Chapter II: He Was No Longer Her Guardian Angel

One day she was lying on her bed. It was a sultry July day, and the woman, weary in body and soul, had thrown herself there hoping to obtain a little rest. Although she had once entered a prison, she was regarded by her miserable fellow-sinners as a clever hand, and often prided herself on her own good fortune in evading the police.

But to-day she was, as she expressed it, down on her luck; hers was a hand-to-hand existence, and to-day there was no bread in the cupboard, and no money to buy any in her pocket. She had heard also that the "nippers," as she termed the police, were again on her track, and she knew that she must change her quarters as quickly as possible; but she was very tired, so utterly exhausted from want of sleep and want of food, that she must take one hour of slumber before she put herself into a place of safety.

The child, who had cried himself sick for want of his breakfast, lay curled up by her side.

She was lying so, her eyes shut, not yet asleep, but thinking some bitter and bad thoughts, when the room door was gently opened and a woman came in. Helen's eyes unclosed quickly enough then, and with an angry exclamation she rose to her feet.

But the woman who had entered was not an ordinary one, and she showed no vestige of alarm at the flashing eyes and menacing arm which greeted her; she had ventured into a place where no policeman would come alone.

"Don't be angry with me, I want to help you," she said, seating herself uninvited on a chair, and raising her veil. The face underneath was white and worn, perhaps a little sad, with a patient look about the eyes and mouth.

The look of the woman and her courage disarmed Helen's anger; she made no further resistance, but leaned rather helplessly against the dirty wall a few paces away.

"I have come to help you," said her uninvited guest again. Now this was just what Helen in her heart of hearts responded to; she was hunted down, weary, despondent, and she had come upon very few offers of help.

"I be rare and 'ungry," she said, "and the little 'un's rare and 'ungry," pointing to the boy, and hoping to abstract money by this appeal, which was both pathetic and true.

"If you are hungry you must have food," said the woman. She took out her purse, opened it, drew from its contents a shilling, and gave the shilling to Helen.

"Go and buy something with that for yourself and the child," she said. "Come back and eat it here. I will stay until you return."

The eyes of the thief had seen the glitter of gold, but the ears of the woman had listened to the unwonted tone of kindness, and without a shadow of even avarice on her face she meekly went out.

When she returned, the lady (she was of gentle birth, but I have called her woman hitherto, regarding it as a higher name) was feeding Robin with biscuits ornamented with pink comfits. Robin was devouring the biscuits, occasionally stopping to admire the confectionery and to gaze with his lovely eyes at the lady.

"That is a fine boy," said Mrs. Aytoun, addressing Helen; "is he your son?"

"Yes," said Helen. She always called him her son.

"He is not like you," said the visitor, glancing from the dark woman to the fair boy.

This remark made Helen suspicious. She ceased to eat the bread and sausages she had brought in, and glanced meaningly towards the door.

Mrs. Aytoun took the hint conveyed in this look by coming quickly to the point and object of her visit.

"Your name is Helen?"

"Yes."

"Shall I tell you what I know about you?"

"I don't care."

"You are not an honest woman."

Had the policemen walked into the room Helen's face could not have grown any whiter than it did at those words. She looked at Robin, looked at the door, and would have fled had not Mrs. Aytoun laid her hand on her arm.

"Don't run away; my business is not to frighten, but to help you, _because_ you are the sort of woman I know you to be."

Helen was silent; she ceased, however, to look towards the door.

"I want to help you," continued the lady, "because, as I said, I know you to be dishonest; therefore I also know that you must often be unhappy and half-starved."

"True enough, Missus," said Helen; but then she added in a moment, "I guess yer one o' them good sorts, ain't yer?"

"I don't know that I am very good, though I love goodness. What do you mean?"

"Oh, one o' them preachment folks, wot comes and worries poor people as 'ave other business to h'occupy them."

"I know the people you mean, but I don't think you judge them right."

"I guessed as yer were one o' them."

"Yes, I am one of them--at least, I am a Christian. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you?"

"Never heerd o' him," said Helen. "He ain't God, is he?"

"Why do you ask me that? He is God; you have made a very good guess."

"Well, ain't I 'cute?"

"But I am no longer at all surprised at your being the kind of woman I find you to be," continued Mrs. Aytoun. "You have never been helped knowingly by Jesus in your life. No wonder you love the bad."

"I was never helped by no one," said Helen.

"You are mistaken there; Jesus has helped you."

Helen started.

"For instance, you love your boy."

"Yes."

"Well, Jesus put that love into your heart; that love has hitherto been the only thing good in you--am I not right?"

Helen nodded, stared very hard at Robin, and whisked a tear out of her eye.

"Jesus loves you."

"Look here, missus," interrupted Helen; "that's religion, ain't it?"

"It is the beginning and end of all religion."

"Well, I don't want it. I'm a willin' to be 'elped, but not preached to."

Mrs. Aytoun paused, and looking hard into the eyes of the restless, half-starved woman, saw that at least at first she must bring her the gospel through the loaves and fishes. She then unfolded the plan that had really brought her there.

Possessed of great wealth, Mrs Aytoun had opened homes for such women as Helen--for such children as Robin. She had taken several lost women and neglected children to these pure, sweet, country homes, and after a few months of the training which true love and kindness can effect, given them means to emigrate. This grand chance she now offered to Helen and Robin; she pictured the good and happy life pleasantly and attractively, and she came at the right moment, for Helen was weary, perplexed, alarmed.

In the midst of her conversation, a woman came in from a neighbouring room, ran up to Helen, whispered some words in her ear, four of which the visitor heard, "_In for a vamp_." She did not know what this jargon meant, but Helen did only too well: she knew it was the thieves' latin for convicted of stealing. She knew that the police were almost on her heels.

Growing white even to the lips, she motioned the neighbour out of the room, caught up Robin in her arms, and holding him tight to her beating bosom, addressed Mrs. Aytoun:

"That 'ere's true, wot yer a tellin' me?"

"Yes, it is quite true."

"I'd sooner be there nor in quod" (prison). "Is it now we's to come, missus?"

"I will take you to the refuge at once. I will go with you myself by train."

"Me and the little un together?"

"You shall sometimes see your child, but the home for little children is not in the same place."

At these words Helen, who had been moving towards the door, stopped short, and the look of satisfaction faded out of her face. Very tight was the pressure of the little sleepy arms round her neck, and very strong the love for the boy in her heart; her love was stronger than her fear.

She turned sharp on her visitor, all her gentleness gone, and the old fierce Helen uppermost again.

"Didn't yer say as my love for the boy wor the o'ny good thing as I 'ad? well, we ain't agoin' to separate 'omes, and we ain't a goin' to be parted. Yer uncommon ceevil, mum, to think o' it, but me and the little un don't find it conwenient. There, good even to yer: yer welcome to the room but not to the company."

Bearing Robin in her arms, she rushed downstairs; nor could Mrs. Aytoun, though she tried, overtake her.

This good woman, a true sister to the poor, had lost Helen and Robin through a mistake. She had forgotten a fact which yet a moment before she herself had pointed out--she had forgotten that the one Divine ray in the midst of all this moral darkness was Helen's love for the boy. Through this love she might be saved, but never against it. She was willing to go through all the dreary routine, for such it seemed to her, of civilised life with the boy, but never without him, never far away from him, feeling all the time that he was learning to love others and forgetting her.

But as she clasped him to her bosom under an archway where for the present she knew they both were safe, she felt that she had thrown away both her own chance and his; yet just now, with his little face close to hers, she was scarcely sorry.

Though a thief herself, she might still keep him from stealing--this dream she had not yet abandoned.

As she sat so, her hands covering her face, the child pulled her vigorously by the sleeve. "Look, mammy!" he said, pointing to an old woman who was selling cherries in halfpenny bags at the opposite corner; "Robin wants cerries," he pouted.

"Well, dearie," said Helen, "mammy's sorry, but she ain't got a 'ap'ny for her little boy; all those bags costs a 'ap'ny, Robin." She thought Robin would have cried, but to her surprise he did not; he looked round at her, smiled, then ran quickly across the road, hid cleverly behind the old woman: when for a brief instant her back was turned, secured a bag of cherries, and brought them back to Helen.

Helen saw it all--saw it all, too astonished to speak.

When he returned, and threw the stolen fruit in triumph into her lap, she stood up and asked him quietly, and with no show of anger, who taught him to do that:

"Old Moll," he said, mentioning the woman who had taken care of him when Helen was in prison.

She took the bag of cherries and flung it violently far out of his reach. Still she never scolded him, or told him he had done wrong.

That night, as he lay in her arms, she kissed him, but not so fervently as of old. Her love, if not lessened, was lowered--he was no longer her guardian angel.

From that night Robin was a thief, and Helen an all too ready and anxious trainer. Not one vestige of right came near the boy, not one scrap of moral training. It seemed to him as little wrong to prig handkerchiefs, to steal from fruit-stalls, as it was to eat his breakfast.

Still, as long as Helen was with him he was happy enough: his conscience had never been touched, and therefore did not awake; and though he had hard fare, he had never hard usage. Helen, passionate, violent, unprincipled, had never given him an angry word in her life.