CHAPTER II
BUT THE OTHER GETS IN
To Tommy, a swaggerer, came Shovel sour-visaged; having now no cap ofhis own, he exchanged with Tommy, would also have bled the bloomingmouth of him, but knew of a revenge that saves the knuckles: announced,with jeers and offensive finger exercise, that "it" had come.
Shovel was a liar. If he only knowed what Tommy knowed!
If Tommy only heard what Shovel had heard!
Tommy was of opinion that Shovel hadn't not heard anything.
Shovel believed as Tommy didn't know nuthin.
Tommy wouldn't listen to what Shovel had heard.
Neither would Shovel listen to what Tommy knew.
If Shovel would tell what he had heard, Tommy would tell what he knew.
Well, then, Shovel had listened at the door, and heard it mewling.
Tommy knowed it well, and it never mewled.
How could Tommy know it?
'Cos he had been with it a long time.
Gosh! Why, it had only comed a minute ago.
This made Tommy uneasy, and he asked a leading question cunningly. Aboy, wasn't it?
No, Shovel's old woman had been up helping to hold it, and she said itwere a girl.
Shutting his mouth tightly; which was never natural to him, the startledTommy mounted the stair, listened and was convinced. He did not enterhis dishonored home. He had no intention of ever entering it again. Withone salt tear he renounced--a child, a mother.
On his way downstairs he was received by Shovel and party, who plantedtheir arrows neatly. Kids cried steadily, he was told, for the firstyear. A boy one was bad enough, but a girl one was oh lawks. He mustnever again expect to get playing with blokes like what they was.Already she had got round his old gal who would care for him no more.What would they say about this in Thrums?
Shovel even insisted on returning him his cap, and for some queerreason, this cut deepest. Tommy about to charge, with his head down, nowwalked away so quietly that Shovel, who could not help liking the funnylittle cuss, felt a twinge of remorse, and nearly followed him with amagnanimous offer: to treat him as if he were still respectable.
Tommy lay down on a distant stair, one of the very stairs where _she_had sat with him. Ladies, don't you dare to pity him now, for he won'tstand it. Rage was what he felt, and a man in a rage (as you may know ifyou are married) is only to be soothed by the sight of all womankind interror of him. But you may look upon your handiwork, and gloat, an youwill, on the wreck you have made. A young gentleman trusted one of you;behold the result. O! O! O! O! now do you understand why we men cannotabide you?
If she had told him flat that his mother, and his alone, she would have,and so there was an end of it. Ah, catch them taking a straight road.But to put on those airs of helplessness, to wave him that gay good-by,and then the moment his back was turned, to be off through the airon--perhaps on her muff, to the home he had thought to lure her from. Ina word, to be diddled by a girl when one flatters himself he isdiddling! S'death, a dashing fellow finds it hard to bear. Nevertheless,he has to bear it, for oh, Tommy, Tommy, 'tis the common lot of man.
His hand sought his pocket for the penny that had brought him comfort indark hours before now; but, alack, she had deprived him even of it.Never again should his pinkie finger go through that warm hole, and atthe thought a sense of his forlornness choked him and he cried. You maypity him a little now.
Darkness came and hid him even from himself. He is not found again untila time of the night that is not marked on ornamental clocks, but has anhour to itself on the watch which a hundred thousand or so of Londonwomen carry in their breasts; the hour when men steal homewardstrickling at the mouth and drawing back from their own shadows to thewives they once went a-maying with, or the mothers who had such travailat the bearing of them, as if for great ends. Out of this, thedrunkard's hour, rose the wan face of Tommy, who had waked up somewhereclammy cold and quaking, and he was a very little boy, so he ran to hismother.
Such a shabby dark room it was, but it was home, such a weary worn womanin the bed, but he was her son, and she had been wringing her handsbecause he was so long in coming, and do you think he hurt her when hepressed his head on her poor breast, and do you think she grudged theheat his cold hands drew from her warm face? He squeezed her with aviolence that put more heat into her blood than he took out of it.
And he was very considerate, too: not a word of reproach in him, thoughhe knew very well what that bundle in the back of the bed was.
She guessed that he had heard the news and stayed away through jealousyof his sister, and by and by she said, with a faint smile, "I have apresent for you, laddie." In the great world without, she used fewThrums words now; you would have known she was Scotch by her accentonly, but when she and Tommy were together in that room, with the doorshut, she always spoke as if her window still looked out on the bonnyMarywellbrae. It is not really bonny, it is gey an' mean an' bleak, andyou must not come to see it. It is just a steep wind-swept street, oldand wrinkled, like your mother's face.
She had a present for him, she said, and Tommy replied, "I knows," withaverted face.
"Such a bonny thing."
"Bonny enough," he said bitterly.
"Look at her, laddie."
But he shrank from the ordeal, crying, "No, no, keep her covered up!"
The little traitor seemed to be asleep, and so he ventured to say,eagerly, "It wouldn't not take long to carry all our things to anotherhouse, would it? Me and Shovel could near do it ourselves."
"And that's God's truth," the woman said, with a look round the room."But what for should we do that?"
"Do you no see, mother?" he whispered excitedly. "Then you and me couldslip away, and--and leave her--in the press."
The feeble smile with which his mother received this he interpretedthus, "Wherever we go'd to she would be there before us."
"The little besom!" he cried helplessly.
His mother saw that mischievous boys had been mounting him on hishorse, which needed only one slap to make it go a mile; but she was aspiritless woman, and replied indifferently, "You're a funny litlin."
Presently a dry sob broke from her, and thinking the child was thecause, soft-hearted Tommy said, "It can't not be helped, mother; don'tcry, mother, I'm fond on yer yet, mother; I--I took her away. I foundanother woman--but she would come."
"She's God's gift, man," his mother said, but she added, in a differenttone, "Ay, but he hasna sent her keep."
"God's gift!" Tommy shuddered, but he said sourly, "I wish he would takeher back. Do you wish that, too, mother?"
The weary woman almost said she did, but her arms--they gripped the babyas if frightened that he had sent for it. Jealous Tommy, suddenlydeprived of his mother's hand, cried, "It's true what Shovel says, youdon't not love me never again; you jest loves that little limmer!"
"Na, na," the mother answered, passionate at last, "she can never be tome what you hae been, my laddie, for you came to me when my hame was inhell, and we tholed it thegither, you and me."'
This bewildered though it comforted him. He thought his mother might bespeaking about the room in which they had lived until six months ago,when his father was put into the black box, but when he asked her ifthis were so, she told him to sleep, for she was dog-tired. She alwaysevaded him in this way when he questioned her about his past, but attimes his mind would wander backwards unbidden to those distant days,and then he saw flitting dimly through them the elusive form of a child.He knew it was himself, and for moments he could see it clearly, butwhen he moved a step nearer it was not there. So does the child we oncewere play hide and seek with us among the mists of infancy, until oneday he trips and falls into the daylight. Then we seize him, and withthat touch we two are one. It is the birth of self-consciousness.
Hitherto he had slept at the back of his mother's bed, but to-night shecould not have him there, the place being occupied, and rather sulkilyhe consented to lie crosswise at her feet, undressing by th
e feeble fireand taking care, as he got into bed, not to look at the usurper. Hismother watched him furtively, and was relieved to read in his face thathe had no recollection of ever having slept at the foot of a bed before.But soon after he fell asleep he awoke, and was afraid to move lest hisfather should kick him. He opened his eyes stealthily, and this wasneither the room nor the bed he had expected to see.
The floor was bare save for a sheepskin beside the bed. Tommy alwaysstood on the sheepskin while he was dressing because it was warm to thefeet, though risky, as your toes sometimes caught in knots in it. Therewas a deal table in the middle of the floor with some dirty crockeryon it and a kettle that would leave a mark, but they had been left thereby Shovel's old girl, for Mrs. Sandys usually kept her house clean. Thechairs were of the commonest, and the press door would not remain shutunless you stuck a knife between its halves; but there, was a gay bluewardrobe, spotted white where Tommy's mother had scraped off the mudthat had once bespattered it during a lengthy sojourn at the door of ashop; and on the mantelpiece was a clock in a little brown and yellowhouse, and on the clock a Bible that had been in Thrums. But what Tommywas proudest of was his mother's kist, to which the chests of Londonersare not to be compared, though like it in appearance. On the inside ofthe lid of this kist was pasted, after a Thrums custom, something thathis mother called her marriage lines, which she forced Shovel's motherto come up and look at one day, when that lady had made an innuendoTommy did not understand, and Shovel's mother had looked, and though shecould not read, was convinced, knowing them by the shape.
Tommy lay at the foot of the bed looking at this room, which was hishome now, and trying to think of the other one, and by and by the firehelped him by falling to ashes, when darkness came in, and packing thefurniture in grotesque cloths, removed it piece by piece, all but theclock. Then the room took a new shape. The fireplace was over thereinstead of here, the torn yellow blind gave way to one made of spars ofgreen wood, that were bunched up at one side, like a lady out for awalk. On a round table there was a beautiful blue cloth, with very fewgravy marks, and here a man ate beef when a woman and a boy ate bread,and near the fire was the man's big soft chair, out of which you couldpull hairs, just as if it were Shovel's sister.
Of this man who was his father he could get no hold. He could feel hispresence, but never see him. Yet he had a face. It sometimes pressedTommy's face against it in order to hurt him, which it could do, beingall short needles at the chin.
Once in those days Tommy and his mother ran away and hid from some one.He did not know from whom nor for how long, though it was but for aweek, and it left only two impressions on his mind, the one that heoften asked, "Is this starving now, mother?" the other that beforeturning a corner she always peered round it fearfully. Then they wentback again to the man and he laughed when he saw them, but did not takehis feet off the mantelpiece. There came a time when the man was alwaysin bed, but still Tommy could not see his face. What he did see was theman's clothes lying on the large chair just as he had placed them therewhen he undressed for the last time. The black coat and worstedwaistcoat which he could take off together were on the seat, and thelight trousers hung over the side, the legs on the hearthrug, with thered socks still sticking in them: a man without a body.
But the boy had one vivid recollection of how his mother received thenews of his father's death. An old man with a white beard and gentleways, who often came to give the invalid physic, was standing at thebedside, and Tommy and his mother were sitting on the fender. The oldman came to her and said, "It is all over," and put her softly into thebig chair. She covered her face with her hands, and he must have thoughtshe was crying, for he tried to comfort her. But as soon as he was goneshe rose, with such a queer face, and went on tiptoe to the bed, andlooked intently at her husband, and then she clapped her hands joyouslythree times.
At last Tommy fell asleep with his mouth open, which is the mostimportant thing that has been told of him as yet, and while he slept daycame and restored the furniture that night had stolen. But when the boywoke he did not even notice the change; his brain traversed the hours ithad lost since he lay down as quickly as you may put on a stopped clock,and with his first tick he was thinking of nothing but the deceiver inthe back of the bed. He raised his head, but could only see that she hadcrawled under the coverlet to escape his wrath. His mother was asleep.Tommy sat up and peeped over the edge of the bed, then he let his eyeswander round the room; he was looking for the girl's clothes, but theywere nowhere to be seen. It is distressing to have to tell that what wasin his mind was merely the recovery of his penny. Perhaps as they wereSunday clothes she had hung them up in the wardrobe? He slipped on tothe floor and crossed to the wardrobe, but not even the muff could hefind. Had she been tired, and gone to bed in them? Very softly hecrawled over his mother, and pulling the coverlet off the child's face,got the great shock of his childhood.
It was another one!