FullReads

Then they came to the railings of Hyde Park, and trudged down the hill alongside them to Kensington Gardens. It was yet early in the afternoon. Adam pulled up.

“Come and look,” he said. “It’s autumn in there,” and he went in at the Victoria gate, with Eve at his heels.

“Mister, how old might you be?” she asked, encouraged by the sound of his voice.

“Thirty.”

“And you’ve passed ten years in–in there.” She jerked her head back and shivered a little.

He had stooped to pick up a leaf. It was a yellow leaf from a chestnut that reached into the fog above them. He picked it slowly to pieces, drawing full draughts of air into his lungs. “Fifteen,” he jerked out, “one time and another. ‘Cumulated, you know.” Pausing, he added, in a matter-of-fact voice, “What I’ve took would come to less’n a pound’s worth, altogether.”

The Gardens were deserted, and the pair roamed towards the centre, gazing curiously at so much of sodden vegetation as the fog allowed them to see. Their eyes were not jaded; to them a blade of grass was not a little thing.

They were down on the south side, amid the heterogeneous plants there collected, examining each leaf, spelling the Latin labels and comparing them, when the hour came for closing. In the dense atmosphere the park-keeper missed them. The gates were shut; and the fog settled down thicker with the darkness.

Then the man and the woman were aware, and grew afraid. They saw only a limitless plain of grey about them, and heard a murmur as of the sea rolling around it.

“This gaol is too big,” whispered Eve, and they took hands. The man trembled. Together they moved into the fog, seeking an outlet.

At the end of an hour or so they stumbled on a seat, and sat down for awhile to share the bread and sausage, and drink the gin. Eve was tired out and would have slept, but the man shook her by the shoulder.

“For God’s sake don’t leave me to face this alone. Can you sing?”

She began “When other lips. . .” in a whisper which gradually developed into a reedy soprano. She had forgotten half the words, but Adam lit a pipe and listened appreciatively.

“Tell you what,” he said at the close; “you’ll be able to pick up a little on the road with your singing. We’ll tramp west to-morrow, and pass ourselves off for man and wife. Likely we’ll get some farm work, down in the country. Let’s get out of this.”

They joined hands and started off again, unable to see a foot before them in the blackness. So it happened next morning that the park-keeper, coming at his usual hour to unlock the gates, found a man and a woman inside with their white faces pressed against the railings, through which they glared like caged beasts. He set them free, and they ran out, for his paradise was too big.

Now, facing west, they tramped for two days on the Bath road, leaving the fog behind them, and drew near Reading. It was a clear night as they approached it, and the sky studded with stars that twinkled frostily. Eleven o’clock sounded from a tower ahead. On the outskirts of the town they were passing an ugly modern villa with a large garden before it, when an old gentleman came briskly up the road and turned in at the gate.

Adam swung round on his heel and followed him up the path, begging. Eve hung by the gate.

“No,” said the old gentleman, fitting his latchkey into the door, “I have no work to offer. Eh?–Is that your wife by the gate? Hungry?”

Adam whispered a lie in his ear.

“Poor woman, and to be on the road, in such a state, at this hour! Well, you shall share my supper before you search for a lodging. Come inside,” he called out to Eve, “and be careful of the step. It’s a high one.”