‘Then you’re a very silly little girl,’ said the lady, even more severely than before. ‘Green Ginger Land is a dreadful street, and you certainly mustn’t think of going there’; and with that she went on her way.
For a moment Emmeline felt shaken in her purpose, but when the stranger’s straight back had disappeared round the corner, she plucked up courage. It was dreadful to think of going to Green Ginger Land after what she had been told, but it was still more dreadful that Micky should be there partly through her fault; so Emmeline resolved to make another effort to find the way.
This time it was a ragged little girl whom she asked. ‘Green Ginger Land? Just you turn by that there public-house at the corner. Then it’s the second on the right and the first on the left,’ said the child glibly, as she gave Emmeline a cool stare of curiosity.
Five minutes more brought her to Green Ginger Land itself. It was certainly an unattractive place, but at first sight she was surprised not to find it more terrible. To be sure, it was dirtier and more smelly than any street to which Emmeline was used, and there were swarms of squalid children everywhere, and yet more squalid women who stood at their doors gossiping with arms akimbo; but still, she could not see that there was anything of which a policeman or even a little girl need feel afraid.
Her relief did not last very long. The women left off gossiping with one another and turned to stare after her, making remarks which she could not quite catch, but the general tone of which sounded unpleasant. Some of the children ceased their play and began to follow her, calling out, ‘My! Aren’t we a bloomin’ swell!’ and other sarcastic witticisms of the same order. Emmeline grew frightened again, and resolved to get her business over as quickly as might be.
‘Can you tell me where a Mrs. Grimes lives?’ she inquired timidly of a woman who looked a degree more respectable than most of the others.
The woman gave her a rude stare. ‘I’m sure I can’t say, my lady,’ she answered, with a mincing imitation of Emmeline’s tones which produced a loud and disagreeable laugh. ‘May I make so bold as to ask if you’re a friend of hers?’
‘No,’ said Emmeline, flushing hotly, ‘but I believe my little brother’s at her house, and I want to fetch him home.’
‘Oh, indeed! Well, I believe she resides somewhere down Paradise Court, just across the road there, but I can’t say as to the number, and I wouldn’t go there if I was you. Mrs. Grimes is a lady that don’t always like company.’ Again there was a roar of rude laughter from the people standing round.
Emmeline looked across the road to where the woman had pointed, and saw that what at a casual glance she had taken for a doorway was really an opening leading down steps into a long narrow court. Seen from where she stood, it did not look at all a nice place, but Emmeline screwed up her courage, and, crossing the road without another word, went cautiously down the dirty, broken steps into Paradise Court, still followed by her mob of jeering children.