The Hole in the Wall Page 15
CHAPTER XV
STEPHEN'S TALE
The repeated multiplication of twenty by forty sent me to sleep thatnight, and I woke with that arithmetical exercise still running in myhead. A candle was alight in the room--ours was one of several houses inWapping Wall without gas--and I peeped sleepily over the bed-clothes.Grandfather Nat was sitting with the cash-box on his knees, and thepocket-book open in his hand. He may just have been counting the notesover again, or not; but now he was staring moodily at the photographthat lay with them. Once or twice he turned his eyes aside, and thenback again to the picture, as though searching his memory for some oldface; then I thought he would toss it away as something valueless; butwhen his glance fell on the fireless grate he returned the card to itsplace and locked the box.
When the cash-box was put away in the little cupboard at his bed-head,he came across and looked down at me. At first I shut my eyes, butpeeped. I found him looking on me with a troubled and thoughtful face;so that presently I sat up with a jump and asked him what he wasthinking about.
"Fox's sleep, Stevy?" he said, with his hand under my chin. "Well, boy,I was thinking about you. I was thinking it's a good job your father'scoming home soon, Stevy; though I don't like parting with you."
Parting with me? I did not understand. Wouldn't father be going awayagain soon?
"Well, I dunno, Stevy, I dunno. I've been thinking a lot just lately,that's a fact. This place is good enough for me, but it ain't a goodplace to bring up a boy like you in; not to make him the man I want youto be, Stevy. Somehow it didn't strike me that way at first, though itought to ha' done. It ought to ha' done, seein' it struck strangers--an'not particular moral strangers at that."
He was thinking of Blind George and Mrs. Grimes. Though at the moment Iwondered if his talk with Mr. Viney had set him doubting.
"No, Stevy," he resumed, "it ain't giving you a proper chance, keepingyou here. You can't get lavender water out o' the bilge, an' this part'sthe bilge of all London. I want you to be a better man than me, Stevy."
I could not imagine anybody being a better man than Grandfather Nat, andthe prospect of leaving him oppressed me dismally. And where was I togo? I remembered the terrible group of aunts at my mother's funeral, anda shadowy fear that I might be transferred to one of those virtuousfemales--perhaps to Aunt Martha--put a weight on my heart. "Don't sendme away, Gran'fa Nat!" I pleaded, with something pulling at the cornersof my mouth; "I haven't been a bad boy yet, have I?"
He caught me up and sat me on his fore-arm, so that my face almosttouched his, and I could see my little white reflection in his eyes."You're the best boy in England, Stevy," he said, and kissed meaffectionately. "The best boy in the world. An' I wouldn't let go o' youfor a minute but for your own good. But see now, Stevy, see; as to goin'away, now. You'll have to go to school, my boy, won't you? An' the bestschool we can manage--a gentleman's school; boardin' school, you know.Well, that'll mean goin' away, won't it? An' then it wouldn't do for youto go to a school like that, not from here, you know--which you'llunderstand when you get there, among the others. My boy--my boy an' yourfather's--has got to be as good a gentleman as any of 'em, an' notlooked down on because o' comin' from a Wapping public like this, an'sent by a rough old chap like me. See?"
I thought very hard over this view of things, which was difficult tounderstand. Who should look down on me because of Grandfather Nat, ofwhom I was so fond and so proud? Grandfather Nat, who had sailed shipsall over the world, had seen storms and icebergs and wrecks, and who wastreated with so much deference by everybody who came to the Hole in theWall? Then I thought again of the aunts at the funeral, and rememberedhow they had tilted their chins at him; and I wondered, withforebodings, if people at a boarding school were like those aunts.
"So I've been thinking, Stevy, I've been thinking," my grandfather wenton, after a pause. "Now, there's the wharf on the Cop. The work'sgettin' more, and Grimes is gettin' older. But you don't know about thewharf. Grimes is the man that manages there for me; he's Mrs. Grimes'sbrother-in-law, an' when his brother died he recommended the widder tome, an' that's how she came: an' now she's gone; but that's neither herenor there. Years ago Grimes himself an' a boy was enough for all thework there was; now there's three men reg'lar, an' work for more. Mosto' the lime comes off the barges there for the new gas-works, an' moreevery week. Now there's business there, an' a respectable business--toomuch for Grimes. An' if your father'll take on a shore job--an' it's ahard life, the sea--here it is. He can have a share--have the lot if helikes--for your sake, Stevy; an' it'll build up into a good thing.Grimes'll be all right--we can always find a job for him. An' you can goan' live with your father somewhere respectable an' convenient; not sucha place as Wapping, an' not such people. An' you can go to school fromthere, like any other young gentleman. We'll see about it when yourfather comes home."
"But shan't I ever see you, Gran'fa' Nat?"
"See me, my boy? Ay, that you will--if you don't grow too proud--thatyou will, an' great times we'll have, you an' your father an' me, allashore together, in the holidays, won't we? An' I'll take care of yourown little fortune--the notes--till you're old enough to have it. I'vebeen thinking about that, too." Here he stood me on my bed and playfullypushed me back and forward by the shoulders. "I've been thinking aboutthat, an' if it was lyin' loose in the street I'd be puzzled clean tosay who'd really lost it, what with one thing an' another. But it_ain't_ in the street, an' it's yours, with no puzzle about it. Butthere--lie down, Stevy, an' go to sleep. Your old grandfather's holdin'forth worse'n a parson, eh? Comes o' bein' a lonely man an' havin'nobody to talk to, except myself, till you come. Lie down an' don'tbother yourself. We must wait till your father comes home. We'll keepwatch for the _Juno_ in the List,--she ought to ha' been reported atBarbadoes before this. An' we must run down to Blackwall, too, an' seeif there's any letters from him. So go to sleep now, Stevy--we'll settleit all--we'll settle it all when your father comes home!"
So I lay and dozed, with words to send me to sleep instead of figures:till they made a tune and seemed to dance to it. "When father comeshome: when father comes home: we'll settle it all, when father comeshome!" And presently, in some unaccountable way, Mr. Cripps came intothe dance with his "Up to their r'yals, up to their r'yals: the wesselsis deep in, up to their r'yals!" and so I fell asleep wholly.
* * * * *
In the morning I was astir early, and watching the boats and theshipping from the bedroom window ere my grandfather had ceased hisalarming snore. It was half an hour later, and Grandfather Nat was busywith his razor on the upper lip that my cheeks so well remembered, whenwe heard Joe the potman at the street door. Whereat I took the keys andran down to let him in; a feat which I accomplished by aid of a pair ofsteps, much tugging at heavy bolts, and a supreme wrench at the big key.
Joe brought _Lloyd's List_ in with him every morning from the earlynewsagent's in Cable Street. I took the familiar journal at once, anddived into the midst of its quaint narrow columns, crowded with italics,in hope of news from Barbadoes. For I wished to find for myself, and runupstairs, with a child's importance, to tell Grandfather Nat. But therewas no news from Barbadoes--that is, there was no news of my father'sship. The name Barbadoes stood boldly enough, with reports below it, ofarrivals and sailings, and one of an empty boat washed ashore; but thatwas all. So I sat where I was, content to wait, and to tell GrandfatherNat presently, offhand from over my paper, like a politician in the bar,that there was no news. Thus, cutting the leaves with a table-knife, mymind on my father's voyage, it occurred to me that I could not spell LaGuaira, the name of the port his ship was last reported from; and Iturned the paper to look for it. The name was there, with only onemessage attached, and while I was slowly conning the letters over forthe third time, I was suddenly aware of a familiar word beneath--thename of the _Juno_ herself. And this was the notice that I read:
LA GUAIRA, Sep. 1.
The _Juno_ (brig) of London, Beecher,
from this for Barbadoes, foundered N of Margarita. Total loss. All crew saved except first mate. Master and crew landed Margarita.