OF A RAID ON DOLLY'S GARDEN. THAT YOUNG DRUITT'S BEHAVIOUR TO HIS
SISTER. MR. RAGSTROAR'S ACCIDENT, AND HIS MOKE. HOW THE TWO LADIES
CAME AT LAST. LADY GWENDOLEN RIVERS, AND HOW DOLLY GOT ON HER LAP.
HOW DAVE WENT UPSTAIRS TO GET HIS LETTER. HOW MRS. PRICHARD HAD
TAKEN MRS. MARROWBONE TO HEART, AND VICE VERSA. HOW DOLLY GOT A
LOCK OF GWEN'S HAIR, AND VICE VERSA. HOW DAVE DELAYED AND DOLLY AND
GWEN WENT TO FETCH HIM. A REMARKABLE SOUND. THEN GOD-KNOWS-WHAT,
OUTSIDE!
An effort of horticulture was afoot in the front-garden of No. 7, Sapps
Court. Dave Wardle and Dolly were engaged in an attempt to remedy a
disaster that had befallen the Sunflower. There was but one--the one
that had been present when Uncle Mo was adjusting that door-chain.
Its career had been cut short prematurely. For a boy had climbed up over
the end wall of those gardens acrost the Court, right opposite to where
it growed; and had all but cut through the stem, when he was cotched in
the very act by Michael Ragstroar. That young coster's vigorous
assertion of the rights of property did a man's heart good to see,
nowadays. The man was Uncle Mo, who got out of the house in plenty of
time to stop Michael half-murdering the marauder, as soon as he
considered the latter had had enough, he being powerfully outclassed by
the costermonger boy. Why, he was only one of them young Druitts, when
all was said and done! Michael felt no stern joy in him--a foeman not
worth licking, on his merits. But the knife that he left behind, with a
buckhorn handle, was a fizzing knife, and was prized in after-years by
Michael.
The Wardle household had gone into mourning for the Sunflower. Was it
not the same Sunflower as last year, reincarnated? Dolly sat under it,
shedding tears. Uncle Mo showed ignorance of gardening, saying it might
grow itself on again if you giv' it a chance; not if you kep' on at it
like that. Dave disagreed with this view, but respectfully. His Hospital
experience had taught him the use of ligatures; and he kept on at it,
obtaining from Mrs. Burr a length of her wide toyp to tie it in
position. If limbs healed up under treatment, why not vegetation? The
operator was quite satisfied with his handiwork.
In fact, Dave and Dolly both foresaw a long and prosperous life for the
flower. They rejected Aunt M'riar's suggestion, that it should be cut
clear off and stood in water, as a timid compromise--a stake not worth
playing for. And Michael Ragstroar endorsed the flattering tales Hope
told, citing instances in support of them derived from his own
experience, which appeared to have been exceptional. As, for instance,
that over-supplies of fruit at Covent Garden were took back and stuck on
the stems again, as often as not. "I seen 'em go myself," said he. "'Ole
cartloads!"
"Hark at that unblushing young story!" said Aunt M'riar, busy in the
kitchen, Michael being audible without, lying freely. "He'll go on like
that till one day it'll surprise me if the ground don't open and swallow
him up."
But Uncle Mo had committed himself to an expression of opinion on the
vitality of vegetables. He might condemn exaggeration, but he could
scarcely repudiate a principle he had himself almost affirmed. He took
refuge in obscurity. "'Tain't for the likes of us, M'riar," said he,
shaking his head profoundly, "to be sayin' how queer starts there mayn't
be. My jiminy!--the things they says in lecters, when they gets the
steam up!" He shook his head a little quicker, to recover credit for a
healthy incredulity, and arranged a newspaper he was reading against
difficulties, to gain advantages of position and a better discrimination
of its columns.
"If it was the freckly one with the red head," said Aunt M'riar,
referring back to the fracas of the morning, "all I can say is, I'm
sorry you took Micky off him." From which it appeared that this culprit
was not unknown. Indeed, Aunt M'riar was able to add that Widow Druitt
his mother couldn't call her soul her own for that boy's goings on.
"He'd got a tidy good punishing afore I got hold of the scruff of my
man's trousers," said Uncle Mo, who seemed well contented with the
culprit's retribution; and, of course, _he_ knew. "Besides," he added,
"he had to get away over them bottles." That is to say, the wall-top,
bristling with broken glass. Humanity had paved the way for the enemy's
retreat. Uncle Mo added inquiry as to how the freckly one's behaviour to
his family had come to the knowledge of Sapps Court.
"You can see acrost from Mrs. Prichard's. He do lead 'em all a life,
that boy! Mrs. Burr she saw him pour something down his sister's back
when she was playing scales. Ink, she says, by the look. But, of course,
it's a way off from here, over to Mrs. Druitt's."
"Oh--she's the one that plays the pyanner. Same tune all through--first
up, then down! Good sort of tune to go to sleep to!"
"'Tain't a tune, Mo. It's _scales_. She's being learned how. One day
soon she'll have a tune to play. An easy tune. Mrs. Prichard says _she_
could play several tunes before she was that girl's age. Then she hadn't
no brother to werrit her. I lay that made a difference." Aunt M'riar
went on to mention other atrocities ascribed by Mrs. Burr to the freckly
brother. His behaviour to his musical sister had, indeed, been a matter
of serious concern to the upstairs tenants, whose window looked directly
upon the back of Mrs. Druitt's, who took in lodgers in the main street
where Dave had met with his accident.
The boy Michael was suffering from enforced leisure on the day of this
occurrence, as his father's cart had met with an accident, and was under
repair. Its owner had gone to claim compensation personally from the
butcher whose representative had ridden him down; not, he alleged, by
misadventure, but from a deep-rooted malignity against all poor but
honest men struggling for a livelihood. No butcher, observe, answers
this description. Butchers are a class apart, whose motives are
extortion, grease, and blood. They wallow in the last with joy, and
practise the first with impunity. If they can get a chance to run over
you, they'll do it! Trust them for that! Nevertheless, so hopeless would
this butcher's case be if his victim went to a lawyer, that it was worth
having a try at it afore he done that--so Mr. Rackstraw put it, later.
Therefore, he had this afternoon gone to High Street, Clapham, to apply
for seven pun' thirteen, and not take a penny less. Hence his son's
ability to give attention to local matters, and a temporary respite to
his donkey's labours in a paddock at Notting Hill. As for Dave, and for
that matter the freckly boy, it was not term-time with them, for some
reason. Dave was certainly at home, and was bidden to pay a visit to
Mrs. Prichard in the course of the afternoon, if those lady-friends of
his whom he met in the street yesterday did not come to pay _him_ a
visit. It was not very likely they would, but you never could tell. Not
to place reliance!
Uncle Mo kept looking at his watch, and saying that if this here lady
meant to turn up, she had better look alive. Being reproved for
impatience by Aunt M'riar, he said very good, then--he'd stop on to the
hour. Only it was no use runnin' through the day like this, and nothing
coming of it, as you might say. This was only the way he preferred of
expressing impatience for the visit. It is a very common one, and has
the advantages of concealing that impatience, putting whomsoever one
expects in the position of an importunate seeker of one's society, and
suggesting that one is foregoing an appointment in the City to gratify
him. Uncle Mo did unwisely to tie himself to the hour, as he became
thereby pledged to depart, he having no particular wish to do so, and no
object at all in view.
But he was not to be subjected to the indignity of a recantation. As the
long hand of his watch approached twelve, and he was beginning to feel
on the edge of an embarrassment, Dave left off watering the Sunflower,
and ran indoors with the news that there were two ladies coming down the
Court, one of whom was Sister Nora, and the other "the other lady."
Dave's conscience led him into a long and confused discrimination
between this other lady and the other other lady, who had shared with
her the back-seat in that carriage yesterday. It was quite unimportant
which of the two had come, both being unknown to Dave's family.
Moreover, there was no time for the inventory of their respective
attributes Dave wished to supply. He was still struggling with a detail,
in an undertone lest it should transpire in general society, when he
found himself embraced from behind, and kissed with appreciation. He had
not yet arrived at the age when one is surprised at finding oneself
suddenly kissed over one's shoulder by a lady. Besides, this was his old
acquaintance, whom he was delighted to welcome, but who made the
tactical mistake of introducing "the other lady" as Lady Gwendolen
Rivers. Stiffness might have resulted, if it had not been for the
conduct of that young lady, which would have thawed an iceberg. It was
not always thus with her; but, when the whim was upon her, she was
irresistible.
"I know what Dave was saying to you when we came in, Mr. Wardle," said
she, after capturing Dolly to sit on her knee, and coming to an anchor.
"He was telling you exactly what his friend had said to him about me. He
was Micky. I've heard all about Micky. This chick's going to tell me
what Micky said about me. Aren't you, Dolly?" She put Dolly at different
distances, ending with a hug and a kiss, of which Dolly reciprocated the
latter.
Dolly would have embarked at once on a full report, if left to herself.
But that unfortunate disposition of Aunt M'riar's to godmother or
countersign the utterances of the young, very nearly nipped her
statement in the bud. "There now, Dolly dear," said the excellent
woman, "see what the lady says!--you're to tell her just exactly what
Micky said, only this very minute in the garden." Which naturally
excited Dolly's suspicion, and made her impute motives. She retired
within herself--a self which, however, twinkled with a consciousness of
hidden knowledge and a resolution not to disclose it.
Gwen's tact saved the position. "Don't you tell _them_, you know--only
me! You whisper it in my ear.... Yes--quite close up, like that." Dolly
entered into this with zest, the possession of a secret in common with
this new and refulgent lady obviously conferring distinction.
Sister Nora--not otherwise known to Sapps Court--was resuming history
during the past year for the benefit of Uncle Mo. She had seen nothing
of Dave, or, indeed, of London, since October; till, yesterday, when she
got back from Scotland, whom should she see before she had been five
minutes out of the station but Dave himself! Only she hardly knew him,
his face was so black. Here Uncle Mo and Aunt M'riar shook penitential
heads over his depravity. Sister Nora paid a passing tribute to the
Usages of Society, which rightly discourage the use of burnt cork on the
countenance, and proceeded. She had heard of him, though, having paid a
visit to Widow Thrale in the country, where he got well after the
Hospital.
This was a signal for Dave to find his voice, and he embarked with
animation on a variegated treatment of subjects connected with his visit
to the country. A comparison of his affection for Widow Thrale and
Granny Marrable, with an undisguised leaning to the latter; a reference
to the lady with the rings, her equipage, and its driver's nose; Farmer
Jones's bull, and its untrustworthy temper; the rich qualities of
duckweed; the mill-model on the mantelshelf, and individualities of his
fellow-convalescents. This took time, although some points were only
touched lightly.
Possibly Uncle Moses thought it might prove prolix, as he said:--"If I
was a young shaver now, and ladies was to come to see me, I should get a
letter I was writing, to show 'em." The delicacy and tact with which
this suggestion was offered was a little impaired by Aunt
M'riar's:--"Yes, now you be a good boy, Dave, and ..." and so forth.
Many little boys would not have been so magnanimous as Dave, and would
have demurred or offered passive resistance. Dave merely removed Sister
Nora's arm rather abruptly from his neck, saying:--"Storp a minute!" and
ran up the stairs that opened on the kitchen where they were sitting.
There was more room there than in the little parlour.
Uncle Moses explained:--"You see, ladies, this here young Dave, for all
he's getting quite a scholar now, and can write any word he can spell,
yet he don't take to doing it quite on his own hook just yet a while. So
he gets round the old lady upstairs, for to let him set and write at her
table. Then she can tip him a wink now and again, when he gets a bit
fogged."
"That's Mrs. Picture," said Gwen, interested. But she did not speak loud
enough to invite correction of her pronunciation of the name, and Sister
Nora merely said:--"That's her!" and nodded. Dolly at once launched into
a vague narrative of a misadventure that had befallen her putative
offspring, the doll that Sister Nora had given her last year. Struvvel
Peter had met with an accident, his shock head having got in a
candle-flame in Mrs. Picture's room upstairs, so that he was quite
smooth before he could be rescued. The interest of this superseded other
matter.
"Davy he's a great favourite with the ladies," said Uncle Mo, as
Struvvel Peter subsided. "He ain't partic'lar to any age. Likes 'em a
bit elderly, if anythin', I should say." He added, merely to generalise
the conversation, and make talk:--"Now this here old lady in the country
she's maybe ten years younger than our Mrs. Prichard, but she's what you
might call getting on in years."
"Prichard," said Gwen, for Sister Nora's ear. "I thought it couldn't be
Picture."
"Prichard, of course! How funny we didn't think of it--so obvious!"
"Very--when one knows! I think I like Picture best."
Aunt M'riar, not to be out of the conversation, took a formal exception
to Uncle Mo's remark:--"The ladies they know how old Old Mrs. Marrable
in the country is, without your telling of 'em, Mo."
"Right you are, M'riar! But they don't know nothing about old Mrs.
Prichard." Uncle Mo had spoken at a guess of Mrs. Marrowbone's age, of
which he knew nothing. It was a sort of emulation that had made him
assess _his_ old lady as the senior. He felt vulnerable, and changed the
conversation. "That young Squire's taking his time, M'riar. Supposin'
now I was just to sing out to him?"
But both ladies exclaimed against Dave being hurried away from his old
lady. Besides, they wanted to know some more about her--what sort of
classification hers would be, and so on. There were stumbling-blocks in
this path. Better keep clear of classes--stick to generalities, and hope
for lucky chances!
"What made Dave think the old souls so much alike, Mrs. Wardle?" said
Sister Nora. "Children are generally so sharp to see differences."
"It was a kind of contradictiousness, ma'am, no better I do think,
merely for to set one of 'em alongside the other, and look at." Aunt
M'riar did not really mean contradictiousness, and can hardly have meant
_contradistinction_, as that word was not in her vocabulary. We incline
to look for its origin in the first six letters, which it enjoys in
common with contrariwise and contrast. This, however, is Philology, and
doesn't matter. Let Aunt M'riar go on.
"Now just you think how alike old persons do get, by reason of change.
'Tain't any fault of their own. Mrs. Prichard she's often by way of
inquiring about Mrs. Marrowbone, and I should say she rather takes her
to heart."
"How's that, Mrs. Wardle? Why 'takes her to heart'?" A joint question of
the ladies.
"Well--now you ask me--I should say Mrs. Prichard she wants the child
all to herself." Aunt M'riar's assumption that this inquiry had been
made without suggestion on her own part was unwarranted.
"_I'll_ tell you, ladies," said Uncle Mo, rolling with laughter. "The
old granny's just as jealous as any schoolgirl! She's _that_, and you
may take my word for it." He seemed afraid this might be interpreted to
Mrs. Prichard's disadvantage; for he added, recovering gravity:--"Not
that I blame her for it, mind you!"
"Do you hear _that_, Gwen?" said Sister Nora. "Mrs. Picture's jealous of
Granny Marrowbone.... I must tell you about that, Mrs. Wardle. It's
really as much as one's place is worth to mention Mrs. Prichard to Mrs.
Marrable. I assure you the old lady believes I-don't-know-what about
her--thinks she's a wicked old witch who will make the child as bad as
herself! She does, indeed! But then, to be sure, Goody Marrable thinks
everyone is wicked in London.... What's that, Gwen?"
"We want a pair of scissors, Dolly and I do. Do give us a pair of
scissors, Aunt Maria.... Yes, go on, Clo. I hear every word you say. How
very amusing!... Thank you, Aunt Maria!" For Gwen and Dolly had just
negotiated an exchange of locks of hair, which had distracted the full
attention of the former from the conversation. She had, however, heard
enough to confirm a half-made resolution not to leave the house without
seeing Mrs. Prichard.
"Ass! Vis piece off vat piece," says Dolly, making a selection from the
mass of available gold, which Gwen snips off ruthlessly.
"Well!" says Aunt M'riar, with her usual record of inexperience of
childhood. "I never, never did, in all my christened days!"
"Quip off a bid, bid piece with the fidders," says Dolly, delighted at
the proceeding. "A bid piece off me at the vethy top." The ideal in her
mind is analogous to the snuffing of a candle. A lock of a browner gold
than the one she gives it for is secured--big enough, but not what she
had dreamed of.
Uncle Mo was seriously concerned at Dave's prolonged absence. Not that
he anticipated any mishap!--it was only a question of courtesy to
visitors. Supposing Aunt M'riar was to go up and collar Dave and fetch
him down, drastically! Uncle Mo always shirked stair-climbing, partly
perhaps because he so nearly filled the stairway. He overweighted the
part, aesthetically.
Gwen perceived her opportunity. "Please do nothing of the sort, Aunt
Maria," said she. "Look here! Dolly and I are going up to fetch him.
Aren't we, Dolly?"
It would have needed presence of mind to invent obstacles to prevent
this, and neither Uncle Mo nor Aunt M'riar showed it, each perhaps
expecting Action on the other's part. Moreover, Dolly's approval took
such a tempestuous form that opposition seemed useless. Besides, there
was that fatal assurance about Gwen that belongs to young ladies who
have always had their own way in everything. It cannot be developed in
its fulness late in life.
Aunt M'riar's protest was feeble in the extreme. "Well, I should be
ashamed to let a lady carry me! That I should!" If Aunt M'riar had known
the resources of the Latin tongue, she might have introduced the
expression _ceteris paribus_. No English can compass that amount of
slickness; so her speech was left crude.
Uncle Mo really saw no substantial reason why this beautiful vision
should not sweep Dolly upstairs, if it pleased her. He may have felt
that a formal protest would be graceful, but he could not think of the
right words. And Aunt M'riar had fallen through. Moreover, his memory
was confident that he had left his bedroom-door shut. As to miscarriage
of the expedition into Mrs. Prichard's territory, he had no misgiving.
Miss Grahame was convinced that the incursion would have better results
if she left it to its originator, than if she encumbered it with her own
presence. After all, the room could be no larger than the one she sat
in, and might be smaller. Anyhow, they could get on very well without
her for half an hour. And she wanted a chat with Dave's guardians; she
did not really know them intimately.
"The two little ones must be almost like your own children to you, Mr.
Wardle," said she, to broach the conversation.
"Never had any, ma'am," said Uncle Mo, literal-minded from
constitutional good-faith.
"If you _had_ had any was what I meant." Perhaps the reason Miss
Grahame's eye wandered after Aunt M'riar, who had followed Gwen and
Dolly--to "see that things were straight," she said--was that she felt
insecure on a social point. Uncle Mo's eye followed hers.
"Nor yet M'riar," said he, seeing a precaution necessary. "Or perhaps I
should say _one_. Not good for much, though! Born dead, I believe--years
before ever my brother married her sister. Never set eyes on M'riar's
husband! Name of Catchpole, I believe.... That's her coming down." He
raised his voice, dropped to say this, as she came within
hearing:--"Yes--me and M'riar we share 'em up, the two young characters,
but we ain't neither of us their legal parents. Not strickly as the Law
goes, but we've fed upon 'em like, in a manner of speaking, from the
beginning, or nigh upon it. Little Dave, he's sort of kept me a-going
from the early days, afore we buried his poor father--my brother David,
you see. He died down this same Court, four year back, afore little
Dolly was good for much, to look at.... They all right, M'riar?"
"They're making a nice racket," said Aunt M'riar. "So I lay there ain't
much wrong with _them_." She picked up a piece of work to go on with,
and explored a box for a button to meet its views. Evidently a garment
of Dolly's. Probably this was a slack season for the higher needlework,
and the getting up of fine linen was below par.
Uncle Mo resumed:--"So perhaps you're right to put it they are like my
own children, and M'riar's." He was so chivalrously anxious not to
exclude his co-guardian from her rights that he might have laid himself
open to be misunderstood by a stranger. Miss Grahame understood him,
however. So she did, thoroughly, when he went on:--"I don't take at all
kindly, though, to their growing older. Can't be helped, I suppose.
There's a many peculiar starts in this here world, and him as don't
like 'em just has to lump 'em. As I look at it, changes are things one
has to put up with. If we had been handy when we was first made, we
might have got our idears attended to, to oblige. Things are fixtures,
now."
Miss Grahame laughed, and abstained consciously from referring to the
inscrutable decrees of Providence which called aloud for recognition.
"Of course, children shouldn't grow," she said. "I should like them to
remain three, especially the backs of their necks." Uncle Mo's
benevolent countenance shone with an unholy cannibalism, as he nodded a
mute approval. There was something very funny to his hearer in this old
man's love of children, and his professional engagements of former
years, looked at together.
Aunt M'riar took the subject _au serieux_. "Now you're talking silly,
Mo," she said. "If the children never grew, where would the girls be?
And a nice complainin' you men would make then!"
Miss Grahame made an effort to get away from abstract Philosophy. "I'm
afraid it can't be helped now, anyhow," said she. "Dave _is_ growing,
and means to be a man. Oh dear--he'll be a man before we know it. He'll
be able to read and write in a few months."
Uncle Mo's face showed a cloud. "Do ye really think that, ma'am?" he
said. "Well--I'm afeared you may be right." He looked so dreadfully
downcast at this, that Miss Grahame was driven to the conclusion that
the subject was dangerous.
She could not, however, resist saying:--"He _must_ know _some_ time, you
know, Mr. Wardle. Surely you would never have Dave grow up uneducated?"
"Not so sure about that, ma'am!" said Uncle Mo, shaking a dubious head.
"There's more good men spiled by schoolmasters than we hear tell of in
the noospapers." What conspiracy of silence in the Press this pointed at
did not appear. But it was clear from the tone of the speaker that he
thought interested motives were at the bottom of it.
Now Miss Grahame was said by critical friends--not enemies; at least,
they said not--to be over-anxious to confer benefits of her own
selection on the Human Race. Her finger-tips, they hinted, were itching
to set everyone else's house in order. Naturally, she had a strong bias
towards Education, that most formidable inroad on ignorance of what we
want to know nothing about. Uncle Mo regarded the human mind, if not as
a stronghold against knowledge, at least as a household with an
inalienable right to choose its guests. Miss Grahame was in favour of
invitations issued by the State, and _vise'd_ by the Church. Everything
was to be correct, and sanctioned. But it was quite clear to her that
these views would not be welcome to the old prizefighter, and she was
fain to be content with the slight protest against Obscurantism just
recorded. In short, Miss Grahame found nothing to say, and the subject
had to drop.
She could, however, lighten the air, and did so. "What on earth are they
about upstairs?" said she. "I really think I might go up and see." And
she was just about to do so, with the assent of Aunt M'riar, when the
latter said suddenly:--"My sakes and gracious! What's that?" rather as
though taken aback by something unaccountable than alarmed by it.
Uncle Mo listened a moment, undisturbed; then said,
placidly:--"Water-pipes, _I_ should say." For in a London house no
sound, even one like the jerk of a stopped skid on a half-buried
boulder, is quite beyond the possible caprice of a choked supply-pipe.
Miss Grahame would have accepted the sound as normal, with some
reservation as to the strangeness of everyday noises in this house, but
for Aunt M'riar's exclamation, which made her say:--"Isn't that right?"
It was not, and the only human reply to the question was a further
exclamation from Aunt M'riar--one of real alarm this time--at a
disintegrating cracking sound, fraught with an inexplicable sense of
insecurity. "_That_ ain't water-pipes," said Uncle Mo.
Then something--something terrifying--happened in the Court outside.
Something that came with a rush and roar, and ended in a crash of
snapping timber and breaking glass. Something that sent a cloud of dust
through the shivered window-panes into the room it darkened. Something
that left behind it no sound but a sharp cry for help and moaning cries
of pain, and was followed by shouts of panic and alarm, and the tramp of
running feet--a swift flight to the spot of helpers who could see it
without, the thing that had to be guessed by us within. Something that
had half-beaten in the door that Uncle Mo, as soon as sight was
possible, could be seen wrenching open, shouting loudly,
inexplicably:--"They are underneath--they are underneath!"
_Who_ were underneath? The children? And underneath what?
A few seconds of dumb terror seemed an age to both women. Then, Gwen on
the stairs, and her voice, with relief in its ring of resolution. "Don't
talk, but come up _at once_! The old lady _must_ be got down,
_somehow_! Come up!" A consciousness of Dolly crying somewhere, and of
Dave on the landing above, shouting:--"Oy say, oy say!" more, Miss
Grahame thought, as a small boy excited than one afraid; and then, light
through the dust-cloud. For Uncle Mo, with a giant's force, had released
the jammed door, and a cataract of brick rubbish, falling inwards, left
a gleam of clear sky to show Gwen, beckoning them up, none the less
beautiful for the tension of the moment, and the traces of a rough
baptism of dust.
What was it that had happened?