It was a changed London to which Herminia returned. She was

homeless, penniless, friendless. Above all she was declassee.

The world that had known her now knew her no more. Women who had

smothered her with their Judas kisses passed her by in their

victorias with a stony stare. Even men pretended to be looking the

other way, or crossed the street to avoid the necessity for

recognizing her. "So awkward to be mixed up with such a scandal!"

She hardly knew as yet herself how much her world was changed

indeed; for had she not come back to it, the mother of an

illegitimate daughter? But she began to suspect it the very first

day when she arrived at Charing Cross, clad in a plain black dress,

with her baby at her bosom. Her first task was to find rooms; her

next to find a livelihood. Even the first involved no small

relapse from the purity of her principles. After long hours of

vain hunting, she found at last she could only get lodgings for

herself and Alan's child by telling a virtual lie, against which

her soul revolted. She was forced to describe herself as Mrs.

Barton; she must allow her landlady to suppose she was really a

widow. Woe unto you, scribes and hypocrites! in all Christian

London MISS Barton and her baby could never have found a

"respectable" room in which to lay their heads. So she yielded to

the inevitable, and took two tiny attics in a small street off the

Edgware Road at a moderate rental. To live alone in a cottage as

of yore would have been impossible now she had a baby of her own to

tend, besides earning her livelihood; she fell back regretfully on

the lesser evil of lodgings.

To earn her livelihood was a hard task, though Herminia's

indomitable energy rode down all obstacles. Teaching, of course,

was now quite out of the question; no English parent could intrust

the education of his daughters to the hands of a woman who has

dared and suffered much, for conscience' sake, in the cause of

freedom for herself and her sisters. But even before Herminia

went away to Perugia, she had acquired some small journalistic

connection; and now, in her hour of need, she found not a few of

the journalistic leaders by no means unwilling to sympathize and

fraternize with her. To be sure, they didn't ask the free woman to

their homes, nor invite her to meet their own women:--even an

enlightened journalist must draw a line somewhere in the matter of

society; but they understood and appreciated the sincerity of her

motives, and did what they could to find employment and salary for

her. Herminia was an honest and conscientious worker; she knew

much about many things; and nature had gifted her with the

instinctive power of writing clearly and unaffectedly the English

language. So she got on with editors. Who could resist, indeed,

the pathetic charm of that girlish figure, simply clad in

unobtrusive black, and sanctified in every feature of the shrinking

face by the beauty of sorrow? Not the men who stand at the head of

the one English profession which more than all others has escaped

the leprous taint of that national moral blight that calls itself

"respectability."




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024