 A House to Let by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Anne Proctor. I had been living at Tumbridge Wells and nowhere else, going on for ten years, when my medical man, very clever in his profession and the prettiest player I ever saw in my life for the hand at Longwist, which was a noble and princely game before short was heard of, said to me one day as he sat feeling my pulse on the actual sofa which my poor dear sister Jane worked before her spine came on and laid her on a board for fifteen months at a stretch, the most upright woman that ever lived, said to me, What we want, ma'am, is a Philip. Good gracious goodness gracious Dr. Towers, says I, quite startled at the man, for he was so christened himself. Don't talk as if you were alluding to people's names, but say what you mean. I mean, dear ma'am, that we want a little change of air and scene. Bless the man, said I, does he mean we or me? I mean you, ma'am. Then, Lord, forgive you, Dr. Towers, I said. Why don't you get into a habit of expressing yourself in a straightforward manner, like a loyal subject of our gracious Queen Victoria and a member of the Church of England. Towers laughed, as he generally does when he has fidgeted me into any of my impatient ways, one of my states, as I call them, and then he began, Tone, ma'am, tone is all you require. He appealed to Trottle, who just then came in with the coal-scuttle, looking in his nice black suit, like an amiable man, putting on coals for motives of benevolence. Trottle, whom I always call my right hand, has been in my service two and thirty years. He entered my service far away from England. He is the best of creatures, and the most respectable of men, but opinionated. What you want, ma'am, says Trottle, making up the fire in his quiet and skillful way, is tone. Lord, forgive you both, says I, bursting out a laughing. I see you are in a conspiracy against me, so I suppose you must do what you like with me and take me to London for a change. For some weeks Towers had hinted at London, and consequently I was prepared for him. When we had got to this point, we got on so expeditiously that Trottle was packed off to London next day but one, to find some sort of place for me to lay my troublesome old head in. Trottle came back to me at the Wells after two days' absence, with accounts of a charming place that could be taken for six months certain, with liberty to renew on the same terms for another six, and which really did afford every accommodation that I wanted. Could you really find no fault at all in the rooms, Trottle? I asked him. Not a single one, ma'am. They are exactly suitable to you. There is not a fault in them. There is but one fault outside of them. And what's that? They are opposite, a house to let. Oh, I said, considering of it, but is that such a very great objection? I think it my duty to mention it, ma'am. It is a dull object to look at, otherwise I was so greatly pleased with the lodging that I should have closed with the terms at once, as I had your authority to do. All thinking so highly of the place in my interest, I wished not to disappoint him. Consequently I said, the empty house may let, perhaps. Oh, dear no, ma'am," said Trottle, shaking his head with decision, it won't let. It never does let, ma'am. Mercy me, why not? Nobody knows, ma'am. All I have to mention is, ma'am, that the house won't let. How long has this unfortunate house been to let, in the name of fortune, said I? Ever so long, said Trottle, years. Is it in ruins? It's a good deal out of repair, ma'am, but it's not in ruins. But along, and the short of this business was, that next day I had a pair of post-horses put to my chariot, for I never travel by railway. Not that I have anything to say against railways, except that they came in when I was too old to take to them, and that they made ducks and drakes of a few turnpike bonds I had. And so I went up myself, with Trottle in the rumble, to look at the inside of this same lodging, and at the outside of this same house. As I say I went and saw for myself, the lodging was perfect. That I was sure it would be, because Trottle is the best judge of comfort I know. The empty house was an eyesore, and that I was sure it would be too, for the same reason. However, setting the one thing against the other, the good against the bad, the lodging very soon got the victory over the house. My lawyer, Mr. Squares of Crown Office Road, Temple, drew up an agreement, which his young man jabbered over so dreadfully when he read it to me, that I didn't understand one word of it except my own name, and hardly that. And I signed it, and the other party signed it, and in three weeks time I moved my old bones, bag, and baggage up to London. For the first month or so I arranged to leave Trottle at the Wells. I made this arrangement, not only because there was a good deal to take care of in the way of my school children and pensioners, and also of a new stove in the hall, to air the house in my absence, which appeared to me calculated to blow up and burst. But likewise, because I suspect Trottle, though the steadiest of men, and a widower between sixty and seventy, to be what I call rather a Philanderer. I mean that when any friend comes down to see me and brings a maid, Trottle is always remarkably ready to show that maid the wells of an evening, and that I have more than once noticed the shadow of his arm outside the room door, nearly opposite my chair, in circling that maid's waist on the landing, like a tablecloth brush. Therefore, I thought it just as well, before any London Philandering took place, that I should have a little time to look round me, and to see what girls were in and about the place. So nobody stayed with me in my new lodging at first, after Trottle had established me there safe and sound, but Peggy Flobbins my maid, a most affectionate and attached woman, who never was an object of Philandering since I have known her, and is not likely to begin to become so after nine and twenty years next March. It was the fifth of November when I first breakfasted in my new rooms. The guys were going about in the brown fog, like magnified monsters of insects in table beer, and there was a guy resting on the doorsteps of the house to let. I put on my glasses, partly to see how the boys were pleased with what I sent them out by Peggy, and partly to make sure that she didn't approach too near the ridiculous object, which of course was full of skyrockets, and might go off into bangs at any moment. In this way it happened that the first time I ever looked at the house to let, after I became its opposite neighbour, I had my glasses on. And this might not have happened once in fifty times, for my sight is uncommonly good for my time of life, and I wear glasses as little as I can for fear of spoiling it. I knew already that it was a ten-roomed house, very dirty and much dilapidated, that the area rails were rusty and peeling away, and that two or three of them were wanting or half wanting, that there were broken panes of glass in the windows and blotches of mud on other panes which the boys had thrown at them, that there was quite a collection of stones in the area also proceeding from those young mischiefs, that there were games chalked on the pavement before the house, and likenesses of ghosts chalked on the street door, that the windows were all darkened by rotting old blinds or shutters or both, that the bills to let had curled up, as if the damp air of the place had given them cramps, or had dropped down into corners as if they were no more. I had seen all this on my first visit, and I had remarked to Trottell that the lower part of the black board about terms was split away, that the rest had become illegible, and that the very stone of the doorsteps was broken across. Notwithstanding I sat at my breakfast-table on that pleased to remember the fifth of November morning, staring at the house through my glasses, as if I had never looked at it before. All at once in the first floor window on my right, down in a low corner at a hole in a blind or a shutter, I found that I was looking at a secret eye. The reflection of my fire may have touched it and made it shine, but I saw it shine and vanish. The eye might have seen me, or it might not have seen me sitting there in the glow of my fire, you can take which probability you prefer without offence, but something struck through my frame, as if the sparkle of this eye had been electric, and had flashed straight at me. It had such an effect upon me that I could not remain by myself, and I rang for flobbins and invented some little jobs for her to keep her in the room. After my breakfast was cleared away, I sat in the same place with my glasses on, moving my head now so and now so, trying whether with the shining of my fire and the floors in the window-glass, I could reproduce any sparkle seeming to be up there that was like the sparkle of an eye, but no, I could make nothing like it. I could make ripples and crooked lines in the front of the house to let, and I could even twist one window up and loop it into another, but I could make no eye, nor anything like an eye, so I convinced myself that I really had seen an eye. Well, to be sure, I could not get rid of the impression of this eye, and it troubled me and troubled me until it was almost a torment. I don't think I was previously inclined to concern my head much about the opposite house, but after this eye my head was full of the house, and I thought of little else than the house, and I watched the house, and I talked about the house, and I dreamed of the house. In all this I fully believe now there was a good providence, but you will judge yourself about that by and by. My landlord was a butler who had married a cook and set up housekeeping. They had not kept house longer than a couple of years, and they knew no more about the house to let than I did. Neither could I find out anything concerning it among the tradespeople or otherwise further than what Trottle had told me at first. It had been empty some said six years, some said eight, some said ten. It never did let, they all agreed, and it never would let. I soon felt convinced that I should work myself into one of my states about the house, and I soon did. I lived for a whole month in a flurry that was always getting worse. Towers prescriptions which I had brought to London with me were of no more use than nothing. In the cold winter sunlight, in the thick winter fog, in the black winter rain, in the white winter snow, the house was equally on my mind. I have heard as everybody else has of a spirit haunting a house, but I have had my own personal experience of a house's haunting a spirit, for that house haunted mine. In all that month's time I never saw anyone go into the house nor come out of the house. I supposed that such a thing must take place sometimes in the dead of the night, or the glimmer of the morning, but I never saw it done. I got no relief from having my curtains drawn when it came on dark and shutting out the house. The eye then began to shine in my fire. I am a single old woman. I should say it once without being at all afraid of the name I am an old maid, only that I am older than the phrase would express. The time was when I had my love trouble, but it is long and long ago. He was killed at sea, dear heaven rest his blessed head, when I was twenty-five. I have all my life, since ever I can remember being deeply fond of children. I have always felt such a love for them that I have had my sorrowful and sinful times when I have fancied something must have gone wrong in my life, something must have been turned aside from its original intention, I mean, or I should have been the proud and happy mother of many children, and a fond old grandmother this day. I have soon known better in the cheerfulness and contentment that God has blessed me with and given me abundant reason for, and yet I have had to dry my eyes even then, when I have thought of my dear, brave, hopeful, handsome, bright-eyed Charlie, and the trust meant to cheer me with. Charlie was my youngest brother, and he went to India. He married there, and sent his gentle little wife home to me to be confined, and she was to go back to him, and the baby was to be left with me, and I was to bring it up. It never belonged to this life. It took its silent place among the other incidents in my story that might have been, but never were. I had hardly time to whisper to her, dared to my own, or she to answer, Ashes to ashes dust to dust, O lay it on my breast, and comfort Charlie, when she had gone to seek her baby at our Saviour's feet. I went to Charlie, and I told him there was nothing left but me, poor me, and I lived with Charlie out there several years. He was a man of fifty when he fell asleep in my arms. His face had changed to be almost old in a little stern, but it softened and softened when I laid it down, that I might cry and pray beside it. And when I looked at it for the last time, it was my dear untroubled, handsome, youthful Charlie of long ago. I was going on to tell that the loneliness of the house to let brought back all these recollections, and that they had quite pierced my heart one evening, when Flobbins opening the door and looking very much as if she wanted to laugh but thought better of it, said, Mr. Jabba's Jabba-mom, upon which Mr. Jabba ambled in in his usual absurd way, saying, So for news, but which I am obliged to confess is my name. A pretty one and proper one enough when it was given to me, but a good many years out of date now, and always sounding particularly high-flown and comical from his lips. So I said sharply, Though it is soft on his Jabba, you are not obliged to mention it, that I see. In reply to this observation the ridiculous man put the tips of my five right-hand fingers to his lips and said again, with an aggravating accent on the third syllable, So for news, but I don't burn lamps because I can't abide the smell of oil, and wax candles belonged to my day. I hope the convenient situation of one of my tall old candlesticks on the table at my elbow will be my excuse for saying that if he did that again I would chop his toes with it. I am sorry to add that when I told him so I knew his toes to be tender. But really, at my time of life and at Jabba's it is too much of a good thing. There is an orchestra still standing in the open air at the Wells, before which in the presence of a throng of fine company I have walked a minuet with Jabba. But there is a house still standing in which I have worn a pinafore, and had a tooth drawn by fastening a thread to the tooth and the door-handle, and toddling away from the door. And how should I look now at my years in a pinafore, or having a door for my dentist? Besides, Jabba always was more or less an absurd man. He was sweetly dressed and beautifully perfumed, and many girls of my day would have given their ears for him, though I am bound to add that he never cared a fig for them or their advances either, and that he was very constant to me. For he not only proposed to me before my love happiness ended in sorrow, but afterwards too, not once nor yet twice, nor will we say how many times. However many they were, or however few they were, the last time he paid me that compliment was immediately after he had presented me with a digestive dinner pill stuck on the point of a pin. And I said on that occasion laughing heartily, now Jabba, if you don't know that two people whose united ages would make about a hundred and fifty have got to be old, I do. And I beg to swallow this nonsense in the form of this pill, which I took on the spot, and I request to hear no more of it. After that he conducted himself pretty well. He was always a little squeezed man, was Jabba, in little sprigged waistcoats, and he had always little legs, and a little smile, and a little voice, and little roundabout ways. As long as I can remember him, he was always going little errands for people, and carrying little gossip. But this present time, when he called me Sophonisba, he had a little old-fashioned lodging in that new neighbourhood of mine. I had not seen him for two or three years, but I had heard that he still went out with a little perspective-glass, and stood on doorsteps in St. James's Street to see the nobility go to court, and went in his little cloak and galoshes outside Willis's rooms to see them go to Allmax, and caught the frightfulest colds, and got himself trodden upon by Coachman and Linkman, until he went home to his landlady a mass of bruises, and had to be nursed for a month. Jabba took off his little fur-collared cloak, and sat down opposite me with his little cane and hat in his hand. Let us have no more Sophonisba-ing, if you please, Jabba, I said. Call me Sarah. How do you do? I hope you are pretty well. Thank you, and you? said Jabba. I am as well as an old woman can expect to be. Jabba was beginning. Say not, old Sophon, but I looked at the candlestick, and he left off, pretending not to have said anything. I am in firm, of course, I said, and so are you. Let us both be thankful it's no worse. Is it possible that you look worried? said Jabba. It is very possible, I have no doubt it is the fact. And what has worried my soft-hearted friend? said Jabba. Something not easy, I suppose, to comprehend. I am worried to death, by a house to let over the way. Jabba went with his little tip-toe step to the window-curtains, peeped out, and looked round at me. Yes, said I, in answer, that house. After peeping out again, Jabba came back to his chair with a tender air, and asked, how does it worry you, Sarah? It is a mystery to me, said I. Of course every house is a mystery, more or less, but something that I don't care to mention, for truly the eye was so slight a thing to mention that I was more than half ashamed of it, has made that house so mysterious to me, and has so fixed it in my mind, that I have had no peace for a month. I foresee that I shall have no peace either, until Trottle comes to me next Monday. I might have mentioned before that there is a long-standing jealousy between Trottle and Jabba, and that there is never any love lost between those two. Trottle! Petulently repeated Jabba with a little flourish of his cane. How is Trottle to restore the lost peace of Sarah? He will exert himself to find out something about the house. I have fallen into that state about it that I really must discover, by some means or other, good or bad, fair or foul, how and why it is that that house remains to let. And why Trottle, why not, putting his little hat to his heart, why not Jabba? To tell you the truth I have never thought of Jabba in the matter, and now I do think of Jabba, through your having the kindness to suggest him, for which I am really and truly obliged to you, I don't think he could do it. Sarah! I think it would be too much for you, Jabba. Sarah! There would be coming and going and fetching and carrying Jabba, and you might catch cold. Sarah! What can be done by Trottle can be done by me. I am on terms of acquaintance with every person of responsibility in this parish. I am intimate at the circulating library. I converse daily with the assessed taxes. I lodge with the water rate. I know the medical man. I lounge habitually at the house agents. I dine with the church wardens. I move to the guardians. Trottle, a person in the sphere of a domestic and totally unknown to society. Don't be warm, Jabba. In mentioning Trottle I have naturally relied on my right hand, who would take any trouble to gratify even a whim of his own mistresses. But if you can find out anything to help to unravel the mystery of this house to let, I shall be fully as much obliged to you as if there was never a Trottle in the land. Jabba rose and put on his little cloak. A couple of fierce brass lions held it tight round his little throat, but a couple of the mildest hairs might have done that, I am sure. Sarah, he said, I go. Expect me on Monday evening, the six, when perhaps you will give me a cup of tea. May I ask for no green? Adieu. This was on a Thursday, the second of December. When I reflected that Trottle would come back on Monday too, I had my misgivings as to the difficulty of keeping the two powers from open warfare, and indeed I was more uneasy than I quite like to confess. However, the empty house swallowed up that thought next morning, as it swallowed up most other thoughts now, and the house quite preyed upon me all that day and all the Saturday. It was a very wet Sunday, raining and blowing from morning to night. When the bells rang for afternoon church, they seemed to ring in the commotion of the puddles as well as in the wind, and they sounded very loud and dismal indeed, and the street looked very dismal indeed, and the house looked dismalist of all. I was reading my prayers near the light, and my fire was growing in the darkening window-glass, when, looking up, as I prayed for the fatherless children and widows and all who were desolate and depressed, I saw the eye again. It passed in a moment as it had done before, but this time I was inwardly more convinced that I had seen it. Well, to be sure I had a night that night. Whenever I closed my own eyes it was to see eyes. Next morning, at an unreasonably, and I should have said, but for that railroad, an impossibly early hour comes trottle. As soon as he had told me all about the wells, I told him all about the house. He listened with as great interest and attention as I could possibly wish, until I came to Jabba's Jabba, when he cooled in an instant and became opinionated. Now trottle, I said, pretending not to notice. When Mr. Jabba comes back this evening, we must all lay our heads together. I should hardly think that would be wanted, Mum. Mr. Jabba's head is surely equal to anything. Being determined not to notice, I said again that we must all lay our heads together. Whatever you order, Mum, shall be obeyed. Still, it cannot be doubted, I should think, that Mr. Jabba's head is equal, if not superior to any pressure that can be brought to bear upon it. This was provoking, and his way, when he came in and out all through the day of pretending not to see the house to let, was more provoking still. However, being quite resolved not to notice, I gave no sign whatever that I did notice. But when evening came and he showed in Jabba, and when Jabba wouldn't be helped off with his cloak and poked his cane into cane chair-backs and china ornaments and his own eye in trying to unclasp his brazen lions of himself, which he couldn't do after all, I could have shaken them both. As it was, I only shook the teapot and made the tea. Jabba had brought from under his cloak a roll of paper with which he had triumphantly pointed over the way like the ghost of Hamlet's father appearing to the late Mr. Kemble, and which he had laid on the table. A discovery, said I, pointing to it when he was seated and had got his teacup. Don't go, Trottle! The first odd series of discoveries, answered Jabba, a count of a former tenant compiled from the water rate and medical man. Don't go, Trottle, I repeated, for I saw him making imperceptibly to the door. Begging your pardon, ma'am, I might be in Mr. Jabba's way. Jabba looked that he decidedly thought he might be. I relieved myself for the good angry crook and said, always determined not to notice. Have the goodness to sit down, if you please, Trottle. I wish you to hear this. Trottle bowed in the stiffest manner and took the remotest chair he could find. Even that, he moved close to the draft from the keyhole of the door. Firstly, Jabba began after sipping his tea. Would my soffin begin again, Jabba, said I. Would you be much surprised if this house to let should turn out to be the property of a relation of your own? I should indeed be very much surprised. Then it belongs to your first cousin. I learn by the way that he is ill at this time, George Foley. Then that is a bad beginning. I cannot deny that George Foley stands in the relation of first cousin to me, but I hold no communication with him. George Foley has been a hard, bitter, stony father to a child now dead. George Foley was most implacable and unrelenting to one of his two daughters who made a poor marriage. George Foley brought all the weight of his hand to bear as heavily against that crushed thing as he brought it to bear lightly, favoringly and advantageously upon her sister who made a rich marriage. I hope that with the measure George Foley meet it it may not be measured out to him again. I will give George Foley no worse wish. I was strong upon the subject and I could not keep the tears out of my eyes, for that young girl's was a cruel story and I had dropped many a tear over it before. The house being George Foley's, said I, is almost enough to account for there being a fate upon it if fate there is. Is there anything about George Foley in those sheets of paper? Not a word. I am glad to hear it. Pleased to read on. Trottle, why don't you come nearer? Why do you sit mortifying yourself in those arctic regions? Come nearer. Thank you, Mom. I am quite near enough to Mr. Jarber. Jarber rounded his chair to get his back full to my opinionated friend and servant and, beginning to read, crossed the words at him over his Jarber's own ear and shoulder. He read what follows. End of chapter 1, Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 2 of A House To Let This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Ruth Golding A House To Let by Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Anne Proctor Chapter 2 The Manchester Marriage Mr. and Mrs. Openshore came from Manchester to London and took the House To Let. He had been, what is called in Lancashire, a salesman for a large manufacturing firm who were extending their business and opening a warehouse in London, where Mr. Openshore was now to superintend the business. He rather enjoyed the change of residence, having a kind of curiosity about London which he had never yet been able to gratify in his brief visit to the Metropolis. At the same time he had an odd shrewd contempt for the inhabitants whom he had always pictured to himself as fine, lazy people, caring nothing but for fashion and aristocracy and lounging away their days in Bond Street in such places, ruining good English and ready in their turn to despise him as a provincial. The hours that the men of business kept in the city scandalised him too, accustomed as he was to the early dinners of Manchester Folk and the consequently far longer evenings. Still he was pleased to go to London, though he would not for the world have confessed it even to himself and always spoke of the steppe to his friends as one demanded of him by the interests of his employers and sweetened to him by a considerable increase of salary. His salary indeed was so liberal that he might have been justified in taking a much larger house than this one had he not thought himself bound to set an example to Londoners of how little a Manchester man of business cared for show. Inside, however, he furnished the house with an unusual degree of comfort and in the wintertime he insisted on keeping up as large fires as the greats would allow in every room where the temperature was in the least chilly. Moreover his northern sense of hospitality was such that if he were at home he could hardly suffer a visitor to leave the house without forcing meat and drink upon him. Every servant in the house was well warmed, well fed and kindly treated for their master scorned all petty saving in ought that conduced to comfort while he amused himself by following out all his accustomed habits and individual ways in defiance of what any of his new neighbours might think. His wife was a pretty gentle woman of suitable age and character. He was forty-two, she thirty-five. He was loud and decided she soft and yielding. They had two children or rather I should say she had two for the elder, a girl of eleven was Mrs. Openshore's child by Frank Wilson her first husband. The younger was a little boy, Edwin who could just prattle and to whom his father delighted to speak in the broadest and most unintelligible Lancashire dialect in order to keep up what he called the true Saxon accent. Mrs. Openshore's Christian name was Alice and her first husband had been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain in Liverpool a quiet grave little creature and a great personal attraction when she was fifteen or sixteen with regular features and a blooming complexion but she was very shy and believed herself to be very stupid and awkward and was frequently scolded by her aunt her own uncle's second wife. So when her cousin, Frank Wilson came home from a long absence at sea and first was kind and protective to her secondly attentive and thirdly desperately in love with her she hardly knew how to be grateful enough to him it is true she would have preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of behaviour for his violent love puzzled and frightened her her uncle neither helped nor hindered the love affair though it was going on under his own eyes Frank's stepmother had such a variable temper that there was no knowing whether what she liked one day she would like the next or not at length she went to such extremes of crossness that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush blindly at the chance of escape from domestic tyranny offered her by a marriage with her cousin and liking him better than anyone in the world except her uncle who was at this time at sea she went off one morning and was married to him her only bridesmaid being the housemaid at her aunt's the consequence was that Frank and his wife went into lodgings and Mrs. Wilson refused to see them and turned away Nora the warm hearted housemaid whom they accordingly took into their service when Captain Wilson returned from his voyage he was very cordial with the young couple and spent many an evening at their lodgings smoking his pipe and sipping his grog but he told them that for quietness's sake he could not ask them to his own house for his wife was bitter against them they were not very unhappy about this the seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank's vehement, passionate disposition which led him to resent his wife's shyness and want of demonstration as failures in conjugal duty he was already tormenting himself and her too in a slighter degree by apprehensions and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching absence at sea at last he went to his father and urged him to insist upon Alice's being once more received under his roof the more especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her husband was away on his voyage Captain Wilson was, as he himself expressed it breaking up and unwilling to undergo the excitement of a scene yet he felt that what his son said was true so he went to his wife or Frank went to sea he had the comfort of seeing his wife installed in her old little garret in his father's house to have placed her in the one best spare room was a step beyond Mrs. Wilson's powers of submission or generosity the worst part about it however was that the faithful Nora had to be dismissed her place as housemaid had been filled up and even had it not she had forfeited Mrs. Wilson's good opinion forever she comforted her young master and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would have a household of their own of which in whatever service she might be in the meantime she would be sure to form part almost the last action Frank Wilson did before setting sail was going with Alice to see Nora once more at her mother's house and then he went away Alice's father-in-law grew more and more feeble as winter advanced she was of great use to her stepmother in nursing and amusing him and although there was anxiety enough in the household there was perhaps more of peace than there had been for years for Mrs. Wilson had not a bad heart and was softened by the visible approach of death to one whom she loved and touched by the lonely condition of the young creature expecting her first confinement in her husband's absence to this relenting mood Nora owed the permission to come and nurse Alice when her baby was born and to remain to attend on Captain Wilson before one letter had been received from Frank who had sailed for the East Indies and China his father died Alice was always glad to remember that he had held her baby in his arms and kissed and blessed it before his death after that and the consequent examination into the state of his affairs it was found that he had left far less property than people had been led by his style of living to imagine and what money there was was all settled upon his wife and at her disposal after her death this did not signify much to Alice as Frank was now first mate of his ship and in another voyage or two would be Captain meanwhile he had left her some hundreds all his savings in the bank it became time for Alice to hear from her husband one letter from the cape she had already received the next was to announce his arrival in India as week after week passed over and no intelligence of the ship's arrival reached the office of the owners and the captain's wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself her fears grew most oppressive at length the day came when in reply to her inquiry at the shipping office they told her that the owners had given up hope of ever hearing more of the Betsy Jane and had sent in their claim upon the underwriters now that he was gone for ever she first felt a yearning longing love for the kind cousin the dear friend, the sympathising protector whom she should never see again first felt a passionate desire to show him his child whom she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself her own sole possession her grief was however noiseless and quiet rather to the scandal of Mrs. Wilson who bewailed her stepson as if he and she had always lived together in perfect harmony and who evidently thought it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she saw dwelling on his poor young widow's desolate state and the helplessness of the fatherless child with an unction as if she liked the excitement of the sorrowful story so passed away the first days of Alice's widowhood burned by things subsided into their natural and tranquil course but as if this young creature was always to be in some heavy trouble her U-lam began to be ailing, pining and thickly the child's mysterious illness turned out to be some affection of the spine likely to affect health but not to shorten life at least so the doctors said but the long dreary suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved her only child is hard to look forward to only Nora guessed what Alice suffered no one but God knew and so it fell out that when Mrs. Wilson the Elder came to her one day in violent distress occasioned by a very material diminution in the value of the property that her husband had left her a diminution which made her income barely enough to support herself much less Alice the latter could hardly understand how anything which did not touch health or life could cause such grief and she received the intelligence with irritating composure but when that afternoon the little sick child was brought in and the grandmother who after all loved it well began a fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious ears saying how she had planned to consult this or that doctor and to give it this or that comfort or luxury in after years but that now all chance of this had passed away Alice's heart was touched and she drew near to Mrs. Wilson with unwonted caresses and in a spirit not unlike that of Ruth entreated that come what would they might remain together after much discussion in succeeding days it was arranged that Mrs. Wilson should take a house in Manchester furnishing it partly with what furniture she had and providing the rest with Alice's remaining two hundred pounds Mrs. Wilson was herself a Manchester woman and naturally longed to return to her native town some connections of her own at that time required lodgings for which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely Alice undertook the active superintendence and superior work of the household Nora, willing, faithful Nora, offered to cook, scour, do anything in short so that she might but remain with them the plan succeeded for some years their first lodgers remained with them and all went smoothly with the one sad exception of the little girl's increasing deformity how that mother loved that child is not for words to tell then came a break of misfortune their lodgers left and no one succeeded to them after some months they had to remove to a smaller house and Alice's tender conscience was torn by the idea that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law but ought to go out and seek her own maintenance and leave her child the thought came like the sweeping boom of a funeral bell over her heart by and by Mr. Openshore came to lodge with them he had started in life as the errant boy and sweeper out of a warehouse had struggled up through all the grades of employment in the place fighting his way through the hard-striving Manchester life with strong pushing energy of character every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to self-teaching he was a capital accountant a good French and German scholar a keen far-seeing tradesman understanding markets and the bearing of events both near and distant on trade and yet with such vivid attention to present details that I do not think he ever saw a group of flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colours would or would not form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring muslins and prince he went to debating societies and threw himself with all his heart and soul into politics esteeming it must be owned every man a fool or a nave who differed from him and overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language than the calm strength of his logic there was something of the Yankee in all this indeed his theory ran parallel to the famous Yankee motto England flogs creation and Manchester flogs England such a man as may be fancied had had no time for falling in love for any such nonsense at the age when most young men go through their courting and matrimony he had not the means of keeping a wife and was far too practical to think of having one and now that he was in easy circumstances a rising man he considered women almost as encumbrances to the world with whom a man had better have as little to do as possible his first impression of Alice was indistinct and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct a pretty yay-nay kind of woman would have been his description of her if he had been pushed into a corner he was rather afraid in the beginning that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of character which would have been exceedingly discordant to his active energetic nature but when he found out the punctuality with which his wishes were attended to and her work was done when he was called in the morning at the very stroke of the clock his shaving water scalding hot his fire bright his coffee made exactly as his peculiar fancy dictated for he was a man who had his theory about everything based upon what he knew of science and often perfectly original then he began to think not that Alice had any peculiar merit but that he had got into remarkably good lodgings his restlessness wore away and he began to consider himself as almost settled for life in them Mr. Openshore had been too busy all his life to be introspective he did not know that he had any tenderness in his nature and if he had become conscious of its abstract existence he would have considered it as a manifestation of disease in some part of his nature but he was decoyed into pity unawares and pity led on to tenderness that little helpless child always carried about by one of the three busy women of the house or else patiently threading coloured beads in the chair from which by no effort of its own could it ever move the great grave blue eyes full of serious not un-cheerful expression giving to the small delicate face a look beyond its years the soft plaintive voice dropping out but few words so unlike the continual prattle of a child caught Mr. Openshore's attention in spite of himself one day he half scorned himself for doing so he cut short his dinner hour to go in search of some toy which should take the place of those eternal beads I forget what he bought but when he gave the present which he took care to do in a short abrupt manner and when no one was by to see him he was almost thrilled by the flash of delight that came over that child's face and could not help all through that afternoon going over and over again the picture left on his memory by the bright effect of unexpected joy on the little girl's face when he returned home he found his slippers placed by his sitting-room fire and even more careful attention paid to his fancies than was habitual in those model lodgings when Alice had taken the last of his tea-things away she had been silent as usual till then she stood for an instant with the door in her hand Mr. Openshore looked as if he were deep in his book though in fact he did not see a line but was heartily wishing the woman would be gone and not make any palaver of gratitude but she only said, I'm very much obliged to you sir thank you very much and was gone even before he could send her away with a there my good woman, that's enough for some time longer he took no apparent notice of the child he even hardened his heart into disregarding her sudden flash of colour and little timid smile of recognition when he saw her by chance but after all this could not last forever and having a second time given way to tenderness there was no relapse the insidious enemy having thus entered his heart in the guise of compassion to the child soon assumed the more dangerous form of interest in the mother he was aware of this change of feeling despised himself for it struggled with it nay internally yielded to it and cherished it long before he suffered the slightest expression of it by word, action or look to escape him he watched Alice's docile obedient ways to her stepmother the love which she had inspired in the rough Nora roughened by the wear and tear of sorrow and years but above all he saw the wild, deep, passionate affection existing between her and her child they spoke little to anyone else or when anyone else was by but when alone together they talked and murmured and cooed and chattered so continually that Mr. Openshore first wondered what they could find to say to each other and next became irritated because they were always so grave and silent with him all this time he was perpetually devising small new pleasures for the child his thoughts ran in a pertinacious way upon the desolate life before her and often he came back from his day's work loaded with the very thing Alice had been longing for but had not been able to procure one time it was a little chair for drawing the little sufferer along the streets and many an evening that ensuing summer Mr. Openshore drew her along himself regardless of the remarks of his acquaintances one day in autumn he put down his newspaper as Alice came in with the breakfast and said in as indifferent a voice as he could assume Mrs. Frank is there any reason why we two should not put up our horses together? Alice stood still in perplexed wonder what did he mean? he had resumed the reading of his newspaper as if he did not expect any answer so she found silence her safest course and went on quietly arranging his breakfast without another word passing between them just as he was leaving the house to go to the warehouse as usual he turned back and put his head into the bright neat tidy kitchen where all the women breakfasted in the morning you'll think of what I said Mrs. Frank this was her name with the lodgers and let me have your opinion upon it tonight Alice was thankful that her mother and Nora were too busy talking together to attend much to this speech she determined not to think about it at all through the day and of course the effort not to think made her think all the more at night she sent up Nora with his tea but Mr. Openshore almost knocked Nora down as she was going out at the door by pushing past her and calling out Mrs. Frank in an impatient voice at the top of the stairs Alice went up rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning to his words well Mrs. Frank he said what answer don't make it too long for I have lots of office work to get through tonight I hardly know what you meant sir said truthful Alice well I should have thought you might have guessed you're not new at this sort of work and I am however I'll make it plain this time will you have me to be our wedded husband and serve me and love me and honour me and all that sort of thing because if you will I will do as much by you and be a father to your child and that's more than is put in the prayer book now I'm a man of my word and what I say I feel and what I promise I'll do now for your answer Alice was silent he began to make the tea as if her reply was a matter of perfect indifference to him but as soon as that was done he became impatient well said he how long sir may I have to think over it three minutes looking at his watch we've had two already that makes five be a sensible woman say yes and sit down to tea with me and we'll talk it over together for after tea I shall be busy say no he hesitated a moment to try and keep his voice in the same tone and I shan't say another word about it but pay up a year's rent for my rooms tomorrow and be off time's up yes or no if you please sir you have been so good to little Elsie there sit down comfortably by me on the sofa and let us have our tea together I'm glad to find you are as good and sensible as I took for and this was Alice Wilson's second wooing Mr. Openshore's will was too strong and his circumstance is too good for him not to carry all before him he settled Mrs. Wilson in a comfortable house of her own and made her quite independent of lodgers the little that Alice said with regard to future plans was on Nora's behalf no said Mr. Openshore Nora shall take care of the old lady as long as she lives and after that she shall either come and live with us or if she likes it better she shall have a provision for life for your sake Mrs no one who has been good to you or the child shall go unrewarded but even the little one will be better for some fresh stuff about her get her a bright sensible girl as a nurse one who won't go rubbing her with calves foot jelly as Nora does wasting good stuff outside they ought to go in but will follow doctors directions which as you must see pretty clearly by this time Nora won't because they give the poor little wench pain now I'm not above being niche for other folks myself I can stand the good blow and never change colour but set me in the operating room in the infirmary and I turn as sick as a girl yet if need were I would hold the little wench on my knees while she screeched with pain if it were to do her poor back good nay nay wench keep your white looks for the time when it comes I don't say it ever will but this I know Nora will spare the child and cheat the doctor if she can now I say give the bear a year or two's chance and then when the pack of doctors have done their best and maybe the old lady has gone will have Nora back or do better for her the pack of doctors could do no good to little Elsie she was beyond their power but her father for so he insisted on being called and also on Alice's no longer retaining the appellation of Marmar but becoming hence forward mother by his healthy cheerfulness of manner his clear decision of purpose his odd turns and quirks of humour added to his real strong love for the helpless little girl infused a new element of brightness and confidence into her life and though her back remained the same her general health was strengthened and Alice never going beyond a smile herself had the pleasure of seeing her child taught to laugh as for Alice's own life it was happier than it had ever been Mr. Open Shore required no demonstration no expressions of affection from her indeed these would rather have disgusted him Alice could love deeply but could not talk about it the perpetual requirement of loving words looks and caresses and misconstruing their absence into absence of love had been the great trial of her former married life now all went on clear and straight under the guidance of her husband's strong sense warm heart and powerful will year by year their worldly prosperity increased at Mrs. Wilson's death Nora came back to them as nurse to the newly born little Edwin into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father who declared that if he found out that Nora ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood or to make him niche either in body or mind she should go that very day Nora and Mr. Open Shore were not on the most thoroughly cordial terms neither of them fully recognising or appreciating the other's best qualities this was the previous history of the Lancashire family who had now removed to London and had come to occupy the house end of the first part of chapter 2 recording by Ruth Golding