It was about closing time, and when Johnny hadchanged his clothes, he found the sergeant leaving also. He thanked him and bade him good-night.
“Good-night, May,” the sergeant called, and turned into the street. But he swung back along the footpath after Johnny, and asked, “Is it to-morrow?”
“What, sergeant?”
“Oh, I ain’t a sergeant—I’m a stranger. There’s a sergeant goes to that moral establishment p’raps,” with a nod at the Institute, “but he behaves strictly proper. I’m just a chap out in the street that would like to see the fight, that’s all. When is it?”
“I don’t quite know that myself,” Johnny answered.
“Oh—like that, is it? Hum.” The sergeant was thoughtful for a moment—perhaps incredulous. Then he said, “Well, can’t be helped, I suppose. Anyway, keep your left goin’ strong, but don’t lead quite so reckless, with your head up an’ no guard. You’re good enough. An’ the bigger he is, the more to hit!”
Mr. Butsonwas perhaps a shade relieved when he returned home that night and found all quiet, and Johnny in bed. He had half expected that his inopportune return might have caused trouble. But the night after, as he came from the railway station, a little earlier than usual, Johnny stopped him in the street.
“I want to speak to you,” he said. “Just come round by the dock wall.”
His manner was quiet and businesslike, but Mr. Butson wondered. “Why?” he asked. “Can’t you tell me here?”
“No, I can’t. There are too many people about. It’s money in your pocket if you come.”
Mr. Butson went. What it meant he could not imagine, but Johnny usually told the truth, and he said it would be money in his pocket—a desirable disposition of the article. The dock wall was just round a corner. A tall, raking wall at one side of a sparsely lit road that was empty at night, and a lower wall at the other; the road reached by a flight of steps rising from the street, and a gateway in the low wall.
“Well, what is it now?” Mr. Butson asked, suspiciously, as Johnny stopped under a gas-lamp and looked right and left along the deserted road.
“Only just this,” Johnny replied, with simple distinctness. “You wanted mother to give you my money every week, though in fact she’s been letting me keep it. Well, here’s my last week’s money”—he shook it in his hand—“and I’ll give it you if you’ll stand up here and fight me.”
“What? Fight you? You?” Mr. Butson laughed; but he felt a secret uneasiness.
“Yes, me. You’d rather fight a woman, no doubt, or a lame girl. But I’m going to give you a change, and make you fight me—here.” Johnny flung his jacket on the ground and his hat on it.
“Don’t be such a young fool,” quoth Mr. Butson loftily. “Put on your jacket an’ come home.”
“Yes—presently,” Johnny replied grimly. “Presently I’ll go home, and take you with me. Come, you’re ready enough to punch my mother, without being asked; or my sister. Come and punch me, and take pay for it!”
Mr. Butson was a little uncomfortable. “I suppose,” he sneered, “you’ve got a knife or a poker or somethin’ about you like what you threatened me with before!”
“I haven’t even brought a stick. You’re the sort o’coward I expected, though you’re bigger than me and heavier. Come—” he struck the man a heavy smack on the mouth. “Now fight!”
Butson snarled, and cut at the lad’s head with the handle of his walking stick. But Johnny’s arm straightened like a flash, and Butson rolled over.
“What I thought you’d do,” remarked Johnny, seizing his wrist and twisting the stick away. “Now get up. Come on!”
Mr. Butson sat and gasped. He fingered his nose gently, and found it very tender, and bleeding. He seemed to have met a thunderbolt in the dark. He turned slowly over on his knees, and so got on his feet.
“Hit me—come, hit me!” called Johnny, sparring at him. “Fancy I’m only my mother, you cur! Come, I’m hitting you—see! So!” He seized the man by the ear, twisted it, and rapped him about the face. The treatment would have roused a sheep. Butson sprang at Johnny, grappled with him, and for a moment bore him back. Johnny asked nothing better. He broke ground, checked the rush with half-arm hits, and stopped it with a quick double left, flush in the face.
It was mere slaughter; Johnny was too hard, too scientific, too full of cool hatred. The wretched Butson, bigger and heavier as he might be, was flaccid from soft living, and science he had none. But he fought like arat in a corner—recking nothing of rule, but kicking, biting, striking, wrestling madly; though to small purpose: for his enemy, deadly calm and deadly quick, saw every movement ere it was made, and battered with savage precision.
“Whenever you’ve had enough,” said Johnny, as Butson staggered, and leaned against the wall, “you can stop it, you know, by calling the p’lice. You like the p’lice. There’s always one of ’em in the next street, an’ you’ve only to shout. I shall hammer you till ye do!”
And he hammered. A blow on the ear drove Butson’s head against the wall, and a swing from the other fist brought it away again. He flung himself on the ground.
“Get up!” cried Johnny. “Get up. What, you won’t? All right, you went down by yourself, you know—so’s to be let alone. But I’m coming down too!” and with that he lay beside Butson and struck once more and struck again.
“Chuck it!” groaned Butson. “I’m done! Oh! leave me alone!”
“Leave you alone?” answered Johnny, rising and reaching for his jacket. “Not I. You didn’t leave my mother alone a soon as she asked you, did you? I’ll never pass you again without clouting your head. Come home!”
He hauled the bruised wretch up by the collar, crammed his hat on his head and cut him across the calves with his own walking stick. “Go on! March!”
“Can’t you leave me alone now?” whined Butson. “You done enough, ain’t ye?”
“No—not near enough. An’ you’ll have a lot more if you don’t do as I tell you. I said I’d take you home, an’ I will. Go on!”
Two or three dark streets led to Harbour Lane, but they were short. It was past closing time, and when they reached the shop the lights were turned down and the door shut. Nan opened to Johnny’s knock, and he thrust Butson in before him. “Here he is,” said Johnny, “not thrashed half enough!”
Dusty and bleeding, his face nigh unrecognisable under cuts and bruises, Butson sat on a box, a figure of shame. Nan screamed and ran to him.
“I did it where the neighbours wouldn’t hear,” Johnny explained, “and if he’d been a man he’d have drowned himself rather than come here, after the way I’ve treated him. He’s a poor cur, an’ I’ll buy a whip for him. There’s the money I promised you” he went on, putting it on the box. “It’s the first you’ve earned for years, and the last you’ll have here, if I can manage it!”
But Nan was crying over that dishonourable head, and wiping it with her handkerchief.
“Whywhat’s that?” said Long Hicks on the way to work in the morning. “Got cuts all over yer hands!”
“Yes,” Johnny answered laconically. “Fighting.”
“Fightin’!” Long Hicks looked mighty reproachful. “Jest you be careful what company you’re gettin’ into,” he said severely. “You’re neglectin’ yer drawin’ and everything lately, an’ now—fightin’!”
“I ain’t ashamed of it,” Johnny replied gloomily. “An’ I’ve got other things to think about now, besides drawing.”
Hicks stared, stuttered a little, and rubbed his cap over his head. He wondered whether or not he ought to ask questions.
They went a little way in silence, and then Johnny said: “It’s him; Butson.”
“No!” exclaimed Hicks, checking in his stride, and staring at Johnny again. “What! Bin fightin’ Butson?”
Johnny poured out the whole story; and as he told Hicks’s eyes widened, his face flushed and paled, his hands opened and closed convulsively, and again and again he blew and stuttered incomprehensibly.
“Job is, to drive the brute away,” Johnny concluded wearily. “He’ll stop as long as he’s fed. An’mother thinks it’s a disgrace to get a separation—goin’ before a magistrate an’ all. I’m only tellin’ you because I know you won’t jaw about it among the neighbours.”
That day Long Hicks got leave of absence for the rest of the week, mightily astonishing Mr. Cottam by the application, for Hicks had never been known to take a holiday before.
“’Awright,” the gaffer growled, “seein’ as we’re slack. There’s one or two standin’ auf for a bit a’ready. But what’s up with you wantin’ time auf? Gittin’ frisky? Runnin’ arter the gals?”
And indeed Long Hicks spent his holiday much like a man who is running after something, or somebody. He took a walking tour of intricate plan, winding and turning among the small streets, up street and down, but tending northward; through Bromley, Bow and Old Ford, and so toward Homerton and the marshes.
Meantime Johnny walked to and from his work alone, and brooded. He could not altogether understand his mother’s attitude toward Butson. She had been willing, even anxious, to get rid of him by any process that would involve no disgrace among the neighbours, and no peril to the trade of the shop; he had made her life miserable; yet now she tended the brute’s cuts and bumps as though he didn’t deserve them, and she cried more than ever. As for Johnny himself, he spared Butson nothing. Rather he drew a hideoussolace from any torture wherewith he might afflict him.
“When are you going to clear out?” he would say. “You’d rather be kept than work, but you don’t like being thrashed, do you? Thrashed by a boy, eh? You’ll enjoy work a deal better than the life I’ll lead you here, I can tell you. I’ll make you glad to drown yourself, mean funk as you are, before I’m done with you! Don’t be too careful with that eye: the sooner it’s well, the sooner I’ll bung it up again!”
Bessy marvelled at this development of morose savagery on her brother’s part. With her, though he spoke little, he was kinder than ever, but it was his pastime to bully Butson: who skulked miserably in the house, being in no fit state for public exhibition.
As to his search for Nora Sansom, Johnny was vaguely surprised to find himself almost indifferent. It would have been useless to worry his mother about it now, and though he spent an hour or two in aimless tramping about the streets, it was with the uppermost feeling that he should rather be at home, bullying Butson. He had no notion why, being little given to introspection; and he was as it were unconscious of his inner conviction that after all Nora could not be entirely lost. While Butson’s punishment was the immediate concern, and as the thing stood, the creature seemed scarce to have been punished at all.
Long Hicks’sholiday had lasted three days, and Mr. Butson’s minor bruises were turning green. It was at the stroke of five in the afternoon, and Bessy was minding shop. From the ship-yard opposite a score or so of men came, in dirty dungaree (for it was Friday), vanguard of the tramping hundreds that issued each day, regular as the clock before the timekeeper’s box. Bessy rose on her crutch, and peeped between a cheese and a packet of candles, out of window. Friday was not a day when many men came in on their way home, because by that time the week’s money was run low, and luxuries were barred. Bessy scarce expected a customer, and it would seem that none was coming.
Peeping so, she grew aware of a stout red-faced woman approaching at a rapid scuttle; and then, almost as the woman reached the door, she saw Hicks at her heels, his face a long figure of dismay.
The woman burst into the shop with a rasping shriek. “I want my ’usband!” she screamed. “Where’s my ’usband?”
“Come away!” called Hicks, deadly pale, andnervously snatching at her shoulder. “Come away! You know what you promised!”
“Take yer ’and auf me, ye long fool! Where’s my ’usband? Is it you what’s got ’im?” She turned on Bessy and bawled the words in her face.
“No—no it ain’t!” cried Hicks, near beside himself. “Come away, an’—an’ we’ll talk about it outside!”
“Talk! O yus, I’ll give ’im talk!” The woman’s every syllable was a harsh yell, racking to the brain, and already it had drawn a group about the door. “I’ll give ’im talk, an’ ’er too! Would anyone believe,” she went on, turning toward the door and haranguing the crowd, that grew at every word, “as ’ow a woman calling ’erself respectable, an’ keepin’ a shop like any lady, ’ud take away a respectable woman’s ’usband—a lazy good-for-nothin’ scoundril as run away an’ left me thirteen year ago last Whitsun!”
Boys sprang from everywhere, and pelted in to swell the crowd, drawn by the increasing screams. Many of the men, who knew the shop so well, stopped to learn what the trouble was; and soon every window in Harbour Lane displayed a woman’s head, or two.
“My ’usband! Where’s my ’usband? Show me the woman as took my ’usband!”
Nan came and stood in the back parlour doorway, frightened but uncomprehending. The woman turned. “You! You is it?” she shrieked, oversetting a pileof tins and boxes, and clawing the air above her. “Gimme back my ’usband, you shameless creechor! Where ’a’ ye got ’im? Where’s my ’usband?”
Hicks put his arm about the woman’s waist and swung her back. He was angry now. “Get out!” he said, “I didn’t bring you to make a row like that! You swore you wouldn’t!”
Finding his arm too strong for her, the woman turned on Hicks and set to clawing at his face, never ceasing to scream for her husband. And then Johnny came pushing in at the door, having run from the far street-corner at sight of the crowd.
Hicks, as well as he could for dodging and catching at the woman’s wrists, made violent facial signals to Johnny, who stared, understanding none of them. But he heard the woman’s howls for her husband, and he caught at her arm. “Who is your husband?” he said. “What’s his name?”
“What’s ’is name? Why Butson—’enery Butson’s ’is name! Gimme my ’usband! My ’usband! Let me go, you villain!”
It was like an unexpected blow on the head to Johnny, but, save for a moment, it stunned not at all—rather roused him. “I’ll fetch him!” he cried, and sprang into the house.
Here was release—the man had another wife! He would drag the wretch down to her, and then give himto the police. No wonder he feared the police! The load was lifted at last—Butson’s punishment was come indeed! Fiercely glad, and thinking of nothing but this, Johnny swung into each room in turn.
But there was no Butson. His pipe lay broken on the front bedroom fender, and his coat hung behind the door; but there was no other sign.
Johnny dashed into the back yard. That, too, was empty. But in the yard behind, the old lighterman, paint-pot in one hand and brush in the other, just as he had broken off in the touching up of his mast, stood, and blinked, and stared, with his mouth open. His house-doors, back and front, stood wide, because of wet paint, and one could see through to the next street. It was by those doorways that Mr. Butson had vanished a minute ago, after scrambling over the wall, hatless, and in his shirt sleeves. And the old lighterman thought it a great liberty, and told Johnny so, with some dignity.
Johnny rushed back to the shop. “Gone!” he cried. “Bolted out at the back!”
He might have offered chase, but his mother lay in a swoon, and Bessy hung over her, hysterical. “Shove that woman out,” he said, and he and Hicks, between them, thrust the bawling termagant into the street and closed the door.
Without, she raged still, and grew hoarser, till apoliceman came to quiet her; and in the end she marched off with him, talking at a loud scream all the way. And Harbour Lane flamed with the news of Nan’s shameless bigamy.
Long Hicksraved and tore at his hair, striding about the shop, and cursing himself with whatever words he could find. Johnny was excited still, but he grew thoughtful. There was more in this business, he saw now, than the mere happy riddance of Butson. What of the future? His mother was prostrated, and lay moaning on her bed. No one was there to tend her but Bessy, and there was no likelihood of help; they had no intimacy with neighbours, and indeed the stark morality of Harbour Lane womankind would have cut it off if they had. For already poor Nan was tried and condemned (as was the expeditious manner of Harbour Lane in such a matter), and no woman could dare so much as brush skirts with her.
“It’s my fault—all of it!” said the unhappy Hicks. “I shouldn’t ’a’ bin such a fool! But how was I to know she’d go on like that, after what she’d agreed to? Oh, damme, I shouldn’t ’a’ meddled!”
Johnny calmed him as well as he might, pulled him into a chair in the shop parlour, and sought to know the meaning of his self-reproaches. “Why not meddle?”Johnny asked. “When you found her kicking up that row—”
“Ah, but I didn’t, I didn’t!” protested Hicks, rolling his head despairingly and punching his thigh. “I brought her here! It’s all my fault! I thought I was doin’ somethin’ clever, an’ I was silly fool! O, I’d like to shoot meself!”
“Brought her here? Well, tell us about it—no good punching yourself. When did you find out he was married?”
“Knew it years ago; didn’t know the woman was alive, though. Thought she must ’a’ bin dead when you told me he’d married your mother.”
Some light broke on Johnny. “And you took these days off to look for her—was that it?”
“That’s it. An’ I was a fool—made things wuss instead o’ better!”
“Never mind about that—anything’s better than having that brute here. What changed your mind about her being dead?”
“Oh, I dunno. I’ll tell you all there is to it. Long time ago when I was workin’ at Bishop’s an’ lodgin’ in Lime’us, my lan’lady she knew Butson an’ ’is wife too, an’ she told me they led a pretty cat an’ dog life, an’ one day Butson hops the twig. Well his missus wasn’t sorry to lose ’im, an’ she sets to washin’ an’ ironin’ to keep ’erself an’ the kid. But when Butson gets out ofa job (’e was never in one long) ’e goes snivellin’ round to ’er, an’ wants to go back, an’ be kep’. Well the missis makes it pretty ’ot for ’im, you may guess; but she stands ’im for a week or two, givin’ it ’im pretty thick all the time, till Butson ’e cuts away again, an’ never comes back. His missis never bothered about ’im—said she was well quit. This was all before I went to live at Lime’us, but she used to be pals with my lan’lady. I kep’ a bottle o’ whisky then, case of a friend comin’, an’ them two give it what for, between ’em, on the quiet.”
“And did you know her then—his wife?”
“On’y by sight, an’ not to say to speak to, me bein’ a quiet sort. I knew Butson since—in the shops; most took ’im for a bachelor. Well, I wasn’t at Lime’us very long; I came away to this part an’ see no more of ’er—though o’ course I see ’im, often. When you told me ’e’d married your mother it took me aback a bit at first. But then, thinks I, I expect the first one’s dead—must be. But after that, the other day, when you told me what a right down bad ’un ’e was, I begun to think wuss of ’im. I knew ’e’d bin livin’ idle, but I didn’t guess ’e treated ’er so bad. An’ when you talked o’ wantin’ to get rid of ’im, I got a notion. If ’e’s bad enough for what ’e’s done, thinks I, ’e’s bad enough for anythink. P’raps ’is fust wife ’s alive after all, an’ if she is, why the job’s done! Anyway, I puts it, I’ll riska day or two auf on it. An’ I did, an’ ’ere’s a nice old bloomin’ mess I made! Oh, I ought to be poleaxed!”
“Well of course there’s been a row,” Johnny said gloomily, “an’ I expect it’ll knock trade to pieces here, an’ half kill mother. But you couldn’t very well help a row in a thing like this.”
“I bin three days findin” ’er. My old lan’lady’s dead, an’ I ’ad to try an’ find ’er sister. Nobody knew where the sister was, but after a lot o’ bother a old woman sends me to a cousin—in the workus. Cousin in the workus thinks the sister’s dead too, but tells me to go an’ ask at a newspaper-shop in Bromley. Newspaper-shop’s shut up—people gone. Find the man as moved ’em, an’ ’e sends me to Bow—another newspaper-shop. People there send me right back to Poplar; party o’ the name o’ Bushell. Party o’ the name o’ Bushell very friendly, an’ sends me to Old Ford; then I went to Bow again, an’ so I dodged about, up an’ down, till I run across Mrs. Butson up on ’Omerton Marshes, keepin’ a laundry. That was to-day, that was.
“Well, she took it mighty cool at first. When I told ’er I knew where ’er ’usband was, she told me I might keep my knowledge to myself, for she didn’t want ’im. Very cool she was, till I told ’er ’e’d married again, an’ at that she shut ’er jaw with a snap, an’ glared at me. So I just told ’er what I knew, an’ ’ow it ’ud be a charityto give ’im a scare on the quiet, an’ send ’im away from ’ere, an’ ‘All right,’ she says. ‘Jest you show me where they live,’ she says; ‘I’ll give ’im a scare!’ ‘Right,’ says I, but I made conditions. She wus to wait at the street-corner, an’ I was to send in a message for ’im to come out. Then we was to give ’im ten minutes to go an’ git ’is clo’es, if ’e wanted any, make any excuse ’e liked, an’ clear out; so as to do it all quiet an’ peaceable, an’ nobody the wiser. ‘All right,’ she says, ‘jest you show me the place, that’s all!’ So I brought ’er. But when we got to the corner an’ I told ’er which ’ouse, auf she went at a bolt, an’—an’ set up all that row ’fore I could stop ’er! Who’d ’a’ thought of ’er actin’ contradictory like that?”
It was not altogether so dense a mystery to Johnny as it was to the simpler Hicks, twice his age, though more a boy than himself. But he assured Hicks that after all he had done a good turn, and no price was too high for riddance of Butson. “Mother’ll be grateful to you, too, when she’s a bit quieter, an’ knows about it,” he said. And presently he added thoughtfully, “I think I ought to have guessed something o’ the sort, with his sneaking in an’ out so quiet, an’ being afraid o’ the p’lice. There’s lots o’ things I see through now, that I ought to have seen through before: not wantin’ the new name over the door, for one!”
. . . . .
Till the shutters were up that night, and the door well bolted, Nan May was urgent that that horrible woman must be kept out. And when at last she slept, in mere exhaustion, she awoke in a fit of trembling and choking, beseeching somebody to take the woman away.
Bessy, like Johnny, had a sense of relief, though she slept not at all, and dreaded vaguely. But withal she was conscious of some intangible remembrance of that red-faced woman with the harsh voice; and it was long—days—ere it returned to her that she had heard the voice high above the shouts of the beanfeasters in the Forest on the day when Uncle Isaac had brought Butson to the cottage.
Mr. Dunkin’snotice to quit arrived early the next morning. The service of that notice was a duty he owed to society, morality, conscience, virtue, propriety, religion, and several other things, which he enumerated without hesitation. He could not have sat in his pew the next day with any comfort, knowing that such a duty remained unperformed; he would have felt a hypocrite.
The notice might have come before, for the trade had been good and steady; but Mr. Dunkin also had heard the whispers that the ship-yard might be shut, and he had hesitated long. Now, however, there was no alternative—if Mrs. May were left to flaunt her infamy the trade must decline under the scandal, and the place fall worthless again. More, her expulsion at this time would seem less a seizure of the new branch than a popular vindication of righteousness.
Johnny was at home when the notice came. He had sent a message to Mr. Cottam, pleading urgent family affairs.
“Might have expected it,” Johnny said, giving thepaper to Hicks, whom he had called into counsel. “Anyway mother swears she can’t show her face in the shop again. She seems almost afraid to come out of her bedroom, talks wild about disgracing her children, an’ wishes she was dead. She’s pretty bad, an’ as to the shop—that’s done up. Question is what to do now.”
Then Hicks rose to his feet, and met the occasion face to face. “We’ll do this thing between us,” he said, “and damn everybody! I ain’t a man o’ business, not special, but I got you all into this ’ere mess an’ I’ll see you out of it, or I’ll bust. Fust thing, this ’ere Mr. Dunkin’s game’s plain enough. ’Ere’s a very decent business goin’ on, an’ ’e takes this excuse to collar it ’isself. You ain’t took the shutters down yet, an’ we won’t take ’em down. We’ll stick up a big bill ‘Business come to a end,’ or such other words, an’ let the customers go where they like an’ ’ope they won’t come back. Then p’raps ’e’ll come along in a day or two an’ offer to buy the stock, thinkin’ ’e’ll get it for next to nothin’, you bein’ all at sixes an’ sevens. We won’t sell it—not one farden candle. But we won’t say so. No. We’ll fight cokum. We’ll ask ’im to think over it for another day or two an’ see if ’e can’t make it a quid or two more. ’E’ll let it slide all the week if we do it right, expectin’ to land us at the last minute an’ make us take anythink. But we’ll just be walkin’ the stuff all away very quiet in the evenin’s, in a barrer, an’ then ’e’ll come into a emptyshop unexpected, an’ ’e won’t know what the customers is used to, an’ that’ll give ’im fits for another week or two. See?”
“But where shall we take the stuff?”
“Take it? Lord, anywhere!” replied Hicks, with a sweep of the hand. “There’s plenty o’ empty shops ready to be took everywhere. Why the number I’ve seen these two or three days ’ud surprise ye! Some ain’t as good as others p’raps, but that we’ll settle in the week. It’s just beginnin’ again, that’s all, same as what ye did three or four year back! Lord, we’ll do it, I tell ye—do it flyin’!” Long Hicks waved his arms enthusiastically. “As to the—the ha’pence,” he went on, “p’raps your mother’s got some, p’raps she ain’t—don’t matter either way. I’m a single man, an’ bin in good work years, an’ I got a bit in the savin’s bank. All right! I ain’t goin’ to offer no favours, so don’t sing out! Sixpence in the pound’s all I get out o’ the Post Office, an’ that ain’t much. I’m open to make it a bit more—three per cent. if ye like—on loan; any security, or none—there’s plenty in the place in the Forest an’ the stock an’ all—’ave it yer own way. Business! ’Ard business! That’s all it is. An’ now we’ll clear decks. Fust, get your mother an’ sister out o’ this, somewhere out o’ Harbour Lane, where they ain’t known, an’ where they’ll quit frettin’.”
“Where?” Hicks’s impetuosity left Johnny’s wits lagging.
“Temp’ry lodgin’s. Needn’t be fur; next parish is as good as fifty mile auf, in London. Better. An’ by George! now I think of it, I see the very place when I was goin’ round. Party o’ the name o’ Bushell, in Poplar. ’Ouse too big for ’em—got a furnished bedroom to let; showed it me, case I might know anyone an’ send ’em, them ’avin’ done me a turn sendin’ me to Old Ford. What’s more, there’ll be two more rooms, unfurnished, next week, tenant goin’ out—young gal, a dressmaker. So we can take them too, if we get pushed, an’ run the sticks in there. There’s luck to begin with! Why, things’ll go like clockwork!”
Hicks rushed off to make sure of the lodging, and in half an hour was back with a four-wheeled cab.
“Get ’em down an’ pop ’em in sharp,” said Hicks. “I’ve told the cabby where to go. You go with ’em an’ make ’em comfortable, an’ I’ll wait ’ere till you come back. Mind—people at the ’ouse on’y know she’s in trouble ’cos ’er ’usband’s run away, an’ I paid a week in advance. Go on—I’ll keep out o’ the way in the back till they’re clear auf; they don’t want to see me.”
Nan and Bessy wore veils, and hurried into the cab, while Johnny glowered fiercely at every face he could see turned toward them. To Johnny the streets seemedunreasonably familiar as the cab jolted through them—unreasonably like what they were a day ago, before this blow fell and knocked the world out of shape. They went out through Blackwall Cross, by the High Street, and past the Institute, where the familiar housekeeper—the housekeeper who had given him Nora’s farewell letter—stood on the steps with a broom; through the two streets, and past that corner where they had parted—it seemed years ago. As to when they might meet again, and how—that was not to be thought of now. His head was too full already.
“Oh,give us some time to blow the man down!” roared Mr. Bushell, splashing and puffing amid much yellow soap and cold water in the wash-house, whither he had gone for a wash, on coming home from his tug. The voice thundered and rolled through the house, and on the first floor, strangers not used to it grew muddled in their conversation.
“Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down—To my Aye! Aye! Blow the man down!Singapore Harbour to gay London town—Oh, give us some time to blow the man down!”
“Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down—To my Aye! Aye! Blow the man down!Singapore Harbour to gay London town—Oh, give us some time to blow the man down!”
Up on the first floor landing, “A-a-ah! pore dears!” said Mrs. Bushell, fat and sympathetic, looking up at Johnny, with her head aside and her hands clasped. “Pore dears! No, nobody shan’t disturb ’em! Lor, ’ow I do feel for ’em; an’ you too, Mr. May. Lucky you’re growed up to be a comfort to yer pore mar! There—I won’t say nothin’ about yer father! Runnin’ away so disgraceful an’ all. But I can’t think what parents is comin’ to, some of ’em. There’s the pore gal as is leavin’ the other two rooms o’ Monday, now—sich a quiet,well-be’aved young lady; we wouldn’t ’a’ let ’em stop a week if it wasn’t for ’er sake, bein’ so ’ard to find a respectable lodgin’s with sich a mother. But there—’er mother worries the pore thing’s life out—alwis drinkin’—an’ now she’s akchally in gaol for breakin’ a public-’ouse winder! An’ I sez—”
“Public-house window!” Johnny’s breath came short and thick. “What’s her name?”
“P’raps I shouldn’t ’a’ mentioned it to a stranger, but lor, I don’t s’pose you know ’er, an’ it’s Sansom. But—”
“Where is she? Show me! In here? Is she in now?” Johnny made dashes at divers door-handles with one hand, while Mrs. Bushell, confounded and scandalised, restrained him desperately by the opposite arm. It took some impatient moments to make it plain to the landlady that he intended no violent assault, nor, on consideration, even the rudeness of dashing into a lady’s rooms unannounced. Whereupon Mrs. Bushell went to a door and knocked, Johnny close at her heels. And presently the door opened.
“Nora!”
“Oh Johnny, Johnny, I wish you hadn’t! . . . We shall only—” But with that the words died on the breast of Johnny’s coat. Mrs. Bushell’s eyes opened round, and then her mouth; and then Mrs. Bushell went off very quietly downstairs—eyes and mouth and faceall round—and out into the wash-house; and “Blow the Man Down” stopped in the middle.
“Oh, but you know what I said, Johnny! We can’t—you know we can’t!”
“Nonsense! I shan’t let you go now. I’ve got a disreputable mother now—or so they say. Have you heard of yours—since?”
“She’s in the infirmary—very bad. Something’s been forming on the liver for years, the doctor says; and when she couldn’t get anything to drink she broke down at once. But what did you say about your mother?”
Johnny told her the tale. “And now,” he added in the end, “she’s in there, worn out an’ broken down, an’ not a woman in the world to comfort her but my sister. Come in, an’ help.” And they went in together.
Atthe end of a week Long Hicks stood astounded at his own performances. At the end of a year he was still astonished, and proud inordinately; and till the end of his life he will never forget the smallest particular of that week’s exploits. The policeman who came with a warrant for Butson, the young man from Mr. Dunkin, who came about the stock, the other young man that came the next time—he polished them all off, and half a dozen others, in the most dashing and businesslike manner. He found a new shop—found a score of shops, in fact, so that Nan May was fain to rouse herself and choose, lest some hopeless sepulchre of trade were rented without her knowledge. And this was good, for it gave her work to do and to think of, and once set going, she buckled to her task with all her old energy, and a world of riper experience. The shop was not so fortunately placed as that at Harbour Lane, and trade was never quite so good as it had been there when at its best. More, its place was in a dingy street, out of sight of the river and the ships. But it was a fairly busy thoroughfare, and things could be sold there, which wasthe main consideration. And it was Hicks’s triumph to stock this shop with the stock from Harbour Lane—conveyed secretly by night, on a truck, with many chucklings, after cunning putting-off of Mr. Dunkin. The tale whereof he would tell ever after with bashful glee, together with the tale of the sad emptiness and disorganisation of Mr. Dunkin’s new branch at its opening on Monday morning. And Uncle Isaac (who found his niece’s new shop ere long) assured the listener by frequent proclamation, that Mr. Hicks was a gentleman of vast business ability, and a genius at enterprise.
“Yus, a genius, that’s whatIsay, Mr. Cottam—a genius of uncommon talent.” It was a wet afternoon, when Cottam and Hicks had taken ten minutes’ shelter in the round-house by the quay-side: and presently were joined by Uncle Isaac, on his way across from the docks.
Mr. Cottam grunted. He had met Uncle Isaac twice before.
“Lord!” Uncle Isaac went on, gazing at the uneasy Hicks with steadfast admiration, “Lord! If ’e was on’y ambitious’ ’e might be anythink! What a ornament ’e ’d be to a Diplomatic Corpse! Talk about Enterprise! Why at Enterprise an’ any sort o’ circumventions ’e’s—’e’s—why there,asI alwis say, ’e might be Ambashador to ’er Majesty’s possessions!”
The shower flagged, and men came out on the quays. Mr. Cottam rose from the coil he had been sitting on, took his gaze out of space, and fixed it on the wall over Uncle Isaac’s head. “Mr. Mundy!” he trumpeted, in the manner of a man beginning a speech to an expectant multitude; raising his forefinger to his shoulder and lowering it till it rested on Uncle Isaac’s chest; “Mr. Mundy!”
Then he paused, and Uncle Isaac said, “Yus, Mr. Cottam.”
The pause endured and grew impressive; till at last the foreman’s face relaxed, his gaze descended till it met Uncle Isaac’s, and he chuckled aloud, stabbing him playfully with the forefinger. “Why—what a windy ol’ kidder you are!” said Mr. Cottam; and stamped off along the quay, croaking and chuckling all over.
Sowith the days and the months Nan’s sorrows fell from her, and their harder shapes were lost in her remembrance; and the new days brought a new peace—perhaps even a new dullness. For this was a dull place, this street of flat walls, and grime, and anxious passengers. But what mattered mere dullness of externals when she had hard work to do, and a son to take pride in?
For Nora’s sorrows, who shall speak? There was a hospital bed that she knew well, a pillow whereon a slaty face wasted and grew blank of meaning. And in the end there was a day of driving wet in a clayey cemetery, a day of loneliness, and wonder, and dull calm.
But that day went with the others, and that year went. The streets grew sloppy with winter, dusty with summer: and smoky geraniums struggled into bloom on window-sills, and died off. Miles away the Forest gowned itself anew in green, in brown and in white; and in green the exiles saw it, once a year: but all its dresses were spread for Bessy still, in her dreams.
Two years were gone, and Johnny was within five months of twenty-one, and the end of his apprenticeship, when on a brave August day he walked in the Forest alone. There would be no Forest excursion for him next year, for then, with good fortune, he would be upon the seas. For the firm had promised him the recommendation that would give him a year’s voyaging as fourth engineer.
Bessy and Nora were sharing the holiday, but they were left to rest at Bob Smallpiece’s cottage. Bob, vast, brown, and leathery, was much as ever. He had seen Johnny and Bessy once each year, but not their mother, since—well since he had gone to London to see his sister. He was not sure whether he should go up to London again soon, or not. Meantime he made tea for his visitors.
They had climbed the hill to gran’dad’s grave, and they had found it green and neat: they had seen another, fresh-closed, beside it, and wondered who was buried there; they had gathered flowers in Monk Wood, and they had stayed long in Loughton Camp; they had come again to the cottage on the glen-side, and Johnny had had to stoop at the door to save his hat, for indeed he was within two inches as big as Bob Smallpiece himself; and now Johnny, being alone, took the path to Wormleyton Pits. It was six years since hehad gone that way last, and he might never go that way again.
Mainly his way lay as it had lain when he carried the basket of sloes, that night when his grandfather had hunted his last moth. Johnny had left childish fancies years behind him, and now the trees were trees merely, one much as the rest, though green and cheerful in the sunlight. But even as on that night his mind had run on London, the longed-for London that was his home now, and stale with familiarity, so now he turned over once more the mystery of the old man’s cutting off: and with as little foreknowledge of the next chances in life’s hatful.
Here branched the track by which he had made for Theydon; there was the tree under which he had last seen the old man’s lantern-light; and then the slade opened, glorious with heather. Brambles and bushes about the pits were changed—this grown higher and wider, that withered off; and the pits—the smaller pits, at least, seemed shallow enough holes under the eyes of a man of near six feet. The deepest pit—thepit—was farthest; and Johnny could see a man, whose figure seemed vaguely familiar, sitting on its edge.
He picked his way across the broken ground and came to the pit on the side opposite to the stranger. There was the hole where the old man had taken his death-blow. Perhaps the bottom had risen an inch orso because of gravel-washings; but the big stone in the middle was still plain to see.
The man opposite was trimming wooden pegs with a pocket-knife. He wore corduroys, of a cut that Johnny held in remembrance. Johnny watched for a few seconds, and then the man turned up a leathery brown face, and Johnny knew him. It was Amos Honeywell, notable as a poacher, and chief of a family of poachers. Amos put a peg into his pocket and began on another.
“Well, Amos!” called Johnny across the pit; “you don’t know me!”
The man looked up, and stared. “No,” he said, “I dun’t.”
Johnny gave him his name.
“What?” answered Amos, putting away his peg unfinished. “Johnny May? The boy as used to be along o’ oad May the butterfly man, as died in a axdent in this ’ere very pit?”
“Yes—if it was an accident.”
“Oh, it was that all right ’nough. But, why, ye’re twice as tall: an’ ’taren’t so long, nayther.” Amos paused, staring mightily at Johnny, and slapped his thigh. “Why,” he said, “it’s the curiousest thing in natur, seein’ you now, an’ here too. Did ye see e’er a funeral las’ Wednesday?”
“No—where?”
“Up to chu’ch where yer gran’father’s buried. But no—y’aren’t livin’ hereabout now, o’ coase. Well it is the rarest conglomeration ever I see, me seein’ you ’ere at this ’ere very pit, an’ ’im buried on’y las’ Wednesday, an’ died in a accident too. Fell off a rick, he did.”
“An’ who was he?”
“Coopersale chap, he was, name o’ Stiles. Lived here ’bout six year. But coase you wud’n’ know ’bout him; ’twere he as did the accident.”
“Did the accident? What d’ye mean?”
Amos Honeywell got up from his seat, and jerked his thumb toward the pit-bottom. “This here one,” he said. “Yer gran’father.”
“D’ you mean he killed him?”
“Dun’t much matter what ye call it now the chap’s dead, but I wouldn’t put it killed—not meanin’.” Amos Honeywell came slouching along the pit-edge, talking as he came. “See, he was a Coopersale chap an’ new here, an’ knowed few. Well, he sees this here’s a likely spot for a rabbit or so, an’ he puts up a few pegs an’ a wire or two, just arter dark:youknow. In the middle of it he sees a strange oad chap comin’ with a lantern, searchin’—searchin’ what for? Why for wires, he thinks, o’ coase. He hides in some brambles, but t’oad chap gets nigher an’ nigher an’ presen’ly Stiles he sees he’s about caught. So he ups on a sudden an’ knocks the oad chap over, an’ grabs the wires an’ thenhe bolts. Oad chap goes over into pit of a lump, an’ he falls awk’ard an’—an’ well—there y’are!”
“And how long ha’ you known this?”
“Knowedit? Knowed it all time, same as others.”
“An’ never said a word of it, nor told the police?”
“Why no,” Amos answered, with honest indignation. “Wudn’t hev us get the poer chap in trouble, wud ye?”
And this was the mystery: nothing of wonder at all, nothing but a casual crossing of ways: just a chance from the hatful, like all the rest of it. And Amos—well, he was right, too, by such lights as he could see.
. . . . . .
Light was low behind the hills, and dusk dimmed the keeper’s honest face as he waved his friends goodbye. Yes, he would come to them in London, one of these days. Soon? Well, then, soon.