_Wherein Master Oliver is convinced that it is Difficult to play the
Man’s Part on a Weak Stomach_
In a large attic the glow of a stove, that roared of warmth, gave a
sense of comfort to the spacious, rambling, rather bare room; and from
its opened iron door the ruddy light of its furnace flared cheerily
upon the floor.
Near by sat Caroline Baddlesmere at a small table, where a shaded lamp
flung down a golden glory upon the white pages of the printer’s proofs
she was correcting, reflecting little amber lights that played about
her handsome eye-pits and nostrils and mouth and chin.
Along the low walls, almost to where the steep roof met them, books
were piled for lack of shelves; and the largeness of the room and the
atmosphere of the books gave the suggestion of a library that was
strangely at variance with a small bed in the far end of the large
place, where a candle dimly showed the boy Oliver lying amongst his
pillows, watching Netherby Gomme and Julia as they whispered their
confidences seated on chairs hard by him. The candle’s light painted
their faces picturesquely against the black hollow of an open doorway
that led to a smaller attic which was the Baddlesmeres’ sleeping-room.
Eyes grown accustomed to this gloom might have seen that a thin line
of blue smoke curled upwards from the bed, for Noll was colouring the
wedding-present--keeping a sharp look-out lest anyone should see him,
and raising a screen of bedclothes with his knees, between himself and
detection....
Caroline roused from her work, disturbed by the loud sniff of a shabby
little maid-of-all-work who entered the room, a dusting-brush under her
arm and a dusting-rag in her hand.
“Please, lidy,” said the girl, “may I finish a bit of work by the light
of the stove?--I won’t be more than four-and-twenty shakes, and I’ll be
very quiet.”
Caroline nodded good-humouredly.
The lank child--she was little more--stooped down by the blaze of warm
light that came from the stove’s open door, and lugging a battered
periodical out of her pocket, smoothed it out and began to read....
“What are you doing, Victoria May Alice?” asked Caroline, after a
while, smiling at the calm effrontery of the girl.
Victoria May Alice uttered a loud sniff:
“I was just a-finishing this here chapter, lidy--it’s so blamey dark
on the landing. I’d got to such a beautiful part--where Sir ’Enery
Marjorrybanks is a-telling of the lady’s-maid as her eyes is so magical
and is just a-seein’ of poems in their liquid depths, and all that....
It give me a kind of nice hump the way they was a-goin’ hon----”
“What are you reading, Victoria May Alice?” Caroline held out her hand.
“Let me see it.”
The smudgy little maid handed her the periodical:
“It’s _Bow Bells_, marm--what that rummy gent brings me--him what they
calls Lovegood.”
She went and stood beside her chair as Caroline looked at the paper;
and with long bony fingers, not very clean, the girl proceeded to do
the honours:
“That’s the picture of Sir ’Enery a-kissin’ of the girl hunder the
hoak-tree. She’s purtendin’ she don’t like it. I wonder why they always
does that in high-class society. I kissed a ’airdresser once, and it
was better than a lobster salad--but (_sniff_) that’s neither ’ere nor
there.... I like them wonderful whiskers of Sir’’Enery Marjorrybanks--I
like ’is name, too, it’s like crackin’ nuts--Marjorrybanks.”
“Marchbanks, Victoria!”
Victoria May Alice looked hard at the handsome lady before her,
suspiciously:
“Garn, mem!” said she--“you’re coddin’.”
A smile flickered about the corners of Caroline’s mouth:
“No,” she said severely--“you must believe me, Victoria.”
“Well,” said Victoria May Alice--“I’ll allow I most generally does. But
if that there don’t spell Marjorrybanks I’ll darn my stockings.”
Caroline Baddlesmere nodded:
“Then,” said she, “Victoria May Alice will have to darn her stockings.”
Victoria May Alice considered:
“No, mem,” said she--“I takes back the stockin’s. I dessay you’re
right.” She put her head on one side and surveyed the difficulty with
one eye half shut.... She sighed: “All I can say is that it ain’t the
way _we_ was taught to spell at the board-school. But I suppose it’s
all right. I reckon it’s high-toned and hupper-class to spell things
as they ain’t got no reason to be spelled. There was a lady here quite
recent as was callin’ on the first floor as is given to indulgence” She
tippled with an imaginary glass of wine. “And this party as was callin’
on the one as is given to----”
“Hush, Victoria,” said Caroline.
“Yes, _you_ know--well, she was a-doin’ of the thing regular formal and
in style, I can tell you, powdered footman and a red-nosed geezer with
white leather breeches a-sittin’ on the coachman’s box, and all--well,
she rings the bell in the old party’s room as--_you_ know--and in I
hustles, a-doin’ up my bun on the back of my ’ead with my ’and as I
stood at the door. She asked for her broom. ‘Yes, lidy,’ says I, and
takes her one up from the kitchen. But she was that short, you’d think
I’d hit her on the bonnet!... What d’you think she was gettin’ at?...
Why--her bloomin’ brow-ham!”
Victoria May Alice, in the attitude of a coachman on his box, and with
mighty clucks and “gees” and “whoas,” whipped up imaginary horses.
A shrill voice called from far below:
“Victoria--May--Yall--liss!”
The little maid-of-all-work went out of the door, and, leaning over the
balustrade, she called down the stairs at the top pitch of her shrill
voice, standing a-tiptoe to give her lean lungs full play:
“Yes--marm! I’m a-com--ing!”
She came back into the room, and added placidly:
“I ’ate ’er voice. It goes through yer like a gimlet.... But (sniff)
she ain’t bad--not all through--when you knows ’er.” She sniffed.
The shrill voice came mounting up the stairs:
“Victoria--May--Yall--liss!”
The untidy child stepped quickly back to the door, and putting out her
head through the cranny, yelled, with sing-song delivery:
“_Yes_--marm!--I’m a-comin’--I’m--a-coming! The top floor’s a-wantin’
coals hasty, marm; and a-gettin’ nasty about the size of the scuttles!”
She came blithely into the room, and, screwing up her mouth, said, with
a wise nod of the head:
“That’s one on the tender for ’er!”
Caroline suppressed a smile, and said reprovingly:
“I made no complaint about the size of the coal-scuttles, Victoria.”
Victoria May Alice sniffed:
“Lor bless yer, no,” said she; “but them coal-scuttles is what I calls
a vegitable halloocination.... You ain’t one to complain; but it’s
about time some one did it for yer.... My word, she do run it fine with
them egg-cups o’ coal! She don’t dare let _me_ fill the bucket--so I
gets off that job!” Sniff.
Caroline sighed:
“Ah, Victoria, she has to practise economy.”
Victoria May Alice nodded her head seriously:
“There’s some kinds of economy as is religion, and some kinds as is
against religion, mem,” said she. “She’s always talking of savin’ for
that blackguard son of hers in Australia.” She came near to Caroline
Baddlesmere and added in a hoarse whisper--“My solemn opinion is the
feller is doin’ his five years’ hard.”
“Now, now, Victoria--you are descending to scandal!”
“Perhaps I am--and again, perhaps I ain’t. Who’d be writing to her from
Wormwood Scrubbs Prison but her own relations--garn! D’yer think----”
“Now, now, Victoria!”
Victoria prepared to depart, but hesitated at the door:
“If Master Oliver’s a-wantin’ of anythink, lady, jest you put yer ’ead
over the rail and ’owl for it,” said she. Loud sniff. “It’s no good
being backward and modest in this ’ouse--nor, for that, in this dirty
city.... They----”
There was a furious ringing of a bell below, and the racket was
followed by an irritable yell:
“Victoria--May--Yall--liss!”
Victoria May Alice sniffed:
“My eye!” said she--“she’ll thump my ’ed when I go down!” And yelling
where she stood: “Yes--marm--I’m a-coming!” she turned to Caroline and
added in a confidential whisper: “No, lidy--it’s no gain being backward
and modest. _She_ don’t understand it, bless yer. Thinks you’re
weak--or can’t pay yer bill. And, bless yer, lidy, I don’t a-mind
a-carryin’ up of the scuttles--not to _this_ floor.”
Caroline nodded anxiously:
“Run along, Victoria, like a good girl.”
“Yes, lidy,” said she. Loud sniff.
As she turned to go she caught sight of Noll smoking in bed. She
smuggled a laugh into her hand:
“The ridic’lous little creature,” said she, and disappeared. The
door softly shut after her, and her weary young feet could be heard
shuffling down the stairs.
“I say, Julia,” said Noll, from his bed--“ain’t it time we had a meal?”
Caroline Baddlesmere looked up:
“There’s some bread soaked in milk for you, Noll--on the table. I will
heat it for you.”
The boy’s stomach turned against it. He shook his head:
“I’m afraid, mother, I can’t eat it,” he said.... “I’m sorry.”
Caroline, rising calmly, put on her cloak and hat and let herself out
of the room. She said she would soon be back....
Netherby leaned forward, chin in hand, and gazed at Julia.
“Julia,” he said, in a low whisper, “look how these people face poverty
and neglect--just because they have each other to work for. Why cannot
we, you and I, start life together--now--to-morrow?”
“But, Netherby----”
He took her slender fingers in his hand:
“My dear girl,” said he--“I am now known a little. The money will be
coming in soon. What more would you wait for?... Must I bring you the
moon?”
“But supposing I drag you down, Netherby----”
“My dear Julia--you talk as if you were sixteen stone, and I swimming
in a duck-pond. We can never be in want from now--not more than we are.”
“How can you be sure, Netherby?”
His stern face smiled:
“I can amuse the world. And the world cheerfully flings its pence to
its jesters. On the blackest night the court fool may warm his hands at
the hearth of the world. And I once heard the greatest ass in London
confess that it takes a clever fellow to be reckoned a remarkable fool
in these days, Julia.”
“This disaster to Caroline and Mr. Anthony has frightened me,” she
sighed.
“It has strengthened me,” he said--“given me courage. Here are gently
nurtured people, used to the luxuries of life, whose womenfolk wear the
bonnet of fashion without a strut, for they have never known any other;
here they are, living all hugger-mugger in a “spacious upper floor”
where even I, from the ranks, would be everlastingly seeing only the
faults--yet never so much as a whimper from them. They are as cheery as
though they had come into the family estates. Until the boy went sick,
Baddlesmere was never more amusing----”
She sighed:
“Ah, yes--they laugh to keep the tears away,” she said.
“But, my Julia, you would not have them live their life in one
long-drawn-out fear lest the world be full of fears!”
“But--how do you know your next book will be a success, Netherby?”
“I don’t know, dear. I once knew a man who was so afraid of getting a
chill that he wore goloshes after sunset--he died of heat-apoplexy.”
The boy Noll yawned:
“I say, Netherby,” he grumbled from the bed peevishly: “come here, you
and Julia, and sit on the bed--I can’t hear a word you say--it’s so
beastly dull seeing you billing and cooing there and missing all the
letterpress.”
Netherby chuckled hugely; and they both got up, he chuckling, and she
blushing, and came to the boy’s bedside. Noll was looking very sickly:
“Oh, Noll,” said Julia in alarm--“I’m sure you ought not to be smoking.
You are looking so pale.”
Noll coughed:
“Shush!” said he--“or mother’ll hear you.... I got back the pipe from
that sailor fellow--I told him I couldn’t pay him because I had had
money losses. He waived the fee--he said that though he commanded a
barge he’d colour a dozen meerschaum pipes for a good un like me, free
of cost--I had only to send along the pipes and the tobacco. Such a
gentlemanly fellow, he was! Though a bit dirty.... Thames sailors are
such warm-hearted johnnies--but they don’t keep their nails very nice.”
“But, Noll,” she said--“you ought not to be sitting up in bed without
your jacket on.”
She brought the lad his short black jacket, and he submitted to putting
it on graciously enough.
“Noll,” she said--“surely you cannot get any pleasure from smoking?”
“My dear Julia,” he said limply--“I shall never get the pipe coloured
in time for your wedding if you go on like this.... Unless you put it
off for a little.... You see, I’m not very used to a pipe--and I don’t
mind telling you it does make my head go round a bit. But--hullo! I
say, hold my pipe, Julia--there’s a whopping great moth!”
He handed the pipe to Julia, who took it reluctantly enough; he jumped
up, and, seizing a butterfly net which hung over a chest of drawers by
his bed-head, he leaped about on his tumbled bed in his night-shirt,
Eton jacket, and black stockings, making frantic sweeps at the
fluttering moth, which swerved aside, escaped the net, and fluttered
through the dark doorway into the next room. Noll leaped from his bed
and made after it, in hot pursuit, chasing it into the gloom of the
dark room beyond.
Julia sighed--put aside the pipe with dainty fingers of disgust--and
sat down again.
They could hear Noll fumbling about in the next room.
Netherby went and sat beside her.
He watched her in silence for awhile:
“Julia,” he said--“promise. You must promise.
Promise--promise--promise----”
They both started.
Through the open doorway came the boy, looking like misery, deathly
pale, and dragging the butterfly-net limply after him.
“O lor!” he said.
“My dear Noll!” said Julia--“what on earth have you been doing now?”
Noll halted wearily before them:
“It’s that sailor-man’s tobacco,” he said gloomily. “It was--too
much--for--my strength. I don’t think I’m a man--yet.... Netherby, you
and Julia can get married as soon as you like--I shall never smoke
again.”
He laid the butterfly-net on Gomme’s knees, and added, with a wan smile:
“I say, Netherby, let’s change places--you go and catch butterflies
whilst I kiss Julia.”
Julia jumped and uttered a little scream:
“Oh, Noll, you cruel boy--you’ve caught the moth!” she cried.
She put her deft fingers into the net, caught the struggling thing,
and, taking it out carefully, carried it to the window and let it fly
out into the darkness.
Noll smiled gloomily at Netherby:
“It’s very cruel of Julia,” said he. “It’s a beastly night--that
moth’ll get an awful cold in its chest--accompanied by sore throat,
fever, and chills, and violent perspiration--and developing into a
nasty hacking cough.”