I should have cried. It wasn’t so much the little chap’s look. But
to the knot of his bundle there was tied a bunch of cottage
flowers,--sweet-williams, boy’s-love, and a rose or two,--and the sight
and smell of them in that stuffy omnibus were like tears on thirsty
eyelids. It’s the young that I pity, sir. For Gabriel, in his bed up at
Shepherd’s Bush, there’s no more to be said, as far as I can see; and
as for me, I’m the oldest clerk in Tweedy’s, which is very satisfactory.
It’s the young faces, set toward the road along which we have travelled,
that trouble me. Sometimes, sir, I lie awake in my lodgings and listen,
and the whole of this London seems filled with the sound of children’s
feet running, and I can sob aloud. You may say that it is only
selfishness, and what I really pity is my own boyhood. I dare say you’re
right. It’s certain that, as I kept glancing at the boy and his sea
kit and his bunch of flowers, my mind went back to the January morning,
sixty-five years back, when the coach took me off for the first time
from the village where I was born to a London charity-school. I was
worse off than the boy in the omnibus, for I had just lost father and
mother. Yet it was the sticks and stones and flower-beds that I mostly
thought of. I went round and said good-bye to the lilacs, and told them
to be in flower by the time I came back. I said to the rose-bush, ‘You
must be as high as my window next May; you know you only missed it by
three inches last summer.’ Then I went to the cow-house, and kissed the
cows, one by one. They were to be sold by auction the very next week,
but I guessed nothing of it, and ordered them not to forget me. And
last I looked at the swallows’ nests under the thatch,--the last year’s
nests,--and told myself that they would be filled again when I returned.
I remembered this, and how I stretched out my hands to the place from
the coach-top; and how at Reading, where we stopped, I spent the two
shillings that I possessed in a cocoanut and a bright clasp-knife;
and how, when I opened it, the nut was sour; and how I cried myself to
sleep, and woke in London.
“The young men in Tweedy’s, though they respect my long standing there,
make fun of me at times because I never take a holiday in the country.
Why, sir, _I dare not_. I should wander back to my old village,
and--Well, I know how it would be then. I should find it smaller and
meaner; I should search about for the flowers and nests, and listen for
the music that I knew sixty-five years ago, and remember; and they would
not be discoverable. Also every face would stare at me, for all the
faces I know are dead. Then I should think I had missed my way and come
to the wrong place; or (worse) that no such spot ever existed, and I
have been cheating myself all these years; that, in fact, I was mad all
the while, and have no stable reason for existing--I, the oldest clerk
in Tweedy’s! To be sure, there would be my parents’ headstones in the
churchyard. But what are they, if the churchyard itself is changed?
“As it is, with three hundred pounds per annum, and enough laid by to
keep him, if I fail, an old bachelor has no reason to grumble. But the
sight of that little chap’s nosegay, and the thought of the mother who
tied it there, made my heart swell as I fancy the earth must swell when
rain is coming. His eyes filled once, and he brushed them under the
pretence of pulling his cap forward, and stole a glance round to see if
any one had noticed him. The other passengers were busy with their own
thoughts, and I pretended to stare out of the window opposite; but there
was the drop, sure enough, on his hand as he laid it on his lap again.
“He was bound for the docks, and thence for the open sea, and I, that
was bound for Tweedy’s only, had to get out at the top of Cheapside.
I know the ‘bus conductor,--a very honest man,--and, in getting out, I
slipped half a crown into his hand to give to the boy, with my blessing,
at his journey’s end. When I picture his face, sir, I wish I had made it
five shillings, and gone without a new tie and dinner altogether.”
THE HIRED BABY, By Marie Corelli
A dark, desolate December night, a night that clung to the metropolis
like a wet black shroud, a night in which the heavy, low-hanging
vapours melted every now and then into a slow, reluctant rain, cold as
icicle-drops in a rock cavern. People passed and repassed in the streets
like ghosts in a bad dream; the twinkling gas-light showed them at one
moment rising out of the fog, and then disappearing from view as though
suddenly engulfed in a vaporous ebon sea. With muffled, angry shrieks,
the metropolitan trains deposited their shoals of shivering, coughing
travelers at the several stations, where sleepy officials, rendered
vicious by the weather, snatched the tickets from their hands with
offensive haste and roughness. Omnibus conductors grew ill-tempered
and abusive without any seemingly adequate reason; shopkeepers became
flippant, disobliging, and careless of custom; cabmen shouted derisive
or denunciatory language after their rapidly retreating fares; in
short, everybody was in a discontented, almost spiteful humour, with
the exception of those few aggressively cheerful persons who are in the
habit of always making the best of everything, even bad weather. Down
the long wide vista of the Cromwell Road, Kensington, the fog had it all
its own way; it swept on steadily, like thick smoke from a huge fire,
choking the throats and blinding the eyes of foot-passengers, stealing
through the crannies of the houses, and chilling the blood of even
those luxurious individuals who, seated in elegant drawing-rooms before
blazing fires, easily forgot that there were such bitter things as cold
and poverty in that outside world against which they had barred their
windows. At one house in particular--a house with gaudy glass doors
and somewhat spoiled yellow silk curtains at the windows, a house that
plainly said to itself, “Done up for show!” to all who cared to examine
its exterior--there stood a closed brougham, drawn by a prancing pair
of fat horses. A coachman of distinguished appearance sat on the box;
a footman of irreproachable figure stood waiting on the pavement, his
yellow-gloved hand resting elegantly on the polished silver knob of
the carriage door. Both these gentlemen were resolute and inflexible
of face; they looked as if they had determined on some great deed that
should move the world to wild applause; but, truth to tell, they had
only just finished a highly satisfactory “meat-tea,” and before this
grave silence had fallen upon them, they had been discussing the
advisability of broiled steak and onions for supper. The coachman had
inclined to plain mutton-chops as being easier of digestion; the footman
had earnestly asseverated his belief in the superior succulence and
sweetness of the steak and onions, and in the end he had gained his
point. This weighty question being settled, they had gradually grown
reflective on the past, present, and future joys of eating at some one
else’s expense, and in this bland and pleasing state of meditation they
were still absorbed. The horses were impatient, and pawed the muddy
ground with many a toss of their long manes and tails, the steam from
their glossy coats mingling with the ever-thickening density of the fog.
On the white stone steps of the residence before which they waited was
an almost invisible bundle, apparently shapeless and immovable. Neither
of the two gorgeous personages in livery observed it; it was too far
back in a dim corner, too unobtrusive, for the casual regard of their
lofty eyes. Suddenly the glass doors before mentioned were thrown apart
with a clattering noise, a warmth and radiance from the entrance-hall
thus displayed streamed into the foggy street, and at the same instant
the footman, still with grave and imperturbable countenance, opened the
brougham. An elderly lady, richly dressed, with diamonds sparkling in
her gray hair, came rustling down the steps, bringing with her faint
odours of patchouly and violet-powder. She was followed by a girl of
doll-like prettiness, with a snub nose and petulant little mouth, who
held up her satin-and-lace skirts with a sort of fastidious disdain, as
though she scorned to set foot on earth that was not carpeted with
the best velvet pile. As they approached their carriage the inert dark
bundle, crouched in the corner, started into life--a woman, with wild
hair and wilder eyes, whose pale lips quivered with suppressed weeping
as her piteous voice broke into sudden clamour:
“Oh, lady!” she cried, “for the love of God, a trifle! Oh, lady, lady!”
But the “lady,” with a contemptuous sniff and a shake of her scented
garments, passed her before she could continue her appeal, and she
turned with a sort of faint hope to the softer face of the girl.
“Oh, my dear, do have pity! Just the smallest little thing, and God will
bless you! You are rich and happy--and I am starving! Only a penny! For
the baby--the poor little baby!” And she made as though she would open
her tattered shawl and reveal some treasure hidden therein, but shrunk
back, repelled by the cold, merciless gaze that fell upon her from those
eyes, in which youth dwelt without tenderness.
“You have no business on our door step,” said the girl, harshly. “Go
away directly, or I shall tell my servant to call a policeman.”
Then, as she entered the brougham after her mother, she addressed the
respectable footman angrily, giving him the benefit of a strong nasal
intonation.
“Howard, why do you let such dirty beggars come near the carriage? What
are you paid for, I should like to know? It is perfectly disgraceful to
the house!”
“Very sorry, miss!” said the footman, gravely. “I didn’t see the--the
person before.” Then shutting the brougham door, he turned with a
dignified air to the unfortunate creature, who still lingered near,
and, with a sweeping gesture of his gold-embroidered coat-sleeve, said
majestically:
“Do you ‘ear? Be hoff!”
Then, having thus performed his duty, he mounted the box beside his
friend the coachman, and the equipage rattled quickly away, its gleaming
lights soon lost in the smoke-laden vapours that drooped downward like
funeral hangings from the invisible sky to the scarcely visible ground.
Left to herself, the woman who had vainly sought charity from those in
whom no charity existed, looked up despairingly, as one distraught, and
seemed as though she would have given vent to some fierce exclamation,
when a feeble wail came pitifully forth from the sheltering folds of her
shawl. She restrained herself instantly, and walked on at a rapid pace,
scarcely heeding whither she went, till she reached the Catholic church
known as the “Oratory.” Its unfinished facade loomed darkly out of the
fog; there was nothing picturesque or inviting about it, yet there were
people passing softly in and out, and through the swinging to and fro
of the red baize-covered doors there came a comforting warm glimmer of
light. The woman paused, hesitated, and then, having apparently made up
her mind, ascended the broad steps, looked in, and finally entered. The
place was strange to her; she knew nothing of its religious meaning,
and its cold, uncompleted appearance oppressed her. There were only some
half-dozen persons scattered about, like black specks, in its vast white
interior, and the fog hung heavily in the vaulted dome and dark little
chapels. One corner alone blazed with brilliancy and colour; this was
the altar of the Virgin. Toward it the tired vagrant made her way, and
on reaching it sank on the nearest chair as though exhausted. She did
not raise her eyes to the marble splendours of the shrine--one of the
masterpieces of old Italian art; she had been merely attracted to the
spot by the glitter of the lamps and candles, and took no thought as to
the reason of their being lighted, though she was sensible of a certain
comfort in the soft lustre shed around her. She seemed still young; her
face, rendered haggard by long and bitter privation, showed traces of
past beauty, and her eyes, full of feverish trouble, were large, dark,
and still lustrous. Her mouth alone--that sensitive betrayer of the
life’s good and bad actions--revealed that all had not been well with
her; its lines were hard and vicious, and the resentful curve of the
upper lip spoke of foolish pride, not unmixed with reckless sensuality.
She sat for a moment or two motionless; then, with exceeding care and
tenderness, she began to unfold her thin, torn shawl by gentle degrees,
looking down with anxious solicitude at the object concealed within.
Only a baby--and withal a baby so tiny and white and frail that it
seemed as though it must melt like a snowflake beneath the lightest
touch. As its wrappings were loosened it opened a pair of large,
solemn blue eyes, and gazed at the woman’s face with a strange, pitiful
wistfulness. It lay quiet, without moan, a pinched, pale miniature of
suffering humanity--an infant with sorrow’s mark painfully impressed
upon its drawn, small features. Presently it stretched forth a puny hand
and feebly caressed its protectress, and this, too, with the faintest
glimmer of a smile. The woman responded to its affection with a sort of
rapture; she caught it fondly to her breast and covered it with kisses,
rocking it to and fro with broken words of endearment. “My little
darling!” she whispered, softly. “My little pet! Yes, yes, I know! So
tired, so cold and hungry! Never mind, baby, never mind! We will rest
here a little; then we will sing a song presently, and get some money
to take us home. Sleep awhile longer, deary! There! now we are warm and
cosey again.”
So saying, she rearranged her shawl in closer and tighter folds, so
as to protect the child more thoroughly. While she was engaged in this
operation a lady in deep mourning passed close by her, and, advancing
to the very steps of the altar, knelt down, hiding her face with her
clasped hands. The tired wayfarer’s attention was attracted by this; she
gazed with a sort of dull wonder at the kneeling figure robed in rich
rustling silk and crape, and gradually her eyes wandered upward, upward,
till they rested on the gravely sweet and serenely smiling
marble image of the Virgin and Child. She looked and looked
again--surprised--incredulous; then suddenly rose to her feet and made
her way to the altar railing. There she paused, staring vaguely at a
basket of flowers, white and odorous, that had been left there by some
reverent worshipper. She glanced doubtfully at the swinging silver
lamps, the twinkling candles; she was conscious, too, of a subtle,
strange fragrance in the air, as though a basket full of spring violets
and daffodils had just been carried by; then, as her wandering gaze came
back to the solitary woman in black, who still knelt motionless near
her, a sort of choking sensation came into her throat and a stinging
moisture struggled in her eyes. She strove to turn this hysterical
sensation to a low laugh of disdain.
“Lord, Lord!” she muttered beneath her breath, “what sort of place is
this, where they pray to a woman and a baby?”
At that moment the woman in black rose; she was young, with a
proud, fair, but weary face. Her eyes lighted on her soiled and
poverty-stricken sister, and she paused with a pitying look. The street
wanderer made use of the opportunity thus offered, and in an urgent
whisper implored charity. The lady drew out a purse, then hesitated,
looking wistfully at the bundle in the shawl.
“You have a child there?” she asked, in gentle accents. “May I see it?”
“Yes, lady,” and the wrapper was turned down sufficiently to disclose
the tiny white face, now more infinitely touching than ever in the
pathos of sleep.
“I lost my little one a week ago,” said the lady, simply, as she looked
at it. “He was all I had.” Her voice trembled; she opened her purse, and
placed a half-crown in the hand of her astonished supplicant. “You are
happier than I am; perhaps you will pray for me. I am very lonely!”
Then dropping her long crape veil so that it completely hid her
features, she bent her head and moved softly away. The woman watched her
till her graceful figure was completely lost in the gloom of the great
church, and then turned again vaguely to the altar.
“Pray for her!” she thought. “I! As if I could pray!” And she smiled
bitterly. Again she looked at the statue in the shrine; it had no
meaning at all for her. She had never heard of Christianity save through
the medium of a tract, whose consoling title had been “Stop! You are
Going to Hell!” Religion of every sort was mocked at by those among whom
her lot was cast, the name of Christ was only used as a convenience to
swear by, and therefore this mysterious, smiling, gently inviting marble
figure was incomprehensible to her mind.
“As if I could pray!” she repeated, with a sort of derision. Then she
looked at the broad silver coin in her hand and the sleeping baby in her
arms. With a sudden impulse she dropped on her knees.
“Whoever you are,” she muttered, addressing the statue above her, “it
seems you’ve got a child of your own; perhaps you’ll help me to take
care of this one. It isn’t mine; I wish it was! Anyway, I love it more
than its own mother does. I dare say you won’t listen to the likes of
me, but if there was God anywhere about I’d ask Him to bless that
good soul that’s lost her baby. I bless her with all my heart, but my
blessing ain’t good for much. Ah!” and she surveyed anew the Virgin’s
serene white countenance, “you just look as if you understood me; but
I don’t believe you do. Never mind, I’ve said all I wanted to say this
time.”
Her strange petition, or rather discourse, concluded, she rose and
walked away. The great doors of the church swung heavily behind her as
she stepped out and stood once more in the muddy street. It was raining
steadily--a fine, cold, penetrating rain. But the coin she held was a
talisman against outer discomforts, and she continued to walk on till
she came to a clean-looking dairy, where for a couple of pence she was
able to replenish the infant’s long ago emptied feeding bottle; but she
purchased nothing for herself. She had starved all day, and was now too
faint to eat. Soon she entered an omnibus, and was driven to Charing
Cross, and alighting at the great station, brilliant with its electric
light, she paced up and down outside it, accosting several of the
passers-by and imploring their pity. One man gave her a penny; another,
young and handsome, with a flushed, intemperate face, and a look of his
fast-fading boyhood still about him, put his hand in his pocket and drew
out all the loose coppers it contained, amounting to three pennies and
an odd farthing, and, dropping them into her outstretched palm, said,
half gaily, half boldly: “You ought to do better than that with those
big eyes of yours!” She drew back and shuddered; he broke into a coarse
laugh, and went his way. Standing where he had left her, she seemed for
a time lost in wretched reflections; the fretful, wailing cry of the
child she carried roused her, and hushing it softly, she murmured, “Yes,
yes, darling, it is too wet and cold for you; we had better go.” And
acting suddenly on her resolve, she hailed another omnibus, this time
bound for Tottenham Court Road, and was, after some dreary jolting, set
down at her final destination--a dirty alley in the worst part of Seven
Dials. Entering it, she was hailed with a shout of derisive laughter
from some rough-looking men and women, who were standing grouped round a
low gin-shop at the corner.
“Here’s Liz!” cried one. “Here’s Liz and the bloomin’ kid!”
“Now, old gel, fork out! How much ‘ave you got, Liz? Treat us to a drop
all round!”
Liz waked past them steadily; the conspicuous curve of her upper lip
came into full play, and her eyes flashed disdainfully, but she said
nothing. Her silence exasperated a tangle-haired, cat-faced girl of
seventeen years, who, more than half drunk, sat on the ground, clasping
her knees with both arms and rocking herself lazily to and fro.
“Mother Mawks!” cried she, “Mother Mawks! You’re wanted! Here’s Liz come
back with your babby!”
As if her words had been a powerful incantation to summon forth an evil
spirit, a door in one of the miserable houses was thrown open, and a
stout woman, nearly naked to the waist, with a swollen, blotched, and
most hideous countenance, rushed out furiously, and darting at Liz,
shook her violently by the arm.
“Where’s my shullin’?” she yelled, “where’s my gin? Out with it! Out
with my shullin’ an’ fourpence! None of yer sneakin’ ways with me; a
bargain’s a bargain all the world over! Yer’re making a fortin’ with my
babby--yer know y’ are; pays yer a good deal better than yer old trade!
Don’t say it don’t--yer know it do. Yer’ll not find such a sickly kid
anywheres, an’ it’s the sickly kids wot pays an’ moves the ‘arts of
the kyind ladies an’ good gentlemen”--this with an imitative whine that
excited the laughter and applause of her hearers. “Yer’ve got it cheap,
I kin tell yer, an’ if yer don’t pay up reg’lar, there’s others that’ll
take the chance, an’ thankful too!”
She stopped for lack of breath, and Liz spoke quietly:
“It’s all right, Mother Mawks,” she said, with an attempt at a smile;
“here’s your shilling, here’s the four pennies for the gin. I don’t owe
you anything for the child now.” She stopped and hesitated, looking
down tenderly at the frail creature in her arms; then added, almost
pleadingly, “It’s asleep now. May I take it with me to-night?”
Mother Mawks, who had been testing the coins Liz had given her by biting
them ferociously with her large yellow teeth, broke into a loud laugh.
“Take it with yer! I like that! Wot imperence! Take it with yer!” Then,
with her huge red arms akimbo, she added, with a grin, “Tell yer wot,
if yer likes to pay me ‘arf a crown, yer can ‘ave it to cuddle, an’
welcome!”
Another shout of approving merriment burst from the drink-sodden
spectators of the little scene, and the girl crouched on the ground
removed her encircling hands from her knees to clap them loudly, as she
exclaimed:
“Well done, Mother Mawks! One doesn’t let out kids at night for nothing!
‘T ought to be more expensive than daytime!”
The face of Liz had grown white and rigid.
“You know I can’t give you that money,” she said, slowly. “I have not
tasted bit or drop all day. I must live, though it doesn’t seem worth
while. The child”--and her voice softened involuntarily--“is fast
asleep; it’s a pity to wake it, that’s all. It will cry and fret all
night, and--and I will make it warm and comfortable if you’d let me.”
She raised her eyes hopefully and anxiously. “Will you?”
Mother Mawks was evidently a lady of an excitable disposition. The
simple request seemed to drive her nearly frantic. She raised her voice
to an absolute scream, thrusting her dirty hands through her still
dirtier hair as the proper accompanying gesture to her vituperative
oratory.
“Will I! Will I!” she screeched. “Will I let out my hown babby for the
night for nuthin’? Will I? No, I won’t! I’ll see yer blowed into the
middle of next week fust! Lor’ ‘a’ mussey! ‘ow ‘igh an’ mighty we are
gittin’, to be sure! The babby’ll be quiet with you, Miss Liz, will
it, hindeed! An’ it will cry an’ fret with its hown mother, will
it, hindeed!” And at every sentence she approached Liz more nearly,
increasing in fury as she advanced. “Yer low hussy! D’ye think I’d let
ye ‘ave my babby for a hour unless yer paid for ‘it? As it is, yer
pays far too little. I’m an honest woman as works for my livin’ an’ wot
drinks reasonable, better than you by a long sight, with yer stuck-up
airs! A pretty drab you are! Gi’ me the babby; ye ‘a’n’t no business to
keep it a minit longer.” And she made a grab at Liz’s sheltering shawl.
“Oh, don’t hurt it!” pleaded Liz, tremblingly. “Such a little
thing--don’t hurt it!”
Mother Mawks stared so wildly that her blood-shot eyes seemed protruding
from her head.
“‘Urt it! Hain’t I a right to do wot I likes with my hown babby? ‘Urt
it! Well, I never! Look ‘ere!”--and she turned round on the assembled
neighbours--“hain’t she a reg’lar one? She don’t care for the law, not
she! She’s keepin’ back a child from its hown mother!” And with that she
made a fierce attack on the shawl, and succeeded in dragging the infant
from Liz’s reluctant arms. Wakened thus roughly from its slumbers, the
poor mite set up a feeble wailing; its mother, enraged at the sound,
shook it violently till it gasped for breath.
“Drat the little beast!” she cried. “Why don’t it choke an’ ‘ave done
with it!”
And, without heeding the terrified remonstrances of Liz, she flung the
child roughly, as though it were a ball, through the open door of her
lodgings, where it fell on a heap of dirty clothes, and lay motionless;
its wailing had ceased.
“Oh, baby, baby!” exclaimed Liz, in accents of poignant distress. “Oh,
you have killed it, I am sure! Oh, you are cruel, cruel! Oh, baby,
baby!”