It was on the Tuesday following the boy's visit to his great-aunt that Mrs. Tapping had words with her daughter Alethea. They arose out of Alethea's young man, an upstart. At least, he was so designated by Mrs.
Tapping, for aspiring to the hand of this young lady; who, though plain by comparison with her mother at the same age, and no more figure than what you see, was that sharp with her tongue when provoked, it made your flesh curdle within you to hear her expressions. We need hardly say that we have to rely on her mother for these facts. It was, however, the extraction of Alethea that determined the presumptuousness of her young man's aspirations. He was marrying into two families, the Tappings and the Davises, which, though neither of them lordly, had always held their heads high and their behaviour according. Whereas this young Tom was metaphorically nobody, though actually in a shoe-shop and giving satisfaction to his employers, with twenty-one shillings a week certain and a rise at Christmas. You cannot do that unless you are a physical entity, but when your grandmother is in an almshouse and your father met his death in an inferior capacity at a Works, you have no call to give yourself airs, and the less you say the better.
This brief sketch of the _status quo_ was given to Mrs. Riley by Mrs.
Tapping, in her woollen shawl for the first time, because of the sharp edge in the wind, with a basket on her arm that Janus would have found useful, owing to its two lids, one each side the handle. They were at the entrance to Mrs. Riley's shop, and that good woman was bare-armed and bonnetless in the cold north wind. She had not lost her Irish accent.
"It is mesilf agrays with you intoirely," said she sympathetically.
"Not but what I do freely admit," said Mrs. Tapping, pursuing her topic in a spirit of magnanimity, "that young Rundle himself never makes bold, and is always civil spoke, which we might expect, seeing what is called for, measuring soles. For I always do say that the temptation to forget theirself is far more than human, especially flattenin' down the toe to get the len'th, though of course the situation would be sacrificed, and no character." This was an allusion to the delicacy of the position of one who adjusts a sliding spanner to the foot of Beauty, to determine its length to a nicety. The subject suggests curious questions.
Suppose--to look at its romantic side, as easier of discussion--that you, young lady, were passionately adored by the young man at your shoe-shop, and he were to kiss your foot as Vivien did Merlin's, could you--would you--complain at the desk and lose him his situation? And how about the Pope? Is his Holiness never measured--_sal a reverentia!_--for his shoes? Or does the Oecumenical Council guess, and strike an average? However, the current of the story need not be interrupted to settle that.
"He intinds will," said Mrs. Riley. This was merely a vague compliment to Alethea's suitor. "Ye see, me dyurr, it's taking the young spalpeen's part she'll be, for shure! It is the nature of thim." That is to say, lovers.
"But never to the point of calling tyrant, Mrs. Riley. Nor ojus vulgarity. Nor epithets I will not repeat, relating to family connections. Concerning which, _I_ say, God forgive Alethear! For the accommodation at a nominal rent of persons in reduced circumstances is not an almshouse, say what she may. And her Aunt Trebilcock is not a charitable object, nor yet a deserving person, having mixed with the best. And in so young a girl texts are not becoming, to a parent."
"Which was the tixt, thin?" said Mrs. Riley, interested. "I'm bel'avin'
ye, me dyurr!" This was to encourage Mrs. Tapping, and disclaim incredulity.
"Since you're asking me, Mrs. Riley ma'am, I will not conceal from you the Scripture text used only this morning by my own daughter, to my face. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.' Whereupon I says to Alethear, 'Alethear,' I says, 'be truthful, and admit that old Mrs. Rundle and your Aunt Trebilcock are on a dissimular footing, one being distinctly a Foundation in the Whitechapel Road, and the other Residences, each taking their own Milk.'" Some further particulars came in here, relating to the bone of that mornin's contention, which had turned on Mrs. Tapping's objections to her daughter's demeaning, or bemeaning, herself, by marrying into a lower rank of life than her own.
All this conversation of these two ladies has nothing to do with the story. The only reason for referring to it is that it took place at this time, just opposite Mrs. Riley's shop, and led her to remark:--"You lave the young payple alone, Mrs. Tapping, and they'll fall out. You'll only kape thim on, by takin' order with thim. Thrust me. Whativer have ye got in the basket?"
Mrs. Tapping explained that she was using it to convey a kitten, born in her establishment, to Miss Druitt at thirty-four opposite, who had expressed anxiety to possess it. It was this kitten's expression of impatience with its position that had excited Mrs. Riley's curiosity.
"Why don't ye carry the little sowl across in your hands, me dyurr?"
said she; not unreasonably, for it was only a stone's-throw. Mrs.
Tapping added that this was no common kitten, but one of preternatural activity, and possessed of diabolical tentacular powers of entanglement.
"I would not undertake," said she, "to get it across the road, ma'am, only catching hold. Nor if I got it safe across, to onhook it, without tearing." Mrs. Riley was obliged to admit the wisdom of the Janus basket. She knew how difficult it is to be even with a kitten.
This one was destined to illustrate the resources of its kind. For as Mrs. Tapping endeavoured to conduct the conversation back to her domestic difficulties, she was aware that the Janus basket grew suddenly lighter. Mrs. Riley exclaimed at the same moment:--"Shure, and the little baste's in the middle of the road!" So it was, hissing like a steam-escape, and every hair on its body bristling with wrath at a large black dog, who was smelling it in a puzzled, thoughtful way, _sans rancune_. A cart, with an inscription on it that said its owner was "Horse-Slaughterer to Her Majesty," came thundering down the street, shaking three drovers seriously. The dog, illuminated by some new idea, started back to bark in a sudden panic-stricken way. Who could tell what new scourge this was that dogdom had to contend with?
Her Majesty's Horse-Slaughterer pulled his cart up just in time. It would else have run over a man who was picking the kitten up. All the males concerned exchanged execrations, and then the cart went on. The dog's anxiety to smell the phenomenon survived, till the man kicked him and told him to go to Hell.
"Now who does this here little beggar belong to?" said the man, whom Mrs. Riley did not like the looks of. Mrs. Tapping claimed the cat, and expressed wonder as to how it had got out of the basket. Heaven only knew! It is only superhuman knowledge, divine or diabolical, that knows how cats get out of baskets; or indeed steel safes, or anything.
"As I do not think, mister," said Mrs. Tapping--deciding at the last moment not to say "my good man"--"it would be any use to try getting of it inside of this basket out here in the street, let alone its aptitude for getting out when got in, I might trouble you to be so kind as to fetch it into my shop next door here, by the scruff of its neck preferable.... Thank you, mister!" She had had some idea of making it "Sir," but thought better of it.
The kitten, deposited on the counter, concerned itself with a blue-bottle fly. The man remarked that it was coming on to rain. Mrs.
Tapping had not took notice of any rain, but believed the statement. Why is it that one accepts as true any statement made by a visibly disreputable male? Mrs. Tapping did not even look out at the door, for confirmation or contradiction. She was so convinced of this rain that she suggested that the man should wait a few minutes to see if it didn't hold up, because he had no umbrella. His reply was:--"Well, since you're so obliging, Missis, I don't mind if I do. My mate I'm waiting for, he'll be along directly." He declined a chair or stool, and waited, looking out at the door into the _cul de sac_ street that led to Sapps Court, opposite. Mrs. Tapping absented herself in the direction of a remote wrangle underground, explaining her motive. She desired that her daughter, whose eyesight was better than her own, should thread a piece of pack-thread through a rip in the base of the Janus basket, which had to account for the kitten's appearance in public. She did not seem apprehensive about leaving the shop ungarrisoned.
But had she been a shrewder person, she might have felt misgivings about this man's character, even if she had acquitted him of such petty theft as running away with congested tallow candles. For no reasonable theory could be framed of a mate in abeyance, who would emerge from anywhere down opposite. A mate of a man who seemed to be of no employment, to belong to no recognised class, to wear description-baffling clothes--not an ostler's, nor an undertaker's, certainly; but some suspicion of one or other, Heaven knew why!--and never to look straight in front of him.
Without some light on his vocation, imagination could provide no mate.
And this man looked neither up nor down the street, but remained watching the _cul de sac_ from one corner of his eye. It was not coming on to rain as alleged, and he might have had a better outlook nearer the door. But he seemed to prefer retirement.
The wrangle underground fluctuated slightly, went into another key, and then resumed the theme. A lean little girl came in, who tapped on the counter with a coin. She called out "'A'p'orth o' dips!" taking a tress of her hair from between her teeth to say it, and putting it back to await the result. She had a little brother with her, who was old enough to walk when pulled, but not old enough to discipline his own nose, being dependent on his sister's good offices, and her pocket-handkerchief. He offered a sucked peardrop to the kitten, who would not hear of it.
There certainly was no rain, or Mrs. Riley would never have remained outside, with those bare arms and all. There she was, saying good-evening to someone who had just come from Sapps Court. The man in the shop listened, closely and curiously.
"Good-avening, Mr. Moses, thin! Whin will we see the blessed chilther back? Shure it's wakes and wakes and wakes!" Which written, looks odd; but, spoken, only conveyed regretful reference to the time Dave and Dolly had been away, without taxing the hearer's understanding. "They till me your good lady's been sane, down the Court."
Uncle Mo had just come out, on his way to a short visit to The Sun. He was looking cheerful. "Ay, missis! Their aunt's bringin' of 'em back to-morrow from Ealing. _I_'ll be glad enough to see 'em, for one."
"And the owld sowl upstairs. Not that I iver set my eyes on her, and that's the thrruth."
"Old Mother Prichard? Why--that's none so easy to say. So soon as her swell friends get sick of her, I suppose. She's being cared for, I take it, at this here country place."
"'Tis a nobleman's sate in the Norruth, they sid. Can ye till the name of it, to rimimber?" Mrs. Riley had an impression shared by many, that noblemen's seats are, broadly speaking, in the North. She had no definite information.
Uncle Mo caught at the chance of warping the name, uncorrected. "It's the Towels in Rocestershire," said he with effrontery. "Some sort of a Dook's, good Lard!" Then to change the subject:--"She won't have no place to come back to, not till Mrs. Burr's out and about again."
"The axidint, at the Hospital. No, indade! And how's the poor woman, hersilf? It was the blissin' of God she wasn't kilt on the spot!"
"It warn't a bad bit of luck. She'll be out of hospital next week, I'm told. They're taking their time about it, anyhow! Good-night to ye, missis! The rain's holdin' off." And Uncle Mo departed. Aunt M'riar had insisted on his not discontinuing any of his lapses into bachelorhood proper; which implies pub or club, according to man's degree.
Just a few minutes ago--speaking abreast of the story--Aunt M'riar, getting ready at last to do a little work after so much tidying up, had to go to the door to answer a knock. Its responsible agent was Michael, excited. "It's _him_!" said he. "I seen him myself. Over at Tappingses.
And Mr. Moses, he's a-conversing with Missis Riley next door." He went on to offer to make an affidavit, as was his practice, not only on the Testament, but on most any book you could name.
It was not necessary: Aunt M'riar believed him. "You tell him," she replied, "that Mrs. Prichard's gone away, and no time fixed for coming back. Then he'll go. If he don't go, and comes along, just you say to him Mr. Wardle he'll be back in a minute. He'll be only a short time at The Sun."
"I'll say wotsumever you please, Missis Wardle. Only that won't carry no weight, not if I says it ever so. He's a sly customer. Here he is a-coming. Jist past the post!" That is, the one Dave broke his head off.
Aunt M'riar's heart thumped, and she felt sick. "_You_ say there's no one in the house then," said she. This was panic, and loss of judgment.
For the interview was palpable to anyone approaching down the Court.
Micky must have felt this, but he only said:--"I'll square him how I can, missis," and withdrew from the door. Mr. Wix's lurching footstep, with the memory of its fetters on it, approached at its leisure. He stopped and looked round, and saw the boy, who acknowledged his stare.
"I see you a-coming," said Michael.
Mr. Wix said:--"Young Ikey." He appeared to consider a course of action.
"Now do you want another half-a-bull?"
"Ah!" Micky was clear about that.
"Then you do sentry-go outside o' this, in the street, and if you see a copper turning in here, you run ahead and give the word. Understand?
This is Wardle's, ain't it?"
"That's Wardle's. But there ain't nobody there."
"You young liar. I saw you talking through the door, only this minute."
"That warn't anybody, only Aunt M'riar. Party you wants is away--gone away for a change. Mr. Moses ain't there, but he'll be back afore you can reckon him up. You may knock at that door till you 'ammer in the button, and never find a soul in the house, only Aunt M'riar. You try!
'Ammer away!" There was a _faux air_ of self-justification in this, which did not bear analysis. Possibly Micky thought so himself, for he vanished up the Court. He would at least be able to bring a false alarm if any critical juncture arose.
The ex-convict watched him out of sight, and then knocked at the door, and waited. The woman inside had been listening to his voice with a quaking heart--had known it for that of her truant husband of twenty years ago, through all the changes time had made, and in spite of such colour of its own as the prison taint had left in it. And he stood there unsuspecting; not a thought in his mind of who she was, this Aunt M'riar! Why indeed should he have had any?
She could not trust her voice yet, with a heart thumping like that. She might take a moment's grace, at least, for its violence to subside. She sat down, close to the door, for she felt sick and the room went round.
She wanted not to faint, though it was not clear that syncope would make matters any the worse. But the longer he paused before knocking again, the better for Aunt M'riar.
The knock came, a _crescendo_ on the previous one. She _had_ to respond some time. Make an effort and get it over!