Volume Three—Chapter Four.
Lucy’s Trouble.
Lucy’s eyes turned very dim as soon as she had passed Mr Sterne, and things wore a strangely blurred aspect. She would have given worlds to have thrown herself upon his breast, and told all—of Agnes Hardon and her sorrow, confided to her alone, as the suffering woman begged of her to love her for her child’s sake, and not to turn upon her the cold bitter eyes of the world at large; and again and again Lucy had taken the passive, wasted, tearful face of Agnes to her breast, in the rare and stealthy meetings they had had, and wept over her, little knowing that Agnes possessed a secret which she felt that she could not divulge for the sake of those whom she had injured. Again and again Lucy had implored her leave to confide in Septimus Hardon, but Agnes had refused so firmly, telling her that the day her presence was betrayed would be that of their last meeting—telling her so angrily, but only to kneel at her feet the next moment, and ask her to bear for a little longer with an erring woman, whose stay in this world might not be for long. And so Lucy toiled on, bearing the scathing breath of calumny; pointed at by suspicion; and wounded again and again in her tenderest feelings by the only man she had ever felt that she could love. They were her own words, poor girl, though little had she seen of the world at large. She told herself that it was cruel of him to treat her as he did; but what could she do? And then she shivered as she thought of stolen meetings by night—meetings which should take place no more—while she wept bitterly as she hurried through the streets thinking of the misery of her lot.
She had no veil to her shabby bonnet, and it was only at last by a strong effort that she forced back the tears; for she felt that people were staring hard at her as she passed. But it was no unusual thing for people to look hard at Lucy Grey, while there was variety in those glances; there were, from women, the glance of envy, the look of sisterly admiration, and that bordering upon motherly love; and there were the hard stare from puppydom, the snobbish ogle, looks of love and respect, every glance that could dart from human eye; but the poor girl hurried on as in a dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but bent upon the object of her journey. It was nothing to her that behind at a few yards’ distance came Mr William Jarker, favouring everyone with a fierce scowl in return for the glances bestowed upon her, as he tracked her with the pertinacity of a bloodhound, turning when she turned, crossing when she crossed. Once only on her way back did Lucy tremble, when a fiercely-bearded, middle-aged dandy half stopped in front of her, so that she was compelled to turn a little out of her path, as with a heightened colour her eyes sunk before the fellow’s insulting stare. But she did not hear his words, as, fervently wishing old Matt were by her side, she hurried on.
It sometimes happens, though, that those who are working for their own devices do us many a good turn; and it was so here, for as the studiously-dressed and bejewelled dandy turned and followed the fair girl, he suddenly became aware of a rough shoulder forcing him aside, when turning angrily, with umbrella raised to strike, he gazed full into the heavy, bull-dog countenance of Mr Jarker, whose white teeth gleamed beneath his flattened nose as though he were preparing to fasten on his victim.
The next moment the lemon-gloved hands were covering chain and pin, and the heavy swell of the London current subsided slowly and disappeared, leaving Lucy unmolested as she hurried on, followed still closely by her self-constituted bodyguard, of whoso presence she was ignorant; while, five minutes after, he made a side-bound into a doorway, where he stood peering round the post and smiling like some hideous satyr of old, as Lucy encountered Agnes Hardon, and stopped in the quiet street where they then were.
The sight must have been very gratifying to Mr Jarker, for he stood leering, and rubbing his soft, whitish hands, pausing every now and then to have a good gnaw at the nails, already nearly worn down to the quick; and then stepping lightly from his concealment, he passed close behind Agnes as she was whispering:
“God bless you! Don’t stay talking to me; go now. I’ll get it away directly he will let me. I have been five times already; but he was either there, or some one of his companions waiting about.”
Mr Jarker gave a short, husky, forced cough as he passed, when, turning hastily, fear and anger seemed to combine in Agnes Hardon’s face, as she caught Lucy’s hands in her own, interposing herself, as if for protection, till Mr Jarker had disappeared, when she hurried her away by another route, and hastily took her leave. But Lucy did not see her troubled, anxious face following at a short distance, and keeping her in sight till she reached the end of the court in time to encounter Mr Sterne, who saw almost at one glance Lucy, with Jarker standing aside to let her pass as he bestowed upon her a familiar smile and nod, and Agnes Hardon some fifty yards beyond, turning hastily and hurrying off; but her he followed angrily, and with a suffocating sensation at his breast, as if he were, knight-errant like, about to attack one of the evil genii who shadowed the life of her he loved. Fifty yards in advance, though, was Agnes, when he commenced following her steps, till a crowd around that common object of our streets, a fallen horse intercepted his view; and, when he had passed the throng, the figure he sought had disappeared.
“O, this weary, weary deceit!” sobbed Lucy, throwing herself on her knees by her bedside and weeping bitterly. Then, sighing, she rose, folded her mantle, and bathed her eyes before going to the sitting-room, where in a few more minutes her sewing-machine was rapidly beating until Septimus came and, with one loving hand laid across her red eyes, took away the candle.
Volume Three—Chapter Five.
Matt’s Discovery.
“Hold hard here!” cried a voice from a cab-window; and the driver of as jangling a conveyance as ever rattled over London stones drew up at the corner of Carey-street, Chancery-lane.
“I’ll get out here,” cried the voice; and very slowly, and with the aid of a stick, old Matt extricated himself from amongst the straw, a part of which he managed to drag out into the road.
The next minute the cabman was paid and had driven off. The boy who, with a basket slung across his back, had stopped to witness the disembarkation, and cut his popular song in half the while, resumed the refrain and went on along the Lane; while, with a smile on his pale face, old Matt slowly made his way down Carey-street, stopping to rest at the first lamp-post.
“Here I am,” he said; “King Space come back to my dominions. I wasn’t going to ride and lose the pleasure of seeing it all. Thank God there’s no whitewash here, and everything’s just as I left it; things looking as if they hadn’t stirred a peg; and I don’t suppose they have, if they haven’t been costs, which certainly do grow and flourish well here. Lord, sir, how beautiful and smoky and natural everything looks once more! There’s Hardon’s old printing-office—ah, to be sure! ‘Grimp, Deeds copied.’ That’s the trade to flourish here. Now then, sir, good-morning! Let’s get on a bit farther.”
According to his old custom, and heedless now of its being broad daylight, Matt made his way slowly to the next post, making his crippled state an excuse now for stopping, though there was hardly a soul to be seen in Carey-street, and those who passed were too intent upon their own affairs to notice him.
“Slow work, sir,” said Matt, stopping again, “glad to see you, though, once more. Thought at one time, if ever I did it would have been upon a cork-leg, sir; for I couldn’t have stood a wooden peg, sir, anyhow; a cork-leg all springs and watchwork, like old Tim Christy’s, as used to squeak with every step he took, just as if, being of cork, someone was trying to draw it; and he never oiled that leg, for fear it should go too easy. But there, I’m all right again,” he continued, taking a pinch of snuff, “and I call this real enjoyment, sir—real enjoyment. Only wait till I’ve put him all right upon that point, and I’ll have a bit of dissipation. Let’s see: the Vice-chancellor will be sitting like a great god, listening to the prayers of the petitioners in Chancery. I’ll have an hour there, sir, and then take a sniff of the ink in one of the old offices; and confound it all, sir, I wish you could join me! I’ll have half-a-pint of porter in Fetter-lane. I’m in for a regular round of dissipation, I am, just to make up for all this being shut up.”
On again went the old man, rather short of breath, till he was well in sight of the hospital at the end of the street; when, raising his eyes just as he was about to stop, he caught sight of a pale, weary face at one of the windows, and shuddered and turned away; but the next moment he had stopped and turned, and was waving a hand to the patient gazing from his prison-window.
“God bless you, mate!” said Matt aloud, “and may you soon be out of it!” And then there was a reply waved to his salute, and the old man turned down the courts to the left, and soon stood in Bennett’s-rents.
“What, Matt!” cried Septimus Hardon, hurrying to open the door as he heard his slow step upon the stairs; while Lucy took the old man’s other hand and helped him to a seat.
“What’s left of me, sir—what’s left,” said the old man cheerily; “and here I am right and clear-headed, and I did see it all, sir: and I’ve recollected it, and got it all put down here, so as you can read it, and safe in my head too. It wasn’t fancy, it was all right; and I did see it, as I told you, in what must have been the old doctor’s books.”
“But where? when?” cried Septimus eagerly.
“And there was the name—‘Mrs Hardon, medicine and attendance, so much;’ but of course I thought nothing of it then.”
“But,” cried Septimus, as he hooked a finger in a button-hole of the old man’s coat, “where was it?”
“Gently, sir, gently,” said Matt, unhooking the finger; “mind what you’re after: stuff’s tender. But there: you’ll fit me out with a new suit when you’re all right—won’t you, sir, eh?”
“A dozen, Matt, a dozen!” cried Septimus eagerly.
“And Miss Lucy here’s to have as full a compassed pianner as can be got, without having one as would burst and break all the strings—eh, miss, eh?”
Lucy smiled sadly.
“But where did you see it, Matt—where was it?” exclaimed Septimus, inking his face in his excitement, and totally destroying his last hour’s work.
“Why, sir, no farther off than at my lodgings,” cried Matt triumphantly. “I did mean to be of use to you if I could, and I’ve lived to do it, sir, and I’m thankful; but come along, sir—come along. I’m weak and poorly yet, and there seems to be a deal of water collected in my system—a sort of dropsy, you know; and it all flies to my eyes on the least provocation, and comes dripping out like that, just as if I was a great gal, and cried, d’ye see?”
There was a tear in Septimus Hardon’s eye as he warmly wrung the old man’s hand, and ten minutes after they were standing in Lower Series—place, with Matt smiling grimly at a freshly-painted set of skeleton old bone letters upon a glossy-black board, announcing “Isaac Gross, Dealer in Marine-stores;” but that was the only alteration visible, for Isaac and the stout lady occupied the same places as of yore, and were at that very moment engaged in an affectionate, smiling game of bo-peep.
“Might have waited for me to dance at the wedding,” muttered Matt.
But there had been very little dancing at the said wedding; while the trip necessary upon such occasions was one made to the Rye House, where Isaac’s attention was principally taken up by the jack-boot shown amongst the curiosities—a boot which filled his imagination for days after, as he sighed and thought of the evanescent nature of his own manufacture.
The greeting was warm on both sides, Isaac smiling at a quicker rate than had ever before been known. But the visitors meant business, and Matt exclaimed:
“Now, Ike, we want to go over the waste-paper.”
Matt was outside as he spoke, and then Mrs Gross, whose head had been stretched out to listen, found that what had been her property was in question, so she cried, “Stop!” and waddled from her seat to where Matt stood, seized him by the arm, and waddled him into Isaac’s workshop, from whence she waddled him into the back-parlour, where his bed, now the only one in the room, was neatly made up, and the place somewhat tidier than of yore, though the waste-paper heap was bigger than ever.
“Now,” said Mrs Gross, with a very fat smile and a knowing twinkle of her eye as she sank her voice to a whisper, “Is it deeds?” and then she looked at Isaac as if for approbation, that gentleman having followed them into the room and being engaged in vain endeavours to thrust a very large finger into his very small pipe-bowl.
“Who married the kitchen-stuff?” shouted a small voice at the door, and Mrs Gross angrily waddled out in pursuit, to the great delight of half a score of the small inhabitants of Serle’s-place, one of whom danced a defiant pas seul in a tray of rusty keys as he fled, laughing the while at the fat threatening hand held up. But Isaac stirred not, from having been accustomed to the gibes of the juveniles of the place, and his skin being too thick for such banderillos as “Waxy,” “Welty,” or “Strap-oil,” to penetrate, so he merely stood wiping his nose upon his leather apron till his partner returned.
“Is it deeds?” whispered Mrs Gross again, and then in a parenthesis, “Drat them boys!”
“No,” said Matt gruffly, “it ain’t.”
“Then it’s bank-bills,” said the lady mysteriously, as she slily winked at everyone in turn, her husband smiling at her acute business perceptions.
“No, nor it ain’t them neither,” said Matt.
“Then it’s a will,” said Mrs Gross in a disappointed tone; “and there ain’t a scrap of that sort in the place, for I sold out last week.”
“’Tain’t a will, I tell you,” growled Matt.
“Then it’s dockymens,” said Mrs Gross triumphantly, and she nudged Matt in the side.
“No it ain’t; nor receipts, nor letters, nor nothing of the kind. If you must know, it’s them old doctor’s books; that’s what it is. Now, where are they?”
But Mrs Gross, though she had not the slightest idea as to what doctor’s books were meant, was not yet satisfied, but cried:
“Halves!”
“What’s halves?” said Matt.
“Why, we goes halves in what turns up,” said Mrs Gross, who had a famous eye for business, though she would keep dimming its...
Some lines missing here from the scans.
“Gross!” cried a sepulchral voice, which made Septimus start, till he found that it had proceeded from Mr Isaac himself, though his face did not betray that he had spoken.
“Gross, then,” growled Matt. “Now look here,” he continued; “it’s nothing but an old entry as I once saw in some doctor’s books on your counter here, and we want to see it; for I hadn’t sense then to know it was any good; but if we find it, and it’s what we want, my guv’nor here will stand a sovereign, I dessay.”
“Put it down on paper, then,” said Isaac, “and make him sign;” to the great admiration of his partner, who patted him upon the back for his display of business ability; and then, before a paper was touched, Septimus Hardon, greatly to Matt’s disgust, signed a promissory and conditional note for the amount named.
“Ikey,” growled Matt, “I didn’t think you had been such a Jew. If you haven’t let my rooms, you can get yourself a fresh tenant.”
But Isaac only smiled, and the task commenced—no light one—of turning over the huge stack of waste-paper piled up before them. Dust, dirt, and mildew; brief-paper, copying-paper, newspaper, old books, old magazines and pamphlets, account-books with covers and account-books without; paper in every phase; while eagerly was everything in the shape of an account-book seized upon, and the search continued until, faint and weary, they had gone through the whole heap, when with a despairing, doleful look Septimus gazed upon Matt.
“I’ll take my Bible oath it was in a book I saw laid upon that heap. Now then, where’s some more?” and the old man said it feebly, as if nearly exhausted.
“No more anywheres,” said Mrs Gross assuringly, as she smoothed her husband’s oily hair.
“Sure?” cried Matt.
Mrs Gross nodded, and retied the ribbon which confined her husband’s locks.
“Where is it, then?” cried Matt.
“Where is it?” repeated Mrs Gross. “Why, if it ain’t here, in this heap, it’s everywheres. It’s sold, and burnt, and wrapped round ’bacca, and butter, and all sorts.”
“Hadn’t we better go, Matt?” whispered Septimus, dreamily washing his hands together after his dry custom.
“S’pose we had,” muttered Matt. “Just, too, sir, as I’d made so sure as it was all coming right, and for the second time, too. Never mind, sir, it’ll all come right yet. Third time never fails. What do you say to hunting up the Miss Thingumy at Finsbury, and hearing what she’s got to say?—plenty, depend upon it. News, perhaps, and it can’t do no harm.”
But Septimus Hardon was in a weary, absent fit, and went away muttering homewards, as, worn-out and weak, Matt sat down upon the waste-paper ruins of the palace he had built in his own mind, and grimly listened to the congratulations of his friends upon his return.
Volume Three—Chapter Six.
Weakness and Strength.
For a good hour together Mr Jarker would rest in a broken-bottomed chair, smoking a short black pipe, his hands supporting his heavy chin, and his elbows making pits in his knees, as, like some hideous old cathedral gargoyle, he sat gazing fixedly at the little wondering face of the child. From time to time he reversed his position to re-refresh himself with a draught of his favourite beverage—gin and beer, a beverage which always produced a loud smack from his thick negro lips. If there was no fascination in the child’s face for Bill Jarker, there was most certainly fascination in the ruffian’s face for the child; and unconsciously imitating his attitude, it would rest its dimply plump cheeks upon its tiny fists, and gaze again wonderingly, without a thought of moving, till the lids slowly sank over the violet eyes, and the little golden-haired, soft, lovable head sank sideways, with all those prettiest of pretty motions seen in one of the most beautiful sights in nature—a child dropping off into its simple trusting sleep of innocence; but soon it would start into wakefulness again, with a frightened air, and its little face drawn and ready to cry; but a glance at the hideous face before it subdued the disposition, and once more the same long, weary gaze commenced.
This took place day after day, and a stranger seeing it might have fancied that in this case innocence was exercising its power over guilt; but one who knew Mr Jarker well would have arrived at the right idea, namely, that this gentleman was making his plans. A pipe or two of tobacco, a pint of beer strengthened with gin, and a long stare at the face of his wife when living, a cat, a dog, or of late the child, had been the preliminaries of more than one desperate burglary in a country place somewhere within a circle of fifty miles’ radius, taking Saint Paul’s as the centre. Bill’s confrères in the bird-catching profession contented themselves with trips countryward to the extent of eight or ten miles; but, though on the whole Bill and his two or three companions caught fewer birds, he never let distance interfere with his pursuits, and used to boast that the birds he netted were of a rarer kind. Bill would travel third-class almost any distance to find good pitches for his nets; and even then, perhaps, after a three or four days’ trip, and returning with hardly a bird, he seemed to be so infatuated with the place and its prospects, that he would gather together his two or three intimates, and go down again, travelling slowly by road, setting off too in such a hurry, in a miserable cart drawn by a wretched-looking hack, that friends and self would entirely forget nets and call-birds, when they would console themselves with the remark that they might take a few nightingales.
So that Mr Jarker was not undergoing a softening process as he sat staring at the child, for he was really making his plans; and this time these plans had nothing to do with either birds or nocturnal visits. There was something particular in Mr Jarker’s head, or else he would not have burdened himself with the child for a single day; while he had carefully retained it in his custody now for many weeks; and the ruffian’s ideas must have been of a somewhat strange character, for now and then he would shake his head at the drowsy child, and say:
“Yes, my little chickin’, you do for a bait.”
So of late, apparently for the sake of the child, Mr Jarker had suffered the bellows; and, in consideration of a small sum weekly, Mrs Sims had sniffed about the room, and, to use her own expressive words, “done for him.” But now, probably from too much spiritual exercise, Mrs Sims was ill, and no one dared go near the ruffian’s room but Lucy, whose heart bled for the little thing. Left still for hours together alone in the dreary room, sometimes but half fed, afraid to do more than whimper softly, her sole amusement was to press her little face against the closed window, and watch until she could catch a glimpse of her neighbour, when the tiny hands would be clapped with glee. The neighbours said it was a shame; but they had their own affairs to attend to, and said no more. While, as might be expected, Lucy seized every opportunity of tending the child most lovingly; watching for Jarker’s absence, and then hurrying up and spending perhaps an hour in the miserable attic.
“She must be ill,” Lucy would think, “or something is wrong; for surely it was fancy on her part that he should wish to retain the child;” and, though anxious that it should be better tended, she looked forward with dread to the time when it should be taken away; while, as anxiously she watched for a visit from Agnes. Night after night the candle burned in her window, as she worked on at some exercise; but Agnes Hardon came not, telling her weary heart that it was for Lucy’s good.
Sometimes Jarker would omit to turn the key he always left in his door, as if to provoke inquiry into his affairs, and to show the guilelessness of his life; and then, after waiting until his footstep became inaudible, the child would steal softly down step by step, fleeing back if she heard a door open or a foot upon the stairs, but only to persevere till, unobserved, she reached the entrance, when, watching till the attention of the children of the court was directed elsewhere, she would dart across the pavement, enter the opposite house, creep up to the first-floor, and then crouch down by the step which led into the front-room, and peer beneath the door, through the opening made by the long hard wear of feet for a century and a half-watching, perhaps for a couple of hours, the bright guiding spirit of the sewing-machine. But at last Lucy would catch sight of the two round bright eyes, peering beneath the door; and to her mother’s great annoyance at one time, and supreme satisfaction upon another, she would fetch in the child, when according to Mrs Hardon’s mood she would act; for if the invalid was fretful and weary, the little thing would be taken up to Jean, where she would stay willingly amongst the birds, as the cripple eagerly tried to be of service to his beautiful neighbour. But there were difficulties here, for Jean could only render this aid when ma mère was absent, though this was more frequently now since Bijou had learned to stand upon his head, and so brought in more remuneration, without taking into consideration his later accomplishment of climbing two chairs, rail by rail, forefeet upon one, hindfeet upon another, and then smoking a tobacco-less pipe in triumph upon the summit, as he spanned the distance between the two chairs, and turned himself into a canine arch. But Bijou doubtless did not enjoy his pipe for remembering how that he was bête, and for thinking of the whip, and the rapping his poor legs received before he was able to obey his mistress’s commands—that is if dogs can think.
There seemed to be a tacit understanding between ma mère and Lucy; an acknowledged dislike upon the old woman’s part, which made the latter carefully avoid her, shrinking back into the room if she heard her footstep, so as not to encounter the quiet bitter smile and sneering gaze of the old woman, while ma mère reviled Jean angrily, calling him nurse-girl, bonne, when by chance she learned of his past occupation. But Jean cared not, so long as there was something that should bring Lucy to his attic, where he could feast greedily upon her bright face and graceful form; and, could he have gone about, he would have followed her like a dog.
Jean’s lark sang more loudly than ever, and Lucy’s eyes had brightened as she told the cripple again and again how she loved its sweet notes; and, watching her press her lips once to the cage-wires, inviting the speckled bird to take a seed from the rosy prison, Jean’s eyes dimmed as he gazed at her with a reverence approaching adoration. Visitor after visitor came to that attic, and went, buying and selling, and the little prisoners were constantly being changed; but the lark was there still, though more than once of late Jean had pressed its acceptance upon Lucy Grey; but with a sweet smile she had thanked him, begging that he would keep it for her sake; and he kept it, in spite of many an angry word from ma mère when some advantageous offer had been made by a visitor; and it still whistled from its perch in the window.
“I will sell the bird myself; it is waste, it is pity, when we are so poor,” ma mère would exclaim; and then Jean would turn upon her a peculiar soft, sweet smile, and whisper, “No, ma mère, you will not sell my bird, because I love it;” when passionately the old woman would now scold, now fondle the cripple, as she hung over the back of his chair.
One evening when the moon hung high in air, waiting the fading of day before shedding her pale light, Jean sat in his usual place in the window, dreaming of scenes of which he had read, and thinking himself in some sweet woodland home, forgetting the presence of squalor and misery, and even of the cages, as he listened to the twittering of the many birds hung around his head. There was a brightness in his eye and a smile upon his lip, for he was gazing across the court at just such a scene as once almost spellbound the curate. Merrily romping with the child, he could see Lucy in Jarker’s room, flitting backwards and forwards past the open window. The child’s happy laugh could be heard mingled with its shouts of pleasure, for the pent-up joyousness of its little nature was now having free vent.
All at once Jean’s look of quiet enjoyment changed to one of unutterable rage and despair; the lips, but now apart in a soft smile, were drawn, as if by some fearful pain, his teeth were clenched, and his eyes wild and dilated. He tried to rise, but his helplessness was such that he sank back in his chair panting; but, raising his crutch, he struck savagely on the casement, shivering two or three of the little panes. He tried again and again to get up, and inarticulate sounds came from his lips. It was pitiful to gaze upon the struggle between the strong mind and the weak body, which would not obey his will as he tried again to rise; till, with a savage, guttural cry, more like that of some disappointed beast of prey than a human being, he threw himself towards the open window, as in his efforts his chair was overturned and he fell upon the floor, where he lay agonisingly writhing in his impotence, as he absolutely foamed at the mouth.
Just then the door behind him opened, and, with a book beneath his arm, Mr Sterne entered the room; when seeing, as he thought, the cripple in a fit, he sprang forward and raised him in his arms to place him in a chair, at the same time running over in his own mind what would be the best course of action. But as he gazed in the poor fellow’s dilated eyes, and saw their look of unutterable despair, one of Jean’s hands was fiercely clutching his shoulder, and the other was pointing and waving frantically towards the open window.
The next instant, as if some strange suspicion had flashed upon his mind, the curate was gazing across the court, to utter almost the counterpart of the cry that had issued from the throat of Jean, as he caught sight of Lucy, frightened and horror-stricken, backing towards the room door, and Jarker, evidently half-mad with drink, holding her tightly by one arm; for he had returned unexpectedly, and taking advantage of the girl’s preoccupation, had stolen softly into the room and closed the door.
Arthur Sterne saw this at one glance, and his face turned pale as ashes with the thoughts that this hasty look engendered. The next moment he had half-climbed from the window and stood holding by one hand, measuring the distance across the court, as he stooped, lithe and elastic, ready for the bound; but reason told him that it was utter madness to attempt so wild a leap—a leap certainly death for himself, and probably worse than death for her he sought to save; and dashing back into the room he tore down the staircase.
Recovering somewhat, Jean now let himself slide down upon the floor, and, panting heavily, began to walk painfully across the room; for a moment he looked at the window, but the next he was making for the door, and then lowering himself from stair to stair. But before he was down the first flight, there was rescue at hand for Lucy. Bounding up the frail old staircase of the opposite house, Arthur Sterne dashed frantically on, so that at every leap the woodwork cracked and trembled as if ready to give way. The height never seemed so great before, as landing after landing was passed, till he reached the last, to launch himself against the frail door, which, driven from its hinges, fell with a crash; and the next moment, dropping like some inert mass from the blow which fell upon his face, Jarker made the old place quiver beneath his weight. And there he lay, stupid and helpless from the sudden shock; the effect of the blow being apparently enough to destroy life, for the ruffian did not move.
Hardly breathing, and uttering no sound, the child crouched fearfully in a corner; while Lucy, trembling and half-fainting, clung to the curate, as sob after sob burst from her breast; and at last, as if stricken by death, she sank back pale and inanimate upon his supporting arm.
But there were no looks of love in Arthur Sterne’s face; for, with brow knit, nostrils distended, and every vein in his face swollen and knotted, he stood with his heel crushed down upon Jarker’s bull-throat, no mean incarnation of vengeance. Soon, though, the breath he had drawn with difficulty as he stood there holding the fainting girl to his throbbing heart, came more lightly, the expression of rage fled from his features, and as he gazed tenderly upon the pale face so near his own he pressed his lips reverently upon her forehead.
“Lucy, my poor dove,” he whispered, “will you not give me the right to protect you, and take you from this place?”—“Our beauty, some of us,” seemed sighed at his ear.
“A lie, a base lie!” he muttered fiercely; though even then a change came over his face, the veins swelled once more in his forehead, and an agony of strange thoughts passed through his breast. And now, pale and anxious, two or three of the women lodgers came trembling to the door, amongst whom was Mrs Sims, ready to take possession of the child, as, hurriedly passing through the wondering group, the curate bore his light burden to her home.
Volume Three—Chapter Seven.
A Meeting and its Result.
It was late before Arthur Sterne left Bennett’s-rents that night. Septimus Hardon had been terribly excited—talking long and wildly of his poverty being the cause of the insult offered to his child. He had walked hurriedly up and down the room, gesticulating and threatening the scoundrel who had so repaid Lucy’s kindness; and again and again it was upon the curate’s lips to speak of the little one, and of Lucy’s strange intimacy with its mother; but his spirit revolted from the task. In another case he would have spoken instantly; but here duty seemed to move in fetters that he could not break. In all concerning the poor girl he seemed bound to preserve silence till such time as some explanation should be given, and through all he had been in constant dread lest he should give her pain.
“I must prosecute the villain!” exclaimed Septimus.
“But the pain—the exposure—your child?” said the curate.
“What! would you have him go unpunished?” exclaimed Septimus.
“I would say ‘No!’ directly,” replied the curate; “but I cannot help thinking of the painful scene in court, the public examination, and the cross-examination by the prisoner’s counsel; and these men can always among themselves manage to get some able person to undertake their cause. It would be a most painful position in which to place your child. Her actions would be distorted to suit a purpose; and such a scene—”
Mr Sterne’s speech dwindled off, and became inaudible; for he felt that he had spoken unadvisedly, and a strange chill came over him as he thought, in the event of the affair being in court, what hold the opposing counsel could take of certain acts in Lucy’s life; for, let them he ever so innocent, the light in which they would place her would be of the most painful character; and his lips were rather white as he said, “Sleep on it, Mr Hardon, sleep on it.”
“I will,” said Septimus proudly. “We are poor, Mr Sterne; but there is no act in my dear child’s life that will not bear the light of day.”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” replied the curate in a low tone; “but, believe me, my advice is given with the best of wishes and intentions, Mr Hardon. Have I not always tried to be a friend? And if there was somewhat of selfishness in my advances, I feel no shame in owning to you that I am moved by a feeling of more than esteem for Miss Grey; to whom any proceedings would, I am sure, be as painful as to myself.”
Septimus Hardon started, for this was as sudden as unexpected. Such a thought had never entered his breast, and he gazed wonderingly at the calm, pale face before him; as in the silence which ensued they both sat listening to the painful, low sob which came now and again from the next room, where, forgetful of her own infirmities, Mrs Hardon had been trying to soothe the agitated girl.
And then, hour after hour, Septimus sat talking with Mr Sterne—for the first time now giving himself up entirely to his advice, and promising to give up all thought of prosecution, while he sought at once for some more suitable home for his wife and child, though, as he thought of his narrow, precarious income, he made the latter promise with a sigh. He talked long and earnestly, too, about his own affairs, being ready now to take the counsel that Mr Sterne so freely offered; and when, with a lighter heart, the curate rose to leave, Septimus shook hands, with a puzzled expression upon his face, as if he hardly believed in the events of the past evening.
Upon slowly descending and reaching the door, Mr Sterne drew back, asking himself whether he should be content, or seize the opportunity that now offered for him to know that of which it was evident, from his language, Septimus Hardon was still ignorant. The desire was strong to know more, and he yielded to it; for there before him, standing in the open court, and gazing anxiously up at the lighted window, was the woman who had caused him so much uneasiness; but neither he nor the woman saw that in the shade of the opposite doorway a villainous pair of eyes were on the watch.
Again and again he had encountered this woman since he had determined to question her—upon the bridge at early dawn; by night, in the crowded streets, dressed in the extreme of fashion; shabbily dressed by day; but she always fled, and contrived to elude him. Who was she? What was she? How came she intimate with Lucy? Was it merely for the child’s sake? Then why Lucy’s dread?
The opportunity was here, he told himself, and he would know; and then, as he formed the determination, he stepped quickly out; but no sooner did Agnes Hardon catch sight of the curate’s pale, stern face by the sickly flicker of the one lamp than she turned and fled, while, without pausing to think, the curate closed the door and pursued her.
A dark, gusty time, late, for two had struck but a minute before by church after church—some sending their booming announcement clearly out upon the night air, others discordantly, and jangling with the bells of others. Turning towards the end of the court, Agnes ran swiftly, her dress rustling, and fashionable boots pattering upon the pavement; but her pursuer was quick of foot, and followed her along the end row, through Harker’s-alley, Ray’s-court, along one labyrinth and down another of the old district, now falling beneath the contractor’s pick, till they had nearly returned to the point from whence they started. But flight was of no avail, and soon Arthur Sterne overtook the panting woman, himself breathless, and, heedless of her fierce looks, caught her by the wrist.
“Come with me,” he said sternly, as he drew her towards the entrance of the dark court where they stood.
“Why, why?” she exclaimed passionately, struggling with him the while. “Why do you stop me? Why do you pursue me—you, too, a clergyman?”
The answer to the taunt was a cold look, which Agnes Hardon saw and felt; for the next moment she was weeping passionately. “Why do you track and follow me, sir?” she exclaimed through her tears. “Let me go; you hurt my arm!”
“Will you stand and answer my questions, then?” said the curate, as they now stood at the entrance of the court—a dark, gloomy archway, with a doorway here and there.
“Yes, yes,” exclaimed Agnes wearily, “if you will be quick; but there, I know what you would say, and it is of no use; I am past all that!”
“Past all what?” cried the curate sternly.
“Hope of better things,” said the woman with so weary and despondent a wail, that her hearer shuddered.
“Hush!” he said; “you speak rashly, and without thinking;” and releasing her wrist, he laid his hand gently upon her arm. “Listen,” he said; “you have your woman’s feelings yet!”
“No,” she replied hastily, “all—all gone; driven out of me—dead. Let me go, please; it’s late, sir. I am a wretch, and it is useless to talk.”
“But why do you pursue that young girl?” he said, pointing across the street to where Bennett’s-rents debouched. “Would you tempt her to be your companion?”
“No, no, no; my God, no!” half-shrieked Agnes, as she caught at his hands; “don’t think that, sir.”
“Then you have some womanly feeling left,” said Mr Sterne.
“Towards her, perhaps, yes.”
“And your child?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” wailed Agnes; “but don’t torture me. What do you know?—what do you wish me to do?—why do you follow me?”
“What is your name?” said the curate sternly; “and how came you to know her?” and he pointed again towards Bennett’s-rents.
“Don’t ask me, I cannot tell you,” sobbed Agnes.
“But you bring misery on her and on her home. You have some hold upon her?”
“No, no, no,” sobbed Agnes hysterically; “none, none; but she knows who I am, and pities me and my poor child. God’s blessing on her!”
“Amen!” muttered the curate under his breath, and his companion sobbed so convulsively that she could not speak, while, as they stood in the dark entry, a policeman came slowly by, flashed the light of his bull’s-eye upon them for an instant, recognised the curate and passed on, and, till he was out of hearing, Agnes Hardon clutched the curate’s arm.
“You are not afraid of the world and it’s opinions,” she said bitterly; “it cannot hurt you. Stay with me and I will tell you all, for I believe you mean me well.”
The curate bowed his head.
“I am miserable, wretched,” she sobbed, “and what can I do? That man in the court has my poor child, and for some reason he will not give it up. I have tried to get it away again and again, even to stealing it, sir—my own little one; but something has always prevented me, and he watches me till, hardened as I am, I am afraid of him, for he comes over my spirit like the shadow of some great horror about to crush me. I love my child, my pure little angel, for—O sir, have pity on me, have pity!—I am its mother, and what else have I here to cling to? Can you not think how I must love it though I left it with that poor dead woman? But she had a mother’s heart, and was kind to it always. I could see it in my darling’s blue eyes even when it racked my heart; but I was glad, though it would not come to me, and called her mother. I was happy then, for did not she—she you say I injure—watch over it for me, and tell me of its bright eyes and sunny hair and winning ways, while, when I have listened to her, the tears have come gently to quench the fire in my brain, and I could think of home and the past, while she—she who loves my little one—lets me weep upon her breast, and I forget for a while that I am lost, lost, lost for ever!”
“Lost, lost, lost for ever!” She uttered these words so hopelessly, with such a wail of agony, that they seemed to echo along the archway, and to float off upon the night breeze, rising and falling, an utterance never to fade away, but to go on for ever and ever while this world lasts; to smite upon the sleeping ears of the cruel, the dissolute, and the profligate; to awaken here, perhaps, one sorrowful thought for wrong done, one thought of repentance; there, a desire to pause, ere it be too late, on the brink of some iniquity that should break a trusting woman’s heart.
Tenderly, and with such a strange feeling of compassion in his heart as might have pervaded that of his Master whose words he taught, Arthur Sterne took the weeping woman’s hands in his, as, sobbing more bitterly than ever, she sank upon her knees on the cold stones at his feet, weeping as though her heart would break; nay, as if through the torn walls of that broken citadel the flood of tears went seething and hissing, the ruins yet smouldering and burning with the fire of the fatal passion that had been their fall.
“What shall I do, sir?” she cried at length, wearily looking up in the face that bent over her. “I would take my little one away and go near the place no more, for I have been seldom lately, not liking that he should see me with her, for he followed us once, and I did not like it. I would have told her not to go near my child, but there is a woman sometimes there. He will not let me take it away. But tell me what to do, sir,” she said wearily, “and I will do it.”
“What!” she cried, starting up, “what!” she half-shrieked, as he related to her the incident of the past night; “and this through me? Am I to bring misery everywhere? O God, O God!” she cried, “that my weakness, my sin, should be ever growing and bringing its misery upon others! But stop, sir; listen,” she exclaimed huskily, as she clung to his arm; “what shall we do? If I could have seen this, sir, I’d have died sooner than it should have happened; believe me, I would.”
The curate bent his head once more, as they stood facing the street, and said, in low, impressive tones, “I do believe you;” but he took no heed to a light, stealthy pace in the alley behind.
“What shall I do, sir?” cried Agnes eagerly.
“Take the child away at once,” replied Mr Sterne, “and leave this life. But will you?”
“If the gates of heaven were opened, sir, and One said, ‘Come in, poor sinner, and rest,’ should I go?”
The stealthy step came nearer, but was unnoticed.
“Now tell me your name, and how came the intimacy of which I complain,” said Mr Sterne.
“I—I knew the family; I knew Lucy—Miss Grey—before her father—and—pray, pray ask me no more,” gasped Agnes appealingly. “I will do all you wish, sir. Help me to get my child, and I will go anywhere you may tell me; but don’t ask me that, sir.”
“Nay,” said Mr Sterne, with beating heart, for he felt that her reply would drive away his last doubt, “tell me now; you may trust me.”
“Yes, yes,” sobbed Agnes; “I know, but I cannot.”
The step sounded very close now, while the light from the lamp in the alley was for a moment obscured.
“I will do all that you ask,” sobbed Agnes. “Tell me what else you wish, and I will be as obedient as a child, but—”
“Prove it, then, by telling me how began your intimacy with Miss—”
There was a wild scream from Agnes Hardon as she thrust the curate aside; but too late, for a heavy, dull blow from behind crushed through his hat, and stretched him upon the pavement, where, for an instant, a thousand lights seemed dancing before his eyes, and then all was blank.
It was no unusual sound that, a woman’s shriek, especially the half-drunken cry of some street wanderer; but one window was opened, and a head thrust out, whose owner muttered for a moment and then closed the sash, for though he had seen a woman struggling with a man, he did not hear the words that passed, nor could he see that the man was trying hard to extricate himself from the woman’s grasp; but there were other wakeful eyes upon the watch.
Volume Three—Chapter Eight.
Waste-Paper.
“Well, yes, sir,” said Matt, standing hat in hand, “’tis snug and comfortable, sir; and I’m glad to see the change, and I’m sure I wish you long life to enjoy it. Glad you’ve got here all right, sir; and sorry I was too weak to help you move. I’ve got the address down all right in my memo-book: look here, sir—150 Essex-street, Strand, sir.”
“And now we’ll go, then, Matt,” said Septimus, rising.
“Go, sir?” said Matt.
“Yes,” said Septimus, “if you will; for the thing has been too long neglected already.”
“Very true, sir,” said Matt: “but you told me as the parson, sir, Mr Sterne, was going to take it in hand; and if so—”
“Now, Matt,” said Septimus appealingly, “isn’t he lying upon a bed of sickness, weak and helpless, and unable to move?”
“Well, yes, sir, that’s true; and a rum start that was, too. Wonder who would have a spite against him? But I thought that now, sir, as you’d—”
Septimus Hardon took the old man by the arm and placed him in a chair; for it was evident that he was a little testy and jealous of other interposition in the matters in which he had taken so much interest; but the cordiality of Mrs Septimus seemed to chase it away; while Lucy, returning from a walk, beamed so happily upon the old man, that he looked his old self again, and owned to the feeling that, as he expressed it, he had expected that he was going to be “pitched overboard,” now there were new friends.
It was partly by Mr Sterne’s advice that Septimus had sought out and asked Matt to accompany him this day; for though much hurt, and weak from loss of blood, the curate had taken great interest in the future of the Hardon family. At his request Septimus had sought and removed to lodgings in Essex-street, and since then passed an evening by the curate’s bedside; for he had been found by a policeman perfectly insensible, and carried home; and, though nearly certain of who was his assailant, he felt indisposed to take any steps in the matter for fear that affairs might be made public which he wished concealed. He had not seen Lucy since; but somehow there was a feeling of repose and content within his breast that it had not known for months; and he longed for the time when he could again meet with the woman whose words would have, he now felt, set him at rest for ever.
There seemed, too, a brightness in Lucy foreign to her looks, as Septimus leaned over her and whispered a few words before leaving; then, after kissing her tenderly, he descended to the street with old Matt, who, though weak, still refused sturdily every offer of a ride, and they trudged steadily on till they reached Finsbury.
“Hallo!” said Matt, “what d’ye call this? Same name, but the business is changed, and that’s her a-cutting up paper. To be sure—why it is her! I thought I knew her face, but I was in such a muddle just then that all my letter was mixed, and whenever I wanted a p, I got a q, and all on like that. Why, she came and chattered away, and bought an old set of tobacco-jars and covers and a heap of waste-paper of Mother Slagg, just before I went into hospital; and there they are, sir—that’s them, fresh varnished and painted, and stuck on the shelf. Ikey took ’em home for her, and I remember asking myself ever so long as to where I’d seen her before. Well, come on, sir. I want a bit of snuff, so that’s an excuse for going in. P’r’aps, after all, she’s bought the very paper.”
The visitors made their way into the old formal registry-office, turned into a very smart little shop, fitted up with some taste; where Miss Tollicks herself was busily weighing and packing a pile of those little rolls of tobacco known as “screws.” Fine thick paper, too, she was using, such as would weigh well and add to the rather fine profit she obtained upon her fragrant weed. For there was no mistake: Miss Tollicks had executed her threat, turned the registering out of doors, and taken to the business most popular in the streets of London. No seat now existed for maids to sit and wait to be hired from ten to four; no green baize; no intense air of respectability, but all quite the correct thing as established by custom in the weedy way. There was a monster cigar outside, set perpendicularly, with an internal gas-jet, and a transparency bearing the legend, “Take a light.” On the other side of the door was a little, freshly-varnished, red-nosed, chip-elbowed Scotchman, taking snuff in the imperfect tense, with his fingers half-way to his nose; an imitation roll of tobacco hung over the door; while just inside, upon a tub, stood a small black gentleman in a very light feather petticoat, smoking a pipe about double the length of his body. Then there were clay pipes, crossed and tied into diamond-pattern d’oyleys, swung in the top panes of the windows; while beneath them “so gracefully curled” a perfect anaconda of a hookah—one that it would have taken a bold Turk to smoke. There were meerschaums and brier-roots, cutty- and billiard-pipes; glass, cherry, and jasmine stems; tobacco-pouches of india-rubber, looking like fresh-flayed negro-skin; snuff-boxes of all sorts and sizes, embracing miniature, scene, and tartan of every pattern; stacks of cigar-boxes carefully branded but very European in their look; bundles of cigars tied with fancy ribbon; the day’s playbills on the walls; rows of snuff- and tobacco-jars, as pointed out by Matt, and labelled from “Scotch” to “Hardham’s 37,” and from “Returns” to “Latakia.” There was a whole tubful of odorous shag, and a stack of packets of Bristol bird’s-eye; the scales were of the glossiest, the glass-case of the cleanest, and altogether the shop owned by Miss Tollicks seemed to be of the most prosperous; for things looked smart and well attended to—a rare sign of plenty of business, as, according to the old saying, “the less there is to do, the worse it is done;” but there was a strong smell of varnish, and it was evident that Miss Tollicks had been picking up her fittings here and there at various secondhand stores, or, as Matt Space called it, “on the cheap.”
Matt advanced to the counter and asked for his penn’orth of snuff.
“Then you’re not dead!” exclaimed Miss Tollicks, putting down the jar in a most businesslike way, with motions rapid as her speech; for she had banished the black-velvet blackbird and deportment along with the green baize; but, not quite used to her business, in spite of her ability of adapting herself to circumstances, she sneezed loudly as she lifted the lid. “And how do you do?—there, dear me, how I do sneeze!—and I thought I had quite conquered it, for it does look so—tchisher-er—so—er-tchisher! There, I’m sure I beg your pardon. And how do you do? and you’ve got well again, like poor Mary did, in that horrible place, who was dying too, and didn’t. And Mr Harding too! and I’m so glad to see you, for you were that kind to me, I don’t know what I should have done else. Now you’ve come to ask me about the doctor again—now haven’t you?”
Septimus said he had.
“Well, now, I hadn’t forgotten it, and you were both right, you know; but I shall never forget your kindness, Mr Harding, for but for you that day, everyone must have seen that I had been crying. But you were right; and the doctor did live here, and died here too, ages ago; and then his widow went to live somewhere in one of those quiet streets by the Strand, going down to the river, you know; and then she died, and there was a sale, and that’s all; and it isn’t much, is it?”
Septimus said it was not, certainly.
“But then, you know,” said Miss Tollicks, “it’s no use to try and make more of things of that sort, is it? No, he didn’t know the street, nor anything more about it, for he bought the lease of the house of someone else.”
As for Matt, he did not speak, but took snuff ferociously, and glared at the paper squares upon the counter.
“But there, do come in,” cried Miss Tollicks; “and, dear me, Mr—Mr—I don’t know your name, but don’t, pray, take snuff like that; you’ll make yourself ill. But there, do come in;” and in spite of refusals Miss Tollicks soon had her visitors seated in her bower, in company with a spirit-bottle and a couple of tumblers and sugar, a tiny kettle upon the fire singing merrily.
“I do suffer so from spasms,” said Miss Tollicks as she placed the suspicious-looking spirit-bottle upon the table; but all these preparations were not made at once, for, from her many pops in and out of the shop, and the rattling of the scales, it was evident that Miss Tollicks had chosen the right business at last, and was prospering famously. The decanter was brought out of a Berlin-wool-worked overgrown dice-box on one side of the fire, the glasses from its ditto on the other, the kettle out of a window-locker, and divers other ways of economising space were shown; while the visitors were informed that so much of the house was let off. “It all helps so,” said Miss Tollicks; “for London rents are enough to kill you; and you doing nothing but feed your landlord.”
Old Matt grunted acquiescence.
“Now one each, please,” said Miss Tollicks, “just to be sociable; and then you can speak up for the quality of my goods. How do you find the snuff, Mr —?”
“Space, ma’am,” said Matt. “Good; very good, ma’am, but not durable.”
“That’s right,” exclaimed Miss Tollicks, as she pressed the two mild Havannas she had brought in upon her visitors. “Don’t mind me, pray—I am trying to get used to smoke as well as snuff.”
Septimus and Matt were both non-smokers, but as they exchanged glances they came to the conclusion that they could extinguish their cigars as soon as they were outside. So Septimus set the example, with a very ludicrous cast of countenance, by placing the little vegetable roll in his mouth, and Miss Tollicks tore off a piece of paper from a square on the counter, doubled, lit, and handed it to the smoker.
Septimus Hardon’s face was a regular study as Matt, grumbling to himself, “Why didn’t she make it snuff?” watched him trying to light his cigar—a new feat to him entirely.
“The other end first, sir,” growled Matt; and in a rather confused way Septimus made the requisite alteration, and then sucked and puffed so vigorously that he extinguished the light, which he re-lit at the fire. But the next moment his face changed from one of comical resignation to a state of intense wonder, as old Matt, under the excuse of helping himself to a light, was turning over some leaves of a heap of waste-paper on a chair by the door.
Suddenly Septimus dashed the lighted paper upon the table, hurriedly extinguishing it with trembling hands, but not without oversetting his glass of spirits-and-water.
“What is the matter? Have you burnt yourself?” cried Miss Tollicks.
“Is it, sir?” cried old Matt, reaching across the table.
But Septimus Hardon did not move for a few seconds, but stood with his hands pressed down over the roughly-folded piece of paper, into which the spirits-and-water was now soaking, as it made a way between his fingers.
“Why didn’t I give you a splint!” exclaimed Miss Tollicks, whose mind was full of goose-grease, starch-powder, and cotton-wool. “Is it very bad?”
But Septimus Hardon did not speak, only slowly and with palsied hands unfolded the soaked paper; but even then he could hardly read it for the mist that swam before his eyes. Old Matt, though, not to be behindhand, pulled out his glasses, and stretched out his hand to reach the paper; but Septimus shrank back, and then read with difficulty, for the ink had begun to look blurred with the wet:
S. Hardon,
Medicine and at-dance 2.
And that was all. Septimus turned it over carefully and found a list of names, but no other entry; there was a figure, part of a date evidently, at one edge, but it was charred, and as he touched it and held it towards the window it crumbled away into brown tinder. He read the entry again and again, and then looked at the ashes of the paper to see if anything could be made of them. Then, as if for a forlorn hope, he turned to his hostess, saying in a strange, husky voice:
“The date’s burnt off. Where did you get this?”
“O, what have I done?” exclaimed Miss Tollicks. “What is the matter?”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Septimus, looking in a dreary, bewildered way at Matt. “It’s of no use; it’s my usual ill luck, and it’s of no use to fight against it.”
“I never saw such a thing in my life!” cried Matt, bringing his fist down upon the table so that the glasses jumped again. “Put it in a book, and no one would believe it: and yet there it is. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I had not seen it with my own eyes.”
“But where is the piece you tore it from?” exclaimed Septimus, trembling still.
“To be sure!” cried Matt exultingly. “But I was right—I did see it, and she bought it, and Ikey brought it here, and it’ll all come right yet.—Where’s the piece you tore it from, ma’am?” and he again greatly endangered Miss Tollicks’ glasses by thumping the table.
Miss Tollicks hastily produced the other half of the square of paper; but on one side the list of names was continued, while upon the other there was the tail of a flourish, the tops of a few letters, and the rest was blank.
“Have you any more of these sheets—these book-leaves?” exclaimed Septimus; when Miss Tollicks hastily took up the little heap on the chair by the door, the same that had excited Matt’s curiosity, and into which he had been quietly peering.
“Those are not the same,” said Septimus despondently; “this is thicker.”
“Yes,” said Miss Tollicks dolefully, as she examined the few remaining squares upon the counter; “these are all different, too, and I don’t know how that scrap came to be left. I used all that thick paper first, because it weighed well, and I used it for screws.”
“But,” stammered Septimus, “it is a part of the very man’s books—the very man who lived here, and about whom we came to ask you.”
“Bless me!” said Miss Tollicks dolefully, “and I’ve been letting it go for weeks past in screws to the Sun, and the Green Dragon, and the Duke.”
“But let’s see if there’s any more,” said Matt. “A leaf would almost do all we want if it has only got the right dates.”
Matt’s advice was taken: screws were examined, turned over, unrolled; the tied-up squares of paper were looked at; Matt went down upon his knees behind the counter and routed about amongst some rubbish; the squares freshly cut up were looked over; and then once more the heap on the chair in the room was scanned, leaf by leaf, but only one more fragment was found, evidently a portion of the same book; but it bore a date four years prior to the marriage of Septimus Hardon’s parents.
“Makes worse of it,” muttered old Matt to himself; “but perhaps he was only a young doctor, and one book lasted him a long time. S’pose we go and have a look round at some of the publics,” he said aloud, “eh, sir?”
Septimus jumped at the suggestion, and together they noted down the names of Miss Tollicks’ principal customers for screws, for she said that she was sure the thick paper had been used entirely for that purpose; but on making inquiry at the different pewter-covered bars, one and all of the stout gentlemen in shirt-sleeves and short white aprons declared that they were sold out, and could have got rid of “twiced as much.”
“I suppose,” said Septimus to one red-faced gentleman, “it would be of no use to ask you who bought the screws?”
The man stood, and softly rubbed with a strange rasping noise his well-shorn range of stubble on chin and cheek; then pulled open the screw-drawer, looked in it, then at the counter, then at Septimus, as if doubtful of his sanity, and said:
“Well, no, sir, I don’t think as it would.”
They returned to the little tobacconist’s shop, Septimus holding tightly to the newly-found scrap of paper. And yet it was useless—waste-paper; no more. There could be no doubt about it’s being the entry made when he saw the light; but now it was found, with his own hand he had destroyed the most precious part, for without date it was of no avail.
Septimus Hardon felt sick at heart when he again sat down in Miss Tollicks’ room, and gazed with woebegone looks in his companion’s face. The prize as it were within his reach; his old troubles swept away; his legitimacy proved—the cup almost at his lips, and then dashed away. It was in vain that Miss Tollicks vented her well-meant platitudes, and shone with hospitable warmth; Septimus Hardon seemed crushed, and Matt had scarcely a word to say.
“Have a little more sugar,” said Miss Tollicks to the man of the bitter cup. “What a tiresome world this is! And only to think of me buying that very paper, and the great dirty ruffian of a man bringing it home, and wanting to buy half-a-pound of tobacco before I began business and had a license; and then asking me if I had any old boots, while he chipped two of the jars shamefully.”
“Only think,” muttered old Matt as they went slowly homewards, “for me to have had that entry under my very nose, and then only turned it up and wouldn’t look at it.”