Mrs Jenkles’s Morning Call.
“Been waiting, old lady?” said Sam Jenkles, throwing open the apron of the cab as he reached his wife’s side.
“Not a minute, Sam; but why weren’t you driving? Is he restive?”
“Restive!” said Sam; “I only wish he was. I’d give ’arf a sovrin’ to see ’im bolt.”
“And suppose I was in the cab!” said Mrs Jenkles.
“There, don’t you be alarmed. Jump in. Ratty wouldn’t run away with you inside, my dear—nor any one else.”
Sam rattled the apron down, hopped on to his perch, chirruped to Ratty, and, for a wonder, he went decently out on to Pentonville Hill, past the Angel, along Upper Street, and round by the Cock at Highbury.
“What do you think of that, old lady?” said Sam, opening his little lid to peer down at his wife. “Comfortable?”
“Comfortable—yes,” said Mrs Jenkles, looking up and beaming. “And you said he wouldn’t go.”
“He knows as you’re here,” said Sam; “and that’s his aggrawating nature. He’s a-selling me.”
“Selling you, Sam?”
“Yes; a-making out as I grumbles without cause. Sit fast; I’ll bowl yer up there in no time.”
“No, Sam, don’t—pray, don’t go fast!” said his wife, in alarm.
“You sit still; it’s all right, I tell yer. Good wives is scarce, Sally, so you won’t be spilled.”
Only half convinced, Mrs Jenkles held on very tightly by the sides of the cab, till, well up now in the geography of the place, Sam ran round by the better road, and drew up at B. Sturt’s grocery warehouse.
“No,” said Sam, as Mrs Jenkles made for the shop; “side door, and ring once.”
As he spoke, Barney’s ill-looking face appeared at the door; and as Mrs Jenkles went and rang—
“Mornin’,” said Sam.
Barney scowled, and blew a cloud of tobacco at him.
“Keb, sir?” said Sam, mounting to his perch.
Barney growled, and then spat.
“Run yer up to town in no time. Cheap trains to S’burban ’andicap,” said Sam, grinning.
But Barney turned his back as the cab drove off, and asked his wife—“What, them people wanted with kebs now?”
Mrs Lane admitted her visitor, and, in a hesitating way, asked her upstairs, where her daughter, looking very pale, was seated by the window, working for very life at the hard, blue cloth garments upon which they were engaged.
The girl rose as Mrs Jenkles entered, and bent towards her, flushing slightly beneath the scrutinising gaze to which she was subjected.
At the same time, Mrs Jenkles made a short bob, and then another to Mrs Lane, who placed a chair for her, which she declined to take.
“It was my husband, ma’am,” said Mrs Jenkles, “who came up to you the other day.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Lane. “You have come from him. He brought you to-day?”
“I said I should come and see you,” said Mrs Jenkles, looking sharply from one to the other.
“And he told you?” said Mrs Lane, hesitatingly.
“Yes; my husband tells me everything,” said Mrs Jenkles, stiffly.
“Then you know how good he was to mamma?” said the girl, coming forward.
“My husband’s one of the best men under the sun, Miss; only he has his weaknesses.”
“Yes, it was weak,” said Mrs Lane, with a touch of bitterness in her voice—“and to such strangers.”
“If you mean about the money, ma’am,” said Mrs Jenkles, in the same uncompromising manner, “I don’t; I meant something else.”
Mrs Lane directed an imploring look at her daughter, and the girl hastily took up her work, as did her mother, and stitched away.
“That may have been weak, and it may not,” said Mrs Jenkles, who took in everything. “It all depends.”
“It was a most generous act,” said Mrs Lane, in a low, pained voice, “and will bear its fruit. But you will sit down?”
Mrs Jenkles seated herself on the very edge of her chair, bolt upright, while Mrs Lane drew out a well-worn purse, took from it half a sovereign, and laid it upon the table.
“I am ashamed to offer you so little of it back,” said Mrs Lane, “but it was all we could get together in so short a time. You shall have the rest—as we can make it up.”
“Thanky,” said Mrs Jenkles, shortly; but without attempting to touch the coin.
There was a pause then, only broken by that weary sound of hard stitching, which tells of sore fingers and aching eyes.
“How much more have you got in that purse?” said Mrs Jenkles, shortly.
A faint flush of resentment appeared in the mothers face, and the daughter darted an angry look at the speaker. But it died out in an instant, as with a sad, weary action, Mrs Lane reopened the purse, and shook out two more coins beside the half-sovereign upon the table.
“Two shillings,” she said, faintly; “it is all.”
Mrs Jenkles sat very still, and the stitching went on like the ticking of two clocks, measuring out the short span of the workers’ lives.
Mrs Jenkles’s eyes were busy, and she saw, as they went over the room, how shabbily it was furnished, how thinly mother and daughter were clothed, how pale and weary was their aspect, while the girl’s eyes were unnaturally bright.
At last Mrs Jenkles’s eyes caught sight of a little white corner in one of the compartments of the open purse, and she gave a hysterical gulp.
There was a heap of thick cloth work lying on the table between the two women—the one coarse, unrefined, but comfortably clothed and fed, the other refined and worn to skin and bone—and this heap covered Mrs Jenkles’s actions as she rose, walked to the table, and then, without a word, went out of the room.
“Has she gone?” whispered Netta, as Mrs Jenkles’s retreating footsteps were heard.
“Yes,” said Mrs Lane, with a weary sigh, and she worked on.
“It was very, very cruel,” said the girl, with her voice shaking, and, in spite of her efforts, a heavy sob would make its way from her breast, and the tears stole down her cheeks. “Mother, darling, what shall we do?”
“Hope and wait,” was the response, in a low, pained voice. “It was only their due. The husband was very kind.”
“But the two shillings—for bread,” sobbed the girl. “Mamma, does papa know—can he know of this?”
Mrs Lane leaned back in her chair, and held one hand over her eyes for a few moments; then, with a gesture to her child to be silent, she once more bent over her work.
Netta brushed the tears from her eyes, drew in her breath as if in pain, and worked on in silence for a quarter of an hour, when steps were once more heard upon the stairs.
The eyes of mother and daughter met, those of the latter in dread; but it was not the heavy step of Barney, nor the snatchy shuffle of his wife, but a quick, decided, solid footstep, and the moment afterwards Mrs Jenkles re-entered the room, and closed the door.
Mrs Lane rose in surprise, and took a step to meet her. Directly after, completely broken down, she was sobbing on the coarse, uneducated woman’s neck; for she had seen at a glance that the money still lay upon the table by the empty purse—empty now, for the duplicate it had contained was gone—as, with a loving, sisterly movement, the cabman’s wife slipped back upon her finger the ring she had been to redeem, and then, kissing her upon the forehead, whispered—
“My poor dear, what you must have suffered! Hush, hush! There, there!” said Mrs Jenkles, after a pause, with tears streaming down her own simple, honest face; and she patted and tried to soothe her forsaken sister as she would a child.
“There, there, there; don’t you cry too, my pretty,” she said, as Netta flew to her, and kissed her on the cheek. “Come, come, come, we must hold up. There, that’s better; now sit down.”
“And I said God had forsaken us in our distress,” sobbed Mrs Lane. “I little thought what forms his angels took.”
“There, there, there,” said Mrs Jenkles, wiping her eyes with a rapid motion; “if you talk like that you’ll drive me away. I told Sam I’d come up to see, for I didn’t know; and he is so easily led away, and I thought all sorts of things. But, bless and save us, he never told me half enough. There, there, wipe your eyes.”
As she spoke, with a delicacy for which one might not have given her credit, she turned her back, leaving mother and daughter sobbing in each other’s arms, while she slipped the money back in the purse, and placed it on the chimney-piece. Her next act was to take off her bonnet and shawl, hang them behind the door, and take up Netta’s work and chair, beginning to stitch away with a vigour that astonished the girl, as she tore herself away from her mother, and came to resume her toil.
“No, no, my dear; I’ll give you a rest while you see about a bit of dinner; for,” she said, with a cheery smile, “you’ll let me have a bit with you to-day, now, won’t you? I’ll try and earn it.”
The girl’s tears were ready to flow again, but Mrs Jenkles’s finger was shaken menacingly at her, and she turned to her mother, who rose, dried her eyes, and came and kissed the broad, smooth forehead.
“God will bless you for this,” she said, softly; and then the work went on once more, with such sunshine in the room as had not seemed to enter it for weeks.
“Ah!” said Mrs Jenkles, as she bit off a fresh length of thread with her firm, white teeth. “Rents are dear up this part, I suppose.”
“I pay seven and sixpence a week for this and the back room,” said Mrs Lane.
“They’d be dear at half with such furniture,” said Mrs Jenkles.
There was another spell of sewing, when Mrs Lane said that she would see about the dinner; and then, as if reading Mrs Jenkles’s thoughts—
“I don’t like letting Netta go out alone.”
“And quite right, too, with her face,” said Mrs Jenkles. “But she looks tired. You ought to walk out every day for an hour or two.”
The girl gave her a pitiful look.
So the day wore on, Mrs Jenkles taking dinner and tea with them, and seeing that each of them partook of a hearty meal, leaving about half-past nine with a bundle.
It was sharp work to get home before Sam should arrive from the yard; but Mrs Jenkles managed it, had the table laid, the supper out, and the beer fetched, before he came in, took off his shiny hat and old coat, and seating himself began to fill his pipe.
“Well, old lady,” he said, “what time did yer get back?”
“About a quarter of an hour ago,” said Mrs Jenkles, as she took out some of the work upon which she had been engaged.
Sam whistled and stared.
“What’s them?” he said, pointing with his pipe at the work.
“Only some slop-work I want to finish.”
Mrs Jenkles seemed so busy, that she could not look up and meet her husband’s eye. In fact, to use her own expression, she was all of a twitter, and did not know what Sam would say; for though she nominally ruled him, Sam had a will of his own.
“Well, and did you find out about ’em?”
“Yes, Sam,” said Mrs Jenkles, without raising her eyes.
“Bad lot, aint they?” he said, puffing away at his pipe.
Mrs Jenkles shook her head.
“What, aint I been took in, then?” said Sam. “Aint they deep, designing people, as got hold of yer poor innocent husband, and swindled him out of thirty bob?”
“Oh, Sam, Sam!” exclaimed Mrs Jenkles, with her lip quivering, “I never see anything so pitiful in my life.”
“Poof!” exclaimed Sam, bursting out into a guffaw, as he turned in his seat, hugged the back of the chair, and shook with laughter. “That’s my poor, silly, soft old wife, as can’t be trusted out. Did they offer to pay you any of the money back?”
Mrs Jenkles nodded.
“How much?”
“Half a sovereign, Sam.”
“Well, that’s something; and jolly honest, too!”
“But I didn’t take it, Sam,” said Mrs Jenkles, dropping her work, to go and rest her hands upon his shoulder.
“You didn’t take it?”
“No, Sam, dear.”
“Then you’ve been and let ’em have more.”
“Yes, Sam, dear.”
“There’s a wife for you,” he said—“there’s a helpmate; and I aint made my guv’nor’s money to-day by four bob.”
“I couldn’t help it, Sam—I couldn’t, indeed,” she said; bursting into tears; “it was so pitiful—she’s a real lady, I’m sure, and her daughter, straining over that heart-breaking work; oh! it was more than I could bear.”
“I wasn’t such a werry great fool, Sally,” he said.
“Oh no, Sam. Oh no. But I haven’t told you all yet.”
“You haven’t?”
“No, dear.”
“Well, put me out of my misery at once,” said Sam, “that’s all.”
“Don’t be angry with me, Sam, it’ll come back to us some way, I hope; and if it don’t, we shall only have done what thousands more would have done if they had only known.”
“Let’s have it,” said Sam, gruffly.
“They’re paying seven and six, Sam, for those wretched rooms, and the woman’s a horrid creature.”
“Yes, she is that,” said Sam, nodding.
“And the poor young lady’s frightened to death of the man, who insulted her once. He is a dreadful-looking fellow.”
“Wuss, ever so much,” said Sam, nodding at his pipe-bowl.
“And I—I—”
“Told ’em about our being about to be empty; that’s about what you did,” said Sam.
“Yes, Sam.”
“Well, you’re a nice one. Of course you’ve put the rent up?”
“No, I haven’t, Sam,” said Mrs Jenkles. “I’ve—”
“Asked only the same. Why, our rooms is a palace to theirs—not as I ever see a palace to know.”
“They’re smaller, Sam,” said Mrs Jenkles.
“Precious little,” said Sam. “Well, you’ve offered ’em at six bob, eh? Well, you are a nice one; and doing their work, too!”
“No, Sam, dear, I told them they could have them for five shillings a week.”
“Five!” shouted Sam.
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs Jenkles, pitifully; “don’t be cross, dear. They said they wouldn’t take them.”
“That’s a comfort,” said Sam.
“But,” exclaimed Mrs Jenkles, hurriedly, “I persuaded them to come. I told them that they would be saving half a crown a week, and that in twelve weeks they would have paid off the thirty shillings you lent them, and they’re coming.”
“And how many more weeks will it take to pay off the money you lent them?” said Sam, facing round sharply.
“Only three, dear; it was only seven and sixpence, Sam.”
“You’ll ruin me,” said Sam. “You know as we’re as poor as can be,” he went on, with his eyes averted from her.
“No, Sam, we’re not; for we’ve a comfortable home, and we always save a little.”
“And you go and make jellies and give away.”
“How did you know that?” said Mrs Jenkles, sharply.
“Ah! you women can’t go on long in your wicked ways without being found out,” said Sam. “I heerd on it.”
“The poor child was dying, same as our poor little Dick was, Sam, and—and—”
Sam turned his head farther away.
“And now you invite poor people to come, as ’ll never be able to pay their bit o’ rent; an’ the end on it all ’ll be the workus.”
“Oh, Sam; pray, pray, don’t! Do I deserve all this?” and the poor woman burst out sobbing.
“God bless you! no, old lady,” cried Sam, pulling her on to his knee, and giving her a sounding kiss, as she laid her head upon his shoulder. “It ’ll all come right in the long run; see if it don’t. Life aint worth having if you can’t do, a bit o’ good in it.”
“Then you really aint cross with me, Sam?”
“Not a bit,” said Sam. “Look at me. Sally, my old gal, it’s my belief as them angels as takes the toll at the gate up above in the shiny way ’ll let you go through free.”
“Sam!” cried Mrs Jenkles, trying to lay her hand on his mouth.
“And look here, old lady,” he continued, stroking her face; “when that does come off, which I hope it won’t be for scores o’ years to come, you keep werry, werry tight hold o’ my hand, and then, perhaps, I shall stand a chance of getting into heaven too.”
End of Volume One.