Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was in the dressmaker’s pocket to get mourning for Mr. Dolls. As the old man, Riah, sat by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found it difficult to make out whether she really did realize that the deceased had been her father.
“If my poor boy,” she would say, “had been brought up better, he might have done better. Not that I reproach myself. I hope I have no cause for that.”
“None indeed, Jenny, I am very certain.”
“Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. But you see it is so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, work, work, all day. When he was out of employment, I couldn’t always keep him near me. He got fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into the streets. And he never did well in the streets, he never did well out of sight. How often it happens with children!”
“Too often, even in this sad sense!” thought the old man.
“How can I say what I might have turned out myself, but for my back having been so bad and my legs so queer, when I was young!” the dressmaker would go on. “I had nothing to do but work, and so I worked. I couldn’t play. But my poor unfortunate child could play, and it turned out the worse for him.”
“And not for him alone, Jenny.”
“Well! I don’t know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunate boy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called him a quantity of names;” shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears. “I don’t know that his going wrong was much the worse for me. If it ever was, let us forget it.”
“You are a good girl, you are a patient girl.”
“As for patience,” she would reply with a shrug, “not much of that, godmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called him names. But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibility as a mother, so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding and scolding failed. But I was bound to try everything, you know, with such a charge upon my hands. Where would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not tried everything!”
With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industrious little creature, the day-work and the night-work were beguiled until enough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring into the kitchen, where the working-bench now stood, the sombre stuff that the occasion required, and to bring into the house the other sombre preparations. “And now,” said Miss Jenny, “having knocked off my rosy-cheeked young friends, I’ll knock off my white-cheeked self.” This referred to her making her own dress, which at last was done. “The disadvantage of making for yourself,” said Miss Jenny, as she stood upon a chair to look at the result in the glass, “is, that you can’t charge anybody else for the job, and the advantage is, that you haven’t to go out to try on. Humph! Very fair indeed! If He could see me now (whoever he is) I hope he wouldn’t repent of his bargain!”
The simple arrangements were of her own making, and were stated to Riah thus:
“I mean to go alone, godmother, in my usual carriage, and you’ll be so kind as keep house while I am gone. It’s not far off. And when I return, we’ll have a cup of tea, and a chat over future arrangements. It’s a very plain last house that I have been able to give my poor unfortunate boy; but he’ll accept the will for the deed if he knows anything about it; and if he doesn’t know anything about it,” with a sob, and wiping her eyes, “why, it won’t matter to him. I see the service in the Prayerbook says, that we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can take nothing out. It comforts me for not being able to hire a lot of stupid undertaker’s things for my poor child, and seeming as if I was trying to smuggle ’em out of this world with him, when of course I must break down in the attempt, and bring ’em all back again. As it is, there’ll be nothing to bring back but me, and that’s quite consistent, for I shan’t be brought back, some day!”
After that previous carrying of him in the streets, the wretched old fellow seemed to be twice buried. He was taken on the shoulders of half a dozen blossom-faced men, who shuffled with him to the churchyard, and who were preceded by another blossom-faced man, affecting a stately stalk, as if he were a Policeman of the D(eath) Division, and ceremoniously pretending not to know his intimate acquaintances, as he led the pageant. Yet, the spectacle of only one little mourner hobbling after, caused many people to turn their heads with a look of interest.
At last the troublesome deceased was got into the ground, to be buried no more, and the stately stalker stalked back before the solitary dressmaker, as if she were bound in honour to have no notion of the way home. Those Furies, the conventionalities, being thus appeased, he left her.
“I must have a very short cry, godmother, before I cheer up for good,” said
