London's Heart: A Novel
by B. L. Farjeon · English · Gutenberg #45792 · 992,806 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of London's Heart: A Novel
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: London's Heart: A Novel
Author: B. L. Farjeon
Release date: May 28, 2014 [eBook #45792]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45792
Credits: Produced by Transcribed by Charles Bowen from page images
provided by Google Books
(http://books.google.com/books?id=7AktAAAAYAAJ&dq and
Princeton University)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON'S HEART: A NOVEL ***
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=7AktAAAAYAAJ&dq
(Princeton University)
LONDON'S HEART.
LONDON'S HEART.
A Novel
BY
B. L. FARJEON,
AUTHOR OF "GRIF," "JOSHUA MARVEL," "BLADE-O'-GRASS," "GOLDEN
GRAIN," AND "BREAD-AND-CHEESE AND KISSES."
New Edition
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8 CATHERINE ST. STRAND.
1874.
LONDON:
SWIFT AND CO., REGENT PRESS, KING STREET,
REGENT STREET, W.
CONTENTS
I. IN WHICH MR. PODMORE DECLARES THAT HE IS NOT
ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIMSELF
II. IN WHICH GRIBBLE JUNIOR DISCOURSES ON CO-OPERATION
III. INTRODUCES THE ROYAL WHITE ROSE MUSIC-HALL
IV. MR. DAVID SHELDRAKE COMES TO A SHREWD CONCLUSION
V. MR. DAVID SHELDRAKE DOES A GOOD NIGHT'S WORK
VI. GRAVE NEWS
VII. THE IRON BOX
VIII. THE REVEREND EMANUEL CREAMWELL STOPS THE WAY
IX. THE REVEREND EMANUEL CREAMWELL AND HIS SON TAKE
DIFFERENT VIEWS OF THINGS
X. FELIX GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY
XI. FELIX, DISSATISFIED WITH THE REALITY, SETS UP AN
IDOL, AND WORSHIPS IT
XII. POLLYPOD WANTS TO KNOW
XIII. THE WINNER OF THE NORTHUMBERLAND PLATE
XIV. TRAPS FOR GULLS----HOW SPIDERS CATCH THE FLIES
XV. SUGGESTS THE DOUBT WHETHER EVERY FRIEND IN NEED
IS A FRIEND INDEED
XVI. THE CAPTAIN ARRIVES
XVII. A HAPPY NIGHT
XVIII. THE BEATING OF THE PULSE
XIX. MR. SHELDRAKE SUGGESTS THAT IT IS TIME FOR MUZZY
TO TURN OVER A NEW LEAF
XX. AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSITION
XXI. LIZZIE TELLS A VERY SIMPLE STORY
XXII. LOVE LINES
XXIII. THE COMMENCEMENT OF A HAPPY DAY
XXIV. SELFISH YEARNINGS AND UNSELFISH LOVE
XXV. ALFRED NEGLECTS THE WARNING OF DON'T TOUCH ME,
AND RUES IT
XXVI. SURPRISES
XXVII. FELIX COMFORTS MARTHA DAY
XXVIII. LIZZIE IN HER NEW HOME
XXIX. FELIX FINDS HIS OYSTER DIFFICULT TO OPEN
XXX. JIM PODMORE HAS A "DAZE"
XXXI. THE SWINDLE WHICH THE LAW PROTECTS KNOWN BY THE
TITLE OF DISCRETIONARY INVESTMENTS
XXXII. THE POLISH JEW
XXXIII. LIZZIE DEEMS IT NECESSARY TO CALL CUNNING TO HER AID
XXXIV. GOOD COUNSEL
XXXV. MR. PODMORE WISHES TO BE INSTRUCTED UPON THE
DOCTRINE OF RESPONSIBILITY, AND DECLARES THAT HE
HAS A PRESENTMENT
XXXVI. HOW FELIX GAINED A CLUE
XXXVII. JIM PODMORE HAS A DREAM, AND WAKES UP IN TIME
XXXVIII. FELIX BECOMES A LANDLORD
XXXIX. ALFRED'S LAST CHANCE
XL. ON EPSOM DOWNS
XLI. ON THE WATCH
XLII. THE CLOUDS BRIGHTEN FOR LILY
XLIII. MR. SHELDRAKE MAKES A BOLD MOVE
XLIV. A CRISIS
XLV. HOW MR. SHELDRAKE PLAYS HIS GAME
XLVI. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
XLVII. FELIX CHECKMATES MR. DAVID SHELDRAKE
LONDON'S HEART.
CHAPTER I.
IN WHICH MR. PODMORE DECLARES THAT HE IS NOT ACCOUNTABLE
FOR HIMSELF.
The scene opens in the locality of Soho--that labyrinth of narrow
paths which always wears a depressed and melancholy air, as if it had
just gone into mourning. If Soho ever had bright days in the shape of
a sunny youth, it must have been very long ago. No trace of them
remains; a settled sadness lies upon its queer narrow thoroughfares
now and for evermore. The very voices of its residents are more
subdued and resigned than other voices are in other places.
No locality in London contains so strange a variety of life's phases
as may be found in Soho. And yet it is full of mystery, and its ways
are dark and secret. Men and women may live there for years, and their
antecedents and present modes of life shall be as little known as if
they lived in the most remote corner of the earth. Soho is the molehill
of the Great City. You may have a thousand pounds a year and spend it in
Soho, and your neighbours not only shall not notice it, but shall be as
utterly indifferent to you as if you lived on tenpence a day--as hundreds
of poor fellows are doing at this present moment. Hard-working mechanics
live there; weary-eyed needlewomen; libertines; ballet-girls, whose
salary is twenty shillings a week, and who wear furs and false hair
and diamond rings; and man-owls, who sleep by day and prey by night. On
the doorstep of some of the houses in which these persons dwell,
children in the afternoon play with marbles and broken pieces of
crockery. Here is a group composed of half a dozen dirty-stockinged
little girls, who look at you shyly as you pause before them, and put
their fingers in their mouths and giggle surreptitiously. Speak to this
one--a clear gray-eyed girl of some eight summers, with intelligent
well-formed face and beautiful light hair. Question her, and bribe her
with pence, and you may obtain from her the information that she lives
in the next street, at the baker's, on the second-floor back; that
mother and father live there, of course; that seven brothers and
sisters live there, making a family party of ten in all; that they
have only one room, in which mother cooks the meals, and in which
they all sleep; and that sometimes Uncle Bob pays them a visit, and
eats and sleeps with them for a few days. Wondrous is the inner life
of Soho. It is the abode of much seediness and much suffering. Many
a poor gentleman eats his bread-and-dripping there, and, if he can
afford it, cooks his herring there, and thinks sadly of times, gone
by, when his life had its days of sunshine. He looks forward yearningly
to the time to come; but rich as is the harvest that grows in the fields
of Hope, the chance of its ever being gathered is a dismal one indeed.
The poor gentleman, ill-fed, ill-dressed, reads faded letters in his
garret, kisses pictures there, and dreams hopefully of the future,
which contains for him nothing but a grave.
In one of Soho's quiet streets--belonging to that peculiar family of
streets which are invariably round the corner--is a tallow-chandler's
shop, ambitiously designated by its proprietor, J. Gribble senior, as
an oil and colour warehouse. This designation glares at you from over
the blue shopfront in yellow letters--glares at you defiantly, as if
it is aware beforehand that doubt of its assertion must necessarily
rise in your mind. The window of the shop, in which the stock is
displayed, is dusty and dirty, and everything behind it has a faded
and second-hand appearance. In a corner of the window is a sheet
of note-paper, on which is written--in feeble and uncertain
letters--"Down with Cooperation!" There is an exception, however, to
the generally dusty aspect of the window. In a centre pane, which is
kept clean, is a square of blue cardboard, on which the following
announcement is neatly written, in yellow round-hand:
_J. GRIBBLE JUNIOR_,
_PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY_.
* * * * * *
_Broken Ribs or Bones_
_Carefully Re-set or Neatly Mended;_
_In fact_
_The Whole Frame speedily Recovered on Moderate Terms_.
* * * * * *
_J. G. junior informs the neighbouring Gentry that he has had a most
Extensive Practice, and that, although he has had_
_THOUSANDS OF PATIENTS_
_under his Treatment, he has never turned out one Incurable_.
_J. G. junior has had Numerous Patients brought to him Partly Deformed
or Weakened through Improper Treatment, and has in a very few Hours
invariably restored to them their Original Strength_.
* * * * * *
_Consultations, Examination, and Operations performed Daily
from 8 a.m. till 10 p.m_.
* * * * * *
_Patients admitted on application, and without the vexatious delay
which is occasioned by references being required_.
_NO CURE, NO PAY. ADVICE TO ALL GRATIS_.
* * * * * *
_J. G, junior's Royal Umbrella and Parasol Hospital,
Second-floor Front_.
The stock has not a very inviting appearance: comprising, for the most
part, candles, mouse-traps, balls of twine, bars of yellow soap--so
arranged as to be suggestive of prison-windows--and limbs and wings
and dead bodies of flies. These latter seem to be the peculiar
attribute of shop and parlour windows in Soho. One might almost be
pardoned for the supposition that every discontented fly in London
makes it a practice to go to Soho and die.
The shop has its public entrance for customers, and its private
entrance for the residents of the house--so private indeed, so
circumscribed and squeezed up, that scarcely one out of fifty
passers-by would know that it was there; and that one, seeing it by
merest chance, might well be lost in wonder at the perplexing idea of
a stout man struggling through the narrow passage into which the
mockery of a door must necessarily open. Three bell-handles display
themselves on each side of the door to snare and entrap the
uninitiated; a goggle-eyed knocker (with a face so hideous that babies
have gone into convulsions at the sight of it) also adds to the
entanglement of ideas. For, knowing that the house contains many
inhabitants who have no connection with each other, and some of whom
may indeed be at variance, the uninitiated brings confusion upon
himself by ringing the wrong bell or knocking the wrong knock. A
woman, who lodged somewhere in the vicinity of the coal-cellar, was
often the occasion of much distress to the knockers and ringers. This
woman, who always made her appearance fresh from the washing-tub, and
who came up-stairs invariably wiping her wet arms upon her apron, was
afflicted with the perpetual conviction that a ring or a knock,
whether single, or double, or treble, was certainly intended for her;
and as her temper was none of the sweetest, unpleasant scenes
occurred. Many a box on the ears did youthful knockers and ringers
receive from the damp hands of the disappointed woman, and many an
angry mother would make her appearance in the passage a few minutes
afterwards and exchange shrill civilities with the bad-tempered
castigator. Sometimes these angry mothers would go almost into
hysterics because the woman below declined to comply with such
invitations as, "Come up, and I'll show yer!" or, "Come up, and I'll
scratch yer eyes out for yer!" or, "What d'yer mean by slappin' my boy
Billy about on the 'ead, which was weak from a babby? What d'yer mean
by it, yer minx?--What d'yer mean?" (This last _fortissimo_.) "Come
up, and I'll tear the 'air out of yer 'ead!" After which challenges
and defiances the angry mothers, with very white faces, would issue
into the street, and form the centres of little knots of female
neighbours only too willing to discuss the matter and express their
opinions. A facetious person, who had called several times at the
house, and who was never able to solve the mystery of the bells, once
hit upon what he conceived to be a happy idea. He gave a postman's
knock; but the rush of eager feet from all parts of the house, and the
glare of angry faces that met his smiling one when the door was
opened, were sufficient warnings to him never to try it again; and he
never did.
In the front room of the first floor of this house sits an old man,
working in somewhat idle fashion on a few wooden castors or wheels. It
is Saturday on a summer evening in June. The window is open; on the
sill are two flower-pots. The room, which is a humble one, is very
clean and tidy, and there are evidences of comfort, even of refinement
about it, humble as it is. Some cheap graceful ornaments are on the
mantelshelf: a pair of shells; a shepherd and a shepherdess, condemned
by the exigencies of art to live apart from each other,
notwithstanding their languishing looks; and, in the centre of the
mantelshelf, a vase with two of yesterday's roses in it. These roses,
as they are placed in the vase, touch the photograph of a young girl,
which hangs in a frame above them. She is pretty and fresh-looking,
and there is a smile upon her face which induces gladness in the
beholder: as spring flowers and bright skies do. On either side of the
portrait, hung on a higher level, is a picture of the same young girl,
disguised. On the right-hand side of the mantelshelf she is dressed in
a Spanish costume; on her shoulders is a black-lace shawl arranged
with the most charming negligence; and as she looks at you from behind
a fan, you catch just a glimpse of laughing eyes. On the left-hand
side of the mantelshelf she is dressed in the costume of a century
ago, in brocaded silk dress, and with black beauty-spots on her
cheeks; she wears a white wig, and, in the act of curtseying, looks at
you saucily and demurely, coquetting the while with a white
handkerchief which she holds in her fingers. The stove is hidden by an
ornament of paper flowers, the colours and arrangement of which are
more artistic than the majority of those sold in the streets. There is
one singular peculiarity about the furniture in the room: everything
movable is on wheels. The chairs, the table, a footstool, the very
ornaments on the mantelshelf--all on wheels made expressly for them.
There is no carpet on the floor; but the chairs make no noise as they
are moved, for the wheels (made of box or deal, according to
requirement) are covered with leather. Even the flower-pots on the
window-sill have wheels, and the old man is at present occupied in
making wheels for a work-box, which it is not difficult to guess
belongs to the young girl whose portrait hangs above the roses. He
works noiselessly and slowly, and with great care. It is evident that
he is engaged on a labour of love. He handles the wood as if it were
sensitive; he looks at his handiwork fondly, and holds it up to the
light and examines it with loving interest. Once he rises and stands
before the mantelshelf, and gazes with a tender light in his eyes at
the picture of the young girl. Then he returns to his tools, and
resumes his work. A slight sound disturbs him, and he pauses in his
work to listen. As he listens he raises his hand to his ear, and
directs his eyes towards a screen, which makes, as it were, a second
apartment of the cosiest corner of the room. Something that the old
man loves lies behind this screen, which is so arranged that the
pictures on the mantelshelf and the roses and the ornaments of paper
flowers can be seen by the person lying there. A pale, thin, bent old
man is he: not bent by age, but by constant stooping; with long
hair--a fringe of it only round his head--nearly white, and with a
thoughtful expression on his face that would well become a student;
which this old man is not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term.
Among the decorations on the mantelshelf is the smallest of clocks, in
a case of wood, carved most likely by Swiss hands. As the old man sits
and works, a click from the Swiss clock warns him that another hour is
nearly gone. "Five minutes to nine," he whispers, and he steps softly
towards the screen, and moves it so that, when he returns to his seat,
he can see what it has before hidden from his sight. With the
exception of the click, and presently of the striking of the hour in
thin bell-notes, not a sound is heard in the room; for the old man has
list slippers on his feet. The shifting of the screen has disclosed a
single iron bedstead, on which lies a woman asleep. She is careworn
and middle-aged; and when her features are composed, a likeness may be
discerned in them to the picture of the girl on the mantelshelf. But
at the present moment her lips wreathe distressfully, and an
expression of pain rests upon her face.
So, in this quiet room, the sick woman sleeping and the old man
working, the minutes pass swiftly, and the click of the little Swiss
clock is heard again. Five minutes to ten. The old man, who has been
growing restless, and who has several times gone to the bed to see if
the woman is awake, grows more restless still as he hears the last
click. "Alfred promised to be here by this time," he says, with an
anxious look at the door as he lays his work aside. On a little table
near the bed are two medicine bottles, one large and one small, which,
with their labels tied nattily round their necks, look ridiculously
like clergymen with their bands on. The old man takes one of these
medicine bottles, and reads the directions: "Two tablespoonfuls to be
given immediately she awakes, and after that, the same quantity every
four hours."
"And she won't take it from any other hand than mine or Lily's," he
muses. "If Alfred doesn't come home, and she doesn't wake, I must get
somebody to go for Lily."
As he stands debating with himself what is best to be done, he hears a
tap at the door. It heralds the appearance of a young woman, one of
the lodgers in the upper part of the house. She has her hat and shawl
on, and a basket is on her arm.
"Ah, Mrs. Podmore," he says abstractedly, "will you step inside?"
"No, thank you, Mr. Wheels," she answers; "I'm in a hurry. How's your
daughter to-night?"
"Not so well, not so well," he says. "She's wandering a little, I
think. The doctor was here in the afternoon, and I could tell by his
face that he thought she was worse. And I have to give her her
medicine directly she wakes."
"I'm sorry she's not well. We've all got our trials, Mr. Wheels! My
sister's little boy's down with the fever too. I'm going to take a run
round to see how he is."
"Not serious, I hope?"
"I don't know," replies Mrs. Podmore gravely; "he seems to me to be
sinking--but we're all in God Almighty's hands. One thinks of one's
own, Mr. Wheels, at such times. Thank God, _our_ little one's
upstairs, asleep, safe and well. But we feared we was going to lose
her in the spring, and I never see a child struck down but I think of
_her_."
"I often think of little Polly, too," says the old man sympathisingly,
"and of how near she was to death. Do you remember how Lily grieved?"
"Remember it!" exclaims Mrs. Podmore, with grateful enthusiasm. "I
shall remember it to my dying day. What I should have done without her
I don't know. When Polly was a-laying there so quiet and solemn and
white, and my heart was fit to break, Lily used to come and cheer me
up. She was the only comfort I had, bless her kind heart and pretty
face!"
"Yes, yes," cries the old man eagerly; "and how Polly took to her
after that! and how fond she was of my girl! But who could help being
that--who could help being that?"
"I had enough to do, what with looking after Jim and Polly," continues
the homely woman. "What with keeping the place clean and sweet, and
making the things the doctor ordered, and mending Jim's clothes, and
getting his dinner and tea ready for him every morning before he went
out; and what with him coming home dead-beat and worried with anxiety
about Polly, I wonder how I ever got through with it. As for doctors,
my blood curdles again when I see them looking so steady and cold at
somebody that's a-dying before their very eyes. Our Polly had been
abed nigh upon three weeks, when the doctor comes and looks at her and
feels her pulse, and shakes his head. My eyes was never off his face
for a second; and when I saw him shake his head, I turned so faint
that I thought I should have dropped. He was going away without a
word, when I stopped him in the passage. I tried to speak, but I
couldn't, and I thought it was cruel of him to be so particular about
buttoning his gloves, while I was in that state of agitation that I
could hardly stand. 'Don't take on so, Mrs. Podmore,' he said; 'you've
done your best, and that ought to be a consolation to you.' As if
anything could have been a consolation to me! I asked him if he
couldn't give me a bit of hope; but he shook his head again, and said,
'While there's life there's hope.' I knew what that meant, and I had
to catch hold of the banisters to steady myself. Then I went and sat
by Polly's bed, and began to cry. It seemed to me that she was gone
from us already, and that home wasn't home any more. And I was
frightened when I thought of Jim. His heart's bound up in Polly, you
see, Mr. Wheels; they used to have quite a little play between them of
a morning. She'd creep close to him in bed, and put her arms round his
neck, and there they'd lay a-cuddling one another for half an hour
before he had to get up. When he had had his breakfast and had kissed
her a dozen times, and was out in the passage going to work, she'd
call him back and make fun of him, and they'd laugh together that
cheery like that it did my heart good to hear 'em. Sometimes she
wouldn't call him, and he'd wait in the passage. She knew he was
waiting, and she'd set up in bed, with a cunning little smile on her
lips, and her head bent forward, and her pretty hand raised,
listening. He knew what was going on inside that little head of hers,
and he'd stamp his feet and pretend to go downstairs. Then she'd call
out to him, 'Father, father!' and he'd say, 'Here I am, Pollypod!' and
they'd have another romp together, until he said, 'Now I _must_ be
off, Pollypod!' and away he'd run, waking half the people in the house
with his clatter. I was always easy in my mind about Jim when he went
away like that. I thought of all this after the doctor gave Polly up,
and I was frightened. Jim was very late that night, and Lily was with
me when he came home. 'How's my little Pollypod?' he said; but he
didn't wait for an answer--he saw it in my face. I thought he'd have
gone mad; but we got him quieted after a bit, and Lily sat up with me
that night watching. Well, it was a little past four o'clock in the
morning, and Jim was asleep, and Lily and me was watching and fearing,
watching and fearing! Ah! it's an anxious time that watching of a
night, when you fear you're a-going to lose something that's dearer to
you than life! The tick of the clock then isn't like the tick of the
clock at any other time. It seems to bring a warning to you, like; it
sounds so solemn, that it brings a creeping feeling on you, and you're
almost too frightened to look over your shoulder. That night we could
have heard a pin drop, everything was so quiet. Polly was so still
that I put my face close to hers on the pillow to catch her breathing,
and I was laying like that when she opened her eyes quite wide. It
gave me a dreadful turn, for I didn't know what was going to happen.
But she opened her eyes for good, thank God! 'Where's father?' she
asked. I couldn't have heard her, she said it so soft, if my face
hadn't been close to hers, and if my heart hadn't been in my ears.
'Where's father?' she asked. I motioned to Lily, and she woke Jim; and
Polly moved her thin little hand towards him and smiled. She wanted to
put her hand on his neck, but she was that weak she couldn't. So Jim,
with the tears running down his face, but making believe to laugh as
if they was having a game together, puts his face quite close to hers,
and kisses her, and from that moment Polly mended; and father and her
they romp together in the morning as they used to do, and pretend more
than ever, I think."
Here Mrs. Podmore wipes her eyes, and asks the old man to forgive her
for being such a gossip. "I've come to ask you, as you're going to
stay in, to tell Jim, if he comes home before I'm back, that I won't
be gone long."
"I'll tell him; and perhaps, Mrs. Podmore, you wouldn't mind my asking
your husband if he would go to the music-hall, and bring Lily home. I
can't leave my daughter, you see, and Alf's not here, and I don't like
the idea of Lily walking through the streets by herself."
"Ask him and welcome," says Mrs. Podmore; "but, love your heart Mr.
Wheels, Jim'll be that sleepy when he comes upstairs that I don't
think he's to be trusted. He can hardly see hisself home when he's
done work, he's that worked off his legs; and he's worse on Saturday
than on any other night. How he manages to tumble through the streets
is more than I can tell; it's a mercy he ain't run over. He always
waits in the passage for me to come and help him up, and when he _is_
up, he tumbles down dead beat. That's why I asked you to tell him
about my being out, you being nearest the street-door. To be sure
Jim is a little brighter sometimes than others, and he may be so
to-night."
The old man clings to this hope, and nods to Mrs. Podmore, who hurries
out of the house. Then the old man falls to counting the seconds until
Mr. Podmore makes his appearance. He has not long to wait. In a short
time he hears the street-door opened and slammed-to. "That's Mr.
Podmore," says the old man, starting from his chair and listening
anxiously; "I hope he's not too tired to go."
Mr. Podmore seems to be not only too tired to go, but too tired to
come. When he has slammed the street-door, he leans against it, and
dozes. He has no need to close his eyes, for they were closed when he
opened the door. He remains in this position for a few moments, then
shuffles along the passage. Coming to the stairs, he sits upon the
lowest step, and yields to the soft-sleeping murmurs which are
overpowering him. Rousing himself, he sets himself in motion again,
and begins to ascend the stairs, dragging his feet wearily, and falls
asleep again before he arrives at the landing. In this way he reaches
the old man, who is waiting to speak to him, and who is already
tormented by the fear that this is not one of Mr. Podmore's bright
nights.
Mr. Podmore is followed by a dog--a rough, yellow Scotch
terrier--every hair in whose body bristles with watchfulness. It is a
small dog, viciously faithful, and as it waits patiently and
intelligently upon its master's movements, observing every motion with
its watchful grey eyes, it declares clearly, "Here am I, wide awake,
and armed at all points. Touch him if you dare with any but a friendly
hand! Address him at your peril in any but a friendly voice! I'm on
guard, faithful and true, and I can distinguish friends from foes. I
can smell them." No signs of impatience are visible in the dog's
demeanour at Mr. Podmore's slow progress upstairs. It follows its
master's footsteps with serious attention, watches while he dozes,
pricks up its ears as he sets himself in motion again, and now stands
on the landing before the old man with its nose close to its master's
legs.
"Good-evening, Mr. Podmore," says the old man.
"Good-evening."
He blinks at the light which the old man holds in his hands, closes
his eyes, and shows so decided a disposition to lean against nothing,
that the old man has to save him from falling. This arouses him for a
moment, and seeing the door open, he staggers into the room, and sinks
into a chair. He is a well-made man, thirty years of age perhaps, and
belongs unmistakably to the working classes--to one of the most
perilously-worked of the working-classes. He carries a blue-cotton
pocket-handkerchief containing an empty basin and plate which has held
his dinner, and his hands and face are black with dirt. As he sits in
the chair, having fallen rather heavily into it, the dog stretches
itself under the seat, with its nose between its master's legs. You
can see nothing of it but the tip of its nose and its two watchful
grey eyes, steady and clear and humid, on the look-out for squalls.
"Where's my wife?" murmurs Mr. Podmore drowsily.
"She asked me to tell you," replies the old man, regarding Mr. Podmore
doubtfully, "that she's gone to see her sister's child, who is ill.
She'll be back soon."
"All right," says Mr. Podmore, upon whose ears the old man's gentle
voice falls so soothingly that the soft sleep-murmurs take more
complete possession of him; he sways forward in his chair, and is on
the point of falling to the ground on his face, when he recovers
himself by a sudden convulsive movement.
"Hush!" says the old man, casting an apprehensive look towards the
bed. "Don't make a noise."
"Never fear," murmurs Mr. Podmore. "I have enough--noise--every
day--to last me--my life-time."
He does not say this all at once, but breaks off two or three times to
doze. Seeing him in this condition, the old man relinquishes his
intention of asking him to go for Lily; his great anxiety now is to
get rid of the tired-out man. But Mr. Podmore, overpowered by
exhaustion, and wooed by the quiet that prevails, is so desperately
bent upon falling into a deep sleep, that the old man has much
difficulty in arousing him.
"Come, come," he urges, "rouse yourself, Mr. Podmore. Don't you think
you would be more comfortable in bed?"
"I'm comfortable--enough," says Mr. Podmore, leaning his head on the
old man's breast; "if you'll--let me be. I'm dead--beat. Where's
my--precious--little Pollypod?"
"Up-stairs. Waiting for you. I want to take you to her."
Mr. Podmore rises unresistingly, and they stagger up-stairs to his
apartment on the third floor. The dog follows them. A candle is alight
in the wash-bowl, and Pollypod is in bed, asleep. The dog, satisfied
that a safe haven is reached, leaps upon the bed, and after licking
Pollypod's face, curls itself at the foot of the bed, following its
master's movements now with lazily-watchful eyes. Mr. Podmore clings
to the old man, who assists him on to the bed, and determines to wait
until the tired-out man is asleep. Mr. Podmore, nestling close to
Pollypod, thinks it necessary to enter into an explanation before his
senses entirely desert him, and he mingles his apologies with
expressions of endearment towards his child.
"You see, Mr. Wheels," he murmurs, at intervals, "when a man's--a
pointsman--(my little darling!)--and has to be at it--fourteen and
sixteen and eighteen--hours a day--he ain't accountable--for hisself.
The company says--he is--and the public says--he is; but I'm--a
pointsman--and I know--better. (Don't I, Pollypod!) I've been on
duty--now--since five o'clock--this morning--and I'm dead--beat.
(Dead--beat, Pollypod!) What'd the public--say to that--if they knew
it? I'm dead--beat--and I ain't accountable--for myself. (Am I,
my pretty?) I wish the public--and the company--'d try it
theirselves,--for a month. (To-morrow's Sunday, Pollypod, thanks be!)
Last week--there was a--a accident--on our line--you saw it--in the
papers. One woman--was killed--and others was--shook. The papers had
articles on it--and the pointsman--who was dead--beat--was took in
custody--and the coroner--said--said----"
But what the coroner said is not repeated on the present occasion, for
Mr. Podmore falls into utter unconsciousness, and being undoubtedly as
dead-beat as it is in the power of mortal to be, sleeps the deepest of
deep sleeps. While the faithful dog, cozily coiled up on the bed,
blinks and blinks at the candle, in a state of uncertainty as to
whether a lurid star which gleams in the long dull wick is friend or
foe.
CHAPTER II.
IN WHICH DRIBBLE JUNIOR DISCOURSES ON CO-OPERATION.
The old man, leaving Mr. Podmore in paradise, walked slowly
down-stairs, and paused before a door on the second landing, on which
was inscribed--again in yellow round-hand on a blue ground: "Umbrella
and Parasol Hospital. Knock and enter." After a slight hesitation, he
knocked and entered.
J. Gribble junior was hard at work mending ribs and bones, and
speedily recovering frames on moderate terms. Mrs. J. Gribble junior
was also hard at work on silk and gingham. The heir of the house of
Gribble junior was asleep in a corner under an umbrella tent.
There could not have been fewer than a hundred umbrellas and parasols
in the room, and there was not one of them which did not show signs of
having seen a great deal of life--evidently much more than was good
for it. Here was one reclining against the wall, surmounted by a great
knob set upon one side of its head. It had a rakish and dissipated
air, and seemed to declare that it had been out late at nights, in all
sorts of company and all sorts of weather, and liked it; and that when
the slits in its silk coat were mended, it intended to resume its
dissolute life. Here was one, a sad-looking gingham, very faded and
worn, telling by the plainest of signs the story of its poor life and
that of its owner. In your fancy you could see the faded gingham, on
its rickety frame, being borne along through wind and sleet; and if
you peeped beneath the awning you would see a patient-looking woman,
meanly dressed, and you would know, without being told in so many
words, that the burden of life had withered all the roses that once
bloomed on her cheek; for a dozen years since she could have been but
a girl, and could not have been otherwise than pretty. Here was one,
thin and sleek, with ivory handle, which said, "I am faded gentility."
It needed no great stretch of the imagination to see the hand in its
well-worn and much mended glove that had clasped that handle in the
streets for many months. Here was one which proclaimed, "I have been
dropsical from early youth, and there is no cure for me;" and indeed
all Gribble junior's skill would not avail him if he endeavoured to
get the bulge out of it. In addition to these and other types--almost
as various as the types to be found in human beings--were naked
umbrellas and parasols which had been stripped of their clothing.
Here was one battered and bruised, with half-a-dozen ribs broken. Here
was one which asserted proudly, "I am Paragon, and I glory to show
myself!" Here was the dainty frame of a parasol standing like a
shamefaced girl by the side of the frame of an old-man umbrella that
had led a bad life.
"Ah, Mr. Wheels!" said Gribble junior. "I thought it was too late for
a patient.--Mrs. J. G., a chair."
"Thank you, thank you, Mr. Gribble," replied the old man. "I'll not
sit down, please. The little one well, Mrs. Gribble?"
Mrs. Gribble junior went to the umbrella tent, and softly raised it.
But the face of the heir of the house of Gribble junior was hidden
by a parasol, of which the child had made an inner tent, like the
box-within-a-box Chinese puzzle, and which it held tightly in its
hand.
"Quite well, thank you, Mr. Wheels," said the mother. "How is your
daughter to-night?"
"I don't think she's improving. She wanders a good deal."
Gribble junior, who had been gazing with a satisfied air at the
umbrella tent, nodded gently two or three times to express sympathy
with the old man, who remarked, speaking of the child, "He takes to
the business early, Mr. Gribble."
"Took to it from a baby," said Gribble junior complacently. "He sucked
in the umbrella and parasol business with his mother's milk, as a body
might say. For the top of his cradle was made of two umbrellas, and
when he opened his little eyes and looked up, the only roof he saw,
until he could crawl, was a roof of silk and whalebone. Nothing like
commencing young! That there young un's going to be a useful member of
society. I made up my mind to that before Mrs. J. G. made up her mind
to present him to me, as a body might say. He can use his left hand as
well as his right. No rights and lefts for me. They shall both be
rights. It's robbing a young un of half his chance in the world to
train him up to a useless hand. You might almost make up your mind to
train his left leg to limp. That's not the way to keep moving. I
shouldn't wonder if, when the young un's a man, he invents a new
umbrella to astonish the world and make our fortunes."
The old man smiled, and remarked that Gribble junior was at work late.
"Obliged to be. My motto, you know--keep moving. I always think," and
Gribble junior sent a pleasant merry look in the direction of the old
man, "that it's going to rain to-morrow, and that people'll want
umbrellas."
"Very good of you, very considerate," murmured the old man.
"It wouldn't be so bad," continued Gribble junior, "if other people,
whether they're professors of anatomy or not, would think the same
way; if _they'd_ think it was going to rain to-morrow, and if _they'd_
prepare their umbrellas to-day--as a body might say."
"Surely, surely," said the old man, contriving by an effort to arrest
his wandering thoughts. "And how's business, Mr. Gribble?"
"Never was so bad," replied Gribble junior cheerfully. "Father's
experience'll carry him a good deal farther back than mine will, as
you may guess, Mr. Wheels, and he says times never was so bad as they
are now."
(It is remarkable, be where you will and at any period, here or in any
other part of the world, now or twenty years since or twenty years to
come, that "times never were so bad" as they are certain to be at the
moment of inquiry.)
"What is the cause of the bad times?" asked the old man, who had not
yet found the opportunity of introducing the object of his visit, and
who knew that Gribble junior must always "have his say."
"Well, Mr. Wheels," said Gribble junior, hammering softly on a
dislocated rib, "some _will_ have it it's because the Queen don't come
out more; but that's an old cry, and I don't believe in it. Though I
think it would be better if the Queen came amongst us more than she
does. It's queer how people _will_ stick to old cries. Old cries are
like old boots. You wear tight boots long enough, and they'll become
easy and comfortable, and you don't like to throw 'em off. Father says
it's the co-operative stores, and he's bitter on 'em accordingly. If
father's got a sore place, it's co-operation. You should start him on
the subject one night; he'd open your eyes for you. There isn't an
article you can mention that co-operation hasn't laid hands on--except
cats'-meat, perhaps. The co-operative men don't draw the line nowhere,
except at cats'-meat. There isn't a thing that father sells that they
haven't gone into: not that father's business is the only business
that's put upon. They go into coffins, and that's going far enough,
I'm sure--as a body might say. They take a penny off everything;
tallow-dips, yellow soap and mottled. As for scented and brown
windsor, father hasn't sold a cake for a month. And if things don't
sell, they spoil. Dust won't be denied. Then soap withers. It's like
us, Mr. Wheels; the bloom goes off, and we ain't worth as much a pound
as we were once on a time. We don't weigh so much neither: the sap
goes out. Flies make inroads. They're like co-operation; they touch
everything. The very mouse-traps get blown. As for what ought to be
inside of 'em--mice--I needn't tell you what a hole they make in
profits. I pity the small grocers now that co-operation's got hold of
things."
During the brief pause that followed, the old man listened for a sound
from the sick-room. Mrs. Gribble observed his anxiety, and knowing her
husband's weakness when he was on a favourite theme, rose and said,
"Do take a chair, Mr. Wheels. I'll go and sit in your room for a few
minutes."
The old man gave her a grateful look as she went out, and sat down
patiently. He had not, long to wait before Gribble junior resumed.
"When trade began to fall off, I painted that sign outside for father,
and I think it did a little good, but not much. Trade soon fell back
again, and co-operation kept moving. Then he wrote, 'Down with
co-operation!' on a bit of writing-paper, and put it in the window,
as if that'd stop it. I told father not to do it, but he wouldn't
take my advice. What's the consequence? The paper's fly-blown, and
co-operation keeps moving. Father says he doesn't know where it's
going to stop, and what's going to be the end of it, and says that
people ought to set their faces against it. But catch 'em doing it
when they think they can get a penny off everything, and catch 'em
doing it as long as the women's got the buying of things. When they
get the chance of making the market penny, they're sure to try and
make it into the market shilling That's the way of women, bless 'em!"
The old man nodded in satisfaction, for although Gribble junior's
words might have sounded very like grumbling from another man's lips,
they bore the most refreshing construction as they fell from his. He
had one of the pleasantest faces that eyes ever looked upon, and his
voice was as pleasant as his face. Everything about this small plump
man was round and agreeable. He was one of that kind of men who go out
walking with their wives on the day of rest, and who carry their
babies in the streets, and enjoy it. Gribble junior was often seen in
this position, and, as he walked along by the side of his wife, would
occasionally hold up his son and heir to the gaze of the public, as
much as to say, "Here he is; he can use his left hand as well as his
right, and is going to keep moving. Here is the cleverest baby in the
world: what do you think of him?" There is a great deal of character
to be learnt by observing the manner in which fathers carry their
babies in the streets, and notwithstanding that the custom is
considered by the majority of people to be namby-pamby, it is often
not an unpleasant sight to witness. One father carries his treasure
carefully and proudly, and proclaims, "This is Ours, and we think all
the world of it!" While another holds his burden loosely, and
proclaims, "This is Ours, and I wish it was Yours!" See this last
specimen of the British father slouching along, and his wife walking
discontentedly a few steps behind him. He carries his baby in the most
uncomfortable of positions, with its head hanging down. He is a
miserable dissatisfied man. He does not look this way or that, but
straight before him, surlily and wearily. He seems to say, "A nice
kind of thing this is, after my hard week's work! I can't go out for
my Sunday walk without dragging the brat along with me. What a fool I
was to get married!" And though really the burden is as a feather's
weight in the strong man's arms, his discontent makes it as weighty as
so much lead. There isn't a bright bit of ribbon in the child's dress,
and if you could see into the man's heart, you would learn that it
would not be a very great grief to him if the child were to die
quietly in his arms. You may depend upon it that the home of this man
and woman is not a happy one, and that life is truly a burden to
them. See this other and better specimen. Working-man father and
working-woman mother, in precisely the same position of life as the
discontented man. He carries the baby carefully and tenderly, and the
mother walks briskly by his side. There are refreshing bits of colour
about the woman's dress, and the baby's dress is, pretty and bright.
Sometimes the man pauses, and his wife uncovers the baby's face, and
they both look at it lovingly while she makes a fuss and pretence
about setting something right with the baby's hood. He gazes about him
cheerfully and seems to say, "This is one of my brightest bits of
sunshine. I shouldn't enjoy my Sunday's walk without it. What a happy
day for me was the day I got married!" And he thinks that soon--in
twelve months, perhaps--his little treasure will be able to toddle
along by his side, and throw bread to the ducks in the Park. And
though the child is plump and heavy, love makes it light. Happy
father! Happy home!
No such reflections as these passed through the mind of Gribble junior
as he continued the enunciation of his sensible philosophy.
"My way is, to take things as they come, and to keep moving. You knock
your head against things, and you're sure to rasp your skin. What's
the use of fretting? You only chafe yourself, and nobody takes any
notice. Make the best of things. That's what I tell father; but he
doesn't agree with me. The consequence is, that he shows his weak
hand, as a body might say. And that's not wise. If you have a
weakness, keep it to yourself. Don't let the world see it. Father said
to me one night last week when he was shutting up--(he'd only taken
three and fourpence the whole day, and that's enough, I own, or isn't
enough, perhaps I ought to say, to drive a shopkeeper wild)--that if
he could catch hold of a co-operation manager, he'd pitch into him. I
told him that if he did, he'd very likely get locked-up for it; and he
said, 'Never mind, I shouldn't be the only martyr that's suffered in a
good cause.' The fact is, Mr. Wheels, father belongs to the old
school--he won't keep moving; and as all the world's on the move, he's
left behind. I belong to the new school; and I run along with the tide
as fast as I can. Mrs. J. G. belongs to the new school, and so does
her brother. His name is Thompson. He's got a shop about half a mile
from here. He advertises himself everywhere as Thompson the Great. He
has thousands of bills circulated: 'The great Thompson! the unrivalled
Thompson! Thompson the First! Come and see him to-night. No charge for
admission. Where's Thompson? Who's Thompson?' That's his style. He has
an illumination over his shop every night, with his portrait in the
middle--although he's not a handsome man by any means. And what do you
think his business is? He keeps a little paper-hanging shop. By-and-by
he'll have a big paper-hanging shop. He keeps moving."
Here Gribble junior gave a finishing tap to the patient in hand, and
whipped off his apron.
"I've done work for the night," he said.
At the same moment Mrs. Gribble entered, and whispered to the old man
that the woman down-stairs was sleeping soundly.
"That's where it is," said the old man, with a disturbed look; "that's
what I've come in for. She's got to have her medicine given to her
directly she wakes, and she won't take it from any other hand than
mine or Lily's; and it's now half-past ten o'clock, and I ought to be
at the Hall to bring Lily home, although it'll be an hour yet before
she's ready. Lily can't walk home by herself, especially on Saturday
night, when there are so many roughs about and so much money spent in
drink."
"Where's Alf?" asked Gribble junior.
"I don't know; he promised to be here at ten o'clock; but he hasn't
come."
"Do you want Mrs. J. G. to sit with your girl down-stairs while you go
and fetch Lily?"
"Didn't I tell you," said the old man fretfully, "that my daughter's
got to have her medicine given her directly she wakes, and that she
won't take it from anybody but me or Lily?"
"Well, then," asked Gribble junior, with great good-humour, "do you
want me to go and fetch Lily?"
"Yes--yes--yes," with a jealous little sigh between each yes, as if
the speaker were unwilling to give to another a task that he would
fain perform himself. "I came in to ask you. I thought of Mr. Podmore
at first; but he's dead-beat."
Gribble junior's coat was off before the old man was finished, and he
was plunging his face in water.
"What makes Lily late to-night?" he called out in the midst of his
plashing.
"They've changed the programme, and she's got a new song to sing; and
her turn won't come on until past eleven o'clock. The manager's an
artful man, and knows what an attraction Lily is; the people'll stop
to the last to see her pretty face and hear her pretty voice. My
Lily!" He uttered the last words softly to himself, in a tone of
infinite tenderness. "Here are the tickets. This admits to the Hall;
show it to the man at the door, and he'll let you in. Wait until Lily
comes on; and when she has finished--which'll not be until they call
her back two or three times--go out at once, and ask your way to the
stage-door. This ticket'll admit you to the side of the stage. Tell
Lily I couldn't come because mother's not awake, and that I've sent
you to take care of her, and to bring her home."
"All right," said Gribble junior, twisting himself into his coat,
delighted at the opportunity of getting free admission to a
music-hall. "Get supper ready, Liz, by the time I come back. I'll
bring Lily safe home, Mr. Wheels."
With a parting nod, the cheerful little man skipped down the stairs
and into the street, and the old man went back to his room. The woman
was still sleeping. He took up the work-box on which he had been
working, and looked at it affectionately. "My Lily!" he murmured
again, in the same tone of tenderness he had used before; and so sat
musing, with that yearning of deep love which is almost painful in its
intensity. Soon the Swiss clock struck eleven, and the old man laid
the cloth for supper. There was the little cruet on wheels, and the
breadbasket, and the salt-cellar; and each plate and dish had a wooden
rim on the bottom, in which very small wheels were inserted. He took
these and the remains of a small joint of roast beef from a cupboard
on the landing; placed the vase with the roses in it in the centre of
the table; went out for beer; and when he returned, arranged the
supper-things again and again, until he was satisfied that everything
was in the exact place to please his darling.
CHAPTER III.
INTRODUCES THE ROYAL WHITE ROSE MUSIC-HALL.
Gribble junior had the finest spirits of any man in London. Nothing
jarred upon him. From the days of his infancy, when he used to munch
his knuckles contentedly, to the present time, he was never known to
be out of temper. He had never had a ten-pound note to call his own,
and he was always blithe and happy. His father had been a struggling
small tradesman all his life, taking just enough over his counter to
keep body and soul together, as he expressed it; and therefore,
although Gribble junior was his son, he could scarcely be called his
heir. But the lucky junior came into a rare inheritance from his
mother--the inheritance of a cheerful nature. Such a patrimony is
worth more than great estates and much money.
He was in one of his happiest moods as, in accordance with his own
maxim, he pushed along and kept moving towards the Royal White Rose
Music-hall. It was not ten minutes' walk from his lodgings in Soho;
but it might have been situated in another land, so great was the
contrast between his quiet street and that in which the Royal White
Rose asserted itself. The difference between the two localities was
something similar to that between a poor peaceful woman treading
life's path humbly and unassumingly, and a flaunting shameless madam,
painted and bedizened, with everything glaring and everything false
about her. The narrow pathway that led to the Royal White Rose was
almost blocked up by the busy crowd of men and women and boys and
girls with which it was filled. The living stream moved, it is true;
but the waters were unhealthful and turbid, and ran sluggishly. In one
part of the thoroughfare it was dark, and the shops were closed; in
another--that portion which was in immediate contiguity to the Royal
White Rose--every shop was open and driving a busy trade. Hansom cabs,
with senile men and painted women in them, were rattling along;
man-rakes and boy-rakes--from the twelve-year-old smoking his penny
cigar with his hands in his pockets, to the fifty-year-old with his
hat on one side and his black whiskers and dandy cane--sauntered idly
this way and that, and often stopped to exchange light words and looks
with the girl-rakes and women-rakes, who out-vied them in numbers and
boldness. Unrestrained license prevailed in this saturnalia. Laughing
indecency, painted misery, and flagrant violations of all that is
modest and good, unblushingly proclaimed themselves in the very eye of
the law. The corruption was open. There was no attempt at disguise in
this legalised Mart of Shame, through which, as it forms an important
lung of the City, many good men and women must necessarily walk. How
innately pure must be that rose of modesty that can escape defilement,
when brought into contact with it!
The Royal White Rose Music-hall was situated almost in the centre of
the Mart of Shame, and Gribble junior paused for a moment at the
entrance of the Hall, which was blazing with light. Dozens of pompous
and fascinating announcements, in the largest letters and in the most
brilliant of coloured inks, lined both sides of the passage which led
to the pay-place. Upon these announcements Gribble junior gazed
admiringly. The Great This will appear. The Great That was engaged.
The Inimitable Noodle, who had been patronised by Royalty, would sing
his choicest songs. The Flashiest Man in London to-night. The Pretty
Lily at half-past eleven. The Incomparable Lackbrain (the Pet of the
Drawing-room) would sing "Fie, for Shame!" and "The Only Way to enjoy
Life." And so on and so on.
Gribble junior made his way into the Hall, which was crowded to excess
with flash men and women, with working people of both sexes, and with
boys and girls sucking in bad and foolish lessons eagerly. The
Incomparable Lackbrain was on the stage, singing "Fie, for Shame!" to
the intense delight of his hearers. He was a tall lank man, with a
painfully vacuous countenance, and "Fie, for Shame!" was the recital
of the doings of a young man and a young woman who had met on a penny
steamboat, and whose vulgar words and allusions continually elicited
from one or the other the exclamation, most enjoyably uttered, "Fie,
for Shame!" The title of the song was the refrain of the chorus, in
which the audience were invited to join by the singer. Amazing were
the zest and vigour with which they complied with the invitation; the
men and women laughed and winked at one another, and cried, "Fie, for
Shame! Fie, for Shame!" and when the Incomparable disappeared, after
many an ungainly slouch, they clapped their hands and shouted for him
to return. The Chairman struck twice upon his bell, and the well-known
signal provoked another burst of applause. In the interval between the
songs, Gribble junior observed and admired; for it would be useless to
deny that the honest fellow enjoyed the scene immensely. His ticket
admitted him to the stalls, where the Chairman, with a dyed moustache
and a large nose, sat upon his throne, the cynosure of a thousand
admiring eyes. Gribble junior managed to squeeze himself into a seat
near this potentate, who was looked upon with awe by the youthful
portion of the audience, and whose chief duty appeared to consist in
smoking unlimited cigars and drinking unlimited brandies and whiskies
hot at the expense of certain favoured frequenters of the Hall. In the
programme, which Gribble junior had purchased for a penny, was a
portrait of the Chairman, in which his large nose was considerably
toned down, as a body might say (to use one of Gribble junior's
favourite phrases), and his moustache presented a noble and imposing
appearance. A biography of the distinguished man was also given, in
which he was credited with many rare qualities, and from which you
would infer that his career was one of spotless virtue; but had you
been aware of the true facts of the case, you would have regarded the
biography with considerable doubt. Gribble junior read also in the
programme an advertisement of an eminent music-seller in the West, who
had published those justly popular and refined favourite songs, "Fie,
for Shame!" and "The Only Way to enjoy Life!" with a portrait of the
composer on the title-page. As he was reading this, the band struck up
a well-known air, and the Incomparable Lackbrain appeared in an
outrageous costume to instruct the audience in "The Only Way to enjoy
Life." According to his laying down of the law, the only time to enjoy
life was after midnight; the only place, in the streets; and the only
method, to drink champagne and brandy hot until you reeled home to
your bed at three o'clock in the morning in a state of intoxication.
The Incomparable illustrated the last phase. He set his hat at the
back of his head, pulled his hair over his eyes, untied his cravat and
let it hang loose, hitched his coat off one shoulder, buttoned his
waistcoat awry, and pulled one leg of his trousers nearly up to his
knees. In this condition he reeled about the stage, and drivelled and
laughed like an imbecile; and, having thus distinguished himself,
retired, after an egregiously stupid speech, in which he returned
ungrammatical thanks to his admirers for their appreciation of his
efforts. Then another singer appeared, who sang only one song; for as
this was the last night of his engagement, it was the Chairman's
policy to show by his indifference that the popularity of the Royal
White Rose Music-hall would not be diminished by the retirement of
this performer. Consequently he did not lead the applause by rapping
on the table with his little hammer, and did not give the usual signal
on the bell for the singer's reappearance. But he did rap very loudly
before he rose to announce, with great pleasure, the fascinating Lily;
and when he sat down he led the applause smartly and vigorously.
Gribble junior was not the only one who joined in the applause with
spirit. Nearly every person in the Hall lent a hand, and great
clapping came from a private box at the corner of the stage, towards
which many a curious and envious gaze had been directed during the
night. There was a little table in that box, on which were a
champagne-bottle and glasses, and two gentlemen were there, one
sitting and the other standing. The one who was standing was the
well-known manager and proprietor of the Royal White Rose Music-hall,
and every now and then he leant from the box and surveyed his patrons,
some of whom nudged each other, and pointed him out as the great
manager who had risen from nothing. About an hour ago a bottle of
champagne had been sent down from the box to the bottle-nosed
Chairman, who had filled his own and one or two other glasses, and,
before he drank, had looked towards the donor with a half-respectful,
half familiar glance. These small circumstances had rendered the box
an object of interest to the audience.
A working-man said to his wife, "There's a swell up in that box; he's
drinking champagne, and treating the manager."
"What's champagne like, Bill?" the wife asked.
"Don't know; never tasted it," was the gruff rejoinder.
"It must be dreadfully nice," said the wife, with a woman's longing
for things.
These paradoxical phrases are not confined to working-women;
ladies in polite society are in the habit of giving utterance to such
unmeaning combinations of words that we may expect presently to hear
certain matters spoken of as sweetly murderous or delightfully
disgusting.
The gentleman in the box, then, who sat with his back to the audience,
applauded energetically when the fascinating Lily was announced, and
the manager, as in duty bound, applauded also, but more graciously
than the other.
"You've only seen her once," observed the manager.
"Only once," replied the gentleman. "I strolled in last night to kill
half an hour, and was surprised to see such a little beauty come on
the stage. How long has she been out?"
"Nearly eight months. There's nothing very striking about her, but
she's pretty and simple and innocent----"
"Pretty--and simple and innocent!" interrupted the gentleman, with a
light laugh.
"Yes, I'm hanged if she isn't!" exclaimed Storks energetically.
"And been in the Royal White Rose Music-hall, or any other music-hall,
rose or dandelion, for eight months?" interrupted the gentleman again,
in the same light manner.
Manager Storks looked displeased. "You've got the common notion," he
said; "because a girl's a ballet-girl or a singer, she can't be
honest, I suppose! You don't know so much about them as I do, that's
clear."
It came into the gentleman's mind to answer, "I don't suppose I do;
_I_ didn't marry a ballet-girl." But as Manager Storks did marry a
ballet-girl, who was a good and industrious wife, and as he was at
present master of the situation, the gentleman wisely held his tongue.
Storks proceeded:
"I could show dozens of ballet-girls who'd reckon you up in no time,
and who'd snap their fingers at your----"
"There, there!" cried the gentleman, putting his fingers in his ears.
"Stop it, there's a good fellow. I don't want a lecture upon the
virtues of ballet-girls. I only meant that it's against the order of
things for a pretty girl to be in a music-hall for eight months, and
to be as simple and innocent as you make out Lily to be. She may be as
goody-goody as a missionary's daughter, for all I care."
But although he expressed himself in this indifferent manner, he was
not at all indifferent when Lily came on the stage.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, under his breath, "she _is_ a little beauty!"
And he clapped his hands, and threw a handsome bouquet to her.
As Lily stooped and picked up the flowers, the applause was redoubled.
She stood before the motley assembly with the flowers in her hand, and
her sweet innocent face beamed like a star amidst the atmosphere of
smoke and heat. Truly, what had been enacted previously within the
Royal White Rose Music-hall gave the lie to the title; but here was a
rose, a pure white rose, which justified it. She was dressed in white
silk, and had white flowers in her hair. She recognised Gribble
junior, and gave him a little smile, which filled him with delight and
made him look round with pride. The gentleman in the box saw the
smile, and the individual at whom it was directed.
"Does she know that cad down there?" he asked of Manager Storks
curiously. He would have given something for such a smile, but Lily
did not raise her eyes to the box.
"Seems like it," was the reply.
"He looks like a potman. Hush! What a sweet voice she has!"
The sweetest of voices--pure and fresh, sounding strangely indeed in
such a place. There was not one in the Hall to whom her simple song
and almost childlike manner did not afford pleasure. "How pretty she
is! How young! Is that hair all her own? She paints o' course. What a
stunnin' little foot she's got! Let's 'ave 'er in agin. Ah, _she'll_
soon get spoilt! Lackbrain's awfully sweet on her, I heerd. So is that
gent in the box." Suchlike comments were made freely in the Hall, as
were also a few others of a different nature. Said one painted young
woman in pink silk to another in blue, "She's the very image of my
sister Bess as she was twelve years ago. I've got a picture of her at
home." And another, a faded woman--you could see she was that,
notwithstanding all her finery--sighed and said to her companion,
"That was mother's favourite song. Many's the time she's sung it to
me." And the memory of the days when she led a better life acted upon
her parched heart for a few moments like drops of dew. But the
softening influence soon died away in the glare and the smoke and the
bad surroundings.
The noise in the Hall was at its highest as Gribble junior pushed his
way through the pleasure-and-pain seekers. Being directed by the
attendant, he soon found himself on the stage. It was dark and almost
quiet. The last song had been sung, and the last strains of music had
died away; the curtain was drawn up, and the waiters were collecting
the glasses and assisting to the door two or three "jolly dogs," who
were unable to assist themselves.
Gribble junior surveyed these proceedings with considerable interest.
It was the first time in his life that he had ever been behind the
scenes, and he was surprised to find the place dirty and shabby and
unattractive. Although the Hall was closed, and no more business was
supposed to be done, there were a dozen persons at least drinking at a
bar in a corner. The Incomparable Lackbrain, the Inimitable Noodle,
and the Flashiest Man in London, were there, laughing and drinking
with the manager and the gentleman who had occupied the private box.
He was a fair man, in the prime of life, and had just ordered a fresh
bottle of champagne. As he raised his glass to his lips, he glanced
towards the stage, and saw the shadow of Gribble junior, who was
advancing towards Lily.
"Oh, Mr. Gribble," she said, "how strange to see you here! Where's
grandpapa?"
"He sent me for you, Lily," answered Gribble junior, "and told me to
tell you that he couldn't come for you himself, because your mother
wasn't awake, and he had to give her her medicine."
"You must wait a little while," said Lily, with something of
disappointment in her voice, "as I have to fold my dresses. I always
put everything in order Saturday night. I sha'n't be long."
And she tripped away, leaving Gribble junior looking after her
admiringly, and thinking what a bright little creature she was.
"Who's that fellow?" asked the gentleman at the bar of the manager.
Manager Storks did not reply; but, being jealous of strangers, and
probably having the fear of detectives in his mind, walked on to the
stage, followed by his friends. When Gribble junior explained that he
had come to fetch Lily home at the request of her grandfather, Manager
Storks grumbled, and told him to tell the old man to come himself for
Lily for the future.
"I can't have all sorts of strangers knocking about my stage," he
said.
Gribble junior received the rebuke humbly; he was fully sensible of
the privilege he was enjoying in being allowed to linger, if only for
a few minutes, behind the scenes. Some of the singers and performers
had followed Manager Storks, and they stood about in little groups,
talking--not in the most refined language, it must be confessed. The
luxury of adjectives was by far too freely indulged in. Gribble junior
did not think so; he positively glowed with delight. Was he not almost
rubbing elbows with the Inimitable Noodle and the Flashiest Man in
London, whose dress and walk hundreds of boys in London were
imitating! As for Lackbrain the Vacuous, his dull common face was
regarded with reverence by Gribble junior. In such enchanting company
the minutes flew away until Lily appeared, with the bouquet and a
little bundle in her hand. Gribble junior was advancing toward her
when he was pushed aside by the gentleman of the private box.
"A friend of mine is anxious for an introduction, Miss Lily," said
Manager Storks.
The friend of the manager, who was introduced as Mr. Sheldrake, raised
his hat, and Lily bowed and cast just a look at him; he murmured his
pleasure at being introduced to such a charming lily--"the fairest
flower in the entire Royal White Rose bouquet," he said gallantly.
Ready of speech and smooth of manner was Mr. Sheldrake as he addressed
Lily. He was not satisfied with Lily's bow, but held out his hand, on
the little finger of which was a plain band of gold, in which a
valuable diamond was set. Every respect was paid to the young girl,
who replied with smiles and simple words to the civilities of speech
with which she was greeted by one and another. Lackbrain the Vacuous
offered to see her home.
"Thank you," she said, advancing to Gribble junior; "I have an
escort." And she placed her hand on Gribble's arm, and gave him the
bundle to carry.
"Let me have the pleasure of driving you home," said Mr. Sheldrake in
his most agreeable voice; "my brougham is at the door."
Lily shook her head laughingly, and thanked him, but she preferred to
walk.
"Then I'll walk a few steps with you," he said pertinaciously.
Gribble junior did not like the proposal, neither did Lily approve of
it; but Mr. Sheldrake was not to be shaken off. When they left the
Hall it was half an hour after midnight. The Sabbath-day had
commenced, and had not commenced well. The glare of a noonday sun
could scarcely have been more powerful in its effect than the bright
light which fell from the open shops on the people and the
thoroughfare. Fish-shops and glove-shops, cigar-shops and refreshment
houses, the first and last especially, were driving a brisk trade. The
pushing, the struggling, the anxious faces, the drunken forms, the
senseless enjoyment, the joyless mirth, the fevered life, the various
aspects in which human nature was there presented, were sad to
witness. Here and there in the scene were patches of shade formed by
narrow thoroughfares where no light was, and at the corners of these
thoroughfares, standing in the shade and forming part of it, policemen
might occasionally be seen, waiting quietly to play their part in the
torrent which the law allows to flow. Before one of these guardians of
the peace--most paradoxical designation in such a scene--two men of
the lower classes paused, and were immediately desired to move on.
They were costermongers; their appearance was as rough as their
speech. But that one of them at all events was logical, and that there
was reason in his logic, were in some measure proved by his speech.
"This is Sunday, ain't it?" he asked.
"Yes," answered the policeman good-humouredly, "and time for you to be
abed."
"Thank yer for nothin', Bobby," he said, swaying slightly before the
policeman; "but my mate 'ere wants me to arks yer somethin' fust. He
wants to know why these 'ere swell shops is allowed to keep open arter
twelve o'clock on Saturday nights, and why he was summonsed afore the
beak for sellin' wegetables last Sunday?"
"Come, move on," was the only reply from the policeman.
"But, look 'ere now," urged the costermonger; "'ere he is with 'is
barrer----"
"Yes, that's it, Dropsy!" exclaimed the second man, illustrating the
position with eloquent action. "That's it. 'Ere I am with my
barrer----"
But the policeman, not at all disposed to parley, and not at all
curious to know the history of the man's "barrer," used effectual
arguments to relieve himself of the controversial costermongers, who
consoled each other, as they staggered away, by agreeing that "it was
a blazin' shame, that's what it was!"
Through such scenes as this, Lily and her escort walked to the humble
home in Soho. Mr. Sheldrake almost entirely monopolised the
conversation, talking much about himself, and about the pleasure it
would give him to improve an acquaintance so agreeably commenced.
Notwithstanding that it was past midnight, he threw out hints that
nothing could afford him so much pleasure as being invited into the
house; but as no invitation followed the expression of this desire, he
was compelled to bid Lily good-night at the street-door.
When he was alone, he stood in the quiet street, looking up at the
light in the room where the old man had been waiting anxiously for his
darling Lily.
CHAPTER IV.
MR. DAVID SHELDRAKE COMES TO A SHREWD CONCLUSION.
Mr. David Sheldrake, smooth and bland in voice and manner, lingered
about the streets for several minutes. It was a beautifully clear
night, and he may have been inclined for meditation. His appearance
was sufficiently respectable for such an indulgence, and a policeman
who stood in the shadow of a doorway quietly observing him did not
think it necessary to interfere with him. He glanced up at the
first-floor window, and saw the shadow of a woman upon the blind. "I
wonder if that is her room," he thought. "What a little nugget she
is!" He wished that somebody would come to the street-door, that he
might ask if Lily lived on the first-floor; but no one came, and the
narrow street was still and quiet. "David," he said to himself, "that
girl's pretty face has quite bewitched you." He seemed to take
pleasure in the thought, and smiled to himself complacently. It was
evidently not the first time that he had been bewitched by a pretty
face. He took his cigar-case from his pocket, and, turning to a
doorway to obtain a light for his cigar, saw the policeman.
"A fine night, policeman," he said.
"Yes, sir," acquiesced the policeman civilly.
"Been on this beat long, policeman?"
"A considerable time, sir."
"Pretty quiet about here, isn't it?"
"Pretty quiet, sir. But we get enough trouble out there;" with a nod
of his head in the direction of the Royal White Rose Music-hall.
"Ah, I daresay. Saturday nights especially."
"As you say, sir; Saturday nights especially."
"A cigar, policeman?"
"No, thank you, sir; not allowed to smoke."
Mr. Sheldrake coughed, and the policeman coughed in sympathy.
"Can we get anything to drink about here, policeman?"
"Not to-night, sir," said the policeman somewhat stiffly.
"The houses shut at twelve, Saturday nights."
His two bribes having been refused, Mr. Sheldrake bethought himself of
another. But first he said, as he put his hand into his pocket,
"Who lives in that house opposite, policeman?"
"Quite a number of people, sir. Half a dozen families, I should say."
Here the jingle of money fell upon the policeman's ears. It produced a
curious effect upon him. He coughed a little cough, which might have
been interpreted, "Behold me, one of her Majesty's servants, always
ready to do my duty." Then he looked up at the sky, and down on the
pavement, and round on the houses, and anywhere but in the direction
where Mr. Sheldrake stood; murmuring at the same time dreamily, in a
soft musing tone,
"_Quite_ half a dozen families, I should say, sir."
As he murmured this, his hand may be said to have resembled a sly
rascal peeping round the corner, to find out things without wishing
to draw observation upon himself. Mr. Sheldrake's hand sought
that expressive hand, and found it in a lurking--not to say
slinking--position, hiding itself demonstratively in the cuff of the
policeman's coat. He slipped a piece of silver into it, and the jaws
of darkness instantly devoured it up. The policeman was evidently in
an unconscious state; for with the air of a man whose thoughts were
far away, he received the coin obliviously, and, in an absent manner,
conveyed it to the nearest pocket; then he coughed again, and assumed
the air of one just aroused from a little sleep.
The "open, Sesame," having been thus discreetly administered, Mr.
Sheldrake learned from the policeman as much as that functionary knew
concerning Lily. Yes, Lily was her real name; everybody about here
knew her, and everybody liked her--children especially. She _was_ very
pretty and very young: not more than nineteen, he should say. Yes, she
lived on the first-floor of that house. She sang at the Royal White
Rose Music-hall, you know; his missus had often heard her, and was
quite in love with her. So was a good many others--not women, you
know. But she was different from some other girls in that
establishment who lived about here. How different? O, better, you
know. Couldn't tell how long that would last; no more could any one
else. He had seen a good many stage girls commence well and end badly.
How badly? Well, fast, you know. It was enough to turn a girl's head;
the lights, the music, the dresses, and the lots of swells with money
hanging round 'em. Didn't think it would turn this one's, though. Any
relatives? O, yes, she had a brother. Younger than her? No, a couple
of years older, he should say; very much like her; come home late
sometimes; a little fast, the young fellow was. And a mother,
bedridden; the doctor often goes there. And a grandfather; a strange
old fellow--a character. Immortality Wheels, people call him. Was that
his proper name? O, no; nicknames both of 'em. Why Immortality? Well,
he didn't quite know himself, but he'd been told it was because the
old fellow was fond of talking about the immortality of the soul. Why
Wheels? Well, he _did_ know that. Because the old fellow was always
saying that everything in the world ought to go upon wheels. Perhaps
there was something in the notion; things certainly would go easier.
He _had_ heard that the old fellow had made wheels for everything in
his place. Harmless old fellow; but curious notion, wasn't it? So the
young fellow's a little wild, eh? Well, most young fellows are,
nowadays. Very fond of each other, brother and sister are.
While the policeman was distilling these scraps of information in a
leisurely manner, he and his companion were walking slowly towards the
Royal White Rose Music-hall, and just at the point of his asking
whether the old man's fancy was not a curious notion, they became
suddenly aware of a street disturbance in a thoroughfare not many
yards ahead of them.
The policeman strolled leisurely in the direction of the noise,
pulling his belt tighter as he neared the spot from which the sounds
proceeded. Presently they came upon an angry crowd of men and women of
all ages and degrees, most of whom, judging from their excited
demeanour and noisy exclamations, had a personal interest in the
disturbance. "Let 'em go! What do you mean by pushing people about?
Bonnet 'em! Great hulking fellows like you!" Then a woman's voice,
very shrill, "Who am _I_, interfering? I'm a honest woman, that's what
I am! Ain't I? I'll make you prove your words! You want the papers
down on you agin, that what _you_ want. We sha'n't move on! We'll stop
here as long as we like!" And in the midst of all a clear and angry
voice, crying, "Take your hands off me! Take your hands off me, I
say!" The voice acted like a charm upon Mr. Sheldrake; he made his way
into the centre of the crowd, and soon ascertained that it was nothing
but an ordinary street row common to the neighbourhood, caused in the
first place by two or three persons lingering on the footpath, and
being desired to move on, and perhaps touched on the shoulder by a
policeman. The principal offender, and the most violent, was a young
man with a handsome face, the sight of which produced on Mr. Sheldrake
the same effect as his voice had done. And yet it was the first time
that these two had ever met. Upon such slight chances often does the
future hang, that men who have fought life's battle with all their
trength, and been bruised and bruised, may sometimes be pardoned for
thinking that it is mockery to struggle.
At the moment of Mr. Sheldrake's appearance upon the scene, the young
man, in a state of great excitement was explaining to the people about
him that he was doing no harm; he was simply talking to a friend about
the Northumberland Plate, the race that was soon to be run at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, when the policeman pushed them into the road, and
said he would take them into custody if they stood there a moment
longer. The crowd cheered him as he spoke, and the police began to
lose their temper. The policeman who had accompanied Mr. Sheldrake,
and who fancied that that gentleman, from the interest he exhibited,
knew the offender, whispered to him, that if he wanted to save the
young fellow from getting into trouble, he had best get him away as
quickly as possible.
"Now, then, _will_ you move out of this?" exclaimed another official,
about to lay hands upon the young man; Mr. Sheldrake quietly stepped
between them, knowing that the touch of the policeman's hand would be
adding fuel to flame. But for Mr. Sheldrake's interposition it would
have fared ill with the young fellow, who had worked himself into a
most unreasonable passion.
"Come, come," said the peacemaker in a persuasive tone; "you don't
want to be locked up all night. The policemen have their duty to
perform, and you mustn't obstruct them."
"I don't want to obstruct them, and I don't want to be locked up,"
said the young man; "but what right had they to interfere with me and
my friends? Ask any one here if I was in the wrong."
A dozen voices supported him in various ways, all of them
uncomplimentary to the police, one of whom grew so exasperated that he
exclaimed, in a tone of dangerous decision, "Now, then, if you don't
move off this minute, we'll march you to the station-house." He
produced his stave, and the others followed his example. This action
caused many among the mob to take to their heels, and they scampered
away, hooting as they ran.
"They had _no_ business to interfere," whispered Mr. Sheldrake
hurriedly, placing his arm in that of the young man; "but don't you
see, that though you might have been in the right at first----"
"Might have been!" interrupted the unreasonable young fellow hotly. "I
was!"
"Well, although you _were_ in the right at first, you are in the wrong
now. Come, take the advice of a friend, and let us get out of this.
I don't like to see a young gentleman like you mixed up in such an
affair. Look at the riff-raff about. Where are your friends? Why,
_they've_ gone off, you see, and didn't mind leaving you in the
lurch.--All right, policeman, we're going."
Thus urging and humouring, Mr. Sheldrake induced the young man to move
with him through the throng of people, who were inclined to hoot him
now for showing the white feather. The excitement, however, being
over, they rapidly dispersed, grumbling at the peaceable issue of the
affair. Soon Mr. Sheldrake and his charge were in a quieter part of
the neighbourhood, when the latter, still almost at fever-heat, asked
offensively, as if it were absolutely necessary he should fall foul of
somebody,
"Perhaps you'll tell me who you are, interfering with my affairs. I
don't know you."
"I don't suppose you do," replied Mr. Sheldrake with perfect good
humour. "Are you going home?"
"What business may that be of yours?" asked the young man, not abating
his offensive tone.
"I'll walk a little way with you if you are, that's all. Shall I make
a shrewd guess, and say that you live in Soho? Come, come; I see
that you are angry with me for interfering; but you must admit that
the position you are in now is better than being hauled along by
half-a-dozen policemen, with a mob hooting at their heels. Come, now,
admit that."
"I sha'n't admit anything," exclaimed the young man sulkily.
An angry impatient look passed like a flash of light into Mr.
Sheldrake's face at the young man's uncivil manner: but he suppressed
it instantly. They were walking slowly as they conversed, and Mr.
Sheldrake, allowing his companion to lead the way, observed with
secret satisfaction that they were walking in the direction of Lily's
house.
"And neither should I, if I were in your place," he said. "I
should feel as indignant as you feel; it is only natural; but at the
same time, I think I should acknowledge to myself--not to any one
else--that it's better to be indignant and to cool oneself alone here
in the quiet streets, than to be dragged to the station-house, and
have the clothes torn off one's back. You were not born yesterday!
_You_ know what the police are, and how the magistrates side with
them. They'll swear anything when their blood's up; and there's never
any telling what kind of a scrape a man may get himself into with
them. I daresay you wouldn't like your people at home to see your name
on the wrong side of a police-court report."
"That's true," said the young man in a somewhat softer tone, though
still with constrained manner; "it wouldn't be a nice thing for them."
"Say that you had a sister now, how would she like it?"
As Mr. Sheldrake hazarded this question, he threw a sharp look at his
companion, and smiled in self-approval when he heard the reply.
"She wouldn't like it at all, and I wouldn't like it because of her."
He struggled to rid himself of his ungracious bearing, and partially
succeeded. "It seems to me, after all, that I have to thank you for
getting me out of the mess."
He held out his hand. Mr. Sheldrake shook it cordially, saying,
"A nice state of things it would be, if one gentleman wouldn't assist
another in such a case! Let us suppose that you are under an
obligation to me. Wipe it off by giving me a promise."
"What kind of a promise?" asked the young man.
"Why, that when you come upon me in a similar scrape to that I found
you in to-night, with my blood up, hot and naturally indignant, you'll
come and help me out of it as I've helped you. You'll see how I'll
take it! I shall be savage with you of course, at first, but give me
time to cool down, and you'll not find me backward in acknowledging
that you have acted by me and stood by me like an out-and-out friend."
The young man laughed and promised, but did not express himself
confident of being able to act as judiciously as Mr. Sheldrake had
done. "For you're cool, you know," he said, "and not so easily fired
up as I am. Why, if you had answered me as I've answered you, I
couldn't have helped quarrelling with you."
"I'm glad for one person's sake that I managed to escape that
unpleasant contingency," observed Mr. Sheldrake.
"Do you mean for your own sake?" asked the young man coolly.
"Not this time," replied Mr. Sheldrake, mentally confounding the young
fellow's impertinence.
"For whose, then, may I ask? Not for mine, I hope; if so, you may save
yourself from farther anxiety upon the point."
"O no, not for yours; for your sister's."
"For Lily's! You know her then; and that's the reason of your coming
to my assistance."
Mr. Sheldrake accepted this interpretation, and said,
"If you tell her of what has occurred to-night----"
"Of course I shall tell her," interrupted the young man. "I tell Lily
everything."
"You may mention, then, that the gentleman who had the pleasure of
walking home with her to-night did you a little service. She spoke of
her brother to-night as we walked home. Your name must be Alfred."
"Yes; that is my name."
"Mine is Sheldrake. I shall be glad to improve our
acquaintanceship--that is, if you are willing."
"O, I'm willing enough," replied Alfred half graciously; "but I'm not
a swell, you know."
"Meaning that I am. None the worse for that, eh?"
"No," said Alfred, throwing sufficient expression in his hesitating
manner of uttering that small word to express, "No, you're none the
worse for it; but I consider myself as good as you, or any man."
"And it isn't a bad thing to be a swell nowadays, let me tell you,"
remarked Mr. Sheldrake genially, clapping Alfred on the shoulder. "One
gets behind the scenes, and sees all sorts of things, and learns all
sorts of things. And after all it's only a question of money. Once a
gentleman, always a gentleman."
"That's true," assented Alfred complacently, being now on very good
terms with himself.
"Only a question of money," repeated Mr. Sheldrake, slowly and
thoughtfully; "and there's plenty of ways of making that."
"That's true again," exclaimed Alfred eagerly, accepting a cigar from
Mr. Sheldrake's cigar-case. "Plenty of ways. I know a way. I'm going
to make a heap."
"With a little luck and a little pluck, a man with brains--which
you've got, I'll be bound--can be as good as the best of them. He can
go up like a rocket."
Mr. Sheldrake did not carry the simile farther. The rocket being in
the clouds, it suited his purpose to leave it there. "Plenty of ways
of making money! I should think there were, indeed; and these are just
the times."
The speaker was evidently of the opinion that some of his words were
pearls of price, which should not be lost sight of. His utterances
just now seemed to be thickly studded with these pearls, for he
repeated thoughtfully, "Just the times."
"So they are--so they are. You know a thing or two, I see."
"Know a thing or two!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldrake, with modest
boastfulness. "Well, yes, I fancy I do."
"I can put you up to something good," said Alfred, with a furtive
glance at his companion, "if you like, and if you'll keep it quiet."
"Ay," returned Mr. Sheldrake, with an appearance of gratitude; "I'll
keep it quiet enough."
"Do you do anything in racing?"
"A little now and then. Between you and me, I made a good thing on the
Derby."
"I thought so!" cried the young fellow in an exultant tone. "I thought
you knew all about racing! I say, do you keep a book? Do you belong to
any of the Clubs? Let's take a turn up the street."
"But isn't it time for you to be in?" suggested Mr. Sheldrake, as if
unwilling to carry the conversation farther.
"No, no; it doesn't matter for a few minutes. Lily's sure to wait up
for me. Besides, I have a latch-key. I wish we could go and sit down
somewhere, and have a chat and a drink. But all the places are shut,
worse luck."
"Didn't I tell you that I was behind the scenes?" said Mr. Sheldrake
airily. "One never need be at a loss in London if he knows the ropes.
Now I'll be sworn there's a house ready to receive us within a hundred
yards of where we stand, although it is past one o'clock on Sunday
morning. I know others, but they are too far away." Alfred followed
every word with admiring interest. This man of the world, this swell
who was behind the scenes, and who seemed to know everything worth
knowing, was a superior being in his eyes. "Let us walk towards the
policeman. Don't be surprised; it will, be a pleasant meeting enough,
although your late experience might lead you to an opposite opinion."
"But why towards a policeman?" asked Alfred.
"He'll tell us of a house of entertainment, where we can have that
chat and a drink you proposed. If a thief wants to hide, let him hide
in a crowded city. If you want to do an illegal act, do it in the eye
of the law. As I'm going to do this, with of course a proper
application of the magic key."
Alfred thought his companion one of the most genial and brightest of
men, and inquired what Mr. Sheldrake meant by the magic key.
"Tip," replied that gentleman; "the greatest institution of the age.
Tip, the palm-tickler. If it hadn't been for that, how do you think I
could have got you out of your scrape to-night? I've travelled about
here and there, and I don't think there's a city in the world where
the institution of Tip is so thoroughly understood and appreciated as
in this very city of London. It will carry you anywhere, effect any
object, get you out of any scrape, if you know how to apply to it.
But it requires to be administered delicately, its nerves being very
fine."
In front of them they heard the policeman's measured step. From the
rear came the sounds of a man racing towards them. His hurried tread
sounded in the quiet night like the rattle of steam feet rushing
along. As they turned, the man passed them. He was panting for breath,
and his clothes seemed to have been hurriedly thrown on. His braces
were hanging loose, and he was struggling with his coat as he ran,
suggesting the idea that he was racing and dressing himself for a
wager. He did not notice the faces of the men as he passed them, but
Alfred recognised him, and cried, "Why, that's Mr. Gribble!" The next
moment Gribble junior was round the corner and out of sight, and the
calm footstep of the watchman of the night heralded Mr. Sheldrake's
friendly policeman. He touched his hat to Mr. Sheldrake, and while
that gentleman held brief conference with him, his slinking hand
asserted itself up his coat-sleeve, where it may be said to have
lurked, thirsting for Tip. The comedy, which had been so successfully
performed once before during the night, having been repeated
successfully, the policeman (awaking from another little sleep)
leisurely led the way, Alfred being in the rear. As they walked thus
in single file, Mr. Sheldrake's thoughts, put into intelligible
language, would have read thus: "That was a shrewd conclusion you came
to, David, when you heard this young cub's voice, and guessed that it
belonged to Lily's brother! A nice young fool he is! But he'll serve
your turn, David, with that little nugget--he'll serve your turn. Make
the pretty Lily grateful for having befriended her brother, and get
the young fool himself quietly in your hands, and the rosy-cheeked
apple falls plump into your open mouth, David--plump into your open
mouth!" The contemplation of the rosy-cheeked apple falling plump into
his mouth was so agreeable, that David Sheldrake smiled frequently,
and in a gay and airy manner blew a kiss in the direction of Lily's
house.
They paused at the side door of a house of entertainment, closed
according to the law, and the mystic summons of the policeman gained
them admittance.
"Let us have a quiet room, and some brandy-and-water," said Mr.
Sheldrake to the waiter who had opened the door, and who, with his
shirt-sleeves tucked up and his thick bull-neck, looked like a
prize-fighter. "Policeman, you'll come in and have a drink?"
"No objections, sir."
The liquor having been brought, the policeman treated his conscience
to "something hot," and departed to pursue his duties, ready at any
moment with his slinking hand to prove himself a worthy watchman of
the night and a proper guardian of the public peace.
CHAPTER V.
MR. DAVID SHELDRAKE DOES A GOOD NIGHT'S WORK.
Mr. Sheldrake helped himself to brandy-and-water, lit a fresh cigar,
threw his cigar-case to Alfred with the air of an old acquaintance,
and seemed as if he would have been perfectly satisfied to smoke and
drink without conversation. But Alfred was not so disposed.
"So you did a good thing on the Derby," he commenced familiarly;
"backed the Zephyr Colt, eh? I wish I had!"
"Backed it at the right time, my boy; backed it in April, and got
thirties to one three times in hundreds."
"Nine thousand to three hundred," Alfred put in rapidly and enviously.
"That's a good calculation of yours, and quickly done," observed Mr.
Sheldrake, with a nod of approval.
"O yes, I'm good at mental arithmetic," was the conceited answer.
"That's what's wanted in racing matters. You go to a race, and you
hear the odds bawled out, and you want to hedge, perhaps; the odds are
constantly changing, and you've got to seize them at the proper
moment. To do that properly, you must be smart at figures, and then
you're all right. I know many a man who can't write anything but his
own name, and who makes pots of money because he can calculate the
odds quickly. It's a gift, and you've got it, my boy. Fill up your
glass."
Alfred filled his glass, his face beaming with conceit.
"Go on with the Zephyr colt," he said. "You stuck to the bet, didn't
you?"
"No, I didn't; I hedged, like a fool."
"Ah, _I_ shouldn't have done that!"
"No more ought I, and no more should I, if I had had some one to
advise me. You know it was at the commencement of April that the colt
was at thirty to one, and a fortnight afterwards it was at twelve. I
hedged at those odds to win my three hundred pounds, and make myself
safe."
"So you stood to win five thousand four hundred and to lose nothing,"
said Alfred rapidly, having been looking out for another opportunity
to exhibit his prowess in mental arithmetic.
"What wonderful calculation!" exclaimed Mr. Sheldrake in admiration,
to Alfred's intense delight. "You could make a fortune in the ring."
"Do you think so? _I_ think I could."
"I'd give a thousand pounds this minute to be able to reckon up
figures as you can."
"You make plenty, though, without that."
"I only do what any man can do, if he keeps his head cool. Did you
back anything for the Derby?"
"Yes, worse luck," replied Alfred, with a groan, emptying his glass to
wash down a rising remorse. "I wish I had known you then. You might
have told me to back the Zephyr colt. You would, wouldn't you?"
"That I would, for your pretty sister's sake. I wish we _had_ known
each other then! What did you back?"
"Three horses--Bothwell, King of the Forest, and Digby Grand.
Everybody said Bothwell was sure to win, and that's why I backed it,
although I didn't fancy it."
"It's a bad thing to back three horses; never back more than one, and
stand to it to win a good stake."
"That's what I'm going to do on the Northumberland Plate. I ought to
have backed the Baron's horse, for he always runs straight, doesn't
he?" There was something painful in the speaker's eagerness as he
looked for consolation in the face of his companion. "And you won over
five thousand on it, and I might have done the same if I had known. If
only one of my three had come in first, I should have been right. As
it is----"
Alfred paused, and beat his foot fretfully on the floor.
"As it is," prompted Mr. Sheldrake, with a keen watchfulness of
Alfred's manner.
Alfred stirred his empty glass with the spoon. He had drunk more than
was good for him, and this may have been the cause of the sudden
paleness that came over his face. He laughed nervously, and said,
"Well, it's only the same predicament that hundreds of other young
fellows are in--I owe a little money, that's all. When I saw the
horses coming round Tattenham-corner, and saw King of the Forest
running so strong, I made sure that it was right. All the people round
me cried out, 'King of the Forest wins! King of the Forest wins!' It
was all over in a moment, and the Zephyr colt shot by the winning-post
like a flash of lightning. I should have won a couple of hundred if
it hadn't been for that. But I shall make up for it all right on the
Northumberland Plate. Christopher Sly's sure to win; don't you think
so? All the prophets say he can't lose. Look here;" and he pulled out
a handful of letters and papers, and, trembling with eagerness and
excitement, made selections, and read from them. "Hear what Pegasus
says: 'Never in the Annals of racing has there been such a certainty
as Christopher Sly for the Northumberland Plate. The race is as good
as over, and those who were fortunate enough to back the horse when it
was at twenty to one will have a rare haul. Indeed, the money is as
safe as if it were in their pockets.' Here's Delphos: 'Christopher Sly
has been especially reserved for this event; he is meant to win, and
nothing can stop him. The race is a dead certainty for him.' Delphos
ought to know, oughtn't he? They all say the same; all the prophets in
the daily papers go in for him. What do you think? Don't you think
he's sure to win?"
"It looks very like a certainty. If the odds were a little longer on
him, I'd back him for fifty myself."
"You'd do right! I've got all sorts of odds about him--fifteen to one
in one place. You can only get six to four about him now," said Alfred
exultantly. "But what does it matter about the odds if you're sure to
win?"
"What do you stand to lose?"
"O, I don't know. I know what I stand to win--over three hundred. I
shall pay off what I owe then, and go in for something big."
"That's the sort!" cried Mr. Sheldrake gaily, clapping the young
fellow on the shoulder. "Nothing venture, nothing have. You're just
the stamp of man to break the ring. When it's known that you can
afford to lose a few hundreds, you must join the Clubs. I'll introduce
you. I'd keep quiet till then, if I were you."
Alfred nodded and laughed; all traces of anxiety had vanished from his
countenance. He became pressing in his advice to Mr. Sheldrake to back
Christopher Sly, admired that gentleman's cigar case and his diamond
ring, and boasted of the gimcracks he intended to buy for Lily and
himself when he received his winnings. By the time they had finished
their brandy-and-water it was half-past two o'clock in the morning;
and when they reached the streets, Mr. Sheldrake gave Alfred his card,
and said he would be glad to see him at his office.
"All right, old fellow," said Alfred; "I'll come."
"And look here," said Mr. Sheldrake, hooking Alfred by the
button-hole, "I wouldn't say much at home of what we've been
speaking about. Wait till you make a haul. It's best always to keep
these things to oneself."
Alfred nodded acquiescence.
"If you want a friend at any time," added Mr. Sheldrake, "you know
where to come to; and you'll find that what David Sheldrake says,
David Sheldrake means."
They shook hands and parted, Alfred going his way impressed with the
conviction that Mr. Sheldrake was one of the best fellows in the
world, and that gentleman going _his_ impressed with the conviction
that he had found a fine tool to assist him in working into pretty
Lily's favour.
"You've done a good night's work, David," said the modern man of
fashion, communing with himself, according to his favourite habit; "a
very good night's work. You can win that nugget through her fool of a
brother. Lily! What a pretty name! Lily! Charming Lily! Why, David,
the girl's bewitched you!"
CHAPTER VI.
GRAVE NEWS.
It was with a feeling of shame that Alfred put his boasted latch-key
into the street-door. He knew that Lily was waiting up for him, and
that it was inconsiderate in him to keep the young girl from her bed
until so late an hour; and although his brain was disturbed by drink,
he strove to administer a salve to his conscience by thinking that
Lily would do anything for him; but the effort was not quite
successful. Something whispered to him that it was unfair to take
advantage of the girl's love and devotion for him, and to cause her
anxiety. This was not the only unwelcome thought suggested by the
silent monitor that keeps watch in the mind of a man whose sense of
right is not entirely blinded; and Alfred received the points of these
nettles discontentedly, as others are in the habit of receiving them,
making excuses in response which he vainly strove to believe were not
shallow. He fell back at last upon the most ordinary of all
subterfuges. "What's the use of bothering?" he thought. "I'm not the
only young fellow who keeps out late once now and again." It is the
commonest thing in the world for us thus to throw the responsibility
of our own inexcusable actions upon other people's shoulders. "O,
well, I am not worse than my neighbours!" is the ointment we apply
when our conscience mildly pricks us but we cannot deprive the nettles
of their sting by suchlike sophistry.
As Alfred closed the street door behind him, a stream of light fell
upon the stairs from the room on the first-floor. Lily had heard him
come in, and now glided down to meet him.
"I am so glad you have come home," she said, with her arm round his
neck. "How late you are!"
Something in the hushed tones of her voice, some new tenderness in her
manner, expressive of pity for herself and for him, struck strangely
upon his senses. At the same time, he was ashamed of himself for the
condition he was in. His gait was unsteady, and his voice was thick.
His senses were not so clouded, however, as not to be able to perceive
that something of a grave nature had occurred in the house. Lily
seemed to cling to him for comfort, and, hiding her face in his neck,
strove to shut out creeping fears by which she was oppressed.
"How's mother, Lily?" he asked.
The sound of his voice came upon her like a shock. She was
inexpressibly grieved to learn from it that he was drunk. Her first
impulse led her to shrink from him, but only for a moment. The next
she linked her hand in his arm, and besought him to come up-stairs
quietly. He stumbled up by her side, and every slip he made caused her
to quiver with keenest pain. That he should come home at such a time
and in such a condition was one of the greatest sorrows the young girl
had known. He was about to enter the room where his mother was lying,
but Lily laid her hand upon his arm with nervous force.
"No, no!" she whispered, but so clearly and with such intensity that
her whisper was almost a cry; "no, no! Not there, Alfred; not there!"
"Why not?" he questioned wonderingly, and inclined to force his way.
But she stood before him, and said,
"Not as you are, Alfred; not as you are! You will be sorry! Come into
my room."
He obeyed her sullenly, and she, keeping tight hold of his arm, drew
him into her little room, where he sank unsteadily upon her bed. There
was no light in the room, and she made no attempt to light a candle
for she felt that it would be greater shame to see him drunk than to
know he was drunk and not look upon his face. But her suffering showed
itself in her voice. All that she said was, "O Alfred, Alfred!" and
sank upon her knees by the bedside, and hid her face in the clothes,
sobbing quietly. In a blundering way he drew her to him; but even
while she lay with her head upon his shoulder, she seemed to shrink
from him and to be ashamed of him.
"Are you making all this fuss because I've taken a glass too much to
drink?" he asked. "There! be quiet, and I'll promise not to do so
again."
Promises were the easiest things in the world for him to make. Weak
pliable natures such as his are continually building airy havens, in
which they do painless penance for their faults.
Before Lily could answer, the door was opened, and old Wheels entered
with a light. He looked at the young man half sternly and half sadly.
So significant in its rebuke was his look, that Alfred, glad of an
opportunity of attacking somebody in his own defence, started to his
feet in unreasoning anger. But, what with his passion and his
condition, the words that came from his lips were not distinct; and
old Wheels raised his hand with an action almost of horror, and
exclaimed,
"At such a time, at such a time! Are the sins of the father really
visited upon the children?" Then, with a compassionate glance at Lily,
he muttered, "I pray not, I pray not--for _her_ sake!"
"What do you mean, grandfather?" cried Alfred. "Is it such an
unheard-of thing for a man to come home an hour later than usual, that
you should treat me as if I have committed a crime?"
"Crime!" echoed the old man, looking steadily into Alfred's eyes. "God
keep you free from it!"
Whatever answer Alfred was prompted to give, it did not pass his white
and trembling lips. But presently he mustered up a blustering courage,
and cried in an injured tone,
"I won't stand it; I'll go away this minute! Let me go, Lily! I'll get
a bed somewhere else."
He knew his power over her; and even in this moment of weakness, when
he felt himself at such disadvantage, and so clearly in the wrong, he
had the cunning of a weak mind, and used it. He smiled in selfish
triumph as Lily's arms tightened round him.
"He does not know, grandfather!" she said, in an imploring tone.
"Don't speak harshly to him; he does not know."
"O, I know very well, Lily," he said, thinking she referred to his
condition; "I've taken a glass too much. I'm not ignorant of that; and
if grandfather thinks he can bully me without my answering him, he is
mistaken. He takes advantage of your being here, and of my being fond
of you, to cast out all sorts of insinuations against me."
"I have not accused you of anything, Alfred;" said old Wheels sadly.
"You hoped I should be kept free from crime," exclaimed Alfred
violently.
"Hush, Alfred," implored Lily, in awe-struck tones; "you don't know
what has occurred. Don't speak so loud! Your voice sounds sinful used
in such a way, and at such a time."
"I don't understand you, Lily. What's the matter with the time? It's a
little late, that's all."
"Lost to all sense of shame!" muttered old Wheels. "It is like fate.
So I parted from the father, and the son is before me, with the same
curse upon him."
"O, I can't stand this, and won't!" exclaimed Alfred roughly. "I'll
see if mother is awake, and then I'll go to bed."
He was moving towards the door, when Lily's terrified look, and the
old man's solemn gesture, made him pause. For the first time a fear
fell upon him.
"Why do you look so?" he asked of her; and then of his grandfather,
"and why do _you_ seek to prevent me going in to see mother?"
"Because you are drunk, and in your present state would not desire to
appear before her, if you knew----"
"If I knew what? Is mother worse? Why don't you answer? I _will_ go in
and see her!"
"Stop, Alfred," said the old man, quietly and solemnly; "Your mother
is dead!"
CHAPTER VII.
THE IRON BOX.
The shock of the news sobered Alfred instantly; the full disgrace of
his condition came upon him, and made him ashamed to look his sister
in the face.
"You--you have been very hard to me, grandfather," he said
hesitatingly.
"I have been to you as you deserved, Alfred. Has your conduct to-night
been such as should make me affectionate to you?"
"I have no excuse to make," replied Alfred, thoroughly humbled; "but
you will do me the justice to believe that it would not have been so
with me had I known."
"The remorse of a too-late repentance, Alfred, is a bitter
experience."
A resentful answer rose to Alfred's lips, but he checked it.
"When--when did mother die, sir?" he asked.
The words were long in coming. It seemed to him a hard question to
ask.
"An hour ago. I saw a change come over her, and Mr. Gribble ran for
the doctor." Alfred remembered seeing Gribble junior tear along,
struggling with his coat, and it was another sting to him that a
stranger should have performed his duty. "When the doctor came she had
passed away."
"What did she say? Did she ask for me?"
"She did not speak; she was unconscious."
"And she died without a word to you or Lily, grandfather? without a
thought of me?"
"Who can tell her thoughts? Her mind may have been awake. She passed
away in her sleep--peacefully, thank God! Her life has not been a
happy one; and it is God's mercy that she was spared in her last
moments the pain of seeing you as you are. It would have recalled her
bitterest memories."
"I am better now, grandfather. May I see her?"
"Yes. Lily, my darling!" and the old man took her in his arms and
kissed her; "you must go to bed--you are tired."
But she clung to him, and entreated to be allowed to sit up with them.
"No, dear child," he said; "we shall want you to be strong to-morrow.
What is that you say? You are frightened! Nay, nay, dear child! Sleep
will compose you. Alfred and I have much to talk of, and we must be
alone. Good night, dear child!"
When they left the room, Lily looked round and shuddered. The silence
was full of terrors for her, and it was with difficulty she restrained
herself from calling out. The events of the night had unnerved her.
She went into the passage, and, listening, heard the buzz of voices in
her grandfather's room. She could not catch the words, but it was a
comfort to her to hear the sound; it was companionship. She crouched
upon the ground, and lay there, with her head against the wall. A
thousand fancies crowded her brain: the music-hall, with its glare of
lights, and its great concourse of people, laughing, and drinking and
applauding, presented itself to her in a variety of fantastic shapes,
each image being perfect in itself and utterly engrossing, and yet
fading entirely away in a moment, and giving place to a successor as
vivid and as engrossing as any that had gone before. Other images
presented themselves. Mr. Sheldrake, with his studied polished manner,
and his smooth voice; Alfred and she in the dark passage; her
grandfather, with a stern bearing quite unusual to him: the doctor,
with his grave face and measured tones; and her mother lying dead,
with grey stony face. Everything but the image of her mother was quick
with life; through all the bustle and vivid movements of the other
figures in her fevered fancies, that one figure presented and intruded
itself in many strange ways, but always cold, and grey, and still.
Presently the entire interest of her dreams centred itself in this
image. Between her and her mother no great love had ever existed; the
dead woman's nature had been repressive; an overwhelming grief had
clouded her life, and she had yielded to it and sunk under it. She had
hugged this grief close, as it were, and so wrapped herself in it,
that her natural love had become frozen. So that the feeling which
Lily experienced now in her dreams, for her dead mother, had nothing
in it of that agonising grief which springs from intense love. And yet
she shuddered at the part she was playing towards that grey cold form.
It was lying before her, and she, dressed in bright colours, was
dancing and singing round it. The contrast between her own gaiety and
the dreadful stillness of the form she was dancing and singing to,
impressed her with horror, and she strove to be still, but could not.
Her struggles made her hysterical in her sleep--for Lily was sleeping
now--when suddenly peace stole upon her, and she was calm. But it was
not a comforting, refreshing peace; it was oppressive and painfully
intense. A man stood before her, with his eyes fixed steadily upon
hers. This man was one who, a few weeks before, had performed for a
benefit at the music-hall. He was an electro-biologist, and Lily had
been terrified by his performances. He had stolen away the wills of
some of the persons upon whom he had operated, and made them do this
and that at his pleasure; to pull down the moon; to drink water and
believe it wine, then soapsuds; to shiver with cold; to be oppressed
with heat; to dance; to stand still; to be transfixed like stone; to
form friendships, hatreds, and a hundred other things as strange and
inexplicable. She watched him do all these things. When the
performance was over, the man, coming off the stage, had noticed the
interest with which she had followed his experiments, and had said to
her, "You are a good subject; I could do with you as I please." She
was terrified at his words, and tried to move away from him, but could
not, and could not take her eyes from his face. Perceiving this, he
said to her, "Stretch out your arm," and she obeyed him; "Take my
hand," and she took it, surrendering her will entirely to him. At this
point they were interrupted, and she escaped him, thankfully; but for
hours afterwards she was dazed, and thought much of the incident,
dreading to meet the man again. Now he stood before her in her dreams,
and commanded her to rise; she had no power to resist him, and she
rose at his bidding. Here a diversion occurred by the word "Father!"
falling upon her ears. It was not fancy, being uttered rather loudly
by one of the speakers in the room, and it raised the image of her
father. The last time she saw him, she was quite a little child, and
then he was drunk, and was leaving her mother with words of anger on
his lips. As he turned his face, in her sleeping fancies, towards the
form of her mother lying dead before her, it suddenly changed to the
face of Alfred, and she was pained and grieved at the likeness between
father and son. Thus far the running commentary of her dreams.
Meantime an impressive scene was being enacted between her brother and
her grandfather. Alfred went behind the screen, and uncovered the face
of his mother. It was hard and cold in death, as it had been hard and
cold in life. The light of love had not illumined her latter days, and
strength had not been given her to fight with grief. Alfred was awed
into good resolution as he looked at the dumb inanimate clay. "I won't
drink so much," he thought, "I'll try and be better. If Christopher
Sly wins the Northumberland Plate, I shall be able to be better." And
then a strange half-prayer dwelt in his mind, that Christopher Sly
might win the race.
To his side came old Wheels.
"She looks like an old woman," he said; "almost too old to be my
daughter."
Alfred turned his eyes to the old man's face. Youth had not departed
from it; it seemed indeed younger than the face of his dead daughter.
"You were her first-born, Alfred. Think of the joy that filled her
when she first pressed you in her arms, and look at her now. Time is
but a breath--but a breath--but a breath!"
Old Wheels mused of the time gone by, and wondered, as we all must
wonder when we think of them and now, and of the changes that have
occurred in our lives. The gay spirit chilled; the cheerful heart
dulled by long suffering; the hope that made life bright dead and cold
long, long ago--killed in the battle we have fought! But if love be
left!----
Ay, if love be left, all the bruises we have received in the fight,
all the hurts and wounds, shall not make life despairing. The flowers
we have gathered and held to our hearts shall never wither if love be
left!
"She looks very peaceful, grandfather," said Alfred almost in a
whisper.
"She _is_ at peace; she is with God and nature."
Better influences were stirred into action by the old man's words, and
Alfred sank upon his knees by the bedside, and perhaps loved her
better at that moment than ever he had done before.
"I have heard," continued the old man, "that many faces in death
assume the beauty they possessed in youth. I would give much that it
had been so with your mother, and that you might have seen her face as
it was when she was young."
The old man's thoughts travelled back to the time when he first looked
upon the baby-face of the cold hard grey form before him. He recalled
the thrills of pleasure that hurried through him as he held the pretty
child in his arms, and looked at his wife smiling happily in bed. His
wife had died soon after the birth of this their only child, who had
been a comfort to him until trouble came. It was all over now, and a
new life had commenced for her.
"I have thought sometimes," he said aloud, pursuing the commentary of
his thoughts, "of the strangeness of spirits meeting under certain
conditions of things."
Alfred looked up in wonder, and the old man answered the look.
"Ay, of spirits meeting. If you believe in immortality, you must
believe in the meeting of spirits. What shape or form do they bear?
Here, before us, is my daughter and your mother, an old woman in
looks, aged by a grief that was hard enough to bear without being made
harder by constant brooding. When my wife died, your mother was a
babe, and my wife was almost a girl. So they parted. How do they meet
now? This child of mine looks old enough to be the mother of my wife.
How do they meet?--as mother and babe again? It is a strange thought,
not to be answered. Yet by and by it shall be made plain to us."
Alfred listened and wondered. Although he had not been unaccustomed to
hear his grandfather speak of such matters, he had never before been
impressed by them. As he bowed his head to the bed, other thoughts
than selfish ones came to him,--thoughts which brought with them a
consciousness of something higher than the aspirations by which he had
hitherto been guided. If such influences as those which softened him
and made him better for the time were less fleeting and more
endurable, we should be the gainers. But in most cases they are as
intangible in their effect as a breeze that touches us lightly. Winds
come, and rain, and heavy clouds; and the unhealthful passion and
desire that are stirred by the storm sweep the chastening thought into
a lost oblivion.
The old man looked hopefully upon the form of his grandson in its
attitude of contrition and softened feeling, and he waited long before
he desired Alfred to rise. With a distinct purpose, which he was
anxious not to disguise, he at the same time moved the screen, so
that, as he and Alfred sat at the table, the bed upon which the dead
daughter and mother lay was not hidden from sight.
"Alfred," the old man said, after a slight pause, "have you anything
to tell me?"
"What should I have to tell you, grandfather, except--except to repeat
that I am ashamed of myself for coming home dr---- not quite sober,
and that I beg your pardon?"
The old man did not look up; he toyed with Lily's workbox, which was
on the table, and said gently, pointing to the bed,
"Ask pardon there. But you have done that, I think."
"Yes, grandfather, indeed."
"That is something. At such a time as this we should be considerate of
one another. These occasions happily come but seldom in life, and
sometimes they open the road to amendment. Tell me, Alfred, have I
been kind to you?"
"Yes, grandfather."
"And you look upon me as a friend?"
"Yes."
"Yet you have nothing to say to me--no confidence to repose in me?"
"Nothing particular that I can think of."
A shade of disappointment passed across the old man's face like a
cloud. But a rift of light chased it away as he said,
"You love Lily?"
"Indeed I do that, grandfather."
"She has but you and me, Alfred, as protectors; and she needs
protection. She is surrounded by temptation. I am growing very old; my
strength may fail me any day, and you may be called upon suddenly to
play the part of guardian to her. You are young for it."
"But I'm strong enough, don't fear, grandfather. Lily will be all
right; I'll see to that! I'll take her away from the music-hall soon.
I don't like her being there----"
"You forget, Alfred, she earns our living."
"Yes, I know; but it isn't to be expected that she should always do
that."
"I am glad to hear you say so. Yet you yourself are doing but little
at present; you only earn----"
"Fifteen shillings a week. I know! Tickle and Flint are the stingiest
old brutes in London. Of course I can't do much out of fifteen
shillings a week. I must have clothes, and other things; and I can't
help spending a shilling or two, and somehow or other it all goes. I
must do as other young men do. I asked Tickle and Flint for a rise
once; but the old screws shook their heads, referred to the agreement,
and told me not to ask again."
"They were right. If you are industrious and painstaking, a prosperous
future is before you."
"O, but it's too slow!" exclaimed Alfred, with an impatient shake of
the head. "I am bound to them for three years more before I can make a
start. It's preposterous! Never mind, I'll show them! I know a way."
"What way?" asked the old man suddenly, looking at his grandson.
"Never mind now," replied Alfred evasively. "You'll see by-and-by."
"There is but one way," observed the old man quietly--"the straight
way. Alfred, go to the cupboard, and bring me a small iron box you
will see there."
A sudden paleness came over Alfred's face.
"A small iron box, grandfather?" he echoed, with a curious indecision,
and with a nervous trembling of the lips.
"Yes," said the old man sadly; "you know the box. You have seen it
many times."
Alfred hesitated for one moment only, and then, as if much depended
upon prompt action, walked swiftly to the cupboard, and taking out a
small iron box, laid it before his grandfather. The old man took a key
from his pocket, and put it into the lid, but did not turn the lock.
"I daresay," he said, slowly and distinctly, "you have often wondered
what was in this little box. Every house, every family, has its
skeleton. This box has contained ours."
"Why speak of it to-night, grandfather?" asked Alfred, nervously.
"Surely it is time to go to bed. Leave this matter till to-morrow."
"Nay, it must be spoken of now, in the presence of your dead mother
and my daughter. I asked you a few minutes since if you had anything
to tell me. You answered not in the manner I hoped and expected. I ask
you again now. Have you anything to say to me? Is there anything on
your mind that it would relieve you to speak of? Think a little.
Errors may be repaired; but a time comes when it is too late for
reparation. Look at your mother, and say if it is not too late to
make reparation for unatoned suffering. If I wrong you in speaking
thus to you, I ask your pardon, my boy; but I am speaking with a
strong fear upon me--a fear that a life may be wrecked by wrong-doing,
as was one very near to you."
Alfred, who had listened with eyes averted from the table, caught
eagerly at the last sentence.
"You _do_ me wrong, grandfather," he said, in tones which he vainly
strove to make firm--"a cruel wrong--in speaking in this way to me! I
don't understand you. It is not the first time to-night that you have
thrown out these insinuations. What did you mean by saying to me that
the remorse of a too-late repentance is a bitter experience? And then,
saying, God keep me free from crime?"
"I repeat it, Alfred. Once more I pray to God to keep you from crime!
Once more I say that the remorse of a too-late repentance is the
bitterest of experiences!"
"I deny your right to say these things to me!" cried Alfred violently.
"I deny it entirely. I'll not stand it, grandfather! I shall go!"
"Stay!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of command. "I made a promise
to your mother to speak to you this night of your father."
"My father!" Alfred caught at the table, and his heart beat wildly at
the thought of what was to come.
"I have never spoken of him to you before, but the wishes of the dead
must be respected. Sit down and listen. In this box I have been
accustomed for years to put by small savings for a special purpose, of
which you shall presently hear. Lily's earnings lately and my own
trifling pittance were more than sufficient for our wants, and money
was saved, little by little, until a fortnight ago I had very nearly
one hundred pounds in this box. When you learn to what purpose this
money was to be applied, you will better understand my motives for
speaking of it in this manner. One hundred pounds was the exact sum
required, and I hoped in a month to have counted it out, and to have
completed a tardy atonement for a life's disgrace." Alfred turned to
his grandfather in amazement, but did not speak. "Shilling by
shilling," continued the old man steadily, "the little heap grew and
grew. No miser ever valued gold and silver more than I did the money
this box contained. I hoarded it, counted it, reckoned upon my fingers
how many days would elapse before the sum was reached. No one knew of
it, as I thought, but your mother and I. Certainly no one but we two
knew the purpose to which it was to be applied. Three weeks this
night, leaving the box in the cupboard, I went to bring Lily home from
the hall. I was away for more than an hour. When I returned, I found
your mother strangely agitated, but could not ascertain the cause. I
questioned her, but learned nothing. The following day I opened this
box. It was empty. The money was gone!"
He turned the key and opened the box. It contained nothing but two
pieces of faded yellow paper.
"See," said the old man, directing Alfred's attention to the box;
"there is nothing in it but these sheets of paper. Every shilling was
stolen."
"I see, grandfather," said Alfred, with a furtive look into the box.
"Do you know who took the money?"
"No, I do not know."
"Did mother know?"
"I am not sure."
"How not sure, grandfather?" asked Alfred, with an effort to appear at
his ease. "Did mother speak of it?"
"No; and I spared her the grief that telling her of the loss would
have caused her."
"Then how can you say you are not sure whether mother knew? If she had
known, she would have spoken. You know," added Alfred, his manner,
which had hitherto been moody and embarrassed, brightening a little,
"that I am going to be a lawyer, and lawyers are fond of asking
questions."
The change in Alfred's manner produced a singular effect upon the old
man; it rendered him more sad and troubled. Hitherto he had exhibited
a strange eagerness when Alfred showed most embarrassment; and as this
disappeared, and Alfred became more at his ease, an expression of
absolute grief stole into the old man's face.
"The lock has not been tampered with," observed Alfred, examining the
box carefully; "how could it have been opened? You kept the key in
your pocket always, of course?"
"I have been foolish enough on occasions to leave it on the
mantelshelf, but on those occasions I think I may say with certainty
that the cupboard in which the box was placed was always locked. I was
never without one key or the other. Say that once when this occurred,
the thief, knowing that the box contained money, watched me out of the
house. That then he entered the room, and, going to the cupboard,
found it locked. That, being baffled by this circumstance, he saw upon
the mantelshelf a key, which he guessed was the key of the iron box;
that he took an impression of this key----"
"In what?" interrupted Alfred, almost gaily. "In wax or putty? If he
had either by him he must be a professional burglar. There are plenty
of lodgers in the house, but I hardly suspected there was a person of
that description here."
"I don't think there is a person of that description in the house.
Remember, Alfred, that what I am narrating is merely guess-work."
"Capital guess-work, I should say, grandfather; you ought to have been
a lawyer. But go on."
"That he took an impression of this key," continued the old man, "in
wax or putty, as you suggest. He may have come in prepared, or taking
an impression in either may have been an afterthought. That from this
impression he had a false key made. That on this night three weeks,
when I had gone to the music-hall for Lily, the thief entered the
room, found the cupboard open--it _was_ open, I remember--and
completed the robbery."
"A good case, grandfather, but quite circumstantial, you know."
"Yes, I know, Alfred; quite circumstantial. In my thoughts I go
farther even than this. I think that when the thief was opening the
box, your mother may have been awake, or perhaps in that half-wakeful
condition during which fancy and reality are so strangely commingled
as not to be distinguishable one from the other. I think that, being
in this condition, she saw the robbery committed, and that perhaps she
knew the thief----"
"Grandfather!" The exclamation was forced from Alfred's trembling
lips; he could not have repressed it for his life.
"What is the matter, Alfred?"
"Nothing," stammered the young man; "it is late, and I was not well
when I came home. Go on."
"That knowing the thief, and not knowing whether what she saw was
reality or a trick of the imagination, she dreaded, for a reason you
shall presently be made acquainted with, to assure herself of the
truth. I saw the dread in her watchful face and manner whenever I went
to the cupboard; I saw the subject upon her lips and the fear to
speak. I saw gratefulness struggling with doubt, as day after day went
by and I did not refer to the loss. She yearned to know, and dreaded
to ask. For had she asked and learned the truth, the bitterness of the
past would have been sweet compared to the bitterness of the present!
And so she passed away and was not sure."
"I don't understand all this," said Alfred sullenly; "you are speaking
in enigmas, and I'm not good at solving them. I have no doubt that one
of the lodgers took the money."
"It would not be very difficult to ascertain, Alfred. There were notes
in the box of which I have the numbers, and a shrewd detective would
most likely soon discover where the false key was made. But I have
resolved to let the matter rest; perhaps I, like your mother, dread to
know the truth."
"Suppose you leave it to me, grandfather?" suggested Alfred with
nervous eagerness: "it will be practice for me you know."
"Yes, Alfred, I will leave it to you; I promise not to stir in the
matter myself. You may be able to recover the money, or part of it,
and it may be applied to its original purpose."
Alfred gave a sigh of relief, and his manner brightened again, as he
inquired what was the purpose to which his grandfather referred.
"Do you remember your father?" was the question asked in return by the
old man after a pause.
"But slightly grandfather. I was very young when we lost him."
"When we lost him!" mused the old man. "What memories come to light at
the thought of that time! To what end your mother made me promise to
tell you the story of her life and to speak plainly of your father, it
is not for me to say, but I believe she intended it to act as a
warning to you."
"There again!" exclaimed Alfred fretfully. "Why as a warning?"
"That is for you to answer. Perhaps she saw in you the faults that
brought shame to your father, misery to her. As you sit before me now,
so sat your father when he asked me for my daughter's hand. I did not
know the vices that were in him, or I would have seen her dead at my
feet rather than have given her to him. She loved him and had already
pleaded with me for him. We were living then near Gravesend. I had
money and a house of my own. Remembrance of the happy life she lived
there before she was married caused her last week to express a wish to
be buried there, and I shall respect her wish. Your father, I thought,
had a fair future before him. I gave him my daughter's hand, and they
came to London to live--not in such poor lodgings as these, but after
a better fashion. I gave my daughter such a dower as I could afford,
and they started in life with the fairest of prospects. It was not
long before troubles came; it was not long before your mother learned
that she had married a drunkard--worse, that she had married a
gambler. These things are hard for me, your mother's father, to tell,
and hard for you, your father's son to hear. But they are true, and if
they serve to point a warning finger to the quicksands of life where,
if you do not avoid them, all that is honourable and good for you may
be engulfed, they will not be told in vain! I spare you the pain of a
long recital; I simply tell you that step by step your father sank,
and dragged your mother with him. He would not work, and constant
appeals were made to my purse to supply the means of living. I gave
and gave; spoke to your father again and again; appealed to his self
respect, to his feelings of honour; and received in return--_promises_
of amendment, promises of amendment, promises forgotten as soon as
each temporary want was provided for. Shall I tell you more? Shall I
tell you that, so low did drink and gambling bring him, he raised his
hand against his wife----"
"No, no, sir!" cried Alfred, with a beating heart.
"It is true," said the old man sternly; "it is true, and it must be
told. He raised his hand against the wife who had loved him and been
faithful to him. And yet there was a time when he would have been as
shocked as you are now, had such an accusation been made against him;
but he was weak and easily misled; unstable as water, as Reuben was;
selfish in his desires and pleasures; with no gratitude for love; with
no thought that life has solemn duties, and that there is in it
something purer, brighter, sweeter, than the false glitter that
attracts weak minds; therefore he wrecked his life and broke your
mother's heart--your mother, whose sufferings you can imagine when I
tell you that she was once as trustful as Lily, as tender as Lily! You
were born; Lily was born. The downward course went on, and he and all
of you sank into deeper misery, deeper shame, until I thought the
worst had been reached. But I was mistaken."
The old man paused, reluctant to proceed; but Alfred said,
"Go on, sir; I must hear all now."
"It is right that you should. You will understand how, under these
miserable influences, your mother's nature changed; how gradually,
from a light-hearted trustful girl, she became a hopeless despairing
woman. I gave up my house, and came to live with her. Your father was
away sometimes for days together, and your mother had no dependence
but me. One night late, long after we had retired, your father came
home without warning. He stole into my room stealthily, and roused me.
He had been in hiding for weeks; the police were after him, and were
hunting him down; a warrant was out for him. He told me the shameful
tale. I knew that he was a drunkard and a gambler, but I did not know
before that night that he was a thief!"
Alfred sank on his knees in uncontrollable agitation, and hid his face
in his hands.
"Circumstances had unfortunately placed it in his power to embezzle a
large sum of money; he obtained possession of it, and drank and
gambled it away. What was to be done? The name that I bore had never
had a stain upon it. I and mine had lived honourable lives. I loved
your mother, loved you and Lily. I had no others belonging to me--you
were my all. If I made no attempt to save him, we should in the eyes
of the world be sharers of his crime and his disgrace. His shame would
have clung to you all your lives. He gave me the name of the man whom
he had robbed. By daylight I was in the wronged man's house, by his
bedside. This man loved money better than justice. I represented to
him that he could not have both. He chose the first. I made terms with
him, and sacrificed all but a bare pittance. Between us we compounded
a felony. But I had not sufficient to pay the whole of his claim. I
promised, however, to pay the rest as I could, and he took my word.
Alfred, little by little I have been all my life since that time
wiping off the debt of disgrace. One hundred pounds only remained to
be paid, and very nearly that sum has been stolen from this iron box.
Whoever stole that money stole the honour of our family!"
A long pause ensued. A new day was dawning, and the faint light rested
upon the solemn face of the dead woman, to whom peace had come at
last. Alfred turned his eyes towards it, and shuddered. Then he turned
to the old man, and said in a low voice,
"And my father, sir?"
"In this iron box are two papers," said the old man; "one from him,
promising never to trouble his wife and children more, and one from
the man he wronged, giving quittance of what is set down as a debt.
Your father kept his word. I have never seen him since that time."
Alfred kissed his mother's face, and covered it. Then he held out his
hand to his grandfather, who took it in silence, and looked at him
wistfully. But Alfred only said, humbly,
"I am tired, sir. You have been very good to us, and I will try to
deserve it."
They went to the door, and the old man opened it, and saw Lily lying
on the ground.
"Lily!" he cried, in alarm.
The girl slowly rose and stood before him. Her eyes were closed; she
was asleep.
"Lily, my darling!" he said, tenderly placing his arm round her, "why
have you been sleeping here?"
The girl did not answer, but nestled in his arms as if she found
comfort there. He led her into the room, and she accompanied him
unresistingly.
"She has been overwrought, poor child," said the old man in a troubled
voice.
They stood in silence for a few moments, almost fearing to speak; she
still sleeping, with her sweet face turned towards the morning light,
which, gradually growing brighter, illumined the strange group.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE REVEREND EMANUEL CREAMWELL STOPS THE WAY.
The parish of Stapleton, of which the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was
pastor, was situated a very few miles from London, and contained,
it is to be presumed (and not to do violence to the science of
divine things), an equal number of human bodies and souls. The
number--reckoning the two as one--was not large, and the tithes were
small, a circumstance which it is waste of time to mention, for what
minister loves his emoluments better than his church? And yet in
common minds a mean suspicion is sometimes engendered as to the
comparative value of one and the other in the eyes of the clergy.
Without indorsing this suspicion--rejecting it, indeed, as the vilest
of calumnies--it is curious to observe that, when a minister has a
"call," the summons from heaven generally holds out the promise of an
increased earthly income. It is a proof of the base depths of which
the mind is capable, and the fact of the divine summons being very
generally joyfully responded to, should engender a tittle of
suspicion. But unfortunately there are in the world men to whose moral
perception purity of motive is a human impossibility; to such men the
flesh-pots of Egypt contain the most powerful argument it is possible
to conceive.
Stapleton was a tumble-down little parish, and bore unmistakable signs
of being badly off. Everything in it and about it had been crumbling
away for many generations. Magnates there were in it of course--most
of them elderly gentlemen, with puffy faces and big stomachs, at whom
the poor children of the parish, in dirty pinafores, their large eyes
staring upwards, and their hands behind them, would gaze in worship.
The predecessors of these great men were crumbling away in the
picturesque old churchyard, making the soil rich for buttercups and
daisies, with which the dirty children played and pelted one another.
There were many picturesque bits of scenery about Stapleton;
notwithstanding its poverty, it was not an undesirable living for a
clergyman, and the patching-up and medicining of souls--which,
according to doctrinal teaching, are always lame and diseased, coming
into the world so, and so remaining--went on pretty much in the same
way and quite as unsuccessfully as in most other parishes. Doctors for
bodies and doctors for souls are so abundant, and increase and
multiply so amazingly, that the human machine on two legs which walks
the earth, and which Leigh Hunt's fish so very properly laughed at,
may be said to be in a very bad state indeed.
Such, at all events, the preaching of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell
went to prove. According to his pulpit-doctrine, corruption was the
normal state of man--and woman also, of course. This condition was bad
enough in all conscience, but it was a miserable thing to be compelled
to believe that it could never be bettered. The conviction was forced
upon them by their pastor; his utterings were destructive of hope. He
had preached to them a library of sermons, and middle-aged sinners of
his congregation had grown old during his term. Inevitable time was
pushing them nearer and nearer to the grave; but there was no more
hope for them now than there had been long ago, when there were many
years of life before them. Sinners then, sinners now. How was
salvation to be obtained? They went to church, and listened to their
pastor's words, but found no consolation in them. The refrain of his
sermon was the same now as it had been the first day on which he
ascended the pulpit, and preached to them not salvation but the other
thing. As he and the members of his flock grew older, he grew more
stern, and they more disconsolate. The time for them for reaching
grace was getting very short, and still corruption held them fast,
would not let them go indeed. When the Sabbath service was ended, they
wended their way home, depressed and in the saddest of moods. For
their pastor hurt and bruised the miserable sinners without mercy. He
said, "This shall ye do out of fear of the Lord;" and no suggestion of
love brought light to the benighted ones. He told them to cleanse
their souls; he had told them to do this any time for twenty years,
but he did not supply them with the divine soap and water necessary
for the operation. He spoke in parables, and left them to draw the
moral. He presented problems to them, hard nuts of divinity which they
found it impossible to crack. He used the Bible like a catapult, and
from this engine he, week after week, hurled terrible inflictions at
their hands, until some impressionable souls grew to believe that God
was a very dreadful creature, and that it would have been better for
them if they had never been introduced into this world of sorrow,
which was to be followed by another full of penalties.
Not one of his parishioners loved him. But they thought he was a good
man, notwithstanding--so good, indeed, that goodness became
disagreeable in their eyes, and some of them deemed that it must be
exceedingly pleasant to be naughty. The fact of this man having the
charge of many precious souls (to use the stereotyped vernacular), and
preaching the highest and holiest lessons for years to persons who did
not, could not love him, was one of the strangest of anomalies. In his
exhortations he seemed to declare, "I am sent to bruise, not to heal;
here is a stone for you; here are vinegar and salt for your wounds;
here are shadows and awful images to appal you, and to make your
death-bed agonising; here are the waters of grace--taste them, and
find them bitter!" After such exhortation, how could they love
God?--how could they love His minister? Prisoners do not love their
gaolers. And this man, having the charge of souls, held them in grim
custody with the hard spirit of a gaoler.
They writhed and suffered in his grasp, but they had no word to say
against him. He was an eminently respectable man; had never been seen
to smile; and they touched their hats to him, and paid him every
deference. But it was remarkable that no person had ever been known to
utter a word in praise of him. Women--especially women in humble
life--did not like him; and he produced a curious effect upon
children. Sometimes they cried when they saw him, and sometimes they
stood aside as he passed, with a kind of fear on them--petrified as it
were. The effect was something similar to that which Medusa's head
might have produced upon them.
His home was like his preaching. There was no light in it. It was dark
and sombre. All the furniture was of dark wood; the paper on the walls
of every room was dark. In the whole house, from roof to basement,
there was nothing graceful in form or colour. The ornaments on the
mantelshelf were ugly figures in dark wood and stone. Flowers were
never seen in the house. The gas was never lighted until night had
completely fallen. Nothing more oppressive can be conceived than the
effect which this gloomy house and the gloomy fashion in which it was
conducted would produce after a time upon a sensitive spirit. In the
eyes of many, all this added to his respectability as a man of God.
What wanted he with pomps and vanities? It was his mission to preach
against them. Should he, then, indulge in them?
How many are there who exhibit an outward pride in living thus--who
raise their eyes and hands against harmless enjoyments--whose words
would rob life of its sunshine and flowers and tender feeling, and who
grudge to the hungry every sweet morsel that kind impulse and kinder
nature hold out to them with pitying hand! If the inner and private
lives of these moralists were laid bare, what kind of lesson would
they teach?
It must not be supposed that this reflection in any way touches the
Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. There was not a visible stain upon him;
the breath of slander had never been raised against him; he was above
reproach. He may have been a little stiff and uncompromising, a little
too severe in his notions of this and that, but his morality and
goodness were not to be questioned. As for his judgment there were at
least two persons in the parish who relied implicitly upon it.
These two men were Justices of the Peace. Their names, unlike
themselves, are of no consequence. It would be hard to give any other
reason for their being appointed Justices of the Peace than that one
was a retired colonel and the other a retired sugar-baker; and
doubtless it would be a distinct libel to declare that they knew as
much of law as the man in the moon. Undoubtedly they must have been
worthy; undoubtedly they must have been just. What is known as
"Justices' Justice" has been a theme for satire and rebuke as long as
we can remember, and it is a blessing to live in a land where it
would not be tolerated that one in power having committed a gross
injustice--having, perhaps, helped to make infamous what might have
been made beneficial--should be permitted to retain an authority which
is only used to be abused. So perfect are our institutions, that it
would be next to impossible that one who had proved himself by his
acts to be unworthy of the distinction should be allowed to sit in
judgment on his fellows year after year, to dispense unequal and
merciless justice. It would be monstrous otherwise.
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was to these two Justices as a staff to
lean upon--a staff that would not yield or bend, however great the
pressure. He frequently sat upon the Bench with one or the other, or
with both, and prompted and advised them, and indeed directed their
verdicts; so that it might almost be said that they spoke out of his
mouth. Dressed in his little brief authority, the retired colonel or
the retired sugar-baker would sit in state pompously, with his
reverend counsellor by his side, and strike terror to the heart of the
hardened criminal. As thus:
A boy of tender years, in the employ of a baker, was charged with
stealing a pound of flour, valued at twopence, from his master. The
facts of the case were somewhat singular. The master discovered the
theft, and in hot temper sent for a policeman, who straightway locked
up the ferocious thief. Then the master repented of his hasty action,
made inquiries, and from what he learned, deemed that the boy was more
deserving of pity than of blame. When he made his appearance in court,
he stated that he was anxious not to prosecute, and he begged that the
boy might be discharged with a caution.
"But he stole the flour?" asked the Justice, prompted by his reverend
counsellor.
"It wasn't worth twopence," was the evasive reply; "and I have learned
since----"
"We don't want to know what he learned since," remarked the Reverend
Mr. Creamwell to the Justice. "Did the boy steal the flour, or did he
not?"
"Yes," echoed the parrot Justice; "we don't want to know what you have
learned since. Did the boy steal the flour, or did he not?"
"He did," replied the tradesman; "but----"
"What have 'buts' to do with facts?" exclaimed the wise administrator.
"The boy is a thief, and he must--eh? yes, certainly; quite proper--he
must go to prison for three months, with hard labour."
So the criminal (whose first offence it was, and who had never been
known to steal before) was sent to prison, where, surrounded by gentle
associates and humanising influences, he learnt some salutary lessons.
Or thus:
One very cold winter evening, a poor woman--so poor that she could not
afford to buy two-penny-worth of coal--was walking to her cheerless
home. The sharp wind pierced to her very marrow, and the prospect
before her made the cold colder. She was a charwoman, and had been
unsuccessful in obtaining work during the day. Jane Plummer was her
name. Her toes peeped out of her boots. Hapless Jane Plummer! She had
to pass by the side of a wood which belonged to wealthy Mr. Icicle,
and she saw a few rotten branches on the ground. They had dropped in
the autumn, and had been soddened into the earth by many rains. Think
of a sick man who for weeks had been debarred the blessings of sun and
sweet air--primroses could not have gladdened his sight more than
these ugly sticks gladdened the sight of Jane Plummer; fresh violets
could not have been more welcome and refreshing to him than these
black bits of wood were to her. They held out the hope of light and
warmth. They were temptingly within reach. She stooped and picked them
up, and put them into her apron, the humble badge of the Order of the
Poor. Unfortunate Jane Plummer! Behind her was a policeman with a true
policeman's spirit. He was off duty, but the ruling passion for taking
people into custody was strong within him, and he never missed a
chance. Besides, he yearned for promotion; he looked forward to being
a sergeant. Animated by this blessed hope, he was as zealous a
subordinate as could be found in the ranks. He knew Jane Plummer; knew
that she was the poorest of the poor; knew that she had no fire, and
no money to buy fuel; knew the meaning of her hesitating gait and
wistful looks as the fatal branches came into view. What, now, if at
this point he had turned and fled? Pooh, not to be thought of. He
waited cunningly until the sticks were in her apron, and she was
shuffling along with them; then he pounced upon her, and bade her come
along with him. She trembled, and dropped the rotten sticks. He made
her pick them up again. She sobbed and implored--unavailingly. The
heart of the zealous policeman was not to be touched. Side by side
they marched; he with his dreadful hand upon her arm, she holding with
reluctant fingers the corners of the apron which contained the proofs
of her crime. Jane Plummer passed that night in the police-station,
and the next morning was brought face to face with Justice. The
policeman, with modest triumph, gave his evidence.
"Taken red-handed," observed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell to the
dummy by his side, who nodded with the wisdom of an owl, and asked the
prisoner what she had to say for herself.
Tremblingly and with sobs, Jane Plummer said,
"If you please, your worship, it was bitter cold, and I had no fire at
home, and no money to buy coal; and as I was passing by Mr. Icicle's
wood, I gathered a few sticks to boil my kettle. There is a path
through the wood, and I picked up the sticks by the side of the path.
I didn't think there was any harm in it; the sticks ain't worth a
ha'penny!"
"Had prisoner any money upon her, policeman?"
"A penny and a farthing, your worship."
Thereupon the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell remarked that the rights of
property must be respected; and the sapient Justice of the Peace,
having property, read Jane Plummer a lecture upon her offence, and,
looking at some writing on a paper handed to him by his reverend
counsellor, passed sentence--two shillings and sixpence fine, and
three shillings and sixpence costs, or seven days' imprisonment.
"And I hope," added the law's administrator, with more owl's wisdom,
"that this will be a caution to you never to touch sticks in
gentlemen's woods again."
Jane Plummer sobbed that she would never, never, never do so again and
went to prison to brood upon her sin.
These are but two cases out of many which the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell was instrumental in deciding. No doubt that, being actuated
by a love for justice presumably more merciful (in these enlightened
times) than the old Mosaic law of eye for eye and tooth for tooth, he
often had to wrestle with his tender feelings; but he overcame them,
as Jacob did the angel. And this mention of Jacob suggests the vision
of his ladder. Say that the steps of the ladder by which the Reverend
Emanuel Creamwell was to ascend to heaven were to be formed by good
and just actions, surely such sentences as those he was instrumental
in passing upon the baker's boy and hapless Jane Plummer would not be
forgotten. If this thought ever occurred to him, it must have afforded
him much consolation.
CHAPTER IX.
THE REVEREND EMANUEL CREAMWELL AND HIS SON TAKE DIFFERENT
VIEWS OF THINGS.
This that we see before us might be, to a fanciful mind, the
commencement of the ladder to heaven referred to in the last chapter.
It is but a sunbeam, slanting from window to floor. Strangely out of
place it seems in the gloomy study which it illumines, but the myriad
motes within it sparkle and flash merrily, without reference to
surrounding things. It is but a sunbeam, slanting from window to
floor, but there are contained within it that you and I might be the
better for knowing. At the simple suggestion of the thought, a darker
cloud casts a shadow upon the window through which the sunbeam has
stolen, and it vanishes, leaving the study utterly dreary and gloomy.
The furniture in the study is heavy and ponderous, the curtains to the
windows are heavy and dark, and the bookcase is oppressive and
burdened with lore. Can the house, of which this funereal study forms
part, be a home? The cloud passes, and the sunbeam is alive again.
Truant flashes of light dart in, and shifting restlessly in the
corners of the room, strive vainly to hide themselves, as if they are
conscious that they have no business in a place so serious and solemn,
and wonder how they could have been so unwise as to enter. In the
midst of their tribulation the door opens, and the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell enters. A deeper frown than usual is on his face. He holds a
letter in his hand, which he has evidently been reading more and more.
"A Wesleyan Methodist!" he mutters. "Never been baptized in the Church
of England! And the man's name is Verity, too. How could it have
escaped me before? The very man, perhaps, to whom this paper refers."
He takes a small packet of papers from his desk, and selects one.
"A strange story," he muses, after reading it; "no person has any
legal claim to what is due upon the debt. The statute of limitations
has wiped off the obligation years ago. But the moral claim remains. I
will see the man if he comes. I have some slight remembrance of him,
as a man of strong opinions."
He refers to other papers, the perusal of which is evidently
displeasing to him, if one can judge from the expression of his face.
He pushes them aside, and leans back in his chair to think. Of what?
Of his wife, who has been dead for twenty years. Not with affection
does he think of her. But for a living remembrance she left behind
her, she might have been to him as one who had never existed. This
living remembrance is a child--a son--who, having completed his
studies abroad (a phrase peculiarly adapted to fiction), has come home
after many years of absence, with no prospects, no profession, and no
settled aims or views for the future. Not that this gives the young
gentleman the slightest concern. He is as careless a soul as is to be
met with here and there, and he can spend a sovereign or a sixpence
with equal pleasure. An uncle, who had paid all the expenses of his
training and education (upon the express understanding that his nephew
was to live away from home), had lately died, and this afternoon had
been appointed for the father and son to confer together upon business
matters. And upon mention of the subject, here he is. A young
gentleman with no trace of seriousness in his manner, with almost
laughing face, and with an easy self-possession that it would
evidently take a great deal to disconcert; altogether (asking pardon
first for the irreverence of the comparison) no more like his father
than was Hyperion to a satyr. A bright flower is in his coat.
"Good-day, father." Although it is afternoon, it is the first time
they have met to-day.
"Good-day, Shad----"
But before he can get the name out, his son laughingly interrupts him.
"Felix, father; Felix, if you love me!"
The Rev. Emanuel Creamwell waives the latter proposition, and says in
a displeased tone,
"I cannot understand your reason for changing your name."
"I don't like it, father. It sounds mean. Shadrach!"
"It is a Scriptural name," says the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell
solemnly.
"So is the one I have chosen in its place--Felix. I never could
respect a man with the name of Shadrach. Besides," adds Felix, with
twinkling eyes, "it is unfair to the firm."
"To what firm do you refer?"
"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They should never be parted. You
know well enough, father, that you never think of the one but the
other two partners pop up, as much as to say, 'Don't forget us,
please! We belong to the firm.'"
Hard lines come about the thin-lipped mouth of the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell, and he says, with deepening frowns,
"The light manner in which you speak of these things is especially
displeasing to me, and is entirely out of place in my presence and in
this house."
"I almost seem to be out of place myself here," says Felix, with the
slightest trace of vexation in his manner.
"Perhaps so; we will discuss that presently. Whoever lives here must
conform to my rules. You were smoking in your bedroom last night."
"True, sir."
"I do not allow smoking."
"I will not smoke here again. I'll smoke my cigar in the open air for
the future."
"I should prefer your not smoking at all; _I_ don't smoke."
"Why, sir, you wouldn't keep everybody from smoking because you don't
smoke? If it were not for tobacco, the revenue of nations would go
to----"
"Blazes," he is about to say, but he checks himself in time. There is
so little in unison between these two natures, that when they meet it
seems to be almost a necessity that they should clash. One is harsh
and sour; the other is tolerant and sweet. Felix was more the son of
his mother than the son of his father; the sweetness of her nature had
come to him with the milk he had drawn from her breast. Father and son
had not been brought together for very many years until now, and the
experience they have gained of each other is not agreeable to either
of them.
"You scarcely need me to tell you," says the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell, as his son stopped at the dangerous word, "that your
remarks do continual violence to my feelings."
"We certainly don't seem to pull nicely together, father. You have
some business matters to speak to me about. Perhaps it will be as well
to proceed to them."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell looks among the papers on the table,
and says,
"Your uncle, as you know, died six weeks ago."
"So your letter informed me. Did you see him before he died?"
"I have not seen him for years. I did not approve of him; and but for
its being understood that he intended to leave you as his heir, I
should have declined to be upon friendly terms with him."
"He was my mother's brother, and he has been kind to me."
"So far as defraying the expenses of your education----"
"_All_ my expenses, father," interrupts Felix. "Please to remember
that he made me a regular allowance."
"By which you intend me to remember also," says the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell with a frown, "that you have been no expense to me."
"If you please to put it that way, you can. But I should prefer your
thinking that I reminded you of the circumstance in order that you
might do justice to the memory of my uncle."
"I do not need you to remind me of my duty; I need _no_ reminding of
that. It is always before me. The tone of your remarks, and your
general bearing towards me, proceed from the stipulation made by your
uncle that you should be educated away from me and from this house."
"I mean no disrespect to you, father, believe me," exclaims Felix
eagerly; "but everything about me here is so--so different from what I
have been accustomed to, that I feel myself almost in a strange land."
He might have said more, but he restrains himself. He might have said,
"Coming home as I have done, ready and wishful to be upon affectionate
terms with a father who never showed any love for me--coming home with
a studied resolution to try and conform to my father's wishes, and to
gain for myself a place in his affections--I find myself baffled at
every turn. When my father met me, after years of absence, he met me
with no smile upon his face. He might have been a man of stone for all
the warmth he showed to me; a stranger could not have exhibited less
tenderness in his greeting. And so it has gone on from the moment I
set foot in this house, which is cold enough and gloomy enough to
chill one's blood." Felix does not say this, but he thinks it, and
much more to the same effect, and at the same time wonders a little
whether he is in any way to blame for things being so different from
what he hoped and expected.
"The stipulation made by your uncle," proceeds the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell, "has thrown you into scenes and into a way of living that
would certainly not meet with my approval; and if you wish to remain
here, you must positively conform to my views. It is for you to
change, not for me."
"Before we speak of this," says Felix, in as calm a tone as he can
command, for the uncompromising bearing of his father grates strongly
upon him, "will you be kind enough to tell me something more of my
uncle? I have my future to look to now, and although it does not give
me any anxiety, for I am sure to be all right"--with a careless wave
of his hand to show that all the world was at his feet--"I would like
to know what I have to depend on. My uncle must have died very
suddenly."
"Sudden death is what we should all prepare ourselves for. I hope you
have reflected seriously upon this and other matters not appertaining
to this life."
"I don't know that I have, father," says Felix laughingly; "it's bad
enough when it comes."
"I feared it!" exclaims the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. "Not prepared!
not prepared!"
The tone in which his father utters this lamentation is so exactly
similar to the other lamentations which he has heard in other places,
and which he has been in the habit of looking upon as unworthy of
regard, that Felix with difficulty suppresses his disdain; but he is
of too frank and open a nature not to make upon the instant a
confession of faith--a confession so dreadful that the Reverend
Emanuel Creamwell listened in undisguised wrath.
"I don't suppose I am prepared, father, in the way you mean, and I
must confess that I don't see what necessity there is for it. I am not
sent into the world to mourn; there are things in it that I like to
enjoy, and that I think I was sent to enjoy; otherwise, they would not
be provided. I sha'n't be the worse for enjoying them, if I live till
I am seventy, and I shouldn't be the better for avoiding them, or for
looking upon them as sinful."
Felix is aware of the bad impression he is producing upon his father,
but he deems it a point of honour not to falter, and he goes on to the
end with a certain manliness that would be refreshing in any other
place than the cheerless study in which he is sitting.
"May I inquire what you call yourself in the matter of religion?" asks
the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell gloomily.
"Well, father," replies Felix, with a certain puzzled hesitation, "I
suppose I should call myself a Church-of-England man; but I would much
prefer to call myself a Christian."
"It is useless, I expect," observes the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell,
after a pause, "to enter into a discussion upon these subjects with
you?"
"Quite useless, I should say, father."
"Then we will continue about your uncle's affairs," said the Reverend
Emanuel Creamwell, with the air of one who, encountering a difficulty,
finds it insurmountable; and, curiously enough, with the air of one
who feels relieved in consequence. "As I was your uncle's nearest
relative, and it was understood that you were his heir, I thought it
my duty, immediately I heard of his death, to hasten to his house. I
then, to my astonishment, discovered that he had expended the whole of
his property in the purchase of a life annuity, which, of course, dies
with him. After payment of certain claims, which could not be
resisted, the estate leaves you, as your uncle's heir, the exact sum
of one hundred and ten pounds."
A sour smile plays about the lips of the Rev. Emanuel Creamwell;
thankful as he would have been for a more fortunate issue of his
brother-in-law's death as relieving him of a responsibility which he
is afraid may fall upon him, and which he is wishful to be rid of, he
is not displeased at this triumph over his son. But Felix is more
surprised than hurt; there is no such feeling in his breast as
animosity towards his uncle because a fortune is not left to him. He
says in a gentle voice,
"I am not the less grateful to him for what he has done for me; and I
cannot say exactly whether I am sorry that he did not leave me a
fortune. I can understand now the reason of his urging me to choose a
profession. He knew that he had nothing to leave me, and that I should
have to depend upon myself. But he did not think that he would have
died so soon; he was a healthy strong man, and the probability was
that he had many years of life before him."
"I told you," interposes the Rev. Emanuel Creamwell grimly, "that we
should all be prepared for sudden death; he was not prepared for it."
"We have spoken of that already," replies Felix, in a dry tone, "and
it will not profit us to pursue the subject. I know that many a bad
word was said about him, but after all perhaps he was not much worse
than many of his neighbours. I, at all events, have cause to be
grateful to him. I have no doubt that, had he lived, he would have
helped me to make a career for myself. But that is still before me; I
haven't the slightest fear. The circumstance of his leaving so small
an estate speaks for him. It proves that in the allowance he made me
he went to the full extent of his means, and that between us we
managed to swallow up his annuity pretty well to the last shilling."
In his anxiety to do justice to the memory of his uncle, his generous
mind seizes every point that reflects credit upon the dead man. "Be a
lawyer, he wrote to me over and over again, be an architect, be an
engineer, be something, whatever it is, and come home and let us set
about it. That showed he was in earnest, and meant to stand by me."
"We are not likely to agree upon this or any other subject. I have but
few words to say in conclusion, relating to your uncle's affairs. He
left a request behind him, in a document written some years ago, that
when he died all his papers and letters should be burnt. This was
done; they were all burnt with the exception of one, which contains
the recital of a singular story; I thought it desirable to keep it, as
it may be worth money, and as I think it concerns a man who once dwelt
in this locality. And that, I believe, is all I have to say respecting
your uncle."
A long and embarrassing silence follows, each knowing that the most
momentous part of the interview is to come. Felix is unusually grave,
for he cannot but feel that the relations existing between himself and
his father are to some extent unnatural. Anxious as he is to find the
road to his father's good wishes--affection seems to be out of the
question--the consciousness is forced upon him that the only road open
to him is one the treading of which will compel him to be false to
himself. And that he cannot be. Come what may, he is determined not to
play the hypocrite. He is the first to break the silence.
"You have something else to speak of, father."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell clears his throat, in precisely the
same way as he was in the habit of doing when he was about to deliver
a more than usually disagreeable discourse to his congregation. This
clearing of the throat did not have the effect usually produced; it
did not clear his voice. On the contrary, his tones on these occasions
invariably became more harsh and discordant--like rusty iron. It is in
these rusty-iron tones he speaks now, and every word he utters grates
upon Felix, and sets his soul on edge.
"I have something else to speak of, but the subject is the
same--yourself. I am disappointed in you."
"I am sorry for it, father."
"The opinions you entertain of religious matters are sinful in my
eyes. I should so regard them if they were entertained by a stranger,
and it is not because you are my son that I should exercise an unwise
leniency towards you in matters which I deem of the utmost importance.
You have contracted habits which I do not approve of. Your views I do
not approve of. Your dress, your manner, your general conduct, are not
in accordance with my ideas. That gay flower in your coat is
unnecessary. Outward observances show the inward spirit."
"Not always, father," said Felix, with somewhat of recklessness; "I
have known men who wore masks."
"Is that meant as an imputation upon me?" asks the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell, the gulf between father and son widening at every word that
is spoken.
"I was thinking at the moment," replies Felix, urged on by a feeling
he cannot resist, "of what a French writer said upon the subject of
outward observances and inward spirit. He said that the true man is
that which exists under what is called man, and that, strictly
speaking, the human visage is a mask."
"Such vague generalities are after the common manner of French
romancists, whose writings lead the soul astray."
Here Felix thinks scornfully, "Why drag the soul in?" but he does not
speak his thought.
"They take us," continues the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, joining the
tips of his fingers and thumbs, and making an arch of them, "from the
point we are speaking upon. I must desire that you do not break in
again with such unseemly interruptions."
"I wish you would remember, father, that I am a man, and not a child.
I have opinions of my own, and it is no fault of mine if they do not
agree with yours."
"You are my son, and, as such, owe me implicit obedience. You have not
decided yet as to a profession?"
"No."
"Your uncle dying leaves me in an unpleasant position. I am not rich;
I have but little money to spare. Something the world will expect me
to do for you----"
"O, pray, sir," interrupted Felix, "don't study the world. I shall get
along well enough without assistance, I haven't the slightest doubt."
"Something, I say, the world will expect me to do for you; but if I do
it, out of my small means, I shall require from you deference,
respect, obedience. I have expressed my opinion of your views. You say
in reply that you are a man, and have opinions of your own. Those
opinions you will perhaps find it advisable to change. Until a
profession is determined upon, you can stay here; but only upon the
express understanding that you conform to my rules. You are the best
judge whether this arrangement will suit you."
Felix, with a wry face, is about to reject this ungracefully-offered
hospitality, and to say that perhaps it will be better for him to find
a lodgment elsewhere, when an interruption occurs. Voices are heard in
the passage, and the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell's housekeeper makes
her appearance at the study-door. Strictly speaking, she might be
described as a colourless woman, her dress being black, and her face
being white.
"Some persons to see you, sir," she says.
"I cannot be interrupted," replies the Reverend Mr. Creamwell.
"But they insist, sir."
"Name?"
"Verity."
"Let them come in."
The next moment old Wheels with Lily and Alfred enter the room.
CHAPTER X.
FELIX GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY.
Humbly they stood before the minister and his son, and there was
silence for a moment or two in the gloomy study. From the window of
the study the parish churchyard could be plainly seen, and Felix,
looking through the window while the conversation between his father
and the housekeeper was taking place, saw a coffin lying by the side
of a newly-made grave, and a little group of persons standing about it
in the sun's light. This group was composed of Gribble junior and his
wife, and Mrs. Podmore and her little Polly. Gribble junior's heir was
also there, under shade. The youngster was asleep on the turf at the
foot of a tall and weary tombstone, on which was an inscription to the
effect that the soul that had once animated the clay beneath it had
assuredly gone to the place where the wicked ceased from troubling and
the weary are at rest. The letters which recorded this desirable
consummation of a life's labour were nearly worn away by time, and the
woeful tombstone, as it leaned towards the earth, exhibited in its
attitude a yearning to fall upon its face, and to go also to the place
where the weary are at rest. Over the head of Gribble junior's heir a
large umbrella was spread to protect him from the sun. The umbrella
served two purposes--it kept the child in shade, and advertised the
business. For glaring upon the Cambridge blue silk was an
advertisement, in yellow paint, of Gribble junior's Royal Umbrella and
Parasol Hospital; and the proprietor of that establishment,
complacently surveying the announcement, did not seem to think that it
was at all out of place in the old churchyard. Little Polly, to whom
everything that she had never seen before possessed surpassing
interest, was looking about her with that solemn wonder which is often
seen on children's faces. The gravedigger, a young man who should have
known better, stood with his foot resting upon his spade; and the
group was completed by two very old men who took an interest in
funerals, and three dirty children with the usual dirty pinafores and
the usual staring eyes.
The occasion was made quite a holiday by Mrs. Podmore and Mrs. Gribble
junior. When Lily's Mather died, there was much sympathy expressed for
her and her grandfather in the crowded house in Soho; and the women,
notwithstanding they had ordinarily not a minute to spare from their
pressing duties, busied themselves unostentatiously in assisting Lily
and the old man through their trouble. Thus, Mrs. Podmore took upon
herself Lily's household work, and cleaned and tidied the rooms, and
cooked the meals for them until after the funeral; and Mrs. Gribble
junior, being a perfect marvel with her needle, set to work at once
making a black dress and bonnet for Lily. This quick practical
sympathy is very common and very beautiful among the poor. Then Mrs.
Podmore and Mrs. Gribble junior had settled that they ought to go to
the funeral, which was to take place somewhere near Gravesend, in
accordance with the wish of the dying woman. They spoke of it to their
respective husbands. Gribble junior said, "We'll all go; and we'll
take the young 'un. He's never been to a funeral; it'll open up his
ideas, as a body might say." As if such an opportunity should, for the
baby's sake, on no account be allowed to slip. Mrs. Podmore told _her_
husband when they were in bed. He had come home, worn and tired out as
usual, and while his wife expressed her views, he held his little
treasure--his darling Pollypod--close to his breast. He had a very
perfect love for his child.
"All right--old woman," he said, in his weary manner, when his wife
had finished. "Go. It will be--a holiday for you."
"And Polly?" said Mrs. Podmore "What shall I do with Polly?"
"What shall you do--with Pollypod?" he repeated drowsily, hugging the
child. "Take her with you. It will be a treat--for her. My Pollypod!
She'll smell--the country--and see--the sun." He was falling off to
sleep, when he pulled himself up suddenly, and said, "And look
here--old woman! Don't bother about--my dinner. I'll make
shift--somehow."
"Lord bless you, Jim!" exclaimed Mrs. Podmore: "I shall have a nice
meat-pudden for you. My man ain't going without his dinner."
So it was settled, and when Mrs. Podmore, the next morning, spoke of
it to old Wheels, he was grateful for the attention, and said there
would be plenty of room in the coach for them all. Mrs. Podmore's
great difficulty was a black dress to go in; she could not go in a
coloured dress, and could not afford to buy a new one. But on the day
of the funeral she made her appearance in black, having borrowed her
plumes of a neighbour who was in mourning; Pollypod went in colours.
As they had nearly twenty miles to go, the coach was at the door early
in the morning. All the neighbours round about came into the street to
gaze at it and the mourners. They stood and talked in whispers. Their
sympathy was chiefly reserved for Lily and the coffin. "Hush-sh-sh!
There's the coffin. Hush-sh-sh!" as if their very whispers might
disturb the dead. Then, when Lily came out, the women shook their
heads, and said, "Poor dear! Poor dear! How pale she is! Ah, she
didn't look like that the other night at the White Rose." Presently
they expressed surprise because the children were going, but said, a
moment afterwards, "Ah, well, it will be a nice ride for them."
Gribble junior's father, master of the chandler-shop, and foe to
co-operation, having been assured by his son that his late lodger was
not to be buried by co-operation, also patronised the starting of the
funeral with his presence. He had a corrugated face, not unlike the
outside of an old walnut-shell, and it would have been difficult to
have persuaded him that there was hope of salvation for the deceased
if the coffin had been a co-operative production.
The party being large a one, a coach of an extra size had been
provided. Gribble junior rode outside the coach, with the driver; the
others, each mother with her child on her lap, and the coffin, were
inside. He liked his position on the box, and thoroughly enjoyed the
ceremony. As he sat there, he looked round with a sad gentle smile
upon his neighbours. The day was fine, and the coach moved slowly
through the narrow streets, as was befitting and proper. Common as the
sight is, everybody turns his head or pauses for a moment to look at a
coach with a coffin in it. Women come to the windows and gaze at it
with a kind of quiet fascination; dirty children suspend their games
and stand in admiration at the corners of the streets; idle
shopkeepers come to their doors in their aprons; and mothers bring
their babies to see the coach go by--truly suggestive of the cradle
and the grave. Gribble junior relished this attention on the part of
the public. He took it in some measure as a tribute to himself, and
even derived satisfaction from the thought that many of the persons
who stopped and gazed must believe him to be a near relative of the
deceased. He was as little of a hypocrite as it is in the nature of
human beings to be, but he deemed it necessary to his position to
assume a mournful demeanour; and he did so accordingly, and sighed
occasionally. When the coach got away from the narrow streets, it
moved faster. Gribble junior had brought a Cambridge blue-silk
umbrella with him, which, however, he did not open on the journey. He
and his wife and Mrs. Podmore enjoyed the ride amazingly. To escape
for a few hours from the narrow labyrinths of Soho was good; to get
into a little open country where grass and flowers were growing and
blooming was better; and to see bright colour come to the children's
cheeks and bright sparkles to their eyes was best of all. It was as
Mr. Podmore said, a treat for them. The wives had brought sandwiches
and bread-and-butter with them, and water in ginger-beer bottles.
(Gribble junior, outside the coach, had two bottles filled with
beer--four-penny ale--which he and the driver drank and enjoyed.) The
women offered part of their refreshments to the relatives of the dead
woman, but not one of the mourners could eat. In the early part of the
journey, little Pollypod was inclined to show her enjoyment of the
ride somewhat demonstratively, but Mrs. Podmore whispered to the
child, "Hush, Polly dear! Lily's mother's in there!" pointing to the
coffin. Pollypod had blue eyes, very bright, though not very large;
but the brightness went out of them and they grew larger as she
learned this fact and looked at the coffin. A little while afterwards,
having watched and waited and debated the point with herself, without
being able to come to a satisfactory conclusion, Pollypod asked why
Lily's mother did not get out of the box.
"_I_ would!" said Pollypod. "If I was shut up there, I'd cry, and
you'd let me out; wouldn't you? Wicked box! Father couldn't play with
me if I was shut up in you!" And listened and wondered why the clay in
the coffin did not cry to escape.
Once during the ride, Lily nursed Polly for comfort, and the child,
with her lips to Lily's ear, said,
"Lily, I want to know!"
It was one of Pollypod's peculiarities that she was always wanting to
know.
"Well, Polly?"
"Was Lily's mother naughty?"
"O, no, Polly! O, no!"
"What is she shut up in the box for, then?"
"She is gone from us, Polly dear."
"Was _you_ naughty, Lily?" continued the inquisitive little Pollypod;
"and is _that_ the reason why she's gone?"
"No, Polly, dear."
"What is the reason, then, Lily?" inquired the pertinacious little
maid. "I want to know."
"God has taken her, Polly," said Lily, in a tearful voice.
"Where has God taken her to, Lily?"
"There!" pointing upwards.
What did the matter-of-fact little maid do, there and then, but go to
the window, and look into the bright sky for Lily's mother? Mrs.
Podmore kept her there, and whispered to her that poor Lily was not
well and must not be teased. But the child, at intervals, turned her
perplexed eyes to the coffin and then to the beautiful clouds, not at
all satisfied in her mind, and with all her heart "wanting to know."
At length the ride, weary to some and pleasant to some, was over, and
they were in the churchyard and by the grave. There a man, taking old
Wheels aside, spoke a few words to him. An expression of amazement,
almost of horror, came into the old man's face.
"It is impossible!" he exclaimed, in a tone of uncontrollable
agitation. "Here--beneath God's sky!--Surely you are mistaken."
The man replied that there was no mistake.
"Where is the minister?" inquired the old man. "Is that his house? I
will go and see him. Come, children, come with me."
And leaving his friends by the grave, the old man, followed by his
grandchildren, walked swiftly to the house of the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell.
When the relatives of the dead woman entered the gloomy study, Felix,
seeing a tender girl among them, offered Lily a chair. She bowed
without looking into his face, and although she did not sit down, she
rested her hand upon the chair, as if she needed support. If the
thoughts which animated the minds of the five persons in that sombre
study had been laid bare, the strangest of contrasts would have been
seen. There sat the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell; behind him was his
son. They were at variance with one another, and each felt himself so
much in the other's way, that if it had not been for the tie of
kinship that bound them, their opposing natures would have led to the
plain expression of scorn and contempt on the one side, and of harsh
and bitter condemnation on the other.
There stood the delicate girl, whose nerves during the last few days
had been strung to the highest point of which her nature was capable.
A pure and tender lily indeed, as graceful as the flower from which
she derived her name, and whose white bells, as they arch among the
vivid leaves of green, tremble in the lightest breath from zephyr's
mouth. It was so with Lily at this time. A harsh word would have
caused her to quiver with pain. The effect which the suddenness of her
mother's death, and the terrifying dreams that followed, had produced
upon her had not passed away. Like the lily she stood there, dependent
upon surrounding things almost for very life itself; kind looks and
sweet words gladdened her and helped to make her strong, as kind
sunshine and sweet breezes gladden and make strong the flower. And
like the flower, the light in which she stood seemed to come from
inward brightness and purity.
Her brother Alfred stood by her side. What was stirring in his mind?
Well, it was the day on which the Northumberland Plate was run for at
the Newcastle-upon-Tyne races. The race was over by this time. Had
Christopher Sly won? He trembled to think that it might have been
beaten--had come in second, perhaps; had lost "by a head." If it had,
there was woe in store for him. If he were in London, he would know;
this uncertainty was torturing. Now he was in the depth of misery:
Christopher Sly had lost, and he had to pay money, and to make money
good, out of an empty purse. Now he was in the height of gladness: the
horse _could_ not lose--every one of the prophets had said so;
Christopher Sly had won, and everything was right. It was like a
reprieve from death.
Lastly, the grandfather. What his thoughts were will be shown in
words. A strange and unexpected trouble had been added to his grief,
and his handsome thoughtful face showed traces of perplexed anxiety.
When Felix had offered Lily a chair, the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell
had killed the proffered courtesy with an irritable wave of his hand,
which expressed, "You will not presume to sit in my presence." In
everything that Felix did he found cause for anger, and he believed
that his son was animated by a distinct wish to thwart and oppose him;
this very proffered courtesy to one of these persons was another
argument in his mind against Felix. Marble in the hands of a
sympathetic worker was more capable of tenderness and gentleness than
was the face of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell as he sat in his
arm-chair and waited for the intruders to speak.
"My name, sir, is Verity," commenced the old man, in a humble and
respectful voice.
"So I understand," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in a hard and
cold voice.
Lily shivered as the harshly-spoken words fell upon her ears.
"These are my grandchildren," indicating Lily and Alfred.
"A gentleman," thought Felix, as he followed the courteous action of
the old man.
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell received the intimation with a scarcely
perceptible nod, and a colder chill came upon Lily's sensitive spirit
as she raised her eyes to the dark face of the minister.
"They are the children of my dead daughter," continued the old man,
"who before she died expressed a wish to be buried in the place which
had been familiar to her in her younger and happier days."
"These details are scarcely necessary, I should say. What are you here
for?"
The old man's agitation was so great that he was compelled to pause
before he answered; but strength seemed to come to him as he looked at
the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell's stony face.
"The mother of these children is waiting in the churchyard to be
buried."
"You received my message, I have no doubt."
"Some words were spoken to me as coming from you."
"Were not they sufficient?"
"I could not believe, sir, that the words which were delivered to me
came from the lips of a minister of God."
A flash of something very like anger lighted up the small eyes of the
Reverend Emanuel Creamwell.
"And so you come here to revile His minister?"
"I come here in all humility, sir," replied the old man.
"Do you wish me to repeat the message?"
"I wish to know, sir, that I have been mistaken. I cannot believe that
what I have been told is true."
"It is the evil of the ungodly that they cannot answer straight. Do
you wish me to repeat the message?"
"Yes, sir."
"It is very simple. My intimation was to the effect that I cannot
perform any service over the deceased woman."
"The prayers for the dead----" exclaimed the old man imploringly.
"Are not for her!" said the minister, finishing the sentence sternly.
At these dreadful words Felix started forward to Lily's side; the
young girl was trembling, and he feared she was about to fall. Indeed
she would have fallen, but for his helping hand. Inward fire possessed
the soul of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell at the action of his son
and his wrath was expressed in his face. Felix saw it, but did not
heed it; his lips were firmly set as he yielded Lily to her
grandfather's arms, who, as he bent over her, murmured,
"I would have spared you the pain, my darling! But I thought that your
helplessness and your innocent face would have pleaded for us."
Then he turned to the minister. "Why do you refuse to perform the last
rites over the body of my daughter?"
"I am mistaken if you have not been informed. Her parents were members
of the Wesleyan Methodist body, and the woman was not baptized in the
Church of England. Therefore I cannot say prayers over her."
"Is that God's law?"
"It is mine!" replied the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, with
inconsiderate haste. If, when he heard the rejoinder, he could have
caused the old man to fall into dust at his feet, he would have done
so.
"You say truly, sir," said the old man, in a tone of bitter calmness.
"It is not God's law; it is yours."
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell shaded his face with his hand; he did
not choose that the feeling there expressed should be seen. He knew,
by his son's sympathetic movement towards Lily, that Felix had gone
over to the enemy, and a consciousness possessed him that Felix was
not displeased at his discomfiture. Still it was his duty to assert
himself, and he did so accordingly in severe measured terms, and in
tones utterly devoid of feeling.
"I have already told you that you came here to revile--to revile God
through His minister. It is such as you who set men's minds afire, and
drive them into the pit."
But the old man interrupted him with,
"Nay, sir, do not let us argue; I at least have no time. A dead woman
is waiting for me. I must go and seek a minister who will say prayers
over the poor clay. Come, my children."
"To seek a minister!" echoed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. "What
minister?"
"A Methodist minister, as that is your will."
"Presumptuous!" exclaimed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in wrath so
pious that a colour came to his usually pale face. "No Methodist
minister can be allowed to pray in _my_ churchyard!"--with a
protecting look and motion of his fingers towards the ground where the
dead lay--a look which said, "Fear not! My lips have blessed you; my
prayers have sanctified you. Ye shall not be defiled!"
"How, then, is my daughter to be buried?" asked the old man, with his
hand to his heart.
"The woman must be buried in silence," replied the minister.
As if in sympathy with the words, a dark cloud passed across the face
of the sun, and the sunbeam, with its myriad wonders, vanished on the
instant, while the truant flashes of light that were playing in the
corners of the room darted gladly away to places where light was.
The old man bowed his head, and the words came slowly from his
trembling lips.
"Cruel! Unjust! Wicked!" he said. "Bitterly, bitterly wicked! Do we
not all worship the same God? What has this innocent clay done, that
holy words may not fall upon the earth that covers her? What have we
done, that the last consolation of prayer shall be denied to us?" Then
looking the minister steadily in the face, he said in a firm voice,
"According to your deserts may you be judged! According to your
deserts may you, who set your law above God's, and call yourself His
priest, be dealt with when your time comes!"
Turning, he was about to go, when the voice of the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell stopped him.
"Now that you have done your reviling, attend to me for a few moments.
You lived in this parish once?"
"Twenty years ago," replied the old man. "All my life up to that
time--I and my poor daughter. There will be some here who will
remember me."
"I remember you myself. You had a son?"
"No; I had but one child, she who lies yonder."
"Psha! it is the same--you had a son-in-law----"
The old man looked up with apprehensive eagerness, and Alfred, who had
hitherto been perfectly passive--having indeed for most of the time
been engrossed in torturing himself about Christopher Sly and the
Northumberland Plate--made a sudden movement forward. The old man laid
his hand upon his grandson's arm, cautioning him to silence.
"The father of these young persons," continued the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell. "Where is he?"
"Alfred," exclaimed the old man, "take Lily away. It is too close for
her here. I will join you presently outside."
Indeed, Lily was almost fainting. The long weary ride, the abstention
from food for so many hours, and the sufferings she had experienced
during the dialogue between her grandfather and the minister, had been
too much for her strength. Seeing her weak state, Felix stepped
forward to assist Alfred, and presently they were in the porch.
"Stay one moment, I pray," exclaimed Felix hurriedly; "only a moment."
He darted into the house, and brought out a chair.
"There!" he said. "Let her sit here for a minute or two. It will do
her good. The sun is the other side of us."
It is a fact that Felix, with quick instinct, had selected this place
as being likely to revive the girl. They were out of the glare of the
sun.
"Now, if you will oblige me and not let her move," he said in the same
hurried eager tone, "you will lay me under an obligation that I shall
never be able to pay."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before he was upstairs, in
his own room, tearing open his valise; he scattered the things wildly
about, and came flying down again, with a fine white handkerchief and
a bottle of Cologne water in his hand. He poured the liquid upon the
handkerchief, and, with a delicate consideration, handed it to Alfred.
"Bathe her forehead with it; place it on her forehead, so. Now blow
gently--gently. Let me!"
He blew upon the handkerchief, and the deliciously cool breeze revived
the fainting girl. She looked gratefully into his face, which turned
crimson beneath her gaze. But his task was not yet completed, it
seemed. He took from his pocket a flask, which he had also found in
his valise. There was a little silver cup attached to the flask, and
he poured a golden liquid into it.
"Taste this; it will do you good. Nay, put your lips to it; there's no
harm in it. Your brother will drink first to show you how reviving it
is."
His voice was like a fountain; there was something so hearty, and
frank, and good in it, that it refreshed her. Alfred emptied the
silver cup, and her eyes brightened.
"Take a little, Lily," he said; "it _will_ do you good."
She drank a little, and felt stronger at once.
"Where's grandfather?" she asked then.
"He will be with you presently," replied Felix. "I am going into him.
I will tell him to come to you. But before I go," and here his voice
faltered, and became more earnest, "I want you to say that you forgive
me for any pain that you may have felt in--in there," pointing in the
direction of the room they had left.
"Forgive you!" said Lily, in surprise. "Why, you have been kind to us
It was not you who said those dreadful words to grandfather. There is
nothing to forgive in you."
"There is much to forgive," said Felix impetuously; "much, very much,
if it be true that the sins of the father shall be visited on the
children. I am in that state of remorse that I feel as if I had been
the cause of your suffering and your pain."
"Nay, you must not think that," she said, in a very gentle voice; "I
am not well, and we have come a long, long way."
"Well, but humour my whim," he persisted; "it will please me. Say, 'I
forgive you.'"
"I forgive you," she said, with a sad sweet smile.
"Thank you," he said gravely, and touched her hand: and as he walked
into the house again, and into the study where his father and old
Wheels were, Lily's sad smile lingered with him, and made him, it may
be presumed, more unreasonably remorseful.
While this scene was being enacted outside the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell's house, the conversation between the minister and old
Wheels was proceeding. When Lily was out of the room, the old man
said,
"Will you please detain me here as short a time as possible, sir, as
we have much to do and far to go?"
"I will not detain you long," said the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell, in
the tone of a man who is about to smite his enemy on the hip;
"possibly you would not have remained, had you not been curious to
know what I have to say respecting your son-in-law."
"Possibly not, sir; you may guess the reason why I wished the tender
girl who was here just now not to be present while you spoke."
"Because I might say something unpleasant. Well, it is not a
creditable story. Searching among the papers of a deceased man, having
warranty to do so, his effects being the property of my son, I came
upon this paper. It recites a singular story of an embezzlement, which
took place--let me see; ah, yes--which took place nearly eighteen
years ago. You know the story, probably?"
"There are so many stories of embezzlement. Is my name mentioned?"
"Otherwise I should not have spoken of the matter to you. After
reciting the manner of the embezzlement and the name of the criminal,
it speaks of intercession by you on his behalf, and ho
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/45792