The Life Of Thomas Wanless, Peasant Part 12

CHAPTER XVIII.

POINTS ONCE MORE TO THE MORAL OF THE POET'S SAYING,--"SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY."

When Wanless crept out a minute or two later, still feeling heart-sore at the Vicar's treatment, he caught sight of that poor wretch through the adjoining door of the private bar, which opened to let some one out as he pa.s.sed by. Codling was standing, and with trembling hand stirring a large tumbler of hot brandy and water.

Wanless stopped involuntarily, and then turning back to the bar he had just left, asked for a gla.s.s of ale. It would give him a pretext for waiting to see what became of the poor parson. In a very short time he heard Codling's voice beyond the part.i.tion ordering another double gla.s.s, and the sound shocked him so much that he put down his gla.s.s of ale half consumed, and, acting on the impulse of the moment, burst in upon the Vicar through the swing door of the compartment, crying, as he did so--

"For G.o.d's sake, don't, Mr. Codling. Leave that, and come away with me.

It's a shame to see a minister of the Gospel drowning his grief in liquor. Come away at once." And he again laid hold of Codling's arm.

The drink he had already swallowed had raised the Vicar's courage, and he turned on Wanless with a look of scornful bitterness that boded a storm. But Wanless was also wrought to a high pitch, and there was a commanding sternness in his eye that served to cow the drunkard, whose wrath seemed to die within him. He looked hesitatingly around, and at sight of some bystanders grinning, a flush of shame spread over his face.

"For shame, I say," Wanless continued in a low tone, paying as little heed to the angry looks as he had done to the former taunts. "Will you stand here besotting yourself, and allow your child to be flung into a pauper's grave?"

"What business is that of yours?" the Vicar replied sullenly, but in a low voice. "Mind your own paupers, and let me and my affairs alone."

"That I will not--cannot do--Mr. Codling," Wanless answered. "Consider, sir, she was your child. You fondled her on your knee but the other day, and were proud to hear her lisp the name of father. Come away, sir, for G.o.d's sake, the body may be gone if we waste more time here;" and giving the Vicar no further chance to remonstrate, Thomas seized his arm, and dragged him out of the place away to the deadhouse.

They were indeed barely in time. Some men were about to nail up the remains of Adelaide in the rough sh.e.l.l where it lay, whether preparatory to burial, or in order to convey it to some hospital dissecting room, I would not venture to say. At any rate, a small bribe made them desist, and one of them even directed the Vicar to find an undertaker if he wished to give his child Christian burial in other than a pauper's trench.

The sight of his daughter's body, when the lid of the case was removed, and the Vicar saw it again, moved him more than it had done at first.

The men withdrew, and Thomas and he were left alone with it. Adelaide's features had settled down to the calm stillness of death, and wore a faint semblance of a smile. Sweet and pure she looked, in spite of the soiled garments and tangled hair; but the figure indicated only too clearly what had sent her to a watery grave. She had been about to become a mother.

As he looked old memories rose in the Vicar's imagination, and tears gathered in his dull, sodden eyes. He stooped tremulously and kissed the cold brow. "Poor Addy, poor Addy," he murmured, "to think that you should have come to this," and he sobbed outright--weeping like a child.

Like a child too, when the pa.s.sion was over, he surrendered himself to the guidance of Wanless, without further resistance, who hurried him off to the undertaker. He would like, he said, to have _her_ buried that evening; but that the people said they could not manage; so it was at last arranged to take her to Highgate Cemetery next morning. Thomas had then to find a place where the Vicar could pa.s.s the night, for the old man had intended to go home that evening, and ultimately he deposited him at the Tavistock Hotel.

"Will you have something to drink before you go?" said the Vicar, when he had arranged for his bedroom, evidently wanting a pretext for drinking himself, but Thomas said "No," and went away to eat a frugal supper in a humble coffee-shop in Drury Lane.

They buried Adelaide next morning, Thomas again, though with difficulty, obtaining leave of absence. As soon as he saw Codling, Thomas knew that he had been drinking hard the previous night. The poor man's hands shook as with the palsy, his step was unsteady, his eye dull and bloodshot. A low fever seemed to consume him; yet he obviously felt keenly that morning the errand he and the labourer were upon, and though he hardly spoke a word all the way to the grave, he no longer looked at his companion with sullen anger. Rather he seemed to cling to Thomas as a woman clings to her natural protector. And when the earth fell on the coffin lid as the last words of the solemn burial service of the Church of England were uttered--solemn even when gabbled over by the unhappy creatures who have to repeat it every day, and all day long--he broke down again, sobbing and weeping like a child. They waited till the last sod had been placed over the lost Adelaide, and ere he went away the Vicar knelt on the damp earth, praying and weeping bitterly. Then he rose and stretched out his hand to Wanless, whose cheeks were also wet with tears, as if seeking one to lead him. Thomas grasped it, and pressed it, with "G.o.d bless and have mercy on you, sir, and on her as lies here."

"Ah! Thomas"--it was the first time the Vicar had called him kindly as of old by his Christian name--"ah! Thomas, my friend, and may G.o.d bless you for what you have done this day. But for you I would have deserted my child in death, as I did in life. G.o.d forgive me for it."

These words seemed to open his heart, so that he talked to Wanless, all the way back to town, in an eager way, like one who had a confession to make, and could taste no peace till it was done. A sad history enough it was of domestic bitterness, of an enfeebled will, knowing what was right, and doing it not. His impulse was to seek his daughter, just as Thomas's had been, but Mrs. Codling would not hear of it. Her pride did not even allow her to admit that the girl had gone away after her betrayer. She talked of a visit to a relative at a distance, who was her own step-sister, and of Adelaide herself being ill in Kent, poor thing--not in any danger, but not strong enough to return yet--with many lies of a like kind, which the Vicar was weak enough to endorse by his silence.

Wanless also spoke of his quest and his sorrow, and the Vicar listened with sympathy; but when the peasant ventured to urge that it was his duty to denounce, and expose the ravenous wolf, who had destroyed the peace of so many families, Codling shook his head and answered--"No, no, Thomas, I cannot; I dare not. It is too late."

"Why too late, sir? Are you not a minister of Christ, and bound by the office you hold to denounce the sinner and his sin?"

The Vicar shuddered, and sat still for more than a minute without answering. Then he bent forward and took Thomas's hand--they sat on opposite sides of the cab.

"Thomas," he said sadly, "you remember that day of the row in my garden, between you and--and that fiend in human shape. You called me a poor tippling creature that day, and it was true."

"No, no, and I was very sorry," Wanless began--

"Yes, but it was," the Vicar interrupted, "I hated you for exposing me thus; but I felt and knew it was true. I am not a drunkard, Thomas, as the world measures drunkenness, but I tipple. I keep myself alive by stimulants, and bury thus my hopes and aspirations of other days. And I feel that I can do nothing. Who would listen to me or heed my words? Men would say I spoke from spite, and perhaps some even might aver that I was myself the cause of my daughter's ruin. Which also," he added, in a reflective kind of way, "which also might be true. No, no, Thomas, I must bear my burden. My--oh, my daughter, my child, my pet, when I think of you and the past, I have no hope--I can do nothing but tipple."

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Wanless; but the Vicar relapsed into silence.

All the rest of the way to Paddington, to which he had ordered himself to be driven, he lay back in the corner of the cab, silent, with his eyes closed; but Thomas could see him ever and anon furtively wipe away the tears from his cheeks.

At Paddington, the two men, now friends again, after so many years of divergent ways and worldly fortunes, bade each other a sad farewell.

Thomas went back to his coals, and the Vicar went home to his wife and his gin and water. Yet he was not quite as he had been before. More than he himself thought the death of his once loved child stirred the human soul in him, and he was not able again to fall back into sottishness. Though he bore his domestic woes silently, and still drank to dull the gnawing at his heart, he became more tender towards the poor among his flock, more attentive to their wants, more accessible, and softer in manner towards all men. He even preached with sad pathos that woke responsive sympathy in the hearts of his flock, though he did not denounce the ravisher.

But the best proof of all that he had changed much for the better, is found in his conduct to Mrs. Wanless. The memory of the help and sympathy he had received from the old, despised labourer in London, lay warm in his heart, and found frequent expression in visits to the labourer's wife while she was alone, or to both husband and wife, when Wanless came back. The very day after he returned from London, he called and told Mrs. Wanless that he had seen her husband, and that he was well. He made no allusion to other matters, but he patted the head of Sally's child, and sighed as he went away. Perhaps the kindly warmth with which these simple people always greeted him, helped to soothe his later years. In giving he received more than he gave.

In the village the end of his daughter was never rightly known. Wiseman naturally never breathed a word. Rarely was his face seen in Ashbrook, and never in the church while the old Vicar lived. Mrs. Codling gave out that the poor child had been suddenly cut off by fever, and went the length of donning mourning, bemoaning the loss to her friends, braving the scorn of all true hearts, and vainly imagining she was believed, But the people guessed that Adelaide had not died so, and they suspected that Wiseman was at the bottom of her disappearance, though the story of her having committed suicide never got general credence in the village--was only a faint rumour there. So all pitied the poor Vicar, despised his uppish, false-hearted wife, and most hated the young squire. Riches and high station cannot shut men out from the moral results of their deeds, any more than they can ward off death. Nay, Mrs.

Codling herself, high as she held her head, well as she acted the part of a sorrowing mother who had been heart-broken by the unexpected news of her dear daughter's sudden death, so prostrated as to be unable to go and see her laid in her grave--even Mrs. Codling felt in some sense that this was true. She grew harder in her ways, and more and more haggard in her looks, like one even at war with herself, and ever losing in the fight--till within three years G.o.d took her, and she knew her folly.

CHAPTER XIX.

OPENS TO THE INWARD EYE THE CHASTENED JOY THAT GLOWS, WHEN THE LOST ONE IS FOUND, IN THE SOUL OF HIM "WHOSE GRIEF WAS CALM, WHOSE HOPE WAS DEAD."

A great additional strain had been put upon the spirit of Thomas Wanless, by the death of Adelaide Codling, and he was becoming too weak in body to hold to his purpose. There were nights when he returned to his lonely lodging wishing that he might die, so great was his physical and mental exhaustion. At other times he felt an impulse strong upon him to go home--to "abandon his search for a time," as his inward tempter whispered. But his will was strong, if strength of body or hope might be weak, and he only prayed the more and clung the more to his purpose, the more he felt tempted to turn aside. "How could I face her mother again,"

he would answer himself, "if I had not found her."

In this conflict of mind, though not of purpose, another month rolled by, and Thomas was threatened with want of work. Fewer men were required in the coal yards as summer came on, and already several had been discharged. It was a dreary prospect enough, but what made it more so to Thomas, were the unbidden flashes of almost gladness that rose in his breast now and then, as the voice of the tempter then said--"Thomas, you will be forced to go home." He felt himself a traitor, and inexpressibly wicked at such moments, and would clench his hand and mutter--"Not yet anyhow, not yet," as he strode mechanically through the streets.

At last he found her. "When hope was calm, and grief was dead" almost, he lighted on his lost child unexpectedly, in a place where he would never have dreamed of looking for her, had it not been for the friendly advice of the police.

All over London there are coffee-houses, tobacco-shops, and confectioner-looking shops, whose real use is to be haunts of vice.

Thomas had learned to know this, and his eye was always upon such as he wandered through the streets. Perchance he might see his Sally in one of them some night. He was crawling rather than walking along one of the dingy lanes behind Leicester Square one evening, about eleven o'clock, when, through the open door of a low eating-house, he heard the voice of a woman singing. His heart gave a leap within him. Surely that was Sally's voice. She had been a great singer in her girlhood, and the song he heard the notes of had once been a great favourite with her. What was it, think you? None other than that sweet sentimental ditty, "Be kind to the loved ones at home." Strange melody to be heard in such a place.

The leap of hope in Thomas's heart was followed by a thrill of anguish as he drew near to listen, more a.s.sured each moment that here, indeed, he had found his daughter. And was she thinking of home then--here, at the gate of h.e.l.l. He would go and see. No one was in the outer shop, and the door of the back room stood ajar, so that Thomas walked straight through unchallenged. Pushing open the half-closed inner door, he paused in amazement at the scene disclosed to him. There might have been a score of people in that low-roofed, dingy, smoke-filled room--men and women seated at small tables, and on one or two dilapidated benches against the wall, some were busy eating, all had drink before them--ale, spirits, and even wine--stuff labelled "champagne." Through the haze of tobacco smoke, he saw several of the women with cigarettes in their mouths. All had a reckless, more or less debauched air, and the women in particular struck Thomas--a transitory flash though his glance was--as wearing a look of defiance towards all that the world deemed propriety.

Men had women on their knees, or sat on the knees of women, and none seemed to heed the song. One poor outcast woman lay huddled up on the floor by the fire, too drunk to sit, but not too drunk to blaspheme. No one heeded her either.

All these things Thomas saw in the first moment of vision, but he hardly noted them then. His thoughts and his eyes were for his lost child alone. The song did not stop at his entrance, for the singer's face was not towards the door. So the voice guided his eye and--yes, it was she.

There she sat in the middle of the room, nearer the fire than a youthful debauchee who sat by her with his arm round her waist. Thomas gazed a moment, and then his whole soul went out in a cry--

"Sally, Sally, oh my pet, my child, I've found you at last," and he advanced towards her, holding out his hands.

The song died instantly, but in its place rose a Babel of tongues.

Thomas's cry drew all eyes upon him. Involuntarily some of the less hardened a.s.sumed airs of propriety, but the majority of the men started in anger, and a few of the women began to laugh and jeer.

"d.a.m.n your impudence, what do you want here?" shouted a copper-faced little wretch, who had been lying half asleep in a woman's lap near the door.

"Get out of this," roared another, and as Thomas made no sign the abuse grew general. The wits of the party cracked jokes over the "heavy father doing the pathetic business," and so on, but amid the din the peasant got close to the table, where his child sat. The instant his call reached her ears, Sally turned a terror-struck gaze upon him, and then buried her face in her hands. He could see she wept, for the sobs shook her, but to his further entreaty to come away she made no response, and he was trying to pull the table aside so as to reach her, when he was roughly seized by the brothel keeper, who had rushed up from the kitchen to see what the noise was about. With an oath he pulled Thomas back.

"What the devil do you want here?" he screeched. "Clear out, or d--n you, I'll give you in custody." The peasant's garb and appearance had enabled the experienced scoundrel to guess at once what was up.

Thomas turned sharp on his a.s.sailant, who was a fat, flabby-looking wretch, whose face indicated a vicious career in every line and pimple.

At the moment it was lit up by an expression of elfish rage. But when in his turn the peasant seized him with a grip of iron and flung him away as if he had been a street cur barking at his heels, the man's face grew nearly pale with an expression of mingled wrath and fear. The fear kept him near the door, where he stood yelling for help, calling on "Jim" to come and turn this intruder out, volleying oaths and blasphemies, and finally beseeching the intruder not to ruin him, but taking good care all the while not to summon the police.

"Jim" came at last--the "waiter" or bully of the place. He was of stronger build than his master, and at once grabbed Thomas by the collar, purposing to turn him out. But Thomas was endowed with heroic strength in that hour, and three such men would not have driven him from the place. Wrenching himself round, he took his new a.s.sailant by the throat, and dashed him back against his master with such force that they both rolled over in the narrow doorway. This feat tickled the company immensely, and they fell to clattering with pewter pots and gla.s.ses, and to shouting in derision as encouragement.

Probably Thomas in the end might have been badly beaten by the fiends among whom he had fallen, but from that his daughter saved him. Roused, perhaps, at the sight of the unholy hands laid upon her father, and sickened by the foul jibes of men and women around her, she sprang to her feet, and, pushing round the end of the table where she sat, rushed between the combatants, and flung herself on her father's bosom, in a pa.s.sion of weeping.