Jack"s face was nearly as pale as the boy"s as he looked up and said, "Fetch the doctor! Quick!"
Flanagan darted off almost before the words were out of his lips.
There was nothing for us who were left behind to do but to watch with painful anxiety the poor little sufferer, who lay mostly unconscious, and still at intervals violently sick.
Masham"s ruffianly blow and kick had evidently done far more damage than he or any one supposed. As we waited in silence for the doctor to come our alarm increased, and it even seemed doubtful whether, as we stood there, we were not destined to see a terrible end to that evening"s proceedings.
"Has the boy a father or mother?" whispered my uncle to me.
Jack who sat with the sufferer"s head on his arm, heard the question, and said hurriedly, "Yes. You must fetch his mother, Fred!"
There was such a tone of alarm in his voice that had Billy"s mother been a wild beast I could hardly have disobeyed.
I darted off on my unenviable quest, meeting the doctor on the stairs.
I knew the house in the court by this time, and was myself well-known to its inmates.
The woman was not at home; she had not been home since the morning, and no one knew where she was. I left a message apprising her of what had happened, and telling her to come at once to the lodgings. Then with much foreboding I hastened back to Drury Lane.
The evening had been a strangely different one from what I had expected.
I was to have broken the news to Jack of his father"s discovery, instead of which, here was I rushing frantically about trying to find an unhappy woman and summon her to what, for all I knew, might be the death-bed of her son!
I found when I returned that Billy had somewhat revived. He was lying back, very white still, and apparently unconscious, but they told me the doctor had given some hope of his recovery, and that the fits of sickness had stopped and left him stronger.
My uncle, whose concern for the poor boy was scarcely less than ours, had relieved Jack at the patient"s bedside. Jack, who, now that the imminent anxiety was over, had given way to a natural reaction, was, I could see, in a terrible state of misery and rage.
"If he dies," muttered he to me, "I"ll--"
What he meant to say I do not know. He stopped short and flung himself in the empty seat by the window, trembling all over. I had never known before how fond he was of the poor boy.
"What about his mother?" he said presently, turning to me.
"I couldn"t find her, or hear of her anywhere," I said. "But I left a message for her."
Just then my uncle beckoned with his hand.
Billy had opened his eyes, and was looking about him. He had done so once or twice before, but always in a vacant, stupid sort of way. Now, to our intense joy, there was a glimmer of something like the old life in his pale face, especially when, catching sight of Jack, who sprang to his side in a moment, his features broke into a faint smile.
My uncle came quietly to me across the room.
"I"ll go now," said he--more kindly than I had ever heard him speak. "I shall stay in town to-night, and will look in in the morning;" and so saying he went.
Mr Smith and I accompanied him to the door. As we were returning up the stairs some one called after us. I turned, and saw that the new- comer was Billy"s mother.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.
HOW I GOT RID OF THE PETTY-CASH, AND OF MR. SMITH"S SECRET.
Billy"s mother was, for the first time in my experience, sober. I stayed behind for her on the stairs, while Mr Smith retired to his own room, saying he would come up and see us all in the morning. I wished he would have stayed and countenanced me in my interview with the unhappy woman.
"What"s all this, mister?" she said, as she came up.
Once, possibly, Billy"s mother might have been a handsome and even attractive woman, but drink had defaced whatever beauty she once had, and had degraded her terribly, as it always does, both in body and mind.
"Billy has been badly hurt," I said, "and we thought you ought to come."
"Who hurt him?" she demanded.
There was no sympathy or even concern in her tone. She spoke like a person to whom all the world is an enemy, in league to do her wrong.
"There was a struggle," I said. "A man was. .h.i.tting Mr Smith--"
"Mr Smith!" she exclaimed, fiercely; "who"s he--who"s Mr Smith?"
"Why, my friend who sometimes goes to see you in the court."
"Oh!" said she, with a contemptuous laugh, "that fool!"
"Some one was striking him, and Billy put himself between them, and was badly hurt."
"Well, what"s come to him? Is he dead, or what?" demanded the woman.
"No, he"s not, mercifully," said I. "He"s getting better, we hope."
"And you mean to say," said the woman, with her wrath rising, "you"ve got that child among you, and you"re not content with robbing him and keeping him away from me, but here you"ve half-murdered him into the bargain, you-- Where is he, mister? I"ll take him back along with me; I"ve had enough of this tomfoolery, I tell you."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, "it would kill him to move him! You mustn"t think of it."
"Get out of the way!" she exclaimed, fiercely, trying to push past me.
"I"ll take him out of this. I"ll teach you all whose child the boy is!
Get out of my way! Let me go to him."
What could I do? I had no right to keep a mother from her son; and yet, were she to carry out her threat, no one could say what the result to the boy might not be.
In my dilemma I thought of Mr Smith, and conducted my intractable visitor to his room, in the hopes that he might be able to dissuade her from carrying out her threat.
But nothing he could do or say could bring her to reason. She appeared to be persuaded in her own mind that the whole affair was a conspiracy to do her some wrong, and that being so, entreaties, threats, and even bribes would not put her off her idea of taking Billy away with her.
"Come now," said she, after this ineffectual parley had gone on for some time, "I"m not going to be made a fool of by you two any more. Where"s Billy? where are you hiding him? It"s no use you trying to impose on me with your gammon!"
"He"s upstairs," said I, feeling that further resistance was worse than useless. "I"ll run up and tell Jack you"re coming. Billy may be asleep."
But the woman caught me roughly by the arm. "No, no!" said she, "I don"t want none of your schemes and plots; I can go up without your help, mister."
So saying, she broke away from us and went up the stairs.
"Don"t follow her," said Mr Smith; "the fewer up there the better.
Jack will manage."