Midnight Webs Part 40

People said so to the parish officers, and the parish officers shook their heads; not so much as to say that they did not know, but to imply thereby, a great deal, as if the wickedness of the inhabitants had something to do with it. Then people said so to the dwellers in Gutter-alley in an ill-used fas.h.i.+on, to which Gutter-alley very reasonably replied that it must get somewhere, which was perfectly true; that it squeezed itself up as much out of the way as it could, which was also quite true; that it--to wit, Gutter-alley--did not get between the square and the row of mansions, but that the square came and sat upon it on one side, and the row of mansions came and sat upon it on the other, which was true again; and lastly, Gutter-alley said, where was it to go, for it must have living room? Then people who knew its squalor said that it was all very shocking, and that a meeting ought to be held. And it was very shocking, but a meeting was not held; and Gutter-alley stood where it had stood before, in the year of our Lord 1862, when there was a very great exhibition building very close at hand; and Gutter-alley remained an exhibition itself, staying as it did where, without much effort, it could have thrown a stone into the grounds of a palace.

STORY FOUR, CHAPTER TWO.

Now, whether in summer or winter, poor people can patronise as well as rich; and so it fell out that the custom in poverty-stricken, hunger-pinched Gutter-alley was for the poor folk there to speak condescendingly to old d.i.c.k Bradds, when he stood at the door of Number 5, with his poor old head on one side as he looked up the court; head on the other side as he looked down. "d.i.c.key" he was generally called, and more than one stout costermonger--they did a deal in costering in Gutter-alley, and if you penetrated into the rooms of the human rabbit-warren, fish could be found mingled with furniture, turnips amongst the wash-tubs, and a good full bucket of mussels often formed the seat of the father of a family while he helped his wife to make up ropes of onions for the morrow's sale--well, many a stout costermonger told his wife in confidence that old d.i.c.key Bradds always put him in mind of a moulting thrush. No inapt simile, and doubtless taken from the life, for there were always plenty of feathered captives to be seen in Gutter-alley.

It was quite true d.i.c.k--old d.i.c.key Bradds--did look very much like some aged and shabby bird, lame of one leg; and when he stood on a cold winter's morning peering up and down through the fog that loved to hang about the court, no one would have felt at all surprised to have seen the old man begin to peck, or to whet his long sharp old nose against the door-post.

Not that d.i.c.k did do anything of this kind--he only gave two or three keen one-sided bird-like looks about before slowly hopping up-stairs to his room on the second floor--the front room--to wait for Jenny.

A keen old blade though was d.i.c.k--a piece of that right good true steel so often to be found in the humblest implements, while your finely-polished, gaily-handled, ornamental upper-ten-thousand cutlery is so often inferior, dull of edge, and given to shut up just when they are wanted the most. d.i.c.k was not human hurried up, but a piece of fine old charcoal-made steel. Toil and hard usage had ground and ground d.i.c.k till there was little left of him but the haft, and seventy years of existence rubbing away through the world--that hard grindstone to some of us--had made that haft very rickety of rivet and springs. Certainly there was blade enough left to cut in one direction, but you could not trust d.i.c.k for fear of his giving way, or perhaps closing upon the hand that employed him.

It was so with poor old d.i.c.k when he left the great auction-rooms, where he had been kept as long as was possible; and, being proud, d.i.c.k would not believe in Nature when she told him that he had grown to be an old man, and that the time had gone by when he was l.u.s.ty and strong, and able to lift great weights; and when d.i.c.k's fellow-porters told him that a piece of furniture was too heavy for him to lift, he only felt annoyed, and grew angry and stubborn.

The fact was that d.i.c.k knew from old experience how hard a matter it was for even an industrious man to get a living in the great city; and for him, whose livelihood depended entirely upon his muscles, to turn weak and helpless meant misery, privation, and perhaps the workhouse for his old age.

That was what d.i.c.k thought, and therefore he fought hard against even the very semblance of weakness, making a point always at the auction-rooms of doing far more than he need, rus.h.i.+ng at heavy pieces of furniture, tiring himself with extra work, and making himself an object of sport to the thoughtless, of pity to his older fellow-servants of the firm.

The consequence was that poor old d.i.c.key Bradds had to go one day to the hospital, to lie there for many weary weeks, and come out at last lame and uncured, for at threescore and ten there is not much chance of a man building up new tissue, piling on fresh muscle and strength, and renewing the waste of so many years.

Poor old d.i.c.k left the hospital a confirmed cripple, but hopeful ever of regaining his strength and activity--at least he said so, whether merely to cheer up his grandchild or to mask his sufferings, that was known only to his own heart.

STORY FOUR, CHAPTER THREE.

Now this was how old d.i.c.k became a cripple.

It was early in winter, and there was a heavy sale on at the rooms, for the furniture of a n.o.ble mansion had been sent up from the country, and bargain-hunters and Jew brokers were there that day in force, chaffering, running down the value of the goods they coveted, and turning the crowded room into a Babel of confusion.

The sale was progressing, and under the superintendence of one Joseph Brown, the head porter, the lots had been submitted to compet.i.tion with ease and facility. Old d.i.c.k had as usual been working very hard, but, not content to show the others his power, he sought to do more.

"You can't take that there chist o' drawers down," said the head porter, a man most careful in the way in which he looked after the corners and polish of pieces of furniture, saving them from scratch and chip. So careful, in fact, was Brown that he had never had time to look after the polish and corners of her Majesty's English, which he chipped and scratched most terribly. So "you can't take that there chist o' drawers down," said Brown, "it's too much for you;" and he meant it kindly, though his words were rough.

"You wouldn't ha' talked to me like that ten year ago, Joe Brown!"

quavered d.i.c.k, turning angrily upon the porter, for he was hurt and annoyed at being spoken to before the other men.

"I didn't mean to hurt the poor old chap," said Brown at home to his wife that night, "for I like old d.i.c.k, who's as honest and true-hearted an old chap as ever stepped. All the years we've been together I never knew d.i.c.k do a man an ill turn; while the way he turns out o' Sundays to take that there granchile of his to a place o' wa.s.shup ought to be a patten for some on us.

"In course I wouldn't ha' spoke to him in that way ten years ago: for why? 'cos he could ha' carried the chist o' drawers easily; but 'stead o' actin' sensible, he was that proud, bless you, that he wriggled hisself under 'em like a young cuckoo with a hegg, hystes hisself up slowly by taking hold of the bannisters, and then begins to stagger downstairs.

"'Now then: lot 'underd and two, waitin' for lot 'underd and two,' they calls out below. 'Comin'--comin'--comin',' pants out d.i.c.k; and I see as it was too much for the poor old chap, who felt touched at being thought past his work, though the governors only expected him to take down the light things. So seeing how matters stood, I steps forrard to help him, when if he didn't seem to shut up all at once like; and that there chist o' handsome French-polished mahogany drawers, 'underd and two in the catalogue, went downstairs a deal too fast for its const.i.tution.

"Poor old d.i.c.k! he never groaned nor made no fuss when we got him down to the cab to take him to the 'orsepittle, although his poor old leg was broke, through his coming down a whole flight arter that there chist o'

handsome French-polished mahogany drawers; but his lips was shaking, and his face drored as he gets hold of my b.u.t.ton and pulls me to him, and says, says he, 'This'll be a sad upset for my Jenny, but don't let 'em frighten her, Joe Brown, don't please. You're a married man and got feeling, though I spoke nasty to you just now. Please go and tell her gently, yourself. O, Joe, I shan't be able to help in many more sales.'

"Poor old chap, how the tears did run down his cheeks as he whispered me again--

"'Don't say it's much, Joe; tell her it's a bit of a scratch, and she isn't to fidget about me. Tell her gently, Joe; good bye, Joe; I shall be over again to-morrow or next day, Joe; and, Joe,' he calls out in his weak piping way, as the keb begins to move, 'Joe,' he says, 'just take my apern and give the lookin'-gla.s.s in the big wardrobe a bit of a rub before it comes down; and don't forget about Jenny.'

"Poor old d.i.c.key: got his 'art in his work, he had; and somehow as he went off, and I knew as we shouldn't never see him again at work, if we ever see him at all, my nose wanted blowing to that degree that nothing couldn't be like it; and it's my belief, Sarah, if I hadn't been roused up by a call for the next lot, that I should have turned soft; for you see, says I to myself, I says, suppose as that had been me.

"But he told me to tell Jenny gently, and I did."

STORY FOUR, CHAPTER FOUR.

Old d.i.c.k went no more to porter at the rooms when he came out of the hospital; his smoothly-shaven face did not peer out of windows where he was hanging out hearthrugs with, pinned upon them, the bills announcing the capital modern household furniture for sale; but when he returned to Gutter-alley, d.i.c.k would always be clean-shaven of a morning, spending an hour over the process, pulling out wrinkles to get at the silver stubble lurking in the bottoms of the furrows, and stopping at times, when his hands grew tremulous, to rest. Many was the time that his grandchild, Jenny, would have to run down in haste to fetch a bit of cobweb from the cellar to stay the bleeding when that tremulous old hand did make a slip, for the nap upon d.i.c.k's Sunday hat was too scarce to be used up in so wanton a way.

But at last d.i.c.k would strop and put away his razor and shaving-brush, hang up the little gla.s.s, and then tie on a clean white ap.r.o.n, take his round carpet-cap down from a nail and carefully put it on so as not to disarrange his grey locks, and then sit patiently nursing his porter's knot and waiting, as he used to tell Jenny, for a job.

"Strong, my little la.s.s? Strong as ever," he'd say. "If I could only get this leg right;" and then Jenny would drop her work, take his old face between her plump little hands, kiss him tenderly, and tell him to wait a little.

So old d.i.c.k Bradds used to wait on, day after day, waiting for the jobs that never came, and the injured leg did not get right. The old man's strength sufficed to carry him down to the front door and back again.

Down he would go slowly, holding tightly by the bal.u.s.trade, one leg always first, till he reached the bottom, where the mat should have been, only they could not afford mats in Gutter-alley, and then as regularly as possible the old man, in his thankfulness at being able to walk so far, would take off the old carpet-cap and say softly, when there was no one by, "Thank G.o.d!" and the same again when, after a visit to the front door and a glance up and down the court, he had slowly and painfully made his way up to his own room.

Jenny would have helped him; but no: the old man could not shake off the belief that he was in a state to do heavy work and to help his child.

There was too much determination left yet in the old piece of steel, and heedless of rust and weakness d.i.c.k struggled up and down.

People used to say that Sharpnesses, the great auctioneers, ought to have pensioned old Bradds, but they were people who made money fast, and knew its value in too worldly a way to pension worn-out servants, so old d.i.c.k had to live as he could.

Jenny was d.i.c.k's support--Jenny, his grandchild--Jenny Blossom, as they called her in Gutter-alley. She was the last of the family--father, mother, and another child had died in Gutter-alley, where fevers used to practise and get themselves into full strength before issuing out to ravage the districts where sanitary arrangements were so perfect.

The place was very foul, but somehow Jenny grew brighter day by day, and the old crones of the alley used to chuckle and say no wonder, for flowers always throve in the dirt. At all events, the foul odours did not take the bloom from her cheek, and when fever or cholera held high revel, Jenny had pa.s.sed scatheless through trials when scores had fallen around.

Every one spoke well of Jenny; untidy women with bare arms and rough hair always had for her a pleasant look; great hulking market-attending men, with hoa.r.s.e voices, would always stand aside for Jenny to pa.s.s; and the slatternly girls of the alley, though they occasionally glanced at her with envious eyes, displayed no open jealousy. Away from Gutter-alley it was different, but in the forty houses of the court, and their four or five hundred inhabitants, there was not one who did not look up to Jenny Blossom.

And no unsuitable t.i.tle was that--Jenny Blossom; for whether taken in connection with her young and blooming face, or her trade, the name seemed equally adapted. Ask for her as Jane Bradds, and people would have shaken their heads; though the mention of Jenny Blossom brought a bright look into perhaps a scowling face; and Number 5 in the court was indicated directly.

STORY FOUR, CHAPTER FIVE.

Number 5 in the court! Come up the four flights of creaking stairs to the only bright thing in the crowded place--the only bright thing likely to meet the eye, where squalor, misery, poverty, wretchedness, filth, and sickness ran riot. Breakfast is over, and, so that Jenny's needle shall not be stayed, d.i.c.k has himself washed and put away the two cups and saucers, and now sits by the fire drying the splashes upon his white ap.r.o.n. His carpet-cap is upon his head, and his porter's knot rests against his chair. The only sound in the room is the click of Jenny's thimble, as it sends the sharp needle flying through the hard slop-work upon which she is busy.

Pretty? Well, yes, there is the beauty in her face of youth. No Grecian-cut lines or finely chiselled features, but the simple bright countenance of an English girl, as she bends over her work.

Jenny's face was never pale, spite of the mephytic gases of Gutter-alley; but the rosy flush upon it deepened as a step was heard upon the stairs, followed by a tap at the door.

A querulous "Come in!" from old d.i.c.k, and then a tall, stout young fellow entered, bearing a basket of violets, whose sweet fragrance filled the room.

"Oh, it's you, is it, Harry?" said the old man. "Had you got money enough?"