It Began in Vauxhall Gardens - Plaidy Jean - Страница 8

"It is no place for a young woman to be in at such an hour alone," he said, cutting short any confidence he feared she might be trying to make.

"No, sir."

He felt embarrassed. "My good woman," he said to emphasize the difference in their social standing, "no gentleman could pass a young person in such distress as you obviously were. Come, tell me why you linger here."

"It reminds me of him . . . of Jim ^ . . my husband."

"And he is no longer with you?"

She shook her head and brought out a handkerchief from the pocket of her linen gown.

He looked at her intently and asked: "Are you hungry?"

She shook her head.

"Come, come, tell the truth," he said. "When did you last eat?"

"I ... I don't know."

"That's nonsense."

"It was yesterday."

"So you have no money."

She twisted the handkerchief in her hands and looked at it helplessly.

"If you will not talk to me there is nothing I can do to help you," he said impatiently. "Perhaps you would prefer me to go away and not bother you."

She gave him another of those deprecating glances. "You are so kind," she said, and he noticed that her mouth was soft and trembling. Her smallness aroused both his pity and excited interest. "I . . . I feel better here, sir," she went on. "That is when I'm not being bothered."

He smiled faintly. "If you sit here alone you will continue to be bothered."

She smiled. "Yes, sir."

"Go home. That's the remedy." Her lips began to tremble again and he went on: "You're in some trouble." It was the worst thing he could have said, for she sat down on the seat and covered her face with her hands. He saw the gloves—black and neatly darned;

he noticed how thin she was. He felt that if he left her now he would never forgive himself nor would he forget her. It would be as though he had heard a call for help and refused to listen, as though he had passed by on the other side of the road. He felt in his pocket for money. No, he could not offer her money, not without ascertaining the cause of her distress.

He sat down on the seat beside her. It was getting darker every minute, so it was not likely he would be seen by anyone he knew. He was safe enough. He was discovering that he was interested so deeply that he was ready to take a risk.

"You are in deep trouble," he said, "and I am a stranger. But I might be able to help."

"You're so kind," she said again. "I knew that as soon as you stopped." Her awe of him was obvious, her recognition of his status flattering.

"The first thing is to have something to eat and drink," he said. "I believe that is what you need more than anything."

She rose obediently.

In the eating-house with its evergreen plants in ornamental pots, and its music, he took her to a secluded table, and there, with his back to the crowd, he gave her his full attention. He watched her devour a leg of roast chicken and sip the burned champagne, which put some colour in her cheeks and made her eyes look like translucent jade. Watching her, he felt benign. He thought of Cophetua and the beggar maid or a small boy dipping his toes into a deliciously cool stream. He was savouring a pleasure knowing that he could withdraw whenever he wished to. Though why he should find pleasure in the society of an uneducated girl he was not sure.

It was after she had eaten and when they sat back listening to the music that she told him her sad story. He could hear her voice now— a little hoarse and tremulous with that queer sibilance which he would have thought ill-bred a short while before.

"It fell out like this, sir," she said. "I came up to London from the country—Hertfordshire, that's where my home was. There was a lot of us, you see, sir, and they was glad to get rid of us elder ones, Mother and Father was. ... I had a chance to work in the mantua maker's and learn a trade. A girl from our village had gone to her, and when she come home for a little stay, she said she'd take me back with her because there was a vacancy where she was, you see. So I left home "

She made him see it—the woman with her young girls working in the great room, rising early in the morning, stitching through the long hours, living simply, having no pleasures but each other's company. Mistress Rickards, the mantua maker, was strict. She would never allow the girls to go out alone. They were never allowed

to go to any entertainments—not even a hanging outside Newgate Jail. Mistress Rickards was stern; she beat her girls with a stick when she thought they needed it; and she fed them on skimmed milk and texts from the Bible. They were with her to work, she told them continually; not to frivol away their time. If they worked hard they would one day be good at their trade, at which they could earn a living; then they would not starve in the gutter as some did. On the rare occasions when she took them out she would point at the beggars sitting on the street corners with their hired children, exposing their afflictions, their blindness, their ragged state, their sores. "Pity the beggars, ,, the poor things would chant miserably; and Mistress Rickards would threaten: "You'll come to that, Agnes, you lazy slut. You too, Rosie, you sluggard. Don't think you'll escape, Millie, you awkward girl. That's what you'll come to unless you learn your trade."

They had worked hard and they had been happy within their narrow lives. They used to sit at a bench by the window and the apprentices who passed by would look in and wave; each girl had had her apprentice to be teased about as she stitched and stitched to avoid the harsh prophecies of Mistress Rickards, the mantua maker.

"And one day," said Millie, in her hoarse yet childish voice, "I had to go to Mr. Latter, the mercer, for a piece of silk a lady wanted making into a mantle. Mistress Rickards went as a rule, but she'd eaten oysters the night before and they hadn't agreed with her. She sent me, and Jim was in the shop."

She softened when she talked of Jim. He was no longer an apprentice, she proudly explained, but the mercer found him too useful to let him go. So he paid him a wage to stay on, and Jim used to .say that he was the one who really managed the shop.

Their courtship had lasted ten months. Jim was a man with money. He wasn't afraid of Mistress Rickards. He said he was going to look after her and she needn't bother any more about learning a trade. He was going to see that she made mantles and pelisses for herself, not for others. She was going to be Mrs. Sand, she was.

She almost sparkled as she told him of the night they went to Vauxhall.

"There was fireworks, and we danced. I kept thinking of what Mistress Rickards would say when I got back. And when we did get back, there she was waiting, her hair in curlpapers and her cane propped up by the door. But Jim didn't care. He came in with me. He said: Tm going to marry Millie and don't you dare lay a finger on her.' "

And so they had married, and she had left Mistress Rickards' and they lived in the room which Jim had found for them in

St. Martin's Lane. There they were happy for the whole of one year.

Her face darkened. "We'd been married a year . . . exact to the day. Jim said: 'Let's go to Vauxhall.' So we did. We danced and watched the fireworks. Jim said let's have a drink. That was when we was just going to cross the river. So we went into one of the taverns and we hadn't been in that tavern before. If only we'd have known we'd never have gone inside the place. I didn't want the drink. Nor did Jim . . . much. It was just to round off the day like. That makes it all the worse." She was silent for a moment before she went on: "We sat there laughing ... as happy as you like. It had been a lovely day. Then these men came in. I didn't know who they were. We didn't know what sort of a tavern it was. But they were bad . . . them men. First they started to drink; then they put jewels and things on the table. Jim looked at me: 'Gome on,' he said, 'we'll get out of here.' But as we went to the door one of them ... a big man in a red coat... got up. He was swaying with the drink. He caught me.... It was dreadful. I can't bear to think of it."