even as he spoke there came into the room a very little girl, childish
in figure, but shrewd and older looking in the face--pretty faced,
too--wearing a womanly sort of a bonnet, much too large for her, and
drying her bare arms on a womanly sort of apron. Her fingers were white
and wrinkled with washing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking, which she
wiped off her arms. But for this, she might have been a child, playing
at washing, and imitating a poor working woman with a quick observation
of the truth.
She had come running from some place in the neighborhood. Consequently,
though she was very light, she was out of breath, and could not speak at
first, as she stood panting and wiping her arms. "O, here's Charley!"
said the boy.
The child he was nursing stretched forward its arms and cried out to be
taken by Charley. The little girl took it, in a womanly sort of manner
belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at us over the
burden that clung to her most affectionately.
"Is it possible," whispered my guardian, as he put a chair for the
little creature, and got her to sit down with her load, the boy holding
to her apron, "that this child works for the rest?
"Charley, Charley!" he questioned. "How old are you?"
"Over thirteen, sir," replied the child.
"O, what a great age!" said my guardian. "And do you live here alone
with these babies, Charley?"
"Yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect
confidence, "since father died."
"And how do you live, Charley," said my guardian, "how do you live?"
"Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. I'm out washing to-day."
"God help you, Charley!" said my guardian. "You're not tall enough to
reach the tub!"
"In pattens I am, sir," she said quickly. "I've got a high pair as
belonged to mother. Mother died just after Emma was born," said the
child, glancing at the face upon her bosom. "Then father said I was to
be as good a mother to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I worked
at home, and did cleaning, and nursing, and washing, for a long time
before I began to go out. And that's how I know how, don't you
see, sir?"
"And do you often go out?"
"As often as I can, sir," said Charley, opening her eyes and smiling,
"because of earning sixpences and shillings!"
"And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?"
"To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said Charley. "Mrs. Blinder
comes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and perhaps I
can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and Tom ain't afraid
of being locked up, are you, Tom?"
"No--o," said Tom stoutly.
"When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the courts, and
they show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. Don't they, Tom?"
"Yes, Charley," said Tom, "almost quite bright."
"Then he's as good as gold," said the little creature, oh, in such a
motherly, womanly way. "And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed. And
when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light
the candle, and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with
me. Don't you, Tom?"
"O yes, Charley!" said Tom. "That I do!" and either in this glimpse of
the great pleasure of his life, or in gratitude and love for Charley, he
laid his face among the scanty folds of her frock, and passed from
laughing into crying.
It was the first time since our entry, that a tear had been shed among
these children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and
their mother, as if all that sorrow was subdued by the necessity of
taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work,
and by her bustling busy way. But now, when Tom cried; although she sat
quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any movement
disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges, I saw two
silent tears fall down her face.
I stood at the window pretending to look out, when I found that Mrs.
Blinder, from the shop below, had come in, and was talking to
my guardian.
"It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir,---who could take it from
them!"
"Well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "It is enough that the time
will come when this good woman will find that it _was_ much, and that
forasmuch as she did it to one of the least of these--! This child," he
added after a few moments, "Could she possibly continue this?"
"Really, sir, I think she might," said Mrs. Blinder. "She's as handy as
it's possible to be. Bless you sir, the way she tended them two
children, after the mother died, was the talk of the yard! And it was a
wonder to see her with him, after he was took ill, it really was!--'Mrs.
Blinder,' he said to me, the very last he spoke--'Mrs. Blinder, whatever
my calling may have been, I see a Angel sitting in this room last night
along with my child, and I trust her to our Father!'"
From all that we had heard and seen, we felt a deep interest in the
bright, self-reliant little creature, with her womanly ways and burden
of family cares, and my thoughts turned towards her many times, after we
had kissed her, and taken her downstairs with us, and stopped to see her
run away to her work. We saw her run, such a little, little creature, in
her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of the
court, and melt into the city's strife and sound, like a dewdrop in
an ocean.
Some weeks later, at the close of a happy evening spent at Bleak House
with my guardian and my dearest girl, I went at last to my own room, and
presently heard a soft tap at the door, so I said, "Come in!" and there
came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped
a curtsey.
"If you please, miss," said the little girl in a soft voice, "I am
Charley."
"Why so you are," said I, stooping down in astonishment, and giving her
a kiss. "How glad am I to see you, Charley!"
"If you please, miss," pursued Charley, "I'm your maid!"
"Charley?"
"If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's love.
And O, miss," says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears starting
down her dimpled cheeks, "Tom's at school, if you please, and learning
so good, and little Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder, miss, a-being took
such care of! and Tom, he would have been at school--and Emma she would
have been left with Mrs. Blinder--and me, I should have been here--all a
deal sooner, miss; only Mr. Jarndyce thought Tom and Emma and me had
better get a little used to parting, we was so small. Don't cry, if you
please, miss."
"I can't help it, Charley."
"No, miss, nor I can't help it," said Charley. "And if you please,
miss," said Charley, "Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to
teach me now and then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see
each other once a month. And I'm so happy and so thankful, miss," cried
Charley with a heaving heart,--"and I'll try to be such a good maid!"
Charley dried her eyes, and entered on her functions: going in her
matronly little way about and about the room, and folding up everything
she could lay her hands upon. Presently she came creeping back to my
side, and said:
"O don't cry, if you please, miss."
And I said again, "I can't help it."
And Charley said again, "No, miss, nor I can't help it." And so, after
all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she--and from that night my
little maid shared in all the cares and duties, joys and sorrows of her
mistress, and I grew to lean heavily upon the womanly, loving,
little creature.
According to my guardian's suggestion, I gave considerable time to
Charley's education, but I regret to say the results never reflected
much credit upon my educational powers. As for writing--it was a trying
business to Charley, in whose hand every pen appeared to become
perversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop and
splash, and sidle into corners, like a saddle donkey. It was very odd to
see what old letters Charley's young hands had made. They, so shrivelled
and tottering; it, so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert
at other things, and had as nimble little fingers as I ever watched.
"Well, Charley," said I, looking over a copy of the letter O in which it
was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed in all
kinds of ways, "We are improving. If we only get to make it round, we
shall be perfect, Charley."
Then I made one, and Charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join
Charley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot.
"Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time."
Charley laid down her pen, opened and shut her cramped little hand; and
thanking me, got up and dropped me a curtsey, asking me if I knew a poor
person by the name of Jenny. I answered that I did, but thought she had
left the neighborhood altogether, "So she had, miss," said Charley, "but
she's come back again, and she came about the house three or four days,
hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss, but you were away. She saw me
a-goin' about, miss," said Charley, with a short laugh of the greatest
delight and pride, "and she thought I looked like your maid!"
"Did she though, really, Charley?"
"Yes, miss!" said Charley, "really and truly." And Charley, with
another short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round again,
and looked as serious as became my maid. I was never tired of seeing
Charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, standing before me
with her youthful face and figure, and her steady manner, and her
childish exultation breaking through it now and then in the pleasantest
way. And so long as she lived, the dignity of having been in my service
was the greatest crown of glory to my little maid.
Although my efforts to make a scholar of Charley were never crowned with
success, she had her own tastes and accomplishments, and dearly loved to
bustle about the house, in her own particularly womanly way. To surround
herself with great heaps of needlework--baskets-full and tables
full--and do a little,--and spend a great deal of time in staring with
her round eyes at what there was to do, and persuade herself that she
was going to do it, were Charley's great dignities and delights.
When we went to see the woman, Jenny, we found her in her poor little
cottage, nursing a vagrant boy called Jo, a crossing-sweeper, who had
tramped down from London, and was tramping he didn't know where. Jenny,
who had known him in London, had found him in a corner of the town,
burning with fever, and taken him home to care for, Seeing that he was
very ill, and fearing her husband's anger at her having harbored him,
when it was time for her husband to return home, she put a few
half-pence together in his hand, and thrust him out of the house. We
followed the wretched boy, and pitying his forlorn condition led him
home with us, where he was made comfortable for the night in a loft-room
by the stable. Charley's last report was, that the boy was quiet. I went
to bed very happy to think that he was sheltered, and was much shocked
and grieved the next morning, when upon visiting his room we found him
gone. At what time he had left, or how, or why, it seemed hopeless ever
to divine, and after a thorough search of the country around, which
lasted for five days, we abandoned all thought of ever clearing up the
mystery surrounding the boy's departure, nor was it until some time
later that the secret was discovered.
Meanwhile, poor Jo left behind him a dread and infectious disease which
Charley caught from him, and in twelve hours after his escape she was
very, very ill. I nursed her myself, with tenderest care, bringing her
back to her old childish likeness again. Then the disease came upon me,
and in my weeks of mortal sickness, it was Charley's love and care, and
unending devotion that saved my life. It was Charley's hand which
removed every looking-glass from my rooms, that in my convalescence I
might not be shocked by the alteration which the disease had wrought in
the face she loved so dearly.
When I was able, Charley and I went away together, to the most friendly
of villages, and in the home which my guardian's care had provided, we
enjoyed the hours of returning strength. There was a kindly housekeeper
to trot after me with restoratives and strengthening delicacies, and a
pony expressly for my use, and soon there were friendly faces of
greeting in every cottage as we passed by. Thus with being much in the
open air, playing with the village children, gossiping in many cottages,
going on with Charley's education, and writing long letters to my
dearest girl, time slipped away, and I found myself quite strong again.
And to Charley,--now as well, and rosy, and pretty as one of Flora's
attendants, I give due credit, and the bond which binds me to my little
maid is one which will only be severed when the days of Charley's happy
life are over.
TILLY SLOWBOY
[Illustration: TILLY SLOWBOY]
TILLY SLOWBOY
Although still in her earliest teens, Tilly Slowboy was a nursery-maid
for little Mrs. Peerybingle's baby, and despite her extreme youth, was a
most enthusiastic and unusual nursery-maid indeed.
It may be noted of Miss Slowboy that she had a rare and surprising
talent for getting the baby into difficulties; and had several times
imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own.
She was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that
her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off those
sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. Her costume
was remarkable for the partial development on all possible occasions, of
some flannel vestment of a singular structure; also affording glimpses,
in the region of the back, of a pair of stays, in color a dead green.
Being always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed
besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfections,
and the baby's, Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of judgment may be
said to have done equal honor to her head and to her heart; and though
these did less honor to the baby's head, which they were the occasional
means of bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails,
bed-posts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest
results of Tilly Slowboy's constant astonishment at finding herself so
kindly treated and installed in such a comfortable home. For the
maternal and paternal Slowboy were alike unknown to Fame, and Tilly had
been bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only
differing from fondling by one vowel's length, is very different in
meaning, and expresses quite another thing.
It was a singularly happy and united family in which Tilly's lot was
cast. Honest John Peerybingle, Carrier; his pretty little wife, whom he
called Dot; the very remarkable doll of a baby; the dog Boxer; and the
Cricket on the Hearth, whose cheerful chirp, chirp, chirp, was a
continual family blessing and good-omen;--were collectively and
severally the objects of Tilly's unbounded admiration.
If ever a person or thing alarmed Tilly, she would hastily seek
protection near the skirts of her pretty little mistress; or, failing
that, would make a charge or butt at the object of her fright with the
only offensive instrument within her reach--which usually happened to be
the baby. Tilly's bump of good fortune being extraordinarily well
developed, the baby usually managed to come out from the siege unharmed,
to be soothed and comforted in Tilly's own peculiar fashion; her most
common method of amusement being to reproduce for its entertainment
scraps of conversation current in the house, with all the sense left out
of them, and all the nouns changed to the plural number, as--"Did its
mothers make it up a beds then! And did its hair grow brown and curly
when its cap was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious Pets, a-sitting
by the fire!"
It was a notable and exciting event to Miss Slowboy when she set out one
day in the Carrier's cart, with her little mistress and the remarkable
baby, to have dinner with Caleb Plummer's blind daughter, Bertha, who
was Mrs. Dot's devoted friend.
In consequence of the departure, there was a pretty sharp commotion at
John Peerybingle's, for to get the baby under weigh took time. Not that
there was much of the baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight and
measure, but there was a vast deal to do about it, and all had to be
done by easy stages. When the baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a
certain point of dressing, and you might have supposed that another
touch or two would finish him off, he was unexpectedly extinguished, and
hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets
for the best part of an hour, while Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of
the interval to make herself smart for the trip, and during the same
short truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer, of a
fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with
herself, or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken,
dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the
least regard to anybody. By this time, the baby, being all alive again,
was invested by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy,
with a cream-colored mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen
raised-pie for its head, and in course of time they all three got down
to the door, where the old horse was waiting to convey them on
their trip.
In reference to Miss Slowboy's ascent into the cart, if I might be
allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on any terms, I would observe of
her that there was a fatality about hers which rendered them singularly
liable to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest ascent or
descent without recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as
Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. But as this
might be considered ungenteel, I'll think of it--merely observing that
when the three were all safely settled in the cart, and the basket
containing the Veal-and-Ham Pie and other delicacies, which Mrs.
Peerybingle always carried when she visited the blind girl, was stowed
away, they jogged on for some little time in silence.
But not for long, for everybody on the road had something to say to the
occupants of John Peerybingle's cart, and sometimes passengers on foot,
or horseback, plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express
purpose of having a chat. Then, too, the packages and parcels for the
errand cart were numerous, and there were many stoppages to take them in
and give them out, which was not the least interesting part of
the journey.
Of all the little incidents of the day, Dot was the amused and open-eyed
spectatress from her chair in the cart; making a charming little
portrait as she sat there, looking on. And this delighted John the
Carrier beyond measure.
The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather, and was
raw and cold. But who cared for such trifles! Not Dot, decidedly. Not
Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart on any terms, to be the
highest point of human joy; the crowning circumstance of earthly hopes.
Not the baby, I'll be sworn; for it's not in baby nature to be warmer or
more sound asleep than that blessed young Peerybingle was all the way.
In one place there was a mound of weeds burning, and they watched the
fire until, in consequence, as she observed, of the smoke "getting up
her nose," Miss Slowboy choked--she could do anything of that sort on
the smallest provocation--and woke the baby, who wouldn't go to
sleep again.
But, at that moment they came in sight of the blind girl's home, where
she was waiting with keen anticipation to receive them.
Bertha had other visitors as well that day, and the picnic dinner
proceeded in a very stately and dignified manner. Miss Slowboy was
isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture but the
chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the baby's
head against, and sat staring about her in unspeakable delight. To her
the day was all too short, and when that evening John Peerybingle making
his return trip, called to take them home, Miss Slowboy's regret
was intense.
As long as her little mistress smiled, Tilly's face too was wreathed in
smiles; but when a hidden shadow darkened the Perrybingle sky,
overclouding the happiness of the little home, and Dot cried all night,
Tilly's eyes were red and swollen too, the next morning.
It happened in this way. Pretty little Dot gave good John Perrybingle
cause for anxiety by her actions, and the honest carrier, disturbed and
misled, felt that he had reason to doubt her love for him, which almost
broke his honest, faithful heart. While he was worrying over this, and
over her, his little wife was merely shielding a secret belonging to
Edward Plummer, Bertha's brother, who had just come back, after many
year's absence in the golden South Americas.
So unaccustomed was Dot to keeping a secret that it caused her to act
very strangely, and give her husband reason to misjudge her, which
almost broke her loving little heart. All of which trouble Tilly Slowboy
did not understand, but was deeply affected by it, and when she found
her mistress alone, sobbing piteously, was quite horrified, exclaiming:
"Ow, if you please, don't! It's enough to dead and bury the baby, so it
is, if you please!"
"Will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, Tilly?" inquired her
mistress, drying her eyes; "when I can't live here, and have gone to my
old home?"
"Ow, if you please, _don't!_" cried Tilly, throwing back her head and
bursting out into a howl--she looked at the moment uncommonly like
Boxer--"Ow, if you please, don't! Ow, what has everybody been and gone
and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched. Ow-w-w-w!"
The soft-hearted Slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a
deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she
must infallibly have wakened the baby and frightened him into something
serious (probably convulsions) if her attention had not been forcibly
diverted from her misery for a moment, after which she stood for some
time silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the bed
on which the baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint Vitus manner, on
the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among
the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary
operations.
Fortunately for all concerned in the little domestic drama, before a
crisis had been reached, Edward Plummer revealed his secret, and his
reasons for having been obliged to keep it. This cleared up the mystery
concerning Mrs. Dot's conduct, proving her to be the same loyal, loving
little wife she always was: to the exquisite satisfaction of the honest
carrier, his family and friends, and last but not least, Miss Slowboy,
who wept copiously for joy, and wishing to include her young charge in
the general interchange of congratulations, handed round the baby to
everybody in succession, as if it were something to eat or drink.
Of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a day of it as
should mark these events for a high feast and festival in the
Peerybingle Calendar forevermore. Accordingly, Dot went to work to
produce such an entertainment as should reflect undying honor on the
house and on every one concerned, and in a very short space of time
everybody in the house was in a state of flutter and domestic turmoil
and during the flurry of preparation, everybody tumbled over Tilly
Slowboy and the baby everywhere. Tilly never came out in such force
before. Her ubiquity was the theme of universal admiration. She was a
stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a
man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the
garret at five-and-twenty minutes to three. The baby's head was, as it
were, a test and touchstone for every description of matter,--animal,
vegetable, and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at
some time or other, into close acquaintance with it.
That was a great celebration indeed, with Dot doing the honors in her
wedding-gown, her eyes sparkling with happiness, and the good carrier,
so jovial and so ruddy at the bottom of the table, and all their guests
aiding to make the occasion a memorable and happy one.