Читать книгу The Mysteries of London (Vol. 1-4) - George W. M. Reynolds - Страница 82

Table of Contents

POVERTY once again returned—with all its hideous escort of miseries—to the abode of Monroe and his daughter. The articles of comfort which they had lately collected around them were sent to the pawnbroker: necessaries then followed to the same destination.

Ellen no longer sought for needle-work: she had for some time past led a life which incapacitated her for close application to monotonous toil; and she confidently reposed upon the hope that the old woman would procure her more employment with an artist or a sculptor.

But at the expiration of the ten days, the hag put her off for ten days more; and then again for another ten days. Thus a month passed away in idleness for both father and daughter, neither of whom earned a shilling.

They could no longer retain the lodgings which they had occupied for some time in a respectable neighbourhood; and now behold them returning to the very same cold, miserable, and cheerless rooms which we saw them occupying in the first instance, in the court leading out of Golden Lane!

What ups and downs constitute existence!

Two years had now passed away since we first introduced the reader to that destitute lodging in Golden Lane. We have therefore brought up this portion of our narrative, as well as all the other parts of it, to the close of the year 1838.

Misery, more grinding, more pinching, and more acute than any which they had yet known, now surrounded the father and daughter. They had parted with every thing which would produce the wherewith to purchase food. They lay upon straw at night; and for days and days they had not a spark of fire in the grate. They often went six-and-thirty hours together without tasting a morsel of food. They could not even pay the pittance of rent which was claimed for their two chambers: and if it had not been for their compassionate neighbours they must have starved altogether.

Monroe could obtain no employment in the City. When he had failed, during the time of Richard Markham's imprisonment, he lost all his friends, because they took no account of his misfortunes, and looked only to the fact that he had been compelled to give up business. Had he passed through the Bankruptcy Court, and then opened his counting-house again to commence affairs upon credit, he would have found admirers and supporters. But as he had paid his creditors every farthing, left himself a beggar, and spurned the idea of entering upon business without capital of his own, he had not a friend to whom he could apply for a shilling.

At length the day came when the misery of the father and the daughter arrived at an extreme when it became no longer tolerable. They had fasted for forty-eight hours; and their landlady threatened to turn them out of their empty rooms into the street, unless they paid her the arrears of rent which they owed. They had not an article upon which they could raise the price of a loaf:—it was the depth of a cold and severe winter, and Ellen had already parted with all her under-garments.

"My dear child," said the heart-broken father, embracing his daughter affectionately, on the morning when their misery thus reached its utmost limit, "I have one resource left—a resource to which I should never fly save in an extreme like this!"

"What mean you?" inquired the daughter, anxiously glancing in the pale and haggard countenance of her sire.

"I mean that I will apply to Richard Markham," said the old man. "He does not suspect our appalling state of destitution, or he would seek us out—he would fly to our succour."

"And you will apply to him who has already suffered so much by you?" said the daughter, shaking her head. "Alas! he will refuse you the succour you require!"

"No—no—not he!" ejaculated the old man. "Be of good cheer, Ellen—I shall not be long absent; and on my return thou shalt have food, and fire, and clothes!"

"God grant that it may be so!" cried Ellen, clasping her hands together.

"I have moreover a piece of news relative to that villain Montague to communicate to him," added Monroe; "and for that reason—if for none other—should I have called at his residence to-day. While I was roving about in the City yesterday to endeavour to procure employment, I accidentally learnt that Montague is pursuing his old game, at the West End, under the name of Greenwood."