When she awoke, the sun was shining, and she suddenly determined to spend her holiday in town. With this resolve, she hurried over breakfast, and by half-past ten, was on the top of an omnibus, riding towards the West End. The air was warm and balmy as spring, and the sunshine filled her with joy. Her spirits rose, as the omnibus turned into less dreary roads, and Oxford Street was at last reached. Everything amused and interested her,—the crowded pavements, the hurried glimpses of shops, the hoardings with flaring posters, the chaff of the cab-drivers and bus conductors.
“Wot yer witin’ for, Jim?” called the driver to a friend, who, though his bus was full, continued to sit stolidly, reins in hand. “Got yer number, ain’t yer? Want one on the whip, I s’pose!”
Bridget laughed aloud, and the driver turned round to her with a grin of delight. They passed a small ragged boy presently, sitting on the edge of the pavement. He turned an impudent little face up towards the man, who bent down, and struck at him playfully with his whip. The child sprang up with a whoop of mingled excitement and terror, the huge shoe he wore slipping off his dirty little foot as he moved.
“Frightened ’is boot off!” exclaimed the jubilant driver with a chuckle, and a glance over his shoulder at his appreciative listener.
Bridget got down at the Circus, and wandered along Regent Street, stopping to gaze at nearly every shop. Liberty’s window was in the key of blue. She stood a long time before it, entranced, her eyes wandering from one delicious dreamy shade to another.
The flower-shop she came to soon, was another ecstasy of color. In imagination she touched the leaves of the heavy pink roses caressingly, and smelt the purple violets. Feathery chrysanthemums—tawny, pink, and white—made a bower of delight, like the entrance to an enchanted garden, leading oddly enough out of the bustling street.
She lunched frugally, at an ærated bread shop, off a scone and a cup of coffee; and then, because she was tired with walking, took another omnibus towards the city.
The roar of the Strand fell pleasantly on her ears, and filled her with an indefinable excitement. It was wonderful to be in the midst of all this teeming life. London was no longer the cruel, heartless, indifferent city it had seemed last night. It was alive, full of human pulsation; she was part of its life—in the heart of things.
From Ludgate Hill she walked past St. Paul’s, where, before the railed-in churchyard, she stopped a moment to watch the children playing amongst heaps of yellowing leaves. She noticed a flash of white wings against the sky, as the pigeons wheeled overhead, then settled, some on the path, some on the grass under the trees, close to the feet of the children. The little green oasis in the heart of the city gave her a thrill of pleasure. She walked on, and turned into Cheapside, threading her way along the crowded pavement. The many faces, the roar of the streets, the jostling crowd, bewildered her, but it was long before she felt that she was tired. Then, at last, she slowly retraced her steps, till she once more reached St. Paul’s churchyard. It was striking a quarter to four as she passed the great door of the cathedral. A few people were going up the steps and entering the building. Bridget followed them into the gloom of the church. She walked wearily up the nave, and sank with a sigh into one of the lines of chairs placed under the dome. The clear amber gleam from the long rows of lamps in the choir, mingled strangely with the dying fire of the sunset streaming in through the west windows. The chancel, thus lighted, had the effect of a great white flower mystically illumined by an inner radiance of its own. Bridget lay back in her chair, too tired to think, dreamily conscious of its beauty. The white-robed choristers entered presently, and she sat still with closed eyes listening to their thrilling voices. There was a sweet-faced hospital nurse beside her. Bridget noticed the ebony cross on her breast, and supposed she was High Church. She watched her serious, rapt face during the lessons with a sudden pang of envy.