On ordinary Sundays the Byasses breakfasted at ten o’clock; this morning the meal was ready at eight, and Bessie’s boisterous spirits declared the exception to be of joyous significance. Finding that Samuel’s repeated promises to rise were the merest evasion, she rushed into the room where he lay fly-fretted, dragged the pillows from under his tousled head, and so belaboured him in schoolboy fashion that he had no choice but to leap towards his garments. In five minutes he roared down the kitchen-stairs for shaving-water, and in five minutes more was seated in his shirt-sleeves, consuming fried bacon with prodigious appetite. Bessie had the twofold occupation of waiting upon him and finishing the toilet of the baby; she talked incessantly and laughed with an echoing shrillness which would have given a headache for the rest of the day to any one of average nervous sensibility.
They were going to visit Samuel’s parents, who lived at Greenwich. Bessie had not yet enjoyed an opportunity of exhibiting her first-born to the worthy couple; she had, however, written many and long letters on the engrossing subject, and was just a little fluttered with natural anxiety lest the infant’s appearance or demeanour should disappoint the expectations she had excited. Samuel found his delight in foretelling the direst calamities.
‘Don’t say I didn’t advise you to draw it mild,’ he remarked whilst breakfasting, when Bessie had for the tenth time obliged him to look round and give his opinion on points of costume. ‘Remember it was only last week you told them that the imp had never cried since the day of his birth, and I’ll bet you three half-crowns to a bad halfpenny he roars all through to-night.’
‘Hold your tongue, Sam, or I’ll throw something at you!’
Samuel had just appeased his morning hunger, and was declaring that the day promised to be the hottest of the year, such a day as would bring out every vice inherent in babies, when a very light tap at the door caused Bessie to abandon her intention of pulling his ears.
‘That’s Jane,’ she said. ‘Come in!’
The Jane who presented herself was so strangely unlike her namesake who lay ill at Mrs. Peckover’s four months ago, that one who had not seen her in the interval would with difficulty have recognised her. To begin with, she had grown a little; only a little, but enough to give her the appearance of her full thirteen years. Then her hair no longer straggled in neglect, but was brushed very smoothly back from her forehead, and behind was plaited in a coil of perfect neatness; one could see now that it was soft, fine, mouse-coloured hair, such as would tempt the fingers to the lightest caress. No longer were her limbs huddled over with a few shapeless rags; she wore a full-length dress of quiet grey, which suited well with her hair and the pale tones of her complexion. As for her face — oh yes, it was still the good, simple, unremarkable countenance, with the delicate arched eyebrows, with the diffident lips, with the cheeks of exquisite smoothness, but so sadly thin.
Here too, however, a noteworthy change was beginning to declare itself. You were no longer distressed by the shrinking fear which used to be her constant expression; her eyes no longer reminded you of a poor animal that has been beaten from every place where it sought rest and no longer expects anything but a kick and a curse. Timid they were, drooping after each brief glance, the eyes of one who has suffered and cannot but often brood over wretched memories, who does not venture to look far forward lest some danger may loom inevitable — meet them for an instant, however, and you saw that lustre was reviving in their still depths, that a woman’s soul had begun to manifest itself under the shadow of those gently falling lids. A kind word, and with what purity of silent gratitude the grey pupils responded! A merry word, and mark if the light does not glisten on them, if the diffident lips do not form a smile which you would not have more decided lest something of its sweetness should be sacrificed.
‘Now come and tell me what you think about baby,’ cried Bessie. ‘Will he do? Don’t pay any attention to my husband; he’s a vulgar man!’
Jane stepped forward.
‘I’m sure he looks very nice, Mrs. Byass.’
‘Of course he does, bless him! Sam, get your coat on, and brush your hat, and let Miss Snowdon teach you how to behave yourself. Well, we’re going to leave the house in your care, Jane. We shall be back some time tomorrow night, but goodness knows when. Don’t you sit up for us.’
‘You know where to wire to if there’s a fire breaks out in the back kitchen,’ observed Samuel facetiously. ‘If you hear footsteps in the passage at half-past two tomorrow morning don’t trouble to come down; wait till daylight to see whether they’ve carried off the dresser.’
Bessie screamed with laughter.
‘What a fool you are, Sam! If you don’t mind, you’ll be making Jane laugh. You’re sure you’ll be home before dark tomorrow, Jane?’
‘Oh, quite sure. Mr. Kirkwood says there’s a train gets to Liverpool Street about seven, and grandfather thought that would suit us.’
‘You’ll be here before eight then. Do see that your fire’s out before you leave. And you’ll be sure to pull the door to? And see that the area-gate’s fastened.’
‘Can’t you find a few more orders?’ observed Samuel.
‘Hold your tongue! Jane doesn’t mind; do you, Jane? Now, Sam, are you ready? Bless the man, if he hasn’t got a great piece of bread sticking in his whiskers! How did it get there? Off you go!’
Jane followed them, and stood at the front door for a moment, watching them as they departed.
Then she went upstairs. On the first floor the doors of the two rooms stood open, and the rooms were bare. The lodgers who had occupied this part of the house had recently left; a card was again hanging in the window of Bessie’s parlour. Jane passed up the succeeding flight and entered the chamber which looked out upon Hanover Street. The truckle-bed on which her grandfather slept had been arranged for the day some two hours ago; Snowdon rose at six, and everything was orderly in the room when Jane came to prepare breakfast an hour later. At present the old man was sitting by the open window, smoking a pipe. He spoke a few words with reference to the Byasses, then seemed to resume a train of thought, and for a long time there was unbroken silence. Jane seated herself at a table, on which were a few books and writing materials. She began to copy something, using the pen with difficulty, and taking extreme pains. Occasionally her eyes wandered, and once they rested upon her grandfather’s face for several minutes. But for the cry of a milkman or a paper-boy in the street, no sound broke the quietness of the summer morning. The blessed sunshine, so rarely shed from a London sky — sunshine, the source of all solace to mind and body — reigned gloriously in heaven and on earth.
When more than an hour had passed, Snowdon came and sat down beside the girl. Without speaking she showed him what she had written. He nodded approvingly.
‘Shall I say it to you, grandfather?’
‘Yes.’
Jane collected her thoughts, then began to repeat the parable of the Samaritan. From the first words it was evident that she frequently thus delivered passages committed to memory; evident, too, that instruction and a natural good sense guarded her against the gabbling method of recitation. When she had finished Snowdon spoke with her for awhile on the subject of the story. In all he said there was the earnestness of deep personal feeling. His theme was the virtue of Compassion; he appeared to rate it above all other forms of moral goodness, to regard it as the saving principle of human life.
‘If only we had pity on one another, all the worst things we suffer from in this world would be at an end. It’s because men’s hearts are hard that life is so full of misery. If we could only learn to be kind and gentle and forgiving — never mind anything else. We act as if we were all each other’s enemies; we can’t be merciful, because we expect no mercy; we struggle to get as much as we can for ourselves and care nothing for others. Think about it; never let it go out of your mind. Perhaps some day it’ll help you in your own life.’
Then there was silence again. Snowdon went back to his scat by the window and relit his pipe; to muse in the sunshine seemed suff............