The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs
took dinner at home, and their morning and evening meals were very
light.
She had the whole day to scrub and polish the rooms, and being a clean
girl by nature, she took a pride in making them as bright as it was in
the power of soap and water to do.
It was one of the Professor’s afternoons at home, and she was in the
midst of cleaning her little kitchen when he called her into the front
room.
“Hannah, I feel lonely,” he said, “I want you to leave off work and
come and sit with me!”
“Lor! Sig-nor, it’s impossible! I’se all of a muck, and the kitchen’s
flooded with water!”
“Then wipe it up as soon as you can, and come to me. I want you to sew
some buttons on my clean shirt!”
The girl did as she was desired, for amongst the anomalies that beset
this strange creature, was her capacity for needlework, the most
delicate of which did not seem to come amiss to her clumsy fingers. As
soon as she had mopped up her kitchen floor, she put on a clean apron
and brought her work basket into the Professor’s room. There she found
various articles awaiting her, to mend, and taking a chair at the
furthest end of the little apartment, she applied herself to her work.
“Hannah!” said the Professor, presently, between the puffs of his
meerschaum pipe, “have you ever thought about getting married?”
The girl reddened; looked up quickly; and then dashed her hand across
her eyes to brush away a tear.
“Lor! Sir, in course I ’ave! You’re a’forgetting of Joe!”
“To be sure! You must forgive me, Hannah! But you will never see any
more of Joe, you tell me!”
“I don’t think so, Sig-nor! ’E’s a young man of ’is word, Joe is, and
what ’e says ’e sticks to,” replied Hannah, with a heavy sigh.
“But you don’t mean to remain unmarried for ever, for his sake, do
you, Hannah? He is not worth it!”
“I don’t suppose as any one else will want to marry me,” replied the
girl, humbly, “I knows as I ain’t much to look at, nor clever, nor
nothink of that sort, but I loved ’im, Sir, true, only ’e didn’t seem
to vally it!”
“No! He was a fool,” said the Professor, “but all men are not the
same, Hannah! There are plenty that may want to marry you yet--and I
am one!”
Hannah looked up quickly, as if she did not believe she could have
heard aright.
“I begs your pardin, Sir, what did you say?”
“I said that _I_ would marry you, if you are willing, Hannah, and then
you will at least be provided for, for life!”
“But you’re quite an old man,” replied the girl, naïvely.
Ricardo winced under the truth.
“You are right,” he answered, presently, “I am old, at least compared
with that young cub who has kicked you off. But men older than myself
marry young wives every day, and I should make you a kind husband. I
am a gentleman also--you know that without my telling you--and a
gentleman raises the woman he marries, to his own position, and though
I am not a rich man, I am better off than you would ever be if you
married a man of your own standing. I am a very lonely man now,
Hannah, and you are a kind, amiable girl, and I am sure you would make
me a good wife. What do you say to my proposal? Shall we be married?”
“You’re joking with me, Sig-nor,” said Hannah, “it can’t never be!”
“Why not?” inquired Ricardo.
“O! ’cos I’m so different from you every ways, and you’d be ashamed to
say I was your wife. And what would the Doctor say, too?”
“Never mind the Doctor! This is a matter that concerns you and me
only. I don’t mean that we should go on differently from what we are
doing now. I am not rich enough to keep a servant to wait upon you!
You would have to look after the house and get the breakfast, just as
you do now. Only--you would be my wife and bear my name, and if I am
ever better off than I am at present, you will share my good fortune
with me.”
“O! I’d be glad and proud to do all I can for you and the Doctor,
Sig-nor,--now and allays--” replied the girl. “Only--for ’tother--why
I can’t speak like a lady--you’d laugh at me for my hignorance and I’d
be shamed to open my mouth afore you, if so be I was, what you say.”
“I know you have not had any advantages in the way of education,
Hannah, but I should be willing to teach you many things, and being
always with me, and hearing me talk, you would soon improve yourself.
Is it a bargain, or not?”
“O! lor! Sir, I don’t know what to say, sure,” cried Hannah, in a
frightened voice. “It’s a honner, I know, but it don’t seem
nateral-like. And I’m not sure as it would be right, neither, for I
can’t ’elp thinking of Joe, and his falseness to me, and I can’t
promise to give it up, neither!”
“I like you all the better for saying so, Hannah, and don’t imagine
that I shall expect you to love me! If you continue kind and
attentive, that is all that I shall ask. And if I did not believe that
you would be so, I should not wish you to be my wife, even if you were
a Princess of the Blood Royal. Cannot you make up your mind on the
subject?”
“Well! I don’t suppose as I could do better,” replied the girl, with
another deep sigh, “so p’r’aps I’d better say ‘Yes’, Sir!”
It was not a very ardent way of accepting his proposal, but Ricardo
wanted no more than her acquiescence. He did not even put down his
pipe to kiss the girl, nor press her hand. He only smiled and said,
“Well! I’m glad you’ve come to that conclusion, and you and I will go
out together some day and get it quietly over.”
He said nothing to Karl Steinberg on the subject until a week
afterwards, when he came in one morning, with the girl, from the
Registrar’s office, and told him that they were man and wife.
Hannah grinned as the news was made public, but disappeared
immediately afterwards into the kitchen, to prepare the family
breakfast.
Ricardo waited for Steinberg to speak, but he sat silent and apart,
with knitted brows, and a perplexed countenance.
“And so, my dear friend, you have no congratulations to offer me?”
said the Professor at length.
“Frankly, my dear Ricardo, no! You know what my sentiments are
regarding the step you have taken, which appears an act of madness to
me. However, it is done and cannot be undone, so the less said the
better.”
“And you know the motives which induced me to propose it,” replied the
Professor. “They are not altered, Karl, they never will be! I feel as
if the ceremony of this morning had united me to Leonora over again. I
am as rapturously happy as if the grave had restored her to me. There
is no such thought as love, or any other nonsense, for this girl. I
will be good to her, but to me she is Leonora’s medium--nothing more!
Come! at least congratulate me on having reached the climax of my
desires regarding Occultism.”
“I wish you all happiness and success in every possible way, my dear
Ricardo,” exclaimed Steinberg, as he stretched his hand across the
table and grasped that of his friend. “But here is Mrs. Ricardo with
our breakfast. I hope your morning stroll has given you a good
appetite, Professor!”
“The best in the world,” cried the older man, gaily, as he drew his
chair to the table.
Hannah had placed the coffee and rolls and eggs before them and was
about to return to the kitchen.
“But surely your wife will breakfast with us, now?” remarked
Steinberg.
“Of course! to be sure,” said the Professor. “Hannah, my dear, sit
down and take your breakfast with the Doctor and me!”
“O! no, Sir, indeed I’d rayther not!” exclaimed the girl, as she beat
a retreat to her own quarters. Her husband smiled and shrugged his
shoulders.
“Let her do as she likes,” he observed; “she will be happier in the
pursuits of her old life. And it would be most awkward to have her
always listening to our conservation, particularly at this juncture.
Steinberg, I must have a séance to-night. Will you try and come home
early? I have married to-day, not Hannah Stubbs, but my Leonora, and I
shall not close my eyes until I have seen and spoken to her again. The
last séance! I shall never forgive Mrs. Battleby for having
interrupted us! In another moment I should have held my wife in my
arms. But I will sit and sit for her, until that happy moment arrives.
Is the room quite ready?”
“I finished it yesterday, and it is one of my leisure evenings, so
that I shall be back as soon as yourself. Tell Hannah--I beg your
pardon, I must call her Mrs. Ricardo now----”
“No such thing!” cried the Professor, “continue to call her Hannah as
usual. I wish all things to go on exactly as before!”
“Tell Hannah, then, to be sure and get us a good supper, for I feel so
much exhaustion after these séances, as if my brain and body were
alike scooped out and empty.”
“Yes! yes! I will see to all that!” replied Ricardo, as they parted to
pursue their avocations.
The Professor ordered his wife to procure a couple of fowls for
supper, which Hannah quite imagined was in honour of the morning
ceremony, and gave her five pounds as a wedding present, which
delighted the simple creature as much as if he had settled an income
upon her.
But when he and Steinberg returned home and intimated their intention
to hold a séance in the dark chamber, Mrs. Ricardo showed signs of
insubordination, and vehemently opposed their desire.
“O! no!” she exclaimed; “nothink won’t ever make _me_ henter that dark
’ole again! Wasn’t it that as brought the whole of my misfortins on my
’ead? It lost me Joe and mother and the rest, and I won’t never try it
again. You didn’t ought to arsk me, Sig-nor! You deceived me onst, and
I said it should be for the larst time. If I’d a known as when I went
to sleep, ghosties and sperrits and shadders walked about the room,
I’d ’ave chucked all the physic out of the winder. But never
again--no! not if you paid me a ’undred pounds!”
And turning her back, Mrs. Ricardo walked away into her kitchen.
The Professor and the Doctor looked at each other with comical dismay.
“Is she in earnest, do you think?” whispered Ricardo to his friend.
Steinberg made a grimace.
“I don’t know I’m sure. I don’t know enough of women, but one thing is
certain--performing the office of a medium does not come within the
legalities of Marriage, and if she will not do it of her own free will
you have no means by which you can compel her!”
The men were silent for a few minutes, and then the Professor
exclaimed,
“Karl! don’t look at me in that way, as if you thought I’d bought ‘a
pig in a poke!’”
“I don’t say that, but I think you have a difficult task before
you--to convince Ignorance that it is a duty which it owes to Mankind,
to sacrifice itself for the good of the Human Race. However, Hannah
has a kind heart and an amiable nature, and if you will have patience,
I daresay you may be able to induce her to do, for love of you, what
she would refuse on compulsion. Cheer up, Ricardo. Don’t look so
down-hearted, man, but tell your wife to get the supper ready and let
us all try to be jolly together!”
“But I shall not see Leonora!” said the Professor, in a tone of
disappointment.
“Not to-night, that’s certain, unless she comes to you in your dreams.
But it is only a pleasure deferred! Hannah will come round after a
while. Take my advice, and don’t mention the subject again to-night.”
Ricardo did as his friend suggested, and when the supper was ready, he
insisted upon Hannah coming into the room and sitting down to table
with them. She was very shy and awkward, and looked all the time as if
she longed to bolt back to her own domains, but the two gentlemen
reassured her, by taking no notice of her ignorance of their ways, and
talking to each other, rather than to her. When the supper table was
cleared, Ricardo asked her to bring in her needle-work and sit with
them, but though she acquiesced in his desire, she did not reappear,
and the friends finished the evening alone.