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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Book online «The Dawn of a To-morrow by Frances Hodgson Burnett (good story books to read TXT) đ». Author Frances Hodgson Burnett
Gladâs eyes stared into hers, they became mysteriously, almost awesomely, astonishing also.
âIs it?â she breathed in a hushed voice.
âYes, Lorâ, yes! When yer get up in the morninâ you just stand still anâ ARST it. `Speak, Lord,â ses you; `speak, Lordââ â
âThy servant âeareth,â ended Gladâs hushed speech. âBlimme, but I âm goinâ to try it!â
Perhaps the brain of her saw it still as an incantation, perhaps the soul of her, called up strangely out of the dark and still newborn and blind and vague, saw it vaguely and half blindly as something else.
Dart was wondering which of these things were true.
âWeâve never been expectinâ nothinâ thatâs good,â said Miss Montaubyn. âWe âre allus expectinâ the other. Who isnât? I was allus expectinâ rheumatiz anâ âunger anâ cold anâ starvinâ old age. Wot was you lookinâ for?â to Dart.
He looked down on the floor and answered heavily.
âFailing brainâfailing lifeâ despairâdeath!â
âNone of âem âs cominââif yer donât call âem. Stand still anâ listen for the other. Itâs the other thatâs TRUE.â
She was without doubt amazing. She chirped like a bird singing on a bough, rejoicing in token of the shining of the sun.
âItâs wot yer can work onâ this,â said Glad. âThe curickâ âeâs a good sort anâ noâ âarm in âim âbut âe ses: `Trouble anâ âunger is ter teach yer ter submit. Accidents anâ coughs as tears yer lungs is sent you to prepare yer for âeaven. If yer loves âIm as sends âem, yer âll go there.â ` âAve yer ever bin?â ses I. ` âAve yer ever saw anyone thatâs bin? âAve yer ever saw anyone thatâs saw anyone thatâs bin?â `No,â âe ses. `Donât, me girl, donât!â `Garn,â I ses; `tell me somethinâ as âll do me some good afore Iâm dead! âEavenâs too far off.â â
âThe kingdom of âeaven is at âand,â said Miss Montaubyn. âBless yer, yes, just âere.â
Antony Dart glanced round the room. It was a strange place. But something WAS here. Magic, was it? Frenzyâdreamsâwhat?
He heard from below a sudden murmur and crying out in the street. Miss Montaubyn heard it and stopped in her sewing, holding her needle and thread extended.
Glad heard it and sprang to her feet.
âSomethin âs âappened,â she cried out. âSomeone âs âurt.â
She was out of the room in a breathâs space. She stood outside listening a few seconds and darted back to the open door, speaking through it. They could hear below commotion, exclamations, the wail of a child.
âSomethin âs âappened to Bet!â she cried out again. âI can âear the child.â
She was gone and flying down the staircase; Antony Dart and Miss Montaubyn rose together. The tumult was increasing; people were running about in the court, and it was plain a crowd was forming by the magic which calls up crowds as from nowhere about the door. The childâs screams rose shrill above the noise. It was no small thing which had occurred.
âI must go,â said Miss Montaubyn, limping away from her table. âPâraps I can âelp. Pâraps you can âelp, too,â as he followed her.
They were met by Glad at the threshold. She had shot back to them, panting.
âShe was blind drunk,â she said, âanâ she went out to get more. She tried to cross the street anâ fell under a car. Sheâll be dead in five minits. Iâm goinâ for the biby.â
Dart saw Miss Montaubyn step back into her room. He turned involuntarily to look at her.
She stood still a secondâso still that it seemed as if she was not drawing mortal breath. Her astonishing, expectant eyes closed themselves, and yet in closing spoke expectancy still.
âSpeak, Lord,â she said softly, but as if she spoke to Something whose nearness to her was such that her hand might have touched it. âSpeak, Lord, thy servant âeareth.â
Antony Dart almost felt his hair rise. He quaked as she came near, her poor clothes brushing against him. He drew back to let her pass first, and followed her leading.
The court was filled with men, women, and children, who surged about the doorway, talking, crying, and protesting against each otherâs crowding. Dart caught a glimpse of a policeman fighting his way through with a doctor. A dishevelled woman with a child at her dirty, bare breast had got in and was talking loudly.
âJust outside the court it was,â she proclaimed, âanâ I saw it. If sheâd bin âerself it couldnât âave âappened. `No time for âosspitles,â ses I. Sheâs not twenty breaths to dror; let âer die in âer own bed, pore thing!â And both she and her baby breaking into wails at one and the same time, other women, some hysteric, some maudlin with gin, joined them in a terrified outburst.
âGet out, you women,â commanded the doctor, who had forced his way across the threshold. âSend them away, officer,â to the policeman.
There were others to turn out of the room itself, which was crowded with morbid or terrified creatures, all making for confusion. Glad had seized the child and was forcing her way out into such air as there was outside.
The bedâa strange and loathly thingâstood by the empty, rusty fireplace. Drunken Bet lay on it, a bundle of clothing over which the doctor bent for but a few minutes before he turned away.
Antony Dart, standing near the door, heard Miss Montaubyn speak to him in a whisper.
âMay I go to âer?â and the doctor nodded.
She limped lightly forward and her small face was white, but expectant still. What could she expect nowâO Lord, what?
An extraordinary thing happened. An abnormal silence fell. The owners of such faces as on stretched necks caught sight of her seemed in a flash to communicate with others in the crowd.
âJinny Montaubyn!â someone whispered. And âJinny Montaubynâ was passed along, leaving an awed stirring in its wake. Those whom the pressure outside had crushed against the wall near the window in a passionate hurry, breathed on and rubbed the panes that they might lay their faces to them. One tore out the rags stuffed in a broken place and listened breathlessly.
Jinny Montaubyn was kneeling down and laying her small old hand on the muddied forehead. She held it there a second or so and spoke in a voice whose low clearness brought back at once to Dart the voice in which she had spoken to the Something upstairs.
âBet,â she said, âBet.â And then more soft still and yet more clear, âBet, my dear.â
It seemed incredible, but it was a fact. Slowly the lids of the womanâs eyes lifted and the pupils fixed themselves on Jinny Montaubyn, who leaned still closer and spoke again.
â âT ainât true,â she said. âNot this. âT ainât TRUE. There IS NO DEATH,â slow and soft, but passionately distinct. âTHEREâISâNOâDEATH.â
The muscles of the womanâs face twisted it into a rueful smile. The three words she dragged out were so faint that perhaps none but Dartâs strained ears heard them.
âWotâpriceâME?â
The soul of her was loosening fast and straining away, but Jinny Montaubyn followed it.
âTHEREâISâNOâDEATH,â and her low voice had the tone of a slender silver trumpet. âIn a minit yer âll knowâin a minit. Lord,â lifting her expectant face, âshow her the wye.â
Mysteriously the clouds were clearing from the sodden faceâmysteriously. Miss Montaubyn watched them as they were swept away! A minuteâtwo minutesâand they were gone. Then she rose noiselessly and stood looking down, speaking quite simply as if to herself.
âAh,â she breathed, âshe DOES know nowâfer sure anâ certain.â
Then Antony Dart, turning slightly, realized that a man who had entered the house and been standing near him, breathing with light quickness, since the moment Miss Montaubyn had knelt, was plainly the person Glad had called the âcurick,â and that he had bowed his head and covered his eyes with a hand which trembled.
IVHe was a young man with an eager soul, and his work in Apple Blossom Court and places like it had torn him many ways. Religious conventions established through centuries of custom had not prepared him for life among the submerged. He had struggled and been appalled, he had wrestled in prayer and felt himself unanswered, and in repentance of the feeling had scourged himself with thorns. Miss Montaubyn, returning from the hospital, had filled him at first with horror and protest.
âBut who knowsâwho knows?â he said to Dart, as they stood and talked together afterward, âFaith as a little child. That is literally hers. And I was shocked by itâand tried to destroy it, until I suddenly saw what I was doing. I wasâin my cloddish egotismâtrying to show her that she was irreverent BECAUSE she could believe what in my soul I do not, though I dare not admit so much even to myself. She took from some strange passing visitor to her tortured bedside what was to her a revelation. She heard it first as a child hears a story of magic. When she came out of the hospital, she told it as if it was one. IâIââ he bit his lips and moistened them, âargued with her and reproached her. Christ the Merciful, forgive me! She sat in her squalid little room with her magicâsometimes in the darkâsometimes without fire, and she clung to it, and loved it and asked it to help her, as a child asks its father for bread. When she was answeredâand God forgive me again for doubting that the simple good that came to her WAS an answer âwhen any small help came to her, she was a radiant thing, and without a shadow of doubt in her eyes told me of it as proofâproof that she had been heard. When things went wrong for a day and the fire was out again and the room dark, she said, `I âavenât kept near enoughâI âavenât trusted TRUE. It will be gave me soon,â and when once at such a time I said to her, `We must learn to say, Thy will be done,â she smiled up at me like a happy baby and answered:
`Thy will be done on earth AS IT IS IN âEAVEN. Lorâ, thereâs no cold there, nor no âunger nor no cryinâ nor pain. Thatâs the way the will is done in âeaven. Thatâs wot I arst for all day longâfor it to be done on earth as it is in âeaven.â What could I say? Could I tell her that the will of the Deity on the earth he created was only the will to do evilâto give painâto crush the creature made in His own image. What else do we mean when we say under all horror and agony that befalls, `It is Godâs willâGodâs will be done.â Base unbeliever though I am, I could not speak the words. Oh, she has something we have not. Her poor, little misspent life has changed itself into a shining thing, though it shines and glows only in this hideous place. She herself does not know of its shining. But Drunken Bet would stagger up to her room and ask to be told what she called her `pantermineâ stories. I have seen her there sitting listeningâlistening with strange quiet on her and dull yearning in her sodden eyes. So would other and worse women go to her, and I, who had struggled with them, could see that she had reached some remote longing in their beings which I had never touched. In time the seed would have stirred to lifeâit is beginning to stir even now. During the months since she came back to the courtâthough they have laughed at herâboth men and women have begun to see her as a creature weirdly set apart. Most of them
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