Loe raamatut: «Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes», lehekülg 22
Volume Three – Chapter Three.
Mr Jarker’s Traits
Men of business cannot afford to continue their grief for any length of time, hence at a very short date after the death of his wife, Mr William Jarker, bird-fancier, bird-catcher, and pigeon-trapper, to be heard of at any time at the Blue Posts, Hemlock-court, by such gents as wanted a few dozen of blue-rocks or sparrows for the next trap-match at Wormwood Scrubbs, stood before a piece of looking-glass nailed to the wall of his room with three tin-tacks, a ragged, three-cornered, wavy-looking scrap, from which, if a little more of the quicksilver had been rubbed off, it would never again have been guilty of distorting the human face divine. Upon this occasion it played strange pranks with the expressive countenance of Mr Jarker, as he stood, with oily fingers, giving the required gloss and under-turn to his side-locks, which were of the true “Newgate-knocker” pattern, their length denoting how long a time Mr Jarker had been running fancy free without troubling her Majesty’s officials for his daily rations and lodging, in return for which he would scrub, polish, and clean to order. Mr Jarker seemed to take extra pains over his toilet, arranging his neck-tie and the silver-mounted lens, buttoning-up his red-plush waistcoat with the fustian back and sleeves, cleaning his finger-nails with the broken-out tooth of a comb, before he stood in front of the glass and smirked at himself.
Now this was a mistake on Mr Jarker’s part, for his was a style of countenance that would not bear a smirking; there was too much stiffness of contour in the various features, a blunt angularity which resisted the softening sweetness of a smirky smile, and the consequence was, that if he had smirked at a stranger, the said stranger would have flinched, from a very strong impression that Mr Jarker was rabid and about to bite. However, mistaken or not, Mr Jarker smirked several times, and after various patterns, before he frowned, which gave a much more respectable cast to his countenance, the scowl being most thoroughly in harmony. Mr Jarker frowned, for one of the side-locks would not keep in position and retain the required bend when he had crowned himself with his slouchy fur-cap; so the erring hair had to be again oiled, combed, and wetted with a solution of brown sugar, which the operator moistened in a natural way in the palms of his hands, then the lock was smoothed and tucked under, and proved a fixture; and now the cap was again placed in position, and displayed a thin wisp of crape fastened round it by means of a piece of string; for being a soldier engaged in the battle of life, Mr Jarker did not doff his uniform, but confined himself to the above slight manifestation of the fact that he was a widower.
Apparently satisfied with his aspect, which was a little more villainous than usual, Mr Jarker turned his attention to the child, who crouched in a corner of the room with a piece of bread in her hand, watching him with her large blue eyes, very round and staring, but evidently pressing her little self as far away from the fellow as possible.
“Ah! and so she comes and plays with the kid when I’m out, does she?” said Mr Jarker, in a ruminating tone. “Ah! we knows what that means, my chicking, don’t we?”
The little thing pressed herself closer to the wall, and Mr Jarker stood very thoughtfully at the window for a few minutes, gazing down at where Lucy’s sewing-machine beat rapidly; but Mr Jarker was not aware that in his turn Jean Marais was watching him fiercely, his dark eyes seeming to flash beneath his overhanging penthouse brows, as he eagerly scanned every motion of the ruffian, looking the while as if prepared to spring across the court at his throat.
“Ah! we knows what that means, don’t we, my chicking?” repeated Mr Jarker, turning once more from the window. “Come here to yer daddy, d’yer hear!”
But though hearing plainly enough, the little thing only shrank back closer into her corner; when, with an oath, the fellow took two steps forward and seized the little thing by its pinky shelly ear, and dragged it, whimpering and trembling, into the middle of the attic, where he made “an offer” at it as if to strike, but the frailty and helplessness of the little one disarmed even him, and as his eyes wandered to the window to see that no opposite neighbour could watch them where they stood, his arm fell to his side as he sat down.
“Now, then!” cried Mr Jarker, “no pipin’; don’t you try none of them games with me, my young warmin’. ’Cos why, it’s ware hawks to yer if yer does. Now hook it back to that there corner.”
The child’s eyes were turned timidly and wonderingly up to his, as it shrank back once more to the corner of the attic.
“Now, then!” cried Jarker sharply, “come here again.”
Like an obedient dog in the course of training, the little thing crept back to his side, and then the tiny face grew more wondering and timid, the eyes more round, and it was very evident that the little brain, soft, plastic, and ready to receive any impression, was working hard to understand the meaning of the ruffian’s words. Bright and beautiful as the faces shown to us on canvas as those of angels, the little countenance, shining the brighter for the squalor around, was turned up more and more towards Jarker, gazing so fixedly and earnestly at him that he grew uneasy, fidgeted and shuffled his feet, and then his eyes sank, guilt cowering before innocence; for, quite disconcerted by the long, steady gaze, the ruffian rose and turned away, growling and muttering, “She’s gallus deep for such a little un.” He then took a short peep at his pigeons, walked back to the window, and stared long and heavily at the white hands he could see busy at the sewing-machine, and then turned once more to the wondering atom, trying to soften himself as he stooped down, but the child only flinched as from a coming blow when he patted the soft, bright curls.
“Here, come here,” he said gently, and he drew the child between his knees as he sat down.
“Now mind this here: nex’ time she comes and plays with you, my chickin’, perhaps she’ll say, ‘Would you like me to be your new mammy?’ she’ll say; and then, ‘Yes,’ says you; d’yer hear? ‘yes,’ says you. Now say it.”
But the little one only continued her wondering gaze till the fellow left her, and slouched out of the room, after raking the last cinder from the fire, in performing which he knocked the bottom of the grate from its frail hold, and then, in his endeavours to replace it, burned his fingers, and ejaculated so loudly that the eyes of the child were turned upon him more wonderingly than ever.
And then – was it that sympathy for the child moved the inmate of the opposite attic, or that he had a natural hatred for Jarker? Jean turned angrily from the window to a cage of half-a-dozen linnets the fellow had brought him an hour or two before, and to his mother’s rage and astonishment, seemed about to wreak his fury upon the birds. He seized one in his hand, and was about to wring its neck, but ma mère leaped forward to stay him, when his fierce gesture sent her back to her seat to watch him. But he did not kill the birds, but carried the cage to the window, and then let them go, one by one, till the last bird hesitated at the wire door for a few moments, and then fled, with a wild chirp of joy, far away into the smoky air.
“Jean, Jean! but you are bête – fou!” exclaimed his mother, trembling with fear and rage at this folly, as she thought of the money he had given for the birds.
“I hate him, I hate him!” hissed Jean furiously, while, watching him through her closed eyes, the old woman nodded quickly to herself, as she muttered and thought of her own early days, and it seemed to her that Jean’s heart was as easy to read as that printed book at his side.
But at this time Mr Jarker was slouching out of his room, and shouldering his way down the stairs, stopping the blowing of Mrs Sims’ fire for an instant, as he growled audibly in passing; then down into the court, where the index fingers of his hands were thrust into his mouth, and he was about to make a long and piercing whistle for the delectation of some passing pigeons as they flew over the strip of heaven seen from the flags of the court; but a glance at the first-floor window where dwelt the Hardons checked him. The next minute, though, the birds repassed, and Bill whistled loudly again and again; but the birds would not listen to this shrill voice of the charmer, the charmer himself, side-locks and all, went and stood at the bottom of the court, against the bright blue gilt-lettered boards of the public, where he rubbed the shoulders of his sleeve-waistcoat shiny, as he stood slouching about, and sucking one end of his spotted neck-tie.
“Whatcher going to stand, Bill?” said a gentleman of his acquaintance, a gentleman with a voice singularly like one that had been heard in the old Grange at Somesham upon a memorable night. This gentleman had a piece of straw in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets, his coiffure being of the same order as that of Mr Jarker, while, being evidently of a terpsichorean turn of mind, he enlivened the street with a “pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pit-pit, pat,” toe-and-heel dance upon the cellar-flap of the public-house, where, his boots being stout and well-nailed, and the flap very hollow beneath, his efforts were attended with so much noise that the potboy of the establishment thrust out a closely-cropped head between the swing doors, where he held it as if in the process of being shorn off, at the same time requesting the light-heeled gentleman to “Drop that ’ere now, come!”
But instead of standing anything to quench the thirst of the new-comer, Mr Jarker stood upon the order of his going; for just then, laden with a large parcel of work, Lucy Grey passed out of the court and encountered Mr Sterne, who saluted, and then turned with a grave, pained countenance to gaze after her, as he saw Jarker follow, slouching along as if his boots were soled with lead, diver fashion, and he of so ethereal a nature that the ponderous metal was necessary to prevent him from shooting up into heaven like a stickless rocket minus the tail of fire.
The curate turned thoughtfully up the court, and began his round of visits, listening to complaints here, supplications there, but finding nowhere rest. He went thoughtfully through his round of duties that day, hearing and speaking mechanically, for always before his eyes there was the light, graceful form of Lucy, followed by the hound-like Jarker, and as he thought the lines grew deeper and deeper in his forehead. He listened to Mrs Sims’ praises of the child – praises delivered in a lachrymose tone, as a strong odour of rum pervaded the place. He listened to ma mère’s complaints of Jean, and felt an insinuation against her fellow-lodger’s fair fame stab him as it were to the heart; while surprised he gazed upon the fury with which the son turned upon his mother; and then descending, his task nearly done, the curate sat by the bedside of Mrs Hardon.
There stood the sewing-machine in the next room; there was the chair in which Lucy had been so lately seated, and where even now he could picture her form. But, silent and abstracted, he listened for the twentieth time to the story of the murmuring woman’s troubles, and what she had suffered since they had been in town. He listened, but he was asking himself the while whether Lucy merited the love he would pour at her feet – asking himself whether it was possible for a pure, fair, spotless lily to bloom amidst the pollution around. Still, too, came the remembrance of the words of the old Frenchwoman – “Our beauty, some of us.” Once admitting doubt to his breast, the strange thoughts teemed in, bringing up the woman he had seen and tracked in vain, and above all the low ruffian whom he had seen dogging the fair girl’s footsteps but that very day, when love had whispered, “Follow!” and pride cried, “Nay, stand aloof!” for he recalled their last interview. Then, again, he asked himself how dared he believe words that slurred her fair fame, when his conscience whispered to him that they were like their source – vile; but, surrounded as he was by vice and misery, might he not well wonder whether Lucy’s fair face spoke truth in its candour-tinged aspect, or was like the hundreds he encountered in his daily walks – fair to view, but with a canker within?
He told himself that he could watch her no longer – that he could not play the spy; and once again he prayed for strength to conquer the passion that seemed to sway him at its will; for he could not comprehend the behaviour of its object. Love he had thought to be buried for ever with his betrothed; but from her grave the seed seemed to have returned to him untainted by time, and with all its quickening, germinating powers ready to shoot forth and blossom in a wealth of profusion for another. And he knew that it must be lavished upon Lucy, even though she still repulsed him. And now, again, his eye brightened as, dashing down the sinister thoughts, he would see only her faith and truth, smiling at poverty when he called up the riches of her heart – riches that he saw poured forth for the murmuring parent, for whose wants she toiled on incessantly, winning for her many a comfort that the sick woman could not else have enjoyed; and even then with the overflowings of her young heart ready for the neglected child.
“For the neglected child!” What a gloomy starting-point for another train of thought, embracing its mother, tall, dark, and rouge-cheeked; Jarker, the ruffian, tracking Lucy’s steps; and lastly, ma mère, who seemed even then whispering in his ear, “Our beauty, some of us!” Arthur Sterne acknowledged that he was weak, though he fought hard with his soul-assailing enemies; while the track of the storm he was encountering was marked in his face, as he strolled slowly homewards, but only to pause startled at the mouth of the court.
Volume Three – Chapter Four.
Lucy’s Trouble
Lucy’s eyes turned very dim as soon as she had passed Mr Sterne, and things wore a strangely blurred aspect. She would have given worlds to have thrown herself upon his breast, and told all – of Agnes Hardon and her sorrow, confided to her alone, as the suffering woman begged of her to love her for her child’s sake, and not to turn upon her the cold bitter eyes of the world at large; and again and again Lucy had taken the passive, wasted, tearful face of Agnes to her breast, in the rare and stealthy meetings they had had, and wept over her, little knowing that Agnes possessed a secret which she felt that she could not divulge for the sake of those whom she had injured. Again and again Lucy had implored her leave to confide in Septimus Hardon, but Agnes had refused so firmly, telling her that the day her presence was betrayed would be that of their last meeting – telling her so angrily, but only to kneel at her feet the next moment, and ask her to bear for a little longer with an erring woman, whose stay in this world might not be for long. And so Lucy toiled on, bearing the scathing breath of calumny; pointed at by suspicion; and wounded again and again in her tenderest feelings by the only man she had ever felt that she could love. They were her own words, poor girl, though little had she seen of the world at large. She told herself that it was cruel of him to treat her as he did; but what could she do? And then she shivered as she thought of stolen meetings by night – meetings which should take place no more – while she wept bitterly as she hurried through the streets thinking of the misery of her lot.
She had no veil to her shabby bonnet, and it was only at last by a strong effort that she forced back the tears; for she felt that people were staring hard at her as she passed. But it was no unusual thing for people to look hard at Lucy Grey, while there was variety in those glances; there were, from women, the glance of envy, the look of sisterly admiration, and that bordering upon motherly love; and there were the hard stare from puppydom, the snobbish ogle, looks of love and respect, every glance that could dart from human eye; but the poor girl hurried on as in a dream, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but bent upon the object of her journey. It was nothing to her that behind at a few yards’ distance came Mr William Jarker, favouring everyone with a fierce scowl in return for the glances bestowed upon her, as he tracked her with the pertinacity of a bloodhound, turning when she turned, crossing when she crossed. Once only on her way back did Lucy tremble, when a fiercely-bearded, middle-aged dandy half stopped in front of her, so that she was compelled to turn a little out of her path, as with a heightened colour her eyes sunk before the fellow’s insulting stare. But she did not hear his words, as, fervently wishing old Matt were by her side, she hurried on.
It sometimes happens, though, that those who are working for their own devices do us many a good turn; and it was so here, for as the studiously-dressed and bejewelled dandy turned and followed the fair girl, he suddenly became aware of a rough shoulder forcing him aside, when turning angrily, with umbrella raised to strike, he gazed full into the heavy, bull-dog countenance of Mr Jarker, whose white teeth gleamed beneath his flattened nose as though he were preparing to fasten on his victim.
The next moment the lemon-gloved hands were covering chain and pin, and the heavy swell of the London current subsided slowly and disappeared, leaving Lucy unmolested as she hurried on, followed still closely by her self-constituted bodyguard, of whoso presence she was ignorant; while, five minutes after, he made a side-bound into a doorway, where he stood peering round the post and smiling like some hideous satyr of old, as Lucy encountered Agnes Hardon, and stopped in the quiet street where they then were.
The sight must have been very gratifying to Mr Jarker, for he stood leering, and rubbing his soft, whitish hands, pausing every now and then to have a good gnaw at the nails, already nearly worn down to the quick; and then stepping lightly from his concealment, he passed close behind Agnes as she was whispering:
“God bless you! Don’t stay talking to me; go now. I’ll get it away directly he will let me. I have been five times already; but he was either there, or some one of his companions waiting about.”
Mr Jarker gave a short, husky, forced cough as he passed, when, turning hastily, fear and anger seemed to combine in Agnes Hardon’s face, as she caught Lucy’s hands in her own, interposing herself, as if for protection, till Mr Jarker had disappeared, when she hurried her away by another route, and hastily took her leave. But Lucy did not see her troubled, anxious face following at a short distance, and keeping her in sight till she reached the end of the court in time to encounter Mr Sterne, who saw almost at one glance Lucy, with Jarker standing aside to let her pass as he bestowed upon her a familiar smile and nod, and Agnes Hardon some fifty yards beyond, turning hastily and hurrying off; but her he followed angrily, and with a suffocating sensation at his breast, as if he were, knight-errant like, about to attack one of the evil genii who shadowed the life of her he loved. Fifty yards in advance, though, was Agnes, when he commenced following her steps, till a crowd around that common object of our streets, a fallen horse intercepted his view; and, when he had passed the throng, the figure he sought had disappeared.
“O, this weary, weary deceit!” sobbed Lucy, throwing herself on her knees by her bedside and weeping bitterly. Then, sighing, she rose, folded her mantle, and bathed her eyes before going to the sitting-room, where in a few more minutes her sewing-machine was rapidly beating until Septimus came and, with one loving hand laid across her red eyes, took away the candle.
