Part 3

I used to see him first in Kensington Gardens, where he came in the afternoons, accompanied by a very small girl. One would see them silent before a shrub or flower, or with their heads inclined to heaven before a tree, or leaning above water and the ducks, or stretched on their stomachs watching a beetle, or on their backs watching the sky. Often they would stand holding crumbs out to the birds, who would perch about them, and even drop on their arms little white marks of affection and esteem. They were admittedly a noticeable couple. The child, who was fair-haired and elfinlike, with dark eyes and a pointed chin, wore clothes that seemed somewhat hard put to it. And, if the two were not standing still, she went along pulling at his hand, eager to get there; and, since he was a very little light old man, he seemed always in advance of his own feet. He was garbed, if I remember, in a daverdy brown overcoat and broad-brimmed soft grey hat, and his trousers, what was visible of them, were tucked into half-length black gaiters which tried to join with very old brown shoes. Indeed, his costume did not indicate any great share of prosperity. But it was his face that riveted attention. Thin, cherry-red, and wind-dried as old wood, it had a special sort of brightness, with its spikes and waves of silvery hair, and blue eyes that seemed to shine. Rather mad, I used to think. Standing by the rails of an enclosure, with his withered lips pursed and his cheeks drawn in till you would think the wind might blow through them, he would emit the most enticing trills and pipings, exactly imitating various birds.

Those who rouse our interest are generally the last people we speak to, for interest seems to set up a kind of special shyness; so it was long before I made his acquaintance. But one day by the Serpentine, I saw him coming along alone, looking sad, but still with that queer brightness about him. He sat down on my bench with his little dried hands on his thin little knees, and began talking to himself in a sort of whisper. Presently I caught the words: “God cannot be like us.” And for fear that he might go on uttering such precious remarks that were obviously not intended to be heard, I had either to go away or else address him. So, on an impulse, I said:

“Why?”

He turned without surprise.

“I’ve lost my landlady’s little girl,” he said. “Dead! And only seven years old.”

“That little thing! I used to watch you.”

“Did you? Did you? I’m glad you saw her.”

“I used to see you looking at flowers, and trees, and those ducks.”

His face brightened wistfully. “Yes; she was a great companion to an old man like me.” And he relapsed into his contemplation of the water. He had a curious, precise way of speaking, that matched his pipchinesque little old face. At last he again turned to me those blue youthful eyes that seemed to shine out of a perfect little nest of crow’s-feet.

“We were great friends! But I couldn’t expect it. Things don’t last, do they?” I was glad to notice that his voice was getting cheerful. “When I was in the orchestra at the Harmony Theatre, it never used to occur to me that some day I shouldn’t play there any more. One felt like a bird. That’s the beauty of music, sir. You lose yourself; like that blackbird there.” He imitated the note of a blackbird so perfectly that I could have sworn the bird started.

“Birds and flowers! Wonderful things; wonderful! Why, even a buttercup----!” He pointed at one of those little golden flowers with his toe. “Did you ever see such a marvellous thing?” And he turned his face up at me. “And yet, somebody told me once that they don’t agree with cows. Now can that be? I’m not a countryman--though I was born at Kingston.”

“The cows do well enough on them,” I said, “in my part of the world. In fact, the farmers say they like to see buttercups.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. I was always sorry to think they disagreed.”

When I got up to go, he rose, too.

“I take it as very kind of you,” he said, “to have spoken to me.”

“The pleasure was mine. I am generally to be found hereabouts in the afternoons any time you like a talk.”

“Delighted,” he said; “delighted. I make friends of the creatures and flowers as much as possible, but they can’t always make us understand.” And after we had taken off our respective hats, he reseated himself, with his hands on his knees.

Next time I came across him standing by the rails of an enclosure, and, in his arms, an old and really wretched-looking cat.

“I don’t like boys,” he said, without preliminary of any sort. “What do you think they were doing to this poor old cat? Dragging it along by a string to drown it; see where it’s cut into the fur! I think boys despise the old and weak!” He held it out to me. At the ends of those little sticks of arms the beast looked more dead than alive; I had never seen a more miserable creature.

“I think a cat,” he said, “is one of the most marvellous things in the world. Such a depth of life in it.”

And, as he spoke, the cat opened its mouth as if protesting at that assertion. It _was_ the sorriest-looking beast.

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Take it home: it looks to me as if it might die.”

“You don’t think that might be more merciful?”

“It depends; it depends. I shall see. I fancy a little kindness might do a great deal for it. It’s got plenty of spirit. I can see from its eye.”

“May I come along with you a bit?”

“Oh!” he said; “delighted.”

We walked on side by side, exciting the derision of nearly every one we passed--his face looked so like a mother’s when she is feeding her baby!

“You’ll find this’ll be quite a different cat to-morrow,” he said. “I shall have to get in, though, without my landlady seeing; a funny woman! I have two or three strays already.”

“Can I help in any way?”

“Thank you,” he said. “I shall ring the area bell, and as she comes out below I shall go in above. She’ll think it’s boys. They _are_ like that.”

“But doesn’t she do your rooms, or anything?”

A smile puckered his face. “I’ve only one; I do it myself. Oh, it’d never do to have her about, even if I could afford it. But,” he added, “if you’re so kind as to come with me to the door, you might engage her by asking where Mr. Thompson lives. That’s me. In the musical world my name was Moronelli; not that I have Italian blood in me, of course.”

“And shall I come up?”

“Honoured; but I live very quietly.”

We passed out of the gardens at Lancaster Gate, where all the house-fronts seem so successful, and out of it into a little street that was extremely like a grubby child trying to hide under its mother’s skirts. Here he took a newspaper from his pocket and wrapped it round the cat.

“She’s a funny woman,” he repeated; “Scotch descent, you know.” Suddenly he pulled an area bell and scuttled up the steps.

When he had opened the door, however, I saw before him in the hall a short, thin woman dressed in black, with a sharp and bumpy face. Her voice sounded brisk and resolute.

“What have you got there, Mr. Thompson?”

“Newspaper, Mrs. March.”

“Oh, indeed! Now, you’re not going to take that cat upstairs!”

The little old fellow’s voice acquired a sudden shrill determination. “Stand aside, please. If you stop me, I’ll give you notice. The cat is going up. It’s ill, and it is going up.”

It was then I said:

“Does Mr. Thompson live here?”

In that second he shot past her, and ascended.

“That’s him,” she said; “and I wish it wasn’t, with his dirty cats. Do you want him?”

“I do.”

“He lives at the top.” Then, with a grudging apology: “I can’t help it; he tries me--he’s very trying.”

“I am sure he is.”

She looked at me. The longing to talk that comes over those who answer bells all day, and the peculiar Scottish desire to justify oneself, rose together in that face which seemed all promontories dried by an east wind.

“Ah!” she said; “he is. I don’t deny his heart; but he’s got no sense of anything. Goodness knows what he hasn’t got up there. I wonder I keep him. An old man like that ought to know better; half-starving himself to feed them.” She paused, and her eyes, that had a cold and honest glitter, searched me closely.

“If you’re going up,” she said, “I hope you’ll give him good advice. He never lets me in. I wonder I keep him.”

There were three flights of stairs, narrow, clean, and smelling of oilcloth. Selecting one of two doors at random, I knocked. His silvery head and bright, pinched face were cautiously poked out.

“Ah!” he said; “I thought it might be her!”

The room, which was fairly large, had a bare floor with little on it save a camp-bed and chest of drawers with jug and basin. A large bird-cage on the wall hung wide open. The place smelt of soap and a little of beasts and birds. Into the walls, whitewashed over a green wall-paper which stared through in places, were driven nails with their heads knocked off, onto which bits of wood had been spiked, so that they stood out as bird-perches high above the ground. Over the open window a piece of wire netting had been fixed. A little spirit-stove and an old dressing-gown hanging on a peg completed the accoutrements of a room which one entered with a certain diffidence. He had not exaggerated. Besides the new cat, there were three other cats and four birds, all--save one, a bullfinch--invalids. The cats kept close to the walls, avoiding me, but wherever my little old friend went, they followed him with their eyes. The birds were in the cage, except the bullfinch, which had perched on his shoulder.

“How on earth,” I said, “do you manage to keep cats and birds in one room?”

“There is danger,” he answered, “but I have not had a disaster yet. Till their legs or wings are mended, they hardly come out of the cage; and after that they keep up on my perches. But they don’t stay long, you know, when they’re once well. That wire is only put over the window while they’re mending; it’ll be off to-morrow, for this lot.”

“And then they’ll go?”

“Yes. The sparrow first, and then the two thrushes.”

“And this fellow?”

“Ask him,” he said. “Would _you_ go, bully?” But the bullfinch did not deign to answer.

“And were all those cats, too, in trouble?”

“Yes,” he said. “They wouldn’t want me if they weren’t.”

Thereupon he began to warm some blue-looking milk, contemplating the new cat, which he had placed in a round basket close to the little stove, while the bullfinch sat on his head. It seemed time to go.

“Delighted to see you, sir,” he said, “any day.” And, pointing up at the bullfinch on his head, he added: “Did you ever see anything so wonderful as that bird? The size of its heart! Really marvellous!”

To the rapt sound of that word marvellous, and full of the memory of his mysterious brightness while he stood pointing upward to the bird perched on his thick, silvery hair, I went.

The landlady was still at the bottom of the stairs, and began at once: “So you found him! I don’t know why I keep him. Of course, he was kind to my little girl.” I saw tears gather in her eyes.

“With his cats and his birds, I wonder I keep him! But where would he go? He’s no relations, and no friends--not a friend in the world, I think! He’s a character. Lives on air--feeding them cats! I’ve no patience with them, eating him up. He never lets me in. Cats and birds! I wonder I keep him. Losing himself for those rubbishy things! It’s my belief he was always like that; and that’s why he never got on. He’s no sense of anything.”

And she gave me a shrewd look, wondering, no doubt, what the deuce I had come about.

I did not come across him again in the gardens for some time, and went at last to pay him a call. At the entrance to a mews just round the corner of his grubby little street, I found a knot of people collected round one of those bears that are sometimes led through the less conspicuous streets of our huge towns. The yellowish beast was sitting up in deference to its master’s nod, uttering little grunts, and moving its uplifted snout from side to side, in the way bears have. But it seemed to be extracting more amusement than money from its audience.

“Let your bear down off its hind legs and I’ll give you a penny.” And suddenly I saw my little old friend under his flopping grey hat, amongst the spectators, all taller than himself. But the bear’s master only grinned and prodded the animal in the chest. He evidently knew a good thing when he saw it.

“I’ll give you twopence to let him down.”

Again the bear-man grinned. “More!” he said, and again prodded the bear’s chest. The spectators were laughing now.

“Threepence! And if you don’t let him down for that, I’ll hit you in the eye.”

The bear-man held out his hand. “All a-right,” he said, “threepence; I let him down.”

I saw the coins pass and the beast dropping on his forefeet; but just then a policeman coming in sight, the man led his bear off, and I was left alone with my little old friend.

“I wish I had that poor bear,” he said; “I could teach him to be happy. But, even if I could buy him, what could I do with him up there? She’s such a funny woman.”

He looked quite dim, but brightened as we went along.

“A bear,” he said, “is really an extraordinary animal. What wise little eyes he has! I do think he’s a marvellous creation! My cats will have to go without their dinner, though. I was going to buy it with that threepence.”

I begged to be allowed the privilege.

“Willingly!” he said. “Shall we go in here? They like cod’s head best.”

While we stood waiting to be served I saw the usual derisive smile pass over the fishmonger’s face. But my little old friend by no means noticed it; he was too busy looking at the fish. “A fish is a marvellous thing, when you come to think of it,” he murmured. “Look at its scales. Did you ever see such mechanism?”

We bought five cod’s heads, and I left him carrying them in a bag, evidently lost in the anticipation of five cats eating them.

After that I saw him often, going with him sometimes to buy food for his cats, which seemed ever to increase in numbers. His talk was always of his strays, and the marvels of creation, and that time of his life when he played the flute at the Harmony Theatre. He had been out of a job, it seemed, for more than ten years; and, when questioned, only sighed and answered: “Don’t talk about it, please!”

His bumpy landlady never failed to favour me with a little conversation. She was one of those women who have terrific consciences, and terrible grudges against them.

“I never get out,” she would say.

“Why not?”

“Couldn’t leave the house.”

“It won’t run away!”

But she would look at me as if she thought it might, and repeat:

“Oh! I never get out.”

An extremely Scottish temperament.

Considering her descent, however, she was curiously devoid of success, struggling on apparently from week to week, cleaning, and answering the bell, and never getting out, and wondering why she kept my little old friend; just as he struggled on from week to week, getting out and collecting strays, and discovering the marvels of creation, and finding her a funny woman. Their hands were joined, one must suppose, by that dead child.

One July afternoon, however, I found her very much upset. He had been taken dangerously ill three days before.

“There he is,” she said; “can’t touch a thing. It’s my belief he’s done for himself, giving his food away all these years to those cats of his. I shooed ’em out to-day, the nasty creatures; they won’t get in again.”

“Oh!” I said, “you shouldn’t have done that. It’ll only make him miserable.”

She flounced her head up. “Hoh!” she said; “I wonder I’ve kept him all this time, with his birds and his cats dirtying my house. And there he lies, talking gibberish about them. He made me write to a Mr. Jackson, of some theatre or other--I’ve no patience with him. And that little bullfinch all the time perching on his pillow, the dirty little thing! I’d have turned it out, too, only it wouldn’t let me catch it.”

“What does the doctor say?”

“Double pneumonia--caught it getting his feet wet, after some stray, I’ll be bound. I’m nursing him. There has to be some one with him all the time.”

He was lying very still when I went up, with the sunlight falling across the foot of his bed, and, sure enough, the bullfinch perching on his pillow. In that high fever he looked brighter than ever. He was not exactly delirious, yet not exactly master of his thoughts.

“Mr. Jackson! He’ll be here soon. Mr. Jackson! He’ll do it for me. I can ask him, if I die. A funny woman. I don’t want to eat; I’m not a great eater--I want my breath, that’s all.”

At sound of his voice the bullfinch fluttered off the pillow and flew round and round the room, as if alarmed at something new in the tones that were coming from its master.

Then he seemed to recognise me. “I think I’m going to die,” he said; “I’m very weak. It’s lucky, there’s nobody to mind. If only he’d come soon. I wish”--and he raised himself with feeble excitement--“I wish you’d take that wire off the window; I want my cats. She turned them out. I want him to promise me to take them, and bully-boy, and feed them with my money, when I’m dead.”

Seeing that excitement was certainly worse for him than cats, I took the wire off. He fell back, quiet at once; and presently, first one and then another cat came stealing in, till there were four or five seated against the walls. The moment he ceased to speak the bullfinch, too, came back to his pillow. His eyes looked most supernaturally bright, staring out of his little, withered-up old face at the sunlight playing on his bed; he said just audibly: “Did you ever see anything more wonderful than that sunlight? It’s really marvellous!” After that he fell into a sort of doze or stupor. And I continued to sit there in the window, relieved, but rather humiliated, that he had not asked me to take care of his cats and bullfinch.

Presently there came the sound of a motor-car in the little street below. And almost at once the landlady appeared. For such an abrupt woman, she entered very softly.

“Here he is,” she whispered.

I went out and found a gentleman, perhaps sixty years of age, in a black coat, buff waistcoat, gold watch-chain, light trousers, patent-leather boots, and a wonderfully shining hat. His face was plump and red, with a glossy grey moustache; indeed, he seemed to shine everywhere, save in the eyes, which were of a dull and somewhat liverish hue.

“Mr. Jackson?”

“The same. How is the little old chap?”

Opening the door of the next room, which I knew was always empty, I beckoned Mr. Jackson in.

“He’s really very ill; I’d better tell you what he wants to see you about.”

He looked at me with that air of “You can’t get at me--whoever you may be,” which belongs to the very successful.

“Right-o!” he said. “Well?”

I described the situation. “He seems to think,” I ended, “that you’ll be kind enough to charge yourself with his strays, in case he should die.”

Mr. Jackson prodded the unpainted wash-stand with his gold-headed cane.

“Is he really going to kick it?”

“I’m afraid so; he’s nothing but skin, bone, and spirit, as it is.”

“H’m! Stray cats, you say, and a bird! Well, there’s no accounting. He was always a cracky little chap. So that’s it! When I got the letter I wondered what the deuce! We pay him his five quid a quarter regular to this day. To tell truth, he deserved it. Thirty years he was at our shop; never missed a night. First-rate flute he was. He ought never to have given it up, though I always thought it showed a bit of heart in him. If a man don’t look after number one, he’s as good as gone; that’s what I’ve always found. Why, I was no more than he was when I started. Shouldn’t have been worth a plum if I’d gone on his plan, that’s certain.” And he gave that profound chuckle which comes from the very stomach of success. “We were having a rocky time at the Harmony; had to cut down everything we could--music, well, that came about first. Little old Moronelli, as we used to call him--old Italian days before English names came in, you know--he was far the best of the flutes; so I went to him and said: ‘Look here, Moronelli, which of these other boys had better go?’ ‘Oh!’ he said--I remember his funny little old mug now--‘has one of them to go, Mr. Jackson? Timminsa’--that was the elder--‘he’s a wife and family; and Smetoni’--Smith, you know--‘he’s only a boy. Times are bad for flutes.’ ‘I know it’s a bit hard,’ I said, ‘but this theatre’s goin’ to be run much cheaper; one of ’em’s got to get.’ ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘dear me!’ he said. What a funny little old chap it was! Well--what do you think? Next day I had his resignation. Give you my word I did my best to turn him. Why, he was sixty then if he was a day--at sixty a man don’t get jobs in a hurry. But, not a bit of it! All he’d say was: ‘I shall get a place all right!’ But that’s it, you know--he never did. Too long in one shop. I heard by accident he was on the rocks; that’s how I make him that allowance. But that’s the sort of hopeless little old chap he is--no idea of himself. Cats! Why not? I’ll take his old cats on; don’t you let him worry about that. I’ll see to his bird, too. If I can’t give ’em a better time than ever they have here, it’ll be funny!” And, looking round the little empty room, he again uttered that profound chuckle: “Why, he was with us at the Harmony thirty years--that’s time, you know; _I_ made my fortune in it.”

“I’m sure,” I said, “it’ll be a great relief to him.”