Volume Two—Chapter Six.
Shades.
The lark was silent once more; and now from the open door of the first-floor, rising and falling, with a loud and rapid “click, click, click,” came the sound of Lucy Grey’s sewing-machine—“click, click,” the sharp pulsations of the little throbbing engine, whose needle darted in and out of the soft material held beneath it by those white fingers. But as one of the stairs gave a louder crack than ordinary, the machine stopped, and the quiet, earnest, watching face of Lucy Grey appeared at the door, which she now held open, bowing with a naïve grace in answer to the curate’s salutation.
“My mother wished me to watch that you did not go down without seeing her to-day,” said Lucy apologetically; for Mrs Hardon was far from well that week, and, since the long discussion that morning between old Matt and Septimus, she had been bemoaning her lot in a weak spiritless way, till, finding all his attempts at consolation of none effect, Septimus had taken his hat and gone out for a walk with his boy. To-day Mrs Septimus would be tolerably well; to-morrow, in a weak fit, exacting sympathy from husband and child in a way that would have wearied less loving natures. Now she would refuse food, upon the plea that it could not be afforded for her; consolation, because she was a wretched, miserable burden; and medicine, because she was sure that it would do her no good.
“Be patient with her, my darling,” Septimus would say to Lucy—a needless request. “Think of the troubles she has gone through, and then look at me.”
“What for?” Lucy would cry, laughingly prisoning him by seizing his scrubby bits of whisker in her little fingers, and then kissing him on either cheek,—“what for? To see the dearest father that ever lived?” And then memories of the past would float through Septimus Hardon’s brain as he smoothed down the soft braided hair about the girl’s white forehead. But there were tearful eyes above the smiling lips, and Septimus Hardon’s voice used to tremble a little as he said, “God bless you, my darling!”
“Our beauty, some of us,” seemed vibrating in the curate’s ears as Lucy spoke; but the bright look of welcome, the maidenly reserve, and sweet air of innocence emanating from the fair girl before him, seemed to waft away the words, and, returning to the present, he followed her to where Mrs Hardon was lying down. Drawing a chair to the bedside, he seated himself, to listen patiently to the querulous complaints he had so often heard before—murmurings which often brought a hot flush to Lucy’s cheek as she listened, until reassured by the quiet smile of the curate—a look which told her how well he read her mother’s heart, and pitied her for the long sufferings she had endured,—sickness and sorrow,—which had somewhat warped a fond and loving disposition.
Perhaps it was unmaidenly, perhaps wrong in the giver and taker, but, seated at her sewing-machine in the next room, Lucy would watch through the open door for these looks, and treasure them up, never pausing to think that they might be the pioneers of a deeper understanding. She looked forward to his visits, and yet dreaded them, trembling when she heard his foot upon the stairs; and more than once she had timed her journeys to the warehouse so that they might take her away when he was likely to call; while often and often afterwards, long tearful hours of misery would be spent as she thought of the gap between them, and bent hopelessly over her sewing-machine.
A long interview was Mr Sterne’s this day, for Mrs Hardon was more than ordinarily miserable, and had informed him two or three times over that she was about to take to her bed for good.
“But it does not matter, sir; it’s only for a little while, and then perhaps I shall be taken altogether. I’m of no use here, only to be a burden to that poor girl and my husband. But for me and the different fancies I have, that poor child need not be always working her fingers to the bone. But she will grow tired of it, and Mr Hardon’s health will fail, and our bit of furniture will be seized; and I’m sure I’d rather die at once than that we should all be in the workhouse.”
“But,” said Mr Sterne, smiling, “don’t you think matters might just as likely take the other direction? See now if it does not come a brighter day to-morrow, with a little mental sunshine in return for resignation;” and he whispered the last few words.
Now there was some truth in what Mrs Septimus Hardon said; for had it not been for her liking for strange luxuries when her sick fits were on, Lucy need not have worked so hard. At other times Mrs Hardon was self-denying to an excess; but when in bed, probably from the effort of complaining, her appetite increased to a terrible extent, and she found that she required sticks of larks roasted, fried soles, oysters, pickled salmon, or chicken, to keep her up, while port-wine was indispensable. But if she had preferred ortolans to larks, game and truffles to chicken and oysters, if the money could have been obtained she would have had them. And many a day Septimus and Lucy dined off bread-and-cheese, and many a night went supperless to bed, that the invalid’s fancies might be gratified.
The conversation went on, and Lucy at her work more than once raised her eyes; but when her mother’s complaints were like the last, she bent her head, and the tears she could not restrain fell hot and fast upon the material before her.
“What have I to hope for?” moaned Mrs Hardon, taking refuge in tears herself when she saw how Lucy was moved. “What have I to hope for?”
“Hope itself, Mrs Hardon,” said the curate firmly. “You suffer from a diseased mind as well as from your bodily ailment; and could you but come with me for once, only during a day’s visiting, I think you would afterwards bow your head in thankfulness even for your lot in life, as compared with those of many you would see.”
“Yes, yes, yes, I know,” sobbed the poor woman; “but don’t be angry with me. I know how weak and wicked I am to murmur, when they study me as they do; but when I am like this, this weary time comes on, I am never satisfied. Don’t—don’t be angry with me.”
Mrs Hardon’s sobs became so violent that Lucy hurried to the bed and took the weary head upon her breast; when, drawing his chair nearer, the curate took the thin worn hand held out so deprecatingly to him.
“Hush!” he whispered; and as he breathed words of tender sympathy that should awaken her faith, the mother looked earnestly on the sad smile on the speaker’s face, a smile that mother and daughter had before now tried to interpret, as it came like balm to the murmuring woman, while to her child it spoke volumes; and as her own yearned, it seemed to see into the depths of their visitor’s heart, where she read of patience, long-suffering, and crushed and beaten-down hopes.
All at once a heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and Lucy started from her mother’s side as a loud rough noise called “Mrs Hardon! Mrs Hardon!” But before she could reach the door of the other room, the handle rattled, and the curate could hear a man’s step upon the floor.
“Hush!” exclaimed Mrs Hardon, “it must be a letter;” and involuntarily, as he rose from his chair to leave, the curate had to stand and listen, gazing upon Lucy, who stood in the middle of the next room, now flooded with light from the sunshine which streamed through staircase window and open door, and he could not but mark the timid face of the girl as she stood wrapped as it were in the warm glow.
But it was no letter, only Mr William Jarker, who, invisible from where the curate stood, was telling Lucy in familiar easy tones that his “missus wanted to see the parson afore he went.”
As Mr Sterne stepped forward and saw the ruffian’s leering look and manner, and the familiar sneering smile upon his coarse lips, he shivered and turned paler than was his wont before knitting his brows angrily, while, troubled and confused, Lucy looked from one to the other as if expecting Mr Sterne should speak.
But the look made no impression upon Mr Jarker, who directed a half-laugh at Lucy, and then, nodding surlily towards the curate, he turned, and directly after there came the sounds of his heavy descending steps as he went down, leaving the room impregnated with the odour of the bad tobacco he had been smoking.
“Our beauty, some of us,” rang in the curate’s ears once more, and like a flash came the recollection of the meeting he had witnessed in the street. His mind was in a whirl with thoughts that he could not analyse; while as his eyes met those of Lucy, the girl stood with face aflame, trembling before him—looks that might have meant indignation or shame, as, with the smile still upon his lip, but so altered, the curate turned to go; but he stopped for a moment at the door, where out of sight of Mrs Hardon, he could again confront the shrinking girl with a long inquiring gaze; but trembling, agitated, with lips void of utterance, though parted as if to speak, Lucy stood back, her eyes now cast down, and, when she raised them once again, he was gone.
Then, with the colour slowly fading, to leave her face ashy pale, Lucy stood with outstretched hands, gazing at the closed door. Something seemed rising in her throat which she tried to force back, and it was only by an effort that she kept from crying out, as, falling upon her knees by a chair, she buried her face in her hands, choking down the sobs, lest her mother should hear; though she, poor woman, slowly turned her face to the wall, ignorant of her child’s suffering, and slept.
And now again came ringing down the sweet clear trill of Jean’s lark, till, worn out with the impetuosity of her grief, the poor girl raised her head, smoothed back her dark hair, and half-sitting, half-kneeling, listened to the strain.
The song ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, and the void was filled by a long, loud whistling; when, with lips set firm, and angry countenance, Lucy rose and stepped lightly across the room to her sewing-machine by the open window, where, raising her eyes, she could see Mr Jarker, pipe in hand, presenting himself once more as a half-length study, as he whistled and cheered on his flight of pigeons, which sailed round and round, till the whirring and flapping of their wings brought up early days of her childhood, and Lucy seemed to gaze upon some half-forgotten woodland scene in the country, with ring-necked stockdoves crowding on a bending branch after their return from flight.
But no such visions floated before the mind’s eye of Mr Jarker, for his pipe was out; so, ceasing his whistle, he proceeded to ignite a match upon the blackened pipe-bowl, screening the tiny flame between his hands till the tobacco was in a glow—all the while in happy oblivion of a pair of indignant flashing eyes that rested upon him till their brightness was once more dimmed by tears. Heedless, too, was Mr Jarker of the strange sardonic leer directed at him from the attic-window opposite his own, where ma mère, with her dim grey eyes, glanced at him from time to time as she busily knitted, or stabbed her ball of worsted; for Mr Jarker was evidently interested in what was taking place beneath him, as he glanced through his trap from time to time. And now once more, with rapid beat, rose the “click, click, click,” of Lucy’s sewing-machine, as, flashing in and out of the fine material the needle laid in its chain-like stitches; but Lucy Grey’s finely-stitched lines were far from even that afternoon.
Volume Two—Chapter Seven.
With Mrs Jarker.
Always at the call of the poor of his district, the Reverend Arthur Sterne sighed as, slowly descending towards the court, he tried to drive away the words that seemed to ring in his ears; but in vain, for the next moment he was muttering them once more; and the thought came upon him that, for many months past, he had been gazing at the Hardon family through a pleasant medium—a softening mist, glowing with bright colours, but now swept away by one rude blast, so that he looked upon this scene of life in all its rugged truthfulness. He told himself that the mist had once opened to afford him a glimpse, while again and again he smiled at the folly which had led him to expect romance in a London court. The pleasant outlines and softened distance, toned down by the light mists, were gone now, and he gazed upon nothing but the cold, bare reality. It was strange; but he did not ask himself whether the bitter blast might not have brought with it some murky, distorted cloud, whose shade had been cast athwart the picture upon which, he now woke to the fact, he had dearly loved to gaze; and still muttering to himself, he slowly went down step by step.
“So young, so pure-looking! But who could wonder, living in this atmosphere of misery? But what is it to me?” he cried angrily; for strange thoughts and fancies came upon him, and his mind was whispering of a wild tale. The thoughts of the past, too, came—of the happy days when, in early manhood, he had loved one as fair and bright—one whom another bridegroom had claimed, as having been betrothed to him from her birth. The cold earth had been her nuptial-bed, and he, the lover, became the gloomy retired student until his appointment to a city curacy, and the devotion of his life to the sorrows of the poor. But again he bit his lip angrily, at making the comparison between the dead and the living. What connection was there between them, and of what had he been dreaming? What indeed! After years upon years of floating down life’s stream,—a calm and sad, but placid journey, unruffled but by the sorrows of others,—he now awoke to the fact that unwittingly he had halted by a pleasant spot, where he had been loitering and dreaming of something undefined—something fraught with memories of the past; and now he had been rudely awakened and recalled to the duties he had chosen.
He passed into the court, and stood for a few moments gazing at where there was a cellar opened, with half a score of children collected to drop themselves or their toys down; while, being a fresh arrival upon the scene, a cluster of the little ones began to get beneath his feet, and run against him, or give themselves that pleasant cramp known as “a crick in the neck,” by staring up in his face; but he freed himself from his visitors by hastily entering the opposite house.
More than one door was opened, and more than one head thrust out, as Mr Sterne ascended the staircase; but in every instance there was a smile and a rude curtsey to greet him, for he had that happy way of visiting learned by so few, and his visits always seemed welcome. Those who, moved by curiosity, appeared, were ladies, who directly after became exceedingly anxious concerning their personal appearance. Aprons, where they were worn, were carefully stroked down; hair was smoothed or made less rough; sundry modest ideas seemed to rise respecting a too great freedom of habit where a junior was partaking of nourishment; but everywhere the curate met with cordial glances, till he once more stood in front of an attic and entered.
Mr Sterne had so far only encountered females; for “the master” of the several establishments was out at work, or down in the country after the birds, or at the corner of some street where there was a public-house, at whose door he slouched, in the feeble anticipation that work would come there to find him, or that the landlord or a passing friend would invite him to have “a drain;” but Mr William Jarker was, as has been seen, at home, though, with the exception of his legs, invisible; for he was among his pigeons, emulating the chimneys around by the rate at which he smoked—chimneys smoking here the year round, since in most cases one room formed the mansion of a family.
But Mr Sterne had not come to see Jarker, but at the summons of his wife, in whom some eighteen months had wrought a terrible change. She sat wrapped in an old shawl, shivering beside the few cinders burning in the rusty grate—shivering though burned up with fever, the two or three large half-filled bottles of dispensary medicine telling of a long and weary illness. The wide windows admitted ample light, but only seemed to make more repulsive the poverty-stricken place, with its worn, rush-bottomed chairs, rickety table, upon which stood the fragments of the last meal; the stump bedstead, with its patched patchwork counterpane; the heaped-up ashes beneath the grate; the battered and blackened quart-pot from the neighbouring public-house standing upon the hob to do duty as saucepan; while here and there stood in corners the stakes and nets used by Mr Jarker in his profession of birdcatcher. A few cages of call-birds hung against the wall; but Mr Jarker’s custom was, when he had captured feathered prey, to dispose of it immediately—pigeons being his “fancy.”
A sad smile lit up the woman’s face as the curate entered,—a face once doubtless pleasing, but now hollow, yellow, and ghastly; where hung out flauntingly were the bright colours which told of the enemy that held full sway in the citadel of life.
“I knew you would come, sir,” she whispered, letting her thin white fingers play amongst the golden curls of a little head, but half-concealed in her lap, where one bright round eye as peeping timidly out to watch the stranger; and then, as the curate took one of the broken chairs and sat beside the sick woman, whenever she spoke it was in a whisper, and with many a timid glance at the ladder and open trap in the roof, where her master stood, as though she feared to call down punishment upon her head,—“I knew you would come; and Bill was easy to-day, and come and fetched you, though he came back and said you were busy, and would not stop.”
“Look alive, there, and get that over!” cried Mr Jarker from the trap. “I ain’t a-goin’ to stand here all day;” and by way of giving effect, or for emphasis, this remark was accompanied by a kick at the ladder, and a shake of the trap. Then followed an interval of peace, during which the presence of the domestic tyrant was made known only by the fumes of his tobacco, which floated down into the room, and made the poor woman cough terribly.
Once Mr Sterne was about to tell the fellow to cease, but the look of horror in the woman’s face, and the supplicating joining of her hands, made him pause, for he knew that he would be but adding to her suffering when his back was turned. The open trap seemed to act as a sort of retiring-room for Mr Jarker when anyone was in the attic that he did not wish to see; but every now and then during the earnest conversation with the suffering woman, there came a kick and a growl, and a shake of the ladder, which made Mr Sterne frown, and the poor woman start as if in dread. And so, during the remainder of the curate’s stay, the consolatory words he uttered were again and again interrupted; while at last the voice came growling down as if in answer to a statement Mrs Jarker had just made:
“Don’t you tell no lies, now, come, or I shall make it hot for yer!” When in the involuntary shudder the woman gave, there was plainly enough written for the curate’s reading the long and cruel records of how “hot” for her it had often been made.
And now the importunities of the child by her knee aroused the poor woman to a forgetfulness of self in motherly cares, when the curate took his leave, but in nowise hurried by the savage shake that Jarker gave to the ladder—a shake which brought down a few scraps of plaster, to fall upon the cages and make the songsters flutter timidly against their prison-bars.
Half-way down the stairs Mr Sterne encountered the woman with whom he had seen Lucy in the Lane; the woman he presumed to be the mother of the child Mrs Jarker had now for some time nursed.
For a moment he stopped, as if to speak; but he remembered the next instant that he had no right to question her, and he stood gazing sternly at her, while, as she shrank back into a corner of the landing, her look was keen and defiant—the look of the hunted at bay. Once he had followed her for some distance, and then perhaps he would have spoken; but now the desire seemed gone, and linked together in his mind were Lucy, ma mère, the ruffian he had left up-stairs, and this woman.
“But what is it to me?” he thought bitterly; and, hurrying down the stairs, he stood for a moment at the doorway, heedless of the children scampering over the broken pavement—heedless that, with hot eyes and fevered cheeks, Lucy had left her sewing-machine and stepped back from the window that she should neither see nor be seen—heedless of all around; for his thoughts were a strange medley—pride, duty, and passion seeking to lead him by different roads. Then for a while he remembered the poor woman he had left, whose leave-taking he felt was near—a parting that he could not but feel would be a happy release from sorrow and suffering.
At last, turning to go, he cast his eyes towards the open window that Lucy had so lately left, when, with knitted brow and care gnawing at his heart, he passed out into the street, and walked towards his lodgings; but even there, in the midst of the busy throng, where the deafening hum of the traffic of the great city was ever rising and falling, now swelling into a roar, and again sinking to the hurried buzz of the busy workers, ever rang in his ears the bitter words of the old Frenchwoman—“Our beauty, some of us!”
Volume Two—Chapter Eight.
Documentary Evidence.
“Now, sir,” said old Matt, as he appeared, brushed-up and smart for the occasion, punctual to his appointment; “now, sir; here we are—baptism, marriage, and doctor. First ought to come last, you know, only Saint Mark’s Church comes before Finsbury, don’t you see?”
Septimus Hardon rose from his writing with a sigh, for he was far from sanguine of success, and would fain even now have given up his task entirely, so feeble seemed to him the likelihood of any advantage accruing; but in obedience to instructions from Mrs Septimus, old Matt rattled on about the future, thoroughly doing his duty in keeping the shrinking man to his part; and so they started.
They made their way out into Holborn, and then up Skinner-street, past the frowning walls of Newgate, and into the street of the same name; when old Matt could not get along for stopping to admire the various joints displayed, and giving his opinion upon their merits.
“Here, let’s go this way, sir,” he said, turning into Warwick-lane. “Pretty game this, sir, isn’t it? Slaughtered sheep, and murdered novels, and books of all sorts close together. Authors’ sheep’s-heads, and butchers’ sheep’s-heads cheek by jowl. Rum thing for both trades to get so close together. Regular bit of philosophy if you like to take it up, sir; stomach and brains, you see, food for both—books for the brains, meat for the stomach; and then backwards and forwards, one feeds the other, and one couldn’t get on without the other; and here they are situated close to the very heart of the City. Look at the circulation going on—wonderful, ain’t it, sir?”
Old Matt stopped by a slaughter-house, not to pity the simple animal just killed, but to point out sundry choice portions that might be had bargains, if they could have availed themselves of the opportunity.
“Wouldn’t do, though, to go about such a job as we have on hand carrying a sheep’s-head, would it, sir?” he observed to Septimus.
“No; pray come along, and let’s get our task over,” exclaimed the latter.
“To be sure,” said Matt, coming to himself, and the next minute they were in Paternoster-row. “Lots of my old friends here,” said Matt, stopping short in the middle of the narrow way, to be hustled by boys laden with sheets of paper fresh from the press, lads carrying reams, or newly-bound works tied between boards; men with blue bags over their shoulders heavily laden with books; men with oblong “mems” in their hands which they consulted as they hurried from swinging door to swinging door, collecting the publications of the different firms. Once the old man was nearly run over by a truck full of type-galleys driven by a pair of reckless imps of some neighbouring printing-office; while at least four times he came into contact with the fruit-baskets of the nymphs in stout boots and flattened bonnets, whose haunt is the labyrinth of learning known as “the Row.”—“Lots of my old friends here,” said Matt as his companion looked bewildered, and was thrust off the pavement; on to it again; into booksellers’ where he did not want to go; and once against the muddy wheel of a cab, whose driver roundly abused him for nearly getting himself injured.—“Lots of my old friends here. Ah, you needn’t mind a bit of pushing, sir—it’s a busy place. Now, you know, if I liked to hunt about, I could find more than one bit of my work here, for I’ve done things and bits of things that’s come out in more than half these places. All sorts of stuff; and what a sight of work a man can be put upon in a matter of fifty year, from playbills to prayer-books, and down again to penny-a-lining and posters! Law and physic’s been my strongest points: but there; I’ve been on your magazines, and newspapers, and three-volume novels, and pamphlets, and everything else that’s printed on a leaf, ’cept’ last dying-speeches and halfpenny songs; and I never did get down, quite so low as that. I’ve taken hold of author’s copy so queer that it’s made you scratch your head and torn the paper t’other way up to see which is tops and which is bottoms, and then back again, for you’ve been as wise as ever. Talk about ants and bluebottles running over the paper with inky feet, that’s nothing, sir. You’ve seen them painter-chaps, sir, graining the shetters of shops?”
Septimus, seeing that he was expected to say something, roused himself from his brown study, and nodded.
“Well,” continued Matt, “you see they have what they call a tool, though it’s only a flat brush made like a comb, and with that they make lines cross and across the panels, all about the same distance apart, and then they dab them lightly with a long soft brush to keep the grain from looking too stiff and hard. Well, I’ve had copy that’s looked as if the author had used one of these tools dipped in ink, and streaked it across and across the paper, and then dabbed it, not with a very soft brush, but with a very hard one, shoving in, too, a few smears and blots, just to fill up as knots and specimens of cross-grain. Up one goes to the overseer and asks him to help you, giving the other men a side-grin at the same time. He takes it, looks at it, turns it over, and then can’t make anything of it, though he won’t say so; for overseers must of course seem to know everything. So he sticks it back in your hand, and says he, ‘Go and make the best you can of it; for I’m busy.’ Well, you go back, and make the best you can of it; puzzles out one word, jumps at another, puts in two, and guesses two more, while you make a couple more out of the next line fit in somewhere after ’em; and so, one way or another, it gets scrambled up, and the proof goes to the reader, who cuffs his boy’s head because he blunders so over the stuff he can’t make head nor tail of, though he’s as much bothered as his boy; while, though some of them are clever, intelligent fellows, some of those readers, sir, have about as much imagination as a mop. They’re down upon a wrong letter, or bad pointing or spelling, and stick a big qy? against a bit of slack grammar, like lightning; but give ’em a take of stuff where the author goes a little out of the regular rut, and it bothers them as much as the bit of copy I’m talking about. Well, sir, corrections get made, and the proof is sent in to the author, who most likely don’t know it again; but he sends it back so as one has a better chance of getting it together; and so it goes on, backwards and forwards, till it’s all right, and they write ‘press’ in one corner, when it’s printed, and, as far as we’re concerned, there’s an end of it. Strange ways, ain’t they, sir?”
Septimus Hardon stared in a bewildered manner at the speaker, but did not answer.
“Blest if I think he’s heard a word I’ve said,” muttered the old fellow.
“Strange?” said Septimus, rousing himself; “yes, very.”
“’Tis, sir,” said Matt, who was interested in his subject. “Now, do you know, sir,” he continued after they had walked part of the way along the Row,—“do you know that if I was younger, I should be for founding a society, to be called the ‘Printers’ Spectacle Association,’ supported by contributions from writers for the press, who by this means would supply us with glasses, for often and often they quite destroy our sight.”
Old Matt’s dissertation was put an end to by the driver of one of the Delivery carts, when, returning to the matter which had brought them from home, the strange couple were soon threading their way along Cheapside.
There was but little difficulty in getting access to the registers of the old church, and a not very long search brought the seekers to the entry, in brown ink upon yellow paper, of the baptism of Septimus, son of Octavius and Lavinia Hardon, January 17—; but though the ages of the children before and after were entered, by some omission, his was absent.
A copy was taken by both, and then they stood once more in the open street.
“Just as I told you, sir,” said Matt, “isn’t it? there’s the date; but it don’t say how old you were.”
“No,” replied Septimus; “but still it is satisfactory, so far. Now we’ll see about the marriage, and then visit Finsbury.”
“You know the church?” said Matt.
“Well, not exactly,” said Septimus dreamily.
“There are two in the street; but it was at one of them.”
“Good,” said the old man; and soon after they stood in the street of two churches, and, taking the most imposing, they obtained admission to the vestry, where, after a long and careful search of the time-stained register, they were compelled to give up, for there was no result; while the regular way in which the leaves followed proved that none were missing.
“Try t’other,” said Matt laconically; and soon after they entered the damp, mouldy-smelling receptacle of the registers at the second church—a quaint, queerly-built place that looked as if architecture had been set at defiance when it was erected.
Old Matt was quiet and laconic enough in his speech; but as leaf after leaf was turned over, it was evident that the old man was more deeply interested than Septimus himself; for he grew so excited, that he was quite voracious with his snuff, his nose becoming a very devouring dragon of Scotch and rappee, till the supposed date of the marriage was neared, when the snuff was hastily pocketed.
“Rayther rheumatic spot this, I should think,” said Matt to the sexton, so as to appear quite at his ease.
“Well, yes, it is damp,” said the sexton, who would have had no difficulty in passing himself off as Matt’s brother; “but we have a fire here on Sundays all through the winter.”
“Don’t have many berrin’s now, I s’pose,” said Matt, again bringing out the snuff, but this time for hospitable purposes.
“Bless you, no,” said the sexton, “ain’t had one for years upon years. All cemetery work now.”
“To be sure, of course,” said Matt, trying to converse in a cool pleasant way, but with one eye fixed upon the trembling searcher; for some of Matt’s eagerness seemed now to be transferred to his companion.
“There’s a great piece of the book out here,” said Septimus suddenly—“most of the year before the baptism.”
“Torn out, by Jove!” muttered Matt, shaking his head, and looking suspicion’s self.
“Dessay there is, sir,” said the sexton coolly; “the damp here would spile the binding of any book.”
“But, I say; look here, you sir; here’s a good four months gone: no Jennywerry, nor Feberwerry, nor March, nor April. Looks precious queer,” said Matt.
“Ah, so there is—good big bit gone; all but a leaf here and there.” And then, to get a better look, the sexton took out an old leathern case, drew out his spectacles, replaced the case very carefully, wiped the glasses upon the tail of his coat, and then very leisurely put them on, a process not directly completed; for, like their master, the springs of the spectacles had grown weak, and were joined by a piece of black tape, which had to be passed carefully over the sexton’s head to keep the glasses in their place. “Ah,” he said again, while the searchers looked on, astonished at his coolness, “so there is—a good big bit gone; but ’tain’t no wonder, for the thread’s as rotten as tinder, and—”
“I say, old un, don’t tear any more out,” cried Matt excitedly; for the sexton was experimentally disposed, and testing the endurance of the thread and glue.
“There’s plenty loose,” said the old sexton, “and I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if you find a lot more gone.”
Septimus Hardon looked at Matt, who returned the look, for the feeling of suspicion was now fully shared. However, they still went on carefully searching.
“It’s of no use,” said Septimus at last, mournfully; “we may as well go. I never had any hope.”
“Don’t be in a hurry, sir,” said Matt. “You know there are other ways of killing the cat, as the old saying says; wait a bit. Looks suspicious, certainly,” he said, treating himself to a fresh pinch of snuff.—“I say, guv’nor, you haven’t got the loose leaves lying about anywheres, have you? Not been taken away that you know of, eh?”
The sexton shook his head, thrust his hands to the bottoms of his trousers-pockets, shrugged his shoulders to his ears, and then stood gazing at his visitors with his spectacles high up on his forehead.
“No,” said he, “nobody never meddles with ’em, ’cept a lawyer’s clerk now and then; and they’re very civil, and just copies out something, and gives me a shilling, and then goes.”
Septimus Hardon took the hint in its first acceptation, while the mouldy old sexton removed one hand from his pocket to accept the proffered shilling held to him, before his visitors were about to take the second part of the hint.
As they moved off through the damp old church, Septimus Hardon wondered whether, upon some bright morning half a century before, his father and mother had knelt before that altar and been made one. He sighed as he walked on, meeting in the entrance a tall, gentlemanly—looking man who was passing in.
“What’s to be done next, Matt?” said Septimus, in a dispirited tone.
“Pint of porter and crust o’ bread-and-cheese,” said the old man decidedly. “I’m faint, sir—got a fit of my chronics; but it’s taking me the wrong way to-day; I’m hungry, and you must want support. Keep your chin in the air, sir; we can’t win every time. You’ve had two tries this morning, and one’s come all right. That register looks suspicious, certainly; but after all you can’t even go and swear that your old people were married in that church; and even if you could, and had the copy of the stiffikit, that ain’t all we want, for it don’t prove that you weren’t a year old then.”
“Hi!” cried a voice behind them; and upon the cry being repeated, they both turned to find that the old sexton was telegraphing them to come back, by wagging his head in the direction of the church-door.
“What’s up now?” said old Matt when they reached him.
“Parson wants to see you in the westry,” was the reply.
Anxiously following the old man, Septimus Hardon found himself in the presence of the gentleman he had encountered at the door.
“I think,” said he, “that you have been complaining of the bad state of our registers, and really we deserve it. I have only been here a few weeks, and have done but little towards getting them right. However, I have quite fifty loose leaves and pieces arranged here ready for pasting back, though I can assure you it is no light task.”
As he spoke, he took down from a little closet on the wall a heap of damp-stained, ragged, worthless-looking paper, and then set himself to try and help discover the required name.
“Hardon,” he said,—“Hardon, Octavius Hardon and Lavinia Addison. We’ll lay those that are done with down here, if you please; for, though they do not appear so, the leaves are in a certain order. Hardon, Hardon, Octavius, and Lavinia Addison,” he kept on muttering, as Septimus and he carefully examined column after column amongst the dilapidated leaves; though Septimus progressed but slowly, for his hand trembled and a mist swam before his eyes.
“Take a glass of wine,” said the curate kindly, producing a decanter and glass from the little cupboard; “you seem agitated.”
Septimus took the glass with trembling hand, and then resumed his task with increased energy, till at last there were not above half a dozen leaves to scan, when he uttered an exclamation of joy, for there, upon a scrap before him—torn, stained, and almost illegible—was the sought-for entry, bearing the well-known signature of his father, and the trembling handwriting of his mother.
“Here, here, Matt,” he whispered, “look!” and the paper quivered in his hands—“‘Octavius Hardon, Lavinia Addison,’ and signed by her old friend Miss Morris.”
“Right it is, so far,” said Matt, holding his glasses to his eyes wrong way foremost, with both hands, “and just a year and a half before the baptism. Now you know, sir, I pitched it pretty strong before now, so as you shouldn’t expect too much; but it’s my belief that, after all said and done, we’ve got enough documentary evidence; and things seeming so very regular, if you had begun as you should have done, unless there was something very strong on the other side that we can’t see through, you must have got a verdict. But then I hardly like for you to try on this only; for the law’s a ticklish thing to deal with, and though this all looks so straightforward, it don’t prove against what your uncle says, and will bring witnesses to swear.”
“But how can he?” exclaimed Septimus, in a whisper.
“Ah,” said Matt, refreshing himself after his wont, “how can he? Why, by means of that comical stuff as he’s been so anxious to get hold of. Why, sir, he could find witnesses as would swear to any mortal thing on the face of this earth; they’d almost undertake to prove as you weren’t born at all, sir. Mind, I don’t say that they’d carry the day, sir; but I’m only telling you of what villainy there is in this world, and how you must be prepared, even to fighting the dev— I beg your pardon, sir,” said Matt bashfully, as he pulled up short, having in his earnestness forgotten the presence of the third party.
“I’m sorry to say that there’s a great deal of truth in what you assert,” said the curate quietly; for Septimus was looking at him in an appealing way as if expecting that he would demolish all that Matt had advanced. “Suborned witnesses are nothing new in this world of ours.”
“Pull out your note-book, sir, and let’s take it down,” said Matt; and as he spoke, he drew out an old dog’s-eared memorandum-book and a stumpy fragment of lead pencil that would not mark without being kissed and coaxed every moment, when he copied the entry most carefully, compared it with the original, and then with that just made by Septimus Hardon.
“Really,” said the clergyman at parting, “I am extremely glad to have met you this morning, and you may depend upon finding us in better order at your next visit.”
“There has been no trickery there you see, Matt,” said Septimus, as they stood once more in the street; “all seems straightforward.”
“Just so, sir; your uncle seems to have some game of his own that I can’t quite see through as yet; but stop a bit. Good sort o’ chap that young parson. I’ll ask him to dinner some day, though he didn’t say, ‘Take a glass of sherry, Matthew Space.’ Then how careful you ought to be! Now I should have been ready to swear that your precious uncle had been at them books. S’pose he ain’t so much older than you, sir?”
“Not many years,” replied Septimus. “He was my poor father’s younger brother. But now for the doctor!” he said in an elated tone.
“Thanky, sir, but suppose we have the porter and bread-and-cheese first. You youngsters are so rash and impatient; and besides, I didn’t taste that fine old dry sherry, you know. One thing at a time’s the best plan, and it seems to me that a little refreshment’s the next thing wanted. ’Tain’t no use to suppose, sir, that because a horse has won one race he’ll go and polish off the next the same hour. D’yer see, sir?”
Septimus expressed himself as being able to see, and he submitted forthwith to his companion’s guidance.
Now most people would imagine that Matt entered the first inviting open portal that presented itself, where the gorgeously-emblazoned boards announced the retailing of So-and-so’s entire; but no. Old Matt seemed very particular and hard to please, passing house after house before he could meet with one to his satisfaction; and in a quarter of an hour’s brisk walk a few public-houses can be passed in London streets. But Matt had something else on his mind besides draught stout; and at last, when Septimus Hardon’s patience was well-nigh exhausted, the old man stopped short before a place where the window displayed a notice to the effect that the Post-office Directory was at the bar.
“There,” said Matt, pointing to the window, “thought me a nuisance now, didn’t you, sir? But that’s what I wanted. So now we’ll have our stout and cheese, and a look at the doctors too.”
Seated in the public-house parlour, fragrant with the fumes of flat beer and stale tobacco, they were soon discussing the foaming stout and more solid refreshments, though Septimus spent the greater part of his time poring over the volume he had laid open upon the gum-ringed table—a volume that Matt considered would be as useful as a medical directory. Surgeons there were in plenty; but only one answering to the name of Phillips, and he was practising at Newington.
“Moved there, perhaps,” said Matt.
Septimus Hardon shook his head, and read again, “Phillips, EJ, Terrace, Newington.”
“Stop a bit, sir,” said Matt, rising and catching the ring hung from the ceiling, and pulling the bell.—“Here, fill that pint again, my man; and, I say, got another of these d’rectories anywheres?”
“Yes,” said the pot-boy, “there’s another somewheres—an old un.”
“That’s the ticket, my lad, bring it in.”
The boy performed the, to him, satisfactory feat of pitching the pot in the air, and catching it with one hand as he went out, though the performance was somewhat marred by the vessel turning in its flight, and announcing its descent by a small frothy brown shower, which sprinkled the performer’s countenance. However, he was soon back with the refilled measure, and a very dirty, very dusty, and dog’s-eared old copy of the Directory, with one cover torn off, and a general aspect of its having been used for generations as the original London Spelling-book.
Septimus seized the bulky tome, and soon had the right page found; and in this volume there was no mention of EJ Phillips of Newington.
“Young beginner,” said Matt hollowly; for he had the pewter-vessel to his lips. “Anyone else same name?”
“Two more!” cried Septimus in a husky voice: “Phillips, Thomas, Camden-town; Phillips, Nicholas, Chiswell-street.”
“Hooray!” cried Matt, thumping down the pewter-pot, so that a portion of the contents splashed over into the cheese-dish. “That’s the man we want, sir; so finish your crust and cheese, and then off we go.” And shrewd old Matt forgot to ask himself in his excitement how it was that the name was not in the Directory often years later date, but acted up to what he was advising, and, then late in the afternoon, they again started on their search.
It was not a very long walk from Walbrook to Chiswell-street; but old Matt made very little progress, halting at times as if in pain, while in answer to inquiries he only smiled and declared that it was his “chronics.” Now he panted and seemed out of breath, then he paused at one of his favourite halting-places, but too short of breath to make a speech, even had he felt so disposed. At the last stoppage, induced by Septimus Hardon’s eager strides, the old man panted out:
“Let’s see, sir; you walked down to Somesham, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Septimus somewhat surprised at the question. “Come along;” for he was now as eager to continue the quest as he had formerly been to avoid it.
“That’s all very well,” said Matt, panting; “but I shouldn’t have liked to walk with you, and if Chiswell-street had been t’other side the square, you’d have had to carry me, so I tell you; and—”
“Is anything wrong?” exclaimed Septimus anxiously, for his companion had turned very pale and haggard.
“Not much,” he gasped; “better d’rectly—out of breath rather.”
But he seemed to grow so much worse, that all thought of farther search was forgotten in the anxiety to get the old man to the principal thoroughfare, for he stoutly refused to hear of a cab being called; though he sank back thoroughly exhausted in a corner of the omnibus, when at last the right one passed with room inside.
A quiet cup of tea and an hour’s rest seemed to restore the old man, and he rose to leave Bennett’s-rents, firmly refusing to allow Septimus to walk home with him, though it was only by slow stages and great exertion that he reached his lodging.
Volume Two—Chapter Nine.
The Curate at Home.
The task of the Reverend Arthur Sterne was weary, and one that might have made him sigh had he known no other troubles. Work, work, work, of the most disheartening character for the most part; and it was only in rare instances that he could feel in his own heart that his labours had been of any avail. Here he would listen to a hypocritical tale of woe, there to a story of real sorrow; now his task would be to try and point out some foolish reckless piece of extravagance; then to call to account for folly and idleness. Everywhere there was the same display of live to-day, and let to-morrow take care of itself. Forethought and providence seemed to know no home in Bennett’s-rents and the neighbourhood, perhaps because hope had often been so long deferred that the sickened hearts believed in it no more. Dirt everywhere, drunkenness frequently, vice often, with their followings of sorrow, repentance, disease, and death. Years, however, had made him to be looked upon as a friend, and his step was always welcomed, while, effecting what good he could, he toiled patiently on; fearing no fever, dreading no epidemic, but ever ready, he visited the bedside of the stricken—the vilest or the most unfortunate—ready to join his prayers to theirs for pardon—to point out the long neglected road that should have been taken—to teach the ignorant the words they had never known, or perhaps forgotten years upon years before. His was a task that knew but little earthly recompense, save the knowledge of duty done; but many a parting soul blessed him with lips soon to be motionless for ever, or thanked him with those glazing eyes from which the wild despairing look had faded, as he knelt in intercession for one whose opportunity for better things had never come, but who, born into the misery and wretchedness of a great town, had passed in it the life now about to be given up at the stern call that knows no refusal.
It was a weary task amidst so poor and wretched a flock; but could the curate have been at rest, he would have been happy in the good he effected, and the simple confidence now placed in him by those he visited. Even Bill Jarker had of late taken to pulling off his fur-cap and picking it when they met; and there was no hypocrisy in the salutation, for it was wrung from him by the genuine respect he felt. But then the curate was not at rest, for he had now thoroughly awakened to the germs which had rooted themselves in his heart, growing more and more till his very life was interlaced with the strong fibres. Now, he would deliberately try to eradicate the growth, tearing and lacerating himself in his efforts to rid himself of the unbidden guest; but the progress he made was slow in comparison with the growth he fought against. Blindly, though, he would tell himself that he had conquered, that the last root was torn out, and the door of his heart closed against further entrance. And then, in the pride of his believed victory, he would tell himself of how he had been about to lavish riches upon one beneath him, and unworthy, when his heart would reply that love was a leveller, and laugh to scorn the subtle distinctions of caste; reminding him, too, that this maiden had grown up as it were beneath his eye, that he had watched her for years, while she was as well born, perhaps, as he. And then, in his heart, there would shoot forth a tiny green blade, then there was the opening leaf, and soon again the blossom; while roots spread here and there lacing and interlacing stronger and stronger than ever, as if he had been by his efforts merely preparing the soil for a richer growth of the ever-verdant clinging plant that he sought in vain to tear away.
So wearily on, day after day, passed the curate’s life, a struggle between the natural affection and self-imposed duty, while night after night in his sleepless hours he heaped up reproaches upon himself for work neglected, and the dreamy musings into which he was wont to fall. Self-deceiving, he had gone on taking more and more interest in the Hardon family, blinding himself to his real sentiments, until now that the veil had been so rudely snatched from his eyes he writhed hourly, maddened almost, that he should have allowed his peace to have been disturbed for what he fiercely told himself was worthless.
It was not a long walk from the Bennett’s-rents region to Surrey-street, where he had rooms in a gloomy wilderness of a house, which he shared with a solicitor, an accountant, and a company that seemed to be composed of a small secretary and a large heap of prospectuses. Here he would seek for the rest he could not find, anxious and worn, day after day, since his last visit to the Hardons, much to the discomposure of Aunt Fanny, who dwelt with him in the double capacity of housekeeper and companion.
A prim, pleasant old dame, proud of her great age, and of her bright silver hair, smoothed in bands beneath her quaint old widow’s cap; sitting or standing, ever with her arms crossed over her black corded-silk apron, while a mitten-covered hand clasped each elbow. A prim, pleasant-looking old dame, always dressed in lavender poplin, whose stiff plaits seemed to have been carved out of the solid, as she stood at the window watching for the coming of her boy. For “Arty” always had been, and doubtless always would be, a boy in her pleasant old eyes—eyes that spoke the truth of her tender old heart; though there was one point upon which Aunt Fanny would err, and that was her age. Unlike ladies of a certain time of life, she was proud of her years, and, doubtless from some haziness in her arithmetic, she was given to adding to them, so that more than once in her arguments respecting points of time, she somewhat upset her calculations.
“Why, aunt,” the curate would say, “you cannot be so old as you say by eight years.”
“Nonsense, my dear boy, how can you know anything about it? I’m eighty-two.”
“Then,” he would say loudly, “you must have been thirty when you were married.”
“Nonsense, child; how can you be so silly! And you need not shout so. I was twenty-two when your poor uncle led me to the altar.” And then she would fall to smoothing her black apron, and arranging the folds of her dress, with hands that trembled in an agitated manner, a tear standing in one of the still bright eyes, as the old recollections sprang up, when, ceasing the discussion, her nephew would tenderly kiss her hand, and sit affectionately gazing in her handsome old face. Indeed time had paid a certain respect to Aunt Fanny, so that she looked years younger than she really was, while all her faculties save one were bright as ever; for proud though she was of the fine stitching placed with her own needle round Arty’s shirt-fronts—stitching aided by no spectacles—and ignorant though she was of her failing, yet Aunt Fanny was terribly deaf.
But she hardly felt the affliction, speaking of it as a slight weakness which affected her when she had a cold, always remaining unconscious that what she looked upon as a whisper was a conversation carried on in a loud key. Poor Aunt Fanny could not hear very well from her pew in the gallery, right in front of the organ, for the thing would make, she said, such a terrible buzzing sound; so a seat was provided for her just beneath the pulpit, which she found necessary, for clergymen were not what they used to be. On the following Sunday, her nephew had ascended to his place, spread out the black-velvet case she had made for his sermons, prayed, and given out his text twice, when, before the first words of the sermon were uttered, Aunt Fanny began to mutter to herself, though her muttering was so loud that everyone present in the little church must have heard it, her nephew himself being overwhelmed with confusion.
“Dear, dear, dear!” she exclaimed; “it’s of no use, and I can’t hear a bit. I might just as well have stayed where I was. O Arty, Arty, you sad boy, why will you mumble so?”
Arty did not mumble any more that evening, but dashed headlong into his discourse; so that when they returned, Aunt Fanny thought she rather liked the new seat the better of the two. Still it was of no avail; the old lady could never hear well in that church; for rector and curate had both got into a bad habit of speaking in a low tone, and drawling out their words. But Aunt Fanny’s pity was sublime in the case of a friend also troubled with deafness; though he knew it, and did not scruple to make an ear-trumpet of his hand, though this was needless when Aunt Fanny was the speaker; for her sentences were always perfectly audible. “Poor Edwards!” she would say, as she smoothed down her apron, “what a nice man you would be if you weren’t so deaf! It’s a pity—a great pity!” And then she would sigh, in profound ignorance that “poor Edwards’s” confusion was caused by her habit of thinking aloud.
And this was the companion of Arthur Sterne’s solitude; but there were pleasant smiles to welcome him, and beneath their sunny rays the deeply-cut lines that seamed his forehead grew less marked, while the light of the pleasant old sunny face was reflected in his own.
Aunt Fanny had seen the change that had come over her nephew, and waited patiently for his complaints, which came not; and after many days, unable to contain her anxiety, she crossed to where the curate was sitting, and, taking his hand, frowned severely as she felt his pulse.
“Well, aunty, and how is it?” he said, smiling at the earnest countenance beside his.
But Aunt Fanny was too much occupied with her thoughts to speak, and only nodded, and then shook her head, as, in her own mind, she went over her long catalogue of simples suited to the various ills of human life, till at last she settled upon camomile-tea as being the most efficacious remedy for her nephew’s complaint, which she settled to be disorder of the liver, produced from over-work, and not a word would she hear to the contrary.
“Now, don’t shout, my dear; I’m not deaf. You know you do too much; and if you won’t petition the bishop for a change, I shall. What do you say to a pleasant curacy in some pretty country place?”
Nothing. What could he say, when he had wakened to the fact that, in spite of pride and doubts, that court was all the world to him?
Appeal was useless; so, yielding with as good a grace as he could, the curate suffered himself to be doctored for his complaint, turning to his books for rest at every reprieve. If it had not been for the heat of the next few days, he would not have been allowed to stir out without the thick muffler that had been aired for his throat; while the many appellants who visited the lodging of a morning were answered by Aunt Fanny herself; for many came to ask advice and comfort of the curate, more especially from amongst the poor Irish; but though they came ostensibly for spiritual, they generally managed to explain that a little solid help would be most acceptable.
Till now, living in their quiet, simple way, the relations between them being more like those existent with mother and son, Arthur Sterne had had no secret from the dame; but now, when he would gladly have eased his burdened heart by confidence, he shrank from laying bare its secrets, even though he was in that state when men are most prone to be confidential. But there was to him something repugnant in the idea of shouting words that seemed to demand that they should be whispered in the twilight of some calm eve, when the reassuring pressure of that time-marked hand would have been loving and tender. For she had been to him as a mother, taking that duty on herself when he had been left an orphan, and now there seemed ingratitude in keeping back any of the troubles of his life. He had no doubts respecting Aunt Fanny. Did he but bring there a wife, and say, “I love this woman,” she would take her to her heart and believe in her; for, saving the mumbling in his speech, Arthur Sterne could not, in her eyes, do wrong. Still the secret was kept—feverishly kept—and brooded over in the sleepless nights, or in those dark watches, when, impatiently quitting the pillow that brought no rest, he walked the streets of the sleeping city, alone, or in company with some policeman; when mostly his steps would lead him to the end of the court, where, in Septimus Hardon’s window, generally glimmered a feeble light—one whose purpose he often asked himself.
At times he would determine to flee the place, and in some far-off country retreat try again to root out the love that had taken hold on him; for here he felt that he could not reason with himself. In vain he conjured up visions of a calm, pale face, whose marble cheek he had once kissed, an hour before it was laid in the grave; in vain he told himself that he was faithless to that old love, and failing in his duty. There still was the sweet, gentle face of Lucy Grey haunting him ever; and though he recalled the words of the old Frenchwoman, and her sinister meaning—the meeting in the Lane, and, above all, the look of shame and confusion—there was the same sense of love beating down all else. But he had made a resolve at last; and that was, to see and question the woman he had seen in Lucy’s company; he would see her, and then seek for rest somewhere, since the idol he had unconsciously set up was sullied and broken.
Twice over he had met this woman, but now his efforts to see her seemed in vain. He called at the Jarkers’ again and again; but, in place of her coming, as Mrs Jarker said, to see her child and leave the weekly payment for its support, week after week, as if she knew that she was watched, she came not, but sent money-orders by post. He shrank from speaking to Mrs Jarker concerning her connection with Lucy; while Lucy herself he had not seen. Watching seemed useless, for the woman came not; and at last, almost in despair, he had determined to undertake that which his heart shrank from—the questioning of Lucy herself.
At last, after a long and busy day, as now had become his wont, he wandered through the streets for hours, apparently feeling no fatigue, till, late in the night, he stopped by the Rents, walked slowly up the deserted court, lit by its solitary flickering lamp, whose broken glass made the flame dance and tremble, while when an extra puff of wind passed down the court it was but extinct. There was the faint light, though, in one of the rooms occupied by the Hardons, and after standing watching it for some time he hurried away, calling himself foolish, romantic, boy, madman. It was but a passing fancy, he told himself, such a one as might have moved him in his youth; but his heart would not harbour the belief, and mockingly cast it forth.
He was angry and half-maddened to feel how helpless he was, and what a sway the impulse now moving him had obtained; to think that he—the minister of religion, the teacher of others—should have so little power over self that he should be swayed here and driven there helplessly; the whole current of his quiet life turned from its course, and that too in spite of the way in which he had battled, while the doubts that assailed him only added to his misery.
Now as he hurried on he would meet some policeman, who turned to watch him; now it would be some drunken reveller, or a wretched homeless being just started from some corner where he had been sleeping, and compelled to wander the streets till daybreak; but ever and again he would encounter the flauntingly—dressed outcast humming the snatch of a popular air with a wretched attempt at gaiety, which lasted till she had passed, and then almost broke into a wail. But he managed that they should always meet face to face beneath some gas-lamp, when he would sigh and pass on, for not one that he met during his search was the woman of the Lane.
Mrs Jarker did not know her name, nor yet where she lodged; but the little girl was to be called Agnes. That was all the information the curate could obtain; and at times he would frown, bite his lips, and give up the search, but only to take it up once again for what he always told himself was the last time. Then he would play the hypocrite, and tell himself that his motives were unselfish; that to marry a girl in Lucy’s position of life would be folly—absurd: he was only anxious for her well-being and future life.
But these fits lasted only for a short time, and then, smiling bitterly, he would, as upon this night, betake himself to the search once more.
And yet it was not on his account she came not to Bennett’s-rents, for Agnes Hardon knew not of his quest; she had other reasons, though the visits to her child and Lucy were the only bright spots in her wretched life. Lucy heard from her from time to time through old Matt, who bore her notes always under protest, but still obediently, though Lucy was the only one who knew the poor creature’s secret, and she dared not make it known to Septimus lest he should forbid their meetings; for, abandoned by all, hopeless, and in misery, Agnes Hardon clung to her connection with Lucy as the only hope left on earth for self and child. Her appeals to Somesham remaining unanswered, she had ceased to send, and, removing from lodging to lodging, any attempt upon Mrs Hardon’s part to find her would have been vain. She had shrunk from the keen searching glances of the curate when they had met, seeing in everyone now an enemy whose object was to break her intimacy with Lucy, whom she, therefore, saw only by stealth. Her heart bled for the misery of the family, for she learned all from time to time at their meetings; while, knowing full well that there was a will made, to which she had signed her name as witness, yet could she not declare her knowledge, from a shrewd suspicion that the doctor had made away with it, and she told herself that she had already brought sorrow and shame enough upon her home.
And to meet her, night by night stole Arthur Sterne through the streets, ever hating himself for his madness, ever resolving that each search should be the last, and still weakly yielding to the one great anxiety that troubled him. Now he would be seeing Lucy’s candid face reproachfully gazing at him, and directly after would come again the bitter, spiteful countenance of the Frenchwoman, and he seemed to hear her words, “Our beauty, some of us;” and at such times all faith in the girl had gone. “Our beauty, some of us!” How the words seemed to ring in his ears; they were borne to him in the echo of the far-off vehicle, chimed by the clocks; the very air seemed alive with the words, till he hurried on through street after street again to try and thoroughly wear himself out, that sleep might come, and with it rest from the mental anxiety and doubt he suffered.
At last he stood on one of the bridges, leaning against the parapet and gazing down at the hurrying river, feeling the soft sweet breeze of early dawn sweep up with the tide, whispering of the moaning sea and far-off reaches where the green reeds sighed and rustled, and the wide green marshes were spread out. There was a faint light coming in the east, and the stars were paling, as the gas grew sickly-hued and dim. All was still and peaceful, so that he could hear the lapping of the water far below as it seemed to whisper peace to his perturbed spirit, telling of the far-off sea and its mysteries, the hopes and fears there buried, and then of the many lost whom the river had borne down, when, from perhaps where he then stood, they had taken the last fearful plunge. And who were they? he asked himself; who were they that plunged daringly into the rushing river? and for reply the faint breeze seemed to whisper, and the tide to sigh, “Our beauty, some of us!” And then trembling he leaned his hot brow against the cold stone balustrade, fighting with the thoughts that oppressed him, with duty, religion, the world, till, with almost a groan, burst from his lips:
“Save her? My God! yes, as I hope to be saved!”
The early untainted breeze breathed upon his fevered lips as it rode upon the breast of the coming tide; the stars paled more and more, the faint pearly light in the east became roseate; and at last Arthur Sterne stood gazing up towards the glowing cross of the great cathedral, glittering as it was in the morning sun, while now, weary and jaded, he turned to seek his home, but only to gaze with doubting eyes, for he stood face to face with the woman he had sought through the night.