Shortly after her eighth birthday Jenny was puzzled by an incident
which, with its uneasy suggestions, led her to postulate to herself for
the first time that mere escape from childhood did not finally solve the
problem of existence.
She had long been aware of the incomplete affection between her parents;
that is to say, she always regarded her father as something that seemed
like herself or a chair to be perpetually in her mother's way.
She had no feeling of awe towards Mr. Charles Raeburn, but rather looked
upon him as a more extensive counterpart of Alfie, both prone to many
deeds of mischief. She had no conception of her father as a
bread-winner; her mother was so plainly the head of the house.
In the early morning her father vanished to work and only came back just
before bedtime to eat a large tea, like Alfie, in the course of which he
was reprimanded and pushed about and ordered, like Alfie, to behave
himself. To be sure, he had liberty of egress at a later hour, for once,
when in the midst of nightly fears she had rushed in the last breath of
a dream along the landing to her mother's room, she saw him coming
rosily up the stairs. He made no attempts to justify his late arrival
with tales of goblin accidents as Alfie was wont to do. He did not
ascribe the cracked egg appearance of his bowler hat to the onset of a
baker's barrow. He seemed so far indifferent to the unfinished look of
his clothes as not to bother to lay the blame on the butcher's boy. Her
mother merely said:
"Oh, it's you?"
To which Mr. Raeburn replied: "Yes, Flo, it's me," and began to sing
"Ta-ra-ra--boom--de--ay."
Even Ruby O'Connor, who, in earlier days at Hagworth Street, used to
quell Alfie with terrible threats of a father's vengeance, gave them up
as ineffective; for the bland and cheerful Charlie, losing the while not
a morsel of blandness or cheerfulness, was fast becoming an object of
contemptuous toleration in his own house. He was a weak and unsuccessful
man, fond of half-pints and tales of his own prowess, with little to
recommend him to his family except an undeniable gift of humorous
description. Yet, even with this, he possessed no imagination. He was
accustomed to treat the world as he would have treated a spaniel. "Poor
old world," he would say in pitying intention; "poor old world." He
would pat the universe on its august head as a pedagogue slaps a
miniature globe in the schoolroom. He never expected anything from the
world, which was just as well, for he certainly never received very
much. To his wife's occasional inquiry of amazed indignation, "Why ever
did I come to marry you?" he would answer:
"I don't know, Floss. Because you wanted to, I reckon."
"I never wanted to," she would protest.
"Well, you didn't," he would say. "Some people acts funny."
"That's quite right."
Hers was the last word: his, however, the pint of four ale that drowned
it.
Jenny at this stage in her life was naturally incapable of grasping the
fact of her mother throwing herself away in matrimony; but she was able
to ponder the queer result that, however much her mother might be
annoyed by Charlie, she did not seem able to get rid of him.
Alfie, with his noise and clumping boots, was an equally unpleasant
appendage to her life, but for Alfie she was responsible. In whatever
way children came about, it was not to be supposed they happened
involuntarily like bedtime or showers of rain. Moreover, mystery hung
heavy over their arrival. Edie and Alfie would giggle in corners, look
at each other with oddly lighted eyes, and blush when certain subjects
arose in conversation. Human agency was implied, and all that talk of
strawberry-beds and cabbage leaves so much trickery. Alfie, bad habits
and all, was due to her father and mother being married.
But why be married when Alfies were the result? Why not close the door
against her father and be rid of him? And take somebody else in
exchange? Who was there? Nobody.
One foggy afternoon early in January, Jenny came back from school to the
smell of a good cigar. She did not know it was a good cigar, but the
perfume hung about the dark hall of Number Seventeen with a strange
richness never associated in her mind with the smell of her father's
smoke. She was conscious, too, from the carefully closed doors both of
the parlor and the kitchen, that company was present. The voice of a
polite conscience warned her not to bang about, not to shout "Is tea
ready, mother?" but rather to tread discreetly the little distance to
the kitchen and there to await developments. If Alfie and Edie were
already arrived by a punctual chance, she would learn from them the
manner and kind of the company hid in the parlor.
The kitchen was empty. No tea was laid. Over her stole an extraordinary
sensation of misgiving. She felt as if she were standing at the foot of
a ladder watching Alfie about some mischievous business.
Presently Ruby returned from the scullery, like a sudden draught.
"However did you get in so quiet?" asked the newcomer. Then Jenny
remembered the street door had been open.
"Who's in along of mother?"
"That's right. Be nosey."
"Tell us, Rube."
"I can't tell what I don't know."
"But you do know," persisted Jenny; "so tell us."
"D'you think we all wants to poke in where we isn't wanted, like you,
Miss Meddlesome? How should I know?"
"Well, I told you yesterday what teacher called Edie, so tell us, Rube;
you might tell us."
"There isn't nothing to tell, you great inquisitive monkey," Ruby
declared.
Then there was a sound in the hall of a man's voice, a rich voice that
suited somehow the odor of the cigar. Jenny longed to peep round the
kitchen door at the visitor, but she was afraid that Ruby would carry on
about it. A moment or two's conversation, and the street door slammed,
and when her mother came back from the kitchen, Jenny was afraid to ask
bluntly:
"Who was that?"
Instead she announced:
"We did sewing this afternoon. Teacher said I sewed well."
"You sew on with your tea," said Mrs. Raeburn. "And wherever can Edie
and Alfie have got to?"
A week or two afterwards Jenny returned to the same smell of cigar, the
same impression of a rich and unusual visitor, but this time the parlor
door gaped to a dark and cold interior, and when Jenny followed Ruby
into the kitchen, he was there, a large florid man, with a big cigar and
heavy mustache and a fur coat open to a snowy collar and shining
tie-pin.
"And this is Jenny, is it?" he said in the cigar voice.
Jenny kissed him much as she would have kissed the walrus he slightly
resembled; then she retreated, finger in mouth, backwards until she
bumped against the table by which she leaned to look at the stranger,
much as she would have looked at a walrus.
Her father came in after a while, and his wife said:
"Mr. Timpany."
"Eh?" said Charlie.
"Mr. Timpany, a friend of father's."
"Oh," said Charlie. "Pleased to meet you," with which he retired to a
chair in a dusky corner and was silent for a long time. At last he
asked:
"Have you been to Paris, Mr.... Tippery? Thrippenny, I should say."
"Timpany, Charlie. I wish you'd listen. Have you got cloth ears? Of
course he's been to Paris, and, for gracious, don't you start your
stories. One would think to hear you talk as you were the only man on
earth as had ever been further than Islington."
"I was in Paris once some years back--on business," Charlie remarked. "I
think Paris is a knockout, as towns go. Not but what I like London
better. Only you see more life in Paris," and he relapsed into silence,
until finally Mr. Timpany said he must be going.
"Who's he?" demanded Mr. Raeburn, when his wife came back from escorting
her visitor to the door.
"I told you once--a friend of father's."
"Ikey sort of a bloke. He hasn't made a mistake coming here, has he? I
thought it was the Duke of Devonshire when I see him sitting there."
"You are an ignorant man," declared Mrs. Raeburn. "Don't you know a
gentleman when you see one? Even if you have lost your own shop and got
to go to work every morning like a common navvy, you can tell a
gentleman still."
"Are you bringing in any more dukes or markisses home to tea?" asked
Charlie. "Because let me know next time and I'll put on a clean pair of
socks."
Mrs. Raeburn did not bring any more dukes or marquises home to tea; but
Mr. Timpany came very often, and Charlie took to returning from work
very punctually, and, though he was always very polite to Mr. Timpany
when he was there, he was very rude indeed about him when he was gone,
and Jenny used to think how funny it was to wait for Mr. Timpany's
departure before he began to make a fuss.
Vaguely she felt her father was afraid to say much. She could understand
his fear, because Mr. Timpany was very large and strong, so large and
strong that even her mother spoke gently and always seemed anxious to
please him. And looking at the pair side by side, her father appeared
quite small--her father whom she had long regarded as largeness
personified.
One day Jenny came home late from school and found her parents in the
middle of a furious argument.
"I ar'n't going to have him here," Charlie was saying, "not no more, not
again, the dirty hound!"
"You dare say that, you vulgar beast."
"I shall say just whatever I please. You're struck on him, that's what
you are, you soft idiot."
"I'm no such thing," declared Mrs. Raeburn. "Nice thing that a friend of
father's can't come and have a cup of tea without your carrying on like
a mad thing."
"Not so much 'cup of tea,' Mrs. Raeburn. It's not the tea I minds. It's
while the kettle's boiling as I objects to."
"You're drunk," said the wife scornfully.
"And it's ---- lucky I am drunk. You're enough to make a fellow drunk
with your la-di-da behavior. Why, God help me, Florrie, you've been
powdering your face. Let me get hold of the----. I'll learn him to come
mucking round another man's wife."
On the very next day Mr. Timpany came to tea for the last time. Possibly
Mrs. Raeburn had told her husband it was to be the last time, for he did
not put in an appearance. Ruby had gone out by permission. May was
secured by a fortified nursing-chair. Alfie was away on some twilight
adventure of bells and string. Edie was immerged in a neighboring
basement with two friends, a plate of jam, and the cordial teasing of
the friends' brother, young Bert; and Jenny, urged on by a passionate
inquisitiveness, crept along the passage and listened to the following
conversation:
"You're wasted here, Flo, wasted--a fine woman like you is absolutely
wasted. Why won't you come away with me? Come away to-night, I'll always
be good to you."
"The children," said their mother.
"They'll get on all right by themselves. Bring the little one--what's
her name, with fair hair and dark eyes?"
"Jenny."
"Yes, Jenny. Bring her with you. I don't mind."
"It wouldn't be fair to her. She'd never have a chance."
"Rubbish! She'd have more chance in a cosy little house of your own than
stuck in this rat's hole. You'd have a slap-up time, Flo. A nice little
Ralli cart, if you're fond of horses, and--oh, come along, come now. I
want you."
"No; I've fixed myself up. I was done with life when I married Charlie,
and I'm fixed up."
"You're in a cage here," he argued.
"Yes; but I've got my nest in it," she said.
"Then it's good-bye?"
"Good-bye."
"I'm damned if I can understand why you won't come. I'd be jolly good to
you."
"Good-bye."
"You're a cold woman, aren't you?"
"Am I?"
"I think you are."
"It doesn't always do to show one's feelings."
"You're a regular icicle."
"Perhaps," whispered Mrs. Raeburn.
Jenny stole back to the kitchen greatly puzzled. Whether the florid Mr.
Timpany kissed Mrs. Raeburn before he went out to look for the hansom
cab that was to jingle him out of her life, I do not know; but she waved
to him once as she saw him look round under a lamp post, for Jenny had
crept back and was standing beside her when she did so.
"You come on in, you naughty girl," said Mrs. Raeburn, drowning love in
a copper bubbling with clothes.
"Would you like that man better than father?" Jenny inquired presently,
pausing in the erection of a tower of bricks for the benefit of May, who
watched with somber eyes the quivering feat of architecture.
"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Raeburn sharply.
"Would you like father to go away and never, never come back here along
of us ever again and always have that man?"
"Of course, I shouldn't, you silly child."
"I would."
"You would?"
"Yes," said Jenny; "he smelt nice."
"Ah, miss, when one's married, one's married."
"Could I be married?"
"When you grow up. Of course."
"Could I have little boys and girls?"
"Of course you could if you were married."
"Could I have lots and lots?"
"More than you bargain for, I daresay," declared her mother.
"Did you marry to have a little girl like me?"
"Perhaps."
Encouraged by her mother's unusual amenity to questions, Jenny went on:
"Did you really, though?"
"For that and other reasons."
"Were you glad when you saw me first?"
"Very glad."
"Did I come in by the door?"
"Yes."
"Who brought me?"
"The doctor."
"Did he ring the bell?"
"Yes."
"Did father know I was coming?"
"Yes."
"Was I a present from father?"
"Yes."
"Would you like that gentleman to give you a present?"
"What do you mean?"
"Would you like him to give you a li'l' girl like me?"
"Not at all; and you stop asking questions, Mrs. Chatter."
Her mother was suddenly aware of Jenny's cross-examinations, which she
had been answering mechanically with thoughts far away with a florid man
in a jingling hansom cab. Jenny was conscious of her dreaming and knew
in her sly baby heart that her mother was in a weak mood. But it was too
good to last long enough for Jenny to find out all she wanted to know.
"Why don't you send father away and have that gentleman as a lodger?"
"I told you once; don't keep on."
"But why don't you?"
"Because I don't want to."
In bed that night Jenny lay awake and tried to understand the
conversation in the parlor. At present her intelligence could only grasp
effect. Analysis had not yet entered her mind.
She saw, in pictures on the ceiling, her mother and the rich strange
gentleman. She saw her father watching. She saw them all three as
primitive folks see tragedies, dimly aware of great events, but
powerless to extract any logical sequence. Lying awake, she planned
pleasant surprises, planned to bring back Mr. Timpany and banish her
father. It was like the dreams of Christmas time, when one lay awake and
thought of presents. She remembered how pleased her mother had professed
herself by the gift of a thimble achieved on Jenny's side by a great
parsimony in sweets. The gentleman had offered a cosy house. At once she
visualized it with lights in every window and the delicious smell that
is wafted up from the gratings of bakers' shops. But what was a Ralli
cart? Something to do with riding? And Jenny was to come, too, and share
in all this. He had said so distinctly. If he gave mother a house, why
should he not give her a doll's house such as Edie boasted of in the
house of a friend, such as Edie had promised to show her some day. She
began to feel a budding resentment against her mother for saying "No" to
all these delights, a resentment comparable with her emotions not so
long ago when her mother refused to let her go for a ride on an omnibus
with Mr. Vergoe.
Good things came along very seldom, and when they did come, grown-up
people always spoiled them. Life, as Jenny lay awake, seemed made up of
small repressions. Life was a series of hopes held out and baffled
desires, of unjust disappointments and aspirations unreasonably
neglected. She lay there, a mite in flowing time, sensible only of
having no free will.
Why couldn't she grow up all of a sudden and do as she liked? But then
grown-up people, whom she always regarded as entirely at liberty, did
not seem to be able to do as they liked. Her mother had said, "No, thank
you," to a cosy house, just as she was taught to say, "No, thank you,"
to old gentlemen who offered her pennies to turn somersaults over
railings--surely a harmless way of getting money. But her mother had not
wanted to say "No, thank you." That Jenny recognized as a fact,
although, if she had been asked why, she would have had nothing
approaching a reason.
"I will do as I like," Jenny vowed to herself. "I will, I will. I won't
be told." Here she bit the sheet in rage at her powerlessness. Desire
for action was stirring strongly in her now. "Why can't I grow up all at
once? Why must I be a little girl? Why can't I be like a kitten?"
Kittens had become cats within Jenny's experience.
"I will be disobedient. I will be disobedient. I won't be stopped."
Suddenly a curious sensation seized her of not being there at all. She
bit the bedclothes again. Then she sat up in bed and looked at her
petticoats hanging over the chair. She was there, after all, and she
fell asleep with wilful ambitions dancing lightly through the gay
simplicities of her child's brain, and, as she lay there with tightly
closed, determined lips, her mother with shaded candle looked down at
her and wondered whether, after all, she and Jenny would not have been
better off under the rich-voiced, cigar-haunted protection of Mr.
Timpany.
And then Mrs. Raeburn went to bed and fell asleep to the snoring of
Charlie, just as truly unsatisfied as most of the women in this world.
Only Charlie was all right. He had spent a royal evening in bragging to
a circle of pipe-armed friends of his firmness and virility at a moment
of conjugal stress.
And outside the cold January stars were reflected in the puddles of
Hagworth Street.