"Ah!" she said, as if summing up what was before her. "'E thinks it's worse than it is, doesn't 'e, now? Come in, sir, do."
This time it struck Dart that her look seemed actually to anticipate the evolving of some wonderful and desirable thing from himself. As if even his gloom carried with it treasure as yet undisplayed. As she knew nothing of the ten sovereigns, he wondered what, in God's name, she saw.
The poverty of the little square room had an odd cheer in it. Much scrubbing had removed from it the objections manifest in Glad's room above. There was a small red fire in the grate, a strip of old, but gay carpet before it, two chairs and a table were covered with a harlequin patchwork made of bright odds and ends of all sizes and shapes. The fog in all its murky volume could not quite obscure the brightness of the often rubbed window and its harlequin curtain drawn across upon a string.
"Bless yer," said Miss Montaubyn, "sit down."
Dart sat and thanked her. Glad dropped upon the floor and girdled her knees comfortably while Miss Montaubyn took the second chair, which was close to the table, and snuffed the candle which stood near a basket of colored scraps such as, without doubt, had made the harlequin curtain.
"Yer won't mind me goin' on with me bit o' work?" she chirped.
"Tell 'im wot it is," Glad suggested.
"They come from a dressmaker as is in a small way," designating the scraps by a gesture. "I clean up for 'er an' she lets me 'ave 'em. I make 'em up into anythink I can--pin-cushions an' bags an' curtings an'
balls. Nobody'd think wot they run to sometimes. Now an' then I sell some of 'em. Wot I can't sell I give away."
"Drunken Bet's biby plays with 'er ball all day," said Glad.
"Ah!" said Miss Montaubyn, drawing out a long needleful of thread, "Bet, SHE thinks it worse than it is."
"Could it be worse?" asked Dart. "Could anything be worse than everything is?"
"Lots," suggested Glad; "might 'ave broke your back, might 'ave a fever, might be in jail for knifin' someone. 'E wants to 'ear you talk, Miss Montaubyn; tell 'im all about yerself."
"Me!" her expectant eyes on him. "'E wouldn't want to 'ear it. I shouldn't want to 'ear it myself. Bein' on the 'alls when yer a pretty girl ain't an 'elpful life; an' bein' took up an' dropped down till yer dropped in the gutter an' don't know 'ow to get out--it's wot yer mustn't let yer mind go back to."
"That's wot the lidy said," called out Glad. "Tell 'im about the lidy.
She doesn't even know who she was." The remark was tossed to Dart.
"Never even 'eard 'er name," with unabated cheer said Miss Montaubyn.
"She come an' she went an' me too low to do anything but lie an' look at 'er and listen. An' 'Which of us two is mad?' I ses to myself. But I lay thinkin' and thinkin'--an' it was so cheerfle I couldn't get it out of me 'ead--nor never 'ave since."
"What did she say?"
"I couldn't remember the words--it was the way they took away things a body's afraid of. It was about things never 'avin' really been like wot we thought they was. Godamighty now, there ain't a bit of 'arm in 'im."
"What?" he said with a start.
"'E never done the accidents and the trouble. It was us as went out of the light into the dark. If we'd kep' in the light all the time, an'
thought about it, an' talked about it, we'd never 'ad nothin' else.
'Tain't punishment neither. 'T ain't nothin' but the dark--an' the dark ain't nothin' but the light bein' away. 'Keep in the light,' she ses, 'never think of nothin' else, an' then you'll begin an' see things.
Everybody's been afraid. There ain't no need. You believe THAT.'"
"Believe?" said Dart heavily.
She nodded.
"'Yes,' ses I to 'er, 'that's where the trouble comes in--believin'.'
And she answers as cool as could be: 'Yes, it is,' she ses, 'we've all been thinkin' we've been believin', an' none of us 'as. If we 'ad what 'd there be to be afraid of? If we believed a king was givin' us our livin' an' takin' care of us who'd be afraid of not 'avin' enough to eat?'"
"Who?" groaned Dart. He sat hanging his head and staring at the floor.
This was another phase of the dream.
"'Where is 'E?' I ses. ''Im as breaks old women's legs an' crushes babies under wheels--so as they'll be resigned?' An' all of a sudden she calls out quite loud: 'Nowhere,' she ses. 'An' never was. But 'Im as stretched forth the 'eavens an' laid the foundations of the earth, 'Im as is the Life an' Love of the world, 'E's 'ERE! Stretch out yer 'and,' she ses, 'an' call out, "Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth," an'
ye'll 'ear an' SEE.
"'An' never you stop sayin' it--let yer 'eart beat it an' yer breath breathe it--an' yer 'll find yer goin' about laughin' soft to yerself an' lovin' everythin' as if it was yer own child at breast. An' no 'arm can come to yer. Try it when yer go 'ome.'"
"Did you?" asked Dart.
Glad answered for her with a tremulous--yes it was a TREMULOUS--giggle, a weirdly moved little sound.
"When she wakes in the mornin' she ses to 'erself, 'Good things is goin'
to come to-day--cheerfle things.' When there's a knock at the door she ses, 'Somethin' friendly's comin' in.' An' when Drunken Bet's makin' a row an' ragin' an' tearin' an' threatenin' to 'ave 'er eyes out of 'er fice, she ses, 'Lor, Bet, yer don't mean a word of it--yer a friend to every woman in the 'ouse.' When she don't know which way to turn, she stands still an' ses, 'Speak, Lord, thy servant 'eareth,' an' then she does wotever next comes into 'er mind--an' she says it's allus the right answer. Sometimes," sheepishly, "I've tried it myself--p'raps it's true. I did it this mornin' when I sat down an' pulled me sack over me 'ead on the bridge. Polly 'd been cryin' so loud all night I'd got a bit low in me stummick an'--" She stopped suddenly and turned on Dart as if light had flashed across her mind. "Dunno nothin' about it," she stammered, "but I SAID it--just like she does--an' YOU come!"
Plainly she had uttered whatever words she had used in the form of a sort of incantation, and here was the result in the living body of this man sitting before her. She stared hard at him, repeating her words: "YOU come. Yes, you did."
"It was the answer," said Miss Montaubyn, with entire simplicity as she bit off her thread, "that's wot it was."
Antony Dart lifted his heavy head.
"You believe it," he said.
"I 'm livin' on believin' it," she said confidingly. "I ain't got nothin' else. An' answers keeps comin' and comin'."
"What answers?"
"Bits o' work--an' things as 'elps. Glad there, she's one."
"Aw," said Glad, "I ain't nothin'. I likes to 'ear yer tell about it.
She ses," to Dart again, a little slowly, as she watched his face with curiously questioning eyes--"she ses 'E'S in the room--same as 'E's everywhere--in this 'ere room. Sometimes she talks out loud to 'Im."
"What!" cried Dart, startled again.
The strange Majestic Awful Idea--the Deity of the Ages--to be spoken of as a mere unfeared Reality! And even as the vaguely formed thought sprang in his brain he started once more, suddenly confronted by the meaning his sense of shock implied. What had all the sermons of all the centuries been preaching but that it was Reality? What had all the infidels of every age contended but that it was Unreal, and the folly of a dream? He had never thought of himself as an infidel; perhaps it would have shocked him to be called one, though he was not quite sure.
But that a little superannuated dancer at music-halls, battered and worn by an unlawful life, should sit and smile in absolute faith at such a--a superstition as this, stirred something like awe in him.
For she was smiling in entire acquiescence.
"It's what the curick ses," she enlarged radiantly. "Though 'e don t believe it, pore young man; 'e on'y thinks 'e does. 'It's for 'igh an'
low,' 'e ses, 'for you an' me as well as for them as is royal fambleys.
The Almighty 'E's EVERYWHERE!' 'Yes,' ses I, 'I've felt 'Im 'ere--as near as y' are yerself, sir, I 'ave--an' I've spoke to 'Im."'
"What did the curate say?" Dart asked, amazed.
"Seemed like it frightened 'im a bit. 'We mustn't be too bold, Miss Montaubyn, my dear,' 'e ses, for 'e's a kind young man as ever lived, an' often ses 'my dear' to them 'e's comfortin'. But yer see the lidy 'ad gave me a Bible o' me own an' I'd set 'ere an' read it, an' read it an' learned verses to say to meself when I was in bed--an' I'd got ter feel like it was someone talkin' to me an' makin' me understand. So I ses, ''T ain't boldness we're warned against; it's not lovin' an'
trustin' enough, an' not askin' an' believin' TRUE. Don't yer remember wot it ses: "I, even I, am 'e that comforteth yer. Who art thou that thou art afraid of man that shall die an' the son of man that shall be made as grass, an' forgetteth Jehovah thy Creator, that stretched forth the 'eavens an' laid the foundations of the earth?" an' "I've covered thee with the shadder of me 'and," it ses; an' "I will go before thee an' make the rough places smooth;" an' "'Itherto ye 'ave asked nothin'
in my name; ask therefore that ye may receive, an' yer joy may be made full."' An' 'e looked down on the floor as if 'e was doin' some 'ard thinkin', pore young man, an' 'e ses, quite sudden an' shaky, 'Lord, I believe, 'elp thou my unbelief,' an' 'e ses it as if 'e was in trouble an' didn't know 'e'd spoke out loud."