CHAPTER IV.

WHAT PASSION DID.

BROWN came to the Chaplin's room the next day in obedience to his daughter's commands, but looking as sheepish as a schoolboy as he came in.

Winny, however, only thought of amusing and interesting her strange guest, and the book she had to read was just the one she thought would be likely to please him. And so with a pleasant nod, she said: "I am glad you have come, Mr. Brown, for I have got a book of travels this week, and you will be sure to like that."

Mrs. Chaplin asked after his foot, and heard that Annie had faithfully carried out her directions and that it was much easier to-day.

The big burly fellow looked in a half shy fashion at the frail little invalid as he took his seat in the arm-chair. But there was no more talking for the next hour, for Winny began reading, and Brown sat and listened in open-eyed wonder at the marvels told of in the book. Never had an afternoon passed so quickly, and when Letty pushed the door open and put her head inside, no one could believe that school was really over, but thought she must have come home before the proper time.

Brown went to his own room then, thanking Winny so gratefully for her reading, that she invited him to come again the next day if he liked.

Annie came in soon after tea to thank her as well; she had her hat on and was just going out. "What a worry rent is!" she whispered as she passed Mrs. Chaplin.

They did not ask where she was going, and thought no more of the matter at that time, and a fortnight passed without anything occurring out of the usual way.

Mrs. Chaplin got more sack-making, and Brown came occasionally to listen to Winny reading. For although his foot was better, he was not able to go to work, and the neighbours knew that Annie had been compelled to carry a good many things to the pawnshop to get bread, and that the rent had not been paid, for they heard Rutter's agent threaten at last to turn them out, if the rent was not taken to him in the course of the evening.

Brown told Annie of this when she came home from work, suggesting that they had better look out for another place at once.

"What! When we are so comfortable here, and you can go and hear Winny read! No, I'll go and tell Rutter that you'll be at work again next week, and if he'll wait for the rent, we'll pay him all up in a month."

She swallowed her tea as fast as she could, and as they could not afford to burn a lamp now, she told her father to go and see the Chaplins if it got dark before she came back.

"For I may have to wait for him, you know, but I will see him this time."

She had found out where the Rutters had gone to live, and was not long walking the two miles that lay between, so that she got to her destination early in the evening, and was shown into the little back parlour where Rutter sat smoking.

"What do you want?" he said taking the pipe from his mouth as Annie went in.

He did not recognize her, and thought she might have come about a house of his that was empty.

"I've come about the rent, Mr. Rutter," said Annie speaking very mildly. "If you will wait—"

"Wait!" roared Rutter. "Who told you to come to me and ask such a thing as that? What do you suppose I can do? If you can't pay, you must go."

"But we can pay, and we will pay," said Annie, not the least daunted by his loud talking. "I've only come to ask you to give us a little time. Father has hurt his foot, and I can't earn—"

"That's none of my business what you can earn or what you can't. Pay your rent and pay it at once, or out you go to-morrow morning."

Most girls in Annie's place would have burst into tears and again pleaded with the hard landlord for longer time, but something in Rutter's manner roused the girl's anger to such a pitch, that taking up the glass of beer that stood close by she dashed it in his face and then threw the glass at the chimney ornaments, sweeping them from the mantel-piece with a crash, and bringing Mrs. Rutter into the room to see what had happened.

By that time, her husband had seized Annie, and as his wife came in, he ordered her to go and fetch a policeman at once. This roused the girl to greater fury, and she screamed and fought to escape from his detaining hold. But she was in the grasp of a man not likely to release her, and in a few minutes, she was handed over to a policeman, charged with committing an unprovoked assault upon Rutter.

Her behaviour after she was handed over to the policeman was not likely to improve the impression already taken up against her, for her passion was by no means exhausted, and she fought at the man in her ungoverned rage much as a wild cat might have done.

She was eventually taken to the police station and locked up for the night, while her father waited hour after hour thinking she would surely return, and supposing she had met with some of her fellow-workers and had gone for a walk with them, for the evenings were fine and pleasant now, and it was a relief to get away from the close stuffy streets. If he could have walked, he would have gone to make some inquiries about her, but as it was, he had to content himself with hobbling down to the Chaplins to tell them how concerned he was about Annie being out so long.

"She told me she would be back soon," he said as he stood in the doorway looking at Winny, and then glancing down the stairs in the hope of seeing Annie.

But no Annie came, and Brown grew more anxious and alarmed, until at last a policeman came and told them that the girl was locked up on a charge of assault.

Brown was almost beside himself with anger when he heard it. He swore he would be the death of Rutter for locking up his girl, his Annie, who was the best girl in London, and would not hurt a fly unless she was angry.

"That's it, Brown," said his neighbour Chaplin, who had undertaken to bring him to reason over the matter, "she must have lost her temper, as you say, and that always makes matters worse."

Fortunately for Brown, the policeman who came to bring him the bad news was a reasonable man, and his new friends the Chaplins were quite ready to say a good word for the girl, so that he was at length persuaded to go to bed without going to Rutter's or fighting the policeman. This in itself was a new experience; for Brown to control himself under such provocation was something he had never dreamed of doing before, and it was not easy to get him to do it now.

It was for the "little un who was ill," he declared, that he did not knock the policeman down when he came to tell him of it. But Annie would not have her frightened, he knew, and so for her sake, he was quiet, and promised not to go out until he went to the police court to hear the charge.

To keep him under due control, Chaplin agreed to lose his chance of getting a job in the morning and go with him, and it was well he did. For in spite of his lameness, he would certainly have struck at the man who by his evidence had got his girl committed to prison for a month. Chaplin had spoken to him before they went in to the magistrate, asking him to do what he could for her, but instead of saying a word to get a mitigation of the sentence, he did all he could to prejudice the magistrate's mind against her, saying he would make an example of her that it might be a warning to others.

So poor Annie was sent to prison for a month, and Rutter went off to work at the docks vexed that the sentence was not more severe, and that he would lose a part of his day's pay over the matter.

"If I could only get to work," muttered Brown between his set teeth. "He shall pay for it yet. My poor girl sha'n't suffer for nothing."

Annie had contrived to say a word to her father and Chaplin too.

"Ask Winny to read to him sometimes," she said with the tears rolling down her cheeks, for to be parted from her father was the hardest part of this going to prison.

Everybody cried shame on Rutter as he left. And Chaplin felt glad that Brown was still much too lame to go to work, for in his present mood, he would most likely have got himself into fresh trouble over the matter.

They went home together, and Brown spent the afternoon talking to Winny and Mrs. Chaplin about his girl, his Annie, whom he still spoke of as his "little un."

How much cause for thankfulness they would all have by and by that the afternoon was so spent, they did not know ab the time, but Mrs. Chaplin was glad when she heard him say that he should not go out again that night. He shared the tea with his new friends, and so did not leave the house or go near the docks, as more than one person besides Winny and her mother could prove.

They had no idea how important this would be then. But the next morning, a policeman came and arrested Brown on the charge of pushing Rutter into the dock. He had been heard to threaten his landlord at the court in the morning, and he was also known to work at the docks, and so, when Rutter was found drowned in one of the dock basins, suspicion at once pointed to Brown as the man who had done it, if it was not the result of accident.

The news of Rutter's death soon spread through the neighbourhood, and though Brown was looked upon as a rough sort of man, who would not be particular what he did in the way of giving a blow, still, in this case, it was clearly impossible that he could have pushed the man in, and they readily went with Mrs. Chaplin to give their evidence on Brown's behalf.

On hearing how he had spent the day, and that he could not possibly have been near the spot where the accident happened, Brown was discharged, and the police turned their attention in another direction. But although they could hear that Rutter had been cordially hated by those who worked under him, it was plain they could not all have had a hand in his death, and so at last it was concluded that he must have slipped in as he was hurrying to his work, having gone by the water-side in order to save a little time as he was already late.

This was the most reasonable conclusion that could be arrived at under the circumstances. But it would have been very different if Brown had not gone back with his neighbour Chaplin, for he had been heard by so many people to threaten to do for Rutter the first chance he had, and he would certainly have followed him to his work if he could.

The neighbourhood was all astir about Brown's arrest.

But no one seemed to think of poor Mrs. Rutter left alone in her grief, until Mrs. Chaplin got back from the court with Brown, when Winny met her with the question, "Have you been to see how poor Mrs. Rutter is?"

The popular indignation was so strong against the harsh landlord, that as yet no one seemed to think of the widow and lonely girl until Winny asked the question.

"I wonder whether she would like me to go and see her?" said Mrs. Chaplin, pausing in the act of taking off her bonnet. "She may not have made friends with her new neighbours, for she wasn't one to do that sort of thing, and she ain't got no relations near her, I know."

"I have thought of poor Miss Rutter over since that day she came to fetch you; she looked so frightened and unhappy. Do go and see them, mother; I'm sure they'll be glad," urged Winny.

"Very well, my dear, I'll go, then; and if I'm not back soon, tell father to go on sewing at the sacks for me, and Letty too might do a bit when she comes in from school."

She gave Winny a slice of bread and dripping for her dinner, and then set off to Mrs. Rutter's, a little doubtful as to whether she might be welcomed, or whether her visit might be looked upon as an intrusion. But as soon as the door was opened, she knew that she was wanted.

"I am so glad you've come, Mrs. Chaplin!" exclaimed Lizzie. "Poor mother does nothing but cry, and the people about here are proud, and don't know us, and we don't know what to do."

Without another word, Mrs. Chaplin took off her bonnet and shawl as though she had come to a day's washing, and followed Lizzie into the kitchen, where the widow sat rocking herself backwards and forwards in her grief.

At the sight of her old neighbour, she got up and threw herself into her arms sobbing out, "I wish I'd never come here; I have had nothing but trouble ever since I left the old house. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?"

Mrs. Chaplin soothed her as well as she could. But she soon saw she was not fit to be left alone, and a neighbour who came in to see how things were going on, begged her not to go away again until some of her relatives came to be with her.

But the poor woman only had one sister, and she did not know where she was living, for Rutter had forbidden her visits the last year or two; for she was poor, and he did not feel disposed to keep her, he said. Whether he had brothers and sisters or not, his wife did not know, certainly there was no one she could appeal to in her time of trouble, and Mrs. Chaplin found herself to be the only support and friend the widow could look to just now.

Neither mother nor daughter were strong or capable women, and so the visitor found plenty to do, for the house had a forlorn, neglected look about it that troubled Mrs. Chaplin until she could set to work to make things comfortable.

Finding that Lizzie was rather worse than her mother in the matter of fretting, Mrs. Chaplin said during the afternoon: "If I stay here, Lizzie must go and tell them at home that I shall not be home to-night. Winny will get anxious, and I am not sure that there is enough for their tea."

"Oh, mother, shall I take that cold meat to her?" said Lizzie, and as she spoke, the thought that no one would scold because it was given away came to her as a relief. But the next moment, she was angry with herself for thinking thus, for it seemed like rejoicing at her father's death, and the poor girl could not endure this.

But she took the cold meat in a basket and some bread, as well as a message to Brown from her mother, telling him she was very sorry for Annie, and when she came home again, she would help her if she could.

Winny was alone when Lizzie's knock came, and to her eager "Come in," the basket was pushed forward first, and then Lizzie's white wistful face peered round the room.

"I am all alone," said Winny in answer to the look. "Is mother going to stay all the evening with you?" she asked, for she guessed the girl's errand.

"She's going to stay all night with mother," said Lizzie in her cowed frightened voice. "I hope you won't mind," she added, seeing Winny looked disappointed.

"No, we won't mind for once; I thought you might be glad to see her, as you had not been long in your new house. Do you like it?" asked Winny, trying to make conversation.

"Not much; you see we don't know the people about, and father—" but there the girl stopped.

Her father's memory was not a blessing, but she was too loyal to say one word that would betray all it had become to her, and so she turned to the basket she had brought, and lifted out the remains of the leg of mutton it contained.

"Mother sent this for your tea," she said, "for we shall never be able to eat it while it is good," and then she set a loaf upon the table and a pot of jam and some butter, for her mother had filled the basket, taking a melancholy pleasure in doing it, even while she sighed to think that there was no one to scold her now for wasting these things, as Rutter would have thought it.

Lizzie saw the eager look in Winny's eyes as she set the things on the table, and she said, "Would you like me to cut you a piece of meat and bread now? I can if you like."

"Would you mind doing it? I am very hungry, for the dinner mother left for me, I had to give to Letty, and so I have had nothing since breakfast time."

Nothing could have been better to set Lizzie at ease, and very soon the girls were chatting away about the school they used to attend together, trying to revive old memories of that time when they were neighbours and friends. Rutter had done his utmost to break off all this, and succeeded to a great extent. But the memory of what his wife and daughter regarded as their happier days still clung to them. And now that he was torn from them, it was to these old friends they turned for comfort and cheer.

Almost before they knew it, the girls were mingling their tears for the man who had been the best hated in the neighbourhood. Winny because of this held Lizzie close in her arms, while the girl sobbed and cried, for to her the saddest thing was this, that she had never had a kind father, and the manner of his death made it all the more painful.

All she could whisper by way of comfort was: "God knows all about it, dear." And there she stopped, and they mingled their tears and kissed each other, promising that they would be friends for the future.

Lizzie was comforted by the sympathy that could understand such grief as hers, for though no further word was said about the cause of her trouble, she felt that Winny's heart was full of pity for her.

Lizzie stayed until Letty came home and then cut some meat and bread for her tea. But Winny could not rest content with such luxuries being kept to themselves, and so when Letty had finished her tea she said: "I should like you to take Mr. Brown a piece of that meat, Letty. You will not mind his having it, will you?" she asked, turning to her new friend.

"Of course not. Would you like me to cut it for him?" she asked.

She would have done anything that Winny suggested, for she already loved the girl "who was at leisure from herself" to take up the cares or pleasures of her friends and neighbours, and in them forget her own pain and weakness.

Lizzie was in no hurry to go home. The evenings were light, and so when the tea things were washed up, she sat down to talk to Winny again, for in this home she could feel she was wrapped round in the atmosphere of homeliness, and this had long since departed from her own more comfortably furnished abode. They had front rooms and back rooms each crowded with more furniture than was needed, for it had been one of her father's whims to buy furniture when he saw it to be sold cheap whether it was needed or not; but Lizzie had learned by sad experience that a well filled cupboard and a handsomely furnished house does not make a home, and that here in this one room, where there was seldom a full meal for all, they had greater wealth than money could buy.

She went home pondering over these things, and resolving to ask her mother to move back to the old house where they would be among friends, and where they might be able to help them sometimes.