The Admirable Tinker Part 2

I used to trapse and trapse about all day, and at night I used to go into Publics, the saloon bars as well as the common bars, for I didn't know which cla.s.s she really belonged to. I went into hundreds of Publics, but I never set eyes on her. Then, last October, when I'd nearly come to the end of my savings, I saw her going into a Public at New Cross. I couldn't believe it; it seemed too good to be true. I thought I must have made a mistake; I daren't go in, for fear she should know me; and I thought she never would come out. When she did come out, and I saw it was really 'er, I nearly fainted right away; but I follered 'er, and she went from Public to Public with two shops in between, and it was nearly ten o'clock when she took the tram, and past eleven when she got to her cottage at Catford, for she stopped at two more Publics. But I walked about all night, for I wasn't going to take no chances; and next morning I found, sure enough, that the child was there. But he was that changed, and he didn't know me." Her harsh voice sank to the mournfullest tone; and she paused.

Sir Tancred said nothing, he could say nothing; he was amazed and profoundly touched by the persistence of this pa.s.sionate, single-eyed devotion in this hard-featured, harsh-voiced, rugged creature.

"Well, sir," Selina went on, "I moved to Eltham, and took a room. I soon found out what sort the Bostocks were. Every Sat.u.r.day they drew two pounds for the keep of the child; and they were hardly ever sober till Thursday. And they starved the child, sir; and sometimes they beat him. Now and then, when they were drunk, I've got food, good food to him. But not often, for he was their livelihood, and however drunk they was, they kept an eye on him; mostly he's locked up in a bedroom.

I wrote to you, sir, three times, and waited and waited for answers till I was sick at heart; and things was getting worse and worse. I couldn't have stood it any longer; I was just going to steal him and carry him off somewhere where I could look after him without no one interfering. But I thought I'd see you, and tell you about it first.

And now, sir, if you'd let me have charge of him"--her eyes fairly blazed with eagerness--"I'd look after him properly--I would, indeed.

And I shouldn't want no two pounds a week--why, five s.h.i.+llings, five s.h.i.+llings would be ample, sir. I'm a capable woman, and I can get as much charring as ever I can do."

"Of course, you shall have charge of him," said Sir Tancred. "You seem to be the only person in the world who has any right to have charge of him."

"Oh, thank you, sir!" said Selina in a husky voice; and she dabbed at her eyes.

"It's not for you to thank me; it's for me to thank you," said Sir Tancred.

"Oh, no, sir!" said Selina quickly. "I know what gentlemen are. I've been in service in good houses. They have their sport and their pleasures; and they can't attend to things like this."

"I've been looking for him for six months--ever since I knew that I had a child," said Sir Tancred in a very bitter voice.

"Have you now, sir?" said Selina. "Ah, if I'd only known, and come to you!"

Her story had tided them over the greater part of their journey; and for the rest of it they were silent, Sir Tancred immersed in a bitter reverie, Selina sitting with a hand on each knee, bent forward, with s.h.i.+ning eyes, breathing quickly.

Towards the end of their journey she had to direct the cabman; and past the last long row or little red-brick villas, in a waste from which the agriculturalist had retired in favour of the jerry-builder, they came to the goal, three dirty, tumble-down cottages. The cab stopped at the third cottage; Selina sat back in the seat and pulled down her veil, in case Mrs. Bostock should recognise her; Sir Tancred got down and knocked at the door. A long-drawn snore was the only answer. He hammered on the door with his cane till he heard the grating of a chair on a brick floor; the door opened, and a blowsy, red-faced woman peered at him with blinking eyes.

"You have a little boy here in your charge. I've come for him," said Sir Tancred.

The woman only blinked at him stupidly.

"I've come for the little boy," said Sir Tancred loudly.

A look of drunken cunning stole into the woman's muddled face. She said thickly, "There ain't no lil boy 'ere," and tried to shut the door.

Sir Tancred thrust it open with a vigour which sent her staggering into a chair, and stepped into the squalid, reeking room. Hunched up in a chair, opposite the woman, sat a snoring man.

"Come!" said Sir Tancred. "I want no nonsense! Where's the child?"

A dull, muddled rage gathered in the woman's eyes; she made an effort to rise on quite irresponsive legs. "Halbut!" she howled. "Halbut, wake up! Here's a thief an' a burglar trying to steal the brat!"

The man grunted, and jerked out of his sleep with the mystic word, "Was.h.i.+s.h.i.+sh?"

"It'sh burglarsh, Halbut!" cried the woman, who seemed suddenly to see two or more Sir Tancreds. "They're shtealing brats.h.!.+ Bash 'em!"

Halbut jerked onto his feet, and stood lurching:

"Englishmansh oush ish ish cashle," he said, with a ferocity which petered out in an idiotic grin.

"Thash it! Bash 'em!" cried the woman.

Halbut advanced in a circular movement on Sir Tancred, with his fists up; "Englishmansh oush ish ish cashle," he said firmly.

Sir Tancred lunged smartly at his chest with his cane; and he tumbled down with his face to the wall.

"Englishmansh oush ish ish cashle," he said drowsily to the wainscot, and was still.

Sir Tancred took the woman gingerly by the shoulder, and gave her a shake. "Where's the child?" he said.

Apparently he had shaken the fumes up and the intelligence down, for her only answer was a burst of sibilant incoherence.

With an exclamation of impatient disgust he loosed her, and went into the back room. It was empty. He went up the rickety stairs, and, as he had expected, found the door of the bedroom locked. He kicked it open and went into the frowsy room. The child was not in it. He came downstairs and opened the back door. As he did so, he heard a scuttling rustle. The garden was empty, but the rustle he had heard set him exploring the dirty, rag-covered hedge with keen eyes. He saw nothing, and walked down the garden, stooping and peering into the bottom of the hedge. Half-way down it his eyes fell on two little black feet, just sticking out; and above them two frightened eyes stared through the twigs.

Sir Tancred put his hands in among them gently, and drew out a tiny child; his peaked little face was black, his thin little arms and legs were black, he was clothed in filthy rags; and his yellowish hair was a tangled mat. The child struggled like a very feeble little wild beast, clawing and scratching, but silent with a terrible silence which showed how he had learned to dread drawing attention to himself.

"Quiet! quiet! I'm not going to hurt you," said Sir Tancred in a gentle voice, a little husky with a piercing emotion which had invaded him; and something in its tones really did quiet the child, for he struggled no more, though his breath came in a quick, faint, terrified panting.

Sir Tancred took him through the house, and felt a quivering throb run through him at the sight of the brutes who had fallen back into their drunken slumbers. He brought him out to the cab, and said hoa.r.s.ely to Selina, "Is this the child?"

"That's him, sir! That's him!" said Selina, holding out her hands for him; and the tears of joy trickled down her rugged cheeks.

Sir Tancred gave him to her, bade the cab-man drive to the Hotel Cecil, and got into the cab.

Selina had untied the brown-paper parcel, and was putting a little coat on the child. "I took the liberty of getting it to bring him away, in case you should let me have charge of him," she said.

The child still panted, but most of the terror had faded from his eyes; he had recognised his friend. Sir Tancred looked at him hungrily; his soul, so long starved, was feasting on the sight of that atom of humanity, so grimy, so shocking to the eye, but his own child.

"They call you Hildebrand Anne, do they?" he said with a broken, joyful laugh. "Tinker's the name for you!"

CHAPTER THREE

TINKER ACCEPTS HIS NAME

The child sat very still on Selina's lap, shrinking back as far as possible from Sir Tancred. Selina kept talking to him, and his father spoke to him several times, but he uttered never a sound. Once when Sir Tancred moved suddenly, he threw up his little thin arm to guard his face; and Sir Tancred swore.

They agreed that he would be happier if they took no notice of him for a while, and sat quiet. He seemed relieved, for he sank into an easier position on Selina's lap, and presently they saw him stroke his coat with a caressing gesture, as though its softness pleased him. After a long while, he sat up, looked at the horse, said in a quaint, thin whisper, "Gee-gee--mine like gee-gee"; and then looked swiftly round with frightened eyes, fearful lest he had drawn attention to his existence.

Suddenly he began to blink, then, lulled by the motion of the cab, he fell asleep. They sat quiet, and had reached a more civilised part of London, when Sir Tancred said, "Do you think I could hold him without waking him?"

Selina nodded, and lifted him into his arms, and so they came to the Hotel Cecil.

When the cab stopped, the child awoke frightened, and at once began to struggle. Sir Tancred handed him over to Selina, who soothed him, and carried him to the lift. As soon as they were in his rooms, Sir Tancred rang for a waiter, and when he came, bade him bring up bread and hot milk at once. The child heard the words and said plaintively, "Mine hungly! Mine hungly!"

"All right, my lamb," said Selina. "You shall have dinner very soon."

When the waiter brought the bread and milk, Selina prepared it, and sat down at the table with the child on her knee. In a flash his grimy little hands were in the basin, and he was thrusting the bread and milk into his mouth with both of them. Selina pushed the bowl out of his reach, and fed him with a spoon, very slowly, nor did she give him much. Sir Tancred watched his ravenous eating with a constricted heart. When she had given him as much as she thought good for him, Selina put the bowl out of sight. The look of supreme content on his little face was even more pathetic in its extravagance than his ravenous hunger. He curled himself up on Selina's lap, surveyed the room for a while with drowsy eyes, and fell asleep.

Sir Tancred opened the note from Lord Crosland, which he had left unheeded on the table; it ran: