A Dog with a Bad Name Part 58

"No; you know where a letter would find me."

"Well, will you call again--say this day week?"

"Yes; to see you alone."

Thus the unsatisfactory interview ended.

Mr Wilkins was a man of honour, and felt he had no right to insist on Jeffreys opening communications with the colonel; still less had he the right as he might easily have done, to track his footsteps and discover his hiding-place.

Jeffreys, alive to a sense of insecurity, evidently expected the possibility of some such friendly ruse, for he returned to his work by a long and circuitous course which would have baffled even the cleverest of detectives. He seriously debated with himself that night the desirability of vacating his garret at Storr Alley and seeking lodgings somewhere else. His old life seemed hemming him in; and like the wary hare, he felt the inclination to double on his pursuers and give them the slip.

For, rightly or wrongly, he had convinced himself that the one calamity to be dreaded was his recapture by the friends in whose house his bad name had played him so evil a revenge.

Yet how could he leave Storr Alley? Had he not ties there?

Was it not worth worlds to him to hear now and then, on his return at night, some sc.r.a.p of news of the ministering angel whose visits cheered the place in his absence? He shrank more than ever from a chance meeting; but was it not a pardonable self-indulgence to stay where he could hear and even speak of her?

Nor was that his only tie now.

Mrs Pratt, in the room below, had never recovered yet from the illness that had prostrated her at little Annie's death; and night by night Jeffreys had carried the two babies to his own attic in order to give her the rest she needed, and watch over them in their hours of cold and restlessness.

He became an expert nurse. He washed and dressed those two small brethren--the eldest of whom was barely three--as deftly and gently as if he had been trained to the work. And he manipulated their frugal meals, and stowed them away in his bed, with all the art of a practised nurse. How could he desert them now? How indeed? That very night, as he sat writing, with the little pair sleeping fitfully on the bed, a head was put in at the door, and a voice said in a whisper, "Poor Mrs Pratt's gone, John."

"What," he said, "is she dead?"

"Yes--all of a sudden--the 'art done it--I know'd she was weak there.

Poor dear--and her husband such a bad 'un too, and they do say she was be'ind with her rent."

So the woman chattered on, and when at last she went, Jeffreys glanced at his two unconscious charges and went on writing. No, he could not leave Storr Alley.

In the morning, as usual, he performed their little toilets, and announced to the elder that his mother was gone away, and they might stay upstairs. Whereat the little orphan was merry, and executed a caper on the bare floor.

A fresh dilemma faced the newly made father. He must work if he and his family were to eat. The thirty shillings he had earned last week could not last for ever. Indeed, the neighbours all seemed to take it for granted he would see to Mrs Pratt's burial; and how could he do otherwise? That meant a decided pull on his small resources. For a day or two he might live on his capital, and after that--

He put off that uncomfortable speculation. The baby began loudly to demand its morning meal; and the three-year-old, having run through its mirth, began to whimper for its mother. Altogether Jeffreys had a busy time of it.

So busy that when, about mid-day, Tim, who had been perched upon a box at the window to amuse himself at the peril of his neck by looking out into the court below, suddenly exclaimed--"There she is!" he bounded from his seat like one electrified, and for the first time realised that _she_ might come and find him!

There was barely a chance of escape. She had already entered the house; and he became aware of the little flutter which usually pervaded the crowded tenement when she set foot in it. She had many families to visit, and each grudged her to the next. The women had yards of trouble to unroll to her sympathy; and the children besieged her for stories and songs. The sick lifted their heads as they heard her foot on the steps; and even the depraved and vicious and idle set their doors ajar to get a glimpse of her as she pa.s.sed.

What could he do? Wait and face her, and perhaps meet her look of scorn, or worse still, of forgiveness? or hide from her? He debated the question till he heard her enter the chamber of death below.

Then there came over him a vision of her as he had last seen her that October afternoon with Scarfe in Regent's Park. With a groan he gathered together his papers, and bidding Tim mind the baby till he returned, seized his hat and hurried from the room. On the dark, narrow staircase he brushed against a dress which he knew must be hers. For a moment he was tempted to pause, if only for a look at her face; but she pa.s.sed on, and was gone before he could turn.

He went out miserably into the street, and waited within view of the entrance to the alley till she should come out. She was long before she appeared--he guessed how those two friendless little orphans would detain her. When she came her veil was down, and in the crowd on the pavement he lost sight of her in a moment. Yet he knew her, and all his resolution once more wavered, as he reflected that he was still within reach of her voice and her smile.

He returned anxiously to the attic. The baby lay asleep on the bed, and Tim, perched on his window seat, was crooning over a little doll.

There was a flower on the table; the scanty furniture of the room had been set in order, and his quick eye even noticed that a rent in Tim's frock which had caused him some concern in the morning had been neatly mended.

Tim came and put the little doll into his hands.

"She gave it me. Will she soon come again?" said the child.

"Yes; she's sure to come again."

"You ran away; you was afraid. I wasn't."

In a strange turmoil of emotions Jeffreys resumed his writing. The flower in the cup beside him was only a half-withered aster, yet it seemed to him to perfume the room.

After dark the neighbour put her head into the room.

"Then you didn't see the lady?" said she.

"No; I was out."

"It's a pity. She's a angel, John. The way she sat with them poor childer would do you good to see. I told 'er you 'ad took them, and, bless you, 'er eyes filled with tears to think of a man doing it when you might let them go to the work'us. Not that I wouldn't do it, John, if I 'adn't six of my own and the mangle and not room to turn round.

And Mrs Parkes was a-saying the childer would be welcome in 'er room, only the smells is that bad in 'er corner that there's no living in it except for seasoned bodies. There's my Polly, you know, John, is eight, and she would look after them now and again, when you're busy. She's a good child, is Polly, and can write on a slate beautiful."

Jeffreys thanked her, and promised to come to an arrangement with Polly, and went on with his work.

In due time the claims of hunger created a diversion, and he and his infants--one on each knee--partook of a comfortable repast of bread and milk.

He had hard work to induce the baby, after it was over, to resume his slumbers. That young gentleman evidently had a vivid recollection of some one having walked about with him and sung him to sleep in the middle of the day, and he resented now being unceremoniously laid on his back and expected to slumber without persuasion.

Jeffreys had to take him up finally and pace the room for an hour, and about ten o'clock sat down to his interrupted work. Till midnight he laboured on; then, cold and wearied, he put out his little candle and lay himself beside the children on the bed.

He had scarcely done so when he became aware of a glare at the window, which brought him to his feet in an instant. It was a fire somewhere.

His first panic that it might be in the house was quickly relieved. It was not even in Storr Alley, but in one of the courts adjoining. He looked down from his window. The alley was silent and empty. No one there, evidently, had yet had an alarm.

Quickly putting on his boots, he hurried down, and made his way in the direction of the flames. From below they were still scarcely visible, and he concluded that the fire, wherever it was, must have broken out in a top storey. Driver's Court, which backed onto Storr Alley, with which it was connected at the far end by a narrow pa.s.sage, was an unknown land to Jeffreys. The Jews in Storr's had no dealings with the Samaritans in Driver's; for Storr Alley, poor as it might be, prided itself on being decent and hard-working, whereas Driver's--you should have heard the stories told about it. It was a regular thieves' college. A stranger who chanced into Driver's with a watch-chain upon him, or a c.h.i.n.k of money in his pocket, or even a good coat on his back, might as soon think of coming out by the way he had entered as of flying. There were ugly stories of murders and mysteries under those dark staircases, and even the police drew the line at Driver's Court, and gave it the go-by.

Jeffreys had nothing to apprehend as he rushed down the pa.s.sage. He had neither watch, chain, nor money, nor good coat. His footsteps echoing noisily in the midnight silence brought a few heads to their windows, and almost before he stood in the court there was the cry of "Fire!"

Terrible anywhere, such a cry in a court like Driver's was terrible indeed. In a moment the narrow pavement swarmed with people, shouting, cursing, and screaming. Although even yet the flames scarcely appeared from below, a panic set in which it was hopeless either to remove or control. Chairs, tables, mattresses were flung, it seemed at random, from the windows. Mothers, not venturing out on the stairs, cried down to those below to catch their children. Drunken men, suddenly roused, reeled fighting and blaspheming into the court. Thieves plied their trade even on their panic-stricken neighbours, and fell to blows over the plunder. Still more terrible was the cry to others who remained within.

Children, huddled into corners, heard that cry, and it glued them where they stood. The sick and the crippled heard it, and made one last effort to rise and escape. Even the aged and bedridden, deserted by all, when they heard it, lay shouting for some one to help.

The flames, pent-up at first and reddening the sky sullenly through the smoke, suddenly freed themselves and shot up in a wild sheet above the court. The crowd below answered the outburst with a hideous chorus of shrieks and yells, and surged madly towards the doomed house.

There was no gleam of pity or devotion in those lurid, upturned faces.

To many of them it was a show, a spectacle; to others a terrible nightmare, to others a cruel freak of Providence, calling forth curses.

The flames, spreading downwards, had already reached the second floor, when a window suddenly opened; and a woman with wild dishevelled hair, put out her head and screamed wildly.

The crowd caught sight of her, and answered with something like a jeer.

"It's Black Sal," some one shouted; "she's kotched it at last."