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diff --git a/2324-h/2324-h.htm b/2324-h/2324-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80e05d4 --- /dev/null +++ b/2324-h/2324-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3817 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A House to Let</title> + <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> + <style type="text/css"> + + p { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1, h2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + h3, h4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2,h3 {page-break-before: avoid;} + </style> + </head> + <body> +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A House to Let, by Charles Dickens</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: A House to Let</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Charles Dickens, Wilkie +Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Ann Procter</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 1, 2000 [eBook #2324]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 14, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Transcribed from the 1903 Chapman and Hall edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk. Proofed by David, Edgar Howard, Dawn +Smith, Terry Jeffress and Jane Foster. Revised by Richard Tonsing</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSE TO LET ***</div> + + + + +<h1>A HOUSE TO LET (FULL TEXT)<br /> +by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Ann +Procter</h1> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p>Over the Way<br /> +The Manchester Marriage<br /> +Going into Society<br /> +Three Evenings in the House<br /> +Trottle’s Report<br /> +Let at Last</p> +<div class='chapter' /><h2>OVER THE WAY</h2> +<p>I had been living at Tunbridge Wells and nowhere else, going on for +ten years, when my medical man—very clever in his profession, +and the prettiest player I ever saw in my life of a hand at Long Whist, +which was a noble and a princely game before Short was heard of—said +to me, one day, as he sat feeling my pulse on the actual sofa which +my poor dear sister Jane worked before her spine came on, and laid her +on a board for fifteen months at a stretch—the most upright woman +that ever lived—said to me, “What we want, ma’am, +is a fillip.”</p> +<p>“Good gracious, goodness gracious, Doctor Towers!” says +I, quite startled at the man, for he was so christened himself: “don’t +talk as if you were alluding to people’s names; but say what you +mean.”</p> +<p>“I mean, my dear ma’am, that we want a little change +of air and scene.”</p> +<p>“Bless the man!” said I; “does he mean we or me!”</p> +<p>“I mean you, ma’am.”</p> +<p>“Then Lard forgive you, Doctor Towers,” I said; “why +don’t you get into a habit of expressing yourself in a straightforward +manner, like a loyal subject of our gracious Queen Victoria, and a member +of the Church of England?”</p> +<p>Towers laughed, as he generally does when he has fidgetted me into +any of my impatient ways—one of my states, as I call them—and +then he began,—</p> +<p>“Tone, ma’am, Tone, is all you require!” +He appealed to Trottle, who just then came in with the coal-scuttle, +looking, in his nice black suit, like an amiable man putting on coals +from motives of benevolence.</p> +<p>Trottle (whom I always call my right hand) has been in my service +two-and-thirty years. He entered my service, far away from England. +He is the best of creatures, and the most respectable of men; but, opinionated.</p> +<p>“What you want, ma’am,” says Trottle, making up +the fire in his quiet and skilful way, “is Tone.”</p> +<p>“Lard forgive you both!” says I, bursting out a-laughing; +“I see you are in a conspiracy against me, so I suppose you must +do what you like with me, and take me to London for a change.”</p> +<p>For some weeks Towers had hinted at London, and consequently I was +prepared for him. When we had got to this point, we got on so +expeditiously, that Trottle was packed off to London next day but one, +to find some sort of place for me to lay my troublesome old head in.</p> +<p>Trottle came back to me at the Wells after two days’ absence, +with accounts of a charming place that could be taken for six months +certain, with liberty to renew on the same terms for another six, and +which really did afford every accommodation that I wanted.</p> +<p>“Could you really find no fault at all in the rooms, Trottle?” +I asked him.</p> +<p>“Not a single one, ma’am. They are exactly suitable +to you. There is not a fault in them. There is but one fault +outside of them.”</p> +<p>“And what’s that?”</p> +<p>“They are opposite a House to Let.”</p> +<p>“O!” I said, considering of it. “But is that +such a very great objection?”</p> +<p>“I think it my duty to mention it, ma’am. It is +a dull object to look at. Otherwise, I was so greatly pleased +with the lodging that I should have closed with the terms at once, as +I had your authority to do.”</p> +<p>Trottle thinking so highly of the place, in my interest, I wished +not to disappoint him. Consequently I said:</p> +<p>“The empty House may let, perhaps.”</p> +<p>“O, dear no, ma’am,” said Trottle, shaking his +head with decision; “it won’t let. It never does let, +ma’am.”</p> +<p>“Mercy me! Why not?”</p> +<p>“Nobody knows, ma’am. All I have to mention is, +ma’am, that the House won’t let!”</p> +<p>“How long has this unfortunate House been to let, in the name +of Fortune?” said I.</p> +<p>“Ever so long,” said Trottle. “Years.”</p> +<p>“Is it in ruins?”</p> +<p>“It’s a good deal out of repair, ma’am, but it’s +not in ruins.”</p> +<p>The long and the short of this business was, that next day I had +a pair of post-horses put to my chariot—for, I never travel by +railway: not that I have anything to say against railways, except that +they came in when I was too old to take to them; and that they made +ducks and drakes of a few turnpike-bonds I had—and so I went up +myself, with Trottle in the rumble, to look at the inside of this same +lodging, and at the outside of this same House.</p> +<p>As I say, I went and saw for myself. The lodging was perfect. +That, I was sure it would be; because Trottle is the best judge of comfort +I know. The empty house was an eyesore; and that I was sure it +would be too, for the same reason. However, setting the one thing +against the other, the good against the bad, the lodging very soon got +the victory over the House. My lawyer, Mr. Squares, of Crown Office +Row; Temple, drew up an agreement; which his young man jabbered over +so dreadfully when he read it to me, that I didn’t understand +one word of it except my own name; and hardly that, and I signed it, +and the other party signed it, and, in three weeks’ time, I moved +my old bones, bag and baggage, up to London.</p> +<p>For the first month or so, I arranged to leave Trottle at the Wells. +I made this arrangement, not only because there was a good deal to take +care of in the way of my school-children and pensioners, and also of +a new stove in the hall to air the house in my absence, which appeared +to me calculated to blow up and burst; but, likewise because I suspect +Trottle (though the steadiest of men, and a widower between sixty and +seventy) to be what I call rather a Philanderer. I mean, that +when any friend comes down to see me and brings a maid, Trottle is always +remarkably ready to show that maid the Wells of an evening; and that +I have more than once noticed the shadow of his arm, outside the room +door nearly opposite my chair, encircling that maid’s waist on +the landing, like a table-cloth brush.</p> +<p>Therefore, I thought it just as well, before any London Philandering +took place, that I should have a little time to look round me, and to +see what girls were in and about the place. So, nobody stayed +with me in my new lodging at first after Trottle had established me +there safe and sound, but Peggy Flobbins, my maid; a most affectionate +and attached woman, who never was an object of Philandering since I +have known her, and is not likely to begin to become so after nine-and-twenty +years next March.</p> +<p>It was the fifth of November when I first breakfasted in my new rooms. +The Guys were going about in the brown fog, like magnified monsters +of insects in table-beer, and there was a Guy resting on the door-steps +of the House to Let. I put on my glasses, partly to see how the +boys were pleased with what I sent them out by Peggy, and partly to +make sure that she didn’t approach too near the ridiculous object, +which of course was full of sky-rockets, and might go off into bangs +at any moment. In this way it happened that the first time I ever +looked at the House to Let, after I became its opposite neighbour, I +had my glasses on. And this might not have happened once in fifty +times, for my sight is uncommonly good for my time of life; and I wear +glasses as little as I can, for fear of spoiling it.</p> +<p>I knew already that it was a ten-roomed house, very dirty, and much +dilapidated; that the area-rails were rusty and peeling away, and that +two or three of them were wanting, or half-wanting; that there were +broken panes of glass in the windows, and blotches of mud on other panes, +which the boys had thrown at them; that there was quite a collection +of stones in the area, also proceeding from those Young Mischiefs; that +there were games chalked on the pavement before the house, and likenesses +of ghosts chalked on the street-door; that the windows were all darkened +by rotting old blinds, or shutters, or both; that the bills “To +Let,” had curled up, as if the damp air of the place had given +them cramps; or had dropped down into corners, as if they were no more. +I had seen all this on my first visit, and I had remarked to Trottle, +that the lower part of the black board about terms was split away; that +the rest had become illegible, and that the very stone of the door-steps +was broken across. Notwithstanding, I sat at my breakfast table +on that Please to Remember the fifth of November morning, staring at +the House through my glasses, as if I had never looked at it before.</p> +<p>All at once—in the first-floor window on my right—down +in a low corner, at a hole in a blind or a shutter—I found that +I was looking at a secret Eye. The reflection of my fire may have +touched it and made it shine; but, I saw it shine and vanish.</p> +<p>The eye might have seen me, or it might not have seen me, sitting +there in the glow of my fire—you can take which probability you +prefer, without offence—but something struck through my frame, +as if the sparkle of this eye had been electric, and had flashed straight +at me. It had such an effect upon me, that I could not remain +by myself, and I rang for Flobbins, and invented some little jobs for +her, to keep her in the room. After my breakfast was cleared away, +I sat in the same place with my glasses on, moving my head, now so, +and now so, trying whether, with the shining of my fire and the flaws +in the window-glass, I could reproduce any sparkle seeming to be up +there, that was like the sparkle of an eye. But no; I could make +nothing like it. I could make ripples and crooked lines in the +front of the House to Let, and I could even twist one window up and +loop it into another; but, I could make no eye, nor anything like an +eye. So I convinced myself that I really had seen an eye.</p> +<p>Well, to be sure I could not get rid of the impression of this eye, +and it troubled me and troubled me, until it was almost a torment. +I don’t think I was previously inclined to concern my head much +about the opposite House; but, after this eye, my head was full of the +house; and I thought of little else than the house, and I watched the +house, and I talked about the house, and I dreamed of the house. +In all this, I fully believe now, there was a good Providence. +But, you will judge for yourself about that, bye-and-bye.</p> +<p>My landlord was a butler, who had married a cook, and set up housekeeping. +They had not kept house longer than a couple of years, and they knew +no more about the House to Let than I did. Neither could I find +out anything concerning it among the trades-people or otherwise; further +than what Trottle had told me at first. It had been empty, some +said six years, some said eight, some said ten. It never did let, +they all agreed, and it never would let.</p> +<p>I soon felt convinced that I should work myself into one of my states +about the House; and I soon did. I lived for a whole month in +a flurry, that was always getting worse. Towers’s prescriptions, +which I had brought to London with me, were of no more use than nothing. +In the cold winter sunlight, in the thick winter fog, in the black winter +rain, in the white winter snow, the House was equally on my mind. +I have heard, as everybody else has, of a spirit’s haunting a +house; but I have had my own personal experience of a house’s +haunting a spirit; for that House haunted mine.</p> +<p>In all that month’s time, I never saw anyone go into the House +nor come out of the House. I supposed that such a thing must take +place sometimes, in the dead of the night, or the glimmer of the morning; +but, I never saw it done. I got no relief from having my curtains +drawn when it came on dark, and shutting out the House. The Eye +then began to shine in my fire.</p> +<p>I am a single old woman. I should say at once, without being +at all afraid of the name, I am an old maid; only that I am older than +the phrase would express. The time was when I had my love-trouble, +but, it is long and long ago. He was killed at sea (Dear Heaven +rest his blessed head!) when I was twenty-five. I have all my +life, since ever I can remember, been deeply fond of children. +I have always felt such a love for them, that I have had my sorrowful +and sinful times when I have fancied something must have gone wrong +in my life—something must have been turned aside from its original +intention I mean—or I should have been the proud and happy mother +of many children, and a fond old grandmother this day. I have +soon known better in the cheerfulness and contentment that God has blessed +me with and given me abundant reason for; and yet I have had to dry +my eyes even then, when I have thought of my dear, brave, hopeful, handsome, +bright-eyed Charley, and the trust meant to cheer me with. Charley +was my youngest brother, and he went to India. He married there, +and sent his gentle little wife home to me to be confined, and she was +to go back to him, and the baby was to be left with me, and I was to +bring it up. It never belonged to this life. It took its +silent place among the other incidents in my story that might have been, +but never were. I had hardly time to whisper to her “Dead +my own!” or she to answer, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust! +O lay it on my breast and comfort Charley!” when she had gone +to seek her baby at Our Saviour’s feet. I went to Charley, +and I told him there was nothing left but me, poor me; and I lived with +Charley, out there, several years. He was a man of fifty, when +he fell asleep in my arms. His face had changed to be almost old +and a little stern; but, it softened, and softened when I laid it down +that I might cry and pray beside it; and, when I looked at it for the +last time, it was my dear, untroubled, handsome, youthful Charley of +long ago.</p> +<p>—I was going on to tell that the loneliness of the House to +Let brought back all these recollections, and that they had quite pierced +my heart one evening, when Flobbins, opening the door, and looking very +much as if she wanted to laugh but thought better of it, said:</p> +<p>“Mr. Jabez Jarber, ma’am!”</p> +<p>Upon which Mr. Jarber ambled in, in his usual absurd way, saying:</p> +<p>“Sophonisba!”</p> +<p>Which I am obliged to confess is my name. A pretty one and +proper one enough when it was given to me: but, a good many years out +of date now, and always sounding particularly high-flown and comical +from his lips. So I said, sharply:</p> +<p>“Though it is Sophonisba, Jarber, you are not obliged to mention +it, that <i>I</i> see.”</p> +<p>In reply to this observation, the ridiculous man put the tips of +my five right-hand fingers to his lips, and said again, with an aggravating +accent on the third syllable:</p> +<p>“Sophon<i>is</i>ba!”</p> +<p>I don’t burn lamps, because I can’t abide the smell of +oil, and wax candles belonged to my day. I hope the convenient +situation of one of my tall old candlesticks on the table at my elbow +will be my excuse for saying, that if he did that again, I would chop +his toes with it. (I am sorry to add that when I told him so, I knew +his toes to be tender.) But, really, at my time of life and at +Jarber’s, it is too much of a good thing. There is an orchestra +still standing in the open air at the Wells, before which, in the presence +of a throng of fine company, I have walked a minuet with Jarber. +But, there is a house still standing, in which I have worn a pinafore, +and had a tooth drawn by fastening a thread to the tooth and the door-handle, +and toddling away from the door. And how should I look now, at +my years, in a pinafore, or having a door for my dentist?</p> +<p>Besides, Jarber always was more or less an absurd man. He was +sweetly dressed, and beautifully perfumed, and many girls of my day +would have given their ears for him; though I am bound to add that he +never cared a fig for them, or their advances either, and that he was +very constant to me. For, he not only proposed to me before my +love-happiness ended in sorrow, but afterwards too: not once, nor yet +twice: nor will we say how many times. However many they were, +or however few they were, the last time he paid me that compliment was +immediately after he had presented me with a digestive dinner-pill stuck +on the point of a pin. And I said on that occasion, laughing heartily, +“Now, Jarber, if you don’t know that two people whose united +ages would make about a hundred and fifty, have got to be old, I do; +and I beg to swallow this nonsense in the form of this pill” (which +I took on the spot), “and I request to, hear no more of it.”</p> +<p>After that, he conducted himself pretty well. He was always +a little squeezed man, was Jarber, in little sprigged waistcoats; and +he had always little legs and a little smile, and a little voice, and +little round-about ways. As long as I can remember him he was +always going little errands for people, and carrying little gossip. +At this present time when he called me “Sophonisba!” he +had a little old-fashioned lodging in that new neighbourhood of mine. +I had not seen him for two or three years, but I had heard that he still +went out with a little perspective-glass and stood on door-steps in +Saint James’s Street, to see the nobility go to Court; and went +in his little cloak and goloshes outside Willis’s rooms to see +them go to Almack’s; and caught the frightfullest colds, and got +himself trodden upon by coachmen and linkmen, until he went home to +his landlady a mass of bruises, and had to be nursed for a month.</p> +<p>Jarber took off his little fur-collared cloak, and sat down opposite +me, with his little cane and hat in his hand.</p> +<p>“Let us have no more Sophonisbaing, if <i>you</i> please, Jarber,” +I said. “Call me Sarah. How do you do? I hope +you are pretty well.”</p> +<p>“Thank you. And you?” said Jarber.</p> +<p>“I am as well as an old woman can expect to be.”</p> +<p>Jarber was beginning:</p> +<p>“Say, not old, Sophon—” but I looked at the candlestick, +and he left off; pretending not to have said anything.</p> +<p>“I am infirm, of course,” I said, “and so are you. +Let us both be thankful it’s no worse.”</p> +<p>“Is it possible that you look worried?” said Jarber.</p> +<p>“It is very possible. I have no doubt it is the fact.”</p> +<p>“And what has worried my Soph-, soft-hearted friend,” +said Jarber.</p> +<p>“Something not easy, I suppose, to comprehend. I am worried +to death by a House to Let, over the way.”</p> +<p>Jarber went with his little tip-toe step to the window-curtains, +peeped out, and looked round at me.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said I, in answer: “that house.”</p> +<p>After peeping out again, Jarber came back to his chair with a tender +air, and asked: “How does it worry you, S-arah?”</p> +<p>“It is a mystery to me,” said I. “Of course +every house <i>is</i> a mystery, more or less; but, something that I +don’t care to mention” (for truly the Eye was so slight +a thing to mention that I was more than half ashamed of it), “has +made that House so mysterious to me, and has so fixed it in my mind, +that I have had no peace for a month. I foresee that I shall have +no peace, either, until Trottle comes to me, next Monday.”</p> +<p>I might have mentioned before, that there is a lone-standing jealousy +between Trottle and Jarber; and that there is never any love lost between +those two.</p> +<p>“<i>Trottle</i>,” petulantly repeated Jarber, with a +little flourish of his cane; “how is <i>Trottle</i> to restore +the lost peace of Sarah?”</p> +<p>“He will exert himself to find out something about the House. +I have fallen into that state about it, that I really must discover +by some means or other, good or bad, fair or foul, how and why it is +that that House remains To Let.”</p> +<p>“And why Trottle? Why not,” putting his little +hat to his heart; “why not, Jarber?”</p> +<p>“To tell you the truth, I have never thought of Jarber in the +matter. And now I do think of Jarber, through your having the +kindness to suggest him—for which I am really and truly obliged +to you—I don’t think he could do it.”</p> +<p>“Sarah!”</p> +<p>“I think it would be too much for you, Jarber.”</p> +<p>“Sarah!”</p> +<p>“There would be coming and going, and fetching and carrying, +Jarber, and you might catch cold.”</p> +<p>“Sarah! What can be done by Trottle, can be done by me. +I am on terms of acquaintance with every person of responsibility in +this parish. I am intimate at the Circulating Library. I +converse daily with the Assessed Taxes. I lodge with the Water +Rate. I know the Medical Man. I lounge habitually at the +House Agent’s. I dine with the Churchwardens. I move +to the Guardians. Trottle! A person in the sphere of a domestic, +and totally unknown to society!”</p> +<p>“Don’t be warm, Jarber. In mentioning Trottle, +I have naturally relied on my Right-Hand, who would take any trouble +to gratify even a whim of his old mistress’s. But, if you +can find out anything to help to unravel the mystery of this House to +Let, I shall be fully as much obliged to you as if there was never a +Trottle in the land.”</p> +<p>Jarber rose and put on his little cloak. A couple of fierce +brass lions held it tight round his little throat; but a couple of the +mildest Hares might have done that, I am sure. “Sarah,” +he said, “I go. Expect me on Monday evening, the Sixth, +when perhaps you will give me a cup of tea;—may I ask for no Green? +Adieu!”</p> +<p>This was on a Thursday, the second of December. When I reflected +that Trottle would come back on Monday, too, I had my misgivings as +to the difficulty of keeping the two powers from open warfare, and indeed +I was more uneasy than I quite like to confess. However, the empty +House swallowed up that thought next morning, as it swallowed up most +other thoughts now, and the House quite preyed upon me all that day, +and all the Saturday.</p> +<p>It was a very wet Sunday: raining and blowing from morning to night. +When the bells rang for afternoon church, they seemed to ring in the +commotion of the puddles as well as in the wind, and they sounded very +loud and dismal indeed, and the street looked very dismal indeed, and +the House looked dismallest of all.</p> +<p>I was reading my prayers near the light, and my fire was growing +in the darkening window-glass, when, looking up, as I prayed for the +fatherless children and widows and all who were desolate and oppressed,—I +saw the Eye again. It passed in a moment, as it had done before; +but, this time, I was inwardly more convinced that I had seen it.</p> +<p>Well to be sure, I <i>had</i> a night that night! Whenever +I closed my own eyes, it was to see eyes. Next morning, at an +unreasonably, and I should have said (but for that railroad) an impossibly +early hour, comes Trottle. As soon as he had told me all about +the Wells, I told him all about the House. He listened with as +great interest and attention as I could possibly wish, until I came +to Jabez Jarber, when he cooled in an instant, and became opinionated.</p> +<p>“Now, Trottle,” I said, pretending not to notice, “when +Mr. Jarber comes back this evening, we must all lay our heads together.”</p> +<p>“I should hardly think that would be wanted, ma’am; Mr. +Jarber’s head is surely equal to anything.”</p> +<p>Being determined not to notice, I said again, that we must all lay +our heads together.</p> +<p>“Whatever you order, ma’am, shall be obeyed. Still, +it cannot be doubted, I should think, that Mr. Jarber’s head is +equal, if not superior, to any pressure that can be brought to bear +upon it.”</p> +<p>This was provoking; and his way, when he came in and out all through +the day, of pretending not to see the House to Let, was more provoking +still. However, being quite resolved not to notice, I gave no +sign whatever that I did notice. But, when evening came, and he +showed in Jarber, and, when Jarber wouldn’t be helped off with +his cloak, and poked his cane into cane chair-backs and china ornaments +and his own eye, in trying to unclasp his brazen lions of himself (which +he couldn’t do, after all), I could have shaken them both.</p> +<p>As it was, I only shook the tea-pot, and made the tea. Jarber +had brought from under his cloak, a roll of paper, with which he had +triumphantly pointed over the way, like the Ghost of Hamlet’s +Father appearing to the late Mr. Kemble, and which he had laid on the +table.</p> +<p>“A discovery?” said I, pointing to it, when he was seated, +and had got his tea-cup.—“Don’t go, Trottle.”</p> +<p>“The first of a series of discoveries,” answered Jarber. +“Account of a former tenant, compiled from the Water Rate, and +Medical Man.”</p> +<p>“Don’t go, Trottle,” I repeated. For, I saw +him making imperceptibly to the door.</p> +<p>“Begging your pardon, ma’am, I might be in Mr. Jarber’s +way?”</p> +<p>Jarber looked that he decidedly thought he might be. I relieved +myself with a good angry croak, and said—always determined not +to notice:</p> +<p>“Have the goodness to sit down, if you please, Trottle. +I wish you to hear this.”</p> +<p>Trottle bowed in the stiffest manner, and took the remotest chair +he could find. Even that, he moved close to the draught from the +keyhole of the door.</p> +<p>“Firstly,” Jarber began, after sipping his tea, “would +my Sophon—”</p> +<p>“Begin again, Jarber,” said I.</p> +<p>“Would you be much surprised, if this House to Let should turn +out to be the property of a relation of your own?”</p> +<p>“I should indeed be very much surprised.”</p> +<p>“Then it belongs to your first cousin (I learn, by the way, +that he is ill at this time) George Forley.”</p> +<p>“Then that is a bad beginning. I cannot deny that George +Forley stands in the relation of first cousin to me; but I hold no communication +with him. George Forley has been a hard, bitter, stony father +to a child now dead. George Forley was most implacable and unrelenting +to one of his two daughters who made a poor marriage. George Forley +brought all the weight of his band to bear as heavily against that crushed +thing, as he brought it to bear lightly, favouringly, and advantageously +upon her sister, who made a rich marriage. I hope that, with the +measure George Forley meted, it may not be measured out to him again. +I will give George Forley no worse wish.”</p> +<p>I was strong upon the subject, and I could not keep the tears out +of my eyes; for, that young girl’s was a cruel story, and I had +dropped many a tear over it before.</p> +<p>“The house being George Forley’s,” said I, “is +almost enough to account for there being a Fate upon it, if Fate there +is. Is there anything about George Forley in those sheets of paper?”</p> +<p>“Not a word.”</p> +<p>“I am glad to hear it. Please to read on. Trottle, +why don’t you come nearer? Why do you sit mortifying yourself +in those arctic regions? Come nearer.”</p> +<p>“Thank you, ma’am; I am quite near enough to Mr. Jarber.”</p> +<p>Jarber rounded his chair, to get his back full to my opinionated +friend and servant, and, beginning to read, tossed the words at him +over his (Jabez Jarber’s) own ear and shoulder.</p> +<p>He read what follows:</p> +<div class='chapter' /><h2>THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE</h2> +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw came from Manchester to London and took the +House To Let. He had been, what is called in Lancashire, a Salesman +for a large manufacturing firm, who were extending their business, and +opening a warehouse in London; where Mr. Openshaw was now to superintend +the business. He rather enjoyed the change of residence; having +a kind of curiosity about London, which he had never yet been able to +gratify in his brief visits to the metropolis. At the same time +he had an odd, shrewd, contempt for the inhabitants; whom he had always +pictured to himself as fine, lazy people; caring nothing but for fashion +and aristocracy, and lounging away their days in Bond Street, and such +places; ruining good English, and ready in their turn to despise him +as a provincial. The hours that the men of business kept in the +city scandalised him too; accustomed as he was to the early dinners +of Manchester folk, and the consequently far longer evenings. +Still, he was pleased to go to London; though he would not for the world +have confessed it, even to himself, and always spoke of the step to +his friends as one demanded of him by the interests of his employers, +and sweetened to him by a considerable increase of salary. His +salary indeed was so liberal that he might have been justified in taking +a much larger House than this one, had he not thought himself bound +to set an example to Londoners of how little a Manchester man of business +cared for show. Inside, however, he furnished the House with an +unusual degree of comfort, and, in the winter time, he insisted on keeping +up as large fires as the grates would allow, in every room where the +temperature was in the least chilly. Moreover, his northern sense +of hospitality was such, that, if he were at home, he could hardly suffer +a visitor to leave the house without forcing meat and drink upon him. +Every servant in the house was well warmed, well fed, and kindly treated; +for their master scorned all petty saving in aught that conduced to +comfort; while he amused himself by following out all his accustomed +habits and individual ways in defiance of what any of his new neighbours +might think.</p> +<p>His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and character. +He was forty-two, she thirty-five. He was loud and decided; she +soft and yielding. They had two children or rather, I should say, +she had two; for the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs. Openshaw’s +child by Frank Wilson her first husband. The younger was a little +boy, Edwin, who could just prattle, and to whom his father delighted +to speak in the broadest and most unintelligible Lancashire dialect, +in order to keep up what he called the true Saxon accent.</p> +<p>Mrs. Openshaw’s Christian-name was Alice, and her first husband +had been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain +in Liverpool: a quiet, grave little creature, of great personal attraction +when she was fifteen or sixteen, with regular features and a blooming +complexion. But she was very shy, and believed herself to be very +stupid and awkward; and was frequently scolded by her aunt, her own +uncle’s second wife. So when her cousin, Frank Wilson, came +home from a long absence at sea, and first was kind and protective to +her; secondly, attentive and thirdly, desperately in love with her, +she hardly knew how to be grateful enough to him. It is true she +would have preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of +behaviour; for his violent love puzzled and frightened her. Her +uncle neither helped nor hindered the love affair though it was going +on under his own eyes. Frank’s step-mother had such a variable +temper, that there was no knowing whether what she liked one day she +would like the next, or not. At length she went to such extremes +of crossness, that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush +blindly at the chance of escape from domestic tyranny offered her by +a marriage with her cousin; and, liking him better than any one in the +world except her uncle (who was at this time at sea) she went off one +morning and was married to him; her only bridesmaid being the housemaid +at her aunt’s. The consequence was, that Frank and his wife +went into lodgings, and Mrs. Wilson refused to see them, and turned +away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid; whom they accordingly took into +their service. When Captain Wilson returned from his voyage, he +was very cordial with the young couple, and spent many an evening at +their lodgings; smoking his pipe, and sipping his grog; but he told +them that, for quietness’ sake, he could not ask them to his own +house; for his wife was bitter against them. They were not very +unhappy about this.</p> +<p>The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank’s vehement, +passionate disposition; which led him to resent his wife’s shyness +and want of demonstration as failures in conjugal duty. He was +already tormenting himself, and her too, in a slighter degree, by apprehensions +and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching absence +at sea. At last he went to his father and urged him to insist +upon Alice’s being once more received under his roof; the more +especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her +husband was away on his voyage. Captain Wilson was, as he himself +expressed it, “breaking up,” and unwilling to undergo the +excitement of a scene; yet he felt that what his son said was true. +So he went to his wife. And before Frank went to sea, he had the +comfort of seeing his wife installed in her old little garret in his +father’s house. To have placed her in the one best spare +room was a step beyond Mrs. Wilson’s powers of submission or generosity. +The worst part about it, however, was that the faithful Norah had to +be dismissed. Her place as housemaid had been filled up; and, +even had it not, she had forfeited Mrs. Wilson’s good opinion +for ever. She comforted her young master and mistress by pleasant +prophecies of the time when they would have a household of their own; +of which, in whatever service she might be in the meantime, she should +be sure to form part. Almost the last action Frank Wilson did, +before setting sail, was going with Alice to see Norah once more at +her mother’s house. And then he went away.</p> +<p>Alice’s father-in-law grew more and more feeble as winter advanced. +She was of great use to her step-mother in nursing and amusing him; +and, although there was anxiety enough in the household, there was perhaps +more of peace than there had been for years; for Mrs. Wilson had not +a bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death to one +whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition of the young creature, +expecting her first confinement in her husband’s absence. +To this relenting mood Norah owed the permission to come and nurse Alice +when her baby was born, and to remain to attend on Captain Wilson.</p> +<p>Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had sailed for +the East Indies and China), his father died. Alice was always +glad to remember that he had held her baby in his arms, and kissed and +blessed it before his death. After that, and the consequent examination +into the state of his affairs, it was found that he had left far less +property than people had been led by his style of living to imagine; +and, what money there was, was all settled upon his wife, and at her +disposal after her death. This did not signify much to Alice, +as Frank was now first mate of his ship, and, in another voyage or two, +would be captain. Meanwhile he had left her some hundreds (all +his savings) in the bank.</p> +<p>It became time for Alice to hear from her husband. One letter +from the Cape she had already received. The next was to announce +his arrival in India. As week after week passed over, and no intelligence +of the ship’s arrival reached the office of the owners, and the +Captain’s wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice +herself, her fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came +when, in reply to her inquiry at the Shipping Office, they told her +that the owners had given up Hope of ever hearing more of the Betsy-Jane, +and had sent in their claim upon the underwriters. Now that he +was gone for ever, she first felt a yearning, longing love for the kind +cousin, the dear friend, the sympathising protector, whom she should +never see again,—first felt a passionate desire to show him his +child, whom she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself—her +own sole possession. Her grief was, however, noiseless, and quiet—rather +to the scandal of Mrs. Wilson; who bewailed her step-son as if he and +she had always lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently +thought it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face +she saw; dwelling on his poor young widow’s desolate state, and +the helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction, as if she +liked the excitement of the sorrowful story.</p> +<p>So passed away the first days of Alice’s widowhood. Bye-and-bye +things subsided into their natural and tranquil course. But, as +if this young creature was always to be in some heavy trouble, her ewe-lamb +began to be ailing, pining and sickly. The child’s mysterious +illness turned out to be some affection of the spine likely to affect +health; but not to shorten life—at least so the doctors said. +But the long dreary suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved +her only child, is hard to look forward to. Only Norah guessed +what Alice suffered; no one but God knew.</p> +<p>And so it fell out, that when Mrs. Wilson, the elder, came to her +one day in violent distress, occasioned by a very material diminution +in the value the property that her husband had left her,—a diminution +which made her income barely enough to support herself, much less Alice—the +latter could hardly understand how anything which did not touch health +or life could cause such grief; and she received the intelligence with +irritating composure. But when, that afternoon, the little sick +child was brought in, and the grandmother—who after all loved +it well—began a fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious +ears—saying how she had planned to consult this or that doctor, +and to give it this or that comfort or luxury in after yearn but that +now all chance of this had passed away—Alice’s heart was +touched, and she drew near to Mrs. Wilson with unwonted caresses, and, +in a spirit not unlike to that of Ruth, entreated, that come what would, +they might remain together. After much discussion in succeeding +days, it was arranged that Mrs. Wilson should take a house in Manchester, +furnishing it partly with what furniture she had, and providing the +rest with Alice’s remaining two hundred pounds. Mrs. Wilson +was herself a Manchester woman, and naturally longed to return to her +native town. Some connections of her own at that time required +lodgings, for which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely. +Alice undertook the active superintendence and superior work of the +household. Norah, willing faithful Norah, offered to cook, scour, +do anything in short, so that, she might but remain with them.</p> +<p>The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers remained +with them, and all went smoothly,—with the one sad exception of +the little girl’s increasing deformity. How that mother +loved that child, is not for words to tell!</p> +<p>Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, and no +one succeeded to them. After some months they had to remove to +a smaller house; and Alice’s tender conscience was torn by the +idea that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law, but ought +to go out and seek her own maintenance. And leave her child! +The thought came like the sweeping boom of a funeral bell over her heart.</p> +<p>Bye-and-bye, Mr. Openshaw came to lodge with them. He had started +in life as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse; had struggled +up through all the grades of employment in the place, fighting his way +through the hard striving Manchester life with strong pushing energy +of character. Every spare moment of time had been sternly given +up to self-teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French +and German scholar, a keen, far-seeing tradesman; understanding markets, +and the bearing of events, both near and distant, on trade: and yet, +with such vivid attention to present details, that I do not think he +ever saw a group of flowers in the fields without thinking whether their +colours would, or would not, form harmonious contrasts in the coming +spring muslins and prints. He went to debating societies, and +threw himself with all his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, +it must be owned, every man a fool or a knave who differed from him, +and overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language +than the calm strength if his logic. There was something of the +Yankee in all this. Indeed his theory ran parallel to the famous +Yankee motto—“England flogs creation, and Manchester flogs +England.” Such a man, as may be fancied, had had no time +for falling in love, or any such nonsense. At the age when most +young men go through their courting and matrimony, he had not the means +of keeping a wife, and was far too practical to think of having one. +And now that he was in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered +women almost as incumbrances to the world, with whom a man had better +have as little to do as possible. His first impression of Alice +was indistinct, and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct. +“A pretty yea-nay kind of woman,” would have been his description +of her, if he had been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, +in the beginning, that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and +laziness of character which would have been exceedingly discordant to +his active energetic nature. But, when he found out the punctuality +with which his wishes were attended to, and her work was done; when +he was called in the morning at the very stroke of the clock, his shaving-water +scalding hot, his fire bright, his coffee made exactly as his peculiar +fancy dictated, (for he was a man who had his theory about everything, +based upon what he knew of science, and often perfectly original)—then +he began to think: not that Alice had any peculiar merit; but that he +had got into remarkably good lodgings: his restlessness wore away, and +he began to consider himself as almost settled for life in them.</p> +<p>Mr. Openshaw had been too busy, all his life, to be introspective. +He did not know that he had any tenderness in his nature; and if he +had become conscious of its abstract existence, he would have considered +it as a manifestation of disease in some part of his nature. But +he was decoyed into pity unawares; and pity led on to tenderness. +That little helpless child—always carried about by one of the +three busy women of the house, or else patiently threading coloured +beads in the chair from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever +move; the great grave blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheerful, expression, +giving to the small delicate face a look beyond its years; the soft +plaintive voice dropping out but few words, so unlike the continual +prattle of a child—caught Mr. Openshaw’s attention in spite +of himself. One day—he half scorned himself for doing so—he +cut short his dinner-hour to go in search of some toy which should take +the place of those eternal beads. I forget what he bought; but, +when he gave the present (which he took care to do in a short abrupt +manner, and when no one was by to see him) he was almost thrilled by +the flash of delight that came over that child’s face, and could +not help all through that afternoon going over and over again the picture +left on his memory, by the bright effect of unexpected joy on the little +girl’s face. When he returned home, he found his slippers +placed by his sitting-room fire; and even more careful attention paid +to his fancies than was habitual in those model lodgings. When +Alice had taken the last of his tea-things away—she had been silent +as usual till then—she stood for an instant with the door in her +hand. Mr. Openshaw looked as if he were deep in his book, though +in fact he did not see a line; but was heartily wishing the woman would +be gone, and not make any palaver of gratitude. But she only said:</p> +<p>“I am very much obliged to you, sir. Thank you very much,” +and was gone, even before he could send her away with a “There, +my good woman, that’s enough!”</p> +<p>For some time longer he took no apparent notice of the child. +He even hardened his heart into disregarding her sudden flush of colour, +and little timid smile of recognition, when he saw her by chance. +But, after all, this could not last for ever; and, having a second time +given way to tenderness, there was no relapse. The insidious enemy +having thus entered his heart, in the guise of compassion to the child, +soon assumed the more dangerous form of interest in the mother. +He was aware of this change of feeling, despised himself for it, struggled +with it nay, internally yielded to it and cherished it, long before +he suffered the slightest expression of it, by word, action, or look, +to escape him. He watched Alice’s docile obedient ways to +her stepmother; the love which she had inspired in the rough Norah (roughened +by the wear and tear of sorrow and years); but above all, he saw the +wild, deep, passionate affection existing between her and her child. +They spoke little to any one else, or when any one else was by; but, +when alone together, they talked, and murmured, and cooed, and chattered +so continually, that Mr. Openshaw first wondered what they could find +to say to each other, and next became irritated because they were always +so grave and silent with him. All this time, he was perpetually +devising small new pleasures for the child. His thoughts ran, +in a pertinacious way, upon the desolate life before her; and often +he came back from his day’s work loaded with the very thing Alice +had been longing for, but had not been able to procure. One time +it was a little chair for drawing the little sufferer along the streets, +and many an evening that ensuing summer Mr. Openshaw drew her along +himself, regardless of the remarks of his acquaintances. One day +in autumn he put down his newspaper, as Alice came in with the breakfast, +and said, in as indifferent a voice as he could assume:</p> +<p>“Mrs. Frank, is there any reason why we two should not put +up our horses together?”</p> +<p>Alice stood still in perplexed wonder. What did he mean? +He had resumed the reading of his newspaper, as if he did not expect +any answer; so she found silence her safest course, and went on quietly +arranging his breakfast without another word passing between them. +Just as he was leaving the house, to go to the warehouse as usual, he +turned back and put his head into the bright, neat, tidy kitchen, where +all the women breakfasted in the morning:</p> +<p>“You’ll think of what I said, Mrs. Frank” (this +was her name with the lodgers), “and let me have your opinion +upon it to-night.”</p> +<p>Alice was thankful that her mother and Norah were too busy talking +together to attend much to this speech. She determined not to +think about it at all through the day; and, of course, the effort not +to think made her think all the more. At night she sent up Norah +with his tea. But Mr. Openshaw almost knocked Norah down as she +was going out at the door, by pushing past her and calling out “Mrs. +Frank!” in an impatient voice, at the top of the stairs.</p> +<p>Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning +to his words.</p> +<p>“Well, Mrs. Frank,” he said, “what answer? +Don’t make it too long; for I have lots of office-work to get +through to-night.”</p> +<p>“I hardly know what you meant, sir,” said truthful Alice.</p> +<p>“Well! I should have thought you might have guessed. +You’re not new at this sort of work, and I am. However, +I’ll make it plain this time. Will you have me to be thy +wedded husband, and serve me, and love me, and honour me, and all that +sort of thing? Because if you will, I will do as much by you, +and be a father to your child—and that’s more than is put +in the prayer-book. Now, I’m a man of my word; and what +I say, I feel; and what I promise, I’ll do. Now, for your +answer!”</p> +<p>Alice was silent. He began to make the tea, as if her reply +was a matter of perfect indifference to him; but, as soon as that was +done, he became impatient.</p> +<p>“Well?” said he.</p> +<p>“How long, sir, may I have to think over it?”</p> +<p>“Three minutes!” (looking at his watch). “You’ve +had two already—that makes five. Be a sensible woman, say +Yes, and sit down to tea with me, and we’ll talk it over together; +for, after tea, I shall be busy; say No” (he hesitated a moment +to try and keep his voice in the same tone), “and I shan’t +say another word about it, but pay up a year’s rent for my rooms +to-morrow, and be off. Time’s up! Yes or no?”</p> +<p>“If you please, sir,—you have been so good to little +Ailsie—”</p> +<p>“There, sit down comfortably by me on the sofa, and let us +have our tea together. I am glad to find you are as good and sensible +as I took you for.”</p> +<p>And this was Alice Wilson’s second wooing.</p> +<p>Mr. Openshaw’s will was too strong, and his circumstances too +good, for him not to carry all before him. He settled Mrs. Wilson +in a comfortable house of her own, and made her quite independent of +lodgers. The little that Alice said with regard to future plans +was in Norah’s behalf.</p> +<p>“No,” said Mr. Openshaw. “Norah shall take +care of the old lady as long as she lives; and, after that, she shall +either come and live with us, or, if she likes it better, she shall +have a provision for life—for your sake, missus. No one +who has been good to you or the child shall go unrewarded. But +even the little one will be better for some fresh stuff about her. +Get her a bright, sensible girl as a nurse: one who won’t go rubbing +her with calf’s-foot jelly as Norah does; wasting good stuff outside +that ought to go in, but will follow doctors’ directions; which, +as you must see pretty clearly by this time, Norah won’t; because +they give the poor little wench pain. Now, I’m not above +being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and +never change colour; but, set me in the operating-room in the infirmary, +and I turn as sick as a girl. Yet, if need were, I would hold +the little wench on my knees while she screeched with pain, if it were +to do her poor back good. Nay, nay, wench! keep your white looks +for the time when it comes—I don’t say it ever will. +But this I know, Norah will spare the child and cheat the doctor if +she can. Now, I say, give the bairn a year or two’s chance, +and then, when the pack of doctors have done their best—and, maybe, +the old lady has gone—we’ll have Norah back, or do better +for her.”</p> +<p>The pack of doctors could do no good to little Ailsie. She +was beyond their power. But her father (for so he insisted on +being called, and also on Alice’s no longer retaining the appellation +of Mama, but becoming henceforward Mother), by his healthy cheerfulness +of manner, his clear decision of purpose, his odd turns and quirks of +humour, added to his real strong love for the helpless little girl, +infused a new element of brightness and confidence into her life; and, +though her back remained the same, her general health was strengthened, +and Alice—never going beyond a smile herself—had the pleasure +of seeing her child taught to laugh.</p> +<p>As for Alice’s own life, it was happier than it had ever been. +Mr. Openshaw required no demonstration, no expressions of affection +from her. Indeed, these would rather have disgusted him. +Alice could love deeply, but could not talk about it. The perpetual +requirement of loving words, looks, and caresses, and misconstruing +their absence into absence of love, had been the great trial of her +former married life. Now, all went on clear and straight, under +the guidance of her husband’s strong sense, warm heart, and powerful +will. Year by year their worldly prosperity increased. At +Mrs. Wilson’s death, Norah came back to them, as nurse to the +newly-born little Edwin; into which post she was not installed without +a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father; who +declared that if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy +by a falsehood, or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should +go that very day. Norah and Mr. Openshaw were not on the most +thoroughly cordial terms; neither of them fully recognising or appreciating +the other’s best qualities.</p> +<p>This was the previous history of the Lancashire family who had now +removed to London, and had come to occupy the House.</p> +<p>They had been there about a year, when Mr. Openshaw suddenly informed +his wife that he had determined to heal long-standing feuds, and had +asked his uncle and aunt Chadwick to come and pay them a visit and see +London. Mrs. Openshaw had never seen this uncle and aunt of her +husband’s. Years before she had married him, there had been +a quarrel. All she knew was, that Mr. Chadwick was a small manufacturer +in a country town in South Lancashire. She was extremely pleased +that the breach was to be healed, and began making preparations to render +their visit pleasant.</p> +<p>They arrived at last. Going to see London was such an event +to them, that Mrs. Chadwick had made all new linen fresh for the occasion-from +night-caps downwards; and, as for gowns, ribbons, and collars, she might +have been going into the wilds of Canada where never a shop is, so large +was her stock. A fortnight before the day of her departure for +London, she had formally called to take leave of all her acquaintance; +saying she should need all the intermediate time for packing up. +It was like a second wedding in her imagination; and, to complete the +resemblance which an entirely new wardrobe made between the two events, +her husband brought her back from Manchester, on the last market-day +before they set off, a gorgeous pearl and amethyst brooch, saying, “Lunnon +should see that Lancashire folks knew a handsome thing when they saw +it.”</p> +<p>For some time after Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick arrived at the Openshaws’, +there was no opportunity for wearing this brooch; but at length they +obtained an order to see Buckingham Palace, and the spirit of loyalty +demanded that Mrs. Chadwick should wear her best clothes in visiting +the abode of her sovereign. On her return, she hastily changed +her dress; for Mr. Openshaw had planned that they should go to Richmond, +drink tea and return by moonlight. Accordingly, about five o’clock, +Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw and Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick set off.</p> +<p>The housemaid and cook sate below, Norah hardly knew where. +She was always engrossed in the nursery, in tending her two children, +and in sitting by the restless, excitable Ailsie till she fell asleep. +Bye-and-bye, the housemaid Bessy tapped gently at the door. Norah +went to her, and they spoke in whispers.</p> +<p>“Nurse! there’s some one down-stairs wants you.”</p> +<p>“Wants me! Who is it?”</p> +<p>“A gentleman—”</p> +<p>“A gentleman? Nonsense!”</p> +<p>“Well! a man, then, and he asks for you, and he rung at the +front door bell, and has walked into the dining-room.”</p> +<p>“You should never have let him,” exclaimed Norah, “master +and missus out—”</p> +<p>“I did not want him to come in; but when he heard you lived +here, he walked past me, and sat down on the first chair, and said, +‘Tell her to come and speak to me.’ There is no gas +lighted in the room, and supper is all set out.”</p> +<p>“He’ll be off with the spoons!” exclaimed Norah, +putting the housemaid’s fear into words, and preparing to leave +the room, first, however, giving a look to Ailsie, sleeping soundly +and calmly.</p> +<p>Down-stairs she went, uneasy fears stirring in her bosom. Before +she entered the dining-room she provided herself with a candle, and, +with it in her hand, she went in, looking round her in the darkness +for her visitor.</p> +<p>He was standing up, holding by the table. Norah and he looked +at each other; gradual recognition coming into their eyes.</p> +<p>“Norah?” at length he asked.</p> +<p>“Who are you?” asked Norah, with the sharp tones of alarm +and incredulity. “I don’t know you:” trying, +by futile words of disbelief, to do away with the terrible fact before +her.</p> +<p>“Am I so changed?” he said, pathetically. “I +daresay I am. But, Norah, tell me!” he breathed hard, “where +is my wife? Is she—is she alive?”</p> +<p>He came nearer to Norah, and would have taken her hand; but she backed +away from him; looking at him all the time with staring eyes, as if +he were some horrible object. Yet he was a handsome, bronzed, +good-looking fellow, with beard and moustache, giving him a foreign-looking +aspect; but his eyes! there was no mistaking those eager, beautiful +eyes—the very same that Norah had watched not half-an-hour ago, +till sleep stole softly over them.</p> +<p>“Tell me, Norah—I can bear it—I have feared it +so often. Is she dead?” Norah still kept silence. +“She is dead!” He hung on Norah’s words and +looks, as if for confirmation or contradiction.</p> +<p>“What shall I do?” groaned Norah. “O, sir! +why did you come? how did you find me out? where have you been? +We thought you dead, we did, indeed!” She poured out words +and questions to gain time, as if time would help her.</p> +<p>“Norah! answer me this question, straight, by yes or no—Is +my wife dead?”</p> +<p>“No, she is not!” said Norah, slowly and heavily.</p> +<p>“O what a relief! Did she receive my letters? But +perhaps you don’t know. Why did you leave her? Where +is she? O Norah, tell me all quickly!”</p> +<p>“Mr. Frank!” said Norah at last, almost driven to bay +by her terror lest her mistress should return at any moment, and find +him there—unable to consider what was best to be done or said—rushing +at something decisive, because she could not endure her present state: +“Mr. Frank! we never heard a line from you, and the shipowners +said you had gone down, you and every one else. We thought you +were dead, if ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little sick, +helpless child! O, sir, you must guess it,” cried the poor +creature at last, bursting out into a passionate fit of crying, “for +indeed I cannot tell it. But it was no one’s fault. +God help us all this night!”</p> +<p>Norah had sate down. She trembled too much to stand. +He took her hands in his. He squeezed them hard, as if by physical +pressure, the truth could be wrung out.</p> +<p>“Norah!” This time his tone was calm, stagnant +as despair. “She has married again!”</p> +<p>Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. +The man had fainted.</p> +<p>There was brandy in the room. Norah forced some drops into +Mr. Frank’s mouth, chafed his hands, and—when mere animal +life returned, before the mind poured in its flood of memories and thoughts—she +lifted him up, and rested his head against her knees. Then she +put a few crumbs of bread taken from the supper-table, soaked in brandy +into his mouth. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.</p> +<p>“Where is she? Tell me this instant.” He +looked so wild, so mad, so desperate, that Norah felt herself to be +in bodily danger; but her time of dread had gone by. She had been +afraid to tell him the truth, and then she had been a coward. +Now, her wits were sharpened by the sense of his desperate state. +He must leave the house. She would pity him afterwards; but now +she must rather command and upbraid; for he must leave the house before +her mistress came home. That one necessity stood clear before +her.</p> +<p>“She is not here; that is enough for you to know. Nor +can I say exactly where she is” (which was true to the letter +if not to the spirit). “Go away, and tell me where to find +you to-morrow, and I will tell you all. My master and mistress +may come back at any minute, and then what would become of me with a +strange man in the house?”</p> +<p>Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.</p> +<p>“I don’t care for your master and mistress. If +your master is a man, he must feel for me poor shipwrecked sailor that +I am—kept for years a prisoner amongst savages, always, always, +always thinking of my wife and my home—dreaming of her by night, +talking to her, though she could not hear, by day. I loved her +more than all heaven and earth put together. Tell me where she +is, this instant, you wretched woman, who salved over her wickedness +to her, as you do to me.”</p> +<p>The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate +measures.</p> +<p>“If you will leave the house now, I will come to you to-morrow +and tell you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. +She lies sleeping up-stairs. O, sir, you have a child, you do +not know that as yet—a little weakly girl—with just a heart +and soul beyond her years. We have reared her up with such care: +We watched her, for we thought for many a year she might die any day, +and we tended her, and no hard thing has come near her, and no rough +word has ever been said to her. And now you, come and will take +her life into your hand, and will crush it. Strangers to her have +been kind to her; but her own father—Mr. Frank, I am her nurse, +and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do anything for her that +I could. Her mother’s heart beats as hers beats; and, if +she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is happy, +it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing stronger, +her mother is healthy: if she dwindles, her mother languishes. +If she dies—well, I don’t know: it is not every one can +lie down and die when they wish it. Come up-stairs, Mr. Frank, +and see your child. Seeing her will do good to your poor heart. +Then go away, in God’s name, just this one night—to-morrow, if +need be, you can do anything—kill us all if you will, or show +yourself—a great grand man, whom God will bless for ever and ever. +Come, Mr. Frank, the look of a sleeping child is sure to give peace.”</p> +<p>She led him up-stairs; at first almost helping his steps, till they +came near the nursery door. She had almost forgotten the existence +of little Edwin. It struck upon her with affright as the shaded +light fell upon the other cot; but she skilfully threw that corner of +the room into darkness, and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie. +The child had thrown down the coverings, and her deformity, as she lay +with her back to them, was plainly visible through her slight night-gown. +Her little face, deprived of the lustre of her eyes, looked wan and +pinched, and had a pathetic expression in it, even as she slept. +The poor father looked and looked with hungry, wistful eyes, into which +the big tears came swelling up slowly, and dropped heavily down, as +he stood trembling and shaking all over. Norah was angry with +herself for growing impatient of the length of time that long lingering +gaze lasted. She thought that she waited for full half-an-hour +before Frank stirred. And then—instead of going away—he +sank down on his knees by the bedside, and buried his face in the clothes. +Little Ailsie stirred uneasily. Norah pulled him up in terror. +She could afford no more time even for prayer in her extremity of fear; +for surely the next moment would bring her mistress home. She +took him forcibly by the arm; but, as he was going, his eye lighted +on the other bed: he stopped. Intelligence came back into his +face. His hands clenched.</p> +<p>“His child?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Her child,” replied Norah. “God watches +over him,” said she instinctively; for Frank’s looks excited +her fears, and she needed to remind herself of the Protector of the +helpless.</p> +<p>“God has not watched over me,” he said, in despair; his +thoughts apparently recoiling on his own desolate, deserted state. +But Norah had no time for pity. To-morrow she would be as compassionate +as her heart prompted. At length she guided him downstairs and +shut the outer door and bolted it—as if by bolts to keep out facts.</p> +<p>Then she went back into the dining-room and effaced all traces of +his presence as far as she could. She went upstairs to the nursery +and sate there, her head on her hand, thinking what was to come of all +this misery. It seemed to her very long before they did return; +yet it was hardly eleven o’clock. She so heard the loud, +hearty Lancashire voices on the stairs; and, for the first time, she +understood the contrast of the desolation of the poor man who had so +lately gone forth in lonely despair.</p> +<p>It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs. Openshaw come in, calmly +smiling, handsomely dressed, happy, easy, to inquire after her children.</p> +<p>“Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably?” she whispered to +Norah.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>Her mother bent over her, looking at her slumbers with the soft eyes +of love. How little she dreamed who had looked on her last! +Then she went to Edwin, with perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance, +but more of pride. She took off her things, to go down to supper. +Norah saw her no more that night.</p> +<p>Beside the door into the passage, the sleeping-nursery opened out +of Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw’s room, in order that they might have +the children more immediately under their own eyes. Early the +next summer morning Mrs. Openshaw was awakened by Ailsie’s startled +call of “Mother! mother!” She sprang up, put on her +dressing-gown, and went to her child. Ailsie was only half awake, +and in a not uncommon state of terror.</p> +<p>“Who was he, mother? Tell me!”</p> +<p>“Who, my darling? No one is here. You have been +dreaming love. Waken up quite. See, it is broad daylight.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Ailsie, looking round her; then clinging +to her mother, said, “but a man was here in the night, mother.”</p> +<p>“Nonsense, little goose. No man has ever come near you!”</p> +<p>“Yes, he did. He stood there. Just by Norah. +A man with hair and a beard. And he knelt down and said his prayers. +Norah knows he was here, mother” (half angrily, as Mrs. Openshaw +shook her head in smiling incredulity).</p> +<p>“Well! we will ask Norah when she comes,” said Mrs. Openshaw, +soothingly. “But we won’t talk any more about him +now. It is not five o’clock; it is too early for you to +get up. Shall I fetch you a book and read to you?”</p> +<p>“Don’t leave me, mother,” said the child, clinging +to her. So Mrs. Openshaw sate on the bedside talking to Ailsie, +and telling her of what they had done at Richmond the evening before, +until the little girl’s eyes slowly closed and she once more fell +asleep.</p> +<p>“What was the matter?” asked Mr. Openshaw, as his wife +returned to bed. “Ailsie wakened up in a fright, with some +story of a man having been in the room to say his prayers,—a dream, +I suppose.” And no more was said at the time.</p> +<p>Mrs. Openshaw had almost forgotten the whole affair when she got +up about seven o’clock. But, bye-and-bye, she heard a sharp +altercation going on in the nursery. Norah speaking angrily to +Ailsie, a most unusual thing. Both Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw listened +in astonishment.</p> +<p>“Hold your tongue, Ailsie! let me hear none of your dreams; +never let me hear you tell that story again!” Ailsie began to +cry.</p> +<p>Mr. Openshaw opened the door of communication before his wife could +say a word.</p> +<p>“Norah, come here!”</p> +<p>The nurse stood at the door, defiant. She perceived she had +been heard, but she was desperate.</p> +<p>“Don’t let me hear you speak in that manner to Ailsie +again,” he said sternly, and shut the door.</p> +<p>Norah was infinitely relieved; for she had dreaded some questioning; +and a little blame for sharp speaking was what she could well bear, +if cross-examination was let alone.</p> +<p>Down-stairs they went, Mr. Openshaw carrying Ailsie; the sturdy Edwin +coming step by step, right foot foremost, always holding his mother’s +hand. Each child was placed in a chair by the breakfast-table, +and then Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw stood together at the window, awaiting +their visitors’ appearance and making plans for the day. +There was a pause. Suddenly Mr. Openshaw turned to Ailsie, and +said:</p> +<p>“What a little goosy somebody is with her dreams, waking up +poor, tired mother in the middle of the night with a story of a man +being in the room.”</p> +<p>“Father! I’m sure I saw him,” said Ailsie, +half crying. “I don’t want to make Norah angry; but +I was not asleep, for all she says I was. I had been asleep,—and +I awakened up quite wide awake though I was so frightened. I kept +my eyes nearly shut, and I saw the man quite plain. A great brown +man with a beard. He said his prayers. And then he looked +at Edwin. And then Norah took him by the arm and led him away, +after they had whispered a bit together.”</p> +<p>“Now, my little woman must be reasonable,” said Mr. Openshaw, +who was always patient with Ailsie. “There was no man in +the house last night at all. No man comes into the house as you +know, if you think; much less goes up into the nursery. But sometimes +we dream something has happened, and the dream is so like reality, that +you are not the first person, little woman, who has stood out that the +thing has really happened.”</p> +<p>“But, indeed it was not a dream!” said Ailsie, beginning +to cry.</p> +<p>Just then Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick came down, looking grave and discomposed. +All during breakfast time they were silent and uncomfortable. +As soon as the breakfast things were taken away, and the children had +been carried up-stairs, Mr. Chadwick began in an evidently preconcerted +manner to inquire if his nephew was certain that all his servants were +honest; for, that Mrs. Chadwick had that morning missed a very valuable +brooch, which she had worn the day before. She remembered taking +it off when she came home from Buckingham Palace. Mr. Openshaw’s +face contracted into hard lines: grew like what it was before he had +known his wife and her child. He rang the bell even before his +uncle had done speaking. It was answered by the housemaid.</p> +<p>“Mary, was any one here last night while we were away?”</p> +<p>“A man, sir, came to speak to Norah.”</p> +<p>“To speak to Norah! Who was he? How long did he +stay?”</p> +<p>“I’m sure I can’t tell, sir. He came—perhaps +about nine. I went up to tell Norah in the nursery, and she came +down to speak to him. She let him out, sir. She will know +who he was, and how long he stayed.”</p> +<p>She waited a moment to be asked any more questions, but she was not, +so she went away.</p> +<p>A minute afterwards Openshaw made as though he were going out of +the room; but his wife laid her hand on his arm:</p> +<p>“Do not speak to her before the children,” she said, +in her low, quiet voice. “I will go up and question her.”</p> +<p>“No! I must speak to her. You must know,” +said he, turning to his uncle and aunt, “my missus has an old +servant, as faithful as ever woman was, I do believe, as far as love +goes,—but, at the same time, who does not always speak truth, +as even the missus must allow. Now, my notion is, that this Norah +of ours has been come over by some good-for-nothin chap (for she’s +at the time o’ life when they say women pray for husbands—‘any, +good Lord, any,’) and has let him into our house, and the chap +has made off with your brooch, and m’appen many another thing +beside. It’s only saying that Norah is soft-hearted, and +does not stick at a white lie—that’s all, missus.”</p> +<p>It was curious to notice how his tone, his eyes, his whole face changed +as he spoke to his wife; but he was the resolute man through all. +She knew better than to oppose him; so she went up-stairs, and told +Norah her master wanted to speak to her, and that she would take care +of the children in the meanwhile.</p> +<p>Norah rose to go without a word. Her thoughts were these:</p> +<p>“If they tear me to pieces they shall never know through me. +He may come,—and then just Lord have mercy upon us all: for some +of us are dead folk to a certainty. But he shall do it; not me.”</p> +<p>You may fancy, now, her look of determination as she faced her master +alone in the dining-room; Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick having left the affair +in their nephew’s hands, seeing that he took it up with such vehemence.</p> +<p>“Norah! Who was that man that came to my house last night?”</p> +<p>“Man, sir!” As if infinitely; surprised but it +was only to gain time.</p> +<p>“Yes; the man whom Mary let in; whom she went up-stairs to +the nursery to tell you about; whom you came down to speak to; the same +chap, I make no doubt, whom you took into the nursery to have your talk +out with; whom Ailsie saw, and afterwards dreamed about; thinking, poor +wench! she saw him say his prayers, when nothing, I’ll be bound, +was farther from his thoughts; who took Mrs. Chadwick’s brooch, +value ten pounds. Now, Norah! Don’t go off! +I am as sure as that my name’s Thomas Openshaw, that you knew +nothing of this robbery. But I do think you’ve been imposed +on, and that’s the truth. Some good-for-nothing chap has +been making up to you, and you’ve been just like all other women, +and have turned a soft place in your heart to him; and he came last +night a-lovyering, and you had him up in the nursery, and he made use +of his opportunities, and made off with a few things on his way down! +Come, now, Norah: it’s no blame to you, only you must not be such +a fool again. Tell us,” he continued, “what name he +gave you, Norah? I’ll be bound it was not the right one; +but it will be a clue for the police.”</p> +<p>Norah drew herself up. “You may ask that question, and +taunt me with my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master +Openshaw. You’ll get no answer from me. As for the +brooch, and the story of theft and burglary; if any friend ever came +to see me (which I defy you to prove, and deny), he’d be just +as much above doing such a thing as you yourself, Mr. Openshaw, and +more so, too; for I’m not at all sure as everything you have is +rightly come by, or would be yours long, if every man had his own.” +She meant, of course, his wife; but he understood her to refer to his +property in goods and chattels.</p> +<p>“Now, my good woman,” said he, “I’ll just +tell you truly, I never trusted you out and out; but my wife liked you, +and I thought you had many a good point about you. If you once +begin to sauce me, I’ll have the police to you, and get out the +truth in a court of justice, if you’ll not tell it me quietly +and civilly here. Now the best thing you can do is quietly to +tell me who the fellow is. Look here! a man comes to my house; +asks for you; you take him up-stairs, a valuable brooch is missing next +day; we know that you, and Mary, and cook, are honest; but you refuse +to tell us who the man is. Indeed you’ve told one lie already +about him, saying no one was here last night. Now I just put it +to you, what do you think a policeman would say to this, or a magistrate? +A magistrate would soon make you tell the truth, my good woman.”</p> +<p>“There’s never the creature born that should get it out +of me,” said Norah. “Not unless I choose to tell.”</p> +<p>“I’ve a great mind to see,” said Mr. Openshaw, +growing angry at the defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought +before he spoke again:</p> +<p>“Norah, for your missus’s sake I don’t want to +go to extremities. Be a sensible woman, if you can. It’s +no great disgrace, after all, to have been taken in. I ask you +once more—as a friend—who was this man whom you let into +my house last night?”</p> +<p>No answer. He repeated the question in an impatient tone. +Still no answer. Norah’s lips were set in determination +not to speak.</p> +<p>“Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send +for a policeman.”</p> +<p>“You will not,” said Norah, starting forwards. +“You shall not, sir! No policeman shall touch me. +I know nothing of the brooch, but I know this: ever since I was four-and-twenty +I have thought more of your wife than of myself: ever since I saw her, +a poor motherless girl put upon in her uncle’s house, I have thought +more of serving her than of serving myself! I have cared for her +and her child, as nobody ever cared for me. I don’t cast +blame on you, sir, but I say it’s ill giving up one’s life +to any one; for, at the end, they will turn round upon you, and forsake +you. Why does not my missus come herself to suspect me? +Maybe she is gone for the police? But I don’t stay here, +either for police, or magistrate, or master. You’re an unlucky +lot. I believe there’s a curse on you. I’ll +leave you this very day. Yes! I leave that poor Ailsie, +too. I will! No good will ever come to you!”</p> +<p>Mr. Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech; most of which +was completely unintelligible to him, as may easily be supposed. +Before he could make up his mind what to say, or what to do, Norah had +left the room. I do not think he had ever really intended to send +for the police to this old servant of his wife’s; for he had never +for a moment doubted her perfect honesty. But he had intended +to compel her to tell him who the man was, and in this he was baffled. +He was, consequently, much irritated. He returned to his uncle +and aunt in a state of great annoyance and perplexity, and told them +he could get nothing out of the woman; that some man had been in the +house the night before; but that she refused to tell who he was. +At this moment his wife came in, greatly agitated, and asked what had +happened to Norah; for that she had put on her things in passionate +haste, and had left the house.</p> +<p>“This looks suspicious,” said Mr. Chadwick. “It +is not the way in which an honest person would have acted.”</p> +<p>Mr. Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely perplexed. But +Mrs. Openshaw turned round on Mr. Chadwick with a sudden fierceness +no one ever saw in her before.</p> +<p>“You don’t know Norah, uncle! She is gone because +she is deeply hurt at being suspected. O, I wish I had seen her—that +I had spoken to her myself. She would have told me anything.” +Alice wrung her hands.</p> +<p>“I must confess,” continued Mr. Chadwick to his nephew, +in a lower voice, “I can’t make you out. You used +to be a word and a blow, and oftenest the blow first; and now, when +there is every cause for suspicion, you just do nought. Your missus +is a very good woman, I grant; but she may have been put upon as well +as other folk, I suppose. If you don’t send for the police, +I shall.”</p> +<p>“Very well,” replied Mr. Openshaw, surlily. “I +can’t clear Norah. She won’t clear herself, as I believe +she might if she would. Only I wash my hands of it; for I am sure +the woman herself is honest, and she’s lived a long time with +my wife, and I don’t like her to come to shame.”</p> +<p>“But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, +at any rate, will be a good thing.”</p> +<p>“Very well, very well! I am heart-sick of the whole business. +Come, Alice, come up to the babies they’ll be in a sore way. +I tell you, uncle!” he said, turning round once more to Mr. Chadwick, +suddenly and sharply, after his eye had fallen on Alice’s wan, +tearful, anxious face; “I’ll have none sending for the police +after all. I’ll buy my aunt twice as handsome a brooch this +very day; but I’ll not have Norah suspected, and my missus plagued. +There’s for you.”</p> +<p>He and his wife left the room. Mr. Chadwick quietly waited +till he was out of hearing, and then aid to his wife; “For all +Tom’s heroics, I’m just quietly going for a detective, wench. +Thou need’st know nought about it.”</p> +<p>He went to the police-station, and made a statement of the case. +He was gratified by the impression which the evidence against Norah +seemed to make. The men all agreed in his opinion, and steps were +to be immediately taken to find out where she was. Most probably, +as they suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all appearance, +was her lover. When Mr. Chadwick asked how they would find her +out? they smiled, shook their heads, and spoke of mysterious but infallible +ways and means. He returned to his nephew’s house with a +very comfortable opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his +wife with a penitent face:</p> +<p>“O master, I’ve found my brooch! It was just sticking +by its pin in the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. +I took it off in a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung +up my gown in the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it +up, there was the brooch! I’m very vexed, but I never dreamt but +what it was lost!”</p> +<p>Her husband muttering something very like “Confound thee and +thy brooch too! I wish I’d never given it thee,” snatched +up his hat, and rushed back to the station; hoping to be in time to +stop the police from searching for Norah. But a detective was +already gone off on the errand.</p> +<p>Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the fearful secret, +she had hardly slept through the night for thinking what must be done. +Upon this terrible state of mind had come Ailsie’s questions, +showing that she had seen the Man, as the unconscious child called her +father. Lastly came the suspicion of her honesty. She was +little less than crazy as she ran up-stairs and dashed on her bonnet +and shawl; leaving all else, even her purse, behind her. In that +house she would not stay. That was all she knew or was clear about. +She would not even see the children again, for fear it should weaken +her. She feared above everything Mr. Frank’s return to claim +his wife. She could not tell what remedy there was for a sorrow +so tremendous, for her to stay to witness. The desire of escaping +from the coming event was a stronger motive for her departure than her +soreness about the suspicions directed against her; although this last +had been the final goad to the course she took. She walked away +almost at headlong speed; sobbing as she went, as she had not dared +to do during the past night for fear of exciting wonder in those who +might hear her. Then she stopped. An idea came into her +mind that she would leave London altogether, and betake herself to her +native town of Liverpool. She felt in her pocket for her purse, +as she drew near the Euston Square station with this intention. +She had left it at home. Her poor head aching, her eyes swollen +with crying, she had to stand still, and think, as well as she could, +where next she should bend her steps. Suddenly the thought flashed +into her mind that she would go and find out poor Mr. Frank. She +had been hardly kind to him the night before, though her heart had bled +for him ever since. She remembered his telling her as she inquired +for his address, almost as she had pushed him out of the door, of some +hotel in a street not far distant from Euston Square. Thither +she went: with what intention she hardly knew, but to assuage her conscience +by telling him how much she pitied him. In her present state she +felt herself unfit to counsel, or restrain, or assist, or do ought else +but sympathise and weep. The people of the inn said such a person +had been there; had arrived only the day before; had gone out soon after +his arrival, leaving his luggage in their care; but had never come back. +Norah asked for leave to sit down, and await the gentleman’s return. +The landlady—pretty secure in the deposit of luggage against any +probable injury—showed her into a room, and quietly locked the +door on the outside. Norah was utterly worn out, and fell asleep—a +shivering, starting, uneasy slumber, which lasted for hours.</p> +<p>The detective, meanwhile, had come up with her some time before she +entered the hotel, into which he followed her. Asking the landlady +to detain her for an hour or so, without giving any reason beyond showing +his authority (which made the landlady applaud herself a good deal for +having locked her in), he went back to the police-station to report +his proceedings. He could have taken her directly; but his object +was, if possible, to trace out the man who was supposed to have committed +the robbery. Then he heard of the discovery of the brooch; and +consequently did not care to return.</p> +<p>Norah slept till even the summer evening began to close in. +Then up. Some one was at the door. It would be Mr. Frank; +and she dizzily pushed back her ruffled grey hair, which had fallen +over her eyes, and stood looking to see him. Instead, there came +in Mr. Openshaw and a policeman.</p> +<p>“This is Norah Kennedy,” said Mr. Openshaw.</p> +<p>“O, sir,” said Norah, “I did not touch the brooch; +indeed I did not. O, sir, I cannot live to be thought so badly +of;” and very sick and faint, she suddenly sank down on the ground. +To her surprise, Mr. Openshaw raised her up very tenderly. Even +the policeman helped to lay her on the sofa; and, at Mr. Openshaw’s +desire, he went for some wine and sandwiches; for the poor gaunt woman +lay there almost as if dead with weariness and exhaustion.</p> +<p>“Norah!” said Mr. Openshaw, in his kindest voice, “the +brooch is found. It was hanging to Mrs. Chadwick’s gown. +I beg your pardon. Most truly I beg your pardon, for having troubled +you about it. My wife is almost broken-hearted. Eat, Norah,—or, +stay, first drink this glass of wine,” said he, lifting her head, +pouring a little down her throat.</p> +<p>As she drank, she remembered where she was, and who she was waiting +for. She suddenly pushed Mr. Openshaw away, saying, “O, +sir, you must go. You must not stop a minute. If he comes +back he will kill you.”</p> +<p>“Alas, Norah! I do not know who ‘he’ is. +But some one is gone away who will never come back: someone who knew +you, and whom I am afraid you cared for.”</p> +<p>“I don’t understand you, sir,” said Norah, her +master’s kind and sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than +his words. The policeman had left the room at Mr. Openshaw’s +desire, and they two were alone.</p> +<p>“You know what I mean, when I say some one is gone who will +never come back. I mean that he is dead!”</p> +<p>“Who?” said Norah, trembling all over.</p> +<p>“A poor man has been found in the Thames this morning, drowned.”</p> +<p>“Did he drown himself?” asked Norah, solemnly.</p> +<p>“God only knows,” replied Mr. Openshaw, in the same tone. +“Your name and address at our house, were found in his pocket: +that, and his purse, were the only things, that were found upon him. +I am sorry to say it, my poor Norah; but you are required to go and +identify him.”</p> +<p>“To what?” asked Norah.</p> +<p>“To say who it is. It is always done, in order that some +reason may be discovered for the suicide—if suicide it was. +I make no doubt he was the man who came to see you at our house last +night. It is very sad, I know.” He made pauses between +each little clause, in order to try and bring back her senses; which +he feared were wandering—so wild and sad was her look.</p> +<p>“Master Openshaw,” said she, at last, “I’ve +a dreadful secret to tell you—only you must never breathe it to +any one, and you and I must hide it away for ever. I thought to +have done it all by myself, but I see I cannot. Yon poor man—yes! +the dead, drowned creature is, I fear, Mr. Frank, my mistress’s +first husband!”</p> +<p>Mr. Openshaw sate down, as if shot. He did not speak; but, +after a while, he signed to Norah to go on.</p> +<p>“He came to me the other night—when—God be thanked—you +were all away at Richmond. He asked me if his wife was dead or +alive. I was a brute, and thought more of our all coming home +than of his sore trial: spoke out sharp, and said she was married again, +and very content and happy: I all but turned him away: and now he lies +dead and cold!”</p> +<p>“God forgive me!” said Mr. Openshaw.</p> +<p>“God forgive us all!” said Norah. “Yon poor +man needs forgiveness perhaps less than any one among us. He had +been among the savages—shipwrecked—I know not what—and +he had written letters which had never reached my poor missus.”</p> +<p>“He saw his child!”</p> +<p>“He saw her—yes! I took him up, to give his thoughts +another start; for I believed he was going mad on my hands. I +came to seek him here, as I more than half promised. My mind misgave +me when I heard he had never come in. O, sir I it must be him!”</p> +<p>Mr. Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too much stunned +to wonder at what he did. He asked for writing materials, wrote +a letter, and then said to Norah:</p> +<p>“I am writing to Alice, to say I shall be unavoidably absent +for a few days; that I have found you; that you are well, and send her +your love, and will come home to-morrow. You must go with me to +the Police Court; you must identify the body: I will pay high to keep +name and details out of the papers.”</p> +<p>“But where are you going, sir?”</p> +<p>He did not answer her directly. Then he said:</p> +<p>“Norah! I must go with you, and look on the face of the +man whom I have so injured,—unwittingly, it is true; but it seems +to me as if I had killed him. I will lay his head in the grave, +as if he were my only brother: and how he must have hated me! +I cannot go home to my wife till all that I can do for him is done. +Then I go with a dreadful secret on my mind. I shall never speak +of it again, after these days are over. I know you will not, either.” +He shook hands with her: and they never named the subject again, the +one to the other.</p> +<p>Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word was said +on the cause of her abrupt departure a day or two before. Alice +had been charged by her husband in his letter not to allude to the supposed +theft of the brooch; so she, implicitly obedient to those whom she loved +both by nature and habit, was entirely silent on the subject, only treated +Norah with the most tender respect, as if to make up for unjust suspicion.</p> +<p>Nor did Alice inquire into the reason why Mr. Openshaw had been absent +during his uncle and aunt’s visit, after he had once said that +it was unavoidable. He came back, grave and quiet; and, from that +time forth, was curiously changed. More thoughtful, and perhaps +less active; quite as decided in conduct, but with new and different +rules for the guidance of that conduct. Towards Alice he could +hardly be more kind than he had always been; but he now seemed to look +upon her as some one sacred and to be treated with reverence, as well +as tenderness. He throve in business, and made a large fortune, +one half of which was settled upon her.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Long years after these events,—a few months after her mother +died, Ailsie and her “father” (as she always called Mr. +Openshaw) drove to a cemetery a little way out of town, and she was +carried to a certain mound by her maid, who was then sent back to the +carriage. There was a head-stone, with F. W. and a date. +That was all. Sitting by the grave, Mr. Openshaw told her the +story; and for the sad fate of that poor father whom she had never seen, +he shed the only tears she ever saw fall from his eyes.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“A most interesting story, all through,” I said, as Jarber +folded up the first of his series of discoveries in triumph. “A +story that goes straight to the heart—especially at the end. +But”—I stopped, and looked at Trottle.</p> +<p>Trottle entered his protest directly in the shape of a cough.</p> +<p>“Well!” I said, beginning to lose my patience. +“Don’t you see that I want you to speak, and that I don’t +want you to cough?”</p> +<p>“Quite so, ma’am,” said Trottle, in a state of +respectful obstinacy which would have upset the temper of a saint. +“Relative, I presume, to this story, ma’am?”</p> +<p>“Yes, Yes!” said Jarber. “By all means let +us hear what this good man has to say.”</p> +<p>“Well, sir,” answered Trottle, “I want to know +why the House over the way doesn’t let, and I don’t exactly +see how your story answers the question. That’s all I have +to say, sir.”</p> +<p>I should have liked to contradict my opinionated servant, at that +moment. But, excellent as the story was in itself, I felt that +he had hit on the weak point, so far as Jarber’s particular purpose +in reading it was concerned.</p> +<p>“And that is what you have to say, is it?” repeated Jarber. +“I enter this room announcing that I have a series of discoveries, +and you jump instantly to the conclusion that the first of the series +exhausts my resources. Have I your permission, dear lady, to enlighten +this obtuse person, if possible, by reading Number Two?”</p> +<p>“My work is behindhand, ma’am,” said Trottle, moving +to the door, the moment I gave Jarber leave to go on.</p> +<p>“Stop where you are,” I said, in my most peremptory manner, +“and give Mr. Jarber his fair opportunity of answering your objection +now you have made it.”</p> +<p>Trottle sat down with the look of a martyr, and Jarber began to read +with his back turned on the enemy more decidedly than ever.</p> +<div class='chapter' /><h2>GOING INTO SOCIETY</h2> +<p>At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation +of a Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the +parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore +no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy +to be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had +lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable +were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. +At last, among the marsh lands near the river’s level, that lie +about Deptford and the neighbouring market-gardens, a Grizzled Personage +in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of weather that he +looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door +of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house was laid up in ordinary +for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy creek; and everything near +it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens, +smoked in company with the grizzled man. In the midst of this +smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was +not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner.</p> +<p>On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let, +Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name +was Magsman? That was it, Toby Magsman—which lawfully christened +Robert; but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was +nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed? If there was suspicion +of such—mention it!</p> +<p>There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, +some inquiries were making about that House, and would he object to +say why he left it?</p> +<p>Not at all; why should he? He left it, along of a Dwarf.</p> +<p>Along of a Dwarf?</p> +<p>Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a Dwarf.</p> +<p>Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman’s inclination and convenience +to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars?</p> +<p>Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars.</p> +<p>It was a long time ago, to begin with;—afore lotteries and +a deal more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about +for a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, “I’ll +have you, if you’re to be had. If money’ll get you, +I’ll have you.”</p> +<p>The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman +don’t know what they <i>would</i> have had. It was a lovely +thing. First of all, there was the canvass, representin the picter +of the Giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half the +heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley to a pole +on the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. Then, +there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina lady, showing +her white air to the Army and Navy in correct uniform. Then, there +was the canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Indian a scalpin +a member of some foreign nation. Then, there was the canvass, +representin the picter of a child of a British Planter, seized by two +Boa Constrictors—not that <i>we</i> never had no child, nor no +Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the canvass, representin +the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies—not that <i>we</i> +never had no wild asses, nor wouldn’t have had ’em at a +gift. Last, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the +Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with George the Fourth in such +a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty couldn’t with his +utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of the House +was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn’t a spark of daylight +ever visible on that side. “MAGSMAN’S AMUSEMENTS,” +fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and parlour +winders. The passage was a Arbour of green baize and gardenstuff. +A barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to respectability,—if +threepence ain’t respectable, what is?</p> +<p>But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was worth +the money. He was wrote up as MAJOR TPSCHOFFKI, OF THE IMPERIAL +BULGRADERIAN BRIGADE. Nobody couldn’t pronounce the name, +and it never was intended anybody should. The public always turned +it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line he was called +Chops; partly on that account, and partly because his real name, if +he ever had any real name (which was very dubious), was Stakes.</p> +<p>He was a uncommon small man, he really was. Certainly not so +small as he was made out to be, but where <i>is</i> your Dwarf as is? +He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon large Ed; and +what he had inside that Ed, nobody ever knowed but himself: even supposin +himself to have ever took stock of it, which it would have been a stiff +job for even him to do.</p> +<p>The kindest little man as never growed! Spirited, but not proud. +When he travelled with the Spotted Baby—though he knowed himself +to be a nat’ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby’s spots to be +put upon him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a mother. You +never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He <i>did</i> allow +himself to break out into strong language respectin the Fat Lady from +Norfolk; but that was an affair of the ’art; and when a man’s +’art has been trifled with by a lady, and the preference giv to +a Indian, he ain’t master of his actions.</p> +<p>He was always in love, of course; every human nat’ral phenomenon +is. And he was always in love with a large woman; I never knowed +the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. Which helps to +keep ’em the Curiosities they are.</p> +<p>One sing’ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have +meant something, or it wouldn’t have been there. It was +always his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never +would put his name to anything. He had been taught to write, by +the young man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite +a writing master <i>he</i> was, and taught scores in the line), but +Chops would have starved to death, afore he’d have gained a bit +of bread by putting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious +to bear in mind, because HE had no property, nor hope of property, except +his house and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, +painted and got up outside like a reg’lar six-roomer, that he +used to creep into, with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) +on his forefinger, and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed +to be the Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean +a Chaney sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end +of every Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me: “Ladies +and gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, +and retire behind the curtain.” When he said anything important, +in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form of words, and +they was generally the last thing he said to me at night afore he went +to bed.</p> +<p>He had what I consider a fine mind—a poetic mind. His +ideas respectin his property never come upon him so strong as when he +sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. Arter the wibration +had run through him a little time, he would screech out, “Toby, +I feel my property coming—grind away! I’m counting +my guineas by thousands, Toby—grind away! Toby, I shall +be a man of fortun! I feel the Mint a jingling in me, Toby, and +I’m swelling out into the Bank of England!” Such is +the influence of music on a poetic mind. Not that he was partial +to any other music but a barrel-organ; on the contrary, hated it.</p> +<p>He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public: which is a +thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their living out of +it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupation was, that +it kep him out of Society. He was continiwally saying, “Toby, +my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of my position towards +the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. This don’t +signify to a low beast of a Indian; he an’t formed for Society. +This don’t signify to a Spotted Baby; <i>he</i> an’t formed +for Society.—I am.”</p> +<p>Nobody never could make out what Chops done with his money. +He had a good salary, down on the drum every Saturday as the day came +round, besides having the run of his teeth—and he was a Woodpecker +to eat—but all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a little income, +bringing him in so many halfpence that he’d carry ’em for +a week together, tied up in a pocket-handkercher. And yet he never +had money. And it couldn’t be the Fat Lady from Norfolk, +as was once supposed; because it stands to reason that when you have +a animosity towards a Indian, which makes you grind your teeth at him +to his face, and which can hardly hold you from Goosing him audible +when he’s going through his War-Dance—it stands to reason +you wouldn’t under them circumstances deprive yourself, to support +that Indian in the lap of luxury.</p> +<p>Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races. +The Public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his little +bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me over his +shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back-door—for +he couldn’t be shoved into his house without kneeling down, and +the premises wouldn’t accommodate his legs—was snarlin, +“Here’s a precious Public for you; why the Devil don’t +they tumble up?” when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier-pigeon, +and cries out, “If there’s any person here as has got a +ticket, the Lottery’s just drawed, and the number as has come +up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two! Three, seven, +forty-two!” I was givin the man to the Furies myself, for +calling off the Public’s attention—for the Public will turn +away, at any time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed +’em; and if you doubt it, get ’em together for any indiwidual +purpose on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, +and see if the whole company an’t far more interested in takin +particular notice of them two than of you—I say, I wasn’t +best pleased with the man for callin out, and wasn’t blessin him +in my own mind, when I see Chops’s little bell fly out of winder +at a old lady, and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole +secret, and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to +me, “Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over +me or I’m a dead man, for I’ve come into my property!”</p> +<p>Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops’s winnins. +He had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and +it had come up. The first use he made of his property, was, to +offer to fight the Wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, him with +a poisoned darnin-needle and the Indian with a club; but the Indian +being in want of backers to that amount, it went no further.</p> +<p>Arter he had been mad for a week—in a state of mind, in short, +in which, if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I +believe he would have bust—but we kep the organ from him—Mr. +Chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. He +then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel appearance +and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable brought up, father +havin been imminent in the livery stable line but unfort’nate +in a commercial crisis, through paintin a old gray, ginger-bay, and +sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr. Chops said to this Bonnet, who +said his name was Normandy, which it wasn’t:</p> +<p>“Normandy, I’m a goin into Society. Will you go +with me?”</p> +<p>Says Normandy: “Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate +that the ’ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?”</p> +<p>“Correct,” says Mr. Chops. “And you shall +have a Princely allowance too.”</p> +<p>The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, +and replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears:</p> +<p>“My boat is on the shore,<br /> +And my bark is on the sea,<br /> +And I do not ask for more,<br /> +But I’ll Go:—along with thee.”</p> +<p>They went into Society, in a chay and four grays with silk jackets. +They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away.</p> +<p>In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in the +autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in milk-white +cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, one evening +appinted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter dinner, and Mr. +Chops’s eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than I thought good +for him. There was three of ’em (in company, I mean), and +I knowed the third well. When last met, he had on a white Roman +shirt, and a bishop’s mitre covered with leopard-skin, and played +the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast Show.</p> +<p>This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said: “Gentlemen, +this is a old friend of former days:” and Normandy looked at me +through a eye-glass, and said, “Magsman, glad to see you!”—which +I’ll take my oath he wasn’t. Mr. Chops, to git him +convenient to the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form +of George the Fourth’s in the canvass), but he hardly appeared +to me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his two gentlemen +ordered about like Emperors. They was all dressed like May-Day—gorgeous!—And +as to Wine, they swam in all sorts.</p> +<p>I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done +it), and then mixed ’em all together (to say I had done it), and +then tried two of ’em as half-and-half, and then t’other +two. Altogether, I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency +to feel muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say, +“Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part, I thank you for the +wariety of foreign drains you have stood so ’ansome, I looks towards +you in red wine, and I takes my leave.” Mr. Chops replied, +“If you’ll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, +Magsman, and carry me down-stairs, I’ll see you out.” +I said I couldn’t think of such a thing, but he would have it, +so I lifted him off his throne. He smelt strong of Maideary, and +I couldn’t help thinking as I carried him down that it was like +carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rayther ugly stopper, a +good deal out of proportion.</p> +<p>When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to him +by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers:</p> +<p>“I ain’t ’appy, Magsman.”</p> +<p>“What’s on your mind, Mr. Chops?”</p> +<p>“They don’t use me well. They an’t grateful +to me. They puts me on the mantel-piece when I won’t have +in more Champagne-wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when I won’t +give up my property.”</p> +<p>“Get rid of ’em, Mr. Chops.”</p> +<p>“I can’t. We’re in Society together, and +what would Society say?”</p> +<p>“Come out of Society!” says I.</p> +<p>“I can’t. You don’t know what you’re +talking about. When you have once gone into Society, you mustn’t +come out of it.”</p> +<p>“Then if you’ll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops,” +were my remark, shaking my head grave, “I think it’s a pity +you ever went in.”</p> +<p>Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and slapped +it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice than I thought +were in him. Then, he says, “You’re a good fellow, +but you don’t understand. Good-night, go along. Magsman, +the little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire +behind the curtain.” The last I see of him on that occasion +was his tryin, on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up +the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. They’d +have been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn’t +be helped.</p> +<p>It warn’t long after that, that I read in the newspaper of +Mr. Chops’s being presented at court. It was printed, “It +will be recollected”—and I’ve noticed in my life, +that it is sure to be printed that it <i>will</i> be recollected, whenever +it won’t—“that Mr. Chops is the individual of small +stature, whose brilliant success in the last State Lottery attracted +so much attention.” Well, I says to myself, Such is Life! +He has been and done it in earnest at last. He has astonished +George the Fourth!</p> +<p>(On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with a +bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and a +lady in Ostrich Feathers fallin in love with him in a bag-wig, sword, +and buckles correct.)</p> +<p>I took the House as is the subject of present inquiries—though +not the honour of bein acquainted—and I run Magsman’s Amusements +in it thirteen months—sometimes one thing, sometimes another, +sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses outside. +One night, when we had played the last company out, which was a shy +company, through its raining Heavens hard, I was takin a pipe in the +one pair back along with the young man with the toes, which I had taken +on for a month (though he never drawed—except on paper), and I +heard a kickin at the street door. “Halloa!” I says +to the young man, “what’s up!” He rubs his eyebrows +with his toes, and he says, “I can’t imagine, Mr. Magsman”—which +he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company.</p> +<p>The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle, +and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; +but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round +quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. +There was Mr. Chops!</p> +<p>“Magsman,” he says, “take me, on the old terms, +and you’ve got me; if it’s done, say done!”</p> +<p>I was all of a maze, but I said, “Done, sir.”</p> +<p>“Done to your done, and double done!” says he. +“Have you got a bit of supper in the house?”</p> +<p>Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we’d +guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages +and gin-and-water; but he took ’em both and took ’em free; +havin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like +hold times. I, all of a maze all the while.</p> +<p>It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and +to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom +as was in that little man began to come out of him like prespiration.</p> +<p>“Magsman,” he says, “look upon me! You see +afore you, One as has both gone into Society and come out.”</p> +<p>“O! You <i>are</i> out of it, Mr. Chops? How did +you get out, sir?”</p> +<p>“SOLD OUT!” says he. You never saw the like of +the wisdom as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words.</p> +<p>“My friend Magsman, I’ll impart to you a discovery I’ve +made. It’s wallable; it’s cost twelve thousand five +hundred pound; it may do you good in life—The secret of this matter +is, that it ain’t so much that a person goes into Society, as +that Society goes into a person.”</p> +<p>Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a +deep look, and said, “You’re right there, Mr. Chops.”</p> +<p>“Magsman,” he says, twitchin me by the leg, “Society +has gone into me, to the tune of every penny of my property.”</p> +<p>I felt that I went pale, and though nat’rally a bold speaker, +I couldn’t hardly say, “Where’s Normandy?”</p> +<p>“Bolted. With the plate,” said Mr. Chops.</p> +<p>“And t’other one?” meaning him as formerly wore +the bishop’s mitre.</p> +<p>“Bolted. With the jewels,” said Mr. Chops.</p> +<p>I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.</p> +<p>“Magsman,” he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser +as he got hoarser; “Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. +At the court of St. James’s, they was all a doing my old business—all +a goin three times round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits and properties. +Elsewheres, they was most of ’em ringin their little bells out +of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin round. +Magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal Institution!”</p> +<p>I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, +and I felt for Mr. Chops.</p> +<p>“As to Fat Ladies,” he says, giving his head a tremendious +one agin the wall, “there’s lots of <i>them</i> in Society, +and worse than the original. <i>Hers</i> was a outrage upon Taste—simply +a outrage upon Taste—awakenin contempt—carryin its own punishment +in the form of a Indian.” Here he giv himself another tremendious +one. “But <i>theirs</i>, Magsman, <i>theirs</i> is mercenary +outrages. Lay in Cashmeer shawls, buy bracelets, strew ’em +and a lot of ’andsome fans and things about your rooms, let it +be known that you give away like water to all as come to admire, and +the Fat Ladies that don’t exhibit for so much down upon the drum, +will come from all the pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever +you are. They’ll drill holes in your ’art, Magsman, +like a Cullender. And when you’ve no more left to give, +they’ll laugh at you to your face, and leave you to have your +bones picked dry by Wulturs, like the dead Wild Ass of the Prairies +that you deserve to be!” Here he giv himself the most tremendious +one of all, and dropped.</p> +<p>I thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked +it so hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance in +him must have been so immense, that I thought he was gone. But, +he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, and he said +to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it come:</p> +<p>“Magsman! The most material difference between the two +states of existence through which your unhappy friend has passed;” +he reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on the +moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best to grow, +but it is not in mortals to command success,—“the difference +this. When I was out of Society, I was paid light for being seen. +When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. I prefer +the former, even if I wasn’t forced upon it. Give me out +through the trumpet, in the hold way, to-morrow.”</p> +<p>Arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been +iled all over. But the organ was kep from him, and no allusions +was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got +wiser every day; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, bewilderin, +awful; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom expanded it.</p> +<p>He took well, and pulled ’em in most excellent for nine weeks. +At the expiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he expressed +one evenin, the last Company havin been turned out, and the door shut, +a wish to have a little music.</p> +<p>“Mr. Chops,” I said (I never dropped the “Mr.” +with him; the world might do it, but not me); “Mr. Chops, are +you sure as you are in a state of mind and body to sit upon the organ?”</p> +<p>His answer was this: “Toby, when next met with on the tramp, +I forgive her and the Indian. And I am.”</p> +<p>It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle; but +he sat like a lamb. I will be my belief to my dying day, that +I see his Ed expand as he sat; you may therefore judge how great his +thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off.</p> +<p>“Toby,” he says, with a quiet smile, “the little +man will now walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind +the curtain.”</p> +<p>When we called him in the morning, we found him gone into a much +better Society than mine or Pall Mall’s. I giv Mr. Chops +as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as Chief, +and had the George the Fourth canvass carried first, in the form of +a banner. But, the House was so dismal arterwards, that I giv +it up, and took to the Wan again.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>“I don’t triumph,” said Jarber, folding up the +second manuscript, and looking hard at Trottle. “I don’t +triumph over this worthy creature. I merely ask him if he is satisfied +now?”</p> +<p>“How can he be anything else?” I said, answering for +Trottle, who sat obstinately silent. “This time, Jarber, +you have not only read us a delightfully amusing story, but you have +also answered the question about the House. Of course it stands +empty now. Who would think of taking it after it had been turned +into a caravan?” I looked at Trottle, as I said those last +words, and Jarber waved his hand indulgently in the same direction.</p> +<p>“Let this excellent person speak,” said Jarber. +“You were about to say, my good man?”—</p> +<p>“I only wished to ask, sir,” said Trottle doggedly, “if +you could kindly oblige me with a date or two in connection with that +last story?”</p> +<p>“A date!” repeated Jarber. “What does the +man want with dates!”</p> +<p>“I should be glad to know, with great respect,” persisted +Trottle, “if the person named Magsman was the last tenant who +lived in the House. It’s my opinion—if I may be excused +for giving it—that he most decidedly was not.”</p> +<p>With those words, Trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room.</p> +<p>There is no denying that Jarber, when we were left together, looked +sadly discomposed. He had evidently forgotten to inquire about +dates; and, in spite of his magnificent talk about his series of discoveries, +it was quite as plain that the two stories he had just read, had really +and truly exhausted his present stock. I thought myself bound, +in common gratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely +suggestion. So I proposed that he should come to tea again, on +the next Monday evening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries +in the meantime, as might enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle’s +objection.</p> +<p>He gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of acknowledgment, +and took his leave. For the rest of the week I would not encourage +Trottle by allowing him to refer to the House at all. I suspected +he was making his own inquiries about dates, but I put no questions +to him.</p> +<p>On Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate Jarber came, +punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly harassed, +that he was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. +I saw, at a glance, that the question of dates had gone against him, +that Mr. Magsman had not been the last tenant of the House, and that +the reason of its emptiness was still to seek.</p> +<p>“What I have gone through,” said Jarber, “words +are not eloquent enough to tell. O Sophonisba, I have begun another +series of discoveries! Accept the last two as stories laid on +your shrine; and wait to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, +until you have heard Number Three.”</p> +<p>Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much. +Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. +In the course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating +Library, to seek for information on the one important subject. +All the Library-people knew about the House was, that a female relative +of the last tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, +sent a little manuscript poem to them which she described as referring +to events that had actually passed in the House; and which she wanted +the proprietor of the Library to publish. She had written no address +on her letter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be +given back to her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when +she might call for it. She had never called for it; and the poem +had been lent to Jarber, at his express request, to read to me.</p> +<p>Before he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to +have him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy. +To my surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me, that Trottle had +stepped out without saying where. I instantly felt the strongest +possible conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping +out in the evening, without leave, meant—Philandering.</p> +<p>Controlling myself on my visitor’s account, I dismissed Peggy, +stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen +to Jarber.</p> +<div class='chapter' /><h2>THREE EVENINGS IN THE HOUSE</h2> +<h3>NUMBER ONE.</h3> +<p>I.</p> +<p>Yes, it look’d dark and dreary<br /> +That long and narrow street:<br /> +Only the sound of the rain,<br /> +And the tramp of passing feet,<br /> +The duller glow of the fire,<br /> +And gathering mists of night<br /> +To mark how slow and weary<br /> +The long day’s cheerless flight!</p> +<p>II.</p> +<p>Watching the sullen fire,<br /> +Hearing the dreary rain,<br /> +Drop after drop, run down<br /> +On the darkening window-pane;<br /> +Chill was the heart of Bertha,<br /> +Chill as that winter day,—<br /> +For the star of her life had risen<br /> +Only to fade away.</p> +<p>III.</p> +<p>The voice that had been so strong<br /> +To bid the snare depart,<br /> +The true and earnest will,<br /> +And the calm and steadfast heart,<br /> +Were now weigh’d down by sorrow,<br /> +Were quivering now with pain;<br /> +The clear path now seem’d clouded,<br /> +And all her grief in vain.</p> +<p>IV.</p> +<p>Duty, Right, Truth, who promised<br /> +To help and save their own,<br /> +Seem’d spreading wide their pinions<br /> +To leave her there alone.<br /> +So, turning from the Present<br /> +To well-known days of yore,<br /> +She call’d on them to strengthen<br /> +And guard her soul once more.</p> +<p>V.</p> +<p>She thought how in her girlhood<br /> +Her life was given away,<br /> +The solemn promise spoken<br /> +She kept so well to-day;<br /> +How to her brother Herbert<br /> +She had been help and guide,<br /> +And how his artist-nature<br /> +On her calm strength relied.</p> +<p>VI.</p> +<p>How through life’s fret and turmoil<br /> +The passion and fire of art<br /> +In him was soothed and quicken’d<br /> +By her true sister heart;<br /> +How future hopes had always<br /> +Been for his sake alone;<br /> +And now, what strange new feeling<br /> +Possess’d her as its own?</p> +<p>VII.</p> +<p>Her home; each flower that breathed there;<br /> +The wind’s sigh, soft and low;<br /> +Each trembling spray of ivy;<br /> +The river’s murmuring flow;<br /> +The shadow of the forest;<br /> +Sunset, or twilight dim;<br /> +Dear as they were, were dearer<br /> +By leaving them for him.</p> +<p>VIII.</p> +<p>And each year as it found her<br /> +In the dull, feverish town,<br /> +Saw self still more forgotten,<br /> +And selfish care kept down<br /> +By the calm joy of evening<br /> +That brought him to her side,<br /> +To warn him with wise counsel,<br /> +Or praise with tender pride.</p> +<p>IX.</p> +<p>Her heart, her life, her future,<br /> +Her genius, only meant<br /> +Another thing to give him,<br /> +And be therewith content.<br /> +To-day, what words had stirr’d her,<br /> +Her soul could not forget?<br /> +What dream had fill’d her spirit<br /> +With strange and wild regret?</p> +<p>X.</p> +<p>To leave him for another:<br /> +Could it indeed be so?<br /> +Could it have cost such anguish<br /> +To bid this vision go?<br /> +Was this her faith? Was Herbert<br /> +The second in her heart?<br /> +Did it need all this struggle<br /> +To bid a dream depart?</p> +<p>XI.</p> +<p>And yet, within her spirit<br /> +A far-off land was seen;<br /> +A home, which might have held her;<br /> +A love, which might have been;<br /> +And Life: not the mere being<br /> +Of daily ebb and flow,<br /> +But Life itself had claim’d her,<br /> +And she had let it go!</p> +<p>XII.</p> +<p>Within her heart there echo’d<br /> +Again the well-known tune<br /> +That promised this bright future,<br /> +And ask’d her for its own:<br /> +Then words of sorrow, broken<br /> +By half-reproachful pain;<br /> +And then a farewell, spoken<br /> +In words of cold disdain.</p> +<p>XIII.</p> +<p>Where now was the stern purpose<br /> +That nerved her soul so long?<br /> +Whence came the words she utter’d,<br /> +So hard, so cold, so strong?<br /> +What right had she to banish<br /> +A hope that God had given?<br /> +Why must she choose earth’s portion,<br /> +And turn aside from Heaven?</p> +<p>XIV.</p> +<p>To-day! Was it this morning?<br /> +If this long, fearful strife<br /> +Was but the work of hours,<br /> +What would be years of life?<br /> +Why did a cruel Heaven<br /> +For such great suffering call?<br /> +And why—O, still more cruel!—<br /> +Must her own words do all?</p> +<p>XV.</p> +<p>Did she repent? O Sorrow!<br /> +Why do we linger still<br /> +To take thy loving message,<br /> +And do thy gentle will?<br /> +See, her tears fall more slowly;<br /> +The passionate murmurs cease,<br /> +And back upon her spirit<br /> +Flow strength, and love, and peace.</p> +<p>XVI.</p> +<p>The fire burns more brightly,<br /> +The rain has passed away,<br /> +Herbert will see no shadow<br /> +Upon his home to-day;<br /> +Only that Bertha greets him<br /> +With doubly tender care,<br /> +Kissing a fonder blessing<br /> +Down on his golden hair.</p> +<h3>NUMBER TWO.</h3> +<p>I.</p> +<p>The studio is deserted,<br /> +Palette and brush laid by,<br /> +The sketch rests on the easel,<br /> +The paint is scarcely dry;<br /> +And Silence—who seems always<br /> +Within her depths to bear<br /> +The next sound that will utter—<br /> +Now holds a dumb despair.</p> +<p>II.</p> +<p>So Bertha feels it: listening<br /> +With breathless, stony fear,<br /> +Waiting the dreadful summons<br /> +Each minute brings more near:<br /> +When the young life, now ebbing,<br /> +Shall fail, and pass away<br /> +Into that mighty shadow<br /> +Who shrouds the house to-day.</p> +<p>III.</p> +<p>But why—when the sick chamber<br /> +Is on the upper floor—<br /> +Why dares not Bertha enter<br /> +Within the close-shut door?<br /> +If he—her all—her Brother,<br /> +Lies dying in that gloom,<br /> +What strange mysterious power<br /> +Has sent her from the room?</p> +<p>IV.</p> +<p>It is not one week’s anguish<br /> +That can have changed her so;<br /> +Joy has not died here lately,<br /> +Struck down by one quick blow;<br /> +But cruel months have needed<br /> +Their long relentless chain,<br /> +To teach that shrinking manner<br /> +Of helpless, hopeless pain.</p> +<p>V.</p> +<p>The struggle was scarce over<br /> +Last Christmas Eve had brought:<br /> +The fibres still were quivering<br /> +Of the one wounded thought,<br /> +When Herbert—who, unconscious,<br /> +Had guessed no inward strife—<br /> +Bade her, in pride and pleasure,<br /> +Welcome his fair young wife.</p> +<p>VI.</p> +<p>Bade her rejoice, and smiling,<br /> +Although his eyes were dim,<br /> +Thank’d God he thus could pay her<br /> +The care she gave to him.<br /> +This fresh bright life would bring her<br /> +A new and joyous fate—<br /> +O Bertha, check the murmur<br /> +That cries, Too late! too late!</p> +<p>VII.</p> +<p>Too late! Could she have known it<br /> +A few short weeks before,<br /> +That his life was completed,<br /> +And needing hers no more,<br /> +She might—O sad repining!<br /> +What “might have been,” forget;<br /> +“It was not,” should suffice us<br /> +To stifle vain regret.</p> +<p>VIII.</p> +<p>He needed her no longer,<br /> +Each day it grew more plain;<br /> +First with a startled wonder,<br /> +Then with a wondering pain.<br /> +Love: why, his wife best gave it;<br /> +Comfort: durst Bertha speak?<br /> +Counsel: when quick resentment<br /> +Flush’d on the young wife’s cheek.</p> +<p>IX.</p> +<p>No more long talks by firelight<br /> +Of childish times long past,<br /> +And dreams of future greatness<br /> +Which he must reach at last;<br /> +Dreams, where her purer instinct<br /> +With truth unerring told<br /> +Where was the worthless gilding,<br /> +And where refinèd gold.</p> +<p>X.</p> +<p>Slowly, but surely ever,<br /> +Dora’s poor jealous pride,<br /> +Which she call’d love for Herbert,<br /> +Drove Bertha from his side;<br /> +And, spite of nervous effort<br /> +To share their alter’d life,<br /> +She felt a check to Herbert,<br /> +A burden to his wife.</p> +<p>XI.</p> +<p>This was the least; for Bertha<br /> +Fear’d, dreaded, <i>knew</i> at length,<br /> +How much his nature owed her<br /> +Of truth, and power, and strength;<br /> +And watch’d the daily failing<br /> +Of all his nobler part:<br /> +Low aims, weak purpose, telling<br /> +In lower, weaker art.</p> +<p>XII.</p> +<p>And now, when he is dying,<br /> +The last words she could hear<br /> +Must not be hers, but given<br /> +The bride of one short year.<br /> +The last care is another’s;<br /> +The last prayer must not be<br /> +The one they learnt together<br /> +Beside their mother’s knee.</p> +<p>XIII.</p> +<p>Summon’d at last: she kisses<br /> +The clay-cold stiffening hand;<br /> +And, reading pleading efforts<br /> +To make her understand,<br /> +Answers, with solemn promise,<br /> +In clear but trembling tone,<br /> +To Dora’s life henceforward<br /> +She will devote her own.</p> +<p>XIV.</p> +<p>Now all is over. Bertha<br /> +Dares not remain to weep,<br /> +But soothes the frightened Dora<br /> +Into a sobbing sleep.<br /> +The poor weak child will need her:<br /> +O, who can dare complain,<br /> +When God sends a new Duty<br /> +To comfort each new Pain!</p> +<h3>NUMBER THREE.</h3> +<p>I.</p> +<p>The House is all deserted<br /> +In the dim evening gloom,<br /> +Only one figure passes<br /> +Slowly from room to room;<br /> +And, pausing at each doorway,<br /> +Seems gathering up again<br /> +Within her heart the relics<br /> +Of bygone joy and pain.</p> +<p>II.</p> +<p>There is an earnest longing<br /> +In those who onward gaze,<br /> +Looking with weary patience<br /> +Towards the coming days.<br /> +There is a deeper longing,<br /> +More sad, more strong, more keen:<br /> +Those know it who look backward,<br /> +And yearn for what has been.</p> +<p>III.</p> +<p>At every hearth she pauses,<br /> +Touches each well-known chair;<br /> +Gazes from every window,<br /> +Lingers on every stair.<br /> +What have these months brought Bertha<br /> +Now one more year is past?<br /> +This Christmas Eve shall tell us,<br /> +The third one and the last.</p> +<p>IV.</p> +<p>The wilful, wayward Dora,<br /> +In those first weeks of grief,<br /> +Could seek and find in Bertha<br /> +Strength, soothing, and relief.<br /> +And Bertha—last sad comfort<br /> +True woman-heart can take—<br /> +Had something still to suffer<br /> +And do for Herbert’s sake.</p> +<p>V.</p> +<p>Spring, with her western breezes,<br /> +From Indian islands bore<br /> +To Bertha news that Leonard<br /> +Would seek his home once more.<br /> +What was it—joy, or sorrow?<br /> +What were they—hopes, or fears?<br /> +That flush’d her cheeks with crimson,<br /> +And fill’d her eyes with tears?</p> +<p>VI.</p> +<p>He came. And who so kindly<br /> +Could ask and hear her tell<br /> +Herbert’s last hours; for Leonard<br /> +Had known and loved him well.<br /> +Daily he came; and Bertha,<br /> +Poor wear heart, at length,<br /> +Weigh’d down by other’s weakness,<br /> +Could rest upon his strength.</p> +<p>VII.</p> +<p>Yet not the voice of Leonard<br /> +Could her true care beguile,<br /> +That turn’d to watch, rejoicing,<br /> +Dora’s reviving smile.<br /> +So, from that little household<br /> +The worst gloom pass’d away,<br /> +The one bright hour of evening<br /> +Lit up the livelong day.</p> +<p>VIII.</p> +<p>Days passed. The golden summer<br /> +In sudden heat bore down<br /> +Its blue, bright, glowing sweetness<br /> +Upon the scorching town.<br /> +And sights and sounds of country<br /> +Came in the warm soft tune<br /> +Sung by the honey’d breezes<br /> +Borne on the wings of June.</p> +<p>IX.</p> +<p>One twilight hour, but earlier<br /> +Than usual, Bertha thought<br /> +She knew the fresh sweet fragrance<br /> +Of flowers that Leonard brought;<br /> +Through open’d doors and windows<br /> +It stole up through the gloom,<br /> +And with appealing sweetness<br /> +Drew Bertha from her room.</p> +<p>X.</p> +<p>Yes, he was there; and pausing<br /> +Just near the open’d door,<br /> +To check her heart’s quick beating,<br /> +She heard—and paused still more—<br /> +His low voice Dora’s answers—<br /> +His pleading—Yes, she knew<br /> +The tone—the words—the accents:<br /> +She once had heard them too.</p> +<p>XI.</p> +<p>“Would Bertha blame her?” Leonard’s<br /> +Low, tender answer came:<br /> +“Bertha was far too noble<br /> +To think or dream of blame.”<br /> +“And was he sure he loved her?”<br /> +“Yes, with the one love given<br /> +Once in a lifetime only,<br /> +With one soul and one heaven!”</p> +<p>XII.</p> +<p>Then came a plaintive murmur,—<br /> +“Dora had once been told<br /> +That he and Bertha—” “Dearest,<br /> +Bertha is far too cold<br /> +To love; and I, my Dora,<br /> +If once I fancied so,<br /> +It was a brief delusion,<br /> +And over,—long ago.”</p> +<p>XIII.</p> +<p>Between the Past and Present,<br /> +On that bleak moment’s height,<br /> +She stood. As some lost traveller<br /> +By a quick flash of light<br /> +Seeing a gulf before him,<br /> +With dizzy, sick despair,<br /> +Reels to clutch backward, but to find<br /> +A deeper chasm there.</p> +<p>XIV.</p> +<p>The twilight grew still darker,<br /> +The fragrant flowers more sweet,<br /> +The stars shone out in heaven,<br /> +The lamps gleam’d down the street;<br /> +And hours pass’d in dreaming<br /> +Over their new-found fate,<br /> +Ere they could think of wondering<br /> +Why Bertha was so late.</p> +<p>XV.</p> +<p>She came, and calmly listen’d;<br /> +In vain they strove to trace<br /> +If Herbert’s memory shadow’d<br /> +In grief upon her face.<br /> +No blame, no wonder show’d there,<br /> +No feeling could be told;<br /> +Her voice was not less steady,<br /> +Her manner not more cold.</p> +<p>XVI.</p> +<p>They could not hear the anguish<br /> +That broke in words of pain<br /> +Through that calm summer midnight,—<br /> +“My Herbert—mine again!”<br /> +Yes, they have once been parted,<br /> +But this day shall restore<br /> +The long lost one: she claims him:<br /> +“My Herbert—mine once more!”</p> +<p>XVII.</p> +<p>Now Christmas Eve returning,<br /> +Saw Bertha stand beside<br /> +The altar, greeting Dora,<br /> +Again a smiling bride;<br /> +And now the gloomy evening<br /> +Sees Bertha pale and worn,<br /> +Leaving the house for ever,<br /> +To wander out forlorn.</p> +<p>XVIII.</p> +<p>Forlorn—nay, not so. Anguish<br /> +Shall do its work at length;<br /> +Her soul, pass’d through the fire,<br /> +Shall gain still purer strength.<br /> +Somewhere there waits for Bertha<br /> +An earnest noble part;<br /> +And, meanwhile, God is with her,—<br /> +God, and her own true heart!</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>I could warmly and sincerely praise the little poem, when Jarber +had done reading it; but I could not say that it tended in any degree +towards clearing up the mystery of the empty House.</p> +<p>Whether it was the absence of the irritating influence of Trottle, +or whether it was simply fatigue, I cannot say, but Jarber did not strike +me, that evening, as being in his usual spirits. And though he +declared that he was not in the least daunted by his want of success +thus far, and that he was resolutely determined to make more discoveries, +he spoke in a languid absent manner, and shortly afterwards took his +leave at rather an early hour.</p> +<p>When Trottle came back, and when I indignantly taxed him with Philandering, +he not only denied the imputation, but asserted that he had been employed +on my service, and, in consideration of that, boldly asked for leave +of absence for two days, and for a morning to himself afterwards, to +complete the business, in which he solemnly declared that I was interested. +In remembrance of his long and faithful service to me, I did violence +to myself, and granted his request. And he, on his side, engaged +to explain himself to my satisfaction, in a week’s time, on Monday +evening the twentieth.</p> +<p>A day or two before, I sent to Jarber’s lodgings to ask him +to drop in to tea. His landlady sent back an apology for him that +made my hair stand on end. His feet were in hot water; his head +was in a flannel petticoat; a green shade was over his eyes; the rheumatism +was in his legs; and a mustard-poultice was on his chest. He was +also a little feverish, and rather distracted in his mind about Manchester +Marriages, a Dwarf, and Three Evenings, or Evening Parties—his +landlady was not sure which—in an empty House, with the Water +Rate unpaid.</p> +<p>Under these distressing circumstances, I was necessarily left alone +with Trottle. His promised explanation began, like Jarber’s +discoveries, with the reading of a written paper. The only difference +was that Trottle introduced his manuscript under the name of a Report.</p> +<div class='chapter' /><h2>TROTTLE’S REPORT</h2> +<p>The curious events related in these pages would, many of them, most +likely never have happened, if a person named Trottle had not presumed, +contrary to his usual custom, to think for himself.</p> +<p>The subject on which the person in question had ventured, for the +first time in his life, to form an opinion purely and entirely his own, +was one which had already excited the interest of his respected mistress +in a very extraordinary degree. Or, to put it in plainer terms +still, the subject was no other than the mystery of the empty House.</p> +<p>Feeling no sort of objection to set a success of his own, if possible, +side by side with a failure of Mr. Jarber’s, Trottle made up his +mind, one Monday evening, to try what he could do, on his own account, +towards clearing up the mystery of the empty House. Carefully +dismissing from his mind all nonsensical notions of former tenants and +their histories, and keeping the one point in view steadily before him, +he started to reach it in the shortest way, by walking straight up to +the House, and bringing himself face to face with the first person in +it who opened the door to him.</p> +<p>It was getting towards dark, on Monday evening, the thirteenth of +the month, when Trottle first set foot on the steps of the House. +When he knocked at the door, he knew nothing of the matter which he +was about to investigate, except that the landlord was an elderly widower +of good fortune, and that his name was Forley. A small beginning +enough for a man to start from, certainly!</p> +<p>On dropping the knocker, his first proceeding was to look down cautiously +out of the corner of his right eye, for any results which might show +themselves at the kitchen-window. There appeared at it immediately +the figure of a woman, who looked up inquisitively at the stranger on +the steps, left the window in a hurry, and came back to it with an open +letter in her hand, which she held up to the fading light. After +looking over the letter hastily for a moment or so, the woman disappeared +once more.</p> +<p>Trottle next heard footsteps shuffling and scraping along the bare +hall of the house. On a sudden they ceased, and the sound of two +voices—a shrill persuading voice and a gruff resisting voice—confusedly +reached his ears. After a while, the voices left off speaking—a +chain was undone, a bolt drawn back—the door opened—and +Trottle stood face to face with two persons, a woman in advance, and +a man behind her, leaning back flat against the wall.</p> +<p>“Wish you good evening, sir,” says the woman, in such +a sudden way, and in such a cracked voice, that it was quite startling +to hear her. “Chilly weather, ain’t it, sir? +Please to walk in. You come from good Mr. Forley, don’t +you, sir?”</p> +<p>“Don’t you, sir?” chimes in the man hoarsely, making +a sort of gruff echo of himself, and chuckling after it, as if he thought +he had made a joke.</p> +<p>If Trottle had said, “No,” the door would have been probably +closed in his face. Therefore, he took circumstances as he found +them, and boldly ran all the risk, whatever it might be, of saying, +“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Quite right sir,” says the woman. “Good +Mr. Forley’s letter told us his particular friend would be here +to represent him, at dusk, on Monday the thirteenth—or, if not +on Monday the thirteenth, then on Monday the twentieth, at the same +time, without fail. And here you are on Monday the thirteenth, +ain’t you, sir? Mr. Forley’s particular friend, and +dressed all in black—quite right, sir! Please to step into +the dining-room—it’s always kep scoured and clean against +Mr. Forley comes here—and I’ll fetch a candle in half a +minute. It gets so dark in the evenings, now, you hardly know +where you are, do you, sir? And how is good Mr. Forley in his +health? We trust he is better, Benjamin, don’t we? +We are so sorry not to see him as usual, Benjamin, ain’t we? +In half a minute, sir, if you don’t mind waiting, I’ll be +back with the candle. Come along, Benjamin.”</p> +<p>“Come along, Benjamin,” chimes in the echo, and chuckles +again as if he thought he had made another joke.</p> +<p>Left alone in the empty front-parlour, Trottle wondered what was +coming next, as he heard the shuffling, scraping footsteps go slowly +down the kitchen-stairs. The front-door had been carefully chained +up and bolted behind him on his entrance; and there was not the least +chance of his being able to open it to effect his escape, without betraying +himself by making a noise.</p> +<p>Not being of the Jarber sort, luckily for himself, he took his situation +quietly, as he found it, and turned his time, while alone, to account, +by summing up in his own mind the few particulars which he had discovered +thus far. He had found out, first, that Mr. Forley was in the +habit of visiting the house regularly. Second, that Mr. Forley +being prevented by illness from seeing the people put in charge as usual, +had appointed a friend to represent him; and had written to say so. +Third, that the friend had a choice of two Mondays, at a particular +time in the evening, for doing his errand; and that Trottle had accidentally +hit on this time, and on the first of the Mondays, for beginning his +own investigations. Fourth, that the similarity between Trottle’s +black dress, as servant out of livery, and the dress of the messenger +(whoever he might be), had helped the error by which Trottle was profiting. +So far, so good. But what was the messenger’s errand? and +what chance was there that he might not come up and knock at the door +himself, from minute to minute, on that very evening?</p> +<p>While Trottle was turning over this last consideration in his mind, +he heard the shuffling footsteps come up the stairs again, with a flash +of candle-light going before them. He waited for the woman’s +coming in with some little anxiety; for the twilight had been too dim +on his getting into the house to allow him to see either her face or +the man’s face at all clearly.</p> +<p>The woman came in first, with the man she called Benjamin at her +heels, and set the candle on the mantel-piece. Trottle takes leave +to describe her as an offensively-cheerful old woman, awfully lean and +wiry, and sharp all over, at eyes, nose, and chin—devilishly brisk, +smiling, and restless, with a dirty false front and a dirty black cap, +and short fidgetty arms, and long hooked finger-nails—an unnaturally +lusty old woman, who walked with a spring in her wicked old feet, and +spoke with a smirk on her wicked old face—the sort of old woman +(as Trottle thinks) who ought to have lived in the dark ages, and been +ducked in a horse-pond, instead of flourishing in the nineteenth century, +and taking charge of a Christian house.</p> +<p>“You’ll please to excuse my son, Benjamin, won’t +you, sir?” says this witch without a broomstick, pointing to the +man behind her, propped against the bare wall of the dining-room, exactly +as he had been propped against the bare wall of the passage. “He’s +got his inside dreadful bad again, has my son Benjamin. And he +won’t go to bed, and he will follow me about the house, up-stairs +and downstairs, and in my lady’s chamber, as the song says, you +know. It’s his indisgestion, poor dear, that sours his temper +and makes him so agravating—and indisgestion is a wearing thing +to the best of us, ain’t it, sir?”</p> +<p>“Ain’t it, sir?” chimes in agravating Benjamin, +winking at the candle-light like an owl at the sunshine.</p> +<p>Trottle examined the man curiously, while his horrid old mother was +speaking of him. He found “My son Benjamin” to be +little and lean, and buttoned-up slovenly in a frowsy old great-coat +that fell down to his ragged carpet-slippers. His eyes were very +watery, his cheeks very pale, and his lips very red. His breathing +was so uncommonly loud, that it sounded almost like a snore. His +head rolled helplessly in the monstrous big collar of his great-coat; +and his limp, lazy hands pottered about the wall on either side of him, +as if they were groping for a imaginary bottle. In plain English, +the complaint of “My son Benjamin” was drunkenness, of the +stupid, pig-headed, sottish kind. Drawing this conclusion easily +enough, after a moment’s observation of the man, Trottle found +himself, nevertheless, keeping his eyes fixed much longer than was necessary +on the ugly drunken face rolling about in the monstrous big coat collar, +and looking at it with a curiosity that he could hardly account for +at first. Was there something familiar to him in the man’s +features? He turned away from them for an instant, and then turned +back to him again. After that second look, the notion forced itself +into his mind, that he had certainly seen a face somewhere, of which +that sot’s face appeared like a kind of slovenly copy. “Where?” +thinks he to himself, “where did I last see the man whom this +agravating Benjamin, here, so very strongly reminds me of?”</p> +<p>It was no time, just then—with the cheerful old woman’s +eye searching him all over, and the cheerful old woman’s tongue +talking at him, nineteen to the dozen—for Trottle to be ransacking +his memory for small matters that had got into wrong corners of it. +He put by in his mind that very curious circumstance respecting Benjamin’s +face, to be taken up again when a fit opportunity offered itself; and +kept his wits about him in prime order for present necessities.</p> +<p>“You wouldn’t like to go down into the kitchen, would +you?” says the witch without the broomstick, as familiar as if +she had been Trottle’s mother, instead of Benjamin’s. +“There’s a bit of fire in the grate, and the sink in the +back kitchen don’t smell to matter much to-day, and it’s +uncommon chilly up here when a person’s flesh don’t hardly +cover a person’s bones. But you don’t look cold, sir, +do you? And then, why, Lord bless my soul, our little bit of business +is so very, very little, it’s hardly worth while to go downstairs +about it, after all. Quite a game at business, ain’t it, +sir? Give-and-take that’s what I call it—give-and-take!”</p> +<p>With that, her wicked old eyes settled hungrily on the region round +about Trottle’s waistcoat-pocket, and she began to chuckle like +her son, holding out one of her skinny hands, and tapping cheerfully +in the palm with the knuckles of the other. Agravating Benjamin, +seeing what she was about, roused up a little, chuckled and tapped in +imitation of her, got an idea of his own into his muddled head all of +a sudden, and bolted it out charitably for the benefit of Trottle.</p> +<p>“I say!” says Benjamin, settling himself against the +wall and nodding his head viciously at his cheerful old mother. +“I say! Look out. She’ll skin you!”</p> +<p>Assisted by these signs and warnings, Trottle found no difficulty +in understanding that the business referred to was the giving and taking +of money, and that he was expected to be the giver. It was at +this stage of the proceedings that he first felt decidedly uncomfortable, +and more than half inclined to wish he was on the street-side of the +house-door again.</p> +<p>He was still cudgelling his brains for an excuse to save his pocket, +when the silence was suddenly interrupted by a sound in the upper part +of the house.</p> +<p>It was not at all loud—it was a quiet, still, scraping sound—so +faint that it could hardly have reached the quickest ears, except in +an empty house.</p> +<p>“Do you hear that, Benjamin?” says the old woman. +“He’s at it again, even in the dark, ain’t he? +P’raps you’d like to see him, sir!” says she, turning +on Trottle, and poking her grinning face close to him. “Only +name it; only say if you’d like to see him before we do our little +bit of business—and I’ll show good Forley’s friend +up-stairs, just as if he was good Mr. Forley himself. <i>My</i> +legs are all right, whatever Benjamin’s may be. I get younger +and younger, and stronger and stronger, and jollier and jollier, every +day—that’s what I do! Don’t mind the stairs +on my account, sir, if you’d like to see him.”</p> +<p>“Him?” Trottle wondered whether “him” meant +a man, or a boy, or a domestic animal of the male species. Whatever +it meant, here was a chance of putting off that uncomfortable give-and-take-business, +and, better still, a chance perhaps of finding out one of the secrets +of the mysterious House. Trottle’s spirits began to rise +again and he said “Yes,” directly, with the confidence of +a man who knew all about it.</p> +<p>Benjamin’s mother took the candle at once, and lighted Trottle +briskly to the stairs; and Benjamin himself tried to follow as usual. +But getting up several flights of stairs, even helped by the bannisters, +was more, with his particular complaint, than he seemed to feel himself +inclined to venture on. He sat down obstinately on the lowest +step, with his head against the wall, and the tails of his big great-coat +spreading out magnificently on the stairs behind him and above him, +like a dirty imitation of a court lady’s train.</p> +<p>“Don’t sit there, dear,” says his affectionate +mother, stopping to snuff the candle on the first landing.</p> +<p>“I shall sit here,” says Benjamin, agravating to the +last, “till the milk comes in the morning.”</p> +<p>The cheerful old woman went on nimbly up the stairs to the first +floor, and Trottle followed, with his eyes and ears wide open. +He had seen nothing out of the common in the front-parlour, or up the +staircase, so far. The House was dirty and dreary and close-smelling—but +there was nothing about it to excite the least curiosity, except the +faint scraping sound, which was now beginning to get a little clearer—though +still not at all loud—as Trottle followed his leader up the stairs +to the second floor.</p> +<p>Nothing on the second-floor landing, but cobwebs above and bits of +broken plaster below, cracked off from the ceiling. Benjamin’s +mother was not a bit out of breath, and looked all ready to go to the +top of the monument if necessary. The faint scraping sound had +got a little clearer still; but Trottle was no nearer to guessing what +it might be, than when he first heard it in the parlour downstairs.</p> +<p>On the third, and last, floor, there were two doors; one, which was +shut, leading into the front garret; and one, which was ajar, leading +into the back garret. There was a loft in the ceiling above the +landing; but the cobwebs all over it vouched sufficiently for its not +having been opened for some little time. The scraping noise, plainer +than ever here, sounded on the other side of the back garret door; and, +to Trottle’s great relief, that was precisely the door which the +cheerful old woman now pushed open.</p> +<p>Trottle followed her in; and, for once in his life, at any rate, +was struck dumb with amazement, at the sight which the inside of the +room revealed to him.</p> +<p>The garret was absolutely empty of everything in the shape of furniture. +It must have been used at one time or other, by somebody engaged in +a profession or a trade which required for the practice of it a great +deal of light; for the one window in the room, which looked out on a +wide open space at the back of the house, was three or four times as +large, every way, as a garret-window usually is. Close under this +window, kneeling on the bare boards with his face to the door, there +appeared, of all the creatures in the world to see alone at such a place +and at such a time, a mere mite of a child—a little, lonely, wizen, +strangely-clad boy, who could not at the most, have been more than five +years old. He had a greasy old blue shawl crossed over his breast, +and rolled up, to keep the ends from the ground, into a great big lump +on his back. A strip of something which looked like the remains +of a woman’s flannel petticoat, showed itself under the shawl, +and, below that again, a pair of rusty black stockings, worlds too large +for him, covered his legs and his shoeless feet. A pair of old +clumsy muffetees, which had worked themselves up on his little frail +red arms to the elbows, and a big cotton nightcap that had dropped down +to his very eyebrows, finished off the strange dress which the poor +little man seemed not half big enough to fill out, and not near strong +enough to walk about in.</p> +<p>But there was something to see even more extraordinary than the clothes +the child was swaddled up in, and that was the game which he was playing +at, all by himself; and which, moreover, explained in the most unexpected +manner the faint scraping noise that had found its way down-stairs, +through the half-opened door, in the silence of the empty house.</p> +<p>It has been mentioned that the child was on his knees in the garret, +when Trottle first saw him. He was not saying his prayers, and +not crouching down in terror at being alone in the dark. He was, +odd and unaccountable as it may appear, doing nothing more or less than +playing at a charwoman’s or housemaid’s business of scouring +the floor. Both his little hands had tight hold of a mangy old +blacking-brush, with hardly any bristles left in it, which he was rubbing +backwards and forwards on the boards, as gravely and steadily as if +he had been at scouring-work for years, and had got a large family to +keep by it. The coming-in of Trottle and the old woman did not +startle or disturb him in the least. He just looked up for a minute +at the candle, with a pair of very bright, sharp eyes, and then went +on with his work again, as if nothing had happened. On one side +of him was a battered pint saucepan without a handle, which was his +make-believe pail; and on the other a morsel of slate-coloured cotton +rag, which stood for his flannel to wipe up with. After scrubbing +bravely for a minute or two, he took the bit of rag, and mopped up, +and then squeezed make-believe water out into his make-believe pail, +as grave as any judge that ever sat on a Bench. By the time he +thought he had got the floor pretty dry, he raised himself upright on +his knees, and blew out a good long breath, and set his little red arms +akimbo, and nodded at Trottle.</p> +<p>“There!” says the child, knitting his little downy eyebrows +into a frown. “Drat the dirt! I’ve cleaned up. +Where’s my beer?”</p> +<p>Benjamin’s mother chuckled till Trottle thought she would have +choked herself.</p> +<p>“Lord ha’ mercy on us!” says she, “just hear +the imp. You would never think he was only five years old, would +you, sir? Please to tell good Mr. Forley you saw him going on +as nicely as ever, playing at being me scouring the parlour floor, and +calling for my beer afterwards. That’s his regular game, +morning, noon, and night—he’s never tired of it. Only +look how snug we’ve been and dressed him. That’s my +shawl a keepin his precious little body warm, and Benjamin’s nightcap +a keepin his precious little head warm, and Benjamin’s stockings, +drawed over his trowsers, a keepin his precious little legs warm. +He’s snug and happy if ever a imp was yet. ‘Where’s +my beer!’—say it again, little dear, say it again!”</p> +<p>If Trottle had seen the boy, with a light and a fire in the room, +clothed like other children, and playing naturally with a top, or a +box of soldiers, or a bouncing big India-rubber ball, he might have +been as cheerful under the circumstances as Benjamin’s mother +herself. But seeing the child reduced (as he could not help suspecting) +for want of proper toys and proper child’s company, to take up +with the mocking of an old woman at her scouring-work, for something +to stand in the place of a game, Trottle, though not a family man, nevertheless +felt the sight before him to be, in its way, one of the saddest and +the most pitiable that he had ever witnessed.</p> +<p>“Why, my man,” says he, “you’re the boldest +little chap in all England. You don’t seem a bit afraid +of being up here all by yourself in the dark.”</p> +<p>“The big winder,” says the child, pointing up to it, +“sees in the dark; and I see with the big winder.” +He stops a bit, and gets up on his legs, and looks hard at Benjamin’s +mother. “I’m a good ’un,” says he, “ain’t +I? I save candle.”</p> +<p>Trottle wondered what else the forlorn little creature had been brought +up to do without, besides candle-light; and risked putting a question +as to whether he ever got a run in the open air to cheer him up a bit. +O, yes, he had a run now and then, out of doors (to say nothing of his +runs about the house), the lively little cricket—a run according +to good Mr. Forley’s instructions, which were followed out carefully, +as good Mr. Forley’s friend would be glad to hear, to the very +letter.</p> +<p>As Trottle could only have made one reply to this, namely, that good +Mr. Forley’s instructions were, in his opinion, the instructions +of an infernal scamp; and as he felt that such an answer would naturally +prove the death-blow to all further discoveries on his part, he gulped +down his feelings before they got too many for him, and held his tongue, +and looked round towards the window again to see what the forlorn little +boy was going to amuse himself with next.</p> +<p>The child had gathered up his blacking-brush and bit of rag, and +had put them into the old tin saucepan; and was now working his way, +as well as his clothes would let him, with his make-believe pail hugged +up in his arms, towards a door of communication which led from the back +to the front garret.</p> +<p>“I say,” says he, looking round sharply over his shoulder, +“what are you two stopping here for? I’m going to +bed now—and so I tell you!”</p> +<p>With that, he opened the door, and walked into the front room. +Seeing Trottle take a step or two to follow him, Benjamin’s mother +opened her wicked old eyes in a state of great astonishment.</p> +<p>“Mercy on us!” says she, “haven’t you seen +enough of him yet?”</p> +<p>“No,” says Trottle. “I should like to see +him go to bed.”</p> +<p>Benjamin’s mother burst into such a fit of chuckling that the +loose extinguisher in the candlestick clattered again with the shaking +of her hand. To think of good Mr. Forley’s friend taking +ten times more trouble about the imp than good Mr. Forley himself! +Such a joke as that, Benjamin’s mother had not often met with +in the course of her life, and she begged to be excused if she took +the liberty of having a laugh at it.</p> +<p>Leaving her to laugh as much as she pleased, and coming to a pretty +positive conclusion, after what he had just heard, that Mr. Forley’s +interest in the child was not of the fondest possible kind, Trottle +walked into the front room, and Benjamin’s mother, enjoying herself +immensely, followed with the candle.</p> +<p>There were two pieces of furniture in the front garret. One, +an old stool of the sort that is used to stand a cask of beer on; and +the other a great big ricketty straddling old truckle bedstead. +In the middle of this bedstead, surrounded by a dim brown waste of sacking, +was a kind of little island of poor bedding—an old bolster, with +nearly all the feathers out of it, doubled in three for a pillow; a +mere shred of patchwork counter-pane, and a blanket; and under that, +and peeping out a little on either side beyond the loose clothes, two +faded chair cushions of horsehair, laid along together for a sort of +makeshift mattress. When Trottle got into the room, the lonely +little boy had scrambled up on the bedstead with the help of the beer-stool, +and was kneeling on the outer rim of sacking with the shred of counterpane +in his hands, just making ready to tuck it in for himself under the +chair cushions.</p> +<p>“I’ll tuck you up, my man,” says Trottle. +“Jump into bed, and let me try.”</p> +<p>“I mean to tuck myself up,” says the poor forlorn child, +“and I don’t mean to jump. I mean to crawl, I do—and +so I tell you!”</p> +<p>With that, he set to work, tucking in the clothes tight all down +the sides of the cushions, but leaving them open at the foot. +Then, getting up on his knees, and looking hard at Trottle as much as +to say, “What do you mean by offering to help such a handy little +chap as me?” he began to untie the big shawl for himself, and +did it, too, in less than half a minute. Then, doubling the shawl +up loose over the foot of the bed, he says, “I say, look here,” +and ducks under the clothes, head first, worming his way up and up softly, +under the blanket and counterpane, till Trottle saw the top of the large +nightcap slowly peep out on the bolster. This over-sized head-gear +of the child’s had so shoved itself down in the course of his +journey to the pillow, under the clothes, that when he got his face +fairly out on the bolster, he was all nightcap down to his mouth. +He soon freed himself, however, from this slight encumbrance by turning +the ends of the cap up gravely to their old place over his eyebrows—looked +at Trottle—said, “Snug, ain’t it? Good-bye!”—popped +his face under the clothes again—and left nothing to be seen of +him but the empty peak of the big nightcap standing up sturdily on end +in the middle of the bolster.</p> +<p>“What a young limb it is, ain’t it?” says Benjamin’s +mother, giving Trottle a cheerful dig with her elbow. “Come +on! you won’t see no more of him to-night!”</p> +<p>“And so I tell you!” sings out a shrill, little voice +under the bedclothes, chiming in with a playful finish to the old woman’s +last words.</p> +<p>If Trottle had not been, by this time, positively resolved to follow +the wicked secret which accident had mixed him up with, through all +its turnings and windings, right on to the end, he would have probably +snatched the boy up then and there, and carried him off from his garret +prison, bed-clothes and all. As it was, he put a strong check +on himself, kept his eye on future possibilities, and allowed Benjamin’s +mother to lead him down-stairs again.</p> +<p>“Mind them top bannisters,” says she, as Trottle laid +his hand on them. “They are as rotten as medlars every one +of ’em.”</p> +<p>“When people come to see the premises,” says Trottle, +trying to feel his way a little farther into the mystery of the House, +“you don’t bring many of them up here, do you?”</p> +<p>“Bless your heart alive!” says she, “nobody ever +comes now. The outside of the house is quite enough to warn them +off. Mores the pity, as I say. It used to keep me in spirits, +staggering ’em all, one after another, with the frightful high +rent—specially the women, drat ’em. ‘What’s +the rent of this house?’—‘Hundred and twenty pound +a-year!’—‘Hundred and twenty? why, there ain’t +a house in the street as lets for more than eighty!’—‘Likely +enough, ma’am; other landlords may lower their rents if they please; +but this here landlord sticks to his rights, and means to have as much +for his house as his father had before him!’—‘But +the neighbourhood’s gone off since then!’—‘Hundred +and twenty pound, ma’am.’—‘The landlord must +be mad!’—‘Hundred and twenty pound, ma’am.’—‘Open +the door you impertinent woman!’ Lord! what a happiness +it was to see ’em bounce out, with that awful rent a-ringing in +their ears all down the street!”</p> +<p>She stopped on the second-floor landing to treat herself to another +chuckle, while Trottle privately posted up in his memory what he had +just heard. “Two points made out,” he thought to himself: +“the house is kept empty on purpose, and the way it’s done +is to ask a rent that nobody will pay.”</p> +<p>“Ah, deary me!” says Benjamin’s mother, changing +the subject on a sudden, and twisting back with a horrid, greedy quickness +to those awkward money-matters which she had broached down in the parlour. +“What we’ve done, one way and another for Mr. Forley, it +isn’t in words to tell! That nice little bit of business +of ours ought to be a bigger bit of business, considering the trouble +we take, Benjamin and me, to make the imp upstairs as happy as the day +is long. If good Mr. Forley would only please to think a little +more of what a deal he owes to Benjamin and me—”</p> +<p>“That’s just it,” says Trottle, catching her up +short in desperation, and seeing his way, by the help of those last +words of hers, to slipping cleverly through her fingers. “What +should you say, if I told you that Mr. Forley was nothing like so far +from thinking about that little matter as you fancy? You would +be disappointed, now, if I told you that I had come to-day without the +money?”—(her lank old jaw fell, and her villainous old eyes +glared, in a perfect state of panic, at that!)—“But what +should you say, if I told you that Mr. Forley was only waiting for my +report, to send me here next Monday, at dusk, with a bigger bit of business +for us two to do together than ever you think for? What should +you say to that?”</p> +<p>The old wretch came so near to Trottle, before she answered, and +jammed him up confidentially so close into the corner of the landing, +that his throat, in a manner, rose at her.</p> +<p>“Can you count it off, do you think, on more than that?” +says she, holding up her four skinny fingers and her long crooked thumb, +all of a tremble, right before his face.</p> +<p>“What do you say to two hands, instead of one?” says +he, pushing past her, and getting down-stairs as fast as he could.</p> +<p>What she said Trottle thinks it best not to report, seeing that the +old hypocrite, getting next door to light-headed at the golden prospect +before her, took such liberties with unearthly names and persons which +ought never to have approached her lips, and rained down such an awful +shower of blessings on Trottle’s head, that his hair almost stood +on end to hear her. He went on down-stairs as fast as his feet +would carry him, till he was brought up all standing, as the sailors +say, on the last flight, by agravating Benjamin, lying right across +the stair, and fallen off, as might have been expected, into a heavy +drunken sleep.</p> +<p>The sight of him instantly reminded Trottle of the curious half likeness +which he had already detected between the face of Benjamin and the face +of another man, whom he had seen at a past time in very different circumstances. +He determined, before leaving the House, to have one more look at the +wretched muddled creature; and accordingly shook him up smartly, and +propped him against the staircase wall, before his mother could interfere.</p> +<p>“Leave him to me; I’ll freshen him up,” says Trottle +to the old woman, looking hard in Benjamin’s face, while he spoke.</p> +<p>The fright and surprise of being suddenly woke up, seemed, for about +a quarter of a minute, to sober the creature. When he first opened +his eyes, there was a new look in them for a moment, which struck home +to Trottle’s memory as quick and as clear as a flash of light. +The old maudlin sleepy expression came back again in another instant, +and blurred out all further signs and tokens of the past. But +Trottle had seen enough in the moment before it came; and he troubled +Benjamin’s face with no more inquiries.</p> +<p>“Next Monday, at dusk,” says he, cutting short some more +of the old woman’s palaver about Benjamin’s indisgestion. +“I’ve got no more time to spare, ma’am, to-night: +please to let me out.”</p> +<p>With a few last blessings, a few last dutiful messages to good Mr. +Forley, and a few last friendly hints not to forget next Monday at dusk, +Trottle contrived to struggle through the sickening business of leave-taking; +to get the door opened; and to find himself, to his own indescribable +relief, once more on the outer side of the House To Let.</p> +<div class='chapter' /><h2>LET AT LAST</h2> +<p>“There, ma’am!” said Trottle, folding up the manuscript +from which he had been reading, and setting it down with a smart tap +of triumph on the table. “May I venture to ask what you +think of that plain statement, as a guess on my part (and not on Mr. +Jarber’s) at the riddle of the empty House?”</p> +<p>For a minute or two I was unable to say a word. When I recovered +a little, my first question referred to the poor forlorn little boy.</p> +<p>“To-day is Monday the twentieth,” I said. “Surely +you have not let a whole week go by without trying to find out something +more?”</p> +<p>“Except at bed-time, and meals, ma’am,” answered +Trottle, “I have not let an hour go by. Please to understand +that I have only come to an end of what I have written, and not to an +end of what I have done. I wrote down those first particulars, +ma’am, because they are of great importance, and also because +I was determined to come forward with my written documents, seeing that +Mr. Jarber chose to come forward, in the first instance, with his. +I am now ready to go on with the second part of my story as shortly +and plainly as possible, by word of mouth. The first thing I must +clear up, if you please, is the matter of Mr. Forley’s family +affairs. I have heard you speak of them, ma’am, at various +times; and I have understood that Mr. Forley had two children only by +his deceased wife, both daughters. The eldest daughter married, +to her father’s entire satisfaction, one Mr. Bayne, a rich man, +holding a high government situation in Canada. She is now living +there with her husband, and her only child, a little girl of eight or +nine years old. Right so far, I think, ma’am?”</p> +<p>“Quite right,” I said.</p> +<p>“The second daughter,” Trottle went on, “and Mr. +Forley’s favourite, set her father’s wishes and the opinions +of the world at flat defiance, by running away with a man of low origin—a +mate of a merchant-vessel, named Kirkland. Mr. Forley not only +never forgave that marriage, but vowed that he would visit the scandal +of it heavily in the future on husband and wife. Both escaped +his vengeance, whatever he meant it to be. The husband was drowned +on his first voyage after his marriage, and the wife died in child-bed. +Right again, I believe, ma’am?”</p> +<p>“Again quite right.”</p> +<p>“Having got the family matter all right, we will now go back, +ma’am, to me and my doings. Last Monday, I asked you for +leave of absence for two days; I employed the time in clearing up the +matter of Benjamin’s face. Last Saturday I was out of the +way when you wanted me. I played truant, ma’am, on that +occasion, in company with a friend of mine, who is managing clerk in +a lawyer’s office; and we both spent the morning at Doctors’ +Commons, over the last will and testament of Mr. Forley’s father. +Leaving the will-business for a moment, please to follow me first, if +you have no objection, into the ugly subject of Benjamin’s face. +About six or seven years ago (thanks to your kindness) I had a week’s +holiday with some friends of mine who live in the town of Pendlebury. +One of those friends (the only one now left in the place) kept a chemist’s +shop, and in that shop I was made acquainted with one of the two doctors +in the town, named Barsham. This Barsham was a first-rate surgeon, +and might have got to the top of his profession, if he had not been +a first-rate blackguard. As it was, he both drank and gambled; +nobody would have anything to do with him in Pendlebury; and, at the +time when I was made known to him in the chemist’s shop, the other +doctor, Mr. Dix, who was not to be compared with him for surgical skill, +but who was a respectable man, had got all the practice; and Barsham +and his old mother were living together in such a condition of utter +poverty, that it was a marvel to everybody how they kept out of the +parish workhouse.”</p> +<p>“Benjamin and Benjamin’s mother!”</p> +<p>“Exactly, ma’am. Last Thursday morning (thanks +to your kindness, again) I went to Pendlebury to my friend the chemist, +to ask a few questions about Barsham and his mother. I was told +that they had both left the town about five years since. When +I inquired into the circumstances, some strange particulars came out +in the course of the chemist’s answer. You know I have no +doubt, ma’am, that poor Mrs. Kirkland was confined while her husband +was at sea, in lodgings at a village called Flatfield, and that she +died and was buried there. But what you may not know is, that +Flatfield is only three miles from Pendlebury; that the doctor who attended +on Mrs. Kirkland was Barsham; that the nurse who took care of her was +Barsham’s mother; and that the person who called them both in, +was Mr. Forley. Whether his daughter wrote to him, or whether +he heard of it in some other way, I don’t know; but he was with +her (though he had sworn never to see her again when she married) a +month or more before her confinement, and was backwards and forwards +a good deal between Flatfield and Pendlebury. How he managed matters +with the Barshams cannot at present be discovered; but it is a fact +that he contrived to keep the drunken doctor sober, to everybody’s +amazement. It is a fact that Barsham went to the poor woman with +all his wits about him. It is a fact that he and his mother came +back from Flatfield after Mrs. Kirkland’s death, packed up what +few things they had, and left the town mysteriously by night. +And, lastly, it is also a fact that the other doctor, Mr. Dix, was not +called in to help, till a week after the birth <i>and burial</i> of +the child, when the mother was sinking from exhaustion—exhaustion +(to give the vagabond, Barsham, his due) not produced, in Mr. Dix’s +opinion, by improper medical treatment, but by the bodily weakness of +the poor woman herself—”</p> +<p>“Burial of the child?” I interrupted, trembling all over. +“Trottle! you spoke that word ‘burial’ in a very strange +way—you are fixing your eyes on me now with a very strange look—”</p> +<p>Trottle leaned over close to me, and pointed through the window to +the empty house.</p> +<p>“The child’s death is registered, at Pendlebury,” +he said, “on Barsham’s certificate, under the head of Male +Infant, Still-Born. The child’s coffin lies in the mother’s +grave, in Flatfield churchyard. The child himself—as surely +as I live and breathe, is living and breathing now—a castaway +and a prisoner in that villainous house!”</p> +<p>I sank back in my chair.</p> +<p>“It’s guess-work, so far, but it is borne in on my mind, +for all that, as truth. Rouse yourself, ma’am, and think +a little. The last I hear of Barsham, he is attending Mr. Forley’s +disobedient daughter. The next I see of Barsham, he is in Mr. +Forley’s house, trusted with a secret. He and his mother +leave Pendlebury suddenly and suspiciously five years back; and he and +his mother have got a child of five years old, hidden away in the house. +Wait! please to wait—I have not done yet. The will left +by Mr. Forley’s father, strengthens the suspicion. The friend +I took with me to Doctors’ Commons, made himself master of the +contents of that will; and when he had done so, I put these two questions +to him. ‘Can Mr. Forley leave his money at his own discretion +to anybody he pleases?’ ‘No,’ my friend says, +‘his father has left him with only a life interest in it.’ +‘Suppose one of Mr. Forley’s married daughters has a girl, +and the other a boy, how would the money go?’ ‘It +would all go,’ my friend says, ‘to the boy, and it would +be charged with the payment of a certain annual income to his female +cousin. After her death, it would go back to the male descendant, +and to his heirs.’ Consider that, ma’am! The +child of the daughter whom Mr. Forley hates, whose husband has been +snatched away from his vengeance by death, takes his whole property +in defiance of him; and the child of the daughter whom he loves, is +left a pensioner on her low-born boy-cousin for life! There was +good—too good reason—why that child of Mrs. Kirkland’s +should be registered stillborn. And if, as I believe, the register +is founded on a false certificate, there is better, still better reason, +why the existence of the child should be hidden, and all trace of his +parentage blotted out, in the garret of that empty house.”</p> +<p>He stopped, and pointed for the second time to the dim, dust-covered +garret-windows opposite. As he did so, I was startled—a +very slight matter sufficed to frighten me now—by a knock at the +door of the room in which we were sitting.</p> +<p>My maid came in, with a letter in her hand. I took it from +her. The mourning card, which was all the envelope enclosed, dropped +from my hands.</p> +<p>George Forley was no more. He had departed this life three +days since, on the evening of Friday.</p> +<p>“Did our last chance of discovering the truth,” I asked, +“rest with <i>him</i>? Has it died with <i>his</i> death?”</p> +<p>“Courage, ma’am! I think not. Our chance +rests on our power to make Barsham and his mother confess; and Mr. Forley’s +death, by leaving them helpless, seems to put that power into our hands. +With your permission, I will not wait till dusk to-day, as I at first +intended, but will make sure of those two people at once. With +a policeman in plain clothes to watch the house, in case they try to +leave it; with this card to vouch for the fact of Mr. Forley’s +death; and with a bold acknowledgment on my part of having got possession +of their secret, and of being ready to use it against them in case of +need, I think there is little doubt of bringing Barsham and his mother +to terms. In case I find it impossible to get back here before +dusk, please to sit near the window, ma’am, and watch the house, +a little before they light the street-lamps. If you see the front-door +open and close again, will you be good enough to put on your bonnet, +and come across to me immediately? Mr. Forley’s death may, +or may not, prevent his messenger from coming as arranged. But, +if the person does come, it is of importance that you, as a relative +of Mr. Forley’s should be present to see him, and to have that +proper influence over him which I cannot pretend to exercise.”</p> +<p>The only words I could say to Trottle as he opened the door and left +me, were words charging him to take care that no harm happened to the +poor forlorn little boy.</p> +<p>Left alone, I drew my chair to the window; and looked out with a +beating heart at the guilty house. I waited and waited through +what appeared to me to be an endless time, until I heard the wheels +of a cab stop at the end of the street. I looked in that direction, +and saw Trottle get out of the cab alone, walk up to the house, and +knock at the door. He was let in by Barsham’s mother. +A minute or two later, a decently-dressed man sauntered past the house, +looked up at it for a moment, and sauntered on to the corner of the +street close by. Here he leant against the post, and lighted a +cigar, and stopped there smoking in an idle way, but keeping his face +always turned in the direction of the house-door.</p> +<p>I waited and waited still. I waited and waited, with my eyes +riveted to the door of the house. At last I thought I saw it open +in the dusk, and then felt sure I heard it shut again softly. +Though I tried hard to compose myself, I trembled so that I was obliged +to call for Peggy to help me on with my bonnet and cloak, and was forced +to take her arm to lean on, in crossing the street.</p> +<p>Trottle opened the door to us, before we could knock. Peggy +went back, and I went in. He had a lighted candle in his hand.</p> +<p>“It has happened, ma’am, as I thought it would,” +he whispered, leading me into the bare, comfortless, empty parlour. +“Barsham and his mother have consulted their own interests, and +have come to terms. My guess-work is guess-work no longer. +It is now what I felt it was—Truth!”</p> +<p>Something strange to me—something which women who are mothers +must often know—trembled suddenly in my heart, and brought the +warm tears of my youthful days thronging back into my eyes. I +took my faithful old servant by the hand, and asked him to let me see +Mrs. Kirkland’s child, for his mother’s sake.</p> +<p>“If you desire it, ma’am,” said Trottle, with a +gentleness of manner that I had never noticed in him before. “But +pray don’t think me wanting in duty and right feeling, if I beg +you to try and wait a little. You are agitated already, and a +first meeting with the child will not help to make you so calm, as you +would wish to be, if Mr. Forley’s messenger comes. The little +boy is safe up-stairs. Pray think first of trying to compose yourself +for a meeting with a stranger; and believe me you shall not leave the +house afterwards without the child.”</p> +<p>I felt that Trottle was right, and sat down as patiently as I could +in a chair he had thoughtfully placed ready for me. I was so horrified +at the discovery of my own relation’s wickedness that when Trottle +proposed to make me acquainted with the confession wrung from Barsham +and his mother, I begged him to spare me all details, and only to tell +me what was necessary about George Forley.</p> +<p>“All that can be said for Mr. Forley, ma’am, is, that +he was just scrupulous enough to hide the child’s existence and +blot out its parentage here, instead of consenting, at the first, to +its death, or afterwards, when the boy grew up, to turning him adrift, +absolutely helpless in the world. The fraud has been managed, +ma’am, with the cunning of Satan himself. Mr. Forley had +the hold over the Barshams, that they had helped him in his villany, +and that they were dependent on him for the bread they eat. He +brought them up to London to keep them securely under his own eye. +He put them into this empty house (taking it out of the agent’s +hands previously, on pretence that he meant to manage the letting of +it himself); and by keeping the house empty, made it the surest of all +hiding places for the child. Here, Mr. Forley could come, whenever +he pleased, to see that the poor lonely child was not absolutely starved; +sure that his visits would only appear like looking after his own property. +Here the child was to have been trained to believe himself Barsham’s +child, till he should be old enough to be provided for in some situation, +as low and as poor as Mr. Forley’s uneasy conscience would let +him pick out. He may have thought of atonement on his death-bed; +but not before—I am only too certain of it—not before!”</p> +<p>A low, double knock startled us.</p> +<p>“The messenger!” said Trottle, under his breath. +He went out instantly to answer the knock; and returned, leading in +a respectable-looking elderly man, dressed like Trottle, all in black, +with a white cravat, but otherwise not at all resembling him.</p> +<p>“I am afraid I have made some mistake,” said the stranger.</p> +<p>Trottle, considerately taking the office of explanation into his +own hands, assured the gentleman that there was no mistake; mentioned +to him who I was; and asked him if he had not come on business connected +with the late Mr. Forley. Looking greatly astonished, the gentleman +answered, “Yes.” There was an awkward moment of silence, +after that. The stranger seemed to be not only startled and amazed, +but rather distrustful and fearful of committing himself as well. +Noticing this, I thought it best to request Trottle to put an end to +further embarrassment, by stating all particulars truthfully, as he +had stated them to me; and I begged the gentleman to listen patiently +for the late Mr. Forley’s sake. He bowed to me very respectfully, +and said he was prepared to listen with the greatest interest.</p> +<p>It was evident to me—and, I could see, to Trottle also—that +we were not dealing, to say the least, with a dishonest man.</p> +<p>“Before I offer any opinion on what I have heard,” he +said, earnestly and anxiously, after Trottle had done, “I must +be allowed, in justice to myself, to explain my own apparent connection +with this very strange and very shocking business. I was the confidential +legal adviser of the late Mr. Forley, and I am left his executor. +Rather more than a fortnight back, when Mr. Forley was confined to his +room by illness, he sent for me, and charged me to call and pay a certain +sum of money here, to a man and woman whom I should find taking charge +of the house. He said he had reasons for wishing the affair to +be kept a secret. He begged me so to arrange my engagements that +I could call at this place either on Monday last, or to-day, at dusk; +and he mentioned that he would write to warn the people of my coming, +without mentioning my name (Dalcott is my name), as he did not wish +to expose me to any future importunities on the part of the man and +woman. I need hardly tell you that this commission struck me as +being a strange one; but, in my position with Mr. Forley, I had no resource +but to accept it without asking questions, or to break off my long and +friendly connection with my client. I chose the first alternative. +Business prevented me from doing my errand on Monday last—and +if I am here to-day, notwithstanding Mr. Forley’s unexpected death, +it is emphatically because I understood nothing of the matter, on knocking +at this door; and therefore felt myself bound, as executor, to clear +it up. That, on my word of honour, is the whole truth, so far +as I am personally concerned.”</p> +<p>“I feel quite sure of it, sir,” I answered.</p> +<p>“You mentioned Mr. Forley’s death, just now, as unexpected. +May I inquire if you were present, and if he has left any last instructions?”</p> +<p>“Three hours before Mr. Forley’s death,” said Mr. +Dalcott, “his medical attendant left him apparently in a fair +way of recovery. The change for the worse took place so suddenly, +and was accompanied by such severe suffering, to prevent him from communicating +his last wishes to any one. When I reached his house, he was insensible. +I have since examined his papers. Not one of them refers to the +present time or to the serious matter which now occupies us. In +the absence of instructions I must act cautiously on what you have told +me; but I will be rigidly fair and just at the same time. The +first thing to be done,” he continued, addressing himself to Trottle, +“is to hear what the man and woman, down-stairs, have to say. +If you can supply me with writing-materials, I will take their declarations +separately on the spot, in your presence, and in the presence of the +policeman who is watching the house. To-morrow I will send copies +of those declarations, accompanied by a full statement of the case, +to Mr. and Mrs. Bayne in Canada (both of whom know me well as the late +Mr. Forley’s legal adviser); and I will suspend all proceedings, +on my part, until I hear from them, or from their solicitor in London. +In the present posture of affairs this is all I can safely do.”</p> +<p>We could do no less than agree with him, and thank him for his frank +and honest manner of meeting us. It was arranged that I should +send over the writing-materials from my lodgings; and, to my unutterable +joy and relief, it was also readily acknowledged that the poor little +orphan boy could find no fitter refuge than my old arms were longing +to offer him, and no safer protection for the night than my roof could +give. Trottle hastened away up-stairs, as actively as if he had +been a young man, to fetch the child down.</p> +<p>And he brought him down to me without another moment of delay, and +I went on my knees before the poor little Mite, and embraced him, and +asked him if he would go with me to where I lived? He held me +away for a moment, and his wan, shrewd little eyes looked sharp at me. +Then he clung close to me all at once, and said:</p> +<p>“I’m a-going along with you, I am—and so I tell +you!”</p> +<p>For inspiring the poor neglected child with this trust in my old +self, I thanked Heaven, then, with all my heart and soul, and I thank +it now!</p> +<p>I bundled the poor darling up in my own cloak, and I carried him +in my own arms across the road. Peggy was lost in speechless amazement +to behold me trudging out of breath up-stairs, with a strange pair of +poor little legs under my arm; but, she began to cry over the child +the moment she saw him, like a sensible woman as she always was, and +she still cried her eyes out over him in a comfortable manner, when +he at last lay fast asleep, tucked up by my hands in Trottle’s +bed.</p> +<p>“And Trottle, bless you, my dear man,” said I, kissing +his hand, as he looked on: “the forlorn baby came to this refuge +through you, and he will help you on your way to Heaven.”</p> +<p>Trottle answered that I was his dear mistress, and immediately went +and put his head out at an open window on the landing, and looked into +the back street for a quarter of an hour.</p> +<p>That very night, as I sat thinking of the poor child, and of another +poor child who is never to be thought about enough at Christmas-time, +the idea came into my mind which I have lived to execute, and in the +realisation of which I am the happiest of women this day.</p> +<p>“The executor will sell that House, Trottle?” said I.</p> +<p>“Not a doubt of it, ma’am, if he can find a purchaser.”</p> +<p>“I’ll buy it.”</p> +<p>I have often seen Trottle pleased; but, I never saw him so perfectly +enchanted as he was when I confided to him, which I did, then and there, +the purpose that I had in view.</p> +<p>To make short of a long story—and what story would not be long, +coming from the lips of an old woman like me, unless it was made short +by main force!—I bought the House. Mrs. Bayne had her father’s +blood in her; she evaded the opportunity of forgiving and generous reparation +that was offered her, and disowned the child; but, I was prepared for +that, and loved him all the more for having no one in the world to look +to, but me.</p> +<p>I am getting into a flurry by being over-pleased, and I dare say +I am as incoherent as need be. I bought the House, and I altered +it from the basement to the roof, and I turned it into a Hospital for +Sick Children.</p> +<p>Never mind by what degrees my little adopted boy came to the knowledge +of all the sights and sounds in the streets, so familiar to other children +and so strange to him; never mind by what degrees he came to be pretty, +and childish, and winning, and companionable, and to have pictures and +toys about him, and suitable playmates. As I write, I look across +the road to my Hospital, and there is the darling (who has gone over +to play) nodding at me out of one of the once lonely windows, with his +dear chubby face backed up by Trottle’s waistcoat as he lifts +my pet for “Grandma” to see.</p> +<p>Many an Eye I see in that House now, but it is never in solitude, +never in neglect. Many an Eye I see in that House now, that is +more and more radiant every day with the light of returning health. +As my precious darling has changed beyond description for the brighter +and the better, so do the not less precious darlings of poor women change +in that House every day in the year. For which I humbly thank +that Gracious Being whom the restorer of the Widow’s son and of +the Ruler’s daughter, instructed all mankind to call their Father.</p> + + + + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSE TO LET ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 2324-h.htm or 2324-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/2324/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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. 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