AMELIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 90

AMELIA.

By Chbis Seweix.

" You come straight 'long 'ome, 'Melia, or I'll fetch you -one" on your ear as ull make you skip." ~ Absolute uncompromising silence. Amelia rubbed an iuadequately-clothed shoulder against the wall, but did not budge. " I'll tell the first p'liceman I meets wot an aggravating little baggage you be, and he'll lock you vp — see if 'c don t." Amelia didn't move an' eyelash. " Only let me get at you an' I'll fair skin you, I will!" The raucous voice of Amelia^ mother rose a key as she bawled this pleasantry across the intervening space. Deeper silence. had .been /metaphorically "skinned ".so many times that the promise carries 1 no particular weight. She looked out of the tail- of her eyes to see if her mother was • likely to give chase, and computed her of escape if this eventually occurred ; but Mrs Hobcroft, shackled to a perambulator, and with aiboy of ~ tend** years clinging to her tsolloping petticoat*/ found it more simple to breathe threatenings and slaughters upon the unrefreshing air than to gather up these same trolloping petticoats and put the threats into execution. Amelia, being by nature an opportunist, seized the excellent cover created 'by an rather tipsy fish- hawker and his upbraiding spou?e, who in passing blocked out the figure of her indignant parent, to cut and run. She was a good runner, with quite an Ata-la .ta-like record at the school she adorned. She did not fetch an easy breath till she had reached the Park, and the' dropping from her desperate scurry tc a trot, she ventured .to look round. No menacing parent clouding the horizon, she hurrud on to the seat upon which he^ — the man who filled her thoughts, and had compelled her wondering attention just before — sat. He might have goie, of course, ir the- interval — it must be quite a quarter of an hour since she and her mother had trailed past him. In that case she would have to endure a slapping for nothing, and Mrs Hobcroft's slappings were of the straight, hard, swishy variety, which redden the skin for hours afterwards, and were not to be lightly courted But Amelia had a purpose in view, and 'for a purpose some spirits . will dare anything. She scanned tne seat anxiously. He had not gone—: he had not even changed his position. He sat as before, gazing into vacancy, and there was that' about bis- face — a, setness, a lined "desdlateness-^which, Amelia, lacking the perspicuity to define, could yet acutely feel. The heart beneath, her tarnished clothes leaped with passionate pity. She determined to act, and act at once. There waa no time to be • lost. A neighbour's child might be dispatched, flying, to smell^her -out; and if the 4ot should fall on Harry Griggs, he employed in emergencies a nasty twisted pinch which was persuasive and hard to resist. She touched the man's Tinee. "You bad?" she asked, gulping a little. , 5 The man started, and made a mental journey of some miles. He left a grave and a neat headstone which bore his own name, and a slender repentant figure laying lilies at its base, and confronted a small nose, bright red tiorn its owner's exertion, dank locks, also red, upon which a once prosperous i pink Puritan bonnet sat uneasily, a purple j plush jacket, and a few wisps of plaid skirt, and he was conscious of a dim, very far-off feeling of inteiest. " You bad?' repeated Amelia, who gained many doubtful ends by importunity. The man was a journalist, and the " copy" instinct only dies with the death ' of the body. He roused himself and brought all his numb powers to bear on a reply. "Yes, little .girl, I've got a pain," be said, and waited with just a shade *n©re interest still to see what Amelia would do with, the information. " ». "Stummick?" inquired Amelia, for she" -was Tesoureeful. - j "No, child. Would to God it were!"! Do rt mak* .you- feel sick, like you want to bring up fings?" . „ „ " No, it makes me feel I want to forget things!" he told her unsmiling, "and togo to deep for ever." "That's p'isen," diagnosed Amelia. In recent convalescence from a broken leg she had seen an opium patient in procebs of treatment, and had inquired ex haustively. ,-. " Ye *»'' ,h«, h « agreed, " bitter poison, little girl— bitter, bitter poison." ' Who give it you ?" asked Amelia to gain time, for beneath the red hair which Hecked her forehead her bra-in was working busily, formulating a plan "A woman," i» eaid. To speak of things which rent him brought to his surprise a species of relief. He waited for her to inquire again, but Amelia, her catechism complete, had no^further use for questions. " You wait here/ she commanded. 11l bring somefing as ull make you better, 6'elp me — you see!" She held up an admonitory and unclean finger. She smiled— the smile showed irregular teeth; but it was reassuring. The sympathy of well-meaning friends would have driven the man at that poignant time to drink or suicide. There were only about three people in the universe who could have melted a Jittle the hard casing which lay about his heart. Amelia, curiously enough, wa*. one of them. Amelia, in her draggled Puritan bonr>et and preposterous plush coat, was a waif of the streets. H« was a waif of fate — tlwie was community in the thought. She* started off. He watched her broken tan boots plod f.t n adily away ; ?nd ridiculous a& he knew it to be, he felt

more alone when she had gone. Extremes are liable to meet . at all times ; they meet so naturally in a crisis, that - somehow one does not realise that they are extremes at all. Amelia knew her bourne, and, she headed for it with tlw darting, unerring, slipshod accuracy of the London-bred child. Her bourne was the enchanted castle where they mend broken legs whilst youplay with a doll's house, and restore poisoned peopf.e. to normal conditions with the aid of chicken and beef-tea. Fortunately it was not far off. She zig-zagged across a road, avoiding annihilation by the skin ol th»: irforementioned irregular teeth — ptengiScE^ d&rm a sid© street, and ,beheld at the endrjofvit the chimneys c" her desire. A slight misgiving as to the pliability of- the. bill. - porter — he had been a little gruff during" Amelia's own sojourn — now oppressed her; but she would plead with him if she couldn't dodge him, and once, -inside j would make her familiar way to the greatf clean clieerful ward where her nurse lady abode. Before her nurse lady she would ' •lay tbe case of the poieoned man on. the Park seat, and all would be well. 'And tlte gode were gracious that day: On the very sit-eps of *he great 'grey building she met the .nurse' 1 lady herself, coming out bonneted and cloaked for her daily airing. "Good gracious me, Amelia!." cried the nurse lady, and, stooping, kissed her.' Amelia had f«w kkses at home, and this kiss induced a lump, which it took a moment to swallow. "Did you want to see anyone, dear?" asked the nurse lady, waiting. "There's" a bloke got p'isened in the Park, miss," explained Amelia, accounting for herself rapidly ; " 'c's in awful pain — worsen etummick-ache — can't someone fetch 'inn in 'ere miss-, like wot . I was fetched in when me leg broke?" The nurse lady took Amelia quite seriously: but a big fire in the city had swamped every available ambulance, and she was a little puzzled, j "Who told you to come, Amelia?" "I told mcself," said Amelia earnestly — "he's crool bad, miss." "Is he far off?" "No-o — yes — a little run like." The nurse lady hesitated an instant. "Now, -look here, Amelia, you take me , and we'll get a cab to bring him back, if he's really as ill as you say." The nurse lady held out her hand. Amelia took it with a sacramental iace. There were golden moments in the drab stretch of life which, made " ill tJiitfgs worth while. ' »-• • • . . • For the *ecbncl time that day ike man .on the seat, feeling a touch on his knee, . looked resentfully up. He .nad forgotten - ■Amelia-, and- w*s -.. again ' in .the £rip of such devils as haunt the hope^forSßken. He looked up, and then he stood' --up.- , And then toe said: "(irace, have* yott d-ons this to torment, me ?" And*>upon these words the nurse lady, • to 'Amelia's extreme concern, turned so horribly white that Amelia began to suspect that poison lurked in the very air of this particular vicinity. "Jasper!" she cried, and her voice might have belonged to anyone or any- | body, so unlike was it to the voice she ' I usually employed — " what, what in the '< name of pity does this mean?" I And then they both walked a little ' away from Amelia, as if they were hot in tits least sure what they were doing or where they meant to go. ; Upon the back of Amelia's head -the Puritan bonnet dangled ; with a red hand Amelia was twisting a button of ° the pl-ush coat — she always twisted buttons when agitated, — but no word spoke j Amelia. These things were too wonderI fwl and complicated' for her — she could S not attain unto them; she 2ould only listen open-mouthed. ' "Does your husband iet you dc .this?" asked the man, breaking ._ the, . silence ., , sharply, and he touched £he cape of the nurse lady's long, blue cloak. ' - "My husband?"- she said. "I have, none. You knew that." Then the mar- "took . three steps back .. and clutched .Amelia's .fhpnlder. . He hadn't -the le»st notion ijhe wa& there, or-what'-be. was -clutching-; but Amelia was.rather flattened. . " ' ' ' * " Elinor told me, I swear it, when I landed yesterday, that yor were married," he stammered. " Elinor never troubled to inquire, 1 ' tne nurse lady answered very proudly ; "perhaps she did not wish to inquire "tor* closely for fear of learning the truth. My niece is married — m\ niece and namesake — Will's child — you "remember ? " "I remember," he breathed, and released Amelia's shoulder. The long, long pause, in which the nurse lady and the poisoned' gentleman i^egarded each other, made Amelia extremely apprehensive. "Ain't you going to get '»s pa&.took -away, miss?" she ventured to ask,^aa»d her voice sounded squeaky andr; unconvincing even In her oivn ears, because- the silence was so very acute. But no one answered her. There were more tremendous affairs afoot now than Amelia could cope with. She had fulfilled her mission — immensely fulfilled it, though lot in the way she desired. Heavily disappointed, she began to cry softly to herself — things were turning out so curiously. She had looked to see her man conveyed to that magic building in a cab. She had set her heart or knowing that he was to be confronted with chicken and soothed -with custard. She liop&d the nurse lady might smooth his pillow. Bnt now Suddenly she turned aw.ay and ram, — like a liare. She ran, • still softly sobbmg, home, to the hard, swishing slaps which awaited her. And those two, who had entered their paradise, through the door unlocked by Amelia'? plebeian little hand, never evia noticed her departure. — M.A.P. • ' ~.