Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0061/00614.txt

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$Title{Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings
Chapter I - Part I}
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Hear Mrs. Lirriper's Warning*46550014.aud
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Title:       Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter I - Part I

How Mrs. Lirriper Carried On The Business

     Whoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that wasn't a
lone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my dear;
excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in my own little room, when
wishing to open my mind to those that I can trust, and I should be truly
thankful if they were all mankind, but such is not so, for have but a
Furnished bill in the window and your watch on the mantelpiece, and farewell
to it if you turn your back for but a second, however gentlemanly the manners;
nor is being of your own sex any safeguard, as I have reason, in the form of
sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a fine woman she was) got me to run
for a glass of water, on the plea of going to be confined, which certainly
turned out true, but it was in the Station-house.

     Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand - situated midway between the
City and St. James's, and within five minutes' walk of the principal places of
public amusement - is my address.  I have rented this house many years, as the
parish rate-books will testify; and I could wish my landlord was as alive to
the fact as I am myself; but no, bless you, not a half a pound of paint to
save his life, nor so much, my dear, as a tile upon the roof, though on your
bended knees.

[See Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings: Within five minutes' walk of the principal
places of public amusement.]

     My dear, you never have found Number Eighty-One Norfolk Street, Strand,
advertised in Bradshaw's Railway Guide, and with the blessing of Heaven you
never will or shall so find it.  Some there are who do not think it lowering
themselves to make their names that cheap, and even going the lengths of a
portrait of the house not like it with a blot in every window and a coach and
four at the door, but what will suit Wozenham's lower down on the other side
of the way will not suit me, Miss Wozenham having her opinions and me having
mine, though when it comes to systematic underbidding capable of being proved
on oath in a court of justice and taking the form of "If Mrs. Lirriper names
eighteen shillings a week, I name fifteen and six," it then comes to a
settlement between yourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake of
argument your name to be Wozenham, which I am well aware it is not or my
opinion of you would be greatly lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a
night-porter in constant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms
being stuffy and the porter stuff.

[Hear Mrs. Lirriper Remembers]
A churchgoing lady.

     It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got married at St.
Clement's Danes, where I now have a sitting in a very pleasant pew with
genteel company and my own hassock, and being partial to evening service not
too crowded.  My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming
eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel, but
he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial travelling line and
travelling what he called a limekiln road - "a dry road, Emma my dear," my
poor Lirriper says to me, "where I have to lay the dust with one drink or
another all day long and half the night, and it wears me, Emma - and this led
to his running through a good deal and might have run through the turnpike too
when that dreadful horse that never would stand still for a single instant set
off, but for its being night and the gate shut, and consequently took his
wheel, my poor Lirriper and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke
afterwards.  He was a handsome figure of a man, and a man with a jovial heart
and a sweet temper; but if they had come up then they never could have given
you the mellowness of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs wanting in
mellowness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed field.

[See St. Clement's Danes: Where I now have a sitting in a very pleasant pew.]

     My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at
Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but that he
had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon our wedding-day and
passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I went round to the creditors
and I says "Gentlemen I am acquainted with the fact that I am not answerable
for my late husband's debts but I wish to pay them for I am his lawful wife
and his good name is dear to me.  I am going into the Lodgings gentlemen as a
business and if I prosper every farthing that my late husband owed shall be
paid for the sake of the love I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long
time to do but it was done, and the silver cream-jug which is between
ourselves and the bed and the mattress in my room upstairs (or it would have
found legs so sure as ever the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the
gentlemen engraved "To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her
honorable conduct" gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr.
Betley which at that time had the parlors and loved his joke says "Cheer up
Mrs. Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they
were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." And it brought
me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my dear that I then put a
sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down to Hatfield
churchyard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it with a kind of
proud and swelling love on my husband's grave, though bless you it had taken
me so long to clear his name that my wedding-ring was worn quite fine and
smooth when I laid it on the green waving grass.

     I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dear
over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to pay
two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came out, which
made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because people were
turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was somebody else quite
different, and there was once a certain person that had put his money in a hop
business that came in one morning to pay his rent and his respects being the
second floor that would have taken it down from its hook and put it in his
breast-pocket - you understand my dear - for the L, he says of the original -
only there was no mellowness in his voice and I wouldn't let him, but his
opinion of it you may gather from his saying to it "Speak to me Emma!" which
was far from a rational observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being
a likeness, and I think myself it was like me when I was young and wore that
sort of stays.

     But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and
certainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it so long,
for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lost my poor
Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards and afterwards came
here, being two houses and eight-and-thirty years and some losses and a deal
of experience.

     Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worse
than what I call the Wandering Christians, though why they should roam the
earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the apartments and
stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming of taking them
being already provided, is a mystery I should be thankful to have explained if
by any miracle it could be.  It's wonderful they live so long and thrive so on
it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy, knocking so much and going
from house to house and up and down stairs all day, and then their pretending
to be so particular and punctual is a most astonishing thing, looking at their
watches and saying "Could you give me the refusal of the rooms till twenty
minutes past eleven the day after to-morrow in the forenoon, and supposing it
to be considered essential by my friend from the country could there be a
small iron bedstead put in the little room upon the stairs?" Why when I was
new to it my dear I used to consider before I promised and to make my mind
anxious with calculations and to get quite wearied out with disappointments,
but now I says "Certainly by all means" well knowing it's a Wandering
Christian and I shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know most
of the Wandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the
habit of each individual revolving round London in that capacity to come back
about twice a year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in families and the
children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I should no sooner hear of
the friend from the country which is a certain sign than I should nod and say
to myself You're a Wandering Christian, though whether they are (as I have
heard) persons of small property with a taste for regular employment and
frequent change of scene I cannot undertake to tell you.

     Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lasting
troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and never cease
tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, and then you
don't want to part with them which seems hard but we must all succumb or buy
artificial, and even where you get a will nine times out of ten you'll get a
dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not like good society to be shown
in with a smear of black across the nose or a smudgy eyebrow.  Where they pick
the black up is a mystery I cannot solve, as in the case of the willingest
girl that ever came into a house half-starved poor thing, a girl so willing
that I called her Willing Sophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late
and ever cheerful but always smiling with a black face.  And I says to Sophy,
"Now Sophy my good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width
of the Airy between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair with
the bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of the candles
and it stands to reason that it can no longer be" yet there it was and always
on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the end seemed to boast of it
and caused warning from a steady gentleman and excellent lodger with breakfast
by the week but a little irritable and use of a sitting-room when required,
his words being "Mrs. Lirriper I have arrived at the point of admitting that
the Black is a man and a brother, but only in a natural form and when it can't
be got off." Well consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid
her answering the door or answering a bell on any account but she was so
unfortunately willing that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen-stairs
whenever a bell was heard to tingle.  I put it to her "O Sophy Sophy for
goodness' goodness' sake where does it come from?" To which that poor unlucky
willing mortal bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied "I took a deal
of black into me ma'am when I was a small child being much neglected and I
think it must be, that it works out," so it continuing to work out of that
poor thing and not having another fault to find with her I says "Sophy what do
you seriously think of my helping you away to New South Wales where it might
not be noticed?" Nor did I ever repent the money which was well spent, for she
married the ship's cook on the voyage (himself a Mulotter) and did well and
lived happy, and so far as ever I heard it was not noticed in a new state of
society to her dying day.

     In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way
reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice Mary Anne
Perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, I do not know and I do not
wish to know how opinions are formed at Wozenham's on any point.  But Mary
Anne Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely to her and she behaved
unhandsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing lodgers without
driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparing of their bells with
Mary Anne than I ever knew them to be with Maid or Mistress, which is a great
triumph especially when accompanied with a cast in the eye and a bag of bones,
but it was the steadiness of her way with them through her father's having
failed in Pork.  It was Mary Anne's looking so respectable in her person and
being so strict in her spirits that conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman
(for he weighed them both in a pair of scales every morning) that I have ever
had to deal with and no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me
that Miss Wozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of
a milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) with
every girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at
Charing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in the lodging business and went
as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently Mary Anne with not a word
betwixt us says "If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in a month from
this day I have already done the same," which hurt me and I said so, and she
then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having failed in Pork had
laid her open to it.

     My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what kind of girls
to give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd off their
legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in complaints and if
they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if they are smart in their
persons they try on your Lodgers' bonnets and if they are musical I defy you
to keep them away from bands and organs, and allowing for any difference you
like in their heads their heads will be always out of window just the same.
And then what the gentlemen like in girls the ladies don't, which is fruitful
hot water for all parties, and then there's temper though such a temper as
Caroline Maxey's I hope not often.  A good-looking black-eyed girl was
Caroline and a comely-made girl to your cost when she did break out and laid
about her, as took place first and last through a new-married couple come to
see London in the first floor and the lady very high and it was supposed not
liking the good looks of Caroline having none of her own to spare, but anyhow
she did try Caroline though that was no excuse. So one afternoon Caroline
comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she says to me "Mrs.
Lirriper that woman in the first has aggravated me past bearing," I says
"Caroline keep your temper," Caroline says with a curdling laugh "Keep my
temper?  You're right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will. Capital D her!" bursts out
Caroline (you might have struck me into the center of the earth with a feather
when she said it) "I'll give her a touch of the temper that I keep!" Caroline
downs with her hair my dear, screeches and rushes upstairs, I following as
fast as my trembling legs could bear me, but before I got into the room the
dinner-cloth and pink-and-white service all dragged off upon the floor with a
crash and the new-married couple on their backs in the firegrate, him with the
shovel and tongs and a dish of cucumber across him and a mercy it was
summertime.  "Caroline" I says "be calm," but she catches off my cap and tears
it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new-married lady makes
her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and knocks the back of her
head upon the carpet Murder screaming all the time Policemen running down the
street and Wozenham's windows (judge of my feelings when I came to know it)
thrown up and Miss Wozenham calling out from the balcony with crocodile's
tears "It's Mrs. Lirriper been overcharging somebody to madness - she'll be
murdered - I always thought so - Pleeseman save her!" My dear four of them and
Caroline behind the chiffoniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed
prize-fighting with her double fists, and down and up and up and down and
dreadful!  But I couldn't bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled
and her hair torn when they got the better of her, and I says "Gentlemen
Policemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers and sisters
and your sweethearts, and God bless them and you!" And there she was sitting
down on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the skirting-board and
them cool with their coats in strips, and all she says was "Mrs. Lirriper I'm
sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind motherly old thing," and it
made me think that I had often wished I had been a mother indeed and how would
my heart have felt if I had been the mother of that girl!  Well you know it
turned out at the Police-office that she had done it before, and she had her
clothes away and was sent to prison, and when she was to come out I trotted
off to the gate in the evening with just a morse of jelly in that little
basket of mine to give her a mite of strength to face the world again, and
there I met with a very decent mother waiting for her son through bad company
and a stubborn one he was with his half-boots not laced.  So out came Caroline
and I says "Caroline come along with me and sit down under the wall where it's
retired and eat a little trifle that I have brought with me to do you good,"
and she throws her arms round my neck and says sobbing "O why were you never a
mother when there are such mothers as there are?" she says, and in half a
minute more she begins to laugh and says "Did I really tear your cap to
shreds?" and when I told her "You certainly did so Caroline" she laughed again
and said while she patted my face "Then why do you wear such queer old caps
you dear old thing?  If you hadn't worn such queer old caps I don't think I
should have done it even then." Fancy the girl!  Nothing could get out of her
what she was going to do except O she would do well enough, and we parted she
being very thankful and kissing my hands, and I nevermore saw or heard of that
girl, except that I shall always believe that a very genteel cap which was
brought anonymous to me one Saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most
impertinent young sparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean
steps and playing the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick came from
Caroline.

[Hear Mrs. Lirriper's Warning]
Some further advice.

     What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the object of
uncharitable suspicions when you go into the Lodging business I have not the
words to tell you, but never was I so dishonorable as to have two keys nor
would I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side
of the way sincerely hoping that it may not be, though doubtless at the same
time money cannot come from nowhere and it is not reason to suppose that
Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it may.  It is a hardship hurting
to the feelings that Lodgers open their minds so wide to the idea that you are
trying to get the better of them and shut their minds so close to the idea
that they are trying to get the better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me
"I know the ways of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em
all around it" and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has
smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much.  Dear dear, thirteen years
have passed though it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses
on at the open front parlor-window one evening in August (the parlors being
then vacant) reading yesterday's paper my eyes for print being poor though
still I am thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when I hear a gentleman
come posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful rage talking to
himself in a fury and d'ing and c'ing somebody.  "By George!" says he out loud
and clutching his walking-stick, "I'll go to Mrs. Lirriper's.  Which is Mrs.
Lirriper's?" Then looking round and seeing me he flourishes his hat right off
his head as if I had been the queen and he says, "Excuse the intrusion madam,
but pray madam can you tell me at what number in this street there resides a
well-known and much-respected lady by the name of Lirriper?" A little
flustered though I must say gratified I took off my glasses and courtesied and
said "Sir, Mrs. Lirriper is your humble servant." "Astonishing!" says he.  "A
million pardons!  Madam, may I ask you to have the kindness to direct one of
your domestics to open the door to a gentleman in search of apartments, by the
name of Jackman?" I had never heard the name but a politer gentleman I never
hope to see, for says he "Madam I am shocked at your opening the door yourself
to no worthier a fellow than Jemmy Jackman.  After you madam.  I never precede
a lady." Then he comes into the parlors and he sniffs, and he says "Hah!
These are parlors!  Not musty cupboards" he says "but parlors, and no smell of
coal-sacks." Now my dear it having been remarked by some inimical to the whole
neighborhood that it always smells of coal-sacks which might prove a drawback
to Lodgers if encouraged, I says to the Major gently though firmly that I
think he is referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but not Norfolk.  "Madam"
says he "I refer to Wozenham's lower down over the way - madam you can form no
notion what Wozenham's is - madam it is a vast coal-sack, and Miss Wozenham
has the principles and manners of a female heaver - madam from the manner in
which I have heard her mention you I know she has no appreciation of a lady,
and from the manner in which she has conducted herself towards me I know she
has no appreciation of a gentleman - madam my name is Jackman - should you
require any other reference than what I have already said, I name the Bank of
England - perhaps you know it!" Such was the beginning of the Major's
occupying the parlors and from that hour to this the same and a most obliging
Lodger and punctual in all respects except one irregular which I need not
particularly specify, but made up for by his being a protection and at all
times ready to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes and Juries and that,
and once collared a young man with the drawing-room clock under his coat, and
once on the parapets with his own hands and blankets put out the kitchen,
chimney and afterwards attending the summons made a most eloquent speech
against the Parish before the magistrates and saved the engine, and ever quite
the gentleman though passionate.  And certainly Miss Wozenham's detaining the
trunks and umbrella was not in a liberal spirit though it may have been
according to her rights in law or an act I would myself have stooped to, the
Major being so much the gentleman that though he is far from tall he seems
almost so when he has his shirt-frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat
with the curly brims, and in what service he was I cannot truly tell you my
dear whether Militia or Foreign, for I never heard him even name himself as
Major but always simple "Jemmy Jackman" and once soon after he came when I
felt it my duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had put it about that he
was no Major and I took the liberty of adding "which you are Sir" his words
were "Madam at any rate I am not a Minor, and sufficient for the day is the
evil thereof" which cannot be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet his
military ways of having his boots with only the dirt brushed off taken to him
in the front parlor every morning on a clean plate and varnishing them himself
with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle in a whisper so sure as ever
his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways that it never soils his linen
which is scrupulous though more in quality than quantity, neither that nor his
mustachios which to the best of my belief are done at the same time and which
are as black and shining as his boots, his head of hair being a lovely white.

     It was the third year nearly up of the Major's being in the parlors that
early one morning in the month of February when Parliament was coming on and
you may therefore suppose a number of impostors were about ready to take hold
of anything they could get, a gentleman and a lady from the country came in to
view the Second, and I well remember that I had been looking out of window and
had watched them and the heavy sleet driving down the street together looking
for bills.  I did not quite take to the face of the gentleman though he was
good-looking too but the lady was a very pretty young thing and delicate, and
it seemed too rough for her to be out at all though she had only come from the
Adelphi Hotel which would not have been much above a quarter of a mile if the
weather had been less severe.  Now it did so happen my dear that I had been
forced to put five shillings weekly additional on the Second in consequence of
a loss from running away full dressed as if going out to a dinner-party, which
was very artful and had made me rather suspicious taking it along with
Parliament, so when the gentleman proposed three months certain and the money
in advance and leave them reserved to renew on the same terms for six months
more, I says I was not quite certain but that I might have engaged myself to
another party but would step downstairs and look into it if they would take a
seat.  They took a seat and I went down to the handle of the Major's door that
I had already began to consult finding it a great blessing, and I knew by his
whistling in a whisper that he was varnishing his boots which was generally
considered private, however he kindly calls out "If it's you, madam, come in,"
and I went in and told him.

     "Well, madam," says the Major rubbing his nose - as I did fear at the
moment with the black sponge but it was only his knuckle, he being always neat
and dexterous with his fingers - "well, madam, I suppose you would be glad of
the money?"

     I was delicate of saying "Yes" too out, for a little extra color rose
into the Major's cheeks and there was irregularity which I will not
particularly specify in a quarter which I will not name.

     "I am of opinion, madam," says the Major "that when money is ready for
you - when it is ready for you, Mrs. Lirriper - you ought to take it.  What is
there against it, madam, in this case upstairs?"

     "I really cannot say there is anything against it, Sir, still I thought I
would consult you."

     "You said a newly married couple, I think, madam?" says the Major.

     I says "Ye-es.  Evidently.  And indeed the young lady mentioned to me in
a casual way that she had not been married many months."

     The Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish round and round
in its little saucer with his piece of sponge and took to his whistling in a
whisper for a few moments.  Then he says "You would call it a Good Let,
madam?"

     "O certainly a Good Let Sir."

     "Say they renew for the additional six months.  Would it put you about
very much madam if - if the worst was to come to the worst?" said the Major.

     "Well I hardly know," I says to the Major.  "It depends upon
circumstances.  Would you object Sir for instance?"

     "I?" says the Major.  "Object?  Jemmy Jackman?  Mrs. Lirriper close with
the proposal."

     So I went upstairs and accepted, and they came in next day which was
Saturday and the Major was so good as to draw up a Memorandum of an agreement
in a beautiful round hand and expressions that sounded to me equally legal
and military, and Mr. Edson signed it on the Monday morning and the Major
called upon Mr. Edson on the Tuesday and Mr. Edson called upon the Major on
the Wednesday and the Second and the parlors were as friendly as could be
wished.

     The three months paid for had run out and we had got without any fresh
overtures as to payment into May my dear, when there came an obligation upon
Mr. Edson to go a business expedition right across the Isle of Man, which
fell quite unexpected upon that pretty little thing and is not a place that
according to my views is particularly in the way to anywhere at any time but
that may be a matter of opinion.  So short a notice was it that he was to go
next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and I am sure I cried too
when I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp east wind - it being a very
backward spring that year - taking a last leave of him with her pretty hair
blowing this way and that and her arms clinging round his neck and him saying
"There there there.  Now let me go Peggy."  And by that time it was plain
that what the Major had been so accommodating as to say he would not object
to happening in the house, would happen in it, and I told her as much when he
was gone while I comforted her with my arm up the staircase, for I says "You
will soon have others to keep up for my pretty and you must think of that."

     His letter never came when it ought to have come and what she went
through morning after morning when the postman brought none for her the very
postman himself compassionated when she ran down to the door, and yet we
cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the feelings to have all the
trouble of other people's letters and none of the pleasure and doing it
oftener in the mud and mizzle than not and at a rate of wages more resembling
Little Britain than Great.  But at last one morning when she was too poorly
to come running downstairs he says to me with a pleased look in his face that
made me next to love the man in his uniform coat though he was dripping wet
"I have taken you first in the street this morning Mrs. Lirriper, for here's
the one for Mrs. Edson."  I went up to her bedroom with it as fast as ever I
could go, and she sat up in bed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it
open and then a blank stare came upon her.  "It's very short!" she says
lifting her large eyes to my face.  "O Mrs. Lirriper it's very short!"  I
says "My dear Mrs. Edson no doubt that's because your husband hadn't time to
write more just at that time."  "No doubt, no doubt," says she, and puts her
two hands on her face and turns round in her bed.

     I shut her softly in and I crept downstairs and I tapped at the Major's
door, and when the Major having his thin slices of bacon in his own Dutch
oven saw me he came out of his chair and put me down on the sofa.  "Hush!"
says he, "I see something's the matter.  Don't speak - take time."  I says "O
Major I'm afraid there's cruel work upstairs."  "Yes yes," says he "I had
begun to be afraid of it - take time."  And then in opposition to his own
words he rages out frightfully, and says "I shall never forgive myself madam,
that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't see it all that morning - didn't go straight
upstairs when my boot-sponge was in my hand - didn't force it down his
throat - and choke him dead with it on the spot!"

     The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just at present
we could do no more than take on to suspect nothing and use our best
endeavors to keep that poor young creature quiet, and what I ever should have
done without the Major when it got about among the organ-men that quiet was
our object is unknown, for he made lion and tiger war upon them to that
degree that without seeing it I could not have believed it was in any
gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-irons walking-sticks
water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat off his head, and at the
same time so furious in foreign languages that they would stand with their
handles half-turned fixed like the Sleeping Ugly - for I cannot say Beauty.

     Ever to see the postman come near the house now gave me such a fear that
it was a reprieve when he went by, but in about another ten days or a
fortnight he says again, "Here's one for Mrs. Edson. - Is she pretty well?"
"She is pretty well postman, but not well enough to rise so early as she
used" which was so far gospel-truth.

     I carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and I says
tottering "Major I have not the courage to take it up to her."

     "It's an ill-looking villain of a letter," says the Major.

     "I have not the courage Major" I says again in a tremble "to take it up
to her."

     After seeming lost in consideration for some moments the Major says,
raising his head as if something new and useful had occurred to his mind "Mrs.
Lirriper, I shall never forgive myself that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't go
straight upstairs that morning when my boot-sponge was in my hand - and force
it down his throat - and choke him dead with it."

     "Major" I says a little hasty "you didn't do it which is a blessing, for
it would have done no good and I think your sponge was better employed on your
own honorable boots."

     So we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap at her bedroom
door and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the upper landing for
what might happen, and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or rockets
more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I took it to the second
floor.

     A terrible loud scream sounded through the house the minute after she
had opened it, and I found her on the floor lying as if her life was gone.
My dear I never looked at the face of the letter which was lying open by her,
for there was no occasion.

     Everything I needed to bring her round the Major brought up with his own
hands, besides running out to the chemist's for what was not in the house and
likewise having the fiercest of all his many skirmishes with a musical
instrument representing a ball-room I do not know in what particular country
and company waltzing in and out at folding-doors with rolling eyes.  When
after a long time I saw her coming to, I slipped on the landing till I heard
her cry, and then I went in and says cheerily "Mrs. Edson you're not well my
dear and it's not to be wondered at," as if I had not been in before. Whether
she believed or disbelieved I cannot say and it would signify nothing if I
could, but I stayed by her for hours and then she God ever blesses me! and
says she will try to rest for her head is bad.

     "Major," I whispers, looking in at the parlors, "I beg and pray of you
don't go out."

     The Major whispers, "Madam, trust me I will do no such a thing.  How is
she?"

     I says "Major the good Lord above us only knows what burns and rages in
her poor mind.  I left her sitting at her window.  I am going to sit at
mine."

     It came on afternoon and it came on evening.  Norfolk is a delightful
street to lodge in - provided you don't go lower down - but of a summer
evening when the dust and waste paper lie in it and stray children play in it
and a kind of a gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal of churchbells
is practicing in the neighborhood it is a trifle dull, and never have I seen
it since at such a time and never shall I see it evermore at such a time
without seeing the dull June evening when that forlorn young creature sat at
her open corner window on the Second and me at my open corner window (the
other corner) on the Third.  Something merciful, something wiser and better
far than my own self, had moved me while it was yet light to sit in my bonnet
and shawl, and as the shadows fell and the tide rose I could sometimes - when
I put out my head and looked at her window below - see that she leaned out a
little looking down the street.  It was just settling dark when I saw her in
the street.

[See Norfolk Street: Norfolk is a delightful street to lodge in - provided you
don't go lower down.]

     So fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my breath while I
tell it, I went downstairs faster than I ever moved in all my life and only
tapped with my hand at the Major's door in passing it and slipping out.  She
was gone already.  I made the same speed down the street and when I came to
the corner of Howard-street I saw that she had turned it and was there plain
before me going towards the west.  O with what a thankful heart I saw her
going along!

     She was quite unacquainted with London and had very seldom been out for
more than an airing in our own street where she knew two or three little
children belonging to neighbors and had sometimes stood among them at the
street looking at the water.  She must be going at hazard I knew, still she
kept the bye-streets quite correctly as long as they would serve her, and
then turned up into the Strand.  But at every corner I could see her head
turned one way, and that way was always the river way.

     It may have been only the darkness and quiet of the Adelphi that caused
her to strike into it but she struck into it much as readily as if she had
set out to go there, which perhaps was the case.  She went straight down to
the Terrace and along it and looked over the iron rail, and I often woke
afterwards in my own bed with the horror of seeing her do it.  The desertion
of the wharf below and the flowing of the high water there seemed to settle
her purpose.  She looked about as if to make out the way down, and she struck
out the right way or the wrong way - I don't know which, for I don't know the
place before or since - and I followed her the way she went.

     It was noticeable that all this time she never once looked back.  But
there was now a great change in the manner of her going, and instead of going
at a steady quick walk with her arms folded before her - among the dark
dismal arches she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide, as if they
were wings and she was flying to her death.