The Dawn of a To-morrow by Frances Hodgson Burnett (good story books to read TXT) đ
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- Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
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They had gone out together and were standing in the fog in the court. The curate removed his hat and passed his handkerchief over his damp forehead, his breath coming and going almost sobbingly, his eyes staring straight before him into the yellowness of the haze.
âWho,â he said after a moment of singular silence, âwho are you?â
Antony Dart hesitated a few seconds, and at the end of his pause he put his hand into his overcoat pocket.
âIf you will come upstairs with me to the room where the girl Glad lives, I will tell you,â he said, âbut before we go I want to hand something over to you.â
The curate turned an amazed gaze upon him.
âWhat is it?â he asked.
Dart withdrew his hand from his pocket, and the pistol was in it.
âI came out this morning to buy this,â he said. âI intendedânever mind what I intended. A wrong turn taken in the fog brought me here. Take this thing from me and keep it.â
The curate took the pistol and put it into his own pocket without comment. In the course of his labors he had seen desperate men and desperate things many times. He had even beenâat momentsâa desperate man thinking desperate things himself, though no human being had ever suspected the fact. This man had faced some tragedy, he could see. Had he been on the verge of a crime âhad he looked murder in the eyes? What had made him pause? Was it possible that the dream of Jinny Montaubyn being in the air had reached his brainâhis being?
He looked almost appealingly at him, but he only said aloud:
âLet us go upstairs, then.â
So they went.
As they passed the door of the room where the dead woman lay Dart went in and spoke to Miss Montaubyn, who was still there.
âIf there are things wanted here,â he said, âthis will buy them.â And he put some money into her hand.
She did not seem surprised at the incongruity of his shabbiness producing money.
âWell, now,â she said, âI WAS wonderinâ anâ askinâ. Iâd like âer clean anâ nice, anâ thereâs milk wanted bad for the biby.â
In the room they mounted to Glad was trying to feed the child with bread softened in tea. Polly sat near her looking on with restless, eager eyes. She had never seen anything of her own baby but its limp newborn and dead body being carried away out of sight. She had not even dared to ask what was done with such poor little carrion. The tyranny of the law of life made her want to paw and touch this lately born thing, as her agony had given her no fruit of her own body to touch and paw and nuzzle and caress as mother creatures will whether they be women or tigresses or doves or female cats.
âLet me hold her, Glad,â she half whimpered. âWhen she âs fed let me get her to sleep.â
âAll right,â Glad answered; âwe could look after âer between us well enough.â
The thief was still sitting on the hearth, but being full fed and comfortable for the first time in many a day, he had rested his head against the wall and fallen into profound sleep.
âWot âs up?â said Glad when the two men came in. âIs anythinâ âappeninâ?â
âI have come up here to tell you something,â Dart answered. âLet us sit down again round the fire. It will take a little time.â
Glad with eager eyes on him handed the child to Polly and sat down without a momentâs hesitance, avid of what was to come. She nudged the thief with friendly elbow and he started up awake.
â âE âs got somethinâ to tell us,â she explained. âThe curick âs come up to âear it, too. Sit âere, Polly,â with elbow jerk toward the bundle of sacks. âIt âs got its stummick full anâ it âll go to sleep fast enough.â
So they sat again in the weird circle. Neither the strangeness of the group nor the squalor of the hearth were of a nature to be new things to the curate. His eyes fixed themselves on Dartâs face, as did the eyes of the thief, the beggar, and the young thing of the street. No one glanced away from him.
His telling of his story was almost monotonous in its semi-reflective quietness of tone. The strangeness to himselfâthough it was a strangeness he accepted absolutely without protestâlay in his telling it at all, and in a sense of his knowledge that each of these creatures would understand and mysteriously know what depths he had touched this day.
âJust before I left my lodgings this morning,â he said, âI found myself standing in the middle of my room and speaking to Something aloud. I did not know I was going to speak. I did not know what I was speaking to. I heard my own voice cry out in agony, `Lord, Lord, what shall I do to be saved?â â
The curate made a sudden movement in his place and his sallow young face flushed. But he said nothing.
Gladâs small and sharp countenance became curious.
â `Speak, Lord, thy servant âeareth,â â she quoted tentatively.
âNo,â answered Dart; âit was not like that. I had never thought of such things. I believed nothing. I was going out to buy a pistol and when I returned intended to blow my brains out.â
âWhy?â asked Glad, with passionately intent eyes; âwhy?â
âBecause I was worn out and done for, and all the world seemed worn out and done for. And among other things I believed I was beginning slowly to go mad.â
From the thief there burst forth a low groan and he turned his face to the wall.
âIâve been there,â he said; âI âm near there now.â
Dart took up speech again.
âThere was no answerânone. As I stood waitingâGod knows for whatâthe dead stillness of the room was like the dead stillness of the grave. And I went out saying to my soul, `This is what happens to the fool who cries aloud in his pain.â â
âIâve cried aloud,â said the thief, âand sometimes it seemed as if an answer was comingâbut I always knew it never would!â in a tortured voice.
â âT ainât fair to arst that wye,â Glad put in with shrewd logic.
âMiss Montaubyn she allers knows it WILL comeâanâ it does.â
âSomethingânot myselfâturned my feet toward this place,â said Dart. âI was thrust from one thing to another. I was forced to see and hear things close at hand. It has been as if I was under a spell. The woman in the room belowâthe woman lying dead!â He stopped a second, and then went on: âThere is too much that is crying out aloud. A man such as I amâit has FORCED itself upon me âcannot leave such things and give himself to the dust. I cannot explain clearly because I am not thinking as I am accustomed to think. A change has come upon me. I shall not use the pistolâas I meant to use it.â
Glad made a friendly clutch at the sleeve of his shabby coat.
âRight O!â she cried. âThat âs it! You buck up sime as I told yer. Yâ ainât stony broke anâ thereâs âallers to-morrer.â
Antony Dartâs expression was weirdly retrospective.
âI did not think so this morning,â he answered.
âBut there is,â said the girl. âAinât there now, curick? There âs a lot oâ work in yer yet; yer could do all sorts oâ things if yâ ainât too proud. I âll âelp yer. So âll the curick. Yâ ainât found out yet what a little folks can live on till luck turns. Me, Iâm goinâ to try Miss Montaubynâs wye. Leâs both try. Le âs believe things is cominâ. Le âs get âer to talk to us some more.â
The curate was thinking the thing over deeply.
âYer see,â Glad enlarged cheerfully, âyer look almost like a gentleman. Pâraps yer can write a good âand anâ spell all right. Can yer?â
âYes.â
âI think, perhaps,â the curate began reflectively, âparticularly if you can write well, I might be able to get you some work.â
âI do not want work,â Dart answered slowly. âAt least I do not want the kind you would be likely to offer me.â
The curate felt a shock, as if cold water had been dashed over him. Somehow it had not once occurred to him that the man could be one of the educated degenerate vicious for whom no power to help lay in any handsâyet he was not the common vagrantâand he was plainly on the point of producing an excuse for refusing work.
The other man, seeing his start and his amazed, troubled flush, put out a hand and touched his arm apologetically.
âI beg your pardon,â he said. âOne of the things I was going to tell youâI had not finishedâwas that I AM what is called a gentleman. I am also what the world knows as a rich man. I am Sir Oliver Holt.â
Each member of the party gazed at him aghast. It was an enormous name to claim. Even the two female creatures knew what it stood for. It was the name which represented the greatest wealth and power in the world of finance and schemes of business. It stood for financial influence which could change the face of national fortunes and bring about crises. It was known throughout the world. Yesterday the newspaper rumor that its owner had mysteriously left England had caused men on âChange to discuss possibilities together with lowered voices.
Glad stared at the curate. For the first time she looked disturbed and alarmed.
âBlimme,â she ejaculated, â âe âs gone off âis nut, pore chap!ââe âs gone off it!â
âNo,â the man answered, âyou shall come to meââhe hesitated a second while a shade passed over his eyesââTO-MORROW. And you shall see.â
He rose quietly to his feet and the curate rose also. Abnormal as the climax was, it was to be seen that there was no mistake about the revelation. The man was a creature of authority and used to carrying conviction by his unsupported word. That made itself, by some clear, unspoken method, plain.
âYou are Sir Oliver Holt! And a few hours ago you were on the point ofââ
âEnding it allâin an obscure lodging. Afterward the earth would have been shovelled on to a work-house coffin. It was an awful thing.â He shook off a passionate shudder. âThere was no wealth on earth that could give me a momentâs easeâ sleepâhopeâlife. The whole world was full of things I loathed the sight and thought of. The doctors said my condition was physical. Perhaps it wasâperhaps to-day has strangely given a healthful jolt to my nervesâperhaps I have been dragged away from the agony of morbidity and plunged into new intense emotions which have saved me from the last thing and the worstâSAVED me!â
He stopped suddenly and his face flushed, and then quite slowly turned pale.
âSAVED ME!â he
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