Part 12

"Oh, Mr. May," she said. "I'm very sorry, but--I thought you might be here, and--and--I'm afraid I shan't be able to come to-morrow!"

"Not come! But--but why?"

"I'm sorry--I'm very sorry, Mr. May; but I can't tell you--really."

There was a quiver of the lip, and her voice was a little uneven, as though there were danger of more tears. But Johnny was not disappointed merely; he was also angry, and it was hard to conceal the fact. So he said nothing, but turned and walked a few steps by her side.

"I--hope you won't mind," she pursued, uneasy at his silence. "I'm very much disappointed--very much indeed." And it was plain that she was. "But there'll be a good many there. And you'll have plenty of partners." This last she found a hard thing to say.

"I don't care how many'll be there," Johnny replied. "I shan't go."

It was said curtly, almost angrily, but Nora Sansom heard it with an odd little tremor of pleasure. Though she merely said, "But why not? There's no reason why you should be disappointed too."

"Anyhow, I'm not going," he said; and after a pause added: "Perhaps you might ha' gone if I hadn't asked you!"

"Oh, I shouldn't!" she answered, with tears in eyes and voice. "You know I shouldn't! I never go anywhere!"

Johnny instantly felt himself a brute. "No," he said. "I know you don't. I didn't mean anything unkind. But I won't go."

"Do you really mean it?"

"Of course. I'm not going without you." He might have said something more, but a little group of people came straggling past. And the girl, with her eyes on this group, said the first thing that came to her tongue.

"Where will you go then?"

"Oh anywhere. I don't know. Walk about, perhaps."

She looked shyly up in his face, and down again. "_I_ might go for a walk," she said.

Johnny's heart gave a great beat. "Alone?" he asked.

"I don't know. Perhaps."

But she would be questioned into nothing definite. _If_ she took a walk, she _might_ go in such and such a direction, passing this or that place at seven o'clock, or half-past. That was all. And now she must hurry away, for she had already been too long.

What mattered the dance to Johnny now? A fig for the dance. Let them dance that liked, and let them dance the floor through if it pleased them. But how was it that Nora Sansom could take a walk to-morrow evening, yet could not come to the Institute? That was difficult to understand. Still, hang the dance!

For Nora it would be harder to speak. Howbeit indeed the destruction of the looked-for evening's gladness, in her first fine frock, had been a bitter thing. But that day her hiding-place had been discovered, and now the dress that had cost such thoughtful design and such hopeful labour was lying, rolled and ticketed, on a pawnbroker's shelf.

XXVI.

THAT they must come to Blackwall Pier was assured. For there were no streets, no crowds, no rumbling waggons; there were the wide sky and the unresting river, the breeze, the ships, and the endless train of brown-sailed barges. No unseamanlike garden-seats dishonoured the quay then, and strolling lovers sat on bollards or chains, or sat not at all.

Here came Johnny and Nora Sansom when the shrinking arc of daylight was far and yellow in the west, and the Kentish hills away to the left grew dusk and mysterious. The tide ran high, and tugs were busy. A nest of them, with steam up, lay under the wharf wall to the right of the pier-barge, waiting for work; some were already lighted, and, on the rest, men were trimming the lamps or running them up, while a cheerful glow came from each tiny cabin and engine-room. Rascal boys flitted about the quays and gangways--the boys that are always near boats and water, ever failing to get drowned, and ever dodging the pestered men who try to prevent it.

The first star of the evening steadied and brightened, and soon was lost amid other stars. Below, the river set its constellations as silently, one after another, trembling and blinking; and meteor tugs shot across its firmament, in white and green and red. Along shore the old Artichoke Tavern, gables and piles, darkened and melted away, and then lit into a little Orion, a bright cluster in the bespangled riverside. Ever some new sail came like a ghost up reach out of the gloom, rounded the point, and faded away; and by times some distant voice was heard in measured cry over water.

They said little; for what need to talk? They loitered awhile near the locks, and saw the turning Trinity light with its long, solemn wink, heard a great steamer hoot, far down Woolwich reach. Now the yellow in the sky was far and dull indeed, and a myriad of stars trembled over the brimming river. A tug puffed and sobbed, and swung out from the group under the wharf, beating a glistering tail of spray, and steaming off at the head of a train of lighters. Out from the dark of Woolwich Reach came a sailing-ship under bare spars, drawn by another tug. In the middle of the river the ship dropped anchor, and the tug fell back to wait, keeping its place under gentle steam.

They walked on the wharf, by the iron cranes, and far to the end, under the windows of the abandoned Brunswick Hotel. Here they were quite alone, and here they sat together on a broad and flat-topped old bollard.

Presently said Johnny, "Are you sorry for the dance now--Nora?" And lost his breath at the name.

Nora--he called her Nora; was she afraid or was she glad? What was this before her? But with her eyes she saw only the twinkling river, with the lights and the stars.

Presently she answered. "I was very sorry," she said slowly . . . "of course."

"But now--Nora?"

Still she saw but the river and the lights; but she was glad; timid, too, but very glad. Johnny's hand stole to her side, took hers, and kept it. . . . "No," she said, "not sorry--now."

"Say Johnny."

What was before her mattered nothing; he sat by her--held her hand. . . . "Not sorry now--Johnny!"

Why came tears so readily to her eyes? Truly they had long worn their path. But this--this was joy. . . . He bent his head, and kissed her. The wise old Trinity light winked very slowly, and winked again.

So they sat and talked; sometimes whispered. Vows, promises, nonsense all--what mattered the words to so wonderful a tune? And the eternal stars, a million ages away, were nearer, all nearer, than the world of common life about them. What was for her she knew now and saw--she also: a new heaven and a new earth.

Over the water from the ship came, swinging and slow, a stave of the chanty:--

"I'm a flying-fish sailor straight home from Hong-Kong-- Aye! Aye! Blow the man down! Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down-- O give us some time to blow the man down!

Ye're a dirty Black-Baller just in from New York-- Aye! Aye! Blow the man down! Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down-- O give us some time to blow the man down!"

Time went, but time was not for them. Where the tug-engineer, thrusting up his head for a little fresh air, saw but a prentice-lad and his sweetheart on a bollard, there sat Man and Woman, enthroned and exultant in face of the worlds.

The ship swung round on the tide, bringing her lights square and her stem for the opening lock. The chanty went wailing to its end:--

"Blow the man down, bully, blow the man down-- To my Aye! Aye! Blow the man down! Singapore Harbour to gay London town-- O give us some time to blow the man down!"

The tug headed for the dock and the ship went in her wake with slow state, a gallant shadow amid the blue.

Soon the tide stood, and stood, and then began its ebb. For a space there was a deeper stillness as the dim wharves hung in mid-mist, and water and sky were one. Then the air stirred and chilled, stars grew sharper, and the Thames turned its traffic seaward.

XXVII.

HAPPINESS never stayed long with Nora Sansom. Little, indeed, had been her portion, and it was a poor sort at best. But this new joy was so great that it must needs be short of life; and in truth she saw good reason. From the moment of parting with Johnny doubts had troubled her; and doubts grew to distress--even to misery. She saw no end--no end but sorrow. She had been carried away; she had forgotten. And in measure as her sober senses awoke she saw that all this gladness could but end in heart-break and bereavement. Better, then, end all quickly and have done with the pang. But herein she misjudged her strength.

Doubts and perplexities assailed Johnny also, though for a time they grew to nothing sharper. He would have gone home straightway, proud and joyful, if a little sheepish, to tell his mother the tale of that evening. But Nora had implored him to say nothing yet. She wanted time to think things over, she said. And she left him at the familiar corner, two streets beyond the Institute, begging him to come no farther, for this time, at anyrate. Next evening was the evening of the dressmaking class. He saw her for a few minutes, on her way through those two familiar streets, and he thought she looked unwell.

A few nights later he saw her again. Plainly she had been crying. When they came to a deserted street of shut-up wharves he asked her why.

"Only--only I've been thinking!" she said.

"What about?"

"About you, Johnny--about you and me. We--I think--we're very young, aren't we?"

That had not struck him as a difficulty. "Well," he said, "I don't know about that. I s'pose we are, like others. But I shall be out o' my time in two years and a half, or not much more, and then--"

"Yes, then," she said, catching at the word, "p'raps then it will be different--and--I mean we shall be older and know better, Johnny. And--now--we can often see one another and talk like friends--and--" She looked up to read his eyes, trembling.

Something cold took Johnny by the throat, and checked his voice. "But--what--you don't mean--that?"

"Yes," she said, though it was bitter hard. "It'll be best--I'm sure, Johnny!"

Johnny gulped, and his voice hardened. "Oh!" he said, "if you want to throw me over you might say so, in straight English!"

"Oh--don't talk like that, Johnny!" she pleaded, and laid her hand on his arm. "It's unkind! You know it's unkind!"

"No--it's only plain an' honest. I don't understand this half-and-half business--seeing each other 'like friends' an' all that."

One more effort she made to hold her position--but her strength was near gone. "It'll be better, Johnny--truly it will! You--you might meet someone you'd like better, and--"

"That's my look-out; time to talk about that when it comes. The other night you let me kiss you, and you kissed me back--told me you loved me. Now you don't. Maybe you've met someone you like better."

She held out no more. Her head fell on his shoulder, and she broke into an agony of tears. "O Johnny, Johnny, that is cruel! You don't know how cruel it is! I shall never like anybody better than you--never half so much. Don't be unkind! I've not one friend in the world but you, and I do love you more than anything."

With that Johnny was ready to kick himself for a ruffian. He looked about, but nobody else was in the shadowy street. He kissed Nora, he called himself hard names, and he quieted her, though she still sobbed. And there was no more talk of mere friendship. She had tried her compromise, and had broken down. But presently Johnny ventured to ask if she foresaw any difficulty with her parents.

"Father's dead," she said simply. "He's been dead for years." This was the first word of her family matters that Johnny had heard. Should he come to see her mother? The question struck her like a blow.

"No--no, Johnny," she said. "Not yet--no, you mustn't. I can't tell you why--I can't really; at anyrate not now." Then after a pause, "O Johnny, I'm in such trouble! Such trouble, Johnny!" And she wept again.

But tell her trouble she would not. At anyrate not then. And in the end she left Johnny much mystified, and near as miserable as herself, because of his blind helplessness in this unrevealed affliction.

Inexpert in mysteries, he was all incomprehension. What was this trouble that he must not be told of? He did not even know where Nora lived. Why shouldn't she tell him? Why did she never let him see her as far as home? This much he knew: that she had a mother, but had lost her father by death. And this he had but just learned from her under stress of tears. He was not to see her mother--at least not yet. And Nora was in sore trouble, but refused to say what the trouble was. That night he moped and brooded. And at Maidment and Hurst's next morning--it was Saturday--Mr. Cottam the gaffer swore, and made remarks about the expedience of being thoroughly awake before dinner-time. More, at one o'clock Johnny passed the pay-box without taking his money, and turned back for it, when reminded, amid the chaff of his shopmates, many offers of portership, and some suggestions to scramble the slighted cash.

Not far from the yard-gate he saw a small crowd of people about a public-house; and as he neared he perceived Mother Born-drunk in the midst of it. The publican had refused to serve her--indeed, had turned her out--and now she swayed about his door and proclaimed him at large.

"'Shultin' a lady!" she screamed hoarsely. "Can't go in plashe 'thout bein' 'shulted. 'Shulted by low common public-'oush. I won't 'ave it!"

"Don't you stand it, ducky!" sang out a boy. "You give 'em what for!"

For a moment she seemed inclined to turn her wrath on her natural enemy, the boy, but her eye fell on a black bottle with a broken neck, lying in the gutter. "Gi' 'em what for?" she hiccupped, stooping for the bottle, "Yesh, _I'll_ gi' 'em what for!" and with that flung the bottle at the largest window in sight.

There was a crash, a black hole in the midst of the plate glass, and a vast "spider" of cracks to its farthest corners. Mother Born-drunk stood and stared, perhaps a little sobered. Then a barman ran out, tucking in his apron, and took her by the arm. There were yells and screams and struggles, and cheers from blackguard boys; and Mother Born-drunk was hauled off, screaming and sliding and stumbling, between a policeman and the publican.

Johnny told his mother, when he reached home, that her old acquaintance Emma Pacey was like to endure a spell of gaol. But what occupied his mind was Nora's trouble, and he forgot Mother Born-drunk for three or four days.

Then came the next evening of the dressmaking class at the Institute, and he went, never doubting to meet Nora as she came away. At the door the housekeeper, who was also hall-porter, beckoned, and gave him a letter, left earlier in the day. It was addressed to him by name, in a weak and straggling female hand, and for a moment he stared at it, not a little surprised. When he tore open the envelope he found a blotchy, tear-stained rag of a letter, and read this:--

"MY DEAREST JOHNNY,--It is all over now and I do hope you will forgive me for not telling you before. This is to say good-bye and God bless you and pray forget all about me. It was wrong of me to let it go so far but I did love you so Johnny, and I could not help it and then I didn't know what to do. I can never come to the classes again with all this disgrace and everything printed in the newspapers and I must get work somewhere where they don't know me. I would rather die, but I must look after her as well as I can, Johnny, because she is my mother. Burn this at once and forget all about me and some day you will meet some nice girl belonging to a respectable family and nothing to be ashamed of. Don't try to find me--that will only make us both miserable. Good-bye and please forgive me.

Yours affectionately, NORA SANSOM."

What was this? What did it all mean? He stood in the gymnasium dressing-room to read it, and when he looked up, the gaslight danced and the lockers spun about him. The one clear thing was that Nora said good-bye, and was gone.

Presently his faculties assorted themselves, and he read the letter again; and then once more. It was "all over" and she asked him to forgive her for not telling him before. Telling him what? She told him nothing now. She would never come to the Institute again, and he didn't know her address, and he mustn't try to find her. But then there was "everything printed in the newspapers." Of course, he must look at the newspapers; why so long realising that? He went to the reading-room and applied himself to the pile of papers and magazines that littered the table. One paper after another he searched and searched again, but saw nothing that he could connect with Nora, by any stretch of imagination. Till he found a stray sheet of the day before, with rings of coffee-stain on it. The "police intelligence" lay uppermost, and in the midst of the column the name _Emma Sansom_, in italic letters, caught his eye. She was forty-one, and was charged with drunkenness and wilful damage. A sentence more, and everything stood displayed, as by a flash of lightning; for he had witnessed the offence himself, on Saturday. Emma Sansom was the married name of Emma Pacey, whom the boys called Mother Born-drunk; and the woman was Nora's mother!

Now it was plain--all, from the very beginning, when the child wandered in the night seeking her strayed and drunken mother, and inquired for her with the shamed excuse that she was ill. This was why he was not to call to see Nora's mother; and it was for this that Nora hindered him from seeing her home.

There was the shameful report, all at length. The publican's tale was simple and plain enough. He had declined to serve the prisoner because she was drunk, and as she refused to leave, he had her turned out, though, he said, she made no particular resistance. Shortly afterward he heard a crash, and found a broken bottle and a great deal of broken glass in the bar. He had gone outside, and saw the prisoner being held by his barman. His plate-glass window was smashed, and it was worth ten pounds. There was little more evidence. The police told his worship that the prisoner had been fined small sums for drunkenness before, but she was usually inoffensive, except for collecting crowds of boys. This was the first charge against her involving damage. She was the widow of a ship's officer lost at sea, and she had a small annuity, but was chiefly supported of late by her daughter--a dressmaker--a very respectable young woman. The daughter was present (the reporter called her "a prepossessing young female in great distress"), and she wished to be allowed to pay the damage in small instalments. But in the end her mother was sent to prison for a month in default of payment of fine and damage. For indeed the daughter was a minor, and her undertaking was worthless.

One thing Johnny looked for eagerly, but did not find--the prisoner's address. Whether consideration for the daughter had prompted the reporter to that suppression, or whether it was due to accident, Johnny could not guess. In other reports in the same column some addresses were given and some not. But straightway Johnny went to beg the housekeeper that he might rummage the store of old papers for those of the day before. For to desert Nora now, in her trouble, was a thing wholly inconceivable; and so far from burning the letter, he put it, envelope and all, in his safest pocket, and felt there, more than once, to be assured of its safety.

But the address was in none of the papers. In fact the report was in no more than three, and in one of those it was but five lines long. What should he do? He could not even write her one line of comfort. And he had been going on with his work placidly all Monday while Nora had been standing up in a police-court, weeping and imploring mercy for her wretched mother! If he had known he could scarce have done anything to aid her. But helplessness was no consolation--rather the cruellest of aggravations.

Well, there stood the matter, and raving would not help it, nor would beating the table--nor even the head--with the fist. He must somehow devise a way to reach Nora.

XXVIII.

HE resolved, first, to try the Institute. Nora's name and address must be on the class registers; but what business had he with the girl's class registers? As diplomatist his failure was lamentable. He could invent no reasonable excuses, and ignoble defeat was his fate at the hands of the rigid lady who managed the girls department of the Institute. Then he took to prowling about all the streets that lay beyond that second corner that had marked the end of their evening walks, watching for her; searching also, desperately, for some impossible sign about a house that might suggest that she lived in it. Thus he spent the daylight of two evenings watching a little muslin-hung window, because the muslin was tied with a ribbon of a sort he remembered her to have worn, and because he chose to fancy a neatness and a daintiness about the tying that might well be hers. But on the second evening as dusk fell the window opened, and a hairy, red-bearded man in blue shirt sleeves put out his head and leaned on the sill to smoke his pipe and watch the red sky. Johnny swung away savagely, and called himself a fool for his pains; and indeed, he could ill afford to waste time, for Maidment and Hurst claimed him till five each day, and a few hours in the evening were all that remained; more, Nora would change her lodgings--perhaps had done so already.

After this he screwed his courage so high as to go to the police-station where the charge against Nora's mother must have been taken, and to ask for her address. But the cast-iron-faced inspector in charge took _his_ name and address instead, as a beginning, and then would tell him nothing. And at last, maddened and reckless, he went to the publican, and demanded the information of him. Now if Johnny had had a little more worldly experience, a little more cunning, and a great deal more coolness, he would have done this at first, and, beginning by ordering a drink, he would have opened a casual conversation, led it to the matter of the window, and in the end would have gained his point quietly and easily. But as it was, he did none of these things. He ordered no drink, and he made a blunt request, taking little thought of its manner, none of the publican's point of view, and perhaps forgetting that the man was in no way responsible for the rebuffs already endured. The publican, for his part, was already in a bad temper, because of the clumsy tapping of a barrel and ensuing "cheek" of the potman. So he answered Johnny's demand by asking if he had come to pay for the window; and receiving the negative reply he had expected, he urgently recommended the intruder's departure "outside": in such terms as gave no choice but compliance.

So that now, in extremity, Johnny resolved on a last expedient: one that had been vaguely in his mind for a day or two, though he had yet scarce had courage to consider it seriously. This was, to tell his mother the whole thing; and to induce her, if he might, to ask the address at the Institute--perhaps on some pretext of dressmaking business. He was not hopeful, for he well knew that any hint of traffic with the family of one such as Nora's mother would be a horror to her. But he could see nothing else, and to sit still were intolerable. Moreover he guessed that his mother must suspect something from his preoccupation, and his neglect of his drawing. Though indeed poor Nan was most at pains, just then, to conceal troubles of her own.