CHAPTER XII.—A LIFE STRUGGLE.
Where the lamps quiver,
So far in the river,
With many a light
From many a casement—
From garret and basement,
She stood with amazement—
Houseless by night!
The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver;
But not the dark arch—
Or the black flowing river.
Mad from life’s history,
Glad to Death’s mystery
Swift to be hurl’d
Anywhere! anywhere—
Out of the world!
—Hood.
Within a close, narrow, scantily-furnished chamber, upon a miserable bed, sparely provided with bedclothes, lay a young girl, weak and wasted, struggling in the deadly grip of a fierce fever.
The room—a back attic—bore evidence of the humble position of the householder, and, in addition to its native foul atmosphere, was impregnated with the sickly odour prevalent in chambers in which there is sickness.
A truckle bed, a table, a chair, comprised the furniture; a soiled and ragged curtain at the diamond-paned window comprehended all the room possessed in the shape of drapery or hangings; the walls were bare, and washed with the odious salmon-hued distemper colour so prevalent in debtors’ prisons and apartments in poor neighbourhoods; the floor-boards with wide interstices between them, and large knot-holes here and there, where mice looked up, and unspareable halfpence sometimes rolled down, had not even a show of comfort in the way of a small bit of old stair-carpet by the bedside. All within and around bespoke poverty of the grimmest school.
The girl, who lay upon the bed moaning in a disturbed slumber, with flushed cheeks, and pale and transparent lips, was no other than Lotte Clinton.
Upon the night of the fire, when landed safely by the conductor of the fire-escape, she found herself in her thin night-dress, exposed to the cold night air, which struck chill to her unprotected bosom, while her naked tender feet were upon the hard stones, ankle deep in rushing water.
The shock she had experienced on being awakened out of a deep slumber by the startling, horrifying cry of fire, the terror which all but paralysed her when, half-blinded and nearly suffocated, she discovered her room filled with smoke, the excitement which followed the rushing from her chamber, the roaring of the flames, the crackling and sputtering of the burning wood, the hoarse cries of the mob, the perilous descent to the ground, the sudden exposure to the eager gaze of a multitude of faces, red in the glaring, unnatural light, the whirl, the turmoil, mingled with a species of hysterical joy and gratefulness at her deliverance, created a combination of emotions beyond her physical powers of endurance.
It is not wonderful that—affrighted, unknowing where to turn, whither to go, what to do, chilled to the marrow by the piercing coldness of the water rushing over her unprotected, delicate feet, utterly overwhelmed by what had happened, by the incidents surrounding her, and in which she was yet an actor—she should succumb; and find, that as some person hastily and roughly seized her about the waist, she should have a dim consciousness that the whole scene was fading from her as some expiring terrible vision, and that, when it disappeared from her eyes, she should be lifeless in the arms of the person who had caught hold of her.
The man who had taken her in his arms was a small tradesman, dealing in coals and potatoes, and a little—a very little—greengrocery. He lived in a neighbouring street, in a small house, and was blessed with a wife and nine children, who were “dragged” up somehow. He was one of the first on the spot when the alarm of fire was given. He saw Lotte landed from the fire-escape; he observed the agonized expression upon the poor girl’s face—heard her low, hysteric sobbing, and saw her totter as though she would fall upon her face in the muddy, eddying pool in which, barefooted, she was standing. It was enough for him. He drew off instantly his heavy coat of “fashionable cable cord,” and, flinging it over her shoulders, caught her up in his arms, and raced off to his old ’oman with his burden, followed by a small train of women and boys.
His wife was no little astonished at this sudden accession to her household; but her womanly sympathy was roused immediately she beheld the condition of the poor girl, and learned that she had been rescued from the raging fire, which her husband had so short a time previously run off to see, and she at once busied herself by applying those restoratives, known to most women, which, though simple, are efficacious in restoring to consciousness those of the sex who fall into swoons.
Lotte Clinton, being a girl of strong feelings, was not, however, easily brought to a calm sense of her great affliction; on the contrary, she recovered from one fainting fit only to fall into another, worse than its predecessor; and when, by the aid of the parish doctor, who had been called in, she was relieved from successive swoons and thrown into a sleep, it was only to awake in a paroxysm of fever and delirium.
Two days she lay thus: on the third, late at night, when the hard-worked parish doctor made his appearance, in order that he might see his patient the last thing, he stood with the woman of the house, at the bed-side of the poor girl.
Two or three anxious questions were put to him, but he shook his head, as the woman thought, ominously.
“She is rapidly approaching a crisis,” he said. “By the dawn her fate will be decided. She has in her favour youth and a good constitution; but it is impossible to tell what may result from the ravages of so fierce a fever as that under which she is suffering. We must hope for the best, and leave the rest in the hands of God! I think it would be proper to make her friends acquainted with her condition, and the sooner they are here at her bed-side the better will be their chance of taking their last farewell of her.”
Those were dread words: ill-omened shadows did they cast. The woman raised her apron to her eyes, and gulped audibly, once or twice.
“I don’t know where to find her friends, if she has any, poor child!” she said, huskily. “My Jem picked her up, out o’ the fire, and brought her here; nobody’s been to ax after her; and we don’t know where to go. She’s never been in her senses since she was here, else I should have got her to tell me; but, lawk! lawk! it is a sad thing for a poor girl like this to die away from home, and ne’er a friend or relation to close her poor dear eyes. I’m a mother myself, sir! an’ God knows, I should be dreadful wretched if one of my babbies was to die away from me in this lonesome way.”
The poor woman sobbed unaffectedly as she concluded. The doctor, with a glittering tear in the corner of his eye, laid his hand gently upon her shoulder—
“While there is life there is hope, Mrs. Bantom,” he said, kindly. “It is too early to despair yet. Had the young woman nothing about her when your husband saved her?—no letter?”
“Lord bless you, nothing on but those night things you see on her; not a blessed rag else. My Jem has been a trying if he could learn anything about her, but lor! he goes about such matters in sech a bladderheaded sort o’ way, that I don’t wonder at his making a bad out on it. He lurches and prowls about when he goes to ax for his own in sech a way that people are afear’d on him. It was only the other day he went for a little bill, which it was a long time a owin’ an’ we wanted the money badly—when he explained what he’d come for in sech an in and out round about sort a way that the people sent for a policeman believin’ he’d come on the sneak to prig the ’ats and mats in the ’all.”
The doctor could hardly forbear a smile. He turned his eyes, however, on Lotte’s face, and bent his head down closely to listen to her breathing, he felt her pulse, timing its rapid beats by his watch; then he laid down the unresisting hand, and addressed himself to Mrs. Ban tom.
“Poor thing!” he said, “she is very, very ill. If she wakes shortly, give to her a dose of the medicine I have brought with me—she must have it, especially if she be violent, incoherent, and resists your attempts to administer it. Should it not have the effect of pacifying her, send for me at once. Good night, Mrs. Bantom. Pray to God to spare her, for she is on the threshold of death,” he concluded, with much solemnity in his tone. He made his way out of the room. She lighted him down the stairs, and when she heard the street-door close she returned to the sick room to watch by the side of her friendless patient.
Her husband and her children were in bed; he had his long hard day’s work to perform on the morrow, and rest was essential to him. The little colony of children were better where they were than anywhere else; Mrs. Bantom, too, had her share of hard work cut out for her for the next day and required sleep, but she did not heed it. She thought only of the poor young creature who she believed to be rapidly quitting her brief earthly career for one that would have no limit.
By the feeble rays of the miserable rushlight burning, she watched the flushed face of Lotte, perceiving it become each minute more crimson and inflamed-She saw her bosom heave and fall, and she listened with a beating heart to her stertorous breathing. She saw her head roll from side to side, her burning hands open and shut, and clutch at the bed-clothes. She heard with an aching heart the low moan of pain which oozed as it were with prolonged mournful cadence from the lips of the poor girl, and she prepared for the sudden and violent awakening to which the doctor had alluded.
But Lotte became silent and motionless again; the only change in her was, that her tongue, white and rigid, protruded from her half-opened mouth. The heart of good Mrs. Bantom smote her as she observed it, and she feared that the fatal moment was indeed at hand. She, however, performed her duty as a nurse with watchful perseverance, and with some grapes which the doctor had brought, she moistened the dry and parched tongue of poor Lotte.
This gentle attention, persevered in, passed not unrewarded. She could see it had a grateful influence; though, as it seemed to her, Lotte was dying in an unconscious state, and would breathe her last without making any sign.
So, though she knew only the prayers taught to her in childhood, and seldom now-a-days went to a place of worship, she remembered the words of the doctor, and she knelt down by the bedside. She was unacquainted with the subtleties of contending faiths. She had a faith which went deeper: she believed implicitly in the supreme power of God, in His ability to give and to take away. In that spirit she appealed to Him.
She prayed to Him, in earnest sincerity, to grant to the motionless, friendless girl, stretched on the bed before her, a longer term, if that, by a more extended sojourn on earth, she might know a greater happiness than had, perhaps, yet been her lot; but that, if it was the Divine will to remove her hence, she implored Him with earnest heart, though with all humility and reverence, to take her to His bosom, that the shadow of sorrow or affliction might fall upon her never more.
When her prayer was ended, she turned her eyes, suffused with tears, upon her unconscious patient.
She started. The hectic crimson of the girl’s cheek had paled down, and was fast changing to a pallid hue. It seemed even that on her brow a moisture had appeared. The heavy breathing had abated, as had the moaning and uneasy movement of head and hands.
Suddenly, Lotte’s eyes opened, and she gazed feebly around her. She looked intently at the bare walls, the scanty furniture, and then earnestly upon Mrs. Bantom, who was watching her every motion with absorbing eagerness.
At length, in a low voice, she murmured, wonderingly—
“Where—where am I? Who are you? What strange place is this?”
Mrs. Bantom’s own common sense told her that the crisis was over; and, so far, the girl’s life was saved.
With a burst of gratitude, she exclaimed, clasping her hands together—
“Oh, my God, you have listened to my prayer! you have heard me, a sinner! you have spared her!”
Tears checked her voice, and she buried her face once more in the bed-clothes.
Lotte regarded her with surprise—as, indeed, she did the whole situation. She felt strangely weak and powerless. Had she been ill? What did it all mean? She repeated the question, in a low voice, and then Mrs. Bantom jumped up, and hurried to the medicine bottle. She poured out a dose, and said, as tenderly as if Lotte was her own child—
“There, drink that, like a good girl, and don’t ask a single question until you are stronger; it will be quite time enough to know all then.”
Lotte would have persisted, but Mrs. Bantom was peremptory, and she was obliged to succumb. Within ten minutes after the medicine had been administered, she was asleep.
The battle had been fought. Youth, constitution, and judicious treatment had won the victory. The abatement of the symptoms was as rapid as had been the attack of the fever, and in two days more Lotte was able to sit up in bed, and communing with herself, come to a full knowledge of the peculiarity and the distressing nature of her situation.
She had, in the interval between the crisis and the present moment, followed the directions of the doctor, obeyed his instructions, and swallowed his medicine with the intrepidity of a martyr. The result had been all that could be desired in her progress to health: fresh air was only needed to complete the rest.
How was that to be got at? How, at present, could she obtain more than came in at her window? She had no clothes; all had been destroyed at the fire, everything had been consumed, including the very little money she had. Her very first impulse had been, on coming to a sense of her position, to send for her brother Charley; but, alas! a fellow-clerk had embezzled upwards of a thousand pounds from the firm to which they both belonged, and had absconded. Charley had been at once charged to accompany a detective, engaged to pursue him, to America, and he had started on the very night of the fire. He was already on the Atlantic, leaving the shores of England at the rate of three hundred miles per day. He had despatched a hasty note to Lotte, informing her of the mission upon which he had been despatched, and directing her, should she require a little pecuniary assistance during his absence, to apply in his name to his firm, and it would be readily afforded her.
This letter she never got. Charley had slipped it into the letter-box of a post-office, on his way to the Euston station, and it was conveyed to its destination by the postman on the following morning. But as he was not able to deliver it, he returned to the Dead Letter Office, first carefully writing upon it, “House burnt down; gone away, not known where.”
Mr. Bantom was, however, employed by Lotte as a messenger to her brother, to inform him of her sad misfortune, but he pursued his inquiries for Charley in a manner so mysterious, that he raised in the mind, of the Clerk whom he addressed a strong impression that Charley Clinton was deeply his debtor, for coals and greengrocery. Now, Charley’s fellow-clerk was never out of debt, and had an intense loathing for all creditors; they were, he used to say, so offensively pertinacious even when they had got an answer, therefore he replied to Mr. Bantom’s questions with curt brevity. All Mr. Bantom could gather was, that Charles Clinton had sailed for America, and his return was a question involved in obscurity. And the clerk facetiously added, “It might not be for years, and it might not be for never.”
This intelligence was a sad blow to Lotte; what to do she could not tell. The honest people who had taken her in to their humble house lived too closely from hand to mouth to aid her; indeed, she was already a burden to them; they could ill—nay, could not—afford to keep her; this she was at no loss to comprehend by what she heard and saw.
After her passion of bitter, bitter tears on learning that Charley had gone to another quarter of the globe, had passed away, she consulted with Mrs. Bantom as to what was to be done.
“I cannot lie here,” she exclaimed; “I shall worry myself to death. If I could get out, I could get work. I could in some way repay you for your kindness, Mrs. Bantom, but to be kept thus—oh, I had better died— better have died.”
She wrung her hands, and sobbed violently.
“It ain’t o’ no use your taking on in this way,” said Mrs. Bantom to her, ready to mingle her tears with her, for to say truth, the poor creature was easily moved to weep. “Somethin’ ’ll turn up, I’ll be bound. My things is too big for you—and too poor—besides, I ain’t got much more’n I stand upright in, but I dare say I shall hit on a way to dress you afore long, so don’t worrit yourself. As for the bit you eats—lor! what’s that among so many on us? there, there, hold your tongue, gal, and keep your spirits up; I’ll find a way to help you.”
And so she did. She went among her neighbours to make up the different articles that constitute the dress of a woman, and poor, as nearly all of whom she begged were, none, when they heard Lotte’s frightful story, refused her appeal. The poor never refuse to help the poor, if they have any means.
Her last application, however, should have been her first, for it was to a young girl about Lotte’s own age and figure. She was an artificial florist, a worker, too, of eighteen hours out of the twenty-four—a diligent, unmurmuring, white slave. She was able to sympathise with poor Lotte, and she generously offered to lend her all the clothes she would require, until she obtained work, and would be able to return them.
With delight Mrs. Bantom accepted her offer, and conveyed the clothes to Lotte. With yet greater delight did the poor girl attire herself in them, and hurry to the house for which she had worked before the fire had rendered her homeless. She revealed her unhappy position to the individual who had employed her (there are few like him, thank Heaven!) He listened coldly to her statement, and finding that six dozen cap fronts, his property, had been consumed in the fire, instead of commiserating her, abruptly informed her that she must pay for the blonde and flowers before she had any more work, and if in two days she did not bring to him the amount, he would pay her a visit accompanied by a policeman.
Sickened and affrighted, Lotte hurried from the house, her hopes once more dashed to the ground, her heart bursting with agony, no one to go to for counsel or assistance. What was to be done?
Almost frantic, she wandered about without an aim, feeling that she could not go back to the kind people who had sheltered her, unless she had some prospect of lifting herself out of her desolate destitution, and recompensing them, at least, for her board, although she could never repay the service and the attention they had rendered to her.
She wandered through the streets, growing weak and faint from an exertion to which she was not equal, and from being many hours without food, gradually becoming desperate, as hopeless. She thought of the coming night and the dark waters that swept silently beneath the frowning arches of the bridges which spanned their breadth, and an ever-recurring thought kept ringing in her ears—
"Anywhere, anywhere—
Out of the world,”
suddenly her eyes fell upon a printed bill; it said: “One thousand cap-front hands wanted!” Not a second elapsed between her discovery of that bill and the resting of her trembling hand upon the knocker of the door. Her timid summons was responded to, and her application for work met with success.
She was requested to enter a room and to sit down, and “make a pattern.” She was furnished with materials, and it was not long before she produced a “front,” which gave great satisfaction to the employer. The answers to inquiries put to her being deemed satisfactory, materials for twelve dozen fronts were given to her, in a box, which she was to return with her work.
With a light heart and a heavy parcel she returned to Mrs. Bantom. Constant work was promised to her, provided she was punctual, and her work was approved of. She had no fears about that. She promised the work on the following Friday night. The task could only be accomplished by incessant toil, but she resolved to accomplish it, and she did.
In the little squalid bedroom she sat to her exacting toil; few were the hours of sleep she obtained during the time between the commencement and the close of her labours, but she was rewarded by completing the last front within an hour of the time specified. More fit for bed than for a journey through the crowded streets, she staggered rather than walked to the house of her new employer.
Her work was given in, and it was commended. She was told to come the following evening, at six, the time when the workers were paid, and bring her book, when she would receive the money due to her, and more work would be given to her.
Elated, she returned to her poor abode, and slept happily that night at least. She had in five days and nights—there was not much to be taken out for sleep—earned ten shillings. She hoped the next week to earn a like sum, and by self-sacrifices, assisted by the kind forbearance of the Bantoms, to gradually clear off her debt, and to get herself clothes, which she should wear with the satisfaction that they were her own.
Ah! she raised up wonderful and glittering fabrics, but they were based upon most intangible foundations. However, she slumbered lightly, and rose refreshed, busying herself the whole of the day in lightening Mrs. Bantom’s labours by assisting her in attending to her small regiment of blessings.
At six o’clock the next evening punctually, and with anxious hopes, she stood before the house of her new employer. She looked up wistfully at it. It wore a peculiar air of silence and dulness which she had not before observed. She did not pause to think upon the impression thus suddenly raised, but knocked at the door. A pang smote her breast as it occurred to her that a hollow sound echoed through the house on the fall of the knocker, as though it was empty. She instinctively again cast her eyes upwards; the windows were all closed; there were no blinds, but all was dark within the house, and so still—so dreadfully still.
She waited: her summons remained unanswered. She knocked again. The same hollow sound reverberated through the building, and her heart began to sink and die within her.
A young girl now came up, stopped at the door, and knocked. She was bound upon the same errand as Lotte, save that a fortnight’s work was due to her. She had scrambled and starved over the past week, she scarcely knew how. Wan and weak, but full of hope, she was here for the miserable sum for which she had bartered health, exhausted her strength, and perilled her young life.
There was no answer to her knock at the door, save the same hollow mocking echo, as before.
Another girl made her appearance; a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth; all here upon one errand—to claim the scanty sum for which they had worked, almost from dawn to dawn. They spoke to each other, questioningly: they looked into each other’s eyes with dread apprehension, and they conversed in low excited tones. The wages they had come to receive had been earned with a death-sweat. It was to them of vital consequence.
One or two had homes and parents upon whom to fall back for assistance; but the loss of the money to the others left them only a choice between the streets and the river.
Lotte grasped at a railing near her for support. A throng of sharp ringing sounds rushed through her brain. She took no part in the conversation. She could not have uttered a sound, her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, her throat swelled and contracted as though it would stifle her.
She began to lose her perception of what was going on around her. Everything seemed to be absorbed in a harrowing consciousness that her beggary, her loneliness, and desolation had assumed proportions of more terrible magnitude than they had ever yet done—that they surpassed her power to endure them longer.
She had a dim impression that a person residing next door told them all that their employer had fled with his goods ere daybreak, no one knew whither.
Sickened, heart-broken, Lotte quitted her hold of the railing which had sustained her, and staggered away.
It was not difficult to find her way to the black and murky river, careering swiftly and noiselessly through the heart of the vast metropolis down to the sea.
“The river! the river!”
Those were the only words she muttered.
These words of such terrible significance seemed to be shrieked by demons in her ears She saw them in fiery characters dancing ignis-fatuus like, before her, leading her on to her doom. She followed unresistingly.
How she found her way—what route she chose to the river-side—she knew not, cared not. She reached a bridge that spanned the dark waters, ere she was conscious of her proximity to that grave which could be self-made by one desperate plunge.
And now the fearful act she contemplated presented itself in its most awful guise before her despairing eyes, but not to deter her from her frantic purpose. No! If she remained on earth, her future was all black and unshapen. There was rest and immunity from the horrors of want and destitution in the grave.
She knelt down and prayed.
She compressed her hands tightly together; a wild hysteric groan, forced from her by the intense anguish created by her unutterable thoughts, burst from her lips, and she hurried on to the bridge, to end, by one fearful plunge, her sorrows and her young life.
As she swept on to a recess, blinded by her misery, maddened by a despair devoid of one glimmering of hope, the glare from one of the lamps fell upon her ghastly face.
At that instant a strong hand caught her by the wrist, and a friendly voice exclaimed—
“Miss Clinton! Miss Clinton!”
She fell back against the parapet of the bridge, and the voice changed its tone for one of horror and surprise, and it said—
“Good heaven! what is the matter with you? how deadly white you are! What has happened?—where are you going?”
“To die!—to die!”—she murmured, hoarsely, but faintly.
“Hush! hush! my dear friend,” said he who stayed her, in a soft and slightly reproving tone, and added—“calm yourself, I entreat you; do not speak for a minute or so; collect your thoughts, and then turn your eyes on me. I am a friend. I have a right to that title, and you will acknowledge it presently. I claim to aid you in affliction or trial. You will not, I am sure, Miss Clinton, refuse consolation or help in need from Harry Vivian.”
Lotte uttered a faint, hysteric cry; she clutched his arm, and bowed her head upon his breast. She knew he had the power to help her; she knew he would. As she clung to him, he felt her frame tremble and quiver as though she had been smitten with an ague, and her hot tears fell fast upon the hand which held hers, and pressed it re-assuringly. He let her weep.
In a few minutes, he whispered—
“We will not stay here, Lotte. It is chill and cold, and we excite attention from the passers-by.”
He conducted her from the bridge but a few steps only, for she was nearly powerless, and unable longer to continue the struggle without fatigue. He quickly perceived it, and had some notion of the cause; so he said—
“I am so glad I have found you at last. I have made many efforts, since the night of the fire, to discover you, but in vain. Not alone to satisfy my own anxiety respecting you, but to allay the apprehensions of your friend. Miss Wilton, to whom you were so kind in her hour of bitter trial. Ah, Lotte! her misery is all past, her future life promises to be one of supreme happiness, if wealth and station can ensure it. Come to her now: she so wishes to see you again. It is not so far: a cab will quickly take us to her. You will have, at least, a kindly sympathetic ear in which to pour your sorrows, and—who knows?—the meeting between you may be the termination of all your trials and sufferings.”
Lotte tried to reply. An inarticulate murmur was all that escaped her lips. Her deep emotion did not so easily admit of suppression.
A cab opportunely approached, and Hal engaged it. He lifted Lotte in: she had not power to help herself. He followed her into the vehicle, and gave his directions to the driver.
The man whipped his horse, and the cab rattled away from the bridge.
Lotte thought of the sombre river, whirling on grimly, and she shuddered violently.
Hal pressed her hand.
“The gloomiest lane, Lotte,” he whispered, “sometimes leads us to the brightest land.”