"My God! I had to live!"
What was to be done? Whose place was it to help her? he thought. He
loathed to touch her. But her soul might be as pure and groping as
little Susy's.
"I wish I could help you, girl," he said. "But I'm a moral man. I have
to be careful of my reputation. Besides, I couldn't bring you under the
same roof with my child."
She was quiet now.
"I know. There's not one of those Christian women up in the town yonder
'ud take Lot into their kitchens to give her a chance to save herself
from hell. Do you think I care? It's not for myself I'm sorry. It's too
late."
Yet as this child, hardly a woman, gave her soul over forever, she could
not keep her lips from turning white.
"There's thousands more of us. Who cares? Do preachers and them as sits
in the grand churches come into our dens to teach us better?"
Pumphrey grew uneasy.
"Who taught you to sing?" he said.
The girl started. She did not answer for a minute.
"What did you say?" she said.
"Who taught you?"
Her face flushed warm and dewy; her eyes wandered away, moistened and
dreamy; she curled her hair-softly on her finger.
"I'd--I'd rather not speak of that," she said, low. "He's dead now. _He_
called me--Lottie," looking up with a sudden, childish smile. "I was
only fifteen then."
"How old are you now?"
"Four years more. But I tell you I've seen the world in that time."
It was Devil Lot looked over at the dark river now.
He turned away to go up the wharf. No help for so foul a thing as this.
He dared not give it, if there were. She had sunk down with her old,
sullen glare, but she rose and crept after him. Why, this was her only
chance of help from all the creatures God had made!
"Let me tell you," she said, holding by a fire-plug. "It's not for
myself I care. It's for Benny. That's my little brother. I've raised
him. He loves me; _he don't know_. I've kept him alone allays. I don't
pray, you know; but when Ben puts his white little arms about me 't
nights and kisses me, somethin' says to me, 'God loves you, Lot.' So
help me God, that boy shall never know what his sister was! He's gettin'
older now. I want work, before he can know. Now, will you help me?"
"How can I?"
The whole world of society spoke in the poor manager.
"I'll give you money."
Her face hardened.
"Lot, I'll be honest. There's no place for such as you. Those that have
made you what you are hold good stations among us; but when a woman's
once down, there's no raising her up."
"_Never_?"
"Never."
She stood, her fair hair pushed back from her face, her eye deadening
every moment, quite quiet.
"Good bye, Lot."
The figure touched him somehow, standing alone in the night there.
"It wasn't my fault at the first," she wandered. "Nobody teached me
better."
"I'm not a church-member, thank God!" said Pumphrey to himself, and so
washed his hands in innocency.
"Well, good bye, girl," kindly. "Try and lead a better life. I wish I
could have given you work."
"It was only for Benny that I cared, Sir."
"You're sick? Or"--
"It'll not last long, now. I only keep myself alive eating opium now and
then. D' ye know? I fell by your hall to-day; had a fit, they said. It
wasn't a fit; it was death, Sir."
He smiled.
"Why didn't you die, then?"
"I wouldn't. Benny would have known then, I said,--'I will not. I must
take care o' him first.' Good bye. You'd best not be seen here."
And so she left him.
One moment she stood uncertain, being alone, looking down into the
seething black water covered with ice.
"There's one chance yet," she muttered. "It's hard; but I'll try,"--with
a shivering sigh; and went dragging herself along the wharf, muttering
still something about Benny.
As she went through the lighted streets, her step grew lighter. She
lifted her head. Why, she was only a child yet, in some ways, you know;
and this was Christmas-time; and it wasn't easy to believe, that, with
the whole world strong and glad, and the True Love coming into it, there
was no chance for her. Was it? She hurried on, keeping in the shadow
of the houses to escape notice, until she came to the more open
streets,--the old "commons." She stopped at the entrance of an alley,
going to a pump, washing her face and hands, then combing her fair,
silky hair.
"I'll try it," she said again.
Some sudden hope had brought a pink flush to her cheek and a moist
brilliance to her eye. You could not help thinking, had society not made
her what she was, how fresh and fair and debonair a little maiden she
would have been.
"He's my mother's brother. He'd a kind face, though he struck me. I'll
kill him, if he strikes me agin," the dark trade-mark coming into her
eyes. "But mebbe," patting her hair, "he'll not. Just call me Charley,
as Ben does: help me to be like his wife: I'll hev a chance for heaven
at last."
She turned to a big brick building and ran lightly up the stairs on the
outside. It had been a cotton-factory, but was rented in tenement-rooms
now. On the highest porch was one of Lot's rooms: she had two. The
muslin curtain was undrawn, a red fire-light shone out. She looked in
through the window, smiling. A clean, pure room: the walls she had
whitewashed herself; a white cot-bed in one corner; a glowing fire,
before which a little child sat on a low cricket, building a house out
of blocks. A brave, honest-faced little fellow, with clear, reserved
eyes, and curling golden hair. The girl, Lot, might have looked like
that at his age.
"Benny!" she called, tapping on the pane.
"Yes, Charley!" instantly, coming quickly to the door.
She caught him up in her arms.
"Is my baby tired waiting for sister? I'm finding Christmas for him, you
know."
He put his arms about her neck, kissing her again and again, and laying
his head down on her shoulder.
"I'm so glad you've come, Charley! so glad! so glad!"
"Has my boy his stocking up? Such a big boy to have his stocking up!"
He put his chubby hands over her eyes quickly, laughing.
"Don't look, Charley! don't! Benny's played you a trick now, I tell
you!" pulling her towards the fire. "Now look! Not Benny's stocking:
Charley's, _I_ guess."
The girl sat down on the cricket, holding him on her lap, playing with
the blocks, as much of a child as he.
"Why, Bud! Such an awful lot of candies that stocking'll hold!" laughing
with him. "It'll take all Kriss Kringle's sack."
"_Kriss Kringle_! Oh, Charley! I'm too big; I'm five years now. You
can't cheat me."
The girl's very lips went white. She got up at his childish words, and
put him down.
"No, I'll not cheat you, Benny,--never, any more."
"Where are you going, Charley?"
"Just out a bit," wrapping a plain shawl about her. "To find Christmas,
you know. For you--and me."
He pattered after her to the door.
"You'll come put me to bed, Charley dear? I'm so lonesome!"
"Yes, Bud. Kiss me. One,--two,--three times,--for God's good-luck."
He kissed her. And Lot went out into the wide, dark world,--into
Christmas night, to find a friend.
She came a few minutes later to a low frame-building, painted brown:
Adam Craig's house and shop. The little sitting-room had a light in it:
his wife would be there with the baby. Lot knew them well, though they
never had seen her. She had watched them through the window for hours in
winter nights. Some damned soul might have thus looked wistfully into
heaven: pitying herself, feeling more like God than the blessed within,
because she knew the pain in her heart, the struggle to do right, and
pitied it. She had a reason for the hungry pain in her blood when the
kind-faced old cobbler passed her. She was Nelly's child. She had come
West to find him.
"Never, that he should know _me_! never that! but for Benny's sake."
If Benny could have brought her to him, saying, "See, this is Charley,
my Charley!" But Adam knew her by another name,--Devil Lot.
While she stood there, looking in at the window, the snow drifting on
her head in the night, two passers-by halted an instant.
"Oh, father, look!" It was a young girl spoke. "Let me speak to that
woman."
"What does thee mean, Maria?"
She tried to draw her hand from his arm.
"Let me go,--she's dying, I think. Such a young, fair face! She thinks
God has forgotten her. Look!"
The old Quaker hesitated.
"Not thee, Maria. Thy mother shall find her to-morrow. Thee must never
speak to her. Accursed! 'Her house is the way to hell, going down to the
chambers of death.'"
They passed on. Lot heard it all. God had offered the pure young girl a
chance to save a soul from death; but she threw it aside. Lot did not
laugh: looked after them with tearless eyes, until they were out of
sight. She went to the door then. "It's for Benny," she whispered,
swallowing down the choking that made her dumb. She knocked and went in.
Jinny was alone: sitting by the fire, rocking the baby to sleep, singing
some child's hymn: a simple little thing, beginning,--
"Come, let us sing of Jesus,
Who wept our path along:
Come, let us sing of Jesus,
The tempted, and the strong."
Such a warm, happy flush lightened in Charley's heart at that! She did
not know why; but her fear was gone. The baby, too, a white, pure
little thing, was lying in the cradle, cooing softly to itself. The
mother--instinct is nearest the surface in a loving woman; the girl went
up quickly to it, and touched its cheek, with a smile: she could not
help it.
"It's so pretty!" she said.
Jinny's eyes glowed.
"_I_ think so," she said, simply. "It's my baby. Did you want me?"
Lot remembered then. She drew back, her face livid and grave.
"Yes. Do you know me? I'm Lot Tyndal. Don't jerk your baby back! Don't!
I'll not touch it. I want to get some honest work. I've a little
brother."
There was a dead silence. Jinny's brain, I told you, was narrow, her
natural heart not generous or large in its impulse; the kind of religion
she learned did not provide for anomalies of work like this. (So near at
hand, you know. Lot was neither a Sioux nor a Rebel.)
"I'm Lot,"--desperately. "You know what I am. I want you to take us in,
stop the boys from hooting at me on the streets, make a decent Christian
woman out of me. There's plain words. Will you do it? I'll work for you.
I'll nurse the baby, the dear little baby."
Jinny held her child tighter to her breast, looking at the vile clothes
of the wretch, the black marks which years of crime had left on her
face. Don't blame Jinny. Her baby was God's gift to her: she thought of
that, you know. She did not know those plain, coarse words were the last
cry for help from a drowning soul, going down into depths whereof no
voice has come back to tell the tale. Only Jesus. Do you know what
message He carried to those "spirits in prison"?
"I daren't do it. What would they say of me?" she faltered.
Lot did not speak. After a while she motioned to the shop. Adam was
there. His wife went for him, taking the baby with her. Charley saw
that, though everything looked dim to her; when Adam came in, she knew,
too, that his face was angry and dark.
"It's Christmas eve," she said.
She tried to say more, but could not.
"You must go from here!" speaking sharp, hissing. "I've no faith in the
whinin' cant of such as you. Go out, Janet. This is no place for you or
the child."
He opened the street-door for Lot to go out. He had no faith in her. No
shrewd, common-sense man would have had. Besides, this was his Christmas
night: the beginning of his new life, when he was coming near to Christ
in his happy home and great love. Was this foul worm of the gutter to
crawl in and tarnish it all?
She stopped one instant on the threshold. Within was a home, a chance
for heaven; out yonder in the night--what?
"You will put me out?" she said.
"I know your like. There's no help for such as you"; and he closed the
door.
She sat down on the curb-stone. It was snowing hard. For about an hour
she was there, perfectly quiet. The snow lay in warm, fleecy drifts
about her: when it fell on her arm, she shook it off: it was so pure and
clean, and _she_----She could have torn her flesh from the bones, it
seemed so foul to her that night. Poor Charley! If she had only known
how God loved something within her, purer than the snow, which no
foulness of flesh or circumstance could defile! Would you have told her,
if you had been there? She only muttered, "Never," to herself now and
then, "Never."
A little boy came along presently, carrying a loaf of bread under
his arm,--a manly, gentle little fellow. She let Benny play with him
sometimes.
"Why, Lot!" he said. "I'll walk part of the way home with you. I'm
afraid."
She got up and took him by the hand. She could hardly speak. Tired,
worn-out in body and soul; her feet had been passing for years through
water colder than the river of death: but it was nearly over now.
"It's better for Benny it should end this way," she said.
She knew how it would end.
"Rob," she said, when the boy turned to go to his own home, "you
know Adam Craig? I want you to bring him to my room early to-morrow
morning,--by dawn. Tell him he'll find his sister Nelly's child there:
and never to tell that child that his 'Charley' was Lot Tyndal. You'll
remember, Rob?"
"I will. Happy Christmas, Charley!"
She waited a minute, her foot on the steps leading to her room.
"Rob!" she called, weakly, "when you play with Ben, I wish you'd call me
Charley to him, and never--that other name."
"I'll mind," the child said, looking wistfully at her.
She was alone now. How long and steep the stairs were! She crawled up
slowly. At the top she took a lump of something brown from her pocket,
looked at it long and steadily. Then she glanced upward.
"It's the only way to keep Benny from knowing," she said. She ate it,
nearly all, then looked around, below her, with a strange intentness, as
one who says good-bye. The bell tolled the hour. Unutterable pain was in
its voice,--may-be dumb spirits like Lot's crying aloud to God.
"One hour nearer Christmas," said Adam Craig, uneasily. "Christ's coming
would have more meaning, Janet, if this were a better world. If it
wasn't for these social necessities that"----
He stopped. Jinny did not answer.
Lot went into her room, roused Ben with a kiss. "His last remembrance
of me shall be good and pleasant," she said. She took him on her lap,
untying his shoes.
"My baby has been hunting eggs to-day in Rob's stable," shaking the hay
from his stockings.
"Why, Charley! how could you know?" with wide eyes.
"So many things I know! Oh, Charley's wise! To-morrow, Bud will go see
new friends,--such kind friends! Charley knows. A baby, Ben. My boy will
like that: he's a big giant beside that baby. _Ben_ can hold it, and
touch it, and kiss it."
She looked at his pure hands with hungry eyes.
"Go on. What else but the baby?"
"Kind friends for Ben, better and kinder than Charley."
"That's not true. Where are you going, Charley? I hate the kind friends.
I'll stay with you,"--beginning to cry.
Her eyes sparkled, and she laughed childishly.
"Only a little way, Bud, I'm going. You watch for me,--all the time you
watch for me. Some day you and I'll go out to the country, and be good
children together."
What dawning of a new hope was this? She did not feel as if she lied.
Some day,--it might be true. Yet the vague gleam died out of her heart,
and when Ben, in his white night-gown, knelt down to say the prayer his
mother had taught him, it was "Devil Lot's" dead, crime-marked face that
bent over him.
"God bless Charley!" he said.
She heard that. She put him into the bed, then quietly bathed herself,
filled his stocking with the candies she had bought, and lay down beside
him,--her limbs growing weaker, but her brain more lifeful, vivid,
intent.
"Not long now," she thought. "Love me, Benny. Kiss me good-night."
The child put his arms about her neck, and kissed her forehead.
"Charley's cold," he said. "When we are good children together, let's
live in a tent. Will you, Sis? Let's make a tent now."
"Yes, dear."
She struggled up, and pinned the sheet over him to the head-board; it
was a favorite fancy of Ben's.
"That's a good Charley," sleepily. "Good night. I'll watch for you all
the time, all the time."
He was asleep,--did not waken even when she strained him to her heart,
passionately, with a wild cry.
"Good bye, Benny." Then she lay quiet. "We might have been good children
together, if only----I don't know whose fault it is," throwing her
thin arms out desperately. "I wish--oh, I do wish somebody had been kind
to me!"
Then the arms fell powerless, and Charley never moved again. But her
soul was clear. In the slow tides of that night, it lived back, hour by
hour, the life gone before. There was a skylight above her; she looked
up into the great silent darkness between earth and heaven,--Devil Lot,
whose soul must go out into that darkness alone. She said that. The
world that had held her under its foul heel did not loathe her as she
loathed herself that night. _Lot_.
The dark hours passed, one by one. Christmas was nearer, nearer,--the
bell tolled. It had no meaning for her: only woke a weak fear that she
should not be dead before morning, that any living eye should be vexed
by her again. Past midnight. The great darkness slowly grayed and
softened. What did she wait for? The vile worm Lot,--who cared in
earth or heaven when she died? _Then the Lord turned, and looked upon
Charley_. Never yet was the soul so loathsome, the wrong so deep, that
the loving Christ has not touched it once with His hands, and said,
"Will you come to me?" Do you know how He came to her? how, while the
unquiet earth needed Him, and the inner deeps of heaven were freshening
their fairest morning light to usher in the birthday of our God, He came
to find poor Charley, and, having died to save her, laid His healing
hands upon her? It was in her weak, ignorant way she saw Him. While she,
Lot, lay there corrupt, rotten in soul and body, it came to her how,
long ago, Magdalene, more vile than Lot, had stood closest to Jesus.
Magdalene loved much, and was forgiven.
So, after a while, Charley, the child that might have been, came to His
feet humbly, with bitter sobs. "Lord, I'm so tired!" she said. "I'd like
to try again, and be a different girl." That was all. She clung close to
His hand as she went through the deep waters.
Benny, stirring in his sleep, leaned over, and kissed her lips. "So
cold!" he whispered, drowsily. "God--bless--Charley!" She smiled, but
her eyes were closed.
The darkness was gone: the gray vault trembled with a coming radiance;
from the East, where the Son of Man was born, a faint flush touched the
earth: it was the promise of the Dawn. Lot's foul body lay dead there
with the Night: but Jesus took the child Charley in His arms, and
blessed her.
Christmas evening. How still and quiet it was! The Helper had come. Not
to the snow-covered old earth, falling asleep in the crimson sunset
mist: it did not need Him. Not an atom of its living body, from the
granite mountain to the dust on the red sea-fern, had failed to perform
its work: taking time, too, to break forth in a wild luxuriance of
beauty as a psalm of thanksgiving. The Holy Spirit you talk of in the
churches had been in the old world since the beginning, since the day it
brooded over the waters, showing itself as the spirit of Life in granite
rock or red sea-fern,--as the spirit of Truth in every heroic deed, in
every true word of poet or prophet,--as the spirit of Love as----Let
your own hungry heart tell how. To-day it came to man as the Helper. We
all saw that dimly, and showed that we were glad, in some weak way. God,
looking down, saw a smile upon the faces of His people.
The fire glowed redder and cheerier in Adam's little cottage; the lamp
was lighted; Jinny had set out a wonderful table, too. Benny had walked
around and around it, rubbing his hands slowly in dumb ecstasy. Such
oranges! and frosted cakes covered with crushed candy! Such a tree in
the middle, hung with soft-burning tapers, and hidden in the branches
the white figure of the loving Christ-child. That was Adam's fancy.
Benny sat in Jinny's lap now, his head upon her breast. She was rocking
him to sleep, singing some cheery song for him, although that baby of
hers lay broad awake in the cradle, aghast and open-mouthed at his
neglect. It had been just "Benny" all day,--Benny that she had followed
about, uneasy lest the wind should blow through the open door on him, or
the fire be too hot, or that every moment should not be full to the brim
with fun and pleasure, touching his head or hand now and then with a
woful tenderness, her throat choked, and her blue eyes wet, crying in
her heart incessantly, "Lord, forgive me!"
"Tell me more of Charley," she said, as they sat there in the evening.