The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ stop and address anyone. There could be no certainty as to whom he might find himself speaking to. He would speak to no one. He would wander about until he came upon some clew. Even if he came upon none, the fog would surely lift a little and become a trifle less dense in course of time. He drew up the collar of his overcoat, pulled his hat down over his eyes and went on—his hand on the thing he had thrust into a pocket.

      He did not find his clew as he had hoped, and instead of lifting the fog grew heavier. He found himself at last no longer striving for any end, but rambling along mechanically, feeling like a man in a dream—a nightmare. Once he recognized a weird suggestion in the mystery about him. Tomorrow might one be wandering about aimlessly in some such haze. He hoped not.

      His lodgings were not far from the Embankment, and he knew at last that he was wandering along it, and had reached one of the bridges. His mood led him to turn in upon it, and when he reached an embrasure to stop near it and lean upon the parapet looking down. He could not see the water, the fog was too dense, but he could hear some faint splashing against stones. He had taken no food and was rather faint. What a strange thing it was to feel faint for want of food—to stand alone, cut off from every other human being—everything done for. No wonder that sometimes, particularly on such days as these, there were plunges made from the parapet—no wonder. He leaned farther over and strained his eyes to see some gleam of water through the yellowness. But it was not to be done. He was thinking the inevitable thing, of course; but such a plunge would not do for him. The other thing would destroy all traces.

      As he drew back he heard something fall with the solid tinkling sound of coin on the flag pavement. When he had been in the pawnbroker’s shop he had taken the gold from his purse and thrust it carelessly into his waistcoat pocket, thinking that it would be easy to reach when he chose to give it to one beggar or another, if he should see some wretch who would be the better for it. Some movement he had made in bending had caused a sovereign to slip out and it had fallen upon the stones.

      He did not intend to pick it up, but in the moment in which he stood looking down at it he heard close to him a shuffling movement. What he had thought a bundle of rags or rubbish covered with sacking—some tramp’s deserted or forgotten belongings—was stirring. It was alive, and as he bent to look at it the sacking divided itself, and a small head, covered with a shock of brilliant red hair, thrust itself out, a shrewd, small face turning to look up at him slyly with deep-set black eyes.

      It was a human girl creature about twelve years old.

      “Are yer goin’ to do it?” she said in a hoarse, street-strained voice. “Yer would be a fool if yer did—with as much as that on yer.”

      She pointed with a reddened, chapped, and dirty hand at the sovereign.

      “Pick it up,” he said. “You may have it.”

      Her wild shuffle forward was an actual leap. The hand made a snatching clutch at the coin. She was evidently afraid that he was either not in earnest or would repent. The next second she was on her feet and ready for flight.

      “Stop,” he said; “I’ve got more to give away.”

      She hesitated—not believing him, yet feeling it madness to lose a chance.

      “More!” she gasped. Then she drew nearer to him, and a singular change came upon her face. It was a change which made her look oddly human.

      “Gawd, mister!” she said. “Yer can give away a quid like it was nothin’—an’ yer’ve got more—an’ yer goin’ to do that—jes cos yer ‘ad a bit too much lars night an’ there’s a fog this mornin’! You take it straight from me—don’t yer do it. I give yer that tip for the suvrink.”

      She was, for her years, so ugly and so ancient, and hardened in voice and skin and manner that she fascinated him. Not that a man who has no Tomorrow in view is likely to be particularly conscious of mental processes. He was done for, but he stood and stared at her. What part of the Power moving the scheme of the universe stood near and thrust him on in the path designed he did not know then—perhaps never did. He was still holding on to the thing in his pocket, but he spoke to her again.

      “What do you mean?” he asked glumly.

      She sidled nearer, her sharp eyes on his face.

      “I bin watchin’ yer,” she said. “I sat down and pulled the sack over me ‘ead to breathe inside it an’ get a bit warm. An’ I see yer come. I knowed wot yer was after, I did. I watched yer through a ‘ole in me sack. I wasn’t goin’ to call a copper. I shouldn’t want ter be stopped meself if I made up me mind. I seed a gal dragged out las’ week an’ it’d a broke yer ‘art to see ‘er tear ‘er clothes an’ scream. Wot business ‘ad they preventin’ ‘er goin’ off quiet? I wouldn’t ‘a’ stopped yer—but w’en the quid fell, that made it different.”

      “I—” he said, feeling the foolishness of the statement, but making it, nevertheless, “I am ill.”

      “Course yer ill. It’s yer ‘ead. Come along er me an’ get a cup er cawfee at a stand, an’ buck up. If yer’ve give me that quid straight—wish-yer-may-die—I’ll go with yer an’ get a cup myself. I ain’t ‘ad a bite since yesterday—an’ ‘t wa’n’t nothin’ but a slice o’ polony sossidge I found on a dust-‘eap. Come on, mister.”

      She pulled his coat with her cracked hand. He glanced down at it mechanically, and saw that some of the fissures had bled and the roughened surface was smeared with the blood. They stood together in the small space in which the fog enclosed them—he and she—the man with no Tomorrow and the girl thing who seemed as old as himself, with her sharp, small nose and chin, her sharp eyes and voice—and yet—perhaps the fogs enclosing did it—something drew them together in an uncanny way. Something made him forget the lost clew to the lodging-house—something made him turn and go with her—a thing led in the dark.

      “How can you find your way?” he said. “I lost mine.”

      “There ain’t no fog can lose me,” she answered, shuffling along by his side; “‘sides, it’s goin’ to lift. Look at that man comin’ to’ards us.”

      It was true that they could see through the orange-colored mist the approaching figure of a man who was at a yard’s distance from them. Yes, it was lifting slightly—at least enough to allow of one’s making a guess at the direction in which one moved.

      “Where are you going?” he asked.

      “Apple Blossom Court,” she answered. “The cawfee-stand’s in a street near it—and there’s a shop where I can buy things.”

      “Apple Blossom Court!” he ejaculated. “What a name!”

      “There ain’t no apple-blossoms there,” chuckling; “nor no smell of ‘em. ‘T ain’t as nice as its nime is—Apple Blossom Court ain’t.”

      “What do you want to buy? A pair of shoes?” The shoes her naked feet were thrust into were leprous-looking things through which nearly all her toes protruded. But she chuckled when he spoke.

      “No, I’m goin’ to buy a di’mond tirarer to go to the opery in,” she said, dragging her old sack closer round her neck. “I ain’t ‘ad a new ‘un since I went to the last Drorin’-room.”

      It was impudent street chaff, but there was cheerful spirit in it, and cheerful spirit has some occult effect upon СКАЧАТЬ