A Clergyman's Daughter Read online

to explore it with her hands, and her hands encountered breasts.

  She was a woman, therefore. Only women had breasts. In some way

  she knew, without knowing how she knew, that all those women who

  passed had breasts beneath their clothes, though she could not see

  them.

  She now grasped that in order to identify herself she must examine

  her own body, beginning with her face; and for some moments she

  actually attempted to look at her own face, before realizing that

  this was impossible. She looked down, and saw a shabby black satin

  dress, rather long, a pair of flesh-coloured artificial silk

  stockings, laddered and dirty, and a pair of very shabby black

  satin shoes with high heels. None of them was in the least

  familiar to her. She examined her hands, and they were both

  strange and unstrange. They were smallish hands, with hard palms,

  and very dirty. After a moment she realized that it was their

  dirtiness that made them strange to her. The hands themselves

  seemed natural and appropriate, though she did not recognize them.

  After hesitating a few moments longer, she turned to her left and

  began to walk slowly along the pavement. A fragment of knowledge

  had come to her, mysteriously, out of the blank past: the existence

  of mirrors, their purpose, and the fact that there are often

  mirrors in shop windows. After a moment she came to a cheap little

  jeweller's shop in which a strip of mirror, set at an angle,

  reflected the faces of people passing. Dorothy picked her

  reflection out from among a dozen others, immediately realizing it

  to be her own. Yet it could not be said that she had recognized

  it; she had no memory of ever having seen it till this moment. It

  showed her a woman's youngish face, thin, very blonde, with crow's-

  feet round the eyes, and faintly smudged with dirt. A vulgar black

  cloche hat was stuck carelessly on the head, concealing most of the

  hair. The face was quite unfamiliar to her, and yet not strange.

  She had not known till this moment what face to expect, but now

  that she had seen it she realized that it was the face she might

  have expected. It was appropriate. It corresponded to something

  within her.

  As she turned away from the jeweller's mirror, she caught sight of

  the words 'Fry's Chocolate' on a shop window opposite, and

  discovered that she understood the purpose of writing, and also,

  after a momentary effort, that she was able to read. Her eyes

  flitted across the street, taking in and deciphering odd scraps of

  print; the names of shops, advertisements, newspaper posters. She

  spelled out the letters of two red and white posters outside a

  tobacconist's shop. One of them read, 'Fresh Rumours about

  Rector's Daughter', and the other, 'Rector's Daughter. Now

  believed in Paris'. Then she looked upwards, and saw in white

  lettering on the corner of a house: 'New Kent Road'. The words

  arrested her. She grasped that she was standing in the New Kent

  Road, and--another fragment of her mysterious knowledge--the New

  Kent Road was somewhere in London. So she was in London.

  As she made this discovery a peculiar tremor ran through her. Her

  mind was now fully awakened; she grasped, as she had not grasped

  before, the strangeness of her situation, and it bewildered and

  frightened her. What could it all MEAN? What was she doing here?

  How had she got here? What had happened to her?

  The answer was not long in coming. She thought--and it seemed to

  her that she understood perfectly well what the words meant: 'Of

  course! I've lost my memory!'

  At this moment two youths and a girl who were trudging past, the

  youths with clumsy sacking bundles on their backs, stopped and

  looked curiously at Dorothy. They hesitated for a moment, then

  walked on, but halted again by a lamp-post five yards away.

  Dorothy saw them looking back at her and talking among themselves.

  One of the youths was about twenty, narrow-chested, black-haired,

  ruddy-cheeked, good-looking in a nosy cockney way, and dressed in

  the wreck of a raffishly smart blue suit and a check cap. The

  other was about twenty-six, squat, nimble, and powerful, with a

  snub nose, a clear pink skin and huge lips as coarse as sausages,

  exposing strong yellow teeth. He was frankly ragged, and he had a

  mat of orange-coloured hair cropped short and growing low on his

  head, which gave him a startling resemblance to an orang-outang.

  The girl was a silly-looking, plump creature, dressed in clothes

  very like Dorothy's own. Dorothy could hear some of what they were

  saying:

  'That tart looks ill,' said the girl.

  The orange-headed one, who was singing 'Sonny Boy' in a good

  baritone voice, stopped singing to answer. 'She ain't ill,' he

  said. 'She's on the beach all right, though. Same as us.'

  'She'd do jest nicely for Nobby, wouldn't she?' said the dark-

  haired one.

  'Oh, YOU!' exclaimed the girl with a shocked-amorous air, pretending

  to smack the dark one over the head.

  The youths had lowered their bundles and leaned them against the

  lamp-post. All three of them now came rather hesitantly towards

  Dorothy, the orange-headed one, whose name seemed to be Nobby,

  leading the way as their ambassador. He moved with a gambolling,

  apelike gait, and his grin was so frank and wide that it was

  impossible not to smile back at him. He addressed Dorothy in a

  friendly way.

  'Hullo, kid!'

  'Hullo!'

  'You on the beach, kid?'

  'On the beach?'

  'Well, on the bum?'

  'On the bum?'

  'Christ! she's batty,' murmured the girl, twitching at the black-

  haired one's arm as though to pull him away.

  'Well, what I mean to say, kid--have you got any money?'

  'I don't know.'

  At this all three looked at one another in stupefaction. For a

  moment they probably thought that Dorothy really WAS batty. But

  simultaneously Dorothy, who had earlier discovered a small pocket

  in the side of her dress, put her hand into it and felt the outline

  of a large coin.

  'I believe I've got a penny,' she said.

  'A penny!' said the dark youth disgustedly, '--lot of good that is

  to us!'

  Dorothy drew it out. It was a half-crown. An astonishing change

  came over the faces of the three others. Nobby's mouth split open

  with delight, he gambolled several steps to and fro like some great

  jubilant ape, and then, halting, took Dorothy confidentially by the

  arm.

  'That's the mulligatawny!' he said. 'We've struck it lucky--and

  so've you, kid, believe me. You're going to bless the day you set

  eyes on us lot. We're going to make your fortune for you, we are.

  Now, see here, kid--are you on to go into cahoots with us three?'

  'What?' said Dorothy.

  'What I mean to say--how about you chumming in with Flo and Charlie

  and me? Partners, see? Comrades all, shoulder to shoulder.

  United we stand, divided we fall. We put up the brains, you put up

&
nbsp; the money. How about it, kid? Are you on, or are you off?'

  'Shut up, Nobby!' interrupted the girl. 'She don't understand a

  word of what you're saying. Talk to her proper, can't you?'

  'That'll do, Flo,' said Nobby equably. 'You keep it shut and leave

  the talking to me. I got a way with the tarts, I have. Now, you

  listen to me, kid--what might your name happen to be, kid?'

  Dorothy was within an ace of saying 'I don't know,' but she was

  sufficiently on the alert to stop herself in time. Choosing a

  feminine name from the half-dozen that sprang immediately into her

  mind, she answered, 'Ellen.'

  'Ellen. That's the mulligatawny. No surnames when you're on the

  bum. Well now, Ellen dear, you listen to me. Us three are going

  down hopping, see--'

  'Hopping?'

  ''Opping!' put in the dark youth impatiently, as though disgusted

  by Dorothy's ignorance. His voice and manner were rather sullen,

  and his accent much baser than Nobby's. 'Pickin' 'ops--dahn in

  Kent! C'n understand that, can't yer?'

  'Oh, HOPS! For beer?'

  'That's the mulligatawny! Coming on fine, she is. Well, kid, 'z I

  was saying, here's us three going down hopping, and got a job

  promised us and all--Blessington's farm, Lower Molesworth. Only

  we're just a bit in the mulligatawny, see? Because we ain't got a

  brown between us, and we got to do it on the toby--thirty-five

  miles it is--and got to tap for our tommy and skipper at night as

  well. And that's a bit of a mulligatawny, with ladies in the

  party. But now s'pose f'rinstance you was to come along with us,

  see? We c'd take the twopenny tram far as Bromley, and that's

  fifteen miles done, and we won't need skipper more'n one night on

  the way. And you can chum in at our bin--four to a bin's the best

  picking--and if Blessington's paying twopence a bushel you'll turn

  your ten bob a week easy. What do you say to it, kid? Your two

  and a tanner won't do you much good here in Smoke. But you go into

  partnership with us, and you'll get your kip for a month and

  something over--and WE'LL get a lift to Bromley and a bit of scran

  as well.'

  About a quarter of his speech was intelligible to Dorothy. She

  asked rather at random:

  'What is SCRAN?'

  'Scran? Tommy--food. I can see YOU ain't been long on the beach,

  kid.'

  'Oh. . . . Well, you want me to come down hop-picking with you, is

  that it?'

  'That's it, Ellen my dear. Are you on, or are you off?'

  'All right,' said Dorothy promptly. 'I'll come.'

  She made this decision without any misgiving whatever. It is true

  that if she had had time to think over her position, she would

  probably have acted differently; in all probability she would have

  gone to a police station and asked for assistance. That would have

  been the sensible course to take. But Nobby and the others had

  appeared just at the critical moment, and, helpless as she was, it

  seemed quite natural to throw in her lot with the first human being

  who presented himself. Moreover, for some reason which she did not

  understand, it reassured her to hear that they were making for

  Kent. Kent, it seemed to her, was the very place to which she

  wanted to go. The others showed no further curiosity, and asked no

  uncomfortable questions. Nobby simply said, 'O.K. That's the

  mulligatawny!' and then gently took Dorothy's half-crown out of her

  hand and slid it into his pocket--in case she should lose it, he

  explained. The dark youth--apparently his name was Charlie--said

  in his surly, disagreeable way:

  'Come on, less get movin'! It's 'ar-parse two already. We don't

  want to miss that there ---- tram. Where d'they start from,

  Nobby?'

  'The Elephant,' said Nobby: 'and we got to catch it before four

  o'clock, because they don't give no free rides after four.'

  'Come on, then, don't less waste no more time. Nice job we'll 'ave

  of it if we got to 'ike it down to Bromley AND look for a place to

  skipper in the ---- dark. C'm on, Flo.'

  'Quick march!' said Nobby, swinging his bundle on to his shoulder.

  They set out, without more words said, Dorothy, still bewildered

  but feeling much better than she had felt half an hour ago, walked

  beside Flo and Charlie, who talked to one another and took no

  further notice of her. From the very first they seemed to hold

  themselves a little aloof from Dorothy--willing enough to share her

  half-crown, but with no friendly feelings towards her. Nobby

  marched in front, stepping out briskly in spite of his burden, and

  singing, with spirited imitations of military music, the well-known

  military song of which the only recorded words seem to be:

  '"----!" was all the band could play;

  "----! ----!" And the same to you!'

  2

  This was the twenty-ninth of August. It was on the night of the

  twenty-first that Dorothy had fallen asleep in the conservatory; so

  that there had been an interregnum in her life of not quite eight

  days.

  The thing that had happened to her was commonplace enough--almost

  every week one reads in the newspapers of a similar case. A man

  disappears from home, is lost sight of for days or weeks, and

  presently fetches up at a police station or in a hospital, with no

  notion of who he is or where he has come from. As a rule it is

  impossible to tell how he has spent the intervening time; he has

  been wandering, presumably, in some hypnotic or somnambulistic

  state in which he has nevertheless been able to pass for normal.

  In Dorothy's case only one thing is certain, and that is that she

  had been robbed at some time during her travels; for the clothes

  she was wearing were not her own, and her gold cross was missing.

  At the moment when Nobby accosted her, she was already on the road

  to recovery; and if she had been properly cared for, her memory

  might have come back to her within a few days or even hours. A

  very small thing would have been enough to accomplish it; a chance

  meeting with a friend, a photograph of her home, a few questions

  skilfully put. But as it was, the slight mental stimulus that she

  needed was never given. She was left in the peculiar state in

  which she had first found herself--a state in which her mind was

  potentially normal, but not quite strung up to the effort of

  puzzling out her own identity.

  For of course, once she had thrown in her lot with Nobby and the

  others, all chance of reflection was gone. There was no time to

  sit down and think the matter over--no time to come to grips with

  her difficulty and reason her way to its solution. In the strange,

  dirty sub-world into which she was instantly plunged, even five

  minutes of consecutive thought would have been impossible. The

  days passed in ceaseless nightmarish activity. Indeed, it was very

  like a nightmare; a nightmare not of urgent terrors, but of hunger,

  squalor, and fatigue, and of alternating heat and cold. Afterwards,

  when she looked back upon that time,
days and nights merged

  themselves together so that she could never remember with perfect

  certainty how many of them there had been. She only knew that for

  some indefinite period she had been perpetually footsore and almost

  perpetually hungry. Hunger and the soreness of her feet were her

  clearest memories of that time; and also the cold of the nights, and

  a peculiar, blowsy, witless feeling that came of sleeplessness and

  constant exposure to the air.

  After getting to Bromley they had 'drummed up' on a horrible,

  paper-littered rubbish dump, reeking with the refuse of several

  slaughter-houses, and then passed a shuddering night, with only

  sacks for cover, in long wet grass on the edge of a recreation

  ground. In the morning they had started out, on foot, for the

  hopfields. Even at this early date Dorothy had discovered that the

  tale Nobby had told her, about the promise of a job, was totally

  untrue. He had invented it--he confessed this quite light-

  heartedly--to induce her to come with them. Their only chance of

  getting a job was to march down into the hop country and apply at

  every farm till they found one where pickers were still needed.

  They had perhaps thirty-five miles to go, as the crow flies, and

  yet at the end of three days they had barely reached the fringe of

  the hopfields. The need of getting food, of course, was what

  slowed their progress. They could have marched the whole distance

  in two days or even in a day if they had not been obliged to feed

  themselves. As it was, they had hardly even time to think of

  whether they were going in the direction of the hopfields or not;

  it was food that dictated all their movements. Dorothy's half-

  crown had melted within a few hours, and after that there was

  nothing for it except to beg. But there came the difficulty. One

  person can beg his food easily enough on the road, and even two can

  manage it, but it is a very different matter when there are four

  people together. In such circumstances one can only keep alive if

  one hunts for food as persistently and single-mindedly as a wild

  beast. Food--that was their sole preoccupation during those three

  days--just food, and the endless difficulty of getting it.

  From morning to night they were begging. They wandered enormous

  distances, zigzagging right across the country, trailing from

  village to village and from house to house, 'tapping' at every

  butcher's and every baker's and every likely looking cottage, and

  hanging hopefully round picnic parties, and waving--always vainly--

  at passing cars, and accosting old gentlemen with the right kind of

  face and pitching hard-up stories. Often they went five miles out

  of their way to get a crust of bread or a handful of scraps of

  bacon. All of them begged, Dorothy with the others; she had no

  remembered past, no standards of comparison to make her ashamed of

  it. And yet with all their efforts they would have gone empty-

  bellied half the time if they had not stolen as well as begged.

  At dusk and in the early mornings they pillaged the orchards and

  the fields, stealing apples, damsons, pears, cobnuts, autumn

  raspberries, and, above all, potatoes; Nobby counted it a sin to

  pass a potato field without getting at least a pocketful. It was

  Nobby who did most of the stealing, while the others kept guard.

  He was a bold thief; it was his peculiar boast that he would steal

  anything that was not tied down, and he would have landed them all

  in prison if they had not restrained him sometimes. Once he even

  laid hands on a goose, but the goose set up a fearful clamour, and

  Charlie and Dorothy dragged Nobby off just as the owner came out of

  doors to see what was the matter.

  Each of those first days they walked between twenty and twenty-five

  miles. They trailed across commons and through buried villages

  with incredible names, and lost themselves in lanes that led