Part 42 (1/2)
”A violet in the snow,” she said archly, as she gazed in his face; and-- well, the street was very dark--he held her for a moment in his arms.
She shrank from him startled and angry, and he felt hurt once more.
”Ah!” he said bitterly, as they reached the door in the alley, ”fine feathers make fine birds, and perhaps Jenny Blossom likes such birds to watch for her, and follow her about.”
”Can I help it, Harry?” said Jenny softly, as she laid one little work-scarred hand upon his. ”I have no one to protect me,” and before he could speak again she had hurried up-stairs.
There must have been something more than the ordinary interpretation of those words, so effectually to drive away Harry Smith's anger. Perhaps it arose from the way in which they were said. At all events John Wilson must have imagined that a fresh plague had broken out in the court, for he came near no more; and at one regular hour every evening Harry was to be seen accompanying the dainty little maiden to the warehouse, turning himself into a regular pack-horse with parcels, and all to the great hindrance of the emigrating scheme.
And so weeks--months pa.s.sed, and then something more must have been said; for one day Harry Smith was seen busily carrying Jenny's flower-pots from her lodging to his own home, which could have been from no other reason than that Jenny had at last consented to tend them there, and send brightness to the honest young fellow's home. And so it pa.s.sed, for from that time Jenny Blossom's name faded out of the chronicles of Gutter-alley. Year after year, though, when tiny little blue-eyed children were born to Harry in the cold wintry season, there was a fancy of his which may be recorded. It was only the fancy of a rough, honest worker--a soldier in the fight for life; but all the same, the idea had its tinge of poetry. The idea was this--to say that the tiny blossoms that came to find this world in its wintry garment of purity were like Violets in the Snow.
STORY FIVE: NIL DES.
STORY FIVE, CHAPTER ONE.
JOHN RICHARDS' HOUSEKEEPER.
”Git along, do, with such clat.”
”But, Keziah--dear--only listen to me! Here's winter coming on fast, and what could be a better time for getting it over? What's cold got to do with it, Keziah, when there's a warm and manly heart beating away for you at such a rate as to keep you warm and itself too? Say yes, Keziah!”
”I won't.”
”Only think of how happy we should be, with you at your housekeeping, and me with my tallers!”
”And smelling ten times worse of burnt mutton-chops than you do now when you come.”
”Smell, Keziah! Oh, what's smell when him as smells loves you? Ah, Keziah! I did think you'd got a heart that I could melt like good quality fat; but it's a stringy and gristly heart, Keziah, one as is full of pride. On my bended knees I ask you to say yes.”
”Git up, do, with your clat. The idee of going down on the carpet like that, just for all the world like a man in a stage-play. Such stuff indeed. If you don't get up directly I'll run out of the room, that I will. Do you take me for a silly girl? at my time of life too.”
”No, Keziah,” said the man of bended knees, rising slowly to stand once more, a fat, podgy little fellow, whose anxious face grew more ludicrous each moment. ”No, Keziah, I only take you for a very hard-hearted woman.”
”Don't be a noodles, Peter,” exclaimed Keziah. ”Didn't I always tell you, when I gave consent for you to come and see me, that I'd never think of marrying till Miss May was settled?”
”Yes, you did,” said Peter, ”but she's such a long time over it.”
”Stuff!” said Keziah.
”But she is indeed,” cried Peter, trying to catch one of the lady's hands in his. ”You see she's only nineteen, and can afford to wait a few years. But you see, dear, I'm forty, and you are--”
”Yes, I know, I'm forty, too, and I'm not ashamed of it, so you needn't twit me with that,” said Keziah snappishly. ”I'm in no hurry to change my name into Pash--Pash indeed. I'm sure Bay's ever so much better.”
”It is! I know it is,” said Peter, ”and I didn't twit you about your years. Ain't I always said that you were just growing into your prime?
But I see how it is: it's pride--it's the pride of the composites, Keziah, and you're trying to throw me over after I've been a true lover all these years.”
”Are you going to talk sense; or am I to leave you to chatter that sickly twaddle to the cat?--true lover indeed!”
”Go it!” cried Peter, ”it's pride! I can see through it all. Why don't you be open with me? But, mark my words, Keziah, there's more sterling substance in a short six, or even a height, than in all your grand composites, as set themselves up for sparm or wax. I'm tallow, I am, and I respect tallow. I like people not to be ashamed of their position. We can't all be wax, nor yet sparm, so why not be content as a good honest dip, or a mould! Why, even your twelve or fourteen has a honesty about it that your sham, make-believe imitation wax don't possess--things as won't stand so much as a draught of air without flaring, and guttering down, and spattering all over your carpets. It's pride, Keziah, and that's all about it.”