Chapter 3

The shambling little clerk was still standing at the door watching the
retreating figure of the millionaire, and mentally splicing together his
fragmentary remarks into a symmetrical piece of advice which might be
carried home and digested at leisure, when his attention was attracted
to a pale-faced woman, with a child in her arms, who was hanging about
the entrance. She looked up at the clerk in a wistful way, as if
anxious to address him and yet afraid to do so. Then noting, perhaps,
some gleam of kindness in his yellow wrinkled face, she came across to
him.

"D'ye think I could see Muster Girdlestone, sir," she asked, with a
curtsey; "or, maybe, you're Mr. Girdlestone yourself?" The woman was
wretchedly dressed, and her eyelids were swollen and red as from long
crying.

"Mr. Girdlestone is in his room," said the head clerk kindly. "I have
no doubt that he will see you if you will wait for a moment." Had he
been speaking to the grandest of the be-silked and be-feathered dames
who occasionally frequented the office; he could not have spoken with
greater courtesy. Verily in these days the spirit of true chivalry has
filtered down from the surface and has found a lodgment in strange
places.

The merchant looked with a surprised and suspicious eye at his visitor
when she was ushered in. "Take a seat, my good woman," he said.
"What can I do for you?"

"Please, Mr. Girdlestone, I'm Mrs. Hudson," she answered, seating
herself in a timid way upon the extreme edge of a chair. She was weary
and footsore, for she had carried the baby up from Stepney that morning.

"Hudson--Hudson--can't remember the name," said Girdlestone, shaking his
head reflectively.

"Jim Hudson as was, sir, he was my husband, the bo'sun for many a year
o' your ship the _Black Eagle_. He went out to try and earn a bit for
me and the child, sir, but he's dead o' fever, poor dear, and lying in
Bonny river, wi' a cannon ball at his feet, as the carpenter himself
told me who sewed him up, and I wish I was dead and with him, so I do."
She began sobbing in her shawl and moaning, while the child, suddenly
awakened by the sound, rubbed its eyes with its wrinkled mottled hands,
and then proceeded to take stock of Mr. Girdlestone and his office with
the critical philosophy of infancy.

"Calm yourself, my good woman, calm yourself," said the senior partner.
He perceived that the evil prophesied by his son had come upon him, and
he made a mental note of this fresh instance of Ezra's powers of
foresight.

"It was hard, so it was," said Mrs. Hudson, drying her eyes, but still
giving vent to an occasional tempestuous sob. "I heard as the _Black
Eagle_ was comin' up the river, so I spent all I had in my pocket in
makin' Jim a nice little supper--ham an' eggs, which was always his
favourite, an' a pint o' bitter, an' a quartern o' whiskey that he could
take hot after, bein' naturally o' a cold turn, and him comin' from a
warm country, too. Then out I goes, and down the river, until I sees
the _Black Eagle_ a-comin' up wi' a tug in front of her. Well I knowed
the two streaks o' white paint, let alone the screechin' o' the parrots
which I could hear from the bank. I could see the heads o' some of the
men peepin' over the side, so I waves my handkercher, and one o' them he
waves back. 'Trust Jim for knowin' his little wife,' says I, proud like
to myself, and I runs round to where I knew as they'd dock her.
What with me being that excited that I couldn't rightly see where I was
going, and what with the crowd, for the men was comin' from work, I
didn't get there till the ship was alongside. Then I jumps aboard, and
the first man I seed was Sandy McPherson, who I knowed when we lived in
Binnacle Lane. 'Where's Jim?' I cried, running forward, eager like, to
the forecastle, but he caught me by the arm as I passed him.
'Steady, lass, steady!' Then I looked up at him, and his face was very
grave, and my knees got kind o' weak. 'Where's Jim?' says I.
'Don't ask,' says he. 'Where is he, Sandy?' I screeches; and then,
'Don't say the word, Sandy, don't you say it.' But, Lor' bless ye, sir,
it didn't much matter what he said nor what he didn't, for I knowed all,
an' down I flops on the deck in a dead faint. The mate, he took me home
in a cab, and when I come to there was the supper lying, sir, and the
beer, and the things a-shinin', and all so cosy, an' the child askin'
where her father was, for I told her he'd bring her some things from
Africa. Then, to think of him a-lyin' dead in Bonny river, why, sir, it
nigh broke my heart."

"A sore affliction," the merchant said, shaking his grizzled head.
"A sad visitation. But these things are sent to try us, Mrs. Hudson.
They are warnings to us not to fix our thoughts too much upon the dross
of this world, but to have higher aims and more durable aspirations.
We are poor short-sighted creatures, the best of us, and often mistake
evil for good. What seems so sad to-day may, if taken in a proper
spirit, be looked back upon as a starting-point from which all the good
of your life has come."

"Bless you, sir!" said the widow, still furtively rubbing her eyes with
the corner of her little shawl. "You're a real kind gentleman. It does
me good to hear you talk."

"We have all our burdens and misfortunes," continued the senior partner.
"Some have more, some have less. To-day is your turn, to-morrow it may
be mine. But let us struggle on to the great goal, and the weight of
our burden need never cause us to sink by the wayside. And now I must
wish you a very good morning, Mrs. Hudson. Believe me, you have my
hearty sympathy."

The woman rose and then stood irresolute for a moment, as though there
was something which she still wished to mention.

"When will I be able to draw Jim's back pay, sir?" she asked nervously.
"I have pawned nigh everything in the house, and the child and me is
weak from want of food."

"Your husband's back pay," the merchant said, taking down a ledger from
the shelf and turning rapidly over the leaves. "I think that you are
under a delusion, Mrs. Hudson. Let me see--Dawson, Duffield, Everard,
Francis, Gregory, Gunter, Hardy. Ah, here it is--Hudson, boatswain of
the _Black Eagle_. The wages which he received amounted, I see, to five
pounds a month. The voyage lasted eight months, but the ship had only
been out two months and a half when your husband died."

"That's true, sir," the widow said, with an anxious look at the long
line of figures in the ledger.

"Of course, the contract ended at his death, so the firm owed him twelve
pounds ten at that date. But I perceive from my books that you have
been drawing half-pay during the whole eight months. You have
accordingly had twenty pounds from the firm, and are therefore in its
debt to the amount of seven pounds ten shillings. We'll say nothing of
that at present," the senior partner concluded with a magnificent air.
"When you are a little better off you can make good the balance, but
really you can hardly expect us to assist you any further at present."

"But, sir, we have nothing," Mrs. Hudson sobbed.

"It is deplorable, most deplorable. But we are not the people to apply
to. Your own good sense will tell you that, now that I have explained
it to you. Good morning. I wish you good fortune, and hope you will
let us know from time to time how you go on. We always take a keen
interest in the families of those who serve us." Mr. Girdlestone opened
the door, and the heart-sick little woman staggered away across the
office, still bearing her heavy child.

When she got into the open air she stared around her like one dazed.
The senior clerk looked anxiously at her as he stood at the open door.
Then he glanced back into the office. Ezra Girdlestone was deep in some
accounts, and his brother clerks were all absorbed in their work. He
stole up to the woman, with an apologetic smile, slipped something into
her hand, and then hurried back into the office with an austere look
upon his face, as if his whole mind were absorbed in the affairs of the
firm. There are speculations above the ken of business men. Perhaps,
Thomas Gilray, that ill-spared half-crown of yours may bring in better
interest than the five-and-twenty pounds of your employer.