Mrs. Tetterby, his lady-mother, who had been sitting with her bonnet and shawl thrown back, as aforesaid, thoughtfully turning her wedding-ring round and round upon her finger, now rose, and divesting herself of her out-of-door attire, began to lay the cloth for supper.
“Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said Mrs. Tetterby. “That’s the way the world goes!”
“Which is the way the world goes, my dear?” asked Mr. Tetterby, looking round.
“Oh, nothing!” said Mrs. Tetterby.
Mr. Tetterby elevated his eyebrows, folded his newspaper afresh, and carried his eyes up it, and down it, and across it, but was wandering in his attention, and not reading it.
Mrs. Tetterby, at the same time, laid the cloth, but rather as if she were punishing the table than preparing the family supper; hitting it unnecessarily hard with the knives and forks, slapping it with the plates, dinting it with the salt-cellar, and coming heavily down upon it with the loaf.
“Ah, dear me, dear me, dear me!” said Mrs. Tetterby. “That’s the way the world goes!”
“My duck,” returned her husband, looking round again, “you said that before. Which is the way the world goes?”
“Oh, nothing!” said Mrs. Tetterby.
“Sophia!” remonstrated her husband, “you said that before, too.”
“Well, I’ll say it again if you like,” returned Mrs. Tetterby. “Oh nothing—there! And again if you like, oh nothing—there ! And again if you like, oh nothing—now then!”
Mr. Tetterby brought his eye to bear upon the partner of his bosom, and said, in mild astonishment:
“My little woman, what has put you out?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she retorted. “Don’t ask me. Who said I was put out at all? I never did.”
Mr. Tetterby gave up the perusal of his newspaper as a bad job, and, taking a slow walk across the room, with his hands behind him, and his shoulders raised—his gait according perfectly with the resignation of his manner—addressed himself to his two eldest offspring.
“Your supper will be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus,” said Mr. Tetterby. “Your mother has been out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It was very good of your mother so to do. You shall get some supper too, very soon, Johnny. Your mother’s pleased with you, my man, for being so attentive to your precious sister.”
Mrs. Tetterby, without any remark, but with a decided subsidence of her animosity towards the table, finished her preparations, and took, from her ample basket, a substantial slab of hot pease pudding wrapped in paper, and a basin covered with a saucer, which, on being uncovered, sent forth an odour so agreeable, that the three pair of eyes in the two beds opened wide and fixed themselves upon the banquet. Mr. Tetterby, without regarding this tacit invitation to be seated, stood repeating slowly, “Yes, yes, your supper will be ready in a minute, ’Dolphus—your mother went out in the wet, to the cook’s shop, to buy it. It was very good of your mother so to do”—until Mrs. Tetterby, who had been exhibiting sundry tokens of contrition behind him, caught him round the neck, and wept.
“Oh, ’Dolphus!” said Mrs. Tetterby, “how could I go and behave so?”
This reconciliation affected Adolphus the younger and Johnny to that degree, that they both, as with one accord, raised a dismal cry, which had the effect of immediately shutting up the round eyes in the beds, and utterly routing the two remaining little Tetterbys, just then stealing in from the adjoining closet to see what was going on in the eating way.
“I am sure, ’Dolphus,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby, “coming home, I had no more idea than a child unborn—”
Mr. Tetterby seemed to dislike this figure of speech, and observed, “Say than the baby, my dear.”
“—Had no more idea than the baby,” said Mrs. Tetterby.—“Johnny, don’t look at me, but look at her, or she’ll fall out of your lap and be killed, and then you’ll die in agonies of a broken heart, and serve you right.—No more idea I hadn’t than that darling, of being cross when I came home; but somehow, ’Dolphus—” Mrs. Tetterby paused, and again turned her wedding-ring round and round upon her finger.
“I see!” said Mr. Tetterby. “I understand! My little woman was put out. Hard times, and hard weather, and hard work, make it trying now and then. I see, bless your soul! No wonder! Dolf, my man,” continued Mr. Tetterby, exploring the basin with a fork, “here’s your mother been and bought, at the cook’s shop, besides pease pudding, a whole knuckle of a lovely roast leg of pork, with lots of crackling left upon it, and with seasoning gravy and mustard quite unlimited. Hand in your plate, my boy, and begin while it’s simmering.”
Master Adolphus, needing no second summons, received his portion with eyes rendered moist by appetite, and with-drawing to his particular stool, fell upon his supper tooth and nail. Johnny was not forgotten, but received his rations on bread, lest he should, in a flush of gravy, trickle any on the baby. He was required, for similar reasons, to keep his pudding, when not on active service, in his pocket.
There might have been more pork on the knucklebone,—which knucklebone the carver at the cook’s shop had assuredly not forgotten in carving for previous customers—but there was no stint of seasoning, and that is an accessory dreamily suggesting pork, and pleasantly cheating the sense of taste. The pease pudding, too, the gravy and mustard, like the Eastern rose in respect of the nightingale, if they were not absolutely pork, had lived near it; so, upon the whole, there was the flavour of a middle-sized pig. It was irresistible to the Tetterbys in bed, who, though professing to slumber peacefully, crawled out when unseen by their parents, and silently appealed to their brothers for any gastronomic token of fraternal affection. They, not hard of heart, presenting scraps in return, it resulted that a party of light skirmishers in night-gowns were careering about the parlour all through supper, which harassed Mr. Tetterby exceedingly, and once or twice imposed upon him the necessity of a charge, before which these guerilla troops retired in all directions and in great confusion.
Mrs. Tetterby did not enjoy her supper. There seemed to be something on Mrs. Tetterby’s mind. At one time she laughed without reason, and at another time she cried without reason, and at last she laughed and cried together in a manner so very unreasonable that her husband was confounded.
“My little woman,” said Mr. Tetterby, “if the world goes that way, it appears to go the wrong way, and to choke you.”
“Give me a drop of water,” said Mrs. Tetterby, struggling with herself, “and don’t speak to me for the present, or take any notice of me. Don’t do it!”
Mr. Tetterby having administered the water, turned suddenly on the unlucky Johnny (who was full of sympathy), and demanded why he was wallowing there, in gluttony and idleness, instead of coming forward with the baby, that the sight of her might revive his mother. Johnny immediately approached, borne down by its weight; but Mrs. Tetterby holding out her hand to signify that she was not in a condition to bear that trying appeal to her feelings, he was interdicted from advancing another inch, on pain of perpetual hatred from all his dearest connexions; and accordingly retired to his stool again, and crushed himself as before.
After a pause, Mrs. Tetterby said she was better now, and began to laugh.
“My little woman,” said her husband, dubiously, “are you quite sure you’re better? Or are you, Sophia, about to break out in a fresh direction?”
“No, ’Dolphus, no,” replied his wife. “I’m quite myself.” With that, settling her hair, and pressing the palms of her hands upon her eyes, she laughed again.
“What a wicked fool I was, to think so for a moment!” said Mrs. Tetterby. “Come nearer, ’Dolphus, and let me ease my mind, and tell you what I mean. Let me tell you all about it.”
Mr. Tetterby bringing his chair closer, Mrs. Tetterby laughed again, gave him a hug, and wiped her eyes.
“You know, ’Dolphus, my dear,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “that when I was single, I might have given myself away in several directions. At one time, four
after me at once; two of them were sons of Mars.”
“We’re all sons of Ma’s, my dear,” said Mr. Tetterby, “jointly with Pa’s.”
“I don’t mean that,” replied his wife, “I mean soldiers—serjeants.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Tetterby.
“Well, ’Dolphus, I’m sure I never think of such things now, to regret them; and I’m sure I’ve got as good a husband, and would do as much to prove that I was fond of him, as—”
“As any little woman in the world,” said Mr. Tetterby. “Very good. Very good.”
If Mr. Tetterby had been ten feet high, he could not have expressed a gentler consideration for Mrs. Tetterby’s fairy-like stature; and if Mrs. Tetterby had been two feet high, she could not have felt it more appropriately her due.
“But you see, ‘Dolphus,” said Mrs. Tetterby, “this being Christmas-time, when all people who can, make holiday, and when all people who have got money, like to spend some, I did, somehow, get a little out of sorts when I was in the streets just now. There were so many things to be sold—such delicious things to eat, such fine things to look at, such delightful things to have—and there was so much calculating and calculating necessary, before I durst lay out a sixpence for the commonest thing; and the basket was so large, and wanted so much in it; and my stock of money was so small, and would go such a little way;—you hate me, don’t you, ’Dolphus?”
“Not quite,” said Mr. Tetterby, “as yet.”
“Well! I’ll tell you the whole truth,” pursued his wife, penitently, “and then perhaps you will. I felt all this, so much, when I was trudging about in the cold, and when I saw a lot of other calculating faces and large baskets trudging about, too, that I began to think whether I mightn’t have done better, and been happier, if—I hadn’t—” the wedding-ring went round again, and Mrs. Tetterby shook her downcast head as she turned it.
“I see,” said her husband quietly; “if you hadn’t married at all, or if you had married somebody else?”
“Yes,” sobbed Mrs. Tetterby. “That’s really what I thought. Do you hate me now, ’Dolphus?”
“Why no,” said Mr. Tetterby, “I don’t find that I do, as yet.”
Mrs. Tetterby gave him a thankful kiss, and went on.
“I begin to hope you won’t, now, ’Dolphus, though I am afraid I haven’t told you the worst. I can’t think what came over me. I don’t know whether I was ill, or mad, or what I was, but I couldn’t call up anything that seemed to bind us to each other, or to reconcile me to my fortune. All the pleasures and enjoyments we had ever had—they seemed so poor and insignificant, I hated them. I could have trodden on them. And I could think of nothing else, except our being poor, and the number of mouths there were at home.”
“Well, well, my dear,” said Mr. Tetterby, shaking her hand encouragingly, “that’s truth after all. We are poor, and there are a number of mouths at home here.”
“Ah! but, Dolf, Dolf!” cried his wife, laying her hands upon his neck, “my good, kind, patient fellow, when I had been at home a very little white—how different! Oh, Dolf, dear, how different it was! I felt as if there was a rush of recollection on me, all at once, that softened my hard heart, and filled it up till it was bursting. All our struggles for a livelihood, all our cares and wants since we have been married, all the times of sickness, all the hours of watching, we have ever had, by one another, or by the children, seemed to speak to me, and say that they had made us one, and that I never might have been, or could have been, or would have been, any other than the wife and mother I am. Then, the cheap enjoyments that I could have trodden on so cruelly, got to be so precious to me—Oh so priceless, and dear!—that I couldn’t bear to think how much I had wronged them; and I said, and say again a hundred times, how could I ever behave so, ’Dolphus, how could I ever have the heart to do it!”
The good woman, quite carried away by her honest tenderness and remorse, was weeping with all her heart, when she started up with a scream, and ran behind her husband. Her cry was so terrified, that the children started from their sleep and from their beds, and clung about her. Nor did her gaze belie her voice, as she pointed to a pale man in a black cloak who had come into the room.
“Look at that man! Look there! What does he want?”
“My dear,” returned her husband, “I’ll ask him if you’ll let me go. What’s the matter? How you shake!”
“I saw him in the street, when I was out just now. He looked at me, and stood near me. I am afraid of him.”
“Afraid of him! Why?”
“I don’t know why—I—stop! husband!” for he was going towards the stranger.
She had one hand pressed upon her forehead, and one upon her breast; and there was a peculiar fluttering all over her, and a hurried unsteady motion of her eyes, as if she had lost something.
“Are you ill, my dear?”
“What is it that is going from me again?” she muttered, in a low voice. “What is this that is going away?”
Then she abruptly answered: “III? No, I am quite well,” and stood looking vacantly at the floor.
Her husband, who had not been altogether free from the infection of her fear at first, and whom the present strangeness of her manner did not tend to reassure, addressed himself to the pale visitor in the black cloak, who stood still, and whose eyes were bent upon the ground.
“What may be your pleasure, sir,” he asked, “with us?”
“I fear that my coming in unperceived,” returned the visitor, “has alarmed you; but you were talking and did not hear me.”
“My little woman says—perhaps you heard her say it,” returned Mr. Tetterby, “that it’s not the first time you have alarmed her to-night.”
“I am sorry for it. I remember to have observed her, for a few moments only, in the street. I had no intention of frightening her.”
As he raised his eyes in speaking, she raised hers. It was extraordinary to see what dread she had of him, and with what dread he observed it—and yet how narrowly and closely.
“My name,” he said, “is Redlaw. I come from the old college hard by. A young gentleman who is a student there, lodges in your house, does he not?”
“Mr. Denham?” said Tetterby.
“Yes.”
It was a natural action, and so slight as to be hardly noticeable; but the little man, before speaking again, passed his hand across his forehead, and looked quickly round the room, as though he were sensible of some change in its atmosphere. The Chemist, instantly transferring to him the look of dread he had directed towards the wife, stepped back, and his face turned paler.
“The gentleman’s room,” said Tetterby, “is up-stairs, sir. There’s a more convenient private entrance; but as you have come in here, it will save your going out into the cold, if you’ll take this little staircase,” showing one communicating directly with the parlour, “and go up to him that way, if you wish to see him.”
“Yes, I wish to see him,” said the Chemist. “Can you spare a light?”
The watchfulness of his haggard look, and the inexplicable distrust that darkened it, seemed to trouble Mr. Tetterby. He paused; and looking fixedly at him in return, stood for a minute or so, like a man stupefied, or fascinated.
At length he said, “I’ll light you, sir, if you’ll follow me.”
“No,” replied the Chemist, “I don’t wish to be attended, or announced to him. He does not expect me. I would rather go alone. Please to give me the light, if you can spare it, and I’ll find the way.”
In the quickness of his expression of this desire, and in taking the candle from the newsman, he touched him on the breast. Withdrawing his hand hastily, almost as though he had wounded him by accident (for he did not know in what part of himself his new power resided, or how it was communicated, or how the manner of its reception varied in different persons), he turned and ascended the stair.
But when he reached the top, he stopped and looked down. The wife was standing in the same place, twisting he
r ring round and round upon her finger. The husband, with his head bent forward on his breast, was musing heavily and sullenly. The children, still clustering about the mother, gazed timidly after the visitor, and nestled together when they saw him looking down.
“Come!” said the father, roughly. “There’s enough of this. Get to bed here!”
“The place is inconvenient and small enough,” the mother added, “without you. Get to bed!”
The whole brood, scared and sad, crept away; little Johnny and the baby lagging last. The mother, glancing contemptuously round the sordid room, and tossing from her the fragments of their meal, stopped on the threshold of her task of clearing the table, and sat down, pondering idly and dejectedly. The father betook himself to the chimney-corner, and impatiently raking the small fire together, bent over it as if he would monopolise it all. They did not interchange a word.
The Chemist, paler than before, stole upward like a thief; looking back upon the change below, and dreading equally to go on or return.
“What have I done!” he said, confusedly. “What am I going to do!”
“To be the benefactor of mankind,” he thought he heard a voice reply.
He looked round, but there was nothing there; and a passage now shutting out the little parlour from his view, he went on, directing his eyes before him at the way he went.
“It is only since last night,” he muttered gloomily, “that I have remained shut up, and yet all things are strange to me. I am strange to myself. I am here, as in a dream. What interest have I in this place, or in any place that I can bring to my remembrance? My mind is going blind!”
There was a door before him, and he knocked at it. Being invited, by a voice within, to enter, he complied.
“Is that my kind nurse?” said the voice. “But I need not ask her. There is no one else to come here.”
Dickens' Christmas Spirits Page 32