In a wretched garret of a house in Storr Alley, near Euston, at the
sick-bed of his old enemy, Jeffreys reached a turning-point in his life.
How he conveyed the half-drowned Jonah on the night of the rescue from
the canal bank to his lodgings he scarcely knew.
The hand of a friend is often near when it is least expected. So Jonah
had found, when he believed all hope and life to be gone; and so
Jeffreys had found, when, with his poor burden in his arms, he met,
beside a barge at daybreak, a dealer in vegetables for whom he had
sometimes worked at Covent Garden, and who now, like a Good Samaritan,
not only gave the two a lift in his cart, but provided Jeffreys with an
opportunity of earning a shilling on the way.
This shilling worked marvels. For both Trimble and Jeffreys were on the
verge of starvation; and without food that night rescue would have been
but a farce.
It was soon evident that Jonah had far more the matter with him than the
mere effects of his immersion. He was a wreck, body and soul. The
dispensary doctor who called to see him gave him a fortnight to live,
and the one or two brave souls who penetrated, on errands of mercy, even
into Storr Alley, marked his hollow cough and sunken cheeks, and knew
that before long one name more would drop out of their lists.
It was slowly, and in fragments only, that Jeffreys heard his story.
Jonah was for ever reproaching him with what had happened on the canal
bank.
"Why couldn't you have left a fellow alone? I know, you wanted to gloat
over me. Go on, be as happy as you like. Enjoy your revenge. I did
you a bad turn; now you've done me one, so we're quits!"
Here a fit of coughing would shake the breath out of the sufferer, and
it would be a minute or two before he could proceed.
Jeffreys wisely avoided all expostulations or self-excuse. He smoothed
the poor fellow's pillow, and supported him in his arms till the cough
was over and he could proceed. "It was a bad day you ever came to our
school, John"--Jonah had adopted the name by which Jeffreys was known in
Storr Alley--"I hated you the first time I saw you. You've got the
laugh on your side now; but I can tell you you wouldn't have had it then
if you knew the way I followed you up. Yes"--and here came a shadow of
his own sinister smile--"I made it all fit in like a puzzle. Did you
never miss a letter you had that day you called at the York post-
office--a letter about the dead burying their dead, and young Forrester?
oh yes, you may start; I know all about it. I took that letter out of
your pocket. And I know where you buried his body; do you suppose I
didn't see you throw yourself on the very place and say, `It was here'?
You held your nose in the air, didn't you, in the school, and palmed
yourself off on Freddy and Teddy for a model? But I bowled you out. I
showed you up. That was the day of my laugh. Now you've got yours."
The cough again stopped him; and when he recovered his breath Jeffreys
said quietly--
"Don't talk, Jonah; you bring on your cough. Let me read to you."
Then for the remainder of that day the story would rest; till later on
Jonah would abruptly return to it.
"Mother believed in you, and cried a whole day after you had gone. Yes,
and you'll be glad to hear the school broke up all to pieces. Farmer
Rosher took away his boys and spread a report about us; and at the end
of a month we had scarcely a dozen urchins. Mother and I lived like cat
and dog. I struck work, and she had to do everything, and it broke her
up. It would never have happened if you hadn't come into the place. I
couldn't live there any longer. Mother had a little bit saved, fifty
pounds or so, and one night, after we had had a terrible row, I took
every penny of it out of her money-box and came up to London. Now are
you pleased? Hadn't she something to bless you for? I say, John, get
us some water quick, I'm parched!"
On another day Jeffreys heard the rest.
"I came up to London, but it wasn't the fun I expected. Everybody I met
I thought was a detective, and all night long I dreamed of my mother. I
tried to drown it, and lived as wild a life as you like till my money
was done. Then it would have been worth your while to see me.
Everybody was against me. Fellows I'd stood treat to kicked me out into
the street, and fellows who owed me money laughed in my face. I thought
I'd go back to York after all and get mother to take me back; but when I
came to start I couldn't face it. That's all. I stood it as long as I
could. I pawned everything, and when that was done I stole--and got
three months on the treadmill. How do you like that? When I got out, a
city missionary heard of me and found me a job; but I stole again, and
ran away. You wouldn't have thought I had it in me at York, would you?
I was a respectable young fellow there. But it was all there; and it
was you brought it all out. Last week I made up my mind to put an end
to it all. It took me a struggle to face it; but I was settled to do
it--and then, as if you hadn't done enough harm, you come and spoil my
last chance."
"Not your last chance, Jonah."
"No. I've a week more to live. Then you'll be rid of me. Who's to
save me then?"
"Some one, Jonah. We have both forgotten Him, but He's not forgotten
us."
"Oh yes, I know," said Jonah; "but it's all very well for you, who've
got years to get right in. It's too short notice for me to begin all
that over again. I don't want to hear about it."
He lingered on day after day, and it was absolutely necessary for
Jeffreys to go and seek work in order to keep even that wretched roof
above their heads.
One evening when he returned with a few coppers, Jonah met him with a
face brighter than any that he had yet seen.
"I've had some one here to-day. A better sort than you. One that's got
a right to talk about what's better. A lady, John, or else an angel.
Did _you_ send her?"
"I? No; I know no ladies."
"I don't know how it was, I could tell her anything--and, I say, John,
it would make you cry to hear her voice. It did me. _You_ never made
me cry, or saw me; I hate to hear _you_ preach; but she--why, she
doesn't preach at all, but she says all you've got to say a hundred
times better."
He was excited and feverish that night, and in his sleep murmured scraps
of the gentle talk of his ministering angel, which even from his lips
fell with a reflected sweetness on the trouble-tossed spirit of the
watcher.
Jeffreys had succeeded in getting a temporary job which took him away
during the next two days. But each night on his return he found his
invalid brighter and softened in spirit by reason of his angel's visits.
"She'll come to-morrow, John. There's magic in her, I tell you. I see
things I never saw before. You've been kind to me, John, and given up a
lot for me, but if you were to hear her--"
Here the dying youth could get no farther.
He seemed much the same in the morning when Jeffreys started for work.
The last words he said as his friend departed were--
"She's coming again to-day."
When Jeffreys came home in the evening the garret was silent, and on the
bed lay all that remained on earth of the poor wrecked life which had
been so strangely linked with his own.
As he stood over the lifeless body his eyes fell on a scrap of paper
lying on the pillow. It was folded and addressed in pencil, "To the
fellow-lodger."
Jeffreys caught it eagerly, and in a turmoil of agitation read the few
lines within.
"Your friend was not alone when he died, peacefully, this afternoon. He
left a message for you. `Tell him he was right when he told me I had a
chance. If it had not been for him I should have lost it.' He also
said, `Some day he may see mother and tell her about me. Tell her I
died better than I lived.' Dear friend, whose name I do not know, don't
lose heart. God is merciful, and will be your friend when every one
else is taken from you."
It was not the words of this touching little message from the dead which
brought a gasp to Jeffreys' throat and sent the colour from his cheeks
as he read it. The writing, hasty and agitated as it was, was a hand he
had seen before. He had in his pocket an envelope, well-worn now,
addressed to him months ago in the same writing, and as he held the two
side by side he knew Raby had written both.
He quitted the garret hurriedly, and entered the room of a family of
five who lived below him.
"Mrs Pratt," said he to the ragged woman who sat nursing her baby in
the corner, "did you see who Trimble had with him when he died?"
"He's dead, then, sir"--these fellow-lodgers of Jeffreys called him
"sir" in spite of his misery. "I knew that cough couldn't last. My
Annie's begun with it: she'll go too. It's been hard enough to keep the
children, but it will be harder to lose them!" she cried.
Jeffreys went to the bed where the little consumptive girl lay in a
restless sleep, breathing heavily.
"Poor little Annie!" said he; "I did not know she was so ill."
"How could you? Yes, I saw the lady come down--a pretty wee thing. She
comes and goes here. Maybe when she hears of Annie she'll come to her."
"Do you know her name?"
"No. She's a lady, they say. I heard her singing upstairs to Trimble;
it was a treat! So Trimble's dead. You'll be glad of some help, I
expect? If you'll mind the children, Mr John, I'll go up and do the
best we can for the poor fellow."
And so Jeffreys, with the baby in his arms, sat beside the little
invalid in that lonely room, while the mother, putting aside her own
sorrows, went up and did a woman's service where it was most needed.
Next day he had the garret to himself. That letter--how he treasured
it!--changed life for him. He had expected, when Jonah's illness ended,
to drift back once more into the bitterness of despair. But that was
impossible now.
He made no attempt to see the angel of whose visits to the alley he now
and again heard. Indeed, whether he was in work or not, he left early
and came back late on purpose to avoid a meeting. He had long been
known by his neighbours only as John, so that there was no chance of her
discovering who he was. Sometimes the memory of that October day in
Regent's Park came up to haunt him and poison even the comfort of the
little letter. Yet why should she not have forgotten him? and why
should not Scarfe, the man with a character, be more to her than he, the
man with none? Yet he tried bravely to banish all, save the one thought
that it _was_ she who bade him hope and take courage.
He worked well and patiently at the temporary manual labour on which he
was employed, and when that came to an end he looked about resolutely
for more.
Meanwhile--do not smile, reader--he made an investment of capital! In
other words, he spent threepence in pen, ink, paper, and a candle, and
spent one night in his lonely garret writing. It was a letter,
addressed to a stranger, on a public question. In other words, it was
an article to a London paper on, "Life in a Slum, by One who Lives
There." It was a quiet, unsensational paper, with some practical
suggestions for the improvement of poor people's dwellings, and a few
true stories of experiences in which the writer himself had taken a
part.
He dropped it doubtfully into the editor's box and tried to forget about
it. He dared not look at the paper next day, and when two days passed
and he heard nothing, he concluded that the bolt had missed fire.
But it was not so. A week later, the postman entered Storr Alley--an
unheard-of event--and left a letter. It contained a money order for ten
shillings, and read:--
"The editor encloses ten shillings for the letter on Slum Life,
contributed by Mr John to the paper of the 23rd. He can take two more
on the same subject at the same terms, and suggests that Mr John should
deal specially with--" And here the editor gave an outline of the topics
on which the public would be most likely to desire information.
With overflowing heart, and giving Raby the credit, he sat down and
wrote the two articles.
His first half-sovereign went in a deed of mercy. Little Annie lay dead
in her bed the night it arrived. Jeffreys that morning, before he
started to work, had watched the little spark of life flicker for the
last time and go out. The mother, worn-out by her constant vigils, lay
ill beside her dead child. The father, a drunkard, out of work,
deserted the place, and the two other children, the baby, and the sister
scarcely more than baby, wailed all day for cold and hunger. What could
he do but devote the first-fruits of his pen to these companions in
distress? The half-sovereign sufficed for the child's funeral, with a
little over for the sick mother. For the rest, he took the baby to his
own garret for a night or two, and tended it there as best he could.
The two fresh letters to the paper in due time brought a sovereign; but
at the same time a chilling notification to the effect that the editor
did not need further contributions, and would let Mr John know if at
any future time he required his services.
It was the abrupt closing of one door of promise. Still Jeffreys, with
hope big within him, did not sit and fret.
Literary work might yet be had, and meanwhile bodily labour must be
endured.
Towards the beginning of December, any one taking up one of the London
penny papers might have observed, had he been given to the study of such
matters, three advertisements. Here they are in their proper order:--
"Should this meet the eye of John Jeffreys, late private secretary to a
gentleman in Cumberland, he is earnestly requested to communicate with
his friend and late employer."
Readers of the agony column were getting tired of this advertisement.
It had appeared once a week for the last six months, and was getting
stale by this time.