At length raising her head, she beheld Ellen Monroe.
She was not surprised: but as she gazed upon that fair thin face whose roundness had yielded to the hand of starvation, and that blue eye whose fire was subdued by long and painful vigils, she said, "And so you have come at last? I have been expecting you every day!"
"Expecting me! and why?" exclaimed Ellen, surprised at these words, which appeared to contain a sense of dark and mysterious import that was ominous to the young girl.
"Yes—I have expected you," repeated the old woman. "Did I not tell you that when you had no money, no work, and no bread, and owed arrears of rent, you would come to me?"
"Alas! and you predicted truly," said Ellen, with a bitter sigh. "All the miseries which you have detailed have fallen upon me;—and more! for my father lies ill upon the one mattress that remains to us!"
"Poor creature!" exclaimed the old woman, endeavouring to assume a soothing tone; then, pointing to a foot-stool near her, she added, "Come and sit near me that we may talk together upon your sad condition."
Ellen really believed that she had excited a feeling of generous and disinterested sympathy in the heart of that hag; and she therefore seated herself confidently upon the stool, saying at the same time, "You told me that you could serve me: if you have still the power, in the name of heaven delay not, for—for—we are starving!"
The old woman glanced round to assure herself that the door of her cupboard was closed; for in that cupboard were bread and meat, and cheese. Then, turning her eyes upwards, the hag exclaimed, "God bless us all, dear child! I am dying of misery myself, and have not a morsel to give you to eat!"
But when she had uttered these words, she cast her eyes upon the young girl who was now seated familiarly as it were, by her side, and scanned her from head to foot, and from foot to head. In spite of the wretched and scanty garments which Ellen wore, the admirable symmetry of her shape was easily descried; and the old woman thought within herself how happy she should be to dress that sweet form in gay and gorgeous garments, for her own unhallowed purposes.
"You do not answer me," said Ellen. "Do not keep me in suspense—but tell me whether it is in your power to procure me work?"
The old hag's countenance wore a singular expression when these last words fell upon her ears. Then she began to talk to the poor starving girl in a manner which the latter could not comprehend, and which we dare not describe. Ellen listened for some time, as if she were hearing a strange language which she was endeavouring to make out; and then she cast a sudden look of doubt and alarm upon the old hag. The wretch grew somewhat more explicit; and the poor girl burst into an agony of tears, exclaiming, as she covered her blushing cheeks with her snow-white hands—"No: never—never!"
Still she did not fly from that den and from the presence of that accursed old hag, because she was so very, very wretched, and had no hope elsewhere.
There was a long pause; and the old hag and the young girl sate close to each other, silent and musing. The harridan cast upon her pale and starving companion a look of mingled anger and surprise; but the poor creature saw it not—for she was intent only on her own despair.
Suddenly a thought struck the hag.
"I can do nothing for you, miss, since you will not follow my advice," she said, after a while: "and yet I am acquainted with a statuary who would pay you well for casts of your countenance for his Madonnas, his actresses, his Esmeraldas, his queens, his princesses, and his angels."
These words sounded upon the ears of the unhappy girl like a dream; and parting, with her wasted fingers, the ringlets that clustered round her brow, she lifted up her large moist eyes in astonishment towards the face of the aged hag.
But the old woman was serious in her offer.
"I repeat—will you sell your countenance to a statuary?" she said. "It is a good one; and you will obtain a handsome price for it."
Ellen was literally stupefied by this strange proposal; but when she had power to collect her ideas into one focus, she saw her father pining upon a bed of sickness, and surrounded by all the horrors of want and privation;—and she herself—the unhappy girl—had not tasted food for nearly thirty hours. Then, on the other side, was her innate modesty;—but this was nothing in the balance compared to the poignancy of her own and her parent's sufferings.
So she agreed to accompany the old hag to the house of the statuary in Leather Lane, Holborn. But first she hurried home to see if her father required any thing—a vain act of filial tenderness, for if he did she had nothing to give. The old man slept soundly—worn out with suffering, want, and sorrowful meditation; and the landlady of the house promised to attend to him while Ellen was absent.
The young maiden then returned to the old woman and they proceeded together to the house of the statuary.
Up two flights of narrow and dark stairs, precipitate as ladders, did the trembling and almost heartbroken girl follow the hag. They then entered a spacious depository of statues modelled in plaster of Paris. A strange assembly of images was that! Heathen gods seemed to fraternize with angels, Madonnas, and Christian saints; Napoleon and Wellington stood motionless side by side; George the Fourth and Greenacre occupied the same shelf; William Pitt and Cobbett appeared to be contemplating each other with silent admiration; Thomas Paine elbowed a bishop; Lord Castlereagh seemed to be extending his hand to welcome Jack Ketch; Cupid pointed his arrow at the bosom of a pope; in a word, that strange pell-mell of statues was calculated to awaken ideas of a most wild and ludicrous character, in the imagination of one whose thoughts were not otherwise occupied.
The statuary was an Italian; and as he spoke the English language imperfectly, he did not waste much time over the bargain. With the cool criticism of a sportsman examining a horse or a dog, the statuary gazed upon the young maiden; then, taking a rule in his hand, he measured her head; and with a pair of blunt compasses he took the dimensions of her features. Giving a nod of approval, he consulted a large book which lay open upon a desk; and finding that he had orders for a queen, an opera-dancer, and a Madonna, he declared that he would take three casts of his new model's countenance that very morning.
The old woman whispered words of encouragement in Ellen's ear, as they all three repaired to the workshop, where upwards of twenty men were employed in making statues. Some were preparing the clay models over which the plaster of Paris was to be laid: others joined legs and arms to trunks;—some polished the features of the countenances: others effaced the seams that betrayed the various joints in the complete statues. One fixed wings to angels' backs—another swords to warriors' sides: a third repaired a limb that had been broken; a fourth stuck on a new nose in the place of an old one knocked off.
Ellen was stretched at full length upon a table; and a wet cloth was placed over her face. The statuary then covered it with moist clay;—and the process was only complete when she was ready to faint through difficulty of breathing. She rested a little while; and then the second cast was taken. Another interval to recover breath—and the third and last mould was formed.
The statuary seemed well pleased with this trial of his new model; and placing a sovereign in the young maiden's hand, he desired her to return in three days, as he should require her services again. The poor trembling creature's eyes glistened with delight as she balanced the gold in her little hand; and she took her departure, accompanied by the hag, with a heart comparatively light.
"You will have plenty to do there," said the old woman, as they proceeded homewards: "I have introduced you to a good thing. You must therefore divide your first day's earnings with me."
Ellen really felt grateful to the selfish harridan; and having changed her gold for silver coin at a shop where she stopped to buy provisions, she