"But you'll sit down, Mr Ruggles," said Mrs Jared, kindly, as the little
man stood with one arm resting upon the chimney-piece, heedless of the
chair Patty had set for him.
"No, ma'am, not to-night," said Tim, dreamily; "I must go now--I must
go. I thought I'd just drop in for a minute to see how you all were.
The little ones all quite well, I hope, ma'am--all strong?"
"Thank God, yes," said Mrs Jared, softly, and the tears stood in her
eyes as she spoke, and stood watching poor Tim as he leaned there
brushing where the nap should have been upon his shabby hat, and then
fidgeting and re-arranging the piece of glossy new black cloth which
shone so conspicuously against the rusty head-piece.
For Tim Ruggles was in deep mourning, consisting of his Sunday-clothes,
wrinkled and creased as his own worn face, the above-named band, and a
pair of brand-new black cloth gloves.
"We have no troubles here, thank Heaven!" said Mrs Jared, and she
glanced across at her husband, who grew deeply interested directly in
the day before yesterday's paper--there was no _Echo_ in those days--
while Patty turned away to hide her troubled face.
This was Friday, and for the whole week Tim had not done a stroke of
work, but dressed himself in his best, morning after morning, and gone
out,--Mrs Ruggles never knew where, but Mrs Jared guessed, and though
the poor little fellow had carefully rubbed them, there were still
earthy stains upon the knees of his trousers, that no amount of rubbing
could remove--stains that were renewed afresh each day. And every night
that week Tim had called in at Duplex Street, for he had thought nightly
he would just drop in to see how they all were, and then stood gazing
from child-face to child-face with a lingering eager look that was
pitiful to see.
No one questioned Tim, for he had come in on the Sunday night just as
Jared, Patty, Janet, and Canau had returned from St Runwald's, where the
latter had sat in the organ-loft, according to a regular custom of late,
to aid his friend with the stops.
Poor Tim! he came in holding his black-banded hat before his breast, as
if to shield his wounded heart, that was too sorely hurt for him to lay
it before so many friends.
There was no thought there of Tim's shabby mourning, where threadbare
clothes were familiar; and pitiful as was poor Tim's appearance, there
was something in his hopeless look that made its way to Mrs Jared's
heart; so that in spite of his expostulating, "No, ma'am, no," she would
gently take him by the hand and press him back into a seat, where, with
his eyes shaded, he would sit a while in silence.
There was no need for words--they all knew that at last a keener blast
had put out the flickering little flame which Tim had so long and
carefully screened; and respecting the blow which had fallen upon him,
child after child was carefully schooled not to ask after, or press upon
Tim some rough plaything for little Pine; while Mrs Jared knew that
sooner or later their humble friend would ease his loaded heart by
making them the confidants of his trouble.
It was indeed a genuine sorrow that bowed down the head of Tim Ruggles;
and, save to sleep, for days past he had hardly rested in the home that
now seemed so desolate. It was nothing to him that his wife spoke to
him almost gently--his spirit revolted against the woman; and the first
morning he tore the whalebone rib angrily from the wall, thrust and
stamped it into the fire, watching it with a fierce delight, as it spat
and crackled and writhed like a serpent in the glowing flame; and then
hurried from her presence, to return though at night, worn and subdued.
He hastened off again early the next morning, where Mrs Jared rightly
guessed, but no one but the gatekeeper of Kensal Green Cemetery could
have told for certain.
On Saturday evening, Patty, agitated and anxious, had stolen down to
Brownjohn Street, to find Janet feverish and restless, but thoughtful
enough to insist upon D. Wragg seeing her friend to the better-lighted
streets. She kissed Patty, though, as they parted, saying, "It shall
all be made clear yet."
Patty and Jared met upon the door-step, both too much troubled to notice
each other's pained face; and soon after entering, Patty hurried to
answer the faltering knock at the door which betokened the arrival of
Tim Ruggles. "Just dropped in to see how they all were;" while his poor
seamed face looked more haggard than ever.
"Poor little man!" whispered Mrs Jared to her husband; "what did he do
that he should have such a wife?"
Not that Tim was untidy, for he was as carefully dressed as his garments
would allow. Clean shaved too was Tim; but there was a desolate look in
his face that sorely troubled Mrs Jared, who more than once hinted to
her husband that she hoped the poor man would not do anything dreadful,
and then felt almost hurt at the apparent indifference of Jared, who,
hardened by his own troubles, could not bring his mind to bear upon
those of others.
Jared was right, though, when he said that there was no fear, for Tim's
was genuine unselfish sorrow, that in all earnestness he had bent his
back to carry--bearing himself humbly, now that the first wild paroxysms
of his grief were past.
The children were in bed, and Tim, as they left the room, had kissed
most tenderly and blessed each one, as it came to say "Good-night."
"Ah! Mr Pellet, sir," he half moaned, "you're a rich man, sir--a rich
man, sir. God has been very good to you, sir. All strong and well--all
strong and well!"
Jared winced as he tried to read his paper, but could not turn his eyes
from one spot--a police report of a servant who had stolen money from
her employer's box, and he made no reply.
And now Tim stood in his old attitude by the chimney-piece.
"It's coming to-night," whispered Mrs Jared to Patty, and she, poor
girl, had run out of the room to sob for a few minutes, and then
returned, red-eyed and flushed, to sit down to her work.
"I hope I haven't troubled you very much," said Tim, gently. "I've been
in many times, but I've not been myself, you know, and could not trust
what was here to speak. It wasn't me, Mrs Pellet, ma'am," he continued,
turning himself from Jared, so that it should only be a tender-hearted
mother who read his quivering lips and tears; "it wasn't me, but a poor
broken-down wretch, who could not be man enough to fight against his
troubles. You always said I ought to have been a woman, ma'am; and you
were right--quite right. But I am better now, ma'am, and I shall be at
work next week. Poor people can't afford to be sorrowful, ma'am. Your
rich folk can be in mourning every day, outside and inside, ma'am; we
poor people can only do that once a week. I couldn't sit on the board
this week for thinking, ma'am. Come sorrow, one must fight it out--come
hard times the same. But one's as much as such a man as me can bear."
Mrs Jared sighed, and worked on busily at some little domestic repair
done with needle and thread.
"Had you not better sit down, Mr Ruggles?" she said.
"No, ma'am," said Tim; "it is time I was gone."
Then the room was once more very still, so that Jared almost started as
Tim spoke again very slowly, for his thoughts were back at the
organ-loft, and the question was troubling him once more, "What shall I
do?"
"Week to-morrow since we buried her, ma'am--like my own child, ma'am,
and not a soul to say good-bye to her but me--no father--no mother. Ah!
it was cruel, cruel! and how those whom God has given children can leave
them in strange hands to pine away and die, is more than I can
understand. I would not own that she was so ill, ma'am, not to a soul.
I told myself it wasn't so; and all the time it was. `Grim death won't
come and take that gentle, loving-hearted girl away, Tim,' I said, `when
there's your rough worthless old carcase close at hand.' But that's
what he does, ma'am; he's idle though he's busy, is death; and to save
blunting that scythe of his, he goes on mowing down the sweet, gentle,
bright-coloured tender flowers, and leaves the dry, harsh, old stalks
like me to be snapped off by the wind.
"But I knew it was coming, ma'am, faster and faster; and yet I couldn't
help thinking as there might be a change for the better. To have seen
her, you might have hoped she was getting well, for she seemed to be
easier towards the last, and for two or three days the pain was as good
as gone, 'cept when her cough troubled her, and nothing wouldn't stop
that a bit. Never complained neither, she didn't, but kept up dressed
and about to the very last. I couldn't help knowing that she was bad;
but I didn't think it was quite so bad; it's a sort of thing that you
can't seem to believe, ma'am. It won't come home to you until it's too
late, and then--then--then--"
Tim's voice grew very husky here, and, as he broke off, his hand covered
his eyes once more.
"I'm very weak, ma'am," he said at last, apologetically. "It's not like
most men, I know, to take on so about that child; but, you see, my poor
first wife loved her, and she seemed to be quite left to me to take care
of; and now that she's gone it don't seem to me that I did my duty by
her."
Here Mrs Jared and Patty murmured strongly in dissent, and Jared cleared
his throat with a loud hem, blowing his nose, too, violently the moment
after.
"I can't think that I did," said Tim, "but I did try; and if I'd
interfered more when Mrs Ruggles--wonderful woman, you know, ma'am--when
Mrs Ruggles corrected, I'm sadly afraid that it would have been worse
when I was away. I went twice--three times--four times to Bedford Row,
and told them how bad the child was getting, and they said they would
communicate, and that was all there; for--God forgive me if I wrong any
man!--I believe him as owned my poor little darling wanted to hear that
she was--"
Tim broke down and sobbed like a child for a moment, but he dashed away
the tears and continued--
"I wasn't satisfied with the doctor, because he shook his head and
looked serious; and when I got another doctor, who smiled and chatted,
and said pleasant things, I felt angry with myself because I had not
gone to him sooner.
"What's the good of earning money and trying to save up a few pounds, if
there is not going to be health and strength, ma'am? But it was of no
use, to any one but the doctor, ma'am, his coming; and the poor child
got to be weaker and weaker; and though she liked to go, and I would
have carried her all the way till she could have sat down on a seat in
the Park, where she could have leaned her head against me, and watched
the people go by, the doctor said to me she must not go out, for the
days were getting too short and cold.
"So I made her a little sofy on my board, where she could lie and see me
work, and thread fresh needles for me, and hold my twist, and wax, and
scissors, and hand me fresh buttons. Then too she used to like to have
a few flowers; but she would sooner go without them than me to leave her
while I went to fetch them. But she used to get a good many; for Turfey
Dick, who goes round with the chickweed, used often to bring us a bunch
from out of the country, and--and God bless him for it!--he never took a
penny, for he said he loved little ones, and wanted to bring her a bird.
"She did not seem to mind at all; but she must have known what was
coming, and could not bear me out of her sight for a moment. While now
it was, ma'am, that she showed what she felt towards some one else--
shrinking and shutting those little soft eyes every time some one came
nigh.
"I don't believe in people's hearts breaking, ma'am," continued Tim,
picking at the band of his hat; "but I could have held my head down and
cried bitterly any time when she was so ill, and yet so still and
uncomplaining.
"Night after night I lay down on the board so as to sleep by her, for it
seemed to please the poor darling. `Let me hold your hand,' she'd say;
and when I gave it to her, she'd hold it tightly, and lay it on her
pillow, and put her little hot cheek upon it till I took it away to get
her cough medicine, and then held her up in my arms to take it. I don't
make a fuss, ma'am, about what I did--it only came natural; and I
couldn't have slept and known that her little lips were hot and dry for
want of drink; while when I held her up like that, she'd nestle close to
me, and creep her little thin arms under my weskit, and ask, in her
pretty gentle way, whether she might stay so, because she could sleep
there.
"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 2, Chapter XX.