12
At first she resolved to walk all the way to St. Paul's, where she felt she would be most likely to see Bert, or, failing that, her father on his way home from his club. However, it didn't take long for her to realize that this idea was more than ordinarily imprudent. The daylight was fading fast, and although the streetlamps dripped greasy circles of yellow light on the streets every dozen or so metres, she didn't particularly relish the thought of ending up wandering around London, alone, in the hours ripe with prostitutes and cutthroats (as she imagined, not entirely wrongly, that they were). To her annoyance the umbrella stayed stubbornly closed, despite her increasingly obvious suggestions that it provide her transport, and so she eventually resorted to using her chimneysweep-instructed skills to hitch a ride on the back of a taxi. The horse, tired and irritable from a day of particularly heavy clientelle, nodded its head in irritation at the extra weight but, to Mary's relief, did not protest violently enough to alert the driver to her presence.
Mary was decidedly out of practice, and it was with torn skirts and a good deal of relief that she finally bid farewell to the last bedraggled horse and obtuse driver as it clattered away from St Paul's square. The cathedral rose before her in the twilight, stern and majestic and inexplicably welcoming. Birds swirled through the dusky air around the dome, settling into their nests for the night. The homeward rush had dwindled, leaving only a couple dozen men to make their weary ways home. Mary looked around with an almost painfully energetic heart, half longing to see Bert strolling towards her through the dim square and half, for some reason, desperately hoping that he would not.
And then, she saw him – the other him; somewhat grayer and smaller than when she had seen him last, perhaps, but it was him nonetheless, walking briskly away from the cathedral with an acquaintance of some sort. There were the carefully creased pants, the gleaming top hat, the vigorously polished chestnut walking stick. His chin was lifted slightly, and Mary remembered vaguely an essay he had pored over some years back about the importance of maintaining a gentleman's carriage. A ghost of her mother's voice murmured "Oh, Henry, what a splendid evening! How you commanded the room!" and her father's, "nothing so simple, my dear Agatha; if one maintains the proper carriage, one will never be considered anything less than the most illustrious gentleman…"
Before she had time to ponder whether or not she wished to be seen he was mere feet away, and she shrank into herself, wishing she was not quite so far away from the building behind her. She half-hoped that he would see her, and pull her into his arms as he sometimes had years ago when she had done or said something particularly charming, and exclaim over the agony of worry that he and Mary's mother had gone through when they heard what had happened at the school; for they must have heard – Miss Harwick would surely have telephoned her parents as soon as the unfortunate incident had occurred. But no – perhaps it was better if he didn't look up – if his eyes stayed fixed on his companion. But how could he not see his own daughter? It would be agonizing – she would be forced to decide whether or not to forget her pride and try to capture his attention – but – but –
But then something happened that was far worse than if he had passed by without a glance. He saw her – their eyes met – and Mary caught her breath, waiting for the anger, or the relief, or the confusion that would entail. And then he simply looked away, with the offended, embarrassed look of someone who has seen something that has disrupted his peaceful existence and doesn't know how to respond to it. He leaned towards his companion, and Mary just barely managed to decipher his murmured words.
"Outrageous! Here, directly in front of the cathedral! Can't she market her wares elsewhere? I tell you, Montperier, this city is becoming overrun…"
The words rolled strangely around in her head for a stunned moment before they slid into understanding with a heavy jolt that sent a fiery blush racing up her neck and made her clutch self-consciously at the collar of her blouse. Marketing her wares? The shame and pain boiled up against the inside of her chest and propelled her backwards into a greasy little alcove in the shop front, where she wrapped her arms around her chest and wished, with what felt devastatingly like sincerity and with a drowning, suffocating, unbearable aching, that she had never been born.