Part 64 (1/2)
”Then what have you got to conceal? Tell me where it is, and----”
”Not me! If it's 'is child, and 'e wants it, let 'im py for it, and interest ep ter dite. Them swells is too fond of gettin' parsons to pull their chestnuts out o' the fire.”
”If you suppose I am here in the interests of the father, you are mistaken, I do a.s.sure you.”
”Ow, you do, do yer?”
Matters had reached this pa.s.s when the door opened and Mr. Jupe came in.
Off went his hat with a respectful salutation, but seeing the cloud on his wife's face, he abridged his greeting. The woman's ap.r.o.n was at her eyes in an instant.
”Wot's gowin' on?” he asked. John Storm tried to explain, but the woman contented herself with crying.
”Well, it's like this, don'cher see, Father. My missis is that fond of childring, and it brikes 'er 'eart----”
Was the man a fool or a hypocrite?
”Mr. Jupe,” said John, rising, ”I'm afraid your wife has been carrying on an improper and illegal business.”
”Now stou thet, sir,” said the man, wagging his head. ”I respects the Reverend Jawn Storm a good deal, but I respects Mrs. Lidjer Jupe a good deal more, and when it comes to improper and illegal bizniss----”
”Down't mind 'im, 'Enery,” said the wife, now weeping audibly.
”And down't you tyke on so, Lidjer,” said the husband, and they looked as if they were about to embrace.
John Storm could stand no more. Going down the court he was thinking with a pang of Glory--that she had lived months in the atmosphere of that impostor--when somebody touched his arm in the darkness. It was the girl. She was still crying.
”I reckerlec' seeing you in Crook Lane, sir, the day we christened my byeby, and I waited, thinking p'raps you could help me.”
”Come this way,” said John, and walking by his side along the blank wall of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the girl told her story. She lived in one room of the clergy-house at the back of his church. Having to earn her living, she had answered an advertis.e.m.e.nt in a Sunday paper, and Mrs.
Jupe had taken her baby to nurse. It was true she had given up all claim to the child, but she could not help going to see it--the little one's ways were so engaging. Then she found that Mrs. Jupe had let it out to somebody else. Only for her ”friend” she might never have heard of it again. He had found it by accident at a house in Westminster. It was a fearful place, where men went for gambling. The man who kept it had just been released from eighteen months' imprisonment, and the wife had taken to nursing while the husband was in prison. She was a frightful woman, and he was a shocking man, and ”they knocked the children about cruel.”
The neighbours heard screams and slaps and moans, and they were always crying ”Shame!” She had wanted to take her own baby away, but the woman would not give it up because there were three weeks' board owing, and she could not pay.
”Could you take me to this house, my child?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Then come round to the church after service to-morrow night.”
The girl's tearful face glistened like April suns.h.i.+ne.
”And will you help me to get my little girl? Oh, how good you are!
Everybody is saying what a Father it is that's come to----” She stopped, then said quite soberly: ”I'll get somebody to lend me a shawl to bring 'er 'ome in. People say they p.a.w.n everything, and perhaps the beautiful white perlice I bought for 'er ... Oh, I'll never let 'er out of my sight again, never!”
”What is your name, my girl?”
”Agatha Jones,” the girl answered.
It was nearly eleven o'clock on Sunday night before they were ready to start on their errand. Meantime Aggie had done two turns at the foreign clubs, and John Storm had led a procession through Crown Street and been hit by a missile thrown by a ”Skeleton,” whom he declined to give in charge. At the corner of the alley he stopped to ask Mrs. Pincher to wait up for him, and the girl's large eyes caught sight of the patch of plaster above his temple.