Mrs Winks was bound under contract to spend the next day at Duplex
Street; but she made known just now her presence in the Dials, being
busy enough in the lower regions of D. Wragg's; for the smoke and steam
of her copper altar, erected to the goddess of cleanliness, rose through
the house, to be condensed in a dewy clamminess upon handrail and paint.
It was the incense that rose thickly to the nostrils when she stuck in
a wooden probe to fish up boiling garments for purification's sake.
The inhabitants of D. Wragg's dwelling took but little notice of Mrs
Winks' washing-days, inasmuch as they were inured to them by their
frequency. D. Wragg, though, must be excepted; for when some bird would
sneeze and evince a dislike to the odorous moist vapour, he called to
mind the deaths of three valuable cochins by croup--a catarrh-like
distemper which, with or without truth, he laid to the charge of Mrs
Winks' washing.
So that good lady busied herself over what she called her own and
Monsieur Canau's "toots,"--meaning thereby divers calico undergarments--
till her playbill curl-papers grew soft in the steam. Mrs Winks was
interrupted but once, when, aroused by the plunging in of the
copper-stick and an extra cloud from the sacrifice, D. Wragg stamped
with his heavy boot upon the shop-floor, and shouted an inquiry as to
how long Mrs Winks would be before she was done, and whether she knew
that there was company in the house?
To this query the stout lady returned the very vague response of
"Hours!"
For D. Wragg was now shop-minding, and, as he called it, busy--that is
to say, he was going over his stock, stirring up sluggish birds with a
loose perch, administering pills composed of rue and butter to sickly
bantams, which sat in a heap with feathers erect, and refusing to be
smoothed down.
Here and there he would pin a newspaper before the cage of a
newly-captured finch, fighting hard to escape by breaking its prison
bars, beating its soft round bosom bare of feathers against the cruel
wires, but with a fair prospect before it of finding relief for its
restless spirit, if not for its body, and flight--where?
Then there were the "tarriers" to look after, some of which justified
their name by not finding customers.
Here D. Wragg seemed quite at home, looking, as he stooped and tightened
a chain or shortened a string, much like one of the breed Darwinised,
and in a state of transition.
D. Wragg's ministrations were needed, for since the shop had been left
by Janet to his care, there had been sundry vicious commotions amongst
the dogs. One slight skirmish had ended in a spaniel having an ear made
more fringe-like in character. Then the restless little animals had
executed a _gavotte_ upon their hind-legs, maybe a waltz, ending in a
general tangle, and an Old Bailey performance, caused by the twisting
together of string and chain into a Gordian knot, which puzzled D. Wragg
into using a knife for sword in its solution--the dogs the while lying
panting, with protruding eyes, and a general aspect of being at the last
gasp.
At last, though, the canine fancy were reduced to order, so far as was
possible; for chained-up dogs are always moved by a restless spirit to
reach something a few inches beyond their nose--canine examples, indeed,
of human discontent; and if small and restless of breed, hang themselves
upon an average about twelve times _per diem_--possibly without suicidal
intent, though, from their miserable state, one cannot avoid suspicion.
D. Wragg had growled almost as much as his dogs in reducing them to
order; but he turned at last to go over other portions of his stock,
pinching protruded rats' tails to make them lively; thrusting a hand
down the stocking nailed over the hole in the top of the sparrow-cage,
and taking out one panting black-cravatted cock-bird from amongst his
scores of fellows, to find it naked of breast, with its heavy eyes
half-closed, dying fast, and so escaping the sportive shot of the
skilled marksman in some sweepstake--"so many birds each, shot from the
trap."
D. Wragg did not approve of waste, so taking the half-dead bird to one
corner, he opened the cage, wherein, fixed and glaring with its yellow
eye, sat a kestrel, which sluggishly dropped from its perch, and, with a
good deal of unnecessary beating of its pointed wings, seized the
hapless chirrupper in one quartette of yellow claws, returned to its
seat, and then and there proceeded to strip the sparrow, sending a cloud
of light downy feathers into the cage of its neighbour, a staring
barn-owl, which had opened its eyes for a few minutes, but only to blink
a while before subsiding into what appeared to be a ball of feathers. A
pair of bullfinches were then roused, by a finger drawn rapidly across
the cage bars--the effect being decidedly startling, while the next
object upon which the dealer's eye fell was a disreputable-looking,
ragged-coated, grey parrot, busily engaged in picking off its feathers,
as if, out of spite for its imprisonment, it wished to render itself as
unsightly and unsaleable as possible.
"You're a beauty, you are!" growled D. Wragg, poking at it viciously
with the perch; but, nothing daunted, the bird seized the end of the
assailing weapon with its strong hooked beak, and held on fiercely,
screaming a loud defiance the while.
With a dexterous jerk, the stick was withdrawn--a strategical movement
evidently taken by the bird as a token of defeat; for it stood upon one
leg, derisively danced its head up and down, and then loudly cried
out--"Quack--quack--quack!" an accomplishment learned of a couple of
London-white Aylesbury ducks, located in a small green dog-kennel, whose
door was formed of an old half-worn fire-guard.
Apparently satisfied, D. Wragg withdrew to a corner which he specially
affected, and turned his back to door and window while he drew forth his
dirty pocket-book and carefully examined the two crisp bank-notes,
replaced them, and buttoned them up in his breastpocket, as he muttered,
softly--
"More yet, my lad, more yet! I shouldn't be a bit surprised if you
turned out a mint to some on us afore we've done with you. And why
not?" he muttered again, as he glanced uneasily over his shoulder.
"What's the good o' money to such as him. If he likes to come on the
chance of seeing her here, 'taint my doing, is it? I wish she was here
always, I do."
D. Wragg frowned as he proceeded to refresh himself with another pipe,
and a renewed spelling over of his paper. Then he cocked his head on
one side, magpie fashion, and listened, for a light step was heard, and
the closing of a door, and the next minute, without waiting for her
friend to descend, Patty was up-stairs, where Janet was watching her
goldfish.
The latter turned as soon as she saw Patty, and seeming to read trouble
in her face, she wound her arm round the little waist and drew her
close.
"I came down to the shop," said Janet; "but you were writing something
for him, so I took advantage of it and came back. But don't do it,
Patty; I don't like you to go in there."
Patty did not answer, but stood looking, dreamy and thoughtful.
"Are you keeping something from me?" said Janet, pettishly.
"No--no--no," said Patty, starting, and smiling once more; "I was only
dull without you. Now, let's talk. Some one came this morning--two
some ones--they were there when you saw me writing--they spoke to me,
and--and--and--"
Patty's face reddened, and then grew worn and troubled as she spoke.
"I did not like it," she continued; "and--and--there! what stuff I am
talking! We shall have no French to-day. Let's go down, and when
Monsieur comes in, get him to paint a partridge's beak and legs, and
I'll help you to do it. There! pray, come down."
Janet had her arm still round Patty's waist, and for a few moments she
stood gazing up at her in a strange thoughtful way. She did not speak,
though; but keeping close to her visitor, walked with her to the door,
muttering softly, "Patty has secrets--Patty has secrets; and I guess
what it means."
Hand-in-hand they began to descend the stairs, but only for Patty to
turn back and lead the deformed girl into the room.
"What is it? what ails you?" said Janet, gazing wonderingly at her.
"Are you ill? Do you feel faint?"
"No--no; it is nothing; I--I thought--I thought I had seen one of them
before."
"One of them!"
"Yes, one of the customers; but it was nothing--nothing," she said,
sadly; "I must have dreamed it. Janet, do you believe in fancying
things?"
"Fancying things! What are you talking about?"
"In feeling that things are to take place--in being as if something
whispered to you that there was to be trouble by and by, and misery, and
heartaches--that the hawk was coming to seize a miserable little weak
pigeon, and tear, and tear it till its poor heart was bleeding."
"No; stuff!" ejaculated Janet.
"I feel so," said Patty, slowly, "and sometimes I believe it. O Janet!
if one could be rich and nice, and live where people would not be
ashamed to see you, and--Ah! I'd give anything--anything to be rich and
a lady. But there," she cried, impetuously, "do come down."
"Riddles--talking in riddles; like people speak in their sleep," said
Janet, as she wreathed her long arm round Patty. "Perhaps you ought not
to come and see me here, for it is horrible; but I am used to it, and I
could not live without you now. They don't like you to come?"
"No," said Patty; "but they think it would be unkind for me to stay
away. They like you, and my father is fond of Monsieur Canau, and loves
the musical evenings. You ought to come and live near us."
"In fashionable Clerkenwell, eh?" said Janet, laughing. "No; he will
not leave here--we are used to it, and we are poor, Patty," she added,
with a sigh.
"Lean on me," said Patty, lightly; "and don't let's be miserable;" and
they now began to descend the stairs; but only to be met by D. Wragg
stumping and jerking up to meet them.
As the dealer came up, he gazed earnestly for a moment at Patty, and
there was a hesitating air about him; but he seemed to chase it away,
as, with an effort, he exclaimed--
"Here don't you make no--Here, Miss Pellet, my dear, you're wanted."
"Wanted!" said Patty, instinctively shrinking back, while Janet's dark
fierce eyes gazed from one to the other.
"Yes; wanted--in the shop," said D. Wragg. "You don't mind coming, do
you? Don't stop her, Janet; it may mean money, you know."
"But who--who wants me?" faltered Patty, one of whose hands tightly
pressed the long restraining bony fingers of Janet--"who wants me?"
"It's one o' them swells as come about the dorg!"
Volume 1, Chapter XXVIII.