Beaumont Buildings is scarcely the place one would choose in which to
spend a summer's day; for, though they reach unto the heavens, they are,
like most of their kind, somewhat stuffy, the dust of the great city in
all their nooks and corners, and the noise of the crowded life
penetrates even to the topmost flat.
The agent, a man of fine imagination and unlimited descriptive powers,
states that Beaumont Buildings is "situated in a fashionable locality";
but though Fashion may dwell close at hand, and its carriages sometimes
roll luxuriously through the street in which the Buildings tower, the
street is a grimy and rather squalid one, in which most of the houses are
shops--shops of the cheap and useful kind which cater for the poor.
There is always a noise and a blare in Beaumont Street. The butcher not
only displays his joints and "block ornaments" outside his shop, but
proclaims their excellence in stentorian tones; and the grocer and
fruiterer and fishmonger compete with the costermongers, who stand
yelling beside their barrows from early morn to late and gaslit night.
The smells of Beaumont Street are innumerable, and like unto the sea
shells for variety; and the scent of oranges, the pungent odor of fried
fish, from the shop down the side street, and that vague smell familiar
to all who dwell in the heart of London, rise and enter the open
windows.
On the pavement and in the roadway, among the cabs and tradesmen's
carts, the children play and yell and screech; and at night the song of
the intoxicated as he rolls homeward, or is conveyed to the nearest cell
by the guardian of the peace he is breaking, flits across the dreams of
those in the Buildings who are so unfortunate as to sleep lightly; and
they are many.
And yet in a small room of a small flat on the fourth floor of this
Babel of noise and unrest sat Nell.
Eighteen months had passed since she made her sacrifice and left Wolfer
House. The black dress in which she looked so slight, and against which
the ivory pallor of her face was accentuated, was worn as mourning for
Mrs. Lorton; for that estimable lady had genteelly faded away, and Nell
and Dick were alone in this transitory world.
The sun was pouring through the open window, and Nell had dragged her
chair into the angle of the wall just out of the reach of the hot beams,
but still near the window, in the hope of catching something of the
smoke-laden air which away out in the country must be blowing so fresh
and sweetly.