“What on earth do you mean? It is bad enough. I don’t see how even a woman can make it any worse than it is. Speak out what you mean, since you have begun.”
“Well, sir, it is no more than this, and you mustn’t be put out by it. Suppose there is another young gent in the case—a young gent in London, they means her to marry.”
The goodnatured woman looked so knowing, that I thought she must have solid proof; and perhaps the deed was done already. I tried to laugh, but could only stare, and wonder what was coming next.
“Oh, Master Kit,” she went on with her apron to her eyes, or she was kind of heart, “you used to come, and play down here, when your head wasn’t up to the counter. And I had my Cutthumb then, and he gave you a penny, because you was so natural. Don’t you be struck of a heap like that, or I shall come to think that all women is wicked. It was only a bad thought of my own. I have nothing to go by, if I were to die this minute; and the same thought might come across any one. Don’t think no more about it, there’s a dear young man. Only keep your eyes open, and if you can manage to come across that stuck-up Jenny Marker, the least she can do, after saving her life, is to tell you all she knows, and to take your part. But don’t you believe more than half she says. I never would say a single word against her, there’s no call for that, being known as she is to every true woman in Sunbury; but if she’s not a double-faced gossiping hussy, as fancies that a gold chain makes a lady of her, and very likely no gold after all, why I should deserve to be taken up, and there’s no one has ever said that of me.”
Here Mrs. Cutthumb began to cry, at the thought of being taken to the station; and I saw that time alone could comfort her, yet ventured to say a few earnest words, about her position and high character. And presently she was quite brisk again.
“Why bless my heart,” she said, looking about for a box of matches on the onion shelf; “I ought to have stuck up my candle in the window, pretty well half an hour agone. Not that no customer comes after dark, nor many by daylight for that matter. Ah, Master Kit, I am a poor lone widow; but you are the nicest young man in Sunbury; and I wish you well, with all my heart I do. And mind one thing, whatever you do; if you ever carries out what I was saying, here’s the one as will help you to it, in a humble way, and without much money. A nice front drawing-room over the shop, bedroom, and chamber-suit to match. Only twelve shillings a week for it all, and the use of the kitchen fire for nothing. And the window on the landing looks on the river Thames, and the boats, and the barges, and the fishermen. Oh, Mr. Kit, with Mrs. Kitty now and then, it would be like the Garden of Eden.”
CHAPTER XIII.
MY UNCLE BEGINS.
That last suggestion was most delicious, but it came too late to relieve the pang of the horrible idea first presented. I could not help wondering at my own slow wit, which ought to have told me that such a treasure as my heart was set upon, must have been coveted long ere now, by many with higher claims to it. Was it likely that I, a mere stupid fellow, half a rustic, and of no position, birth or property, should be preferred to the wealthy, accomplished, and brilliant men, who were sure to be gathering round such a prize? Black depression overcame me; even as the smoke of London, when the air is muggy, falls upon some country village, wrapping in funereal gloom the church, the trees, the cattle by the pond, and the man at the window with his newspaper. I could not see my way to eat much supper, and my Uncle was crusty with me.
“Can’t stand this much more,” he said, as he finished the beer that was meant for me; “a plague on all girls, and the muffs as well that go spooning after them! Why, the Lord might just as well never have made a Williams pear, or a cat’s-head codlin. S’pose you don’t even want to hear my story; you don’t deserve it anyhow. Better put it off, till you look brighter, for there isn’t much to laugh at in it, unless it is the dunder-headed folly of a very clever man.”