<h2><SPAN name="page257"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>XXXII.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Long Hicks</span> raved and tore at his
hair, striding about the shop, and cursing himself with whatever
words he could find. Johnny was excited still, but he grew
thoughtful. There was more in this business, he saw now,
than the mere happy riddance of Butson. What of the
future? His mother was prostrated, and lay moaning on her
bed. No one was there to tend her but Bessy, and there was
no likelihood of help; they had no intimacy with neighbours, and
indeed the stark morality of Harbour Lane womankind would have
cut it off if they had. For already poor Nan was tried and
condemned (as was the expeditious manner of Harbour Lane in such
a matter), and no woman could dare so much as brush skirts with
her.</p>
<p>“It’s my fault—all of it!” said the
unhappy Hicks. “I shouldn’t ’a’ bin
such a fool! But how was I to know she’d go on like
that, after what she’d agreed to? Oh, damme, I
shouldn’t ’a’ meddled!”</p>
<p>Johnny calmed him as well as he might, pulled him into a chair
in the shop parlour, and sought to know the meaning of his
self-reproaches. “Why not meddle?” <SPAN name="page258"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Johnny
asked. “When you found her kicking up that
row—”</p>
<p>“Ah, but I didn’t, I didn’t!”
protested Hicks, rolling his head despairingly and punching his
thigh. “I brought her here! It’s all my
fault! I thought I was doin’ somethin’ clever,
an’ I was silly fool! O, I’d like to shoot
meself!”</p>
<p>“Brought her here? Well, tell us about it—no
good punching yourself. When did you find out he was
married?”</p>
<p>“Knew it years ago; didn’t know the woman was
alive, though. Thought she must ’a’ bin dead
when you told me he’d married your mother.”</p>
<p>Some light broke on Johnny. “And you took these
days off to look for her—was that it?”</p>
<p>“That’s it. An’ I was a
fool—made things wuss instead o’ better!”</p>
<p>“Never mind about that—anything’s better
than having that brute here. What changed your mind about
her being dead?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I dunno. I’ll tell you all there is to
it. Long time ago when I was workin’ at
Bishop’s an’ lodgin’ in Lime’us, my
lan’lady she knew Butson an’ ’is wife too,
an’ she told me they led a pretty cat an’ dog life,
an’ one day Butson hops the twig. Well his missus
wasn’t sorry to lose ’im, an’ she sets to
washin’ an’ ironin’ to keep ’erself
an’ the kid. But when Butson gets out of <SPAN name="page259"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>a job
(’e was never in one long) ’e goes snivellin’
round to ’er, an’ wants to go back, an’ be
kep’. Well the missis makes it pretty ’ot for
’im, you may guess; but she stands ’im for a week or
two, givin’ it ’im pretty thick all the time, till
Butson ’e cuts away again, an’ never comes
back. His missis never bothered about ’im—said
she was well quit. This was all before I went to live at
Lime’us, but she used to be pals with my
lan’lady. I kep’ a bottle o’ whisky then,
case of a friend comin’, an’ them two give it what
for, between ’em, on the quiet.”</p>
<p>“And did you know her then—his wife?”</p>
<p>“On’y by sight, an’ not to say to speak to,
me bein’ a quiet sort. I knew Butson since—in
the shops; most took ’im for a bachelor. Well, I
wasn’t at Lime’us very long; I came away to this part
an’ see no more of ’er—though o’ course I
see ’im, often. When you told me ’e’d
married your mother it took me aback a bit at first. But
then, thinks I, I expect the first one’s dead—must
be. But after that, the other day, when you told me what a
right down bad ’un ’e was, I begun to think wuss of
’im. I knew ’e’d bin livin’ idle,
but I didn’t guess ’e treated ’er so bad.
An’ when you talked o’ wantin’ to get rid of
’im, I got a notion. If ’e’s bad enough
for what ’e’s done, thinks I, ’e’s bad
enough for anythink. P’raps ’is fust wife
’s alive after all, an’ if she is, why the
job’s done! Anyway, I puts it, I’ll risk <SPAN name="page260"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>a day or
two auf on it. An’ I did, an’
’ere’s a nice old bloomin’ mess I made!
Oh, I ought to be poleaxed!”</p>
<p>“Well of course there’s been a row,” Johnny
said gloomily, “an’ I expect it’ll knock trade
to pieces here, an’ half kill mother. But you
couldn’t very well help a row in a thing like
this.”</p>
<p>“I bin three days findin” ’er. My old
lan’lady’s dead, an’ I ’ad to try
an’ find ’er sister. Nobody knew where the
sister was, but after a lot o’ bother a old woman sends me
to a cousin—in the workus. Cousin in the workus
thinks the sister’s dead too, but tells me to go an’
ask at a newspaper-shop in Bromley. Newspaper-shop’s
shut up—people gone. Find the man as moved ’em,
an’ ’e sends me to Bow—another
newspaper-shop. People there send me right back to Poplar;
party o’ the name o’ Bushell. Party o’
the name o’ Bushell very friendly, an’ sends me to
Old Ford; then I went to Bow again, an’ so I dodged about,
up an’ down, till I run across Mrs. Butson up on
’Omerton Marshes, keepin’ a laundry. That was
to-day, that was.</p>
<p>“Well, she took it mighty cool at first. When I
told ’er I knew where ’er ’usband was, she told
me I might keep my knowledge to myself, for she didn’t want
’im. Very cool she was, till I told ’er
’e’d married again, an’ at that she shut
’er jaw with a snap, an’ glared at me. So I
just told ’er what I knew, an’ ’ow it ’ud
be a charity <SPAN name="page261"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
261</span>to give ’im a scare on the quiet, an’ send
’im away from ’ere, an’ ‘All
right,’ she says. ‘Jest you show me where they
live,’ she says; ‘I’ll give ’im a
scare!’ ‘Right,’ says I, but I made
conditions. She wus to wait at the street-corner, an’
I was to send in a message for ’im to come out. Then
we was to give ’im ten minutes to go an’ git
’is clo’es, if ’e wanted any, make any excuse
’e liked, an’ clear out; so as to do it all quiet
an’ peaceable, an’ nobody the wiser. ‘All
right,’ she says, ‘jest you show me the place,
that’s all!’ So I brought ’er. But
when we got to the corner an’ I told ’er which
’ouse, auf she went at a bolt, an’—an’
set up all that row ’fore I could stop ’er!
Who’d ’a’ thought of ’er actin’
contradictory like that?”</p>
<p>It was not altogether so dense a mystery to Johnny as it was
to the simpler Hicks, twice his age, though more a boy than
himself. But he assured Hicks that after all he had done a
good turn, and no price was too high for riddance of
Butson. “Mother’ll be grateful to you, too,
when she’s a bit quieter, an’ knows about it,”
he said. And presently he added thoughtfully, “I
think I ought to have guessed something o’ the sort, with
his sneaking in an’ out so quiet, an’ being afraid
o’ the p’lice. There’s lots o’
things I see through now, that I ought to have seen through
before: not wantin’ the new name over the door, for
one!”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">.
. .
. .</p>
<p><SPAN name="page262"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Till
the shutters were up that night, and the door well bolted, Nan
May was urgent that that horrible woman must be kept out.
And when at last she slept, in mere exhaustion, she awoke in a
fit of trembling and choking, beseeching somebody to take the
woman away.</p>
<p>Bessy, like Johnny, had a sense of relief, though she slept
not at all, and dreaded vaguely. But withal she was
conscious of some intangible remembrance of that red-faced woman
with the harsh voice; and it was long—days—ere it
returned to her that she had heard the voice high above the
shouts of the beanfeasters in the Forest on the day when Uncle
Isaac had brought Butson to the cottage.</p>
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