"I will dine with my young friend in a private room," said Barbox Brothers to the hotel authorities, "and perhaps you will be so good as to let the police know that the pretty baby is here. I suppose she is sure to be inquired for soon, if she has not been already. Come along, Polly."
Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding the stairs rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers. The dinner was a most transcendant success, and the Barbox sheepishness, under Polly's directions how to mince her meat for her, and how to diffuse gravy over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, was another fine sight.
"And now," said Polly, "while we are at dinner, you be good, and tell me that story I taught you."
With the tremors of a Civil Service examination upon him, and very uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appeared in history, but also as to the measurements of that indispensable fact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but under encouragement did very fairly. There was a want of breadth observable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite, of the boy; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referable to an under-current of desire to account for her. Still, as the first lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, it passed muster.
"I told you to be good," said Polly, "and you are good, ain't you?"
"I hope so," replied Barbox Brothers.
Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of sofa cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat or two on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even with a gracious kiss. In getting on her feet upon her chair, however, to give him this last reward, she toppled forward among the dishes, and caused him to exclaim, as he effected her rescue: "Gracious Angels! Whew! I thought we were in the fire, Polly!"
"What a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly when replaced.
"Yes, I am rather nervous," he replied. "Whew! Don't, Polly! Don't flourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways. Don't tilt up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you'll go over backwards. Whew! Polly, Polly, Polly," said Barbox Brothers, nearly succumbing to despair, "we are environed with dangers!"
Indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that were yawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit upon a low stool. "I will, if you will," said Polly. So, as peace of mind should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, bring a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a screen, and close in Polly and himself before the fire, as it were in a snug room within the room. Then, finest sight of all, was Barbox Brothers on his footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug, contemplating Polly as she built successfully, and growing blue in the face with holding his breath, lest he should blow the house down.
"How you stare, don't you?" said Polly in a houseless pause.
Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, apologetically:
"I am afraid I was looking rather hard at you, Polly."
"Why do you stare?" asked Polly.
"I cannot," he murmured to himself, "recall why.--I don't know, Polly."
"You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn't you?" said Polly.
In spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again intently, as she bent her head over her card structure, her rich curls shading her face. "It is impossible," he thought, "that I can ever have seen this pretty baby before. Can I have dreamed of her? In some sorrowful dream?"
He could make nothing of it. So he went into the building trade as a journeyman under Polly, and they built three stories high, four stories high; even five.
"I say! Who do you think is coming?" asked Polly, rubbing her eyes after tea.
He guessed: "The waiter?"
"No," said Polly, "the dustman. I am getting sleepy."
A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers!
"I don't think I am going to be fetched to-night," said Polly. "What do you think?"
He thought not, either. After another quarter of an hour, the dustman not merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse was had to the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid: who cheerily undertook that the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room, which she herself would share.
"And I know you will be careful, won't you," said Barbox Brothers, as a new fear dawned upon him, "that she don't fall out of bed?"
Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the necessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he sat on his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro, with her dimpled chin on his shoulder.
"Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly. "Do you fall out of bed?"
"N--not generally, Polly."
"No more do I."
With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going, and then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be swallowed up in the hand of the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid, trotted off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety.
He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairs replaced, and still looked after her. He paced the room for half an hour. "A most engaging little creature, but it's not that. A most winning little voice, but it's not that. That has much to do with it, but there is something more. How can it be that I seem to know this child? What was it she imperfectly recalled to me when I felt her touch in the street, and, looking down at her, saw her looking up at me?"
"Mr. Jackson!"
With a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, and saw his answer standing at the door.
"Oh, Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me! Speak a word of encouragement to me, I beseech you."
"You are Polly's mother."
"Yes."
Yes. Polly herself might come to this, one day. As you see what the rose was in its faded leaves; as you see what the summer growth of the woods was in their wintry branches; so Polly might be traced, one day, in a careworn woman like this, with her hair turned grey. Before him were the ashes of a dead fire that had once burned bright. This was the woman he had loved. This was the woman he had lost. Such had been the constancy of his imagination to her, so had Time spared her under its withholding, that now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had struck her, his soul was filled with pity and amazement.
He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the chimney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half averted.
"Did you see me in the street, and show me to your child?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit?"
"I hope there is no deceit. I said to her, 'We have lost our way, and I must try to find mine by myself. Go to that gentleman, and tell him you are lost. You shall be fetched by-and-by.' Perhaps you have not thought how very young she is?"
"She is very self-reliant."
"Perhaps because she is so young."
He asked, after a short pause, "Why did you do this?"
"Oh, Mr. Jackson, do you ask me? In the hope that you might see something in my innocent child to soften your heart towards me. Not only towards me, but towards my husband."
He suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of the room. He came back again with a slower step, and resumed his former attitude, saying:
"I thought you had emigrated to America?"
"We did. But life went ill with us there, and we came back."
"Do you live in this town?"
"Yes. I am a daily teacher of music here. My husband is a book-keeper."
"Are you--forgive my asking--poor?"
"We earn enough for our wants. That is not our distress. My husband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder. He will never recover--"
"You check yourself. If it is for want of the encouraging word you spoke of, take it from me. I cannot forget the old time, Beatrice."
"God bless you!" she replied with a burst of tears, and gave him her trembling hand.
"Compose yourself. I cannot be compos
ed if you are not, for to see you weep distresses me beyond expression. Speak freely to me. Trust me."
She shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spoke calmly. Her voice had the ring of Polly's.
"It is not that my husband's mind is at all impaired by his bodily suffering, for I assure you that is not the case. But in his weakness, and in his knowledge that he is incurably ill, he cannot overcome the ascendancy of one idea. It preys upon him, embitters every moment of his painful life, and will shorten it."
She stopping, he said again: "Speak freely to me. Trust me."
"We have had five children before this darling, and they all lie in their little graves. He believes that they have withered away under a curse, and that it will blight this child like the rest."
"Under what curse?"
"Both I and he have it on our conscience that we tried you very heavily, and I do not know but that, if I were as ill as he, I might suffer in my mind as he does. This is the constant burden:--'I believe, Beatrice, I was the only friend that Mr. Jackson ever cared to make, though I was so much his junior. The more influence he acquired in the business, the higher he advanced me, and I was alone in his private confidence. I came between him and you, and I took you from him. We were both secret, and the blow fell when he was wholly unprepared. The anguish it caused a man so compressed must have been terrible; the wrath it awakened inappeasable. So, a curse came to be invoked on our poor, pretty little flowers, and they fall.'"
"And you, Beatrice," he asked, when she had ceased to speak, and there had been a silence afterwards, "how say you?"
"Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believed that you would never, never forgive."
"Until within these few weeks," he repeated. "Have you changed your opinion of me within these few weeks?"
"Yes."
"For what reason?"
"I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, when, to my terror, you came in. As I veiled my face and stood in the dark end of the shop, I heard you explain that you wanted a musical instrument for a bedridden girl. Your voice and manner were so softened, you showed such interest in its selection, you took it away yourself with so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that I knew you were a man with a most gentle heart. Oh, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears that followed for me!"
Was Phoebe playing at that moment on her distant couch? He seemed to hear her.
"I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no information. As I had heard you say that you were going back by the next train (but you did not say where), I resolved to visit the station at about that time of day, as often as I could, between my lessons, on the chance of seeing you again. I have been there very often, but saw you no more until to-day. You were meditating as you walked the street, but the calm expression of your face emboldened me to send my child to you. And when I saw you bend your head to speak tenderly to her, I prayed to GOD to forgive me for having ever brought a sorrow on it. I now pray to you to forgive me, and to forgive my husband. I was very young, he was young too, and, in the ignorant hardihood of such a time of life, we don't know what we do to those who have undergone more discipline. You generous man! You good man! So to raise me up and make nothing of my crime against you!"--for he would not see her on her knees, and soothed her as a kind father might have soothed an erring daughter--"thank you, bless you, thank you!"
When he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the window curtain and looked out awhile. Then he only said:
"Is Polly asleep?"
"Yes. As I came in, I met her going away upstairs, and put her to bed myself."
"Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me your address on this leaf of my pocket-book. In the evening I will bring her home to you--and to her father."
* * *
"Hallo!" cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the door next morning when breakfast was ready: "I thought I was fetched last night?"
"So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here for the day, and to take you home in the evening."
"Upon my word!" said Polly. "You are very cool, ain't you?"
However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added: "I suppose I must give you a kiss, though you _are_ cool."
The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly conversational tone.
"Of course, you are going to amuse me?" said Polly.
"Oh, of course!" said Barbox Brothers.
In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found it indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her little fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand down into her left hand with a business-like slap. After this gathering of herself together, Polly, by that time a mere heap of dimples, asked in a wheedling manner:
"What are we going to do, you dear old thing?"
"Why, I was thinking," said Barbox Brothers, "--but are you fond of horses, Polly?"
"Ponies, I am," said Polly, "especially when their tails are long. But horses--n-no--too big, you know."
"Well," pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysterious confidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, "I did see yesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies, speckled all over--"
"No, no, NO!" cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the charming details. "Not speckled all over!"
"Speckled all over. Which ponies jump through hoops--"
"No, no, NO!" cried Polly as before. "They never jump through hoops!"
"Yes, they do. Oh, I assure you they do! And eat pie in pinafores--"
"Ponies eating pie in pinafores!" said Polly. "What a story-teller you are, ain't you?"
"Upon my honour.--And fire off guns."
(Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to fire- arms.)
"And I was thinking," pursued the exemplary Barbox, "that if you and I were to go to the Circus where these ponies are, it would do our constitutions good."
"Does that mean amuse us?" inquired Polly. "What long words you do use, don't you?"
Apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied:
"That means amuse us. That is exactly what it means. There are many other wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them all. Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lions and tigers."
Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose indicating some uneasiness of mind.
"They never get out, of course," she remarked as a mere truism.
"The elephants and lions and tigers? Oh, dear no!"
"Oh, dear no!" said Polly. "And of course nobody's afraid of the ponies shooting anybody."
"Not the least in the world."
"No, no, not the least in the world," said Polly.
"I was also thinking," proceeded Barbox, "that if we were to look in at the toy-shop, to choose a doll--"
"Not dressed!" cried Polly with a clap of her hands. "No, no, NO, not dressed!"
"Full-dressed. Together with a house, and all things necessary for housekeeping--"
Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into a swoon of bliss.
"What a darling you are!" she languidly exclaimed, leaning back in her chair. "Come and be hugged, or I must come and hug you."
This resplendent programme was carried into execution with the utmost rigour of the law. It being essential to make the purchase of the doll its first feature--or that lady would have lost the ponies--the toy-shop expedition took precedence. Polly in the magic warehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, and a neat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by, was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty as was reconcilable with extreme feeble
ness of mouth, and combining a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a black velvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores would seem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent. The name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneath the glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly's authority) Miss Melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, from the Barbox coffers, may be inferred from the two facts that her silver tea-spoons were as large as her kitchen poker, and that the proportions of her watch exceeded those of her frying-pan. Miss Melluka was graciously pleased to express her entire approbation of the Circus, and so was Polly; for the ponies were speckled, and brought down nobody when they fired, and the savagery of the wild beasts appeared to be mere smoke--which article, in fact, they did produce in large quantities from their insides. The Barbox absorption in the general subject throughout the realisation of these delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy to behold at dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff in a chair opposite to Polly (the fair Circassian possessing an unbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in carrying out with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea. To wind up, there came the agreeable fever of getting Miss Melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possessions into a fly with Polly, to be taken home. But, by that time, Polly had become unable to look upon such accumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn her consciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child's sleep. "Sleep, Polly, sleep," said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder; "you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at any rate!"
What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefully folded into the bosom of Polly's frock, shall not be mentioned. He said nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it. They drove to a modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped at the fore-court of a small house. "Do not wake the child," said Barbox Brothers softly to the driver; "I will carry her in as she is."
Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly's mother, Polly's bearer passed on with mother and child in to a ground-floor room. There, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his emaciated hand.
Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi) Page 878