Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "Here's my father, or the police!"]
THE ADMIRABLE TINKER
CHILD OF THE WORLD
BY EDGAR JEPSON
Illustrated by
Margaret Eckerson
NEW YORK
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
MCMIV
Copyright, 1904, by
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
Published, March, 1904
Third Impression
COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. SIR TANCRED'S QUEST
II. THE FINDING OF TINKER
III. TINKER ACCEPTS HIS NAME
IV. THE TRAINING OF TINKER
V. TINKER'S BIRTHDAY BLOODHOUND
VI. THE RESCUE OF ELIZABETH KERNABY
VII. THE STOLEN FLYING-MACHINE
VIII. THE BARON AND THE MONEY-LENDER
IX. TINKER INTERVENES
X. TINKER'S FOUNDLING
XI. TINKER FROM THE MACHINE
XII. TINKER BORROWS A MOTOR-CAR
XIII. TINKER MEETS HIS OLD NURSE
XIV. TINKER TAKES SEPTIMUS RAINER IN HAND
XV. TINKER ASSERTS THE RIGHTS OF THE EMPLOYER
XVI. TINKER DISOWNS HIS GRANDMOTHER
XVII. TINKER AND THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"Here's my father, or the police!" . . . Frontispiece
He surveyed himself with an excited curiosity.
"I can't hold him!"
He poured comforting assurances of safety into her ears.
"She was quite out of control for a good five minutes."
"To-night reflect on your misdeeds. To-morrow
we will treat of your ransom."
The pursuit was lively, but short.
It was his first essay as coiffeur.
As a battering-ram against the first and second buttons
of his waistcoat.
"Hold it back!" screamed Tinker.
Over these agreeable occupations they talked.
And she paused to let the splendour of the gift sink in.
It's time these lubbers walked the plank.
THE ADMIRABLE TINKER
CHAPTER ONE
SIR TANCRED'S QUEST
"It is," said Lord Crosland, "deucedly odd."
"What?" said Sir Tancred Beauleigh.
"That after seeing nothing of one another for nearly three years, we
should arrive at this caravanserai from different stations at the same
time, to find that our letters engaging this set of rooms came by the
same post."
"It comes of having been born on the same day," said Sir Tancred.
"Besides, I always told you that the only possible place to live in in
town was the top left-hand corner of the Hotel Cecil, with this view up
the river, and a nice open breezy space in front of you."
Lord Crosland, who was walking up and down the room as he talked,
stopped to gaze out of the window at Westminster, and Sir Tancred
lighted another cigarette.
"What I like about it is, it's retired--out of the world," said Lord
Crosland.
"It was just that recommended it to me."
A waiter came in, and cleared away the breakfast. Lord Crosland
admired the view; Sir Tancred lay back in his easy chair, gazing with
vacant, sombre eyes into the clear blue vault of the summer sky.
"I can't see why we shouldn't share these rooms for the season," said
Lord Crosland, when the waiter had gone with his tray. "We shall get
on all right; we always did at Vane's."
"Well," said Sir Tancred slowly, "I have a child, a boy, somewhere--I
don't know where. I've got to find him. I'm going to find him before
I do anything else."
"The deuce you have! Well, I'll be shot! To think that you're
married!"
"I was married when I said good-bye to you nearly three years ago,"
said Sir Tancred. "I was married to Pamela Vane."
"You were married to Miss Vane!" cried Lord Crosland. "But how--how on
earth did you manage it? It was impossible!"
"I committed that legal misdemeanour known as false entry," said Sir
Tancred coolly. "I added the necessary years to our ages."
"Oh, yes, that, of course," said Lord Crosland. "You wouldn't let an
informality of that kind stand in your way. But Miss Vane? How did
you persuade her? I should have thought it impossible--absolutely
impossible."
"It ran as near impossibility as anything I can think of," said Sir
Tancred slowly and half dreamily. "But when you are in love with one
another, impossibilities fade--and I was masterful."
"You were that," said Lord Crosland with conviction.
"Poor Pamela! She was wretched at having to keep it from her father;
and I was sorry enough. But it had to be done; when you are eighteen,
and in love with one another, twenty-one seems ages away, don't you
know?"
"Of course."
"And once done, I don't believe--honestly, I don't believe that she
regretted it," said Sir Tancred; and his sombre eyes were shining.
"Heavens, how happy we were!--for four months. But as you'll learn, if
ever you have it, happiness is a deucedly expensive thing. I paid a
price for it--I _did_ pay a price." And he shivered. "At the end of
four months it came out, and it was all up."
"Then that was why Vane gave up coaching, sold Stanley House, and went
abroad," said Lord Crosland quickly. "We could none of us make it out."
"That was why. When it came out, my stepmother came on the scene.
She's about as remarkable a creature as you'll chance on between now
and the blue moon. She has one idea in her head, the glory of the
Beauleighs. I believe she's as mad as a hatter about it. She was one
of the Stryke & Wigrams, the bankers, a Miss Wigram; and I think, don't
you know, that rising out of that wealthy and respectable firm, she
felt bound to be the bluest-blooded possible. That's what I fancy. At
any rate she's more of a Beauleigh than any Beauleigh since the flood."
"I know," said Lord Crosland, and he nodded gravely with the
immeasurable sapience of a boy of twenty-one.
"I must say, too," Sir Tancred went on thoughtfully, "that she's been
the most important Beauleigh for generations. She brought thirty
thousand a year to the restoration of our dilapidated fortunes; and she
did restore them. You know what a County is: well, little by little
she got a grip on the County, and now she just runs it. I tell you,
the County has taken to spending every bit of the year it can in town
or abroad; when it gets within thirty miles of her, it daren't call its
life its own."
"By Jove!" said Lord Crosland earnestly. "She must be a holy terror."
"They call it force of character when she's within thirty miles of
them," said Sir Tancred drily; and then he went on with more emphasis:
"But the banker streak comes out in her; she thinks too much of money.
She doesn't understand that money's a thing you spend on things that
amuse you; she's always making shows with it--dull shows. So it was
part of her scheme for the glory of Beauleigh, that if billions
couldn't be got, I was to marry millions. You can imagine her fury
when she learned that I was married to Pamela."
"I can that," said Lord Crosland.
"She got me back to Beauleigh, on some rotten pretence of legal
business about mortgages; and made a descent on Mr. Vane. You know
that he was as decent a soul as ever lived, and as sensitive. I'm
afraid that there was a lot of Stryke & Wigram in that interview--you
know, talk about having entrapped me into marriage with his
daughter--the last man in the world to dream of it. Fortunately, as I
gathered from her talk later, she made him angry enough to turn her out
of the house without seeing Pamela. She had to content herself with
writing to her--it must have been a letter."
"Why on earth didn't you interfere? I wouldn't have stood it!" said
Lord Crosland.
"I was at Beauleigh. I was pretty soon suspicious that our secret had
been discovered. When three days passed without my getting a letter
from Pamela, I was sure of it. And then Fortune played into my
stepmother's hands: I had a bad fall with a young horse, and injured my
spine. For two months it was touch and go whether I was a cripple for
life; and I was another four months on my back."
"By Jove!" said Lord Crosland with profound sympathy.
"Ah, but it was when I began to mend that my troubles began. There
were no letters for me--not a letter. Just think of it! I knew that
Pamela must be wanting me; and there I lay a helpless log. I was sure
that she had written; and, knowing my stepmother, I was sure that I
should never see the letters. I sent for her, and asked for them. She
coolly told me that she and her brother, my other guardian, Sir Everard
Wigram, Bumpkin Wigram he's generally called, had decided that I was to
be saved, if possible, from the results of my folly at any cost. They
would have taken steps to have the marriage nullified, if it hadn't
been for the risk of my being prosecuted for false entry. Then she
talked of my ingratitude after all her efforts to raise the Beauleighs
to their former glory. I couldn't stand any more that day; and the
nurse came in and fetched her out. That interview didn't do me any
good."
"It hardly sounds the thing for an injured spine," said Lord Crosland.
"A few days later we had another; and she had the cheek to tell me that
one day I should be grateful to her for having saved me from the
clutches of a designing girl--rank idiocy, you see, for she was only
keeping us apart for the time being. But it set me talking about the
firm of Stryke & Wigram; and for once I got her really angry. It did
me good. Yet, you know, she really believed it; she believed that she
was acting for the best."
"Of course," said Lord Crosland thoughtfully, "she didn't know Miss
Vane, I mean Lady Beauleigh, your wife. It would have made all the
difference."
"I've made that excuse for her often enough," said Sir Tancred. "But
it doesn't carry very far. Just look at the cold-bloodedness of it:
there was I, a helpless cripple, in a good deal of pain most of the
time, mad for a word of my wife; and that damned woman kept back her
letters. Talk about the cruelty of the Chinese--an ordinary woman can
give them points, and do it cheerfully!"
"They are terrors," said Lord Crosland with conviction.
"Well, there I lay; and I had to grin and bear it. But, well, I don't
want to talk about it. The only relief was that once a week my
stepmother seemed to feel bound to come and tell me that it was all for
my good; and I could talk to her about the manners and customs of the
banking classes. Then, after five and a half months of it, when I was
looking forward to getting free and to my wife, she came and told me
that Pamela was dead. I refused to believe it; and she gave me a
letter from Vane's solicitor informing her of the fact."
"Poor beggar!" said Lord Crosland.
Sir Tancred was silent; he was staring at nothing with sombre eyes.
Lord Crosland looked at him compassionately; presently he said, "It
explains your face--the change in it. I was wondering at it. I
couldn't understand it."
"What change? What's the matter with my face?" said Sir Tancred
indifferently.
"Well, you used to be a cheerful-looking beggar, don't you know. Now
you look like what do you call him--who fell from Heaven--Lucifer, son
of the Morning. I read about him at Vane's, mugging up poetry for that
exam."
"You'll hardly believe it," said Sir Tancred very seriously, "but I
took to reading books myself at Beauleigh, when I got all
right--reading books and mooning about. I had no energy. I went and
saw Vane's solicitor of course; but he could tell me nothing, or
wouldn't tell me. Said his client had called on him, and told him to
inform my stepmother of Pamela's death, and had not told him where she
died, or where he was now living. I fancied he was keeping something
back; but I had no energy, and I didn't drag it out of him. I went to
Stanley House; it was to be let. No one could tell me where the Vanes
had gone. I stayed at Beauleigh--mooning about. I wouldn't go to
Oxford; and I wouldn't travel. I mooned about. Six months ago I came
across Vicary at a meet--you remember Vicary at Vane's?--he told me
that Vane had died in Jersey. I went to Jersey, and found Vane's
grave. Next to it was my wife's."
Again Sir Tancred fell silent in a gloomy musing.
"Well?" said Lord Crosland gently.
"The oddest thing happened. It doesn't sound exactly credible; and you
won't understand it. I don't. But as I stood by the grave, I suddenly
felt that there was something for me to do, something very important
that had to be done. It was odd, very odd. I went back to my hotel
quite harassed, puzzling and racking my brains. Then an idea struck
me; and I had a hunt through the registers. I found that two days
before she died a boy was born, Hildebrand Anne Beauleigh--the old
Beauleigh names. She knew that I should like him to be called by them.
From the registers I learnt where they had been living. I rushed off
to the house, and found it empty and to let--always these shut-up
houses. I made inquiries and inquiries, from the house agents and the
tradespeople. I could learn nothing. They had lived very quietly.
But there was a child; people had seen him wheeled about in a
perambulator. He had disappeared. I suspected my stepmother at once;
and I hurried back to Beauleigh. It had bucked me up, don't you know,
to think that I had a child. I had it out with my stepmother; and what
do you think she told me?"
"Can't guess; but I'm laying odds that it doesn't surprise me," said
Lord Crosland.
"She said that the fact of my having a son and heir would stand in the
way of my making the marriage she hoped. That the boy was in the hands
of a respectable couple, where I need never hope to find him; that he
would be brought up in the station of life suitable to his mother's
having been the daughter of a Tutor. My word, I did talk about the
firm of Stryke & Wigram!"
"I should think you must have," said Lord Crosland.
"I lost no time, but put the matter in the hands of a crack Private
Inquiry Agency. When they learned what I was doing, I'm hanged if my
stepmother and uncle Bumpkin didn't stop my allowance." He laughed
ruefully. "However, I kept the inquiries going by selling my two
horses, my jewellery, my guns, and my clothes. That's why I'm in these
rags. But no good came of it; the private detective discovered
nothing, and charged me nearly three hundred for discovering it. But
the crowning point of my stepmother's madness came yesterday. We had
the proper business interview on my coming of age; and she and uncle
Bumpkin handed me over six hundred a year, and six thousand ready
money. Then she made me an offer. She would give me ten thousand a
year to enable me to keep up the glory of the Beauleighs, and marry the
millions to increase it, if I would give up searching for the boy, and
consent to his being brought up in his respectable position. I didn't
talk about swindling him out of his rights; for I've come to the
conclusion that it's no good talking of Justice to a woman. They don't
understand what you're driving at--those of the banking classes anyhow.
I told her she could stick to Beauleigh Court, since it would only be a
white elephant to me with my six hundred a year, and go on ruling the
County. But I was going to clear out, and I couldn't help saying that
I hoped her path and mine would never cross again."
"It was deuced little to say," said Lord Crosland.
"Oh, what was the good? She couldn't have understood. She's mad, mad
as a hatter about the glory of the Beauleighs. But it did one good
thing; it made her cast me off for good and all. She'd toiled for the
family: and this was her reward. I might go to the Workhouse my own
way. Now you see, she won't interfere to stop my finding the boy. And
I'm going to find him if I have to spend ten years on it, and every
penny I have. And when I have found him, I'm going to look after him
myself, and keep him with me. I don't suppose I shall find it much in
my line. I'm not fond of children; and I'm not an affectionate person.
That sort of thing is rather dried up in me. But it was little enough
I could do for my wife while she was alive, and now I should like to do
the only thing I can."
"I see," said Lord Crosland.
"Well, you can understand that, though I've agreed to share these rooms
with you for the next few days, I can't make it a permanent
arrangement. I may have to be off anywhere at a moment's notice. On
the other hand, by offering a thumping big reward, as I can do at last,
I shall probably find him at once; and you wouldn't care for rooms with
a small child about."
"Oh, I don't know. I rather like kids," said Lord Crosland. "They're
amusing little beggars often enough."
"Ah, but this one is so small; only two and a half," said Sir Tancred.
"And now I'll write the advertisement."
CHAPTER TWO
THE FINDING OF TINKER
Sir Tancred went to the writing-table, sat down, and began to write.
He wrote slowly, pausing to think, and made many erasures.
"I think the advertisement will make my stepmother squirm. It'll make
the County talk," he said thoughtfully.
"It seems to me you can't help giving the show away," said Lord
Crosland.
There came a knock at the door, and a waiter came in: "Please, Sir
Tancred, there's a lady, leastways a person, wanting to see you."
"To see me?" said Sir Tancred with some surprise. "Who can it be?
Show her up?"
He went on with his writing, and presently the waiter ushered in a
tall, gaunt woman, with a rugged, hard-featured face, dressed in the
rustiest black, and carrying a brown-paper parcel.
Sir Tancred turned round in his chair, and she said very nervously,
"Good-morning, sir."
"Good-morning," said Sir Tancred; then he sprang up and cried,
"Why--why--it's Selina Goodyear!"
"Yes, sir, it's me. I was afraid you wouldn't remember me after all
this time. And--and--it's a liberty I'm taking, coming to see you like
this," she went on with a voluble, nervous eagerness, twisting her
hands. "But not getting any answer to my letters, I went down to
Beauleigh Court yesterday on the chance of getting a word with you; for
I knew you'd be bound to be there, seeing as it was your coming of age.
But I didn't get a chance, and came back to London by the last train,
not knowing as you was in it, till I came out of Victoria, and saw you
getting into a cab and heard you tell the cabman to drive here. And I
made up my mind to come and see you here, though I know it's a liberty
I'm taking. But I can't help it,"--and her voice suddenly grew
fierce,--"it's about the boy."
"The boy! My boy!" cried Sir Tancred.
"Yes, sir. You see I was his nurse from the first. Poor Miss
Pamela--I mean Lady Beauleigh, sir--gave him to me to take care of
before she died--leastways, she didn't give him to me, she was too
weak, poor dear; but she told me to take care of him, as I wrote to
you, sir."
"As you wrote? Yes; go on."
"And I did take care of him till Mr. Vane died. And oh, he was such a
dear baby! Then, when the young lawyer came with Mrs. Bostock and told
me as how you had arranged for her to have charge of him, and I had to
give him over to her, it nearly broke my heart. But it isn't about
myself I came to talk, but about him. I know it's troubling you,
sir--and a gentleman has his pleasures, and they take up his time.
But, after all, he's your own son, sir, and if you'd only come and see
him for yourself, you wouldn't let him be treated like he is----"
"You know where he is!" Sir Tancred almost shouted.
"Why, of course, sir. I told you in my letters. He's living with them
Bostocks, out Catford way."
"You must take me to him at once!" cried Sir Tancred; and he rushed
into his bedroom, and came out with a hat and stick.
"Look here, old chap," said Lord Crosland. "I'm going to clear out for
a few days. You'd like the kid to yourself at first. Then I'll come
back and share the rooms if you like."
"Oh, no; it'll be all right," said Sir Tancred, and he hurried Selina
from the room to the lift, from the lift to a cab.
They were no sooner settled in it, and the driver was getting quickly
through the traffic under the stimulus of a promise of treble his fare,
than Sir Tancred turned to Selina, and said quickly: "What do you mean
by saying that I would not let the child be treated as he is? How's he
treated?"
"I mean that he's starved and beaten, that's what I mean, sir," said
Selina. "Just what I said in my letters."
"But I was told he was in the hands of respectable people."
"Respectable!" exclaimed Selina: "but I told you in my letters all
about them, sir."
"When did you write to me?" said Sir Tancred.
"First when Miss Pamela died; and then when Mr. Vane died,"--Sir
Tancred saw how his stepmother had obtained the information which
enabled her to get possession of the child,--"and three times since
October."
"Since October!" cried Sir Tancred; he had never dreamed that the
suppression of his letters had continued after his recovery.
"I only found the boy in October," said Selina.
"Look here," said Sir Tancred, "you'd better tell me the whole story
from the beginning. I didn't get your letters."
"You didn't get them?" said Selina, and her face cleared. "I thought
you couldn't have, sir. I knew you wasn't the one to take no notice of
them. Well, it was like this, sir. When Mrs. Bostock took the boy
away, I began to worry and worry about him; I kind of pined for him.
Then I thought if I could see him sometimes, I should feel better; and
I never liked the looks of Mrs. Bostock. She looked like a drinker;
though all the time she was in Jersey with the lawyer she kept sober
enough. I had got another place in St. Hellers, but I couldn't stand
worrying about him, and wondering if he was well treated. And I didn't
like the way she wouldn't tell me where she lived. I had my savings,
too; so I gave up my place, and came to London to look for her. I knew
she lived in South London from something she let drop; and I took a
room in Lambeth and looked for her in neighbourhoods which would be
likely for her to live in. But it's a large place, sir, and I was
months and months doing it, moving from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
I used to trapse and trapse about all day, and at night I used to go
into Publics, the saloon bars as well as the common bars, for I didn't
know which class she really belonged to. I went into hundreds of
Publics, but I never set eyes on her. Then, last October, when I'd
nearly come to the end of my savings, I saw her going into a Public at
New Cross. I couldn't believe it; it seemed too good to be true. I
thought I must have made a mistake; I daren't go in, for fear she
should know me; and I thought she never would come out. When she did
come out, and I saw it was really 'er, I nearly fainted right away; but
I follered 'er, and she went from Public to Public with two shops in
between, and it was nearly ten o'clock when she took the tram, and past
eleven when she got to her cottage at Catford, for she stopped at two
more Publics. But I walked about all night, for I wasn't going to take
no chances; and next morning I found, sure enough, that the child was
there. But he was that changed, and he didn't know me." Her harsh
voice sank to the mournfullest tone; and she paused.
Sir Tancred said nothing, he could say nothing; he was amazed and
profoundly touched by the persistence of this passionate, single-eyed
devotion in this hard-featured, harsh-voiced, rugged creature.
"Well, sir," Selina went on, "I moved to Eltham, and took a room. I
soon found out what sort the Bostocks were. Every Saturday they drew
two pounds for the keep of the child; and they were hardly ever sober
till Thursday. And they starved the child, sir; and sometimes they
beat him. Now and then, when they were drunk, I've got food, good food
to him. But not often, for he was their livelihood, and however drunk
they was, they kept an eye on him; mostly he's locked up in a bedroom.
I wrote to you, sir, three times, and waited and waited for answers
till I was sick at heart; and things was getting worse and worse. I
couldn't have stood it any longer; I was just going to steal him and
carry him off somewhere where I could look after him without no one
interfering. But I thought I'd see you, and tell you about it first.
And now, sir, if you'd let me have charge of him"--her eyes fairly
blazed with eagerness--"I'd look after him properly--I would, indeed.
And I shouldn't want no two pounds a week--why, five shillings, five
shillings would be ample, sir. I'm a capable woman, and I can get as
much charring as ever I can do."
"Of course, you shall have charge of him," said Sir Tancred. "You seem
to be the only person in the world who has any right to have charge of
him."
"Oh, thank you, sir!" said Selina in a husky voice; and she dabbed at
her eyes.
"It's not for you to thank me; it's for me to thank you," said Sir
Tancred.
"Oh, no, sir!" said Selina quickly. "I know what gentlemen are. I've
been in service in good houses. They have their sport and their
pleasures; and they can't attend to things like this."
"I've been looking for him for six months--ever since I knew that I had
a child," said Sir Tancred in a very bitter voice.
"Have you now, sir?" said Selina. "Ah, if I'd only known, and come to
you!"
Her story had tided them over the greater part of their journey; and
for the rest of it they were silent, Sir Tancred immersed in a bitter
reverie, Selina sitting with a hand on each knee, bent forward, with
shining eyes, breathing quickly.
Towards the end of their journey she had to direct the cabman; and past
the last long row or little red-brick villas, in a waste from which the
agriculturalist had retired in favour of the jerry-builder, they came
to the goal, three dirty, tumble-down cottages. The cab stopped at the
third cottage; Selina sat back in the seat and pulled down her veil, in
case Mrs. Bostock should recognise her; Sir Tancred got down and
knocked at the door. A long-drawn snore was the only answer. He
hammered on the door with his cane till he heard the grating of a chair
on a brick floor; the door opened, and a blowsy, red-faced woman peered
at him with blinking eyes.
"You have a little boy here in your charge. I've come for him," said
Sir Tancred.
The woman only blinked at him stupidly.
"I've come for the little boy," said Sir Tancred loudly.
A look of drunken cunning stole into the woman's muddled face. She
said thickly, "There ain't no lil boy 'ere," and tried to shut the door.
Sir Tancred thrust it open with a vigour which sent her staggering into
a chair, and stepped into the squalid, reeking room. Hunched up in a
chair, opposite the woman, sat a snoring man.
"Come!" said Sir Tancred. "I want no nonsense! Where's the child?"
A dull, muddled rage gathered in the woman's eyes; she made an effort
to rise on quite irresponsive legs. "Halbut!" she howled. "Halbut,
wake up! Here's a thief an' a burglar trying to steal the brat!"
The man grunted, and jerked out of his sleep with the mystic word,
"Washishish?"
"It'sh burglarsh, Halbut!" cried the woman, who seemed suddenly to see
two or more Sir Tancreds. "They're shtealing bratsh! Bash 'em!"
Halbut jerked onto his feet, and stood lurching:
"Englishmansh oush ish ish cashle," he said, with a ferocity which
petered out in an idiotic grin.
"Thash it! Bash 'em!" cried the woman.
Halbut advanced in a circular movement on Sir Tancred, with his fists
up; "Englishmansh oush ish ish cashle," he said firmly.
Sir Tancred lunged smartly at his chest with his cane; and he tumbled
down with his face to the wall.
"Englishmansh oush ish ish cashle," he said drowsily to the wainscot,
and was still.
Sir Tancred took the woman gingerly by the shoulder, and gave her a
shake. "Where's the child?" he said.
Apparently he had shaken the fumes up and the intelligence down, for
her only answer was a burst of sibilant incoherence.
With an exclamation of impatient disgust he loosed her, and went into
the back room. It was empty. He went up the rickety stairs, and, as
he had expected, found the door of the bedroom locked. He kicked it
open and went into the frowsy room. The child was not in it. He came
downstairs and opened the back door. As he did so, he heard a
scuttling rustle. The garden was empty, but the rustle he had heard
set him exploring the dirty, rag-covered hedge with keen eyes. He saw
nothing, and walked down the garden, stooping and peering into the
bottom of the hedge. Half-way down it his eyes fell on two little
black feet, just sticking out; and above them two frightened eyes
stared through the twigs.
Sir Tancred put his hands in among them gently, and drew out a tiny
child; his peaked little face was black, his thin little arms and legs
were black, he was clothed in filthy rags; and his yellowish hair was a
tangled mat. The child struggled like a very feeble little wild beast,
clawing and scratching, but silent with a terrible silence which showed
how he had learned to dread drawing attention to himself.
"Quiet! quiet! I'm not going to hurt you," said Sir Tancred in a
gentle voice, a little husky with a piercing emotion which had invaded
him; and something in its tones really did quiet the child, for he
struggled no more, though his breath came in a quick, faint, terrified
panting.
Sir Tancred took him through the house, and felt a quivering throb run
through him at the sight of the brutes who had fallen back into their
drunken slumbers. He brought him out to the cab, and said hoarsely to
Selina, "Is this the child?"
"That's him, sir! That's him!" said Selina, holding out her hands for
him; and the tears of joy trickled down her rugged cheeks.
Sir Tancred gave him to her, bade the cab-man drive to the Hotel Cecil,
and got into the cab.
Selina had untied the brown-paper parcel, and was putting a little coat
on the child. "I took the liberty of getting it to bring him away, in
case you should let me have charge of him," she said.
The child still panted, but most of the terror had faded from his eyes;
he had recognised his friend. Sir Tancred looked at him hungrily; his
soul, so long starved, was feasting on the sight of that atom of
humanity, so grimy, so shocking to the eye, but his own child.
"They call you Hildebrand Anne, do they?" he said with a broken, joyful
laugh. "Tinker's the name for you!"
CHAPTER THREE
TINKER ACCEPTS HIS NAME
The child sat very still on Selina's lap, shrinking back as far as
possible from Sir Tancred. Selina kept talking to him, and his father
spoke to him several times, but he uttered never a sound. Once when
Sir Tancred moved suddenly, he threw up his little thin arm to guard
his face; and Sir Tancred swore.
They agreed that he would be happier if they took no notice of him for
a while, and sat quiet. He seemed relieved, for he sank into an easier
position on Selina's lap, and presently they saw him stroke his coat
with a caressing gesture, as though its softness pleased him. After a
long while, he sat up, looked at the horse, said in a quaint, thin
whisper, "Gee-gee--mine like gee-gee"; and then looked swiftly round
with frightened eyes, fearful lest he had drawn attention to his
existence.
Suddenly he began to blink, then, lulled by the motion of the cab, he
fell asleep. They sat quiet, and had reached a more civilised part of
London, when Sir Tancred said, "Do you think I could hold him without
waking him?"
Selina nodded, and lifted him into his arms, and so they came to the
Hotel Cecil.
When the cab stopped, the child awoke frightened, and at once began to
struggle. Sir Tancred handed him over to Selina, who soothed him, and
carried him to the lift. As soon as they were in his rooms, Sir
Tancred rang for a waiter, and when he came, bade him bring up bread
and hot milk at once. The child heard the words and said plaintively,
"Mine hungly! Mine hungly!"
"All right, my lamb," said Selina. "You shall have dinner very soon."
When the waiter brought the bread and milk, Selina prepared it, and sat
down at the table with the child on her knee. In a flash his grimy
little hands were in the basin, and he was thrusting the bread and milk
into his mouth with both of them. Selina pushed the bowl out of his
reach, and fed him with a spoon, very slowly, nor did she give him
much. Sir Tancred watched his ravenous eating with a constricted
heart. When she had given him as much as she thought good for him,
Selina put the bowl out of sight. The look of supreme content on his
little face was even more pathetic in its extravagance than his
ravenous hunger. He curled himself up on Selina's lap, surveyed the
room for a while with drowsy eyes, and fell asleep.
Sir Tancred opened the note from Lord Crosland, which he had left
unheeded on the table; it ran:
"DEAR BEAULEIGH:
"I have moved myself and my belongings to 411 and 412, till you have
got things arranged. I'm off to Lord's for the day, but shall dine at
the Cecil. Let us dine together.
"Yours sincerely,
"CROSLAND."
Sir Tancred felt relieved, and grateful for Lord Crosland's
thoughtfulness.
"We shall be able to have these rooms to ourselves," he said to Selina.
"Yes, sir," said Selina. "And he'll want some clothes. When he's had
a little sleep, and I've given him a bath, I'd better go out and get
some."
"No: I'll go now myself," said Sir Tancred. "Then, when he's had his
bath, they'll be ready for him."
He hurried down into a cab, and drove to Swan & Edgar's. There he
bought the finest little vests and petticoat and frocks and socks and
coats they could find him. On his way back with his purchases he
remembered shoes, stopped the cab at the boot-maker's, and bought a
dozen pairs. When he came back to his rooms, followed by two waiters
loaded with parcels, he heard a splashing in the bathroom, and when
they had set down their loads and were gone, Selina came to him and
said, "I should like you to come and look at him, sir."
She had been crying.
Sir Tancred went into the bathroom, and found Hildebrand Anne splashing
in the bath: "Hallo, Tinker," he said cheerfully, and turned sick at
the sight of the wales and bruises about the thin little body.
"Look at that, sir," said Selina fiercely; and she touched the worst of
them.
The child winced at her touch, gentle as it was, and said in his
quaint, thin voice, "Halbut did do that. Mine not like Halbut. No:
mine not like Halbut." And he shook his little head vigorously.
Sir Tancred groaned, and wished with all his heart that he had taken
advantage of his brief meeting with Halbut to give him a sound
thrashing. Then he thought with a vindictive satisfaction how bitterly
the brute would feel the loss of liquors consequent upon the loss of
his income. He went out, rang for a waiter, and bade him send for a
doctor.
When the doctor came he examined the bruises, and felt all the tiny
bones carefully. He declared that none of them were broken and that,
in spite of having been starved, the child was sound and healthy. The
moment the doctor's grip on him loosed, Tinker wriggled off his knee
and fled to Selina, who carried him away along with a selection from
the parcels to dress him.
"A bad case," said the doctor. "But I've seen worse, much worse. I
hope you'll put the matter into the hands of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and have the parents
prosecuted--picked him up in the gutter I suppose."
"I haven't made up my mind about prosecuting them," said Sir Tancred.
"Oh, have them prosecuted! Have them prosecuted! It stops others,"
said the doctor. "And besides, they might get the cat: it's the only
thing brutes of this kind understand." Then he added thoughtfully,
"There's one uncommon thing about this child--quite uncommon."
"What's that?"
"His vitality--he ought to be in bed, half-dying, with those bruises,
and starved as he is. But you saw how he struggled to get away from
me. Well, I'll write you a prescription for as strong a tonic as I
dare give a child."
He wrote the prescription, promised to be round every morning, and took
his fee. As he went away he said, "Someone ought to get six month's
hard labour for maltreating him."
After a while Selina brought in Tinker, dressed in his new clothes,
with his mat of hair cut close to his head. He was still grimy--many
baths were yet needed before he would be clean; but Sir Tancred saw
that, once clean, and his peaked face filled out a little, he would be
a very pretty baby. His features were fine, his eyes of a deep blue,
his head was small and well-shaped, and the close-cut hair clustered
about it in little curls.
He clung to Selina's gown, and Sir Tancred bade her sit down, and see
what he would do. It was a long time before he stirred from her side,
and then only a little way, moving with a curious, stealthy gait,
casting fearful glances at Sir Tancred. He was attracted by the bright
stuffs which covered the furniture, and went from piece to piece,
stroking it. Then he saw himself in the unnecessarily mirrored door of
the sideboard, and surveyed his image with an almost excited curiosity,
and, it almost seemed, approbation.
[Illustration: He surveyed himself with an excited curiosity.]
An idea struck Sir Tancred; he went out, took a cab, came back with an
armful of toys, and set them in the middle of the room. The child
stared and stared at them with great eyes. After a long while, in his
stealthy, timid way, he made a few steps towards them, and scuttled
back to Selina. He sallied out again, came nearer to them, and fled
back. In the fourth attempt he carried off a little horse, and escaped
with it behind the sofa. There he played with it, or rather sat
hugging it, stroking it, or fingering it, in a dead silence. Sir
Tancred watched his every movement, his every expression, missing
nothing; his eyes could not have enough of him.
Twice again Selina fed him, and twice he was again ravenous. At
half-past six she put him to bed.
Sir Tancred dressed for dinner, made arrangements for the feeding of
Selina, and went into the smoking-room. There Lord Crosland found him,
and they dined together. After dinner Lord Crosland pressed him to go
to a theatre or a music-hall; but Sir Tancred would not: the
discoveries of the day had left him no heart for amusement. He saw
Lord Crosland set out in search of diversion; came back to his room,
and sent Selina to her supper, while he watched over the child. He sat
by the window, looking up the river, and smoking, in an unhappy
reverie. Now and again he went and looked long at his sleeping boy.
When Selina came up from her supper he heard for the first time the
story of his wife's death, and received her last message, which had
been so long delivering. It was no little comfort to him in this
revival of sorrow to hear that she had learned of the accident which
prevented him from coming to her, and, sure of their ultimate meeting,
had come to bear patiently their separation. And the knowledge that
she must die without seeing him again had come to her in the merciful
and indifferent weariness so often the forerunner of death.
When he had heard, and heard again, all that Selina could tell him, he
gave her a cheque for five hundred pounds, putting aside her
protestations that she had never looked for it, and would rather not
have it, with the declaration that he had actually written out the
advertisement offering that reward for information about his missing
child, when she had brought it.
Long after she had gone to bed, he sat thinking over her story,
immersed in unhappy memories and unavailing regrets, and his bitterness
against his stepmother and uncle grew and grew in him at the ill
treatment his child had endured through their interference and neglect,
to a strength to which his own wrongs had never brought it.
The suppression and ignoring of Selina's last letters was inexplicable
to him; he could only suppose that his stepmother had burnt them on
reading only the signature; or had believed them to be the
misrepresentations of a person trying to supplant Mrs. Bostock. He
thought for a while of writing to his stepmother out of the fulness of
his heart; and then he told himself that it was no use. At last he
went heavily to bed. Three times in the night he awoke, and went and
listened at the door of the boy's bedroom; there was no sound; he was
sleeping peacefully.
After his morning bath Tinker looked a shade less grimy, and even the
few meals he had enjoyed since his rescue had filled out his face a
little. About eleven it was decided that a walk in the Embankment
gardens would be good for him, and Selina carried him out. But it was
very soon plain that it was anything but good for him. Every passer-by
thrilled him with a fresh terror; in three minutes he clung to Selina
panting and gasping with fright, his little fingers gripping her with a
convulsive clutch, his eyes starting out of his head, but all in a
terrible silence. It was appalling to see such an extremity of emotion
not dare to find a vocal expression. Quickly they perceived that there
was no reassuring or soothing him; Sir Tancred blindfolded him with his
handkerchief, took him from Selina, and carried him quickly back to the
hotel. He sat on Selina's lap, recovering very slowly, for nearly an
hour. Then he got to his toys.
That afternoon Sir Tancred made a search, and discovered a staircase
leading up to the roof. It was somewhat besprent with blacks; but
there the child could take an airing, unterrified, in a solitude _à
trois_, and in a very fresh air, when a south or west wind blew.
By the afternoon of the next day he had grown used to Sir Tancred, and,
when he was tired of his silent play with his toys, would sit on his
knee in perfect content. The skin of his face was almost white; now
only his knees were really grimy.
On the evening of the fourth day, as he was having his supper, eating
it with much less of the ravenous fervour of a wolf in winter-time, Sir
Tancred distinctly saw him smile; it was very faint, but it was an
undoubted smile.
Three mornings later Sir Tancred was lying awake, when his door was
pushed wider open, and Tinker stole in:
"Hallo, Tinker! Come here! You'll catch cold! What are you looking
for?" said Sir Tancred.
"Gee-gee," said Tinker.
"Come here, and get warm."
After a little thought Tinker accepted the invitation, and Sir Tancred
lifted him into bed. He huddled up to Sir Tancred, and presently found
that his unshaven chin was rough, and stroked it with some wonder.
"You _are_ a funny little Tinker," said Sir Tancred fondly.
"Mine Tinker. Mine Tinker!" said the child with a faint crow.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE TRAINING OF TINKER
Sir Tancred had a very sound theory that the air of London is as
healthy an air as can be breathed in England; but for all that Tinker
enjoyed the best quality of that air, on the roof of the Hotel Cecil,
varied by the ozone of Brighton and the air of many parts of the
country, it was many a long day before he showed a real tendency
towards sturdiness, and outgrew the effects of his privations. He was
long, too, outgrowing his terror of strangers.
Meanwhile Sir Tancred was trying to slake his intolerable thirst for
distraction, distraction from his memories and regrets, in that section
of London Society which, let us hope, cannot see itself for its own
brilliancy, or hear itself for its own noise, that curious collection
of Princes and millionaires, aristocrats and tradesmen, great ladies
and upper Bohemians, about which the only fitting thing is its title,
found for it by some inspired journalist, of the Smart Set. There,
where life forever bubbles a cheap and exceedingly dry champagne of a
very doubtful exhilaration, he did now and again find a poor respite
from regret till time blunted the edge of his sorrows. And when his
sorrow was no longer acute, he had formed a reckless and extravagant
habit of life from which, even when the reason for it had passed, he
never sought to free himself: indeed, it never occurred to him to try.
But he never let his effort to drown his sorrow in the whirlpool of
this strenuous life of pleasure interfere with his care of his little
son; in truth, Tinker's society was his chief relaxation from the
laborious and exacting round. Wherever he might be, in London, Paris,
Vienna, Monte Carlo, or a country-house, Tinker was at hand, in his
hotel, or lodged in the neighbourhood under the care of the faithful
Selina.
A singularly early riser for one who sojourns in the Polite, or, to be
exact, the Impolite World,--even in London he breakfasted at ten,--Sir
Tancred was able to devote two or three hours every morning to the
child before the serious and exacting pleasures of the day, and, before
three years had passed, he had grown a veritable connoisseur in wooden
bricks, tin soldiers, and composite animals. However late he returned
at night, he never failed to look at Tinker in his cot in the room
adjoining his bedroom, to assure himself that he was warm enough, or,
if need were, lift him more comfortably on to his pillow. He watched
him in his childish complaints with more care than the careful nurses
he paid to watch him, or even than the fond and faithful Selina. And
yet he did not spoil him.
Till Tinker was six years old they were playmates. Then, little by
little, Sir Tancred found himself drifting into the position of general
instructor, and after a while began to give serious thought to the
matter. It was not, perhaps, a sound education that he gave the child.
The classical side of it and the commercial were alike neglected; the
historical was forgotten. The spelling was weak, and the handwriting
was very bad. But, riding, fencing, and boxing were very carefully
cultivated, with the result that Tinker, though he lacked the lumps of
muscle which disfigured that eminent ancient, might very well have vied
in strength and agility with the child Hercules.
In the matter of languages, by dint of spending some of each year in
the different European capitals, he learned to speak better French than
he did English, for his father enjoyed far better society on the
Continent than he did in London. In the same way, by sojourning in the
land, he learned to make himself understood in German; and two months
at Rome gave him a fair Italian. It must be admitted that he was as
bad at spelling in all three of those languages as he was in his own.
Again, his geography was hardly of the ornamental kind; he was entirely
and happily ignorant of the whereabouts of Leeds and Crim Tartary; it
is doubtful whether the Balearic Isles, which most boys of the Western
World could point you out on a map, were even a name to him. But by
the time he was ten he could so deal with continental or English
Bradshaw that in five or six minutes he could tell you the quickest or
the most comfortable way of reaching any town in which a
self-respecting person would care to find himself, and his knowledge of
steamer-routes and the Great American railways was no less sound.
Besides these accomplishments he was acquiring a wide knowledge of the
world. By his eleventh birthday, though inexperienced in Lestrygons
and Lotos-eaters, he had seen the cities of more men than that way-worn
wanderer Ulysses at the end of his voyages, and he had no mean
understanding of their disposition. Besides, as the years went on, Sir
Tancred's debts increased. To live the really strenuous London life,
you need a great deal of money; and though Fortune, so cruel to him in
love, was kind at Bridge, her kindness was not continuous; and
sometimes the ungracious importunities of his creditors drove him into
retirement in the country. During these times of exile Tinker was, for
the most part, his only companion, save for brief visits from Lord
Crosland; and since Sir Tancred made a point of talking to him as his
equal in age and experience, he gained from these times of close
intimacy a yet wider knowledge of the world. These retirements never
lasted long, not long enough indeed for Tinker, who was always happy
enough in the country. Sir Tancred after a while grew impatient for
the distractions of which he had acquired so deep-rooted a habit.
Moreover, in the country, out of a well-filled country house or
shooting-box, he might at any time fall into the old, sorrowful
brooding on his lost happiness.
The most uncommon part of Tinker's education was the careful
cultivation of his faculty of observation. Sir Tancred himself had a
natural gift of understanding his fellow-creatures, which, along with
his finer brain, little by little placed him in the noble but
unenviable position of being the first person to whom his friends flew
to be extricated from their scrapes. He had found that his gift stood
him in such good stead in his varying fortunes that he spared no pains
to equip Tinker with the faculty even more finely developed.