第 七十一 章 · 第71章

. It seems he had been patrolling the streets for the last three or four

nights—I suppose in search of something to do—at any rate knowing

better what he wanted to get than how to get it. Nevertheless, what he

wanted was in reality so easily to be found that it took a highly

educated scholar like himself to be unable to find it. But, however

this may be, he had been scared, and now saw lions where there were

none, and was shocked and frightened, and night after night his courage

had failed him and he had returned to his lodgings in Laystall Street

without accomplishing his errand. He had not taken me into his

confidence upon this matter, and I had not enquired what he did with

himself in the evenings. At last he had concluded that, however painful

it might be to him, he would call on Mrs Jupp, who he thought would be

able to help him if anyone could. He had been walking moodily from

seven till about nine, and now resolved to go straight to Ashpit Place

and make a mother confessor of Mrs Jupp without more delay.

Of all tasks that could be performed by mortal woman there was none

which Mrs Jupp would have liked better than the one Ernest was thinking

of imposing upon her; nor do I know that in his scared and broken-down

state he could have done much better than he now proposed. Miss Jupp

would have made it very easy for him to open his grief to her; indeed,

she would have coaxed it all out of him before he knew where he was;

but the fates were against Mrs Jupp, and the meeting between my hero

and his former landlady was postponed _sine die_, for his determination

had hardly been formed and he had not gone more than a hundred yards in

the direction of Mrs Jupp’s house, when a woman accosted him.

He was turning from her, as he had turned from so many others, when she

started back with a movement that aroused his curiosity. He had hardly

seen her face, but being determined to catch sight of it, followed her

as she hurried away, and passed her; then turning round he saw that she

was none other than Ellen, the housemaid who had been dismissed by his

mother eight years previously.

He ought to have assigned Ellen’s unwillingness to see him to its true

cause, but a guilty conscience made him think she had heard of his

disgrace and was turning away from him in contempt. Brave as had been

his resolutions about facing the world, this was more than he was

prepared for; “What! you too shun me, Ellen?” he exclaimed.

The girl was crying bitterly and did not understand him. “Oh, Master

Ernest,” she sobbed, “let me go; you are too good for the likes of me

to speak to now.”

“Why, Ellen,” said he, “what nonsense you talk; you haven’t been in

prison, have you?”

“Oh, no, no, no, not so bad as that,” she exclaimed passionately.

“Well, I have,” said Ernest, with a forced laugh, “I came out three or

four days ago after six months with hard labour.”

Ellen did not believe him, but she looked at him with a “Lor’! Master

Ernest,” and dried her eyes at once. The ice was broken between them,

for as a matter of fact Ellen had been in prison several times, and

though she did not believe Ernest, his merely saying he had been in

prison made her feel more at ease with him. For her there were two

classes of people, those who had been in prison and those who had not.

The first she looked upon as fellow-creatures and more or less

Christians, the second, with few exceptions, she regarded with

suspicion, not wholly unmingled with contempt.

Then Ernest told her what had happened to him during the last six

months, and by-and-by she believed him.

“Master Ernest,” said she, after they had talked for a quarter of an

hour or so, “There’s a place over the way where they sell tripe and

onions. I know you was always very fond of tripe and onions, let’s go

over and have some, and we can talk better there.”

So the pair crossed the street and entered the tripe shop; Ernest

ordered supper.

“And how is your pore dear mamma, and your dear papa, Master Ernest,”

said Ellen, who had now recovered herself and was quite at home with my

hero. “Oh, dear, dear me,” she said, “I did love your pa; he was a good

gentleman, he was, and your ma too; it would do anyone good to live

with her, I’m sure.”

Ernest was surprised and hardly knew what to say. He had expected to

find Ellen indignant at the way she had been treated, and inclined to

lay the blame of her having fallen to her present state at his father’s

and mother’s door. It was not so. Her only recollection of Battersby

was as of a place where she had had plenty to eat and drink, not too

much hard work, and where she had not been scolded. When she heard that

Ernest had quarrelled with his father and mother she assumed as a

matter of course that the fault must lie entirely with Ernest.

“Oh, your pore, pore ma!” said Ellen. “She was always so very fond of

you, Master Ernest: you was always her favourite; I can’t abear to

think of anything between you and her. To think now of the way she used

to have me into the dining-room and teach me my catechism, that she

did! Oh, Master Ernest, you really must go and make it all up with her;

indeed you must.”

Ernest felt rueful, but he had resisted so valiantly already that the

devil might have saved himself the trouble of trying to get at him

through Ellen in the matter of his father and mother. He changed the

subject, and the pair warmed to one another as they had their tripe and

pots of beer. Of all people in the world Ellen was perhaps the one to

whom Ernest could have spoken most freely at this juncture. He told her

what he thought he could have told to no one else.

“You know, Ellen,” he concluded, “I had learnt as a boy things that I

ought not to have learnt, and had never had a chance of that which

would have set me straight.”

“Gentlefolks is always like that,” said Ellen musingly.

“I believe you are right, but I am no longer a gentleman, Ellen, and I

don’t see why I should be ‘like that’ any longer, my dear. I want you

to help me to be like something else as soon as possible.”

“Lor’! Master Ernest, whatever can you be meaning?”

The pair soon afterwards left the eating-house and walked up Fetter

Lane together.

Ellen had had hard times since she had left Battersby, but they had

left little trace upon her.

Ernest saw only the fresh-looking smiling face, the dimpled cheek, the

clear blue eyes and lovely sphinx-like lips which he had remembered as

a boy. At nineteen she had looked older than she was, now she looked

much younger; indeed she looked hardly older than when Ernest had last

seen her, and it would have taken a man of much greater experience than

he possessed to suspect how completely she had fallen from her first

estate. It never occurred to him that the poor condition of her

wardrobe was due to her passion for ardent spirits, and that first and

last she had served five or six times as much time in gaol as he had.

He ascribed the poverty of her attire to the attempts to keep herself

respectable, which Ellen during supper had more than once alluded to.

He had been charmed with the way in which she had declared that a pint

of beer would make her tipsy, and had only allowed herself to be forced

into drinking the whole after a good deal of remonstrance. To him she

appeared a very angel dropped from the sky, and all the more easy to

get on with for being a fallen one.

As he walked up Fetter Lane with her towards Laystall Street, he

thought of the wonderful goodness of God towards him in throwing in his

way the very person of all others whom he was most glad to see, and

whom, of all others, in spite of her living so near him, he might have

never fallen in with but for a happy accident.

When people get it into their heads that they are being specially

favoured by the Almighty, they had better as a general rule mind their

p’s and q’s, and when they think they see the devil’s drift with more

special clearness, let them remember that he has had much more

experience than they have, and is probably meditating mischief.

Already during supper the thought that in Ellen at last he had found a

woman whom he could love well enough to wish to live with and marry had

flitted across his mind, and the more they had chatted the more reasons

kept suggesting themselves for thinking that what might be folly in

ordinary cases would not be folly in his.

He must marry someone; that was already settled. He could not marry a

lady; that was absurd. He must marry a poor woman. Yes, but a fallen

one? Was he not fallen himself? Ellen would fall no more. He had only

to look at her to be sure of this. He could not live with her in sin,

not for more than the shortest time that could elapse before their

marriage; he no longer believed in the supernatural element of

Christianity, but the Christian morality at any rate was indisputable.

Besides, they might have children, and a stigma would rest upon them.

Whom had he to consult but himself now? His father and mother never

need know, and even if they did, they should be thankful to see him

married to any woman who would make him happy as Ellen would. As for

not being able to afford marriage, how did poor people do? Did not a

good wife rather help matters than not? Where one could live two could

do so, and if Ellen was three or four years older than he was—well,

what was that?

Have you, gentle reader, ever loved at first sight? When you fell in

love at first sight, how long, let me ask, did it take you to become

ready to fling every other consideration to the winds except that of

obtaining possession of the loved one? Or rather, how long would it

have taken you if you had had no father or mother, nothing to lose in

the way of money, position, friends, professional advancement, or what

not, and if the object of your affections was as free from all these

_impedimenta_ as you were yourself?

If you were a young John Stuart Mill, perhaps it would have taken you

some time, but suppose your nature was Quixotic, impulsive, altruistic,

guileless; suppose you were a hungry man starving for something to love

and lean upon, for one whose burdens you might bear, and who might help

you to bear yours. Suppose you were down on your luck, still stunned by

a horrible shock, and this bright vista of a happy future floated

suddenly before you, how long under these circumstances do you think

you would reflect before you would decide on embracing what chance had

thrown in your way?

It did not take my hero long, for before he got past the ham and beef

shop near the top of Fetter Lane, he had told Ellen that she must come

home with him and live with him till they could get married, which they

would do upon the first day that the law allowed.

I think the devil must have chuckled and made tolerably sure of his

game this time.