LITTLE FÉ.
Reading edition
So he was left an heir at the age of ten years—heir to all the fortune of his dead aunt, which consisted of two shillings and fourpence, a flower-basket, a pebble with a hole drilled through it, and a dying woman's blessing. "Truly," you will say, "he was rich."
He was small and thin, this little heir, and one poor leg was drawn up three inches higher than the other, which obliged him to walk with those wooden things called crutches. He was called Fé; but his name was of very little use to him, as he could neither read nor write it.
An old woman had promised "to see after him for a bit" at his aunt's death. She lived in a room in the same wretched lodging-house which had sheltered Fé and his aunt for the past six years.
I have not told you yet that my heir did not live in London, but in a large busy town in the south of England.
Fé's temporary guardian, Mrs. Crump, was short and cross, and not very young; her nose was slightly hooked, her eyes were black, and rather sharp. She wore a jet black frizzled wig, which contrasted well with the primrose-tinted skin; her voice showed her bad temper, for it was sharp and harsh, like the creaking of a door.
After having settled and arranged everything, she bade Fé follow her into her black little room, and that was the last he ever saw of his poor little old home, where for ten long grown-up years he had lived, to go to rest weak, hungry, and ill, and to rise more weak, hungry, and miserable still. Yet in that little home there had also lived a thin, worn-out woman, who had never spoken a harsh word to him, but had often tried to stay his tears with her kisses. And Fé knew now—and the knowledge was agony—that he would never rest his eyes upon that sweet mother-face again.
Mrs. Crump earned what she could get by selling flowers in the streets. She thought she could not turn poor Fé to better account than by making him sell them too, so she arranged half her bunches in Fé's basket, and tied it round his neck. Then she took him with her, and while she went round to the houses Fé stood in the principal streets, and offered his flowers to the passers-by.
Old Mrs. Crump soon made the discovery that "the heir" sold many more than she did during the day, but such was her vanity that she could not at first bring herself to believe that people preferred to buy of the pale-faced cripple boy than of her, with her jet black wig and creaking voice. When she found it was really the case, she was very angry. But besides being a very jealous old woman, she was naturally avaricious in the extreme, and she kept all Fé's earnings, and only gave him very scanty food in return.
She did not care to give up "seeing after him for a bit," yet she allowed a strong dislike to grow up against the boy in her own old cross heart.
One day, as Fé stood by the side of the street, with his basket hanging from his neck, and a bit of sunlight shining straight into his eyes, he felt some one touch his arm, and when he turned his head, he saw a young lady leaning towards him. She had long shining hair and blue eyes, there were dimples and bright pink on her cheeks; she slipped sixpence into his hand, whispering something about keeping it quite for himself, and then passed on, walking very quickly.
When Fé looked up to thank her, he saw only the flowing shining hair under a round black hat in the distance. Fé thought about the money for a long time: it was the first gift he had ever received, and he wondered if he might really keep it for himself. He thought how often, when he was so hot and thirsty, he might buy a little milk, and it seemed refreshing only to think of it. Then he remembered that Mrs. Crump took all the pence he earned, and he felt sure that she disliked him very much, and would take away his sixpence the moment she saw it. So at last he twisted it in a leaf out of his basket, and pushed it through a hole into the lining of his cap, for safety.
When he went back with Mrs. Crump in the evening, and she asked him for his earnings, that little sixpence in his cap felt like a stone, seeming to weigh him down to the ground; and when he went to the corner where he slept, he lay down on his little ragged bed, cold and miserable; and though he was tired out, he could not sleep for thinking of his great wickedness in concealing the sixpence.
Then he looked round the room, and thought how much whiter and sweeter his old home was; he remembered, too, how his kind aunt used to kiss him if he cried, and he held up his little pale wet face, almost hoping he should feel that kiss once more; he longed so intensely for a little love, poor little "heir!"
Mrs. Crump's room was, like herself, dirty and ugly: perhaps it may be silly to say so, but I do think that rooms generally resemble their inmates.
The ceiling of this one was brown and peeled, the walls were covered with old newspapers, with here and there a scrap of brown wrapping-paper, making unsightly and hideous patterns; the whole was splashed with dirt and mildew; the floor was rotten at places, and black, and quite slippery with grease and dirt; the window had four panes, two of which were stuffed with rags.
As little Fé's tired eyes wandered round this dirty room, they fell upon the figure of Mrs. Crump sleeping in a bed in the opposite corner of the room. She was breathing heavily, and after Fé had listened for some time to her short snores, he felt so miserable and lonely and wicked, that he formed the brave resolution of arousing her, and confessing to her the history of the sixpence.
It was strange that what Fé would have trembled to confess in the broad daylight he felt strong and brave enough to acknowledge by the light of the pale moon. He crawled up, after a few minutes' thought, and after diving about his ragged bed, he found his cap, and took from the leaf his precious sixpence; then he crept to the side of Mrs. Crump's bed, shivering, but determined. But suddenly he halted, and gave a scream of fright; a band of moonlight fell across the bed, and certainly there lay Mrs. Crump, but her nightcap had slipped off, and her black wig lay on a chair by her bedside. Poor Fé, in his childish ignorance, had never had a doubt about the wig; in fact, he had never understood that people wore such things. When he saw Mrs. Crump without hair, and the moonlight making her still more awful-looking, he was quite overwhelmed with fear.
The old woman rose up hastily at the scream, and she saw only little Fé quite motionless, with a wild, strained look of fright in his eyes. When she made out in a half-asleep way that it was the child she detested who had dared to disturb her, wigless and asleep, her wrath boiled up, and when the same moonbeam showed her the shining silver clasped in the little hand, it fell hissing and spluttering and burning hot on the poor child's head, as he knelt speechless and trembling with fright.
She made up her mind in one instant that it must be some money he had taken for the flowers, and had kept back from her. "You wicked, thievish boy!" she shrieked. "I'll teach you to thieve, and then pry about arter people be a-bed; so good as I've been to ye, too. Ye jest leave my door for good to-night."
And in a fit of passion she rolled out of bed, scolding and shaking poor Fé the while. She pulled him down the three creaking steps and out into the cold wet street—and there, with one more cruel push, she left him, friendless and alone.
With a sob and a gasp he saw her shut the door, but the fright and shaking had been too much for his weakened frame. He seemed for a few moments to feel again all the dreadful pain and anguish he remembered having felt when he was very ill once long ago. His aching, weary little head seemed too heavy for him to bear, and with a moan of pain he fell forward, and lay where he fell insensible.
and sorrowed for the little heir, and for her own unkindness in throwing the beams of her light just across old Mrs. Crump in her bed, and she stooped and kissed the poor boy as he lay on the hard cold stones, and tried in vain to warm him with her silvery light.
Bad old Mrs. Crump slept late on into the next morning, and this was the reason that she knew nothing more of what happened to the poor friendless little heir.
A doctor set out very early next morning to see a poor invalid woman who lived in the same street as little Fé's cruel guardian.
He was a short, plain little man, but his beaming smile hid the ugliness, and made the face tell that he was true and kind and good, and the eyes seemed to think it best to tell their own tale, in case the smile alone might not be trusted, and they glistened and shone, and told of every kindly thought and feeling of which the little man carried a big heart-full.
He was a clever doctor, and this woman he knew was poor. He did not expect payment from her, neither did he from the white-faced, crippled boy lying in the street, with mud on his face and clothes, and clinging to his brown hair. But he lifted him into his carriage tenderly and lovingly, and ordered his servant to drive quickly to the hospital.
As he raised Fé's helpless little form, something fell with a chink on the stones; but he did not wait to see what it was then.
There in the hospital lay little Fé, and he was for many days unconscious, and they whispered that his life must be very short, and that he would never be strong again.
The kind little doctor, who attended him most regularly, was speaking to a young lady one day of the poor little heir. He said, "The boy has consumption, and the cold of the streets added to his weakness, and some sudden shock, has so increased the disease, that I fear his days on earth will be few."
The young lady begged the doctor to take her to see the boy as soon as he was able. And one day, when Fé was better and well enough to sit up in bed, to his great joy he saw once more the pretty face with the pink and dimples, and shining curling hair; and the sight seemed to refresh him, and make him stronger and happier.
Before she went away she told him that he should go away soon, and be made quite well again in some beautiful country place.
This girl with the shining hair spoke in a low sweet voice to the doctor about him; she said, "Move him to my home, doctor; don't let him die in this hot town, where there is no air." And the doctor said, "We will try it, but he cannot last long."
So after a few weeks my little heir was tenderly borne away from this hot, noisy town, where he had lived but to suffer; and on the day he left a poor starving woman found his sixpence on the muddy pavement, and she cried for joy, and prayed over it, and bought with it bread which helped to save the life of her poor half-famished child. So even little Fé's sixpence brought a blessing with it.
And now Fé, who had never heard the song of the birds, or smelt the sweet country air before, was well nursed and cared for at the home of this girl with the shining hair. He faded gradually day by day, but he felt at rest and happy, though his weakness was very great. At last, one day he begged for more air, as he was faint; and they carried him out into a hay-field, and there, with his head pillowed on the hay, with the soft blue sky above him, and the scent of flowers in the air, with the low of cows and hum of bees in the distance, and the sweet scythe music sounding near him, and the touch of the girl's fair soft hand on his brow, my little heir passed away without even a moan, only a little sigh of relief, of happiness, and rest.
Then a grand sweet smile fell upon his face, which there had never been room for during his life.
Over his little grave (the heir's grave) the beautiful girl placed a small grey stone cross, and the only inscription upon it—