THE RESCUE.
"Style," said Mr. Joshua Benny, "has been defined as a gift of saying
anything, of striking any note in the scale of human feelings, without
impropriety. We cannot all have distinction, Mr. Parker--what I may call
the _je ne sais quoi_"--
Mr. Joshua put this with a fine modesty, the distinction of his own style
being proverbial--in Spendilove's Press Supply Bureau at any rate. He
might have added with a wave of the hand, "You see to what it has advanced
me!" for whereas the rest of Spendilove's literary men toiled in two
gangs, one on either side of a long high-pitched desk, and wrote slashing
leaders for the provincial press, Mr. Joshua exercised his lightness of
touch upon 'picturesque middles' in a sort of loose-box partitioned off
from the main office by screens of opaque glass. This den--he spoke of it
as his 'scriptorium'--had a window looking out upon an elevated railway,
along which the trains of the London, Chatham, and Dover line banged and
rattled all day long. For Spendilove's (as it was called by its
familiars) inhabited the second floor of a building close to the foot of
Ludgate Hill. The noise no longer disturbed Mr. Joshua, except when an
engine halted just outside to blow off steam.
Mr. Joshua leaned back in his writing-chair, tapped a galley proof with
admonitory forefinger, and gazed over his spectacles upon Mr. Parker--a
weedy youth with a complexion suggestive of uncooked pastry.
"We cannot all have distinction, Mr. Parker, nor can it be acquired by
effort. Vigour we may cultivate, and clearness we must; it is essential.
On a level with these I should place propriety. Propriety teaches us to
regulate our speech by the occasion; to be incisive at times and at times
urbane; to adapt the 'how' to the 'when,' as I might put it. I do not
think--I really do not think--that Christmas Eve is a happily chosen
moment for calling Mr. Disraeli 'a Jew adventurer.'"
"Mr. Makins, sir, who wrote yesterday's Liberal leader for the syndicate,
wound up by saying the time had gone by for mincing our opinion of the
front Opposition Bench. He warned me last night, when I took over his
job, to pitch it strong. He had it on good authority that the
constituencies have been a good deal shaken by Mr. Gladstone's Army
Purchase _coup_, and some straight talk is needed to pull them together,
in the eastern counties especially."
"You are young to the work, Mr. Parker. You may depend upon it--you may
take it from me--that Spendilove's will not fail in straight talking, on
either side of the question. But we must observe what our Gallic
neighbours term _les convenances_. By the way, has Makins gone off for
the holidays?"
"He was to have gone off last night, sir; but he turned up this morning to
write Sam Collins's 'Tory Squire' column for the _Northern Guardian_, and
a syndicate-middle on 'Christmas Cheer in the Good Old Times.'
Collins sent him a wire late last night; his wife is down with pneumonia."
"Tut, tut--send him to me. A good-hearted fellow, Makins! Tell him I've
a dozen old articles that will fix him up with 'Christmas Cheer' in less
than twenty minutes. I keep them indexed. And if he wants it illustrated
I can look him out a dozen blocks to take his choice from--'Bringing in
the Boar's Head,' and that sort of thing."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but before I send him there's a party of four in
the lower office waiting to see you--one of them a child--and seafaring
folk by their talk. They walked in while I was sitting alone there,
finishing off my article, and not a word would they tell of their business
but that they must speak to you in private. It's my belief they've come
straight off a wreck, and with a paragraph at least."
"Seafaring folk, do you say?" It was a cherished hope of Mr. Joshua
Benny's that one of these days Spendilove's would attract private
information to its door, and not confine itself to decorating so much of
the world's news as had already become common property.
"They asked for you, sir, as 'Mr. Joshua Benny, the great writer.'"
"Dear me, I hope you have not kept them waiting long? Show them up,
please; and--here, wait a moment--on your way you can take Makins an
armful of my commonplace books--eighteen sixty-three to seven; that will
do. Tell him to look through the indexes himself; he'll find what he
wants under 'Yule.'"
If Mr. Joshua's visitors had come, as Mr. Parker surmised, straight off a
wreck, the first to file into his office had assuredly salved from
calamity a wonderful headgear. This was Mrs. Purchase, in a bonnet
crowned with a bunch of glass grapes; and by the hand she led Myra, who
carried one arm in a sling. The child's features were pinched and pale,
and her eyes unnaturally bright. Behind followed Mr. Purchase and Tom
Trevarthen, holding their caps, and looking around uneasily for a mat to
wipe their shoes on.
No such shyness troubled Mrs. Purchase. "Good-morning!" she began
briskly, holding out a hand.
Mr. Joshua took it helplessly, his eyes for the moment riveted on her
bonnet. It bore no traces of exposure to sea-water, and he transferred
his scrutiny to the child.
"You don't remember me," pursued Mrs. Purchase cheerfully. "But I'd have
picked you out from a thousand, though I han't seen you since you was _so_
high." She spread out a palm some three feet or less from the floor.
"I'm Hannah Purchase, that used to be Hannah Rosewarne, daughter of John
Rosewarne of Hall. You know now who I be, I reckon; and this here's my
niece, and that there's my husband. The young man in the doorway ain't no
relation; but he comes from Hall too. He's Sal Trevarthen's son.
You remember Sal Trevarthen?"
"Ah, yes--yes, to be sure. Delighted to see you, madam--delighted,"
stammered Mr. Joshua, who, however, as yet showed signs only of
bewilderment. "And you wish to see me?"--
"Wish to see you? Man alive, we've been hunting all Fleet Street for you!
Talk about rabbit warrens! Well, when 'tis over 'tis over, as Joan said
by her wedding, and here we be at last."
She paused and looked around.
"Place wants dusting," she observed. "Never married, did 'ee? I reckoned
I'd never heard of your marrying. Your brother now has eleven of 'em--
children, I mean; and yet you feature him wonderful, though fuller in the
face. But the Lord's ways be past finding out."
"Amen," said her husband, paying his customary tribute to a scriptural
quotation, and added, "They don't keep over many chairs in this office."
He addressed this observation to Tom Trevarthen with an impartial air as
one announcing a scientific discovery.
"Thank you," said Mrs. Purchase, seating herself in a chair which Mr.
Joshua made haste to provide. "You will oblige me by paying no attention
to 'Siah. Well, as I was saying, it's a mercy the Lord has made you the
man you be; for we're in want of your help, all four of us."
"If I can be of service,"--Mr. Joshua murmured.
"I remember," said Mrs. Purchase, arranging her bonnet with an air of one
coming to business, "when I was a little girl, reading in a history book
about a man called Bucket, who fell in love with a black woman in foreign
parts; or she may have been brown or whitey-brown for all I can remember
at this distance of time. But, anyway, he was parted from her, and came
home to London here, and all she knew about him was his name 'Bucket.'
Well, she took ship and kept on saying 'Bucket' till somewhere in London
she found him. And if that happened once, it ought to be able to happen
again, especially in these days of newspapers, and when we've got the
address."
Mrs. Purchase produced a crumpled slip of paper, and handed it to Mr.
Joshua, who adjusted his spectacles.
"An institution for the blind, and near Bexley, apparently."
He glanced up in mild interrogation.
"What sort of place is it? Nice goings-on there, I'll promise you; and if
'tis better than penal servitude I shall be surprised, seeing that Sam
Rosewarne is hand-in-glove with it. Never you mind, my dear," she added,
turning to Myra, who shivered, holding her hand. "We'll get him out of
it, or there's no law in England."
Mr. Joshua, still hopelessly fogged, wheeled his chair round to the
bookcase behind him, and took down a Directory, with a smaller reference
work upon Hospitals and Charitable Institutions.
"H'm," said he, coming to a halt as he turned the pages; "here it
is--'Huntingdon Orphanage for the Blind'--'mainly supported by voluntary
contributions'--address, 52 Conyers Road, Bexley, S.E. It seems to have
an influential list of patrons, mainly Dissenters, as I should guess."
"It may keep 'em," said Mrs. Purchase, "so long as you get that poor child
out of it."
"My dear lady, if you would be more explicit!" cried Mr. Joshua.
"To what poor child do you allude? And what is the help you ask of me?"
"If the worst comes to the worst, you can denounce 'em." Mrs. Purchase
untied her bonnet strings, and then slowly crossed her legs--an unfeminine
habit of hers. "Tis like a story out of a book," she pursued. "This very
morning as we was moored a little above Deptford in the _Virtuous Lady_--
that's my husband's ship--and me making the coffee for breakfast as usual,
comes off a boy with a telegram, saying, 'Meet me and Miss Myra by the
foot of the Monument. Most important.--Tom Trevarthen.' You might have
knocked me down with a feather, and even then I couldn't make head nor
tail of it."
To this extent her experience seemed to be repeating itself in Mr. Joshua.
"For to begin with," she went on, "how did I know that Tom Trevarthen was
in London? let alone that last time we met we parted in anger. But he'd
picked us out among the shipping as he was towed up last night in the
_One-and-All_ to anchor in the Pool. And I defy anyone to guess that he'd
got Myra here on board, who's my own niece by a second marriage, and
shipped herself as a stowaway, but was hurt by a fall down the hold, and
might have lain there and starved to death, poor child--and all for love
of her brother that his uncle had shipped off to a blind orphanage.
But there's a providence, Mr. Benny, that watches over children--and you
may lay to that." Mrs. Purchase took breath. "Well, naturally, as you
may guess, my first thought was to set it down for a hoax, though not in
the best of taste. But with Myra's name staring me in the face in the
telegram, and blood being thicker than water, on second thoughts I
told 'Siah to put on his best clothes and come to the Monument with me,
not saying more for fear of upsetting him. 'Why the Monument?' says
'Siah. 'Why not?' says I; 'it was put up against the Roman Catholics.'
So that determined him; and I wanted company, for in London you can't be
too careful. Sure enough, when we got to it, there was Tom waiting, with
this poor child holding his hand; and then the whole story came out.
'But what's to be done?' I said, for my very flesh rebelled against such
cruelty to the child, let alone that he was flogged black and blue at
home. And then Tom Trevarthen had a thought even cleverer than his
telegram. 'Peter Benny,' says he, 'has a brother here in London connected
with the press; the press can do anything, and by Peter's account his
brother can do anything with the press. If we can only find him, our
job's as good as done.' So we hailed a cab, and told the man to drive us
to the _Shipping Gazette_. But I reckon we must have started someways at
the wrong end, for the _Shipping Gazette_ passed us on to a place called
the _Times_, where they kept us waiting forty minutes, and then said they
didn't know you, but advised us to try the _Cheshire Cheese_, where I
asked for the editor, and this caused another delay. But a gentleman
there drinkin' whisky-and-water said he'd heard of you in connection with
the _Christian World_, and the _Christian World_ gave us over to a
policeman, who brought us here; and now the question is, what would you
advise?"
"I should advise," said Mr. Joshua, pulling out his watch, "your coming
off to lunch with me."
"You're a practical man, I see," said Mrs. Purchase, "and I say again 'tis
a pity you never married. We'll leave the whole affair in your hands."
In his published writings Mr. Joshua had often descanted on the power of
the Fourth Estate; and in his addresses to young aspirants he ever laid
stress on the crucial faculty of sifting out the essentials, whether in
narrative or argument, from whatever was of secondary importance,
circumstantial, or irrelevant. The confidence and accuracy with which
Mrs. Purchase challenged him to put his faith and his method into instant
practice, staggered him not a little. He felt himself hit, so to speak,
with both barrels.
It will be allowed that he rose to the test admirably. Under an arch of
the railway bridge at the foot of Ludgate Hill there is a restaurant where
you may eat and drink and hear all the while the trains rumbling over your
head. To this he led the party; and while Mrs. Purchase talked, he sifted
out with professional skill the main points of her story, and discovered
what she required of him. To be sure, the Power of the Press remained to
be vindicated, and as yet he was far from seeing his way clear. The woman
required him to storm the doors of an orphanage and rescue without parley
the body of a child consigned to it by a legal guardian (which was
absurd); or if not instantly successful, to cow the officials with threats
of exposure (which again was absurd; since, for aught he knew, the
institution thoroughly deserved the subscriptions of the public).
Yet while his own heart sank, the confidence of his guests, and their
belief in him, sensibly increased. He had chosen this particular
restaurant not deliberately, but with the instinct of a born journalist;
for it is the first secret of journalism to appear to be moving at high
speed even when standing absolutely still, and here in the purlieus of the
clanging station, amid the thunder of trains and the rush of hundreds of
feet to bookstalls and ticket-offices; here where the clash of knives and
forks and plates mingled with the rumble of cabs and the calls of porters
and newspaper boys, the impression of activity was irresistible. Here, as
Mrs. Purchase had declared, was a practical man. Their business promised
well with all these wheels in motion.
"And now," said Mr. Joshua, as he paid the bill, "we will take the train
for Bexley, and see."
In his own heart he hoped that a visit to the Orphanage would satisfy
them. He would seek the governor or matron in charge; they would be
allowed an interview with the child, and finding him in good hands,
contented and well cared for, would shed some natural tears perhaps, but
return cheerful and reassured. This was as much as Mr. Joshua dared to
hope. While piecing together Mrs. Purchase's narrative he had been
sincerely touched--good man--by some of its details; particularly when Tom
Trevarthen struck in and related how on the second night out of port he
had been kept awake by a faint persistent knocking on the bulkhead
separating the fo'c'sle from the schooner's hold; how he had drawn his
shipmates' attention to it; how he had persuaded the skipper to uncover
one of the hatches; and how he had descended with a lantern and found poor
Myra half dead with sickness and hunger. Mr. Joshua did not understand
children; but he had a good heart nevertheless. He eyed Myra from time to
time with a sympathetic curiosity, shy and almost timid, as the train
swung out over the points, and the child, nestling down in a corner by the
window, gazed out across the murky suburbs with eyes which, devouring the
distance, regarded him not at all.
The child did not doubt. She followed with the others as he shepherded
them through the station to the train which came, as if to his call, from
among half a dozen others, all ready at hand. He was a magician,
benevolent as any in her fairy-tales, and when all was over she would
thank him, even with tears. But just now she could think only of Clem and
her journey's end. Clem!--Clem!--the train clanked out his name over and
over. Would these lines of dingy houses, factories, smoky gardens,
rubbish-heaps, broken palings, never come to an end?
They trailed past the window in meaningless procession; empty phenomena,
and as dull as they were empty. But the glorious golden certainty lay
beyond. "Just look to the poor mite!" whispered Mrs. Purchase, nudging
her husband. Myra's ears caught the words distinctly, but Myra did not
hear.
Bexley at last! with two or three cabs outside the station. Later on she
remembered them, and the colour of the horse in the one which Mr. Joshua
chose, and the driver's face, and Mr. Joshua leaning out of the window and
shouting directions. She remembered also the mist on the glass window of
the four-wheeler, and the foggy houses, detached and semi-detached,
looming behind their roadway walls and naked fences of privet; the
clapping sound of the horse, trotting with one loose shoe; Aunt Hannah's
clutch at her arm as they drew up in the early dusk before a gate with a
clump of evergreens on either side; and a glimpse of a tall red-brick
building as Mr. Joshua opened the door and alighted.
He was gone, and they sat in the cab, and waited for him a tedious while.
She did not understand. Why should they wait now, with Clem so near at
hand? But she was patient, not doubting at all of the result.
He came running back at length, and radiant. As though the issue had ever
been in doubt! The cab moved through the gateway and halted before a low
flight of steps, and everyone clambered out. The dusk had deepened, and
she blinked as she stepped into a lighted hall. A tall man met them
there; whispered, or seemed to whisper, a moment with Mr. Joshua; and
beckoned them to follow. They followed him, turning to the right down a
long corridor not so brightly lit as the hall had been. At the end he
halted for a moment and gently opened a door.
They passed through it into what, for a moment, seemed to be total
darkness. They stood, in fact, at the head of a tall platform of many
steps, semicircular in shape, looking down upon a long hall, unlit as yet
(for the blind need no lamps); and below, on the floor of the hall, ranged
at their desks in the fading light, sat row upon row of children.
The murmur of many voices rose from that shadowy throng, as Myra, shaking
off Aunt Hannah's grasp, stepped forward to the edge of the platform with
both arms extended, her hurt forgotten.
"MYRA!"
The opening of the door could scarcely have been audible amid the murmur
below. She herself had stretched out her arms, uttering no sound, not yet
discerning him among the dim murmuring shadows. What telegraphy of love
reached, and on the instant, that one child in the throng and fetched him
to his feet, crying out her name? And he was blind. From the way he ran
to her, heeding no obstacles, stumbling against desks, breaking his shins
cruelly against the steps of the platform as he stretched up both hands to
her, all might see that he was blind. Yet he came, as she had known he
would come.
"CLEM!"
They were in each other's arms, sobbing, laughing, crooning soft words
together, but only these articulate--
"You knew me?"
"Yes, you have come--I knew you would come!"
"Now I ask you," said Aunt Hannah to the Matron, who, unobserved by the
visitors, had followed them down the corridor, "I don't know you from
Adam, ma'am, but I ask you, as a Christian woman, if you'd part them two
lambs? And, if so, how?"
The Matron's answer went near to abashing her; for the Matron turned out
to be not only a Christian woman, as challenged, but an extremely
tender-hearted one.
"I like the child," she answered. "I like him so much that I'd be
thankful if you could get him removed; for, to tell the truth, he's ailing
here. We try to feed him well, and we try to make him happy; but he's
losing flesh, and he's not happy. Indeed we are not tyrants, ma'am, and
if it pleases you his sister shall stay with him overnight, and I promise
to take care of her; but he came to us from his legal guardian, and
without leave we can't give him up."
It was at this point that inspiration came to Mr. Joshua.
"Why not a telegram?" he suggested. "As his aunt, ma'am, you might
suggest a sea voyage for the child, and leave it to me to word it
strongly."
"If I wasn't a married woman," said Mrs. Purchase, "I could openly bless
the hour I made your acquaintance."
Between the despatch of Mr. Joshua's telegram and the receipt of his
answer there was weary waiting for all but the two children.
They, content in the moment's bliss, secure of the future, being reunited,
neither asked nor doubted.
Yet they missed something--the glad, astounded surprise of their elders as
Mr. Joshua, having taken the yellow envelope from Mrs. Purchase, whose
courage failed her, broke it open, and read aloud, "_Leave child in your
hands. Only do not bring him home_."
It was a happy party that travelled back that night to Blackfriars; and
Mr. Joshua, after shaking hands with everybody many times over, and
promising to eat his Christmas dinner on board the _Virtuous Lady_, walked
homeward to his solitary lodgings elate, treading the frosty pavement with
an unaccustomed springiness of step. He had vindicated the Power of the
Press.