"No; I will do anything to help by myself, but I do not wish to meet
him."
"You know him, then?"
"No, I have never seen him."
"He would, I can promise, respect your confidence, Mr Jeffreys."
"I know, but I cannot meet him or any one. I will do anything he wants
about searching for Forrester--he cannot be more anxious about it than I
am--but I have every reason for wishing to remain unknown."
"You forget that it is hardly possible he can fail to know your name;
and he has friends, some of whom I believe are deeply interested in your
welfare."
Jeffreys shuddered.
"I can't say more," said he. "I will do all I can, but I want to see
nobody but you."
"I may, of course, report this interview to my client?"
"Of course; I can't prevent that."
"And I must tell him you definitely refuse to meet him."
"Yes. I cannot see him."
"Or tell him your address?"
"No; you know where a letter would find me."
"Well, will you call again--say this day week?"
"Yes; to see you alone."
Thus the unsatisfactory interview ended.
Mr Wilkins was a man of honour, and felt he had no right to insist on
Jeffreys opening communications with the colonel; still less had he the
right as he might easily have done, to track his footsteps and discover
his hiding-place.
Jeffreys, alive to a sense of insecurity, evidently expected the
possibility of some such friendly ruse, for he returned to his work by a
long and circuitous course which would have baffled even the cleverest
of detectives. He seriously debated with himself that night the
desirability of vacating his garret at Storr Alley and seeking lodgings
somewhere else. His old life seemed hemming him in; and like the wary
hare, he felt the inclination to double on his pursuers and give them
the slip.
For, rightly or wrongly, he had convinced himself that the one calamity
to be dreaded was his recapture by the friends in whose house his bad
name had played him so evil a revenge.
Yet how could he leave Storr Alley? Had he not ties there?
Was it not worth worlds to him to hear now and then, on his return at
night, some scrap of news of the ministering angel whose visits cheered
the place in his absence? He shrank more than ever from a chance
meeting; but was it not a pardonable self-indulgence to stay where he
could hear and even speak of her?
Nor was that his only tie now.
Mrs Pratt, in the room below, had never recovered yet from the illness
that had prostrated her at little Annie's death; and night by night
Jeffreys had carried the two babies to his own attic in order to give
her the rest she needed, and watch over them in their hours of cold and
restlessness.
He became an expert nurse. He washed and dressed those two small
brethren--the eldest of whom was barely three--as deftly and gently as
if he had been trained to the work. And he manipulated their frugal
meals, and stowed them away in his bed, with all the art of a practised
nurse. How could he desert them now? How indeed? That very night, as
he sat writing, with the little pair sleeping fitfully on the bed, a
head was put in at the door, and a voice said in a whisper, "Poor Mrs
Pratt's gone, John."
"What," he said, "is she dead?"
"Yes--all of a sudden--the 'art done it--I know'd she was weak there.
Poor dear--and her husband such a bad 'un too, and they do say she was
be'ind with her rent."
So the woman chattered on, and when at last she went, Jeffreys glanced
at his two unconscious charges and went on writing. No, he could not
leave Storr Alley.
In the morning, as usual, he performed their little toilets, and
announced to the elder that his mother was gone away, and they might
stay upstairs. Whereat the little orphan was merry, and executed a
caper on the bare floor.
A fresh dilemma faced the newly made father. He must work if he and his
family were to eat. The thirty shillings he had earned last week could
not last for ever. Indeed, the neighbours all seemed to take it for
granted he would see to Mrs Pratt's burial; and how could he do
otherwise? That meant a decided pull on his small resources. For a day
or two he might live on his capital, and after that--
He put off that uncomfortable speculation. The baby began loudly to
demand its morning meal; and the three-year-old, having run through its
mirth, began to whimper for its mother. Altogether Jeffreys had a busy
time of it.
So busy that when, about mid-day, Tim, who had been perched upon a box
at the window to amuse himself at the peril of his neck by looking out
into the court below, suddenly exclaimed--"There she is!" he bounded
from his seat like one electrified, and for the first time realised that
_she_ might come and find him!
There was barely a chance of escape. She had already entered the house;
and he became aware of the little flutter which usually pervaded the
crowded tenement when she set foot in it. She had many families to
visit, and each grudged her to the next. The women had yards of trouble
to unroll to her sympathy; and the children besieged her for stories and
songs. The sick lifted their heads as they heard her foot on the steps;
and even the depraved and vicious and idle set their doors ajar to get a
glimpse of her as she passed.
What could he do? Wait and face her, and perhaps meet her look of
scorn, or worse still, of forgiveness? or hide from her? He debated the
question till he heard her enter the chamber of death below.
Then there came over him a vision of her as he had last seen her that
October afternoon with Scarfe in Regent's Park. With a groan he
gathered together his papers, and bidding Tim mind the baby till he
returned, seized his hat and hurried from the room. On the dark, narrow
staircase he brushed against a dress which he knew must be hers. For a
moment he was tempted to pause, if only for a look at her face; but she
passed on, and was gone before he could turn.
He went out miserably into the street, and waited within view of the
entrance to the alley till she should come out. She was long before she
appeared--he guessed how those two friendless little orphans would
detain her. When she came her veil was down, and in the crowd on the
pavement he lost sight of her in a moment. Yet he knew her, and all his
resolution once more wavered, as he reflected that he was still within
reach of her voice and her smile.
He returned anxiously to the attic. The baby lay asleep on the bed, and
Tim, perched on his window seat, was crooning over a little doll.
There was a flower on the table; the scanty furniture of the room had
been set in order, and his quick eye even noticed that a rent in Tim's
frock which had caused him some concern in the morning had been neatly
mended.
Tim came and put the little doll into his hands.
"She gave it me. Will she soon come again?" said the child.
"Yes; she's sure to come again."
"You ran away; you was afraid. I wasn't."
In a strange turmoil of emotions Jeffreys resumed his writing. The
flower in the cup beside him was only a half-withered aster, yet it
seemed to him to perfume the room.
After dark the neighbour put her head into the room.
"Then you didn't see the lady?" said she.
"No; I was out."
"It's a pity. She's a angel, John. The way she sat with them poor
childer would do you good to see. I told 'er you 'ad took them, and,
bless you, 'er eyes filled with tears to think of a man doing it when
you might let them go to the work'us. Not that I wouldn't do it, John,
if I 'adn't six of my own and the mangle and not room to turn round.
And Mrs Parkes was a-saying the childer would be welcome in 'er room,
only the smells is that bad in 'er corner that there's no living in it
except for seasoned bodies. There's my Polly, you know, John, is eight,
and she would look after them now and again, when you're busy. She's a
good child, is Polly, and can write on a slate beautiful."
Jeffreys thanked her, and promised to come to an arrangement with Polly,
and went on with his work.
In due time the claims of hunger created a diversion, and he and his
infants--one on each knee--partook of a comfortable repast of bread and
milk.
He had hard work to induce the baby, after it was over, to resume his
slumbers. That young gentleman evidently had a vivid recollection of
some one having walked about with him and sung him to sleep in the
middle of the day, and he resented now being unceremoniously laid on his
back and expected to slumber without persuasion.
Jeffreys had to take him up finally and pace the room for an hour, and
about ten o'clock sat down to his interrupted work. Till midnight he
laboured on; then, cold and wearied, he put out his little candle and
lay himself beside the children on the bed.
He had scarcely done so when he became aware of a glare at the window,
which brought him to his feet in an instant. It was a fire somewhere.
His first panic that it might be in the house was quickly relieved. It
was not even in Storr Alley, but in one of the courts adjoining. He
looked down from his window. The alley was silent and empty. No one
there, evidently, had yet had an alarm.
Quickly putting on his boots, he hurried down, and made his way in the
direction of the flames. From below they were still scarcely visible,
and he concluded that the fire, wherever it was, must have broken out in
a top storey. Driver's Court, which backed onto Storr Alley, with which
it was connected at the far end by a narrow passage, was an unknown land
to Jeffreys. The Jews in Storr's had no dealings with the Samaritans in
Driver's; for Storr Alley, poor as it might be, prided itself on being
decent and hard-working, whereas Driver's--you should have heard the
stories told about it. It was a regular thieves' college. A stranger
who chanced into Driver's with a watch-chain upon him, or a chink of
money in his pocket, or even a good coat on his back, might as soon
think of coming out by the way he had entered as of flying. There were
ugly stories of murders and mysteries under those dark staircases, and
even the police drew the line at Driver's Court, and gave it the go-by.
Jeffreys had nothing to apprehend as he rushed down the passage. He had
neither watch, chain, nor money, nor good coat. His footsteps echoing
noisily in the midnight silence brought a few heads to their windows,
and almost before he stood in the court there was the cry of "Fire!"
Terrible anywhere, such a cry in a court like Driver's was terrible
indeed. In a moment the narrow pavement swarmed with people, shouting,
cursing, and screaming. Although even yet the flames scarcely appeared
from below, a panic set in which it was hopeless either to remove or
control. Chairs, tables, mattresses were flung, it seemed at random,
from the windows. Mothers, not venturing out on the stairs, cried down
to those below to catch their children. Drunken men, suddenly roused,
reeled fighting and blaspheming into the court. Thieves plied their
trade even on their panic-stricken neighbours, and fell to blows over
the plunder. Still more terrible was the cry to others who remained
within.
Children, huddled into corners, heard that cry, and it glued them where
they stood. The sick and the crippled heard it, and made one last
effort to rise and escape. Even the aged and bedridden, deserted by
all, when they heard it, lay shouting for some one to help.
The flames, pent-up at first and reddening the sky sullenly through the
smoke, suddenly freed themselves and shot up in a wild sheet above the
court. The crowd below answered the outburst with a hideous chorus of
shrieks and yells, and surged madly towards the doomed house.
There was no gleam of pity or devotion in those lurid, upturned faces.
To many of them it was a show, a spectacle; to others a terrible
nightmare, to others a cruel freak of Providence, calling forth curses.
The flames, spreading downwards, had already reached the second floor,
when a window suddenly opened; and a woman with wild dishevelled hair,
put out her head and screamed wildly.
The crowd caught sight of her, and answered with something like a jeer.
"It's Black Sal," some one shouted; "she's kotched it at last."
"Why don't you jump?" shouted another.
"Booh?" shouted a third. "Who skinned the cripple?"
The woman gave a scared look up and down. The flames at that moment
wrapped round the window, and, with a wild howl, the crowd saw her
disappear into the room.
Jeffreys all this time had been standing wedged in the crowd, a
spectator of that hideous scene, and now a witness of this last tragedy.
With a desperate effort he fought his way to the front, hitting right
and left to make himself a passage. It was a minute before he got
through. Then the crowd, realising as if by intuition his purpose,
staggered back, and raised a howl as he dashed into the door of the
half-consumed building.
The first flight of steps was still intact, and he was up it in a
moment; but as he dashed up the second the smoke whirled down in his
face and half-choked him. He groped--for it was impossible to see--in
search of the door; and guided partly by the roar of the crowd without,
and partly by the shrieks within, he found the room.
It was full of flame as he entered it, and to all appearance contained
nothing else. The wretched woman, finding the stairs worse to face than
the window, had rushed back there and flung herself desperately onto the
heads of the crowd below. As he turned to save himself, Jeffreys, amid
the roar of the flames, caught the sound of a shout from the corner of
the room which he had imagined to be empty.
Rushing towards it, he caught sight of a figure of a lad on the floor,
blackened with smoke, and evidently unable to move.