CONCERNING GERTIE HECKETT, A KIND LADY, A GOOD DOG, AND A WICKED BIRD.
Mr. Josh Heckett was about again, and Gertie and the animals were
having a bad time of it.
The temporary retirement from business which had been necessitated by
Mr. Heckett’s injuries—how those injuries were acquired he had not yet
condescended to explain to any one—had not given that calm to his mind
which retirement from business is supposed to give. Towards the close
of his illness, and just before he was allowed to go out, a vigorous
playfulness had set in, which was very badly appreciated by the
inhabitants, biped and quadruped. Mr. Heckett had playfully hurled his
pillows at the rabbit-hutches, and had taken to pelt the dogs with such
handy trifles as the candlestick, a plate, a cup, a pair of snuffers,
or a boot.
The dogs growled and put their tails between their legs, crouched in
corners and behind anything that yielded a temporary barricade.
Gertie and Lion usually retired when these fits set in. Not that he
threw things at either of _them_—he knew better than that. But he swore
fearfully, and that frightened Gertie worse than the boots and the
pillows; so she would motion to her dear old Lion, and they would creep
out quietly and leave grandfather to it.
It had been a whim of Heckett’s when he was brought home with a cracked
skull from one of his midnight wanderings to have his bed brought in
among the animals. ‘They’d be company,’ he said. ‘He didn’t want to lie
alone, with no end of horrible things dancing across his brain.’
Gertie’s little room was upstairs. She had slept there ever since she
could remember. They had two other rooms—one on the same floor as
Gertie’s, and one behind the animals’ room, where Heckett slept when he
was well.
The house was three floors high, so that Heckett occupied two, and the
ground floor, with an open shop, was let to a gentleman in the old
clothes line, who shut it up at night, and went to another shop of his
higher up the street, where he lived.
When Gertie and Lion, were gone away, Heckett would lie and curse to
his heart’s content, and he had a companion who used to curse in
chorus.
There was a parrot among this strange collection who swore like a
trooper, and who, since he had come to live with Heckett, had
considerably improved his vocabulary. It was grotesque but supremely
awful to listen to the grey-haired reprobate shrieking and blaspheming
and the parrot mocking him. Sometimes Heckett would lose his temper and
swear at the bird, then the bird would swear back at him, and a cursing
match, not to be equalled in the Dials, would take place. Heckett would
get so mad while he lay there helpless, that he would threaten the bird
with summary vengeance. The bird caught up his threats at last, and
occasionally Mr. Heckett’s visitors would be startled to hear a voice
from somewhere in the corner suddenly shriek out,—‘Bless you, I’ll have
your blood!’ or ‘Bless your beautiful eyes, you screeching devil, I’ll
wring your beautiful neck!’
The adjectives are slightly altered, but the sense of the parrot’s mild
observations remains unimpaired.
As Heckett grew better, the wordy warfare between himself and the
parrot increased in vigour, till a person, listening outside, would
have believed that two horribly depraved wretches were about to
commence a murderous struggle.
What with grandfather’s language and the parrot’s language, poor Gertie
got more uncomfortable every day. The child had one of those sensitive
natures which are quick to appreciate the difference between right and
wrong.
Left alone almost from babyhood with the animals and the birds, she had
grown to love them and look upon them as her playmates. Into their ears
she poured her troubles. It was her task to feed them all, and give
them their water, and never was handmaiden more faithful to her duties.
It shocked her terribly that the parrot should swear. Grandfather she
expected it from, but that this wicked, depraved bird should come to
pollute the atmosphere was too bad.
She used to put her hands over Lion’s ears, so that he shouldn’t
understand. She blushed sometimes when she was alone with her pets to
think that Lion should be in the room with her when such language was
going on.
How Gertie came to be so clean and pure, and to have so much modesty
and good sense, amid such surroundings, was a mystery to everybody but
Gertie herself and one other person.
That person was a lady who came in the day time, often when the old man
was out. She came first with the police to look for a stolen dog, and
Gertie’s sweet face and gentle manner struck her.
She was a woman of the world, and guessed that any open offer of
sympathy would be resented by the child’s guardian. So she found out
when Gertie was alone, and came to see her. She was a good customer,
for she bought canaries, and white mice, and guinea-pigs; but really
she came to see Gertie and to rescue her from the contamination around.
Miss Adrian, Gertie’s protectress, found out what times her _protégée_
was most likely to be alone, and she made various excuses to visit her,
and taught her to read and write unknown to the grandfather.
She taught the child more than this. She gradually imparted to her the
outlines of the beautiful Christian faith, and under her fostering care
the little wild, uncultivated bud blossomed into a sweet and delicate
flower.
Seeing his granddaughter in a clean face, and finding her always tidy
and civil, and loth to go into the street and play with the other
children, old Heckett had been surprised at first, but he had put it
down to the contrariness of the female nature, and had not troubled
himself to inquire further into the matter. Once when he was asked how
it was Gertie was always so clean and tidy and good, he had growled out
something about breed, and had hinted darkly that Gertie’s father must
have been a gentleman.
This observation points to the fact that Gertie’s birth was shrouded in
some slight mystery. What that mystery was the reader will learn in due
course. She was old Heckett’s granddaughter; of that there was not the
slightest doubt.
It was a strange sight to see Gertie at her lessons among the animals.
These hours were the happiest of the poor child’s life. When the day
came round for Miss Adrian’s visit, Gertie would wait anxiously for
grandfather’s departure. Then she would go and stand at the door and
look up the street, and Lion would stand beside her.
If Miss Adrian saw the dog and the child together she knew that she
might come in. If Gertie was alone she would pass by, just speaking a
few words to the child as she went along.
Gertie spoke of Miss Adrian to Lion as ‘the beautiful lady,’ and
Gertie’s description would hardly have been disputed by any one who
knew what real beauty was. Ruth Adrian, at the age of twenty-eight, was
as young looking as many a girl of eighteen. If it ever comes into
fashion to print actual coloured photographs of an author’s characters
in his story, it will save the male writer much vexation of spirit.
Ladies can tell you at a glance the colour of everybody’s hair and
eyes, the modelling of the chin, the expression of the lips, and the
character of the nose. The present writer, if asked suddenly, when away
from his domestic circle, the colour of his nearest female relative’s
eyes, would have to telegraph home for the information. To such a one
the minute personal description of his characters is indeed a task, but
he is bound to attempt it. What would the ladies say if he left them in
doubt as to the colour of his hero’s eyes? What would the gentlemen say
if he failed properly to describe the beautiful features of sweet Ruth
Adrian?
Picture, then, a tall young lady, with soft grey eyes, fair cheeks, in
which the delicate white and pink had never been marred by the
pernicious adjuncts of the modern belle’s dressing-table; a small,
almost baby mouth, that seemed specially designed to spread a perpetual
smile over the face; brown hair, neatly and smoothly arranged over a
forehead almost too high for a woman’s; and a nose which a Greek
sculptor might have borrowed for his Diana.
Here you have what the auctioneers would call a catalogue of the
features of Ruth Adrian. Picture her thus and you will behold a marble
statue; to see her as she was, a sweet and noble English woman, the
beautiful spirit that was hers must animate the lifeless clay. Let
truth and love shine out from the soft grey eyes, over the fair cheeks
spread the glow of health and the smile of innocence, listen to the
gentle words of sympathy with all God’s creatures that fall so softly
from the well-shaped lips; let the inner beauty of her noble, loving
nature shine through and illuminate the whole, as the soft light of the
lamp in my lady’s boudoir glows through the daintily decorated shade
that covers it, and brings the hidden beauties into tender relief;
think of Rath Adrian, not as a beautiful doll, but as a noble woman,
and then you will see her as she was.
The one great trouble of her life had chastened her beauty, and left
upon her features that gentle look of melancholy which poets love to
give their heroines.
Ruth had loved and lost. The man who won her girlish heart had been
unworthy of her. She believed him to be an honourable English
gentleman; she discovered him to be an adventurer and a scamp.
The moment the fatal truth was revealed to her, the quiet heroism of
her character asserted itself. She renounced him, not with scorn or
indignation, but with loving words and gentle pity. She bade him
farewell, and buried her unhappy love in the innermost chamber of her
heart. She bowed beneath the blow, and prayed God for strength to bear
it. He went his way, and she went hers, and from that moment the poor
and suffering took the vacant place in her heart.
She didn’t break her heart, but, like a brave woman, resolved to devote
the life that should have been lived for a man to her suffering
fellow-creatures. She had a hearty sympathy with the poor and
oppressed, with dumb animals and little children, and she went about
doing good quietly and effectively.
Ruth Adrian was free from the cant which mars the efforts of so many
well-meaning people. If she could save a soul she was delighted, but
she always tried to save the body first. The penny-packet-of
-tea-dust-once-a-month, and tracts-once-a-week system of mission work
she despised. She did not bribe people to be hypocrites, neither did
she have holy names in her mouth in season and out of season. She went
with the precepts of the loving Lord in her heart instead of on her
lips, and so she conquered where the professional missionary, male and
female, failed utterly.
She had taken a deep interest in Gertie from the first, and, as the
beauties of the child’s nature blossomed in the sunshine of her care,
she grew to love the little outcast with almost maternal love.
She had a great fight with her conscience over keeping their connexion
a secret from the grandfather; but she found out for a certainty that
she would be forbidden the house, and so for Gertie’s sake she played
the Jesuit, and convinced herself that the end justified the means.
Gertie’s books were hidden up in her bed-room, where Heckett never
went. Only Lion knew about them. She was beginning to write a little
now, and she had a slate on which she wrote letters to Lion and to Miss
Adrian and did little sums.
It was a strange sight to see Ruth and her _protégée_ at lessons. The
foxhound and the spaniel and the bulldog always wagged their tails when
Ruth came in, and then sat down on their haunches and stared at the
proceedings.
Lion was privileged. He was one of the class. But then he was such a
superior dog to all the others. They were always being sold and going
away and being replaced by other dogs before they had learned proper
behaviour. But Lion was part of the establishment. Heckett kept him to
guard the premises, perhaps.
When Ruth had gone, Gertie would sit with her arm round Lion’s neck and
say her lessons over to him, and explain things that perhaps might not
be quite clear to him.
Lion said nothing, but he evidently thought a good deal. Unfortunately,
there was a member of the menagerie who behaved very indifferently.
That was the parrot.
The parrot’s interruptions were shameful and scandalous. When Miss
Adrian was there he had to be quieted with lumps of sugar. He rarely
swore before her. Gertie was very thankful for that. The parrot only
swore as a rule at grandfather. But Polly interrupted lessons; in fact,
she took part in them.
When Miss Ruth, by constant repetition, had impressed upon Gertie that
England was an island, surrounded by water, the parrot said ‘Humbug,’
and persisted in saying ‘Humbug.’
Gertie apologised for Polly’s rudeness, and hoped her mistress would
look over it, and Ruth laughed merrily and told her it was Polly’s bad
bringing up.
Then, again, when Gertie repeated the multiplication table, and said,
‘Twice one is two,’ Polly would shriek out ‘Gammon.’
‘Humbug’ and ‘gammon’ were the mildest words in Polly’s vocabulary.
Doubtless she selected them for the occasion in deference to Miss
Adrian.
When her mistress was gone Gertie would lecture Polly severely.
‘Polly,’ she said, one day, with tears in her eyes, ‘unless you repent
you’ll go to the bad place. You must have a new heart, Polly. Oh,
Polly, why are you so wicked?’
‘Humbug,’ shrieked Polly, with a chuckle.
‘But you _are_ wicked, Polly; and nothing that’s wicked can be happy.
Miss Adrian says so.’
‘Gammon,’ shrieked Polly.
Gertie gave Polly up in despair, and turned to Lion for comfort. He at
least was good, and did not swear and use bad words.
‘Look at Lion, Polly, what an example he sets you,’ exclaimed Gertie
one day in despair. ‘Lion’s a——’
‘Humbug,’ interrupted the Satanic bird.
‘He’s not a humbug, Polly,’ cried the child, stamping her little foot.
‘He’s a dear, kind, loving dog. But we forgive you, because we must
forgive our enemies. Miss Adrian says so.’
‘Gammon, said the bird; and then suddenly it leapt about the cage,
shrieking and swearing so fiercely that Gertie seized Lion by the
collar and led him out of the room, offering up a little prayer as she
went that Polly might see the error of her ways before she died and was
utterly lost.
During Heckett’s illness the lessons had been abandoned, but from time
to time Gertie had exchanged greetings with her kind teacher at the
door.
When the old man got well enough to be about, he began to go out as
usual, and Gertie was delighted to think she could renew her studies
and the happy times with Miss Adrian.
One visit, which was paid a few days after Heckett’s renewal of his old
habits, was fraught with consequences so serious to all concerned that
it will require a chapter to itself.