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The Woman Thou Gavest Me: Being the Story of Mary O'Neill, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 6. I Am Lost - Chapter 97 |
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_ SIXTH PART. I AM LOST NINETY-SEVENTH CHAPTER
He had come to England at the time of the religious persecution in the Holy Cities of Russia, set himself up in his trade as a tailor in a garret in Whitechapel, hired a "Singer," worked with "green" labour for "slop" warehouses, and become in less than twenty years the richest foreign Jew in the East End of London, doing some of the "best bespoke" work for the large shops in the West and having the reputation (as I afterwards found) of being the greatest of Jewish "sweaters." In spite of this, however, he was in his own way a deeply religious man. Strict, severe, almost superstitious in obeying the Levitical laws and in practising the sad and rather gloomy symbolism of his faith. A famous Talmudist, a pillar of the synagogue, one of the two wardens of the Chevra in Brick Lane, and consequently a great upholder of moral rectitude. His house seemed to be a solid mass of human beings, chiefly Jewish girls, who worked all day, and sometimes (when regulations could be evaded or double gangs engaged) all night, for the Jew drove everybody at high speed, not excepting his wife, who cooked the food and pressed the clothes at the same time. In this hive of industry I needed no spur to make me work. Every morning Mrs. Abramovitch brought up a thick pile of vests to my room, and every evening she took them down again, after counting my earnings with almost preternatural rapidity and paying me, day by day, with unfailing promptitude. At the end of my first week I found I had made ten shillings. I was delighted, but after I had paid for my room and my food there was not enough for baby's board, so the second week I worked later in the evenings, and earned fourteen shillings. This was still insufficient, therefore I determined to take something from the other end of the day. "Morning will be better," I thought, remembering the painful noises at night, especially about midnight, when people were being thrown out of a public-house higher up the street, where there was a placard in the window saying the ale sold there could be guaranteed to "make anybody drunk for fourpence." Unfortunately (being a little weak) I was always heavy in the mornings, but by great luck my room faced the east, so I conceived the idea of moving my bed up to the window and drawing my blinds to the top so that the earliest light might fall on my face and waken me. This device succeeded splendidly, and for many weeks of the late summer and early autumn I was up before the sun, as soon as the dawn had broadened and while the leaden London daylight was filtering through the smoke of yesterday. By this means I increased my earnings to sixteen shillings, and, as my fingers learned to fly over their work, to seventeen and even eighteen. That was my maximum, and though it left a narrow margin for other needs it enabled me at the end of a month to pay another pound for baby's board and to put away a little towards her "shortening," which Mrs. Oliver was always saying must be soon. I had to stick close to maintain this average, and I grudged even the time occupied in buying and eating my food, though that was not a long process in the Mile End Road, which is full of shops where things can be bought ready cooked. After the first week I did not even need to go out for them, for they were brought round to my room every morning, thus enabling me to live without leaving my work. It was a stiff life, perhaps, but let nobody think I looked upon myself as a slave. Though I worked so hard I felt no self-pity. The thought that I was working for my child sweetened all my labours. It was such a joy to think that baby depended upon me for everything she wanted. Being so happy in those days I sang a great deal, though naturally not in the middle of the day, when our house was going like a mill-wheel, but in the early mornings before the electric trams began to clang, or the hawkers with their barrows to shout, and when there was no sound even in the East End except that ceaseless tramp, tramp, tramp in the front street which always made me think of the children of Israel in Egypt drawing burdens for Pharaoh. Throwing open my window I sang all sorts of things, but, being such a child myself and so fond of make-believe, I loved best to sing my lullaby, and so pretend that baby was with me in my room, lying asleep behind me in my bed.
It was not a very hopeful environment, yet for some time, in my little top room, I was really happy. I saw baby every day. Between six and nine every night, I broke off work to go to Ilford, saying nothing about my errand to anybody, and leaving the family of the Jew to think it was my time for recreation. Generally I "trammed" it from Bow Church, because I was so eager to get to my journey's end, but usually I returned on foot, for though the distance was great I thought I slept better for the walk. What joyful evenings those were! Perhaps I was not altogether satisfied about the Olivers, but that did not matter very much. On closer acquaintance I found my baby's nurse to be a "heedless" and "feckless" woman; and though I told myself that all allowances must be made for her in having a bad husband, I knew in my secret heart that I was deceiving myself, and that I ought to listen to the voices that were saying "Your child is being neglected." Sometimes it seemed to me that baby had not been bathed--but that only gave me an excuse for bathing her myself. Sometimes I thought her clothes were not as clean as they might be--but that only gave me the joy of washing them. Sometimes I was sure that her feeding-bottle had not been rinsed and her milk was not quite fresh--but that only gave me the pleasure of scalding the one and boiling the other. More than once it flashed upon me that I was paying Mrs. Oliver to do all this--but then what a deep delight it was to be mothering my own baby! Thus weeks and months passed--it is only now I know how many, for in those days Time itself had nothing in it for me except my child--and every new day brought the new joy of watching my baby's development. Oh, how wonderful it all was! To see her little mind and soul coming out of the Unknown! Out of the silence and darkness of the womb into the world of light and sound! First her sense of sight, with her never-ending interest in her dear little toes! Then her senses of touch and hearing, and the gift of speech, beginning with a sort of crow, and ending in the "ma-ma-ma" which the first time I heard it went prancing through and through me and was more heavenly to my ears than the music of the spheres! What evenings of joy I had with her! The best of them (God forgive me!) were the nights when the bricklayer had got into some trouble by "knocking people about" at the "Rising Sun" and his wife had to go off to rescue him from the police. Then, baby being "shortened," I would prop her up in her cot while I sang "Sally" to her; or if that did not serve, and her little lip continued to drop, I both sang and danced, spreading my skirts and waltzing to the tune of "Clementina" while the kettle hummed over the fire and the bricklayer's kitchen buzzed softly like a hive of bees. Oh dear! Oh dear! I may have been down in the depths, yet there is no place so dark that it may not be brightened by a sunbeam, and my sunbeam was my child. And then Martin--baby was constantly making me think of him. Devouring her with my eyes, I caught resemblances every day--in her eyes, her voice, her smile, and, above all, in that gurgling laugh that was like water bubbling out of a bottle. I used to talk to her about him, pouring all my sentimental secrets into her ears, just as if she understood, telling her what a great man her father had been and how he loved both of us--_would_ have done if he had lived longer. I dare say it was very foolish. Yet I cannot think it was all foolishness. Many and many a time since I have wondered if the holy saints, who knew what had really happened to Martin, were whispering all this in my ear as a means of keeping my love for him as much alive as if he had been constantly by my side. The climax came when Isabel was about five months old, for then the feeling about baby and Martin reached another and higher phase. I hardly dare to speak of it, lest it should seem silly when it was really so sacred and so exalted. The idea I had had before baby was born, that she was being sent to console me (to be a link between my lost one and me), developed into the startling and rapturous thought that the very soul of Martin had passed into my child. "So Martin is not dead at all," I thought, "not really dead, because he lives in baby." It is impossible to say how this thought stirred me; how it filled my heart with thankfulness; how I prayed that the little body in which the soul of my Martin had come to dwell might grow beautiful and strong and worthy of him; how I felt charged with another and still greater responsibility to guard and protect her with my life itself if need be. "Yes, yes, my very life itself," I thought. Perhaps this was a sort of delirium, born of my great love, my hard work, and my failing strength. I did not know, I did not care. All that mattered to me then was one thing only--that whereas hitherto I had thought Martin was so far gone from me that not Time but only Eternity would bring us together, now I felt that he was coming back and back to me--nearer and nearer and nearer every day.
My dear, noble little woman was right in more ways than she knew. At that very time I was in literal truth hurrying home to her as fast as the fastest available vessel could carry me. As soon as we had boarded the _Scotia_ at the Cape and greeted our old shipmates, we shouted for our letters. There were some for all of us and heaps for me, so I scuttled down to my cabin, where I sorted the envelopes like a pack of cards, looking for the small delicate hand that used to write my letters and speeches. To my dismay it was not there, and realizing that fact I bundled the letters into a locker and never looked at them again until we were two days out--when I found they were chiefly congratulations from my committee, the proprietor of my newspaper, and the Royal Geographical Society, all welcome enough in their way, but Dead Sea fruit to a man with an empty, heaving heart. Going up on deck I found every face about me shining like the aurora, for the men had had good news all round, one having come into a fortune and another into the fatherhood of twins, and both being in a state of joy and excitement. But all the good fellows were like boys. Some of them (with laughter seasoned by a few tears) read me funny bits out of their wives' letters--bits too that were not funny, about having "a pretty fit of hysterics" at reading bad news of us and "wanting to kiss the newsboy" when he brought the paper contradicting it. I did my best to play the game of rejoicing, pretending I had had good news also, and everything was going splendid. But I found it hard enough to keep it going, especially while we were sailing back to the world, as we called it, and hearing from the crew the news of what had happened while we had been away. First, there was the reason for the delay in the arrival of the ship, which had been due not to failure of the wireless at our end, but to a breakdown on Macquarie Island. And then there was the account of the report of the loss of the _Scotia_ in the gale going out, which had been believed on insufficient evidence (as I thought), but recorded in generous words of regret that sent the blood boiling to a man's face and made him wish to heaven they could be true. We were only five or six days sailing to New Zealand, but the strain to me was terrible, for the thought was always uppermost: "Why didn't she write a word of welcome to reach me on my return to civilisation?" When I was not talking to somebody that question was constantly haunting me. To escape from it I joined the sports of my shipmates, who with joyful news in their hearts and fresh food in their stomachs were feeling as good as new in spite of all they had suffered. But the morning we smelt land, the morning the cloud banks above the eastern horizon came out hard and fast and sure (no dreamland this time), I stood at the ship's bow, saying nothing to anybody, only straining my eyes for the yet distant world we were coming back to out of that desolate white waste, and thinking: "Surely I'll have news from her before nightfall." There was a big warm-hearted crowd on the pier at Port Lyttelton. Treacle said, "Gawd. I didn't know there was so many people in the world, Guv'nor;" and O'Sullivan, catching sight of a pretty figure under a sunshade, tugged at my arm and cried (in the voice of an astronomer who has discovered a planet), "Commanther! Commanther! A _girl!_" Almost before we had been brought to, a company of scientific visitors came aboard; but I was more concerned about the telegrams that had come at the same moment, so hurrying down to my cabin I tore them open like a vulture riving its prey--always looking at the signatures first and never touching an envelope without thinking: "Oh God, what will be inside of it?" There was nothing from my dear one! Invitations to dine, to lecture, to write books, to do this and that and Heaven knows what, but never a word from her who was more to me than all the world besides. This made me more than ever sure of the "voices" that had called me back from the 88th latitude, so I decided instantly to leave our ship in New Zealand, in readiness for our next effort, and getting across to Sydney to take the first fast steamer home. The good people at Port Lyttelton were loath to let us go. But after I had made my excuses, ("crazy to get back to wives and sweethearts, you know") they sent a school of boys (stunning little chaps in Eton suits) to sing us off with "Forty Years On"--which brought more of my mother into my eyes than I knew to be left there. At Sydney we had the same experience--the same hearty crowds, the same welcome, the same invitations, to which we made the same replies, and then got away by a fast liner which happened to be ready to sail. On the way "back to the world" I had slung together a sort of a despatch for the newspaper which had promoted our expedition (a lame, limping thing for want of my darling's help to make it go), saying something about the little we had been able to do but more about what we meant, please God, to do some day. "She'll see that, anyway, and know we're coming back," I thought. But to make doubly sure I sent two personal telegrams, one to my dear one at Castle Raa and the other to my old people at home, asking for answers to Port Said. Out on the sea again I was tormented by the old dream of the crevassed glacier; and if anybody wonders why a hulking chap who had not been afraid of a ninety-mile blizzard in the region of the Pole allowed himself to be kept awake at night by a buzzing in the brain, all I can say is that it was so, and I know nothing more about it. Perhaps my recent experience with the "wireless" persuaded me that if two sticks stuck in the earth could be made to communicate with each other over hundreds of miles, two hearts that loved each other knew no limitations of time or space. In any case I was now so sure that my dear one had called me home from the Antarctic that by the time we reached Port Said, and telegrams were pouring in on me, I had worked myself up to such a fear that I dared not open them. From sheer dread of the joy or sorrow that might be enclosed in the yellow covers, I got O'Sullivan down in my cabin to read my telegrams, while I scanned his face and nearly choked with my own tobacco smoke. There was nothing from my dear one! Nothing from my people at home either! O'Sullivan got it into his head that I was worrying about my parents, and tried to comfort me by saying that old folks never dreamt of telegraphing, but by the holy immaculate Mother he'd go bail there would be a letter for me before long. There was. We stayed two eternal days at Port Said while the vessel was taking coal for the rest of the voyage, and almost at the moment of sailing a letter arrived from Ellan, which, falling into O'Sullivan's hands first, sent him flying through the steamer and shouting at the top of his voice: "Commanther! Commanther!" The passengers gave room for him, and told me afterwards of his beaming face. And when he burst into my cabin I too felt sure he had brought me good news, which he had, though it was not all that I wanted. "The way I was sure there would be a letter for you soon, and by the holy St. Patrick and St. Thomas, here it is," he cried. The letter was from my father, and I had to brace myself before I could read it. It was full of fatherly love, motherly love, too, and the extravagant pride my dear good old people had of me ("everybody's talking of you, my boy, and there's nothing else in the newspapers"); but not a word about my Mary--or only one, and that seemed worse than none at all. "You must have heard of the trouble at Castle Raa. Very sad, but this happy hour is not the time to say anything about it." Nothing more! Only reams and reams of sweet parental chatter which (God forgive me!) I would have gladly given over and over again for one plain sentence about my darling. Being now more than ever sure that some kind of catastrophe had overtaken my poor little woman, I telegraphed to her again, this time (without knowing what mischief I was making) at the house of Daniel O'Neill--telling myself that, though the man was a brute who had sacrificed his daughter to his lust of rank and power and all the rest of his rotten aspirations, he was her father, and, if her reprobate of a husband had turned her out, he must surely have taken her in. "Cable reply to Malta. Altogether too bad not hearing from you," I said. A blind, hasty, cruel telegram, but thank God she never received it! M.C. [END OF MARTIN CONRAD'S MEMORANDUM] _ |
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