The House in Town Part 25

"No, Norton. Nothing ails me. I am thinking."

"About what? You think a great deal too much. Pink, we will go to the Park this afternoon; that will give you something to think about."

"Norton, we cannot this afternoon, you know. I have got to go to the dressmaker's."

"O so you have! What a nuisance. Well, to-morrow, then. And I say, Pink! there is another thing you have to think of--Christmas presents."

"Christmas presents!" said Matilda.

"Yes; we always have a great time. Only David and Judy do scowl; it is fun to see them."

"Don't they like Christmas presents?" said Matilda, very much bewildered.

"Christmas _presents_ all right; but not Christmas. You know they are Jews."

"Jews?" said Matilda. "What then? What has their being Jews to do with it?"

"Why!" said Norton, "don't you know? Do you think Jews love Christmas?

You forget what Christmas is, don't you?"

"O--I remember. They don't believe in Christ," said Matilda in an awed and sorrowful tone.

"Of course. And that's a mild way to put it," rejoined Norton. "But grandmamma will always keep Christmas with all her might, and aunt Judy too; just because Davie and Judy don't like it, I believe. So we have times."

"But how comes it they don't like what you all like, and their mother?"

Matilda asked.

"They have Jew relations, you see," said Norton; "and that goes very much against the grain with aunt Judy. There is some old Rabbi here in New York that is David's great uncle and makes much of him; and so David has been taught about Jewish things, and told, I suppose, that he must never forget he is a Jew; and he don't, I guess. Not often."

"Is he good?" asked Matilda.

"Good? David Bartholomew? Not particularly. Yes, he is good in a way.

He knows how to behave himself."

"Then how is he not good?"

"He has a mind of his own," said Norton; "and if you try him, you will find he has a temper. I have seen him fight--I tell you!--like that Bengal tiger if _he_ was a Jew; when a fellow tried him a little too hard. His mother don't know, and you mustn't tell mamma. The boys let him alone now."

"At school, was it?" said Matilda.

"At school. You see, fellows try a boy at school, all round, till they find where they can have him; and then he has got to shew what he is made of."

"Do they try you?"

"Well, no; they like me pretty well at St. Giles'."

"And they don't like David?"

"They let him alone," said Norton. "No, they don't like him much. He keeps himself to himself too much for their liking. They would forget he is a Jew, if _he_ would forget it; but he never does."

Matilda's thoughts had got into a new channel and ran along fast, till Norton brought them back.

"So we have got to look out for Christmas, Pink, as I told you. It's only just three weeks from to-morrow."

"What then, Norton? What do you do?"

"Everything we can think of," said Norton; "and to begin, everybody in the house gives something to every other body. That makes confusion, I should think!"

"Do _you_ give things to your mother? and to Mrs. Lloyd?"

"To every one of 'em," said Norton; "and it's a job. I shall begin next week to get ready; and so must you."

Matilda had it on her tongue to say that she had no money and therefore nothing to get ready; but she remembered in time that if she said that or anything like it, Norton would report and ask for a supply for her.

So she held her tongue. But how delightful it must be to get presents for everybody! Not for Mrs. Lloyd, exactly; Matilda had no special longings to bestow any tokens upon her; or Mrs. Bartholomew; but Maria, and Anne, and Let.i.tia! And Norton himself. How she would like to give him something! And if she could, what in the world would it be? On this question Matilda's fancy fairly went off and lost itself, and Norton got no more talk from her till they reached home.

She mused about it again when she was alone in the carriage that afternoon driving to Mme. Fournisson's. As she had not the money, she thought she might as well have the comfort of fancying she had it and thinking what she would do with it; and so she puzzled in delightful mazes of dreamland, thinking what she would get for Norton if she had the power. It was so difficult a point to decide that the speculation gave her a great deal to do. Norton was pretty well supplied with things a boy might wish for; _he_ did not want any of the cla.s.s of presents Matilda had carried to Maria. But Norton was very fond of pretty things. Matilda knew that; yet her experience of delicate matters of art was too limited, and her knowledge of the resources of New York stores too unformed, to give her fancy much scope. She had a vague idea that there _were_ pretty things that he might like, if only she knew where they were to be found. In the mean time, it was but the other day, she had heard him complaining that the guard of his watch was broken. Matilda knew how to make a very pretty, strong sort of watch guard; if she only had some strong brown silk to weave it of.

That was easy to get, and would not cost much; if she had but a few shillings. Those round toed boots! It darted into her mind, how the two dollars and a half she had paid for those round toes, would have bought the silk for a watch guard and left a great deal to spare. There was a little sharp regret just here. It would have been such pleasure! And she would not have been quite empty handed in the great Christmas festival. But the round toes? Could she have done without them?

The question was not settled when she got to the dressmaker's; and for a good while there Matilda could think of nothing but her new dresses and the fashion and style which belonged to them. All that while the dressmaker, not Mme. Fournissons by any means, but one of her women, was trying on the bodies of these dresses, measuring lengths, fitting tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and trying effects. It was done at last; and then Matilda desired the coachman to take her to 316 Bolivar street.

It was very grand, to ride in a carriage all alone by herself; to sink back on those luxurious cushions and look out at the people who were getting along in the world less easily; trudging over the stones and going through the dirt. And it was very pleasant to feel that she had a stock of rich and elegant dresses getting ready for her wear, and such a home of comfort, instead of the old last summer's life at Mrs.

Candy's. Matilda was grown strong and well, her cheeks filled out and fresh-coloured; she felt like another Matilda. But as she drove along with these thoughts, the other thought came up to her, of her new opportunities. The Lord's child,--yes, that was not changed; she was that still; what was the work she ought to do, here and now?

Opportunities for what, had she? Matilda thought carefully about it.

And one thing which she had expected she could do, she feared was going out of her reach. How was she ever to have more money to spare for people needing it, if the demands of her new position kept pace with her increased means? If her boots must always cost seven dollars instead of three, having twice as much money to buy them with would not much help the matter. "And they must," said Matilda to herself. "With such dresses as these I am to have, and in such a house as Mrs.

Lloyd's, those common boots I used to wear at Shadywalk would not do at all. And to wear with my red and green silks, I know I must have a new pair of slippers, with bows, like Judy's. I wonder how much _they_ will cost? And then I shall hardly have even pennies for the little girls that sweep the street, at that rate."

Opportunities? were all her opportunities gone from her at once? That could not be; and yet Matilda did not see her way out of the question.

So the carriage rolled along with her, and she by and by got tired of thinking and began to examine more carefully into what there was to see. She was coming into a quarter of the city unlike those where she had been before. The house of Mme. Fournissons was in a very quiet street certainly; but what she was pa.s.sing now was far below that in pretension. _These_ streets were very uncomfortable, she thought, even to ride through. Yet the houses themselves were as good and as large as many houses in Shadywalk. But nothing in Shadywalk, no, not Lilac lane itself, was so repelling. Nothing in Shadywalk was so dingy and dark.

Lilac lane was dirty, and poor; yet it was broad enough and the cottages stood far enough apart to let the sky look in. Here, in these streets, houses and people seemed to be packed. There was a bare look of want; a forlorn abandonment of every sort of pleasantness; what must it be to go in at one of those doors? Matilda thought; and to live there?--the idea was too disagreeable to dwell upon. Yet people lived there. What sort?

Dingy people, as far as Matilda could see; dirty people, and as hopeless looking as the houses. It was not however a region of the wretchedly poor through which her course lay; the windows were whole and the roofs were decent; but it made the little girl's heart sick to look at it all, and read the signs she could not read. Through street after street of this general character the carriage went; narrow streets, very full of mud and dirt; where the horses stepped round an overturned basket of garbage in one place, and in another stopped for a dray to get out of their path; where children looked as if their heads were never brushed, and often the women looked as if their clothes were never clean. Matilda could never _walk_ to see her sisters, that was plain; she was glad n.o.body was in the carriage with her; and she was much disappointed to see even a part of New York look like this.

In a street a little wider, a little cleaner, a shade or two more respectable, the carriage stopped at last. It stopped, and Matilda got out. Was this Bolivar street? But she looked and saw that 316 was the number of the house. So she rang the bell.

It was the right place; and she was shewn into a parlour, where she had to wait a little. It was respectable, and yet it oppressed all Matilda's senses. The room was full of buckwheat cake smoke, to begin with, which had filled it that morning and probably every morning of the week, and was never encouraged, nor indeed had ever a chance, to pa.s.s away. So each morning made its addition to the stock, till now Matilda felt as if it could be almost seen as well as felt. It certainly was in the carpet, the dingy old brown carpet, in which the worn holes were too many and too evident to be hidden by rug or crumb cloth or concealed by disposition of furniture. It wreathed the lamps on the mantelpiece and the picture on the wall, which last represented a very white monument with a very green willow tree drooping limp tresses over it, and a lady in black pressing a white handkerchief to her eyes. An old mahogany chest of drawers and a table with some books on it did not help the effect; for the chest of drawers was out of place, the cotton table cover was dingy and hung awry, and the books were soiled and dog's eared. Matilda felt all this in three minutes; then she forgot it in the joy of seeing her sisters. The greeting on her part was very warm; too warm for her to find out that on their part it was a little constrained. They were interested enough, however, in all that had befallen Matilda, to give talk full flow; and made her tell them the whole story of the past months; the ship fever, the visit at Briery Bank, the adoption of herself to be a child of the house, the coming to New York, and the composition of the family circle in Mrs.

Lloyd's house. The elder sisters said very little all the while, except to ask questions.

"And it's for good and all!" said Let.i.tia, when Matilda had done.

"Yes. For good and all!"

"And what is Maria doing?" said Anne.

"Maria is in Poughkeepsie, you know, learning mantua-making."

"Is she happy? does she get along well?"

"I don't know," replied Matilda dubiously. She had not known Maria to seem happy for a very long period; certainly not at the time of her last visit to her.