CHAPTER IX.
THE LAST OF PERKINS.
I daresay my readers will take it for granted that I adopted a fresh name when I went into Mrs. Torwood's service. So I most certainly ought to have done after my previous forgery of a character having been detected. But sometimes one is astonishingly stupid; and the idea of making that very necessary alteration never entered my head. Caroline Jill I had dubbed myself when I dropped the secretly-venerated name of Trecastle, and Caroline Jill I—like an idiot—continued to be, without having the wits to see how foolish it was of me to stick to a name upon which I had brought discredit. I was now to feel the consequences of this imprudence, the penalty being brought about, indirectly, by three of the dogs under my care.
One morning when I went as usual to call Mrs. Torwood, she said she should stay in bed a little longer, as she had a headache, and that I was to leave her to sleep till half-past ten, when she meant to get up. It so happened that I was particularly desirous of getting through my work early on that day, and as by taking out the six dogs in two instead of three detachments, I should have just time to give the whole lot their daily airing before the hour when I was to return to my mistress, I determined to break my rule for once, and take them out three together, instead of in couples, as usual.
Behold me, then, sallying forth at about 9.30 A.M., accompanied by the greedy Sue, the vivacious and sport-loving Chose, and the dawdling Royal. Our progress was characteristic of my three companions. First went Chose, trotting ahead of us, and keeping a bright look-out for a chance of a chasse. Next came Sue and I—she making occasional foraging excursions into the gutter, and I continually walking backwards and wringing my neck, in order not to lose sight of Royal. Finally came Royal, lagging far behind, with his customary leisurely imperturbability. All went well till we came to where a footman had lounged out from his master's house, leaving the front door open behind him, and was standing a few yards off chatting with a friend. I and my pack had passed there before often enough for the footman to know us by sight; and I knew him in the same way, and knew also that his employers had a pet in the shape of a magnificent Persian cat. Now this cat had taken advantage of the open door to come out upon the pavement, where she was sunning herself tranquilly when Chose, who, as I have mentioned, headed our party, drew near to that spot. At sight of puss he stopped short with uplifted paw and quivering tail, and for a second or so the two animals stood motionless and gazing at each other. Then the cat, distrusting his appearance, whisked round, and flew like lightning up the doorsteps into the house. Had she stayed still, Chose might very likely have let her alone; but the instant he saw her run he became convinced she was game, and therefore to be hunted. I whistled and called to him in vain; without a moment's hesitation, and paying no attention to me, he dashed after her in hot pursuit across the hall and up the front staircase. Of course it would never do to have him hunting a pet cat all over its owner's house; so I said to the footman, who was looking on and laughing without seeming to think there was any need for him to interfere: "I'd better run in and fetch the dog back, hadn't I?"
"All right," answered he, knowing that I was not to be suspected of designs on the spoons; and in I went without more ado.
The family to whom the house belonged would doubtless have been considerably astonished to see a stranger invading their premises in this unceremonious manner; but luckily they were still in their bedrooms, and I met with none of them as I rushed after my truant. I followed him upstairs, through the drawing-room, and into a little boudoir on the first floor. Here I found him standing on his hind legs upon a light-blue satin sofa (which bore marks of his dirty feet), and vainly endeavouring to get to the top of a high cabinet where puss had taken refuge. She, feeling herself in security, was indulging in a candid and emphatic expression of opinion respecting her pursuer by growling, spitting, arching her back, swelling out her tail to three or four times its usual size, and now and then striking viciously in his direction with her paw. I imagine this last action was merely meant to relieve her feelings in the same way that fist-shaking relieves those of human beings, for she must have been perfectly well aware that the poodle was quite out of reach from her perch.
Chose was one of those dogs who are always completely subdued directly they find themselves captured, so I had no more trouble with him now that I had come to close quarters; he followed me downstairs unresistingly, feebly wagging the very tip of his tail, and looking a touching picture of apologetic meekness and penitence.
That smell-feast of a Sue meanwhile had profited by the commotion to get into a little mischief on her own account. Having accompanied me as far as the hall, she had then immediately sniffed out the dining-room, and turned in there in preference to going on with me upstairs, and I, having my head full of Chose, did not attend to her proceedings. In the dining-room there were preparations for breakfast, and Sue's nose guided her unerringly to a side-table whereon some cold meat had been set out. By help of a conveniently placed chair she speedily mounted on to this table, took up a cold chicken of which she thought she could fancy a morsel, jumped down again to the floor, and made off for some safer place where she might hope to enjoy her fowl peacefully.
The footman, thinking it time to go and see what was taking place indoors, bade adieu to his friend, and entered the house just as Sue was in the act of issuing from the dining-room door with the bird in her mouth. He immediately armed himself with a riding whip that lay in the hall, barred her exit from the house, and tried to make her give up what she had stolen. In this, however, he was unsuccessful; for though he hit her smartly enough to make her squeak, yet she still clung resolutely to her booty. Consequently, when I came downstairs with the recently-disobedient but now abjectly-submissive Chose at my heels, congratulating myself on being out of this bother, the first thing I saw was Sue, carrying a chicken, scrimmaging from side to side of the hall, and endeavouring to avoid the footman's whip and dodge past him in the street. Very much disgusted at her having thus got into mischief the instant my attention was taken off, I swooped down upon her from the rear; and as she was only thinking of the foe in front and did not notice my approach, I was easily able to catch hold of her, and enforce the surrender of the bird.
Provoked as I felt with these two dogs for their bad behaviour, I could not stop to scold them much at that moment; for I was disturbed by the possibility that Royal, too, might have taken it into his head to get into a scrape on this unlucky morning, and I wanted to have him safe under my wing again as soon as possible. Hastily telling the footman that I hoped the chicken was not much the worse, and that I was sorry the dogs had been so troublesome, I hurried off to look for the King Charles. Even such a slow-coach as Royal had had plenty of time to overtake us by now, and it would not be at all like him to exert himself needlessly by going an inch along the road in advance of the person who had taken him out. Therefore, as he had not made his appearance in the house, I made sure that he must be waiting for me outside.
To my dismay, however, he was nowhere to be seen; look which way I would, not a hair of the precious animal was visible. "Did ever any one see such a handful as these dogs are?" ejaculated I mentally; "and oh, what a fool I was to take out more than two of them at a time!"
I had not the slightest idea in which direction to look for Royal, and was wondering what I had better do, when a ragged little girl whom I had not before observed, ran up and said:
"Please, 'as yer losted suthin?"
"Yes; a little dog," I returned; "can you tell me where it is?"
"I seed a man pick'n hup and put'n in a bastik, and I thought it warn't hisn, neither," she exclaimed, pointing down the street; "he'm jest gone 'long the fust turn to the right there. Run quick and you'll ketch 'im p'raps."
I delayed not a moment, but set off at full speed; and the two dogs ran with me, greatly excited at my sudden haste, and mystified as to the cause of it. As for Chose, he forgot all about his penitence, was immediately in the highest spirits, and bounded along with an up-in-the-air, elastic, springing action which implied an unlimited stock of suppressed energy ready to display itself the instant he should succeed in discovering what game I was in pursuit of, and he was to go for.
On reaching the turning indicated, I saw a respectably dressed man with a basket on his arm at some little distance off. When first I saw him he was walking fast in the same direction as I was; at the sound of my footsteps he looked round, and then began to run. Close to the other end of the street was a crowded thoroughfare where it would be easy enough for him to give me the slip; so I strained every nerve to come up with him before he could get out of the street in which we then were. But it was not an equal race between us; for he had a start and was quite fresh, whilst I was already a little bit out of breath with running; and I soon perceived that he would escape unless I could procure assistance.
Thinking Chose might be useful, I tried to incite him to rush on and tackle the man. But he only responded by barking, springing higher than ever in the air, and looking wildly about to find out what he was being set at. Evidently it never entered his head that he could be meant to hunt a human being.
Two or three times I called out "Stop thief!" But that was mere waste of breath, for the street was empty, and though the cry attracted some of the inhabitants to their doors and windows to see what was going on, no one made any attempt to come to my aid. I suppose they wanted to know the rights of the matter first—and I had not time to stop and explain it just then.
The man had almost gained the end of the street, and I was giving up all hopes of success, when, in the very nick of time, a policeman came in sight just in front of him. My shouts and gesticulations made the policeman comprehend that I wanted the runner stopped. The latter tried to bolt past the official, but was foiled; and, to my joy, I beheld the fugitive captured and held fast. When I came up, I found him expostulating with his captor with an assumption of much virtuous indignation, declaring that he was hurrying to catch a train, that it would be ruin to him to miss it, and that he should hold any one who stopped him responsible for whatever loss he had to suffer in consequence.
"Please look in his basket," I panted to the policeman, "and see if there isn't a King Charles spaniel in it that he has just stolen."
"In corse there's a dawg," exclaimed the fugitive with an air of injured innocence, whilst the policeman lifted up the lid of the basket, and discovered Royal ensconced underneath, "and why not? It's my own dawg as I'm a takin' with me, and 'as I'm 'bliged to carry when I'm in a 'urry cos he can't go fast enough to keep hup. Does the good lady think as no vun 'as a right to 'ave a dawg besides 'erself?"
"Certainly not," replied I, "but that dog is not yours for all that, as you know well enough. He belongs," I continued, addressing the policeman, "to a lady living in Chester Square, whose maid I am. Come there with me, and you will soon see whether this man's story is true or not."
"Oh, hof corse you sez that," grumbled the thief, "when I've jest a told you as I can't hafford to miss my train, not on no consideration! But there! what's the lost of a dawg to the lost of a fortin? Take 'im, then, since you hinsists! Do hanythink you pleases, honly don't keep me 'ere no longer."
But the policeman was not to be gammoned. He said we must both go along with him to Chester Square to find out if my story was true; and added with gentle satire, that as the man claimed the dog and was so unwilling to be parted from it, he might have the pleasure of continuing to carry it in the basket till the real ownership should be proved. And so we all set out together for the Torwood's house, notwithstanding the prisoner's fluent remonstrances and protestations.
As I rather prided myself on being habitually wide-awake and capable of performing whatever I undertook to do, I should have felt it was a disgrace to me to lose one of the dogs; and therefore I was sincerely thankful to the little girl by whose means I had been saved from incurring such a slur. I saw her loitering at the end of the street, watching the result of my chase; and as we passed back that way, I went up to thank her for her timely information. So grateful did I feel, that I was pulling out my purse to express my sentiments in a substantial form, when, to my surprise, she stopped me by saying:
"Don't do that! I 'on't take nothin' for tellin' what you wanted to know, cos I was honly payin' a debt as I've oweded you this long time."
Seeing my look of astonishment, she continued:
"'Twas you as bought flowers off o' me so as I could get brexhus, one mornin' two years back and more, when I was that 'ungry I didn't know what to do; and I've hoften thought as I'd like to pay you back for it, and wondered if I should hever get a chance. When I seen the chap grab the dawg I didn't mean to say nothin' 'bout it at fust—for I doesn't never care to go gettin' coves into trouble; but then I see you come out o' the 'ouse, lookin' like as you'd losted suthin; and I 'membered your face all of a suddint, and I thought if the dawg was yours, I'd tell you where 'twas gone, to pay back what you done for me afore."
I recollected the girl now, and saw she was the same whose breakfastless condition had excited my compassion one day long ago, just after I had run away from home and come to London. Certainly she more than repaid what I had done for her then. Value for value, I should have had very much the best of the bargain if the dog had—as she supposed —belonged to me; for I knew that £30 had been offered and refused for Royal, whereas the amount that I had given her was only a shilling. "I should like to be able to invest all my shillings at that rate of interest!" thought I, as I nodded good-bye to her, and hurried to join the policeman and his prisoner.
Mrs. Torwood regarded dog-stealers with much the same antipathy that some sporting squires seem to feel towards poachers—deeming them natural enemies to the common weal, who might advantageously be extirpated, root and branch. She had, therefore, no idea of letting slip the excellent opportunity which now presented itself for the punishment of one of these abominated miscreants, and the prosecution of Royal's thief was a matter of course. When the trial came on, naturally I was a principal witness; and thus the police reports in the paper contained the name of "Caroline Jill, lady's-maid to Mrs. Torwood, of — Chester Square," as having given evidence in a dog-stealing case.
As luck would have it, this caught the eye of my old enemy Perkins, and set him wondering whether the person referred to could be the same individual who had once presumed to reject his advances so rudely. Though he had already been the means of turning me out of one place, yet still his spite was not satisfied; so (as I suppose) he hung about Chester Square till he had seen me pass, and ascertained my identity; then he came to our house, and had an interview with Mrs. Torwood.
It happened that I was looking out of the window when he left the house. I was extremely astonished to see him, and still more astonished at the state he was in, for he looked deadly pale, and all wild and frightened, and was shaking visibly. The sight of him made me uneasy; for though I had no notion of the object of his visit, still I was sure that his appearance in my vicinity was not likely to bode any good to me.
I took the first opportunity of trying to find out from my friend Eliezer, what the man's business with our mistress had been. But Eliezer could tell me nothing about it; all he knew was that the party had asked to speak to her, saying that he had something important to say, and that he had left her again after a not very long interview.
"She must have frightened him pretty well, whatever it may have been about," said I; "he looked worse than if he'd seen a ghost, when he went away."
"Ah, he did that," returned Eliezer, chuckling at the remembrance, "but it was, so to say, hisself as he was 'feared on. I never see sitch a coward in hall my born days, 'afore."
This naturally excited my curiosity, and I made Eliezer tell me what had taken place to give Perkins a fright, which, I need scarcely say, was not an unpleasant hearing to one who owed him a grudge, as I did.
The collie Yarrow, it appeared, had been lying on a mat in the hall when the visitor departed; and the latter, not seeing the dog, had inadvertently trodden heavily on his toe. Now Yarrow's temper was, like that of many collies, a little uncertain; and as, furthermore, he had always a particular objection to have his toes walked upon or hurt, he lost not an instant in retaliating by biting his injurer in the leg. Perkins, startled at first to find himself stumbling over a dog which he had not seen, seemed completely overcome by terror when the stumble was followed promptly by a severe bite; he staggered back against the wall, turning as pale as ashes, and hardly able to speak. When he had recovered himself a little, Eliezer discovered that the cause of this great fright was, that Perkins had a sort of craze about hydrophobia, and held it in such intense horror that he was really not capable of being reasonable where it was concerned.
Eliezer being the only person handy at the moment, was besieged by Perkins with flurried questions. Wasn't it as bad to be bitten by an animal that was angry as by one that was mad? How long was it before madness showed in a person who had been bitten by a mad dog? Was it a certain cure to have the place burnt out? Was there any other less painful remedy? It would be so horrid to have one's flesh burnt! but still—hydrophobia would be worse. Whatever should he do?
These and similar questions were poured into the ears of Eliezer as though he had been an authority upon madness, because Perkins was in that state of absurd panic which made him long to hear a word of comfort from any one—no matter who. But he did not get any consolation from Eliezer, who had a hearty contempt for cowards, and rarely lost a chance of tormenting them by playing upon their weakness. Therefore the butler carefully abstained from saying anything reassuring, shook his head and sighed, and affected to think the bite an extremely serious matter. Finally, the victim departed in a state of the utmost disquietude, divided between anxiety to try and put himself in safety by undergoing cauterisation, and fear of the pain which it would cause him.
Whichever way he settled it, he was sure to make himself miserable lest he was going mad for a very long while to come, Eliezer opined, laughing contemptuously at the idea of a man's torturing himself gratuitously in that ridiculous fashion. And my anxiety as to what had brought Perkins there did not prevent my joining in the laugh at his absurd terror and folly.
A day or so elapsed, during which I heard nothing unpleasant from Mrs. Torwood, and I began to hope that, after all, the visit that had alarmed me might have had nothing to do with my affairs. This, however, was not the case. Perkins had told her that I was an impostor, who had been dismissed from my last place because the character with which I obtained it was a forgery. But she was reluctant to have to part with a maid who suited her and got on with the dogs as well as I did, and was not inclined to credit so startling an accusation brought against me by a man whom she had never seen before and knew nothing of. When her husband came home, however, she told him what she had heard, and was advised by him to wait, and say nothing about the matter, till Lady Mervyn had been communicated with to find out whether the story was true or not. That lady, of course, confirmed it entirely; and as the date of my being sent away by her was only a few weeks before I had entered the service of my present mistress, it was very evident to the Torwoods that my second character was as unreliable as my first one, and that the lady who had recommended Caroline Jill before going to the Cape had had no existence save in my own imagination.
Thereupon my fancied security was scattered rudely to the winds. Mrs. Torwood at once informed me of what she had discovered, and said it was impossible that she should allow me to remain in the house a day longer. Her husband, she added, had thought she ought to prosecute me; but she refused to do that, because during the whole time I had been with her (over a year) I had given her no cause of complaint, and had always taken excellent care of the dogs. Therefore she should content herself with insisting on my immediate departure.
It was hopeless for me to deny the misdeeds with which I was charged, so there was nothing for it but to pack up my things and take myself off as soon as might be.
Really, I thought, as I made the requisite preparations, it is very provoking that my employers will not be satisfied to judge me by their own personal knowledge! First there was Kitty, and now there's Mrs. Torwood. I am sure they both of them were well-disposed in my favour, and believed that I served them satisfactorily. Yet they let their own experience go for nothing, and are afraid to keep me in their service, just because I am not provided with the proper conventional, often quite unreliable, certificate of somebody else's opinion of me! I call it very silly of people to have so little confidence in their own judgment.
As for Eliezer, he was aghast at my sudden flitting, and began ruefully anticipating the many futile journeys up and down stairs that would probably be inflicted upon his cherished lungs before a satisfactory successor to me would be found.
I confess I thought his anticipations very likely to be realised; for though the place suited me well enough, it was not one that many maids would care to take. The general run of abigails study dressmaking as an art, are ambitious of displaying their skill in that line, and naturally turn up their noses at the idea of throwing away their talents by spending the best part of their time in attending to dogs. Whereas I, who had neither taste nor capacity for any form of millinery, regarded the animals as far the most congenial and interesting occupation of the two.
As I reflected indignantly on the behaviour of the mean, spiteful, meddlesome, cowardly Perkins, who had thus a second time been the means of turning me adrift, I rejoiced to think that dear Yarrow had avenged me to some extent at all events, though not perhaps as completely as I could have wished. The pain of a bite was not much of a set-off against the harm he had done me, to be sure; but then I might add to his sufferings an unknown amount of terror, because of his being such an abject coward as he was; and there was the chance too of his having thought it necessary to have the bitten place cauterised. Altogether, I thought Yarrow was a most discriminating dog, and my last act before leaving the house was to caress him and give him one of his favourite biscuits.
It proved, however, that he had avenged me more thoroughly than I had imagined, and that Perkins' interference was to cost him his life. His horror of hydrophobia made him take a hot poker and try to burn the bite on his leg; but his dread of pain made him timid and clumsy, and, letting the poker slip accidentally, he inflicted a really very severe burn upon himself. Being in a bad state of blood at the time, the wound would not heal; and after a good deal of festering and inflammation, blood poisoning set in, and finally caused his death.
I learnt these particulars from the newspapers, which reported the inquest that was held upon him; and as this was not till some time after I was dismissed by Mrs. Torwood, I am anticipating the proper course of events by introducing it here. But I do so because I think that this is the best place to relate what eventually became of him, and in the next chapter I will return to an account of my proceedings in due chronological order.