Mrs. Gummidge

“ Mr. Peggotty was well, and Ham was well, and Mrs. Gummidge was but poorly, and little Em'ly wouldn't send her love, but said that Peggotty might send it, if she liked.
All this intelligence I dutifully imparted to my aunt, only reserving to myself the mention of little Em'ly, to whom I instinctively felt that she would not very tenderly incline. While I was yet new at Doctor Strong's, she made several excursions over to Canterbury to see me, and always at unseasonable hours: with the view, I suppose, of taking me by surprise. ”

“ Peggotty's cottage.
It looked just the same, except that it may, perhaps, have shrunk a little in my eyes; and Mrs. Gummidge was waiting at the door as if she had stood there ever since. All within was the same, down to the seaweed in the blue mug in my bedroom. I went into the out-house to look about me; and the very same lobsters, crabs, and crawfish possessed by the same desire to pinch the world in general, appeared to be in the same state of conglomeration in the same old corner. ”

“ Gummidge. "I know what I am. I know that I'm a lone lorn creetur, and not only that everythink goes contrairy with me, but that I go contrairy with everybody. Yes, yes. I feel more than other people do, and I show it more. It's my misfortun'."
I really couldn't help thinking, as I sat taking in all this, that the misfortune extended to some other members of that family besides Mrs. Gummidge. But Mr. Peggotty made no such retort, only answering with another entreaty to Mrs. Gummidge to cheer up.
"I an't what I could wish myself to be," said Mrs. Gummidge. "I am far from it. I know what I am. ”

“ Maybe you'll write to me too, Dan'l, odd times, and tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journies."
"You'll be a solitary woman heer, I'm afeerd!" said Mr. Peggotty.
"No, no, Dan'l," she returned, "I shan't be that. Doen't you mind me. I shall have enough to do to keep a Beein for you" (Mrs. Gummidge meant a home) , "again you come back—to keep a Beein here for any that may hap to come back, Dan'l. In the fine time, I shall set outside the door as I used to do. If any should come nigh, they shall see the old widder woman true to 'em, a long way off." ”

“ And I won't leave her. The day may come when she'll be glad to lay her poor head. On her stupid, cross old Peggotty's arm again. And I'll write to you, my dear. Though I ain't no scholar. And I'll—I'll—" Peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn't kiss me.
"Thank you, dear Peggotty!" said I. "Oh, thank you! Thank you! Will you promise me [143] one thing, Peggotty? Will you write and tell Mr. Peggotty and little Em'ly and Mrs. Gummidge and Ham that I am not so bad as they might suppose, and that I sent 'em all my love—especially to little Em'ly? Will you, if you please, Peggotty?" ”

“ It is the happy soul for ever singing to itself, like the lark up yonder in the fathomless blue.”
“I shouldn’t think you cared for me, if you didn’t talk nonsense sometimes,” answered Eve, gaily; “but it is a privilege to be [Pg 184] happy, isn’t it? Sophy and I have had the same troubles to bear, but they have hurt her ever so much more than they hurt me. Jenny and I sometimes call her Mrs. Gummidge. I think it is because she has never left off struggling to be smart, never left off thinking that we ought to be on the same level as the county families ”

“ Peggotty. "Take and heave it!"
"No, Dan'l," returned Mrs. Gummidge, whimpering and shaking her head. "If I felt less, I could do more. You don't feel like me, Dan'l; thinks don't go contrairy with you, nor you with them; you had better do it yourself."
But here Peggotty, who had been going about from one to another in a hurried way, kissing everybody, called out from the cart, in which we all were by this time (Em'ly and I on two little chairs, side by side) , that Mrs. Gummidge must do it. So Mrs. ”

“ But this tarpaulin chap, he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, 'Look here! This is to be my little wife!' And she says, half bold and half shy, and half a laughing and half a crying, 'Yes, uncle! If you please.'—If I please!" cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstacy at the idea; "Lord, as if I should do anythink else!—'If you please, I am steadier now, and I have thought better of it, and I'll be as good a little wife as I can to him, for he's a dear, good fellow!' Then Missis Gummidge, she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. ”

“ Then, maybe, Mas'r Davy, seein' none but Missis Gummidge there, she might take heart to creep in, trembling; and might come to be laid down in her old bed, and rest her weary head where it was once so gay."
I could not speak to him in reply, though I tried.
"Every night," said Mr. Peggotty, "as reg'lar as the night comes, the candle must be stood in its old pane of glass, that if ever she should see it, it may seem to say 'Come back, my child, come back!' If ever there's a knock, Ham (partic'ler a soft knock) , arter dark, at your aunt's door, doen't you go nigh it. ”

“ And betwixt ourselves," sinking his voice lower yet, "that woman's name ain't Missis Gummidge neither, though she has a world of merits."
Mr. Peggotty ruffled his hair again with both hands, as a further preparation for what he was going to say, and went on with a hand upon each of his knees.
"There was a certain person as had know'd our Em'ly, from the time when her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a babby, when a young gal, when a woman. ”

“ Atmore; "she has never tried."
"So much the better," said Gummage; "I like girls that have never tried; they are much more manageable than those that have been scratching and daubing at home all their lives."
Mr. Gummage was no gentleman, either in appearance or manner. But he passed for a genius among those who knew nothing of that ill-understood race. He had a hooked nose that turned to the right, and a crooked mouth that turned to the left—his face being very much out of drawing,—and he had two round eyes that in colour and expression resembled two hazel-nuts. ”

“ But by-and-by you huddled close in the twisted sheets and talked low beneath the edge of the coverlet, so that no one heard you—not even the Gummy-gum, who spent his nights on the back stairs.
"Does the Gummy-gum eat little folks while they're asleep?" asked Lizbeth, with a precautionary snuggle-up.
"No; 'cause the Gummy-gum is afraid of the little black gnomes what live in the pillows." ”

“ It’s a matter I was always dubious about before.”
“But what about people who haven’t natural gumption, Aunt Jimsie?”
“People who haven’t natural gumption never learn,” retorted Aunt Jamesina, “neither in college nor life. If they live to be a hundred they really don’t know anything more than when they were born. It’s their misfortune not their fault, poor souls. But those of us who have some gumption should duly thank the Lord for it.”
“Will you please define what gumption is, Aunt Jimsie?” asked Phil. ”

“ Lady Canvey, whose ill-humour was mostly surface-crabbedness, for she preferred losing a friend to withholding an epigram, could not refrain from grudging compliments. But between women these rang hollow.
"You look charming to-night, my dear."
"After the storm, the sunshine," said Lady Jim, smiling at such novel civility. "Well, I appreciate the change. Whatever my faults may be, godmother, you cannot say that I am disagreeable. I always call, in spite of your--your--what shall we say?"
"Home-truths! And you call when it suits you. Humph! Perhaps I am a trifle short-tempered." ”

“ If I'd known that I was alone in the cottage I should have been scared out of my life; but I thought Mr. George came in late, and had gone to bed as usual. I nearly fainted, I can tell you," cried Jenny tearfully. "Fancy a weak girl like me being left alone with them horrid gipsies down the lane! But I slept through it all, and I never saw no gipsies about. When I saw the bedroom upset and that Mr. George wasn't there, I called in Quain the policeman. That's all I know, and if missus does give me notice when she comes back I'd have her know that I'm a respectable girl as doesn't rob anyone." ”

“ What boots it to use such concealment towards me? Is it not better to have a perfect than an imperfect love?”
“I have no love for you,” replied Jambicque, “whether perfect or imperfect, except such as I bear to the rest of my mistress’s servants. But if you speak further to me as you have spoken now, I shall perhaps have such hatred for you as may be to your hurt.”
However, the gentleman persisted in his discourse. ”

“ It will be as well to get her married."
"You will have no selection of the husband this time," said Lady Garvington, whose sympathies were entirely for Agnes. "She will choose for herself."
"Let her," retorted Garvington, with feigned generosity. "So long as she does not choose Noel; hang him!"
"He's the very man she will choose;" replied his wife, and Garvington, uneasily conscious that she was probably right, cursed freely all women in general and his sister in particular. ”

“ Lady Jim sat very upright in her chair, and a becoming colour heightened her beauty.
"I don't ask any men for money," she declared; "you know perfectly well, Lady Canvey, that I am any honest woman."
"And how dull that sounds," chuckled Lady Canvey, turning the tables; "you should be more original, Leah."
"I don't mind going out to dinner with a man," cried Lady Jim, feeling herself much aggrieved, "nor do I mind a box at the theatre, or some gloves or things of that sort, so long as Jim doesn't object.'
"Pooh! Much you care for Jim." ”

“ And now Jimmie became plaintive. Plaintiveness had always been his strong suit with Anne. He [230] was eager for sympathy. His affair with Eve had hurt his vanity.
"I have never seen a girl like her. She doesn't care what the world thinks. She doesn't care what any one thinks. She goes right along taking everything that comes her way—and giving nothing."
"Did you want her to give you—anything, Jimmie?"
"Me? Not me. She's a beauty and all that. But I wouldn't marry her if she were as rich as Rockefeller—and she isn't. Her money is her Aunt Maude's." ”

“ Gumberts—"Memphis Izzy" Gumberts! The name flashed to Gramont's mind, and brought the recollection of a conversation with Hammond. Why, Gumberts was the famous crook of whom Hammond had spoken.
"I saw the sheriff awhile ago, heading up the road," observed the Creole. "Did you meet him?"
Gramont shook his head. "No, but I saw several men at the Gumberts place. Perhaps he was there——"
"Not there, I guess," and the farmer laughed. "Those fellows have rented the place from Gumberts, I hear; they're inventors, and quiet enough men. You're a stranger here?" ”

“ Angela has risen and is looking at Lord Gumthorpe. Lord Gumthorpe is standing with his arms folded. He has just lost a bishop in the dim chiaroscuro of the window-seat and has not heard her outbreak. Suddenly he looks up, and fixes his eyes upon Lady Gastwyck with a new sense of resolution. He advances towards [Pg 247] her, and gazing boldly at her eyebrow, that looks more than ever like a moustache, calls out in a thin cruel voice. ”

“ Daily the stream of sympathising friends rolled through the dainty drawing-room, and bore Lady Jim away from comedy grief to more pleasant shores, where gossip of he and she and the "tertium quid," interspersed with millinery discussions and shrewd female handling of current society events, made things more tolerable. Lady Richardson babbled herself in, with a box of chocolate from Sir Billy--a consolation not unpalatable to Leah, who liked Billy and loved sweets. ”

“ He wanted Gumbril to tell him what she was really like. “She seems to me a very extraordinary woman,” he said.
“Like everybody else,” said Gumbril irritatingly. It amused him to see the rabbits scampering about at last.
“I’ve never known a woman like that before.”
Gumbril laughed. “You’d say that of any woman you happened to be interested in,” he said. “You’ve never known any women at all.” He knew much more about Rosie, already, than Shearwater did, or probably ever would.
Shearwater meditated. He thought of Mrs. Viveash, her cool, pale, critical eyes; her laughter, faint and mocking ”

“ People wouldn't understand if I talked like Lady Jane Grey or Elizabeth Fry."
"They were good women."
"But so dull," objected Lady Jim. "Why is it good women are always dull and dowdy?"
"They are getting ready for the next world," mumbled Lady Canvey, solemnly.
"Their outfit can't cost much, then," declared Leah, flippantly; "but aren't we going to talk business? Think of that poor French, sitting in the motor-car all this time." ”

“ Jimmie, whose total unconsciousness of her great beauty is one of her supreme charms. She wore a black lace gown that night with sleeves which came not quite to her elbow; no bracelets to mar those perfect arms, but her hands fairly loaded with rings. She never looks at any other man except Jimmie, and Jimmie thinks that the earth exists simply for her. Poor Jimmie never can express his emotion in proper words, but I have seen his eyes fill with tears of love and pride as he whispered to me, "Isn't she ripping to-night?" ”

“ Pike did not seem to be mixed up in it for ill. The ill was all on Lord Hartledon; but it was not Pike brought it upon him. Who it was, I couldn't see; but it was not Pike."
Clerk Gum looked down at his wife in scornful pity. He wondered sometimes, in his phlegmatic reasoning, why women were created such fools.
"Look here, Mrs. G. I thought those dreams of yours were pretty nearly dreamed out—there have been enough of 'em. How any woman, short of a born idiot, can stand there and confess herself so frightened by a dream as to be unable to get up and go about her duties, is beyond me." ”