The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘ere.’ If we everyone of us thought it—every minit of every day.”

      She did not know she was speaking of a millennium—the end of the world. She sat by her one candle, threading her needle and believing she was speaking of To-day.

      He laughed a hollow laugh.

      “If we were right!” he said. “It would take long—long—long—to make us all so.”

      “It would be slow p’raps. Well, so it would—but good comes quick for them as begins callin’ it. It’s been quick for me,” drawing her thread through the needle’s eye triumphantly. “Lor’, yes, me legs is better—me luck’s better—people’s better. Bless yer, yes!”

      “It’s true,” said Glad; “she gets on somehow. Things comes. She never wants no drink. Me now,” she applied to Miss Montaubyn, “if I took it up same as you—wot’d come to a gal like me?”

      “Wot ud yer want ter come?” Dart saw that in her mind was an absolute lack of any premonition of obstacle. “Wot’d yer arst fer in yer own mind?”

      Glad reflected profoundly.

      “Polly,” she said, “she wants to go ‘ome to ‘er mother an’ to the country. I ain’t got no mother an’ wot I ‘ear of the country seems like I’d get tired of it. Nothin’ but quiet an’ lambs an’ birds an’ things growin.’ Me, I likes things goin’ on. I likes people an’ ‘and organs an’ ‘buses. I’d stay ‘ere—same as I told you,” with a jerk of her hand toward Dart.

      “An’ do things in the court—if I ‘ad a bit o’ money. I don’t want to live no gay life when I’m a woman. It’s too ‘ard. Us pore uns ends too bad. Wisht I knowed I could get on some’ow.”

      “Good’ll come,” said Miss Montaubyn. “Just you say the same as me every mornin’—‘Good’s fillin’ the world, an’ some of it’s comin’ to me. It’s bein’ sent—an’ I’m goin’ to meet it. It’s comin’—it’s comin’.’” She bent forward and touched the girl’s shoulder with her astonishing eyes alight. “Bless yer, wot’s in my room’s in yours; Lor’, yes.”

      Glad’s eyes stared into hers, they became mysteriously, almost awesomely, astonishing also.

      “Is it?” she breathed in a hushed voice.

      “Yes, Lor’, yes! When yer get up in the mornin’ you just stand still an’ arst it. ‘Speak, Lord,’ ses you; ‘speak, Lord—’”

      “Thy servant ‘eareth,” ended Glad’s hushed speech. “Blimme, but I’m goin’ to try it!”

      Perhaps the brain of her saw it still as an incantation, perhaps the soul of her, called up strangely out of the dark and still newborn and blind and vague, saw it vaguely and half blindly as something else.

      Dart was wondering which of these things were true.

      “We’ve never been expectin’ nothin’ that’s good,” said Miss Montaubyn. “We’re allus expectin’ the other. Who isn’t? I was allus expectin’ rheumatiz an’ ‘unger an’ cold an’ starvin’ old age. Wot was you lookin’ for?” to Dart.

      He looked down on the floor and answered heavily.

      “Failing brain—failing life—despair—death!”

      “None of ‘em’s comin’—if yer don’t call ‘em. Stand still an’ listen for the other. It’s the other that’s true.”

      She was without doubt amazing. She chirped like a bird singing on a bough, rejoicing in token of the shining of the sun.

      “It’s wot yer can work on—this,” said Glad. “The curick—‘e’s a good sort an’ no’ ‘arm in ‘im—but ‘e ses: ‘Trouble an’ ‘unger is ter teach yer ter submit. Accidents an’ coughs as tears yer lungs is sent you to prepare yer for ‘eaven. If yer loves ‘Im as sends ‘em, yer’ll go there.’ ”Ave yer ever bin?’ ses I. ”Ave yer ever saw anyone that’s bin? ‘Ave yer ever saw anyone that’s saw anyone that’s bin?’ ‘No,’ ‘e ses. ‘Don’t, me girl, don’t!’ ‘Garn,’ I ses; ‘tell me somethin’ as’ll do me some good afore I’m dead! ‘Eaven’s too far off.’”

      “The kingdom of ‘eaven is at ‘and,” said Miss Montaubyn. “Bless yer, yes, just ‘ere.”

      Antony Dart glanced round the room. It was a strange place. But something was here. Magic, was it? Frenzy—dreams—what?

      He heard from below a sudden murmur and crying out in the street. Miss Montaubyn heard it and stopped in her sewing, holding her needle and thread extended.

      Glad heard it and sprang to her feet.

      “Somethin’s ‘appened,” she cried out. “Someone’s ‘urt.”

      She was out of the room in a breath’s space. She stood outside listening a few seconds and darted back to the open door, speaking through it. They could hear below commotion, exclamations, the wail of a child.

      “Somethin’s ‘appened to Bet!” she cried out again. “I can ‘ear the child.”

      She was gone and flying down the staircase; Antony Dart and Miss Montaubyn rose together. The tumult was increasing; people were running about in the court, and it was plain a crowd was forming by the magic which calls up crowds as from nowhere about the door. The child’s screams rose shrill above the noise. It was no small thing which had occurred.

      “I must go,” said Miss Montaubyn, limping away from her table. “P’raps I can ‘elp. P’raps you can ‘elp, too,” as he followed her.

      They were met by Glad at the threshold. She had shot back to them, panting.

      “She was blind drunk,” she said, “an’ she went out to get more. She tried to cross the street an’ fell under a car She’ll be dead in five minits. I’m goin’ for the biby.”

      Dart saw Miss Montaubyn step back into her room. He turned involuntarily to look at her.

      She stood still a second—so still that it seemed as if she was not drawing mortal breath. Her astonishing, expectant eyes closed themselves, and yet in closing spoke expectancy still.

      “Speak, Lord,” she said softly, but as if she spoke to Something whose nearness to her was such that her hand might have touched it. “Speak, Lord, thy servant ‘eareth.”

      Antony Dart almost felt his hair rise. He quaked as she came near, her poor clothes brushing against him. He drew back to let her pass first, and followed her leading.

      The court was filled with men, women, and children, who surged about the doorway, talking, crying, and protesting against each other’s crowding. Dart caught a glimpse of a policeman fighting his way through with a doctor. A dishevelled woman with a child at her dirty, bare breast had got in and was talking loudly.

      “Just outside the court it was,” she proclaimed, “an’ I saw it. If she’d bin ‘erself it couldn’t ‘ave ‘appened. ‘No time СКАЧАТЬ