A NEW DEPARTURE.
With Monday morning, however, all things seemed to have altered. Mrs.
Warren was up spry and early. She called Connie to come and help her,
but she desired Ronald to lie in bed.
"It's a nasty day," she said; "there's sleet falling. We'll go out, of
course, for fresh air is good for children, but we must none of us wear
our best clothes."
"What do yer mean by that?" said Connie.
"Don't you go and ax me wot I mean; just do wot I tells yer. No
dark-blue dress for yer to-day, missy. I ha' got a old gownd as 'ull fit
yer fine."
Poor Connie trembled. Mrs. Warren went into her bedroom.
"'Ere, now," she said, "you put it on."
The old gown was certainly not at all nice. Its color was quite
indescribable. It was very ragged and torn, too, round the bottom of the
skirt. It dragged down in front so as almost to trip poor Connie when
she tried to walk, and was several inches too short in the back.
Mrs. Warren desired Connie to take off her dainty shoes and stockings,
and gave her some stockings with holes in them, and some very
disreputable shoes down at the heel. She made her pin across her chest a
little old shawl of an ugly pale pattern, and instead of allowing her to
wear her hair in a golden fleece down her back, she plaited it, and tied
it into a little bunch at the back of her head. She then put an old
bonnet on the child's head--a bonnet which must have once belonged to
quite an elderly woman--and tied it with strings in front. Connie felt
terribly ashamed of herself.
"I'm all in rags," she said, "jest as though I wor a beggar maid."
"I've a fancy that yer shall wear these 'ere clothes to-day," said Mrs.
Warren. "Yer've been a fine lydy too long; yer'll be a beggar maid
to-day. W'en I tell yer wot to do in the street, yer'll do it. You can
sing, I take it. Now then, you learn the words."
Mrs. Warren planted down before Connie the well-known words of "Home,
Sweet Home."
"I know this without learning it," said the girl.
"An' you 'as a good woice, I take it."
"Middlin'," replied Connie.
"Wull, sing it for me now."
Connie struck up the familiar words, and so frightened was she that in
real desperation she acquitted herself fairly well.
"You'll take a treble, an' the little boy 'ull do likewise, and I'll
take a fine, deep second. Ah! _I_ know 'ow to sing," said Mrs. Warren.
"You won't take little Ronald out on a dreadful sort o' day like this,"
said Connie.
"Wen I want yer adwice I'll ax fur it," said Mrs. Warren, with most
withering sarcasm.
Poor Connie felt her heart suddenly fit to burst. What new and dreadful
departure was this? Mrs. Warren now brought Ronald into the front room,
and there she arrayed him in garments of the poorest type, allowing his
little thin legs to be quite bare, and his very thin arms to show
through his ragged jacket. She posed, however, a little red cap on the
midst of his curly dark hair; and this cap most wonderfully became the
child, so that few people could pass him in the street without noticing
the sweetness of his angelic face. Then Mrs. Warren prepared herself for
the part she was to take. She went into her bedroom for the purpose, and
returned looking so exactly like a stout old beggar woman that the
children would scarcely have known her. She had covered her left eye
with a patch, and now only looked out on the world with her right one.
Her hair was knotted untidily under a frowsy old bonnet, and a very thin
shawl was bound across her ample breast.
"We'll do fine, I take it," she said to the children. "I am your mother,
my dears; you'll both 'old me by the 'and. Purtier little lambs couldn't
be seen than the two of yez. And ef poor, ugly Mammy Warren 'ave made
herself still uglier for yer sweet sakes, 'oo can but love 'er for the
ennoblin' deed? Wull, come along now, children; but first I'll build up
the fire, for we'll be 'ungry arter this 'ere job."
The fire was built up to Mrs. Warren's satisfaction, and the three went
downstairs. Ronald was quite speechless with shame--to go out like this,
to disgrace his brave father and his darling mother in this sort of
fashion, was pure torture to the boy; but Connie, in the thought of him
and the fear that he would take cold, almost forgot her own misery.
The three did not go anywhere by 'bus that day, but hurried down side
alleys and back streets until they got into the region of Piccadilly.
The children had not the least idea where they were. Suddenly, however,
they came to a pause outside a large hotel, and there Mrs. Warren struck
up the first note of "Home, Sweet Home."
She had timed everything well. The policeman was at the other end of his
beat, and she would not be molested for quite ten minutes. The
quavering, ugly notes of the old woman were well subdued, and Connie had
a really fine voice, and it rose high on the bitter air in sweet,
childish appeal and confidence. Ronald, too, was struck with a sudden
thought. That hotel was a sort of place where father used to live when
he was alive. Who could tell if his father himself might not have
returned, and might not be there, and might not hear him if he sang loud
enough and sweet enough?
The voice of the boy and the voice of the girl blended together, and
Mrs. Warren skilfully dropped hers so as not to spoil the harmony. The
people in the hotel were attracted by the sweet notes, and crowded to
the windows. Then Connie's face of purest beauty--Connie's face rendered
all the more pathetic by the old bonnet and the dreadful, tattered
dress--and Ronald with his head thrown back, his red cap held in his
hand, the white snow falling in flakes on his rich dark hair, made
between them a picture which would melt the hardest heart. Sixpences and
even shillings were showered from the windows, and as the last note of
"Home, Sweet Home" died away Mrs. Warren pocketed quite a considerable
harvest.
She and the children then moved on and did likewise before several other
large buildings, but they were not so successful again as they had been
with their first attempt. The police came back sooner than they were
expected. Ronald began to cough, too, and Connie's face looked blue with
cold. Mrs. Warren, however, was not disappointed. She spoke
encouragingly and protectingly to the children.
"Come 'ome, loveys," she said; "come 'ome, my little dears."
They did get home--or, rather, they got back to the dreadful house where
they were imprisoned--late in the afternoon, Ronald almost speechless
with cold and fatigue, Connie trembling also, and aching in every limb.
But now unwonted comforts awaited them. Mrs. Warren had no idea of
killing off these sources of wealth. She put Ronald into a hot bath, and
rubbed his limbs until they glowed, and then moved his little bed in
front of the fire and got him into it. Connie was also rubbed and dried
and desired to dispense with her beggar's toilet.
Afterwards there was quite a good dinner of roast pork with crackling
and apple sauce, and dreadful as their position was, both the poor
children enjoyed this meal as they had never enjoyed food before.
Thus a few days went by, the children going out every morning with Mrs.
Warren sometimes as beggar children, but sometimes again as children of
the well-to-do. These two programmes formed the most interesting part of
their little lives. For the rest of the day they sat huddled up
together, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, while each day a bigger
and bigger ache came into Ronald's heart. Why, oh why did not his father
come to fetch him?
But as all things come to an end, so the children's life in Mrs.
Warren's dreadful attics came to an abrupt conclusion.
One day, just as they were dressed to go out, there came a hurried knock
at the door. It seemed to Connie, who was very sharp and observant, that
Mrs. Warren did not much like the sound. She went to the door and,
before opening it, called out, "Who's there?"
"Agnes," was the reply; whereupon Mrs. Warren opened the door a few
inches, and Agnes squeezed in, immediately locking the door behind her.
She whispered something into Mrs. Warren's ear, which caused that good
woman to turn deadly white and stagger against the wall.
"Yer've no time to faint, ma'am," said Agnes. "'Ere--let me slap yer on
the back."
She gave two resounding whacks on Mrs. Warren's stout back, which caused
that woman to heave a couple of profound sighs and then to recover her
presence of mind.
She and Agnes then retired into her bedroom, where drawers were hastily
opened, and much commotion was heard by the two prettily dressed and
waiting children. In another minute or two Agnes came out alone.
"Wull," she said, "and 'ow be you, Connie?"
"I am all right," said Connie. "Where's Mammy Warren?"
"She's tuk bad, and won't want yer to go out a-walkin' with her to-day.
Oh my! oh my! how spry we be! It 'minds me o' the old song, 'As
Willikins were a-walkin' wid his Dinah one day.'"
"Agnes," said Connie, "I'm certain sure as there's some'ut wrong."
"Be yer now?" said Agnes. "Wull then, ye're mistook. Wot could be wrong?
Ye're a very queer and suspicious gel, Connie Harris--the most
suspicious as I hever see'd. Ye're just for all the world the most
selfish gel as could be found in the whole o' Lunnun. Pore Mammy Warren
was told of the sudden death of her sister, and that's all the sympathy
you guvs her. Wery different she behaves to you and Ronald. 'Hagnes,'
says she, 'tike those pore children for a run,' says she, 'and bring
them 'ome safe in time for dinner,' says she, 'an' give 'em some roast
mutton for dinner, poor darlin's,' says Mammy Warren; and then she falls
to cryin', and 'Oh, my sister!' she says, and 'Oh, poor Georgina!' she
sobs. Now then, the pair of yer--out we goes, and I'll go wid yer."
Quick as thought Agnes accomplished her purpose, and the two prettily
dressed children--Connie with her hair down her back, Ronald looking
like a little prince--found themselves in the street. But if the two
children thought that they had the slightest chance of running away they
were terribly mistaken, for Agnes proved even a sharper taskmistress
than Mrs. Warren. She seemed to Connie to have suddenly got quite old
and very cruel and determined. She walked the children here, and she
walked them there. They peered into shop windows and got into crowds,
but they did no shopping that morning. Connie was rather glad of that,
and now she was so accustomed to being stared at that she hardly took
any notice; while as to Ronald, his sweet brown eyes looked full up into
the face of every gentleman who passed, in the faint hope of discovering
his father again.
It seemed to Connie that they were out longer than usual; but at last
they did come back. Then, to their great surprise, they found the door
of Mammy Warren's sitting-room wide opened.
"My word! 'ow can this 'ave 'appened?" said Agnes.
They all went in, and Agnes went straight to the bedroom. She came out
presently, wearing a very grave face, and told the children that she
greatly feared poor Mammy Warren had gone off her head with grief--that
there wasn't a sign of her in the bedroom, nor anywhere in the house.
"And she's took her things, too," said Agnes. "Wull, now--wull, I must
go and search for her. Yer dinner's in the oven, children, and I'll come
back to see 'ow yer be sometime to-night, p'rhaps."
"Wull Mammy Warren come back to-night?" asked Connie.
"I don't know--maybe the poor soul is in the river by now. She wor took
wery bad, thinkin' of her sister, Georgina. I'll lock yer in, of course,
children, and yer can eat yer dinner and think o' yer mercies."