That was good.
'Got a room?' I said quickly.
'Might have,' she answered, trying to see beyond my veil.
'At the front?' I looked up and pointed. 'That one?'
'That one costs more.'
'We'll have it for the week. I'll give you a shilling now, and pay you the rest tomorrow.'
She made a face; but she wanted gin, I knew it. All right,' she said. She got to her feet, put the baby on the step, and took us up a slippery staircase. There was a man dead drunk on the landing. The door to the room she led us into had no lock to it, only a stone for propping it shut. The room was small and dark, with two low beds and a chair. The window had shutters closed before it, on the street-side, and there was a stick with a hook hung next to the glass, meant for opening them.
'You do it like this,' said the woman, beginning to show us. I stopped her. I said I had a weakness of the eye and didn't care for sunlight.
For I had seen straight away that the shutters had little holes cut in them, that were more or less perfect for what I wanted; and when the woman had got our shilling off us and gone, I shut the door
behind her, took off my veil and bonnet, then put myself at the glass and looked out.
There was nothing to see, however. Mr Ibbs's shop door was still shut, and Mrs Sucksby's window dark. I watched for quite a minute before I remembered Charles.
He was standing, gazing at me, squeezing his cap between his hands. In some other room a man gave a shout, and he jumped.
'Sit down,' I said. I put my face back^to the window.
'I want my jacket,' he said.
'You can't have it. The shop is closed. We shall get it tomorrow.'
'I don't believe you. You told a lie to that lady, about having a poor eye. You took that gown and those shoes, and that pie. That pie made me sick. You have brought me to a 303
horrible house.'
'I have brought you to London. Ain't that what you wanted?'
'I thought London would be different.'
'You haven't seen the best parts yet. Go to sleep. We'll get your jacket back in the morning. You shall feel like a new man then.'
'How shall we get it? You just gave our shilling to that lady'
'I shall get us another shilling tomorrow.'
'How?'
'You mustn't ask. Go to sleep. Ain't you tired?'
'This bed've got black hairs in it.'
'Then take the other.'
'That one has red hairs.'
'Red hairs won't hurt you.'
I heard him sit and rub his face. I thought he might be about to cry again. But then, after a minute he spoke, and his voice had changed.
'Weren't Mr Rivers's whiskers long, though?' he said.
'Weren't they,' I answered, my eye at the shutter still. 'I'd say he needs a boy to trim them.'
'Don't he just!'
He sighed then, and lay back upon the bed, putting his cap over his eyes; and I kept watch at the glass. I kept watch, like cats keep watch at mouse-holes— not minding the hours as they passed, not thinking of anything but what I gazed at. The night grew dark, and
the street— that was a busy street, in summer— grew empty and still, the kids all gone to their beds, the men and women come back from the public houses, the dogs asleep.
In the other rooms in the house, people walked, pulled chairs across the floor; a baby cried. A
girl— she was drunk, I suppose— laughed, on and on. Still I
watched. Some clock struck off the hours. I could not hear bells without wincing, now, and felt every one of them: at last came the twelve, and then the half, and I was listening out for the three-quarters— still watching, still waiting; but beginning to wonder, perhaps, what it was I thought I would see— when this happened: There came a light and a shadow, in Mrs Sucksby's room; and then a figure— Mrs Sucksby herself! My heart nearly flew into bits. Her hair showed white, and she had her old black taffeta gown on. She stood with a lamp in her hand, her face turned from me, her jaw moving— she was talking to someone else farther back in the room, someone who now came forward, as she moved back. A girl. A girl, very slim at the waist ... I saw her, and began to shake. She came on, while Mrs Sucksby moved about the room behind her, taking off her brooches and rings. She came right to the glass.
She lifted her arm to rest it upon the bar of the window-sash, and then she stood with her brow upon her wrist, and grew still. Only her fingers moved, as they plucked idly at the lace across the window. Her hand was bare. Her hair was curled. I thought, It can't be her.
T hen Mrs Sucksby spoke again, the girl lifted her face, the light of the street- lamp fell 304
full upon it; and I cried out loud.
She might have heard me— though I don't think she can have— for she turned her head and seemed to look at me, to hold my gaze across the dusty street and the darkness, for quite a minute. I don't think I blinked, in all that time. I don't think she did, her eyes stayed open— I saw them, and remembered their colour at last. Then she turned back into the room, took a step away, caught up the lamp; and as she lowered the flame Mrs Sucksby went close to her, lifted her hands, and begin to unfasten the hooks at the back of her collar.
Then came darkness.
I moved back from the window. My own white face was reflected
there, the streetlight striking it— on the cheek, beneath my eye— in the shape of a heart. I turned from the glass. My cry had woken Charles, and I suppose my look was peculiar.
'Miss, what is it?' he said in a whisper.
I put my hand before my mouth.
'Oh, Charles!' I said. I took a couple of staggering steps towards him. 'Charles, look at me! Tell me who I am!'
'Who, miss?'
'Not miss, don't call me missl I never was a miss, though they made me out one.— Oh!