Our House and London out of Our Windows

by Elizabeth Robins Pennell

I did not know what to do. I was new in the neighbourhood, and my acquaintance with doctors anywhere is slight. But I could not turn her into the street, I could not even leave her under my own roof all night, like that. Something had to be done, and I ran downstairs to consult the old Housekeeper, who, after her half century in the Quarter, might be expected to know how to meet any emergency.

More horrors awaited me in her room,—like Macbeth, I was supping full with horrors,—for she had another story to tell, and, as I listened, the ghastly face upstairs, with the gaping red wound, became a mere item in an orgy more appropriate to the annals of the Rougon-Macquarts than, I devoutly trust, to ours. I cannot tell the story as the Housekeeper told it. She had a trick of going into hysterics at moments of excitement, and as in all the years she had been in charge she had never seen such goings on, it followed that in all those years, she had never been so hysterical. She gasped and sobbed out her tale of horrors, and, all the while, her daughter, who was in the profession, sat apart, and, in the exasperating fashion of the chorus of a Greek play, kept up a running commentary emphasizing the points too emphatic to need emphasis.

To tell the story in my own way: I was hardly out of the house when 'Enrietter had a visit from a "gentleman,"—that was the Housekeeper's description of him, and, as things go in England, he was a gentleman, which makes my story the more sordid. How 'Enrietter had sent him word the coast was clear I do not pretend to say, though I believe the London milkman has a reputation as the Cupid's Postman of the kitchen, and I recalled afterwards two or three notes 'Enrietter had received from her sister by district messenger,—the same sister, no doubt, who gave her the drop of brandy. Towards noon 'Enrietter and her gentleman were seen to come downstairs and go out together. Where they went, what they did during the three hours of their absence, no one knew,—no one will ever know. Sometimes, in looking back, the greatest horrors to me are the unknown chapters in the story of that day's doings. They were seen to return, about three, in a hansom. The gentleman got out, unsteadily. 'Enrietter followed and collapsed in a little heap on the pavement. He lifted her, and staggered with her in by the door and up the three long flights of stairs to our chambers.

And then—I confess, at this point even now my anger gets the better of me. Every key for my front door was in my pocket,—women were still allowed pockets in those days. There was no possible way in which they could have got in again, had not that gentleman climbed the ladder up which I had watched the British Workman not so many days before, and, technically, broken into my place, and then come down the little stairway and let 'Enrietter in. A burglar would have seemed clean and honest compared to the gentleman housebreaking on such an errand. My front door was heard to bang upon them both, and I wish to Heaven it had been the last sound heard from our chambers that day. For a time all was still. Then, of a sudden, piercing screams rang through the house and out through the open windows into the scandalized Quarter. There was a noise of heavy things falling or thrown violently down, curses filled the air; as the Housekeeper told it to me, it was like something out of Morrison's "Mean Streets" or the "Police-Court Gazette," and the dreadful part of it was that, no doubt, I was being held responsible for it! At last, loud above everything else, came blood-curdling cries of "Murder! Murder! Help! Murder!" There was not a window of the many over-looking my back rooms that was not filled with terrified neighbours. The lady in the chambers on the floor below mine set up a cry of her own for the police. The clerks from the Church League and from the Architect's office were gathered on the stairs. A nice reputation I must be getting in the house before my first month in it was up!

The Housekeeper, with a new attack of hysterics, protested that she had not dared to interfere, though she had a key, nor could she give it to a policeman without my authority—she knew her duty. The Greek Chorus repeated, without hysterics but with careful elocution, that the Housekeeper could not go in nor fetch the police without my authority—she knew her duty. And so, the deeds that were done within my four walls on that beautiful June afternoon must remain a mystery. The only record is the mark 'Enrietter will carry on her forehead with her to the grave.

The noise gradually ceased. The neighbours, one by one, left the windows, the lady below disappeared into her flat. The clerks went back to work. And the Housekeeper crept into her rooms for the cup of tea that saves every situation for the Englishwoman. She had not finished when there came a knock at the door. She opened it, and there stood a gentleman—the gentleman—anyone could see he was a gentleman by his hat—and he told her his story: the third version of the affair. He was a medical student, he said. He happened to be passing along the Strand when, just in front of Charing Cross, a cab knocked over a young lady. She was badly hurt, but, as a medical student, he knew what to do. He put her into another cab and brought her home; he saw to her injuries; but now he could stay no longer. She seemed to be quite alone up there. Her condition was serious; she should not be left alone. And he lifted his hat and was gone. But the Housekeeper daren't intrude, even then; she knew her place and her duty. She knew her place and her duty, the Greek Chorus echoed, and the end of her story brought me to just where I was at the beginning. Upon one point the gentleman was right, and that was the condition of the "young lady" as long as that great wide gash still gaped open. The Housekeeper, practical for all her hysterics, sobbed out "The Hospital." "The Hospital!" echoed the Greek Chorus, and I mounted the three flights of stairs for 'Enrietter.

I tied up her head. I made her exchange the shameless pink dressing-gown for her usual clothes. I helped her on with her hat, though I thought she would faint before she was dressed. I led her down the three flights of stairs into the street, across the Strand, to the hospital. By this time it was well past eleven.

So far I hadn't had a chance to think of appearances. But one glance from the night-surgeon at the hospital, and it was hard to think of anything else. He did not say a word more than the case demanded, but his behaviour to me was abominable all the same. And I cannot blame him. There was I, decently dressed I hope, for I had put on my very best for Cambridge, in charge of a young woman dressed anyhow and with a broken head. It was getting on toward midnight. The Strand was a stone's throw away. Still, in his place, I hope I should have been less brutal.

As for 'Enrietter, she had plenty of pluck, if she had no morals. She bore the grisly business of having her head sewn up with the nerve of a martyr. She never flinched, she never moaned; she was heroic. When it was over, the night-surgeon told her—he never addressed himself to me if he could help it—that it was a nasty cut and must be seen to again the next day. The right eye had escaped by miracle, it might yet be affected. What was most important at this stage was perfect quiet, perfect repose. It was essential that she should sleep,—she must take something to make her sleep. When I asked him meekly to give me an opiate for her, he answered curtly that that was not his affair. There was a chemist close by, I could get opium pills there, and he turned on his heel.

I took 'Enrietter home. I saw her up the three long flights of stairs to our chambers, the one little stairway to her bedroom, and into her bed. I walked down the little stairway and the three long flights. I went out into the night. I hurried to the chemist's. It was past midnight, an hour when decent women are not expected to wander alone in the Strand, and now I was conscious that things might look queer to others. I skulked in the darkest shadows like a criminal. I bought the pills. I came home. For the fourth time I toiled up the three long flights of stairs and the one little stairway. I gave 'Enrietter her pills. I put out her light. I shut her in her room.