“Message, sir! Wait harnser! ‘Ighly important!”
Mr. Moses, thus suddenly taken by surprise, rapidly added a purple tint to his already crimson countenance.
“What’s this? what’s this?” he spluttered testily, — then recognising with an unpleasant qualm the handwriting of the superscription, he altered his manner, and glanced cautiously at Jim, “You’re a nice sort of messenger, are!” he said thickly, as he walked towards his office-door; “Why aren’t you an ‘Express’?”
“Ah l Why aren’t I!” echoed Jim cheerfully; “‘Spect I comes cheaper! Haint got no huni-form!”
Whereupon Mr. Moses laughed — a fat laugh, suggestive of oysters and truffles, “Have you been poking into the office after me?” he inquired.
“Not I, sir! Aint such a fool as I looks! I’m fly! I knows what’s what, when there’s a Disy in it!”
“Oh, you do, do you!” And Mr. Moses laughed again. “Well, you’d better come in now, and wait in my private room with me while I write the answer.”
Jim looked respectfully at the flight of marble steps — the steps so carefully washed down by Kittums — and then at his own grimy boots.
“I’m a bit dirty, sir,” he said; “I aint fit to go up them clean stairs.”
“Dear me, dear me!” said Mr. Moses, his fat figure creaking with impatience in his tight-fitting clothes; “What are stairs made for, except for persons to walk up them? And what are they cleaned for, except to receive dirt? Follow me, boy! — Or else be off without any answer at all!”
Jim “ducked” and pulled his cap, — then gingerly followed in the footsteps of Mr. Moses, determining not to soil the stairs on his own separate account, but to carefully tread in each print made by the somewhat flat boots of the Oil-mining Son of Israel. Which he did, very successfully, — and presently found himself in a small luxuriously-furnished apartment, thickly carpeted, and provided with desks, chairs, telephones, shelves groaning under tall ledgers, and all the other appurtenances of a private business office.
“I suppose you can keep your own counsel?” then said Mr. Moses, seating himself at one of the desks, and taking up a pen.
“As I said afore, I’m fly, sir!” repeated Jim with almost sanctimonious fervour. “I wouldn’t betry a lidy’s confidence, sir!”
Mr. Moses snorted. His “proboscis,” as Jim called it, was in a fiery and inflamed state, and his little piggy eyes were sparkling with concentrated malice.
“This lidy wants money,” he said; “All lidies do. So does everybody else in the world, it seems to me! This particular lidy won’t get it!” And Mr. Moses snorted again, rather more violently this time, and hastily writing a few lines on a half sheet of paper, thrust it in an envelope and sealed it. “There! Put my ‘ultimatum’ in the lidy’s hands! And see here! If you ever breathe a word about me — me, Levy Moses, in connection with that lidy, or any other lidy your fertile imagination may suggest to you — or drop a hint, or make so much as a sign that you have ever spoken to me, I will have you hounded off your beat! And to make as sure as I can of you, I put you in my pay! Take that!”
And he held up a sovereign before Jim’s dazzled eyes, and then tossed it across to him.
“Which makes another on ’em!” thought Jim, as he caught the coin before it had time to ring against the desk-counter; “And I’ll be able to pay ‘fines’ for Kittums, and ‘put by’ for Missis Batsby! Woa, steady!” Aloud he said: “Wish ‘a may die, if I ever does yer a dirty trick, sir! Wish ‘a was in yer pay for good an’ all, sir! I’m on! I’ll be as secret as the grave!”
This phrase, culled from the melodramatic and spectacular drama, did not appear to please Mr. Moses.
“Dear me! Don’t talk about the grave!” he said with extreme pettishness; “Be as secret as the War Office, and you’ll do! What’s your name?”
“Jim Batsby.”
Mr. Moses pencilled it down, and put it by in a pigeon-hole.
“Good! I’ll keep an eye on you! Now be off!”
Jim obeyed, and was off in a trice, running down the steps, made precious by the washing of Kittums, with a lightness that never could possibly have soiled their marble cleanliness — a lightness given to his limbs through his eager and excited spirit, now moved to the greatest animation and ardour by the possession of Mr. Moses’s sovereign, carefully put by in the inner pocket of his waistcoat. Long before the appointed hour of five he reached the “Variety,” and on demand, found no difficulty in gaining admission to a somewhat untidy dressing-room off the stage, where sat the “star of the ‘Alls” considering the various portions of a new and exceedingly scanty “costume,” in a rather peevish mood. When she saw Jim, however, she brightened up considerably.
“Got the answer?’ she asked.
But Jim, cautiously bearing in mind what Mr. Moses had said about his “ultimatum,” which, according to the knowledge he had culled from newspapers, meant a “finality” of every arrangement, whether between Boer and Briton, or Jew and Gentile, held back and hesitated a moment. The “star” stamped her foot impatiently.
“Have you got an answer?” she again demanded; “If so, don’t stand shuffling there, but give it to me!”
“I’ve got a harnser,” Said Jim, cautiously; “But I aint got my sovereign! When you gives me that, you can have this!” And he held the note from Mr. Moses up in the air with a tantalising wink, and then slipped it back into his pocket again.
“What a suspicious little wretch of the Street you are!” said the “lidy” contemptuously; “Here’s your cash, you greedy monkey!”
She threw him the promised sovereign, which he caught and bit between his teeth, — then he smiled right joyously.
“Thank you, my dear!” he said with a familiar nod; “May you never miss it! And ‘ere’s the note from Mr. Moses, with his love to ’is darling precious, an’ may it do you good, Disy dear! I’ll see you behind the footlights this evenin’! You’re looking younger than ever! Tar tar!”
He scampered away before the insulted “star” had time to break the seal of the letter, and to discover that she had paid a sovereign for the downfall of all her hopes as regarded the wealthy Mr. Moses, inasmuch as that gentleman “regretted his inability to comply with her request,” and furthermore desired her to cease all communication with him for the future.
Jim, however, knew nothing of, and cared less for, the private affairs of Mr. Moses and the “Disy” who had hoped to benefit by his monetary patronage. What occupied his mind, to the oblivion of every other matter in the world was, that he now possessed Two Sovereigns, besides Ten Shillings in the Post Office Savings Bank. It was almost enough to start a business on! Anyhow, the “fines” for Kittums could surely be paid, and the “‘spectable” clothing required for “the future Mrs. Batsby” to go to school in, could also be obtained.
“To-morrow mornin’,” he said to himself, “I’ll give ‘er all I’ve got. An’ we’ll see what the bloomin’ magistrate will say then! There’ll be no more trouble when once he sees the colour of my money, I bet!”
But when the next day dawned, and Jim, full of excitement and elation, made his way to the marble halls of Messrs. Moses and Aaron, there was no Kittums to be seen. In her place, washing down the stairs with considerable splash and noise, was a very large lady, attired in rusty black, who appeared to be afflicted with asthma. Puffing like a porpoise, and grunting like a pig, she slopped and scrubbed with difficulty and reluctance; while Jim eyed her for some moments in a kind of stupefaction before venturing to put a question.
“I say, old lady, — where’s Kit — I mean, where’s the gel?”
The unwieldy dame paused and looked round. She had a red face, and weak, watery eyes.
“Where’s the gel?” she echoed, in a not unkindly tone; “Were yer wantin’ ‘er?”
“I was so,” responded Jim; “Aint she nowhere round?”
“She’s been took sick;” and the speaker, no other than the charwoman who had paid Kittums tw
opence a day for her labour, heaved a deep and weary sigh; “Just at my wust time, too, when my rheumatics is that orful! — well I — only the Lord knows ‘ow orful they is! Her mother wrote me sayin’ as ‘ow she didn’t know what she was doin’, and ‘ad to keep her bed. Lor-a-mussy, how my back do ache! I’m sorry for the gel — a nice, willin’ little lass — but I’m just as sorry for myself!”
Jim waited to hear no more, but rushed away pell-mell through the streets, regardless of his news vending trade, his “regier customers” and everything, but the one fact that Kittums was ill. Little Kittums, with the blue eyes and dark tangle of hair, “did not know what she was doing, and had to keep her bed!” This news seemed like the crashing of a universe to Jim. Till this moment he had scarcely realised how closely the patient, hardworking child had wound herself round his heart, and influenced his casual, devil-may-care life. And he ran as though he were running for a wager, hardly knowing whither he was going, but bent solely on getting to a certain dark and stuffy back street, in the neighbourhood of Mile End, as swiftly as feet would carry him, and he went a good deal faster than any ‘bus, with its numerous Stoppages, could have performed the journey. He knew the poor hole of a tenement-house, where Kittums lived with her crippled mother, having visited it two or three times latterly on Sundays, to take Kittums “out walking,” after the approved fashion of young men about town. They had only one room, but, such as it was, Kittums kept it neat, and the helpless Mrs. O’Boyne, still fairly young, who occupied a half-recumbent posture on an old wickerwork “deck chair,” (which had been bestowed upon her in a sudden burst of charity by one of the district visitors in the parish), was always tidy and clean. To-day, however, things were sadly changed. Jim had no sooner set foot on the threshold than he heard the voice of Kittums crying out sharply and wildly:
“Mother can’t pay it! It’s no use! Whose goin’ to buy me clothes, when we aint got no money? I tell you, mother can’t, can’t, can’t pay it!”
The little voice rose to a scream, — then died away in a pitiful wailing.
“Jim! Jim!”
Jim entered, and his heart almost stood Still.
There was Kittums, sitting up in her little pallet bed, with scarlet cheeks and great blazing eyes, her breath coming and going in short, quick, uneasy gasps, and her little face expressing the strangest bewilderment and distraction. Beside her was her mother, in her chair as usual, unable to move her lower limbs, but busying herself as well as she could with her hands in soothing the child, and trying to make her drink a little milk and water out of a cup. The poor woman only looked at Jim as he entered; there was no need for words.
“Jim! Jim!” cried Kittums again; but she did not recognise Jim, though he stood beside her.
“Doctor bin?” he said after a pause, during which he had choked down a lump in his throat, and tried to control a horrid fear at his heart.
“Not yet,” said the mother patiently; “I’ve sent for ’im, but he ‘as a many rounds to make. He’ll be here as soon as he can. Kitty a’ cushla! Here’s Jim!”
But Kitty a’ cushla only stared, and beat her head with her little hot hands, as though it hurt her desperately.
“That’s ‘ow she’s bin goin’ on since seven o’clock last night,” said the mother; “And if I only knew what to do for her, it’s myself that would do it — but I’m just a helpless body, fit for nothin’ but my grave without Kitty!”
Great tears filled her eyes, but Jim said nothing. Seeing a bit of rag on the table, he steeped it in cold water and laid it gently on the child’s brow. This appeared to relieve her for a minute, for she lay back suddenly and closed her eyes, and while Jim and her mother were watching her anxiously, the doctor, a kindly-looking man, with grey hair and quick, penetrative eyes, entered.
“Well, Mrs. O’Boyne!” he said; “What’s the matter here? Kitty on the sick list?”
And while yet speaking, he stepped to the bedside and made a rapid examination of the little patient, while Jim watched him in agonised suspense. When he raised his head, after listening to Kitty’s quick breathing, his face was very grave. “Pneumonia!” he said; “Both lungs attacked!
A bad case — I’m afraid—”
“Can’t nothin’ be done?” said Jim Suddenly, in a hoarse whisper; “Can’t money do nothin’?” And he held out the two sovereigns he had so fondly intended for Kittums to pay her “fines” with.
Alas! Were they sufficient to pay the fines demanded of us all by the last inexorable master, Death?
The doctor looked at him very kindly.
“Are you her brother?”
“No, sir! Only her pal.”
The gentle light in the doctor’s eyes deepened.
“I do not want your money, my boy! If I can save the child, I will; — but the odds are against her. She is in a low condition, and pneumonia is a malady against which the best of us fight in vain. It does its work rapidly in such cases as these. All the doctors in the world could do no more for the heaviest fees, than I am willing to do — there, Mrs. O’Boyne! — don’t cry! — pray don’t cry!”
And to avoid noticing Mrs. O’Boyne’s distress, he bent again over Kittums.
“Keep her as warm as you can; give her milk and soda, and I’ll send round some medicine immediately,” he said; “But it is no use hiding the truth from you — the child is in great danger! I’ll look in again this afternoon.”
He went after that; and all day long Jim stayed beside Kittums, listening to her delirious cries, soothing her, feeding her and giving her the medicine the doctor had sent, at the regular times appointed, while he attended with equal care to the poor stricken mother, preparing food for her, and making her as comfortable as he could. But he took nothing himself. All his faculties were absorbed in the contemplation of one idea, and that was the awful possibility of altogether losing the little “pal” for whom he cherished the greatest affection he had ever known. Hour after hour he watched her unwearyingly, and once, when in a sudden excess of fever she tried to get out of her bed, he took her in his arms, and laid her down again so gently and tenderly that, for the moment, she regained something of her usual consciousness, and smiled up at him, although the smile was very wan and pitiful.
“Why, it’s Jim!” she said in a little whisper; “‘Ullo, Jim! Wot — wot cheer?”
Jim bent down and kissed her.
“Wot cheer, Kittums!” he murmured tremulously; “Gittin’ along all right now, eh?”
Kittums moved her head in feeble assent; the smile still lingered on her lips.
“My ‘ed’s all sleepy-like,” she said; “Them fines worries me—”
“They’s paid up, Kittums,” said Jim sturdily, telling the lie with pious fervour; “I’ve paid ’em!” The child’s large blue eyes brightened.
“‘Ow good y’are,” she said; “Orful good y’are!
You’ll see to mother—”
Her voice broke, and died away again in a wandering murmur. Presently she began to sing softly, but neither the words nor the tune were familiar to Jim or to her mother, who, striving to control her tears, listened with a sense of awe and superstitious terror.
“Ohon!” she suddenly wailed; “What’ll I do! What’ll I do without my lass! What’ll I do!”
Jim was quite silent. He had no consolation to offer either to her or to himself, but he thought the little voice singing in suffering, was the sweetest and saddest he had ever heard, and he began to be, as he afterwards said, “afraid of the Angels.”
“They’s come very close,” he said within himself; “Kittums wouldn’t sing, if she didn’t see ’em comin’.”
Late in the afternoon the doctor paid his second visit. But he ‘could do no more than he already had done.
“We can only hope,” he said to Jim; then after a pause he added gravely, “And pray!”
The evening closed down, and Jim thought of these words. He knew very little about prayer. He had been taught a few things about religion in a ver
y perfunctory fashion, by a worthy clergyman who considered him an “idle scamp of the street.” Among these things he had managed to learn by rote the” Our Father,” but he had the vaguest notions as to the purpose or meaning of that most beautiful prayer in the world. However, he made up his mind to try what he could do, and when the night came on apace, and he saw that Mrs. O’Boyne had fallen heavily asleep out of sheer grief, weakness, and fatigue, he summoned up all his resolution and knelt down beside Kittums.
“Our Father, which art in Heaven,” he said; “Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done—” But here a sob rose in his throat. “Not to take away Kittums, Our Father! Not just yet! That is not goin’ to be Thy Will, O, Lord, be merciful!”
A touch fell on his shoulder. It was the little hot hand of Kittums resting there.
“Don’t cry, Jim!” said she; “I’m better now!” Her eyes were quite clear and steadfast — her breathing seemed easier. Jim’s heart grew light.
“Reely and truly, now, Kittums?” he said, “Y’are pullin’ round like?”
She smiled and nodded her head. Then she closed her eyes and sank into a kind of stupor which to Jim, unskilled as he was in the serious symptoms of illness, looked like a comfortable sleep. Relieved, and almost hopeful, he rose from his knees, and sitting down, resumed his sentinel watch beside her. Never once did his eyes close. He was faint and hungry, but he would not allow himself to consider his own needs. The slow night hours wore away heavily, and still Kittums slept, though her breathing was so short and light as to be scarcely perceptible. About dawn, when a faint grey radiance stealing into the poor room told that a new day had begun, she stirred, and stretched out her hands as though seeking for something. Jim caught them gently in his own, — they were clammy cold.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 940
