_ 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. _