Selected Short Fiction (44 page)

‘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?'

‘Oh certainly a Good Let sir.'

‘Say they renew for the additional six months. Would it put you about very much Madam if — if the worst was to come to the worst?' said the Major.

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

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

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

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

His letter never came when it ought to have come and what she went through morning after morning when the postman brought none for her the very postman himself compassionated when she ran down to the door, and yet we cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the feelings to have all the trouble of other people's letters and none of the pleasure and doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle than not and at a rate of wages more resembling Little Britain than Great. But at last one morning when she was too poorly to come running down stairs he says to me with a pleased look in his face that made me next to love the man in his uniform coat though he was dripping wet ‘I have taken you first in the street this morning Mrs Lirriper, for here's the one for Mrs Edson.' I went up to her bedroom with it 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. ‘0 Mrs Lirriper it's very short!' I says ‘My dear Mrs Edson no doubt that's because your husband hadn't time to write more just at that time.' ‘No doubt, no doubt,' says she, and puts her two hands on her face and turns round in her bed.

I shut her softly in and I crept down stairs and I tapped at the Major's door, and when the Major having his thin slices of bacon in his own Dutch oven saw me he came out of his chair and put me down on the sofa. ‘Hush! ' says he, ‘I see something's the matter. Don't speak — take time.' I says ‘0 Major I am afraid there's cruel work up-stairs.' ‘Yes yes' says he ‘I had begun to be afraid of it - take time.' And then in opposition to his own words he rages out frightfully, and says ‘I shall never forgive myself Madam, that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't see it all that morning - didn't go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in my hand - didn't force it down his throat - and choke him dead with it on the spot!'

The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just at present we could do no more than take on to suspect nothing and use our best endeavours to keep that poor young creature quiet, and what I ever should have done without the Major when it got about among the organ-men that quiet was our object is unknown, for he made lion and tiger war upon them to that degree that without seeing it I could not have believed it was in any gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-irons walking-sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat off his head, and at the same time so furious in foreign languages that they would stand with their handles half turned fixed like the Sleeping Ugly - for I cannot say Beauty.
⁵

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 up-stairs that morning when my boot-sponge was in my hand - and force it down his throat - and choke him dead with it.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was quite unacquainted with London and had very seldom been out for more than an airing in our own street where she knew two or three little children belonging to neighbours and had sometimes stood among them at the end of the street looking at the water. She must be going at hazard I knew, still she kept the by-streets quite correctly as long as they would serve her, and then turned up into the Strand. But at every comer 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 doing it. The desertion of the wharf below and the flowing of the high water there seemed to settle her purpose. She looked about as if to make out the way down, and she struck out the right way or the wrong way - I don't know which, for I don't know the place before or since- and I followed her the way she went.

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

We were on the wharf and she stopped. I stopped. I saw her hands at her bonnet-strings, and I rushed between her and the brink and took her round the waist with both my arms. She might have drowned me, I felt then, but she could never have got quit of me.

Down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze and not half an idea had I had in it what I should say to her, but the instant I touched her it came to me like magic and I had my natural voice and my senses and even almost my breath.

‘Mrs Edson!' I says ‘My dear! Take care. How ever did you lose your way and stumble on a dangerous place like this? Why you must have come here by the most perplexing streets in all London. No wonder you are lost, I am sure. And this place too! Why I thought nobody ever got here, except me to order my coals and the Major in the parlours to smoke his cigar!' - for I saw that blessed man close by, pretending to it.

‘Hah - Hah- Hum!' coughs the Major.

‘And good gracious me' I says, ‘why here he is!'

‘Halloa! who goes there!' says the Major in a military manner.

‘Well!' I says, ‘if this don't beat everything! Don't you know us Major Jackman?'

‘Halloa!'says the Major. ‘Who calls on Jemmy Jackman?' (and more out of breath he was, and did it less like life, than I should have expected).

‘Why here's Mrs Edson Major' I says, ‘strolling out to cool her poor head which has been very bad, has missed her way and got lost, and Goodness knows where she might have got to but for me coming here to drop an order into my coal merchant's letter-box and you coming here to smoke your cigar! - And you really are not well enough my dear' I says to her ‘to be half so far from home without me. — And your arm will be very acceptable I am sure Major' I says to him ‘and I know she may lean upon it as heavy as she likes.' And now we had both got her- thanks be Above! - one on each side.

She was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till I laid her on her own bed, and up to the early morning she held me by the hand and moaned and moaned ‘O wicked, wicked, wicked!' But when at last I made believe to droop my head and be overpowered with a dead sleep, I heard that poor young creature give such touching and such humble thanks for being preserved from taking her own life in her madness that I thought I should have cried my eyes out on the counterpane and I knew she was safe.

Being well enough to do and able to afford it, me and the Major laid our little plans next day while she was asleep worn out, and so I says to her as soon as I could do it nicely:

‘Mrs Edson my dear, when Mr Edson paid me the rent for these further six months - '

She gave a start and I felt her large eyes look at me, but I went on with it and with my needlework.

‘- I can't say that I am quite sure I dated the receipt right. Could you let me look at it?'

She laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked through me when I was forced to look up from my needlework, but I had taken the precaution of having on my spectacles.

‘I have no receipt' says she.