Chapter X: The Coal-Cellar Window

STORM inside and storm without—what an afternoon it was! The thunder rumbled, and Margerie sobbed; the rain fell in cataracts, and so did our little girl's tears. She was not afraid of the tempest, but it was a great trouble to her, inasmuch as it prevented her running away home, as in the present crisis she otherwise certainly would have done.

At tea-time, grandma called her down, with, however, displeasure still sharp in her tone, and gave her three thick slices of bread—her usual allowance—but without butter, and a mug of weak milk and water without sugar. This she was told to take to her room and consume in solitude. Although embittered by the reflection that it was "punishment diet," this meal went down with remarkable relish, as Margerie had had no dinner. She did not remember ever tasting dry bread that was so sweet before.

All the evening—that sad, gray evening through which the rain poured ceaselessly down—the little girl sat alone in her room. How different from the happy time with father and mother and sisters to which she had been looking forward! She had believed all her tears were spent, but this thought puckered her chin once more, and made the dull old furniture quiver and dance before her swimming eyes.

Yet after all, something suddenly whispered to her, it was not nearly so bad to be considered naughty when she knew she was not, than to have people believing her good when all the while she knew herself to be naughty! Suppose she "had" stolen and been greedy and told stories—the awful list of grandma's unjust accusations—and no one suspected her! Suppose she had been going about, a little live lie, with unconfessed wrong buried in her heart—how horrible "that" would have been! Why, her present misery was nothing to what that must be. God knew she was innocent, and mother and all of them would believe what she would tell them, and everybody would sympathize with her. There wasn't so much to cry about after all.

So with a feeling of comfort, whose source she did not recognize, warming her lonely little heart, Margerie went calmly though supperless to bed. And the rain trickling monotonously down a pipe outside, sang her a soothing lullaby till she fell asleep.

The next morning rose bright and fair. The loveliest white clouds were sailing across a sky of pure, clean-washed blue, and the wet green grass and leaves were sparkling like laughter in the sunshine.

Margerie was awakened as usual by grandma's bell, and on going downstairs, found that she must lay the fire before lighting it, as in consequence of her banishment, she had not done so the night before. But she had so often performed this operation under grandma's guidance that she knew quite well how to set about it.

First, she drew on a pair of old kid gloves which she had been taught to wear when doing any work of this kind. Next, she raked out all the remains of yesterday's fire, carefully picking out all half-burned coals, and sifting the cinders. Then she filled the lower part of the grate with a good-sized piece of lightly-crumpled newspaper, and above it laid a row of the thinnest sticks she could find, and another row upon them in the opposite direction, like an extended arrangement of lines for "oughts and crosses." On top of these she gently placed—exactly as grandma had told her—some of her biggest cinders, building them up pyramid fashion, with numerous apertures for the rising flames and smoke to pass through. Lastly she set light to the paper with a match, and watched with an ever new delight the merry blaze of the wood, and the thin blue vapour curling upward.

But soon some "nubbly" bits of coal must be added, and these she must go and find. So taking the shovel, she started for the coal-cellar that was out beyond the scullery which I have already mentioned. With not a thought but of the work in hand, Margerie opened the scullery door.

The next moment she started back with a cry of amazement and alarm.

Curled up on the top of the copper was a human form—the form of a ragged boy, who, awakened from sleep by her scream, stared at her in a half-dazed fashion out of a pair of large, black eyes. Margerie recognized him as the lad she had given the buns to a few weeks before.

They gazed at each other for some moments in silence, the trespasser apparently as much surprised to see Margerie as she was to see him. He was the first to speak.

"Don't peach, will you?" he begged. "Don't set the bobby on me. I'll never do it again."

And he jumped down from his strange bed and made for the coal-cellar door.

"Stop a minute," said Margerie. "Grandma isn't down yet. I won't tell. But say, did you go along that passage with a candle one night? Wednesday night it was."

"Yes," the boy reluctantly confessed.

"What for?"

He was silent.

"How do you get in?" was Margerie's next query.

The lad pointed to the small, square window of the coal-place, which was neither glazed nor barred. No man nor even a good-sized boy could have possibly squeezed through it, but this intruder was so very, very slim and thin.

"Did you—did you—?" faltered the little girl diffidently. "Please don't mind my asking!—Did you happen to see anything of a currant roll about any night when—when you were here?"

The boy grinned and backed into the coal-collar, but made no reply.

"Or—or a gooseberry pie?" pursued Margerie anxiously.

"Come now, don't be down on a poor fellow," said the lad deprecatingly, for he believed Margerie's tone to be ironical. "The bits I picked up here were all I had to live on the whole blessed week. I'll never do it again. But I was that starving hungry I could 'most have eaten an old shoe—and that's the solemn truth."

It occurred to Margerie afterwards, though she did not notice it at the time, that this waif did not use quite such bad grammar as that attributed to his class in stories she had read. The same impression, moreover, of the familiarity of his face and eyes which had struck her when first they met, now returned with renewed force. She felt as if she must have known him well somewhere before.

"It must be dreadful to be so hungry," said Margerie sympathetically, recollecting her experience of the previous day. "But it wasn't quite right of you to help yourself like that. And grandma thinks it's me, and she's awfully angry with me."

"Thinks it's you been eating the bread and things?" exclaimed the boy.

He was mounted now on a heap of coals just below the window aforesaid, ready to bolt at the first sound of any new approach.

"I don't know that she has missed any bread," replied Margerie, "but she believes I ate that currant roll and the pie. And she wouldn't give me any dinner yesterday, and sent me up to my room."

The lad seemed very much struck by this information, but once again took refuge in silence.

"You won't come and take anything more, will you?" pursued Margerie.

"That I won't," rejoined the boy emphatically. "Not if I starve to death!"

"Oh, dear! I hope you won't be so hungry as all that," said Margerie, in real distress. "It would be so shocking! Perhaps—perhaps I could do something for you . . . You be just there by the timber-yard—where you were that day, you remember,—and I'll try and bring you a bit of something as I go past to school. I believe I hear grandma opening her door," she hastily added. "You'd better run!"

The boy needed no second warning.

"Don't split, I say!" was his last entreaty, as he pushed his head and shoulders out of the little window.

"I won't! I promise!" answered Margerie, without calculating what trouble such an undertaking might involve.

And two muddy bare feet vanished, leaving our little girl marvelling and alone.