Volume One – Chapter Seven.
The Lover’s Petition

An hour later and the party were back in Duplex Street, having travelled home in silence, with Patty weeping her sin the whole way, while she now sat sobbing by the fireside almost heedless of her mother’s consoling words. Jared had looked stern and troubled, but not cross; in fact, he had been talking the matter over to himself on the way back, and himself had had the best of the argument by declaring that it was only a custom of the season; that Harry Clayton was a fine handsome young fellow, and Patty as sweet a little girl as ever breathed; and that, though the matter had turned into an upset, the young folks were not so very much to blame.

Jared was beaten by himself, that is to say, by his own good nature, and what was more, he seemed so little put out in consequence, that he rode home the rest of the way with his arm round his wife’s waist – but then, certainly it was dark.

“There, there!” exclaimed Jared at last; “go to bed, Patty, and let’s have no more tears.”

He spoke kindly; but Patty could not be consoled, for she told herself that she had been very, very wicked, and if dear father only knew that she had almost held out her lips to be kissed, he would never, never, forgive her. So she sobbed on.

“Why, what is the matter?” exclaimed Jared at last, for Patty had thrown herself on her knees at her mother’s feet, and was crying almost hysterically in her lap. “What are you crying for?”

“Oh! oh! oh!” sobbed poor Patty, whose conscience would not let her rest until she had made a full confession of her sin, “I did-id-id-n’t try to stop him.”

“Humph!” grunted Jared, and the eyes of husband and wife met over their weeping girl, whose sobs after confession grew less laboured and hysterical.

The next day Harry Clayton called at Duplex Street, and the next day, and again after two days, and then once more after a week, but only to see Mrs Jared, who never admitted the visitor beyond the door-sill. She was civil and pleasant; but he must call when Mr Jared Pellet was at home, which he did at last and was ushered into the front parlour.

Jared was in his shirt sleeves, and had an apron on, for he was busy covering pianoforte hammers, and there was a very different scent in the place to that in Mrs Richard’s drawing-room, for Jared’s glue-pot was in full steam.

Had Mr Harry Clayton received permission from his parents to call? This from Jared very courteously, but quite en prince, though his fingers were gluey.

No, from the young man, very humbly, he had neither received nor asked permission; but if Mr Jared would not let him see Miss Pellet before he went, he should leave town bitter, sorrowful, and disappointed; for there had been a great quarrel at home, and though he was of age, Mr Richard Pellet wished to treat him like a child.

Only a shake of the head from Jared at this.

Would Mr Jared be so cruel as to refuse to let him bid Miss Pellet good-bye?

Yes, Jared Pellet would, even though his wife had entered, and was looking at him with imploring eyes. For Jared had a certain pride of his own, and a respect for his brother’s high position. And besides, he told himself bitterly that it was not meet that the stepson of a Croesus should marry with “a beggar’s brat.”

So Jared would keep to his word, and Mrs Jared could only sympathise with the young man, holding the while, though by a strange contradiction, to her husband.

Harry gave vent to a good deal of romantic saccharine stuff of twenty-one vintage, interspersed with the sea saltism of “true as the needle to the pole,” and various other high-flown sentiments, which mode of expressing himself, tending as it did to show his admiration for her daughter, and coming from a fine, handsome, and manly young suitor, Mrs Jared thought very nice indeed; but she diluted its strength with a few tears of her own.

Jared was obstinate though, and would not look; he only screwed up his lips and covered pianoforte hammers at express speed, making his fingers sticky and wasting felt; for every hammer had to be re-covered when Harry had taken his departure.

Harry was gone, with one hand a little sticky from the touch of Jared’s gluey fingers, as he said, “Good-bye,” and one cheek wet with Mrs Jared’s tears, as he saluted her reverently, as if she had been his mother.

“But a nice lad, dear,” said Mrs Jared, wiping her eyes.

“Yes; I dare say,” said Jared, stirring his glue round and round; “but mighty fond of kissing.”

Then husband and wife thought of the strange tie growing out of the new estrangement, and also of the fact that they must be growing old, since their child was following in their own steps – in the footprints of those who had gone before since Adam first gazed upon the fair face of the woman given to be his companion and solace in the solitude that oppressed him.

And where was Patty?

Down upon her knees in her little bedroom, whither she had fled on hearing that voice, sobbing tremendously, as if her fluttering heart would break – her handkerchief being vainly used to silence the emotion.

Poor Mrs Jared was quite disconcerted by her child’s reproachful looks when she told her that it might be but a passing fancy, that their position was so different, that years and distance generally wrought changes, and she must learn to govern her heart.

Just as if it were possible that such a man as Harry Clayton – so bold, so frank, so handsome, so – so – so – so – everything – could ever alter in the least. So Patty cried and then laughed, and said she was foolish, and then cried again, and behaved in a very extravagant way, hoping that Harry would write and tell her, if only just once more, that he loved her.

But Harry did not write, for he was a man of honour, and he had promised that he would not until he had permission; while Jared, thinking all this over again and again in his musing moods when sitting before his reflector, felt convinced that he had acted justly, and time alone must show what the young people’s future was to be.

The breach remained wider than ever between the brothers; for Richard Pellet said grandly to his wife – standing the while with his back to the fire, and chinking sovereigns in his pockets – that it was quite impossible to do anything for people who were such fools, and so blind to their own interests; and Mrs Richard, who was on the whole a good-natured woman, but had not room in her brain for more than one idea at a time, thought her new relatives very dreadful people, for they had driven her poor boy away a month or two sooner than he would have gone, though in that respect Richard did not show much sympathy, since he was rather glad to be rid of his stepson.

Volume One – Chapter Eight.
Little Pine and her Teacher

Carnaby Street, Golden Square, where the private doors have their jambs ornamented with series of bell-pulls like the stops of an organ, and the knockers seem intended to form handles that shall lift up and display rows of keys; but generally speaking, the doors stand open, and the sills bear a row of as many children as can squeeze themselves in. The population is dense and the odours are many, but the prevailing smell is that described by a celebrated character as of warm flat-irons, the ear corroborating nose and palate, for an occasional chink hints that the iron – not a flat one – has been placed upon its stand, while the heavy dull thump, thump, tells that some garment is being pressed. For this is one of the strongholds of the London tailors, and the chances are that the cloth cut upon the counter of Poole has been built into shape in Carnaby Street.

It was in the first floor back, and in two small rooms, that Tim Ruggles – always Tim, though christened Timothy – a steady-going, hard – working, Dutch clock kind of man, carried on the trade popular in the district, with his family of a wife and a little girl. He considered the two rooms ample – the larger serving for parlour, kitchen, workshop, and bedroom for little Pine, the other being devoted exclusively to sleeping purposes.

But you might have entered Tim’s room a score of times without detecting little Pine’s bed, which was an ingeniously contrived affair like a cupboard, that doubled up and doubled down, and creaked and groaned and sprawled about when in use, and had a bad habit of bursting open its doors when closed, and coming down when least expected in the shape of a bedding avalanche. But these accidents only occurred when Mrs Ruggles had ventured upon the doubling up of that piece of furniture, for Tim was the only person who thoroughly understood its idiosyncrasies, and possessed the skill and ingenuity to master its obtrusiveness. In effect, the first thing to be done was to make the bed, which Tim did regularly; then when all was well tucked in, to double back clothes and mattress, and with one rapid acrobatic evolution, performed in all its intricacies without a moment’s hesitation, to kick its legs from beneath it as you seized it at the foot, force your knee vigorously into its stomach, and then, as it folded, to drive all before you back into a state of collapse, banging to and bolting the doors in its face before it had time to recover; for if you were not rapid in your motions, down you went with the recoil, to be pinned to the floor by an incubus of wood and sacking. But, manage the matter as did Tim Ruggles, taking care that no corners of sheet, blanket, or quilt stood out between cracks, and to all appearance that bed might have been a secretary.

Tim was not a large man, either in person or ways; in fact, cross-legged upon his board, he often seemed half lost in the garment he was making. Dry he was, and shrunken, as if overbaked – a waster, in fact, from Nature’s pottery. The effect of the shrinking was most visible in his face, whose skin seemed not to fit, but fell into pucker, crease, and fold, above which shone, clear, white, and firm, his bald forehead and crown, fringing which, and standing out on either side, was a quantity of grizzled, frizzly, tufty hair, imparting a fierce look that was perfectly unreal.

Tim had just fetched his hot iron from the fire, and gone back to press off the garment he was completing; he had run his finger along the bars of a canary cage, and had it pecked by the bird within; gazed at the eternal prospect of back windows, cisterns, and drying clothes; sighed, wiped his nose upon a piece of cloth kept for the purpose, and then sat, sleeve-board in one hand, sponge in the other, the image of despair, as smothered cries, the pattering of blows, and half-heard appeals, as of one who dared not cry out, fell upon his ear.

As Tim Ruggles sat over his work with a shudder running through his frame, there rang out, at last, in thrilling tones —

“Oh! oh! oh! please not this time – not this time. Oh! don’t beat me.” Now louder, now half smothered, till Tim twisted, and shuffled, and writhed as if the blows so plainly to be heard were falling upon his own shoulders; each stroke making him wince more sharply, while his face grew so puckered and lined as to be hardly recognisable.

“I can’t stand it,” he groaned at last; and then he gave a start, for he had inadvertently placed his hand upon his hot iron.

Then came again the anguished appeal for pardon, accompanied by cry after cry that seemed to have burst forth in spite of the utterer’s efforts to crush them down, till Tim, as he listened to the wailing voice, the whistling of stick or cane, and the dull thud of falling blows, seemed to shrink into himself as he turned his back to the sounds, stopped his ears with his finger and a wet sponge, and then sat crouched together regardless of trickling water making its way within his shirt-collar.

At last the cries ceased, and the silence was only broken by an occasional suppressed sob; but Tim moved not, though the door opened, and from the inner room came a tall, hard, angular woman, rigid as the old whalebone umbrella rib she held in one hand, leading, or rather dragging in a child with the other. She was a woman of about forty, such as in a higher class of life would have been gifted with a mission, and let people know of the fact. As it was, she was but a tailor’s wife with a stiff neck: not the stiff neck of a cold which calls for hartshorn, friction, and flannel, but a natural rigidity which caused her to come round as upon a pivot when turning to address a speaker, at a time when with other people a movement of the head would have sufficed.

“Tim!” she cried, as she stepped into the room, opening and closing her cruel-looking mouth with a snap.

Tim heard the meaning cry, and, starting quickly, the next moment he was busily at work as if nothing had happened.

Mrs Ruggles said no more, but proceeded to place her whalebone rod upon a perch over the fire-place. Her back was turned while doing this, a fact of which Tim took advantage to kiss his hand to the cowering child, when, save at distant intervals, she ceased to sob.

“I don’t think you need beat poor Pine so,” said Tim at last, in a hesitating way, “What was it for?”

“Come here,” shouted Mrs Ruggles to the child; “what did I whip you for?”

With the cowering aspect of a beaten dog, the child came slowly forward into the light: sharp-featured, tangled of hair, red-eyed, cheek-soiled with weeping. Tim Ruggles winced again as he looked upon her thin bare arms and shoulders, lined by the livid weals made by the sharp elastic rod of correction, ink-like in its effects, the dark marks seeming to run along the flesh as the vicious blows had fallen. The poor child crept slowly forward, as if drawn by some strange influence towards Mrs Ruggles, her eyes resting the while upon Tim, whose face was working, and whose fingers opened and closed as if he were anxious to snatch the child to his heart.

“Now, ask her what she was whipped for,” shouted Mrs Ruggles. “Tell him. What was it for?”

“For – for – taking – ”

“Ah! what’s that? For what?” shouted Mrs Ruggles.

“For – for – for stealing – for – for – oh! – oh! – oh!” cried the child, bursting into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing, “I didn’t do it – I didn’t do it!”

And there she stopped short: the words, the sobs, the wailing tone, all ceased as if by magic, as Mrs Ruggles snatched the whalebone from its supporting nails.

“Yes, yes,” the child shrieked in haste, as the rigid figure and the instrument of torture approached – “for stealing the cake from the cupboard.” And then teeth were set fast, lips nipped together, hands clenched, and eyes closed, and the whole of the child’s nine years’ old determination seemed to be summoned up to bear the blow she could hear about to descend. The whalebone whistled through the air, and, in spite of every effort, the cut which fell upon the bare shoulders elicited a low wail of suffering.

A deep sigh burst from Tim Ruggles’ breast, and he bent lower over his work, moving his iron, but over the wrong places, as he closed his eyes not to see the child fall upon her knees and press both hands tightly over her lips to keep back the cry she could not otherwise conquer; her every act displaying how long must have been the course of ill-treatment that had drawn forth such unchildlike resolution and endurance.

“Now,” cried Mrs Ruggles, “no noise!” though her own sharp unfeminine tones must have penetrated to the very attics as she spoke. “There, that will do. Now get up this minute.”

“But,” said the little tailor, humbly, “you should always ask before you punish, Mary. I – I took the piece of cake out of the cupboard, because I hardly ate any breakfast.”

“Tim – Tim – Tim!” cried Mrs Ruggles; and as she spoke, she looked at him sideways, her eyes gleaming sharply out of the corners. “You false man, you! but the more you try to screen her that way, the more I’ll punish. How many times does this make that I’ve found you out?”

“Times – found out?” stammered Tim.

“Yes – times found out,” retorted Mrs Ruggles. “But I’ll have no more of it, and so long as she’s here, she shall behave herself, or I’ll cut her thievish ways out of her.”

“But, indeed,” said Tim, pitifully, “it was me, upon my word. It was me, Mary. Just look – here’s some of the crumbs left now;” and he pointed to a few splintery scales of paste lying upon the board.

Mrs Ruggles gave a nod that might have meant anything.

“I am sure you should not beat her so,” whimpered Tim. “Beating does no good, and may hurt – ”

“Didn’t I say I wouldn’t have her talked about?” exclaimed Mrs Ruggles, in threatening tones. “And how do you know? If she didn’t want whipping this time, it will do for next. Children are always doing something, and a good beating sometimes loosens their skins and makes ’em grow. You never had children to teach.”

“’Tain’t my dooty to have children,” muttered Tim.

“What’s that?” shouted Mrs Ruggles. “Now don’t aggravate, you know I can’t abear nagging.”

“I only said, my dear, that it wasn’t my dooty to have children, but yours.”

Mrs Ruggles gave her husband a look composed of half scorn, half contempt – a side look, which, coming out of the corners of her eyes, was so sharpened in its exit that though Tim would not look up and meet it, he could feel it coming, and shivered accordingly.

Meanwhile Mrs Ruggles took a bonnet from a peg, and putting it on, tied the strings tightly as if in suicidal intent, snatched herself into a shawl, and rummaged out a basket, preparatory to starting upon a marketing expedition.

“Now then, don’t grovel there, but go to your work,” she shouted to the kneeling child, who bent before her as if she were the evil deity presiding over her fate.

Then the child’s hands dropped from before her mouth, as she flinchingly rose, and taking a copper lid from a side table, began with a piece of dirty rag to rub and polish the already bright metal, giving at the same time stealthy, furtive glances, first at Tim and then at Mrs Ruggles; while, in spite of every effort, a sob would swell her little breast, beat down her puny efforts, and burst forth, to make her shiver in dread of further blows.