Charlotte accordingly separated from Frank, with a promise to write to him if any thing should go wrong; but with an understanding, on the other hand, that her silence was to be construed by him into a proof that all was progressing favourably to his views.
CHAPTER XXVII.
LONDON ON A RAINY EVENING.—A SCENE IN A
POST-CHAISE.
London has a strange appearance on those evenings—so peculiar to our climate—when a cold, drizzling, mist-like rain is falling. The lustre of the gaslights in the shops is seen dimly, as if through a gauze; and the lamps in the streets have an air as though they struggled to preserve themselves from total extinction. Clogs and pattens create a confused rattling on the pavement; and to a bird's-eye view, such crowded thoroughfares as Cheapside, Fleet Street, the Strand, and Holborn, must appear to have their trottoirs arched with umbrellas.
Then aristocracy seems to urge the horses of its carriage more quickly on, as it whisks to the club, the Parliament, or the dinner-party:—the member of the middle class buttons his taglioni or his great-coat over his chest;—the individual of a humbler sphere tries to make his scanty tweed cover as much of his person as it will;—and poverty wraps its rags around its shaking limbs, apparently forgetful that in drawing them over one place they leave another bare.
In the entrances of courts and covered alleys and in deep doorways the "daughters of pleasure" (oh! the frightful misnomer!) collect and huddle together in their flaunting attire, the pattering of the rain rendering their poor thin shoes as pulpy as brown paper, and splashing over their stockings—and thus aiding ardent spirits and nights of dissipation to plant the seeds of consumption more deeply in their constitutions.
The drivers of cabs and omnibuses thrust their heads as far into their hats—or else push their hats as far down on their heads—as possible; and, shrugging up their shoulders, sit with rounded backs and faces bent downward, on their vehicles;—while the conductors or omnibus-cads, in their oil-skin coats, seem to find consolation for the unpleasantness of the weather in the fact that they can speedily fill their vehicles without the usual exercise of the lungs or gymnastic movements of the arm.
And, on a rainy evening such as we are attempting to describe, what business—what bustle prevail in front of the Angel Inn at Islington! Omnibus after omnibus comes up, from every direction, discharging and receiving their animated freight with wonderful rapidity. The red-nosed man at the booking-office seems to have something better to do than merely lounge at the threshold, with his right shoulder leaning against the door-post off which it has worn the paint in one particular spot: for inquiries now multiply thickly upon him. Indeed, we are afraid that that last share of "a quartern and two outs" which he took with the Elephant and Castle six o'clock cad, has somewhat obfuscated his ideas: for he thrusts an elderly lady with a bandbox into a Chelsea, although she particularly requested to be placed in a Bank omnibus; and he has sent that tall lady with her three children and a baby over to Kennington, in spite of her thrice repeated anxiety to repair to Sloane Square.
What a paddling and stamping of feet, and pattering of clogs, and collision of umbrellas there are in every direction,—up the New Road, and down the City Road,—along St. John Street and Goswell Street Road,—and also up towards the Green! The most addle-pated writer may find some food for his pen, if he only take his stand at the Angel door—with a cigar in his mouth, too, if he like—on a rainy evening.
Does he wish to see how a party of pleasure may be spoiled by a change in the weather? Let him study that little procession of a family who have passed the day at Copenhagen House, and are now returning home, wet—cold—uncomfortable—and sulky: the husband dragging the chaise, in which two children are squalling—a lubberly boy of eight or nine pushing behind—and the wife, with a baby on one arm, and holding up her gown with the left hand, paddling miserably through the rain, and venting her ill-humour on her husband by declaring that "it was all his fault—she knew how it would be—she had begged and prayed of him to come home an hour before—but he would stay to have that other glass of gin-and-water!"
If our moralist, whom we station at the door of the Angel, be an admirer of pretty feet and ankles, he may now gratify his taste in that respect; for, of a surety, those who have good ones raise their dresses above the swell of the leg. Ah! ladies—it is really too bad of you:—we almost suspect that you care little for the rain, since it enables you to display those attractions!