Frank Oldfield Part 36

"Well, I sent one of our men last night to see if he'd come again, but he never did."

"And what can you do now?"

"Oh, I've left the photograph with the landlady, and she is to see if any of her customers recognise it; it'll stand on the counter."

"And what do you think about him now?" asked Sir Thomas.

"That he'll turn up again in a day or two, if he's not ill."

"Oh, can he--can he have destroyed himself in a fit of despair?" gasped Lady Oldfield.

"I think not, madam. Pray don't distress yourself. I believe we shall be able to hunt him out in a day or two. I shall send a man in plain clothes to the gin-shop again to-night to watch for him."

Early the next day the superintendent called again.

"We've found him," he said.

"Oh, where, where is he?" exclaimed the poor mother; "take us to him at once! Oh, is he living?" she asked vehemently, for there was a look of peculiar seriousness on the superintendent's face which made her fear the worst.

"He is living, madam, but I'm sorry to say that he's seriously ill."

"Send for a cab at once," cried Sir Thomas.

"I have one at the door," said the officer; "one of you had better secure a respectable lodging and nurse for him at once, while the other goes with me."

"Let _me_ go to him," cried Lady Oldfield.

"It will be a strange place for a lady, but you will be safe with me."

"Oh yes, yes, let me go," was the reply; "am not I his mother? Oh, let us go at once."

"Well, then, Sir Thomas," said the superintendent, "we will call at the hotel as we return, if you will leave the direction of the lodgings with the landlord."

"And how did you find out my poor boy?" asked Lady Oldfield, as they hurried along through a labyrinth of by-streets, each dirtier and more dismal than the last.

"My man in plain clothes, madam, watched last night for a long time by the bar, but saw no one come in like your son. At last an old woman, who was come for a quartern of gin, stared hard at the likeness, and said, 'Laws, if that ain't the young gent as is down ill o' the fever in our attic!'"

"Ill of the fever!" exclaimed Lady Oldfield.

"Yes; it seems so. Of course that was enough. My man went home with her, taking the photograph with him, and soon ascertained that the young gentleman in question is your son. But we must stop here. I'm sorry to bring your ladys.h.i.+p into such a place; but there's no help for it, if you really wish to see the young man yourself."

"Oh yes, yes," cried the other; "anything, everything, I can bear all, if I may only see him alive, and rescue him from his misery and sin."

"Wait for us here," said the officer to the cabman, as they alighted in the middle of a nest of streets, which seemed as though huddled together, by common consent, to shut out from public gaze their filth and guilty wretchedness. Wretched indeed they were, as the haunts of dest.i.tution and crime. All was foul and dingy. Distorted roofs patched with mis-shapen tiles; chimneys leaning at various angles out of the perpendicular; walls vile with the smoke and grime of a generation; mortar that looked as though it never in its best days could have been white; shattered doors whose proper colour none could tell, and which, standing ajar, seemed to lead to nothing but darkness; weird women and gaunt children imparting a dismal life to the rows of ungainly dwellings;--all these made up a picture of squalid woe such as might well have appalled a stouter heart than poor Lady Oldfield's. And was she to find her delicately-nurtured son in such a place as this? They turned down one street, under the wondering eyes of old and young, and then plunged into a narrow court that led to nothing. Here, two doors down on the left hand, they entered, and proceeded to climb a rickety stair till they reached the highest floor. A voice that sent all the blood rus.h.i.+ng back to poor Lady Oldfield's heart was heard in high strain, and another, mingling with it, muttering a croaking accompaniment of remonstrance,--

"Well, you're a fine young gentleman, I've no doubt; but you'll not bide long in that fas.h.i.+on, I reckon."

Then came a bit of a song in the younger voice,--

"Drink, boys, drink, and drive away your sorrow; For though we're here to-day, we mayn't be here to-morrow."

The superintendent knocked at the door, and both entered. The old woman uttered an exclamation of terror at the sight of the strangers, but the appearance of Lady Oldfield rea.s.sured her, for she divined almost immediately who she must be. On her part, Lady Oldfield instinctively shrunk back at her first entrance, and well she might; for the revolting sights and odours almost overpowered her, spite of her all-absorbing anxiety to find and rescue her beloved child.

The room, if it could be justly called so--for it was, more properly speaking, a kind of loft--was lighted, or rather, rendered less dark by a sort of half window, half skylight, which looked out upon a stack of decayed and blackened chimneys, and so much sickly-looking sky as could be seen through the undamaged panes, which were but few, for lumps of rags, old stockings, and similar contrivances blocked up many a s.p.a.ce which had once been used to admit the light, while the gla.s.s still remaining was robbed of its transparency by acc.u.mulated dirt. There was neither stove nor fire-place of any kind. The walls, if they had ever been whitened, had long since lost their original hue, and exhibited instead every variety of damp discoloration. Neither chair nor table were there--an old stool and a box were the only seats. In the corner farthest from the light, and where the ceiling sloped down to the floor, was the only thing that could claim the name of a bedstead. Low and curtainless, its crazy, worm-eaten frame groaned and creaked ominously under the tossings to and fro of the poor sufferer, who occupied the ma.s.s of ragged coverings spread upon it. In the opposite corner was a heap of mingled shavings, straw, and sacking, the present couch of the aged tenant of this gloomy apartment. The box stood close at the bed's head; there were bottles and a gla.s.s upon, it, which had plainly not been used for medicinal purposes, as the faded odour of spirits, distinguishable above the general rank close smell of the room, too clearly testified. Across the floor, stained with numberless abominations, Lady Oldfield made her shuddering way to the bed, on which lay, tossing in the delirium of fever, her unhappy son. His trousers and waistcoat were thrown across his feet; his hat lay on the floor near them; there was no coat, for it had been p.a.w.ned to gratify his craving for the stimulant which had eaten away joy and peace, hope and heart.

Flinging herself on her knees beside the prostrate form, his mother tried to raise him.

"O Frank, Frank, my darling boy," she cried, with a bitter outburst of weeping; "look at me, speak to me; I'm your own mother. Don't you know me? I'm come to take you home."

He suddenly sat up, and jerked the clothes from him. His eyes glittered with an unnatural light, his cheeks were deeply flushed with fever heat; his hair, that mother's pride in former days, waved wildly over his forehead. How fair, how beautiful he looked even then!

"Ah, poor young creetur," croaked the old woman; "it's a pity he's come to this. I knowed he were not used to sich a life--more's the shame to them as led him into it."

Ay, shame to them, indeed! But oh, how sad, how grievous that the young hand, which might have raised to untainted lips none but those pure draughts which neither heat the brain nor warp the sense of right, should ever learn to grasp the cup that gives a pa.s.sing brightness to the eye and glitter to the tongue, but clouds at length the intellect, fires the brain, and leaves a mult.i.tude of wretched victims cast ash.o.r.e as shattered moral wrecks. To such results, though from the smallest beginnings, does the drink _tend_ in its very nature. Oh, happy they who are altogether free from its toils!

The wretched young man stared wildly at his mother.

"Who are you?" he cried. "I don't know you. More brandy--where's the bottle? 'Here's a health to all good la.s.ses; pledge it merrily, fill your gla.s.ses.' Shuffle the cards well; now then, nothing wenture nothing win. Spades are trumps."

"Oh, my boy, my boy," cried the agonised mother, "can nothing be done for you? Has a doctor been sent for?" she cried suddenly, turning to the old woman.

"Doctor!" was the reply. "No, ma'am; who's to pay for a doctor? The young gent's been and popped all his things for the play and the drink; and I haven't myself so much as a bra.s.s farden to get a mouthful o' meat with."

"Oh, will any one run for a doctor?" implored the miserable mother.

"Here, my good woman," taking out a s.h.i.+lling, "give this to somebody to fetch a doctor; quick--oh, don't lose a moment."

"Ay, ay, I'll see about it," mumbled the old woman; "that'll fetch a doctor quick enough, you may be sure."

She made her way slowly and painfully down the creaking stairs, and after a while returned.

"Doctor'll be here soon, ma'am, I'll warrant," she said.

Lady Oldfield sat on the box by the bed, watching her son's wild stare and gesticulations in silent misery.

"I'm glad you've came, ma'am," continued the old woman; "I've had weary work with the young gentleman. I found him outside the door of the 'Green Dragon' without his coat, and shaking like an aspen. I couldn't help looking at him, poor soul. I asked him why he didn't go home; he said he hadn't got no home. I asked him where his friends lived; he said he hadn't got no friends. I asked him where he lodged; he said he didn't know. I was a-going to ask him summat else, but afore I could speak he tumbles down on the ground. We'd hard work to lift him up; some was for calling police, others wanted to make short work with him.

But I said, says I, 'You just let him alone, I'll look arter him;' and so I did. I just heaved him up, and got him to a door-step, and then I fetched him a quartern o' gin, and he got a little better; and then I helped him here. I'd hard work to get him to climb up, but I managed it at last. So here he's been ever since, and that's a week come Friday."

"G.o.d bless you for your kindness," cried Lady Oldfield. "You shall have no cause to repent it."

"Nay," said the kind-hearted old creature, "I knows I shan't repent it.

It's a poor place, is this, for such as he, but it's the best I have, and it's what the drink has brought me to, and scores and thousands better nor me, and will do again."

In a short time the doctor arrived. A very rapid inspection of his patient was sufficient to show him the nature and extent of his complaint.

"Is he in any danger?" asked the poor mother, with deep anxiety.

The doctor shook his head gravely.

"In great danger, I fear."