LIZZIE TELLS A VERY SIMPLE STORY.
Smiling youth and wasted age stood gazing at each other for a moment.
The girl's cheeks were flushed; bright happiness danced in her eyes.
She came like a sunbeam into the room; joyous light and life
irradiated from her.
She was a picture of neatness and prettiness; she was dressed in a
pretty-coloured stuff dress, and a piece of blue ribbon round her
neck, to which a locket was attached, gave the slightest suspicion of
coquettishness to her appearance. She held a candlestick in her hand,
but the candle in it was not lighted. Although she stood still for a
brief space, gazing at the old man, her thoughts were not upon him
There was a listening look in her face, and as she raised her hand she
murmured, "I wonder! I wonder!" and said aloud in soft tones,
"May I look out of your window, daddy?"
Muzzy's window looked upon the street. Lizzie, not waiting for
permission, went to the window, and looked out, and stood there in
silence so long, that Muzzy shuffled to her side. He saw nothing,
however, for the form which Lizzie had been watching was out of sight.
If she had spoken her thoughts, the words would have been: "The dear
fellow! It does my heart good to see him linger about the house. I
used to see that with Mary, and Mary used to watch through the blind."
(Here, to be faithful to her musings, would have come a laugh that was
almost a whisper--like a ripple on a lake--like a gurgling stream
dancing down a hill.) "He turned back three times to look at the
house. Now, if he had known that I was here, he wouldn't have gone
away for a long time. How handsome he is!"
A deeper flush was in her cheek, and her eyes sparkled still more
brightly, as with a happy sigh she turned from the window to Muzzy,
who was standing by her side.
"You got my key, daddy?" she said.
"Yes, my dear, thank you."
"Did you come home early?"
"At about ten o'clock, my dear."
"Did you see any one? Did anybody ask for me?"
"Nobody asked of me, Liz. You expected somebody, then?"
"O, no; but I wish I had been at home."
She dismissed the subject with a light shake of the head, and said,
smiling,
"You've had company, daddy."
"Yes, my dear," he replied, with a wistful look at her pretty face--a
strangely jealous look, too, which seemed to imply that he would have
been better pleased if she were a little less bright.
"Nice company?" she asked.
"A gentleman--one who has been kind to me."
She nodded with conscious grace, and stood before the old man with an
assertion of prettiness upon her which heightened the contrast between
her graceful person and his unattractive form. Not that the contrast
was in her mind; she did not think of it, but it would have been
forced upon an observer.
"We heard you talking," she said.
"You have had company also, Lizzie."
"O, yes." With a blush and a smile.
"We heard _you_ talking, my dear."
"I suppose we made a great noise; Some One talks very loud sometimes."
"You did not make a noise, my dear, but we heard you. Lizzie," he
said, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "your candle was out
when you came in."
"It went out in the passage, daddy."
"Or some one blew it out, Lizzie."
"Yes; perhaps--Some One--did." With the pleasantest little laugh in
the world.
"Preferring to talk in the dark," he suggested, in a singular tone of
discontent.
"Yes; perhaps--Some One--does."
Again the pleasant little laugh. That, which was like music, and her
joyous happy manner, and her clear voice and pretty ways, made a home
of the otherwise lonely room.
"We have been to the theatre to-night," she said; "Some One and me. I
should like to be an actress. I think I should have made a good one."
She let her hair fall loose as she spoke, and put on an arch look to
provoke a favourable verdict. Muzzy's hitherto dull mood brightened
under her influence.
"What theatre did you go to, my dear?"
"To the Olympic. We saw Daisy Farm. Isn't it a pretty name? Now, one
would fancy that everybody was happy at Daisy Farm, because of the
name; but it wasn't so. They were all in trouble until the end of the
play, and then something very unexpected happened, and everything came
right. Is it so in real life?"
"I don't think so."
"But it's nice in a play. I wonder how ever they can cram such a lot
of things in a couple of hours; and it all seems so natural! There was
one part that Some One did not like; it was where a young man who had
been doing wrong--stealing money from his master--robbed his own
father (as we all thought he was), so that he could put the money
back. Some One got regularly excited over it; but it turned out that
the man he robbed wasn't his father, so _that_ was all right. When
that was shown and the young man got off, Some One clapped so, that
everybody looked at him. He lost his sweetheart, though."
"Who?"
"The young man in the play. As we were walking home, I said to Some
One, 'Supposing that was you, would you have liked to lose your
sweetheart in that way?' He turned quite white at the idea, and he
looked at me so strangely, and said, 'But you wouldn't throw me off as
that heartless girl did in the play, would you, Lizzie?' I said, 'No;
that I wouldn't.' 'Not even if I was as bad as that young fellow?'
asked Some One, to try me. And then I said----But you can guess what I
said, daddy. I don't think I'm a changeable girl, like some."
"Come and sit down, Lizzie," said Muzzy; "I want to talk to you."
The girl obeyed, and as Muzzy did not immediately speak, she fell
a-musing. Sweet thoughts were hers evidently, for presently the laugh
that was like music came from her, evoked by something pleasant that
she had seen or heard in her fancies. The sound aroused her, and
looking up she saw Muzzy holding out the flower he had brought home
for her.
"For you, Liz."
"O, thank you, dad."
She held it up by the side of her hair to admire it, and asked how it
looked there. Out of his full-hearted admiration of her pretty ways he
had but one answer, of course. Then she placed it in the bosom of her
dress, which was slightly open at the throat, and as the leaves
touched her fair akin, she looked down and smiled both on the flower
and herself.
"Some One would be jealous," she said, "if he saw it there; especially
after what he brought me to-night. Wait a minute; I'll show you."
She ran out of the room, and returned with a large bunch of flowers,
fresh and fragrant like herself.
"Are they not beautiful? Am I not a lucky girl? Just think! Two
presents of flowers in one night!"
"Mine is a poor one, Lizzie."
"It is very pretty, and I shall put it in water all by itself."
She selected a flower from the bunch, and placed it in her bosom by
the side of the other; then bent down until her lips touched it.
"You are fond of flowers, my dear."
"I love everything that is bright. I like to bury my face in them,
like this, and shut my eyes, and think. Such beautiful thoughts come!"
Suiting the action to the word, she buried her face in the flowers,
and saw pictures of the future as she wished it to be. It was filled
with sweet promise, as it nearly always is to youth. And if fulfilment
never comes, the dreams bring happiness for the time.
"Try!" she said, raising her face and holding out the flowers to him.
To please her, he closed his eyes among the leaves. But the visions
that came to his inner sense of sight were different from those
she had seen. For her the future. For him the past. The clouds
through which he looked were dark and sombre; and as glimpses of
long-forgotten times flashed through them, he sighed as one might have
sighed who, wandering for a generation through a strange country
filled with discordant and feverish circumstance, finds himself
suddenly in a place where all is hushed, and where the soft breeze
brings to him the restful sound of sweet familiar bells. But darker
clouds soon rolled over these memories, blotting them out.
"Lizzie," he said "suppose you had the chance of living away from the
dusty streets in a pretty little house, surrounded by the flowers you
love so well!"
"How delightful!" she exclaimed, with her face among the flowers
again.
"Open your eyes, Lizzie, while I speak."
"Wait a minute, daddy. Don't speak for sixty seconds. I'm looking at
the house."
Muzzy remained silent until she spoke again.
"I see it," she said, "peeping out among the flowers. It is built of
old red brick, the windows are very small, and vines are creeping all
over the walls."
Thus did her fancy reproduce for her the picture of a country house,
which doubtless she had seen at one time or another. Even when she
opened her eyes, she saw the vision hanging, as it were in the clouds
of a bright memory.
"How would you like to live in such a house, Liz?"
"How would I like to live in a rainbow?" was her merry rejoinder.
"But what I say I mean, my dear."
"And what I say I don't--that is, sometimes. Do you really, really
mean it though, dad?"
"Yes, my dear. The gentleman who was with me to-night--a good
friend--has opened out such a prospect to me."
"O, I am so glad; for this isn't very nice for you!" she said,
glancing round the room.
"Nor for you, my dear," he replied, looking wistfully at her. "Don't
you wish for something better?"
"I wish for a great many things--holidays, new dresses, and new
hats--and I should like a good deal of money. If fifty pounds were
to tumble down the chimney now, shouldn't we be surprised? Ah, but
what's the use of wishing, daddy!"
"You may have some of these things, Liz, if you like." His serious
manner made her more serious and attentive. "Such a house as you saw
just now you may have, perhaps. It depends upon you whether I accept
the offer that has been made to me to-night."
"Upon me!" she exclaimed.
"Do you remember what I was when you first came here?"
"Why, the same as you are now," she replied, with a laughing evasion
of what he was referring to.
"No, my dear," he said humbly, taking her hand in his; "I was a lonely
miserable man. There was no light in my life. I used to come home
night after night, and drink."
She placed her fingers on his lips, to stop the farther confession;
but he gently removed them.
"I had nothing else to do. Bad fancies used to come, and I drank to
drive them away; and the more I drank, the worse they became. I don't
know what might have been the end of me. This room used to be full of
terrible shadows creeping over the walls. I saw them in the dark,
stealing upon me. One night, when these fancies were upon me, driving
me almost mad--how long ago was it, Lizzie?--I heard a little voice
singing in the next room. I didn't know any one had moved in until I
heard your voice, and I crept into the passage and listened to you, my
dear, and blessed you--ay, I did Lizzie! and I fell asleep with your
singing in my ears."
"And I came out," she said, humouring him, "and saw you."
"And saw me, and pitied me," he continued. "I wonder you were not
afraid. You came into my room, and saw the bottle on the table; there
was liquor in it, and you asked me if you might take it away, and I
said Yes. Then you tidied up the room, and made the bed, and I sat
wondering at your goodness, and wondering why the shadows didn't come
while you were with me. That was the commencement of it, Lizzie; and
so we became friends, and my life was not so desolate as it used to.
You brightened it for me, by dear."
"No, it wasn't me, daddy; it was yourself--it was leaving off
that----that----"
"Drink," he added, as he hesitated. "It was driving me mad!"
"And you have left it off, daddy, and that's the reason why you are
better and happier."
"Yes, Lizzie," he said, with a guilty look at her, for the flat
bottle, half filled with gin, was in his pocket as he spoke. "I have
kept my promise."
"So it's not me, after all," she exclaimed merrily, "that you have to
thank."
"It is you, Lizzie. If it were not for you, I should go back to my old
ways again; it is only you who keep me from them. I know now what it
is to have some one to care for me; if I had known it before--O, if I
had known it before! If when we were young, we could see what was
before us!"
"Have you never had any one care for you, daddy?" she asked pityingly.
"Don't ask me, child. I mustn't look back--I daren't look back. But it
seems to me, Lizzie, that I never knew how dreadful a lonely life was
until you came and showed me the misery of it. I cannot leave you now,
Lizzie; I should become I am frightened to think what."
His voice, his hands, his whole body trembled as he pleaded for
companionship, for protection from his torturing fancies. She was his
shelter, and he clung to her. His manhood had been like a ship tossed
amidst storms, overhung by dark clouds, battered and bruised by sunken
reefs. Suddenly a rift of light appeared, and the old worn ship
floated into peaceful waters, and lay there with an almost painful
sense of rest upon it--painful because of the fear that the light
might vanish as suddenly as it had appeared, and the storm break
again.
"What is it you want me to do, daddy?"
"To come and live with me, my dear, if I am fortunate enough to get
this house, where there will be rest; to share my home, as my
daughter."
"As your daughter!" (Very, very softly spoken, musingly, wonderingly.
The turning over of a new leaf, indeed, for her who had never known a
father's love.) "Does _he_ know of this--your friend?"
"It was he who suggested it when I spoke of you. He proposed it for my
sake."
"It is kind of him; he must have a noble nature. But I don't know,
daddy, I don't know!"
"Don't know what, my dear?"
"Whether you would be pleased with me--whether you would be as fond of
me as you are now. Ah, you smile, but you might be mistaken in me. I
like to have my own way, and I am ill-tempered when I don't. Then, you
know, Some One must come and see me."
"If you say so, my dear," he humbly assented, "I can't object."
"I think he would like it," she mused; "he is fond of nice things and
nice places."
"Tell me, Lizzie--I have never asked, but I may, because I am an old
man--is Some One your sweetheart?"
"Couldn't you guess that, daddy?"
"Yes, my dear, but I wanted to be certain. Do you love him?"
Shyly, tenderly, archly she looked at the old man, and answered him
with her eyes. They fell into silence for a little while after that,
the mind of each being occupied.
"You don't remember your father, Lizzy?"
"No."
"Your mother?"
"No, I never saw her."
"Have you any other friends besides Some One?"
"Yes, there's Mary, and my best friend, my aunt. She has been very
kind to me, and must come and see me too. Indeed, I must ask her
permission, for she has been like a mother to me. Mother! ah, to have
a good kind mother to love, and who loves you--what happiness! I have
dreamt of it often--have wished that such a happiness was mine. But it
never was, daddy--never, never was, and never, never can be!"
"Lizzie," he said timidly, "tell me something of your life before I
knew you."
In their new relations towards each other she had seated herself at
his feet. Her hands were clasped in her lap, and her eyes were towards
the flowers in her breast. Graceful as the leaves of the flowers was
this young girl; not more delicate was their colour than the colour in
her face. The tender contact of this fresh young life was a new
revelation to him, and he held his breath for fear he should awake and
find that he was dreaming.
"Of my life!" she mused, speaking more to herself than to him. "What
can I remember? How young was I as I see myself, in my first
remembrance, playing with two other children in a field near the house
in which I lived? Two years, or a little more. The house belonged to
Mrs. Dimmock, and I did not know then that she was not my mother; but
as I grew I learned--I don't know how; it wasn't told me, but the
knowledge came--that the little girls I played with were not my
sisters, although they were her children. Mrs. Dimmock was not a very
kind woman, at least not to me. She would pet and fondle her own
children, and I used to cry in secret because of it, and because she
did not love me as she did them. My aunt came to see me often, and
often brought me toys and sweets. If she had been my mother she could
not have been kinder to me, but then of course I should have lived
with her. She saw that I fretted because it wasn't the same with me as
it was with the other children, and she tried in every way to make up
for it; but she couldn't. What I wanted was a mother that I could love
with all my heart, and who could love me with all hers--as Mrs.
Dimmock loved her children, although she was harsh and unkind to me.
My aunt did not know that she did not treat me well; I didn't tell
her. When I grew up, I went to a day-school, and learnt other things
besides reading and writing; I think it was in that way, trying to
make me superior to other girls, that my aunt endeavoured to lessen
any sorrow I may have felt. I can play the piano, daddy--you wouldn't
have thought that, would you! Mrs. Dimmock was jealous, I could see,
because I was learning more than her girls; and the girls, too, didn't
like it. I think it was partly maliciousness on my part that made me
proud to know more than they did; if they had been kind to me, I
shouldn't have cared to triumph over them in that way. Well,
everything went on so until I was fourteen years of age, when one
day something occurred. I hadn't been expected home so soon; the
street-door was open, and as I went into the passage I heard my aunt
and Mrs. Dimmock speaking together, and from my aunt's voice I guessed
that she was crying. 'I can't help your misfortunes,' Mrs. Dimmock
said; 'I've got children of my own, and I must look after them first.
I'm keeping the girl now for less than her food costs; she eats more
than my two girls put together.' I knew that she meant me by 'the
girl,' and I turned hot and cold, for I felt like a charity girl. Mrs.
Dimmock spoke very spitefully, and I knew that she did so because I
gave myself superior airs over her daughters. I daresay it was wrong
of me to do so, but I couldn't help it, they were such mean things!
One of them let a girl in school be beaten for something that she did,
and I knew it. But we used to quarrel about all sorts of things, and
of course Mrs. Dimmock always took their parts, so that you may guess,
daddy, I was not very happy. I heard sufficient of the conversation
between my aunt and Mrs. Dimmock to make me tingle all over. It served
me right, for listeners never _do_ hear any good of themselves; but it
was as well I did hear, notwithstanding, as you will see presently. My
aunt was in arrears for my board and lodging, and she was compelled to
hear patiently--for my sake, I felt it!--all the hard things that Mrs.
Dimmock said to her. 'I shall be able to pay you by and by,' my aunt
said, O, so humbly! 'I can't afford to wait till by and by, ma'am,'
Mrs. Dimmock answered, 'and I can't live on promises--they're like
pie-crusts, made to be broken. It is a shame that such a big girl as
her should be eating charity bread.' Just think, daddy, how I felt
when I heard that! 'If she can't pay for her bread-and-butter, let her
work for it, if she ain't too fine and proud. If she wants to live on
charity, she must go somewhere else and get it; I can't afford to give
it to her.' I think, daddy, that if I had been on fire, I. couldn't
have run out of the house faster than I did. I had an idea at first of
running clean away, but the thought of how kind my aunt had been to me
prevented me. Instead of that, I watched for her, and saw her come out
of the house and look anxiously about for me. She was always very
pale, but her face was whiter than I had ever seen it before. She
brightened up when she saw me, and I drew her a long way from the
house before I would let her talk. When she began, how I pitied her!
She couldn't get along at all, and would have gone away without
telling me anything, if I hadn't said that I was in the passage and
heard her and Mrs. Dimmock speaking together about me. She looked so
frightened when I told her, that I was frightened myself; she was
dreadfully anxious to know all that I had heard, and seemed to be
relieved that I hadn't heard any more. I supposed that Mrs. Dimmock
had been saying worse things of me than I had already heard, and I
wasn't sorry that I went out of the house when I did. 'And so you are
poor, aunty,' I said to her, 'and I have made you so!' 'No, my dear,
no, Lizzie, no, my darling!' she said eagerly. 'You haven't made me
so; I had enough, more than enough, and to spare, and I was putting by
money for you, my dearest, and saving up for you. But like a foolish
woman I put it into a bank, and they have robbed me and a thousand
other poor creatures. The bankers were thieves, my darling, thieves!
and there's no law to touch them, and I can't get my poor little bit
of money out of their pockets! I thought I should have gone mad when I
went yesterday, and found the place shut up; and it was no consolation
to me to find others that had been robbed hanging about the great
stone walls--for I thought: of you, darling, and I was too wretched to
feel for others.' I tried to console her. 'Never mind, aunt,' I said;
'you have been very, very kind to me, and I shall never be able to pay
you.' 'Yes, you can, my dearest,' she said, crying over me as I kissed
her; 'you are paying me now, over and over again.' Then I said I
wouldn't be a burden to her any longer, and that Mrs. Dimmock was
right when she said that I ought to work for my living. My aunt cried
more and more at this, and begged me not to think of it; but my mind
was made up. What was to become of me by and by, I thought, unless I
learnt to depend upon myself; and when Mrs. Dimmock the next day
said that I ought to go into service, I determined to try and be
something better than a servant. Well, I was very lucky, daddy. I set
my wits to work, and I heard that a woman who kept a little milliner's
shop wanted an apprentice. I went to her, and she was so pleased with
me that she agreed to take me into the house, and keep me, and teach
me the business. I was to be with her for four years, and I wasn't to
have any wages during the whole time. I served my time faithfully, and
my aunt gave me more than enough money to keep me in clothes. It
pleased her to see me look nice, and I liked it myself, daddy; I
like nice clothes and things! At the end of the four years, a friend
in the same business, Mary--you've heard me speak of her often,
daddy--proposed that we should live together; said that we could take
one room, which would be enough for us, and that we could get enough
work to keep us. There was something so delightful in the idea of
being my own mistress, that I jumped for joy at the proposal, and
without consulting my aunt I consented. We took a room very near here,
daddy, and paid six shillings a week for it. All this was done very
quickly, and then I wrote to my aunt to come and see me. She came, but
took it so much to heart that I should make so serious a change in my
life without consulting her, that I promised never to do anything of
the sort again without asking her advice. We were very comfortable
together that night, I remember, and she gave us our first order for
two black dresses. So Mary and me jogged along. Although our living
did not cost us much, we had to be very careful, as we could not earn
a great deal of money. Sometimes trade was slack, and we were without
work; but my aunt took care that I should always have a little money
in my purse. She came to see me more often than she used to do when I
was at Mrs. Dimmock's. I knew why. She was uneasy at the idea of two
girls living together; thought we couldn't take care of ourselves.
That's why, daddy, I think she would be glad to consent to my living
in the pretty little house you spoke of. It is almost too good to be
true, though. Is it really true?"
"It is, my dear," replied Muzzy.
"Then," continued Lizzie, "Mary got a sweetheart, which was nice for
me as well as for her, for he used to take us both out. Sometimes, you
know, daddy, I wouldn't go; I pretended that I was very busy, and had
a great deal to do--and they had to go out by themselves. Nearly
always when they came home I had a bit of supper ready for them; and
when Mary's sweetheart went away after supper, Mary used to peep
through the blind, and watch him standing in the street looking at
the house and up at the window as if he was so much in love with them
that he couldn't go away."
"As you did to-night, Lizzie, when you came in."
She gave him a sly happy look.
"Yes, as I did to-night, daddy. I haven't much more to tell. Mary got
married, and then I came here to live, and that's the end of my
story."
"That picture in your room," he said, "is the portrait of your aunt, I
suppose."
"Yes, but you will scarcely recognise her by it when you see her. She
is not like the same woman. She has had some great trouble, I am sure,
although she never speaks of it. I have tried often to imagine what it
must have been, but I have never been able to find out."
"And Mary--is she happy?"
"O, yes, very, very happy. She will have a baby soon."
A soft light stole into her face, and her fingers closed tenderly on
the locket hanging at her bosom. Muzzy noticed the action. "That's a
new locket, Lizzie."
"Yes; Some One gave it to me. If I am to live with you as your
daughter, you ought to know his name."
"What is it?" he asked, seeing that Lizzie expected him to take an
interest in her lover.
"Alfred. Isn't it a nice name?"
"Yes," he muttered, in a slightly troubled voice.
She took the locket from her neck, and handed it to him. He opened it,
and gazed at it long and earnestly, and in deep silence. Perhaps it
was the prospect of the new life that was before him that caused him
to start when Lizzie addressed him presently, and to look around him
with the bewildered air of one suddenly aroused from sleep.
"You are tired, daddy," she said, taking the locket from his hand; "it
is time to go to bed."
He bade her good-night, almost mechanically, and when he was alone,
sank into his chair, with an oppression of vague thought upon him.
Long before he retired to rest, Lizzie was asleep, dreaming of her
Lover.