A DELICATE SUBJECT.
The log had burned down, and the fire was low, when Russel thus ended
his story. Cripps was indignant, because he had made up his mind for
"summat of a zettlement;" and Esther was full of young womanly
thoughts about Cinnaminta and her poor child. But even before they
could consult one another, or cross-examine, a loud, sharp knock at
the door was heard, and in ran Mary Hookham.
"Oh, if you please, sir--oh, if you please, sir!" she exclaimed with
both hands up, and making the most of her shawl fringe, "such a thing
have turned up!--I never! Them stockings! Oh, them silk stockings,
sir! Your Worship--oh, them silk stockings, sir!"
"My dear," said Cripps in a fatherly tone, and with less contemporary
feeling than Mary might wish to inspire him with--"my dear good maid,
you be that upset, that to spake, without sloping the spout of the
kettle, might lade to a'most anything. Etty, you ain't had a drap of
nort--and all the better for 'ee. Give over your glass, girl. Now,
Miss Mary, the laste little drap, and then you spakes; and then you
has another drap. 'Scoose me, your Worship, to make so bold; but a
young man can't see them things in the right light."
"Oh, Master Cripps, now!" cried Mary Hookham, "what but a young man be
you yourself? And none of they young men can point their tongues, to
compare with you, to my mind. But I beg your pardon, sir, Mr.
Russel--your name come so familiar to me, through our dear young lady.
I forgot what I was a-doing, your Worship, to be sitting down in your
presence so!"
"Mary, if you get up I shall get up also, and go away. We are both
enjoying the hospitality of our good friend, Master Cripps. Now, Mary,
by no means hurry yourself; but tell me at your leisure why you came,
and what your news is."
"Silk stockings, forsooth!" cried Master Cripps, being vexed at this
break of the evening. "Why, my grandmother had a whole pair of they! I
belave I could find 'em now, I do! Silk stockings, to break up one's
comfort for! Not but what I be glad to see you. Mary, my dear, I drink
your good health, touching spoons in lack of lips."
"Oh, Mr. Cripps, you are so funny! And you do make me fell things in
such a way! Bless me, if I haven't dropped my comb! Oh, I am so
shocked to trouble you! Natteral hair are so provoking, compared to
what most people wears now-a-days. But about what I come for--oh, your
Worship, stockings is not what I ought to speak of, except in the ear
of females."
"Stockings are a very good subject, Mary; particularly if they are
silk ones."
"Lor, sir! Now, I never thought of that! To be sure, that makes all
the difference! Well then, your Worship must know all, and Master
Cripps, and Miss Esther, too. It seemeth that Mrs. Fermitage, master's
own sister, you know, sir, have never been comfortable in her mind
about her behaviour when the 'quest was held. Things lay on her nerves
at that time so, that off and on she hardly seemed to know where she
was, or how dooty lay to her. Not that she is at all selfish, if you
please to understand me--no more selfish than I myself be, or any one
of us here present. But ladies requires allowance; and it makes me
have a pain to think of it. You could not expect her--could you
now?--to go through it, as if she was a man; or rather, I should say,
a gentleman."
"Of course we could not," answered Overshute; and the Carrier began to
think, why not.
"However, she did go through it," said Mary, "as well as the very best
man could have done. She covered her feelings, as you might say, with
a pint pot, or with less than that."
"With a wine-glass of brandy, I did hear tell," said Master Cripps
inquiringly.
"No, no; that was a shocking story. It makes me ashamed of the place
as we live in whenever I heer such scandalies!"
"Miss Mary, my dear, I beg your pardon. Lord knows I only say what I
heers! Take a little drop, Miss, and go on."
"It makes one afeared to touch a drop of most hinnocent mixture as
ever was," continued poor Mary, after one good gulp; "and at the same
time most respectable waters--when people as never had opportunity of
forming no judgment about them--people as only can spit out their
tongues at them as have some good taste in theirn, when such folk--for
people they are not--dareth to go forth to say---- But I see you are
laughing at me, your Worship; and perhaps I well deserve it, sir. It
is no place of mine to convarse of such subjects--me who never deals
with 'em! But, one way or other, that good lady (as, barring her way
with her servants, she is, which our good master have many a time, up
and given it to her about), well, this very day, sir, in she come when
I was a-doing of my morning doos--every bit as partiklar, sir, as if I
had a mistress over me; and she say to me, 'Mary Hookham!' and I says,
'Yes, ma'am; at your service.' And she ask me without any more to
do--the just words I cannot now call to mind--for to send at once,
without troubling poor master, to fetch they stockings as was put by,
to the period of the coroner's 'quest. Poor master have never been
allowed to see them, no more has none of us, sir; for fear of setting
on foot some allowance of vulgar curiosity. And all of us is not above
it, I know; but that is a natteral error in places where few has had
much eddication."
"I don't hold much with that there eddication," cried the Carrier
rather gloomily. "A may suit some people, but not many. They puts it
on 'em all alike wi'out trial of constitootion. Some goes better for
it; but most volk worse."
"Well, you know best, Mr. Cripps, of course. Up and down the road as
you be, every door give you a hinstance. His Worship is all for
eddication; and no one need swaller it, unless they likes. But pretty
well schooled as I have been, sir, I looks down on no one. And now,
when master's sister made that sudden call upon me, I assure you, sir,
and Master Cripps, and Miss Esther in the corner there, the very first
thing as I longed for was more knowledge of the ways of the kingdom.
More sense, I mean, of where the powers puts the things that have been
called up and laid at the feet of the law-courts. They stockings was
more lost to me, than gone to be washed by the gipsies.
"It never would have done for me to say that much to Mrs. Fermitage.
She would have been out in a wrath at once, for she is not sweet like
master; so I gave her all 'yes' instead of 'why' or 'how,' as we do to
quick-tempered gentlefolk. And then I ran away to ask my mother, and
she no more than laughed at me. 'You silly child,' says mother, quite
as if there had never been a fool till now; 'when the law getteth hold
of a thing, there be only two places for to find it in.' 'Two places,
mother! What two places?' said I, without construction. 'Why, the
right-hand or the left-hand pocket of a lawyer's breeches,' mother
answered, just as if she had served all her time with a tailor. Now,
don't laugh, Mr. Overshute; it is true, every word as I tell you."
"Ay, that her be," cried Cripps, with a smack of one hand on the
other. "Your mother is a wonderful woman for truth and sense, my
deary."
"Well, well," replied Mary, with a broad knowing smile, as much as to
say, "You had better try her" "at her time of life her ought to be, if
ever they seek to attain it. So I acted according to mother's
directions, letting her always speak foremost. And between us we got
Master Kale to go, on his legs, all the way to Oxford with the hope of
a lift back with you, Master Cripps; but, late as you was, he were
later. He carried a letter from Mrs. Fermitage, couched in the
thirtieth person, to Mrs. Luke Sharp of Cross-Duck House, the very one
as sent that good book back. Master's sister have felt below contempt
towards her since that time, and in dignity could do no otherwise. And
now she put it short and sharp, as no less could be expected--and word
for word can I say of it--
"'Mrs. Fermitage has the honour of presenting her compliments to Mrs.
Sharp, and begs to express her surprise at the strange retention by
Mrs. S. of a pair of valuable silk stockings, which are the property
of Mrs. F. If they are not in use, it is begged that they may be
returned by the bearer.--Postscript: Mrs. F. takes this opportunity of
acknowledging the return of a book, which, being filled only with the
word of God, was perhaps of less practical value to Mrs. S. than silk
stockings appear to be.'
"'That will fetch them,' said my mother; 'if they be in the house,
that will fetch them, ma'am. No lady could stand against them
inawindows.' And, sure enough, back they come by Mr. Kale, about an
hour after you left our house, sir. It seems that Mr. Luke Sharp was
gone to dine with the Corporation, or likely they never would have
come at all. And they never would have come at all, because Mrs. Sharp
could not have found them, if it hadn't been that Master Sharp, the
boy they think such wonders of, just happened to come in from
shooting, where the whole of his time he spends. He found his mother
in the hystrikes of a heart too full for tears, as she expressed it
bootifully to both cook and housemaid; and they pointed to the letter,
and he read it; and he were that put out, that Master Kale, seeing the
two big barrels of his gun, were touched in his conscience, and ran
away and got under the mangle. What happened then, he were afeard to
be sure of; but the cook and the housemaid brought him out, and they
locked him in, to eat a bit, which he did with trembles of
thankfulness. And, almost afore he had licked his knife as clean as he
like to leave it, that wicked young man he kicked open the door, and
flung a parcel at him.
"'Tell your d----d missus,' he says--your Worship, I hopes no offence to
the statues--'tell her,' he says, 'that her rubbish is there! And add,
without no compliments, that a lady of her birth should a' known
better than to insult another lady so!'"
"Well done, Kit Sharp!" exclaimed Overshute. "I rather admire him for
that. Not that he ought to have sworn so, of course. But I like a
young fellow to get in a rage when he thinks that his mother is
trampled on."
"Then you might a' been satisfied with him, sir. In a rage he were,
and no mistake! So much so that our Mr. Kale made off by the quickest
door out of the premises. But the cook, she ran after him out to the
steps, when there was the corners between them, and she begged him not
to give a bad account, but to put a Christian turn to it. And she told
poor Tummuss that she had a manner of doing veal fit to surprise him;
and if he could drop in on Sunday week, he might go home the wiser.
The Lord knows how she hit so quick upon his bad propensities; for he
do pay attention to his victuals, whatever his other feelings be.
However, away he come at last; and I doubt if he goeth in a hurry
again.
"Of course he knowed better than give the broken handles of his
message. It is only the boys and the girls does that, for the pleasure
of vexing their betters. Master Kale sent his parcel in by me,
together with Mrs. Sharp's compliments; leaving the truth in the
kitchen to strengthen, and follow to the parlour, as the cat comes in.
And so master's sister, she put out her hand all covered with rings,
and no shaking; and I makes my best entry just like this, excusing
your presence, Mr. Russel, sir; and she nod to me pleasantly, and take
it. 'Mary, you may go,' she said; and for sure, I am not one of those
who linger.
"There happened, however, to be a new candle full of thieves and
guttering; and being opposite a looking-glass made it more
reproachful. So back I turned by the corner of a screen, for to right
it without disturbance. I had no more idea, bless you, Master Cripps,
of cooriosity, than might have happened to yourself, sir! But I pulled
a pair of scissors out of my pocket, no snuffers being handy; and then
I heer'd a most sad groan.
"To my heart it went, like a clap of thunder, having almost expected
it, which made it worse; and back I ran to do my dooty, if afforded
rightly. And sure enough there was poor Mrs. Fermitage afell back well
into the long-backed chair, with her legs out straight, and her hands
to her forehead, and a pair of grey stockings laid naked on her lap!
'Is it they things, ma'am? Is it they?' I asked, and she put up her
chin to acknowledge it. By the way they were lying upon her lap, I was
sure that she was vexed with them. 'Oh, Mary,' she cried out; 'oh,
Mary Hookham, I am both as foolish and a wicked woman, if ever in the
world there was one!'
"So deeply was I shocked by this, master's own sister, and a mint of
money, going the wrong way to kingdom come--that I give her both ends
of the smelling-bottle, open, and running on her velvet gown, as
innocent as possible. 'Oh, you wicked, wicked girl!' she says, coming
round, before I could stop; 'do you know what it cost a yard, you
minx?'
"This gave me good hopes of her, being so natteral. Twice the price
comes always into ladies' minds, when damage is; if anybody can be
made to pay. But it did not become me to speak one word, as you see,
Mr. Russel, and Master Cripps. And there was my reward at once.
"'I must have a magistrate,' she cries; 'a independent justice of the
peace. Not my poor brother--too much of him already. Where is that boy
Overshute?' she says, saving, of course, your Worship's presence. 'I
heered he were gone to that low carrier's. Mary, run and fetch him!'"
"My brother to be called a low carrier!" young Esther exclaimed, with
her hand on her heart. "What carrier is to Compare with him?"
"Never you mind, cheel," answered Cripps, with a smile that shone like
a warming-pan; "the womens may say what they pleases on me, so long as
I does my dooty by 'em. Squaze the lemon for his Worship, afore un
goeth."