The Vicar's Daughter, George MacDonald [important books to read .txt] 📗

love them? Were their hearts quiet under their dingy cloaks and shabby coats?

“Yes,” returned my father, to whom I had said something to this effect, “what would not one give for a peep into the mysteries of all these worlds that go crowding past us. If we could but see through the opaque husk of them, some would glitter and glow like diamond mines; others perhaps would look mere earthy holes; some of them forsaken quarries, with a great pool of stagnant water in the bottom; some like vast coal-pits of gloom, into which you dared not carry a lighted lamp for fear of explosion. Some would be mere lumber-rooms; others ill-arranged libraries, without a poets’ corner anywhere. But what a wealth of creation they show, and what infinite room for hope it affords!”

“But don’t you think, papa, there may be something of worth lying even in the earth-pit, or at the bottom of the stagnant water in the forsaken quarry?”

“Indeed I do; though I have met more than one in my lifetime concerning whom I felt compelled to say that it wanted keener eyes than mine to discover the hidden jewel. But then there are keener eyes than mine, for there are more loving eyes. Myself I have been able to see good very clearly where some could see none; and shall I doubt that God can see good where my mole-eyes can see none? Be sure of this, that, as he is keen-eyed for the evil in his creatures to destroy it, he would, if it were possible, be yet keener-eyed for the good to nourish and cherish it. If men would only side with the good that is in them,—will that the seed should grow and bring forth fruit!”

 

CHAPTER XVIII.

MISS CLARE’S HOME.

 

We had now arrived at the passage. The gin-shop was flaring through the fog. A man in a fustian jacket came out of it, and walked slowly down before us, with the clay of the brick-field clinging to him as high as the leather straps with which his trousers were confined, garter-wise, under the knee. The place was quiet. We and the brickmaker seemed the only people in it. When we turned the last corner, he was walking in at the very door where Miss Clare had disappeared. When I told my father that was the house, he called after the man, who came out again, and, standing on the pavement, waited until we came up.

“Does Miss Clare live in this house?” my father asked.

“She do,” answered the man curtly.

“First floor?”

“No. Nor yet the second, nor the third. She live nearer heaven than ‘ere another in the house ‘cep’ myself. I live in the attic, and so do she.”

“There is a way of living nearer to heaven than that,” said my father, laying his hand, “with a right old man’s grace,” on his shoulder.

“I dunno, ‘cep’ you was to go up in a belloon,” said the man, with a twinkle in his eye, which my father took to mean that he understood him better than he chose to acknowledge; but he did not pursue the figure.

He was a rough, lumpish young man, with good but dull features—only his blue eye was clear. He looked my father full in the face, and I thought I saw a dim smile about his mouth.

“You know her, then, I suppose?”

“Everybody in the house knows her. There ain’t many the likes o’ her as lives wi’ the likes of us. You go right up to the top. I don’t know if she’s in, but a’most any one’ll be able to tell you. I ain’t been home yet.”

My father thanked him, and we entered the house, and began to ascend. The stair was very much worn and rather dirty, and some of the banisters were broken away, but the walls were tolerably clean. Half-way up we met a little girl with tangled hair and tattered garments, carrying a bottle.

“Do you know, my dear,” said my father to her, “whether Miss Clare is at home?”

“I dunno,” she answered. “I dunno who you mean. I been mindin’ the baby. He ain’t well. Mother says his head’s bad. She’s a-going up to tell grannie, and see if she can’t do suthin’ for him. You better ast mother.—Mother!” she called out—“here’s a lady an’ a gen’lem’.”

“You go about yer business, and be back direckly,” cried a gruff voice from somewhere above.

“That’s mother,” said the child, and ran down the stair.

When we reached the second floor, there stood a big fat woman on the landing, with her face red, and her hair looking like that of a doll ill stuck on. She did not speak, but stood waiting to see what we wanted.

“I’m told Miss Clare lives here,” said my father. “Can you tell me, my good woman, whether she’s at home?”

“I’m neither good woman nor bad woman,” she returned in an insolent tone.

“I beg your pardon,” said my father; “but you see I didn’t know your name.”

“An’ ye don’t know it yet. You’ve no call to know my name. I’ll ha’ nothing to do wi’ the likes o’ you as goes about takin’ poor folks’s childer from ‘em. There’s my poor Glory’s been an’ took atwixt you an’ grannie, and shet up in a formatory as you calls it; an’ I should like to know what right you’ve got to go about that way arter poor girls as has mothers to help.”

“I assure you I had nothing to do with it,” said my father. “I’m a country clergyman myself, and have no duty in London.”

“Well, that’s where they’ve took her—down in the country. I make no doubt but you’ve had your finger in that pie. You don’t come here to call upon us for the pleasure o’ makin’ our acquaintance—ha! ha! ha!—You’re allus arter somethin’ troublesome. I’d adwise you, sir and miss, to let well alone. Sleepin’ dogs won’t bite; but you’d better let ‘em lie—and that I tell you.”

“Believe me,” said my father quite quietly, “I haven’t the least knowledge of your daughter. The country’s a bigger place than you seem to think,—far bigger than London itself. All I wanted to trouble you about was to tell us whether Miss Clare was at home or not.”

“I don’t know no one o’ that name. If it’s grannie you mean, she’s at home, I know—though it’s not much reason I’ve got to care whether she’s at home or not.”

“It’s a young—woman, I mean,” said my father.

“‘Tain’t a young lady, then?—Well, I don’t care what you call her. I dare say it’ll be all one, come judgment. You’d better go up till you can’t go no further, an’ knocks yer head agin the tiles, and then you may feel about for a door, and knock at that, and see if the party as opens it is the party you wants.”

So saying, she turned in at a door behind her, and shut it. But we could hear her still growling and grumbling.

“It’s very odd,” said my father, with a bewildered smile. “I think we’d better do as she says, and go up till we knock our heads against the tiles.”

We climbed two stairs more,—the last very steep, and so dark that when we reached the top we found it necessary to follow the woman’s directions literally, and feel about for a door. But we had not to feel long or far, for there was one close to the top of the stair. My father knocked. There was no reply; but we heard the sound of a chair, and presently some one opened it. The only light being behind her, I could not see her face, but the size and shape were those of Miss Clare.

She did not leave us in doubt, however; for, without a moment’s hesitation, she held out her hand to me, saying, “This is kind of you, Mrs. Percivale;” then to my father, saying, “I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Walton. Will you walk in?”

We followed her into the room. It was not very small, for it occupied nearly the breadth of the house. On one side the roof sloped so nearly to the floor that there was not height enough to stand erect in. On the other side the sloping part was partitioned off, evidently for a bedroom. But what a change it was from the lower part of the house! By the light of a single mould candle, I saw that the floor was as clean as old boards could be made, and I wondered whether she scrubbed them herself. I know now that she did. The two dormer windows were hung with white dimity curtains. Back in the angle of the roof, between the windows, stood an old bureau. There was little more than room between the top of it and the ceiling for a little plaster statuette with bound hands and a strangely crowned head. A few books on hanging shelves were on the opposite side by the door to the other room; and the walls, which were whitewashed, were a good deal covered with—whether engravings or etchings or lithographs I could not then see—none of them framed, only mounted on card-board. There was a fire cheerfully burning in the gable, and opposite to that stood a tall old-fashioned cabinet piano, in faded red silk. It was open; and on the music-rest lay Handel’s “Verdi Prati,”—for I managed to glance at it as we left. A few wooden chairs, and one very old-fashioned easy-chair, covered with striped chintz, from which not glaze only but color almost had disappeared, with an oblong table of deal, completed the furniture of the room. She made my father sit down in the easy-chair, placed me one in front of the fire, and took another at the corner opposite my father. A moment of silence followed, which I, having a guilty conscience, felt awkward. But my father never allowed awkwardness to accumulate.

“I had hoped to have been able to call upon you long ago, Miss Clare, but there was some difficulty in finding out where you lived.”

“You are no longer surprised at that difficulty, I presume,” she returned with a smile.

“But,” said my father, “if you will allow an old man to speak freely”—

“Say what you please, Mr. Walton. I promise to answer any question you think proper to ask me.”

“My dear Miss Clare, I had not the slightest intention of catechising you, though, of course, I shall be grateful for what confidence you please to put in me. What I meant to say might indeed have taken the form of a question, but as such could have been intended only for you to answer to yourself,—whether, namely, it was wise to place yourself at such a disadvantage as living in this quarter must be to you.”

“If you were acquainted with my history, you would perhaps hesitate, Mr. Walton, before you said I placed myself at such disadvantage.”

Here a thought struck me.

“I fancy, papa, it is not for her own sake Miss Clare lives here.”

“I hope not,” she interposed.

“I believe,” I went on, “she has a grandmother, who probably has grown accustomed to the place, and is unwilling to leave it.”

She looked puzzled for a moment, then burst into a merry laugh.

“I see,” she exclaimed. “How stupid I am! You have heard some of the people in the house talk about grannie: that’s me! I am known in the house as grannie, and have been for a good many years now—I can hardly, without thinking, tell for how many.”

Again she laughed heartily, and my father and I shared her merriment.

“How many grandchildren have you then, pray,