A Little World

Harry looked fixedly at the little Frenchman, as he spoke in his strange halting fashion, meeting the young man’s gaze with a shifting look. Were these words of truth, or was there something hidden? Was this man frank, or only an old deceiver, who could mask his face to suit any character when he was at war with society? Still there was such an air of candour in all that was spoken, and so much quiet dignity in the Frenchman’s words, that it was with a feeling he could not have explained that Harry thanked him for what had been said.

“But you do not seem to realise the fact,” exclaimed Harry. “He has disappeared so suddenly, and knowing him to have been a visitor here, we naturally looked towards this place with suspicion.”

“Yes, yes, but I see,” said Canau, quietly; “but he is not here. We do not know. This is a bad place round about, but we are quiet people here; and if they – these girls, knew anything, they would tell directly. I hope he has not been robbed. There are many here at night it would not be safe to meet. But there! he is young, he is gone upon some voyage, some travel; be at ease: he will return, and the old man be happy.”

Canau’s words were so calm, that forgetting place, and the Frenchman’s abject appearance, Harry seemed to recognise in him so much of the gentleman that he raised his hat, the salute being as courteously returned.

“If you can give me any information, pray do so,” said Harry, “for we are ill at ease respecting him.”

He added the Regent Street address to his card, and handed it to the Frenchman, who seemed to brighten up and look elate as he spoke with Harry.

“My best endeavours shall be at the service of Monsieur,” he said; and then in answer to a few more words, he gave an affirmative nod. Then together they entered the little room to find Patty bending over Janet, whose face was buried in her hands.

“I am afraid,” said Harry, addressing Patty, “that I have startled her by my vehemence. I see now that I have been labouring under a gross misapprehension, and can only ask your forgiveness. Pray make my excuses to her when she grows more calm. I am very anxious about my friend.”

He stopped, hesitated for a few moments, and approaching and taking Patty’s hand, he said, huskily, “You say that you heard all my words, and in memory of old times, I cannot leave without saying more. I see that I was grievously in error. You must attribute it to ignorance; but I must ask you before I go, to forgive the injustice, the wrong I have done you.”

Patty did not speak; she tried, but no words came to her lips. She looked anxious and troubled, and there was a feeling as of a great sorrow at her heart – a sorrow which made her bosom heave till she recalled the manner in which Harry had treated her before Lionel Redgrave, and what she looked upon as his false pride. Then came, too, the scene which she had witnessed upon the Essex lawn, and the words she had heard spoken, and it seemed to her that he was mocking – insulting her.

She withdrew her hand, and just bent her head in reply, leaving Harry to quit the room with the scene photographed in his mind of Patty leaning down over the weeping girl at her side.

But could he have stayed, he would have seen Janet start up, wild and angry, to catch Canau by the arm, as she fixed upon him her wild dark eyes.

“What have they done with him?” she half shrieked. “You know – he knows. There is some foul play here, and mischief has been done for the sake of his wretched money. Oh! that I should stay here in this place, where such scenes are acted! But it shall not be; they shall be told where he is and what has been done.”

“But, my child, you are mad and wild, and do not know what it is you say. We do not know where this foolish young aristocrat can be.”

“What!” cried Janet, “has it not been shameful? Has not advantage been taken of his visits here, and he has been led on and on by Wragg, to get his money? Has it not been cruel, scandalous, abominable to her and our friends at Duplex Street? If they had known, would they have allowed her to come once? and you have not tried to stay it! But it shall all be made plain. She came here from her tender love for me, and that – that – that man took advantage of it, and has tried all he knew, constantly, to win her to stay in the wretched shop, so that he might sell some miserable bird. It is villainy – villainy!”

“Hush – hush, little one!” said Canau; “you talk at random – you speak wildly. Patty, my child, take her up-stairs; let her lie down and be at peace. We shall soon hear news of this unfortunate boy.”

Volume Two – Chapter Nineteen.

Flickered – Gone

“But you’ll sit down, Mr Ruggles,” said Mrs Jared, kindly, as the little man stood with one arm resting upon the chimney-piece, heedless of the chair Patty had set for him.

“No, ma’am, not to-night,” said Tim, dreamily; “I must go now – I must go. I thought I’d just drop in for a minute to see how you all were. The little ones all quite well, I hope, ma’am – all strong?”

“Thank God, yes,” said Mrs Jared, softly, and the tears stood in her eyes as she spoke, and stood watching poor Tim as he leaned there brushing where the nap should have been upon his shabby hat, and then fidgeting and re-arranging the piece of glossy new black cloth which shone so conspicuously against the rusty head-piece.

For Tim Ruggles was in deep mourning, consisting of his Sunday-clothes, wrinkled and creased as his own worn face, the above-named band, and a pair of brand-new black cloth gloves.

“We have no troubles here, thank Heaven!” said Mrs Jared, and she glanced across at her husband, who grew deeply interested directly in the day before yesterday’s paper – there was no Echo in those days – while Patty turned away to hide her troubled face.

This was Friday, and for the whole week Tim had not done a stroke of work, but dressed himself in his best, morning after morning, and gone out, – Mrs Ruggles never knew where, but Mrs Jared guessed, and though the poor little fellow had carefully rubbed them, there were still earthy stains upon the knees of his trousers, that no amount of rubbing could remove – stains that were renewed afresh each day. And every night that week Tim had called in at Duplex Street, for he had thought nightly he would just drop in to see how they all were, and then stood gazing from child-face to child-face with a lingering eager look that was pitiful to see.

No one questioned Tim, for he had come in on the Sunday night just as Jared, Patty, Janet, and Canau had returned from St Runwald’s, where the latter had sat in the organ-loft, according to a regular custom of late, to aid his friend with the stops.

Poor Tim! he came in holding his black-banded hat before his breast, as if to shield his wounded heart, that was too sorely hurt for him to lay it before so many friends.

There was no thought there of Tim’s shabby mourning, where threadbare clothes were familiar; and pitiful as was poor Tim’s appearance, there was something in his hopeless look that made its way to Mrs Jared’s heart; so that in spite of his expostulating, “No, ma’am, no,” she would gently take him by the hand and press him back into a seat, where, with his eyes shaded, he would sit a while in silence.

There was no need for words – they all knew that at last a keener blast had put out the flickering little flame which Tim had so long and carefully screened; and respecting the blow which had fallen upon him, child after child was carefully schooled not to ask after, or press upon Tim some rough plaything for little Pine; while Mrs Jared knew that sooner or later their humble friend would ease his loaded heart by making them the confidants of his trouble.

It was indeed a genuine sorrow that bowed down the head of Tim Ruggles; and, save to sleep, for days past he had hardly rested in the home that now seemed so desolate. It was nothing to him that his wife spoke to him almost gently – his spirit revolted against the woman; and the first morning he tore the whalebone rib angrily from the wall, thrust and stamped it into the fire, watching it with a fierce delight, as it spat and crackled and writhed like a serpent in the glowing flame; and then hurried from her presence, to return though at night, worn and subdued. He hastened off again early the next morning, where Mrs Jared rightly guessed, but no one but the gatekeeper of Kensal Green Cemetery could have told for certain.

On Saturday evening, Patty, agitated and anxious, had stolen down to Brownjohn Street, to find Janet feverish and restless, but thoughtful enough to insist upon D. Wragg seeing her friend to the better-lighted streets. She kissed Patty, though, as they parted, saying, “It shall all be made clear yet.”

Patty and Jared met upon the door-step, both too much troubled to notice each other’s pained face; and soon after entering, Patty hurried to answer the faltering knock at the door which betokened the arrival of Tim Ruggles. “Just dropped in to see how they all were;” while his poor seamed face looked more haggard than ever.

“Poor little man!” whispered Mrs Jared to her husband; “what did he do that he should have such a wife?”

Not that Tim was untidy, for he was as carefully dressed as his garments would allow. Clean shaved too was Tim; but there was a desolate look in his face that sorely troubled Mrs Jared, who more than once hinted to her husband that she hoped the poor man would not do anything dreadful, and then felt almost hurt at the apparent indifference of Jared, who, hardened by his own troubles, could not bring his mind to bear upon those of others.

Jared was right, though, when he said that there was no fear, for Tim’s was genuine unselfish sorrow, that in all earnestness he had bent his back to carry – bearing himself humbly, now that the first wild paroxysms of his grief were past.

The children were in bed, and Tim, as they left the room, had kissed most tenderly and blessed each one, as it came to say “Good-night.”

“Ah! Mr Pellet, sir,” he half moaned, “you’re a rich man, sir – a rich man, sir. God has been very good to you, sir. All strong and well – all strong and well!”

Jared winced as he tried to read his paper, but could not turn his eyes from one spot – a police report of a servant who had stolen money from her employer’s box, and he made no reply.

And now Tim stood in his old attitude by the chimney-piece.

“It’s coming to-night,” whispered Mrs Jared to Patty, and she, poor girl, had run out of the room to sob for a few minutes, and then returned, red-eyed and flushed, to sit down to her work.

“I hope I haven’t troubled you very much,” said Tim, gently. “I’ve been in many times, but I’ve not been myself, you know, and could not trust what was here to speak. It wasn’t me, Mrs Pellet, ma’am,” he continued, turning himself from Jared, so that it should only be a tender-hearted mother who read his quivering lips and tears; “it wasn’t me, but a poor broken-down wretch, who could not be man enough to fight against his troubles. You always said I ought to have been a woman, ma’am; and you were right – quite right. But I am better now, ma’am, and I shall be at work next week. Poor people can’t afford to be sorrowful, ma’am. Your rich folk can be in mourning every day, outside and inside, ma’am; we poor people can only do that once a week. I couldn’t sit on the board this week for thinking, ma’am. Come sorrow, one must fight it out – come hard times the same. But one’s as much as such a man as me can bear.”

Mrs Jared sighed, and worked on busily at some little domestic repair done with needle and thread.

“Had you not better sit down, Mr Ruggles?” she said.

“No, ma’am,” said Tim; “it is time I was gone.”

Then the room was once more very still, so that Jared almost started as Tim spoke again very slowly, for his thoughts were back at the organ-loft, and the question was troubling him once more, “What shall I do?”

“Week to-morrow since we buried her, ma’am – like my own child, ma’am, and not a soul to say good-bye to her but me – no father – no mother. Ah! it was cruel, cruel! and how those whom God has given children can leave them in strange hands to pine away and die, is more than I can understand. I would not own that she was so ill, ma’am, not to a soul. I told myself it wasn’t so; and all the time it was. ‘Grim death won’t come and take that gentle, loving-hearted girl away, Tim,’ I said, ‘when there’s your rough worthless old carcase close at hand.’ But that’s what he does, ma’am; he’s idle though he’s busy, is death; and to save blunting that scythe of his, he goes on mowing down the sweet, gentle, bright-coloured tender flowers, and leaves the dry, harsh, old stalks like me to be snapped off by the wind.

“But I knew it was coming, ma’am, faster and faster; and yet I couldn’t help thinking as there might be a change for the better. To have seen her, you might have hoped she was getting well, for she seemed to be easier towards the last, and for two or three days the pain was as good as gone, ’cept when her cough troubled her, and nothing wouldn’t stop that a bit. Never complained neither, she didn’t, but kept up dressed and about to the very last. I couldn’t help knowing that she was bad; but I didn’t think it was quite so bad; it’s a sort of thing that you can’t seem to believe, ma’am. It won’t come home to you until it’s too late, and then – then – then – ”

Tim’s voice grew very husky here, and, as he broke off, his hand covered his eyes once more.

“I’m very weak, ma’am,” he said at last, apologetically. “It’s not like most men, I know, to take on so about that child; but, you see, my poor first wife loved her, and she seemed to be quite left to me to take care of; and now that she’s gone it don’t seem to me that I did my duty by her.”

Here Mrs Jared and Patty murmured strongly in dissent, and Jared cleared his throat with a loud hem, blowing his nose, too, violently the moment after.

“I can’t think that I did,” said Tim, “but I did try; and if I’d interfered more when Mrs Ruggles – wonderful woman, you know, ma’am – when Mrs Ruggles corrected, I’m sadly afraid that it would have been worse when I was away. I went twice – three times – four times to Bedford Row, and told them how bad the child was getting, and they said they would communicate, and that was all there; for – God forgive me if I wrong any man! – I believe him as owned my poor little darling wanted to hear that she was – ”