OF THE PRETTY STATE I WAS IN INDEED AFTER MARY LEFT ME.
“Oh, Mary, dear Mary, how lonely and drear
The scenes now ungrac’d by thy presence appear!
Each hall in my dwelling I fondly explore,
And list for thy footstep, but hear it no more.
Oh Mary, dear Mary!”
“DEAR MARY.”
No sooner had Edward packed Mary out of the house, than I suddenly found
myself thrown into as nice a mess as any lady could well be in. Twist it
and turn it which way I would, the blacker it appeared, and I positively
thought that I must have sunk under it. But really my husband is so
hasty, (though I say it who should not perhaps,) that he never will look
before he leaps; and the consequence is, that he is invariably plunging
himself headlong into all kinds of pickles, (if I might be allowed the
expression.) Indeed, my own dear Edward having no more control over his
passions than “a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour,” of course
could not keep his tongue between his teeth, but must go flying at our
Mary before the proper time came for getting rid of the girl. And dear
me! if one has not got strength of mind enough to put up with the faults
of other people for a day or two, I should like to know how, in the name
of goodness gracious, we can ever hope that men will wink when we walk
out of the right path ourselves--or that, if we are so hard upon other
persons, how can we expect that they will bear less heavily on us when
they sit in judgment upon us. Though for myself, I must say, that I have
always made it a rule to let the poisoned arrows of calumny go in at one
ear and come out of the other.
I’m sure if Edward had only looked at poor Mary’s love of tippling with
a proper spirit, he would have seen that it was not so much for a body
to stomach after all, and that perhaps the love of drink, bad as it is,
is but a trifling vice as compared with the love of tobacco--to which my
husband, I regret to say, is a disgusting martyr. And such being the
case, Edward ought to have remembered that those who ride about in
glass coaches should not throw stones; for of all habits I must confess
that smoking, in my eyes, is the most dreadful, and that if I was called
upon to choose whether I would sooner be addicted to liquor or tobacco,
I really think I should be inclined to take to drinking in preference.
Not that I was insensible to the wickedness of our Mary’s ways, but
still I do think that my husband might have looked with more Christian
charity upon the poor thing’s infirmity, until my other servant was
ready to come into the house, and then he might have bundled the
creature into the street, as she deserved indeed. For in her absence I
was so terribly put to it, that really I should have blushed if anybody
could have seen me making the shifts I did.
My Irish servant of a Norah (drat her!) couldn’t come in for a week or
so, and the consequence was, that I was left all alone without anybody
to assist me,--which pulled me down so low that it took several weeks to
set me fairly on my legs again. For considering that I had Edward’s
dinner every day on my mind, and the whole house thrown upon my hands,
it was more than I could bear.
All that precious day long I had to answer every tiresome knock at the
door myself, and really just because we had no maid, persons seemed to
take a delight in calling. But thanks to goodness, they were all
tradespeople, whom (of course) I did not so much care about, though I
only opened the door to them just wide enough to take the things in, for
fear of the neighbours, who I knew would be but too glad to laugh at me
in my distress. Indeed, the only person that I showed myself to that day
was the butcher’s boy, when he called for orders; and who being a mere
lad, I didn’t mind about seeing me; and I got him, for a glass of
table-beer and a penny, to take a letter to dear mother, asking her to
look round immediately, and call and see her darling angel (that is
myself) in her affliction, which I knew she would be happy to do.
But as it was a wet day, poor dear mother was so long before she dropped
in upon me, that I made certain she wouldn’t come that morning, so I set
to work to prepare Edward’s dinner. As he is fond of made dishes, I
thought I could not do better than give him a sweet little toad in the
hole, especially as it was very easy to make, and I could get the baker
to take it with him to the bakehouse when he left our daily bread in the
afternoon. While I was making the batter to cover the toad with, a
tremendous double-knock came to the door, which nearly made me drop the
egg I had in my hand at the time. As of course I could not, in the state
that I was, go up to the door myself and say I was not at home, I
thought it best to let them knock away until they were tired; and it was
not until I had heard them do so, I should say, seven or eight times at
least, that I went to the kitchen window, and pulled aside the blind I
had let down, when who should it be but poor dear mother, whom I had
kept waiting all that time in the pouring rain, and who, when she got
down in the kitchen, I found to be literally dripping. Having taken off
her pattens, and put her umbrella to dry in the back kitchen, I threw up
the cinders, and made such a nice comfortable clear fire for her, and
got the dear old soul to drink off a glass of scalding-hot spirits and
water, which, I assured her, would not hurt her, as it would keep the
cold out nicely, and which she consented to take in the light of
medicine, as she said she was certain she wanted it; adding, that she
felt as if every bone in her body was broken to bits, and she was sure
that on her road she had picked up the shivers somewhere.
I told mamma all that had taken place, and how hastily Edward had
behaved, without showing the least regard to my feelings, and had set
upon poor Mary for all the world like a Turk. But dear mother told me,
with her usual kindness, that she wasn’t in the least surprised at my
husband’s forgetting himself, as it was just what she had expected from
him all along; for, from the insight she had had into Edward’s character
of late, she was afraid that I should have a good deal more to bear with
from him, and that my time was likely to be a hard one. Still, as the
good soul very truly observed, it was no business of hers, and she was
the last person to think of setting me against my husband; though, from
what I had told her, she could not help saying, that Edward certainly
did appear to her to be just like the rest of the men, and no better
than he should be; adding, that the best way would be for me to have an
understanding with him the very first opportunity, and tell him, that if
he couldn’t conduct himself more like a rational creature for the
future, that he had better manage the house himself. She begged me, in
saying this, however, to remember that she had no wish to figure in
quarrels between man and wife; observing, with great truth, that as I
had made my bed, so I must lie upon it; and that if my bed were strewed
with thorns, however uncomfortable it might be, still it could be no
fault of hers, though she pitied me from the bottom of her heart; for,
as she said, it must be a sad change for a poor dear that was so
thinskinned as myself; adding, with great kindness, that if she could
possibly have known half as much of Edward before my marriage as she did
now, that she certainly should have thought twice before she had given
her consent for the house of the Sk--n--st--ns to be grafted upon the
family tree of the B--ff--ns.
Dear mother, however, promised not to desert me in my trouble, and
undertook to procure me a charwoman, who would come in until that Irish
fury of a Cornwall hussey was ready to be with me. Mrs. Burgess[A] was
the name of the charwoman, and mother said that I should find her of
great use and comfort to me, as she was a married woman, though she had
been deserted by her husband--poor thing!--who had run away to America
like a brute, leaving her with a fine family of ten young children on
her hands;--that she was a good, hard-working, industrious, stout-made
woman; and that the poor babes had nothing but the sweat of their
mother’s brow to subsist upon; and that it was only by doing a little
charing out and a little washing at home, that the poor creature was
enabled to keep her head above water. And mother said, that tired and
wet as she was, still she would make it a point that very afternoon to
go round to the Mews, where Mrs. Burgess lived, and leave word at her
loft, even if she couldn’t see her, for her to come round to me the
first thing the next morning; adding, that all the poor thing would want
would be eighteenpence a day, two pots of beer, and a glass of spirits
before leaving at night.
When Edward came home from business, he wouldn’t make the least
allowance for the state I was in, but seemed determined to find fault
with everything, and appeared to expect that the house should be in the
same apple-pie order as if I’d a regiment of maids of all work at my
heels. What made him much worse, too, was, that the baker had forgotten
to send round the dinner when it was done, so that he had to wait some
trifling twenty minutes until I could get some one to run for it; and
when it came home, I declare my nice little toad in the hole was as
black as a coal, and quite burnt to a cinder. My husband’s behaviour
during dinner nearly broke my heart; and he cut me up so dreadfully,
that I really couldn’t say whether my head was on my shoulders or not.
Indeed, all that evening he was one too many for me, for I declare he
went on just like one beside himself. He made his dinner off bread and
cheese, and kept grumbling all the time, saying that he would have been
better treated if he had dined at a common “_Slap bang_” in the City,
(those were his very words--though what on earth a “slap bang” can be I
haven’t the remotest idea). So I left him to his filthy cigar and bills
of costs as soon as I could, and went down stairs and sat by myself all
alone by the kitchen fire, as I wished to put an end to his spiteful
goings on, and I knew he wouldn’t follow me down stairs, and get pulling
me over the coals there.
I took good care that he should feel the want of a servant as much as I
did, and that he should know that the poor creatures were useful members
of society, if they were only properly treated; for I made a point of
keeping him without a mouthful of tea till near bed-time. Though I only
punished myself in the end, for the cup that “cheers but not
inebriates,” as the poet says, wouldn’t allow him to get a wink of
sleep, and he was so restless and cross all the night through, that he
only kept getting in and out of bed, and walking up and down the room,
and opening the windows, and raving at me like a wild Hottentot let
loose from Bedlam, declaring that I was quite an altered woman of late,
and that he couldn’t tell what on earth had come to me that day. When I
told him that nothing had come to me but dear mamma, he flew out most
dreadfully, and said that mother was a snake in the grass, who came
poisoning my mind and picking holes in his coat directly he was out of
the house; and that, as he knew that one bad sheep would destroy a whole
flock, he would take precious good care that my mother should never ruin
_me_, for he would forbid her the house the very next day; adding, that
if I encouraged her in coming there, that he would sell the furniture
off and run away from us both, and allow me a pound a week for the rest
of my life,--which I recollect at the time struck me as being very
ungenerous on his part, and not what I should naturally have expected
from him; for I thought that, under the circumstances, he really might
have made a greater allowance, when he knew that I could get nobody to
help me.
In the morning, Mrs. Burgess came as soon as it was light, and it having
been, I should say, four o’clock before I closed my eyes, I felt she was
knocking me up by waking me so early. However, I slipt on my wrapper,
and went down stairs and let her in. I told her to do the parlour
immediately, and take care and black-lead the stove before lighting the
fire, and after that to wash-up the dinner and tea things I had left
overnight, and then just to clean down the door-step a little (for
goodness’ sake!) for it was quite grubby to look at--and to sweep the
hall and shake the mats a bit, for the passage was as full of dirt as it
could hold, and I was really quite ashamed to see it--and I also told
her to take in a ha’p’orth of milk when the milkman called--and to have
the breakfast ready by eight o’clock precisely, as Mr. Sk--n--st--n was
a very punctual man. Then I went up stairs just to finish my night’s
rest; and no sooner had I jumped into bed than I fell off again so fast,
that I lay there till it was as near ten o’clock as it could be.
Mr. Sk--n--st--n was in a tremendous passion at what he chose to call my
want of respect in allowing him to lie in bed so long, and when he came
down to breakfast he was as surly as a bear with a scald head, (as the
phrase runs.) He must needs go flying in a passion because the baker had
left the wrong bread--for Mrs. Burgess, unfortunately, had taken in a
cottage for breakfast--and he would have that it was my fault, and not
the woman’s, saying, that I ought to have told her that he never eat
anything of a morning but “bricks.” As he was going to office, I asked
him whether he would dine at home that day, and what he would have; but
he was very sulky, and said that he wouldn’t trouble me again, for that,
as he was going into the City, he would take a chop at Joe’s; and when I
inquired of him who Joe was, he told me it was the name of a chop-house
keeper near the Royal Exchange; on which I remarked that he ought to be
ashamed of himself to speak in that familiar way of such people. This
made him laugh, so that I thought it was a good opportunity to make
friends with him, and told him that if he would promise to come home,
that I would get him a beautiful leg of mutton; but he said he thought
he should like a nice shoulder, well browned, with onion sauce, for the
legs we had had in our house lately had not been fit to be seen. But,
knowing that he was partial to one with veal stuffing, I told him that
if he would only come home to dinner that day, like a good man, I would
give him such a treat--I would promise him to put on the table as fine a
leg as he had ever beheld, for I intended to stuff it for him, and would
take care that it should be beautifully dressed, and quite a picture to
look at--all of which seemed to please him very much, and he left quite
in good humour.
On going down into the kitchen to prepare the dinner, Mrs. Burgess
really seemed to me to be a very superior sort of body; and I thought
that she was one of the best disposed and most honest of women, until I
found her to be quite the contrary; for at first I really felt
interested in the poor thing, on account of her being the mother of such
a large family, and all by herself without a husband. I was quite
pleased to hear the good woman go on as she did all that day,
continually telling me that servants were such a bad lot, and that
nothing was good enough for them, and how little gentlemen thought of
what we poor women had to undergo for their sakes. And she likewise told
me the whole history of how shamefully Mr. Burgess, who drove a cab, had
behaved towards her--never treating her as he ought to have done--though
she had always been a good wife to him, (the wretch,) and had seldom or
never flown in his face, (the brute,)--that her life had been one
continued struggle with him from morning to night, she might say, and
that after the hard battles they had had together, his going to New
Orleans under the disguise of coming back in a few weeks, she must say
was a return that she never expected. Upon which I remarked, that for
Mr. Burgess, to run away to America in the way he had done, certainly
did appear to me to be going a little too far. And then she was so kind
as to hope that Mr. Sk--n--st--n would never treat me in the same way,
although, as she very truly said, she was afraid that the men were all
alike, and that they really were not fit to be trusted out of your sight
for two days together.
I couldn’t have left Mrs. Burgess more than five minutes, and was just
going to put myself to rights a bit, when I heard a most tremendous
scream in the kitchen, and on going down, found the poor woman was
nearly fainting, (the deceitful baggage!) for she told me that she had
just seen a great rat as big as a Shetland pony scamper across the
scullery. This, of course, put me all of a twitter, and made my blood
run quite cold down my back, for I didn’t know that there was a rat in
the place; and, as Mrs. Burgess observed, with great truth, but bad
grammar, “we hadn’t never so much as a cat in the house, and that if I
didn’t keep my eyes about me, I should find myself swarming with vermin
before I knew where I was.” Then she was kind enough to tell me that she
had got a beautiful Tom at home, which I was perfectly welcome to if I
liked; for that though she loved the animal as much as if it were her
own flesh and blood, still dear mother had been such a true friend to
her, that she really couldn’t think of keeping the cat from me;
especially, as she said, Tom was such a capital mouser, that he’d soon
clear the place, and besides he was so tame, and had been so well
brought up, that he was more like a Christian than a dumb animal; for I
should find that he _would take anything from me_, (and so I did, with a
vengeance; though I really believe now that the cat had no finger in it
after all; but that that smoothfaced old Mrs. Burgess had only brought
the animal into our establishment for the worst of purposes--and what’s
more, that the tale she told me about the rat was all a cock-and-a-bull
story, and made up just to get her Tom into the house, so that she might
use the cat as a cloak for her own shameful practices.)
After Mrs. Burgess had taken in the milk that afternoon, the poor
woman--who appeared very fond of me--would run round and fetch her fine
Tom; and when she brought him, I do think he was the prettiest pet I
ever saw. He was _so_ black, that really his coat was for all the world
like your hat; and the dear had got three such beautiful white stockings
on his feet, and as fine a frill round his neck as I ever beheld in all
my life. Nor can I omit to mention Tom’s sweet pretty whiskers, which
stood out on each side of his face just like two shaving brushes; so
that, indeed, taking the animal altogether, I really don’t think I ever
saw so fine a cat. I declare he was quite a duck.
Edward was very good humoured, for once in a way, when he came home to
dinner that evening; and it was quite a treat to see him at table, for I
never knew him eat so much since we’d been married. I must have helped
him three times if I helped him once. As for myself, I do think that it
was the sweetest and tenderest leg I ever put my lips to, so that even I
was tempted to make so hearty a meal, that I felt quite heavy after
dinner, and could scarcely keep my eyes open till tea-time.
When I went down stairs to see about the tea things, (Mrs. Burgess
always left immediately after she had cleared away the dinner,) it was
very strange I couldn’t find the milk anywhere, though I saw Mrs.
Burgess take it in herself; and when I went to get out the butter, if
that wasn’t gone as well--a whole half-pound, as I’m a living woman, of
the best fresh, at sixteenpence, that I had sent Mrs. Burgess for that
very evening! This put me in a nice state, for I had no more fresh in
the house, and could give Edward nothing else but salt with his tea,
which I knew he couldn’t bear the taste of; though, even when I went to
look after that, I could very easily see that some thief had been
fingering it into the bargain. I made up my mind, of course, that it was
that wretch of a Tom, and I tried to catch him, so that I might rub his
nose on the dresser, but the thief was too quick for me, and I could
have given it him well, I could.
I thought it best, for the sake of the poor cat, not to say a word to
Edward about it; so I made him a round of nice hot toast, and put on it
as little salt butter as I possibly could, in the hopes that he wouldn’t
discover it. But my husband no sooner put the toast to his mouth, than
he declared it was like cart grease; and when I told him about the loss
of the milk and fresh butter, he threw it all in my teeth, and I caught
it just as I had expected. After which we got to high words again, (drat
it,) and I said that I had nothing to do with the bothering milk and
butter, and I didn’t see why he should go laying it all on my back in
the way he did. What occurred afterwards I will not state; for it is all
forgotten, though I cannot say forgiven; for I remember--but never
mind, I wont say anything more about it at present.
But my distresses about that brute of a Tom were not to rest here, for
what between him and my husband, they led me a very pretty dance I
declare, and to as nice a tune as I ever heard in all my life.
In the morning, when I went down stairs to see about dinner, Mrs.
Burgess told me that she couldn’t think what on earth could have come to
the remainder of our mutton, for it wasn’t to be found anywhere, and she
really believed that rogue of a Tom of hers must have walked off with
our leg in the night; adding, that she regretted to say that he had been
a dreadful thief ever since he was a kitten. But I told her that it
couldn’t be the cat, because he had left no bone behind him. Still, as
she very wisely observed, most likely he had buried it in the garden, or
somewhere about the house; and so indeed it turned out, for Mrs. Burgess
brought me the bone the very next day, picked as clean as if a Christian
had done it, and which she said she had found in the coal-cellar early
that morning.
This loss of the mutton annoyed me very much, for Edward had set his
mind upon having the remains of it with pickles for dinner that day. So
I was obliged to send Mrs. Burgess out to get a pair of nice soles, and
a pound and a quarter of tender beef-steaks, so that I might stew them,
(meaning, of course, the steaks, and not the soles.)
In the middle of the day one of Mrs. Burgess’s little boys came to see
her, and I was surprised to find what a nice, clean, sharp, intelligent
lad he was for his station in life; for his mother said that, young as
he was, he could turn his hand to anything. And he couldn’t have left
the house above half-an hour, when up Mrs. Burgess came, apparently
quite out of breath, and told me that while she was throwing up the
cinders on the kitchen fire, that plaguy Tom had jumped on the dresser
and galloped off with a whole sole and a large piece of the
beef-steak--and that though she ran after him as quick as she could,
that he had scampered up the kitchen stairs, and she only got to the
garden in time to see him leap right over the wall with the things in
his mouth. After a few moments’ deliberation I went to the bedroom
closet, and getting Mr. Sk--n--st--n’s little gold headed cane,
determined to pay master Tom out well for his sly tricks, (I can’t bear
deceit, whether in cats or human beings;) and hiding the stick behind my
back, I went out into the garden, and called Puss! Puss! Puss! in my
sweetest voice, as if I had got something nice to give him; when lo! and
behold, my gentleman, who had found his way back, came marching up from
the kitchen as coolly, I declare, as if he had been doing nothing at
all, (as indeed I verily believe now the poor thing had not.) When he
came within arm’s length of me I gave him one or two such good smacks as
he wouldn’t forget in a hurry--though it hurt me a good deal more than
it did him, to lay my hands upon _the_ poor dumb animal.
When Edward found it all out, of course he flew into a passion, as
usual, and went on in such a way that I was obliged to tell him, even
though he was my husband, that he was no man; and he vowed that the
animal shouldn’t pass another night under his roof, and that Mother
Burgess (as he would call her) should take the brute and drown it that
very night. Then he had her up and told her as much; and the poor woman,
with tears in her eyes, consented to do so; for, as she very truly said,
it was so dreadful to have a thief in the house, that if Tom wasn’t made
away with, she was afraid we might get to suspect _her_--and that after
what we had lost, much as it might go against her, she would do as Mr.
Sk--n--st--n desired, and see the creature safe at the bottom of the
R--g--nt’s C--n--l before she went to bed that night.
When I went down to let the woman in the next morning, I was never so
surprised in all my life as to find her fondling the cat, whom she said
she had found on the door-step with the very brick-bat tied to his neck
which she told me she had put on before throwing him into the water
overnight--though how on earth he could ever have managed to have got
out of the canal alive and crawled back to our house with that great
thing round his neck, is more than I’ve ever been able to comprehend.
Mrs. Burgess agreed with me that it was perfectly wonderful; adding,
that after all she had put upon him, the poor creature’s life certainly
must have been spared by some superior power for some hidden purpose; so
she begged of me in a most touching manner to try poor Tom for a few
days more, as perhaps it would be a lesson to him and he would go on
better for the future. I really hadn’t the heart to refuse, though I
determined to keep it a secret from Edward, for I knew that he wouldn’t
rest easy in his bed until he had killed the poor animal. So I kept Mrs.
Burgess’s Tom unknown to my husband until it was impossible to keep him
any longer, for really the things that creature would do, and the
articles he would steal, no one would credit. It seemed to be more like
the work of a Christian than a dumb animal. If we had a fowl for dinner,
and I missed it in the morning, the cat was sure to have taken it;--if
the tarts disappeared, the cat had eaten them;--if the flour ran short,
the cat had upset it;--if I missed a silver spoon, the cat must have
hidden it;--if any of the crockery or glass was broken, the cat had
knocked them down;--if the cask of table ale was empty long before its
time, why the cat had pulled out the spigot. In fact, nothing was missed
that the cat didn’t take, and nothing was broken that the cat didn’t
break.
And so things went on until just before my Irish servant came in, when
all of a sudden I missed a whole pound packet of Orange Pekoe Tea, which
Edward had brought home from the City on purpose for me. This Mrs.
Burgess assured me Tom must have taken for the mere sake of taking; for
she herself had seen him scampering about the house like a mad thing
with a bit of paper in his mouth, and which she had no doubt now was
what the tea had been done up in--adding, that it really was quite a
mercy that it hadn’t been a five-pound note, as, of course, it would
have been all the same to a creature so dishonest as he was.
When I told Edward all about it, he called me a fool for my pains, and
said he could see that the cat was too good a friend to my old charwoman
for her to wish to get rid of him. As for Tom’s stealing the tea, it was
all a pack of fiddlesticks, and he verily believed that he had never
been into the canal at all, and that some fine day I should find old
Mother Burgess at the bottom of it. However, he said he would soon put a
stop to that game, for he would lock the cat up in the back attic that
night, and take it with him to office in his blue bag in the morning;
and when he got it down there we should soon find out who was the thief.
I told him it was a very good plan, if he would only keep it a secret
from Mrs. Burgess, and take care not to go letting the cat out of the
bag before he started.
[Illustration: “_The Cat did it!_”]
Accordingly, I took that naughty Tom up stairs with us when we went to
bed, and locked him up in the back attic, safe away from the larder. But
not a wink of sleep could we get, for the creature kept on scratching
and mee-yowing for better than two hours, and then we were nearly driven
out of our wits by hearing a tremendous smash, which Edward said was
that brute of a Tom flying at the windows, and told me that if I didn’t
jump out of bed directly, that they would all be broken before I could
say the name of Mr. John Robinson--for that as the cat was clearly going
wild, I had better go up and see what I could do to quiet him. As I went
up stairs, I was all of a tremble, and couldn’t keep the candle steady
for fright, for I could hear the beast flying about the room, and
swearing away like a mad thing, as he was. The very moment I opened the
door, he flew at me, for all the world as if he had been a young tiger,
and dug his claws (which, I can assure my readers, were just like so
many darning needles) so deep into me, that I gave a loud scream, and,
letting the night-candlestick fall, I flew down stairs in the dark, with
the brute clinging fast to my night-dress. When I got to our room,
(though I can’t tell how to goodness I was ever able to do so, I’m
sure,) the dragon let go his hold, and ran under our bed, where he
stopped, spitting and growling away like anything, and with his eyes
like two balls of phosphorus, and his tail as large as a Bologna
sausage, or my sable boa. Edward took the poker, and I got a broom, and
we kept poking and sh--sh--sh--sh--ewing away as hard as we could, for
near upon half an hour, expecting every moment that he would spring out
upon us again; in fear of which I kept as close as possible behind dear
Edward, who, I must say, displayed more courage, under the
circumstances, than I ever gave him credit for, and behaved like another
Grace Darling in a moment of such imminent peril. Nor was it until he
had thrown a whole jugful of water at the cat, that the savage brute
shot out of the room, and rushed down stairs.
The next morning I was telling my husband what a nice little boy that
was of Mrs. Burgess’s, and how fond he seemed to be of his mother, for
he always came to see her every day just before my usual time of going
down stairs to see about dinner, when Edward said that he saw what cat
took the meat now; so he’d just take old mother Burgess unawares, and
very soon show me whether our Tom was the thief or not. So when we went
down to breakfast, dear Edward sent Mrs. Burgess out to get a pint of
milk for him, and as soon as she had left the house he slipt down stairs
and brought me up the basket that she came with upon her arm every
morning, and which, he said, he had discovered stowed away in our copper
in the back kitchen. Inside the basket we found nearly the whole of the
beautiful beef-steak pie that we had scarcely touched for dinner the day
before, and a bottle of pickles that had only been used once, and a bar
of yellow soap and a bag of flour and two eggs wrapt up in one of our
best glass cloths. Then putting them all back again, Edward hid the
basket in the plate warmer under our sideboard; and when my lady came in
with the milk, he told her that if she would be so good as to bring up
the cold beef-steak pie and the pickles, that he thought he could take a
mouthful of it, (no one but a man would ever have thought of such a
thing.) Without saying a word, down goes the brazen-faced creature and
up she comes with the dish in her hands, and scarcely a bit of the pie
left in it. “Oh, mum,” she cries, without even so much as the shadow of
a blush on her face, “only do just look here, mum! If that thief of a
Tom hasn’t been and devoured all this beautiful pie of yours, and he
must have knocked down the pickles, for there was eversomuch broken
glass on the floor when I came in this morning. Oh, mum! really it is
too bad. Upon my word, that cat is so cunning that I really shouldn’t
wonder at anything he did next.” On which Edward very cleverly asked her
whether she would wonder if, suppose the next thing Tom did was to put a
whole beef-steak pie into her own basket, together with some pickles and
some soap, and flour, and a glass cloth, and an egg or two, just to send
home as a treat to his old friends her children. Then taking the basket
from out of the plate warmer, he told her to look at it, adding, that he
himself didn’t wonder _now_ at anything the cat had done since she had
so kindly brought him to our house, and that really she ought to take
care of the animal, for it was clear that Tom was as good as a fortune
to her, and she could never want so long as she could get a situation
for her cat in the same family as herself. Whereupon the impudent thing
put her apron up to her eyes and pretended to cry, saying that she was a
poor lone woman, with ten children, and it was a hard matter to find
bread for so many mouths, (as if that was any affair of ours.) So Edward
gave her the basket with all our things in it, like a stupid, and packed
her out of the house as quick as he could, saying, that if she did not
keep a sharp look out, she would find some fine morning, that, like her
cat, she wasn’t born to be drowned.
Indeed, I was not sorry that we got rid of her on the spot, for Norah
was coming in the evening, only I couldn’t, for the life of me, all that
day, get over the idea of Edward (a lawyer too!) being silly enough to
let the deceitful creature go off with one of our best glass
cloths--though I made up my mind to put it down in the housekeeping next
week, and make him give me the money for a new one, if I died for it.