The strange transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs
“Leonora! my beloved!” he said, in a low voice, as he sat up in bed,
and tried to pierce the gloom with his mortal vision; “Leonora! come
to me--speak to me! Tell me the truth! I will not be angry now! I know
we all have sinned, and you were but mortal like myself--only solve
these doubts. If you were innocent of wronging me--if that bitter blow
was a foul injury to your faith to me, I will bear the purgatory it
will bring me, thankfully, only to know that you are dwelling in the
Light of God! And if it was only an act of justice--if, in the heat of
your youth and carelessness, you were unfaithful to your marriage vow,
I forgive you, my Beloved,--I forgive you from my heart, and will tell
you so, as soon as we meet in another world. Only come to me, my
wife--only look at me! whisper one word of affection, and I shall live
and die, content!”
So the poor lover and husband raved, only to be answered by silence
and gloom. Leonora was there! He felt it, but he had not sufficient
power by himself, to enable her to manifest her spiritual presence to
him. If Steinberg would not sit with him, he must find some one
else--for he could not stand the suspense and anxiety much longer.
He tossed and turned in his bed until daylight, and rose with the
earliest dawn, worn and haggard, with the intention of walking in the
Park before he took his breakfast. It was seven o’clock as the
Professor turned out of the front door of his dingy lodgings--an
unprecedented thing on his part, for he usually sat up so late, that
he did not leave the house until his first lessons were due. As he
reached the lower passage, he found the front door open and the girl
Hannah cleaning the steps. Ricardo passed her with a bow, for he was a
most courteous man in his dealings with women, but Hannah’s head was
bent upon her work, and she did not see him. As Ricardo gained the
pavement he turned and looked at her. She was kneeling in the attitude
in which such work is done, and her slip-shod shoes which had half
fallen off, left her feet, encased in black worsted stockings, well
exposed to view. They were large feet, as has been said before, and
two holes in her stockings left the naked heels bare for the
admiration of the passers-by. The Professor stopped for a moment and
regarded those heels. They were not pretty perhaps, but they were rosy
and firm, and undeniably youthful, and somehow they inspired him with
a certain amount of compassion, to think that such young flesh should
have to bear its burden of life so soon. He stood as though transfixed
by the sight of those two rosy heels. No thought of lust, or even
admiration, entered his mind, which was far too sensitive and refined
for any feeling of the kind, but they excited his pity, and carried
him back somehow to the days when he, too, was young and innocent. He
felt as if he wanted to say something kind to the poor young girl who
had begun so early to drudge for others. The rosy heels, though only
seen through the ugly medium of a pair of ragged stockings, attracted
him as a callow nestling with gaping beak, or a little pink apple
hanging in an orchard might have done. He would have no desire to
possess the callow bird, and the idea of eating the sour apple would
have set his teeth on edge--yet they would have carried with them a
memory of the days when he would have enjoyed them both--and in this
light he felt drawn towards Hannah Stubbs as she scrubbed the front
door steps. He had a shilling in his pocket, and he stepped back to
give it to her. Perhaps a shilling might represent many things that
would give pleasure to the little household drudge--but as the
Professor drew near to her the second time, he perceived that Hannah
was crying and the tears were dropping on the flags she knelt upon,
and mingling with the hearth-stone. Tears in the eyes of a woman
always excited the Signor’s sympathy, and, forgetting the shilling, he
inquired eagerly why Hannah wept.
The girl looked frightened at being detected in such an act of
self-indulgence.
“It’s nothing, Sir--nothing!” she exclaimed, as she hastily rubbed her
eyes with her knuckles and smeared her face over with the
hearth-stone.
“O! come, that cannot be quite true,” replied Ricardo, “I’m sure you
are not so foolish as to cry for nothing! Perhaps you have left your
friends for the first time, and are new to service, and it seems hard
to you. Is that so?”
The girl seemed grateful for the enquiry.
“It ain’t that, Sir,” she said, shaking her head. “In course I was
sorry to leave mother and father and the rest, but ’tain’t that as
makes me cry. We’ve all got to arn our bread, and mother said it was
time I was doing of something--and she will be so angry if I goes ’ome
again so soon--that she will!” and Hannah commenced to sob anew.
“But why should you go, Hannah? Is not Mrs. Battleby satisfied with
you?”
“No, Sir, I’m afeared not, though I does all I can, but she’s angry
with me a’cause of the plates and dishes which they keeps slipping
about, but I’m as careful of them as I can be, Sir, and I can’t ’elp
the tables and chairs ’opping round the room--and whatever mother will
think I don’t know! She’ll say it’s such a disgrace, but it ain’t my
fault--Boo-hoo-hoo!” and here Hannah commenced to blubber afresh, till
the Professor began to fear that she would attract the attention of
the passers-by.
“Now, look here, my good girl,” he said, “don’t cry, or you will make
Mrs. Battleby still more angry. The neighbours will think she has been
beating you. Listen to me! Mrs. Battleby’s a good soul, though rather
strict perhaps, but I’ve known her a long time, and if you’ll promise
me to dry your eyes, and be as careful as you can of the china, I’ll
speak to her on your behalf when I come back from business this
evening, and see if I cannot induce her to give you another trial.”
“I’m sure you’re mortal good, Sir,” said the girl, as she dug her
knuckles afresh into her eyes.
“Never mind the goodness! You do your work as well as ever you can,
to-day, and I’ll see what I can do for you on my return. What is your
other name, Hannah?”
“Stubbs, Sir! I’m a Shropshire girl--was raised there, and never left
the village I was born in till mother sent me to Lunnon. Lor! how I
wish she ’adn’t! Father is that hard on me, and what they’ll say if
I’m sent back in disgrace--Mother and Joe and all--I’m sure I don’t
know!”
“Who is Joe?” asked the Professor, kindly, “your brother?”
“No, Sir! My young man.”
“Your young man! So you have a young man of your own already! And why
did you come out to service, then, Hannah? Why did you not marry Joe
instead?”
The girl gave a conscious grin as she replied:
“_We_ was willing enough, Sir, but mother wouldn’t hear on’t. She said
Joe hadn’t enough to keep hisself, let alone me, and that a few years’
service would do me all the good in the world. But it seems ’ard for
to leave ’ome and all.”
“Never mind, Hannah! I daresay your mother knows best, and the time
will pass quicker than you imagine. Any way I shall not forget to
speak for you to Mrs. Battleby, so good-morning!” And Ricardo went on
his way, smiling slightly to himself.
Since the fatal night when his hand had sent the woman he loved best
to her last account, Ricardo had felt very tenderly towards all women,
for her sake. He was so dreadfully afraid of making another mistake
about them. He thought more of this shapeless, ungainly girl as he
took his walk in the Park, than he could have believed possible--not
of her ugliness, nor awkwardness, nor little troubles--but of those
mysterious wonderful eyes of which she did not seem conscious, but
which looked as if they saw that which was invisible to every one
else. How strange that such eyes--so the Professor thought--should be
set in so rough a face and figure; eyes, which the greatest beauty in
the land might have envied, combined with a shape which no decent
housemaid would have cared to exhibit.
If Hannah’s eyes had not been so mystical in appearance, would the
Signor have borne her ordinary troubles so faithfully in mind, and
spoken with Mrs. Battleby about their alleviation on the first
opportunity? It is doubtful! Man, however supine, is apt to be led by
his fancy. Any way, when his landlady made her appearance with his
evening meal, he opened the subject at once.
“Mrs. Battleby, my good friend, I want to speak with you, on behalf of
your little maid, Hannah! How has she offended you? Is she very
stupid, very clumsy, very impertinent? Why do you propose to send her
back to her good mother, who will doubtless be unpleasantly
disappointed to see her again.”
“Has Hannah presumed to complain of me to you, Sig-nor?” demanded the
landlady, becoming instantly stiff and rigid with indignation.
“O! no, indeed, but I take interest in the troubles of the young. We
have all been young, Mrs. Battleby, and all been ignorant and wilful
and done silly things. I saw this young girl weeping this morning and
stopped to ask her the reason, and all she said was, that you intended
to send her home again and she feared her people would be very angry
with her.”
“If you’ll excuse me taking a seat, for them stairs try my breath
dreadful,” said Mrs. Battleby, as she plumped herself down on one of
the Professor’s chairs, “I’ll tell you all about it. Send ’er ’ome
indeed! I should think I would, and it’s the last kind act I’ll do for
Mary Stubbs as long as I live. We was neighbours-like, Sig-nor, this
gal’s mother and I, and so when she arsked me to take ’er gal and give
’er a trial, I said ‘Yes’, never thinking, may the Lord forgive ’er,
as Mary Stubbs would ’ave put off a daft gal on me as trusted ’er.”
“Is poor Hannah really daft, whatever that may mean?” asked Ricardo.
“And that she is, Sig-nor, and ought to be in the Hidiot Hasylum, if
all had their doo. Why! she’s done nothing since she come here, but
’op about after the tables and chairs.”
“Hop about after the tables and chairs?” echoed the Professor, with
open eyes.
“It’s God’s truth Sig-nor, and nothing else. I’ve seen the kitchen
table, which it must weigh ’alf a ton, waltz after that gal all over
the kitchen, and she’ll set the cups and saucers and glasses spinning
like tops. And then when I remonstrances with ’er, she’ll cry like a
ninny and say she’s not done nothing. The way in which she’s broke
china since she’s bin in this ’ouse is wicked. And I won’t stand it no
longer--that’s flat, for if she don’t do it, why, the Devil do, and
’ome she must go!”
“But, Mrs. Battleby, one moment! I do not quite understand you. If
Hannah does not make the furniture dance, who does?”
“That is what I want to know, Sig-nor! But ’ow the gal moves a heavy
table is beyond me. Nor ’ow she makes the glasses spin! But if I
remonstrances with ’er, as I said before, she do nothing but cry and
say ’tain’t ’er fault, which is all nonsense. And so back she goes to
Settlefield, as soon as I’ve got some one to take ’er place!”
“It is very curious,” remarked the Professor, pensively, “and there
must be some solution of the problem. Do you think that Hannah would
make the table dance for me, Mrs. Battleby?”
“Lor, Sig-nor! don’t you go a tempting of Providence! Let the gal and
’er tricks alone!”
“But I am interested in what you have told me, from a scientific point
of view! There may be a reason for it all, and if so, I should like to
find it out. Would you have any objection to my seeing Hannah by
herself this evening, and questioning her on the subject?”
“Dear me, no, Sig-nor--not if you’ll take the trouble! But you won’t
get nothing for your pains. She’s just obstinate, that gal is, and
cries if you hold up your little finger at her!”
“Does she suit you in other respects, Mrs. Battleby?”