Selected Short Fiction Read online

  ‘Do you know who my grandson is?’

  Yes.

  ‘I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother lay a dying I said to her, “My dear this baby is sent to a childless old woman.” He has been my pride and joy ever since. I love him as dearly as if he had drunk from my breast. Do you ask to see my grandson before you die?’

  Yes.

  ‘Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand what I say. He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth. He has no knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. If I bring him here to the side of this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. It is more than I can do, to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong and misery in the world; but that it was ever so near him in his innocent cradle, I have kept from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep from him. For his mother’s sake, and for his own.’

  He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from his eyes.

  ‘Now rest, and you shall see him.’

  So I got him a little wine and some brandy and I put things straight about his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy and the Major might be too long of coming back. What with this occupation for my thoughts and hands, I didn’t hear a foot upon the stairs, and was startled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle of the room by the eyes of the man upon the bed, and knowing him then, as I had known him a little while ago.

  There was anger in the Major’s face, and there was horror and repugnance and I don’t know what. So I went up to him and I led him to the bedside and when I clasped my hands and lifted of them up, the Major did the like.

  ‘O Lord’ I says ‘Thou knowest what we two saw together of the sufferings and sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee. If this dying man is truly penitent, we two together humbly pray Thee to have mercy on him!’

  The Major says ‘Amen!’ and then after a little stop I whispers him, ‘Dear old friend fetch our beloved boy.’ And the Major, so clever as to have got to understand it all without being told a word went away and brought him.

  Never never never, shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy when he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown father. And O so like his dear young mother then!

  ‘Jemmy’ I says, ‘I have found out all about this poor gentleman who is so ill, and he did lodge in the old house once. And as he wants to see all belonging to it, now that he is passing away, I sent for you.’

  ‘Ah poor man!’ says Jemmy stepping forward and touching one of his hands with great gentleness. ‘My heart melts for him. Poor, poor, man!’

  The eyes that were so soon to close for ever, turned to me, and I was not that strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist them.

  ‘My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this fellow-creetur, lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one day which I think would ease his spirit in his last hour if you would lay your cheek against his forehead and say “May God forgive you!” ’

  ‘O Gran,’ says Jemmy with a full heart ‘I am not worthy!’ But he leaned down and did it. Then the faltering fingers made out to catch hold of my sleeve at last, and I believe he was a trying to kiss me when he died.

  There my dear! There you have the story of my Legacy in full, and it’s worth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you are pleased to like it.

  You might suppose that it set us against the little French town of Sens, but no we didn’t find that. I found myself that I never looked up at the high tower atop of the other tower, but the days came back again when that fair young creetur with her pretty bright hair trusted in me like a mother, and the recollection made the place so peaceful to me as I can’t express. And every soul about the hotel down to the pigeons in the court-yard made friends with Jemmy and the Major, and went lumbering away with them on all sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by rampagious cart-horses - with heads and without - mud for paint and ropes for harness- and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher,12 and every new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour and consume every other horse, and every man that had a whip to crack crack-crack-crack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy with his first. As to the Major my dear that man lived the greater part of his time with a little tumbler in one hand and a bottle of small wine in the other, and whenever he saw anybody else with a little tumbler no matter who it was - the military character with the tags, or the inn servants at their supper in the court-yard, or towns-people a chatting on a bench, or country-people a starting home after market - down rushes the Major to clink his glass against their glasses and cry - Hola! Vive Somebody! or Vive Something! as if he was beside himself. And though I could not quite approve of the Major’s doing it, still the ways of the world are the ways of the world varying according to different parts of it, and dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept a barber’s shop my opinion is that the Major was right to dance his best and to lead off with a power that I did not think was in him, though I was a little uneasy at the Barricading 13 sound of the cries that were set up by the other dancers and the rest of the company, until when I says What are they ever calling out Jemmy?’ Jemmy says ‘They’re calling out Gran, Bravo the Military English! Bravo the Military English!’ which was very gratifying to my feelings as a Briton and became the name the Major was known by.

  But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the balcony of the hotel at the end of the court-yard, looking up at the golden and rosy light as it changed on the great towers, and looking at the shadows of the towers as they changed on all about us ourselves included, and what do you think we did there? My dear if Jemmy hadn’t brought some other of those stories of the Major’s taking down from the telling of former lodgers at Eighty-one Norfolk-street, and if he didn’t bring ’em out with this speech:

  ‘Here you are Gran! Here you are Godfather! More of ’em! I’ll read. And though you wrote ‘em for me Godfather, I know you won’t disapprove of my making ’em over to Gran; will you?’

  ‘No my dear boy,’ says the Major. ‘Everything we have is hers, and we are hers.’

  ‘Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. Jackman Lirriper,’ cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug. ‘Very well then Godfather. Look here. As Gran is in the Legacy way just now. I shall make these stories a part of Gran’s Legacy. I’ll leave ’em to her. What do you say Godfather?’

  ‘Hip hip Hurrah!’ says the Major.

  ‘Very well then’ cries Jemmy all in a bustle. ‘Vive the Military English! Vive the Lady Lirriper! Vive the Jemmy Jackman Ditto! Vive the Legacy! Now, you look out, Gran. And you look out, Godfather,I’ll read! And I’ll tell you what I’ll do besides. On the last night of our holiday here when we are all packed and going away, I’ll top up with something of my own.’

  ‘Mind you do sir’ says I.

  ‘Don’t you be afraid, Gran’ cries Young Sparkles. ‘Now then! I’m going to read. Once, twice, three and away. Open your mouths and shut your eyes, and see what Fortune sends you. All in to begin. Look out Gran. Look out Godfather!’

  So in his lively spirits Jemmy began reading, and he read every evening while we were there, and sometimes we were about it late enough to have a candle burning quite steady out in the balcony in the still air. And so here is the rest of my Legacy my dear that I now hand over to you in this bundle of papers all in the Major’s plain round writing. I wish I could hand you the church towers over too, and the pleasant air and the inn yard and the pigeons often coming and perching on the rail by Jemmy and seeming to be critical with heir heads on one side, but you’ll take as you find.

  Mrs Lirriper Relates how Jemmy Topped Up

  Well my dear and so the evening readings of these jottings of the Major’s brought us round at last to the evening when we were all packed and going away next day, and I do assure you that by that time though it was deliciously comfortable to look forward to the dea
r old house in Norfolk-street again, I had formed quite a high opinion of the French nation and had noticed them to be much more homely and domestic in their families and far more simple and amiable in their lives than I had ever been led to expect, and it did strike me between ourselves that in one particular they might be imitated to advantage by another nation which I will not mention, and that is in the courage with which they take their little enjoyments on little means and with little things and don’t let solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify them dull, of which said solemn big-wigs I have ever had the one opinion that I wish they were all made comfortable separately in coppers with the lids on and never let out any more.

  ‘Now young man’, I says to Jemmy when we brought our chairs into the balcony that last evening, ‘you please to remember who was to “top up.”’

  ‘All right Gran’ says Jemmy. ‘I am the illustrious personage.’

  But he looked so serious after he had made me that light answer, that the Major raised his eyebrows at me and I raised mine at the Major.

  ‘Gran and Godfather,’ says Jemmy, ‘you can hardly think how much my mind has run on Mr Edson’s death.’

  It gave me a little check. ‘Ah! It was a sad scene my love’ I says, ‘and sad remembrances come back stronger than merry. But this’ I says after a little silence, to rouse myself and the Major and Jemmy all together, ‘is not topping up. Tell us your story my dear.’

  ‘I will’ says Jemmy.

  ‘What is the date sir?’ says I. ‘Once upon a time when pigs drank wine?’

  ‘No Gran,’ says Jemmy, still serious; ‘once upon a time when the French drank wine.’

  Again I glanced at the Major, and the Major glanced at me.

  ‘In short, Gran and Godfather’ , says Jemmy looking up, ‘the date is this time, and I’m going to tell you Mr Edson’s story.’

  The flutter that it threw me into. The change of colour on the part of the Major!

  ‘That is to say, you understand’, our bright-eyed boy says, ‘I am going to give you my version of it. I shall not ask whether it’s right or not, firstly because you said you knew very little about it, Gran, and secondly because what little you did know was a secret’

  I folded my hands in my lap and I never took my eyes off Jemmy as he went running on.

  ‘The unfortunate gentleman’ Jemmy commences, ‘who is the subject of our present narrative was the son of Somebody, and was born Somewhere, and chose a profession Somehow. It is not with those parts of his career that we have to deal; but with his early attachment to a young and beautiful lady.’

  I thought I should have dropped. I durstn’t look at the Major; but I knew what his state was, without looking at him.

  ‘The father of our ill-starred hero’ says Jemmy, copying as it seemed to me the style of some of his story-books, ‘was a worldly man who entertained ambitious views for his only son and who firmly set his face against the contemplated alliance with a virtuous but penniless orphan. Indeed he went so far as roundly to assure our hero that unless he weaned his thoughts from the object of his devoted affection, he would disinherit him. At the same time, he proposed as a suitable match, the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman of a good estate, who was neither ill favoured nor unamiable, and whose eligibility in a pecuniary point of view could not be disputed. But young Mr Edson, true to the first and only love that had inflamed his breast, rejected all considerations of self-advancement, and, deprecating his father’s anger in a respectful letter, ran away with her.’

  My dear I had begun to take a turn for the better, but when it come to running away I began to take another turn for the worse.

  ‘The lovers’ says Jemmy ‘fled to London and were united at the altar of Saint Clement’s Danes. And it is at this period of their simple but touching story, that we find them inmates of the dwelling of a highly respected and beloved lady of the name of Gran, residing within a hundred miles of Norfolk-street.’

  I felt that we were almost safe now, I felt that the dear boy had no suspicion of the bitter truth, and I looked at the Major for the first time and drew a long breath. The Major gave me a nod.

  ‘Our hero’s father’ Jemmy goes on ‘proving implacable and carrying his threat into unrelenting execution, the struggles of the young couple in London were severe, and would have been far more so, but for their good angel’s having conducted them to the abode of Mrs Gran: who, divining their poverty (in spite of their endeavours to conceal it from her), by a thousand delicate arts smoothed their rough way, and alleviated the sharpness of their first distress.’

  Here Jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and began a marking the turns of his story by making me give a beat from time to time upon his other hand.

  ‘After a while, they left the house of Mrs Gran, and pursued their fortunes through a variety of successes and failures elsewhere. But in all reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of Mr Edson to the fair young partner of his life, were: “Unchanging Love and Truth will carry us through all!” ’

  My hand trembled in the dear boy’s, those words were so wofully unlike the fact.

  ‘Unchanging Love and Truth’ says Jemmy over again, as if he had a proud kind of a noble pleasure in it, ‘will carry us through all! Those were his words. And so they fought their way, poor but gallant and happy, until Mrs Edson gave birth to a child.’

  ‘A daughter,’ I says.

  ‘No’ says Jemmy, ‘a son. And the father was so proud of it that he could hardly bear it out of his sight. But a dark cloud overspread the scene. Mrs Edson sickened, drooped, and died.’

  ‘Ah! Sickened, drooped, and died!’ I says.

  ‘And so Mr Edson’s only comfort, only hope on earth, and only stimulus to action, was his darling boy. As the child grew older, he grew so like his mother that he was her living picture. It used to make him wonder why his father cried when he kissed him. But unhappily he was like his mother in constitution as well as in face, and he died too before he had grown out of childhood. Then Mr Edson, who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair threw them all to the winds. He became apathetic, reckless, lost. Little by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at last he almost lived (I think) by gaming. And so sickness overtook him in the town of Sens in France, and he lay down to die. But now that he laid him down when all was done, and looked back upon the green Past beyond the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought gratefully of the good Mrs Gran long lost sight of, who had been so kind to him and his young wife in the early days of their marriage, and he left the little that he had as a last Legacy to her. And she, being brought to see him, at first no more knew him than she would know from seeing the ruin of a Greek or Roman Temple, what it used to be before it fell; but at length she remembered him. And then he told her with tears, of his regret for the misspent part of his life, and besought her to think as mildly of it as she could, because it was the poor fallen Angel of his unchanging Love and Constancy after all. And because she had her grandson with her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he had lived, might have grown to be something like him, he asked her to let him touch his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting words.’

  Jemmy’s voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled my eyes, and filled the Major’s.

  ‘You little Conjuror’ I says, ‘how did you ever make it all out? Go in and write it every word down, for it’s a wonder.’

  Which Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear from his writing.

  Then the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said ‘Dearest madam all has prospered with us.’

  ‘Ah Major’ I says drying my eyes, ‘we needn’t have been afraid. We might have known it. Treachery don’t come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy - they do, thank God!’

  DOCTOR MARIGOLD’S PRESCRIPTIONS

  To Be Taken Immediately

  I AM a Cheap Jack, and my own father’s name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime suppos
ed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: — If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? As to looking at the argument through the medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before Registers come up much - and went out of it too. They wouldn’t have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come up before him.

  I was born on the Queen’s highway, but it was the King’s at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me. Doctor Marigold.

  I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings. You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap. That’s as exactly similar to my waistcoat, as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another.

  I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewellery, it is mother-of-pearl buttons. There you have me again, as large as life.

  The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you’ll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. It was a pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a serpentining up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. Two swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions. When I call her a large lady, I don’t mean in point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up in heighth; her heighth and slimness was- in short THE heighth of both.