*THE
WORKER*
Brisbane,
March 16, 1895.
One Among
Many.
A
searching drizzle, a murky, clammy fog, choking the hardy passenger
along the High Street – yet everywhere, now two and three together,
huddled under a sheltering doorway, and here one alone darting out
with wanton invitation, were ranked the women of shame – the
outcasts of a mighty city. I quickened my step as I passed one woman
more importunate than the rest – the many were too drugged with the
reeking mist to be active or impatient. I felt her hand on my
shoulder and her breath on my face and made a rough effort of
repulse. “For God's sake listen,” she cried as she clutched at
me,”- you, won't you listen? My child is freezing and I haven't a –
farthing for fuel or a feed. . . . half-a-crown and its – cheap.”
and she ended with a laugh, the horrible gurgling laugh of the
despairing – more awful than passionate weeping – the laugh of
Hell.
*
* *
I
turned and looked her in the face as she gripped my shoulder and
swung against me. A face, what need to describe it? Pretty once, no
doubt, like a hundred others, now drawn with hunger, blotched and
scarred. We moved towards the entry where she had laid in ambush, one
of the dark alleys which burrow behind the shops of the High Street.
“Where have you left your child?” I asked aimlessly and
mechanically. The question seemed to touch her, she ceased the filthy
gestures, ungripped my arm, and her body shook with sobbing.
*
* *
Then
rousing again she pushed me away. “Go, and God – you, I'll drown
myself and her before the – mornin' – I'll drown myself;” and
then the sobbing burst out again. Little by little I found out where
she lived, gave her a few shillings I had on me and asked again to
see her child. She had now grown somewhat quieter, even thanked me
for the money and we walked on together through a maze of dirty
courts and lanes.
*
* *
Soon
I had all her story – a good husband maimed by a scaffold fall, a
long drawn out dying, and then widow and little daughter thrown
penniless into the grinding mill of existence. The sordid, desperate
details of that struggle we can hear any week at the coroner's
inquests or the Guardian's board. And, last of all, mad with care for
the innocent babe, weary of rate-wardens and charity-mongers, the
sinks to the streets, and plies her ghastly trade to outward seeming
like any other. But every night, she told me, and I believe her, she
had knelt by the little cot screened off by an old shawl from the
rest of the room – knelt there before the evening's quest and
prayed with a desperate cry from her mother's heart for the child she
was selling herself to cherish and rear. And over it she hung now,
her sobbing hushed to the panting movement of her bosom, and watched
eagerly as the light from the dirty dip in her hand shone on her
little girl, tossing through the night in the feverish sleep of the
starving.
*
* *
For
some moments I watched too, then begged her to come to my house on
the morrow. Something must, could be, done for her child – for
herself a brave heart and better things in the coming year. She
thanked me warmly, impulsively, then, shrinking back with a blush
which mantled in spite of grease and paint, begged pardon for the
accosting. Pardon! I hardly kept down the bitter laugh which rose
within me; we grind the hopeless and hapless, drive our women to the
streets, and then they ask our pardon!
* * *
And as I left the stifling garret for the street outside
the mist was lifting, a star shone right ahead in the cold sky, and
one all but felt the breathing of the dawn.
C.V.H.,
in London Justice.
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