At eight o’clock on Sunday morning, Arthur Peachey
unlocked his front door, and quietly went forth.
He had not ventured to ask that early breakfast should
be prepared for him. Enough that he was leaving
home for a summer holiday—the first he had
allowed himself since his marriage three years ago.
It was a house in De Crespigny Park; unattached, double-fronted,
with half-sunk basement, and a flight of steps to the
stucco pillars at the entrance. De Crespigny
Park, a thoroughfare connecting Grove Lane, Camberwell,
with Denmark Hill, presents a double row of similar
dwellings; its clean breadth, with foliage of trees
and shrubs in front gardens, makes it pleasant to
the eye that finds pleasure in suburban London.
In point of respectability, it has claims only to
be appreciated by the ambitious middle-class of Camberwell.
Each house seems to remind its neighbour, with all
the complacence expressible in buff brick, that in
this locality lodgings are not to let.
For an hour after Peachey’s departure, the silence
of the house was unbroken. Then a bedroom door
opened, and a lady in a morning gown of the fashionable
heliotrope came downstairs. She had acute features;
eyes which seemed to indicate the concentration of
her thoughts upon a difficult problem, and cheeks
of singular bloom. Her name was Beatrice French;
her years numbered six and twenty.
She entered the dining-room and drew up the blind.
Though the furniture was less than a year old, and
by no means of the cheapest description, slovenly
housekeeping had dulled the brightness of every surface.
On a chair lay a broken toy, one of those elaborate
and costly playthings which serve no purpose but to
stunt a child’s imagination. Though the
time was midsummer, not a flower appeared among the
pretentious ornaments. The pictures were a strange
medley —autotypes of some artistic value
hanging side by side with hideous oleographs framed
in ponderous gilding. Miss. then violently rang
the bell. When the summons had been twice French
looked about her with an expression of strong disgust,
repeated, there appeared a young woman whose features
told of long and placid slumbers.
‘Well? what does this mean?’
’The cook doesn’t feel well, miss; she
can’t get up.
‘Then get breakfast yourself, and look sharp
about it.’
Beatrice spoke with vehemence; her cheeks showed a
circle of richer hue around the unchanging rose.
The domestic made insolent reply, and there began
a war of words. At this moment another step sounded
on the stairs, and as it drew near, a female voice
was raised in song.
’And a penny in his pocket, la-de-da, la-de-da,—and
a penny in his pocket, la-de-da!’
A younger girl, this, of much slighter build; with
a frisky gait, a jaunty pose of the head; pretty,
but thin-featured, and shallow-eyed; a long neck,
no chin to speak of, a low forehead with the hair
of washed-out flaxen fluffed all over it. Her
dress was showy, and in a taste that set the teeth
on edge. Fanny French, her name.
