| "And you shall learn how salt his food who fares Upon another's bread; how steep his path, Who treadeth up and down another's stairs." |
D. G. Rossetti.
There are some natures which cannot live with any happiness in drab surroundings. Atmosphere affects everyone more or less; but whereas there are a few fortunate ones who can rise triumphant to a certain contentment through squalor and ugliness, there are a great many more who find even cheerfulness very hard to attain to under like circumstances.
The shut-in dinginess of Digby Street, the gloomy aspect of Shamrock House, cast such a chill across Joan's spirits that, as she stood hesitating with her hand on the bell, the instinct came to her to scramble back into the cab and tell the man to drive her anywhere away from such a neighbourhood. Of course it was absurd, and the cabman did not look as if he would be in the least willing to comply. He had treated her with a supercilious disbelief in there being any tip for him as soon as he had heard of her destination. Joan had gone to Victoria Station to collect her luggage, and it had been both late and dark before the need for a cab had arisen. She had elected not to leave the hospital till after tea; somehow, when it had come near to going, her courage, which she had been bolstering up with hope and promises of what she should do in her new life, had vanished into thin air. Perhaps more than anything else she lacked the physical strength which would have enabled her to look cheerfully into the future. The hospital had been a place of refuge, she hated to leave it.
This feeling grew upon her more and more as she sat back in a corner of the cab while it rumbled along the Vauxhall Bridge Road. There seemed always to be a tram passing, huge giant vehicles that shook the earth and made a great deal of noise in their going. The houses on either side were dingy, singularly unattractive-looking buildings, and the further the cab crawled away from Victoria Street the deeper the shade of poverty and dirt that descended on the surroundings. Digby Street and Shamrock House were the culminating stroke to Joan's depression.
Miss Abercrombie had written recommending it to her as a Girls' Club where she would probably get companionship and advice on the question of work. "You won't like it," she had added, "but it is very conveniently situated and ridiculously cheap." So Joan had described her destination to the cabman as a ladies' club, somewhere in Digby Street. He had answered with a sniff, for it was here that he had lost sight of his tip, that he supposed she meant the Home for Working Girls that lay in those parts. Looking up at the large, red-fronted building, with its countless uncurtained windows, Joan realized that the man's description was probably nearer the truth than her own.
She was to learn later that on this particular occasion she saw Digby Street at its very worst, for it was Saturday night, and barrows of fish, meat and vegetables stood along the pavements, illuminated by flares of light so that all the ugliness was only too apparent. Little children played in and out, under the barrows and along the gutters; a public-house stood at the corner near Shamrock House, and exactly opposite the Salvation Army added its brass band and shrill voices to the general tumult.
Joan's first timid attempt at the bell produced no answer, nor her second. By this time the cabman had dismounted her box and stood staring at her in sullen disapproval, while a couple of very drunk but cheerful costers argued with each other as to whether they ought not to help the young lady to get in. Her third effort was perhaps more violent, for, to her relief, she could see the dim light in the hall being turned up and the door was opened on the chain and very slightly ajar. A couple of bright eyes peered at her through this opening, then, having apparently satisfied their owner that Joan was neither dangerous nor drunk, the door was further opened, and Joan could see into the red-tiled hall and passage with its numbered, white-painted doors.
"What do you want?" asked the lady of the eyes; a small, plump person with grey hair brushed back very straight from an apple-red face.
"I want a room," Joan explained. "I have been recommended to come here. I do hope you have one to spare."