People Like That: A Novel

by Kate Langley Bosher

Mrs. Mundy had known her before she came to Scarborough Square. In a ward of one of the city's hospitals, where her baby was born, she had found her alone, deserted, and waiting her time. Two days after its birth the baby died.

When she left the hospital there was nowhere for her to go. She had lived in a city but a short time and knew little of its life, and yet she must work. Mrs. Mundy got a room for her, then a place in a store, and she did well, kept to herself, but somebody who knew her story saw her, told the proprietor, and he turned her off. He couldn't keep girls like that, he said. It would injure his business. Later, she got in an office. She had learned at night to do typewriting, and there one of the men was kind to her, began to give her a little pleasure every now and then. She was young. It was dreary where she lived, and she craved a bit of brightness. One night he took her to what she found was—oh, worse than where she has since lived, for it pretended to be respectable.

"She was terribly afraid of men. It wasn't put on; it was real. I know pretense when I see it." Mrs. Mundy, who was telling me of the girl, changed her position and fixed the screen so that the flames from the fire should not burn her face. "Ever since the father of the child had deserted her, she had believed all men were wicked, but this man had been so friendly, so kindly, she thought he was different from the others. When she found where she was, she was crazy with fear and anger, and made a scene before she left. The next morning when she went to work she was told her services were no longer needed, and told in a way that made her understand she was not fit to work in the room with other girls. The man who had charge of the room was the man she had thought a friend. He's got his job still."

The ticking of the clock on the mantel alone broke the stillness of the room as Mrs. Mundy stopped. I tried to say something, but words would not come.

"For years I've heard the stories of these poor creatures." Mrs. Mundy's even tones steadied somewhat the protesting tumult in my heart. "For years I've known the awful side of the lives they lead. I didn't have money or learning or influence, or the chance to make good people understand, even if they'd been willing to hear, what I could tell, but I could help one of them every now and then. There 're few of them who start out deliberate to live wrong. When they take it up regular it's 'most always because they're like dogs at bay. There's nothing else to do."

"What became of Lillie when she lost her place?" I got up from the sofa and came closer to the fire. My teeth were chattering.

"She lost her soul. She went in a factory, but the air made her sick, and after three faints they turned her off. It interrupted the work and made the girls lose time running to her, and so she had to go. After a while—I was away at the time—the woman she lived with turned her out. She owed room rent, a good deal of it, and she needed food and clothes, and there was no money with which to buy them. It got her crazy, the thought that because she had done wrong she was but a rag to be kicked from place to place with only the gutter to land in at last, and—well, she landed. But she isn't all bad. I used to feel about girls like her just as most good people still feel, but I've come to see there's many of them who are more sinned against than sinning. The men who make and keep them what they are go free and are let alone."

"Couldn't she have gone home? You said she was from the country.
Wouldn't they let her come back home?"

Mrs. Mundy shook her head. "Her own mother was dead and her stepmother wouldn't let her come. She had young children of her own. Last month she tried to end it all. She won't be here much longer. The doctor says she'll hardly live six months. If we can get her in the City Home—"

"The City Home!" The memory of what I had seen there came over me protestingly. The girl had lived in hell. She need not die in it. "Perhaps she can be sent somewhere in the country," I said, after a while. "Mr. Guard might know of some one who will take her. Certainly she can stay here until—until he knows what is best to do."