The Finger and the Ring

Chapter I

the man possessed. " There it is again ! Louder and plainer than ever ; and her voice ! Don't I know it ? I tell you I do know it — right through the dirty water, up it comes to call me ! After all these years, too ! Drowned ten years ago, and not dead yet ! Hear it ? I can see it — the body — her body — lying there at the bottom of the river, beckoning to me. Let me go, I tell you ! Let me go ! She wants me, and I'm going. There's the voice again. Hark ! " The Man Possessed started up in his bed as he spoke the last word, and, with an intense and exaggerated appearance of listening in the pose of his body, in his wild, bloodshot eyes, in the whole aspect of his ghastly face gripped and tortured by the raging insanity of drink, stared wildly at the blank wall before him. A cool little hand was placed upon the fiery forehead soothingly, and a pleasant little voice said, very softly and persuasively, — " There !

It's quiet again now. It won't speak any more for a long time ; won't call to you again for a long time. Lie down, father, please. Now you will be good, won't you ? You promised me this afternoon that you would. You know you did, don't you ? " She was really only a child of sixteen herself, but she B spoke with an old-fashioned manner that seemed to reverse relative positions, and make her the mother ; and the degraded, drink-maddened wreck on which she looked down so tenderly, the child. The Man Possessed sank back on the pillow at the sound of her voice. It seemed as though the drink fiend relaxed his grip in the pure presence of the girl, and granted his tortured victim a respite for her sake. " There ! now you're more comfortable, aren't you ? " she asked, smoothing the pillows into easier arrangement, and speaking with a wonderfully mature and womanly manner.

The Man Possessed muttered inarticulate madness relative to an expected early visit to that room, and the neighbourhood of " Judd's Rents " generally, by the Enemy of man, and made an almost coherent request that his Satanic Majesty might be treated with consideration on arrival. " Like a gentleman, Gerty ! Like a gentleman ! Never mind the smell of sulphur, he can't help it, though unpleasant. Look out ! he's coming in at the door now ! The sulphur's in my throat already. Like a gentleman, now, Gerty ! like a gentleman ! " The voice sank to a confidential whisper, and died. The girl, bending affectionately over the Possessed One, saw that his Possessor had allowed him to fall into an uneasy, lunging, starting sleep. The room wherein this scene was enacted — lighted by a cheap lamp hung against the bare, whitewashed wall— was a small one, not badly furnished for such a situation, in the squalid court lying between the western side of Lincoln's Inn and Drury Lane, known as Judd's Rents.

It was a ground floor room, and attached to it was a tiny living apartment visible in perspective through the half-open door of the bedroom. Gerty, seeing the sleep appeared, such as it was, to be established, and knowing from experience it would last some considerable time, began moving softly about the room, " putting it straight." There wasn't much either to straighten or to be straightened ; for an ancient chest of drawers and an old tin box comprised, with the little iron bedstead, the sole furniture. The chief feature of the room, apart from its amazing cleanliness, which even made the small, square oasis of faded carpet in the centre of a desert of bare, white boards appear to have had every particle of dust shaken out of it within the last two hours, was Gerty herself. In such a locality such a girl might have been expected to be clad in underclothing of dirt and an outward garment of rags.

She was as clean as a countess, and as neat as a nun. She had on a gown of some quiet black material, and it suited her very well, because her figure was rather stout, and the colour detracted from the fact. It wasn't at first possible to see her face ; for reason that the mineral-oil lamp with a reflector behind it, hanging against the wall, threw its glare in a concentrated shaft of light, and as Gerty moved about upon her tidying work, her face didn't once come within its line of fire. But now she has straightened the room which had so very little that was crooked in it, she goes in front of a little mahogany-framed mirror, hanging by a brass ring from a brass-headed nail in the wall, and begins lightly touching the coils of her hair, and, in brief, putting herself " straight." This task is even a lighter one than the preceding one.

In Gerty Doran there is even less to straighten than in the room. The mirror isn't a particularly flattering one, for it has a peculiar knack of exhibiting its client's portraits with a fantastic ripple in them. Yet even this eccentricity can't hide the fact that the reflection of the moment is of a round-faced, pleasant-looking girl with bright, frank eyes more blue than grey, and brown hair that holds a tint of something richer in it, and seems as though it were quite willing to be auburn-red if only the sun shone on it for a moment. Not in the least a beautiful face ; but an honest, pleasant, open, English face, that might be trusted any day with anything, and would die rather than betray the confidence. Deftly completing her task, Gerty passed into the little sitting-room, and began spreading a white cloth on the table centring it.

There was no lamp in this latter apartment, but a cheery fire blazing in the grate ; and Gerty, having set the table for tea, and put a couple of B cups upon the board, some tea in a little swarthy teapot, and the kettle on the fire, cut some slices of bread from the loaf in the tin bread-tray, and began making toast. It was a capital fire for making toast ; glowing redly, and throwing up a dancing flame now and again, to yield instantaneous glimpses of the low-ceiled room, centuries old, furnished with an antique air of comfort by means of an old mahogany locker or two, each with brass handles ; red, stuff curtains at the small window ; highly polished Windsor chairs to the number of three ; a neatly filled dresser of small dimensions ; and a selection of oleographs in the most gaudy colours obtainable for money.

These daubs brightened up the walls more successfully than the highest art of the whole Royal Academy could have achieved at any price : perhaps appealed more successfully to those who looked upon them. The contrast within and without that little room was amazing. Without, the squalid court, full of howling children blue with the twilight cold of a later March ; the pavement sloppy with wind-crinkled puddles caused by the chill showers that had earlier fallen ; the buildings flanking the court inky black of wall, and loopholed by hundreds of windows not one of which could boast its complete complement of panes, but had brown paper fittings in their lieu. That was the outward view. The inward one was the neat and spotless room, warm with the dancing light of the ruddy fire, and before that fire the kneeling girl making her toast ; the glowing coal's reflection on her pure, reliable face, and lingering on the coils of her hair until they seemed to catch the warmer tint, and deepen into auburn-red.

On one side of the fire was an old cupboard with doors divided horizontally, and shelves so arranged as to make a double cupboard of it — upper and lower. It was to the upper half that, the toasting ended, Gerty had recourse presently, and thence produced and lighted a little opal lamp with a shade to match ; standing this luminant upon the centre of the tea-table when the lighting was achieved, and then setting the toast on one ■* of the two capacious hobs to keep warm. Even when this was done the thoughtful little person could not rest, but going to the lower half of the aforesaid cupboard, and diving into engulfing recesses of uncertainty, emerged into the lamplight a moment later with a pair of slippers. These she balanced slantwise in the fender, and then, for the first time that evening sitting down on one of the Windsor chairs, brought out some knitting from the pocket of her trim black gown, and fell to work with rapid needles that, darting amongst the dark wool, seemed like lightnings in the night-time.

And in all we have seen her do, she was so deft and silent in her movements ; so sure of what she meant to do before she began to do it ; so thoughtfully composed and earnest ; that many a rich man, waited on hand and foot all day long always, might have sighed at the sight of her ; thinking what his wealth had given him, and what it could not give. Only once she paused for a moment in her knitting task and listened. It was when a rapid footstep echoed on the flagging of the court outside. " No ! " she said, half aloud, the next moment. " It's not ! " and then her bright glance fell, but only instantly, upon the slippers warming in the grate. Following the direction of that glance, it dawns upon us that they are rather remarkable slippers, in their way : not in the detail of material (for they are ordinary worked ones in that respect), but in the detail of size and shape.

For they are the broadest, shortest, bluntest-toed — and yet, withal, the cosiest-looking — slippers that ever were. We are in the thick of wondering what manner of man can — the best word seems, really, to be " inhabit " — them, when the picture we have been looking at suddenly changes by reason of Gerty starting unexpectedly up, placing her knitting hurriedly on the table, and going quickly into the adjoining bedroom. It is the Man Possessed, come staringly awake at the identical point he had deliriously reached before he fell asleep, and shouting out, between abject terror and servile humility, — " Gert ! Come here quickly ! Gert, do you hear ? Gert, I say ! He's coming down the court. I can hear his footsteps and smell the sulphur." Then, confidentially, " Like a gentleman, Gert 1 Like a gentleman !

He's close here. Look ! " Sitting up in bed now ; a ghastly object with stubbly chin, staring, bloodshot, fiery eyes, and an attitude of pointing to the door by which his Satanic Majesty may be anticipated. Again the cool little motherly hands upon the burning forehead ; again the soft persuasive voice, — " No, no, father ! He won't come while I'm here, of course he won't ! Lie down again, dear, and be quiet. Come ! " " But I tell you I can hear him coming down the court ! There ! He's at the door — he's in the sitting room — he's at this door — don't you see him ? Like a gentleman, now ! Like a — Lord ! I'd no idea he was so short and fat ! " He was indeed short and fat, and totally unlike his pictorial presentments as generally received, if he were the figure who, as though he had actually followed the madman's words, pushed the bedroom door open, and looked in.

Even in costume he was unlike the fancy portraits of his Satanic Majesty with which we are familiar : being clad in a drab cover-coat, surmounted by a drab-coloured, round felt hat. " Don't let him come too near ! " shrieked the Possessed One, shrinking back as far as he could in the bed, and staring with terrified eyes at the apparition. " Like a gentleman, Gert, but not too near ! " In spite of the awful situation, Gerty would have been more than human if she could have kept back a little smile as she glanced into the eyes of the man so comically mistaken. " Why, father, you know who it is, surely ? You can't mistake Uncle Tom ? " "Yes," said the rotund, jovial-faced, Dutch cheese of a man alluded to ; " you're not going to get confused about me, sure/y 1 Cheer up, sir, cheer up, and tell me what you thought I might happen to be, to look so skeared at me."

The Man Possessed had abandoned the subject, however, and in response to this plausible request, intimated that the ark had sprung a leak, and that Noah had better be requested to reverse the engines without delay. " Why, certainly ! I'll tell him at this very identical instant — going into the engine-room (which we call the parlour) straight away to do it," assented Uncle Tom with the utmost readiness, and promptly disappearing in the direction he had indicated. The Man Possessed groaned, and then fell back, in a condition of complete collapse, amongst the bed-clothes : muttering as he did so, that, in his opinion, it was too late to be of any practical service to the ark then, as it was sinking faster and faster every moment. The sensation must have been hideously real to him, for, chancing at the moment to get hold of Gerty's hand, he clung to it with the desperation of a drowning man, declaring it was " all over now," and the next moment shrieking to be saved.

But, the paroxysm was not of long duration. Before the soft, cool hand and the gentle persuasive voice, the Possessor retired again presently, and left the Possessed to another starting, lunging, unrestful sleep. Once more Gerty arranged the pillow and bed coverings into easier folds, watched for a moment to see that the sleep was likely to continue for a time, and then, turning down the reflectored lamp very low indeed, and so leaving the room in shadowy obscurity, went to join Uncle Tom at the tea-table. But Uncle Tom was not yet ready for his evening meal. He wasn't even in the parlour ; and if anyone had looked to see where he had gone to, it would have become visible that there were two other doors to that small apartment, neither of which has yet received notice : one between the two old mahogany lockers with the brass handles, facing the fire, and one corresponding with the obscure cupboard and on the opposite side of the fireplace from it.

From behind the further of these two doors (both of which led to minute sleeping rooms) were issuing, at the moment of Gerty's return to the tea table, the most tremendous ablutionary sounds, attended by much puffing and blowing, terrific splashings of water, and such other indications as might have suggested the grooming of a horse on a very thoroughly complete scale. These sounds, and the disappearance of the capacious slippers, explained the absence of Uncle Tom. Gerty put the swarthy teapot on the table, added the toast, and then, sitting down herself, began pouring out the tea. She had scarcely completed this task, when the door opened, and Uncle Tom came forth, glowing, from his cleansing process. Thus comfortably viewable in the lamplight, he proved to be the most suitable owner for those bluff slippers that anyone could conceive.

His height, five feet one ; his width and depth almost the same ; his face the May moon at her rising time (quite as round and red, but a good deal more jovial), embellished by a flaxen moustache, and a delightful pair of honest, laughing blue eyes. As he came to the table it could be seen that he was wearing the squat slippers. " Well, Uncle Tom," Gerty said, handing him his tea as he pulled a chair to the table ; " well, Uncle Tom, what sort of a day have you had ? " " Can't grumble, can't grumble," returned Uncle Tom jovially. " That's why I went in early ; that, and knowing your father was — keepin' Christmas, as I may put it lightest, perhaps. What sort of a time have you had, Gerty ? " " Oh, dreadful, dreadful ! He's been on and off all day. Chiefly thinking he could see poor mother at the bottom of the river, and that she was calling him to come to her.

Isn't it shocking ? " " Dreadful," assented Uncle Tom, with the jovial face quite grave. "Nothing could be worse, that I can think of. I thought your Aunt Doran would have been to see you to-day." " So did I. I can't think why she hasn't." "Perhaps," hazarded Uncle Tom, "the Markis couldn't spare her just nicely to-day ? " "I don't think it can be that ; because a housekeeper in such an establishment as the Marquis of Flinchington's does pretty well as she likes — and— and I want to say something else, but I don't like to." " Give it it's head, an' let it get through, whatever it is, Gerty ! Keep nothing in hand from me, please. The more you say, the more I shall like it." " Well, then — it's this : you know you always like me to tell you anything wrong that I notice in your speaking of words, don't you ?

" " Of course I do, my little schoolmistress ! that's the arrangement. I've said some other word wrong now, I feel certain. Tell me, please ! We'll get right if possible. What was the word ? " " You said ' markis,' it's maxquis, you know. That's all, nothing more than that. A very little mistake, wasn't it ? Only I thought I'd like to tell you, and you don't mind, do you ? " "Mind! I should think I didn't! I'm so full of gratitude to you for all you've coached me up in, that I don't know how to tell you all I feel ! There's so much gratitude in me, that it blocks itself in the coming out, so that none of it comes. Maxquis, is it ? All right, my dear, and thank you. Maxquis it shall be in future, world without end, Amen ! " " It seems so rude for me — only just turned sixteen — to be telling you things — who are — are — how old are you, Uncle Tom ?

" A cloud seemed to come over the beaming moon for the moment. " Why — as well as I can reckon, nearly double it, Gerty." " Thirty ? Are you really now ? What a difference between us ! " Gerty looked at him with an interested contemplativeness as she spoke the words. Uncle Tom sighed — actually sighed, and then the moon came completely out from the cloud and beamed again, with the words, — " Never mind ! You've fifteen more years to live. That's worth it — worth anything, isn't it ? " " I don't quite know. Perhaps when one has a great life to lead — such as the Marquis of Flinchington, for instance—" " But do you think — do you really think now," inquired Uncle Tom, pausing with a piece of toast half way to his lips — " do you really mean to tell me you think that the max-quis (with difficulty combating the old habit of pronunciation) is a happier man— take him all round— than Tommy Treacle, driving his own hansom cab by day, and sitting over this fire with a pipe of a night while you coach him in all sorts of things he ought to have known, but never did, till you came and taught him ? '' " I don't know about that.

You've a wonderfully contented nature ; which makes it different for you, doesn't it ? " " Perhaps it does, perhaps it does," assented Mr. Thomas Treacle, thoughtfully, consuming toast. " Yes. I make no doubt but you're right ; you always are. Has it ever struck you, now, that your having been so quick at picking up things at school of a day, and my having had no chance of picking anything up (till you came here), has brought us very much what I may call level in the matter of ages ? " "You don't seem a bit old to me, if you mean that," Gerty replied. " You never have seemed so." " Well, now, I'm glad of that ; I am indeed ! I believe your having had to give me what I may call ' night schooling' has seemed to bring us level in age. A funny pair we must have looked, night after night, if anyone could have seen us ; you, half my age, teaching me !

" " You were wonderfully quick to pick things up." " Yes," assented Uncle Tom. " It seemed to come from you to me on rubber tyres — so quiet and easy. And I've stuck to most of it. I didn't get it into my head for nothing. It's safe there now, and I've got the key of the stable door ! " Mr. Thomas Treacle drank some tea, and smiled over it. " I often wonder to myself," Gerty said, after a moment's pause for the purpose of putting some more hot water in the swarthy teapot, " I often wonder to myself, what would have become of father and me if it hadn't been for you, Uncle Tom. I often wonder whether we should both of us have been alive. I don't believe we should — and as to the relationship," laughed Gerty, with a sudden change from grave to gay — " I never can believe that you're not an uncle at all.

That's quite too ridicu lously absurd for anything, isn't it ? " " Uncle Tom " laughed. " Don't let us get on to this subject," he said. " There you are ! You won't ever let me thank you," Gerty went on sadly. " You are really a most remark able person ! You run over, with your cab, a — I may as well say it plainly — a drunken man who has a little shivering ragged child with him — who is shivering and ragged himself — and you take up both father and child in a moment, drive them to the hospital, visit them every day, and when they come out of the hospital, you — ' adopt ' is the best word — both of them in your own house for ever and always, and never will even be thanked ! I don't believe there's such another case in England — in the whole world. Oh ! Uncle Tom, I'm so grateful ! You can't think how grateful.

I am, really and truly ! " " I know, I know," Uncle Tom muttered quite brokenly, " but don't let's talk about it, please. No need ! And then think : there's your Aunt Doran. / don't do everything, you see." " But she only comes and makes us presents of useful things four times a year. Why won't you let her do something more than that, Uncle Tom ? You know she's offered to, again and again." " My dear," Uncle Tom replied resolutely, " will you kindly give me another cup of tea, with two lumps of sugar in it as per usual ? " " Ah ! " sighs Gerty, taking the cup he hands her and complying with his modest request. " I know that means the old thing ; that you won't hear any more on the subject ! " " Yes, my dear," laughs Uncle Tom quite gaily, " you've bridled the right horse this time, and no mistake !

You and your father don't owe me a half penny. I've had more than I deserve in the way of schooling from you. I only took up pleasure for a fare when 1 took up you and your father. That's straight. Gave myself nothing but pleasure in so doing ; and I'm not going to be thanked for giving myself pleasure — 'tisn't reasonable nor likely — especially when I haven't once had to drive outside the radius of comfort with either of you." Gerty sighed, and began to clear away the tea-things : while Uncle Tom, taking an ancient briar pipe from amongst some highly-coloured china ornaments on the mantelpiece, filled and lighted it with deliberate care, turning his chair towards the fire when he had completed the task, and then sitting down to enjoy himself after his own familiar fashion. When Gerty had " washed up " the plates and cups, and set them neatly on the little dresser (listening once while she peeped into the inner room of the Mart Possessed) ; when she had done all these things in her own quiet, sure, and skilful way, she brought her own chair opposite that of Mr. Treacle, and producing the black knitting, fell to making industrious lightnings with her needles once more : the little shaded lamp, on the mantelpiece above her head now, throwing a radiance directly on its gleaming coils and the lower half of the room, and leaving the blazing fire to play shadowy antics with distant corners of the ceiling, and reproduce its owner (in heroic proportions upside down) upon them.

The said owner, having got his pipe well under weigh, and emitted a cloud of odorous smoke, looked thought fully at the vis-a-vis figure of the girl for a moment in silence : then he said quietly, — " Don't expect your Aunt Doran will be here now ? " " I rather hope she won't. It makes her so wild when she comes and father's like this. She says such unkind things to him, and his only answer is to drink harder than ever when she's gone. Of course it's not surprising ; the sight of him in such a state makes her wild. All his trouble has come through the drink — the loss of the farm, and everything else. You can't much wonder she's annoyed, can you ? She has always been so respectable, and he such a disgrace. Poor father ! But you can't wonder at her." Uncle Tom nodded his head acquiescently, as one who said, "Too true, and more's the pity:" puffing out larger clouds of odorous smoke as he did so.

" And it was a dear old farm, too ! " Gerty continued with a sigh. "I often think about it, even now — not altogether sorry I've lost it, you know, because in losing it I've found dear old Uncle Tom, haven't I ? " " Dear old Uncle Tom's "face glowed with pleasure. "/ often think of that farm, though I never saw it," he said nodding his head and staring straight into the coals. " It's one of my pleasures and pastimes, when I'm on the Rank, to picture up that identical farm, Gerty, and you a little toddler, and all about it. From what you've told me, and what I guessed and fancied, I seem to know that farm quite well — as if I'd been there. I do indeed ! But what I like most to do, is to picture your father in that farm at his best, as I may say ; wTith his head well beared up, holding a position in the village, and being looked up to.

Oh ! I like to picture him in that way, I do indeed ! I never look at him — not even at his worst — but I seem to see him like that. Seem to look right through the ghost of him that is his present self, and stare straight at his old self at its best. He isn't fit to associate with me — not really. I know that well enough ! Don't you make any mistake, I know that well enough ! For the life of me I couldn't help " Sir "-ing him if I wanted to help it — which I don't. There's that about your father, Gerty, when he's all right, that makes you drive gently with him when he's all wrong. Your father's a superior man to me by birth and everything else, and I know it, too, and act accordingly." " You're a dear, kind old thing ! " Gerty told him. " I wish I could ever show you how much I'd do for you, Uncle Tom !

" " Pooh ! pooh ! " Uncle Tom returned. " Now look here. I can tell you a joke — a good one, too. To-day I was going through Great Hatchment Street, slow and empty — " " Where the Marquis of Flinchington's house is ? " " Where the Maxquis of Flinchington's house is. Through that street I was going, back to Rank, slow and empty. The street was slow and empty, too (as it always is, for that matter), but at the corner furthest from Park Lane I stopped to water Sukey outside the ' Escutcheon ' public-house. Cabs generally do water there, if the water is near there. Several other cabs were there — cabs from the Rank close by — and one of them began talking to me. In the course of conversation, I asked casually about his lordship — of course taking an interest in him through your aunt living there as house keeper.