In Darkest London · Chapter 10 (2/2)

The streets by this time were very empty. There was none of that lingering night life that you find in the West or the East End of London. It was as though the pavements had been swept of humanity, and in the frosty air my footsteps rang out sharply. I was not making for any particular spot⁠—I just followed the way that fancy led me, going up one alley and down another. Past an open doorway, inside which a sleeping figure huddled, cowering deep down among its clothes. Sometimes other figures could be seen in a passageway and on the staircase, all motionless in the drugged sleep of intense fatigue.

As I emerged from one of the courts that intersect the main road at the foot of Blackfriars Bridge I was conscious of being followed. As I walked a shuffling, hesitant tread came behind me. When I stopped the unknown creature stopped as well. It was an eerie feeling, and it broke through the somnolence of nerve and muscle, awaking a sense of actual fear. Stirred to watchfulness, I could not bring myself to look round, but hurried on through a tangle of courts and narrow streets. And then I knew that the more I hurried, the more frightened I should get. Already the pursuer was invested with devilish attributes; I felt as though I were going to scream. But I got a grip of myself and stood quite still, waiting for the enemy to come up to me.

Along the pavement shuffled a pitiable looking woman, with the worst pair of boots that I have ever seen. She was hugging a shabby looking bundle and shivered every now and then with the cold. Her face was ageless with suffering, her eyes seemed to have lost all memory of hope.

“Is there anything you want?” said I. “Can I do anything for you?”

“It’s lonely like,” she said. “I’ve been by myself all the evening. I felt I’d like to be near someone for a bit.”

The loneliness of the streets is something that comes upon you in great waves. You are not conscious of it when you are doped with the eternal walking about, but when consciousness stirs, you know you are alone, and very frightened. It is as if you were in a cold sea, where you kept afloat by ceaseless striving, knowing that if a billow breaks over you, it will sweep you away.

“Is there anywhere you could get a bed?” said I.

She knew a place, she said, where she could get a shakedown for a few pence.

“One gets tired,” she said. “A bed sometimes is past dreaming.”

I had given up all thought of a bed for myself that night, so I gave her the price of mine. She was so surprised that it made me ashamed. She stood with the coppers in her hand, half hesitating as to whether she should take them. I gave her a friendly word and she shuffled off at last, making for the doss house where she hoped to shelter.

By this time I wanted to leave South London and get back to more familiar ground. I crossed Blackfriars Bridge and walked along the Embankment. In less inclement weather you will still find destitutes on the benches by the river, but on this bitter night no one could have spent a night in the open and remained alive.

I passed along in the ghostly silence, broken only by the lapping of the water on the piers. Presently I met another wanderer, a man this time. A genial down-and-out, with the desire for friendly intercourse.

“You’re in a hurry, aren’t you, mate?” said he.

“It’s cold,” I answered, “and I want to keep warm.”

“Are you making for over the bridges?”

“I’ve just come from there,” said I. “I shall go the other way.”

“Well, then, my way shall be yours, mate.”

I nodded acquiescence and we walked along in silence, broken occasionally by my attempts at conversation.

“I don’t know as I wants to talk, mate,” said my escort. “I just thought you might like my arm round your waist.”

There was a simplicity of approach about his method which took away all suggestion of any possible offence. After all, it was very natural to suppose that a homeless woman should like the attentions of a homeless man, and I could imagine that my friend was a very kindly creature, with a strong and comforting arm.

But custom and training, and some of that fastidiousness which even destitution cannot kill, made his request impossible. I thanked him very kindly, told him that I must hurry on, and left him, puzzled and protesting.

Throughout my many adventures I never chanced on a brutal or uncivil man. There is a gentle chivalry among those who from destitution, or by reason of their employment, are in the streets at night. There is no fear that a workman or a tramp will take you for what you are not, and the suggestion that I might like an arm round my waist is but the equivalent of an invitation to sit out for a dance. The only difference is that in the world of the homeless you just seize the moment as it flies; tonight you may be on Victoria Embankment, tomorrow may find you at Streatham Hill, or Kensal Green.

I have a very precious memory of one particular night. The bitter weather had broken, and it was mild, almost warm. I had come down the Embankment to go to the Metropolitan Asylums’ Board Office under Hungerford Bridge. There, as I have said, you may apply between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. for a bed. The lucky ones are sent off to the Salvation Army Shelters, where they are housed free of charge, others are despatched to the Church Army, and the latest comers are sent to Southwark Casual Ward.

I was not lucky on this particular night. The shelters had taken their quota, and there only remained the workhouse. I did not want to repeat my experience; indeed, to tell the truth, I was a little frightened of venturing inside institutional doors again. So when they had given me my admission form and the red counters for my tram fare, I went back to the Embankment and sat down, waiting for something to turn up.

Now, as I always found in this strata of society, silence is a master card. You must leave it to others to speak to you. Two men came and sat beside me. They had been on night shift on some engineering works. They had also been chums in the war and recounted many experiences. I sat and listened with proper admiration, as becomes a woman, and I had my reward.

“George,” turned towards me.

“Aren’t you the young lady wot I saw come out of the Asylums Board, just now?”

I said that was the case.

“Did you get a bed, my gal?”

“They gave me an order for the workhouse, but I shan’t go there, I can’t stick it.”

“I should say not,” said George. “Did you hear that, Dick?” and he motioned to his friend.

“The workhouse ain’t any good,” said Dick. “Look here, my gal, you come on and have a cup o’ cawfee.”

I went with him meekly to a coffee stall near Savoy Hill. He bought me a cup of steaming hot coffee of excellent flavour, and offered me a piece of cake.

“You’re kindly welcome,” he said, politely, and seemed quite hurt when I refused. He told me he went to work every afternoon at four o’clock and got off just before midnight, when he always went for an airing before going home.

“It’s a treat to see the dawn come up in St. James’ Park. I fair love to sit in the Mall, and the lights across the river ain’t so dusty⁠ ⁠… Ain’t you got any friends, my gal?”

I said I had some friends, but they were very far away⁠—as indeed they were during the whole of my adventure.

“I live with my father,” said Dick. “He’s just on seventy-three.” He told me the details of his family life, with a simple continuity, almost wholly lacking in the more sophisticated members of society.

“He’s a good old man, though it’s a bit dull sometimes. I shan’t get married while he lives, you know, there’s nobody else to look after him.”

I commended his affection and deplored the lack of responsibility evinced by his other relations.

“What do you say to having a walk round St. Thomas’s Hospital, my gal. It’s pleasant tonight.”

But I had had enough of South London and St. Thomas’s seemed a long way off.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Let’s go over to the Embankment and look at the river.”

I shall never forget the look in his eyes when I said this.

“None of that, my gal,” said he. “None of your looking at the river like that, you know.”

I did not realise what he meant, and leaned over the parapet, watching the lights and rather amused.

“Look here, my gal,” said he. “It ain’t a bit of good trying to throw yourself in, ’cause I shan’t let you. Things aren’t as bad with you as that, eh?”

There was a warm urgency in his voice, a real solicitude, utterly devoid of any artificiality. I was a woman in distress and the innate strength of the male was stirred in response to my need. He wasn’t going to let me hurt myself if he could help it.

“Oh, I’m not like that,” said I. “I shouldn’t throw myself in the river just because I was hard up.”

“Look here!” His kindly Cockney face peered into mine. “Let me give you your bed money. I can stand it all right.”

“It’s very kind of you.” It was a little difficult to speak, “but I don’t think I want a bed tonight. I’ll just go up to a lodging house I know and see if they’ll let me sit in the kitchen.”

“But you’re welcome, you know, you’re welcome!”

I knew that and told him so with considerable fervour.

“I’ve taken a liking to you, my gal,” said he. “I’m mostly here on the Embankment about twelve, and if you’re by tomorrow you’ll find me. Don’t be afraid, if you can’t get any work tomorrow; I shall make you take your bed money then.”

He did not try to induce me to stop and chat; he did not try to accompany me. He left me with a beaming smile and the assurance that he would be on the Embankment if I wanted him.

This is but one of the many instances of chivalry that I have met with, and not only I, but others in my case. I don’t suppose Dick troubled as to the moral character of the woman he was good to. I don’t suppose he asked himself if I were a prostitute or a thief; he took a liking to me because he was not blinded by externals, and found something in a destitute woman akin to himself, and he offered to her the testimony of his belief and the great wealth of his generosity.

On most evenings the Asylums Board Office contains an assortment of derelicts. The most wretched of street sellers go there as a last resource. There also women, stranded in London, find their way. The police all over London have instructions to send here outcasts of both sexes who want a bed. Rarely, however, do you find a prostitute among the applicants. Only once did I meet one of their number. She was a pretty little creature and wore her thin coat with an air. She was in the inevitable sunset stockings, but her patent shoes were deplorably rent. She looked round fearfully and came towards me, wanting reassurance.

“There’s no fear of their sending me to gaol, dear, is there? It was a bobby who sent me here, he said they’d give me a bed. I haven’t been in bed for two nights, business has been too bad. I couldn’t raise the price even for a shakedown. But⁠—but⁠—I can’t risk being sent to choky; you don’t think they’ll run me in, dear, do you?”

I told her there was no fear of that, and being called into the next room to give particulars, she left me with an appealing glance. But she came up to scratch with all the bravery of her type. Through the half-open door I heard the interview. She gave her name, insisted that she was a dressmaker and had been born in Nottingham.

“My parents?” she said. “Oh, my father was a sergeant-major, and my mother was the daughter of a Baptist minister. Anything else you’d like to know?”

The official closed the interrogation and handed her the paper of admission and she went off, with a wave of her hand. Appearances like hers are fugitive, for, at the risk of repetition, I want to make this plain: the little prostitute avoids the institution like the plague.

I have been told by many people that it is she who makes it impossible to run successful women’s lodging houses. It has been said that Lord Rowton, who devoted so much energy and money to providing houses for destitute men, refused even to contemplate the problem of destitute women. I do not know what is meant by the term successful in this connection. From an economic standpoint the results should be quite satisfactory. From a social standpoint they should be desirable, and as I contend, with the moral standpoint, lodging housekeepers have nothing to do. Nor, in my opinion, has Society. For the causes that drive a girl to the street, few people are concerned. To suggest that she often sells her body to give herself a bed, is an explanation very few have heard, but it is a true one. And if we get down to bedrock fundamentals, a homeless woman, whatsoever her moral character, is still a terrible indictment of society. But until Society refuses to act with moral courage, our streets will be full of derelict women, quite as many of them physically as chaste as the most bigoted puritan.

I left the Embankment and went up Whitehall towards St. Martin’s Church. The crypt is always open to the homeless, and on a cold night is fairly full. Sleeping figures huddled on forms are dimly seen, each with their own secrets and sufferings. But, though I was dog-tired, I did not feel I could spend the few remaining hours before the dawn in this particular place. The old horror of sleeping strangers that I had first felt at Mare Street, Hackney, came back to me, and I turned from the door and resumed my tramp.

I don’t distinctly remember the route I took. I was fairly doped by this time, and a curious exhilaration, almost an exaltation of spirit filled me. It seemed to me I had found freedom, the freedom that comes of cutting off those intimate responsibilities, centred in home and friends. I had no call to be back at any hour; I could walk forever, or so long as my strength held out, if I pleased. Imagination released, or stimulated by hunger, reached out to tracks I had never before explored.

It was with a shock that I found myself at St. Pancras Station just after seven.

I went into the waiting room, and curling up on one of the settees, went to sleep. The destitute can sleep when and where the opportunity finds them, and most mercifully I was not disturbed. When I awoke I had a wash and some breakfast and prepared to face a new day.