Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy Read online

it? We got as merry asgrigs (whatever _they_ are, if you happen to know my dear--_I_ don't) andI went home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be. Butbefore I make an end of it, think even of my having misunderstood theMajor! Yes! For next forenoon the Major came into my little room withhis brushed hat in his hand and he begins "My dearest madam--" and thenput his face in his hat as if he had just come into church. As I sat allin a maze he came out of his hat and began again. "My esteemed andbeloved friend--" and then went into his hat again. "Major," I cries outfrightened "has anything happened to our darling boy?" "No, no, no" saysthe Major "but Miss Wozenham has been here this morning to make herexcuses to me, and by the Lord I can't get over what she told me." "Hoitytoity, Major," I says "you don't know yet that I was afraid of you lastnight and didn't think half as well of you as I ought! So come out ofchurch Major and forgive me like a dear old friend and I'll never do soany more." And I leave you to judge my dear whether I ever did or will.And how affecting to think of Miss Wozenham out of her small income andher losses doing so much for her poor old father, and keeping a brotherthat had had the misfortune to soften his brain against the hardmathematics as neat as a new pin in the three back represented to lodgersas a lumber-room and consuming a whole shoulder of mutton wheneverprovided!

  And now my dear I really am a going to tell you about my Legacy if you'reinclined to favour me with your attention, and I did fully intend to havecome straight to it only one thing does so bring up another. It was themonth of June and the day before Midsummer Day when my girl WinifredMadgers--she was what is termed a Plymouth Sister, and the PlymouthBrother that made away with her was quite right, for a tidier young womanfor a wife never came into a house and afterwards called with thebeautifullest Plymouth Twins--it was the day before Midsummer Day whenWinifred Madgers comes and says to me "A gentleman from the Consul'swishes particular to speak to Mrs. Lirriper." If you'll believe me mydear the Consols at the bank where I have a little matter for Jemmy gotinto my head, and I says "Good gracious I hope he ain't had any dreadfulfall!" Says Winifred "He don't look as if he had ma'am." And I says"Show him in."

  The gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped what I shouldconsider too close, and he says very polite "Madame Lirrwiper!" I says,"Yes sir. Take a chair." "I come," says he "frrwom the FrrwenchConsul's." So I saw at once that it wasn't the Bank of England. "Wehave rrweceived," says the gentleman turning his r's very curious andskilful, "frrwom the Mairrwie at Sens, a communication which I will havethe honour to rrwead. Madame Lirrwiper understands Frrwench?" "O dearno sir!" says I. "Madame Lirriper don't understand anything of thesort." "It matters not," says the gentleman, "I will trrwanslate."

  With that my dear the gentleman after reading something about aDepartment and a Marie (which Lord forgive me I supposed till the Majorcame home was Mary, and never was I more puzzled than to think how thatyoung woman came to have so much to do with it) translated a lot with themost obliging pains, and it came to this:--That in the town of Sons inFrance an unknown Englishman lay a dying. That he was speechless andwithout motion. That in his lodging there was a gold watch and a pursecontaining such and such money and a trunk containing such and suchclothes, but no passport and no papers, except that on his table was apack of cards and that he had written in pencil on the back of the ace ofhearts: "To the authorities. When I am dead, pray send what is left, asa last Legacy, to Mrs. Lirriper Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strand London."When the gentleman had explained all this, which seemed to be drawn upmuch more methodical than I should have given the French credit for, notat that time knowing the nation, he put the document into my hand. Andmuch the wiser I was for that you may be sure, except that it had thelook of being made out upon grocery paper and was stamped all over witheagles.

  "Does Madame Lirrwiper" says the gentleman "believe she rrwecognises herunfortunate compatrrwiot?"

  You may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to be talked to aboutmy compatriots.

  I says "Excuse me. Would you have the kindness sir to make your languageas simple as you can?"

  "This Englishman unhappy, at the point of death. This compatrrwiotafflicted," says the gentleman.

  "Thank you sir" I says "I understand you now. No sir I have not theleast idea who this can be."

  "Has Madame Lirrwiper no son, no nephew, no godson, no frrwiend, noacquaintance of any kind in Frrwance?"

  "To my certain knowledge" says I "no relation or friend, and to the bestof my belief no acquaintance."

  "Pardon me. You take Locataires?" says the gentleman.

  My dear fully believing he was offering me something with his obligingforeign manners,--snuff for anything I knew,--I gave a little bend of myhead and I says if you'll credit it, "No I thank you. I have notcontracted the habit."

  The gentleman looks perplexed and says "Lodgers!"

  "Oh!" says I laughing. "Bless the man! Why yes to be sure!"

  "May it not be a former lodger?" says the gentleman. "Some lodger thatyou pardoned some rrwent? You have pardoned lodgers some rrwent?"

  "Hem! It has happened sir" says I, "but I assure you I can call to mindno gentleman of that description that this is at all likely to be."

  In short my dear, we could make nothing of it, and the gentleman noteddown what I said and went away. But he left me the paper of which he hadtwo with him, and when the Major came in I says to the Major as I put itin his hand "Major here's Old Moore's Almanac with the hieroglyphiccomplete, for your opinion."

  It took the Major a little longer to read than I should have thought,judging from the copious flow with which he seemed to be gifted whenattacking the organ-men, but at last he got through it, and stood agazing at me in amazement.

  "Major" I says "you're paralysed."

  "Madam" says the Major, "Jemmy Jackman is doubled up."

  Now it did so happen that the Major had been out to get a littleinformation about railroads and steamboats, as our boy was coming homefor his Midsummer holidays next day and we were going to take himsomewhere for a treat and a change. So while the Major stood a gazing itcame into my head to say to him "Major I wish you'd go and look at someof your books and maps, and see whereabouts this same town of Sens is inFrance."

  The Major he roused himself and he went into the Parlours and he pokedabout a little, and he came back to me and he says, "Sens my dearestmadam is seventy-odd miles south of Paris."

  With what I may truly call a desperate effort "Major," I says "we'll gothere with our blessed boy."

  If ever the Major was beside himself it was at the thoughts of thatjourney. All day long he was like the wild man of the woods aftermeeting with an advertisement in the papers telling him something to hisadvantage, and early next morning hours before Jemmy could possibly comehome he was outside in the street ready to call out to him that we wasall a going to France. Young Rosycheeks you may believe was as wild asthe Major, and they did carry on to that degree that I says "If you twochildren ain't more orderly I'll pack you both off to bed." And thenthey fell to cleaning up the Major's telescope to see France with, andwent out and bought a leather bag with a snap to hang round Jemmy, andhim to carry the money like a little Fortunatus with his purse.

  If I hadn't passed my word and raised their hopes, I doubt if I couldhave gone through with the undertaking but it was too late to go backnow. So on the second day after Midsummer Day we went off by the morningmail. And when we came to the sea which I had never seen but once in mylife and that when my poor Lirriper was courting me, the freshness of itand the deepness and the airiness and to think that it had been rollingever since and that it was always a rolling and so few of us minding,made me feel quite serious. But I felt happy too and so did Jemmy andthe Major and not much motion on the whole, though me with a swimming inthe head and a sinking but able to take notice that the foreign insidesappear to be constructed hollower than the English, leading to much moretremenjous noises when bad sailors.

  But my dear the blueness and the
lightness and the coloured look ofeverything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining rattlingdrums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy gaiters, when wegot across to the Continent--it made me feel as if I don't know what--asif the atmosphere had been lifted off me. And as to lunch why bless youif I kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids I couldn't got it done fortwice the money, and no injured young woman a glaring at you and grudgingyou and acknowledging your patronage by wishing