"John Crumb 'd be after me again to-morrow, if I'd give him encouragement," said Ruby. "If I'd hold up my finger he'd come."
"Then John Crumb's a fool for his pains, that's all; and now do you go about your work." Ruby didn't like to be told to go about her work, and tossed her head, and slammed the kitchen door, and scolded the servant girl, and then sat down to cry. What was she to do with herself now? She had an idea that Felix would not come back to her after the treatment he had received;—and a further idea that if he did come he was not, as she phrased it to herself, "of much account." She certainly did not like him the better for having been beaten, though, at the time, she had been disposed to take his part. She did not believe that she would ever dance with him again. That had been the charm of her life in London, and that was now all over. And as for marrying her,—she began to feel certain that he did not intend it. John Crumb was a big, awkward, dull, uncouth lump of a man, with whom Ruby thought it impossible that a girl should be in love. Love and John Crumb were poles asunder. But—! Ruby did not like wheeling the perambulator about Islington, and being told by her aunt Pipkin to go about her work. What Ruby did like was being in love and dancing; but if all that must come to an end, then there would be a question whether she could not do better for herself, than by staying with her aunt and wheeling the perambulator about Islington.
Mrs. Hurtle was still living in solitude in the lodgings, and having but little to do on her own behalf, had devoted herself to the interest of John Crumb. A man more unlike one of her own countrymen she had never seen. "I wonder whether he has any ideas at all in his head," she had said to Mrs. Pipkin. Mrs. Pipkin had replied that Mr. Crumb had certainly a very strong idea of marrying Ruby Ruggles. Mrs. Hurtle had smiled, thinking that Mrs. Pipkin was also very unlike her own countrywomen. But she was very kind to Mrs. Pipkin, ordering rice-puddings on purpose that the children might eat them, and she was quite determined to give John Crumb all the aid in her power.
In order that she might give effectual aid she took Mrs. Pipkin into confidence, and prepared a plan of action in reference to Ruby. Mrs. Pipkin was to appear as chief actor on the scene, but the plan was altogether Mrs. Hurtle's plan. On the day following John's return to Bungay Mrs. Pipkin summoned Ruby into the back parlour, and thus addressed her. "Ruby, you know, this must come to an end now."
"What must come to an end?"
"You can't stay here always, you know."
"I'm sure I work hard, Aunt Pipkin, and I don't get no wages."
"I can't do with more than one girl,—and there's the keep if there isn't wages. Besides, there's other reasons. Your grandfather won't have you back there; that's certain."
"I wouldn't go back to grandfather, if it was ever so."
"But you must go somewheres. You didn't come to stay here always,—nor I couldn't have you. You must go into service."