She Might Have Been Pretty.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 8, 19 February 1913, Page 60

She Might Have Been Pretty.

Bi)

Dion Clayton Calthrop.

in “ The Daily Mail.”

ZqT HE knew no kingdom but a piece Nnk of kerbstone, no home but such J a place as made a shelter for

her tired, aching body, a roof, four walls, a broken window, and some tumbled, dirty blankets on a mattress made of straw. Towering above her in tlie social scale—a policeman, at once her terror - and guardian. And by her, in a basket, the spoil of France, mimosa,-roseS pink and red, and violets with dewy eyes. Year in, year out, she offered the choice of the seasons to the passersby; so much a bunch mimosa, so much a bunch roses pink, and red; violets, purple knots of joy, a penny. “Vi’lets, vi’lets, sweet smellin’ vi’lets, a penny a bunch.” The spring for a penny. English country lams and woods for a penny. All the poetry of nature for a penny. She did not know that, nor did she dream Japan out of the -chrysanthemums she held, their shaggy locks shaking in the wind. ‘Nor did she know that anemones held the secret of the South: nor did she see white walls and lizards playing in Italian sun when- the mimosa shook golden pollen on her shawl. Yet she had a kind of Italian beauty, a something wistful of her own; the eyes of a child, clear and clean for all eihe lived in the gutter, for -all that foul language flew to her lips if she were annoyed. There was some essence in this Princess of the ’Gutter that kept her unstained. Her body - was starved, but m her mind was a rich feast. All her small penny savings, when she had them, went to benefit the drama. If you had seen her in the twopenny seats you would have seen a- different person: flushed cheeks, eyes sparkling, every fibre of her body strung taut, every - particle of her intelligence alive, alert, awake. And no one more moral In her tastes than she. Gone the kerbstone, gone the mud, the rain: the hunger gnawed no more. She who had dined on a glass of beer and loot of the tropics in the alluring shape of a banana, now filled herself with the pageantry of life. And always in the plays she loved innocence in white overthrow villainy in black and defied evil in scarlet.

She followed every - word the players spoke with breathless interest. They were not actors and actresses, but live men and women engaged in the business of life. This was her colour, her only salvation, the background of her dreams. A man’s dress clothes were to her a symbol of unutterable evil. A girl in white with golden hair was to her beyond the angels. And the red-haired comic man one who held the power of nations in his hand. Most she loved death scenes, where small children said prayers or played for a last time on the violin (accompanied by the orchestra), and w’hose dying wordu gave either hope to despairing heroines or, in some, unaccountable way foiled a cursing villain. ’‘That,” they would cry before expiring, “is the num who did it.” The unrealities never seemed unreal to her: that the aged father of the first a t s’vmld bo perfectly recognisable as a dete.-tive in the last seemed to 4ier as it should be, right and proper, the <|u<stione I nothing. When the comic man appeared out of the villain’s luggage at the right moment that is, in time io ray: "Thought you had them there, dill yer?”—and snatched the pistol from Sir Jasper’s hand, she applauded with ■her soul in her hand*. Just so would she care to be delivered in the nick <vf time. And while she breathed in the wonderful atmosphere of' the theatre and loved the lights and the smell, and look'd hungrily at the curtain when it was down, and read the advertisement's on itiintil it went up so. In her room, ptanding in tins of water, did her flower,; Waste their sweetnese. Here mimosa, torn from her land of auw, wiUteifd aad

grew pinched; her roses pink and red drooped their heads; and violets faded, mourning the dews of night. " ’Ere you are, lady, lovely roses. All fresh. All a-blomming and a-growing, primroses. Sweet vi’lets, penny a buneh. I’hry.sants, market-bunch. ’Ere you are, lady, leaves all colours.” So she sold the seasons and held the world's garden in her red, dirty liands. But though you could buy her flowers you could not even steal her dreams. They, at least, were her own, -and they were her only property. And she w - as very rich. She was absolutely alone in the world, this Dreamer of the Kerbstone; her father dead; her mother vanished —vanished, luckily, leaving her basket of flowers behind. All the romance in the world nodded at her 'across the dirty room, and the intensely practised side of her nature valued the flowers at just so much. She knew her trade, and with indomitable pluck she took her place on her mother’s beat. “Hello, Polly,” said the policeman. “Where’s the old woman?” “Skipped.” “Gone into the business on your own?” “Yus.” He had walked on, sixteen stone of law - and order. Very soon he was holding back millions of money with one haul and waving on millions of money with the other. It seemed a monotonous job to him. But hie burly figure stood there for - peace and safety, and nervous people hung rqund him waiting to be secured of their daily peril; crossing the road. She had seen marriage and wanted none of it. It spelt to her, black eyes, drink -and tears. So she hugged her solitude, paid the rent, and owed allegiance to no man.

To a few - she was a figure in the street; a figure in a brown shawl with a battered black straw hat, and a blouse whose colour was beyond all guessing; once it had been red. but it was orange and green and black and stained. She had a straight fringe and a twist of dark hair at the back of her head, and she wore a pair of men’s castaway boobs, and her feet were v frozen all the winter.

Her possible future was to become one of those stout, blowsy old women, with thick, husky voices, who said, “Good morning, my dear!” to strangers, and offered flowers five days old as being “fresh from the market this morning.’ But her dream was of the perfect lover; a tall, broad, with curly, chestnut haid and a very artificial voice, and an air of amazed innocent at the wrongs done around him.

Eate was waiting for her. Her thread of life came to, the third sister with the shears. A motor-omnibus plunging its horrible way along the slimy streets lurched -towards her. She heard someone cry - out to her, and instead of stepping forward, stepped back. They took her to the police station, which was -close by - , and a doctor who had followed the melancholy procession shook his. head. Faces.passed before her in a blurred mist. - ‘l’ve come over dizzy,” she said. They gave her something in a glass which she swallowed. Then she smiled It seemed to her that a wonderful being bent over her and looked into her eyes. He was tall, broad, with curly, chestnut hair, and he seemed to be in the light of another world. Death takes kindly shapes sometimes. And avi he bent forward so she leaned to him. The group of policemen and the doctor stood round her; they saw her smile. The penny bunch of violets she had held tightly grasped in her red, dirty hand dropped. Then she put up her lips to meet the first kiss of her lover. Tho policeman who knew her, spoke her epitaph. “Poor little kid. She had a good pluck.” “.She might have been pretty,” said th© doctor.