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diff --git a/2324-0.txt b/2324-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac56302 --- /dev/null +++ b/2324-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4153 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of A House to Let, by Charles Dickens, et al + +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 +www.gutenberg.org. 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. + +Title: A House to Let + +Author: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide +Ann Procter + +Release Date: September 1, 2000 [eBook #2324] +[Most recently updated: April 14, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +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. Updated by Richard +Tonsing + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSE TO LET *** + + + + +A HOUSE TO LET (FULL TEXT) +by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Ann +Procter + + +Contents: + +Over the Way +The Manchester Marriage +Going into Society +Three Evenings in the House +Trottle’s Report +Let at Last + + + + +OVER THE WAY + + +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.” + +“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.” + +“I mean, my dear ma’am, that we want a little change of air and scene.” + +“Bless the man!” said I; “does he mean we or me!” + +“I mean you, ma’am.” + +“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?” + +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,— + +“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. + +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. + +“What you want, ma’am,” says Trottle, making up the fire in his quiet and +skilful way, “is Tone.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“Could you really find no fault at all in the rooms, Trottle?” I asked +him. + +“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.” + +“And what’s that?” + +“They are opposite a House to Let.” + +“O!” I said, considering of it. “But is that such a very great +objection?” + +“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.” + +Trottle thinking so highly of the place, in my interest, I wished not to +disappoint him. Consequently I said: + +“The empty House may let, perhaps.” + +“O, dear no, ma’am,” said Trottle, shaking his head with decision; “it +won’t let. It never does let, ma’am.” + +“Mercy me! Why not?” + +“Nobody knows, ma’am. All I have to mention is, ma’am, that the House +won’t let!” + +“How long has this unfortunate House been to let, in the name of +Fortune?” said I. + +“Ever so long,” said Trottle. “Years.” + +“Is it in ruins?” + +“It’s a good deal out of repair, ma’am, but it’s not in ruins.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +—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: + +“Mr. Jabez Jarber, ma’am!” + +Upon which Mr. Jarber ambled in, in his usual absurd way, saying: + +“Sophonisba!” + +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: + +“Though it is Sophonisba, Jarber, you are not obliged to mention it, that +_I_ see.” + +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: + +“Sophon_is_ba!” + +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? + +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.” + +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. + +Jarber took off his little fur-collared cloak, and sat down opposite me, +with his little cane and hat in his hand. + +“Let us have no more Sophonisbaing, if _you_ please, Jarber,” I said. +“Call me Sarah. How do you do? I hope you are pretty well.” + +“Thank you. And you?” said Jarber. + +“I am as well as an old woman can expect to be.” + +Jarber was beginning: + +“Say, not old, Sophon—” but I looked at the candlestick, and he left +off; pretending not to have said anything. + +“I am infirm, of course,” I said, “and so are you. Let us both be +thankful it’s no worse.” + +“Is it possible that you look worried?” said Jarber. + +“It is very possible. I have no doubt it is the fact.” + +“And what has worried my Soph-, soft-hearted friend,” said Jarber. + +“Something not easy, I suppose, to comprehend. I am worried to death by +a House to Let, over the way.” + +Jarber went with his little tip-toe step to the window-curtains, peeped +out, and looked round at me. + +“Yes,” said I, in answer: “that house.” + +After peeping out again, Jarber came back to his chair with a tender air, +and asked: “How does it worry you, S-arah?” + +“It is a mystery to me,” said I. “Of course every house _is_ 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.” + +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. + +“_Trottle_,” petulantly repeated Jarber, with a little flourish of his +cane; “how is _Trottle_ to restore the lost peace of Sarah?” + +“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.” + +“And why Trottle? Why not,” putting his little hat to his heart; “why +not, Jarber?” + +“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.” + +“Sarah!” + +“I think it would be too much for you, Jarber.” + +“Sarah!” + +“There would be coming and going, and fetching and carrying, Jarber, and +you might catch cold.” + +“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!” + +“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.” + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Well to be sure, I _had_ 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. + +“Now, Trottle,” I said, pretending not to notice, “when Mr. Jarber comes +back this evening, we must all lay our heads together.” + +“I should hardly think that would be wanted, ma’am; Mr. Jarber’s head is +surely equal to anything.” + +Being determined not to notice, I said again, that we must all lay our +heads together. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“A discovery?” said I, pointing to it, when he was seated, and had got +his tea-cup.—“Don’t go, Trottle.” + +“The first of a series of discoveries,” answered Jarber. “Account of a +former tenant, compiled from the Water Rate, and Medical Man.” + +“Don’t go, Trottle,” I repeated. For, I saw him making imperceptibly to +the door. + +“Begging your pardon, ma’am, I might be in Mr. Jarber’s way?” + +Jarber looked that he decidedly thought he might be. I relieved myself +with a good angry croak, and said—always determined not to notice: + +“Have the goodness to sit down, if you please, Trottle. I wish you to +hear this.” + +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. + +“Firstly,” Jarber began, after sipping his tea, “would my Sophon—” + +“Begin again, Jarber,” said I. + +“Would you be much surprised, if this House to Let should turn out to be +the property of a relation of your own?” + +“I should indeed be very much surprised.” + +“Then it belongs to your first cousin (I learn, by the way, that he is +ill at this time) George Forley.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +“Not a word.” + +“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.” + +“Thank you, ma’am; I am quite near enough to Mr. Jarber.” + +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. + +He read what follows: + + + + +THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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: + +“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!” + +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: + +“Mrs. Frank, is there any reason why we two should not put up our horses +together?” + +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: + +“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.” + +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. + +Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning to his +words. + +“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.” + +“I hardly know what you meant, sir,” said truthful Alice. + +“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!” + +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. + +“Well?” said he. + +“How long, sir, may I have to think over it?” + +“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?” + +“If you please, sir,—you have been so good to little Ailsie—” + +“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.” + +And this was Alice Wilson’s second wooing. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +This was the previous history of the Lancashire family who had now +removed to London, and had come to occupy the House. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +“Nurse! there’s some one down-stairs wants you.” + +“Wants me! Who is it?” + +“A gentleman—” + +“A gentleman? Nonsense!” + +“Well! a man, then, and he asks for you, and he rung at the front door +bell, and has walked into the dining-room.” + +“You should never have let him,” exclaimed Norah, “master and missus +out—” + +“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.” + +“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. + +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. + +He was standing up, holding by the table. Norah and he looked at each +other; gradual recognition coming into their eyes. + +“Norah?” at length he asked. + +“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. + +“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?” + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“Norah! answer me this question, straight, by yes or no—Is my wife +dead?” + +“No, she is not!” said Norah, slowly and heavily. + +“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!” + +“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!” + +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. + +“Norah!” This time his tone was calm, stagnant as despair. “She has +married again!” + +Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. The man had +fainted. + +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. + +“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. + +“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?” + +Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind. + +“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.” + +The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate measures. + +“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.” + +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. + +“His child?” he asked. + +“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. + +“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. + +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. + +It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs. Openshaw come in, calmly +smiling, handsomely dressed, happy, easy, to inquire after her children. + +“Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably?” she whispered to Norah. + +“Yes.” + +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. + +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. + +“Who was he, mother? Tell me!” + +“Who, my darling? No one is here. You have been dreaming love. Waken +up quite. See, it is broad daylight.” + +“Yes,” said Ailsie, looking round her; then clinging to her mother, said, +“but a man was here in the night, mother.” + +“Nonsense, little goose. No man has ever come near you!” + +“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). + +“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?” + +“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. + +“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. + +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. + +“Hold your tongue, Ailsie! let me hear none of your dreams; never let me +hear you tell that story again!” Ailsie began to cry. + +Mr. Openshaw opened the door of communication before his wife could say a +word. + +“Norah, come here!” + +The nurse stood at the door, defiant. She perceived she had been heard, +but she was desperate. + +“Don’t let me hear you speak in that manner to Ailsie again,” he said +sternly, and shut the door. + +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. + +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: + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“But, indeed it was not a dream!” said Ailsie, beginning to cry. + +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. + +“Mary, was any one here last night while we were away?” + +“A man, sir, came to speak to Norah.” + +“To speak to Norah! Who was he? How long did he stay?” + +“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.” + +She waited a moment to be asked any more questions, but she was not, so +she went away. + +A minute afterwards Openshaw made as though he were going out of the +room; but his wife laid her hand on his arm: + +“Do not speak to her before the children,” she said, in her low, quiet +voice. “I will go up and question her.” + +“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.” + +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. + +Norah rose to go without a word. Her thoughts were these: + +“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.” + +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. + +“Norah! Who was that man that came to my house last night?” + +“Man, sir!” As if infinitely; surprised but it was only to gain time. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“There’s never the creature born that should get it out of me,” said +Norah. “Not unless I choose to tell.” + +“I’ve a great mind to see,” said Mr. Openshaw, growing angry at the +defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought before he spoke again: + +“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?” + +No answer. He repeated the question in an impatient tone. Still no +answer. Norah’s lips were set in determination not to speak. + +“Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send for a policeman.” + +“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!” + +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. + +“This looks suspicious,” said Mr. Chadwick. “It is not the way in which +an honest person would have acted.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at any rate, will +be a good thing.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +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: + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“This is Norah Kennedy,” said Mr. Openshaw. + +“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. + +“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. + +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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“You know what I mean, when I say some one is gone who will never come +back. I mean that he is dead!” + +“Who?” said Norah, trembling all over. + +“A poor man has been found in the Thames this morning, drowned.” + +“Did he drown himself?” asked Norah, solemnly. + +“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.” + +“To what?” asked Norah. + +“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. + +“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!” + +Mr. Openshaw sate down, as if shot. He did not speak; but, after a +while, he signed to Norah to go on. + +“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!” + +“God forgive me!” said Mr. Openshaw. + +“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.” + +“He saw his child!” + +“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!” + +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: + +“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.” + +“But where are you going, sir?” + +He did not answer her directly. Then he said: + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +* * * * * + +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. + +* * * * * + +“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. + +Trottle entered his protest directly in the shape of a cough. + +“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?” + +“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?” + +“Yes, Yes!” said Jarber. “By all means let us hear what this good man +has to say.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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?” + +“My work is behindhand, ma’am,” said Trottle, moving to the door, the +moment I gave Jarber leave to go on. + +“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.” + +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. + + + + +GOING INTO SOCIETY + + +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. + +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! + +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? + +Not at all; why should he? He left it, along of a Dwarf. + +Along of a Dwarf? + +Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of a Dwarf. + +Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman’s inclination and convenience to +enter, as a favour, into a few particulars? + +Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars. + +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.” + +The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints; but Mr. Magsman don’t +know what they _would_ 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 _we_ 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 _we_ 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? + +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. + +He was a uncommon small man, he really was. Certainly not so small as he +was made out to be, but where _is_ 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. + +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 _did_ 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. + +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. + +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 _he_ 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. + +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. + +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; _he_ an’t +formed for Society.—I am.” + +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. + +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!” + +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. + +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: + +“Normandy, I’m a goin into Society. Will you go with me?” + +Says Normandy: “Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hintimate that the +’ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by yourself?” + +“Correct,” says Mr. Chops. “And you shall have a Princely allowance +too.” + +The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with him, and +replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears: + +“My boat is on the shore, +And my bark is on the sea, +And I do not ask for more, +But I’ll Go:—along with thee.” + +They went into Society, in a chay and four grays with silk jackets. They +took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + +“I ain’t ’appy, Magsman.” + +“What’s on your mind, Mr. Chops?” + +“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.” + +“Get rid of ’em, Mr. Chops.” + +“I can’t. We’re in Society together, and what would Society say?” + +“Come out of Society!” says I. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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 _will_ 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! + +(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.) + +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. + +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! + +“Magsman,” he says, “take me, on the old terms, and you’ve got me; if +it’s done, say done!” + +I was all of a maze, but I said, “Done, sir.” + +“Done to your done, and double done!” says he. “Have you got a bit of +supper in the house?” + +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. + +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. + +“Magsman,” he says, “look upon me! You see afore you, One as has both +gone into Society and come out.” + +“O! You _are_ out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?” + +“SOLD OUT!” says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed +expressed, when he made use of them two words. + +“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.” + +Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a deep +look, and said, “You’re right there, Mr. Chops.” + +“Magsman,” he says, twitchin me by the leg, “Society has gone into me, to +the tune of every penny of my property.” + +I felt that I went pale, and though nat’rally a bold speaker, I couldn’t +hardly say, “Where’s Normandy?” + +“Bolted. With the plate,” said Mr. Chops. + +“And t’other one?” meaning him as formerly wore the bishop’s mitre. + +“Bolted. With the jewels,” said Mr. Chops. + +I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me. + +“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!” + +I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfortunes, and I +felt for Mr. Chops. + +“As to Fat Ladies,” he says, giving his head a tremendious one agin the +wall, “there’s lots of _them_ in Society, and worse than the original. +_Hers_ 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 _theirs_, Magsman, _theirs_ 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. + +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: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +His answer was this: “Toby, when next met with on the tramp, I forgive +her and the Indian. And I am.” + +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. + +“Toby,” he says, with a quiet smile, “the little man will now walk three +times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain.” + +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. + +* * * * * + +“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?” + +“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. + +“Let this excellent person speak,” said Jarber. “You were about to say, +my good man?”— + +“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?” + +“A date!” repeated Jarber. “What does the man want with dates!” + +“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.” + +With those words, Trottle made a low bow, and quietly left the room. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Controlling myself on my visitor’s account, I dismissed Peggy, stifled my +indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to Jarber. + + + + +THREE EVENINGS IN THE HOUSE + + +NUMBER ONE. + + +I. + +Yes, it look’d dark and dreary +That long and narrow street: +Only the sound of the rain, +And the tramp of passing feet, +The duller glow of the fire, +And gathering mists of night +To mark how slow and weary +The long day’s cheerless flight! + +II. + +Watching the sullen fire, +Hearing the dreary rain, +Drop after drop, run down +On the darkening window-pane; +Chill was the heart of Bertha, +Chill as that winter day,— +For the star of her life had risen +Only to fade away. + +III. + +The voice that had been so strong +To bid the snare depart, +The true and earnest will, +And the calm and steadfast heart, +Were now weigh’d down by sorrow, +Were quivering now with pain; +The clear path now seem’d clouded, +And all her grief in vain. + +IV. + +Duty, Right, Truth, who promised +To help and save their own, +Seem’d spreading wide their pinions +To leave her there alone. +So, turning from the Present +To well-known days of yore, +She call’d on them to strengthen +And guard her soul once more. + +V. + +She thought how in her girlhood +Her life was given away, +The solemn promise spoken +She kept so well to-day; +How to her brother Herbert +She had been help and guide, +And how his artist-nature +On her calm strength relied. + +VI. + +How through life’s fret and turmoil +The passion and fire of art +In him was soothed and quicken’d +By her true sister heart; +How future hopes had always +Been for his sake alone; +And now, what strange new feeling +Possess’d her as its own? + +VII. + +Her home; each flower that breathed there; +The wind’s sigh, soft and low; +Each trembling spray of ivy; +The river’s murmuring flow; +The shadow of the forest; +Sunset, or twilight dim; +Dear as they were, were dearer +By leaving them for him. + +VIII. + +And each year as it found her +In the dull, feverish town, +Saw self still more forgotten, +And selfish care kept down +By the calm joy of evening +That brought him to her side, +To warn him with wise counsel, +Or praise with tender pride. + +IX. + +Her heart, her life, her future, +Her genius, only meant +Another thing to give him, +And be therewith content. +To-day, what words had stirr’d her, +Her soul could not forget? +What dream had fill’d her spirit +With strange and wild regret? + +X. + +To leave him for another: +Could it indeed be so? +Could it have cost such anguish +To bid this vision go? +Was this her faith? Was Herbert +The second in her heart? +Did it need all this struggle +To bid a dream depart? + +XI. + +And yet, within her spirit +A far-off land was seen; +A home, which might have held her; +A love, which might have been; +And Life: not the mere being +Of daily ebb and flow, +But Life itself had claim’d her, +And she had let it go! + +XII. + +Within her heart there echo’d +Again the well-known tune +That promised this bright future, +And ask’d her for its own: +Then words of sorrow, broken +By half-reproachful pain; +And then a farewell, spoken +In words of cold disdain. + +XIII. + +Where now was the stern purpose +That nerved her soul so long? +Whence came the words she utter’d, +So hard, so cold, so strong? +What right had she to banish +A hope that God had given? +Why must she choose earth’s portion, +And turn aside from Heaven? + +XIV. + +To-day! Was it this morning? +If this long, fearful strife +Was but the work of hours, +What would be years of life? +Why did a cruel Heaven +For such great suffering call? +And why—O, still more cruel!— +Must her own words do all? + +XV. + +Did she repent? O Sorrow! +Why do we linger still +To take thy loving message, +And do thy gentle will? +See, her tears fall more slowly; +The passionate murmurs cease, +And back upon her spirit +Flow strength, and love, and peace. + +XVI. + +The fire burns more brightly, +The rain has passed away, +Herbert will see no shadow +Upon his home to-day; +Only that Bertha greets him +With doubly tender care, +Kissing a fonder blessing +Down on his golden hair. + + +NUMBER TWO. + + +I. + +The studio is deserted, +Palette and brush laid by, +The sketch rests on the easel, +The paint is scarcely dry; +And Silence—who seems always +Within her depths to bear +The next sound that will utter— +Now holds a dumb despair. + +II. + +So Bertha feels it: listening +With breathless, stony fear, +Waiting the dreadful summons +Each minute brings more near: +When the young life, now ebbing, +Shall fail, and pass away +Into that mighty shadow +Who shrouds the house to-day. + +III. + +But why—when the sick chamber +Is on the upper floor— +Why dares not Bertha enter +Within the close-shut door? +If he—her all—her Brother, +Lies dying in that gloom, +What strange mysterious power +Has sent her from the room? + +IV. + +It is not one week’s anguish +That can have changed her so; +Joy has not died here lately, +Struck down by one quick blow; +But cruel months have needed +Their long relentless chain, +To teach that shrinking manner +Of helpless, hopeless pain. + +V. + +The struggle was scarce over +Last Christmas Eve had brought: +The fibres still were quivering +Of the one wounded thought, +When Herbert—who, unconscious, +Had guessed no inward strife— +Bade her, in pride and pleasure, +Welcome his fair young wife. + +VI. + +Bade her rejoice, and smiling, +Although his eyes were dim, +Thank’d God he thus could pay her +The care she gave to him. +This fresh bright life would bring her +A new and joyous fate— +O Bertha, check the murmur +That cries, Too late! too late! + +VII. + +Too late! Could she have known it +A few short weeks before, +That his life was completed, +And needing hers no more, +She might—O sad repining! +What “might have been,” forget; +“It was not,” should suffice us +To stifle vain regret. + +VIII. + +He needed her no longer, +Each day it grew more plain; +First with a startled wonder, +Then with a wondering pain. +Love: why, his wife best gave it; +Comfort: durst Bertha speak? +Counsel: when quick resentment +Flush’d on the young wife’s cheek. + +IX. + +No more long talks by firelight +Of childish times long past, +And dreams of future greatness +Which he must reach at last; +Dreams, where her purer instinct +With truth unerring told +Where was the worthless gilding, +And where refinèd gold. + +X. + +Slowly, but surely ever, +Dora’s poor jealous pride, +Which she call’d love for Herbert, +Drove Bertha from his side; +And, spite of nervous effort +To share their alter’d life, +She felt a check to Herbert, +A burden to his wife. + +XI. + +This was the least; for Bertha +Fear’d, dreaded, _knew_ at length, +How much his nature owed her +Of truth, and power, and strength; +And watch’d the daily failing +Of all his nobler part: +Low aims, weak purpose, telling +In lower, weaker art. + +XII. + +And now, when he is dying, +The last words she could hear +Must not be hers, but given +The bride of one short year. +The last care is another’s; +The last prayer must not be +The one they learnt together +Beside their mother’s knee. + +XIII. + +Summon’d at last: she kisses +The clay-cold stiffening hand; +And, reading pleading efforts +To make her understand, +Answers, with solemn promise, +In clear but trembling tone, +To Dora’s life henceforward +She will devote her own. + +XIV. + +Now all is over. Bertha +Dares not remain to weep, +But soothes the frightened Dora +Into a sobbing sleep. +The poor weak child will need her: +O, who can dare complain, +When God sends a new Duty +To comfort each new Pain! + + +NUMBER THREE. + + +I. + +The House is all deserted +In the dim evening gloom, +Only one figure passes +Slowly from room to room; +And, pausing at each doorway, +Seems gathering up again +Within her heart the relics +Of bygone joy and pain. + +II. + +There is an earnest longing +In those who onward gaze, +Looking with weary patience +Towards the coming days. +There is a deeper longing, +More sad, more strong, more keen: +Those know it who look backward, +And yearn for what has been. + +III. + +At every hearth she pauses, +Touches each well-known chair; +Gazes from every window, +Lingers on every stair. +What have these months brought Bertha +Now one more year is past? +This Christmas Eve shall tell us, +The third one and the last. + +IV. + +The wilful, wayward Dora, +In those first weeks of grief, +Could seek and find in Bertha +Strength, soothing, and relief. +And Bertha—last sad comfort +True woman-heart can take— +Had something still to suffer +And do for Herbert’s sake. + +V. + +Spring, with her western breezes, +From Indian islands bore +To Bertha news that Leonard +Would seek his home once more. +What was it—joy, or sorrow? +What were they—hopes, or fears? +That flush’d her cheeks with crimson, +And fill’d her eyes with tears? + +VI. + +He came. And who so kindly +Could ask and hear her tell +Herbert’s last hours; for Leonard +Had known and loved him well. +Daily he came; and Bertha, +Poor wear heart, at length, +Weigh’d down by other’s weakness, +Could rest upon his strength. + +VII. + +Yet not the voice of Leonard +Could her true care beguile, +That turn’d to watch, rejoicing, +Dora’s reviving smile. +So, from that little household +The worst gloom pass’d away, +The one bright hour of evening +Lit up the livelong day. + +VIII. + +Days passed. The golden summer +In sudden heat bore down +Its blue, bright, glowing sweetness +Upon the scorching town. +And sights and sounds of country +Came in the warm soft tune +Sung by the honey’d breezes +Borne on the wings of June. + +IX. + +One twilight hour, but earlier +Than usual, Bertha thought +She knew the fresh sweet fragrance +Of flowers that Leonard brought; +Through open’d doors and windows +It stole up through the gloom, +And with appealing sweetness +Drew Bertha from her room. + +X. + +Yes, he was there; and pausing +Just near the open’d door, +To check her heart’s quick beating, +She heard—and paused still more— +His low voice Dora’s answers— +His pleading—Yes, she knew +The tone—the words—the accents: +She once had heard them too. + +XI. + +“Would Bertha blame her?” Leonard’s +Low, tender answer came: +“Bertha was far too noble +To think or dream of blame.” +“And was he sure he loved her?” +“Yes, with the one love given +Once in a lifetime only, +With one soul and one heaven!” + +XII. + +Then came a plaintive murmur,— +“Dora had once been told +That he and Bertha—” “Dearest, +Bertha is far too cold +To love; and I, my Dora, +If once I fancied so, +It was a brief delusion, +And over,—long ago.” + +XIII. + +Between the Past and Present, +On that bleak moment’s height, +She stood. As some lost traveller +By a quick flash of light +Seeing a gulf before him, +With dizzy, sick despair, +Reels to clutch backward, but to find +A deeper chasm there. + +XIV. + +The twilight grew still darker, +The fragrant flowers more sweet, +The stars shone out in heaven, +The lamps gleam’d down the street; +And hours pass’d in dreaming +Over their new-found fate, +Ere they could think of wondering +Why Bertha was so late. + +XV. + +She came, and calmly listen’d; +In vain they strove to trace +If Herbert’s memory shadow’d +In grief upon her face. +No blame, no wonder show’d there, +No feeling could be told; +Her voice was not less steady, +Her manner not more cold. + +XVI. + +They could not hear the anguish +That broke in words of pain +Through that calm summer midnight,— +“My Herbert—mine again!” +Yes, they have once been parted, +But this day shall restore +The long lost one: she claims him: +“My Herbert—mine once more!” + +XVII. + +Now Christmas Eve returning, +Saw Bertha stand beside +The altar, greeting Dora, +Again a smiling bride; +And now the gloomy evening +Sees Bertha pale and worn, +Leaving the house for ever, +To wander out forlorn. + +XVIII. + +Forlorn—nay, not so. Anguish +Shall do its work at length; +Her soul, pass’d through the fire, +Shall gain still purer strength. +Somewhere there waits for Bertha +An earnest noble part; +And, meanwhile, God is with her,— +God, and her own true heart! + +* * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +TROTTLE’S REPORT + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“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. + +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.” + +“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.” + +“Come along, Benjamin,” chimes in the echo, and chuckles again as if he +thought he had made another joke. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +“Ain’t it, sir?” chimes in agravating Benjamin, winking at the +candle-light like an owl at the sunshine. + +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?” + +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. + +“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!” + +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. + +“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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. _My_ 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.” + +“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. + +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. + +“Don’t sit there, dear,” says his affectionate mother, stopping to snuff +the candle on the first landing. + +“I shall sit here,” says Benjamin, agravating to the last, “till the milk +comes in the morning.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“There!” says the child, knitting his little downy eyebrows into a frown. +“Drat the dirt! I’ve cleaned up. Where’s my beer?” + +Benjamin’s mother chuckled till Trottle thought she would have choked +herself. + +“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!” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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!” + +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. + +“Mercy on us!” says she, “haven’t you seen enough of him yet?” + +“No,” says Trottle. “I should like to see him go to bed.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“I’ll tuck you up, my man,” says Trottle. “Jump into bed, and let me +try.” + +“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!” + +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. + +“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!” + +“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. + +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. + +“Mind them top bannisters,” says she, as Trottle laid his hand on them. +“They are as rotten as medlars every one of ’em.” + +“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?” + +“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!” + +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.” + +“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—” + +“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?” + +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. + +“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. + +“What do you say to two hands, instead of one?” says he, pushing past +her, and getting down-stairs as fast as he could. + +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. + +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. + +“Leave him to me; I’ll freshen him up,” says Trottle to the old woman, +looking hard in Benjamin’s face, while he spoke. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + + + + +LET AT LAST + + +“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?” + +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. + +“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?” + +“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?” + +“Quite right,” I said. + +“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?” + +“Again quite right.” + +“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.” + +“Benjamin and Benjamin’s mother!” + +“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 _and burial_ 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—” + +“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—” + +Trottle leaned over close to me, and pointed through the window to the +empty house. + +“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!” + +I sank back in my chair. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +George Forley was no more. He had departed this life three days since, +on the evening of Friday. + +“Did our last chance of discovering the truth,” I asked, “rest with +_him_? Has it died with _his_ death?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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!” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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!” + +A low, double knock startled us. + +“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. + +“I am afraid I have made some mistake,” said the stranger. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“I feel quite sure of it, sir,” I answered. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +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: + +“I’m a-going along with you, I am—and so I tell you!” + +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! + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“The executor will sell that House, Trottle?” said I. + +“Not a doubt of it, ma’am, if he can find a purchaser.” + +“I’ll buy it.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSE TO LET *** + +***** This file should be named 2324-0.txt or 2324-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/2324/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. + +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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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