THE FIRST DAY OF LIBERTY.
It was so lovely a summer morning that even the dreary Brixton street
looked almost cheerful. So bright a blue sky was overhead, so glorious
was the sunlight, that the bushes and flowers in the make-believe
gardens in front of each house were fair to the eye as if they had been
growing in the pure atmosphere of some far country side.
The smuts that covered them were not apparent under this flood of light,
and their foliage waved merrily when the gusts of the fresh breeze
passed them. It was the South West wind that was blowing, that most
blessed visitant of our isles, spite of its blusterous ways--the sweet
wind from over the seas that stirs the blood to the quick flow of joyous
youth again, and makes one to dance and laugh for very delight of life.
How, when the South Wester sweeps through the skies, even close London
feels its spell! it rushes down the innermost slums, drives back the
foul vapours, till the air is almost as that over the mid-ocean, and has
a taste of the salt in it, bringing colour to the cheeks of pallid
children of the alleys, and jollity to all who are still susceptible to
it.
"Mary, I expect an important letter to arrive here by next post for me.
I must have it as soon as possible. Hurry off with it the moment it
comes. Here is your fare. Take train to Ludgate Hill and bring it to me
at the office. Don't loiter mind; bring it at once."
It was Mr. Grimm who spoke as he took up his hat and umbrella after
breakfast, preparatory to going city-wards.
"All right, father," replied Mary, as she removed the breakfast things,
and the next minute the little lawyer was out of the house and the door
slammed behind him--off to his pettifogging, lying, and cheating in his
offices, which were in a narrow street off the Ludgate Hill end of Fleet
Street.
Mary continued to remove the cups, saucers, and plates, in a rather
nonchalant manner.
The stout red-faced second wife of Grimm sat in the arm-chair eyeing her
not over kindly for a minute or so, and then in a harsh voice addressed
the girl:
"You minx! you minx!" working herself up into a passion; "you do it on
purpose to aggravate me, I know you do."
"Do what?" asked Mary, calmly.
"I've been watching you these ten minutes--dawdling, dawdling, dawdling,
as slow as you can; that's what it is. Hurry up now over those things.
What do I give you your food for, and your clothes too, do you think? To
work: and work for your living you shall as sure as my name's Grimm.
Hurry up; don't stand there like a stuck pig, with your sulky putty
face. Do you hear?"
This was a long speech for Mrs. Grimm, and she halted for breath and
further inspiration.
Not a muscle of Mary's face moved, but she did hurry up a little; only
for a few seconds though, when, altering her mind, she stopped suddenly
in her work and said in a deliberate voice:
"I suppose you think I ought to be very grateful to you, don't you?"
"What! grateful, grateful!" ejaculated the angry woman, almost too
surprised at this exhibition of spirit to talk distinctly. "What on
earth do you mean, you little--you little--"
But before she could find an epithet forcible enough for the occasion,
Mary interrupted her in the same cool, unimpassioned voice as before:
for she did not fear, and had learned to despise, her low-minded
step-mother.
"Yes, grateful! and for what, if you please? I have worked hard here all
my life. You daren't make the hired slavey work as you make me; and my
father uses me as a clerk: and where will he get a clerk to copy so much
a day as I do? Slavey and clerk in one I am, Mrs. Grimm, and for just
enough food to keep body and soul together, and your worn-out
clothes--you have got a cheap bargain in me I think," and the girl,
losing some of her sang-froid in the memory of her wrongs, carried out
the tray and banged the door behind her.
It was seldom that Mary bandied words with her stepmother in this way;
possibly the glorious weather without had stirred her up to this
ebullition, for the South West wind can excite us to honest indignation
as well as to jollity.
Mrs. Grimm was what she would herself have described as bursting with
rage. When the girl returned in a minute or so, cool and pale as ever,
she smiled slightly when she perceived her stepmother's now purple
visage. It is pleasant to behold one's enemy apoplectic with vain fury.
Then Mrs. Grimm broke out into the following fine oratorical display,
panting at short intervals for breath, "You wretch: to talk to _me_ like
that:--I'll let your father know of this when he comes back--we'll see
if a little less food will cool down your hot blood, my girl.... Go out
in the streets--go out, and see if with all your working and clerking
anyone will take you in, though you are such a good bargain;--go out,
and see if you won't starve; go. Why, with that ugly putty face of yours
you could not even--"
She was about to be still coarser in her remarks, as was not unusual
with her, but Mary, flushing slightly, interrupted her mid-way.
"I know all that, Mrs. Grimm; I know how hard it would be to find work
if I went from here. You don't think if it were otherwise that I'd stay
another half-minute, do you?"
"Go out this minute and clean up all those breakfast things," shouted
Mrs. Grimm, rising from her chair, beside herself with rage.
But Mary stood looking at her with folded arms aware that nothing could
be more irritating to this violent woman than her cool behaviour.
Whether she would have refused to obey, how much further her mutinous
spirit would have carried her is uncertain; for at that moment there
came a postman's knock at the door, and the servant brought in a letter
and handed it to Mrs. Grimm.
"That's the letter your father wants," she said, throwing it to Mary.
"Be off with it; be off with it, you little devil, and no dawdling,
mind, no staring about. Don't imagine that anyone will admire that silly
face of yours."
Mary did not feel this Parthian shaft as she hurried off, only too glad
to escape into the open air, to be free for an hour.
* * * * *
She walked fast down the streets, and then turned to the right towards
the Brixton railway station. Her step was elastic, for she was young,
and though her youth was ever being crushed down, it but lay latent,
ready to spring up when opportunity offered. The sunshine and wind of
this June day brought it out. She was happy for the time; there was a
sparkle of delight in her eye--delight for this short liberty which was
in so strong contrast to her usual drudgery.
In five minutes she was outside the station; then suddenly the joy faded
from her face, and she stopped short, as she looked with dismay through
the archway into the dark passage by which the railway is approached,
appearing so cold and dismal after the outer warmth and light.
She realized that her walk was over now--she must get into the train.
In a few rapid minutes she would be at Ludgate Hill--then in her
father's office, to sit perhaps through all the afternoon in the hateful
little inner room that she knew so well, and into which clients were
never shown, to copy papers till her head ached. Ah, the misery of it!
She hesitated before taking her ticket. Oh, for a half-hour's more
freedom! She trembled with the strength of her desire. She yearned, as
no one can who has not lived her life, for a respite, for but a little
more time, to let her youth be filled with the glory of that summer day.
Her head seemed to turn with the temptations and ideas that crowded one
on the other upon her. "Why should she go by train at all? Why not walk
all the way to Ludgate Hill? What was to prevent her? Fear of her
father--No!" and at the thought her head became defiantly erect, and her
expression more obstinate. "Fear, she didn't fear."
Then in a moment her mind was made up; the impulse conquered; she turned
her back suddenly on the station and walked off, a gleam of guilty joy
in her eyes.
Having gone so far in revolt, she, as is natural, went yet a step
further, and loitered quite slowly through the streets, looking into
shop windows and amusing herself by studying the people who passed her,
all which was very different from her usual behaviour when out of doors.
She felt like a real girl now, and the childish joy and excitement that
flushed her cheek and shone in her eyes gave a rare beauty to her face,
such as it had perhaps never worn before, so that passers looked with
admiration and wonder at the fairy-like girl who, so shabbily and
quaintly dressed, yet so graceful and so pretty, tripped lightly by
them, the very model for a Cinderella.
She reached Blackfriars Bridge, and in the middle of it she stopped for
a few minutes, leaning over the parapet, gazing up the grand sunny
river, while the fresh breeze fanned her cheek and ruffled her soft
hair. She was prolonging the short sweet spell of liberty: and when she
turned at last from that glorious view, it was with very slow steps that
she walked towards her father's office.
When she came to Fleet Street, and was at the point where the narrow
street in which the office was situated branches from the great
thoroughfare, she stood still again, while she put her hand in her
pocket to bring out the letter.... It was not there! Her heart beat
violently. She felt for it again--she brought out all the pocket's
contents: an old thimble and a few other trifles--but no letter.
As is the unreasoning custom of those who have lost anything, she
searched over and over again in the same places, hoping against hope.
At last she could deceive herself in this way no longer; she was
convinced she had not got it--it was lost, and what was she to do now?
A confused crowd of ideas rushed into the child's mind: what to do--to
go to the office and tell her father what had happened? or to walk back
the way she had come and see if she could find the letter on the road
anywhere? or to run away for good and trust to chance?
Her head swam and her heart beat when this last plan suggested itself to
her, this grand and vague temptation--to run away--to have liberty,
entire liberty--never to go back to that cruel house in Brixton. Oh, the
delight, the mystery of it!
She was a brave girl, and to be cast adrift on the world did not terrify
her much. This pluck was not due to childish ignorance; for she knew
well how hopeless were the prospects of one in her situation, how cruel
were the streets of the great city.
Her brain was in a whirl. Anyhow she would put off the evil moment, she
said to herself; she would not decide at once, she would think the
matter over. So she walked away towards the bridge again.
Then in her uncertainty she came back once more, and hardly knowing what
she did went up Fleet Street, up the Strand, and reached Trafalgar
Square.
In her perplexity she stood for a few seconds gazing at the fountains
glittering in the sun. Then all of a sudden, in that great open place,
the passion of freedom so filled her soul, that it drove before it all
other considerations. Her wavering mind yielded at once, having no more
power to hesitate or reason. She stamped her foot on the stone pavement,
and cried aloud, "I shall not go back--never--never again--it is all
over now."
Thus she decided to try the world, to throw herself on chance, they
could not be crueller than home. If all failed was there not the river?
She had read in the papers of poor women leaping in it when all hope was
over--"No, she would not go home."
Now that her mind was quite made up, so strange and delightful a sense
of freedom, of adventure, filled that young soul that she could have
shouted for joy. She felt no care for the morrow, not she--this new
liberty quenched for the moment all other ideas and fears.
"And where to go to now?" she thought. "Where seek employment?"
She had the sixpence her father had given her for her fare, a small
capital to start life upon. Should she buy a broom and sweep a crossing,
or go out into the country and pluck flowers to sell in the town, as she
knew some poor girls did?
She was well aware that she was far from being so ugly as her stepmother
had made out. She knew that many a gentleman would stop to buy a flower
from a pretty girl like herself, who would pass a plain woman unnoticed.
Oh, yes, she knew that.
But she was so glad, so drunk with freedom, that she could not think
steadily of these matters just yet. No, she must run wild for an hour or
so, until this fever of delight had moderated. She must go to some great
open lonely place, where she could laugh and dance to herself for
awhile.
This poor little Mary who had never been a child before! all the pent-up
childishness of the long sad years burst out in this her wild, mad,
first day of freedom.
She thought she would go out of the crowded streets to be by herself in
Hyde Park for an hour or so. She had been there once before on a
winter's morning, and she had noticed what a vast lonely region it was.
So she went up Piccadilly, passed into the Park, and found herself at
the corner of Rotten Row.
Imagine her bewilderment at what she saw. It was no longer the dreary
desert of the winter's morning, but a great garden filled with such a
crowd in carriage, on horseback, and on foot, as only Hyde Park at one
period of the day and in the height of the London season can show.
She felt a new sensation of shame and terror creep over her in the midst
of all these grand people who were so different from herself. They were
looking at her, questioning her right to be there, she thought, and her
confusion increased.
She glanced around with nervous bewilderment, and her face and neck
flushed crimson. Some were looking at her, it is true; her rare grace
and beauty contrasting with her old-fashioned shabby dress naturally
attracted attention. Dowagers deliberately raised their pince-nez and
stared at her, and young men of fashion gazed with open admiration.
"Oh, this won't do at all!" she said to herself, and she hurried off
through the throng till she reached the comparatively deserted open
green space in the centre of the Park.
And now she could give play to her feelings. When no one was by, she
went wild for a while and clapped her hands with joy, and all because
she was alone in the world with a fortune of just six pennies.
At last she sobered down, and sitting on a bench began to ponder quietly
but no less happily.
Now it happened that a Satyr of the Parks had seen her from afar off.
So presently there came by an elderly gentleman who was dressed in the
height of fashion, belaced, bedyed as to whiskers, and with an
affectation of youthful suppleness that must have made his old limbs
ache again.
He passed her once, glanced at her, then after a few paces returned
again and sat down beside her.
She did not notice him, so absorbed was she in her speculations as how
best to invest her capital.
After eyeing her askance for a few minutes, the old gentleman, wishing
to break the ice, and not being able to evolve on the spur of the moment
anything more original in the way of remarks, said in a smooth and
conciliatory voice:
"It is a beautiful day, is it not, my dear?"
She started from her reverie, looked straight at him, instinctively read
his meaning, and without a word got up, with proud gesture gathered her
shawl around her, and walked away.
Her dream was broken, a chill came over her heart, the incident had made
her suddenly realise the horror of her position.
She would find no help from any save from such as this man was. Oh! the
cruelty--the wicked cruelty of the city! She shuddered at the picture of
her future thus vividly presented to her, and tears, the first for
years, came to her eyes.
As miserable as she had but just before been glad, she walked on, in an
objectless manner, anywhere. This new wild sensation of freedom had
turned her head for the while, and her emotions were intense and rapidly
changing to their contraries in an hysterical fashion.
Without knowing how she got there, she again recognised around her the
familiar buildings of Fleet Street. She approached her father's office,
attracted there by the same sort of fascination that drags the murderer
to the scene of his guilt.
Soon she considered how dangerous it was for her to loiter in that
neighbourhood. She was aware that she must have been missed by this
time; her father had probably made inquiries, had instructed the police,
and there were many persons about Ludgate Hill who knew her well by
sight.
Feeling hungry she went up a side street near Fetter Lane, and entering
a small baker's shop bought a pennyworth of bread, and asked the woman
there to give her a glass of water.
Refreshed by this frugal meal she went down to the Thames Embankment,
and sitting on a seat tried to think calmly over her position. She had
heard of casual wards where homeless penniless people could get lodging
for the night. She thought she would most probably have to seek this
shelter at least for this night, for even now it was getting late in the
afternoon.
Yes! she would wait till it was dark, and then ask a policeman--she
dared not do so in broad daylight--to tell her where there was a casual
ward.
And so she sat down on benches, or wandered restlessly up and down the
streets until it was dark and the long June day was done, when, dizzy
and weary, she was once again treading the pavements of Fleet Street.
The bells of St. Clements had just pealed out ten hours, when the girl
of a sudden perceived, hurriedly approaching her, her father.
He had evidently returned from home to find traces of her.
For a moment the shock paralysed her, but only for a moment. To her
right was a narrow dark street; she darted in and ran down it with the
haste that terror and madness give.
This street, or rather alley, is known as Devereux Passage.
On reaching the bottom of it, the poor hunted creature found herself in
a sort of cul-de-sac. It was all over. There was no escape. The street
ended. On the left were the closed iron gates of the Temple. In front of
her was a wall. To the right her flight was also stopped, for there the
narrow passage that leads off to Essex Street had wooden barriers placed
across it, the pavement being up for repair of drain or water-pipes: so
this too seemed to her hurried gaze, and in the dim light, impassable as
the dead wall in front.
She was at bay; trembling, faint, and sick with despair, she looked
wildly around for any chance of escape.
She heard the man's step coming down the passage--slowly too, with cruel
deliberation; her father knew well that there was no way out, that she
was a secured prisoner.
There was a doorway by her: she crouched into it, and with her breath
bursting out in difficult sobs, and her heart beating as if to break,
clung to the door-handle with all her strength. She determined that she
would not be torn away. Then her head swam round--the heavy tread
approached--she shut her eyes in her agony.
When he was just in front of her the sound of the man's step ceased.
There was a pause before his words came.