Part 36 (1/2)
”Well, I sent one of our men last night to see if he'd come again, but he never did.”
”And what can you do now?”
”Oh, I've left the photograph with the landlady, and she is to see if any of her customers recognise it; it'll stand on the counter.”
”And what do you think about him now?” asked Sir Thomas.
”That he'll turn up again in a day or two, if he's not ill.”
”Oh, can he--can he have destroyed himself in a fit of despair?” gasped Lady Oldfield.
”I think not, madam. Pray don't distress yourself. I believe we shall be able to hunt him out in a day or two. I shall send a man in plain clothes to the gin-shop again to-night to watch for him.”
Early the next day the superintendent called again.
”We've found him,” he said.
”Oh, where, where is he?” exclaimed the poor mother; ”take us to him at once! Oh, is he living?” she asked vehemently, for there was a look of peculiar seriousness on the superintendent's face which made her fear the worst.
”He is living, madam, but I'm sorry to say that he's seriously ill.”
”Send for a cab at once,” cried Sir Thomas.
”I have one at the door,” said the officer; ”one of you had better secure a respectable lodging and nurse for him at once, while the other goes with me.”
”Let _me_ go to him,” cried Lady Oldfield.
”It will be a strange place for a lady, but you will be safe with me.”
”Oh yes, yes, let me go,” was the reply; ”am not I his mother? Oh, let us go at once.”
”Well, then, Sir Thomas,” said the superintendent, ”we will call at the hotel as we return, if you will leave the direction of the lodgings with the landlord.”
”And how did you find out my poor boy?” asked Lady Oldfield, as they hurried along through a labyrinth of by-streets, each dirtier and more dismal than the last.
”My man in plain clothes, madam, watched last night for a long time by the bar, but saw no one come in like your son. At last an old woman, who was come for a quartern of gin, stared hard at the likeness, and said, 'Laws, if that ain't the young gent as is down ill o' the fever in our attic!'”
”Ill of the fever!” exclaimed Lady Oldfield.
”Yes; it seems so. Of course that was enough. My man went home with her, taking the photograph with him, and soon ascertained that the young gentleman in question is your son. But we must stop here. I'm sorry to bring your ladys.h.i.+p into such a place; but there's no help for it, if you really wish to see the young man yourself.”
”Oh yes, yes,” cried the other; ”anything, everything, I can bear all, if I may only see him alive, and rescue him from his misery and sin.”
”Wait for us here,” said the officer to the cabman, as they alighted in the middle of a nest of streets, which seemed as though huddled together, by common consent, to shut out from public gaze their filth and guilty wretchedness. Wretched indeed they were, as the haunts of dest.i.tution and crime. All was foul and dingy. Distorted roofs patched with mis-shapen tiles; chimneys leaning at various angles out of the perpendicular; walls vile with the smoke and grime of a generation; mortar that looked as though it never in its best days could have been white; shattered doors whose proper colour none could tell, and which, standing ajar, seemed to lead to nothing but darkness; weird women and gaunt children imparting a dismal life to the rows of ungainly dwellings;--all these made up a picture of squalid woe such as might well have appalled a stouter heart than poor Lady Oldfield's. And was she to find her delicately-nurtured son in such a place as this? They turned down one street, under the wondering eyes of old and young, and then plunged into a narrow court that led to nothing. Here, two doors down on the left hand, they entered, and proceeded to climb a rickety stair till they reached the highest floor. A voice that sent all the blood rus.h.i.+ng back to poor Lady Oldfield's heart was heard in high strain, and another, mingling with it, muttering a croaking accompaniment of remonstrance,--
”Well, you're a fine young gentleman, I've no doubt; but you'll not bide long in that fas.h.i.+on, I reckon.”
Then came a bit of a song in the younger voice,--
”Drink, boys, drink, and drive away your sorrow; For though we're here to-day, we mayn't be here to-morrow.”
The superintendent knocked at the door, and both entered. The old woman uttered an exclamation of terror at the sight of the strangers, but the appearance of Lady Oldfield rea.s.sured her, for she divined almost immediately who she must be. On her part, Lady Oldfield instinctively shrunk back at her first entrance, and well she might; for the revolting sights and odours almost overpowered her, spite of her all-absorbing anxiety to find and rescue her beloved child.