"Well, whom do you live with?"
"Nobody."
"You've got nobody to look after you--to take care of you?"
"Take care of me! D'ye think I'm a bloomin' kid?"
"Then where are you going to now?"
"Going? Out."
Peter Hope's irritation was growing.
"I mean, where are you going to sleep? Got any money for a lodging?"
"Yes, I've got some money," answered Tommy. "But I don't think much o'
lodgings. Not a particular nice class as you meet there. I shall sleep
out to-night. 'Tain't raining."
Elizabeth uttered a piercing cry.
"Serves you right!" growled Peter savagely. "How can anyone help
treading on you when you will get just between one's legs. Told you of
it a hundred times."
The truth of the matter was that Peter was becoming very angry with
himself. For no reason whatever, as he told himself, his memory would
persist in wandering to Ilford Cemetery, in a certain desolate corner of
which lay a fragile little woman whose lungs had been but ill adapted to
breathing London fogs; with, on the top of her, a still smaller and still
more fragile mite of humanity that, in compliment to its only relative
worth a penny-piece, had been christened Thomas--a name common enough in
all conscience, as Peter had reminded himself more than once. In the
name of common sense, what had dead and buried Tommy Hope to do with this
affair? The whole thing was the veriest sentiment, and sentiment was Mr.
Peter Hope's abomination. Had he not penned articles innumerable
pointing out its baneful influence upon the age? Had he not always
condemned it, wherever he had come across it in play or book? Now and
then the suspicion had crossed Peter's mind that, in spite of all this,
he was somewhat of a sentimentalist himself--things had suggested this to
him. The fear had always made him savage.
"You wait here till I come back," he growled, seizing the astonished
Tommy by the worsted comforter and spinning it into the centre of the
room. "Sit down, and don't you dare to move." And Peter went out and
slammed the door behind him.
"Bit off his chump, ain't he?" remarked Tommy to Elizabeth, as the sound
of Peter's descending footsteps died away. People had a way of
addressing remarks to Elizabeth. Something in her manner invited this.
"Oh, well, it's all in the day's work," commented Tommy cheerfully, and
sat down as bid.
Five minutes passed, maybe ten. Then Peter returned, accompanied by a
large, restful lady, to whom surprise--one felt it instinctively--had
always been, and always would remain, an unknown quantity.
Tommy rose.
"That's the--the article," explained Peter.
Mrs. Postwhistle compressed her lips and slightly tossed her head. It
was the attitude of not ill-natured contempt from which she regarded most
human affairs.
"That's right," said Mrs. Postwhistle; "I remember seeing 'er
there--leastways, it was an 'er right enough then. What 'ave you done
with your clothes?"
"They weren't mine," explained Tommy. "They were things what Mrs.
Hammond had lent me."
"Is that your own?" asked Mrs. Postwhistle, indicating the blue silk
garibaldi.
"Yes."
"What went with it?"
"Tights. They were too far gone."
"What made you give up the tumbling business and go to Mrs. 'Ammond's?"
"It gave me up. Hurt myself."
"Who were you with last?"
"Martini troupe."
"And before that?"
"Oh! heaps of 'em."
"Nobody ever told you whether you was a boy or a girl?"
"Nobody as I'd care to believe. Some of them called me the one, some of
them the other. It depended upon what was wanted."
"How old are you?"
"I dunno."
Mrs. Postwhistle turned to Peter, who was jingling keys.
"Well, there's the bed upstairs. It's for you to decide."
"What I don't want to do," explained Peter, sinking his voice to a
confidential whisper, "is to make a fool of myself."
"That's always a good rule," agreed Mrs. Postwhistle, "for those to whom
it's possible."
"Anyhow," said Peter, "one night can't do any harm. To-morrow we can
think what's to be done."
"To-morrow" had always been Peter's lucky day. At the mere mention of
the magic date his spirits invariably rose. He now turned upon Tommy a
countenance from which all hesitation was banished.
"Very well, Tommy," said Mr. Peter Hope, "you can sleep here to-night. Go
with Mrs. Postwhistle, and she'll show you your room."
The black eyes shone.
"You're going to give me a trial?"
"We'll talk about all that to-morrow." The black eyes clouded.
"Look here. I tell you straight, it ain't no good."
"What do you mean? What isn't any good?" demanded Peter.
"You'll want to send me to prison."
"To prison!"
"Oh, yes. You'll call it a school, I know. You ain't the first that's
tried that on. It won't work." The bright, black eyes were flashing
passionately. "I ain't done any harm. I'm willing to work. I can keep
myself. I always have. What's it got to do with anybody else?"
Had the bright, black eyes retained their expression of passionate
defiance, Peter Hope might have retained his common sense. Only Fate
arranged that instead they should suddenly fill with wild tears. And at
sight of them Peter's common sense went out of the room disgusted, and
there was born the history of many things.
"Don't be silly," said Peter. "You didn't understand. Of course I'm
going to give you a trial. You're going to 'do' for me. I merely meant
that we'd leave the details till to-morrow. Come, housekeepers don't
cry."
The little wet face looked up.
"You mean it? Honour bright?"
"Honour bright. Now go and wash yourself. Then you shall get me my
supper."
The odd figure, still heaving from its paroxysm of sobs, stood up.
"And I have my grub, my lodging, and sixpence a week?"
"Yes, yes; I think that's a fair arrangement," agreed Mr. Peter Hope,
considering. "Don't you, Mrs. Postwhistle?"
"With a frock--or a suit of trousers--thrown in," suggested Mrs.
Postwhistle. "It's generally done."
"If it's the custom, certainly," agreed Mr. Peter Hope. "Sixpence a week
and clothes."
And this time it was Peter that, in company with Elizabeth, sat waiting
the return of Tommy.
"I rather hope," said Peter, "it's a boy. It was the fogs, you know. If
only I could have afforded to send him away!"
Elizabeth looked thoughtful. The door opened.
"Ah! that's better, much better," said Mr. Peter Hope. "'Pon my word,
you look quite respectable."
By the practical Mrs. Postwhistle a working agreement, benefiting both
parties, had been arrived at with the long-trained skirt; while an ample
shawl arranged with judgment disguised the nakedness that lay below.
Peter, a fastidious gentleman, observed with satisfaction that the hands,
now clean, had been well cared for.
"Give me that cap," said Peter. He threw it in the glowing fire. It
burned brightly, diffusing strange odours.
"There's a travelling cap of mine hanging up in the passage. You can
wear that for the present. Take this half-sovereign and get me some cold
meat and beer for supper. You'll find everything else you want in that
sideboard or else in the kitchen. Don't ask me a hundred questions, and
don't make a noise," and Peter went back to his work.
"Good idea, that half-sovereign," said Peter. "Shan't be bothered with
'Master Tommy' any more, don't expect. Starting a nursery at our time of
life. Madness." Peter's pen scratched and spluttered. Elizabeth kept
an eye upon the door.
"Quarter of an hour," said Peter, looking at his watch. "Told you so."
The article on which Peter was now engaged appeared to be of a worrying
nature.
"Then why," said Peter, "why did he refuse that shilling? Artfulness,"
concluded Peter, "pure artfulness. Elizabeth, old girl, we've got out of
this business cheaply. Good idea, that half-sovereign." Peter gave vent
to a chuckle that had the effect of alarming Elizabeth.
But luck evidently was not with Peter that night.
"Pingle's was sold out," explained Tommy, entering with parcels; "had to
go to Bow's in Farringdon Street."
"Oh!" said Peter, without looking up.
Tommy passed through into the little kitchen behind. Peter wrote on
rapidly, making up for lost time.
"Good!" murmured Peter, smiling to himself, "that's a neat phrase. That
ought to irritate them."
Now, as he wrote, while with noiseless footsteps Tommy, unseen behind
him, moved to and fro and in and out the little kitchen, there came to
Peter Hope this very curious experience: it felt to him as if for a long
time he had been ill--so ill as not even to have been aware of it--and
that now he was beginning to be himself again; consciousness of things
returning to him. This solidly furnished, long, oak-panelled room with
its air of old-world dignity and repose--this sober, kindly room in which
for more than half his life he had lived and worked--why had he forgotten
it? It came forward greeting him with an amused smile, as of some old
friend long parted from. The faded photos, in stiff, wooden frames upon
the chimney-piece, among them that of the fragile little woman with the
unadaptable lungs.
"God bless my soul!" said Mr. Peter Hope, pushing back his chair. "It's
thirty years ago. How time does fly! Why, let me see, I must be--"
"D'you like it with a head on it?" demanded Tommy, who had been waiting
patiently for signs.
Peter shook himself awake and went to his supper.
A bright idea occurred to Peter in the night. "Of course; why didn't I
think of it before? Settle the question at once." Peter fell into an
easy sleep.
"Tommy," said Peter, as he sat himself down to breakfast the next
morning. "By-the-by," asked Peter with a puzzled expression, putting
down his cup, "what is this?"
"Cauffee," informed him Tommy. "You said cauffee."
"Oh!" replied Peter. "For the future, Tommy, if you don't mind, I will
take tea of a morning."
"All the same to me," explained the agreeable Tommy, "it's your
breakfast."
"What I was about to say," continued Peter, "was that you're not looking
very well, Tommy."
"I'm all right," asserted Tommy; "never nothing the matter with me."
"Not that you know of, perhaps; but one can be in a very bad way, Tommy,
without being aware of it. I cannot have anyone about me that I am not
sure is in thoroughly sound health."
"If you mean you've changed your mind and want to get rid of me--" began
Tommy, with its chin in the air.
"I don't want any of your uppishness," snapped Peter, who had wound
himself up for the occasion to a degree of assertiveness that surprised
even himself. "If you are a thoroughly strong and healthy person, as I
think you are, I shall be very glad to retain your services. But upon
that point I must be satisfied. It is the custom," explained Peter. "It
is always done in good families. Run round to this address"--Peter wrote
it upon a leaf of his notebook--"and ask Dr. Smith to come and see me
before he begins his round. You go at once, and don't let us have any
argument."
"That is the way to talk to that young person--clearly," said Peter to
himself, listening to Tommy's footsteps dying down the stairs.
Hearing the street-door slam, Peter stole into the kitchen and brewed
himself a cup of coffee.
Dr. Smith, who had commenced life as Herr Schmidt, but who in consequence
of difference of opinion with his Government was now an Englishman with
strong Tory prejudices, had but one sorrow: it was that strangers would
mistake him for a foreigner. He was short and stout, with bushy eyebrows
and a grey moustache, and looked so fierce that children cried when they
saw him, until he patted them on the head and addressed them as "mein
leedle frent" in a voice so soft and tender that they had to leave off
howling just to wonder where it came from. He and Peter, who was a
vehement Radical, had been cronies for many years, and had each an
indulgent contempt for the other's understanding, tempered by a sincere
affection for one another they would have found it difficult to account
for.
"What tink you is de matter wid de leedle wench?" demanded Dr. Smith,
Peter having opened the case. Peter glanced round the room. The kitchen
door was closed.
"How do you know it's a wench?"
The eyes beneath the bushy brows grew rounder. "If id is not a wench,
why dress it--"
"Haven't dressed it," interrupted Peter. "Just what I'm waiting to do--so
soon as I know."
And Peter recounted the events of the preceding evening.
Tears gathered in the doctor's small, round eyes. His absurd
sentimentalism was the quality in his friend that most irritated Peter.
"Poor leedle waif!" murmured the soft-hearted old gentleman. "Id was de
good Providence dat guided her--or him, whichever id be."
"Providence be hanged!" snarled Peter. "What was my Providence
doing--landing me with a gutter-brat to look after?"
"So like you Radicals," sneered the doctor, "to despise a fellow human
creature just because id may not have been born in burble and fine
linen."
"I didn't send for you to argue politics," retorted Peter, controlling
his indignation by an effort. "I want you to tell me whether it's a boy
or a girl, so that I may know what to do with it."
"What mean you to do wid id?" inquired the doctor.
"I don't know," confessed Peter. "If it's a boy, as I rather think it
is, maybe I'll be able to find it a place in one of the offices--after
I've taught it a little civilisation."
"And if id be a girl?"
"How can it be a girl when it wears trousers?" demanded Peter. "Why
anticipate difficulties?"
Peter, alone, paced to and fro the room, his hands behind his back, his
ear on the alert to catch the slightest sound from above.
"I do hope it is a boy," said Peter, glancing up.
Peter's eyes rested on the photo of the fragile little woman gazing down
at him from its stiff frame upon the chimney-piece. Thirty years ago, in
this same room, Peter had paced to and fro, his hands behind his back,
his ear alert to catch the slightest sound from above, had said to
himself the same words.
"It's odd," mused Peter--"very odd indeed."
The door opened. The stout doctor, preceded at a little distance by his
watch-chain, entered and closed the door behind him.
"A very healthy child," said the doctor, "as fine a child as any one
could wish to see. A girl."
The two old gentlemen looked at one another. Elizabeth, possibly
relieved in her mind, began to purr.
"What am I to do with it?" demanded Peter.
"A very awkward bosition for you," agreed the sympathetic doctor.
"I was a fool!" declared Peter.
"You haf no one here to look after de leedle wench when you are away,"
pointed out the thoughtful doctor.
"And from what I've seen of the imp," added Peter, "it will want some
looking after."
"I tink--I tink," said the helpful doctor, "I see a way out!"
"What?"
The doctor thrust his fierce face forward and tapped knowingly with his
right forefinger the right side of his round nose. "I will take charge
of de leedle wench."
"You?"
"To me de case will not present de same difficulties. I haf a
housekeeper."
"Oh, yes, Mrs. Whateley."
"She is a goot woman when you know her," explained the doctor. "She only
wants managing."
"Pooh!" ejaculated Peter.
"Why do you say dat?" inquired the doctor.
"You! bringing up a headstrong girl. The idea!"
"I should be kind, but firm."
"You don't know her."
"How long haf you known her?"
"Anyhow, I'm not a soft-hearted sentimentalist that would just ruin the
child."
"Girls are not boys," persisted the doctor; "dey want different
treatment."
"Well, I'm not a brute!" snarled Peter. "Besides, suppose she turns out
rubbish! What do you know about her?"
"I take my chance," agreed the generous doctor.
"It wouldn't be fair," retorted honest Peter.
"Tink it over," said the doctor. "A place is never home widout de leedle
feet. We Englishmen love de home. You are different. You haf no
sentiment."
"I cannot help feeling," explained Peter, "a sense of duty in this
matter. The child came to me. It is as if this thing had been laid upon
me."
"If you look upon id dat way, Peter," sighed the doctor.
"With sentiment," went on Peter, "I have nothing to do; but duty--duty is
quite another thing." Peter, feeling himself an ancient Roman, thanked
the doctor and shook hands with him.
Tommy, summoned, appeared.
"The doctor, Tommy," said Peter, without looking up from his writing,
"gives a very satisfactory account of you. So you can stop."
"Told you so," returned Tommy. "Might have saved your money."
"But we shall have to find you another name."
"What for?"
"If you are to be a housekeeper, you must be a girl."
"Don't like girls."
"Can't say I think much of them myself, Tommy. We must make the best of
it. To begin with, we must get you proper clothes."
"Hate skirts. They hamper you."
"Tommy," said Peter severely, "don't argue."
"Pointing out facts ain't arguing," argued Tommy. "They do hamper you.
You try 'em."
The clothes were quickly made, and after a while they came to fit; but
the name proved more difficult of adjustment. A sweet-faced, laughing
lady, known to fame by a title respectable and orthodox, appears an
honoured guest to-day at many a literary gathering. But the old fellows,
pressing round, still call her "Tommy."
The week's trial came to an end. Peter, whose digestion was delicate,
had had a happy thought.
"What I propose, Tommy--I mean Jane," said Peter, "is that we should get
in a woman to do just the mere cooking. That will give you more time
to--to attend to other things, Tommy--Jane, I mean."
"What other things?" chin in the air.
"The--the keeping of the rooms in order, Tommy. The--the dusting."
"Don't want twenty-four hours a day to dust four rooms."
"Then there are messages, Tommy. It would be a great advantage to me to
have someone I could send on a message without feeling I was interfering
with the housework."
"What are you driving at?" demanded Tommy. "Why, I don't have half
enough to do as it is. I can do all--"
Peter put his foot down. "When I say a thing, I mean a thing. The
sooner you understand that, the better. How dare you argue with me!
Fiddle-de-dee!" For two pins Peter would have employed an expletive even
stronger, so determined was he feeling.
Tommy without another word left the room. Peter looked at Elizabeth and
winked.
Poor Peter! His triumph was short-lived. Five minutes later, Tommy
returned, clad in the long, black skirt, supported by the cricket belt,
the blue garibaldi cut _decollete_, the pepper-and-salt jacket, the
worsted comforter, the red lips very tightly pressed, the long lashes
over the black eyes moving very rapidly.
"Tommy" (severely), "what is this tomfoolery?"
"I understand. I ain't no good to you. Thanks for giving me a trial. My
fault."
"Tommy" (less severely), "don't be an idiot."
"Ain't an idiot. 'Twas Emma. Told me I was good at cooking. Said I'd
got an aptitude for it. She meant well."
"Tommy" (no trace of severity), "sit down. Emma was quite right. Your
cooking is--is promising. As Emma puts it, you have aptitude.
Your--perseverance, your hopefulness proves it."
"Then why d'ye want to get someone else in to do it?"
If Peter could have answered truthfully! If Peter could have replied:
"My dear, I am a lonely old gentleman. I did not know it until--until
the other day. Now I cannot forget it again. Wife and child died many
years ago. I was poor, or I might have saved them. That made me hard.
The clock of my life stood still. I hid away the key. I did not want to
think. You crept to me out of the cruel fog, awakened old dreams. Do
not go away any more"--perhaps Tommy, in spite of her fierce
independence, would have consented to be useful; and thus Peter might
have gained his end at less cost of indigestion. But the penalty for
being an anti-sentimentalist is that you must not talk like this even to
yourself. So Peter had to cast about for other methods.
"Why shouldn't I keep two servants if I like?" It did seem hard on the
old gentleman.
"What's the sense of paying two to do the work of one? You would only be
keeping me on out of charity." The black eyes flashed. "I ain't a
beggar."
"And you really think, Tommy--I should say Jane, you can manage the--the
whole of it? You won't mind being sent on a message, perhaps in the very
middle of your cooking. It was that I was thinking of, Tommy--some cooks
would."
"You go easy," advised him Tommy, "till I complain of having too much to
do."
Peter returned to his desk. Elizabeth looked up. It seemed to Peter
that Elizabeth winked.
The fortnight that followed was a period of trouble to Peter, for Tommy,
her suspicions having been aroused, was sceptical of "business" demanding
that Peter should dine with this man at the club, lunch with this editor
at the Cheshire Cheese. At once the chin would go up into the air, the
black eyes cloud threateningly. Peter, an unmarried man for thirty
years, lacking experience, would under cross-examination contradict
himself, become confused, break down over essential points.
"Really," grumbled Peter to himself one evening, sawing at a mutton chop,
"really there's no other word for it--I'm henpecked."
Peter that day had looked forward to a little dinner at a favourite
restaurant, with his "dear old friend Blenkinsopp, a bit of a gourmet,
Tommy--that means a man who likes what you would call elaborate
cooking!"--forgetful at the moment that he had used up "Blenkinsopp"
three days before for a farewell supper, "Blenkinsopp" having to set out
the next morning for Egypt. Peter was not facile at invention. Names in
particular had always been a difficulty to him.
"I like a spirit of independence," continued Peter to himself. "Wish she
hadn't quite so much of it. Wonder where she got it from."
The situation was becoming more serious to Peter than he cared to admit.
For day by day, in spite of her tyrannies, Tommy was growing more and
more indispensable to Peter. Tommy was the first audience that for
thirty years had laughed at Peter's jokes; Tommy was the first public
that for thirty years had been convinced that Peter was the most
brilliant journalist in Fleet Street; Tommy was the first anxiety that
for thirty years had rendered it needful that Peter each night should
mount stealthily the creaking stairs, steal with shaded candle to a
bedside. If only Tommy wouldn't "do" for him! If only she could be
persuaded to "do" something else.
Another happy thought occurred to Peter.
"Tommy--I mean Jane," said Peter, "I know what I'll do with you."
"What's the game now?"
"I'll make a journalist of you."
"Don't talk rot."
"It isn't rot. Besides, I won't have you answer me like that. As a
Devil--that means, Tommy, the unseen person in the background that helps
a journalist to do his work--you would be invaluable to me. It would pay
me, Tommy--pay me very handsomely. I should make money out of you."
This appeared to be an argument that Tommy understood. Peter, with
secret delight, noticed that the chin retained its normal level.
"I did help a chap to sell papers, once," remembered Tommy; "he said I
was fly at it."
"I told you so," exclaimed Peter triumphantly. "The methods are
different, but the instinct required is the same. We will get a woman in
to relieve you of the housework."
The chin shot up into the air.
"I could do it in my spare time."
"You see, Tommy, I should want you to go about with me--to be always with
me."
"Better try me first. Maybe you're making an error."
Peter was learning the wisdom of the serpent.
"Quite right, Tommy. We will first see what you can do. Perhaps, after
all, it may turn out that you are better as a cook." In his heart Peter
doubted this.
But the seed had fallen upon good ground. It was Tommy herself that
manoeuvred her first essay in journalism. A great man had come to
London--was staying in apartments especially prepared for him in St.
James's Palace. Said every journalist in London to himself: "If I could
obtain an interview with this Big Man, what a big thing it would be for
me!" For a week past, Peter had carried everywhere about with him a
paper headed: "Interview of Our Special Correspondent with Prince Blank,"
questions down left-hand column, very narrow; space for answers right-
hand side, very wide. But the Big Man was experienced.
"I wonder," said Peter, spreading the neatly folded paper on the desk
before him, "I wonder if there can be any way of getting at him--any
dodge or trick, any piece of low cunning, any plausible lie that I
haven't thought of."
"Old Man Martin--called himself Martini--was just such another,"
commented Tommy. "Come pay time, Saturday afternoon, you just couldn't
get at him--simply wasn't any way. I was a bit too good for him once,
though," remembered Tommy, with a touch of pride in her voice; "got half
a quid out of him that time. It did surprise him."
"No," communed Peter to himself aloud, "I don't honestly think there can
be any method, creditable or discreditable, that I haven't tried." Peter
flung the one-sided interview into the wastepaper-basket, and slipping
his notebook into his pocket, departed to drink tea with a lady novelist,
whose great desire, as stated in a postscript to her invitation, was to
avoid publicity, if possible.
Tommy, as soon as Peter's back was turned, fished it out again.
An hour later in the fog around St. James's Palace stood an Imp, clad in
patched trousers and a pepper-and-salt jacket turned up about the neck,
gazing with admiring eyes upon the sentry.
"Now, then, young seventeen-and-sixpence the soot," said the sentry,
"what do you want?"
"Makes you a bit anxious, don't it," suggested the Imp, "having a big pot
like him to look after?"
"Does get a bit on yer mind, if yer thinks about it," agreed the sentry.
"How do you find him to talk to, like?"
"Well," said the sentry, bringing his right leg into action for the
purpose of relieving his left, "ain't 'ad much to do with 'im myself, not
person'ly, as yet. Oh, 'e ain't a bad sort when yer know 'im."
"That's his shake-down, ain't it?" asked the Imp, "where the lights are."
"That's it," admitted sentry. "You ain't an Anarchist? Tell me if you
are."
"I'll let you know if I feel it coming on," the Imp assured him.
Had the sentry been a man of swift and penetrating observation--which he
wasn't--he might have asked the question in more serious a tone. For he
would have remarked that the Imp's black eyes were resting lovingly upon
a rain-water-pipe, giving to a skilful climber easy access to the terrace
underneath the Prince's windows.
"I would like to see him," said the Imp.
"Friend o' yours?" asked the sentry.
"Well, not exactly," admitted the Imp. "But there, you know, everybody's
talking about him down our street."
"Well, yer'll 'ave to be quick about it," said the sentry. "'E's off to-
night."