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At No. 30 Welham Mansions, Hampstead, were three little sleepers who depended upon her for all they needed in the world, and over them watched a tired old grannie who would fain go home to bed. Marie left the others suddenly, in case the strength of her resolution should fail her, crying, as she ran out: "Now don't stop me! I'm going to put on my hat and GO!"
They trundled the grey baby-carriage back across the Heath, and toiled up the stone staircase of Welham Mansions to Number Thirty. All the windows of the flat were opened; it looked almost fresh and bright once more; and a charwoman of stout build was dealing competently with the few remaining jobs. Marie paid her; instructed her to return to-morrow, and went to make herself ready for town.
Kerr senior lay quietly afar off from No. 30 Welham Mansions, impotent to reform, and Osborn lay thinking his thoughts in silence while Marie, having dressed to petticoat and camisole, wreathed up her long and lustrous hair. The baby sucked intermittently at his bottle. When Marie had put on her blouse and skirt, and a pinafore to protect them, she went out without further conversation.
Julia was far more pleased with the lamb than the baby would be, as she boarded an omnibus and rode towards Hampstead. It was six when she arrived at the door of No. 30 Welham Mansions, and Marie opened it to her with the baby in her arms, huddled up in a rather soiled shawl from which only his incredibly downy head emerged. He looked solemnly at Julia and emitted an inquiring croak.
"I've asked." He answered very slowly, as if still weighing his words: "We were talking of a coming trip I have to make to Paris; I was asking her if she wouldn't come, too." A little colour rose in his wife's face. "I'll come instead," she said clearly. Osborn Kerr let himself into No. 30, Welham Mansions, laden with packages.
"Am I not, old man?" said Osborn, looking at the colour of his ale with a kind of smiling remoteness. "Well ... this is it ... how does one put it?... Well, here it is. Next September there'll be three people instead of two at No. 30 Welham Mansions." "By Jove!" said Rokeby. "You must be awf'ly pleased!" "Simply off my head! So's Marie."
Marie went home the warmer for Julia's companionship and her visit to the most up-to-date women's club in town; she looked almost girlish again when she stepped into No. 30 Welham Mansions, to relieve Grannie Amber of the onerous responsibilities which she undertook so gladly. "Well, duck," said Mrs.
But they did not think of that; they were in haste to reach No. 30 Welham Mansions, the little heaven behind the closed front door. "We had a jolly old afternoon, hadn't we?" said Osborn after dinner. "I'll take you there again." "Can we afford it?" said Marie, with a droop to her mouth. "We will afford it. I'll make lots of money for my Marie. We'll have a dear old time!"
The rosy cloud of time and distance had rolled between Osborn and all that was his at No. 30 Welham Mansions. Before his year of adventure was up he found himself thinking of them sentimentally; he found that they were embedded pretty deep in his heart. They were real; other things were Looking about for a definition, he stigmatised other things: "They're trash."
She ran down the steps, signalling, and it spurted up. "Number Thirty Welham Mansions, Hampstead," she said as she jumped in. It was an extravagant method of travel being some distance to Hampstead for a young woman earning three pounds ten a week and spending most of it gorgeously, but she did not care. The four shillings were a nothing compared to Marie's need of her.
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