CHAPTER III.
"Where does Miss Toosey live?" said John Rossitter on Monday morning. "I think I may as well go and call on her, as I have nothing else to do."
I do not know what impelled him to go. It is impossible to define motives accurately, even our own. We cannot say sometimes why we do a thing; every reason may be against it—common sense, habit, inclination, experience, duty, all may be pulling the other way, and yet we tear ourselves loose, and do the thing, urged by some invisible motive of whose existence we are hardly conscious. And if it is so in ourselves, how much more difficult to dissect other people's motives! and it is generally safer to leave the cause alone altogether, and only regard the effects produced. So it is enough to say that, on that Monday morning, Miss Toosey heard the rattle of wheels along North Street, and, looking out, saw the Rossitters' dog-cart and high-stepping chestnut mare, which, to her extreme surprise, stopped in front of her door.
"Something wrong with the harness," she concluded, as the little groom flew out and stood at the horse's head, with his arms crossed.
"Bless the child!" Miss Toosey said, "as if the creature could not have swallowed him at a mouthful, top-boots and all!"
But her observation of the groom from the bedroom window was interrupted by a loud knock at the door, and before she had time to tie her cap-strings, or put a pin in the back of her collar, Betty came rushing up, out of breath and red-faced, with a card held in the corner of her apron, bearing the name, "Mr. John Rossitter."
"And he said he hoped as how you'd excuse his calling so early—and a flower in his button-hole beautiful," added Betty in a snorting whisper, distinctly audible in the parlor below.
Then followed some hasty opening and shutting of drawers, and hurried footsteps; and then Miss Toosey descended, rather fluttered and nervous, with her Sunday cap on, and a clean pocket handkerchief.
"I must introduce myself, Miss Toosey," John said, "for I dare say you have quite forgotten me."
"Forgotten you, Mr. John? Why I knew you long before you were born, or thought of. Oh, dear!" said Miss Toosey, "I don't mean that, of course; but I knew your mamma before she was born"—
"I ought to apologize," John struck in, anxious to save Miss Toosey from any further floundering in the bogs of memory, "for coming so early; but the fact is, that I am going up to London this evening; and my mother tells me that Dr. Toosey had a very capital cure for toothache, and she thought you would very likely have kept it, and would let me have it."
Impostor that he was! looking at her with such serious, earnest eyes, when he had composed this ridiculous and barefaced excuse for calling as he came along.
Miss Toosey racked her brain to remember this renowned remedy, and could only recall an occasion when she had toothache, and her father dragged out a double tooth, with great exertion and bad language on his part, and great pain and many tears on hers.
"I cannot quite remember the remedy your mamma means; but I have a book full of very valuable prescriptions, which I will find at once."
"Pray don't trouble, Miss Toosey; I have no toothache at present; but if you would let my mother have it some time at your leisure, I should be greatly obliged."
And then they talked for five minutes about toothache; and John, smiling, showed such white, even teeth that you would have fancied that he had not had much trouble with them; and you would have fancied right.
"What a curious book you have here," John Rossitter said, looking at a book lying open on the table. It was an old book called "Voyages and Adventures;" and it was open at an awful picture of a cannibal feast, with a man being roasted in front of a fire, and a group of savages dancing ferociously around, in all the horrors of war-paint and feathers, and in a simple but effective costume of a necklace, a fringe round the waist, a ring in the nose, and a penny in the under lip.
Miss Toosey blushed; she was not used to fashionable picture galleries where Eves and Venuses, in unadorned beauty, are admired and criticised by the sensible young people of the present day.
"Though to be sure," she said afterwards, "it's not so bad, as the poor things are black, so they don't look quite so naked; and I always think a white pig is a more indecent looking creature than a black one."
So she turned his attention with great tact to the atlas that was also lying open on the table. It was the atlas that was in use fifty years ago, and which had been bought for Miss Toosey when she went to Miss Singer's "Academy for Young Ladies" to be finished. At this abode of learning, she had been taught to make wax flowers and do crochet, to speak a few words of what was supposed to be French, and to play a tune or two laboriously on the piano, an education which was considered very elegant and elaborate at that time, but would hardly, I am afraid, qualify her for one of the Oxford and Cambridge local examinations, or even for a very high standard at a national school. She had also learnt a little geography and the use of the globes, but not enough to survive for fifty years; and she felt quite at sea this morning, when she reached down the long-unused atlas to find the position of the diocese of Nawaub, and, after long study, had arrived at the conclusion that it must be on the celestial globe, which had always been a puzzle to her.
It was no wonder that she had not been able to find Nawaub, for where the towns and rivers and mountains and plains stood, which the Bishop had described, there was only marked on the map "Undiscovered territory," a vague-looking spot altogether, gradually shading off into the sea without any distinct red or blue line to mark the extent of terra firma, as in other parts of the world.
John Rossitter showed her where he imagined Nawaub to be, and then inquired if she were interested in Missions.
"Well, Mr. John," Miss Toosey said, "I don't mind telling you, though I have not told any one else, except Betty; but I've made up my mind to go out to Nawaub as soon as I can arrange everything."
"As a missionary, Miss Toosey?"
"Yes, Mr. John, as a missionary."
She spoke quite quietly, as if she were not sixty-five, with a tendency to asthma, and more than a tendency to rheumatism,—a nervous, fidgety old maid, to whom a journey to Bristol was an event to flutter the nerves, and cause sleepless nights, and take away the appetite for some time beforehand. I think the very magnitude of her resolution took away her attention from the terrible details, just as we lose sight of the precipices, chasms, and rocks that lie between, when we are looking to the mountain top. The way to Bristol was beset with dangers, such as losing the train, getting wrong change when you take your ticket, the draughtiness of the waiting-room, the incivility of the porters, the trains starting from unexpected platforms, the difficulty of opening doors and shutting windows, the constant tendency to get into smoking carriages by mistake, not to speak of railway accidents, and murderers and thieves for traveling companions; but these were lost sight of in the prospect of a journey to the other end of the world, full of real, substantial dangers of which she was ignorant. This ignorance was no doubt a great help to her in some ways; she could not form the slightest idea of what a missionary's life really is; nor can you, reader, nor can I, though we may have read missionary books by the dozen, which Miss Toosey had not. But this same ignorance, while it covered up many real difficulties, also painted grotesque horrors before Miss Toosey's mind, which might well have frightened any old maiden lady of sixty-five. She mixed up "Greenland's icy mountains" and "Afric's coral strands" with great impartiality in her ideas of Nawaub, forming such a frightful combination of sandy deserts and icebergs, lions and white bears, naked black savages and snow drifts, that the stoutest heart might have quailed at the prospect; and yet, when Miss Toosey came down to breakfast that morning, with her mind firmly made up to the venture, her little maid, Betty, did not notice anything remarkable about her, except that her cap was put on wrong side in front,—which was not a very unusual occurrence—and that she stirred up her tea with her spectacles once. Her interview with Betty had been rather upsetting. Betty was not quick at taking in new ideas; and she had got it so firmly into her head that Miss Toosey was wishing to administer a reproof to her about the handle of a certain vegetable dish, "which come to pieces in my hand as was that cracked," that it was some time before she could be led to think differently; but when at last a ray of the truth penetrated her mental fog, her feelings can only be described by her own ejaculation, "Lor, now!" which I fear may offend ears polite. She had not been at church the evening before, having stepped round to see her mother, who was "doing nicely, thank you, with her fourteenth, a fine boy, as kep' on with fits constant, till Mr. Glover half christened him, which James Joseph is his name, and better ever since."
So it required all Miss Toosey's eloquence to put her scheme before Betty's plain common sense, so as to appear anything but a very crazy notion after all; and it was not till after half an hour's severe talking, and more than one tear falling on the two and a half pounds of neck of mutton that Betty gave in, which she did by throwing her apron over her head, and declaring, with a sob, that if Miss Toosey "would go for to do such a thing, she (Betty) would take and go too, that she would;" and Miss Toosey had to entreat her to remember her poor mother before making up her mind to such a step.
But to come back to John Rossitter. He was a barrister, you must know, and used to examine witnesses and to turn their heads inside out to pick out the grains of truth concealed there; and then, too, he had a great talent for listening, which is a rarer and more valuable gift even than that of fluent speech, which he also had at command on occasion. He had, too, a sympathetic, attentive interest in his face, if it was assumed, would have made a great actor of him, and that opened the people's hearts to him, as the sun does the flowers. And so Miss Toosey found herself laying her mittened hand on his coat sleeve, and looking up into his eyes for sympathy, and calling him "my dear," "just for all the world," she said, "as if he had been an old woman too."
(John Rossitter and Miss Toosey)
And what did he think of it all? Was he laughing at her? Certainly now and then there was a little twitch at the corner of his mouth, and a sparkle in his eye, and once he laughed aloud in uncoupled amusement; but I like John Rossitter too well to believe that he was doing what Dr. Gardener Jones called "getting a rise out of the old lady." It was so very easy to make fun of Miss Toosey, and draw her out and show up her absurdities,—even Mr. Glover, who was not a wit, could be exquisitely funny at her expense. But John Rossitter was too much of a sportsman to aim with his small-bore rifle at a little sparrow in a hedgerow; he left that sort of game for the catapults and pop-guns of the yokels.
And so Miss Toosey confided to him all the difficulties that had already come crowding into her head as she sat over her work that morning, any one of which would have occupied her mind for days at any other time,—the giving notice to leave her house, the disposal of the furniture,—"and you know, Mr. John, I have some really valuable pictures and things;" and she could not trust herself to glance at the portrait of old Toosey over the fireplace, in a black satin waistcoat and bunch of seals, a frilled shirt, a high complexion, and shiny black hair, with Corinthian pillars behind him, lest her eyes, already brimful, should overflow. She even consulted him as to whether it would be worth while to order in more coal, and lamented that she should have taken her sitting in church for another whole year only last Saturday. And then, without quite knowing how, she found herself discussing that all-important subject, dress, with John Rossitter.
"Though to be sure, Mr. John, how should you know about such things?"
"Indeed, Miss Toosey, I'm not so ignorant as you think; and I quite agree with you that nothing looks so nice as a black silk on Sunday."
And Miss Toosey at once resolved to put a new braid round the bottom of the skirt as a good beginning of her preparations.
"I've got upstairs," Miss Toosey said reflectively, "a muslin dress that I wore when Rosina Smith was married. You remember Rosina Smith, Mr. John? No, of course not! She must have married before you were born. Sweet girl, Mr. John, very sweet! That dress has been rough dried for thirty years, and it's not quite in the fashion that ladies wear now; in fact, the skirt has only three breadths, which is scanty, you know, as dresses go; but I thought," and there Miss Toosey glanced timidly at the picture of the cannibals, which still lay open, "that perhaps it would not matter out there."
"No, indeed, Miss Toosey," John answered, "I should think that three breadths would appear liberal and ample allowance among people whose skirts"—he was going to say, "are conspicuous from their absence," but from Miss Toosey's heightened color he changed it to "are not court trains."
The next question was whether she had better have it got up before leaving Martel.
"It might get crumpled in packing; but then, how can one guess what sort of laundresses one may find at the other side of the world,—not used, most likely, to getting up fine things."
"I have heard," said John very seriously, "that in some parts missionaries try as much as possible to become like the nations they are wishing to convert, and that the Roman Catholic priests in China shave their heads and wear pigtails."
"Yes, Mr. John, I have heard that," Miss Toosey said; "and their wives" (you see she did not rightly understand the arrangements of our sister Church as to the celibacy of the clergy) "cripple their feet in small shoes, blacken their teeth, and let their finger-nails grow."
"I suppose," says John, drawing "Voyages and Adventures" nearer, and looking at the pictures reflectively, "that the Nawaub missionaries don't go in for that sort of thing."
Miss Toosey grew red to the very finger-tips, and her back stiffened with horror.
"No, Mr. John, there is a point beyond which I cannot go!"
"To be sure! to be sure!" said John consolingly, "and you see there were no signs of anything of the kind about the Bishop."
"Then there is the food," Miss Toosey went on, reminded of the subject by a whiff of roast mutton from the kitchen; "I'm afraid they are cannibals, and I don't think I ever could get used to such a thing, for I have never been able to touch sucking pig since an uncle of mine said it was just like a baby, though of course he was only in joke."
John reassured her on this point. But now he presented quite a new difficulty to her mind.
"Do you understand the Nawaub language? I am told it is difficult to acquire."
It had never occurred to Miss Toosey that these mysterious people, who were a sort of combination of monkey and chimney sweep, spoke a language of their own which she could not understand, and that they might not be able to comprehend the pure Somersetshire English with which she meant to convert them. She had never been brought much in contact with foreigners, so that she had never realized fully the effect of the Tower of Babel. One day a French beggar had come to the door, and Miss Toosey had summoned up courage to pronounce the magic words, "Parlez vous Francais," which was one of the sentences she had learned at Miss Singers's; and the beggar (the French being proverbially quick-witted) had recognized his native tongue; and thereupon ensued such a torrent of rapid speech and violent gesticulation, such gabbling and grimacing that Miss Toosey was quite frightened, and relapsed into plain English when she could edge in another word. But then this impudent fellow pretended he did not understand, and kept on saying, "Not know de English vot you mean," though Miss Toosey spoke slowly and very loud, and even finally tried a little broken English, which must be easier to foreigners than the ordinary style of speaking. But the man was obstinate, and went away at last shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders in a way which Miss Toosey felt was very impudent; "but then, poor creature, he may have been a papist."
"I've not thought about that, Mr. John; but I know that savages always like beads and looking-glasses, though what pleasure such remarkably plain people can get out of a looking-glass I can't imagine. But I've a lot of beads put away in one of my boxes up-stairs when I've time for a regular good turn-out; and as for looking-glasses, I saw some the other day at Gaiter's, with gilt frames, for a penny, that make one's nose look crooked, and one eye larger than the other, that I think will do nicely."
"By Jove!" says John, "an uncommonly good idea—the very thing! I'll take a look at them as I go home, which I must do now, or I shall be late for lunch."
But before leaving he advised her not to do anything in a hurry, but before taking any decided step, such as having her dress starched, or giving notice to leave her house, or laying in a stock of looking-glasses, to consult some old friend, on whose opinion she could rely.
"There's Mackenzie," he said, "why not go to him?"
But Miss Toosey had an uncomfortable feeling about lawyers, connecting them with verses in the gospels beginning with "woe;" and though the little Mackenzies were her great friends and constant visitors, she avoided their father. She suggested Miss Baker; but when she added that she was "a really Christian person," John discouraged the idea, and they finally agreed that she should consult Mr. Peters, who had known her nearly all her life.
"He's not a bad sort of old fellow out of church," John said, rather shocking Miss Toosey by his want of reverence for the rector; "and he has got some sense in his head as well as good nature. So you go to him, Miss Toosey, and the next time I come home, I'll come in and have another crack with you, if you are not off to the North Pole or the Moon."
John Rossitter smiled more than once as he drove home in the dog-cart, at the recollection of Miss Toosey's confidences; but I fear my readers may have grown impatient of the absurdities of an ignorant old woman, who had got a craze in her head. Yes, she was old and poor and weak and ignorant, it is quite true. It was a very contemptible barley-loaf which she had to offer, compared with your fine, white, wheaten cake of youth and riches and strength and learning; but remember she offered her best freely, willingly, faithfully; and when once a thing is offered it is no longer the little barley-loaf in the lad's hand, but the miraculous satisfying Bread of Heaven in the hand of the Lord of the Harvest, more than sufficient for the hungry multitude.