Ten Girls from Dickens Part 15

"But let me first tell you, Mr. Wrayburn, once for all, that it's no use your paying visits to me. You wouldn't get what you want of me, no, not if you brought pincers with you to tear it out."

With which statement, and a further admonition to her father, who had come back, she blew her candles out, and taking her big door-key in her pocket, and her crutch-stick in her hand, marched off.

Not many months later, one day while Miss Wren was waiting in the office of Pubsey and Co., for Mr. Riah to come in and sell her the waste she was accustomed to buy, she overheard a conversation between Mr.

Fledgeby, who had apparently happened in, and a friend who was also waiting for Mr. Riah.

This conversation led her to infer that her old friend was both a treacherous and dishonest man, and entirely unworthy to be trusted in any capacity. Seemingly the conversation was not meant for her ears, but Mr. Fledgeby had planned that she should hear it, and that it should have the very effect upon her which it had. This was Mr. Fledgeby's retort upon Miss Wren for the over-sharpness with which she always treated him, and also a pleasant instance of his humor as regarded the old Jew. "He has got a bad name as an old Jew, and he is paid for the use of it, and I'll have my money's worth out of him." Thus ran Mr.

Fledgeby's reflections on the subject, and Miss Wren sat listening to the conversation with a fallen countenance, until Mr. Riah came in, when Mr. Fledgeby led the old man to make statements which seemed further to emphasize his hard-heartedness and dishonesty.

Then Mr. Riah filled Miss Wren's little basket with such sc.r.a.ps as she could buy, saying:

"There, my Cinderella dear, the basket's full now. Bless you, and get you gone!"

"Don't call me your Cinderella dear," returned Miss Wren, "Oh, you cruel G.o.dmother!"

She shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face at parting, and as he did not attempt to vindicate himself, went on her way, to return no more to Saint Mary Axe; chance having disclosed to her (as she supposed) the flinty and hypocritical character of Mr. Riah. She often moralized over her work on the tricks and the manners of that venerable cheat, but made her little purchases elsewhere, and lived a secluded life. But during several interviews which she chanced to have later with Mr. Fledgeby, the clever little creature made him by his own words, disclose his system of treachery and trickery, and prove that the aged Jew had been screening his employer at his own expense. Thereupon Miss Jenny lost no time in once again proceeding to the place of business of Pubsey and Co., where she found the old man sitting at his desk. In less time than it takes to tell it, she had folded her arms about his neck, and kissed him, imploring his forgiveness for her lack of faith in him, adding: "It did look bad, now, didn't it?"

"It looked so bad, Jenny," responded the old man with gravity, "that I was hateful in mine own eyes. I perceived that the obligation was upon me to leave this service. Whereupon I indited a letter to my master to that effect, but he held me to certain months of servitude, which were his lawful term of notice. They expire to-morrow. Upon their expiration--not before--I had meant to set myself right with my Cinderella."

While they were thus conversing, the aged Jew received an angry communication from Mr. Fledgeby, releasing Mr. Riah at once from his service, to the great satisfaction of the old man, who then got his few goods together in a black bag, closed the shutters, pulled down the office blind, and issued forth upon the steps. There, while Miss Jenny held the bag, the old man locked the house door, and handed the key over to the messenger who had brought the note of dismissal.

"Well, G.o.dmother," said Miss Wren, "and so you're thrown upon the world!"

"It would appear so, Jenny, and rather suddenly."

"Where are you going to seek your fortune?" asked Miss Wren. The old man smiled, but gazed about him with a look of having lost his way in life, which did not escape the dolls' dressmaker.

"The best thing you can do," said Jenny, "for the time being, at all events, is to come home with me, G.o.dmother. n.o.body's there but my bad child, and Lizzie's lodging stands empty."

The old man, when satisfied that no inconvenience could be entailed on any one by this move, readily complied, and the singularly a.s.sorted couple once more went through the streets together.

And it was a kindly Providence which placed the child's hand in the aged Jew's protecting one that night. Before they reached home, they met a sad party, bearing in their arms an inanimate form, at which the dolls'

dressmaker needed but to take one look.

"Oh gentlemen, gentlemen," she cried, "He belongs to me!" "Belongs to you!" said the head of the party, stopping;--"Oh yes, dear gentlemen, he's my child, out without leave. My poor, bad, bad boy! And he don't know me, he don't know me! Oh, what _shall_ I do?" cried the little creature, wildly beating her hands together, "when my own child don't know me!"

The head of the party looked to the old Jew for explanation. He whispered, as the dolls' dressmaker bent over the still form, and vainly tried to extract some sign of recognition from it; "It's her drunken father."

Then the sad party with their lifeless burden went through the streets.

After it, went the dolls' dressmaker, hiding her face in the Jewish skirts, and clinging to them with one hand, while with the other she plied her stick, and at last the little home in Church Street was reached.

Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was in the dressmaker's pocket to get mourning for her father. As Mr. Riah sat by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found it difficult to make out whether she realized that the deceased had really been her father.

"If my poor boy," she would say, "had been brought up better, he might have done better. Not that I reproach myself. I hope I have no cause for that."

"None, indeed, Jenny, I am very certain."

"Thank you, G.o.dmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. But you see it is so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, work, work, all day.

When he was out of employment, I couldn't always keep him near me. He got fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into the streets. And he never did well in the streets, he never did well out of sight. How often it happens with children! How can I say what I might have turned out myself, but for my back having been so bad and my legs so queer, when I was young!" the dressmaker would go on. "I had nothing to do but work, so I worked. I couldn't play. But my poor, unfortunate child could play, and it turned out worse for him."

"And not for him alone, Jenny."

"Well, I don't know, G.o.dmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunate boy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called him a quant.i.ty of names;" shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears.

"You are a good girl, you are a patient girl."

"As for patience," she would reply with a shrug, "not much of that, G.o.dmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called him names.

But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibility as a mother so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding, and scolding failed. But I was bound to try everything, with such a charge on my hands. Where would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not tried everything?"

With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industrious little creature, the day work and the night work were beguiled, until enough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring in the sombre stuff that the occasion required, and to bring into the house the other sombre preparations. "And now," said Miss Jenny, "having knocked off my rosy-cheeked young friends, I'll knock off my white-cheeked self." This referred to her making her own dress which at last was done, in time for the simple service, the arrangements for which were of her own planning.

The service ended, and the solitary dressmaker having returned to her home, she said:

"I must have a very short cry, G.o.dmother, before I cheer up for good.

Because after all, a child is a child, you know."

It was a longer cry than might have been expected. Howbeit, it wore itself out in a shadowy corner, and then the dressmaker came forth, and washed her face, and made the tea.

"You wouldn't mind my cutting out something while we are at tea, would you?" she asked with a coaxing air.

"Cinderella, dear child," the old man expostulated. "Will you never rest?"

"Oh! It's not work, cutting out a pattern isn't," said Miss Jenny, with her busy little scissors already snipping at some paper; "The truth is, G.o.dmother, I want to fix it, while I have it correct in my mind."

"Have you seen it to-day, then?" asked Riah.

"Yes, G.o.dmother. Saw it just now. It's a surplice, that's what it is.

Thing our clergymen wear, you know," explained Miss Jenny, in consideration of his professing another faith.

"And what have you to do with that, Jenny?"

"Why, G.o.dmother," replied the dressmaker, "you must know that we professors, who live upon our taste and invention, are obliged to keep our eyes always open. And you know already that I have many extra expenses to meet. So it came into my head, while I was weeping at my poor boy's grave, that something in my way might be done with a clergyman. Not a funeral, never fear;" said Miss Jenny. "The public don't like to be made melancholy, I know very well. But a doll clergyman, my dear,--glossy black curls and whiskers--uniting two of my young friends in matrimony," said Miss Jenny shaking her forefinger, "is quite another affair. If you don't see those three at the altar in Bond Street, in a jiffy, my name's Jack Robinson!"

With her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll into whitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was over, and displayed it for the edification of the Jewish mind, and Mr. Riah was lost in admiration for the brave, resolute little soul, who could so put aside her sadness to meet and face her pressing need.

And many times thereafter was he likewise lost in admiration of his little friend, who continued her business as of old, only without the burden of responsibility by which her life had heretofore been clouded, and more able to give her imagination free play along the lines of her interests, without the pressure of home care resting upon her poor shoulders.

Our last glimpse of her, is as usual, before her little workbench, at work upon a full-dressed, large sized doll, when there comes a knock upon the door. When it is opened there is disclosed a young fellow known to his friends and employer, as Sloppy.

Sloppy was full private No 1 in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of life, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to his colors, and in instinctive refinement of feeling was much above others who outranked him in birth and education.

"Come in, sir," said Miss Wren, "and who may you be?"

Mr. Sloppy introduced himself by name and b.u.t.tons.

"Oh, indeed," cried Jenny, "I have heard of you."

Sloppy, grinning, was so glad to hear it that he threw back his head and laughed.

"Bless us!" exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start, "Don't open your mouth as wide as that, young man, or it'll catch so, and not shut again, some day."