"No, it won"t. On the contrary, you"ll be a better and a happier man.
You wouldn"t have him starve, when through him you have your liberty?
I"m ashamed of you."
She lit her candle and walked away.
Old Helps never went to bed that night.
CHAPTER XL.
Esther did not go out next morning. Cherry was surprised at this. Helps went off at his usual hour. Cherry noticed that he ate little or no breakfast; but Esther did not stir. She sat quietly by the breakfast table. She ate well and deliberately. Her eyes were bright, her whole face was full of light and expression.
"Ain"t you going down as usual to these dirty slums?" quoth Cherry.
"I"m sick of them. You and your clothes both coming in so draggled like at night. I"m sick of the slums. But perhaps you mean to give them up."
"Oh, no," said Esther, waking from a reverie into which she had fallen, "but I"m not going this morning. I"ve something else to attend to."
"Then perhaps, Esther," said Cherry, with her round eyes sparkling, "you"d maybe think to remember your promise of getting that pink gauze dress out of your trunk; you know you promised it to me, and I"ve a mind to make it up with yellow bows. I"m sure to want it for something about Christmas."
"You shall have it," said Esther, in a sharp, short voice.
The abstracted look returned to her face. She gazed out of the window.
"Law, Essie, ain"t you changed, and for the worse, I take it!" remarked Cherry. "I liked you a sight better when you were flighty and frivolous. Do you remember the night you went to the theatre with that Captain something or other? My word, wasn"t uncle in a taking. "Twas I found your tickets, and put uncle up to getting a seat near you.
Weren"t you struck all of a heap when you found him there? I never heard how you took it."
"Hush," said Esther, rising to her feet, her face growing very white.
"I was mad, then, but I was saved. That"s enough about it. Cherry, you know the box-room?"
"Yes," said Cherry. "It"s stuffed pretty well, too. Mostly with your trunks, what you say belonged to your mother."
"So they did. Well, they must go downstairs."
"Wherever to? There isn"t a corner for them in this sc.r.a.p of a house."
"Corners must be found. Some of the trunks can go in our bedroom--some into father"s; some into the pa.s.sage, some into the drawing-room if necessary. You needn"t stare, it has got to be done."
Esther stamped her foot and looked so imperious that Cherry shrank away.
"I suppose you"re a bit mad again," she muttered, and she began to collect the breakfast things on a tray.
"Stop, Cherry, we may as well talk this out. I"ll go upstairs now and help you with the boxes. Then we"ll clean out the attic; if I had time I"d paper it, but there ain"t. Then I"m going out to buy a bedstead and bedding, and a table and washhand stand. The attic is to be made into a bedroom for----"
Here she paused.
"Well," said Cherry, "for whom, in the name of goodness?"
Esther gulped something down in her throat.
"There"s a good man in the East of London, a very good man; he has no money, and he"s starving, and he has to sleep out of doors; and--and--I can"t stand it, Cherry--and I spoke to father, and we have agreed that he shall have the attic and his food. That"s it, his name is Brother Jerome; he"s a sort of an angel for goodness."
"Slums again," said Cherry; "I"ll have nothing to do with it."
She took up her tray and marched into the kitchen. Esther waited a minute or two, then she went to her room, put on a coa.r.s.e check ap.r.o.n, and mounted the narrow attic stairs. She commenced pulling the trunks about; she could not lift them alone, but she intended to push them to the head of the stairs and then shove them down.
Presently a thumping step was heard, and Cherry"s round face appeared.
"Disgusting job, I call it," she said; "but if I must help you, I suppose I must. I was going to learn "Lord Tom Noddy" this morning. I thought I might wear the pink gauze with yellow bows, and recite it at Uncle Dan"s Christmas party. Cousin Tom says I"m real dramatic when I"m excited, and that"s a beautiful piece, so rhythmic and flowing. But then we all have to bend to you, Esther, and if I must help you I suppose I must."
"I think you had better, dear, and some day perhaps you won"t be sorry.
He"s a good man, Brother Jerome is, he won"t be no trouble. I"ll clean his room for him myself once it"s put in order, and he"s sure to go out early in the morning. He"ll breakfast upstairs, and I"ll take him his breakfast, and his supper shall be ready for him here at night. We must see if that chimney will draw, Cherry, for of course he"ll want his bit of fire."
After this the two girls worked with a will; they cleaned and polished the tiny window, they scrubbed the floor and brushed down the walls, and polished the little grate. Then Esther went out and made her purchases. The greater part of a five pound note was expended, and by the afternoon Gerald Wyndham"s room was ready for him.
"Brother Jerome will come home with me to-night. Cherry," said Esther.
"I may be late--I"m sure to be late--you needn"t sit up."
"But I"d like to see him. Slums or no slums, he has given me a pair of stiff arms, and I want to find out if he"s worth them."
"Oh, he"s nothing to look at. Just a tall, thin, starved-looking man.
He"ll be shy, maybe, of coming, and you"d much better go to bed. You"ll leave some supper ready in his room."
"What shall I leave?"
"Oh, a jug of beer and some cheese, and the cold meat and some bread and b.u.t.ter. That"s all, he"s accustomed to roughing it."
"My word, you call that roughing. Then the slums can"t be so bad. I always thought there was an uncommon fuss made about them. Now I"ll get to "Lord Tom Noddy," and learn off a good bit before tea time; you might hear me recite if you had a mind, Essie."
CHAPTER XLI.
"Oh, yes, she"s the sweetest missus in the world!"
That was the universal opinion of the servants who worked for Valentine Wyndham. They never wanted to leave her, they never grumbled about her, nor thought her gentle orders hard. The nurse, the cook, the housemaid, stayed on, the idea of change did not occur to them.
Valentine and her little son came back to the house in town at the end of October. Lilias came with them, and Adrian Carr often ran up to town and paid a visit to the two.
One day he came with a piece of news. He had got the offer of an inc.u.mbency not very far from Park-Lane. A fashionable church wanted a good preacher. Carr had long ago developed unusual powers as a pulpit orator, and the post, with a good emolument, was offered to him. He came to consult Lilias and Valentine in the matter.
"Of course you must go," said Lilias. "My father will miss you--we shall all--but that isn"t the point. This is a good thing for you--a great thing--you must certainly go."
"And I can often see you," responded Carr, eagerly. "Mrs. Wyndham will let me come here, I hope, and you will often be here."