The Duchess of Rosemary Lane. A Novel

"Once on a time," continued Seth, "we couldn't read; now we can. Once on a time we weren't civilised; now we are. We've much more to be thankful for than we know of. This is the age of enlightenment, Sally, and the best thing I can do is to give you your first lesson."

Sally hastily put aside her work, and kneeling by baby's side stooped and kissed her. Seth, who had risen in search of a book, looked down upon the children.

"Don't you forget, Sally, what I said about you're going off in a trance. No, no, Sally!" he cried, putting his hand to his side to restrain his merriment; "not now. Don't you go fainting dead away now; we've got something else to do."

"I wasn't going to, Daddy," said Sally timorously, and with something like a blush on her thin, sallow face.

"Bravo, Sally; there's some lessons you know without being able to read-to tell the truth when it's necessary, and to tell the other thing when it's necessary. You little sinner, you! You've the gumption of twenty grown-up women in that little carcase of yours. Here's a book with large print. It belonged to my mother."

He brought forward a great heavy quarto with old broken clasps, and opened it.

"I shall read out loud the first few words and then you shall learn the letters one by one. Keep your eyes and your mind open and come closer."

So saying, Seth, taking the forefinger of Sally's right hand as a marker, read slowly the words, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

CHAPTER XII

Seth Dumbrick never raised his eyes from his work the next morning when Sally Chester, who had been standing silently by his side for full five minutes, suddenly said:

"Pharer come agin last night, Daddy."

"I thought he would, Sally."

"'Baby must have a name given to her,' says Pharer, and it's got to be done proper.' 'What name?' says I. 'I don't know,' says Pharer-"

"Not much of a spirit," murmured Seth; "not by any means what I should call a tiptop spirit."

"'There's only one man,' says Pharer," continued Sally, somewhat discomposed, "'as can give baby a proper name, and that man's Daddy Dumbrick.'"

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Seth. "He knows my new title already."

"Spirits know everythink," observed Sally oracularly. "Then Pharer takes me downstairs. And it's night, and there's more than one candle alight; and the fish in the quarian is swimming about, wide awake, salamanders and all; and there's a party."

Seth gave a long, soft whistle. "That's a mistake, Sally. There couldn't be a party."

"There was," said Sally positively.

"Men and women?"

"No; boys and gals."

"Ah, ah! That's bad enough, but it's better than t'other."

"There was Jane Preedy, and Betsy Newbiggin, and Ann Taylor, and Jimmy Platt, and a lot more, all dressed out; and there was baby dressed out splendider than all of 'em put together, and there was me, and you."

"What was I doing?"

"You was giving baby a name. 'And mind,' says Pharer, baby's a little lady, and she's got to have a grand name, better than mine, or your'n, or anybody else's.'"

"When was this party given, Sally?"

"The party was given next Monday," replied Sally in utter defiance of all natural rules and laws, "next Monday as ever was."

"It must be done, I suppose," said Seth, with a sigh of comical resignation, "or Pharaoh'll never come to you again."

"Never," declared Sally.

"Then there's no help for it. You can ask all the little ragamuffins in the neighbourhood to the christening."

"O, Daddy, you are good-you are good!" and out of the depth of her gratitude Sally put her arms round Seth's neck, and kissed him half-a-dozen times without meeting with any opposition.

In good truth Seth was enjoying this new state of things, and would not have liked, now that he had tasted the sweets of companionship, to be compelled to relapse into his old ways. There was nothing to regret in his past life; he had never loved, and therefore had no melancholy remembrance to make the present bitter. He had contracted neither violent friendships nor violent enmities. He had never been wronged-which frequently leads a generous nature to misanthropy; he had never wronged-which often leads to meanness many a nature capable of higher development. Thus, having escaped rocks upon which other men are wrecked, or soured, or embittered for life, he found himself a middle-aged man, the tenderest chords of whose nature had never till now been touched.

Sally's kisses thrilled him tenderly. He did not return them, nor did he exhibit any feeling, but every pulse of his being responded to this mark of affection.

"Daddy," said Sally.

"Yes, Sal."

"You're sure?"

"About next Monday? Oh, yes. We'll have the christening."

"I want to tell you somethink."

"Out with it."

"I've got two shillings."

"Saved up in my frock. Feel 'em."

Seth felt them.

"Mother give 'em to me before she went away. I may spend 'em, mayn't I?"

"For the christening?"

"For baby."

"Well, no; I should say not. Here's two shillings more; spend them, and keep yours."

"But I want to-I want to! It's my money, and I want to spend it on baby."

"You're an obstinate little sinner," said Seth, after some consideration, "but it appears to me that you've generally a reason for what you do. So do it. You can take my money as well, and spend it all if you like."

"We'll have a regular feast," said Sally gleefully.

Issuing forth the next morning, Sally commenced operations. The first acquaintance she met was Betsy Newbiggin. Betsy was pursuing her usual avocation of selling liquorice-water, at the rate of two teaspoonfuls for one pin. This industrious trader was a genius in her way, and displayed unusual qualifications for driving a good bargain. The bosom of her frock was half full of pins, and she trotted about with her breastplate as proud as an Indian of his trophy of scalps.

Not often did Betsy Newbiggin meet with her match in the way of trade, but she met with it this morning, in Sally. Our little sallow-faced mother had the natural cravings of a daughter of Eve for sweet things, and she cast a longing glance at Betsy's bottle of liquorice-water. Betsy observing the glance, scented a customer, and she carelessly shook the bottle two or three times, and removing the paper cork applied it to her tongue with an air of great enjoyment.

"Is it nice, Betsy?" inquired Sally anxiously.

"I should rather think it was," replied Betsy, placing the bottle close to Sally's nose; "smell it. How many pins have yer got?"

Sally passed her hand over the bosom of her frock, and found never a pin.

"Trust us," pleaded Sally.

Betsy laughed scornfully, and made a feint of moving away to more profitable pastures.

"Stop a bit, Betsy," cried Sally, "I want to tell you somethink. I live at Mr. Dumbrick's, you know-me and my baby. And, oh! it's such a place! There never was nothink like it. It's full of the most beautifullest things as ever was, and there's a large glass river with all sorts of fish a swimming about-wouldn't you like to see it?"

"I'd like to," said Betsy.

"It's better than a show, and Mr. Dumbrick he tells such stories-wouldn't you like to hear 'em?"

"I'd like to," repeated Betsy.

"Well, now," said Sally in unconscious imitation of Seth Dumbrick's manner of speaking, "I don't know. Perhaps I'll let you-perhaps I won't. Will you trust us two pins'orth?"

"Yes, I will, I will," exclaimed Betsy eagerly, and measured out four teaspoonfuls of the precious beverage, and gave full measure, mainly in consequence of Sally's watchful eyes being upon her. Long parleying took place thereafter between the cunning and wily Sally and the shrewd but in this instance over-reached Betsy, for before they parted, Sally had emptied every drop of liquorice-water in the bottle, and had besides wheedled Betsy out of twelve pins, to be returned at some remote and convenient period. But Betsy had her reward, in perspective, for she received the first invitation to the feast on Monday evening, in Seth's cellar, and she departed in a glow of triumph to boast of the invitation to her acquaintance. There is no person in the world, however insignificant or humble, who does not build for himself a dunghill upon which he delights to crow, to the exaltment of himself and the depreciation of his neighbours.

By noon all Sally's invitations were issued by word of mouth; and the news spreading with amazing rapidity, the excitement among the juvenile population of Rosemary Lane became most intense. Those who were invited walked about with pride and superiority in their bearing, and those who were not were proportionately humbled and vexed. The circumstance that Seth Dumbrick, the hermit, the crab, had consented to receive in his cave a certain number of children, and to give them a feast, was really an event in the neighbourhood, and even some of the grown-up people said they would like to go to the party.

The eventful evening arrived, and Seth, sitting in his stall, received his guests, and passed them down to Sally. The first to arrive was Betsy Newbiggin; then followed Ann Taylor, Jimmy Platt, Jane Preedy, Young Stumpy, and others, making in all a round dozen.

The cellar presented a splendid appearance. Everything was polished up, the hearth was whitened, the stove was blackened. There was not a speck on the glass of the aquarium; but this latter attraction was covered with a blanket. Seth, who, during the day, had refused to come into the dwelling-room, knowing that Sally was busy, and wished to give him a surprise, gazed around with satisfaction. His eyes meeting Sally's, which were watching him anxiously, he patted her approvingly on the shoulder, which caused her to colour with pleasure. When Seth made his appearance among his guests, they were all demurely seated on two benches which Sally had found in the back yard, and cleaned for the occasion. They were a very respectable party indeed, and behaved themselves quite genteelly. They were in holiday attire too, for, duly impressed with the importance of the event, they had taken pains to personally adorn themselves with any little oddment they could lay their hands on. True, that in some instances the will had to be taken for the deed; as in the case of Young Stumpy, the rents in whose garments would not admit of the entire concealment of his shirt, which peeped out in unwarrantable places, and who was much distressed by his companions slyly pulling at it, and further exposing him; and in the case of Jane Preedy, one of whose feet was buried in a very large old shoe, and the other squeezed into a boot too small to admit of lacing up. But for the matter of that, Sally Chester, if brought before a jury, would have been found guilty of rents, tatters, and incongruities in her attire; so busy had she been that-without inquiring as to whether she had the means-she had no time to make herself smart. On the table were displayed threepennyworth of oranges cut into very small pieces, threepennyworth of whitey-brown seedcakes, threepennyworth of the delectable cake known as the jumble, and threepennyworth of expressionless men and women and blatant cocks and hens fashioned out of the native gingerbread of the neighbourhood. Upon this splendid feast the eyes of the company were eagerly fixed, wandering occasionally away to the dark corners of the cellar and to the blanket which concealed the fish in the aquarium.

"Where's baby, Sally?" asked Seth.

"Not yet, please," said Sally imploringly. "May we commence, Daddy?"

"Yes."

The entertainment was opened by the drawing up of the curtain, or rather by the withdrawal of the blanket from the aquarium, and the sudden and brilliant display of fish swimming about caused a chorus of Oh's! of all shapes and sizes to issue from the throats of the delighted guests. Entering at once into the humour of the affair, Seth Dumbrick constituted himself showman, and proceeded to point out the different fish to the audience, who thronged around the lecturer, and listened open-mouthed to the wonderful things he told them. He took advantage, it must be confessed, of the limited knowledge of his hearers, and imposed upon them as the veriest mountebank would have done. Marvellous were the qualities of the water-beetles; dreadful were the stories he told of the voracious silver pike, saying how fortunate it was that there was not room for them to grow in the aquarium, or there was no telling what would occur; the gold and silver fish were real gold and silver-"Do you think I'd keep sham ones?" he asked, receiving vociferous vindication of his genuineness in the answers: "In course not, Mr. Dumbrick;" "Not you, Mr. Dumbrick;" – and as for the salamanders, which they gazed upon with a kind of horrible fascination, he explained how that fire wouldn't burn them, and expressed his opinion-with downward pointing finger-that they come from the place where wicked boys and girls went to, unless they saw the error of their ways, and repented in good time. So impressed with gloomy forebodings were the guests-all of whom, according to the oft-repeated testimony of their nearest relations, were as bad as bad could be-at this peroration to Seth Dumbrick's discourse, that it was found necessary to revive their sinking spirits. This was successfully accomplished by a circulation of the oranges and cakes, after discussing a portion of which they became the most defiant of young sinners, and figuratively snapped their fingers at fate. Then the principal feature of the evening was heralded by Sally, who, retiring into the recess which had been partitioned off for her sleeping apartment, returned in triumph with baby.

Holding Sally by the hand, she walked in like a little queen.

Of Sally's four shillings, one had been spent on the pleasures of the table; the remaining three had been expended on the child's dress. Heaven only knows what had influenced Sally in her whim, but from the moment she had obtained Seth Dumbrick's permission to hold the feast, she had run about from shop to shop, and street to street, hunting up cheap little bits of finery with which to deck her treasure for the important occasion. Small remnants of silk, bits of ribbon, faded artificial flowers, whatever her eye lighted on in rag and second-hand clothes' shops in the way of colour, Sally had purchased, cheapening and bargaining for them with the zeal and tact of a grown-up woman. The result was a great heap of odds and ends, which Sally had washed, and ironed, and pieced, and patched, with so much industry and ingenuity that her treasure-baby looked like a May-day Queen or an oddly-assorted rainbow. There was no harmony of design in the fashioning or arrangement of the dress, but the general effect was so pretty and unexpected, and the child's face, flushed with pleasure and excitement, was so beautiful, that her appearance in the cellar was like the revelation of a bright cloud, and Seth Dumbrick held his breath for a moment or two in wonder and admiration. The guests clapped their hands in unrestrained delight, and the child, standing in the midst of her admiring audience, received their applause with perfect grace-as though she was used to this sort of thing, and it was naturally her due. There was a rosy glow in her fair cheeks, her flaxen hair hung upon her shoulders like golden silk, her blue eyes sparkled with beauty. Sally stood by her side, like a little sallow gipsy. Seth drew the two children aside, and lifted them on his knees.

"Sally," he said, "you're a little wonder."

"No, no," protested Sally; "she is. I ain't nobody. That's the way I saw her in my dream. You've got to give her a name, you know."

"It's a puzzle, Sally. There's no name I'm acquainted with that would match her."

"But you've got to do it."

"Didn't Pharer say anything about it?"

Sally considered.

"Pharer's a king. She's good enough to be a queen."

"We've got one Queen, Sal, and those that have seen her say she's pretty, too. There's princesses and duchesses-"

"A duchess, a duchess!" cried Sally, clapping her hands. "If she can't be a queen, make her a duchess!"

"So be it, Sally. We'll call her a duchess. The Duchess of Rosemary Lane."

Sally slid off his knees, and brought a cup of water. "You must sprinkle her, you know. That's the way. Now no one can't call her nothink else."

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Seth, addressing the company with mock dignity, "allow me to present to you the Duchess of Rosemary Lane."

CHAPTER XIII

Thus, after having unconsciously passed through peril and danger, the heroine of this story may be said to have found a place in the world. Lowly indeed was her home-as low as a grave; but as from the grave, where the lifeless clay rots and moulders, the spirit rises to purer space, so doubtless will the Duchess of Rosemary Lane find means to rise in her mortal state, to a higher rung in the ladder of life than the humble cellar of Seth Dumbrick. At present she is helpless, dependent on strangers for food and shelter-thrown into the arms of charity, and saved from early suffering by the cunning and devotion of a child but two or three years older than herself.

From the evening of Seth's party his fame increased, and that of the Duchess of Rosemary Lane was firmly established. The gossips were firmly convinced that a thrilling mystery was connected with the child's birth, and the title of Duchess was willingly admitted. It conferred distinction upon the neighbourhood, and, apart from that consideration, it was pretty and fantastic, and took the fancy of the humble folk. Her position as the aristocratic head of Rosemary Lane being, therefore, indisputably recognised, the Duchess at once assumed her proper position in society.

She held her court in the narrow byways and thoroughfares of the district, and no monarch ever had a more devoted and admiring following. All the children in and about Rosemary Lane walked in her train, and wherever she sat and made her throne, in mud-gutter or on windowsill, she was surrounded by flatterers, aping their betters in a short-sighted, wrong-headed fashion; for from this little queen of the humble streets, nothing was to be gained but smiles and thanks. Which renders apparent the fact that, although, as has been demonstrated, these children were to some extent worldly, they were not yet sufficiently wise to know that the heart is a good-enough mint in its way, but that its coinage is scarcely available for material uses.

It was by her beauty, and the pride which her worshipper, Sally Chester, took in her, that her position was chiefly maintained. Sally was scarcely ever seen with a clean face; the Duchess of Rosemary Lane was scarcely ever seen with a dirty one. Sally was never without rents in her clothes and holes in her stockings; the Duchess was invariably a picture of neatness. Sally's hair hung always in wild disorder about her thin, sallow face; the Duchess's was always carefully combed and smoothed. "A duchess!" exclaimed many a woman; "upon my word, she looks like one!" It was the fashion with many of the youngsters to bite their nails; she never did. Her little plump fingers were generally white and clean, and her nails were seldom, if ever, in mourning. And Seth Dumbrick took care of her feet. It became his whim to make for his new charge the prettiest boots and shoes, which were at once the envy and admiration of her playmates. She received all the court paid to her, all the flatteries of her worshippers, all the adoration which Sally poured upon her, with queenly composure. There are natures with a wondrous capacity for bestowing love, and whose sweetest pleasure it is to lavish affection on an endeared object. Such a nature Sally possessed, and it had found its idol.

But had not the Duchess of Rosemary Lane been distinguished and made conspicuous by circumstances not dependent upon herself, she would have claimed attention from certain qualities peculiarly her own. In conjunction with her beauty, she had, when she was puzzled or pleased, quaint tricks of expression indescribably winning, and when no actual passion or emotion lighted up her features and they were in repose, she looked so sweet and pure that all hearts were instinctively attracted towards her.

Seth Dumbrick, when he adopted the girls, had done so with a full intention to perform his duty by them. There was more than one difficulty, however, for which he was utterly unprepared, and the first of these presented itself in the person of Mrs. Chester's "lovely lad," Ned.

Upon his mother's departure to her new sphere of duties, this estimable young gentleman found himself without a home; whereupon he began, after the usual custom of such natures, to repine bitterly at fate because of his unfortunate lot. But fate is an insensible antagonist, and, repine at it as you will, you cannot make it feel. Ned Chester cast about for some more vulnerable foe, and by a curious process of reasoning, he selected Seth Dumbrick. His sister Sally and the Duchess of Rosemary Lane played important parts in the belief, and it led him to the opinion that, in adopting them, Seth Dumbrick had inflicted a distinct injury upon him. With this injury rankling in his mind, he, some three months after his mother's departure, presented himself at Seth Dumbrick's stall. Seth Dumbrick was not the first to speak. He saw that Ned Chester was not sober, and he had no desire to quarrel with him.

"Well, you Dumbrick!" exclaimed Ned.

Seth Dumbrick merely smiled; the most irritating answer he could have made.

"You Dumbrick, do you hear?" demanded Ned.

"Oh, yes, I hear," quietly replied Seth. "What do you want?"

"My sister."

"Sally!" called Seth Dumbrick. "Here's your brother wants to see you."

Sally came up from the cellar, accompanied by the Duchess. They stood by Seth's side, who proceeded with his work in silence. Ned Chester gave Sally a wrathful look, and made as though he would clutch her. Seth, an attentive observer of every look and movement, interposed his arm.

"What's that for?" cried Ned Chester, fancying that he saw his opportunity.

Seth Dumbrick looked at his bare arm contemplatively, as though that was the subject upon which Ned Chester desired information. His shirt sleeves were tucked up to his shoulders, and his muscles made no mean display.

"What's that for?" he echoed, holding out his arm, and straightening it, so that his clenched fist almost touched the young man's face.

Ned Chester started back with an exclamation of alarm; he was not a brave man.

"Are you going to hit me?" he cried.

"No," said Seth Dumbrick; "there's no call to hit you, I take it. I thought you asked what my arm was for. Well, it's for work. Yours is for play, I suppose. But as my arm has come into the conversation, let me tell you that it's an arm that can take its own part, though it's many a year ago since it struck anything more sensible than leather."

The hint was too plain to be mistaken. Ned Chester turned to Sally.

"Sally," he whined, "haven't you got something to say to your poor brother?"

Sally considered for a moment, and made up her mind once and for all, if the tone in which she spoke could be taken as an indication.

"No," she said, "I ain't got nothink to say, and I don t want to have nothink to do with you."

"By which," added Seth Dumbrick, as a strong endorsement, " I should understand, if I was in your place, that my room would be better than my company."

"You little viper!" exclaimed Ned Chester wrathfully, addressing his sister, and would have continued but that Seth interrupted him with:

"Stop, stop; this young lady's under my protection. If she doesn't want to say anything to you, you shan't make her. Go down, Sally, if you don't care to stop."

Sally, glad to escape, was about to obey, when the Duchess, who had not moved from Sally's side during the conversation, plucked Seth Dumbrick's shirt-sleeve. Seth peered inquisitively at her.

"Don't hurt him," lisped the child.

A gleam of satisfaction came into Ned Chester's eyes.

"No, no, Duchess," said Seth good-humouredly, "I'll not hurt him. Nobody wants to do anything to him one way or the another. Go down with Sally."

But before the Duchess obeyed, she held out her hand to Ned.

"Goodbye," she said.

Ned seized her hand and kissed it.

"Goodbye," he said, with a triumphant glance at Seth; "there's one at all events with a heart in her bosom."