Chapter Two.
Tells all about him.
“Pray, don’t ’ee be angry wi’ him, mum,” said Jupp appealingly, as the somewhat flustered female advanced towards the mite, laying hands on his collar with apparently hostile intentions.
“I ain’t a going to be angry,” she replied a trifle crossly, as perhaps was excusable under the circumstances, carrying out the while, however, what had evidently been her original idea of giving the mite “a good shaking,” and thereby causing his small person to oscillate violently to and fro as if he were crossing the Bay of Biscay in a Dutch trawler with a choppy sea running. “I ain’t angry to speak of; but he’s that tormenting sometimes as to drive a poor creature a’most out of her mind! Didn’t I tell ’ee,” she continued, turning round abruptly to the object of her wrath and administering an extra shake by way of calling him to attention. “Didn’t I tell ’ee as you weren’t to go outdoors in all the slop and slush—didn’t I tell ’ee now?”
But in answer the mite only harked back to his old refrain.
“I want do d’an’ma,” he said with stolid defiance, unmoved alike by his shaking or the nurse’s expostulation.
“There, that’s jest it,” cried she, addressing Jupp the porter again, seeing that he was a fine handsome fellow and well-proportioned out of the corner of her eye without looking at him directly, in that unconscious and highly diplomatic way in which women folk are able to reckon up each other on the sly and take mental stock of mankind. “Ain’t he aggravating? It’s all that granma of his that spoils him; and I wish she’d never come nigh the place! When Master Teddy doesn’t see her he’s as good as gold, that he is, the little man!”
She then, with the natural inconsequence and variability of her sex, immediately proceeded to hug and kiss the mite as affectionately as she had been shaking and vituperating him the moment before, he putting up with the new form of treatment as calmly and indifferently as he had received the previous scolding.
“He’s a fine little chap,” said Jupp affably, conceiving a better opinion of the nurse from her change of manner as well as from noticing, now that her temporary excitement had evaporated, that she was a young and comely woman with a very kindly face. “He told me as how he were going to Lun’non.”
“Did he now?” she exclaimed admiringly.
“He’s the most owdacious young gen’leman as ever was, I think; for he’s capable, young as he is, not long turned four year old, of doin’ a’most anything. Look now at all them things of his as he’s brought from home!”
“That were his luggage like,” observed Jupp, smiling and showing his white teeth, which contrasted well with his black beard, making him appear very nice-looking really, the nurse thought.
“The little rogue!” said she enthusiastically, hugging the mite again with such effusion that Jupp wished he could change places with him, he being unmarried and “an orphan man,” as he described himself, “without chick or child to care for him.”
“He ought to be a good ’un with you a looking after him,” he remarked with a meaning glance, which, although the nurse noticed, she did not pretend to see.
“So he is—sometimes, eh, Master Teddy?” she said, bending down again over the mite to hide a sudden flush which had made her face somehow or other crimson again.
“Ess,” replied the hero of the occasion, who, soothed by all these social amenities passing around him, quickly put aside his stolid demeanour and became his little prattling self again.
However, such was his deep foresight that he did not forget to grasp so favourable an opportunity for settling the initial difficulty between himself and nurse in the matter of the kitten, which had led up logically to all that had happened, and so prevent any misunderstanding on the point in future.
“Oo won’t tate way kitty?” he asked pleadingly, holding up with both hands the struggling little animal, which Jupp had incontinently dropped from his knee when he rose up, on the door of the waiting-room being suddenly opened and the impromptu picnic organised by the mite and himself brought to an abrupt termination, by the unexpected advent of the nurse on the scene.
“No, Master Teddy, I promise you I won’t,” she replied emphatically. “You can bathe the poor little brute in the basin and then put it all wet in your bed afterwards, as you did this morning, or anything else you like. Bless you, you can eat it if it so please you, and I shan’t interfere!”
“All wite, den; we frens ’dain,” lisped the mite, putting up his little rosebud mouth so prettily for a kiss, in token of peace and forgiveness on his part, that the nurse could not help giving him another hug.
This display of affection had unfortunately the same effect on Jupp as before, causing the miserable porter to feel acute pangs of envy; although, by rights, he had no direct interest in the transaction, and was only an outside observer, so to speak!
By way of concealing his feelings, therefore, he turned the conversation.
“And have you come far arter him, miss, if I may make so bold as to ax the question?” he said hesitatingly, being somewhat puzzled in his mind as to whether “miss” or “mum” was the correct form in which to address such a pleasant young woman, who might or might not be a matron for all he could tell.
He evidently hit upon the right thing this time; for, she answered him all the more pleasantly, with a bright smile on her face.
“Why, ever so far!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you know that large red brick house t’other side of the village, where Mr Vernon lives—a sort of old-fashioned place, half covered with ivy, and with a big garden?”
“Parson Vernon’s, eh?”
“Yes, Master Teddy’s his little son.”
“Lor’, I thought he were a single man, lone and lorn like myself, and didn’t have no children,” said Jupp.
“That’s all you know about it,” retorted the nurse. “You must be a stranger in these parts; and, now I come to think on it, I don’t believe as I ever saw you here before.”
“No, miss, I was only shifted here last week from the Junction, and hardly knows nobody,” said Jupp apologetically. “For the rights o’ that, I ain’t been long in the railway line at all, having sarved ten years o’ my time aboard a man-o’-war, and left it thinking I’d like to see what a shore billet was like; and so I got made a porter, miss, my karacter being good on my discharge.”
“Dear me, what a pity!” cried the nurse. “I do so love sailors.”
“If you’ll only say the word, miss, I’ll go to sea again to-morrow then!” ejaculated Jupp eagerly.
“Oh no!” laughed the nurse; “why, then I shouldn’t see any more of you; but I was telling you about Master Teddy. Parson Vernon, as you call him, has four children in all—three of them girls, and Master Teddy is the only boy and the youngest of the lot.”
“And I s’pose he’s pretty well sp’ilt?” suggested Jupp.
“You may well say that,” replied the other. “He was his mother’s pet, and she, poor lady, died last year of consumption, so he’s been made all the more of since by his little sisters, and the grandmother when she comes down, as she did at Christmas. You’d hardly believe it, small as he looks he almost rules the house; for his father never interferes, save some terrible row is up and he hears him crying—and he can make a noise when he likes, can Master Teddy!”
“Ess,” said the mite at this, thinking his testimony was appealed to, and nodding his head affirmatively.
“And he comed all that way from t’other side o’ the village by hisself?” asked Jupp by way of putting a stop to sundry other endearments the fascinating young woman was recklessly lavishing on the little chap. “Why, it’s more nor a mile!”
“Aye, that he has. Just look at him,” said she, giving the mite another shake, although this time it was of a different description to the one she had first administered.
He certainly was not much to look at in respect of stature, being barely three feet high; but he was a fine little fellow for all that, with good strong, sturdy limbs and a frank, fearless face, which his bright blue eyes and curling locks of brown hair ornamented to the best advantage.
As before mentioned, he had evidently not been prepared for a journey when he made his unexpected appearance at the station, being without a hat on his head and having a slightly soiled pinafore over his other garments; while his little feet were encased in thin house shoes, or slippers, that were ill adapted for walking through the mud and snow.
Now that the slight differences that had arisen between himself and the nurse had been amicably settled, he was in the best of spirits, with his little face puckered in smiles and his blue eyes twinkling with fun as he looked up at the two observing him.
“He is a jolly little chap!” exclaimed Jupp, bending down and lifting him up in his strong arms, the mite the while playfully pulling at his black beard; “and I tell you what, miss, I think he’s got a very good nurse to look after him!”
“Do you?” said she, adding a moment afterwards as she caught Jupp’s look of admiration, “Ah, that’s only what you say now. You didn’t think so when I first came in here after him; for you asked me not to beat him—as if I would!”
“Lor’, I never dreamt of such a thing!” cried he with much emphasis, the occasion seeming to require it. “I only said that to coax you like, miss. I didn’t think as you’d hurt a hair of his head.”
“Well, let it be then,” replied she, accepting this amende and setting to work gathering together the mite’s goods and chattels that were still lying on the floor of the waiting-room—with the exception of the kitten, which he had himself again assumed the proprietorship of and now held tightly in his arms, even as he was clasped by Jupp and elevated above the porter’s shoulder. “I must see about taking him home again.”
“Shall I carry him for you, miss?” asked Jupp. “The down-train ain’t due for near an hour yet, and I dessay I can get my mate to look out for me while I walks with you up the village.”
“You are very kind,” said she; “but, I hardly like to trouble you?”
“No trouble at all, miss,” replied Jupp heartily. “Why, the little gentleman’s only a featherweight.”
“That’s because you’re such a fine strong man. I find him heavy enough, I can tell you.”
Jupp positively blushed at her implied compliment. “I ain’t much to boast of ag’in a delicate young ’ooman as you,” he said at last; “but, sartenly, I can carry a little shaver like this; and, besides, look how the snow’s a coming down.”
“Well, if you will be so good, I’d be obliged to you,” interposed the nurse hurriedly as if to stop any further explanations on Jupp’s part, he having impulsively stepped nearer to her at that moment.
“All right then!” cried he, his jolly face beaming with delight at the permission to escort her. “Here, Grigson!”
“That’s me!” shouted another porter appearing mysteriously from the back of the office, in answer to Jupp’s stentorian hail.
“Just look out for the down-train, ’case I ain’t back in time. I’m just agoin’ to take some luggage for this young woman up to the village.”
“Aye, just so,” replied the other with a sly wink, which, luckily for himself, perhaps, Jupp did not see, as, holding the mite tenderly in his arms, with his jacket thrown over him to protect him from the snow, he sallied out from the little wayside station in company with the nurse, the latter carrying all Master Teddy’s valuables, which she had re-collected and tied up again carefully within the folds of the red pocket-handkerchief bundle wherein their proprietor had originally brought them thither.
Strange to say, the mite did not exhibit the slightest reluctance in returning home, as might have been expected from the interruption of his projected plan of going to London to see his “d’an’ma.”
On the contrary, his meeting with Jupp and introduction to him as a new and estimable acquaintance, as well as the settlement of all outstanding grievances between himself and his nurse, appeared to have quite changed his views as to his previously-cherished expedition; so that he was now as content and cheerful as possible, looking anything but like a disappointed truant.
Indeed, he more resembled a successful conqueror making a triumphal entry into his capital than a foiled strategist defeated in the very moment of victory!
“I like oo,” he said, pulling at Jupp’s black beard in high glee and chuckling out aloud in great delight as they proceeded towards the village, the nurse clinging to the porter’s other and unoccupied arm to assist her progress through the snow-covered lane, down which the wind rushed every now and then in sudden scurrying gusts, whirling the white flakes round in the air and blinding the wayfarers as they plodded painfully along.
“I don’t know what I should have done without your help,” she observed fervently after a long silence between the two, only broken by Master Teddy’s shouts of joy when a snow-flake penetrating beneath Jupp’s jacket made the kitten sneeze. “I’m sure I should never have got home to master’s with the boy!”
“Don’t name it,” whispered Jupp hoarsely beneath his beard, which the snow had grizzled, lending it a patriarchal air. “I’m only too proud, miss, to be here!” and he somehow or other managed to squeeze her arm closer against his side with his, making the nurse think how nice it was to be tall and strong and manly like the porter!
“They’ll be in a rare state about Master Teddy at the vicarage!” she said after they had plodded on another hundred yards, making but slow headway against the drifting snow and boisterous wind. “I made him angry by taking away his kitten, I suppose, and so he determined to make off to his gran’ma; for we missed him soon after the children’s dinner. I thought he was in the study with Mr Vernon; but when I came to look he wasn’t there, and so we all turned out to search for him. Master made sure we’d find him in the village; but I said I thought he’d gone to the station, far off though it was, and you see I was right!”
“You’re a sensible young woman,” said Jupp. “I’d have thought the same.”
“Go on with your nonsense; get along!” cried she mockingly, in apparent disbelief of Jupp’s encomiums, and pretending to wrench her arm out of his so as to give point to her words.
“I’ll take my davy, then,” he began earnestly; but, ere he could say any more, a voice called out in front of them, amid the eddying flakes:
“Hullo, Mary! Is that you?”
“That’s my master,” she whispered to Jupp; and then answered aloud, “Yes, sir, and I’ve found Master Teddy.”
“Is Mary your name?” said Jupp to her softly in the interlude, while scrunching footsteps could be heard approaching them, although no one yet could be perceived through the rifts of snow. “I think it the prettiest girl’s name in the world!”
“Go ’long!” cried she again; but she sidled up to him and held on to his arm once more as she spoke, the blasts of the storm at the moment being especially boisterous.
“Is that you, Mary?” repeated the voice in front, now much nearer, her answer not having been heard apparently, on account of the wind blowing from the speaker towards them.
“Yes, sir,” she screamed out. “I’ve found Master Teddy, and he’s all right.”
She was heard this time.
“Thank God!” returned the voice in trembling accents, nearer still; and then a thin, haggard, careworn-looking man in clergyman’s dress rushed up to them.
He was quite breathless, and his face pale with emotion.
“Padie! Padie!” exclaimed the mite, raising himself up on Jupp’s shoulder and stretching out one of his little hands to the new-comer while the other grasped the kitten. “I’se turn back, I’se turn back to oo!”
“My boy, my little lamb! God be praised for his mercy!” cried the other; and the next instant Teddy was locked in his father’s arms in a close embrace, kitten and all.
“Say, Miss Mary,” whispered Jupp, taking advantage of the opportunity while Mr Vernon’s back was turned.
“What?” she asked, looking up into his face demurely.
“This ought to be passed round.”
“Go ’long!” she replied; but, she didn’t budge an inch when Jupp put his arm round her, and nobody knows what happened before Mr Vernon had composed himself and turned round again!