Mrs. Handsomebody

“ Did you feel it coming on?"
"Off and on for a long time," said Granfa. "It's been a terr'ble experience, and I ban't likely to be ever the same again, I'm afeared."
Mrs. Handsomebody looked ready to faint.
At that moment, Mary Ellen, having heard the voice of her mistress, projected her face above the doorsill of the backstairs. It was always a rosy face, but now with excitement and shamefacedness, it was as red as a harvest moon, coming up from the darkness.
The sight of her turned Mrs. Handsomebody's terror into rage. ”

“ Handsomebody drew nearer and nearer. She entered the gate—she entered the house—she was in the parlor!
Angel and Mary Ellen had just given their last triumphant shout, when Mrs. Handsomebody said in a voice of cold fury,—
'Mary Ellen, kindly cease that ribald screaming. David [David is Angel’s proper name] , get up instantly from that piano stool and face me! John, Alexander, face me!'
We did so tremblingly.
'Now,' said Mrs. Handsomebody, 'you three boys go up to your bedroom—not to the schoolroom, mind—and don’t let me hear another sound from you to-day! You shall get no dinner. ”

“ The steaming gruel slipped thickly into our stomachs. The hot gin had gone to our heads. Mrs. Handsomebody's head looked abnormally large to me, and seemed to be whirling round and round. Surely she was not getting like the cobbler's wife! Mrs. Handsomebody was still scolding:
"You began the day by introducing a canary of the lowest proclivities into my case of stuffed birds, where he perpetrated irreparable damage—"
The Seraph interrupted, "Don't you yike live birds, Mrs. Handsomebody?"
"I prefer stuffed birds to live ones, I confess." ”

“ The Seraph gave me a look of sympathy—even understanding—perhaps he had heard me mount the distant attic stairs; his hearing was wonderfully acute. He chewed in silence for a moment and then he made one of those seemingly irrelevant remarks of his that, somehow, always set our little world a-rocking.
"One fing about Lucy," he said, "she was always sweet-tempud."
"Who?" snapped Mrs. Handsomebody.
"Lucy—" repeated The Seraph. "Such a sweet-tempud gell."
Mrs. Handsomebody leaned over him, and gobbled and threatened. The Seraph preserved a remarkable calm, considering that he was the storm centre. ”

“ Yet we longed for the companionship of other boys of our own age, and strained towards the day when we should go to school. Our abounding energy chafed more and more under the rule of Mrs. Handsomebody.
Now she had left the schoolroom to interview a plumber, and her black bombazine dress having sailed away like a cloud, we had utterly relaxed, and were basking in the sunshine of her absence. ”

“ We heard Mary Ellen drop the poker and run through the house. It was an unheard of hour for the front door bell to ring. We sat up in bed in stiffened attitudes of expectancy. Mary Ellen was mounting the front stair. She rapped loudly at Mrs. Handsomebody's bedroom door. There were whispers. Then Mrs. Handsomebody's voice came decidedly:
"Go about your work with the utmost speed. Say nothing to the boys of this. I shall tell them when they have had their breakfast." ”

“ Handsomebody to 5 Argyle Road. Therefore, about ten o'clock, after the most exhausting preparations, we set out, a singular party; Mrs. Handsomebody enthroned in the chair, mistress of herself (and every one else) her black-gloved hands crossed on her lap; Mary Ellen, hot, straining over the wheeled-chair, lest her mistress get an unseemly bump at the crossing; Angel and I, bearing between us a covered hamper containing the three pups; while Giftie and The Seraph in the abandon of youth and ignorance, sported on the outskirts of the group. ”

“ We were at his side like a shot, and there in the hitherto blank window of the Peggs' house stood the old gentleman of the flowered dressing-gown laughing and nodding at The Seraph! When he saw us he made a sign to us to open our window, and at the same instant raised his own.
It took the three of us to accomplish it, for the window moved unreadily, being seldom raised, as Mrs. Handsomebody regarded fresh air much as she regarded a small boy, as something to be kept in its place. ”

“ It was not until we had separated from the Bishop and stood, a group of four, before Mrs. Handsomebody's house, that dread misgiving took the pith out of our legs. All of a sudden Granfa loomed bulky and solid; the problem of where he was to be stowed presented itself. He was not like Giftie to be hidden in the scullery. He was not even like a white rat that could be secreted under one's bed till its unfortunate odour resulted in painful research. No; Granfa must be accounted for, and that soon.
"Better go round to the back," suggested Angel, "and tackle Mary Ellen first." ”

“ We were filled with conjecture.
"Lucy," said Angel, "owned all this stuff, and Charles was her lover, of course. But who was she? Mrs. Handsomebody never had a daughter, I know, and if she had she'd never have allowed her to wear these things. Look how she jaws when Mary Ellen spends her wage on finery. I'll bet Lucy was a beauty. And she's dead too, you can bet, and Charles was her lover, and likely he's dead too. 'Bide the time,' eh? You see they're waitin' around yet—somewheres. Isn't it queer?" ”

“ Angel and The Seraph faced about to look at her in consternation, their hair wild in the wind, and the rising sun making an aureole about them. The four of us stared at each other in silence for a space, while the attic-room, with its cobwebs reeled—the sun rose, and sank, like a floundering ship, and Mrs. Handsomebody resembling, in my fancy, a hungry spider, in curl papers, considered which victim was ripest for slaughter.
"You—and you—and you—" she gobbled. "Oh, to think of it! No place safe! What you need is a strong man. ”

“ Giftie brought the other.
"Oh, Mrs. Handsomebody!" I implored, "please, please, let us keep them! They're as good as gold, and they'd guard the house and everything—and maybe save you from drowning some time. Don't take them from us, pl-ease!" The Seraph, in sympathy, began to cry. Angel picked up his pup and held it against his breast.
"Silence!" rapped out Mrs. Handsomebody. "Mary Ellen, fetch The Times. And just look in the scullery to see that all is quiet there. Fetch the bag left by the robber."
Mrs. Handsomebody sipped her bitters while Mary Ellen did her behests. ”

“ Mops with the hose; Bunny and Bill twinkling on stilts; Simon with all the dogs at his heels; and above all, the lady in pink, presiding like a golden-haired goddess, and very "tight."
We were still in black disgrace at breakfast. Scarcely dared we raise our eyes to the cold face of Mrs. Handsomebody, lest she should read in them some yearning recollection of yesterday's misdeeds. Large spoonfuls of porridge and thin milk made unwonted gurgling noises as they hurried down our throats to our empty young stomachs. ”

“ On other week days the shutters of this grim apartment were kept closed, and an inquisitive eye, applied to the keyhole, could just faintly discern the portrait in crayon of the late Mr. Handsomebody, presiding, like some whiskered ghost, over the revels of the stuffed birds in the glass case below him.
But on a Saturday morning Mary Ellen swept and dusted there. The shutters were thrown open, and the thin-legged piano and the haircloth furniture were furbished up for the morrow. ”

“ In truth, I had outgrown the ungainliness of my girlhood, and, now that it did not matter to any one, had become rather a handsome woman, and it was of no use to tell her that I had been worse than she, because there was so much more of me, when my dear young husband gave me the whole of his honest heart. ”

“ Do you suppose I mind another woman being handsome? I don't care how handsome she is, so long as she isn't handsome in my style. Of course, I don't say I could stand it if she was the very moral of me. ”

“ Lord —— finding he had to do with a mistress of uncommon spirit, thought best to alter the manner of his addresses to her; and approaching her with an air much more humble and submissive than he had hitherto done, 'How I adore,' cried he, 'this noble disinterestedness in you! you will grant nothing but to love alone—be it so: your beauty is, indeed, above all other price. ”

“ But the more bright you are, the more we should lament to see the native lustre of your mind clouded and blemished by the faults of others. Permit me, Madam, to tell you, that to continue an intimacy with a woman of Miss Forward's character, must infallibly draw you into conveniences, which you want but to foresee to tremble at.'
'If you have the affection for me you pretend,' said she, haughtily, 'and could see the aversion I have to a censorious temper, it is yourself would have cause to tremble. I love Miss Forward, and neither know, nor will believe, any ill of her. ”

“ Great as the human adaptiveness is at the age at which Fan then was, that loving-kindness of her mistress—of one so proud and beautiful above all women, and, to the girl's humble ideas, so rich “beyond the dreams of avarice”—retained its mysterious, almost incredible, character to her mind, and was a continual cause of wonder to her, and at times of ill-defined but anxious thought. For what had she—a poor, simple, ignorant useless girl—to keep the affection of such a one as Miss Starbrow? ”

“ Don't tell me a woman is ever ashamed of looking young, or handsome!"
"Now, look here, doctor!" said Miss Sampson, "I never was handsome; and I thank the Lord He's given me enough to do in the world to wear off my young looks long ago! And any woman ought to be ashamed that gets to be thirty and upward, to say nothing of forty-five, and keeps her baby face on! ”

“ If she could be quite sure of finding a kind woman, not a hard-featured woman with black and grey hair, like the shopwoman, but kind, knowing and understanding everything, in a large print apron with her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, living in a large cottage with a family, who would look at her and smile a quiet short certain smile, as if she had been waiting for her, and take her in and let her help and stay there for ever, she would put down the bag of coffee creams on the edge of the common and go straight across it to her ”

“ She would fain that her son's wife should be handsome; this she wished for his sake, that he might be proud of his wife, and because men love to look on beauty. But she was afraid of vivacious beauty, of those soft, sparkling feminine charms which are spread out as lures for all the world, soft dimples, laughing eyes, luscious lips, conscious smiles, and easy whispers. ”

“ She observed that her husband had recovered more than his wonted cheerfulness, and seemed indeed as gay as Belle herself. Lounging on a sofa, he laughed at his wife and petted her more than usual, assuring her that her step was as light, and that she still looked as young and pretty as any of the girls who had tripped through the parlors that evening.
The trusting, happy wife grew so rosy with pleasure, and her tread was so elastic from maternal pride and exultation at the prospects of her daughters, that his compliments seemed scarcely exaggerated. ”

“ An Offer, such as this, from a Woman of her supposed Modesty, could not but surprize him--he took it however as a Proof of the most exalted and disinterested Passion that ever was--but when he reflected, that to support her as a Mistress, would be little less inconvenient than maintaining her as a Wife, it very much puzzled him--but he loved her, and that overcame all other Considerations; she staid with him at his Lodgings-- shared the same Bed, and they lived together in every Respect, as if they had been married. ”

“ Trueworth, she could not help wondering by what infatuation she had been governed when rejecting him, or, what was tantamount to rejecting him, treating him in such a manner as might make him despair of being accepted.—'What, though my heart was insensible of love,' said she, 'my reason, nay, my very pride, might have influenced me to embrace a proposal which would have rendered me the envy of my own sex, and excited the esteem and veneration of the other.' Thinking still more deeply, 'O God!' cried she with vehemence, 'to what a height of happiness might I have been raised! ”

“ They must know little of the sex, that do not know no affront can be so stinging as one offered to their beauty, even tho' conscious of having no great share of it; but the wife of Natura had heard too many flatteries, not to inspire her with the highest idea of her charms, which the little respect he now testified to have for them, did not at all abate, and only served to make her despise his stupidity, as she termed it. ”

“ What a perplexing whirl of wild imaginations must such a behaviour from a husband excite in a wife, conscious of having done nothing to provoke it! Happy was it for her that love had the least share in her resentment—all her indifference could not enable her to support, with any degree of patience, so palpable a contempt—she returned directly to her own chamber ”

“ I was merely going to remark that a woman so handsome as I am told she is, and so very much younger than her husband, ought, in the most ordinary view of what is convenable, to avoid anything like—like seeking to attract men's admiration, and that sort of thing. ”

“ The sudden sight of her who possessed at least half of his affections, just in the moment he was in a kind of rapture with another, struck him like the ghost of a departed mistress; and tho' he had never made any declaration of love either to the one or the other, yet his heart reproached him with a secret perfidy, and he durst scarce lift his eyes to her face, when with a timid voice he at last said, Madam, may I hope you take any interest in what your sister has been speaking of? ”