My father, however, was not an over-nice person. Had the bedstead been the handsomest mahogany four-poster ever built, instead of one of the commonest scissor-pattern; had the bed been down instead of cotton flock, and the counterpane quilted satin in place of faded patch-work; had the apartment been spacious and lofty, instead of small and of a decidedly “cupboardy” odour, my father could not have rested a bit better than he did, which was not at all.
Old Jenkins’s prognostication, that if my father could not sleep he would be benefited by a spell of quiet, did not come true. While the people in the house were still up and about, while footsteps up and down the stairs might be heard, and the street cries out in Turnmill Street continued, he lay quiet enough; and had it not been for his fidgeting and tossing his arms about, and the odd noises he from time to time made with his lips, I should have thought that he was asleep. Not that I wanted him to go to sleep. I lay quiet too, but I was painfully broad awake, and could distinctly make out the creaking of the axletree of the squirrel’s cylinder in the front room, and the clawing of its feet against the wires. I was a very long way from comfortable in my mind. I didn’t exactly know what, but that something dreadful was the matter I had no doubt.
Gradually the noises in the street and in the alley subsided, and all without was quiet. All within was quiet also, except that in the front room overhead the muffled shuffling of feet and an indistinct humming as of two persons conversing in whispers continued. As the other noises died away these last mentioned grew plainer. Knowing the room as I did, I could as easily as possible follow the footsteps, and knew exactly where the two whisperers halted. In about an hour, however, the whisperers came together to the room-door, shut it, locked it on the outside, and hastened down-stairs. When they reached the door of the room where we were, said one to the other—
“What shall we do with the candle?”
“Blow it out, and stand it just outside the door, here.”
“Ah, that’s the ticket He and the boy are sleeping in here, you know. I’ll put it down along with the lucifer matches.”
“No occasion to leave the matches, as I see.” “You don’t know: he might take it into his head to want to go up and have a peep, and I don’t suppose he would care about going up in the dark.”
“I should rather think not,” replied the other woman, with a stifled giggle. “If he’s the man take him for, he’ll be in no hurry to pay her a visit, daylight or dark. At least I should not like to if I was him.”
“Why not?”
There was no answer to this, at least no verbal answer. That the party questioned made some sort of response or sign was plain, however, for the other replied—
“Oh! I don’t know. Old Nick, you know, is not so black as he is painted, they say. You can’t say what you’d do if you stood in his shoes. There’s an old saying and a true one, that there is no cure for a burn like holding it to the fire.”
“Well, make haste tying your pattens on; we shan’t be able to get a drain at the ‘Stile’ before they shuts up.”
“I’m ready when you are.”
“How about the key?”
“Well, it’s no use leaving him the candle and the matches without we leave him the key. Lay it down with ’em.”
“I know a safer way than that. That’s how to do it.” And as she spoke she pushed the key under the door into the room, as I could tell by the scrooping noise.
Then, as my sense of smell plainly informed me, they blew the candle out and went downstairs. They did not go down in the dark, however. They struck a light with a lucifer match against the wall against which our heads lay. The match, however, went out before they got half-way down; for one of them exclaimed—
“Drat the thing! it’s gone out, and I haven’t got another! Never mind; come along.”
And then they were heard hurrying along the passage towards the street door, which they banged with a heartiness that showed how glad they were to get out of a house where death was.
My father lay quite still while the whispering was going on without, and without doubt heard
it all as plainly as did I, understanding it much better. Soon, however, as all was quiet, he rose on his elbow, and leaning over the side of the bed, felt about the floor, evidently for the purpose of finding the key the woman had pushed under the door.
What could he want with it? Was it his intention, as the woman said it probably would be, to go up and “take a peep?” Was he going up “to cure his burns by holding them to the fire,” whatever that meant? This could hardly be, because if he meant to go up to our room, his most natural course would be to get up and light the candle, which he would want to show him the way, and which would make his search after the key an easy matter. No, he was not going upstairs. After groping about for more than a minute, he fished up the key, and lifting up his pillow placed it underneath.
“That’s summat of a keepsake, anyhow,” he whispered; and then he laid his head down, as though at last he really was going to sleep.
But somehow he couldn’t manage it. No position suited him for as long as five minutes. He tossed and tumbled this side and that with his face to the wall—with his face to the window—with his arms folded tight over his breast, and then again pressed across his eyes, as though to keep them closed whether they would or no.
But he couldn’t be still One thing, however, I could not help remarking. Whichever way he stirred, he was careful to avoid disturbing me. Every time he made an awkward lurch, he would pat me softly on the shoulder, and whisper “hus—sh!” as though afraid that I might wake.
But he need not have taken any pains on that score. I was awake—broad awake—though still as a mouse. My mind was utterly bewildered by the quick succession of marvellous events that had transpired during the day. What, after all, was the matter with mother? That was the foremost puzzle in my mind. Mrs. Jenkins had said she was “gone,” and yet the two women were engaged up-stairs hours afterwards,—engaged in our room, and with my mother beyond a doubt; for had not the women when they talked about the key and the candle said, “Perhaps he would like to go up and have a peep at her?” Again, if she was “gone,” why had they locked the door? and still, again, if she was not gone, but was simply lying abed, why had they locked the door? Had they left her all alone and in the dark because she was ill? Still, if Mrs. Jenkins’s word might be taken for it, mother had gone. “Poor dear creature, and was you with her, ma’am, when she went?” a woman asked of her, and she answered, “Yes, I was with her till the last.” It was altogether a maze to me, and the further I endeavoured to penetrate it the more I became bewildered.
If my mother was gone, where was she gone to, and how long would it be before she returned?
She was never coming back. That was another remark Mrs. Jenkins had made use of. “How long will it be before mother comes home again, ma’am?” I asked her; and her reply was, “She will never come home again, my poor boy. She has gone away for ever to the place where all good people go, and she will never come back any more.”