A GHOST IN WHITECHAPEL
Despite a certain amount of relief at leaving a neighborhood so full
of horrible associations, those first few weeks in London were
certainly not halcyon ones. My post was by no means a sinecure. Every
morning I had thirty or forty letters to answer, besides which there
was an immense amount of copying to be done. The subject matter of
all this correspondence was by no means interesting to me, and the
work itself, although I forced myself to accomplish it with at any
rate apparent cheerfulness was tedious and irksome. Apart from all
this, I found it unaccountably hard to concentrate my thoughts upon my
secretarial labors. The sight of the closely written pages, given me
to copy, continually faded away, and I saw in their stead Warren
slopes with the faint outlines of the Court--in the distance Bruce
Deville walking side by side with Olive Berdenstein, as I had seen
them on the day before I had come away. She had now at any rate what
she had so much desired--the man whom she loved with so absorbing a
passion--all to herself, free to devote himself to her, if he had
indeed the inclination, and with no other companionship at hand to
distract his thoughts from her. I found myself wondering more than
once whether she would ever succeed in making her bargain with
him. The little news which we had was altogether indefinite. Alice did
not mention either of them in her scanty letters. She was on the point
of moving to Eastminster--in fact, she was already spending most of
her time there. From Bruce Deville himself we had heard nothing,
although my mother had written to him on the first day of our arrival
in London. Once or twice she had remarked upon his silence, and I had
listened to her surmises without remark.
I am afraid that as a secretary I was not a brilliant success in those
first few unhappy weeks. But my mother made no complaint. I could see
that it made her happy to have me with her. My silence she doubtless
attributed to my anxiety concerning my father. I did my best to hide
my unhappiness from her.
News of some sort came from Alice at last. She wrote from Eastminster
saying that she had nearly finished the necessary preparations there,
and was looking forward to my father’s return. She had heard from him
that morning, she said. He was at Ventnor, and much improved in
health. She was expecting him home in a week.
But in the afternoon of that same day a strange thing happened. My
mother was compelled to go to the East End of London, and at the last
moment insisted upon my going with her. She was on the committee in
connection with the proposed erection of some improved dwelling houses
somewhere in Whitechapel, and the meeting was to be held in a school
room in the Commercial Road. I was looking pale, she said, and the
drive there would do me good, so I went with her, lacking energy to
refuse, and sat in the carriage whilst she went in to the meeting--a
proceeding which I very soon began to regret.
The surroundings and environment of the place were in every way
depressing. The carriage had been drawn up at the corner of two great
thoroughfares--avenues through which flows the dark tide of all that
is worst and most wretched of London poverty. For a few minutes I
watched the people. It was horrible, yet in a sense fascinating. But
when the first novelty had worn off the whole thing suddenly sickened
me. I removed my eyes from the pavement with a shudder. I would watch
the people no longer. Nothing, I told myself, should induce me to look
again upon that stream of brutal and unsexed men and women. I kept my
eyes steadfastly fixed upon the rug at my feet. And then a strange
thing happened to me. Against my will a moment came when I was forced
to raise my eyes. A man hurrying past the carriage had half halted
upon the pavement only a foot or two away from me. As I looked up our
eyes met. He was dressed in a suit of rusty black, and he had a
handkerchief tied closely around his neck in lieu of collar. He was
wearing a flannel shirt and no tie. His whole appearance, so far as
dress was concerned, was miserably in accord with the shabbiness of
his surroundings. Yet from underneath his battered hat a pair of
piercing eyes met mine, and a delicate mouth quivered for a moment
with a curious and familiar emotion. I sprang from my seat and
struggled frantically with the fastening of the carriage
door. Disguise was all in vain, so far as I was concerned. It was my
father who stood there looking at me. I pushed the carriage door open
at last and sprang out upon the pavement. I was a minute too
late--already he was a vanishing figure. At the corner of a squalid
little court he turned round and held out one hand threateningly
towards me. I paused involuntarily. The gesture was one which it was
hard to disobey. Yet I think that I most surely should have disobeyed
it, but for the fact that during my momentary hesitation he had
disappeared. I hurried forward a few steps. There was no sign of him
anywhere. He had passed down some steps and vanished in a wilderness
of small courts; to pursue him was hopeless. Already a little crowd of
people were gazing at me boldly and curiously. I turned round and
stepped back into the carriage.
I waited in an agony of impatience until my mother came out. Then I
told her with trembling voice what had happened.
Her face grew paler as she listened, but I could see that she was
inclined to doubt my story.
“It could not have been your father,” she exclaimed, her voice shaking
with agitation. “You must have been mistaken.”
I shook my head sadly. There was no possibility of any mistake so far
as I was concerned.
“It was my father. That girl has broken her word,” I cried
bitterly. “She has seen him and--she knows. He is hiding from her!”
We drove straight to the telegraph office. My mother wrote out a
message to Mr. Deville. I, too, sent one to Olive. Then we drove back
to our rooms. There was nothing to be done but wait.
It was six o’clock before the first answer came back. It was from
Mr. Bruce Deville. I tore it open and read it.
“You must be mistaken. Can answer for it she has taken no steps. She
is still here. Mr. Ffolliot has not returned. Impossible for them to
have met.”
The pink paper fluttered to the ground at our feet. I tore open the
second one; it was from Olive Berdenstein----
“Do not understand you. I have no intention of breaking our compact.”
We read them both over again carefully. Then we looked at one
another.
“He must have taken fright needlessly,” I said, in a low tone.
“You are still certain, then, that it was he?” she asked.
“Absolutely!” I answered. “If only we could find him! In a week it
will be too late.”
“Too late!” she repeated. “What do you mean?”
“The ceremony at Eastminster is on Sunday week. He was to have been
there at least a week before. I am afraid that he will not go at all
now.”
“We must act at once,” my mother declared, firmly. “I know exactly
where you saw him. I will go there at once.”
“We will go there together,” I cried. “I shall be ready in a minute.”
She shook her head.
“I must go alone,” she said, quietly. “You would only be in the way. I
know the neighborhood and the people. They will tell me more if I am
alone.”
She was away until midnight. When at last she returned I saw at once
by her face that she had been unsuccessful.
“There is no clue, then?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“None.”
We sat and looked at one another in silence.
“To-morrow,” she said, “I will try again.”
But to-morrow came and went, and we were still hopelessly in the
dark. On the morning of the third day we were in despair. Then, as we
sat over our breakfast, almost in despair, a letter was brought to
me. It was from Alice, and enclosed in it was one from my father.
“You seem,” she wrote, “to have been very anxious about father lately,
so I thought you would like to read this letter from him. We are
almost straight here now, but it has been very hard work, and I have
missed you very much....”
There was more of the same sort, but I did not stop to read it. I
passed it on to my mother, and eagerly read the few lines from my
father. His letter was dated three days ago--the very day of my
meeting with him in the Commercial Road, and the postmark was Ventnor.
“My dear child,” he commenced, “I am better and shall return for
certain on Monday. The air here is delightful, and I have felt myself
growing stronger every day. If you see the Bishop tell him that you
have heard from me. My love to Kate, if you are writing. I hope that
she will be coming down for next week. There is a good deal for me to
say to her.--Your affectionate father, Horace Ffolliot.”
My mother read both letters, and then looked up at me with a great
relief in her face.
“After all you see you must have been mistaken,” she exclaimed. “There
can be no doubt about it.”
And I said no more, but one thing was as certain as my life
itself--the man who had waved me back from following him along the
pavements of the Commercial Road was most surely no other man than my
father.