THE CHILDREN OF THE DEAD END

 
There are Fairies in the city,
There are Fairies on the down,
When Wee Hughie comes from Ireland
To visit London Town.
 
 
There is sunshine in the dungeon,
There is starlight in the grave,
If June will but remember
The things that April gave.
 

CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF THE LODGER

Bang! Even Bindle was startled by the emphasis with which Mrs. Bindle placed upon the supper-table a large pie-dish containing a savoury-smelling stew.

"Anythink wrong?" he enquired solicitously, gazing at Mrs. Bindle over the top of the evening paper.

"Wrong!" she cried. "Is there anything right?"

"Well, there's beer, an' Beatty, an' the boys wot's fightin'," began Bindle suggestively.

"Don't talk to me!" Mrs. Bindle banged a plate of stew in front of Bindle, to which he applied himself earnestly.

For some minutes the only sound was that occasioned by Bindle's enjoyment of his supper, as he proceeded to read the newspaper propped up in front of him.

"You're nice company, aren't you?" cried Mrs. Bindle, making a dive with the spoon at a potato, which she transferred to her plate. "I might be on a desert island for all the company you are."

Bindle gazed at Mrs. Bindle over the small bone from which he was detaching the last vestiges of nutriment by means of his teeth. He replaced the bone on the edge of his plate in silence.

"You think of nothing but your stomach," Mrs. Bindle continued angrily. "Look at you now!"

"Well, now, ain't you funny!" remarked Bindle, as he replaced his glass upon the table. "If I'm chatty, you say, ''Old your tongue!' If I ain't chatty, you ask why I ain't a-makin' love to you."

After a moment's silence he continued meditatively: "I kept rabbits, silkworms, an' a special kind o' performin' flea, an' I seemed to get to understand 'em all; but women – well, you may search me!" and he pushed his plate from him as a sign of repletion.

Mrs. Bindle rose from the table. Bindle watched her curiously; it was never wise to enquire what course was to follow.

"I answered an advertisement to-day," she announced, as she banged an apple-pie on the table.

With difficulty Bindle withdrew his interest from the pie to Mrs. Bindle's statement.

"You don't say so," he remarked pleasantly.

"And about time, I should think, with food going up as it is," she continued, as she hacked out a large V-shaped piece of pie-crust which she transferred to a plate, and proceeded to dab apple beside it.

Bindle regarded her uncomprehendingly.

"In The Gospel Sentinel." She vouchsafed the information grudgingly and, rising, she fetched a paper from the dresser and threw it down in front of Bindle, indicating a particular part of the page with a vicious stab of her fore-finger.

Bindle picked up the paper. The spot indicated was the column headed "Wanted." He read:

"Christian Home wanted by a single gentleman, chapel-goer, temperance, quiet, musical, home-comforts, good-cooking, moderate terms. References given and required. Apply Lonely, c/o The Gospel Sentinel."

Bindle looked up from the paper at Mrs. Bindle.

"Well?" she challenged.

He turned once more to the paper and re-read the advertisement with great deliberation, forgetful of his fast-cooling plate.

"Well," remarked Bindle judicially, "this is a Christian 'ome right enough, plenty of soap an' water, with an 'ymn or two thrown in so as you won't notice the smell. Cookin's good likewise, an' as for 'ome-comforts, if we ain't got 'em, who 'as? There's sweepin' an' scrubbin' an' mats everywhere, mustn't smoke in the parlour unless you 'appen to be the chimney, and of course there's you, the biggest 'ome-comfort of all. Yes! Mrs. B.," he concluded, shaking his head with gloomy conviction, "we got enough 'ome comforts to start a colony, I'm always trippin' over 'em."

"Eat your pie," snapped Mrs. Bindle, "perhaps it'll stop your mouth."

Bindle applied himself to the apple-pie with obvious relish, glancing from time to time at The Gospel Sentinel.

"Well?" demanded Mrs. Bindle once more.

"I was jest wonderin'," said Bindle.

"What about?"

"I was jest wonderin'," continued Bindle, "why we want a lodger, us like two love-birds a-singin' an' a-cooin' all day long."

"What about the housekeeping?" demanded Mrs. Bindle aggressively.

"The 'ousekeepin'?" enquired Bindle innocently.

"Yes, the housekeeping," repeated Mrs. Bindle with rising wrath, as if Bindle were directly responsible, "the housekeeping, I said, and food going up like – like – "

"'Ell," suggested Bindle helpfully.

"How am I to make both ends meet?" she demanded.

"I suppose they must meet?" he enquired tentatively.

"Don't be a fool, Bindle!" was the response.

"I ain't goin' to be a fool with that there lodger 'angin' about," retorted Bindle. "If 'e starts a-playin' about wi' my 'Ome Comfort, 'e'll find 'is jaw closed for alterations. I'm a desperate feller where my 'eart's concerned. There was poor 'ole 'Orace only the other day. Jest back from the front 'e was."

Bindle paused and shook his head mournfully.

"Horace who?" demanded Mrs. Bindle.

"'Orace Gaze," replied Bindle. "Nice cove too, 'e is.

"''Ullo! 'Orace,' I calls out, when I see 'im jest a-comin' from the station with all 'is kit.

"'Cheerio,' says 'e.

"'The missis'll be glad to see you,' I says.

"'She don't know I'm 'ere yet,' 'e says.

"'Didn't you send 'er a telegram?' I asks.

"'Telegram!' says 'e, 'not 'arf.'

"'Why not?'

"'Lord! ain't you a mug, Joe!' says 'e; 'you don't catch me a-trustin' women, I got my own way, I 'ave,' says 'e, mysterious like.

"'What is it?' I asks 'im.

"'Well, I goes 'ome,' says 'e, ''er thinkin' me at the front, rattles my key in the front door, then I nips round to the back, an' catches the blighter every time!'"

"I won't listen to your disgusting stories," said Mrs. Bindle angrily.

"Disgustin'?" said Bindle incredulously.

"You've a lewd mind, Bindle."

"Well, well!" remarked Bindle, "it's somethink to 'ave a mind at all, it's about the only thing they don't tax as war profits."

"You'll have to be careful when the lodger comes." There was a note of grim warning in Mrs. Bindle's voice.

"Lodgers ain't to be trusted," said Bindle oracularly. "If you expects 'em to pinch your money-box, orf they goes with your missis; an' if you're 'opin' it'll be your missis, blowed if they don't pouch the canary. No!" he concluded with conviction, "lodgers ain't to be depended on."

"That's right, go on; but you're not hurting me," snapped Mrs. Bindle, rising to clear away. "You always oppose me, perhaps you'll tell me how I'm to feed you on your wages." She stood, her hands on her hips, looking down upon Bindle with challenge in her eye.

"My wages! why, I'm gettin' – "

"Never mind what you're getting," interrupted Mrs. Bindle. "You eat all you get and more, and you know it. Look at the price of food, and me waiting in queues half the day to get it for you. You're not worth it," she concluded with conviction.

"I ain't, Mrs. B.," replied Bindle good-humouredly, "I ain't worth 'alf the love wot women 'ave 'ad for me."

Mrs. Bindle sniffed. "You always was fond of your food," she continued, as if reluctant to let slip a topic so incontrovertible.

"I was, Mrs. B.," agreed Bindle; "an' wot is more I probably always shall be as long as you go on cookin' it. Wot I shall do when you go orf with the lodger, I don't know," and Bindle wagged his head from side to side in utter despondency.

Mrs. Bindle made an unprovoked attack upon the kitchen fire.

"Well," said Bindle after a pause, "if it's rations or a lodger, I suppose it's got to be a lodger," and he drew a deep sigh of resignation. He turned once more to The Gospel Sentinel. "Musical, too, ain't 'e," he continued. "I wonder wot 'e plays, the jews' 'arp or a drum? Seems a rare sport 'e does, chapel-goer, temperance, quiet, musical, fond of 'ome-comforts, good cookin'; an' don't want to pay much; regular blood I should call 'im."

"He's coming to-night to see the place," Mrs. Bindle announced, "and don't you go and make me feel ashamed. You'd better keep out of the room."

"'Ow could you!" cried Bindle reproachfully, as he proceeded to light his pipe. "Me – "

"Don't do that!" snapped Mrs. Bindle.

Bindle regarded her over the flaming match with eyebrows raised interrogatingly.

"Perhaps he doesn't smoke," she explained.

"But I ain't goin' to give up tobacco," said Bindle with decision. "'Oly Angels! me with a wife an a lodger an' no pipe!"

He looked about him as if in search of sympathy. Then turning to Mrs. Bindle, he demanded:

"You mean to say I got to give up smokin' for a lodger!" Indignation had smoothed out the wrinkles round his eyes and stilled the twitchings at the corners of his mouth.

"It doesn't matter after he's here," Mrs. Bindle responded sagely.

Slowly the set-expression vanished from Bindle's face; the wrinkles and twitches returned, and he breathed a sigh of elaborate relief.

"Mrs. B.," he said admiringly, "you 'aven't lived for nineteen years with your awful wedded 'usband, lovin', 'onourin' an' obeyin' 'im – I don't think – without learnin' a thing or two." He winked knowingly.

"Yes," he continued, apparently addressing a fly upon the ceiling, "we'll catch our lodger first an' smoke 'im afterwards, all of which is good business. Funny 'ow religion never seems to make you too simple to – "

Bindle was interrupted by a knocking at the outer-door. Mrs. Bindle performed a series of movements with amazing celerity. She removed and folded her kitchen-apron, placing it swiftly in the dresser-drawer, gave a hasty glance in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece to assure herself that all was well with her personal appearance and, finally, slipped into the parlour to light the gas. She was out again in a second and, as she passed into the passage leading to the outer-door, she threw back at Bindle the one word "Remember," pregnant with as much meaning as that uttered two and a half centuries before in Whitehall.

"Nippy on 'er feet is Mrs. B.," muttered Bindle admiringly, as he listened intently to the murmur of voices and the sound of footsteps in the passage. Presently the parlour-door closed and then – silence.

Bindle fidgeted about the kitchen. He was curious as to what was taking place in the parlour and, above all, what manner of man the prospective lodger would turn out to be. He picked up the evening paper, endeavouring to read what the Austrian Prime Minister thought of the prospects of peace, what Berlin thought of the Austrian Prime Minister, what the Kaiser thought of the Almighty, and what the Almighty was permitted to think of the Kaiser. But international politics and the War had lost their interest. Bindle was conscious that he was on the eve of a crisis in his home life.

"'Ow the injiarubber ostridge can a cove read when 'e ain't smokin'?" he muttered discontentedly as he paused to listen. He had detected a movement in the parlour.

Yes; the door had been opened. There was again the murmur of voices, steps along the passage and, finally, the sound of the outer-door closing. A moment later Mrs. Bindle entered.

Bindle looked up expectantly; but remembering that curiosity was the last thing calculated to open Mrs. Bindle's set lips, he became engrossed in his paper.

Mrs. Bindle seated herself opposite to him and, smoothing her skirt, "folded 'er 'ands on 'er supper," as Bindle had once expressed it.

"He's coming Monday," she proclaimed with the air of one announcing an event of grave national importance.

"Does 'e smoke?" enquired Bindle anxiously.

"He does not," replied Mrs. Bindle with undisguised satisfaction; "but," she added, as if claiming for some hero the virtue of self-abnegation, "he doesn't object to it – in moderation," she added significantly.

"Well, that's somethink," admitted Bindle as he proceeded to light his long-neglected pipe. "There was pore 'ole Alf Gorley wot beer made sick; but 'e used to like to see other coves with a skinful."

"Don't be disgusting, Bindle," snapped Mrs. Bindle, piqued that his apparent lack of interest in the lodger gave her no opportunity of imparting the information she was bursting to divulge.

"Wot's disgustin'?" demanded Bindle.

"Him, watching men making beasts of themselves," retorted Mrs. Bindle.