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Harding's luck, a novel by Edith Nesbit |
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Chapter 3. The Escape |
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_ CHAPTER III. THE ESCAPE
"Only about the face," he told himself, "not the way she's got up; nor yet her hair nor nuffink of that sort." "Did you sleep well?" she asked him, stroking his hair with extraordinary gentleness. "A fair treat," said he. "Was your bed comfortable?" "Ain't it soft, neither," he answered. "I don't know as ever I felt of anythink quite as soft without it was the geese as 'angs up along the Broadway Christmas-time." "Why, the bed's made of goose-feathers," she said, and Dickie was delighted by the coincidence. "'Ave you got e'er a little boy?" he asked, pursuing his first waking thought. "No, dear; if I had I could lend you some of his clothes. As it is, we shall have to put you into your own." She spoke as though she were sorry. Dickie saw no matter for regret. "My father 'e bought me a little coat for when it was cold of a night lying out." "Lying out? Where?" "In the bed with the green curtains," said Dickie. This led to Here Ward, and Dickie would willingly have told the whole story of that hero in full detail, but the lady said after breakfast, and now it was time for our bath. And sure enough there was a bath of steaming water before the fireplace, which was in quite another part of the room, so that Dickie had not noticed the cans being brought in by a maid in a pink print dress and white cap and apron. "Come," said the lady, turning back the bed-clothes. Somehow Dickie could not bear to let that lady see him crawl clumsily across the floor, as he had to do when he moved without his crutch. It was not because he thought she would make fun of him; perhaps it was because he knew she would not. And yet without his crutch, how else was he to get to that bath? And for no reason that he could have given he began to cry. The lady's arms were round him in an instant. "What is it, dear? Whatever is it?" she asked; and Dickie sobbed out-- "I ain't got my crutch, and I can't go to that there barf without I got it. Anything 'ud do--if 'twas only an old broom cut down to me 'eighth. I'm a cripple, they call it, you see. I can't walk like wot you can." She carried him to the bath. There was scented soap, there was a sponge, and a warm, fluffy towel. "I ain't had a barf since Gravesend," said Dickie, and flushed at the indiscretion. "Since _when_, dear?" "Since Wednesday," said Dickie anxiously. He and the lady had breakfast together in a big room with long windows that the sun shone in at, and, outside, a green garden. There were a lot of things to eat in silver dishes, and the very eggs had silver cups to sit in, and all the spoons and forks had dogs scratched on them like the one that was carved on the foot-board of the bed up-stairs. All except the little slender spoon that Dickie had to eat his egg with. And on that there was no dog, but something quite different. "Why," said he, his face brightening with joyous recognition, "my Tinkler's got this on it--just the very moral of it, so 'e 'as." Then he had to tell all about Tinkler, and the lady looked thoughtful and interested; and when the gentleman came in and kissed her, and said, How were we this morning, Dickie had to tell about Tinkler all over again; and then the lady said several things very quickly, beginning with, "I told you so, Edward," and ending with "I knew he wasn't a common child." Dickie missed the middle part of what she said because of the way his egg behaved, suddenly bursting all down one side and running over into the salt, which, of course, had to be stopped at all costs by some means or other. The tongue was the easiest. The gentleman laughed. "Weh! don't eat the egg-cup," he said. "We shall want it again. Have another egg." But Dickie's pride was hurt, and he wouldn't. The gentleman must be very stupid, he thought, not to know the difference between licking and eating. And as if anybody could eat an egg-cup, anyhow! He was glad when the gentleman went away. After breakfast Dickie was measured for a crutch--that is to say, a broom was held up beside him and a piece cut off its handle. Then the lady wrapped flannel around the hairy part of the broom and sewed black velvet over that. It was a beautiful crutch, and Dickie said so. Also he showed his gratitude by inviting the lady to look "'ow spry 'e was on 'is pins," but she only looked a very little while, and then turned and gazed out of the window. So Dickie had a good look at the room and the furniture--it was all different from anything he ever remembered seeing, and yet he couldn't help thinking he had seen them before, these high-backed chairs covered with flowers, like on carpets; the carved bookcases with rows on rows of golden-beaded books; the bow-fronted, shining sideboard, with handles that shone like gold, and the corner cupboard with glass doors and china inside, red and blue and goldy. It was a very odd feeling. I don't think that I can describe it better than by saying that he looked at all these things with a double pleasure--the pleasure of looking at new and beautiful things, and the pleasure of seeing again things old and beautiful which he had not seen for a very long time. His limping survey of the room ended at the windows, when the lady turned suddenly, knelt down, put her hand under his chin and looked into his eyes. "Dickie," she said, "how would you like to stay here and be _my_ little boy?" "I'd like it right enough," said he, "only I got to go back to father." "But if father says you may?" "'E won't," said Dickie, with certainty, "an' besides, there's Tinkler." "Well, you're to stay here and be my little boy till we find out where father is. We shall let the police know. They're sure to find him." "The pleece!" Dickie cried in horror. "Why, father, 'e ain't done nothing." "No, no, of course not," said the lady in a hurry; "but the police know all sorts of things--about where people are, I know, and what they're doing--even when they haven't _done_ anything." "The pleece knows a jolly sight too much," said Dickie, in gloom. And now all Dickie's little soul was filled with one longing; all his little brain awake to one only thought: the police were to be set on the track of Beale, the man whom he called father; the man who had been kind to him, had wheeled him in a perambulator for miles and miles through enchanted country; the man who had bought him a little coat "to put on o' nights if it was cold or wet"; the man who had shown him the wonderful world to which he awakens who has slept in the bed with the green curtains. The lady's house was more beautiful than anything he had ever imagined--yet not more beautiful than certain things that he almost imagined that he remembered. The lady was better than beautiful, she was dear. Her eyes were the eyes to which it is good to laugh--her arms were the arms in which it is good to cry. The tree-dotted parkland was to Dickie the Land of Heart's Desire. But father--Beale--who had been kind, whom Dickie loved!... The lady left him alone with a book, beautiful beyond his dreams--three great volumes with pictures of things that had happened and been since the days of Hereward himself. The author's charming name was Green, and recalled curtains and nights under the stars. But even those beautiful pictures could not keep Dickie's thoughts from Mr. Beale: "father" by adoption and love. If the police were set to find out "where he was and what he was doing?"... Somehow or other Dickie must get to Gravesend, to that house where there had been a bath, or something like it, in a pail, and where kindly tramp-people had toasted herrings and given apples to little boys who helped. He had helped then. And by all the laws of fair play there ought to be some one now to help him. The beautiful book lay on the table before him, but he no longer saw it. He no longer cared for it. All he cared for was to find a friend who would help him. And he found one. And the friend who helped him was an enemy. The smart, pink-frocked, white-capped, white-aproned maid, who, unseen by Dickie, had brought the bath-water and the bath, came in with a duster. She looked malevolently at Dickie. "Shovin' yourself in," she said rudely. "I ain't," said he. "If she wants to make a fool of a kid, ain't I got clever brothers and sisters?" inquired the maid, her chin in the air. "Nobody says you ain't, and nobody ain't makin' a fool of me," said Dickie. "Ho no. Course they ain't," the maid rejoined. "People comes 'ere without e'er a shirt to their backs and makes fools of their betters. That's the way it is, ain't it? Ain't she arst you to stay and be 'er little boy?" "Yes," said Dickie. "Ah, I thought she 'ad," said the maid triumphantly; "and you'll stay. But if I'm expected to call you Master Whatever-your-silly-name-is, I gives a month's warning, so I tell you straight." "I don't want to stay," said Dickie--"at least----" "Oh, tell me another," said the girl impatiently, and left him, without having made the slightest use of the duster. Dickie was taken for a drive in a little carriage drawn by a cream-colored pony with a long tail--a perfect dream of a pony, and the lady allowed him to hold the reins. But even amid this delight he remembered to ask whether she had put the police on to father yet, and was relieved to hear that she had not. It was Markham who was told to wash Dickie's hands when the drive was over, and Markham was the enemy with the clever brothers and sisters. "Wash 'em yourself," she said among the soap and silver and marble and sponges. "It ain't my work." "You'd better," said Dickie, "or the lady'll know the difference. It ain't my work neither, and I ain't so used to washing as what you are, and that's the truth." So she washed him, not very gently. "It's no use your getting your knife into me," he said as the towel was plied. "I didn't _arst_ to come 'ere, did I?" "No, you little thief!" "Stow that!" said Dickie, and after a quick glance at his set lips she said, "Well, next door to, anyhow. I should be ashamed to show my face 'ere, if I was you, after last night. There, you're dry now. Cut along down to the dining-room. The servants' hall's good enough for honest people as don't break into houses." All through that day of wonder, which included real roses that you could pick and smell and real gooseberries that you could gather and eat, as well as picture-books, a clockwork bear, a musical box, and a doll's house almost as big as a small villa, an idea kept on hammering at the other side of a locked door in Dickie's mind, and when he was in bed it got the door open and came out and looked at him. And he recognized it at once as a really useful idea. "Markham will bring you some warm milk. Drink it up and sleep well, darling," said the lady; and with the idea very near and plain he put his arms round her neck and hugged her. "Good-bye," he said; "you _are_ good. I do love you." The lady went away very pleased. When Markham came with the milk Dickie said, "You want me gone, don't you?" Markham said she didn't care. "Well, but how am I to get away--with my crutch?" "Mean to say you'd cut and run if you was the same as me--about the legs, I mean?" "Yes," said Dickie. "And not nick anything?" "Not a bloomin' thing," said he. "Well," said Markham, "you've got a spirit, I will say that." "You see," said Dickie, "I wants to get back to farver." "Bless the child," said Markham, quite affected by this. "Why don't you help me get out? Once I was outside the park I'd do all right." "Much as my place is worth," said Markham; "don't you say another word getting me into trouble." But Dickie said a good many other words, and fell asleep quite satisfied with the last words that had fallen from Markham. These words were: "We'll see." It was only just daylight when Markham woke him. She dressed him hurriedly, and carried him and his crutch down the back stairs and into that very butler's pantry through whose window he had crept at the bidding of the red-haired man. No one else seemed to be about. "Now," she said, "the gardener he has got a few hampers ready--fruit and flowers and the like--and he drives 'em to the station 'fore any one's up. They'd only go to waste if 'e wasn't to sell 'em. See? An' he's a particular friend of mine; and he won't mind an extry hamper more or less. So out with you. Joe," she whispered, "you there?" Joe, outside, whispered that he was. And Markham lifted Dickie to the window. As she did so she kissed him. "Cheer-oh, old chap!" she said. "I'm sorry I was so short. An' you do want to get out of it, don't you?" "No error," said Dickie; "an' I'll never split about him selling the vegetables and things." "You're too sharp to live," Markham declared; and next moment he was through the window, and Joe was laying him in a long hamper half-filled with straw that stood waiting. "I'll put you in the van along with the other hampers," whispered Joe as he shut the lid. "Then when you're in the train you just cut the string with this 'ere little knife I'll make you a present of and out you gets. I'll make it all right with the guard. He knows me. And he'll put you down at whatever station you say." "Here, don't forget 'is breakfast," said Markham, reaching her arm through the window. It was a wonderful breakfast. Five cold rissoles, a lot of bread and butter, two slices of cake, and a bottle of milk. And it was fun eating agreeable and unusual things, lying down in the roomy hamper among the smooth straw. The jolting of the cart did not worry Dickie at all. He was used to the perambulator; and he ate as much as he wanted to eat, and when that was done he put the rest in his pocket and curled up comfortably in the straw, for there was still quite a lot left of what ordinary people consider night, and also there was quite a lot left of the sleepiness with which he had gone to bed at the end of the wonderful day. It was not only just body-sleepiness: the kind you get after a long walk or a long play day. It was mind-sleepiness--Dickie had gone through so much in the last thirty-six hours that his poor little brain felt quite worn out. He fell asleep among the straw, fingering the clasp-knife in his pocket, and thinking how smartly he would cut the string when the time came. And he slept for a very long time. Such a long time that when he did wake up there was no longer any need to cut the string of the hamper. Some one else had done that, and the lid of the basket was open, and three or four faces looked down at Dickie, and a girl's voice said-- "Why, it's a little boy! And a crutch--oh, dear!" Dickie sat up. The little crutch, which was lying corner-wise above him in the hamper, jerked out and rattled on the floor. "Well, I never did--never!" said another voice. "Come out, dearie; don't be frightened." "How kind people are!" Dickie thought, and reached his hands to slender white hands that were held out to him. A lady in black--her figure was as slender as her hands--drew him up, put her arms round him, and lifted him on to a black bentwood chair. His eyes, turning swiftly here and there, showed him that he was in a shop--a shop full of flowers and fruit. "Mr. Rosenberg," said the slender lady--"oh, do come here, please! This extra hamper----" A dark, handsome, big-nosed man came towards them. "It's a dear little boy," said the slender lady, who had a pale, kind face, dark eyes, and very red lips. "It'th a practical joke, I shuppothe," said the dark man. "Our gardening friend wanth a liththon: and I'll thee he getth it." "It wasn't his fault," said Dickie, wriggling earnestly in his high chair; "it was my fault. I fell asleep." The girls crowded round him with questions and caresses. "I ought to have cut the string in the train and told the guard--he's a friend of the gardener's," he said, "but I was asleep. I don't know as ever I slep' so sound afore. Like as if I'd had sleepy-stuff--you know. Like they give me at the orspittle." I should not like to think that Markham had gone so far as to put "sleepy-stuff" in that bottle of milk; but I am afraid she was not very particular, and she may have thought it best to send Dickie to sleep so that he could not betray her or her gardener friend until he was very far away from both of them. "But why," asked the long-nosed gentleman--"why put boyth in bathketth? Upthetting everybody like thith," he added crossly. "It was," said Dickie slowly, "a sort of joke. I don't want to go upsetting of people. If you'll lift me down and give me me crutch I'll 'ook it." But the young ladies would not hear of his hooking it. "We may keep him, mayn't we, Mr. Rosenberg?" they said; and he judged that Mr. Rosenberg was a kind man or they would not have dared to speak so to him; "let's keep him till closing-time, and then one of us will see him home. He lives in London. He says so." Dickie had indeed murmured "words to this effect," as policemen call it when they are not quite sure what people really _have_ said. "Ath you like," said Mr. Rosenberg, "only you muthn't let him interfere with bithneth; thath all." They took him away to the back of the shop. They were dear girls, and they were very nice to Dickie. They gave him grapes, and a banana, and some Marie biscuits, and they folded sacks for him to lie on. And Dickie liked them and was grateful to them--and watched his opportunity. Because, however kind people were, there was one thing he had to do--to get back to the Gravesend lodging-house, as his "father" had told him to do. The opportunity did not come till late in the afternoon, when one of the girls was boiling a kettle on a spirit-lamp, and one had gone out to get cakes in Dickie's honor, which made him uncomfortable, but duty is duty, and over the Gravesend lodging-house the star of duty shone and beckoned. The third young lady and Mr. Rosenberg were engaged in animated explanations with a fair young gentleman about a basket of roses that had been ordered, and had not been sent. "Cath," Mr. Rosenberg was saying--"cath down enthureth thpeedy delivery." And the young lady was saying, "I am extremely sorry, sir; it was a misunderstanding." And to the music of their two voices Dickie edged along close to the grapes and melons, holding on to the shelf on which they lay so as not to attract attention by the tap-tapping of his crutch. He passed silently and slowly between the rose-filled window and the heap of bananas that adorned the other side of the doorway, turned the corner, threw his arm over his crutch, and legged away for dear life down a sort of covered Arcade; turned its corner and found himself in a wilderness of baskets and carts and vegetables, threaded his way through them, in and out among the baskets, over fallen cabbage-leaves, under horses' noses, found a quiet street, a still quieter archway, pulled out the knife--however his adventure ended he was that knife to the good--and prepared to cut the money out of the belt Mr. Beale had buckled round him. And the belt was not there! Had he dropped it somewhere? Or had he and Markham, in the hurry of that twilight dressing, forgotten to put it on? He did not know. All he knew was that the belt was not on him, and that he was alone in London, without money, and that at Gravesend his father was waiting for him--waiting, waiting. Dickie knew what it meant to wait. He went out into the street, and asked the first good-natured-looking loafer he saw the way to Gravesend. "Way to your grandmother," said the loafer; "don't you come saucing of me." "But which is the way?" said Dickie. The man looked hard at him and then pointed with a grimy thumb over his shoulder. "It's thirty mile if it's a yard," he said. "Got any chink?" "I lost it," said Dickie. "My farver's there awaitin' for me." "Garn!" said the man; "you don't kid me so easy." "I ain't arstin' you for anything except the way," said Dickie. "More you ain't," said the man, hesitated, and pulled his hand out of his pocket. "Ain't kiddin'? Sure? Father at Gravesend? Take your Bible?" "Yuss," said Dickie. "Then you take the first to the right and the first to the left, and you'll get a blue 'bus as'll take you to the 'Elephant.' That's a bit of the way. Then you arst again. And 'ere--this'll pay for the 'bus." He held out coppers. This practical kindness went to Dickie's heart more than all the kisses of the young ladies in the flower-shop. The tears came into his eyes. "Well, you _are_ a pal, and no error," he said. "Do the same for you some day," he added. The lounging man laughed. "I'll hold you to that, matey," he said; "when you're a-ridin' in yer carriage an' pair p'raps you'll take me on ter be yer footman." "When I am, I will," said Dickie, quite seriously. And then they both laughed. The "Elephant and Castle" marks but a very short stage of the weary way between London and Gravesend. When he got out of the tram Dickie asked the way again, this time of a woman who was selling matches in the gutter. She pointed with the blue box she held in her hand. "It's a long way," she said, in a tired voice; "nigh on thirty mile." "Thank you, missis," said Dickie, and set out, quite simply, to walk those miles--nearly thirty. The way lay down the Old Kent Road, and presently Dickie was in familiar surroundings. For the Old Kent Road leads into the New Cross Road, and that runs right through the yellow brick wilderness where Dickie's aunt lived. He dared not follow the road through those well-known scenes. At any moment he might meet his aunt. And if he met his aunt ... he preferred not to think of it. Outside the "Marquis of Granby" stood a van, and the horses' heads were turned away from London. If one could get a lift? Dickie looked anxiously to right and left, in front and behind. There were wooden boxes in the van, a lot of them, and on the canvas of the tilt was painted in fat, white letters--
There would be room on the top of the boxes--they did not reach within two feet of the tilt. Should he ask for a lift, when the carter came out of the "Marquis"? Or should he, if he could, climb up and hide on the boxes and take his chance of discovery on the lift? He laid a hand on the tail-board. "Hi, Dickie!" said a voice surprisingly in his ear; "that you?" Dickie owned that it was, with the feeling of a trapped wild animal, and turned and faced a boy of his own age, a schoolfellow--the one, in fact, who had christened him "Dot-and-go-one." "Oh, what a turn you give me!" he said; "thought you was my aunt. Don't you let on you seen me." "Where you been?" asked the boy curiously. "Oh, all about," Dickie answered vaguely. "Don't you tell me aunt." "Yer aunt? Don't you know?" The boy was quite contemptuous with him for not knowing. "Know? No. Know what?" "She shot the moon--old Hurle moved her; says he don't remember where to. She give him a pint to forget's what I say." "Who's livin' there now?" Dickie asked, interest in his aunt's address swallowed up in a sudden desperate anxiety. "No one don't live there. It's shut up to let apply Roberts 796 Broadway," said the boy. "I say, what'll you do?" "I don't know," said Dickie, turning away from the van, which had abruptly become unimportant. "Which way you goin'?" "Down home--go past your old shop. Coming?" "No," said Dickie. "So long--see you again some day. I got to go this way." And he went it. All the same the twilight saw him creeping down the old road to the house whose back-yard had held the rabbit-hutch, the garden where he had sowed the parrot food, and where the moonflowers had come up so white and beautiful. What a long time ago! It was only a month really, but all the same, what a long time! The news of his aunt's departure had changed everything. The steadfast desire to get to Gravesend, to find his father, had given way, at any rate for the moment, to a burning anxiety about Tinkler and the white stone. Had his aunt found them and taken them away? If she hadn't and they were still there, would it not be wise to get them at once? Because of course some one else might take the house and find the treasures. Yes, it would certainly be wise to go to-night, to get in by the front window--the catch had always been broken--to find his treasures, or at any rate to make quite sure whether he had lost them or not. No one noticed him as he came down the street, very close to the railings. There are so many boys in the streets in that part of the world. And the front window went up easily. He climbed in, dragging his crutch after him. He got up-stairs very quickly, on hands and knees, went straight to the loose board, dislodged it, felt in the hollow below. Oh, joy! His hands found the soft bundle of rags that he knew held Tinkler and the seal. He put them inside the front of his shirt and shuffled down. It was not too late to do a mile or two of the Gravesend road. But the moonflower--he would like to have one more look at that. He got out into the garden--there stood the stalk of the flower very tall in the deepening dusk. He touched the stalk. It was dry and hard--three or four little dry things fell from above and rattled on his head. "Seeds, o' course," said Dickie, who knew more about seeds now than he had done when he saved the parrot seeds. One does not tramp the country for a month, at Dickie's age, without learning something about seeds. He got out the knife that should have cut the string of the basket in the train, opened it and cut the stalk of the moonflower, very carefully so that none of the seeds should be, and only a few were, lost. He crept into the house holding the stalk upright and steady as an acolyte carries a processional cross. The house was quite dark now, but a street lamp threw its light into the front room, bare, empty, and dusty. There was a torn newspaper on the floor. He spread a sheet of it out, kneeled by it and shook the moonflower head over it. The seeds came rattling out--dozens and dozens of them. They were bigger than sunflower seeds and flatter and rounder, and they shone like silver, or like the pods of the plant we call honesty. "Oh, beautiful, beautiful!" said Dickie, letting the smooth shapes slide through his fingers. Have you ever played with mother-of-pearl card counters? The seeds of the moonflower were like those. He pulled out Tinkler and the seal and laid them on the heap of seeds. And then knew quite suddenly that he was too tired to travel any further that night. "I'll doss here," he said; "there's plenty papers"--he knew by experience that, as bed-clothes, newspapers are warm, if noisy--"and get on in the morning afore people's up." He collected all the paper and straw--there was a good deal littered about in the house--and made a heap in the corner, out of the way of the window. He did not feel afraid of sleeping in an empty house, only very lordly and magnificent because he had a whole house to himself. The food still left in his pockets served for supper, and you could drink quite well at the wash-house tap by putting your head under and turning it on very slowly. And for a final enjoyment he laid out his treasures on the newspaper--Tinkler and the seal in the middle and the pearly counters arranged in patterns round them, circles and squares and oblongs. The seeds lay very flat and fitted close together. They were excellent for making patterns with. And presently he made, with triple lines of silvery seeds, a six-pointed star, something like this--
with the rattle and the seal in the middle, and the light from the street lamp shone brightly on it all. "That's the prettiest of the lot," said Dickie Harding, alone in the empty house. And then the magic began. _ |
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