Selected Short Fiction Read online

‘Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.’

  (If this should meet her eye - a lovely blue - may she not take it ill my mentioning that if I had been eight or ten year younger, I would have done as much by her ! That is, I would have made her a offer. It is for others than me to denominate it a handsome one.)

  ‘Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.’

  ‘Put a name to it, ma’am.

  ‘Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody’s Luggage. You’ve got it all by heart, I know.’

  ‘A black portmanteau, ma’am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick.’

  ‘All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing tampered with.’

  ‘You are right, ma’am. All locked but the brown-paper parcel, and that sealed.’

  The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin’s desk at the bar-window, and she taps the open book that lays upon the desk — she has a pretty-made hand, to be sure- and bobs her head over it, and laughs.

  ‘Come,’ says she, ‘Christopher. Pay me Somebody’s bill, and you shall have Somebody’s luggage.’

  I rather took to the idea from the first moment; but,

  ‘It mayn’t be worth the money,’ I objected, seeming to hold back.

  ‘That’s a Lottery,’ says the Mistress, folding her arms upon the book - it ain’t her hands alone that’s pretty made: the observation extends right up her arms- ‘Won’t you venture two pound sixteen shillings and sixpence in the Lottery? Why, there’s no blanks!’ says the Mistress, laughing and bobbing her head again, ‘you must win. If you lose, you must win! All prizes in this Lottery! Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen-Sportsmen, you’ll still be entitled to a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick!’

  To make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and Mrs Pratchett come round me, and the Mistress she was completely round me already, and all the women in the house come round me, and if it had been Sixteen two instead of Two sixteen, I should have thought myself well out of it. For what can you do when they do come round you?

  So I paid the money - down - and such a laughing as there was among ‘em! But I turned the tables on ’em regularly, when I said:

  ‘My family name is Blue Beard.7 I’m going to open Somebody’s Luggage all alone in the Secret Chamber, and not a female eye catches sight of the contents!’

  Whether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this, don’t signify, or whether any female eye, and if any how many, was really present when the opening of the Luggage came off. Somebody’s Luggage is the question at present: Nobody’s eyes, nor yet noses.

  What I still look at most, in connexion with that Luggage, is the extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on! And not our paper neither - not the paper charged in the bill, for we know our paper — so he must have been always at it. And he had crumpled up this writing of his, everywhere, in every part and parcel of his luggage. There was writing in his dressing-case, writing in his boots, writing among his shaving-tackle, writing in his hat-box, writing folded away down among the very whalebones of his umbrella.

  His clothes wasn’t bad, what there was of ‘em. His dressing-case was poor — not a particle of silver stopper — bottle apertures with nothing in’em, like empty little dog-kennels-and a most searching description of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, as under a deluded mistake that all the chinks in the fittings was divisions in teeth. His clothes I parted with, well enough, to a second-hand dealer not far from St Clement’s Danes, in the Strand — him as the officers in the Army mostly dispose of their uniforms to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if I may judge from their coats and epaulettes diversifying the window, with their backs towards the public. The same party bought in one lot, the portmanteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remarking that I should have thought those articles not quite in his line, he said: ‘No more ith a man’th grandmother, Mithter Chrithtopher; but if any man will bring hith grandmother here, and offer her at a fair trifle below what the’ll feth with good luck when the‘th thcoured and turned-I’ll buy her!’

  These transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than home, for they left a goodish profit on the original investment. And now there remained the writings; and the writings I particular wish to bring under the candid attention of the reader.

  I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That is to say, namely, viz., i.e., as follows, thus: - Before I proceed to recount the mental sufferings of which I became the prey in consequence of the writings, and before following up that harrowing tale with a statement of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe, as thrilling in its nature as unlooked for in any other capacity, which crowned the ole and filled the cup of unexpectedness to overflowing, the writings themselves ought to stand forth to view. Therefore it is that they now come next. One word to introduce them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my unassuming pen), until I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something on it.

  He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object - on his clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his umbrella. Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 table, and two blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the document I have given entire, will show that on the morning of the third of February, eighteen ’fifty-six, he procured his no less than fifth pen and paper. To whatever deplorable act of ungovernable composition he immolated those materials obtained from the bar, there is no doubt that the fatal deed was committed in bed, and that it left its evidences but too plainly, long afterwards, upon the pillow-case.

  He had put no Heading to any of his writings. Alas! Was he likely to have a Heading without a Head, and where was his Head when he took such things into it! The writings are consequently called, here, by the names of the articles of Luggage to which they was found attached. In some cases, such as his Boots, he would appear to have hid the writings: thereby involving his style in greater obscurity. But his Boots was at least pairs - and no two of his writings can put in any claim to be so regarded.

  With a low-spirited anticipation of the gloomy state of mind in which it will be my lot to describe myself as having drooped, when I next resume my artless narrative, I will now withdraw. If there should be any flaw in the writings, or anything missing in the writings, it is Him as is responsible-not me. With that observation in justice to myself, I for the present conclude.

  His Brown-Paper Parcel

  My works are well known. I am a young man in the Art line. You have seen my works many a time, though it’s fifty thousand to one if you have seen me. You say you don’t want to see me? You say your interest is in my works and not in me? Don’t be too sure about that. Stop a bit.

  Let us have it down in black and white at the first go off, so that there may be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards. And this is looked over by a friend of mine, a ticket-writer, that is up to literature. I am a young man in the Art line - in the Fine Art line. You have seen my works over and over again, and you have been curious about me, and you think you have seen me. Now, as a safe rule, you never have seen me, and you never do see me, and you never will see me. I think that’s plainly put - and it’s what knocks me over.

  If there’s a blighted public character going, I am the party.

  It has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain) philosopher, that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. He might have put it plainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction. He might have put it, that while the world knows something of them that apparently go in and win, it knows nothing of them that really go in and don’t win. There it is again in another form - and that’s what knocks me over.

  Not that it’s only myself that suffers from i
njustice, but that I am more alive to my own injuries than to any other man’s. Being, as I have mentioned, in the Fine Art line, and not the Philanthropic line, I openly admit it. As to company in injury, I have company enough. Who are you passing every day at your Competitive Excruciations? The fortunate candidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside-down for life? Not you. You are really passing the Crammers and Coaches. If your principle is right, why don’t you turn out tomorrow morning with the keys of your cities on velvet cushions, your musicians playing, and your flags flying, and read addresses to the Crammers and Coaches on your bended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you? Then, again, as to your public business of all sorts, your Financial statements and your Budgets; the Public knows much, truly, about the real doers of all that! Your Nobles and Right Honourables are first-rate men? Yes, and so is a goose a first-rate bird. But I’ll tell you this about the goose; - you’ll find his natural flavour disappointing, without stuffing.

  Perhaps I am soured by not being popular? But suppose I AM popular. Suppose my works never fail to attract. Suppose that whether they are exhibited by natural light or by artificial, they invariably draw the public. Then no doubt they are preserved in some Collection? No they are not; they are not preserved in any Collection. Copyright? No, nor yet copyright. Anyhow they must be somewhere? Wrong again, for they are often nowhere.

  Says you, ‘at all events you are in a moody state of mind, my friend.’ My answer is, I have described myself as a public character with a blight upon him - which fully accounts for the curdling of the milk in that cocoa-nut.

  Those that are acquainted with London, are aware of a locality on the Surrey side of the river Thames, called the Obelisk, or more generally, the Obstacle. Those that are not acquainted with London, will also be aware of it, now that I have named it. My lodging is not far from that locality. I am a young man of that easy disposition, that I lie abed till it’s absolutely necessary to get up and earn something, and then I lie abed again till I have spent it.

  It was on an occasion when I had had to turn to with a view to victuals, that I found myself walking along the Waterloo-road, one evening after dark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow-lodger in the gas-fitting way of life. He is very good company, having worked at the theatres, and indeed he has a theatrical turn himself and wishes to be brought out in the character of Othello; but whether on account of his regular work always blacking his face and hands more or less, I cannot say.

  ‘Tom,’ he says, ‘what a mystery hangs over you!’

  ‘Yes, Mr Click’ - the rest of the house generally give him his name, as being first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, and if not mahogany, an out-and-out imitation - ‘Yes, Mr Click, a mystery does hang over me.’

  ‘Makes you low, you see, don’t it?’ says he, eyeing me sideways.

  ‘Why yes, Mr Click, there are circumstances connected with it that have,’ I yielded to a sigh, ‘a lowering effect.’

  ‘Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don’t it?’ says he.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you what. If I was you, I’d shake it off.’

  ‘If I was you, I would, Mr Click; but if you was me, you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Ah!’ says he, ‘there’s something in that.’

  When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me on the chest.

  ‘You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet who wrote the domestic drama of the Stranger, you had a silent sorrow there.’1

  ‘I have, Mr Click.’

  ‘I hope, Tom,’ lowering his voice in a friendly way, ‘it isn’t coining, or smashing?’2

  ‘No, Mr Click. Don’t be uneasy.’

  ‘Nor yet forg -’ Mr Click checked himself, and added, ‘counterfeiting anything, for instance?’

  ‘No, Mr Click. I am lawfully in the Art line - Fine Art line- but I can say no more.’

  ‘Ah! Under a species of star? A kind of a malignant spell? A sort of a gloomy destiny? A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as well as I make it out?’ said Mr Click, eyeing me with some admiration.

  I told Mr Click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and I thought he appeared rather proud of me.

  Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part struggling for a front place from which to see something on the pavement, which proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks on the pavement-stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. The subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon’s head and shoulders, supposed to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger’s; a moonlight night at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit engaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe; and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared to me to be exquisitely done.

  On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn’t at all cold), was engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, toning the outline of the back of the hermit’s head with a bit of leather, and fattening the down-stroke of a letter or two in the writing. I have forgotten to mention that writing formed a part of the composition, and that it also - as it appeared to me - was exquisitely done. It ran as follows, in fine round characters: ‘An honest man is the noblest work of God.3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0.£ s.d. Employment in an office is humbly requested. Honour the Queen. Hunger is a 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sharp thorn.4 Chip chop, cherry chop, fol de rol de ri do. Astronomy and mathematics. I do this to support my family.’

  5 Murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this performance went about among the crowd. The artist having finished his touching (and having spoilt those places), took his seat on the pavement with his knees crouched up very nigh his chin; and halfpence began to rattle in.

  ‘A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low; ain’t it?’ said one of the crowd to me.

  ‘What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-decorating!’ said another man, who took up the first speaker because I did not.

  ‘Why he writes - alone- like the Lord Chancellor!’ said another man.

  ‘Better,’ said another. ‘I know his writing. He couldn’t support his family this way.’

  Then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit’s hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon’s gills that you could almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly country gentleman stepped forward and asked the modest man how he executed his work? And the modest man took some scraps of brown paper with colours in ‘em out of his pockets and showed them. Then a fair-complexioned donkey with sandy hair and spectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait? To which the modest man, casting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it was, to a certain extent, a recollection of his father. This caused a boy to yelp out, ‘Is the Pinter a smoking the pipe, your mother?’ who was immediately shoved out of view by a sympathetic carpenter with his basket of tools at his back.

  At every fresh question or remark, the crowd leaned forward more eagerly, and dropped the halfpence more freely, and the modest man gathered them up more meekly. At last, another elderly gentleman came to the front, and gave the artist his card, to come to his office tomorrow and get some copying to do. The card was accompanied by sixpence, and the artist was profoundly grateful, and, before he put the card in his hat, read it several times by the light of his candles to fix the address well in his mind, in case he should lose it. The crowd was deeply interested by this last incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff voice, growled to the artist, ‘You’ve got a chance in life now, ain’t you?’ The artist answered (sniffing in a very low-spirited way, however), ‘I’m thankful to hope so.’ Upon which there was a general chorus of ‘You are all right,’ and the halfpence slackened very decidedly.

  I felt myself pulled away by the arm, and Mr Click and I stood alone at the comer of the ne
xt crossing.

  ‘Why, Tom,’ said Mr Click, ‘what a horrid expression of face you’ve got!’

  ‘Have I?’ says I.

  ‘Have you?’ says Mr Click. ‘Why you looked as if you would have his blood.’

  ‘Whose blood?’

  ‘The artist’s.’

  ‘The artist’s!’ I repeated. And I laughed, frantically, wildly, gloomily, incoherently, disagreeably. I am sensible that I did. I know I did.

  Mr Click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said nothing until we had walked a street’s length. He then stopped short, and said, with excitement on the part of his fore-finger:

  ‘Thomas, I find it necessary to be plain with you. I don’t like the envious man. I have identified the cankerworm that’s pegging away at your vitals, and it’s envy, Thomas.’

  ‘Is it?’ says I.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ says he. ‘Thomas, beware of envy. It is the green-eyed monsters which never did and never will improve each shining hour,6 but quite the reverse. I dread the envious man, Thomas. I confess that I am afraid of the envious man, when he is so envious as you are. Whilst you contemplated the works of a gifted rival, and whilst you heard that rival’s praises, and especially whilst you met his humble glance as he put that card away, your countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific. Thomas, I have heard of the envy of them that follows the Fine Art line, but I never believed it could be what yours is. I wish you well, but I take my leave of you. And if you should ever get into trouble through knifeing - or say, garotting - a brother artist, as I believe you will, don’t call me to character, Thomas, or I shall be forced to injure your case.’

  Mr Click parted from me with those words, and we broke off our acquaintance.

  I became enamoured. Her name was Henerietta. Contending with my easy disposition, I frequently got up to go after her. She also dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Obstacle, and I did fondly hope that no other would interpose in the way of our union.

  To say that Henerietta was volatile, is but to say that she was woman. To say that she was in the bonnet-trimming, is feebly to express the taste which reigned predominant in her own.