“We all have our loves and likes, madame,” said the curate quietly.
“O, yes, yes, you rich; but we poor? No. We must live, and eat and drink, and have clothes; and Jean, there, has ruined me in medicine. What do we want with favourites, we poor? But that they help to keep us, I would sell the dogs. We are all slaves here, we poor; and we sell ourselves, our work, our hands, our beauty, some of us,—is it not so? and you rich buy,—or we starve. It is a bad world for us old and ugly. I am not like the doll upon the floor down-stairs.”
A sharp angry glance passed between mother and son, as the former rose from her seat, and with a short quick step left the room, driving back the dogs as they tried to follow; while it was evident that her words jarred painfully upon the curate. “Our beauty, some of us,” seemed to ring in his ears again and again, and he could not help associating these words with the latter part of her speech.
“How do you get your birds, Jean?” said the curate, making an effort, and breaking the silence.
“From him,” said the young man, nodding across the court to where Bill Jarker sat half out of his trap-door, still keeping up his pigeons, for a stray was in sight, and he was in hopes of an amalgamation, in spite of the efforts being made by neighbouring flights. “From him: he goes into the country with his nets—far off, where the green trees wave, while I can only read of them. But the book; did you bring the book?”
Thinking of other birds breasting their prison-bars: now of the fair bright face that he had seen at the window below, now of that of the cripple before him, the curate produced a volume from his pocket, and smiled as he watched the glittering eyes and eager aspect of the young man, as, hastily grasping the volume, he gazed with avidity upon the title.
“You love reading, then, Jean?” said the curate.
“Yes, yes,” cried the cripple. “What could I do without it? Always here; for I cannot walk much—only about the room. Ah, no! I could not live without reading—and my birds. She is good and kind,” he continued, nodding towards the door; “but we are poor, and it makes her angry and jealous.”
The lark burst forth with one of its sweetest strains as it heard its master’s voice, and then, rising, the curate left the attic, closing the door after him slowly, and peering through the narrowing slit to look upon the cripple eagerly devouring a page of the work he had brought.
The Frenchwoman was upon the first landing, and saluted the curate with a sinister meaning smile as he passed her and thoughtfully descended.