cigar in mouth, gavrolles strolled leisurely along the streets in the direction of regent circus. arrived in waterloo place he found the pavement thronged with those painted faces,
“which only smile by night beneath the gas,
and saw what, to a man with any pity in his soul, is the saddest sight beneath the sun.
bright jets of gas were flaming over the criterion restaurant, the night houses on every side were opening their foul jaws, and from the darkness of every street and lane were fluttering forth the moths of night. painted and bedizened creatures, fluttering gladly in the gaslight; some faint and feeble, as if already scorched with the destroying flame; others splendidly merry, with the new flush of the infernal brightness upon them; many beautiful beyond measure, with faces as pure and sweet as those of little children that know not sin.
with the smile and swagger of one who knew his company, gavrolles made his way from group to group, accosted from time to time by some passing figure, and more than once plucked softly by the sleeve. once, as he paused under a lamplight, a slight form, clad in the thinnest of silk, paused before him, and a baby face leered hideously up into his; but he pushed the shape softly aside, and swaggered on. to him, as to many of his class, the sight was quite proper and pleasant; his fine nerves were not shocked, his noble soul was not sadly stirred; indeed, such a man might walk confidently by the side of the very flames of hell, and be conscious of nothing but the picturesque lights and shadows of the dreadful place. yes, for as swedenborg has sublimely guessed, hell is heaven to the devilish nature, and the penalty of the morally damned is not to know that it is hell.
not far away, that very night, walked another man, one of nobler fibre, with the shuddering sense of infinite pity and despair. he, too, was familiar with the sight of moral leprosy and spiritual disease, and as he gazed on those painted things, all and each of whom were infected with the goitre of incurable infamy, he felt weary of the world. ‘so long as this is possible,’ thought edgar sutherland, ‘how can the dead christ rise?’
crossing the street at the quadrant, sutherland saw, standing in the lamplight of the corner, two figures, one an elderly woman with a face swollen and deformed by drink, the other a wild-looking girl, poorly clad, coughing violently as if in sharp physical pain. as he was passing he heard them speak to each other in french; he paused and listened.
‘you are a fool, adèle,’ said the elder woman. ‘come and have some brandy—you will be all right then.’
the girl laughed hoarsely and uttered a coarse oath, then the cough seized her again with a paroxysm so violent that her whole frame shook like a leaf.
‘devil take the cough,’ she said. ‘i shall have to go into the hospital after all.’
a few more words passed, and then the elder woman, impatient to reach the bar of some neighbouring public-house, ran across the street. the young girl was feebly following, when sutherland stepped forward, lifting his hat.
‘good evening, mademoiselle,’ he said, speaking in her own language. ‘i am afraid you are ill?’
something in the tone startled her, and the gentle voice, the respectful gesture, acted like a charm. she replied courteously, with a polite inclination of the head, ‘i am not very well, monsieur; i have been ill for some time.’
‘i am very sorry. if you will take my advice you will go home—you are not fit to be in the streets.’
she gazed at him strangely, and then said—
‘pardon, monsieur, but you are not a frenchman?’
‘no.’
‘i think i have seen your face before? you have been abroad,—in brussels?’
as she spoke, something in her form and face seemed familiar; with an exclamation he took her by the arm, and drew her close under the light of the lamp.
‘is it possible?’ he cried. ‘adèle lambert? do you remember me?’
that she did so was now clear; for with a hysterical cry she shrank from him and hid her face in her hands. two years before, in brussels, he had found this poor creature, then a pretty girl, in the power of infamous people, who had decoyed her to ruin; with infinite trouble and great pecuniary expense he had released her and restored her to her friends; and when he had last heard of her she seemed on the threshold of a new and purer life. and now, this was the sequel! he shuddered in horror, as he looked upon her spectral face.
‘my poor girl,’ he said gently, ‘what brought you to england?’
then she told him, with many tears; for the sight of him and the remembrance of his former charity touched the deep springs of sorrow in her poor outcast soul. she had indeed gone home, but not to stay. soon after her return her mother had died, and her father had taken another wife; her life was not happy, and the taint of her shame still clung to her; and at last, in despair, she had drifted back to brussels, finding all ways of life closed to her but one.
‘and since then, monsieur. i have suffered so much. i was never strong, and now i am—as you see. a year ago they took me to the hospital in my own country—would to god i had died there! but i came out, and after that i went from bad to worse. two months ago i came with that woman to england. i thought no one would know me here, and now—is it not strange?—i meet with you.’
as she spoke, another figure came sauntering up in the full light of the lamp. it was gavrolles, indifferent and happy, smoking his cigar. the moment the girl’s eyes fell upon him, her manner changed; and, to sutherland’s astonishment, she uttered a cry, and rushed up to the newcomer.
‘let me look at your face,’ she cried. ‘quick! it is he!’ and she clung with strange fury to gavrolles, who in vain attempted to shake her off.
‘let me go,’ he said in english the woman is drunk. i will call the police.’
with a fierce shriek she raised her hand and struck at his face with her clenched fist.
‘you devil! you devil!’ she cried in french. ‘i have been waiting so long to see you, and now at last we meet. if i had a knife i would stab you. it is i—adèle.’ ‘i do not know you!’
‘it is false. you are a liar and a devil.’
and she struck him in the face with both hands. livid and trembling, gavrolles threw her off; she fell back screaming, and would have fallen had not sutherland caught her in his arms. while he held her she struggled madly, hysterical with an overmastering passion. a crowd of outcast women and well-dressed men already surrounded them, and a policeman, pushing his way into the circle, roughly demanded the cause of the disturbance.
gavrolles forced a laugh.
‘it is nothing,’ he said. ‘only a drunken woman, as you see.’
the policeman approached the girl and touched her on the shoulder.
‘come now, just you move on, or i’ll have to run you in,’ he said; and as she spoke rapidly in her own language, he shook his sagacious head and continued, ‘we don’t want none of your parleyvoo. leave the gentleman alone, d’ye hear, and move on.’
‘the woman is not drunk,’ said sutherland. ‘she is ill, and—look, she has fainted!’
overmastered by her excitement, she had indeed fallen into a sort of faint or fit. sutherland supported her gently, while the crowd, with cries and murmurs, pressed close! round them. in the commotion which ensued gavrolles slipped away, stepped into a hansom, and was driven off.
‘keep back—give her air!’ cried sutherland. ‘does any one know where she lives?’
at this moment the woman whom he had first seen in her company stepped forward.
‘yes, monsieur, we lodge together. look up, adèle! what ails you?’
‘help me to take her home,’ said sutherland, in a low voice.
the policeman called a cab, and sutherland raised the girl in his arms and placed her in it; then he stepped in himself, followed by the other woman.
they drove to a wretched lodging-house in gerrard street, soho, a dismal fetid den, presided over by a hideous old frenchwoman, who at first refused to take her in.
‘you’d better drive her to the hospital,’ said this person, blocking the doorway. ‘she owes me two weeks’ rent already, and i can’t take care of her.’
the sight of sutherland’s purse, however, worked wonders; and with many protestations of sympathy the hag suffered the girl to be carried to a room upstairs. the fainting fit had by this time passed away, to be followed by an attack of hysterical weeping and coughing. sutherland shuddered, for as she coughed, and spat he saw on her lips a thin tinge of crimson blood.
he had her well cared for that night, and the next day he called with a physician, and found her in bed, wild and ghastly, as if she had not got long to live.
‘ah! monsieur, forgive me!’ she cried, with a sad smile, reaching out her wasted hand. ‘i was méchante last night, but to see that man made me mad. i think i should have killed him had i been able. i was good and gentille when he first knew me, and he coaxed me away from my friends and took me to that evil place where you found me. but for him i might have been a good woman—you comprehend.’
‘do not speak of it now. this gentleman is a doctor, i have brought him to see you.’
‘all, monsieur, how good you are!’ sobbed the girl, with a look of ineffable gratitude; and she raised his hand to her feverish lips and kissed it.
edgar sutherland was not the man to do any good deed by halves. thanks to his generosity, adèle lambert was removed to a better lodging, and comfortably nursed; the doctor’s opinion being that the disease, though certainly mortal, would progress slowly, and that much might be done to alleviate her distressing condition. not content with assisting her with money, the young man visited her almost daily, and did his best to lighten her miserable lot; talked to her cheerfully, read to her; and without obtruding any moral or religious sentiment, contrived to turn her bewildered and despairing thoughts in the direction of some heavenly compassion.
in the course of these kindly visits he learned the whole story of the unfortunate girl’s connection with the french adventurer, whom he had again recognised. that story cannot be told here; it would be too shocking for a society that hushes up revolting truths, and bases its moral security on the existence of an evil which philosophers contemplate with tranquillity, and men of the world with pleasant cynicism. not even in the pages of a fiction with a purpose can an english writer print the record of what is at the best an accursed human sacrifice, a trade to which the slave trade was venial; a social abomination which destroys the body and too often obliterates the germinating soul.
i know well how, in discussing this question, philosophy and sentimentalism are at issue; how statistics have been twisted to show that actual seduction is rare, and rarest upon the man’s side; how the majority of the lost live happily, healthily, and long; how their existence is a necessity of civilisation, the security of virtue, the protection of the household, the safeguard of the morals of the state. well, i say with sutherland, god help our civilisation if this be so! so long as such a canker exists, so long as the moral holocaust continues, there is no hope for any living woman, and the kingdom of heaven upon earth, which poets have dreamed of, is whole eternities away.
