Christina Read online

  CHAPTER V.

  "I KNOW THIS IS WORTH A LOT OF MONEY."

  "I suppose I was stupid to think it could be anything but a hoax. Butthe letter seemed so kind, not as if it were written by a horrid personwho would want to play a practical joke."

  Christina, having climbed the stairs to her room with weary, draggingfootsteps, sat down on her one chair, feeling tired, depressed, andindignant. The dire necessity of saving her every penny, drove her towalk from Bayswater to her far-off lodgings in the S.W. district, andas a fine rain had begun to fall long before she was half-way acrossthe park, she was not only worn out and miserable, but very wet aswell. In their best days her serge coat and skirt had not been thick;much wear and tear had reduced them to a threadbare condition quiteincapable of resistance to weather. The drizzling rain had penetratedher inadequate coat and thin blouse; her skirt hung limply about herlegs; she felt, what she actually was, wet to the skin, and too tiredeven to exert herself to make some tea over her spirit-lamp.

  "I expect it is true what Mrs. Jones says," she reflected; "she saysmen are all brutes, and you can't trust one of them. I used to thinkshe only said it because Mr. Jones drank himself to death, and drankaway her earnings first, and beat her. But, now, I don't know." Withcold fingers she drew the hatpins from her sodden hat, threw off thewet coat that clung so chillily to her shivering form, and took fromher pocket a letter addressed in a bold, masculine hand.

  "C.M., c/o Mrs. Cole, Newsagent, "10, Cartney Street, S.W."

  "It looks like the handwriting of a gentleman," the poor little girl'sreflections ran on; "I shouldn't have thought a man who wrote like thatcould be a brute, and his letter isn't a brute's letter either," sheadded pathetically, drawing the letter from its envelope and readingthe words, which were already engraved upon her mind.

  "DEAR MADAM,

  "I think perhaps I may be able to be of some use to you if you couldmake it convenient to call at 100, Barford Road, Bayswater, at fiveo'clock to-morrow (Wednesday). We might have a little talk. My friendto whom the house belongs, will be very glad to see you.

  "Yours faithfully, "R. MERNSIDE."

  "And then I find the house shut up," Christina said shakily, and aloud,"and an old charwoman tells me she never heard of Mr. Mernside; and Isuppose it was just all a mean practical joke." Two tears, tears ofsheer fatigue and of bitter disappointment, welled up in the girl'seyes, and dropped slowly down her cheeks. She was so tired--so tiredand cold and miserable--and she had built more hopes than she quiteknew upon the answer to her timid little letter. The entire absence ofany allusion to matrimonial prospects in Mr. Mernside's note hadquieted her fears, and many hopes had mingled with the nervous doubtsthat had filled her soul as she set out that afternoon on her strangeexpedition. Some faint idea that this unknown Mr. Mernside might beinstrumental in helping her to find work, sustained her through thelong walk to Barford Road; she had been so sure, so very sure, that thewriter of the terse, kindly letter, was a gentleman, and a good man toboot, that the sight of the shut-up house came to her with the force ofan actual blow, whilst the caretaker's unfeigned ignorance of anybodyof the name of Mernside, made Christina's theory of a hoax seem morethan probable.

  "And not one answer to all the letters I wrote about situations," sheexclaimed wearily, pulling herself up from her chair, and taking thespirit-lamp from its place in the cupboard. "I wonder whether thereare lots of other girls as poor as I am, and without any relations orfriends. In another week, I shan't have enough money to pay my rent;and Mrs. Jones won't let it run; she's said so over and over again."Another shiver ran through her, and this time dread apprehension of thefuture was more responsible for the shiver than even the dampchilliness of her condition. "I don't know what I shall do when themoney is all gone. Oh! I don't know what I shall do," and a littlesob broke from her, as she took from the cupboard the materials for hertea. It was a meagre enough meal that her cold shaking fingers spreadon the old deal table, and she was repeatedly forced to brush away thetears from her face, so fast did they run down it now that exhaustionand misery were at last finding an outlet. Her lunch had consisted ofa glass of milk and a bun, bought at a neighbouring shop; sincelunch-time she had walked some miles, had incidentally become wetthrough during the process, and her walk had been crowned by a crueldisappointment. It was not wonderful that the girl, plucky little soulthough she was, should feel now as if the end were reached, and shecould hope no more.

  To add to her misery, everything seemed to go awry. The matches wereonly found after a prolonged hunt for them; for many minutes the lamprefused to light; and when, at last, a flame shot up, Christina thoughtthat the water in the kettle boiled more slowly than water had everboiled before. Dry bread had never tasted more unappetising; andmilkless tea (though it was certainly warm, and in that respect carrieda certain amount of comfort with it), tasted bitter and nauseating.

  The girl longed, with an almost childish longing, for something more toeat and drink. Visions rose before her of the Donaldsons' cosynursery, of a plate piled high with hot buttered toast, of a bighome-made seed cake, that could be eaten as quickly as the nurseryfolks liked, without any dread of future want, and she pushed away herplate, and laid her head down upon the table, sobbing as though herheart would break. Hot buttered toast and seed cake are unromanticsounding things enough, no doubt, but when one is very hungry, and veryheartsick, and only twenty into the bargain, the thoughts of pastplenty make present poverty seem well nigh intolerable.

  Good stuff must have gone to the making of little Christina, andwhoever those ancestors on her mother's side had been, they had passedon to her a goodly heritage of courage and endurance. Her storm ofsobs was of very brief duration. Giving herself a little shake bothactually and metaphorically, she raised her head from the table,resolutely dried her eyes, choked back her sobs and forced herself tofinish eating the dry morsels of bread, and drinking the nauseousdraught of tea. Either the food itself, or the effort she had made toeat it, sent a tingling of new strength along her limbs, and she brokeinto a faint laugh over her own despair.

  "You perfect goose," she said firmly, rising to wash up her tea things;"crying won't make anything better. Mr. Donaldson used to say, 'Don'tlook for your bridges before you come to them,' and so I won't look atthe bridge. Mrs. Jones will put up for me about the rent, until I amreally going to step right on to it. And before I give up every bit ofhope, I ought--perhaps I ought to try and pawn the pendant, only Ican't bear doing it. I can't bear it."

  Mrs. Jones was not at all the pleasant and kindly landlady of fiction,who succours and helps her tenants, and plays the part of mother tothem. The only part Mrs. Jones understood playing was that of thecruel stepmother of fairy legend, and Christina did not err in thinkingthat to allow rent to remain unpaid, was no part of her landlady'smethods. Mrs. Jones's own life had been a hard one. Grinding work inher early girlhood, a brutal husband, and much grinding poverty duringher married life, and in her widowhood an unending struggle to make twoends meet; these made up the sum of the landlady's existence, and shetreated the world as she found herself treated by the world. Sheexpected nothing from others, and she gave them nothing. She asked forno help from her fellow beings, and she most assuredly bestowed none.

  She was lighting the gas jet in the hall, a hard-featured, tight-lippedwoman, when, half an hour later, Christina went out again, a smallbrown paper parcel in her hand; and Mrs. Jones's thin lips tightenedmore than ever as her sharp eyes fell upon the parcel.

  "Goin' out to pop somethin'," was her grim thought, and the thought wasdispleasing to her. Not that she particularly pitied her lodger. Pitywas a virtue not cultivated by Mrs. Jones. But she instinctivelydreaded the moment when her lodgers began to slip out stealthily withparcels under their arms, or in their hands. The significance of thoseparcels was well known to her, and she was fully aware that lodgers whoonce began to pawn their goods passed by easy stages to backwardness inpaying their rent, and then follow
ed eviction and new tenants. No;Mrs. Jones mistrusted brown paper parcels, just as much as shemistrusted the look, half-shy, half-frightened, which Christina cast ather in passing, and the flood of colour that dyed the girl's face, whenshe met the landlady's glance.

  Some of her smarter clothes Christina had long ago sold to an oldclothes' shop round the corner, but this was the first time she hadvisited a real pawnbroker, and her heart beat like a sledge-hammer, asshe stood outside the window of a jeweller's shop, over which the threeballs were displayed. She had shrunk from going into the establishmentof Mr. Moss, the recognised pawnbroker of that squalid neighbourhood,and had gone further afield, thinking that from a jeweller, even thoughhe engaged in pawnbroking as well, she would meet with moreconsideration, and perhaps receive a larger sum of money. But, lookingthrough the glass doors at the two men who lounged behind the counter,her spirits sank to zero, and she allowed ten minutes to slip bybefore, taking her courage into her hands, she finally entered the shop.

  Coming in out of the damp of the November evening, the pleasant warmthwas grateful to her, but the brilliant gaslight dazzled her eyes, andsheer nervousness made her stumble hopelessly over the sentence she hadbeen committing to memory, ever since she had left her lodgings.

  "I called to ask whether this pendant was of any value," she hadintended to say. But instead of that, she found herself stammeringbreathlessly, "I--I came--would you please tell me--if you can give mesomething on this," and she thrust her parcel into the hand indolentlystretched out for it, by one of the young men behind the counter.

  His eyes looked her up and down with an insolent stare that sent theblood flying over her face, and his smile gave her an impotent longingto strike his fat, sleek countenance.

  "How much do you want for it, my dear, that's the question?" the mansaid jauntily, his eyes never leaving the girl's flushed face; "we arealways pleased to accommodate a pretty young lady like you, eh, Tom?"with an odious leer he nudged the elbow of his companion, who emitted ahoarse guffaw, and winked facetiously, as Christina turned a distressedglance in his direction. Unfortunately for her, the master of the shopwas absent, and she was at the mercy of two of those underbred,mean-spirited curs, who regard any defenceless woman as lawful prey,and take the same delight in baiting her, as their ignoble ancestorstook in baiting an equally defenceless dumb animal.

  "You tell us what you want, miss," the man called Tom struck in,leaning across the counter, and tapping the girl's hand; "anything youask in reason we shall be pleased to oblige you with. Now, what's thisthing, and this thing, and this very pretty thing?" he endedfacetiously, whilst his fellow shopman unfastened Christina's parcel,and opened the cardboard box it contained.

  "It is a pendant," Christina faltered, afraid to show the indignationshe felt, lest the men should refuse to give her what she needed; "ithas been a long time in my family--and--I know it is very valuable."

  "Oh! you know it is very valuable, do you?" queried the first man,mocking her trembling accents; "now, it is for us to tell you itsvalue; not for you to tell us, you know. Hum! old-fashioned thing," heejaculated, holding up to the light the piece of jewellery he had drawnfrom its box; "this sort of antique article may have suited ourgrandmothers, but it doesn't go down nowadays!"

  "That is not at all the case," Christina answered boldly; "everybodylikes antique things now; and that pendant is worth a great deal, asyou know."

  Anger was beginning to conquer her nervous tremors, and the odioussmile with which her remark was received by both young men, made herdraw herself up proudly.

  "Hoity, toity!" said the man called Tom; "as we know, indeed. If Mr.Franks, my excellent friend and colleague," he made an exaggerated bowto his companion, "considers the bauble old-fashioned and worthless, itcertainly is worthless and old-fashioned."

  "It is certainly nothing of the kind," Christina cried, anger drivingaway the last semblance of nervousness. "I should be much obliged ifyou would tell me at once how much you can advance me upon it. If youare unable to give me anything, I can take it elsewhere." As shespoke, she looked straight into the smiling, insolent faces before her,her own grown rigid and proud; and in spite of her shabby clothing andobvious poverty, she suddenly assumed a look of imperial dignity, whichhad an instantaneous effect upon her tormentors.

  "Come, come, miss; don't talk like that," the man called Franks saidsheepishly; "we were just having a bit of fun over it, that's all. AndI'm sure we'll give you the best we can for the pendant."

  Christina's threat of taking the jewel elsewhere, had brought theshopmen sharply to their senses, for it had needed no more than acursory glance, to show them both that the jewel the girl had broughtthem was of no small value, and they were uncomfortably aware that thevials of their master's wrath would be emptied upon their heads, ifthey allowed such an article to be disposed of in another establishment.

  "It is a very pretty piece of work," the first man said, taking thependant in his hand, and looking over it with a fine assumption ofcarelessness; "family initials, I suppose, in this twisted monogram?"

  "I suppose so. I cannot give you any history of the pendant; I don'tknow its history myself. It came to me from my mother." Christinagave this piece of gratuitous information, feeling uneasily that itmight be supposed she had stolen the beautiful piece of jewellery; and,with the thought, all the old associations that were interwoven with itswept into her mind, and almost choked further utterance.

  "A.V.C.," the young man said slowly, deciphering the monogram, which,in exquisitely-chased gold, surmounted the pendant itself. This latterconsisted of an emerald, remarkably vivid in colour, and set in thesame finely-chased gold as that which formed the monogram. "A.V.C.would have been some ancestor of yours, no doubt?" he asked jocularly,and with another wink at his companion.

  "I don't know," Christina repeated; "as I tell you, I know nothing ofthe jewel's history. I believe it to be a genuine emerald, and I amsure it is very valuable."

  Both men simultaneously shrugged their shoulders and laughed, odious,deprecating laughs.

  "My dear young lady," said Franks, who seemed to occupy a positionsuperior to the other, "someone has been, as we say, 'getting at' you,if they told you this was a _genuine_ emerald. Why! if it was anemerald, a _real_ emerald, mind you, it would be worth"--and he raisedhis eyes to the ceiling, and lifted up his hands, as if to demonstratethe magnitude of a sum he could not mention in spoken language.

  "It _is_ a real emerald, and it is worth a great deal," Christina saidfirmly, "but if you do not care to advance me what it is worth, I willtake it away," and she put out her hand for the pendant, from which thegleams of light flashed brilliantly.

  "Now look here," said Mr. Franks persuasively, "you believe me, missy;this is no more an emerald than I am, but it is a nice little bit ofpaste, and the gold is well worked. I'm taking a good bit upon myselfin making the suggestion, and goodness knows what the boss will say tome when he comes home. But I'll take it off your hands for fivepounds. There!" he ended triumphantly, as though convinced that thegenerosity must be a delicious surprise for his hearer.

  "Five--pounds!"--Christina's voice rang with indignation--"five poundsfor what you know as well as I do is worth twenty times that amount."

  Franks laughed contemptuously, and began putting the ornament back intoits box with elaborate care.

  "You have an exaggerated idea of the thing's value," he said. "Icouldn't undertake to offer you more than five pounds for it, and ifyou take my advice," he added darkly, with a swift glance at hiscolleague, and back at the girl, "you'll accept the offer, and let ushave the thing altogether. You see," he coughed significantly,"awkward questions might be asked about a thing like this, withinitials. If I did my business properly, I ought to ask you where yougot it."

  The colour ebbed out of Christina's face; the possibility that hadconfronted her a few minutes ago, had all at once taken definite form.This man was hinting--nay, more than hinting--that the pendant had comeinto her ha
nds by unlawful means, and she had nothing but her word toprove her own statement.

  "I have told you--that it belonged to my mother," she said tremblingly;"it is an old family ornament, and--I cannot part with it altogether."

  "Look here, miss"--the man's voice became rough and harsh--"it's no useyour coming old family ornaments over me. People with old familyornaments don't come to places like this pawning them. What price your'old family,' eh?" He ended his coarse speech with a coarser laugh, atthe sound of which Christina shrank and shivered.

  "I will take back my pendant, please," she said, trying to regain hercourageous tone. "I do not wish to sell it outright, and if you willnot advance me anything on it, there is nothing more to be said."

  "Not so fast, not so fast," the man called Tom exclaimed, pushing backthe hand she once more extended towards the box. "What Mr. Franks saysis very true--how do we know where you got this pendant? The more yougo on making difficulties over letting it go, the more doubtful thewhole affair looks. Now if you're really so badly in want of cash," hewent on brutally, "you take what we offer--five pounds down. If youdon't, we may feel ourselves obliged to send for the police--and----"

  Quite unable, in her innocence, to understand that the two cowards werebullying her to the top of their bent;--already worn-out by the eventsof the day, and by many days of fatigue and under-feeding, a panicterror seized upon her. Before the astonished men were aware of herintention, she had reached over the counter, snatched the box fromFranks's hand, and fled out of the shop and down the street, her heartbeating to suffocation, her eyes wide with terror.

  Never once looking back, she threaded her way along the pavement,oblivious of the expostulations of passers-by, against whom shebrushed; almost unconscious of their very existence, in her franticdesire speedily to put as great a distance as possible between herselfand the objectionable jewellers.

  Heedless of the traffic, she dashed headlong over the crossings, andplunging into a network of by-streets, ran on still at full speed,possessed by the horrible fear that those men with the dreadful smiles,might already have put the police upon her track.

  "I can't prove the pendant is mine," she panted breathlessly. "I haveno proof that I didn't steal it. What can I say if they take me up asa thief?" The bare thought made her redouble her pace, although shewas already on the verge of exhaustion, and her breath was coming ingreat gasps. Beads of perspiration stood on her forehead, and when atlast she reached her own room, she was powerless to do more than sinkupon a chair, shaking in every limb.

  For many minutes she could only lean back, with closed eyes and ashenface, drawing long painful breaths, each one of which was a sob; but asa sense of safety grew upon her, she roused herself to light her lamp,and to draw off her damp clothing, preparatory to going to bed. Evenwith the slender supply of blankets Mrs. Jones allowed her lodgers, itwould be warmer than sitting up without a fire; and she dared not allowherself the luxury of a fire, especially now that her last hope ofraising money had been snatched from her.

  "For I shall never dare take the pendant to show to anybody again," shethought, with a shudder. "The next person I went to might send for thepolice then and there. And perhaps it was horrible of me to think ofpawning mother's pendant at all--only--I don't believe she would haveminded, if she had known how dreadfully, dreadfully poor her littlegirl was going to be--and how hard it is for a girl even to get breadenough to keep from starvation. And I know this is worth--oh! a lot ofmoney," she exclaimed pathetically, once more taking the ornament fromits box, and holding it before her in the light of the lamp. As thegreen gleam of the stones flashed out before her eyes, the dreary roomin which she sat, her squalid surroundings, even her own misery fadedfrom her mind; she was back in the past--back in her mother's bedroomin the dear Devonshire home--her mother's dying voice sounding in herears. Through the open window had drifted the song of the sea,mingling with the hum of bees amongst the roses that climbed to thevery sill, and made the room fragrant with their sweetness. And a birdhad sung--ah! how it had sung, on that last night of her mother's life,when Christina felt that her life too was going down into the dark forever.

  "My little girl"--how faint the gentle voice had been!--"I--can'tstay--now father has gone; he--and I--could not ever be apart. He ismy world---all my world." The dim resentment which Christina, thechild, had sometimes experienced, because those two beings she lovedbest had seemed so remote from her, so perfectly able to live theirlives without her, had smitten the girl Christina afresh as shelistened to her mother's words. Her father and mother had been sowrapped up in one another, always so wholly sufficient for each other'sneeds, that their child had played a very secondary part in theirlives. And the child had dimly resented it.

  Through all the sorrow that filled her heart as she stood beside hermother's deathbed, that smouldering resentment would not be whollystilled. Her mother could barely spare a thought for the girl she wasleaving to face the world alone, because her husband filled her wholesoul; she could remember only that he had gone before her into thesilent land, and that she must hasten to join him again.

  "You are so young," the dying voice had murmured on, whilst the fastdimming eyes looked, not at her little daughter, but at the blue skyoutside the window, "somebody will want you someday--as--Ronald--wanted me--as--he wants me still."

  Christina did not answer, only her eyes followed her mother's glanceout to the deep blue sky framed by the nodding roses round the window;and she wondered dully whether anybody would really care for her someday, or whether there was something inherently unlovable in her, seeingthat her own father and mother had seemed to find her so little worthyof love.

  The bitter thought passed. She bent over her mother, and gentlystroked back the damp hair from her forehead.

  "I shall--be able--to take care of myself," she said bravely, "and----"

  "Be good, my little girl," the murmuring voice broke in, "be good--andcome to us some day--Ronald and I will be there--together. I want--totell you--the pendant--the emerald pendant"--a look of excitementflashed into her eyes; she made a great effort to raise herself in thebed, but such effort was far beyond her feeble strength--"I can'ttell--you--now," she gasped; "later--after--sleep--thependant--take--the--emerald; tell Arthur"--and at that word herstrength suddenly failed, her eyes closed, she slipped down among herpillows, in an unconsciousness from which she never again awoke.

  All through the fragrant summer night following that sunshinyafternoon, Christina had watched beside her, hoping against hope thatsome faint knowledge of outward things would return to her, that thestrange unfinished sentence might be ended.

  "I want to tell you," her mother had said. What was it she wished totell her daughter? What was the meaning of those strange words thatseemed so incoherent and without sense?

  "The pendant--take--the--emerald--tell Arthur----"

  But no glimmer of consciousness crossed the still white face; the eyesthat had last looked at the sunny sky of June, and the nodding roses,opened no more upon this world's sunshine and flowers, the falteringvoice was silenced for ever; and in the grey dawn of morningChristina's mother had passed to the land where she and the man sheloved would part no more.

  The vision faded. Christina was back again in the present--the dulllight of the oil lamp shining on the jewel she held--in the clammy coldof a November evening, that was as far removed from the sunny sweetnessof June, as her sordid room was removed from the rose-scented fragranceof her old home.

  "I wonder what she wanted to tell me," the girl mused again; as she hadmused countless times before; "what could she have meant when she saidthose words:

  "The pendant--take--the--emerald--tell Arthur----"

  "I wonder who Arthur could have been."