Selected Short Fiction Read online

  We talked of these jottings of mine, which Jemmy had read through and through by that time; and so it came about that my esteemed friend remarked, as she sat smoothing Jemmy’s curls:

  ‘And as you belong to the house too, Jemmy, - and so much more than the Lodgers, having been born in it - why, your story ought to be added to the rest, I think, one of these days.’

  Jemmy’s eyes sparkled at this, and he said, ‘So I think, Gran.’

  Then, he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to laugh, in a sort of confidence with the fire, and then he said, folding his arms across my esteemed friend’s lap and raising his bright face to hers:

  ‘Would you like to hear a boy’s story, Gran?’

  ‘Of all things,’ replied my esteemed friend.

  ‘Would you, godfather?’

  ‘Of all things,’ I too replied.

  ‘Well then,’ said Jemmy, ‘I’ll tell you one.’

  Here, our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a hug, and laughed again, musically, at the idea of his coming out in that new line. Then, he once more took the fire into the same sort of confidence as before, and began:

  ‘Once upon a time, When pigs drank wine, And monkeys chewed tobaccer, ’Twas neither in your time nor mine, But that’s no macker -’

  ‘Bless the child!’ cried my esteemed friend, ‘what’s amiss with his brain!’

  ‘It’s poetry, Gran,’ returned Jemmy, shouting with laughter. ‘We always begin stories that way, at school.’

  ‘Gave me quite a turn, Major,’ said my esteemed friend, fanning herself with a plate. ‘Thought he was light-headed!’

  ‘In those remarkable times, Gran and Godfather, there was once a boy; — not me, you know.’

  ‘No, no,’ says my respected friend, ‘not you. Not him, Major, you understand?’

  ‘No, no,’ says I.

  ‘And he went to school in Rutlandshire -’

  ‘Why not Lincolnshire?’ says my respected friend.

  ‘Why not, you dear old Gran? Because I go to school in Lincolnshire, don’t I?’

  ‘Ah, to be sure!’ says my respected friend. ‘And it’s not Jemmy, you understand, Major?’

  ‘No, no,’ says I.

  ‘Well!’ our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfortably, and laughing merrily (again in confidence with the fire), before he again looked up in Mrs Lirriper’s face, ‘and so he was tremendously in love with his schoolmaster’s daughter, and she was the most beautiful creature that ever was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she had brown hair all curling beautifully, and she had a delicious voice, and she was delicious altogether, and her name was Seraphina.’

  ‘What’s the name of your schoolmaster’s daughter Jemmy?’ asks my respected friend.

  ‘Polly!’ replied Jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her. ‘There now! Caught you! Ha! ha! ha!’

  When he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a hug together, our admittedly remarkable boy resumed with a great relish:

  ‘Well! And so he loved her. And so he thought about her, and dreamed about her, and made her presents of oranges and nuts, and would have made her presents of pearls and diamonds if he could have afforded it out of his pocket-money, but he couldn’t. And so her father - O, he was a Tartar! Keeping the boys up to the mark, holding examinations once a month, lecturing upon all sorts of subjects at all sorts of times, and knowing everything in the world out of book. And so this boy -’

  ‘Had he any name?’ asks my respected friend.

  ‘No he hadn’t, Gran. Ha! ha! There now! Caught you again!’

  After this, they had another laugh and another hug, and then our boy went on.

  ‘Well! And so this boy he had a friend about as old as himself, at the same school, and his name (for He had a name, as it happened) was - let me remember - was Bobbo.’

  ‘Not Bob,’ says my respected friend.

  ‘Of course not,’ says Jemmy. ‘What made you think it was, Gran? Well! And so this friend was the cleverest and bravest and best looking and most generous of all the friends that ever were, and so he was in love with Seraphina’s sister, and so Seraphina’s sister was in love with him, and so they all grew up.’

  ‘Bless us!’ says my respected friend. ‘They were very sudden about it.’

  ‘So they all grew up,’ our boy repeated, laughing heartily, ‘and Bobbo and this boy went away together on horseback to seek their fortunes, and they partly got their horses by favour, and partly in a bargain; that is to say, they had saved up between them seven-and-fourpence, and the two horses, being Arabs, were worth more, only the man said he would take that, to favour them. Well! And so they made their fortunes and came prancing back to the school, with their pockets full of gold enough to last for ever. And so they rang at the parents’ and visitors’ bell (not the back gate), and when the bell was answered they proclaimed, “The same as if it was scarlet fever! Every boy goes home for an indefinite period!” And then there was great hurrahing, and then they kissed Seraphina and her sister - each his own love and not the other’s on any account-and then they ordered the Tartar into instant confinement.’

  ‘Poor man !’ said my respected friend.

  ‘Into instant confinement, Gran,’ repeated Jemmy, trying to look severe and roaring with laughter, ‘and he was to have nothing to eat but the boys’ dinners, and was to drink half a cask of their beer, every day. And so then the preparations were made for the two weddings, and there were hampers, and potted things, and sweet things, and nuts, and postage-stamps, and all manner of things. And so they were so jolly, that they let the Tartar out, and he was jolly too.’

  ‘I am glad they let him out,’ says my respected friend, ‘because he had only done his duty.’

  ‘Oh but hadn’t he overdone it though!’ cried Jemmy. ‘Well! And so then this boy mounted his horse, with his bride in his arms and cantered away, and cantered on and on till he came to a certain place where he had a certain Gran and a certain godfather — not you two, you know.’

  ‘No, no,’we both said.

  ‘And there he was received with great rejoicings, and he filled the cupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he showered it out on his Gran and his godfather because they were the two kindest and dearest people that ever lived in this world. And so while they were sitting up to their knees in gold, a knocking was heard at the street door, and who should it be but Bobbo, also on horseback with his bride in his arms, and what had he come to say but that he would take (at double rent) all the Lodgings for ever, that were not wanted by this boy and this Gran and this godfather, and that they would all live together, and all be happy! And so they were, and so it never ended!’

  ‘And was there no quarrelling?’ asked my respected friend, as Jemmy sat upon her lap, and hugged her.

  ‘No! Nobody ever quarrelled.’

  ‘And did the money never melt away?’

  ‘No! Nobody could ever spend it all.’

  ‘And did none of them ever grow older?’

  ‘No! Nobody ever grew older after that.’

  ‘And did none of them ever die?’

  ‘O no, no, no, Gran!’ exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him.‘ Nobody ever died.’

  ‘Ah Major, Major,’ says my respected friend, smiling benignly upon me. ‘This beats our stories. Let us end with the Boy’s story, Major, for the Boy’s story is the best that is ever told!’

  In submission to which request on the part of the best of women, I have here noted it down as faithfully as my best abilities, coupled with my best intentions, would admit, subscribing it with my name,

  J. JACKMAN.

  The Parlours.

  Mrs Lirriper’s Lodgings.

  MRS LIRRIPER’S LEGACY

  Mrs Lirriper Relates how She Went On, and Went Over

  AH! It’s pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with trotting down, and why kitchen-stairs shoul
d all be corner stairs is for the builders to justify though I do not think they fully understand their trade and never did, else why the sameness and why not more conveniences and fewer draughts and likewise making a practice of laying the plaster on too thick I am well convinced which holds the damp, and as to chimney-pots putting them on by guess-work like hats at a party and no more knowing what their effect will be upon the smoke bless you than I do if so much, except that it will mostly be either to send it down your throat in a straight form or give it a twist before it goes there. And what I says speaking as I find of those new metal chimneys all manner of shapes (there’s a row of ’em at Miss Wozenham’s lodging-house lower down on the other side of the way) is that they only work your smoke into artificial patterns for you before you swallow it and that I’d quite as soon swallow mine plain, the flavour being the same, not to mention the conceit of putting up signs on the top of your house to show the forms in which you take your smoke into your inside.

  Being here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair in my own quiet room in my own Lodging House Number Eighty-one Norfolk-street Strand London situated midway between the City and St James’s - if anything is where it used to be with these hotels calling themselves Limited but called Unlimited by Major Jackman rising up everywhere and rising up into flagstaffs where they can’t go any higher, but my mind of those monsters is give me a landlord’s or landlady’s wholesome face.when I come off a journey and not a brass plate with an electrified number clicking out of it which it’s not in nature can be glad to see me and to which I don’t want to be hoisted like molasses at the Docks and left there telegraphing for help with the most ingenious instruments but quite in vain - being here my dear I have no call to mention that I am still in the Lodgings as a business hoping to die in the same and if agreeable to the clergy party read over at Saint Clement’s Danes and concluded in Hatfield churchyard when lying once again by my poor Lirriper ashes to ashes and dust to dust.1

  Neither should I tell you any news my dear in telling you that the Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother Mrs Edson being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully believing that I am his born Gran and him an orphan, though what with engineering since he took a taste for it and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols broken iron pots and cotton-reels and them absolutely a getting off the line and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals it really is quite wonderful. And when I says to the Major, ‘Major can’t you by any means give us a communication with the guard?’ the Major says quite huffy, ‘No madam it’s not to be done,’ and when I says ‘Why not?’ the Major says, ‘That is between us who are in the Railway Interest madam and our friend the Right Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade and if you’ll believe me my dear the Major wrote to Jemmy at school to consult him on the answer I should have before I could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real) and when I says laughing’ What appointment am I to hold in this undertaking gentlemen?’ Jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me dancing, ‘You shall be the Public Gran’ and consequently they put upon me just as much as ever they like and I sit a growling in my easy-chair.

  My dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the Major cannot give half his heart and mind to anything - even a plaything - but must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it is not so I do not undertake to say, but Jemmy is far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the Major in the management of the United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour Line, ‘For’ says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, ‘we must have a whole mouthful of name Gran or our dear old Public’ and there the young rogue kissed me, ‘won’t stump up.’2 So the Public took the shares - ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve Preferences at one-and-sixpence - and they were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have paid for in my time. In the same holidays the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular correct and pretty. The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as a military style of station-master my dear starting the down train behind time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little coal-scuttles off the tray round the man’s neck in the street did him honour, but noticing the Major of a night when he is writing out his monthly report to Jemmy at school of the state of the Rolling Stock and the Permanent Way and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon the Major’s sideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his boots) I notice him as full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a fearful manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves as witness his great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring tape and driving I don’t know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes to that as a profession!

  Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own youngest brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would be hard to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet Law does Joshua Lirriper know a morsel of except continually being summoned to the County Court and having orders made upon him which he runs away from, and once was taken in the passage of this very house with an umbrella up and the Major’s hat on, giving his name with the door-mat round him as Sir Johnson Jones K.C.B. in spectacles residing at the Horse Guards. On which occasion he had got into the house not a minute before, through the girl letting him on to the mat when he sent in a piece of paper twisted more like one of those spills for lighting candles than a note, offering me the choice between thirty shillings in hand and his brains on the premises marked immediate and waiting for an answer. My dear it gave me such a dreadful turn to think of the brains of my poor dear Lirriper’s own flesh and blood flying about the new oilcloth however unworthy to be so assisted, that I went out of my room here to ask him what he would take once for all not to do it for life when I found him in the custody of two gentlemen that I should have judged to be in the feather-bed trade if they had not announced the law, so fluffy were their personal appearance. ‘Bring your chains sir,’ says Joshua to the littlest of the two in the biggest hat, ‘rivet on my fetters’! Imagine my feelings when I pictered him clanking up Norfolk-street in irons and Miss Wozenham looking out of window! ‘Gentlemen’ I says all of a tremble and ready to drop ’please to bring him into Major Jackman’s apartments’. So they brought him into the Parlours, and when the Major spies his own curly-brimmed hat on him which Joshua Lirriper had whipped off its peg in the passage for a military disguise he goes into such a tearing passion that he tips it off his head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling with his foot, where it grazed long afterwards. ‘Major’ I says ‘be cool and advise me what to do with Joshua my dead and gone Lirriper’s own youngest brother’. ‘Madam’ says the Major ‘my advice is that you board and lodge him in a Powder Mill, with a handsome gratuity to the proprietor when exploded.’ ‘Major’ I says ‘as a Christian you cannot mean your words.’ ‘Madam’ says the Major ‘by the Lord I do!’ and indeed the Major beside being with all his merits a very passionate man for his size had a bad opinion of Joshua on account of former troubles even unattended by liberties taken with his apparel. When Joshua Lirriper hears this conversation betwixt us he turns upon the littlest one with the biggest hat and says ‘Come sir! Remove me to my vile dungeon. Where is my mouldy straw!’ My dear at the picter of him
rising in my mind dressed almost entirely in padlocks like Baron Trenck3 in Jemmy’s book I was so overcome that I burst into tears and I says to the Major, ‘Major take my keys and settle with these gentlemen or I shall never know a happy minute more,’ which was done several times both before and since, but still I must remember that Joshua Lirriper has his good feelings and shows them in being always so troubled in his mind when he cannot wear mourning for his brother. Many a long year have I left off my widow’s mourning not being wishful to intrude, but the tender point in Joshua that I cannot help a little yielding to is when he writes ‘One single sovereign would enable me to wear a decent suit of mourning for my much-loved brother. I vowed at the time of his lamented death that I would ever wear sables in memory of him but Alas how short-sighted is man, How keep that vow when penniless!’ It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings that he couldn’t have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper died and to have kept to it ever since is highly creditable. But we know there’s good in all of us- if we only knew where it was in some of us - and though it was far from delicate in Joshua to work upon the dear child’s feelings when first sent to school and write down into Lincolnshire for his pocket-money by return of post and got it, still he is my poor Lirriper’s own youngest brother and mightn’t have meant not paying his bill at the Salisbury Arms when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at Hatfield churchyard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad company. Consequently if the Major had played on him with the garden-engine4 which he got privately into his room without my knowing of it, I think that much as I should have regretted it there would have been words betwixt the Major and me. Therefore my dear though he played on Mr Buflle by mistake being hot in his head, and though it might have been misrepresented down at Wozenham’s into not being ready for Mr Buffle in other respects he being the Assessed Taxes, still I do not so much regret it as perhaps I ought. And whether Joshua Lirriper will yet do well in life I cannot say, but I did hear of his coming out at a Private Theatre in the character of a Bandit without receiving any offers afterwards from the regular managers.