At the sight of the squalid house in which Winifred had lived and died I passed into a new world of horror. Dead matter had become conscious, and for a second or two it was not the human being before me, but the rusty iron, the broken furniture, the great patches of brick and dirty mortar where the plaster had fallen from the walls,—it was these which seemed to have life—a terrible life—and to be talking to me, telling me what I dared not listen to about the triumph of evil over good. I knew that the woman was still speaking, but for a time I heard no sound—my senses could receive no impressions save from the sinister eloquence of the dead and yet living matter around me. Not an object there that did not seem charged with the wicked message of the heartless Fates.
At length, and as I stood upon the doorstep, a trembling, a mighty expectance, seized me like an ague-fit; and I heard myself saying, 'I am come to see the body, Mrs. Gudgeon.' Then I saw her peer, blinking, into my face, as she said,
'Oh, oh, it'syou, is it? It's one o' the lot as keeps the studeros, is it?—the cussed Chelsea lot as killed her. I recklet yer a-starin' at the goddess Joker! So you've come to see my poor darter's body, are you? How werry kind, to be sure! Pray come in, gentleman, an' pray let the beautiful goddess Joker be perlite an' show sich a nice kind wisiter the way upstairs.'
She took a candle, and with a mincing, mocking movement, curtseying low at every step, she backed before me, and then stood waiting at the foot of the staircase with a drunken look of satire on her features.
'Pray go upstairs fust, gentleman,' said she; 'I can't think o' goin' up fust, an' lettin' my darter's kind wisiter foller behind like a sarvint. I 'opes we knows our manners better nor that comes to in Primrose Court.'
'None of this foolery now, woman,' said I. 'There's a time for everything, you know.'
'How right he is!' she exclaimed, nodding to the flickering candle in her hand. 'There's a time for everything an' this is the time for makin' a peep-show of my pore darter's body. Oh, yes!'
I mounted a shaky staircase, the steps of which were, some of them, so broken away that the ascent was no easy matter. The miserable light from the woman's candle, as I entered the room, seemed suddenly to shoot up in a column of dazzling brilliance that caused me to close my eyes in pain, so unnaturally sensitive had they been rendered by the terrible expectance of the sight that was about to sear them.
When I re-opened my eyes, I perceived that in the room there was one window, which looked like a trap-door; on the red pantiles of the opposite roof lay a smoke-dimmed sheet of moonlight. On the floor at the further end of the garret, where the roof met the boards at a sharp angle, a mattress was spread. Then speech came to me.
'Not there!' I groaned, pointing to the hideous black-looking bed, and turning my head away in terror. The woman burst into a cackling laugh.
'Not there? Who said shewasthere?Ididn't. If you can see anythink there besides a bed an' a quilt, you've got eyes as can make picturs out o' nothink, same as my darter's eyes could make 'em, pore dear.'
'Ah, what do you mean?' I cried, leaping to the side of the mattress, upon which I now saw that no dead form was lying.
For a moment a flash of joy as dazzling as a fork of lightning seemed to strike through my soul and turn my blood into a liquid fire that rose and blinded my eyes.
'Not dead,' I cried; 'no, no, no! The pitiful heavens would have rained blood and tears at such a monstrous tragedy. She is not dead—not dead after all! The hideous dream is passing.'
'Oh, ain't she dead, pore dear?—ain't she? She's dead enough for one,' said the woman; 'but 'ow can she be there on that mattress, when she's buried, an' the prayers read over her, like the darter of the most 'spectable mother as ever lived in Primrose Court! That's what the neighbours say o' me. The most 'spectable mother as ever—'
'Buried!' I said, 'who buried her?'
'Who buried her? Why the parish, in course.'
Despair then again seemed to send a torrent of ice-water through my veins. But after a time the passionate desire to see her body leapt up within my heart.
At this moment Wilderspin, who had evidently followed me with remarkable expedition, came upstairs and stood by my side.
'I must go and see the grave,' I said to him. 'I must see her face once more. I must petition the Home Secretary. Nothing can and nothing shall prevent my seeing her—no, not if I have to dig down to her with my nails.'
'An' who the dickens are you as takes on so about my darter?' said the woman, holding the candle to my face.
'Drunken brute!' said I. 'Where is she buried?'
'Well, I'm sure!' said the woman in a mincing, sarcastic voice. 'How werry unperlite you is all at wonst! how werry rude you speaks to such a werry 'spectable party as I am! You seem to forgit who I am. Ain't I the goddess as likes to 'ave 'er little joke, an' likes to wet both eyes, and as plays sich larks with her flummeringeroes and drumming-dairies an' ring-tailed monkeys an' men?'
When I saw the creature whip up the quilt from the mattress, and, holding it over her head like a veil, leer hideously in imitation of Cyril's caricature, a shudder went again through my frame—a strange kind of dementia came upon me; my soul again seemed to leave my body—seemed to be lifted through the air and beyond the stars, crying, in agony, 'Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?' Yet all the while, though my soul seemed fleeing through infinite space, where a pitiless universe was waltzing madly round a ball of cruel fire—all the while I was acutely conscious of looking down upon the dreadful dream-world below, looking down into a frightful garret where a dialogue between two dream-figures was going on—a dialogue between Wilderspin and the woman, each word of which struck upon my ears like a sharp-edged flint, though it seemed millions of miles away.
* * * * *
'What made you trick me like this? Where is the money I gave you for the funeral?'
'That's werry true, about that money, an' where is it? The orkerdest question about money allus is—"Where is it?" The money for that funeral I 'ad, I won't deny that. The orkard question ain't that: it's "Where is it?" But you see, arter I left your studero I sets on that pore gal's bed a-cryin' fit to bust; then I goes out into Clement's Alley, and I calls on Mrs. Mix—that's a werry dear friend of mine, the mother o' seven child'n as are allus a-settin' on my doorstep, an' she comes out of Yorkshire you must know, an' she's bin a streaker in her day (for she was well off wonst was Mrs. Mix afore she 'ad them seven dirty-nosed child'n as sets on her neighbours' doorsteps)—an' she sez, sez she, "My pore Meg" (meanin' me), "I've bin the mother o' fourteen beautiful clean-nosed child'n, an' I've streaked an' buried seven on 'em, so I ought to know somethink about corpuses, an' I tell you this corpse o' your darter's must be streaked an' buried at wonst, for she died in a swownd. An' there's nothink like the parishes for buryin' folk quick, an' I dessay the coffin's ordered by this time, an' I dessay the gent gev you that money just to make you comforble like, seein' as he killed your darter." That's what Mrs. Mix says to me. So the parish comed an' brought a coffin an' tookt her, pore dear. And I've cried myself stupid-like, bein' her pore mother as 'es lost her on'y darter—an' I was just a-tryin' to make myself comfable when this 'ere young toff as seems so werry drunk comes a-rappin' at my door fit to rap the 'ouse down.'
'Has she been buried at all? How can a spiritual body be buried?'
'"Buried at all?" What do you mean by insinivatin' to the pore gal's conflicted mother as she p'raps ain't buried at all? You're a-makin' me cry ag'in. She lays comfable enough underneath a lot of other coffins, in the pauper part of the New North Cimingtary.'
'Underneath a lot of others; how can that be?'
'What! ain't you toffs never seed a pauper finneral? Now that's a pity; and sich nice toffs as they are, a-settin' theirselves up to look arter the darters o' pore folks. P'raps you never thought how we was buried. We're buried, when our time comes, and then they're werry kind to us, the parish toffs is:—It's in a lump—six at a time—as they buries us, and sich nice deal coffins they makes us, the parish toffs does, an' sich nice lamp-black they paints 'em with to make 'em look as if they was covered over with the best black velvid; an' then sich a nice sarmint—none o' your retail sarmints, but a hulsale sarmint—they reads over the lot, an' into one hole they packs us one atop o' the other, jest like a pile o' the werry best Yarmith bloaters, an' that's a good deal more sociable an' comfable, the parish toffs thinks, than puttin' us in single; so it is, for the matter o' that.'
Then I heard no more; for at the intolerable picture called up by the woman's words, my soul in its misery seemed to have soared, scared and trembling, above and beyond the heavens at whose futile gates it had been moaning, till at last it sank at the feet of the mighty power that my love had striven with on the sands of Raxton when the tide was coming in—some pale and cruel ruler whose brow I saw wrinkled with the woman's mocking smile—some frightful columbine-queen, wicked, bowelless, and blind, shaking a starry cap and bells, and chanting—
I lent the drink of DayTo gods for feast;I poured the river of NightOn gods surceased:Their blood was Nin-ki-gal's.
And there, at the feet of the awful jesting hag, Circumstance, I could only cry 'Winnie! my poor Winnie!' while over my head seemed to pass Necessity and her black ages of despair.
When I came to myself I said to the woman,
'You can point out the grave?'
'Well, yes,' paid slip, turning round sharply; 'but may I ax who the dickens you are?—an' what makes you so cut up about a pore woman's darter? It's right-on beautiful to see how kind gentlemen is nowadays': and she turned and tried, stumbling, to lead the way downstairs.
As we left the room I turned round to look at it. The picture of the mattress, now nearly hidden in the shadows—the picture of the other furniture in the room—two chairs—or rather one and a part of a chair, for the rails of the hack were gone—a table, a large brown jug, the handle of which had been replaced by a piece of string, and a white washhand-basin, with most of the rim broken away, and a shallow tub apparently used for a bath—seemed to sink into my flesh as though bitten in by the etcher's aquafortis. Winifred's sleeping-room!
'Of course she wasn't her daughter,' said Wilderspin meditatively, as we stood on the stairs.
'Not my darter! Why, in course she was. What an imperent thing to say, sure_lie_!'
'There is one thing I wish to say to you,' said he to the woman. 'When I agreed with you as to the sum to be paid for the model's sittings, it was clearly understood that she was to sit to no other artist, and that the match-selling was to cease.
'Well, and 'ave I broke my word?'
'A person has heard her singing and seen her selling baskets,' I said.
'The person tells a lie,' said the woman, with a dogged and sullen look, and in a voice that grew thicker with every word. 'Ain't there sich things as doubles?'
At these last words my heart gave a sudden leap. We left the house, and neither of us spoke till we got into the Strand.
'Did you see the—body at all?' I asked Wilderspin.
'Oh, yes. After I gave her the money for the funeral I went to Primrose Court. The woman took me upstairs, and there on the mattress lay—what the poor woman believed to be the earthly body of an earthly daughter. It was covered with a quilt. Over the face a ragged shawl had been thrown.'
'Yes, yes. She raised the shawl?'
'Yes, the woman went and held the candle over the head of the mattress and uncovered the face; and there lay she whom the woman believed to be her daughter, and whom you believe to be the young lady you seek, but whom Iknowto be a spiritual body—the perfect type that was sent to me in order that I might fulfil my mission. You groan, Mr. Aylwin, but remember that you have lost only a dream, a beautiful hallucination; I have lost a reality: there is nothing real but the spiritual world.
As I wandered about the streets after parting from Wilderspin, what were my emotions? If I could put them into words, is there one human being in ten thousand who would understand me? Happily, no. For there is not one in ten thousand who, having sounded the darkest depths of human misery, will know how strong is Hope when at the true death-struggle with Despair. 'Hope in the human breast,' wrote my father, 'is a passion, a wild, a lawless, and an indomitable passion, that almost no cruelty of Fate can conquer.'
Many a passer-by in the streets of London that night must have asked himself, What lunatic is this at large? At one moment I would bound along the pavement as though propelled by wings, scarcely seeming to touch the pavement with my feet. At the next I would stop in a cold perspiration and say to myself, 'Idiot, is it possible that you, so learned in suffering—you, whom Destiny, or Heaven, or Hell, has taken in hand as a special sport—can befool yourself with Hope now, after the terrible comedy by which you and the ancestral idiots from whom you sprang amused Queen Nin-ki-gal in Raxton crypt?'
Hope and Despair were playing at shuttlecock with my soul. Underneath my misery there flickered a thought which, wild as it was, I dared not dismiss—the thought that, after all, itmightnot be Winifred who had died in that den. Possible it was—however improbable—that Imightbe labouring under a delusion. My imaginationmighthave exaggerated a resemblance into actual identity, and Winifred and she whom Wilderspin painted might be two different persons—and there might be hope even yet. But so momentous was the issue to my soul, that the mere fact of having clearly marshalled the arguments on the side of Hope made my reason critical and suspicious of their cogency. From the sweet sophisms that my reason had called up, I turned, and there stood Despair, ready for me behind a phalanx of arguments, which laughed all Hope's 'ragged regiment' to scorn.
Had not my mother recognised her? Could the infallible perceptive faculties of my mother be also deceived?
But to accept the fact that she who died on that mattress was little Winnie of the sands was to go stark mad, and the very instinct of self-preservation made me clutch at every sophism Hope could offer.
'Did not the woman declare that the singing-girl and the model werenotone and the same?' said Hope. 'And if she did not lie, may you not have been, after all, hunting a shadow through London?'
'It might not have been Winifred,' I shouted.
But no sooner had I done so than the scene in the studio—Wilderspin's story of the model's terror on seeing my mother's portrait—came upon me, and 'Dead! dead!' rang through me like a funeral knell: all the superstructure of Hope's sophisms was shattered in a moment like a house of cards: my imagination flew away to all the London graveyards I had ever heard of; and there, in the part divided by the pauper line, my soul hovered over a grave newly made, and then dived down from coffin to coffin, one piled above another, till it reached Winifred, lying pressed down by the superincumbent mass; those eyes staring.
Yes; that night I was mad!
I could not walk fatigue into my restless limbs. Morning broke in curdling billows of fire over the east of London—which even at this early hour was slowly growing hazy with smoke. I found myself in Primrose Court, looking at that squalid door, those squalid windows. I knocked at the door. No answer came to my summons, and I knocked again and again. Then a window opened above my head, and I heard the well-known voice of the woman exclaiming,
'Who's that? Poll Onion's out to-night, and the rooms are emp'y 'cept mine. Why, God bless me, man, is it you?'
'Hag! that was not your daughter.'
She slammed the window down.
'Let me in, or I will break the door.'
The window was opened again.
'Lucky as I didn't leave the front door open to-night, as I mostly do. What do you want to skear a pore woman for?' she bawled. 'Go away, else I'll call up the people in Great Queen Street.'
'Mrs. Gudgeon, all I want to do is to ask you a question.'
'Ah, but that's what you jis'won'tdo, my fine gentleman. I don't let you in again in a hurry.'
'I will give you a sovereign.'
'Honour bright?' bawled the old woman; 'let me look at it.'
'Here it is, in my hand.'
'Jink it on the stuns.'
I threw it down.
'Quid seems to jink all right, anyhow,' she said, 'though I'm more used to the jink of a tanner than a quid in these cussed times. You won't skear me if I come down?'
'No, no.'
At last I heard her fumbling inside at the lock, and then the door opened.
'Why, man alive! your eyes are afire jist like a cat's wi' drownded kitlins.'
'She was not your daughter.'
'Not my darter?' said she, as she stooped to pick up the sovereign. 'You ain't a-goin' to catch me the likes o' that. The Beauty not my darter! All the court knows she was my own on'y darter. I'll swear afore all the beaks in London as I'm the mother of my own on'y darter Winifred, allus' wur 'er mother, and allus wull be; an' if she went a-beggin' it worn't my fort. She liked beggin', poor dear; some gals does.'
'Her name Winifred!' I cried, with a pang at my heart as sharp as though there had been a reasonable hope till now.
'In course her name was Winifred.'
'Liar! How came she to be called Winifred?'
'Well, I'm sure! Mayn't a Welshman's wife give her own on'y Welsh darter a Welsh name? Us poor folks is come to somethink! P'raps you'll say I ain't a Welshman's wife next? It's your own cussed lot as killed her, ain't it? What did I tell the shiny Quaker when fust I tookt her to the studero? I sez to the shiny un, "She's jist a bit touched here," I sez' (tapping her own head), '"and nothink upsets her so much as to be arsted a lot o' questions," I sez to the shiny un. "The less you talks to her," I sez, "the better you'll get on with her," I sez, "and the better kind o' pictur you'll make out on her," I sez to the shiny un; "an' don't you go an' arst who her father is," I sez, "for that word 'ull bring such a horful look on her face," I sez, "as is enough to skear anybody to death. I sha'n't forget the look the fust time I seed it," I sez. That's what I sez to the shiny Quaker. An' yit you did go an' worrit 'er, a-arstin' 'er a lot o' questions about 'er father. Youdid—I know you did! Youmust'a done it—so no lies; for that wur the on'y thing as ever skeared 'er, arstin' 'er about 'er father, pore dear….Why, man alive! whatareyou a-gurnin' at? an' what are you a-smackin' your forred wi' your 'and like that for, an' a-gurnin' in my face like a Chessy cat? Blow'd if I don't b'lieve you're drunk. An' who the dickens are you a-callin' a fool, Mr. Imperance?'
It was not the woman but myself I was cursing when I cried out,'Fool! besotted fool!'
Not till now had the wild hope fled which had led me back to the den. As I stood shuddering on the doorstep in the cold morning light, while the whole unbearable truth broke in upon me, I could hear my lips murmuring,
'Fool of ancestral superstitions! Fenella Stanley's fool! Philip Aylwin's fool! Where was the besotted fool and plaything of besotted ancestors, when the truth was burning so close beneath his eyes that it is wonderful they were not scorched into recognising it? Where was he when, but for superstitions grosser than those of the negroes on the Niger banks, he might have saved the living heart and centre of his little world? Where was the rationalist when, but for superstitions sucked in with his mother's milk, he would have gone to a certain studio, seen a certain picture which would have sent him on the wings of the wind to find and rescue and watch over the one for whom he had renounced all the ties of kindred? Where was then the most worthy descendant of a line of ancestral idiots—Romany and Gorgio—stretching back to the days when man's compeers, the mammoth and the cave-bear, could have taught him better? Rushing down to Raxton church to save her!—to save her by laying a poor little trinket upon a dead man's breast!'
After the paroxysm of self-scorn had partly exhausted itself, I stood staring in the woman's face.
'Well,' said she, 'I thought the shiny Quaker was a rum un, but blow me if you ain't a rummyer.
'Her name was Winifred, and the word "father" produced fits,' I said, not to the woman, but to my soul, in mocking answer to its own woe. 'What about my father's spiritualism now? Good God! Is there no other ancestral tomfoolery, no other of Superstition's patent Aylwinian soul-salves for the philosophical Nature-worshipper and apostle of rationalism to fly to? Her name was Winifred.
'Yis; don't I say 'er name wur Winifred?' said the woman, who thought I was addressing her. 'You're jist like a poll-parrit with your "Winifred, Winifred, Winifred." That was 'er name, an' she 'ad a shock, pore dear, an' it was all along of you at the studero a-talkin' about 'er father. Youmusta-talked about 'er father: so no lies. She 'ad fits arter that, in course she 'ad. Why, you'll make me die a-larfin' with your poll-parritin' ways, sayin' "a shock, a shock, a shock," arter me. In course she 'ad a shock; she 'ad it when she was a little gal o' six. My pore Bill (that's my 'usband as now lives in the fine 'Straley) was a'most killed a-fightin' a Irishman. They brought 'im 'um an' laid 'im afore her werry eyes, an' the sight throw'd 'er into high-strikes, an' arter that the name of "father" allus throwed her into high-strikes, an' that's why I told 'em at the studero never to say that word. An' I know youmust'a' said it, some o' your cussed lot must, or else why should my pore darter 'a' 'ad the high-strikes? Nothin' else never gev 'er no high-strikes only talkin' to 'er about 'er father. An' as to me a-sendin' 'er a-beggin', I tell you she liked beggin'. I gev her baskets to sell, an' flowers to sell, an' yet shewouldbeg. I tell you she liked beggin'. Some gals does. She was touched in the 'ead, an' she used to say shemustbeg, an' there was nothink she used to like so much as to stan' with a box o' matches a-jabberin' a tex' out o' the Bible unless it was singin'. There you are, a-larfin' and a-gurnin' ag'in. If I wur on'y 'arf as drunk as you are the coppers 'ud 'a' runmein hours ago; cuss 'em, an' their favouritin' ways.'
At the truth flashing in upon me through these fantastic lies, I had passed into that mood when the grotesque wickedness of Fate's awards can draw from the victim no loud lamentations—when there are no frantic blows aimed at the sufferer's own poor eyeballs till the beard—like the self-mutilated Theban king's—is bedewed with a dark hail-shower of blood. More terrible because more inhuman than the agony imagined by the great tragic poet is that most awful condition of the soul into which I had passed—when the cruelty that seems to work at Nature's heart, and to vitalise a dark universe of pain, loses its mysterious aspect and becomes a mockery; when the whole vast and merciless scheme seems too monstrous to be confronted save by mad peals of derisive laughter—that dreadful laughter which bubbles lower than the fount of tears—that laughter which is the heart's last language; when no words can give it the relief of utterance—no words, nor wails, nor moans.
'Another quid,' bawled the woman after me, as I turned away, 'another quid, an' then I'll tell you somethink to your awantage. Out with it, and don't spile a good mind.'
What I did and said that morning as I wandered through the streets of London in that state of tearless despair and mad unnatural merriment, one hour of which will age a man more than a decade of any woe that can find a voice in lamentations, remains a blank in my memory.
I found myself at the corner of Essex Street, staring across the Strand, which, even yet, had scarcely awoke into life. Presently I felt my sleeve pulled, and heard the woman's voice.
'You didn't know as I was cluss behind you all the while, a-watchin' your tantrums. Never spile a good mind, my young swell. Out with t'other quid, an' then I'll tell you somethink about my pootty darter as is on my mind.'
I gave her money, but got nothing from her save more incoherent lies and self-contradictions about the time of the funeral.
'Point out the spot where she used to stand and beg. No, don't stand on it yourself, but point it out.'
'This is the werry spot. She used to hold out her matches like this 'ere,—my darter used,—an' say texes out o' the Bible. She loved beggin', pore dear!'
'Texts from the Bible?' I said, staggering under a new thought that seemed to strike through me like a bar of hot metal. 'Can you remember any one of them?'
'It was allus the same tex', an' I ought to remember it well enough, for I've 'eerd it times enough. She wur like you for poll-parritin' ways, and used to say the same thing over an' over ag'in. It wur allus, "Let his children be wagabones and beg their bread; let them seek it also out of desolate places." Why, you're at it ag'in—gurnin' ag'in. Youmustbe drunk.'
Again there came upon me the involuntary laughter of heart-agony at its tensest. I cried aloud: 'Faith and Love! Faith and Love! That farce of the Raxton crypt with the great-grandmother's fool on his knees shall be repeated for the delight of Nin-ki-gal and the Danish skeletons and the ancestral ghosts from Hugh the Crusader down to the hero of the knee-caps and mittens; and there shall be a dance of death and a song, and the burden shall be—
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods:They kill us for their sport.'
Misery had made me a maniac at last; my brain swam, and the head of the woman seemed to be growing before me—seemed once more to be transfigured before me into a monstrous mountainous representation of an awful mockery-goddess and columbine-queen, down whose merry wrinkles were flowing tears that were at once tears of Olympian laughter and tears of the oceanic misery of Man.
'Well, youarea rum un, and no mistake,' said the woman. 'But who the dickensareyou?That'swhat licks me. Who the dickensareyou? Howsomever, if you'll fork out another quid, the Queen of the Jokes'll tell you some'ink to your awantage, an' if you won't fork out the Queen o' the Jokes is mum.'
I stood and looked at her—looked till the street seemed to heave under my feet and the houses to rock. After this I seem to have wandered back to Wilderspin's studio, and there to have sunk down unconscious.
I will not trouble the reader with details of the illness that came upon me as the result of my mental agony and physical exhaustion. At intervals I was aware of what was going on around me, but for the most part I was in a semi-comatose state. I realised at intervals that a medical man was sitting by my side, as I lay in bed. Then I had a sense of being moved from place to place; and then of being rocked by the waves. Slowly the periods of consciousness became more frequent and also more prolonged.
My first exclamation was—'Dead! Have I been ill?' and I tried to raise myself in vain.
'Yes, very ill,' said a voice, my mother's.
'Dangerously?'
'For several days you were in danger. Your recovery now entirely depends upon your keeping yourself calm.'
'I am out at sea?'
'Yes,' said my mother; 'in Lord Sleaford's yacht.'
'How did I come here?'
'Well, Henry, I was so anxious to wait for a day or two to learn the sequel of the dreadful tragedy, that I persuaded Lord Sleaford to delay sailing. Next day he called at Belgrave Square, and told us he had heard that you had been taken suddenly ill and were lying unconscious at the studio. I went at once and saw the medical man, Mr. Finch, whom Mr. Wilderspin had called in. This gentleman took a serious view of your case. When I asked him what could be done he said that nothing would benefit you so much as removal from London, and recommended a sea voyage. It occurred to me at once to ask Lord Sleaford if we might take you in his yacht, and he with his usual good-nature agreed, and agreed also that Mr. Finch should accompany us as your medical attendant.'
'You know all?' I said; 'you know that she is dead.'
'Alas! yes.'
At that moment the doctor came into the cabin, and my mother retired.
'When did you last see Wilderspin?' I asked Mr. Finch.
'Before leaving England to join a friend in Paris he went to BelgraveSquare to get tidings of you, and I was there.'
'He told you—what had occurred to make me ill?'
'He told me that it was the death of some one in whom you took an interest, a model of his, but told it in such a wild and excited way that I lost patience with him. His addled brains are crammed with the wildest and most ignorant superstitions.'
'Did you ask him about her burial?'
'I did. I gathered from him that she was buried by the parish in the usual way. But I assure you the man's account of everything that occurred was so bewildered and so incoherent that I could really make nothing out of him. What is his creed? Is it Swedenborgianism? He seems to think that the model he has lost is a spirit (or spiritual body, to use his own jargon) sent to him by the artistic-minded spirits for entirely artistic purposes, but snatched from him now by the mean jealousy of the same spirit-world.' 'But what did he say about her burial?' 'Well, he seems not to have ignored so completely the mundane question of burying this spiritual body as his creed would have warranted, for he gave the mother money to bury it. The mother, however, seems to have spent the money in gin and to have left the duty of burying the spiritual body to the parish, who make short work of all bodies; and, of course, by the parish she was buried, you may rest assured of that, though the artist seems to think that she was simply translated to heaven like Elijah.'
'I must return to England at once,' I said. 'I shall apply to theHome Secretary to have the body disinterred.'
'Why, sir?'
'In order that she may be buried in a proper place, to be sure.'
'No use. You have nolocus standi.'
'What do you mean?'
'You are not a relative, and to ask for a disinterment for such an unimportant reason as that you, a stranger, would prefer to see her buried elsewhere, would be idle.'
Sleaford now came into the cabin. I thanked him for his kindness, but told him I must return at once.
'Even if your health permitted,' he said, 'it is impossible for the yacht to go back. I have an appointment to meet a yachting friend. But in any case depend upon it, old fellow, the doctor won't hear of your returning for a long while yet. He told me not five minutes ago that nothing but sea air, and keeping your mind tranquil, you know, will restore you.'
The feeling of exhaustion that came upon me as he spoke convinced me that there was only too much truth in his words. I felt that I must yield to the inevitable; but as to tranquillity of mind, my entire being was now filled with a yearning to see the New North Cemetery—to see her grave. I seemed to long for the very pang which I knew the sight of the grave would give me.
It is of course impossible for me to linger over that cruise, or to record any of the incidents that took place at the ports at which we touched and landed. My recovery, or rather my partial recovery, was slower than the doctor had anticipated. Weeks and months passed, and still there seemed but little improvement in me.
The result was that I was obliged to yield to the importunities of my mother, and to the urgent advice of Dr. Finch, to remain on board Sleaford's yacht during the entire cruise, and afterwards to go with them to Italy.
Absence from England gave me not the smallest respite from the grief that was destroying me.
My parting with my mother was a very pathetic one. She was greatly changed, and I knew why. The furrows Time sets on the face can never be mistaken for those which are caused by the passions. The struggle between pride and remorse had been going on apace; her sufferings had been as great as my own.
It was in Rome we parted. We were sitting in the cool, perfumed atmosphere of St. Peter's, and for the moment a soothing wave seemed to pass over my soul. For some little time there had been silence between us. At length I said, 'Mother, it seems strange indeed for me to have to say to you that you blame yourself too much for the part you took in the tragedy of Winnie. When you sent her into Wales you didn't know that her aunt was dead; you did it, as you thought, for her good as well as for mine.'
She rose as if to embrace me, and then sank down again.
'But you don't know all, Henry; you don't know all. I knew her aunt was dead, though Shales did not, or he would never have taken her. All that concerned me was to get her away before your own recovery. I thought there might be relatives of hers or friends whom Shales might find. But I was possessed by a frenzied desire to get her away. For years my eyes had been fixed on the earldom. I had been told by your aunt that Cyril was consumptive, and also that he was very unlikely to marry.'
I could not suppress a little laugh. 'Ha, ha! Cyril consumptive! No man's stronger and sounder, I am glad to tell you; but if by ill-chance he should die and the title should come to me, then, mother, I'll wear the coronet, and it shall be made of the best gingerbread gilt and ornamented thus. I'll give public lectures on the British aristocracy and its origin, and its present relations to the community, and my audience shall consist of society—that society which is so much to aunt and the likes of her. Society shall be my audience, and then, after my course of lectures is over, I will join the Gypsies. But pray pardon me, mother. I had no idea I should thus lose my temper. I should not have lost it so entirely had I not witnessed how you are suffering from the tyranny of this blatant bugbear called "Society."'
'My suffering, Henry, has brought me nearer to your line of thought than you may suppose. It has taught me that when the affections are deeply touched everything which before had seemed so momentous stands out in a new light, that light in which the insignificance of the important stands revealed. In that terrible conflict between you and me on the night following the landslip, you spoke of my "cruel pride." Oh, Henry, if you only knew how that cruel pride had been wiped out of existence by remorse, I believe that even you would forgive me. I believe that even she would if she were here.'
'I told you that I had entirely forgiven you, mother, and that I was sure Winnie would forgive you if she were alive.'
'You did, Henry, but it did not satisfy me; I felt that you did not know all.'
'I fear you have been very unhappy,' I said.
'I have been constantly thinking of Winifred a beggar in the streets as described by Wilderspin. Oh, Henry, I used to think of her in the charge of that woman. And Miss Dalrymple, who educated her, tells me that in culture she was far above the girls of her own class; and this makes the degradation into which she was forced through me the more dreadful for me to think of. I used to think of her dying in the squalid den, and then the Italian sunshine has seemed darker than a London fog. Even the comfort that your kind words gave me was incomplete, for you did not know the worst features of my cruelty.'
'But have you had no respite, mother? Surely the intensity of this pain did not last, or it would have killed you.'
'The crisis did pass, for, as you say, had it lasted in its most intense form, it would have killed me or sent me mad. After a while, though remorse was always with me, I seemed to become in some degree numbed against its sting. I could bear at last to live, but that was all. Yet there was always one hour out of the twenty-four when I was overmastered by pathetic memories, such as nearly killed me with pity—one hour when, in a sudden and irresistible storm, grief would still come upon me with almost its old power. This was on awaking in the early morning. I learnt then that if there is trouble at the founts of life, there is nothing which stirs that trouble like the twitter of the birds at dawn. At Florence, I would, after spending the day in wandering with you through picture galleries or about those lovely spots near Fiesole, go to bed at night tolerably calm; I would sink into a sleep, haunted no longer by those dreams of the tragedy in which my part had been so cruel, and yet the very act of waking in the morning would bring upon me a whirlwind of anguish; and then would come the struggling light at the window, and the twitter of the birds that seemed to say, "Poor child, poor child!" and I would bury my face in my pillow and moan.'
When I looked in her face, I realised for the first time that not even such a passion of pity as that which had aged me is so cruel in its ravages as Remorse. To gaze at her was so painful that I turned my eyes away.
When I could speak I said,
'I have forgiven you from the bottom of my heart, mother, but, if that does not give you comfort, is there anything that will?'
'Nothing, Henry, nothing but what is impossible for me ever to get—the forgiveness of the wronged child herself.ThatI can never get in this world. I dare only hope that by prayers and tears I may get it in the end. Oh, Henry, if I were in heaven I could never rest until I had sought her out, and found her and thrown myself on her neck and said, "Forgive your persecutor, my dear, or this is no place for me."'
As soon as I reached London, thinking that Wilderspin was still on the Continent, I went first to D'Arcy's studio, but was there told that D'Arcy was away—that he had been in the country for a long time, busy painting, and would not return for some months. I then went to Wilderspin's studio, and found, to my surprise and relief, that he and Cyril had returned from Paris. I learnt from the servant that Wilderspin had just gone to call on Cyril; accordingly to Cyril's studio I went.
'He is engaged with the Gypsy-model, sir,' said Cyril's man, pointing to the studio door, which was ajar. 'He told me that if ever you should call you were to be admitted at once. Mr. Wilderspin is there too.'
'You need not announce me,' I said, as I pushed open the door.
Entering the studio, I found myself behind a tall easel where Cyrilwas at work. I was concealed from him, and also from Wilderspin andSinfi. On my left stood Cyril's caricature of Wilderspin's 'Faith andLove,' upon which the light from a window was falling aslant!
Before I could pass round the easel into the open space I was arrested by overhearing a conversation between Cyril, Sinfi, and Wilderspin.
They were talking abouther!
With my eyes fixed on Cyril's caricature on my left hand; I stood, every nerve in my body seeming to listen to the talk, while the veil of the goddess-queen in the caricature appeared to become illuminated; the tragedy of our love (from the spectacle of her father's dead body shining in the moonlight, with a cross on his breast, down to the hideous-grotesque scene of the woman at the corner of Essex Street) appeared to be represented on the veil of the mocking queen in little pictures of scorching flame. These are the words I heard:
'Keep your head in that position, Lady Sinfi,' said Cyril, 'and pray do not get so excited.'
'I thought I felt the Swimmin' Rei in the room,' said Sinfi.
'What do you mean?'
'I thought I felt the stir of him in my burk [bosom]. Howsomever, it must ha' bin all a fancy o' mine. But you see, Mr. Cyril, she wur once a friend o' mine. I want to know what skeared her? If itwasher as set for the pictur, she'd never 'a' had the fit if she hadn't, 'a' bin skeared. I s'pose Mr. Wilderspin didn't go an' say the word "feyther" to her? I s'pose he didn't go an' ax her who her feyther was?'
I heard Wilderspin's voice say. 'No, indeed.Iwould never have asked who her father was. Ah, Mr. Cyril, I knew how mysteriously she had come to me; why should I ask who was her father? Her earthly parentage was not an illusion. But you will remember that I was not in the studio at the time of the fit. Mr. Ebury had called about a commission, and I had gone into the next room to speak to him. You came into the studio at the time, Mr. Cyril. When I returned, I found her in the fit, and you standing over her.'
'No, don't get up, Sinfi, my girl,' I heard Cyril say. 'Sit down quietly, and I will tell you what, passed. There is no doubt I did ask her about her father, poor thing; but I did it with the best intentions—did it for her good, as I thought—did it to learn whether she had been kidnapped, and certainly not from idle curiosity.'
'Scepticism, the curse of the age,' said Wilderspin.
I heard Cyril say, 'Who could have thought it would turn out so? But you yourself had told me, Wilderspin, of Mother Gudgeon's injunction not to ask the girl who her father was, and of course it had upon me the opposite effect the funny hag had intended it to have upon you. It was hard to believe that such a flower could have sprung from such a root. I thought it very likely that the woman had told you this to prevent your getting at the truth about their connection; so I decided to question the model myself, but determined to wait till you had had a good number of sittings, lest there should come a quarrel with the woman.'
'Well, an' so you asked her?' said Sinfi.
'I thought the moment had come for me to try to read the puzzle,' said Cyril. 'So, on that day when Ebury called, when you, Wilderspin, had left us together, I walked up to her and said, "Is your father alive?"'
'Ah!' cried Sinfi, 'it was as I thought. It was the word "feyther" as killed her! An' what'll become o'him?'
'The word "father" seemed to shoot into her like a bullet,' saidCyril. 'She shrieked "Father," and her face looked—'
'No, don't, tell me how she looked!' said Sinfi. 'Mr. Wilderspin's pictur' o' the witch and the lady shows how she looked—whoever she was. But if it was Winnie Wynne. what'll become o'him?'
Then I heard. Cyril address Wilderspin again. 'We had great difficulty, you remember, Wilderspin, in bringing her round, and afterwards I took her out of the house, put her into a cab, and you directed your servant whither to take her.'
'It was scepticism that ruined all.' I heard Wilderspin say.
'And yet,' said Sinfi, 'the Golden Hand on Snowdon told as he'd marryWinifred Wynne. Ah! surely the Swimmin' Rei is in the room! I thoughtI heard that choke come in his throat as comes when he frets aboutWinnie. Howsomever, I s'pose it must ha' bin all a fancy o' mine.'
'You makemelaugh, Sinfi, about this golden hand of yours that is stronger than the hand of Death,' said Cyril; 'and yet I wish from my heart I could believe it.'
'My poor mammy used to say, "The Gorgios believes when they ought to disbelieve, and they disbelieve when they ought to believe, and that gives the Romanies a chance."'
'Sinfi Lovell,' said Wilderspin, 'that saying of your mother's touches at the very root of romantic art.'
'Well, if Gorgios don't believe enough, Sinfi,—if there is not enough superstition among certain Gorgio acquaintances of mine, it's a pity,' said Cyril.
'I don't know what you are a-talkin' about with your romantic art an' sich like, but Idoknow that nothink can't go ag'in the dukkeripen o' the clouds; but if I was on Snowdon with my crwth I could soon tell for sartin whether she's alive or dead,' said Sinfi.
'And how?' said Cyril.
'How? By playin' on the hills the old Welsh dukkerin' tune [Footnote 1] as she was so fond on. If she was dead, she wouldn't hear it, but if she was alive she would, and her livin' mullo [Footnote 2] 'ud come to it,' said Sinfi.
[Footnote 1: Incantation song.]
[Footnote 2: Wraith or fetch.]
'Do you believe that possible?' said Cyril, turning to Wilderspin.
'My friend,' said Wilderspin, 'I was at that moment repeating to myself certain wise and pregnant words quoted from an Oriental book by the great Philip Aylwin—words which tell us that he is too bold who dares say what he will believe, what disbelieve, not knowing in any wise the mind of God—not knowing in any wise his own heart and what it shall one day suffer.'
'But,' said Sinfi, 'about her as sat to Mr. Wilderspin; did she never talk at all, Mr. Cyril?'
'Never; but I saw her only three times,' said Cyril.
'Mr. Wilderspin,' said Sinfi, 'did she never talk?'
'Only once, and that was when the woman addressed her as Winifred. That name set me thinking about the famous Welsh saint and those wonderful miracles of hers, and I muttered "St. Winifred." The face of the model immediately grew bright with a new light, and she spoke the only words I ever heard her speak.'
'You never told me of this,' said Cyril.
'She stooped,' said Wilderspin, 'and went through a strange kind of movement, as though she were dipping water from a well, and said, "Please, good St. Winifred, bless the holy water and make it cure—"'
'Ah, for God's sake stop!' cried Sinfi. 'Look! the Swimmin' Rei! He's in the room! There he stan's, and he's a-hearin' every word, an' it'll kill him outright!'
I stared at Cyril's picture of Leæna for which Sinfi was sitting. I heard her say,
'There ain't nothink so cruel as seein' him take on like that; I've seed it afore, many's the time, in old Wales. You'll find her yit. The dukkeripen says you'll marry her yit, and you will. She can't be dead when the sun and the golden clouds say you'll marry her at last. Her as is deadmustha' been somebody else.'
'Sinfi, you know there is no hope.'
'It might not ha' bin your Winnie, arter all,' said she. 'It might ha' bin some poor innocent as her feyther used to beat. It's wonderful how cruel Gorgio feythers is to poor born naterals. And she might ha' heerd in London about St. Winifred's Well a-curin' people.'
'Sinfi,' I said, 'you know there is no hope. And I have no friend but you now—I am going back to the Romanies.'
'No, no, brother,' she said, 'never no more.'
She put on her shawl. I rose mechanically. When she bade Cyril and Wilderspin good-bye and passed out of the studio, I did so too. In the street she stood and looked wistfully at me, as though she saw me through a mist, and then bade me good-bye, saying that she must go to Kingston Vale where her people were encamped in a hired field. We separated, and I wandered I knew not whither.
I found myself inquiring for the New North Cemetery, and after a time I stood looking through the bars of tall iron gates at long lines of gravestones and dreary hillocks before me. Then I went in, walking straight over the grass towards a gravedigger digging in the sunshine. He looked at me, resting his foot on his spade.
'I want to find a grave.'
'What part was the party buried in?'
'The pauper part,' I said.
'Oh,' said he, losing suddenly his respectful tone. 'When was she buried? I suppose it was a she by the look o' you.'
'When? I don't know the date.'
'Rather a wide order that, but there's the pauper part.' And he pointed to a spot at some little distance, where there were no gravestones and no shrubs. I walked across to this Desert of Poverty, which seemed too cheerless for a place of rest. I stood and gazed at the mounds till the black coffins underneath grew upon my mental vision, and seemed to press upon my brain. Thoughts I had none, only a sense of being another person.
The man came slowly towards me, and then looked meditatively into my face. I shall never forget him. A tall, sallow, emaciated man he was, with cheek-bones high and sharp as an American Indian's, and straight black hair. He looked like a wooden image of Mephistopheles, carved with a jack-knife.
'Who are you?' The words seemed to come, not from the gravedigger's mouth, but from those piles of lamp-blacked coffins which were searing my eyes through four feet of graveyard earth. By the fever-fires in my brain I seemed to see the very faces of the corpses.
'Who am I?' I said to myself, as I thought, but evidently aloud; 'I am the Fool of Superstition. I am Fenella Stanley's Fool, and Sinfi Lovell's Fool, and Philip Aylwin's Fool, who went and averted a curse from one of the heads resting down here, averted a curse by burying a jewel in a dead man's tomb.'
'Not in this cemetery, so none o' your gammon,' said the gravedigger, who had overheard me. 'The on'y people as is fools enough to bury jewels with dead bodies is the Gypsies, andtheytake precious good care, as I know, to keep it mumwherethey bury 'em. There's bin as much diggin' for them thousand guineas as was buried with Jerry Chilcott in Foxleigh Parish, where I was born, as would more nor pay for emptying a gold mine; but I never heard o' Christian folk a-buryin' jewels. But who are you?'
I felt a hand upon my shoulder, and looking round, I found Sinfi by my side.
'Does he belong to you, my gal?'
'Yis,' said Sinfi, with a strange, deep ring in her rich contralto voice. 'Yis, he belongs to me now—leastways he's my pal now—whatever comes on it.'
'Then take him away, my wench. What's the matter with him? The old complaint, I s'pose,' he added, lifting his hand to his mouth as though drinking from a glass.
Sinfi gently put out her hand and brushed the man aside.
'I've bin a-followin' on you all the way, brother,' said Sinfi, as we moved out of the cemetery, 'for your looks skeared me a bit. Let's go away from this place.'
'But whither, Sinfi? I have no friend but you; I have no home.'
'No home, brother? The kairengros [Footnote] has got about everythink, 'cept the sky an' the wind, an' you're one o' the richest kairengros on 'em all—leastways so I wur told t'other day in Kingston Vale. It's the Romanies, brother, as 'ain't got no home 'cept the sky an' the wind. Howsumever, that's nuther here nor there; we'll jist go to the woman they told me on, an' if there's any truth to be torn out of her, out it'll ha' to come, if I ha' to tear out her windpipe with it.'
[Footnote: The house-dwellers.]
We took a cab and were soon in Primrose Court.
The front door was wide open—fastened back. Entering the narrow common passage, we rapped at a dingy inner door. It was opened by a pretty girl, whose thick chestnut hair and eyes to match contrasted richly with the dress she wore—a dirty black dress, with great patches of lining bursting through holes like a whity-brown froth.
'Meg Gudgeon?' said the girl in answer to our inquiries; and at first she looked at us rather suspiciously, 'upstairs, she's very bad—like to die—I'm a-seein' arter 'er. Better let 'er alone; she bites when she's in 'er tantrums.'
'We's friends o' hern,' said Sinfi, whose appearance and decisive voice seemed to reassure the girl.
'Oh, if you're friends that's different,' said she. 'Meg's gone off 'er 'ead; thinks the p'leace in plain clothes are after 'er.'
We went up the stairs. The girl followed us. When we reached a low door, Sinfi proposed that she should remain outside on the landing, but within ear-shot, as 'the sight o' both on us, all of a suddent, might make the poor body all of a dither if she was very ill.'
The girl then opened the door and went in. I heard the woman's voice say in answer to her,
'Friend? Who is it? Are you sure, Poll, it ain't a copper in plain clothes come about that gal?'
The girl came out, and signalling me to enter, went leisurely downstairs. Leaving Sinfi outside on the landing, I entered the room. There, on a sort of truckle-bed in one corner, I saw the woman. She slowly raised herself up on her elbows to stare at me. I took for granted that she would recognise me at once; but either because she was in drink when I saw her last, or because she had got the idea of a policeman in plain clothes, she did not seem to know me. Then a look of dire alarm broke over her face and she said,
'P'leaceman, I'm as hinicent about that air gal as a new-born babe.'
'Mrs. Gudgeon,' I said, 'I only want you to tell a friend of mine about your daughter.'
'Oh yis! a friend o' yourn! Another or two on ye in plain clothes behind the door, I dessay. An' pray who said the gal wur my darter? What for do you want to put words into the mouth of a hinicent dyin' woman? I comed by 'er 'onest enough. The pore half-starved thing came up to me in Llanbeblig churchyard.'
'Llanbeblig churchyard?' I exclaimed, drawing close up to the bed. 'How came you in Llanbeblig churchyard?' But then I remembered that, according to her own story, she had married a Welshman.
'How did I come in Llanbeblig churchyard?' said the woman in a tone in which irony and fear were strangely mingled. 'Well, p'leaceman, I don't mean to be sarcy: but seein' as all my pore dear 'usband's kith and kin o' the name o' Goodjohn was buried in Llanbeblig churchyard, p'raps you'll be kind enough to let me go there sometimes, an' p'raps be buried there when my time comes.'
'But what took you there?' I said.
'What took me to Llanbeblig churchyard?' exclaimed the woman, whose natural dogged courage seemed to be returning to her. 'What made me leave every fardin' I had in the world with Poll Onion, when we ommust wanted bread, an' go to Carnarvon on Shanks's pony? I sha'n't tell ye. I comed by the gal 'onest enough, an' she never comed to no 'arm through me, less mendin' 'er does for 'er, and bringin' 'er to London, and bein' a mother to 'er, an' givin' 'er a few baskets an' matches to sell is a-doin' 'er any 'arm. An' as to beggin' shewouldbeg, she loved to beg an' say texes.'
'Old kidnapper!' I cried, maddened by the visions that came upon me.'How do I know that she came to no harm with a wretch like you?'
The woman shrank back upon the pillows in a revival of her terror. 'She never comed to no 'arm, p'leaceman. No, no, she never comed to no 'arm through me. I'd a darter once o' my own, Jenny Gudgeon by name—p'raps you know'd 'er, most o' the coppers did—as was brought up by my sister by marriage at Carnarvon, an' I sent for 'er to London, I did, pl'eaceman—God forgi'e me—an' she went wrong all through me bein' a drinkin' woman an' not seein' arter 'er, just as my son Bob tookt to drink, through me bein' a drinkin' woman an' not seein' arterhim. She tookt and went from bad to wuss, bad to wuss; it's my belief as it's allus starvation as drives 'em to it; an' when she wur a-dyin' gal, she sez to me, "Mother," sez she, "I've got the smell o' Welsh vi'lets on me ag'in: I wants to be buried in Llanbeblig churchyard, among the Welsh child'n an' maids, mother. I wants to feel the snowdrops, an' smell the vi'lets, an' the primroses, a-growin' over my 'ead," sez she; "but that can't never be, mother," sez she, a-sobbin' fit to bust; "never, never, for such as me," sez she. An' I know'd what she meant, though she never once blamed me, an' 'er words stuck in my gizzard like a thorn, p'leaceman.'
'But what has all this to do with the girl you kidnapped?'
'Ain't I a-tellin' on ye as fast as I can? When my pore gal dropped off to sleep, I sez to Polly Onion, "Poll," I sez, "to-morrow mornin' I'll pop every-think as ain't popped a'ready, an' I'll leave you the money to see arter 'er, an' I'll start for Carnarvon on Shanks's pony. I knows a good many on the road," sez I, "as won't let Jokin' Meg want for a crust and a sup, an' when I gits to Carnarvon I'll ax 'er aunt to bury 'er (she sells fish, 'er aunt does,"' sez I, "and she's got a pot o' money), an' then I'll see the parson or the sexton or somebody," sez I, "an' I'll tell 'em I've got a darter in London as is goin' to die, a Carnarvon gal by family, an' I'll tell 'im she ain't never bin married, an' then they'll bury 'er where she can smell the primroses and the vi'lets." That's what I sez to Poll Onion, an' then Poll she begins to pipe, an' sez, "Oh Meg, Meg, ain't I a Carnarvon gal too? The likes o' us ain't a-goin' to grow no vi'lets an' snowdrops in Llanbeblig churchyard." An' I sez to her, "What a d—d fool you are, Poll! You never 'adn't a gal as went wrong through you a-drinkin', else you'd never say that. If the parson sez to me, 'Is your darter a vargin-maid?' d'ye think I shall say, 'Oh no, parson'? I'll swear she is a vargin-maid on all the Bibles in all the churches in Wales." That's jis' what I sez to Polly Onion, God forgi'e me. An' Poll sez, "The parson'll be sure to send you to hell, Meg, if you do that air." An' I sez, "So he may, then, but Ishalldo it, no fear." That's what I sez to Poll Onion (she's downstairs at this werry moment a-warmin' me a drop o' beer); it was 'er as showed you upstairs, cuss 'er for a fool; an' she can tell you the same thing as I'm a-tellin' on you.'
'But what about her you kidnapped? Tell me all about it, or it will be worse for you.'
'Ain't I a-tellin' you as fast as I can? Off to Carnarvon I goes, an' every futt o' the way I walks—Lor' bless your soul, there worn't a better pair o' pins nowheres than Meg Gudgeon's then, afore the water got in 'em an' bust 'em; an' I got to Llanbeblig churchyard early one mornin', and there I seed the pore half-sharp gal. So you see I comed by 'er 'onest enough, p'leaceman, though she worn't ezzackly my own darter.'
'Well, well,' I said; 'go on.'
'Yes, it's all very well to say "go on," p'leaceman; but if you'd got as much water in your legs as I've got in mine, an' if you'd got no more wind in your bellows than I've got in mine, you'd find it none so easy to go on.'
'What was she doing in the churchyard?'
'Well, p'leaceman, I'm tellin' you the truth, s'elp me Bob! I was a-lookin' over the graves to see if I could find a nice comfortable place for my pore gal, an' all at once I heered a kind o' sobbin' as would a' made me die o' fright if it 'adn't a' bin broad daylight, an' then I see a gal a-layin' flat on a grave an' cryin', an' when I got up to her I seed as she wur covered with mud, an' I seed as she wur a-starvin'.'
'Good God, woman, you are lying! you are lying!'
'No, I ain't a-lyin'. She tookt to me the moment she clapped eyes on me; most people does, and them as don't ought, an' she got up an' put her arms round my neck, and she called me "Knocker."'
'Called you what?'
'Ain't I a-tellin' you? She called me "Knocker"; and that's the very name as she allus called me up to the day of 'er death, pore dear! I tried to make 'er come along o' me, an' she wouldn't stir, an' so I left 'er, meanin' to go back; but when I got to my sister's by marriage, there was a letter for me an' it wur from Polly Onion, a-sayin' as my pore Jenny died the same day as I left London, a-sayin', "Mother, vi'lets, vi'lets; mother, vi'lets, vi'lets!" an' was buried by the parish. An' that upset me, p'leaceman, an' made me swownd, an' when I comed to, I couldn't hear nothink only my pore Jenny's voice a-sobbin' on the wind, "Mother, vi'lets, vi'lets; mother, vi'lets, vi'lets!" an' that sent me off my 'ead a bit, an' I run out o' the 'ouse, an' there was Jenny's voice a-goin' on before me a-sobbin', "Mother, vi'lets, vi'lets; mother, vi'lets, vi'lets!" an' it seemed to lead me back to the churchyard; an' lo an' be'old! there was the pore half-starved creatur' a-settin' there jist as I'd left 'er, an' I sez, "God bless you, my gal, you're a-starvin'!" an' she jumped up, an' she comed an' throwed 'er arms round my waist, an' there we stood both on us a-cryin' togither, an' then I runned back into Carnarvon, an' fetched 'er some grub, an' she tucked into the grub.—But hullo! p'leaceman, what's up now? What the devil are you a-squeedgin' my 'and like that for? Are you a-goin' to kiss it? It ain't none so clean, p'leaceman. You're the rummest copper in plain clothes ever I seed in all my born days. Fust you seem as if you want to bite me, you looks so savage, an' then you looks as if you wants to kiss me; you'll make me laugh, I know you will, an' that'll make me cough.—Hi! Poll Onion, come 'ere. Bring my best lookin'-glass out o' my bowdore, an' let me look at my ole chops, for I'm blowed if there ain't a copper in plain clothes this time as is fell 'ead over ears in love with me, jist as the young swell did at the studero.'
'Go on, Mrs. Gudgeon,' I said; 'go on. She ate the food?'
'Oh, didn't she jist! And the pore half-sharp thing took to me, an' I took to she, an' I thinks to myself, "She's a purty gal, if she's ever so stupid, an' she'll get 'er livin' a-sellin' flowers o' fine days, an' a-doin' the rainy-night dodge with baskets when it's wet "; an' so I took 'er in, an' in the street she'd all of a suddent bust out a-singin' songs about Snowdon an' sich like, just as if she was a-singin' in a dream, and folk used to like to 'ear 'er an' gev 'er money; an' I was a good mother to 'er, I was, an' them as sez I worn't is cussed liars.'
'And she never came to any harm?' I said, holding the great muscular hands between my two palms, unwilling to let them go. 'She never came to any harm?'
'Ain't I said so more nor wunst? I swore on the Bible—there's the very Bible, under the match-box, agin the winder—on that very Bible I swore as my port Jenny brought from Wales, an' as I've never popped yit that this pore half-sharp gal should never go wrong through me; an' then, arter I swore that, my pore Jenny let me alone, an' I never 'eard 'er v'ice no more a-cryin'. "Mother, vi'lets, vi'lets; mother, vi'lets, vi'lets!" An' many's the chap as 'as come leerin' after 'er as I've sent away with a flea in 'is ear. Cuss 'em all; they's all bad alike about purty gals, men is. She's never comed to no wrong throughme. Didn't I ammost kill a real sailor capting when I used to live in the East End 'cause he tried to meddle with 'er? An' worn't that the reason why I left my 'um close to Radcliffe 'Ighway an' comed 'ere? Them as killed 'er wur the cussed lot in the studeros. I'm a dyin' woman; I'm as hinicent as a new-born babe. An' there ain't nothink o' 'ern in this room on'y a pair o' ole shoes an' a few rags in that ole trunk under the winder.'
I went to the trunk and raised the lid. The tattered, stained remains of the very dress she wore when I last saw her in the mist on Snowdon! But what else? Pushed into an old worn shoe, which with its fellow lay tossed among the ragged clothes, was a brown stained letter. I took it out. It was addressed to 'Miss Winifred Wynne at Mrs. Davies's.' Part of the envelope was torn away. It bore the Graylingham post-mark, and its superscription was in a hand which I did not recognise, and yet it was a hand which seemed half-familiar to me. I opened it; I read a line or two before I fully realised what it was—the letter, full of childish prattle, which I had written to Winifred when I was a little boy—the first letter I wrote to her.
I forgot where I was, I forgot that Sinfi was standing outside the door, till I heard the woman's voice exclaiming, 'What do you want to set on my bed an' look at me like that for?—you ain't no p'leaceman in plain clothes, so none o' your larks. Git off o' my bed, will ye? You'll be a-settin' on my bad leg an' a-bustin' on it in a minit. Git off my bed, else look another way; them eyes o' yourn skear me.'
I was sitting on the side of her bed and looking into her face.'Where did you get this?' I said, holding out the letter.
'You skears me, a-lookin' like that,' said she. 'I comed by it 'onest. One day when she was asleep, I was turnin' over 'er clothes to see how much longer they would hold together, when I feels a somethink 'ard sewed up in the breast; I rips it open, and it was that letter. I didn't put it back in the frock ag'in, 'cause I thought it might be useful some day in findin' out who she was. She never missed it. I don't think she'd 'ave missed anythink, she wur so oncommon silly. You ain't a-goin' to pocket it, air you?'
I had put the letter in my pocket, and had seized the shoes and was going out of the room; but I stopped, took a sovereign from my purse, placed it in an envelope bearing my own address which I chanced to find in my pocket, and, putting it into her hand, I said, 'Here is my address and here is a sovereign. I will tell your friend below to come for me or send whenever you need assistance.' The woman clutched at the money with greed, and I left the room, signalling to Sinfi (who stood on the landing, pale and deeply moved) to follow me downstairs. When we reached the wretched room on the ground-floor we found the girl hanging some wet rags on lines that were stretched from wall to wall.
'What is your name?' I said.
'Polly Unwin,' replied she, turning round with a piece of damp linen in her hand.
'And what are you?'
'What am I?'
'I mean what do you do for a living?'
'What do I do for a living?' she said. 'All kinds of things—help the men at the barrows in the New Cut sell flowers, do anything that comes in my way.'
'Never mind what she does for a livin', brother,' said Sinfi; 'give her a gold balanser or two, and tell her to see arter the woman.'
'Here is some money,' I said to the girl. 'See that Mrs. Gudgeon upstairs wants for nothing. Is that story of hers true about her daughter and Llanbeblig churchyard?'