A Little World

“Perhaps she may find her way here though, after all; these mad folks are very cunning when they are after anything.”

“Here! go now,” exclaimed Richard, hurriedly thrusting some money into the woman’s hands. “You must not give her up, Mrs Walls. We’ll make a fresh settlement, and – and we’ll talk it over to-morrow when I come.”

The woman smiled as she made her way out of the library, and Richard Pellet stood for a few moments wiping the cold dew from his forehead, before rejoining his guests.

The city gentlemen heard no more that night respecting limited liability companies, when, after giving the strictest orders that, if anybody else should come, she was to be shown into the library, Richard Pellet returned to the assembled company, and took coffee, unaware that the two gentlemen in coach-lace had thrust their tongues into their cheeks at one another, after a fashion meant to express the extreme of derision; and then, as soon as they were at liberty, went and related the affair in large text, with redundant flourishes, in the servants’ hall.

“If she had chosen any other day it would not so much have mattered,” said Richard Pellet to himself, as he probed a lump of sugar at the bottom of his half-cold coffee: “but to have come to-day!”

It was no wonder that, until the last guest departed, Richard Pellet’s eyes were turned anxiously towards the door every time it opened, when, Nemesis-like, he expected to see enter the tall, pale figure he had looked upon that day in Borton Street, his heart too much crusted with gold to allow of a single tender thought for the afflicted woman, who was sure enough to clasp her hands and ask that she might be with her child.

Volume One – Chapter Twenty One.

Trimming the Lamp

“There you are,” said Tim Ruggles, shaking up a bottle, and carefully pouring out a dessert-spoonful of cod-liver oil into a wineglass, previously well wetted round with the thin blue fluid which the Carnaby Street people bought under the impression that it was milk. “There you are,” said Tim, as he sat cross-legged upon his board; “and now look sharp, and get a lump of sugar out of the basin, and take your oil before she comes back.”

“Brayvo! capital! and never made one ugly face,” exclaimed Tim, as little Pine drank the contents of the glass, but not without a slight shudder. “That’s the thing to bring you round, little one – bring you round and turn you round, and make you round as a little tub. Oil turns into fat, you know, and fat keeps you warm in winter. Fat’s Nature’s greatcoat, you know, for quilting and padding people’s ribs, and wants no stitching on, nor pressing down. That’s the way to – scissors – thank you, my pet – the way to trim the – trim the – now my twist and a short needle – that’s him – to trim the lamp of life, that is; and you only want to swallow a long skein of cotton and light one end, and then you’d burn. My eye! what a go it would be for her to come home and find you burning! But come, I say, put that bottle away before she comes back.”

Tim was very particular that the cod-liver oil bottle should be put away before Mrs Ruggles’ return from marketing; for though the dispensary doctor had ordered that medicine twice a day for the child’s cough, and a reasonable quantity was supplied, Tim had an idea of his own that if it were taken twice as often, it would act with double rapidity. So he used to invest all his very spare cash in the purchase of more of the nauseous medicine, and kept a private stock, out of which he replenished the bottle in the cupboard, so that it should not appear in Mrs Ruggles’ eyes to disappear too quickly.

“Does seem such a thing,” said Tim to himself, “to see any one suffering when you can’t do anything to help them. There’s her poor little cough getting worse and worse, and them fits coming on, and I can’t help her a bit. It’s dreadful, that it is. If one has to rub, or hold, or lift, or do something, it don’t seem half so bad; but to stand and do nothing but look on is the worst itself. Never saw such a child as she is, though; and it makes me shiver when she gets looking in that far-off way of hers, as if she could see more than any one else. Takes her stuff without a word; but I’d sooner see her kick and cry out, and then have a good laugh after, when I talk rubbish about trimming the lamp. I don’t know what it’s a coming to – for she ain’t like no other child – ain’t like a child at all, that she ain’t.”

It was not once that Tim would mutter in that fashion over his work, but often and often; and in spite of his words, he did know in his heart what was coming, though, stitching away there upon his board, early and late, he tried to shut his eyes to the ray of light that fell upon them – a ray of pale wondrous light, as from another world; light which shone with a cold lustre in upon his heart, to tell him that something must soon come to pass.

For little Pine had of late grown quieter day by day; dull and heavy, too, at times, falling asleep in her chair, and more than once upon the bare floor, where Tim had found her, and gently raised her head to place beneath it the list-tied roll of newly-cut cloth for a pair of trousers, and then covered her with his coat.

As the days lengthened, a hectic red settled in her little cheeks, and a cough came on to rack her chest; when, night after night, would Tim creep out of bed to give her lozenges and various infallible sweets which he had purchased to allay the irritating tickle that kept her awake hour after hour.

“’Pon my word,” Tim would say, “I don’t think I should take more notice of that child if she was my very own; but somehow I can’t help this here.”

And it was plain enough that Tim could not help “this here;” and, intent as he seemed upon his work by day, his thoughts were fixed upon the poor child, whom he watched hour after hour unnoticed by his domestic tyrant.

“I don’t like it,” muttered Tim; “it’s all rules of contrary. That there cough ought to make her pale and poorly, and it don’t, for it makes her little cheeks red, and her eyes bright; and it ain’t nat’ral for her to not eat nothing one time, and to eat savage another; and I’m ’most afraid to say anything to her, because she’s so old and deep.”

“Am I going to die?” said the child one day, suddenly, as she left off work to gaze up earnestly in Tim’s face.

“Eh! what? Going to which?” exclaimed Tim, startled.

“Am I going to die, and go away?” said the child again.

“I’m blessed!” muttered Tim; “who’s agoing to answer questions like that? Why, we’re all of us going to die some day, my pretty,” said Tim, aloud, and in quite a cheery voice, whose fire he directly after damped by singing, in a peculiar reedy, cracked voice —

“Oh! that’ll be joyful!
Joyful, joy-yoy-ful, joy-hoy-ful!”

but in so melancholy a fashion that it was evident that Tim Ruggles did not look forward to the joyful event with much pleasure.

“Yes, I know that,” said little Pine, dreamily; “but am I going to die soon, and go to my own mother? Mrs Johnson, who lived up-stairs, used to take cod-liver oil, and she soon died.”

“Bother Mrs Johnson!” exclaimed Tim, fiercely. “I say, you know, you mustn’t talk like that, my pet; it makes one feel just as if cold water was running all down one’s back. You ain’t Mrs Johnson, and you’re taking that there stuff to make you strong and well. Now, come on, and let’s say catechism.”

“No, please, not this morning,” little Pine would say; “my head does ache so, so much, and catechism makes me cough;” and then the sharp little elbow would rest upon the thin knee, and the child lay her head upon her hand, and listen to the tailor as he tried to tell her stories raked up piecemeal out of his memory, where they had rested for so many years that they had grown rusty, and hardly recognisable. Puss would somehow manage to get into the wrong boots, and perform wonders in the famed seven-league pair; a sensational story would be compiled out of the exploits of Jack the Giant-killer, Jack Sprat, and the hero of the bean-stalk; while to make out from Tim’s description where Robinson Crusoe’s adventures began, and Sinbad the Sailor’s ended, would have puzzled the most learned.

For, after the fashion of his craft, Tim would baste one piece on to another, and fit in here, and fit in there, according to the circumstances of the case; the invariable result being that little Pine would begin to nod; when Tim would steal softly off his board, and closer and closer to her till he could let the weary little head rest against his breast, kneeling there in some horribly uncomfortable position until the short dose was over, and the child would once more start into wakefulness, to gaze up in a frightened way in his face. Then, seeing who held her, she would smile, and close her heavy eyelids, nestling down closer and closer, within the open waistcoat, the little thin arms trying to clasp her protector tightly; Tim anxiously watching the while, with contracted brows, the painful catching of the child’s breath, and the spasms of pain that contracted her little features.

The church duties took Mrs Ruggles much away now, to the softening of these latter days of the poor child’s life; and many and many an hour would Tim spend in the way described – hours which he had to work far into the night to redeem, when others were sleeping; so that the item of paraffin became so heavy in the domestic economy that Tim had to replenish the can on the sly, after the manner of the cod-liver oil bottle; and the consequence was, that his ordinary moderate amount of beer-money seldom found its way to the publican’s.

How swiftly sped those minutes spent with poor little Pine! and how slowly would the hours crawl on, when, with his shaded lamp throwing its glow upon his work, Tim would sit stitching patiently away like what he was – a little, shrunken, shrivelled tailor!

Volume One – Chapter Twenty Two.

Tim Seeks Sympathy

“I don’t know what to make of that child, ma’am,” said Tim, on one of his visits to Duplex Street. “I’m afraid she’s in a bad way, and that we ought to see another doctor;” and as he spoke he gazed vacantly at a guinea-pig on the hearth, a present from Monsieur Canau to one of the children, and brought from Decadia.

“Then why not take her to one, Mr Ruggles?” said Mrs Jared, rather tartly, for she strongly disapproved of Tim’s obedience to his better half.

“Expense – expense – expense, ma’am,” said Tim. “You see, Mrs Ruggles keeps the purse, and has her own ideas about money. Wonderfully clever woman; but I don’t quite think she sees how bad poor little Pine is.”

“Mr Ruggles, I don’t like your wonderfully clever women,” said Mrs Jared; “they are not worth much generally. I like to see a woman clever enough to do her duty to her husband and family; and if she knows that, and does it well, she is quite clever enough to my way of thinking.”

“Gently, my dear, gently,” said Jared; for Mrs Pellet was growing rather warm, and – as is peculiar to the female sex – loud; but Jared’s words acted like oil, and his wife’s feathers grew smooth directly.

Some time had elapsed since Tim Ruggles had made his appearance in Duplex Street, for the trousers trade had been brisk, and he had been busy enough at home, while messages from the foreman of the shop for which he worked were constantly being borne to Carnaby Street to know “whether Ruggles meant to wear out that last pair of trousers as well as make them;” or, “if he did not mean to make those last two pair, to send them back and let somebody else.” “When, you know,” said Tim, “at my place it was all board; I had my breakfast on the board, my dinner on the board, my tea on the board, my supper on the board, and for two or three nights the only sleep I had was an hour or two when I lay down on the board; and once I dreamed that I was a sewing-machine, and that Mrs Ruggles was turning my handle, when she was only shaking my arm because it was morning, and time for me to be up and at work again.”

There was peace in the domestic grove at Duplex Street; the little ones were all in bed; Patty was thinking of Janet and her goldfish, and sometimes of Harry Clayton, as she sewed on buttons and strings where small garments needed them; and Mrs Jared was industriously embroidering a workhouse-window pattern upon one of a basketful of stockings, some of which strongly resembled the Irishman’s knife, for it was a difficult matter to make out any portion of the original hose, so covered were they with Mrs Jared’s darnings.

Jared himself was busy with his glue-pot, the constant companion of his leisure evenings. That glue-pot was to Jared Pellet what a pocket-knife is to some people, and a ball of string to others – it was a perfect treasure, and with it he performed feats strongly allied to those of Robin, Houdin, or Wiljalba Frikell, without taking into consideration the money it earned him. Boots and shoes were renovated to a wonderful extent; wall-paper torn down by tiny mischievous fingers was replaced; broken chairs had their limbs set; in fact, Jared looked upon glue as a panacea, even going so far as to pop scraps in his mouth, though it cannot be avowed that he swallowed them, and it may only have been for the purpose of cleaning his fingers. And yet, it was a nasty little pot, being of a vicious character, and given to boiling over and covering Mrs Jared’s hobs and polished black bars with a nasty sticky slime that would not come off; while, when she remonstrated with Jared, being naturally proud of her black-leading, he quietly told her that it was of the nature of glue to stick, and that the little pot ought to have been watched. Just as if it was of any use to watch the treacherous little object; for one moment it would be calm, and the next in a state of violent eruption, hissing, bubbling, and sending forth noxious jets of steam to an extent which made it unapproachable.

Tim Ruggles sat very silent after Mrs Jared had spoken, for he entertained a most profound respect for her expressions of opinion; and the upshot of that conversation was, that, in spite of his wife’s opposition, he took little Pine to a doctor – a hint, however, which he dropped at home relative to the possibility of a cessation of certain payments, in the event of what he called “anything happening,” somewhat softened Mrs Ruggles’ opposition. The next time, too, after that conversation that Tim went to Bedford Row to draw the bi-monthly payment, he ventured to suggest that a little medical advice was necessary for the child, when the gentleman who took his receipt said, “Oh!” in a quiet manner, as much as to say, “I quite agree with you; and you think so, do you?”

“Her cough tears her poor little chest terrible, sir,” said Tim, respectfully.

“Indeed!” said the legal gentleman, who was very pale, smooth, and cool.

“Her sleep’s broken a good deal, too, sir,” said Tim, warming to his task.

“Ah!” said the legal gentleman, with a quiet, well-bred smile, which no amount of torturing would have turned into a laugh.

“It wherrits me to hear her, sir – awful,” said Tim; “and I think if them as belongs to her knowed, they’d – ”

“Give instructions? eh!” said the legal gentleman. “There, there! she’s in capital hands – couldn’t be in better. Try a little magnesia, or dill water, or squills, or what you like. Good morning, Mr Ruggles. You have the note, I think. This day two months, mind.”

“But, sir,” exclaimed Tim, eagerly, “if you was to put it to them.”

“Exactly,” said the legal gentleman; “Parker & Tomlin’s abstract on office-table. Coming!” he exclaimed, replying to some imaginary call. “Good morning, Mr Ruggles; this day two months.”