<h2><SPAN name="page224"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>XXVII.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Happiness</span> never stayed long with
Nora Sansom. Little, indeed, had been her portion, and it
was a poor sort at best. But this new joy was so great that
it must needs be short of life; and in truth she saw good
reason. From the moment of parting with Johnny doubts had
troubled her; and doubts grew to distress—even to
misery. She saw no end—no end but sorrow. She
had been carried away; she had forgotten. And in measure as
her sober senses awoke she saw that all this gladness could but
end in heart-break and bereavement. Better, then, end all
quickly and have done with the pang. But herein she
misjudged her strength.</p>
<p>Doubts and perplexities assailed Johnny also, though for a
time they grew to nothing sharper. He would have gone home
straightway, proud and joyful, if a little sheepish, to tell his
mother the tale of that evening. But Nora had implored him
to say nothing yet. She wanted time to think things over,
she said. And she left him at the familiar corner, two
streets beyond the Institute, begging him to come no farther, for
this time, at anyrate. Next evening was the evening of the
<SPAN name="page225"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
225</span>dressmaking class. He saw her for a few minutes,
on her way through those two familiar streets, and he thought she
looked unwell.</p>
<p>A few nights later he saw her again. Plainly she had
been crying. When they came to a deserted street of shut-up
wharves he asked her why.</p>
<p>“Only—only I’ve been thinking!” she
said.</p>
<p>“What about?”</p>
<p>“About you, Johnny—about you and me.
We—I think—we’re very young, aren’t
we?”</p>
<p>That had not struck him as a difficulty.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know about
that. I s’pose we are, like others. But I shall
be out o’ my time in two years and a half, or not much
more, and then—”</p>
<p>“Yes, then,” she said, catching at the word,
“p’raps then it will be different—and—I
mean we shall be older and know better, Johnny.
And—now—we can often see one another and talk like
friends—and—” She looked up to read his
eyes, trembling.</p>
<p>Something cold took Johnny by the throat, and checked his
voice. “But—what—you don’t
mean—that?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she said, though it was bitter hard.
“It’ll be best—I’m sure,
Johnny!”</p>
<p>Johnny gulped, and his voice hardened. “Oh!”
he said, “if you want to throw me over you might say so, in
straight English!”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page226"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
226</span>“Oh—don’t talk like that,
Johnny!” she pleaded, and laid her hand on his arm.
“It’s unkind! You know it’s
unkind!”</p>
<p>“No—it’s only plain an’ honest.
I don’t understand this half-and-half business—seeing
each other ‘like friends’ an’ all
that.”</p>
<p>One more effort she made to hold her position—but her
strength was near gone. “It’ll be better,
Johnny—truly it will! You—you might meet
someone you’d like better, and—”</p>
<p>“That’s my look-out; time to talk about that when
it comes. The other night you let me kiss you, and you
kissed me back—told me you loved me. Now you
don’t. Maybe you’ve met someone you like
better.”</p>
<p>She held out no more. Her head fell on his shoulder, and
she broke into an agony of tears. “O Johnny, Johnny,
that is cruel! You don’t know how cruel it is!
I shall never like anybody better than you—never half so
much. Don’t be unkind! I’ve not one
friend in the world but you, and I do love you more than
anything.”</p>
<p>With that Johnny was ready to kick himself for a
ruffian. He looked about, but nobody else was in the
shadowy street. He kissed Nora, he called himself hard
names, and he quieted her, though she still sobbed. And
there was no more talk of mere friendship. She had tried
her compromise, and had broken down. But <SPAN name="page227"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>presently
Johnny ventured to ask if she foresaw any difficulty with her
parents.</p>
<p>“Father’s dead,” she said simply.
“He’s been dead for years.” This was the
first word of her family matters that Johnny had heard.
Should he come to see her mother? The question struck her
like a blow.</p>
<p>“No—no, Johnny,” she said. “Not
yet—no, you mustn’t. I can’t tell you
why—I can’t really; at anyrate not now.”
Then after a pause, “O Johnny, I’m in such
trouble! Such trouble, Johnny!” And she wept
again.</p>
<p>But tell her trouble she would not. At anyrate not
then. And in the end she left Johnny much mystified, and
near as miserable as herself, because of his blind helplessness
in this unrevealed affliction.</p>
<p>Inexpert in mysteries, he was all incomprehension. What
was this trouble that he must not be told of? He did not
even know where Nora lived. Why shouldn’t she tell
him? Why did she never let him see her as far as
home? This much he knew: that she had a mother, but had
lost her father by death. And this he had but just learned
from her under stress of tears. He was not to see her
mother—at least not yet. And Nora was in sore
trouble, but refused to say what the trouble was. That
night he moped and brooded. And at Maidment and
Hurst’s next morning—it was Saturday—Mr. Cottam
the gaffer swore, and made remarks about <SPAN name="page228"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>the
expedience of being thoroughly awake before dinner-time.
More, at one o’clock Johnny passed the pay-box without
taking his money, and turned back for it, when reminded, amid the
chaff of his shopmates, many offers of portership, and some
suggestions to scramble the slighted cash.</p>
<p>Not far from the yard-gate he saw a small crowd of people
about a public-house; and as he neared he perceived Mother
Born-drunk in the midst of it. The publican had refused to
serve her—indeed, had turned her out—and now she
swayed about his door and proclaimed him at large.</p>
<p>“’Shultin’ a lady!” she screamed
hoarsely. “Can’t go in plashe ’thout
bein’ ’shulted. ’Shulted by low common
public-’oush. I won’t ’ave it!”</p>
<p>“Don’t you stand it, ducky!” sang out a
boy. “You give ’em what for!”</p>
<p>For a moment she seemed inclined to turn her wrath on her
natural enemy, the boy, but her eye fell on a black bottle with a
broken neck, lying in the gutter. “Gi’
’em what for?” she hiccupped, stooping for the
bottle, “Yesh, <i>I’ll</i> gi’ ’em what
for!” and with that flung the bottle at the largest window
in sight.</p>
<p>There was a crash, a black hole in the midst of the plate
glass, and a vast “spider” of cracks to its farthest
corners. Mother Born-drunk stood and stared, perhaps a
little sobered. Then a barman ran out, tucking in his <SPAN name="page229"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>apron, and
took her by the arm. There were yells and screams and
struggles, and cheers from blackguard boys; and Mother Born-drunk
was hauled off, screaming and sliding and stumbling, between a
policeman and the publican.</p>
<p>Johnny told his mother, when he reached home, that her old
acquaintance Emma Pacey was like to endure a spell of gaol.
But what occupied his mind was Nora’s trouble, and he
forgot Mother Born-drunk for three or four days.</p>
<p>Then came the next evening of the dressmaking class at the
Institute, and he went, never doubting to meet Nora as she came
away. At the door the housekeeper, who was also
hall-porter, beckoned, and gave him a letter, left earlier in the
day. It was addressed to him by name, in a weak and
straggling female hand, and for a moment he stared at it, not a
little surprised. When he tore open the envelope he found a
blotchy, tear-stained rag of a letter, and read this:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">My Dearest
Johnny</span>,—It is all over now and I do hope you will
forgive me for not telling you before. This is to say
good-bye and God bless you and pray forget all about me. It
was wrong of me to let it go so far but I did love you so Johnny,
and I could not help it and then I didn’t know what to
do. I can never come to the classes again with all this
disgrace and everything printed in the newspapers and I must get
work somewhere where they don’t know me. I would
rather die, but I must look after her as well as I can, Johnny,
because she is my mother. Burn this at once and forget all
about me and some day you will meet <SPAN name="page230"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>some nice girl belonging to a
respectable family and nothing to be ashamed of.
Don’t try to find me—that will only make us both
miserable. Good-bye and please forgive me.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">Yours affectionately,<br/>
<span class="smcap">Nora Sansom</span>.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What was this? What did it all mean? He stood in
the gymnasium dressing-room to read it, and when he looked up,
the gaslight danced and the lockers spun about him. The one
clear thing was that Nora said good-bye, and was gone.</p>
<p>Presently his faculties assorted themselves, and he read the
letter again; and then once more. It was “all
over” and she asked him to forgive her for not telling him
before. Telling him what? She told him nothing
now. She would never come to the Institute again, and he
didn’t know her address, and he mustn’t try to find
her. But then there was “everything printed in the
newspapers.” Of course, he must look at the
newspapers; why so long realising that? He went to the
reading-room and applied himself to the pile of papers and
magazines that littered the table. One paper after another
he searched and searched again, but saw nothing that he could
connect with Nora, by any stretch of imagination. Till he
found a stray sheet of the day before, with rings of coffee-stain
on it. The “police intelligence” lay uppermost,
and in the midst of the column the name <i>Emma Sansom</i>, in
italic letters, caught his <SPAN name="page231"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>eye. She was forty-one, and
was charged with drunkenness and wilful damage. A sentence
more, and everything stood displayed, as by a flash of lightning;
for he had witnessed the offence himself, on Saturday. Emma
Sansom was the married name of Emma Pacey, whom the boys called
Mother Born-drunk; and the woman was Nora’s mother!</p>
<p>Now it was plain—all, from the very beginning, when the
child wandered in the night seeking her strayed and drunken
mother, and inquired for her with the shamed excuse that she was
ill. This was why he was not to call to see Nora’s
mother; and it was for this that Nora hindered him from seeing
her home.</p>
<p>There was the shameful report, all at length. The
publican’s tale was simple and plain enough. He had
declined to serve the prisoner because she was drunk, and as she
refused to leave, he had her turned out, though, he said, she
made no particular resistance. Shortly afterward he heard a
crash, and found a broken bottle and a great deal of broken glass
in the bar. He had gone outside, and saw the prisoner being
held by his barman. His plate-glass window was smashed, and
it was worth ten pounds. There was little more
evidence. The police told his worship that the prisoner had
been fined small sums for drunkenness before, but she was usually
inoffensive, except for collecting crowds of boys. This was
the first charge against her involving damage. <SPAN name="page232"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>She was the
widow of a ship’s officer lost at sea, and she had a small
annuity, but was chiefly supported of late by her
daughter—a dressmaker—a very respectable young
woman. The daughter was present (the reporter called her
“a prepossessing young female in great distress”),
and she wished to be allowed to pay the damage in small
instalments. But in the end her mother was sent to prison
for a month in default of payment of fine and damage. For
indeed the daughter was a minor, and her undertaking was
worthless.</p>
<p>One thing Johnny looked for eagerly, but did not
find—the prisoner’s address. Whether
consideration for the daughter had prompted the reporter to that
suppression, or whether it was due to accident, Johnny could not
guess. In other reports in the same column some addresses
were given and some not. But straightway Johnny went to beg
the housekeeper that he might rummage the store of old papers for
those of the day before. For to desert Nora now, in her
trouble, was a thing wholly inconceivable; and so far from
burning the letter, he put it, envelope and all, in his safest
pocket, and felt there, more than once, to be assured of its
safety.</p>
<p>But the address was in none of the papers. In fact the
report was in no more than three, and in one of those it was but
five lines long. What should he do? He could not even
write her one line of comfort. And <SPAN name="page233"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>he had been
going on with his work placidly all Monday while Nora had been
standing up in a police-court, weeping and imploring mercy for
her wretched mother! If he had known he could scarce have
done anything to aid her. But helplessness was no
consolation—rather the cruellest of aggravations.</p>
<p>Well, there stood the matter, and raving would not help it,
nor would beating the table—nor even the head—with
the fist. He must somehow devise a way to reach Nora.</p>
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