Читать книгу: «Furze the Cruel», страница 23

Another drawer came open, and the child breathed quickly. It was filled with a parcel of books, and a label upon the topmost one bore the word "Boodles." The truth was in that secret drawer, there could be no romancing there, the question of her birth was to be settled once and for all, she could read it in those books, then go and tell Mr. Bellamie who she was. The girl's sad eyes softened when she perceived that the heap of diaries was well thumbed. She did not know that the old man had often read himself to sleep with one of them.

The straw, by which she had been, mentally at least, supporting herself since Weevil's death, was quickly snatched away. She saw then, what Mr. Bellamie had seen at once, how that the simple old creature had sought to secure her happiness with lies. The story of the diaries told her little more. It was true she was a bastard; that she had been wrapped in fern, and placed in the porch of the cottage, with a label round her neck like a parcel from the grocer's; that the old man had known as much about her parents as she knew herself. "She cannot be a commoner's child," was written in one of the diaries. "I think she must be the daughter of some domestic servant and a man of gentle birth. She would not be what she is had her father been a labourer or a farmer."

Then followed a list of the girls whom Weevil had suspected; but that was of no interest to Boodles. The old man had nursed her himself. There was a little book, Hints to Mothers, in the pile, and at the bottom of the drawer was a scrap of the fern in which she had been wrapped, and the horrible label which had been round her baby neck. She gazed, dry-eyed and fascinated, forgetting her loneliness, her sorrow, forgetting everything except that one overmastering thing, the awful injury which had been done to her innocent little self. Now that she knew the truth she would face it. The wind was playing a funeral march just then.

"I am an illegitimate child," said Boodles. She stepped before the glass, uncovered it, screamed because she thought she had seen that grotesque old face which servant girl Minnie had longed to kiss fifty years back, recovered herself, and looked. "He said I should be perfect if I had a name," she muttered. She was getting a fierce little tiger-cat, and beginning to show her pretty teeth. "Why am I not a humpback, or diseased in some way, or hideous, if I am an illegitimate child? I am as good as any girl. People in Tavistock turn to look at me, and I know they say: 'What a pretty girl!' Am I to say to every one: 'I am an illegitimate child, and therefore I am as black as the devil himself?' Why is a girl as black as the devil just because no clergyman has jabbered some rubbish at her parents? Oh, Boodles, you pretty love-child, don't stand it," she cried.

She flung the towel over the glass, turned to the window, and cast it open to receive the wind. "I am not frightened now. I am wild. Let us have the coronation march, and let me go by while they shout at me, 'bastard.' What have I done? I know that the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, but why should the children stand it? Must they, poor little fools? They must endure disease, but not dishonour. I am not going to stand it. I would go into God's presence, and clench my fists, and say I will not stand it. He allowed me to be born. If matrimony is what people say it is, a sort of sacrament, how is it that children can be born without it?"

The wind rushed into the room so violently that she had to shut the window. The lamp-flames were leaping up the glasses. A different tune began and made the tortured little girl less fierce.

"I won't be wild any more," she said; but an idea had entered her brain, and she gave it expression by murmuring again and again: "Nobody knows, nobody knows. Only he knew, and he is dead."

That was true enough. Only Weevil and her mother knew the truth about her shameful origin. The mother had not been seen that night placing the bundle of fern in the porch. She could not have been seen, as nobody in the neighbourhood knew where Boodles really came from, and the fact that the stories which they had invented about her were entirely false proved their ignorance. Probably nobody knew that her mother had given birth to a child. Boodles thought of that as she walked to and fro murmuring, "Nobody knows." Old Weevil's death might prove to be a blessing in disguise.

"I will not stand it," she kept on saying. "I will not bear the punishment of my father's sin. I will be a liar too – just once, and then I will be truthful for ever. I will make up my own story, and it won't be wild like his. I understand it all now. In this funny old world of sheep-people one follows another, not because the one in front knows anything, but just because he is in front; and when the leader laughs the ones behind laugh too, and when the leader says 'how vile,' the ones behind say 'how vile' too. I suppose we are all sheep-people, and I am only different because I have black wool, and I am on the wrong side of the hedge and can't get among the respectable white baa-baas. I won't harm any of them. I will be wicked once, in self-defence, to get this black wool off, and then I'll be a very good white respectable sheep-person ever after. The truth is there," she said, nodding at the little heap of books, "and the truth is going to be burnt."

She gathered up the pile and cremated the lot in the kitchen fire. Then she went to bed with a kind of happiness, because she knew that her doubts were cleared away, and that her future depended upon her ability to fight for herself. Her eyes were fully opened by this time because she had left fairyland and got well out into the lane of real life. She knew that "sheep-people" like the most excellent Bellamies, neatly bound and edged in the very best style of respectability, must regard little bastards as a sort of vermin, which it was only kind to tread upon or sweep decorously out of the way. "I am only going to wriggle in self-defence because they are hurting me," she murmured. "If they will be nice to me I will stop wriggling at once and be good for ever. I wouldn't make an effort if I was ugly or humpbacked. I would curl up and die like a horrid spider. But I know I am really a nice girl and a pretty girl; and if they will only give me the chance I will be a good girl – wicked once, and then good, so very good. I expect you are much better than most girls, Boodles, and you mustn't let them call you beastly names," she said; and went off to sleep in quite a conceited state of mind.

In the morning there was a letter from Mr. Bellamie, not for Boodles, but for the old man who was dead, and the girl opened it, not knowing who it was from, and learnt a little more of the truth about herself. It was lucky for old Weevil that he was well out of the way. He would probably just as soon have been dead as called upon to answer that letter, though it was kindly enough and delicately expressed and full of artistic touches. Mr. Bellamie adopted a gentle cynicism which would have been too subtle for Weevil's comprehension. He slapped him on the shoulder as it were, chaffing him, reproving him mildly, and saying in effect: "You old rogue, to think that you could fool me with your fairy-tales." He professed to regard the matter as a joke, and then becoming serious, suggested that Weevil would surely see the necessity of keeping Boodles and Aubrey apart in the future. He didn't believe in young men, and Aubrey was a mere boy, entangling themselves with an engagement, and altogether apart from that Boodles, though a pretty and charming girl, was not the partner that he would wish his son to choose. Writing still more plainly, if Aubrey insisted upon marrying the girl it would have to be without his consent. He could not receive Boodles at his house while the mystery of her birth remained unexplained. There was a mystery, he knew, as he had made inquiries. He did not credit what he had been told, but the fact remained that Weevil had increased his suspicions by withholding what he knew. The whole affair was unsatisfactory, and the only satisfactory way out of it would be to keep the young people definitely apart until they had found other interests. Mr. Bellamie concluded by hoping that Weevil was not being troubled by the wild weather and tempestuous winds.

It would have been better for Boodles if she had not opened that letter. For her it was the end of all things. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she put on her hat, went out, down to the Tavy, and into the woods. It was not "our walk," but the place where it had been. The big explosion had cleared the walk away; and there was nothing except December damps and mists, sodden ferns, and piles of half-melted snow. The once upon a time stage was very far away then. It was the end of the story, and there was no happy ever after, no merry dance of fairies to the tune of a wedding march, no flowers nor sunshine. All the pleasant things had gone to sleep, and those things which could not sleep were weeping. Boodles fastened her arms about the trunk of a tree which she recognised, and cried upon it; then she lay upon the fern which carried a few memories and cried upon that; and felt her way to the river and cried into that. She could not increase the moisture. The whole wood was dripping and far more tear-productive than herself. The rivers and ferns could not tell her that it was not the end of the story, but only the end of a chapter; for she was merely eighteen, and the big desert of life was beyond with a green oasis here and there. But fairyland was closed. A big fence of brambles ran all round it, and there was a notice board erected to the effect that Boodles would be prosecuted for trespassing if she went inside, though all other children would be welcome. There was the beech-tree where Aubrey and she had once spent an afternoon carving two hearts skewered upon an arrow, though the hearts looked rather like dumplings and the arrow resembled a spade. They had done their best and made a failure. They had tried to tell a story, and had muddled it all up just because they had been interrupted so often. Why couldn't ogres leave them alone so that they could finish the story properly?

Boodles got back somehow to her home in the wintry solitude, and wrote what she thought was a callous little note to Mr. Bellamie. Perhaps it did not sound so very callous. Short compositions appeal as long ones seldom do.

"Mr. Weevil is dead, and has been buried some time, and I am quite alone. I am sorry I opened your letter. Please forgive me. I did not know who it was from. I am going to try and make a living by letting lodgings when the fine weather comes, and I shall be very grateful if Mrs. Bellamie and you will recommend me. I am a good cook, and could make people comfortable. Perhaps you had better not say I am only eighteen, as people might not like to trust me. It is very cold up here, and the wind is dreadful. I hope you and Mrs. Bellamie are quite well. I promise you I will not write to Aubrey again."

CHAPTER XXII
ABOUT THE PINCH

Only well-to-do people, those who have many changes of raiment and can afford to poke the fire expensively, are happy in the winter. For others there are various degrees of the pinch; lack of fuel pinch, want of food pinch, insufficient clothes pinch, or the pinch of desolation and dreariness. To those who dwell in lonely places winter pays no dividends in the way of amusement, and increases the expense of living at the rate of fifty per cent. No wonder they tumble down in adoration when the sun comes. The smutty god of coal, and the greasy deity of oil are served in winter; there is the lesser divinity of peat also. Each brings round a bag and demands a contribution; and those who cannot pay are pinched remorselessly.

Mrs. Bellamie sat in her drawing-room, and the fire burnt expensively, and she spread her fragile feet towards it, without worshipping because it was too common, and around her were luxuries on the top of luxuries; and yet she was being pinched. It was not the horrid little note, rather blurred and blotted, lying upon her lap which was administering the pinch directly, but the thoughts brought on by that note. Mrs. Bellamie was opening her secret drawer and turning out the rubbish. She was thinking of the past which had been almost forgotten until that small voice had come from Dartmoor. She had only to turn to the window to see the snow-capped tors. The small voice was crying there and saying: "I am only eighteen, and I am going to try and make a living by letting lodgings. I promise you I will not write to Aubrey again." Those words were so many crabs, pinching horribly; and at the bottom of the secret drawer was a story, not written, because the drawer was the lady's mind, and the story was about a little girl whose father had fallen on evil days; a very respectable father, and a proud gentleman who would not confess to his friends that his position had become desperate, but his family knew all about it for they had to be hungry, and a very hard winter came, and the coal-god sent his bag round as usual and they had nothing to put into it. The father said he didn't want a fire. It was neither necessary nor healthy. He preferred to sit in his cold damp study with a greatcoat on and a muffler round his neck, and shiver. As long as there was a bit of cold mutton in the house he didn't care, and he talked about his ancestors who had suffered privations on fields where English battles had been won, and declared that people of leisure had got into a disgraceful way of coddling themselves; but he kept on coughing, and the little girl heard him and it made her miserable. At last she decided to wrap her morals up, and put them away in the secret drawer, and forget all about them until the time of adversity was over. There was a big house close by, belonging to wealthy friends of theirs, and it was shut up for the winter. After dark the little girl climbed over the railing, found her way to the coal-shed, took out some big lumps, and threw them one by one into her father's garden. It made her dreadfully dirty, but she didn't care, for she had put on her oldest clothes. The next day her father found a fire burning in his study, and he didn't seem angry. Indeed, when the little girl looked in, to tell him it was cold mutton time, he was sitting close to it as if he had forgotten all about the ancestors who had been frozen upon battlefields. She did the same wicked thing that night, and the night after; and her father lost his cough and became cheerful again. This robbery of the rich went on for some time, until one night the little girl slipped while climbing the railing and cut her knee badly, which kept her in bed for some days, while she heard her father grumbling because he had no fire; but he didn't grumble for long, because fine weather came, and his circumstances improved, and a young gentleman came along and said he wanted to be a robber too, and went off with the little coal-thief. It was all so long ago that Mrs. Bellamie found herself wondering if it had ever happened; but there was still a small mark upon her knee which seemed to suggest that she ought to have known a good deal about the little girl who had stolen coals during the days of the great pinch.

Some of the wintry mist from Dartmoor had got into the room, and had settled between the lady and the fire, which suddenly became blurred and looked like a scarlet waterfall. Part of the origin of the mist tickled her cheek, and she put up her handkerchief to wipe it away; but the voices went on talking. "I am only eighteen, and I am going to try and make a living by letting lodgings," said the voice from the moor. "Mother, I know I'm young, but I shall never change. I love her with my whole heart." That was a voice from the sea. Mrs. Bellamie rose and went to find her husband. She came upon him engrossed upon the characteristics of Byzantine architecture.

"How are you going to answer this?" she said, dropping the note before him like a cold fall of snow.

"Does it require any answer?" he said, looking up with a frown. "She must struggle on. She is one out of millions struggling, and her case is only more painful to us because we know of it. We will help her as much as we can, indirectly."

"I should like to go and see her. I want to have her here for Christmas," said the lady.

"It would be foolish," said Mr. Bellamie. "It would make her unsettled, and more dissatisfied with her lot. She might also get to look upon this house as her home."

"I am miserable about her. I wish I had never kissed her. She has kissed me every day since," said the lady. "She is always on my mind, and now," she went on, glancing at the note, "I think of her alone, absolutely alone, a child of eighteen, in a dreary cottage upon the moor, among those savage people."

"If you had seen that weird old man – " began her husband.

"He is dead, I have seen her, and she haunts me."

Perhaps Mrs. Bellamie would not have been haunted if she had never stolen those coals. Adversity breeds charity, and tenderness is the daughter of Dame Want. Love does not fly out of the window when poverty comes in. Only the imp who masquerades as the true god does that. The son of Venus gets between husband and wife and hugs them tighter to warm himself.

"I am a descendant of Richard Bellamie," said her husband, getting his crest up like a proud cockatoo, "father of Alice, quasi bella et amabilis, who was mother of Bishop Jewel of famous memory. You, my dear, are a daughter of the Courtenays, atavis editi re gibus, and royalty itself can boast of blood no better. Let the whole country become Socialist, the Bellamies and Courtenays will stand aloof."

Mr. Bellamie smiled to himself. There was a classical purity about his utterance which stimulated his system like a glass of rare wine.

"I know," said the lady. "I am referring to my feelings, nothing else." She was still thinking of the coals, and it seemed to her that a certain portion of her knee began to throb.

"When it comes to affairs of the heart, even the Bellamies and Courtenays are Socialists," she said archly.

Mr. Bellamie did not reply directly to that. He loved his wife, and yet he carried her off, when the days of coal-stealing had been accomplished, as much for her name as anything else.

"My dear, let me understand you," he said. "Do you want Aubrey to marry this nameless girl?"

"I don't know myself what I want," came the answer. "I only know it is horrible to think of the poor brave child living alone and unprotected on the moor. Suppose one of those rough men broke into her cottage?"

This was melodrama, which is bad art, and Mr. Bellamie frowned at it, and changed the subject by saying: "She has promised not to write to Aubrey again."

"While he has absolutely refused to give her up," his wife added. "Directly he comes back he will go to her."

"I can't think where Aubrey gets it from," Mr. Bellamie murmured. "The blood is so entirely unpolluted – but no, in the eighteenth century there was an unfortunate incident, Gretna Green and a chambermaid, or something of the kind. Young men were particularly reckless in that century. If it had not been for that incident Aubrey would never have run after this girl."

"I expect he would," she said.

"Then he is tainted. This terrible new democracy has tarred him with its brush," said her husband. "I suppose the end of it will be he will run off with this girl and bring her back married."

"There is not the slightest fear of that. The girl would not consent."

"Not consent!" cried Mr. Bellamie. "Not consent to marry into our family!"

"My dear, there is such a thing as nobility of character, though we don't see much of it, perhaps. I may be allowed to know something of my sex, and I am certain this girl would never marry Aubrey without our consent."

"Why, then, she's a good girl. I'll do all that I can for her if she is like that," said Mr. Bellamie cheerfully.

"What do you suppose she is doing now? Sobbing herself to death," said his wife.

The full-blooded gentleman stirred uneasily. Bad art again. "You are pleading for her, my dear. Most distinctly you are pleading for her. If you are going to side with Aubrey I will give in, of course. I will write to the secretary of the Socialists' League, if there is such a thing, and beg humbly to be enrolled as a member, and I will also state that if the name of Bellamie is too much for them I shall be pleased to adopt that of Tomkins or Jenkins. I cannot permit pride to stand in my way, seeing that my future daughter-in-law has no name at all, unless it is the highly aristocratic one of Smith-Robinson, the father being Smith and the mother Robinson." He spoke with some heat, employing the weapon of cynicism as a perfectly legitimate form of art.

"Surely you do not suggest she is an illegitimate child," said his wife, with some horror.

"I suggest nothing, my dear, because I know nothing. I have heard all sorts of stories about her – probably lies, like those the old man told me. Understand, please, I cannot see the girl," he went on quickly. "I like her. She is bella et amabilis, and if I saw much of her, pity and admiration might make a fool of me. You know me, my dear. I am not heartless, as my words might suggest. I want Aubrey to do well, marry well, rise in his profession. If I went to see the child in her cottage the sight would make me miserable. When I left the old man, after he had choked me with the wildest lot of lies you ever heard, I was sad enough for tears. His heart was so good though his art was so bad. The play upon words was unintentional," he added, with a frown.

Mrs. Bellamie said no more, but the coals continued to trouble her, and at last the fire kindled, and she ordered a carriage and drove up on Dartmoor without telling her husband. It was the week before Christmas, and the road was sprinkled with carts passing up and down filled with good things, and the men who drove them were filled with good things too, which made them desire the centre of the road at any price. The lady's carriage was often kept at a walking pace by these human slugs with their fill of sloe-gin.

Lewside Cottage was found with difficulty, most of the residents appealed to declaring they had never heard of such a place, but the driver found it at last, and brought the carriage up before the little whitewashed house which looked very wet and dreary amid its wintry surroundings. Mrs. Bellamie shivered as she got out and felt the wind with a sharp edge of frost to it. Somebody else was shivering too, but not with cold. Boodles watched from a corner of one of the windows, and when the lady knocked she wanted to go and hide somewhere and pretend she was miles away.

"Perhaps she has come to tell me about old maids for lodgers," she murmured. Then she ran down, opened the door, and straightway became speechless.

"I have come to see you, my dear," said the lady. The fact was obvious enough to need no comment, but when people are embarrassed, and have to say something, idiotic remarks serve as well as anything. Boodles tried to reply that she perceived the visitor standing before her in the flesh; but her tongue seemed to occupy the whole of her mouth, and she could only smile and flush.

Mrs. Bellamie, finding the conversation left to herself, observed that it was exceedingly cold, while poor Boodles was thinking how hot it was. She knew that her note had brought Mrs. Bellamie, and she was dreadfully afraid the lady was going to be charitable; open her purse and give her half-a-sovereign, or call to the driver to bring in a hamper of food, or perhaps of toys, for Boodles was feeling fearfully young and shy. "If she gives me anything I shall stamp and scream," she thought.

"Are you really living here alone?" said Mrs. Bellamie, which was quite as foolish as her other remarks, as she could not possibly have expected to see people of various sizes and complexions tumbling suddenly from the cupboards. "How very dreary it must be for you – dear."

The last word was not intended to escape. It was on the tip of the lady's tongue, and rolled off before she could stop it. "Dear" alone sounds much more tender without any possessive pronoun attached, and the sound of it made Boodles attempt to swallow something that felt like a lump of clay in her throat. She knew she would have to howl if that lump got any higher and reached the tear mark. She felt that if she opened her mouth she would begin to cry. It was such an awful and a pleasant thing to have a visitor, and Aubrey's mother; and she was thinking already how terrible it would be when the visitor went away.

They went into the little sitting-room. Their breath seemed to fill it with cold steam, for there was no fire, which was a bad thing for Mrs. Bellamie, for she thought at once of the past coal-age and the resemblance of that room to her father's study; and just then Boodles began to cough. It was all over with Mrs. Bellamie. Her secret drawer was wide open, and all that she ought to have been ashamed of was revealed. She was listening again at a certain keyhole, feeling the cold current of air upon her ear, and with it the gentle persistent noise of her proud old father coughing because he hadn't got any fire. She was getting on in life, but her spirit was the same. She would have gone then, and climbed a railing, and stolen coal to give the poor girl a fire.

Boodles looked up with a smile, without in the least knowing that her eyes were hungry for a caress. Mrs. Bellamie bent and kissed her, and Boodles promptly wept.

"My poor child, how can you sit here in the cold? Why don't you have a fire?" said the lady, who seemed bent on saying foolish things that day.

"I – I am so glad to see you," sobbed Boodles, obtaining relief and the use of her tongue. "I would have lighted a fire if I had known you were coming. I only use the kitchen and my bedroom."

"Would you like to show me over the cottage?" said the lady, becoming more sensible.

"It won't take long," said Boodles. "I am sorry for crying. This is Thursday, isn't it? I lose track of the days rather, but the baker comes Wednesdays and Saturdays, and he came yesterday, and it isn't Sunday, so it must be Thursday. Well, I hadn't cried since Tuesday. Yesterday was a day off."

"You poor child," murmured Mrs. Bellamie.

"Sometimes I think I ought to keep a record, a sort of rain-gauge," went on Boodles in quite a lively fashion. It was a part of her idea. She was playing her game of "not standing it," and after all she was telling the truth so far. "Monday, three-hundred drops. Tuesday, one-hundred-and-twenty-and-a-half drops. Wednesday, none. Thursday, not over yet. It's like a prescription. I'm all right now, you made me feel funny, as I've never had a civilised visitor before. It is very good of you to come and discover me."

Then she took the lady over the tiny house, from the kitchen to her bedroom, taking pride in the fact that it was all very neat, and apologising for the emptiness of the larder by saying that she was only one small girl, and she was well able to live upon air, especially as the wind of Dartmoor was notoriously fattening.

"Eating is only one of the habits of civilisation," declared Boodles. "So long as you live alone you never get hungry, but directly you go among other people you want to eat. I have often seen two moormen meet on the road. They didn't want anything while they were alone, but so soon as they caught sight of one another they felt thirsty. May I get you a cup of tea?"

"Well, the sight of you has made me thirsty," said Mrs. Bellamie.

Then they laughed together and felt better.

"Look at this basket," said Boodles, pointing to a familiar battered object covered with a scrap of oilcloth. "It belongs to a poor man who is in prison now. I brought him here because the people were hunting him, and the policeman came and took him for stealing some clothes, though I'm sure he was innocent. Aubrey gave him half-a-crown on Goose Fair Day, and perhaps he bought the clothes with that. Can you buy a suit of clothes for half-a-crown? If you can't, I don't know how these men live. I am keeping the basket for the poor thing, and when they let him out I expect he will come for it."

Boodles alluded to Brightly and his basket since they gave her the opportunity of mentioning Aubrey. She wanted to see if the lady would accept the opening, and explain the real object of her visit; but Mrs. Bellamie, who was still respectable, only said that it was rather shocking to think that Boodles had tried to protect a common thief, and then she thought again of the coals, for the theft of which she had never been punished until then. She ought to have been sent to prison too, although she had done much more good than harm in stealing from a wealthy man to give comfort to a poor one. It had made her tender and soft-hearted also. She would never have felt so deeply for Boodles had it not been for that little hiatus of poverty and crime. Rigid honesty has its vices, and some sins have many virtues. Virtues are unpleasant things to carry about in any quantity, like a pocketful of stones; but little sins are cheery companions while they remain little. Mrs. Bellamie was a much better woman for having been once a thief.

"Is that clock right?" asked the lady. "I told the driver to come for me at five."

Boodles said she hadn't the least idea. There were two clocks, and each told a different story, and she had nothing to check them by. She thought it would be past four as it was getting so dark. She lighted the lamp, and the lady noticed the little hands were getting rather red. When the room was filled with light she noticed more; the girl was quite thin, and she coughed a good deal; nearly all the colour had gone out of her face, and there were lines under her eyes, lines that ought never to be seen at eighteen; her mouth often quivered, and she would start at every sound. Then Mrs. Bellamie heard the wind, and she started too.