In Darkest London · Chapter 1 (2/2)

The meal was concluded by a short address and a hymn, and we all trooped out to the day room again and began to discuss our prospects. It was a very wonderful experience to hear these girls talk of their future. They all had a complete philosophy of life. Nobody criticised, nobody asked a question, except in friendliness, everyone was sympathetic. I was interested in a very attractive little creature with a club foot. She wore her blue gown with an air, and her dark hair was as fine as silk.

“I shall be having my baby in two months,” said she. “It’s my second child, you know. He’s a boy, so I want the one that’s coming to be a girl. I’d rather have stayed on in my place another month, but my lady thought I’d better not. She wrote up to the Army and I’m going to a Home this afternoon. She’s been very good to me.”

She smiled very sweetly at a dark Jewess with blazing eyes and a tragic face. I have never seen a mouth so miserably pathetic. She answered in a hot, fierce voice.

“You’ll want all the goodness you can get, my girl, and so shall I. This one will be my first, and I’ll take care there’s not another. Gawd!” she clenched her thin hands in denunciation. “Men are rotters, aren’t they? It’s a bleeding shame we should have to pay for their pleasure!”

All the bitterness of woman from the first beginnings was in that voice, all the passionate revolt against the fate which makes the woman pay. It was a dramatic moment. Instinctively I caught my breath. It was the Madonna of the club foot who answered her.

“Ah, yes!” she said, with a wonderful smile, “they may have the pleasure, but we have the babies. When I knew mine was coming, I felt a bit like you; I couldn’t know how I should want it; and then it came, and something grew in me as if my heart would burst, and I don’t care what happens, so as he’s mine!”

“But how do you keep him⁠—and you with another coming?”

It was a nice point, and I was very anxious to see how the triumphant mother would solve it; but, as I was to discover, the young women at the Salvation Army Shelter are for the most part realists. They look facts straight between the eyes.

“The father pays, of course. He tried to wriggle out of the responsibility, because, like a fool, I burnt his letters, I was so mad when I knew he wouldn’t marry me. But my sister, she gave evidence and I get the money regular. There won’t be any trouble with the second child’s father; he’s a good sort. What about you? Is he married?”

“No,” said the tragic one.

“Well then, why don’t you get spliced up?”

The Jewess had a catch in her throat.

“He’s a chauffeur,” she said, “and particular like, he’s educated, and I’m in service. But he’s coming to see me today, and his mother’s going to take the baby.”

“Don’t you believe it, dear,” said the Madonna, “if a man won’t marry you, his mother isn’t likely to take your kid.”

I hoped that the discussion would go further. It was a revelation to me to hear these young unmarried mothers handle the vital things of life with such clear-sighted honesty. It was as though I had come to a new and undiscovered country. We are all of us so fond, in literary circles, of discussing whether the modern woman has any use for love; we are most of us agreed that she has very little for sex! In Mare Street, Hackney, they would stare astonished at such arguments. They know exactly what they risk and why they risk it. And they do not grumble when they get hurt. They do not rebel against their fate, nor very much against the men who get them into trouble. They have the babies⁠—that is enough, and, secure in achievement, they go on with their life.

Apart from her tragedy, the little Jewess was quite helpful. She asked me what I was going to do, and I explained that I wanted a situation as a cook, but that I had no reference.

“That’s a pity,” she said. “It will make it more difficult for you to live in. I don’t hold with girls doing daily work; by the time you’ve paid for your room and had a bit of fun it doesn’t leave enough for food. If you live in you get your nourishment. There’s a lot said against service nowadays, but there’s a lot to be said for it. What I say is, get as much pay, as much food, and as much time off as you can, and then put your back into it.”

There was an amazing atmosphere of friendliness all round. I say amazing, for among professional women there is not a general tendency to extend the helping hand. Here I found no sniffs, no impertinence, no curiosity. On those young, serious and sweet faces there was nothing but genuine interest in their fellows’ plight and very few of them complained of their own.

One by one, the newcomers of the previous day were summoned to the adjutant to give particulars of their case. Some had arrived with letters from their employers, and were waiting, pending their dispatch to a home. Three admissions had been made on what is called the “Night Bell.” Two of these were young girls; I was the third. We naturally clung together and one of my companions, a very pretty creature about twenty, was more than sympathetic.

“Did you say you hadn’t got a reference, dear?” she asked.

Turning rather red⁠—the repetition of the question was embarrassing⁠—I admitted that this was so.

“Well, you know,” she said, “I want a place as housemaid. I had to leave my room, because I owed the rent, but I can’t get my box when I’ve a bit of money and meanwhile I’ve got a written reference, here it is.” She handed me a letter, setting forth her special qualifications and her general character for honesty and efficiency.

“You see, dear,” she said, “it wouldn’t be very difficult to put in your name along with mine, and then we might get a job together. Hackney wouldn’t be any use, and you’re not smart enough for the West End, but we ought to get something round about Islington, what do you say?”

I could only thank her, which I did with increasing humility. There was I, a complete stranger to this young thing, and yet, because she felt I was down and out, she was ready to risk committing an offence against the law. The law⁠—I could imagine what the Madonna of the club foot would have said:⁠—

“Why, what difference does it make?”

Most of the girls were quite communicative. The majority, as I have said, were domestic servants. The older women had different histories. There was Millie, the mental case, who lived permanently in Mare Street, while some half-a-dozen others of similar age were waiting to be moved on.

The little hunchback did not talk very much; she was still reading. But I gathered from the others that she was staying at the Shelter till she could get work. She had no people and had never had a baby. That was why, perhaps, she immersed herself so deeply in her book. I determined to see what she was reading, but just at that moment I was summoned to the adjutant.

Up to the present I had encountered no officialdom and an entire absence of red tape. Anything less like the popular idea of such an institution it would be impossible to imagine. Places there are, blasphemous with the title of Home for Fallen Women, where the unmarried mother is preached at all day, and crucified at night on a hard mattress and a harder pillow. At Mare Street one moves in an atmosphere of spiritual freedom; the Salvation Army is not there to save your soul, but to help your body, and the degree of your morality or immorality is not taken into account. Nevertheless, I felt a little frightened when I entered the Staff Room. The adjutant, capable, and brainy, told me to sit down and, I felt, sized up my character within two minutes. I told her that I had lost my bag in Liverpool and had arrived penniless in London. I told her also⁠—I was beginning to believe it myself⁠—that I had left my references in the stolen bag. My last situation had been in Liverpool.

“There must be somebody who will speak for you,” she said.

“There isn’t,” I answered. “The people at my last place went to America.”

“I should say you’d been out of a situation for over a year?” she suggested.

I agreed, and knew she was expecting a confession, which, however, I did not make.

“Well, there’s something wrong with you,” she said, “and I don’t know what it is. You don’t drink,” she added conclusively, and I felt grateful. The strange thing was that as I sat in that chair, the personality of Annie Turner, the out-of-work, stole over me. I found myself listening in silence to statements which, in my own person, I would have hotly contested. I even began to be a little frightened that the adjutant might keep me in the home.

“There’s very little chance that you’ll get a place as cook,” she said, “without a reference. A cook’s work is important, and people won’t have a woman in their house without knowing all about her. In any case, you wouldn’t get a job in Hackney; they are nearly all Jews here and they cook for themselves. Still, you can go to the Labour Exchange and try your luck. Come back and tell me how you get on, if you like.”

I felt sure the adjutant thought I must have been in prison, yet she treated me very nicely and wished me luck. My prospects were not bright, but nevertheless I was relieved to go. Institutional life, even at its very best, weighs heavily upon me. I went back to the day room to get my brown paper parcel. The little rosy-cheeked lieutenant, who had admitted me the previous night, was cutting out overalls and Mental Millie was measuring the stuff. The Madonna of the club foot had gone upstairs to her two year old baby and none of my other friends could be seen. Only the hunchback girl was there, still reading by the window. I crossed the room with its sad green walls and hopeless oilcloth and took a last look at the anemones. Then glancing over her shoulder I said goodbye. It gave me a queer sensation when the title of her book stared up at me. She was immersed in George Gissing’s The Odd Women.