Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

Even Bill Jarker ceased waving his handkerchief, took his short, black pipe from his mouth, and listened; the curate thought of days when, with a soft white hand in his, he had wandered over the downs, listening to those ever-sweet English notes; while from the window above was stretched forth the fair, shapely head of Lucy Grey, her eyes sparkling, and lips apart, as if to command silence; and then, as the curate looked up, there was a slight start, a faint flush of colour in the girl’s pale cheeks, and her head was quickly withdrawn.

A tall, slight, careworn man was the curate of Saint Magdalen’s; hair sprinkled with grey, deep lines crossing his brow, and yet there was a smile of ineffable sweetness lingering about his mouth – a smile which, far from telling of weakness, whispered of sorrow, tenderness, patience, and charity.

The few minutes of tranquillity had passed. The door of the house stood open – as, in fact, did that of every other house in the thickly-inhabited court; the children began to troop back, Bill Jarker took to his pipe and pigeon-flying, and with thoughts trembling between the ideal and the real, the curate entered the door before him.

It was not a Saturday, or he would have found the ascent of the stairs troublesome; but he well knew the manners and customs of the natives, and abstained from making his visits on that day of the week, for on Saturdays there was a rule carried out (one set in force by the landlady), that the attics cleaned down to the second-floor, the second-floor to the first, the first-floor to the passage, which last portion fell to the lot of the occupants of the parlours, front and back – two families who took it in turns to make the dirt upon the said passage wet, and then to smear it from side to side with a flannel, so that the boards always wore the aspect of having been newly hearthstoned with a lump of brown clay, if the simile will stand. Consequently, upon this seventh day of the week, when the lodgers were busy, and Mrs Sims could be heard sniffing as she “did Hardons’ bit,” the journey upwards was dangerous, for if the traveller avoided the snares and pitfalls formed by divers pails and brown pans, or even, maybe, a half-gallon can from the public at the corner if the pail was engaged; if he saved himself from slipping on the sloping, wet boards, and fell over no kneeling scrubber in a dark corner, he most certainly heard low-muttered abuse heaped upon his head for “trapesing” over the newly-cleaned stairs – abuse direct or indirect, according to the quality of the traveller.

Not, then, being a Saturday, Mr Sterne entered the house known as Number 7 – by tradition only, for the brass number, after being spun round by one pin for some months, suddenly disappeared – passed along to the worn stairs, two flights of which he ascended, creaking and cracking the while beneath his weight, and every one sloping, so that it seemed hanging to the wall to save itself from falling. He paused for an instant upon the landing opposite Septimus Hardon’s rooms, and listened to the rapid beating “click-click” of Lucy’s sewing-machine; then up two more flights; and again, without pause, up two more, which groaned with weakness and old age; while sunken door-frames, doors that would not shut, and various other indications, told of the insecure condition of the house. And now once more he paused upon the top landing, where some domestic spider had spun a web of string, stretching it from rusty nail to rusty nail, for the purpose of drying clothes – garments now, fortunately for the visitor, absent.

Here fell upon the ear the twitterings of many birds, and the curate’s face again lighted up as the song of the lark once more rang out loud and clear, apparently from outside the window of the attic before whose door he stood. But his reverie was interrupted by a sharp shrill voice, which he could hear at intervals giving orders in a quick angry tone. Then followed the lashing of a whip, a loud yelp, or the occasional rapid beat of a dog’s tail upon the floor. At last, turning the handle of the rickety door, the visitor entered.

“En avant! Halte là! Ah-h-h! bête! O, ’tis monsieur,” were the words which greeted Mr Sterne as he entered the sloping-roofed attic, one side of which was almost entirely window – old lead-framed lattice, mended in every conceivable way with pasted paper and book-covers; and there, in the middle of the worn floor, stood the thin, sharp-faced woman of the cellar, holding in one hand a whip, in the other a hoop; while two half-shaven French poodle-dogs crouched at her feet. Seated by the open window surrounded by birdcages, conspicuous among which was that of the lark whose notes enlivened the court, was a sallow, dark-haired, dark-eyed youth, eager-looking and well-featured, but sadly deformed, for his head seemed to rest upon his shoulders, and the leg twisted round the crutch which leaned against his chair was miserably attenuated.

“Bon jour! How are the pupils, Madame la Mère?” said the curate, taking a broken chair and seating himself.

“Bête, bête, bête!” hissed the woman, making feigned cuts with her little whip at the crouching dogs, which yelped miserably as they shrunk closer to the boards. “Ah, what you deserve!” she said.

“And how are the birds, Jean?” continued the visitor, addressing the young man, who was looking at him half-askance. “Your lark gives me the heartache, and sets me longing for the bright country.”

The curate had touched the right chord, for the youth’s face brightened into a pleasant smile directly.

“Does he not sing!” he said, with a slight French accent; and he leaned towards the cage where the bird, with crest erect, was breasting the wooden bars, and gazing with bright bead-like eyes up at the blue sky; but as soon as the cripple’s finger was inserted between the bars, the bird pecked at it playfully, fluttered its wings, and then, with head on one side, stood looking keenly at its master.

“O yes, he sings,” hissed the woman; “but he is obstinate, is Jean; he should sell his bird, and make money, and not let his poor mere always keep him.”

“Pst, pst!” ejaculated Jean, frowning upon his mother; but she only stamped one foot angrily, and continued:

“He is bête and obstinate. The doll down-stairs with the needle-machine loves the bird, and she would buy it, and it is worth four shillings; but Jean will that his mother seek his bread for him in de street, wis de stupid dogs; and they are bête, and will not learn nosing at all. Allez donc!”

As the woman grew more voluble in her speech, she passed from tolerable English to words with a broader and broader accent, till the command given at last to the dogs, each word being accompanied by a sharp cut of the whip, when the animals rose upon their hind-legs, drooped their fore-paws, and then subsided once more into their natural posture, but now to bend their fore-legs, as if kneeling. Then they rose again, drooped, and afterwards meekly crossed, their paws, winking their eyes dolefully the while, and, with an aspect of gravity made absurd, walked slowly off to separate corners of the room, where they again went down upon all-fours, and then sat wistfully winking at and watching their task-mistress.

“See, then!” she exclaimed, in her harsh shrill voice. “They would not do it, though I try thousand time; but now the task is ended they walk. Ah-h-h!”

The cut in the air which accompanied the exclamation might have fallen upon the dogs themselves, for the miserable little objects yelped as they saw it fall, and, as if moved by one muscle, laid their heads against the whitewashed wall till, seeing themselves unnoticed, they curled up, but never for a moment took their blinking eyes off their mistress.

Amidst much muttering, and with many frowns and short sharp shakes of the head, while her lips were pressed closely together, the woman, after much fumbling in her pocket, drew forth a partly-knitted stocking; when, sitting down, she began furiously clicking her needles, watching the while, with half-closed eyes, the curate and her son.

“So, then, you will not sell your lark, Jean?” said Mr Sterne.

The cripple knit his brow slightly, shook his head, and then drawing a long, delicate, girlish finger over the bars of his favourite’s cage, the lark set up its crest, twittered, fluttered its wings, and again pecked at the finger.

“No, no, no,” he said softly; “why does she complain? I would work if I could; but I sell and make money of these, though it seems cruel to keep them shut up, and they beat themselves against their prison-bars to get out into the free air and the green woods. And I’m sorry for them when the little breasts grow bare, and the feathers lie in the bottom of the cage; and she says —ma mère there – that I am bête.”

The woman seemed to compress every feature, as she shook her head fiercely, and went on with her knitting.

“Look!” continued Jean softly, as he smiled and pointed rapidly from cage to cage, “canaries, linnets, redpoles, goldfinches, and a blackbird. The thrush broke his heart with singing, they said – the birdcatchers – but it was not that: I know why. I have sold four birds this week; but I keep the lark; he is a favourite.”

“Bah!” ejaculated the mother softly; “but he is bête;” when, as the curate turned, she was bending over her knitting, shaking her head and frowning, while she stabbed fiercely again and again at the worsted ball till it was transfixed by her needle, when she replaced the ball in her pocket, where the first drag she gave at the thread drew the ball from its place and it rolled on the floor. “Ah! good dog, bon chien!” she cried, as one of the poodles ran forward, caught the errant ball, and bore it to his mistress, returning immediately to his corner; but not to be unrewarded, for the woman rose, and forcing up the sliding socket, caused a little scrap of tallow-candle end to shoot out of a tin-candlestick as from a gun, when, receiving permission, the dog snatched it from the floor, and devoured the savoury morsel in its corner.

“But he should sell the lark, monsieur,” said the woman.

“Hush, ma mère,” said the cripple angrily; “the bird is not to sell.”

The mother shrugged her shoulders, and clicked her needles furiously.

“We all have our loves and likes, madame,” said the curate quietly.

“O, yes, yes, you rich; but we poor? No. We must live, and eat and drink, and have clothes; and Jean, there, has ruined me in medicine. What do we want with favourites, we poor? But that they help to keep us, I would sell the dogs. We are all slaves here, we poor; and we sell ourselves, our work, our hands, our beauty, some of us, – is it not so? and you rich buy, – or we starve. It is a bad world for us old and ugly. I am not like the doll upon the floor down-stairs.”

A sharp angry glance passed between mother and son, as the former rose from her seat, and with a short quick step left the room, driving back the dogs as they tried to follow; while it was evident that her words jarred painfully upon the curate. “Our beauty, some of us,” seemed to ring in his ears again and again, and he could not help associating these words with the latter part of her speech.

“How do you get your birds, Jean?” said the curate, making an effort, and breaking the silence.

“From him,” said the young man, nodding across the court to where Bill Jarker sat half out of his trap-door, still keeping up his pigeons, for a stray was in sight, and he was in hopes of an amalgamation, in spite of the efforts being made by neighbouring flights. “From him: he goes into the country with his nets – far off, where the green trees wave, while I can only read of them. But the book; did you bring the book?”

Thinking of other birds breasting their prison-bars: now of the fair bright face that he had seen at the window below, now of that of the cripple before him, the curate produced a volume from his pocket, and smiled as he watched the glittering eyes and eager aspect of the young man, as, hastily grasping the volume, he gazed with avidity upon the title.

“You love reading, then, Jean?” said the curate.

“Yes, yes,” cried the cripple. “What could I do without it? Always here; for I cannot walk much – only about the room. Ah, no! I could not live without reading – and my birds. She is good and kind,” he continued, nodding towards the door; “but we are poor, and it makes her angry and jealous.”

The lark burst forth with one of its sweetest strains as it heard its master’s voice, and then, rising, the curate left the attic, closing the door after him slowly, and peering through the narrowing slit to look upon the cripple eagerly devouring a page of the work he had brought.

The Frenchwoman was upon the first landing, and saluted the curate with a sinister meaning smile as he passed her and thoughtfully descended.

“But he is mean, I tell you,” cried ma mère angrily, as she once more stood beside her son. “What does he give us but words – words which are worth nothing? But what is that? My faith, a book he brought you? You shall not read; it makes you silly, and to forget your mother, who does so much for you. But I will!”

“Ah!” cried Jean, painfully starting from his seat, and snatching back the volume, and just in time, for the next moment would have seen it flying from the open window.

“Then I will sell the lark when you are asleep,” cried the woman spitefully.

The youth’s eyes glittered, as, with an angry look, he hissed between his teeth, “Then I will kill the dogs!” But the anger passed from his countenance in a few moments, and smiling softly, he said, “No, no, ma mère; you would not sell my poor bird, because I love it, and it would hurt me;” and then, casting down her knitting, the woman sprang across the room, throwing her arms round the cripple, and kissing him passionately, calling him by every endearing name, as she parted the hair from his broad forehead, and gazed in his bright dark eyes with all a mother’s fondness.

But the curate heard nothing of this – nothing but the loud song of the lark, which rang through the house – as slowly and thoughtfully he descended the worn and creaking stairs, while the woman’s words seemed to keep repeating themselves in a slow measured way, vibrating in his ears, and troubling him sorely with their cutting meaning; and more than once he found himself forming with his lips, “Our beauty, some of us.”

Volume Two – Chapter Six.

Shades

The lark was silent once more; and now from the open door of the first-floor, rising and falling, with a loud and rapid “click, click, click,” came the sound of Lucy Grey’s sewing-machine – “click, click,” the sharp pulsations of the little throbbing engine, whose needle darted in and out of the soft material held beneath it by those white fingers. But as one of the stairs gave a louder crack than ordinary, the machine stopped, and the quiet, earnest, watching face of Lucy Grey appeared at the door, which she now held open, bowing with a naïve grace in answer to the curate’s salutation.

“My mother wished me to watch that you did not go down without seeing her to-day,” said Lucy apologetically; for Mrs Hardon was far from well that week, and, since the long discussion that morning between old Matt and Septimus, she had been bemoaning her lot in a weak spiritless way, till, finding all his attempts at consolation of none effect, Septimus had taken his hat and gone out for a walk with his boy. To-day Mrs Septimus would be tolerably well; to-morrow, in a weak fit, exacting sympathy from husband and child in a way that would have wearied less loving natures. Now she would refuse food, upon the plea that it could not be afforded for her; consolation, because she was a wretched, miserable burden; and medicine, because she was sure that it would do her no good.

“Be patient with her, my darling,” Septimus would say to Lucy – a needless request. “Think of the troubles she has gone through, and then look at me.”

“What for?” Lucy would cry, laughingly prisoning him by seizing his scrubby bits of whisker in her little fingers, and then kissing him on either cheek, – “what for? To see the dearest father that ever lived?” And then memories of the past would float through Septimus Hardon’s brain as he smoothed down the soft braided hair about the girl’s white forehead. But there were tearful eyes above the smiling lips, and Septimus Hardon’s voice used to tremble a little as he said, “God bless you, my darling!”

“Our beauty, some of us,” seemed vibrating in the curate’s ears as Lucy spoke; but the bright look of welcome, the maidenly reserve, and sweet air of innocence emanating from the fair girl before him, seemed to waft away the words, and, returning to the present, he followed her to where Mrs Hardon was lying down. Drawing a chair to the bedside, he seated himself, to listen patiently to the querulous complaints he had so often heard before – murmurings which often brought a hot flush to Lucy’s cheek as she listened, until reassured by the quiet smile of the curate – a look which told her how well he read her mother’s heart, and pitied her for the long sufferings she had endured, – sickness and sorrow, – which had somewhat warped a fond and loving disposition.

Perhaps it was unmaidenly, perhaps wrong in the giver and taker, but, seated at her sewing-machine in the next room, Lucy would watch through the open door for these looks, and treasure them up, never pausing to think that they might be the pioneers of a deeper understanding. She looked forward to his visits, and yet dreaded them, trembling when she heard his foot upon the stairs; and more than once she had timed her journeys to the warehouse so that they might take her away when he was likely to call; while often and often afterwards, long tearful hours of misery would be spent as she thought of the gap between them, and bent hopelessly over her sewing-machine.

A long interview was Mr Sterne’s this day, for Mrs Hardon was more than ordinarily miserable, and had informed him two or three times over that she was about to take to her bed for good.

“But it does not matter, sir; it’s only for a little while, and then perhaps I shall be taken altogether. I’m of no use here, only to be a burden to that poor girl and my husband. But for me and the different fancies I have, that poor child need not be always working her fingers to the bone. But she will grow tired of it, and Mr Hardon’s health will fail, and our bit of furniture will be seized; and I’m sure I’d rather die at once than that we should all be in the workhouse.”

“But,” said Mr Sterne, smiling, “don’t you think matters might just as likely take the other direction? See now if it does not come a brighter day to-morrow, with a little mental sunshine in return for resignation;” and he whispered the last few words.

Now there was some truth in what Mrs Septimus Hardon said; for had it not been for her liking for strange luxuries when her sick fits were on, Lucy need not have worked so hard. At other times Mrs Hardon was self-denying to an excess; but when in bed, probably from the effort of complaining, her appetite increased to a terrible extent, and she found that she required sticks of larks roasted, fried soles, oysters, pickled salmon, or chicken, to keep her up, while port-wine was indispensable. But if she had preferred ortolans to larks, game and truffles to chicken and oysters, if the money could have been obtained she would have had them. And many a day Septimus and Lucy dined off bread-and-cheese, and many a night went supperless to bed, that the invalid’s fancies might be gratified.

The conversation went on, and Lucy at her work more than once raised her eyes; but when her mother’s complaints were like the last, she bent her head, and the tears she could not restrain fell hot and fast upon the material before her.

“What have I to hope for?” moaned Mrs Hardon, taking refuge in tears herself when she saw how Lucy was moved. “What have I to hope for?”

“Hope itself, Mrs Hardon,” said the curate firmly. “You suffer from a diseased mind as well as from your bodily ailment; and could you but come with me for once, only during a day’s visiting, I think you would afterwards bow your head in thankfulness even for your lot in life, as compared with those of many you would see.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I know,” sobbed the poor woman; “but don’t be angry with me. I know how weak and wicked I am to murmur, when they study me as they do; but when I am like this, this weary time comes on, I am never satisfied. Don’t – don’t be angry with me.”

Mrs Hardon’s sobs became so violent that Lucy hurried to the bed and took the weary head upon her breast; when, drawing his chair nearer, the curate took the thin worn hand held out so deprecatingly to him.

“Hush!” he whispered; and as he breathed words of tender sympathy that should awaken her faith, the mother looked earnestly on the sad smile on the speaker’s face, a smile that mother and daughter had before now tried to interpret, as it came like balm to the murmuring woman, while to her child it spoke volumes; and as her own yearned, it seemed to see into the depths of their visitor’s heart, where she read of patience, long-suffering, and crushed and beaten-down hopes.

All at once a heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and Lucy started from her mother’s side as a loud rough noise called “Mrs Hardon! Mrs Hardon!” But before she could reach the door of the other room, the handle rattled, and the curate could hear a man’s step upon the floor.

“Hush!” exclaimed Mrs Hardon, “it must be a letter;” and involuntarily, as he rose from his chair to leave, the curate had to stand and listen, gazing upon Lucy, who stood in the middle of the next room, now flooded with light from the sunshine which streamed through staircase window and open door, and he could not but mark the timid face of the girl as she stood wrapped as it were in the warm glow.

But it was no letter, only Mr William Jarker, who, invisible from where the curate stood, was telling Lucy in familiar easy tones that his “missus wanted to see the parson afore he went.”

As Mr Sterne stepped forward and saw the ruffian’s leering look and manner, and the familiar sneering smile upon his coarse lips, he shivered and turned paler than was his wont before knitting his brows angrily, while, troubled and confused, Lucy looked from one to the other as if expecting Mr Sterne should speak.

But the look made no impression upon Mr Jarker, who directed a half-laugh at Lucy, and then, nodding surlily towards the curate, he turned, and directly after there came the sounds of his heavy descending steps as he went down, leaving the room impregnated with the odour of the bad tobacco he had been smoking.

“Our beauty, some of us,” rang in the curate’s ears once more, and like a flash came the recollection of the meeting he had witnessed in the street. His mind was in a whirl with thoughts that he could not analyse; while as his eyes met those of Lucy, the girl stood with face aflame, trembling before him – looks that might have meant indignation or shame, as, with the smile still upon his lip, but so altered, the curate turned to go; but he stopped for a moment at the door, where out of sight of Mrs Hardon, he could again confront the shrinking girl with a long inquiring gaze; but trembling, agitated, with lips void of utterance, though parted as if to speak, Lucy stood back, her eyes now cast down, and, when she raised them once again, he was gone.

Then, with the colour slowly fading, to leave her face ashy pale, Lucy stood with outstretched hands, gazing at the closed door. Something seemed rising in her throat which she tried to force back, and it was only by an effort that she kept from crying out, as, falling upon her knees by a chair, she buried her face in her hands, choking down the sobs, lest her mother should hear; though she, poor woman, slowly turned her face to the wall, ignorant of her child’s suffering, and slept.

And now again came ringing down the sweet clear trill of Jean’s lark, till, worn out with the impetuosity of her grief, the poor girl raised her head, smoothed back her dark hair, and half-sitting, half-kneeling, listened to the strain.

The song ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, and the void was filled by a long, loud whistling; when, with lips set firm, and angry countenance, Lucy rose and stepped lightly across the room to her sewing-machine by the open window, where, raising her eyes, she could see Mr Jarker, pipe in hand, presenting himself once more as a half-length study, as he whistled and cheered on his flight of pigeons, which sailed round and round, till the whirring and flapping of their wings brought up early days of her childhood, and Lucy seemed to gaze upon some half-forgotten woodland scene in the country, with ring-necked stockdoves crowding on a bending branch after their return from flight.