Samuel Boyd of Catchpole Square: A Mystery. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ holding each garment up to the light and criticising its condition with the eye of an expert. Now and then she shook her head, as though in answer to a question whether this or that tattered article of clothing could be mended; and, the point being settled, plunged it into the wash-tub again for an extra soaping to make up for tatters. And the marvellous patience with which she pursued her task, the absence of anything in the shape of rebellion or protest that she, so young in years, should be set to it! If ever suffering mortal deserved a medal for duty done in the teeth of adverse circumstance, against odds so terrible that the coldest heart must have been moved to pity to witness it, Gracie surely had earned it. But there is no established order on earth for the bestowal of honours in such a cause. Crosses and broad ribbons and sparkling stars are for deeds far different from the devoted heroism she displayed. But a record is kept in Heaven, Gracie, and angels are looking down upon you. How astonished would she have been to know it! She suffered-ah, how she suffered! Every few minutes she was compelled to stop and fight the demon in her chest that scraped and scraped her brittle bones with fiendish cruelty-tearing at her, choking her, robbing her of breath, while she stamped her feet and beat her hands together.

      "Oh, I say! Gracie's going it," observed Bertie, the low comedian and mimic of the family, and as is the case with better known low comedians when they give utterance to nothing particularly witty, the young audience began to laugh.

      "Show us, Bertie," they cried. "Do it!"

      Whereupon, with his own vocal organs, Bertie reproduced Gracie's racking cough. The other children attempted the imitation, but none with success, and he accompanied the cough, moreover, with such an expression of woe upon his face, that the children were lost in admiration. Spurred to greater efforts by their approval he wound up with so faithful a reproduction of Gracie in the last exhausting stage of a paroxysm that it brought down the house.

      "Is that like it, Gracie?" he asked.

      "Yes," she answered, with unmoved face, "that's like it."

      One of the children, burning with envy at her brother's histrionic triumph, expressed her feelings with her legs.

      "Connie's kicking me, Gracie," cried Bertie, at the same time returning the kicks beneath the bedclothes.

      "If you don't leave off," said Gracie, impassively, "I'll come and slap you."

      She had to be very careful with the children's underclothing. So full of holes and rents were they that the least violence would have wrought irremediable havoc among them-and where was mother to get the money from to buy new ones?

      "There," she said, hanging the last garment on the line, and wiping her hands and arms on her wet apron, "that job's done."

      The children raised a cheer, and simultaneously sat up in bed in a state of eager expectation. Six little heads nestling close, six eager faces turned towards Gracie. They had not a clear view of her, because night was coming on.

      "Wait a bit," she said, "we must have a light, and I must make up the fire."

      It was a very small fire, the capacity of the stove being circumscribed by a large brick on either side, placed there for the sake of economy. Gracie put on half a dozen little pieces of coal with miser-like care, taking as much pains to arrange them as if they were precious stones, as indeed they were. A tiny flame shot out and shone upon her face; with her black eyes and black hair she looked like a goblin beneath this fitful illumination. Then she rose and lighted a tallow candle, placing it on a deal table, which she drew close to the bed. The table was bare of covering, and presented a bald white space, Gracie having given it a good scrubbing before she commenced her washing. Seating herself on a wooden chair she took from a drawer some broken ends of chalk of different colours, yellow, green, and vermilion being the predominant hues. The excitement of the children grew to fever height.

      Gracie had a gift which comes by nature. She was magnetic, and could tell a story in such a manner as to absorb the attention of her hearers. It is true that she only told stories to her brothers and sisters, who might have been considered a partial audience, but that she was capable of taking their imaginations captive and leading them in any direction she pleased-through gilded hall or dismal dungeon, through enchanted forest or dark morass-may be accepted as a token that, grown to womanhood and appealing to a more experienced audience, her success would be no less complete. To look at that apparently insensible face and at that coal black eye, unillumined by the fire of fancy, and to listen to that listless voice when she discoursed upon mundane affairs, no one would have imagined that it was in her power to rivet the attention, to fascinate and absorb. It is, however, just those faces which go towards the making of a great actor. A blank space waiting to be written upon, ready for the kindling of the spark which unlocks the gates of imagination and lays all the world of fancy open to the view. Then do merry elves peep out from beds of flowers, and fairy forms dance in the light of moon and stars; then do enchanted castles gleam in the eye of the sun, and gloomy caverns open wide their jaws and breathe destruction on all who venture within their shadowed walls.

      Many such romances had Gracie told the children, with appropriate pictorial illustration in colours, but she came down to earth occasionally, and condescended to use materials more modern; but even these familiar subjects were decorated with flowers of quaint fancy and invested by her with captivating charm. Sometimes she mingled the two together, and produced the oddest effects.

      The secret of the coloured chalks was this. Not long ago there lived in the house an artist who strove to earn a living by painting on the pavements of the city the impossible salmon and the equally impossible sunset. But though he used the most lurid colours he did not find himself appreciated, and, taking a liking to Gracie, he poured into her ears tales of disappointed ambition and unrecognised genius, to which she listened with sympathetic soul. Emulous of his gifts she coaxed him into giving her a few lessons, and in a short time could also paint the impossible salmon and the equally impossible sunset. One day he said, "Gracie, I am leaving this wretched country, which is not a country for artists. I bequeath to you my genius and my stock of coloured chalks. But do not deceive yourself; they will bring you only disappointment, and do not blame me if you die unhonoured, and unwept, and unsung." With these despairing words he bade her an affectionate, if gloomy, farewell. Gracie did not share his despair, and had little understanding of the words in which it was expressed. The legacy was a God-send to her and to the children whom she would enthral with her flights of imagination, with coloured illustrations on the deal table.

      She related to them now some weird tale of a beautiful young princess-(behold the beautiful young princess, with vermilion lips and cheeks, green eyes starting out of her head, and yellow hair trailing to her heels) – and a gallant young prince-(behold the gallant young prince, with vermilion lips and cheeks, staring green eyes, and yellow hair carefully parted in the middle) – mounted on a fiery steed-(behold the fiery steed, its legs very wide apart, also with green eyes, vermilion nostrils, and a long yellow tail) – who, with certain wicked personages, went through astounding adventures, which doubtless would all have come right in the end had Gracie not been seized with a fit of coughing so violent that she fell back in her chair, spasmodically catching and fighting for her breath.

      Two persons mounted the stairs at this crisis, a man and a woman, and both hastened their steps at these sounds of distress. Mrs. Death flung the door open and hastened to Gracie's side not noticing Dick, who followed her.

      "My dear child-my dear child!" said Mrs. Death, taking her clammy hand and holding the exhausted girl in her motherly arms.

      "I'm all right, mother," gasped Gracie, presently, regaining her breath. "Don't you worry about me. There-I'm better already!" She was the first to see Dick, and she started up. "Mother-look! The gentleman from the police station! Have you found father, sir?"

      "I beg your pardon for intruding," said Dick to the woman. "I came to speak to you, and when I was wondering which part of the house you СКАЧАТЬ