CHAPTER XXX.
FORTY MILES IN A PERAMBULATOR!
Mydiscomfiture at the Dumpling's derisive repudiation of the supposition that he was John Carleton was completed next morning, when John Carleton himself returned to town, and John Carleton in the flesh I with my own eyes several times saw, as he went in and out of his house in Taunton Square.
"That man," said I to myself, "should be an object-lesson to you in the futility of theory building. First, you called yourself a fool for not having seen that John Carleton was the Dumpling, and the Dumpling, John Carleton. Now, you have the pleasure of knowing yourself a double-distilled donkey, for ever having supposed anything of the sort."
Upon the theory—the fact, as I had thought it to be—that John Carleton and the Dumpling were one and the same man, rested the only explanation I had to offer in regard to the letter I had received from the two Miss Carletons, aunt and niece.That theory being now entirely exploded, their extraordinary behaviour remained as much, if not more, of a mystery than ever.
A mystery—so far as I was concerned—I decided that it might remain. Of detective work and of theory building I had had more than enough, and so I betook myself that very afternoon to Shadwell, to renew the investigations which my meeting with the Dumpling had interrupted.
The first name on my list was that of a tailor's "hand," named Holmes, a widower who, I was told, had five young children, and was out of work. He was a consumptive-looking creature, hollow of cheek, eye, and chest, and with a hacking cough.
"Yes, sir," he said civilly, in reply to my inquiries. "It is quite true that I am out of work, and that I have children; but I can't take your help, asking your pardon all the same, sir, for seeming rude and ungrateful."
"On the contrary," I said, "it is I who have to apologise to you, Mr. Holmes, for what you might very well think my impertinence in coming here at all. But I happened to hear, quite by chance, how beautifully you keep your children; andhow nice they always look; and learning that you were out of work, and being very, very fond of children (I haven't any myself: I wish I had), I thought there wouldn't be any harm, at least, in calling, just to see whether there were any little thing I could do for you, until you're in work again. I'm a working man, as you are, though I happen to work with a pen, while you happen to work with a needle. And I'm a poor man, too, for the matter of that; but just lately I chanced, by a stroke of luck, to make a pound or two more than usual, and when I have a stroke of luck I like to share it with someone who has been less lucky—just as I believe you'd be ready to share your good luck, when it comes, with me, if I happened to need it. But I respect your independence and pride, and I ask you again to forgive me for calling."
"It isn't pride, sir," he said; "and, if the children were in absolute want, I'd take your help and thank God for it. It's this way, sir. This week we have just enough money left out of my savings to last us—me and the children—in bread. It has only been bread, and dry bread, it's true; and if when Monday comes I haven't gotwork, there won't even be bread, for my money will be entirely gone. If you should be this way then, and would look in, and I haven't found work, I will take your help—putting it the way you do, sir—and thank God for it. But when I know of hundreds of little children who haven't had even a piece of bread for days, I can't take——But I thank you kindly. God bless you, sir. I must go now. I hear one of the children calling. Good afternoon."
He closed the door in my face—not rudely, but in haste, lest I should see how shaken he was by emotion; and bowing my head, and with my own heart rising strangely in my throat, I turned away.
Just for the moment, I did not feel like facing the eyes in the street; so, as a slight rain was falling, I took shelter in a dark passage leading to a court, and stood there out of sight of passers, to collect my thoughts.
It was not long before my attention was attracted by a curious sight. A gipsy-like, wolf-faced man was wheeling a child's perambulator, in which, to my astonishment, I saw curled up the figure of a full-grown woman. I recognised the couple ata glance. Walking once along the high road from Epping to London, I had seated myself upon a five-barred gate by the wayside for a quiet smoke. The gate stood between thick hedge-rows, and, as it was set back a little, the folk passing along the road could not see me until they were almost level with the gate. By and by I heard what struck me as a very pretty altercation between a man and a woman who were approaching me slowly, but whom as yet I could not see. The man, as I discovered when they came into sight, was wheeling a perambulator (the same perambulator, in fact) in which were a number of ferns and primrose roots that he was carrying to London to sell. This perambulator the woman was pleading to be allowed to take a turn at pushing, urging that as the man had been up since four in the morning to gather the ferns and primroses, and had had to wheel the perambulator five miles out and five miles back, he must consequently be very tired. He, protesting that he was not tired at all, point-blank refused, declaring that, as she had only just come out of hospital, she must be much more tired than he. And so the petty quarrelcontinued, until the pair came opposite to the gate, and I saw that she was a sickly, blear-eyed, unlovely woman, and he an unkempt, gipsy-like fellow with lean face and hungry, wolf's eyes.
Well, to cut a long story short, I had contrived to make their acquaintance, and had found that, underneath their rags and dirt, beat two honest and unselfish hearts. I had told them to come always to me if in need of assistance of any sort—an invitation of which they took advantage only once, and then when their straits were desperate. On every other occasion I had found them touchily independent, and though I sometimes bought flowers, bullrushes, mistletoe, or fern-roots from them for the decoration of my house or garden, they would not accept a farthing from me in the shape of charity. If I wished to buy the wares they had for sale, that was another matter; and even then I have reason to know that I got more flowers, bullrushes, or fern roots for sixpence than their usual customers got for a shilling.
For some twelvemonth we continued the best of friends. Then suddenly their visits ceased, and I set eyes on neither again untilI saw the pair of them at Shadwell—the woman curled up in the perambulator, and the man pushing it.
"Nash!" I called out, running after them. "Nash, wherehaveyou been all this time? And why haven't you and Mrs. Nash been to see me?"
"We have been doing pretty much the same as usual, sir," he replied stiffly; "and thank you for asking." Then touching his ragged cap, he said brusquely, "Good day, sir," and, pushing the perambulator before him, passed along.
But I was not thus easily to be shaken off. At first he stood very much on his dignity, answering my questions, in regard to himself and his doings, with civil but manifest unwillingness, but at last I contrived—and then only with difficulty—to discover wherein I had offended.
On the last occasion, when they had visited me, I had said to him, as he was passing out: "Well, good-bye, Nash. Mind, if ever you get into trouble, be sure to come or to send to me, and I'll do my best to get you out."
By "trouble" I had meant illness, or the inability to scrape together the smallsum they paid as rent for the miserable hovel in which they lived.
But in George Nash's world "trouble"—so I learned for the first time—has only one meaning when applied to a man (the word is used in a different sense in regard to a woman), and that meaning—jail.
"I don't see why you should have thought that of us, sir," Nash said with quiet dignity. "Poor we may be, but at least we've managed to keep honest. And the inside of a prison we're never likely to see. We thank you kindly for what you've done for us, sir, the missis and me, but if you think as we're that sort, well, sir, we've made a mistake about you, and you've made a mistake about us, and we wish you good-day."
Turning doggedly to the perambulator, he touched his hat and passed on.
"Why, my dear fellow," I said hotly, following him, and taking him by the hand, "such a thought never entered my head. I'd leave you—and for the matter of that Ihaveleft you or your wife—in my room alone with every farthing I possess lying about openly, and never even dream of counting it, or of thinking of it at all.
"Well," I went on, when I had at last persuaded him that he had done me an injustice, "well, and what on earth is the meaning of Mrs. Nash being cooped up in this perambulator? She looks very white and thin. I do hope she isn't ill."
"Yes, sir; she's very ill," was the answer. "Got something wrong inside her, the doctor said, that'll have to be cut out. I'm taking her to Reading now."
"To Reading?" I said. "But why to Reading? I can easily arrange to get her into a good hospital for women here."
"No, sir, thank you kindly. She's set on going to Reading, and nowhere else. The doctor there (she's been there afore, you know) don't treat poor folk as some other doctors do. They don't mean not to be kind, but they speak so sharp, it frightens her. The doctor at Reading—ah! he is different. She ain't a bit afraid of him. She won't go anywhere but to Reading. She's set on it, sir, and so am I."
Knowing the man as I did, I could see that it was no use to argue with him.
"I see," I said. "Quite right, George. I'll come with you as far as Paddington, if you'll let me. Shadwell Station is someway yet. You look hot and tired already, and so I'll take a turn at pushing the pram while you rest. But if I may make a suggestion, I should say that the best thing to do is to steer for the nearest place where we're likely to find a four-wheeled cab and let me drive you to Paddington. How didyoupropose taking Mrs. Nash there?"
"Same way as I'm taking her to Reading, sir," he said unconcernedly; "in the pram, of course."
"The pram!" I ejaculated. "My dear Nash, what nonsense! It's forty miles! You can't wheel a grown woman forty miles in a child's perambulator."
"Can't I, sir?" he said, smiling with an air of superiority. "I've taken her there twice before in the perambulator, and by picking up a bit of work on the way we've managed nicely."
Then he looked at me queerly.
"Mr. Rissler," he said in a low voice, "will you take a word from a man as you've been a friend to, and as'd like to prove himself a friend of yours? I can't answer no question, and I didn't ought to say what I'm going to say. I know as you're the poor man's friend, though you are oneof the gentry. But there's them as don't know it; and, sir, believe me, there's trouble ahead for the likes o' you—bitter trouble, bloody trouble. You take my word for it. And this is what I want to say to you, sir. When the trouble comes, if you should find yourself among enemies, if you should find yourself in danger o' your life, as'll happen to many like you afore long, just you throw up your left arm with your fist closed, and say, 'God and Napoleon and the Dumpling strike with a granite arm!'"
He looked furtively around him as if afraid of being overheard by eavesdroppers, and then repeated the sentence, "'God and Napoleon and the Dumpling strike with a granite arm!' That's the word, sir. Do you think you can remember it?"
Inwardly amused at the seriousness with which the foolish fellow was taking the Dumpling's rhodomontade, but hiding my amusement under a face portentously grave, lest I should give my well-meaning friend offence, I replied:
"Yes, I can remember it, and I'll be sure to bear your words in mind, if necessity comes. Thank you very much, Nash."
But to myself I said:
"A grown woman! Wheeled forty miles in a perambulator to undergo an operation! And for no other reason than that the doctor at Reading is kind and doesn't speak sharp to the poor! My God!"