What appeared to be corresponding feminine types were to be seen in profusion. Women with incomes of one hundred, two hundred, three hundred a year, women who had passed the age either of matrimony or naughtiness. What thousands of friendless and lonely people there must be in this great Dingy City! The class that lies on the grass is more sociable; they are free from a thousand tyrannies that oppress the mediocracy.
The face of a woman dressed in black, seated between two children, seemed familiar; not until she bowed did I recognise her as the wife of an old friend who had been killed in Ladysmith. She used to be the prettiest officer's wife of his smart regiment; and from her account it would have been better if she had not been so pretty, or the regiment so smart. She was now left with barely his pension for herself and the two children to live on.... Yet very bravely, apparently, she had faced the change!
"Oh, I have tried various things for the last couple of years," she said, "but I am afraid there is nothing I can do. I even tried the stage for a time." She used to have a good voice. "But the managers were horrid, and the pay was very small. Then I tried to give music lessons; but what I got was hardly worth the distances I had to go; so now I have to settle down to working out daily problems in domestic economy."
"And all your friends?"
"Oh, they all were very nice and kind; but one cannot go about without being properly dressed, and when one keeps refusing invitations, one gradually becomes forgotten in time. I felt rather lonely just now when I saw the people driving down to Hurlingham. Come along, chicks, we must be going now. You see," she said, "it is a long 'bus ride to our little flat."
At the end of the long free seat, beyond where they had been sitting, was a strange, haggard-looking woman; a pair of cheap cotton gloves showed her thin white wrists, and her black dress looked dusty and draggled. She had a strange haunted look on her face, as if she had left some tragedy behind her at home. Every time a carriage with scarlet-liveried coachmen passed, she got up and stood on the seat. Perhaps she had journeyed there to see the Queen. She looked cross and disappointed each time she stepped down again. On the other side a couple of girls were discussing those that passed in the carriages, and speculating as to who they might be. It was interesting to follow their surmises.
"I think that's Lady X.," one of them said, as a lady, driving a pair of high-steppers, passed.
But it wasn't. The little fellow sitting beside her glowed with the importance of proprietorship; but, smart little chap that he was in Throgmorton Street, he had no idea how many understudies there were to his part, and did not realise that there are syndicates outside those of the City.
"What an awfully common-looking woman!" the other said, as an old lady passed in her carriage behind a sleepy pair of horses, sleepily driven, the fat pug dog at her feet suffering eclipse by the jelly-shaking arc of her redundant figure. She happened not to be common by any means, but one of the brightest and most good-natured members of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in England.
"My goodness, isn't that Lord Roberts?" said the other, as a pair of chestnuts passed, with a rigid and angular lady in the carriage sitting beside a red-faced, white-moustached little man with his nose in the air.