"Oh yes—I remember he talked about it to me. I'm afraid you found him a great heathen."
"Absolutely." Mr. Taylor laughs cheerfully over Alfred Challis's heathenism. "But a very good Christian for all that. I shouldn't say so to the Bishop, though. He never came to church, and I wasn't sorry...."
"Do take care, Mr. Taylor. We shall tell the Bishop."
"... Not on his account, you know—on my own. He would have convicted me of plagiarism. I took all his ideas for my sermon."
This was incidental chat, leading to nothing. Then followed inquiry, overdue, about the Rector's establishment, especially his locum tenens at Royd, the reporting of whom brought disquiet to his face. His hearers knew he was making the best of it; he was not a good actor. This led naturally to conversation about his own temporary locus tenendus in his friend's behalf, and so to the miserable tragedy of the drunkard's death in the canal-lock. Now it was well over four months since either young lady had done any slumming in the Tallack Street quarter: indeed, their visits there soon lost the charm of novelty, so neither recollected its inhabitants off-hand. The description failed to identify, until Mr. Taylor mentioned the unhappy Uncle Bob by name, first heard by him at the inquest. Then a recollection struck Judith.
"That must have been the man that said he was 'mine truly, Robert Steptoe,'" said she. "How very shocking!" The horror of the story of course increased tenfold the moment a nexus was established. Reminiscence, at work in Sibyl's mind, caused her to strike in upon Mr. Taylor's continuation of his narrative; on which he arrested it to hear what she was going to say. She said: "Never mind, go on!" till pressed to take her turn first; then said: "Wasn't that the blind beggar and the little girl—the same family, I mean?"
"Exactly. I was just coming to them." And then the Rev. Athelstan proceeded with a full account of poor Jim's sad plight in the Hospital, and of how the little girl had been a great source of anxiety to Addie Fossett. He contrived to assign the whole of the activities on Lizarann's behalf to that lady; having, indeed, a most happy impersonal faculty of narration, which detailed the facts without his own connection with them.
"They are really the reason of my coming here this morning," said he in conclusion. "I dare say you have both been wondering what it was all about. However, it's that. This poor fellow, Jim Coupland, oughtn't to be allowed to sell matches in the streets. And although he makes a good deal by what is really begging in disguise...."
"He makes three times what he would at any trade." Sibyl speaks positively; she always knows things.
"But he's putting it all by for the child." The clergyman justifies Jim, promptly.
"Please go on with what you were saying, Mr. Taylor!" Judith speaks. "'Although he makes a good deal by what is really begging in disguise'...."
"He might be dissuaded from it even if the loss of his foot—poor fellow!—should make it more lucrative."
"I don't see how." This is Sibyl, naturally. The Rector makes a mental note that she is always in opposition. Her sister says nothing, and he resumes:
"You remember the story of the asker?" Sibyl remembers it with a snap, and "Of course!—go on!" Judith, more slowly, thinks she remembers, and then—oh yes!—she remembers now. The speaker continues: "You know the child isn't seven, and doesn't the least realize about her father. She has been indoctrinated from babyhood with a false idea of some employment he has; he's as professional to her as the turncock or lamplighter. But he—poor chap!—is most anxious she should never know the truth. Yesterday he consented to not seeing the child for another six weeks—although he's longing for her, day and night—because he wants to spare her the knowledge of his stump. He's convinced that a wooden leg will be a great joke between them, and is devising shifts by which it may be concealed from his 'little lass,' as he calls her, that it is ever taken off. And yesterday, after swearing me, as it were, into the conspiracy for the child's deception, he ended up with an earnest request that I would never 'let on' about his being a 'cadging varmint.' I pointed out to him the utter uselessness of the attempt, and that it must fail in the end, and that the longer the knowledge is put off, the more painful it will be when it comes. I suspect he would give it up, to spare her. But he would have to be provided for, somehow."
"Have to be!" Sibyl's tone suggests impatient protest against Jim's case being made a claim on Society. The whole duty of a Christian includes a liberal amount of slumming; but it must be distinctly understood to be Christianity, not bald equity. Athelstan Taylor didn't feel analytical on the subject. He knew he would have "had to" cross the road between Jerusalem and Jericho if he had happened to come up before the Samaritan, or else that he would have been miserable all night about the man that had fallen among thieves and come to grief. He was like that at school, you see. Such an awfully good-natured chap! Probably Samaria was an awfully good-natured place. Anyhow, he didn't see his way to discussing the point this morning. He made a concession:
"Well—suppose we say it would be a pleasure to do it! You would feel it so if you knew the child. Really that infant's pluck when that poor madman was flourishing that horrible knife about...."
"But you didn't tell us about that." Both ladies speak. Indeed, Mr. Taylor had slurred over a great deal of his adventure, merely saying he was passing the house and had given what assistance he could, with very little detail till he got to Uncle Bob's escape.
"I never saw such a courageous child in my life. Addie Fossett's got her at the Schoolhouse now. She got a bad chill that night, and we've been very uneasy about her. Perhaps we are both of us given to fidgeting about coughs and temperatures and things. However!" This isolated word expresses, as briefly as possible, dismissal of the subject as material for depression, with retention of it as stimulus to action.
Judith is only languidly interested. "What do you think of doing, Mr. Taylor?" she says absently. Her mind is on the playhouse, yesterday.
"I'm not very clear about details, but if Jim will be tractable, and do as he's told, there ought to be some arrangement possible. He admits that he has some money in the savings-bank, and the Carriers' Co. that ran over him ... yes!—I've seen the manager ... are inclined to be liberal in the matter of compensation; and then there's...." Here a hesitation comes in.
"There's papa, of course." Both ladies agree about their parent, as a sort of fons et origo nummorum. Mr. Taylor had better talk to him about it. Mr. Elphinstone, after thirty-five years in the family, has no scruple about showing that he overhears conversation, and subinforms Miss Arkroyd that Sir Murgatroyd is imminent. Pending the baronet, the conversation is general, then drifts towards the Great Idea. Sibyl becomes gracious—points with pride to a mountain of letters on the subject that she will have to answer before she goes out. Mr. Elphinstone has restricted them to a clear spot on the breakfast-table, without presuming to fold or envelope. Miss Arkroyd detracts from their glory. Most of them are from artists who want to make designs for the cripples to execute, or from cripples who can do nothing at present, but would take three-and-sixpence a week during apprenticeship. Sibyl is indignant. The letters are the exact contrary of what Judith alleges. It is easy to sneer, but read what Mr. Brewdover says. There's his letter! But Judith says she isn't prepared to take up her parable on the subject—doesn't know enough about the matter. No doubt it's all right! She withdraws an incipient yawn, and Sibyl says something sotto voce, possibly that Judith might just as well have held her tongue.
Athelstan Taylor, writing of this interview to his friend Gus later, said: "I was glad at this point that the Bart. came in, apologetic—as I didn't fancy having to make peace between those two girls. Why need well-brought-up young women to be so quarrelsome—without the excuse of Alcoholism? They are rather a disappointment—those two—they used to be so nice as kids. I must say the old boy is my favourite of the family still—he was quite exemplary about this poor sailor chap—said, if I was convinced, that was enough for him, and I had only to say how much would be wanted. Her ladyship was very good too—do her justice!—promised to come and see poor Jim at the Hospital; and I think will keep her promise." He added a postscript next day: "Lady Arkroyd's visit came off this morning,