Chapter 8

It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her poor figure furnished no clue to it, and her face was at once so young and so old. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be near the mark.

"I always did like grown-ups," she went on, "and always kept company with them. So sensible. Sit so quiet. Don't go prancing and capering about! And I mean always to keep among none but grown-ups till I marry. I suppose I must make up my mind to marry, one of these days!"

At that moment Lizzie Hexam entered, and the visitors after saying farewell to the dolls' dressmaker, took Lizzie out with them for a short walk.

The person of the house, dolls' dressmaker, and manufacturer of ornamental pincushions and penwipers, sat in her quaint little low arm-chair, singing in the dark, until Lizzie came back.

"Well, Lizzie--Mizzie--Wizzie," said she, breaking off in her song. "What's the news out of doors?"

"What's the news indoors?" returned Lizzie playfully, smoothing the bright long fair hair, which grew very luxuriant and beautiful on the head of the dolls' dressmaker. It being Lizzie's regular occupation when they were alone of an evening to brush out and smooth the long fair hair, she unfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the little creature was at work, and it fell in a beautiful shower over the poor shoulders that were much in need of such adorning rain.

Lizzie then lighted a candle, put the room door and the house door open, and turned the little low chair and its occupant toward the outer air. It was a sultry night, and this was a fine weather arrangement when the day's work was done. To complete it, she seated herself by the side of the little chair, and protectingly drew under her arm the spare hand that crept up to her.

"This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best time of the day and night," said the person of the house; adding, "I have been thinking to-day what a thing it would be, if I should be able to have your company till I am married, or at least courted. Because when I'm courted, I shall make _him_ do some of the things that you do for me. He couldn't brush my hair like you do, or help me up and downstairs like you do, and he couldn't do anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and he could call for orders in his clumsy way. And he shall too. _I'll_ trot him about, I can tell him!"

Jenny Wren had her personal vanities--happily for her--and no intentions were stronger in her breast than the various trials and torments that were, in the fulness of time, to be inflicted upon "him."

"Wherever he may happen to be just at present, or whoever he may happen to be," said Miss Wren, "_I_ know his tricks and his manners, and I give him warning to look out."

"Don't you think you're rather hard upon him?" asked her friend smiling, and smoothing her hair.

"Not a bit," replied the sage Miss Wren, with an air of vast experience. "My dear, they don't care for you, those fellows, if you're not hard upon 'em?"

In such light and playful conversation, which was the dear delight of Jenny Wren, they continued until interrupted by Mr. Wrayburn, a friend of Lizzie's, who fell to talking playfully with Jenny Wren.

"I think of setting up a doll, Miss Jenny," he said.

"You had better not," replied the dressmaker.

"Why not?"

"You are sure to break it. All you children do."

"But that makes good for trade, you know, Miss Wren," he returned.

"I don't know about that," Miss Wren retorted; "but you'd better by half set up a pen-wiper, and turn industrious, and use it."

"Why, if we were all as industrious as you, little Busy Body, we should begin to work as soon as we could crawl, and there would be a bad thing!"

"Do you mean," returned the little creature with a flush suffusing her face, "bad for your backs and your legs?"

"No, no," said the visitor, shocked at the thought of trifling with her infirmity. "Bad for business. If we all set to work as soon as we could use our hands, it would be all over with the dolls' dressmakers.

"There's something in that," replied Miss Wren, "you have a sort of an idea in your noddle sometimes!" Then, resting one arm upon the elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly before her, she said in a changed tone: "Talking of ideas, my Lizzie, I wonder how it happens that when I am working here all alone in the summer-time, I smell flowers. This is not a flowery neighborhood. It's anything but that. And yet as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers; I smell rose-leaves till I think I see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on the floor; I smell fallen leaves, till I put down my hand--so--and expect to make them rustle; I smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen very few flowers indeed in my life."

"Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear!" said her friend with a glance toward their visitor, as if she would have asked him whether they were given the child in compensation for her losses.

"So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!" cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, "How they sing!"

There was something in the face and action for the moment quite inspired and beautiful. Then the chin dropped musingly upon the hand again.

"I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell better than other flowers. For when I was a little child," in a tone as though it were ages ago, "the children that I used to see early in the morning were very different from any others I ever saw. They were not like me; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; they were never in pain. They were not like the children of the neighbors; they never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises; and they never mocked me. Such numbers of them too! All in white dresses, and with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I have never been able to imitate with my work, though I know it so well. They used to come down in long, bright, slanting rows, and say all together, 'Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!' When I told them who it was, they answered, 'Come and play with us!' When I said 'I never play! I can't play,' they swept about me and took me up, and made me light. Then it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me down, and said all together, 'Have patience, and we will come again.' Whenever they came back, I used to know they were coming before I saw the long bright rows, by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, 'Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!' And I used to cry out, 'Oh my blessed children, it's poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up and make me light!'"

By degrees as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised, the last ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful again. Having so paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her face, she looked round and recalled herself.

"What poor fun you think me, don't you," she said to the visitor. "You may well look tired of me. But it's Saturday night, and I won't detain you."

"That is to say, Miss Wren," observed the visitor, rather weary of the person of the house, and quite ready to profit by her hint, "you wish me to go?"

"Well, it's Saturday night," she returned, "and my child's coming home. And my child is a troublesome, bad child, and costs me a world of scolding. I would rather you didn't see my child."

"A doll?" said the visitor, not understanding, and looking for an explanation.

But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, "_Her father_," he took his leave immediately, and presently the weak and shambling figure of the child's father stumbled in, to be expostulated with, and scolded, and treated as the person of the house always treated him, when he came home in such a pitiable condition.

While they ate their supper, Lizzie tried to bring the child round again to that prettier and better state. But the charm was broken. The dolls' dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew, of the world, worldly; of the earth, earthy.

Poor dolls' dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road and asking guidance! Poor, poor little dolls' dressmaker.

One of Miss Jenny's firmest friends was an aged Jew, Mr. Riah, by name; of venerable aspect, and a generous and noble nature. He was supposedly the head of the firm of Pubsey and Co., at Saint-Mary-Axe, but really only the agent of one Mr. Fledgeby, a miserly young dandy who directed all the aged Jew's transactions, and forced him into sharp, unfair dealings with those whom Mr. Riah himself would gladly have befriended; shielding his own meanness and dishonesty behind the venerable figure of the Jew, and keeping his own connection with the firm a profound secret. Mr. Riah suffered himself to remain in such a position only because once when he had had sickness and misfortune, and owed Mr. Fledgeby's father both principal and interest, the son inheriting, had been merciful and placed him there; and little did the guileless old man realize that he had long since, richly repaid the debt; his age and serene respectability, added to the characteristics ascribed to his race, making a valuable screen to hide his employer's misdeeds.

The aged Jew often befriended the dolls' dressmaker, and she called him, in her fanciful way, "godmother."

On his roof-top garden, Jenny Wren and her friend Lizzie were sitting one day, together, when Mr. Fledgeby came up and joined the party, interrupting their conversation. For the girls, perhaps with some old instinct of his race, the gentle Jew had spread a carpet. Seated on it, against no more romantic object than a blackened chimney-stack, over which some humble creeper had been trained, they both pored over one book, while a basket of common fruit, and another basket of strings of beads and tinsel scraps were lying near.

"This, sir," explained the old Jew, "is a little dressmaker for little people. Explain to the master, Jenny."

"Dolls; that's all," said Jenny shortly. "Very difficult to fit too, because their figures are so uncertain. You never know where to expect their waists."

"I made acquaintance with my guests, sir," pursued the old Jew, with an evident purpose of drawing out the dressmaker, "through their coming here to buy our damage and waste for Miss Jenny's millinery. They wear it in their hair, and on their ball-dresses, and even (so she tells me) are presented at court with it."

"Ah!" said Fledgeby, "she's been buying that basketful to-day, I suppose."

"I suppose she has," Miss Jenny interposed, "and paying for it too, most likely," adding, "we are thankful to come up here for rest, sir; for the quiet and the air, and because it's so high. And you see the clouds rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the sky, from which the wind comes, and, you feel as if you were dead."

"How do you feel when you are dead?" asked the practical Mr. Fledgeby, much perplexed.

"Oh so tranquil!" cried the little creature smiling. "Oh so peaceful and so thankful! And you hear the people, who are alive, crying and working and calling to one another in the close dark streets and you seem to pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange, good, sorrowful happiness comes upon you!"

Her eyes fell upon the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly looked on.

"Why, it was only just now," said the little creature, pointing at him, "that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out at that low door, so bent and worn, and then he took his breath, and stood upright and looked all around him at the sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his life down in the dark was over!--Till he was called back to life," she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look of sharpness, "Why did you call him back? But you are not dead, you know," said Jenny Wren. "Get down to life!"

Mr. Fledgeby seemed to think it a rather good suggestion, and with a nod turned round and took his leave. As Mr. Riah followed him down the stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone, "Don't be gone long. Come back and be dead!" And still as they went down, they heard the little sweet voice, more and more faintly, half calling and half singing, "Come back and be dead. Come back and be dead!" And as the old man again mounted, the call or song began to sound in his ears again, and looking above, he saw the face of the little creature looking down out of the glory of her long, bright, radiant hair, and musically repeating to him like a vision:

"Come up and be dead! Come up and be dead!"

Not long after this, there came a heavy trial to the dolls' dressmaker in the loss from her home of her friend and lodger, Lizzie Hexam. Lizzie, having disagreed with her brother upon a subject of vital interest to herself, and having an intense desire to escape from persons whom she knew would pursue her so long as she remained in London, felt it wisest to quietly disappear from the city, leaving no trace of her whereabouts. With the help of Mr. Riah she accomplished this, and found occupation in a paper-mill in the country, leaving poor Jenny Wren with only the slight consolation of her letters, and with the aged Jew for her sole counsellor and friend. He was frequently with Jenny Wren, often escorting her upon her necessary trips, in returning her fine ladies to their homes in various parts of the city, and sometimes the little creature accompanied him upon his own business trips, as well.

One foggy evening as usual, he set out for Church Street, and, wading through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the dolls' dressmaker.

Miss Wren expected him. He could see her through the window, by the light of her low fire--carefully banked up with damp cinders, that it might last the longer, and waste the less when she went out--sitting waiting for him, in her bonnet. His tap at the glass roused her from the musing solitude in which she sat, and she opened the door, aiding her steps with a little crutch-stick.

"Good evening, godmother!" said Miss Jenny Wren.

The old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on. "Won't you come in and warm yourself, godmother?" she asked.

"Not if you are ready, Cinderella, my dear."

"Well!" exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. "Now you ARE a clever old boy! If we only gave prizes at this establishment you should have the first silver medal for taking me up so quick." As she spake thus, Miss Wren removed the key of the house-door from the keyhole, and put it in her pocket. Satisfied that her dwelling was safe, she drew one hand through the old man's arm, and prepared to ply her crutch-stick with the other. But the key was of such gigantic proportions that before they started, Riah proposed to carry it.

"No, no, no! I'll carry it myself," returned Miss Wren. "I'm awfully lop-sided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket, it'll trim the ship. To let you into a secret, godmother, I wear my pocket on my high side o' purpose."

With that they began their plodding through the fog.

"Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother," returned Miss Wren, with great approbation, "to understand me. But, you see, you _are_ so like the fairy godmother in the bright little books! You look so unlike the rest of the people, and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape, just this moment, with some benevolent object. Bah!" cried Miss Jenny, putting her face close to the old man's, "I can see your features, godmother, behind the beard."

"Does the fancy go to my changing other objects, too, Jenny?"

"Ah! That it does! If you'd only borrow my stick, and tap this piece of pavement, it would start up a coach and six. I say,--Let's believe so!"

"With all my heart," replied the good old man.

"And I'll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. I must ask you to be so kind as to give my child a tap, and change him altogether. Oh, my child has been such a bad, bad child of late! It worries me almost out of my wits. Not done a stroke of work these ten days."

"What shall be changed after him?" asked Riah, in a compassionately playful voice.

"Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and get you to set me right in the back and legs. It's a little thing to you with your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to poor, weak, aching me."

There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not the less touching for that.

"And then?"

"Yes, and then--_you_ know, godmother. Well both jump into the coach and six, and go to Lizzie. This reminds me, godmother, to ask you a serious question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this,--Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?"

"Explain, goddaughter."

"I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now than I used to feel before I knew her." (Tears were in her eyes as she said so.)

"Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear," said the Jew, "that of a wife, and a fair daughter, and a son of promise, has faded out of my own life--but the happiness _was_"

"Ah!" said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced. "Then I tell you what change I think you had better begin with, godmother. You had better change Is into Was, and Was into Is, and keep them so."

"Would that suit your case? Would you not be always in pain then?" asked the old man tenderly.

"Right!" exclaimed Miss Wren. "You have changed me wiser, godmother. Not," she added, with a quaint hitch of her chin and eyes, "that you need to be a very wonderful godmother to do that, indeed!"

Thus conversing, they pursued their way over London Bridge, and struck down the river, and held their still foggier course that way. As they were going along, Jennie twisted her venerable friend aside to a brilliantly lighted toy-shop window, and said: "Now, look at 'em! All my work!"

This referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colors of the rainbow, who were dressed for all the gay events of life.

"Pretty, pretty, pretty!" said the old man with a clap of his hands. "Most elegant taste!"

"Glad you like 'em," returned Miss Wren loftily. "But the fun is, godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though it's the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were not bad and my legs queer."

He looked at her as not understanding what she said.

"Bless you, godmother," said Miss Wren, "I have to scud about town at all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great ladies that takes it out of me."

"How the trying-on?" asked Riah.

"What a moony godmother you are, after all!" returned Miss Wren. "Look here. There's a Drawing-room, or a grand day in the Park, or a show or a fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I say, 'You'll do, my dear!' and I take particular notice of her again, and run home and cut her out, and baste her. Then another day I come scudding back again to try on. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How that little creature _is_ staring!' All the time I am only saying to myself, 'I must hollow out a bit here; I must slope away there'; and I am making a perfect slave of her, making her try on my doll's dress. Evening parties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway for full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages and the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night. Whenever they go bobbing into the hall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, I daresay they think I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my dolls! There was Lady Belinda Whitrose. I said one night when she came out of the carriage. 'You'll do, my dear!' and I ran straight home, and cut her out, and basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the men that called the carriages. Very bad night too. At last, 'Lady Belinda's Whitrose's carriage!' Lady Belinda Whitrose coming down! And I made her try on--oh! and take pains about it too--before she got seated. That's Lady Belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gas-light for a wax one, with her toes turned in."

When they had plodded on for some time, they reached a certain tavern, where Mr. Riah had some business to transact with its proprietress, Miss Abbey Potterson, to whom he presented himself, and was about to introduce his young companion when Miss Wren interrupted him:

"Stop a bit," she said, "I'll give the lady my card." She produced it from her pocket with an air, and Miss Abbey took the diminutive document, and found it to run thus:

Miss JENNY WREN.

_Dolls' Dressmaker._.

_Dolls attended at their own residences_.

So great were her amusement and astonishment, and so interested was she in the odd little creature that she at once asked:

"Did you ever taste shrub, child?"

Miss Wren shook her head.

"Should you like to?"

"Should if it's good," returned Miss Wren.

"You shall try. Put your little feet on the fender. It's a cold, cold night, and the fog clings so." As Miss Abbey helped her to turn her chair, her loosened bonnet fell on the floor. "Why, what lovely hair!" cried Miss Abbey. "And enough to make wigs: for all the dolls in the world. What a quantity!"

"Call _that_ a quantity?" returned Miss Wren. "_Poof_! What do you say to the rest of it?" As she spoke, she untied a band, and the golden stream fell over herself, and over the chair, and flowed down to the ground. Miss Abbey's admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. She beckoned the Jew towards her, and whispered:

"Child or woman?"

"Child in years," was the answer; "woman in self-reliance and trial."

"You are talking about me, good people," thought Miss Jenny, sitting in her golden bower, warming her feet. "I can't hear what you say, but I know your tricks and your manners!"

The shrub, mixed by Miss Potterson's skilful hands, was perfectly satisfactory to Miss Jenny's palate, and she sat and sipped it leisurely while the interview between Mr. Riah and Miss Potterson proceeded, keenly regretting when the bottom of the glass was reached, and the interview at an end.

There was at this time much curiosity among Lizzie Hexam's acquaintances to discover her hiding-place, and many of them paid visits to the dolls' dressmaker in hopes of obtaining from her the desired address. Among these was Mr. Wrayburn, whom we find calling upon Miss Wren one evening:

"And so, Miss Jenny," he said, "I cannot persuade you to dress me a doll?"

"No," replied Miss Wren snappishly; "If you want one, go and buy it at the shop."

"And my charming young goddaughter," said Mr. Wrayburn plaintively, "down in Hertfordshire--"

("Humbugshire, you mean, I think," interposed Miss Wren)--"is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and is to derive no advantage from my private acquaintance with the Court dressmaker?"

"If it's any advantage to your charming godchild, and oh, a precious godfather she has got!" replied Miss Wren, pricking at him in the air with her needle, "to be informed that the Court dressmaker knows your tricks and your manners, you may tell her so, by post, with my compliments."