Chapter 3

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 for tunes 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 un-looked-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.

"Who is Miss Montaubyn?"

"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 curbstone 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.

"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. 'Tain'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' everythin' as if it was yer own child at breast. An' no 'arm can come to yer. Try it when yer go 'ome.'"

"Did you?" asked Dart.

Glad answered for her with a tremulous--yes it was a TREMULOUS--giggle, a weirdly moved little sound.

"When she wakes in the mornin' she ses to 'erself, 'Good things is goin' to come to-day--cheerfle things.' When there's a knock at the door she ses, 'Somethin' friendly's comin' in.' An' when Drunken Bet's makin' a row an' ragin' an' tearin' an' threatenin' to 'ave 'er eyes out of 'er fice, she ses, 'Lor, Bet, yer don't mean a word of it--yer a friend to every woman in the 'ouse.' When she don't know which way to turn, she stands still an' ses, 'Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth,' an' then she does wotever next comes into 'er mind--an' she says it's allus the right answer. Sometimes," sheepishly, "I've tried it myself--p'raps it's true. I did it this mornin' when I sat down an' pulled me sack over me 'ead on the bridge. Polly 'd been cryin' so loud all night I'd got a bit low in me stummick an'--" She stopped suddenly and turned on Dart as if light had flashed across her mind. "Dunno nothin' about it," she stammered, "but I SAID it--just like she does--an' YOU come!"

Plainly she had uttered whatever words she had used in the form of a sort of incantation, and here was the result in the living body of this man sitting before her. She stared hard at him, repeating her words: "YOU come. Yes, you did."

"It was the answer," said Miss Montaubyn, with entire simplicity as she bit off her thread, "that's wot it was."

Antony Dart lifted his heavy head.

"You believe it," he said.

"I 'm livin' on believin' it," she said confidingly. "I ain't got nothin' else. An' answers keeps comin' and comin'."

"What answers?"

"Bits o' work--an' things as 'elps. Glad there, she's one."

"Aw," said Glad, "I ain't nothin'. I likes to 'ear yer tell about it. She ses," to Dart again, a little slowly, as she watched his face with curiously questioning eyes--"she ses 'E'S in the room--same as 'E's everywhere--in this 'ere room. Sometimes she talks out loud to 'Im."

"What!" cried Dart, startled again.

The strange Majestic Awful Idea--the Deity of the Ages--to be spoken of as a mere unfeared Reality! And even as the vaguely formed thought sprang in his brain he started once more, suddenly confronted by the meaning his sense of shock implied. What had all the sermons of all the centuries been preaching but that it was Reality? What had all the infidels of every age contended but that it was Unreal, and the folly of a dream? He had never thought of himself as an infidel; perhaps it would have shocked him to be called one, though he was not quite sure. But that a little superannuated dancer at music-halls, battered and worn by an unlawful life, should sit and smile in absolute faith at such a--a superstition as this, stirred something like awe in him.

For she was smiling in entire acquiescence.

"It's what the curick ses," she enlarged radiantly. "Though 'e don t believe it, pore young man; 'e on'y thinks 'e does. 'It's for 'igh an' low,' 'e ses, 'for you an' me as well as for them as is royal fambleys. The Almighty 'E's EVERYWHERE!' 'Yes,' ses I, 'I've felt 'Im 'ere--as near as y' are yerself, sir, I 'ave--an' I've spoke to 'Im."'

"What did the curate say?" Dart asked, amazed.

"Seemed like it frightened 'im a bit. 'We mustn't be too bold, Miss Montaubyn, my dear,' 'e ses, for 'e's a kind young man as ever lived, an' often ses 'my dear' to them 'e's comfortin'. But yer see the lidy 'ad gave me a Bible o' me own an' I'd set 'ere an' read it, an' read it an' learned verses to say to meself when I was in bed--an' I'd got ter feel like it was someone talkin' to me an' makin' me understand. So I ses, ''T ain't boldness we're warned against; it's not lovin' an' trustin' enough, an' not askin' an' believin' TRUE. Don't yer remember wot it ses: "I, even I, am 'e that comforteth yer. Who art thou that thou art afraid of man that shall die an' the son of man that shall be made as grass, an' forgetteth Jehovah thy Creator, that stretched forth the 'eavens an' laid the foundations of the earth?" an' "I've covered thee with the shadder of me 'and," it ses; an' "I will go before thee an' make the rough places smooth;" an' "'Itherto ye 'ave asked nothin' in my name; ask therefore that ye may receive, an' yer joy may be made full."' An' 'e looked down on the floor as if 'e was doin' some 'ard thinkin', pore young man, an' 'e ses, quite sudden an' shaky, 'Lord, I believe, 'elp thou my unbelief,' an' 'e ses it as if 'e was in trouble an' didn't know 'e'd spoke out loud."

"Where--how did you come upon your verses?" said Dart. "How did you find them?"