Janet was a pretty blooming girl,of about nineteen or twenty,and a perfect picture of neatness.Though I made no further observation of her at the moment,I may mention here what I did not discover until afterwards,namely, that she was one of a series of protegees whom my aunt had taken into her service expressly to educate in a renouncement of mankind, and who had generally completed their abjuration by marrying the baker.
The room was as neat as Janet or my aunt.As I laid down my pen, a moment since, to think of it,the air from the sea came blowing in again,mixed with the perfume of the flowers;and I saw the old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished,my aunt’s inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the bow-window,the drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder,the two canaries, the old china,the punchbowl full of dried rose-leaves,the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots,and, wonderfully out of keeping with the rest,my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything.
Janet had gone away to get the bath ready, when my aunt,to my great alarm, became in one moment rigid with indignation,and had hardly voice to cry out, ‘Janet!Donkeys!’
Upon which, Janet came running up the stairs as if the house were in flames,darted out on a little piece of green in front,and warned off two saddle-donkeys, lady-ridden,that had presumed to set hoof upon it; while my aunt,rushing out of the house,seized the bridle of a third animal laden with a bestriding child,turned him, led him forth from those sacred precincts,and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance who had dared to profane that hallowed ground.
To this hour I don’t know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green; but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot. In whatever occupation she was engaged, however interesting to her the conversation in which she was taking part, a donkey turned the current of her ideas in a moment, and she was upon him straight. Jugs of water, and watering-pots, were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offending boys; sticks were laid in ambush behind the door; sallies were made at all hours; and incessant war prevailed. Perhaps this was an agreeable excitement to the donkey-boys; or perhaps the more sagacious of the donkeys, understanding how the case stood, delighted with constitutional obstinacy in coming that way. I only know that there were three alarms before the bath was ready; and that on the occasion of the last and most desperate of all, I saw my aunt engage, single-handed, with a sandy-headed lad of fifteen, and bump his sandy head against her own gate, before he seemed to comprehend what was the matter. These interruptions were of the more ridiculous to me, because she was giving me broth out of a table-spoon at the time (having firmly persuaded herself that I was actually starving, and must receive nourishment at first in very small quantities), and, while my mouth was yet open to receive the spoon, she would put it back into the basin, cry ‘Janet!Donkeys!’ and go out to the assault.
The bath was a great comfort.For I began to be sensible of acute pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together. When I had bathed, they (I mean my aunt and Janet) enrobed me in a shirt and a pair of trousers belonging to Mr. Dick, and tied me up in two or three great shawls. What sort of bundle I looked like, I don’t know, but I felt a very hot one. Feeling also very faint and drowsy, I soon lay down on the sofa again and fell asleep.
It might have been a dream,originating in the fancy which had occupied my mind so long,but I awoke with the impression that my aunt had come and bent over me,and had put my hair away from my face,and laid my head more comfortably,and had then stood looking at me. The words,‘Pretty fellow,’ or ‘Poor fellow,’ seemed to be in my ears, too;but certainly there was nothing else, when I awoke,to lead me to believe that they had been uttered by my aunt,who sat in the bow-window gazing at the sea from behind the green fan,which was mounted on a kind of swivel, and turned any way.
We dined soon after I awoke,off a roast fowl and a pudding; I sitting at table,not unlike a trussed bird myself,and moving my arms with considerable difficulty.But as my aunt had swathed me up,I made no complaint of being inconvenienced.All this time I was deeply anxious to know what she was going to do with me;but she took her dinner in profound silence,except when she occasionally fixed her eyes on me sitting opposite,and said, ‘Mercy upon us!’ which did not by any means relieve my anxiety.
The cloth being drawn,and some sherry put upon the table (of which I had a glass),my aunt sent up for Mr. Dick again, who joined us,and looked as wise as he could when she requested him to attend to my story,which she elicited from me, gradually,by a course of questions. During my recital,she kept her eyes on Mr. Dick,who I thought would have gone to sleep but for that,and who, whensoever he lapsed into a smile,was checked by a frown from my aunt.
‘Whatever possessed that poor unfortunate Baby,that she must go and be married again,’ said my aunt,when I had finished, ‘I can’t conceive.’
‘Perhaps she fell in love with her second husband,’ Mr. Dick suggested.
‘Fell in love!’ repeated my aunt. ‘What do you mean?What business had she to do it?’
‘Perhaps,’ Mr. Dick simpered, after thinking a little,‘she did it for pleasure.’
‘Pleasure, indeed!’ replied my aunt. ‘A mighty pleasure for the poor Baby to fix her simple faith upon any dog of a fellow, certain to ill-use her in some way or other. What did she propose to herself, I should like to know!She had had one husband.She had seen David Copperfield out of the world,who was always running after wax dolls from his cradle.She had got a baby--oh,there were a pair of babies when she gave birth to this child sitting here, that Friday night!--and what more did she want?’
Mr. Dick secretly shook his head at me,as if he thought there was no getting over this.
‘She couldn’t even have a baby like anybody else,’ said my aunt. ‘Where was this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood?Not forthcoming. Don’t tell me!’
Mr. Dick seemed quite frightened.
‘That little man of a doctor, with his head on one side,’ said my aunt, ‘Jellips, or whatever his name was, what was he about?All he could do, was to say to me,like a robin redbreast--as he is--“It’s a boy.” A boy!Yah, the imbecility of the whole set of ‘em!’
The heartiness of the ejaculation startled Mr.Dick exceedingly; and me, too,if I am to tell the truth.
‘And then, as if this was not enough,and she had not stood sufficiently in the light of this child’s sister,Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt,‘she marries a second time--goes and marries a Murderer--or a man with a name like it--and stands in THIS child’s light!And the natural consequence is,as anybody but a baby might have foreseen,that he prowls and wanders.He’s as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can be. ’
Mr. Dick looked hard at me,as if to identify me in this character.
‘And then there’s that woman with the Pagan name,’ said my aunt, ‘that Peggotty,she goes and gets married next.Because she has not seen enough of the evil attending such things,she goes and gets married next, as the child relates.I only hope,’ said my aunt, shaking her head,‘that her husband is one of those Poker husbands who abound in the newspapers,and will beat her well with one.’