Chapter IV

The Dawn of A To-morrow

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

He was a young man with an eager soul, and his work in Apple
Blossom Court and places like it had torn him many ways. Religious
conventions established through centuries of custom had not prepared
him for life among the submerged. He had struggled and been
appalled, he had wrestled in prayer and felt himself unanswered, and
in repentance of the feeling had scourged himself with thorns. Miss
Montaubyn, returning from the hospital, had filled him at first with
horror and protest.

"But who knows--who knows?" he said to Dart, as they stood and
talked together afterward, "Faith as a little child. That is
literally hers. And I was shocked by it--and tried to destroy it,
until I suddenly saw what I was doing. I was--in my cloddish
egotism--trying to show her that she was irreverent because she could
believe what in my soul I do not, though I dare not admit so much
even to myself. She took from some strange passing visitor to her
tortured bedside what was to her a revelation. She heard it first as
a child hears a story of magic. When she came out of the hospital,
she told it as if it was one. I--I--" he bit his lips and moistened
them, "argued with her and reproached her. Christ the Merciful,
forgive me! She sat in her squalid little room with her
magic--sometimes in the dark--sometimes without fire, and she clung
to it, and loved it and asked it to help her, as a child asks its
father for bread. When she was answered--and God forgive me again
for doubting that the simple good that came to her was an answer
--when any small help came to her, she was a radiant thing, and
without a shadow of doubt in her eyes told me of it as proof--proof
that she had been heard. When things went wrong for a day and the
fire was out again and the room dark, she said, `I 'aven't kept near
enough--I 'aven't trusted true. It will be gave me soon,' and when
once at such a time I said to her, `We must learn to say, Thy will be
done,' she smiled up at me like a happy baby and answered:

`Thy will be done on earth as it is in 'eaven. Lor', there's no
cold there, nor no 'unger nor no cryin' nor pain. That's the way the
will is done in 'eaven. That's wot I arst for all day long--for it
to be done on earth as it is in 'eaven.' What could I say? Could I
tell her that the will of the Deity on the earth he created was only
the will to do evil--to give pain--to crush the creature made in His
own image. What else do we mean when we say under all horror and
agony that befalls, `It is God's will--God's will be done.' Base
unbeliever though I am, I could not speak the words. Oh, she has
something we have not. Her poor, little misspent life has changed
itself into a shining thing, though it shines and glows only in this
hideous place. She herself does not know of its shining. But
Drunken Bet would stagger up to her room and ask to be told what she
called her `pantermine' stories. I have seen her there sitting
listening--listening with strange quiet on her and dull yearning in
her sodden eyes. So would other and worse women go to her, and I,
who had struggled with them, could see that she had reached some
remote longing in their beings which I had never touched. In time
the seed would have stirred to life--it is beginning to stir even
now. During the months since she came back to the court--though they
have laughed at her--both men and women have begun to see her as a
creature weirdly set apart. Most of them feel something like awe of
her; they half believe her prayers to be bewitchments, but they want
them on their side. They have never wanted mine. That I have
known--known. She believes that her Deity is in Apple Blossom
Court--in the dire holes its people live in, on the broken stairway,
in every nook and awful cranny of it-- a great Glory we will not
see--only waiting to be called and to answer. Do _I_ believe it--do
you--do any of those anointed of us who preach each day so glibly
`God is everywhere'? Who is the one who believes? If there were
such a man he would go about as Moses did when `He wist not that his
face shone.' "

They had gone out together and were standing in the fog in the
court. The curate removed his hat and passed his handkerchief over
his damp forehead, his breath coming and going almost sobbingly, his
eyes staring straight before him into the yellowness of the haze.

"Who," he said after a moment of singular silence, "who are
you?"

Antony Dart hesitated a few seconds, and at the end of his pause
he put his hand into his overcoat pocket.

"If you will come upstairs with me to the room where the girl
Glad lives, I will tell you," he said, "but before we go I want to
hand something over to you."

The curate turned an amazed gaze upon him.

"What is it?" he asked.

Dart withdrew his hand from his pocket, and the pistol was in
it.

"I came out this morning to buy this," he said. "I
intended--never mind what I intended. A wrong turn taken in the fog
brought me here. Take this thing from me and keep it."

The curate took the pistol and put it into his own pocket
without comment. In the course of his labors he had seen desperate
men and desperate things many times. He had even been--at moments--a
desperate man thinking desperate things himself, though no human
being had ever suspected the fact. This man had faced some tragedy,
he could see. Had he been on the verge of a crime --had he looked
murder in the eyes? What had made him pause? Was it possible that
the dream of Jinny Montaubyn being in the air had reached his
brain--his being?

He looked almost appealingly at him, but he only said aloud:

"Let us go upstairs, then."

So they went.

As they passed the door of the room where the dead woman lay
Dart went in and spoke to Miss Montaubyn, who was still there.

"If there are things wanted here," he said, "this will buy
them." And he put some money into her hand.

She did not seem surprised at the incongruity of his shabbiness
producing money.

"Well, now," she said, "I was wonderin' an' askin'. I'd like
'er clean an' nice, an' there's milk wanted bad for the biby."

In the room they mounted to Glad was trying to feed the child
with bread softened in tea. Polly sat near her looking on with
restless, eager eyes. She had never seen anything of her own baby
but its limp newborn and dead body being carried away out of sight.
She had not even dared to ask what was done with such poor little
carrion. The tyranny of the law of life made her want to paw and
touch this lately born thing, as her agony had given her no fruit of
her own body to touch and paw and nuzzle and caress as mother
creatures will whether they be women or tigresses or doves or female
cats.

"Let me hold her, Glad," she half whimpered. "When she 's fed
let me get her to sleep."

"All right," Glad answered; "we could look after 'er between us
well enough."

The thief was still sitting on the hearth, but being full fed
and comfortable for the first time in many a day, he had rested his
head against the wall and fallen into profound sleep.

"Wot 's up?" said Glad when the two men came in. "Is anythin'
'appenin'?"

"I have come up here to tell you something," Dart answered.
"Let us sit down again round the fire. It will take a little
time."

Glad with eager eyes on him handed the child to Polly and sat
down without a moment's hesitance, avid of what was to come. She
nudged the thief with friendly elbow and he started up awake.

" 'E 's got somethin' to tell us," she explained. "The curick
's come up to 'ear it, too. Sit 'ere, Polly," with elbow jerk toward
the bundle of sacks. "It 's got its stummick full an' it 'll go to
sleep fast enough."

So they sat again in the weird circle. Neither the strangeness
of the group nor the squalor of the hearth were of a nature to be new
things to the curate. His eyes fixed themselves on Dart's face, as
did the eyes of the thief, the beggar, and the young thing of the
street. No one glanced away from him.

His telling of his story was almost monotonous in its
semi-reflective quietness of tone. The strangeness to
himself--though it was a strangeness he accepted absolutely without
protest--lay in his telling it at all, and in a sense of his
knowledge that each of these creatures would understand and
mysteriously know what depths he had touched this day.

"Just before I left my lodgings this morning," he said, "I found
myself standing in the middle of my room and speaking to Something
aloud. I did not know I was going to speak. I did not know what I
was speaking to. I heard my own voice cry out in agony, `Lord, Lord,
what shall I do to be saved?' "

The curate made a sudden move- ment in his place and his sallow
young face flushed. But he said nothing.

Glad's small and sharp countenance became curious.

" `Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth,' " she quoted
tentatively.

"No," answered Dart; "it was not like that. I had never thought
of such things. I believed nothing. I was going out to buy a pistol
and when I returned intended to blow my brains out."

"Why?" asked Glad, with passionately intent eyes; "why?"

"Because I was worn out and done for, and all the world seemed
worn out and done for. And among other things I believed I was
beginning slowly to go mad."

From the thief there burst forth a low groan and he turned his
face to the wall.

"I've been there," he said; "I 'm near there now."

Dart took up speech again.

"There was no answer--none. As I stood waiting--God knows for
what--the dead stillness of the room was like the dead stillness of
the grave. And I went out saying to my soul, `This is what happens
to the fool who cries aloud in his pain.' "

"I've cried aloud," said the thief, "and sometimes it seemed as
if an answer was coming--but I always knew it never would!" in a
tortured voice.

" 'T ain't fair to arst that wye," Glad put in with shrewd
logic.

"Miss Montaubyn she allers knows it will come--an' it does."

"Something--not myself--turned my feet toward this place," said
Dart. "I was thrust from one thing to another. I was forced to see
and hear things close at hand. It has been as if I was under a
spell. The woman in the room below--the woman lying dead!" He
stopped a second, and then went on: "There is too much that is
crying out aloud. A man such as I am--it has forced itself upon me
--cannot leave such things and give himself to the dust. I cannot
explain clearly because I am not thinking as I am accustomed to
think. A change has come upon me. I shall not use the pistol--as I
meant to use it."

Glad made a friendly clutch at the sleeve of his shabby coat.

"Right O!" she cried. "That 's it! You buck up sime as I told
yer. Y' ain't stony broke an' there's 'allers to-morrer."

Antony Dart's expression was weirdly retrospective.

"I did not think so this morning," he answered.

"But there is," said the girl. "Ain't there now, curick? There
's a lot o' work in yer yet; yer could do all sorts o' things if y'
ain't too proud. I 'll 'elp yer. So 'll the curick. Y' ain't found
out yet what a little folks can live on till luck turns. Me, I'm
goin' to try Miss Montaubyn's wye. Le's both try. Le 's believe
things is comin'. Le 's get 'er to talk to us some more."

The curate was thinking the thing over deeply.

"Yer see," Glad enlarged cheerfully, "yer look almost like a
gentleman. P'raps yer can write a good 'and an' spell all right.
Can yer?"

"Yes."

"I think, perhaps," the curate began reflectively, "particularly
if you can write well, I might be able to get you some work."

"I do not want work," Dart answered slowly. "At least I do not
want the kind you would be likely to offer me."

The curate felt a shock, as if cold water had been dashed over
him. Somehow it had not once occurred to him that the man could be
one of the educated degenerate vicious for whom no power to help lay
in any hands--yet he was not the common vagrant--and he was plainly
on the point of producing an excuse for refusing work.

The other man, seeing his start and his amazed, troubled flush,
put out a hand and touched his arm apologetically.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "One of the things I was going to
tell you--I had not finished--was that I am what is called a
gentleman. I am also what the world knows as a rich man. I am Sir
Oliver Holt."

Each member of the party gazed at him aghast. It was an
enormous name to claim. Even the two female creatures knew what it
stood for. It was the name which represented the greatest wealth and
power in the world of finance and schemes of business. It stood for
financial influence which could change the face of national fortunes
and bring about crises. It was known throughout the world.
Yesterday the newspaper rumor that its owner had mysteriously left
England had caused men on 'Change to discuss possibilities together
with lowered voices.

Glad stared at the curate. For the first time she looked
disturbed and alarmed.

"Blimme," she ejaculated, " 'e 's gone off 'is nut, pore
chap!--'e 's gone off it!"

"No," the man answered, "you shall come to me"--he hesitated a
second while a shade passed over his eyes--"To-morrow. And you shall
see."

He rose quietly to his feet and the curate rose also. Abnormal
as the climax was, it was to be seen that there was no mistake about
the revelation. The man was a creature of authority and used to
carrying conviction by his unsupported word. That made itself, by
some clear, unspoken method, plain.

"You are Sir Oliver Holt! And a few hours ago you were on the
point of--"

"Ending it all--in an obscure lodging. Afterward the earth
would have been shovelled on to a work- house coffin. It was an
awful thing." He shook off a passionate shudder. "There was no
wealth on earth that could give me a moment's ease--
sleep--hope--life. The whole world was full of things I loathed the
sight and thought of. The doctors said my condition was physical.
Perhaps it was--perhaps to-day has strangely given a healthful jolt
to my nerves--perhaps I have been dragged away from the agony of
morbidity and plunged into new intense emotions which have saved me
from the last thing and the worst--saved me!"

He stopped suddenly and his face flushed, and then quite slowly
turned pale.

"Saved me!" he repeated the words as the curate saw the awed
blood creepingly recede. "Who knows, who knows! How many
explanations one is ready to give before one thinks of what we say we
believe. Perhaps it was--the Answer!"

The curate bowed his head reverently.

"Perhaps it was."

The girl Glad sat clinging to her knees, her eyes wide and awed
and with a sudden gush of hysteric tears rushing down her cheeks.

"That 's the wye! That 's the wye!" she gulped out. "No one
won't never believe--they won't, never. That's what she sees, Miss
Montaubyn. You don't, 'E don't," with a jerk toward the curate. "I
ain't nothin' but me, but blimme if I don't--blimme!"

Sir Oliver Holt grew paler still. He felt as he had done when
Jinny Montaubyn's poor dress swept against him. His voice shook when
he spoke.

"So do I," he said with a sudden deep catch of the breath; "it
was the Answer."

In a few moments more he went to the girl Polly and laid a hand
on her shoulder.

"I shall take you home to your mother," he said. "I shall take
you myself and care for you both. She shall know nothing you are
afraid of her hearing. I shall ask her to bring up the child. You
will help her."

Then he touched the thief, who got up white and shaking and with
eyes moist with excitement.

"You shall never see another man claim your thought because you
have not time or money to work it out. You will go with me. There
are to-morrows enough for you!"

Glad still sat clinging to her knees and with tears running, but
the ugliness of her sharp, small face was a thing an angel might have
paused to see.

"You don't want to go away from here," Sir Oliver said to her,
and she shook her head.

"No, not me. I told yer wot I wanted. Lemme do it."

"You shall," he answered, "and I will help you."

The things which developed in Apple Blossom Court later, the
things which came to each of those who had sat in the weird circle
round the fire, the revelations of new existence which came to
herself, aroused no amazement in Jinny Montaubyn's mind. She had
asked and believed all things--and all this was but another of the
Answers.