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diff --git a/1416.txt b/1416.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ceb8476 --- /dev/null +++ b/1416.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1773 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, by Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings + + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: April 4, 2005 [eBook #1416] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS*** + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall "Christmas Stories" edition by +David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS + + +CHAPTER I--HOW MRS. LIRRIPER CARRIED ON THE BUSINESS + + +Whoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that wasn't a +lone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my dear; +excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in my own little room, +when wishing to open my mind to those that I can trust, and I should be +truly thankful if they were all mankind, but such is not so, for have but +a Furnished bill in the window and your watch on the mantelpiece, and +farewell to it if you turn your back for but a second, however +gentlemanly the manners; nor is being of your own sex any safeguard, as I +have reason, in the form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a +fine woman she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the plea of +going to be confined, which certainly turned out true, but it was in the +Station-house. + +Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand--situated midway between the +City and St. James's, and within five minutes' walk of the principal +places of public amusement--is my address. I have rented this house many +years, as the parish rate-books will testify; and I could wish my +landlord was as alive to the fact as I am myself; but no, bless you, not +a half a pound of paint to save his life, nor so much, my dear, as a tile +upon the roof, though on your bended knees. + +My dear, you never have found Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand +advertised in Bradshaw's _Railway Guide_, and with the blessing of Heaven +you never will or shall so find it. Some there are who do not think it +lowering themselves to make their names that cheap, and even going the +lengths of a portrait of the house not like it with a blot in every +window and a coach and four at the door, but what will suit Wozenham's +lower down on the other side of the way will not suit me, Miss Wozenham +having her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes to +systematic underbidding capable of being proved on oath in a court of +justice and taking the form of "If Mrs. Lirriper names eighteen shillings +a week, I name fifteen and six," it then comes to a settlement between +yourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake of argument your +name to be Wozenham, which I am well aware it is not or my opinion of you +would be greatly lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a night-porter in +constant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms being stuffy +and the porter stuff. + +It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got married at St. +Clement's Danes, where I now have a sitting in a very pleasant pew with +genteel company and my own hassock, and being partial to evening service +not too crowded. My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a +beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey +and steel, but he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial +travelling line and travelling what he called a limekiln road--"a dry +road, Emma my dear," my poor Lirriper says to me, "where I have to lay +the dust with one drink or another all day long and half the night, and +it wears me Emma"--and this led to his running through a good deal and +might have run through the turnpike too when that dreadful horse that +never would stand still for a single instant set off, but for its being +night and the gate shut and consequently took his wheel, my poor Lirriper +and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards. He was a +handsome figure of a man, and a man with a jovial heart and a sweet +temper; but if they had come up then they never could have given you the +mellowness of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs wanting in +mellowness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed +field. + +My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at +Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but +that he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon our +wedding-day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I went +round to the creditors and I says "Gentlemen I am acquainted with the +fact that I am not answerable for my late husband's debts but I wish to +pay them for I am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I am +going into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every +farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love +I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to do but it was +done, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed and +the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure as +ever the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen engraved +"To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct" +gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which +at that time had the parlours and loved his joke says "Cheer up Mrs. +Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they +were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." And it +brought me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my dear that I then +put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down to +Hatfield church-yard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it +with a kind of proud and swelling love on my husband's grave, though +bless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that my wedding-ring +was worn quite fine and smooth when I laid it on the green green waving +grass. + +I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dear +over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to +pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came +out, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because +people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was +somebody else quite different, and there was once a certain person that +had put his money in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his +rent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken it +down from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket--you understand my +dear--for the L, he says of the original--only there was no mellowness in +_his_ voice and I wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it you may gather +from his saying to it "Speak to me Emma!" which was far from a rational +observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I +think myself it _was_ like me when I was young and wore that sort of +stays. + +But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and +certainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it so +long, for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lost +my poor Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards and +afterwards came here, being two houses and eight-and-thirty years and +some losses and a deal of experience. + +Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worse +than what I call the Wandering Christians, though why _they_ should roam +the earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the apartments +and stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming of +taking them being already provided, is, a mystery I should be thankful to +have explained if by any miracle it could be. It's wonderful they live +so long and thrive so on it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy, +knocking so much and going from house to house and up and down-stairs all +day, and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual is a most +astonishing thing, looking at their watches and saying "Could you give me +the refusal of the rooms till twenty minutes past eleven the day after to- +morrow in the forenoon, and supposing it to be considered essential by my +friend from the country could there be a small iron bedstead put in the +little room upon the stairs?" Why when I was new to it my dear I used to +consider before I promised and to make my mind anxious with calculations +and to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now I says +"Certainly by all means" well knowing it's a Wandering Christian and I +shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know most of the +Wandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the habit +of each individual revolving round London in that capacity to come back +about twice a year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in families and +the children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I should no sooner +hear of the friend from the country which is a certain sign than I should +nod and say to myself You're a Wandering Christian, though whether they +are (as I _have_ heard) persons of small property with a taste for +regular employment and frequent change of scene I cannot undertake to +tell you. + +Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lasting +troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and never +cease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and +then you don't want to part with them which seems hard but we must all +succumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out +of ten you'll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like +good society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a +smudgy eyebrow. Where they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot +solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house +half-starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing +Sophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but +always smiling with a black face. And I says to Sophy, "Now Sophy my +good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of the +Airy between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair with +the bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of the +candles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be" yet there it +was and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the end +seemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman and +excellent lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and +use of a sitting-room when required, his words being "Mrs. Lirriper I +have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and a +brother, but only in a natural form and when it can't be got off." Well +consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid her answering +the door or answering a bell on any account but she was so unfortunately +willing that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen-stairs whenever +a bell was heard to tingle. I put it to her "O Sophy Sophy for goodness' +goodness' sake where does it come from?" To which that poor unlucky +willing mortal--bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied "I took a +deal of black into me ma'am when I was a small child being much neglected +and I think it must be, that it works out," so it continuing to work out +of that poor thing and not having another fault to find with her I says +"Sophy what do you seriously think of my helping you away to New South +Wales where it might not be noticed?" Nor did I ever repent the money +which was well spent, for she married the ship's cook on the voyage +(himself a Mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and so far as ever I +heard it was _not_ noticed in a new state of society to her dying day. + +In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way +reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice Mary +Anne Perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, I do not know +and I do not wish to know how opinions are formed at Wozenham's on any +point. But Mary Anne Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely to her and +she behaved unhandsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing +lodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparing +of their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew them to be with Maid or +Mistress, which is a great triumph especially when accompanied with a +cast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her way +with them through her father's having failed in Pork. It was Mary Anne's +looking so respectable in her person and being so strict in her spirits +that conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both +in a pair of scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with and +no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that Miss +Wozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of a +milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) with +every girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at +Charing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in the lodging business and +went as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently Mary Anne with +not a word betwixt us says "If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in +a month from this day I have already done the same," which hurt me and I +said so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having +failed in Pork had laid her open to it. + +My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what kind of girls +to give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd off +their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in +complaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if +they are smart in their persons they try on your Lodgers' bonnets and if +they are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, and +allowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will be +always out of window just the same. And then what the gentlemen like in +girls the ladies don't, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and +then there's temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I hope not +often. A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a comely-made +girl to your cost when she did break out and laid about her, as took +place first and last through a new-married couple come to see London in +the first floor and the lady very high and it _was_ supposed not liking +the good looks of Caroline having none of her own to spare, but anyhow +she did try Caroline though that was no excuse. So one afternoon +Caroline comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she says +to me "Mrs. Lirriper that woman in the first has aggravated me past +bearing," I says "Caroline keep your temper," Caroline says with a +curdling laugh "Keep my temper? You're right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will. +Capital D her!" bursts out Caroline (you might have struck me into the +centre of the earth with a feather when she said it) "I'll give her a +touch of the temper that _I_ keep!" Caroline downs with her hair my +dear, screeches and rushes up-stairs, I following as fast as my trembling +legs could bear me, but before I got into the room the dinner-cloth and +pink-and-white service all dragged off upon the floor with a crash and +the new-married couple on their backs in the firegrate, him with the +shovel and tongs and a dish of cucumber across him and a mercy it was +summer-time. "Caroline" I says "be calm," but she catches off my cap and +tears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new-married +lady makes her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and knocks +the back of her head upon the carpet Murder screaming all the time +Policemen running down the street and Wozenham's windows (judge of my +feelings when I came to know it) thrown up and Miss Wozenham calling out +from the balcony with crocodile's tears "It's Mrs. Lirriper been +overcharging somebody to madness--she'll be murdered--I always thought +so--Pleeseman save her!" My dear four of them and Caroline behind the +chiffoniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed prize-fighting +with her double fists, and down and up and up and down and dreadful! But +I couldn't bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled and her +hair torn when they got the better of her, and I says "Gentlemen +Policemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers and +sisters and your sweethearts, and God bless them and you!" And there she +was sitting down on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the +skirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says +was "Mrs. Lirriper I'm sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind +motherly old thing," and it made me think that I had often wished I had +been a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the +mother of that girl! Well you know it turned out at the Police-office +that she had done it before, and she had her clothes away and was sent to +prison, and when she was to come out I trotted off to the gate in the +evening with just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to give +her a mite of strength to face the world again, and there I met with a +very decent mother waiting for her son through bad company and a stubborn +one he was with his half-boots not laced. So out came Caroline and I +says "Caroline come along with me and sit down under the wall where it's +retired and eat a little trifle that I have brought with me to do you +good," and she throws her arms round my neck and says sobbing "O why were +you never a mother when there are such mothers as there are!" she says, +and in half a minute more she begins to laugh and says "Did I really tear +your cap to shreds?" and when I told her "You certainly did so Caroline" +she laughed again and said while she patted my face "Then why do you wear +such queer old caps you dear old thing? if you hadn't worn such queer old +caps I don't think I should have done it even then." Fancy the girl! +Nothing could get out of her what she was going to do except O she would +do well enough, and we parted she being very thankful and kissing my +hands, and I nevermore saw or heard of that girl, except that I shall +always believe that a very genteel cap which was brought anonymous to me +one Saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most impertinent young +sparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps and +playing the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick came from +Caroline. + +What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the object of +uncharitable suspicions when you go into the Lodging business I have not +the words to tell you, but never was I so dishonourable as to have two +keys nor would I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham lower down on +the other side of the way sincerely hoping that it may not be, though +doubtless at the same time money cannot come from nowhere and it is not +reason to suppose that Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it +may. It _is_ a hardship hurting to the feelings that Lodgers open their +minds so wide to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them +and shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the +better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me, "I know the ways of this +circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it" and +many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for he +is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passed +though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at +the open front parlour window one evening in August (the parlours being +then vacant) reading yesterday's paper my eyes for print being poor +though still I am thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when I hear +a gentleman come posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful +rage talking to himself in a fury and d'ing and c'ing somebody. "By +George!" says he out loud and clutching his walking-stick, "I'll go to +Mrs. Lirriper's. Which is Mrs. Lirriper's?" Then looking round and +seeing me he flourishes his hat right off his head as if I had been the +queen and he says, "Excuse the intrusion Madam, but pray Madam can you +tell me at what number in this street there resides a well-known and much- +respected lady by the name of Lirriper?" A little flustered though I +must say gratified I took off my glasses and courtesied and said "Sir, +Mrs. Lirriper is your humble servant." "Astonishing!" says he. "A +million pardons! Madam, may I ask you to have the kindness to direct one +of your domestics to open the door to a gentleman in search of +apartments, by the name of Jackman?" I had never heard the name but a +politer gentleman I never hope to see, for says he, "Madam I am shocked +at your opening the door yourself to no worthier a fellow than Jemmy +Jackman. After you Madam. I never precede a lady." Then he comes into +the parlours and he sniffs, and he says "Hah! These are parlours! Not +musty cupboards" he says "but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks." Now +my dear it having been remarked by some inimical to the whole +neighbourhood that it always smells of coal-sacks which might prove a +drawback to Lodgers if encouraged, I says to the Major gently though +firmly that I think he is referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but +not Norfolk. "Madam" says he "I refer to Wozenham's lower down over the +way--Madam you can form no notion what Wozenham's is--Madam it is a vast +coal-sack, and Miss Wozenham has the principles and manners of a female +heaver--Madam from the manner in which I have heard her mention you I +know she has no appreciation of a lady, and from the manner in which she +has conducted herself towards me I know she has no appreciation of a +gentleman--Madam my name is Jackman--should you require any other +reference than what I have already said, I name the Bank of +England--perhaps you know it!" Such was the beginning of the Major's +occupying the parlours and from that hour to this the same and a most +obliging Lodger and punctual in all respects except one irregular which I +need not particularly specify, but made up for by his being a protection +and at all times ready to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes and +Juries and that, and once collared a young man with the drawing-room +clock under his coat, and once on the parapets with his own hands and +blankets put out the kitchen chimney and afterwards attending the summons +made a most eloquent speech against the Parish before the magistrates and +saved the engine, and ever quite the gentleman though passionate. And +certainly Miss Wozenham's detaining the trunks and umbrella was not in a +liberal spirit though it may have been according to her rights in law or +an act _I_ would myself have stooped to, the Major being so much the +gentleman that though he is far from tall he seems almost so when he has +his shirt-frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat with the curly +brims, and in what service he was I cannot truly tell you my dear whether +Militia or Foreign, for I never heard him even name himself as Major but +always simple "Jemmy Jackman" and once soon after he came when I felt it +my duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had put it about that he was +no Major and I took the liberty of adding "which you are sir" his words +were "Madam at any rate I am not a Minor, and sufficient for the day is +the evil thereof" which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet +his military ways of having his boots with only the dirt brushed off +taken to him in the front parlour every morning on a clean plate and +varnishing them himself with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle +in a whisper so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways +that it never soils his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality +than quantity, neither that nor his mustachios which to the best of my +belief are done at the same time and which are as black and shining as +his boots, his head of hair being a lovely white. + +It was the third year nearly up of the Major's being in the parlours that +early one morning in the month of February when Parliament was coming on +and you may therefore suppose a number of impostors were about ready to +take hold of anything they could get, a gentleman and a lady from the +country came in to view the Second, and I well remember that I had been +looking out of window and had watched them and the heavy sleet driving +down the street together looking for bills. I did not quite take to the +face of the gentleman though he was good-looking too but the lady was a +very pretty young thing and delicate, and it seemed too rough for her to +be out at all though she had only come from the Adelphi Hotel which would +not have been much above a quarter of a mile if the weather had been less +severe. Now it did so happen my dear that I had been forced to put five +shillings weekly additional on the second in consequence of a loss from +running away full dressed as if going out to a dinner-party, which was +very artful and had made me rather suspicious taking it along with +Parliament, so when the gentleman proposed three months certain and the +money in advance and leave then reserved to renew on the same terms for +six months more, I says I was not quite certain but that I might have +engaged myself to another party but would step down-stairs and look into +it if they would take a seat. They took a seat and I went down to the +handle of the Major's door that I had already began to consult finding it +a great blessing, and I knew by his whistling in a whisper that he was +varnishing his boots which was generally considered private, however he +kindly calls out "If it's you, Madam, come in," and I went in and told +him. + +"Well, Madam," says the Major rubbing his nose--as I did fear at the +moment with the black sponge but it was only his knuckle, he being always +neat and dexterous with his fingers--"well, Madam, I suppose you would be +glad of the money?" + +I was delicate of saying "Yes" too out, for a little extra colour rose +into the Major's cheeks and there was irregularity which I will not +particularly specify in a quarter which I will not name. + +"I am of opinion, Madam," says the Major, "that when money is ready for +you--when it is ready for you, Mrs. Lirriper--you ought to take it. What +is there against it, Madam, in this case up-stairs?" + +"I really cannot say there is anything against it, sir, still I thought I +would consult you." + +"You said a newly-married couple, I think, Madam?" says the Major. + +I says "Ye-es. Evidently. And indeed the young lady mentioned to me in +a casual way that she had not been married many months." + +The Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish round and round +in its little saucer with his piece of sponge and took to his whistling +in a whisper for a few moments. Then he says "You would call it a Good +Let, Madam?" + +"O certainly a Good Let sir." + +"Say they renew for the additional six months. Would it put you about +very much Madam if--if the worst was to come to the worst?" said the +Major. + +"Well I hardly know," I says to the Major. "It depends upon +circumstances. Would _you_ object Sir for instance?" + +"I?" says the Major. "Object? Jemmy Jackman? Mrs. Lirriper close with +the proposal." + +So I went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in next day which was +Saturday and the Major was so good as to draw up a Memorandum of an +agreement in a beautiful round hand and expressions that sounded to me +equally legal and military, and Mr. Edson signed it on the Monday morning +and the Major called upon Mr. Edson on the Tuesday and Mr. Edson called +upon the Major on the Wednesday and the Second and the parlours were as +friendly as could be wished. + +The three months paid for had run out and we had got without any fresh +overtures as to payment into May my dear, when there came an obligation +upon Mr. Edson to go a business expedition right across the Isle of Man, +which fell quite unexpected upon that pretty little thing and is not a +place that according to my views is particularly in the way to anywhere +at any time but that may be a matter of opinion. So short a notice was +it that he was to go next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and +I am sure I cried too when I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp +east wind--it being a very backward spring that year--taking a last leave +of him with her pretty bright hair blowing this way and that and her arms +clinging round his neck and him saying "There there there. Now let me go +Peggy." And by that time it was plain that what the Major had been so +accommodating as to say he would not object to happening in the house, +would happen in it, and I told her as much when he was gone while I +comforted her with my arm up the staircase, for I says "You will soon +have others to keep up for my pretty and you must think of that." + +His letter never came when it ought to have come and what she went +through morning after morning when the postman brought none for her the +very postman himself compassionated when she ran down to the door, and +yet we cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the feelings to +have all the trouble of other people's letters and none of the pleasure +and doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle than not and at a rate of +wages more resembling Little Britain than Great. But at last one morning +when she was too poorly to come running down-stairs he says to me with a +pleased look in his face that made me next to love the man in his uniform +coat though he was dripping wet "I have taken you first in the street +this morning Mrs. Lirriper, for here's the one for Mrs. Edson." I went +up to her bedroom with it as fast as ever I could go, and she sat up in +bed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it open and then a blank stare +came upon her. "It's very short!" she says lifting her large eyes to my +face. "O Mrs. Lirriper it's very short!" I says "My dear Mrs. Edson no +doubt that's because your husband hadn't time to write more just at that +time." "No doubt, no doubt," says she, and puts her two hands on her +face and turns round in her bed. + +I shut her softly in and I crept down-stairs and I tapped at the Major's +door, and when the Major having his thin slices of bacon in his own Dutch +oven saw me he came out of his chair and put me down on the sofa. "Hush!" +says he, "I see something's the matter. Don't speak--take time." I says +"O Major I'm afraid there's cruel work up-stairs." "Yes yes" says he "I +had begun to be afraid of it--take time." And then in opposition to his +own words he rages out frightfully, and says "I shall never forgive +myself Madam, that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't see it all that +morning--didn't go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in my +hand--didn't force it down his throat--and choke him dead with it on the +spot!" + +The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just at present we +could do no more than take on to suspect nothing and use our best +endeavours to keep that poor young creature quiet, and what I ever should +have done without the Major when it got about among the organ-men that +quiet was our object is unknown, for he made lion and tiger war upon them +to that degree that without seeing it I could not have believed it was in +any gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-irons +walking-sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat off +his head, and at the same time so furious in foreign languages that they +would stand with their handles half-turned fixed like the Sleeping +Ugly--for I cannot say Beauty. + +Ever to see the postman come near the house now gave me such I fear that +it was a reprieve when he went by, but in about another ten days or a +fortnight he says again, "Here's one for Mrs. Edson.--Is she pretty +well?" "She is pretty well postman, but not well enough to rise so early +as she used" which was so far gospel-truth. + +I carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and I says +tottering "Major I have not the courage to take it up to her." + +"It's an ill-looking villain of a letter," says the Major. + +"I have not the courage Major" I says again in a tremble "to take it up +to her." + +After seeming lost in consideration for some moments the Major says, +raising his head as if something new and useful had occurred to his mind +"Mrs. Lirriper, I shall never forgive myself that I, Jemmy Jackman, +didn't go straight up-stairs that morning when my boot-sponge was in my +hand--and force it down his throat--and choke him dead with it." + +"Major" I says a little hasty "you didn't do it which is a blessing, for +it would have done no good and I think your sponge was better employed on +your own honourable boots." + +So we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap at her bedroom +door and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the upper landing +for what might happen, and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or +rockets more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I took it to +the second floor. + +A terrible loud scream sounded through the house the minute after she had +opened it, and I found her on the floor lying as if her life was gone. My +dear I never looked at the face of the letter which was lying, open by +her, for there was no occasion. + +Everything I needed to bring her round the Major brought up with his own +hands, besides running out to the chemist's for what was not in the house +and likewise having the fiercest of all his many skirmishes with a +musical instrument representing a ball-room I do not know in what +particular country and company waltzing in and out at folding-doors with +rolling eyes. When after a long time I saw her coming to, I slipped on +the landing till I heard her cry, and then I went in and says cheerily +"Mrs. Edson you're not well my dear and it's not to be wondered at," as +if I had not been in before. Whether she believed or disbelieved I +cannot say and it would signify nothing if I could, but I stayed by her +for hours and then she God ever blesses me! and says she will try to rest +for her head is bad. + +"Major," I whispers, looking in at the parlours, "I beg and pray of you +don't go out." + +The Major whispers, "Madam, trust me I will do no such a thing. How is +she?" + +I says "Major the good Lord above us only knows what burns and rages in +her poor mind. I left her sitting at her window. I am going to sit at +mine." + +It came on afternoon and it came on evening. Norfolk is a delightful +street to lodge in--provided you don't go lower down--but of a summer +evening when the dust and waste paper lie in it and stray children play +in it and a kind of a gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal of +church-bells is practising in the neighbourhood it is a trifle dull, and +never have I seen it since at such a time and never shall I see it +evermore at such a time without seeing the dull June evening when that +forlorn young creature sat at her open corner window on the second and me +at my open corner window (the other corner) on the third. Something +merciful, something wiser and better far than my own self, had moved me +while it was yet light to sit in my bonnet and shawl, and as the shadows +fell and the tide rose I could sometimes--when I put out my head and +looked at her window below--see that she leaned out a little looking down +the street. It was just settling dark when I saw _her_ in the street. + +So fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my breath while I +tell it, I went down-stairs faster than I ever moved in all my life and +only tapped with my hand at the Major's door in passing it and slipping +out. She was gone already. I made the same speed down the street and +when I came to the corner of Howard Street I saw that she had turned it +and was there plain before me going towards the west. O with what a +thankful heart I saw her going along! + +She was quite unacquainted with London and had very seldom been out for +more than an airing in our own street where she knew two or three little +children belonging to neighbours and had sometimes stood among them at +the street looking at the water. She must be going at hazard I knew, +still she kept the by-streets quite correctly as long as they would serve +her, and then turned up into the Strand. But at every corner I could see +her head turned one way, and that way was always the river way. + +It may have been only the darkness and quiet of the Adelphi that caused +her to strike into it but she struck into it much as readily as if she +had set out to go there, which perhaps was the case. She went straight +down to the Terrace and along it and looked over the iron rail, and I +often woke afterwards in my own bed with the horror of seeing her do it. +The desertion of the wharf below and the flowing of the high water there +seemed to settle her purpose. She looked about as if to make out the way +down, and she struck out the right way or the wrong way--I don't know +which, for I don't know the place before or since--and I followed her the +way she went. + +It was noticeable that all this time she never once looked back. But +there was now a great change in the manner of her going, and instead of +going at a steady quick walk with her arms folded before her,--among the +dark dismal arches she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide, as +if they were wings and she was flying to her death. + +We were on the wharf and she stopped. I stopped. I saw her hands at her +bonnet-strings, and I rushed between her and the brink and took her round +the waist with both my arms. She might have drowned me, I felt then, but +she could never have got quit of me. + +Down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze and not half an idea +had I had in it what I should say to her, but the instant I touched her +it came to me like magic and I had my natural voice and my senses and +even almost my breath. + +"Mrs. Edson!" I says "My dear! Take care. How ever did you lose your +way and stumble on a dangerous place like this? Why you must have come +here by the most perplexing streets in all London. No wonder you are +lost, I'm sure. And this place too! Why I thought nobody ever got here, +except me to order my coals and the Major in the parlours to smoke his +cigar!"--for I saw that blessed man close by, pretending to it. + +"Hah--Hah--Hum!" coughs the Major. + +"And good gracious me" I says, "why here he is!" + +"Halloa! who goes there?" says the Major in a military manner. + +"Well!" I says, "if this don't beat everything! Don't you know us Major +Jackman?" + +"Halloa!" says the Major. "Who calls on Jemmy Jackman?" (and more out of +breath he was, and did it less like life than I should have expected.) + +"Why here's Mrs. Edson Major" I says, "strolling out to cool her poor +head which has been very bad, has missed her way and got lost, and +Goodness knows where she might have got to but for me coming here to drop +an order into my coal merchant's letter-box and you coming here to smoke +your cigar!--And you really are not well enough my dear" I says to her +"to be half so far from home without me. And your arm will be very +acceptable I am sure Major" I says to him "and I know she may lean upon +it as heavy as she likes." And now we had both got her--thanks be +Above!--one on each side. + +She was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till I laid her on her +own bed, and up to the early morning she held me by the hand and moaned +and moaned "O wicked, wicked, wicked!" But when at last I made believe +to droop my head and be overpowered with a dead sleep, I heard that poor +young creature give such touching and such humble thanks for being +preserved from taking her own life in her madness that I thought I should +have cried my eyes out on the counterpane and I knew she was safe. + +Being well enough to do and able to afford it, me and the Major laid our +little plans next day while she was asleep worn out, and so I says to her +as soon as I could do it nicely: + +"Mrs. Edson my dear, when Mr. Edson paid me the rent for these farther +six months--" + +She gave a start and I felt her large eyes look at me, but I went on with +it and with my needlework. + +"--I can't say that I am quite sure I dated the receipt right. Could you +let me look at it?" + +She laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked through me when I +was forced to look up from my needlework, but I had taken the precaution +of having on my spectacles. + +"I have no receipt" says she. + +"Ah! Then he has got it" I says in a careless way. "It's of no great +consequence. A receipt's a receipt." + +From that time she always had hold of my hand when I could spare it which +was generally only when I read to her, for of course she and me had our +bits of needlework to plod at and neither of us was very handy at those +little things, though I am still rather proud of my share in them too +considering. And though she took to all I read to her, I used to fancy +that next to what was taught upon the Mount she took most of all to His +gentle compassion for us poor women and to His young life and to how His +mother was proud of Him and treasured His sayings in her heart. She had +a grateful look in her eyes that never never never will be out of mine +until they are closed in my last sleep, and when I chanced to look at her +without thinking of it I would always meet that look, and she would often +offer me her trembling lip to kiss, much more like a little affectionate +half broken-hearted child than ever I can imagine any grown person. + +One time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong and her tears ran +down so fast that I thought she was going to tell me all her woe, so I +takes her two hands in mine and I says: + +"No my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now. Wait for better +times when you have got over this and are strong, and then you shall tell +me whatever you will. Shall it be agreed?" + +With our hands still joined she nodded her head many times, and she +lifted my hands and put them to her lips and to her bosom. "Only one +word now my dear" I says. "Is there any one?" + +She looked inquiringly "Any one?" + +"That I can go to?" + +She shook her head. + +"No one that I can bring?" + +She shook her head. + +"No one is wanted by _me_ my dear. Now that may be considered past and +gone." + +Not much more than a week afterwards--for this was far on in the time of +our being so together--I was bending over at her bedside with my ear down +to her lips, by turns listening for her breath and looking for a sign of +life in her face. At last it came in a solemn way--not in a flash but +like a kind of pale faint light brought very slow to the face. + +She said something to me that had no sound in it, but I saw she asked me: + +"Is this death?" + +And I says: + +"Poor dear poor dear, I think it is." + +Knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak right hand, I took it +and laid it on her breast and then folded her other hand upon it, and she +prayed a good good prayer and I joined in it poor me though there were no +words spoke. Then I brought the baby in its wrappers from where it lay, +and I says: + +"My dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This is for me to take +care of." + +The trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last time, and I +dearly kissed it. + +"Yes my dear," I says. "Please God! Me and the Major." + +I don't know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul brighten and leap +up, and get free and fly away in the grateful look. + +* * * * * + +So this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear that we +called him Jemmy, being after the Major his own godfather with Lirriper +for a surname being after myself, and never was a dear child such a +brightening thing in a Lodgings or such a playmate to his grandmother as +Jemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding what he was told +(upon the whole) and soothing for the temper and making everything +pleasanter except when he grew old enough to drop his cap down Wozenham's +Airy and they wouldn't hand it up to him, and being worked into a state I +put on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol with the child in my hand +and I says "Miss Wozenham I little thought ever to have entered your +house but unless my grandson's cap is instantly restored, the laws of +this country regulating the property of the Subject shall at length +decide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may." With a sneer upon her +face which did strike me I must say as being expressive of two keys but +it may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham +have the full benefit of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she +says "Jane, is there a street-child's old cap down our Airy?" I says +"Miss Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question you must allow +me to inform you to your face that my grandson is _not_ a street-child +and is _not_ in the habit of wearing old caps. In fact" I says "Miss +Wozenham I am far from sure that my grandson's cap may not be newer than +your own" which was perfectly savage in me, her lace being the commonest +machine-make washed and torn besides, but I had been put into a state to +begin with fomented by impertinence. Miss Wozenham says red in the face +"Jane you heard my question, is there any child's cap down our Airy?" +"Yes Ma'am" says Jane, "I think I did see some such rubbish a-lying +there." "Then" says Miss Wozenham "let these visitors out, and then +throw up that worthless article out of my premises." But here the child +who had been staring at Miss Wozenham with all his eyes and more, frowns +down his little eyebrows purses up his little mouth puts his chubby legs +far apart turns his little dimpled fists round and round slowly over one +another like a little coffee-mill, and says to her "Oo impdent to mi +Gran, me tut oor hi!" "O!" says Miss Wozenham looking down scornfully at +the Mite "this is not a street-child is it not! Really!" I bursts out +laughing and I says "Miss Wozenham if this ain't a pretty sight to you I +don't envy your feelings and I wish you good-day. Jemmy come along with +Gran." And I was still in the best of humours though his cap came flying +up into the street as if it had been just turned on out of the +water-plug, and I went home laughing all the way, all owing to that dear +boy. + +The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with Jemmy in +the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, Jemmy driving on +the coach-box which is the Major's brass-bound writing desk on the table, +me inside in the easy-chair and the Major Guard up behind with a brown- +paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do assure you my dear that +sometimes when I have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and +have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard +that precious pet driving and the Major blowing up behind to have the +change of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have half believed we +were on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to +see that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm their +feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper +matchboxes on the chimney-piece is to see the Major enjoying it fully as +much as the child I am very sure, and it's equal to any play when Coachee +opens the coach-door to look in at me inside and say "Wery 'past that +'tage.--'Prightened old lady?" + +But what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost that child can only +be compared to the Major's which were not a shade better, through his +straying out at five years old and eleven o'clock in the forenoon and +never heard of by word or sign or deed till half-past nine at night, when +the Major had gone to the Editor of the _Times_ newspaper to put in an +advertisement, which came out next day four-and-twenty hours after he was +found, and which I mean always carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as +the first printed account of him. The more the day got on, the more I +got distracted and the Major too and both of us made worse by the +composed ways of the police though very civil and obliging and what I +must call their obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was +stolen. "We mostly find Mum" says the sergeant who came round to comfort +me, which he didn't at all and he had been one of the private constables +in Caroline's time to which he referred in his opening words when he said +"Don't give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, it'll all come as right +as my nose did when I got the same barked by that young woman in your +second floor"--says this sergeant "we mostly find Mum as people ain't +over-anxious to have what I may call second-hand children. _You'll_ get +him back Mum." "O but my dear good sir" I says clasping my hands and +wringing them and clasping them again "he is such an uncommon child!" +"Yes Mum" says the sergeant, "we mostly find that too Mum. The question +is what his clothes were worth." "His clothes" I says "were not worth +much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but the dear child!--" +"All right Mum" says the sergeant. "You'll get him back Mum. And even +if he'd had his best clothes on, it wouldn't come to worse than his being +found wrapped up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane." His words +pierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me and the Major ran in +and out like wild things all day long till the Major returning from his +interview with the Editor of the _Times_ at night rushes into my little +room hysterical and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says "Joy +joy--officer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I was letting +myself in--compose your feelings--Jemmy's found." Consequently I fainted +away and when I came to, embraced the legs of the officer in plain +clothes who seemed to be taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind +of the property in my little room with brown whiskers, and I says +"Blessings on you sir where is the Darling!" and he says "In Kennington +Station House." I was dropping at his feet Stone at the image of that +Innocence in cells with murderers when he adds "He followed the Monkey." +I says deeming it slang language "O sir explain for a loving grandmother +what Monkey!" He says "Him in the spangled cap with the strap under the +chin, as won't keep on--him as sweeps the crossings on a round table and +don't want to draw his sabre more than he can help." Then I understood +it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the Major and him +drove over to Kennington and there we found our boy lying quite +comfortable before a blazing fire having sweetly played himself to sleep +upon a small accordion nothing like so big as a flat-iron which they had +been so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had +been stopped upon a very young person. + +My dear the system upon which the Major commenced and as I may say +perfected Jemmy's learning when he was so small that if the dear was on +the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it +to see him with his mother's own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a +thing that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and Commons and then +might obtain some promotion for the Major which he well deserves and +would be none the worse for (speaking between friends) L. S. D.-ically. +When the Major first undertook his learning he says to me: + +"I'm going Madam," he says "to make our child a Calculating Boy. + +"Major," I says, "you terrify me and may do the pet a permanent injury +you would never forgive yourself." + +"Madam," says the Major, "next to my regret that when I had my +boot-sponge in my hand, I didn't choke that scoundrel with it--on the +spot--" + +"There! For Gracious' sake," I interrupts, "let his conscience find him +without sponges." + +"--I say next to that regret, Madam," says the Major "would be the regret +with which my breast," which he tapped, "would be surcharged if this fine +mind was not early cultivated. But mark me Madam," says the Major +holding up his forefinger "cultivated on a principle that will make it a +delight." + +"Major" I says "I will be candid with you and tell you openly that if +ever I find the dear child fall off in his appetite I shall know it is +his calculations and shall put a stop to them at two minutes' notice. Or +if I find them mounting to his head" I says, "or striking anyways cold to +his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, +the result will be the same, but Major you are a clever man and have seen +much and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a +confidence in trying try." + +"Spoken Madam" says the Major "like Emma Lirriper. All I have to ask, +Madam, is that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or +two's preparations for surprising you, and that you will give me leave to +have up and down any small articles not actually in use that I may +require from the kitchen." + +"From the kitchen Major?" I says half feeling as if he had a mind to cook +the child. + +"From the kitchen" says the Major, and smiles and swells, and at the same +time looks taller. + +So I passed my word and the Major and the dear boy were shut up together +for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could I +hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy +clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to myself "it has +not harmed him yet" nor could I on examining the dear find any signs of +it anywhere about him which was likewise a great relief. At last one day +Jemmy brings me a card in joke in the Major's neat writing "The Messrs. +Jemmy Jackman" for we had given him the Major's other name too "request +the honour of Mrs. Lirriper's company at the Jackman Institution in the +front parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few +slight feats of elementary arithmetic." And if you'll believe me there +in the front parlour at five punctual to the moment was the Major behind +the Pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the +kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was +the Mite stood upon a chair with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes +sparkling clusters of diamonds. + +"Now Gran" says he, "oo tit down and don't oo touch ler people"--for he +saw with every one of those diamonds of his that I was going to give him +a squeeze. + +"Very well sir" I says "I am obedient in this good company I am sure." +And I sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, shaking my sides. + +But picture my admiration when the Major going on almost as quick as if +he was conjuring sets out all the articles he names, and says "Three +saucepans, an Italian iron, a hand-bell, a toasting-fork, a +nutmeg-grater, four potlids, a spice-box, two egg-cups, and a chopping- +board--how many?" and when that Mite instantly cries "Tifteen, tut down +tive and carry ler 'toppin-board" and then claps his hands draws up his +legs and dances on his chair. + +My dear with the same astonishing ease and correctness him and the Major +added up the tables chairs and sofy, the picters fenders and fire-irons +their own selves me and the cat and the eyes in Miss Wozenham's head, and +whenever the sum was done Young Roses and Diamonds claps his hands and +draws up his legs and dances on his chair. + +The pride of the Major! ("_Here's_ a mind Ma'am!" he says to me behind +his hand.) + +Then he says aloud, "We now come to the next elementary rule,--which is +called--" + +"Umtraction!" cries Jemmy. + +"Right," says the Major. "We have here a toasting-fork, a potato in its +natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, and two skewers, +from which it is necessary for commercial purposes to subtract a sprat- +gridiron, a small pickle-jar, two lemons, one pepper-castor, a +blackbeetle-trap, and a knob of the dresser-drawer--what remains?" + +"Toatin-fork!" cries Jemmy. + +"In numbers how many?" says the Major. + +"One!" cries Jemmy. + +("_Here's_ a boy, Ma'am!" says the Major to me behind his hand.) Then +the Major goes on: + +"We now approach the next elementary rule,--which is entitled--" + +"Tickleication" cries Jemmy. + +"Correct" says the Major. + +But my dear to relate to you in detail the way in which they multiplied +fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of ginger and a larding needle, +or divided pretty well everything else there was on the table by the +heater of the Italian iron and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon +over, would make my head spin round and round and round as it did at the +time. So I says "if you'll excuse my addressing the chair Professor +Jackman I think the period of the lecture has now arrived when it becomes +necessary that I should take a good hug of this young scholar." Upon +which Jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, "Gran oo open oor +arms and me'll make a 'pring into 'em." So I opened my arms to him as I +had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother lay a dying, and +he had his jump and we had a good long hug together and the Major prouder +than any peacock says to me behind his hand, "You need not let him know +it Madam" (which I certainly need not for the Major was quite audible) +"but he _is_ a boy!" + +In this way Jemmy grew and grew and went to day-school and continued +under the Major too, and in summer we were as happy as the days were +long, and in winter we were as happy as the days were short and there +seemed to rest a Blessing on the Lodgings for they as good as Let +themselves and would have done it if there had been twice the +accommodation, when sore and hard against my will I one day says to the +Major. + +"Major you know what I am going to break to you. Our boy must go to +boarding-school." + +It was a sad sight to see the Major's countenance drop, and I pitied the +good soul with all my heart. + +"Yes Major" I says, "though he is as popular with the Lodgers as you are +yourself and though he is to you and me what only you and me know, still +it is in the course of things and Life is made of partings and we must +part with our Pet." + +Bold as I spoke, I saw two Majors and half-a-dozen fireplaces, and when +the poor Major put one of his neat bright-varnished boots upon the fender +and his elbow on his knee and his head upon his hand and rocked himself a +little to and fro, I was dreadfully cut up. + +"But" says I clearing my throat "you have so well prepared him Major--he +has had such a Tutor in you--that he will have none of the first drudgery +to go through. And he is so clever besides that he'll soon make his way +to the front rank." + +"He is a boy" says the Major--having sniffed--"that has not his like on +the face of the earth." + +"True as you say Major, and it is not for us merely for our own sakes to +do anything to keep him back from being a credit and an ornament wherever +he goes and perhaps even rising to be a great man, is it Major? He will +have all my little savings when my work is done (being all the world to +me) and we must try to make him a wise man and a good man, mustn't we +Major?" + +"Madam" says the Major rising "Jemmy Jackman is becoming an older file +than I was aware of, and you put him to shame. You are thoroughly right +Madam. You are simply and undeniably right.--And if you'll excuse me, +I'll take a walk." + +So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child into +my little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his mother's +own curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious. And when I +had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year and when I +had said to him about his getting on in life pretty much what I had said +to the Major I broke to him how that we must have this same parting, and +there I was forced to stop for there I saw of a sudden the +well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time! +But with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon and he says +gravely nodding through his tears, "I understand Gran--I know it _must_ +be, Gran--go on Gran, don't be afraid of _me_." And when I had said all +that ever I could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine and +he says just a little broken here and there "You shall see Gran that I +can be a man and that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to +you--and if I don't grow up to be what you would like to have me--I hope +it will be--because I shall die." And with that he sat down by me and I +went on to tell him of the school of which I had excellent +recommendations and where it was and how many scholars and what games +they played as I had heard and what length of holidays, to all of which +he listened bright and clear. And so it came that at last he says "And +now dear Gran let me kneel down here where I have been used to say my +prayers and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me +cry, for you have been more than father--more than mother--more than +brothers sisters friends--to me!" And so he did cry and I too and we +were both much the better for it. + +From that time forth he was true to his word and ever blithe and ready, +and even when me and the Major took him down into Lincolnshire he was far +the gayest of the party though for sure and certain he might easily have +been that, but he really was and put life into us only when it came to +the last Good-bye, he says with a wistful look, "You wouldn't have me not +really sorry would you Gran?" and when I says "No dear, Lord forbid!" he +says "I am glad of that!" and ran in out of sight. + +But now that the child was gone out of the Lodgings the Major fell into a +regularly moping state. It was taken notice of by all the Lodgers that +the Major moped. He hadn't even the same air of being rather tall than +he used to have, and if he varnished his boots with a single gleam of +interest it was as much as he did. + +One evening the Major came into my little room to take a cup of tea and a +morsel of buttered toast and to read Jemmy's newest letter which had +arrived that afternoon (by the very same postman more than middle-aged +upon the Beat now), and the letter raising him up a little I says to the +Major: + +"Major you mustn't get into a moping way." + +The Major shook his head. "Jemmy Jackman Madam," he says with a deep +sigh, "is an older file than I thought him." + +"Moping is not the way to grow younger Major." + +"My dear Madam," says the Major, "is there _any_ way of growing younger?" + +Feeling that the Major was getting rather the best of that point I made a +diversion to another. + +"Thirteen years! Thir-teen years! Many Lodgers have come and gone, in +the thirteen years that you have lived in the parlours Major." + +"Hah!" says the Major warming. "Many Madam, many." + +"And I should say you have been familiar with them all?" + +"As a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear Madam" says the +Major, "they have honoured me with their acquaintance, and not +unfrequently with their confidence." + +Watching the Major as he drooped his white head and stroked his black +mustachios and moped again, a thought which I think must have been going +about looking for an owner somewhere dropped into my old noddle if you +will excuse the expression. + +"The walls of my Lodgings" I says in a casual way--for my dear it is of +no use going straight at a man who mopes--"might have something to tell +if they could tell it." + +The Major neither moved nor said anything but I saw he was attending with +his shoulders my dear--attending with his shoulders to what I said. In +fact I saw that his shoulders were struck by it. + +"The dear boy was always fond of story-books" I went on, like as if I was +talking to myself. "I am sure this house--his own home--might write a +story or two for his reading one day or another." + +The Major's shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his head came up in his +shirt-collar. The Major's head came up in his shirt-collar as I hadn't +seen it come up since Jemmy went to school. + +"It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a friendly +rubber, my dear Madam," says the Major, "and also over what used to be +called in my young times--in the salad days of Jemmy Jackman--the social +glass, I have exchanged many a reminiscence with your Lodgers." + +My remark was--I confess I made it with the deepest and artfullest of +intentions--"I wish our dear boy had heard them!" + +"Are you serious Madam?" asked the Major starting and turning full round. + +"Why not Major?" + +"Madam" says the Major, turning up one of his cuffs, "they shall be +written for him." + +"Ah! Now you speak" I says giving my hands a pleased clap. "Now you are +in a way out of moping Major!" + +"Between this and my holidays--I mean the dear boy's" says the Major +turning up his other cuff, "a good deal may be done towards it." + +"Major you are a clever man and you have seen much and not a doubt of +it." + +"I'll begin," says the Major looking as tall as ever he did, "to-morrow." + +My dear the Major was another man in three days and he was himself again +in a week and he wrote and wrote and wrote with his pen scratching like +rats behind the wainscot, and whether he had many grounds to go upon or +whether he did at all romance I cannot tell you, but what he has written +is in the left-hand glass closet of the little bookcase close behind you. + + + + +CHAPTER II--HOW THE PARLOURS ADDED A FEW WORDS + + +I have the honour of presenting myself by the name of Jackman. I esteem +it a proud privilege to go down to posterity through the instrumentality +of the most remarkable boy that ever lived,--by the name of JEMMY JACKMAN +LIRRIPER,--and of my most worthy and most highly respected friend, Mrs. +Emma Lirriper, of Eighty-one, Norfolk Street, Strand, in the County of +Middlesex, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. + +It is not for me to express the rapture with which we received that dear +and eminently remarkable boy, on the occurrence of his first Christmas +holidays. Suffice it to observe that when he came flying into the house +with two splendid prizes (Arithmetic, and Exemplary Conduct), Mrs. +Lirriper and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly took him to the +Play, where we were all three admirably entertained. + +Nor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of her good and +honoured sex--whom, in deference to her unassuming worth, I will only +here designate by the initials E. L.--that I add this record to the +bundle of papers with which our, in a most distinguished degree, +remarkable boy has expressed himself delighted, before re-consigning the +same to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs. Lirriper's little bookcase. + +Neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated +obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham's, long (to +his elevation) of Lirriper's. If I could be consciously guilty of that +piece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of supererogation, now that +the name is borne by JEMMY JACKMAN LIRRIPER. + +No, I take up my humble pen to register a little record of our strikingly +remarkable boy, which my poor capacity regards as presenting a pleasant +little picture of the dear boy's mind. The picture may be interesting to +himself when he is a man. + +Our first reunited Christmas-day was the most delightful one we have ever +passed together. Jemmy was never silent for five minutes, except in +church-time. He talked as we sat by the fire, he talked when we were out +walking, he talked as we sat by the fire again, he talked incessantly at +dinner, though he made a dinner almost as remarkable as himself. It was +the spring of happiness in his fresh young heart flowing and flowing, and +it fertilised (if I may be allowed so bold a figure) my much-esteemed +friend, and J. J. the present writer. + +There were only we three. We dined in my esteemed friend's little room, +and our entertainment was perfect. But everything in the establishment +is, in neatness, order, and comfort, always perfect. After dinner our +boy slipped away to his old stool at my esteemed friend's knee, and +there, with his hot chestnuts and his glass of brown sherry (really, a +most excellent wine!) on a chair for a table, his face outshone the +apples in the dish. + +We talked of these jottings of mine, which Jemmy had read through and +through by that time; and so it came about that my esteemed friend +remarked, as she sat smoothing Jemmy's curls: + +"And as you belong to the house too, Jemmy,--and so much more than the +Lodgers, having been born in it,--why, your story ought to be added to +the rest, I think, one of these days." + +Jemmy's eyes sparkled at this, and he said, "So _I_ think, Gran." + +Then he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to laugh in a sort of +confidence with the fire, and then he said, folding his arms across my +esteemed friend's lap, and raising his bright face to hers. "Would you +like to hear a boy's story, Gran?" + +"Of all things," replied my esteemed friend. + +"Would you, godfather?" + +"Of all things," I too replied. + +"Well, then," said Jemmy, "I'll tell you one." + +Here our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a hug, and laughed +again, musically, at the idea of his coming out in that new line. Then +he once more took the fire into the same sort of confidence as before, +and began: + +"Once upon a time, When pigs drank wine, And monkeys chewed tobaccer, +'Twas neither in your time nor mine, But that's no macker--" + +"Bless the child!" cried my esteemed friend, "what's amiss with his +brain?" + +"It's poetry, Gran," returned Jemmy, shouting with laughter. "We always +begin stories that way at school." + +"Gave me quite a turn, Major," said my esteemed friend, fanning herself +with a plate. "Thought he was light-headed!" + +"In those remarkable times, Gran and godfather, there was once a boy,--not +me, you know." + +"No, no," says my respected friend, "not you. Not him, Major, you +understand?" + +"No, no," says I. + +"And he went to school in Rutlandshire--" + +"Why not Lincolnshire?" says my respected friend. + +"Why not, you dear old Gran? Because _I_ go to school in Lincolnshire, +don't I?" + +"Ah, to be sure!" says my respected friend. "And it's not Jemmy, you +understand, Major?" + +"No, no," says I. + +"Well!" our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfortably, and laughing +merrily (again in confidence with the fire), before he again looked up in +Mrs. Lirriper's face, "and so he was tremendously in love with his +schoolmaster's daughter, and she was the most beautiful creature that +ever was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she had brown hair all curling +beautifully, and she had a delicious voice, and she was delicious +altogether, and her name was Seraphina." + +"What's the name of _your_ schoolmaster's daughter, Jemmy?" asks my +respected friend. + +"Polly!" replied Jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her. "There now! +Caught you! Ha, ha, ha!" + +When he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a hug together, our +admittedly remarkable boy resumed with a great relish: + +"Well! And so he loved her. And so he thought about her, and dreamed +about her, and made her presents of oranges and nuts, and would have made +her presents of pearls and diamonds if he could have afforded it out of +his pocket-money, but he couldn't. And so her father--O, he WAS a +Tartar! Keeping the boys up to the mark, holding examinations once a +month, lecturing upon all sorts of subjects at all sorts of times, and +knowing everything in the world out of book. And so this boy--" + +"Had he any name?" asks my respected friend. + +"No, he hadn't, Gran. Ha, ha! There now! Caught you again!" + +After this, they had another laugh and another hug, and then our boy went +on. + +"Well! And so this boy, he had a friend about as old as himself at the +same school, and his name (for He _had_ a name, as it happened) was--let +me remember--was Bobbo." + +"Not Bob," says my respected friend. + +"Of course not," says Jemmy. "What made you think it was, Gran? Well! +And so this friend was the cleverest and bravest and best-looking and +most generous of all the friends that ever were, and so he was in love +with Seraphina's sister, and so Seraphina's sister was in love with him, +and so they all grew up." + +"Bless us!" says my respected friend. "They were very sudden about it." + +"So they all grew up," our boy repeated, laughing heartily, "and Bobbo +and this boy went away together on horseback to seek their fortunes, and +they partly got their horses by favour, and partly in a bargain; that is +to say, they had saved up between them seven and fourpence, and the two +horses, being Arabs, were worth more, only the man said he would take +that, to favour them. Well! And so they made their fortunes and came +prancing back to the school, with their pockets full of gold, enough to +last for ever. And so they rang at the parents' and visitors' bell (not +the back gate), and when the bell was answered they proclaimed 'The same +as if it was scarlet fever! Every boy goes home for an indefinite +period!' And then there was great hurrahing, and then they kissed +Seraphina and her sister,--each his own love, and not the other's on any +account,--and then they ordered the Tartar into instant confinement." + +"Poor man!" said my respected friend. + +"Into instant confinement, Gran," repeated Jemmy, trying to look severe +and roaring with laughter; "and he was to have nothing to eat but the +boys' dinners, and was to drink half a cask of their beer every day. And +so then the preparations were made for the two weddings, and there were +hampers, and potted things, and sweet things, and nuts, and +postage-stamps, and all manner of things. And so they were so jolly, +that they let the Tartar out, and he was jolly too." + +"I am glad they let him out," says my respected friend, "because he had +only done his duty." + +"O, but hadn't he overdone it, though!" cried Jemmy. "Well! And so then +this boy mounted his horse, with his bride in his arms, and cantered +away, and cantered on and on till he came to a certain place where he had +a certain Gran and a certain godfather,--not you two, you know." + +"No, no," we both said. + +"And there he was received with great rejoicings, and he filled the +cupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he showered it out on his Gran +and his godfather because they were the two kindest and dearest people +that ever lived in this world. And so while they were sitting up to +their knees in gold, a knocking was heard at the street door, and who +should it be but Bobbo, also on horseback with his bride in his arms, and +what had he come to say but that he would take (at double rent) all the +Lodgings for ever, that were not wanted by this a boy and this Gran and +this godfather, and that they would all live together, and all be happy! +And so they were, and so it never ended!" + +"And was there no quarrelling?" asked my respected friend, as Jemmy sat +upon her lap and hugged her. + +"No! Nobody ever quarrelled." + +"And did the money never melt away?" + +"No! Nobody could ever spend it all." + +"And did none of them ever grow older?" + +"No! Nobody ever grew older after that." + +"And did none of them ever die?" + +"O, no, no, no, Gran!" exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her +breast, and drawing her closer to him. "Nobody ever died." + +"Ah, Major, Major!" says my respected friend, smiling benignly upon me, +"this beats our stories. Let us end with the Boy's story, Major, for the +Boy's story is the best that is ever told!" + +In submission to which request on the part of the best of women, I have +here noted it down as faithfully as my best abilities, coupled with my +best intentions, would admit, subscribing it with my name, + +J. JACKMAN. +THE PARLOURS. +MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS*** + + +******* This file should be named 1416.txt or 1416.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/1416 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. 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