Nothing was left but to return, and so, through lofty cavernous regions beneath the terminus, over bridges, and down endless slopes of wood-paving, she managed to reach the up-platform.
Now came the rush of early City-bound men, season-ticket holders, who had travelled by the London and South Western line from all parts of Surrey served by it. They came pelting down the inclines as if their lives depended upon catching a particular train. Most of them carried neat hand-bags, suggestive of legal documents or company prospectuses, and nearly all had a morning paper. The bulk of them were well dressed, with an indefinable air indicative of the suburban resident. Mrs. Rosamond found them exceedingly pleasant, and was soon chatting with a military-looking gentleman, irreproachably groomed, with a lined and shrewd face, and old enough to be her father. He was, in fact, an eminent solicitor in Tower Royal, Cannon Street, who, hearing of her adventures, appeared to sympathise very deeply. “A little too deeply,” said her husband, on hearing her narrative, not that he was distrustful or jealous, but he preferred to do most of the sympathising himself. The man of law tried to be facetious, and in explaining at some length the difference between metropolitan “tubes” and the “Underground,” so confused Mrs. Rosamond that she ended by thinking they were one and the same thing—a fatal error on her part, as we shall see. Dilating upon the subject, and upon the trials she had endured that morning, he remarked that he was sure her friends and the world in general would be great losers were so pleasant and vivacious a lady as herself to remain underground. At which fair Rosamond smiled—she had beautiful teeth, and a smile became her; but she grew somewhat reserved in manner when he insisted upon escorting her along the right subway, and felt decidedly relieved when he courteously left her on the pavement at the “Poultry,” by Mappin and Webb’s.
It was getting on towards eleven o’clock, and Mistress Rosamond, who, beyond a cup of coffee hastily swallowed before she started, had tasted nothing for six hours, began to feel faint, experiencing that distressing sensation which makes one think the ground is about to rise up and strike one, and that hearing and vision are about to fail. She must have something to eat and drink, but where? Dimly she recalled how in the old days a very dear brother, who knew his London well, was fond of expatiating upon the merits of certain reliable places in the City where the inner man could be most satisfactorily refreshed—Birch’s, Sweeting’s, Pimm’s in the “Poultry.” Why, she was actually standing in the “Poultry”! So, following the curt, but respectful, directions of a civic policeman, who must have been at least six feet two inches in his stockings, she, without crossing the road, easily discovered the haven of refuge in question, and being shown up to the ladies’ dining-room, sat down at a table near a window which looked upon busy Cheapside.
Though rather too early in the day for the regular menu, consultation with a grey-headed waiter—who strongly reminded her of some Church dignitary (a dean for choice) in layman’s attire, and who became immensely interested in his client, partly because her blue eyes recalled to him those of a daughter “lost awhile”—resulted, within twenty minutes, in a dainty repast, some scalloped oysters, a “portion” of the choicest Scotch salmon cold, with cucumber, and dainty roll and butter, followed by a cheese soufflé, and—by the “dean’s” advice—neither tea, coffee, nor wine, but a glass, just one glass, of Pimm’s “particular” stout, a beverage our traveller was unaccustomed to, but found an admirable accompaniment to her fish luncheon. The bill was paid with a handsome douceur, which the “dean” condescended to accept; and refreshed, and with renewed determination to carry out her original line of march, Mrs. Rosamond stepped out and walked along Cheapside.
There the shops at once attracted her attention: the jewellers, the hosiers—in one of which latter she bought some neckties and collars for her spouse—the print-sellers, and the London Stereoscopic Company’s seductive window. Here she looked up at the church clock far above her head, and finding the time getting on, and becoming just a little flurried at the discovery, started at once to resume her wanderings. “If you please, constable, can you tell me the nearest way to the Underground Railway?” “Straight as you can go, miss, down the lane, Bow Lane, in front of you, and you will find the station across the road at the bottom.” “Thank you very much,” and, mentally, “What a fine set of fellows the City policemen are! I wonder if they are all married; where do they live, and what are their wages?”
Straight down the narrow lane she went, and at the Cannon Street end asked another policeman the way to the Underground. He pointed to the opposite side of the road, and, stopping the traffic, conveyed her across, and she found herself in the Mansion House Station of the District Railway.
There were no officials to be seen, only the booking-clerks, one of whom, with the professional instinct for turning an honest penny for his employers, instead of advising her to return to the Bank close by, up Victoria Street, promptly recommended her to book by the District Railway to Bishopsgate Street, get across Finsbury Circus to Moorgate Street, and then take the City and South London Tube Railway to the “Angel.”
By this time Mrs. Rosamond had become too tired to discuss the matter, and was disinclined to go back by the way she had come. So she got into a first-class carriage of a Circle train, and, with a sigh of relief, settled down snugly into the far corner.
Whether it was the reaction, or the effect of the glass of stout, was never known, but after passing Cannon Street Mrs. Rosamond began to feel drowsy and dreamy, imagining she was nearing home in the local train, and wondering if her husband had received her telegram, and would come to meet her. She fell asleep, and a lovely picture she made, with lips slightly parted, and her long, curved eyelashes resting, like a child’s, on her soft cheeks. There was revealed just a few inches of well-fitting black silk clocked stockings, neatly-turned ankles, and a charming pair of very small dark tan shoes.
Time sped on, and, with it, the Circle train, past Bishopsgate, Farringdon Street, and King’s Cross, with its maze of metropolitan underground lines; through dismal tunnels, black with smoke; through brick-lined cuttings, foul with sooty deposit; past stations, each one hung, by way of adornment, with the same monotonous, highly-coloured “works of art,” drawing attention to Colman’s Mustard, Reckitt’s Blue, Nestle’s Milk, Bovril, Oxo, Lemco, Globe Polish, Ogden’s Cigarettes, Bird’s Custards, and Stephen’s Inks, and provided with penny-in-the-slot machines, with bookstalls bearing a strong family likeness, and with here and there a refreshment bar, where buns and sandwiches of the Mugby Junction type might be had.