Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings Read online

being calculated to blunt the feelings tohave all the trouble of other people's letters and none of the pleasureand doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle than not and at a rate ofwages more resembling Little Britain than Great. But at last one morningwhen she was too poorly to come running down-stairs he says to me with apleased look in his face that made me next to love the man in his uniformcoat though he was dripping wet "I have taken you first in the streetthis morning Mrs. Lirriper, for here's the one for Mrs. Edson." I wentup to her bedroom with it as fast as ever I could go, and she sat up inbed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it open and then a blank starecame upon her. "It's very short!" she says lifting her large eyes to myface. "O Mrs. Lirriper it's very short!" I says "My dear Mrs. Edson nodoubt that's because your husband hadn't time to write more just at thattime." "No doubt, no doubt," says she, and puts her two hands on herface and turns round in her bed.

  I shut her softly in and I crept down-stairs and I tapped at the Major'sdoor, and when the Major having his thin slices of bacon in his own Dutchoven saw me he came out of his chair and put me down on the sofa. "Hush!"says he, "I see something's the matter. Don't speak--take time." I says"O Major I'm afraid there's cruel work up-stairs." "Yes yes" says he "Ihad begun to be afraid of it--take time." And then in opposition to hisown words he rages out frightfully, and says "I shall never forgivemyself Madam, that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't see it all thatmorning--didn't go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in myhand--didn't force it down his throat--and choke him dead with it on thespot!"

  The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just at present wecould do no more than take on to suspect nothing and use our bestendeavours to keep that poor young creature quiet, and what I ever shouldhave done without the Major when it got about among the organ-men thatquiet was our object is unknown, for he made lion and tiger war upon themto that degree that without seeing it I could not have believed it was inany gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-ironswalking-sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat offhis head, and at the same time so furious in foreign languages that theywould stand with their handles half-turned fixed like the SleepingUgly--for I cannot say Beauty.

  Ever to see the postman come near the house now gave me such I fear thatit was a reprieve when he went by, but in about another ten days or afortnight he says again, "Here's one for Mrs. Edson.--Is she prettywell?" "She is pretty well postman, but not well enough to rise so earlyas she used" which was so far gospel-truth.

  I carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and I saystottering "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 upto 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 myhand--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, forit would have done no good and I think your sponge was better employed onyour own honourable boots."

  So we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap at her bedroomdoor and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the upper landingfor what might happen, and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells orrockets more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I took it tothe second floor.

  A terrible loud scream sounded through the house the minute after she hadopened it, and I found her on the floor lying as if her life was gone. Mydear I never looked at the face of the letter which was lying, open byher, for there was no occasion.

  Everything I needed to bring her round the Major brought up with his ownhands, besides running out to the chemist's for what was not in the houseand likewise having the fiercest of all his many skirmishes with amusical instrument representing a ball-room I do not know in whatparticular country and company waltzing in and out at folding-doors withrolling eyes. When after a long time I saw her coming to, I slipped onthe 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," asif I had not been in before. Whether she believed or disbelieved Icannot say and it would signify nothing if I could, but I stayed by herfor hours and then she God ever blesses me! and says she will try to restfor her head is bad.

  "Major," I whispers, looking in at the parlours, "I beg and pray of youdon't go out."

  The Major whispers, "Madam, trust me I will do no such a thing. How isshe?"

  I says "Major the good Lord above us only knows what burns and rages inher poor mind. I left her sitting at her window. I am going to sit atmine."

  It came on afternoon and it came on evening. Norfolk is a delightfulstreet to lodge in--provided you don't go lower down--but of a summerevening when the dust and waste paper lie in it and stray children playin it and a kind of a gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal ofchurch-bells is practising in the neighbourhood it is a trifle dull, andnever have I seen it since at such a time and never shall I see itevermore at such a time without seeing the dull June evening when thatforlorn young creature sat at her open corner window on the second and meat my open corner window (the other corner) on the third. Somethingmerciful, something wiser and better far than my own self, had moved mewhile it was yet light to sit in my bonnet and shawl, and as the shadowsfell and the tide rose I could sometimes--when I put out my head andlooked at her window below--see that she leaned out a little looking downthe 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 Itell it, I went down-stairs faster than I ever moved in all my life andonly tapped with my hand at the Major's door in passing it and slippingout. She was gone already. I made the same speed down the street andwhen I came to the corner of Howard Street I saw that she had turned itand was there plain before me going towards the west. O with what athankful heart I saw her going along!

  She was quite unacquainted with London and had very seldom been out formore than an airing in our own street where she knew two or three littlechildren belonging to neighbours and had sometimes stood among them atthe 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 serveher, and then turned up into the Strand. But at every corner I could seeher 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 causedher to strike into it but she struck into it much as readily as if shehad set out to go there, which perhaps was the case. She went straightdown to the Terrace and along it and looked over the iron rail, and Ioften woke afterwards in my own bed with the horror of seeing her do it.The desertion of the wharf below and the flowing of the high water thereseemed to settle her purpose. She looked about as if to make out the waydown, and she struck out the right way or the wrong way--I don't knowwhich, for I don't know the place before or since--and I followed her theway she went.

  It was noticeable that all this time she never once looked back. Butthere was now a great change in the manner of her going, and instead ofgoing at a steady quick walk with her arms folded before her,--among thedark dismal arches she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide, asif 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 herbonnet-strings, and I rushed between her and the brink and took her roundthe waist with both my arms. She might have drowned me, I felt then, butshe could never have got quit of me.

  Down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze and not half an ideahad I had in it what I should say to her, but the instant I touched herit came to me like magic and I had my natural voice and my senses andeven
almost my breath.

  "Mrs. Edson!" I says "My dear! Take care. How ever did you lose yourway and stumble on a dangerous place like this? Why you must have comehere by the most perplexing streets in all London. No wonder you arelost, I'm 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 hiscigar!"--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,