Fighting the Flames by Robert Michael Ballantyne (read novels website txt) 📖

artificial butter?"

"No," said Mr Auberly, somewhat impatiently.

"Ah, it's a wonderful invention, that is, sir."

"Boy," said Mr Auberly, "will you be so good as to walk behind me?"

"Oh, _cer'nly_, sir," said Willie, with a profound bow, as he fell to the rear.

They walked on in silence until they came to the vicinity of the Monument, when Mr Auberly turned round and asked Willie which way they were to go now.

"Right back again," said Willie.

"How, boy; what do you mean?"

"We've overshot the mark about half a mile, sir. But, please, I thought you must be wishin' to go somewhere else first, as you led the way."

"Lead the way, _now_, boy," said Mr Auberly, with a stern look.

Willie obeyed, and in a few minutes they were groping in the dark regions underground which Mr Cattley and his family inhabited. With some difficulty they found the door, and stood in the presence of "the fairy."

Thin though the fairy had been when Willie saw her last, she might have been called fat compared with the condition in which they now found her. She appeared like a mere shadow, with a delicate skin thrown over it. A bad transparency would have been more substantial in appearance. She lay alone on her lonely pallet with a farthing candle beside her, which cast a light sufficient only to make darkness visible. Being near the poor invalid, it caused her large dark eyes to glitter in an awful manner.

Willie at once forgot his companion, and running up to the fairy, seized her hand, and asked her how she did.

"Pretty well, Willie. It's kind of you to come and see me so often."

"Not a bit, Ziza; you know I like it; besides, I've only come to-day to show a gentleman the way."

He pointed to Mr Auberly, who had stopped short in the doorway, but who now advanced and sat down beside the invalid, and put to her several formal questions in a very stately and stiff manner, with a great assumption of patronage. But it was evident that he was not accustomed to the duty of visiting the sick, and, like little boys and girls when they sit down to write a letter, was very much at a loss what to say! He began by asking the fairy about her complaint, and exhausted every point that entered into his imagination in reference to that. Then he questioned her as to her circumstances; after which he told her that he had been sent to see her by his daughter Louisa, who was herself very ill, owing to the effects of a fire in his own house.

At this point the child became interested, and came to his relief by asking a great many eager and earnest questions about Loo. She knew about the fire in Beverly Square and its incidents, Willie having often related them to her during his visits; and she knew Mr Auberly by name, and was interested in him, but his frigid manner had repelled her, until he spoke of Loo having sent him to see her.

"Oh, I've been so sorry about Miss Loo, sir," said Ziza, raising her large eyes full in Mr Auberly's face; "I've heard of her, you know, from Willie, and when I've been lying all alone here for hours and hours together, I have wondered how she spent her time, and if there were kind people about her to keep up her spirits. It's so strange that she and I should have been both hurt by a fire, an' both of us so different every way. I _do_ hope she'll get better, sir."

Mr Auberly became suddenly much interested in the fairy, for just as "love begets love," so does interest beget interest. His feelings having been roused, his tongue was loosed, and forthwith he enjoyed a delightful conversation with the intelligent child; not that there was any remarkable change as to the matter of what was spoken, but there was a vast change in the manner of speaking it.

Willie also chimed in now and then, and volunteered his opinions in a way that would have called forth a sharp rebuke from his patron half an hour before; but he was permitted to speak, even encouraged, now, for Mr Auberly was being tickled pleasantly; he was having his feelings and affections roused in a way that he had never thought of or tried before; he was gathering golden experiences that he had never stooped to touch before, although the mine had been under his feet all his life, and his path had been strewn with neglected nuggets from the cradle--fortunately not, as yet, to the grave! Ziza's Bible lay on the counterpane close to her wasted little hand. While she was talking of Loo, with deep sympathy beaming out of her eyes and trembling in her tones, Mr Auberly laid his hand inadvertently on it. She observed the action, and said--

"Are you going to read and pray with me, sir?"

Mr Auberly was taken very much aback indeed by this question.

"Well--no," said he, "that is--if--fact, I have not brought my prayer-book with me; but--but--I will read to you if you wish it."

Sympathy was gone now; the fairy felt that, and, not clearly understanding why, wondered at it. She thanked her visitor, however, and shut her eyes, while Mr Auberly opened the Bible and cleared his voice. His confusion was only momentary; still the idea that he could be confused at all by two mere children in such a wretched cellar so nettled the worthy man, that he not only recovered his self-possession, but read a chapter with all the solemn dignity of tone and manner that he would have assumed had he been officiating in Saint Paul's or Westminster Abbey. This was such a successful essay, and overawed his little congregation so terribly, that for a moment he thought of concluding with the benediction; but, being uncertain whether he could go correctly through it, he wisely refrained.

Thereafter he rose, and bade the fairy good-night.

"Your father does not return till late, I suppose?" he said, while he held her hand.

"No; it is morning generally before he gets away. The pantomimes are hurting him, I fear, for he's not so active as he once was, and he says he feels the falls very bad."

"Poor man! It's very sad; but I suppose it's the usual way with that class of men. Well, goodnight again."

"Good-night, sir!" responded the fairy, with a bright smile, "and thank you very much for your visit. Good-night, Willie."

Willie said good-night in such a sulky tone, and followed Mr Auberly to the door with such a reckless swagger, that the fairy gazed after him in unutterable surprise. After shutting the door with a bang, he suddenly opened it again, and said in a loud voice--

"I say, I'll get my wages day arter to-morrow. I'll bring you a couple o' bobs then. It's all I can afford just now, for cigars are dear. If you're hard up for wittles in the meantime, just grin and bear it; you'll not die, you know, you'll only get thinner. I _have_ heard that a bit o' boiled shoe-leather ain't a bad thing to keep one easy till relief comes."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mr Auberly in the distance, and bustling back as lie spoke; "I quite forgot; how stupid of me! I was directed by my daughter to give you this."

He took a ten-pound note from his purse, and put it into the fairy's hand.

"This is from Louisa," he continued, "and I may add that it is the savings from her pocket-money. I did not wish the dear child to part with it, and said I would give it to you from myself; but she was so urgent, and seemed so distressed when I refused my consent, that I gave in; so you have to thank my daughter, not me."

Mr Auberly smiled and nodded as he turned to go, and there was really very little grimness in the smile on this occasion--very little indeed! Willie also nodded with great violence and frequency; he likewise winked with one eye, and otherwise sought to indicate that there were within him sundry deep and not easily expressed thoughts and feelings, which were, upon the whole, of a satisfactory nature.

As for the fairy, she never once smiled or thanked Mr Auberly, but simply stared at him with her lustrous eyes open to their very widest, and she continued to stare at the door, as though she saw him through it, for some time after they were gone. Then she turned suddenly to the wall, thanked God, and burst into tears--glad tears, such as only those can weep who have unexpectedly found relief when their extremity was greatest.


CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.


A CHANGE IN FORTUNE.

There is nothing more surprising in regard to sublunary matters than the way in which unexpected events arise out of what may be called unintentional causes.

When David Boone and his friend Gorman planned the insurance and destruction of the toy shop and its contents, they no more expected that the very first steps towards that end would result in the conversion of a poor into a flourishing business, than they expected that the expression of a wish would convert Poorthing Lane into Beverly Square; yet so it was.

Poor David was rendered so desperate by his straits, and so anxious to escape from the crime into which his friend sought to plunge him, that he meditated suicide; but, lacking the courage to accomplish this, he relieved his feelings by carrying out the details of his business and the preliminary steps of his plan, with the wild and reckless energy of a maniac. The more he thought of the meshes which Gorman had cast around him, the more did he regard escape impossible. He therefore sought relief in action. He not only talked to his neighbours (as per agreement) about his rapidly increasing business, but he made purchases on a scale more extensive than he had ever before contemplated, even in his dreams. Being convinced that ruin, sooner or later, was his doom, he indulged in the most extravagant excesses, with much of the feeling which prompts some seamen, when the ship is sinking, to break into the spirit room and spend the short remnant of life in jollity. He experienced a sort of savage delight in ordering right and left from wholesale dealers in town and country, and even went so far as to write to Germany for toys, using the name of a well-known London house which had hitherto (and justly) believed him to be an honest man. The result of this was that Poorthing Lane was besieged for some time by railway vans, and waggons so huge that apparently an inch more added to their bulk would have rendered their passage impossible. Great deal boxes were constantly being unpacked in front of Mr Boone's door, much to the annoyance of Miss Tippet, who could not imagine how it happened that her sedate and slow-going landlord had got such a sudden increase of business. Little did she think, poor lady, that this was the fuel with which it was intended to roast her alive!

Some of the smaller accounts for goods thus purchased Boone paid at once with the money furnished to him by