“Mrs. Cutthumb,” I answered, with a penetrating look, to show her that she underrated me, “I fear it must be that some mischief-maker has written up to say that I, that I – you know what I mean, Mrs. Cutthumb.”
“Yes, sir, and you means well so far, and everything straight-forrard; but you ain’t got near the heart of it, Master Kit; nor your Uncle neither, I’ll be bound. Wants a woman’s wits for that.”
“What on earth do you mean? It is bad enough. I don’t see how even a woman can make it any worse than it is. Speak out what you mean, since you have begun.”
“Well, sir, it is no more than this, and you mustn’t be put out by it. Suppose there is another young gent in the case – a young gent in London, they means her to marry.”
The goodnatured woman looked so knowing, that I thought she must have solid proof; and perhaps the deed was done already. I tried to laugh, but could only stare, and wonder what was coming next.
“Oh, Master Kit,” she went on with her apron to her eyes, or she was kind of heart, “you used to come, and play down here, when your head wasn’t up to the counter. And I had my Cutthumb then, and he gave you a penny, because you was so natural. Don’t you be struck of a heap like that, or I shall come to think that all women is wicked. It was only a bad thought of my own. I have nothing to go by, if I were to die this minute; and the same thought might come across any one. Don’t think no more about it, there’s a dear young man. Only keep your eyes open, and if you can manage to come across that stuck-up Jenny Marker, the least she can do, after saving her life, is to tell you all she knows, and to take your part. But don’t you believe more than half she says. I never would say a single word against her, there’s no call for that, being known as she is to every true woman in Sunbury; but if she’s not a double-faced gossiping hussy, as fancies that a gold chain makes a lady of her, and very likely no gold after all, why I should deserve to be taken up, and there’s no one has ever said that of me.”
Here Mrs. Cutthumb began to cry, at the thought of being taken to the station; and I saw that time alone could comfort her, yet ventured to say a few earnest words, about her position and high character. And presently she was quite brisk again.
“Why bless my heart,” she said, looking about for a box of matches on the onion shelf; “I ought to have stuck up my candle in the window, pretty well half an hour agone. Not that no customer comes after dark, nor many by daylight for that matter. Ah, Master Kit, I am a poor lone widow; but you are the nicest young man in Sunbury; and I wish you well, with all my heart I do. And mind one thing, whatever you do; if you ever carries out what I was saying, here’s the one as will help you to it, in a humble way, and without much money. A nice front drawing-room over the shop, bedroom, and chamber-suit to match. Only twelve shillings a week for it all, and the use of the kitchen fire for nothing. And the window on the landing looks on the river Thames, and the boats, and the barges, and the fishermen. Oh, Mr. Kit, with Mrs. Kitty now and then, it would be like the Garden of Eden.”
CHAPTER XIII.
MY UNCLE BEGINS
That last suggestion was most delicious, but it came too late to relieve the pang of the horrible idea first presented. I could not help wondering at my own slow wit, which ought to have told me that such a treasure as my heart was set upon, must have been coveted long ere now, by many with higher claims to it. Was it likely that I, a mere stupid fellow, half a rustic, and of no position, birth or property, should be preferred to the wealthy, accomplished, and brilliant men, who were sure to be gathering round such a prize? Black depression overcame me; even as the smoke of London, when the air is muggy, falls upon some country village, wrapping in funereal gloom the church, the trees, the cattle by the pond, and the man at the window with his newspaper. I could not see my way to eat much supper, and my Uncle was crusty with me.
“Can’t stand this much more,” he said, as he finished the beer that was meant for me; “a plague on all girls, and the muffs as well that go spooning after them! Why, the Lord might just as well never have made a Williams pear, or a cat’s-head codlin. S’pose you don’t even want to hear my story; you don’t deserve it anyhow. Better put it off, till you look brighter, for there isn’t much to laugh at in it, unless it is the dunder-headed folly of a very clever man.”
However, I begged him to begin at once; for he had hinted that his tale would throw some light on the subject most important in the world to me; so I filled him five pipes that he might not hunt about, and made his glass of rum and water rather strong, and put the black stool for his legs to rest on, and drew the red curtains behind his head, for the evening was chilly, and the fire cheerful.
“Like to do things for myself,” he muttered, while accepting these little duties. “Nobody else ever does them right, though meaning it naturally for the best. Well, you want to hear about those people; and you shall hear all I know, my lad; though I don’t pretend to know half of all; but what I know I do know, and don’t talk at random, like the old women here. We’ll take them in branches – male and female – until they unite, or pretend to do it; but a very poor splice; the same as you see, if you send for Camelias to Portugal, a great clumsy stick-out at the heel of the graft, and the bark grinning open all along. Bah! There’s no gardeners like Englishmen, though we run ’em down for fear of boasting. Did you ever hear why Professor Fairthorn would ever so much rather be called ‘Captain,’ though ‘Professor’ sounds ever so much better?”
“Perhaps he has a legal right to be called ‘Captain,’ but not to the other title. I have heard that hundreds of people call themselves Professors, without any right to do it. And I am sure he would never like to be one of them.”
“That has got nothing to do with it. He has held some appointment that gave him the right to the title, if he liked it. The reason is that his wife always calls him ‘Professor’; and so it reminds him of her. Ah, don’t you be in this outrageous hurry for a wife of your own, Master Kit, I say. For all I know, the Captain may have been as wild for her, some time, as you are for your Kitty. What can you say to that, my lad?”
“Why, simply that you don’t know at all what you are talking about, Uncle Corny. My Miss Fairthorn is not that lady’s daughter, and is not to be blamed for the whole of her sex, any more than you are for the whole of yours.”
“There is something in that, when one comes to see it,” my Uncle replied; for his mind was generally fair, when it cost him nothing. “But you must not keep on breaking in like this, or you won’t have heard half of it, this side of Christmas. Well, I was going to take them according to their sexes, the same as the Lord made them. And first comes the lady, as she hath a right to do, being at the bottom of the mischief.
“When I was a young man, thirty year or more agone, there used to be a lot of talk about the two handsome Miss Coldpeppers, of the Manor Hall down here. There used to be a lot also of coaches running, not so much through Sunbury, which lay to one side of the road, though some used to pass here on their way to Chertsey; and there was tootle-tootle along father’s walls, three or four times a day. But the most of them went further back, along the Staines and Windsor road, where the noise was something wonderful; and it’s my opinion that these Railway things will never be able to compare with it. They may make as much noise for the time, but it seems to be over, before the boys can holloa.
“Lots of young sparks, and bucks, and dandies, and Corinthians, and I forget what else, but all much finer than you can see now, used to come down by the coaches then, some of them driving, some blowing the horn,