The morning of last Christmas eve, however, Biddy came not. Six o’clock, seven o’clock, eight o’clock, and the maids were not up.
“How did they know the hour?—Biddy never rang.” The house was in a state of commotion. The cook declaring, bit by bit, “that she knew how it would hend!—it was halways the way with them Hirish. Oh, dirty, ungrateful!—very pretty! Who was to eat the copper, or boil the am, or see after the sallery, or butter the tins, or old the pudding cloth?”—while Jessie whimpered, “or drop the ring in the kitchen pudding!”
Instead of the clattering domestic bustle of old Christmas, every one looked sulky, and, as usual when a household is not astir in the early morning, every thing went wrong. I got out of temper myself, and, resolved if possible never to speak to a servant when angry, I put on my furs, and set forth to see what had become of my poor industrious countrywoman.
She lived at the corner of Gore Lane!—the St Giles’s of our respectable parish of Kensington; and when I entered her little room—which, by the way, though never orderly, was always clean—Biddy, who had been sitting over the embers of the fire, instead of sending the beams of her countenance to greet me, turned away, and burst into tears.
This was unexpected, and the ire which had in some degree arisen at the disappointment that had disturbed the house, vanished altogether. I forgot to say that Biddy had been happily relieved from the blight of a drunken husband about six years ago, and laboured to support three little children without ever having entertained the remotest idea of sending them to the parish.
She had “her families,” for whom she washed at their own houses, and at over hours “took in” work at her small cottage.
To assist in this, and also from motives of charity, she employed a young girl distinguished by the name of Louisa, whom she preserved from worse than death. This creature she found starving; and although she brought fever amongst her children, and her preserver lost much employment in consequence, Biddy “saw her through the sickness, and, by the goodness of Almighty God, would be nothing the worse or the poorer for having befriended a motherless child.”
Those who bestow from the treasures of their abundance, deserve praise; but those who, like the poor Irish Washerwoman, bestow half of their daily bread, and suffer the needy to shelter beneath their roof, deserve blessings.
The cause of Biddy’s absence, and the cause of Biddy’s tears, I will endeavour to repeat in her own words:—
“I come home last night, as usual, more dead than alive, until I got sitting down with the childre; for, having put two or three potatoes, as usual, my lady, to heat, just on the bar, I thought, tired as I was, I’d iron out the few small things ‘Loo’ had put in blue, particularly a clane cap and handkercher, and the aprons for to-day, as yer honor likes to see me nice; and the boy got a prize at school; for, let me do as I would, I took care they should have the edication that makes the poor rich. Well, I noticed that Loo’s hair was hanging in ringlets down her face, and I says to her, ‘My honey,’ I says, ‘if Annie was you, and she’s my own, I’d make her put up her hair plain; the way her Majesty wears it is good enough, I should think, for such as you, Louisa;’ and with that she says, ‘It might do for Annie; but for her part, her mother was a tradeswoman.’ Well, I bit my tongue to hinder myself from hurting her feelings by telling her what her mother was, for the blush of shame is the only one that misbecomes a woman’s cheek.