True Tilda | Page 9

up, to see a tall man in black standing over her and towering in the doorway.
"What is the meaning of this noise?" demanded the man in black. He was elderly and bald, with small pig-eyes, grey side-whiskers, and for mouth a hard square slit much like that of the collecting-box by the gate. A long pendulous nose came down over it and almost met an upthrust lower jaw. He wore a clerical suit, with a dingy white neck-tie; the skin about his throat hung in deep folds, and the folds were filled with an unpleasing grey stubble.
"If--if you please, sir, I was comin' with a message, an' he started after a cat. I can't break 'im of it."
"Turn him out," said the man in black. He walked to the gate and held it open while Tilda ejected Godolphus into the street. "I never allow dogs on my premises."
"No, sir."
"Now tell me your message."
"It's about a--a boy, sir," stammered Tilda, and felt a horrible fear creeping over her now that she approached the crisis. "That is, if you're the Reverend Doctor Glasson."
"I am Doctor Glasson. Well?"
"It's about a boy," harked back poor Tilda. "He's called Arthur Miles Surname Chandon--an' he was born at a place called Kingsand, if that's any 'elp--an' there's somebody wants to see 'im most particular."
"Come indoors."
Doctor Glasson said it sharply, at the same time turning right about and leading the way towards the house. Tilda followed, while behind her the excluded 'Dolph yapped and flung himself against the gate. But the gate was lined on the inside with wire-netting, and the garden wall was neither to be leapt nor scaled.
In the porch Dr. Glasson stood aside to let the servant precede them into the house, looked after her until she vanished down the length of a dark passage that smelt potently of soapsuds and cabbage-water, and motioned the child to step within. She obeyed, while her terror and the odours of the house together caught her by the throat. But worse was her dismay when, having closed the front door, the Doctor bolted it and slipped a chain on the bolt.
"The first door to the left, if you please." He stepped past her and pushed it open, and she entered, albeit with quaking knees. The room--a large and high one--was furnished barely and like an office--with a red flock wall-paper, a brown linoleum on the floor, and in the centre of the linoleum a bulky roll-top desk and a Windsor chair. Other Windsor chairs stood in array against the walls, and a couple of rosewood bookcases with glass fronts. There was also by the fireplace an armchair covered with American leather, a rag-work hearth-rug, and a large waste-paper basket stuffed with envelopes and circulars. Over the mantelshelf hung a print in an Oxford frame, with the title Suffer Little Children to Come unto Me, and a large stain of damp in the lower left-hand corner. The mantelshelf itself supported a clock, a pair of bronze candlesticks, a movable calendar, a bottle of paste, and a wooden box with For the Little Ones painted on it in black letters.
All this the child took in almost at a glance, and notwithstanding that the room was dark. Yet it had two large windows, and they were curtainless. Its gloom came of the thick coating of dirt on their upper panes, and a couple of wire blinds that cut off all light below.
Doctor Glasson had walked straight to his desk, and stood for a few moments with his back to the child, fingering his papers and apparently engaged in thought. By-and-by he picked up a pair of spectacles, turned, and adjusted them slowly whilst he stared down on her.
"Where did you get this information?"
Tilda's first impulse was to show him her scrap of paper, but she thought better of it. She would keep it back while she could, as a possible trump card. Besides, she feared and distrusted this man with the little eyes. Seen through glasses they were worse than ever.
"He's wanted by someone very particular," she repeated.
"By whom? Speak up, child! Who sent you?"
Heaven knows to what invisible spirits the child appealed. They were certainly disreputable ones, as will be seen; but they heard her prayer, and came to her now in her extremity. Hardly knowing what she did, she opened on this man a pair of eyes seraphically innocent, and asked--
"W'y, haven't you seen my aunt?"
"Your aunt?"
"She promised to call here at twelve-thirty, an' I was to meet her. But"--here Tilda had to keep a tight hold on her voice--"per'aps I'm early?"
"It's close upon one o'clock," said Doctor Glasson, with a glance towards the mantelshelf. "What is your aunt's name, and her business?"
"She's called Brown--Martha Brown--Mrs. Martha Brown, and she keeps a milliner's shop in the Edgeware Road,