infirmity. "Bad for business. If we all set to work as soon as we could
use our hands, it would be all over with the dolls' dressmakers.
"There's something in that," replied Miss Wren, "you have a sort of an
idea in your noddle sometimes!" Then, resting one arm upon the elbow of
her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly before
her, she said in a changed tone: "Talking of ideas, my Lizzie, I wonder
how it happens that when I am working here all alone in the summer-time,
I smell flowers. This is not a flowery neighborhood. It's anything but
that. And yet as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers; I smell
rose-leaves till I think I see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bushels,
on the floor; I smell fallen leaves, till I put down my hand--so--and
expect to make them rustle; I smell the white and the pink May in the
hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen
very few flowers indeed in my life."
"Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear!" said her friend with a glance
toward their visitor, as if she would have asked him whether they were
given the child in compensation for her losses.
"So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!"
cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, "How
they sing!"
There was something in the face and action for the moment quite inspired
and beautiful. Then the chin dropped musingly upon the hand again.
"I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell
better than other flowers. For when I was a little child," in a tone as
though it were ages ago, "the children that I used to see early in the
morning were very different from any others I ever saw. They were not
like me; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; they were
never in pain. They were not like the children of the neighbors; they
never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises; and they
never mocked me. Such numbers of them too! All in white dresses, and
with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I have
never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so well. They
used to come down in long, bright, slanting rows, and say all together,
'Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!' When I told them who it was,
they answered, 'Come and play with us!' When I said 'I never play! I
can't play,' they swept about me and took me up, and made me light. Then
it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me down, and said all
together, 'Have patience, and we will come again.' Whenever they came
back, I used to know they were coming before I saw the long bright rows,
by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, 'Who is this in pain!
Who is this in pain!' And I used to cry out, 'Oh my blessed children,
it's poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up and make me light!'"
By degrees as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised,
the last ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful again.
Having so paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her
face, she looked round and recalled herself.
"What poor fun you think me, don't you," she said to the visitor. "You
may well look tired of me. But it's Saturday night, and I won't
detain you."
"That is to say, Miss Wren," observed the visitor, rather weary of the
person of the house, and quite ready to profit by her hint, "you wish
me to go?"
"Well, it's Saturday night," she returned, "and my child's coming home.
And my child is a troublesome, bad child, and costs me a world of
scolding. I would rather you didn't see my child."
"A doll?" said the visitor, not understanding, and looking for an
explanation.
But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, "_Her father_,"
he took his leave immediately, and presently the weak and shambling
figure of the child's father stumbled in, to be expostulated with, and
scolded, and treated as the person of the house always treated him, when
he came home in such a pitiable condition.
While they ate their supper, Lizzie tried to bring the child round again
to that prettier and better state. But the charm was broken. The dolls'
dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew, of the world, worldly; of
the earth, earthy.
Poor dolls' dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should
have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the
eternal road and asking guidance! Poor, poor little dolls' dressmaker.
One of Miss Jenny's firmest friends was an aged Jew, Mr. Riah, by name;
of venerable aspect, and a generous and noble nature. He was supposedly
the head of the firm of Pubsey and Co., at Saint-Mary-Axe, but really
only the agent of one Mr. Fledgeby, a miserly young dandy who directed
all the aged Jew's transactions, and forced him into sharp, unfair
dealings with those whom Mr. Riah himself would gladly have befriended;
shielding his own meanness and dishonesty behind the venerable figure of
the Jew, and keeping his own connection with the firm a profound secret.
Mr. Riah suffered himself to remain in such a position only because once
when he had had sickness and misfortune, and owed Mr. Fledgeby's father
both principal and interest, the son inheriting, had been merciful and
placed him there; and little did the guileless old man realize that he
had long since, richly repaid the debt; his age and serene
respectability, added to the characteristics ascribed to his race,
making a valuable screen to hide his employer's misdeeds.
The aged Jew often befriended the dolls' dressmaker, and she called him,
in her fanciful way, "godmother."
On his roof-top garden, Jenny Wren and her friend Lizzie were sitting
one day, together, when Mr. Fledgeby came up and joined the party,
interrupting their conversation. For the girls, perhaps with some old
instinct of his race, the gentle Jew had spread a carpet. Seated on it,
against no more romantic object than a blackened chimney-stack, over
which some humble creeper had been trained, they both pored over one
book, while a basket of common fruit, and another basket of strings of
beads and tinsel scraps were lying near.
"This, sir," explained the old Jew, "is a little dressmaker for little
people. Explain to the master, Jenny."
"Dolls; that's all," said Jenny shortly. "Very difficult to fit too,
because their figures are so uncertain. You never know where to expect
their waists."
"I made acquaintance with my guests, sir," pursued the old Jew, with an
evident purpose of drawing out the dressmaker, "through their coming
here to buy our damage and waste for Miss Jenny's millinery. They wear
it in their hair, and on their ball-dresses, and even (so she tells me)
are presented at court with it."
"Ah!" said Fledgeby, "she's been buying that basketful to-day, I
suppose."
"I suppose she has," Miss Jenny interposed, "and paying for it too, most
likely," adding, "we are thankful to come up here for rest, sir; for
the quiet and the air, and because it's so high. And you see the clouds
rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the
golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the sky, from which the wind
comes, and, you feel as if you were dead."
"How do you feel when you are dead?" asked the practical Mr. Fledgeby,
much perplexed.
"Oh so tranquil!" cried the little creature smiling. "Oh so peaceful and
so thankful! And you hear the people, who are alive, crying and working
and calling to one another in the close dark streets and you seem to
pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange,
good, sorrowful happiness comes upon you!"
Her eyes fell upon the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly
looked on.
"Why, it was only just now," said the little creature, pointing at him,
"that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out at that
low door, so bent and worn, and then he took his breath, and stood
upright and looked all around him at the sky, and the wind blew upon
him, and his life down in the dark was over!--Till he was called back to
life," she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look of
sharpness, "Why did you call him back? But you are not dead, you know,"
said Jenny Wren. "Get down to life!"
Mr. Fledgeby seemed to think it a rather good suggestion, and with a nod
turned round and took his leave. As Mr. Riah followed him down the
stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone,
"Don't be gone long. Come back and be dead!" And still as they went
down, they heard the little sweet voice, more and more faintly, half
calling and half singing, "Come back and be dead. Come back and be
dead!" And as the old man again mounted, the call or song began to
sound in his ears again, and looking above, he saw the face of the
little creature looking down out of the glory of her long, bright,
radiant hair, and musically repeating to him like a vision:
"Come up and be dead! Come up and be dead!"
Not long after this, there came a heavy trial to the dolls' dressmaker
in the loss from her home of her friend and lodger, Lizzie Hexam.
Lizzie, having disagreed with her brother upon a subject of vital
interest to herself, and having an intense desire to escape from persons
whom she knew would pursue her so long as she remained in London, felt
it wisest to quietly disappear from the city, leaving no trace of her
whereabouts. With the help of Mr. Riah she accomplished this, and found
occupation in a paper-mill in the country, leaving poor Jenny Wren with
only the slight consolation of her letters, and with the aged Jew for
her sole counsellor and friend. He was frequently with Jenny Wren, often
escorting her upon her necessary trips, in returning her fine ladies to
their homes in various parts of the city, and sometimes the little
creature accompanied him upon his own business trips, as well.
One foggy evening as usual, he set out for Church Street, and, wading
through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the dolls' dressmaker.
Miss Wren expected him. He could see her through the window, by the
light of her low fire--carefully banked up with damp cinders, that it
might last the longer, and waste the less when she went out--sitting
waiting for him, in her bonnet. His tap at the glass roused her from the
musing solitude in which she sat, and she opened the door, aiding her
steps with a little crutch-stick.
"Good evening, godmother!" said Miss Jenny Wren.
The old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on. "Won't you come
in and warm yourself, godmother?" she asked.
"Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear."
"Well!" exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. "Now you ARE a clever old boy!
If we only gave prizes at this establishment you should have the first
silver medal for taking me up so quick." As she spake thus, Miss Wren
removed the key of the house-door from the keyhole, and put it in her
pocket. Satisfied that her dwelling was safe, she drew one hand through
the old man's arm, and prepared to ply her crutch-stick with the other.
But the key was of such gigantic proportions that before they started,
Riah proposed to carry it.
"No, no, no! I'll carry it myself," returned Miss Wren. "I'm awfully
lop-sided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket, it'll trim the ship.
To let you into a secret, godmother, I wear my pocket on my high side
o' purpose."
With that they began their plodding through the fog.
"Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother," returned Miss Wren, with
great approbation, "to understand me. But, you see, you _are_ so like
the fairy godmother in the bright little books! You look so unlike the
rest of the people, and so much as if you had changed yourself into that
shape, just this moment, with some benevolent object. Bah!" cried Miss
Jenny, putting her face close to the old man's, "I can see your
features, godmother, behind the beard."
"Does the fancy go to my changing other objects, too, Jenny?"
"Ah! That it does! If you'd only borrow my stick, and tap this piece of
pavement, it would start up a coach and six. I say,--Let's believe so!"
"With all my heart," replied the good old man.
"And I'll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. I must ask you
to be so kind as to give my child a tap, and change him altogether. Oh,
my child has been such a bad, bad child of late! It worries me almost
out of my wits. Not done a stroke of work these ten days."
"What shall be changed after him?" asked Riah, in a compassionately
playful voice.
"Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and get
you to set me right in the back and legs. It's a little thing to you
with your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to poor, weak,
aching me."
There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not the
less touching for that.
"And then?"
"Yes, and then--_you_ know, godmother. Well both jump into the coach and
six, and go to Lizzie. This reminds me, godmother, to ask you a serious
question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been brought up by the
fairies), and you can tell me this,--Is it better to have had a good
thing and lost it, or never to have had it?"
"Explain, goddaughter."
"I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now than I
used to feel before I knew her." (Tears were in her eyes as she
said so.)
"Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear," said the
Jew, "that of a wife, and a fair daughter, and a son of promise, has
faded out of my own life--but the happiness _was_"
"Ah!" said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced. "Then I tell
you what change I think you had better begin with, godmother. You had
better change Is into Was, and Was into Is, and keep them so."
"Would that suit your case? Would you not be always in pain then?" asked
the old man tenderly.
"Right!" exclaimed Miss Wren. "You have changed me wiser, godmother.
Not," she added, with a quaint hitch of her chin and eyes, "that you
need to be a very wonderful godmother to do that, indeed!"
Thus conversing, they pursued their way over London Bridge, and struck
down the river, and held their still foggier course that way. As they
were going along, Jennie twisted her venerable friend aside to a
brilliantly lighted toy-shop window, and said: "Now, look at 'em! All
my work!"
This referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colors of the
rainbow, who were dressed for all the gay events of life.
"Pretty, pretty, pretty!" said the old man with a clap of his hands.
"Most elegant taste!"
"Glad you like 'em," returned Miss Wren loftily. "But the fun is,
godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though it's
the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were not
bad and my legs queer."
He looked at her as not understanding what she said.
"Bless you, godmother," said Miss Wren, "I have to scud about town at
all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing,
it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great
ladies that takes it out of me."
"How the trying-on?" asked Riah.
"What a moony godmother you are, after all!" returned Miss Wren. "Look
here. There's a Drawing-room, or a grand day in the Park, or a show or a
fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look
about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I say,
'You'll do, my dear!' and I take particular notice of her again, and
run home and cut her out, and baste her. Then another day I come
scudding back again to try on. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How
that little creature _is_ staring!' All the time I am only saying to
myself, 'I must hollow out a bit here; I must slope away there'; and I
am making a perfect slave of her, making her try on my doll's dress.
Evening parties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway
for full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages
and the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night.
Whenever they go bobbing into the hall from the carriage, and catch a
glimpse of my little physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman's
cape in the rain, I daresay they think I am wondering and admiring with
all my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my
dolls! There was Lady Belinda Whitrose. I said one night when she came
out of the carriage. 'You'll do, my dear!' and I ran straight home, and
cut her out, and basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the
men that called the carriages. Very bad night too. At last, 'Lady
Belinda's Whitrose's carriage!' Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down! And I
made her try on--oh! and take pains about it too--before she got seated.
That's Lady Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gas-light
for a wax one, with her toes turned in."
When they had plodded on for some time, they reached a certain tavern,
where Mr. Riah had some business to transact with its proprietress, Miss
Abbey Potterson, to whom he presented himself, and was about to
introduce his young companion when Miss Wren interrupted him:
"Stop a bit," she said, "I'll give the lady my card." She produced it
from her pocket with an air, and Miss Abbey took the diminutive
document, and found it to run thus:
Miss JENNY WREN.
_Dolls' Dressmaker._.
_Dolls attended at their own residences_.
So great were her amusement and astonishment, and so interested was she
in the odd little creature that she at once asked:
"Did you ever taste shrub, child?"
Miss Wren shook her head.
"Should you like to?"
"Should if it's good," returned Miss Wren.
"You shall try. Put your little feet on the fender. It's a cold, cold
night, and the fog clings so." As Miss Abbey helped her to turn her
chair, her loosened bonnet fell on the floor. "Why, what lovely hair!"
cried Miss Abbey. "And enough to make wigs: for all the dolls in the
world. What a quantity!"
"Call _that_ a quantity?" returned Miss Wren. "_Poof_! What do you say
to the rest of it?" As she spoke, she untied a band, and the golden
stream fell over herself, and over the chair, and flowed down to the
ground. Miss Abbey's admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. She
beckoned the Jew towards her, and whispered:
"Child or woman?"
"Child in years," was the answer; "woman in self-reliance and trial."
"You are talking about me, good people," thought Miss Jenny, sitting in
her golden bower, warming her feet. "I can't hear what you say, but I
know your tricks and your manners!"
The shrub, mixed by Miss Potterson's skilful hands, was perfectly
satisfactory to Miss Jenny's palate, and she sat and sipped it leisurely
while the interview between Mr. Riah and Miss Potterson proceeded,
keenly regretting when the bottom of the glass was reached, and the
interview at an end.
There was at this time much curiosity among Lizzie Hexam's acquaintances
to discover her hiding-place, and many of them paid visits to the dolls'
dressmaker in hopes of obtaining from her the desired address. Among
these was Mr. Wrayburn, whom we find calling upon Miss Wren one evening:
"And so, Miss Jenny," he said, "I cannot persuade you to dress me a
doll?"
"No," replied Miss Wren snappishly; "If you want one, go and buy it at
the shop."
"And my charming young goddaughter," said Mr. Wrayburn plaintively,
"down in Hertfordshire--"
("Humbugshire, you mean, I think," interposed Miss Wren)--"is to be put
upon the cold footing of the general public, and is to derive no
advantage from my private acquaintance with the Court dressmaker?"
"If it's any advantage to your charming godchild, and oh, a precious
godfather she has got!" replied Miss Wren, pricking at him in the air
with her needle, "to be informed that the Court dressmaker knows your
tricks and your manners, you may tell her so, by post, with my
compliments."
Miss Wren was busy with her work, by candlelight, and Mr. Wrayburn, half
amused and half vexed, stood by her bench looking on, while her
troublesome child was in the corner, in deep disgrace on account of his
bad behavior, and as Miss Jenny worked, she rated him severely,
accompanying each reproach with a stamp of her foot.
"Pay five shillings for you indeed!" she exclaimed in response to his
appeal for money. "How many hours do you suppose it costs me to earn
five shillings, you infamous boy? Don't cry like that, or I'll throw a
doll at you. Pay five shillings fine for you, indeed! Fine in more ways
than one, I think! I'd give the dustman five shillings to carry you off
in the dust-cart."
The figure in the corner continuing to whine and whimper, Miss Wren
covered her face with her hand. "There!" she said, "I can't bear to look
at you. Go upstairs and get me my bonnet and shawl. Make yourself useful
in some way, bad boy, and let me have your room instead of your company,
for one half minute."
Obeying her, he shambled out, and Mr. Wrayburn, pitying, saw the tears
exude between the little creature's fingers, as she kept her hand
before her eyes.
"I am going to the Italian Opera to try on," said Miss Wren, taking away
her hand, and laughing satirically to hide that she had been crying.
"But let me first tell you, Mr. Wrayburn, once for all, that it's no use
your paying visits to me. You wouldn't get what you want of me, no, not
if you brought pincers with you to tear it out."
With which statement, and a further admonition to her father, who had
come back, she blew her candles out, and taking her big door-key in her
pocket, and her crutch-stick in her hand, marched off.
Not many months later, one day while Miss Wren was waiting in the office
of Pubsey and Co., for Mr. Riah to come in and sell her the waste she
was accustomed to buy, she overheard a conversation between Mr.
Fledgeby, who had apparently happened in, and a friend who was also
waiting for Mr. Riah.
This conversation led her to infer that her old friend was both a
treacherous and dishonest man, and entirely unworthy to be trusted in
any capacity. Seemingly the conversation was not meant for her ears, but
Mr. Fledgeby had planned that she should hear it, and that it should
have the very effect upon her which it had. This was Mr. Fledgeby's
retort upon Miss Wren for the over-sharpness with which she always
treated him, and also a pleasant instance of his humor as regarded the
old Jew. "He has got a bad name as an old Jew, and he is paid for the
use of it, and I'll have my money's worth out of him." Thus ran Mr.
Fledgeby's reflections on the subject, and Miss Wren sat listening to
the conversation with a fallen countenance, until Mr. Riah came in, when
Mr. Fledgeby led the old man to make statements which seemed further to
emphasize his hard-heartedness and dishonesty.
Then Mr. Riah filled Miss Wren's little basket with such scraps as she
could buy, saying:
"There, my Cinderella dear, the basket's full now. Bless you, and get
you gone!"
"Don't call me your Cinderella dear," returned Miss Wren, "Oh, you cruel
godmother!"
She shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face at
parting, and as he did not attempt to vindicate himself, went on her
way, to return no more to Saint Mary Axe; chance having disclosed to her
(as she supposed) the flinty and hypocritical character of Mr. Riah. She
often moralized over her work on the tricks and the manners of that
venerable cheat, but made her little purchases elsewhere, and lived a
secluded life. But during several interviews which she chanced to have
later with Mr. Fledgeby, the clever little creature made him by his own
words, disclose his system of treachery and trickery, and prove that the
aged Jew had been screening his employer at his own expense. Thereupon
Miss Jenny lost no time in once again proceeding to the place of
business of Pubsey and Co., where she found the old man sitting at his
desk. In less time than it takes to tell it, she had folded her arms
about his neck, and kissed him, imploring his forgiveness for her lack
of faith in him, adding: "It did look bad, now, didn't it?"
"It looked so bad, Jenny," responded the old man with gravity, "that I
was hateful in mine own eyes. I perceived that the obligation was upon
me to leave this service. Whereupon I indited a letter to my master to
that effect, but he held me to certain months of servitude, which were
his lawful term of notice. They expire to-morrow. Upon their
expiration--not before--I had meant to set myself right with my
Cinderella."