The fortnight which now began to pass—the period of the poet's absence from town—was a very unhappy one in the Potterrow. Alison had, indeed, her lover's letter, but she would not, or could not, answer it. The truth she could not write, therefore it seemed to her better not to write at all. Hard as it was, it seemed she must be silent under his reproach. Some way out of the mystery might show itself, but it appeared to Alison that she was bound hand and foot, and could not move to clear herself. And in these days, though she had a brave heart, she began to be afraid.
But now the sight of Nancy's wretchedness—no longer to be concealed or disguised—began, even more than her own uneasiness, to affect her. The recklessness, the headstrong wilfulness of the little woman when the object of her passion had been near her, and she could either see him or hear from him day by day, had been hard enough to cope with, but now that he was absent, and the constant excitement of the letters and the meetings was suspended, her state was piteous. She would neither eat nor sleep, neither rest nor yet employ herself; the irritation of her temper—sweet turned to bitter under the alchemy of passion—was almost insupportable. She would still write, by the hour, by day and night, her feverish, passionate letters, which followed the poet by mail and post-gig, and must prettily have punctuated his progress as he went. He, from Glasgow, had scratched her a line as he waited for the Paisley carrier, promising future and full epistles. But these did not follow with absolute regularity, and the unreasoning little creature maddened under his silence. She finally fretted herself into a fever, real enough, and Alison had the doctor in; and a febrifuge and also a sleeping-draught prescribed, gave the household a little peace at night at anyrate.
At last a merciful morning brought a substantial packet from the errant Bard, handsomely franked by some important personage, for he wrote from a fine country house in Ayrshire, where he rested on his way from Mauchline to Dumfriesshire. For hours did Nancy pore over these precious sheets, reading out now and again laughing extracts to Alison. This had always been her wont, and not by any means always edifying had been the nature of these extracts, for Sylvander was a correspondent of amazing frankness, and hid from his Clarinda none of his peccadillos, past or present. Nancy, in these matters, had grown curiously hardened, and probably hardly realised the essence of her revelations to the shocked ears of a girl.
'Why,' she cried, on this occasion, 'here will be a little excursion for you, love! My Sylvander begs a favour of me; 'tis to take five shillings, as from him, to a poor necessitous creature in the Wabster's Close. Will you do it, dear? You know how miserably unfit your poor Nancy is to face the streets!' Now, the poet's message ran:—'There is a poor lass in the Wabster's Close of whom I get a tale of distress that makes my very heart weep blood. For some part of her trouble I am (with contrition, I own it) responsible. I will trust that your goodness will apologise to your delicacy for me, when I beg you, for heaven's sake, to send the poor woman five shillings in my name, and let the wench leave a line for me—you know where—and I shall see her, and try what is to be done for her relief.' Nancy, even, had felt the necessity of editing this passage, but she dwelt upon the poet's kindliness of nature with unction.
'He's said to me often and often, Ally,' she took this occasion to remark, '"I would have all men and women happy! I'd wipe the tears from all eyes if I could!" He has the tenderest, the most sensitive heart!' So, would Alison go upon this charitable quest? Of course she would—thankful to be sent on any quest that did not lead in the direction of St. James's Square.
Now, it will be said that, in these pages, our poor Alison has run too many messages, and, indeed, she has. But the reader, of his own experience, probably knows that there is in this world a certain class of little, dainty, clinging, tender women whose messages are all run for them as a matter of course. To this class did Nancy Maclehose belong. There was a kind of understanding that rough walks in dirty streets, and in all kinds of weather, were not her portion. Nor did she exact this consideration from her friends; it came to her as a sort of right, a kind of tacit acknowledgment of her power—that power to which all bowed down who came in contact with her—the willing Alison, the sturdy Jean, her own devoted little boys—even Herries himself, though he, indeed, was a rebellious slave. So Alison set out, quite willingly, in all good faith that she went upon a charitable mission.
It was mid-February now, and there was an extraordinary mildness in the air. The frost and snow, the bitter north winds were gone. A tender sky, sweet with the very tints of spring, swam above the stern old town, and a westerly wind, soft as a kiss, touched Alison's cheek as she walked. She was acquainted with her destination, the Wabster's Close—a most malodorous and unpleasing quarter; but Alison was not afraid of such places now, and merely picked her way with added caution over the foul causeway and slippery cobbles. She had nothing but a name, Clow, as uncommon as it was hideous to go by, and by inquiry she discovered the tenement or 'land,' where a family thus named was said to live. It was up a stair of an agglomerated and indescribable filth—the worst that Alison had yet seen. No wonder, she thought, that a person living in such a place needed a charitable dole.
She paused at a door, behind which there seemed to rise a perfect Babel of sound—a Babel, yet curiously subdued, as though many people spoke, and spoke at once, yet in hushed voices. She knocked, and a woman opened, who, with a curious, indescribable air of excitement, plucked her by the sleeve, whispering hoarsely,—'Come in by—come ben!'
Alison felt impelled to enter, but shrank involuntarily, as the close air of the darksome and overcrowded chamber, with some nameless horror in it, assailed her senses. The woman, however, who had admitted her, now closed the door behind her. Alison noticed that her hands were shaking, piteously, uncontrollably, and that she was very pale. The room seemed full—full to overflowing—of women who whispered with bent heads, gesticulating, raising hands to heaven, and who now turned curious eyes on Alison.
She stood still in the middle of the wretched place, awed and terrified, she knew not why, yet instinctively conscious of the nearness of some tragedy.