Kitabı oku: «The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. A Novel», sayfa 4

CHAPTER III

"I've enough to reproach myself with one."

These words, spoken by Mr. Chester in the course of his late domestic difference with his wife, brought with them a feeling of deep remorse.

He had another child, a son, now a man, and a sharp pain shot through the hearts of husband and wife as the words were uttered. But Mr. Chester, once more at the Royal George, did his best to drown uncomfortable reminiscences. His new tenant, who accompanied him to the gin-palace, scarcely opened his lips except to drink. His manner of taking his liquor was not attractive; he raised his glass to his lips with a sly furtive air, and conducted himself throughout in so objectionable and jarring a spirit, that when, within half-an-hour of midnight, he said, churlishly: "I think I may as well get home;" Mr. Chester replied: "All right; you'll not be missed in this company." Thereupon, the stranger, with another sly watchful look around took his leave, to everyone's satisfaction.

Within a few moments of his departure, Mr. Chester, in the act of drinking, suddenly held up his hand. His attitude of attention was magnetically repeated in the attitudes of the persons around him. As when a person in the street stands still, and points at nothing in the sky, he speedily draws about him a throng of interested ones, who all look up, and point at nothing also.

What had arrested Mr. Chester's attention was the faint sound of music from without. Only half-a-dozen notes reached his ears, and they were softly borne to him from a wind instrument.

The glass which he held trembled in his hand, and, had he not placed it on the counter, would have fallen to the ground.

He walked slowly to the door, and looked out in the street for the musician. He could not see him, and the sound had died away. Returning to his companions, he abruptly asked:

"Did any of you observe whether that man" – referring, with a backward pointing of his thumb, to his new tenant-"had anything in his breast pocket?"

Two or three answered, No, they had not observed any thing particular; but one said he thought, now Mr. Chester mentioned it, that the stranger did have something in his breast pocket.

"Something that stuck out," suggested Mr. Chester vivaciously.

Perceiving that he had made a hit, the man replied that he thought it was something that stuck out.

"Might have been a stick?" proceeded Mr. Chester.

"Yes, it might have been a stick."

"Or a flute?"

"Yes, it might have been a flute."

"Or," asked Mr. Chester, coming now to his climax, "a penny tin whistle?"

Yes, the man thought it might decidedly have been penny tin whistle; which so satisfied Mr. Chester, that he inhaled a long breath of relief, and asked the man what he would take to drink.

CHAPTER IV

In the meantime, Mrs. Chester proceeded with her domestic duties. She commenced to undress the baby-child whom Sally had already adopted as her own, and she was filled with wonder and curiosity as she noted the superior order of the child's clothes. The shoes, though dirty and dusty, were sound; the socks had not a hole in toe or heel-a state of sock which Sally seldom enjoyed; the frock was of beautiful blue cashmere, and as her mother handed it to her, Sally pressed her lips and eyes against the comfortable material, with a sense of great enjoyment; then came a petticoat, of black merino; then a white petticoat, with tucks and insertions, which increased Sally's admiration; then the little petticoat of flannel, not like the flannel in Sally's petticoat, hard and unsympathetic; this was thick, and soft, and cosy to the touch-there was real warmth and comfort in it; then the pretty white stays; and the child lay in Mrs. Chester's lap, in her chemise, with its delicate edgings of lace round the dimpled arms and fat little bosom-lay like a rose dipped in milk, as the good woman afterwards expressed it to neighbouring gossips. The lovely picture was to Mrs. Chester like sparks of fire upon dry tinder. Soft lights of memory glowed upon her, lighting up the dark sky; sweet reminiscences sprang up in her mind and bloomed there like flowers in an arid soil, and for a few moments she experienced a feeling of delicious happiness. But soon, in the light of sad reality, the stars paled in the sky, the flowers faded, and sorrowful tears were welling from the mother's eyes. Sally did not see them, for her face was hidden in the sleeping baby's neck, and she was kissing her lovely treasure with profound and passionate devotion.

"Come now," abruptly said Mrs. Chester, furtively wiping away her tears, "just you get to bed. I shall be having nice work with you to-morrow if you've caught cold."

Sally's reply denoted that her thoughts were not on herself.

"Ain't she a beauty, mother? She's ever so much better then the collerbine that dances in the street. Mother, she didn't come from a parsley-bed, did she?"

This was in reference to her belief in her own origin, but Mrs. Chester declined to be led into conversation so Sally wriggled herself between the bedclothes, and holding out her arms received the pretty child in them. Supremely happy, she curled herself up, with her baby-treasure pressed tightly to her bony breast, and was soon fast asleep.

Mrs. Chester, after seeing that the children were warmly tucked up, took Sally's clothes, and commenced the mother's never-ending task among the poor of stitching and mending. And as she stitched and patched, the words her husband had spoken, "I've enough to reproach myself with one," recurred to her, and brought grief and sadness with them. Her tears fell upon Sally's tattered garments as she dwelt upon the bright promise of the first years of her married life and the marring of her most cherished hopes. Absorbed in these contemplations, she did not notice that the candle was almost at its last gasp; presently it went out with a sob, leaving Mrs. Chester in darkness. Wearied with a long day's toil, she closed her eyes; her tear-stained work fell to the ground; her head sank upon the pillow, and her hand sought Sally's. As she gained it, and clasped it within her own, she fell asleep by the children's side. Her sleep was dreamless until nearly midnight, when a few tremulous notes, played outside the house on a penny tin whistle, stirred imagination into creative action, and inspired strangely-contrasted dreams within the minds of mother and child.

* * * * * *

She had been married for twenty-five years, and had had two children-one, a boy, a year after her marriage; the other, a girl, the Sally of this story, twenty years afterwards. Upon her darling boy, Ned, she lavished all the strength of her love. He was a handsome child, the very opposite to Sally; full of spirit and mischief; always craving for pleasure and excitement, always being indulged in his cravings to the full extent of his mother's means. This unvarying kindness should have influenced him for good, but he glided into the wrong track, and at an early age developed a remarkable talent for appropriation. The father had no time to look after his son's morals, being himself absorbingly engaged in the cultivation of a talent for which he, also, had shown early aptitude-a talent for gin-drinking.

The lad was much to be pitied on two special grounds. He had a "gift" on his thumb, and he was born with a mole on his right temple.

His mother was overjoyed when she saw this mole. It was the luckiest of omens. For had not seers of old-never mind what seers-declared that the child that was born with a mole on his right temple would surely, in the course of his life, arrive at sudden wealth and honour?

Meanwhile, with a dutiful regard for parental example, Ned followed his father's footsteps to the public-house, and, at a very early age, was fond of draining pots and glasses.

As Ned grew older, he extended the field of his operations. Thus it came about that one fine morning the young thief found himself in a police-court, and was sent to prison as a rogue and a vagabond. There was no doubt he was both.

When he was released from prison, he did not go home immediately; he thought it best to wait until his hair grew again.

He wandered about, at fairs chiefly, picking up food anyhow, and enjoying the life; and by the time he made his appearance again in Rosemary Lane, his hair was as long as ever, and his mother wept over him, and killed the fatted calf for her lovely lad. He brought home with him a new accomplishment in the shape of a tin whistle, upon which he discoursed the most eloquent music. With this whistle he charmed and soothed the tender nature of his mother, and the less impressionable nature of his father, who thoughtlessly helped him in his downward course by taking him to the public-house, where he delighted all around him. There he got his fill of drink, from the customers, and in after days, when the lovely lad's character was about as bad as his worst enemy could have desired, it caused the father real remorse to think that he had helped his son to his undoing. It was this which caused Mr. Chester to utter the words, "I've enough to reproach myself with one." The reprobate would not work; all that he would do was to drink, and thieve, and play upon a tin whistle; and five years ago Ned Chester disappeared from the neighbourhood of Rosemary Lane, and nothing had since been heard of him.

But the mother's heart never went from her boy. Not a day passed but her thoughts dwelt lovingly upon him. He had caused her the bitterest anguish of her life, and she loved him the more for it.

* * * * * *

This brief digression ended, we return to Mrs. Chester, who lies asleep by the side of Sally and her baby-treasure. There is no light in the room, there is no moon in the sky. With trembling fingers, the man in the street plays upon the keys of his instrument, and pauses in the middle of a note, and shakes as though an ague were on him. It is a terrible fit, and lasts for minutes; when it subsides, he looks around him fearsomely, and sees monstrous shapes in the air coming towards him. Descending from the dark clouds, uprising from the black pavement, emerging from the viewless air, with eyes that glower, with features that threaten, with limbs that appal, they glide upon and surround him. With hoarse cries and shuddering hands he strives to beat them off, and staggers to the door of the house in which the mother and children are sleeping, with smiles upon their lips.

CHAPTER V

The first impression of the dreaming woman is that she and her young son are in a cart, out for a day's holiday in the country. It is early morning, and they are in the heart of the country, with its fields, and hedges, and scent of sweet flowers and fresh-mown hay. The clouds are bright, and the mother's heart is filled with love and gratitude as the horse jogs steadily along.

Their pace is slow, but not so slow as that of this white-smocked carter, sitting on the shaft of his lumbering wagon, which, as it rumbles onwards, makes noise enough for a dozen. The wagon is in the middle of the road-as though it were made solely for them to creep over, and nothing else had any business there-and when at length it moves aside, it does so in an indolent, reluctant fashion most tantalising to men and cattle more briskly inclined. Behind them thunders the mail-coach, and the guard's horn sounds merrily on the air.

"There comes the mail-coach!" the driver of the cart exclaims, and the dreamer watches it grow, as it were, out of the distant sky and land, where Liliputia lies. And now it is upon them, with no suspicion of Liliputia about it. On it comes, with Hillo! hallo! hi! hi! hi! heralding and proclaiming itself blithely. Their manner is right and proper, for are they not-guard, coachman, and horses-kings of the road? Out of the way, then, everybody and everything, and make room for their excellencies! Out of the way, you lumbering, white-smocked carter, and open your sleepy eyes! Out of the way, you pair of young dreamers, you, who, arm-in-arm so closely, are surely asleep and dreaming also! She, the first awake, starts in sudden alarm, with bright blushes now in her pretty, pensive face, and he-glad of the chance-throws his arm around her, and hurries her to the roadside, but a yard or two away from the bounding cattle, whose ringing hoofs play a brisker air upon the roadway than ever Apollo's son played upon the lyre. Away goes the coach, and the mother holds her lovely lad aloft in her arms, and in silent wonder, listens to the fading horn, and watches the coach grow smaller and smaller, until it disappears entirely from the sight. Onward they go through the dreamy solitudes, and shadows of green leaves and branches wave about them in never-ending beauty and variety.

How lovely is the day! The birds are singing, the bees are busy, all nature is glad. What a morning for a holiday-what a morning for lovers to walk through shady paths and narrow lanes, over stiles, and under great spreading branches, whose arms bend down caressingly to shield them from the sun! What a morning to bring a long courtship to a sweet conclusion, and to whisper the words that make lads' and lasses' hearts happier than the thrush that pipes its tremulous notes above them as they sit!

And now the mother and her child are in a narrow lane, with hedges on either side, over which they see the ripe corn waving. The mother sings a song about the days when we went gipsying a long time ago, and her friend, the driver, joins in the chorus heartily. At its conclusion, he says, incidentally:

"How about that mole on Neddy's right temple that Jane was telling me of?" (Jane is his young wife.) "What does it really signify?"

"You ask any fortune-teller," says the mother. "It's the very luckiest thing that ever can happen. When a child is born with a mole on the right temple, it is certain sure to arrive at sudden wealth and honour."

"That's a real piece of good fortune," says the driver. "If our young un's born with a mole on the right temple, it'll be the luckiest day of our lives."

"I'm sure I hope it will be," says the mother, "and that it'll be in the right place."

While this conversation is proceeding, the horse has slackened his pace-and the driver jumps off the cart to pick some sweet honeysuckle, a piece of which he gives to the mother and the child-and the heavens are beautifully bright, and fairy ships are sailing in the clouds-and they go jogging, jogging, jogging on, until they arrive at their journey's end.

Pulling up at a pretty little cottage, with a pretty little green gate for its boundary, a pretty little woman runs hastily out, wiping her hands, which are all over flour, on her apron. This is his Jane, whose visitors have caught her in the act of making a pudding. The first embraces over, they go into the kitchen, where the pudding is tied up, and put into the pot, and is cooked by magic, for the next moment they are eating their dinner. They pass a happy time within the cottage, and then the scene fades, and she and her child are in a field, pelting each other with flowers.

The child grows tired, and the mother makes a nest of fern for her darling to rest in, at the foot of an old tree, whose branches presently fill all the landscape, and cover them with delicious shade. Not a variation of colour in the sky, not a bird's note, not a whisper of the leaves, that the fond mother does not convert into a symbol of happiness for her heart's treasure. And as he sleeps, she sits by his side, until the tree fades and becomes the cottage again, where they are all clustered round the tea-table, eating the sweetest bread-and-butter and the freshest radishes that love can produce.

Then the moon comes out and pierces the ceiling, which changes into night-clouds and solemnly-silent roads, through and over which they are riding peacefully home. A river, of which they had a glimpse when the sun's rays were playing on it, changes now into a white road, over which the cart is slowly passing; now into a field of waving corn, through which they are calmly wending their way without breaking a stalk; now into the stairs of her own cosy home-nest, up which she is walking, with her darling, very sleepy, in her arms. And when she has softly sung a few words of a familiar cradle-song, she points to the stars, not deeming it strange that they are shining all around her, and tells her child that heaven is there!

An amazing transformation takes place. She is alone, with blackness all around her. The rain pours down like a deluge, and a terrific explosion occurs, which shakes the earth to its foundations.

Aroused by the violent banging of the street door, Mrs. Chester starts from the bed. The rain is softly pattering in the street, and she hears the sound of uncertain footsteps groping up the stairs.

"It is the new lodger," she murmurs. "He might have made less noise with the door." Then, rubbing her eyes, she calls, "Sally, are you awake?"

Sally hears her mother's voice through a mist of softly falling rain, and murmuring some indistinct words in reply, cuddles closer to her treasure-baby, and the next moment is asleep again.

"The brute!" exclaims Mrs. Chester. "Waking the children with his row! I'll talk to him to-morrow."

Standing in the dark, she listens. The person who is ascending the stairs to the bedroom in the upper part of the house staggers and stumbles on his way. Thus much Mrs. Chester is conscious of, but she does not hear his low moans, nor see him shake and tremble, as he drags his feet along in fear and dread. When he reaches his room, he falls, dressed, upon the bed, and claws at the air, and picks at the bedclothes in ceaseless unrest, being beset by demons of every shape and form, presenting themselves in a thousand monstrously-grotesque disguises.

Mrs. Chester has heard sufficient to cause her to form a just conclusion.

"Drunk of course," she murmurs; "and Dick'll be as bad when he comes home."

Then she lights a candle, and patiently resumes her task of stitching and patching.

CHAPTER VI

SALLY ALSO HAS A DREAM

Sounds of music in the air; strange and fantastic shapes and forms; blooming flowers, and grass of rarest shades of green; glittering water, for white swans and paper ships to sail on; waving branches laden with dew-diamonds; birds flying on silver threads that reach from heaven to earth; and standing in the midst of all these wonders, little Sally Chester herself, in her ragged clothes. Comes a procession from the skies, heralded by a glittering white star, which widens into an avenue of light, through which the actors move. Comes a small drummer-boy in the British army, with a drum slung round his shoulders; behind him trots a donkey, familiar to the neighbourhood, who smiles grotesquely at Sally, and asks her when she is going to faint dead away again. The entire contents of a toy and cake shop follow the eccentric donkey. First appear the royal beefeaters, represented by men cut out of rich brown gingerbread, with features formed of Dutch metal, their legs and arms also being magnificently slashed with strips of the same; their features are diabolical, but this does not lessen their attractiveness. Then come a legion of wooden dolls, with not a vestige of clothing on their bodies, their staring expressionless features testifying to their shamelessness and their indifference to public opinion; then the animals from Noah's arks, so indiscriminately coupled as to betray a disgraceful Scriptural ignorance; then tin soldiers on slides, their outstretched swords proclaiming that they are on the straight road to glory; concluding with an army of wooden grenadiers with fixed bayonets, who march without bending a joint. All these move through the avenue of light, and the drummer-boy appears arm-in-arm with a little girl with whom, until she died twelve months ago, Sally used to play at grocers' shops in dark kitchens and on back-window sills. With a grand fanfaronade of trumpets, on marches a gay troop of soldiers, followed by men carrying huge flags, the devices in which are quick with life. Upon the waving folds of silk, fish are swimming, horses are prancing, artizans are following their trades, and the lion and the unicorn are fighting for the crown. These precede more soldiers and carriages and flags, until the shouts that rend the air proclaim the approach of the principal figure in the procession. This proves to be a gilt coach of antique shape, with coachmen and footmen blazing with gold lace, and Sally jumps up and down in frantic excitement as she recognises the inmate of the coach, who is staring in wonder out of the window at the people huzzaing and waving their hats in her honour. It is her own baby-treasure, with flushed and beautiful face, and with eyes bluer and more beautiful than the brightest and bluest clouds. In the midst of this triumphant display a man suddenly appears, and with sinister looks, stands by the coach in which the child is sitting. It is the new tenant who has taken the bedroom in her mother's house, and his menacing attitude proclaims that he is bent on mischief. The child looks imploringly towards Sally for protection, and instantaneously Sally is on the donkey's back, riding full tilt at their common enemy, who goes down in great confusion before her. Upon this the crowd and the entire pageant melt away like vapour from a glass, and Sally, with her baby-treasure safe in her arms, is walking along a dark street, the houses in which are so tall that they shut out the sky. The night is cold, the rain is falling, and they are alone, walking for many hours through the dreary thoroughfares, until from an archway a shadow steals and strives to seize the child. It is the new tenant again. Sally, terror-stricken, flies from him as fast as her little legs will allow her-and flies so swiftly, and through so many streets, for seemingly-interminable hours, that her breath fails, and life is leaving her: and all through this terrible flight the pursuer is at her heels, with flashing eyes and with death in his face. Sally knows that this is expressed in him, and that he is bent on destruction, although her back is towards him. She feels his hot breath on her neck; she hears a hissing sound from remorseless lips; closer and closer he comes, and his arms are about to close around her, when she falls over a precipice, down, down, into the spreading branches of a tree, where she places her baby safely in a cradle of flowers, and watches the form of their enemy flash, like a glance of light, into the abyss, the yawning mouth of which closes upon him with a snap. As the light of the child's golden hair falls on the green branches, they become magically transformed into the likeness of Sally's playmates and acquaintances round and about Rosemary Lane. There is Jane Preedy without any boots, and Ann Taylor without any stockings, and Jimmy Platt with the hair of his head falling over his weak eyes and sticking through the peak of his cap, and Young Stumpy with bits of his shirt thrusting themselves forward from unwarrantable places, and Betsy Newbiggin selling liquorice-water for pins; and there, besides, is the sailor-beggar without legs, who lives next door to the Chesters, comfortably strapped to his little wooden platform on wheels. Then the actors in the Lord Mayor's procession loom out on other branches, conspicuous among them being the drummer-boy, standing on his head on the donkey's back, and valiantly playing the drum in that position. The cradle of flowers fades, and its place is occupied by a square piece of carpet, upon which Sally's baby-treasure is dancing. The child is now dressed in the oddest fashion, her garments being composed of stray bits of silk and ribbon, which hang about her incongruously, but with picturesque effect. As she dances, the drummer-boy, who is now, in addition to his drum, supplied with pandean pipes, beats and pipes to the admiration of the audience. Carried away by the applause, he, in an inadvertent moment, bangs so loudly on his drum that he bangs the entire assemblage into air, and Sally is again alone, sitting in the tree by the side of the empty flower cradle. As she looks disconsolately around for her baby-treasure, comes a vision in the clouds. Thousands of angels, with bright wings and faces of lustrous beauty, are clustered about a cobbler, a friend of Sally's, who occupies a stall in Rosemary Lane, and who for the nonce transferred to a heavenly sphere, now plies his awl on Olympian heights. Very busy is he, with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his shoulders, mending shoes for the angels, who are flying to him from every bright cloud in the heavens, with old shoes and slippers in their hands. And presently all the lustrous shapes are gazing tenderly on Sally's baby-treasure, upon whose tiny feet the cobbler is fitting a pair of shining slippers. A sudden clap of thunder inspires multitudinous images of beauty, all of which presently merge into the sound of falling water, and the air is filled with a myriad slender lines of flashing light. Fainter and fainter they grow, and Sally awakes from her dream.

She hears the rain falling softly in the streets, and hears her mother ask her if she is awake. Almost unconscious, she murmurs she knows not what in reply, and pressing the baby closer to her, is in a moment asleep again; but her sleep now is dreamless.