Fighting the Flames. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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house in a very dark and dismal lane leading out of that great centre of refinement.
It is true that Beverly Square was not exactly the “West End,” but there are many degrees of West-endiness, so to speak, in the western neighbourhood of London, and this square was, in the opinion of Miss Tippet, the West-endiest place she knew, because there dwelt in it, not only a very genteel and uncommonly rich portion of the community, but several of her own aristocratic, though distant, relations, among whom was Mr Auberly.
The precise distance of the relationship between them had never been defined, and all records bearing on it having been lost in the mists of antiquity, it could not now be ascertained; but Miss Tippet laid claim to the relationship, and as she was an obliging, good-humoured, chatty, and musical lady, Mr Auberly admitted the claim.
Miss Tippet’s only weakness—for she was indeed a most estimable woman—was a tendency to allow rank and position to weigh too much in her esteem. She had also a sensitive abhorrence of everything “low and vulgar,” which would have been, of course, a very proper feeling had she not fallen into the mistake of considering humble birth lowness, and want of polish vulgarity—a mistake which is often (sometimes even wilfully) made by persons who consider themselves much wiser than Miss Tippet, but who are not wise enough to see a distinct shade of true vulgarity in their own sentiments.
The dark, dismal lane, named Poorthing Lane, besides forming an asylum for decayed and would-be aristocrats, and a vestibule, as it were, to Beverly Square, was a convenient retreat for sundry green-grocers and public-house keepers and small trades-people, who supplied the densely-peopled surrounding district, and even some of the inhabitants of Beverly Square itself, with the necessaries of life. It was also a thoroughfare for the gay equipages of the square, which passed through it daily on their way to and from the adjoining stables, thereby endangering the lives of precocious babies who could crawl, but could not walk away from home, as well as affording food for criticism and scandal, not to mention the leaving behind of a species of secondhand odour of gentility such as coachmen and footmen can give forth.
Miss Tippet’s means being small, she rented a proportionately small residence, consisting of two floors, which were the upper portion of a house, whose ground floor was a toy-shop. The owner of the toy-shop, David Boone, was Miss Tippet’s landlord; but not the owner of the tenement. He rented the whole, and sublet the upper portion. Miss Tippet’s parlour windows commanded a near view of the lodging opposite, into every corner and crevice of which she could have seen, had not the windows been encrusted with impenetrable dirt. Her own domestic arrangements were concealed from view by small green venetian blinds, which rose from below, and met the large venetians which descended from above. The good lady’s bedroom windows in the upper floor commanded a near view—much too near—of a stack of chimneys, between which and another stack, farther over, she had a glimpse of part of the gable end of a house, and the topmost bough of a tree in Beverly Square. It was this prospect into paradise, terrestrially speaking, that influenced Miss Tippet in the choice of her abode.
When William Willders reached the small door of Number 6, Poorthing Lane, and raised his hand to knock, the said door opened as if it had been trained to admit visitors of its own accord, and Miss Matty Merryon issued forth, followed by a bright blue-eyed girl of about twelve years of age.
“Well, boy, was ye comin’ here?” inquired Matty, as the lad stepped aside to let them pass.
“Yes, I was. Does Miss Tippet live here?”
“She does, boy, what d’ye want with her?”
“I want to see her, young ’ooman, so you’d better cut away up an’ tell her a gen’lm’n requests a few words private conversation with her.”
The little girl laughed at this speech, and Matty, addressing Willie as a “dirty spalpeen,” said he had better go with her to a shop first, and she’d then take him back and introduce him to Miss Tippet.
“You see I can’t let ye in all be yer lone, cushla; for what would the neighbours say, you know! I’m only goin’ to the toy-shop, an’ won’t kape ye a minit, for Miss Emma don’t take long to her bargains.”
Willie might probably have demurred to this delay; but on hearing that the blue-eyed girl wanted to make purchases, he at once agreed to the proposal, and followed them into the toy-shop.
David Boone, who stepped out of the back-shop to serve them, was, if we may say so, very unlike his trade. A grave, tall, long-legged, long-nosed, raw-boned, melancholy-looking creature such as he, might have been an undertaker, or a mute, or a sexton, or a policeman, or a horse-guardsman, or even a lawyer; but it was the height of impropriety to have made him a toy-shopman, and whoever did it had no notion whatever of the fitness of things. One could not resist the idea that his clumsy legs would certainly upset the slender wooden toys with which the floor and counters were covered, and his fingers seemed made to break things. The figure of Punch which hung from the ceiling appeared inclined to hit him as he passed to and fro, and the pretty little dolls with the sweet pink faces, and very flaxen hair and cerulean eyes were evidently laughing at him.
Nevertheless, David Boone was a kind-hearted man, very fond of children, and extremely unlike, in some respects, what people imagined him at first sight to be.
“Well, Miss Ward, what can I supply you with to-day?” said he blandly.
“Please, Mr Boone, I want a slate and a piece of slate-pencil.” Emma looked up with a sweet smile at the tall shopman, who looked down upon her with grave benignity, as he produced the articles required.
“D’you kape turpentine?” said Matty, as they were about to quit the shop.
Boone started, and said almost testily, “No, I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“Sure, there’s no sin in askin’,” replied Matty in surprise at the man’s changed manner.
“Of course—of course not,” rejoined Boone with a slight look of confusion, as he made a sudden assault with his pocket-handkerchief on the cat, which was sleeping innocently in the window; “git out o’ that, you brute; you’re always agoin’ in the winder, capsizin’ things. There! you’ve been an’ sat on the face o’ that ’ere wax doll till you’ve a’most melted it. Out o’ that with you! No, Miss Merryon,” he added, turning to the girl with his wonted urbanity, “I don’t keep turpentine, and I was only surprised you should ask for it in a toy-shop; but you’ll get it of Mr White next door. I don’t believe there’s anythink in the world as he can’t supply to his customers.”
David Boone bowed them out, and then re-entered the back-shop, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
“I don’t like it—I don’t even like to think of it, Gorman,” he said to a big low-browed man who sat smoking his pipe beside the little fireplace, the fire in which was so small that its smoke scarcely equalled in volume that of the pipe he smoked: “No, I don’t like it, and I won’t do it.”
“Well, well, you can please yourself,” said Gorman, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and placing it in his vest pocket as he rose and buttoned his thick pea-jacket up to the chin; “but I’ll tell you what it is, if you are a descendant of the hunter of the far west that you boast so much about, it’s precious little of his pluck that you’ve got; an’ so I tell ’ee to your face, David Boone. All I’ve got to say is, that you’d better be wise and take my advice, and think better of it.”
So saying, Gorman went out, and slammed the door after him.
Meanwhile, Miss Matty Merryon, having purchased a small phial of turpentine, returned to Number 6, and ushered Willie Willders into the presence of her mistress.
Miss Emelina Tippet was neither tall nor stiff, nor angular nor bony; on the contrary, she was little and plump, and not bad-looking. And people often wondered why Miss Tippet was Miss Tippet and was not Mrs Somebody-else. Whatever the reason was, Miss Tippet never divulged it, so we won’t speculate about it here.
“A note, boy, from Mr Auberly?” exclaimed Miss Tippet, with a beaming smile; “give it me—thank you.”
She opened it and read attentively,