The Devil's Garden

by W. B. Maxwell

But Mr. Barradine went home that Saturday. Between ten and eleven in the morning the brougham stood at the door, a four-wheeled cab was fetched and loaded with luggage, and the two vehicles drove off round the corner southward on their way to Waterloo. And Dale felt his spirits lightening and a fierce gaiety filling his breast. The time of inaction was nearly over; this hateful sitting down under one's wrongs would not last long now; soon he would be doing something. He took quite a pleasant walk through Chelsea, and over the river to Lambeth, where, after a snack of lunch, he read the newspapers in a Public Library. The Library was a quiet, convenient resort; and yesterday he had written a letter there, to Mr. Ridgett at Rodchurch Post Office—not because he really had anything to communicate, but because it seemed necessary, or at least wise, to send off a letter from London.

He enjoyed a good night's rest, and lay in bed till late on Sunday afternoon. He intended to travel by the mail train—the train that left Waterloo at ten-fifteen, and went through the night dropping post-bags all the way down the line; and it was extremely improbable that he would meet any Rodchurch friends in this train, but he understood that the dangerous part of his proceedings would begin when he got to Waterloo, and he was a little worried, even muddled, as to how and where to change his clothes—or rather to put on that canvas suit over his ordinary clothes. If he made the change here, and any one saw him going out, it might seem a bit odd.

But then his confusion of ideas passed off, and all became clear. He must change at the last possible moment, of course; and he thought, "Why am I so muddled about such simple things? I must pull myself together. Of course I don't mind being seen in London; it is down there that I don't wish to be seen. Anybody is welcome to see me till I'm started, an' perhaps the more people that see me the better."

He therefore shaved, and dressed neatly and carefully; packed his valise with the bowler hat in it, turned up the brim of the common slouch hat and wore it jauntily. The overalls were rolled in an unobtrusive brown-paper parcel to be carried under the arm; and, having paid for his bedroom, he went out at about eight o'clock, walking boldly through the streets—just as Mr. Dale of Rodchurch, dressed in blue serge and not in his best black coat—Mr. Dale dressed for the holidays, with a rakish go-as-you-please soft hat instead of the ceremonious hard-brimmed bowler, and not too proud to carry his bag and parcel for himself.

All straightforward now. It would be still Mr. Dale at Waterloo, depositing the bag at the cloak-room, buying a ticket, and getting into the train with his brown-paper parcel. Only Mr. Dale would get lost on the journey, and a queer shabby customer would emerge at the other end.

But he allowed himself to modify the plan slightly. It was necessary that he should have a good meal and also procure food to take with him, and for these purposes he went to an eating-house in the York Road. This turned out to be just the place he required—a room with tables where diners could sit as long as they chose, a counter spread out with edibles to be absorbed standing, and the company consisting of cabmen from the station ranks, some railway porters, and a few humble travelers.

He ordered a large beef-steak; and he ate like a boa-constrictor, thinking the while: "This ought to stick to my ribs. I can't put away too much now, because it may come to short commons if the luck's against me." Then after the meal there came a temptation to hurry up his program, and get through some of the little difficulties at once. He observed his surroundings. The place was fuller now than when he came in; the atmosphere was thick with tobacco smoke and the steam of hot food; the kitchen was at its busiest; and at the counter the stupid-looking girl in charge was handing over refreshments so fast that it seemed as if soon there would be none left.

He paid a waitress for his supper, and then went into the dark little lavatory behind the room and put on his canvas suit. Coming out into the room again, he intended to say something about having slipped on his overalls for a night job; but nothing of the kind was necessary. Nobody cared, nobody noticed. His difficulty was to make the counter girl attend to him at all. He spoke to her bruskly at last; and then she sold him slices of cold meat, cheese, biscuits, a lot of chocolate and some nuts, with which he filled those two inner pockets of his jacket. They had become his larders now.

There were not more than a dozen passengers in the whole train, and no one on the platform at Waterloo took the faintest notice of him.

No one noticed him three hours later when he left the train at a station short of Manninglea Cross; and soon he was far from other men, striking across the dark country, with the stars high over his head, and his native air blowing into his lungs. He came down over the heath on the Abbey side of the Cross Roads, and reached Hadleigh Wood just before dawn.