Selected Short Fiction Read online

  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- thank
s 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.

  ‘Ah! Then he has got it’ I says in a careless way. ‘It’s of no great consequence. A receipt’s a receipt.’

  From that time she always had hold of my hand when I could spare it which was generally only when I read to her, for of course she and me had our bits of needlework to plod at and neither of us was very handy at those little things, though I am still rather proud of my share in them too considering. And though she took to all I read to her, I used to fancy that next to what was taught upon the Mount she took most of all to His gentle compassion for us poor women and to His young life and to how His mother was proud of him and treasured His sayings in her heart.6 She had a grateful look in her eyes that never never never will be out of mine until they are closed in my last sleep, and when I chanced to look at her without thinking of it I would always meet that look, and she would often offer me her trembling lip to kiss, much more like a little affectionate half-broken-hearted child than ever I can imagine any grown person.

  One time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong and her tears ran down so fast that I thought she was going to tell me all her woe, so I takes her two hands in mine and I says:

  ‘No my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now. Wait for better times when you have got over this and are strong, and then you shall tell me whatever you will. Shall it be agreed?’

  With our hands still joined she nodded her head many times, and she lifted my hands and put them to her lips and to her bosom.

  ‘Only one word now my dear’ I says. ‘Is there any one?’

  She looked inquiringly ‘Anyone?’

  ‘That I can go to?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No one that I can bring?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No one is wanted by me my dear. Now that may be considered past and gone.’

  Not much more than a week afterwards - for this was far on in the time of our being so together - I was bending over at her bed-side with my ear down to her lips, by turns listening for her breath and looking for a sign of life in her face. At last it came in a solemn way - not in a flash but like a kind of pale faint light brought very slow to the face.

  She said something to me that had no sound in it, but I saw she asked me:

  ‘Is this death?’

  And I says ‘Poor dear poor dear, I think it is.’

  Knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak right hand, I took it and laid it on her breast and then folded her other hand upon it, and she prayed a good good prayer and I joined in it poor me though there were no words spoke. Then I brought the baby in its wrappers from where it lay, and I says:

  ‘My dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This is for me to take care of.’

  The trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last time, and I dearly kissed it.

  ‘Yes my dear’ I says. ‘Please God! Me and the Major.’

  I don’t know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul brighten and leap up, and get free and fly away in the grateful look.

  So this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear that we called him Jemmy, being after the Major his own godfather with Lirriper for a surname being after myself, and never was a dear child such a brightening thing in a Lodgings or such a playmate to his grandmother as Jemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding what he was told (upon the whole) and soothing for the temper and making everything pleasanter except when he grew old enough to drop his cap down Wozenham’s Airy and they wouldn’t hand it up to him, and being worked into a state I put on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol with the child in my hand and I says ‘Miss Wozenham I little thought ever to have entered your house but unless my grandson’s cap is instantly restored, the laws of this country regulating the property of the Subject shall at length decide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may.’ With a sneer upon her face which did strike me I must say as being expressive of two keys but it may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham have the full benefit of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she says ‘Jane, is there a street-child’s old cap down our Airy?’ I says ‘Miss Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question you must allow me to inform you to your face that my grandson is not a street-child and is not in the habit of wearing old caps. In fact’ I says ‘Miss Wozenham I am far from sure that my grandson’s cap may not be newer than your own’ which was perfectly savage in me, her lace being the commonest machine-make washed and torn besides, but I had been put into a state to begin with fomented by impertinence. Miss Wozenham says red in the face ‘Jane you heard my question, is there any child’s cap down our Airy?’ ‘Yes Ma’am’ says Jane ‘I think I did see some such rubbish a lying there.’ ‘Then’ says Miss Wozenham ‘let these visitors out, and then throw up that worthless article out of my premises.’ But here the child who had been staring at Miss Wozenham with all his eyes and more, frowns down his little eyebrows purses up his little mouth puts his chubby legs far apart turns his little dimpled fists round and round slowly over one another like a little coffee-mill, and says to her ’ Oo impdent to mi Gran, me tut oor hi!’ ‘Oh!’ says Miss Wozenham looking down scornfully at the Mite ‘this is not a street-child is it not! Really!’ I bursts out laughing and I says ‘Miss Wozenham if this an’t a pretty sight to you I don’t envy your feelings and I wish you good day. Jemmy come along with Gran.’ And I was still in the best of humours though his cap came flying up into the street as if it had been just turned on out of the water-plug, and I went home laughing all the way, all owing to that dear boy.

  The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, Jemmy driving on the coach-box which is the Major’s brass-bound writing-desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair and the Major Guard up behind with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do assure you my dear that sometimes when I have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driving and the Major blowing up behind to have the change of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have half believed we were on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to see that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper match-boxes on the chimney-piece is to see the Major enjoying it fully as much as the child I am very sure, and it’s equal to any play when Coachee opens the coach-door to look in at me inside and say ‘Wery ’past that ‘tage. - ’Prightened old lady?’

  But what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost that child can only be compared to the Major’s which were not a shade better, through his straying out at five years old and eleven o‘clock in the forenoon and never heard of b
y word or sign or deed till half-past nine at night, when the Major had gone to the Editor of the Times newspaper to put in an advertisement, which came out next day four and twenty hours after he was found, and which I mean always carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as the first printed account of him. The more the day got on, the more I got distracted and the Major too and both of us made worse by the composed ways of the police though very civil and obliging and what I must call their obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was stolen. ‘We mostly find Mum’ says the sergeant who came round to comfort me, which he didn’t at all and he had been one of the private constables in Caroline’s time to which he referred in his opening words when he said Don’t give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, it’ll all come as right as my nose did when I got the same barked by that young woman in your second floor’ - says this sergeant ‘we mostly find Mum as people ain’t over anxious to have what I may call second-hand children. You’ll get him back Mum.’ ‘O but my dear good sir’ I says clasping my hands and wringing them and clasping them again ’he is such an uncommon child!’ ‘Yes Mum’ says the sergeant, ‘we mostly find that too Mum. The question is what his clothes were worth.’ ‘His clothes’ I says ’were not worth much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but the dear child! - ’ ‘All right Mum’ says the sergeant. You’ll get him back, Mum. And even if he’d had his best clothes on, it wouldn’t come to worse than his being found wrapped up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane.’ His words pierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me and the Major ran in and out like wild things all day long till the Major returning from his interview with the Editor of the Times at night rushes into my little room hysterical and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says ‘Joy joy - officer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I was letting myself in- compose your feelings- Jemmy’s found.’ Consequently I fainted away and when I came to, embraced the legs of the officer in plain clothes who seemed to be taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind of the property in my little room with brown whiskers, and I says ‘Blessings on you sir where is the Darling!’ and he says ‘In Kennington Station House.’ I was dropping at his feet Stone at the image of that Innocence in cells with murderers when he adds ‘He followed the Monkey.’ I says deeming it slang language ‘Oh sir explain for a loving grandmother what Monkey!’ He says ‘him in the spangled cap with the strap under the chin, as won’t keep on - him as sweeps the crossings7 on a round table and don’t want to draw his sabre more than he can help.’ Then I understood it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the Major and him drove over to Kennington and there we found our boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing fire having sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small accordion nothing like so big as a flat iron which they had been so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had been stopped upon a very young person.