Adrien Leroy Part 7

So it is from high to low. The little blind G.o.d takes no count of difference in fortune or rank in life. Dynasties fall, thrones totter to the ground, crowns tumble to dust on kingly heads; but love rules and lives on, immortal, triumphant, unconquerable.

Jessica had never heard of Romeo and Juliet, of Faust and Marguerite, or King Cophetua and the beggar maid. All she knew was that she loved, was conscious only that for a kind word from the lips of the man who had befriended her, for a glance from those dark eyes; she would gladly have given up all the other glories the world could have put before her.

Poor Jessica, how sweet and yet how bitter had been the awakening in that gilded cabinet. How sweet to find herself there in reality, and not only in a dream; how bitter to know that she had no right there and that she must go!

That splendid golden room, with, all the wonderful undreamt-of things, was not for her. She looked down at her wet, dirt-stained dress, at her worn, ragged shoes, at her cold, red hands, and shuddered. She had no right there. Should she take advantage of his goodness to remain and sully the beauty of his palace--for to her it seemed little less--by her unworthy presence? No, woman-child as she was, she shrank from the thought; then caught up her hat and arose, resolute.

"He will think me ungrateful," she murmured with half-closed eyes. "He will think--no matter, he will forget me before half an hour. I will go back to Johann and chance the beating. This is no place for one like me."

With a little graceful gesture she bent over the mantel and pressed her lips to the spot where Adrien had rested his arm; then with noiseless steps she stole from the room.

The sun was breaking through the morning mist, but she s.h.i.+vered as its warm rays touched her, and with a weary sigh turned towards Soho.

It was all over, the little patch of fairy-light in the dreary darkness of her existence, and as she reminded herself of this fact she shuddered again.

Looking back, she remembered but little beyond the days she had pa.s.sed with Johann and his shrewish wife. This strange adventure had been the first ray of suns.h.i.+ne in her poor existence. No wonder that she was unhappy at parting with it.

Suddenly as she pa.s.sed into Oxford Street she stopped, struck with an idea that sent her blood flowing into her pale cheek, flus.h.i.+ng it into living beauty. Her large eyes grew thoughtful and full of a strange light.

"Why should I go back to Johann?" she murmured. "Can't I follow him--the kind gentleman? Can't I be his servant?"

The answer came quick enough from her inner consciousness. No, she must go back. Of what service could she be to such a man as Adrien? There was nothing for it but to return to Cracknell Court. So, wearily, but still with that grace which Southern blood bestows, even though it runs in the veins of a gipsy, or such a street waif as Jessica, she walked on and reached Johann Wilfer's house.

Jessica knew that the man was not her father, but she knew little more than that. She had never asked him or Martha for any information about her parentage--indeed, had scarcely wished for any; it was enough for her than Johann gave her sufficient bread to keep life within her.

That gentleman was, at the moment of her arrival, absent, engaged on business concerning the sale of the faked picture to Mr. Harker, and Martha was still away; so Jessica, pausing at the door of the living-room to ascertain that it was empty, softly ascended the stairs leading to the garret which served as her special apartment.

It was as small and as squalid as all the other rooms in that crowded court; but it was different from them in one respect--it was clean.

A miserable chair bedstead of the cheapest kind, covered with a threadbare quilt; a chair with the back broken off; a washstand on three legs, and a triangular piece of silvered gla.s.s, the remains of a cheap mirror, composed the furniture.

This peculiarly-shaped piece of common gla.s.s reflected the girl's beautiful face in all manner of distorted forms. The quilt just kept her from peris.h.i.+ng with the cold. But yet the mirror, the bed, and the room itself were precious to her, for they were her own. Beyond its sacred threshold Johann or Martha never pa.s.sed. She had a key to it; and to enter now she unlocked the door.

After the luxury of Adrien's rooms the mean quality of her own apartment struck the girl more forcibly than usual, and sinking upon the bed, she covered her face with her hands and gave way to a flood of tears. But the weakness did not last long; and after a moment of two, with a sudden gesture, almost Italian in its intensity, she flung back her head and rose from her crouching position.

"I will not think of the beautiful place. I will not think of him, she told herself pa.s.sionately.

"But oh! will he be sorry that I ran away, or will he laugh, and ask that proud servant to see that I haven't stolen anything?"

She shook her head mournfully at her own distorted reflection in the cracked mirror, then she sighed and went downstairs.

Johann had returned, wonderful to relate, still fairly sober; but this was probably due to the necessity of maintaining at least the appearance of sobriety in his transaction on behalf of the gang concerning the sale of the picture.

He was counting the coins on the table, some of them gold--for Jessica's quick eyes caught the s.h.i.+mmer of it--and he looked up half fiercely, half contemptuously as the girl entered.

"Well, where have been? You're like a cat or a policeman--never to be found when you're wanted. There was a fine lady came to see you this morning--a real swell, my girl." He laughed coa.r.s.ely. "But of course, you were out of the way. Where had you got to?"

"Anywhere, nowhere," replied Jessica, who did not fear him when he was sober, though she hated him always.

"Ah, that's the style! The swell lady ought to have heard you talk like that. She'd say I was bringing you up well. Come here and let's have a look at you."

Jessica did not move, but stared at him steadily.

"What! You won't come?" he said with a grin. "Well, there's something for your obstinacy, you little mule!"

He flung a half-crown across to her, and Jessica took it up, then looked him questioningly in the face.

"You're thinking I'm mighty generous, eh? So I am, my girl--foolishly generous." He laughed mockingly, "Well, what do you say if all the lot's for you, eh?"

"All for me!" repeated the girl, stopping short in her task of making the mantelshelf neat; "all for me!"

"Yes, when you get it, little cat! All for you, indeed! No! it's for me; and I've a good mind to take the half-crown back. A fool and his money's soon parted; but he's more idiotic to part with other people's. I'm going out. I shall want some grub when I get back--'arf a pound of steak, an' a pot of porter, an' don't forget the gin. Mind you remember now, or I'll break every bone in your body." With which forcible admonition the man shuffled out.

After a few hours he returned, not blindly drunk, but spiteful, ill-tempered, and stupidly brutal.

About the same time on that day Adrien Leroy was making his way in the new car through the crowded thoroughfare of Oxford Street.

"Soho? Yus, sir. Crack'ell Court, fust turnin' on the left. I'll show yer, sir," piped the ragged urchin, whose heartfelt interest Leroy had purchased, along with his query, by means of a s.h.i.+lling.

Cracknell Court was small, evil-smelling, and teeming with children.

Bidding the chauffeur wait at the entrance to the court, Adrien, to whom dust, noises, and evil smells were things of absolute pain, entered one of the dens and asked for Mr. Wilfer.

"There he is," said another urchin; and Leroy turned to face that individual, who was leaning against an open door.

"Am I speaking to Mr. Johann Wilfer?" he asked courteously.

"You are," returned Wilfer, taking the begrimed pipe from his mouth, and staring with bloodshot eyes at the handsome, high-bred face before him.

"Can you tell me if a young girl named Jessica returned to you safely this morning?" Leroy enquired.

"My niece, Jess, d'ye mean?" replied Wilfer, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Ain't seen 'er fer months; run away last June, after 'elping 'erself to some of my cash, an' ain't been back since. 'Sides, what's it got to do with you, Guv'nor, I'd like to know? You mind yer own bus'ness."

He leered drunkenly at Leroy, who turned away with a look of disgust. He knew how useless it was to expect truth from such a quarter.

As the gentleman stepped out into the dirty court and returned to his car Johann Wilfer blinked his eyes in relief; then with an oath he stumbled up the rickety stairs into the living-room, and confronted Jessica, who was standing near the window.

"So that's yer little game, is it?" he said with a sneer; "you're goin'

in for swells right away, are yer, my gal? Got your name as pat as a poll-parrot. Knows all my private business, I dessay; I'll break every bone in yer body!"

He stumbled towards her where she stood--her face still transfigured with joy at the sound of her benefactor's voice--and made a sudden grab at her hair. But, alert and lithe as a leopardess, she bounded over the table, and slipped past him down the staircase, from the top of which he launched forth a long volley of curses.

Quivering and shaking, both with fear of Wilfer's violence and her sense of injury at his denial of her presence to Leroy, Jessica ran, as fast as her frail body would permit her, through the intricate smaller streets and pa.s.sages which abound in the Soho district. Having gone far enough, in her opinion, to be fairly safe from any danger of Wilfer's pursuit, she stopped to consider whether she should endeavour to find Leroy.

"After all," she thought, "perhaps it is best as it is. He would give me money, or perhaps a few kind words, and only make me long for him more. Let him go, believing Johann's falsehoods."

As she walked wearily along dim remembrances of earlier days thronged her brain; of two women--one whom she knew she had called Auntie--and who had treated her kindly enough, before Johann had got her into his power. Mingled with these thoughts came those of the man who had befriended her and even sought her out this day. When she remembered how he had rescued her from cold, hunger, and the dangers of the streets her eyes filled with tears of grat.i.tude. Yet, though knowing how quickly he would aid her were she but to return to the beautiful room from which she had fled that very morning, she could not bring herself to seek his charity or ask his pity. She realised well enough that one such as she could never hope to win a look of love from him; but like the moth that hovers round the flame which brings it danger she nevertheless determined to see him again.