We were happy after her first appearance; we were sometimes
exceedingly so. But, whenever the parlour door was opened, and
‘Mrs. Prodgit!’ announced (and she was very often announced),
misery ensued. I could not bear Mrs. Prodgit’s look. I felt that
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
I was far from wanted, and had no business to exist in Mrs.
Prodgit’s presence. Between Maria Jane’s Mama, and Mrs. Prodgit,
there was a dreadful, secret, understanding – a dark mystery and
conspiracy, pointing me out as a being to be shunned. I appeared
to have done something that was evil. Whenever Mrs. Prodgit
called, after dinner, I retired to my dressing-room – where the
temperature is very low indeed, in the wintry time of the year –
and sat looking at my frosty breath as it rose before me, and at my
rack of boots; a serviceable article of furniture, but never, in my
opinion, an exhilarating object. The length of the councils that
were held with Mrs. Prodgit, under these circumstances, I will not
attempt to describe. I will merely remark, that Mrs. Prodgit
always consumed Sherry Wine while the deliberations were in
progress; that they always ended in Maria Jane’s being in wretched
spirits on the sofa; and that Maria Jane’s Mama always received me,
when I was recalled, with a look of desolate triumph that too
plainly said, ‘NOW, George Meek! You see my child, Maria Jane, a
ruin, and I hope you are satisfied!’
I pass, generally, over the period that intervened between the day
when Mrs. Prodgit entered her protest against male parties, and the
ever-memorable midnight when I brought her to my unobtrusive home
in a cab, with an extremely large box on the roof, and a bundle, a
bandbox, and a basket, between the driver’s legs. I have no
objection to Mrs. Prodgit (aided and abetted by Mrs. Bigby, who I
never can forget is the parent of Maria Jane) taking entire
possession of my unassuming establishment. In the recesses of my
own breast, the thought may linger that a man in possession cannot
be so dreadful as a woman, and that woman Mrs. Prodgit; but, I
ought to bear a good deal, and I hope I can, and do. Huffing and
snubbing, prey upon my feelings; but, I can bear them without
complaint. They may tell in the long run; I may be hustled about,
from post to pillar, beyond my strength; nevertheless, I wish to
avoid giving rise to words in the family.
The voice of Nature, however, cries aloud in behalf of Augustus
George, my infant son. It is for him that I wish to utter a few
plaintive household words. I am not at all angry; I am mild – but
miserable.
I wish to know why, when my child, Augustus George, was expected in
our circle, a provision of pins was made, as if the little stranger
were a criminal who was to be put to the torture immediately, on
his arrival, instead of a holy babe? I wish to know why haste was
made to stick those pins all over his innocent form, in every
direction? I wish to be informed why light and air are excluded
from Augustus George, like poisons? Why, I ask, is my unoffending
infant so hedged into a basket-bedstead, with dimity and calico,
with miniature sheets and blankets, that I can only hear him
snuffle (and no wonder!) deep down under the pink hood of a little
bathing-machine, and can never peruse even so much of his
lineaments as his nose?
Was I expected to be the father of a French Roll, that the brushes
of All Nations were laid in, to rasp Augustus George? Am I to be
told that his sensitive skin was ever intended by Nature to have
rashes brought out upon it, by the premature and incessant use of
those formidable little instruments?
Is my son a Nutmeg, that he is to be grated on the stiff edges of
sharp frills? Am I the parent of a Muslin boy, that his yielding
surface is to be crimped and small plaited? Or is my child
composed of Paper or of Linen, that impressions of the finer