'Do look at that poor girl singing and holding out her little
baskets! She must be crazed to be offering baskets for sale in this
rain and at this time of night.'
I turned my eyes in the direction in which my aunt was looking, but
the crowd before me prevented my seeing the singer.
'She is gone, vanished,' said my aunt sharply, for my eagerness to
see made me rude.
'What was she like?' I asked.
'She was a young slender girl, holding out a bunch of small fancy
baskets of woven colours, through which the rain was dripping. She
was dressed in rags, and through the rags shone, here and there,
patches of her shoulders; and she wore a dingy red handkerchief round
her head. She stood in the wet and mud, beneath the lamp, quite
unconscious apparently of the bustle and confusion around her.'
Almost at the same moment our carriage drew up. I lingered on the
step as long as possible. My mother made a sign of impatience at the
delay, and I got into the carriage. Spite of the rain, I put down the
window and leaned out. I forgot the presence of my mother and aunt. I
forgot everything. The carriage moved on.
'Winifred!' I gasped, as the certainty that the voice was hers came
upon me.
And the dingy London night became illuminated with scrolls of fire,
whose blinding, blasting scripture seared my eyes till I was fain to
close them: 'Let his children be vagabonds, and beg their bread: let
them seek it also out of desolate places.'
So rapidly had the carriage rolled through the rain, and so entirely
had my long pain robbed me of all presence of mind, that, by the time
I had recovered from the paralysing shock, we had reached Piccadilly
Circus. I pulled the check-string.
'Why, Henry!' said my mother, who had raised the window, 'what are
you doing? And what has made you turn so pale?'
My aunt sat in indignant silence. 'Ten thousand pardons,' I said, as
I stepped out of the carriage, and shook hands with them. 'A sudden
recollection--important papers unsecured at my hotel--business in--in
Lincoln's Inn Fields. I will call on you in the morning.'
And I reeled down the pavement towards the Haymarket. When I was some
little distance from the carriage, I took to my heels and hurried as
fast as possible towards the theatre, utterly regardless of the
people. I reached the spot breathless. I stood for a moment staring
wildly to right and left of me. Not a trace of her was to be seen. I
heard a thin voice from my lips, that did not seem my own, ask a
policeman, who was now patrolling the neighbourhood, if he had seen a
basket-girl singing.
'No,' said the man, 'but I fancy you mean the Essex Street Beauty,
don't you? I haven't seen her for a long while now, but her dodge
used to be to come here on rainy nights, and stand bare-headed and
sing and sell just when the theatres was a-bustin'. She gets a good
lot, I fancy, by that dodge.'
'The Essex Street Beauty?'
'Oh, I thought you know'd p'raps. She's a strornary pretty
beggar-wench, with blue eyes and black hair, as used to stand at the
corner of Essex Street, Strand, and the money as that gal got
a-holdin' out her matches and a-sayin' texes out of the Bible must
ha' been strornary. So the Essex Street Beauty's bin about here agin
on the rainy-night dodge, 'es she? Well, it must have been the fust
time for many a long day, for I've never seen her now for a long
time. She couldn't ha' stood about here for many minutes; if she had
I must ha' seen her.'
I staggered away from him, and passed and repassed the spot many
times. Then I extended my beat about the neighbouring streets,
loitering at every corner where a basket-girl or a flower-girl might
be likely to stand. But no trace of her was to be seen. Meantime the
rain had ceased.
All the frightful stories that I had heard or read of the kidnapping
of girls came pouring into my mind, till my blood boiled and my knees
trembled. Imagination was stinging me to life's very core. Every few
minutes I would pass the theatre, and look towards the portico.
The night wore on, and I was unconscious how the time passed. It was
not till daybreak that I returned to my hotel, pale, weary, bent.