CHAPTER V.
A large, square, green-walled room, with a shuffling crowd at the back; before her, a thoughtful, middle-aged gentleman, on a raised platform, seated at a desk, and signing, with a noisy pen, some blue forms, for which a clerk waited; at the side, two lads, with pencils, one telling the other, in a whisper, an apparently excellent story; below, an impatient young solicitor, waiting for his case, and unbuttoning his frock-coat and rebuttoning it for the sake of something to do; a smell of cold iron from the bar on which she rested—these were Mord Em'ly's impressions of the Police Court. Once or twice she had tried to turn her head to see whether in the restless crowd behind her there were any of her friends, but when she did this the tall sergeant tapped her on the arm.
"Face the magistrate!"
On the left she could see (without looking) those who had given evidence against her. The stout young Figure Eight from the confectioner's, red and trembling with importance; the young constable, bare-headed, looking much wiser than the whole force could actually be; her own mother, grim, and dabbing eyes with shawl, and sighing now and again so vehemently that the form on which they were all seated shook and creaked. A man was in the witness-box, one with the look of a seaman out of uniform, whom Mord Em'ly guessed to be the Court missionary. She herself felt slightly bored with the slowness of the whole proceedings, and was, indeed, tired, for she had not slept during the previous night. She was disappointed, too, to find that the scene had not something more of melodrama about it; she would have felt more satisfied if the magistrate had been severe, elderly, and in wig and gown, instead of being a spruce, keen man of forty, in a morning-coat, and with a manner of great consideration. From sheer contentiousness, she had declined to accept the suggestion of the woman attendant to "tidy herself up"; she had made her fringe help her to look reckless and forbidding; when she remembered to do so, she scowled. Throughout, she had refused to ask any questions; responding gruffly, and at times impudently, to the questions that had been put to her.
The noise of the scratching pen ceased.
"Now, then!" The spruce man on the raised platform shifted his chair. "Can't we get on to the next case?"
The clerk below him rose, and whispered.
"Ah, yes, of course! I had forgotten." He leaned on his desk, clasped his hands under his chin, and looked with interest at the short girl. It's really very difficult to— Let me see the mother again."
Mord Em'ly's mother, with an immense sigh and a doleful look, rose, and took the place that had been vacated by the seafaring-looking man.
"Are you sure you have done your best to keep this girl under control?"
"If it's the last word I utter in this world," said Mord Em'ly's mother solemnly; "if I'm struck dead for it the next minute; if my words is took down, and appears in print; if I never—"
The usher, standing near the witness-box, keeping guard over Testaments, suggested that the question should be answered.
"Not so much jaw," recommended the usher.
"I've looked after her," said Mord Em'ly's mother, accepting the usher's advice, and "’and foot, night and day, ever since she was a biby."
"But I thought you said you were away at work all the day?"
"I am, sir! You wouldn't 'ave me be in two places at once, surely?"
"Then, it's very clear that she has not been looked after. I'm afraid you have, perhaps, neglected your duties as a parent, and you—"
"Oh," moaned Mord Em'ly's mother, weeping freely, "To think—to think that I should 'ave lived to 'ear that said of me. Me, that's devoted meself to her; me, that's gone without, so as she should 'ave every luxury; me, that got her a good place, fit for a countess—"
"Is it a fact, my girl, that you absconded from your situation?"
Mord Em'ly requested the sergeant to translate the question, and the sergeant complied. Did she do a bunk from the shop her mother got for her?
"You may take it at that," replied Mord Em'ly gruffly. "Please yourself."
"It seems to me that we must look on you as incorrigible."
The sergeant obliged again. "His worship says that you're a bad nut."
"Settle it yourself," said Mord Em'ly recklessly. "It's your show."
The magistrate leaned back and looked at the skylight for a few moments, and tapped his forehead with his pen.
"Only do, for goodness sake, 'urry," said Mord Em'ly, prompted by a desire to say something that should console her feelings of resentment. "Time's money to a lady of my position in life."
The magistrate directed his eyes towards her with a half-regretful look.
"Let her be sent to the Home," he said.
Mord Em'ly's mother gave a piercing shriek, which she had held in reserve for this moment, and which she would, in any case, have presented to the Court; Mord Em'ly, with only a vague idea of what was meant, turned to go, and the restless crowd at the back stood on tip-toe to catch a glimpse of her face. As she stepped down she bethought herself of an impudent remark that she might have made, but the sergeant hurried her through the doorway, pushed her into a white washed room, and went back into the court, with two acute-faced youths who had been passing money that the Mint knew not. The young constable came into the room and asked if she would care to see her mother.
"No!" said Mord Em'ly shortly.
"Better see her," recommended the young constable. He seemed, now that the case was over, a genial man, but Mord Em'ly could not forget that he had declared to the court that she had been associated with rough characters. How dare he call Miss Gilliken and the rest rough characters? "See the old woman," went on the young constable, "and 'ave a bit of a cry together, and it'll do you both good."
"I sha'n't see her," said Mord Em'ly obstinately. "I don't want to see no one, and I ain't going to see no one."
On this point Mord Em'ly was as a rock. The seafaring-looking man came into the room, and, in a clumsy, good-natured way, did his best to make her talk, with no success whatever.
"This'll make a woman of you, my girl," he said breezily. "Bless my soul, why, you'll be sixteen by the time we see you again. (Do you say your prayers at night, I wonder? It isn't a bad idea, mind you.) And you'll be trained up to some sort of occupation, so that, at the end of the time, you can earn your living, and be what you may call a credit to society. And healthy!" The seafaring-looking man laughed, and slapped his knee, and looked rather as though he were about to dance a hornpipe. "Healthy isn't the word for it. You'll be grown up to that extent, my girl—(here's a few tracts you can read in the train, if you've got time)—to that extent, that you won't know yourself."
Sixteen! Sixteen years of age! Mord Em'ly, without answering the breezy man's remarks, thought of it. What would Miss Gilliken and all the rest think of her at that time! Perhaps they would have forgotten her; perhaps there would not be one person then who would care to see her. Mord Em'ly's under-lip twitched. The whitewashed room seemed to grow misty.
"Buck up!" said Mord Em'ly to herself.
As she went, presently, with the constable to the railway station, she looked out, with some anxiety, for the members of the gang. They were probably quite ignorant of what had happened, and she was rather desirous of sending a cheerful farewell message, mainly in order that her reputation might be sustained in their memories. Mord Em'ly shuddered to think what they would say of her if they ever knew that she had been near to tears. On the way she saw, through the traffic, on the other side of the road, her mother walking along and talking to herself. So intent was Mord Em'ly's mother on her soliloquy that she did not notice Mord Em'ly until going up the steps of a tram. Then she shook very fiercely the rolled-up apron that she held in her hand.
"You're no daughter of mine,screamed Mord Em'ly's mother. I disown ye. I'll 'ave no more truck with ye. You shall never no more—"
The tram jerked, and stopped the piece of declamation, by causing Mord Em'ly's mother to slip. Mord Em'ly laughed at this, and, before she turned the corner, waved her hand cheerfully at her vanishing parent.
"We shall 'ave to wait a bit for the train," said the constable. "How'd it be, my girl, if I was to offer you a cup of tea?"
"Keep your tea," she muttered surlily.
"A nice cup of tea, with a couple of lumps of sugar in it," persisted the constable, "and a round of toast and butter. I don't s'pose you made much of a breakfast this morning."
"What if I didn't?"
"You sit 'ere," said the constable. "Give me your word you won't move, and I'll trot off and get it all."
"I sha'n't move," said Mord Em'ly.
There were only a few people on the platform. A porter came up and stared at her, rather as though she were some unique article of luggage, Mord Em'ly the while looking hard at a yellow advertisement board opposite; and when he went away it seemed that he told the other members of the staff about her, because these also strolled up, and, standing at a respectful distance, pretended to be studying time-tables, and instead took furtive glances at her. The tea and the toast made Mord Em'ly feel slightly less vicious, and she thanked the constable in a grudging, reluctant way. A uniformed lad came up the steps, carrying a sack on his shoulders, and, when he had allowed this to slip on the platform, was immediately informed of the fact that there was on view a girl in charge of a copper.
"Mord Em'ly!" stammered the uniformed youth. "It ain't you!"
"Course not!" replied Mord Em'ly satirically. "It's my twin sister."
"But wha—what's up?" asked Master Barden. "What are you—"
Mord Em'ly explained.
"I say!" said Master Barden, turning the cuff of his sleeve back, "how about a rescue?"
"A what?"
"A rescue! Me pitch into the blooming copper; you cut and run—"
"No," said Mord Em'ly stoutly; "I don't want no more fuss, and I don't want no one to be getting into trouble on my 'count. All you've got to do is to tell the others that I sent word I didn't care. See?"
"How many years did you say?" asked Master Barden, working his peaked cap over his head with a worried air. "My word, it's a bit thick! I thought p'raps me and you was going to be good friends."
"You thought wrong, then."
"And isn't there nobody you'd like me to pitch into?" inquired Master Barden appealingly. "You've only got to say the word, you know."
"I don't bear no grudge against nobody," said the little woman, looking across the lines at the yellow advertisement board. "It was to be."
"Think again," begged Master Barden. "Surely there's somebody whose 'ead I could go and punch?"
"Be off," said Mord Em'ly. "’Ere's the copper."
Master Barden's van was waiting in the street below, but he imperilled his character for regularity by waiting on the platform until the train came in. The constable found places in a crowded compartment, and mentioned to Mord Em'ly (with a consideration that ennobled him) that they were not bound to take any notice of each other on the journey. "No call," said the constable, "to let everybody know."
"Bye, Mord Em'ly!" Master Barden walked desolately along the platform with the train as it started. "And I say—"
"Now, what is it?"
"I sha'n't forget you."
The constable was unable, as they walked from the small country station, to induce her to respond to his remarks concerning the relative advantages of village life and the life in town, and she obstinately declined either to look at the wild flowers growing on the banks, or to notice the two stone figures of Crusaders that guarded the entrance to a mansion near the Home. At the iron gates of the Home, a small girl, with a key not quite so large as herself, let them in, and led the way to the office. There, a young secretary, bright-eyed and alert, looked at Mord Em'ly, and, after examining the papers offered by the young constable, gave a signature for Mord Em'ly, who stood with her gaze fixed on the floor.
"She's not an ill-tempered girl, I hope," said the quick young secretary, as she handed the form to the constable.
"I don't think she's a bad girl at heart, miss," replied the constable judicially. "She's what I should call a little bit wild, if you understand what I mean. But you'll tame her, miss, I lay."
"Think we shall?" inquired the young secretary of Mord Emly, with good humour.
"Take you all your time," said Mord Em'ly.