Kitabı oku: «Trading», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XII

The atmosphere of the house was very quiet during several successive days, as far as Matilda could observe it. The boys were extremely busy at school; and at home there was no public recurrence of Monday night's discussion. In private Mrs. Laval questioned Matilda very closely as to all the particulars of their Shadywalk expedition and all that she had known for weeks past of David's state of mind. She made no comment on the answers; and Matilda heard no more about the matter, until Saturday morning came. Then when they were at breakfast, Mrs. Bartholomew said in a conciliating tone,

"David, my son, I don't see any necessity for that communication you are proposing to make to your uncles."

"I must go to see them, mamma."

"Certainly; that is all just and proper; but there is no occasion to talk to them about your change of views."

"Then they would believe me what I am not."

"Well – " said Mrs. Bartholomew; "they would a great deal rather believe so than know the truth."

"Would you have liked me to hide it from you, mamma?"

"I don't know; yes, – I think I should."

"What would have been your opinion of me by and by, when you came to find it out?"

"Just the truth," said Judy languidly. "Nothing can make you more of a sneak than you are already."

"One thing," said David firmly. "To get, or try to get, my uncles' money under false pretences. You know they would never give it to a Christian."

"Judy," said Mrs. Lloyd, "another ill-bred word like that, and I send you from the table."

"But my dear boy," Mrs. Bartholomew went on, "you said Monday night that you were as much of a Jew as ever."

"The poor fellow was afraid of falling between two stools," said Judy; "so he clutched at 'em both, without thinking."

"And you are very young; and you do not know what your opinions may be in a few years more. And in the mean while, I am very unwilling that you should offend your uncles. They would never get over it."

"I guess they wouldn't," said Judy. "What a time David will have with 'em!"

"Don't you see, my dear," pursued Mrs. Bartholomew, "it is unnecessary, and may be premature, and so unwise?"

"Mother," said David, evidently struggling with his feelings, "Messiah has said that he will not own those who do not own him."

"You'll get nothing out of him, mamma," said Judy. "He is one of Matilda's crazy kind. He is going to get rid of his money as fast as he can; and then he will turn chaplain of some jail, I should think; or else he will get a place as a Methodist parson and go poking into all the poor places of the earth; and then we shall see his name up in bills – 'Preaching at the cross corners to-night – Rev. David Bartholomew will speak to the people from a candle box.'"

David changed colour once or twice, but he said nothing.

"Matilda Laval," said Judy sharply, "eat your breakfast! He won't want you to help him preach."

Matilda wondered privately that the elders were so patient of Judy's tongue and so very silent themselves. They seemed to have thoughts not ready for utterance. At any rate the breakfast party broke up with Judy having the last word, and scattered their several ways; and Matilda heard no more on David's subject for some time. How the Saturday's work issued she did not know; nothing was said about it in her hearing; and David looked as happy and as calm as he had done before Saturday. She watched him, and she was sure of that.

One afternoon, it was a Sunday, and the ladies of the family were shut up in their rooms, resting or dressing, Matilda and David were alone in the little reception room. It was the hour before dinner; Matilda had come in from Sunday school and was sitting there with a new book, when David joined her. He sat down beside her, Matilda knew immediately, for a talk; and she shut up her book.

"Matilda, I have been reading about the men with the talents; the five talents, and the ten talents, you know?"

"Yes, I know."

"I am afraid I don't know all my talents."

"What do you mean, David?"

"The talents are whatever is given to us to use for God – and that is, whatever is given to us; for we may use it all for him."

"Yes, David."

"Well – that means a great deal, Tilly."

"Yes, I know it does."

"And one might easily have talents that one didn't think of; lying by so, and not used at all."

"I dare say they often do," Matilda said thoughtfully.

"I want you to help me, if you can."

"I help you?" said Matilda very humbly.

"You have been longer in the way than I. You ought to know more about it."

"I am afraid I don't, though, David. But I guess Jesus will teach us, if we ask him."

"I am sure of that; but I think he means that we should help one another. What can I do, that I am not doing?"

Matilda thought a little, and then went upstairs and fetched the card of covenant and work of the old Band at Shadywalk. She put it in David's hands, and he studied it with great interest.

"There is help in this," he said. "There are things here I never thought of. 'Carrying the message' – of course I needn't wait till I have finished my studies and am grown up, to do that; it is easy to begin now."

"Are you going to do that, when you are grown up?" said Matilda a little timidly.

"As a profession, you mean. I don't know, Tilly; if the Lord pleases. I am all his anyway; I don't care how he uses me. What I want to know is my duty now. Then, Tilly, I have plenty of money."

"That's a very good thing," said Matilda smiling.

"What shall I do with it? Do your poor people want anything?"

"Sarah Staples? O no! they are getting on nicely. Sarah has learned how to sew on a machine, or partly learned; and she gets work to do now; and Mrs. Staples is stronger, and is able to take in washing. O no; they are getting along very well."

"There must be others," said David thoughtfully.

"Yes, plenty I suppose; only we don't know them, David! perhaps Sarah knows or her mother."

"What if we were to go and ask them?"

Matilda decided that it was a capital plan; and they arranged to go the next Saturday afternoon, when David would be at leisure. And the week seemed long till the Saturday came.

"Pink," said Norton at their dinner, "I will take you into the Park this afternoon."

"O thank you, Norton! But – I can't go. I have an engagement to go to see Sarah Staples."

"Sarah Staples! Sarah Staples can wait, and I can't. I have only one Saturday afternoon a week. It'll be splendid this afternoon, Pink. The Park is all green and flowery, and it's sure to be full. I'm going just at the fullest time."

"I should like to go with you; but I have business, and I can't put it off."

"I'll wait, Tilly, if you wish," David said.

"I don't wish it at all, David. I would rather not wait."

"O it's your business too, is it!" said Norton. "And Pink would rather not wait. Very good."

"It is important business, really, Norton," Matilda pleaded; "it is not for myself."

"That's just what proves it of no importance," said Norton. "What is it?"

"David and I want to see Mrs. Staples to find out something we want to know."

"Might as well ask the Sphinx," said Norton discontentedly.

"I would just as lief tell you what, Norton; only it is something you don't care about, and it would give you no pleasure."

"May as well let 'em go, Norton," remarked Judy, eating strawberries at a tremendous rate; it was not strawberry time by any means, but these came from the South. "May as well let 'em go; there's a pair of 'em; and they'll run, I guess, till they run their heads against something or other and pull up so; or till they get swamped. I hope they'll get swamped."

"What do you mean?" said Norton, gruffly enough.

Judy nodded her head at him in a very lively way over her strawberries.

"They are latter-day saints, don't you know? They are going to feed everybody on custards – not us, you know; we've got strawberries; but the people that haven't. Matilda's going to make them, and Davy's going to carry them round; and they're going out to buy eggs this afternoon. They expect you and me to give 'em the sugar they want."

"Not so sanguine as that, Judy," said her brother good-humouredly.

Norton looked very much discomposed; but David and Matilda had no time to spend in further talking.

They found Mrs. Staples at home, and Sarah too, as it was Saturday afternoon. The little room looked cosy and comfortable; for it was very tidy and very clean, and the mother and daughter were peacefully at work. The pleasure manifested at sight of David and Matilda was very lively. Sarah set chairs, and her mother looked to the fire in the stove.

"How does the oven work, Mrs. Staples?" Matilda asked.

"Couldn't be no better, and couldn't do no better. I declare! it's beautiful. Why after I got my hand in, I baked a pan o' biscuits the other day; and they riz up and browned, you never see! and the boys was too happy for anything. I wisht you'd seen 'em, just. They thought nothin' ever was so good, afore or since. Yes 'm, it's a first-rate oven; bakes apples too, in the most likely manner."

"How is the neighbourhood, Mrs. Staples?" David asked.

"Well, sir, there's nothin' agin' the neighbourhood. They be's a little noisy, by times; you can't expect they wouldn't; now the sun's warm in the streets and the children gets out o' their holes and corners. I sometimes think, what a mercy it is the sun shines! and specially to them as hain't no fire or next to none. I often think the Lord's more merciful than what men is."

"Do you think it is men's fault then, other men's, that such poor people haven't fire to keep them warm?"

"Well whose should it be, sir, if it wouldn't?"

"Might it not be the people's own fault?"

"Sartain!" cried Mrs. Staples, "when the money goes for drink. But why does it go for drink? I tell you, sir, folks loses heart when they knows there ain't enough to make a fire and buy somethin' to cook on the fire; and they goes off for what'll be meat and fire and forgetfulness too, for a time. And that's because of the great rents, that people that has no mercy lays on; and the mean little prices for work that is all one can get often, and be thankful for that. It's just runnin' a race with your strength givin' out every foot o' the way. And it's allays the rich folks does it," added Mrs. Staples, not very coherently.

"Rich people that give the low wages and put on the high rents, do you mean?"

"That's what I just do mean; and I ought to know. If a body once gets down, there's no chance to get up again, and then the drink comes easy."

"Do you know of anybody in distress near here, Mrs. Staples?" Matilda asked.

"Half of 'em is, I guess," was the answer.

"But is there anybody you know?"

"Mrs. Binn's little boy is sick," remarked Sarah, as her mother was pondering.

"What's the matter with him?"

"It's a kind o' waste, they say."

"Not a fever, or anything of that kind?" inquired David.

"O no, sir; he's been wasting, now, these three or four months."

"And they are not comfortable, Sarah?" Matilda asked.

"There's few is, livin' where those lives," said Mrs. Staples; "and of course, sickness makes things wuss. No, they're fur from comfortable, I should say."

"They haven't anything to give him," said Sarah low to Matilda.

"Any medicine, you mean?"

"No, Miss Matilda; nothing to eat, that he can eat."

"O David!" exclaimed Matilda, "let us go there. Where is it?"

David inquired again carefully about the sickness, to be sure that he might take Matilda there; and then they went. Sarah volunteered to guide them. But how shall I tell what they found. It was not far off, a few blocks only; in one of a tall row of tenement houses, grim and dismal, confronted by a like row on the other side of the street. Every one like every other. But inside, Matilda only remembered how unlike it was to all she had ever seen in her life before. Even Lilac lane was pleasantness and comfort comparatively. The house was sound indeed; there was no tumble-down condition of staircase or walls; the steps were safe, as they mounted flight after flight. But the entries were narrow and dirty; the stairways had never seen water; the walls were begrimed with the countless touches of countless dirty hands and with the sweeping by of foul draperies. Instinctively Matilda drew her own close round her. And as they went up and up, further from the street door, the air grew more close and unbearable; heavy with vapours and odours that had no chance at any time to feel the purification of a draught of free air. Poor cookery, soapsuds, unclean humanity and dirty still life, mingled their various smell in one heavy undistinguishable oppression.

"Oh, why do people build houses so high!" said little Matilda, as she toiled with her tired feet up the fourth staircase.

"For more rents, Miss Matilda," said Sarah who preceded them.

"For money!" said Matilda. "How tired the people must be that live here."

"They don't go down often," Sarah remarked.

At the very top of the house they were at last. There, in the end of the narrow entry-way, on the floor, was – what? A tumbled heap of dirty clothes, Matilda thought at first, and was about to pass it to go to the door which she supposed Sarah was making for; when Sarah stopped and drew aside a piece of netting that was stretched there. And then they saw, on the rags which served for his bed covers, the child they had come to see. A little, withered, shrunken piece of humanity, so nearly the colour of the rags he lay upon that his dark shock of matted curly hair made a startling spot in the picture.

"What's the matter, Sarah?" said Matilda in a distressed whisper.

"This is Mrs. Binn's boy, Miss Matilda, that you came to see."

"That? Why does he – why do they put him there?"

"Mrs. Binn's room is so small and so hot. It's there, Miss Matilda; you'll see it. When she's doing her washing and ironing, the place is so full of steam and so hot; and there ain't no room for the bed neither; and so she put Josh here."

Sarah led the way to Mrs. Binn's room, and Matilda followed her in a bewildered state of mind. She saw as soon as the door was opened the truth of Sarah's statements. The attic room was so small that Mrs. Binn's operations must have been carried on with the greatest difficulty; impossible Matilda would have thought them, but there were the facts. One dormer window in the roof was effectually shut up and hindered from its office of admitting air, by the pipe of the stove which passed out through the sash. As it was the end of the week, no washing encumbered the six feet clear of space; but the stove was fired up and Mrs. Binn was ironing and some clothes were hung up to air. It was neither desirable nor very practicable to go in; only Matilda edged a little way within the door, and David and Sarah stood at the opening.

"What's all to do?" said Mrs. Binn at this unlooked-for interruption, stopping iron in hand and peering at them between shirts and overalls hanging on the cords stretched across the room. She was a red-faced woman; no wonder! a small, incapable-looking, worn-out-seeming woman besides.

"This lady has come to see Josh, Mrs. Binn."

"What does she want of him?"

"Nothing," said Matilda gently; "Sarah told us how he had been sick a long while; and we came to see how he was and what he wanted."

"He won't want anything soon, but a coffin and a grave," said his mother. Matilda wondered how she could speak so; she did not know yet how long misery makes people seem hard. "How he'll get them, I don't know," Mrs. Binn went on; "but I s'pose – "

Her voice choked; she stopped there.

"Have you no place to put him but where he is lying?" Matilda asked, by way of leading on to something else.

"No, miss; no place," said the woman, feeling of her iron and taking up another one from the stove. "He'd perish in here, if he wouldn't be under my feet. An' I must stand, to live."

"Where do you dry the clothes you wash?"

"Here. I haven't an inch besides."

"I don't see how you can."

"Rich folks don't see a sight o' things," said poor Mrs. Binn; "don't like to, I guess."

"Is there not another room in the house that you could have for the sick boy, or that you could do your washing in and give him this?"

"Room in this house?" repeated the woman. "I'll tell you. There's nigh upon three hundred people living in it; do you think there'd be a room to spare?"

"Three hundred people in this house?" repeated Matilda.

"Nigh upon that. O it's close livin', and all sorts, and all ways o' livin', too. I like my room, cause it's so high and atop o' everything; but I hear thunder below me sometimes. I wouldn't care, only for the child," she said in a tone a little subdued.

"David, what can we do?" said Matilda, in a half despairing whisper. David edged himself a little forward and put his question.

"What does the doctor say about him?"

"Doctor!" echoed Mrs. Binn. "Did you say doctor? There's no doctor has seen him. Is it likely one would walk up to this chimbley top to see a poor boy like that? No, no; doctors has to be paid, and I can't do that."

"What do you give him to eat? what does he like?"

"What does he like!" the woman repeated. "He don't like nothin' he has, and he don't eat nothin'. 'Tain't 'what we like,' young sir, that lives in these places. Some days he can't swaller dry bread, and he don't care for mush; he'll take a sup o' milk now and then, when I can get it; but it's poor thin stuff; somethin' you call milk, and that's all."

"Good bye," said David. "I'll bring him something he will like, perhaps. I hope we haven't hindered you."

"I don't have so many visits I need quarrel with this one," said the woman, coming to her door to shew them so much civility; "Sarah wouldn't bring anybody to make a spectacle of me."

They cast looks on the poor little brown heap in the corner of the entry, and groped their way down stairs again. But when they got out into the street and drew breaths of fresh air, David and Matilda stood still and looked at each other.

"I never knew what good air meant before," said the latter.

"And even this is not good," replied David.

"How does he live, that poor little creature, with not one breath of it?"

"He doesn't live; he is dying slowly," said David.

"Oh David, what can we do?"

"We'll think, Tilly. I'll carry him some grapes presently. I fancy he wants nothing but food and air. We will contrive something."

"I wonder if there are any other sick children in that house, Sarah?" Matilda asked.

"I can't say, Miss Matilda; I don't know nobody there but Mrs. Binn; and we used to know her before she moved there. Do you want to know of anybody else in trouble?"

"Do you think of somebody else?"

"Not a child," said Sarah; "she's an old woman, or kind of old."

"Well; who is she?"

"She's Mrs. Kitteredge; her husband's a brick mason. Mother used to know her long ago, and she was a smart woman; but she's had a deal o' pulling down."

"What does she want now, Sarah?"

"It's too bad to tell you, Miss Matilda; you've done so much for us already."

"Never mind," said David; "go on; let us hear."

"Well" – Sarah hesitated.

"Is she sick too?"

"No, she ain't sick; she has been."

"What then?"

"I don't feel as if I had no right to tell you, sir; you and Miss Matilda. I spoke before I thought enough about it. She ain't noways sick; but she has had some sort o' sickness that has made her fingers all crumple up, like; they have bent in so, and she can't straighten 'em out, not a bit; and if you take hold of 'em you can only pull 'em open a little bit. And it hurts her so to do her work, poor thing!"

"Do what work?"

"All her work, Miss Matilda – same as if her hands was good. She washes and irons her clothes and his, and cooks for him, and makes her room clean; but it takes her all day 'most; and sometimes, she says, she gets out o' heart and feels like sittin' down and givin' up; but she never does, leastways when I see her. I go in and make her bed when I can; that's what she hardly can do for herself."

"I should think not!" said Matilda.

"She can't lift her hands to her head to put up her hair; and she suffers a deal."

"Is she so very poor too, Sarah?"

"No, Miss Matilda, it ain't that. He gets good wages and brings 'em home; but he's a pertiklar man and he expects she'll have everything just as smart as if she had her fingers."

"Then what can we do for her, Sarah?"

"I don't know, ma'am; – I was thinkin', if she could have one o' them rollers that wrings clothes – it tries her awful to wring 'em with her hands."

"A clothes-wringer! O yes," cried Matilda.

"What is that?" said David.

"I will shew you. Thank you, Sarah; it was quite right to tell us. We'll see what we can do."

But after they had parted from Sarah the little girl walked quite silently and soberly homeward. David stopped at a grocer's to get some white grapes, and turned back to carry them to the sick child; and Matilda went the rest of her way alone.