CHAPTER IV.
She leaned forward, and watched the lighted shops, the crowded pavements, and listened hungrily to the noise of traffic. She was so absorbed in doing this that she gave the conductor absently the coppers for a twopenny ticket, and omitted to answer his caustic reference to her outstretched foot. When he had gone she gripped the protective bar with both hands, and continued to gaze at the bustling movement of life below in the way of one who had been absent from London for a space of years. There was the slight mist in the air that seems for ever floating about South London, ready, if joined by auxiliary forces, to become a fog; content, when alone, to remain reticent, and to mellow the tone of the evening. When a stretch of private houses, with long, stubbly lawns, came now and again, Mord Em'ly's eager interest relaxed, to become alive the moment that lighted shops appeared in view. She noted everything with the alertness of the London-bred girl; a perfectly sober man slipped on the pavement, and staggered to recover himself, and did nearly recover himself only to stagger again, and eventually, after a great waste of time, to sit down. The whole of the passengers on the outside of the tram stood up, with Mord Em'ly, to watch the finish of this incident, and they all laughed very much, because, by a thoughtful provision, the misfortune of one, in the London streets, invariably gives great enjoyment to the many.
The tram swerved round the corner of Camberwell Green, and started on its straight journey to the Elephant. The bloated red bottle in a chemist's window threw a quaint coloured light on the face of a girl who, as she walked along, swung the hand of a frowning, white-neckerchiefed lad.
"Gilliken!" cried Mord Em'ly, with much excitement.
She ran quickly down the steps of the tram, and, jumping off, hurried back to catch the leader of the Gilliken Gang, deftly unpinning her fringe as she went, and combing it over her forehead. The unwritten rules of the gang prescribed odd modes of salutation, and Mord Em'ly conformed with these when she gave Miss Gilliken's back-hair a tug and said, in a bass voice, "Move along, there."
"Ain't I a-movin' on?" demanded Miss Gilliken angrily. "What the— Why, so'p me bob, if it ain't Mord Em'ly!"
Miss Gilliken punched Mord Em'ly with great delight, and the frowning lad stood back, and untied and retied fiercely his neckerchief, rather as though he wanted to throttle himself with all despatch.
"Thought we was never going to see you again, Mord Em'ly."
"Don't you flatter yourself."
"Upper rousemaid, ain't you, at St. Jimes's Palace?" inquired Miss Gilliken, glancing at the frowning youth for approval, "’Ow do you get on with the Roy'l Fem'ly?"
"Look 'ere!" said Mord Em'ly definitely, "if you're going to begin chippin' me, I'll be off."
"Don't fly all to pieces," begged Miss Gilliken. "It was only a bit of chaff on my part."
"Drop it, then," commanded Mord Em'ly.
"Know this feller, don't you?" asked Miss Gilliken, jerking her head in the direction of the youth.
"Seen his mug before," said Mord Em'ly, looking at him casually. "Can't say I know his name."
"Name of 'Enery Barden," said the youth, in a deep, hoarse voice, stepping forward, and introducing himself awkwardly. "Got a job at the Willer Walk Station; also to be met with, Saturday evenings, at the boxing-saloon of the Green Man."
"Where did ye find it?" asked Mord Em'ly of Miss Gilliken, with a satirical accent.
"Who are you calling 'it'?" demanded Mr. Barden aggressively. "P'r'aps you'll kindly call me '’im' and not 'it'."
"P'r'aps I shall do jest as I like," replied Mord Em'ly. She turned to Miss Gilliken. "Did you win it in a raffle?"
"I'll tell you presently," said Miss Gilliken.
"Sometimes they give 'em away," said Mord Em'ly thoughtfully, "with a packet of sweets. I ’ave seen 'em offered instead of a coker-nut or a cigar at one of these Aunt Sally—"
"Look 'ere!" interrupted Mr. Barden crossly. "You think you're jolly clever, no doubt."
"Think?" repeated Mord Em'ly. "Don't I know it?"
"But you ain't going to take a rise out of 'Enery Barden, nor more won't no one else neither. Unnerstand that!"
Mr. Barden tipped his bowler-hat over his eyes, and, taking a packet of cigarette papers from his pocket, blew at them with a defiant air. Mord Em'ly laughed, and turned her back on him.
"Comin' for a bit of a run?"
"I must be back be 'alf-past ten."
"Got your key?" asked Miss Gilliken.
For the first time the difficulty of re-entering Lucella Road occurred to Mord Em'ly. She turned rather white, and her under-lip moved.
"I am a silly fool!" she said concernedly.
"That I could see," remarked Mr. Barden, rolling a cigarette, "from the very first."
"I never thought of the key," declared Mord Em'ly. "I'd better jump on a tram, and get off back. There's one of 'em coming 'ome at half past ten, and I'll get her to let me in."
"How's the enemy?" asked Miss Gilliken of the frowning young gentleman. He took a large silver watch from the hip-pocket of his tight trousers, and replied that it wanted twenty-five to ten.
"Why, there's no 'urry," remarked Miss Gilliken. "Let us two walk back Walworth way, and see if we can run across any of the others."
Think I got time?" asked Mord Em'ly, with some doubt.
"Oceans!"
"Rather fancy I'll look in and 'ave a punch at the ball," said Mr. Barden, frowning at the lighted end of his cigarette. "I've got a seven stun' two metch a-coming off, Sat'day week. There's a Wandsworth chap for me to tackle, and it'll take a bit of doin'."
Mr. Barden struck out at the air in a scientific manner, and dodged an imaginary blow so smartly that two old ladies who were passing screamed with terror.
"They're putting some money on me, too." He continued to eye severely a supposititious opponent. There's as much as a couple of dollars invested, to my certain knowledge, and—"
"Seems to be a kind of a mechanical toy," said Mord Em'ly, with faint interest. "Isn't there any plan for making it run away?"
"I don't remine," declared Mr. Barden gloomily, "where my comp'ny's not appreciated. I wish you good evening, and better manners."
"So long," said Miss Gilliken.
"Change that face of yours," called out Mord Em'ly, "before I see you again. It's old fashioned."
"You change yourself altogether," cried Mr. Barden, with much acerbity. He walked off, and shouted over his shoulders, "Like some'ing silly off a Twelf-cake, you are."
They bawled caustic advice to each other until they were out of hearing. Then Miss Gilliken took Mord Em'ly's arm and put the other hand on Mord Em'ly's right shoulder, and they walked briskly Walworth Road way. Miss Gilliken felt that some explanation was required.
"He pelled on to me first," she said excusingly. "I'd seen him about once or twice before you went away, but he'd never spoke till Tuesday night, up he comes, and he ses, '’Ullo!' And I says, '’Ullo your own self, and see how you like it.’"
Mord Em'ly nodded her head in silent approval of this repartee.
"And he ses, 'Where's that shortish gel,' he ses, 'with a round fice, and no colour to speak of, that used to be about with your set? Mother lives in Pandorer,' he says."
"Meaning me?"
"So I says, 'What's it got to do with you?' and he says, 'Oh,' he says, 'I only ast.' And goes off.
"What after that?" asked Mord Em'ly.
"Met him again to-night, and he comes up, and he says, 'There you are, then?' And I says, 'Well, what of it?' And he says, 'Seen anything of her?' And I says, 'Mind your own bis'ness.' And he says, 'Come for a strowl down the Walworth Road?’"
"Did he talk about me again?"
"He didn't talk much 'bout anything," said Miss Gilliken; "But all he did say was 'bout you, and—"
"’Ere's a 'orse down," interrupted Mord Em'ly. "Let's stop and watch."
The horse had already been on the ground for several minutes, and it was quite natural, therefore that three or four members of the gang should be in the crowd that had assembled on either side of it. These laughed when they saw Mord Em'ly, but their opening sentence was sharply stopped by Miss Gilliken, and no reference to the Peckham situation was permitted. Mord Em'ly, relieved at this, felt herself in excellent spirits, and when the horse had decided, after a sufficient rest, to stand up again, they found a set of negro minstrels who were rattling bones and twanging banjoes in a side street, to whom they listened until the tambourine came round to collect. To this followed instantly (because Walworth is a place where something is always happening) a duel between a large bemused man and his infuriated little wife. Mord Em'ly was on the side of the little wife, and urged her to new efforts with loud shouts of approval, her eyes brightening and her brain becoming heated with the excitement. When, at the end, the little wife led off her defeated captive homewards, Mord Em'ly screamed with a kind of new ecstasy, and ran blindly, furiously, out into the Walworth Road and back again, much as an Indian runs amuck in a bazaar.
"Simmer down, Mord Em'ly," commanded Miss Gilliken.
"Sha'n't!"
Miss Gilliken looked at her hard and reprovingly. The others also were surprised at Mord Em'ly's burst of recklessness. One of them suggested ginger-beer.
"I've got three d.," said Miss Gilliken, "and I ain't going to waste that on no drink; I'm going to buy pystry with it."
"I lay you are," remarked one of the gang satirically. "Sahnds like you."
"Come and watch me, then," said Miss Gilliken.
There was, indeed, no deception. Miss Gilliken walked into a smart-mirrored shop in Walworth Road, and when the stout young woman behind the cake and pastry-decorated counter said curtly, "No pieces to-night, my girl," Miss Gilliken replied that she was glad the stout young woman had eaten up all the odd bits of bread, because a figure eight like hers took some keeping up. What Miss Gilliken required, however, was three of those jam puffs, if you please, and put them all in separate bags, mind; and be quick about it.
Now a strange thing!
As Miss Gilliken counted out the three pennies and took the three small bags, she noticed, for the first time, a pyramid of small meringues, filled with thick white cream; the tin flag stuck proudly into one of them announced the price as one penny each. To request an exchange (reflected Miss Gilliken), would be to give Figure Eight a chance of saying something caustic; if she had possessed another threepence, the solution would have been easy. Miss Gilliken went out of the shop, looking very longingly over her shoulder at the meringues. Outside, she explained the disappointment, and the gang flattened faces against the window, and gazed at the pyramid of flakey pastry and snowy cream.
"How'd it be," said one of the girls—the one with red hair, who was ever fruitful in suggestions—"how'd it be to pinch 'arf-a-dozen?"
"Go on, then! Do it!"
"Not me!" said the red-haired girl, hedging. "I didn't say I'd take the job on."
The others turned regretfully away.
"What!" said the red-haired girl, with irony. "All afraid to?" The red-haired girl giggled at Mord Em'ly. "I know you are, cook," she said.
To Mord Em'ly it occurred that here was something to be done that would instantly rehabilitate her in the gang's esteem.
"We ain't all afraid to, Ginger. I ain't afraid to. Allow me to inform you that I'm going to nick—"
"Mord Em'ly!" said Miss Gilliken warningly.
"Shut up!" exclaimed Mord Em'ly. "You're always interferin'."
"You're off your 'ead to-night."
"Well," said Mord Em'ly defiantly, "it's me own 'ead, isn't it?"
She turned back to the confectioner's, and Miss Gilliken followed her. The stout young lady was engaged in close conversation with a white-faced youth sipping at some effervescent drink. The stout young lady turned to a small mirror, to fix with accuracy a large arum lily at her bodice, and Mord Em'ly, at the doorway, found herself suddenly flung aside by Miss Gilliken, who entered the shop quietly, with her body bent in a crouching attitude.
"I say!" cried the white-faced youth, putting down his tumbler. "Look after your pastry, miss. It's running away."
"Not so much of your nonsense," said the stout young lady, without looking round.
Miss Gilliken was out of the doorway, with the lap of her skirt filled with the cream meringues, before the young woman had fixed the large lily to the satisfaction of her artistic eye.
"I never saw anybody like you for jokes. Do you think this suits—Hi! Police!"
The gang, spurred to instant action, snatched a share of the meringues from Miss Gilliken, and flew, in accordance with the rules, in various directions. Mord Em'ly, distracted for the moment ran half-way across the road. There came shouting from a street near, a bawling "Fah, fah, fah!" taken up and repeated by everyone, a shining brass fire-engine, with excited helmeted men atop, and drawn by wild-eyed, galloping horses, swung round into the main road; sparks flying from the funnel and giving the atmosphere a not displeasing scent of burning wood. Mord Em'ly stood still for a moment, and then, bewildered by the warning shouts, ran back to the pavement. As the fire engine swirled by, the roaring, cheering crowd closed in behind, following it with unrestrained delight. Mord Em'ly forgot for the moment her recent difficulty as she watched the scene; forgot it so far as to continue to hold the two meringues in one hand as she looked after the smoking, spitting, jolting fire-engine. The engine acted as a kind of pied piper, and from every side street that it passed it drew an unresisting troop of delirious children to add their shrill voices to the general roar, and their small persons to the hurrying crowd. Mord Em'ly, collecting her thoughts, had half decided to go with the crowd, when she found her shoulder gripped by a strong hand.
"Cheese it!" cried Mord Em'ly.
She tried to look round.
"That's my shoulder," she screamed. "Leggo this minute, or else I'll—"
The people on the pavement backed away from her. The strong hand propelled her to the doorway of the confectioner's shop, where the stout young woman, with the large arum lily at her breast, stood scarlet with indignation.
"Is this the one, miss?" asked the owner of the strong hand. Mord Em'ly moved her black straw hat, and saw that she was grasped by the young constable with whom she had once held spirited dispute in New Kent Road. "Is this the gel?"
"I identify her," said Figure Eight, promptly and breathlessly.
"And are these your cakes, or whatever you call 'em?"
"I identify them, too, constable. There's more of them about, but those are two of them."
"That's good enough for me," said the young constable. "P'r'aps you'll follow us to Rodney Road Police Station, miss, as soon as you can get someone to mind your shop?"
"Seems to me," said the youth, who had finished his effervescent drink, "That the girl was older than this one. Bigger girl altogether, don't you know."
"Don't try to be stupid," begged the stout young woman impatiently. "Do you think I can't trust me own eyes?"
"Well, now," said the young constable to Mord Em'ly, "Are you going quiet, or are you going to be spiteful?"
She did not answer. As they crossed the road the traffic stopped, warned by the danger signal of the young constable's disengaged hand; Mord Em'ly noted this in spite of her dazed sullenness. The hoarse butcher on the other side and his customer both ceased haggling to watch her; a stream of people, increasing in breadth as it went, followed. It seemed to Mord Em'ly that she had suddenly grown deaf, for the voices sounded as though they were a long way off.
"What's she been up to?"
"Who is it? What's her nime?"
"’Tain't a murder, is it?" (In tones of hopefulness, modified by fear of disappointment.)
"Murder? Someone ses it's a murder. Very like she's put her parents aw'y. What a 'orrible thing, to be sure! Quite a child, too, as you may say!"
"This comes of your so-called School Board. Gels had more respect for their parents in our day."
"I'm sure! Wonder what she did it with?"
"Ah!" with the helpless tone of a person whose invention has run dry. "Now you're asking me something. That's best known to herself. We must look at the playcards in the morning; they're pretty sure to 'ave something about it."
Hearing the confused murmur of voices, in a dull, half-detached manner, there was still some thing of pride in Mord Em'ly's little head at the thought that she, and she alone, was the central figure; that everybody's eyes were straining to find out how she was comporting herself.
"Told you I'd nab you," said the young constable, tightening his grip on Mord Em'ly's elbow as they went towards Rodney Road, "and I 'ave I rather fancy, miss, that this is my waltz."
Mord Em'ly, grim and dogged, said nothing. The clock of a church boomed out, in a half regretful tone, the hour of half-past ten.