London's Heart: A Novel

"My father!" Alfred caught at the table, and his heart beat wildly at the thought of what was to come.

"I have never spoken of him to you before, but the wishes of the dead must be respected. Sit down and listen. In this box I have been accustomed for years to put by small savings for a special purpose, of which you shall presently hear. Lily's earnings lately and my own trifling pittance were more than sufficient for our wants, and money was saved, little by little, until a fortnight ago I had very nearly one hundred pounds in this box. When you learn to what purpose this money was to be applied, you will better understand my motives for speaking of it in this manner. One hundred pounds was the exact sum required, and I hoped in a month to have counted it out, and to have completed a tardy atonement for a life's disgrace." Alfred turned to his grandfather in amazement, but did not speak. "Shilling by shilling," continued the old man steadily, "the little heap grew and grew. No miser ever valued gold and silver more than I did the money this box contained. I hoarded it, counted it, reckoned upon my fingers how many days would elapse before the sum was reached. No one knew of it, as I thought, but your mother and I. Certainly no one but we two knew the purpose to which it was to be applied. Three weeks this night, leaving the box in the cupboard, I went to bring Lily home from the hall. I was away for more than an hour. When I returned, I found your mother strangely agitated, but could not ascertain the cause. I questioned her, but learned nothing. The following day I opened this box. It was empty. The money was gone!"

He turned the key and opened the box. It contained nothing but two pieces of faded yellow paper.

"See," said the old man, directing Alfred's attention to the box; "there is nothing in it but these sheets of paper. Every shilling was stolen."

"I see, grandfather," said Alfred, with a furtive look into the box. "Do you know who took the money?"

"No, I do not know."

"Did mother know?"

"I am not sure."

"How not sure, grandfather?" asked Alfred, with an effort to appear at his ease. "Did mother speak of it?"

"No; and I spared her the grief that telling her of the loss would have caused her."

"Then how can you say you are not sure whether mother knew? If she had known, she would have spoken. You know," added Alfred, his manner, which had hitherto been moody and embarrassed, brightening a little, "that I am going to be a lawyer, and lawyers are fond of asking questions."

The change in Alfred's manner produced a singular effect upon the old man; it rendered him more sad and troubled. Hitherto he had exhibited a strange eagerness when Alfred showed most embarrassment; and as this disappeared, and Alfred became more at his ease, an expression of absolute grief stole into the old man's face.

"The lock has not been tampered with," observed Alfred, examining the box carefully; "how could it have been opened? You kept the key in your pocket always, of course?"

"I have been foolish enough on occasions to leave it on the mantelshelf, but on those occasions I think I may say with certainty that the cupboard in which the box was placed was always locked. I was never without one key or the other. Say that once when this occurred, the thief, knowing that the box contained money, watched me out of the house. That then he entered the room, and, going to the cupboard, found it locked. That, being baffled by this circumstance, he saw upon the mantelshelf a key, which he guessed was the key of the iron box; that he took an impression of this key – "

"In what?" interrupted Alfred, almost gaily. "In wax or putty? If he had either by him he must be a professional burglar. There are plenty of lodgers in the house, but I hardly suspected there was a person of that description here."

"I don't think there is a person of that description in the house. Remember, Alfred, that what I am narrating is merely guess-work."

"Capital guess-work, I should say, grandfather; you ought to have been a lawyer. But go on."

"That he took an impression of this key," continued the old man, "in wax or putty, as you suggest. He may have come in prepared, or taking an impression in either may have been an afterthought. That from this impression he had a false key made. That on this night three weeks, when I had gone to the music-hall for Lily, the thief entered the room, found the cupboard open-it was open, I remember-and completed the robbery."

"A good case, grandfather, but quite circumstantial, you know."

"Yes, I know, Alfred; quite circumstantial. In my thoughts I go farther even than this. I think that when the thief was opening the box, your mother may have been awake, or perhaps in that half-wakeful condition during which fancy and reality are so strangely commingled as not to be distinguishable one from the other. I think that, being in this condition, she saw the robbery committed, and that perhaps she knew the thief – "

"Grandfather!" The exclamation was forced from Alfred's trembling lips; he could not have repressed it for his life.

"What is the matter, Alfred?"

"Nothing," stammered the young man; "it is late, and I was not well when I came home. Go on."

"That knowing the thief, and not knowing whether what she saw was reality or a trick of the imagination, she dreaded, for a reason you shall presently be made acquainted with, to assure herself of the truth. I saw the dread in her watchful face and manner whenever I went to the cupboard; I saw the subject upon her lips and the fear to speak. I saw gratefulness struggling with doubt, as day after day went by and I did not refer to the loss. She yearned to know, and dreaded to ask. For had she asked and learned the truth, the bitterness of the past would have been sweet compared to the bitterness of the present! And so she passed away and was not sure."

"I don't understand all this," said Alfred sullenly; "you are speaking in enigmas, and I'm not good at solving them. I have no doubt that one of the lodgers took the money."

"It would not be very difficult to ascertain, Alfred. There were notes in the box of which I have the numbers, and a shrewd detective would most likely soon discover where the false key was made. But I have resolved to let the matter rest; perhaps I, like your mother, dread to know the truth."

"Suppose you leave it to me, grandfather?" suggested Alfred with nervous eagerness: "it will be practice for me you know."

"Yes, Alfred, I will leave it to you; I promise not to stir in the matter myself. You may be able to recover the money, or part of it, and it may be applied to its original purpose."

Alfred gave a sigh of relief, and his manner brightened again, as he inquired what was the purpose to which his grandfather referred.

"Do you remember your father?" was the question asked in return by the old man after a pause.

"But slightly grandfather. I was very young when we lost him."

"When we lost him!" mused the old man. "What memories come to light at the thought of that time! To what end your mother made me promise to tell you the story of her life and to speak plainly of your father, it is not for me to say, but I believe she intended it to act as a warning to you."

"There again!" exclaimed Alfred fretfully. "Why as a warning?"

"That is for you to answer. Perhaps she saw in you the faults that brought shame to your father, misery to her. As you sit before me now, so sat your father when he asked me for my daughter's hand. I did not know the vices that were in him, or I would have seen her dead at my feet rather than have given her to him. She loved him and had already pleaded with me for him. We were living then near Gravesend. I had money and a house of my own. Remembrance of the happy life she lived there before she was married caused her last week to express a wish to be buried there, and I shall respect her wish. Your father, I thought, had a fair future before him. I gave him my daughter's hand, and they came to London to live-not in such poor lodgings as these, but after a better fashion. I gave my daughter such a dower as I could afford, and they started in life with the fairest of prospects. It was not long before troubles came; it was not long before your mother learned that she had married a drunkard-worse, that she had married a gambler. These things are hard for me, your mother's father, to tell, and hard for you, your father's son to hear. But they are true, and if they serve to point a warning finger to the quicksands of life where, if you do not avoid them, all that is honourable and good for you may be engulfed, they will not be told in vain! I spare you the pain of a long recital; I simply tell you that step by step your father sank, and dragged your mother with him. He would not work, and constant appeals were made to my purse to supply the means of living. I gave and gave; spoke to your father again and again; appealed to his self respect, to his feelings of honour; and received in return-promises of amendment, promises of amendment, promises forgotten as soon as each temporary want was provided for. Shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you that, so low did drink and gambling bring him, he raised his hand against his wife – "

"No, no, sir!" cried Alfred, with a beating heart.

"It is true," said the old man sternly; "it is true, and it must be told. He raised his hand against the wife who had loved him and been faithful to him. And yet there was a time when he would have been as shocked as you are now, had such an accusation been made against him; but he was weak and easily misled; unstable as water, as Reuben was; selfish in his desires and pleasures; with no gratitude for love; with no thought that life has solemn duties, and that there is in it something purer, brighter, sweeter, than the false glitter that attracts weak minds; therefore he wrecked his life and broke your mother's heart-your mother, whose sufferings you can imagine when I tell you that she was once as trustful as Lily, as tender as Lily! You were born; Lily was born. The downward course went on, and he and all of you sank into deeper misery, deeper shame, until I thought the worst had been reached. But I was mistaken."

The old man paused, reluctant to proceed; but Alfred said,

"Go on, sir; I must hear all now."

"It is right that you should. You will understand how, under these miserable influences, your mother's nature changed; how gradually, from a light-hearted trustful girl, she became a hopeless despairing woman. I gave up my house, and came to live with her. Your father was away sometimes for days together, and your mother had no dependence but me. One night late, long after we had retired, your father came home without warning. He stole into my room stealthily, and roused me. He had been in hiding for weeks; the police were after him, and were hunting him down; a warrant was out for him. He told me the shameful tale. I knew that he was a drunkard and a gambler, but I did not know before that night that he was a thief!"

Alfred sank on his knees in uncontrollable agitation, and hid his face in his hands.

"Circumstances had unfortunately placed it in his power to embezzle a large sum of money; he obtained possession of it, and drank and gambled it away. What was to be done? The name that I bore had never had a stain upon it. I and mine had lived honourable lives. I loved your mother, loved you and Lily. I had no others belonging to me-you were my all. If I made no attempt to save him, we should in the eyes of the world be sharers of his crime and his disgrace. His shame would have clung to you all your lives. He gave me the name of the man whom he had robbed. By daylight I was in the wronged man's house, by his bedside. This man loved money better than justice. I represented to him that he could not have both. He chose the first. I made terms with him, and sacrificed all but a bare pittance. Between us we compounded a felony. But I had not sufficient to pay the whole of his claim. I promised, however, to pay the rest as I could, and he took my word. Alfred, little by little I have been all my life since that time wiping off the debt of disgrace. One hundred pounds only remained to be paid, and very nearly that sum has been stolen from this iron box. Whoever stole that money stole the honour of our family!"

A long pause ensued. A new day was dawning, and the faint light rested upon the solemn face of the dead woman, to whom peace had come at last. Alfred turned his eyes towards it, and shuddered. Then he turned to the old man, and said in a low voice,

"And my father, sir?"

"In this iron box are two papers," said the old man; "one from him, promising never to trouble his wife and children more, and one from the man he wronged, giving quittance of what is set down as a debt. Your father kept his word. I have never seen him since that time."

Alfred kissed his mother's face, and covered it. Then he held out his hand to his grandfather, who took it in silence, and looked at him wistfully. But Alfred only said, humbly,

"I am tired, sir. You have been very good to us, and I will try to deserve it."

They went to the door, and the old man opened it, and saw Lily lying on the ground.

"Lily!" he cried, in alarm.

The girl slowly rose and stood before him. Her eyes were closed; she was asleep.

"Lily, my darling!" he said, tenderly placing his arm round her, "Why have you been sleeping here?"