Mrs. Hopkins

“ Mason, however did you work it?" asked Mary, in her simplicity.
"It's one of Madam's cast-offs, I expect," said Mrs. Hopkins, with some asperity of manner.
"It don't much signify where I got it, or who it belonged to; it's mine now, and as good, I know, as the piece Miss Neville's turning the house upside down for. Governesses always make places disagreeable; they're sure to lose something or another, and then wonder who's taken it, and then make us out a pack of thieves. I've made up my mind never to take a situation again where there's a governess." ”

“ Hopkins, though one morning, as he went into the warehouse, he saw behind him the driver of the motor-car who had wanted to take Miss Fuller home. The man might obviously have respectable reasons for being in Wood Street, a thoroughfare not secluded, but his reappearance disturbed Mr. Hopkins, who began to think him mysterious and sinister and discover something extraordinary in his face and manner. The man was in fact of middle height and size, of a face rather flat, a long, low nose and a projecting black moustache—a little like a cat. ”

“ The ball had not as yet been talked of, except in the housekeeper's room, where of course Mason carried the news, to the no small vexation of Mrs. Hopkins, who thought the place quite gay enough as it was; and sighed for the good old times, when she could walk about without being obliged to drop a courtesy at every step she took, [Pg 206] as she encountered some fair girl, or man with fierce moustaches and whiskers; these latter she regarded as so many birds of prey, waiting for some unfortunate victim to pounce down upon and bear away in their fierce talons. ”

“ Hopkins, feeling very hot, found himself saying, with a nervous derangement of aspirates, “If I might have the honour—” and began to push both the bicycles while she limped at his side. He was walking home with her—a terrific adventure.
On the way he discovered many things. To begin with one of the last, her name was Lucy Fuller. She was a nursery governess and did not much like it. She loved children in general, but the particular children whom she had to love were harassing. Or not so much the children as their mother, who spoilt them till they were both sick and sickening. ”

“ His poetical effusions are equally creditable to his head and his heart, displaying the highest order of genius and powers of imagination and fancy hardly second to any writer of the age. He is destined to make a great sensation in the world of letters.”
Mrs. Hopkins is the same good soul she always was. She is very proud of her son, as is natural, and keeps a copy of everything he writes. I believe she cries over them every time she reads them. You don't know how I take to little Sossy and Minthy, those two twins I have written to you about before. ”

“ Old bachelor Gridley lets them come up into his room, and builds forts and castles for them with his big books! “The world's coming to an end,” Mrs. Hopkins said the first time he did so. He looks so savage with that scowl of his, and talks so gruff when he is scolding at things in general, that nobody would have believed he would have let such little things come anywhere near him. But he seems to be growing kind to all of us and everybody. I saw him talking to the Fire-hang-bird the other day. You know who the Fire-hang-bird is, don't you? Myrtle Hazard her name is. ”

“ Mrs. Hopkins, a tired-looking woman in a bedraggled morning wrapper, was getting the breakfast. She did not participate largely in the prosperity of her husband, and often declared she was "worked to death," although there were no children to care for.
"When did those Forbes banners go up?" asked Mr. Hopkins, irritably.
"I dunno, 'Rast. I don't keep track o' such things. But all the town was out to the girls' meetin' last night, an' I went along to watch the fun."
"What girls' meeting?"
"The girls thet air workin' fer to elect Mr. Forbes. ”

“ Hopkins drove over to see us from Ealing, in a hired brougham. Grandpapa said, in his cynical way, that they supposed the brougham was Mrs. Hopkins's own, and that, for his part, he didn't want to know the neighbours. But he soon changed his mind.
The Bangley-Browns were four in family: a widowed mother, florid, ample, sixty, convincing in manner, full of the faded splendours of a past prosperity; two daughters, also florid and ample, but quite refined with it; and a son of thirty, who worked in a lawyer's office by day, and toiled at the banjo of an evening. ”

“ Hopkins got a letter from the real estate agent informing her he had been able to secure a large cottage, close to the beach. It was on a small cove, and there was a boathouse near by.
“Fine!” cried Jerry when he heard of it. “Now to get the Dartaway ready. Whoop! But life is worth living, I tell you!” and he began to dance a jig with such vigor that the dishes on the sideboard rattled.
“Jerry, you’ll smash some of my fine cut glass!” exclaimed Mrs. Hopkins in alarm, yet she could not help being glad that she was able to provide a summer’s outing for her son and his chums. ”

“ Hopkins, or some name of that kind, a neighbour. "To be sure, young people are right not to run into debt; but I cannot fancy putting up with anything second rate myself, indeed the Baron would not hear it from me, he always says, 'Nothing second rate for you, Baroness, whatever money can buy, you can have, only let it be the best.'"
"Well, if money can buy a Mrs. Hopkinson," said Dr. Ayscough, drily, "it can do more than I have ever supposed. Mrs. Hopkinson has been a valuable friend to Lady Chester, who required constant and great care for ten days ”

“ No doubt Hopkins thought that a young lady who was capable of borrowing a chemise from a housemaid was capable of calling her by her Christian name, and since she did not wish to encourage her ladyship's niece to thwart her ladyship's express wishes, she hurried away without replying.
While Hopkins was out of the room Jasmine attacked the crates, tearing them to pieces with her slim, brown, boyish hands as a monkey sheds a coconut. ”

“ She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed her body and rolled her head and hopped and kicked and genuflected in company with eleven other stout and earnest matrons and one slim and giggling girl who almost choked at every lesson. In all these exercises Miss Hopkins faithfully kept her company, which was the easier as Miss Hopkins lived in the next house, a conscientious Colonial mansion with all the modern conveniences hidden beneath the old-fashioned pomp. ”

“ I thought Hopkins had been drinking—or looking at "Her Eyes." He pulled up a chair and lit a cigar.
"John," said he, "it isn't every man that can understand what my wife says. Only [Pg 114] kindred spirits can read the language of the eyes. She hasn't spoken an audible word in ten years, but she talks with her eyes, even her picture talks. We, rather she, is a mystery here; people believe all kinds of things about her and us; but we don't care. I want you to come up to the house some evening and know her better. We'll be three chums, I know it, but don't ask questions ”

“ But women decant their affection, sweet and sound, out of the old bottles into the new ones,—off from the lees of the past generation, clear and bright, into the clean vessels just made ready to receive it. Gifted Hopkins was his mother's idol, and no wonder. She had not only the common attachment of a parent for him, as her offspring, but she felt that her race was to be rendered illustrious by his genius, and thought proudly of the time when some future biographer would mention her own humble name, to be held in lasting remembrance as that of the mother of Hopkins. ”

“ And very serviceable Mrs. Hopkinson was. She found Aileen still with tears in her eyes, Mademoiselle Justine occasionally proffering to Blanche a little tisane de fleur d'orange, and watching an opportunity to slip out and dress herself in a petite robe de percale, and a bonnet à barbes, that she had prepared for the particular occasion; and which were not only becoming in themselves, but so appropriate that even the Doctor and the nurse must, she thought, be struck by her wonderfully good taste in dress. ”

“ The good people of the neighborhood accepted this as the best solution of the difficulty. It was agreed upon at length by the trustees, that the Cynthia Badlam Fund for Educational Purposes should be applied for the benefit of the two foundlings, known as Isosceles and Helminthia Hopkins.
Master Bytes Gridley was greatly exercised about the two “preposterous names,” as he called them, which in a moment of eccentric impulse he had given to these children of nature. He ventured to hint as much to Mrs. Hopkins. The good dame was vastly surprised. ”

“ As soon as I could, I escaped to my room, and I was sitting there over a book, when the maid—her name was Hopkins, I had discovered—came in on the pretext of inquiring if I had everything I needed. One of the innumerable servants had already turned down my bed, so when Hopkins appeared at the door, I suspected at once that there was a hidden motive underlying her ostensible purpose.
"Mrs. Vanderbridge told me to look after you," she began. "She is afraid you will be lonely until you learn the way of things." ”

“ He was certain that nobody had ever had such a wife as his, and that no woman had ever endured so much with so much fortitude. He went from Lady Sarah to the Duchess to be soothed, and when their matronly experience failed to console him, he turned to Aileen, and as for the brusque word or two which Mrs. Hopkinson occasionally found time to bestow on him, he accepted it as an oracle from heaven. ”

“ Giles Hopkins we only know was the son of his father’s first wife, and “about 15.” An error (of the types presumably) makes Griffis (“The Pilgrims in their Three Homes,” p. 176) give the name of Oceanus Hopkins’s father as Giles, instead of Stephen. Constance (or Constantia) Hopkins was apparently about eleven years old in 1620, as she married in 1627, and probably was then not far from eighteen years old. Damaris Hopkins, the younger daughter of Master Hopkins, was probably a very young child when she came in the MAY-FLOWER, but her exact age has not been as certained. ”

“ Then Eve would dig for clams.
“What matter, Eve?” I asked. “The clams will be the bigger for waiting. We have seen the dawn, and we may see the day grow.”
“Yes,” she said, “we have seen the dawn. I did not dream it could be like that. There are no words, Adam. And I would see the day grow. But for my conscience’ sake I must dig.”
[55] “Eve,” I said, “a conscience is a most distressing comrade. Does a governess have a conscience—a governess to the Rich?”
“Does not a fisherman?” she asked.
“He cannot afford it,” I replied. “It is a luxury not for the poor nor for the very rich.” ”

“ Eve shook her head. “She will refuse,” she said,—“or take no notice of your asking. But father will be grateful. There are so few things the rich may do simply. Father would like to muss around, himself,—to help you with the bake, Adam,—and wear his old clothes. He generally has a horrid time.”
She was smiling and eager, and her eyes shone. I nodded. “He shall have his clambake.”
So Eve went in early, and Old Goodwin, for the sky was become all gray and nothing to see. And to me there is nothing so dismal as a dull gray sky when there is neither wind nor rain. ”

“ And, having made the test, I hurried to the house.
“Eve,” I shouted—I must needs shout, with the spring rioting in my veins. “Eve, the spring is here!”
And Eve laughed—and came out a door at my elbow. “Why do you shout it so, Adam? Have I not known it this last month? For the song sparrows came long since, and the bluebirds, and it is weeks since I saw the first robin. And now the birds are coming fast. Why shout it? As well come in and shout that the sun is shining.”
“Truly that would be well done, too,” I answered, “for the sun shines as it has not shone these many months. ”

“ Hopkins would think her rather servile, she explained apologetically that you had to think of things like that. Of course being nursery governess wasn't like being in service, but still you had to be careful. Once she never thought that she would have to go and earn her living in other people's houses. Her mother had had such a nice little stationery and fancy shop, but when mother died there was nothing left of the business after debts were paid.
Mr. Hopkins sighed sympathy. From his counting-house experience he knew something of the finances of little shops. “Father not living?” ”

“ Will Hopkins can take an axe and a few tools into the green woods in the fall, and sail down the bay in a new schooner in the spring when the ice goes. To see him steaming the planking in the open in his own improvised boxes on the top of six feet of snow made me stand and take off my hat to him. He is no good at speech-making; he does not own a dress-suit, and he cannot dance a tango; but he is quite as useful a citizen as some who can, and his type of education is one which endears him to all. ”

“ Dianthe bowed her head in assent, for speech had deserted her. Then old Aunt Hannah undid her snowy kerchief and her dress, and displayed to the terrified girl the perfect semblance of a lily cut, as it were, in shining ebony.
“Did each of Mira’s children have this mark?”
“Yes, honey; all of one blood!”
Dianthe staggered as though buffeted in the face. Blindly, as if in some hideous trance, reeling and stumbling, she fell. Cold and white as marble, she lay in the old woman’s arms, who thought her dead. “Better so,” she cried, and then laughed aloud, then kissed the poor, drawn face. ”