The walls were covered with dingy, antiquated paper, and ornamented with coloured supplements from Christmas Numbers--there was a very patriotic picture of a soldier shaking the hand of a fallen comrade and waving his arm in defiance of a band of advancing Arabs; there was a 'Cherry Ripe,' almost black with age and dirt; there were two almanacks several years old, one with a coloured portrait of the Marquess of Lorne, very handsome and elegantly dressed, the object of Mrs. Kemp's adoration since her husband's demise; the other a Jubilee portrait of the Queen, somewhat losing in dignity by a moustache which Liza in an irreverent moment had smeared on with charcoal.
The furniture consisted of a wash-hand stand and a little deal chest of drawers, which acted as sideboard to such pots and pans and crockery as could not find room in the grate; and besides the bed there was nothing but two kitchen chairs and a lamp. Liza looked at it all and felt perfectly satisfied; she put a pin into one corner of the noble Marquess to prevent him from falling, fiddled about with the ornaments a little, and then started washing herself. After putting on her clothes she ate some bread-and-butter, swallowed a dishful of cold tea, and went out into the street.
She saw some boys playing cricket and went up to them.
'Let me ply,' she said.
'Arright, Liza,' cried half a dozen of them in delight; and the captain added: 'You go an' scout over by the lamp-post.'
'Go an' scout my eye!' said Liza, indignantly. 'When I ply cricket I does the battin'.'
'Na, you're not goin' ter bat all the time. 'Oo are you gettin' at?' replied the captain, who had taken advantage of his position to put himself in first, and was still at the wicket.
'Well, then I shan't ply,' answered Liza.
'Garn, Ernie, let 'er go in!' shouted two or three members of the team.
'Well, I'm busted!' remarked the captain, as she took his bat. 'You won't sty in long, I lay,' he said, as he sent the old bowler fielding and took the ball himself. He was a young gentleman who did not suffer from excessive backwardness.
'Aht!' shouted a dozen voices as the ball went past Liza's bat and landed in the pile of coats which formed the wicket. The captain came forward to resume his innings, but Liza held the bat away from him.
'Garn!' she said; 'thet was only a trial.'
'You never said trial,' answered the captain indignantly.
'Yus, I did,' said Liza; 'I said it just as the ball was comin'--under my breath.'
'Well, I am busted!' repeated the captain.
Just then Liza saw Tom among the lookers-on, and as she felt very kindly disposed to the world in general that morning, she called out to him:
''Ulloa, Tom!' she said. 'Come an' give us a ball; this chap can't bowl.'
'Well, I got yer aht, any'ow,' said that person.
'Ah, yer wouldn't 'ave got me aht plyin' square. But a trial ball--well, one don't ever know wot a trial ball's goin' ter do.'
Tom began bowling very slowly and easily, so that Liza could swing her bat round and hit mightily; she ran well, too, and pantingly brought up her score to twenty. Then the fielders interposed.
'I sy, look 'ere, 'e's only givin' 'er lobs; 'e's not tryin' ter git 'er aht.'
'You're spoilin' our gime.'
'I don't care; I've got twenty runs--thet's more than you could do. I'll go aht now of my own accord, so there! Come on, Tom.'
Tom joined her, and as the captain at last resumed his bat and the game went on, they commenced talking, Liza leaning against the wall of a house, while Tom stood in front of her, smiling with pleasure.
'Where 'ave you been idin' yerself, Tom? I ain't seen yer for I dunno 'ow long.'
'I've been abaht as usual; an' I've seen you when you didn't see me.'
'Well, yer might 'ave come up and said good mornin' when you see me.'
'I didn't want ter force myself on, yer, Liza.'
'Garn! You are a bloomin' cuckoo. I'm blowed!'
'I thought yer didn't like me 'angin' round yer; so I kep' awy.'
'Why, yer talks as if I didn't like yer. Yer don't think I'd 'ave come aht beanfeastin' with yer if I 'adn't liked yer?'
Liza was really very dishonest, but she felt so happy this morning that she loved the whole world, and of course Tom came in with the others. She looked very kindly at him, and he was so affected that a great lump came in his throat and he could not speak.
Liza's eyes turned to Jim's house, and she saw coming out of the door a girl of about her own age; she fancied she saw in her some likeness to Jim.
'Say, Tom,' she asked, 'thet ain't Blakeston's daughter, is it?'
'Yus thet's it.'
'I'll go an' speak to 'er,' said Liza, leaving Tom and going over the road.
'You're Polly Blakeston, ain't yer?' she said.
'Thet's me!' said the girl.
'I thought you was. Your dad, 'e says ter me, "You dunno my daughter, Polly, do yer?" says 'e. "Na," says I, "I don't." "Well," says 'e, "You can't miss 'er when you see 'er." An' right enough I didn't.'
'Mother says I'm all father, an' there ain't nothin' of 'er in me. Dad says it's lucky it ain't the other wy abaht, or e'd 'ave got a divorce.'
They both laughed.
'Where are you goin' now?' asked Liza, looking at the slop-basin she was carrying.
'I was just goin' dahn into the road ter get some ice-cream for dinner. Father 'ad a bit of luck last night, 'e says, and 'e'd stand the lot of us ice-cream for dinner ter-day.'
'I'll come with yer if yer like.'
'Come on!' And, already friends, they walked arm-in-arm to the Westminster Bridge Road. Then they went along till they came to a stall where an Italian was selling the required commodity, and having had a taste apiece to see if they liked it, Polly planked down sixpence and had her basin filled with a poisonous-looking mixture of red and white ice-cream.
On the way back, looking up the street, Polly cried:
'There's father!'
Liza's heart beat rapidly and she turned red; but suddenly a sense of shame came over her, and casting down her head so that she might not see him, she said:
'I think I'll be off 'ome an' see 'ow mother's gettin' on.' And before Polly could say anything she had slipped away and entered her own house.
Mother was not getting on at all well.
'You've come in at last, you ----, you!' snarled Mrs. Kemp, as Liza entered the room.
'Wot's the matter, mother?'
'Matter! I like thet--matter indeed! Go an' matter yerself an' be mattered! Nice way ter treat an old woman like me--an' yer own mother, too!'
'Wot's up now?'
'Don't talk ter me; I don't want ter listen ter you. Leavin' me all alone, me with my rheumatics, an' the neuralgy! I've 'ad the neuralgy all the mornin', and my 'ead's been simply splittin', so thet I thought the bones 'ud come apart and all my brains go streamin' on the floor. An' when I wake up there's no one ter git my tea for me, an' I lay there witin' an' witin', an' at last I 'ad ter git up and mike it myself. And, my 'ead simply cruel! Why, I might 'ave been burnt ter death with the fire alight an' me asleep.'
'Well, I am sorry, mother; but I went aht just for a bit, an' didn't think you'd wike. An' besides, the fire wasn't alight.'
'Garn with yer! I didn't treat my mother like thet. Oh, you've been a bad daughter ter me--an' I 'ad more illness carryin' you than with all the other children put togither. You was a cross at yer birth, an' you've been a cross ever since. An' now in my old age, when I've worked myself ter the bone, yer leaves me to starve and burn to death.' Here she began to cry, and the rest of her utterances was lost in sobs.
* * * * *
The dusk had darkened into night, and Mrs. Kemp had retired to rest with the dicky-birds. Liza was thinking of many things; she wondered why she had been unwilling to meet Jim in the morning.