The Way We Live Now (94 page)

Ever so many things to tell her! They must be to fix a day for the marriage, and to let her know where they were to live, and to settle what dress she should wear – and perhaps to give her the money to go and buy it! Ever so many things to tell her! She looked up into Mrs Pipkin's face with imploring eyes. Surely on such an occasion as this an aunt would not expect that her niece should be a prisoner and a slave. ‘Have it been put in writing, Sir Felix Carbury?' demanded Mrs Pipkin with cruel gravity. Mrs Hurtle had given it as her decided opinion that Sir Felix would not really mean to marry Ruby Ruggles unless he showed himself willing to do so with all the formality of a written contract.

‘Writing be bothered,' said Sir Felix.

‘That's all very well, Sir Felix. Writing do bother, very often. But when a gentleman has intentions, a bit of writing shows it plainer nor words. Ruby don't go nowhere to dine unless you puts it into writing.'

‘Aunt Pipkin!' exclaimed the wretched Ruby.

‘What do you think I'm going to do with her?' asked Sir Felix.

‘If you want to make her your wife, put it in writing. And if it be as you don't, just say so, and walk away – free.'

‘I shall go,' said Ruby. ‘I'm not going to be kept here a prisoner for any one. I can go when I please. You wait, Felix, and I'll be down in a minute.' The girl, with a nimble spring, ran upstairs, and began to change her dress without giving herself a moment for thought.

‘She don't come back no more here, Sir Felix,' said Mrs Pipkin, in her most solemn tones. ‘She ain't nothing to me, no more than she was my poor dear husband's sister's child. There ain't no blood between us, and won't be no disgrace. But I'd be loth to see her on the streets.'

‘Then why won't you let me bring her back again?'

‘ 'Cause that'd be the way to send her there. You don't mean to marry her.' To this Sir Felix said nothing. ‘You're not thinking of that. It's just a bit of sport – and then there she is, an old shoe to be chucked away, just a rag to be swept into the dust-bin. I've seen scores of 'em, and I'd sooner a child of mine should die in a workus', or be starved to death. But it's all nothing to the likes o' you.'

‘I haven't done her any harm,' said Sir Felix, almost frightened.

‘Then go away, and don't do her any. That's Mrs Hurtle's door open. You go and speak to her. She can talk a deal better nor me.'

‘Mrs Hurtle hasn't been able to manage her own affairs very well.'

‘Mrs Hurtle's a lady, Sir Felix, and a widow, and one as has seen the world.' As she spoke, Mrs Hurtle came downstairs, and an introduction, after some rude fashion, was effected between her and Sir Felix. Mrs Hurtle had heard often of Sir Felix Carbury, and was quite as certain as Mrs Pipkin that he did not mean to marry Ruby Ruggles. In a few minutes Felix found himself alone with Mrs Hurtle in her own room. He had been anxious to see the woman since he had heard of her engagement with Paul Montague, and doubly anxious since he had also heard of Paul's engagement with his sister. It was not an hour since Paul himself had referred him to her for corroboration of his own statement.

‘Sir Felix Carbury,' she said, ‘I am afraid you are doing that poor girl no good, and are intending to do her none.' It did occur to him very strongly that this could be no affair of Mrs Hurtle's, and that he, as a
man of position in society, was being interfered with in an unjustifiable manner. Aunt Pipkin wasn't even an aunt; but who was Mrs Hurtle? ‘Would it not be better that you should leave her to become the wife of a man who is really fond of her?'

He could already see something in Mrs Hurtle's eye which prevented his at once bursting into wrath – but who was Mrs Hurtle, that she should interfere with him? ‘Upon my word, ma'am,' he said, ‘I'm very much obliged to you, but I don't quite know to what I owe the honour of your – your –'

‘Interference you mean.'

‘I didn't say so, but perhaps that's about it.'

‘I'd interfere to save any woman that God ever made,' said Mrs Hurtle with energy. ‘We're all apt to wait a little too long, because we're ashamed to do any little good that chance puts in our way. You must go and leave her, Sir Felix.'

‘I suppose she may do as she pleases about that'.

‘Do you mean to make her your wife?' asked Mrs Hurtle sternly.

‘Does Mr Paul Montague mean to make you his wife?' rejoined Sir Felix with an impudent swagger. He had struck the blow certainly hard enough, and it had gone all the way home. She had not surmised that he would have heard aught of her own concerns. She only barely connected him with that Roger Carbury who, she knew, was Paul's great friend, and she had as yet never heard that Hetta Carbury was the girl whom Paul loved. Had Paul so talked about her that this young scamp should know all her story?

She thought a while – she had to think for a moment – before she could answer him. ‘I do not see,' she said, with a faint attempt at a smile, ‘that there is any parallel between the two cases. I, at any rate, am old enough to take care of myself. Should he not marry me, I am as I was before. Will it be so with that poor girl if she allows herself to be taken about the town by you at night?' She had desired in what she said to protect Ruby rather than herself. What could it matter whether this young man was left in a belief that she was, or that she was not, about to be married?

‘If you'll answer me, I'll answer you,' said Sir Felix. ‘Does Mr Montague mean to make you his wife?'

‘It does not concern you to know,' said she, flashing upon him. ‘The question is insolent'.

‘It does concern me – a great deal more than anything about Ruby can concern you. And as you won't answer me, I won't answer you.'

‘Then, sir, that girl's fate will be upon your head.'

‘I know all about that,' said the baronet.

‘And the young man who has followed her up to town will probably know where to find you,' added Mrs Hurtle.

To such a threat as this, no answer could be made, and Sir Felix left the room. At any rate, John Crumb was not there at present. And were there not policemen in London? And what additional harm would be done to John Crumb, or what increase of anger engendered in that true lover's breast, by one additional evening's amusement? Ruby had danced with him so often at the music-hall that John Crumb could hardly be made more bellicose by the fact of her dining with him on this evening. When he descended, he found Ruby in the hall, all arrayed. ‘You don't come in here again to-night,' said Mrs Pipkin, thumping the little table which stood in the passage, ‘if you goes out of that there door with that there young man.'

‘Then I shall,' said Ruby linking herself on to her lover's arm.

‘Baggage! Slut!' said Mrs Pipkin; ‘after all I've done for you, just as one as though you were my own flesh and blood.'

‘I've worked for it, I suppose – haven't I?' rejoined Ruby.

‘You send for your things to-morrow, for you don't come in here no more. You ain't nothing to me no more nor no other girl. But I'd 've saved you, if you'd but a' let me. As for you' – and she looked at Sir Felix – ‘only because I've lodgings to let, and because of the lady upstairs, I'd shake you that well, you'd never come here no more after poor girls.' I do not think that she need have feared any remonstrance from Mrs Hurtle, even had she put her threat into execution.

Sir Felix, thinking that he had had enough of Mrs Pipkin and her lodger, left the house with Ruby on his arm. For the moment, Ruby had been triumphant, and was happy. She did not stop to consider whether her aunt would or would not open her door when she should return tired, and perhaps repentant. She was on her lover's arm, in her best clothes, and going to have a dinner given to her. And her lover had told her that he had ever so many things – ever so many things to say to her! But she would ask no impertinent questions in the first hour of her bliss. It was so pleasant to walk with him up to Pentonville – so joyous to turn into a gay enclosure, half public-house and half tea-garden; so pleasant to hear him order the good things, which in his company would be so nice! Who cannot understand that even an urban Rosherville
³
must be an Elysium to those who have lately been eating their meals in all the gloom of a small London underground kitchen? There we will leave Ruby in her bliss.

At about nine that evening John Crumb called at Mrs Pipkin's, and was told that Ruby had gone out with Sir Felix Carbury. He hit his leg a blow with his fist, and glared out of his eyes. ‘He'll have it hot some day,' said John Crumb. He was allowed to remain waiting for Ruby till midnight, and then, with a sorrowful heart, he took his departure.

It was on a Friday evening, an inauspicious Friday, that poor Ruby Ruggles had insisted on leaving the security of her Aunt Pipkin's house with her aristocratic and vicious lover, in spite of the positive assurance made to her by Mrs Pipkin that if she went forth in such company she should not be allowed to return. ‘Of course you must let her in,' Mrs Hurtle had said soon after the girl's departure. Whereupon Mrs Pipkin had cried. She knew her own softness too well to suppose it to be possible that she could keep the girl out in the streets all night; but yet it was hard upon her, very hard, that she should be so troubled. ‘We usen't to have our ways like that when I was young,' she said, sobbing. What was to be the end of it? Was she to be forced by circumstances to keep the girl always there, let the girl's conduct be what it might? Nevertheless she acknowledged that Ruby must be let in when she came back. Then, about nine o'clock, John Crumb came; and the latter part of the evening was more melancholy even than the first. It was impossible to conceal the truth from John Crumb. Mrs Hurtle saw the poor man and told the story in Mrs Pipkin's presence.

‘She's headstrong, Mr Crumb,' said Mrs Hurtle.

‘She is that, ma'am. And it was along wi' the baronite she went?'

‘It was so, Mr Crumb.'

‘Baronite! Well; – perhaps I shall catch him some of these days; went to dinner wi' him, did she? Didn't she have no dinner here?'

Then Mrs Pipkin spoke up with a keen sense of offence. Ruby Ruggles had had as wholesome a dinner as any young woman in London – a bullock's heart and potatoes – just as much as ever she had pleased to eat of it Mrs Pipkin could tell Mr Crumb that there was ‘no starvation nor yet no stint in her house'. John Crumb immediately
produced a very thick and admirably useful blue cloth cloak, which he had brought up with him to London from Bungay, as a present to the woman who had been good to his Ruby. He assured her that he did not doubt that her victuals were good and plentiful, and went on to say that he had made bold to bring her a trifle out of respect. It was some little time before Mrs Pipkin would allow herself to be appeased – but at last she permitted the garment to be placed on her shoulders. But it was done after a melancholy fashion. There was no smiling consciousness of the bestowal of joy on the countenance of the donor as he gave it, no exuberance of thanks from the recipient as she received it. Mrs Hurtle, standing by, declared it to be perfect – but the occasion was one which admitted of no delight. ‘It's very good of you, Mr Crumb, to think of an old woman like me – particularly when you've such a deal of trouble with a young ‘un.'

‘It's like the smut in the wheat, Mrs Pipkin, or the d'sease in the ‘tatoes – it has to be put up with, I suppose. Is she very partial, ma'am, to that young baronite?' This question was asked of Mrs Hurtle.

‘Just a fancy for the time, Mr Crumb,' said the lady.

‘They never thinks as how their fancies may well-nigh half kill a man!' Then he was silent for a while, sitting back in his chair, not moving a limb, with his eyes fastened on Mrs Pipkin's ceiling. Mrs Hurtle had some work in her hand, and sat watching him. The man was to her an extraordinary being – so constant, so slow, so unexpressive, so unlike her own countrymen – willing to endure so much, and at the same time so warm in his affections! ‘Sir Felix Carbury!' he said. ‘I'll Sir Felix him some of these days. If it was only dinner, wouldn't she be back afore this, ma'am?'

‘I suppose they've gone to some place of amusement,' said Mrs Hurtle.

‘Like enough,' said John Crumb in a low voice.

‘She's that mad after dancing as never was,' said Mrs Pipkin.

‘And where is it as 'em dances?' asked Crumb, getting up from his chair, and stretching himself. It was evident to both the ladies that he was beginning to think that he would follow Ruby to the music-hall. Neither of them answered him, however, and then he sat down again. ‘Does 'em dance all night at them places, Mrs Pipkin?'

‘They do pretty nearly all that they oughtn't to do,' said Mrs Pipkin. John Crumb raised one of his fists, brought it down heavily on the palm of his other hand, and then again sat silent for a while.

‘I never knowed as she was fond o' dancing,' he said. ‘I'd a had dancing
for her down at Bungay – just as ready as anything. D'ye think, ma'am, it's the dancing she's after, or the baronite?' This was another appeal to Mrs Hurtle.

‘I suppose they go together,' said the lady.

Then there was another long pause, at the end of which poor John Crumb burst out with some violence. ‘Domn him! Domn him! What ‘ad I ever dun to him? Nothing! Did I ever interfere wi' him? Never! But I wull. I wull. I wouldn't wonder but I'll swing for this at Bury!'

‘Oh, Mr Crumb, don't talk like that,' said Mrs Pipkin.

‘Mr Crumb is a little disturbed, but he'll get over it presently,' said Mrs Hurtle.

‘She's a nasty slut to go and treat a young man as she's treating you,' said Mrs Pipkin.