Post Haste

“Because I happen to be connected with the post-office; and though I have no charge of them, I can’t bear to see them lost,” said Mr Bright with another groan, as he turned his eyes wistfully—not to the shore, at which all on board were eagerly gazing—but towards the wreck of the Royal Mail steamer Trident, the top of whose funnels rose black and defiant in the midst of the raging waves.

Chapter Six.

Treats of Poverty, Pride, and Fidelity

Behind a very fashionable square in a very unfashionable little street, in the west end of London, dwelt Miss Sarah Lillycrop.

That lady’s portion in this life was a scanty wardrobe, a small apartment, a remarkably limited income, and a tender, religious spirit. From this it will be seen that she was rich as well as poor.

Her age was, by a curious coincidence, exactly proportioned to her income—the one being forty pounds, and the other forty years. She added to the former, with difficulty, by teaching, and to the latter, unavoidably, by living.

By means of a well-known quality styled economy, she more than doubled her income, and by uniting prayer with practice and a gracious mien she did good, as it were, at the rate of five hundred, or five thousand, a year.

It could not be said, however, that Miss Lillycrop lived well in the ordinary sense of that expression.

To those who knew her most intimately it seemed a species of standing miracle that she contrived to exist at all, for she fed chiefly on toast and tea. Her dietary resulted in an attenuated frame and a thread-paper constitution. Occasionally she indulged in an egg, sometimes even in a sausage. But, morally speaking, Miss Lillycrop lived well, because she lived for others. Of course we do not mean to imply that she had no regard for herself at all. On the contrary, she rejoiced in creature comforts when she had the chance, and laid in daily “one ha’p’orth of milk” all for herself. She paid for it, too, which is more than can be said of every one. She also indulged herself to some extent in the luxury of brown sugar at twopence-halfpenny a pound, and was absolutely extravagant in hot water, which she not only imbibed in the form of weak tea and eau sucrée hot, but actually took to bed with her every night in an india-rubber bottle. But with the exception of these excusable touches of selfishness, Miss Lillycrop ignored herself systematically, and devoted her time, talents, and means, to the welfare of mankind.

Beside a trim little tea-table set for three, she sat one evening with her hands folded on her lap, and her eyes fixed on the door as if she expected it to make a sudden and unprovoked assault on her. In a few minutes her expectations were almost realised, for the door burst open and a boy burst into the room with— “Here we are, Cousin Lillycrop.”

“Phil, darling, at last!” exclaimed Cousin Lillycrop, rising in haste.

Philip Maylands offered both hands, but Cousin Lillycrop declined them, seized him round the neck, kissed him on both cheeks, and thrust him down into an easy chair. Then she retired into her own easy chair and gloated over him.

“How much you’ve grown—and so handsome, dear boy,” murmured the little lady.

“Ah! then, cousin, it’s the blarney stone you’ve been kissing since I saw you last!”

“No, Phil, I’ve kissed nothing but the cat since I saw you last. I kiss that delicious creature every night on the forehead before going to bed, but the undemonstrative thing does not seem to reciprocate. However, I cannot help that.”

Miss Lillycrop was right, she could not help it. She was overflowing with the milk of human kindness, and, rather than let any of that valuable liquid go to waste, she poured some of it, not inappropriately, on the thankless cat.

“I’m glad you arrived before your sister, Phil,” said Miss Lillycrop. “Of course I asked her here to meet you. I am so sorry the dear girl cannot live with me: I had fully meant that she should, but my little rooms are so far from the Post-Office, where her work is, you know, that it could not be managed. However, we see each other as often as possible, and she visits sometimes with me in my district. What has made you so late, Phil?”

“I expected to have been here sooner, cousin,” replied Phil, as he took off his greatcoat, “but was delayed by my friend, George Aspel, who has come to London with me to look after a situation that has been promised him by Sir James Clubley, M.P. for I forget where. He’s coming here to-night.”

“Who, Sir James Clubley?”

“No,” returned the boy, laughing, “George Aspel. He went with Mr Blurt to a hotel to see after a bed, and promised to come here to tea. I asked him, knowing that you’d be glad to receive any intimate friend of mine. Won’t you, Coz?”

Miss Lillycrop expressed and felt great delight at the prospect of meeting Phil’s friend, but the smallest possible shade of anxiety was mingled with the feeling as she glanced at her very small and not too heavily-loaded table.

“Besides,” continued Phil, “George is such a splendid fellow, and, as maybe you remember, lived with us long ago. May will be glad to meet him; and he saved Mr Blurt’s life, so you see—”

“Saved Mr Blurt’s life!” interrupted Miss Lillycrop.

“Yes, and he saved ever so many more people at the same time, who would likely have been all lost if he hadn’t swum off to ’em with the rocket-line, and while he was doing that I ran off to call out the lifeboat, an’ didn’t they get her out and launch her with a will—for you see I had to run three miles, and though I went like the wind they couldn’t call out the men and launch her in a minute, you know; but there was no delay. We were in good time, and saved the whole of ’em—passengers and crew.”

“So, then, you had a hand in the saving of them,” said Miss Lillycrop.

“Sure I had,” said Phil with a flush of pleasure at the remembrance of his share in the good work; “but I’d never have thought of the lifeboat, I was so excited with what was going on, if George hadn’t sent me off. He was bursting with big thoughts, and as cool as a cucumber all the time. I do hope he’ll get a good situation here. It’s in a large East India house, I believe, with which Sir James Clubley is connected, and Sir James was an old friend of George’s father, and was very kind to him in his last days, but they say he’s a proud and touchy old fellow.”

As Phil spoke, the door, which had a tendency to burst that evening, opened quickly, though not so violently as before, and May Maylands stood before them, radiant with a glow of expectation.

Phil sprang to meet her. After the first effusions were over, the brother and sister sat down to chat of home in the Irish far-west, while Miss Lillycrop retired to a small kitchen, there to hold solemn converse with the smallest domestic that ever handled broom or scrubbing-brush.

“Now, Tottie, you must run round to the baker directly, and fetch another loaf.”

“What! a whole one, ma’am?” asked the small domestic—in comparison with whom Dollops was a giantess.

“Yes, a whole one. You see there’s a young gentleman coming to tea whom I did not expect—a grand tall gentleman too, and a hero, who has saved people from wrecks, and swims in the sea in storms like a duck, and all that sort of thing, so he’s sure to have a tremendous appetite. You will also buy another pennyworth of brown sugar, and two more pats of butter.”

Tottie opened her large blue eyes in amazement at the extent of what she deemed a reckless order, but went off instantly to execute it, wondering that any hero, however regardless of the sea or storms, could induce her poor mistress to go in for such extravagance, after having already provided a luxurious meal for three.

It might have seemed unfair to send such a child even to bed without an attendant. To send her into the crowded streets alone in the dusk of evening, burdened with a vast commission, and weighted with coppers, appeared little short of inhumanity. Nevertheless Miss Lillycrop did it with an air of perfect confidence, and the result proved that her trust was not misplaced.

Tottie had been gone only a few seconds when George Aspel appeared at the door and was admitted by Miss Lillycrop, who apologised for the absence of her maid.

Great was the surprise and not slight the embarrassment of May Maylands when young Aspel was ushered into the little room, for Phil had not recovered sufficiently from the first greetings to mention him. Perhaps greater was the surprise of Miss Lillycrop when these two, whom she had expected to meet as old playmates, shook hands rather stiffly.

“Sure, I forgot, May, to tell you that George was coming—”

“I am very glad to see him,” interrupted May, recovering herself, “though I confess to some surprise that he should have forsaken Ireland so soon, after saying to me that it was a perfect paradise.”

Aspel, whose curly flaxen hair almost brushed the ceiling, brought himself down to a lower region by taking a chair, while he said with a meaning smile—

“Ah! Miss Maylands, the circumstances are entirely altered now—besides,” he added with a sudden change of tone and manner, “that inexorable man-made demon, Business, calls me to London.”

“I hope Business intends to keep you here,” said Miss Lillycrop, busying herself at the tea-table.

“That remains to be seen,” returned Aspel. “If I find that—”

“The loaf and butter, ma’am,” said Tottie, announcing these articles at the door as if they were visitors.

“Hush, child; leave them in the kitchen till I ask for them,” said Miss Lillycrop with a quiet laugh. “My little maid is such an original, Mr Aspel.”

“She’s a very beautiful, though perhaps somewhat dishevelled, original,” returned Aspel, “of which one might be thankful to possess even an inferior copy.”

“Indeed you are right,” rejoined Miss Lillycrop with enthusiasm; “she’s a perfect little angel—come, draw in your chairs; closer this way, Phil, so—a perfect little angel—you take sugar I think? Yes. Well, as I was saying, the strange thing about her was that she was born and bred—thus far—in one of the worst of the back slums of London, and her father is an idle drunkard. I fear, also, a criminal.”

“How strange and sad,” said Aspel, whose heart was easily touched and sympathies roused by tales of sorrow. “But how comes it that she has escaped contamination?”

“Because she has a good—by which I mean a Christian—mother. Ah! Mr Aspel, you have no idea how many unknown and unnoticed gems there are half smothered in the moral mud and filth of London. It is a wonderful—a tremendous city;—tremendous because of the mighty influences for good as well as evil which are constantly at work in it. There is an army of moral navvies labouring here, who are continually unearthing these gems, and there are others who polish them. I have the honour to be a member of this army. Dear little Tottie is one of the gems, and I mean, with God’s blessing, to polish her. Of course, I can’t get her all to myself,” continued Miss Lillycrop with a sigh, “for her mother, who is a washer-woman, won’t part with her, but she has agreed to come and work for me every morning for a few hours, and I can get her now and then of an evening. My chief regret is that the poor thing has a long long way to walk from her miserable home to reach me. I don’t know how she will stand it. She has been only a few days in my service.”

As the unpolished diamond entered at this moment with a large plate of buttered toast, Miss Lillycrop changed the subject abruptly by expressing a hope that May Maylands had not to go on late duty that evening.

“Oh, no; it’s not my turn for a week yet,” said May.

“It seems to me very hard that they should work you night and day,” said Phil, who had been quietly drinking in new ideas with his tea while his cousin discoursed.