"Ger in," he said again more loudly, and as if angry with himself for
having to say it.
Again I made some demur, and then the old man said, speaking fiercely
through his grizzly beard:
"Look 'ere, missie. I 'ave a gel o' my own lost somewheres, and I
wouldn't be ans'rable to my ole woman if I let you walk with a face like
that."
I don't know what I said to him. I only know that my tears gushed out
and that at the next moment I was sitting in the cab.
What happened then I do not remember, except that the dull rumble of the
wheels told me we were passing over a bridge, and that I saw through the
mist before my eyes a sluggish river, a muddy canal, and patches of
marshy fields.
I think my weariness and perhaps my emotion, added to the heavy
monotonous trotting of the old horse, must have put me to sleep, for
after a while I was conscious of a great deal of noise, and of the old
driver twisting about and shouting in a cheerful voice through the open
window at the back of his seat:
"Stratford Market."
After a while we came to a broad road, full of good houses, and then the
old driver cried "Ilford," and asked what part of it I wished to go to.
I reached forward and told him, "10 Lennard's Row, Lennard's Green," and
then sat back with a lighter heart.
But after another little while I saw a great many funeral cars passing
us, with the hearses empty, as if returning from a cemetery. This made
me think of the woman and her story, and I found myself unconsciously
clasping my baby closer.
The cortèges became so numerous at last that to shut out painful sights
I closed my eyes and tried to think of pleasanter things.
I thought, above all, of Mrs. Oliver's house, as I had always seen it in
my mind's eye--not a pretentious place at all, only a little humble
cottage but very sweet and clean, covered with creepers and perhaps with
roses.
I was still occupied with these visions when I felt the cab turn sharply
to the left. Then opening my eyes I saw that we were running down a kind
of alley-way, with a row of very mean little two-storey houses on the
one side, and on the other, a kind of waste ground strewn with broken
bottles, broken iron pans, broken earthenware and other refuse,
interspersed with tufts of long scraggy grass, which looked the more
wretched because the sinking sun was glistening over it.
Suddenly the cab slowed down and stopped. Then the old man jumped from
his box and opening his cab door, said:
"Here you are, missie. This is your destingnation."
There must have been a moment of semi-consciousness in which I got out
of the cab, for when I came to full possession of myself I was standing
on a narrow pavement in front of a closed door which bore the number
10.
At first I was stunned. Then my heart was in my mouth and it was as much
as I could do not to burst out crying. Finally I wanted to fly, and I
turned back to the cab, but it had gone and was already passing round
the corner.
It was six o'clock. I was very tired. I was nine miles from Bayswater. I
could not possibly carry baby back. What _could_ I do?
Then, my brain being unable to think, a mystic feeling (born perhaps of
my life in the convent) came over me--a feeling that all that had
happened on my long journey, all I had seen and everything that had been
said to me, had been intended to prepare me for (and perhaps to save me
from) the dangers that were to come.
I think that gave me a certain courage, for with what strength of body
and spirit I had left (though my heart was in my mouth still) I stepped
across the pavement and knocked at the door.