by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER III
THE ESCAPE
WHEN Lady Talbot leaned over the side of the big bed to awaken DickieHarding she wished with all her heart that she had just such a littleboy of her own; and when Dickie awoke and looked in her kind eyes hefelt quite sure that if he had had a mother she would have been likethis lady.
"Only about the face," he told himself, "not the way she's got up; noryet her hair nor nuffink of that sort."
"Did you sleep well?" she asked him, stroking his hair withextraordinary gentleness.
"A fair treat," said he.
"Was your bed comfortable?"
"Ain't it soft, neither," he answered. "I don't know as ever I felt ofanythink quite as soft without it was the geese as 'angs up along theBroadway Christmas-time."
"Why, the bed's made of goose-feathers," she said, and Dickie wasdelighted by the coincidence.
"'Ave you got e'er a little boy?" he asked, pursuing his first wakingthought.
"No, dear; if I had I could lend you some of his clothes. As it is, weshall have to put you into your own." She spoke as though she weresorry.
Dickie saw no matter for regret. "My father 'e bought me a little coatfor when it was cold of a night lying out."
"Lying out? Where?"
"In the bed with the green curtains," said Dickie. This led to HereWard, and Dickie would willingly have told the whole story of that heroin full detail, but the lady said after breakfast, and now it was timefor our bath. And sure enough there was a bath of steaming water beforethe fireplace, which was in quite another part of the room, so thatDickie had not noticed the cans being brought in by a maid in a pinkprint dress and white cap and apron.
"Come," said the lady, turning back the bed-clothes.
Somehow Dickie could not bear to let that lady see him crawl clumsilyacross the floor, as he had to do when he moved without his crutch. Itwas not because he thought she would make fun of him; perhaps it wasbecause he knew she would not. And yet without his crutch, how else washe to get to that bath? And for no reason that he could have given hebegan to cry.
The lady's arms were round him in an instant.
"What is it, dear? Whatever is it?" she asked; and Dickie sobbed out--
"I ain't got my crutch, and I can't go to that there barf without I gotit. Anything 'ud do--if 'twas only an old broom cut down to me 'eighth.I'm a cripple, they call it, you see. I can't walk like wot you can."
She carried him to the bath. There was scented soap, there was a sponge,and a warm, fluffy towel.
"I ain't had a barf since Gravesend," said Dickie, and flushed at theindiscretion.
"Since _when_, dear?"
"Since Wednesday," said Dickie anxiously.
He and the lady had breakfast together in a big room with long windowsthat the sun shone in at, and, outside, a green garden. There were a lotof things to eat in silver dishes, and the very eggs had silver cups tosit in, and all the spoons and forks had dogs scratched on them like theone that was carved on the foot-board of the bed up-stairs. All exceptthe little slender spoon that Dickie had to eat his egg with. And onthat there was no dog, but something quite different.
"Why," said he, his face brightening with joyous recognition, "myTinkler's got this on it--just the very moral of it, so 'e 'as."
Then he had to tell all about Tinkler, and the lady looked thoughtfuland interested; and when the gentleman came in and kissed her, and said,How were we this morning, Dickie had to tell about Tinkler all overagain; and then the lady said several things very quickly, beginningwith, "I told you so, Edward," and ending with "I knew he wasn't acommon child."
Dickie missed the middle part of what she said because of the way hisegg behaved, suddenly bursting all down one side and running over intothe salt, which, of course, had to be stopped at all costs by some meansor other. The tongue was the easiest.
The gentleman laughed. "Weh! don't eat the egg-cup," he said. "We shallwant it again. Have another egg."
But Dickie's pride was hurt, and he wouldn't. The gentleman must be verystupid, he thought, not to know the difference between licking andeating. And as if anybody could eat an egg-cup, anyhow! He was glad whenthe gentleman went away.
After breakfast Dickie was measured for a crutch--that is to say, abroom was held up beside him and a piece cut off its handle. Then thelady wrapped flannel around the hairy part of the broom and sewed blackvelvet over that. It was a beautiful crutch, and Dickie said so. Alsohe showed his gratitude by inviting the lady to look "'ow spry 'e was on'is pins," but she only looked a very little while, and then turned andgazed out of the window. So Dickie had a good look at the room and thefurniture--it was all different from anything he ever remembered seeing,and yet he couldn't help thinking he had seen them before, thesehigh-backed chairs covered with flowers, like on carpets; the carvedbookcases with rows on rows of golden-beaded books; the bow-fronted,shining sideboard, with handles that shone like gold, and the cornercupboard with glass doors and china inside, red and blue and goldy. Itwas a very odd feeling. I don't think that I can describe it better thanby saying that he looked at all these things with a double pleasure--thepleasure of looking at new and beautiful things, and the pleasure ofseeing again things old and beautiful which he had not seen for a verylong time.
His limping survey of the room ended at the windows, when the ladyturned suddenly, knelt down, put her hand under his chin and looked intohis eyes.
"Dickie," she said, "how would you like to stay here and be _my_ littleboy?"
"I'd like it right enough," said he, "only I got to go back to father."
"But if father says you may?"
"'E won't," said Dickie, with certainty, "an' besides, there's Tinkler."
"Well, you're to stay here and be my little boy till we find out wherefather is. We shall let the police know. They're sure to find him."
"The pleece!" Dickie cried in horror. "Why, father, 'e ain't donenothing."
"No, no, of course not," said the lady in a hurry; "but the police knowall sorts of things--about where people are, I know, and what they'redoing--even when they haven't _done_ anything."
"The pleece knows a jolly sight too much," said Dickie, in gloom.
And now all Dickie's little soul was filled with one longing; all hislittle brain awake to one only thought: the police were to be set on thetrack of Beale, the man whom he called father; the man who had been kindto him, had wheeled him in a perambulator for miles and miles throughenchanted country; the man who had bought him a little coat "to put ono' nights if it was cold or wet"; the man who had shown him thewonderful world to which he awakens who has slept in the bed with thegreen curtains.
The lady's house was more beautiful than anything he had everimagined--yet not more beautiful than certain things that he almostimagined that he remembered. The lady was better than beautiful, shewas dear. Her eyes were the eyes to which it is good to laugh--her armswere the arms in which it is good to cry. The tree-dotted parkland wasto Dickie the Land of Heart's Desire.
But father--Beale--who had been kind, whom Dickie loved!...
The lady left him alone with a book, beautiful beyond his dreams--threegreat volumes with pictures of things that had happened and been sincethe days of Hereward himself. The author's charming name was Green, andrecalled curtains and nights under the stars.
But even those beautiful pictures could not keep Dickie's thoughts fromMr. Beale: "father" by adoption and love. If the police were set to findout "where he was and what he was doing?"... Somehow or other Dickiemust get to Gravesend, to that house where there had been a bath, orsomething like it, in a pail, and where kindly tramp-people had toastedherrings and given apples to little boys who helped.
He had helped then. And by all the laws of fair play there ought to besome one now to help him.
The beautiful book lay on the table before him, but he no longer saw it.He no longer cared for it. All he cared for was to find a friend whowould help him. And he found one. And the friend who helped him was ane
nemy.
The smart, pink-frocked, white-capped, white-aproned maid, who, unseenby Dickie, had brought the bath-water and the bath, came in with aduster. She looked malevolently at Dickie.
"Shovin' yourself in," she said rudely.
"I ain't," said he.
"If she wants to make a fool of a kid, ain't I got clever brothers andsisters?" inquired the maid, her chin in the air.
"Nobody says you ain't, and nobody ain't makin' a fool of me," saidDickie.
"Ho no. Course they ain't," the maid rejoined. "People comes 'erewithout e'er a shirt to their backs and makes fools of their betters.That's the way it is, ain't it? Ain't she arst you to stay and be 'erlittle boy?"
"Yes," said Dickie.
"Ah, I thought she 'ad," said the maid triumphantly; "and you'll stay.But if I'm expected to call you Master Whatever-your-silly-name-is, Igives a month's warning, so I tell you straight."
"I don't want to stay," said Dickie--"at least----"
"Oh, tell me another," said the girl impatiently, and left him, withouthaving made the slightest use of the duster.
Dickie was taken for a drive in a little carriage drawn by acream-colored pony with a long tail--a perfect dream of a pony, and thelady allowed him to hold the reins. But even amid this delight heremembered to ask whether she had put the police on to father yet, andwas relieved to hear that she had not.
It was Markham who was told to wash Dickie's hands when the drive wasover, and Markham was the enemy with the clever brothers and sisters.
"Wash 'em yourself," she said among the soap and silver and marble andsponges. "It ain't my work."
"You'd better," said Dickie, "or the lady'll know the difference. Itain't my work neither, and I ain't so used to washing as what you are,and that's the truth."
So she washed him, not very gently.
"It's no use your getting your knife into me," he said as the towel wasplied. "I didn't _arst_ to come 'ere, did I?"
"No, you little thief!"
"Stow that!" said Dickie, and after a quick glance at his set lips shesaid, "Well, next door to, anyhow. I should be ashamed to show my face'ere, if I was you, after last night. There, you're dry now. Cut alongdown to the dining-room. The servants' hall's good enough for honestpeople as don't break into houses."
All through that day of wonder, which included real roses that you couldpick and smell and real gooseberries that you could gather and eat, aswell as picture-books, a clockwork bear, a musical box, and a doll'shouse almost as big as a small villa, an idea kept on hammering at theother side of a locked door in Dickie's mind, and when he was in bed itgot the door open and came out and looked at him. And he recognized itat once as a really useful idea.
"Markham will bring you some warm milk. Drink it up and sleep well,darling," said the lady; and with the idea very near and plain he puthis arms round her neck and hugged her.
"Good-bye," he said; "you _are_ good. I do love you." The lady went awayvery pleased.
When Markham came with the milk Dickie said, "You want me gone, don'tyou?"
Markham said she didn't care.
"Well, but how am I to get away--with my crutch?"
"Mean to say you'd cut and run if you was the same as me--about thelegs, I mean?"
"Yes," said Dickie.
"And not nick anything?"
"Not a bloomin' thing," said he.
"Well," said Markham, "you've got a spirit, I will say that."
"You see," said Dickie, "I wants to get back to farver."
"Bless the child," said Markham, quite affected by this.
"Why don't you help me get out? Once I was outside the park I'd do allright."
"Much as my place is worth," said Markham; "don't you say another wordgetting me into trouble."
But Dickie said a good many other words, and fell asleep quite satisfiedwith the last words that had fallen from Markham. These words were:"We'll see."
It was only just daylight when Markham woke him. She dressed himhurriedly, and carried him and his crutch down the back stairs and intothat very butler's pantry through whose window he had crept at thebidding of the red-haired man. No one else seemed to be about.
"Now," she said, "the gardener he has got a few hampers ready--fruit andflowers and the like--and he drives 'em to the station 'fore any one'sup. They'd only go to waste if 'e wasn't to sell 'em. See? An' he's aparticular friend of mine; and he won't mind an extry hamper more orless. So out with you. Joe," she whispered, "you there?"
Joe, outside, whispered that he was. And Markham lifted Dickie to thewindow. As she did so she kissed him.
"Cheer-oh, old chap!" she said. "I'm sorry I was so short. An' you dowant to get out of it, don't you?"
"No error," said Dickie; "an' I'll never split about him selling thevegetables and things."
"You're too sharp to live," Markham declared; and next moment he wasthrough the window, and Joe was laying him in a long hamper half-filledwith straw that stood waiting.
"I'll put you in the van along with the other hampers," whispered Joe ashe shut the lid. "Then when you're in the train you just cut the stringwith this 'ere little knife I'll make you a present of and out you gets.I'll make it all right with the guard. He knows me. And he'll put youdown at whatever station you say."
"Here, don't forget 'is breakfast," said Markham, reaching her armthrough the window. It was a wonderful breakfast. Five cold rissoles, alot of bread and butter, two slices of cake, and a bottle of milk. Andit was fun eating agreeable and unusual things, lying down in the roomyhamper among the smooth straw. The jolting of the cart did not worryDickie at all. He was used to the perambulator; and he ate as much as hewanted to eat, and when that was done he put the rest in his pocket andcurled up comfortably in the straw, for there was still quite a lot leftof what ordinary people consider night, and also there was quite a lotleft of the sleepiness with which he had gone to bed at the end of thewonderful day. It was not only just body-sleepiness: the kind you getafter a long walk or a long play day. It was mind-sleepiness--Dickie hadgone through so much in the last thirty-six hours that his poor littlebrain felt quite worn out. He fell asleep among the straw, fingering theclasp-knife in his pocket, and thinking how smartly he would cut thestring when the time came.
"THREE OR FOUR FACES LOOKED DOWN AT DICKIE"
[_Page 70_]
And he slept for a very long time. Such a long time that when he didwake up there was no longer any need to cut the string of the hamper.Some one else had done that, and the lid of the basket was open, andthree or four faces looked down at Dickie, and a girl's voice said--
"Why, it's a little boy! And a crutch--oh, dear!" Dickie sat up. Thelittle crutch, which was lying corner-wise above him in the hamper,jerked out and rattled on the floor.
"Well, I never did--never!" said another voice. "Come out, dearie; don'tbe frightened."
"How kind people are!" Dickie thought, and reached his hands to slenderwhite hands that were held out to him. A lady in black--her figure wasas slender as her hands--drew him up, put her arms round him, and liftedhim on to a black bentwood chair.
His eyes, turning swiftly here and there, showed him that he was in ashop--a shop full of flowers and fruit.
"Mr. Rosenberg," said the slender lady--"oh, do come here, please! Thisextra hamper----"
A dark, handsome, big-nosed man came towards them.
"It's a dear little boy," said the slender lady, who had a pale, kindface, dark eyes, and very red lips.
"It'th a practical joke, I shuppothe," said the dark man. "Our gardeningfriend wanth a liththon: and I'll thee he getth it."
"It wasn't his fault," said Dickie, wriggling earnestly in his highchair; "it was my fault. I fell asleep."
The girls crowded round him with questions and caresses.
"I ought to have cut the string in the train and told the guard--he's afriend of the gardener's," he said, "but I was asleep. I don't know asever I slep' so sound afore. Like as if I'd had sleepy-stuff--you know.Like they
give me at the orspittle."
I should not like to think that Markham had gone so far as to put"sleepy-stuff" in that bottle of milk; but I am afraid she was not veryparticular, and she may have thought it best to send Dickie to sleep sothat he could not betray her or her gardener friend until he was veryfar away from both of them.
"But why," asked the long-nosed gentleman--"why put boyth in bathketth?Upthetting everybody like thith," he added crossly.
"It was," said Dickie slowly, "a sort of joke. I don't want to goupsetting of people. If you'll lift me down and give me me crutch I'll'ook it."
But the young ladies would not hear of his hooking it.
"We may keep him, mayn't we, Mr. Rosenberg?" they said; and he judgedthat Mr. Rosenberg was a kind man or they would not have dared to speakso to him; "let's keep him till closing-time, and then one of us willsee him home. He lives in London. He says so."
Dickie had indeed murmured "words to this effect," as policemen call itwhen they are not quite sure what people really _have_ said.
"Ath you like," said Mr. Rosenberg, "only you muthn't let him interferewith bithneth; thath all."
They took him away to the back of the shop. They were dear girls, andthey were very nice to Dickie. They gave him grapes, and a banana, andsome Marie biscuits, and they folded sacks for him to lie on.
And Dickie liked them and was grateful to them--and watched hisopportunity. Because, however kind people were, there was one thing hehad to do--to get back to the Gravesend lodging-house, as his "father"had told him to do.
The opportunity did not come till late in the afternoon, when one of thegirls was boiling a kettle on a spirit-lamp, and one had gone out to getcakes in Dickie's honor, which made him uncomfortable, but duty is duty,and over the Gravesend lodging-house the star of duty shone andbeckoned. The third young lady and Mr. Rosenberg were engaged inanimated explanations with a fair young gentleman about a basket ofroses that had been ordered, and had not been sent.
"Cath," Mr. Rosenberg was saying--"cath down enthureth thpeedydelivery."
And the young lady was saying, "I am extremely sorry, sir; it was amisunderstanding."
And to the music of their two voices Dickie edged along close to thegrapes and melons, holding on to the shelf on which they lay so as notto attract attention by the tap-tapping of his crutch.
He passed silently and slowly between the rose-filled window and theheap of bananas that adorned the other side of the doorway, turned thecorner, threw his arm over his crutch, and legged away for dear lifedown a sort of covered Arcade; turned its corner and found himself in awilderness of baskets and carts and vegetables, threaded his way throughthem, in and out among the baskets, over fallen cabbage-leaves, underhorses' noses, found a quiet street, a still quieter archway, pulledout the knife--however his adventure ended he was that knife to thegood--and prepared to cut the money out of the belt Mr. Beale hadbuckled round him.
And the belt was not there! Had he dropped it somewhere? Or had he andMarkham, in the hurry of that twilight dressing, forgotten to put it on?He did not know. All he knew was that the belt was not on him, and thathe was alone in London, without money, and that at Gravesend his fatherwas waiting for him--waiting, waiting. Dickie knew what it meant towait.
He went out into the street, and asked the first good-natured-lookingloafer he saw the way to Gravesend.
"Way to your grandmother," said the loafer; "don't you come saucing ofme."
"But which is the way?" said Dickie.
The man looked hard at him and then pointed with a grimy thumb over hisshoulder.
"It's thirty mile if it's a yard," he said. "Got any chink?"
"I lost it," said Dickie. "My farver's there awaitin' for me."
"Garn!" said the man; "you don't kid me so easy."
"I ain't arstin' you for anything except the way," said Dickie.
"More you ain't," said the man, hesitated, and pulled his hand out ofhis pocket. "Ain't kiddin'? Sure? Father at Gravesend? Take your Bible?"
"Yuss," said Dickie.
"Then you take the first to the right and the first to the left, andyou'll get a blue 'bus as'll take you to the 'Elephant.' That's a bit ofthe way. Then you arst again. And 'ere--this'll pay for the 'bus." Heheld out coppers.
This practical kindness went to Dickie's heart more than all the kissesof the young ladies in the flower-shop. The tears came into his eyes.
"Well, you _are_ a pal, and no error," he said. "Do the same for yousome day," he added.
The lounging man laughed.
"I'll hold you to that, matey," he said; "when you're a-ridin' in yercarriage an' pair p'raps you'll take me on ter be yer footman."
"When I am, I will," said Dickie, quite seriously. And then they bothlaughed.
The "Elephant and Castle" marks but a very short stage of the weary waybetween London and Gravesend. When he got out of the tram Dickie askedthe way again, this time of a woman who was selling matches in thegutter. She pointed with the blue box she held in her hand.
"It's a long way," she said, in a tired voice; "nigh on thirty mile."
"Thank you, missis," said Dickie, and set out, quite simply, to walkthose miles--nearly thirty. The way lay down the Old Kent Road, andpresently Dickie was in familiar surroundings. For the Old Kent Roadleads into the New Cross Road, and that runs right through the yellowbrick wilderness where Dickie's aunt lived. He dared not follow the roadthrough those well-known scenes. At any moment he might meet his aunt.And if he met his aunt ... he preferred not to think of it.
Outside the "Marquis of Granby" stood a van, and the horses' heads wereturned away from London. If one could get a lift? Dickie lookedanxiously to right and left, in front and behind. There were woodenboxes in the van, a lot of them, and on the canvas of the tilt waspainted in fat, white letters--
+----------------+ | FRY'S TONIC | | | | THE ONLY CURE | +----------------+
There would be room on the top of the boxes--they did not reach withintwo feet of the tilt.
Should he ask for a lift, when the carter came out of the "Marquis"? Orshould he, if he could, climb up and hide on the boxes and take hischance of discovery on the lift? He laid a hand on the tail-board.
"Hi, Dickie!" said a voice surprisingly in his ear; "that you?"
Dickie owned that it was, with the feeling of a trapped wild animal, andturned and faced a boy of his own age, a schoolfellow--the one, in fact,who had christened him "Dot-and-go-one."
"Oh, what a turn you give me!" he said; "thought you was my aunt. Don'tyou let on you seen me."
"Where you been?" asked the boy curiously.
"Oh, all about," Dickie answered vaguely. "Don't you tell me aunt."
"Yer aunt? Don't you know?" The boy was quite contemptuous with him fornot knowing.
"Know? No. Know what?"
"She shot the moon--old Hurle moved her; says he don't remember whereto. She give him a pint to forget's what I say."
"Who's livin' there now?" Dickie asked, interest in his aunt's addressswallowed up in a sudden desperate anxiety.
"No one don't live there. It's shut up to let apply Roberts 796Broadway," said the boy. "I say, what'll you do?"
"I don't know," said Dickie, turning away from the van, which hadabruptly become unimportant. "Which way you goin'?"
"Down home--go past your old shop. Coming?"
"No," said Dickie. "So long--see you again some day. I got to go thisway." And he went it.
All the same the twilight saw him creeping down the old road to thehouse whose back-yard had held the rabbit-hutch, the garden where he hadsowed the parrot food, and where the moonflowers had come up so whiteand beautiful. What a long time ago! It was only a month really, but allthe same, what a long time!
The news of his aunt's departure had changed everything. The steadfastdesire to get to Gravesend, to find his father, had given way, at anyrate for the moment, to a burning anxiety about Tinkler and the whiteston
e. Had his aunt found them and taken them away? If she hadn't andthey were still there, would it not be wise to get them at once? Becauseof course some one else might take the house and find the treasures.Yes, it would certainly be wise to go to-night, to get in by the frontwindow--the catch had always been broken--to find his treasures, or atany rate to make quite sure whether he had lost them or not.
No one noticed him as he came down the street, very close to therailings. There are so many boys in the streets in that part of theworld. And the front window went up easily. He climbed in, dragging hiscrutch after him.
He got up-stairs very quickly, on hands and knees, went straight to theloose board, dislodged it, felt in the hollow below. Oh, joy! His handsfound the soft bundle of rags that he knew held Tinkler and the seal. Heput them inside the front of his shirt and shuffled down. It was not toolate to do a mile or two of the Gravesend road. But the moonflower--hewould like to have one more look at that.
He got out into the garden--there stood the stalk of the flower verytall in the deepening dusk. He touched the stalk. It was dry andhard--three or four little dry things fell from above and rattled on hishead.
"Seeds, o' course," said Dickie, who knew more about seeds now than hehad done when he saved the parrot seeds. One does not tramp the countryfor a month, at Dickie's age, without learning something about seeds.
He got out the knife that should have cut the string of the basket inthe train, opened it and cut the stalk of the moonflower, very carefullyso that none of the seeds should be, and only a few were, lost. He creptinto the house holding the stalk upright and steady as an acolytecarries a processional cross.
"HE MADE, WITH TRIPLE LINES OF SILVERY SEEDS, ASIX-POINTED STAR"
[_Page 81_]
The house was quite dark now, but a street lamp threw its light into thefront room, bare, empty, and dusty. There was a torn newspaper on thefloor. He spread a sheet of it out, kneeled by it and shook themoonflower head over it. The seeds came rattling out--dozens and dozensof them. They were bigger than sunflower seeds and flatter and rounder,and they shone like silver, or like the pods of the plant we callhonesty.
"Oh, beautiful, beautiful!" said Dickie, letting the smooth shapes slidethrough his fingers. Have you ever played with mother-of-pearl cardcounters? The seeds of the moonflower were like those.
He pulled out Tinkler and the seal and laid them on the heap of seeds.And then knew quite suddenly that he was too tired to travel any furtherthat night.
"I'll doss here," he said; "there's plenty papers"--he knew byexperience that, as bed-clothes, newspapers are warm, if noisy--"and geton in the morning afore people's up."
He collected all the paper and straw--there was a good deal litteredabout in the house--and made a heap in the corner, out of the way of thewindow. He did not feel afraid of sleeping in an empty house, only verylordly and magnificent because he had a whole house to himself. Thefood still left in his pockets served for supper, and you could drinkquite well at the wash-house tap by putting your head under and turningit on very slowly.
And for a final enjoyment he laid out his treasures on thenewspaper--Tinkler and the seal in the middle and the pearly countersarranged in patterns round them, circles and squares and oblongs. Theseeds lay very flat and fitted close together. They were excellent formaking patterns with. And presently he made, with triple lines ofsilvery seeds, a six-pointed star, something like this--
^ / _____/________ / / / / ^ ^ / / /________/___ / / v
with the rattle and the seal in the middle, and the light from thestreet lamp shone brightly on it all.
"That's the prettiest of the lot," said Dickie Harding, alone in theempty house.
And then the magic began.
