Barnaby Rudge, page 13
Miss Miggs’ sense of hearing, however, having as sharp an edge as her temper, and being of the same snappish and suspicious kind, very soon informed her that the footsteps passed her door, and appeared to have some object quite separate and disconnected from herself. At this discovery she became more alarmed than ever, and was about to give utterance to those cries of ‘Thieves!’ and ‘Murder!’ which she had hitherto restrained, when it occurred to her to look softly out, and see that her fears had some good palpable foundation.
Looking out accordingly, and stretching her neck over the handrail, she descried, to her great amazement, Mr Tappertit completely dressed, stealing down stairs, one step at a time, with his shoes in one hand and a lamp in the other. Following him with her eyes, and going down a little way herself to get the better of an intervening angle, she beheld him thrust his head in at the parlour door, draw it back again with great swiftness, and immediately begin a retreat up stairs with all possible expedition.
‘Here’s mysteries!’ said the damsel, when she was safe in her own room again, quite out of breath. ‘Oh gracious, here’s mysteries!’
The prospect of finding anybody out in anything, would have kept Miss Miggs awake under the influence of henbane. Presently she heard the step again, as she would have done if it had been that of a feather endowed with motion and walking down on tiptoe. Then gliding out as before, she again beheld the retreating figure of the ’prentice; again he looked cautiously in at the parlour door, but this time, instead of retreating, he passed in and disappeared.
Miggs was back in her room, and had her head out of the window, before an elderly gentleman could have winked and recovered from it. Out he came at the street door, shut it carefully behind him, tried it with his knee, and swaggered off, putting something in his pocket as he went along. At this spectacle Miggs cried ‘Gracious!’ again, and then ‘Goodness gracious!’ and then, ‘Goodness gracious me!’ and then, candle in hand, went down stairs as he had done. Coming to the workshop, she saw the lamp burning on the forge, and everything as Sim had left it.
‘Why I wish I may only have a walking funeral, and never be buried decent with a mourning-coach and feathers,3 if the boy hasn’t been and made a key for his own self!’ cried Miggs. ‘Oh the little villain!’
This conclusion was not arrived at without consideration, and much peeping and peering about; nor was it unassisted by the recollection that she had on several occasions come upon the ’prentice suddenly, and found him busy at some mysterious occupation. Lest the fact of Miss Miggs calling him, on whom she stooped to cast a favourable eye, a boy, should create surprise in any breast, it may be observed that she invariably affected to regard all male bipeds under thirty as mere chits and infants; which phenomenon is not unusual in ladies of Miss Miggs’s temper, and is indeed generally found to be the associate of such indomitable and savage virtue.
Miss Miggs deliberated within herself for some little time, looking hard at the shop door while she did so, as though her eyes and thoughts were both upon it; and then, taking a sheet of paper from a drawer, twisted it into a long thin spiral tube. Having filled this instrument with a quantity of small coal dust from the forge, she approached the door, and dropping on one knee before it, dexterously blew into the keyhole as much of these fine ashes as the lock would hold. When she had filled it to the brim in a very workmanlike and skilful manner, she crept up stairs again, and chuckled as she went.
‘There!’ cried Miggs, rubbing her hands, ‘now let’s see whether you won’t be glad to take some notice of me, mister. He, he, he! You’ll have eyes for somebody besides Miss Dolly now, I think. A fat-faced puss she is, as ever I come across!’
As she uttered this criticism, she glanced approvingly at her small mirror, as who should say, I thank my stars that can’t be said of me! – as it certainly could not; for Miss Miggs’ style of beauty was of that kind which Mr Tappertit himself had not inaptly termed, in private, ‘scraggy.’
‘I don’t go to bed this night!’ said Miggs, wrapping herself in a shawl, drawing a couple of chairs near the window, flouncing down upon one, and putting her feet upon the other, ‘till you come home, my lad. I wouldn’t,’ said Miggs viciously, ‘no, not for five-and-forty pound!’
With that, and with an expression of face in which a great number of opposite ingredients, such as mischief, cunning, malice, triumph, and patient expectation, were all mixed up together in a kind of physiognomical punch, Miss Miggs composed herself to wait and listen, like some fair ogress who had set a trap and was watching for a nibble from a plump young traveller.
She sat there, with perfect composure, all night. At length, just upon break of day, there was a footstep in the street, and presently she could hear Mr Tappertit stop at the door. Then she could make out that he tried his key – that he was blowing into it – that he knocked it on the nearest post to beat the dust out – that he took it under a lamp to look at it – that he poked bits of stick into the lock to clear it – that he peeped into the keyhole, first with one eye, and then with the other – that he tried the key again – that he couldn’t turn it, and what was worse couldn’t get it out – that he bent it – that then it was much less disposed to come out than before – that he gave it a mighty twist and a great pull, and then it came out so suddenly that he staggered backwards – that he kicked the door – that he shook it – finally, that he smote his forehead, and sat down on the step in despair.
When this crisis had arrived, Miss Miggs, affecting to be exhausted with terror, and to cling to the window-sill for support, put out her nightcap, and demanded in a faint voice who was there.
Mr Tappertit cried ‘Hush!’ and, backing into the road, exhorted her in frenzied pantomime to secrecy and silence.
‘Tell me one thing,’ said Miggs. ‘Is it thieves?’
‘No – no – no!’ cried Mr Tappertit.
‘Then,’ said Miggs, more faintly than before, ‘it’s fire. Where is it, sir? It’s near this room, I know. I’ve a good conscience, sir, and would much rather die than go down a ladder. All I wish is, respecting my love to my married sister, Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, second bell-handle on the right hand door-post.’
‘Miggs!’ cried Mr Tappertit, ‘don’t you know me? Sim, you know – Sim – ’
‘Oh! what about him!’ cried Miggs, clasping her hands. ‘Is he in any danger? Is he in the midst of flames and blazes? Oh gracious, gracious!’
‘Why I’m here, an’t I?’ rejoined Mr Tappertit, knocking himself on the breast. ‘Don’t you see me? What a fool you are, Miggs!’
‘There!’ cried Miggs, unmindful of this compliment. ‘Why – so it – Goodness, what is the meaning of – If you please Mim here’s – ’
‘No, no!’ cried Mr Tappertit, standing on tiptoe, as if by that means he, in the street, were any nearer being able to stop the mouth of Miggs in the garret. ‘Don’t! – I’ve been out without leave, and something or another’s the matter with the lock. Come down, and undo the shop window, that I may get in that way.’
‘I durstn’t do it, Simmun,’ cried Miggs – for that was her pronunciation of his christian name. ‘I durstn’t do it, indeed. You know as well as anybody, how particular I am. And to come down in the dead of night, when the house is wrapped in slumbers and weiled in obscurity.’ And there she stopped and shivered, for her modesty caught cold at the very thought.
‘But Miggs,’ cried Mr Tappertit, getting under the lamp, that she might see his eyes. ‘My darling Miggs – ’
Miggs screamed slightly.
‘ – That I love so much, and never can help thinking of,’ – and it is impossible to describe the use he made of his eyes when he said this – ‘do – for my sake, do.’
‘Oh Simmun,’ cried Miggs, ‘this is worse than all. I know if I come down, you’ll go, and – ’
‘And what, my precious?’ said Mr Tappertit.
‘And try,’ said Miggs, hysterically, ‘to kiss me, or some such dreadfulness; I know you will!’
‘I swear I won’t,’ said Mr Tappertit, with remarkable earnestness. ‘Upon my soul I won’t. It’s getting broad day and the watchman’s waking up. Angelic Miggs! If you’ll only come and let me in, I promise you faithfully and truly I won’t.’
Miss Miggs, whose gentle heart was touched, did not wait for the oath (knowing how strong the temptation was, and fearing he might forswear himself), but tripped lightly down the stairs, and with her own fair hands drew back the rough fastenings of the workshop window. Having helped the wayward ’prentice in, she faintly articulated the words ‘Simmun is safe!’ and yielding to her woman’s nature, immediately became insensible.
‘I knew I should quench her,’ said Sim, rather embarrassed by this circumstance. ‘Of course I was certain it would come to this, but there was nothing else to be done – if I hadn’t eyed her over, she wouldn’t have come down. Here. Keep up a minute, Miggs. What a slippery figure she is! There’s no holding her, comfortably. Do keep up a minute, Miggs, will you?’
As Miggs, however, was deaf to all entreaties, Mr Tappertit leant her against the wall as one might dispose of a walking-stick or umbrella, until he had secured the window, when he took her in his arms again, and, in short stages and with great difficulty – arising mainly from her being tall and his being short, and perhaps in some degree from that peculiar physical conformation on which he had already remarked – carried her up stairs, and planting her, in the same umbrella or walking-stick fashion, just inside her own door, left her to her repose.
‘He may be as cool as he likes,’ said Miss Miggs, recovering as soon as she was left alone; ‘but I’m in his confidence and he can’t help himself, nor couldn’t if he was twenty Simmunses!’
CHAPTER THE TENTH
It was on one of those mornings, common in early spring, when the year, fickle and changeable in its youth like all other created things, is undecided whether to step backward into winter or forward into summer, and in its uncertainty inclines now to the one and now to the other, and now to both at once – wooing summer in the sunshine, and lingering still with winter in the shade – it was, in short, on one of those mornings, when it is hot and cold, wet and dry, bright and lowering, sad and cheerful, withering and genial, in the compass of one short hour, that old John Willet, who was dropping asleep over the copper boiler, was roused by the sound of a horse’s feet, and glancing out at window, beheld a traveller of goodly promise checking his bridle at the Maypole door.
He was none of your flippant young fellows, who would call for a tankard of mulled ale, and make themselves as much at home as if they had ordered a hogshead of wine; none of your audacious young swaggerers, who would even penetrate into the bar – that solemn sanctuary – and, smiting old John upon the back, inquire if there was never a pretty girl in the house, and where he hid his little chambermaids, with a hundred other impertinencies of that nature; none of your free-and-easy companions, who would scrape their boots upon the fire-dogs in the common room, and be not at all particular on the subject of spittoons; none of your unconscionable blades, requiring impossible chops, and taking unheard-of pickles for granted. He was a staid, grave, placid gentleman, something past the prime of life, yet upright in his carriage, for all that, and slim as a greyhound. He was well-mounted upon a sturdy chesnut cob, and had the graceful seat of an experienced horseman; while his riding gear, though free from such fopperies as were then in vogue, was handsome and well chosen. He wore a riding-coat of a somewhat brighter green than might have been expected to suit the taste of a gentleman of his years, with a short black velvet cape, laced pocket-holes and cuffs, all of a jaunty fashion; his linen, too, was of the finest kind, worked in a rich pattern at the wrists and throat, and scrupulously white. Although he seemed, judging from the mud he had picked up on the way, to have come from London, his horse was as smooth and cool as his own iron-grey periwig and pig-tail. Neither man nor beast had turned a single hair; and, saving for his soiled skirts and spatterdashes, this gentleman, with his blooming face, white teeth, exactly-ordered dress, and perfect calmness, might have come from making an elaborate and leisurely toilet, to sit for an equestrian portrait at old John Willet’s gate.
It must not be supposed that John observed these several characteristics by other than very slow degrees, or that he took in more than half a one at a time, or that he even made up his mind upon that, without a great deal of very serious consideration. Indeed, if he had been distracted in the first instance by questionings and orders, it would have taken him at the least a fortnight to have noted what is here set down; but it happened that the gentleman, being struck with the old house, or with the plump pigeons which were skimming and curtseying about it, or with the tall maypole, on the top of which a weathercock, which had been out of order for fifteen years, performed a perpetual waltz to the music of its own creaking, sat for some little time looking round in silence. Hence John, standing with his hand upon the horse’s bridle, and his great eyes on the rider, and with nothing passing to divert his thoughts, had really got some of these little circumstances into his brain, by the time he was called upon to speak.
‘A quaint place this,’ said the gentleman – and his voice was as rich as his dress. ‘Are you the landlord?’
‘At your service, sir,’ replied John Willet.
‘You can give my horse good stabling, can you, and me an early dinner (I am not particular what, so that it be cleanly served), and a decent room – of which there seems to be no lack in this great mansion,’ said the stranger, again running his eyes over the exterior.
‘You can have, sir,’ returned John, with a readiness quite surprising, ‘anything you please.’
‘It’s well I am easily satisfied,’ returned the other with a smile, ‘or that might prove a hardy pledge, my friend.’ And saying so, he dismounted, with the aid of the block before the door, in a twinkling.
‘Halloa there! Hugh!’ roared John. ‘I ask your pardon, sir, for keeping you standing in the porch; but my son has gone to town on business, and the boy being, as I may say, of a kind of use to me, I’m rather put out when he’s away. Hugh! – a dreadful idle vagrant fellow, sir – half a gipsy as I think – always sleeping in the sun in summer, and in the straw in winter time sir – Hugh! Dear Lord, to keep a gentleman a waiting here, through him! – Hugh! I wish that chap was dead, I do indeed.’
‘Possibly he is,’ returned the other. ‘I should think if he were living he would have heard you by this time.’
‘In his fits of laziness, he sleeps so desperate hard,’ said the distracted host, ‘if you were to fire off cannon-balls into his ears, it wouldn’t wake him, sir.’
The guest made no remark upon this novel cure for drowsiness, and recipe for making people lively, but with his hands clasped behind him stood in the porch, apparently very much amused to see old John, with the bridle in his hand, wavering between a strong impulse to abandon the animal to his fate, and a half disposition to lead him into the house, and shut him up in the parlour, while he waited on his master.
‘Pillory the fellow, here he is at last,’ cried John, in the very height and zenith of his distress. ‘Did you hear me a calling, villain?’
The figure he addressed made no answer, but putting his hand upon the saddle, sprung into it at a bound, turned the horse’s head towards the stable, and was gone in an instant.
‘Brisk enough when he is awake,’ said the guest.
‘Brisk enough, sir!’ replied John, looking at the place where the horse had been, as if not yet understanding quite, what had become of him. ‘He melts, I think. He goes like a drop of froth. You look at him, and there he is. You look at him again, and – there he isn’t.’
Having, in the absence of any more words, put this sudden climax to what he had faintly intended should be a long explanation of the whole life and character of his man, the oracular John Willet led the gentleman up his wide dismantled staircase into the Maypole’s best apartment.
It was spacious enough in all conscience, occupying the whole depth of the house, and having at either end a great bay window, as large as many modern rooms; in which some few panes of stained glass, emblazoned with fragments of armorial bearings, though cracked, and patched, and shattered, yet remained; attesting, by their presence, that the former owner had made the very light subservient to his state, and pressed the sun itself into his list of flatterers; bidding it, when it shone into his chamber, reflect the badges of his ancient family, and take new hues and colours from their pride.
But those were old days, and now every little ray came and went as it would; telling the plain, bare, searching truth. Although the best room of the inn, it had the melancholy aspect of grandeur in decay, and was much too vast for comfort. Rich rustling hangings, waving on the walls; and, better far, the rustling of youth and beauty’s dress; the light of women’s eyes, outshining the tapers and their own rich jewels; the sound of gentle tongues, and music, and the tread of maiden feet, had once been there, and filled it with delight. But they were gone, and with them all its gladness. It was no longer a home; children were never born and bred there; the fireside had become mercenary – a something to be bought and sold – a very courtezan: let who would die, or sit beside, or leave it, it was still the same – it missed nobody, cared for nobody, had equal warmth and smiles for all. God help the man whose heart ever changes with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn!
No effort had been made to furnish this chilly waste, but before the broad chimney a colony of chairs and tables had been planted on a square of carpet, flanked by a ghostly screen, enriched with figures, grinning and grotesque. After lighting with his own hands the faggots which were heaped upon the hearth, old John withdrew to hold grave council with his cook, touching the stranger’ sentertainment; while the guest himself, seeing small comfort in the yet unkindled wood, opened a lattice in the distant window, and basked in a sickly gleam of cold March sun.
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