Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall "Christmas Stories" edition byDavid Price, email
[email protected] MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS
CHAPTER I--HOW MRS. LIRRIPER CARRIED ON THE BUSINESS
Whoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that wasn't alone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my dear;excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in my own little room,when wishing to open my mind to those that I can trust, and I should betruly thankful if they were all mankind, but such is not so, for have buta Furnished bill in the window and your watch on the mantelpiece, andfarewell to it if you turn your back for but a second, howevergentlemanly the manners; nor is being of your own sex any safeguard, as Ihave reason, in the form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and afine woman she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the plea ofgoing to be confined, which certainly turned out true, but it was in theStation-house.
Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand--situated midway between theCity and St. James's, and within five minutes' walk of the principalplaces of public amusement--is my address. I have rented this house manyyears, as the parish rate-books will testify; and I could wish mylandlord was as alive to the fact as I am myself; but no, bless you, nota half a pound of paint to save his life, nor so much, my dear, as a tileupon the roof, though on your bended knees.
My dear, you never have found Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street Strandadvertised in Bradshaw's _Railway Guide_, and with the blessing of Heavenyou never will or shall so find it. Some there are who do not think itlowering themselves to make their names that cheap, and even going thelengths of a portrait of the house not like it with a blot in everywindow and a coach and four at the door, but what will suit Wozenham'slower down on the other side of the way will not suit me, Miss Wozenhamhaving her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes tosystematic underbidding capable of being proved on oath in a court ofjustice and taking the form of "If Mrs. Lirriper names eighteen shillingsa week, I name fifteen and six," it then comes to a settlement betweenyourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake of argument yourname to be Wozenham, which I am well aware it is not or my opinion of youwould be greatly lowered, and as to airy bedrooms and a night-porter inconstant attendance the less said the better, the bedrooms being stuffyand the porter stuff.
It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got married at St.Clement's Danes, where I now have a sitting in a very pleasant pew withgenteel company and my own hassock, and being partial to evening servicenot too crowded. My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with abeaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honeyand steel, but he had ever been a free liver being in the commercialtravelling line and travelling what he called a limekiln road--"a dryroad, Emma my dear," my poor Lirriper says to me, "where I have to laythe dust with one drink or another all day long and half the night, andit wears me Emma"--and this led to his running through a good deal andmight have run through the turnpike too when that dreadful horse thatnever would stand still for a single instant set off, but for its beingnight and the gate shut and consequently took his wheel, my poor Lirriperand the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke afterwards. He was ahandsome figure of a man, and a man with a jovial heart and a sweettemper; but if they had come up then they never could have given you themellowness of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs wanting inmellowness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughedfield.
My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried atHatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place butthat he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon ourwedding-day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I wentround to the creditors and I says "Gentlemen I am acquainted with thefact that I am not answerable for my late husband's debts but I wish topay them for I am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I amgoing into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper everyfarthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the loveI bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to do but it wasdone, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed andthe mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure asever the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen engraved"To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct"gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley whichat that time had the parlours and loved his joke says "Cheer up Mrs.Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and theywere your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." And itbrought me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my dear that I thenput a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down toHatfield church-yard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid itwith a kind of proud and swelling love on my husband's grave, thoughbless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that my wedding-ringwas worn quite fine and smooth when I laid it on the green green wavinggrass.
I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dearover the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used topay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you cameout, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards becausepeople were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it wassomebody else quite different, and there was once a certain person thathad put his money in a hop business that came in one morning to pay hisrent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken itdown from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket--you understand mydear--for the L, he says of the original--only there was no mellowness in_his_ voice and I wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it you may gatherfrom his saying to it "Speak to me Emma!" which was far from a rationalobservation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and Ithink myself it _was_ like me when I was young and wore that sort ofstays.
But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth andcertainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it solong, for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lostmy poor Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards andafterwards came here, being two houses and eight-and-thirty years andsome losses and a deal of experience.
Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worsethan what I call the Wandering Christians, though why _they_ should roamthe earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the apartmentsand stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or dreaming oftaking them being already provided, is, a mystery I should be thankful tohave explained if by any miracle it could be. It's wonderful they liveso long and thrive so on it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy,knocking so much and going from house to house and up and down-stairs allday, and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual is a mostastonishing thing, looking at their watches and saying "Could you give methe refusal of the rooms till twenty minutes past eleven the day after to-morrow in the forenoon, and supposing it to be considered essential by myfriend from the country could there be a small iron bedstead put in thelittle room upon the stairs?" Why when I was new to it my dear I used toconsider before I promised and to make my mind anxious with calculationsand to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now I says"Certainly by all means" well knowing it's a Wandering Christian and Ishall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know most of theWandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it being the habitof each individual revolving round London in that capacity to come backabout twice a year, and it's very remarkable that it runs in families andthe children grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I should no soonerhear of the friend from the country which is a certain sign than
I shouldnod and say to myself You're a Wandering Christian, though whether theyare (as I _have_ heard) persons of small property with a taste forregular employment and frequent change of scene I cannot undertake totell you.
Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your lastingtroubles, being like your teeth which begin with convulsions and nevercease tormenting you from the time you cut them till they cut you, andthen you don't want to part with them which seems hard but we must allsuccumb or buy artificial, and even where you get a will nine times outof ten you'll get a dirty face with it and naturally lodgers do not likegood society to be shown in with a smear of black across the nose or asmudgy eyebrow. Where they pick the black up is a mystery I cannotsolve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a househalf-starved poor thing,