_HE WAS NO LONGER HER GUARDIAN ANGEL._
One day she was lying on her bed. It was a sultry July day, and the
woman, weary in body and soul, had thrown herself there hoping to
obtain a little rest. Although she had once entered a prison, she
was regarded by her miserable fellow-sinners as a clever hand, and
often prided herself on her own good fortune in evading the police.
But to-day she was, as she expressed it, down on her luck; hers was a
hand-to-hand existence, and to-day there was no bread in the
cupboard, and no money to buy any in her pocket. She had heard also
that the "nippers," as she termed the police, were again on her
track, and she knew that she must change her quarters as quickly as
possible; but she was very tired, so utterly exhausted from want of
sleep and want of food, that she must take one hour of slumber before
she put herself into a place of safety.
The child, who had cried himself sick for want of his breakfast, lay
curled up by her side.
She was lying so, her eyes shut, not yet asleep, but thinking some
bitter and bad thoughts, when the room door was gently opened and a
woman came in. Helen's eyes unclosed quickly enough then, and with
an angry exclamation she rose to her feet.
But the woman who had entered was not an ordinary one, and she showed
no vestige of alarm at the flashing eyes and menacing arm which
greeted her; she had ventured into a place where no policeman would
come alone.
"Don't be angry with me, I want to help you," she said, seating
herself uninvited on a chair, and raising her veil. The face
underneath was white and worn, perhaps a little sad, with a patient
look about the eyes and mouth.
The look of the woman and her courage disarmed Helen's anger; she
made no further resistance, but leaned rather helplessly against the
dirty wall a few paces away.
"I have come to help you," said her uninvited guest again. Now this
was just what Helen in her heart of hearts responded to; she was
hunted down, weary, despondent, and she had come upon very few offers
of help.
"I be rare and 'ungry," she said, "and the little 'un's rare and
'ungry," pointing to the boy, and hoping to abstract money by this
appeal, which was both pathetic and true.
"If you are hungry you must have food," said the woman. She took out
her purse, opened it, drew from its contents a shilling, and gave the
shilling to Helen.
"Go and buy something with that for yourself and the child," she
said. "Come back and eat it here. I will stay until you return."
The eyes of the thief had seen the glitter of gold, but the ears of
the woman had listened to the unwonted tone of kindness, and without
a shadow of even avarice on her face she meekly went out.
When she returned, the lady (she was of gentle birth, but I have
called her woman hitherto, regarding it as a higher name) was feeding
Robin with biscuits ornamented with pink comfits. Robin was
devouring the biscuits, occasionally stopping to admire the
confectionery and to gaze with his lovely eyes at the lady.
"That is a fine boy," said Mrs. Aytoun, addressing Helen; "is he your
son?"
"Yes," said Helen. She always called him her son.
"He is not like you," said the visitor, glancing from the dark woman
to the fair boy.
This remark made Helen suspicious. She ceased to eat the bread and
sausages she had brought in, and glanced meaningly towards the door.
Mrs. Aytoun took the hint conveyed in this look by coming quickly to
the point and object of her visit.
"Your name is Helen?"
"Yes."
"Shall I tell you what I know about you?"
"I don't care."
"You are not an honest woman."
Had the policemen walked into the room Helen's face could not have
grown any whiter than it did at those words. She looked at Robin,
looked at the door, and would have fled had not Mrs. Aytoun laid her
hand on her arm.
"Don't run away; my business is not to frighten, but to help you,
_because_ you are the sort of woman I know you to be."
Helen was silent; she ceased, however, to look towards the door.
"I want to help you," continued the lady, "because, as I said, I know
you to be dishonest; therefore I also know that you must often be
unhappy and half-starved."
"True enough, Missus," said Helen; but then she added in a moment, "I
guess yer one o' them good sorts, ain't yer?"
"I don't know that I am very good, though I love goodness. What do
you mean?"
"Oh, one o' them preachment folks, wot comes and worries poor people
as 'ave other business to h'occupy them."
"I know the people you mean, but I don't think you judge them right."
"I guessed as yer were one o' them."
"Yes, I am one of them--at least, I am a Christian. I believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you?"
"Never heerd o' him," said Helen. "He ain't God, is he?"
"Why do you ask me that? He is God; you have made a very good guess."
"Well, ain't I 'cute?"
"But I am no longer at all surprised at your being the kind of woman
I find you to be," continued Mrs. Aytoun. "You have never been
helped knowingly by Jesus in your life. No wonder you love the bad."
"I was never helped by no one," said Helen.
"You are mistaken there; Jesus has helped you."
Helen started.
"For instance, you love your boy."
"Yes."
"Well, Jesus put that love into your heart; that love has hitherto
been the only thing good in you--am I not right?"
Helen nodded, stared very hard at Robin, and whisked a tear out of
her eye.
"Jesus loves you."
"Look here, missus," interrupted Helen; "that's religion, ain't it?"
"It is the beginning and end of all religion."
"Well, I don't want it. I'm a willin' to be 'elped, but not preached
to."
Mrs. Aytoun paused, and looking hard into the eyes of the restless,
half-starved woman, saw that at least at first she must bring her the
gospel through the loaves and fishes. She then unfolded the plan
that had really brought her there.
Possessed of great wealth, Mrs Aytoun had opened homes for such women
as Helen--for such children as Robin. She had taken several lost
women and neglected children to these pure, sweet, country homes, and
after a few months of the training which true love and kindness can
effect, given them means to emigrate. This grand chance she now
offered to Helen and Robin; she pictured the good and happy life
pleasantly and attractively, and she came at the right moment, for
Helen was weary, perplexed, alarmed.
In the midst of her conversation, a woman came in from a neighbouring
room, ran up to Helen, whispered some words in her ear, four of which
the visitor heard, "_In for a vamp_." She did not know what this
jargon meant, but Helen did only too well: she knew it was the
thieves' latin for convicted of stealing. She knew that the police
were almost on her heels.
Growing white even to the lips, she motioned the neighbour out of the
room, caught up Robin in her arms, and holding him tight to her
beating bosom, addressed Mrs. Aytoun:
"That 'ere's true, wot yer a tellin' me?"
"Yes, it is quite true."
"I'd sooner be there nor in quod" (prison). "Is it now we's to come,
missus?"
"I will take you to the refuge at once. I will go with you myself by
train."
"Me and the little un together?"
"You shall sometimes see your child, but the home for little children
is not in the same place."
At these words Helen, who had been moving towards the door, stopped
short, and the look of satisfaction faded out of her face. Very
tight was the pressure of the little sleepy arms round her neck, and
very strong the love for the boy in her heart; her love was stronger
than her fear.
She turned sharp on her visitor, all her gentleness gone, and the old
fierce Helen uppermost again.
"Didn't yer say as my love for the boy wor the o'ny good thing as I
'ad? well, we ain't agoin' to separate 'omes, and we ain't a goin' to
be parted. Yer uncommon ceevil, mum, to think o' it, but me and the
little un don't find it conwenient. There, good even to yer: yer
welcome to the room but not to the company."
Bearing Robin in her arms, she rushed downstairs; nor could Mrs.
Aytoun, though she tried, overtake her.
This good woman, a true sister to the poor, had lost Helen and Robin
through a mistake. She had forgotten a fact which yet a moment
before she herself had pointed out--she had forgotten that the one
Divine ray in the midst of all this moral darkness was Helen's love
for the boy. Through this love she might be saved, but never against
it. She was willing to go through all the dreary routine, for such
it seemed to her, of civilised life with the boy, but never without
him, never far away from him, feeling all the time that he was
learning to love others and forgetting her.
But as she clasped him to her bosom under an archway where for the
present she knew they both were safe, she felt that she had thrown
away both her own chance and his; yet just now, with his little face
close to hers, she was scarcely sorry.
Though a thief herself, she might still keep him from stealing--this
dream she had not yet abandoned.
As she sat so, her hands covering her face, the child pulled her
vigorously by the sleeve. "Look, mammy!" he said, pointing to an old
woman who was selling cherries in halfpenny bags at the opposite
corner; "Robin wants cerries," he pouted.
"Well, dearie," said Helen, "mammy's sorry, but she ain't got a
'ap'ny for her little boy; all those bags costs a 'ap'ny, Robin."
She thought Robin would have cried, but to her surprise he did not;
he looked round at her, smiled, then ran quickly across the road, hid
cleverly behind the old woman: when for a brief instant her back was
turned, secured a bag of cherries, and brought them back to Helen.
Helen saw it all--saw it all, too astonished to speak.
When he returned, and threw the stolen fruit in triumph into her lap,
she stood up and asked him quietly, and with no show of anger, who
taught him to do that:
"Old Moll," he said, mentioning the woman who had taken care of him
when Helen was in prison.
She took the bag of cherries and flung it violently far out of his
reach. Still she never scolded him, or told him he had done wrong.
That night, as he lay in her arms, she kissed him, but not so
fervently as of old. Her love, if not lessened, was lowered--he was
no longer her guardian angel.
From that night Robin was a thief, and Helen an all too ready and
anxious trainer. Not one vestige of right came near the boy, not one
scrap of moral training. It seemed to him as little wrong to prig
handkerchiefs, to steal from fruit-stalls, as it was to eat his
breakfast.
Still, as long as Helen was with him he was happy enough: his
conscience had never been touched, and therefore did not awake; and
though he had hard fare, he had never hard usage. Helen, passionate,
violent, unprincipled, had never given him an angry word in her life.