No Name Wilkie Collins (e book reader android TXT) 📖

“Wait a bit,” pleaded Mrs. Wragge. “Wait a bit, miss, before we go up any higher. I’ve got the buzzing in my head worse than ever. Please wait for me till I’m a little better again.”

“Shall I ask for help?” inquired Magdalen. “Shall I call the landlady?”

“Help?” echoed Mrs. Wragge. “Bless you, I don’t want help! I’m used to it. I’ve had the buzzing in my head, off and on⁠—how many years?” She stopped, reflected, lost herself, and suddenly tried a question in despair. “Have you ever been at Darch’s Dining-rooms in London?” she asked, with an appearance of the deepest interest.

“No,” replied Magdalen, wondering at the strange inquiry.

“That’s where the buzzing in my head first began,” said Mrs. Wragge, following the new clue with the deepest attention and anxiety. “I was employed to wait on the gentlemen at Darch’s Dining-rooms⁠—I was. The gentlemen all came together; the gentlemen were all hungry together; the gentlemen all gave their orders together⁠—” She stopped, and tapped her head again, despondently, with the tattered old book.

“And you had to keep all their orders in your memory, separate one from the other?” suggested Magdalen, helping her out. “And the trying to do that confused you?”

“That’s it!” said Mrs. Wragge, becoming violently excited in a moment. “Boiled pork and greens and pease-pudding, for Number One. Stewed beef and carrots and gooseberry tart, for Number Two. Cut of mutton, and quick about it, well done, and plenty of fat, for Number Three. Codfish and parsnips, two chops to follow, hot-and-hot, or I’ll be the death of you, for Number Four. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Carrots and gooseberry tart⁠—pease-pudding and plenty of fat⁠—pork and beef and mutton, and cut ’em all, and quick about it⁠—stout for one, and ale for t’other⁠—and stale bread here, and new bread there⁠—and this gentleman likes cheese, and that gentleman doesn’t⁠—Matilda, Tilda, Tilda, Tilda, fifty times over, till I didn’t know my own name again⁠—oh lord! oh lord!! oh lord!!! all together, all at the same time, all out of temper, all buzzing in my poor head like forty thousand million bees⁠—don’t tell the captain! don’t tell the captain!” The unfortunate creature dropped the tattered old book, and beat both her hands on her head, with a look of blank terror fixed on the door.

“Hush! hush!” said Magdalen. “The captain hasn’t heard you. I know what is the matter with your head now. Let me cool it.”

She dipped a towel in water, and pressed it on the hot and helpless head which Mrs. Wragge submitted to her with the docility of a sick child.

“What a pretty hand you’ve got!” said the poor creature, feeling the relief of the coolness and taking Magdalen’s hand, admiringly, in her own. “How soft and white it is! I try to be a lady; I always keep my gloves on⁠—but I can’t get my hands like yours. I’m nicely dressed, though, ain’t I? I like dress; it’s a comfort to me. I’m always happy when I’m looking at my things. I say⁠—you won’t be angry with me?⁠—I should so like to try your bonnet on.”

Magdalen humored her, with the ready compassion of the young. She stood smiling and nodding at herself in the glass, with the bonnet perched on the top of her head. “I had one as pretty as this, once,” she said⁠—“only it was white, not black. I wore it when the captain married me.”

“Where did you meet with him?” asked Magdalen, putting the question as a chance means of increasing her scanty stock of information on the subject of Captain Wragge.

“At the Dining-rooms,” said Mrs. Wragge. “He was the hungriest and the loudest to wait upon of the lot of ’em. I made more mistakes with him than I did with all the rest of them put together. He used to swear⁠—oh, didn’t he use to swear! When he left off swearing at me he married me. There was others wanted me besides him. Bless you, I had my pick. Why not? When you have a trifle of money left you that you didn’t expect, if that don’t make a lady of you, what does? Isn’t a lady to have her pick? I had my trifle of money, and I had my pick, and I picked the captain⁠—I did. He was the smartest and the shortest of them all. He took care of me and my money. I’m here, the money’s gone. Don’t you put that towel down on the table⁠—he won’t have that! Don’t move his razors⁠—don’t, please, or I shall forget which is which. I’ve got to remember which is which tomorrow morning. Bless you, the captain don’t shave himself! He had me taught. I shave him. I do his hair, and cut his nails⁠—he’s awfully particular about his nails. So he is about his trousers. And his shoes. And his newspaper in the morning. And his breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners, and teas⁠—” She stopped, struck by a sudden recollection, looked about her, observed the tattered old book on the floor, and clasped her hands in despair. “I’ve lost the place!” she exclaimed helplessly. “Oh, mercy, what will become of me! I’ve lost the place.”

“Never mind,” said Magdalen; “I’ll soon find the place for you again.”

She picked up the book, looked into the pages, and found that the object of Mrs. Wragge’s anxiety was nothing more important than an old-fashioned treatise on the art of cookery, reduced under the usual heads of Fish, Flesh, and Fowl, and containing the customary series of recipes. Turning over the leaves, Magdalen came to one particular page, thickly studded with little drops of moisture half dry. “Curious!” she said. “If this was anything but a cookery-book, I should say somebody had been crying over it.”

“Somebody?” echoed Mrs. Wragge, with a stare of amazement. “It isn’t somebody⁠—it’s me. Thank you kindly, that’s the place, sure enough. Bless you, I’m used to crying over it. You’d cry, too, if you had to get the captain’s