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For one thing she had to seek her meals in the nearest coffee-shop instead of going down into Mrs. Bubb's kitchen and gossiping as she ate at the family deal table, amid the dirt and disorder which custom had made pleasant. When in the house she locked herself in her bedroom, reading the kind of print that interested her, or lying in sullen idleness on the bed.
She remembered the battle at Mrs. Bubb's. All very well, that kind of thing, in days of courtship, but after marriage no! Some girls might be willing to find their master. Polly had always meant to rule, and that undisputedly. Breakfasting in her bedroom at ten o'clock, she was surprised by the receipt of a telegram. It came from Christopher Parish and ran thus: "Great news.
These were called the "gardens" of the houses in Kennington Road, but no blade of grass ever showed upon the black, hard-trodden soil. Lank fowls ran about among discarded furniture and indescribable rubbish, or children few as well-tended as Mrs. Bubb's played and squabbled under the dropping soot.
As he loitered without appetite over a particularly greasy breakfast, listening to Mrs. Bubb's description of an ailment from which her youngest child was suffering, Moggie came into the kitchen and said that a young man wished to see him. Gammon rushed up to the front door, where, in mist and drizzle, stood a muscular youth whom he did not recognize. "I'm come from Mrs.
Here Gammon soon learnt that the case was considered serious, so serious that the patient has been put to bed and must there remain. Utterly done up Gammon threw himself into the cab to be driven to Kennington Road. When he reached Mrs. Bubb's he was fast asleep, but there a voice addressed him which restored his consciousness very quickly indeed.
"I wish, Rip," said Mrs. Wriothesley, putting her head into her husband's sanctum one morning, "you would look in at Bubb's this afternoon, and tell them to send me a box for the Prince of Wales's next Wednesday. You will of course do as you like, but I am going to ask Jim Bloxam to dine and go with us to the play." "What a clever designing little woman it is!" replied her husband lazily.
He went down into the kitchen, where the gas was burning, and sat till the landlady came down. "I don't see as you did much good," was Mrs. Bubb's first remark, in the tone which signifies reaction after excitement. "It weren't worth breaking a door in, it seems to me." Gammon hung his head. "Didn't Polly tell her anything?" "She stuck out she knew where the 'usband was, and that's all."
Time after time he had purposed making a confession to Mrs. Clover, time after time he "funked it" his own mental phrase and put it off. He grew discontented with his room at Mrs. Bubb's. In getting up these bright mornings he looked with entirely new distaste upon the prospect from his window at the back. Beneath lay parallel strips of ground, divided from each other by low walls.
Now I'm as sure as I am of anything that it's all lies. I don't believe Mr. Gammon has insulted her. There was something happened before she left Mrs. Bubb's a bit of unpleasantness there's no need to talk about; but I'm as sure as I sit here, Ebenezer, that Mr. Gammon wouldn't insult any girl in the way Polly says." "Why don't you ask him?" Mrs. Clover glanced at the door and betrayed uneasiness.
At this rate he would presently have no female friends at all. Mrs. Clover he had not once seen since the evening at Mrs. Bubb's, and every day that went by put a greater distance between them. He understood her unfriendliness; she thought this the best way of destroying any hopes he might still entertain with reference to Minnie; yes, that was the only possible explanation of her silence.