Winefred: A Story of the Chalk CliffsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
General
Winefred: A Story of the Chalk Cliffs
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
English fiction
Happily the current of Mrs. Tomkin-Jones's thoughts was diverted.
She turned to Winefred and said with solemnity, 'We are now
approaching――look on the right. You will see a chemist's establishment
with the Royal arms above the shop window, and the inscription
accompanying it, "By Royal Appointment." It was there that the
celebrated pill――――'
'I thought as much,' said Jesse, interrupting her mother, 'the bread
pills were certain to be rolled forth.'
'_Bread_ pills, my dear!' exclaimed Mrs. Jones indignantly; 'your
lamented father was not the man to prescribe bread to Royalty. I do not
relish this tone. Had it not been for professional rivalry, your father
would have had a baronetcy conferred on him, and I should have been
Lady Tomkin-Jones. The pills did it.'
'Rather, they did not do it,' asserted the irrepressible Jesse.
Mrs. Tomkin-Jones drew her lips together as though about to whistle.
This was expressive of indignation. She said no more on the matter, but
sighed.
The lady was wont to sigh when her mental corns were trodden on.
She had stiffened her back in pride as she approached the chemist's
shop. It became stiffer with indignation at her daughter's levity and
lack of reverence. But the shop passed, she relaxed, and sank back
into a dignified position, and said, 'Ah! by the way, what is her name?'
'Whose name?'
'That of the domestic.'
'Do you mean, ma'am, my――――'
'For heaven's sake, do not address me as ma'am.'
'What shall I say――Mrs. Tomkin-Jones?'
'That is almost worse; it stamps a person at once. Only servants of
lodging-house type address one thus. Neither, if you please.'
'I will try to recollect.'
'What was the name of the nurse?'
'Marley――Mrs. Marley.'
'And, I presume, you have fallen into the habit of calling her mother
or mamma?'
'I did not fall into it, I grew up with it.'
'Most reprehensible, but under the circumstances explicable and
excusable. That sort of female is given to presume and push, and
requires to be taught its place. I have little doubt she did her utmost
to spoil you.'
Winefred was choking; anger, resentment swelled her heart.
'That sort of female,' said Winefred in a quivering voice, 'is one to
love and reverence.'
Jesse saw that something had gone wrong. She touched her mother with
her foot and shook her head.
'Well, it is flattering to the self-esteem of individuals of an
inferior order to have a child of good blood and name in their charge
and to be able to attach it to them. But you ought to have called her
Marley, or nurse――no more.'
The tears filled the girl's eyes, the colour rose and fell in her
cheeks as mercury in a barometer before a hurricane.
Jesse, who saw her distress, and was vexed with her mother, said, so as
to produce a diversion, 'Now, mother, the story of the pills――anything
but this Catechism on your Duty to your Inferiors.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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