“Smith!”
“Oh my Gawd! I’m done for!”
The floor about Mr. Mansfield’s desk looked as though it had been snowed on by documents! Depositions, Confessions, Summonses and Judgments lay in a guilty profusion, and in the midst of them crouched Smith, wearing only his shirt and looking like an outsize document himself with his face turned up like a gray seal of terror!
All Miss Mansfield’s dread and anguish turned now into a violent fury and bitterness.
“Smith! Is this how you repay Mister Mansfield? By robbing him? Stealing from a blind man? Is this the kindness of heart that so moved him? Nothing but the cunning skill of a cruel rogue?”
She spoke in a trembling whisper—for she dared not awake her father.
Smith, still among the documents, stared up at her with a mixture of misery and fear. He’d not yet found his precious document, which he knew he’d have recognized even among the hundreds he’d strewn about. Now he was done for. Flight was impossible. Miss Mansfield stood in the doorway, and the builder had provided no other way out. He wondered what would be done with him. The worst he could count on was being taken and hanged for a thief. The best—to be sent furiously out into the night. Either way, the document was lost forever.
“I—I ain’t cruel,” he mumbled unhappily. “Reely, I ain’t . . .”
Miss Mansfield bit on her lip. She scowled—and her face in the candlelight looked like a small thundercloud. Fiercely, she continued to stare at the unlucky Smith. Really! What could one expect of such a child? All his life a thief! She began to grow angry with her father again. He ought to have expected something like this. But he was so foolishly sentimental! Just because the boy showed him a kindness when any other wretch would have robbed him and left him for dead . . . why should he think Smith was exceptional? And reformed? A stupid idea. As if such a boy would change in an evening! It takes time. And her father, of all people, should have known!
Miss Mansfield’s breast began to heave with aggravation, and Smith watched her piteously.
Her father was outrageous! Always he expected her to have the patience of a saint. Well—she hadn’t! She was peevish. And now he’d left her to deal with the wretched boy while he slept on in happy ignorance. Oh!
“Smith,” she said at length, scowling worse than ever under the strain of her long inner quarrel. “I—I’m disappointed, it’s true. But—you’re fortunate that Mister Mansfield is more understanding than his daughter. She, I promise you, would have had you clapped straight into Newgate! But Mister Mansfield never expected an angel out of you all at once. Mister Mansfield’s a saint, Smith, and on that account you may thank your stars! Go back to bed this instant—and we’ll say no more of tonight. But—if I catch you doing any such thing again—then it’s Newgate for you, my lad, on the instant. Now—to bed! Don’t gape. Don’t cry! Tears won’t move me. Or don’t you understand, Smith? You’ve been given another chance.”
8
THE HOUSE IN VINE STREET was both joined to and separated from its neighbor by a brick built arch that led to the stable and yard. This arch was so clumsy in its brickwork that, skillful as was the coachman, he was forever scraping the paintwork of Miss Mansfield’s curricle and her father’s coach. But nothing was ever done to remedy this; Mr. Mansfield had grown used to the sound of it and Miss Mansfield would allow no change to anything that helped her father to see with his ears or hands. So the carriages continued to be scraped and the stable boy was forever being sent to the paint shop for pigment or varnish to make good the damage. Which task fell naturally to Smith. It was on one of these journeys that he fell in with a certain muffin-man with whom he had an old street acquaintance.
“Ain’t I seed you before?” asked the muffin-man, thrown out by Smith’s cleanliness and livery.
“Maybe,” said Smith cautiously, and then decided to make use of the acquaintance.
“D’you know the Red Lion Tavern in Saffron Hill?”
The muffin-man grinned. He knew it all right.
“And d’you know the two ladies what reside in its nether regions?” (Smith’s education had begun and he’d acquired a fanciful taste in words.)
“The darlings in the cellar? Miss Bridget and Miss Fanny? Everyone knows them!”
“The very same! I’d be obleeged if you’d carry ’em a message.”
The muffin-man thrust out his lower lip till it looked like the last quarter of a muffin.
“Tell ’em a—a certain person’s well and prospering. Tell ’em ’e’s on ’is way up in the world . . . and will communicate further when a suitable occasion has arose.”
Much impressed, the muffin-man nodded. “I’ll tell ’em.”
“Don’t forget now. A certain person’s on his way up in the world.”
Then, watched all the way by the admiring muffin-man, Smith strolled back to the house in Vine Street, whistling cheerfully—for he’d just discharged a duty that had been weighing on him these three weeks past; he’d set his sisters’ minds at rest (always supposing they’d ever been otherwise), and so had kept his word with Mr. Mansfield. He smiled somewhat wistfully as he pictured Miss Bridget’s and Miss Fanny’s faces when they got his news. And he sighed when he thought of his friend, Lord Tom. Well—well . . . they weren’t gone forever. Someday, soon, they’d all meet again, when he’d got what he wanted from the document . . .
His face darkened. The document was still in Mr. Mansfield’s study and not all of his wit and deftness had brought him any nearer to recovering it. When he was in the house Miss Mansfield watched him like a brisk and suspicious hawk; and when he was in the yard the coachman watched him even sharper . . . while the three ugly, lumbering horses, Smith felt, kept more than an ordinary eye on him.
At night, he dared not try again, for Miss Mansfield slept light as a feather . . . and she’d give him no second chance. His credit on her kindness was stretched to its limit and he shivered as he thought of its breaking. For he’d come, little by little, to think as well of the Mansfields as anyone else (Lord Tom and his sisters excepted) in the world.
Though both of them, on occasion, frightened him half to death, there were times when they did no such thing. There were times, even, when they made him grin: viz, when they quarreled over which of them was to be blamed for a kindness. There were times when they made him shrug his shoulders in bewilderment: viz, when Miss Mansfield lit candles for her blind father and did everything to persuade the house he could see it . . . and yet she’d have nothing moved—be it ever so awkward and ill-placed—lest her father stumble against it and so betray what the whole world knew: viz, that he was blind as a mole. There were times when nothing pleased Smith more than Miss Mansfield’s praise of his progress in reading, so that, for the moment, her good opinion seemed the chief purpose in his studying and not the document at all! Of which studying Meg the scullery maid took a vexatious view.
“Learning?” she’d say contemptuously, while Smith sat in the kitchen of a late afternoon or evening, his small white face cupped in his thin white hands, staring up at Meg’s big red face pillowed in her big red arms. “Learning? Give you a farthing for it! Mark my words, little one—a yewmanbeen’s better off without it! What good’s it ever done a soul? Brains? Wouldn’t have ’em if you paid me! A penn’orth of heart’s worth all your skinny clever heads!” She stared thoughtfully at Smith’s own skinny face and pushed over a piece of pie as if to fill him out as quickly as possible. “I saw some clever heads—once. When I was a little girl. Me mother—God rest her—showed me. Three of ’em: a Lord, a Sir and a Mister. On the Traitors’ Gate. Cut off at the neck! Very clever heads, they was. And much good it did ’em! ‘Meg!’ said she—and I’ll always remember her words—‘Meg! Take note. Heads without hearts is nought but bleeding pom-poms! Of no use to man, woman or child.’”
“But at least you can read, Meg,” said Smith, munching at the pie. “For you read the name on that old paper you found when I was washed.”
Meg
stared at him crossly, as if she felt all her warning were wasted. “I can read what’s proper and needful, young man! But no more than that. F’rinstance, I’d never read a book!”
“But what about Miss Mansfield?”
Meg shut her eyes in vexation.
“Yes! You look at the mistress. All trouble and worry and storms in the heart! And then you look at the master who can neither read nor write on account of his disability—which is, maybe, a blessing in disguise. All smiles and even-faced. All contentment, I’d say. There, now!” Surprised by her own powers of observation, she opened her eyes triumphantly. “So who’s the better off? Brains? Give you a farthing for ’em!”
But in spite of Meg’s warnings Smith continued to study as hard as he was able. He mastered the alphabet—that sinister collection of twists and curls and crosses and gibbet-shaped signs that resembled nothing so much as the irons that hung on Newgate’s most dreadful walls and, by the time of his meeting with the muffin-man, he could pronounce aloud such words as Miss Mansfield wrote on his slate.
“M-y n-a-m-e i-s S-m-i-t-h . . . th,” he spluttered out with great difficulty, only understanding the sentiment as he heard the sounds he made.
“Well done!” cried Miss Mansfield, and Smith, though pleased to have pleased her, was mildly aggrieved to discover that so much effort had gone into saying aloud what was perfectly well known to both of them all the time. None the less, he was much encouraged and Miss Mansfield promised him that, in but a short while more, he’d be able to read whatever his heart desired. On which Smith’s eyes would stray towards Mr. Mansfield’s study with an expression of great yearning and hope.
Sometimes, Mr. Mansfield himself would stay to listen to Smith’s lesson, now and then explaining something of which his poor blind eyes still held the memory. But mostly he kept silent, save when he, too, had occasion to praise the boy’s quickness and progress. And this, when it happened, moved Smith oddly, for he sensed a deep generosity behind it, and if anything could bring tears to Smith’s eyes (apart from a thump on the nose), it was the sudden warmth of a generous heart.
Nor were the Mansfields the only ones who were pleased by Smith’s redemption from black ignorance—which was following so pat on his redemption from his other blackness. Mr. Billing had come to hear of Miss Mansfield’s pupil, and the lad’s arrival and subsequent improvement at Miss Mansfield’s hands formed a fresh subject for his lively chatter.
This Mr. Billing was a handsome fellow of thirty or thereabouts. He had rosy cheeks, a prosperous, dark moustache and eyes that, when they weren’t shining with devotion to Miss Mansfield, were shining with all of an attorney’s shrewdness and wit. He walked with quick springy steps and put off his cloak with an air. These facts Smith had learned from observing him from the dark top of the stairs, for, as Miss Mansfield had never yet seen fit to introduce the stable boy to her suitor, Mr. Billing and Smith had not yet met; even though he called often and unexpectedly, knowing that, in courtship, the sudden is worth its weight in gold.
Sometimes he’d come mid-morning with a, “I was passing and couldn’t resist,” and sometimes mid-afternoon with a, “I found myself at your door as if by magic!” Then there’d be much cheerful laughter and in he’d come and settle for an hour, dispensing pleasure to Miss Mansfield and irritation to Smith who would be banished to the kitchen. For Miss Mansfield preferred to break off the lesson rather than have her suitor and the stable boy—whose tongue she couldn’t answer for—meet face to face.
This uneasiness of hers persisted and even grew, and what at first had been a fleeting and foolish embarrassment became a deep and odd fear, so that a meeting she’d begun preventing almost lightly, became an affair of strange importance that must be avoided at all costs.
She’d grown deeply fond of Smith, who’d darted into her heart as neatly as she supposed he’d once darted from doorway to doorway in the freezing, friendless streets. An extraordinary child: a fascinating, quick-witted, dear-faced, obliging and determined child . . . but a child whose sometimes violent tongue she couldn’t answer for, and whose resentment at Mr. Billing’s interruptions alarmed her. More and more, she came to dread the meeting she’d so far put off, but which she knew she could not put off forever.
There’s no doubt that, by keeping all this to herself, she’d helped it grow to formidable dimensions in her mind; but Smith’s resentment seemed to be growing likewise—as if his patience was running out. As if there was some goal he’d set his heart on, and the nearer he came to it the more enraged he was at being delayed.
Which was nothing less than the truth; for Smith was now very close to being able to read. His long battle was nearly won. Letters were making words for him; words were making sentences. Great pages of print that, scarce four weeks ago had seemed no more than a mad patterning of the paper, now spoke haltingly to him—even told stories—as if long-dead gentlemen woke up under his struggling eyes, buttonholed his mind and breathed their thoughts and dreams into it. Gentlemen who were dead and dust a thousand years stirred and shifted and began to live their lives again.
But still there were gaps and lapses and conjunctions of letters that seemed to have no business together. He thought often of the document but he knew it was useless to him till he could fill those gaps and lapses. So he waited for the day when Miss Mansfield should declare, “Smith: now you can read whatever your heart desires.”
But with the over-attentive attorney’s interruptions, that day did not come till a certain Tuesday morning when the event Miss Mansfield had tried so hard to prevent also came to pass, as sooner or later it had to.
“Well, Smith,” she said with a proud and affectionate smile, “now all the wisdom of the world is yours for the taking. For you can read, my dear—”
On which Smith’s heart leaped almost to the skies; and when there came at almost the selfsame moment the familiar double knock on the front door, he felt, in place of his customary resentment, a grand relief that he could escape and caper and dance in a private triumph.
“It’s Mister Billing, miss!” he said with a cheerfulness that amazed Miss Mansfield. “Come a-cooing! So I’ll be off and ’ide meself now. The best of luck to you, miss! I’m sure you’ll be very ’appy!”
With that, he fled from the library in high delight, and with the best will in the world (for Smith, when he wished anyone happiness, really meant it—happiness being a word he didn’t use lightly), stopped in the hall to wish Mr. Billing the same.
“Best of ’appiness in your cooing, Mister Billing!” he cried— then faltered on his way down the stairs.
The rosy-cheeked attorney had gone a deathly white. A look of wild amazement had come upon his face. His eyes had widened; his mouth had dropped open. A shudder had gone through him. Then, as abruptly as his color had gone, so did he—without so much as a word for the lady of his heart. The door slammed violently and Smith, sensing he was the cause, went hastily to the kitchen, puzzled and vaguely alarmed.
About half an hour after he’d left, Mr. Billing returned—and in a state of such high excitement, said the footman who’d admitted him, that he felt sure the gentleman had at last plucked up his courage to ask for the mistress’s hand. He’d been shown into the library where the mistress and master were wondering on his unaccountable departure. The footman had listened for long enough to hear Mr. Billing declare that Miss Mansfield was looking handsomer than ever he could remember.
“So she is,” nodded Meg wisely. “For love paints our faces something beautiful.”
Here, the housekeeper—a single lady with a complexion midway between a lemon and a turnip—muttered, “Stuff and nonsense!” but looked very wistful; and Smith, whose uneasiness had taken a sharp turn for the worse on the attorney’s return, said, “Thank Gawd!”
The housekeeper looked at him curiously, and Smith, feeling the vague danger past, said, “It was only that I thought ’e’d been took ill before,” and went on to relate the brief meeting which he’d previous
ly kept to himself.
The coachman, who’d come into the kitchen for his morning mug of ale, shook his head with all the pessimism of a man whose days are spent reasoning with horses.
“Mark my words—he’s most likely got a wife and child in Clapham or somewheres an’ the sight of our young Smith reminded him. Small wonder he went white. Any man would.
“Stuff and nonsense!” declared the housekeeper looking even more wistful. “Nothing but biliousness. There’s a deal of it about. Just popped out to clear his head. Very sensible.”
But Meg was of the opinion that Mr. Billing’s sudden pallor and departure were due to nothing other than a brief loss of courage in his heart’s intentions which he’d forthwith gone out to strengthen at the nearest tavern.
“I’ll wager he’d a smell of brandy about him!” she said.
These three opinions now provoked the Vine Street household into a lively dispute for some minutes, during which the coachman’s was rejected with contempt, and the housekeeper’s thought the most likely—though it was Meg’s that won the day. For the Vine Street household was of a sentimental and hopeful turn of mind and always looked forward to the time when Miss Mansfield’s tempestuous person should be removed, happily, to another establishment.
The footman who’d answered the door now agreed that there had been a brandy-ish air about the attorney, and a parlormaid who’d been listening at the library door came down with the news that the attorney seemed tongue-tied—a sure sign, for someone in his calling, of being in the last extreme of love.
On this, there was a general burst of smiling and pleasure and the unfortunate coachman had his elbow jogged as he sought to hide his pessimistic face in his mug of ale. Then Meg, in a mood of powerful tenderness, laid her large arm about Smith’s shoulders and declared:
“And this little mite’s the one who’s brought it all on. The mistress has grown that tender since he’s been with us. He’s warmed her heart and opened it up to Mister Billing’s cooing. It would never have come about without our little Smith. So give honor and kindness where the same are due!”
Smith Page 6