Phoebe, Junior · Chapter 13 (2/2)

“I hope as you mean to let us in, Amelia,” said Mrs. Tozer, “for it ain’t often as I takes so long a walk. I would never have thought of it but for Phoebe⁠—Phoebe junior, as Tozer calls her. She’s been used to things very different, but I’m thankful to say she ain’t a bit proud. She couldn’t be more attentive to me if I was the queen, and talks of your children as pretty as possible, without no nonsense. It ain’t often as you see that in a girl brought up like she’s been.”

“I don’t pretend to know nothing of how she’s been brought up,” said Mrs. Tom, “and I don’t think as there’s no occasion for pride here. We’re all well-to-do, and getting on in the world⁠—thanks to Him as gives the increase. I don’t see no opening for pride here. Me and your mother were never very good friends, Phoebe, since that’s your name; but if there’s anything I can do for you, or my family, you won’t ask twice. Grandmother’s ain’t a very lively house, not like mine, as is full of children. Come in, Granny. I’m always speaking of making the stairs wider, and a big window on the landing; but folks can’t do everything at once, and we’ll have to do with it a bit longer. We’ve done a deal already to the old place.”

“More than was wanted, or was thought upon in my time,” said the old lady, to whom this was as the trumpet of battle. “The stairs did well enough for me, and I can’t think what Tom can want changing things as he’s been used to all his life.”

“Oh, it ain’t Tom,” said his wife, her face lighting up with satisfaction. “Tom wouldn’t mind if the place was to come to bits about our ears. He’s like you, granny, he’s one of the standstill ones. It ain’t Tom, it’s me.”

This little passage of arms took place as they were going upstairs, which cost poor Mrs. Tozer many pantings and groaning, and placed Phoebe for once on Mrs. Tom’s side, for a window on the landing would have been a wonderful improvement, there was no denying. When, at last, they had toiled to the top, fighting their way, not only through the obscurity, but through an atmosphere of ham and cheese which almost choked Phoebe, the old lady was speechless with the exertion, though the air was to her as the air of Paradise. Phoebe placed her on a chair and undid her bonnet-strings, and for a minute was really alarmed. Mrs. Tom, however, took it with perfect equanimity.

“She’s blown a bit; she ain’t as young as she was, nor even as she thinks for,” said that sympathetic person. “Come, Granny, cheer up. Them stairs ain’t strange to you. What’s the good of making a fuss? Sit down and get your breath,” she went on, pulling forward a chair; then turning to Phoebe, she shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyebrows. “She’s breaking fast, that’s what it is,” said Mrs. Tom under her breath, with a nod of her head.

“This is the room as your mother spent most of her life in when she was like you,” said Mrs. Tozer, when she regained her breath. “It was here as she met your father first. The first time I set my eyes on him, ‘That’s the man for my Phoebe,’ I said to myself; and sure enough, so it turned out.”

“You didn’t miss no way of helping it on, neither, granny, if folks do you justice,” said Mrs. Tom. “Mothers can do a deal when they exerts themselves; and now Phoebe has a daughter of her own, I dare be sworn she’s just as clever, throwing the nice ones and the well-off ones in her way. It’s a wonder to me as she hasn’t gone off yet, with all her opportunities⁠—two or three and twenty, ain’t you, Miss Phoebe? I should have thought you’d have married long afore now.”

“I stall be twenty my next birthday,” said Phoebe. “My cousins are a great deal younger, I hear; are they at school? I hope I shall see them before I go.”

“Oh, you’ll see ’em fast enough,” said their mother, “they’re ’aving their music lesson. I don’t hold with sending girls to school. I likes to keep them under my own eye. I suppose I needn’t ask you now if you play?”

“A very little,” said Phoebe, who rather piqued herself upon her music, and who was learned in Bach and Beethoven, and had an opinion of her own about Wagner. Mrs. Tom brightened visibly, for her girls played not a little, but a great deal.

“And draw?⁠—but I needn’t ask, for living in London, you’ve got masters at your very door.”

“Not at all, I am sorry to say,” said Phoebe, with a pathetic tone of regret in her voice.

“Lord bless us! Now who’d have thought it? I think nothing a sacrifice to give mine the best of education,” said Mrs. Tom.