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.
XI
Womanhood—In Extremis
Sunday is a meagre day for the street seller. No one likes to be asked to buy matches, at any rate, in the earlier part of the day. There is a general feeling that the unpleasant things of life should be hidden away until after church time. Churchgoing, as a matter of fact, does not predispose to the giving of alms. I amused myself with experiments in this direction, but never got so much
