Part 28 (2/2)

But that great source of crisis in the households of the poor--the mother-in-law--came to live in the Herodian household, and Emma Jane had such a warm time of it with this old Tartar of a woman that she determined to ”get out of it” as soon as possible.

”So I had a letter wrote,” she says, getting up to scrub the hearthstone, a feat she performs without kneeling, for the merest forward tilt of her body brings her hands upon the floor. ”Yuss, I had a letter wrote, for I'm not much of a writer myself, I ain't--a letter wrote to my other sister what was out in service in the country, down Brockley way, and then I went to live with her.”

”In the house where she was a servant?” I inquire.

”Yuss. That was it. I went to live with her. I was like a little servant. Blacked the boots, peeled the pertaters, washed the dishes, cleaned the grates, scrubbed the door-step, polished here, polished there, helped to dish up, and they give me two s.h.i.+llin's a week. I was like a little servant.”

I remind her of her promise to forgo work and to be a little social, and, after another rub or two, she wrings out the sopping cloth, lets it drop on the hearthstone, and then, backing once more to the stool, leans back and smiles at me, with her wet hands folded in her lap.

”The fam'ly where my sister lived in the country,” she says, taking up her tale, ”was a large family--five or six sons there was--sich nice fellers they were! But--ain't it strange?--I never see any think on 'em now though they come reggeler to London Bridge every day of their lives, they do. They was Roman Cawtholic--boys and girls alike; but, for all that, they was good-livin' people, and they was religious in their own way. And one day a week comes the priest, and that day me and my sister wasn't allowed to enter the dinin'-room all the mornin', where the breakfast things was and where the priest was what he useter call confessin' the young ladies of their sins and givin' 'em what he called absolution, summat like that, for all they'd been doin' wrong since last time. Oh my! You never knew such goings on, not in England, you didn't.

But mind, they was good-livin' people. They was Cawtholics, and they give me two s.h.i.+llin's a week; and I was like a little servant. Kind, good, religious people they was; and the beetles and the crickets in the house was somethink beastly. Oh, I do hate they nasty stinkin' things; _hate_ 'em I do! And they had a garden, a beautiful garden, and it was full of flowers it was, but I don't remember the names of them, excep'

that I know it was full of flowers--all the colours you can think of--and that garden was a G.o.d to them poor Cawtholics, it really was.

The boys worked in it before they went to the City, and the young ladies messed about with it all day; and then they all went chipping and choppin' in it of a evenin', and me and my sister wasn't hardly allowed to look at the flowers, we wasn't, for it was like a G.o.d to them.”

Her sister's health began to fail. The housework of the large family became too much for her, and the brave maid-of-all-work, accompanied by Emma Jane, was obliged to return to London. They sought the advice of that dissenting minister whose s.h.i.+rt-fronts, if ever they showed a blister, had been so frightful a terror to Emma Jane's poor mother. By the great kindness of this good man--his wisdom is not my concern--- the invalid maid-of-all-work and the indefatigable dwarf who had been like a little servant, and who has already confessed to us that she is not much of a writer herself--were established in Blackfriars as schoolmistresses!

”We hired a little room--in Green-street, it was--me and my sister, and we had a few little scholars--oh, yuss, and a tidy lot of good-sized boys and girls, besides the little 'uns--and they paid us 6d., 4d., and 2d. a week, or whatever they liked; and we done werry well with that school, and always taught religion and the catechism; and I might have been continuin' of it now if that nasty, pokin', compet.i.tionin' Board School hadn't come along, which it finished our little lot--pretty sharp it did--and left us starvin'.”

The sister, shortly after this terrific crisis in their affairs, was carried into the hospital, and, after three months of terrible pain, which she bore like a martyr, went to join in heavenly places the ”poor mother” and the father who had been in some elusive fas.h.i.+on connected with sublunary drains.

”And after that,” says Miss Stipp, getting up and resting her hands on the pail of dirty water, and looking down into it as if she saw the faces of her poor mother, her sister, and all the dead babies of the other sister s.h.i.+ning up at her from the muddy bottom, ”I came on the parish, and I've been on it ever since, and nice kind gentlemen they are, and I couldn't be treated better.”

”People are kind to you?” I inquire.

”Very kind to me they are,” she answers. ”I often get a s.h.i.+llin' given to me in the street, and the other evenin' a lady in the Boro'--nicely dressed, she was, in black--asked me if I wouldn't like a New Testament, and I said, 'Yuss, I would,' and she give me one; and I told her that I was converted, not when I was born, but when I was confirmed in St.

George's Church; and the bishop gave us a beautiful address he did, and I felt werry much better when he laid his hands on my head, and after he give us the blessin'. If my hands wasn't so black, I'd show you the cards and things. I've kep 'em ever since--yuss. I've still got 'The Vow Performed,' or whatever it is called. The wicked woman downstairs, she hasn't taken _that_. Oh, a wicked woman she is, a _very_ wicked woman; but I'll have the law on her. Ah!”

I ask her if--what with the cat and the woman downstairs, and all her relatives in heaven--she does not sometimes sigh for the next world.

”I'll be ready when my time comes,” she replies confidently, and with rather a sly grin, ”but I'm werry well content to stay where I am till I'm called, I am. I don't complain of nothink, I don't, excep' this beastly winder-pane which lets the draught in somethink cruel, it does, enough it is to blow me out of bed; and that awful devil of a woman downstairs; and the crossin' at the Elephant and Castle, which tries my nerves dreadful it does, and oughter be put a stop to, for it ain't safe for n.o.body, let alone a cripple. Then there's the children,” she cries fiercely. ”Oh, they are dreadful! You never heard sich language.

Foul-mouthed!--oh, it's awful; I never did in all my life hear sich disgustin' language. And they tease me dreadful, they do, and call after me, and follow me into shops, and throw muck at me, the dirty little blasphemin' devils.”

She tells me, in conclusion, of a milliner's shop where she goes for oddments, and where the young ladies sometimes give her a bit of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g for her bonnet. Her last action is to drop the scrubbing-brush into the pail of water, to reach out an arm, and grab with one of her claws a piece of dirty black ribbon, sticking like an old book-marker from under a pile of rubbish beside the hearth, and then to pull at the string till presently there drops upon the floor a small and battered black bonnet with another string trailing behind it in the heap of rubbish.

”There!” says Miss Stipp, holding up the fusty old bonnet, ”with a bit of black velvet,” she continues, studying the flat bonnet with critical eyes, ”and a n.o.b of jet, and a orstrich feather stuck into it somewhere about there, or there perhaps, it will last me many a long day yet, and always look nice and fas.h.i.+onable when I go for my walks about London Bridge of a evenin'.”

She is still holding the bonnet when I stoop down to take my leave. The beautiful address of the bishop who confirmed her so many years ago in Little Dorrit's church is not, my life for it, half so urgent and absorbing a matter for Miss Stipp as the latest fas.h.i.+on.

MUSIC [Sidenote: _Samuel Johnson_]

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