ALBAN KENNEDY MAKES A PROMISE
The boy and the girl halted together by one of the great lights at the
corner of the Commercial Road and there they spoke of the strange
confession which had just fallen from Paul Boriskoff's lips. Little
Lois, white-faced as a mime at the theatre, her black hair tousled and
unkempt, her eyes shining almost with the brightness of fever, declared
all her heart to the gentle Alban and implored him for God's sake to
take her from London and this pitiful home. He, as discreet as she was
rash, pitied her from his heart, but would not admit as much.
"If I could only speak Polish, Lois--but you know I can't," he said.
"Bread and salt, that's about what I should get in your country--and
perhaps be able to count the nails in the soles of my boots. What's the
good of telling me all about it? I saw that your father was angry, but
you people are always angry. And, little girl, he does his best for you.
Never forget that--he would sooner lose anything on earth than you."
"I don't believe it," said the girl, tossing her head angrily, "what's
he care about anything but that ole machine of his which he says they
stole from him? Ten hours have I been sewing to-day, Alb, and ten it
will be to-morrow. Truth, dear, upon my soul. What's father care so long
as the kettle boils and he can read the papers? And you're no
better--you'd take me away if you were--right away from here to the
gardens where he couldn't find me, and no one but you would ever find me
any more. That's what you'd do if you were as I want you to be. But you
ain't, Alb--you'll never care for any girl--now will you, Alb, dear?"
She clutched his arm and pressed closely to him, regardless of
passers-by so accustomed to love-making on the pavements that neither
man nor woman turned a head because of it. Alban Kennedy, however, was
frankly ashamed of the whole circumstance, and he pushed the girl away
from him as though her very touch offended.
"Look here, Lois, that's nonsense--let's go and see something, let's go
into the New Empire for an hour. Your father will be all right when he's
had a glass or two of vodki. You know he's always like this when there's
been news from Warsaw. Let's go and hear a turn and then you can tell me
what you want me to do."
They walked on a little way, she clinging to his arm timidly and looking
up often into his eyes as though for some expression of that affection
she hungered for unceasingly. The "Court" had named them for lovers long
ago, but the women declared that such an aristocrat as Alban Kennedy
would look twice before he put his neck into Paul Boriskoff's
matrimonial halter.
"A lot of good the Empire will do me to-night," Lois exclaimed
presently. "I feel more like dancing on my own grave than seeing other
people do it. What with father's temper and your cold shoulder, Alb--"
"Lois, that's unfair, dear; you know that I am sorry. But what can I do,
what can any one do for men who talk such nonsense as those fellows in
that hall? 'Seize London and the Government'--you said it was that,
didn't you?--well, they're much more likely to get brain fever and wake
up in the hospital. That's what I shall tell your father if he asks me.
And, Lois, how can you and I talk about anything serious when I haven't
a shilling to call my own and your father won't let you out of his sight
lest he should want something. It will all be different soon--bad things
always are. I shall make a fortune myself some day--I'm certain of it as
though I had the money already in the bank. People who make fortunes
always know that they are going to do so. I shall make a lot of money
and then come back for you--just my little Lois sewing at the window,
the same old dirty court, the same ragged fellows talking about sacking
London, the same faces everywhere--but Lois unchanged and waiting for
me--now isn't it that, dear, won't you be unchanged when I come back for
you?"
They stood for an instant in the shadow of a shuttered shop and, leaping
up at his question, she lifted warm red lips to his own--and the girl of
seventeen and the boy of mature twenty kissed as ardently as lovers
newly sworn to eternal devotion.
"I do love you, Alb," she cried, "I shall never love any other
man--straight, my dear, though there ain't much use in a-telling you.
Oh, Alb, if you meant it, you wouldn't leave me in this awful place;
you'd take me away, darling, where I could see the fields and the
gardens. I'd come, Alb, as true as death--I'd go this night if you arst
me, straight away never to come back--if it were to sleep on the hard
road and beg my bread from house to house--I'd go with you, Alb, as
heaven hears me, I'd be an honest wife to you and you should never
regret the day. What's to keep us, Alb, dear? Oh, we're fine rich, ain't
we, both of us, you with your fifteen shillings from the yard and me
with nine and six from the fronts. Gawd's truth, Rothschild ain't
nothink to you and me, Alb, when we've the mind to play the great lidy
and gentleman. Do you know that I lay abed some nights and try to think
as it's a kerridge and pair and you a-sittin' beside of me and nothink
round us but the green fields and the blue sky, and nothink never more
to do but jess ride on with your hand in mine and the sun to shine upon
us. Lord, what a thing it is to wake up then, Alb, and 'ear the caller
cryin' five and see my father like a white ghost at the door. And that's
wot's got to go on to the end--you know it is; you put me off 'cause you
think it'll please me, same as you put Chris Denham off when you danced
with her at the Institoot Ball. You won't never love no girl truly,
Alb--it isn't in you, my dear. You're born above us and we never shall
forget it, not none of us as I'm alive to-night."
She turned away her head to hide the tears gathering in her black eyes,
while Alban's only answer to her was a firm pressure upon the little
white hand he held in his own and a quicker step upon the crowded
pavement. Perhaps he understood that the child spoke the truth, but of
this he could not be a wise judge. His father had been a poor East End
parson, his mother was the daughter of an obstinate and flinty Sheffield
steel factor, who first disowned her for marrying a curate and then went
through the bankruptcy court as a protest against American competition.
So far Alban knew himself to be an aristocrat--and yet how could he
forget that among that very company of Revolutionaries he had so lately
quitted there were sons of men whose nobility was older than Russia
herself. That he understood so much singled him out immediately as a
youth of strange gifts and abnormal insight--but such, indeed, he was,
and as such he knew himself to be.
"I won't quarrel with you, Lois, though I see that you wish it, dear,"
he said presently, "you know I don't care for Chris Denham and what's
the good of talking about her. Let's go and cheer up--I'm sure we can do
with a bit and that's the plain truth, now isn't it, Lois?"
He squeezed her arm and drew her closer to him. At the Empire they found
two gallery seats and watched a Japanese acrobat balance himself upon
five hoops and a ladder. A lady in far from immaculate evening dress,
who sang of a flowing river which possessed eternal and immutable
qualities chiefly concerned with love and locks and unswerving fidelity,
appealed to little Lois' sentiment and she looked up at Alb whenever the
refrain recurred as much as to say, "That is how I should love you." So
many other couples about them were squeezing hands and cuddling waists
that no one took any notice of their affability or thought it odd. A
drunken sailor behind them kept asking the company with maudlin
reiteration what time the last train left for Plymouth, but beyond
crying "hush" nobody rebuked him. In truth, the young people had come
there to make love, and when the lights were turned down and the curtain
of the biograph revealed, the place seemed paradise itself.
Lois crept very close to Alban during this part of the entertainment,
nor did he repulse her. Moments there were undeniably when he had a
great tenderness toward her; moments when she lay in his embrace as some
pure gift from this haven of darkness and of evil, a fragile helpless
figure of a girlhood he idolized. Then, perchance, he loved her as Lois
Boriskoff hungered for love, with the supreme devotion, the abject
surrender of his manhood.
No meaner taint of passion inspired these outbreaks, nor might the most
critical student of character have found them blameworthy. Alban
Kennedy's rule of life defied scrutiny. His ignorance was often that of
a child, his faith that of a trusting woman--and yet he had traits of
strength which would have done no dishonor to those in the highest
places. Lois loved him and there were hours when he responded wholly to
her love and yet had no more thought of evil in his response than of
doing any of those forbidding things against which his dead mother had
schooled him so tenderly. Here were two little outcasts from the
civilized world--why should they not creep close together for that
sympathy and loving kindness which destiny had denied them.
"I darsn't be late to-night, Alb," Lois said when the biograph was over
and they had left the hall, "you know how father was. I must go back and
get his supper."
"Did he really mean all that about the copper mines and his invention?"
Alban asked her in his practical way, and added, "Of course I couldn't
understand much of it, but I think it's pretty awful to see a man
crying, don't you, Lois?"
"Father does that often," she rejoined, "often when he's alone. I might
not be in the world at all, Alb, for all he thinks of me. Some one
robbed him, you know, and just lately he thinks he's found the man in
London. What's the good of it all--who's goin' to help a poor Pole get
his rights back? Oh, yer bloomin' law and order, a lot we sees of you in
Thrawl Street, so help me funny. That's what I tell father when he talks
about his rights. We'll take ours home with us to Kingdom come and
nobody know much about 'em when we get there. A sight of good it is
cryin' out for them in this world, Alb--now ain't it, dear?"
Alban was in the habit of taking questions very seriously, and he took
this one just as though she had put it in the best of good faith.
"I can't make head or tail of things, Lois," he said stoically, "fact
is, I've given up trying. Why does my father die without sixpence after
serving God all his life, and another man, who has served the devil, go
under worth thousands? That's what puzzles me. And they tell us it will
all come right some day, just as we're all going to drive motor-cars
when the Socialists get in. Wouldn't I be selling mine cheap to-night if
anyone came along and offered me five pounds for it--wouldn't I say
'take it' and jolly glad to get the money. Why, Lois, dear, think what
we would do with five pounds."
"Go to Southend for Easter, Alb."
"Buy you a pretty ring and take you to the Crystal Palace."
"Drive a pony to Epping, Alb, and come back in the moonlight."
"Down to Brighton for the Saturday and two in the water together."
"Flash it on 'em in Thrawl Street and make Chris Denham cry."
They laughed together and cuddled joyously at a dream so bewildering.
Their united wealth that night was three shillings, of which Alb had two
and four pence. What untold possibilities in five pounds, what sunshine
and laughter and joy. Ah, that the dark court should be waiting for
them, the squalor, the misery, the woe of it. Who can wonder that the
shadows so soon engulfed them?
"Kiss me, Alb," she said at the corner, "shall I see you to-morrow
night, dear?"
"Outside the Pav at nine. You can tell me how your father took it. Say I
hope he'll get his rights. I think he always liked me rather, Lois."
"A sight more than ever he liked me, Alb, and that's truth. Ah, my dear,
you'll take me away from here some day, won't you, Alb? You'll take me
away where none shall ever know, where I shall see the world and forget
what I have been. Kiss me, Alb--I'm that low to-night, dear, I could cry
my heart out."
He obeyed her instantly. A voice of human suffering never failed to make
an instant appeal to him.
"As true as God's in heaven, if ever I get rich, I'll come first to Lois
with the story," he said--and so he bent and kissed her on the lips as
gently as though she had been his little sister.