ON THE SHELF.
THAT season, there was no Christmas-tide for me; no “Happy New Year,”
to wish to others, and be wished; nor even so much as a Valentine’s
Day, to send poems to girls, and get caricatures. In the leeward of
the wild storm, I had been saved by a merciful power from the frost
of death, and by constant care and indefatigable skill, I was slowly
brought back into the warmth of life. But strong as I was, and of tough
and active frame, with habits of temperance and exercise, there was no
making little of the mischief done; and I could not have survived it,
if I had been a clever fellow. For one of the most racking and deadly
evils of all that beset the human frame was established in mine, and
there worked its savage will. When I was just beginning to get warm
again, and to ask where I was, and to stretch my tingling joints,
symptoms of rheumatic fever showed, and for weeks and for months it
ran its agonizing course. The doctor did all that any man could do;
and my uncle went up to his cupboard in the wall by the head of his
bed, and brought down a leather bag, and looked at it fondly, and then
looked at me.
“It was put by for a rainy day; and there can’t be a rainier day than
this,” he said with some drops in his own eyes, as Tabby told me
afterwards. “Let the business go to the dogs, if it will. Where’s the
use of keeping up, with no one to keep up for? Dr. Sippets, I never
thought to see this day. Fetch the best man in London, and let him
cheat me, if he will.”
If I had been at all a clever fellow, my mind would have stayed with
me, and worried out my heart, when dreadfully pushed to carry on its
proper work, with the lowering and the heightening, and the quivering
of the pulse. But being just a simple mind, that took its cue from
body, and depended on the brain for motion, and the eyes for guidance,
when these went amiss it quite struck work; and never even asked who
its master was. Thus it came to pass that Kitty’s sweet and tender
letters lay upon a shelf but a yard or two away, and no hand was yet
stretched out for them.
At last there came a letter sent in special trouble, as was plain from
many signs upon it, and from the mode of its delivery. For Mrs. Wilcox
came herself, the roads being once more passable, and perceiving how
things were in the house had a long talk with my uncle. This good
woman, as I may have said, was much attached to Miss Fairthorn, and had
promised to take charge of my replies, and even to give me tidings of
her, if anything happened to disable her from writing. But no provision
had been made for any default on my part, as I was supposed to be free,
and strong, and sure to come when called for.
“The poor young thing has been in such a taking,” Mrs. Wilcox told my
uncle, “at not having so much as a single line from your poor nephew,
you see, sir. You may put it to yourself how you would feel to be
looking and looking for letters about business; and this is worse than
business to young folk; they goes on as if it was all the world to
them. And Miss Kitty always did have such an uncommon tender heart; you
never see the like of it in all your life. What was she to conclude
except that Mr. Kit had throwed her over, and perhaps taken up with
some of them country girls down here. It wasn’t, you see, sir, as if
he had written once, and told her he meant to stick fast to her. And
yet she couldn’t bring her mind for to believe that such a nice young
gent would be guilty of such conduct; and of course she knows right
well how bootiful she is, though you never see her look that sort of
way, as young ladies with a quarter of her good looks does. I declare
to you, sir, when I was in the ’bus, holding of this bag exactly as
you see me now, I felt that I could scratch out both his eyes, tall
and strong as he is by Miss Kitty’s account. Bless her gentle heart,
what a way she will be in, when she hears she have thought ill of him
undeserving. Though a relief, sir, on the whole, for I believe she
never done it; and better be in a snow-drift than belong to another
woman.”
“You are a remarkably sensible lady,” said my uncle, desiring to make
the best of things. “But I do not like to open poor Kit’s letters; and
there are six of them already on a bracket by his bed, waiting till he
comes round a bit. You must understand, Mrs. Wilcox, what this means.
He isn’t off his head, exactly, but—you know that we all get a little
abroad, when we lie on our backs so long as not to know our legs.”
“I do, sir, I do. I can feel it all through me, by means of what
happened to my own husband. Ah, he was a man—could take a scuttle full
of coals, and hold it out straight, the same as you might march up the
aisle on a Sunday, with your hat right for’ard, to show that it was
brushed and shining. But poor Wilcox, he went away at last, with a tub
of clothes in his lungs, and the same may occur to the best of us;
mayn’t it, Mr. Orchardson? But if you feel a delicate sort of feeling
about breaking open the young lady’s letter, and the young gent from
the snow-drift is still looking at his legs, I can tell you a good bit
of what is going on; though I never was one, and Wilcox knew it, for
hearkening so much as a word they say, when the women have done with
their teas, and the men stand against the low green palings, with a
pot, and a pipe as long as their shirt-sleeves.
“Well, sir, it do appear that two bad ones has turned up, over and
above the one always there, which I will not name, consequent upon
fear. One was Sir Cumberance Hotchpots, or some such name, proving
to be a wicked man from the North; and the other was her brother,
as ought to be all over, according to the flesh of marriage, sir.
Donovan Bulwrag is his name, but every one prefer to call him ‘Downy.’
A hulking young man is my opinion of him; and it has been my lot to
behold a good many. You may see it on the tables, sir, that come down
from the Mount, going into church any Sunday, that such is forbidden by
the law of Moses, for any Christian man to marry. Their father is one,
and their mother is one; and they have no right to make a pair of them.
You holds on with that, sir, as a respectable man, who has trodden his
way in the world, is bound to do?”
“Yes, Mrs. Wilcox, I hold to it strongly,” said my uncle, “if I
understand you. Do you mean to tell me, that this young man—”
“There is the facts, sir, and none of my telling. I was always a very
bad hand at telling, though Wilcox he used to say otherwise, when he
might be overcome in argument. But facts or no facts, the truth is as
I tell you. This Mr. Donovan have come home, from Germany, or some
such foreign parts; and whatever his meaning is, that is what it comes
to—Miss Kitty can’t have no peace with him. And a yellow young man, Mr.
Orchardson; as yellow as a daffodil, his hair, and beard, and eyes.”
“I don’t care a fig what his colour may be,” cried my uncle, being now
on his high ropes; “he must be a black blackguard, and nothing else,
if he dares to take advantage of a girl he should protect. Poor Kitty,
what a pretty kettle of fish she is in! You need not tell me, ma’am, I
can see it all. I have always had a gift in that way. Though I have not
had so very much to do with women, for which I thank the Lord, every
night of my life, I understand their ways, as well as if I had been one
of them.”
“Then you must be a wonderful man, sir, indeed. The most wonderful I
ever come across.” Mrs. Wilcox smoothed her dress, as if to ask what
was inside it, but reserved her own opinion as to what was not.
“I mean it,” said my Uncle, who grew stronger always, whenever called
in question. “It may not be the general thing; but so it is with me.
And now I would venture to ask you, ma’am, what you consider the next
thing to do.”
“Well,” replied the lady, highly flattered by request for advice from
such an oracle, “if I were a strong man and a very clever one, I know
what I should do at once. I should go up and fetch her away from them
all, and let none of them come anigh her.”
“And what would you say, ma’am, supposing you had done it, when you
found yourself served, the next morning perhaps, with a warrant for
abduction of a maiden under age, and then committed for trial as a
criminal? What would you say to that, Mrs. Wilcox?”
“I should say that the laws was outrageous, and made for the
encouragement of vice and wickedness. And I should put it in the
newspapers, right and left, till the public came and broke down the
doors of the jail, and got up a public subscription for me.”
“Where is her father? What is he about?” My uncle thought it waste
of time to argue after that. “Her father is the only person who can
interfere. Has he been knocked on the head, and killed by one of his
own battering rams?” Mr. Orchardson’s knowledge of scientific matters
was more elementary than even mine.
“Not to my knowledge, sir; though like enough that will be the end of
him. He have gone to the ends of the earth, I believe, to arrange for
going ever so much further in the Spring. There is no help to be got
from him, sir, now, if there ever was any chance of it. The poor young
lady is delivered as a lamb between two lions to devour her, with a
tigress patting them on the back, and holding her down while they carry
it out. What will Mr. Kit say, if you allow it, sir?”
“You may be quite sure that I will never allow it, though at present
I cannot see what to do. You have quicker wits than we have, ma’am; I
ask you again, is there anything you can think of? Has her father any
friends who would take her in?”
“Not one, to my knowledge,” answered Mrs. Wilcox, after counting on her
finger-tips some names that she had heard of; “that dreadful creature
have contrived to make every lady in the land afraid of her. And the
poor Professor only knows the learned men, and the learneder they are
the less they cares for one another. ’Tis the learning that is at the
foot of all this trouble. You must see it so yourself, sir, when you
come to think about it.”
“And the law, Mrs. Wilcox, the law is still worse. She is not of age,
you see; and her father has placed her, or at any rate left her, in
the charge of that woman, whom he has been fool enough to marry. If my
nephew were in health, I should say to him at once, ‘Take the bull by
the horns, or at least take the young lady, get a licence, and marry
her, and defy those people. Her father’s consent has been given; and
if he chooses to leave her in that helpless state, you must rescue
her, and have no shilly-shallying. But for me to come and take her, is
another pair of shoes. It might ruin her fair name, as well as get me
into trouble; and what could I do with her, when I had got her?”
“You are right, sir; I see it all as clearly as you put it. But will
you come up, and have a talk with her? A word from you would go as
far as ten from me. And it would make her feel so much less forsaken
like. I could manage to get her down to my little place, and the news I
have got for her about poor Mr. Kit will set her up in one way, while
it knocks her down in another. Oh, how she have cried, to think that
he could be so false to her, because she wouldn’t believe a single
word of it, all the blessed time! And now, if I can send my little
Ted to her to-night—the sharpest little chap he is, in all the brick
and mortar trade; he have never lost a sixpence, sir, from all them
roaring navvies—though you might not think it, it will brisk her up
amazingly. There is nothing so hagonizing to the female spirit, sir, as
to find itself forsaken by the other sex. And your nephew, Master Kit,
he mustn’t think of dying yet; no cough about him, sir, nor nothing in
the kidneys, only got a chill from being frozen to a hicicle, and his
head upon the moon, which goes for nothing. Lor’, sir, the number of
young men comes every day, from the best part of London, too, according
to my Ted, a-staring at the great works round our way, which is to be
the fashion in a few more years, and not a head among them fit to go
upon a donkey! It doesn’t matter what’s the matter with the head, one
item, sir, in these times now upon us and increasing daily. Keep your
spirits up, sir, and I shall tell Miss Kitty. A young man, as is all
right, except inside his head, isn’t no more to complain of than a
cuckoo-clock, that have left off striking, and keeps better time for
that. What time did you say the last ’bus at Hampton was, sir? If I was
to lose it, wherever should I be? And a good step from here to Hampton,
too.”
“I will send you to Hampton, in the spring-cart, Mrs. Wilcox,” said my
uncle, warmly joining in her estimate of the age; “and to-morrow, if
the roads permit, I shall hope to call upon you, about eleven o’clock;
and if you can manage to get Miss Fairthorn to meet me, why, it may be
a little comfort to her, and we may be able perhaps to see what can be
done for her.”