Mord Em'ly/Chapter 10

came down the wooden stairs of Walworth Road Station holding her breath, and looking eagerly at the faces of people who were rushing up to catch the train. At the doorway of the station she halted before going out into the windy night. Already there was a sense of disappointment in not seeing at once someone whom she knew. She had resolved vaguely that at least a dozen of the old gang would be waiting for her. The fact that they could not possibly know of her coming had not affected her calculations.

She went across the road and looked at the entrance to the music-hall next the large public house, where gas-jets in white globes flared distractedly, and found no performance announced for that evening; instead, there was to be a meeting of 'bus conductors with a grievance.

In a dairy, where she had milk and some scones, Mord Em'ly had an opportunity of seeing herself in a mirror, and it occurred to her then for the first time that it was quite possible her old friends might not recognise her. The woman at the dairy asked her how long she had been up from the country, and Mord Em'ly replied, "About two minutes and a 'alf." The dairy-woman sighed, and said that she herself was Devonshire, and added, rather wistfully, that she would give a million pound to be back there now.

It was something to find Walworth Road, with few reservations, unaltered. Friday night was not Saturday night, but it was near to it, and Mord Em'ly, blown up the road, found the same stout women in charge of stalls, the same exultant lads (but grown older) finding words with difficulty to describe the gorgeous attractions of herrings they offered for sale. The hoarse butchers were still losing their voices, and still getting ruddier of face. The penny show was Madame Somebody, the Thinnest Lady in Europe, the Despair of the Entire Medical Profession, and the Wonder of the Century. Apparently the medical profession and the century had given Madame Somebody up as a riddle impossible of solution, for there was nobody inside the red baize curtain when Mord Em'ly looked in, excepting Madame Somebody herself—a lean, flat, little dwarf of a woman, who instantly dodged out of sight and screamed "Shop!"

Perhaps there was not such a blaze of white light in the road as Mord Em'ly had expected. The smell of naphtha lamps (going nearly out when the wind came violently, and pretending to be quite out, but burning again when the wind had gone) made her give a twitch of the nose that indicated antipathy; and she stopped her respiration when she passed by the frying, steaming fish shops, with busy, bare-armed servers on one side of the zinc counter, and a line of critical patrons on the other. Many of the people had clean faces, but Mord Em'ly wished that they had all possessed this evidence of care. If they only knew how delightful soap and water were, they would surely make of them closer acquaintances. She was bound, too, to confess to herself that the streets were not so tidy as she could have wished. It seemed to her that there was too much litter about the place, and she found herself walking with care for fear of slipping. As she went along, holding her fur hat, in the direction of Pandora, a young man with a very large cigar nodded to Mord Em'ly and remarked insinuatingly, that it was "a blowy evening, miss."

"City clerk!" said Mord Em'ly, with contempt. And the youth with the cigar was so much taken aback by this derisive term (it happened to be correct, which made it all the more distressing), that he turned suddenly, and went away in the direction the wind decided to take him, with a feeble attempt to whistle unconcernedly. Two small girls were chasing each other in Alvey Street, and one dodged in front of Mord Em'ly, using Mord Em'ly as ambush. Mord Em'ly, much annoyed by this unseemly behaviour, secured one of the dodging girls and shook her, and told them both to behave.

At Pandora she went up the stone steps quietly. The clean scent of a disinfectant permeated the buildings, and when a door opened the smell of an oil-lamp stole out. From the asphalted open space between the blocks came the voices of children enjoying their games noisily. The wind raced through the narrow passages with a scream. Mord Em'ly was about to put a question to an old lady who was near the window of the old landing, smoking a cigarette with great enjoyment, when she heard her mother's voice.

"You look after them two gels of your'n, Mrs. What-is-it!" shouted Mord Em'ly's mother, with all her old relish of asperity. "I won't 'ave 'em tripsin' up and down in front of my doorway, and gigglin' and carrying on so that I can't 'ear myself speak!"

"Wish they'd keep us from 'earing you speak!" answered the neighbour acutely, "’Pon me soul, if I don't think you get worse as you get older. You're a nagger, a pos'tive nagger, that's what you are. No wonder your 'usband ain't alive. I don't blame him!"

"Nagger or no nagger!" said Mord Em'ly's mother obstinately, "you stop them two gels of your'n, or else I will. If they'd only got a good mother—"

"You're a nice one to talk!" screamed the neighbour indignantly. "What about that pretty beauty of a gel of your'n? I've 'eard of her and the way she used to kerry on."

"If you particular want to know," said Mord Em'ly's mother, with studied politeness, "Allow me to kindly inform you that my daughter is in a good situation in the West End, with a family whose name you wouldn't recognise if I was to mention it."

"How d'you know I shouldn't?" asked the offended neighbour unwarily.

"’Cause it's a reespectable family" snapped Mord Em'ly's mother, slamming her door to avoid hearing the neighbour's repartee.

Mord Em'ly went down the stairs slowly, with a confused feeling of pride and regret. It was pleasant to find that her mother had invented this pleasing fiction of a berth with a West End family; Mord Em'ly wished that it could be instantly converted into fact, in order that she might appear and confirm her mother's assertion. The two harmoniums on the ground floor were engaged in their usual duel; one was playing in a heavy, elephantine way an obviously comic song that was not known to Mord Em'ly. This, more than anything else, made her feel that she had been absent from civilisation for long, long years. What a number of songs she would have to learn to be again in line with her old friends! She made her way to the south end of Walworth Road, and, as she walked up again, with the wind at her back, towards the Elephant, found herself trying to believe that she was not disappointed with her return. Presently Mord Em'ly gave up the task. In point of fact she had thought, and dreamt, and talked so much of the old place, and all the attractions it had for her, that, gradually and unconsciously, she had, in her mind, invested Walworth with a superabundant glory and an excessive gaiety of atmosphere to which it had no real claim. Moreover, she herself (and of this she was ignorant) had changed; if she had not grown much taller, she had at least grown more exacting.

At the corner of Carter Street, where wind going east met wind going north, and struggled boisterously for precedence, stood a semi-circular crowd. A cornet played gustily a rollicking hymn, and high soprano voices sang the words until they reached the very high notes, which they left to the cornet, waiting until the air came down to reasonable altitude:

Mord Em'ly edged her way through the small and not very greatly interested crowd. She saw a crescent of poke-bonneted, dark-gowned women finishing the triumphant refrain; a scarlet-jerseyed man stood in front, with distended cheeks, blowing out the cornet to the skies. The light from the gas-lamp near the pavement came athwart the faces of some of the women; Mord Em'ly noted, as she had always noted before, that most of them were very plain, and these took their emotional exercises grimly; one or two faces were young and attractive, and these had a look of bright-eyed ecstasy. A girl, whose face had not been illuminated by the gas-lamp, stepped forward immediately that the hymn had finished, and, waving her arms, spoke breathlessly.

"Fellow sinners!" she cried, in a high, head voice, "I stand 'ere before you te-night—"

"My gracious!" murmured Mord Em'ly, "if it ain't Gilliken!"

"Stand before you to-night," went on Miss Gilliken, shrilly, waving her hands with spasmodic, in appropriate gestures, "as one who, in her time, has bin a lost SHEEP, and has now been found—plucked from the burning, and saved from the 'orrors of eternal 'ELL. Many a time 'ave I, with my ongodly companions, roamed about these streets, seeking what I might devour; and, thank God, I've got the candidness to tell YOU, and every one of you 'ere te-night, that in my younger days I've knowed what it was to be a THIEF. I've taken property that I'd no call to touch, and I've done it thoughtlessly, as any of you 'ere te-night might go and do; but I was brought, on a thirteenth of Febooary—oh, joyful day!—to see the error of my goings on—"

"Glory! glory!" murmured Miss Gilliken's colleagues.

"Of my goings on; and, thank the Lord, I 'ave been washed whiter than SNOW, and purified of my sins, and looking forward to the future, with a 'appy smile on my countenance and 'ope in my 'eart; and I do so want all you other sinful people to come and do likewise, and not to 'old back, becos' you think you're too black, or too wicked, or too sinful; for, b'lieve me, my friends, BAD as you may be, and no doubt are—"

Mord Em'ly watched her old leader with great interest. A ribald man, slightly bemused, standing at the corner of the crowd, offered incoherent remarks during Miss Gilliken's breathless address, and Mord Em'ly was glad to see that Miss Gilliken adroitly took up these interruptions, and on them based so much strenuous, breathless argument, that the ribald man, finding that he was being forced to give useful assistance to her appeal, took opportunity, when his hat blew off, to retire from the proceedings. Miss Gilliken's voice showed signs of wear presently, and she stopped and stepped back, whereupon an elderly lieutenant went forward and took her place.

"Gilliken! Gilliken!" whispered Mord Em'ly.

"Yes, sister," said Miss Gilliken absently. She was listening entranced to the elder lady lieutenant.

"It's me!—Mord Em'ly!"

The poke-bonnet turned quickly.

"Come and stand here," said Miss Gilliken, with excitement. "Come and listen to these blessed words, and—Glory! glory! Fancy seeing you again, after all this time, Mord Em'ly. You don't belong to the Army, I suppose?"

"Not much," said Mord Em'ly knowingly.

"You must come back with us presently to the barracks. What are you doing of?"

"Nothing special."

"Then you shall join us," said Miss Gilliken enthusiastically. "You shall see the captain, and find the blessed—"

"I'm not sure," said Mord Em'ly, "that it'd suit my book."

"Ah!"—pityingly—"I thought that once."

"I thought it more than once. Where's the rest?" A sudden fear possessed Mord Em'ly. "Surely they ain't all gone barmy on religion?"

"A-las, no!" whispered Miss Gilliken. "Some are servants of Satan, whilst others are like the woman in the parable—" The elderly lieutenant finished her swift oration, and Miss Gilliken broke off to give the usual expression of sympathy and acknowledgment. "Keep close to me, Mord Em'ly. We're going to march 'omewards now."

"I've imagined myself being in a lot of places," said Mord Em'ly amusedly, as she marched along, keeping step with the others, "But this was never one of 'em."

The girls sang snatches of hymns as they went along, and bore themselves discreetly under the fire of badinage levelled at them from the pavement. The blustering wind made them walk with their bonneted heads down, and it was not easy to talk, because the turbulent north-easter seemed determined to monopolise the conversation. In the window of a public-house Mord Em'ly caught sight of a large red poster, with the words

", of Deptford, v., of Walworth."

Underneath, amongst other lines, "Handsome Belt" and "Twenty pounds a-side." When they arrived at the big building, which had once been a hop warehouse, and was now converted into barracks, she laughed, because Miss Gilliken took off the poke-bonnet, and appeared with her hair neatly brushed back from the temples, and gathered behind into a short, demure plait.

"Whatever possessed you to go in for this line of business?" inquired Mord Em'ly curiously.

"It come like a flash o' lightning," said Miss Gilliken, in her out-door voice, nearing, with great enjoyment, her favourite subject. "I was walking along East Street, and all at once, like Paul at Damascus— You remember Paul?"

"Paul Who?"

"The apostle Paul," explained Gilliken.

"I know who you mean now. Go on!"

"I saw a tex in a window. It was a short tex', but it opened my eyes, and I saw for the first time that I was wasting my life, and before I stirred from that spot I made up my mind that 'enceforth I'd be another person, and fit meself for that great and glorious eternity which—" "And that's how it comes to you, is it?"

"Thank the Lamb o' God for all His mercies," said Miss Gilliken, with obvious sincerity, "yes!"

The permission of the captain being obtained, Mord Em'ly stayed the night in the barracks. Miss Gilliken shared a room with five other girls, and Mord Em'ly was surprised to find how much genuine cheerfulness existed among them. In Pandora, she remembered that most of the inhabitants who had religious tendencies were a little contemptuous of their neighbours, and never looked quite well; here there seemed a breezy enthusiasm, coupled at times, when they sang hymns, with a kind of light-headed frenzy. They talked mainly of the marches and appointments for the morrow, and they wondered what would appear about their work in the coming War Cry. They also spoke of a new male ensign, and the elderly female lieutenant was rallied a good deal when she happened to remark that he reminded her of an old sweetheart, and the elderly female lieutenant was so diverted by this, and especially by something that Mord Em'ly said, that she could not help laughing, and her serge dress had to be unbuttoned, and slaps on the shoulder had to be administered, in order to restore her to calmness. One girl, a cadet fresh from her probationary period at Clapton, and, therefore, somewhat less removed from the world than the others, confided to Mord Em'ly that what made her first think of entering the Army was the fact that her young man broke off his engagement with her. Mord Em'ly asked her whether she had not first wrung the young man's neck, and, on the cadet admitting that she had not taken this course, Mord Em'ly said, with judicial wisdom, that there was such a thing as being too lenient. The cadet told Mord Em'ly a good many details of her engagement, and seemed glad, in a wistful way, of an opportunity for reciting them; she added regretfully that she did not suppose she would ever have a chance of getting engaged again now, but Mord Em'ly pointed out that in this world you never knew your luck, and that while there was life there was hope. Further, Mord Em'ly suggested to the cadet the advisability of keeping an eye on eligible male officers of the Army, and the cadet promised to do so, and added that she was selling a pretty good lot of War Crys, and hoped, therefore, for early promotion.

"Well, what do you say, Mord Em'ly?" asked Miss Gilliken, the next morning after breakfast. "’Ave you made up your mind?"

"I 'ave so."

"Glory!" ejaculated Miss Gilliken, with great thankfulness.

"I've made up me mind that this is all very well, and I admire you for doing of it, but it ain't exactly my style."

"Mord Em'ly, I do 'ope you won't go and—"

"Don't you be frightened about me," said Mord Em'ly cheerfully. "It doesn't follow I'm going to rush to the opp'site extreme."

"It's a wicked world!"

"I know," remarked Mord Em'ly, "I know that. So there's no call for me to go making it no wickeder."

Mord Em'ly's next act was, at any rate, of a well-considered and sensible nature. She discovered, near the Elephant, pasted on a board, the advertisements of the Daily Chronicle, and she formed one in the line of bending, anxious-faced readers of the columns. Among the "Wanteds" she found that a Veg. Girl was required. Sleep in. Close Sundays. Apply Dining Rooms, 527 New Cross Road. A Greenwich tram took her to the door, and the very stout, cheerful lady, who, counting money on the other side of a mountain of plates, looked over the summit, said she was Mrs. Mitchell, and that she sometimes wished to goodness she wasn't. The place had the old-fashioned, pew-like seats on either side of a narrow gangway; on the smoke-toned walls were pasted oblong slips, which shouted remarks concerning the place: "Best Sixpenny Dinner  in South London!" "Pass this Shop, you Pass the Best!" "Beef Pudding same like Mother makes!" "Cut from the Joint, 4d.!" "Mitchell for the Million!" "Our Roly-Poly Puddings Challenge the World!" A bored-looking young woman, in a scarlet blouse, writing out the menu for the day on sheets of note-paper, looked up from the table at which she was seated, and, after inspecting  Mord Em'ly, gave a cough, intended to convey that Mord Em'ly was not, in her opinion, a member of the higher aristocracy.

"I've come for the place," said Mord Em'ly steadily, "And I'm a good character, but I can't show you no papers, and I sha'n't tell you where I was last."

"That's candid," declared stout Mrs. Mitchell, "I must say."

"Get rid of me if I don't suit," advised Mord Em'ly; "keep me if I do. I ain't lazy, and I ain't dishonest."

"You've got a good face, my girl."

"It's the same I've always had."

"Did you leave your last place of your own accord, my girl?"

"I did," said Mord Em'ly. "They wanted me to stay like anything. Quite cut up about me leaving."

"It's risky," remarked Mrs. Mitchell, fanning herself with a plate, "But, 'pon my word, I've a good mind to chance it."

"Shows your good sense," said Mord Em'ly approvingly. "P'r'aps you don't mind lending me an apern? I've only got what I stand upright in."