Benjamin Farjeon - The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. A Novel

He stooped to Sally's face, and kissed her. With her arms round his neck, she pulled him to his knees, and made him kiss the sleeping child on the ground. Then, when he raised his face, she kissed him again, and with her mouth close to his, inhaled his breath, and exclaimed:

"Oh, shouldn't I like some to drink! I can only smell it now."

"Like some what, Sally?" asked the stranger, as in a shame-faced way, Mr. Chester turned from his child. "Some gin," answered Sally, with a smack of her lips.

Mr. Chester rose to his feet, with a rueful look.

"Give me a kiss, too, Sally," said the stranger; "I'm fond of game little girls."

But Sally was not to be won over, and when the stranger tried to force the kiss from her, she dug her fingers into his sandy whiskers with such spiteful intention that he was glad to free himself from her clutches.

"There, get out!" cried Mrs. Chester. "Can't you see the child don't want to have anything to do with you? You'll find your bed ready when you come home, which I expect won't be till you're turned out of the Royal George. Dick'll show you your room."

She caught up the sleeping child, and taking the candle, retired to the inner room, driving Sally before her.

"I've enough to reproach myself with one."

These words, spoken by Mr. Chester in the course of his late domestic difference with his wife, brought with them a feeling of deep remorse.

He had another child, a son, now a man, and a sharp pain shot through the hearts of husband and wife as the words were uttered. But Mr. Chester, once more at the Royal George, did his best to drown uncomfortable reminiscences. His new tenant, who accompanied him to the gin-palace, scarcely opened his lips except to drink. His manner of taking his liquor was not attractive; he raised his glass to his lips with a sly furtive air, and conducted himself throughout in so objectionable and jarring a spirit, that when, within half-an-hour of midnight, he said, churlishly: "I think I may as well get home;" Mr. Chester replied: "All right; you'll not be missed in this company." Thereupon, the stranger, with another sly watchful look around took his leave, to everyone's satisfaction.

Within a few moments of his departure, Mr. Chester, in the act of drinking, suddenly held up his hand. His attitude of attention was magnetically repeated in the attitudes of the persons around him. As when a person in the street stands still, and points at nothing in the sky, he speedily draws about him a throng of interested ones, who all look up, and point at nothing also.

What had arrested Mr. Chester's attention was the faint sound of music from without. Only half-a-dozen notes reached his ears, and they were softly borne to him from a wind instrument.

The glass which he held trembled in his hand, and, had he not placed it on the counter, would have fallen to the ground.

He walked slowly to the door, and looked out in the street for the musician. He could not see him, and the sound had died away. Returning to his companions, he abruptly asked:

"Did any of you observe whether that man" – referring, with a backward pointing of his thumb, to his new tenant-"had anything in his breast pocket?"

Two or three answered, No, they had not observed any thing particular; but one said he thought, now Mr. Chester mentioned it, that the stranger did have something in his breast pocket.

"Something that stuck out," suggested Mr. Chester vivaciously.

Perceiving that he had made a hit, the man replied that he thought it was something that stuck out.

"Might have been a stick?" proceeded Mr. Chester.

"Yes, it might have been a stick."

"Or a flute?"

"Yes, it might have been a flute."

"Or," asked Mr. Chester, coming now to his climax, "a penny tin whistle?"

Yes, the man thought it might decidedly have been penny tin whistle; which so satisfied Mr. Chester, that he inhaled a long breath of relief, and asked the man what he would take to drink.

In the meantime, Mrs. Chester proceeded with her domestic duties. She commenced to undress the baby-child whom Sally had already adopted as her own, and she was filled with wonder and curiosity as she noted the superior order of the child's clothes. The shoes, though dirty and dusty, were sound; the socks had not a hole in toe or heel-a state of sock which Sally seldom enjoyed; the frock was of beautiful blue cashmere, and as her mother handed it to her, Sally pressed her lips and eyes against the comfortable material, with a sense of great enjoyment; then came a petticoat, of black merino; then a white petticoat, with tucks and insertions, which increased Sally's admiration; then the little petticoat of flannel, not like the flannel in Sally's petticoat, hard and unsympathetic; this was thick, and soft, and cosy to the touch-there was real warmth and comfort in it; then the pretty white stays; and the child lay in Mrs. Chester's lap, in her chemise, with its delicate edgings of lace round the dimpled arms and fat little bosom-lay like a rose dipped in milk, as the good woman afterwards expressed it to neighbouring gossips. The lovely picture was to Mrs. Chester like sparks of fire upon dry tinder. Soft lights of memory glowed upon her, lighting up the dark sky; sweet reminiscences sprang up in her mind and bloomed there like flowers in an arid soil, and for a few moments she experienced a feeling of delicious happiness. But soon, in the light of sad reality, the stars paled in the sky, the flowers faded, and sorrowful tears were welling from the mother's eyes. Sally did not see them, for her face was hidden in the sleeping baby's neck, and she was kissing her lovely treasure with profound and passionate devotion.

"Come now," abruptly said Mrs. Chester, furtively wiping away her tears, "just you get to bed. I shall be having nice work with you to-morrow if you've caught cold."

Sally's reply denoted that her thoughts were not on herself.

"Ain't she a beauty, mother? She's ever so much better then the collerbine that dances in the street. Mother, she didn't come from a parsley-bed, did she?"

This was in reference to her belief in her own origin, but Mrs. Chester declined to be led into conversation so Sally wriggled herself between the bedclothes, and holding out her arms received the pretty child in them. Supremely happy, she curled herself up, with her baby-treasure pressed tightly to her bony breast, and was soon fast asleep.

Mrs. Chester, after seeing that the children were warmly tucked up, took Sally's clothes, and commenced the mother's never-ending task among the poor of stitching and mending. And as she stitched and patched, the words her husband had spoken, "I've enough to reproach myself with one," recurred to her, and brought grief and sadness with them. Her tears fell upon Sally's tattered garments as she dwelt upon the bright promise of the first years of her married life and the marring of her most cherished hopes. Absorbed in these contemplations, she did not notice that the candle was almost at its last gasp; presently it went out with a sob, leaving Mrs. Chester in darkness. Wearied with a long day's toil, she closed her eyes; her tear-stained work fell to the ground; her head sank upon the pillow, and her hand sought Sally's. As she gained it, and clasped it within her own, she fell asleep by the children's side. Her sleep was dreamless until nearly midnight, when a few tremulous notes, played outside the house on a penny tin whistle, stirred imagination into creative action, and inspired strangely-contrasted dreams within the minds of mother and child.

She had been married for twenty-five years, and had had two children-one, a boy, a year after her marriage; the other, a girl, the Sally of this story, twenty years afterwards. Upon her darling boy, Ned, she lavished all the strength of her love. He was a handsome child, the very opposite to Sally; full of spirit and mischief; always craving for pleasure and excitement, always being indulged in his cravings to the full extent of his mother's means. This unvarying kindness should have influenced him for good, but he glided into the wrong track, and at an early age developed a remarkable talent for appropriation. The father had no time to look after his son's morals, being himself absorbingly engaged in the cultivation of a talent for which he, also, had shown early aptitude-a talent for gin-drinking.