Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1043 page)

“Why shouldn’t we take her along with us?” one of the women suggested. “She won’t mind sleeping three in a bed, I know.”

“What are you thinking of?” the other woman remonstrated. “When he finds she don’t come home, our place will be the first place he looks for her in.”

Amelius settled the difficulty, in his own headlong way, “I’ll take care of her for the night,” he said. “Sally, will you trust yourself with me?”

She put her hand in his, with the air of a child who was ready to go home. Her wan face brightened for the first time. “Thank you, sir,” she said; “I’ll go anywhere along with you.”

The policeman smiled. The two women looked thunderstruck. Before they had recovered themselves, Amelius forced them to take some money from him, and cordially shook hands with them. “You’re good creatures,” he said, in his eager, hearty way; “I’m sincerely sorry for you. Now, Mr. Policeman, show me where to find a cab — and take that for the trouble I am giving you. You’re a humane man, and a credit to the force.”

In five minutes more, Amelius was on the way to his lodgings, with Simple Sally by his side. The act of reckless imprudence which he was committing was nothing but an act of Christian duty, to his mind. Not the slightest misgiving troubled him. “I shall provide for her in some way!” he thought to himself cheerfully. He looked at her. The weary outcast was asleep already in her corner of the cab. From time to time she still shivered, even in her sleep. Amelius took off his great-coat, and covered her with it. How some of his friends at the club would have laughed, if they had seen him at that moment!

He was obliged to wake her when the cab stopped. His key admitted them to the house. He lit his candle in the hall, and led her up the stairs. “You’ll soon be asleep again, Sally,” he whispered.

She looked round the little sitting-room with drowsy admiration. “What a pretty place to live in!” she said.

“Are you hungry again?” Amelius asked.

She shook her head, and took off her shabby bonnet; her pretty light-brown hair fell about her face and her shoulders. “I think I’m too tired, sir, to be hungry. Might I take the sofa-pillow, and lay down on the hearth-rug?”

Amelius opened the door of his bedroom. “You are to pass the night more comfortably than that,” he answered. “There is a bed for you here.”

She followed him in, and looked round the bedroom, with renewed admiration of everything that she saw. At the sight of the hairbrushes and the comb, she clapped her hands in ecstasy. “Oh, how different from mine!” she exclaimed. “Is the comb tortoise-shell, sir, like one sees in the shop-windows?” The bath and the towels attracted her next; she stood, looking at them with longing eyes, completely forgetful of the wonderful comb. “I’ve often peeped into the ironmongers’ shops,” she said, “and thought I should be the happiest girl in the world, if I had such a bath as that. A little pitcher is all I have got of my own, and they swear at me when I want it filled more than once. In all my life, I have never had as much water as I should like.” She paused, and thought for a moment. The forlorn, vacant look appeared again, and dimmed the beauty of her blue eyes. “It will be hard to go back, after seeing all these pretty things,” she said to herself — and sighed, with that inborn submission to her fate so melancholy to see in a creature so young.

“You shall never go back again to that dreadful life,” Amelius interposed. “Never speak of it, never think of it any more. Oh, don’t look at me like that!”

She was listening with an expression of pain, and with both her hands lifted to her head. There was something so wonderful in the idea which he had suggested to her, that her mind was not able to take it all in at once. “You make my head giddy,” she said. “I’m such a poor stupid girl — I feel out of myself, like, when a gentleman like you sets me thinking of new things. Would you mind saying it again, sir?”

“I’ll say it to-morrow morning,” Amelius rejoined kindly. “You are tired, Sally — go to rest.”

She roused herself, and looked at the bed. “Is that your bed, sir?”

“It’s your bed to-night,” said Amelius. “I shall sleep on the sofa, in the next room.”

Her eyes rested on him, for a moment, in speechless surprise; she looked back again at the bed. “Are you going to leave me by myself?” she asked wonderingly. Not the faintest suggestion of immodesty — nothing that the most profligate man living could have interpreted impurely — showed itself in her look or manner, as she said those words.

Amelius thought of what one of her women-friends had told him. “She hasn’t grown up, you know, in her mind, since she was a child.” There were other senses in the poor victim that were still undeveloped, besides the mental sense. He was at a loss how to answer her, with the respect which was due to that all-atoning ignorance. His silence amazed and frightened her.

“Have I said anything to make you angry with me?” she asked.

Amelius hesitated no longer. “My poor girl,” he said, “I pity you from the bottom of my heart! Sleep well, Simple Sally — sleep well.” He left her hurriedly, and shut the door between them.

She followed him as far as the closed door; and stood there alone, trying to understand him, and trying all in vain! After a while, she found courage enough to whisper through the door. “If you please, sir — ” She stopped, startled by her own boldness. He never heard her; he was standing at the window, looking out thoughtfully at the night; feeling less confident of the future already. She still stood at the door, wretched in the firm persuasion that she had offended him. Once she lifted her hand to knock at the door, and let it drop again at her side. A second time she made the effort, and desperately summoned the resolution to knock. He opened the door directly.

“I’m very sorry if I said anything wrong,” she began faintly, her breath coming and going in quick hysteric gasps. “Please forgive me, and wish me good night.” Amelius took her hand; he said good night with the utmost gentleness, but he said it sorrowfully. She was not quite comforted yet. “Would you mind, sir — ?” She paused awkwardly, afraid to go on. There was something so completely childlike in the artless perplexity of her eyes, that Amelius smiled. The change in his expression gave her back her courage in an instant; her pale delicate lips reflected his smile prettily. “Would you mind giving me a kiss, sir?” she said. Amelius kissed her. Let the man who can honestly say he would have done otherwise, blame him. He shut the door between them once more. She was quite happy now. He heard her singing to herself as she got ready for bed.

Once, in the wakeful watches of the night, she startled him. He heard a cry of pain or terror in the bedroom. “What is it?” he asked through the door; “what has frightened you?” There was no answer. After a minute or two, the cry was repeated. He opened the door, and looked in. She was sleeping, and dreaming as she slept. One little thin white arm was lifted in the air, and waved restlessly to and fro over her head. “Don’t kill me!” she murmured, in low moaning tones — ”oh, don’t kill me!” Amelius took her arm gently, and laid it back on the coverlet of the bed. His touch seemed to exercise some calming influence over her: she sighed, and turned her head on the pillow; a faint flush rose on her wasted cheeks, and passed away again — she sank quietly into dreamless sleep.

Amelius returned to his sofa, and fell into a broken slumber. The hours of the night passed. The sad light of the November morning dawned mistily through the uncurtained window, and woke him.

He started up, and looked at the bedroom door. “Now what is to be done?” That was his first thought, on waking: he was beginning to feel his responsibilities at last.

CHAPTER 2

The landlady of the lodgings decided what was to be done.

“You will be so good, sir, as to leave my apartments immediately,” she said to Amelius. “I make no claim to the week’s rent, in consideration of the short notice. This is a respectable house, and it shall be kept respectable at any sacrifice.”

Amelius explained and protested; he appealed to the landlady’s sense of justice and sense of duty, as a Christian woman.

The reasoning which would have been irresistible at Tadmor was reasoning completely thrown away in London. The landlady remained as impenetrable as the Egyptian Sphinx. “If that creature in the bedroom is not out of my house in an hour’s time, I shall send for the police.” Having answered her lodger’s arguments in those terms, she left the room, and banged the door after her.

“Thank you, sir, for being so kind to me. I’ll go away directly — and then, perhaps, the lady will forgive you.”

Amelius looked round. Simple Sally had heard it all. She was dressed in her wretched clothes, and was standing at the open bedroom door, crying,

“Wait a little,” said Amelius, wiping her eyes with his own handkerchief; “and we will go away together. I want to get you some better clothes; and I don’t exactly know how to set about it. Don’t cry, my dear — don’t cry.”

The deaf maid-of-all-work came in, as he spoke. She too was in tears. Amelius had been good to her, in many little ways — and she was the guilty person who had led to the discovery in the bedroom. “If you had only told me, sir,” she said pentitently, “I’d have kep’ it secret. But, there, I went in with your ‘ot water, as usual, and, O Lor’, I was that startled I dropped the jug, and run downstairs again — !”

Amelius stopped the further progress of the apology. “I don’t blame you, Maria,” he said; “I’m in a difficulty. Help me out of it; and you will do me a kindness.”

Maria partially heard him, and no more. Afraid of reaching the landlady’s ears, as well as the maid’s ears, if he raised his voice, he asked if she could read writing. Yes, she could read writing, if it was plain. Amelius immediately reduced the expression of his necessities to writing, in large text. Maria was delighted. She knew the nearest shop at which ready-made outer clothing for women could be obtained, and nothing was wanted, as a certain guide to an ignorant man, but two pieces of string. With one piece, she measured Simple Sally’s height, and with the other she took the slender girth of the girl’s waist — while Amelius opened his writing-desk, and supplied himself with the last sum of spare money that he possessed. He had just closed the desk again, when the voice of the merciless landlady was heard, calling imperatively for Maria.

The maid-of-all-work handed the two indicative strings to Amelius. “They’ll ‘elp you at the shop,” she said — and shuffled out of the room.

Amelius turned to Simple Sally. “I am going to get you some new clothes,” he began.

The girl stopped him there: she was incapable of listening to a word more. Every trace of sorrow vanished from her face in an instant. She clapped her hands. “Oh!” she cried, “new clothes! clean clothes! Let me go with you.”

Even Amelius saw that it was impossible to take her out in the streets with him in broad daylight, dressed as she was then. “No, no,” he said, “wait here till you get your new things. I won’t be half an hour gone. Lock yourself in if you’re afraid, and open the door to nobody till I come back!”

Sally hesitated; she began to look frightened.

“Think of the new dress, and the pretty bonnet,” suggested Amelius, speaking unconsciously in the tone in which he might have promised a toy to a child.

He had taken the right way with her. Her face brightened again. “I’ll do anything you tell me,” she said.

He put the key in her hand, and was out in the street directly.

Amelius possessed one valuable moral quality which is exceedingly rare among Englishmen. He was not in the least ashamed of putting himself in a ridiculous position, when he was conscious that his own motives justified him. The smiling and tittering of the shop-women, when he stated the nature of his errand, and produced his two pieces of string, failed to annoy him in the smallest degree. He laughed too. “Funny, isn’t it,” he said, “a man like me buying gowns and the rest of it? She can’t come herself — and you’ll advise me, like good creatures, won’t you?” They advised their handsome young customer to such good purpose, that he was in possession of a gray walking costume, a black cloth jacket, a plain lavender-coloured bonnet, a pair of black gloves, and a paper of pins, in little more than ten minutes’ time. The nearest trunk-maker supplied a travelling-box to hold all these treasures; and a passing cab took Amelius back to his lodgings, just as the half-hour was out. But one event had happened during his absence. The landlady had knocked at the door, had called through it in a terrible voice, “Half an hour more!” and had retired again without waiting for an answer.