"I'm alive! I'm alive!" she cried out.
"I'm alive! I'm alive!" she cried out, "I've got ter be took care of now! That's why I like wot she tells about it. So does the women. We ain't no more reason ter be sure of wot the curick says than ter be sure o' this. Dunno as I 've got ter choose either way, but if I 'ad, I'd choose the cheerflest."
Dart had sat staring at her—so had Polly—so had the thief. Dart rubbed his forehead.
"I do not understand," he said.
"'T ain't understanding! It's believin'. Bless yer, she doesn't understand. I say, let's go an' talk to 'er a bit. She don't mind nothin', an' she'll let us in. We can leave Polly an' 'im 'ere. They can make some more tea an' drink it."
It ended in their going out of the room together again and stumbling once more down the stairway's crookedness. At the bottom of the first short flight they stopped in the darkness and Glad knocked at a door with a summons manifestly expectant of cheerful welcome. She used the formula she had used before.
"'S on'y me, Miss Montaubyn," she cried out. "'S on'y Glad."
The door opened in wide welcome, and confronting them as she held its handle stood a small old woman with an astonishing face. It was astonishing because while it was withered and wrinkled with marks of past years which had once stamped their reckless unsavoriness upon its every line, some strange redeeming thing had happened to it and its expression was that of a creature to whom the opening of a door could only mean the entrance—the tumbling in as it were—of hopes realized. Its surface was swept clean of even the vaguest anticipation of anything not to be desired. Smiling as it did through the black doorway into the unrelieved shadow of the passage, it struck Antony Dart at once that it actually implied this—and that in this place—and indeed in any place—nothing could have been more astonishing. What could, indeed?
"Well, well," she said, "come in, Glad, bless yer."
"I've brought a gent to 'ear yer talk a bit," Glad explained informally.
The small old woman raised her twinkling old face to look at him.
"Ah!" she said, as if summing up what was before her. "'E thinks it's worse than it is, doesn't 'e, now? Come in, sir, do."
This time it struck Dart that her look seemed actually to anticipate the evolving of some wonderful and desirable thing from himself. As if even his gloom carried with it treasure as yet undisplayed. As she knew nothing of the ten sovereigns, he wondered what, in God's name, she saw.
The poverty of the little square room had an odd cheer in it. Much scrubbing had removed from it the objections manifest in Glad's room above. There was a small red fire in the grate, a strip of old, but gay carpet before it, two chairs and a table were covered with a harlequin patchwork made of bright odds and ends of all sizes and shapes. The fog in all its murky volume could not quite obscure the brightness of the often rubbed window and its harlequin curtain drawn across upon a string.
"Bless yer," said Miss Montaubyn, "sit down."
Dart sat and thanked her. Glad dropped upon the floor and girdled her knees comfortably while Miss Montaubyn took the second chair, which was close to the table, and snuffed the candle which stood near a basket of colored scraps such as, without doubt, had made the harlequin curtain.
"Yer won't mind me goin' on with me bit o' work?" she chirped.
"Tell 'im wot it is," Glad suggested.
"They come from a dressmaker as is in a small way," designating the scraps by a gesture. "I clean up for 'er an' she lets me 'ave 'em. I make 'em up into anythink I can—pin-cushions an' bags an' curtings an' balls. Nobody'd think wot they run to sometimes. Now an' then I sell some of 'em. Wot I can't sell I give away."
"Drunken Bet's biby plays with 'er ball all day," said Glad.
"Ah!" said Miss Montaubyn, drawing out a long needleful of thread, "Bet, she thinks it worse than it is."
"Could it be worse?" asked Dart. "Could anything be worse than everything is?"
"Lots," suggested Glad; "might 'ave broke your back, might 'ave a fever, might be in jail for knifin' someone. 'E wants to 'ear you talk, Miss Montaubyn; tell 'im all about yerself."
"Me!" her expectant eyes on him. "'E wouldn't want to 'ear it. I shouldn't want to 'ear it myself. Bein' on the 'alls when yer a pretty girl ain't an 'elpful life; an' bein' took up an' dropped down till yer dropped in the gutter an' don't know 'ow to get out—it's wot yer mustn't let yer mind go back to."
"That's wot the lidy said," called out Glad. "Tell 'im about the lidy. She doesn't even know who she was." The remark was tossed to Dart.
"Never even 'eard 'er name," with unabated cheer said Miss Montaubyn. "She come an' she went an' me too low to do anything but lie an' look at 'er and listen. An' 'Which of us two is mad?' I ses to myself. But I lay thinkin' and thinkin'—an' it was so cheerfle I couldn't get it out of me 'ead—nor never 'ave since."
"What did she say?"
"I couldn't remember the words—it was the way they took away things a body's afraid of. It was about things never 'avin' really been like wot we thought they was. Godamighty now, there ain't a bit of 'arm in 'im."
"What?" he said with a start.
"'E never done the accidents and the trouble. It was us as went out of the light into the dark. If we'd kep' in the light all the time, an' thought about it, an' talked about it, we'd never 'ad nothin' else. 'T ain't punishment neither. 'T ain't nothin' but the dark—an' the dark ain't nothin' but the light bein' away. 'Keep in the light,' she ses, 'never think of nothin' else, an' then you'll begin an' see things. Everybody's been afraid. There ain't no need. You believe that.'"
"Believe?" said Dart heavily.
She nodded.
"'Yes,' ses I to 'er, 'that's where the trouble comes in—believin'.' And she answers as cool as could be: 'Yes, it is,' she ses, 'we've all been thinkin' we've been believin', an' none of us 'as. If we 'ad what'd there be to be afraid of? If we believed a king was givin' us our livin' an' takin' care of us who'd be afraid of not 'avin' enough to eat?'"
"Who?" groaned Dart. He sat hanging his head and staring at the floor. This was another phase of the dream.
"'Where is 'E?' I ses. ''Im as breaks old women's legs an' crushes babies under wheels—so as they'll be resigned?' An' all of a sudden she calls out quite loud: 'Nowhere,' she ses. 'An' never was. But 'Im as stretched forth the 'eavens an' laid the foundations of the earth, 'Im as is the Life an' Love of the world, 'E's 'ere! Stretch out yer 'and,' she ses, 'an' call out, "Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth," an' ye'll 'ear an' see. An' never you stop sayin' it—let yer 'eart beat it an' yer breath breathe it—an' yer'll find yer goin' about laughin' soft to yerself an' lovin' every-thin' as if it was yer own child at breast. An' no 'arm can come to yer. Try it when yer go 'ome.'"
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