Volume Two—Chapter Three.
Another Funeral.
Septimus Hardon leaped to his feet, as suddenly a key turned and the bedroom-door opened; there was a sharp scuffling noise, as of a swarm of rats leaping hurriedly from the bed, and tearing over one another, in their haste to reach the hole; a wild shriek from a woman, a heavy fall, and then all was again silent.
As soon as he could recall his scattered energies, Septimus Hardon raised the woman’s head and bathed her face, when she soon opened her eyes and sat up, gazing at him with a horrified aspect.
“Hush!” he said softly; “don’t be alarmed. My name is Hardon; I came to see my father for the last time. I think I used to know you in the town?”
“O, yes; I remember you now, sir,” stammered the woman; “but you gave me a dreadful turn.”
“Hush! Come down-stairs now,” whispered Septimus, and he motioned her to follow him to the door.
The woman was about to obey, but, glancing round the room, she pointed to the freshly-gnawed wood and the heap of chips.
Septimus shuddered, and they went together and closed the coffin-lid.
“Stop a minute, sir, please,” said the woman—a poor cottager’s wife from the town, who followed the same road in Somesham adopted by Mrs Sims of Lincoln’s-inn,—“stop a minute, sir, please, and I’ll be back directly.” The poor thing trembled so that her teeth chattered, as she hurried away; but she returned in a few minutes with a huge black cat, which struggled from her arms and ran, with dilated eyes, towards the rats’ hole, where it softly couched, motionless but for the writhings of its lithe tail, as it sat there watching for the coming of its enemies.
There were funeral cake and wine upon the table below, and an extra supply of the former was cut up and sealed in squares of paper, bearing a couple of verses of a psalm, and the pastrycook’s name and address as a serious advertisement.
After waiting a couple of hours, most of which he spent wandering about the old house, Septimus Hardon took his old place in the little dining-room, opposite to the sealed-up bureau and cupboards. The undertaker and his man had arrived, and soon after came Doctor Hardon’s rival, who had been called in to the deceased. The undertaker knew Septimus and bowed; the surgeon, too, knew him again and shook hands, not being at all surprised to see him there; while he invited him to dinner before he should leave the town. But although Doctor Hardon, who came soon after, well knew Septimus Hardon, he was surprised to see him there, and did not shake hands, but started as though someone had struck him a violent blow. Mr Keening—Keening and Keening—then entered the room, when the gentlemen all took wine in a heavy, impressive way, and talked in a low tone about matters as far removed as possible from the purpose for which they had met together.
Then came the undertaker to ask in a subdued way if any gentleman wished to go up-stairs; but no gentleman save the son wished to go; and he stole away to stand and gaze for a few moments upon the calm pale features, and then returned to where the undertaker was distributing gloves of the best black kid, asking the size each gentleman took with a smooth oily courtesy. Scarves were then produced of the richest and stiffest corded-silk, cloaks were tied on, and as each mourner was dressed for his part of the performance, he was inspected all round, and from top to toe, by the undertaker before he was allowed to reseat himself. Then more wine, and more subdued conversation followed, interrupted by the grating of wheels upon the gravel drive. Heavy footsteps overhead now; trampling; someone slipping upon the stairs, and the balustrade heard to creak loudly as an exclamation was heard; a shuffling noise; more footsteps heavily descending; a sharp pattering of feet on the passage oilcloth, and much rustling past the room-door, followed by an interval of a few minutes, and the noise of wheels going and wheels coming; and then the undertaker stood bowing in the open door, and motioned Septimus Hardon to follow.
This was almost too much for Doctor Hardon, who had ordered that everything possible to make the funeral impressive should be done. The large hearse and two mourning-coaches had been hired expressly from the county-town; velvet and ostrich plumes were in plenty; and, as chief mourner, the doctor had reckoned upon a very imposing spectacle, one that should to a certain extent erase the horrors of his brother’s end, and help to raise him, the doctor, in the estimation of the inhabitants of Somesham. But now this was spoiled by the coming of the shabby, worn son, towards whom the undertaker had leaned in the belief, in his ignorance, that he was the chief mourner.
Septimus rose, and moved towards the door, while Doctor Hardon hesitated to obey the beckoning finger of the undertaker; but the dread of drawing attention to his tremor made him more himself, and, putting a white-cambric kerchief to his face, he followed his nephew, to be directly after shut up with him in the mourning-coach. But Septimus noticed him not, as he sat stern and with knitted brow, no muscle betraying the wild emotions struggling within.
The surgeon and solicitor followed in the next coach; and then the funeral procession moved slowly off towards the town, making as great a show as the undertaker’s strict adherence to his employer’s orders could effect. Doctor Hardon said he wished to keep up appearances for his dear brother’s sake; but he had not reckoned upon the presence of the stern, careworn man by his side, and he shrank into his corner of the mourning-coach, angry, but at the same time fearful lest a scene might ensue which should damage his reputation in the good town of Somesham; besides, it would have been so painful to the feelings of his three daughters—he only thought of three, even though one was married and two resided at a distance. Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the appearance of Septimus at such a time, and during the silent ride the doctor’s wishes were anything but loving towards his nephew; while upon reaching the church the gall of bitterness was made more bitter, for the doctor again found himself made of secondary importance by Septimus, who seemed to have roused himself into action for the time, and strode on in front, close behind the coffin, to take his place in the church so crowded with familiar recollections. There, bowed down in the same pew, but with very different thoughts, uncle and nephew listened to the service ere they stood together by the bricked vault prepared for the remains of old Octavius, and here again the doctor seemed to have shrunk into a nonentity, for every eye was fixed upon the shabby mourner by his side.
The clergyman had concluded, and, closing his book, was slowly walking away; the clerk had followed, and at the church-gate the foremost mourning-coach stood waiting, with a crowd of children and idlers around, the hearse being drawn up at a distance, already half denuded of its plumes by one of the deputies of the furnisher. There was a crowd, too, thickly clustered amidst grave and tombstone in the churchyard, for plenty of interest attached to the death of old Octavius Hardon, and the people of Somesham seemed bound to see the matter to the end.
Nothing now remained for the mourners but to take a last glance at the coffin and come away. Septimus had stood for a few moments looking down into the vault, with the stern aspect of resolution fading from his face, to give way to one of helpless misery, when, turning to leave, he encountered the mourning brother advancing with drooping head and raised handkerchief to take his farewell look.
Septimus Hardon shrank back as from a serpent, and made room for his uncle to pass; but the next moment a sudden rage possessed him, and, stepping forward, he laid a hand upon the doctor’s shoulder, whispering a few words in his ear.
Hastily confronting his nephew, the doctor turned, when, shaking a threatening finger in his face, Septimus exclaimed: “Hypocrite! I know—” But before he could finish the sentence, the doctor started back as if to avoid the threatening hand; his foot slipped upon the very edge of one of the boards, and the next moment, before a hand could be stretched out to save him, he fell with a crash into the vault.
For a while no one moved, a thrill of horror running through the assembled crowd; but soon help in plenty was there to raise the fallen man from the coffin upon which he lay, apparently senseless, and amidst a buzz of suggestions the sexton nimbly descended, rope in hand, and, slipping the strong cord around the doctor’s chest, he was dragged out and borne to the waiting coach.
Septimus, shocked, and almost paralysed at the effect of his threatening gesture, stood for a few minutes looking on, till, seeing relief afforded to the fallen man, he turned slowly away, people giving place right and left to allow him to pass. On reaching the second coach, he hastily disencumbered himself of his trappings of woe, and threw them to the astonished man at the door, who had never before witnessed such unseemly conduct at a funeral. Then, after another hasty glance towards the crowd around his uncle, Septimus strode off in the direction of the County Arms; while, gaping, talking, and wondering, the people slowly dispersed, saving such as followed the coach to the doctor’s residence in the High-street, where they hung about, clinging helplessly to the iron railings, and staring at the dining-room windows, until Mr Brande, the surgeon, and Mr Keening, the solicitor, came out together, looking very important, and walked down the street; when several of the railing barnacles followed at a distance, as if the gentlemen had brought out a printed account of the gossip-engendering scene in their pockets ready for distribution.
With his mourning habiliments Septimus Hardon seemed to have cast off the interest the crowd might be supposed to have taken in him; for no one followed the thin shabby man in dusty clothes and battered hat, as he strode on, till abreast of the old inn, where he paused, as if about to enter; but the next moment, shaking his head wearily, he walked on, and was soon past the first mile-stone on his way to the great city.
Volume Two—Chapter Four.
After a Lapse.
“Do, sir?” exclaimed old Matt, pausing in his occupation of pulling the string to make a lathen figure throw out arms and legs for the delectation of little Tom,—“do, sir? Why, what I’ve always told you, and you say the parson’s told you,—go in for it, you’ve nothing to lose; so if anything happens, you must win. A year last spring now since I come running in here with that para thinking I’d made your fortune for you, sir; and now—Look there, what you’ve done, you’ve pulled one of his legs off!”—This in a parenthesis to the little boy between his knees.—“And where are you? Certainly, you get on a bit with the writing, sir; but if it was me I couldn’t have settled down without making him prove his words.”
“But, you see,” said Septimus, looking up from his copying, “I’m not clever, I’m not a business man; and what could I do without money for legal advice? It’s a sad life this; and ours is, and always was, a miserable family, and my uncle’s too. Look at him: his children are always away, while Agnes came to us through some love-affair with the assistant, and soon after I came away she disappeared, and has never been heard of since. Did you speak?”
“No,” said Matt, whose face was puckered up, while he had been trying to catch the eye of Lucy, who sat at the window busily preparing some work for a bright new sewing-machine which had lately been supplied to her from the warehouse where she was employed.
“He has the money,” continued Septimus, “but that can’t compensate for the loss of his child. Poor Agnes!”
“Don’t speak of her,” exclaimed Mrs Septimus angrily, “she was a very weak, bad woman, and—”
“Hush!” said Septimus sternly, “we are all weak; and who made us judges?”
Mrs Septimus fidgeted about in her easy-chair, looking nettled and angry as she sat near the window, while with flushed cheek Lucy bent lower and lower over her work, once only catching Matt’s eye, when the old man looked so alarmingly mysterious that the flush upon her face deepened, and she rose and left the room.
“You see, sir,” said Matt, continuing a conversation that had evidently been broken off, “it’s been let go by so long now, when steps ought to have been taken at once. No offence meant—you won’t be put out if I speak plain?”
Septimus shook his head, and went on copying.
“You see,” said Matt, “you ought to have gone to Doctors’ Commons, and entered a something against your uncle, and done a something else, and had a lawyer to engage counsel, and then this precious uncle of yours couldn’t have touched the property till the matter had been tried in the Court of Probate; when, of course, you must have come out with flying colours. But here, you see, you do nothing; first letting one month slip away, and then another, and all the while he goes to work, gets uninterrupted possession, sticks tighter and tighter to it, and for aught you know, he’s spent it all by this time. You ought, you know, to have carried on the war at once.”
“And about the sinews?” said Septimus drearily, without raising his head.
“Blame them sinews!” cried the old man; “they’re about the tightest, and hardest, and toughest things in the whole world. It seems to me, you know, sir, thinking it over—and I’ve had it in bed with me scores of nights—it seems to me that your uncle rather reckoned on his meeting no opposition; and on your—snuff, snuff, snuff,” muttered the old man in a confused way, as he fumbled about in his pockets.
“Say it out, Matt,” said Septimus with a sad smile, “my weakness—no doubt of it, for he could never have believed his own words.”
“Well, that was the word, certainly, sir,” said Matt; “and after all your fuss, I don’t know that a man’s any the better for being strong, mind you. I wasn’t going to say weakness, for I was hanging fire for a word that meant the same with the corners rubbed off a bit; but there wasn’t letter enough in the case to make it up.”
“Can’t help it, Matt,” said Septimus, removing a hair from his pen by wiping it upon his coat-tail, and then smearing his forehead with his inky fingers, ready for Lucy, who entered the room directly after, to take his careworn head upon her arm, wet a corner of her handkerchief between her rosy lips, and then wipe away the obstinate smear—Septimus the while as still and patient as possible, till the fair girl concluded her performance with a kiss, when he went on with his task. “Exors—ecutors—and assigns,” muttered Septimus, writing. “Can’t help it, Matt, I suppose it’s my nature to be weak.”
“And let everyone kick you,” said Matt to himself.—“Well, sir,” he continued aloud, “it’s my belief that this uncle of yours, not to put too fine a point upon it, is a rogue. He’s a deep one, that’s what he is; but then, you know, he isn’t the only deep one in the world, and if you’d begun when you should have done—there, I won’t say so any more,” he exclaimed hastily, for Septimus made an impatient movement. “Now, you see, you’ve taken this sudden whim—very well, sir, all right—we’ve talked you into it, say then—and you mean now to see if you can’t go on with the matter. Better late than never, say I; so now, how does it stand? He has possession, and that’s what they call nine points of the law; and he’s had possession for above a year, and you haven’t taken a step to dispute his right.—Well, I can’t go into the thing without speaking of the rights and wrongs of it, can I?” exclaimed the old man in an injured tone, for Septimus shuffled nervously in his seat.
“There, go on!” said Septimus.
“But, there, p’raps I’m making too free,” said the old man, snatching at the string so angrily that he broke the other leg of the figure he had brought the child.—“Never mind, my man,” he whispered; “I’ll bring you such a good un next time I come.”
“Go on, Matt,” said Septimus quietly; “you ought to make allowances for me.”
“So I do, sir, so I do—heaps,” cried the old man eagerly.
“We have not so many friends,” continued Septimus, laying down his pen and stretching out his hand, “that we can afford to behave slightingly to their advice, even if it is unpalatable.”
Old Matt took the proffered hand, and shook it warmly, before going on with his subject.
“Well, sir,” said Matt, “you say he told you out flat that you were a—a—well, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, yes,” said Septimus drearily, for he had so familiarised himself in thought with the word, that it had ceased to bring up an indignant flush to his cheek.
“Well,” said Matt, “then the whole of our work—I say ‘our,’ you know—”
Septimus nodded.
“The whole of our work consists in proving him false.”
“Exactly,” said Septimus, sticking his pen behind his ear; “but how?”
“Documentary evidence,” said the old man, “that’s it; documentary evidence,” and he took snuff loudly. “Marriage stiffikits, baptism registers, and so on. Let’s see; I don’t think there was any regular registration in those days. Now then, to begin with, sir. Where were your father and mother married?—that is, if they were,” muttered the old man in what was meant for an undertone, but Septimus heard the words.
“O yes,” he said quietly, “they were married in the City.”
“Very good,” said Matt. “Then suppose we get a copy of the marriage stiffikit, sworn to and witnessed, how then?”
“Well, that proves the marriage,” said Septimus.
“To be sure,” said Matt; “but then you’ll find he bases his claim upon your being born before. You don’t think he denies that your father and mother were married? He don’t, does he?”
“No,” said Septimus wearily, as he opened a pocket-book and drew out a frayed and broken letter, which had separated here and there in the folds from frequent reference. “You are right, Matt,” he said, after reading a few lines. “The marriage register would be no good.”
“Yes, it would,” said Matt; “it’s documentary evidence, and it will be one brick in the tower we want to build up; so don’t you get sneezing at it because it ain’t everything. It will be one thing; and so far so good, when we get it. You see it’s a ticklish thing, and before you put it in a solicitor’s hands—a respectable solicitor’s hands, for cheap law’s the dearest thing in Lincoln’s-inn—you must have something to show him. Now, so far so good, only recollect your uncle’s on firm ground, while as yet you’re nowhere. Now say we go to a good solicitor. ‘Were you born in wedlock?’ says he. ‘Yes,’ says you. ‘Now then,’ says he, ‘prove it.’”
Septimus sighed, and began to wonder whether his uncle was right.
“Now, then,” said Matt, “family Bible with birth in, eh?”
“We had one, full of plates,” said Septimus, recalling the old Sunday afternoons, when he had leaned over the table, amusing himself with the engravings; “but there were no entries in it, only my grandfather’s name. I fancy, though, now you mention it, my father had a little pocket-Bible with some entries in, but I never took particular notice.”
“Rotten reed—a rotten reed,” said the old man. “You are not sure; and even if you were, your uncle’s been foxy enough to hunt the place over and over, and that book’s gone up the chimney in smoke, or under the grate in ashes, long enough ago. No will, you say?”
“Not that I could hear of,” said Septimus.
“We might, p’r’aps, find the nurse, or doctor, or some old friend; but then, unless they can bring up documentary evidence, ’tain’t much good. You know, when old folks are made to swear about things that took place fifty years ago, people shake their heads and think about failing memories, and so on. You see we must have something strong to work upon. If we could get the date of your birth, and the marriage stiffikit, we should be all right, shouldn’t we?”
“Yes, they would prove all we want,” said Septimus.
“Exactly so,” said Matt; “and if we couldn’t get the date of your birth, how about date of baptism?”
“That would do just as well,” exclaimed Septimus.
“No, it wouldn’t,” said the old man, “without it’s got in how old you were when the parson made a cross on your forehead—eh?”
Septimus was damped directly.
“It’s no use to be sanguine, you know, sir. What we’ve got to do is to expect nothing, and then all we do get is clear profit. Now, where were you baptised—do you know that?”
“Yes,” said Septimus.
“Well, that’s all right, if it contains the entry of your age at the time, but we won’t be sure; and if it does, you see if your uncle don’t bring someone to swear it’s false, and that they nursed you a twelvemonth before you really were born. Most likely, you know, there’d be half-a-score done at the same time as yours, and they never asked your age. I don’t say so, you know, only that perhaps it was so. Now, what do you call your birthday, sir?”
“Tenth of January 17—,” said Septimus.
“Very good, sir; but then, that’s only what you say, mind, and a bare word’s not worth much in a court of law when a case is being tried. ‘’Tis,’ says you. ‘’Tisn’t,’ says your uncle, who’s rich, and prosperous, and respectable, and has the money, and lives in a big house, with plenty of well-to-do friends round him. ‘Prove your case,’ says the judge to you; and mind you, sir, this is the ticklish point; it ain’t a question of who’s to have your father’s money. He’s got it, and it’s a question of your turning him out. So, ‘Prove your case,’ says the judge. ‘You’ve left this man in possession for a year, and now you say he does not hold the property lawfully. Prove your case.’ ‘Can’t my lord,’ says you—‘no documentary evidence.’ And now do you know what the judge would say?”
Septimus shook his head dismally.
“‘Judgment for the defendant’—that’s your uncle, you know.” And then, as if highly satisfied with his logical mode of putting the case. Matt snapped his fingers loudly after a large pinch of snuff.
“But,” said Mrs Septimus, “my doctor told me that he always kept a register of all the births he attended.”
Mrs Septimus said no more, for old Matt’s fist went down upon the table with a bang that made some of the ink leap from the stand, but fortunately not upon Septimus Hardon’s clean sheets of paper.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am!” cried Matt, hurriedly sopping up the ink with his wisp of a handkerchief; “but blame me if I don’t wish I’d been born a woman! trust them for getting to the bottom of everything. Why, Lord bless you, sir, there you are—there’s the case in a nutshell!—that’s the matter hit right in the bull’s-eye! Why didn’t you begin about it before? You’re right as a trivet. There’s the date of the marriage, and there’s the doctor’s book—such-and-such a day, such-and-such a time; medicine and attendance, two pound twelve shillings and sixpence. Hallo!” exclaimed Matt, scratching his head, “that comes very pat; where did I hear those words before? But there, look here, sir; I think we’ve got hold of the right end of the tangle, and here it is. You go down to Somesham and tell nunky how it stands. ‘Here we are,’ says you, ‘and now give up peaceable and quiet, and I’ll say nothing at all about what’s gone by.’ Of course he won’t, and begins to talk big about kicking out of the house, and all that sort of thing. ‘Two can play at that,’ says you; and as he won’t be civil, he must have it hot. Back you come; put it in a decent solicitor’s hands; with your good documentary evidence out he goes—in you go; and my di’mond has a pony with a long silky tail; Miss Lucy a carriage, and missis here an invalid chair, and old Matt to push it—eh, ma’am?”
“But about finding the doctor,” said Septimus sadly.
“Well, yes—true, to be sure,” said Matt, over a fresh pinch of snuff; “but I think we can manage that part, sir. Don’t you see, we can tell our road now we’ve got our line cut out; and we’ve only got it to do. There’s some pye in the case, of course, but we can correct as we go on, eh? There’s a doctors’ directory, and we can soon find him.”
“There’s a hitch directly,” said Septimus. “I don’t know his name.”
“Phillips!” exclaimed Mrs Hardon excitedly.
“There we are again,” cried Matt; “who’d be without a good partner?”
“But how do you know?” said Septimus.
“I remember in your mother’s last illness,” said Mrs Septimus, “that she told me how she longed for her old doctor, for she felt sure Mr Thomas Hardon did not understand her complaint; and that was the first cause of disagreement between your father and Dr Hardon. I heard your father tell him afterwards that he had killed his Sister, and to leave the house.”
“But the name?” said Septimus, anxious to change the conversation.
“Phillips—the same as my own; and that was why it made an impression upon my memory.”
“Talk about cards to play, sir!” cried Matt, “why, that’s winning: your partner has played the leading trump.”
Septimus Hardon rose from his seat to begin anxiously pacing up and down the room. He could see plainly enough the value of the position he was nerving himself to fight for, but he shrank, as he had shrunk again and again, from the exposure certain, whether he succeeded or not. Vacillating in the extreme, he was at one time telling himself that it was his duty to try and clear his mother’s fame, though the next moment would find him shrinking from the task, while his brow wrinkled up as he sighed and looked from face to face, lastly on that of old Matt, who, having relieved himself of the child, was taking snuff extravagantly, and chuckling and rubbing his hands in anticipation of the coming triumph.
“Now, sir,” he said upon catching the troubled man’s eye, “about this doctor.”
“Dead before now,” said Septimus. “Allowing him to have been quite young for a doctor, he would be eighty now, and how few men reach that age!”
“Pooh! nonsense!” cried Matt; “scores do—hundreds do—ninety either. Eighty? Pooh! nothing! youth, sir. Why, I’m past sixty, and see what a boy I look, eh? Why, I believe Miss Lucy would pick me out from scores to take care of her,—wouldn’t you, miss?”
Lucy looked up from her work, nodded and smiled.
“But now business,” said the old man.—“Where did you live, sir, before you went down in the country?”
“Finsbury,” said Septimus.
“And you were born there, eh?”
“I believe so,” said Septimus, wondering in his own mind whether it was worth all this trouble, perhaps to gain nothing.
“To be sure,” cried Matt; “and now we shall soon find it out. Brass plate on the door—‘Mr Phillips, Surgeon;’ big lamp sticking out, red bull’s-eye one side, green t’other, like railway signals; ‘danger’ and ‘all right’ to the people in the street.”
Old Matt rose to go, after appointing to meet Septimus on the following morning to take the first steps for obtaining the “documentary evidence” so necessary for their future plans.
“Ten to the moment, you’ll see me, sir,” said Matt. “Good afternoon, ma’am, and—Ah, Miss Lucy’s gone!”
But Septimus only sighed, and sat down once more to his weary copying, sheets of which he so often spoiled by letting his thoughts wander from the task in hand.
“No more business in him, sir,” said Matt as he descended the stairs, “than—Ah, here we are, then! Thought I was going away without seeing you again, miss;” for he had encountered Lucy upon the stairs.
“Hush!” she whispered, “I only wanted to ask you to please be careful. I was so frightened this afternoon.”
Old Matt buttoned up his coat as tightly as if his honour were inside it, pursed up his lips, nodded his head seriously, and then laying one finger upon the side of his nose he shuffled off, looking as mysterious as if he were the repository of state secrets, and ready to bid defiance to all the racks and thumbscrews of the good old times.
Lucy Grey stood for a minute gazing after the shabby figure, and then, turning to ascend, she coloured slightly upon finding herself face to face with the old Frenchwoman who occupied the attic floor, and who now, with a sneering smile upon her thin lips and an inquisitive light peering from her half-closed eyes, looked at her, and then passed softly and silently as a cat down the stairs without saying a word.
Volume Two—Chapter Five.
Homes in London.
Bennett’s-rents still upon that day—a bright breezy day—when for a whole hour the god that kisseth carrion shone down into the court to lick up every trace of green damp and moisture from the foul, broken pavement. There was a pump in Bennett’s-rents, and a channel ran down the centre of the paving, whose broken slabs rose and fell in wet weather to the passing step, spurting out little founts of dirty water, while the channel itself was choked, from being turned into a receptacle for the superfluous odds and ends of the inhabitants—to wit: potato, turnip, and carrot peelings; the shells of whelks, periwinkles, mussels, and crabs; egg-shells were at times seen there, as also the nacreous covering of the oyster, but not as the débris of banquets, since these latter were only brought in by the grotto-building children, and the former thrown out by the jobbing bookbinder’s-finisher when robbed of their albumen for purposes of trade. Heads, tails, and the vertebra of plaice, or the real Yarmouth bloater, were common objects of the shore. Babies had been seen in that channel, which possessed a certain charm from its safety, since the child that rolled in rolled no farther. It was the favourite resort of the small fry of the neighbourhood,—a neighbourhood that rejoiced in small children, and big babies of an elastic nature, which prevented falls and contusions from stopping their growth,—for the refuse in that channel could be raked about and poked at with bits of stick to the formation of dams, where walnut cock-boats could be sailed, or mussel-prows launched; and occasional visitants from as far off as Lower Series-place had been known to perch there and peck, for the channel was famed for its ample supply of impromptu playthings for the little savages of the place. A large lobster-claw found therein had formed the coral of Dredge minor, whose father worked at Covent-garden Market, and never slept at home by night. Little Jenny Perkins wore a necklace composed of periwinkle-shells; while whelk-shells, stuck at the end of thick pieces of firewood, and previously filled with peas, formed rattles that were indestructible.
Like Lower Series-place, Bennett’s-rents was famous for its prolific inhabitants. Long as daylight lasted, there was a dense small population of half-dressed aborigines, hooting, racing about, playing, and quarrelling, aided in their efforts by levies from others of the rags of Lincoln’s-inn. Why called Bennett’s-rents was not obvious, though it might have been from the hideous cracks and seams in the frowzy old houses, whose windows looked as if they had been in a brown-paper-and-rag war, in which glass had suffered a terrible defeat, and submitted now, with an ill grace, to the presence of the new settlers.
But the children did not have the channel all up themselves, for at early dawn the pigeons from the housetops paid it visits, and, in spite of broken, dissipated-looking chimney-pots, falling-out mortar, and shattered, soot-covered tiles, there were many soft-eyed, iridescent—hued birds dwelling upon the roofs of the houses in Bennett’s-rents; and, more especially upon Sunday mornings, an observer from some high edifice might have seen dirty-faced men, in hairy caps, rising out of trap-doors in roofs, like “Mr F’s aunt” through the factory-floor, and, when half-way out, and forming prominent objects among little wildernesses of sooty, lath-made cages and traps, amusing themselves by waving red-cotton handkerchiefs tied to the end of sticks, for the purpose of keeping their flights of pigeons high in air.
A rumour had spread through the court that something was to be seen in the neighbouring street, when out trooped the children from the narrow entrance, and comparative silence reigned, till place and echoes were alike mocked by a man with his cry of “Rag—bone!” but his was labour in vain: he took nothing further from the Rents to glut the shop of Mrs Slagg, and, reaching the end of the place, he departed with his bag still light, and the court knew him no more that day, though there were rags enough in every house to have filled his sack again and again, and drawn down the index of his portable weighing-machine to the furthest limit. Still there was another sound to be heard, for Mr William Jarker, of the heavy jaw, flattened nose, and general bull-dog aspect, was above his attic, whistling to his pigeons, as the Reverend Arthur Sterne stood by the reeking channel, gazing up into the strip of blue sky above his head, and following the circling flight of the birds as he muttered sadly to himself, “O, that I had wings like a dove; for then would I fly away and be at rest!” but the next instant he smiled sadly, as he recalled work undone, duties to perform, and then thought of the rest and fate of these birds, wondering, too, how it came that they should form the “fancy” of the roughest of the rough. Then he paused with his foot upon the threshold of the house where Septimus Hardon lodged, for there, in the hot, close London court, came gushing down in tones of purest liquid melody, the wild, heaven-gate trill of a lark: “Tsweet-tsweet-tsweet-tsweet!” every trill an intoxicating, magic draught, drunk in by the ear, and—a very opium—bearing the hearer far, far away to green fields, shady woodlands, golden hill-sides, and sparkling brooks; louder, louder and more rapturous, thrilling the air around; rising and falling, echoing from far and near, but ever sweet and pure, even joyous at times; and praise the song of the wild bird as you may, there is that in the trill of its caged brother in some close London alley that shall sound the sweeter in the sadness engendered by the surroundings, for it whispers of brighter scenes and purer homes, bearing you with it far, far away from the misery where you stay.
Even Bill Jarker ceased waving his handkerchief, took his short, black pipe from his mouth, and listened; the curate thought of days when, with a soft white hand in his, he had wandered over the downs, listening to those ever-sweet English notes; while from the window above was stretched forth the fair, shapely head of Lucy Grey, her eyes sparkling, and lips apart, as if to command silence; and then, as the curate looked up, there was a slight start, a faint flush of colour in the girl’s pale cheeks, and her head was quickly withdrawn.
A tall, slight, careworn man was the curate of Saint Magdalen’s; hair sprinkled with grey, deep lines crossing his brow, and yet there was a smile of ineffable sweetness lingering about his mouth—a smile which, far from telling of weakness, whispered of sorrow, tenderness, patience, and charity.
The few minutes of tranquillity had passed. The door of the house stood open—as, in fact, did that of every other house in the thickly-inhabited court; the children began to troop back, Bill Jarker took to his pipe and pigeon-flying, and with thoughts trembling between the ideal and the real, the curate entered the door before him.
It was not a Saturday, or he would have found the ascent of the stairs troublesome; but he well knew the manners and customs of the natives, and abstained from making his visits on that day of the week, for on Saturdays there was a rule carried out (one set in force by the landlady), that the attics cleaned down to the second-floor, the second-floor to the first, the first-floor to the passage, which last portion fell to the lot of the occupants of the parlours, front and back—two families who took it in turns to make the dirt upon the said passage wet, and then to smear it from side to side with a flannel, so that the boards always wore the aspect of having been newly hearthstoned with a lump of brown clay, if the simile will stand. Consequently, upon this seventh day of the week, when the lodgers were busy, and Mrs Sims could be heard sniffing as she “did Hardons’ bit,” the journey upwards was dangerous, for if the traveller avoided the snares and pitfalls formed by divers pails and brown pans, or even, maybe, a half-gallon can from the public at the corner if the pail was engaged; if he saved himself from slipping on the sloping, wet boards, and fell over no kneeling scrubber in a dark corner, he most certainly heard low-muttered abuse heaped upon his head for “trapesing” over the newly-cleaned stairs—abuse direct or indirect, according to the quality of the traveller.
Not, then, being a Saturday, Mr Sterne entered the house known as Number 7—by tradition only, for the brass number, after being spun round by one pin for some months, suddenly disappeared—passed along to the worn stairs, two flights of which he ascended, creaking and cracking the while beneath his weight, and every one sloping, so that it seemed hanging to the wall to save itself from falling. He paused for an instant upon the landing opposite Septimus Hardon’s rooms, and listened to the rapid beating “click-click” of Lucy’s sewing-machine; then up two more flights; and again, without pause, up two more, which groaned with weakness and old age; while sunken door-frames, doors that would not shut, and various other indications, told of the insecure condition of the house. And now once more he paused upon the top landing, where some domestic spider had spun a web of string, stretching it from rusty nail to rusty nail, for the purpose of drying clothes—garments now, fortunately for the visitor, absent.
Here fell upon the ear the twitterings of many birds, and the curate’s face again lighted up as the song of the lark once more rang out loud and clear, apparently from outside the window of the attic before whose door he stood. But his reverie was interrupted by a sharp shrill voice, which he could hear at intervals giving orders in a quick angry tone. Then followed the lashing of a whip, a loud yelp, or the occasional rapid beat of a dog’s tail upon the floor. At last, turning the handle of the rickety door, the visitor entered.
“En avant! Halte là! Ah-h-h! bête! O, ’tis monsieur,” were the words which greeted Mr Sterne as he entered the sloping-roofed attic, one side of which was almost entirely window—old lead-framed lattice, mended in every conceivable way with pasted paper and book-covers; and there, in the middle of the worn floor, stood the thin, sharp-faced woman of the cellar, holding in one hand a whip, in the other a hoop; while two half-shaven French poodle-dogs crouched at her feet. Seated by the open window surrounded by birdcages, conspicuous among which was that of the lark whose notes enlivened the court, was a sallow, dark-haired, dark-eyed youth, eager-looking and well-featured, but sadly deformed, for his head seemed to rest upon his shoulders, and the leg twisted round the crutch which leaned against his chair was miserably attenuated.
“Bon jour! How are the pupils, Madame la Mère?” said the curate, taking a broken chair and seating himself.
“Bête, bête, bête!” hissed the woman, making feigned cuts with her little whip at the crouching dogs, which yelped miserably as they shrunk closer to the boards. “Ah, what you deserve!” she said.
“And how are the birds, Jean?” continued the visitor, addressing the young man, who was looking at him half-askance. “Your lark gives me the heartache, and sets me longing for the bright country.”
The curate had touched the right chord, for the youth’s face brightened into a pleasant smile directly.
“Does he not sing!” he said, with a slight French accent; and he leaned towards the cage where the bird, with crest erect, was breasting the wooden bars, and gazing with bright bead-like eyes up at the blue sky; but as soon as the cripple’s finger was inserted between the bars, the bird pecked at it playfully, fluttered its wings, and then, with head on one side, stood looking keenly at its master.
“O yes, he sings,” hissed the woman; “but he is obstinate, is Jean; he should sell his bird, and make money, and not let his poor mere always keep him.”
“Pst, pst!” ejaculated Jean, frowning upon his mother; but she only stamped one foot angrily, and continued:
“He is bête and obstinate. The doll down-stairs with the needle-machine loves the bird, and she would buy it, and it is worth four shillings; but Jean will that his mother seek his bread for him in de street, wis de stupid dogs; and they are bête, and will not learn nosing at all. Allez donc!”
As the woman grew more voluble in her speech, she passed from tolerable English to words with a broader and broader accent, till the command given at last to the dogs, each word being accompanied by a sharp cut of the whip, when the animals rose upon their hind-legs, drooped their fore-paws, and then subsided once more into their natural posture, but now to bend their fore-legs, as if kneeling. Then they rose again, drooped, and afterwards meekly crossed, their paws, winking their eyes dolefully the while, and, with an aspect of gravity made absurd, walked slowly off to separate corners of the room, where they again went down upon all-fours, and then sat wistfully winking at and watching their task-mistress.
“See, then!” she exclaimed, in her harsh shrill voice. “They would not do it, though I try thousand time; but now the task is ended they walk. Ah-h-h!”
The cut in the air which accompanied the exclamation might have fallen upon the dogs themselves, for the miserable little objects yelped as they saw it fall, and, as if moved by one muscle, laid their heads against the whitewashed wall till, seeing themselves unnoticed, they curled up, but never for a moment took their blinking eyes off their mistress.
Amidst much muttering, and with many frowns and short sharp shakes of the head, while her lips were pressed closely together, the woman, after much fumbling in her pocket, drew forth a partly-knitted stocking; when, sitting down, she began furiously clicking her needles, watching the while, with half-closed eyes, the curate and her son.
“So, then, you will not sell your lark, Jean?” said Mr Sterne.
The cripple knit his brow slightly, shook his head, and then drawing a long, delicate, girlish finger over the bars of his favourite’s cage, the lark set up its crest, twittered, fluttered its wings, and again pecked at the finger.
“No, no, no,” he said softly; “why does she complain? I would work if I could; but I sell and make money of these, though it seems cruel to keep them shut up, and they beat themselves against their prison-bars to get out into the free air and the green woods. And I’m sorry for them when the little breasts grow bare, and the feathers lie in the bottom of the cage; and she says—ma mère there—that I am bête.”
The woman seemed to compress every feature, as she shook her head fiercely, and went on with her knitting.
“Look!” continued Jean softly, as he smiled and pointed rapidly from cage to cage, “canaries, linnets, redpoles, goldfinches, and a blackbird. The thrush broke his heart with singing, they said—the birdcatchers—but it was not that: I know why. I have sold four birds this week; but I keep the lark; he is a favourite.”
“Bah!” ejaculated the mother softly; “but he is bête;” when, as the curate turned, she was bending over her knitting, shaking her head and frowning, while she stabbed fiercely again and again at the worsted ball till it was transfixed by her needle, when she replaced the ball in her pocket, where the first drag she gave at the thread drew the ball from its place and it rolled on the floor. “Ah! good dog, bon chien!” she cried, as one of the poodles ran forward, caught the errant ball, and bore it to his mistress, returning immediately to his corner; but not to be unrewarded, for the woman rose, and forcing up the sliding socket, caused a little scrap of tallow-candle end to shoot out of a tin-candlestick as from a gun, when, receiving permission, the dog snatched it from the floor, and devoured the savoury morsel in its corner.
“But he should sell the lark, monsieur,” said the woman.
“Hush, ma mère,” said the cripple angrily; “the bird is not to sell.”
The mother shrugged her shoulders, and clicked her needles furiously.
“We all have our loves and likes, madame,” said the curate quietly.
“O, yes, yes, you rich; but we poor? No. We must live, and eat and drink, and have clothes; and Jean, there, has ruined me in medicine. What do we want with favourites, we poor? But that they help to keep us, I would sell the dogs. We are all slaves here, we poor; and we sell ourselves, our work, our hands, our beauty, some of us,—is it not so? and you rich buy,—or we starve. It is a bad world for us old and ugly. I am not like the doll upon the floor down-stairs.”
A sharp angry glance passed between mother and son, as the former rose from her seat, and with a short quick step left the room, driving back the dogs as they tried to follow; while it was evident that her words jarred painfully upon the curate. “Our beauty, some of us,” seemed to ring in his ears again and again, and he could not help associating these words with the latter part of her speech.
“How do you get your birds, Jean?” said the curate, making an effort, and breaking the silence.
“From him,” said the young man, nodding across the court to where Bill Jarker sat half out of his trap-door, still keeping up his pigeons, for a stray was in sight, and he was in hopes of an amalgamation, in spite of the efforts being made by neighbouring flights. “From him: he goes into the country with his nets—far off, where the green trees wave, while I can only read of them. But the book; did you bring the book?”
Thinking of other birds breasting their prison-bars: now of the fair bright face that he had seen at the window below, now of that of the cripple before him, the curate produced a volume from his pocket, and smiled as he watched the glittering eyes and eager aspect of the young man, as, hastily grasping the volume, he gazed with avidity upon the title.
“You love reading, then, Jean?” said the curate.
“Yes, yes,” cried the cripple. “What could I do without it? Always here; for I cannot walk much—only about the room. Ah, no! I could not live without reading—and my birds. She is good and kind,” he continued, nodding towards the door; “but we are poor, and it makes her angry and jealous.”
The lark burst forth with one of its sweetest strains as it heard its master’s voice, and then, rising, the curate left the attic, closing the door after him slowly, and peering through the narrowing slit to look upon the cripple eagerly devouring a page of the work he had brought.
The Frenchwoman was upon the first landing, and saluted the curate with a sinister meaning smile as he passed her and thoughtfully descended.
“But he is mean, I tell you,” cried ma mère angrily, as she once more stood beside her son. “What does he give us but words—words which are worth nothing? But what is that? My faith, a book he brought you? You shall not read; it makes you silly, and to forget your mother, who does so much for you. But I will!”
“Ah!” cried Jean, painfully starting from his seat, and snatching back the volume, and just in time, for the next moment would have seen it flying from the open window.
“Then I will sell the lark when you are asleep,” cried the woman spitefully.
The youth’s eyes glittered, as, with an angry look, he hissed between his teeth, “Then I will kill the dogs!” But the anger passed from his countenance in a few moments, and smiling softly, he said, “No, no, ma mère; you would not sell my poor bird, because I love it, and it would hurt me;” and then, casting down her knitting, the woman sprang across the room, throwing her arms round the cripple, and kissing him passionately, calling him by every endearing name, as she parted the hair from his broad forehead, and gazed in his bright dark eyes with all a mother’s fondness.
But the curate heard nothing of this—nothing but the loud song of the lark, which rang through the house—as slowly and thoughtfully he descended the worn and creaking stairs, while the woman’s words seemed to keep repeating themselves in a slow measured way, vibrating in his ears, and troubling him sorely with their cutting meaning; and more than once he found himself forming with his lips, “Our beauty, some of us.”