DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16513#0097
85
THE STORY OF A FEATHER.
chap. xxx.—patty is visited bv mrs. gaptooth and curlwell—
offer of marriage.
" if she hasn't fainted !" cried the turnkey's wife jumping from her
seat to the side of Patty. "Poor little lamb," said the woman, as
she applied restoratives to the girl, and chatted calmly the while—for
her prison experience had taught her composure at such moments—•
"Poor little kitten ! A stout heart she has for Tyburn ! No, no ;
I shall dance at her wedding yet ! Dear me ! well, she is gone. Ha !
I'm sure when Traply first asked me, I thought I'd be torn to bits
first ; and now—well, it might be worse." In this wise, the turnkey's
wife continued to talk to herself, when at length Patty sighed heavily.
*l Yes, yes," said the woman, " she'll cry soon, and then be nice and
comfortable." At this moment there was a knock at the door.
" Come in," cried Mrs. Traply, not stirring from her charge.
The door was opened, and Mrs. Gaptooth and Curlwell the valet
immediately entered.
" La ! and is it you ?" cried Mrs. Traply. " Here she is, poor thing ;
but she '11 be better now you 're come, Mr. Curlwelland the woman
threw what she believed to be a very speaking look at the valet, |
graced, too, with a pretty bridling of the neck.
"Poor soul! poor heart ! Well, if ever !" cried Curlwell; and lie
then stared at Patty with knitted eyebrows and open mouth. " Who'd
ha' thought it !" he then cried. "If Newgate hasn't made her all
the beautifuller. Ila ! Mrs. Gaptooth, she's a lily that would grow
anywhere : a golden flower she is."
I could perceive that Mrs. Gaptooth had the most contemptuous
opinion of Curlwell's taste ; and this opinion she telegraphed to the
turnkey's wife, who, by her mute acknowledgment of the intelligence,
showed that she too considered the valet as a poor, fascinated, lost
man. As, however, Curlwell looked for some sort of affirmation from
Mrs. Gaptooth, that well-practised woman awarded to him one of her
most elaborate smiles.
" She's coming round, a dove !" said Mrs. Gaptooth. " As time 's
getting short, Mr. Curlwell, and as I wouldn't have you throw your
money away upon an ungrateful person "—
"I'll spend a hundred pounds upon her,'' cried the valet, with
magnanimous energy.
" Not upon another man's wife, I should think ; you'd never be so
extravagant as that, Mr. Curlwell ?" cried the full-fed oily hag.
"What do you mean, ma'am?" asked Mr. Curlwell. " Another
man's wife, ma'am ?"
" Certainly. If the gal will marry you, why you know best, and
may buy your wife out of Newgate; but if, like a proud saucy jilt
as she may be, she won't have nothing to do with you, why, you re
only saving an ungrateful thing from Tyburn, to be, for what you
know, wife to some other man. That's my meanin, Mr. Curlwell,"
i said the hideous woman.
" To be sure," said Mrs. Traply, " the gentleman oughtn't to lay
his money out in the dark. lie ought to know what's what first ;
1 it's but reasonable.''
" I'll spend a hundred pounds upon the dear creature ! " repeated
the valet.
" You '1! d« as you like, Mr. Curlwell ; but, as your friend—though,
the Lord help me ! real friends are held cheap now-a-days—as your
friend, and as the trial's coming on next week, you ought not to
throw away your money, the reward of your honest labour—the very
: sweat of your brow, as I may say—without knowing what for. So
let the gal speak out, once and for all. For my part, I'm upright
! and downstraight, and can't abide pigs in pokes. And now," cried
Mrs. Gaptooth, dropping with physical emphasis upon a chair, " now
: you know my mind !"
" She's coming to," said Mrs. Traply.
■" Go into the next room—he may, my dear, mayn't he ?—and when
the girl's quite recovered, you can get an answer." Thus coun-
selled Mrs. Gaptooth.
Mr. Curlwell again muttered his determination to lay out a hundred
pounds, and passed into the adjoining room. Mrs. Gaptooth slowly
turned her head, following him with a most pitying sneer. She then
rose, and approached Patty. " A hundred pounds ! And for a nose
like that ! if the blessings of money arn't thrown away upon some
people !"
" She's getting better," said Mrs. Traply ; who continued, in a low
tone of confidence—" You 're right, Mrs. Gaptooth. Men are fools,
ma'am ; when they get a fancy in their heads, quite fools. Noses,
indeed ! The noses, and the eyes, and the complexions, too, that I've
seen taken out. of the dirt, carried to church, and stuck up for life in
carriages. People talk of beauty ; but I do think there's often great
luck in solid ugliness. She's getting better. Men are fools."
"They are, my dear," said Mrs. Gaptooth ; "and perhaps after all,
it's as well it is so : it makes all the better for the weakness of our
sex. She Ml do now." And Mrs. Gaptooth turned aside, as Patty
unclosed her eyes, and looked drearily about her.
"There, you're better; to be sure you are," said Mrs. Traply,
"and it was very foolish of you to take on so. Bless your poor heart!
you'11 never suffer anything of the sort, not you. No, no; you've
too many good friends about you, if you '11 only let 'em be your
friends."
" I am better," said Patty, leaning her brow, as if in pain, upon
her hand—" it was weak of me to —but pray say no more of it."
" There; your colour's coming like a carnation," said Mrs. Traply ;
" and since you've been ill, some friends have come to see you."
" Mr. Lintley ?" cried Patty, with sparkling eyes and animated face.
"No ; not Mr. Lintley, but—"
Ere the woman could end the sentence, Mrs. Gaptooth showed
herself, approaching Patty. I shall never forget the two faces. They
seemed the incarnated expressions of confident wickedness and
alarmed innocence. When I first saw the old woman at Madame
Spanneu's, I confess I was tricked into a respect for iier ; she seemed
so meek, so mild, so matronly ! And now, perhaps—it was from seeing
her in contrast with Patty—I felt for her a loathing, a disgust. This
feeling was strengthened by what I witnessed in the turnkey's room.
The old woman, overlaying her broad, ripe face with a smile—a
laborious look of complacency—made up to Patty. As she approached,
the face of the girl changed to marble paleness ; her eyes looked
darker and darker ; and her mouth became rigidly curved with an
expression of mingled fear and scorn. Once, as from some ungovern-
able impulse, she shivered from head to sole. She grasped the arms of
the chair, and still shrank back as the old woman came nearer to her.
She seemed possessed by some terrible antipathy—some irrepressible
loathing that, in its intensity, made her powerless. Still, Mrs. Gap-
tooth, with her undaunted smiles, advanced. She was about to lay
her hand upon Patty, when—with almost a shriek—the girl leapt
from her chair. "Creature! touch me not," Patty exclaimed with
a vehemence that surprised me. She then passionately seized Mrs.
Traply by the hand, begging protection from that " horrid woman."
As Patty spoke the words, the shadow of a black heart darkened
the woman's face : in one brief moment, I beheld within it the iniqui-
ties of a long, noisome life. The old crone stood for a moment eyeing
the <(iil like a baulked witch. It was a hideous sight.
"You're a foolish, fly-away puss," said Mrs. Gaptooth, rallying
herself, and again essaying her customary smile ; though I could see
the harridan, still shaking with passion. " I came to do you good, and
you call me wicked names. Ha ! you have much to answer for—you
have."
" I know the good you would offer," said Patty; "you have offered
it before. I was helpless, alone—without a friend ; and therefore
you offered it. Oh!" and Patty cried as from a crushed heart—
"shame upon you !"
" You silly little child," said Mrs. Gaptooth, still striving to trample
upon her passion, "you foolish little pet," she cried, and laughing,
would have playfully pinched Patty's cheek, but the girl with a look
repelled her—"there, you silly creature," she continued, "all I said
about a lord, and a fine gentleman, and a carriage, and gay clothes,
and all that, was only a tale—a story to try you. Now, there is no
lord in the case ; but an honest, worthy gentleman—"
" You lose your pains," said Patty, again restored to her composure.
"He can, and will take you out of this place," cried the irascible
Mrs. Gaptooth," and make you his lawful, wedded wife. Do you hear
what I say, child—his lawful, wedded wife ? What say you now,
Patty ?"
" 1 say again to you," answered the girl, with the natural dignity of
a pure heart—" I say again, you lose your pains, woman. Go."
" Patty had overcome the patience of Mrs. Gaptooth. That igno-
minious word—woman ; that name so stung its unworthy possessor,
that the old crone gave up her tongue to most unlimited indulgence.
In a deep contemptuous tone she first begged to ask Patty what she
thought of herself, that she called her betters, woman ? " You, in-
deed !" exclaimed Mrs. Gaptooth. "You! woman, indeed! And
in such a place! In Newgate, madam—Newgate! Or, perhaps
Miss—I say, Miss—you have forgotten where you are."
"Indeed, no ; nor the cause, the wicked cause which brought me
hither," said Patty.
" Clickly Abram and a gold watch," cried Mrs. Gaptooth, with a
loud, malicious laugh.
THE STORY OF A FEATHER.
chap. xxx.—patty is visited bv mrs. gaptooth and curlwell—
offer of marriage.
" if she hasn't fainted !" cried the turnkey's wife jumping from her
seat to the side of Patty. "Poor little lamb," said the woman, as
she applied restoratives to the girl, and chatted calmly the while—for
her prison experience had taught her composure at such moments—•
"Poor little kitten ! A stout heart she has for Tyburn ! No, no ;
I shall dance at her wedding yet ! Dear me ! well, she is gone. Ha !
I'm sure when Traply first asked me, I thought I'd be torn to bits
first ; and now—well, it might be worse." In this wise, the turnkey's
wife continued to talk to herself, when at length Patty sighed heavily.
*l Yes, yes," said the woman, " she'll cry soon, and then be nice and
comfortable." At this moment there was a knock at the door.
" Come in," cried Mrs. Traply, not stirring from her charge.
The door was opened, and Mrs. Gaptooth and Curlwell the valet
immediately entered.
" La ! and is it you ?" cried Mrs. Traply. " Here she is, poor thing ;
but she '11 be better now you 're come, Mr. Curlwelland the woman
threw what she believed to be a very speaking look at the valet, |
graced, too, with a pretty bridling of the neck.
"Poor soul! poor heart ! Well, if ever !" cried Curlwell; and lie
then stared at Patty with knitted eyebrows and open mouth. " Who'd
ha' thought it !" he then cried. "If Newgate hasn't made her all
the beautifuller. Ila ! Mrs. Gaptooth, she's a lily that would grow
anywhere : a golden flower she is."
I could perceive that Mrs. Gaptooth had the most contemptuous
opinion of Curlwell's taste ; and this opinion she telegraphed to the
turnkey's wife, who, by her mute acknowledgment of the intelligence,
showed that she too considered the valet as a poor, fascinated, lost
man. As, however, Curlwell looked for some sort of affirmation from
Mrs. Gaptooth, that well-practised woman awarded to him one of her
most elaborate smiles.
" She's coming round, a dove !" said Mrs. Gaptooth. " As time 's
getting short, Mr. Curlwell, and as I wouldn't have you throw your
money away upon an ungrateful person "—
"I'll spend a hundred pounds upon her,'' cried the valet, with
magnanimous energy.
" Not upon another man's wife, I should think ; you'd never be so
extravagant as that, Mr. Curlwell ?" cried the full-fed oily hag.
"What do you mean, ma'am?" asked Mr. Curlwell. " Another
man's wife, ma'am ?"
" Certainly. If the gal will marry you, why you know best, and
may buy your wife out of Newgate; but if, like a proud saucy jilt
as she may be, she won't have nothing to do with you, why, you re
only saving an ungrateful thing from Tyburn, to be, for what you
know, wife to some other man. That's my meanin, Mr. Curlwell,"
i said the hideous woman.
" To be sure," said Mrs. Traply, " the gentleman oughtn't to lay
his money out in the dark. lie ought to know what's what first ;
1 it's but reasonable.''
" I'll spend a hundred pounds upon the dear creature ! " repeated
the valet.
" You '1! d« as you like, Mr. Curlwell ; but, as your friend—though,
the Lord help me ! real friends are held cheap now-a-days—as your
friend, and as the trial's coming on next week, you ought not to
throw away your money, the reward of your honest labour—the very
: sweat of your brow, as I may say—without knowing what for. So
let the gal speak out, once and for all. For my part, I'm upright
! and downstraight, and can't abide pigs in pokes. And now," cried
Mrs. Gaptooth, dropping with physical emphasis upon a chair, " now
: you know my mind !"
" She's coming to," said Mrs. Traply.
■" Go into the next room—he may, my dear, mayn't he ?—and when
the girl's quite recovered, you can get an answer." Thus coun-
selled Mrs. Gaptooth.
Mr. Curlwell again muttered his determination to lay out a hundred
pounds, and passed into the adjoining room. Mrs. Gaptooth slowly
turned her head, following him with a most pitying sneer. She then
rose, and approached Patty. " A hundred pounds ! And for a nose
like that ! if the blessings of money arn't thrown away upon some
people !"
" She's getting better," said Mrs. Traply ; who continued, in a low
tone of confidence—" You 're right, Mrs. Gaptooth. Men are fools,
ma'am ; when they get a fancy in their heads, quite fools. Noses,
indeed ! The noses, and the eyes, and the complexions, too, that I've
seen taken out. of the dirt, carried to church, and stuck up for life in
carriages. People talk of beauty ; but I do think there's often great
luck in solid ugliness. She's getting better. Men are fools."
"They are, my dear," said Mrs. Gaptooth ; "and perhaps after all,
it's as well it is so : it makes all the better for the weakness of our
sex. She Ml do now." And Mrs. Gaptooth turned aside, as Patty
unclosed her eyes, and looked drearily about her.
"There, you're better; to be sure you are," said Mrs. Traply,
"and it was very foolish of you to take on so. Bless your poor heart!
you'11 never suffer anything of the sort, not you. No, no; you've
too many good friends about you, if you '11 only let 'em be your
friends."
" I am better," said Patty, leaning her brow, as if in pain, upon
her hand—" it was weak of me to —but pray say no more of it."
" There; your colour's coming like a carnation," said Mrs. Traply ;
" and since you've been ill, some friends have come to see you."
" Mr. Lintley ?" cried Patty, with sparkling eyes and animated face.
"No ; not Mr. Lintley, but—"
Ere the woman could end the sentence, Mrs. Gaptooth showed
herself, approaching Patty. I shall never forget the two faces. They
seemed the incarnated expressions of confident wickedness and
alarmed innocence. When I first saw the old woman at Madame
Spanneu's, I confess I was tricked into a respect for iier ; she seemed
so meek, so mild, so matronly ! And now, perhaps—it was from seeing
her in contrast with Patty—I felt for her a loathing, a disgust. This
feeling was strengthened by what I witnessed in the turnkey's room.
The old woman, overlaying her broad, ripe face with a smile—a
laborious look of complacency—made up to Patty. As she approached,
the face of the girl changed to marble paleness ; her eyes looked
darker and darker ; and her mouth became rigidly curved with an
expression of mingled fear and scorn. Once, as from some ungovern-
able impulse, she shivered from head to sole. She grasped the arms of
the chair, and still shrank back as the old woman came nearer to her.
She seemed possessed by some terrible antipathy—some irrepressible
loathing that, in its intensity, made her powerless. Still, Mrs. Gap-
tooth, with her undaunted smiles, advanced. She was about to lay
her hand upon Patty, when—with almost a shriek—the girl leapt
from her chair. "Creature! touch me not," Patty exclaimed with
a vehemence that surprised me. She then passionately seized Mrs.
Traply by the hand, begging protection from that " horrid woman."
As Patty spoke the words, the shadow of a black heart darkened
the woman's face : in one brief moment, I beheld within it the iniqui-
ties of a long, noisome life. The old crone stood for a moment eyeing
the <(iil like a baulked witch. It was a hideous sight.
"You're a foolish, fly-away puss," said Mrs. Gaptooth, rallying
herself, and again essaying her customary smile ; though I could see
the harridan, still shaking with passion. " I came to do you good, and
you call me wicked names. Ha ! you have much to answer for—you
have."
" I know the good you would offer," said Patty; "you have offered
it before. I was helpless, alone—without a friend ; and therefore
you offered it. Oh!" and Patty cried as from a crushed heart—
"shame upon you !"
" You silly little child," said Mrs. Gaptooth, still striving to trample
upon her passion, "you foolish little pet," she cried, and laughing,
would have playfully pinched Patty's cheek, but the girl with a look
repelled her—"there, you silly creature," she continued, "all I said
about a lord, and a fine gentleman, and a carriage, and gay clothes,
and all that, was only a tale—a story to try you. Now, there is no
lord in the case ; but an honest, worthy gentleman—"
" You lose your pains," said Patty, again restored to her composure.
"He can, and will take you out of this place," cried the irascible
Mrs. Gaptooth," and make you his lawful, wedded wife. Do you hear
what I say, child—his lawful, wedded wife ? What say you now,
Patty ?"
" 1 say again to you," answered the girl, with the natural dignity of
a pure heart—" I say again, you lose your pains, woman. Go."
" Patty had overcome the patience of Mrs. Gaptooth. That igno-
minious word—woman ; that name so stung its unworthy possessor,
that the old crone gave up her tongue to most unlimited indulgence.
In a deep contemptuous tone she first begged to ask Patty what she
thought of herself, that she called her betters, woman ? " You, in-
deed !" exclaimed Mrs. Gaptooth. "You! woman, indeed! And
in such a place! In Newgate, madam—Newgate! Or, perhaps
Miss—I say, Miss—you have forgotten where you are."
"Indeed, no ; nor the cause, the wicked cause which brought me
hither," said Patty.
" Clickly Abram and a gold watch," cried Mrs. Gaptooth, with a
loud, malicious laugh.