Part 17 (1/2)
Miss Stivergill repented of the speech instantly on seeing the tears start into Tottie's large eyes as she replied quickly--”Indeed I would, m'm. Oh! you've no notion 'ow kind father is w'en 'e's not in liquor.”
”There, there. Of course he is. I didn't mean to say he wasn't, little Bones. It's a curious fact that many drun--, I mean people given to drink, _are_ kind and amiable. It's a disease. Go now, and get your things on, and do you likewise, Lilly. My cab is at the door. Be quick.”
In a few minutes the whole party descended to the street. Miss Stivergill locked the door with her own hand, and put the key in her pocket. As she turned round, Tottie's tawdry bonnet had fallen off in her efforts to raise the baby towards the outstretched hands of her mistress, while the cabman stood looking on with amiable interest.
Catching up the bonnet, Miss Stivergill placed it on the child's head, back to the front, twisted the strings round her head and face--anyhow-- lifted her and her charge into the cab, and followed them.
”Where to, ma'am?” said the amiable cabman.
”Charing Cross,--you idiot.”
”Yes, ma'am,” replied the man, with a broad grin, touching his hat and bestowing a wink on a pa.s.sing policeman as he mounted the box.
On their way to the station the good lady put out her head and shouted ”Stop!”
The maligned man obeyed.
”Stay here, Lilly, with the baby.--Jump out, little Bones. Come with me.”
She took the child's bonnet off and flung it under the cab, then grasped Tottie's hand and led her into a shop.
”A hat,” demanded the lady of the shopwoman.
”What kind of hat, ma'am?”
”Any kind,” replied Miss Stivergill, ”suitable for this child--only see that it's not a doll's hat. Let it fit her.”
The shopwoman produced a head-dress, which Tottie afterwards described as a billyc.o.c.k 'at with a feather in it. The purchaser paid for it, thrust it firmly on the child's head, and returned to the cab.
A few minutes by rail conveyed them to a charmingly country-like suburb, with neat villas dotting the landscape, and a few picturesque old red brick cottages scattered about here and there.
Such a drive to such a scene, reader, may seem very commonplace to you, but what tongue can tell, or pen describe, what it was to Tottie Bones?
That pretty little human flower had been born in the heart of London--in one of the dirtiest and most unsavoury parts of that heart. Being the child of a dissolute man and a hard-working woman, who could not afford to go out excursioning, she had never seen a green field in her life.
She had never seen the Thames, or the Parks. There are many such unfortunates in the vast city. Of flowers--with the exception of cauliflowers--she knew nothing, save from what little she saw of them in broken pots in the dirty windows of her poor neighbourhood, and on the barrows and baskets of the people who hawked them about the city. There was a legend among the neighbours of Archangel Court that once upon a time--in some remote period of antiquity--a sunbeam had been in the habit of overtopping the forest of chimneys and penetrating the court below in the middle of each summer, but a large brick warehouse had been erected somewhere to the southward, and had effectually cut off the supply, so that suns.h.i.+ne was known to the very juvenile population only through the reflecting power of roofs and chimney-cans and gable windows. In regard to scents, it need scarcely be said that Tottie had had considerable experience of that cla.s.s which it is impossible to term sweet.
Judge then, if you can, what must have been the feelings of this little town-sparrow when she suddenly rushed, at the rate of forty miles an hour, into the heavenly influences of fields and flowers, hedgerows, and trees, farm-yards and village spires, horse-ponds, country inns, sheep, cattle, hay-carts, piggeries, and poultry.
Her eyes, always large and liquid, became great crystal globes of astonishment, as, forgetful of herself, and _almost_ of baby, she sat with parted lips and heaving breast, gazing in rapt ecstasy from the carriage window.
Miss Stivergill and Miss Lillycrop, being sympathetic souls, gazed with almost equal interest on the child's animated face.
”She only wants wings and was.h.i.+ng to make her an angel,” whispered the former to the latter.
But if the sights she saw on the journey inflated Tottie's soul with joy, the glories of Rosebud Cottage almost exploded her. It was a marvellous cottage. Rosebushes surrounded it, ivy smothered it, leaving just enough of room for the windows to peep out, and a few of the old red bricks to show in harmony with the green. Creepers in great variety embraced it, and a picturesque clump of trees on a knoll behind sheltered it from the east wind. There was a farm-yard, which did not belong to itself, but was so close to it that a stranger could scarcely have told whether it formed part of the Rosebud domain or that of the neighbouring cottage. The day, too, was exceptionally fine. It was one of those still, calm, sunny, cloudless days, which induce healthy people sometimes to wish that earth might be their permanent home.
”Oh, bybie!” exclaimed Tottie Bones, when, having clambered to the top of the knoll, she sat down on a tree-root and gazed on the cottage and the farm-yard, where hens were scratching in the interest of active chickens, and cows were standing in blank felicity, and pigs were revelling in dirt and suns.h.i.+ne--”Oh, bybie! it's 'eaven upon earth, ain't it, darling?”
The darling evidently agreed with her for once, for, lying on his back in the long gra.s.s, he seized two handfuls of wild-flowers, kicked up his fat legs, and laughed aloud.
”That's right, darling. Ain't it fun? And _such_ flowers too--oh! all for nothing, only got to pull 'em. Yes, roll away, darling, you can't dirty yourself 'ere. Come, I shall 'ave a roll too.” With which remark Tottie plunged into the gra.s.s, seized the baby and tumbled him and herself about to such an extent that the billyc.o.c.k hat was much deteriorated and the feather damaged beyond recovery.