Chapter 26

In London once more! It was Fan's birth-place, the home she had known
continuously up till one short year ago; yet now on her return how
strange, how foreign to her soul, how even repelling it seemed! The
change had come so unexpectedly and in such unhappy circumstances, and
the contrast was so great to that peaceful country life and all its
surroundings, which had corresponded so perfectly with her nature. To
Constance, who knew little of London except from reading, the contrast
seemed equally great, but it affected her in a different and much
pleasanter way. To Fan town and town-life could be repelling because,
owing to her past experiences, and to something in her mental character,
she was able vividly to realise her present position. Even when the
brilliant May sun shone on her, and the streets and parks were thronged
with fashionable pleasure-seekers, and London looked not unbeautiful, she
realised it. For all that made town-life pleasant and desirable was now
beyond her reach. It was sweet when Mary loved her and gave her a home;
but in all this vast world of London there was no second Mary who would
find her and take her to her heart. Now she might sink into a state of
utter destitution, and she would be powerless to win help or sympathy, or
even a hearing, from any one of the countless thousands of fellow-
creatures that would pass her in the streets, all engrossed with their
own affairs, so accustomed to the sight of want and suffering that it
affected them not at all. To find some work which she might be able to
do, and for which the payment would be sufficient to provide her with
food, clothing, and shelter, was the most she could hope. She could dream
of no wonderful second deliverance in the long years of humble patient
drudgery that awaited her--no impossible good fortune passing over the
heads of thousands as deserving as herself to light on hers and give a
new joy and glory to her life.

To Constance, with her more vigorous intellect and ardent imagination, no
such dreary prospect could present itself. The thunderous noise and
shifting panorama of the streets, the interminable desert of brick
houses, and even the smoke-laden atmosphere only served to exhilarate her
mind. These things continually reminded her that she was now where she
had long wished to be, in the great intellectual laboratory, where
thousands of men and women once as unknown and poor as herself had made a
reputation. Not without great labour and pains certainly; but what others
had done she could do; and with health and energy, and a bundle of
carefully-prepared manuscripts in her box to begin with, she could feel
no serious anxiety about the future.

During their second day in town they managed after much searching to find