Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings Read online

a girl so willing that I called her WillingSophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful butalways smiling with a black face. And I says to Sophy, "Now Sophy mygood girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the width of theAiry between yourself and the blacking and do not brush your hair withthe bottoms of the saucepans and do not meddle with the snuffs of thecandles and it stands to reason that it can no longer be" yet there itwas and always on her nose, which turning up and being broad at the endseemed to boast of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman andexcellent lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable anduse of a sitting-room when required, his words being "Mrs. Lirriper Ihave arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and abrother, but only in a natural form and when it can't be got off." Wellconsequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid her answeringthe door or answering a bell on any account but she was so unfortunatelywilling that nothing would stop her flying up the kitchen-stairs whenevera 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 unluckywilling mortal--bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied "I took adeal of black into me ma'am when I was a small child being much neglectedand I think it must be, that it works out," so it continuing to work outof 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 SouthWales where it might not be noticed?" Nor did I ever repent the moneywhich 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 Iheard 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 wayreconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice MaryAnne Perkinsop from my service is best known to herself, I do not knowand I do not wish to know how opinions are formed at Wozenham's on anypoint. But Mary Anne Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely to her andshe behaved unhandsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawinglodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparingof their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew them to be with Maid orMistress, which is a great triumph especially when accompanied with acast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her waywith them through her father's having failed in Pork. It was Mary Anne'slooking so respectable in her person and being so strict in her spiritsthat conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them bothin a pair of scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with andno lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that MissWozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of amilkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) withevery girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue atCharing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in the lodging business andwent as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently Mary Anne withnot a word betwixt us says "If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper ina month from this day I have already done the same," which hurt me and Isaid so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father havingfailed in Pork had laid her open to it.

  My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what kind of girlsto give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd offtheir legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself incomplaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and ifthey are smart in their persons they try on your Lodgers' bonnets and ifthey are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, andallowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will bealways out of window just the same. And then what the gentlemen like ingirls the ladies don't, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, andthen there's temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I hope notoften. A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a comely-madegirl to your cost when she did break out and laid about her, as tookplace first and last through a new-married couple come to see London inthe first floor and the lady very high and it _was_ supposed not likingthe good looks of Caroline having none of her own to spare, but anyhowshe did try Caroline though that was no excuse. So one afternoonCaroline comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she saysto me "Mrs. Lirriper that woman in the first has aggravated me pastbearing," I says "Caroline keep your temper," Caroline says with acurdling laugh "Keep my temper? You're right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will.Capital D her!" bursts out Caroline (you might have struck me into thecentre of the earth with a feather when she said it) "I'll give her atouch of the temper that _I_ keep!" Caroline downs with her hair mydear, screeches and rushes up-stairs, I following as fast as my tremblinglegs could bear me, but before I got into the room the dinner-cloth andpink-and-white service all dragged off upon the floor with a crash andthe new-married couple on their backs in the firegrate, him with theshovel and tongs and a dish of cucumber across him and a mercy it wassummer-time. "Caroline" I says "be calm," but she catches off my cap andtears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new-marriedlady makes her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and knocksthe back of her head upon the carpet Murder screaming all the timePolicemen running down the street and Wozenham's windows (judge of myfeelings when I came to know it) thrown up and Miss Wozenham calling outfrom the balcony with crocodile's tears "It's Mrs. Lirriper beenovercharging somebody to madness--she'll be murdered--I always thoughtso--Pleeseman save her!" My dear four of them and Caroline behind thechiffoniere attacking with the poker and when disarmed prize-fightingwith her double fists, and down and up and up and down and dreadful! ButI couldn't bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled and herhair torn when they got the better of her, and I says "GentlemenPolicemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of your mothers andsisters and your sweethearts, and God bless them and you!" And there shewas sitting down on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against theskirting-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all she sayswas "Mrs. Lirriper I'm sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kindmotherly old thing," and it made me think that I had often wished I hadbeen a mother indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been themother of that girl! Well you know it turned out at the Police-officethat she had done it before, and she had her clothes away and was sent toprison, and when she was to come out I trotted off to the gate in theevening with just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to giveher a mite of strength to face the world again, and there I met with avery decent mother waiting for her son through bad company and a stubbornone he was with his half-boots not laced. So out came Caroline and Isays "Caroline come along with me and sit down under the wall where it'sretired and eat a little trifle that I have brought with me to do yougood," and she throws her arms round my neck and says sobbing "O why wereyou 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 tearyour 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 wearsuch queer old caps you dear old thing? if you hadn't worn such queer oldcaps 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 woulddo well enough, and we parted she being very thankful and kissing myhands, and I nevermore saw or heard of that girl, except that I shallalways believe that a very genteel cap which was brought anonymous to meone Saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most impertinent youngsparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean steps andplaying the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick came fromCaroline.

  What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the object ofuncharitable suspicions when you go into the Lodging business I have notthe words to tell you, but never was I so dishonourable as to have twokeys nor would I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham lower down onthe other side of the way sincerely hoping that it may not be, thoughdoubtless at the same time money cannot come from nowhere and it
is notreason to suppose that Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as itmay. It _is_ a hardship hurting to the feelings that Lodgers open theirminds so wide to the idea that you are trying to get the better of themand shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get thebetter of you, but as Major Jackman says to me, "I know the ways of thiscircular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round it" andmany is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has smoothed, for heis a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, thirteen years have passedthough it seems but yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on atthe open