I could not walk fatigue into my restless limbs. Morning broke in
curdling billows of fire over the east of London--which even at this
early hour was slowly growing hazy with smoke. I found myself in
Primrose Court, looking at that squalid door, those squalid windows.
I knocked at the door. No answer came to my summons, and I knocked
again and again. Then a window opened above my head, and I heard the
well-known voice of the woman exclaiming,
'Who's that? Poll Onion's out to-night, and the rooms are emp'y 'cept
mine. Why, God bless me, man, is it you?'
'Hag! that was not your daughter.'
She slammed the window down.
'Let me in, or I will break the door.'
The window was opened again.
'Lucky as I didn't leave the front door open to-night, as I mostly
do. What do you want to skear a pore woman for?' she bawled. 'Go
away, else I'll call up the people in Great Queen Street.'
'Mrs. Gudgeon, all I want to do is to ask you a question.'
'Ah, but that's what you jis' _won't_ do, my fine gentleman. I don't
let you in again in a hurry.'
'I will give you a sovereign.'
'Honour bright?' bawled the old woman; 'let me look at it.'
'Here it is, in my hand.'
'Jink it on the stuns.'
I threw it down.
'Quid seems to jink all right, anyhow,' she said, 'though I'm more
used to the jink of a tanner than a quid in these cussed times. You
won't skear me if I come down?'
'No, no.'
At last I heard her fumbling inside at the lock, and then the door
opened.
'Why, man alive! your eyes are afire jist like a cat's wi' drownded
kitlins.'
'She was not your daughter.'
'Not my darter?' said she, as she stooped to pick up the sovereign.
'You ain't a-goin' to catch me the likes o' that. The Beauty not my
darter! All the court knows she was my own on'y darter. I'll swear
afore all the beaks in London as I'm the mother of my own on'y darter
Winifred, allus' wur 'er mother, and allus wull be; an' if she went
a-beggin' it worn't my fort. She liked beggin', poor dear; some gals
does.'
'Her name Winifred!' I cried, with a pang at my heart as sharp as
though there had been a reasonable hope till now.
'In course her name was Winifred.'
'Liar! How came she to be called Winifred?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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