Eleven o’clock! Before the vibration of the nearest chimes had died
away, the rain—which had long been threatening over London—poured down
for some five minutes in a fierce gust, and then, as if exhausted by
its efforts, subsided into a steady drizzle. The waves of light, cast
on the glistening pavement from the gas lamps flickering in the wind,
shone on the stones; but the unstable shadows were cast back by the
stronger refulgence of the electric light at Covent Garden. Back into
the gathered mist of Long Acre the pallid gleam receded; while, on the
opposite side, the darkness of Russell Street seemed darker still. By
Tavistock Street was a gin-shop, whose gilded front, points of flame,
and dazzling glass seemed to smile a smile of crafty welcome to the
wayfarer. A few yards away from the knot of loafers clustering with
hungry eyes round the door, stood a woman. There were others of her
sex close by, but not like her, and though her dress was poor and
dilapidated to the last degree, the others saw instinctively she was
not as they. She was young, presumably not more than five-and-twenty
years, and on her face she bore the shadow of a great care. Gazing,
half sullenly, half wistfully, into the temptingly arrayed window, her
profile strongly marked by the great blaze of light farther up the
street, the proud carriage of the head formed a painful contrast to
her scanty garb and sorrow-stricken face. She was a handsome, poorly
dressed woman, with a haughty bearing, a look of ever-present care, and
she had twopence in her pocket.
If you will consider what it is to have such a meagre sum standing
between you and starvation, you may realise the position of this woman.
To be alone, unfriended, penniless, in a city of four million souls,
is indeed a low depth of human misery. Perhaps she thought so, for
her mind was quickly formed. Pushing back the door with steady hand,
she entered the noisy bar. She had half expected to be an object of
interest, perhaps suspicion; but, alas, too many of us in this world
carry our life’s history written in our faces, to cause any feelings of
surprise. The barman served her with the cordial she ordered, and with
a business-like ‘chink,’ swept away her last two coppers. Even had he
known they were her last, the man would have evinced no undue emotion.
He was not gifted with much imagination, and besides, it was a common
thing there to receive the last pittance that bridges over the gulf
between a human being and starvation. There she sat, resting her tired
limbs, deriving a fictitious strength from the cordial, dimly conscious
that the struggle against fate was past, and nothing remained for it
but—a speedy exit from further trouble—one plunge from the bridges!
Slowly and meditatively she sipped at her tumbler, wondering—strange
thought—why those old-fashioned glasses had never been broken. Slowly,
but surely, the liquid decreased, till only a few drops remained. The
time had come, then! She finished it, drew her scanty shawl closer
about her shoulders, and went out again into the London night.
Only half-past eleven, and the streets filled with people. Lower down,
in Wellington Street, the theatre-goers were pouring out of the Lyceum.
The portico was one dazzling blaze of beauty and colour; men in evening
dress, and dainty ladies waiting for their luxurious carriages. The
outcast wandered on, wondering vaguely whether there was any sorrow,
any ruin, any disgrace, remorse, or dishonour in that brilliant crowd,
and so she drifted into the Strand, heedlessly and aimlessly. Along the
great street as far as St Clement’s Danes, unnoticed and unheeded, her
feet dragging painfully, she knew not where. Then back again to watch
the last few people leaving the Lyceum, and then unconsciously she
turned towards the river, down Wellington Street, to Waterloo Bridge.
On that Bridge of Sighs she stopped, waiting, had she but known it, for
her fate.
It was quiet there on that wet night—few foot-passengers about, and
she was quite alone as she stood in one of the buttresses, looking
into the shining flood beneath. Down the river, as far as her eye
could reach, were the golden points of light flickering and swaying
in the fast-rushing water. The lap of the tide on the soft oozing mud
on the Surrey side mingled almost pleasantly with the swirl and swish
of the churning waves under the bridge. The dull thud of the cabs and
omnibuses in the Strand came quietly and subdued; but she heard them
not. The gas lamps had changed to the light of day, the heavy winter
sky was of the purest blue, and the hoarse murmur of the distant Strand
was the rustling of the summer wind in the trees. The far-off voices
of the multitude softened and melted into the accents of one she used
to love; and this is what she saw like a silent picture, the memories
ringing in her head like the loud sea a child hears in a shell. A long
old house of gray stone, with a green veranda covered with ivy and
flowering creepers; a rambling lawn, sloping away to a tiny lake, all
golden with yellow iris and water-lilies. In the centre of the lawn,
a statue of Niobe; and seated by that statue was herself, and with
her a girl some few years younger—a girl with golden hair surrounding
an oval lace, fair as the face of an angel, and lighted by truthful
velvety violet eyes. This was the picture mirrored in the swift water.
She climbed the parapet, looked steadily around: the lovely face in the
water was so near, and she longed to hear the beautiful vision speak.
And lo! at that moment the voice of her darling spoke, and a hand was
laid about her waist, and the voice said: ‘Not that way, I implore
you—not that way.’
The woman paused, slowly regained her position on the bridge, and gazed
into the face of her companion with dilated eyes. But the other girl
had her back to the light, and she could not see.
‘A voice from the grave. Have I been dreaming?’ she said, passing her
hand wearily across her brow.
‘A voice of providence. Can you have reflected on what you were doing?
Another moment, and think of it—oh, think of it!’
‘A voice from the grave,’ repeated the would-be suicide slowly. ‘Surely
this must be a good omen. Her voice!—how like her voice.’
The rescuing angel paused a minute, struggling with a dim memory. Where
had she in her turn heard that voice before? With a sudden impulse,
they seized each other, and bore towards the nearest gaslight, and
there gazed intently in each other’s face. The guardian angel looked
a look of glad surprise; the pale face of the hapless woman was
glorified, as she seized her rescuer round her neck and sobbed on her
breast piteously.
‘Nelly, Miss Nelly, my darling; don’t you know me?’
‘Madge, why, Madge! O Madge! to think of it—to think of it.’
Presently they grew calmer. The girl called Nelly placed the other
woman’s arm within her own and walked quietly away from the hated
bridge; and, thoroughly conquered, the hapless one accompanied her. No
word was spoken as they walked on for a mile or so, across the Strand,
towards Holborn, and there disappeared.
* * * * *
The night-traffic of London went on. The great thoroughfares plied
their business, unheedful of tragedy and sorrow. A life had been saved;
but what is one unit in the greatest city of the universe? The hand of
fate was in it. It was only one of those airy trifles of which life
is composed, and yet the one minute that saved a life, unravelled the
first tiny thread of a tangled skein that bound up a great wrong.