and the number of the poor little spoons.
A thought came across the fellow's boozy brain:?? "If you offer so much," says
he, "and you're a little discountess, the bill's worth more; that fellow must be
making his fortune! Or do you know about it? I say, do you know about it? No.
I'll have my bond. I'll have my bond!" And he gave a tipsy imitation of Shylock,
and lurched back into his chair, and laughed.
"Let's have a little more, and talk about things," said the poor Little Sister;
and she daintily heaped her little treasures and arranged them in her dish, and
smiled upon the parson laughing in his chair.
"Caroline," says he, after a pause, "you are still fond of that old bald-headed
scoundrel! That's it! Just like you women??just like, but I won't tell. No, no,
I won't tell! You are fond of that old swindler still, I say! Wherever did you
get that lot of money? Look here now??with that, and this little bill in my
pocket, there's enough to carry us on for ever so long. And when this money's
gone, I tell you I know who'll give us more, and who can't refuse us, I tell
you. Look here, Caroline, dear Caroline! I'm an old fellow, I know; but I'm a
good fellow: I'm a classical scholar: and I'm a gentleman."
The classical scholar and gentleman bleared over his words as he uttered them,
and with his vinous eyes and sordid face gave a leer which must have frightened
the poor little lady to whom he proffered himself as a suitor, for she started
back with a pallid face, and an aspect of such dislike and terror, that even her
guest remarked it.
"I said I was a scholar and gentleman," he shrieked again. "Do you doubt it? I'm
as good a man as Brummell Firmin, I say. I ain't so tall. But I'll do a copy of
Latin alcaics or Greek iambics against him or any man of my weight. Do you mean
to insult me? Don't I know who you are? Are you better than a Master of Arts and
a clergyman? He went out in medicine, Firmin did. Do you mean, when a Master of
Arts and classical scholar offers you his hand and fortune, that you're above
him and refuse him, by George?"
The Little Sister was growing bewildered and frightened by the man's energy and
horrid looks. "Oh, Mr. Hunt!" she cried, "see here, take this! See?? there are
two hundred and thirty??thirty-six pounds and all these things! Take them, and
give me that paper."
"Sovereigns, and notes, and spoons, and a watch, and what I have in my
pocket??and that ain't much??and Firmin's bill! Three hundred and eighty-six
four three. It's a fortune, my dear, with economy! I won't have you going on
being a nurse and that kind of thing. I'm a scholar and a gentleman??I am??and
that place ain't fit for Mrs. Hunt. We'll first spend your money. No: we'll
first spend my money??three hundred and eighty-six and??and hang the change??and
when that's gone, we'll have another bill from that bald-headed old scoundrel:
and his son who struck a poor cler?? We will, I say, Caroline??we??"
The wretch was suiting actions to his words, and rose once more, advancing
towards his hostess, who shrank back, laughing half-hysterically, and retreating
as the other neared her. Behind her was that cupboard which had contained her
poor little treasure and other stores, and appended to the lock of which her
keys were still hanging. As the brute approached her, she flung back the
cupboard-door smartly upon him. The keys struck him on the head; and bleeding,
and with a curse and a cry, he fell back on his chair.
In the cupboard was that bottle which she had received from America not long
since; and about which she had talked with Goodenough on that very day. It had
been used twice or thrice by his direction, by hospital surgeons, and under her
eye. She suddenly seized this bottle. As the ruffian before her uttered his
imprecations of wrath, she poured out a quantity of the contents of the bottle
on her handkerchief. She said, "Oh! Mr. Hunt, have I hurt you? I didn't mean it.
But you shouldn't??you shouldn't frighten a lonely woman so! Here, let me bathe
you! Smell this! It will??it will do you??good ??it will??it will, indeed." The
handkerchief was over his face. Bewildered by drink before, the fumes of the
liquor which he was absorbing served almost instantly to overcome him. He
struggled for a moment or two. "Stop??stop! you'll be better in a moment," she
whispered. "Oh, yes! better, quite better!" She squeezed more of the liquor from
the bottle on to the handkerchief. In a minute Hunt was quite inanimate.
Then the little pale woman leant over him, and took the pocket-book out of his
pocket, and from it the bill which bore Philip's name. As Hunt lay in stupor
before her, she now squeezed more of the liquor over his head; and then thrust
the bill into the fire, and saw it burn to ashes. Then she put back the
pocket-book into Hunt's breast. She said afterwards that she never should have
thought about that Chloroform, but for her brief conversation with Dr.
Goodenough, that evening, regarding a case in which she had employed the new
remedy under his orders.
How long did Hunt lie in that stupor? It seemed a whole long night to Caroline.
She said afterwards that the thought of that act that night made her hair grow
grey. Poor little head! Indeed, she would have laid it down for Philip.
Hunt, I suppose, came to himself when the handkerchief was withdrawn, and the
fumes of the potent liquor ceased to work on his brain. He was very much
frightened and bewildered. "What was it? Where am I?" he asked, in a husky
voice.
"It was the keys struck in the cupboard-door when you??you ran against it," said
pale Caroline. "Look! you are all bleeding on the head. Let me dry it."
"No; keep off!" cried the terrified man.
"Will you have a cab to go home? The poor gentleman hit himself against the
cupboard-door, Mary. You remember him here before, don't you, one night?" And
Caroline, with a shrug, pointed out to her maid, whom she had summoned, the
great square bottle of spirits still on the table, and indicated that there lay
the cause of Hunt's bewilderment.
"Are you better now? Will you??will you??take a little more refreshment?" asked
Caroline.
"No!" he cried with an oath, and with glaring, bloodshot eyes he lurched towards
his hat.
"Lor, mum! what ever is it? And this smell in the room, and all this here heap
of money and things on the table?"
Caroline flung open her window. "It's medicine, which Dr. Goodenough has ordered
for one of his patients. I must go and see her to night," she said. And at
midnight, looking as pale as death, the Little Sister went to the doctor's
house, and roused him up from his bed, and told him the story here narrated. "I
offered him all you gave me," she said, "and all I had in the world besides, and
he wouldn't??and??" Here she broke out into a fit of hysterics. The doctor had
to ring up his servants; to administer remedies to his little nurse; to put her
to bed in his own house.
"By the immortal Jove," he said afterwards, "I had a great mind to beg her never
to leave it! But that my housekeepe
r would tear Caroline's eyes out, Mrs.
Brandon should be welcome to stay for ever. Except her h's, that woman has every
virtue: constancy, gentleness, generosity, cheerfulness, and the courage of a
lioness! To think of that fool, that dandified idiot, that triple ass,
Firmin"??(there were few men in the world for whom Goodenough entertained a
greater scorn than for his late confr?re, Firmin, of Old Parr Street)??"think of
the villain having possessed such a treasure??let alone his having deceived and
deserted her??of his having possessed such a treasure and flung it away! Sir, I
always admired Mrs. Brandon; but I think ten thousand times more highly of her,
since her glorious crime, and most righteous robbery. If the villain had died,
dropped dead in the street??the drunken miscreant, forger, housebreaker,
assassin??so that no punishment could have fallen upon poor Brandon, I think I
could have respected her only the more!"
At an early hour Dr. Goodenough had thought proper to send off messengers to
Philip and myself, and to make us acquainted with the strange adventure of the
previous night. We both hastened to him. I myself was summoned, no doubt, in
consequence of my profound legal knowledge, which might be of use in poor little
Caroline's present trouble. And Philip came because she longed to see him. By
some instinct, she knew when he arrived. She crept down from the chamber where
the doctor's housekeeper had laid her on a bed. She knocked at the doctor's
study, where we were all in consultation. She came in quite pale, and tottered
towards Philip, and flung herself into his arms, with a burst of tears that
greatly relieved her excitement and fever. Firmin was scarcely less moved.
"You'll pardon me for what I have done, Philip," she sobbed. "If they??if they
take me up, you won't forsake me?"
"Forsake you? Pardon you? Come and live with us, and never leave us!" cried
Philip.
"I don't think Mrs. Philip would like that, dear," said the little woman sobbing
on his arm; "but ever since the Grey Friars school, when you was so ill, you
have been like a son to me, and somehow I couldn't help doing that last night to
that villain??I couldn't."
"Serve the scoundrel right. Never deserved to come to life again, my dear," said
Dr. Goodenough. "Don't you be exciting yourself, little Brandon! I must have you
sent back to lie down on your bed. Take her up' Philip, to the little room next
mine: and order her to lie down and be as quiet as a mouse. You are not to move
till I give you leave, Brandon??mind that, and come back to us, Firmin, or we
shall have the patients coming."
So Philip led away this poor Little Sister; and trembling, and clinging to his
arm, she returned to the room assigned to her.
"She wants to be alone with him," the doctor said; and he spoke a brief word or
two of that strange delusion under which the little woman laboured, that this
was her dead child come back to her.
"I know that is in her mind," Goodenough said; "she never got over that brain
fever in which I found her. If I were to swear her on the book, and say,
'Brandon, don't you believe he is your son alive again?' she would not dare to
say no. She will leave him everthing she has got. I only gave her so much less
than that scoundrel's bill yesterday, because I knew she would like to
contribute her own share. It would have offended her mortally to have been left
out of the subscription. They like to sacrifice themselves. Why, there are women
in India who, if not allowed to roast with their dead husbands, would die of
vexation." And by this time Mr. Philip came striding back into the room again,
rubbing a pair of very red eyes.
"Long ere this, no doubt, that drunken ruffian is sobered, and knows that the
bill is gone. He is likely enough to accuse her of the robbery," says the
doctor.
"Suppose," says Philip's other friend, "I had put a pistol to your head, and was
going to shoot you, and the doctor took the pistol out of my hand and flung it
into the sea? would you help me to prosecute the doctor for robbing me of the
pistol?"
"You don't suppose it will be a pleasure to me to pay that bill?" said Philip.
"I said, if a certain bill were presented to me, purporting to be accepted by
Philip Firmin, I would pay it. But if that scoundrel, Hunt, only says that he
had such a bill, and has lost it; I will cheerfully take my oath that I have
never signed any bill at all??and they can't find Brandon guilty of stealing a
thing which never existed."
"Let us hope, then, that the bill was not in duplicate!"
And to this wish all three gentlemen heartily said Amen!
And now the doctor's door-bell began to be agitated by arriving patients. His
dining-room was already full of them. The Little Sister must lie still, and the
discussion of her affairs must be deferred to a more convenient hour; and Philip
and his friend agreed to reconnoitre the house in Thornhaugh Street, and see if
anything had happened since its mistress had left it.
Yes: something had happened. Mrs. Brandon's maid, who ushered us into her
mistress's little room, told us that in the early morning that horrible man who
had come over-night, and been so tipsy, and behaved so ill, ??the very same man
who had come there tipsy afore once, and whom Mr. Philip had flung into the
street?? had come battering at the knocker, and pulling at the bell, and
swearing and cursing most dreadful, and calling for "Mrs. Brandon! Mrs. Brandon!
Mrs. Brandon!" and frightening the whole street. After he had rung, he knocked
and battered ever so long. Mary looked out at him from her upper window, and
told him to go along home, or she would call the police. On this the man roared
out that he would call the police himself if Mary did not let him in; and as he
went on calling "Police!" and yelling from the door, Mary came down-stairs, and
opened the hall-door, keeping the chain fastened, and asked him what he wanted?
Hunt, from the steps without, began to swear and rage more loudly, and to demand
to be let in. He must and would see Mrs. Brandon.
Many, from behind her chain barricade, said that her mistress was not at home,
but that she had been called out that night to a patient of Dr. Goodenough's.
Hunt, with more shrieks and curses, said it was a lie; and that she was at home;
and that he would see her; and that he must go into her room; and that he had
left something there; that he had lost something; and that he would have it.
"Lost something here?" cried Mary. "Why here? when you reeled out of this house,
you couldn't scarce walk, and you almost fell into the gutter, which I have seen
you there before. Get away, and go home! You are not sober yet, you horrible
man!"
On this, clinging on to the area-railings, and demeaning himself like a madman,
Hunt continued to call out, "Police, police! I have been robbed, I've been
robbed! Police!" until astonished heads appeared at various windows in the quiet
street, and a policeman actually came up.
When the policeman appeared, Hunt began to sway and pull
at the door, confined
by it's chain: and he frantically reiterated his charge, that he had been robbed
and hocussed in that house, that night, by Mrs. Brandon.
The policeman, by a familiar expression, conveyed his utter disbelief of the
statement, and told the dirty, disreputable man to move on, and go to bed. Mrs.
Brandon was known and respected all round the neighbourhood. She had befriended
numerous poor round about; and was known for a hundred charities. She attended
many respectable families. In that parish there was no woman more esteemed. And
by the word "Gammon," the policeman expressed his sense of the utter absurdity
of the charge against the good lady.
Hunt still continued to yell out that he had been robbed and hocussed; and Mary
from behind her door repeated to the officer (with whom she perhaps had
relations not unfriendly) her statement that the beast had gone reeling away
from the house the night before, and if he had lost anything, who knows where he
might not have lost it?
"It was taken out of this pocket, and out of this pocket-book," howled Hunt,
clinging to the rail. "I give her in charge. I give the house in charge! It's a
den of thieves!"
During this shouting and turmoil, the sash of a window in Ridley's studio was
thrown up. The painter was going to his morning work. He had appointed an early
model. The sun could not rise too soon for Ridley; and, as soon as ever it gave
its light, found
him happy at his labour. He had heard from his bedroom the brawl going on about
the door.
"Mr. Ridley!" says the policeman, touching the glazed hat with much respect??(in
fact, and out of uniform, Z 25 has figured in more than one of J. J.'s
pictures)??"here's a fellow disturbing the whole street, and shouting out that
Mrs. Brandon have robbed and hocussed him!"
Ridley ran downstairs in a high state of indignation. He is nervous, like men of
his tribe; quick to feel, to pity, to love, to be angry. He undid the chain, and
ran into the street.
"I remember that fellow drunk here before," said the painter; "and lying in that
very gutter."
"Drunk and disorderly! Come along!" cries Z 25; and his hand was quickly
fastened on the parson's greasy collar, and under its strong grasp Hunt is
forced to move on. He goes, still yelling out that he has been robbed.
"Tell that to his worship," says the incredulous Z. And this was the news which
Mrs. Brandon's friends received from her maid, when they called at her house.
CHAPTER X. IN WHICH SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE THEIR TRIALS.
If Philip and his friend had happened to pass through High Street, Marylebone,
on their way to Thornhaugh Street to reconnoitre the Little Sister's house, they
would have seen the Reverend Mr. Hunt, in a very dirty, battered, crestfallen
and unsatisfactory state marching to Marylebone from the station, where the
reverend gentleman had passed the night, and under the custody of the police. A
convoy of street boys followed the prisoner and his guard, making sarcastic
remarks on both. Hunt's appearance was not improved since we had the pleasure of
meeting him on the previous evening. With a grizzled beard and hair, a dingy
face, a dingy shirt, and a countenance mottled with dirt and drink, we may fancy
the reverend man passing in tattered raiment through the street to make his
appearance before the magistrate.
You have no doubt forgotten the narrative which appeared in the morning papers
two days after the Thornhaugh Street incident, but my clerk has been at the
pains to hunt up and copy the police report, in which events connected with our
history are briefly recorded.
"Marylebone, Wednesday.??Thomas Tufton Hunt, professing to be a clergyman, but
wearing an appearance of extreme squalor, was brought before Mr. Beaksby at this
office, charged by Z 25, with being drunk and very disorderly on Tuesday
se'nnight, and endeavouring by force and threats to effect his reentrance into a