When the professor called upon Angela that same Sunday morning and requested an interview, she perceived that something serious was intended. He had on, as if for an occasion, a new coat with a flower in the buttonhole, a chrysanthemum. His face was extremely solemn, and his fingers, which always seemed restless and dissatisfied unless they were making things disappear and come again, were quite still.
Certainly, he had something on his mind.
The drawing-room had one or two girls in it, who were reading and talking, though they ought to have been in church—Angela left their religious duties to their own consciences. But the dining-room was empty and the interview was held there.
The professor had certainly made up in his own mind exactly what was going to be said: he had dramatized the situation—a very good plan if you are quite sure of the replies; otherwise, you are apt to be put out.
"Miss Kennedy," he began, with a low voice, "allow me, first of all, to thank you for your great kindness during a late season of depression."
"I am very glad it is a late season," said Angela; "that means, I presume, that the depression has passed away."
"Quite, I am glad to say; in fact," the professor laughed cheerfully, "I have got engagements from now to nearly the end of April in the country, and am in treaty for a West-End engagement in May. Industry and application, not to speak of talent, will make their way in the long run. But I hope I am none the less grateful to you for your loan—let me call it a loan—when things were tight. I assure you, Miss Kennedy, that the run into the country, after those parish registers, was as good as a week's engagement, simple as it looked, and as for that Saturday night for your girls——"
"O Professor, we were agreed that it should appear to be given by you for nothing."
"Never mind what it was agreed. You know very well what was paid for it. Now, if it hadn't been for that night's performance and that little trip into the country, I verily believe they would have had to send for a nice long box for me—a box that can't be palmed, and I should have gone off in it to a country where perhaps they don't care for conjuring."
"In that case, professor, I am very glad to have been of help."
"And so," he went on—following the programme he had laid down in his own mind—"And so I came here to-day to ask if your interest in conjuring could be stimulated to a professional height."
"Really, I do not know. Professional? You mean——"
"Anybody can see that you've showed an interest in the subject beyond what is expected or found in women. What I came here to-day for is to ask whether you like the conjurer well enough to take to conjuring?"
Angela laughed and was astonished, after being told by Daniel Fagg that he would honor her by making her his wife, but for certain reasons of age. Now, having became hardened, it seemed but a small thing to receive the offer of a conjurer, and the proposal to join the profession.
"I think it must be the science, professor," she said; "yes, it must be the science that I like so much. Not the man who exhibits his skill in the science. Yes, I think of your admirable science."
"Ah," he heaved a deep sigh, "you are quite right, miss; science is better than love. Love! What sort of a thing is that, when you get tired of it in a month? But science fills up all your life: people are always learning—always."
"I am so glad, professor, that I can agree with you entirely."
"Which makes me bolder," he said, "because we could be useful to each other, without pretending to be in love, or any nonsense of that sort."
"Indeed. Now, I shall be very pleased to be useful to you without, as you say, any foolish pretence or nonsense."
"The way is this: you can play, can't you?"
"Yes."
"And sing?"
"Yes."
"Did you ever dance in tights?"
"No, I never did that."
"Ah, well—it's a pity; but one can't expect everything. And no doubt you'd take to it easy. They all do. Did you ever sing on the stage—at a music-hall, I mean?"
"No. I never did."
"There was a chap—but I suppose he was a liar—said you used to sing under an electric light at the Canterbury, with a character dance, and a topical song, and a kick up at the finish."
"Yes, professor. I think that 'chap' must certainly be written down a liar. But go on."
"I told him he was, and he offered to fight me for half a crown. When I said I'd do it, and willingly, for a bob, he went away. I think he's the fellow Harry Goslett knocked down one night. Bunker put him up to it. Bunker doesn't like you. Never mind him. Look here, now."
"I am looking as hard as I can."
"There's some things that bring the money in, and some that don't. Dressmaking don't; conjurin' does."
"Yet you yourself, professor—"
"Why," he asked, "because I am only four-and-twenty, and not much known as yet. Give me time; wait. Lord! to see the clumsy things done by the men who've got a name. And how they go down; and a child would spot the dodge! Now, mark my words—if you go in with me, there's a fortune in it."
"For your sake, I am glad to hear it; but it must be without me."
"It is for your sake that I tell you of it."
He was not in love at all. Love and science have never yet really composed their differences; and there was not the least dropping of his voice, or any sign of passion in his speech.
"For your sake," he repeated. "Because, if you can be got to see your way as I see it, there's a fortune for both of us."
"Oh!"
"Yes: now, miss, listen. Conjuring, like most things, is makin' believe and deceivin'. What we do is, to show you one thing and to do another. The only thing is, to do it so quick that it shan't be seen even by the few men who know how it is done. No woman yet was ever able to be a conjurer, which is a rum thing, because their fingers do pretty for music, and lace-work, and such. But for conjurin', they haven't the mind. You want a man's brain for such work."
"I have always," said Angela, "felt what poor, weak things we are, compared with men."
"Yes, you are," continued the professor gallantly. "But you do have your uses in the world—most things have. Now, as a confederate or assistant, there's nobody like a woman. They do what they are told to do. They are faithful over the secrets. They learn their place on the platform and they stay there. Some professors carry about a boy with them. But you can't place any real trust in a boy; he's always up to tricks, and if you wallop him—likely as not, next night he'll take and spoil your best trick out of revenge. Some have a man to help, but then he learns the secrets and tries to cut you out; but with a woman you're always pretty safe. A daughter's best; because then you pocket all the money yourself. But a wife is next best so long as she keeps steady and acts on the square."
"I never thought of it before," said Angela, "but I suppose it is as you say, and the real object for which women were created must have been the assistance of conjurers."
"Of course," said the professor, failing to see the delicate sarcasm of this remark—"of course. What better thing could they do? Why, here you sit slaving all day long, and all the year round; and what are you the better for it? A bare living—that's all you get out of it. Whether you go into shops, behind a bar, or into the workroom, it's the same story—a bare living. Look at the conjurin' line now: you live in splendor; you go on the stage in a most beautiful costume—silks and satins, gold and spangles; tights, if you like. You travel about the country free. You hear the people clapping their hands whenever you go in; and believin' that you do it all yourself. You've got nothing to do but just what you are told, and that's your life—with pockets full of money, and the proud consciousness that you are making your fortune."
"It certainly seems very beautiful to look at; are there no drawbacks?"
"None," answered the enthusiast. "It's the best profession in the world—there's no danger in it. There's no capital required. All it wants is cleverness. That's why I come to you; because you are a real clever girl, and what's more, you're good-looking—it is not always that looks and brains go together."
"Very well, professor. Let us come to the point—what is it you want me to do?"
"I want you, Miss Kennedy, to go about the country with me. You shall be my assistant; you shall play the piano, and come on dressed in a pink costume—which generally fetches at an entertainment. Nothing to say; and I will teach you by degrees all the dodges, and the way it's done you will learn. You'll be surprised when you find how easy it is, and yet how you can't do it. And when you hear the people telling what they saw, and you know just exactly what they could have seen if they'd had their eyes in their heads, you'll laugh—you will."
"But I'm afraid I can't think——"
"Don't raise difficulties, now," he spoke persuasively. "I am coming to them directly. I've got ideas in my head which I can't carry through without a real, clever confederate. And you must be that confederate. Electricity: now"—he lowered his voice, and whispered—"none of the conjurers have got a battery at work. Think of new feats of marvel and magic never before considered possible; and done secret by electricity. What a shame—what a cruel shame, to have let the world get hold of electricity! Why, it ought to have been kept for conjurers. And telephones—again, what a scope there is in a good telephone! You and me together, Miss Kennedy, could knock up an entertainment as nobody ever yet dreamed of. If you could dance a bit it would be an advantage. But, if you won't, of course, we must give it up. And, as to the dressmaking rubbish, why in a week you will be wondering how in the world you ever came to waste your time upon it at all, while such a chance was going about in the world. Not that I blame you for it; not at all. It was your ignorance kept you out of it, and your good luck threw you in the way of it."
"That may be so. But still, I am not sure——"
"I haven't done yet. Look here! I've been turning the thing over in my own mind a good bit. The only way I can think of for such a girl as you to go about the country with a show is for you to be married to the showman—so I'll marry you before we start, and then we shall be comfortable and happy, and ready for the fortune to come in. And you'll be quite sure of your share in it."
"Thank you, professor."
"Very good, then; no need for thanks. I've got engagements in the country for over three months. We'll marry at once, and you can spend that time in learning."
Angela laughed. Were women of "her class," she thought, so easily won, and so unceremoniously wooed? Were there no preliminary advances, soft speeches, words of compliment and flattery?
"I've been laying out a plan," the professor went on, "for the most complete thing you ever saw! Never before attempted on any stage! Marvelous optical illusion. Hush—electricity!" [He said this in a stage whisper.] "You are to be a fairy. Stale old business, isn't it? But it always pays. Silk stockin's and gauze, with a wand. I'm Sinbad the Sailor, or Robinson Crusoe. It doesn't matter what; and then you——"
"Stay a moment, professor"—she laid her hand upon his arm—"you have not waited for my answer. I cannot, unfortunately, marry you; nor can I go about the country with you; nor can I possibly become your confederate and assistant."
"You can't marry me? Why not, when I offer you a fortune?"
"Not even for fortune."
"Why not?"
"Well, for many reasons. One of them is that I cannot leave my dressmaking—rubbish, as it seems to you. That is, indeed, a sufficient reason."
"Oh!"—his face becoming sad—"and I set my heart upon it! The very first time I saw you I said to myself, 'There's a girl for the business—never was such a girl!' And to think you're thrown away on a dressmaking business. Oh! it's too bad! and that you're contented with your lot, humble as it is, when I offer to make you an artist, and to give you a fortune. That's what cuts me to the quick—that you should be contented."
"I am very much ashamed of myself," said Angela, with contrition; "but, you see, what you ask is impossible."
"And I only made up my mind last night that I would marry you, if nothing else would do."
"Did you—poor professor! I am quite sorry for you; but you should never marry a woman unless you are in love with her. Now it's quite clear that you are not in love with me."
"Love! I've got my work to think of."
"Then good-morning, professor. Let us part friends, if I cannot accept your offer."
He took her offered hand with reluctance, and in sorrow more than in anger.
"Do you really understand," he asked, "what you are throwing away? Fame and fortune—nothing less."
She laughed, and drew back her hand, shaking her head.
"Oh, the woman's a fool!" cried the professor, losing his temper, and slamming the door after him.
It was at this time that Tom Coppin, Captain Coppin of the Salvation Army, paid his only visit to Angela, that visit that caused so much sensation among the girls.
He chose a quiet evening early in the week. Why he came has never been quite clear. It was not curiosity, for he had none; nor was it a desire to study the kind of culture which Angela had introduced among her friends, for he had no knowledge of, or desire for, culture at all. Nor does the dressmakers' workshop afford a congenial place for the exercise of that soldier's gifts. He came, perhaps, because he was passing on his way from a red-hot prayer meeting to a red-hot preaching, and he thought he would see the place which among others, the Advanced Club for instance, was keeping his brother from following in his own steps, and helping him to regard the world, its pleasures and pursuits, with eyes of affection. One knows not what he expected to find or what he proposed by going there, because the things he did find completely upset all his expectations, if he had any. Visions, perhaps, of the soul-destroying dance, and the red cup, and the loud laughter of fools, and the talk that is as the crackling of thorns, were in his mind.
The room was occupied, as usual, with the girls, Angela among them. Captain Sorensen was there too; the girls were quietly busy, for the most part, over "their own" work, because, if they would go fine, they must make their own fineries; it was a frosty night, and the fire was burning clear; in the most comfortable chair beside it sat the crippled girl of whom we know; the place was hers by a sort of right; she was gazing into the flames, listening lazily to the music—Angela had been playing—and doing nothing, with contentment. Life was so sweet to the child when she was not suffering pain, and was warm, and was not hungry, and was not hearing complaints, that she wanted nothing more. Nelly, for her part, sat with hands folded pensively, and Angela wondered what, of late days, it was that seemed to trouble her.
Suddenly the door opened, and a man, dressed in a tight uniform of dark cloth and a cap of the same, with "S. S." upon it, like the Lord Mayor's gold chain, stood before them.
He did not remove his cap, but he looked round the room, and presently called in a loud, harsh voice:
"Which of you here answers to the name of Kennedy?"
"I do," replied Angela; "my name is Kennedy. What is yours, and why do you come here?"
"My name is Coppin. My work is to save souls. I tear them out of the very clutches and claws of the devil; I will have them; I leave them no peace until I have won them; I cry aloud to them; I shout to them; I pray for them; I sing to them; I seek them out in their hiding-places, even in their dens and courts of sin; there are none too far gone for my work; none that I will let go once I get a grip of them; once my hand is on them out they must come if the devil and all his angels were pulling them the other way. For my strength is not of myself; it is——"
"But why do you come here?" asked Angela.
The man had the same black hair and bright eyes as his brother; the same strong voice, although a long course of street-shouting had made it coarse and rough; but his eyes were brighter, his lips more sensitive, his forehead higher; he was like his brother in all respects, yet so unlike that, while the Radical had the face of a strong man, the preacher had in his the indefinable touch of weakness which fanaticism always brings with it. Whatever else it was, however, the face was that of a man terribly in earnest.
"I have heard about you," he said. "You are of those who cry peace when there is no peace; you entice the young men and maidens who ought to be seeking pardon and preaching repentance, and you destroy their souls with dancing and music. I come here to tell you that you are one of the instruments of the devil in this wicked town."
"Have you really come here, Mr. Coppin, on purpose to tell me that?"
"That," he said, "is part of my message."
"Do you think," asked Angela, because this was almost intolerable, "that it is becoming a preacher like yourself to invade a quiet and private house in order to insult a woman?"
"Truth is not insult," he said. "I come here as I would go to a theatre or a singing-hall or any soul-destroying place. You shall hear the plain truth. With your music and your dancing and your pleasant ways, you are corrupting the souls of many. My brother is hardened in his unrepentance since he knew you. My cousin goes on laughing, and dances over the very pit of destruction, through you. These girls——"
"Oh!" cried Rebekah, who had no sympathy with the Salvation Army, and felt herself an authority when the religious question was touched, "they are all mad. Let him go away."
"I would," replied the captain, "that you were half as mad. Oh! I know you now; I know you snug professors of a Saturday religion——"
"Your mission," Angela interrupted, "is not, I am sure, to argue about another sect. Come, Mr. Coppin, now that you have told us who you are and what is your profession and why you come here, you might like to preach to us. Do so, if you will. We were sitting here quietly when you came, and you interrupt nothing. So that, if it would really make you feel any happier, you may preach to us for a few minutes."
He looked about him in hesitation. This kind of preaching was not in his line: he loved a vast hall with a thousand faces looking at him; or a crowd of turbulent roughs ready to answer the Message with a volley of brickbats; or a chance gathering of unrepentant sinners in a wide thoroughfare. He could lift up his voice to them; but to preach in a quiet room to a dozen girls was a new experience.
And it was not the place which he had expected. His brother, in their last interview, had thrown in his teeth this house and its doings as offering a more reasonable solution of life's problems than his own. "You want everybody," he said, "to join you in singing and preaching every day; what should we do when there was nobody left to preach at? Now, there, what they say is, 'Let us make ourselves comfortable.' There's a deal in that, come to think of.
"Look at those girls now: while you and your Happy Elizas are trampin' in the mud with your flag and your procession, and gettin' black eyes and brickbats, they are singin' and laughin' and dancin', and makin' what fun they can for themselves. It seems to me, Tom, that if this kind of thing gets fashionable you and your army will be played out."
Well, he had come to see this place, which had offered pleasure instead of repentance, as a method of improving life. They were not laughing and singing at all; there were no men present except one old gentleman in a blue coat with brass buttons. To be sure, he had a fiddle lying on a chair beside him. There was no indication whatever of the red cup, and no smell of tobacco. Now, pleasure without drink, tobacco, and singing had been in Tom's unregenerate days incomprehensible. "I would rather," said Dick, "see an army of Miss Kennedy's girls than an army of Hallelujah Polls." Yet they seemed perfectly quiet. "Make 'em happy, Tom, first," said Dick, who was still thinking over Harry's speech as a possible point of departure. Happiness is not a word in the dictionary of men like Tom Coppin; they know what it means; they know a spree; they understand drink; they know misery, because it is all round them—the misery of hunger, of disease, of intemperance, of dirt, of evil temper, of violence; the misery which the sins of one bring all, and sins of all upon each. Indeed, we need not go to Whitechapel to find out misery. But they know not happiness. For such as Captain Coppin there is, as an alternative for misery, the choice of glory. What they mean by glory is ecstasy, the rapture, the mysteries of emotional religion; he, they believe, is the most advanced who is most often hysterical; Dick, like many of his followers, yearned honestly and unselfishly to extend this rapture which he himself so often enjoyed: but that there should be any other way out of the misery save by way of the humble stool of conviction, was a thing which he could not understand. Happiness, calm, peace, content, the sweet enjoyment of innocent recreation—these things he knew nothing of; they had not come his way.
He had come; he had seen; no doubt the moment his back was turned the orgy would begin. But he had delivered his message: he had warned the young woman who had led the girls—that calm, cold woman who looked at him with curiosity and was so unmoved by what he said: he might go. With his whole heart he had spoken and had so far moved no one except the daughter of the Seventh-Day Independent—and her only a little. This kind of thing is very irritating. Suppose you were to put a red-hot poker into a jug of water without producing any steam or hissing at all, how, as a natural philosopher, would you feel?
"You may preach to us, if you like," said Miss Kennedy.
She sat before him, resting her chin upon her hand. He knew that she was beautiful, although women and their faces, graces, and sweet looks played no part at all in his thoughts. He felt, without putting the thing into words, that she was beautiful. Also, that she regarded him with a kind of contempt, as well as curiosity; also, that she had determined not to be moved by anything he might say; also, that she relied on her own influence over the girls. And he felt for a moment as if his trusty arms were dropping from his hands and his whole armor was slipping from his shoulders. Not her beauty; no, fifty Helens of Troy would not have moved this young apostle; but her position as an impregnable outsider. For against the curious outsider, who regard captains in the Salvation Army only as so many interesting results of growing civilization, their officers are powerless indeed.
If there is any real difference between the working-man of England and the man who does other work, it is that the former is generally emotional and the latter is not. To the man of emotion things cannot be stated too strongly; his leader is he who has the greatest command of adjectives; he is singularly open to the charm of eloquence; he likes audacity of statement; he likes to be moved by wrath, pity, and terror; he has no eye for shades of color; and when he is most moved he thinks he is most right. It is this which makes him so angry with the people who cannot be moved.
Angela was one of those persons who cannot be moved by the ordinary methods. She looked at Tom as if he was some strange creature, watching what he did, listening to what he said, as if she was not like unto him. It is not quite a fair way of describing Angela's attitude of mind; but it is near enough; and it represents what passed through the brain of the Salvation captain.
"Will you preach to us?" she repeated the third time.
He mechanically opened his hymn-book.
"Number three hundred and sixty-two," he said quietly.
He sang the hymn all by himself, at the top of his voice, so that the windows rattled, to one of those rousing and popular melodies which have been pressed into the service of the army; it was, in fact, "Molly Darling," and the people at Stepney Green asked each other in wonder if a meeting of the Salvation Army was actually being held at Miss Kennedy's.
When he had finished his hymn he began to preach.
He stammered at first, because the surroundings were strange; besides, the cold, curious eyes of Miss Kennedy chilled him. Presently, however, he recovered self-possession, and began his address.
There is one merit, at least, possessed by these preachers; it is that of simplicity. Whatever else they may be, they are always the same; even the words do not vary while there is but one idea.
If you want to influence the dull of comprehension, such as the common donkey, there is but one way possible. He cannot be led, or coaxed, or persuaded; he must be thwacked. Father Stick explains and makes apparent, instantly, what the logic of all the schools has failed to prove. In the same way, if you wish to awaken the spiritual emotions among people who have hitherto been strange to them, your chance is not by argument, but by appeals, statements, prophecies, threats, terrors, and pictures, which, in fact, do exactly correspond, and produce the same effect as Father Stick; they are so many knock-down blows; they belabor and they terrify.
The preacher began: the girls composed themselves to listen, with the exception of Rebekah, who went on with her work ostentatiously, partly to show her disapproval of such irregular proceedings and partly as one who, having got the truth from an independent source, and being already advanced in the narrow way, had no occasion for the captain's persuasion.
It is one thing to hear the voice of a street preacher in his own church, so to speak, that is, on the curbstone, and quite another thing to hear the same man and the same person in a quiet room. Tom Coppin had only one sermon, though he dressed it up sometimes, but not often, in new words. Yet he was relieved of monotony by the earnestness which he poured into it. He believed in it, himself; that goes a long way. Angela began by thinking of the doctrine, but presently turned her attention to the preacher, and began to think what manner of man he was. Personally he was pale and thin, with strong black hair, like his brother, and his eyes were singularly bright.
Here was a man of the people: self-taught; profoundly ignorant as to the many problems of life and its solutions; filled, however, with that noble sympathy which makes prophets, poets, martyrs; wholly possessed of faith in his narrow creed, owning no authority of church or priest; believing himself under direct Divine guidance, chosen and called, the instrument of merciful Heaven to drag guilty souls from the pit; consciously standing as a servant, day and night, before a Throne which other men regard afar off or cannot see at all; actually living the life of hardship, privation, and ill-treatment, which he preached; for the sake of others, enduring hardness, poverty, contumely; taking all these things as part and parcel of the day's work; and, in the name of duty, searching into corners and holes of this great town for the vilest, the most hardened, the most depraved, the most blinded to a higher life.
This, if you please, is not a thing to be laughed at. What did Wesley more? What did Whitfield? Nay, what did Paul?
They paid him for his services, it is true; they gave him five-and-twenty shillings a week; some of this great sum he gave away; the rest provided him with poor and simple food. He had no pleasures or joys of life; he had no recreations; he had no hope of any pleasures; some of the officers of his army—being men and women as well as preachers—loved each other and were married; but this man had no thought of any such thing, he, as much as any monk, was vowed to the service of the Master, without rest or holiday, or any other joy than that of doing the work that lay before him.
A great pity and sympathy filled Angela's heart as she thought of these things.
The man before her was for the moment a prophet; it mattered nothing that his creed was narrow, his truths only half truths, his doctrine commonplace, his language in bad taste, his manner vulgar; the faith of the man covered up and hid these defects; he had a message to mankind; he was delivering that message; to him it was a fresh, new message, never before intrusted to any man; he had to deliver it perpetually, even though he went in starvation.
Angela's heart softened as she realized the loyalty of the man. He saw the softening in her eyes and thought it was the first sign of conviction.
But it was not.
Meantime, if Angela was thinking of the preacher, the girls, of course with the exception of Rebekah, were trembling at his words.
Suddenly—the unexpected change was a kind of rhetorical trick which often proved effective—the preacher ceased to denounce and threaten, and spoke of pardon and peace; he called upon them in softer voice, in accents full of tears and love, to break down their pride, to hear the voice that called them.... We know well enough what he said, only we do not know how he said it. Angela looked about the room. The Captain sat with his hands on his knees, and his face dutifully lifted to the angle which denotes attention; his expression was unmoved; evidently, the captain was not open to conviction. As for the girls, they might be divided into classes. They had all listened to the threats and the warnings, though they had heard them often enough before; now, however, some of them seemed as if they were impatient, and as if with a little encouragement they could break into scoffing. But others were crying, and one or two were steadfastly regarding the speaker, as if he had mesmerized them. Among these was Nelly. Her eyes were fixed, her lips were parted, her breathing was quick, her cheek was pale.
Great and wonderful is the power of eloquence; there are few orators; this ex-printer, this uneducated man of the ranks was, like his brother, born with the gift that is so rare. He should have been taken away and taught, and kept from danger, and properly fed and cared for. And now it is too late. They said of him in his connection that he was blessed in the saving of souls: the most stubborn, the most hardened, when they fell under the magic of his presence and his voice, were broken and subdued; what wonder that a weak girl should give way?
When he paused he looked round; he noted the faces of those whom he had mesmerized; he raised his arm; he pointed to Nelly and beckoned her, without a word, to rise.
Then the girl stood up as if she could not choose but obey. She moved a step toward him; in a moment she would have been at his feet, with sobs and tears, in the passion of self-abasement which is so dear to the revivalist. But Angela broke the spell. She sprang toward her, caught her in her own arms, and passed her hand before her eyes.
"Nelly!" she said gently. "Nelly, dear."
The girl sank back in her chair, and buried her face in her hands. But the moment was gone, and Captain Coppin had lost his recruit.
They all breathed a deep sigh. Those who had not been moved looked at each other and laughed; those who were, dried their eyes and seemed ashamed.
"Thank you," said Angela to the preacher. "You have preached very well, and I hope your words will help us on our way, even though it is not quite your way."
"Then be of our way. Cease from scoffing."
She shook her head.
"No, I do not scoff, but I cannot join your way. Leave us now, Mr. Coppin. You are a brave man. Let us reverence courage and loyalty. But we will have no more sermons in this room. Good-night."
She offered him her hand, but he would not take it, and with a final warning, addressed to Angela in particular and the room in general, he went as he had come, without greeting or word of thanks.
"These Salvation people," said Rebekah, "are all mad. If people want the way of truth there's the chapel in Redman's Row, and father's always in it every Saturday."
"What do you say, Captain Sorensen?" asked Angela.
"The Church of England," said the captain, who had not been moved a whit, "says that two sacraments are necessary. I find nothing about stools of repentance. Come, Nelly, my girl, remember that you are a Church-woman."
"Yet," said Angela, "what are we to say when a man is so brave and true, and when he lives the life? Nelly dear—girls all—I think that religion should not be a terror but a great calm and a trust. Let us love each other and do our work and take the simple happiness that God gives, and have faith. What more can we do? To-night, I think, we cannot dance or sing, but I will play to you."
She played to them—grand and solemn music—so that the terror went out of their brains, and the hardening out of their hearts, and next day all was forgotten.
In this manner and this once did Tom Coppin cross Angela's path. Now he will cross it no more, because his work is over. If a man lives on less than the bare necessaries in order to give to others; if he does the work of ten men; if he gives himself no rest any day in the week, what happens to that man when typhus seizes him?
He died, as he had lived, in glory, surrounded by Joyful Jane, Hallelujah Jem, Happy Polly, Thankful Sarah, and the rest of them. His life has been narrated in the "War Cry;" it is specially recorded of him that he was always "on the mountains," which means, in their language, that he was a man of strong faith, free from doubt, and of emotional nature.
The extremely wicked and hardened family, consisting of an old woman and half a dozen daughters, for whose soul's sake he starved himself and thereby fell an easy prey to the disease, have nearly all found a refuge in the workhouse, and are as hardened as ever, though not so wicked, because some kinds of wickedness are not allowed in that place of virtue. Therefore it seems almost as if poor Tom's life has been fooled away. According to a philosophy which makes a great deal of noise just now, every life is but a shadow, a dream, a mockery, a catching at things impossible, and a waste of good material, ending with the last breath. Then all our lives are fooled away, and why not Tom's as well as the rest? But if the older way of thinking is, after all, right, then that life can hardly have been wasted which was freely given—even if the gift was not accepted—for the advantage of others. Because the memory and the example remain, and every example—if boys and girls could only be taught this copy-book truth—is like an inexhaustible horn, always filled with precious seed.
Harry was thinking a good deal about the old man's strange story of the houses. There was, to be sure, little dependence to be placed in the rambling, disjointed statements made by so old a man. But, then, this statement was so clear and precise. There were so many children—there were so many houses (three for each child), and he knew exactly what became of all those houses. If the story had been told by a man in the prime of life, it could not have been more exact and detailed. But what were the houses—where were they? And how could he prove that they were his own?
What did Bunker get when he traded the child away?
Harry had always been of opinion that he got a sum of money down, and that he was now ashamed of the transaction, and would fain have it remain unknown. This solution accounted, or seemed to account, for his great wrath and agitation when the subject was mentioned. Out of a mischievous delight in making his uncle angry, Harry frequently alluded to this point; but the story of the houses was a better solution still. It accounted for Mr. Bunker's agitation as well as his wrath. But his wrath and his terror appeared to Harry to corroborate very strongly the old man's story. And the longer he thought about it the more strongly he believed it.
Harry asked his landlady whether, in her opinion, if Mr. Maliphant made a statement, that statement was to be accepted as true?
Mrs. Bormalack replied that as he never made any statement, except in reference to events long since things of the past, it was impossible for her to say whether they were true or not; that his memory was clean gone for things of the present—so that of to-day and yesterday he knew nothing; that his thoughts were always running on the old days; and that when he could be heard right through, without dropping his voice at all, he sometimes told very interesting and curious things. His board and lodging were paid for him by his grandson, a most respectable gentleman, and a dockmaster; and that as to the old man's business he had none, and had had none for many years, being clean forgotten—although he did go every day to his yard, and stayed there all day long.
Harry thought he would pay him another visit. Perhaps something more would be remembered.
He went there again in the morning.
The street, at the end of which was the yard, was as quiet as on the Sunday, the children being at school and the men at work. The great gates were closed and locked, but the small side-door was unlocked. When he opened it all the figureheads turned quickly and anxiously to look at him. At least Harry declares they did, and Spiritualists will readily believe him. Was he, they asked, going to take one of them away and stick it on the bow of a great ship, and send it up and down upon the face of the ocean to the four corners of the world. Ha! They were made for an active life. They pined away in this inactivity. A fig for the dangers of the deep! From Saucy Sal to Neptune they all asked the same question in the same hope. Harry shook his head, and they sighed sadly and resumed sadly their former positions, as they were, eyes front, waiting till night should fall and the old man should go, and they could talk with each other.
"This," thought Harry, "is a strange and ghostly place."
You know the old and creepy feeling caused by the presence, albeit unseen, of ghosts. One may feel it anywhere and at all times—in church, at a theatre, in bed at night—by broad daylight—in darkness or in twilight. This was in the sunshine of a bright December day—the last days of the year 1881 were singularly bright and gracious. The place was no dark chamber or gloomy vault, but a broad and open yard, cheerfully decorated with carved figureheads. Yet, even here, Harry experienced the touch of ghostliness. The place was so strange that it did not astonish him at all to see the old man suddenly appear in the door of his doll's house, waving his hand and smiling cheerily, as one who speeds the parting guest. The salutations were not intended for Harry, because Mr. Maliphant was not looking at him.
Presently he ceased gesticulating, became suddenly serious (as happens to one when his friend's back is turned, or he has vanished), and returned to his seat by the fire.
Harry softly followed, and stood before him waiting to be recognized.
The old man looked up at last, and nodded his head.
"Been entertaining your friends, Mr. Maliphant?"
"Bob was here, only Bob. You have just missed Bob," he replied.
"That's a pity—never mind. Can you, my ancient, carry your memory back some twenty years? You did it, you know, last Sunday for me."
"Twenty years? Ay, ay—twenty years. I was only sixty-five or so then. It seems a long time until it is gone—twenty years! Well, young man, twenty years—why, it is only yesterday!"
"I mean to the time when Caroline Coppin, you know your old friend Caroline, was married."
"That was twenty years before, and more; when William the Fourth died and Queen Victoria (then a young thing) came long to reign over us——" His voice sank, and he continued the rest of his reminiscence to himself.
"But Caroline Coppin?"
"I'm telling you about Caroline Coppin, only you won't listen."
There was nothing more to be got out of him. His recent conversation with Bob's spirit had muddled him for the day, and he mixed up Caroline with her mother or grandmother. He relapsed into silence, and sat with his long pipe unfilled in his hand, looking into the fireplace; gone back in imagination to the past. As the old man made no sign of conversation, but rather of a disposition to "drop off" for a few minutes, Harry began to look about the room. On the table lay a bundle of old letters. It was as if the living and the dead had been reading them together.
Harry took them up and turned them over, wondering what secrets of long ago were contained in those yellow papers, with their faded ink. The old man's eyes were closed—he took no heed of his visitor; and Harry standing at the table began shamelessly to read the letters. They were mostly the letters of a young sailor addressed to one apparently a good deal older than himself—for they abounded in such appellations as "my ancient," "venerable," "old salt," and so forth. But the young man did not regard his correspondent with the awe which age should inspire, but rather as a gay and rollicking spirit who would sympathize with the high-jinks of younger men, even if he no longer shared in them, and who was an old and still delighted treader of those flowery paths which are said by moralists to be planted with the frequent pitfall and the crafty trap. "The old man," thought Harry, "must have been an admirable guide to youth, and the disciple was apt to learn."
Sometimes the letters were signed "Bob," sometimes "R. Coppin," sometimes "R. C." Harry, therefore, surmised that the writer was no other than his own uncle Bob, whose ghost he had just missed.
Bob was an officer on board of an East Indiaman, but he spoke not of such commonplace matters as the face of the ocean or the voice of the tempest. He only wrote from port, and told what things he had seen and done, what he had consumed in ardent drink. The letters were brief, which seemed as well, because if literary skill had been present to dress up effectively the subjects treated, a literary monument might have been erected, the like of which the world has never seen.
It is, indeed, a most curious and remarkable circumstance that even in realistic France the true course of the prodigal has never been faithfully described. Now the great advantage formerly possessed by the sailor—an advantage cruelly curtailed by the establishment of "homes," and the introduction of temperance—was, that he could be and was a prodigal at the end of every cruise; while the voyage itself was an agreeable interval provided for recovery, recollection, and anticipation.
"Bob, Uncle Bob, was a flyer," said Harry. "One should be proud of such an uncle. With Bob and Bunker and the bankrupt builder, I am indeed provided."
There seemed nothing in the letters which bore upon the question of his mother's property, and he was going to put them down again, when he lighted upon a torn fragment on which he saw in Bob's big handwriting the name of his cousin Josephus.
"Josephus, my cousin, that he will ... (here a break in the continuity) ... 'nd the safe the bundle ... (another break) ... for a lark. Josephus is a square-toes. I hate a man who wont' drink. He will ... (another break) if he looks there. Your health and song, shipmate.—R. C."
He read this fragment two or three times over. What did it mean? Clearly nothing to himself.
"Josephus is a square-toes." Very likely. The prodigal Bob was not. Quite the contrary—he was a young man of extremely mercurial temperament. "Josephus, my cousin, that he will ... 'nd the safe the bundle." He put down the paper, and without waking the old man he softly left the room and the place, shutting the door behind him; and then he forgot immediately the torn letter and its allusion to Josephus. He thought next that he would go to Bunker and put the question directly to him. The man might be terrified—might show confusion—might tell lies. That would matter little; but if he showed his hand too soon Bunker might be put upon his guard. Well, that mattered little—what Harry hoped was, rather to get at the truth than to recover his houses.
"I want," he said, finding his uncle at home, and engaged in his office drawing up bills—"I want a few words of serious talk with you, my uncle."
"I am busy; go away—I never want to talk to you. I hate the very sight of your face."
He looked indeed as if he did—if a flushing cheek and an angry glare of the eyes are any sign.
"I am not going away until you have answered my questions. As to your hatred or your affection, that does not concern me at all. Now will you listen, or shall I wait?"
"To get rid of you the sooner," growled Bunker, "I will listen now. If I was twenty years younger I'd kick you out."
"If you were twenty years younger, there might, it is true, be a fight. Now then?"
"Well, get along—my time is valuable."
"I have several times asked you what you got for me when you sold me. You have on those occasions allowed yourself to fall into a rage, which is really dangerous in so stout a man. I am not going to ask you that question any more."
Mr. Bunker looked relieved.
"Because, you see, I know now what you got."
Mr. Bunker turned very pale.
"What do you know?"
"I know exactly what you got when I was taken away."
Mr. Bunker said nothing; yet there was in his eyes a look as if a critical moment long expected had at last arrived, and he waited.
"When my mother died and you became my guardian, I was not left penniless."
"It's a lie—you were."
"If I had been, you would have handed me over to your brother-in-law, Coppin, the builder; but I had property."
"You had nothing."
"I had three houses—one of those houses is, I believe, that which has been rented from you, by Miss Kennedy. I do not know yet where the other two are; but I shall find out."
"You are on a wrong tack," said his uncle; "now I know why you wouldn't go away. You came here to ferret and fish, did you? You thought you were entitled to property, did you? Ho!—you're a nice sort o' chap to have house property, ain't you? Ha! ho!" But his laughter was not mirthful.
"Let me point out," Harry went gravely on, "what it is you have done. The child whom you kept for a year or two was heir to a small estate, bringing in, I suppose, about eighty or a hundred pounds a year. We will say that you were entitled to keep that money in return for his support; but when that child was carried away and adopted you said nothing about the property. You kept it for yourself, and you have received the rents year after year, as if the house belonged to you. Shall I go on, and tell you what judges and lawyers and police people call this sort of conduct?"
"Where's your proofs?" asked the other—his face betraying his emotion. "Where's your proofs?"
"I have none yet—I am going to search for those proofs."
"You can't find them—there are none. Now, young man, you have had your say, and you can go. Do you hear? You can go."
"You deny, then, that the houses were mine?"
"If you'd come to me meek and lowly—as is your humble station in life—I would ha' told you the history of those houses. Yes, your mother had them, same as her brothers and her sister. Where are they now? I've got 'em all—I've got 'em all. How did I get 'em? By lawful and honorable purchase—I bought 'em. Do you want proofs? You shan't have any proofs. If you'd behaved humble you should ha' seen those proofs. Now you may go away and do your worst. Do you hear? You may do your worst."
He shook his fist in Harry's face. His words were brave, but his voice was shaky and his lips were trembling.
"I don't believe you," said Harry. "I am certain that you did not buy my houses. There was no one left to care for my interests, and you took those houses."
"This is the reward," said Bunker, "for nussin' of this child for nigh upon three years. Who would take an orphan into his bosom? But it was right, and I'd do it again. Yes. I'd do it again."
"I don't doubt you," the ungrateful nephew replied, "especially if that other orphan had three substantial houses, and there was nobody but yourself to look after him."
"As for your proofs, go and look for them. When you've found 'em, bring 'em to me—you and your proofs."
Harry laughed.
"I shall find them," he said; "but I don't know where or when. Meantime you will go on as you do now—thinking continually that they may be found. You won't be able to sleep at night—you will dream of police courts. You will let your thoughts run on handcuffs—you will take to drink. You will have no pleasure in your life. You will hasten your end; you will——" Here he desisted; for his uncle (dropping into his chair) looked as if he was about to swoon.
"Remember, I shall find these proofs some day. A hundred a year, for twenty years, is two thousand pounds. That's a large sum to hand over; and then, there is the interest. Upon my word, my uncle, you will have to begin the world again."
Two days after this Angela received a wonderful letter. It was addressed to Miss Messenger, and was signed Benjamin Bunker. It ran as follows:
"Honored Miss: As an old and humble friend of your late lamented grandfather, whose loss I can never recover from, nor has it yet been made up to me in any way"—Angela laughed—"I venture to address the following lines in secrecy and confidence, knowing that what ought not to be concealed should be told in the proper quarter, which is you, miss, and none other.
"Everybody in these parts knows me; everybody knows Bunker, your grandfather's right-hand man; wherefore what I write is with no other design than to warn you and to put you on your guard against the deceitful, and such as would abuse your confidingness, being but young—ay, yes, and therefore ignorant of dodges, and easy to come round.
"You have been come round, and that in such a shameful way that I cannot bear myself any longer, and must take the liberty of telling you so, being an old and confidential adviser. Your grandfather used to say that even the brewery wouldn't be where it is now if it hadn't been for me, not to speak of the house property, which is now a profitable investment, with rents regular and respectable tenants, whereas before I took it in hand the houses were out of repair, the rents backward, and the tenants too often such as would bring discredit on any estate. I therefore beg to warn you against two persons—young, I am sorry to say, which makes it worse, because it is only the old who should be thus depraved—whom you have benefited and they are unworthy of it.
"One of them is a certain Miss Kennedy, a dressmaker, at least she says so. The other is—I write this with a blush of indignant shame—my own nephew, whose name is Harry Goslett."
"Bunker!" murmured Angela. "Is this fair to your own tenant and your own nephew?"
"As regards my nephew, you have never inquired about him, and it was out of your kindness and a desire to mark your sense of me, that you gave him a berth in the brewery. That young man, miss, who calls himself a cabinet-maker and doesn't seem to know that a joiner is one thing and a cabinet-maker another, now does the joinery for the brewery, and makes, I am told, as much as two pounds a week, being a handy chap. If you asked me first, I should have told you that he is a lazy, indolent, free and easy, disrespectful, dangerous young man. He has been no one knows where; no one knows where he has worked, except that he talks about America; he looks like a betting man; I believe he drinks of a night; he has been living like a gentleman, doing no work, and I believe, though up to the present I haven't found out for certain, that he has been in trouble and knows what is a convict's feelings when the key is turned. Because he is such a disgrace to the family, for his mother was a Coppin and came of a respectable Whitechapel stock, though not equal to the Bunkers or the Messengers, I went to him and offered him five-and-twenty pounds out of my slender stock to go away and never come back any more to disgrace us. Five-and-twenty pounds I would have given to save Messenger's brewery from such a villain."
"Bunker, Bunker!" murmured Angela again.
"But he wouldn't take the money. You thought to do me a good turn and you done yourself a bad one. I don't know what mischief he has already done in the brewery, and perhaps he is watched; if so it may not yet be too late. Send him about his business. Make him go. You can then consider some other way of making it up to me for all that work for your grandfather whereof you now sweetly reap the benefit.
"The other case, miss, is that of the young woman, Kennedy by name, the dressmaker."
"What of her, Bunker?" asked Angela.
"I hear that you are givin' her your custom, not knowing, maybe, the kind of woman she is nor the mischief she's about. She's got a house of mine on false pretences."
"Really, Bunker," said Angela, "you are too bad."
"Otherwise I wouldn't let her have it, and at the end of the year out she goes. She has persuaded a lot of foolish girls, once contented with their lowly lot and thankful for their wages and their work, nor inclined to grumble when hours were long and work had to be done. She has promised them the profits, and meantime she feeds them up so that their eyes swell out with fatness. She gives them short hours, and sends them out into the garden to play games. Games, if you please, and short hours for such as them. In the evening it's worse, for then they play and sing and dance, having young men to caper about with them, and you can hear them half a mile up the Mile End Road, so that it is a scandal to Stepney Green, once respectable, and the police will probably interfere. Where she came from, who she was, how she got her money, we don't know. Some say one thing, some say another; whatever they say it's a bad way. The worst is that when she smashes, as she must, because no ladies who respect virtue and humble-mindedness with contentment will employ her, that the other dressmakers and shops will have nothing to do with her girls, so that what will happen to them no one can tell.
"I thought it right, miss, to give you this information, because it is certain that if you withdraw your support from these two undeserving people, they must go away, which as a respectable Stepney man, I unite in wishing may happen before long, when the girls shall go on again as before and leave off dancing and singing to the rich, and be humble and contented with the trust to which they were born.
"And as regards the kindness you were meditating toward me, miss, I think that I may say that none of my nephews—one of whom is a Radical, and another a captain in the Salvation Army—deserves to receive any benefits at your hands, the least of all that villain who works in the brewery. Wherefore, it may take the form of something for myself. And it is not for me to tell you, miss, how much that something ought to be for a man in years, of respectable station, and once the confidential friend of your grandfather, and prevented thereby from saving as much as he had otherwise a right to expect.
"I remain, miss, your humble servant,
"Benjamin Bunker."
"This," said Angela, "is a very impudent letter. How shall we bring him to book for it?"
When she learned, as she speedily did, the great mystery about the houses and the Coppin property, she began to understand the letter, the contents of which she kept to herself for the present. This was perhaps wise, for the theory implied rather than stated in the letter, that both should be ordered to go, for if one only was turned out of work both would stay. This theory made her smile and blush, and pleased her, insomuch that she was not so angry as she might otherwise have been, and should have been, with the crafty double-dealer who wrote the letter.
It happened that Mr. Bunker had business on Stepney Green that morning, while Angela was reading the letter. She saw him from the window, and could not resist the temptation of inviting him to step in. He came, not in the least abashed, and with no tell-tale signal of confusion in his rosy cheeks.
"Come in, Mr. Bunker," said Angela. "Come in; I want five minutes' talk with you. This way, please, where we can be alone."
She led him into the refectory, because Daniel Fagg was in the drawing room.
"I have been thinking, Mr. Bunker," she said, "how very, very fortunate I was to fall into such hands as yours, when I came to Stepney."
"You were, miss, you were. That was a fall, as one may say, which meant a rise."
"I am sure it did, Mr. Bunker. You do not often come to see us, but I hope you approve of our plans."
"As for that," he replied, "it isn't my business. People come to me and I put them in the way. How they run in the way is not my business to inquire. As for you and your girls, now, if you make the concern go, you may thank me for it. If you don't, why, it isn't my fault."
"Very well put, indeed, Mr. Bunker. In six months the first year, for which I paid the rent, will come to an end."
"It will."
"We shall then have to consider a fresh agreement. I was thinking, Mr. Bunker, that, seeing how good a man you are, and how generous, you would like to make your rent, like the wages of the girls, depend upon the profits of the business."
"What?" he asked.
Angela repeated her proposition.
He rose, buttoned his coat, and put on his hat.
"Rent depend on profits? Is the girl mad? Rent comes first and before anything else. Rent is even before taxes; and as for rates—but you're mad. My rent depend on profits! Rent, miss, is sacred. Remember that."
"Oh!" said Angela.
"And what is more," he added, "people who don't pay up get sold up. It's a Christian duty to sell 'em up. I couldn't let off my own nephews."
"As for one of them, you would like to sell him up, would you not, Mr. Bunker?"
"I would," he replied truthfully. "I should like to see him out of the place. You know what I told you when you came. Have nothing to do, I said, with that chap. Keep him at arm's length, for he is a bad lot. Now you see what he has brought you to. Singin', dancin', playin', laughin', every night; respectable ladies driven away from your shop; many actually kept out of the place; expenses doubled; all through him. What's more—bankruptcy ahead! Don't I know that not a lady in Stepney or Mile End comes here? Don't I know that you depend upon your West End connection? When that goes, where are you? And all for the sake of that pink and white chap! Well, when one goes, the other'll go too, I suppose. Rent out of profits, indeed! No, no, Miss; it'll do you good to learn a little business, even if you do get sold up."
"Thank you, Mr. Bunker. Do you know, I do not think you will ever have the pleasure of selling me up?"
She laughed so merrily that he felt he hated her quite as much as he hated his nephew. Why, six months before, no one laughed in Stepney at all; and to think that any one should laugh at him, would have been an impossible dream.
"You laugh," he said gravely, "and yet you are on the brink of ruin. Where's your character? Wrapped up with the character of that young man. Where's your business! Drove away—by him. You laugh. Ah! I'm sorry for you, miss, because I thought at one time you were a plain-spoken, honest sort of young woman; if I'd ha' known that you meant to use my house—mine, the friend of all the respectable tradesmen—for such wicked fads as now disgrace it, I'd never ha' taken you for a tenant."
"Oh yes, you would, Mr. Bunker." She laughed again, but not merrily this time. "Oh yes—you would. You forget the fittings and the furniture, the rent paid in advance, and the half-crown an hour for advice. Is there anything, I should like to know, that you would not do for half a crown an hour?"
He made no reply.
"Why, again, do you hate your nephew? What injury have you done him that you should bear him such ill will?"
This, which was not altogether a shot in the dark, went straight to Mr. Bunker's heart. He said nothing, but put on his hat and rushed out. Clearly these two, between them, would drive him mad.