Carnaby Street, Golden Square, where the private doors have their jambs
ornamented with series of bell-pulls like the stops of an organ, and the
knockers seem intended to form handles that shall lift up and display
rows of keys; but generally speaking, the doors stand open, and the
sills bear a row of as many children as can squeeze themselves in. The
population is dense and the odours are many, but the prevailing smell is
that described by a celebrated character as of warm flat-irons, the ear
corroborating nose and palate, for an occasional chink hints that the
iron--not a flat one--has been placed upon its stand, while the heavy
dull thump, thump, tells that some garment is being pressed. For this
is one of the strongholds of the London tailors, and the chances are
that the cloth cut upon the counter of Poole has been built into shape
in Carnaby Street.
It was in the first floor back, and in two small rooms, that Tim
Ruggles--always Tim, though christened Timothy--a steady-going, hard--
working, Dutch clock kind of man, carried on the trade popular in the
district, with his family of a wife and a little girl. He considered
the two rooms ample--the larger serving for parlour, kitchen, workshop,
and bedroom for little Pine, the other being devoted exclusively to
sleeping purposes.
But you might have entered Tim's room a score of times without detecting
little Pine's bed, which was an ingeniously contrived affair like a
cupboard, that doubled up and doubled down, and creaked and groaned and
sprawled about when in use, and had a bad habit of bursting open its
doors when closed, and coming down when least expected in the shape of a
bedding avalanche. But these accidents only occurred when Mrs Ruggles
had ventured upon the doubling up of that piece of furniture, for Tim
was the only person who thoroughly understood its idiosyncrasies, and
possessed the skill and ingenuity to master its obtrusiveness. In
effect, the first thing to be done was to make the bed, which Tim did
regularly; then when all was well tucked in, to double back clothes and
mattress, and with one rapid acrobatic evolution, performed in all its
intricacies without a moment's hesitation, to kick its legs from beneath
it as you seized it at the foot, force your knee vigorously into its
stomach, and then, as it folded, to drive all before you back into a
state of collapse, banging to and bolting the doors in its face before
it had time to recover; for if you were not rapid in your motions, down
you went with the recoil, to be pinned to the floor by an incubus of
wood and sacking. But, manage the matter as did Tim Ruggles, taking
care that no corners of sheet, blanket, or quilt stood out between
cracks, and to all appearance that bed might have been a secretary.
Tim was not a large man, either in person or ways; in fact, cross-legged
upon his board, he often seemed half lost in the garment he was making.
Dry he was, and shrunken, as if overbaked--a waster, in fact, from
Nature's pottery. The effect of the shrinking was most visible in his
face, whose skin seemed not to fit, but fell into pucker, crease, and
fold, above which shone, clear, white, and firm, his bald forehead and
crown, fringing which, and standing out on either side, was a quantity
of grizzled, frizzly, tufty hair, imparting a fierce look that was
perfectly unreal.
Tim had just fetched his hot iron from the fire, and gone back to press
off the garment he was completing; he had run his finger along the bars
of a canary cage, and had it pecked by the bird within; gazed at the
eternal prospect of back windows, cisterns, and drying clothes; sighed,
wiped his nose upon a piece of cloth kept for the purpose, and then sat,
sleeve-board in one hand, sponge in the other, the image of despair, as
smothered cries, the pattering of blows, and half-heard appeals, as of
one who dared not cry out, fell upon his ear.
As Tim Ruggles sat over his work with a shudder running through his
frame, there rang out, at last, in thrilling tones--
"Oh! oh! oh! please not this time--not this time. Oh! don't beat me."
Now louder, now half smothered, till Tim twisted, and shuffled, and
writhed as if the blows so plainly to be heard were falling upon his own
shoulders; each stroke making him wince more sharply, while his face
grew so puckered and lined as to be hardly recognisable.
"I can't stand it," he groaned at last; and then he gave a start, for he
had inadvertently placed his hand upon his hot iron.
Then came again the anguished appeal for pardon, accompanied by cry
after cry that seemed to have burst forth in spite of the utterer's
efforts to crush them down, till Tim, as he listened to the wailing
voice, the whistling of stick or cane, and the dull thud of falling
blows, seemed to shrink into himself as he turned his back to the
sounds, stopped his ears with his finger and a wet sponge, and then sat
crouched together regardless of trickling water making its way within
his shirt-collar.
At last the cries ceased, and the silence was only broken by an
occasional suppressed sob; but Tim moved not, though the door opened,
and from the inner room came a tall, hard, angular woman, rigid as the
old whalebone umbrella rib she held in one hand, leading, or rather
dragging in a child with the other. She was a woman of about forty,
such as in a higher class of life would have been gifted with a mission,
and let people know of the fact. As it was, she was but a tailor's wife
with a stiff neck: not the stiff neck of a cold which calls for
hartshorn, friction, and flannel, but a natural rigidity which caused
her to come round as upon a pivot when turning to address a speaker, at
a time when with other people a movement of the head would have
sufficed.
"Tim!" she cried, as she stepped into the room, opening and closing her
cruel-looking mouth with a snap.
Tim heard the meaning cry, and, starting quickly, the next moment he was
busily at work as if nothing had happened.
Mrs Ruggles said no more, but proceeded to place her whalebone rod upon
a perch over the fire-place. Her back was turned while doing this, a
fact of which Tim took advantage to kiss his hand to the cowering child,
when, save at distant intervals, she ceased to sob.
"I don't think you need beat poor Pine so," said Tim at last, in a
hesitating way, "What was it for?"
"Come here," shouted Mrs Ruggles to the child; "what did I whip you
for?"
With the cowering aspect of a beaten dog, the child came slowly forward
into the light: sharp-featured, tangled of hair, red-eyed, cheek-soiled
with weeping. Tim Ruggles winced again as he looked upon her thin bare
arms and shoulders, lined by the livid weals made by the sharp elastic
rod of correction, ink-like in its effects, the dark marks seeming to
run along the flesh as the vicious blows had fallen. The poor child
crept slowly forward, as if drawn by some strange influence towards Mrs
Ruggles, her eyes resting the while upon Tim, whose face was working,
and whose fingers opened and closed as if he were anxious to snatch the
child to his heart.
"Now, ask her what she was whipped for," shouted Mrs Ruggles. "Tell
him. What was it for?"
"For--for--taking--"
"Ah! what's that? For what?" shouted Mrs Ruggles.
"For--for--for stealing--for--for--oh!--oh!--oh!" cried the child,
bursting into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing, "I didn't do it--I
didn't do it!"
And there she stopped short: the words, the sobs, the wailing tone, all
ceased as if by magic, as Mrs Ruggles snatched the whalebone from its
supporting nails.
"Yes, yes," the child shrieked in haste, as the rigid figure and the
instrument of torture approached--"for stealing the cake from the
cupboard." And then teeth were set fast, lips nipped together, hands
clenched, and eyes closed, and the whole of the child's nine years' old
determination seemed to be summoned up to bear the blow she could hear
about to descend. The whalebone whistled through the air, and, in spite
of every effort, the cut which fell upon the bare shoulders elicited a
low wail of suffering.
A deep sigh burst from Tim Ruggles' breast, and he bent lower over his
work, moving his iron, but over the wrong places, as he closed his eyes
not to see the child fall upon her knees and press both hands tightly
over her lips to keep back the cry she could not otherwise conquer; her
every act displaying how long must have been the course of ill-treatment
that had drawn forth such unchildlike resolution and endurance.
"Now," cried Mrs Ruggles, "no noise!" though her own sharp unfeminine
tones must have penetrated to the very attics as she spoke. "There,
that will do. Now get up this minute."
"But," said the little tailor, humbly, "you should always ask before you
punish, Mary. I--I took the piece of cake out of the cupboard, because
I hardly ate any breakfast."
"Tim--Tim--Tim!" cried Mrs Ruggles; and as she spoke, she looked at him
sideways, her eyes gleaming sharply out of the corners. "You false man,
you! but the more you try to screen her that way, the more I'll punish.
How many times does this make that I've found you out?"
"Times--found out?" stammered Tim.
"Yes--times found out," retorted Mrs Ruggles. "But I'll have no more of
it, and so long as she's here, she shall behave herself, or I'll cut her
thievish ways out of her."
"But, indeed," said Tim, pitifully, "it was me, upon my word. It was
me, Mary. Just look--here's some of the crumbs left now;" and he
pointed to a few splintery scales of paste lying upon the board.
Mrs Ruggles gave a nod that might have meant anything.
"I am sure you should not beat her so," whimpered Tim. "Beating does no
good, and may hurt--"
"Didn't I say I wouldn't have her talked about?" exclaimed Mrs Ruggles,
in threatening tones. "And how do you know? If she didn't want
whipping this time, it will do for next. Children are always doing
something, and a good beating sometimes loosens their skins and makes
'em grow. You never had children to teach."
"'Tain't my dooty to have children," muttered Tim.
"What's that?" shouted Mrs Ruggles. "Now don't aggravate, you know I
can't abear nagging."
"I only said, my dear, that it wasn't my dooty to have children, but
yours."
Mrs Ruggles gave her husband a look composed of half scorn, half
contempt--a side look, which, coming out of the corners of her eyes, was
so sharpened in its exit that though Tim would not look up and meet it,
he could feel it coming, and shivered accordingly.
Meanwhile Mrs Ruggles took a bonnet from a peg, and putting it on, tied
the strings tightly as if in suicidal intent, snatched herself into a
shawl, and rummaged out a basket, preparatory to starting upon a
marketing expedition.
"Now then, don't grovel there, but go to your work," she shouted to the
kneeling child, who bent before her as if she were the evil deity
presiding over her fate.
Then the child's hands dropped from before her mouth, as she flinchingly
rose, and taking a copper lid from a side table, began with a piece of
dirty rag to rub and polish the already bright metal, giving at the same
time stealthy, furtive glances, first at Tim and then at Mrs Ruggles;
while, in spite of every effort, a sob would swell her little breast,
beat down her puny efforts, and burst forth, to make her shiver in dread
of further blows.
Volume 1, Chapter IX.