Blade-O'-Grass. Golden Grain. and Bread and Cheese and Kisses.

by B. L. Farjeon

V.

[YOU'RE A PARSON, SIR, AND I PUT IT TO YOU. WHAT DO YOU SAY TO PARTING MOTHER AND CHILD?]

It was not alone because Mr. Merrywhistle urged me that I took an interest in Blade-o'-Grass. I was impelled to do so by certain feelings of my own with reference to the poor girl. I became nervously desirous to learn her history, and I questioned Mr. Merrywhistle, He could tell me nothing, however, but the usual tale attached to such unhappy human waifs--a tale which I had heard, with slightly-varying forms of detail, many times before. I desired to learn something more definite--something which I scarcely dared to confess, even to myself, working as I was in the dark, and with only a vague impression or a morbid fancy for a basis. But then came the thought that Rachel shared the impression with me, and I continued my inquiries.

'Jimmy Virtue knows more about Blade-o'-Grass than I do,' said Mr. Merrywhistle, 'It was through him I first became acquainted with her.'

Jimmy Virtue was not very communicative; it was not in his nature to take easily to new friends.

'But you yourself,' I urged, 'spoke of her mother and father as if you knew them intimately.'

'Did I?' he replied. 'Ah! I ain't over-particular what I say sometimes, so you must put it down to that. You see, they were not long in this alley afore the father cut away, and the mother--well, she died! So what should I know of 'em? The mother was buried afore the kids was three weeks old.'

'The children!' I exclaimed, my heart beating fast at this discovery. 'Then the poor mother had twins?'

'Yes, there was two on 'em; as if one warn't enough, and more than enough! And then a woman--Mrs. Manning her name was--comes round a-beggin' for the babbies, and a nice row she kicked up about it. Arksed me what I'd lend on 'em--as if babbies warn't as cheap as dirt, and a deal sight more troublesome!'

'These twins, Mr. Virtue--were they both girls?'

'Yes, they was both gals, I 'eerd.'

'What became of the other child?'

I asked eagerly.

'What other?' demanded Jimmy Virtue surlily. 'I didn't know no other. Blade-o'-Grass was the only one left.'

And this was all the information I could elicit from him. I inquired of other old residents in Stoney-alley, but not one of them remembered anything worth hearing. I returned to Mr. Merrywhistle, and after narrating to him the fruitless result of my inquiries, I asked abruptly if he knew anything concerning the circumstances attending the birth of Ruth. The old man changed colour, and his manner became very nervous.

'I can see your drift,' he said in a troubled voice. 'In your mind, Ruth and Blade-o'-Grass are associated, as if some undiscovered tie exists between them. I once shared your suspicion. I saw in Blade-o'-Grass a likeness to Ruth, and I mentioned it to Mrs. Silver. But when Mrs. Silver adopted Ruth, the babe was orphaned indeed. Both father and mother were dead, and Ruth was the only child. It is impossible, therefore, that the likeness between Ruth and Blade-o'-Grass can be anything but accidental. Do not say anything of this to Ruth or Mrs. Silver; it would grieve them. Look at Ruth and Blade-o'-Grass; see them as they are, and think what a gulf separates them.'

A gulf indeed! But still I was not satisfied.

I found it much easier to learn the fullest particulars concerning Tom Beadle. Plainly and simply, he was a thief, and had been in prison a dozen times at least. The day following our holiday-making he was brought up at the police-court on a common charge of pickpocketing. Blade-o'-Grass begged me to intercede for him with the magistrate; but it was impossible for me to do so, as I knew nothing concerning him but what was bad. 'He loves me, sir, does Tom,' she pleaded; 'and I love 'im!' And said it as if it were a sufficient reason for his not being punished. It was impossible to reason with her on the matter; all that concerned herself and Tom Beadle she could look at from only one point of view. Whether he worked or whether he stole, nearly every farthing he obtained was spent in food. Blade-o'-Grass's standpoint was that she and Tom and the baby must have bread, and that if they could not get it one way they must get it another. Tom Beadle did work sometimes as a costermonger; but the difficulties in his way were very serious because of his antecedents, and he rebelled against these difficulties sullenly and savagely, and bruised his soul against them. He was no casuist, and made no attempt to excuse himself. He was simply a man at war with society, a man whose keen intellect had been sharpened and perfected in bad soil. As I write of him now, I can see him slouching along in his patched clothes, with defiance in his mind. Watchful eyes have been upon him almost from his birth; they are upon him now, whichever way he turns, and he knows it, and has grown up in the knowledge. Respectability turns its back upon him--naturally, for he is its enemy. Even benevolence shrinks from him, for the spirit of cunning and ingratitude lurks in his every motion. I paint him as I knew him, in the plainest of colours. He had one redeeming trait in his character; he loved Blade-o'-Grass, after his fashion, with as much sincerity as good men love good women. His love for her had come to him naturally, as other worse qualities in his nature had come. By Blade-o'-Grass he was loved, as she had truly said, but with that deeper love of which only a woman's nature is capable. Hers was capable of the highest form of gratitude, of the highest form of love. She was faithful to Tom Beadle, and she loved her child with as perfect, ay, and as pure a love as can animate the breast of the most delicate lady in the land. Overshadowing these bright streaks of light was a darker line. When she was a mere babe, afterwards when she was a child, afterwards when she was a woman, she frequently suffered the pangs of hunger; she often knew what it was to want a crust of bread. From these sufferings came the singular and mournful idea that she had within her a ravenous creature which she called a tiger, and which, when she was hungry, tore at her entrails for food. This tiger had been the terror of her life, and it was with her an agonising belief that she had endowed her child with the tiger curse: I can find no other term of expression. From this belief nothing could drive her. Talk to her of its folly, of its impossibility, and you talked to stone. Her one unfailing answer was, 'Ah, I know; you can't. I feel it, and my baby feels it also.' I learnt the story of this tiger from her own lips. I found her waiting for me one morning at the corner of the street in which I lived. It was while Tom Beadle was undergoing his term of imprisonment. I stopped and spoke to her, and she asked might she say something to me. Yes, I answered, I could spare her a few minutes; and I led the way to my rooms.

'It was Mr. Wirtue as told me to come to you, sir,' she said; 'he ain't so 'ard on me as he was.'

'I am glad you are friends again,' I said. 'Will you have some bread-and-butter?'

'Yes, if you please, sir.'

I cut some bread-and-butter for her and her child, and I dissolved some preserved milk in warm water for her. She watched with keen interest the process of making this milk, and when she tasted it said, with a touch of humour of which she was quite unconscious:

'They won't want no more mothers by and by, sir, what with sich milk as this, and feedin'-bottles, and p'ramberlaters!'

While she was eating and giving her child to eat, she reverted to Jimmy Virtue.

'You see, sir, he was mad with me 'cause I wouldn't give up Tom; but I couldn't do that, sir, arter all we've gone through. We growed up together, sir. If you knowed all Tom's done for me, you'd wonder 'ow anybody could 'ave the 'eart to arks me to give 'im up. Tom 'as stuck to me through thick and thin, and I'll stick to 'im as long as ever I live! I've 'eerd talk of sich things as 'eart-strings. Well, sir, my 'eartstrings 'd break if I was to lose 'im. Leave Tom! Give 'im up now! No, sir; it wouldn't be natural, and what ain't natural can't be good.'

Blade-o'-Grass cut straight into the core of many difficulties with her unconsciously-uttered truisms. When she and her child had eaten all I had set before them, she opened the business she had come upon. Then it was that I heard the history of the tiger.

'It's inside o' me, sir; I was born with it. When I was little, there was a talk o' cuttin' me open, and takin' the tiger out; but they didn't do it, sir. Per'aps it'd been better for me if they 'ad.'

I attempted to reason her out of her fancy; but I soon saw how useless were my arguments. She shook her head with sad determination, and smiled piteously.

'It don't stand to reason as you can understand it, sir. You ain't got a tiger in your inside! I 'ave, and it goes a-tearin' up and down inside o' me, eatin' me up, sir, till I'm fit to drop down dead. It was beginnin' this mornin', sir, afore I seed you.'

'Did you have any breakfast, my poor girl?'

'Not much, sir; a slice o' bread and some water 'tween me and baby. You see, sir, Tom's not 'ere, and I've 'ad some bad days lately.'

'You don't feel the tiger now?'

'No, sir; it's gone to sleep.'

I sighed.

'I wish,' she continued, 'I could take somethin' as 'd kill it! I tried to ketch it once--yes, sir, I did; but it was no go. I 'adn't 'ad nothink to eat for a long time, and it was goin' on awful. Then, when I got some grub, I thought if I put it down on the table, and set it afore me with my mouth open, per'aps the tiger 'd see it, and come up and fetch it. I was almost frightened out o' my life as I waited for it; for I've never seed it, sir, and I don't know what it's like. But it wouldn't come; it knows its book, the tiger does! I waited till I was that faint that I could 'ardly move, and I was forced to send the grub down to it. I never tried that move agin, sir.'

I told her I was sorry to hear that she had been unfortunate lately. She nodded her head with an air of weary resignation.

'It can't be 'elped, sir, I s'ppose. A good many societies 'as sprung up, and they're agin me, I think. O, yes, sir, we know all about 'em. It warn't very long ago that I was walkin' a long way from 'ome, with some matches in my 'and; I thort I'd try my luck where nobody knowed me. A gentleman stopped and spoke to me. "You're beggin'," he said. I didn't deny it, but I didn't say nothin', for fear o' the peelers. "It's no use your comin' 'ere," he said; "we've got a society in this neighbourhood, and we don't give nothink to the poor. Go and work." Then he went on to tell me--as if I cared to 'eer 'im! but he was one as liked to 'eer 'isself talk--that it was sich as me as was the cause of everythink that's bad. Well, sir, that made me open my eyes, and I couldn't 'elp arksing 'im if it was bad for me to try and git a bit o' bread for my baby; but he got into sich a passion that I was glad to git away from 'im. Another gentleman persuaded me to go to a orfice where they looked arter the likes o' me. I went, and when they 'eerd me out, they said they'd make inquiries into my case. Well, sir, they did make inquiries, and it come to the old thing that I've 'eerd over and over and over agin. They said they'd do somethink for me if I'd leave Tom; but when they spoke agin 'im I stood up for 'im, and they got angry, and said as I was no good. Then another party as I went to said they'd take my child--which I 'ad no business to 'ave, they said--if I liked, and that they'd give me ten shillin's to set me up in a stock of somethink to sell for my livin'. Part with my child!' exclaimed Blade-o'-Grass, snatching the little one to her lap, and looking around with fierce fear, as if enemies were present ready to tear her treasure from her. 'Sell my 'eart for ten shillin's! You're a parson, sir, and I put it to you. What do you say to partin' mother and child?'

What could I say? I was dumb. It was best to be so upon such straightforward questions propounded by a girl who, in her position and with her feelings, could understand and would recognise no logic but the logic of natural laws; it was best to be silent if I wished to do good, and I did wish it honestly, sincerely. The more I saw of Blade-o'-Grass, the more she interested me; the more she interested me, the more she pained me. I saw before me a problem, hard as a rock, sensitive as a flower--a problem which no roundabout legislation can solve in the future, or touch in the present. Other developments will to a certainty start up in time to come--other developments, and worse in all likelihood, because a more cultivated intelligence may be engaged in justifying what now ignorance is held to be some slight excuse for.

'Then, sir,' continued Blade-o'-Grass, driving her hard nails home, 'if I was one o' them unnatural mothers as don't care for their children, and took the orfer--'ow about the ten shillin's to set me up in a stock o' somethin' to sell? What do the peelers say to a gal as tries to sell anythin' in the streets? Why, there ain't a inch o' flagstone as she's got a right to set 'er foot on! And as for the kerb, as don't belong properly to nobody, and's not wanted for them as walks or them as rides, why, a gal daren't stand on it to save 'er life! And that's the way it goes, sir; that's the way it goes! But I beg your pardon, sir. I'm wanderin' away from what I come for, and I'm a-takin' up your time.'

'Go on, my poor girl,' I said; 'let me know what I can do for you.'

'It ain't for me, sir; it's for my baby.'

'What can I do for her, the poor little thing?' I asked, pinching the child's cheek, who showed no pleasure, however, at my caress; there dwelt in her face an expression of mournfulness which was native to her, and which nothing could remove. 'What can I do for her?'

'Pray for 'er!' implored Blade-o'-Grass, with all her soul in her eyes, from which the tears were streaming.

I started slightly, and waited for further explanation. Blade-o'-Grass regarded me earnestly before she spoke again.

'You see, sir, she was born with a tiger inside of 'er, the same as I was; it ain't 'er fault, the dear, it's mine. It breaks my 'eart to think as she'll grow up like me, and that the tiger'll never leave 'er. I talked to Mr. Wirtue about it yesterday, and he says to me, "Why don't you go to the parson, and arks 'im to pray the tiger out 'er?" And so I've come, sir. You'd 'ardly believe what I'd do if it was set me to do, if I could get the tiger away from my dear. I'd be chopped up, sir, I would! Mr. Wirtue says prayer'll do anythink, and that if I didn't believe 'im, I was to arks you if it won't I can't pray myself; I don't know 'ow to. So I've come to you to arks you to pray the tiger out of my baby!'

I scarcely remember in what terms I replied. I know, however, that I sent Blade-o'-Grass away somewhat consoled, saying that she would teach her baby to bless me every day of her life if my prayers were successful.