Thereby Hangs a Tale. Volume One

“Nice sorter cheerful spot this,” said the cabman, taking an observation of the street, which was of a similar class to the new one he had left, only that the houses had fallen into a state of premature decay; quite half, too, had declined from the genteel private and taken to trade, with or without the bow window of shop life. For instance, one displayed a few penny illustrated sheets and an assortment of fly-specked clay pipes, the glass panes bearing the legends, “Tobacco” and “Cigars.” Another house had the door wide open, and sundry squeaks issued therefrom – squeaks of a manufacturing tendency, indicative of grinding, the process being explained by a red and yellow board, having an artistic drawing of the machinery used, and the words, “Mangling Done Here.” Then, after an interval of private houses, there was a fishmonger’s, with a stock-in-trade of four plaice and ten bloaters, opposite to a purveyors, in whose open window – the parlour by rights, with the sashes out – were displayed two very unpleasant-looking decapitations of the gentle sheep, and three trays of pieces, labelled ninepence, sevenpence, and sixpence individually, apparently not from any variation of quality, but the amount of bone.

“A werry nice sorter place,” said the cabman, gazing down at the numerous children, and the preternaturally big-headed, tadpoleish babies, whose porters were staring at him. “Said it was a little groshers shop. Ah, here we are.”

It was only four doors farther on, and at this establishment there was a shop front, with the name “B. Sturt” on the facia. The stock here did not seem to be extensive, though the place was scrupulously clean. There was a decorative and pictorial aspect about the trade carried on, which was evidently that of a chandler’s shop; for, in attenuated letters over the door, you read that Barnabas Sturt was licenced by the Board of Inland Revenue to deal in tea, coffee, pepper, vinegar, and tobacco. The panes of the windows were gay with show cards, one of which displayed the effects of Tomkins’s Baking Powder, while in another a lady was holding up fine linen got up with Winks’s Prussian Blue, and smiling sweetly at a neighbouring damsel stiff with regal starch. There were pictorial cards, too, telling of the celebrated Unadulterated Mustard, the Ho-fi Tea Company, and Fort’s Popular Coffee.

Descending from his perch, the cabman stroked and patted his horse, and then entered the shop, setting a bell jingling, and standing face to face with a counter, a pair of scales, and a box of red herrings.

Nobody came, so he tapped the floor with his whip, and a voice growled savagely from beyond a half-glass door which guarded an inner room —

Waiting patiently for a few moments, the cabman became aware of the fact that Barnabas Sturt consumed his tobacco as well as dealt in it; and at last, growing impatient, he peered through the window, to perceive that a very thin, sour-looking woman, with high cheek bones, was dipping pieces of rag into a tea-cup of vinegar and water, and applying them to the contused countenance of a bull-headed gentleman, who lay back in a chair smoking, and making the woman wince and sneeze by puffing volumes of the coarse, foul vapour into her face.

“Better mind what you are doing!” he growled.

“Can’t help it, dear,” said the woman, plaintively, “if you smoke me so. Well, what now?” she said, waspishly, and changing her tone to the metallic aggressive common amongst some women.

“Been having a – ?” the cabman finished his sentence by grinning, and giving his arms a pugilistic flourish.

“What’s that got to do with you?” growled Mr Sturt. “What d’ yer come into people’s places like that for?”

“Because people says as they sells the werry best tobacco at threepence a hounce,” said the cabman. “Give’s half-hounce.”

“Go an’ weigh it,” said Mr Sturt.

The woman dropped the piece of rag she held, and passed shrinkingly into the shop, took the already weighed-out tobacco from a jar, and held out her hand for the money.

“Now then,” growled Mr Sturt from the back room, “hand that over here, will yer?”

The cabman walked into the room and laid down the money, slowly emptying the paper afterwards into a pouch, which he took from a side pocket.

“This here’s twenty-seven, ain’t it?” said the cabman then.

“Yes, it is twenty-seven,” cried Mr Sturt – our friend Barney of the steeplechase – and he seemed so much disturbed that he leaped up and backed into a corner of the room. “You ain’t got nothin’ again’ me, come, now.”

“No, I ain’t got nothin’ again’ yer,” said the cabman, quietly, but with his eye twinkling. “Did yer think I was – ?”

He finished his sentence with a wink.

“Never you mind what I thought,” said Barney. “What d’ yer want here?”

“Only to know if Mrs Lane lives here.”

“Yes, she do,” cried the woman, spitefully; “and why couldn’t you ring the side bell, and not come bothering us?”

“Because I wanted some tobacco, mum,” said the cabman, quietly.

“Oh!” said the woman, in a loud voice; “with their cabs, indeed, a-comin’ every day: there’ll be kerridges next!”

“Just you come and go on with your job,” said Barney, with a snarl.

“I’m coming!” said the woman, sharply. Then to the cabman – “You can go this way;” and she flung open a side door and called up the stairs – “Here, Mrs Lane, another cab’s come for you. There, I s’pose you can go up,” she added; and then, in a voice loud enough to be heard upstairs, “if people would only pay their way instead of riding in cabs, it would be better for some of us.”

A door had been heard to open on the first floor, and then, as the vinegary remark of Mrs Sturt rose, voices were heard whispering. The cabman went straight up the uncarpeted stairs, to pause before the half-open door, as he heard, in a low conversation, the words —

“Mamma – dear mamma, pray don’t notice it.”

The next moment the door opened fully, and the pale, worn-looking woman of the accident stood before the cabman, who shuffled off his hat, and stood bowing.

“Jenkles, mum,” he said – “Samuel Jenkles, nine ’underd seven six, as knocked you down in Pall Mall.”

The woman stepped back and laid her hand upon her side, seeming about to fall, when the cabman started forward and caught her, helping her to a chair in the shabbily-furnished room, as the door swung to.

“Oh, mamma,” cried a girl of about seventeen, springing forward, the work she had been engaged upon falling on the floor.

“It is nothing, my dear,” gasped the other; though her cheek was ashy pale, and the dew gathered on her forehead.

“She’s fainting, my dear,” said the cabman. “Got anything in the house?”

“Yes, some water,” said the girl, supporting the swooning woman, and fanning her face.

“Water!” ejaculated the cabman, in a tone of disgust. “Here, I’ll be back directly.”

He caught up a little china mug from a side table, and ran out, nearly upsetting Mrs Sturt on the landing and Barney at the foot of the stairs, to return at the end of a few minutes, and find the passage vacant; so he hastily ran up, to see that Mrs Lane had come to in his absence, though she looked deadly pale.

“Here, mum,” he said, earnestly, “drink this; don’t be afeard, it’s port wine. A drop wouldn’t do you no harm neither, Miss,” he added, as he glanced at the pale, thin face and delicate aspect of the girl.

Mrs Lane put the mug to her lips, and then made an effort, and sat up.

“You was hurt, then, mum?” said the cabman, anxiously.

“Only shaken – frightened,” she said, in a feeble voice.

“And my coming brought it all up again, and upset you. It’s jest like me, mum, I’m allus a-doing something; ask my missus if I ain’t.”

“It did startle me,” said Mrs Lane, recovering herself. “But you wished to see me. I am better now, Netta,” she said to the girl, who clung to her. “Place a chair.”

“No, no, arter you, Miss,” said the cabman; “I’m nobody;” and he persisted in standing. “’Scuse me, but I knows a real lady when I sees one; I’ll stand, thanky. You see, it was like this: I saw Tommy Runce on the stand – him, you know, as brought you home from the front of the club there – and I ast him, and he told me where he brought you. And when I was talking to the missus last night, she says, says she, ‘Well, Sam,’ she says, ‘the least you can do is to drive up and see how the poor woman is, even if you lose half a day.’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘that’s just what I was a thinking,’ I says, ‘only I wanted to hear you say it too.’ So you see, mum, thinking it was only decent like, I made bold to come and tell you how sorry I am, and how it was all Ratty’s fault; for he’s that beast of a horse – begging your pardon, mum, and yours too, Miss – as it’s impossible to drive. He oughter ha’ been called Gunpowder, for you never know when he’s going off.”

“It was very kind and very thoughtful of you, and – and your wife,” said Mrs Lane; “and indeed I thank you; but I was not hurt, only shaken.”

“Then it shook all the colour outer your face, mum, and outer yours too, Miss,” he said, awkwardly. “You’ll excuse me, but you look as if you wanted a ride every day out in the country.”

As he spoke, the girl glanced at a bundle of violets in a broken glass of water in the window; then the tears gathered in her eyes. She seemed to struggle for a moment against her emotion, and then started up and burst into a passion of weeping.

“My darling!” whispered Mrs Lane, catching her in her arms, and trying to soothe her, “pray – pray don’t give way.”

“I’ve done it again,” muttered Jenkles – “I’m allus a-doing it – it is my natur’ to.”

The girl made a brave effort, dashed away the tears, shook back her long dark hair, and tried to smile in the speaker’s face, but so piteous and sad a smile that Jenkles gave a gulp; for he had been glancing round the room, and in that glance had seen a lady and her daughter living in a state of semi-starvation, keeping life together evidently by sewing the hard, toilsome slop-work which he saw scattered upon the table and chairs.