I step back.
'After all,' I say quickly, 'I think I should walk. Will you tell me the way?'
'The day is too hot to walk. You are too weary. Go on.'
His hand is upon me still. He presses harder. I twist away and we almost struggle.
'Now, then!' he says, smiling.
'I have changed my mind.'
'Come, now.'
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'Do you wish to cause a fuss? Come, now. I know a house— '
'A house? Haven't I told you that I want only to see my friend?'
'Well, he'll like you better, I think, when you have washed your hands and changed your stockings and taken a tea. Or else— who knows?— when you have done those things you may find you like me better.— Hmm?'
His face is still kind, he still smiles; but he takes my wrist and moves his thumb across it, and tries, again, to hand me into the coach. We struggle properly, now. No-one tries to intervene. From the other vehicles in the road I suppose we are quite hidden. The men and women passing upon the bridge look once, then turn their heads.
There is the driver, however. I call to him. 'Can't you see?' I call.
'There's been a mistake here. This man is insulting me.'— The man lets me go, then. I move further about the coach, still calling up. 'Will you take me? Will you take me, alone? I shall find someone to pay you, I give you my word, when we arrive.'
The driver looks me over blankly as I speak. When he learns I have no money, he turns his head and spits. 'No fare, no passage,' he says.
The man has come close again. 'Come on,' he says— not smiling, now. 'There's no need for this. What are you playing at? It's clear you're in some sort of fix. Shouldn't you like the stockings, the tea?'
But I still call up to the driver. 'Will you tell me, then,' I say, 'which way I must walk?
I must reach Holywell Street. Will you tell me, which way I must take, for there?'
He hears the name and snorts— in scorn, or laughter, I cannot tell. But he raises his whip. 'That way/ he says, gesturing over the bridge; 'then westwards, by Fleet Street.'
'Thank you.' I begin to walk. The man reaches for me. 'Let go of me,' I say.
'You don't mean it.' 'Let go!'
I almost shriek it. He falls back. 'Go on, then!' he says. 'You damn little teaser.'
I walk, as quickly as I can. I almost run. But then, after a moment, the cab comes beside me and slows to match my pace. The gentleman looks out. His face has changed again.
'I'm sorry,' he says, coaxingly. 'Come up. I'm sorry. Will you come? I'll take you to your friend, I swear it. Look here. Look here.' He shows me a coin. 'I'll give you this.
Come up. You mustn't go to Holywell Street, they are bad men there— not at all like me. Come now, I know you're a lady. Come, I'll be kind ..."
So he calls and murmurs, half the length of the bridge; until finally a line of waggons forms behind the crawling cab, and the driver shouts that he must go on. Then the 240
man draws back, puts up his window with a bang; the cab pulls away. I let out my breath. I have begun to shake. I should like to stop, to rest; I dare not, now.
T leave the bridge: here the road meets another, more busy than those on the southern shore ; b u t m o r e a n o n y m o u s t o o , I t h i n k . I a m g r a t e f u l f o r t h a t , t h o u g h t h e crowds— the crowds are terrible. Never mind, never mind, push through them. Go on.
Westwards, as the driver directed.
Now the street changes again. It is lined with houses with bulging windows— shops, I understand them to be, at last: for there are goods on show, marked up with prices on cards. There are breads, there are medicines. There are gloves. There are shoes and hats.— Oh, for a little money! I think of the coin the gentleman offered, from the window of the coach: should I have seized it, and run? Too late to wonder it now. No matter. Go on. Here is a church, parting the road like the column of a bridge parts water. Which side ought I to take? A woman passes, bare-headed like me: I catch her arm, ask her the way. She points it out and then, like everyone else, stands staring as I take it.
But here is Holywell Street at last!— Only, now I hesitate. How have I imagined it?
Not like this, perhaps— not so narrow, so crooked, so dark. The London day is still hot, still bright; in turning into Holywell Street, however, I seem to step into twilight. But the twilight is good, after all: it hides my face, and robs my gown of its colours. I walk further. The way grows narrower. The ground is dusty, broken, unpaved. There are shops, lit up, on either side of me: some with lines of tattered clothes hung before them, some with broken chairs and empty picture- frames and coloured glasses spilling from them, in heaps; the most, however, selling books. I hesitate again, when I see that. I have not handled a book since I left Briar; and now, to come so suddenly upon them, in such numbers; to see them laid, face- up, like loaves in trays, or piled, haphazardly, in baskets; to see them torn, and foxed, and bleached— marked up 2d., 3d., This Box Is.— quite unnerves me. I stop, and watch as a man picks idly through a box of coverless volumes and takes one up. The Mousetrap of Love.— I know it, I have read that title so many times to my uncle I know it almost by heart!
Then the man lifts his head and finds me watching; and I walk on. More shops, more books, more men; and finally a window, a
little brighter than the rest. The display is of prints, hung up on strings. The glass has Mr Hawtrey's name upon it, in letters of flaking gold. I see it, and shake so hard I almost stumble.
Inside, the shop is small and cramped. I have not expected that. The walls are all given over to books and prints, and there are cabinets, besides. Three or four men stand at them, each leafing rapidly and intently through some album or book: they don't look up when the door is opened; but when I take a step and my skirts give a rustle, they all turn their heads, see me, and openly stare. But I am used to stares, by now. At the rear of the shop is a little writing- table, with a youth sitting at it, dressed in a waistcoat and sleeves. He stares, as they do— then, when he sees me advancing, gets up. 'What are you looking for?' he says. I swallow. My mouth is dry.
I say, quietly, 'I'm looking for Mr Hawtrey. I wish to speak with Mr Hawtrey.'
He hears my voice, and blinks; the customers shift a little, and look me oVfer again.