istood one evening in piccadilly, at the dinner hour, staring into the bright shop windows. london’s display of haberdashery and gold and silver ornaments interests me intensely. it was drizzling and i had no umbrella; yet that situation soon ceases to annoy one in england. i walked on into regent street and stopped under an arc light to watch the home-surging crowds—the clerks, men and women, the boys and girls.
the thought was with me as i walked in the rain, “where shall i dine? how shall i do it?” i wandered through new bond street; and looking idly at the dark stores, as i came back along piccadilly, i saw two girls, arm in arm, pass by. one of them looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. she was of medium size and simply dressed. she was pretty in the fresh english way, with large, too innocent eyes. the girls paused before a shop window and as i stopped beside them and looked at the girl who had smiled, she edged over toward me and i spoke to her.
“wouldn’t you like to take the two of us?” she asked with that quaint odd accent of the welsh. her voice was soft and her eyes were as blue and weak in their force as any unsophisticated girl’s might well be.
“this girl isn’t hard and vulgar,” i said to myself. i suppose we all pride ourselves on knowing something of character in women. i thought i did.
“no,” i replied rather directly to her question.114 “not to-night. but let’s you and i go somewhere for dinner.”
“would you mind givin’ my friend a shillin’?” she asked.
“not at all,” i replied. “there you are.”
it was a wet night, chill and dreary, and on second thought i made it half-a-crown. the second girl went away—a girl with a thin white face—and i turned to my companion.
“now,” i said, “what shall we do?” it was nearly eight o’clock and i was wondering where i could go with such a girl to dine. her clothes, i perceived, were a mere patchwork. her suit was of blue twill, worn shiny. she wore the cheapest kind of a feather boa and her hat was pathetic. but the color of her cheeks was that wonderful apple color of the english and her eyes—really her eyes were quite a triumph of nature—soft and deep blue, and not very self-protective.
“poor little storm-blown soul,” i thought as i looked at her. “your life isn’t much. a vague, conscienceless thing (in the softer sense of that word). you have a chilly future before you.”
she looked as though she might be nineteen.
“let’s see! have you had your dinner?” i asked.
“no, sir.”
“where is there a good restaurant? not too smart, you know.”
“well, there’s l.’s corner house.”
“oh, yes, where is that? do you go there yourself, occasionally?”
“oh, yes, quite often. it’s very nice, i think.”
“we might go there,” i said. “still, on second thought, i don’t think we will just now. where is the place you go to—the place you take your—friends?”
“it’s at no. — great titchfield street.”
115
“is that an apartment or a hotel?”
“it’s a flat, sir, my flat. the lady lets me bring my friends there. if you like, though, we could go to a hotel. perhaps it would be better.”
i could see that she was uncertain as to what i would think of her apartment.
“and where is the hotel? is that nice?”
“it’s pretty good, sir, not so bad.”
i smiled. she was holding a small umbrella over her head.
“we had better take a taxi and get out of this rain.”
i put up my hand and hailed one. we got in, the driver obviously realizing that this was a street liaison, but giving no sign. london taxi-drivers, like london policemen, are the pink of civility.
this girl was civil, obliging. i was contrasting her with the broadway and the american type generally—hard, cynical little animals. the english, from prostitutes to queens, must have an innate sense of fair play in the social relationship of live and let live. i say this in all sincerity and with the utmost feeling of respect for the nation that has produced it. they ought to rule, by right of courtesy. alas, i fear me greatly that the force and speed of the american, his disregard for civility and the waste of time involved, will change all this.
in the taxi i did not touch her, though she moved over near to me in that desire to play her rôle conscientiously line by line, scene by scene.
“have we far to go?” i asked perfunctorily.
“not very, only a little way.”
“how much ought the cab charge to be?”
“not more than eight or ten pence, sir.” then, “do you like girls, sir?” she asked quaintly in a very human effort to be pleasant under the circumstances.
“no,” i replied, lying cautiously.
116
she looked at me uncertainly—a little over-awed, i think. i was surely a strange fish to swim into her net anyhow.
“very likely you don’t like me then?”
“i am not sure that i do. how should i know? i never saw you before in my life. i must say you have mighty nice eyes,” was my rather banal reply.
“do you think so?” she gave me a sidelong, speculative look.
“what nationality are you?” i asked.
“i’m welsh,” she replied.
“i didn’t think you were english exactly. your tone is softer.”
the taxi stopped abruptly and we got out. it was a shabby-looking building with a tea- or coffee-room on the ground floor, divided into small rooms separated by thin, cheap, wooden partitions. the woman who came to change me a half sovereign in order that i might pay the driver, was french, small and cleanly looking. she was pleasant and brisk and her whole attitude reassured me at once. she did not look like a person who would conspire to rob, and i had good reason to think more clearly of this as we came out later.
“this way,” said my street girl, “we go up here.”
and i followed her up two flights of thinly carpeted stairs into a small dingy room. it was clean, after the french fashion.
“it’s not so bad?” she asked with a touch of pride.
“no. not at all.”
“will you pay for the room, please?”
the landlady had followed and was standing by.
i asked how much and found i was to be charged five shillings which seemed a modest sum.
the girl locked the door, as the landlady went out, and began taking off her hat and jacket. she stood before117 me with half-challenging, half-speculative eyes. she was a slim, graceful, shabby figure and a note of pathos came out unexpectedly in a little air of bravado as she rested one hand on her hip and smiled at me. i was standing in front of the mantelpiece, below which was the grate ready to be fired. the girl stood beside me and watched and plainly wondered. she was beginning to suspect that i was not there on the usual errand. her eyes, so curiously soft and blue, began to irritate me. her hair i noticed was brown but coarse and dusty—not well kept. these poor little creatures know absolutely nothing of the art of living or fascination. they are the shabbiest pawns in life, mere husks of beauty and living on husks.
“sit down, please,” i said. she obeyed like a child. “so you’re welsh. what part of wales do you come from?”
she told me some outlandish name.
“what were your parents? poor, i suppose.”
“indeed not,” she bridled with that quaint country accent. “my father was a grocer. he had three stores.”
“i don’t believe it,” i said mockingly. “you women lie so. i don’t believe you’re telling me the truth.”
it was brutal, but i wanted to get beneath the conventional lies these girls tell, if i could.
“why not?” her clear eyes looked into mine.
“oh, i don’t. you don’t look to me like the daughter of a man who owned three grocery stores. that would mean he was well-to-do. you don’t expect me to believe that, with you leading this life in london?”
she bristled vaguely but without force.
“believe it or not,” she said sullenly. “it’s so.”
“tell me,” i said, “how much can you make out of this business?”
“oh, sometimes more, sometimes less. i don’t walk118 every day. you know i only walk when i have to. if i pick up a gentleman and if he gives me a good lot i don’t walk very soon again—not until that’s gone. i—i don’t like to very much.”
“what do you call a good lot?”
“oh, all sorts of sums. i have been given as high as six pounds.”
“that isn’t true,” i said. “you know it isn’t true. you’re talking for effect.”
the girl’s face flushed.
“it is true. as i’m alive it’s true. it wasn’t in this very room, but it was in this house. he was a rich american. he was from new york. all americans have money. and he was drunk.”
“yes, all americans may have money,” i smiled sardonically, “but they don’t go round spending it on such as you in that way. you’re not worth it.”
she looked at me, but no angry rage sprang to her eyes.
“it’s true just the same,” she said meekly. “you don’t like women, do you?” she asked.
“no, not very much.”
“you’re a woman-hater. that’s what you are. i’ve seen such.”
“not a woman-hater, no. simply not very much interested in them.”
she was perplexed, uncertain. i began to repent of my boorishness and recklessly lighted the fire (cost—one shilling). we drew up chairs before it and i plied her with questions. she told me of the police regulations which permit a woman to go with a man, if he speaks to her first, without being arrested—not otherwise—and of the large number of women who are in the business. piccadilly is the great walking-ground, i understood, after one o’clock in the morning; leicester119 square and the regions adjacent, between seven and eleven. there is another place in the east end—i don’t recall where—where the poor jews and others walk, but they are a dreadful lot, she assured me. the girls are lucky if they get three shillings and they are poor miserable drabs. i thought at the time, if she would look down on them, what must they be?
then, somehow, because the conversation was getting friendly, i fancy, this little welsh girl decided perhaps that i was not so severe as i seemed. experience had trained her to think constantly of how much money she could extract from men—not the normal fee, there is little more than a poor living in that, but extravagant sums which produce fine clothes and jewels, according to their estimate of these things. it is an old story. other women had told her of their successes. those who know anything of women—the street type—know how often this is tried. she told the customary story of the man who picked her up and, having escorted her to her room, offered her a pound when three or four pounds or a much larger sum even was expected. the result was, of course, according to her, dreadful for the man. she created a great scene, broke some pottery over his head, and caused a general uproar in the house. it is an old trick. your timid man hearing this and being possibly a new or infrequent adventurer in this world, becomes fearful of a scene. many men are timid about bargaining with a woman beforehand. it smacks too much of the brutal and evil and after all there is a certain element of romance involved in these drabby liaisons for the average man, even if there is none—as there is none—for the woman. it is an old, sad, sickening, grim story to most of them and men are fools, dogs, idiots, with rarely anything fine or interesting in their eyes. when they see the least chance to betray one of them, to browbeat120 and rob or overcharge him in any way and by any trick, they are ready to do it. this girl, lilly e——, had been schooled by perhaps a hundred experienced advisers of the street as to how this was done. i know this is so, for afterwards she told me of how other women did it.
but to continue: “he laid a sovereign on the table and i went for him,” she said.
i smiled, not so much in derision as amusement. the story did not fit her. obviously it was not so.
“oh, no, you didn’t,” i replied. “you are telling me one of the oldest stories of the trade. now the truth is you are a silly little liar and you think you are going to frighten me, by telling me this, into giving you two or three pounds. you can save yourself the trouble. i don’t intend to do it.”
i had every intention of giving her two or three if it suited my mood later, but she was not to know this now.
my little welsh girl was all at sea at once. her powerless but really sweet eyes showed it. something hurt—the pathos of her courage and endurance in the face of my contemptuous attitude. i had made fun of her obvious little lies and railed at her transparent tricks.
“i’m a new experience in men,” i suggested.
“men! i don’t want to know anything more about them,” she returned with sudden fury. “i’m sick of them—the whole lot of them! if i could get out of this i would. i wish i need never see another man!”
i did not doubt the sincerity of this outburst. but i affected not to believe her.
“it’s true!” she insisted sullenly.
“you say that, but that’s talk. if you wanted to get out, you would. why don’t you get a job at something? you can work.”
121
“i don’t know any trade now and i’m too old to learn.”
“what nonsense! you’re not more than nineteen and you could do anything you pleased. you won’t, though. you are like all the others. this is the easy way. come,” i said more gently, “put on your things and let’s get out of this.”
obediently and without a word she put on her coat and her bedraggled hat and we turned to the door.
“look here,” i said, “i haven’t meant to be unkind. and heaven knows i’ve no right to throw stones at you. we are all in a bad mess in this world—you and i, and the rest. you don’t know what i’m talking about and it doesn’t matter. and now let’s find a good quiet restaurant where we can dine slowly and comfortably like two friends who have a lot to talk over.”
in a moment she was all animation. the suggestion that i was going to act toward her as though she were a lady was, according to her standards, wildly unconventional.
“well, you’re funny,” she replied, laughing; “you really are funny.” and i could see that for once, in a long time, perhaps, the faintest touch of romance had entered this sordid world for her.
as we came out, seeing that my attitude had changed so radically, she asked, “would you get me a box of cigarettes? i haven’t any change.”
“surely,” i said, and we stepped into a tobacconist’s shop. from there we took a taxi to l.’s corner house, which she seemed to regard as sufficiently luxurious; and from there—but i’ll tell this in detail.
“tell me,” i said, after she had given the order, picking something for herself and me; “you say you come from wales. tell me the name of a typical mining-town122 which is nearer london than some of the others—some place which is really poor and hard-worked.”
“well, where i come from was pretty bad,” she ventured, giving me some unpronounceable name. “the people haven’t got much to live on there.”
i wish you might have heard the peculiar purr of her accent.
“and how far is that?”
she gave me the hours from london and the railroad fare in shillings. i think it was about three hours at most.
“and cardiff’s pretty bad,” she added. “there’s lots of mines there. very deep ones, too. the people are poor there.”
“have you ever been in a mine?”
“yes, sir.”
i smiled at her civility, for in entering and leaving the room of the house of assignation, she had helped me on and off with my overcoat, quite as a servant might.
i learned a little about wales through her—its ill-paid life—and then we came back to london. how much did the average street girl really make? i wanted to know. she couldn’t tell me and she was quite honest about it.
“some make more than others,” she said. “i’m not very good at it,” she confessed. “i can’t make much. i don’t know how to get money out of men.”
“i know you don’t,” i replied with real sympathy. “you’re not brazen enough. those eyes of yours are too soft. you shouldn’t lie though, lilly. you’re better than that. you ought to be in some other work, worse luck.”
she didn’t answer, choosing to ignore my petty philosophic concern over something of which i knew so little.
123
we talked of girls—the different kinds. some were really very pretty, some were not. some had really nice figures, she said, you could see it. others were made up terribly and depended on their courage or their audacity to trick money out of men—dissatisfied men. there were regular places they haunted, piccadilly being the best—the only profitable place for her kind—and there were no houses of ill repute—the police did not allow them.
“yes, but that can’t be,” i said. “and the vice of london isn’t concentrated in just this single spot.” the restaurant we were in—a large but cheap affair—was quite a center, she said. “there must be other places. all the women who do this sort of thing don’t come here. where do they go?”
“there’s another place along cheapside.”
it appeared that there were certain places where the girls congregated in this district—saloons or quasi-restaurants, where they could go and wait for men to speak to them. they could wait twenty minutes at a time and then if no one spoke to them they had to get up and leave, but after twenty minutes or so they could come back again and try their luck, which meant that they would have to buy another drink. meantime there were other places and they were always full of girls.
“you shall take me to that cheapside place,” i suggested. “i will buy you more cigarettes and a box of candy afterwards. i will pay you for your time.”
she thought about her traveling companion whom she had agreed to meet at eleven, and finally promised. the companion was to be left to her fate.
while we dined we talked of men and the types they admired. englishmen, she thought, were usually attracted toward french girls and americans liked english girls, but the great trick was to get yourself up like124 an american girl and speak her patois—imitate her slang, because she was the most popular of all.
“americans and english gentlemen”—she herself made that odd distinction—“like the american girl. i’m sometimes taken for one,” she informed me, “and this hat is like the american hats.”
it was. i smiled at the compliment, sordid as it may appear.
“why do they like them?” i asked.
“oh, the american girl is smarter. she walks quicker. she carries herself better. that’s what the men tell me.”
“and you are able to deceive them?”
“yes.”
“that’s interesting. let me hear you talk like an american. how do you do it?”
she pursed her lips for action. “well, i guess i’ll have to go now,” she began. it was not a very good imitation. “all americans say ‘i guess,’” she informed me.
“and what else?” i said.
“oh, let me see.” she seemed lost for more. “you teach me some,” she said. “i knew some other words, but i forget.”
for half an hour i coached her in american slang. she sat there intensely interested while i drilled her simple memory and her lips in these odd american phrases, and i confess i took a real delight in teaching her. she seemed to think it would raise her market value. and so in a way i was aiding and abetting vice. poor little lilly e——! she will end soon enough.
at eleven we departed for the places where she said these women congregated and then i saw what the london underworld of this kind was like. i was told afterwards that it was fairly representative.
125
this little girl took me to a place on a corner very close to a restaurant we were leaving—i should say two blocks. it was on the second floor and was reached by a wide stairway, which gave into a room like a circle surrounding the head of the stairs as a center. to the left, as we came up, was a bar attended by four or five pretty barmaids, and the room, quite small, was crowded with men and women. the women, or girls rather, for i should say all ranged somewhere between seventeen and twenty-six, were good looking in an ordinary way, but they lacked the “go” of their american sisters.
the tables at which they were seated were ranged around the walls and they were drinking solely to pay the house for allowing them to sit there. men were coming in and going out, as were the other girls. sometimes they came in or went out alone. at other times they came in or went out in pairs. waiters strolled to and fro, and the etiquette of the situation seemed to demand that the women should buy port wine—why, i don’t know. it was vile stuff, tasting as though it were prepared of chemicals and i refused to touch it. i was shown local detectives, girls who worked in pairs, and those lowest of all creatures, the men who traffic in women. i learned now that london closes all its restaurants, saloons, hotel bars and institutions of this kind promptly at twelve-thirty, and then these women are turned out on the streets.
“you should see piccadilly around one o’clock in the morning,” my guide had said to me a little while before, and now i understood. they were all forced out into piccadilly from everywhere.
it was rather a dismal thing sitting here, i must confess. the room was lively enough, but this type of life is so vacant of soul. it is precisely as though one stirred in straw and sawdust, expecting it to be vigorous with the126 feel of growing life and freshness, such as one finds in a stalk or tree. it is a world of dead ideals i should say—or, better yet, a world in which ideals never had a chance to grow. the women were the veriest birds of prey, cold, weary, disillusioned, angry, dull, sad, perhaps; the men were victims of carnal desire without the ability to understand how weary and disgusted the women were who sought to satisfy them. no clear understanding of life on either side; no suggestion of delicacy or romance. no subtlety of lure or parade. rather, coarse, hard bargaining in which robbery and abuse and bitter recrimination play a sodden part. i know of nothing so ghastly, so suggestive of a totally dead spirit, so bitter a comment on life and love and youth and hope as a street girl’s weary, speculative, commercial cry of—“hello, sweetheart!”
from this first place we went to others—not so good, lilly told me.
it is a poor world. i do not attempt to explain it. the man or woman of bridled passion is much better off. as for those others, how much are they themselves to blame? circumstances have so large a part in it. i think, all in all, it is a deadly hell-hole; and yet i know that talking is not going to reform it. life, in my judgment, does not reform. the world is old. passion in all classes is about the same. we think this shabby world is worst because it is shabby. but is it? isn’t it merely that we are different—used to different things? i think so.
after buying her a large box of candy i hailed a taxi and took my little girl home to her shabby room and left her. she was very gay. she had been made quite a little of since we started from the region of rented rooms. her purse was now the richer by three pounds. her opinion had been asked, her advice taken, she had been127 allowed to order. i had tried to make her feel that i admired her a little and that i was sorry for her a little. at her door, in the rain, i told her i might use some of this experience in a book sometime. she said, “send me a copy of your book. will i be in it?”
“yes.”
“send it to me, will you?”
“if you’re here.”
“oh, i’ll be here. i don’t move often.”
poor little welsh waif! i thought, how long, how long, will she be “here” before she goes down before the grim shapes that lurk in her dreary path—disease, despair, death?
