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The Salt Of The Earth
by
‘They’ll allow her out in another week,’ she pursued. ‘But, of course, she can’t expect to be fit for anything for a time. And I very much doubt whether she’ll ever get the right use of her limbs again. But what we have to think of now is to get her some decent clothing. The poor thing has positively nothing. I’m going to speak to Mrs. Doubleday, and a few other people. Really, Mr. Bird, if it weren’t that I’ve presumed on your good nature so often lately–‘
She paused and smiled unctuously at him.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do much,’ faltered Thomas, reddening at the vision of a new ‘chimney-pot.’
‘No, no; of course not. I’m sure I should never expect–it’s only that every little–however little–does help, you know.’
Thomas thrust a hand into his pocket and brought out a florin, which Mrs. Pritchard pursed with effusive thanks.
Certain of this good woman’s critics doubted her competence as a trustee, but Thomas Bird had no such misgiving. He talked with kindly interest of the unfortunate girl, and wished her well in a voice that carried conviction.
His lodgings were a pair of very small, mouldy, and ill-furnished rooms; he took them unwillingly, overcome by the landlady’s doleful story of their long lodgerless condition, and, in the exercise of a heavenly forbearance, remained year after year. The woman did not cheat him, and Thomas knew enough of life to respect her for this remarkable honesty; she was simply an ailing, lachrymose slut, incapable of effort. Her son, a lad who had failed in several employments from sheer feebleness of mind and body, practically owed his subsistence to Thomas Bird, whose good offices had at length established the poor fellow at a hairdresser’s. To sit frequently for an hour at a time, as Thomas did, listening with attention to Mrs. Batty’s talk of her own and her son’s ailments, was in itself a marvel of charity. This evening she met him as he entered, and lighted him into his room.
‘There’s a letter come for you, Mr. Bird. I put it down somewheres–why, now, where did I–? Oh, ‘ere it is. You’ll be glad to ‘ear as Sam did his first shave to-day, an’ his ‘and didn’t tremble much neither.’
Burning with desire to open the letter, which he saw was from Mrs. Warbeck, Thomas stood patiently until the flow of words began to gurgle away amid groans and pantings.
‘Well,’ he cried gaily, ‘didn’t I promise Sam a shilling when he’d done his first shave? If I didn’t I ought to have done, and here it is for him.’
Then he hurried into the bedroom, and read his letter by candle-light. It was a short scrawl on thin, scented, pink-hued notepaper. Would he do Mrs. Warbeck the ‘favour’ of looking in before ten to-night? No explanation of this unusually worded request; and Thomas fell at once into a tremor of anxiety. With a hurried glance at his watch, he began to make ready for the visit, struggling with drawers which would neither open nor shut, and driven to despair by the damp condition of his clean linen.
In this room, locked away from all eyes but his own, lay certain relics which Thomas worshipped. One was a photograph of a girl of fifteen. At that age Alma Warbeck promised little charm, and the photograph allowed her less; but it was then that Thomas Bird became her bondman, as he had ever since remained. There was also a letter, the only one that he had ever received from her–‘Dear Mr. Bird,–Mamma says will you buy her some more of those jewjewbs at the shop in the city, and bring them on Sunday.–Yours sincerely, Alma Warbeck’–written when she was sixteen, seven years ago. Moreover, there was a playbill, used by Alma on the single occasion when he accompanied the family to a theatre.
Never had he dared to breathe a syllable of what he thought–‘hoped’ would misrepresent him, for Thomas in this matter had always stifled hope. Indeed, hope would have been irrational. In the course of her teens Alma grew tall and well proportioned; not beautiful of feature, but pleasing; not brilliant in personality, but good-natured; fairly intelligent and moderately ambitious. She was the only daughter of a dubiously active commission-agent, and must deem it good fortune if she married a man with three or four hundred a year; but Thomas Bird had no more than his twelve pounds a month, and did not venture to call himself a gentleman. In Alma he found the essentials of true ladyhood–perhaps with reason; he had never heard her say an ill-natured thing, nor seen upon her face a look which pained his acute sensibilities; she was unpretentious, of equal temper, nothing of a gossip, kindly disposed. Never for a moment had he flattered himself that Alma perceived his devotion or cared for him otherwise than as for an old friend. But thought is free, and so is love. The modest clerk had made this girl the light of his life, and whether far or near the rays of that ideal would guide him on his unworldly path.