In the Wilderness | Page 8

minds and souls which had been
in the church had evaporated into the night. Mrs. Chetwinde and Esme
Darlington had wanted to speak to Rosamund, but she had slipped out
of the church quickly. She did not wish to talk to any one.
"/Ego dormio et cor meum vigilat/."
What an odd little turn, or twist, the preacher had given to the meaning
of those words! "Whenever you have to take some big decision
between two life courses, ask yourself, 'Which can I share?' and if you
can only share one, choose that."
Very slowly Rosamund walked on, bending a little above the big muff,
like one pulled forward by a weight of heavy thoughts. She turned a
corner. Presently she turned another corner and traversed a square,
which could not be seen to be a square. And then, quite suddenly, she
realized that she had not been thinking about her way home and that
she was lost in the impenetrable fog.
She stood still and listened. She heard nothing. Traffic seemed stopped
in this region. On her left there were three steps. She went up them and
was under the porch of a house. Light shone dully from within, and by
it she could just make out on the door the number "8." At least it
seemed to her that probably it was an "8." She hesitated, came down
the steps, and walked on. It was impossible to see the names of the
streets and squares. But presently she would come across a policeman.
She went on and on, but no policeman bulked shadowy against the
background of night and of the fog which at last seemed almost terrible
to her.
Rosamund was not timid. She was constitutionally incapable of
timidity. Nor was she actively alarmed in a strong and definite way.
But gradually there seemed to permeate her a cold, almost numbing

sensation of loneliness and of desolation. For the first time in her life
she felt not merely alone but solitary, and not merely solitary but as if
she were condemned to be so by some power that was hostile to her.
It was a hideous feeling. Something in the fog and in the night made an
assault upon her imagination. Abruptly she was numbered among the
derelict women whom nobody wants, whom no man thinks of or
wishes to be with, whom no child calls mother. She felt physically and
morally, "I am solitary," and it was horrible to her. She saw herself old
and alone, and she shuddered.
How long she walked on she did not know, but when at last she heard a
step shuffling along somewhere in front of her, she had almost--she
thought--realized Eternity.
The step was not coming towards her but was going onwards slowly
before her. She hastened, and presently came up with an old man,
poorly dressed in a dreadful frock-coat and disgraceful trousers,
wearing on his long gray locks a desperado of a top hat, and carrying,
in a bloated and almost purple hand, a large empty jug.
"Please!" said Rosamund.
The old gentleman shuffled on.
"Could you tell me--/please/--can you tell me where we are?
She had grasped his left coat-sleeve. He turned and, bending, she
peered into the face of a drunkard.
"Close to the 'Daniel Lambert,'" said an almost refined old voice.
And a pair of pathetic gray eyes peered up at her above a nose that was
like a conflagration.
"Where's that? What is it?"
"Don't you know the 'Daniel Lambert'?"

The voice sounded very surprised and almost suspicious.
"No."
"It's well known, very well known. I'm just popping round there to get a
little something--eh!"
The voice died away.
"I want to find Great Cumberland Place."
"Well, you're pretty close to it. The 'Daniel Lambert's' in the Edgware
Road."
"Could you find it?--Great Cumberland Place, I mean?"
"Certainly."
"I wish you would. I should be so grateful."
The gray eyes became more pathetic.
"Grateful to me--would you, miss? I'll go with you and very glad to do
it."
The old gentleman took Rosamund home and talked to her on the way.
When they parted she asked for his name and address. He hesitated for
a moment and then gave it: "Mr. Thrush, 2 Albingdon Buildings, John's
Court, near Edgware Road."
"Thank you. You've done me a good turn."
At this moment the front door was opened by the housemaid.
"Oh--miss!" she said.
Her eyes left Rosamund and fastened themselves, like weapons, on the
old gentleman's nose. He lifted his desperado of a hat and immediately
turned away, trying to conceal his jug under his left arm, but

inadvertently letting it protrude.
"Good night, and thank you very much indeed!" Rosamund called after
him with warm cordiality.
"I'm glad you've got back, miss. We were in a