Robert Falconer

‘I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Falconer. I haven’t laughed so for years. What right has he to come pestering me?’

‘None whatever. But you must forgive him, because he is well-meaning, and because his conceit has made a fool of him. They’re not all like him. But how is your daughter?’

‘Very poorly, sir. She’s going after the rest. A Spitalfields weaver ought to be like the cats: they don’t mind how many of their kittens are drowned.’

‘I beg your pardon. They don’t like it. Only they forget it sooner than we do.’

‘Why do you say we, sir? You don’t know anything of that sort.’

‘The heart knows its own bitterness, De Fleuri—and finds it enough, I dare say.’

The weaver was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, there was a touch of tenderness in his respect.

‘Will you go and see my poor Katey, sir?’

‘Would she like to see me?’

‘It does her good to see you. I never let that fellow go near her. He may worry me as he pleases; but she shall die in peace. That is all I can do for her.’

‘Do you still persist in refusing help—for your daughter—I don’t mean for yourself?’

Not believing in God, De Fleuri would not be obliged to his fellow. Falconer had never met with a similar instance.

‘I do. I won’t kill her, and I won’t kill myself: I am not bound to accept charity. It’s all right. I only want to leave the whole affair behind; and I sincerely hope there’s nothing to come after. If I were God, I should be ashamed of such a mess of a world.’

‘Well, no doubt you would have made something more to your mind—and better, too, if all you see were all there is to be seen. But I didn’t send that bore away to bore you myself. I’m going to see Katey.’

‘Very well, sir. I won’t go up with you, for I won’t interfere with what you think proper to say to her.’

‘That’s rather like faith somewhere!’ thought Falconer. ‘Could that man fail to believe in Jesus Christ if he only saw him—anything like as he is?’

Katey lay in a room overhead; for though he lacked food, this man contrived to pay for a separate room for his daughter, whom he treated with far more respect than many gentlemen treat their wives. Falconer found her lying on a wretched bed. Still it was a bed; and many in the same house had no bed to lie on. He had just come from a room overhead where lived a widow with four children. All of them lay on a floor whence issued at night, by many holes, awful rats. The children could not sleep for horror. They did not mind the little ones, they said, but when the big ones came, they were awake all night.

‘Well, Katey, how are you?’

‘No better, thank God.’

She spoke as her father had taught her. Her face was worn and thin, but hardly death-like. Only extremes met in it—the hopelessness had turned through quietude into comfort. Her hopelessness affected him more than her father’s. But there was nothing he could do for her.

There came a tap at the door.

‘Come in,’ said Falconer, involuntarily.

A lady in the dress of a Sister of Mercy entered with a large basket on her arm. She started, and hesitated for a moment when she saw him. He rose, thinking it better to go. She advanced to the bedside. He turned at the door, and said,

‘I won’t say good-bye yet, Katey, for I’m going to have a chat with your father, and if you will let me, I will look in again.’

As he turned he saw the lady kiss her on the forehead. At the sound of his voice she started again, left the bedside and came towards him. Whether he knew her by her face or her voice first, he could not tell.

‘Robert,’ she said, holding out her hand.

It was Mary St. John. Their hands met, joined fast, and lingered, as they gazed each in the other’s face. It was nearly fourteen years since they had parted. The freshness of youth was gone from her cheek, and the signs of middle age were present on her forehead. But she was statelier, nobler, and gentler than ever. Falconer looked at her calmly, with only a still swelling at the heart, as if they met on the threshold of heaven. All the selfishness of passion was gone, and the old earlier adoration, elevated and glorified, had returned. He was a boy once more in the presence of a woman-angel. She did not shrink from his gaze, she did not withdraw her hand from his clasp.

‘I am so glad, Robert!’ was all she said.

‘So am I,’ he answered quietly. ‘We may meet sometimes then?’

‘Yes. Perhaps we can help each other.’

‘You can help me,’ said Falconer. ‘I have a girl I don’t know what to do with.’

‘Send her to me. I will take care of her.’

‘I will bring her. But I must come and see you first.’

‘That will tell you where I live,’ she said, giving him a card. Good-bye.’

‘Till to-morrow,’ said Falconer.

‘She’s not like that Bible fellow,’ said De Fleuri, as he entered his room again. ‘She don’t walk into your house as if it was her own.’

He was leaning against his idle loom, which, like a dead thing, filled the place with the mournfulness of death. Falconer took a broken chair, the only one, and sat down.

‘I am going to take a liberty with you, Mr. De Fleuri,’ he said.

‘As you please, Mr. Falconer.’

‘I want to tell you the only fault I have to you.’

‘Yes?’

‘You don’t do anything for the people in the house. Whether you believe in God or not, you ought to do what you can for your neighbour.’

He held that to help a neighbour is the strongest antidote to unbelief, and an open door out of the bad air of one’s own troubles, as well.

De Fleuri laughed bitterly, and rubbed his hand up and down his empty pocket. It was a pitiable action. Falconer understood it.

‘There are better things than money: sympathy, for instance. You could talk to them a little.’

‘I have no sympathy, sir.’

‘You would find you had, if you would let it out.’

‘I should only make them more miserable. If I believed as you do, now, there might be some use.’

‘There’s that widow with her four children in the garret. The poor little things are tormented by the rats: couldn’t you nail bits of wood over their holes?’

De Fleuri laughed again.