In the midst of this cachinnation, the door opened, and the nurse, or charwoman, entered to lay the cloth for dinner.
CHAPTER CXLIX.
A STRANGE NARRATIVE.
The nurse was a tall, middle-aged, powerfully-built woman, with brawny arms, and a countenance that indicated a slight affection for an occasional drop of “something short.” In fact, it was observed by the Brethren on whom she waited, that she never looked sulky when requested to repair to the public-house to order any thing in the shape of beer or spirits; but if entrusted with an errand of another kind—such as the purchase of half a quire of writing-paper or a stick of sealing-wax—it was a very great chance if she would be seen any more until the next day. Her manners were of the free-and-easy school; and she was accustomed to address the Poor Brothers in a half-pitying, half-patronising style, as if they were patients in a hospital or in the infirmary of a debtors’ gaol. If wearied, she would unhesitatingly seat herself without being asked, and glide imperceptibly into a familiar kind of discourse, while wiping the perspiration from her rubicund face with her blue checked cotton apron; and if it were in the cold weather, she would wait upon her masters with a black bonnet, like an inverted japan coal scuttle, on her head—the propriety of leaving the tegumentary article in the passage outside, never for a moment striking the ingenuous and simple-minded creature.
If this excellent woman had any special failing,—besides such little faults as drunkenness, inattention, slovenliness, cool impudence, and deep hypocrisy,—it was a propensity to gossip and a love of scandal. If she were only carrying a pail down the stairs, and met another nurse with a pail coming up the stairs, they must both set down their pails on the landing, and stop to have a quarter of an hour’s chat on the affairs of their respective masters. Then one would whisper how Poor Brother Smith was the meanest skin-flint on the face of the earth; and the other would declare that it was impossible for him to be worse than Poor Brother Webb, who was always complaining and yet never gave her even so much as a drop of gin;—and in this manner the two women would unburthen their minds, to the sad waste of their time and the neglect of those whom they were well paid to render comfortable. But Mrs. Pitkin—for that was the name of the nurse who waited on Mr. Scales and the other gentlemen living in the chambers opening from the same staircase,—Mrs. Pitkin, we say, was a more inveterate gossip than any other charwoman in the place; and, as a matter of course, when she had no trifling truths to retail or make much of, she deliberately and coolly invented a pack of lies, purporting to be the most recent sayings and doings of her masters. The consequence was, that a great deal of mischief resulted at times from these playful exercises of Mrs. Pitkin’s imaginative qualities; and more than one poor Brother was looked upon as an habitual drunkard, or as a sad old fellow amongst the women, without any other ground for the entertainment of such an opinion than the mysterious whispers of Mrs. Pitkin.
Well, it was this same Mrs. Pitkin who made her appearance, as already described, to lay Mr. Scales’s cloth and get the dinner ready.
“What o’clock is it, nurse?” asked Mr. Scales suspiciously.
“Only a little after two,” she replied: but scarcely were the words uttered, when the Charter House bell proclaimed the hour of three. “Well, I’m sure!” she cried, affecting the profoundest astonishment; “I never could have believed it were so late. Deary me! deary me! But it’s all through that disagreeable Mr. Yapp, who would have his cupboard washed out this morning—though I told him it wasn’t near six months since he had it done last.”
“Well—where have you put the potatoes to boil?” demanded Mr. Scales.
“The taturs, sir? Lor, sir—did you order taturs?” asked Mrs. Pitkin, now pretending to seem more astounded than ever. “Well, I’m sure I thought as how you said you’d have your chops without any weggitables at all!”
“Chops!” repeated Mr. Scales, now waxing positively wroth: “I ordered steaks——”