It is a cheerless place, that room. The walls of sea green are utterly hopeless, erupting every little space into a photograph of some Salvation Army celebrity, all very stiff and precise and bristling with efficiency. The floor is covered with a sad oilcloth, but the long French windows look out on a fair-sized garden, which even on that dark February morning showed signs of spring with starlike auriculas and fugitive anemones.
We did not speak much before breakfast, but sat round the fire, or as near to it as we could get. One girl I noticed particularly. She was a hunchback, with the spiritual eyes and refined face of the type. She seemed oblivious to the rest of us and read intently, without looking up.
At half-past seven we went down to breakfast, and here again I was astonished. I anticipated a long service, but the meal was merely heralded by a short grace, and then we all sat down at two long tables, spread with clean cloths, nice crockery and spoons and forks. There was porridge, well made, with milk and sugar, plenty of hot tea, good bread and quite bearable margarine. There is a great deal in that word “bearable.” Butter is beyond the dreams of the outcast, and the number and variety of horrors known as “marg,” are undreamt of by the comfortably placed.
It was a very human meal, with plenty of cheery talk. The majority of the women were quite young—domestic servants, for the most part—and very cheerful. The level of good looks was a high one, and I noticed an entire absence of powder or paint. The girls were bobbed or shingled, wore pretty frocks, many of them sleeveless, smart shoes, and almost invariably silk stockings. That is one of the discoveries I made in my wanderings. The outcast, until she gives up hope, tries at all costs after silk hosiery; indeed, apart from matchsellers, I was the only destitute woman who wore wool.
The meal was concluded by a short address and a hymn, and we all trooped out to the day room again and began to discuss our prospects. It was a very wonderful experience to hear these girls talk of their future. They all had a complete philosophy of life. Nobody criticised, nobody asked a question, except in friendliness, everyone was sympathetic. I was interested in a very attractive little creature with a club foot. She wore her blue gown with an air, and her dark hair was as fine as silk.
“I shall be having my baby in two months,” said she. “It’s my second child, you know. He’s a boy, so I want the one that’s coming to be a girl. I’d rather have stayed on in my place another month, but my lady thought I’d better not. She wrote up to the Army and I’m going to a Home this afternoon. She’s been very good to me.”
She smiled very sweetly at a dark Jewess with blazing eyes and a tragic face. I have never seen a mouth so miserably pathetic. She answered in a hot, fierce voice.
“You’ll want all the goodness you can get, my girl, and so shall I. This one will be my first, and I’ll take care there’s not another. Gawd!” she clenched her thin hands in denunciation. “Men are rotters, aren’t they? It’s a bleeding shame we should have to pay for their pleasure!”
All the bitterness of woman from the first beginnings was in that voice, all the passionate revolt against the fate which makes the woman pay. It was a dramatic moment. Instinctively I caught my breath. It was the Madonna of the club foot who answered her.
“Ah, yes!” she said, with a wonderful smile, “they may have the pleasure, but we have the babies. When I knew mine was coming, I felt a bit like you; I couldn’t know how I should want it; and then it came, and something grew in me as if my heart would burst, and I don’t care what happens, so as he’s mine!”
“But how do you keep him—and you with another coming?”
It was a nice point, and I was very anxious to see how the triumphant mother would solve it; but, as I was to discover, the young women at the Salvation Army Shelter are for the most part realists. They look facts straight between the eyes.
“The father pays, of course. He tried to wriggle out of the responsibility, because, like a fool, I burnt his letters, I was so mad when I knew he wouldn’t marry me. But my sister, she gave evidence and I get the money regular. There won’t be any trouble with the second child’s father; he’s a good sort. What about you? Is he married?”
“No,” said the tragic one.
“Well then, why don’t you get spliced up?”
The Jewess had a catch in her throat.
“He’s a chauffeur,” she said, “and particular like, he’s educated, and I’m in service. But he’s coming to see me today, and his mother’s going to take the baby.”
“Don’t you believe it, dear,” said the Madonna, “if a man won’t marry you, his mother isn’t likely to take your kid.”
I hoped that the discussion would go further. It was a revelation to me to hear these young unmarried mothers handle the vital things of life with such clear-sighted honesty. It was as though I had come to a new and undiscovered country. We are all of us so fond, in literary circles, of discussing whether the modern woman has any use for love; we are most of us agreed that she has very little for sex! In Mare Street, Hackney, they would stare astonished at such arguments. They know exactly what they risk and why they risk it. And they do not grumble when they get hurt. They do not rebel against their fate, nor very much
