She shook out the long strands and held one up to the light. “Oh, Gawd!” she cried, with mounting fervor. “No wonder them trollops wanted to mar you. They were jealous, that’s wot. They’d ’ave cut it off if the perlice ’adn’t come along, and pinned it on their own ’eads. And beauties they’d ’ave been!”
“Do you suppose they were drunk?”
“ ’Alf and ’alf. It wasn’t time to be full up, but you oughter see them in the market-place at ten o’clock!”
“What makes them so brutal, then? I’ve never seen anything like them in England.”
“Oh, I fawncy they’re about the worst England’s got. Maybe it’s the cigarette factories does it, I cawn’t say. But they’re a rotten lot, and all me sisters was the same. I ’ad a blond sister, but her hair was more whitish, not gold like yours. She was pretty and more gentle-like, but she went to the bad fast enough. I swore I’d keep me virtue an’ I did. I never spoke to a man I wasn’t introduced to proper until the night I met Jim in the merry-go-round—in the same seat, he was, and he made up to me—fell that in love he couldn’t see straight, and when he tried ’is nonsense, he got wot for and then he respected me from that day forth—I’ve read me penny dreadfuls, you see. Well, we got married proper, and now we ’ave two good positions, and may own a public some day. It pays to be virtuous, it do. He isn’t the only sweetheart I ever ’ad, either,” she rambled on; and Julia, seeing that nothing would quench her, resigned herself, for the woman’s touch was deft and light. “I ’ad a fine ’andsome sweetheart once—Jim ain’t nothing to look at, and would drink if I didn’t caterwaul so—’andsome and upstanding he was, and all the girls was after him; and he was steady, too, had one job and kep’ it. He was in a big Manchester draper’s shop. He used to come ’ere, and I used to visit me aunt—he was me cousin and ’is name was Harry Muggs. He was in love with me that desperate he’d swear he’d kill himself if I didn’t ’ave ’im. He knew I’d kep’ me virtue, and he thought me grand. Once he was down ’ere after me ’ard, and we took a walk and come to a pond, and when I told ’im once more I wouldn’t ’ave ’im, and started to go ’ome, I was that tired saying no, he caught me round me waist and ’eld me over the pond and swore he’d drop me in if I didn’t ’ave ’im. I was that frightened I thought I’d die, and I screamed like I was stuck. But I wouldn’t give in, and then he threw me on the bank and run off and I’ve never seen ’im since.”
“Why didn’t you marry him, if he was such a paragon?” asked Julia, languidly.
“Oh, I couldn’t, mum. He was a chance child. Me aunt ’ad ’im by a butler where she lived. I ’adn’t kep’ me virtue for that—wot’s the matter —”
Julia was doubled up.
“Oh—nothing—really—I think I must be a bit hysterical after my experience. Would you mind telling me what the weather looks like? It was rather threatening when I came in.”
The woman went to the window and lifted the sash curtain. “It damps, mizzles like,” she said dubiously. “But I don’t fawncy it’ll rain ’ard. ’Ere comes your friend. She was ready to drop last night. My, but she’s that stringy to look at.”