A Little World

There was again the rustling of the newspaper. A moment after, the proprietor was heard to rise, and then he jerked himself into the shop, to attend to the customer.

Patty, glad to get away, hurried into the back room, when a sharp piece of bargaining ensued between customer and dealer, ending, as might have been foreseen, in the former finding all possible fault, and then declining to purchase, as he went outside to stand staring heavily through the window, ostensibly at its contents, but really to see if Patty returned.

Volume One – Chapter Fourteen.

Janet

Mr D. Wragg rented the whole of the house in Brownjohn Street, and his lodgers were confined to Mrs Winks and the little Frenchman, the attics being used for store purposes – old cages, birdseed, bundles of herbs, bags of feathers, cobwebs, and dust.

These attics formed a part of the house rigidly tabooed by the dealer, who only gave a comical twitch to his countenance, and jerked his body from head to heel when Mrs Winks complained that she had not had a bit of sleep for the howlings of some dreadful dog there confined.

Patty did not return into the shop, but began slowly to ascend the stairs, pausing at the first landing to fall into an attitude of attention, holding the balustrade and listening eagerly, as from below came the twittering of birds, and from above – in long-drawn, nerve-thrilling tones – sounds that seemed to have a strange effect upon the girl, as she stood in the full light of the landing-window, her eyes half-closed, her face upturned, and her lips parted, as though to give passage to a sigh.

But there was no sigh, no utterance, no motion; only the same strained aspect of attention, as still, from above stairs, came the sounds – now low, almost to fading away, now powerful and loud – but always with the same effect, that of chaining Patty to where she stood.

She might well listen as if entranced, for from above, with every note given with a feeling that seemed to find its echo in the listener’s ears, came floating softly down, the melody of “Ah, non giunge!” evidently played upon a violin of fine and sonorous tone, every bar sweet, pure, and clear, and softened by the distance into a strain which seemed to have floated into the dingy house from some brighter region.

Then, after a pause of a few moments, there was a change, the player turning off into a wild and eccentric variation upon the theme, now loud and sparkling in the major key – now plaintive and thrilling in the minor.

But this lasted only a short time, for as Patty once more began to ascend the stairs, the violinist dashed off into a French mazurka, with such spirit and brilliancy, that the notes seemed to be trilling out in joyous laughter, setting Patty’s head nodding to the gay refrain.

The next minute she had opened a door and stood in the presence of the player, who put down her instrument upon the table, and moved slowly across the room to catch the young girl’s extended hands, and apologise for not coming down again.

Canau’s room was bare and cheerless; a table, a few chairs, a couple of roughly-made music-stands, and a pile of torn, stained, yellow-leaved, printed, and manuscript music, were the principal objects that met the gaze; but Patty – whose presence lent a brightness to the blank place – seemed to have no eye for aught but the swarthy, deformed girl, whom she kissed affectionately.

Perhaps no greater contrast could have been seen than the sweet happy face of Patty, with her bright brown hair and peachy complexion – peachy with its soft down, and contrasts of creamy white and delicate pink; and that of Janet – she was known by no other name – the dark, deformed girl, who had been brought up by Monsieur Canau, the little French musician, now taking his morning promenade and indulging in his only extravagance – his second cigarette – a pinch of the commonest tobacco, rolled in one of the gummed squares of tissue-paper prepared for him by the girl who shared his poverty and had been taught his art.

The vital spark of life was bright and vivid, shooting keenly now from two dark eyes; but as for the fleshly case that held this vital spark, the wonder was that it should possess any shape at all, so fearful a moulding must it have received in its early plastic days, and not that the poor girl’s head should be close down between her shoulders, and that in form she should be diminutive and shrunken.

“I was tired of waiting, and had been listening ever so long,” said Patty, drawing a little white finger across the violin-strings. “I wish I were clever, too, and could play.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed the other, harshly. “I’m ashamed of it sometimes. It isn’t a woman’s instrument; but it pleases him for me to play, and I get to like it now; one seems almost able to make it speak and tell one’s feelings – sending them floating away into the air,” she continued, dreamily gazing before her. “It makes one think and think, and seem to be living another kind of life; and I am far away from here, Patty, sometimes when I am playing, – perhaps along with you and the little innocent children, and your father and mother, – perhaps far away in the country, amongst the flowers, where there’s no noise in the streets, no shouting, shrieks, oaths, nor misery, nor dirt. There!” she said, suddenly, as if she had been brought back to the present, “I know what you are thinking.”

“Indeed!” laughed Patty.

“Yes; you think I’m odd and strange in my way. Ah! I wish I were like you.”

“And sometimes,” rejoined Patty softly, turning very serious, and stooping to pass one arm round the deformed girl, and bending so that her cheek touched the other’s dark sallow face, – “sometimes, Jenny, I wish that I were like you – oh! yes – so much – so much; for I’m not happy, Jenny – not happy!”

She repeated these words in a quiet thoughtful way, sinking at last upon her knees by the other’s side, when, laying her hand, long and bony of finger, upon the bonny little head, Janet pressed it closely to her misshapen breast, from which burst sigh after sigh, till, waking as it were from her dreamy thoughts, Patty forced a smile, and springing up, kissed Janet again and again.

“There! what nonsense!” she cried, lightly. “I’m crying too, and pray what about? Let’s see how these goldfish are. Why, quite lively,” she exclaimed, drawing her friend to the window, where, half-screened by a faded curtain, the gorgeous little pets sailed round and round in their crystal prison.

“Do you ever think it childish of me, liking to keep them?” said Janet, after a pause, during which, as they clung together, the two girls had been watching the fish, one of which rose to the surface, and, with its little gasping lips touched lightly the pinky finger-tip Patty placed beneath the water.

“Sometimes,” continued Janet, “it is so dull, so lonesome, in spite of the busy noises coming from the street. Wragg is kind, and so is poor old Mrs Winks; but – but,” hesitated the girl, “there are times when I don’t wish to be with them. He is often away for hours together, and one cannot always be at music; and then it is that I like to go down-stairs, and be with the little prisoned birds and things. And somehow they seem to know me, and flutter and leap to welcome me when I come. But you don’t think it childish?”

“Childish? No!” was the reply, as Patty again dipped a finger to have it saluted by the fish. “I love to come and feed the birds myself; but I would take them, if I could, all far away into the bright happy country, and then open the cage-doors and set them free one by one – one by one. How they would leap, and dart, and flutter as they felt the soft air waiting for them! I think it would be real happiness to see the little things leave off beating their breasts as they tried to get out; and then to listen to them singing from some tree!”

“Or else see some cruel hawk come and seize one,” said Janet, bitterly.

“Heigho! perhaps yes,” sighed Patty; “there’s always something to make life unhappy.”

“I like the goldfish,” said Janet, without seeming to heed the sigh. “They always put me in mind of lying there – just there!” and she pointed to a corner by the window, “when I was little and could not walk, but only lay there all day with my back aching, as I stretched out my hands to touch one of the little bright things as they sailed so easily round and round. I must have been very very little when he bought the first to please me. But Patty, Patty!” she exclaimed, as she peered in the other’s eyes, “what made you sigh, and say that there was always something to make you unhappy?”

Patty was silent, and gazed thoughtfully at the fish, as another, seeking the food so often given, rose and touched her finger.

“What did you mean?” said Janet again, bending forward to gaze in the soft grey eyes. “It was not because I spoke of the hawk?”

Patty shook her head.

“Well, perhaps not altogether – I mean, I don’t know,” she said, in a slow hesitating way. “But really I must go home now; I promised not to be very long.”

Janet watched her eagerly, then, as if to change the subject, kissed her affectionately, and thanked her for what she had done below, ending, at Patty’s wish, by putting on her bonnet and accompanying her friend back to Duplex Street, D. Wragg being charged with a message for Monsieur Canau, who, according to custom on such occasions, came for his adopted daughter in the evening.

Volume One – Chapter Fifteen.

Husband and Wife

Nimrod may have been a mighty hunter in his day, but he was never anything to compare with Jared Pellet, who for twenty long years – that is to say, years of the ordinary length – had engaged in the chase of one savage, long-fanged, dire, snarling brute of a wolf, a hungry grinning wretch, grey and grim, and ever licking his thin gums. Old and lank he was, but a very giant in endurance; and very often circumstances were reversed, the hunter becoming the hunted, when it took all Jared’s strength and courage to keep the wolf at bay.

That wolf had lain down his long, lean, hungry form at Jared’s door when he married, and, on and off, he had been there ever since. What were Nimrod’s feats to hunting or keeping at bay a wolf for twenty long years? Jared Pellet had done all this, and was ready to keep up the struggle with the wolf Poverty so long as he had breath left in his body.

They were busy in Duplex Street as usual. Jared was wax-ending a cracked clarionet, pausing every now and then to apply the reed to his lips and breathe out such a wail as would have produced goose-skin upon a stranger. Here, though it had no effect upon Mrs Jared, who was stitching hard, nor upon Patty, bending over her work, there was another present who winced slightly, namely, Janet, who was paying one of her many visits to her friend; and as each wail arose, she drew in her breath between her set teeth and slightly knitted her brow. Then catching Patty’s eye, the latter smiled and rose, and the two girls left the room to husband and wife.

“Ah!” said Mrs Jared, as soon as they were alone, “I do wish poor Canau would leave that horrid place.”

“Used to it, and won’t,” said Jared, supplementing his speech with a dismal “too-hoo” from the clarionet.

“I don’t like to be unkind to poor Janet,” said Mrs Jared; “but I’m always in dread of something happening when Patty goes there.”

“Too-hoo, too-roo, roo-roo,” blew Jared from the half-cobbled instrument. “Hen’s anxiety about her chicks!”

“Chicks! yes;” said Mrs Jared with a sigh, her thought’s current turned. “It is such a drawback having so many children, as well as the anxiety; what with the doctor and the nurse, and dear, dear, the extravagance of the old things, it is really dreadful; and when I’m up-stairs and can’t help myself, I do so fidget about the expense. The tea that goes when Patty is not there is really infamous. I’m sure it’s never used. And when you buy black at three shillings, and green at four, Mr Timson’s best, it worries you terribly. If ever – you know what I mean – and I wanted one again poor Mrs Nimmer had promised to come, if I’d set her free on Saturdays for dusting, and, of course, on Sundays, and now she’s ill.”

From the wail which now arose from the clarionet it might have been supposed that Mrs Nimmer had been dead, but Jared did not speak.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Mrs Jared, “if we did not have so many children!”

“What’s the good of grumbling?” grunted Jared; and then there was silence, only broken by the clicking of needle against thimble.

“When was she taken ill?” said Mrs Jared then.

“What? Mrs Nimmer? – last week. Break up, I think. She’s past seventy.”

Mrs Jared sighed again, and then Jared took up the ball as he went on busily cleaning the keys of the instrument.

“Children are expensive luxuries. Costly; they do eat so furiously; and I don’t believe there ever were such children as ours to eat – bless ’em. Poor folks’ children ought to be born without appetites, instead of coming into the world with a double share. Some people do, I think, reckon the poor to be a different race to their noble selves; and if they are to be so looked on, it does seem a pity that Nature don’t take the matter up and cover them with feathers or wool. What a saving it would be if they’d only moult every year and come out in a new suit!”