MR. DINGWELL ARRIVES.
MESSRS. GOLDSHED and _Levi_ owned four houses in Rosemary Court, and
Miss Sarah Rumble was their tenant. The court is dark, ancient, and
grimy. Miss Rumble let lodgings, worked hard, led an anxious life, and
subsisted on a remarkably light diet, and at the end of the year never
had a shilling over. Her Jewish landlords used to pay her a visit now
and then, to receive the rent, and see that everything was right. These
visits she dreaded; they were grumbling and minatory, and enlivened by
occasional oaths and curses. But though it was part of their system to
keep their tenants on the alert by perpetual fault-findings and menaces,
they knew very well that they got every shilling the house brought in,
that Miss Rumble lived on next to nothing, and never saved a shilling,
and was, in fact, _their_ underfed, overworked, and indefatigable
slave.
With the uncomplaining and modest charity of the poor, Sarah Rumble
maintained her little orphan niece and nephew by extra labour at
needle-work, and wonderful feats of domestic economy.
This waste of resources Mr. Levi grudged. He had never done complaining
of it, and demonstrating that it could only be accomplished by her
holding the house at too low a rent; how else could it be? Why was she
to keep other people's brats at the expense of Messrs. Goldshed and
Levi? What was the workhouse for? This perpetual pressure was a sore
trouble to the poor woman, who had come to love the children as if they
were her own; and after one of Mr. Levi's minatory visits she often lay
awake sobbing, in the terror and yearnings of her unspeakable affection,
whilst its unconscious objects lay fast asleep by her side.
From Mr. Levi, in his accustomed vein, Miss Rumble had received full
instructions for the reception and entertainment of her new lodger, Mr.
Dingwell. He could not say when he would arrive, neither the day nor the
hour; and several days had already elapsed, and no arrival had taken
place. This evening she had gone down to "the shop," so designated, as
if there had been but one in London, to lay out a shilling and seven
pence very carefully, leaving her little niece and nephew in charge of
the candle and the house, and spelling out their catechism for next day.
A tapping came to the door; not timid, nor yet menacing; a sort of
double knock, delivered with a walking-cane; on the whole a sharp but
gentlemanlike summons, to which the little company assembled there were
unused. The children lifted their eyes from the book before them, and
stared at the door without answering. It opened with a latch, which,
without more ado, was raised, and a tall, white-haired gentleman, with a
stoop, and a very brown skin, looked in inquisitively, and said, with a
smile that was not pleasant, and a voice not loud but somewhat harsh and
cold--
"Mrs. or _Miss_ Rumble hereabouts, my dears?"
"Miss Rumble; that's aunt, please, sir;" answered the little girl,
slipping down from her chair, and making a courtesy.
"Well, _she's_ the lady I want to speak with, my love. Where _is_ she?"
said the gentleman, glancing round the homely chamber from under his
white eyebrows with a pair of cold, gray, restless eyes.
"She's--she's"----hesitated the child.
"Not in bed, I see; nor in the cupboard" (the cupboard door was open).
"Is she up the chimney, my charming child?"
"No, sir, please; she's gone to Mrs. Chalk's for the bacon."
"Mrs. Chalk's for the bacon?" echoed the gentleman. "Very good!
Excellent woman! excellent bacon, I dare say. But how far away is
it?--how soon shall we have your aunt back again?"
"Just round the corner, please, sir; aunt's never no time," answered the
child. "Would you please call in again?"
"Charming young lady! So accomplished! Who taught you your grammar? So
polite--so _suspicious_. Do you know the meaning of that word, my dear?"
"No, sir, please."
"And I'm vastly obliged for your invitation to call again; but I find
your company much too agreeable to think of going away; so, if you allow
me--and do shut that door, my sweet child; many thanks--I'll do myself
the honour to sit down, if I may venture, and continue to enjoy your
agreeable conversation, till your aunt returns to favour us with her
charming presence--and bacon."
The old gentleman was glancing from under his brows, from corner to
corner of this homely chamber; an uneasy habit, not curiosity; and,
during his ceremonious speech, he kept bowing and smiling, and set down
a black leather bag that he had in his hand, on the deal table, together
with his walking-cane, and pulled off his gloves, and warmed his hands
at the tiny bit of fire. When his back was toward them the children
exchanged a glance, and the little boy looked frightened, and on the
point of bursting into tears.
"_Hish!_" whispered the girl, alarmed, for she could not tell what
effect the demonstration might have upon the stranger--"_quiet!_"--and
she shook her finger in urgent warning at Jemmie. "A _very_ nice gent,
as has money for aunty--_there_!"
So the tears that stood in Jemmie's big eyes were not followed by an
outcry, and the gentleman, with his hat and outside wrapper on, stood,
now, with his back to the little fire, looking, in his restless way,
over the children's heads, with his white, cold eyes, and the same
smile. There was a dreamy idea haunting Lucy Maria's head that this
gentleman was very like a white animal she had seen at the Surrey
Zoological Gardens when her uncle had treated her to that instructive
show; the same sort of cruel grin, and the same restless oscillation
before the bars of its cage.
"Hey! so she'll be back again?" said he, recollecting the presence of
the two children; "the excellent lady, your aunt, I mean. Superb
apartment this is, but it strikes me, hardly sufficiently _lighted_,
hey? _One_ halfpenny candle, however brilliant, can hardly do justice to
such a room; pretty taper--very pretty--isn't it? Such nice mutton fat,
my dear young lady, and such a fine long snuff--like a chimney, with a
Quaker's hat on the top of it--you don't see such fine things
everywhere! And who's this young gentleman, who enjoys the distinction
of being admitted to your salon; a page, or what?"
"It's Jemmie, sir; stand up, and bow to the gentleman, Jemmie."
Jemmie slipped down on the floor, and made a very alarmed bow, with his
great eyes staring deprecatingly in the visitor's face.
"I'm charmed to make your acquaintance. What grace and ease! It's
perfectly charming! I'm too much honoured, Mr. Jemmie. And so
exquisitely got up, too! There's only one little toilet refinement I
would venture to recommend. The worthy lady, Mrs. Chalks, who
contributes bacon to this house, and, I presume, candles--could, I dare
say, also supply another luxury, with which you are not so well
acquainted, called _soap_--one of the few perfectly safe cosmetics. Pray
try it; you'll find it soluble in water. And, ho? reading too! What have
you been reading out of that exquisite little volume?"
"Catechism, please sir," answered the little girl.
"Ho, Catechism? Delightful! What a wonderful people we English are!" The
latter reflection was made for his own entertainment, and he laughed
over it in an undertone. "Then your aunt teaches you the art of
godliness? You've read about Babel, didn't you?--the accomplishment of
getting up to heaven is so nice!"
"Sunday school, sir, please," said the girl.
"Oh, it's _there_ you learn it? Well, I shall ask you only one question
in your Catechism, and that's the first--what's your name?"
"Lucy Maria."
"Well, Lucy Maria and Mr. Jemmie, I trust your theological studies may
render you at last as pious as I am. You know how death and sin came
into the world, and you know what they are. Sin is doing anything on
earth that's pleasant, and death's the penalty of it. Did you ever see
any one dead, my sweet child--not able to raise a finger or an eyelid?
rather a fix, isn't it?--and screwed up in a stenching box to be eaten
by worms--all alone, under ground? _You_'ll be so, egad, and your
friend, Jemmie, there, perhaps before me--though I'm an old boy.
Younkers go off sometimes by the score. I've seen 'em trundled out in
fever and plague, egad, lying in rows, like plucked chickens in a
poulterer's shop. And they say you have scarlatina all about you _here_,
now; bad complaint, you know, that kills the little children. You need
not frighten yourselves though, because it _must_ happen, sooner or
later--die you _must_. It's the penalty, you know, because Eve once eat
an apple."
"Yes, sir."
"Rather hard lines on us, isn't it? She eat an apple, and sin, and
death, and colic--I never eat an apple in consequence--_colic_ came into
the world, and cider, as a consequence--the worst drink ever invented by
the devil. And now go on and learn your Church Catechism thoroughly, and
you'll both turn into angels. Upon my life, I think I see the feathers
beginning to sprout from your shoulders already. You'll have wings, you
know, if all goes right, and tails for anything I know."
The little boy looked in his face perplexed and frightened--the little
girl, answering his haggard grin with an attempted smile, showed also
bewilderment and dismay in her eyes. They were both longing for the
return of their aunt.
Childish nature, which is only human nature without its scarf skin, is
always afraid of irony. It is not its power, but its treachery that is
dreadful--the guise of friendship hiding a baleful purpose underneath.
One might fancy the seasoned denizens of Gehenna welcoming,
complimenting, and instructing new comers with these profound derisions.
How children delight in humour! how they wince and quail under irony! Be
it ever so rudely fashioned and clumsily handled, still it is to them a
terrible weapon. If children are to be either ridiculed or rebuked, let
it be honestly, in direct terms. We should not scare them with this
jocularity of devils.
Having thus amused himself with the children for a time, he unlocked his
leather bag, took out two or three papers, ordered the little girl to
snuff the candle, and pulled it across the table to the corner next
himself, and, sitting close by, tried to read, holding the letter almost
in the flame, screwing his white eyebrows together, and shifting his
position, and that of the candle also, with very little regard to the
studious convenience of the children.
He gave it up. The red and smoky light tried his eyes too severely. So,
not well pleased, he locked his letters up again.
"Cat's eyes--owls! How the devil they read by it passes my
comprehension. Any more candles here--hey?" he demanded with a sudden
sharpness that made the children start.
"Three, please sir."
"Get 'em."
"On the nail in the closet, please sir."
"Get 'em, d--n it!"
"Closet's locked, please sir. Aunt has the key."
"Ha!" he snarled, and looked at the children as if he would like to pick
a quarrel with them.
"Does your aunt allow you to let the fire out on nights like this--hey?
You're a charming young lady, _you_--and this young gentleman, in
manners and appearance, everything the proudest aunt could desire; but
I'm curious to know whether either one or the other is of the slightest
earthly use; and secondly, whether she keeps a birch-rod in that
closet--hey?--and now and then _flogs_ you--ha, ha, ha! The expense of
the rod is trifling, the pain not worth mentioning, and soon over, but
the moral effects are admirable, better and more durable--take my word
for it--than all the catechisms in Paternoster Row."
The old gentleman seemed much tickled by his own pleasantries, and
laughed viciously as he eyed the children.
"You did not tell me a fib, I hope, my dear, about your aunt? She's a
long time about coming; and, I say, do put a little coal on the fire,
will you?"
"Coal's locked up, please sir," said the child, who was growing more
afraid of him every minute.
"'Gad, it seems to me that worthy woman's afraid you'll carry off the
bricks and plaster. Where's the poker? Chained to the wall, I suppose.
Well, there's a complaint called kleptomania--it comes with a sort of
irritation at the tips of the fingers, and I should not be surprised if
you and your friend Jemmie, there, had got it."
Jemmie looked at his fingers' ends, and up in the gentleman's face, in
anxious amazement.
"But there's a cure for it--essence of cane--and if that won't do, a
capital charm--nine tails of a gray cat, applied under competent
direction. Your aunt seems to understand that disorder--it begins with
an itching in the fingers, and ends with a pain in the back--ha, ha, ha!
You're a pair of theologians, and, if you've read John Bunyan, no doubt
understand and enjoy an allegory."
"Yes, sir, please, we will," answered poor Lucy Maria, in her
perplexity.
"And we'll be very good friends, Miss Maria Louise, or whatever your
name is, I've no doubt, provided you play me no tricks and do precisely
whatever I bid you; and, upon my soul, if you don't, Til take the devil
out of my pocket and frighten you out of your wits, I will--ha, ha,
ha!--so sure as you live, into _fits_!"
And the old gentleman, with an ugly smile on his thin lips, and a frown
between his white eyebrows, fixed his glittering gaze on the child and
wagged his head.
You may be sure she was relieved when, at that moment, she heard her
aunt's well-known step on the lobby, and the latch clicked, the door
opened, and Miss Rumble entered.