Poor Miss Finch Page 12

  CHAPTER THE TENTH

  First Appearance of Jicks

  THERE walked in, at the open door of the room--softly, suddenly, andcomposedly--a chubby female child, who could not possibly have been morethan three years old. She had no hat or cap on her head. A dirty pinaforecovered her from her chin to her feet. This amazing apparition advancedinto the middle of the room, holding hugged under one arm a ragged anddisreputable-looking doll; stared hard, first at Oscar, then at me;advanced to my knees; laid the disreputable doll on my lap; and, pointingto a vacant chair at my side, claimed the rights of hospitality in thesewords:

  "Jicks will sit down."

  How was it possible, under these circumstances, to attack the infamoussystem of modern society? It was only possible to kiss "Jicks."

  "Do you know who this is?" I inquired, as I lifted our visitor on to thechair.

  Oscar burst out laughing. Like me, he now saw this mysterious young ladyfor the first time. Like me, he wondered what the extraordinary nick-nameunder which she had presented herself could possibly mean.

  We looked at the child. The child--with its legs stretched out straightbefore it, terminating in a pair of little dusty boots with holes inthem--lifted its large round eyes, overshadowed by a penthouse ofunbrushed flaxen hair; looked gravely at us in return; and made a secondcall on our hospitality, as follows:

  "Jicks will have something to drink."

  While Oscar ran into the kitchen for some milk, I succeeded indiscovering the identity of "Jicks."

  Something--I cannot well explain what--in the manner in which the childhad drifted into the room with her doll, reminded me of the lymphaticlady of the rectory, drifting backwards and forwards with the baby in onehand and the novel in the other. I took the liberty of examining"Jicks's" pinafore, and discovered the mark in one corner:--"SelinaFinch." Exactly as I had supposed, here was a member of Mrs. Finch'snumerous family. Rather a young member, as it struck me, to be wanderinghatless round the environs of Dimchurch, all by herself.

  Oscar returned with the milk in a mug. The child--insisting on taking themug into her own hands--steadily emptied it to the last drop--recoveredher breath with a gasp--looked at me with a white mustache of milk on herupper lip--and announced the conclusion of her visit, in these terms:

  "Jicks will get down again."

  I deposited our young friend on the floor. She took her doll, and stoodfor a moment deep in thought. What was she going to do next? We were notkept long in suspense. She suddenly put her little hot fat hand intomine, and tried to pull me after her out of the room.

  "What do you want?" I asked.

  Jicks answered in one untranslatable compound word:

  "Man-Gee-gee."

  I suffered myself to be pulled out of the room--to see "Man-Gee-gee," toplay "Man-Gee-gee," or to eat "Man-Gee-gee," it was impossible to tellwhich. I was pulled along the passage--I was pulled out to the frontdoor. There--having approached the house inaudibly to us, over thegrass--stood the horse, cart, and man, waiting to take the case of goldand silver plates back to London. I looked at Oscar, who had followed me.We now understood, not only the masterly compound word of Jicks(signifying man and horse, and passing over cart as unimportant), but thepolite attention of Jicks in entering the house to inform us, after arest and a drink, of a circumstance which had escaped our notice. Thedriver of the cart had, on his own acknowledgment, been investigated andquestioned by this extraordinary child; strolling up to the door ofBrowndown to see what he was doing there. Jicks was a public character atDimchurch. The driver knew all about her. She had been nicknamed "Gipsy"from her wandering habits, and had shortened the name in her own dialect,into "Jicks." There was no keeping her in at the rectory, try how youmight: they had long since abandoned the effort in despair. Sooner orlater, she turned up again--or somebody brought her back--or one of thesheep-dogs found her asleep under a bush, and gave the alarm. "What goeson in that child's head," said the driver, regarding Jicks with a sort ofsuperstitious admiration, "the Lord only knows. She has a will of herown, and a way of her own. She _is_ a child; and she _aint_ a child. Atthree years of age, she's a riddle none of us can guess. And that's thelong and the short of what I know about her."

  While this explanation was in progress, the carpenter who had nailed upthe case, and the carpenter's son, accompanying him, joined us in frontof the house. They followed Oscar in, and came out again, bearing theheavy burden of precious metal--more than one man could convenientlylift--between them.

  The case deposited in the cart, carpenter senior and carpenter junior gotin after it, wanting "a lift" to Brighton.

  Carpenter senior, a big burly man, made a joke. "It's a lonely countrybetween this and Brighton, sir," he said to Oscar. "Three of us will benone too many to see your precious packing-case safe into the railwaystation." Oscar took it seriously. "Are there any robbers in thisneighborhood?" he asked. "Lord love you, sir!" said the driver, "robberswould starve in these parts; we have got nothing worth thieving here."Jicks--still watching the proceedings with an interest which allowed nodetail to escape unnoticed--assumed the responsibility of starting themen on their journey. The odd child waved her chubby hand imperiously toher friend the driver, and cried in her loudest voice, "Away!" The drivertouched his hat with comic respect. "All right, miss--time's money, aintit?" He cracked his whip, and the cart rolled off noiselessly over thethick close turf of the South Downs.

  It was time for me to go back to the rectory, and to restore thewandering Jicks, for the time being, to the protection of home. Ireturned to Oscar, to say good-bye.

  "I wish I was going back with you," he said.

  "You will be as free as I am to come and to go at the rectory," Ianswered, "when they know what has passed this morning between you andme. In your own interests, I am determined to tell them who you are. Youhave nothing to fear, and everything to gain, by my speaking out. Clearyour mind of fancies and suspicions that are unworthy of you. Byto-morrow we shall be good neighbors; by the end of the week we shall begood friends. For the present, as we say in France, _au revoir!_"

  I turned to take Jicks by the hand. While I had been speaking to Oscarthe child had slipped away from me. Not a sign of her was to be seen.

  Before we could stir a step to search for our lost Gipsy, her voicereached our ears, raised shrill and angry in the regions behind us, atthe side of the house.

  "Go away!" we heard the child cry out impatiently. "Ugly men, go away!"

  We turned the corner, and discovered two shabby strangers, restingthemselves against the side wall of the house. Their cadaverous faces,their brutish expressions, and their frowzy clothes, proclaimed them, tomy eye, as belonging to the vilest blackguard type that the civilizedearth has yet produced--the blackguard of London growth. There theylounged, with their hands in their pockets and their backs against thewall, as if they were airing themselves on the outer side of apublic-house--and there stood Jicks, with her legs planted wide apart onthe turf, asserting the rights of property (even at that early age!) andordering the rascals off.

  "What are you doing there?" asked Oscar sharply.

  One of the men appeared to be on the point of making an insolent answer.The other--the younger and the viler-looking villain of the two--checkedhim, and spoke first.

  "We've had a longish walk, sir," said the fellow, with an impudentassumption of humility; "and we've took the liberty of resting our backsagainst your wall, and feasting our eyes on the beauty of your young ladyhere."

  He pointed to the child. Jicks shook her fist at him, and ordered him offmore fiercely than ever.

  "There's an inn in the village," said Oscar. "Rest there, if youplease--my house is not an inn."

  The elder man made a second effort to speak, beginning with an oath. Theyounger checked him again.

  "Shut up, Jim!" said the superior blackguard of the two. "The gentlemanrecommends the tap at the inn. Come and drink the gentleman's health." Heturned to the child, and took off his hat to her with a low bow. "Wishy
ou good morning, Miss! You're just the style, you are, that I admire.Please don't engage yourself to be married till I come back."

  His savage companion was so tickled by this delicate pleasantry that heburst suddenly into a roar of laughter. Arm in arm, the two ruffianswalked off together in the direction of the village. Our funny littleJicks became a tragic and terrible Jicks, all on a sudden. The childresented the insolence of the two men as if she really understood it. Inever saw so young a creature in such a furious passion before. Shepicked up a stone, and threw it at them before I could stop her. Shescreamed, and stamped her tiny feet alternately on the ground, till shewas purple in the face. She threw herself down, and rolled in fury on thegrass. Nothing pacified her but a rash promise of Oscar's (which he wasdestined to hear of for many a long day afterwards) to send for thepolice, and to have the two men soundly beaten for daring to laugh atJicks. She got up from the ground, and dried her eyes with her knuckles,and fixed a warning look on Oscar. "Mind!" said this curious child, withher bosom still heaving under the dirty pinafore, "the men are to bebeaten. And Jicks is to see it."

  I said nothing to Oscar, at the time, but I felt some secret uneasinesson the way home--an uneasiness inspired by the appearance of the two menin the neighborhood of Browndown.

  It was impossible to say how long they might have been lurking about theoutside of the house, before the child discovered them. They might haveheard, through the open window, what Oscar had said to me on the subjectof his plates of precious metal; and they might have seen the heavypacking-case placed in the cart. I felt no apprehension about the safearrival of the case at Brighton; the three men in the cart were menenough to take good care of it. My fears were for the future. Oscar wasliving, entirely by himself, in a lonely house, more than half a miledistant from the village. His fancy for chasing in the precious metalsmight have its dangers, as well as its attractions, if it became knownbeyond the pastoral limits of Dimchurch. Advancing from one suspicion toanother, I asked myself if the two men had roamed by mere accident intoour remote part of the world--or whether they had deliberately foundtheir way to Browndown with a purpose in view. Having this doubt in mymind, and happening to encounter the old nurse, Zillah, in the garden asI entered the rectory gates with my little charge, I put the question toher plainly, "Do you see many strangers at Dimchurch?"

  "Strangers?" repeated the old woman. "Excepting yourself, ma'am, we seeno strangers here, from one year's end to another."

  I determined to say a warning word to Oscar before his precious metalswere sent back to Browndown.