The Scripture Reader of St. Mark's

Front matter

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS. BY K. DOUGLAS KING feonfcon HUTCHINSON & CO. 84 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C TO MY MOTHER I DEDICATE £0e acxipiuxe Qfcafcer of $t. (JWarrs CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The First Christmas Eve ... i II. Between the Evening and the Day 43 III. The First Christmas Day ... 49 IV. Michael Angelo 87 V. In the Vestry of St. Mark's 101 VI. An Unuttered Prayer 124 VII. Alexandra tells the Scripture Reader some News ... ... ... 128 VIII. The Birth and the Naming of the Child ... 144 IX. " Charlie ! " 166 X. Flip 180 XI. "Ahkee" 200 XII. Flip leaves the Scripture Reader's Home 231 XIII. A Sweetbread 237 XIV. Alexandra's Visitor 245 XV. "Good-bye, Daddy! ' 267 XVI. The Fugitives ... ... ... ... ... 271 XVII. Alexandra's Letter 281 epilogue- Christmas Eve

Chapter I. The First Christmas Eve

The Scripture Reader of St. Mark's stepped, hurriedly, from the door of his dingy lodg ings, into the hardly less cheerless street. A devastating wind swept over the city, and there were signs of coming snow in the chilled, bitter air. Twilight had already slipped, unnoticed, into night, and the street lamps flickered dimly above the pavement and the pedestrians abroad. Nearly all the shop windows were shuttered and barred, but the upper parts of houses showed fitful illuminations to such passers-by as were bold enough to raise their heads in the teeth of the biting wind. I Every one walked fast, the fur-coated and those who had no overcoats, alike. It was Christmas Eve, and people were going home. The scripture reader was not going home ; but he was always in a hurry. He rarely walked, in the strict interpretation of the word ; his numerous and varied duties in the parish obliging him to go at a perpetual trot.

These daily exercises of his began at dawn and often did not cease till midnight. A thoughtful observer, perambulating the parish of St. Mark's, might have noticed that its scripture reader was as omnipresent as was drunkenness (St. Mark's had a well-deserved, viler reputation than most other parishes). The scripture reader's movements were un noticed by the people among whom he dwelt, and for whose sake, as well as for their Maker's, he toiled and fought with want and sin and shame, by night and day, year in, year out. The vicar of St. Mark's would say of him, with ponderous warmth, " Mr. Lee is an invaluable man ". The curates, poorly paid, over-worked, and with ritualistic aspirations (whose tiniest bud their chief severely nipped each time one showed its head above the surface of their work), had no more time than had the scripture reader to indulge in empty commendation.

They nodded at each other when they passed, if not too much preoccupied, and they gave the scripture reader such directions beyond his usual daily round as the vicar deemed advisable. Apart from that, and the common bond of a charge of thankless sheep (mostly black), Lee, the scripture reader, and his coadjutors in the parish work, were like strangers, each living in a world of his own imagining. Both curates had a home ; the scripture reader but a lodging room, whose four cheerless walls he often did not see for twenty hours together. The curates, like the scripture reader of St. Mark's, were both unmarried men. Too often Lee had seen the sad results of priests, underpaid and overworked, marrying and begetting families ; and he thoroughly ap proved the enforced celibacy of his directors. At the same time he was keenly conscious of the saving grace of a home and a family, even to the most stubborn and wayward of his flock.

The sight of others' married homes, and the ring of children's laughter awoke responsive echoes in his heart that were less tender than tinged with bitterness. Even his austere contemplation of drunkards' homes, and the swarms of sin-begotten, ragged, gutter children that hung about him, in his daily rounds, failed to crush out the yearning that a maiden's voice or a child's soft touch engendered. He rarely allowed himself the luxury of thought. Life was so short, and his life's work so much engrossed his mind and soul and body. Every hour of every day found him employed with others' cares. After supper (its hour ranged, indiffer ently, from 7 p.m. to 12-30 at midnight) he would read the books brought home from the parish library. When the print grew dim, with a sigh he would lay down the book.

Then, if overpowering weariness did not urge him on to prayer, sustained with difficulty, by his bedside, and thence, to sleep, he would sit up, first blowing out the candle with characteristic prudence, and would draw aside the curtains that shrouded his own life and past career. He rarely durst, even on these occasions, look into his inmost soul ; not through dread of what he might see therein (he had led a virgin life), but for fear of what he knew he should not see. This imperfect contemplation of his inner self afforded neither hope nor satisfaction. He found a certain rugged pleasure in doing his duty (often though it was a most painful one) in that state of life in which it had pleased God to place him. His daily war with evil, and the common and revolting sins it was his business, as it was his burning desire, to combat, by turns sickened him, sent him into the depths of despondency, or urged him on to more heroic effort, according to his mood, and this was largely governed by his none too stable health.

His loneliness, in the midst of a thousand active cares and occupations, was perfect and supreme. The magnitude of its propor tions was hardly realised by the lonely man, himself. In the squalid streets and alleys of the parish, and in the inhuman homes in which he spent the greater part of his life, care for the needs of others closed the door on dis satisfied unrest. But when he was alone in the small room that he had not yet learnt, for all his rigorous self-discipline, to call, cheerfully, " my home," he could and did occasionally lapse from thought of others to thinking of himself. These lapses were the fatal and unvarying result of a visit to the respective curates' homes. These homes were poor in worldly goods ; but one of the curates had a widowed mother, the other a full blown family, so far as brothers and sisters were concerned.

Their houses lay in different quarters of the big, straggling parish ; and Rentworth, the one who owned the mother, was, being engaged in marriage to a sister of his com rade, equally at home in both. Lee had not a single relative in the whole world. He was the posthumous, only child of a small tradesman in the parish ; and his mother, once a housekeeper in the house hold of the late vicar of St. Mark's, had died in giving birth to him. The curates were kind to the lonely scripture reader, in an unthinking and spasmodic way. The pressure in St. Mark's was such that to take an enduring interest in any one, even in the most abandoned villain, was hardly possible. Both Rentworth and his comrade, Hall, desired to marry, and chafed at the inevitable delay. Sometimes they were inclined to deem themselves the worst used young men in London.

They would have smiled, sar donically, if any one had said that Lee, in the innermost recesses of his own stubborn soul, envied them the home life they were so ready to disparage for themselves. Turning the corner of his street, this Christmas Eve, Lee came into collision with two figures, hurrying, like himself, along the darkening streets, and, like himself, by reason of the storm, scarce masters of themselves. " Hullo, Lee ! " rang out a man's hearty voice. " Off again ! Not my way, eh?" The scripture reader raised his hat in silent recognition of the lady hanging on the speaker's arm, before replying : — " Not exactly, Mr. Rentworth. I am going to Blink's Alley." " Well, won't you come round and look us up after ? " went on the man's voice, a little urgingly. " Do change your mind. It's not a party, you know, — only Hall and Miss Hall (he pressed the slim arm beneath his own still closer), and her brothers and sisters.

Milly, do persuade Mr. Lee." " O ! do change your mind and come, Mr. Lee," said the young lady, with per functory politeness. "Thank you, Miss Hall," replied the scripture reader, dropping, unawares, into the formal manner he invariably assumed, less by habit than by instinct, in the presence of the other sex ; "but, after Blink's Alley, I have a visit to make in Frey Court." " O ! hang Frey Court! " began the other man, impetuously. " It's Christmas Eve ! You must have a little relaxation." " After Frey Court," went on the unmoved scripture reader, " I have two families in Matilda Lane to look to." "We are keeping you," broke in the young lady, sweetly. " It is very inconsiderate of us when you have so much to do. Good night, Mr. Lee, and a merry Christmas to you ! " She swept her companion off.

Before they started on their different ways the men exchanged the usual Christmas wishes. The scripture reader's were tinged with a slight impatience, due, chiefly, to an unreasonable envy of the more fortunate curate ; those of the latter glowed with warmth and hearti ness. In the face of the scripture reader's zeal the curate felt remorseful when he thought of the festive scene in which he was to take a part. Lee turned into a dismal alley, and the wind that stung his face when he wheeled northwards, was charged with soot and smuts. This scripture reader's was no heroic figure. He was about the middle height, a narrow chested man, round shouldered ; and his action when he walked, effective though it was in point of speed, was painfully in elegant. In manner he was calm and un affected, and he had none of the hearty ease or geniality that distinguished Rentworth, and made him far more beloved among the parishioners of St. Mark's than was the scripture reader who gave to them a thousand times more care and love.

Lee had a pale, oval face, and a mobile mouth, that he had trained to steadiness. His hair and slight moustache were insig nificantly coloured. His eyes had an odd, eager light in them, and were strangely dark and full of feeling. They seemed to hint at depths all unexplored within that mild and somewhat worn exterior. Lee's was a remarkably quick temper, and not infre quently he lost it. The agonies of remorse he suffered, after each outburst, were as sincere as they were pathetically unpropor tionate to the offence. Coming out of Matilda Lane, his day's work ended, his foot slipped on a bit of orange peel lying on the pavement. He staggered sideways ; and to save himself from falling headlong into the narrow, stone-paved roadway on his left, lurched, with impetuous weight, against the wall that bounded the right side of the lane.

He fell against some object that was crouch ing, unperceived by him, against the wall ; and both he and the other unknown thing came heavily to the ground. There was a faint, hoarse scream, and a sharp crash, as of a small glass or china thing smashing upon the pavement ; and there came, to add to the confusion in his brain, the overpowering smell of some strong drug. Lee rose to his knees, for the moment dazed, with a bruised forehead and a smarting eye. The object involved with him in his fall he soon saw to be a woman, who was still lying — a huddled heap — upon the ground. He bent over her, and again the pungent smell attacked his nostrils. Of a sudden, intelligence responded to the sense, and there burst in on him, as a flash across his brain, the staggering truth. He shook the woman, fiercely, and then tried to raise her head, where she lay, face downwards, on the pavement.

" O, you wicked woman!" he cried, in a low voice, through which excitement thrilled audibly. " You were going to poison your self!" There was no reply from the apparently inanimate woman at his feet. Her face was muffled in a long, grey comforter, and, by some mysterious craft, she managed to keep it so concealed, in spite of his best efforts to withdraw it from its wrappings. Lee's strength proved unequal to the struggle ; and he raised his head, at last, and helplessly looked round. Night, and the gloomy entrance of Matilda Lane completely shut them in. A few hurried footfalls beat out, dully, in the street beyond, but all passed by. Once more he turned his hopeless gaze upon the woman, and this time caught the glint of a return stare from an uncovered eye. A hot, sudden anger seized him.

" If you don't get up this instant," he whispered, threateningly, "I'll call for the policeman round the corner. Now, get up ! I mean what I say — I will ! " A hand was thrust out of the grey com forter. It fumbled slowly, but effectively, with its interminable rolls. There came to light a thin, black jacket, and a skirt of a lighter colour, a full, bare throat, and the pale surface of a woman's face. More than this, in the semi-darkness, the scripture reader could not see. " Well ! " said Lee, at last, coldly. For response the prostrate creature sniffed. It might have been a sniff of contrition, or of despair ; again, it might have been defiance. "Will you get up?" burst out the scrip ture reader, with a return of his former irritation, "or am I to call that policeman? " " Bloomin' easy to git up, ain't it, when a cove's a-kneelin' on your petticuts !

" returned the lady, half sullenly, and half derisively. The scripture reader rose, alertly, to his feet, and gave a helping hand to her who was, as yet, only a figure and a voice. That voice was hateful with its sullen crust of cockneyism ; and yet there was a music in it that set every nerve in Lee's body ting ling. It was hoarse, and a certain ringing note in it told a tale, perhaps of tragedy, for sure of desperation. Lee helped its owner to her feet, and she stumbled forwards, and, brush ing past him, leaned, heavily, against the wall. " Now, why couldn't you have got up at once, like a sensible woman, instead of lying in the mud ? " exclaimed Lee, severely. Possibly the woman did not consider this question needed a reply. At any rate she made none. A sharp fear chilled the blood in the scripture reader's veins.

" Have you — had you taken any of that stuff? " he stammered. He shook her again, in his sudden panic, and she wriggled with a kind of forced impatience. Her action was futile in its effort to detach his grasp ; but reassuring as a mute reply. Lee drew a sigh, expressive of relief. "If you had taken any I'd have marched you straight up to the police station, and you'd be in court to-morrow," he said, in stern unpity, less that his dread was proved unnecessary, than that she had made him fear. She turned upon him, fiercely. " I don't keer ! " she whispered, hoarsely. "I'm going to Hell anyway, if you've put a spoke in my wheel this time. Take me to the station if you like! / don't keer." " I said I was going to take you to the station," replied Lee, steeling his heart to the anguish so inadequately concealed by the brazen defiance of her tones.

" I shall not now." There was a blank silence. A cold sweat, arising from dismay and doubt, broke out upon his forehead. " Well, we can't stay here all night," he said, at last, dryly. " Will you come along with me ? " " Weer to? Your rooms?" replied the woman, smartly. " No, thank you, young man, not this evenin'. I have a reputation, it you ain t. " I was going to say to a friend's house — a home I know — the ladies are very kind," stammered the scripture reader, shocked at her flippancy, and inwardly raging at himself for his discomposing lack of self-possession. " Unless,'' he added, tentatively, vainly peer ing forward to read the woman's intention from her shadowed face. " Unless you promise to go home at once, or let me accompany you home." " Well ... I'll do that ! " she replied, in a sudden burst of acquiescence.

" I'll go 'ome ; but you needn't bother to accompany me." Her voice broke. It was a very young voice. Lee knew the despairing outcast's tone by heart ; but till now he had never heard it in conjunction with a note so youthful, so absolutely childish. " I think," he said, with the first gentle ness he had shown and felt since the en counter had begun, " you had better come with me to that— that home, for to-night, at least. We can see about going to your home to-morrow," he added, with a brisk cheerfulness, meant to mislead. " Come along ! " She turned her face away, savagely re pulsing his outstretched hand. Lee bit his lips, and again his wrathful zeal and an irritating sense of impotence bore down his kinder feelings. " Look here ! " he said, fiercely, in her ear, " I'll have no more of your damned tricks or tantrums !

You've just got to come home with me." She wheeled round, facing him in some excitement ; but of what kind, whether amazed or fearful, he could not see. " Well ! by Gawd!" she gasped. " Why, you talk like a man after all, and I reckoned you was nothink but a prayin', preachin' cove, at fust, I did ! " The colour lay on the young man's face in two crimson streaks. The absurd, in consequent reflection had just flashed over him that he had only that day rebuked, with a glowing burst of rage, the very word on a navvy's lips which, from his own, had apparently aroused this woman's unaffected admiration. In the face of this sudden revelation of his shame it was not in him to rebuke her irreverent exclamation. " But I won't go with you to your 'omes," went on the woman, lapsing into a wail which she appeared to care no longer to conceal.

Lee allowed no gentleness to mitigate his zealous turbulence on her behalf. A rigid sense of duty, more than pity, sealed his firm resolve to hinder her from putting into force her worst intentions (whatever they might be). His distaste for the task, so suddenly thrust on him, was only equalled by the fiery race that seized him when he realised his utter impotence. Her listless, but alarming obstinacy frightened him ; and his air of truculence was only partially assumed. " Look here, my woman," he said, speaking very slowly and distinctly. " I say you are going home with me. And when I say a thing like that, I mean it. Do you under stand ? " She shrugged her shoulders, drearily, hopelessly. "So, we'll suit the action to the word." He drew her arm under one of his, preparing to hold the other in readiness lest she should show fight.

He found her quite resistless, and the change tempered his cold anger. " Now we'll go home," he said, his voice perceptibly softening. "You can walk, can't you ? " Her sole reply was to step out, spasmodi cally. He was beginning, dismally, to con gratulate himself on his success, when she checked her faltering steps, and, without warning, jerked her arm from his. The next second she had fallen to her knees upon the pavement, thrown her arms around his feet, and laid her head upon them. Many broken hearts had been laid bare before the scripture reader's. Heavy were the burdens, and full of sin and shame the secrets that were brought to him, to depre cate, to lighten, or to share. In his own narrow, unenlightened way, he had been high priest, father confessor, and consoler to more than a few who dwelt in tribulation, under the shadow of St. Mark's. But never yet had he had cognisance of such heartrending anguish as was revealed to him in this appealing action, these shudder ing sobs, this sudden abandonment of all reserve.

His soul was in a turmoil, and he could render her but little help, at first, in trying to restore to her some sort of self control. He bent low to catch the words that many choking sobs alighted on, caught up, and turned into a long-drawn outburst of hysteria. " Don't take me to the 'ome — not weer the lydies speak kind an' lovin' — O ! — O ! —don't ! " A renewal of her distressing sobbing tore her frame afresh. "O! not to an 'ome," she began again. " For Gawd's sake ! For pity's sake — for your own sweet'eart's sake — don't — don't!" A revulsion of feeling sent Lee's brain whirling round. He raised her to her feet, and held her up until the second outburst was subdued. " Well, look here," he said, at last, clearing his throat, and in not wholly reassuring accents ; " you must go somewhere, so you must come home with me, to my home.

You can't go on like this all night ! Don't begin to cry again ! I won't take you to that other home, since you're so set against it ; though it's the best — the right thing to do," — his voice was savage now — "O! come along ! " Her hands tightened on his arm in meek concurrence. They turned out of the lane, and the wind blew a snowflake — the first out of many — into Lee's up-lifted face. The woman stumbled along by his side. Her head drooped. " Are you tired ? " asked Lee, at last, in somewhat gentler tones. " Perhaps I hurt you when I fell against you." A feeling of remorse seized him, but he steadfastly crushed it. " But that was not my fault, you know," he resumed aloud, severely. " You had no business to be there." They went on, struggling against the wind and the blinding snow that thickened every instant.

"We shall not be long before we get there," said he, at last, heroically making of his mouth a snow trap, in his desire to reassure his faltering companion. There was no reply. Lee felt nettled " Are you tired ? Can you keep up ? Still she kept silence. "Are you tired, I asked?" His only answer was the shrill whistle of the wind, and the dull, intermittent roar of the traffic that was fast diminishing. Lee walked on in stony silence. When the scripture reader arrived at his door, he drew out his latchkey and thrust it into the keyhole. His manner was that of an angry man. He half led, half pulled the woman into the small, dark passage, and slammed the door behind him. He was possessed with a strong, unchristian desire to shake this woman, who had made herself so wantonly a burden. With cheeks inflamed by anger, he stumbled backwards up the narrow staircase, supporting her as best he could, she humbly following.

Even had she been an infant he could not have handled her more gently. But his gentle ness was strictly limited to action. His whole heart would have gone out to a man in the same piteous strait. She was a woman, most hysterical, and also most unreasonable ; and he had unconsciously divided his emotions between cold sympathy for her, and a savage pity for himself. At the top of the two short flights, he went on in advance, and fumbled for the door handle. She pulled up, suddenly. " Who lives 'ere ? Are there other folks?" Then, passionately, "I won't go in and let other folks see ! " " There are no other people to see. This is my room," said Lee, coldly. He opened the door while speaking, and dis closed a small, square room, dimly lighted on one side by the embers of a dying fire. She followed, turning her head from side to side, as might a hunted creature, scanning the interior of a cave.

Her breath came in quick, loud gasps. "I live here alone," he said; "you had better sit down. Here — here's a chair." He thrust her into his one chair, with a cold, but not unkind alacrity, and turned to open a cupboard. Out of it he brought a lamp, then felt his way to the mantel-piece for matches. Not one single thought about the woman's personality, or one single speculation as to what her face was like, had yet assailed him. He struck a light, not from curiosity to see the real woman, who had taken possession of his evening ; but merely to get to business, and have done with the inevitable scene. As the match spluttered, flared, sank, and then flared up again, the woman shifted, uneasily, on her chair. Lee's back was to her. He calmly began to light the lamp. "You needn't be afraid," he remarked, in indifferent reply to the agitated rustling he could hear behind him.

"There is no one in this house except myself and my landlady. And she," he added, dryly, after a pause, " is deaf, half blind, and afflicted with asthma. We shall not see her." The rustling stopped. He could hear the ebb and flow of her quick, spasmodic breath. The lamp wick took much coaxing before responding to the match flame, and for some seconds occupied his mind. Finally the lamp was lighted, and he turned, drawing himself aside, mechanically, so that it should cast its fullest light on her. The next moment he had stepped back, and his cheeks were crimsoned. Her face had wrought this marvellous effect ! The woman faced him, her eyes feverishly questioning, her mouth trembling, her cheeks white. He continued to gaze at her, in awe, horror, and dismay — a concentration of emotions on which self-possession had, for the moment, completely foundered.

This was not caused solely by her beauty, although her looks were of a kind that rarely came under his consideration, and were wondrous in their virgin loveliness. But in every curve and round her quivering lips lurked youthfulness. Her forehead was as pure and open as an infant's. Her eyes were like an angel's, and contained eternal mysteries ; but her mouth was all a woman's, and pleaded piteously for mercy. Her throat and her rounded up-curved chin were full and white ; and her figure was so slight that she might have been a boy, masquer ading in woman's dress, but for the tawny, golden hair that fell in masses on her shoulders. She was neatly dressed, but her beautifully formed hands were rough with work and discoloured with the cold. " Why, you — you are only a young girl ! " stammered the scripture reader.

He bit his lip, the next moment, inwardly condemning the exclamation that told of his perturbed amazement. Youth and virgin innocence looked wanly back at him from the girl's sad face, and from her boyish, little figure. And she — this girl-child — had been reduced to the last desperate straits of a betrayed woman ! He gazed at her with awe, and timidly approached. He had experience in dealing with prostitution ; but this innocent faced, desperate girl made him distrust himself and his powers for consolation. Awkwardly self-conscious of his limitations, he could think of nothing more heroic or apposite to say than " I thought you were an a woman." Another word had been on his lips. He paused, just in time to avoid uttering the fatal expression. Still she said nothing, but continued to look at him.

One moment her changeful face displayed bravado, the next, but childish penitence. Beneath its defiance . and repentance, her countenance bore vivid traces of some recent terror. Lee had been struck dumb by her youth, her beauty, and apparent innocence. But her silence angered him. He came a step closer. "You had no right to do as you did," he began, in characteristic wrath. " Do you know you were doing a most wicked thing ? Your life is not your own, to fling away like that." " I guess it is," she replied. The coldest heart would have bled to hear the hopeless sadness of her tones. "It belongs to no one else." "You are wrong," said Lee, formally, making a second vigorous effort to shut out of his heart the wave of pity that was beating at its doors. "No! I'm right. He doesn't want me, and there's no one else."

Who's he?" My — my — my sweetheart. "Then there is — was — a man?" The scripture reader's eyes kindled ; his voice lost itself in the vague, stammering question. She rose from her chair, her hands out stretched, her eyes ablaze. "A man? Yes! But don't you speak to me of him!" she burst out, hoarsely. "It's me to tell you! I loved him, and I don't keer who knows, and he said he loved me and — and chucked me up, frightenin' me orful, and I loved him still, I did, and 'cause he wouldn't keep on with me, and I was frightened to death, I bought that stuff — what you knocked out of my 'and and spilt, afore I had begun to try and do it." With blazing eyes she faced the lamp and Lee. Her childish bosom heaved, but the stormy voice broke out afresh, and her lips hardened. "An' you thought I was one o' them pore lost souls — unfortinits you call 'em — did you?" she went on, thickly.