Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles. Henry Wood
I have my household matters to attend to, and Anna takes up my time. I get enough for my clothes, and that is all I care for."
"I know I could do it! I could do it well, Patience."
"Then I am sure thee may have it to do. They will supply thee with a machine, and Samuel Lynn will bring thy work home and take it back again, as he does mine. He–"
William was bursting in upon them with a beaming face. "Mamma, make haste home. Two ladies are asking to see the rooms."
Jane hurried in. In the parlour sat a pleasant-looking old lady in a large black silk bonnet. The other, smarter, younger (but she must have been forty at least), and very cross-looking, wore a Leghorn bonnet with green and scarlet bows. She was the old lady's companion, housekeeper, servant, all combined in one, as Jane found afterwards.
"You have lodgings to let, ma'am," said the old lady. "Can we see them?"
"This is the sitting-room," Jane was beginning; but she was interrupted by the smart one in a snappish tone.
"This the sitting-room! Do you call this furnished?"
"Don't be hasty, Dobbs," rebuked her mistress. "Hear what the lady has to say."
"The furniture is homely, certainly," acknowledged Jane. "But it is new and clean. That is a most comfortable sofa. The bedrooms are above."
The old lady said she would see them, and they proceeded upstairs. Dobbs put her head into one room, and withdrew it with a shriek. "This room has no bedside carpets."
"I am sorry to say that I have no bedside carpets at present," said Jane, feeling all the discouragement of the avowal. "I will get some as soon as I possibly can, if any one taking the rooms will kindly do without them for a little while."
"Perhaps we might, Dobbs," suggested the old lady, who appeared to be of an accommodating, easy nature; readily satisfied.
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, you'll do nothing of the sort," returned Dobbs. "We should have you doubled up with cramp, if you clapped your feet on to a cold floor. I am not going to do it."
"I never do have cramp, Dobbs."
"Which is no reason, ma'am, why you never should," authoritatively returned Dobbs.
"What a lovely view from these back windows!" exclaimed the old lady. "Dobbs, do you see the Malvern Hills?"
"We don't eat and drink views," testily responded Dobbs.
"They are pleasant to look at though," said her mistress. "I like these rooms. Is there a closet, ma'am, or small apartment that we could have for our trunks, if we came?"
"We are not coming," interrupted Dobbs, before Jane could answer. "Carpetless floors won't suit us, ma'am."
"There is a closet here, over the entrance," said Jane to the old lady, as she opened the door. "Our own boxes are in it now, but I can have them moved upstairs."
"So there's a cock-loft, is there?" put in Dobbs.
"A what?" cried Jane, who had never heard the word. "There is nothing upstairs but an attic. A garret, as it is called here."
"Yes," burst forth Dobbs, "it is called a garret by them that want to be fine. Cock-loft is good enough for us decent folk: we've never called it anything else. Who sleeps up there?" she summarily demanded.
"My little boys. This was their room, but I have put them upstairs that I may let this one."
"There ma'am!" said Dobbs, triumphantly, as she turned to her mistress. "You'll believe me another time, I hope! I told you I knew there was a pack of children. One of 'em opened the door to us."
"Perhaps they are quiet children," said the old lady, who had been so long used to the grumbling and domineering of Dobbs, that she took it as a matter of course.
"They are, indeed," said Jane, "quiet, good children. I will answer for it that they will not disturb you in any way."
"I should like to see the kitchen, ma'am," said the old lady.
"We only want the use of it," snapped Dobbs. "Our kitchen fire goes out after dinner, and I boil the kettle for tea in the parlour."
"Would attendance be required?" asked Jane of the old lady.
"No, it wouldn't," answered Dobbs, in the same tart tone. "I wait upon my missis, and I wait upon myself, and we have a woman in to do the cleaning, and the washing goes out."
The answer gave Jane great relief. Attending upon lodgers had been a dubious prospect in more respects than one.
"It's a very good kitchen," said the old lady, as they went in, and she turned round in it.
"I'll be bound it smokes," said Dobbs.
"No, it does not," replied Jane.
"Where's the coalhouse?" asked Dobbs. "Is there two?"
"Only one," said Jane. "It is at the back of the kitchen."
"Then—if we did come—where could our coal be put?" fiercely demanded Dobbs. "I must have my coalhouse to myself, with a lock and key. I don't want the house's fires supplied from my missis's coal."
Jane's cheeks flushed as she turned to the old lady. "Allow me to assure you that your property—of whatever nature it may be—will be perfectly sacred in this house. Whether locked up or not, it will be left untouched by me and mine."
"To be sure, ma'am," pleasantly returned the old lady. "I'm not afraid. You must not mind what Dobbs says: she means nothing."
"And our safe for meat and butter," proceeded that undaunted functionary. "Is there a key to it?"
"And now about the rent?" said the old lady, giving Jane no time to answer that there was a key.
Jane hesitated. And then, with a flush, asked twenty shillings a week.
"My conscience!" uttered Dobbs. "Twenty shillings a week. And us finding spoons and linen!"
"Dobbs," said the old lady. "I don't see that it is so very out of the way. A parlour, two bedrooms, a closet, and the kitchen, all furnished–"
"The closet's an empty, dark hole, and the kitchen's only the use of it, and the bedrooms are carpetless," reiterated Dobbs, drowning her mistress's voice. "But, if anybody asked you for your head, ma'am, you'd just cut it off and give it, if I wasn't at hand to stop you."
"Well, Dobbs, we have seen nothing else to suit us up here. And you know I want to settle myself at this end of the town, on account of it being high and dry. Parry says I must."
"We have not half looked yet," said Dobbs.
"A pound a-week is a good price, ma'am; and we have not paid quite so much where we are: but I don't know that it's unreasonable," continued the old lady to Jane. "What shall we do, Dobbs?"
"Do, ma'am! Why, of course you'll come out, and try higher up. To take these rooms without looking out for others, would be as bad as buying a pig in a poke. Come along, ma'am. Bedrooms without carpets won't do for us at any price," she added to Jane by way of a party salutation.
They left the house, the lady with a cordial good morning, Dobbs with none at all; and went quarrelling up the road. That is, the old lady reasoning, and Dobbs disputing. The former proposed, if they saw nothing to suit them better, to purchase bedside carpeting: upon which Dobbs accused her of wanting to bring herself to the workhouse.
Patience, who had watched them away, from her parlour window, came in to learn the success. She brought in with her the machine, a plain piece of leather, the size of the back of a glove, neatly fixed in it. Jane's tears were falling.
"I think they would have taken them had there been bedside carpets," sighed she. "Oh, Patience, what a help it would been! I asked a pound a week."
"Did thee? That was a good price, considering thee would not have to give attendance."
"How do you know I should not?" asked Jane.
"Because I know Hannah Dobbs waits upon her mistress," replied Patience. "She is the widow of Joseph Reece, and he left her well off. I heard they were coming to live up