Charles Dickens (6 page)

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly
before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain
(I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve
her thanks, or not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent,
at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the Toy-
merchant, or fall at his feet, according to his merits, I believe
it would have been an even chance which course he would have taken.
Yet, Caleb knew that with his own hands he had brought the little
rose-tree home for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he
had forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her
from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day, denied
himself, that she might be the happier.

'Bertha!' said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a little
cordiality. 'Come here.'

'Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn't guide me!' she
rejoined.

'Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?'

'If you will!' she answered, eagerly.

How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light, the
listening head!

'This is the day on which little what's-her-name, the spoilt child,
Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to you—makes her
fantastic Pic-Nic here; an't it?' said Tackleton, with a strong
expression of distaste for the whole concern.

'Yes,' replied Bertha. 'This is the day.'

'I thought so,' said Tackleton. 'I should like to join the party.'

'Do you hear that, father!' cried the Blind Girl in an ecstasy.

'Yes, yes, I hear it,' murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a
sleep-walker; 'but I don't believe it. It's one of my lies, I've
no doubt.'

'You see I—I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into
company with May Fielding,' said Tackleton. 'I am going to be
married to May.'

'Married!' cried the Blind Girl, starting from him.

'She's such a con-founded Idiot,' muttered Tackleton, 'that I was
afraid she'd never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha! Married! Church,
parson, clerk, beadle, glass-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake,
favours, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the
tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don't you know what a
wedding is?'

'I know,' replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. 'I
understand!'

'Do you?' muttered Tackleton. 'It's more than I expected. Well!
On that account I want to join the party, and to bring May and her
mother. I'll send in a little something or other, before the
afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of
that sort. You'll expect me?'

'Yes,' she answered.

She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her
hands crossed, musing.

'I don't think you will,' muttered Tackleton, looking at her; 'for
you seem to have forgotten all about it, already. Caleb!'

'I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose,' thought Caleb. 'Sir!'

'Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to her.'

'SHE never forgets,' returned Caleb. 'It's one of the few things
she an't clever in.'

'Every man thinks his own geese swans,' observed the Toy-merchant,
with a shrug. 'Poor devil!'

Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite contempt,
old Gruff and Tackleton withdrew.

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. The
gaiety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was very sad.
Three or four times she shook her head, as if bewailing some
remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful reflections found no
vent in words.

It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in yoking a
team of horses to a waggon by the summary process of nailing the
harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near to
his working-stool, and sitting down beside him, said:

'Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my patient,
willing eyes.'

'Here they are,' said Caleb. 'Always ready. They are more yours
than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. What shall
your eyes do for you, dear?'

'Look round the room, father.'

'All right,' said Caleb. 'No sooner said than done, Bertha.'

'Tell me about it.'

'It's much the same as usual,' said Caleb. 'Homely, but very snug.
The gay colours on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and
dishes; the shining wood, where there are beams or panels; the
general cheerfulness and neatness of the building; make it very
pretty.'

Cheerful and neat it was wherever Bertha's hands could busy
themselves. But nowhere else, were cheerfulness and neatness
possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb's fancy so transformed.

'You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant as when you
wear the handsome coat?' said Bertha, touching him.

'Not quite so gallant,' answered Caleb. 'Pretty brisk though.'

'Father,' said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, and
stealing one arm round his neck, 'tell me something about May. She
is very fair?'

'She is indeed,' said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a
rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his invention.

'Her hair is dark,' said Bertha, pensively, 'darker than mine. Her
voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it.
Her shape—'

'There's not a Doll's in all the room to equal it,' said Caleb.
'And her eyes!—'

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, and from
the arm that clung about him, came a warning pressure which he
understood too well.

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then fell back upon
the song about the sparkling bowl; his infallible resource in all
such difficulties.

'Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, you know,
of hearing about him.—Now, was I ever?' she said, hastily.

'Of course not,' answered Caleb, 'and with reason.'

'Ah! With how much reason!' cried the Blind Girl. With such
fervency, that Caleb, though his motives were so pure, could not
endure to meet her face; but dropped his eyes, as if she could have
read in them his innocent deceit.

'Then, tell me again about him, dear father,' said Bertha. 'Many
times again! His face is benevolent, kind, and tender. Honest and
true, I am sure it is. The manly heart that tries to cloak all
favours with a show of roughness and unwillingness, beats in its
every look and glance.'

'And makes it noble!' added Caleb, in his quiet desperation.

'And makes it noble!' cried the Blind Girl. 'He is older than May,
father.'

'Ye-es,' said Caleb, reluctantly. 'He's a little older than May.
But that don't signify.'

'Oh father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity and age;
to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant friend in
suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in working for his sake;
to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed and talk to him awake,
and pray for him asleep; what privileges these would be! What
opportunities for proving all her truth and devotion to him! Would
she do all this, dear father?

'No doubt of it,' said Caleb.

'I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!' exclaimed the
Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor blind face on Caleb's
shoulder, and so wept and wept, that he was almost sorry to have
brought that tearful happiness upon her.

In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John
Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn't think
of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh
took time. Not that there was much of the Baby, speaking of it as
a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do
about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For
instance, when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain
point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that
another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip-
top Baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in
a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to
speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. From
this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and
roaring violently, to partake of—well? I would rather say, if
you'll permit me to speak generally—of a slight repast. After
which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of
this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you
saw anybody in all your life; and, during the same short truce,
Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so
surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself,
or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared,
independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least
regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again,
was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss
Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of
nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all
three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken
more than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike
Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs; and
whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective,
standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders.

As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs.
Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, if you
think THAT was necessary. Before you could have seen him lift her
from the ground, there she was in her place, fresh and rosy,
saying, 'John! How CAN you! Think of Tilly!'

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on any terms,
I would observe of Miss Slowboy's that there was a fatality about
them which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that
she never effected the smallest ascent or descent, without
recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as Robinson
Crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. But as this might
be considered ungenteel, I'll think of it.

'John? You've got the Basket with the Veal and Ham-Pie and things,
and the bottles of Beer?' said Dot. 'If you haven't, you must turn
round again, this very minute.'

'You're a nice little article,' returned the Carrier, 'to be
talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter of an
hour behind my time.'

'I am sorry for it, John,' said Dot in a great bustle, 'but I
really could not think of going to Bertha's—I would not do it,
John, on any account—without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and
the bottles of Beer. Way!'

This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't mind it at
all.

'Oh DO way, John!' said Mrs. Peerybingle. 'Please!'

'It'll be time enough to do that,' returned John, 'when I begin to
leave things behind me. The basket's here, safe enough.'

'What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said
so, at once, and save me such a turn! I declared I wouldn't go to
Bertha's without the Veal and Ham-Pie and things, and the bottles
of Beer, for any money. Regularly once a fortnight ever since we
have been married, John, have we made our little Pic-Nic there. If
anything was to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were
never to be lucky again.'

'It was a kind thought in the first instance,' said the Carrier:
'and I honour you for it, little woman.'

'My dear John,' replied Dot, turning very red, 'don't talk about
honouring ME. Good Gracious!'

'By the bye—' observed the Carrier. 'That old gentleman—'

Again so visibly, and instantly embarrassed!

'He's an odd fish,' said the Carrier, looking straight along the
road before them. 'I can't make him out. I don't believe there's
any harm in him.'

'None at all. I'm—I'm sure there's none at all.'

'Yes,' said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face by the
great earnestness of her manner. 'I am glad you feel so certain of
it, because it's a confirmation to me. It's curious that he should
have taken it into his head to ask leave to go on lodging with us;
an't it? Things come about so strangely.'

'So very strangely,' she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely audible.

'However, he's a good-natured old gentleman,' said John, 'and pays
as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be relied upon, like a
gentleman's. I had quite a long talk with him this morning: he
can hear me better already, he says, as he gets more used to my
voice. He told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a
great deal about myself, and a rare lot of questions he asked me.
I gave him information about my having two beats, you know, in my
business; one day to the right from our house and back again;
another day to the left from our house and back again (for he's a
stranger and don't know the names of places about here); and he
seemed quite pleased. "Why, then I shall be returning home to-
night your way," he says, "when I thought you'd be coming in an
exactly opposite direction. That's capital! I may trouble you for
another lift perhaps, but I'll engage not to fall so sound asleep
again." He WAS sound asleep, sure-ly!—Dot! what are you thinking
of?'

'Thinking of, John? I—I was listening to you.'

'O! That's all right!' said the honest Carrier. 'I was afraid,
from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long, as
to set you thinking about something else. I was very near it, I'll
be bound.'

Dot making no reply, they jogged on, for some little time, in
silence. But, it was not easy to remain silent very long in John
Peerybingle's cart, for everybody on the road had something to say.
Though it might only be 'How are you!' and indeed it was very often
nothing else, still, to give that back again in the right spirit of
cordiality, required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as
wholesome an action of the lungs withal, as a long-winded
Parliamentary speech. Sometimes, passengers on foot, or horseback,
plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of
having a chat; and then there was a great deal to be said, on both
sides.