There had been no occasion for Mr William Jarker to carry out the
threat he had once made, for in all the long space of time during which
Agnes Hardon's child was in Mrs Jarker's care, the money was always
paid, faithfully and regularly, once a week, but at how great a cost to
its mother none but the Seer of all hearts could tell; and always, in
spite of sickness and misery, pain, and the hard bondage of her life,
Jarker's wife was tender and loving to the little one within her charge.
Perhaps it was the memory of another pair of bright eyes that had once
gazed up into her own, perhaps only the loving promptings of her woman's
heart; but when, by stealth almost, Agnes Hardon came to kiss her child,
she left tearfully but rejoicing, for there was proof always before her
of the gentle usage in the fond way in which the little thing clung to
its nurse. The preference may have wrung her heart, but it was but
another sorrow to bear, and, bending beneath her weight of care, she
came and went at such times as seemed best for avoiding Jarker, the
curate, and Septimus Hardon.
It was in her power to have let Lucy know where old Matt lodged; but of
late they had met but little, and then, in their hurried interviews, his
name was not mentioned, for the sorrows of the present filled their
hearts.
But now Agnes Hardon was in greater trouble, for something whispered her
that this sickness of poor Mrs Jarker was a sickness unto death, and
her soul clave to the suffering, ill-used woman who had filled the place
of mother to her child; while, at the same time, she trembled for the
future of her little one after each visit--ever feeling the necessity,
but ever dreading, to take it away, for truly there was a change coming;
and time after time when she left the garret, it was with a shudder, for
there seemed to be a shadow in the room.
It was almost impossible to ascend the creaking stairs to the garret
tenanted by Mr Jarker without hearing Mrs Sims, who, through some
spiritual weakness, had left the house in the square to return once more
to the Rents--a court honoured by most of those unfortunates who, from
unforeseen circumstances, fell from the heights of the square; while the
latter was always looked up to, in its topmost or basement floors, for
promotion by the more fortunate tenants of the Rents; and now an
ascending visitor was almost certain to hear the melancholy, sniffing
woman blowing her fire. Generally speaking, we see bellows hang by the
mantelpiece, with a time-honoured, bees'-waxy polish glossing them, as
though they were family relics whose services were seldom called into
requisition; but _chez_ Mrs Sims, the bellows had rather a bad time of
it, and were worked hardly enough to make them short-winded. They
already wheezed so loudly that it was impossible to take Mrs Sims'
bellows for anybody else's bellows; and this was probably due to their
having inhaled a sufficiency of ashy dust to make them asthmatic, while
the nozzle was decayed and burned away from constant resting upon the
specially-cleared bottom-bar; the left half of the broken tongs doing
duty for the vanished poker, borrowed once to clear the grating in the
court, and never returned, for the simple reason that it found its way
to Mrs Slagg's marine-store shop, where it stayed in consideration of
the porter receiving the best price given, namely, twopence.
Your boots might creak, and, as was their wont, the stairs would crack
and groan, but still there was the sound of the bellows to be heard as
you ascended the staircase--puff, puff, puff; and the stooping woman's
stays crackled and crumpled at every motion, for Mrs Sims, from always
requiring support, external as well as internal, sought the external in
whalebone, though for the internal she preferred rum. There was always
"suthin' as wanted a bit of fire:" perhaps it was washing-day, which,
from the small size of Bennett's-rents' wardrobes, happened irregularly,
with Mrs Sims three times a week, when the big tin saucepan used for
boiling divers articles of wearing-apparel, in company with a packet of
washing-powder, would be placed upon the little damaged grate, upon
which it would sit like Incubus, putting the poor weak fire quite out of
heart, when it had to be coaxed accordingly. Sometimes the bellows were
required to hurry the "kittle," a battered old copper vessel that never
boiled if it could help it, and, when compelled by the said hurrying,
only did so after passing through a regular course of defiant snorts,
even going so far as to play the deceiver, and sputter over into the
fire, pretending to be on the boil when many degrees off, and so
spoiling Mrs Sims' tea--never the strongest to be obtained. Sometimes,
again, the bellows were required to get a decent fire to cook a bit of
steak for the master's dinner, or even "to bile the taters." At all
events, of all Mrs Sims' weaknesses, the principal lay in her bellows,
and she could generally find an excuse for a good blow, accompanied
sometimes by a cry over the wind-exhalers, as she sniffed loudly at her
task.
There is no doubt but that in her natural good-heartedness Mrs Sims
would have operated quite as cheerfully upon any neighbour's fire as she
did now upon the handful of cinders in Mrs Jarker's grate; for, in
spite of her sniffs, her weakness for the internal and external support,
and her whining voice, Mrs Sims was one of those women who are a glory
to their sex. Only a very humble private was she in the noble army, but
one ever ready for the fight: fever, cholera, black death, or death of
any shade, were all one to Mrs Sims, who only seemed happy when she was
in trouble. If it was a neighbour who could pay her, so much the
better; if it was a neighbour who could not, it mattered little; send
for Mrs Sims, and Mrs Sims came, ready to nurse, comfort, sit up, or
do anything to aid the needy; and old Matt had been heard more than once
to wish she had been a widow.
Poor Mrs Jarker would have suffered badly but for this woman's
kindness; many a little neighbourly act had been done by Lucy, but Mrs
Jarker's need was sore, and beyond minding the child for her
occasionally, Lucy's powers of doing good were circumscribed. And now,
one night, sat Mrs Sims, sniffing, and forcing a glow from the few
embers in the Jarker grate as she made the sick woman a little gruel.
Mr William Jarker ascended the stairs after having had "a drop" at the
corner--that is to say, two pints of porter with a quartern of gin in
each; and upon hearing the noise of the bellows he uttered what he would
have denominated "a cuss," since he bore no love for Mrs Sims, and her
sniff annoyed him; but when, upon ascending higher, he found that the
sound did not proceed, as he expected, from the second-floor, but from
his own room, he began to growl so audibly that the women heard him
coming like a small storm, and trembled, since Mr Jarker was a great
stickler for the privacy of his own dwelling, which he seemed to look
upon as a larger sort of cage in which he kept his wife.
But although forbidden to enter the room, Mrs Sims glanced at the
pallid sufferer lying in the bed, with the feeble light of a rush candle
playing upon her features; and muttering to herself, "Not if he kills
me," resolved not to abdicate; and then, after a few final triumphant
puffs, dropping at the same time a tear upon the top of the bellows--a
tear of weakness and sympathy--she laid down the wind instrument upon
which she had been playing, and thrust an iron spoon into the gruel upon
the fire, stirring it round so energetically that a small portion was
jerked out of the saucepan upon the glowing cinders, and hissed
viciously, forming a fitting finale to Mr Jarker's feline swearing.
But the gruel did not hiss and sputter as angrily, nor did the erst
glowing cinders look so black, as did Mr William Jarker when he found
"the missus still abed," and Mrs Sims in possession.
"I have said as I won't have it," growled Mr Jarker; "and I says agen
as I won't have it. So let people wait till I arsts 'em afore they
takes liberties with my place. So now p'r'aps you'll make yourself
scarce, Missus Sims;" and then the birdcatcher crossed over to, and
began muttering something to, his wife.
But Mrs Sims was nothing daunted; she was in the right, and she knew
it, and though her hands trembled, and more of the gruel fell hissing
into the fire, as the tears of weakness fell fast, she stood her ground
firmly.
"When I've done my dooty by her, as other people, whom I won't bemean
myself to name, oughter have done, Mister Jarker, I shall go, and not
before," said Mrs Sims. "It's not me as could sit down-stairs and know
as that pore creetur there was dying for want of a drop of gruel, and me
not come and make it, which didn't cost you a farden, so now then!"
Here Mrs Sims bridled a great deal and sniffed very loudly; a couple of
tears falling into the fender "pit-pat."
"Don't jaw," said Bill gruffly, making a kind of feint with his hand as
he stooped down to light his short black pipe by thrusting the bowl
between the bars.
Mrs Sims flinched as if to avoid a blow, to the great delight of Mr
Jarker; but exasperated him directly after by sniffing loudly, over and
over again, producing, by way of accompaniment to each sniff, a low and
savage growl and an oath.
"Well, I'm sure," exclaimed Mrs Sims, "how polite we're a-growing!"
But catching sight of the smouldering fire in the ruffian's eye, she
hastily poured out the gruel, repenting all the while, for the poor
woman's sake, that she had spoken; but upon taking the hot preparation
with some toast to the invalid she found her kindness unavailing, for
though Mrs Jarker sat up for a minute and tried to take it, she sank
back with a faint sigh, and with an imploring look, she whispered her
neighbour to please go.
"Not till I've seen you eat this, my pore dear soul," said Mrs Sims
boldly, though, poor woman, she was all in a tremble, and kept glancing
over her shoulder at Jarker, who, with his back to the fire and his
hands in his pockets, glowered and scowled at the scene before him.
Mrs Sims passed her arm round the thin, wasted form, and supported the
invalid; but, after vainly trying to swallow a few spoonfuls, the poor
woman again sank back upon her pillow, sighing wearily, while the sharp,
pecking sound made by one of the caged birds against its perch, sounded
strangely like the falling of a few scraps of soil upon a coffin--"Ashes
to ashes--dust to dust." And then, for some minutes, there was silence
in the room, till Mrs Jarker turned whisperingly to her friendly
neighbour, to beg that she would go now and not rouse Bill, who was a
bit odd sometimes.
So, saucepan in hand, Mrs Sims wished the invalid "Good-night;" and
then, trembling visibly, sidled towards the door, evidently fearing to
turn her back to Mr Jarker, who was still growling and muttering, as if
a storm were brewing and ready to burst; but Mrs Sims' agitation caused
her first to drop her iron spoon from the saucepan, and then, as she
stooped to recover it, to flinch once more, to the ruffian's great
delight, as he made another pugilistic feint--a gymnastic feat that he
had learnt through visiting some marsh or another when a fight was to
come off between Fibbing Phil and Chancery Joe--a feat that consisted of
a violent effort to throw away the right fist, and a quick attempt at
catching it with the left hand. But Mrs Sims managed to get herself
safely outside the door, and lost no time in hurrying down, the stairs,
breathing more freely with every step placed between her and the
ruffian; but she shrieked loudly on reaching the first landing, and
dropped both saucepan and spoon, for the door was savagely thrown open,
and the bellows came clattering after her down the stairs; and all in
consequence of Mr Jarker being a bit odd.
"A bit odd!"--in one of those fits which had often prompted him to
strike down his weak, suffering, patient wife with dastardly, cruel
hand, and then to kick her with his heavy boots, or drag at her hair
until her head was bleeding--oddness which made the tiny child in the
room shrink from him; while before now it had been traced on the poor
woman's features in blackened and swollen bruises. But shrieks, and the
falling of heavy blows, were common sounds in Bennett's-rents, and
people took but little notice of Mr Jarker's odd fits.
Bill took no heed to the weary, strangling cough which shook his wife's
feeble frame, but smoked on furiously till the fire went out. She would
not get up to put on more coals, and he wasn't agoing to muck his hands;
for, as has been before hinted, Mr Jarker had soft, whitish hands,
which looked as though they had never done a hard day's work; and at
last, when the place looked more cheerless and dull than usual, he
prepared himself for rest.
"You're allus ill," growled the ruffian, who had had just drink enough
to make him savage; "and it's my belief as you wants rousing up." But
there came no answer to his remark. The little one slept soundly upon
the two chairs which formed its bed, and, with half-closed eyes, the
woman lay, breathing very faintly, as her lips moved, forming words she
had heard from Mr Sterne.
Bill felt himself to be ill-used, and was very sulky, a feeling which
made him kick his boots to the end of the room, where one knocked over a
linnet's cage, when, still growling, the owner had to go and pick it up,
which he did at the expense of his dignity, and there and then shook the
cage till the unoffending bird rustled and fluttered about, panting and
terror-stricken, to be half-drowned by the water he poured into its
little glass the next minute. For, what business had his wife to be ill
and allus having parsons and Mrs Simses a-pottering about in his place?
Hadn't he made a row about it when she came when the kid was born, and
hadn't she allus come at uncomfortable times since? Didn't she come
when it died, and weren't things uncomfortable now, and she a-making
them worse? He wouldn't have it--that he wouldn't; and, growling and
swearing in a low tone, Mr Jarker divested himself of a part of his
attire, and threw himself upon the bed.
The rushlight danced and flickered, and a few drops of rain pattered
against the window as the night breeze sighed mournfully down the court;
first one and then another bird scraped at its perch, roused as it had
been by the noise and light, so that it sounded again and again like the
earth upon the coffin-lid; some loose woodwork amongst the pigeon-traps
upon the roof swung in the wind, and beat against the tiles, and then
all was very quiet and still in the wretched attic.
"Bill--Bill, dear," murmured a voice after a while--a strange
harsh-sounding voice, as if it came from a parched and fevered throat;
"Bill!"
No answer, only the heavy breathing of the ruffian, and the pattering as
of earth upon the coffin-lid.
"Bill--Bill, dear--water!" whispered the voice once more; but there was
no answer, only the restless pattering noise of the birds. Then again
silence so still and profound that it seemed hardly to be London. But
the silence was broken by a little liquid trilling laugh, the laugh of
the child, as some bright-hued happy dream passed over its imagination;
though there was silence again the next moment, to be broken once more
by the strange husky voice, a voice that seemed new to the place, as in
almost agonising tones it whispered:
"Kiss me, Bill!"
But there was for response only the sound as of the earth pattering upon
the coffin-lid more fitfully and hollow. While now, slowly and timidly,
a thin white arm was raised, and, seen there in the dim light, it was as
though it was waved threateningly above the drunken ruffian's head; but
no--there was no threat in the act--no calling down of judgment from on
high; for the arm was passed lovingly, tenderly, round the coarse bull
neck, and still there was no response to the appeal.
"Kiss me, Bill!" was once more whispered; but a long, deep-drawn,
stertorous breath told that William Jarker slept heavily, as the arm lay
motionless, clasping his neck; and then came a sigh, as piteous and
heart-rending as ever rose from suffering breast.
On sped the hours; the rushlight burned down into the socket, flickered
once, and expired; the distant sounds of traffic floated by once or
twice; the customary heavy tramp of the policeman was heard to pass
along the court; and now and then the ruffian breathed more stertorously
than usual, or ejaculated some unconnected words in his sleep. Then the
child started and whimpered for a few minutes, but sank to sleep again;
and still through the night came that restless, pattering noise, that
hollow rattle as of dry earth--"ashes to ashes, dust to dust"--the sound
as of dry earth falling upon a coffin-lid.
The stars paled as they set; the morning came, and the red-eyed
lamplighter hurried from post to post, extinguishing the sickly-looking
gas-jets; the noises in the streets grew louder and louder, and many a
weary client lodging near woke to wonder whether his case would come on
that day. The men in Bennett's-rents who had work slowly tramped to it,
many who were without rose to seek it, while others, again, to use their
own words, took it out in sleep, and amongst these was Mr William
Jarker.
"Mammy, mammy!" at length rang in pitiful tones upon the ruffian's ear,
and as he woke to the sensations of a hot, aching, fevered head and
furred tongue, he tried to clear his misty, spirit-clouded faculties.
"Mammy, mammy!" again cried the child, who had climbed upon the bed, and
was shaking her foster-mother; "mammy, mammy!" she cried more pitifully,
and then burst into a loud wail at her inability to wake her.
"Yah-h-h-h!" roared Bill without moving; when, at the dreaded sound, the
little thing ceased its cry, and, cowering beside the sleeping woman,
laid a sunny head upon her cheek, and passed two tiny, plump arms round
her neck, in a soft, sweet embrace that has power in its innocent love
to warm even the coldest, though futile here.
"Blame it, how cold!" growled Mr Jarker, trying to raise the arm that
had lain upon his neck the long night through; but it was stiff and
heavy; and, shrinking hastily away, the frightened man sat up, gazed for
an instant at the face beside him, and then leaping, with a howl of
terror, from the bed, rushed half-clad from the room.
And why did he flee? Was it that there was still the sound as of
falling earth rattling upon a coffin-lid? For what was there to fear in
the pale face of that sleeping woman, with the earthly pains and
sorrow-traces faded away, to leave the countenance calm, softened, and
almost beautiful; for there had come back something of the old, old look
of maidenhood and happier times, when she had looked with admiration
upon the stalwart form of the ruffian she had wed, and believed in him,
wedding him to become his willing slave? Hers had been a hard life;
born in misery and suffering, growing under sorrow and poverty and vice;
yet had she been a woman with a woman's heart. But now she slept, to
wake, we hope, where justice is tempered by mercy, and the secrets and
sorrows of every heart are known. But now she slept, and her sleep must
have been peaceful--happy--for the lines of sorrow had passed away, and
there was a smile upon her lip.
Nothing to fear. Guilt fled, but Innocence stayed, and the soft, silky
curls of the child were mingled with the thin dark locks of the woman,
as a tiny smooth round cheek rested upon the marble temple, and a little
hand played in the cold breast that should never warm it more.
Nothing to fear; though the simple people who soon assembled in the room
spoke in whispers, passing in and out on tiptoe, many with their aprons
to their eyes; while poor Mrs Sims, when she returned to her own room
with the child, quieted it by means of a large slice of sugared
bread-and-butter, and relieved her own mind by sitting down to have a
good long, soft blow at the fire, what time the tears pattered down
plenteously on the bellows.
Nothing to fear; for calm and still was the face of the sleeping woman,
who with her latest breath had rendered the love she had sworn to her
husband, and now in peace she rested; but still through the long day,
through the long night, and when the hard, harsh shape of the coffin
stood in the room, there came at intervals the sharp, hollow, rattling
noise, as of earth falling upon its lid, when the listeners' ears would
strain to catch those awful accompanying words--"Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust!"
Volume Two, Chapter XIV.