Anna, Where Are You?

PROLOGUE

At half past two on a dark September afternoon Anna Ball came down the steps of No. 5 Lenister Street with a suit-case in her hand. Mrs. Dugdale’s middle-aged parlourmaid stood at the open door just long enough to see that she turned to the left, a direction which would take her down to the roaring traffic at the end of the road. Lenister Street was still quiet, but it had been quieter. The tide of noise was coming in. If it rose too high, Mrs. Dugdale would be obliged to move.

Agnes went down into the basement kitchen and told Mrs. Harrison, the cook, that Miss Ball had gone, and a good riddance. Mrs. Harrison looked round from the kettle which she was taking off the fire.

“I didn’t hear any taxi.”

“She didn’t have one-just went off down the road with her suit-case.”

Mrs. Harrison began to pour boiling water into a squat brown teapot.

“She’ll be catching a bus. Well, it’s the last of her, and thank goodness for that!”

Anna Ball walked on down the street. It was a dark afternoon, but it was not raining yet. There might be rain coming, or one of those creeping fogs. She was glad that she had not far to go, and very glad indeed to have seen the last of her job with Mrs. Dugdale. Whatever happened, she would never be a companion again. Children were bad enough, but nerve cases ought to be in a lethal chamber.

She came to the end of the street and waited for a Hammersmith bus. At this time of the day there was really nothing you could call a queue. She set her suit-case down on the pavement, and was glad that she had not to carry it any farther.

As she stood there behind a stout woman in navy blue and a poking old woman in black, no one would have given her a second glance. Her dark grey coat and skirt was not so much shabby as badly cut and badly worn. She had no looks, no style, no special height or breadth to mark her out from the thousands of other young women who have their living to earn. She might have been of any age between twenty and thirty. She was, in fact, singularly well qualified to pass unnoticed in a crowd.

When the bus stopped the two other women got on to it, and she followed them. It is safe to assume that neither of them would have known her again. The stout woman was on her way to spend the afternoon and evening with a married daughter. She was taken up with how pleased the children were going to be when they saw what she had brought them. Ernie’s birthday, and such a big boy. But you couldn’t leave little Glad out-she had to have her present too.

The old woman was crouched forward over her knees. Ten years now since she had had any place she could call her own. Three months with Henry, and three with James, three with Annie, and three with May. Henry’s wife wasn’t so bad, but that girl James had married! Annie’s husband was too grand for her. Schoolmasters were all the same-laying down the law. Poor May did her best. She shouldn’t have married the man, but she wouldn’t listen. She nodded forward over her knees and thought of the days when she had her own little place and the children were small. She’d brought them up right, but they didn’t want her now.

Anna Ball was thinking of the new job she was going to. She was going to see how it suited her. She might stay, or she might not. She wasn’t going to put up with anything she didn’t like. Three children was rather a lot, but anything was better than an only child. Spoiled. And for ever wanting something done to amuse it. Whereas three played with each other.

At the first stop beyond the Broadway she got out and stood waiting by the kerb. Presently a car drew in, stopped briefly, and picked her up. The door shut on her and her suit-case. The car slid into the line of traffic and was gone.