The wind had fallen, and a peculiarly unpleasant sleet was coming down, stinging your face and creeping down between the collar of your coat and your neck. I felt as if I had been an outcast for years and I had to take myself in hand pretty thoroughly before I found courage to speak to a policeman.
The outward and visible signs of my destitution were very plain that evening. Unconsciously I had acquired the slinking gait which comes of glancing furtively behind to see if you are being followed by some prosperous citizen with an eye to complaint. It was difficult to hold up my head, my shoulders drooped wearily. I wished very much that I was coward enough to go back to my bed. But I knew that such a course would cut me off from the knowledge I was so desperately eager to gain. To understand how an outcast feels, you yourself must be outcast.
“Where is the nearest casual ward, please?” I asked a young policeman.
“There’s only one for women, and that’s in Great Guildford Street, Southwark. You’d best go over Westminster Bridge and then enquire your way.”
I followed his directions and, much buffeted by cold and rain, found myself in the Kennington Road. I was directed to a workhouse near Lambeth Walk, where I interviewed the porter. He explained that his establishment was for men only, but that he would give me an order which would admit me to Southwark. Furthermore, he handed me a red counter, marked with the mystic figure One.
“If you give this to the tram conductor, he’ll give you a ticket,” he explained.
“What shall I have to do at the Workhouse?” I asked, rather frightened.
“Oh, nothing very terrible, my dear,” was the cheery reply. “They’ll take your money away till the morning, that is, if you have any. You can’t go in with more than a shilling, you know.”
My resources, I explained, were twopence, and I got into the tram, feeling as though the eyes of all the world were on me.
“Fares, please,” said the conductor, and then I surprised myself.
Something inside me asserted itself, and I leaned forward in my best social manner, in marked contrast to my dilapidated clothes, and handed the conductor the counter.
“Stop outside the casual ward, if you please,” I said.
The woman next to me edged farther along the seat, but none of the others took any notice. The conductor beamed at me genially, answered “Certainly, Miss,” and gave me a ticket.
I was awfully glad he called me “Miss,” because it seemed to show that those other outcasts who had handed him their counters had been treated just as nicely.
He stopped at the nearest point to the House and wished me good luck very cheerily. I found the entrance to the casual ward with difficulty—the walls seemed very high and the night was dark. When, at last, I unearthed the bell, the long clanging peal was ominous. Automatically the door opened, and the porter told me to come inside.
He was a nice looking young man with bright eyes and a great sense of humour.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The inevitable “Annie Turner” duly came forth.
“Where were you born?”
The question seemed to me ridiculous.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Now, that’s a pity,” said the porter. “Where did you go to school?”
“Manchester,” I said, lying boldly.
Age came next, colour of eyes and hair, and then—“What’s your height?”
“Now why on earth,” said I, “do you want to know that for?”
The porter bent towards me confidentially. “The Minister of Health’s very interested in your height,” said he. Whereat I determined that the Minister of Health should be fully satisfied.
Now I have always wished to be a tall woman and Fate having brought me the opportunity I gave myself five foot nine inches, which the porter, highly amused, duly entered up.
“Now you go on upstairs,” said he, “and the female attendants will look after you.”
It has been said that this particular porter is cross-tempered—some of my fellow casuals have whispered it with bated breath. For this reason, I should like to say, he is one of the nicest people I have ever met and I hope in a future life he will be attendant to St. Peter.
I was received by a young woman seated at a table, who put me through the identical catechism framed by the porter. These preliminaries over, she explained, quite nicely, the position of the woman admitted to the casual ward.
“This place,” she said, “as you know, is run by rules decided by the authorities. They are not made by us, but we are responsible that they are carried through. I hope you will see your way to conform to them.”
This reception, I admit, was a great surprise. I had thought to find Bumble rampant. I had expected to be treated with ignominy, if not with derision. I found nothing of either. The attitude of all the officials with whom I came in contact was quite human. There was nothing in their manner that could possibly affront that fundamental dignity born in the meanest of mankind. I was destitute, but that did not impair my inalienable right to human treatment. Throughout my stay I was never once made to feel I was a pauper.
“Have you any money?” asked the young woman.
I handed her my twopence and asked if I might keep my nightdress.
“We supply one,” she answered. “I am sorry, but you must not take anything with you into the ward.”
I solemnly handed over the contents of my packet, together with a dilapidated powder puff, the one thing that had not been taken from me in the doss house.
“If you have any private papers, or letters I will seal them in a packet and keep them for you until the morning. We have no desire to pry into your affairs; you understand that?”
I had not any papers, and I explained that I had spent the previous night in a doss house and should enjoy a hot bath immensely. She led
