Meade L. T.
A London Baby: The Story of King Roy

Chapter Eleven

Hannah was unsuccessful in her search for coarse needlework. Badly and miserably paid as such work was, the slop-shops had their full complement of workers, and had nothing to give her, even though she went so far as to promise to do the work for even more wretched prices than had hitherto been given.

She was obliged to leave Roy the next day, and again the next, and for these two days the drops were each time resorted to. On the evening of the third day, she had obtained some partial success. She was given half-a-dozen shirts to make. These shirts were of the coarsest check, and Hannah would obtain tenpence for each. She was in quite good spirits, for she could now work and stay at home with Roy.

But there was a change in little Roy. He was no longer the laughing, rosy, healthy child whom Hannah had brought to her cellar. His blue eyes were heavy, his movements languid, and his fair skin was assuming that waxen tint which Hannah had noticed in Mrs Martin’s baby over the way. Hannah was a strangely ignorant woman, and she never associated this change in little Roy with the drops which he had taken now for three days in succession. She saw a vast difference in him, but she concluded that such was the way with all children. Through how many, many changes had her Davie gone? Why, at his very best he never looked half as healthy as little Roy did at his worst. No, she was not the least uneasy about the little fellow. But as he now had grown troublesome and restless at night, she gave him a few more drops from the fatal mixture, and when taking these he went off into feverish and fitful slumber, she congratulated herself on possessing so valuable a remedy.

While the shirts were being made she stayed quietly at home with the little boy, who in his waking moments would stand gravely and quietly by her knee, now and then putting up a small hot hand to stroke her cheeks, exclaiming as he did so in his broken English, “Pitty yed face, pitty yed face.” Then adding, as he raised his heavenly blue eyes to hers, “’Oy ’oves ’oo vevy much.”

At these words, uttered so innocently by the little child, down would go Hannah’s work, needle, and thimble, and he would find himself clasped tightly to her bosom; while down the red cheeks, which he had praised, would flow large salt tears which had lain locked up and frozen since Davie died. Yes, Roy was becoming more and more a necessity to Hannah Searles, and a treasure without which she did not now believe she could find life endurable.

One evening, leaving the child asleep, she went into the court. She was gossiping with a neighbour, and enjoying the sensation of the outside air, which was at least better than the cellar atmosphere which she had quitted, when Meg Harris came up to her. Meg and Faith had found a shelter for themselves in another house in this court, and now Meg came up alone to speak to Hannah.

“And how ere you getting on widhout yer mother?” asked Hannah. “But I needn’t go fur to axe,” she continued, “fur though you ain’t much to boast on now, Meg, yet you look more peart than when she wor allers a wallopping of yer.”

“But I have a h’anxiety on my mind,” said Meg, shrugging her thin shoulders and speaking in a low, confidential tone. “I ha’ a gal along wid me, and a young gal wot ain’t none of h’our people. You might ha’ noticed her, Hannah, when you was walking down Middle Street.”

“Yes,” answered Hannah, “she looked a white-faced, mealy-mouthed little ’un. I mind me as I thought as I had seen her somewhere afore.”

“Her father is a carpenter, Hannah, a werry, werry upper kind o’ carpenter. She’s real respectable, is Faithy. And wot does yer think? She have a little brother, a little lovely duck of a child, and he went out o’ the house on Sunday night last and got losted, and this poor little Faith, she’s near distracted. She and me, we’re a looking fur the young ’un h’everywhere. I thought as I’d tell yer, Hannah, fur you see’s a deal o’ life, and you might ha’ noticed as they ha’ put him in the h’advertisements, and ten pound offered fur him.”

Hannah Searles had perfect control of feature.

“I ha’ seen about a missing child,” she said after a moment’s pause. “A child h’aged two year, dressed in blue, wid real gold ’air?”

“Yes, yes,” said Meg. “Oh! Hannah, ef you could only help us to find of him – I think as Faith ull die ef he ain’t found.”

“I’ll keep my h’eyes open,” said Hannah, and then she nodded to Meg and went back to her cellar.

She was trembling all over as she stumbled down the stairs. But when she had securely locked the door and lighted a long dip candle and had seen with her own eyes little Roy sleeping quietly, she became calmer. She went over and knelt by the bed, and took one of the little hands in hers.

“I’d rayther be torn in bits, nor give h’up this little hand,” she said to herself.

But she had got a great fright, and gazed long and greedily at her treasure.

It was plain that if she wanted to keep little Roy, she must move away from here as fast as possible. She could scarcely find a cheaper home, but be that as it may she dare not stay so near to Faith. Presently, tired out, she sank down on the floor; she still trembled at the nearness of the danger, but she also felt disappointment. The baby whom she considered her own baby now was so beautiful, so grand, so fine and strong, so unlike any other child she had ever looked at, that she had often pictured to herself his high birth. He might, for aught she knew, be the son of a prince. Any prince in the land would be proud of him. And Hannah had delighted herself with the thought that this child, of perhaps Royalty, was happy and at home with such a woman as she – a woman at whom all respectable folks would point a finger of scorn; but yet whom the pure and innocent little child loved.

But he was of no high birth. He was only a son of the people after all. Many, many degrees above herself in respectability it was true, but still a child of the vast multitude. Her last scruple at keeping him vanished at this fact. He would lose nothing by remaining with her, and for his sake she would, she could, become good.

Chapter Twelve

A week had passed away since Roy was lost. Sunday came round again, finding Faith no longer in her neat and comfortable home, but a gutter child, dressed as badly, and in quite as great rags, as the worst-looking child around her. Meg was her companion and staunch friend, but it seemed no hardship in Meg’s eyes to counsel Faith to pawn her neat and good clothes, and to receive in exchange garments in which her father would scarcely recognise her. The money received for the clothes had enabled the little girls to live for some days; and then they had sold matches and flowers, and in one way and another had managed to keep life within them. Faith, though really unaccustomed to any hardship, had borne up bravely. The hope with which she had awakened each morning that surely before the evening they would find Roy, had supported her spirits; but each night as it came, with its invariable disappointment, until even Meg began to own that she was puzzled as to what had become of the child, brought an added weight to Faith’s heart. She was more than ever determined not to go home again without her little brother. But as she lay down on her musty bed on Saturday evening in the wretched cellar where she and Meg had found for themselves quarters, hope had vanished to a very low ebb indeed.

Sunday morning dawned. It would be a whole week to-day since she last had seen her darling little Roy. She felt very, very miserable. No, hope would not visit her heart that day, and as she lay in bed watching Meg putting on her clothes, the tears rolled down her pale cheeks, and dark and sceptical thoughts filled her mind. When Meg noticed her tears, she spoke.

“It’s all a lie, Meg; it’s all a big, big lie.”

“Wot’s a lie,” asked Meg, stopping in her dressing, and staring at Faith.

“Wot you telled me about Jesus. He didn’t never love the little children; ef He loved ’em, and ef He is as strong as you say, He’d ha’ helped us to find my little baby Roy.”

A pained look came over Meg’s white and careworn face. She did not answer Faith at all for a moment or two; but having quite finished her dressing, she bent down over her.

“I ha’ made myself as clean as h’ever I could, and I’m off now to morning ragged school; ef you’ll come too, I’ll wait fur yer, Faithy.”

“No, no,” replied Faith, shaking her head. “I’ll stay and wait here. The ragged Sunday-school’s all about Jesus, and I don’t b’lieve in no Jesus now.”

Meg said nothing more; she smothered a faint sigh, and closing the door behind her ran down-stairs. She had more than a mile to walk to Sunday-school, and she was anxious to be in time; but as she walked along, the pained expression called up by Faith’s words had not left her face.

Meg was a wild, untaught, uncared-for Arab child, a true offshoot of the lowest of the people. With a touch of gipsy blood in her veins, with the most ungoverned, uncontrolled passions, she yet was capable of a devotion, of an affection self-absorbing, self-forgetful. Offered up at any other shrine, it would have been idolatry; offered at this, it was worship. Meg loved, something as Mary Magdalene, something as the women who followed to the sepulchre, must have loved our Lord.

All the love of a most loving nature had Meg given to Jesus. It was not alone gratitude which inspired this love. “It’s jest cause He’s so wonderful beautiful His own self,” she would say; and it was agony to her, greater even than it would be to a mother to hear her little child abused, to have a word breathed against Him.

Faith’s words had wrung her heart. She was very sorry for Faith, very sorry that she could have so spoken; but she was more sorry for the pain she feared the words must have caused Jesus.

“I ’ope as yer’ll soon let us find the little ’un, for she’s beginning to think real hard things of yer, and I can’t abear ’em, I can’t abear ’em,” said Meg, looking up at the sky, and comforting herself with this very direct little prayer.

As she was leaving the Sunday-school at the end of the morning’s lessons, it came into her head that perhaps while she and Faith were so earnestly seeking for little Roy, he might all this time be safely at home. How stupid of them both never to have thought of this before! She had heard all about Faith’s respectable home from the little girl herself. Yes; she would go there now and set her mind at rest on this point before returning to Faith.

She reached the house. There was a common staircase, and the hall door stood open. She met no one as she ran up-stairs, and her feet, innocent of shoes and stockings, made no sound. A door was a little open on the first landing, and Meg, peeping in, saw a man seated by a table. He was a tall and powerful man, and Meg knew at once that she was looking at Faith’s father.

There was profound silence in the house, and Meg heard the man, whose face was bowed over his hands, presently say:

“It’s a lie, it’s all a lie. There is no good God. If there were, He would never have torn my children away from me like this. And I have asked Him so often and so long to bring them back again. Yes; God does not hear prayer. It’s a lie, I say. There is no God, no Christ, no nothing.”

“How dare yer!” said Meg, rushing into the room like a little fury. The man’s words had stung her so hard that she lost both fear and self-control. She rushed at the man, and took his hands and shook them. “How dare yer, how dare yer!” she repeated. “Oh! yer a wicked, wicked man to say as there’s no Jesus Christ.”

Warden – for it was he – started, and stared at the furious little creature. He did not say a word, or attempt in his utter astonishment to oppose her. He only gazed hard, as one who was bereft of all reason.

“Oh! there is a Jesus Christ, and you sha’n’t dare say there ain’t,” repeated Meg; and then she suddenly flung herself on the floor at his feet, and gave way to the most violent, most passionate sobs he had ever heard proceeding from human breast.

He got up and locked the door; then he got water and gave it to Meg. He was kind rather than otherwise to the poor child. When she was better, he even brought her over to sit on the sofa where little Roy had slept his last sleep in that room.

“Now, why did you rush in and speak to me in that strange way?” he asked.

“’Cause yer drove me near mad. You had no call ter say so dreadful a thing as that my Jesus Christ worn’t there.”

“You believe in Him then?” said Warden.

“I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord,” said Meg. Her excitement was spent. She spoke quietly, raising her big, black eyes to heaven. There was something in her manner which must have impressed even the most utterly careless and indifferent with its absolute sincerity.

Warden was silent, gazing at her curiously, even with admiration.

“You must not only believe in Him, you must love Him very much,” he said.

“Ay, I love Him; I’d die fur Him most willin’,” said Meg, clasping her hard hands very tight together.

“But He hasn’t treated you as He has me,” said Warden. “You don’t know, you can’t even understand, what has happened to me. I was always a most respectable man. I tried to do my duty. I had two children. This day week I had two children, a son and a daughter. Now I have none. They did not die, but they ran away. The boy went first, then the girl. I may never see ’em again.”

“May be you worn’t a werry good father to ’em,” said Meg. “May be Jesus let ’em run away so as to show yer how to be a better father to ’em. There is some as beats their children, and some as neglec’s ’em. I dunno wot is best. May be Jesus seen as you neglec’ed yer little children.”

Warden felt the lines tightening round his mouth at these words. It was broad daylight, it was true, and Meg was only a poor, ragged child, but her face was so solemn, and her big eyes shone with so intense a light, and she was so absolutely fearless before him, that he felt impressed, even just a trifle afraid – something as he would have felt had he been looking at an accusing angel.

“You may have neglec’ed yer little children,” she repeated.

When she did so, Warden nodded his head.

“It is true,” he said. “It is very true, God forgive me; but I never meant it. I fear I was a very hard man.”

“Then you jest tell Jesus that,” said Meg, rising. “You tell Him as you believes in Him, as you loves Him, as yer real sorry you spoke so dreffle bitter. It wor awful the way as you did speak; but wot’s so wonderful beautiful in Him is how He furgives. You tell Him as yer determined to neglec’ yer children never no more, and I’m sure as He’ll let yer have ’m back again.”

“Little girl,” said Warden, “tell me the truth as you profess to love God. Do you know anything, anything at all, of my little son, my little, lost son, Roy?”

“No,” answered Meg. “I wishes as I did, I don’t know nothink; but I means to pray to Jesus, and Jesus ull help me to find him. I feel as he’ll be found, fur Jesus do love him so werry much.”

Meg went away, and Warden, unlocking the door, saw her ragged figure disappearing down the stairs. He sighed when he saw the last of her. Then, relocking his door, he returned to his seat by the table. As he seated himself he remembered that he had neither asked her name nor where she lived. It would be impossible, then, for him if he wanted her again to find her.

He sat on perfectly motionless, recalling every word of the strange and passionate scene just enacted before him. At last his thoughts centred round one sentence, which began to burn into his heart like fire.

“May be Jesus seen as you neglec’ed yer little children.”

He thought and thought, and more and more intolerable each moment became his feelings. At last he found that there was only one position in which he could bear them. He slid down from the chair to his knees. There he remained for some hours.