If there is one thing more loved of your genuine Londoner than
shell-fish, it is what he calls an "outing."
We leave it to the statistician to decide upon the number of bushels of
whelks boiled and consumed, after deposition in little white saucers,
and peppering with dust; the loads of mussels, the great spongy-shelled
oysters, and the barrows and baskets full of periwinkles stewed in
Billingsgate or Columbia coppers, sold in ha'porths, and wriggled out
with pins, and then luxuriated upon--while we turn to outing. Outing--
whether it be by rail, boat, 'bus, van, or the various paintless,
age-dried, loose-tired, nondescript vehicles forced into requisition for
the purpose.
They are not particular, these Londoners, where or how they go--the very
fact of there being the fresh air, green trees, and sunshine, that they
miss at home, is sufficient; and all the dwellers upon suburban roads
can attest to the air of tired satisfaction to be seen in the faces of
many of those who come wearily back after that hardest of hard day's
work--an outing. Tired, but happy all the same, and bearing now
flowers, perhaps only lilac or hawthorn; later on in the season, bunches
of green or ripening corn--treasures to be placed in water, or suspended
dry over glass or picture, to bring back for months to come the
recollection of the bright day spent in the country lanes.
The four-wheeler of which D. Wragg had spoken was at the door at the
time appointed, ready to take the whole party, including Patty, who had
been persuaded by Janet to obtain permission to accompany them, not
without some reluctance on her own part; for after yesterday's scene she
felt that she would have preferred the quiet protection of her own home.
It was a very shabby, sun-blistered green vehicle, whose appearance
suggested a thorough knowledge of every road out of London--the kind of
carriage that, give it motive-power, would be sure to find its own way
home, in spite even of an obstinate horse. It looked as if accustomed
to stop almost of its own accord at road-side public-houses, for its
drawer and occupants to drink, while it rested its creaking springs and
jangling iron, fetching its breath for another dusty run, as it longed
for one of those wayside horseponds through which it might be driven to
the easement of its thirsty joints and badly-fitted wheels, almost now
disposed to moult the spokes which rattled musically in their freedom
from paint.
The four-wheeler was drawn by a curved-nosed beast of an angular nature,
whose character was written in his sleepy eye and bended knees, worn by
contact with hard or dusty roads. His vertebrae stood up like a minor
chain of Andes, extending from his mangy neck to the tableland
dominating the cataract-like tail of scrubby hair. To complete his
description, he was a horse of a most retiring aspect, whose presence
caused dogs to sniff, and cats to run a red rag-like tongue over their
white teeth and skinny lips, as they thought of the barrow, and the
three small slices upon a skewer.
Mrs Winks was in a state of moist and shiny excitement. She had already
placed a fair-sized flat basket beneath the seat, and quite destroyed
the appearance of her print apron, by rolling it up and folding it into
fidget-suggested plaits.
But it was with no envious eyes that Mrs Winks gazed; for London, she
said, was quite big enough for her, and contained all she wanted. Them
as liked might go into the country for her, which she was quite sure
could show no such flowers, fruits, or vegetables as Common Garding.
She liked to see others enjoy themselves, though, and her face beamed
with good-humour as she held a chair for Janet to stand upon and climb
to her seat, when Canau led her out with as great care and courtesy as
if she had been a duchess of the French court.
Patty, although the visitor, had insisted upon giving up to Janet the
place of honour beside D. Wragg, who was already seated, and was making
the angular horse toss its head in response to the unnecessarily jerked
reins.
Then came Patty's turn to be helped into the back-seat--a bright little
blossom with petals of white muslin--and Canau took his place by her
side, both he and D. Wragg being perfectly stiff in the board-like white
waistcoats, got up for them expressly by Mrs Winks.
That lady received divers admonitions respecting the administration of
more water to the stock-in-trade; and a stern order "not to make no
mistake; but if that party came about the little spannle, it warn't the
same, and he'd best call again."
"Hooray! give's a copper, guv'nor," shouted a small boy, as D. Wragg now
energetically jerked the reins, and cried, "P'st!" and "Go on then!" for
the horse would not move, evidently considering that D. Wragg had cried
"Wolf," in his previous jerkings of the reins; but at last the brute
ambled off slowly, only, though, to be checked at the end of
half-a-dozen yards, for his driver to shout to Mrs Winks--
"Here, I say! them there sparrers, I won't let 'em go at the price
Pogles offered. Don't you make no mistake: I don't get my sparrers for
nothing--p'st!"
They went on a few yards farther, but only for D. Wragg to recall
something else--which made him pull up short and wave Mrs Winks forward
with the whip.
"I didn't give them there bantams their mixter this mornin', and their
combs is white as lather. Give 'em a few drops in their water."
"Now, do go on, there's a good soul!" cried Mrs Winks, impatiently;
"just as if I couldn't mind the place as well as you!"
"I don't think as there's anything else I want to say," said D. Wragg,
rubbing his nose--what there was of it--with the shaft of the whip.
"No, I shouldn't think there was," said Mrs Winks, pettishly; "_so_ now
go on."
Mrs Winks turned to re-enter the shop, but she was calculating too much,
for D. Wragg did not set her at liberty until he had called and recalled
her to the very end of the street, to warn her about the rats--about
that there pair of fancy rabbits--and lastly, to tell her to be sure and
not forget about the spannle.
"Now, don't you make no mistake about that there dorg, for that there's
the particularist part of it all."
"There! drat the man! what does he mean dragging me away like this?"
puffed the dame, fiercely; and, heedless of a shouted order sent flying
after her as the four-wheeler turned the corner, she made her way back
to the shop, while D. Wragg urged on his horse, working hard at his
driving, so as to reach the country for a day of pleasure.
The pleasure was in anticipation, but there was a shade on the brow of
both girls, as they seemed to feel the coming of what was to be to one a
stroke that should make a tender heart to ache with bitter misery--to
bring forth confession upon confession, and to waken both to the fact
that there are dreams of the day as well as dreams of the night--dreams
of our waking moments as well as dreams when the body is steeped in
sleep.
But now, they were still in Decadia, with D. Wragg--no very skilful
driver--urging on his horse as he applied the whip and jerked the reins,
telling it "not to make no mistake, for he was behind it."
"Come on, will you?" cried D. Wragg, to increase the speed. Result: the
angular horse wagged its tail.
On he went, however, stumbling slowly along, bowing his head in sympathy
with a halting leg; and they proceeded through the least frequented
streets, D. Wragg being influenced in his choice of them by his want of
confidence in himself as a driver.
On still, past the parts where the shops began to look new, but blighted
as to trade; where the houses were more thinly scattered, until they had
attained to their object of being in the country, when the horse was
allowed to take its own pace.
It was not a pleasant pace; for there was, when he went slowly, too much
turning of the head, and dragging along of one of the hind legs; while,
when apparently startled to find that he was doing but little more than
keeping up with the pedestrians on either side of the road, he started
off for a hundred yards in a sharper trot, it was made unmusical by the
clink, clink of shoe against shoe as the poor brute overstepped itself.
But in spite of these failings, the party in the four-wheeler seemed
perfectly content, for they were progressing; suburban residences, with
their pleasant green parterres and shrubberies, were gliding by them on
either hand, so that there was always something new to notice; and
besides, were they not leaving behind the misery, the dirt, and squalor
of the Great City?
Learned in such matters, from his connection with the bird fancying and
catching professions, D. Wragg had made up his mind to the most
countrified spot he knew within easy range of London, the result being,
that at mid-day the party were dining _al fresco_ in the pleasantly
wooded region beyond Woodford Bridge; and then in the afternoon, Patty
and Janet were wandering hand-in-hand--children once more in thought--
along by sweet hedgerow and waving corn.
Now they would rest for a while upon some stile to listen to the
familiar note of a bird, which seemed more joyous here, though, in a
state of freedom; now pausing to mark the busy hum of insect life; then
wandering on again, speaking little, but revelling in the sweetness of
the country--doubly dear to these prisoners of the great city.
It was their way of enjoying such trips as this; D. Wragg, for his part,
taking solitary rambles for the purpose of combining profit with
pleasure--clearing his "ex's" he called it--by hunting out suitable
spots for his bird-catching clients, by the side of shady grove, or upon
some pleasant common, where feathered prey might be inveigled and melted
down into silver,
Canau, on his part, would take his thoughtful walks about, with his
little screwed-up cigarette; it being an understood thing that at a
certain hour they were all to meet at the little inn where the horse was
resting, partake of an early tea, and then face homeward.
Pleasant fields, with here and there a farmhouse or villa, with its
closely-shaven lawn and trimly-kept garden full of floral beauties, but
presenting no greater attraction to the two wanderers than did hedge and
bank rich with darkening leaf, berry, and flower; and on they strolled,
both very quiet and thoughtful, forgetting D. Wragg, Canau, and Babel
itself, in the enjoyment of the present.
Passing slowly along--picking a harebell or scabious here, a cluster of
sweet honeysuckle, or the bugloss there--Patty and Janet wandered over
the road-side grass, their steps inaudible, till they reached a high
hedge and evergreen plantation, which separated them from the grounds of
a pleasant residence, upon whose lawn a party was assembled, apparently
engaged in some out-door pastime. They were so close that the voices
were easily distinguishable: the light happy laugh of maidenhood
mingling with the deeper tones of male companions. Now and then, too,
through the trees the light floating drapery of more than one fair girl
could be made out, as it swept over the soft lawn.
At first little notice was taken by Patty and Janet; but suddenly, upon
hearing a remark to which a merry laughing response was given, the
former stopped short, to crimson and then turn pale, as she dropped the
flowers which she had gathered.
She stood perfectly motionless, as a laughing, girlish voice,
exclaimed--
"No, no; it's Mr Clayton's turn now--he's my partner!"
"Clayton--Harry Clayton; why don't you come?" exclaimed a man's voice;
"why, I declare, if he isn't proposing to Miss Rawlinson!"
Patty was pressing forward, parting the leaves with one hand, heedless
of the thorns which pricked and tore her soft fingers, before she was
able to obtain a passing glance of dark, study-paled Harry Clayton,
rising with a smile from the feet of a young lady seated upon a
garden-chair--a maiden who, at that distance, seemed to Patty to be very
beautiful in her light muslin dress, and framed as it were in the soft
verdure around.
Then the listeners' ears were saluted by a merry burst of laughter,
drowning the expostulating tones of a man's voice; while, with bleeding
hands, ay! and bleeding heart, head bent, and the tears running from her
great grey eyes, Patty turned and almost staggered away, closely
followed by Janet; who, taking her arm, hurried her along, till,
crossing a stile, they sat down beside the softly undulating corn.
The stillness was complete around, only broken by the cawing of a colony
of rooks amongst some distant elms.
"Oh Patty, Patty, darling!" whispered Janet, taking the bended head to
her breast, when, giving way to the desolation of her young heart in the
fresh trouble that seemed to have come over her so suddenly, Patty wept
long and bitterly, awakened as she was so rudely from a dream in which
she had allowed herself to indulge.
"Oh Patty, Patty!" softly whispered Janet again, as, down upon her
knees, she rocked the little head that rested against her to and fro--
hushing her friend as if she had been a child, murmuring, too, as she
bent over her--"And I thought so differently--so differently!"
"Let us go--let us go away from here," sobbed Patty, after vainly
struggling to repress her feelings.
"Not yet--not yet," said Janet, as she played with the hair which fell
upon her breast. "There is no one to see us here, and you are not yet
fit for people to look at you. You must not think me cruel if I say I
am glad to see you suffer--glad your poor breast can be torn and
troubled; for I thought so differently, little one, and that it was the
gay handsome boy who had stolen the little heart away; for I knew--I
knew--I've known that there was something wrong for weeks and weeks; and
I've been angry and bitter, and hated you; for, Patty, Patty," she
cried, passionately, hiding now her own swarthy face, "I feel that if he
would but take me, to beat me, or to be as his dog that he fondles so--
to wait upon him--to be his slave--I could be happy. You don't know--
you cannot tell--the misery, the wretchedness of such a heart as mine.
Do you think I am blind? Do I not know that he would laugh and jeer at
me? Would he not think me mad for looking up at him?" she cried
passionately, as she struck her face--her bosom--cruelly with her long,
bony fingers. "Do you think I don't know what a toad I am--how ugly and
foul I must be in the eyes of men? And yet I have a woman's heart; and
though I've tried not to worship his bold insolent face, I could almost
have died again and again for one--only one--of those sweet words he has
flung at you so often, when I have thought you were trying to lead him
on. If I could but have had one word, to have lived on it for a few
moments; even to have known directly after that it was false and
delusive! Patty, Patty, darling! you must forgive me, because I have
hated you for all this, and without reason. I have been madly jealous,
and I believe that I am mad now. Oh! hold me! hold me! and help me to
tear out this cruel love that is breaking my heart--killing me--but you
cannot understand--even you cannot tell what it is to live without
hope."
"Oh Janet!" sobbed Patty, reproachfully.
"I know, I know," cried Janet, passionately; "you love him and he is
another's. But you are pretty; your face is fair, and bright, and
sweet; and you will soon forget all this, and love again. But look at
me--at this face--at this shape! Oh! why did I not die when I was
little? instead of living to become such a burden even to myself? They
say that the crippled and deformed are vain, and blind to all their
failings; but do you think that I am? Oh! no; I could loathe and
trample upon myself for being what I am; while he is so brave, and
straight, and handsome."
She clung, sobbing passionately the while, to Patty's breast--clinging
to her with a frightened, wild aspect, as if she almost feared herself,
till, by slow degrees, the laboured sobs became less painful, and the
flowers which she still clutched in her poor thin fingers withered away
upon their bruised stalks.
The corn waved and rustled about them; the gaudy poppies nodded and
fluttered their limp petals around; and here and there some cornflower's
bright purple peeped out from amidst the tangle of pinky bear-bind and
azure vetch. Now a lark would sing loud and high above their heads, or
some finch or warbler, emboldened by the silence, would perch upon the
hedge hard by, to jerk out a few notes of its song, and then flit to
some further spray.
Peace seemed diffused around, and began by degrees to pervade the
troubled hearts of the two girls.
"We must go," said Janet, at last, as she dried her eyes. "I am going
back to London to love my old favourites--the fish and the birds."
Then, looking up in a quiet and compassionate way at Patty, as if she
alone were in trouble--
"Come, darling," she said, "let's try and forget all this; but kiss me
first, and say that you are not angry--not ashamed of me for what I have
said. What makes you so silent? Why do you not answer?"
"I was thinking--thinking," said Patty, wearily, as she put her arms
round Janet's neck and kissed her; "I was thinking that if I could have
been like you I should have been happier, for I should have been wiser
and known better."
"Hush!" said Janet, softly; "I am wise, am I not?"
Then taking Patty's hand as they rose, in an absent, tired fashion, they
walked on toward the little inn, where Monsieur Canau was awaiting them.
The sun still shone brightly, and there was the rich mellowness of the
early autumn in the atmosphere, tinting all around with its soft golden
haze; but it seemed to the two girls that the smoke and ashes of London
had fallen upon the scene, and they longed in secret for the time of
departure to arrive.
Once, though, as they sat in the pleasant little inn-parlour, Janet saw
her companion start from her abstracted mood, for voices were heard
approaching, and it was evident that some of the party from the lawn
were about to pass the window of the room where their evening meal was
spread.
Janet pressed the agitated girl's hand beneath the table, as she saw the
folds of the little white muslin dress rise and fall; but the act was
unseen by the others; and soon afterwards D. Wragg went away to see
about the horse, while Canau lit his cigarette, and strolled outside,
leaving the girls alone.
They sat together on the back-seat going home, while the horse jogged
slowly along, with Monsieur Canau buried in thought, and D. Wragg
extremely quiet, save when he uttered some admonition to the animal he
was driving.
Hardly a word was spoken, but heart seemed whispering to heart of the
secrets that had been hidden until that day, when, as if with one
impulse, they had both leaped forth into the light.
"What were you thinking about?" said Janet at last, softly, as she
turned to gaze in Patty's face, so as to see that her companion was
gazing up to where, clear and bright, the stars looked down upon the
shadowy lanes.
"I was trying to read how it will all end--what is to be my fortune,"
said Patty; and she turned with a sad smile towards her questioner, and
passed one plump arm round Janet's frail waist. "And you? can you read
your fortune there?"
"No need--no need," said Janet, sadly. "There are no good fairies now,
Patty, to touch the deformed with their wand and make them straight and
bright. I know my fortune--to be looked upon with aversion to the end.
But there must be no more trifling," she said, fiercely. "You must not
come to us any more. He has been tempted into coming and spending his
foolish money in the expectation of seeing you; but he must be kept away
now."
They rode on in silence for some time, during which D. Wragg had his
hands pretty full with the horse, which seemed to have taken a sudden
desire to see whether the left-hand hedge was black-thorn or white; and
baulked in his desire to investigate on that side, made a desperate
effort to reach the right. This, however, was also checked, and he
settled down once more into a slow jig-jog of the most somnolent nature
for those who were behind.
"I am not so mad," said Janet, softly, after a while, "that I do not
know what is just and right. He shall speak no more to my darling.
For, in my strange, uncouth, wild way, Patty, I love you, not as I might
a sister, but with something of the desire a mother must feel for her
little one."
And then there was silence and sadness as the two girls sat hand-in-hand
till the first straggling gaslights were visible, sitting with out
another word till Monsieur Canau helped them to alight, and then saw
Patty safely to the door of the Duplex Street house, where the end of
Patty's day out was a sigh and many tears.
Volume 2, Chapter XIII.