Volume Two—Chapter Ten.
Mutterings.
D. Wragg was out on business, down by the docks. He had left home directly after breakfast, telling his lodger, the little Frenchman, that he was “good to buy five hundred of zebras, or a hundred of grays, or a miskellaneous assortment of anything fresh brought over;” and he tapped his breast-pocket as he spoke, winking and jerking himself up and down.
“Dessay I could find a customer for a monkey, if I brought one home.”
A sharp glance was directed at Patty by Janet, as the dealer spoke; for Wragg’s absence being likely to last the whole day, while Canau’s engagements would occupy him for a considerable portion of it, Mrs Pellet had been persuaded to let Patty come and bear her friend company during the time when she would otherwise have been left alone in charge of D. Wragg’s stock-in-trade.
“Coming back,” said D. Wragg, “I shall see about the four-wheeler, so as we can go down comfortable. What time shall we start?”
He looked at Janet as he spoke, but she was thoughtful and silent; coming back though into the present, upon being again addressed.
“All right, then!” said D. Wragg; “to-morrow morning, directly arter breakfast, say half arter eight, and that will be nine; and you and Mother Winks will be sure and get a basket all ready.”
D. Wragg took his departure, after an affectionate glance all round at the birds and the rest of his stock-in-trade, while the little Frenchman stood lighting his cigarette with the match handed him by Janet.
“You will stay with Janet?” he said to Patty, as he turned to go.
“Yes; she has promised,” said Janet, quickly; “but you will be back in an hour to paint the birds?”
“Good! yes, in one hour;” and raising his hat, he replaced it, old and pinched of brim, very much on one side, and sauntered out.
The two girls, left now alone, stood silently in the shop for a few minutes, and then entered the back-room, where, in a quiet, pre-occupied manner, Janet commenced arranging cardboard, gum, and various packets of feathers, upon the table; an operation interrupted almost directly by a loud tapping upon the shop-counter.
Patty turned to answer the summons for her friend, but, on reaching the glass-door, she started back, looking pale and anxious.
“Oh, pray go!” she whispered to Janet, whose dark eyes were fixed maliciously upon her.
“So it is the gay cavalier, is it?” laughed Janet, in a harsh angry fashion.
“No, no!” whispered Patty, “but that dreadful man. He follows me, and always comes to the shop when he thinks I am here.”
“I’ll answer him,” said Janet, fiercely; and then in a whisper, “should you have turned back if it had been some one else?”
Patty’s sole reply was a look of reproach, one, though, that spoke volumes, as the deformed girl left the room to encounter the heavy, surly-voiced young man, who, upon being sharply asked what he wanted—
“Didn’t quite know. Perhaps it were a bird, or it might be a ferret; but he wasn’t quite sure. How-so-be, she wasn’t the one as was in the shop the other day. Where was the other one? Oh! she was busy, was she? Then p’raps he’d call again;” after which the heavy gentleman loitered slowly out of the shop, to hang about the window, glancing in at the birds and chewing straws.
“He’s gone!” said Janet, returning to the room. “He’s a hideous wretch, ugly as I am. Such impudence! He did not want to buy anything. But what a little coward you are!”
“Yes,” sighed Patty, “I am—I know I am. Ah! Janet,” she continued, after a short pause, “I wish I were a lady!”
“For the sake of the gay cavalier, of course,” laughed Janet, sneeringly, and then she looked angrily across at her companion, who bent her head, whispering to herself—
“She won’t believe me—she won’t believe me.”
Janet’s long fingers now grew very busy over her work, as she nimbly arranged the wing, tail, back, and breast feathers of a partridge, with gum, upon a stiff piece of card, following, with an accuracy learned of the birds amongst which she had so long dwelt, the soft curves and graceful swellings of the natural form, making up pair after pair of ornaments, destined, after being finished off by Canau, and prettily mounted, to be disposed of by D. Wragg at a profitable rate.
Punctual to his time, the little Frenchman returned, and, quite at home, sauntered into the room.
“Good girls! good girls!” he said, lightly. “Now the colours and the brush. Did the Madame Vinks bring the music she said she would borrow from the chef d’orchestre? No? Ah! then, but I am disappoint, and must wait. Janet, that bird is too big—round—plump—too much like the Madame Vinks; but we will paint his beak and leg. He does look fit for the chef—the cook—and not for the ornament.”
Then taking up cakes, first of one colour and then of another, he moistened a camel’s hair pencil in the gum, and, with the skill of a finished artist, gave the finishing touches, beaks, eyes, legs, to the young girl’s work.
In the midst of the operation, though, there was again the sound of a step in the shop.
Patty rose and left the room, for Janet’s fingers were busy with the feathers, and she determined this time not to let cowardice prevent her from doing her friend the little service. The deformed girl’s manner, however, evinced but little gratitude for the act, for she sat with bent head, but flashing eyes and distended nostrils, eagerly listening to catch the slightest word.
And eager whispered words those seemed to her to be, but replied to only in monosyllables, and at last, when she raised her head and gazed through the open door, she winced as if she had been struck, on seeing a be-ringed hand stretched across the counter, and tightly holding one of Patty’s little white palms.
Janet did not heed that the young girl seemed to be vainly trying to release that hand, as she stood right back against the cages at the side of the shop.
It was a bright hot summer day, with window and door open, so as to catch every wandering breeze that might lose itself in the vast maze of bricks and mortar; and as Janet had that one glance in at the shop, the door of communication banged loudly, and her view was cut off.
For a moment the girl’s face was contracted by pain; then a fierce malicious look swept over it as she rose to re-open the door.
“No, no—no, no, mon enfant; let the door rest,” said Monsieur Canau. “Wait till I have finished this one bird. Patty will be here directly.”
Janet shrunk back into her chair, craning her neck forward, though, as she tried in vain to make out the words that were spoken. Her teeth gnawed her lip, and her nails seemed to be pressed into her hands, while the twitching of her wide nostrils told of the agitation that moved her so strongly.
Twice she made as though to leap up, determined not to bear longer the restraint put upon her, but only to subside again into her eager listening attitude, as Monsieur Canau still painted on, humming softly an operatic air the while, as from time to time he stood to watch the progress of his work.
He was evidently totally ignorant of what was taking place in the shop, his occupation for the time being completely filling his mind, so that neither did he notice the agitation of Janet, which grew each moment more marked and decided in character.
At last the girl sprang sharply up, and walked towards the door, but only to be stayed by Canau.
“A moment, little one!” he said; “the Indian ink is not here. Reach it down for me from the closet.”
With trembling hands, Janet crossed to the cupboard, and strove to find the cake of paint; but it was beyond her reach, and she had to take a chair before she could find it and return to the table.
“Good! Now mix me a little upon that saucer; not too much.”
Janet obeyed without a word, and still Canau did not notice her agitation.
At last, though, she was free; and with eyes glittering, she made towards the door, just as she could hear now some hurried words, uttered in a low tone, as if some one were pleading importunately.
Then a few quick broken sentences followed, and one of the cages was slightly moved from its place.
Another moment, and Janet’s hand was upon the fastening of the door, and she had thrown it open in time to see Patty’s drawn farther and farther over the counter in spite of her resistance, and there it was held.
There were more words—hurried, eager words—a faint cry of remonstrance, and then Patty’s hand was snatched away with a violent effort, and she rushed, hot and excited, into the room.
“Aha! there, mind, my child,” said Canau; “but you will make the feathers fly. What is it? Has one of the little dogs got loose, and have you hunted him? Eh? Ah, ma foi! but you are hot and red-faced, and angry! Has any one dared—but what is this?”
Monsieur Canau uttered this last query in fierce tones, for, following rapidly upon the entrance of Patty, there was the dislodging a cage or two, the rattle of some chains, and a general fluttering amongst D. Wragg’s feathered possessions, as Lionel Redgrave, in full pursuit, forced his way into the little room.