CHAPTER XXVI.
A DOWNY COVE
It could hardly be expected that my Uncle Corny should grow very miserable about this matter. He knew that young people of the ordinary cast tumble into love and tumble out again, with perhaps a little running of the eyes and nose, and a hat crushed on the head, or a ribbon saturated; but nothing that penetrates the skin, far less puts a “tub of clothes,” as Mrs. Wilcox said, into the lungs. And it would not have been reasonable to demand of him, that he should believe in any grand distinction between the case of Kitty and myself, and that of any other couple he might come across, in a life whose main nucleus was Covent Garden. That which chiefly moved him, as he told me in the end, and as I might have known without his telling, was the iron sense of justice, gilded haply at the corners, and crowned with a little touch of chivalry. To his sturdy sense of right it seemed a monstrous thing, that an innocent girl, and such a lovely girl, should be locked away from all who were longing to help her, and left at the mercy of two bad men.
Therefore he donned his Sunday clothes, though he grumbled a good deal at having to do it, and without a word to me, put old Spanker in the shafts, and drove away alone in the green spring-cart, with a face which made all the village say to one another, that he must have a County-court job on his hands. Dr. Sippets, who came to see me every day, had by this time supplied such a row of medicine-bottles, that we glazed a new wall with them forty yards long, for he would not allow a farthing on their return, though he put them in the bill at twopence halfpenny apiece; and that glazing brought him even more than that much again, from the number of boys’ fingers which he had to dress. For he was a skilful, as well as zealous man, and did his utmost for his patients and his family.
He had now begun to “exhibit” mustard oil externally, as well as zinc, and especially sulphur inside; till the sulphur began to ooze through my pores, as if I had been a tea rose suffering from mildew. Then Tabby had to rub me with the mustard oil; and the more I groaned, the surer she became of its effect. With this vigorous treatment I began to rally, and even heard Uncle Corny depart, and contrived to steal a peep at him behind the window curtain. But they told me some fib about his errand.
When he put up his horse, somewhere near Holland Park, he had not far to walk to find Mrs. Wilcox, who received him with great cordiality. And she sent her little Ted, who proved to be the very boy that had guided me among the brickfields, with a note which he managed to convey to Miss Fairthorn. “Rumpus going on,” he said when he came back; “they makes more rumpus in that house, than a score of navvies over one red herring. But cooky’s not a bad sort; she’ll give it to her.”
It was nearly an hour before Miss Fairthorn came, and then she was so nervous, and down-hearted, that they scarcely knew what to do with her. At first she had quite forgotten Uncle Corny, having never seen him in his best clothes at home, and being distracted with sorrow and ill usage. For as yet Mrs. Wilcox had been unable to get a word with her about the visit of the day before. Gradually, however, she began to understand what had happened, and why she had not heard from me.
“Then he has not forgotten me, after all!” she said, in a tone that made her old nurse sob, and my uncle look out of the window. “Something told me all along, that he could not forget me, any more than I could do such a thing to him. But you say that he is ill, that he has long been ill; and perhaps he will never be well any more. Tell me the truth, I would rather know it. Is he dead, is he dead, Mr. Orchardson?”
“No, my dear, thank the Lord, he is all alive, and getting ever so much better every day. He went off his head, just a little for a time; and he did not know me from the man in the moon; and what do you think was the word that was on his tongue, all day, and all night too for that matter? Guess, and I’ll tell you if you are right.”
“Oh, I know what it was! It began with a K, and it was not a very long word, was it? It was ‘Kitty.’ Don’t tell me that it was anything but ‘Kitty.’”
“No, my dear, I won’t, because I never tell fibs. Sure enough that was it, like a cherry-clapper; only in a hundred different tones. I used to say that if you were there, you’d get heartily tired of your own name.”
“Never, so long as it came from his lips. But I think I should have broken my heart, all the same. It has been the kindest thing you could do, to keep all knowledge of this long suspense from me. How soon will he be better? How soon will he be well again? Well enough, I mean, to come down and let me see him?”
“At present, Miss Fairthorn, wherever he is not mustard, he is brimstone. You cannot expect him to present himself in that condition. But we have got the mischief out of his joints by this time. Dr. Sippets considers it a very happy thing that the ailment flew there; for his heart will be all right, and that’s a great part of the system, in love. His head is of no importance in that condition; and Mrs. Wilcox proved to me last night, that it is quite a superfluity in the present days. Madam, you know you did, and you did it thoroughly.”
My uncle gave a wink at Mrs. Wilcox, not with any overture to familiarity – for he was very shy of widows – but to intimate to her that she should talk a little nonsense, after his example, as a rescue from hysterics. For poor Kitty had been passing through much outrage all the morning; and now to be met with this shock of strange news (bad to her head, but perhaps good for her heart) after such a long time of dejection was enough to throw the finest daughter of Divine Science into some confusion as to all her organisms. But she fetched herself back from the precipice of sobs, with a deep draught of air, and spoke as she did not feel.
“If he is being treated like – like beef, I think I ought to have a voice in the matter. Will you let me come down, and do it for him – or see that it is done properly? My father has taught me so many things – ”
“My dear,” said my uncle, being truly thankful to her, for not even pulling out her handkerchief, “you are the sweetest young lady I have ever met. No, you shall not come down and nurse our Kit; not only because it is not the place for you, but also that it might be very bad for him. His mind must not come back with a jerk, however pleasant the jerk may be. He must come round slowly, and he has begun to do it, under Tabby Tapscott’s scrubbing-brush. But you shall come and see him, in a week, my dear, if you think you can hold out so long here. And now tell me, what is going on, to urge your gentle nature so.”
The young lady looked at Mrs. Wilcox, as if she could hardly tell what to do. She was very unwilling to refuse my uncle anything he might ask her; and yet she could not bring herself to speak of such matters to him.
“I will tell you all about it, when she is gone,” said the lady of the shop, as if hurried for time; “but I know by her look that she is getting in a fright. What will they do, if they catch you out, dearie?”
“I defy them. I defy them. They may do what they like. Now I know that Kit stands fast to me, after all he has suffered for my sake, am I likely to show the white feather? Uncle Corny, I will come away with you, and let them do their worst, if you will take me.”
She pulled her hat down on her forehead, and drew her crinoline into small compass, as if she were ready to mount our spring-cart; and her manner had such an effect on my uncle – for very pretty girls do even more by attitude, than by words or looks – that he saw himself driving her away, and looking back with a whistle of defiance at the world. Moreover she had called him “Uncle Corny,” which put him on his mettle to deserve it; and though there have been few men born as yet, with more gift of decision in their nature, he looked at her lovingly, and hesitated.
“It will not do,” Mrs. Wilcox interrupted, as if she were once more in office as nurse. “Of law I know nothing, sir, and you do; as you was pleased to tell me yesterday. If her father was at home, and sanctioned it, no doubt it might be in your jurisdiction” – the good lady was proud of her law, and repeated – “it might be in your jurisdiction, sir. But without any sign of that, where should we be? Pulled up for conspiracy against the realm, and nothing for me, but to put my shutters up.”
“I fear that you are right, ma’am,” replied my uncle, “though I don’t care twopence for the law sometimes, when I feel better law inside me. But it is the young lady we must think of first. We must let her do nothing to injure herself. Have patience, my dear. They may torment you in the house, but they cannot take you out of it, and marry you to anybody, against your own will and pleasure. Your will and pleasure is to have our Kit; and with the will of the Lord, you shall do so.”
“I suppose I must go back. There seems nothing else to do;” Miss Fairthorn spoke very sadly, looking from one to the other, and trying to be cheerful. “But if the worst comes to the worst, will you find a place for me, Uncle Corny? I have got a little money my dear father gave me; and they shall take away my life, before they get it.”
“Bravo, well said indeed, my dear!” This alone was needed to confirm my uncle in his high opinion of her. “What a wife you will make for a steady young man! Yes, my dear child, I will find you a place, and you shan’t pay sixpence for it. And none but your father shall take you away, unless the Lord Chancellor comes himself to fetch you.”
“Thank you. Then I shall know what to do. I am not so much afraid of them, now I know that Kit is true. I shall say to myself – ‘What is this to put up with, after all that he has borne for me?’ Give him my best love, and tell him to get well, and sit by the window, and look out for me. Good-bye, Uncle Corny; I will not attempt to thank you. Good-bye, nurse. I don’t deserve such friends. They may do what they like now, and I shall only laugh.”
“She deserves the best friends, and she shall have them too,” Mr. Orchardson said, as soon as she was gone, with little Ted to see the way clear for her; “that’s what I call a downright good girl, without a bit of humbug in her. A fig for their science! Will it ever produce such a fine bit of nature as that is? Now tell me, as far as you can, Mrs. Wilcox, what is it they want to do with her, why they torment her so, and what we can do to stop it?”
My uncle laid his watch on the table, because he wished to be home before dark, and the days, though drawing out nicely, were not very long. He knew that the lady with whom he had to deal, instead of putting things into small compass, would fetch a large compass about them, whose radius would only be lengthened by any disturbance or hurry on his part. So he merely placed his watch as a silent, or at least a comparatively quiet witness, and reproof; but the scheme failed, as it deserved to do. All he obtained by it was a lesson, which he often repeated afterwards – never set a watch to go against a woman’s tongue; it puts her on her mettle to outgo it; and one wants winding, but the other never does.
Mrs. Wilcox had not so very much to tell, but she found a vast quantity to say, and never said it twice to the same effect. Stripped of her embellishments, reflections, divergencies, and other little sallies, it was something as follows.
Captain Fairthorn had been called away to see to the fitting of some ship near Glasgow, with engines of a special kind, and large coal-storage, so that she might keep at sea for months together – seven years the lady said, but that looked like a lady’s tale. And there were to be wonderful appliances, such as had never been heard of, on board her, as well as every kind of scientific instrument, all under the Professor’s own direction. If ever a man was in his own element, this was the man, and the time and place were there. No wonder that he forgot all other things below the moon; and it was much to his credit that before he started, he insisted on a promise from his wife and two step-daughters, that his dear child Kitty should be treated kindly, and harassed by none of them while he was away. Upon that condition only, would he send them every month a handsome sum out of the liberal payment he was to receive for his services. And he thought himself very firm, and most sagacious – even suspicious it might be – in providing that before he drew each cheque, he should have by post a line from his own daughter, to this effect – “I am very happy, and every one is most kind to me.”
Unluckily his suspicions were not very shrewd; for he forgot that there were pens and ink and fingers at Bulwrag Park, quite apart from Kitty’s, well able to afford him that assurance in her name, for the gift of forgery was in the family; and his daughter was not to distract him with letters, so long as he knew that she was comfortable.
No sooner was he off the scene, than that old rake, Sir Cumberleigh Hotchpot, reappeared, having purposely kept away till then, for he dreaded the simple and calm man of science. He annoyed poor Miss Fairthorn with his odious advances, and coarse familiarity, and slangy talk, and he took a mean advantage of her gentle diffidence by perpetually assuming that she was pledged to him. This, and the contempt and spiteful hatred of her stepmother, seemed more than enough for the poor girl to have to bear; but soon a far greater distress was added. Donovan Bulwrag, the only son of the Honourable Mrs. Bulwrag Fairthorn – as she absurdly called herself – came home from the Continent, where he had been engaged on the staff of some embassy, after running from his debts; and the house, and the people, and the chattels therein were not good enough for him to tread upon. This would have mattered little to Miss Fairthorn (who was rarely favoured with the Bulwrag society, except for the purpose of insults if this divine Downy, as his mother called him), had not taken into his great yellow head the idea that he was in love with Kitty.
This dearly loved son of his mother was a strong young man of three or four and twenty, able to take his own part anywhere, either with violence or with fraud, but preferring the latter, when it would do the trick. Mrs. Wilcox said that he had three crowns to his head, which went beyond all her experience, although she had been in a hospital. She had known malefactors with two sometimes, and you never could tell where their mischief began, because it started double; but she had combed the hair of this boy once, and nothing would tempt her to do it again. She was not superstitious, but afraid more often of being too much the other way; and she left it entirely to the future to prove her a fool, if she deserved it. Only let any one look at his head.
For it was not only that he was bad inside, but that he gave the same idea at first sight, to any one having any sense of human looks. It was not Mrs. Wilcox alone who said this, but my uncle as well, when he happened to see the young man, while going to look for his horse. He had notice that he might have the luck to meet him, and sure enough he had, if there was any luck in it. And my Uncle Corny, though a man of strong opinions, did not go so entirely by outward show.
Mr. Downy Bulwrag, as the grandson of a Lord, and likely enough to be a Lord himself, if people in his way died out of it, had a sense of being somebody, and liked the world to know that he was rather an important part of it. Not that he swaggered, or stuck out his arms, or jerked himself into big attitudes – as some bits of the human chip do – all that he left for fellows who had yet to prove their value, and knew much less of life than he did. His manner and air were of solid and silent conviction, that without him this earth would be a place unfit for a civilized race to inhabit. He prided himself, if he had any pride, upon his knowledge of human nature; and like most who do that, he attributed every word and every action to selfishness, spite, and cupidity. And like the great bulk of such people again, he was truly consistent in his own freedom from any loftier motives.
His mother’s pet name for him had been confirmed by all who had the honour of knowing him. He was downy in manner, as well as appearance, and (according to the slang of the day) a “downy cove” in all his actions. No one could look at his bulky form (which greatly resembled his father’s), enormous head furnished with bright yellow hair, soft saffron moustache, and orange-coloured eyelashes, without thinking of a fat, downy apricot, and fearing that he had none of its excellence. His face, too, was flattened in its own broad substance, as that yellow fruit often is against the wall, and bulged at the jowl with the great socket of square jaws. But the forehead was the main and most impressive feature; full, and round, and almost beetling, wider even than the great wide jaws, but for its heaviness it would have looked like the bulwark of a mighty brain; and there was room for the brain of a Cuvier in that head.
My good Uncle Corny, meeting this man in the road, and knowing who he was from description received, clapped his keen gray eyes with emphasis upon him, as much as to say, “I mean to look you through, young man.” Downy, with his usual self-esteem – which stands like a dummy at every loop-hole, when the garrison of self-respect is gone – gazed at the grower with a placid acceptance of rustic admiration. Little did he dream that another creak of his boots would have brought the crack of a big whip round his loins; for my uncle was a hasty man sometimes, and could prove it his duty to be so. And the heavy half-somnolent look of Downy – as if he were gaping with his eyes almost – was enough to put a quick busy man in a rage, even if he had no bone to pick with the man who was making a dog of him.
CHAPTER XXVII.
OFF THE SHELF
I had missed “the enjoyment of that bad weather” – as one of our workmen called it, when he drew his wages gratis– through having too much at the outset. There had been at least six weeks of frost, some of it very intense; and it was said by those who make a study of such things, that Christmas Day, 1860, was the coldest day known in the south of England, since Christmas Day, 1796. And but for a break at the end of the year, when a sudden thaw set in before the steady return of low temperature, it is likely that the Thames would have held an ice-fair above London Bridge; as in 1814, and as threatened again in 1838. But the removal of old London Bridge has made perhaps a great difference in that matter.
One of the reasons why I could not get rid of the chill that struck into my system, was perhaps the renewed attack of cold every night through all that bitter time. For in old-fashioned houses like my uncle’s, there was no fireplace in the bedrooms; and a frying-pan full of hot embers, our Tabby’s device, used to set us a-coughing. Every now and again I seemed to hear, when I called my wits together, the crisp light glint of the gliding skate, the hollow heel-tap of the gliddering slide, and the sharp, merry shouts of boys and men dashing at the hockey-bung in the jagged, slippery huddle. Then more snow fell, and the ice grew treacherous, and all was mantled in a white hush again.
But now the days were milder, and the ice had broken up, and the roads were full of quagmires as they always are, when a long frost has gone to the bottom of their metal; and everybody said that it was very brave of my good Aunt Parslow to pay a guinea for a fly, and come all the way from Leatherhead, to see if I was still alive. And it was not for the sake of being kept warm on the road – though that was the reason she assigned for it – that she obtained permission from Mr. Chalker to bring his pretty daughter on the visit she was paying. Miss Parslow was long past the age of lovemaking, and had made a sound investment of her affections among the grateful canine race; but none the less for that she felt an interest in watching the progress, or it might even be the backslidings, of her own species in the fine old game. And Sam Henderson had conquered all her prejudice against him, by riding over more than once in the worst state of the roads, when no wheels could pass over them, for no other purpose, as he positively avowed, than to comfort her kind heart about her dear nephew’s illness.
“Don’t tell me,” she said, as soon as she had seen me, and cried over me a little, for I was desperately weak; “what he wants is warmth, and change of air, and particularly careful nursing. He will fall into a decline, if he stops here; and then what will become of his darling Kitty? What chance has he here in this wretched little room, like a frog, or an empty bucket hanging in a well? And here you are giving him gruel and tapioca! Has he ever had a pint of real turtle? Just answer me that, Mr. Orchardson.”
“Well, no,” replied my uncle, looking at her with surprise; “I never heard that turtle was for any but Lord Mayors. Kit has had everything regardless of expense, that our skilful Dr. Sippets recommended him. Perhaps you know better than he does, Miss Parslow. And the bottles of stuff, every two hours day and night, with half a pint rubbed in at frequent intervals, till he groans, and that shows that it has acted on his system.”
“System indeed! There is no system in it, except to kill him, in spite of the Parslow constitution. The roads are very soft, but I shall send for him to-morrow, with a proper close carriage and a pair of horses. And if you try to prevent it, let his death lie at your door.”
“There is no doubt,” said my uncle, after some consideration, “that your house is much warmer, and better fitted up than this with warm baths, and all that which he ought to have. And Sippets said that change of air would be a great thing for him. I will see him, before you go away, and if he thinks it would be safe, let it be so, ma’am. But you must not suppose that I have grudged him anything. And a very pretty bill there will be for me to pay.”
Miss Chalker meanwhile had made a great discovery, to wit that she had never seen Hampton Court; and Sam Henderson, who happened to come in to ask for me, found out that he had business there that very afternoon. So after dining with my uncle, off they set together, and Miss Parslow undertook to call for her companion upon her way back to Leatherhead. Sam had gone up several pages in Mr. Orchardson’s good books, by his rescue of me, and even more by his refusal of the handsome reward which he might have claimed for it. And now there were very few days when he did not come down, and offer counsel, and perhaps bring a hare or rabbit. And my uncle liked his stories of the lords and ladies, even when he was unable to believe them.
“Now, I am not going home without a little talk with you,” said Aunt Parslow to her host, when the young couple had made off; “I must be rude enough to ask you just to spare me a little time. And I don’t think you can do much on the ground just now. It must be quite unfit to work, after all the snow and thaw, and rain again coming on the top of it. And the land must be so cold that the spring will be very late. You see I know a little about gardening, too. Will you try to spare me half an hour, as I can come so seldom?”
“I am always at the service of the ladies, however busy I may be.” My uncle’s answer was truly polite, but not so true in other points. “The spring will be very late, and therefore summer will find us all behind. I mean, if we get any summer at all.”
“It is quite as likely that we shall not, and that makes it unwise of us to be in any hurry. Mr. Orchardson, you have a special gift of never being in a hurry. We women always envy that way of taking things, because we cannot hope to attain to it. You know what we are, don’t you?”
“All that is delightful, ma’am; so far as I have had any opportunity of learning. And all that is reasonable, whenever there is nothing particular to interfere with it. I assure you that I have the highest respect for – for the way that you generally go on.”
“You pay me a very high compliment, sir, and I wish that we all deserved it. But I am sure you will admit that I am reason itself, in asking you one or two little questions. There was a little money that fell in, as a sort of windfall, or whatever you call it, to my niece, the mother of this unlucky Kit. I scarcely know what the exact sum was, though of course I could easily find out. But it must have been about two thousand pounds. I believe that it came into your possession as his next of kin, but in trust for him of course. And I conclude that as he has long been of age, you have handed it over to Kit himself.”
“Not I, ma’am;” cried my uncle, who was as honest as the day. “That would have been the worst thing that I could do. I have told him of it several times, and strongly recommended him to let me apply it for his benefit. Kit is a sensible and upright fellow, and he knows when he is in good hands, that he does; and he is capable of managing his own affairs, without anybody’s interference.”
“Without even his uncle’s?” asked Miss Parslow, with a smile.
“Yes, ma’am; and without even his great-aunt’s,” Mr. Orchardson answered, with a frown.
“I have no doubt that you have acted for the best;” the lady returned, for she wished to do no harm, and saw that it would cost me more than two thousand pounds to have Uncle Corny set against me. “And it is the best thing that could have happened to him, to come into his capital when he wants it, without having had a chance of making any hole in it. I dare say he has not the least idea what it is. It will be a nice little nest egg, when he wants a nest.”
“I have never let him know how much it is, and I do not mean to tell him, till I hand it over. I have never touched a penny of it, my dear madam; which I never would have told you, if you had shown a doubt of me. I have allowed it to accumulate at four per cent.; and the sum is now three thousand five hundred pounds, which will be transferred into the name of Kit, on the day that he marries Miss Fairthorn. I should have thought myself justified in deducting the twenty-five pounds reward, for his stupidity in losing himself in the snow; but Mr. Henderson will not accept it. I have kept Kit from a baby, and he was dreadful with his clothes, and broke the backs of nearly all the books he had at school. But I shall not charge him sixpence, ma’am. He has worked well for me, and he can lay in a tree very nearly as well as I can.”
“Mr. Orchardson, you are a gentleman,” cried my aunt, much impressed with the increase of money; “and I would ask you as a favour, in return for my inquiries, to allow me to discharge Dr. Sippet’s account.”
“With pleasure, Miss Parslow, for it will be very stiff, and the uphill time of the year is before me. I do not pretend to be a gentleman, madam; but I should not be a man if I wronged my brother’s baby. The only thing I ask you is to keep this from Kit’s knowledge, and leave me to tell him at my own time. I have hinted to him once or twice that he has something coming; but if I were to tell him he would go and tell his Kitty, and I wish it to be kept from all that lot.”
“He shall not know a word of it through me, I can assure you. And I shall consider what I can do for them. But the first thing is to set him on his legs again.”
At this very moment, I was being set by a happy little accident upon my legs, as well as enjoying a delight which no money (at the finest compound interest) can insure. In the corner of the room which my aunt had so decried, and where I had passed so many miserable weeks, an old wooden bracket with three little shelves was nailed against the yellow-ochred wall. I had often cast my weary eyes in that direction, and vaguely watched a spider, who was in a doleful plight, with his legs drawn together, and no stomach left between them; such a time was it since he had tasted a good fly. On the bottom shelf were bottles of a loathsome disposition, pill-boxes and galley-pots, and measures no less repulsive to good taste; on the middle shelf lay my mother’s Prayer-book, and some papers of directions, and orders, and powders and the like; but what was on the top shelf I could not tell, and had often wondered languidly in the wanderings of hazy speculation. And I might have been content to wonder still, without any guide-post of interest, if I had not heard Miss Parslow say – “Ah, that would do him a lot more good than those,” as she pointed to the top shelf, and then to the others.
For a time I forgot all about it, and fell into a little sleep of indifference; but being aroused by the sound of plates and dishes and the clinking of glasses down below, I longed to know what they were having for dinner, and what was the joke they were laughing at. Then a lovely smell of something came into the room, and my head went round with the effort of searching itself for the name of that fragrance, although it was nothing but fried calf’s liver, with which Mrs. Tapscott was skilful. “Shall I ever have that again, instead of filthy nastiness?” was all that I had sense enough to want to know; and then I thought somehow of the starving spider, and looked to ask whether he was dead yet.
Not only was he not dead, but clearly (after seeing rain once more upon the window-panes) he had made up his mind that life was worth living, and a little activity might make it more so. Where he got his stuff from is more than I can tell, for any man would have vowed that his meagre body could never have supplied him with the hundredth part of the dreamiest film of a gossamer. However, he knew his own business best, and he was at it, as if he were paid by the piece.
Being hungry myself, I could sympathize with him, while detesting his bloodthirstiness, as every man must who lives on beef and mutton. And I saw that he was scheming to attach his tent cords to a coign of great vantage on the top shelf of the bracket.