James Greenwood - The True History of a Little Ragamuffin

“Oh, you never heard! ‘I want him to kiss me,’ says she. ‘I want him to hold my hand in his and kiss me. I want to be good friends with him before I go,’” said Mr. Jenkins.

I believe, now that the ice was broken and the old fellow had gained courage, that he would have favoured my father with a repetition of some other queer things my mother had given utterance to; but hearing as much as he had, my father got up hastily from his chair, and after walking up and down the room two or three times, (so softly that you could scarcely hear the fall of his hob-nailed boots upon the bare floor,) presently halted, with his back to Mr. Jenkins and his face towards a picture of the Burning of the Houses of Parliament that hung against the wall. Several times I thought that he was about to put his cap on, but he never got it higher than his eyes.

“Jenks,” said he, presently, but still continuing his close inspection of the Burning of the Parliament Houses, “Jenks, it mightn’t be quite the ticket for me to go up; but an old chap like you are, I don’t suppose they’d much mind; d’ye think they would, Jenks?”

“They’ve got no call to mind me; why should they?” answered Mr. Jenkins, manifestly shirking my father’s question.

“You wouldn’t mind just going up and saying to your old woman that I should like a word with her, if convenient?”

Mr. Jenkins did not answer immediately. “Of course, Jim, I’ll go if—if you think it will be any good,” he presently remarked, in a hesitating manner.

“Of course it will be good,” said my father. “She’ll come if you call her, won’t she?”

Mr. Jenkins looked very much as though he wasn’t quite sure of that. With a delicacy and consideration that did him honour, he did not trouble my father with his private reasons for suspecting that his wife might not respond promptly and cheerfully to his summons; but the fact was, he had already once in the course of that afternoon ventured on exactly the same service as that my father now requested of him. He had gone up to make inquiries as to when it was likely that she would be down to get him his tea, and as I, sitting on the stairs, could hear, was snapped up very short indeed. However, like the kind-hearted old fellow he was, he did not flinch from a second attempt

All the time Mr. Jenkins was creeping up the stairs, my father continued staring steadfastly at the Burning Houses of Parliament, his chest heaving (as I could tell by the painful pressure of the pearly buttons on his waistcoat against my legs) as though he found it tremendously hard work. We heard the door overhead open, and Mrs. Jenkins say, “I heard him; I was just coming and down she came along with her husband.

She had her apron to her eyes as she came down; and as soon as ever she entered the room where we were, she threw up both her hands, and began moaning and shaking her head, as though the scene she had just left was woeful enough, but, borne in mind and taken together with the spectacle which now met her gaze, was too excruciating for human endurance, and cut her up completely. She sank into a chair, and covering her head with her apron, rocked, and choked, and sobbed in a way that frightened me very much.

“Has mother got up yet, ma’am?” I asked her.

But the circumstance of my addressing her seemed to throw her into acuter agony even than before; such, at least, might be fairly assumed from her behaviour.

“Has she got up? No, my poor lamb,” she gasped; “no, you poor motherless orphan, you! She’ll never get up again.”

For a moment my father withdrew his gaze from the Houses of Parliament, and looked at Mrs. Jenkins as though he had something to say; but he said nothing. He hastened back with all speed to the conflagration, indenting my calves with his pearly buttons most cruelly.

“She’s sinking fast, Jim!” pursued Mrs. Jenkins. “The doctor says that it is only her sufferings that keeps her alive; and that when they are over, which is expected minute by minute, it will be all over.”

Having thus, with many gasps and chokings, delivered herself of the dreadful intelligence, Mrs. Jenkins renewed her rocking and moaning, while her old husband walked round her and hugged her, to comfort her. As for me, although my mind was too childish to grasp the full meaning of what Mrs. Jenkins told us, I found quite enough in it to frighten me; so, slipping down out of my father’s arms, I ran to Mrs. Jenkins and buried my head in her lap.

No movement of mine, however, or of Mrs. Jenkins, or of her distressed husband, could distract my father’s attention from the picture against the wall. His interest in it appeared to become more absorbing each moment, so that his forehead presently sank down upon it; and between the fitful pauses in Mrs. Jenkins’s lamentations, a strange noise of “Pit! pat! pit!” could be plainly heard. The picture of the Burning of the Houses of Parliament was a cheap and flimsy affair, and, being gummed only at the top, the heat had caused its bottom part to curl up, scrollwise. My father leaning his head against the wall, I think it must have been his tears dropping into this scroll that caused the sound of “Pit! pat!” Suddenly, however, and by a tremendous effort, he seemed to smother his grief; and, taking his pocket handkerchief from his jacket pocket, he dried his eyes.

“The doctor up there still?” asked he.

“Bless the dear man, yes. Heavens! James Ballisat! you don’t suppose that I could be such a heartless wretch as”—

“Anybody else up there besides the doctor?” interrupted my father.

“Nobody but the doctor, Jim. Why?”

“Because I’m going up,” said my father, resolutely.

“You? Why, you’re talking like a madman,” replied the aghast Mrs. Jenkins, rising and standing in the path to the door.

“I tell you, I’m going. Poor gal! She to want to hold the hand that has so often hurt her! She to beg me to be friends with her! Don’t you come up for a minute or so, Mrs. J. Perhaps she might have something—something private like—to tell me, that she don’t want anybody but me to hear.”

He was so fully determined to go, that Mrs. Jenkins made no attempt at hindrance. He stepped hastily out of the room, but scarcely had he done so when the door of our room was heard to open hastily, and the doctor’s voice called out, impatiently—

“Mrs. What’s-o’-name? come up here, ma’am. Bother the woman! what did she want to go away just now for?”

At this summons Mrs. Jenkins jumped up, and hastily composing herself, hurried away. My father followed her.

“Well, sir! and what the dickens do you want?” we heard the doctor say.

“Please, sir, I’m her husband.”

“You are not wanted here, whoever you are,” replied the doctor, snappishly; and then came the sound of a door being closed in a very fierce and decided manner.

Down came my father again, to take me on his knee, lean his elbows on the comer of the table, and rest his face on his hands, without saying a word.

It was about the middle of September, and the evenings were growing short and chilly. So we sat. Old Jenkins was present: but seeing my father’s condition, he took no notice, but moved softly about the room (he kept birds) pottering over a breeding cage for canaries. By and by it grew so deep twilight that, when he wanted to bore a hole to put a wire through, he had to come to the window for the sake of the light. All at once, my father, starting up, spoke with a suddenness that nearly caused the old man to bore the gimlet into his thumb.

“Good Lord! I can’t stand this, Harry Jenkins; it’ll strangle me if I do;” and as he spoke, he untied and loosened his bulky yellow silk neckerchief. “I can’t abide by it another minute, Harry; upon my soul, I can’t. What can a fellow do?”