IN LONDON.
The space, the crowd and the bustle in and around the terminus of the
Great Northern Railway, scared poor Mary, and literally took her
breath away. Wearily, and with a haggard and almost despairing eye,
the girl threw up her black veil and looked about her. The train had
disgorged its hundreds on the spacious platform; all seemed to have
some decided object or path to pursue--some home or hotel to go to;
nearly all seemed to have friends to greet them, were able to select
their own luggage, and depart on their way in confidence and security.
"Now then, young lady--move on, please," said a policeman, and she
moved on accordingly, but mechanically and forgetting all about the
little trunk which contained all her worldly goods, till she suddenly
saw it on a barrow, with many others, when she claimed it, and was
instantly surrounded by clamorous porters, and even cabmen seeking
her as a fare, and using strange slang terms of which she was totally
ignorant.
"Where was she to be driven to?" some one asked her.
She could not say, but stood helpless and burst into tears. At that
moment the guard of the train by which she had travelled--a ruddy
complexioned, brown-whiskered, and jolly looking man--remembered that
she was the young lady to whom the showily-liveried footman had
brought the bouquet and fruit at Willowdean. He came forward and,
touching his cap, politely said--
"Can I do anything for you, ma'am--'seem a stranger in London--'been
here before?"
"Never."
"Where do your friends live?"
"I have none in London."
"Then where would you like a cab to take you?" he continued.
"That I cannot tell you--I am so utterly a stranger."
The guard began to look puzzled, and a policeman who was standing by,
and had hitherto been gazing stolidly over his glazed leather stock,
now seemed to take an interest in the conversation and to look
suspicious, while one or two men of shabby appearance whispered
together and drew near, till his eye fell on them, and then they
slunk away.
"Do you know Lady Wetherall's house in Piccadilly?" asked Mary,
timidly.
"I knows Piccadilly pretty well, ma'am--but can't say as I knows Lady
Wetherall. Are you going there?"
"To-morrow--meantime I must rest for to-day and to-night; I am quite
exhausted."
After a pause, the guard said,
"I daresay my missus wouldn't object to taking you in for a night
till you could look about you, and do it cheap too. She prefers
Scotch folks--queer, but every one to their taste. If you choose to
cab it, I'll go along with you myself."
"Is she your wife of whom you talk, my good man?" asked Mary, feeling
the necessity of rousing herself to action, for the eyes of many
loiterers were now upon her.
"Wife--no, my landlady--poor woman she has seen better days, has Mrs.
Long Primer."
"Of course--who ever knowed a landlady that hadn't?" said the
policeman, laughing.
"She's a respectable woman--a printer's widow, ma'am; and though her
name be Long, she's little enough."
"Well, Tom," resumed the policeman, "I think you'd better take the
young woman away with you; she may get into trouble else, being, I
see, quite a stranger--a jolly green one sure as my name is Finnis."
This style of dialogue was Mary's first taste of a new kind of
humiliation. The distribution of two or three three-penny pieces
procured the cab, on the box of which her trunk was hoisted; she
stepped in, and the guard, Tom Gubbs, in his railway livery, followed
her. As they drove through the streets the double lines of vehicles
of all kinds, laden carts, drays and waggons, the multitude of sounds
that mingled and united into a species of dull roar; the vast and
ceaseless human tide that surged along the pavements, at first
appalled Mary, and then seemed to lull her senses into a kind of
stupor, from which the voice of her new companion roused her at
times, as he kindly named the thoroughfares through which they were
passing, or drew her attention to some great church or other public
edifice.
At last, after traversing what seemed to be an enormous wilderness of
streets, the cab turned to the left from the crowded Strand, down a
quiet and narrow alley, where all was still and nearly noiseless, and
at the foot of which a glimpse could be had of the Thames, with its
shipping, and the crowded steamers gliding past. And now the vehicle
stopped at the green-painted door of a large house, where people were
lodged on the various floors, according to what they could afford to
pay. Then the guard, Mr. Tom Gubbs, after a chaffing wrangle with
the cabby, who insisted that his fare should be five, instead of two
shillings, informed her that this was "Norfolk Street, Strand."
To Mary's ear this conveyed no particular idea, but to her eye the
houses looked gloomy, dingy, and strange, and she could not determine
whether they had been built yesterday, or two hundred years ago;
though with their quaintly corniced doors, old fashioned brass
knockers, and general aspect, they looked like mansions at which
Johnson and Garrick might have visited, near which Savage might have
wandered in his hunger and misery, and where crown bowls of punch had
been drunk over the defeat of "The Rebels" at Culloden, and the fall
of Quebec,--for the quarter seemed decidedly London of the Hanoverian
times.
Mary's _introducteur_, whose apartment was at the top of the house,
vouched to the landlady for the respectability of her "new wisitor,"
whom he said "had come from Scotland by the night-train, and was
going to Lady Wetherall's in Piccadilly--to service of some kind, as
he thought--to-morrow; but that she wished a few hours' rest, being
well nigh wore out."
Indeed Mary looked as if about to sink, and when Mrs. Long Primer, a
plump and motherly looking little woman in a huge white cap, asked
her "on which floor she wished an apartment," she replied that it was
a matter of total indifference to her; so the landlady solved the
difficulty by conducting her at once to a little room, one window of
which faced the gloomy street; but the other afforded a narrow
glimpse of the shining river with all its bustle.
A little breakfast was prepared for her, and now Mary with a swelling
and thankful heart, shook hands with Gubbs the guard (who, on the
morrow, she knew, would be speeding past the Lammermuirs, with the
down train), and the worthy fellow blushed scarlet, for it had not
been often his lot to have in his a hand so white and beautiful as
that of Mary Lennox.
A reference to the London Directory assured Mrs. Primer that there
was a Lady Wetherall in Piccadilly. The weight and appearance of
Mary's trunk, as it stood in the passage, suggested respectability,
and it was filled with genuine wearing apparel. Her courier bag too,
with all its little appurtenances, seemed faultless. Mrs. Long
Primer studied all these things acutely, for she had been deluded,
"taken in," more than once during her career as a landlady; but in
the course of conversation with Mary, she soon learned her
circumstances, her object in coming to London, and all her wishes;
and the good woman felt her mother's heart stirred within her, as she
surveyed the sad, weary eyes, the pale little face and the black
dress of a creature so young and attractive cast on the world alone;
and more sadly perhaps would she have surveyed her, had she known how
very few pounds the poor girl had in her pocket.
Unslept though she had been all the previous night, Mary felt
unnaturally wakeful all day. The street was still and quiet, though
close to the roar of the mighty Strand. No sound came to her ears
there, save an occasional street cry, the paddling of a steamer
shooting past with its human freight, or the bell of St. Clement's
church, as the clock struck the slowly passing hours. She prayed in
her heart and felt hopeful, for she had made her first essay in life
and met with kindness.
She studied the advertisements in the _Times_, and the number of
situations vacant filled her with wonder. Could people ever be found
to supply them all! On the other hand, the number of applicants,
their talents, qualifications, and recommendations rather scared her,
and made her happy to rest all her hopes upon Lady Wetherall. Yet
she could not resist turning again and again, nervously, to the
monstrous lists in the _Times_.
There were, "Wanted, a young lady for a millinery department--salary
for the first year 50_l_." "Wanted, a young _person_ of strictly
Christian principles, as governess to five little girls; solid
English education, French, Italian, music, drawing, and the use of
the globes necessary, salary 10_l_. per annum; and the share of a
comfortable home." "Widow, wanted as housekeeper to a single
gentleman, not over forty" (which was to be "not over forty," the
advertisement did not say). "Wanted, a cook"--the cooks seemed
decidedly to have the best of it, so far as salaries went; but Mary's
heart sank as she read on, and then she cast the paper aside.
Quitting the rickety little calico-covered sofa, she frequently rose
to look from the window into the street without. The architecture,
material, and construction of the houses seemed novel to her eye,
while the window panes being almost flush with the external walls,
suggested alarming ideas of insecurity. The voices of the passers,
and the names on the signboards, like the sound of the church bells,
all spoke to her of being in a strange place, and of being utterly
among strangers.
Slowly passed the day, and after she had been some hours alone, she
began to feel forlorn and nervous.
Oh, the gloom of that London lodging-house--she should never, never
forget it! Her liberty, her being so unheeded and uncared for,
almost terrified her. There were none to greet her, and none whom
she could greet. She felt as if her existence was already being
ignored. To add to the gloom of her thoughts, she had read in that
day's _Times_ of two cases of death from starvation--death amid the
wealth and luxury of London. And in one instance the victim had been
a governess, a lady of many accomplishments, but out of employment.
Starvation! the idea filled her with horror; but, with God's help,
such could never be her fate, for was there not Lady Wetherall, whom
Lady Wedderburn felt assured would refuse _her_ nothing?
The very opening and shutting of the house door, and the rat-tat of
its knocker, suggested the idea of temporary lodgings, and not of
home. _Home!_ alas, she had none now, though even the dog's kennel
or the half-ruined stable at Lonewoodlee, would have seemed as such
to her then. Never more--never more, should she feel the sublime
sense of security afforded by home and a father's roof!
She felt somewhat relieved, however, when gossipy little Mrs. Primer
came to ask her to "join her at tea, with a chop, quite cheery in her
own back parlour." The kind woman had hot muffins, shrimps and
watercresses--even a little flask of Old Tom--provided as a relish;
and she was very anxious to hear all about Scotland (the late Mr.
Long Primer's mother having been a native of that country), her ideas
of which were decidedly cloudy, and somewhat pre-railway, being
chiefly deduced from a cheap edition of Miss Porter's "Scottish
Chiefs," and "Rob Roy," as she had seen it performed at the Lyceum or
Surrey Theatre.
"And if Miss Lennox would like to go to the play to-night, or any
night," she added, "they could get a pit order from the first floor
front, Miss Madalena de Montmorencie, who was leading lady at one
establishment, or her third floor back, Mr. Algernon Sidney Spangles,
who was the light comedy gent at another; or to see funny little Mr.
Robson in 'Jones the Awenger,' when one didn't know whether to laugh
or cry. and so did both at once; or to see Mr. Harley, as--begging
your pardon, Miss--was Bottom at the Princess's." But Mary nervously
declined all these kind offers of patronage, urging that she was in
deep mourning, and had been face to face with sorrow too recently.
Even amid her intended civility and benevolence, Mrs. Primer came out
at times with little remarks that jarred on Mary's, perhaps,
overwrought sensibility.
"I think, my dear," said she, as she slowly stirred her tea and
balanced the spoon from time to time on the edge of her cup, "you
said it was a situation as governess you were a-looking after?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I quite forgot to ask--have you got a character?"
"A what--Mrs. Primer?" asked Mary, with genuine surprise, while the
other began to fidget and cool her tea in the saucer.
"Testimonial of any kind from your last place?"
"No, I have never been in a situation, and consequently never thought
such things were necessary."
"No character--no testimonials--not even a line from the rector or
parish clergyman?"
"I have nothing of the kind."
"Oh lor, oh lor, you are simple as a new-born babby! Why, child,
you'll not get a place even as a lady's maid, without some such
papers."
"I have a letter of introduction, such as one lady may give to
another," replied Mary, coldly and proudly, yet feeling crushed in
heart and broken in spirit, for that such things should be said to
her, plainly showed already how poor and dependent her position in
life was becoming.
And Mary--she who, in her pride of heart, had shrunk from kissing
Lady Wedderburn, while under the roof of her dead father's house--now
in the utter loneliness of that heart, kissed with real affection the
cheek of the plain little Englishwoman, as she left her for the
night; for she felt gratefully conscious that Mrs. Long Primer had
been kind and good to her.
But the word "character" continued to rankle in her memory; and at
times, especially in the darkness and silence of her bedroom that
night, ere she slept, there crept into her soul an intense longing to
be laid at rest by her father's side, where she might never--too
probably should never--lie, in the Lennox aisle at Willowdean.