 THE OVATURE OF NO THAROFFAIR. by Charles Dickens. Act I and Act IV of this book were jointly written by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. THE OVATURE. Day of the month and year, November the 30th, 1835. London time by the great clock of St Paul's ten at night. All the lesser London churches strain their metallic throats. Some flippantly begin before the heavy bell of the great cathedral. Some tardily begin three, four, half a dozen strokes behind it. All are insufficiently near a cord to leave a resonance in the air, as if the winged father who devours his children had made a sounding sweep with his gigantic scythe in flying over the city. What is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer to the ear that lags so far behind to-night as to strike into the vibration alone? This is the clock of the hospital for foundling children. Time was when the foundlings were received without question in a cradle at the gate. Time is when inquiries are made respecting them, and they are taken as by favour from the mothers, who relinquish all natural knowledge of them and claim to them for evermore. The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. The day has been otherwise than fair for slush and mud thickened with the droppings of heavy fog lie black in the streets. The veiled lady who flutters up and down near the poston gate of the hospital for foundling children has need to be well shod to-night. She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney coaches, and often pausing in the shadow of the western end of the great quadrangle wall, with her face turned towards the gate. Above her there is the purity of the moonlit sky, and below her there are the defilements of the pavement. So may she happily be divided in her mind between two vistas of reflection or experience. As her footprints crossing and recrossing one another have made a labyrinth in the mire, so may her track in life have involved herself in an intricate and unravelable tangle. The poston gate of the hospital for foundling children opens, and a young woman comes out. The lady stands aside, observes closely, sees that the gate is quietly closed again from within, and follows the young woman. Two or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, following close behind the object of her attention, stretches out her hand and touches her. Then the young woman stops and looks round, startled. You touched me last night, and when I turned my head you would not speak. Why do you follow me like a silent ghost? It was not, returned the lady in a low voice, that I would not speak, but that I could not when I tried. What do you want of me? I have never done you any harm. Never. Do I know you? No. Then what can you want of me? There are two guineas in this paper. Take my poor little present, and I will tell you. Into the young woman's face, which is honest and comely, comes a flush as she replies. There is neither grown person nor child in all the large establishment that I belong to, who hasn't got a good word for Sally. I am Sally. Could I be so well thought of, if I was to be bought? I did not mean to buy you. I only meant to reward you very slightly. Sally, firmly, but not un-gently, closes and puts back the offering hand. If there is anything I can do for you, ma'am, that I will not do for its own sake, you are much mistaken in me, if you think that I will do it for money. What is it you want? You are one of the nurses or attendants at the hospital. I saw you leave to-night and last night. Yes, I am. I am Sally. There is a pleasant patience in your face, which makes me believe that very young children would take readily to you. God bless them so they do. The lady lifts her veil and shows a face no older than the nurses, a face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn with sorrow. I am the miserable mother of a baby, lately received under your care. I have a prayer to make to you, instinctively respecting the confidence which is drawn aside the veil. Sally, whose ways are always of simplicity and spontaneity, replaces it and begins to cry. Will you listen to my prayer? The lady urges you will not be deaf to the agonised entreaty of such a broken supplicant as I am. Oh, dear, dear, dear, cry, Sally. What shall I say or can say? Don't talk of prayers. Prayers are to be put up to the good father of all and not to nurses and such. And there I am only to hold my place for half a year longer till another young woman can be trained up to it. I am going to be married. I shouldn't have been out last night, and I shouldn't have been going out to-night, but that my dick is the young man I am going to be married to. Lies ill, and I help his mother and sister to watch him. Don't take on so, don't take on so. Oh, good Sally, dear Sally, moans the lady, catching at her dress entreatingly, as you are hopeful, and I am hopeless. As a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never be before me. As you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud mother, and as you are a living, loving woman, and must die, for God's sake, hear my distracted petition. Dearie, dearie, dearie, me, cry, Sally, her desperation culminating in the pronoun. What am I ever to do? And there, see how you turn my own words back upon me. I tell you I am going to be married on purpose to make it clearer to you, that I am going to leave, and therefore couldn't help you if I would. Poor thing, and you make it seem to my own self, as if I was cruelling going to be married, and not helping you. It ain't kind. Now is it kind, poor thing? Sally, hear me, my dear, my entreaty is for no help in the future. It applies to what is past. It is only to be told in two words. There, this is worse and worse, cries Sally, supposing that I understand what two words you mean. You do understand. What are the names they have given my poor baby? I ask no more than that. I have read of the customs of the place. He has been christened in the chapel and registered by some surname in the book. He was received last Monday evening. What have they called him? Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the byway into which they have strayed. An empty street, without a thoroughfare giving on the dark gardens of the hospital. The lady would drop in her passionate entreaty, but that Sally prevents her. Don't, don't. You make me feel as if I was setting myself up to be good. Let me look in your pretty face again. Put your two hands in mine. Now promise you will never ask me anything more than the two words. Never, never. You will never put them to a bad use if I say them. Never, never. Walter, wilding. The lady lays her face upon the nurse's breast, draws her close in her embrace with both arms. Merma's a blessing and the words, kiss him for me. And he's gone. Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October 1847. London time by the great clock of St Paul's, half past one in the afternoon. The clock of the hospital for founding children is well up with the cathedral today. Service in the chapel is over, and the founding children are at dinner. There are numerous lookers on at the dinner, as the custom is. There are two or three governors, whole families from the congregation, smaller groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various degrees. The bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards, and the heavily framed windows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it shines are such windows and such walls as pervade Hogarth's pictures. The girl's refractory, including that of the younger children, is the principal attraction. Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables. The lookers on move or stop as the fancy takes them. Comments in whispers on face, such a number from such a window, are not infrequent. Many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular seats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down and say a word or two. It is no disparagement to their kindness that those points are generally points where personal attractions are. The monotony of the long spacious rooms and the double lines of faces is agreeably relieved by these incidents, although so slight. A veiled lady who has no companion goes among the company. It would seem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought her there before. She has the air of being a little troubled by the sight, and as she goes the length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step and an uneasy manner. At length she comes to the refractory of the boys. They are so much less popular than the girls, that it is bare of visitors when she looks in at the doorway. But just within the doorway chances to meet inspecting an elderly female attendant, some order of matron or housekeeper, to whom the lady addresses natural questions as, how many boys, at what age are they usually put out in life? Do they often take a fancy to the sea? So lower and lower in tone, until the lady puts the question, which is Walter Wilding? Attendance head shaken against the rules. You know which is Walter Wilding. So keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which the lady's eyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes fast upon the floor, lest by wandering in the right direction, they should betray her. I know which is Walter Wilding, but it is not my place, ma'am, to tell names to visitors. But you can show me without telling me. The lady's hand moves quietly to the attendant's hand. Pause and silence. I am going to pass round the tables, says the lady's interlocutor, without seeming to address her. Follow me with your eyes. The boy that I star-pat and speak to will not matter to you, but the boy that I touch will be Walter Wilding. Say nothing more to me, and move a little away. Quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the room and looks about her. After a few moments, the attendant, in a stayed official way, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand. She goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Very slightly glancing in the lady's direction she stops, bends forward and speaks. The boy whom she addresses lifts his head and replies, good-humidly and easily, as she listens to what he says she lays her hand upon the shoulder of the next boy on his right. That the action may be well noted she keeps her hand on the shoulder, while speaking in return, and pats it twice or thrice before moving away. She completes her tour of the tables, touching no one else, and passes out by a door at the opposite end of the long room. Dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on her left hand, goes the whole length of the line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Other people have strolled in, fortunately for her, and stand sprinkled about. She lifts her veil, and stopping at the touched boy asks how old he is. I am twelve, ma'am, he answers, with his bright eyes fixed on hers. Are you well and happy? Yes, ma'am. May you take these sweet meats from my hand? If you please to give them to me. In stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy's face with her forehead, and with her hair. Then lowering her veil again, she passes on, and passes out, without looking back. In a courtyard in the city of London, which was no thoroughfare either for vehicles or foot passengers, a courtyard diverging from a steep, a slippery, and a winding street connecting Tower Street with the middle-sex shore of the Thames, stood the place of business of wilding and co-wine merchants. Probably as a jacosic knowledgement of the obstructive character of this main approach, the point nearest to its base sat which one could take the river, if so inodorously minded, bore the appellation Break Next Stairs. The courtyard itself had likewise been descriptively entitled in old time Cripple Corner. Years before the year 1861, people had left off taking boat at Break Next Stairs, and watermen had ceased to ply there. The slimy little causeway had dropped into the river by a slow process of suicide, and two or three stumps of piles and a rusty iron mooring-ring were all that remained of the departed Break Next Glories. Sometimes indeed a laden coal-barge would bump itself into the place, and certain laborious heavers, seemingly mud-ingendered, would arise, deliver the cargo in the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish. But at most times the only commerce of Break Next Stairs arose out of the conveyance of casks and bottles both full and empty, both to and from the sellers of wilding and co-wine merchants. Even that commerce was but occasional, and through three-fourths of its rising tides, the dirty and decorous drab of a river would come solidarily oozing and lapping at the rusty ring, as if it had heard of the doge and the Adriatic, and wanted to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the right honourable, the Lord Mayor. Some two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the opposite hill, approaching it from the low ground of Break Next Stairs, was Cripple Corner. There was a pump in Cripple Corner, there was a tree in Cripple Corner. All Cripple Corner belonged to wilding and co-wine merchants. Their sellers burrowed under it, their mansion towered over it. It really had been a mansion in the days when merchants inhabited the city, and had a ceremonious shelter to the doorway without visible support, like the sounding board over an old pulpit. It had also a number of long, narrow strips of window, so disposed in its grave-brick front as to render it symmetrically ugly. It had also, on its roof, a cupola with a bell in it. When a man at five and twenty can put his hat on, and can say, This hat covers the owner of this property, and of the business which is transacted on this property, I consider, Mr. Bintry, that without being boastful, he may be allowed to be deeply thankful. I don't know how it may appear to you, but it appears so to me. Thus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law in his own counting-house, taking his hat down from its peg to suit the action to the word, and hanging it up again when he had done so, not to overstep the modesty of nature. An innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, Mr. Walter Wilding, with a remarkably pink and white complexion, and a figure much too bulky for so young a man, though of a good stature, with crispy curling-brown hair, and amiable bright blue eyes, an extremely communicative man, a man with whom locustity was the unrestrainable outpouring of contentment and gratitude. Mr. Bintry, on the other hand, a cautious man, with twinkling beads of eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly, but intensely, enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech. Or hand, or heart. Yes, said Mr. Bintry. Yes. A decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of biscuits stood on the desk. You like this forty-five-year-old port wine? said Mr. Wilding. Like it? repeated Mr. Bintry. Rather, sir. It's from the best corner of our best forty-five-year-old bin, said Mr. Wilding. Thank you, sir, said Mr. Bintry. It's most excellent. He laughed again as he held up his glass and ogled it, at the highly ludicrous idea of giving away such wine. And now, said Wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the discussion of affairs, I think we have got everything straight, Mr. Bintry. Everything straight, said Bintry. A partner secured? Partner secured, said Bintry. A housekeeper advertised for? Housekeeper advertised for, said Bintry. Applied personally at Cripple Corner, Great Tower Street, from ten to twelve. Tomorrow, by the by. My dear late mother's affairs wound up? Wound up, said Bintry. And all charges paid? And all charges paid, said Bintry, with a chuckle, probably occasioned by the droll circumstance that they had been paid without a haggle. The mention of my late dear mother, Mr. Wilding continued, his eyes filling with tears and his pocket-anchorchief drying them. Unmans me still, Mr. Bintry. You know how I loved her. You, her lawyer, know how she loved me. The utmost love of mother and child was cherished between us, and we have never experienced one moment's division, or unhappiness from the time when she took me under her care, thirteen years under my late dear mother's care, Mr. Bintry, and eight of them her confidentially acknowledged son. You know the story, Mr. Bintry. Who but you, sir? Mr. Wilding sobbed, and dried his eyes without attempt of concealment during these remarks. Mr. Bintry enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling it in his mouth, I know the story. My late dear mother, Mr. Bintry, pursued the wine-merchant, had been deeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered, but on that subject my late dear mother's lips were forever sealed, by whom deceived, or under what circumstances heaven only knows, my late dear mother never betrayed her betrayer. She had made up her mind, said Mr. Bintry, again turning his wine on his pallet, and she could hold her peace. An amused twinkle in his eyes pretty plainly added, a devilish deal better than you ever will. Honour, said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he quoted from the commandments, thy mother and thy father, that thy days may be long in the land. When I was in the foundling, Mr. Bintry, I was at such a loss how to do it, that I apprehended my days would be short in the land. But I afterward came to honour my mother deeply, profoundly, and I honour and revere her memory. For seven happy years, Mr. Bintry, pursued Wilding with the same innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed tears, did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors in this business, Pebbleson Nephew. Her affectionate forethought, likewise, apprenticed me to the Vintner's company, and made me in time a free Vintner, and everything else that the best of mothers could desire. When I came of age she bestowed her inherited share in this business upon me. It was her money that afterwards bought out Pebbleson Nephew, and painted in Wilding and Co. And it was she who left me everything she possessed but the morning ring you wear. And yet, Mr. Bintry, with a fresh burst of honest affection, she is no more. It is little over half a year she came into the corner to read on that doorpost with her own eyes, Wilding and Co. wine-merchants, and yet she is no more. Sad, but the common lot, Mr. Wilding, observed Bintry, at some time or other we must all be no more. He placed the forty-five-year-old port wine in the universal condition, with a relishing sigh. So now, Mr. Bintry, pursued Wilding, putting away his pocket-anchive, and smoothing his eyelids with his fingers. Now that I can no longer show my love and honour for the dear parent to whom my heart was mysteriously turned by nature when she first spoke to me, a strange lady, I sitting at our Sunday dinner-table in the Foundling, I can at least show that I am not ashamed of having been a Foundling, and that I, who never knew a father of my own, wished to be a father to all in my employment. Therefore, continued Wilding, becoming enthusiastic in his loquacity, therefore I want a thoroughly good housekeeper to undertake this dwelling-house of Wilding and Co., wine-merchants, grip or corner, so that I may restore in it some of the old relations betwixt the employer and employed, so that I may live in it on the spot where my money is made, so that I may daily sit at the head of the table at which the people in my employment eat together, and may eat of the same roast and boiled and drink of the same beer, so that the people in my employment may lodge under the same roof with me, so that we may one and all—oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Bintree, but that old singing in my head has suddenly come on, and I shall feel obliged if you would lead me to the pump. Alarmed by the excessive pinkness in his client, Mr. Bintree lost not a moment in leading him forth into the courtyard. It was easily done, for the counting-house in which they talked together opened onto it at one side of the dwelling-house. There the attorney pumped with a will, obedient to a sign from the client, and the client laved his head and face with both hands, and took a hearty drink. After these remedies he declared himself much better. Don't let your good feelings excite you, said Bintree, as they returned to the counting-house, and Mr. Wilding dried himself on a jack-towel behind an inner door. No, no, I won't, he returned, looking out of the towel. I won't. I have not been confused, have I? Not at all, perfectly clear. Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintree? Well, you left off, but I wouldn't excite myself if I was you by taking it up again just yet. I'll take care, I'll take care. The singing in my head came on at where, Mr. Bintree? Matt Roaston, boiled and beer, answered the lawyer, prompting lodging under the same roof, and one and all, ah, and one and all singing in the head together. Do you know I really would not let my good feelings excite me if I was you, hinted the lawyer again anxiously, try some more pump. No, no occasion, no occasion. All right, Mr. Bintree, and one and all forming a kind of family. You see, Mr. Bintree, I was not used in my childhood to that sort of individual existence, which most individuals have left, more or less, in their childhood. After that time, I became absorbed in my late dear mother. Having lost her, I find that I am more fit for being one of a body, than one by myself one, to be that, and at the same time to do my duty to those dependent on me, and attach them to me, has a patriarchal and pleasant air about it. I don't know how it may appear to you, Mr. Bintree, but so it appears to me. It is not I who am all important in the case, but you, returned Bintree. Consequently, how it may appear to me is of very small importance. It appears to me, said Mr. Wilding in a glow, hopeful, useful, delightful. Do you know, hinted the lawyer again, I really would not, I'm not going to. Then there's Handel. There's who? asked Bintree. Handel, Mozart, hiding Kent, Purcell, Dr. Arne, Green, Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems by Hart, Foundling Chapel Collection. Why shouldn't we learn them together? Who learn them together? asked the lawyer rather shortly. Employer and employed. I, I, returned Bintree, mollified, as if he had half expected the answer to be lawyer and client. That's another thing. Not another thing, Mr. Bintree, the same thing, a part of the bond among us. We will form a choir in some quiet church near the corner here, and having sung together of a Sunday with a relish, we will come home and take an early dinner together with a relish. The object that I have at heart now is to get this system well in action without delay, so that my new partner may find it founded when he enters on his partnership. All good be with it, exclaimed Bintree, rising. May it prosper. Is Joey Ladle to take a share in Handel, Mozart, hiding Kent, Purcell, Dr. Arne, Green and Mendelssohn? I hope so. I wish them all well out of it, returned Bintree, with much heartiness. Goodbye, sir. They shook hands and parted. Then, first knocking with his knuckles for leave, entered to Mr. Wilding from a door of communication between his private counting-house and that in which his clerks sat, the head cellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co., wine merchants, and erst head cellarman of the cellars of Pebbleson Neview, the Joey Ladle in question, a slow and ponderous man of the dreaman order of human architecture, dressed in a corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of doormat and rhinoceros hide. Respecting this same boarding and lodging, young Master Wilding. Yes, Joey? Speaking for myself, young Master Wilding, and I never did speak, and I never do speak for no one else. I don't want no boarding, nor yet no lodging. But if you wish to bore me and to lodge me, take me. I can peck as well as most men, where I peck, ain't so high an object with me as what I peck, nor even so high an object with me as how much I peck. He's all to live in the house, young Master Wilding, the two other cellarmen, the three porters, the two apprentices, and the odd men. Yes, I hope we shall all be a united family, Joey. Ah, said Joey, I hope they may be. They rather say we, Joey. Joey ladle shook his head. Don't look to me to make we on it, young Master Wilding, not at my time of life, and under the circumstances which has formed my disposition. I have said to Pebbleson Neview many a time, when they have said to me, put a lively face on it, Joey. I have said to them, gentlemen, it is all very well for you that has been accustomed to take your wine into your systems by the convivial channel of your throttles to put a lively face upon it. But, I says, I have been accustomed to take my wine in at the paws of the skin, and took that way, it acts different. It acts depressing. It's one thing, gentlemen, I says to Pebbleson Neview, to charge your glasses in a dining room with a hip hurrah and a jolly companions, every one. And it's another thing to be charged yourself through the paws in a low dark cellar and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the difference between bubbles and wapers, I tells Pebbleson Neview. And so it do. I've been a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given to the business. What's the consequence? I'm as muddled a man as lives. You won't find a muddler man than me, nor yet you won't find my equal in moll and collie. Sing of filling the bump of air, every drop you sprinkle, or the brow of care smooths away wrinkle. Yes, perhaps so, but try filling yourself through the paws underground, when you don't want to it. I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even thought that you might join a singing class in the house. Me? Sir? No, no, young master Wilding. You won't catch Joey ladle muddling the harmony. A pecking machine, sir, is all that I am capable of proving myself out of my cellars. For that you're welcome to. If you think it is worth your while to keep such a thing on your premises. I do, Joey. Say no more, sir. The business's word is my law. And you're going to take young master George Vendale, partner into the old business? I am, Joey. More change, as you see. But don't change the name of the firm again. Don't do it, young master Wilding. It was bad, lucky enough, to make it yourself and co. Pet by fire have left it pebbles and nephew, that good luck always stuck to. You should never change luck when it's good, sir. At all events I have no intention of changing the name of the house again, Joey. Glare to hear it, and wish you good day, young master Wilding. But you are better by half, muttered Joey ladle inaudibly as he closed the door and shook his head. Have left the name alone from the first. You are better by half have followed the luck instead of crossing it. LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Alan Chant. No thoroughfare by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Act one, scene two. Enter the housekeeper. The wine merchant sat in his dining room next morning to receive the personal applications for the vacant post in his establishment. It was an old-fashioned wainscotted room the panels ornamented with festoons of flowers carved in wood, with an oaken floor, a well-worn turkey carpet, and dark mahogany furniture, all of which had seen service and polish, and a pebble-stone nephew. The great sideboard had assisted at many business dinners given by pebble-stone nephew to their connection, on the principle of throwing sprouts overboard to catch whales, and pebble-stone nephew's comprehensive three-sided plate-warmer, made to fit the whole front of the large fireplace, kept watch beneath it over a sarcophagus-shaped cellarette that had in its time held many a dozen of pebble-stone nephew's wine. But the little ruby cundold bachelor with a pigtail, whose portrait was over the sideboard, and who could easily be identified as decidedly pebble-stone and decidedly not nephew, had retired into another sarcophagus, and the plate-warmer had grown as cold as he. So the golden and black griffins that supported the candelabra, with black balls in their mouths at the end of gilded chains, looked as if in their old age they had lost all heart for playing at ball, and were dolefully exhibiting their chains in the missionary line of inquiry, whether they had not earned emancipation by this time, and were not griffins and brothers. Such a Columbus of a morning was the summer morning that it discovered Cripple Corner. The light and warmth pierced in at the open windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady hanging over the chimney-piece, the only other decoration of the walls. My mother at five and twenty, said Mr. Wilding to himself, as his eyes enthusiastically followed the light to the portrait's face. I hang up here. In order that visitors may admire my mother in the bloom of her youth and beauty, my mother at fifty I hang in this occlusion of my own chamber as a remembrance sacred to me. Oh, it's you, Jarvis. These latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped at the door and now looked in. Yes, sir, I merely wish to mention that it's gone ten, sir, and that there are several females in the counting-house. Dear me! said the wine-merchant, deepening in the pink of his complexion, and whitening in the white. Are there several? So many as several. I have better begin before there are more. I'll see them one by one, Jarvis, in the order of their arrival. Hastily entrenching himself in his easy chair at the table behind a great ink-stand, having first placed a chair on the other side of the table opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered on his task with considerable trepidation. He ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion. There were the usual species of profoundly unsympathetic women, and the usual species of much too sympathetic women. There were buccaneering widows who came to seize him, and who gripped umbrellas under their arms as if each umbrella were he, and each gripper had got him. There were towering maiden-ladies who had seen better days, and who came armed with clerical testimonials to their theology, as if he were St. Peter with his keys. There were gentle maiden-ladies who came to marry him. There were professional housekeepers like non-commissioned officers who put him through his domestic exercise instead of submitting themselves to catechism. There were languid invalids to whom salary was not so much an object as the comforts of a private hospital. There were sensitive creatures who burst into tears on being addressed, and had to be restored with glasses of cold water. There were some respondents who came two together, a highly promising one and a wholly unpromising one, of whom the promising one answered all questions charmingly, until it would at last appear that she was not a candidate at all, but only the friend of the unpromising one who had glowered in absolute silence and apparent injury. At last when the good wine-merchant's simple heart was failing him, there entered an applicant quite different from all the rest, a woman, perhaps fifty but looking younger, with a face remarkable for placid cheerfulness, and a manner no less remarkable for its quiet expression of equability of temper. Nothing in her dress could have been changed to her advantage, nothing in the noiseless self-possession of her manner could have been changed to her advantage. Nothing could have been in better unison with both, than the voice when she answered the question. What name shall I have the pleasure of noting down, with the words My name is Sarah Goldstraw, Mrs. Goldstraw. My husband has been dead many years, and we have no family. Half a dozen questions had scarcely extracted as much to the purpose from anyone else. The voice dwelt so agreeable on Mr. Wilding's ear as he made his note, that he was rather long about it. When he looked up again, Mrs. Goldstraw's glance had naturally gone round the room, and now returned to him from the chimney-piece. Its expression was one of frank readiness to be questioned, and to answer straight. Will you excuse me asking you a few questions? said the modest wine-merchant. Oh, surely, sir, or I should have no business here. Have you filled the station of Housekeeper before? Only once. I have lived with the same widow-lady for twelve years, ever since I lost my husband. She was an invalid and is lately dead, which is the occasion of my now wearing black. I do not doubt that she has left you the best credentials, said Mr. Wilding. I hope I may say the very best. I thought it would save trouble, sir, if I wrote down the name and address of her representatives, and brought it with me. Laying a card on the table. You singularly remind me, Mrs. Goldstraw, said Wilding, taking the card beside him, of a manner and tone of voice that I was once acquainted with. Not of an individual, I feel sure of that, though I cannot recall what it is I have in my mind, but of a general bearing. I ought to add, it was a kind and pleasant one. She smiled and she rejoined. At least, I am very glad of that, sir. Yes, said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully repeating his last phrase with a momentary glance at his future Housekeeper. It was a kind and pleasant one, but that is the most I can make of it. Memory is sometimes like a half-forgotten dream. I don't know how it may appear to you, Mrs. Goldstraw, but so it appears to me. Probably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in a similar light, for she quietly assented to the proposition. Mr. Wilding then offered to put himself at once in communication with the gentleman named upon the card. A firm of proctors in Drs. Commons. To this, Mrs. Goldstraw, thankfully assented. Drs. Commons, not being far off, Mr. Wilding suggested the feasibility of Mrs. Goldstraw's looking in again, say, in three hours' time? Mrs. Goldstraw readily undertook to do so. In fine, the result of Mr. Wilding's inquiries being eminently satisfactory, Mrs. Goldstraw was that afternoon engaged, on her own perfectly fair terms, to come to-morrow and set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple Corner. No thoroughfare by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Act one, scene three. The housekeeper speaks. On the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived to enter on her domestic duties. Having settled herself in her own room, without troubling the servants and without wasting time, the new housekeeper announced herself as waiting to be favoured with any instructions which her master might wish to give her. The wine-merchant received Mrs. Goldstraw in the dining-room, in which he had seen her the previous day, and the usual preliminary civilities having passed on either side, the two sat down to take counsel together on the affairs of the house. About the meal, sir, said Mrs. Goldstraw, have I a large or a small number to provide for? If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned plan of mine, replied Mr. Wilding, you will have a large number of people to provide for. I am a lonely single man, Mrs. Goldstraw, and I hope to live with all the persons in my employment, as if they were members of my family. Until that time comes you will only have me, and the new partner whom I expect immediately to provide for. What my partner's habits may be I cannot yet say, but I may describe myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable appetite that you may depend upon to announce. About breakfast, sir, said Mrs. Goldstraw, is there anything particular? She hesitated and left the sentence unfinished. Her eyes turned slowly away from her master, and looked towards the chimney-piece. If she had been a less excellent and experienced housekeeper, Mr. Wilding might have fancied that her attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. Eight o'clock is my breakfast hour, he resumed. It is one of my virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of my vices to be habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs. Mrs. Goldstraw looked back at him, still a little divided between her master's chimney-piece and her master. I take tea, Mr. Wilding went on, and I am perhaps rather nervous and fidgety about drinking it, within a certain time after it is made. If my tea stands too long, he hesitated on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. If he had not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to himself, as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have fancied that his attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. If your tea stands too long, sir, said the housekeeper, politely taking up her master's lost thread. Uh, if my tea stands too long, repeated the wine-merchant mechanically, his mind getting farther and farther away from his breakfast, and his eyes fixing themselves more and more inquiringly on his housekeeper's face. If my tea, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw, what is the manner and tone of voice that you remind me of? It strikes me even more strongly today than it did when I saw you yesterday. What can it be? What can it be? replied Mrs. Goldstraw. She said the words evidently thinking while she spoke them of something else. The wine-merchant still looking at her inquiringly, observed that her eyes wandered towards the chimney-piece once more. They fixed on the portrait of his mother which hung there. And looked at it with that slight contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious effort of memory. Mr. Wilding remarked, My late dear mother, when she was five and twenty, Mrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head, for being at the pains to explain the picture, and said, with a cleared brow, that it was the portrait of a very beautiful lady. Mr. Wilding, falling back into his former perplexity, tried once more to recover that lost recollection associated so closely, and yet so undiscoverably, with his new housekeeper's voice and manner. Excuse my asking you a question which has nothing to do with me or my breakfast, he said. May I inquire if you have ever occupied any other situation than the situation of housekeeper? Oh yes, sir. I began life as one of the nurses at the Foundling. Why, that's it! cried the wine-merchant, pushing back his chair. By heaven! their manner is the manner you remind me of! In an astonished look at him, Mrs. Goldstraw changed colour, checked herself, turned her eyes upon the ground, and sat still and silent. What is the matter? asked Mr. Wilding. Do I understand that you were in the Foundling, sir? Certainly! I am not ashamed to own it! Under the name you now bear, under the name of Walter Wilding! And the lady, Mrs. Goldstraw stopped short with a look at the portrait, which was now unmistakably a look of alarm. You mean my mother, interrupted Mr. Wilding. Your mother, repeated the housekeeper a little constrainedly, removed you from the Foundling? At what age, sir? At between eleven and twelve years old! It's quite a romantic adventure, Mrs. Goldstraw. He told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while he sat at dinner with the other boys in the Foundling, and of all that had followed, in his innocently communicative way. My poor mother could never have discovered me, he added, if she had not met with one of the matrons who petted her. The matron consented to touch the boy whose name was Walter Wilding, as she went round the dinner tables. And so my mother discovered me again, after having parted from me as an infant at the Foundling doors. At those words Mrs. Goldstraw's hand, resting on the table, dropped helplessly into her lap. She sat looking at her new master with a face that had turned deadly pale, and with eyes that expressed an unutterable dismay. What does this mean? asked the wine merchant. Stop! he cried. Is there something else in the past time which I ought to associate with you? I remember my mother telling me of another person at the Foundling, to whose kindness she owed a debt of gratitude. When she first parted with me as an infant, one of the nurses informed her of the name that had been given to me in the institution. Who were that nurse? God forgive me, sir. I was that nurse. God forgive you? We had better get back, sir, if I may make so bold as to say so, to my duties in the house, said Mrs. Goldstraw. Your breakfast hour is eight. Do you lunge or dine in the middle of the day? The excessive pinkness which Mr. Bintree had noticed in his client's face began to appear there once more. Mr. Wilding put his hand to his head, and mastered some momentary confusion in that quarter before he spoke again. Mrs. Goldstraw, he said, you are concealing something from me. The housekeeper obstinately repeated, please do favour me, sir, by saying whether you lunge or dine in the middle of the day. I don't know what I do in the middle of the day. I can't enter into my household affairs, Mrs. Goldstraw, till I know why you regret an act of kindness to my mother, which she always spoke of gratefully to the end of her life. You are not doing me a service by your silence. You are agitating me. You are alarming me. You are bringing on the singing in my head. His hand went up to his head again, and the pink in his face deepened by a shade or two. It's hard, sir, on just entering your service, said the housekeeper, to say what may cost me the loss of your good will. Please to remember, end how it may, that I only speak because you have insisted on my speaking, and because I see that I am alarming you by my silence. When I told the poor lady, whose portrait you have got there, the name by which her infant was christened in the foundling, I allowed myself to forget my duty, and dreadful consequences, I am afraid, have followed from it. I'll tell you the truth as plainly as I can. A few months from the time when I had informed the lady of her baby's name, there came to our institution in the country another lady, a stranger, whose object was to adopt one of our children. She brought the need for permission with her, and after looking at a great many of the children, without being able to make up her mind, she took a sudden fancy to one of the baby's, a boy, under my care. Try, pray, try to compose yourself, sir. It is no use disguising it any more. The child the stranger took away was the child of that lady, whose portrait hangs there. Mr. Wilding started to his feet. Impossible! he cried out vehemently. What are you talking about? What absurd story are you telling me now? There's her portrait! Haven't I told you so already? The portrait of my mother! When that unhappy lady, removed you from the foundling in after years, said Mrs. Goldstraw gently, she was the victim, and you were the victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake. He dropped back into his chair. The room goes round with me, he said. My head, my head! The housekeeper rose in alarm and opened the windows. Before she could get to the door, to call for help, a sudden burst of tears relieved the oppression, which had at first almost appeared to threaten his life. He signed in treatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to leave him. She waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out. He raised his head as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the angry, unreasoning suspicion of a weak man. Miss Steak, he said, wildly repeating her last word. How do you know you are not mistaken yourself? There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. I will tell you why when you are better fit to hear it. Now, now! The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that it would be cruel kindness to let him comfort himself a moment later. A few words more would end it, and those few words she determined to speak. I have told you, she said, that the child of the lady whose portrait hangs there was adopted in its infancy and taken away by a stranger. I am as certain of what I say as that I am now sitting here, obliged to me, as I am now sitting here, obliged to me, obliged to distress you, sir, sorely against my will. Pleased to carry your mind on now to about three months after that time. I was then, at the Foundling in London, waiting to take some children to our institution in the country. There was a question that day about naming an infant, a boy who had just been received. We generally named them out of the directory. On this occasion, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Goldstraw, on this occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the hospital, happened to be looking over the register. He noticed that the name of the baby who had been adopted, Walter Wilding, was scratched out for the reason, of course, that the child had been removed for good from our care. He has a name to let, he said, give it to the new Foundling who has been received to-day. The name was given, and the child was christened. You, sir, were that child? The wine merchant's head dropped on his breast. I was that child? He said to himself, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his mind. I was that child? Not very long after you had been received into the institution, sir, pursued Mrs. Goldstraw. I left my situation there to be married. If you will remember that, and if you can give your mind to it, you will see for yourself how the mistake happened. Between eleven and twelve years past before the lady whom you have believed to be your mother returned to the Foundling to find her son and to remove him to her own home. The lady only knew that the servant had been called Walter Wilding. The matron who took pity on her could but point out the only Walter Wilding known in the institution. I, who might have set the matter right, was far away from the Foundling and all that belonged to it. There was nothing, there was really nothing that could prevent this terrible mistake from taking place. I feel for you. I do indeed, sir. You must think and with reason that it was an evil hour that I came here innocently enough, I'm sure, to apply for your housekeeper's place. I feel as if I was to blame. I feel as if I ought to have had more self-command. If I had only been able to keep my face from showing you what that portrait and what your words put into my mind, you need never to your dying day have known what you know now." Mr. Wilding looked up suddenly. The inbred honesty of the man rose in protest against the housekeeper's last words. His mind seemed to steady itself for the moment under the shock that had fallen on it. Do you mean to say that you would have concealed this from me if you could? he exclaimed. I hope I should always tell the truth, sir. If I was asked, said Mrs. Goldstraw, and I know it is better for me that I should not have a secret of this sort weighing on my mind. But is it better for you? What use can it serve now? What use? Why, good lord, if your story is true, should I have told it, sir? As I am now situated if it had not been true. Mr. Wilding, if it had not been true. I beg your pardon, said the wine merchant. You must make allowance for me. This dreadful discovery is something I can't realise even yet. We loved each other so dearly. I felt so fondly that I was her son. She died, Mrs. Goldstraw, in my arms. She died blessing me as only a mother could have blessed me. But now, after all these years to be told she was not my mother. Oh, me, oh, me! I don't know what I am saying, he cried, as the impulse of self-control under which he had spoken a moment since flickered and died out. It was not this dreadful grief. It was something else that I had in my mind to speak of. Yes, yes, you surprised me. You wounded me just now. You talked as if you would have hidden this from me. If you could, don't talk in that way again. It would have been a crime to have hidden it. You meant well, I know. I don't want to distress you. You are a kind-hearted woman. But you don't remember what my position is. She left me all that I possess in the firm persuasion that I was her son. I am not her son. I have taken the place. I have innocently got the inheritance of another man. He must be found. How do I know he is not at this moment in misery without bread to eat? He must be found. My only hope in bearing up against the shock that has fallen on me is the hope of doing something which she would have approved. You must know more, Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have told me yet. Who was the stranger who adopted the child? You must have heard the lady's name. I never heard it, sir. I have never seen her or heard of her since. Did she say nothing when she took the child away? Search your memory. She must have said something. Only one thing, sir, that I can remember. It was a miserably bad season that year, and many of the children were suffering from it. When she took the baby away the lady said to me, laughing, Don't be alarmed about his health. He will be brought up in a better climate than this. I am going to take him to Switzerland. To Switzerland? What part of Switzerland? She didn't say, sir. Oh, that faint clue, said Mr. Wilding, and a quarter of a century has passed since the child was taken away. What am I to do? I hope you won't take a fence at my freedom, sir, said Mrs. Goldstraw. But why should you distress yourself about what is to be done? He may not be alive now for anything you know, and if he is alive it is not likely he can be in any distress. The lady who adopted him was a bred and born lady. It was easy to see that. And she must have satisfied them at the foundling that she could provide for the child, or they would never have let her take him away. If I was in your place, sir, pleased to excuse me saying so, I should comfort myself with remembering that I had loved that poor lady whose portrait you have got there truly loved her as my mother, and that she had truly loved me as her son. All she gave to you she gave you for the sake of that love. It never altered while she lived, and it won't alter, I'm sure, as long as you live. How can you have a better right, sir, to keep what you have got than that? Mr. Wilding's immovable honesty saw the fallacy in his housekeeper's point of view at a glance. You don't understand me, he said. It is because I loved her that I feel it a duty, a sacred duty to do justice to her son. If he is a living man I must find him for my own sake, as well as for his. I shall break down under this dreadful trial unless I employ myself actively, instantly employ myself in doing what my conscience tells me ought to be done. I must speak to my lawyer. I must set my lawyer at work before I sleep to-night. He approached a tube in the wall of the room and called down through it to the office below. Leave me for a little, Mrs. Goldstraw, he resumed. I shall be more composed. I shall be better able to speak to you later in the day. We shall get on well. together in spite of what has happened. It isn't your fault. I know it isn't your fault. There, there, shake hands and do the best you can in the house. I can't talk about it now." The door opened as Mrs. Goldstraw advanced towards it, and Mr. Jarvis appeared. Send for Mr. Bintry, said the wine-merchant. Say, I want to see him directly. The clerk unconsciously suspended the execution of the order by announcing Mr. Vendale and showing in the new partner of the firm of Wilding & Co. Pray excuse me for one moment, George Vendale, said Wilding, I have a word to say to Jarvis. Send for Mr. Bintry, he repeated, send at once. Mr. Jarvis laid a letter on the table with the room. From our correspondents at Neuchâtel, I think so. The letter has got the Swiss postmark. End of Act 1, Scene 3 Recording by Alan Chant of Tumbridge Kent, England www.7oaksprep.kent.sh.uk Act 1, Scene 4 of No thoroughfare This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Chant No thoroughfare by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins Act 1, Scene 4 New characters on the scene The words the Swiss postmark too soon upon the housekeeper's reference to Switzerland wrought Mr. Wilding's agitation to such a remarkable height that his new partner could not decently make a pretense of letting it pass unnoticed. Wilding, he asked hurriedly and yet stopping short and glancing around as if for some visible cause of his state of mind. What is the matter? My good George Vendale is leaving his hand with an appealing look rather as if he wanted help to get over some obstacle than as if he gave it in welcome or salutation. My good George Vendale so much is the matter that I shall never be myself again. It is impossible that I can ever be myself again for in fact I am not myself. The new partner, a brown cheeked handsome fellow with a quick determined eye and an impulsive manner retorted with natural astonishment. Not yourself? Not what I supposed myself to be," said Wilding. What in the name of wonder did you suppose yourself to be that you are not?" was the rejoiner delivered with a cheerful frankness inviting confidence from a more reticent man. I may ask without impertinence now that we are partners. I am again," cried Wilding leaning back in his chair with a lost look at the other, partners. I had no right to come into this business. It was never meant for me. My mother never meant it should be mine. I mean, his mother meant it should be his. If I mean anything or if I am anybody come, come," urged his partner after a moment's pause and taking possession of him confidence which inspires a strong nature when it honestly desires to aid a weak one. Whatever has gone wrong has gone wrong through no fault of yours, I am very sure. I was not in this counting-house with you under the old regime for three years to doubt you, Wilding. We were not younger men than we are together for that. Let me begin our partnership by being a serviceable partner and setting right whatever is wrong. Has that letter anything to do with it?" Huh! said Wilding with his hand to his temple. There again! My head! I was forgetting the coincidence. The Swiss postmark! At a second glance I see that the letter is unopened so it is not very likely to have much to do with the matter, said Vendale with comforting composure. It is for you or for us. For us! said Wilding. Suppose I open it and read it aloud to get it out of our way. Thank you, thank you! The letter is only from our champagne-making friends, the house at Neuchâtel. Dear sir, we are in receipt of yours of the twenty-eighth vault informing us that you have taken your Mr. Vendale into partnership whereon we beg you to receive the assurance of our felicitations. Permit us to embrace the occasion of specially commanding to you Monsieur Jules Obenreiser. Impossible! Wilding looked up with quick apprehension and cried, Impossible! sort of name! returned his partner slightly. Obenreiser of specially commanding to you Monsieur Jules Obenreiser of Soho Square London Northside, henceforth fully accredited as our agent, and who has already had the honour of making the acquaintance of your Mr. Vendale in his, said Monsieur Obenreiser's native country, Switzerland. To be sure what have I been thinking of, I remember now when travelling with his niece. With his Vendale had so slurred the last word that Wilding had not heard it. When travelling with his niece Obenreiser's niece, said Vendale in a somewhat superfluously lucid manner, niece of Obenreiser, I met them in my first Swiss tour, travelled a little with them and lost them for two years, met them again my Swiss tour before last and have lost them ever since. Obenreiser niece of Obenreiser to be sure possible sort of name after all Monsieur Obenreiser is in possession of our absolute confidence and we do not doubt you will esteem his merits duly signed by the house de Fresnia S.C. Very well I undertake to see Monsieur Obenreiser presently and clear him out of the way. That clears the Swiss post-mark so now my dear Wilding tell me what I can clear out of your way and I'll find a way to clear it. More than ready and grateful to be thus taken charge of the honest wine merchant wrung his partner's hand and beginning his tale by pathetically declaring himself an impostor told it. It was on this matter no doubt that you were sending for Bintry when I came in set his partner after reflecting it was he has experience and a shrewd head I should be anxious to know his opinion it is bold and hazardous in me to give you mine before I know his but I am not good at holding back plainly then I do not see these circumstances as you see them I do not see your position as you see it as to your being an impostor my dear Wilding that is simply absurd man can be that without being a consenting party to an imposition clearly you never were so as to your enrichment by the lady who believed you to be her son and whom you were forced to believe on her showing to be your mother consider whether that did not arise out of the personal relations between you you gradually became much attached to her she gradually became much attached to you it was on you personally you as I see the case that she conferred these worldly advantages it was from her personally her that you took them she supposed me objected Wilding shaking his head to have a natural claim upon her which I had not I must admit that replied his partner to be true but if she had made the discovery that you have made six months before she died do you think it would have cancelled the years you were together and the tenderness that each of you had conceived for the other each on increasing knowledge of the other what I think said wildly simply but stoutly holding to the bear fact can no more change the truth than it can bring down the sky the truth is that I stand possessed of what was meant for another man dead said Vendale he may be alive said Wilding and if he is alive have I not innocently I grant you innocently robbed him of enough have I not robbed him of all the happy time that I enjoyed in his stead have I not robbed him of the exquisite delight that filled my soul when that dear lady stretching his hand towards the picture told me she was my mother have I not robbed him have I not robbed him of all the care she lavished on me have I not robbed him of all the devotion and duty that I so proudly gave to her therefore it is that I ask myself George Vendale and I ask you where is he what has become of him who can tell I must try to find out who can tell I must institute inquiries I must never desist from prosecuting inquiries I will live upon the interest of my share I ought to say his share in this business and will lay up the rest for him when I find him I may perhaps throw myself upon his generosity but I will yield up all to him I will I swear as I loved and honoured her said Wilding reverently kissing his hand towards the picture and then covering his eyes with it as I loved and honoured her I have a world of reasons to be grateful to her and so broke down again his partner rose from the chair he had occupied and stood beside him with a hand softly laid upon his shoulder Walter I knew you before today to be an upright man with a pure conscience and a fine heart it is very fortunate for me that I have the privilege to travel on in life so near to so trustworthy a man I am grateful for it use me as your right hand and rely upon me to the death don't think the worst of me if I protest to you that my uppermost feeling at present is a confused you may call it an unreasonable one I feel far more pity for the lady and for you because you did not stand in your supposed relations than I can feel for the unknown man if he ever became a man because he was unconsciously displaced you have done well in sending for Mr. Bintree what I think may be a part of his advice I know is the whole of mine do not move a step in this serious matter precipitately the secret must be kept among us with great strictness for to part with it lightly would be to invite fraudulent claims to encourage a host of naves to let loose a flood of perjury and plotting I have no more to say now Walter than to remind you that you sold me a share in your business expressly to save yourself from more work than your present health is fit for and that I bought it expressly to do work and I mean to do it with these words and a parting grip on his partner's shoulder that gave them the best emphasis they could have had George Vendale betook himself to the counting-house and presently afterwards to the address of Mr. Jules Obenreiser as he turned into Soho Square and directed his steps towards its north side a deepening colour shot across his sun-brown face which, wilding if he had been a better observer or had been less occupied with his own trouble might have noticed when his partner read aloud a certain passage which he had not read so distinctly as the rest A curious colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed within that small flat London district of Soho Swiss watchmakers Swiss silver chasers Swiss jewelers Swiss importers of Swiss musical boxes and Swiss toys of various kinds draw close together there Swiss professors of music, painting and languages Swiss artifices in steady work Swiss couriers and other Swiss servants chronically out of place Industrial Swiss laundresses and clear starches mysteriously exciting Swiss of both sexes Swiss creditable and Swiss discreditable Swiss to be trusted by all means and Swiss to be trusted by all means These diverse Swiss particles are attracted to a centre in the district of Soho Shabby Swiss eating houses coffee houses and lodging houses Swiss drinks and dishes Swiss service for Sundays and Swiss schools for weekdays all are to be found there Even the native born English taverns drive a sort of broken English trade announcing in their windows and sheltering in their bars Swiss skirmishes of love and animosity on most nights of the year When the new partner in Wildingen Co. rang the bell of a door bearing the blunt inscription Obenreise on a brass plate the inner door of a substantial house whose ground story was devoted to the sale of Swiss clocks he passed at once into domestic Switzerland a white tiled stove for wintertime filled the fireplace of the room into which he was shown the room's bare floor was laid together in a neat pattern of several ordinary woods the room had a prevalent air of surface bareness and much scrubbing and the little square of flowery carpet by the sofa and the velvet chimney board with its capacious clock and vases of artificial flowers contended with that tone as if in bringing out the whole effect a Parisian had adapted a dairy to domestic purposes Mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the clock the visitor had not stood before it following it with his eyes a minute when Messier Obenreise at his elbow startled him by saying in very good English very slightly clipped how do you do so glad I beg your pardon I did not hear you come in not at all sit please releasing his visitors two arms which he had lightly pinioned at the elbows by way of embrace Messier Obenreise also sat remarking with a smile you are well so glad and touching his elbows again I don't know said Vendale after exchange of salutations whether you may yet have heard of me from your house at Neuchâtel aha yes in connection with Wilding & Co. ah surely is it not odd that I should come to you in London here as one of the firm of Wilding & Co. to pay the firm's respects not at all what did I always observe when we were on the mountains we call them vast but the world is so little so little is the world that one cannot keep away from persons there are so few persons in the world that they continually cross and recross so very little is the world that one cannot get rid of a person not touching his elbows again with an ingratiatory smile that one would desire to get rid of you I hope not Messier Obenreise please call me in your country Mister I call myself so for I love your country if I could be English but I am born and you though descended from so fine a family you have had the condescension to come into trade stop though wines is it trade in England or profession not fine art Mister Obenreise returned Vendale for the countenance I was but a silly young fellow just of age when I first had the pleasure of travelling with you and when you and I and Madam Moselle your niece who is well thank you who is well shared some slight glacier dangers together if with a boys vanity I rather vaunted my family I hope I did so as a kind of introduction of myself it was very weak and in very bad taste but perhaps you know our English proverb live and learn you make too much of it returned the Swiss and what the devil after all yours was a fine family George Vendale's laugh betrayed a little vexation as he rejoined well I was strongly attached to my parents and when we first travelled together Mister Obenreise I was in the first flush of coming into what my father and mother left me so I hope it may have been after all mere youthful openness of speech and heart than boastfulness all openness of speech and heart no boastfulness cried Obenreise you tax yourself too heavily you tax yourself my faith as if you was your government taxing you beside it commenced with me I remember that evening in the boat upon the lake floating among the reflections of the mountains and valleys the crags and pine woods which were my earliest remembrance I drew a word picture of my sordid childhood of our poor hut by the waterfall which my mother showed to travellers of the cow shed where I slept with the cow for always sitting at the door or limping down the pass to beg of my half-sister always spinning and resting her enormous goiter on a great stone of my being a famished naked little wretch of two or three years when there were men and women with hard hands to beat me I the only child of my father's second marriage if it even was a marriage what more natural than for you to compare notes with me and say we are as one by age at the same time I sat upon my mother's lap in my father's carriage rolling through the rich English streets or luxury surrounding me all squalid poverty kept far from me such is my earliest remembrance as opposed to yours Mr. Obenriser was a black-haired young man of a dark complexion no red glow ever shone when colour would have come into another cheek a hardly discernable beat would come into his as if the machinery for bringing up the ardent blood were there but the machinery were dry he was robustly made well proportioned and had handsome features many would have perceived that some surface change in him would have set them more at their ease with him without being able to define what change if his lips could have been made much thicker and his neck much thinner they would have found their want supplied but the great Obenriser peculiarity was that a certain nameless film would come over his eyes apparently by the action of his own will which would impenetrably veil not only from those tellers of tales but from his face at large every expression save one of attention it by no means followed that his attention should be wholly given to the person with whom he spoke or even wholly bestowed on present sounds and objects rather it was a comprehensive watchfulness of everything he had in his own mind and everything that he knew to be or suspected to be in the minds of other men at this stage of the conversation Mr Obenriser's film came over him the object of my present visit said Vendale is, I need hardly say to assure you of the friendliness of Wilding and Co and of the goodness of your credit with us and of our desire to be of service to you we hope shortly to offer you our hospitality things are not quite in train with us yet our partner Mr Wilding is reorganising the domestic part of our establishment and is interrupted by some private affairs you don't know Mr Wilding I believe Mr Obenriser did not you must come together soon he will be glad to have made your acquaintance and I think I may predict that you will be glad to have made his you have not been long established in London I suppose Mr Obenriser it is only now that I have undertaken this agency mademoiselle your niece is not married not married George Vendale glanced about him as if for any tokens of her she has been in London she is in London when and where might I have the honour of recalling myself to her remembrance Mr Obenriser discarding his film and touching his visitors elbows as before said lightly come upstairs fluttered enough by the suddenness with which the interview he had sought was coming upon him after all George Vendale followed upstairs in a room over the chamber he had just quitted a room also Swiss appointed a young lady sat near one of three windows working at an embroidery frame and an older lady sat with her face and closed to another white tiled stove though it was summer and the stove was not lighted cleaning gloves the young lady were an unusual quantity of fair bright hair very prettily braided about a rather rounder white forehead than the average English type so that her face might have been a shade or say a light rounder than the average English face and her figure slightly rounder than the figure of the average English girl at nineteen a remarkable indication of freedom and grace of limb in her quiet attitude and a wonderful purity and freshness of colour in her dimpled face and bright grey eyes seemed fraught with mountaineer Switzerland too though the general fashion of her dress was English peeped out of the fanciful bodies she wore and lurked in the curious clocked red stocking and in its little silver buckled shoe as to the elder lady sitting with her feet apart upon the lower brass ledge of the stove supporting a lap full of gloves while she cleaned one stretched on her left hand she was a true Swiss impersonation of another kind from the breadth of her cushion-like back and the ponderosity of her respectable legs if the word be admissible to the black velvet band tied tightly round her throat for the repression of a rising tendency to goiter or higher still to her great copper-coloured gold earrings or higher still to her head-dress of black gauze stretched on wire Miss Marguerite said open riser to the young lady do you recollect this gentleman I think she answered rising from her seat surprised and a little confused it is Mr. Wendell I think it is said open riser dryly permit me Mr. Wendell Madame Dore the elder lady by the stove with the glove stretched on her left hand like a glover's sign half got up half looked over her broad shoulder and wholly plumped down again and rubbed away Madame Dore said open riser smiling is so kind as to keep me free from stain or tear she humours my weakness for always being neat and devotes her time to removing every one of my specs and spots Madame Dore with the stretched glove in the air and her eyes closely scrutinising its palm discovered a tough spot in Mr. Open Riser at that instant and rubbed hard at him George Wendell took his seat by the embroidery frame having first taken the fair right hand that his entrance had checked and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the bodice with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached his shrine at last Open Riser stood in the middle of the room with his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and became fill me he was saying downstairs Miss Open Riser observed Wendell that the world is so smaller place that people cannot escape one another I have found it much too large for me since I saw you last have you travelled so far then she inquired not so far for I have only gone back to Switzerland each year but I could have wished and indeed I have wished very often that the little world did not afford such opportunities for long escapes as it does if it had been less I might have found my fellow traveller sooner you know the pretty margarite coloured and very slightly glanced in the direction of Madame Dore you find us at length Mr. Wendell perhaps you may lose us again I trust not the curious coincidence that has enabled me to find you encourages me to hope not what is that coincidence say if you please a dainty little native touch in this turn of speech and in its tone made it perfectly captivating thought George Wendell when again he noticed an instantaneous glance towards Madame Dore caution seemed to be conveyed in it rapid flash though it was so he quietly took heed of Madame Dore from that time forth it is that I happen to have become a partner in a house of business in London to which Mr. Obenriser happens this very day to be expressly recommended and that too by another house of business in Switzerland in which as it turns out we both have a commercial interest he has not told you ah cried Obenriser striking in filmless no I had not told Miss Margarite the world is so small and so monotonous that a surprise is worth having in such a little trot place it is as he tells you Miss Margarite he of so finer family and so proudly bred has condescended to trade to trade like us poor peasants who have risen from ditches a cloud crept over the fair brow and she cast down her eyes why it is good for trade pursued Obenriser enthusiastically it ennobles trade it is the misfortune of trade it is its vulgarity that any low people for example we poor peasants may take to it and climb by it see you my dear Vendale he spoke with great energy the father of Miss Margarite my eldest half brother more than two times your age or mine if living now wandered without shoes almost without rags from that wretched pass wandered got to be fed with the mules and dogs add an inn in the main valley far away got to be boy there got to be Ostler got to be waiter, got to be cook got to be landlord as landlord he took me could he take the idiot beggar his brother or the spinning monstrosity his sister to put as pupil to the famous watchmaker his neighbour and friend his wife dies all for Margarite is born what is his will and what are his words to me when he dies she being between girl and woman all for Margarite except so much by the year for you you are young but I must make her your ward for you were of the obscure and poorest peasantry and so was I and so was her mother we were abject peasants all and you will remember it the thing is equally true of most of my country men now in trade in this London quarter of Soho peasants once low born drudging Swiss peasants then how good and great for trade here from having been warm he became playfully jubilant and touched the young wine merchant's elbows again with his light embrace to be exalted by gentlemen I do not think so said Margarite with a flushed cheek and a look away from the visitor that was almost defiant I think it is as much exalted by us peasants fi fi said open riser you speak in proud England I speak in proud Ernest she answered quietly resuming her work and I am not English this peasants' daughter there was a dismissal of the subject in her words which Vendale could not contend against he only said in an Ernest manner I most heartily agree with you miss open riser and I have already said so as Mr. open riser will bear witness which he by no means did in this house now Vendale's eyes were quick eyes and sharply watching madam door by times noted something in the broad back view of that lady there was a considerable pantomimic expression in her glove cleaning it had been very softly done when he spoke with Margarite or it had altogether stopped like the action of a listener when open riser's peasant speech came to an end she rubbed most vigorously as if applauding it and once or twice as the glove held before her a little above her face turned in the air or as this finger went down or that went up he even fancied that it made some telegraphic communication to open riser whose back was certainly never turned upon it though he did not seem at all to heed it Vendale observed too that in Margarite's dismissal of the subject twice forced upon him to his misrepresentation there was an indignant treatment of her guardian which she tried to check as though she would have flamed out against him but for the influence of fear he had observed though this was not much that he never advanced within the distance of her at which he first placed himself as though there were limits fixed between them neither had he ever spoken of her without the prefix miss it was with the faintest trace of an air of mockery and now it occurred to Vendale for the first time that something curious in the man which he had never before been able to define was definable as a certain subtle essence of mockery that eluded touch or analysis he felt convinced that Margarite was in some sort a prisoner as to her free will though she held her own against those two combined by the force of her character which was nevertheless inadequate to her release to feel convinced of this was not to feel less disposed to love her than he had always been in a word he was desperately in love with her and thoroughly determined to pursue the opportunity which had opened at last for the present he merely touched upon the pleasure that Wilding and Coe would soon have in entreating Miss Obenriser to honour their establishment with her presence a curious old place though a bachelor house with all and so did not protract his visit beyond such a visit's ordinary length going downstairs conducted by his host he found the Obenriser counting-house at the back of the entrance-hall and several shabby men in outlandish garments hanging about whom Obenriser put aside that he might pass with a few words in patois countrymen he explained as he attended Vendale to the door poor compatriots grateful and attached like dogs goodbye to meet again so glad two more light touches on his elbows dismissed him into the street sweet margarite at her frame and Madame Dors broad back at her telegraph floated before him to cripple corner on his arrival there wilding was closeted with bintry the cellar doors happening to be open Vendale lighted a candle in a cleft stick and went down for a cellar a stroll graceful margarite floated before him faithfully but Madame Dors broad back remained outside the vaults were very spacious and very old there had been a stone crypt down there when bygones were not bygones some said part of a monkish refractory some said of a chapel some said of a pagan temple it was all one now let who would make what he liked of a crumpled pillar and a broken arch or so old time had made what he liked of it and was quite indifferent to contradiction the close air the musty smell and the thunderous rumbling in the streets above as being out of the routine of ordinary life went well enough with the picture of pretty margarite holding her own against those two so Vendale went on until at a turning in the vaults he saw a light like the light he carried oh you are here are you Joey or rather to go oh you are here are you master George for it's my business to be here but it ain't your don't grumble Joey oh I don't grumble return this element if anything grumbles it's what I've took in through the pores it ain't me have a care as something in you don't begin a grumbling master George stop here long enough for the wapers to work and they'll be at it his present occupation assisted a poking his head into the bins making measurements and mental calculations and entering them into a rhinoceros hired looking notebook like a piece of himself they'll be at it he resumed laying the wooden rod that he measured with across two casks entering his last calculation and straightening his back trust him and so you regularly come into business master George regularly I hope you don't object Joey I don't bless you but wapers objects that you're too young you're both on you too young we shall get over that objection day by day Joey I master George but I shall day by day get over the objection that I'm too old and so I shan't be capable much improvement in you this retort so tickled Joey ladle that he grunted forth a laugh and delivered it again grunting forth another laugh after the second edition of improvement in you but what's no laughing matter master George he resumed straightening his back once more is that young master Wilding has gone and changed the luck mark my words he has changed the luck and he'll find it out I ain't been down here all my life for nothing I know by what I notice is down here when it's a going to rain and when it's a going to hold up when it's a going to blow when it's a going to be calm I know by what I notice is down here when the luck's changed quite as well has this growth on the roof anything to do with your divination holding his light towards a gloomy ragged growth of dark fungus pendant from the arches with a very disagreeable and repellent effect we are famous for this growth in this vault aren't we we are master George replied Joey ladle moving a step or two away and if you'll be advised by me you'll let it alone taking up the rod just now laid across the two casks and faintly moving the languid fungus with it Vendale asked I indeed why so why not so much because it rises from the casks of wine and may leave you to judge what sort of stuff a sellem and takes into himself when he walks in the same all the days of his life nor yet so much because at a stage of its growth its maggots will fetch him down upon you return Joey ladle still keeping away as for another reason master George what other reason I wouldn't keep touching it if I was you sir I'll tell you if you come out of the place first take a look at its colour master George I am doing so done sir now come out of the place take away with his light and Vendale followed with his when Vendale came up with him and they were going back together Vendale eyeing him as they walked through the arches said well Joey the colour is it like clotted blood master George like enough perhaps more than enough I think matter Joey ladle shaking his head solemnly well say it is like say it's exactly like master George they do say who how should I know we joined this element apparently much exasperated by the unreasonable nature of the question them them has said pretty well everything you know how should I know who they are if you don't true go on they do say that the man that gets by any accident the peace of that dark growth right upon his breast will for sure and certain die by murder as Vendale laughingly stopped to meet the Salomon's eyes which he had fastened on his light while dreamily saying those words he suddenly became conscious of being struck upon his own breast by a heavy hand instantly following with his eyes the action of the hand that struck him which was his companions he saw that it had beaten off his breast a web or clot of the fungus even then floating to the ground for a moment he turned upon the Salomon almost as scared a look as the Salomon turned upon him but in another moment they had reached the daylight by the foot of the cellar steps and before he cheerfully sprang up them he blew out his candle and the superstition together end of act one scene four recording by Alan Chant of Tumbridge Kent, England