NIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE Page 23

  ‘Tillett, suddenly aroused, sprang to his feet, and the dragged-aside curtain revealed a pallid face pressed close to the pane, the eyes widely staring, distraught. Wild hands hammered on the pane. With one stride Tillett reached the back door, and stretching a long arm into the blackness dragged the clamourer inside. It was Bina! She was shivering, staring alternately at husband and wife, and her rough hands strayed continually to her working mouth. About her small form, most pitiably thin, was still swathed the hideous dirty white overall.

  ‘Vaguely Mrs Tillett noted the position of two great stains, one brown and one an ugly dull red, like fruit-juice, that marked the front, as she pressed Bina into a chair and ran to get brandy. The child was on the verge of shrieking hysterics, and sat jerking and shuddering like a marionette in the chair till Tillett, kindhearted as his wife when the need arose, poured a stiff dose of spirit down her throat. With a sharp quiver she then sat quiet, looking dully before her. With a glance at her husband, Liz drew up a chair and sat beside the forlorn figure, one fat, kindly hand on the thin arm.

  ‘“Now, then, dearie, what is it, eh? The old man been scarin’ yer, eh?”

  ‘Suddenly the white lashes flashed up, and two red eyes so full of utter rage and hate and fury flamed into the older woman’s face as fairly startled her as the girl burst forth, her voice ashake with venom.

  ‘“Scarin’ me—my Gawd! Scarin’? . . . oh, if I c’d ever get my ands on ’im, the dirty swab, the wicked old beast . . . a-a-a-ah! I bin quiet abaht it—cos I bin scared . . . I’m scared still, but I’ll tell now, s’elp me, Gawd—I’ll tell! . . . I know—I tell yer I c’d get ’im put away fer life—there ain’t enough prisons to punish the likes of ’im. . . . ’E ain’t a man, I tells yer—Gawd, don’t I know? ’E’s a devil, a bloomin’ devil . . . strike me dead as I sit ’ere if I ain’t tellin’ yer the bloomin’ troof! . . . I didn’t know when I came—’e scared me—first thing he done was ter whip me till I couldn’t see out of me eyes, to show what ’ud ’appen if I split on ’im! ’E ’ides things in the ’ouse, I tell yer—but I know, I ain’t blind, if I ’ave got red eyes, Gawd’s curse on ’em! I’ve seen awful things—froo key’oles, and times w’en ’e gotter bit over. . . . I tried to tell onct, but ’e found out, and strewth! I never did it no more!”

  ‘The rushing, hoarse voice hurried on; silently the horrified listeners looked at each other, and Mrs Tillett’s grasp on the arm tightened.

  ‘“Onct, ’cos I was saucy at first, and gave ’im a bit o’ lip, ’e locked me up at the top of the ’ouse two days wivout a bite or sup . . . and then one night . . . ’e come in . . .” There was a dreadful pause, and the speaker’s voice failed suddenly, trailed away—her eyes seemed to glaze over.

  ‘“Well?” prompted Mrs Tillett, gently.

  ‘With a start Bina seemed to pull herself together, but the fire and fury of her speech had oddly faded, and she finished her sentence differently.

  ‘“Oh . . . it’s awful anyway. I can’t stick it no more, troof an’ honour I can’t. I did till now, ’cos of bein’ scared . . . and there was my cat. . . . Oh, Gawd, I’d forgot . . . What’s ‘e doin’ to ’er?”

  ‘Suddenly, startlingly, the dull voice faded to a scream, and with a convulsive leap, the girl was out of her chair and tearing at the window, trying to get out. Tillett seized her by the arms as he spoke, his gruff voice decided.

  ‘“Ain’t no sorter use goin’ arter the cat—s’pose it’s that white beast yer mean? You stay ’ere along ’er the missus, and we’ll get old Lidgett pinched for quod in the mornin’. Shan’t cry neither to get rid of ’im as a neighbour.”

  ‘Bina was shaking, chattering hysterically as she clung on to the back of the chair, twisting her overall into knots, her lint hair on end, her face raw and beblubbered with frantic tears. She was in such a state, her eyes red-ringed and staring with agony and distraction, that she barely looked human, and Mrs Tillett’s heart failed within her as she looked.

  ‘Here was something that went far beyond any normal human grief or fear—here was a terror of the soul, naked and ghastly, and small human speech failed and slunk away before it. . . . The dreadful, shaking voice went on, gasping, disjointed.

  ‘“Oh! Oh! It ain’t fair! I never done nothink, on’y poked abaht a bit . . . I know now . . . none of the others never done nothink either, but ’e’s like that. Lilly, she knew . . . she come to tell yer ... but ’e got ’er in the end just the same! I tell yer, ’e can make yer do wot ’e wants, wever yer wants to or not. Gawd knows it’s troof! . . . I found anuvver place ter sleep, all in wiv some ole boxes where ’e never goes. ’E never found me, not till tonight. We useter sleep there, ther cat an’ me, but she mewed an’ ’e ’eard. . . . O Lord, the way I seen ’is orful eyes come looking at me over them boxes! . . . Then I run and run, but I ’eard ’er yell, on’y I was so mad ter get away I fergot. Oh, Mrs Tillett, let me go—I gotter get ’er away from ’im—pore li’l thing. She scrawked so when ’e got ’er. . . . O Gawd, wot ’e’ll do to ’er . . . like this ’ere—look!”

  ‘It was a serried row of deep scars, like red ribbons, cutting across the thin, grimy shoulders that came to light as the frenzied girl tore down the white overall. One was no stranger to violence in Slink’s Alley, but Tillett’s eyes bulged in horror—and his wife burst into tears, as the voice fled on its wild story.

  ‘’I’m through wiv keepin’ me tongue quiet, I tell yer! I’ll tell! I’ll tell abaht . . . things . . . and wot ’e done ter me and all the others. Let me get at ’im . . . get the cops on ’im, the blarsted devil, wiv ’is awful eyes and those crawlin’ beastly ’ands, ugh!”

  ‘Across the raving voice a dull sound broke, and they stiffened suddenly into silence. A thudding knock from the other side of the wall—from the house of Mat Lidgett it came, a summoning note, heavy and insistent. Open-mouthed with astonishment and fury, Tillett listened for a minute, and then shouted back with no little anger.

  ‘’Oy! You ’old that row, Mat Lidgett, or I’ll come and make yer! Whadger mean, bangin’ the wall like that—wikin’ folks up? Shur-rup, d’ye hear?”

  ‘The knocking ceased, but there was no answer. Turning, Tillett looked at the girl. She was standing flat against the mantelpiece, staring, slack-jawed and blank, at the wall from which had come that threatening knock. The light of furious purpose was dead in her rose-coloured eyes: they were fixed, and full of a dread and horror unspeakable, and her rough red hands stirred jerkily against the sides of her apron. Silently she moved away towards the door, feeling her way along, her eyes fixed still on the one place on the wall. Mrs Tillett sprang from her chair.

  ‘“You ain’t never goin’ back? Tom, Tom, she is! Don’t let ’er! The old brute’ll murder ’er like ’e done the rest . . . I know ’e did, I tell yer!”

  ‘With strong hands Tillett pushed Bina back into the chair and determinedly locked the door. Drawing up the damaged sofa, he pointed to it dramatically.

  ‘“’Ere, Liz, you take a lie down there. I’m goin’ ter the perlice wiv the kid in the mornin’—them scars’ll cook old Lidgett’s goose for ’im orl right! She’s crazy, pore child; it ain’t not safe ter leave ’er, or she’ll bolt like Lilly. Damned if I don’t think yer arf right, and ’e ain’t ’uman at all! Anyway, we’ll keep the kid ’ere where she can’t bold wivout us knowin’—and I’ve got the key.”

  ‘The excitement had wearied the good couple more than they knew, and the room was warm and pleasant. Bina relapsed into a silence as sudden and complete as her previous hysterical outburst, and sat hunched on the rocking-chair near the fire, her blank eyes staring before her, her hands hanging limp. Tillett disposed himself as well as might be in the armchair, and silence descended on the strange trio.

  ‘The next door house was silent, too; no further knocking disturbed the peaceful hours, and despite her stern determination to keep awake, a miasma of sleep slowly but surely enveloped Liz Tillett. Her husband’s placid snores already
resounded through the room—he slept, secure in the knowledge that the key of the only door of the room lay hid in his trouser pocket, and that another escape like that of the unfortunate Lilly was impossible.

  ‘Comforting her vague fears with this reminder, Mrs Tillett composed herself to sleep also. Her last waking thought was to wish she had closed the window, though it was open barely a foot, and that at the top, but no child, even, could have got through had it been wide open. They did not build windows to throw widely open in Slink’s Alley.

  ‘The pale light of day filtered in through the red curtain, awaking Tom Tillett with a shaft of dim, wavering sunlight right in his eyes. Stretching, he yawned and sat up, glancing round the familiar room. On the sofa, humped uncomfortably against the shiny horse-hair cushions, still slept his wife; another glance, and he was shaking her violently, shouting incoherencies. With a jerk she sat up, open-mouthed.

  ‘Bina had gone! Yet still in Tom Tillett’s pocket reposed the key, and the door was securely locked—the window just as it was when they lay down to sleep, with the child in the crazy rocking-chair between them. Blankly the worthy couple stared at each other, and suddenly Mrs Tillett shivered.

  ‘“Tom! I don’t like it! No more do you . . . it ain’t right. There’s somethink ain’t not right wiv this ’ere . . . us two sleepin’ right ’ere all night, and ’er gorn off like Lilly.”

  ‘Tom Tillett was examining the window with gloomy attention. “’Twasn’t arf as odd-like wiv Lilly! We left ’er ’ere fer the night, didn’t lock the door nor nothink. This . . . well, it beats me! ’Tain’t in reason, y’know—that’s what gets me. Look ’ere, too!”

  ‘He produced two or three white hairs; short and stiff, cat’s hairs, from the window frame, caught in a splintered bit of wood.

  ‘“The cat got away all right, anyway—must ’a come in ’ere. Look!”

  ‘Liz Tillett looked at the tuft of hair curiously, then standing on tiptoe, stared at the jagged window-frame that had caught it.

  ‘“Tom,” she said, “that’s odd now. I seen that rough bit er wood when I pulled that winder down last night, an’ I’ll take my oath there wasn’t no fur on it then—’s on the inside of the window too. An’ she said old Lidgett ’ad caught the cat—’tain’t likely ’e’d ’a let ’er go, not arf. Whadger think? If Lidgett ’ad the cat, and the fur weren’t there larst night w’en we went ter sleep wiv Bina ’ere in this room—well, then, wot got ther white ’airs there by this mornin’, eh?”

  ‘“I dunno!” said Tillett hopelessly; “but we can’t do no more, anyway. Let’s ’ope the pore kid’s orl right.”

  ‘His hopes were not destined to be realised, for not a sign of the child Bina appeared that day, and no creeping white figure wearily pushed an ancient broom about the dusty shop. Lidgett and Tillett “had words” re the previous night’s knocking, about which old Lidgett declared he knew nothing, so now a haughty silence was maintained between the shop and the public-house, and kind Liz Tillett went about all day with a grave frown between her eyebrows.

  ‘Strange fears, surmises, suspicions were rising in her mind, and banish them sedulously as she tried to do, they kept rising and rising again. Day passed, and day again, and no Bina. She spurred other neighbours on to ask after the child, but to no purpose. Old Lidgett’s answers were always the same—she had gone off suddenly, the young limb. Where, he neither knew nor cared; and who could penetrate the dread secrets that might lie hid beneath that penthouse of a forehead, those dreadful still eyes? Day after day he sat among the dusty heaped furniture of his little shop, like a great spider, withdrawn, patient in his web, secure of victims, only waiting for the next.

  ‘The one thing that annoyed him, apparently—and this Mrs Tillett heard through her gossip, Mrs Birch—was that Ma Tonks’s white cat had appeared again, and haunted the old man persistently, searching, one concludes, for the kindly hand of her friend, ugly, white-haired Bina, now so sadly vanished. Mrs Birch cackled with malicious laughter as she told the tale.

  ‘“Serve ’im right, the ole blighter! I was passin’ the time o’ day wiv ’im yes’day when I see it, all amongst the boxes, sittin’ watchin’ us—dirty as usual. The old man threw a book at it and swore like anythink . . . says it’s alwis abaht, an ’e can’t stand it!”

  ‘“I seen it larst night, sittin’ on the wall of the yard again,” said Mrs Tillett. “I can’t abear it—’minds me of that pore kid, wiv its red eyes an’ all.”

  ‘“Red eyes! It ain’t got red eyes, Liz Tillett—it’s got green eyes, same as any other cat.”

  ‘“Think I can’t see? I know it’s got red eyes,” said Mrs Tillett, her own round with astonishment. “Ain’t I seen it a dozen times this week—nights mostly—wiv its red eyes as plain as plain?”

  ‘“I tell yer its eyes are green,” said Mrs Birch finally. “Yer seeing things, Liz; that pore kid vanishin’s got on yer nerves. Same as the cat’s got on ole Lidgett’s, damn ’im, the old beast. I’d give a lot ter see the cat scratch ’is ugly face for ’im, I would, so I tell yer.”

  ‘Mrs Tillett’s brow wore a puzzled frown as she stared after the departing back of Mrs Birch, and she shook her head with a worried sigh. Things were beyond her . . . and yet she could ’a sworn . . .

  ‘An interview with the cat’s disreputable owner, Ma Tonks, now just recovering from a more than usually complete “drunk”, did not solve the mystery, as the old lady, crouched blear-eyed and tousled on a filthy heap of rags in her hovel by the waterside, called by courtesy a house, was not polite, and laughed to scorn her visitor’s efforts at politeness.

  ‘“Cat? W’y, I ain’t seen it for weeks—an’ anyway, I ain’t never looked at its blarsted eyes. Wot the ’ell. . . wistin’ a lidy’s time fer. . . .’

  ‘Mrs Tillett retreated hastily, leaving the hag cackling and calling after her. There was nothing gained there, and Liz Tillett sighed and gave up the subject in despair. She’d got Bina on the brain—that was the rights of it—and short of pulling the old man’s house down brick by brick, there was no solution likely to be had of the child’s disappearance.

  ‘Life in the Alley went on its normal course, and old Lidgett’s solitary figure—for it was notable that he got no fresh girl to replace the vanished Bina—sitting daily in his window, stared out at the moving street, silent, watchful as of yore. Liz Tillett averted her eyes as she passed him—she was proportionately surprised when he took to coming in for a nightly glass of brandy in addition to his jug of supper beer.

  ‘She retreated into the back room, sending Minna, the barmaid, to attend to him; when the nightly brandy grew into a habit, she interrogated Minna, slightly astonished. Drink had never been a failing of old Lidgett’s. Minna laughed, and said he hadn’t said much—“never a one for torkin’, old Lidgett—said he was sleepin’ badly. No wonder, wiv a conscience like ’isn!”

  ‘Liz Tillett’s curiosity drove her to the bar the next night, and the old man’s stealthy, distrustful eyes narrowed at her as he shuffled to the bar and demanded his brandy. Turning away, the woman poured out a small glass of stinging absinthe. (Oh yes, you can still get absinthe in quarters of London where the eyes of the law do not penetrate!) The old man’s eyes glistened as he reached for it and gulped it down. “Good stuff for wet nights, eh? Now, if ye’d sell me that instead o’ brandy, Liz Tillett?”

  ‘Mrs Tillett shook her head, laughing. “Not much! I on’y keep a drop for specials—’s good for colds, and not sleepin’ and such. You bin keepin’ well, Mr Lidgett?”

  ‘The old man twisted the glass in his gnarled, long hand, staring at it. With a start he came out of his brooding and looked up at her, half suspiciously.

  ‘“Good for not sleepin’, eh? Gimme another glass. I can’t sleep well these cold nights, and noises in the Alley an’ all.” These twenty-seven years had wicked Mat Lidgett lived in Slink’s Alley, and now to find it noisy!

  ‘Mrs Tillett poured out another glass of absinthe and pushe
d it across to his groping eager hand.

  ‘“Can’t sleep—that’s bad. Take another drink, it’ll warm yer. What’s noises wikin’ yer now? It’s a shime people can’t keep their kids quiet, squallin’ and fightin’.”

  ‘Evidently Lidgett’s two glasses of absinthe were not his first drinks that night, for his eyes were glazed and his voice thick as he replied with a foolish laugh.

  ‘“Kids . . . ain’t no kids. . . . ’S that blarsted cat of Tonkses. Yowls murder outside my room all night, blarst ’er. Thort I’d done ’er in, too—alwis tripping over ’er in the dark. Wait till I get ’er again!” His voice trailed off into unintelligibilities, as suddenly he turned and shambled to the door.

  ‘“Wait—arf a minute!” In her excitement Mrs Tillett left the counter and ran after him—here was her chance. “’Ere, Mr Lidgett, I want ter know. . . . ’As Tonks’s cat got green eyes?—or red, like—” she got no further. The old man’s eyes blazed suddenly at her, fiercely suspicious, from beneath their shaggy brows, as he barked his answer.

  ‘“’S got green eyes, o’ course, what else should it ’ave? Damn yer for a sneakin’, meddlin’ fool!” The door swung across and he was gone, and the woman retreated, but the furtive note of fright that had peeped out at her in his sudden outburst had not escaped Liz Tillett’s sharp observation. However, it served her not at all, since her surmises were of too strange and intangible a nature to communicate to her husband, and she did not like being laughed at.

  ‘But the end of the story was close at hand, even at the doorsills, as Tom Tillett went his round for the night, locking up—he was later than usual, well after one, having been closeted with a few choice cronies over their pipes and beer.

  ‘Liz Tillett had been in bed and sound asleep these two hours. Creaking into their room her husband, with a sigh of relief, began to unlace his boots, when from the next-door house there came a single frenzied shriek, followed by another and another, rising in frantic crescendo till they culminated in a sudden break, and a dreadful, dull, confused babbling ensued. At the second shriek Liz was out of bed, and clutching her husband’s shoulder as he hung out of the window.