A Little World

“And there she would sleep, only starting up now and then to look in my face, as if to see whether she was safe. Then she’d lay her head down again, and whisper to me that something kept pulling her away, and try to tell me about what she had been dreaming. But her poor little feverish head was all wrong, and her words broken and muddled like.

“‘Somebody’s calling – somebody’s calling,’ she kept on whispering to me the last day. ‘There!’ she’d say, with a start, ‘didn’t you hear somebody call “Pine, Pine!”’ and then she would call eagerly, ‘Yes, yes!’ and turn to me and whisper, ‘Was that my mamma?’

“What could I do, ma’am? – what could I do but bend my head down over the poor darling, and not let her see the hot tears come rolling down my cheeks. It was then that I felt most how I had been cheating myself and holding myself up with false hopes, and all the time that what she said was true; for though I was holding her tightly to me – tightly as she clung, it was all of no use, for something was drawing her slowly and surely away.

“I tried more than once to smile and say something cheery to her, but she only looked strange at me, and said, ‘Don’t, please;’ and then, soon after, she said, in a sort of dreamy way, ‘Tell me what it’s like, and whether I shall see my mamma there!’

“‘What what’s like, my pet?’ I says, shivering the while to hear her talk so.

“‘What heaven’s like, and all about going there!’

“What could I tell her? – what could I say, a poor ignorant man like me? I felt frightened-like, ma’am, to hear her so regularly talking about something drawing her away. I know now that it was from the dreamy troubled state of her head; while she always talked so about her mamma, and never said a word about him. I taught her to say that, you know, ma’am, for I hoped some day she would have been fetched into her proper speer, to be well off; and that’s why I did my best to improve her mind, and taught her catechism, and so on. And so she is well off, and better than she could ever have been here, and fetched into her proper speer, she is; for if ever there was a little angel here, it was my poor darling. But I couldn’t, bear to part with her, and it was not in that way I meant.”

Time after time Tim glanced wistfully from face to face, as if to see what effect his words had; and then he altered and re-arranged the mourning-band around his hat, smoothing it, brushing it with his gloves, and at last setting it upon the table.

“It seems to do me good telling you all about it, Mrs Pellet, ma’am; but for all that, the words seem to run and run; only I know that you all here used to like and take kindly to the little ill-used thing – for she was ill-used!” he exclaimed, passionately. “But anybody must have taken to and loved her; and do you know,” said Tim, solemnly, “that that’s why I think she was took away – because she was too good for the life below here. You don’t lose no little ones, ma’am, because they are happy and well off, and well treated. Nothing comes drawing of yours away, like it did my poor pet, as I can always hear whispering to me; and when I wake of a night for a few moments, I always seem to feel her little hot hand nestling in my breast, and feeling after mine to put under her burning cheek.”

Mrs Jared shivered, and looked as if about to run up-stairs and see whether her own little ones were all safe.

“But she was wanted,” said Tim, sadly, “and I shall never forgive myself – never, never!” and sinking back in the chair behind him, Tim Ruggles gave free vent to his sorrow, bowing his head almost to his knees, covering his face with his hands to conceal its working and the tears. His sobs seemed to tear their way from his breast, as, heedless now of all but his overwhelming grief, he rocked himself to and fro in the bitterness of his anguish.

For some time nothing was heard but sobs in that common room. Mrs Jared and Patty crept closer together to weep in unison, Mrs Jared making it appear – though a piece of base dissimulation – that she was only comforting Patty; while Jared rose to rest a hand upon his visitor’s shoulder, telling himself that his was not the only trouble in the world.

Tim wept on passionately, for the grief which had been thrust down and dammed back for days past, now burst forth with a violence that could not be stayed, as, still blaming himself for his weakness and lapse of duty towards the child, he groaned in the anguish of his spirit.

“I shall never forgive myself,” cried Tim at last, leaping from his chair, “never! I lay down beside her for a bit that night, with her cheek upon my hand, and dropped off; but she moaned in her sleep, and it woke me directly. I gave her some drink, when, ‘Please take me,’ she whispered, and her little voice sounded, oh! so cracked, and harsh, and strange. So I took her in my arms – so light she was! – and then, having been watching night after night, I felt drowsy again. I propped myself with my back to the wall in the corner of the board, with that little hand nestled, as it had been scores of times, close against my breast. Her little arms were round me, and then I rocked her to and fro gently till she began to moan again quite softly, as she had often done of late in her sleep; and then, instead of keeping awake, I dropped off again, and slept for hours, till the light came peeping in through the sides of the blinds.

“Pale and cold and scaring looked the light that morning; and as I woke, cramped, tired, and stiff, a horrible thought flashed through me, tearing me so that for a long time I dared not move nor look down. I seemed to have known all that had taken place, and to have felt it all, just as if I had been awake all night. I didn’t dream it, you know, ma’am, so I can’t explain myself; but I knew well enough that while I had slept, the something that had been drawing the poor darling away for so long had come at last and borne her off.

“I knew it all well enough in an instant of time – that what I held so tightly in my arms as I sat there was not little Pine, but only her shape, and fast growing colder, colder, and colder – oh! so fast. And yet I could not move.

“There was no moaning now – no sigh – no rattling in her poor little chest – no twitching restless moving of her poor little hands – no starting wildly from a half sleep to kiss me – but one terrible stillness; and I’d have given all I had only to have heard once more the dreadful painful cough that was gone now for ever.

“I shall never forgive myself,” cried Tim, with a fresh burst of emotion. “Only to think of it! – only to think that I could not keep awake to watch over her to the last!” and Tim buried his face once more in his hands.

Poor weary watcher that he was! he could not see the loving hand that had pressed down his burning eyelids, but accused himself angrily – the watcher alone through weary night after weary night – the watcher who had fought with all-conquering sleep till it could be resisted no more, and he was spared the sight of the last faint struggle!

“Yes,” said Tim, after a pause, “a week to-morrow since we buried her, ma’am, and I’m going to begin work again on Monday. You said that I ought to have been a woman, ma’am; so you won’t be so very hard upon me for what you have seen to-night. I’m better now, for that was there and wanting to come; and,” he said, piteously, “you’re the only friends I have in the world, and I wanted to tell you all my trouble, but couldn’t before to-night.”

No sooner had Tim left the house with Jared – heartsore himself, and glad of such companionship – to walk part of the way home with him, than Mrs Jared rushed up-stairs to kiss and cry over every one of her numerous progeny, as she satisfied herself that they were all safe. And sadly were the poor children disturbed by the process, for the light was cast upon their eyes, and Patty was consulted as to whether this one did not look pale, and that one flushed, which last was undoubtedly the case, for it had to be fished from beneath the bed-clothes, its unintelligibly mumbled words being taken for threatenings of delirium and fever.

Mrs Jared descended at last, and Jared vowed that she got up six times that night to go into the various bedrooms – and she herself owned to three – while Jared lay telling himself he ought to make a confidant of his wife, and tell her all; but he shrank from the task, as he said, “Poor thing! no; she has enough to bear as it is.”

It was true, for Mrs Jared’s trials were any thing but light, and she hid many a tear in her turn from Jared. But for all that, that night, after hours had passed, she had another to spare, as she thought of the dead child, and felt for it more than ever a strange yearning; while the tear that made wet her cheek was as much for it as for the sorrows of poor Tim Ruggles.

Tears – tears! there were many shed that night; for in her own little room Patty too lay sleepless, thinking of Janet and her trouble – of the missing man, and of poor Pine as well; but somehow, in spite of her sadness, her thoughts would veer round to him who had first made her heart to beat, and that was Harry Clayton.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty.

A Broken Reed

Harry Clayton walked hastily back towards Lionel’s chambers, his mind confused by what he had seen and heard. He was half pained, half pleased; at one moment he felt elate, and his heart swelled joyfully. He stopped once; should he go to Duplex Street? Then he would think of conflicting circumstances, and depression would ensue. Thoughts that he had believed to be crushed out were again asserting themselves; and so pre-occupied was he, that he did not see the peering curious face of D. Wragg, as it passed within a yard of his own, watchful as that of a terrier after a rat.

So conflicting were Harry Clayton’s thoughts, that for a while, though not driven out, the recollection of the mission upon which he was sent was certainly dimmed. He had been so surprised – matters had turned out so differently to what he had anticipated; and he was so pleased to. And that he had been in the wrong that for a time he strode on pondering upon the pleasant vision he had left behind, till, rapidly approaching Regent Street, the thoughts of the missing man came back with full force, and with them a feeling of sorrow and remorse for what he was ready now to call his forgetfulness.

Rousing himself then to a sense of duty, he hurried up the stairs, but not so quickly that he had not time to think that there was not the slightest necessity for the people at D. Wragg’s to be put to further trouble or annoyance. If ill had befallen Lionel on his way to or from Decadia, they were not to blame; and it was his duty, he told himself, to protect them. And after all, it seemed, as matters would turn out, that Lionel had been in some other direction.

But suppose, suspicion whispered, he had been too ready, after all, to trust to appearances; that the dark deformed girl was frightened because she knew that he was in search of his friend, and the old Frenchman was, after all, only an oily-tongued deceiver; while Patty —

There was a warm flush in his face as he strode up the few remaining stairs to the room where Sir Richard Redgrave was seated, ready to start up as the young man entered.

“Well,” exclaimed the elder, “what news?”

“None, sir – at present,” responded Clayton, gloomily. “I was leaning upon a reed, and I found that it was broken.”

Two days after, the following advertisement appeared in the second column of the Times: —

“Two Hundred Pounds Reward. – Disappeared from his Chambers, 660 Regent Street, on the 6th instant, Lionel George Francis Redgrave, aged 24; 5 feet 11 inches high; muscular, fair open countenance, slight moustache, and the scar of a hunting-fall over the left temple; aquiline nose, light-blue eyes, and closely-curling fair brown hair. Supposed to have worn a black evening-dress suit, with light-grey Warwick overcoat. Whoever will give such information as shall lead to his discovery, shall receive the above reward.

“660 Regent Street.”

“That will bring us some news, I hope, Clayton,” said Sir Richard. “If it does not at the end of a week, I shall increase it to five hundred, and at the end of another week, I shall double it. Money must find him if he is to be found. But we will find him,” he exclaimed, fiercely, “dead or alive – alive or dead,” he repeated, with quivering lips. “With all his light carelessness, he never let a whole week pass without writing to me, and something fearful must have happened, I feel sure.”

“Be hopeful, sir, pray,” said Clayton, as he gazed in the worn and haggard countenance of the stately old gentleman.

“I will, Clayton – I will, as long as I can; but this is hard work; and if he is dead, it will break my heart. You ought never to have left him,” he added, reproachfully.

“I would not have done so,” said Clayton, “had I possessed the slightest influence; but during the latter part of my stay I found that he would not submit to the slightest restraint.”

“Yes, yes!” said Sir Richard; “I know how obstinate the poor boy was,” said the old man, in tremulous tones.

“Is, sir —is” exclaimed Clayton, laying his hand upon Sir Richard’s arm.

“Yes, is– we will not yet despair,” said Sir Richard; “but you had influence – the influence of your quiet, firm example. But did I tell you that I have had reward-bills posted about the streets?” he added hastily, upon seeing Harry’s pained and troubled aspect.

“You did not, sir; but it was wisely done. And now it seems to me necessary that one of us should be always here in case of information of any kind arriving.”

“I will stay,” said Sir Richard; “it is my duty, though the inaction is extremely hard to bear; but I am weak and troubled, and unable to get about.”

“You may be the first to get good news,” said Harry, smiling.

“Perhaps so – perhaps so,” was the reply. “I never knew before how old I had grown. You must carry on the search; but you will come back often, Clayton?”

“I will, sir,” said Harry, gently, and soon after he left the house.

Harry’s first visit was to Great Scotland Yard, where he was passed up-stairs to a quiet ordinary-looking person, in plain clothes, who, however, only shook his head.

“Nothing at present, sir,” he said; “but do you know, sir, I think Sir Richard Redgrave is making a mistake, sir – ‘too many cooks spoil the broth!’ Better have left the matter entirely to us; we’re doing all we can. Private inquiries are all very well; and Mr Whittrick’s a good man – was here, you know; but he’s only good for a runaway-match or a slope, or anything of that kind. Sir Richard’s wrong, sir, depend upon it he is.”

“You must excuse it all on account of the old gentleman’s anxiety,” said Harry, quietly, as, after being told for the twentieth time that information should be forwarded the moment it arrived, he took his leave, so as to seek the renowned Mr Whittrick, of private-inquiry fame; but here the interview was very similar to the last; and he returned to Sir Richard to find him restlessly pacing the room with a telegram in his hand.

“News?” exclaimed Harry, excitedly.

“For you,” said the old man, kindly; “and I hope it is good.”

He handed the telegram, which had been sent down to Cambridge, and re-transmitted. It was short and painful. Richard Pellet was the sender, and he announced the sudden and serious illness of Mrs Richard at Norwood – Harry arriving at his mother’s bedside, but just in time to receive her farewell.

This was a check to future proceedings, for Harry was deeply affected at the loss. He could not recall the weak woman who had been flattered into marriage without proper settlements by Richard Pellet, but only the tender loving mother, who had always been ready to indulge his every whim; and till after the funeral he was too much unhinged to do more than quietly talk with Sir Richard, who had, on his part, little news to give, save the usual disappointments that follow upon the offering of a reward.

The last sad duties performed to the dead, Harry gladly returned to the task left incomplete, seeing in it relief from his oppressive thoughts, and an opportunity of serving one whom he looked upon as a benefactor.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty One.

At Austin Friars

“What name?” asked a clerk.

“Pellet – Jared Pellet,” said the owner of that name.

“Pellet,” – repeated the clerk, hesitatingly; “I’m afraid he’s engaged;” and he looked hard at the shabby visitor to Austin Friars, as much as to say, “You’re a poor relation, or I’m no judge.”

“Tell him his brother would be glad of a few minutes’ conversation,” said Jared, desperately; and he stood gazing over his brother’s offices, where, over their gas-lit desks, some half-score clerks were busy writing.

It was a bitter day, with a dense yellow fog choking the streets, so that eleven o’clock a.m. might have been eleven o’clock p.m., save for the business going on around. The smoke-burdened vapour had even made its way with Jared into the offices; but the glowing fire in the polished stove was too much for it, and the fog soon shrank away, leaving Jared shivering alone, as much from a strange new-born feeling as from cold, as he was gazed at from time to time by some inquisitive eye.

“This way, sir, if you please,” said the clerk, and the next minute Jared was standing like a prisoner at the bar before his justice-like brother in a private room – standing, for Richard did not offer him a chair.

“I have come to you for advice,” said Jared, plunging at once into the object of his visit.

“If you had come sooner to me for advice, you would not have been in this plight,” said Richard, coldly, as he glanced at his brother’s shabby garments, and the worn hat he held in his hand. “But what is it?”

Jared stared, for, to the best of his belief, his brother had never given him any advice worth taking.

“Time is money to business people,” said Richard, for Jared remained silent.

“Yes, yes, I know – I know,” he said; and then he paused again, as if nerving himself for his task, till once more Richard turned hastily in his chair, and was about to speak.

“Bear with me for a few minutes, Dick, and I will tell you all,” exclaimed Jared. “I am in bitter affliction.”

“I suppose so,” said Richard, “or you would not have come. There! speak out; how much do you want?”

“What! money?” replied Jared; “none. But don’t be hard upon me, Dick – the world can do that.”

“The world is to any man his lord or his servant – a hard master or a cringing slave, whichever a man pleases,” sneered Richard. “Let him keep poor, and the world is his ruler; let him get rich, and the world will be ruled.”

“But I am in trouble – in great trouble,” cried Jared, pleadingly. “The poor-boxes at our church have been robbed.”

“Well!”

“Great endeavours have been made to discover the thief.”

“Well!”

“And by some means a key got into the locker of my organ-loft.”

“Yes!”

“And it was found by the vicar, who cruelly wrongs me with his suspicions.”

“Yes!”

“And I am accused, and dismissed from my post.”

“Well!”

“What shall I do? Help me with your advice. How am I to prove my innocence? What is best for me to do under the circumstances? I feel my head confused, and am at a loss how to proceed, for I cannot let it be known at home. The vicar seems to be so convinced of my guilt that he refuses to see me, and returns my letters. All I get from the churchwarden when I assert my innocence is, ‘Prove it, sir, prove it.’ I have thought by day and by night. I have struggled hard – I have done all that a man can do, but I am as far off as ever. I was not born, Dick, with your business head – I’m not clever. You know that I never was, and now I have turned to you – ”

“To mix myself up in the affair?” said Richard, coldly.

“No, no; to advise me – to tell me what I should do,” said Jared.

“Who committed the theft?” said Richard, scowling.

“Indeed, indeed, I have not an idea,” replied Jared, humbly.

“No, of course not. Well, I can tell you, Some of your fine Decadia friends – that wretched fiddler, perhaps, that you disgraced yourself, your family, and me, by making a companion. And now you want me to get my name sullied, and the substantiality of my house shaken, and my credit disgraced, by being drawn into connection with a beggarly, low, contemptible piece of petty larceny? Do you think I am mad?”

“Oh, no, Richard.”

“Hold your tongue. I’ve heard you – now hear me. Do you think I have gone backwards into an idiot? Do I look childish, or in my dotage? But there – some people are such fools!”

To do Richard Pellet justice, he looked neither mad, idiotic, nor childish, but the image of an angry sarcastic prosperous man, as he threw himself back in his morocco-covered chair, and, stretching out his glossy legs towards the fire, scowled at his brother.

“O Richard!” groaned Jared, in despair.

“Look here, sir,” said the city man, in a deep voice – angry, but not such a one as could reach the clerks – “look here! We were born brothers, I suppose; we bear the same name – curse it since it is yours too. You have taken your path in life, and I have taken mine, and they are paths that grow daily more and more apart, never to join again. I have never meddled with you, nor asked your help. I have never troubled you in any way; while you – you – what have you ever been but a disgrace – a clog – a drawback to me in my every project to raise our name from the dust? I forget all this, and, to be brotherly try to heal all old sores. I ask you and your family to my house, and what do you do? You disgrace it not only by your appearance, but also by your behaviour, making my very servants to laugh in their sleeves; and as if that were not enough, your well-trained trull of a child must begin to set her snares and traps, acting with less modesty and decorum than the veriest creature of our streets, until she has by her artful tactics disturbed the peace of a happy family, driven a foolish boy from his home, and his sorrowing mother to a premature grave.”

At this point Richard seemed to consider that it would be effective to display a little emotion instead of anger; but he soon merged again into the upbraiding.

Jared started at the news, for he had not heard of his sister-in-law’s decease, but he had noticed a deep band round his brother’s hat – and noticed even the very stitches, as he stood there smarting and indignant. For a few moments the news of the death checked him, but his indignation began to assert itself, and he was about to reply. Richard waved him to be silent, and continued —

“And now – what now? You come to me with a lame pitiful tale, that I may employ counsel for you, have my name dragged into the public courts and papers to be the talk of the whole city – to be more disgraced by you than ever I have been before. I don’t know you. I hold no communication with you. You bear my name, but I renounce all relationship. I will not be dragged into the matter. It is no business of mine. Go and ask your French friend from Decadia, or the lame bird-fancier. You see I know your companions and associates, great musician as you are. You always were a fool, and now you have taken the step which lay between folly and roguedom. Leave my place at once and quietly. Dare so much as to speak an abusive or reviling word in the outer office, and I’ll have you given into custody for trying to extort money; and then, with your present character of thief, and the poor-box money behind, how will you stand?”

Richard Pellet, like many more bad men, was gifted with a tongue which, given an inch, took an ell, and said more than ever its owner had power or will to perform. It backed verbal bills that its master would never be able to take up; and now he had risen and stood glaring at his visitor, with his hand resting upon the heavy chair he had placed between them. For, as he stood completely dumbfoundered before his brother, Jared had involuntarily taken up a ruler from the desk; but not to strike, he only handled and tapped it with his long pliant fingers. He could not speak; indignation and sorrow choked him; and he stood there panting, crushing down anger, bitterness, the whole host of emotions that rose.

Was this his brother – nursed at the same breast – the last of all men who should have turned against him – apparently snatching at the chance of erecting a greater barrier between them – a barrier that should last till the grave separated the living from the dead? This his brother, who most likely, by his business shrewdness and advice, could have cleared the way towards freeing him from his difficulty, employed some keen investigator in his behalf, and had the matter sifted to the bottom? The remarks directed against the man whom, for his musical talent, he had made his friend, also stung him, but not as did the insults hurled against poor Patty.