Men of business cannot afford to continue their grief for any length of
time, hence at a very short date after the death of his wife, Mr
William Jarker, bird-fancier, bird-catcher, and pigeon-trapper, to be
heard of at any time at the Blue Posts, Hemlock-court, by such gents as
wanted a few dozen of blue-rocks or sparrows for the next trap-match at
Wormwood Scrubbs, stood before a piece of looking-glass nailed to the
wall of his room with three tin-tacks, a ragged, three-cornered,
wavy-looking scrap, from which, if a little more of the quicksilver had
been rubbed off, it would never again have been guilty of distorting the
human face divine. Upon this occasion it played strange pranks with the
expressive countenance of Mr Jarker, as he stood, with oily fingers,
giving the required gloss and under-turn to his side-locks, which were
of the true "Newgate-knocker" pattern, their length denoting how long a
time Mr Jarker had been running fancy free without troubling her
Majesty's officials for his daily rations and lodging, in return for
which he would scrub, polish, and clean to order. Mr Jarker seemed to
take extra pains over his toilet, arranging his neck-tie and the
silver-mounted lens, buttoning-up his red-plush waistcoat with the
fustian back and sleeves, cleaning his finger-nails with the broken-out
tooth of a comb, before he stood in front of the glass and smirked at
himself.
Now this was a mistake on Mr Jarker's part, for his was a style of
countenance that would not bear a smirking; there was too much stiffness
of contour in the various features, a blunt angularity which resisted
the softening sweetness of a smirky smile, and the consequence was, that
if he had smirked at a stranger, the said stranger would have flinched,
from a very strong impression that Mr Jarker was rabid and about to
bite. However, mistaken or not, Mr Jarker smirked several times, and
after various patterns, before he frowned, which gave a much more
respectable cast to his countenance, the scowl being most thoroughly in
harmony. Mr Jarker frowned, for one of the side-locks would not keep
in position and retain the required bend when he had crowned himself
with his slouchy fur-cap; so the erring hair had to be again oiled,
combed, and wetted with a solution of brown sugar, which the operator
moistened in a natural way in the palms of his hands, then the lock was
smoothed and tucked under, and proved a fixture; and now the cap was
again placed in position, and displayed a thin wisp of crape fastened
round it by means of a piece of string; for being a soldier engaged in
the battle of life, Mr Jarker did not doff his uniform, but confined
himself to the above slight manifestation of the fact that he was a
widower.
Apparently satisfied with his aspect, which was a little more villainous
than usual, Mr Jarker turned his attention to the child, who crouched
in a corner of the room with a piece of bread in her hand, watching him
with her large blue eyes, very round and staring, but evidently pressing
her little self as far away from the fellow as possible.
"Ah! and so she comes and plays with the kid when I'm out, does she?"
said Mr Jarker, in a ruminating tone. "Ah! we knows what that means,
my chicking, don't we?"
The little thing pressed herself closer to the wall, and Mr Jarker
stood very thoughtfully at the window for a few minutes, gazing down at
where Lucy's sewing-machine beat rapidly; but Mr Jarker was not aware
that in his turn Jean Marais was watching him fiercely, his dark eyes
seeming to flash beneath his overhanging penthouse brows, as he eagerly
scanned every motion of the ruffian, looking the while as if prepared to
spring across the court at his throat.
"Ah! we knows what that means, don't we, my chicking?" repeated Mr
Jarker, turning once more from the window. "Come here to yer daddy,
d'yer hear!"
But though hearing plainly enough, the little thing only shrank back
closer into her corner; when, with an oath, the fellow took two steps
forward and seized the little thing by its pinky shelly ear, and dragged
it, whimpering and trembling, into the middle of the attic, where he
made "an offer" at it as if to strike, but the frailty and helplessness
of the little one disarmed even him, and as his eyes wandered to the
window to see that no opposite neighbour could watch them where they
stood, his arm fell to his side as he sat down.
"Now, then!" cried Mr Jarker, "no pipin'; don't you try none of them
games with me, my young warmin'. 'Cos why, it's ware hawks to yer if
yer does. Now hook it back to that there corner."
The child's eyes were turned timidly and wonderingly up to his, as it
shrank back once more to the corner of the attic.
"Now, then!" cried Jarker sharply, "come here again."
Like an obedient dog in the course of training, the little thing crept
back to his side, and then the tiny face grew more wondering and timid,
the eyes more round, and it was very evident that the little brain,
soft, plastic, and ready to receive any impression, was working hard to
understand the meaning of the ruffian's words. Bright and beautiful as
the faces shown to us on canvas as those of angels, the little
countenance, shining the brighter for the squalor around, was turned up
more and more towards Jarker, gazing so fixedly and earnestly at him
that he grew uneasy, fidgeted and shuffled his feet, and then his eyes
sank, guilt cowering before innocence; for, quite disconcerted by the
long, steady gaze, the ruffian rose and turned away, growling and
muttering, "She's gallus deep for such a little un." He then took a
short peep at his pigeons, walked back to the window, and stared long
and heavily at the white hands he could see busy at the sewing-machine,
and then turned once more to the wondering atom, trying to soften
himself as he stooped down, but the child only flinched as from a coming
blow when he patted the soft, bright curls.
"Here, come here," he said gently, and he drew the child between his
knees as he sat down.
"Now mind this here: nex' time she comes and plays with you, my
chickin', perhaps she'll say, `Would you like me to be your new mammy?'
she'll say; and then, `Yes,' says you; d'yer hear? `yes,' says you. Now
say it."
But the little one only continued her wondering gaze till the fellow
left her, and slouched out of the room, after raking the last cinder
from the fire, in performing which he knocked the bottom of the grate
from its frail hold, and then, in his endeavours to replace it, burned
his fingers, and ejaculated so loudly that the eyes of the child were
turned upon him more wonderingly than ever.
And then--was it that sympathy for the child moved the inmate of the
opposite attic, or that he had a natural hatred for Jarker? Jean turned
angrily from the window to a cage of half-a-dozen linnets the fellow had
brought him an hour or two before, and to his mother's rage and
astonishment, seemed about to wreak his fury upon the birds. He seized
one in his hand, and was about to wring its neck, but _ma mere_ leaped
forward to stay him, when his fierce gesture sent her back to her seat
to watch him. But he did not kill the birds, but carried the cage to
the window, and then let them go, one by one, till the last bird
hesitated at the wire door for a few moments, and then fled, with a wild
chirp of joy, far away into the smoky air.
"Jean, Jean! but you are _bete--fou_!" exclaimed his mother, trembling
with fear and rage at this folly, as she thought of the money he had
given for the birds.
"I hate him, I hate him!" hissed Jean furiously, while, watching him
through her closed eyes, the old woman nodded quickly to herself, as she
muttered and thought of her own early days, and it seemed to her that
Jean's heart was as easy to read as that printed book at his side.
But at this time Mr Jarker was slouching out of his room, and
shouldering his way down the stairs, stopping the blowing of Mrs Sims'
fire for an instant, as he growled audibly in passing; then down into
the court, where the index fingers of his hands were thrust into his
mouth, and he was about to make a long and piercing whistle for the
delectation of some passing pigeons as they flew over the strip of
heaven seen from the flags of the court; but a glance at the first-floor
window where dwelt the Hardons checked him. The next minute, though,
the birds repassed, and Bill whistled loudly again and again; but the
birds would not listen to this shrill voice of the charmer, the charmer
himself, side-locks and all, went and stood at the bottom of the court,
against the bright blue gilt-lettered boards of the public, where he
rubbed the shoulders of his sleeve-waistcoat shiny, as he stood
slouching about, and sucking one end of his spotted neck-tie.
"Whatcher going to stand, Bill?" said a gentleman of his acquaintance, a
gentleman with a voice singularly like one that had been heard in the
old Grange at Somesham upon a memorable night. This gentleman had a
piece of straw in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets, his coiffure
being of the same order as that of Mr Jarker, while, being evidently of
a terpsichorean turn of mind, he enlivened the street with a
"pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pit-pit, pat," toe-and-heel dance upon
the cellar-flap of the public-house, where, his boots being stout and
well-nailed, and the flap very hollow beneath, his efforts were attended
with so much noise that the potboy of the establishment thrust out a
closely-cropped head between the swing doors, where he held it as if in
the process of being shorn off, at the same time requesting the
light-heeled gentleman to "Drop that 'ere now, come!"
But instead of standing anything to quench the thirst of the new-comer,
Mr Jarker stood upon the order of his going; for just then, laden with
a large parcel of work, Lucy Grey passed out of the court and
encountered Mr Sterne, who saluted, and then turned with a grave,
pained countenance to gaze after her, as he saw Jarker follow, slouching
along as if his boots were soled with lead, diver fashion, and he of so
ethereal a nature that the ponderous metal was necessary to prevent him
from shooting up into heaven like a stickless rocket minus the tail of
fire.
The curate turned thoughtfully up the court, and began his round of
visits, listening to complaints here, supplications there, but finding
nowhere rest. He went thoughtfully through his round of duties that
day, hearing and speaking mechanically, for always before his eyes there
was the light, graceful form of Lucy, followed by the hound-like Jarker,
and as he thought the lines grew deeper and deeper in his forehead. He
listened to Mrs Sims' praises of the child--praises delivered in a
lachrymose tone, as a strong odour of rum pervaded the place. He
listened to _ma mere's_ complaints of Jean, and felt an insinuation
against her fellow-lodger's fair fame stab him as it were to the heart;
while surprised he gazed upon the fury with which the son turned upon
his mother; and then descending, his task nearly done, the curate sat by
the bedside of Mrs Hardon.
There stood the sewing-machine in the next room; there was the chair in
which Lucy had been so lately seated, and where even now he could
picture her form. But, silent and abstracted, he listened for the
twentieth time to the story of the murmuring woman's troubles, and what
she had suffered since they had been in town. He listened, but he was
asking himself the while whether Lucy merited the love he would pour at
her feet--asking himself whether it was possible for a pure, fair,
spotless lily to bloom amidst the pollution around. Still, too, came
the remembrance of the words of the old Frenchwoman--"Our beauty, some
of us." Once admitting doubt to his breast, the strange thoughts teemed
in, bringing up the woman he had seen and tracked in vain, and above all
the low ruffian whom he had seen dogging the fair girl's footsteps but
that very day, when love had whispered, "Follow!" and pride cried, "Nay,
stand aloof!" for he recalled their last interview. Then, again, he
asked himself how dared he believe words that slurred her fair fame,
when his conscience whispered to him that they were like their source--
vile; but, surrounded as he was by vice and misery, might he not well
wonder whether Lucy's fair face spoke truth in its candour-tinged
aspect, or was like the hundreds he encountered in his daily walks--fair
to view, but with a canker within?
He told himself that he could watch her no longer--that he could not
play the spy; and once again he prayed for strength to conquer the
passion that seemed to sway him at its will; for he could not comprehend
the behaviour of its object. Love he had thought to be buried for ever
with his betrothed; but from her grave the seed seemed to have returned
to him untainted by time, and with all its quickening, germinating
powers ready to shoot forth and blossom in a wealth of profusion for
another. And he knew that it must be lavished upon Lucy, even though
she still repulsed him. And now, again, his eye brightened as, dashing
down the sinister thoughts, he would see only her faith and truth,
smiling at poverty when he called up the riches of her heart--riches
that he saw poured forth for the murmuring parent, for whose wants she
toiled on incessantly, winning for her many a comfort that the sick
woman could not else have enjoyed; and even then with the overflowings
of her young heart ready for the neglected child.
"For the neglected child!" What a gloomy starting-point for another
train of thought, embracing its mother, tall, dark, and rouge-cheeked;
Jarker, the ruffian, tracking Lucy's steps; and lastly, _ma mere_, who
seemed even then whispering in his ear, "Our beauty, some of us!"
Arthur Sterne acknowledged that he was weak, though he fought hard with
his soul-assailing enemies; while the track of the storm he was
encountering was marked in his face, as he strolled slowly homewards,
but only to pause startled at the mouth of the court.
Volume Three, Chapter IV.