as soon as dinner was over emmeline set out for chudstone, for it was from there that she meant to start on her expedition in search of micky.
kitty went with her as far as the station. she had pleaded to be allowed to do so, and emmeline consented the more readily because she was glad just then to have other company than that of her own thoughts. the servants saw the two girls leaving the house together, but took it for granted that they were merely going to play in the wood, so no awkward questions were asked.
all the way to chudstone emmeline laughed and chattered eagerly. she was trying hard to pretend to herself that she was doing a right and matter-of-course thing in setting off to eastwich to find her little brother, without saying a word to any of the elders; but, if she had really thought so at the bottom of her heart, she would not have gone out of her way to take the train at chudstone.
‘i don’t quite know what time the 2.10 gets to chudstone,’ she had remarked to kitty, ‘but as it must be a few minutes later than the time it leaves woodsleigh, it must be all right if i count it 2.10, just as usual.’ the wednesday 2.10 was well known to emmeline, for it was the special train run for the weekly half-day excursion to eastwich, and aunt grace had sometimes travelled by it.
‘i do wish i was big, too, and could come with you, emmeline!’ said kitty, as she waited on chudstone platform, while emmeline leaned out of a carriage-window for those final words of parting, which are so necessary to all railway-travellers, and so inconvenient to the other people already established in the compartment. ‘it will be horribly dull all alone.’
‘you will have punch, you know,’ emmeline reminded her—punch had not been brought with them, because his nervousness at railway-stations was apt to show itself in ways which made his friends nervous in their turn—‘and if you feel lonely without me, you’ll just have to think that i’m gone to fetch micky home.’
the next moment the train was in motion, and emmeline was sinking back into her seat with the echo of her own words ringing in her ears. how grand and grown-up it sounded to be going into eastwich to fetch somebody home! she[188] could not help glancing at her travelling companions—an elderly farmer’s wife, with a portly figure and a profusion of jet ornaments, and a flashy young woman who might be her daughter—to see whether they were duly impressed. but they seemed so much more interested in one another than in emmeline, that a dreary sense of insignificance stole over her, and she began to find it harder and harder to think of herself as an important elder sister, instead of a lonely little girl doing what most people would consider a very naughty thing.
half an hour’s journey in the train brought her to eastwich station, where she alighted, feeling strange and bewildered, and not quite sure what to do next. a harassed porter jostled her with an impatient ‘if you please!’ an agitated old lady, whose luggage appeared to have somehow misbehaved, begged her to ‘get out of my way, little girl.’ emmeline remembered the last time she had been on that platform, when she had been going to see mary. for one moment she felt half inclined to go to mary now, and pour out the story of all the troubles and mistakes and naughtinesses of the last two days to her old nurse. but then mary would be so very much surprised and disappointed in emmeline. no, she could not go there while micky was still lost in green ginger land. perhaps they would go to mary[189] when once she had brought him safe out of the clutches of that dreadful mother grimes. it would be so much easier to set things in a fair light then.
well, she supposed the first thing to do would be to ask her way to green ginger land. she made the inquiry of a chance porter. ‘i’m sure i don’t know, miss. ask a policeman,’ was his hurried and indifferent answer as he trundled away a great barrowful of trunks and boxes.
policemen seemed scarce in eastwich that day, and emmeline had wandered some little way out of the station before she came across one.
‘green ginger land!’ he repeated, looking at her oddly. ‘that’s not a fit place for a little lady like you to go all alone.’
‘i know—i mean i can’t help it,’ said emmeline. ‘but oh, do tell me where it is!’
he gave her the direction, which was a difficult one, involving a formidable number of firsts to right and thirds to the left, and then repeated his warning. ‘but it really aren’t fit for the likes of you to go there alone by yourself. i’d go with you, only it’s out of my beat.’
‘thank you; you are very kind,’ and emmeline hurried on for fear of further remonstrance.
ten minutes’ walking brought her into a part of eastwich which was so strange to her and such a network of squalid streets that she soon grew[190] confused. no other policeman came in sight, and she began to feel worried as to what she should do. she had always been warned against speaking to strangers except those in uniform; and yet she dared not go any further without asking her way, for fear of losing herself.
great was her relief when she saw a lady coming towards her who looked as though she might be a clergyman’s wife or a district visitor. her appearance was so severely respectable that the rule of not speaking to strangers could not apply in this case; so emmeline went up to the lady and asked timidly the way to green ginger land.
‘green ginger land?’ said the stranger, eyeing her severely. ‘you are surely not thinking of going there?’
‘i—i was thinking of going there,’ stammered emmeline, confused and ashamed.
‘well, it’s most unsuitable,’ said the stranger. ‘green ginger land is not at all a nice street for a little girl like you to go to. why, even policemen don’t walk there alone after dark! whatever makes you think of going there?’
now, the sensible thing for emmeline to have done would have been to tell the simple truth, and to say that she was going to look for her little brother, but somehow the severe stranger’s manner, together with what she said about[191] green ginger land being a dangerous place even for policemen, frightened her out of all presence of mind. at the moment emmeline only felt in a confused way how very angry and shocked the lady would be if she guessed the truth, and it did not strike her until afterwards that in itself there was nothing in her little brother’s being in green ginger land which implied that it was her fault.
‘i-i thought i’d like to,’ she faltered, turning very red.
‘then you’re a very silly little girl,’ said the lady, even more severely than before. ‘green ginger land is a dreadful street, and you certainly mustn’t think of going there’; and with that she went on her way.
for a moment emmeline felt shaken in her purpose, but when the stranger’s straight back had disappeared round the corner, she plucked up courage. it was dreadful to think of going to green ginger land after what she had been told, but it was still more dreadful that micky should be there partly through her fault; so emmeline resolved to make another effort to find the way.
this time it was a ragged little girl whom she asked. ‘green ginger land? just you turn by that there public-house at the corner. then it’s the second on the right and the first on the left,’[192] said the child glibly, as she gave emmeline a cool stare of curiosity.
five minutes more brought her to green ginger land itself. it was certainly an unattractive place, but at first sight she was surprised not to find it more terrible. to be sure, it was dirtier and more smelly than any street to which emmeline was used, and there were swarms of squalid children everywhere, and yet more squalid women who stood at their doors gossiping with arms akimbo; but still, she could not see that there was anything of which a policeman or even a little girl need feel afraid.
her relief did not last very long. the women left off gossiping with one another and turned to stare after her, making remarks which she could not quite catch, but the general tone of which sounded unpleasant. some of the children ceased their play and began to follow her, calling out, ‘my! aren’t we a bloomin’ swell!’ and other sarcastic witticisms of the same order. emmeline grew frightened again, and resolved to get her business over as quickly as might be.
‘can you tell me where a mrs. grimes lives?’ she inquired timidly of a woman who looked a degree more respectable than most of the others.
the woman gave her a rude stare. ‘i’m sure i can’t say, my lady,’ she answered, with a mincing imitation of emmeline’s tones which[193] produced a loud and disagreeable laugh. ‘may i make so bold as to ask if you’re a friend of hers?’
‘no,’ said emmeline, flushing hotly, ‘but i believe my little brother’s at her house, and i want to fetch him home.’
‘oh, indeed! well, i believe she resides somewhere down paradise court, just across the road there, but i can’t say as to the number, and i wouldn’t go there if i was you. mrs. grimes is a lady that don’t always like company.’ again there was a roar of rude laughter from the people standing round.
emmeline looked across the road to where the woman had pointed, and saw that what at a casual glance she had taken for a doorway was really an opening leading down steps into a long narrow court. seen from where she stood, it did not look at all a nice place, but emmeline screwed up her courage, and, crossing the road without another word, went cautiously down the dirty, broken steps into paradise court, still followed by her mob of jeering children.
if green ginger land itself was smelly, paradise court in its dark narrowness was so foul that emmeline might have covered her nose if she had not been too intent on avoiding the filthy, half-naked babies who were sprawling about everywhere to pay much heed to anything[194] else. what she did notice, however, was that evil-looking men and lads were appearing at several of the doors.
suddenly a stone came whizzing through the air from behind, almost, though not quite, hitting her. a great shout of cruel laughter burst from the mob of children—laughter in which more than one hoarse man’s voice joined.
‘o, god, help me to be brave! help me not to run away!’ prayed emmeline in desperate terror.
another stone flew past her, and the shouts became louder. hardly knowing what she did, she made blindly for a door, and thumped at it madly. after what seemed like an eternity, though it was really only a second or two, a woman’s face was poked out.
‘oh, please,’ said emmeline, ‘is this where mrs. grimes lives?’
‘no, it ain’t,’ said the woman sharply, and before emmeline could get out anything more she slammed the door in her face.
emmeline felt as though she were living through some horrible nightmare. in front of her was the closed door; behind her the jeering crowd of children seemed to her terrified senses to be a howling, murderous mob.
another cruel stone which only just missed made her cower with her head between her[195] hands. ‘oh, help me not to run away!’ she prayed again.
‘what’s up? what are you doing of, you little varmints?’ called out a rough, but not unkindly voice close to her. looking up, she saw a stout young man of truculent aspect standing at her side. ‘just you leave this young lady alone, or i’ll break every bone in your bodies!’ he continued cheerfully.
perhaps emmeline’s tormentors knew by experience that the young man’s rough words were no mere figure of speech, for they slunk back, and one little boy who had just been to the road to pick up another stone thought better of it and dropped it on the pavement. ‘i’m bothered if bully ben ain’t turning a blooming saint!’ called out a bold spirit; and there were other remarks of the same kind, which did not, however, seem in the least to disturb bully ben’s serenity.
‘what are you doing here?’ he demanded of emmeline. ‘you’d have had a rough time of it, i can tell you, if i hadn’t have come out.’
‘i know,’ said emmeline, almost in tears—somehow it seemed harder not to break down now that the great danger appeared to be over—‘it was so very, very good of you, and i do thank you! but oh, can you tell me where a mother grimes lives? i believe my little[196] brother’s at her house, and i’ve come to look for him.’
‘mother grimes?’ said the youth, ‘why, she’s a pal of mine. but what have your little brother gone there for? judging by you, he won’t be the sort of lodger that’s much in her line.’
‘he ran away with a boy named diamond jubilee jones, whom we’d—i mean, he’d come to stay with us for a day or two,’ explained emmeline, rather confusedly. ‘i suppose you haven’t happened to see him anywhere?’
‘i seed him not an hour ago, and a little chap with him that must have been your brother,’ said bully ben promptly. ‘they told me they was off to the fair, an’ wouldn’t be back till tea-time.’
‘oh, thank you!’ cried emmeline. ‘i’ll go there to find him, then.’
‘i reckon i’ll just see you safe out of these parts,’ said bully ben graciously—an offer which she was only too thankful to accept, for those dreadful children were still lingering about, as though waiting to renew the attack as soon as bully ben’s broad back should be turned.
emmeline stole timid side-glances at her burly escort as they two left paradise court together, with a crowd of derisive children in the rear—at[197] a safe distance. he looked an extremely rough type of lad, and emmeline had just decided that he was like one of those burglars in stories, whose hearts are always touched by innocent and helpless children, when he asked her the time.
the question, though rather unexpected, sounded harmless enough, so emmeline pulled out her beloved little gold watch, and politely gave him the information he required.
‘that’s a rare fine watch,’ he remarked. ‘let’s have a look at that.’
it was impossible to refuse her brave rescuer such a trifling request, so she put the watch into one of his very grimy hands.
‘much obliged to you!’ he said, with a good-natured laugh. ‘so long!’ and before emmeline, in her amazement, had realised what was happening, he had slipped back into paradise court.
for an instant she gazed blankly, scarcely believing her own senses. then a roar of laughter from the onlookers maddened her into recklessness, and she was just going to rush down the steps again in pursuit of bully ben, when someone caught her firmly by the sleeve and held her back.
‘don’t you never go in there again,’ whispered a girl’s voice in her ear. ’tisn’t safe. there was a preaching bloke got his head split open in there[198] only last sunday. just you run away before there’s anything worse happens.’
the speaker was ragged and dirty, like everyone else in green ginger land, and emmeline was more than half-inclined to take her for an accomplice of bully ben’s, and to disregard the warning. she hesitated, equally unable to make up her mind to resign her watch, or to screw up her courage to plunge back into that terrible court, and as she wavered the children began to gather close again.
‘just you run away,’ said the girl more urgently than before.
it is hard to say what would have happened if emmeline had not just then felt something sting her cheek. it was only a piece of banana-peel, but such a yell of triumph rose from the spectators that she was seized with panic and fled headlong, pursued by the howling mob of children.
on and on she ran, still seeming to hear the shouts of her pursuers, till she had got far outside the borders of green ginger land. still she ran blindly on, till at last she was brought to a sudden standstill by bumping so violently against a fat old lady as almost to knock her down.
‘well!’ ejaculated the old lady, as soon as she had regained her breath, ‘you are a rude little girl!’
[199]
‘i’m—so—sorry,’ panted emmeline: ‘some people—are chasing me—with stones.’
‘there’s nobody chasing you,’ said the old lady severely, and when emmeline looked round she saw that it was the truth. the green ginger children had all straggled back to their own land before this.
‘it’s just one of those rude games you children are always playing about the streets,’ grumbled the old lady. ‘i’m sure i don’t know what girls are coming to.’
poor emmeline! she had never in her life before been suspected of playing rude games in the streets, but she had not the heart to defend herself, so she walked on without another word. as she walked, the thought of her lost watch—that dear little watch which had been her mother’s very last gift—came back to her like a stab, and made her eyes fill with tears till everything became blurred, and she stumbled along not seeing where she was going.
but she was a plucky little soul at the bottom, not given to crying over spilt milk when there were more urgent things to be done, so, as her handkerchief had got lost in the course of her adventures, she wiped her eyes on the back of her glove.
‘after all, it’s only right you should have some punishment, for you oughtn’t to have come into[200] eastwich without leave,’ she told herself, with something of that stern sense of justice with which she had been wont to govern the twins. ‘and, anyhow, the thing that really matters is to find micky, so what you’ve got to do now is to ask the way to the fair.’
