CHAPTER III.
If Number Eighteen, Lucella Road, had been able or had found it convenient, to keep up the fine excitement that attended Mord Em'ly's first evening, it would have met that young woman's demands. She was not long in discovering that, in effect, the sisters lived, for the most part, a monotonous, uneventful, economical life, and the wild diversions of receiving company, or of going to the play, or of visiting the Crystal Palace, were occurrences so rare that they were looked forward to and spoken of for weeks, and afforded careful and detailed retrospect for a period of months. To Mord Em'ly, accustomed to a life where incident and amusement called daily, this deliberate method of life gave amazement and something like indignation. That people should so carefully abstain from taking advantage of the happiness that life with both hands offers, appeared to her to be a minor form of insanity. In Walworth there was ever an alertness in making the most of even small opportunities for distraction; here, it seemed, there was a determined wilfulness shown in evad ing them; a grim and deadly composure of manner was the condition to which the grown-up people had brought themselves; the lofty ideal which they held before children as a goal to which all efforts should be bent.
A whole day would pass, and no voice heard in the house which spoke above ordinary tones; out in the road nothing happened of greater moment than the slow-passing of a rare four-wheeler. Mord Em'ly spoke to the girl next door over the dwarfed wall that divided the gardens, and the girl next door, on being told that Mord Em'ly's mother went out charing, dropped the acquaintance hurriedly, and told the other girls in the road; so that when, by chance, Mord Em'ly saw any of them, they stared very hard just over her head. The three sisters complained that Mord Em'ly's singing interfered with their literary and artistic labours; and the youngest sister was requested, at the same time, to point out to Mord Em'ly that it was not considered good form for a general servant to whistle. The youngest sister, with an amiable desire to make the active little maid contented, lent her books; but Mord Em'ly read the last chapters of each of them, and found that, without exception, they ended unhappily, with lovers parted, children hearing angels' voices fearful railway accidents, or doses of poison.
If they don't end up appy," said Mord Em'ly, "I reely don't see, miss, what particular call they've got to go and write 'em for. What's the use of bragging about your misfortunes?"
"Well, Laura," explained the youngest sister, a little disappointed, "the idea is this. There is sorrow and there is misfortune in the world, and it is only natural that they should be written about."
"But why 'arp on the question?" demanded Mord Em'ly. "That's my argument. Why make a song about it? This place ain't too lively as it is."
"You'll get used to it, after a bit," said the youngest sister, as she went to the doorway of the kitchen. "It's only at first that you find it strange." She sighed a little. "I find it dull myself sometimes. But if there's anything I can do—"
"You're all right,said Mord Em'ly awkwardly. "I ain't compl'inin' about you. It's what I call me surroundin's that's giving me the 'ump."
"It's only a question of time, Laura."
Mord Em'ly shook her head rather dolefully as the kitchen door closed.
"If something don't appen soon," she said to herself, "I shall scream."
It seemed to Mord Em'ly that the people in the road led lives that were ordered by some precise and stringent Act of Parliament. By half-past eight in the morning every man in every house had come out, had pulled the doors to, and had run off to catch the train to the City, an exodus which also used to take place (at an earlier hour) at Pandora Buildings; but, whereas there it signalled opportunity for free conversation, in Lucella Road it seemed that the women-folk remained indoors, and kept themselves in rigid seclusion; when they did come out, they wore, Mord Em'ly noticed, a reserved air, which they put on for out-door walking, and they looked up at the sky with an air of disparagement, as though it was not at all the kind of sky that they had been accustomed to before they were married, and they sneered at the pavement; the other houses seemed to excite in them a feeling of boredom and contempt; their manner generally was that of people who are by no means pleased with the world. There were no disputes in Lucella Road; nobody came home late and noisy; it appeared to Mord Em'ly that everybody carefully abstained from giving entertainment. Even the delights of shopping were denied to her, because demure young men, with carts, called very quietly, and these, when they ventured to say a word outside the demands of business (being, in truth, in mortal fear of quick-eared mistresses), usually asked Mord Em'ly whether she favoured church or chapel. Mord Em'ly, getting through her housework briskly, and alone in her kitchen, had dark ideas of obtaining a pocketful of pebbles, and of rushing from one end of the road to the other, screaming loudly and breaking windows all the way.
"It'd 'liven 'em up, at any rate," said Mord Em'ly grimly.
An evening came, compared with which all others seemed boisterous and amusing. The youngest sister, called for by the insurance clerk, had been borne off by that silent youth to a lecture in Rye Lane on "Spiders and their Habits the other three sisters had gone to bed, the hour being nine, and the epitaph sister unusually tired after an afternoon of hard hunting in Nunhead Cemetery. Mord Em'ly, in despair of finding something to do, had intentionally upset the kettle on the empty grate, and then, complaining very bitterly of her own carelessness, had cleaned the grate once more. The cat strolled in, and Mord Em'ly tried to engage it in conversation; but the cat had only called to see if there was any milk about, and, finding this was not the case, it yawned slightly, and, slipping from Mord Em'ly's lap, stalked out into the garden. Mord Em'ly had been upstairs to her small bedroom twice, in order to look out of the window, and—it could be done by putting one foot on the end of the bed and the other on the dressing-table—to see the glare of the sky away north, beyond the grey, melancholy mist, a glare that she knew was the reflection of the lighted streets of London. In the kitchen, the little round American clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly: for the rest, there was no sound except the occasional creak that restless houses in the suburbs give in the days of their youth. Mord Em'ly placed her slippered feet on the fender, and stared before her. In the fire-place were only pieces of paper, a few sticks of wood, and half a dozen lumps of coal; but, as Mord Em'ly looked, these changed into Walworth Road. The east side of Walworth Road at first, with the barrows stacked with yellow Lent lilies and scented violets, and giant bundles of wallflowers tied with twigs round their thick waists; pyramids of oranges, too, and huge cliffs of sweets, and men and women, their owners, exultantly calling attention to them; the slow crowd on the pavement stopping now and again to haggle, and, at infrequent intervals, to buy. There were two butchers with their shop fronts afire with red joints; the men were chaffing each other, and each shouted his opinion of the other man's face. The drapery shop, selling off because it had nearly had a fire, or because its premises were not coming down, or on some other excuse, was frantic with placards; it had bargains in pale blue blouses and in gay bunches of linen flowers, that demanded attention, and would take no denial. In the roadway, the yellow and scarlet trams sailed along, with passengers continually boarding them and passengers continually disembarking; 'buses rocked about and played games of cup-and-ball with their passengers, or danced recklessly over the roadway. On the other side of the road, in Princes Street, a piano-organ was playing, and two ridiculous men were waltzing and behaving to each other with preposterous courtesy. Through Princes Street, and there, with four white globes, arch-fashion, over its entrance, was the Mont.
Mord Em'ly gave a quick gasp as she thought of the Mont.
You paid twopence to an old lady seated in a little sentry-box, and you went through a passage which had swing-doors at the end, and on the walls of the passage there were portraits and a poster of a very fine lady in fleshings, called Miss Flo Macgomery, also known as Britain's Brilliant and Beautiful Brunette. You could hear faint music before you reached the doors opening into the rear of the long hall, and when you pressed open one of these, the singing and the music boxed you on the ears in rather a jovial, agreeable way. You were at the very back of the hall, but the floor sloped a little, and, away through the smoke, and over the heads of people, you could see, on the stage, Mr. Pat Foley, who was Ireland's Brightest Gem, and who, in view of that fact, might well have provided himself with a complete dress-suit, but had, up to the present, succeeded in obtaining the necktie only, and wore tweed trousers and a double-breasted jacket. No song of what is called questionable character was ever sung at the Mont., because the Mont.'s patrons had no appetite for that sort of thing; to vulgarity they had no deep-rooted objection, but even of this they desired less than did their similars in the West-end. They would always rather see a man dance intricate steps than watch furious whirling by girls; and damsels at the Mont, who kicked high and kicked often, and made themselves breathless in the effort, found their last ambitious skip received with casual interest; the hall allowed them to go in glum silence, with sometimes a few derisive whistles. If you were late, the best twopenny seats were occupied, but Mord Em'ly's trick was calculated to meet the difficulty. It was this— You waited for the song to finish, and then called:
"Emily Ann! Emily Ann! your mother's outside a-lookin' for you."
Whereupon, as the one or two girls whose name happened to be Emily Ann gave up their seats and slipped, eel-like, through the crowd, and went out by the swing-doors to circumvent mothers (who were not there), you took one of the seats thus left free. And then, when the red-faced chairman down in front of the stage knocked the table with his black hammer, and rose and said, "La'i's and gen'lemen, Miss Patsie Sinclair will 'pear next," how the hall cheered—cheered because it knew that, although Miss Sinclair might come on first in a long aby-frock and sing:
"Wandaring by the meel-stream,
Close to the one that I love,
Alw'ys togaither, in all sorts of waither,
A-watchin the stars above";
yet, this access of sentiment over, they were sure that she would reappear in an astonishing military costume and sing, The Boys of the Knock-'em-out Brigade,with two rollicking verses, and one dramatic, with the green light on her, and looking so serious that she made you hold your breath:
"When Brittanier calls upon us
To give our fitheful aid,
The boys that die for glowry
Are—"
Miss Sinclair, at lowered footlights, with outstretched arms, pointing two imaginary swords:
—the Knock-'em-out Brigade.
Mord Em'ly started up from her chair. Her breath came erratically, her hand trembled as she unpinned her cap and loosened the tape of her apron. She turned the small oil-lamp low, and found her hat, and boots, and jacket.
"I shall be back in 'arf-a-hour," she whispered to the loud-ticking, little American clock, "if anybody asks for me."
She closed the front door gently, and, once out of the gate, ran with great swiftness, her heels clattering on the pavement of the silent road. About five minutes took her into Queen's Road, and, as she stood there breathless in the lighted thoroughfare, a tram went by—a tram from New Cross to Waterloo. She felt hastily in her pocket, and found some coppers.
"Now then, kinductor!" said Mord Em'ly, as she swung herself on the platform of the tram. "Why don't you pull up when you see a lady like me 'ailing of you?"