I did not know then, and it seems unnecessary to say now, why my father
gave up the search for me in London. He did so, and from the day the
milliner's clue failed him I moved about freely.
Then from the sense of being watched I passed into that of being lost.
Sister Mildred was my only friend in London, but she was practically cut
off from me. The Little Sisters had fixed her up (in the interests of
her work among the lost ones) in a tiny flat at the top of a lofty
building near Piccadilly, where her lighted window always reminded me of
a lighthouse on the edge of a dangerous reef. But in giving me her
address she warned me not to come to her except in case of urgent need
partly because further intercourse might discredit her denial, and
partly because it would not be good for me to be called "one of Sister
Veronica's girls"--that being Mildred's name as a nun.
Oh the awful loneliness of London!
Others just as friendless have wandered in the streets of the big city.
I knew I was not the first, and I am sure I have not been the last to
find London the most solitary place in the world. But I really and truly
think there was one day of the week when, from causes peculiar to my
situation, my loneliness must have been deeper than that of the most
friendless refugee.
Nearly every boarder in our boarding-house used to receive once a week
or once a month a letter containing a remittance from some unknown
source, with which he paid his landlady and discharged his other
obligations.
I had no such letter to receive, so to keep up the character I had not
made but allowed myself to maintain (of being a commander's wife) I used
to go out once a week under pretence of calling at a shipping office to
draw part of my husband's pay.
In my childish ignorance of the habits of business people I selected
Saturday afternoon for this purpose; and in my fear of encountering my
husband, or my husband's friends in the West End streets, I chose the
less conspicuous thoroughfares at the other side of the river.
Oh, the wearisome walks I had on Saturday afternoons, wet or dry, down
the Seven Dials, across Trafalgar Square, along Whitehall, round the
eastern end of the Houses of Parliament, and past Westminster Pier (dear
to me from one poignant memory), and so on and on into the monotonous
and inconspicuous streets beyond.
Towards nightfall I would return, generally by the footway across
Hungerford Bridge, which is thereby associated with the most painful
moments of my life, for nowhere else did I feel quite so helpless and so
lonely.
The trains out of Charing Cross shrieking past me, the dark river
flowing beneath, the steamers whistling under the bridge, the
automobiles tooting along the Embankment, the clanging of the electric
cars, the arc lamps burning over the hotels and the open flares blazing
over the theatres--all the never-resting life of London--and myself in
the midst of the tumultuous solitude, a friendless and homeless girl.
But God in His mercy saved me from all that--saved me too, in ways in
which it was only possible to save a woman.
The first way was through my vanity.
Glancing at myself in my mottled mirror one morning I was shocked to see
that what with my loneliness and my weary walks I was losing my looks,
for my cheeks were hollow, my nose was pinched, my eyes were heavy with
dark rings underneath them, and I was plainer than Martin had ever seen
me.
This frightened me.
It would be ridiculous to tell all the foolish things I did after that
to improve and preserve my appearance for Martin's sake, because every
girl whose sweetheart is away knows quite well, and it is not important
that anybody else should.
There was a florist's shop in Southampton Row, and I went there every
morning for a little flower which I wore in the breast of my bodice,
making believe to myself that Martin had given it to me.
There was a jeweller's shop there too, and I sold my wedding ring
(having long felt as if it burnt my finger) and bought another wedding
ring with an inscription on the inside "_From Martin to Mary_."
As a result of all this caressing of myself I saw after a while, to my
great joy, that my good looks were coming back; and it would be silly to
say what a thrill of delight I had when, going into the drawing-room of
our boarding-house one day, the old actress called me "Beauty" instead
of the name I had hitherto been known by.
The second way in which God saved me from my loneliness was through my
condition.
I did not yet know what angel was whispering to me out of the physical
phase I was passing through, when suddenly I became possessed by a
passion for children.
It was just as if a whole new world of humanity sprang into life for me
by magic. When I went out for my walks in the streets I ceased to be
conscious of the faces of men and women, and it seemed as if London were
peopled by children only.
I saw no more of the crowds going their different ways like ants on an
ant-hill, but I could not let a perambulator pass without peering under
the lace of the hood at the little cherub face whose angel eyes looked
up at me.
There was an asylum for children suffering from incurable diseases in
the smaller square beside our boarding-house, and every morning after
breakfast, no matter how cold the day might be, I would open my window
to hear the cheerful voices of the suffering darlings singing their
hymn:
"_There's a Friend for little children,
Above the bright blue sky_."
Thus six weeks passed, Christmas approached, and the sad old city began
to look glad and young and gay.
Since a certain night at Castle Raa I had had a vague feeling that I had
thrown myself out of the pale of the Church, therefore I had never gone
to service since I came to London, and had almost forgotten that
confession and the mass used to be sweet to me.
But going home one evening in the deepening London fog (for the weather
had begun to be frosty) I saw, through the open doors of a Catholic
church, a great many lights in a side chapel, and found they were from a
little illuminated model of the Nativity with the Virgin and Child in
the stable among the straw. A group of untidy children were looking at
it with bright beady eyes and chattering under their breath, while a
black-robed janitor was rattling his keys to make them behave.
This brought back the memory of Rome and of Sister Angela. But it also
made me think of Martin, and remember his speech at the public dinner,
about saying the prayers for the day with his comrades, that they might
feel that they were not cut off from the company of Christian men.
So telling myself he must be back by this time on that lonely plateau
that guards the Pole, I resolved (without thinking of the difference of
time) to go to mass on Christmas morning, in order to be doing the same
thing as Martin at the same moment.
With this in my mind I returned to our boarding-house and found
Christmas there too, for on looking into the drawing-room on my way
upstairs I saw the old actress, standing on a chair, hanging holly which
the old colonel with old-fashioned courtesy was handing up to her.
They were cackling away like two old hens when they caught sight of me,
whereupon the old actress cried:
"Ah, here's Beauty!"
Then she asked me if I would like a ticket for a dress rehearsal on
Christmas Eve of a Christmas pantomime.
"The audience will be chiefly children out of the lanes and alleys round
about, but perhaps you won't mind that," she said.
I told her I should be overjoyed, and at two o'clock the following
afternoon I was in my seat at the corner of the dress-circle of the
great theatre, from which I could see both the stage and the auditorium.
The vast place was packed with children from ceiling to floor, and I
could see the invisible hands of thousands of mothers who had put the
girls into clean pinafores and brushed and oiled the tousled heads of
the boys.
How their eager faces glistened! How sad they looked when the wicked
sisters left Cinderella alone in the kitchen! How bright when the
glittering fairy godmother came to visit her! How their little dangling
feet clapped together with joy when the pretty maid went off to the ball
behind six little ponies which pranced along under the magical moonlight
in the falling snow!
But the part of the performance which they liked best was their own part
when, in the interval, the band struck up one of the songs they sang in
their lanes and alleys:
"_Yew aw the enny, Oi em ther bee,
Oi'd like ter sip ther enny from those red lips yew see_."
That was so loaded with the memory of one of the happiest days of my
life (the day I went with Martin to see the _Scotia_) that, in the
yearning of the motherhood still unborn in me, I felt as if I should
like to gather the whole screaming houseful of happy children to my
breast.
But oh why, why, why, does not Providence warn us when we are on the
edge of tragic things?
The pantomime rehearsal being over I was hurrying home (for the evening
was cold, though I was so warm within) when I became aware of a number
of newsmen who were flying up from the direction of the Strand, crying
their papers at the top of their voice.
I did not usually listen to such people, but I was compelled to do so
now, for they were all around me.
"_Paper--third e'shen--loss of the Sco-sha_."
The cry fell on me like a thunderbolt. An indescribable terror seized
me. I felt paralysed and stood dead still. People were buying copies of
the papers, and at first I made a feeble effort to do the same. But my
voice was faint; the newsman did not hear me and he went flying past.
"_Paper--third e'shen--reported loss of the Sco-sha_."
After that I dared not ask for a paper. Literally I dared not. I dared
not know the truth. I dared not see the dreadful fact in print.
So I began to hurry home. But as I passed through the streets, stunned,
stupefied, perspiring, feeling as if I were running away from some
malignant curse, the newsmen seemed to be pursuing me, for they were
darting out from every street.
"_Paper--third e'shen--loss of the Sco-sha_."
Faster and faster I hurried along. But the awful cry was always ringing
in my ears, behind, before, and on either side.
When I reached our boarding-house my limbs could scarcely support me. I
had hardly strength enough to pull the bell. And before our young waiter
had opened the door two news men, crossing the square, were crying:
"_Paper--third edition--reported loss of the 'Scotia.'_"