All this delighted Edward extremely to hear, and he said that things were going on beautifully; and they were both of them getting as miserable and discontented as he could possibly have wished. At the same time, he desired Mrs. Toosypegs never to allow the ladies to come bothering me, and on no account to pay any attention to what either of them said; for the wicked rogue told me, that, in order to bring about the explosion he so devoutly prayed for, he always made it a point of siding with both of them. Accordingly, whenever Mrs. Yapp came complaining to him, he invariably agreed with her that Mrs. B—ff—n knew nothing about the treatment of infants, and he should take it as a favour if she would keep dear mother from interfering with me as much as possible;—while, on the other hand, whenever Mrs. B—ff—n asked him what she had better do, he always told her Mrs. Yapp was quite ignorant of the management of children, and that, of course, he wished my dear mother to prevent her from coming into the bedroom at all. So he supposed it was this that made them both so determined on pursuing their own plans; and though he assured me it was far from comfortable work sleeping upon that wretched sofa in the back drawing-room, with nothing but cloaks to cover him, still, he said, he shouldn’t murmur, if it was stuffed with broken bottles instead of horse-hair, so long as his two mothers-in-law slept together, and had an opportunity of carrying on their quarrels in bed.
So matters went on; until, I declare to goodness, I got nearly as sick and tired of my own dear mother as I was worn out of all patience with the mother of my husband’s poor first wife; and I began to wish to be quit of them both nearly as much as Edward did. I verily believe their continual quarrellings, and bickerings, and squabblings, threw me back frightfully; and, indeed, Mrs. Toosypegs told me, that, with the very fine constitution I have of my own, I ought to have been out of bed and about at least ten days earlier than I was, (it was more than a month before I got thoroughly down-stairs.) To my great horror, just before Mrs. Toosypegs went, she brought me word that the small-pox had broken out among the soldiers in Albany-street Barracks; and as I knew that those soldiers would come bothering after our pretty Susan, of course I saw clear enough that they would be bringing it into the house in their red jackets, and I should have my little girl catching it—poor innocent dear—and perhaps growing up with her face full of holes, and looking for all the world like a sponge. So I determined pretty quickly on getting nurse to go with me to the establishment in Bloomsbury-square, and get the sweet cherub vaccinated.
Accordingly, on the morrow, we jumped into a cab, and went down to the place. When we got there, I may safely say I never saw such a beautiful sight in all my life. If there was one dear little baby, I’m sure there must have been at least a hundred; and I really felt as if I could have taken them all in my arms, and hugged them every one—though, I must say, that the noise they made was almost too much for me, for what with the cries of some fifty of them, and the prattling of the mothers to the rest—I declare it was for all the world like the parrot-room at the Zoological Gardens. When my turn came for going in with my child to the doctor, I told Mrs. Toosypegs she must take the child, for I knew I should never be able to bear the sight of that unfeeling wretch of a doctor poking his great big lancet into its pretty little arms; and that I should go making a stupid of myself, and fainting right off at the first drop of blood I saw. So in went nurse, while I stopped outside, and, to drive the thoughts out of my mind, I began playing with a very nice respectable child that was next to me. While I was amusing myself in this way, a poor woman, seeing my arms empty, came up to me, and asked me if I would be kind enough to hold her child for a few minutes, while she stepped out to get a glass of water, for the heat of the place was really too much for her. Of course, I was very glad to oblige her, like a stupid, and, taking her baby, I said, “Certainly, with a great deal of pleasure”—though, if I had known what was going to happen then, I most assuredly would have seen her further first.
When nurse came back with my own poor dear little thing crying its beautiful blue eyes out, I told her to sit down with it just for a moment, while I went and looked after the other poor thing’s mother, who, I feared, from the time she had been gone for the drop of water she spoke about, must have fainted off in the passage! But though I looked all about for her, both outside and inside the house, to my great horror, she was nowhere to be found. So I marched back, and sat down, and waited until all the mothers and children had gone, and nurse and myself and the two babies were the only people left in the place, when I really began to grow dreadfully alarmed, for I felt assured that some dreadful accident or mistake must have occurred. And when the porter came to tell me I must go, as he wanted to shut up the doors, I informed him of what had happened, and asked him to let me leave the brat with him, so that he might give it to the mother when she called. But the brute would not hear of such a thing, and said that the best way would be for me to take it home with me, and leave my address with him, and then he could send the mother up to me when she came after it. Accordingly I gave the man my card, with particular instructions that he was to make the woman come on to me as fast as her legs would carry her, directly she called; for as I very truly said at the time, I didn’t know how I should ever be able to get through the night with the pair of them.
When we got home, there was a fine piece of work with the pair of them, for the little brat of a stranger wouldn’t eat a thing, though we tried with both the spoon and the bottle, and really squalled in such a way that I was obliged to give it something to pacify it. Edward was so surly at the noise the two children made, that I really thought, what with the noise he and the babies made, I should have gone clean out of my senses; for he said, I didn’t seem to think that two mothers-in-law were sufficient to have in the house at once, but I must go adding to them two babies.
I really do believe it must have been nearly eleven o’clock before I had the doors done up, for I made certain that brute of a mother would never think of leaving her child with me all night. But I soon found myself preciously mistaken, for, on undressing the poor little half-starved thing, I declare if there was not tacked to the body of its little petticoat a strip of paper, on which was written:—“Plese to treet im wel—Is name is Alfred;”—so that it was now as plain as the nose on my face I had been made a regular fool of, and the unfeeling wretch of a mother, observing, I dare say, my love for children, and that I was very well dressed, was induced to single me out, drat her! as her victim; for of course it was her intention, from the first, to make me adopt her brat, whether I liked it or not.
As it was impossible to send the infant round to the workhouse at that late hour of the night, why, I was obliged to take it up-stairs to bed with me, and a precious night both Edward and I had of it, goodness knows! For directly that little brute of an Alfred began to cry, of course he set my little pet of a Kate off, too; consequently, while I was trying to get the one off to sleep with a drop, I was obliged to make Edward set up in bed and rock the other, which he did, all the while grumbling and abusing me in a most shameful manner; wondering how I could ever have been such a born idiot to have allowed myself to have had a strange child put upon me in such a place.
Early in the morning, immediately after Edward had left for business, I sent Susan off to the workhouse with the squalling young urchin, instructing her to tell the parish authorities how shamefully I had been imposed upon, and to say that I felt it to be my duty, under the circumstances, to hand it over to them. But, hang it! there seemed to be no chance of getting rid of the brat, for back came Susan, all in a fluster, and said that the porter at the gate had told her, in a very impudent manner, that I must come round myself the next Board day and represent the case to the Guardians; and if the facts would bear investigation, why, perhaps they might make out an order to have it admitted.
Here was a pretty state to be in; for Susan said the next Board day wasn’t for five days to come, and it was impossible for me ever to think of keeping the child all that time, and I really felt as if I could have put it in the old fish-basket we had in the house, and tied it to the first knocker that I came to. Indeed, as it was, I did go up-stairs to Mrs. Yapp, and both dear mother and myself tried, for upwards of an hour, as hard as ever we could, to get her to adopt the poor little foundling. But of course it was of no use appealing to the maternal feelings of a hard-hearted creature like her; for we couldn’t get her to take it, although both of us kept pointing out to her what a comfort, we had no doubt, it would grow up to be to her in her old age, and what a noble act she would be doing in rescuing the poor little innocent dear from the workhouse, and, might be, a prison; saying that it was impossible, under the circumstances, to tell what would become of it—but it was all to no use. Although she has got four hundred a-year, and no children, still the mean old thing positively refused to have anything to do with the poor dear little “incumbrance,” but I do verily believe that if the child had only had the good luck to be sickly, she would willingly have consented to have acted the part of a mother to it, if it was only for the sake of having some one to physic.
Consequently, I made up my mind to send it down to Edward by Susan, telling him what the workhouse people had said, and begging him to go up to them with it, and make them take it in directly, as I told him he must very well know they were in law bound to do.