Kitabı oku: «Fighting the Flames», sayfa 13
“A very just observation,” said Miss Tippet, nodding approval.
“Why, mother, who would have expected to hear you standing up for the red-coats in this fashion?” said Frank.
“I stand up for the blue-jackets too,” observed Mrs Willders meekly; “they fight for their country as well.”
“True, mother,” rejoined Frank; “but I did not refer to ultimate ends, I only thought of the immediate results in connection with those engaged. The warrior fights, and, in so doing, destroys life and property. The fireman fights, and in doing so protects and preserves both.”
“Hear! hear!” interrupted Willie; “but the copy-book says ‘Comparisons are odiows!’ don’t it? Mother, here’s a fathom and two inches or so of humanity as wants me to go with him to Mr Auberly. I s’pose Frank can get along without me for a little while—eh?”
“Certainly, my son; why does he want you?”
“Don’t know. P’raps he’s goin’ to offer to make me his secretary. But you don’t seem at all alarmed at the prospect of my being carried off by a flunkey.”
“You’ll come back, dearie, I doubt not.”
“Don’t you? Oh, very well; then I’ll just look after myself. If I don’t return, I’ll advertise myself in the Times. Good-bye.”
Willie returned to the door and announced that he was ready to go.
“But where is William?” asked Hopkins.
“Mister William Willders stands before you,” said the boy, placing his hand on his heart and making a bow. “Come now, Long-legs,” he added, seizing Hopkins by the arm and pushing him downstairs and into the cab. Leaping in after him he shut the door with a bang. “Now then, cabby, all right, Beverly Square, full split; sixpence extra if you do it within the half!”
Away they went, and in a few seconds were in the Mall driving at a rattling pace.
“See that house?” asked Willie, so suddenly as to startle Hopkins, who was quite overwhelmed by the vigour and energy of his young companion.
“Eh! which! the one with the porch before the door?”
“No, no, stoopid! the old red-brick house with the limbs of a vine all over the front of it, and the skeleton of a Virginia creeper on the wall.”
“Yes, I see it,” said Hopkins, looking out.
“Ah, a friend o’ mine lives there. I’m on wisitin’ terms there, I am. Now then, mind your eye, pump-handle,” cried Willie; “the turn’s rather sharp—hallo!”
As they swung round into the Bayswater Road the cab came in contact with a butcher’s cart, which, being the lighter vehicle, was nearly upset. No serious damage resulted, however, and soon after they drew up at the door of the house next Mr Auberly’s; for that gentleman still occupied the residence of his friend.
“Master Willders,” said Hopkins, ushering him into the presence of Mr Auberly, who still sat at the head of the couch.
Willie nodded to Loo and then to her father.
“Boy,” said the latter, beckoning Willie to approach, “my daughter wishes me to go and visit a poor family near London Bridge. She tells me you know their name and address.”
“The fairy, you know,” said Loo, explaining.
“Ah, the Cattleys,” answered Willie.
“Yes,” resumed Mr Auberly. “Will you conduct me to their abode?”
In some surprise Willie said that he would be happy to do so, and then asked Loo how she did.
While Mr Auberly was getting ready, Willie was permitted to converse with Loo and Mrs Rose, who was summoned to attend her young mistress. Presently Mr Auberly returned, bade Mrs Rose be very careful of the invalid, and then set off with Willie.
At first the boy felt somewhat awed by the remarkably upright figure that stalked in silence at his side, but as they continued to thread their way through the streets he ventured to attempt a little conversation.
“Weather’s improvin’, sir,” said Willie, looking up. “It is,” replied Mr Auberly, looking down in surprise at the boldness of his small guide.
“Good for the country, sir,” observed Willie.
Mr Auberly, being utterly ignorant of rural matters, thought it best to say nothing to this.
We may add that Willie knew just as little (or as much), and had only ventured the remark because he had often heard it made in every possible variety of weather, and thought that it would be a safe observation, replete, for all he knew to the contrary, with hidden wisdom.
There was silence after this for some time.
“D’you know Mr Tippet well, sir?” inquired Willie suddenly.
“Ye—yes; oh yes, I know him pretty well.”
“Ah, he’s a first-rater,” observed Willie, with a look of enthusiasm; “you’ve no notion what a trump he is. Did you hear ever of his noo machine for makin’ artificial butter?”
“No,” said Mr Auberly, somewhat impatiently.
“Ah, it’s a wonderful invention, that is, sir.”
“Boy,” said Mr Auberly, “will you be so good as to walk behind me?”
“Oh, cer’nly, sir,” said Willie, with a profound bow, as he fell to the rear.
They walked on in silence until they came to the vicinity of the Monument, when Mr Auberly turned round and asked Willie which way they were to go now.
“Right back again,” said Willie.
“How, boy; what do you mean?”
“We’ve overshot the mark about half a mile, sir. But, please, I thought you must be wishin’ to go somewhere else first, as you led the way.”
“Lead the way, now, boy,” said Mr Auberly, with a stern look.
Willie obeyed, and in a few minutes they were groping in the dark regions underground which Mr Cattley and his family inhabited. With some difficulty they found the door, and stood in the presence of “the fairy.”
Thin though the fairy had been when Willie saw her last, she might have been called fat compared with the condition in which they now found her. She appeared like a mere shadow, with a delicate skin thrown over it. A bad transparency would have been more substantial in appearance. She lay alone on her lonely pallet with a farthing candle beside her, which cast a light sufficient only to make darkness visible. Being near the poor invalid, it caused her large dark eyes to glitter in an awful manner.
Willie at once forgot his companion, and running up to the fairy, seized her hand, and asked her how she did.
“Pretty well, Willie. It’s kind of you to come and see me so often.”
“Not a bit, Ziza; you know I like it; besides, I’ve only come to-day to show a gentleman the way.”
He pointed to Mr Auberly, who had stopped short in the doorway, but who now advanced and sat down beside the invalid, and put to her several formal questions in a very stately and stiff manner, with a great assumption of patronage. But it was evident that he was not accustomed to the duty of visiting the sick, and, like little boys and girls when they sit down to write a letter, was very much at a loss what to say! He began by asking the fairy about her complaint, and exhausted every point that entered into his imagination in reference to that. Then he questioned her as to her circumstances; after which he told her that he had been sent to see her by his daughter Louisa, who was herself very ill, owing to the effects of a fire in his own house.
At this point the child became interested, and came to his relief by asking a great many eager and earnest questions about Loo. She knew about the fire in Beverly Square and its incidents, Willie having often related them to her during his visits; and she knew Mr Auberly by name, and was interested in him, but his frigid manner had repelled her, until he spoke of Loo having sent him to see her.
“Oh, I’ve been so sorry about Miss Loo, sir,” said Ziza, raising her large eyes full in Mr Auberly’s face; “I’ve heard of her, you know, from Willie, and when I’ve been lying all alone here for hours and hours together, I have wondered how she spent her time, and if there were kind people about her to keep up her spirits. It’s so strange that she and I should have been both hurt by a fire, an’ both of us so different every way. I do hope she’ll get better, sir.”
Mr Auberly became suddenly much interested in the fairy, for just as “love begets love,” so does interest beget interest. His feelings having been roused, his tongue was loosed, and forthwith he enjoyed a delightful conversation with the intelligent child; not that there was any remarkable change as to the matter of what was spoken, but there was a vast change in the manner of speaking it.
Willie also chimed in now and then, and volunteered his opinions in a way that would have called forth a sharp rebuke from his patron half an hour before; but he was permitted to speak, even encouraged, now, for Mr Auberly was being tickled pleasantly; he was having his feelings and affections roused in a way that he had never thought of or tried before; he was gathering golden experiences that he had never stooped to touch before, although the mine had been under his feet all his life, and his path had been strewn with neglected nuggets from the cradle—fortunately not, as yet, to the grave! Ziza’s Bible lay on the counterpane close to her wasted little hand. While she was talking of Loo, with deep sympathy beaming out of her eyes and trembling in her tones, Mr Auberly laid his hand inadvertently on it. She observed the action, and said—
“Are you going to read and pray with me, sir?”
Mr Auberly was taken very much aback indeed by this question.
“Well—no,” said he, “that is—if—fact, I have not brought my prayer-book with me; but—but—I will read to you if you wish it.”
Sympathy was gone now; the fairy felt that, and, not clearly understanding why, wondered at it. She thanked her visitor, however, and shut her eyes, while Mr Auberly opened the Bible and cleared his voice. His confusion was only momentary; still the idea that he could be confused at all by two mere children in such a wretched cellar so nettled the worthy man, that he not only recovered his self-possession, but read a chapter with all the solemn dignity of tone and manner that he would have assumed had he been officiating in Saint Paul’s or Westminster Abbey. This was such a successful essay, and overawed his little congregation so terribly, that for a moment he thought of concluding with the benediction; but, being uncertain whether he could go correctly through it, he wisely refrained.
Thereafter he rose, and bade the fairy good-night.
“Your father does not return till late, I suppose?” he said, while he held her hand.
“No; it is morning generally before he gets away. The pantomimes are hurting him, I fear, for he’s not so active as he once was, and he says he feels the falls very bad.”
“Poor man! It’s very sad; but I suppose it’s the usual way with that class of men. Well, goodnight again.”
“Good-night, sir!” responded the fairy, with a bright smile, “and thank you very much for your visit. Good-night, Willie.”
Willie said good-night in such a sulky tone, and followed Mr Auberly to the door with such a reckless swagger, that the fairy gazed after him in unutterable surprise. After shutting the door with a bang, he suddenly opened it again, and said in a loud voice—
“I say, I’ll get my wages day arter to-morrow. I’ll bring you a couple o’ bobs then. It’s all I can afford just now, for cigars are dear. If you’re hard up for wittles in the meantime, just grin and bear it; you’ll not die, you know, you’ll only get thinner. I have heard that a bit o’ boiled shoe-leather ain’t a bad thing to keep one easy till relief comes.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Mr Auberly in the distance, and bustling back as lie spoke; “I quite forgot; how stupid of me! I was directed by my daughter to give you this.”
He took a ten-pound note from his purse, and put it into the fairy’s hand.
“This is from Louisa,” he continued, “and I may add that it is the savings from her pocket-money. I did not wish the dear child to part with it, and said I would give it to you from myself; but she was so urgent, and seemed so distressed when I refused my consent, that I gave in; so you have to thank my daughter, not me.”
Mr Auberly smiled and nodded as he turned to go, and there was really very little grimness in the smile on this occasion—very little indeed! Willie also nodded with great violence and frequency; he likewise winked with one eye, and otherwise sought to indicate that there were within him sundry deep and not easily expressed thoughts and feelings, which were, upon the whole, of a satisfactory nature.
As for the fairy, she never once smiled or thanked Mr Auberly, but simply stared at him with her lustrous eyes open to their very widest, and she continued to stare at the door, as though she saw him through it, for some time after they were gone. Then she turned suddenly to the wall, thanked God, and burst into tears—glad tears, such as only those can weep who have unexpectedly found relief when their extremity was greatest.
Chapter Twenty Four
A Change in Fortune
There is nothing more surprising in regard to sublunary matters than the way in which unexpected events arise out of what may be called unintentional causes.
When David Boone and his friend Gorman planned the insurance and destruction of the toy shop and its contents, they no more expected that the very first steps towards that end would result in the conversion of a poor into a flourishing business, than they expected that the expression of a wish would convert Poorthing Lane into Beverly Square; yet so it was.
Poor David was rendered so desperate by his straits, and so anxious to escape from the crime into which his friend sought to plunge him, that he meditated suicide; but, lacking the courage to accomplish this, he relieved his feelings by carrying out the details of his business and the preliminary steps of his plan, with the wild and reckless energy of a maniac. The more he thought of the meshes which Gorman had cast around him, the more did he regard escape impossible. He therefore sought relief in action. He not only talked to his neighbours (as per agreement) about his rapidly increasing business, but he made purchases on a scale more extensive than he had ever before contemplated, even in his dreams. Being convinced that ruin, sooner or later, was his doom, he indulged in the most extravagant excesses, with much of the feeling which prompts some seamen, when the ship is sinking, to break into the spirit room and spend the short remnant of life in jollity. He experienced a sort of savage delight in ordering right and left from wholesale dealers in town and country, and even went so far as to write to Germany for toys, using the name of a well-known London house which had hitherto (and justly) believed him to be an honest man. The result of this was that Poorthing Lane was besieged for some time by railway vans, and waggons so huge that apparently an inch more added to their bulk would have rendered their passage impossible. Great deal boxes were constantly being unpacked in front of Mr Boone’s door, much to the annoyance of Miss Tippet, who could not imagine how it happened that her sedate and slow-going landlord had got such a sudden increase of business. Little did she think, poor lady, that this was the fuel with which it was intended to roast her alive!
Some of the smaller accounts for goods thus purchased Boone paid at once with the money furnished to him by Gorman, and thus got credit for being a capitalist. Others he deferred payment of until a more convenient season.
His friend Gorman, who would not have bent the joint of his little finger to have saved him from destruction, was so anxious to get up a good appearance, for the sake of getting the insurance effected advantageously, that he did his best to carry out his part of the plan, and, being a man of energy who in the paths of virtue might have risen to a high position among men, he succeeded beyond his expectation. Crowds of purchasers were sent by him to the shop of “the celebrated toy-man.” Some were mere decoy-ducks, who came and went (for a consideration) pretty frequently, and only “priced” the goods. Others were genuine purchasers, and between the two they created so much traffic in the toy-shop, that the multitude—so difficult to move by mere suasion, but so prone to follow blindly in the wake of a senseless rush, when once the rush takes place—began to move in the direction of the toyshop, and shortly before Christmas the demand for toys was so great, that Boone had to engage two assistants to carry on the business, and even the lane itself began to feel the benefit of the sudden increase of traffic.
All this was patent to the eyes of David Boone, but he was so overwhelmed with a sense of the guilt he was about to incur, and the deception he was even then practising, that he regarded the whole affair as a hollow bubble, which would soon burst and leave nothing behind. Even the rapid increase of the credit-balance in his bank-book did not affect his opinion, for he was not much of a financier, and, knowing that his transactions were founded on deception, he looked on the balance as being deceptive also.
Not so thought Gorman. That wily individual perceived, to his amazement, that things were taking a turn which had never been contemplated, so he silently looked on and wondered, and chuckled and resolved to abide his time.
As prosperity flowed in upon him, David Boone became more insane—for his condition of mind was little, if at all, short of temporary insanity—and his proceedings became more eccentric than ever. Among other things, he became suddenly smitten with a desire to advertise, and immediately in the columns of the tapers appeared advertisements to the effect that “The Celebrated Toy Emporium” was to be found in Poorthing Lane. Finding that this increased his business considerably, he hit upon a plan of advertising which has been practised rather extensively of late years in London. He sent out an army of boys with pots of whitewash and brushes, with directions to print in rough but large legible letters the words, “Who’s Boone?” on all the blank walls of the metropolis, and in the papers he answered the question by having printed under the same title, “Why, the manager of the Toy Emporium, to be sure, in Poorthing Lane.” He also advertised specially that he had in stock, “an assortment of 500 golden-haired dolls from Germany, full-dressed, half-dressed, and naked.”
This last was irresistible. Thousands of young hearts beat high at the mere thought of such numbers—“with golden hair too!” and dozens of mammas, and papas too, visited Poorthing Lane in consequence.
In course of time David Boone’s eyes began to open to the fact that he was rapidly making a fortune.
It was after the bustle of the Christmas season was over that he made this discovery. One of his new assistants, a young man named Lyall, was the means of opening his employer’s eyes to the truth. Lyall was a clever accountant, and had been much surprised from the first that Boone kept no regular system of books. At the end of the year he suggested that it would be well to take stock and find out the state of the business. Boone agreed. Lyall went to work, and in a short time the result of his labours showed, that after all debts were paid, there would remain a satisfactory credit-balance at the bank.
On the evening of the day on which this marvellous fact was impressed on Boone’s mind, Gorman called, and found his friend rubbing his hands, and smiling benignantly in the back room.
“You seem jolly,” said Gorman, sitting down, as usual, by the fire, and pulling out, as usual, the short pipe. “Business gittin’ on well?”
“It is,” said Boone, standing with his back to the fire, and swaying himself gently to and fro; “things don’t look so bad. I can pay you the arrears of rent now.”
“Oh, can you?” said Gorman. “Ah!”
“Yes, and I’m in a position to pay you fifty pounds of the debt I owe you besides,” said Boone.
“And a bill at three months for the balance?” inquired Gorman.
No, he could not venture to do that exactly, but he hoped to pay a further instalment before the end of three months.
“Humph! How much may the profits be?”
Boone could not say precisely, not having had all his accounts squared, but he believed they were considerable.
“I’ll be bound they are,” said Gorman with a growl; “you won’t want to set things alight now, I daresay.”
“Well, I think it’ll be as well to wait a bit, and let us make hay while this sunshine goes on.”
“Let you make hay, you mean?”
“Oh, as to that, the most of it will go to your stack for some time to come, Gorman.”
“H’m! and what about the insurance?”
“Well, you know,” observed Boone, “it’s of no use paying the premium for nothing. As we don’t mean to set the place alight, you know.”
“Ay, but the life insurance, I mean,” said Gorman.
Boone laughed, and observed that he thought it best not to die just at that particular time, whereupon Gorman laughed, too, and said he was about right, and that it would be as well to delay both events in the meantime; after saying which, he took his leave in better humour than usual, for Gorman was what men of his own stamp termed a “deep file.” He saw into futurity—so he thought—a considerable way farther than most men, and in the future of his own imagination he saw such a pleasant picture that his amiable spirit was quite cheered by it. He saw David Boone making money so fast, that his goods might be insured at a much larger amount; he saw him getting into fresh difficulties, of course, because such a business, on such a foundation, could not go on prosperously except under the most able management, and, even though it did prosper in spite of improbabilities, he foresaw that there was an amiable gentleman, much like himself, who would induce Boone to traffic beyond his means, and when money was wanted, the same kind gentleman (he saw that quite clearly) would come forward generously with a loan, for which he would only ask Boone to make over to him in security his two policies of insurance—fire and life; after which—well, we need not go on revealing the future as it appeared to Gorman’s mental vision; suffice it to say, that he saw upon the whole a prospect which gave him great satisfaction.
There were one or two things which he did not see, however, and which might have modified his feelings considerably if he had seen them. Of these we shall say nothing at present.
As for David Boone; his heart rejoiced, for he, too, had visions of the future which charmed him. He saw his debt to Gorman paid, and himself set free from the power of that amiable friend. He saw a toyshop change its locality and its aspect. He saw it transplanted into Regent Street, with plate-glass windows, in which were displayed objects of marvellous ingenuity and transcendent beauty. One window especially exhibiting, not a crowd, but, a very nation of wax-dolls with blue eyes and golden hair! He saw, moreover, a very little old woman, lying in a bed, in an elegant and comfortable apartment, with a Bible beside her, and a contented smile on her face. This old lady resembled his own mother so strongly, that all other prospects of the future faded from his view, and in the fulness of his heart and his success, he resolved then and there to go home and present her with a gift on the strength of the prosperity at that time attained to.
David was sorely perplexed as to what this gift ought to be. He thought of a new silk gown at first; but the remembrance of the fact that his mother was bedridden banished this idea. Owing to the same fact, new boots and gloves were inadmissible; but caps were not—happy thought! He started off at once, and returned home with a cap so gay, voluminous, and imposing, that the old lady, unused though she was to mirth, laughed with amusement, while she cried with joy, at this (not the first) evidence of her son’s affection.
