The Charles Dickens Christmas Megapack Page 18

  “There’s something interesting about the woman, even now. How did she come to marry him?”

  “Why that,” said Mrs. Tugby, taking a seat near him, “is not the least cruel part of her story, sir. You see they kept company, she and Richard, many years ago. When they were a young and beautiful couple, everything was settled, and they were to have been married on a New Year’s Day. But, somehow, Richard got it into his head, through what the gentlemen told him, that he might do better, and that he’d soon repent it, and that she wasn’t good enough for him, and that a young man of spirit had no business to be married. And the gentlemen frightened her, and made her melancholy, and timid of his deserting her, and of her children coming to the gallows, and of its being wicked to be man and wife, and a good deal more of it. And in short, they lingered and lingered, and their trust in one another was broken, and so at last was the match. But the fault was his. She would have married him, sir, joyfully. I’ve seen her heart swell many times afterwards, when he passed her in a proud and careless way; and never did a woman grieve more truly for a man, than she for Richard when he first went wrong.”

  “Oh! he went wrong, did he?” said the gentleman, pulling out the vent-peg of the table-beer, and trying to peep down into the barrel through the hole.

  “Well, sir, I don’t know that he rightly understood himself, you see. I think his mind was troubled by their having broke with one another; and that but for being ashamed before the gentlemen, and perhaps for being uncertain too, how she might take it, he’d have gone through any suffering or trial to have had Meg’s promise and Meg’s hand again. That’s my belief. He never said so; more’s the pity! He took to drinking, idling, bad companions: all the fine resources that were to be so much better for him than the Home he might have had. He lost his looks, his character, his health, his strength, his friends, his work: everything!”

  “He didn’t lose everything, Mrs. Tugby,” returned the gentleman, “because he gained a wife; and I want to know how he gained her.”

  “I’m coming to it, sir, in a moment. This went on for years and years; he sinking lower and lower; she enduring, poor thing, miseries enough to wear her life away. At last, he was so cast down, and cast out, that no one would employ or notice him; and doors were shut upon him, go where he would. Applying from place to place, and door to door; and coming for the hundredth time to one gentleman who had often and often tried him (he was a good workman to the very end); that gentleman, who knew his history, said, “I believe you are incorrigible; there is only one person in the world who has a chance of reclaiming you; ask me to trust you no more, until she tries to do it.” Something like that, in his anger and vexation.”

  “Ah!” said the gentleman. “Well?”

  “Well, sir, he went to her, and kneeled to her; said it was so; said it ever had been so; and made a prayer to her to save him.”

  “And she?—Don’t distress yourself, Mrs. Tugby.”

  “She came to me that night to ask me about living here. “What he was once to me,” she said, “is buried in a grave, side by side with what I was to him. But I have thought of this; and I will make the trial. In the hope of saving him; for the love of the light-hearted girl (you remember her) who was to have been married on a New Year’s Day; and for the love of her Richard.” And she said he had come to her from Lilian, and Lilian had trusted to him, and she never could forget that. So they were married; and when they came home here, and I saw them, I hoped that such prophecies as parted them when they were young, may not often fulfil themselves as they did in this case, or I wouldn’t be the makers of them for a Mine of Gold.”

  The gentleman got off the cask, and stretched himself, observing:

  “I suppose he used her ill, as soon as they were married?”

  “I don’t think he ever did that,” said Mrs. Tugby, shaking her head, and wiping her eyes. “He went on better for a short time; but, his habits were too old and strong to be got rid of; he soon fell back a little; and was falling fast back, when his illness came so strong upon him. I think he has always felt for her. I am sure he has. I have seen him, in his crying fits and tremblings, try to kiss her hand; and I have heard him call her “Meg,” and say it was her nineteenth birthday. There he has been lying, now, these weeks and months. Between him and her baby, she has not been able to do her old work; and by not being able to be regular, she has lost it, even if she could have done it. How they have lived, I hardly know!”

  “I know,” muttered Mr. Tugby; looking at the till, and round the shop, and at his wife; and rolling his head with immense intelligence. “Like Fighting Cocks!”

  He was interrupted by a cry—a sound of lamentation—from the upper story of the house. The gentleman moved hurriedly to the door.

  “My friend,” he said, looking back, “you needn’t discuss whether he shall be removed or not. He has spared you that trouble, I believe.”

  Saying so, he ran up-stairs, followed by Mrs. Tugby; while Mr. Tugby panted and grumbled after them at leisure: being rendered more than commonly short-winded by the weight of the till, in which there had been an inconvenient quantity of copper. Trotty, with the child beside him, floated up the staircase like mere air.

  “Follow her! Follow her! Follow her!” He heard the ghostly voices in the Bells repeat their words as he ascended. “Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!”

  It was over. It was over. And this was she, her father’s pride and joy! This haggard, wretched woman, weeping by the bed, if it deserved that name, and pressing to her breast, and hanging down her head upon, an infant. Who can tell how spare, how sickly, and how poor an infant! Who can tell how dear!

  “Thank God!” cried Trotty, holding up his folded hands. “O, God be thanked! She loves her child!”

  The gentleman, not otherwise hard-hearted or indifferent to such scenes, than that he saw them every day, and knew that they were figures of no moment in the Filer sums—mere scratches in the working of these calculations—laid his hand upon the heart that beat no more, and listened for the breath, and said, “His pain is over. It’s better as it is!” Mrs. Tugby tried to comfort her with kindness. Mr. Tugby tried philosophy.

  “Come, come!” he said, with his hands in his pockets, “you mustn’t give way, you know. That won’t do. You must fight up. What would have become of me if I had given way when I was porter, and we had as many as six runaway carriage-doubles at our door in one night! But, I fell back upon my strength of mind, and didn’t open it!”

  Again Trotty heard the voices saying, “Follow her!” He turned towards his guide, and saw it rising from him, passing through the air. “Follow her!” it said. And vanished.

  He hovered round her; sat down at her feet; looked up into her face for one trace of her old self; listened for one note of her old pleasant voice. He flitted round the child: so wan, so prematurely old, so dreadful in its gravity, so plaintive in its feeble, mournful, miserable wail. He almost worshipped it. He clung to it as her only safeguard; as the last unbroken link that bound her to endurance. He set his father’s hope and trust on the frail baby; watched her every look upon it as she held it in her arms; and cried a thousand times, “She loves it! God be thanked, she loves it!”

  He saw the woman tend her in the night; return to her when her grudging husband was asleep, and all was still; encourage her, shed tears with her, set nourishment before her. He saw the day come, and the night again; the day, the night; the time go by; the house of death relieved of death; the room left to herself and to the child; he heard it moan and cry; he saw it harass her, and tire her out, and when she slumbered in exhaustion, drag her back to consciousness, and hold her with its little hands upon the rack; but she was constant to it, gentle with it, patient with it. Patient! Was its loving mother in her inmost heart and soul, and had its Being knitted up with hers as when she carried it unborn.

  All this time, she was in want: languishing away, in dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms, she wandered here and t
here, in quest of occupation; and with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up in hers, did any work for any wretched sum; a day and night of labour for as many farthings as there were figures on the dial. If she had quarrelled with it; if she had neglected it; if she had looked upon it with a moment’s hate; if, in the frenzy of an instant, she had struck it! No. His comfort was, She loved it always.

  She told no one of her extremity, and wandered abroad in the day lest she should be questioned by her only friend: for any help she received from her hands, occasioned fresh disputes between the good woman and her husband; and it was new bitterness to be the daily cause of strife and discord, where she owed so much.

  She loved it still. She loved it more and more. But a change fell on the aspect of her love. One night.

  She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walking to and fro to hush it, when her door was softly opened, and a man looked in.

  “For the last time,” he said.

  “William Fern!”

  “For the last time.”

  He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in whispers.

  “Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn’t finish it, without a parting word with you. Without one grateful word.”

  “What have you done?” she asked: regarding him with terror.

  He looked at her, but gave no answer.

  After a short silence, he made a gesture with his hand, as if he set her question by; as if he brushed it aside; and said:

  “It’s long ago, Margaret, now: but that night is as fresh in my memory as ever ’twas. We little thought, then,” he added, looking round, “that we should ever meet like this. Your child, Margaret? Let me have it in my arms. Let me hold your child.”

  He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he trembled as he took it, from head to foot.

  “Is it a girl?”

  “Yes.”

  He put his hand before its little face.

  “See how weak I’m grown, Margaret, when I want the courage to look at it! Let her be, a moment. I won’t hurt her. It’s long ago, but—What’s her name?”

  “Margaret,” she answered, quickly.

  “I’m glad of that,” he said. “I’m glad of that!” He seemed to breathe more freely; and after pausing for an instant, took away his hand, and looked upon the infant’s face. But covered it again, immediately.

  “Margaret!” he said; and gave her back the child. “It’s Lilian’s.”

  “Lilian’s!”

  “I held the same face in my arms when Lilian’s mother died and left her.”

  “When Lilian’s mother died and left her!” she repeated, wildly.

  “How shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes upon me so? Margaret!”

  She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant to her breast, and wept over it. Sometimes, she released it from her embrace, to look anxiously in its face: then strained it to her bosom again. At those times, when she gazed upon it, then it was that something fierce and terrible began to mingle with her love. Then it was that her old father quailed.

  “Follow her!” was sounded through the house. “Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!”

  “Margaret,” said Fern, bending over her, and kissing her upon the brow: “I thank you for the last time. Good night. Good bye! Put your hand in mine, and tell me you’ll forget me from this hour, and try to think the end of me was here.”

  “What have you done?” she asked again.

  “There’ll be a Fire to-night,” he said, removing from her. “There’ll be Fires this winter-time, to light the dark nights, East, West, North, and South. When you see the distant sky red, they’ll be blazing. When you see the distant sky red, think of me no more; or, if you do, remember what a Hell was lighted up inside of me, and think you see its flames reflected in the clouds. Good night. Good bye!” She called to him; but he was gone. She sat down stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hunger, cold, and darkness. She paced the room with it the livelong night, hushing it and soothing it. She said at intervals, “Like Lilian, when her mother died and left her!” Why was her step so quick, her eye so wild, her love so fierce and terrible, whenever she repeated those words?

  “But, it is Love,” said Trotty. “It is Love. She’ll never cease to love it. My poor Meg!”

  She dressed the child next morning with unusual care—ah, vain expenditure of care upon such squalid robes!—and once more tried to find some means of life. It was the last day of the Old Year. She tried till night, and never broke her fast. She tried in vain.

  She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in the snow, until it pleased some officer appointed to dispense the public charity (the lawful charity; not that once preached upon a Mount), to call them in, and question them, and say to this one, “Go to such a place,” to that one, “Come next week;” to make a football of another wretch, and pass him here and there, from hand to hand, from house to house, until he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal, whose claims allowed of no delay. Here, too, she failed.

  She loved her child, and wished to have it lying on her breast. And that was quite enough.

  It was night: a bleak, dark, cutting night: when, pressing the child close to her for warmth, she arrived outside the house she called her home. She was so faint and giddy, that she saw no one standing in the doorway until she was close upon it, and about to enter. Then, she recognised the master of the house, who had so disposed himself—with his person it was not difficult—as to fill up the whole entry.

  “O!” he said softly. “You have come back?”

  She looked at the child, and shook her head.

  “Don’t you think you have lived here long enough without paying any rent? Don’t you think that, without any money, you’ve been a pretty constant customer at this shop, now?” said Mr. Tugby.

  She repeated the same mute appeal.

  “Suppose you try and deal somewhere else,” he said. “And suppose you provide yourself with another lodging. Come! Don’t you think you could manage it?”

  She said in a low voice, that it was very late. To-morrow.

  “Now I see what you want,” said Tugby; “and what you mean. You know there are two parties in this house about you, and you delight in setting ’em by the ears. I don’t want any quarrels; I’m speaking softly to avoid a quarrel; but if you don’t go away, I’ll speak out loud, and you shall cause words high enough to please you. But you shan’t come in. That I am determined.”

  She put her hair back with her hand, and looked in a sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lowering distance.

  “This is the last night of an Old Year, and I won’t carry ill-blood and quarrellings and disturbances into a New One, to please you nor anybody else,” said Tugby, who was quite a retail Friend and Father. “I wonder you an’t ashamed of yourself, to carry such practices into a New Year. If you haven’t any business in the world, but to be always giving way, and always making disturbances between man and wife, you’d be better out of it. Go along with you.”

  “Follow her! To desperation!”

  Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up, he saw the figures hovering in the air, and pointing where she went, down the dark street.

  “She loves it!” he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty for her. “Chimes! she loves it still!”

  “Follow her!” The shadow swept upon the track she had taken, like a cloud.

  He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he looked into her face. He saw the same fierce and terrible expression mingling with her love, and kindling in her eyes. He heard her say, “Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!” and her speed redoubled.

  O, for something to awaken her! For any sight, or sound, or scent, to call up tender recollections in a brain on fire! For any gentle image of the Past, to rise before her!

  “I was her father! I was her father!” cried the old man, stretching out his hands to the dark shadows flying on
above. “Have mercy on her, and on me! Where does she go? Turn her back! I was her father!”

  But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on; and said, “To desperation! Learn it from the creature dearest to your heart!” A hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of breath expended in those words. He seemed to take them in, at every gasp he drew. They were everywhere, and not to be escaped. And still she hurried on; the same light in her eyes, the same words in her mouth, “Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!” All at once she stopped.

  “Now, turn her back!” exclaimed the old man, tearing his white hair. “My child! Meg! Turn her back! Great Father, turn her back!”

  In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby warm. With her fevered hands, she smoothed its limbs, composed its face, arranged its mean attire. In her wasted arms she folded it, as though she never would resign it more. And with her dry lips, kissed it in a final pang, and last long agony of Love.

  Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding it there, within her dress, next to her distracted heart, she set its sleeping face against her: closely, steadily, against her: and sped onward to the River.

  To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter Night sat brooding like the last dark thoughts of many who had sought a refuge there before her. Where scattered lights upon the banks gleamed sullen, red, and dull, as torches that were burning there, to show the way to Death. Where no abode of living people cast its shadow, on the deep, impenetrable, melancholy shade.

  To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her desperate footsteps tended with the swiftness of its rapid waters running to the sea. He tried to touch her as she passed him, going down to its dark level: but, the wild distempered form, the fierce and terrible love, the desperation that had left all human check or hold behind, swept by him like the wind.

  He followed her. She paused a moment on the brink, before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on his knees, and in a shriek addressed the figures in the Bells now hovering above them.