CHAPTER IV.
THE NEW HOME.
Harry had hoped that his companion would go his own way when they gotto London; but it was "his funeral," as Mr. Lowndes kept saying, and heseemed determined to conduct it to the end. Euston was crowded, whereLowndes behaved like a man in his element, dealing abuse and largessewith equal energy and freedom, and getting Harry and all his boxes offin the first cab which left the station. But he himself was at Harry'sside; and there he sat until the cab stopped, half-an-hour later,beneath a many-windowed red-brick pile thrown up in the angle of twoback streets.
A porter in uniform ran up to help with the luggage, and, as Harryjumped out, a voice with a glad sob in it hailed him from a first-floorwindow. He waved his hat, and, with a pang, saw a white head vanishing:it had not been white when he went away. Next moment he was flying upthe stone stairs three at a time; and on the first landing, at an opendoor, there was the sweet face, all aged and lined and lighted withsorrow and shame and love; there were the softest arms in all theworld, spread wide to catch and clasp him to the warmest heart.
It was a long time afterwards, in a room which made the old furniturelook very big, the old pictures very sad, that Mr. Lowndes wasremembered for the first time. They looked into the narrow passage: theboxes blocked it, but he was not there; they called, but there was noanswer.
"Have we no servant, mother?"
"We have no room for one. The porter's wife comes up and helps me."
"I can help you! Many a meal have I cooked in Africa."
"My boy, what a home-coming!"
It was the first word about that, and with it came the first catch inHarry's mother's voice.
"No, mother, thank God I am back to take care of you; and oh! I am sothankful we are to be alone to-night."
"But I am sorry he did not come in."
"He was quite right not to."
"But he must have paid for the cab--I will look out of the window--yes,it has gone--and I had the money ready in case you forgot!"
Harry could have beaten himself, but he could not tell his mother justthen that he had arrived without a penny, and that Lowndes had not onlypaid the cabman, but must be pounds out of pocket by him on the day.
"Don't you like him, dear?" said his mother, divining that he did not.
"I do and I don't," said Harry bluntly.
"He has been so kind to me!"
"Yes; he is kind enough."
"Did you not think it good of him to rush from Scotland to meet you andthen bring you all the way to your--new--home?"
"It was almost too good. I would have been happier alone," said Harry,forgetting all else in his bitter remembrance of some speeches Lowndeshad made.
"That is not very grateful, my boy. You little know what he has been tome!"
"Has he done so much?"
"Everything--all through! You see what I have saved from the wreck? Itwas he who went to bid for me at the sale!"
"You bought them in, mother?"
"Yes; I could accept nothing from the creditors. That is the one pointon which I quarrel with Mr. Lowndes; but we have agreed to differ. Whydo you dislike him, Harry?"
"Mother, don't you know?"
"I cannot imagine."
"He thinks the worst--about my father."
It was the first mention of the father's name. Mrs. Ringrose was silentfor many moments.
"I know he does," she said at length.
"Then how can you bear the sight of him?" her boy burst out.
"It is no worse than all the world thinks."
And Mrs. Ringrose sighed; but now her voice was abnormally calm, aswith a grief too great for tears.
The long May evening had not yet closed in, and in the ensuing silencethe cries of children in the street below, and the Last Waltz of Weberfrom the piano of the flat above, came with equal impertinence throughthe open windows. Mrs. Ringrose was in the rocking-chair in which shehad nursed her only child. Her back was to the light, but she wasrocking slowly. Her son stood over her with horror deepening in hisface, but hers he could not see, only the white head which two yearsago had been hardly grey. He dropped upon his knees and seized herhands; they were cold; and he missed her rings.
"Mother--mother! You don't think it too?"
No answer.
"You do! Oh, mother, how are we to go on living after this? What makesyou think it? Quick! has he written to you?"
Mrs. Ringrose started violently. "Who put that into your head?" shecried out sharply.
"Nobody. I only wondered if there had been a letter, and I askedLowndes, but he said you said there had not."
"Was that not enough for you?"
"Oh, mother, tell me the truth!"
The poor lady groaned aloud.
"God knows I meant to keep it to myself!" she whispered. "And yet--oh,how could I destroy his letter? And I thought you ought to see it--someday--not yet."
"Mother, I must see it now."
"You will never breathe it to a soul?"
"Never without your permission."
"No one must ever dream I heard one word after he left me!"
"No one ever shall."
"I will get the letter."
His hand was trembling when he took it from her.
"It was written on the steamer, you see."
"It may be a forgery," said Harry, in a loud voice that trembled too.Yet there was a ring of real hope in it. He was thinking of Lowndes inthe train. He had caught him mopping a wet brow. He had surprised aguilty look--yes, guilty was the word--he had found it at last--inthose shifty eyes behind the _pince-nez_. If villainy should be at thebottom of it all, and Lowndes at the bottom of the villainy!
If the letter should prove a forgery after all!
He had it in his hand. He carried it to the failing light. He hardlydared to look at it, but when he did a cry escaped him.
It was a cry of disappointment and abandoned hope.
Minutes passed without another sound; then the letter was slowly foldedup and restored to its envelope, and dropped into Harry's pocket,before his arms went round his mother's neck.
"Mother, let me burn it, so that no eyes but ours shall ever see!"
"Burn it? Burn the last letter I may ever have from him? Give it tome!" And she pressed it to her bosom.
Harry hung his head in a long and wretched silence.
"We must forget him, mother," he said at last.
"Harry, he was a good father to you, he loved you dearly. He was madwhen he did what he has done. You must never say that again."
"I meant we must forget what he has done----"
"Ah God! if I could!"
"And only think of him as he used to be."
"Yes; yes; we will try."
"It would be easier--don't you think--if we never spoke of this?"
"We never will, unless we must."
"Let us think that we just failed like other people. But, mother, Iwill work all my life to pay off everybody! I will work for you till Idrop. Goodness knows what at; but I learnt to work for fun in Africa, Iam ready to work in earnest, and, thank God, I have all my life beforeme."
"You are twenty-one to-day!"
"Yes, I start fair in every way."
"That this should be your twenty-first birthday! My boy--my boy!"
* * * * *
The long May twilight deepens into night; the many windows of thered-brick block are lit up one by one; and the many lives go on. Below,at the curb, a doctor's brougham and a hansom are waiting end to end;and from that top flat a young couple come scuttling down the stonestairs, he in a crush-hat, she with a flower in her hair, and theirs isthe hansom. The flat below has similar tenants, but here the doctor is,and the young man paces his desolate parlour with a ghastly face.
And in the flat below that it is Weber's Last Waltz once more, andnothing else, by the hour together. And in the flat below that--theflat that would have gone into one room of their old home--HarryRingrose and his m
other are still steeling themselves and one anotherto face the future and to live down the past.
The light has been lowered in their front room and transferred for aspace to the tiny dining-room at the back, which looks down into thebuilding's well, but now it is the front windows which stand out oncemore. Twelve o'clock comes, and there is a tinkle of homing hansoms(the brougham has gone away masterless), and the public-house at thecorner empties noisily, but the light in those front windows remainsthe brightest in the mansions. And Weber is done with at last; but thetwo voices below go on and on and on into the night; nor do they ceasewhen their light shifts yet again into the front bedroom.
It is two in the morning, and the young couple have come home crumpledfrom their dance, and their feet drag dreadfully on the stairs, and thedoctor has taken their hansom, and the young man below them is drunkwith joy, when Harry Ringrose kisses his mother for the twentieth lasttime and really goes. But he is too excited to sleep. In half-an-hourhe creeps back into the passage. Her light is still burning. He goesin.
"You spoke of Innes, mother?"
"Yes; I feel sure he would be the first to help you."
"I cannot go to him. I can go to nobody. We must start afresh withfresh friends, and I'll begin answering advertisements to-morrow.Yet--Innes has helped me already!"
Mrs. Ringrose has been reading herself asleep, like a practical woman,out of one of the new magazines he has brought home. The sweet face onthe pillow is wonderfully calm (for it is not from his mother thatHarry inherits his excitability), but at this it looks puzzled.
"When has he helped you?"
"To-night, mother! There was a motto he had when I was at his school.He used to say it in his sermons, and he taught me to say it in myheart."
"Well, my boy?"
"It came back to me just now. It puts all that we have been saying in anutshell. May I tell you, mother?"
"I am waiting to hear."
"'Money lost--little lost.'"
"It's easy to say that."
"'Honour lost--much lost.'"
"I call it everything."
"No, mother, wait! 'PLUCK lost--ALL lost!' It's only pluck that'severything. We must never lose that, mother, we must never lose that!"
"God grant we never may."
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