CHAPTER XXII.

A GRITTY STATE OF THINGS COMES ON

Mr. Tartar’s chambers were the neatest, the cleanest, and the

best-ordered chambers ever seen under the sun, moon, and stars. The

floors were scrubbed to that extent, that you might have supposed the

London blacks emancipated for ever, and gone out of the land for good.

Every inch of brass-work in Mr. Tartar’s possession was polished and

burnished, till it shone like a brazen mirror. No speck, nor spot, nor

spatter soiled the purity of any of Mr. Tartar’s household gods, large,

small, or middle-sized. His sitting-room was like the admiral’s cabin,

his bath-room was like a dairy, his sleeping-chamber, fitted all about

with lockers and drawers, was like a seedsman’s shop; and his

nicely-balanced cot just stirred in the midst, as if it breathed.

Everything belonging to Mr. Tartar had quarters of its own assigned to

it: his maps and charts had their quarters; his books had theirs; his

brushes had theirs; his boots had theirs; his clothes had theirs; his

case-bottles had theirs; his telescopes and other instruments had

theirs. Everything was readily accessible. Shelf, bracket, locker,

hook, and drawer were equally within reach, and were equally contrived

with a view to avoiding waste of room, and providing some snug inches

of stowage for something that would have exactly fitted nowhere else.

His gleaming little service of plate was so arranged upon his sideboard

as that a slack salt-spoon would have instantly betrayed itself; his

toilet implements were so arranged upon his dressing-table as that a

toothpick of slovenly deportment could have been reported at a glance.

So with the curiosities he had brought home from various voyages.

Stuffed, dried, repolished, or otherwise preserved, according to their

kind; birds, fishes, reptiles, arms, articles of dress, shells,

seaweeds, grasses, or memorials of coral reef; each was displayed in

its especial place, and each could have been displayed in no better

place. Paint and varnish seemed to be kept somewhere out of sight, in

constant readiness to obliterate stray finger-marks wherever any might

become perceptible in Mr. Tartar’s chambers. No man-of-war was ever

kept more spick and span from careless touch. On this bright summer

day, a neat awning was rigged over Mr. Tartar’s flower-garden as only a

sailor can rig it, and there was a sea-going air upon the whole effect,

so delightfully complete, that the flower-garden might have appertained

to stern-windows afloat, and the whole concern might have bowled away

gallantly with all on board, if Mr. Tartar had only clapped to his lips

the speaking-trumpet that was slung in a corner, and given hoarse

orders to heave the anchor up, look alive there, men, and get all sail

upon her!

Mr. Tartar doing the honours of this gallant craft was of a piece with

the rest. When a man rides an amiable hobby that shies at nothing and

kicks nobody, it is only agreeable to find him riding it with a

humorous sense of the droll side of the creature. When the man is a

cordial and an earnest man by nature, and withal is perfectly fresh and

genuine, it may be doubted whether he is ever seen to greater advantage

than at such a time. So Rosa would have naturally thought (even if she

hadn’t been conducted over the ship with all the homage due to the

First Lady of the Admiralty, or First Fairy of the Sea), that it was

charming to see and hear Mr. Tartar half laughing at, and half

rejoicing in, his various contrivances. So Rosa would have naturally

thought, anyhow, that the sunburnt sailor showed to great advantage

when, the inspection finished, he delicately withdrew out of his

admiral’s cabin, beseeching her to consider herself its Queen, and

waving her free of his flower-garden with the hand that had had Mr.

Crisparkle’s life in it.

“Helena! Helena Landless! Are you there?”

“Who speaks to me? Not Rosa?” Then a second handsome face appearing.

“Yes, my darling!”

“Why, how did you come here, dearest?”

“I—I don’t quite know,” said Rosa with a blush; “unless I am dreaming!”

Why with a blush? For their two faces were alone with the other

flowers. Are blushes among the fruits of the country of the magic

bean-stalk?

“_I_ am not dreaming,” said Helena, smiling. “I should take more for

granted if I were. How do we come together—or so near together—so very

unexpectedly?”

Unexpectedly indeed, among the dingy gables and chimneypots of P. J.

T.’s connection, and the flowers that had sprung from the salt sea. But

Rosa, waking, told in a hurry how they came to be together, and all the

why and wherefore of that matter.

“And Mr. Crisparkle is here,” said Rosa, in rapid conclusion; “and,

could you believe it? long ago he saved his life!”

“I could believe any such thing of Mr. Crisparkle,” returned Helena,

with a mantling face.

(More blushes in the bean-stalk country!)

“Yes, but it wasn’t Crisparkle,” said Rosa, quickly putting in the

correction.

“I don’t understand, love.”

“It was very nice of Mr. Crisparkle to be saved,” said Rosa, “and he

couldn’t have shown his high opinion of Mr. Tartar more expressively.

But it was Mr. Tartar who saved him.”

Helena’s dark eyes looked very earnestly at the bright face among the

leaves, and she asked, in a slower and more thoughtful tone:

“Is Mr. Tartar with you now, dear?”

“No; because he has given up his rooms to me—to us, I mean. It is such

a beautiful place!”

“Is it?”

“It is like the inside of the most exquisite ship that ever sailed. It

is like—it is like—”

“Like a dream?” suggested Helena.

Rosa answered with a little nod, and smelled the flowers.

Helena resumed, after a short pause of silence, during which she seemed

(or it was Rosa’s fancy) to compassionate somebody: “My poor Neville is

reading in his own room, the sun being so very bright on this side just

now. I think he had better not know that you are so near.”

“O, I think so too!” cried Rosa very readily.

“I suppose,” pursued Helena, doubtfully, “that he must know by-and-by

all you have told me; but I am not sure. Ask Mr. Crisparkle’s advice,

my darling. Ask him whether I may tell Neville as much or as little of

what you have told me as I think best.”

Rosa subsided into her state-cabin, and propounded the question. The

Minor Canon was for the free exercise of Helena’s judgment.

“I thank him very much,” said Helena, when Rosa emerged again with her

report. “Ask him whether it would be best to wait until any more

maligning and pursuing of Neville on the part of this wretch shall

disclose itself, or to try to anticipate it: I mean, so far as to find

out whether any such goes on darkly about us?”

The Minor Canon found this point so difficult to give a confident

opinion on, that, after two or three attempts and failures, he

suggested a reference to Mr. Grewgious. Helena acquiescing, he betook

himself (with a most unsuccessful assumption of lounging indifference)

across the quadrangle to P. J. T.’s, and stated it. Mr. Grewgious held

decidedly to the general principle, that if you could steal a march

upon a brigand or a wild beast, you had better do it; and he also held

decidedly to the special case, that John Jasper was a brigand and a

wild beast in combination.

Thus advised, Mr. Crisparkle came back again and reported to Rosa, who

in her turn reported to Helena. She now steadily pursuing her train of

thought at her window, considered thereupon.

“We may count on Mr. Tartar’s readiness to help us, Rosa?” she

inquired.

O yes! Rosa shyly thought so. O yes, Rosa shyly believed she could

almost answer for it. But should she ask Mr. Crisparkle? “I think your

authority on the point as good as his, my dear,” said Helena, sedately,

“and you needn’t disappear again for that.” Odd of Helena!

“You see, Neville,” Helena pursued after more reflection, “knows no one

else here: he has not so much as exchanged a word with any one else

here. If Mr. Tartar would call to see him openly and often; if he would

spare a minute for the purpose, frequently; if he would even do so,

almost daily; something might come of it.”

“Something might come of it, dear?” repeated Rosa, surveying her

friend’s beauty with a highly perplexed face. “Something might?”

“If Neville’s movements are really watched, and if the purpose really

is to isolate him from all friends and acquaintance and wear his daily

life out grain by grain (which would seem to be the threat to you),

does it not appear likely,” said Helena, “that his enemy would in some

way communicate with Mr. Tartar to warn him off from Neville? In which

case, we might not only know the fact, but might know from Mr. Tartar

what the terms of the communication were.”

“I see!” cried Rosa. And immediately darted into her state-cabin again.

Presently her pretty face reappeared, with a greatly heightened colour,

and she said that she had told Mr. Crisparkle, and that Mr. Crisparkle

had fetched in Mr. Tartar, and that Mr. Tartar—“who is waiting now, in

case you want him,” added Rosa, with a half look back, and in not a

little confusion between the inside of the state-cabin and out—had

declared his readiness to act as she had suggested, and to enter on his

task that very day.

“I thank him from my heart,” said Helena. “Pray tell him so.”

Again not a little confused between the Flower-garden and the Cabin,

Rosa dipped in with her message, and dipped out again with more

assurances from Mr. Tartar, and stood wavering in a divided state

between Helena and him, which proved that confusion is not always

necessarily awkward, but may sometimes present a very pleasant

appearance.

“And now, darling,” said Helena, “we will be mindful of the caution

that has restricted us to this interview for the present, and will

part. I hear Neville moving too. Are you going back?”

“To Miss Twinkleton’s?” asked Rosa.

“Yes.”

“O, I could never go there any more. I couldn’t indeed, after that

dreadful interview!” said Rosa.

“Then where _are_ you going, pretty one?”

“Now I come to think of it, I don’t know,” said Rosa. “I have settled

nothing at all yet, but my guardian will take care of me. Don’t be

uneasy, dear. I shall be sure to be somewhere.”

(It did seem likely.)

“And I shall hear of my Rosebud from Mr. Tartar?” inquired Helena.

“Yes, I suppose so; from—” Rosa looked back again in a flutter, instead

of supplying the name. “But tell me one thing before we part, dearest

Helena. Tell me—that you are sure, sure, sure, I couldn’t help it.”

“Help it, love?”

“Help making him malicious and revengeful. I couldn’t hold any terms

with him, could I?”

“You know how I love you, darling,” answered Helena, with indignation;

“but I would sooner see you dead at his wicked feet.”

“That’s a great comfort to me! And you will tell your poor brother so,

won’t you? And you will give him my remembrance and my sympathy? And

you will ask him not to hate me?”

With a mournful shake of the head, as if that would be quite a

superfluous entreaty, Helena lovingly kissed her two hands to her

friend, and her friend’s two hands were kissed to her; and then she saw

a third hand (a brown one) appear among the flowers and leaves, and

help her friend out of sight.

The refection that Mr. Tartar produced in the Admiral’s Cabin by merely

touching the spring knob of a locker and the handle of a drawer, was a

dazzling enchanted repast. Wonderful macaroons, glittering liqueurs,

magically-preserved tropical spices, and jellies of celestial tropical

fruits, displayed themselves profusely at an instant’s notice. But Mr.

Tartar could not make time stand still; and time, with his hard-hearted

fleetness, strode on so fast, that Rosa was obliged to come down from

the bean-stalk country to earth and her guardian’s chambers.

“And now, my dear,” said Mr. Grewgious, “what is to be done next? To

put the same thought in another form; what is to be done with you?”

Rosa could only look apologetically sensible of being very much in her

own way and in everybody else’s. Some passing idea of living,

fireproof, up a good many stairs in Furnival’s Inn for the rest of her

life, was the only thing in the nature of a plan that occurred to her.

“It has come into my thoughts,” said Mr. Grewgious, “that as the

respected lady, Miss Twinkleton, occasionally repairs to London in the

recess, with the view of extending her connection, and being available

for interviews with metropolitan parents, if any—whether, until we have

time in which to turn ourselves round, we might invite Miss Twinkleton

to come and stay with you for a month?”

“Stay where, sir?”

“Whether,” explained Mr. Grewgious, “we might take a furnished lodging

in town for a month, and invite Miss Twinkleton to assume the charge of

you in it for that period?”

“And afterwards?” hinted Rosa.

“And afterwards,” said Mr. Grewgious, “we should be no worse off than

we are now.”

“I think that might smooth the way,” assented Rosa.

“Then let us,” said Mr. Grewgious, rising, “go and look for a furnished

lodging. Nothing could be more acceptable to me than the sweet presence

of last evening, for all the remaining evenings of my existence; but

these are not fit surroundings for a young lady. Let us set out in

quest of adventures, and look for a furnished lodging. In the meantime,

Mr. Crisparkle here, about to return home immediately, will no doubt

kindly see Miss Twinkleton, and invite that lady to co-operate in our

plan.”

Mr. Crisparkle, willingly accepting the commission, took his departure;

Mr. Grewgious and his ward set forth on their expedition.

As Mr. Grewgious’s idea of looking at a furnished lodging was to get on

the opposite side of the street to a house with a suitable bill in the

window, and stare at it; and then work his way tortuously to the back

of the house, and stare at that; and then not go in, but make similar

trials of another house, with the same result; their progress was but

slow. At length he bethought himself of a widowed cousin, divers times

removed, of Mr. Bazzard’s, who had once solicited his influence in the

lodger world, and who lived in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square.

This lady’s name, stated in uncompromising capitals of considerable

size on a brass door-plate, and yet not lucidly as to sex or condition,

was BILLICKIN.

Personal faintness, and an overpowering personal candour, were the

distinguishing features of Mrs. Billickin’s organisation. She came

languishing out of her own exclusive back parlour, with the air of

having been expressly brought-to for the purpose, from an accumulation

of several swoons.

“I hope I see you well, sir,” said Mrs. Billickin, recognising her

visitor with a bend.

“Thank you, quite well. And you, ma’am?” returned Mr. Grewgious.

“I am as well,” said Mrs. Billickin, becoming aspirational with excess

of faintness, “as I hever ham.”

“My ward and an elderly lady,” said Mr. Grewgious, “wish to find a

genteel lodging for a month or so. Have you any apartments available,

ma’am?”

“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “I will not deceive you; far

from it. I _have_ apartments available.”

This with the air of adding: “Convey me to the stake, if you will; but

while I live, I will be candid.”

“And now, what apartments, ma’am?” asked Mr. Grewgious, cosily. To tame

a certain severity apparent on the part of Mrs. Billickin.

“There is this sitting-room—which, call it what you will, it is the

front parlour, Miss,” said Mrs. Billickin, impressing Rosa into the

conversation: “the back parlour being what I cling to and never part

with; and there is two bedrooms at the top of the ’ouse with gas laid

on. I do not tell you that your bedroom floors is firm, for firm they

are not. The gas-fitter himself allowed, that to make a firm job, he

must go right under your jistes, and it were not worth the outlay as a

yearly tenant so to do. The piping is carried above your jistes, and it

is best that it should be made known to you.”

Mr. Grewgious and Rosa exchanged looks of some dismay, though they had

not the least idea what latent horrors this carriage of the piping

might involve. Mrs. Billickin put her hand to her heart, as having

eased it of a load.

“Well! The roof is all right, no doubt,” said Mr. Grewgious, plucking

up a little.

“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “if I was to tell you, sir,

that to have nothink above you is to have a floor above you, I should

put a deception upon you which I will not do. No, sir. Your slates WILL

rattle loose at that elewation in windy weather, do your utmost, best

or worst! I defy you, sir, be you what you may, to keep your slates

tight, try how you can.” Here Mrs. Billickin, having been warm with Mr.

Grewgious, cooled a little, not to abuse the moral power she held over

him. “Consequent,” proceeded Mrs. Billickin, more mildly, but still

firmly in her incorruptible candour: “consequent it would be worse than

of no use for me to trapse and travel up to the top of the ’ouse with

you, and for you to say, ‘Mrs. Billickin, what stain do I notice in the

ceiling, for a stain I do consider it?’ and for me to answer, ‘I do not

understand you, sir.’ No, sir, I will not be so underhand. I _do_

understand you before you pint it out. It is the wet, sir. It do come

in, and it do not come in. You may lay dry there half your lifetime;

but the time will come, and it is best that you should know it, when a

dripping sop would be no name for you.”

Mr. Grewgious looked much disgraced by being prefigured in this pickle.

“Have you any other apartments, ma’am?” he asked.

“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, with much solemnity, “I have.

You ask me have I, and my open and my honest answer air, I have. The

first and second floors is wacant, and sweet rooms.”

“Come, come! There’s nothing against _them_,” said Mr. Grewgious,

comforting himself.

“Mr. Grewgious,” replied Mrs. Billickin, “pardon me, there is the

stairs. Unless your mind is prepared for the stairs, it will lead to

inevitable disappointment. You cannot, Miss,” said Mrs. Billickin,

addressing Rosa reproachfully, “place a first floor, and far less a

second, on the level footing of a parlour. No, you cannot do it, Miss,

it is beyond your power, and wherefore try?”

Mrs. Billickin put it very feelingly, as if Rosa had shown a headstrong

determination to hold the untenable position.

“Can we see these rooms, ma’am?” inquired her guardian.

“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “you can. I will not disguise

it from you, sir; you can.”

Mrs. Billickin then sent into her back parlour for her shawl (it being

a state fiction, dating from immemorial antiquity, that she could never

go anywhere without being wrapped up), and having been enrolled by her

attendant, led the way. She made various genteel pauses on the stairs

for breath, and clutched at her heart in the drawing-room as if it had

very nearly got loose, and she had caught it in the act of taking wing.

“And the second floor?” said Mr. Grewgious, on finding the first

satisfactory.

“Mr. Grewgious,” replied Mrs. Billickin, turning upon him with

ceremony, as if the time had now come when a distinct understanding on

a difficult point must be arrived at, and a solemn confidence

established, “the second floor is over this.”

“Can we see that too, ma’am?”

“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “it is open as the day.”

That also proving satisfactory, Mr. Grewgious retired into a window

with Rosa for a few words of consultation, and then asking for pen and

ink, sketched out a line or two of agreement. In the meantime Mrs.

Billickin took a seat, and delivered a kind of Index to, or Abstract

of, the general question.

“Five-and-forty shillings per week by the month certain at the time of

year,” said Mrs. Billickin, “is only reasonable to both parties. It is

not Bond Street nor yet St. James’s Palace; but it is not pretended

that it is. Neither is it attempted to be denied—for why should

it?—that the Arching leads to a mews. Mewses must exist. Respecting

attendance; two is kep’, at liberal wages. Words _has_ arisen as to

tradesmen, but dirty shoes on fresh hearth-stoning was attributable,

and no wish for a commission on your orders. Coals is either _by_ the

fire, or _per_ the scuttle.” She emphasised the prepositions as marking

a subtle but immense difference. “Dogs is not viewed with favour.

Besides litter, they gets stole, and sharing suspicions is apt to creep

in, and unpleasantness takes place.”

By this time Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines, and his

earnest-money, ready. “I have signed it for the ladies, ma’am,” he

said, “and you’ll have the goodness to sign it for yourself, Christian

and Surname, there, if you please.”

“Mr. Grewgious,” said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candour, “no,

sir! You must excuse the Christian name.”

Mr. Grewgious stared at her.

“The door-plate is used as a protection,” said Mrs. Billickin, “and

acts as such, and go from it I will not.”

Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.

“No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this ’ouse is known

indefinite as Billickin’s, and so long as it is a doubt with the

riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin’, near the street-door or down

the airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe. But commit

myself to a solitary female statement, no, Miss! Nor would you for a

moment wish,” said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, “to

take that advantage of your sex, if you were not brought to it by

inconsiderate example.”

Rosa reddening as if she had made some most disgraceful attempt to

overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious to rest content with

any signature. And accordingly, in a baronial way, the sign-manual

BILLICKIN got appended to the document.

Details were then settled for taking possession on the next day but

one, when Miss Twinkleton might be reasonably expected; and Rosa went

back to Furnival’s Inn on her guardian’s arm.

Behold Mr. Tartar walking up and down Furnival’s Inn, checking himself

when he saw them coming, and advancing towards them!

“It occurred to me,” hinted Mr. Tartar, “that we might go up the river,

the weather being so delicious and the tide serving. I have a boat of

my own at the Temple Stairs.”

“I have not been up the river for this many a day,” said Mr. Grewgious,

tempted.

“I was never up the river,” added Rosa.

Within half an hour they were setting this matter right by going up the

river. The tide was running with them, the afternoon was charming. Mr.

Tartar’s boat was perfect. Mr. Tartar and Lobley (Mr. Tartar’s man)

pulled a pair of oars. Mr. Tartar had a yacht, it seemed, lying

somewhere down by Greenhithe; and Mr. Tartar’s man had charge of this

yacht, and was detached upon his present service. He was a

jolly-favoured man, with tawny hair and whiskers, and a big red face.

He was the dead image of the sun in old woodcuts, his hair and whiskers

answering for rays all around him. Resplendent in the bow of the boat,

he was a shining sight, with a man-of-war’s man’s shirt on—or off,

according to opinion—and his arms and breast tattooed all sorts of

patterns. Lobley seemed to take it easily, and so did Mr. Tartar; yet

their oars bent as they pulled, and the boat bounded under them. Mr.

Tartar talked as if he were doing nothing, to Rosa who was really doing

nothing, and to Mr. Grewgious who was doing this much that he steered

all wrong; but what did that matter, when a turn of Mr. Tartar’s

skilful wrist, or a mere grin of Mr. Lobley’s over the bow, put all to

rights! The tide bore them on in the gayest and most sparkling manner,

until they stopped to dine in some ever-lastingly-green garden, needing

no matter-of-fact identification here; and then the tide obligingly

turned—being devoted to that party alone for that day; and as they

floated idly among some osier-beds, Rosa tried what she could do in the

rowing way, and came off splendidly, being much assisted; and Mr.

Grewgious tried what he could do, and came off on his back, doubled up

with an oar under his chin, being not assisted at all. Then there was

an interval of rest under boughs (such rest!) what time Mr. Lobley

mopped, and, arranging cushions, stretchers, and the like, danced the

tight-rope the whole length of the boat like a man to whom shoes were a

superstition and stockings slavery; and then came the sweet return

among delicious odours of limes in bloom, and musical ripplings; and,

all too soon, the great black city cast its shadow on the waters, and

its dark bridges spanned them as death spans life, and the

everlastingly-green garden seemed to be left for everlasting,

unregainable and far away.

[Illustration: Up the river]

“Cannot people get through life without gritty stages, I wonder?” Rosa

thought next day, when the town was very gritty again, and everything

had a strange and an uncomfortable appearance of seeming to wait for

something that wouldn’t come. NO. She began to think, that, now the

Cloisterham school-days had glided past and gone, the gritty stages

would begin to set in at intervals and make themselves wearily known!

Yet what did Rosa expect? Did she expect Miss Twinkleton? Miss

Twinkleton duly came. Forth from her back parlour issued the Billickin

to receive Miss Twinkleton, and War was in the Billickin’s eye from

that fell moment.

Miss Twinkleton brought a quantity of luggage with her, having all

Rosa’s as well as her own. The Billickin took it ill that Miss

Twinkleton’s mind, being sorely disturbed by this luggage, failed to

take in her personal identity with that clearness of perception which

was due to its demands. Stateliness mounted her gloomy throne upon the

Billickin’s brow in consequence. And when Miss Twinkleton, in agitation

taking stock of her trunks and packages, of which she had seventeen,

particularly counted in the Billickin herself as number eleven, the B.

found it necessary to repudiate.

“Things cannot too soon be put upon the footing,” said she, with a

candour so demonstrative as to be almost obtrusive, “that the person of

the ’ouse is not a box nor yet a bundle, nor a carpet-bag. No, I am

’ily obleeged to you, Miss Twinkleton, nor yet a beggar.”

This last disclaimer had reference to Miss Twinkleton’s distractedly

pressing two-and-sixpence on her, instead of the cabman.

Thus cast off, Miss Twinkleton wildly inquired, “which gentleman” was

to be paid? There being two gentlemen in that position (Miss Twinkleton

having arrived with two cabs), each gentleman on being paid held forth

his two-and-sixpence on the flat of his open hand, and, with a

speechless stare and a dropped jaw, displayed his wrong to heaven and

earth. Terrified by this alarming spectacle, Miss Twinkleton placed

another shilling in each hand; at the same time appealing to the law in

flurried accents, and recounting her luggage this time with the two

gentlemen in, who caused the total to come out complicated. Meanwhile

the two gentlemen, each looking very hard at the last shilling

grumblingly, as if it might become eighteen-pence if he kept his eyes

on it, descended the doorsteps, ascended their carriages, and drove

away, leaving Miss Twinkleton on a bonnet-box in tears.

The Billickin beheld this manifestation of weakness without sympathy,

and gave directions for “a young man to be got in” to wrestle with the

luggage. When that gladiator had disappeared from the arena, peace

ensued, and the new lodgers dined.

But the Billickin had somehow come to the knowledge that Miss

Twinkleton kept a school. The leap from that knowledge to the inference

that Miss Twinkleton set herself to teach _her_ something, was easy.

“But you don’t do it,” soliloquised the Billickin; “I am not your

pupil, whatever she,” meaning Rosa, “may be, poor thing!”

Miss Twinkleton, on the other hand, having changed her dress and

recovered her spirits, was animated by a bland desire to improve the

occasion in all ways, and to be as serene a model as possible. In a

happy compromise between her two states of existence, she had already

become, with her workbasket before her, the equably vivacious companion

with a slight judicious flavouring of information, when the Billickin

announced herself.

“I will not hide from you, ladies,” said the B., enveloped in the shawl

of state, “for it is not my character to hide neither my motives nor my

actions, that I take the liberty to look in upon you to express a ’ope

that your dinner was to your liking. Though not Professed but Plain,

still her wages should be a sufficient object to her to stimilate to

soar above mere roast and biled.”

“We dined very well indeed,” said Rosa, “thank you.”

“Accustomed,” said Miss Twinkleton with a gracious air, which to the

jealous ears of the Billickin seemed to add “my good woman”—“accustomed

to a liberal and nutritious, yet plain and salutary diet, we have found

no reason to bemoan our absence from the ancient city, and the

methodical household, in which the quiet routine of our lot has been

hitherto cast.”

“I did think it well to mention to my cook,” observed the Billickin

with a gush of candour, “which I ’ope you will agree with, Miss

Twinkleton, was a right precaution, that the young lady being used to

what we should consider here but poor diet, had better be brought

forward by degrees. For, a rush from scanty feeding to generous

feeding, and from what you may call messing to what you may call

method, do require a power of constitution which is not often found in

youth, particular when undermined by boarding-school!”

It will be seen that the Billickin now openly pitted herself against

Miss Twinkleton, as one whom she had fully ascertained to be her

natural enemy.

“Your remarks,” returned Miss Twinkleton, from a remote moral eminence,

“are well meant, I have no doubt; but you will permit me to observe

that they develop a mistaken view of the subject, which can only be

imputed to your extreme want of accurate information.”

“My informiation,” retorted the Billickin, throwing in an extra

syllable for the sake of emphasis at once polite and powerful—“my

informiation, Miss Twinkleton, were my own experience, which I believe

is usually considered to be good guidance. But whether so or not, I was

put in youth to a very genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no

less a lady than yourself, of about your own age or it may be some

years younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from the table which has

run through my life.”

“Very likely,” said Miss Twinkleton, still from her distant eminence;

“and very much to be deplored.—Rosa, my dear, how are you getting on

with your work?”

“Miss Twinkleton,” resumed the Billickin, in a courtly manner, “before

retiring on the ’int, as a lady should, I wish to ask of yourself, as a

lady, whether I am to consider that my words is doubted?”

“I am not aware on what ground you cherish such a supposition,” began

Miss Twinkleton, when the Billickin neatly stopped her.

“Do not, if you please, put suppositions betwixt my lips where none

such have been imparted by myself. Your flow of words is great, Miss

Twinkleton, and no doubt is expected from you by your pupils, and no

doubt is considered worth the money. _No_ doubt, I am sure. But not

paying for flows of words, and not asking to be favoured with them

here, I wish to repeat my question.”

“If you refer to the poverty of your circulation,” began Miss

Twinkleton, when again the Billickin neatly stopped her.

“I have used no such expressions.”

“If you refer, then, to the poorness of your blood—”

“Brought upon me,” stipulated the Billickin, expressly, “at a

boarding-school—”

“Then,” resumed Miss Twinkleton, “all I can say is, that I am bound to

believe, on your asseveration, that it is very poor indeed. I cannot

forbear adding, that if that unfortunate circumstance influences your

conversation, it is much to be lamented, and it is eminently desirable

that your blood were richer.—Rosa, my dear, how are you getting on with

your work?”

“Hem! Before retiring, Miss,” proclaimed the Billickin to Rosa, loftily

cancelling Miss Twinkleton, “I should wish it to be understood between

yourself and me that my transactions in future is with you alone. I

know no elderly lady here, Miss, none older than yourself.”

“A highly desirable arrangement, Rosa my dear,” observed Miss

Twinkleton.

“It is not, Miss,” said the Billickin, with a sarcastic smile, “that I

possess the Mill I have heard of, in which old single ladies could be

ground up young (what a gift it would be to some of us), but that I

limit myself to you totally.”

“When I have any desire to communicate a request to the person of the

house, Rosa my dear,” observed Miss Twinkleton with majestic

cheerfulness, “I will make it known to you, and you will kindly

undertake, I am sure, that it is conveyed to the proper quarter.”

“Good-evening, Miss,” said the Billickin, at once affectionately and

distantly. “Being alone in my eyes, I wish you good-evening with best

wishes, and do not find myself drove, I am truly ’appy to say, into

expressing my contempt for an indiwidual, unfortunately for yourself,

belonging to you.”

The Billickin gracefully withdrew with this parting speech, and from

that time Rosa occupied the restless position of shuttlecock between

these two battledores. Nothing could be done without a smart match

being played out. Thus, on the daily-arising question of dinner, Miss

Twinkleton would say, the three being present together:

“Perhaps, my love, you will consult with the person of the house,

whether she can procure us a lamb’s fry; or, failing that, a roast

fowl.”

On which the Billickin would retort (Rosa not having spoken a word),

“If you was better accustomed to butcher’s meat, Miss, you would not

entertain the idea of a lamb’s fry. Firstly, because lambs has long

been sheep, and secondly, because there is such things as killing-days,

and there is not. As to roast fowls, Miss, why you must be quite

surfeited with roast fowls, letting alone your buying, when you market

for yourself, the agedest of poultry with the scaliest of legs, quite

as if you was accustomed to picking ’em out for cheapness. Try a little

inwention, Miss. Use yourself to ’ousekeeping a bit. Come now, think of

somethink else.”

To this encouragement, offered with the indulgent toleration of a wise

and liberal expert, Miss Twinkleton would rejoin, reddening:

“Or, my dear, you might propose to the person of the house a duck.”

“Well, Miss!” the Billickin would exclaim (still no word being spoken

by Rosa), “you do surprise me when you speak of ducks! Not to mention

that they’re getting out of season and very dear, it really strikes to

my heart to see you have a duck; for the breast, which is the only

delicate cuts in a duck, always goes in a direction which I cannot

imagine where, and your own plate comes down so miserably

skin-and-bony! Try again, Miss. Think more of yourself, and less of

others. A dish of sweetbreads now, or a bit of mutton. Something at

which you can get your equal chance.”

Occasionally the game would wax very brisk indeed, and would be kept up

with a smartness rendering such an encounter as this quite tame. But

the Billickin almost invariably made by far the higher score; and would

come in with side hits of the most unexpected and extraordinary

description, when she seemed without a chance.

All this did not improve the gritty state of things in London, or the

air that London had acquired in Rosa’s eyes of waiting for something

that never came. Tired of working, and conversing with Miss Twinkleton,

she suggested working and reading: to which Miss Twinkleton readily

assented, as an admirable reader, of tried powers. But Rosa soon made

the discovery that Miss Twinkleton didn’t read fairly. She cut the

love-scenes, interpolated passages in praise of female celibacy, and

was guilty of other glaring pious frauds. As an instance in point, take

the glowing passage: “Ever dearest and best adored,—said Edward,

clasping the dear head to his breast, and drawing the silken hair

through his caressing fingers, from which he suffered it to fall like

golden rain,—ever dearest and best adored, let us fly from the

unsympathetic world and the sterile coldness of the stony-hearted, to

the rich warm Paradise of Trust and Love.” Miss Twinkleton’s fraudulent

version tamely ran thus: “Ever engaged to me with the consent of our

parents on both sides, and the approbation of the silver-haired rector

of the district,—said Edward, respectfully raising to his lips the

taper fingers so skilful in embroidery, tambour, crochet, and other

truly feminine arts,—let me call on thy papa ere to-morrow’s dawn has

sunk into the west, and propose a suburban establishment, lowly it may

be, but within our means, where he will be always welcome as an evening

guest, and where every arrangement shall invest economy, and constant

interchange of scholastic acquirements with the attributes of the

ministering angel to domestic bliss.”

As the days crept on and nothing happened, the neighbours began to say

that the pretty girl at Billickin’s, who looked so wistfully and so

much out of the gritty windows of the drawing-room, seemed to be losing

her spirits. The pretty girl might have lost them but for the accident

of lighting on some books of voyages and sea-adventure. As a

compensation against their romance, Miss Twinkleton, reading aloud,

made the most of all the latitudes and longitudes, bearings, winds,

currents, offsets, and other statistics (which she felt to be none the

less improving because they expressed nothing whatever to her); while

Rosa, listening intently, made the most of what was nearest to her

heart. So they both did better than before.