CHAPTER VI.
MR. DINGWELL ARRIVES.
MESSRS. GOLDSHED and _Levi_ owned four houses in Rosemary Court, and Miss Sarah Rumble was their tenant. The court is dark, ancient, and grimy. Miss Rumble let lodgings, worked hard, led an anxious life, and subsisted on a remarkably light diet, and at the end of the year never had a shilling over. Her Jewish landlords used to pay her a visit now and then, to receive the rent, and see that everything was right. These visits she dreaded; they were grumbling and minatory, and enlivened by occasional oaths and curses. But though it was part of their system to keep their tenants on the alert by perpetual fault-findings and menaces, they knew very well that they got every shilling the house brought in, that Miss Rumble lived on next to nothing, and never saved a shilling, and was, in fact, _their_ underfed, overworked, and indefatigable slave.
With the uncomplaining and modest charity of the poor, Sarah Rumble maintained her little orphan niece and nephew by extra labour at needle-work, and wonderful feats of domestic economy.
This waste of resources Mr. Levi grudged. He had never done complaining of it, and demonstrating that it could only be accomplished by her holding the house at too low a rent; how else could it be? Why was she to keep other people"s brats at the expense of Messrs. Goldshed and Levi? What was the workhouse for? This perpetual pressure was a sore trouble to the poor woman, who had come to love the children as if they were her own; and after one of Mr. Levi"s minatory visits she often lay awake sobbing, in the terror and yearnings of her unspeakable affection, whilst its unconscious objects lay fast asleep by her side.
From Mr. Levi, in his accustomed vein, Miss Rumble had received full instructions for the reception and entertainment of her new lodger, Mr.
Dingwell. He could not say when he would arrive, neither the day nor the hour; and several days had already elapsed, and no arrival had taken place. This evening she had gone down to "the shop," so designated, as if there had been but one in London, to lay out a shilling and seven pence very carefully, leaving her little niece and nephew in charge of the candle and the house, and spelling out their catechism for next day.
A tapping came to the door; not timid, nor yet menacing; a sort of double knock, delivered with a walking-cane; on the whole a sharp but gentlemanlike summons, to which the little company a.s.sembled there were unused. The children lifted their eyes from the book before them, and stared at the door without answering. It opened with a latch, which, without more ado, was raised, and a tall, white-haired gentleman, with a stoop, and a very brown skin, looked in inquisitively, and said, with a smile that was not pleasant, and a voice not loud but somewhat harsh and cold--
"Mrs. or _Miss_ Rumble hereabouts, my dears?"
"Miss Rumble; that"s aunt, please, sir;" answered the little girl, slipping down from her chair, and making a courtesy.
"Well, _she"s_ the lady I want to speak with, my love. Where _is_ she?"
said the gentleman, glancing round the homely chamber from under his white eyebrows with a pair of cold, gray, restless eyes.
"She"s--she"s"----hesitated the child.
"Not in bed, I see; nor in the cupboard" (the cupboard door was open).
"Is she up the chimney, my charming child?"
"No, sir, please; she"s gone to Mrs. Chalk"s for the bacon."
"Mrs. Chalk"s for the bacon?" echoed the gentleman. "Very good!
Excellent woman! excellent bacon, I dare say. But how far away is it?--how soon shall we have your aunt back again?"
"Just round the corner, please, sir; aunt"s never no time," answered the child. "Would you please call in again?"
"Charming young lady! So accomplished! Who taught you your grammar? So polite--so _suspicious_. Do you know the meaning of that word, my dear?"
"No, sir, please."
"And I"m vastly obliged for your invitation to call again; but I find your company much too agreeable to think of going away; so, if you allow me--and do shut that door, my sweet child; many thanks--I"ll do myself the honour to sit down, if I may venture, and continue to enjoy your agreeable conversation, till your aunt returns to favour us with her charming presence--and bacon."
The old gentleman was glancing from under his brows, from corner to corner of this homely chamber; an uneasy habit, not curiosity; and, during his ceremonious speech, he kept bowing and smiling, and set down a black leather bag that he had in his hand, on the deal table, together with his walking-cane, and pulled off his gloves, and warmed his hands at the tiny bit of fire. When his back was toward them the children exchanged a glance, and the little boy looked frightened, and on the point of bursting into tears.
"_Hish!_" whispered the girl, alarmed, for she could not tell what effect the demonstration might have upon the stranger--"_quiet!_"--and she shook her finger in urgent warning at Jemmie. "A _very_ nice gent, as has money for aunty--_there_!"
So the tears that stood in Jemmie"s big eyes were not followed by an outcry, and the gentleman, with his hat and outside wrapper on, stood, now, with his back to the little fire, looking, in his restless way, over the children"s heads, with his white, cold eyes, and the same smile. There was a dreamy idea haunting Lucy Maria"s head that this gentleman was very like a white animal she had seen at the Surrey Zoological Gardens when her uncle had treated her to that instructive show; the same sort of cruel grin, and the same restless oscillation before the bars of its cage.
"Hey! so she"ll be back again?" said he, recollecting the presence of the two children; "the excellent lady, your aunt, I mean. Superb apartment this is, but it strikes me, hardly sufficiently _lighted_, hey? _One_ halfpenny candle, however brilliant, can hardly do justice to such a room; pretty taper--very pretty--isn"t it? Such nice mutton fat, my dear young lady, and such a fine long snuff--like a chimney, with a Quaker"s hat on the top of it--you don"t see such fine things everywhere! And who"s this young gentleman, who enjoys the distinction of being admitted to your salon; a page, or what?"
"It"s Jemmie, sir; stand up, and bow to the gentleman, Jemmie."
Jemmie slipped down on the floor, and made a very alarmed bow, with his great eyes staring deprecatingly in the visitor"s face.
"I"m charmed to make your acquaintance. What grace and ease! It"s perfectly charming! I"m too much honoured, Mr. Jemmie. And so exquisitely got up, too! There"s only one little toilet refinement I would venture to recommend. The worthy lady, Mrs. Chalks, who contributes bacon to this house, and, I presume, candles--could, I dare say, also supply another luxury, with which you are not so well acquainted, called _soap_--one of the few perfectly safe cosmetics. Pray try it; you"ll find it soluble in water. And, ho? reading too! What have you been reading out of that exquisite little volume?"
"Catechism, please sir," answered the little girl.
"Ho, Catechism? Delightful! What a wonderful people we English are!" The latter reflection was made for his own entertainment, and he laughed over it in an undertone. "Then your aunt teaches you the art of G.o.dliness? You"ve read about Babel, didn"t you?--the accomplishment of getting up to heaven is so nice!"
"Sunday school, sir, please," said the girl.
"Oh, it"s _there_ you learn it? Well, I shall ask you only one question in your Catechism, and that"s the first--what"s your name?"
"Lucy Maria."
"Well, Lucy Maria and Mr. Jemmie, I trust your theological studies may render you at last as pious as I am. You know how death and sin came into the world, and you know what they are. Sin is doing anything on earth that"s pleasant, and death"s the penalty of it. Did you ever see any one dead, my sweet child--not able to raise a finger or an eyelid?
rather a fix, isn"t it?--and screwed up in a stenching box to be eaten by worms--all alone, under ground? _You_"ll be so, egad, and your friend, Jemmie, there, perhaps before me--though I"m an old boy.
Younkers go off sometimes by the score. I"ve seen "em trundled out in fever and plague, egad, lying in rows, like plucked chickens in a poulterer"s shop. And they say you have scarlatina all about you _here_, now; bad complaint, you know, that kills the little children. You need not frighten yourselves though, because it _must_ happen, sooner or later--die you _must_. It"s the penalty, you know, because Eve once eat an apple."
"Yes, sir."
"Rather hard lines on us, isn"t it? She eat an apple, and sin, and death, and colic--I never eat an apple in consequence--_colic_ came into the world, and cider, as a consequence--the worst drink ever invented by the devil. And now go on and learn your Church Catechism thoroughly, and you"ll both turn into angels. Upon my life, I think I see the feathers beginning to sprout from your shoulders already. You"ll have wings, you know, if all goes right, and tails for anything I know."
The little boy looked in his face perplexed and frightened--the little girl, answering his haggard grin with an attempted smile, showed also bewilderment and dismay in her eyes. They were both longing for the return of their aunt.
Childish nature, which is only human nature without its scarf skin, is always afraid of irony. It is not its power, but its treachery that is dreadful--the guise of friendship hiding a baleful purpose underneath.
One might fancy the seasoned denizens of Gehenna welcoming, complimenting, and instructing new comers with these profound derisions.
How children delight in humour! how they wince and quail under irony! Be it ever so rudely fashioned and clumsily handled, still it is to them a terrible weapon. If children are to be either ridiculed or rebuked, let it be honestly, in direct terms. We should not scare them with this jocularity of devils.
Having thus amused himself with the children for a time, he unlocked his leather bag, took out two or three papers, ordered the little girl to snuff the candle, and pulled it across the table to the corner next himself, and, sitting close by, tried to read, holding the letter almost in the flame, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his white eyebrows together, and shifting his position, and that of the candle also, with very little regard to the studious convenience of the children.
He gave it up. The red and smoky light tried his eyes too severely. So, not well pleased, he locked his letters up again.
"Cat"s eyes--owls! How the devil they read by it pa.s.ses my comprehension. Any more candles here--hey?" he demanded with a sudden sharpness that made the children start.
"Three, please sir."
"Get "em."
"On the nail in the closet, please sir."
"Get "em, d--n it!"
"Closet"s locked, please sir. Aunt has the key."
"Ha!" he snarled, and looked at the children as if he would like to pick a quarrel with them.