"God!" he cried. "Will I come?"
"Gawd!" she sobbed hysterically, "I thort I'd lost yer! I thort I'd lost all of it, I did! Strewth! I'm glad I've found yer—" and she stopped, choking with her sobs and sniffs, rubbing her face in her sack.
"Here is your sovereign," Dart said, handing it to her.
She dropped the corner of the sack and looked up with a queer laugh.
"Did yer find a copper? Did yer give him in charge?"
"No," answered Dart. "He was worse off than you. He was starving. I took this from him; but I gave him some money and told him to meet us at Apple Blossom Court."
She stopped short and drew back a pace to stare up at him.
"Well," she gave forth, "y' are a queer one!"
And yet in the amazement on her face he perceived a remote dawning of an understanding of the meaning of the thing he had done.
He had spoken like a man in a dream. He felt like a man in a dream, being led in the thick mist from place to place. He was led back to the coffee-stand, where now Barney, the proprietor, was pouring out coffee for a hoarse-voiced coster girl with a draggled feather in her hat, who greeted their arrival hilariously.
"Hello, Glad!" she cried out "Got yer suvrink back?"
Glad—it seemed to be the creature's wild name—nodded, but held close to her companion's side, clutching his coat.
"Let's go in there an' change it," she said, nodding toward a small pork and ham shop near by. "An' then yer can take care of it for me."
"What did she call you?" Antony Dart asked her as they went.
"Glad. Don't know as I ever 'ad a nime o' me own, but a little cove as went once to the pantermine told me about a young lady as was Fairy Queen an' 'er name was Gladys Beverly St. John, so I called meself that. No one never said it all at onct—they don't never say nothin' but Glad. I'm glad enough this mornin'," chuckling again, "'avin' the luck to come up with you, mister. Never had luck like it 'afore."
They went into the pork and ham shop and changed the sovereign. There was cooked food in the windows—roast pork and boiled ham and corned beef. She bought slices of pork and beef, and of suet-pudding with a few currants sprinkled through it.
"Will yer 'elp me to carry it?" she inquired. "I'll 'ave to get a few pen'worth o' coal an' wood an' a screw o' tea an' sugar. My wig, wot a feed me an' Polly'll 'ave!"
As they returned to the coffee-stand she broke more than once into a hop of glee. Barney had changed his mind concerning her. A solid sovereign which must be changed and a companion whose shabby gentility was absolute grandeur when compared with his present surroundings made a difference.
She received her mug of coffee and thick slice of bread and dripping with a grin, and swallowed the hot sweet liquid down in ecstatic gulps.
"Ain't I in luck?" she said, handing her mug back when it was empty. "Gi' me another, Barney."
Antony Dart drank coffee also and ate bread and dripping. The coffee was hot and the bread and dripping, dashed with salt, quite eatable. He had needed food and felt the better for it.
"Come on, mister," said Glad, when their meal was ended. "I want to get back to Polly, an' there's coal and bread and things to buy."
She hurried him along, breaking her pace with hops at intervals. She darted into dirty shops and brought out things screwed up in paper. She went last into a cellar and returned carrying a small sack of coal over her shoulders.
"Bought sack an' all," she said elatedly. "A sack's a good thing to 'ave."
"Let me carry it for you," said Antony Dart.
"Spile yer coat," with her sidelong upward glance.
"I don't care," he answered. "I don't care a damn."
The final expletive was totally unnecessary, but it meant a thing he did not say. Whatsoever was thrusting him this way and that, speaking through his speech, leading him to do things he had not dreamed of doing, should have its will with him. He had been fastened to the skirts of this beggar imp and he would go on to the end and do what was to be done this day. It was part of the dream.
The sack of coal was over his shoulder when they turned into Apple Blossom Court. It would have been a black hole on a sunny day, and now it was like Hades, lit grimly by a gas-jet or two, small and flickering, with the orange haze about them. Filthy flagging, murky doorways, broken steps and broken windows stuffed with rags, and the smell of the sewers let loose had Apple Blossom Court.
Glad, with the wealth of the pork and ham shop and other riches in her arms, entered a repellent doorway in a spirit of great good cheer and Dart followed her. Past a room where a drunken woman lay sleeping with her head on a table, a child pulling at her dress and crying, up a stairway with broken balusters and breaking steps, through a landing, upstairs again, and up still farther until they reached the top. Glad stopped before a door and shook the handle, crying out:
"'S only me, Polly. You can open it." She added to Dart in an undertone: "She 'as to keep it locked. No knowin' who'd want to get in. Polly," shaking the door-handle again, "Polly 's only me."
The door opened slowly. On the other side of it stood a girl with a dimpled round face which was quite pale; under one of her childishly vacant blue eyes was a discoloration, and her curly fair hair was tucked up on the top of her head in a knot. As she took in the fact of Antony Dart's presence her chin began to quiver.
"I ain't fit to—to see no one," she stammered pitifully. "Why did you, Glad—why did you?"
"Ain't no 'arm in 'im," said Glad. "'E's one o' the friendly ones. 'E give me a suvrink. Look wot I've got," hopping about as she showed her parcels.
"You need not be afraid of me," Antony Dart said. He paused a second, staring at her, and suddenly added, "Poor little wretch!"
Her look was so scared and uncertain a thing that he walked away from her and threw the sack of coal on the hearth. A small grate with broken bars hung loosely in the fireplace, a battered tin kettle tilted drunkenly near it. A mattress, from the holes in whose ticking straw bulged, lay on the floor in a corner, with some old sacks thrown over it. Glad had, without doubt, borrowed her shoulder covering from the collection. The garret was as cold as the grave, and almost as dark; the fog hung in it thickly. There were crevices enough through which it could penetrate.
Antony Dart knelt down on the hearth and drew matches from his pocket.
"We ought to have brought some paper," he said.
Glad ran forward.
"Wot a gent ye are!" she cried. "Y' ain't never goin' to light it?"
"Yes."
She ran back to the rickety table and collected the scraps of paper which had held her purchases. They were small, but useful.
"That wot was round the sausage an' the puddin's greasy," she exulted.
Polly hung over the table and trembled at the sight of meat and bread. Plainly, she did not understand what was happening. The greased paper set light to the wood, and the wood to the coal. All three flared and blazed with a sound of cheerful crackling. The blaze threw out its glow as finely as if it had been set alight to warm a better place. The wonder of a fire is like the wonder of a soul. This one changed the murk and gloom to brightness, and the deadly damp and cold to warmth. It drew the girl Polly from the table despite her fears. She turned involuntarily, made two steps toward it, and stood gazing while its light played on her face. Glad whirled and ran to the hearth.
"Ye've put on a lot," she cried; "but, oh, my Gawd, don't it warm yer! Come on, Polly—come on."
She dragged out a wooden stool, an empty soap-box, and bundled the sacks into a heap to be sat upon. She swept the things from the table and set them in their paper wrappings on the floor.
"Let's all sit down close to it—close," she said, "an' get warm an' eat, an' eat."
She was the leaven which leavened the lump of their humanity. What this leaven is—who has found out? But she—little rat of the gutter—was formed of it, and her mere pure animal joy in the temporary animal comfort of the moment stirred and uplifted them from their depths.
They drew near and sat upon the substitutes for seats in a circle—and the fire threw up flame and made a glow in the fog hanging in the black hole of a room.
It was Glad who set the battered kettle on and when it boiled made tea. The other two watched her, being under her spell. She handed out slices of bread and sausage and pudding on bits of paper. Polly fed with tremulous haste; Glad herself with rejoicing and exulting in flavors. Antony Dart ate bread and meat as he had eaten the bread and dripping at the stall—accepting his normal hunger as part of the dream.
Suddenly Glad paused in the midst of a huge bite.
"Mister," she said, "p'raps that cove's waitin' fer yer. Let's 'ave 'im in. I'll go and fetch 'im."
She was getting up, but Dart was on his feet first.
"I must go," he said. "He is expecting me and—"
"Aw," said Glad, "lemme go along o' yer, mister—jest to show there's no ill feelin'."
"Very well," he answered.
It was she who led, and he who followed. At the door she stopped and looked round with a grin.
"Keep up the fire, Polly," she threw back. "Ain't it warm and cheerful? It'll do the cove good to see it."
She led the way down the black, unsafe stairway. She always led.
Outside the fog had thickened again, but she went through it as if she could see her way.
At the entrance to the court the thief was standing, leaning against the wall with fevered, unhopeful waiting in his eyes. He moved miserably when he saw the girl, and she called out to reassure him.
"I ain't up to no 'arm," she said; "I on'y come with the gent."
Antony Dart spoke to him.
"Did you get food?"
The man shook his head.
"I turned faint after you left me, and when I came to I was afraid I might miss you," he answered. "I daren't lose my chance. I bought some bread and stuffed it in my pocket. I've been eating it while I've stood here."
"Come back with us," said Dart. "We are in a place where we have some food."
He spoke mechanically, and was aware that he did so. He was a pawn pushed about upon the board of this day's life.
"Come on," said the girl. "Yer can get enough to last fer three days."
She guided them back through the fog until they entered the murky doorway again. Then she almost ran up the staircase to the room they had left.
When the door opened the thief fell back a pace as before an unexpected thing. It was the flare of firelight which struck upon his eyes. He passed his hand over them.
"A fire!" he said. "I haven't seen one for a week. Coming out of the blackness it gives a man a start."
Improvident joy gleamed in Glad's eyes.
"We'll be warm onct," she chuckled, "if we ain't never warm agaen."
She drew her circle about the hearth again. The thief took the place next to her and she handed out food to him—a big slice of meat, bread, a thick slice of pudding.
"Fill yerself up," she said. "Then ye'll feel like yer can talk."
The man tried to eat his food with decorum, some recollection of the habits of better days restraining him, but starved nature was too much for him. His hands shook, his eyes filled, his teeth tore. The rest of the circle tried not to look at him. Glad and Polly occupied themselves with their own food.
Antony Dart gazed at the fire. Here he sat warming himself in a loft with a beggar, a thief, and a helpless thing of the street. He had come out to buy a pistol—its weight still hung in his overcoat pocket—and he had reached this place of whose existence he had an hour ago not dreamed. Each step which had led him had seemed a simple, inevitable thing, for which he had apparently been responsible, but which he knew—yes, somehow he knew—he had of his own volition neither planned nor meant. Yet here he sat—a part of the lives of the beggar, the thief, and the poor thing of the street. What did it mean?
"Tell me," he said to the thief, "how you came here."
By this time the young fellow had fed himself and looked less like a wolf. It was to be seen now that he had blue-gray eyes which were dreamy and young.
"I have always been inventing things," he said a little huskily. "I did it when I was a child. I always seemed to see there might be a way of doing a thing better—getting more power. When other boys were playing games I was sitting in corners trying to build models out of wire and string, and old boxes and tin cans. I often thought I saw the way to things, but I was always too poor to get what was needed to work them out. Twice I heard of men making great names and fortunes because they had been able to finish what I could have finished if I had had a few pounds. It used to drive me mad and break my heart." His hands clenched themselves and his huskiness grew thicker. "There was a man," catching his breath, "who leaped to the top of the ladder and set the whole world talking and writing—and I had done the thing first—I swear I had! It was all clear in my brain, and I was half mad with joy over it, but I could not afford to work it out. He could, so to the end of time it will be his." He struck his fist upon his knee.
"Aw!" The deep little drawl was a groan from Glad.
"I got a place in an office at last. I worked hard, and they began to trust me. I—had a new idea. It was a big one. I needed money to work it out. I—I remembered what had happened before. I felt like a poor fellow running a race for his life. I knew I could pay back ten times—a hundred times—what I took."
"You took money?" said Dart.
The thief's head dropped.
"No. I was caught when I was taking it. I wasn't sharp enough. Someone came in and saw me, and there was a crazy row. I was sent to prison. There was no more trying after that. It's nearly two years since, and I've been hanging about the streets and falling lower and lower. I've run miles panting after cabs with luggage in them and not had strength to carry in the boxes when they stopped. I've starved and slept out of doors. But the thing I wanted to work out is in my mind all the time—like some machine tearing round. It wants to be finished. It never will be. That's all."
Glad was leaning forward staring at him, her roughened hands with the smeared cracks on them clasped round her knees.
"Things 'as to be finished," she said. "They finish theirselves."
"How do you know?" Dart turned on her.
"Dunno 'ow I know—but I do. When things begin they finish. It's like a wheel rollin' down an 'ill." Her sharp eyes fixed themselves on Dart's. "All of us'll finish somethin'—'cos we've begun. You will—Polly will—'e will—I will." She stopped with a sudden sheepish chuckle and dropped her forehead on her knees, giggling. "Dunno wot I'm talking about," she said, "but it's true."
Dart began to understand that it was. And he also saw that this ragged thing who knew nothing whatever, looked out on the world with the eyes of a seer, though she was ignorant of the meaning of her own knowledge. It was a weird thing. He turned to the girl Polly.
"Tell me how you came here," he said.
He spoke in a low voice and gently. He did not want to frighten her, but he wanted to know how she had begun. When she lifted her childish eyes to his, her chin began to shake. For some reason she did not question his right to ask what he would. She answered him meekly, as her fingers fumbled with the stuff of her dress.
"I lived in the country with my mother," she said. "We was very happy together. In the spring there was primroses and—and lambs. I—can't abide to look at the sheep in the park these days. They remind me so. There was a girl in the village got a place in town and came back and told us all about it. It made me silly. I wanted to come here, too. I—I came—" She put her arm over her face and began to sob.
"She can't tell you," said Glad. "There was a swell in the 'ouse made love to her. She used to carry up coals to 'is parlor an' 'e talked to 'er. 'E 'ad a wye with 'im—"
Polly broke into a smothered wail.
"Oh, I did love him so—I did!" she cried. "I'd have let him walk over me. I'd have let him kill me."
"'E nearly did it," said Glad.
"'E went away sudden an' she's never 'eard word of 'im since."
From under Polly's face-hiding arm came broken words.
"I couldn't tell my mother. I did not know how. I was too frightened and ashamed. Now it's too late. I shall never see my mother again, and it seems as if all the lambs and primroses in the world was dead. Oh, they're dead—they're dead—and I wish I was, too!"
Glad's eyes winked rapidly and she gave a hoarse little cough to clear her throat. Her arms still clasping her knees, she hitched herself closer to the girl and gave her a nudge with her elbow.
"Buck up, Polly," she said, "we ain't none of us finished yet. Look at us now—sittin' by our own fire with bread and puddin' inside us—an' think wot we was this mornin'. Who knows wot we'll 'ave this time to-morrer."
Then she stopped and looked with a wide grin at Antony Dart.
"'Ow did I come 'ere?" she said.
"Yes," he answered, "how did you come here?"
"I dunno," she said; "I was 'ere first thing I remember. I lived with a old woman in another 'ouse in the court. One mornin' when I woke up she was dead. Sometimes I've begged an' sold matches. Sometimes I've took care of women's children or 'elped 'em when they 'ad to lie up. I've seen a lot—but I like to see a lot. 'Ope I'll see a lot more afore I'm done. I'm used to bein' 'ungry an' cold, an' all that, but—but I allers like to see what's comin' to-morrer. There's allers somethin' else to-morrer. That's all about me," and she chuckled again.
Dart picked up some fresh sticks and threw them on the fire. There was some fine crackling and a new flame leaped up.
"If you could do what you liked," he said, "what would you like to do?"
Her chuckle became an outright laugh.
"If I 'ad ten pounds?" she asked, evidently prepared to adjust herself in imagination to any form of unlooked-for good luck.
"If you had more?"
His tone made the thief lift his head to look at him.
"If I 'ad a wand like the one Jem told me was in the pantermine?"
"Yes," he answered.
She sat and stared at the fire a few moments, and then began to speak in a low luxuriating voice.
"I'd get a better room," she said, revelling. "There's one in the next 'ouse. I'd 'ave a few sticks o' furnisher in it—a bed an' a chair or two. I'd get some warm petticuts an' a shawl an' a 'at—with a ostrich feather in it. Polly an' me'd live together. We'd 'ave fire an' grub every day, I'd get drunken Bet's biby put in an 'ome. I'd 'elp the women when they 'ad to lie up. I'd—I'd 'elp 'im a bit," with a jerk of her elbow toward the thief. "If 'e was kept fed p'r'aps 'e could work out that thing in 'is 'ead. I'd go round the court an' 'elp them with 'usbands that knocks 'em about. I'd—I'd put a stop to the knockin' about," a queer fixed look showing itself in her eyes. "If I 'ad money I could do it. 'Ow much," with sudden prudence, "could a body 'ave—with one o' them wands?"
"More than enough to do all you have spoken of," answered Dart.
"It's a shime a body couldn't 'ave it. Apple Blossom Court 'd be a different thing. It'd be the sime as Miss Montaubyn says it's goin' to be." She laughed again, this time as if remembering something fantastic, but not despicable.
"She's a' old woman as lives next floor below. When she was young she was pretty an' used to dance in the 'alls. Drunken Bet says she was one o' the wust. When she got old it made 'er mad an' she got wusser. She was ready to tear gals eyes out, an' when she'd get took for makin' a row she'd fight like a tiger cat. About a year ago she tumbled downstairs when she'd 'ad too much an' she broke both 'er legs. You remember, Polly?"
Polly hid her face in her hands.
"Oh, when they took her away to the hospital!" she shuddered. "Oh, when they lifted her up to carry her!"
"I thought Polly'd 'ave a fit when she 'eard 'er screamin' an' swearin'. My! it was langwich! But it was the 'orspitle did it."
"Did what?"
"Dunno," with an uncertain, even slightly awed laugh. "Dunno wot it did—neither does nobody else, but somethin' 'appened. It was along of a lidy as come in one day an' talked to 'er when she was lyin' there. My eye," chuckling, "it was queer talk! But I liked it. P'raps it was lies, but it was cheerfle lies that 'elps yer. What I ses is—if things ain't cheerfle, people's got to be—to fight it out. The women in the 'ouse larft fit to kill theirselves when she fust come 'ome limpin' an' talked to 'em about what the lidy told 'er. But arter a bit they liked to 'ear 'er—just along o' the cheerfleness. Said it was like a pantermine. Drunken Bet says if she could get 'old 'f it an' believe it sime as Jinny Montaubyn does it'd be as cheerin' as drink an' last longer."
"Is it a kind of religion?" Dart asked, having a vague memory of rumors of fantastic new theories and half-born beliefs which had seemed to him weird visions floating through fagged brains wearied by old doubts and arguments and failures. The world was tired—the whole earth was sad—centuries had wrought only to the end of this twentieth century's despair. Was the struggle waking even here—in this back water of the huge city's human tide? he wondered with dull interest.
"Is it a kind of religion?" he said.
"It's cheerfler." Glad thrust out her sharp chin uncertainly again. "There's no 'ell fire in it. An' there ain't no blime laid on Godamighty," (The word as she uttered it seemed to have no connection whatever with her usual colloquial invocation of the Deity.) "When a dray run over little Billy an' crushed 'im inter a rag, an' 'is mother was screamin' an' draggin' 'er 'air down, the curick 'e ses, 'It's Gawd's will,' 'e ses—an' 'e ain't no bad sort neither, an' 'is fice was white an' wet with sweat—'Gawd done it,' 'e ses. An' me, I'd nussed the child an' I clawed me 'air sime as if I was 'is mother an' I screamed out, 'Then damn 'im!' An' the curick 'e dropped sittin' down on the curb-stone an' 'id 'is fice in 'is 'ands."
Dart hid his own face after the manner of the wretched curate.
"No wonder," he groaned. His blood turned cold.
"But," said Glad, "Miss Montaubyn's lidy she says Godamighty never done it nor never intended it, an' if we kep' sayin' an' believin' 'e's close to us an' not millyuns o' miles away, we'd be took care of whilst we was alive an' not 'ave to wait till we was dead."
She got up on her feet and threw up her arms with a sudden jerk and involuntary gesture.
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