There is no sound from the ten people save of snores that are
partly groans. Their heads nod like those of joined porcelain
Chinamen as they fall asleep and reawake as rhythmically as the
ticking of a clock. Three strikes somewhere. A voice yells like a
trumpet from the eastern end of the Square: 'Boys! Up you get!
The noospapers is come!']
CHARLIE [starting from his sleep]: The perishing papers! C'm on,
Ginger! Run like Hell!
[They run, or shamble, as fast as they can to the corner of the
Square, where three youths are distributing surplus posters given
away in charity by the morning newspapers. Charlie and Ginger come
back with a thick wad of posters. The five largest men now jam
themselves together on the bench, Deafie and the four women sitting
across their knees; then, with infinite difficulty (as it has to be
done from the inside), they wrap themselves in a monstrous cocoon
of paper, several sheets thick, tucking the loose ends into their
necks or breasts or between their shoulders and the back of the
bench. Finally nothing is uncovered save their heads and the lower
part of their legs. For their heads they fashion hoods of paper.
The paper constantly comes loose and lets in cold shafts of wind,
but it is now possible to sleep for as much as five minutes
consecutively. At this time--between three and five in the
morning--it is customary with the police not to disturb the Square
sleepers. A measure of warmth steals through everyone and extends
even to their feet. There is some furtive fondling of the women
under cover of the paper. Dorothy is too far gone to care.
By a quarter past four the paper is all crumpled and torn to
nothing, and it is far too cold to remain sitting down. The people
get up, swear, find their legs somewhat rested, and begin to slouch
to and fro in couples, frequently halting from mere lassitude.
Every belly is now contorted with hunger. Ginger's tin of
condensed milk is torn open and the contents devoured, everyone
dipping their fingers into it and licking them. Those who have no
money at all leave the Square for the Green Park, where they will
be undisturbed till seven. Those who can command even a halfpenny
make for Wilkins's cafe not far from the Charing Cross Road. It is
known that the cafe will not open till five o'clock; nevertheless,
a crowd is waiting outside the door by twenty to five.]
MRS MCELLIGOT: Got your halfpenny, dearie? Dey won't let more'n
four of us in on one cup o'tea, de stingy ole gets!
MR TALLBOYS [singing]: The roseate hu-ues of early da-awn--
GINGER: God, that bit of sleep we 'ad under the newspapers done me
some good. [Singing] But I'm dan-cing with tears--in my eyes--
CHARLIE: Oh, boys, boys! Look through that perishing window, will
you? Look at the 'eat steaming down the window pane! Look at the
tea-urns jest on the boil, and them great piles of 'ot toast and
'am sandwiches, and them there sausages sizzling in the pan! Don't
it make your belly turn perishing summersaults to see 'em?
DOROTHY: I've got a penny. I can't get a cup of tea for that,
can I?
SNOUTER: ---- lot of sausages we'll get this morning with
fourpence between us. 'Alf a cup of tea and a ---- doughnut more
likely. There's a breakfus' for you!
MRS MCELLIGOT: You don't need buy a cup o' tea all to yourself.
I got a halfpenny an' so's Daddy, an' we'll put'm to your penny an'
have a cup between de t'ree of us. He's got sores on his lip, but
Hell! who cares? Drink near de handle an' dere's no harm done.
[A quarter to five strikes.]
MRS BENDIGO: I'd bet a dollar my ole man's got a bit of 'addock to
'is breakfast. I 'ope it bloody chokes 'im.
GINGER [singing]: But I'm dan-cing with tears--in my eyes--
MR TALLBOYS [singing]: Early in the morning my song shall rise to
Thee!
MRS MCELLIGOT: You gets a bit o' kip in dis place, dat's one
comfort. Dey lets you sleep wid your head on de table till seven
o'clock. It's a bloody godsend to us Square Tobies.
CHARLIE [slavering like a dog]: Sausages! Perishing sausages!
Welsh rabbit! 'Ot dripping toast! And a rump-steak two inches
thick with chips and a pint of Ole Burton! Oh, perishing Jesus!
[He bounds forward, pushes his way through the crowd and rattles
the handle of the glass door. The whole crowd of people, about
forty strong, surge forward and attempt to storm the door, which is
stoutly held within by Mr Wilkins, the proprietor of the cafe. He
menaces them through the glass. Some press their breasts and faces
against the window as though warming themselves. With a whoop and
a rush Florry and four other girls, comparatively fresh from having
spent part of the night in bed, debouch from a neighbouring alley,
accompanied by a gang of youths in blue suits. They hurl
themselves upon the rear of the crowd with such momentum that the
door is almost broken. Mr Wilkins pulls it furiously open and
shoves the leaders back. A fume of sausages, kippers, coffee, and
hot bread streams into the outer cold.]
YOUTHS VOICES FROM THE REAR: Why can't he ---- open before five?
We're starving for our ---- tea! Ram the ---- door in! [etc.,
etc.]
MR WILKINS: Get out! Get out, the lot of you! Or by God not one
of you comes in this morning!
GIRLS' VOICES FROM THE REAR: Mis-ter Wil-kins! Mis-ter Wil-kins!
BE a sport and let us in! I'll give y'a kiss all free for nothing.
BE a sport now! [etc., etc.]
MR WILKINS: Get on out of it! We don't open before five, and you
know it. [Slams the door.]
MRS MCELLIGOT: Oh, holy Jesus, if dis ain't de longest ten minutes
o' de whole bloody night! Well, I'll give me poor ole legs a rest,
anyway. [Squats on her heels coal-miner-fashion. Many others do
the same.]
GINGER: 'Oo's got a 'alfpenny? I'm ripe to go fifty-fifty on a
doughnut.
YOUTHS' VOICES [imitating military music, then singing]:
'----!' was all the band could play;
'----! ----' And the same to you!
DOROTHY [to Mrs McElligot]: Look at us all! Just look at us!
What clothes! What faces!
MRS BENDIGO: You're no Greta Garbo yourself, if you don't mind my
mentioning it.
MRS WAYNE: Well, now, the time DO seem to pass slowly when you're
waiting for a nice cup of tea, don't it now?
MR TALLBOYS [chanting]: For our soul is brought low, even unto the
dust: our belly cleaveth unto the ground!
CHARLIE: Kippers! Perishing piles of 'em! I can smell 'em
through the perishing glass.
GINGER [singing]:
But I'm dan-cing with tears--in my eyes--
'Cos the girl--in my arms--isn't you-o-ou!
[Much time passes. Five strikes. Intolerable ages seem to pass.
Then the door is suddenly wrenched open and the people stampede in
to fight for the corner seats. Almost swooning in the hot air,
they fling themselves down and sprawl across the tables, drinking
&nbs
p; in the heat and the smell of food through all their pores.]
MR WILKINS: Now then, all! You know the rules, I s'pose. No
hokey-pokey this morning! Sleep till seven if you like, but if I
see any man asleep after that, out he goes on his neck. Get busy
with that tea, girls!
A DEAFENING CHORUS Of YELLS: Two teas 'ere! Large tea and a
doughnut between us four! Kippers! Mis-ter Wil-kins! 'Ow much
them sausages? Two slices! Mis-ter Wil-kins! Got any fag papers?
Kipp-ers! [etc., etc.]
MR WILKINS: Shut up, shut up! Stop that hollering or I don't
serve any of you.
MRS MCELLIGOT: D'you feel de blood runnin' back into your toes,
dearie?
MRS WAYNE: He do speak rough to you, don't he? Not what I'd call
a reely gentlemanly kind of man.
SNOUTER: This is ---- starvation Corner, this is. Cripes!
Couldn't I do a couple of them sausages!
THE TARTS [in chorus]: Kippers 'ere! 'Urry up with them kippers!
Mis-ter Wilkins! Kippers all round! AND a doughnut!
CHARLIE: Not 'alf! Got to fill up on the smell of 'em this
morning. Sooner be 'ere than on the perishing Square, ALL the
same.
GINGER: 'Ere, Deafie! You've 'ad your 'alf! Gimme me that
bleeding cup.
MR TALLBOYS [chanting]: Then was our mouth filled with laughter,
and our tongue with joy! . . .
MRS MCELLIGOT: Begod I'm half asleep already. It's de heat o' de
room as does it.
MR WILKINS: Stop that singing there! You know the rules.
THE TARTS [in chorus]: Kipp-ers!
SNOUTER: ---- doughnuts! Cold prog! It turns my belly sick.
DADDY: Even the tea they give you ain't no more than water with a
bit of dust in it. [Belches.]
CHARLIE: Bes' thing--'ave a bit of shut-eye and forget about it.
Dream about perishing cut off the joint and two veg. Less get our
'eads on the table and pack up comfortable.
MRS MCELLIGOT: Lean up agen me shoulder, dearie. I've got more
flesh on me bones'n what you have.
GINGER: I'd give a tanner for a bleeding fag, if I 'ad a bleeding
tanner.
CHARLIE: Pack up. Get your 'ead agenst mine, Snouter. That's
right. Jesus, won't I perishing sleep!
[A dish of smoking kippers is borne past to the tarts' table.]
SNOUTER [drowsily]: More ---- kippers. Wonder 'ow many times
she's bin on 'er back to pay for that lot.
MRS MCELLIGOT [half-asleep]: 'Twas a pity, 'twas a real pity, when
Michael went off on his jack an' left me wid de bloody baby an'
all. . . .
MRS BENDIGO [furiously, following the dish of kippers with accusing
finger]: Look at that, girls! Look at that! Kippers! Don't it
make you bloody wild? We don't get kippers for breakfast, do we,
girls? Bloody tarts swallering down kippers as fast as they can
turn 'em out of the pan, and us 'ere with a cup of tea between four
of us and lucky to get that! Kippers!
MR TALLBOYS [stage curate-wise]: The wages of sin is kippers.
GINGER: Don't breathe in my face, Deafie. I can't bleeding stand
it.
CHARLIE [in his sleep]: Charles-Wisdom-drunk-and-incapable-drunk?-
yes-six-shillings-move-on-NEXT!
DOROTHY [on Mrs McElligot's bosom]: Oh, joy, joy!
[They are asleep.]
2
And so it goes on.
Dorothy endured this life for ten days--to be exact, nine days and
ten nights. It was hard to see what else she could do. Her
father, seemingly, had abandoned her altogether, and though she had
friends in London who would readily have helped her, she did not
feel that she could face them after what had happened, or what was
supposed to have happened. And she dared not apply to organized
charity because it would almost certainly lead to the discovery of
her name, and hence, perhaps, to a fresh hullabaloo about the
'Rector's Daughter'.
So she stayed in London, and became one of that curious tribe, rare
but never quite extinct--the tribe of women who are penniless and
homeless, but who make such desperate efforts to hide it that they
very nearly succeed; women who wash their faces at drinking
fountains in the cold of the dawn, and carefully uncrumple their
clothes after sleepless nights, and carry themselves with an air
of reserve and decency, so that only their faces, pale beneath
sunburn, tell you for certain that they are destitute. It was not
in her to become a hardened beggar like most of the people about
her. Her first twenty-four hours on the Square she spent without
any food whatever, except for the cup of tea that she had had
overnight and a third of a cup more that she had had at Wilkins's
cafe in the morning. But in the evening, made desperate by hunger
and the others' example, she walked up to a strange woman, mastered
her voice with an effort, and said: 'Please, Madam, could you give
me twopence? I have had nothing to eat since yesterday.' The
woman stared, but she opened her purse and gave Dorothy threepence.
Dorothy did not know it, but her educated accent, which had made it
impossible to get work as a servant, was an invaluable asset to her
as a beggar.
After that she found that it was really very easy to beg the daily
shilling or so that was needed to keep her alive. And yet she
never begged--it seemed to her that actually she could not do it--
except when hunger was past bearing or when she had got to lay in
the precious penny that was the passport to Wilkins's cafe in the
morning. With Nobby, on the way to the hopfields, she had begged
without fear or scruple. But it had been different then; she had
not known what she was doing. Now, it was only under the spur of
actual hunger that she could screw her courage to the point, and
ask for a few coppers from some woman whose face looked friendly.
It was always women that she begged from, of course. She did once
try begging from a man--but only once.
For the rest, she grew used to the life that she was leading--used
to the enormous sleepless nights, the cold, the dirt, the boredom,
and the horrible communism of the Square. After a day or two she
had ceased to feel even a flicker of surprise at her situation.
She had come, like everyone about her, to accept this monstrous
existence almost as though it were normal. The dazed, witless
feeling that she had known on the way to the hopfields had come
back upon her more strongly than before. It is the common effect
of sleeplessness and still more of exposure. To live continuously
in the open air, never going under a roof for more than an hour or
two, blurs your perceptions like a strong light glaring in your
eyes or a noise drumming in your ears. You act and plan and
suffer, and yet all the while it is as though everything were a
little out of focus, a little unreal. The world, inner and outer,
grows dimmer till it reaches almost the vagueness of a dream.
Meanwhile, the police were getting to know her by sight. On the
Square people are perpetually co
ming and going, more or less
unnoticed. They arrive from nowhere with their drums and their
bundles, camp for a few days and nights, and then disappear as
mysteriously as they come. If you stay for more than a week or
thereabouts, the police will mark you down as an habitual beggar,
and they will arrest you sooner or later. It is impossible for
them to enforce the begging laws at all regularly, but from time to
time they make a sudden raid and capture two or three of the people
they have had their eye on. And so it happened in Dorothy's case.
One evening she was 'knocked off', in company with Mrs McElligot
and another woman whose name she did not know. They had been
careless and begged off a nasty old lady with a face like a horse,
who had promptly walked up to the nearest policeman and given them
in charge.
Dorothy did not mind very much. Everything was dreamlike now--the
face of the nasty old lady, eagerly accusing them, and the walk to
the station with a young policeman's gentle, almost deferential
hand on her arm; and then the white-tiled cell, with the fatherly
sergeant handing her a cup of tea through the grille and telling
her that the magistrate wouldn't be too hard on her if she pleaded
guilty. In the cell next door Mrs McElligot stormed at the
sergeant, called him a bloody get, and then spent half the night in
bewailing her fate. But Dorothy had no feeling save vague relief
at being in so clean and warm a place. She crept immediately on to
the plank bed that was fixed like a shelf to the wall, too tired
even to pull the blankets about her, and slept for ten hours
without stirring. It was only on the following morning that she
began to grasp the reality of her situation, as the Black Maria
rolled briskly up to Old Street Police Court, to the tune of
'Adeste fideles' shouted by five drunks inside.
CHAPTER 4
1
Dorothy had wronged her father in supposing that he was willing to
let her starve to death in the street. He had, as a matter of
fact, made efforts to get in touch with her, though in a roundabout
and not very helpful way.
His first emotion on learning of Dorothy's disappearance had been
rage pure and simple. At about eight in the morning, when he was
beginning to wonder what had become of his shaving water, Ellen had
come into his bedroom and announced in a vaguely panic-stricken
tone:
'Please, Sir, Miss Dorothy ain't in the house, Sir. I can't find
her nowhere!'
'What?' said the Rector.
'She ain't in the house, Sir! And her bed don't look as if it
hadn't been slept in, neither. It's my belief as she's GORN, Sir!'
'Gone!' exclaimed the Rector, partly sitting up in bed. 'What do
you mean--GONE?'
'Well, Sir, I believe she's run away from 'ome, Sir!'
'Run away from home! At THIS hour of the morning? And what about
my breakfast, pray?'
By the time the Rector got downstairs--unshaven, no hot water
having appeared--Ellen had gone down into the town to make
fruitless inquiries for Dorothy. An hour passed, and she did not
return. Whereupon there occurred a frightful, unprecedented thing--
a thing never to be forgotten this side of the grave; the Rector
was obliged to prepare his own breakfast--yes, actually to mess
about with a vulgar black kettle and rashers of Danish bacon--with
his own sacerdotal hands.
After that, of course, his heart was hardened against Dorothy for
ever. For the rest of the day he was far too busy raging over
unpunctual meals to ask himself WHY she had disappeared and whether
any harm had befallen her. The point was that the confounded girl
(he said several times 'confounded girl', and came near to saying
something stronger) HAD disappeared, and had upset the whole