The Dawn of a To-morrow by Frances Hodgson Burnett (good story books to read TXT) 📖

an’ Love of the world, ‘E’s ‘ERE! Stretch out yer ‘and,’ she ses, ‘an’ call out, “Speak, Lord, thy servant ‘eareth,” an’ ye’ll ‘ear an’ SEE.

An’ never you stop sayin’ it—let yer ‘eart beat it an’ yer breath breathe it —an’ yer ‘ll find yer goin’ about laughin’ soft to yerself an’ lovin’ everythin’ as if it was yer own child at breast. An’ no ‘arm can come to yer. Try it when yer go ‘ome.’ “

“Did you?” asked Dart.

Glad answered for her with a tremulous—yes it was a TREMULOUS— giggle, a weirdly moved little sound.

“When she wakes in the mornin’ she ses to ‘erself, `Good things is goin’ to come to-day—cheerfle things.’ When there’s a knock at the door she ses, `Somethin’ friendly ‘s comin’ in.’ An’ when Drunken Bet’s makin’ a row an’ ragin’ an’ tearin’ an’ threatenin’ to ‘ave ‘er eyes out of ‘er fice, she ses, `Lor, Bet, yer don’t mean a word of it—yer a friend to every woman in the ‘ouse.’ When she don’t know which way to turn, she stands still an’ ses, `Speak, Lord, thy servant ‘eareth,’ an’ then she does wotever next comes into ‘er mind— an’ she says it’s allus the right answer. Sometimes,” sheepishly, “I’ve tried it myself—p’raps it’s true. I did it this mornin’ when I sat down an’ pulled me sack over me ‘ead on the bridge. Polly ‘d been cryin’ so loud all night I’d got a bit low in me stummick an’—” She stopped suddenly and turned on Dart as if light had flashed across her mind. “Dunno nothin’ about it,” she stammered, “but I SAID it—just like she does— an’ YOU come!”

Plainly she had uttered whatever words she had used in the form of a sort of incantation, and here was the result in the living body of this man sitting before her. She stared hard at him, repeating her words: “YOU come. Yes, you did.”

“It was the answer,” said Miss Montaubyn, with entire simplicity as she bit off her thread, “that ‘s wot it was.”

Antony Dart lifted his heavy head.

“You believe it,” he said.

“I ‘m livin’ on believin’ it,” she said confidingly. “I ain’t got nothin’ else. An’ answers keeps comin’ and comin’.”

“What answers?”

“Bits o’ work—an’ things as ‘elps. Glad there, she’s one.”

“Aw,” said Glad, “I ain’t nothin’. I likes to ‘ear yer tell about it. She ses,” to Dart again, a little slowly, as she watched his face with curiously questioning eyes—“she ses ‘E’S in the room—same as ‘E’s everywhere —in this ‘ere room. Sometimes she talks out loud to ‘Im.”

“What!” cried Dart, startled again.

The strange Majestic Awful Idea —the Deity of the Ages—to be spoken of as a mere unfeared Reality! And even as the vaguely formed thought sprang in his brain he started once more, suddenly confronted by the meaning his sense of shock implied. What had all the sermons of all the centuries been preaching but that it was Reality? What had all the infidels of every age contended but that it was Unreal, and the folly of a dream? He had never thought of himself as an infidel; perhaps it would have shocked him to be called one, though he was not quite sure. But that a little superannuated dancer at music-halls, battered and worn by an unlawful life, should sit and smile in absolute faith at such a—a superstition as this, stirred something like awe in him.

For she was smiling in entire acquiescence.

“It ‘s what the curick ses,” she enlarged radiantly. “Though ‘e don t believe it, pore young man; ‘e on’y thinks ‘e does. `It’s for ‘igh an’ low,’ ‘e ses, `for you an’ me as well as for them as is royal fambleys. The Almighty ‘E ‘s EVERYWHERE!’ `Yes,’ ses I, `I’ve felt ‘Im ‘ere—as near as y’ are yerself, sir, I ‘ave—an’ I’ve spoke to ‘Im.”’

“What did the curate say?” Dart asked, amazed.

“Seemed like it frightened ‘im a bit. `We mustn’t be too bold, Miss Montaubyn, my dear,’ ‘e ses, for ‘e’s a kind young man as ever lived, an’ often ses `my dear’ to them ‘e ‘s comfortin’. But yer see the lidy ‘ad gave me a Bible o’ me own an’ I’d set ‘ere an’ read it, an’ read it an’ learned verses to say to meself when I was in bed—an’ I’d got ter feel like it was someone talkin’ to me an’ makin’ me understand. So I ses, ` ‘T ain’t boldness we’re warned against; it’s not lovin’ an’ trustin’ enough, an’ not askin’ an’ believin’ TRUE. Don’t yer remember wot it ses: “I, even I, am ‘e that comforteth yer. Who art thou that thou art afraid of man that shall die an’ the son of man that shall be made as grass, an’ forgetteth Jehovah thy Creator, that stretched forth the ‘eavens an’ laid the foundations of the earth?” an’ “I’ve covered thee with the shadder of me ‘and,” it ses; an’ “I will go before thee an’ make the rough places smooth;” an’ ” ‘Itherto ye ‘ave asked nothin’ in my name; ask therefore that ye may receive, an’ yer joy may be made full.” ‘ An’ ‘e looked down on the floor as if ‘e was doin’ some ‘ard thinkin’, pore young man, an’ ‘e ses, quite sudden an’ shaky, `Lord, I believe, ‘elp thou my unbelief,’ an’ ‘e ses it as if ‘e was in trouble an’ didn’t know ‘e’d spoke out loud.”

“Where—how did you come upon your verses?” said Dart. “How did you find them?”

“Ah,” triumphantly, “they was all answers—they was the first answers I ever ‘ad. When I first come ‘ome an’ it seemed as if I was goin’ to be swep’ away in the dirt o’ the street—one day when I was near drove wild with cold an’ ‘unger, I set down on the floor an’ I dragged the Bible to me an’ I ses: `There ain’t nothin’ on earth or in ‘ell as ‘ll ‘elp me. I’m goin’ to do wot the lidy said—mad or not.’ An’ I ‘eld the book—an’ I ‘eld my breath, too, ‘cos it was like waitin’ for the end o’ the world—an’ after a bit I ‘ears myself call out in a ‘oller whisper, `Speak, Lord, thy servant ‘eareth. Show me a ‘ope.’ An’ I was tremblin’ all over when I opened the book. An’ there it was! `I will go before thee an’ make the rough places smooth, I will break in pieces the doors of brass and will cut in sunder the bars of iron.’ An’ I knowed it was a answer.”

“You—knew—it—was an answer?”

“Wot else was it?” with a shining face. “I’d arst for it, an’ there it was. An’ in about a hour Glad come runnin’ up ‘ere, an’ she’d ‘ad a bit o’ luck—”

” ‘T wasn’t nothin’ much,” Glad broke in deprecatingly, “on’y I’d got somethin’ to eat an’ a bit o’ fire.”

“An’ she made me go an’ ‘ave a ‘earty meal, an’ set an’ warm meself. An’ she was that cheerfle an’ full o’ pluck, she ‘elped me to forget about the things that was makin’ me into a madwoman. SHE was the answer— same as the book ‘ad promised. They comes in different wyes the answers does. Bless yer, they don’t come in claps of thunder an’ streaks o’ lightenin’— they just comes easy an’ natural— so ‘s sometimes yer don’t think for a minit or two that they’re answers at all. But it comes to yer in a bit an’ yer ‘eart stands still for joy. An’ ever since then I just go to me book an’ arst. P’raps,” her smile an illuminating thing, “me bein’ the low an’ pore in spirit at the beginnin’, an’ settin’ ‘ere all alone by me-self day in an’ day out, just thinkin’ it all over—an’ arstin’—an’ waitin’ —p’raps light was gave me ‘cos I was in such a little place an’ in the dark. But I ain’t pore in spirit now. Lor’, no, yer can’t be when yer’ve on’y got to believe. `An’ ‘itherto ye ‘ave arst nothin’ in my name; arst therefore that ye may receive an’ yer joy be made full.’ “

“Am I sitting here listening to an old female reprobate’s disquisition on religion?” passed through Antony Dart’s mind. “Why am I listening? I am doing it because here is a creature who BELIEVES—knowing no doctrine, knowing no church. She BELIEVES—she thinks she KNOWS her Deity is by her side. She is not afraid. To her simpleness the awful Unknown is the Known—and WITH her.”

“Suppose it were true,” he uttered aloud, in response to a sense of inward tremor, “suppose—it—were —TRUE?” And he was not speaking either to the woman or the girl, and his forehead was damp.

“Gawd!” said Glad, her chin almost on her knees, her eyes staring fearsomely. “S’pose it was—an’ us sittin’ ‘ere an’ not knowin’ it—an’ no one knowin’ it—nor gettin’ the good of it. Sime as if—” pondering hard in search of simile, “sime as if no one ‘ad never knowed about ‘lectricity, an’ there wasn’t no ‘lectric lights nor no ‘lectric nothin’. Onct nobody knowed, an’ all the sime it was there—jest waitin’.”

Her fantastic laugh ended for her with a little choking, vaguely hysteric sound.

“Blimme,” she said. “Ain’t it queer, us not knowin’—IF IT’S TRUE.”

Antony Dart bent forward in his chair. He looked far into the eyes of the ex-dancer as if some unseen thing within them might answer him. Miss Montaubyn herself for the moment he did not see.

“What,” he stammered hoarsely, his voice broken with awe, “what of the hideous wrongs—the woes and horrors—and hideous wrongs?”

“There wouldn’t be none if WE was right—if we never thought nothin’ but `Good’s comin’—good ‘s ‘ere.’ If we everyone of us thought it—every minit of every day.”

She did not know she was speaking of a millennium—the end of the world. She sat by her one candle, threading her needle and believing she was speaking of To-day.

He laughed a hollow laugh.

“If we were right!” he said. “It would take long—long—long—to make us all so.”

“It would be slow p’raps. Well, so it would—but good comes quick for them as begins callin’ it. It’s been quick for ME,” drawing her thread through the needle’s eye triumphantly. “Lor’, yes, me legs is better—me luck ‘s better—people ‘s better. Bless yer, yes!”

“It ‘s true,” said Glad; “she gets on somehow. Things comes. She never wants no drink. Me now,” she applied to Miss Montaubyn, “if I took it up same as you—wot’d come to a gal like me?”

“Wot ud yer want ter come?” Dart saw that in her mind was an absolute lack of any premonition of obstacle. “Wot’d yer arst fer in yer own mind?”

Glad reflected profoundly.

“Polly,” she said, “she wants to go ‘ome to ‘er mother an’ to the country. I ain’t got no mother an’ wot I ‘ear of the country seems like I’d get tired of it. Nothin’ but quiet an’ lambs an’ birds an’ things growin.’ Me, I likes things goin’ on. I likes people an’ ‘and organs an’ ‘buses. I’d stay ‘ere—same as I told YOU,” with a jerk of her hand toward Dart. “An’ do things in the court—if I ‘ad a bit o’ money. I don’t want to live no gay life when I ‘m a woman. It’s too ‘ard. Us pore uns ends too bad. Wisht I knowed I could get on some ‘ow.”

“Good ‘ll come,” said Miss Montaubyn. “Just you say the same as me every mornin’—`Good’s fillin’ the world, an’ some of it’s comin’ to me. It ‘s bein’ sent—an’ I ‘m goin’ to meet it. It ‘s comin’—it ‘s comin’.’ ” She bent forward and touched the girl’s shoulder with her astonishing eyes alight. “Bless yer, wot’s in