Sketches by Boz Read online

  “Oh dear!” said the latter, “I feel alarmingly faint; it's very singular.” (It certainly was, for she had eaten four pounds of solids that morning.) “By-the-bye,” said Mrs. Bloss, “I have not seen Mr. What's-his-name yet.”

  “Mr. Gobler?” suggested Mrs. Tibbs.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Tibbs, “he is a most mysterious person. He has his meals regularly sent up-stairs, and sometimes don't leave his room for weeks together.”

  “I haven't seen or heard nothing of him,” repeated Mrs. Bloss.

  “I dare say you'll hear him to-night,” replied Mrs. Tibbs; “he generally groans a good deal on Sunday evenings.”

  “I never felt such an interest in any one in my life,” ejaculated Mrs. Bloss. A little double-knock interrupted the conversation; Dr. Wosky was announced, and duly shown in. He was a little man with a red face—dressed of course in black, with a stiff white neckerchief. He had a very good practice, and plenty of money, which he had amassed by invariably humouring the worst fancies of all the females of all the families he had ever been introduced into. Mrs. Tibbs offered to retire, but was entreated to stay.

  “Well, my dear ma'am, and how are we?” inquired Wosky, in a soothing tone.

  “Very ill, doctor—very ill,” said Mrs. Bloss, in a whisper

  “Ah! we must take care of ourselves;—we must, indeed,” said the obsequious Wosky, as he felt the pulse of his interesting patient.

  “How is our appetite?”

  Mrs. Bloss shook her head.

  “Our friend requires great care,” said Wosky, appealing to Mrs. Tibbs, who of course assented. “I hope, however, with the blessing of Providence, that we shall be enabled to make her quite stout again.” Mrs. Tibbs wondered in her own mind what the patient would be when she was made quite stout.

  “We must take stimulants,” said the cunning Wosky—“plenty of nourishment, and, above all, we must keep our nerves quiet; we positively must not give way to our sensibilities. We must take all we can get,” concluded the doctor, as he pocketed his fee, “and we must keep quiet.”

  “Dear man!” exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, as the doctor stepped into the carriage.

  “Charming creature indeed—quite a lady's man!” said Mrs. Tibbs, and Dr. Wosky rattled away to make fresh gulls of delicate females, and pocket fresh fees.

  As we had occasion, in a former paper, to describe a dinner at Mrs. Tibbs's; and as one meal went off very like another on all ordinary occasions; we will not fatigue our readers by entering into any other detailed account of the domestic economy of the establishment. We will therefore proceed to events, merely premising that the mysterious tenant of the back drawing-room was a lazy, selfish hypochondriac; always complaining and never ill. As his character in many respects closely assimilated to that of Mrs. Bloss, a very warm friendship soon sprung up between them. He was tall, thin, and pale; he always fancied he had a severe pain somewhere or other, and his face invariably wore a pinched, screwed-up expression; he looked, indeed, like a man who had got his feet in a tub of exceedingly hot water, against his will.

  For two or three months after Mrs. Bloss's first appearance in Coram-street, John Evenson was observed to become, every day, more sarcastic and more ill-natured; and there was a degree of additional importance in his manner, which clearly showed that he fancied he had discovered something, which he only wanted a proper opportunity of divulging. He found it at last.

  One evening, the different inmates of the house were assembled in the drawing-room engaged in their ordinary occupations. Mr. Gobler and Mrs. Bloss were sitting at a small card-table near the centre window, playing cribbage; Mr. Wisbottle was describing semicircles on the music-stool, turning over the leaves of a book on the piano, and humming most melodiously; Alfred Tomkins was sitting at the round table, with his elbows duly squared, making a pencil sketch of a head considerably larger than his own; O'Bleary was reading Horace, and trying to look as if he understood it; and John Evenson had drawn his chair close to Mrs. Tibbs's work-table, and was talking to her very earnestly in a low tone.

  “I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs,” said the radical, laying his forefinger on the muslin she was at work on; “I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs, that nothing but the interest I take in your welfare would induce me to make this communication. I repeat, I fear Wisbottle is endeavouring to gain the affections of that young woman, Agnes, and that he is in the habit of meeting her in the store-room on the first floor, over the leads. From my bedroom I distinctly heard voices there, last night. I opened my door immediately, and crept very softly on to the landing; there I saw Mr. Tibbs, who, it seems, had been disturbed also.—Bless me, Mrs. Tibbs, you change colour!”

  “No, no—it's nothing,” returned Mrs. T. in a hurried manner; “it's only the heat of the room.”

  “A flush!” ejaculated Mrs. Bloss from the card-table; “that's good for four.”

  “If I thought it was Mr. Wisbottle,” said Mrs. Tibbs, after a pause, “he should leave this house instantly.”

  “Go!” said Mrs. Bloss again.

  “And if I thought,” continued the hostess with a most threatening air, “if I thought he was assisted by Mr. Tibbs—”

  “One for his nob!” said Gobler.

  “Oh,” said Evenson, in a most soothing tone—he liked to make mischief—“I should hope Mr. Tibbs was not in any way implicated. He always appeared to me very harmless.”

  “I have generally found him so,” sobbed poor little Mrs. Tibbs; crying like a watering-pot.

  “Hush! hush! pray—Mrs. Tibbs—consider—we shall be observed—pray, don't!” said John Evenson, fearing his whole plan would be interrupted. “We will set the matter at rest with the utmost care, and I shall be most happy to assist you in doing so.” Mrs. Tibbs murmured her thanks.

  “When you think every one has retired to rest to-night,” said Evenson very pompously, “if you'll meet me without a light, just outside my bedroom door, by the staircase window, I think we can ascertain who the parties really are, and you will afterwards be enabled to proceed as you think proper.”

  Mrs. Tibbs was easily persuaded; her curiosity was excited, her jealousy was roused, and the arrangement was forthwith made. She resumed her work, and John Evenson walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets, looking as if nothing had happened. The game of cribbage was over, and conversation began again.

  “Well, Mr. O'Bleary,” said the humming-top, turning round on his pivot, and facing the company, “what did you think of Vauxhall the other night?”

  “Oh, it's very fair,” replied Orson, who had been enthusiastically delighted with the whole exhibition.

  “Never saw anything like that Captain Ross's set-out—eh?”

  “No,” returned the patriot, with his usual reservation—“except in Dublin.”

  “I saw the Count de Canky and Captain Fitzthompson in the Gardens,” said Wisbottle; “they appeared much delighted.”

  “Then it MUST be beautiful,” snarled Evenson.

  “I think the white bears is partickerlerly well done,” suggested Mrs. Bloss. “In their shaggy white coats, they look just like Polar bears—don't you think they do, Mr. Evenson?”

  “I think they look a great deal more like omnibus cads on all fours,” replied the discontented one.

  “Upon the whole, I should have liked our evening very well,” gasped Gobler; “only I caught a desperate cold which increased my pain dreadfully! I was obliged to have several shower-baths, before I could leave my room.”

  “Capital things those shower-baths!” ejaculated Wisbottle.

  “Excellent!” said Tomkins.

  “Delightful!” chimed in O'Bleary. (He had once seen one, outside a tinman's.)

  “Disgusting machines!” rejoined Evenson, who extended his dislike to almost every created object, masculine, feminine, or neuter.

  “Disgusting, Mr. Evenson!” said Gobler, in a tone of strong indignation.—“Disgusting! Look at their utility—consider how
many lives they have saved by promoting perspiration.”

  “Promoting perspiration, indeed,” growled John Evenson, stopping short in his walk across the large squares in the pattern of the carpet—“I was ass enough to be persuaded some time ago to have one in my bedroom. “Gad, I was in it once, and it effectually cured ME, for the mere sight of it threw me into a profuse perspiration for six months afterwards.”

  A titter followed this announcement, and before it had subsided James brought up “the tray,” containing the remains of a leg of lamb which had made its DEBUT at dinner; bread; cheese; an atom of butter in a forest of parsley; one pickled walnut and the third of another; and so forth. The boy disappeared, and returned again with another tray, containing glasses and jugs of hot and cold water. The gentlemen brought in their spirit-bottles; the housemaid placed divers plated bedroom candlesticks under the cardtable; and the servants retired for the night.

  Chairs were drawn round the table, and the conversation proceeded in the customary manner. John Evenson, who never ate supper, lolled on the sofa, and amused himself by contradicting everybody. O'Bleary ate as much as he could conveniently carry, and Mrs. Tibbs felt a due degree of indignation thereat; Mr. Gobler and Mrs. Bloss conversed most affectionately on the subject of pill-taking, and other innocent amusements; and Tomkins and Wisbottle “got into an argument;” that is to say, they both talked very loudly and vehemently, each flattering himself that he had got some advantage about something, and neither of them having more than a very indistinct idea of what they were talking about. An hour or two passed away; and the boarders and the plated candlesticks retired in pairs to their respective bedrooms. John Evenson pulled off his boots, locked his door, and determined to sit up until Mr. Gobler had retired. He always sat in the drawing-room an hour after everybody else had left it, taking medicine, and groaning.

  Great Coram-street was hushed into a state of profound repose: it was nearly two o'clock. A hackney-coach now and then rumbled slowly by; and occasionally some stray lawyer's clerk, on his way home to Somers-town, struck his iron heel on the top of the coalcellar with a noise resembling the click of a smoke-Jack. A low, monotonous, gushing sound was heard, which added considerably to the romantic dreariness of the scene. It was the water “coming in” at number eleven.

  “He must be asleep by this time,” said John Evenson to himself, after waiting with exemplary patience for nearly an hour after Mr. Gobler had left the drawing-room. He listened for a few moments; the house was perfectly quiet; he extinguished his rushlight, and opened his bedroom door. The staircase was so dark that it was impossible to see anything.

  “S-s-s!” whispered the mischief-maker, making a noise like the first indication a catherine-wheel gives of the probability of its going off.

  “Hush!” whispered somebody else.

  “Is that you, Mrs. Tibbs?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where?”

  “Here;” and the misty outline of Mrs. Tibbs appeared at the staircase window, like the ghost of Queen Anne in the tent scene in Richard.

  “This way, Mrs. Tibbs,” whispered the delighted busybody: “give me your hand—there! Whoever these people are, they are in the store-room now, for I have been looking down from my window, and I could see that they accidentally upset their candlestick, and are now in darkness. You have no shoes on, have you?”

  “No,” said little Mrs. Tibbs, who could hardly speak for trembling.

  “Well; I have taken my boots off, so we can go down, close to the store-room door, and listen over the banisters;” and down-stairs they both crept accordingly, every board creaking like a patent mangle on a Saturday afternoon.

  “It's Wisbottle and somebody, I'll swear,” exclaimed the radical in an energetic whisper, when they had listened for a few moments.

  “Hush—pray let's hear what they say!” exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, the gratification of whose curiosity was now paramount to every other consideration.

  “Ah! if I could but believe you,” said a female voice coquettishly, “I'd be bound to settle my missis for life.”

  “What does she say?” inquired Mr. Evenson, who was not quite so well situated as his companion.

  “She says she'll settle her missis's life,” replied Mrs. Tibbs. “The wretch! they're plotting murder.”

  “I know you want money,” continued the voice, which belonged to Agnes; “and if you'd secure me the five hundred pound, I warrant she should take fire soon enough.”

  “What's that?” inquired Evenson again. He could just hear enough to want to hear more.

  “I think she says she'll set the house on fire,” replied the affrighted Mrs. Tibbs. “But thank God I'm insured in the Phoenix !”

  “The moment I have secured your mistress, my dear,” said a man's voice in a strong Irish brogue, “you may depend on having the money.”

  “Bless my soul, it's Mr. O'Bleary!” exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, in a parenthesis.

  “The villain!” said the indignant Mr. Evenson.

  “The first thing to be done,” continued the Hibernian, “is to poison Mr. Gobler's mind.”

  “Oh, certainly,” returned Agnes.

  “What's that?” inquired Evenson again, in an agony of curiosity and a whisper.

  “He says she's to mind and poison Mr. Gobler,” replied Mrs. Tibbs, aghast at this sacrifice of human life.

  “And in regard of Mrs. Tibbs,” continued O'Bleary.—Mrs. Tibbs shuddered.

  “Hush!” exclaimed Agnes, in a tone of the greatest alarm, just as Mrs. Tibbs was on the extreme verge of a fainting fit. “Hush!”

  “Hush!” exclaimed Evenson, at the same moment to Mrs. Tibbs.

  “There's somebody coming UP-stairs,” said Agnes to O'Bleary.

  “There's somebody coming DOWN-stairs,” whispered Evenson to Mrs. Tibbs.

  “Go into the parlour, sir,” said Agnes to her companion. “You will get there, before whoever it is, gets to the top of the kitchen stairs.”

  “The drawing-room, Mrs. Tibbs!” whispered the astonished Evenson to his equally astonished companion; and for the drawing-room they both made, plainly hearing the rustling of two persons, one coming down-stairs, and one coming up.

  “What can it be?” exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs. “It's like a dream. I wouldn't be found in this situation for the world!”

  “Nor I,” returned Evenson, who could never bear a joke at his own expense. “Hush! here they are at the door.”

  “What fun!” whispered one of the new-comers.—It was Wisbottle.

  “Glorious!” replied his companion, in an equally low tone.—This was Alfred Tomkins. “Who would have thought it?”

  “I told you so,” said Wisbottle, in a most knowing whisper. “Lord bless you, he has paid her most extraordinary attention for the last two months. I saw “em when I was sitting at the piano tonight.”

  “Well, do you know I didn't notice it?” interrupted Tomkins.

  “Not notice it!” continued Wisbottle. “Bless you; I saw him whispering to her, and she crying; and then I'll swear I heard him say something about to-night when we were all in bed.”

  “They're talking of US!” exclaimed the agonised Mrs. Tibbs, as the painful suspicion, and a sense of their situation, flashed upon her mind.

  “I know it—I know it,” replied Evenson, with a melancholy consciousness that there was no mode of escape.

  “What's to be done? we cannot both stop here!” ejaculated Mrs. Tibbs, in a state of partial derangement.

  “I'll get up the chimney,” replied Evenson, who really meant what he said.

  “You can't,” said Mrs. Tibbs, in despair. “You can't—it's a register stove.”

  “Hush!” repeated John Evenson.

  “Hush—hush!” cried somebody down-stairs.

  “What a d-d hushing!” said Alfred Tomkins, who began to get rather bewildered.

  “There they are!” exclaimed the sapient Wisbottle, as a rustling noise was heard in the store-room.

  “Hark!�
�� whispered both the young men.

  “Hark!” repeated Mrs. Tibbs and Evenson.

  “Let me alone, sir,” said a female voice in the store-room.

  “Oh, Hagnes!” cried another voice, which clearly belonged to Tibbs, for nobody else ever owned one like it, “Oh, Hagnes—lovely creature!”

  “Be quiet, sir!” (A bounce.)

  “Hag—”

  “Be quiet, sir—I am ashamed of you. Think of your wife, Mr. Tibbs. Be quiet, sir!”

  “My wife!” exclaimed the valorous Tibbs, who was clearly under the influence of gin-and-water, and a misplaced attachment; “I ate her! Oh, Hagnes! when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and—”

  “I declare I'll scream. Be quiet, sir, will you?” (Another bounce and a scuffle.)

  “What's that?” exclaimed Tibbs, with a start.

  “What's what?” said Agnes, stopping short.

  “Why that!”

  “Ah! you have done it nicely now, sir,” sobbed the frightened Agnes, as a tapping was heard at Mrs. Tibbs's bedroom door, which would have beaten any dozen woodpeckers hollow.

  “Mrs. Tibbs! Mrs. Tibbs!” called out Mrs. Bloss. “Mrs. Tibbs, pray get up.” (Here the imitation of a woodpecker was resumed with tenfold violence.)

  “Oh, dear—dear!” exclaimed the wretched partner of the depraved Tibbs. “She's knocking at my door. We must be discovered! What will they think?”

  “Mrs. Tibbs! Mrs. Tibbs!” screamed the woodpecker again.

  “What's the matter!” shouted Gobler, bursting out of the back drawing-room, like the dragon at Astley's.

  “Oh, Mr. Gobler!” cried Mrs. Bloss, with a proper approximation to hysterics; “I think the house is on fire, or else there's thieves in it. I have heard the most dreadful noises!”

  “The devil you have!” shouted Gobler again, bouncing back into his den, in happy imitation of the aforesaid dragon, and returning immediately with a lighted candle. “Why, what's this? Wisbottle! Tomkins! O'Bleary! Agnes! What the deuce! all up and dressed?”