Elcy had forestalled her mother’s injunctions, and before Mrs. Sandboys had finished what she had to say on the subject, had quitted the office, and was hastening along on her way to Craven-street. Winged by her anxiety, she was but a few minutes in reaching their former residence; but there, alas! a new disappointment awaited her.
The partner of the hand and lodging-house of Mrs. Fokesell had suddenly returned from a long voyage, and after having passed a week in a state of almost helpless intoxication, and been deprived of his boots on the previous day by his superior moiety, with a view to prevent the possibility of his leaving the premises for more drink, and so reducing him to a state of sufficient sobriety to accompany her to the Great Exhibition, the sailor and his wife had left the house early that morning for the World’s Show, intent upon making a good long day of it.
The maid of all work—and something more—had just been called away from the week’s washing, in which she was busily engaged, to brush the highlows of the Baron de Boltzoff, who occupied the drawing rooms, and had been obliged to throw them aside to give the newsboy the Times—which she was in the act of doing when Major Oldschool, in the parlours, desired her to bring up the tea-things; and no sooner had she filled the urn, than Mrs. Quinine, in the second floor, “touched her bell” to know whether she had got the hare down yet for her dinner; and while the maid was making up her fire for roasting it, down popped the medical student from the back attic with a request that she would just run up the street and get him half-an-ounce of “bird’s-eye,” for which she was about to start when Elcy’s double-knock “came to the door.”
The girl, who had hurried up to answer the summons, and still held the knob of the street-door in her dirty hand covered with her apron, had no sooner informed the young lady of the absence of Mrs. Fokesell, than Elcy, who had borne up bravely against the previous misfortunes, suddenly lost all hope and courage, so that when she heard that there was no probability of the landlady returning home till late that evening, she could control her feelings no longer, and the pent-up tears burst from her eyes with double anguish.
The maid, who had always been partial to Miss Elcy, and had taken a liking to her from the first, when she found that the young lady, “though she were a real lady bred and borned,” was not above thinking of how she could save a poor girl’s legs, was moved not a little by the sight of Miss Sandboys’ distress—and declared, as she led the staggering girl into the passage, and helped her to the hall chair, that she “couldn’t abear to see her take on so.”
But Elcy’s misery did not admit of consolation. Her last chance of saving her father from prison had vanished; and now that the hope which had sustained her had gone, her grief knew no bounds—though she strove with all a woman’s pride to hide her sorrow from strangers, and would willingly have left the house for fear of causing a “scene” in such a place, she had no power to move a limb; and do what she would, there was no checking the sobs that rose, despite her every effort, louder and louder, as she thought of the utter friendlessness of them all.
In a few minutes the sound of Elcy’s continued sobbings attracted the attention of Major Oldschool, who was waiting in the “parlours” rather impatiently for his tea, and he popped his head out of the door as he half opened it, partly to learn what was the matter in the hall, and partly to see about the cup that cheers, but not, &c. The sight of “the British female in distress” was of course sufficient to excite a lively interest in the bosom of the gallant soldier. “The white flag hoisted in the cheek of beauty,” as the gentleman engaged for “general utility” on the stage metaphorically expresses it, when done up in full regimentals, was always the signal for a truce with Major Oldschool; and though but the moment before he had felt ready to burst out like a bombshell for the want of his Twankay, he no sooner caught sight of the young lady in tears, than he became—as Mr. Braham sings—“mild as the moonbeams”—and almost as sentimental into the bargain.
“Ods! grapeshot and canister!” of course the Major should have cried, to have kept up the character of the veteran; but like the generality of soldiers off the stage, he gave vent to no such military exclamation, and was about to advance towards the young lady, when Mrs. Coddle, his female Mentor, and tor-mentor too, detained him by the skirt of his dressing-gown, informing him that his behaviour was “exceeding onpolite,” and begging to know what was the use of bells in a house if he was to go dancing after the servants in that there way—and observing, moreover, that one would imagine he had never been accustomed to genteel society in all his life.
As the unceremonious and excited Major struggled to get away from the clutches of his punctilious housekeeper, he d——d her and all her genteel society, and then with a sudden jerk that made the stitches of his duffel skirts crack again, freed himself from the grasp of the mistress of the ceremonies of his front parlour, and hobbled towards the weeping girl.
Elcy, on being patted consolingly on the shoulder, looked up for a minute, and the Major no sooner recognised the features of the young lady who had so recently been an inmate of Mrs. Fokesell’s establishment, than he took her by the hand, and saying that was no place for her, bade her step into his room and let him know all about what had happened. Then, as he raised the hesitating girl from her seat, and led her along the passage, he said, comfortingly—“There—there: you need have no foolish ceremony with me; for, do you know, I find, on talking with Mrs. Fokesell, that your papa is the neighbour of my old East Indian friend, Colonel Benson. Why, I’ve heard the colonel talk by the hour of old Cursty Sandboys, and all his family, till I’ve known you every one without seeing you, as well as if I’d been bred and born in Buttermere. You’re Elcy Sandboys, I’m certain: you’re the little girl that used to be so fond of pet squirrels and doves,—oh! yes, I know all about you: and there’s that hairbrained young brother of yours, Master Jobby: and Mrs. Sandboys, that cleanly and tidy mother of your own, whom Colonel Benson gave away to your father at Lan-something-or-other Green Church,—eh? There, you needn’t fidget with me! You see I know all about the whole of you: and how ever I could have been so foolish as not to have guessed when I first heard your name that you were the Colonel’s old friends, I can’t say. I’ve been puzzling my head about it ever since Mrs. Fokesell told me where you came from. But, you see, London and Buttermere are so wide apart, that I never should have dreamt of your being the same people, if I hadn’t learnt as much the day after you had gone.”