Chapter 5
"I don't say, my dears," continued the supposed cook, "that I spoke very politely just then; but who could feel polite, when their dinner had been put back at least half-an-hour over such nonsense as that? Missus used to say the 'dear boys' came to the kitchen on a wet day, because they'd got NOTHING ELSE TO DO! Nothing else to do! and had learnt Latin and Greek, and all sorts of schooling besides! So much for education, thought I. Why, it would spoil the best lads that ever were born into the world. For, of course, you know if these young gentlemen had been put to decent trades, they'd have found something else to do with their fingers besides mischief and waste. And, dear me, I talk about not having been polite to Missus just then, but now you tell me, dears, what Missus, with all her education, would have said if she'd been in my place, when one young gentleman was drinking her custard, and another young gentleman was pulling her pans on the floor! Do you think she'd have been a bit more polite than I was? Wouldn't she have called me all the stupid creatures that ever were born, and told the story over and over to all her friends and acquaintance to make them stare, and say there were surely no such simpletons in the world as ladies and gentlemen, and ladies' and gentlemen's young ladies and young gentlemen?
"However, I did not go as far as that, because, you see, I had some sense about me, and could make allowances for all the nonsense the poor things are brought up to."
There was no resisting the twinkle in Aunt Judy's eye when she came to this point, though it shone through an old pair of Nurse's spectacles; and the little ones clapped their hands, and declared it was every bit as good as a Cook story, ONLY A GREAT DEAL BETTER! That twinkle had quite brought Aunt Judy back to them again, in spite of her cook's attire, and No. 6 cried out:-
"Oh! don't stop, Aunt Judy! Do go on, Cooky dear! do tell some more! Did you always live in that place, please?"
"There now!" exclaimed Aunt Judy, throwing herself back in the chair, "isn't that a regular young lady's question, out and out? Who but a young lady, with no more sense in her head than a pin, would have thought of asking such a thing? Why, miss, is there a joint in the world that can bear basting for ever? No, no! a time comes when it must be taken down, if any good's to be left in it; and so at the end of three years my basting-time was over, and the time for taking down was come.
"'Cook,' says I to myself, 'you must give in. If you go on with those cherubs (that was their company name, you know) much longer, there won't be a bit of you left!' And, sure enough, that very morning, dears, they'd come down upon me with a fresh grievance, and I couldn't stand it, I really couldn't! The sweeps had been by four o'clock to the kitchen chimney, and I'd been up and toiling every minute since, and hadn't had time to eat my breakfast, when in they burst--the young ladies, not the sweeps, dears, I mean:- and there they broke out at once--I hadn't fed their sea-gulls before breakfast--(a couple of dull-looking grey birds, with big mouths, that had come in a hamper over night as a present to the cherubs;) and it seems I ought to have been up before daylight almost, to look for slugs for them in the garden till they'd got used to the place!
"Oh, these ladies and gentlemen! they'd need know something of some sort to make amends, for there are many things they never know all their life long!
"'Young ladies,' says I, 'I didn't come here to get meals ready for sea-gulls, but Christian ladies and gentlemen. If the sea-gulls want a cook, your mamma must hire them one on purpose. I've plenty to do for her and the family, without looking after such nonsense as that!'
"'That's what you always say,' whimpers the youngest Miss; 'and you know they don't want any cooking, but only raw slugs! And you know you might easily look for them, because you've got almost nothing to do, because it's such an easy place, mamma always says. But you're always cross, mamma says that too, and everybody knows you are, because she tells everybody!'
"When little Miss had got that out, she thought she'd finished me up; and so she had, for when I heard that Missus was so ungenteel as to go talking of what I did, to all her acquaintance, and had nothing better to talk about, I made up my mind that I'd give notice that very day.
"'Very well, miss,' says I, 'your mamma shall soon have something fresh to talk about, and I hope she'll find it a pleasant change.'
"There was some of them knew what I meant at once, for after they'd scampered off I heard shouts up and down the stairs from one to the other, 'Cook's going!' 'We shall have a new cook soon!' 'What a lark we'll have with the toffey and the pies! We'll make her do just as we choose!'
"'There, now,' thought I to myself, 'there'll be somebody else put down to baste before long. Well, I'm glad my time's over.' And thereupon I fell to wishing I was back again in father and mother's ricketty old cottage, that I'd once been so proud to leave, to go and live with gentlefolks. But, you see, it was no use wishing, for I'd my bread to earn, and must turn out somewhere, let it be as disagreeable as it would. Father and mother were dead, and there was no ricketty cottage for me to go back to, so I wiped my eyes, and told myself to make the best of what had to be.
"Well, dears," pursued Cooky, after a short pause, during which the little ones looked far more inclined to cry than laugh, "Missus was quite taken aback when she heard I wouldn't stay any longer.
"'Cook,' she said, 'I'm perfectly astonished at your want of sense in not recognizing the value of such a situation as mine! and as to your complaints about the children, anything more ridiculously unreasonable I never heard! Such superior, well-taught young people, you are not very likely to meet with again in a hurry!'
"'Perhaps not, ma'am,' says I, 'in French, and crochet, and the piano, and Latin, and things I don't understand, being only a cook. But I know what behaviour is, and that's what I'm sure the young ladies and gentlemen have never been taught; or if they have, they're so slow at taking it in, that I think I shall do better with a family where the behaviour-lessons come first!'
"Missus was very angry, and so was I; but at last she said:-
"'Cook, I shall not argue with you any longer; you know no better, and I suppose I must make allowances for you.'
"'I'm much obliged to you, ma'am, I'm sure,' was my answer; 'it's what I've always done by you ever since I came to the house, and I'll do it still with pleasure, and think no more of what's been said.'
"I spoke from my heart, I can tell you, dears, for I felt very sorry for Missus, and thought she was but a lady after all, and perhaps I'd hardly made allowances enough. I'd lost my temper, too, as I knew after she went away. But, you see, while she was there, it was so mortifying to be spoken to as if all the sense was on her side, when I knew it was all on mine, wherever the French and crochet may have been. Well, but the day before I left, I broke down with another of them, as it's fair that you should know.
"I'd felt very lonely that day, busy as I was, and in the afternoon I took myself into the scullery to give the pans a sort of good-bye cleaning, and be out of everybody's way. But there, in the midst of it, comes the eldest young gentleman flinging into the kitchen, shouting, 'Cook! Cook! Where's Cook?' as usual. I thought he was after some of his old tricks, and I HAD been fretting over those pans, thinking what a sad job it was to have no home to go to in the world, so I gave him a very short answer.
"'Master James,' says I, 'I've done with nonsense now, I can't attend to you. You must wait till the next cook comes.'
"But Master James came straight away to the scullery door, and says he, 'Cook, I'm not coming to teaze. I've brought you a needle-book. There, Cook! It's full of needles. I put them all in myself. Keep it, please.'
"Dear, dear, I can't forget it yet," pursued Cook, "how Master James stood on the little stone step of the scullery, with his arm stretched out, and the needle-book that he'd bought for me in his hand. I don't know how I thanked him, I'm sure; but I had to go back to the sink and wash the dirt off my hands before I could touch the pretty little thing, and then I told him I would keep it as long as ever I lived.
"He laughed, and says he, 'Now shake hands, Cooky,' and so we shook hands; and then off he ran, and I went back to my pans and fairly cried.
"'Why, Cook,' says I to myself, 'that lad's got as good a heart as your own, after all. And as to sense and behaviour, they haven't been forced upon him yet, as they have upon you. Latin's Latin, and conduct's conduct, and one doesn't teach the other; and it's too bad to expect more of people than what they've had opportunity for.'
Well, dears, that was the rule I always went by, and I've been in many situations since--with single ladies, and single gentlemen, and large families, and all; and there was something to put up with in all of them; and they always told me there was a good deal to put up with in me, and perhaps there was. However, it doesn't matter, so long as Missus and servant go by one rule--TO MAKE ALLOWANCES, AND NOT EXPECT MORE FROM PEOPLE THAN WHAT THEY'VE HAD OPPORTUNITY FOR; and, above all, never to be cocky when all the advantage is on their own side. It's a good rule, dears, and will stop many a foolish word and idle tale, if you'll go by it."
Aunt Judy had finished at last, and she took off the old spectacles and laid them on the doll's table, and paused.
"It IS a good rule," observed No. 4, "and I shall go by it, and not tell real Cook Stories when I grow up, I hope."
"I love old Cooky," cried No. 6, getting up and hugging her round the neck; "but is it wrong, Aunt Judy, to tell funny make-believe Cook Stories, like ours?"
"Not at all, No. 6," replied Aunt Judy. "My private belief is, that if you tell funny make-believe Cook Stories while you're little, you will be ashamed of telling stupid real ones when you're grown up."
RABBITS' TAILS.
"Death and its two-fold aspect! wintry--one, Cold, sullen, blank, from hope and joy shut out; The other, which the ray divine hath touch'd, Replete with vivid promise, bright as spring." WORDSWORTH.
"Well then; but you must remember that I have been ill, and cannot be expected to invent anything very entertaining."
"Oh, we do remember, indeed, Aunt Judy; we have been so miserable," was the answer; and the speaker added, shoving her little chair close up to her sister's:-
"I said if you were not to get better, I shouldn't want to get better either."
"Hush, hush, No. 6!" exclaimed Aunt Judy, quite startled by the expression; "it was not right to say or think that."
"I couldn't help it," persisted No. 6. "We couldn't do without you, I'm sure."
"We can do without anything which God chooses to take away," was Aunt Judy's very serious answer.
"But I didn't want to do without," murmured No. 6, with her eyes fixed on the floor.
"Dear No. 6, I know," replied Aunt Judy, kindly; "but that is just what you must try not to feel."
"I can't help feeling it," reiterated No. 6, still looking down.
"You have not tried, or thought about it yet," suggested her sister; "but do think. Think what poor ignorant infants we all are in the hands of God, not knowing what is either good or bad for us; and then you will see how glad and thankful you ought to be, to be chosen for by somebody wiser than yourself. We must always be contented with God's choice about whatever happens."
No. 6 still looked down, as if she were studying the pattern of the rug, but she saw nothing of it, for her eyes were swimming over with the tears that had filled into them, and at last she said:-
"I could, perhaps, about some things, but ONLY NOT THAT about you. Aunt Judy, you know what I mean."
Aunt Judy leant back in her chair. "ONLY NOT THAT." It was, as she knew, the cry of the universal world, although it broke now from the lips of a child. And it was painful, though touching, to feel herself the treasure that could not be parted with.
So there was a silence of some minutes, during which the hand of the little sister lay in that of the elder one.
But the latter soon roused up and spoke.
"I'll tell you what, No. 6, there's nothing so foolish as talking of how we shall feel, and what we shall do, if so-and-so happens. Perhaps it never may happen, or, if it does, perhaps we may be helped to bear it quite differently from what we have expected. So we won't say anything more about it now."
"I'm so glad!" exclaimed No. 6, completely reassured and made comfortable by the cheerful tone of her sister's remark, though she had but a very imperfect idea of the meaning of it, as she forthwith proved by rambling off into a sort of self-defence and self- justification.
"And I'm not really a baby now, you know, Aunt Judy! And I do know a great many things that are good and bad for us. I know that YOU are good for us, even when you scold over sums."
"That is a grand admission, I must own," replied Aunt Judy, smiling; "I shall remind you of it some day."
"Well, you may," cried No. 6, earnestly; and added, "you see I'm not half as silly as you thought."
Aunt Judy looked at her, wondering how she should get the child to understand what was passing through her own mind; wondering, too whether it was right to make the attempt; and she decided that on the whole it was; so she answered:-
"Ay, we grow wise enough among ourselves as we grow older, and get to know a few more things. You are certainly a little wiser than a baby in long petticoats, and I am a little wiser than you, and mamma wiser than us both. But towards God we remain ignorant infants all our lives. That was what I meant."
"But surely, Aunt Judy," interrupted No. 6, "mamma and you know--" There she stopped.
"Nothing about God's dealings," pursued Aunt Judy, "but that they are sure to be good for us, even when we like them least, and cannot understand them at all. We know so little what we ought really to like and dislike, dear No. 6, that we often fret and cry as foolishly as the two children did, who, while they were in mourning for their mother, broke their hearts over the loss of a set of rabbits' tails."
No. 6 sprang up at the idea. She had never heard of those children before. Who were they? Had Aunt Judy read of them in a book, or were they real children? How could they have broken their hearts about rabbits' tails? It must be a very curious story, and No. 6 begged to hear it.
Aunt Judy had, however, a little hesitation about the matter. There was something sad about the story; and there was no exact teaching to be got out of it, though certainly if it helped to shake No. 6's faith in her own wisdom, a good effect would be produced by listening to it. Also it was not a bad thing now and then to hear of other people having to bear trials which have not fallen to our own lot. It must surely have a tendency to soften the heart, and make us feel more dependent upon the God who gives and takes away. On the whole, therefore, she would tell the story, so she made No. 6 sit quietly down again, and began as follows:-
"There were once upon a time two little motherless girls."
No. 6's excitement of expectation was hardly over, so she tightened her hand over Aunt Judy's, and ejaculated:-
"Poor little things!"
"You may well say so," continued Aunt Judy. "It was just what everybody said who saw them at the time. When they went about with their widowed father in the country village where 'they lived, even the poor women who stood at their cottage door-steads, would look after them when they had passed, and say with a sigh:-
"'Poor little things!'
"When they went up to London in the winter to stay with their grandmamma, and walked about in the Square in their little black frocks and crape-trimmed bonnets, the ladies who saw them,--even comparative strangers,--would turn round arid say:-
"'Poor little things!'
"If visitors came to call at the house, and the children were sent for into the room, there was sure to be a whispered exclamation directly among the grown-up people of, 'Poor little things!' But oh, No. 6! the children themselves did not think about it at all. What did they know,--poor little things,--of the real misfortune which had befallen them! They were sorry, of course, at first, when they did not see their mamma as usual, and when she did not come back to them as soon as they expected. But some separation had taken place during her illness; and sometimes before, she had been poorly and got well again; and sometimes she had gone out visiting, and they had had to do without her till she returned; and so, although the days and weeks of her absence went on to months, still it was only the same thing they had felt before, continued rather longer; and meantime the little events of each day rose up to distract their attention. They got up, and dined, and went to bed as usual. They were sometimes merry, sometimes naughty, as usual. People made them nice presents, or sent for them to pleasant treats, as usual--perhaps more than usual; their father did all he could to supply the place of the lost one, but never could name her name; and soon they forgot that they had ever had a mamma at all. Soon? Ay, long before friends and strangers lead left off saying 'Poor little things' at sight of them, and long before the black frocks and crape-trimmed bonnets were laid aside, which, indeed, they wore double the usual length of time."
"And how old were they?" asked No. 6, in a whisper.
"Four and five," replied Aunt Judy; "old enough to know what they liked and disliked from hour to hour. Old enough to miss what had pleased them, till something else pleased them as well. But not old enough to look forward and know how much a mother is wanted in life; and, therefore, what a terrible loss the loss of a mother is."
"It's a very sad story I'm afraid," remarked No. 6.
"Not altogether," said Aunt Judy, smiling, "as you shall hear. One day the two little motherless girls went hand in hand across one of the courts of the great Charity Institution in London, where their grandmamma lived, into the old archway entrance, and there they stood still, looking round them, as if waiting for something. The old archway entrance opened into a square, and underneath its shelter there was a bench on one side, and on the other the lodge of the porter, whose business it was to shut up the great gates at night.
The porter had often before looked at the motherless children as they passed into the shadow of his archway, and said to himself, 'Poor little things;' for just so, during many years of his life, he had watched their young mother pass through, and had exchanged words of friendly greeting with her.
"And even now, although it was at least a year and a half since her death, when he saw the waiting children seat themselves on the bench opposite his door, the old thought stole over his mind. How sad that she should have been taken away so early from those little ones! How sad for them to be left! No one--nothing--in this world, could supply the loss of her protecting care.--POOR LITTLE THINGS!--and not the less so because they were altogether unconscious of their misfortune; and here, with the mourning casting a gloom over their fair young faces, were looking with the utmost eagerness and delight towards the doorway,--now and then slipping down from their seats to take a peep into the Square, and see if what they expected was coming,--now and then giggling to each other about the grave face of the old man on the other side of the way.
"At last, one, who had been peeping a bit as before, exclaimed, with a smothered shout, 'Here he is!' and then the other joined her, and the two rushed out together into the Square and stood on the pavement, stopping the way in front of a lad, who held over his arm a basket containing hares' and rabbits' skins, in which he carried on a small trade.
"They looked up with their smiling faces into his, and he grinned at them in return, and then they said, 'Have you got any for us to-day?' on which he set down his basket before them, and told them they might have one or two if they pleased, and down they knelt upon the pavement, examining the contents of his basket, and talked in almost breathless whispers to each other of the respective merits, the softness, colour, and prettiness, of--what do you think?"
At the first moment No. 6, being engrossed by the story, could not guess at all; but in another instant she recollected, and exclaimed:-
"Oh, Aunt Judy, do you mean those were the rabbits' tails you told about?"
"They were indeed, No. 6," replied Aunt Judy; "their grandmamma's cook had given them one or two sometime before, and there being but few entertaining games which two children can play at alone, and these poor little things being a good deal left to themselves, they invented a play of their own out of the rabbits' tails. I think the pleasant feel of the fur, which was so nice to cuddle and kiss, helped them to this odd liking; but whatever may have been the cause, certain it is they did get quite fond of them--pretended that they could feel, and were real living things, and talked of them, and to them, as if they were a party of children.
"They called them 'Tods' and 'Toddies,' but they had all sorts of names besides, to distinguish one from the other. There was, 'Whity,' and 'Browny,' and 'Softy,' and 'Snuggy,' and 'Stripy,' and many others. They knew almost every hair of each of them, and I believe could have told which was which, in the dark, merely by their feel.
"This sounds ridiculous enough, does it not, dear No. 6?" said Aunt Judy, interrupting herself.
No. 6 smiled, but she was too much interested to wish to talk; so the story proceeded.
"Now you must know that I have looked rather curiously at hares' and rabbits' tails myself since I first heard the story; and there actually is more variety in them than you would suppose. Some are nice little fat things--almost round, with the hair close and fine; others longer and more skinny, and with poor hair, although what there is may be of a handsome colour. And as to colour, even in rabbits' tails, which are white underneath, there are all shades from grey to dark brown one the upper side; and the patterns and markings differ, as you know they do on the fur of a cat. In short, there really is a choice even in hares' and rabbits' tails, and the more you look at them, the more delicate distinctions you will see.
"Well, the poor little girls knew all about this, and a great deal more, I dare say, than I have noticed, for they had played at fancy- life with them, till the Tods had become far more to them than any toys they possessed; actually, in fact, things to love; and I dare say if we could have watched them at night putting their Tods to bed, we should have seen every one of them kissed.
"It was a capital thing, as you may suppose, for keeping the children quiet as well as happy in the nursery, at the top of the London house, in one particular corner of which the basket of Tods was kept. But when grandmamma's bell rang, which it did day by day as a summons, after the parlour breakfast was over, the Tods were put away; and it was dolls, or reasonable toys of some description, which the motherless little girls took down with them to the drawing-room; and I doubt whether either grandmamma or aunt knew of the Tod family in the basket up-stairs.