Apart from her tragedy, the little Jewess was quite helpful. She asked me what I was going to do, and I explained that I wanted a situation as a cook, but that I had no reference.
“That’s a pity,” she said. “It will make it more difficult for you to live in. I don’t hold with girls doing daily work; by the time you’ve paid for your room and had a bit of fun it doesn’t leave enough for food. If you live in you get your nourishment. There’s a lot said against service nowadays, but there’s a lot to be said for it. What I say is, get as much pay, as much food, and as much time off as you can, and then put your back into it.”
There was an amazing atmosphere of friendliness all round. I say amazing, for among professional women there is not a general tendency to extend the helping hand. Here I found no sniffs, no impertinence, no curiosity. On those young, serious and sweet faces there was nothing but genuine interest in their fellows’ plight and very few of them complained of their own.
One by one, the newcomers of the previous day were summoned to the adjutant to give particulars of their case. Some had arrived with letters from their employers, and were waiting, pending their dispatch to a home. Three admissions had been made on what is called the “Night Bell.” Two of these were young girls; I was the third. We naturally clung together and one of my companions, a very pretty creature about twenty, was more than sympathetic.
“Did you say you hadn’t got a reference, dear?” she asked.
Turning rather red—the repetition of the question was embarrassing—I admitted that this was so.
“Well, you know,” she said, “I want a place as housemaid. I had to leave my room, because I owed the rent, but I can’t get my box when I’ve a bit of money and meanwhile I’ve got a written reference, here it is.” She handed me a letter, setting forth her special qualifications and her general character for honesty and efficiency.
“You see, dear,” she said, “it wouldn’t be very difficult to put in your name along with mine, and then we might get a job together. Hackney wouldn’t be any use, and you’re not smart enough for the West End, but we ought to get something round about Islington, what do you say?”
I could only thank her, which I did with increasing humility. There was I, a complete stranger to this young thing, and yet, because she felt I was down and out, she was ready to risk committing an offence against the law. The law—I could imagine what the Madonna of the club foot would have said:—
“Why, what difference does it make?”
Most of the girls were quite communicative. The majority, as I have said, were domestic servants. The older women had different histories. There was Millie, the mental case, who lived permanently in Mare Street, while some half-a-dozen others of similar age were waiting to be moved on.
The little hunchback did not talk very much; she was still reading. But I gathered from the others that she was staying at the Shelter till she could get work. She had no people and had never had a baby. That was why, perhaps, she immersed herself so deeply in her book. I determined to see what she was reading, but just at that moment I was summoned to the adjutant.
Up to the present I had encountered no officialdom and an entire absence of red tape. Anything less like the popular idea of such an institution it would be impossible to imagine. Places there are, blasphemous with the title of Home for Fallen Women, where the unmarried mother is preached at all day, and crucified at night on a hard mattress and a harder pillow. At Mare Street one moves in an atmosphere of spiritual freedom; the Salvation Army is not there to save your soul, but to help your body, and the degree of your morality or immorality is not taken into account. Nevertheless, I felt a little frightened when I entered the Staff Room. The adjutant, capable, and brainy, told me to sit down and, I felt, sized up my character within two minutes. I told her that I had lost my bag in Liverpool and had arrived penniless in London. I told her also—I was beginning to believe it myself—that I had left my references in the stolen bag. My last situation had been in Liverpool.
“There must be somebody who will speak for you,” she said.
“There isn’t,” I answered. “The people at my last place went to America.”
“I should say you’d been out of a situation for over a year?” she suggested.
I agreed, and knew she was expecting a confession, which, however, I did not make.
“Well, there’s something wrong with you,” she said, “and I don’t know what it is. You don’t drink,” she added conclusively, and I felt grateful. The strange thing was that as I sat in that chair, the personality of Annie Turner, the out-of-work, stole over me. I found myself listening in silence to statements which, in my own person, I would have hotly contested. I even began to be a little frightened that the adjutant might keep me in the home.
“There’s very little chance that you’ll get a place as cook,” she said, “without a reference. A cook’s work is important, and people won’t have a woman in their house without knowing all about her. In any case, you wouldn’t get a job in Hackney; they are nearly all Jews here and they cook for themselves. Still, you can go to the Labour Exchange and try your luck. Come back and tell me how you get on, if you like.”
I felt sure the adjutant thought I must have been in prison,
