Wanless felt the observation true, alas! too true, but what could he do? His means would not allow him to search the whole city. He took a wider range, however, going by turns to one part of the town, now another, sometimes as far as the Angel and Upper Street, Islington, sometimes south to the Elephant and Castle, and the vice haunts of Walworth and the Borough. Occasionally, too, he searched the bridges across the river, but always with a sort of dread that his doing so was a confession that he believed his girl capable of drowning herself.
CHAPTER XVII.
HAS IN IT, ALAS! NOTHING THAT IS NEW.
The winter was moving away thus, and Thomas Wanless was rapidly losing his vigour. Hard work and constant vigils, coupled with a sore heart, and a weak appetite, pulled the man down, and by February he had to confess that the long walks were too much for his strength. Mercifully, the weather often made it impossible for him to go out at night, and when it did clear up, he contented himself with going somewhere to watch the stream of people passing by. "I will wait," he said to himself, "for my darling to come to me." He could not even stand very long, but usually sought the rest of a friendly doorstep, and at times a recess on a bridge, watching, with tender wistfulness, the stream of life hurrying on around him. Strange to say, he had more than once seen Adelaide Codling since that night at the theatre, and somehow that always gave him hope. Her face seemed to say to him, "Your daughter cannot be far away."
Often the "unfortunates" came and talked to him, not rudely in their wantonness—alas! poor, forsaken waifs—forsaken by all save God—but soberly, as if moved to speak to this still, sad-eyed, grey-faced old man, who looked out on the world so keenly, and withal, with such tenderness in his look. They would tell him fragments of their stories—sad enough all, and wonderfully alike—tales of seduction, and heartless desertion, varied only by the degree of turpitude usually exhibited in the man. At one time it would be the tale of a light-headed girl, seduced by her master—a married man—who huddled her out of sight, to hide his shame. Many came from garrison towns, the seduced of the officers there; quiet country parsonages gave their quota of girls educated to feel, and therefore hurrying the faster to their doom, when once cut off from their families by the devices of their betrayers. One woman excited Thomas's pity deeply. Though wasted and fast dying, she still had traces of great beauty when he first met her, leaning wearily on the parapet of Waterloo Bridge, looking out on the water below. She flashed defiance—the defiance of a hunted being—at him when he first spoke to her, but he soon won her heart, and got her story. A fair blonde, oval-faced English girl, she had been comely to look upon, and was wholesome at the heart even yet, for all her misery. She was the victim of a parson, now high in the counsels of the church. The villain was but a curate when he seduced her—the only child of her mother, and she a widow. He promised to marry her, of course, and wiled his way to her heart. Then when he had got all he wanted, and found that she was with child, he cast her off, daring her to lay the babe to his paternity, and spreading a story to the effect that he had found other lovers at her heels. Broken hearted, she buried her head and obeyed, but the shame killed her mother. "I could not die," the daughter said to Wanless; "I have often tried to kill myself, but fear keeps me back now, after all that's past, and it kept me back then. My child died, thank Heaven! I was alone in the world. I drifted to London seeking work, and found it hard to get. When I offered myself for a servant's place, people said I was too well educated, and suspected that something must be wrong. I could have taught in a school, perhaps, but had no one to recommend me. I was hungry; I hated mankind, and cursed them. I said I would betray and destroy men for revenge! and the way was easy! oh, so easy. It has led me here; and now if I could but jump over and be done with it all!"
Involuntarily Thomas put forth his hand to hold her back; but he needed not to do so. The poor woman sank fainting at his feet. He tried to rouse her, but could not; and finally put her in a cab and took her to the hospital. Within a week she died there of brain fever. The doctors said her strength had been too much reduced by privation before the disease seized her for her to be able to survive it. And she was only one among tens of thousands all pressed down the same loathsome course by our "Christian civilisation." Nay, forgive the epithet, there is nothing Christian about it. It is only the civilisation of a priest-born respectableness. The droning hypocrites that we are!
At times Wanless stood by the doors of low music halls and of theatres, but the door-keepers usually ordered him off. He looked too like a detective for their taste. Then he would watch the doors of confectioners' shops, too—those shops which cloak brothels of the vilest type—staring there in the face of day, unheeded by the authorities, who must wink at some kind of outlet for the suppressed brutal passions of polished society. More than once Adelaide Codling had crossed his path at such times, and still in the company of Wiseman; but each succeeding time he saw her, Wanless thought the boldness of her manner had an increased dash of despair in it. The fate that she had come after was eating into even her light, giddy heart. The last time he spied her was one night when he stood close by the door of a café near Regent Street. The light fell full on her face as the Captain and she passed in from their cab, and her face was painted. Already, then, the bloom of youth has vanished, Thomas thought. Her hard but not unmusical laugh had given place to a grating cackle, and a leer of affected gaiety had replaced the merry eye. Poor, erring wanderer, and had a few months brought you to this? Already was the shadow of society's ruthless judgment upon you; could you even now see the blight of your life, the dreary street, the hard world's scorn, the early grave? Ah! yes, and who shall describe the devouring agony that gnawed at that girl's heart? Did she not see day by day the ebbing away of Wiseman's love? Love? God forgive me for defiling that sacred word. It was only his brutish passion that was dying. He was becoming tired of this toy his handling had smudged, and she saw it all—prepared herself for the hour when he would turn his back upon her and go to hunt down other prey. And only six months ago! Ah, parson, parson, has the iron not entered your soul? What is this that your Christian civilisation has done to your daughter? Has it made you ashamed even to look for her? Poor, hide-bound, "respectable" sinner that you are, you shall behold her again, though you sought her not—though her mother bade you close your heart and home against her for ever, because she had with that mother's help allowed herself to be betrayed.
One cold March night Thomas Wanless had strayed on to Waterloo Bridge in his coal-begrimed dress. Something, he could not have said what, had impelled him to go there that night. He had taken a hasty supper at a coffee-house near the coal yard to save time. He felt he was "superstitious," yet he went, whispering to his heart "who knows but I may see my child to-night," and trying to be cheerful.