Alone in London Part 9

"You're going to see my Lord and Master," he said; "him as loves little children so, and carries them in his arms, and never lets them be sorrowful or ill or die again."

"Does he live in a bootiful place?" she asked, again.

"It's a more beautiful place than I can tell," answered old Oliver. "The Lord Jesus gives them light brighter than the sun; and the streets are all of gold, and there are many little children there, who always see the face of their Father."

"Dolly's going rere," said the little child, solemnly.

She smiled for a minute or two, holding Beppo's ear between her failing fingers, and playing with it. Tony's eyes were dim with tears, yet he could see her clear face clearly through them. What could he do? Was there no one to help?

"Master, master!" he cried. "If the Lord Jesus is here he can save her.

Ask him, master."

But old Oliver paid no heed to him. For the child who was pa.s.sing away from him he was all eye and ear, watching and listening as keenly as in his best and strongest days; but he was blind and deaf to everything else around him. Tony's voice could not reach his brain.

"Will gan-pa come rere?" whispered the failing and faltering voice of Dolly.

"Very soon," he answered; a radiant smile coming to his face, which made her smile as her eyes caught the glory of it. "Very, very soon, my little love. You'll be there to meet me when I come."

"Dolly'll watch for gan-pa," she murmured, with long pauses between the words, which seemed to drop one by one upon Tony's ear; "and Dolly'll watch at the door for Tony to come home; and she'll fret ever so if he never comes."

Tony felt her stir restlessly under his arm, and stretch her tiny limbs upon the bed as if she were very tired, and the languid eyelids drooped slowly till they quite hid her blue eyes, and she sighed softly as children sigh when they fall asleep, weary of their play. Old Oliver laid his shaking hand tenderly upon her head.

"Dear Lord!" he said, "take my little love to thyself. I give her up to thee."

It seemed to Tony as if a thick mist of darkness fell all about him, and as if he were sinking down, down, very low into some horrible pit where he would never see the light of day again. But by-and-bye he came to himself, and found old Oliver sobbing in short, heavy sobs, and swaying himself to and fro, while Beppo was licking Dolly's hand, and barking with a sharp, quiet bark, as he had been wont to do when he wanted her to play with him. The child's small features were quite still, but there was an awful smile upon them such as there had never been before, and Tony could not bear to look upon it. He crossed her tiny hands lightly over one another upon her breast, and then he lifted Beppo away gently, and drew the bed-clothes about her, so as to hide her smiling face.

"Master," he cried, "master, is she gone?"

Old Oliver only answered by a deep moan; and Tony put his arm about him, and raised him up.

"Come to your own chair, master," he said.

He yielded to Tony like a child, and seated himself in the chair, where he had so often sat and watched Dolly while he smoked his pipe. The boy put his pipe between his fingers; but he only let it fall to the ground, where it broke into many pieces. Tony did not know what to do, nor where to go for any help.

"Lord," he said, "if you really love the old master, do something for him; for I don't know whatever to do, now little Dolly's gone."

He sat down on his old box, staring at Oliver and the motionless form on the bed, with a feeling of despair tugging at his heart. He could scarcely believe it was all true; for it was not very long since--only it seemed like long years--since he had leaped over the counter in his light-heartedness. But he had not sat there many minutes before he heard a distinct, rather loud knock at the shop-door, and he ran hastily to ask who was there.

"Antony," said a voice he knew very well, "I have come with the doctor, to see what we can do for your little girl."

In an instant Tony opened the door, and as Mr. Ross entered the boy flung his arms round him, and hid his face against him, sobbing bitterly.

"Oh! you've come too late," he cried, "you've come too late! Dolly's dead, and I'm afraid the master's going away from me as well. They couldn't take her in, and she died after we had brought her home."

The doctor and Mr. Ross went on into the inner room, and Tony pointed silently to the bed where Dolly lay. Old Oliver roused himself at the sound of strange voices, and, leaning upon Tony's shoulder, he staggered to the bedside, and drew the clothes away from her dear, smiling face.

"I don't murmur," he said. "My dear Lord can't do anything unkind. He'll come and speak to me presently, and comfort me; but just now I'm deaf and blind, even to him. I've not forgot him, and he hasn't forgot me; but there's a many things ought to be done, and I cannot think what."

"Leave it all to us," said Mr. Ross, leading him back to his chair. "But have you no neighbour you can go and stay with for to-night? You are an old man, and you must not lose your night's sleep."

"No," he answered, shaking his head; "I'd rather stay here in my own place, if I'd a hundred other places to go to. I'm not afraid of my little love,--no, no! When everything is done as ought to be done, I'll lie in my own bed and watch her. It won't be lonesome, as long as she's here."

In an hour's time all was settled for that night. A little resting-place had been made for the dead child in a corner of the room, where she lay covered with a coa.r.s.e white sheet, which was the last one left of those which old Oliver's wife had spun in her girlhood. The old man had given his promise to go to bed when Mr. Ross and the doctor were gone; and he slept lightly, his face turned towards the place where his little love was sleeping. A faint light burnt all night in the room, and Tony, who could not fall asleep, sat in the chimney-corner, with Beppo upon his knees. There was an unutterable, quiet sorrow within him, mingled with a strange awe. That little child, who had played with him, and kissed him only a day since, was already gone into the unseen world, which was so very near to him now, though it had seemed so very far away and so empty before. It must be very near, since she had gone to it so quickly; and it was no longer empty, for Dolly was there; and she had said she would watch at the door till he came home.

CHAPTER XX.

A FRESH DAY DAWNS.

Old Oliver and Tony saw their darling buried in a little grave in a cemetery miles away from their own home, and then they returned, desolate and bereaved, to the deserted city, which seemed empty indeed to them.

The house had never looked so very dark and dreary before. Yet from time to time old Oliver forgot that Dolly was gone altogether, and could never come back; for he would call her in his eager, quavering tones, or search for her in some of the hiding-places, where she had often played at hide-and-seek with him. When mealtimes came round he would put out Dolly's plate and cup, which had been bought on purpose for her, with gay flowers painted upon them; and in the evening, over his pipe, when he had been used to talk to his Lord, he now very often said nothing but repeat again and again Dolly's little prayer, which he had himself taught her, "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild." It was quite plain to Tony that it would never do to leave him alone in his house and shop.

"I've give up my place as errand-boy," he said to Mr. Ross, "'cause the old master grows worse and worse for forgetting, and I must mind shop for him now as well as I can. He's not off his head, as you may say; he's sharp enough sometimes; but there's no trusting to him being sharp always. He talks to Dolly as if she was here, and could hear him, till I can't hardly bear it. But I'm very fond of him,--fonder of him than anythink else, 'cept my little Dolly; and I've made up my mind as his Master shall be my master, and he's always ready to tell me all he knows about him. I'm no ways afeared of not getting along."

Tony found that they got along very well. Mr. Ross made a point of going in to visit them every week, and of seeing how the business prospered in the boy's hands; and he put as much as he could in his way. Sad and sorrowful as the days were, they pa.s.sed over, one after another, bringing with them at least the habit of living without Dolly. Every Sunday afternoon, however, old Oliver and Tony walked slowly through the streets, for the old man could only creep along with Tony's help, till they reached the Children's Hospital; but they never pa.s.sed the door, nor entered in through it. Old Oliver would stand for a few minutes leaning heavily on Tony's shoulder, and trembling from head to foot, as his eyes wandered over all the front of the building; and then a low, wailing cry would break from his lips, "Dear Lord! there was no room for my little love, but thou hast found room for her!"

It was a reopening of Tony's sorrow when Aunt Charlotte came up from the country to find that the little child had gone away altogether, leaving only her tiny frocks and clothes, which were neatly folded up in a drawer, where old Oliver treasured up a keepsake or two of his wife's.

She discovered, too, that old Oliver had forgotten to write to Susan,--indeed, his hand had become too trembling to hold a pen,--and she wrote herself; but her letter did not reach Calcutta before Susan and her husband had left it, being homeward bound.

It was as nearly two years as it could well be since the summer evening when Susan Raleigh had sent her little girl into old Oliver's shop, bidding her be a good girl till she came home, and thinking it would be only three days before she saw her again. It was nearly two years, and an evening something like it, when the door was darkened by the entrance of a tall, fine-looking man, dressed as a soldier, but with one empty sleeve looped up across his chest. Tony was busy behind the counter wrapping up magazines, which he was going to take out the next morning, and the soldier looked very inquisitively at him.

"Hallo! my lad, who are you?" he asked, in a tone of surprise.

"I'm Antony Oliver," he said; for of late he had taken to call himself by his old master's name.

"Antony Oliver!" repeated the stranger; "I never heard of you before."

"Well, I'm only Tony," he answered; "but I live with old Mr. Oliver now, and call him grandfather. He likes it, and it does me good. It's like somebody belonging to me."

"Why! how long have you called him grandfather?" asked the soldier again.

"Ever since our little Dolly died," said Tony, in a faltering voice.

"Dolly dead!" exclaimed the man, looking ready to fall down; for his face went very white, and he leaned upon the counter with his one hand.

"Oh! my poor Susan!--my poor, dear girl!--however can I tell her this bad news?"

"Who are you?" cried Tony. "Are you Dolly's father? Oh, she's dead!

She died last January, and we are more lonesome without her than you can think."

"Let me see poor Susan's father," he said, after a minute or two, and with a very troubled face.

"Ay, come in," said Tony, lifting up the flap of the counter, under which Dolly had so often played at hide-and-seek. "He's more hisself again; but his memory's bad yet. I know everythink about her, though; because she was so fond of me, and me of her. Come in."

Raleigh entered the room, and saw old Oliver sitting in his arm-chair, with a pipe in his hand, and a very tranquil look upon his wrinkled face.

The gas-light shone upon the glittering epaulettes and white sash of the soldier, and the old man fastened upon him a very keen, yet doubtful gaze of inquiry.