Books: The Fallen Leaves

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After waiting for the return of Simple Sally, and waiting in vain,
Amelius sent a chambermaid to her room, with a message to her. Rufus
disapproved of this hasty proceeding. "Why disturb the girl at her
looking-glass?" asked the old bachelor, with his quaintly humorous
smile.

Sally came in with no bright pleasure in her eyes this time; the girl
looked worn and haggard. She drew Amelius away into a corner, and
whispered to him. "I get a pain sometimes where the bruise is," she
said; "and I've got it bad, now." She glanced, with an odd furtive
jealousy, at Rufus. "I kept away from you," she explained, "because I
didn't want _him_ to know." She stopped, and put her hand on her bosom,
and clenched her teeth fast. "Never mind," she said cheerfully, as the
pang passed away again; "I can bear it."

Amelius, acting on impulse, as usual, instantly ordered the most
comfortable carriage that the hotel possessed. He had heard terrible
stories of the possible result of an injury to a woman's bosom. "I
shall take her to the best doctor in London," he announced. Sally
whispered to him again--still with her eye on Rufus. "Is _he_ going
with us?" she asked. "No," said Amelius; "one of us must stay here to
receive a message." Rufus looked after them very gravely, as the two
left the room together.

Applying for information to the mistress of the hotel, Amelius obtained
the address of a consulting surgeon of great celebrity, while Sally was
getting ready to go out.

"Why don't you like my good friend upstairs?" he said to the girl as
they drove away from the house. The answer came swift and straight from
the heart of the daughter of Eve. "Because _you_ like him!" Amelius
changed the subject: he asked if she was still in pain. She shook her
head impatiently. Pain or no pain, the uppermost idea in her mind was
still that idea of being his servant, which had already found
expression in words before they left the lodgings. "Will you let me
keep my beautiful new dress for going out on Sundays?" she asked. "The
shabby old things will do when I am your servant. I can black your
boots, and brush your clothes, and keep your room tidy--and I will try
hard to learn, if you will have me taught to cook." Amelius attempted
to change the subject again. He might as well have talked to her in an
unknown tongue. The glorious prospect of being his servant absorbed the
whole of her attention. "I'm little and I'm stupid," she went on; "but
I do think I could learn to cook, if I knew I was doing it for _You."_
She paused, and looked at him anxiously. "Do let me try!" she pleaded;
"I haven't had much pleasure in my life--and I should like it so!" It
was impossible to resist this. "You shall be as happy as I can make
you, Sally," Amelius answered; "God knows it isn't much you ask for!"

Something in those compassionate words set her thinking in another
direction. It was sad to see how slowly and painfully she realized the
idea that had been suggested to her.

"I wonder whether you _can_ make me happy?" she said. "I suppose I have
been happy before this--but I don't know when. I don't remember a time
when I was not hungry or cold. Wait a bit. I do think I _was_ happy
once. It was a long while ago, and it took me a weary time to do
it--but I did learn at last to play a tune on the fiddle. The old man
and his wife took it in turns to teach me. Somebody gave me to the old
man and his wife; I don't know who it was, and I don't remember their
names. They were musicians. In the fine streets they sang hymns, and in
the poor streets they sang comic songs. It was cold, to be sure,
standing barefoot on the pavement--but I got plenty of halfpence. The
people said I was so little it was a shame to send me out, and so I got
halfpence. I had bread and apples for supper, and a nice little corner
under the staircase, to sleep in. Do you know, I do think I did enjoy
myself at that time," she concluded, still a little doubtful whether
those faint and far-off remembrances were really to be relied on.

Amelius tried to lead her to other recollections. He asked her how old
she was when she played the fiddle.

"I don't know," she answered; "I don't know how old I am now. I don't
remember anything before the fiddle. I can't call to mind how long it
was first--but there came a time when the old man and his wife got into
trouble. They went to prison, and I never saw them afterwards. I ran
away with the fiddle; to get the halfpence, you know, all to myself. I
think I should have got a deal of money, if it hadn't been for the
boys. They're so cruel, the boys are. They broke my fiddle. I tried
selling pencils after that; but people didn't seem to want pencils.
They found me out begging. I got took up, and brought before the
what-do-you-call-him--the gentleman who sits in a high place, you know,
behind a desk. Oh, but I was frightened, when they took me before the
gentleman! He looked very much puzzled. He says, 'Bring her up here;
she's so small I can hardly see her.' He says, 'Good God! what am I to
do with this unfortunate child?' There was plenty of people about. One
of them says, 'The workhouse ought to take her.' And a lady came in,
and she says, 'I'll take her, sir, if you'll let me.' And he knew her,
and he let her. She took me to a place they called a Refuge--for
wandering children, you know. It was very strict at the Refuge. They
did give us plenty to eat, to be sure, and they taught us lessons. They
told us about Our Father up in Heaven. I said a wrong thing--I said, 'I
don't want him up in Heaven; I want him down here.' They were very much
ashamed of me when I said that. I was a bad girl; I turned ungrateful.
After a time, I ran away. You see, it was so strict, and I was so used
to the streets. I met with a Scotchman in the streets. He wore a kilt,
and played the pipes; he taught me to dance, and dressed me up like a
Scotch girl. He had a curious wife, a sort of half-black woman. She
used to dance too--on a bit of carpet, you know, so as not to spoil her
fine shoes. They taught me songs; he taught me a Scotch song. And one
day his wife said _she_ was English (I don't know how that was, being a
half-black woman), and I should learn an English song. And they
quarrelled about it. And she had her way. She taught me 'Sally in our
Alley'. That's how I come to be called Sally. I hadn't any name of my
own--I always had nicknames. Sally was the last of them, and Sally has
stuck to me. I hope it isn't too common a name to please you? Oh, what
a fine house! Are we really going in? Will they let _me_ in? How stupid
I am! I forgot my beautiful clothes. You won't tell them, will you, if
they take me for a lady?"

The carriage had stopped at the great surgeon's house: the waiting-room
was full of patients. Some of them were trying to read the books and
newspapers on the table; and some of them were looking at each other,
not only without the slightest sympathy, but occasionally even with
downright distrust and dislike. Amelius took up a newspaper, and gave
Sally an illustrated book to amuse her, while they waited to see the
Surgeon in their turn.

Two long hours passed, before the servant summoned Amelius to the
consulting-room. Sally was wearily asleep in her chair. He left her
undisturbed, having questions to put relating to the imperfectly
developed state of her mind, which could not be asked in her presence.
The surgeon listened, with no ordinary interest, to the young
stranger's simple and straightforward narrative of what had happened on
the previous night. "You are very unlike other young men," he said;
"may I ask how you have been brought up?" The reply surprised him.
"This opens quite a new view of Socialism," he said. "I thought your
conduct highly imprudent at first--it seems to be the natural result of
your teaching now. Let me see what I can do to help you."

He was very grave and very gentle, when Sally was presented to him. His
opinion of the injury to her bosom relieved the anxiety of Amelius:
there might be pain for some little time to come, but there were no
serious consequences to fear. Having written his prescription, and
having put several questions to Sally, the surgeon sent her back, with
marked kindness of manner, to wait for Amelius in the patients' room.

"I have young daughters of my own," he said, when the door was closed;
"and I cannot but feel for that unhappy creature, when I contrast her
life with theirs. So far as I can see it, the natural growth of her
senses--her higher and her lower senses alike--has been stunted, like
the natural growth of her body, by starvation, terror, exposure to
cold, and other influences inherent in the life that she has led. With
nourishing food, pure air, and above all kind and careful treatment, I
see no reason, at her age, why she should not develop into an
intelligent and healthy young woman. Pardon me if I venture on giving
you a word of advice. At your time of life, you will do well to place
her at once under competent and proper care. You may live to regret it,
if you are too confident in your own good motives in such a case as
this. Come to me again, if I can be of any use to you. No," he
continued, refusing to take his fee; "my help to that poor lost girl is
help given freely." He shook hands with Amelius--a worthy member of the
noble order to which he belonged.

The surgeon's parting advice, following on the quaint protest of Rufus,
had its effect on Amelius. He was silent and thoughtful when he got
into the carriage again.

Simple Sally looked at him with a vague sense of alarm. Her heart beat
fast, under the perpetually recurring fear that she had done something
or said something to offend him. "Was it bad behaviour in me," she
asked, "to fall asleep in the chair?" Reassured, so far, she was still
as anxious as ever to get at the truth. After long hesitation, and long
previous thought, she ventured to try another question. "The gentleman
sent me out of the room--did he say anything to set you against me?"

"The gentleman said everything that was kind of you," Amelius replied,
"and everything to make me hope that you will live to be a happy girl."

She said nothing to that; vague assurances were no assurances to
her--she only looked at him with the dumb fidelity of a dog. Suddenly,
she dropped on her knees in the carriage, hid her face in her hands,
and cried silently. Surprised and distressed, he attempted to raise her
and console her. "No!" she said obstinately. "Something has happened to
vex you, and you won't tell me what it is. Do, do, do tell me what it
is!"

"My dear child," said Amelius, "I was only thinking anxiously about
you, in the time to come."

She looked up at him quickly. "What! have you forgotten already?" she
exclaimed. "I'm to be your servant in the time to come." She dried her
eyes, and took her place again joyously by his side. "You did frighten
me," she said, "and all for nothing. But you didn't mean it, did you?"

An older man might have had the courage to undeceive her: Amelius
shrank from it. He tried to lead her back to the melancholy story--so
common and so terrible; so pitiable in its utter absence of sentiment
or romance--the story of her past life.

"No," she answered, with that quick insight where her feelings were
concerned, which was the only quick insight that she possessed. "I
don't like making you sorry; and you did look sorry--you did--when I
talked about it before. The streets, the streets, the streets; little
girl, or big girl, it's only the streets; and always being hungry or
cold; and cruel men when it isn't cruel boys. I want to be happy! I
want to enjoy my new clothes! You tell me about your own self. What
makes you so kind? I can't make it out; try as I may, I can't make it
out."

Some time elapsed before they got back to the hotel. Amelius drove as
far as the City, to give the necessary instructions to his bankers.

On returning to the sitting-room at last, he discovered that his
American friend was not alone. A gray-haired lady with a bright
benevolent face was talking earnestly to Rufus. The instant Sally
discovered the stranger, she started back, fled to the shelter of her
bedchamber, and locked herself in. Amelius, entering the room after a
little hesitation, was presented to Mrs. Payson.

"There was something in my old friend's note," said the lady, smiling
and turning to Rufus, "which suggested to me that I should do well to
answer it personally. I am not too old yet to follow the impulse of the
moment, sometimes; and I am very glad that I did so. I have heard what
is, to me, a very interesting story. Mr. Goldenheart, I respect you!
And I will prove it by helping you, with all my heart and soul, to save
that poor little girl who has just run away from me. Pray don't make
excuses for her; I should have run away too, at her age. We have
arranged," she continued, looking again at Rufus, "that I shall take
you both to the Home, this afternoon. If we can prevail on Sally to go
with us, one serious obstacle in our way will be overcome. Tell me the
number of her room. I want to try if I can't make friends with her. I
have had some experience; and I don't despair of bringing her back
here, hand in hand with the terrible person who has frightened her."

The two men were left together. Amelius attempted to speak.

"Keep it down," said Rufus; "no premature outbreak of opinion, if you
please, yet awhile. Wait till she has fixed Sally, and shown us the
Paradise of the poor girls. It's within the London postal district, and
that's all I know about it. Well, now, and did you go to the doctor?
Thunder! what's come to the boy? Seems as though he had left his
complexion in the carriage! He looks, I do declare, as if he wanted
medical tinkering himself."

Amelius explained that his past night had been a wakeful one, and that
the events of the day had not allowed him any opportunities of repose.
"Since the morning," he said, "things have hurried so, one on the top
of the other, that I am beginning to feel a little dazed and weary."
Without a word of remark, Rufus produced the remedy. The materials were
ready on the sideboard--he made a cocktail.

"Another?" asked the New Englander, after a reasonable lapse of time.

Amelius declined taking another. He stretched himself on the sofa; his
good friend considerately took up a newspaper. For the first time that
day, he had now the prospect of a quiet interval for rest and thought.
In less than a minute the delusive prospect vanished. He started to his
feet again, disturbed by a new anxiety. Having leisure to think, he had
thought of Regina. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed; "she's waiting to see
me--and I never remembered it till this moment!" He looked at his
watch: it was five o'clock. "What am I to do?" he said helplessly.

Rufus laid down the newspaper, and considered the new difficulty in its
various aspects.

"We are bound to go with Mrs. Payson to the Home," he said; "and, I
tell you this, Amelius, the matter of Sally is not a matter to be
played with; it's a thing that's got to be done. In your place I should
write politely to Miss Regina, and put it off till to-morrow."

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a man who took Rufus for his
counsellor was a man who acted wisely in every sense of the word.
Events, however, of which Amelius and his friend were both ignorant
alike, had so ordered it, that the American's well-meant advice, in
this one exceptional case, was the very worst advice that could have
been given. In an hour more, Jervy and Mrs. Sowler were to meet at the
tavern door. The one last hope of protecting Mrs. Farnaby from the
abominable conspiracy of which she was the destined victim, rested
solely on the fulfilment by Amelius of his engagement with Regina for
that day. Always ready to interfere with the progress of the courtship,
Mrs. Farnaby would be especially eager to seize the first opportunity
of speaking to her young Socialist friend on the subject of his
lecture. In the course of the talk between them, the idea which, in the
present disturbed state of his mind, had not struck him yet--the idea
that the outcast of the streets might, by the barest conceivable
possibility, be identified with the lost daughter--would, in one way or
another, be almost infallibly suggested to Amelius; and, at the
eleventh hour, the conspiracy would be foiled. If, on the other hand,
the American's fatal advice was followed, the next morning's post might
bring a letter from Jervy to Mrs. Farnaby--with this disastrous result.
At the first words spoken by Amelius, she would put an end to all
further interest in the subject on his part, by telling him that the
lost girl had been found, and found by another person.

Rufus pointed to the writing-materials on a side table, which he had
himself used earlier in the day. The needful excuse was, unhappily,
quite easy to find. A misunderstanding with his landlady had obliged
Amelius to leave his lodgings at an hour's notice, and had occupied him
in trying to find a new residence for the rest of the day. The note was
written. Rufus, who was nearest to the bell, stretched out his hand to
ring for the messenger. Amelius suddenly stopped him.

"She doesn't like me to disappoint her," he said. "I needn't stay
long--I might get there and back in half an hour, in a fast cab."

His conscience was not quite easy. The sense of having forgotten
Regina--no matter how naturally and excusably--oppressed him with a
feeling of self-reproach. Rufus raised no objection; the hesitation of
Amelius was unquestionably creditable to him. "If you must do it, my
son," he said, "do it right away--and we'll wait for you."

Amelius took up his hat. The door opened as he approached it, and Mrs.
Payson entered the room, leading Simple Sally by the hand.

"We are all going together," said the genial old lady, "to see my large
family of daughters at the Home. We can have our talk in the carriage.
It's an hour's drive from this place--and I must be back again to
dinner at half-past seven."

Amelius and Rufus looked at each other. Amelius thought of pleading an
engagement, and asking to be excused. Under the circumstances, it was
assuredly not a very gracious thing to do. Before he could make up his
mind, one way or the other, Sally stole to his side, and put her hand
on his arm. Mrs. Payson had done wonders in conquering the girl's
inveterate distrust of strangers, and, to a certain extent at least,
winning her confidence. But no early influence could shake Sally's
dog-like devotion to Amelius. Her jealous instinct discovered something
suspicious in his sudden silence. "You must go with us," she said, "I
won't go without you."

"Certainly not," Mrs. Payson added; "I promised her that, of course,
beforehand."

Rufus rang the bell, and despatched the messenger to Regina. "That's
the one way out of it, my son," he whispered to Amelius, as they
followed Mrs. Payson and Sally down the stairs of the hotel.

They had just driven up to the gates of the Home, when Jervy and his
accomplice met at the tavern, and entered on their consultation in a
private room.

In spite of her poverty-stricken appearance, Mrs. Sowler was not
absolutely destitute. In various underhand and wicked ways, she
contrived to put a few shillings in her pocket from week to week. If
she was half starved, it was for the very ordinary reason, among
persons of her vicious class, that she preferred spending her money on
drink. Stating his business with her, as reservedly and as cunningly as
usual, Jervy found, to his astonishment, that even this squalid old
creature presumed to bargain with him. The two wretches were on the
point of a quarrel which might have delayed the execution of the plot
against Mrs. Farnaby, but for the vile self-control which made Jervy
one of the most formidable criminals living. He gave way on the
question of money--and, from that moment, he had Mrs. Sowler absolutely
at his disposal.

"Meet me to-morrow morning, to receive your instructions," he said.
"The time is ten sharp; and the place is the powder-magazine in Hyde
Park. And mind this! You must be decently dressed--you know where to
hire the things. If I smell you of spirits to-morrow morning, I shall
employ somebody else. No; not a farthing now. You will have your
money--first instalment only, mind!--to-morrow at ten."

Left by himself, Jervy sent for pen, ink, and paper. Using his left
hand, which was just as serviceable to him as his right, he traced
these lines:--

"You are informed, by an unknown friend, that a certain lost young lady
is now living in a foreign country, and may be restored to her
afflicted mother on receipt of a sufficient sum to pay expenses, and to
reward the writer of this letter, who is undeservedly, in distressed
circumstances.

"Are you, madam, the mother? I ask the question in the strictest
confidence, knowing nothing certainly but that your husband was the
person who put the young lady out to nurse in her infancy.

"I don't address your husband, because his inhuman desertion of the
poor baby does not incline me to trust him. I run the risk of trusting
you--to a certain extent--at starting. Shall I drop a hint which may
help you to identify the child, in your own mind? It would be
inexcusably foolish on my part to speak too plainly, just yet. The hint
must be a vague one. Suppose I use a poetical expression, and say that
the young lady is enveloped in mystery from head to foot--especially
the foot?

"In the event of my addressing the right person, I beg to offer a
suggestion for a preliminary interview.

"If you will take a walk on the bridge over the Serpentine River, on
Kensington Gardens side, at half-past ten o'clock to-morrow morning,
holding a white handkerchief in your left hand, you will meet the
much-injured woman, who was deceived into taking charge of the infant
child at Ramsgate, and will be satisfied so far that you are giving
your confidence to persons who really deserve it."

Jervy addressed this infamous letter to Mrs. Farnaby, in an ordinary
envelope, marked "Private." He posted it, that night, with his own
hand.

CHAPTER 4

"Rufus! I don't quite like the way you look at me. You seem to think--"

"Give it tongue, my son. What do I seem to think?"

"You think I'm forgetting Regina. You don't believe I'm just as fond of
her as ever. The fact is, you're an old bachelor."

"That is so. Where's the harm, Amelius?"

"I don't understand--"

"You're out there, my bright boy. I reckon I understand more than you
think for. The wisest thing you ever did in your life is what you did
this evening, when you committed Sally to the care of those ladies at
the Home."

"Good night, Rufus. We shall quarrel if I stay here any longer."

"Good night, Amelius. We shan't quarrel, stay here as long as you
like."

The good deed had been done; the sacrifice--already a painful
sacrifice--had been made. Mrs. Payson was old enough to speak plainly,
as well as seriously, to Amelius of the absolute necessity of
separating himself from Simple Sally, without any needless delay. "You
have seen for yourself," she said, "that the plan on which this little
household is ruled is the unvarying plan of patience and kindness. So
far as Sally is concerned, you can be quite sure that she will never
hear a harsh word, never meet with a hard look, while she is under our
care. The lamentable neglect under which the poor creature has
suffered, will be tenderly remembered and atoned for, here. If we can't
make her happy among us, I promise that she shall leave the Home, if
she wishes it, in six weeks' time. As to yourself, consider your
position if you persist in taking her back with you. Our good friend
Rufus has told me that you are engaged to be married. Think of the
misinterpretations, to say the least of it, to which you would subject
yourself--think of the reports which would sooner or later find their
way to the young lady's ears, and of the deplorable consequences that
would follow. I believe implicitly in the purity of your motives. But
remember Who taught us to pray that we may not be led into
temptation--and complete the good work that you have begun, by leaving
Sally among friends and sisters in this house."

To any honourable man, these were unanswerable words. Coming after what
Rufus and the surgeon had already said to him, they left Amelius no
alternative but to yield. He pleaded for leave to write to Sally, and
to see her, at a later interval, when she might be reconciled to her
new life. Mrs. Payson had just consented to both requests, Rufus had
just heartily congratulated him on his decision--when the door was
thrown violently open. Simple Sally ran into the room, followed by one
of the women-attendants in a state of breathless surprise.

"She showed me a bedroom," cried Sally, pointing indignantly to the
woman; "and she asked if I should like to sleep there." She turned to
Amelius, and caught him by the hand to lead him away. The ineradicable
instinct of distrust had been once more roused in her by the too
zealous attendant. "I'm not going to stay here," she said; "I'm going
away with You!"

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