Sue, A Little Heroine Part 13

The next day was Sunday, and if it had not been for Big Ben the two poor children would have had a most miserable time, for they were shut up in Mrs. Warren's room from morning till night. In vain they begged to be allowed to go out. Mrs. Warren said "No," and in so emphatic a manner that they did not dare to ask her twice.

Agnes did not come at all to the house on Sunday, and Connie and Ronald finally curled themselves up in the deep window-ledge, and Connie talked and told Ronald all about her past life. In particular she told him about Big Ben, and little Giles, and the wonderful, most wonderful "Woice." After that the children had a sort of play together, in which Ronald proved himself to be a most imaginative little person, for he invented many fresh stories with regard to Big Ben, a.s.suring Connie that he was much more than a voice. He would not be at all surprised, he said if Big Ben was not a great angel who came straight down from heaven every hour to comfort the sorrowful people in Westminster. Ronald thought it extremely likely that this wonderful angel knew his own mother, and was on this special Sunday telling him to be a brave boy and keep up his heart, for most certainly he would be safe back with his father before another Sunday came.

"That's what he says," continued Ronald, "and that's what'll happen, you'll see, Connie. And when darling father comes here you shall come away too, for I won't leave you alone with Mammy Warren. She's not a real kind person, is she, Connie?"

"Don't ax me," said Connie. Ronald looked up into her face.

"You can't tell a lie at all well," he said. "You're trying to make me think that Mammy Warren's nice, but you're not doing it well, for I don't believe you."

Then the big clock once again tolled the hour, and Ronald laughed with glee.

"There's no doubt about it now," he said. "Father _is_ coming, and very, very soon. Oh I am glad, and happy!"

During that Sunday the children had very little food, for Mrs. Warren seemed all of a sudden to have changed her tactics. Whether it was the fact that she was really angry at Mrs. Cricket's having fed the boy on chicken and mutton-chops, no one could tell; but all he did have on that eventful Sunday was weak tea, stale bread and b.u.t.ter, and a very little jam.

Towards evening the two poor little creatures were really hungry.

By-and-by they clasped each other round the neck, and fell asleep in each other's arms. It was in this condition--curled up near the fire--that Mrs. Warren found them when she got home.

CHAPTER XI.

A NEW DEPARTURE.

With Monday morning, however, all things seemed to have altered. Mrs.

Warren was up spry and early. She called Connie to come and help her, but she desired Ronald to lie in bed.

"It's a nasty day," she said; "there's sleet falling. We'll go out, of course, for fresh air is good for children, but we must none of us wear our best clothes."

"What do yer mean by that?" said Connie.

"Don't you go and ax me wot I mean; just do wot I tells yer. No dark-blue dress for yer to-day, missy. I ha' got a old gownd as 'ull fit yer fine."

Poor Connie trembled. Mrs. Warren went into her bedroom.

"'Ere, now," she said, "you put it on."

The old gown was certainly not at all nice. Its color was quite indescribable. It was very ragged and torn, too, round the bottom of the skirt. It dragged down in front so as almost to trip poor Connie when she tried to walk, and was several inches too short in the back.

Mrs. Warren desired Connie to take off her dainty shoes and stockings, and gave her some stockings with holes in them, and some very disreputable shoes down at the heel. She made her pin across her chest a little old shawl of an ugly pale pattern, and instead of allowing her to wear her hair in a golden fleece down her back, she plaited it, and tied it into a little bunch at the back of her head. She then put an old bonnet on the child's head--a bonnet which must have once belonged to quite an elderly woman--and tied it with strings in front. Connie felt terribly ashamed of herself.

"I'm all in rags," she said, "jest as though I wor a beggar maid."

"I've a fancy that yer shall wear these 'ere clothes to-day," said Mrs.

Warren. "Yer've been a fine lydy too long; yer'll be a beggar maid to-day. W'en I tell yer wot to do in the street, yer'll do it. You can sing, I take it. Now then, you learn the words."

Mrs. Warren planted down before Connie the well-known words of "Home, Sweet Home."

"I know this without learning it," said the girl.

"An' you 'as a good woice, I take it."

"Middlin'," replied Connie.

"Wull, sing it for me now."

Connie struck up the familiar words, and so frightened was she that in real desperation she acquitted herself fairly well.

"You'll take a treble, an' the little boy 'ull do likewise, and I'll take a fine, deep second. Ah! _I_ know 'ow to sing," said Mrs. Warren.

"You won't take little Ronald out on a dreadful sort o' day like this,"

said Connie.

"Wen I want yer adwice I'll ax fur it," said Mrs. Warren, with most withering sarcasm.

Poor Connie felt her heart suddenly fit to burst. What new and dreadful departure was this? Mrs. Warren now brought Ronald into the front room, and there she arrayed him in garments of the poorest type, allowing his little thin legs to be quite bare, and his very thin arms to show through his ragged jacket. She posed, however, a little red cap on the midst of his curly dark hair; and this cap most wonderfully became the child, so that few people could pa.s.s him in the street without noticing the sweetness of his angelic face. Then Mrs. Warren prepared herself for the part she was to take. She went into her bedroom for the purpose, and returned looking so exactly like a stout old beggar woman that the children would scarcely have known her. She had covered her left eye with a patch, and now only looked out on the world with her right one.

Her hair was knotted untidily under a frowsy old bonnet, and a very thin shawl was bound across her ample breast.

"We'll do fine, I take it," she said to the children. "I am your mother, my dears; you'll both 'old me by the 'and. Purtier little lambs couldn't be seen than the two of yez. And ef poor, ugly Mammy Warren 'ave made herself still uglier for yer sweet sakes, 'oo can but love 'er for the enn.o.blin' deed? Wull, come along now, children; but first I'll build up the fire, for we'll be 'ungry arter this 'ere job."

The fire was built up to Mrs. Warren's satisfaction, and the three went downstairs. Ronald was quite speechless with shame--to go out like this, to disgrace his brave father and his darling mother in this sort of fashion, was pure torture to the boy; but Connie, in the thought of him and the fear that he would take cold, almost forgot her own misery.

The three did not go anywhere by 'bus that day, but hurried down side alleys and back streets until they got into the region of Piccadilly.

The children had not the least idea where they were. Suddenly, however, they came to a pause outside a large hotel, and there Mrs. Warren struck up the first note of "Home, Sweet Home."

She had timed everything well. The policeman was at the other end of his beat, and she would not be molested for quite ten minutes. The quavering, ugly notes of the old woman were well subdued, and Connie had a really fine voice, and it rose high on the bitter air in sweet, childish appeal and confidence. Ronald, too, was struck with a sudden thought. That hotel was a sort of place where father used to live when he was alive. Who could tell if his father himself might not have returned, and might not be there, and might not hear him if he sang loud enough and sweet enough?

The voice of the boy and the voice of the girl blended together, and Mrs. Warren skilfully dropped hers so as not to spoil the harmony. The people in the hotel were attracted by the sweet notes, and crowded to the windows. Then Connie's face of purest beauty--Connie's face rendered all the more pathetic by the old bonnet and the dreadful, tattered dress--and Ronald with his head thrown back, his red cap held in his hand, the white snow falling in flakes on his rich dark hair, made between them a picture which would melt the hardest heart. Sixpences and even shillings were showered from the windows, and as the last note of "Home, Sweet Home" died away Mrs. Warren pocketed quite a considerable harvest.

She and the children then moved on and did likewise before several other large buildings, but they were not so successful again as they had been with their first attempt. The police came back sooner than they were expected. Ronald began to cough, too, and Connie's face looked blue with cold. Mrs. Warren, however, was not disappointed. She spoke encouragingly and protectingly to the children.

"Come 'ome, loveys," she said; "come 'ome, my little dears."

They did get home--or, rather, they got back to the dreadful house where they were imprisoned--late in the afternoon, Ronald almost speechless with cold and fatigue, Connie trembling also, and aching in every limb.

But now unwonted comforts awaited them. Mrs. Warren had no idea of killing off these sources of wealth. She put Ronald into a hot bath, and rubbed his limbs until they glowed, and then moved his little bed in front of the fire and got him into it. Connie was also rubbed and dried and desired to dispense with her beggar's toilet.

Afterwards there was quite a good dinner of roast pork with crackling and apple sauce, and dreadful as their position was, both the poor children enjoyed this meal as they had never enjoyed food before.

Thus a few days went by, the children going out every morning with Mrs.

Warren sometimes as beggar children, but sometimes again as children of the well-to-do. These two programmes formed the most interesting part of their little lives. For the rest of the day they sat huddled up together, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, while each day a bigger and bigger ache came into Ronald's heart. Why, oh why did not his father come to fetch him?

But as all things come to an end, so the children's life in Mrs.

Warren's dreadful attics came to an abrupt conclusion.

One day, just as they were dressed to go out, there came a hurried knock at the door. It seemed to Connie, who was very sharp and observant, that Mrs. Warren did not much like the sound. She went to the door and, before opening it, called out, "Who's there?"