Alone In London by Hesba Stretton
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6 Alone in London
By Hesba Stretton
Author of "Jessica's First Prayer," "Little Meg's Children," etc.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. NOT ALONE
II. WAIFS AND STRAYS
III. A LITTLE PEACEMAKER
IV. OLD OLIVER'S MASTER
V. FORSAKEN AGAIN
VI. THE GRASSHOPPER A BURDEN
VII. THE PRINCE OF LIFE
VIII. NO PIPE FOR OLD OLIVER
IX. A NEW BROOM AND A CROSSING
X. HIGHLY RESPECTABLE
XI. AMONG THIEVES
XII. TONY'S WELCOME
XIII. NEW BOOTS
XIV. IN HOSPITAL
XV. TONY'S FUTURE PROSPECTS
XVI. A BUD FADING
XVII. A VERY DARK SHADOW
XVIII. NO ROOM FOR DOLLY
XIX. THE GOLDEN CITY
XX. A FRESH DAY DAWNS
XXI. POLLY
CHAPTER I.
NOT ALONE.
It had been a close and sultry day--one of the hottest of the
dog-days--even out in the open country, where the dusky green leaves had
never stirred upon their stems since the sunrise, and where the birds had
found themselves too languid for any songs beyond a faint chirp now and
then. All day long the sun had shone down steadily upon the streets of
London, with a fierce glare and glowing heat, until the barefooted
children had felt the dusty pavement burn under their tread almost as
painfully as the icy pavement had frozen their naked feet in the winter.
In the parks, and in every open space, especially about the cool splash
of the fountains at Charing Cross, the people, who had escaped from the
crowded and unventilated back streets, basked in the sunshine, or sought
every corner where a shadow could be found. But in the alleys and slums
the air was heavy with heat and dust, and thick vapours floated up and
down, charged with sickening smells from the refuse of fish and
vegetables decaying in the gutters. Overhead the small, straight strip of
sky was almost white, and the light, as it fell, seemed to quiver with
the burden of its own burning heat.
Out of one of the smaller thoroughfares lying between Holborn and the
Strand, there opens a narrow alley, not more than six or seven feet
across, with high buildings on each side. In the most part the ground
floors consist of small shops; for the alley is not a blind one, but
leads from the thoroughfare to another street, and forms, indeed, a short
cut to it, pretty often used. These shops are not of any size or
importance--a greengrocer's, with a somewhat scanty choice of vegetables
and fruit, a broker's, displaying queer odds and ends of household goods,
two or three others, and at the end farthest from the chief thoroughfare,
but nearest to the quiet and respectable street beyond, a very
modest-looking little shop-window, containing a few newspapers, some
rather yellow packets of stationery, and two or three books of ballads.
Above the door was painted, in very small, dingy letters, the words,
"James Oliver, News Agent."
The shop was even smaller, in proportion, than its window. After two
customers had entered--if such an event could ever come to pass--it would
have been almost impossible to find room for a third. Along the end ran a
little counter, with a falling flap by which admission could be gained to
the living-room lying behind the shop. This evening the flap was down--a
certain sign that James Oliver, the news agent, had some guest within,
for otherwise there would have been no occasion to lessen the scanty size
of the counter. The room beyond was dark, very dark indeed, for the time
of day; for, though the evening was coming on, and the sun was hastening
to go down at last, it had not yet ceased to shine brilliantly upon the
great city. But inside James Oliver's house the gas was already lighted
in a little steady flame, which never flickered in the still, hot air,
though both door and window were wide open. For there was a window,
though it was easy to overlook it, opening into a passage four feet wide,
which led darkly up into a still closer and hotter court, lying in the
very core of the maze of streets. As the houses were four stories high,
it is easy to understand that very little sunlight could penetrate to
Oliver's room behind his shop, and that even at noonday it was twilight
there. This room was of a better size altogether than a stranger might
have supposed, having two or three queer little nooks and recesses
borrowed from the space belonging to the adjoining house; for the
buildings were old, and had probably been one large dwelling in former
times. It was plainly the only apartment the owner had; and all its
arrangements were those of a man living alone, for there was something
almost desolate about the look of the scanty furniture, though it was
clean and whole. There had been a fire, but it had died out, and the
coals were black in the grate, while the kettle still sat upon the top
bar with a melancholy expression of neglect about it.
James Oliver himself had placed his chair near to the open door, where he
could keep his eye upon the shop--a needless precaution, as at this hour
no customers ever turned into it. He was an old man, and seemed very old
and infirm by the dim light. He was thin and spare, with that peculiar
spareness which results from the habit of always eating less than one
can. His teeth, which had never had too much to do, had gone some years
ago, and his cheeks fell in rather deeply. A fine network of wrinkles
puckered about the corners of his eyes and mouth. He stooped a good deal,
and moved about with the slowness and deliberation of age. Yet his face
was very pleasant--a cheery, gentle, placid face, lighted up with a smile
now and then, but with sufficient rareness to make it the more welcome
and the more noticed when it came.
Old Oliver had a visitor this hot evening, a neat, small, dapper woman,
with a little likeness to himself, who had been putting his room to
rights, and looking to the repairs needed by his linen. She was just
replacing her needle, cotton, and buttons in an old-fashioned housewife,
which she always carried in her pocket, and was then going to put on her
black silk bonnet and coloured shawl, before bidding him goodbye.
"Eh, Charlotte," said Oliver, after drawing a long and toilsome breath,
"what would I give to be a-top of the Wrekin, seeing the sun set this
evening! Many and many's the summer afternoon we've spent there when we
were young, and all of us alive. Dost remember how many a mile of country
we could see all round us, and how fresh the air blew across the
thousands of green fields? Why, I saw Snowdon once, more than sixty miles
off, when my eyes were young and it was a clear sunset. I always think of
the top of the Wrekin when I read of Moses going up Mount Pisgah and
seeing all the land about him, north and south, east and west. Eh, lass!
there's a change in us all now!"
"Ah! it's like another world!" said the old woman, shaking her head
slowly. "All the folks I used to sew for at Aston, and Uppington, and
Overlehill, they'd mostly be gone or dead by now. It wouldn't seem like
the same place at all. And now there's none but you and me left, brother
James. Well, well! its lonesome, growing old."
"Yes, lonesome, yet not exactly lonesome," replied old Oliver, in a
dreamy voice. "I'm growing dark a little, and just a trifle deaf, and I
don't feel quite myself like I used to do; but I've got something I
didn't use to have. Sometimes of an evening, before I've lit the gas,
I've a sort of a feeling as if I could almost see the Lord Jesus, and
hear him talking to me. He looks to me something like our eldest brother,
him that died when we were little. Charlotte, thee remembers him? A
white, quiet, patient face, with a smile like the sun shining behind
clouds. Well, whether it's only a dream or no I cannot tell, but there's
a face looks at me, or seems to look at me out of the dusk; and I think
to myself, maybe the Lord Jesus says, 'Old Oliver's lonesome down there
in the dark, and his eyes growing dim. I'll make myself half-plain to
him.' Then he comes and sits here with me for a little while."
"Oh, that's all fancy as comes with you living quite alone," said
Charlotte, sharply.
"Perhaps so! perhaps so!" answered the old man, with a meek sigh; "but I
should be very lonesome without that."
They did not speak again until Charlotte had given a final shake to the
bed in the corner, upon which her bonnet and shawl had been lying. She
put them on neatly and primly; and when she was ready to go she spoke
again in a constrained and mysterious manner.
"Heard nothing of Susan, I suppose?" she said.
"Not a word," answered old Oliver, sadly. "It's the only trouble I've
got. That were the last passion I ever went into, and I was hot and
hasty, I know."
"So you always used to be at times," said his sister.
"Ah! but that passion was the worst of all," he went on, speaking
slowly. "I told her if she married young Raleigh, she should never darken
my doors again--never again. And she took me at my word though she might
have known it was nothing but father's hot temper. Darken my doors! Why,
the brightest sunshine I could have 'ud be to see her come smiling into
my shop, like she used to do at home."
"Well, I think Susan ought to have humbled herself," said Charlotte.
"It's going on for six years now, and she's had time enough to see her
folly. Do you know where she is?"
"I know nothing about her," he answered, shaking his head sorrowfully.
"Young Raleigh was wild, very wild, and that was my objection to him;
but I didn't mean Susan to take me at my word. I shouldn't speak so
hasty and hot now."
"And to think. I'd helped to bring her up so genteel, and with such
pretty manners!" cried the old woman, indignantly. "She might have done
so much better with her cleverness too. Such a milliner as she might have
turned out! Well good-bye, brother James, and don't go having any more of
those visions; they're not wholesome for you."
"I should be very lonesome without them," answered Oliver. "Good-bye,
Charlotte, good-bye, and God bless you. Come again as soon as you can."
He went with her to the door, and stayed to watch her along the quiet
alley, till she turned into the street. Then, with a last nod to the back
of her bonnet, as she passed out of his sight, he returned slowly into
his dark shop, put up the flap of the counter, and retreated to the
darker room within. Hot as it was, he fancied it was growing a little
chilly with the coming of the night, and he drew on his old coat, and
threw a handkerchief over his white head, and then sat down in the dusk,
looking out into his shop and the alley beyond it. He must have fallen
into a doze after a while, being overcome with the heat, and lulled by
the constant hum of the streets, which reached his dull ear in a softened
murmur; for at length he started up almost in a fright, and found that
complete darkness had fallen upon him suddenly, as it seemed to him. A
church clock was striking nine, and his shop was not closed yet. He went
out hurriedly to put the shutters up.
CHAPTER II.
WAIFS AND STRAYS.
In the shop it was not yet so dark but that old Oliver could see his way
out with the shutters, which during the day occupied a place behind the
door. He lifted the flap of the counter, and was about to go on with his
usual business, when a small voice, trembling a little, and speaking from
the floor at his very feet, caused him to pause suddenly.
"Please, rere's a little girl here," said the voice.
Oliver stooped down to bring his eyes nearer to the ground, until he
could make out the indistinct outline of the figure of a child, seated on
his shop floor, and closely hugging a dog in her arms. Her face looked
small to him; it was pale, as if she had been crying quietly, and though
he could not see them, a large tear stood on each of her cheeks.
"What little girl are you?" he asked, almost timidly.
"Rey called me Dolly," answered the child.
"Haven't you any other name?" inquired old Oliver
"Nosing else but Poppet," she said; "rey call me Dolly sometimes, and
Poppet sometimes. Ris is my little dog, Beppo."
She introduced the dog by pushing its nose into his hand, and Beppo
complacently wagged his tail and licked the old man's withered fingers.
"What brings you here in my shop, my little woman?" asked Oliver.
"Mammy brought me," she said, with a stifled sob; "she told me run in
rere, Dolly, and stay till mammy comes back, and be a good girl always.
Am I a good girl?"
"Yes, yes," he answered, soothingly; "you're a very good little girl, I'm
sure; and mother 'ill come back soon, very soon. Let us go to the door,
and look for her."
He took her little hand in his own; such a little hand it felt, that he
could not help tightening his fingers fondly over it; and then they stood
for a few minutes on the door-sill, while old Oliver looked anxiously up
and down the alley. At the greengrocer's next door there flared a bright
jet of gas, and the light shone well into the deepening darkness. But
there was no woman in sight, and the only person about was a ragged boy,
barefoot and bareheaded with no clothing but a torn pair of trousers,
very jagged about the ankles, and a jacket through which his thin
shoulders displayed themselves. He was lolling in the lowest window-sill
of the house opposite, and watched Oliver and the little girl looking
about them with sundry signs of interest and amusement.
"She ain't nowhere in sight," he called across to them after a while,
"nor won't be, neither, I'll bet you. You're looking out for the little
un's mother, ain't you, old master?"
"Yes," answered Oliver; "do you know anything about her, my boy?"
"Nothink," he said, with a laugh; "only she looked as if she were up to
some move, and as I'd nothink particular on hand, I just followed her.
She was somethink like my mother, as is dead, not fat or rosy, you know,
with a bit of a bruise about her eye, as if somebody had been fighting
with her. I thought there'd be a lark when she left the little 'un in
your shop, so I just stopped to see. She bolted as if the bobbies were
after her."
"How long ago?" asked Oliver, anxiously.
"The clocks had just gone eight," he answered; "I've been watching for
you ever since."
"Why! that's a full hour ago," said the old man, looking wistfully down
the alley; "it's time she was come back again for her little girl."
[Illustration: THE LITTLE STRANGER.]
But there was no symptom of anybody coming to claim the little girl, who
stood very quietly at his side, one hand holding the dog fast by his ear,
and the other still lying in Oliver's grasp. The boy hopped on one foot
across the narrow alley, and looked up with bright, eager eyes into the
old man's face.
"I say," he said, earnestly, "don't you go to give her up to the p'lice.
They'd take her to the house, and that's worse than the jail. Bless yer!
they'd never take up a little thing like that to jail for a wagrant. You
just give her to me, and I'll take care of her. It 'ud be easy enough to
find victuals for such a pretty little thing as her. You give her up to
me, I say."
"What's your name?" asked Oliver, clasping the little hand tighter, "and
where do you come from?"
"From nowhere particular," answered the boy; "and my name's Antony; Tony,
for short. I used to have another name; mother told it me afore she died,
but it's gone clean out o' my head. Tony I am, anyhow, and you can call
me by it, if you choose."
"How old are you, Tony?" inquired Oliver, still lingering on the
threshold, and looking up and down with his dim eyes.
"Bless yer! I don't know," replied Tony; "I weren't much bigger nor
her when mother died, and I've found myself ever since. I never had
any father."
"Found yourself!" repeated the old man, absently.
"Ah, it's not bad in the summer," said Tony, more earnestly than before:
"and I could find for the little 'un easy enough. I sleep anywhere, in
Covent Garden sometimes, and the parks--anywhere as the p'lice 'ill let
me alone. You won't go to give her up to them p'lice, will you now, and
she so pretty?"
He spoke in a beseeching tone, and old Oliver looked down upon him
through his spectacles, with a closer survey than he had given to him
before. The boy's face was pale and meagre, with an unboyish sharpness
about it, though he did not seem more than nine or ten years old. His
glittering eyes were filled with tears, and his colourless lips quivered.
He wiped away the tears roughly upon the ragged sleeve of his jacket.
"I never were such a baby before," said Tony, "only she is such a nice
little thing, and such a tiny little 'un. You'll keep her, master, won't
you? or give her up to me?"
"Ay, ay! I'll take care of her," answered Oliver, "till her mother comes
back for her. She'll come pretty soon, I know. But she wants her supper
now, doesn't she?"
He stooped down to bring his face nearer to the child's, and she raised
her hand to it, and stroked his cheek with her warm, soft fingers.
"Beppo wants his supper, too," she said, in a clear, shrill, little
voice, which penetrated easily through old Oliver's deafened hearing.
"And Beppo shall have some supper as well as the little woman," he
answered. "I'll put the shutters up now, and leave the door ajar, and the
gas lit for mother to see when she comes back; and if mother shouldn't
come back to night, the little woman will sleep in my bed, won't she?"
"Dolly's to be a good girl till mammy comes back," said the child,
plaintively, and holding harder by Beppo's ear.
"Let me put the shutters up, master," cried Tony, eagerly; "I won't
charge you nothink, and I'll just look round in the morning to see how
you're getting along. She is such a very little thing."
The shutters were put up briskly, and then Tony took a long, farewell
gaze of the old man and the little child, but he could not offer to touch
either of them. He glanced at his hands, and Oliver did the same; but
they both shook their heads.
"I'll have a wash in the morning afore I come," he said, nodding
resolutely; "good-bye, guv'ner; goodbye, little 'un."
Old Oliver went in, leaving his door ajar, and his gas lit, as he had
said. He fed the hungry child with bread and butter, and used up his
half-pennyworth of milk, which he bought for himself every evening. Then
he lifted her on to his knee, with Beppo in her arms, and sat for a long
while waiting. The little head nodded, and Dolly sat up, unsteadily
striving hard to keep awake; but at last she let Beppo drop to the floor,
while she herself fell upon the old man's breast, and lay there without
moving. It chimed eleven o'clock at last, and Oliver knew it was of no
use to watch any longer.
He managed to undress his little charge with gentle, though trembling
hands, and then he laid her down on his bed, putting his only pillow
against the wall to make a soft nest for the tender and sleepy child. She
roused herself for a minute, and stared about her, gazing steadily, with
large, tearful eyes, into his face. Then as he sat down on the bedstead
beside her, to comfort her as well as he could, she lifted herself up,
and knelt down, with her folded hands laid against his shoulder.
"Dolly vewy seepy," she lisped, "but must say her prayers always."
"What are your prayers, my dear?" he asked.
"On'y God bless gan-pa, and father, and mammy, and poor Beppo, and make
me a good girl," murmured the drowsy voice, as Dolly closed her eyes
again, and fell off into a deep sleep the next moment.
CHAPTER III.
A LITTLE PEACEMAKER.
It was a very strange event which had befallen old Oliver. He went back
to his own chair, where he smoked his Broseley pipe every night, and sank
down in it, rubbing his legs softly; for it was a long time since he had
nursed any child, and even Dolly's small weight was a burden to him. Her
tiny clothes were scattered up and down, and there was no one beside
himself to gather them together, and fold them straight. In shaking out
her frock a letter fell from it, and Oliver picked it up wondering
whoever it could be for. It was directed to himself, "Mr. James Oliver,
News-agent," and he broke the seal with eager expectation. The contents
were these, written in a handwriting which he knew at first sight to be
his daughter's:--
"DEAR FATHER,
"I am very very sorry I ever did anything to make you angry with me. This
is your poor Susan's little girl, as is come to be a little peacemaker
betwixt you and me. I'm certain sure you'll never turn her away from your
door. I'm going down to Portsmouth for three days, because he listed five
months ago, and his regiment's ordered out to India, and he sails on
Friday. So I thought I wouldn't take my little girl to be in the way, and
I said I'll leave her with father till I come back, and her pretty little
ways will soften him towards me, and we'll live all together in peace and
plenty till his regiment comes home again, poor fellow. For he's very
good to me when he's not in liquor, which is seldom for a man. Please do
forgive me for pity's sake, and for Christ's sake, if I'm worthy to use
his name, and do take care of my little girl till I come home to you both
on Friday, From your now dutiful daughter,
"POOR SUSAN."
The tears rolled fast down old Oliver's cheeks as he read this letter
through twice, speaking the words half aloud to himself. Why! this was
his own little grandchild, then--his very own! And no doubt Susan had
christened her Dorothy, after her own mother, his dear wife, who had died
so many years ago. Dolly was the short for Dorothy, and in early times he
had often called his wife by that name. He had turned his gas off and
lighted a candle, and now he took it up and went to the bedside to look
at his new treasure. The tiny face lying upon his pillow was rosy with
sleep, and the fair curly hair was tossed about in pretty disorder. His
spectacles grew very dim indeed, and he was obliged to polish them
carefully on his cotton handkerchief before he could see his
grand-daughter plainly enough. Then he touched her dimpled cheek
tremblingly with the end of his finger, and sobbed out, "Bless her! bless
her!" He returned to his chair, his head shaking a good deal before he
could regain his composure; and it was not until he had kindled his pipe,
and was smoking it, with his face turned towards the sleeping child, that
he felt at all like himself again.
"Dear Lord!" he said, half aloud, between the whiffs of his pipe, "dear
Lord! how very good thou art to me! Didst thee not say, 'I'll not leave
thee comfortless, I'll come to thee?' I know what that means, bless thy
name; and the good Spirit has many a time brought me comfort, and cheered
my heart. I know thou didst not leave me alone before. No, no! that was
far from thee, Lord. Alone!--why, thou'rt always here; and now there's
the little lass as well. Lonesome!--they don't know thee, Lord, and they
don't know me. Thou'rt here, with the little lass and me. Yes,
yes,--yes."
He murmured the word "yes" in a tone of contentment over and over again,
until, the pipe being finished, he prepared for sleep also. But no sleep
came to the old man. He was too full of thought, and too fearful of the
child waking in the night and wanting something. The air was close and
hot, and now and then a peal of thunder broke overhead; but a profound
peace and tranquillity, slightly troubled by his new joy, held possession
of him. His grandchild was there, and his daughter was coming back to him
in three days.
Oh, how he would welcome her! He would not let her speak one word of her
wilfulness and disobedience, and the long, cruel neglect which had left
him in ignorance of where she lived, and what had become of her. It was
partly his fault, for having been too hard upon her, and too hasty and
hot-tempered. He had learnt better since then.
CHAPTER IV.
OLD OLIVER'S MASTER.
Very early in the morning, before the tardy daylight could creep into the
darkened room, old Oliver was up and busy. He had been in the habit of
doing for himself, as he called it, ever since his daughter had forsaken
him, and he was by nature fastidiously clean and neat. But now there
would be additional duties for him during the next three days; for there
would be Dolly to wash, and dress, and provide breakfast for. Every few
minutes he stole a look at her lying still asleep; and as soon as he
discovered symptoms of awaking, he hastily lifted Beppo on to the bed,
that her opening eyes should be greeted by some familiar sight. She
stretched out her wonderful little hands, and caught hold of the dog's
rough head before venturing to lift her eyelids, while Oliver looked on
in speechless delight. At length she ventured to peep slyly at him, and
then addressed herself to Beppo.
"What am I to call ris funny old man, Beppo?" she asked.
"I am your grandpa, my darling," said Oliver, in his softest voice.
"Are you God-bless-gan-pa?" inquired Dolly, sitting up on her pillow, and
staring very hard with her blue eyes into his wrinkled face.
"Yes, I am," he answered, looking at her anxiously.
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