Stories By English Authors: London

V >> Various >> Stories By English Authors: London


The dreary winter days crept on apace, and, as they drew near Christmas,
dwellers in the streets leading off the Strand grew accustomed of
nights to hear the plaintive voice of a woman, singing in a peculiarly
thrilling and pathetic manner some of the old songs and ballads familiar
and dear to the heart of every Englishman--"The Banks of Allan Water,"
"The Bailiff's Daughter," "Sally in our Alley," "The Last Rose of
Summer." All these well-loved ditties she sang one after the other, and,
though her notes were neither fresh nor powerful, they were true and
often tender, more particularly in the hackneyed, but still captivating,
melody of "Home, Sweet Home." Windows were opened, and pennies freely
showered on the street vocalist, who was accompanied in all her
wanderings by a fragile infant, which she seemed to carry with especial
care and tenderness. Sometimes, too, in the bleak afternoons, she would
be seen wending her way through mud and mire, setting her weary face
against the bitter east wind, and patiently singing on; and motherly
women, coming from the gay shops and stores, where they had been
purchasing Christmas toys for their own children, would often stop to
look at the baby's pinched, white features with pity, and would say,
while giving their spare pennies, "Poor little thing! Is it not very
ill?" And Liz, her heart freezing with sudden terror, would exclaim,
hurriedly, "Oh, no, no! It is always pale; it is just a little bit weak,
that's all!" And the kindly questioners, touched by the large despair
of her dark eyes, would pass on and say no more. And Christmas came--the
birthday of the Child Christ--a feast the sacred meaning of which was
unknown to Liz; she only recognized it as a sort of large and somewhat
dull bank-holiday, when all London devoted itself to church-going
and the eating of roast beef and plum-pudding. The whole thing was
incomprehensible to her mind, but even her sad countenance was brighter
than usual on Christmas eve, and she felt almost gay, for had she not,
by means of a little extra starvation on her own part, been able to
buy a wondrous gold-and-crimson worsted bird suspended from an elastic
string, a bird which bobbed up and down to command in the most lively
and artistic manner? And had not her hired baby actually laughed at the
clumsy toy--laughed an elfish and weird laugh, the first it had ever
indulged in? And Liz had laughed too, for pure gladness in the child's
mirth, and the worsted bird became a sort of uncouth charm to make them
both merry.

But after Christmas had come and gone, and the melancholy days, the
last beating of the failing pulse of the Old Year, throbbed slowly
and heavily away, the baby took upon its wan visage a strange
expression--the solemn expression of worn-out and suffering age. Its
blue eyes grew more solemnly speculative and dreamy, and after a while
it seemed to lose all taste for the petty things of this world and the
low desires of mere humanity. It lay very quiet in Liz's arms; it never
cried, and was no longer fretful, and it seemed to listen with a sort of
mild approval to the tones of her voice as they rang out in the dreary
streets, through which, by day and night, she patiently wandered.
By-and-by the worsted bird, too, fell out of favour; it jumped and
glittered in vain; the baby surveyed it with an unmoved air of superior
wisdom, just as if it had suddenly found out what real birds were
like, and was not to be deceived into accepting so poor an imitation
of nature. Liz grew uneasy, but she had no one in whom to confide her
fears. She had been very regular in her payments to Mother Mawks, and
that irate lady, kept in order by her bull-dog of a husband, had been
of late very contented to let her have the child without further
interference. Liz knew well enough that no one in the miserable alley
where she dwelt would care whether the baby were ill or not. They would
tell her, "The more sickly the better for your trade." Besides, she was
jealous; she could not endure the idea of any one tending it or touching
it but herself. Children were often ailing, she thought, and if left to
themselves without doctor's stuff they recovered sometimes more quickly
than they had sickened. Thus soothing her inward tremors as best she
might, she took more care than ever of her frail charge, stinting
herself than she might nourish it, though the baby seemed to care less
and less for mundane necessities, and only submitted to be fed, as it
were, under patient and silent protest.

And so the sands in Time's hour-glass ran slowly but surely away, and it
was New-Year's eve. Liz had wandered about all day, singing her little
repertoire of ballads in the teeth of a cruel, snow-laden wind--so cruel
that people otherwise charitably disposed had shut close their doors and
windows, and had not even heard her voice. Thus the last span of the
Old Year had proved most unprofitable and dreary; she had gained no more
than sixpence; how could she return with only that humble amount to face
Mother Mawks and her vituperative fury? Her throat ached; she was
very tired, and, as the night darkened from pale to deep and starless
shadows, she strolled mechanically from the Strand to the Embankment,
and after walking some little distance she sat down in a corner close to
Cleopatra's Needle--that mocking obelisk that has looked upon the decay
of empires, itself impassive, and that still appears to say, "Pass on,
ye puny generations! I, a mere carven block of stone, shall outlive you
all!" For the first time in all her experience the child in her arms
seemed a heavy burden. She put aside her shawl and surveyed it tenderly;
it was fast asleep, a small, peaceful smile on its thin, quiet face.
Thoroughly worn out herself, she leaned her head against the damp stone
wall behind her, and clasping the infant tightly to her breast, she
also slept--the heavy, dreamless sleep of utter fatigue and physical
exhaustion. The solemn night moved on, a night of black vapours; the
pageant of the Old Year's deathbed was unbrightened by so much as a
single star. None of the hurrying passers-by perceived the weary woman
where she slept in that obscure corner, and for a long while she rested
there undisturbed. Suddenly a vivid glare of light dazzled her eyes; she
started to her feet half asleep, but still instinctively retaining the
infant in her close embrace. A dark form, buttoned to the throat and
holding a brilliant bull's-eye lantern, stood before her.

"Come now," said this personage, "this won't do! Move on!"

Liz smiled faintly and apologetically.

"All right!" she answered, striving to speak cheerfully, and raising her
eyes to the policeman's good-natured countenance. "I didn't mean to
fall asleep here. I don't know how I came to do it. I must go home, of
course."

"Of course," said the policeman, somewhat mollified by her evident
humility, and touched in spite of himself by the pathos of her eyes.
Then turning his lamp more fully upon her, he continued, "Is that a baby
you've got there?"

"Yes," said Liz, half proudly, half tenderly. "Poor little dear! it's
been ailing sadly--but I think it's better now than it was."

And, encouraged by his friendly tone, she opened the folds of her shawl
to show him her one treasure. The bulls-eye came into still closer
requisition as the kindly guardian of the peace peered inquiringly at
the tiny bundle. He had scarcely looked when he started back with an
exclamation:

"God bless my soul!" he cried, "it's dead!"

"Dead!" shrieked Liz; "oh, no, no! Not dead! Don't say so, oh, don't,
don't say so! Oh, you can't mean it! Oh, for God's love, say you didn't
mean it! It can't be dead, not really dead!--no, no, indeed! Oh, baby,
baby! You are not dead, my pet my angel, not dead, oh no!"

And breathless, frantic with fear, she felt the little thing's hands and
feet and face, kissed it wildly, and called it by a thousand endearing
names, in vain--in vain! Its tiny body was already stiff and rigid; it
had been a corpse more than two hours.

The policeman coughed, and brushed his thick gauntlet glove across his
eyes. He was an emissary of the law, but he had a heart. He thought of
his bright-eyed wife at home, and of the soft-cheeked, cuddling little
creature that clung to her bosom and crowed with rapture whenever he
came near.

"Look here," he said, very gently, laying one hand on the woman's
shoulder as she crouched shivering against the wall, and staring
piteously at the motionless waxen form in her arms; "it's no use
fretting about it." He paused; there was an uncomfortable lump in his
throat, and he had to cough again to get it down. "The poor little
creature's gone--there's no help for it. The next world's a better place
than this, you know! There, there, don't take on so about it"--this as
Liz shuddered and sighed; a sigh of such complete despair that it went
straight to his honest soul, and showed him how futile were his efforts
at consolation. But he had his duty to attend to, and he went on in
firmer tones: "Now, like a good woman, you just move off from here and
go home. If I leave you here by yourself a bit, will you promise me to
go straight home? I mustn't find you here when I come back on this beat,
d' ye understand?" Liz nodded. "That's right!" he resumed, cheerily.
"I'll give you just ten minutes; you just go straight home."

And with a "Good-night," uttered in accents meant to be comforting, he
turned away and paced on, his measured tread echoing on the silence at
first loudly, then fainter and fainter, till it altogether died away, as
his bulky figure disappeared in the distance. Left to herself, Liz rose
from her crouching posture; rocking the dead child in her arms, she
smiled.

"Go straight home!" she murmured, half aloud. "Home, sweet home! Yes,
baby; yes, my darling, we will go home together!"

And creeping cautiously along in the shadows, she reached a flight of
the broad stone steps leading down to the river. She descended them, one
by one; the black water lapped against them heavily, heavily; the tide
was full up. She paused; a sonorous, deep-toned iron voice rang through
the air with reverberating, solemn melody. It was the great bell of St.
Paul's tolling midnight--the Old Year was dead.

"Straight home!" she repeated, with a beautiful, expectant look in her
wild, weary eyes. "My little darling! Yes, we are both tired; we will go
home! Home, sweet home! We will go!"

Kissing the cold face of the baby corpse she held, she threw herself
forward; there followed a sullen, deep splash--a slight struggle--and
all was over! The water lapped against the steps heavily, heavily, as
before; the policeman passed once more, and saw to his satisfaction that
the coast was clear; through the dark veil of the sky one star looked
out and twinkled for a brief instant, then disappeared again. A clash
and clamour of bells startled the brooding night, here and there a
window was opened, and figures appeared in balconies to listen. They
were ringing in the New Year--the festival of hope, the birthday of the
world! But what were New Years to her, who, with white, upturned face,
and arms that embraced an infant in the tenacious grip of death, went
drifting, drifting solemnly down the dark river, unseen, unpitied by all
those who awoke to new hopes and aspirations on that first morning
of another life-probation! Liz had gone; gone to make her peace with
God--perhaps through the aid of her "hired" baby, the little sinless
soul she had so fondly cherished; gone to that sweetest "home" we dream
of and pray for, where the lost and bewildered wanderers of this earth
shall find true welcome and rest from grief and exile; gone to that
fair, far glory-world where reigns the divine Master, whose words still
ring above the tumult of ages: "See that ye despise not one of these
little ones; for I say unto you, that their angels do always behold the
face of My Father who is in heaven."