CHAPTER VII.

At first she heard nothing but the ordinary salutations that passed between the Professor and the serving-maid, but she was patient and long-suffering in the cause of Curiosity, and after a while, she was rewarded. Silence ensued;--next, furtive whisperings between the two conspirators--then, a few words of awed surprise--and lastly, the Victory!

“Leonora!” she heard the Professor say, “Leonora! come to me!”

“My gracious!” thought the landlady, “if they ain’t got another gal in there! ’Oo’d ’ave thought it, and the Sig-nor looking so grave and solemn the while? I was a green’orn to have believed as they would ’ave been satisfied with Hannah between the two. That’s the Doctor’s doings, I’ll be bound! Them medicals are hup to heverythink. ’Ow did ’e smuggle the ’ussy in under my very eyes? In an ’amper, I suppose, which no more comes into my ’ouse. And I, who ’ave tried so ’ard to keep it quiet and respectable! I’ll ‘Nora’ them, when we meets again. And as for that there Hannah, ’ome she goes to-morrer.”

Mrs. Battleby, having applied her ear again to the keyhole, and heard Steinberg speak of “Mrs. Carlile,” and being convinced that the villainies going on were not confined to unmarried girls, bundled downstairs shaking with indignation, and began to seek industriously for pen, ink and paper, wherewith to inscribe a letter to Mrs. Stubbs of Settlefield.

She was some time before she found what she sought, letter-writing not being an every-day habit with her. At last, however, in a corner of the kitchen dresser, she unearthed the penny bottle of ink, which had remained there, without a cork, a couple of months, and been well thickened by the addition of a dozen flies, and in a drawer of the same article of furniture she discovered a steel pen with only one nib, with which she scratched as with a pin, on a dirty half sheet of paper, the following words,

“Dear Mrs. Stubbs,

“If you will please to come to London tomorrer, and fetch ’ome your daughter Hannah, I shall be obliged, as there is goings on hupstairs wich I don’t approve of, and I’m afraid she ain’t no good with the gentlemen.

“Your loving friend, “Martha Battleby.”

The consternation which this mysterious epistle caused in the cottage home in Settlefield, may be better imagined than described.

Mrs. Stubbs, who was a laundress, and trying hard, with the assistance of her husband, to keep five or six hungry mouths full, was like many ignorant country people, excessively stern upon a lapse from Virtue. These brawny-armed daughters of the soil, who are spoilt for love-making before they are five-and-twenty--who deteriorate in every direction as soon as they become mothers, and remain like sacks of meal for ever afterwards--are invariably unable to understand how any women can be tempted to deviate from the straight and narrow path, from which they have never had the opportunity to swerve by so much as a hair’s breadth.

When Mary Stubbs therefore received Martha Battleby’s letter and had mastered its contents, she was more than angry with her recreant daughter.

“Look ’ere! John Stubbs,” she exclaimed, as she waved the epistle towards her husband, with a hand immersed in soap suds; “just see what your darter ’as been a’doin’ of! Gallivanting along with gentlemen, which never did no gal any good yet, and she keeping company with Joe Brushwood all the while. Let me git ’old of the ’ussy and I’ll kill ’er--see if I don’t. My family ’ave always been brought up honest and respectable, and I won’t ’ave any light-a-loves among ’em. I’ll go up to Lunnon by the fust train and give Miss Hannah sich a thrashing as she never ’ad in ’er days before.”

“Now! now!” replied Stubbs _père_, “be easy, my lass! The gal’s done no ’arm as I can see! She’s a nice-looking gal, and the gennelmen ’ave paid ’er a compliment or two, p’r’aps. And no wonder! They’re all the same when they sees a nice, fresh country lass, a’bringing in their tea, or what-not. Let it alone! The ould woman will write agen and apologise in a day or two.”

“_Let it alone!_ you fool! What are you talking on? Let it alone, till our Hannah comes back to us with a babby at ’er back, like Emily Marks did last year! Will I let it alone? You wait and see,” cried Mrs. Stubbs, as she energetically wiped her steaming arms and hands on a coarse towel. “And there’s Joe Brushwood, too,” she continued, “I wonders what _he’ll_ say to Miss Hannah’s goings-on!”

“Sure! you’d never go to make mischief atween the young people?” exclaimed the father.

“If anybody makes mischief it’ll be Hannah herself. You mind what she left ’er ’ome for, father! She wouldn’t give up them devilries of hern, not for Joe, nor me, nor no one, but went on talkin’ about woices and shadders till she made me sick. I said I’d ’ave none of it in _my_ ’ouse, and so did Mrs. Brushwood, else Hannah might ’ave been a married woman by this time and safe out of ’arm’s way. But no! she wouldn’t, so I sent ’er to Lunnon to shake the nonsense out of ’er, and this is my reward. She’s a’going to the bad! But she is my lawfully begotten child, and I’ll murder ’er, but she shall give it all up from this day,--gentlemen and shadders and woices, and the whole bag-o’-tricks!”

“Well! well! I don’t say nothing against your going,” replied her husband, who like many of his kind was terribly hen-pecked, and afraid to interfere in any matter from fear of making it worse, “but take young Joe along of you. He’ll look arter your traps, for you must stay a night in Lunnon, I guess, and he’ll be powerfully persuasive with the gal, and help you to bring ’er to ’er right senses, eh?”

“Yes! that be wise on you, father,” responded his wife, as she put on her linen bonnet and went in search of her neighbour, Mrs. Brushwood.

It was soon arranged that young Joe, Hannah’s sweetheart, should accompany his prospective mother-in-law to Town, and convey the two women safely back again to Settlefield. Joseph Brushwood, the younger, was not a bad fellow for his station in life. His parents were well-to-do farmers, and the young man’s prospects were as bright as he had any right to expect. He was good-looking, too, in his countrified fashion, with bold black eyes and a thick bush of curling hair, and a ruddy complexion--a “follower” of whom any girl, like Hannah Stubbs, might have been proud, and for having attracted whom, she was much envied in the neighbourhood of Settlefield. But Joe had been brought up “pious”, and stuck to the Bible as his rule in all perplexities of life. He was like many other people in this world. He called himself a Christian, yet possessed not one virtue of the Great Lover of mankind. He did not regard the Almighty as a reality--he only knew Him through the Bible. He never prayed from his heart, nor because he felt the actual necessity of prayer. But he went to church every Sunday afternoon, because he had been reared to consider it his duty. He sat there, with his Sunday clothes on,--his dark hair well-oiled, and a bright blue or crimson tie beneath his turned-down collar, and all the young women thought how nice Joe Brushwood looked and wondered what he could see in that stout, awkward Hannah Stubbs to take his fancy. And Joe slumbered through the greater part of the service, and returned home with the comfortable feeling that he had performed his weekly duty, and was a pattern Christian.

He was the sort of bucolic ignoramus, who would be more “down” upon anything which was Greek to him, than any other man. He had no humility, though he had a good deal of rough good humour. He was flattered by Hannah’s undoubted affection for himself, but he did not care enough for her to give up anything for her sake.

He dressed himself in his smartest clothes to go to London with Mrs. Stubbs, though she told him as little as she could of her errand.

They arrived in Soho about five o’clock, and presented themselves at Mrs. Battleby’s door. They were received by the landlady herself.

“O! there, I _am_ glad to see you!” she exclaimed; “come in, do, and sit down and have your tea. Hannah has just gone on an errand for me, but she’ll be back in a jiffey. O! Mrs. Stubbs, ma’am, she ’ave give me sich a scare!”

“Well! I’m sure your letter give _me_ a scare, Mrs. Battleby,” replied the visitor, as she settled herself in a chair, “and me and this gentleman, which he is my Hannah’s young man, started off as quick as we could to ’ear the rights and wrongs of it!”

“Lor! is this ’er sweetheart?” interposed Mrs. Battleby admiringly, “well, she have an inducement to keep straight, if any gal on hearth ’ave!”

Joe settled his collar and tie and looked conscious of the compliment, as Mrs. Stubbs proceeded:

“And keep straight she ’ave, I will take my solemn hoath of it, though I’m her lawful mother.”

“Lor! Mrs. Stubbs, you mustn’t take my words for more than meant,” said Mrs. Battleby, as she placed the tea-tray in front of her guests, “but Hannah, she do give me the squirms, there’s no denying of it, what with her ghosties and her woices, and now these gentlemen--till she’s a’most too much for me!”

At the word “ghosties” Mrs. Stubbs put down her teacup, and said solemnly,

“You don’t mean for to go to tell me, Mrs. Battleby, as she’s seen them shadders and things again!”

“_Seen ’em!_ why, she’s allays on about ’em, till she makes my flesh creep. But I wouldn’t have writ to you, Mrs. Stubbs, if it ’adn’t been for the gentlemen upstairs--that is my hattic lodger Sig-nor Ricardo, and ’is friend Doctor Steinberg--which they arsks for leave to cure your gal of ’er seeing of things, which they calls highstrikes,--and gets ’er upstairs of evenings to sit with them, under pertence of physicking ’er, so the night before last I makes bold to listen at the door to see what they was a’doing with the gal, and I ’eard--well, Mrs. Stubbs, ma’am, I ’ardly likes to tell you _what_ I ’eard!”

“But you must, ma’am, but you must!” exclaimed the other, eagerly, “I’ve come to Lunnon with this young man, a puppuss to ’ear all as you can tell us!”

“Well! then, Mrs. Stubbs, I must tell you fust, as the Sig-nor kep’ one of ’is rooms locked, night and day, but arter ’e got ’old, as I may say, of Hannah, I considered it my dooty to see what they did for myself, and I got another key fitted, and unlocked the door!”

“Which you did right, Mrs. Battleby!” agreed Mrs. Stubbs.

“And what did I find, but the ’ole room was hung with black curtings--walls, floor and winder--and sich a ’orrid smell, something between musk and cockroaches! Thinks I to myself, this ain’t for no good, so I listens to them, as I says before, and it’s a mixture, Mrs. Stubbs--a mixture of gals and Sorcery and Magic and the Devil, that’s what it is, and I cannot ’ave it in my ’ouse. The Professor ’e must go, and so must Hannah, though I’m sorry to say it of a daughter of yours--but it’s right-down wickedness, and I won’t countenance it!”

At this Joe Brushwood sprang to his feet.

“I know what it is,” he exclaimed, fiercely. “Hannah’s been raising them sperrits again, which she promised me to have no more to do with ’em, and if that’s the case, it’s all over between us, for I won’t ’ave a sorceress for a wife, to bewitch me half my time,--not if I dies a bachelor!”

“’Ush!” cried Mrs. Battleby, “’ere’s Hannah. Just put it to ’er, Mrs. Stubbs, ’ow she’s been employing ’er time with the Sig-nor and ’is friend, and judge for yourself!”

In another moment Hannah entered the kitchen. She had been out for a little walk and it had done her good. Her face was rosy and fresh and beaming with smiles. On her arm she carried a market basket, but as soon as she caught sight of her mother and Joe Brushwood, she threw it on the ground and flew towards them, her eyes sparkling with delight.

“Mother!” she cried rapturously; “’owever did you come ’ere. And Joe too!”--more bashfully--“O! I _am_ glad to see you both again. I cries for ’ome every night afore I goes to sleep, mother!”

She would have embraced her, but the elder woman thrust her away.

“No! Hannah Stubbs, no!” she said, severely, as she glared at her daughter, “not till you gives me a hexplanation of your doings in this ’ere ’ouse--likewise to Joe Brushwood, which we’re ’ere for that, and nothink else.”

The rosy colour faded from Hannah’s face, as she encountered her mother’s angry glance.

“What ’ave I been a’doing of?” she faltered, “why, nothink, mother--leastways nothink wrong, as I knows on. I’ve tried to give satisfaction. Mrs. Battleby knows that, don’t you, Mum?”

“Well! I can’t say as I do, Hannah,” returned that worthy, “if seeing ghosts and sich-like, and playing with the Devil up in the gentlemen’s rooms, is giving satisfaction, I can’t see it, and that’s all!”

“Hannah! what ’ave you been a’doing up in the lodgers’ rooms?” demanded Mrs. Stubbs again.

“Only ’aving physic,” replied the girl, as she looked down upon the floor.

“Come! that ain’t true,” interposed Mrs. Battleby, “for you knows you go into a room all ’ung with black, and sees ghosties, which is only the Devil dressed up to deceive mankind.”

“Is this the case?” said her mother, sternly.

“I never see none,” replied Hannah, “leastways not in the room, and I ’ates them, mother--I’ve told you so, scores of times--but they will foller me, I can’t ’elp it.”

“Does you go to sleep in those gentlemen’s rooms?” continued Mrs. Stubbs.

“The physic they gives me, makes me do that!” replied the girl. “’Tain’t _my_ fault!”

“Then I’ve done with yer for ever,” exclaimed Joe Brushwood, energetically, “a gal as goes to sleep in gentlemen’s rooms, ain’t the wife for a respectable young man, and it’s all over between us, Hannah Stubbs, you mark that! I’ve told you so, afore two witnesses, so you needn’t try for a breach of promise of marriage case!”

“O! no! no! Joe, don’t say that!” cried Hannah, tearfully, “I’ve been a true gal to you all along, Joe, and if--if--I’m so un’appy as to be prosecuted by shadders and things, you did ought to pity me, and not turn against me like that!”

“You leave the young man alone, Hannah,” interrupted her mother, “’e’s doing the right thing in casting you hoff, and I, for one, won’t blame ’im for it! Do you suppose any decent feller will marry you with these devils allays arter you? You’re a Witch! that’s what you are, and a Sorceress. You’ve sold yourself to the Devil and ought to be burnt alive, as they did to sich as you in the good old times. Likely a respectable man like Joe Brushwood, would own you now--when your own people won’t! _I_ won’t ’ave you a’coming ’ome, contaminating your brothers and sisters with your devilish ways, no more won’t your father! You must make your living the best way you can for the future, for you don’t see me nor ’ome no more, and that I tells you straight.”

“Mother! mother! don’t go to say that!” cried Hannah, in despair, as she flung herself down upon the floor and burst into tears.

At that moment, the spare figure of the Professor appeared at the open door of the kitchen.

“Mrs. Battleby!” he commenced, and then perceiving the attitude which Hannah had assumed, he broke off his request with, “Why! what is the matter? Is Hannah ill?”

“No! Sir, she hain’t hill,” replied Mrs. Stubbs, guessing his identity, “but she’s cast off by ’er friends and ’er young man, for hever.”

Ricardo looked at the stranger with mild surprise.

“But why?” he inquired, “what has she done?”

“And you can stand there, and arsk me that, you brazen-faced impostor?” cried Mrs. Stubbs, with undisguised fury, “when it’s all along of you and your diabolical practices, that the pore gal ’ave lost ’er good name and repitation? What have _you_ done--that’s more to the puppuss, a’avin ’er up to your rooms a nights--your dark rooms ’ung with black--and playing with ’ell fire as you do? Why ’ave you been a’calling up sperrits and ghosties and sich-like, and frightening us all out of our wits. But since it is so, and Hannah, she ’ave been fool enough to play into your ’ands (wich I’m sure you’re old enough to know better than to lead young gals astray), she ain’t no more a child of mine, and she don’t come ’ome no more, neither, to contaminate ’er brothers and sisters. She belongs to the Devil and let ’im keep ’er! _I_ don’t!”

“But, my dear Madam,” said the Professor, “you mistake altogether! My friend Doctor Steinberg has been trying to cure your daughter of her natural weakness----”

“Bah!” exclaimed the irate mother, more emphatically than politely. “Go along with yer!”

“Mrs. Battleby, _you_ can explain this matter,” said Ricardo, turning to his landlady.

“No! Sig-nor, I can’t,” she replied, “I must make bold to tell you that I went into your locked-up room the other day, and I listened at your door last night and I know _all!_ And I’ll be much obliged if you’ll find another lodging, Sig-nor, by this day week. Mysteries as is jined with books I can be easy with, but not Mysteries as is jined with gals!”

“Of what baseness do you suspect me?” said Ricardo, indignantly. “It is true that finding this girl to be a strong medium, my friend and I have used her to assist us in our studies in spiritualism, but if anyone is in fault in the matter, it is I. Hannah is perfectly blameless; indeed, she does not even know what has occurred. Pray, therefore, do not visit the misfortune on her innocent head. If Mrs. Stubbs does not believe in, or does not approve of, Spiritualism, she can at least sympathise with the marvellous power which her daughter possesses, and which is as rare as it is wonderful.”

“_Sympathise!_” screamed Mrs. Stubbs. “No! Sir, I don’t, nor with any dealings with the Devil, nor witches, nor sorcery, nor----”

“Devils! Witches! Fiddlesticks!” cried Ricardo, impatiently.

“It’ll fiddlestick you, Sir, and that misfortunate gal there, if you don’t take ’eed to your ways,” retorted his irate adversary. “Me and mine ’ave been brought hup Christuns from our birth--in sound Methody principles--and we won’t stand no devilry, nor doings of Satan--and no more will this young man ’ere!”

“No! no! certingly not!” exclaimed the chivalrous Joe, “hit’s hall hover with me and Hannah from this hour.”

“What! are _you_, too, going to turn against her, for a temperament which is no fault of her own?” exclaimed the Professor, addressing the young farmer. “You--who professed to be her lover! Shame on you! You are not a man! Men were different in my day. They stood by the women they had promised to defend, to the very last--I think Hannah is well quit of such as you.”

“O! do you, Sir?” interposed Mrs. Stubbs, “and we thinks we’re well quit of the Devil and hall his himps! As you’ve been the means of leading this un’appy gal astray, and ’aving ’er turned out of a good place, and spurned by ’er relations, p’r’aps you’ll see arter ’er for the future, and the Devil and you will ’elp ’er to make a living, for no one else will.”

The Professor looked like a grand old hero as he replied,

“_I will!_ You may depend on that! Whilst I have a crust, she shall share it! I would be ashamed to own so cold and unfeeling a heart as you seem to possess, though you _are_ her mother. Do not cry so bitterly, Hannah! I will see that you do not want! As for you, Sir,” he continued, turning to Joe Brushwood, “words cannot express the contempt I feel for you! You are a poltroon--a coward--a cur! In my country, they do not let men like you _live!_ Mrs. Battleby, I accept your notice, and will leave your rooms as soon as I have found others. Till then, I hope you will allow Hannah to remain under your care, and to-morrow I will tell you with whom I have decided to place her. Good-night!”

He quitted the kitchen with the air of a _preux chevalier_, and the persons in it felt very small.

“Well! I ain’t a’going to stay ’ere any longer,” said Mrs. Stubbs, as she bounced up from her seat, “the very hair seems to collaborate me. I’ll get a bed at the Pig and Whistle, which the lady knows me well, and to-morrer p’r’aps you’ll let me know, Mrs. Battleby, what that old feller means to do for that misfortunate, wicked gal there. If ’e don’t provide for ’er, she must just go to the workus, for I washes my ’ands of ’er altogether!”

“Saying as I was no man, indeed,” added Joe, indignantly, “I’d like to take the old chap outside for a minute and I’d soon let ’im know which on us was the best man. A dried-up, withered old carcase like that, and an _I_-talian into the bargain, who’s been fed on macaroni and snails. I like ’is imperence!”

“Come on, Joe! don’t waste no more time ’ere,” exclaimed Mrs. Stubbs, “if we make ’aste, we shall be in time for a music ’all yet, and I do love a music ’all. It’ll put all this wickedness as we’ve been talking of, out of my ’ead.”

She went into the area as she spoke, followed by Mrs. Battleby, cackling all the while of the Devil and his ways.

Hannah was left for a moment alone with Joe.

“Joe!” she ejaculated, plaintively, as she raised her head, “don’t you leave me for a minute. Your words ’ave nigh broke my ’eart. I’ve allays loved you, Joe, and I’ve been true and faithful to you, ever since we was little children together. Don’t you believe what mother and Mrs. Battleby says--they’re talking of what they know nothing. I ain’t pretty, I know, Joe, but I’ve been a good gal to you. Don’t go for to forsake me like mother, for I shall kill myself if you do!”

She drew nearer to where the young man stood, sheepishly turning his billy-cock hat round and round in his hands, and laid hers gently upon his.

“Do you mind when we fust kep’ company, Joe--when we was nutting in Farmer Burrows’ copse, and you ketched my ’and and kissed me afore I knowed what you was after? That was two good years ago!”