"Tell me," said Felix, "if it is not rude to ask, what did he mean by saying that the White Rose was quite disconsolate at Miss Lily's absence? What is the White Rose?"
"Don't you know the Royal White Rose Music-hall?" interrogated Gribble junior, wondering at the young man's ignorance. "That's where Miss Lily sings. You should see her and hear her! She looks like an angel, and sings like one. She's not like any of the others. You see, a girl must do something, and between you and me, I don't think the old gentleman would be able to get along if it wasn't for the money that Miss Lily earns. Master Alfred, he doesn't do much."
About an hour afterwards, Felix found himself in the Royal White Rose Music-hall, wondering that so pure and simple a girl as Lily should be associated with some of the things he heard and witnessed there. "But," he thought, "to the pure all things are pure. And there are stranger contrasts in life than this."
He had engaged a bed at an hotel where a night porter was kept, so that he could get to his room at any time. He stopped out until late, thinking over the events of the day, and musing upon the future. He strolled over Westminster Bridge, and lingered in admiration; thinking, and thinking truly, that he had never seen a more wonderful and beautiful sight than the dark solemn water and the waving lines of lights presented. And as he lingered and admired and mused, his thoughts wandered to the little crowded house in Soho—
Where Lily was sleeping peacefully;
Where Pollypod, pressed to her father's breast, and with her face towards the roses, was dreaming of her Doll and of the Ship that was sailing over the shining seas;
Where, in the solitude of his room, a young man, with wild, haggard, despairing face, was reading for the twentieth time the account of the race for the Northumberland Plate, which had been won by an old horse called Taraban; and muttering, with white and trembling lips, imprecations on the false prophets by whose advice he had backed Christopher Sly with money that did not belong to him.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
TRAPS FOR GULLS--HOW SPIDERS CATCH THE FLIES.
At the corner of a desponding thoroughfare in the neighbourhood of Vauxhall is a chemist's shop, where every cure for every ailment is dispensed. The thoroughfare is one of a numerous family of streets so exactly alike in their melancholy aspect, that you can scarcely tell one from another; they are all very sad-looking, and they are all composed of rows of private houses, two stories high, exactly of a height, and of a dismal flatness, which look dejectedly at one another across the road. The name of Dr. Cadbury is over the door of the chemist's shop, and a neat inscription on a brass plate informs the public that the doctor may be consulted (gratis) at from 11 till 1 o'clock in the morning, and from 6 till 8 in the evening. It is a queer-looking shop and wonderfully comprehensive, notwithstanding that it is much cramped. The consultation-room is a small apartment at the back of the shop, and, viewed from the outside, has quite a pretentious appearance. The word "Surgery" over the door is suggestive of dreadful instruments of bright steel, which shine with a savage desire to cut into you; but there is really nothing to be alarmed at in the apartment, the most noticeable article in it being a turn-up bedstead; for at night it is converted into a sleeping apartment for the doctor's assistant. This assistant, who has a passion for too much bitter beer, and who tells the customers under the pledge of secrecy that he is a partner in the concern, is a moon-faced, bald-headed man, who has walked the hospitals, as the women whisper to one another. He is mysteriously spoken of as being very highly connected, and he continually talks of going down somewhere for a week's shooting; but he never goes. His present lowly position is popularly supposed to be due to his having been a little wild, and it is rumoured that he is in hiding, which immensely enhances his reputation. The queer little shop has quite a bustling appearance during the hours of consultation; but very different pictures are presented in the morning and evening. In the morning it is the males, who, chiefly in their dinner-hour, throng to the doctor for his advice; but the evening is sacred to the wives. As the consultation hour draws nigh, all the poor women in the neighbourhood who are in an interesting condition gather together until the little shop is crowded with them. They wait to consult the "dear doctor"--he is such a dear man! they say to one another; and while they wait they relate their experiences, and exchange pleasantries with the moon-faced assistant. The doctor's fee for confinements is only a guinea, attendance and medicine included, and this guinea he sometimes takes in instalments, and sometimes does not take at all--which is not his fault, but his misfortune. It is quite a relaxation to the poor women to assemble together on these occasions; and when they come away from their consultation, they have none but words of praise for Dr. Cadbury, who is such a pleasant man, and has told them such funny stories, that they declare they would send for him--ah, that they would!--in the dead of night, if they lived ever so far away. For which marks of favour Dr. Cadbury could not be, and certainly was not, sufficiently grateful.