“I shan’t pay any more than ninepence,” the hard-faced woman said coldly, and I was too tired to argue the point. I was beginning to appreciate what it means to do manual labour for a living. I suppose I was still influenced by my normal valuation of ninepence, otherwise I cannot account for my inexcusable extravagance. I actually bought myself a cup of tea and a piece of cake, which reduced my capital to fourpence! Four coppers between me and a night in the street. It sounds romantic, but there is a grim hardness about the reality, difficult, if not impossible, for inexperience to gauge. When one has become acclimatised to being homeless, the bed problem, though always there, is less urgent, but I was still too new to take things philosophically. It had begun to rain, and to be on the streets when it is wet is to touch the very dregs of misery.
Later I was to find myself very often in the same predicament, but it is always the first impact that tells, and I began to be just a little frightened. I spent my fourpence on four boxes of matches and walked from King’s Cross to the Holborn end of Shaftesbury Avenue. It was a favourite hunting ground of mine in my outcast days, not so crowded as Piccadilly Circus and with far less competition, and generally I found it lucky.
I hung about the pavement, but my star was not in the ascendant, I could not spot a likely client. My judgment seemed to leave me, I lost initiative and the result was immediately apparent. None of the passersby reacted to me—I was just one of the crowd and, therefore, negligible. The same sort of thing happens at any social gathering. You either make yourself felt or you are unnoticed; if you do not project your personality, the stream passes by and leaves you on one side.
I had almost relapsed into the woebegone condition that I have described above when of a sudden the feeling that I must do something roused me. Two of my matchboxes were soaked through, which reduced my chances of a bed by half. I put them in my pocket, took myself firmly in hand, and assumed a bright demeanour. I studied the faces of the men who passed me as closely as though I were interviewing them for a job, but I did not feel that answering spark of reciprocity which tells you have registered an impression, until coming towards me from Piccadilly I saw a young man and a girl. They were young and obviously in love, and perfectly indifferent to streaming rain, though neither had an umbrella. I went forward quickly and thrust a box in front of the young man with a smile and a joking word.
Just for an instant Fate trembled in the balance—and then the young man took the matches and handed me a shilling, and I was saved.
It will doubtless be noticed that I have particularised “men” when discussing how to deal with prospective buyers. I do not mention women for the reason that I never found any of my own sex who would buy from me. Very soon I gave up trying, for it was not only their refusal to spend a penny that was hurtful, but their very obvious belief in my utter worthlessness. It is curious, but it is true, that the majority of our sex cannot judge a woman apart from her surroundings. Had any of the “ladies” who looked at me with such repulsion found me living in a poor, but clean room in obvious but decent destitution, I feel sure that they would have given me every help, but to the eyes of the ordinary woman environment is what counts and for that reason I have found it very difficult to enlist the support of my own sex for their sisters without a home.
Now, it is not only the condition of the public lodging-houses of which I have to complain, but the utter inadequacy of their number in relation to the homeless population.2
The centre and West End of London is served only by one licensed establishment, in Kennedy Court, off Holborn. There are very few on the north side of the river. The south side is better served, but the total number of these places is extraordinarily small when we remember that there are perennially some thousands of women without permanent sleeping accommodation, women who, when they can earn enough for a lodging, should surely be able to find one within reasonable distance of any part of London.
I was quite at sea as to where I could get a bed, and, as usual, I took counsel with the nearest policeman. Under his direction I found my way to a place, the like of which I could not have imagined.
IV
The House in Kennedy Court
Somewhere at the back of the Holborn Restaurant—out of one of those queer streets that seem off the map of London—there is a paved court. Tumbledown dwellings surround it, swarming with humanity, and when you enter through the archway you feel you might be in Montmartre. At the top of the court there is a wooden door with a latch. Lift the latch and you
