don't; i've known what it is to be hungry, i have."
"but i fear that i--i shouldn't know how to set about pawning a lace petticoat even if i wanted to save myself from going hungry."
"who said you would? who said anything about your setting about it? not me; i do hope i have more sense than that. why, you'd be worse than a baby at the game; it needs some knowing. i'll do all in that way that's wanted; if i don't know pretty well all about pawning that there is to know i ought to, i've been pawning pretty nearly ever since i could walk. what's more, i've pawned pretty nearly every blessed thing that there is to pawn, down to a towel-horse and a kitchen fender. mother and eustace and me would have been a case for a coroner's inquest long ago if i hadn't; and i will say this for them there pawnbrokers, that, considering the class they've got to do with, and that they have got to make a living, they've got as much of the milk of human kindness in them as most. you're going to stop here, that's what you're going to do, and mother and eustace and me will put our heads together to see about finding you some work to do, though i don't know about that there secretary. only for goodness' sake don't you lose heart; no one ever gained anything by doing that. i've seen as much of the world as most, and i know from my own experience that when things are tightest is just the moment when help comes. mother says it comes from heaven; but i don't know, it may or it may not; but it comes from somewhere, and that often from where you least expected it. when next week's bill comes due, if nothing's turned up, you give me something, and i'll take it round to mr. thompson--he's about as good as any--and i'll get as much on it as ever i can, and you'll be able to pay all right; you see, i'm not concealing from you that we've got to live as well as you, and them poor-rates there's no shirking. but don't you fear; mother and eustace and me will have found you something to do between us long before you've spent all the money you've got in the bank; but whatever you do do, don't you go losing heart."
so the child taught the woman, who was learning rapidly that age is not measured by the years one has lived; miss gibb was a century older than she was, though she was only just in her teens. two visits were paid to mr. thompson, each time with a petticoat. nora lived on the proceeds of those two petticoats for nearly another month, during which all the members of the establishment were putting their heads together in endeavours to find her something to do. the heart-sickness it meant for her; the consciousness of wasted effort; the sense of shame; the realization of her own futility; she had aged more during the time she had been in swan street than in all the preceding years. she had long ceased to confine herself to attempts to find a post as secretary, or as clerk. she tramped half over london in her desire to answer, in person, advertisements of all sorts and kinds, always in vain. any one but a sheer ignoramus--miss gibb's ignorance outside her own sphere of action was colossal--would have told her at a glance that her efforts were foredoomed to failure. and why? the idea of such a one as she was occupying some of the situations for which she applied was in itself an absurdity; her appearance, her bearing, her manners, her dress, all were against her; perhaps her dress handicapped her worst of all. she did not know it; she thought her frocks were as simple as they could be; and so they were, in the sense of the great costumier, with the simplicity which is the hall-mark of the dressmaker's art. there was not one of them which had not cost her ten or fifteen guineas. the would-be employer saw this at once, and decided that the applicant was unsuited, which she was; so nora was sent sorrowing away.
so with nora the world went from bad to worse; until, as if to justify miss gibb's prophetic instinct, when things seemed really at their "tightest," help came to her from a quarter--as angelina had foretold--from which she had least expected it.
