“He’s off at last; Jenks,” said he, rubbing his hands cheerfully; “show him a light, old boy. I think it looks well—his going. He wouldn’t go if she was very bad, you know.”
But the disagreeable beggar was not off—at least, not straight off. He had got something to say to my father before he went; and when he reached Jenkins’s landing he halted, and coughed, and tapped at the half-open door with his walking-stick.
Mr. Jenkins, on the way to show him a light, was just in time to confront him.
“Your name is Ballisat, I believe,” said the doctor; “you are the husband of the”—
“No, sir, thanky; it isn’t me. Here, Jim!”
“I’m the one you want, sir,” said my father, coming boldly forward, with me in his arms; “I’m her husband, at your service, mister. And how might she find herself by this time, mister?”
The doctor was the parish doctor—a tall, round-shouldered old gentleman, with white hair, and wearing spectacles.
“Oh, you are Mr. Ballisat!” said he, speaking in a very different voice from that which he had used to my father when ordering him about his business. “And is this the little fellow she was speaking of?”
“Werry likely, sir,” replied my father; “she has been speaking about a goodish many things, so I ’ve been told. Could we go up and have a word with her now, sir? Not as I want to disturb her—of course not; but if so be as”—
“Well, my little man,” interrupted the doctor, taking one of my hands in his long, black-gloved own, “you must be a good boy now poor mother has gone, and then you will one day see her again. You must love your little sister, and be kind to her, for mother’s sake. Good-night, my dear. Good-night, Mr. Ballisat. You must try and bear up under your loss as a man should. If you and I, my friend, could only live in the meek and forgiving spirit in which she died, we should be happy men. Good-night. If you send round in the morning, I will give you a certificate of the death.”
Beyond nodding his head, my father had betrayed no sign that he had heard a word the doctor was saying. He seemed amazed; and his eyes wandered from the doctor to the stairs down which he had just come, as though he could understand it all as far as that, but no farther. When the doctor bade him good-night, he made him no answer beyond a nod; and it was not until old Jenkins was following the doctor down the stairs with the candle, that his speech and understanding came back to him.
“O Lord! O Christ! gone! gone!” he cried, in a harsh, whimpering whisper; and then, staggering back to Jenkins’s room all in the dark, he set me between his knees, and cowering, with his face and arms over me, commenced sobbing and shaking like a man with the ague.
That was how old Jenkins found him when he returned with the candle—how Mrs. Jenkins and the minister, whom I had not seen go up (he must have passed me as I lay asleep holding on to the rail) found him. The minister, who was a very young man of stem aspect, endeavoured to comfort father. He pointed out to him how unbecoming it was to grieve, and how that, on the contrary, he ought to rejoice that his wife was snatched away from a world abounding in iniquity. With his eyes so full of bitter tears, however, my father could not be brought to see the matter in this light; instead of giving him any comfort, it only made him savage; and he flatly told the minister that if that was what he meant, the sooner he took himself off the better—which he did, seeming rather glad to get away.
Mrs. Jenkins, although she tried a course exactly opposite to that of the minister, was little more successful. She reminded my father of the excellence of the wife he had lost, and of the many, many kind messages she had intrusted to her (Mrs. Jenkins) for delivery.
“If you had been the best husband in the world to her, Jim, she could not. have gone forgiving you freer,” said Mrs. Jenkins. At which my father bowed his head lower still, and shook the more.
“Lor’! don’t take on so, Jim,” continued she. “Think of the two forlorn and motherless babies she has left behind her. Think of this blessed lamb, as it would have been a heavenly mercy if she had never been born. Here, Jim, look up; you hain’t seen the baby.”
I never dreamed she had it with her. I saw that she had a bundle of some sort, and that was all.
“Do just hold her a minute, Jim,” said Mrs. Jenkins; “it will do you good, Jim—sure it will. She’s just the spit of the poor dear that’s gone; the same eyes and the same hair, to a shade.”
And so she wheedled the baby on to my father’s lap.
“The sweet angel!” remarked a woman of the alley, (there were a good many of them in the room by this time;) “the dear innocent! with that pretty purple mark on its cheek.”
“Which so the mother has, if you remember, ma’am,” chimed in another, “showing still on her poor dead face, white as wax-work.”
When the woman said this, my father suddenly raised his head and gave such a start that it was a wonder the baby in its blanket did not roll off his lap and fall to the ground. As though it was of no account at all, he bundled it into Mrs. Jenkins’s arms, and turned on the woman, with his swollen eyes flashing—
“Let me get out of this!” said he. What d’ye mean by it? Ain’t I tormented enough with what’s a-passing in my mind, without all of you pecking and jawing at me? Don’t you think that I knowed all about the bruise on her cheek, that you must twit me about it? Look here! If I could wash out that mark with the blood out of the hand that made it—with this hand—I’d chop it off now before your eyes. But it’s there, and it’ll have to stop; and it’s there, (pointing to the baby,) and there it will have to stop, too, staring me in the face all my life. Ain’t that punishment enough, don’t you think? If you don’t, you should feel it. Lord send you could feel for a minute what I’ve been feeling all through this blessed night! It would teach you better, I ’ll wager.”
And having said all this, very quick and very loud, my father sank down on his chair again, and hid his face on his arms, which rested on the table, as though he wanted no further talk with anybody. The company did not appear to be in a hurry to take the hint; but after an awkward silence of four or five minutes, my father’s meaning became so clear that it was impossible to mistake it; and so, by ones and twos, they gradually dispersed; and as Mrs. Jenkins was engaged up-stairs, we were once more left alone with old Jenkins, who shut the door.
“Now, you take my advice, Jim,” said he, addressing my father, “and turn in with the boy. There’s my son Joe’s bed in the back-room, and Joe, as you know, won’t be home till the morning. Turn in, Jim; and if you can’t sleep, you will be able to get a good spell of quiet.”
Chapter V. In which my father endeavours to explain to me the meaning of the words “death” and “never.”
“Death” and “never”
Young Joe Jenkins’s room, in which, after some persuasion, my father and myself consented to pass the night, was not exactly the sort of chamber an over-nice person would have chosen as a sleeping apartment.
Joe Jenkins was a night hand at a blacklead-factory on the Surrey side of the water, and being a long-headed and ingenious young fellow, and having a great deal of daylight at his disposal, had turned his bedroom into a workshop. His father took a great deal to “the fancy,” and so did Joe. I say “the fancy,” because they called it so. It meant dealing in birds, and dogs, and rabbits, and rats for the rat-pit, and ferrets. Besides “fancying” these various birds and beasts, Joe fancied birdcage-making and bird-stuffing, and the bringing-up from the nest and by hand of all sorts of singing-birds. Likewise he dealt in dog-physic and birdlime, and “salt-cats” for pigeons. The only cupboard in the room was crammed with these sort of things, as was the fireplace; and at all sides underneath the bedstead strange shapes in wood and wire-work protruded. You could not see pots or brushes about, but that painting was carried on in the room, you could smell beyond a doubt.