“5a Little Turnstile, High Holborn, London, W. C., November 9, 18--.
“Oh yiz, oh yiz, oh yiz! This is to announce to you with due pomp and
circumstance that I, Glory Quayle, am no longer at the hospital--for
the present. Did I never tell you? Have you never noticed it in the
regulations? Every half-year a nurse is entitled to a week's holiday,
and as I have been exactly six months to-day at Martha's Vineyard, and
as a week is too short a time for a trip to the 'oilan,' [* Island.]
and as a good lady whose acquaintance I have made here had given me a
pressing invitation to visit her---- See?
“Being the first day since I came up to London that I have been sole
mistress of my will and pleasure, I have been letting myself loose, like
Caesar does the moment his mad hoofies touch the grass. I must tell you
all about it. The day began beautifully. After a spell of laughing and
crying weather, and all the world sneezing and blowing its nose, there
came a frosty morning with the sun shining and the air as bright as
diamonds. I left the hospital between, eleven and twelve o'clock, and
crossing the park by Birdcage Walk I noticed that flags were flying on
Buckingham Palace and church bells ringing everywhere. It turned out
to be the birthday of the Prince of Wales, and the Lord Mayor's Day as
well, and by the time I got to Storey's Gate bands of music were playing
and people were scampering toward the Houses of Parliament. So I ran,
too, and from the gardens in front of Palace Yard I saw the Lord Mayor's
Show.
“Do you know what that is, good people? It is a civic pageant. Once a
year the City King makes a royal procession through the streets with his
soldiers and servants and keepers and pipers and retainers, bewigged and
bepowdered and bestockinged pretty much as they used to be in the days
before the flood. There have been seven hundred of him in succession,
and his particular vanity is to show that he is wearing the same clothes
still. But it was beautiful altogether, and I could have cried with
delight to see those grave-looking signiors forgetting themselves for
once and pretending they were big boys over again.
“Such a sight! Flags were flying everywhere and festoons were stretched
across the streets with mottoes and texts, such as 'Unity is strength'
and 'God save the Queen,' and other amiable if not original ideas.
Traffic was stopped in the main thoroughfares, and the 'buses were sent
by devious courses, much to the astonishment of the narrow streets.
Then the crowds, the dense layers of potted people with white, upturned
faces, for all the world like the pictures of the round stones standing
upright at the Giant's Causeway--it was wonderful!
“And then the fun! Until the procession arrived the policemen were
really obliging in that way. The one nearest me was as fat as Falstaff,
and a slim young Cockney in front kept addressing intimate remarks to
him and calling him Robert. The young impudence himself was just as
ridiculous, for he wore a fringe which was supported by hair-oil and
soap, and rolled carefully down the right side of his forehead so that
he could always keep his left eye on it. And he did, too.
“But the pageant itself! My gracious! how we laughed at it! There were
Epping Forest verderers, and beef-eaters from the Tower, and pipers of
the Scots Guards, and ladies of the ballet shivering on shaky stools and
pretending to be 'Freedom' and 'Commerce,' and last of all the City King
himself, smiling and bowing to all his subjects, and with his liegemen
behind him in yellow coats and red silk stockings. Perhaps the most
popular character was a Highlander in pink tights, where his legs ought
to have been, walking along as solemnly as if he thought it was a sort
of religious ceremony and he was an idol out for an airing.
“And then the bands! There must have been twenty of them, both brass and
fife, and they all played the Washington Post, but no two had the luck
to fall on the same bar at the same moment. It was a medley of all the
tunes in music, an absolute kaleidoscope of sounds, and meantime there
was the clash of bells from the neighbouring belfries in honour of the
Prince's birthday, and the rattle of musketry from the Guards, so that
when the double event was over I felt like the man whose wife presented
him with twins--I wouldn't have lost either of them for a million of
money, but I couldn't have found it in my heart to give a bawbee for
another one.
“The procession took half an hour to pass, and when it was gone,
remembering the ladies in lovely dresses who had rolled by in their
gorgeous carriages, looking not a bit cleverer or handsomer than other
people, I turned away with a little hard lump at my heart and a limp in
my left foot--the young Cockney with the fringe had backed on to my toe.
I suppose they are feasting with the lords and all the nobility at the
Guildhall to-night, and no doubt the crumbs that fall from the rich
man's table will go in pies and cakes to the alleys and courts where
hunger walks, and I dare say little Lazarus in the Mile End Road is
dreaming at this very moment of Dick Whittington and the Lord Mayor of
London.
“It must have been some waking dream of that sort which took possession
of me also, for what do you suppose I did? Shall I tell you? Yes, I
will. I said to myself: 'Glory, my child, suppose you were nearly as
poor as he was in this great, glorious, splendid London; suppose--only
suppose--you had no home and no friends, and had left the hospital, or
perhaps even been turned away from it, and hadn't a good lady's door
standing open to receive you, what would you do first, my dear?' To all
which I replied promptly, 'You would first get yourself lodgings, my
child, and then you would just go to work to show this great, glorious
London what a woman can do to bring it to her little feet.'
“I know grandfather is saying, 'Gough bless me, girl! you didn't try it,
though?' Well, yes, I did--just for fun, you know, and out of the spirit
of mischief that's born in every daughter of Eve. Do you remember that
Manx cat that wouldn't live in the house, notwithstanding all the bribes
and corruption of Aunt Rachel's new milk and softened bread, but went
off by the backyard wall to join the tribe of pariah pussies that snatch
a living how they may? Well, I felt like Rumpy for once, having three
'goolden sovereigns' in my pocket and a mind superior to fate.
“It was glorious fun altogether, and the world is so amusing that I
can't imagine why anybody should go out of it before he must. I hadn't
gone a dozen yards in my new character as Dick Whittington _fille_
before a coachman as fat as an elephant was shouting, 'Where d'ye think
yer going ter?' and I was nearly run down in the Broad Sanctuary by a
carriage containing two brazen women in sealskin jackets, with faces so
thick with powder and paint that you would have thought they had been
quarrelling on washing day and thrown the blue bag at each other's eyes.
I recognised one of them as a former nurse who had left the hospital in
disgrace, but happily she didn't see me, for the little hard lump at
my heart was turning as bitter as gall at that moment, so I made some
philosophical observations to myself and passed on.
“Oh, my gracious, these London landladies! They must be female Shylocks,
for the pound of flesh is the badge of all their tribe. The first one I
boarded asked two guineas for two rooms, and lights and fires extra.
'By the month?' says I. 'Yus, by the month if ye like,' says she. 'Two
guineas a month?' says I. Marry come up! I was out of that house in a
twinkling.
“Then I looked out a group of humbler thoroughfares, not far from the
Houses of Parliament, where nearly every house had a card fixed up on a
little green blind. At last I found a place that would do--for my week,
only my week, you know. Ten shillings and no extras. 'I'll take them,'
said I with a lofty air, and thereupon the landlady, a grim person, with
the suspicion of a mustache, began to cross-examine me. Was I married?
Oh, dear, no! Then what was my business? Fool that I was, I said I had
none, being full of my Dick Whittingtonism, and not choosing to remember
the hospital, for I was wearing my private clothes, you know. But hoot!
She didn't take unmarried young ladies without businesses, and I was out
in the street once more.
“I didn't mind it, not I indeed, and it was only for fun after all; but
since people objected to girls without businesses, I made up my mind to
be a singer if anybody asked me the question again. My third landlady
had only one room, and it was on the second floor back, but before I
got the length of mounting to this eyry I went through my examination
afresh. 'In the profession, miss?' 'What profession?' 'The styge, of
course.' 'Well, ye--yes, something of that sort.' 'Don't tyke anybody
that's on the styge.'
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I could have screamed, it was so ridiculous; but
time was getting on, Big Ben was striking four, and the day was closing
in. Then I saw the sign, 'Home for Girls.' 'Wonder if it is a charity?'
thinks I; but no, it didn't look like that, so in I went as bold as
brass, and inquired for the manageress. 'Is it the matron you mean,
miss?' 'Very well, the matron then,' said I, and presently she came
up--no, not smiling, for she wasn't an amiable-looking Christian, but
I thought she would smother me with mysterious questions. 'Tired of
the life, are you, my dear? It _is_ a cruel one, isn't it?' I stood
my ground for some minutes, and then, feeling dreadfully thick in the
throat, and cold down the back, I asked her what she was talking about,
whereupon she looked bewildered and inquired if I was a good girl, and
being told that I hoped so, she said she couldn't take me in there, and
then pointed to a card oh the wall which, simpleton that I was, I hadn't
read before: 'A home and rescue is offered to women who desire to leave
a life of misery and disgrace.'
“I _did_ scream that time, the world was so nonsensical. At one place,
being 'on the styge' I was not good enough to be taken in, at another I
was not bad enough, and what in the name of all that was ridiculous was
going to happen next? But it was quite dark by this time, the air was
as black as a northwest gale, and I was 'aweary for all my wings,'
so forgetting Dick Whittington _fille_, and only remembering the good
female Samaritan who had asked me to stay with her, I made a dart for
Victoria Street and jumped into the first 'bus that came along, just as
the hotels and the clubs and the great buildings were putting' out the
Prince of Wales's feathers as sign and symbol of the usual rejoicings
within.
“It was an 'Atlas' omnibus, and it took me to Piccadilly Circus, and
that being the wrong direction, I had to change. But a fog had come down
in the meanwhile, and lo, there I was in the middle of it!
“O Ananias, Azarias, and Misael! Do you know what a London fog is?
It's smoke, it's soot, it's sulphur. It is darker than night, for it
extinguishes the lights, and denser than the mist on the Curragh, and
filthier than the fumes of the brick-kiln. It makes you think the whole
round earth must be a piggery copper and that London has lifted the lid
off. In the midst of this inferno the cabs crawl and the 'buses creep,
and foul fiends, who turn out to be men merely, go flitting about with
torches, and you grope and croak and cough, and the most innocent faces
come puffing and snorting down on you like the beasts in the Apocalypse.
“I thought it good fun at first, but presently I could only keep from
crying by having a good laugh, and I was doing that, and asking somebody
the way to the Holborn omnibus, when a policeman pushed me and said:
'Come, move on; none of yer lyterin' abart here!'
“I could have choked, but remembering something I had seen on that very
spot on the night of my first day out, I dived across the street and ran
in spite of curses and collisions. But the 'somebody,' whoever he was,
had followed me, and he put me into the right 'bus, so I got here
at last. It took two mortal hours to do it, and after that spell of
purgatory this house is like a blessed paradise, peopled with angels of
mercy and grace, as paradise ought to be.
“The good Samaritan was very kind, and she made tea for me in a
twinkling and slaughtered the fatted calf in the shape of a pot of
raspberry jam. Her name is Mrs. Jupe, and her husband is something in a
club, and she has one child of eleven, whose bedfellow I am to be, and
here I am now with Miss Slyboots in our little bedroom feeling safe and
sound and monarch of all I survey.
“Good-night, good people! Half an hour hence I'll be going through a mad
march of the incidents of the day, turned topsy-turvy according to the
way of dreams. But wae's me! wae's me! If it had all been true--if I
had been really homeless and friendless and penniless, instead of having
three 'goolden' pounds in my purse, and Providence in the person of Mrs.
Jupe, to fall back upon! When I grow to be a wonderful woman and have
brought the eyes of all the earth upon me, I am going to be good to poor
girls who have no anchorage in London. John Storm was right: this
great, glorious, brilliant, delightful London can be very cruel to them
sometimes. It calls to them, beckons to them, smiles on them, makes them
think there must be joy in the blaze of so much light and luxury and
love by the side of so many palaces, and then----
“But perhaps the mischief lies deeper down; and though I'm not going to
cut my hair and wear a waistcoat and stand up for the equal rights of
the sexes, I feel at this moment that if I were only a man I should be
the happiest woman in the world, God bless me! Not that I am afraid of
London, not I indeed; and to show you how I long to take a header into
its turbulent tides, I hereby warn and apprize and notify you that
perhaps I may use my week's holiday to find a more congenial employment
than that of deputy White Owl at the hospital. I am not in my right
place yet, Aunt Anna, notwithstanding, so look out for revelations! 'To
be or not to be? that is the question.' Just say the word and I'll
leave it to Providence, which is always a convenient legatee, and in any
case--but wait, only wait and see what a week will bring forth!
“Greet the island for me to the inmost core of its being. The dear
little 'oilan!' Now that I am so far away, I go over it in my mind's
eye with the idiotic affection of a mother who knows every inch of her
baby's body and would like to gobble it. The leaves must be down by this
time, and there can be nothing on the bare boughs but the empty nests
where the little birdies used to woo and sing. My love to them and three
tremendous kisses for yourselves!
“Glory.
“P.S.--Oh, haven't I given you the 'newses' about John Storm? There are
so many things to think about in a place like London, you see. Yes, he
has gone into a monastery--communication cut off--wires broken down by
the 'storm,' etc. Soberly, he has gone for good seemingly, and to talk
of it lightly is like picking a penny out of a blind man's hat. Of
course, it was only to be expected that a man with an upper lip like
that should come to grief with all those married old maids and elderly
women of the opposite sex. Canons to right of him, canons to left of
him, canons in front of him--but rumour says it was John himself who
volleyed and thundered. He wrote me a letter when he was on the point
of going, saying how London had shocked and disappointed him, and how
he longed to escape from it and from himself at the same time, that he
might dedicate his life to God. It was right and true, no doubt; but
wherefore could not I pronounce Amen? He also mentioned something about
myself, how much I had been to him; for he had never known his mother,
and had never had a sister, and could never have a wife. All which was
excellent, but a mere woman like Glory doesn't want to read that sort of
thing in a letter, and would rather have five minutes of John Storm the
man than a whole eternity of John Storm the saint. His letter made me
think of Christian on his way to the eternal city; but that person
has always seemed to me a doubtful sort of hero anyway, taking Mrs.
Christian into account and the various little Christians, and I can't
pity him a pin about his bundle, for he might just as well have left
behind him what he couldn't enjoy of God's providence himself.
“But this is like hitting a cripple with his crutch, John being gone and
past all defending himself, and when I think of it in the streets I have
to run to keep myself from doing something silly, and then people think
I'm chasing an omnibus, when I'm really only chasing my tears. I can't
tell you much about the Brotherhood. It looks like a cross between a
palace and a penitentiary, and it appears that ritualism has gone one
better than High-Churchmanship, and is trying to introduce the monastic
system, which, to an ordinary woman of the world, seems well enough for
the man in the moon, though the man in the moon might have a different
way of looking at things. They say the brothers are all celibates and
live in cells, but I think I've seen a look in John Storm's eyes that
warns me that he wasn't intended for 'the lek o' that' exactly. To
tell you the truth, I half blame myself for what has happened, and I
am ashamed when I remember how jauntily I took matters all the time our
poor John was fighting with beasts at Ephesus. But I am vexed with him
too; and if only he had waited patiently before taking such a serious
step in order to hear _my_ arguments---- But no matter. A jackdaw isn't
to be called a religious bird because it keeps a-cawing on the steeple,
and John Storm won't make himself into a monk by shutting himself up in
a cell. Good-night.”