Mrs. Lirriper’s
Lodgings
by
Charles Dickens
CHAPTER I
HOW MRS. LIRRIPER
CARRIED ON THE BUSINESS
HOEVER WOULD BEGIN to be worried with letting
Lodgings that wasn’t a lone woman with a liv
ing to get is a thing inconceivable to me, my
dear; excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to me in
my own little room, when wishing to open my mind to
those that I can trust, and I should be truly thankful if
they were all mankind, but such is not so, for have but a
Furnished bill in the window and your watch on the man-
telpiece, and farewell to it if you turn your back for but a
second, however gentlemanly the manners; nor is being of
your own sex any safeguard, as I have reason, in the form
of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a fine woman
she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the plea of
going to be confined, which certainly turned out true,
but it was in the Station-house.
Number Eighty-one Norfolk Street, Strand—situated mid-
way between the City and St. James’s, and within five
minutes’ walk of the principal places of public amuse-
ment—is my address. I have rented this house many years,
as the parish rate-books will testify; and I could wish my
landlord was as alive to the fact as I am myself; but no,
bless you, not a half a pound of paint to save his life, nor
so much, my dear, as a tile upon the roof, though on your
bended knees.
My dear, you never have found Number Eighty-one Nor-
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
folk Street Strand advertised in Bradshaw’s Railway Guide,
and with the blessing of Heaven you never will or shall so
find it. Some there are who do not think it lowering them-
selves to make their names that cheap, and even going
the lengths of a portrait of the house not like it with a
blot in every window and a coach and four at the door,
but what will suit Wozenham’s lower down on the other
side of the way will not suit me, Miss Wozenham having
her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes
to systematic underbidding capable of being proved on
oath in a court of justice and taking the form of “If Mrs.
Lirriper names eighteen shillings a week, I name fifteen
and six,” it then comes to a settlement between yourself
and your conscience, supposing for the sake of argument
your name to be Wozenham, which I am well aware it is
not or my opinion of you would be greatly lowered, and as
to airy bedrooms and a night-porter in constant atten-
dance the less said the better, the bedrooms being stuffy
and the porter stuff.
It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got
married at St. Clement’s Danes, where I now have a sitting
in a very pleasant pew with genteel company and my own
hassock, and being partial to evening service not too
crowded. My poor Lirriper was a handsome figure of a man,
with a beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical
instrument made of honey and steel, but he had ever been
a free liver being in the commercial travelling line and trav-
elling what he called a limekiln road—”a dry road, Emma
my dear,” my poor Lirriper says to me, “where I have to lay
the dust with one drink or another all day long and half the
night, and it wears me Emma”—and this led to his running
through a good deal and might have run through the turn-
pike too when that dreadful horse that never would stand
still for a single instant set off, but for its being night and
the gate shut and consequently took his wheel, my poor
Lirriper and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke
afterwards. He was a handsome figure of a man, and a man
with a jovial heart and a sweet temper; but if they had
come up then they never could have given you the mellow-
ness of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs want-
ing in mellowness as a general rule and making you look like
a new-ploughed field.
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My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and
being buried at Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that
it was his native place but that he had a liking for the
Salisbury Arms where we went upon our wedding-day and
passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I went
round to the creditors and I says “Gentlemen I am ac-
quainted with the fact that I am not answerable for my
late husband’s debts but I wish to pay them for I am his
lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I am going
into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper
every farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid
for the sake of the love I bore him, by this right hand.” It
took a long time to do but it was done, and the silver
cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed and
the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found
legs so sure as ever the Furnished bill was up) being pre-
sented by the gentlemen engraved “To Mrs. Lirriper a mark
of grateful respect for her honourable conduct” gave me a
turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley
which at that time had the parlours and loved his joke
says “Cheer up Mrs. Lirriper, you should feel as if it was
only your christening and they were your godfathers and
godmothers which did promise for you.” And it brought
me round, and I don’t mind confessing to you my dear
that I then put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little
basket and went down to Hatfield church-yard outside
the coach and kissed my hand and laid it with a kind of
proud and swelling love on my husband’s grave, though
bless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that
my wedding-ring was worn quite fine and smooth when I
laid it on the green green waving grass.
I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone
but that’s me my dear over the plate-warmer and consid-
ered like in the times when you used to pay two guineas
on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came
out, which made you very careful how you left it about
afterwards because people were turned so red and uncom-
fortable by mostly guessing it was somebody else quite
different, and there was once a certain person that had
put his money in a hop business that came in one morn-
ing to pay his rent and his respects being the second floor
that would have taken it down from its hook and put it in
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
his breast-pocket—you understand my dear—for the L,
he says of the original—only there was no mellowness in
HIS voice and I wouldn’t let him, but his opinion of it you
may gather from his saying to it “Speak to me Emma!”
which was far from a rational observation no doubt but
still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I think myself it
was like me when I was young and wore that sort of stays.
But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to
hold forth and certainly I ought to know something of
the business having been in it so long, for it was early in
the second year of my married life that I lost my poor
Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards and
afterwards came here, being two houses and eight-and-
thirty years and some losses and a deal of experience.
Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you
even worse than what I call the Wandering Christians,
though why THEY should roam the earth looking for bills
and then coming in and viewing the apartments and stick-
ling about terms and never at all wanting them or dream-
ing of taking them being already provided, is, a mystery I
should be thankful to have explained if by any miracle it
could be. It’s wonderful they live so long and thrive so on
it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy, knocking
so much and going from house to house and up and down-
stairs all day, and then their pretending to be so particu-
lar and punctual is a most astonishing thing, looking at
their watches and saying “Could you give me the refusal
of the rooms till twenty minutes past eleven the day after
to-morrow in the forenoon, and supposing it to be con-
sidered essential by my friend from the country could there
be a small iron bedstead put in the little room upon the
stairs?” Why when I was new to it my dear I used to
consider before I promised and to make my mind anxious
with calculations and to get quite wearied out with dis-
appointments, but now I says “Certainly by all means”
well knowing it’s a Wandering Christian and I shall hear no
more about it, indeed by this time I know most of the
Wandering Christians by sight as well as they know me, it
being the habit of each individual revolving round London
in that capacity to come back about twice a year, and it’s
very remarkable that it runs in families and the children
grow up to it, but even were it otherwise I should no
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sooner hear of the friend from the country which is a
certain sign than I should nod and say to myself You’re a
Wandering Christian, though whether they are (as I HAVE
heard) persons of small property with a taste for regular
employment and frequent change of scene I cannot un-
dertake to tell you.
Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first
and your lasting troubles, being like your teeth which
begin with convulsions and never cease tormenting you
from the time you cut them till they cut you, and then
you don’t want to part with them which seems hard but
we must all succumb or buy artificial, and even where you
get a will nine times out of ten you’ll get a dirty face with
it and naturally lodgers do not like good society to be
shown in with a smear of black across the nose or a smudgy
eyebrow. Where they pick the black up is a mystery I
cannot solve, as in the case of the willingest girl that ever
came into a house half-starved poor thing, a girl so will-
ing that I called her Willing Sophy down upon her knees
scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but always smil-
ing with a black face. And I says to Sophy, “Now Sophy
my good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep
the width of the Airy between yourself and the blacking
and do not brush your hair with the bottoms of the sauce-
pans and do not meddle with the snuffs of the candles
and it stands to reason that it can no longer be” yet there
it was and always on her nose, which turning up and being
broad at the end seemed to boast of it and caused warn-
ing from a steady gentleman and excellent lodger with
breakfast by the week but a little irritable and use of a
sitting-room when required, his words being “Mrs. Lirriper
I have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is
a man and a brother, but only in a natural form and when
it can’t be got off.” Well consequently I put poor Sophy
on to other work and forbid her answering the door or
answering a bell on any account but she was so unfortu-
nately willing that nothing would stop her flying up the
kitchen-stairs whenever a bell was heard to tingle. I put it
to her “O Sophy Sophy for goodness’ goodness’ sake where
does it come from?” To which that poor unlucky willing
mortal—bursting out crying to see me so vexed replied “I
took a deal of black into me ma’am when I was a small
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
child being much neglected and I think it must be, that it
works out,” so it continuing to work out of that poor
thing and not having another fault to find with her I says
“Sophy what do you seriously think of my helping you
away to New South Wales where it might not be noticed?”
Nor did I ever repent the money which was well spent, for
she married the ship’s cook on the voyage (himself a
Mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and so far as ever
I heard it was not noticed in a new state of society to her
dying day.
In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other
side of the way reconciled it to her feelings as a lady
(which she is not) to entice Mary Anne Perkinsop from my
service is best known to herself, I do not know and I do
not wish to know how opinions are formed at Wozenham’s
on any point. But Mary Anne Perkinsop although I be-
haved handsomely to her and she behaved unhandsomely
to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing lodgers
without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more
sparing of their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew
them to be with Maid or Mistress, which is a great tri-
umph especially when accompanied with a cast in the eye
and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her way
with them through her father’s having failed in Pork. It
was Mary Anne’s looking so respectable in her person and
being so strict in her spirits that conquered the tea-and-
sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both in a pair
of scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with
and no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round
to me that Miss Wozenham happening to pass and seeing
Mary Anne take in the milk of a milkman that made free in
a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) with every girl
in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at
Charing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne’s value in the lodging
business and went as high as one pound per quarter more,
consequently Mary Anne with not a word betwixt us says
“If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in a month from
this day I have already done the same,” which hurt me and
I said so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that
her father having failed in Pork had laid her open to it.
My dear I do assure you it’s a harassing thing to know
what kind of girls to give the preference to, for if they are
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Charles Dickens
lively they get bell’d off their legs and if they are sluggish
you suffer from it yourself in complaints and if they are
sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if they are
smart in their persons they try on your Lodgers’ bonnets
and if they are musical I defy you to keep them away from
bands and organs, and allowing for any difference you like
in their heads their heads will be always out of window
just the same. And then what the gentlemen like in girls
the ladies don’t, which is fruitful hot water for all parties,
and then there’s temper though such a temper as Caroline
Maxey’s I hope not often. A good-looking black-eyed girl
was Caroline and a comely-made girl to your cost when
she did break out and laid about her, as took place first
and last through a new-married couple come to see Lon-
don in the first floor and the lady very high and it was
supposed not liking the good looks of Caroline having
none of her own to spare, but anyhow she did try Caroline
though that was no excuse. So one afternoon Caroline
comes down into the kitchen flushed and flashing, and
she says to me “Mrs. Lirriper that woman in the first has
aggravated me past bearing,” I says “Caroline keep your
temper,” Caroline says with a curdling laugh “Keep my
temper? You’re right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will. Capital D her!”
bursts out Caroline (you might have struck me into the
centre of the earth with a feather when she said it) “I’ll
give her a touch of the temper that I keep!” Caroline
downs with her hair my dear, screeches and rushes up-
stairs, I following as fast as my trembling legs could bear
me, but before I got into the room the dinner-cloth and
pink-and-white service all dragged off upon the floor with
a crash and the new-married couple on their backs in the
firegrate, him with the shovel and tongs and a dish of
cucumber across him and a mercy it was summer-time.
“Caroline” I says “be calm,” but she catches off my cap
and tears it in her teeth as she passes me, then pounces
on the new-married lady makes her a bundle of ribbons
takes her by the two ears and knocks the back of her head
upon the carpet Murder screaming all the time Policemen
running down the street and Wozenham’s windows (judge
of my feelings when I came to know it) thrown up and
Miss Wozenham calling out from the balcony with
crocodile’s tears “It’s Mrs. Lirriper been overcharging some-
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
body to madness—she’ll be murdered—I always thought
so—Pleeseman save her!” My dear four of them and Caroline
behind the chiffoniere attacking with the poker and when
disarmed prize-fighting with her double fists, and down
and up and up and down and dreadful! But I couldn’t bear
to see the poor young creature roughly handled and her
hair torn when they got the better of her, and I says
“Gentlemen Policemen pray remember that her sex is the
sex of your mothers and sisters and your sweethearts, and
God bless them and you!” And there she was sitting down
on the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the skirt-
ing-board and them cool with their coats in strips, and all
she says was “Mrs. Lirriper I’m sorry as ever I touched
you, for you’re a kind motherly old thing,” and it made
me think that I had often wished I had been a mother
indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the
mother of that girl! Well you know it turned out at the
Police-office that she had done it before, and she had her
clothes away and was sent to prison, and when she was to
come out I trotted off to the gate in the evening with
just a morsel of jelly in that little basket of mine to give
her a mite of strength to face the world again, and there
I met with a very decent mother waiting for her son through
bad company and a stubborn one he was with his half-
boots not laced. So out came Caroline and I says “Caroline
come along with me and sit down under the wall where
it’s retired and eat a little trifle that I have brought with
me to do you good,” and she throws her arms round my
neck and says sobbing “O why were you never a mother
when there are such mothers as there are!” she says, and
in half a minute more she begins to laugh and says “Did I
really tear your cap to shreds?” and when I told her “You
certainly did so Caroline” she laughed again and said while
she patted my face “Then why do you wear such queer old
caps you dear old thing? if you hadn’t worn such queer
old caps I don’t think I should have done it even then.”
Fancy the girl! Nothing could get out of her what she was
going to do except O she would do well enough, and we
parted she being very thankful and kissing my hands, and
I nevermore saw or heard of that girl, except that I shall
always believe that a very genteel cap which was brought
anonymous to me one Saturday night in an oilskin basket
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by a most impertinent young sparrow of a monkey whis-
tling with dirty shoes on the clean steps and playing the
harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick came from
Caroline.
What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of
being the object of uncharitable suspicions when you go
into the Lodging business I have not the words to tell
you, but never was I so dishonourable as to have two keys
nor would I willingly think it even of Miss Wozenham
lower down on the other side of the way sincerely hoping
that it may not be, though doubtless at the same time
money cannot come from nowhere and it is not reason to
suppose that Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it
may. It IS a hardship hurting to the feelings that Lodgers
open their minds so wide to the idea that you are trying
to get the better of them and shut their minds so close to
the idea that they are trying to get the better of you, but
as Major Jackman says to me, “I know the ways of this
circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that’s one of ‘em all round
it” and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major
has smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much.
Dear dear, thirteen years have passed though it seems but
yesterday since I was sitting with my glasses on at the
open front parlour window one evening in August (the
parlours being then vacant) reading yesterday’s paper my
eyes for print being poor though still I am thankful to say
a long sight at a distance, when I hear a gentleman come
posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful
rage talking to himself in a fury and d’ing and c’ing some-
body. “By George!” says he out loud and clutching his
walking-stick, “I’ll go to Mrs. Lirriper’s. Which is Mrs.
Lirriper’s?” Then looking round and seeing me he flour-
ishes his hat right off his head as if I had been the queen
and he says, “Excuse the intrusion Madam, but pray Madam
can you tell me at what number in this street there re-
sides a well-known and much-respected lady by the name
of Lirriper?” A little flustered though I must say gratified
I took off my glasses and courtesied and said “Sir, Mrs.
Lirriper is your humble servant.” “Astonishing!” says he.
“A million pardons! Madam, may I ask you to have the
kindness to direct one of your domestics to open the door
to a gentleman in search of apartments, by the name of
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
Jackman?” I had never heard the name but a politer gentle-
man I never hope to see, for says he, “Madam I am shocked
at your opening the door yourself to no worthier a fellow
than Jemmy Jackman. After you Madam. I never precede
a lady.” Then he comes into the parlours and he sniffs,
and he says “Hah! These are parlours! Not musty cup-
boards” he says “but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks.”
Now my dear it having been remarked by some inimical to
the whole neighbourhood that it always smells of coal-
sacks which might prove a drawback to Lodgers if encour-
aged, I says to the Major gently though firmly that I
think he is referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but
not Norfolk. “Madam” says he “I refer to Wozenham’s lower
down over the way—Madam you can form no notion what
Wozenham’s is—Madam it is a vast coal-sack, and Miss
Wozenham has the principles and manners of a female
heaver—Madam from the manner in which I have heard
her mention you I know she has no appreciation of a lady,
and from the manner in which she has conducted herself
towards me I know she has no appreciation of a gentle-
man—Madam my name is Jackman—should you require
any other reference than what I have already said, I name
the Bank of England—perhaps you know it!” Such was the
beginning of the Major’s occupying the parlours and from
that hour to this the same and a most obliging Lodger
and punctual in all respects except one irregular which I
need not particularly specify, but made up for by his be-
ing a protection and at all times ready to fill in the papers
of the Assessed Taxes and Juries and that, and once col-
lared a young man with the drawing-room clock under his
coat, and once on the parapets with his own hands and
blankets put out the kitchen chimney and afterwards at-
tending the summons made a most eloquent speech against
the Parish before the magistrates and saved the engine,
and ever quite the gentleman though passionate. And cer-
tainly Miss Wozenham’s detaining the trunks and umbrella
was not in a liberal spirit though it may have been ac-
cording to her rights in law or an act I would myself have
stooped to, the Major being so much the gentleman that
though he is far from tall he seems almost so when he has
his shirt-frill out and his frock-coat on and his hat with
the curly brims, and in what service he was I cannot truly
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tell you my dear whether Militia or Foreign, for I never
heard him even name himself as Major but always simple
“Jemmy Jackman” and once soon after he came when I
felt it my duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had
put it about that he was no Major and I took the liberty
of adding “which you are sir” his words were “Madam at
any rate I am not a Minor, and sufficient for the day is the
evil thereof” which cannot be denied to be the sacred
truth, nor yet his military ways of having his boots with
only the dirt brushed off taken to him in the front parlour
every morning on a clean plate and varnishing them him-
self with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle in a
whisper so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat
his ways that it never soils his linen which is scrupulous
though more in quality than quantity, neither that nor his
mustachios which to the best of my belief are done at the
same time and which are as black and shining as his boots,
his head of hair being a lovely white.
It was the third year nearly up of the Major’s being in
the parlours that early one morning in the month of Feb-
ruary when Parliament was coming on and you may there-
fore suppose a number of impostors were about ready to
take hold of anything they could get, a gentleman and a
lady from the country came in to view the Second, and I
well remember that I had been looking out of window and
had watched them and the heavy sleet driving down the
street together looking for bills. I did not quite take to
the face of the gentleman though he was good-looking
too but the lady was a very pretty young thing and deli-
cate, and it seemed too rough for her to be out at all
though she had only come from the Adelphi Hotel which
would not have been much above a quarter of a mile if
the weather had been less severe. Now it did so happen
my dear that I had been forced to put five shillings weekly
additional on the second in consequence of a loss from
running away full dressed as if going out to a dinner-
party, which was very artful and had made me rather sus-
picious taking it along with Parliament, so when the gentle-
man proposed three months certain and the money in
advance and leave then reserved to renew on the same
terms for six months more, I says I was not quite certain
but that I might have engaged myself to another party
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
but would step down-stairs and look into it if they would
take a seat. They took a seat and I went down to the
handle of the Major’s door that I had already began to
consult finding it a great blessing, and I knew by his
whistling in a whisper that he was varnishing his boots
which was generally considered private, however he kindly
calls out “If it’s you, Madam, come in,” and I went in and
told him.
“Well, Madam,” says the Major rubbing his nose—as I
did fear at the moment with the black sponge but it was
only his knuckle, he being always neat and dexterous with
his fingers—”well, Madam, I suppose you would be glad
of the money?”
I was delicate of saying “Yes” too out, for a little extra
colour rose into the Major’s cheeks and there was irregu-
larity which I will not particularly specify in a quarter
which I will not name.
“I am of opinion, Madam,” says the Major, “that when
money is ready for you—when it is ready for you, Mrs.
Lirriper—you ought to take it. What is there against it,
Madam, in this case up-stairs?”
“I really cannot say there is anything against it, sir, still
I thought I would consult you.”
“You said a newly-married couple, I think, Madam?”
says the Major.
I says “Ye-es. Evidently. And indeed the young lady
mentioned to me in a casual way that she had not been
married many months.”
The Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish
round and round in its little saucer with his piece of sponge
and took to his whistling in a whisper for a few moments.
Then he says “You would call it a Good Let, Madam?”
“O certainly a Good Let sir.”
“Say they renew for the additional six months. Would it
put you about very much Madam if—if the worst was to
come to the worst?” said the Major.
“Well I hardly know,” I says to the Major. “It depends
upon circumstances. Would YOU object Sir for instance?”
“I?” says the Major. “Object? Jemmy Jackman? Mrs.
Lirriper close with the proposal.”
So I went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in
next day which was Saturday and the Major was so good
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as to draw up a Memorandum of an agreement in a beau-
tiful round hand and expressions that sounded to me equally
legal and military, and Mr. Edson signed it on the Monday
morning and the Major called upon Mr. Edson on the Tues-
day and Mr. Edson called upon the Major on the Wednes-
day and the Second and the parlours were as friendly as
could be wished.
The three months paid for had run out and we had got
without any fresh overtures as to payment into May my
dear, when there came an obligation upon Mr. Edson to go
a business expedition right across the Isle of Man, which
fell quite unexpected upon that pretty little thing and is
not a place that according to my views is particularly in
the way to anywhere at any time but that may be a mat-
ter of opinion. So short a notice was it that he was to go
next day, and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and I am
sure I cried too when I saw her on the cold pavement in
the sharp east wind—it being a very backward spring that
year—taking a last leave of him with her pretty bright
hair blowing this way and that and her arms clinging round
his neck and him saying “There there there. Now let me go
Peggy.” And by that time it was plain that what the Major
had been so accommodating as to say he would not ob-
ject to happening in the house, would happen in it, and I
told her as much when he was gone while I comforted her
with my arm up the staircase, for I says “You will soon
have others to keep up for my pretty and you must think
of that.”
His letter never came when it ought to have come and
what she went through morning after morning when the
postman brought none for her the very postman himself
compassionated when she ran down to the door, and yet
we cannot wonder at its being calculated to blunt the
feelings to have all the trouble of other people’s letters
and none of the pleasure and doing it oftener in the mud
and mizzle than not and at a rate of wages more resem-
bling Little Britain than Great. But at last one morning
when she was too poorly to come running down-stairs he
says to me with a pleased look in his face that made me
next to love the man in his uniform coat though he was
dripping wet “I have taken you first in the street this
morning Mrs. Lirriper, for here’s the one for Mrs. Edson.” I
16
Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
went up to her bedroom with it as fast as ever I could go,
and she sat up in bed when she saw it and kissed it and tore
it open and then a blank stare came upon her. “It’s very
short!” she says lifting her large eyes to my face. “O Mrs.
Lirriper it’s very short!” I says “My dear Mrs. Edson no doubt
that’s because your husband hadn’t time to write more just
at that time.” “No doubt, no doubt,” says she, and puts her
two hands on her face and turns round in her bed.
I shut her softly in and I crept down-stairs and I tapped
at the Major’s door, and when the Major having his thin
slices of bacon in his own Dutch oven saw me he came
out of his chair and put me down on the sofa. “Hush!”
says he, “I see something’s the matter. Don’t speak—take
time.” I says “O Major I’m afraid there’s cruel work up-
stairs.” “Yes yes” says he “I had begun to be afraid of it—
take time.” And then in opposition to his own words he
rages out frightfully, and says “I shall never forgive myself
Madam, that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn’t see it all that
morning—didn’t go straight up-stairs when my boot-
sponge was in my hand—didn’t force it down his throat—
and choke him dead with it on the spot!”
The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves
that just at present we could do no more than take on to
suspect nothing and use our best endeavours to keep that
poor young creature quiet, and what I ever should have
done without the Major when it got about among the
organ-men that quiet was our object is unknown, for he
made lion and tiger war upon them to that degree that
without seeing it I could not have believed it was in any
gentleman to have such a power of bursting out with fire-
irons walking-sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table
the very hat off his head, and at the same time so furious
in foreign languages that they would stand with their
handles half-turned fixed like the Sleeping Ugly—for I
cannot say Beauty.
Ever to see the postman come near the house now gave
me such I fear that it was a reprieve when he went by, but
in about another ten days or a fortnight he says again,
“Here’s one for Mrs. Edson.—Is she pretty well?” “She is
pretty well postman, but not well enough to rise so early
as she used” which was so far gospel-truth.
I carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and
17
Charles Dickens
I says tottering “Major I have not the courage to take it
up to her.”
“It’s an ill-looking villain of a letter,” says the Major.
“I have not the courage Major” I says again in a tremble
“to take it up to her.”
After seeming lost in consideration for some moments
the Major says, raising his head as if something new and
useful had occurred to his mind “Mrs. Lirriper, I shall
never forgive myself that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn’t go
straight up-stairs that morning when my boot-sponge was
in my hand—and force it down his throat—and choke
him dead with it.”
“Major” I says a little hasty “you didn’t do it which is a
blessing, for it would have done no good and I think your
sponge was better employed on your own honourable boots.”
So we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap
at her bedroom door and lay the letter on the mat outside
and wait on the upper landing for what might happen,
and never was gunpowder cannon-balls or shells or rock-
ets more dreaded than that dreadful letter was by me as I
took it to the second floor.
A terrible loud scream sounded through the house the
minute after she had opened it, and I found her on the
floor lying as if her life was gone. My dear I never looked
at the face of the letter which was lying, open by her, for
there was no occasion.
Everything I needed to bring her round the Major brought
up with his own hands, besides running out to the chemist’s
for what was not in the house and likewise having the fierc-
est of all his many skirmishes with a musical instrument
representing a ball-room I do not know in what particular
country and company waltzing in and out at folding-doors
with rolling eyes. When after a long time I saw her coming
to, I slipped on the landing till I heard her cry, and then I
went in and says cheerily “Mrs. Edson you’re not well my
dear and it’s not to be wondered at,” as if I had not been in
before. Whether she believed or disbelieved I cannot say
and it would signify nothing if I could, but I stayed by her
for hours and then she God ever blesses me! and says she
will try to rest for her head is bad.
“Major,” I whispers, looking in at the parlours, “I beg
and pray of you don’t go out.”
18
Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
The Major whispers, “Madam, trust me I will do no such
a thing. How is she?”
I says “Major the good Lord above us only knows what
burns and rages in her poor mind. I left her sitting at her
window. I am going to sit at mine.”
It came on afternoon and it came on evening. Norfolk is
a delightful street to lodge in—provided you don’t go
lower down—but of a summer evening when the dust and
waste paper lie in it and stray children play in it and a
kind of a gritty calm and bake settles on it and a peal of
church-bells is practising in the neighbourhood it is a
trifle dull, and never have I seen it since at such a time
and never shall I see it evermore at such a time without
seeing the dull June evening when that forlorn young
creature sat at her open corner window on the second and
me at my open corner window (the other corner) on the
third. Something merciful, something wiser and better far
than my own self, had moved me while it was yet light to
sit in my bonnet and shawl, and as the shadows fell and
the tide rose I could sometimes—when I put out my head
and looked at her window below—see that she leaned out
a little looking down the street. It was just settling dark
when I saw her in the street.
So fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my
breath while I tell it, I went down-stairs faster than I ever
moved in all my life and only tapped with my hand at the
Major’s door in passing it and slipping out. She was gone
already. I made the same speed down the street and when
I came to the corner of Howard Street I saw that she had
turned it and was there plain before me going towards the
west. O with what a thankful heart I saw her going along!
She was quite unacquainted with London and had very
seldom been out for more than an airing in our own street
where she knew two or three little children belonging to
neighbours and had sometimes stood among them at the
street looking at the water. She must be going at hazard
I knew, still she kept the by-streets quite correctly as
long as they would serve her, and then turned up into the
Strand. But at every corner I could see her head turned
one way, and that way was always the river way.
It may have been only the darkness and quiet of the
Adelphi that caused her to strike into it but she struck
19
Charles Dickens
into it much as readily as if she had set out to go there,
which perhaps was the case. She went straight down to
the Terrace and along it and looked over the iron rail, and
I often woke afterwards in my own bed with the horror of
seeing her do it. The desertion of the wharf below and the
flowing of the high water there seemed to settle her pur-
pose. She looked about as if to make out the way down,
and she struck out the right way or the wrong way—I
don’t know which, for I don’t know the place before or
since—and I followed her the way she went.
It was noticeable that all this time she never once looked
back. But there was now a great change in the manner of
her going, and instead of going at a steady quick walk
with her arms folded before her,—among the dark dismal
arches she went in a wild way with her arms opened wide,
as if they were wings and she was flying to her death.
We were on the wharf and she stopped. I stopped. I saw
her hands at her bonnet-strings, and I rushed between
her and the brink and took her round the waist with both
my arms. She might have drowned me, I felt then, but she
could never have got quit of me.
Down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze
and not half an idea had I had in it what I should say to
her, but the instant I touched her it came to me like
magic and I had my natural voice and my senses and even
almost my breath.
“Mrs. Edson!” I says “My dear! Take care. How ever did
you lose your way and stumble on a dangerous place like
this? Why you must have come here by the most perplex-
ing streets in all London. No wonder you are lost, I’m
sure. And this place too! Why I thought nobody ever got
here, except me to order my coals and the Major in the
parlours to smoke his cigar!”—for I saw that blessed man
close by, pretending to it.
“Hah—Hah—Hum!” coughs the Major.
“And good gracious me” I says,” why here he is!”
“Halloa! who goes there?” says the Major in a military manner.
“Well!” I says, “if this don’t beat everything! Don’t you
know us Major Jackman?”
“Halloa!” says the Major. “Who calls on Jemmy Jackman?”
(and more out of breath he was, and did it less like life
than I should have expected.)
20
Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
“Why here’s Mrs. Edson Major” I says, “strolling out to
cool her poor head which has been very bad, has missed
her way and got lost, and Goodness knows where she might
have got to but for me coming here to drop an order into
my coal merchant’s letter-box and you coming here to
smoke your cigar!—And you really are not well enough
my dear” I says to her “to be half so far from home with-
out me. And your arm will be very acceptable I am sure
Major” I says to him “and I know she may lean upon it as
heavy as she likes.” And now we had both got her—thanks
be Above!—one on each side.
She was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till I
laid her on her own bed, and up to the early morning she
held me by the hand and moaned and moaned “O wicked,
wicked, wicked!” But when at last I made believe to droop
my head and be overpowered with a dead sleep, I heard
that poor young creature give such touching and such
humble thanks for being preserved from taking her own
life in her madness that I thought I should have cried my
eyes out on the counterpane and I knew she was safe.
Being well enough to do and able to afford it, me and
the Major laid our little plans next day while she was
asleep worn out, and so I says to her as soon as I could
do it nicely:
“Mrs. Edson my dear, when Mr. Edson paid me the rent
for these farther six months—”
She gave a start and I felt her large eyes look at me, but
I went on with it and with my needlework.
“—I can’t say that I am quite sure I dated the receipt
right. Could you let me look at it?”
She laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked through
me when I was forced to look up from my needlework, but I had
taken the precaution of having on my spectacles.
“I have no receipt” says she.
“Ah! Then he has got it” I says in a careless way. “It’s of
no great consequence. A receipt’s a receipt.”
From that time she always had hold of my hand when I
could spare it which was generally only when I read to
her, for of course she and me had our bits of needlework
to plod at and neither of us was very handy at those little
things, though I am still rather proud of my share in them
too considering. And though she took to all I read to her,
21
Charles Dickens
I used to fancy that next to what was taught upon the
Mount she took most of all to His gentle compassion for
us poor women and to His young life and to how His
mother was proud of Him and treasured His sayings in her
heart. She had a grateful look in her eyes that never never
never will be out of mine until they are closed in my last
sleep, and when I chanced to look at her without thinking
of it I would always meet that look, and she would often
offer me her trembling lip to kiss, much more like a little
affectionate half broken-hearted child than ever I can
imagine any grown person.
One time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong
and her tears ran down so fast that I thought she was
going to tell me all her woe, so I takes her two hands in
mine and I says:
“No my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now.
Wait for better times when you have got over this and are
strong, and then you shall tell me whatever you will. Shall
it be agreed?”
With our hands still joined she nodded her head many
times, and she lifted my hands and put them to her lips
and to her bosom. “Only one word now my dear” I says.
“Is there any one?”
She looked inquiringly “Any one?”
“That I can go to?”
She shook her head.
“No one that I can bring?”
She shook her head.
“No one is wanted by ME my dear. Now that may be
considered past and gone.”
Not much more than a week afterwards—for this was
far on in the time of our being so together—I was bend-
ing over at her bedside with my ear down to her lips, by
turns listening for her breath and looking for a sign of life
in her face. At last it came in a solemn way—not in a
flash but like a kind of pale faint light brought very slow
to the face.
She said something to me that had no sound in it, but
I saw she asked me:
“Is this death?”
And I says:
“Poor dear poor dear, I think it is.”
22
Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
Knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak
right hand, I took it and laid it on her breast and then
folded her other hand upon it, and she prayed a good
good prayer and I joined in it poor me though there were
no words spoke. Then I brought the baby in its wrappers
from where it lay, and I says:
“My dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This is
for me to take care of.”
The trembling lip was put up towards my face for the
last time, and I dearly kissed it.
“Yes my dear,” I says. “Please God! Me and the Major.”
I don’t know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul
brighten and leap up, and get free and fly away in the
grateful look.
SO THIS IS THE WHY and wherefore of its coming to pass my
dear that we called him Jemmy, being after the Major his
own godfather with Lirriper for a surname being after
myself, and never was a dear child such a brightening
thing in a Lodgings or such a playmate to his grand-
mother as Jemmy to this house and me, and always good
and minding what he was told (upon the whole) and sooth-
ing for the temper and making everything pleasanter ex-
cept when he grew old enough to drop his cap down
Wozenham’s Airy and they wouldn’t hand it up to him,
and being worked into a state I put on my best bonnet
and gloves and parasol with the child in my hand and I
says “Miss Wozenham I little thought ever to have en-
tered your house but unless my grandson’s cap is instantly
restored, the laws of this country regulating the property
of the Subject shall at length decide betwixt yourself and
me, cost what it may.” With a sneer upon her face which
did strike me I must say as being expressive of two keys
but it may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt
let Miss Wozenham have the full benefit of it as is but
right, she rang the bell and she says “Jane, is there a
street-child’s old cap down our Airy?” I says “Miss
Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question
you must allow me to inform you to your face that my
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Charles Dickens
grandson is not a street-child and is not in the habit of
wearing old caps. In fact” I says “Miss Wozenham I am far
from sure that my grandson’s cap may not be newer than
your own” which was perfectly savage in me, her lace
being the commonest machine-make washed and torn
besides, but I had been put into a state to begin with
fomented by impertinence. Miss Wozenham says red in
the face “Jane you heard my question, is there any child’s
cap down our Airy?” “Yes Ma’am” says Jane, “I think I did
see some such rubbish a-lying there.” “Then” says Miss
Wozenham “let these visitors out, and then throw up that
worthless article out of my premises.” But here the child
who had been staring at Miss Wozenham with all his eyes
and more, frowns down his little eyebrows purses up his
little mouth puts his chubby legs far apart turns his little
dimpled fists round and round slowly over one another
like a little coffee-mill, and says to her “Oo impdent to mi
Gran, me tut oor hi!” “O!” says Miss Wozenham looking
down scornfully at the Mite “this is not a street-child is it
not! Really!” I bursts out laughing and I says “Miss
Wozenham if this ain’t a pretty sight to you I don’t envy
your feelings and I wish you good-day. Jemmy come along
with Gran.” And I was still in the best of humours though
his cap came flying up into the street as if it had been
just turned on out of the water-plug, and I went home
laughing all the way, all owing to that dear boy.
The miles and miles that me and the Major have trav-
elled with Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not
to be calculated, Jemmy driving on the coach-box which
is the Major’s brass-bound writing desk on the table, me
inside in the easy-chair and the Major Guard up behind
with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do
assure you my dear that sometimes when I have taken a
few winks in my place inside the coach and have come
half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard
that precious pet driving and the Major blowing up be-
hind to have the change of horses ready when we got to
the Inn, I have half believed we were on the old North
Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to see that
child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to
warm their feet and going stamping about and having
glasses of ale out of the paper matchboxes on the chim-
24
Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
ney-piece is to see the Major enjoying it fully as much as
the child I am very sure, and it’s equal to any play when
Coachee opens the coach-door to look in at me inside and
say “Wery ‘past that ‘tage.—’Prightened old lady?”
But what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost
that child can only be compared to the Major’s which
were not a shade better, through his straying out at five
years old and eleven o’clock in the forenoon and never
heard of by word or sign or deed till half-past nine at
night, when the Major had gone to the Editor of the Times
newspaper to put in an advertisement, which came out
next day four-and-twenty hours after he was found, and
which I mean always carefully to keep in my lavender
drawer as the first printed account of him. The more the
day got on, the more I got distracted and the Major too
and both of us made worse by the composed ways of the
police though very civil and obliging and what I must call
their obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was
stolen. “We mostly find Mum” says the sergeant who came
round to comfort me, which he didn’t at all and he had
been one of the private constables in Caroline’s time to
which he referred in his opening words when he said “Don’t
give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, it’ll all come as
right as my nose did when I got the same barked by that
young woman in your second floor”—says this sergeant
“we mostly find Mum as people ain’t over-anxious to have
what I may call second-hand children. YOU’LL get him
back Mum.” “O but my dear good sir” I says clasping my
hands and wringing them and clasping them again “he is
such an uncommon child!” “Yes Mum” says the sergeant,
“we mostly find that too Mum. The question is what his
clothes were worth.” “His clothes” I says “were not worth
much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but the
dear child!—” “All right Mum” says the sergeant. “You’ll
get him back Mum. And even if he’d had his best clothes
on, it wouldn’t come to worse than his being found wrapped
up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane.” His words
pierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me and
the Major ran in and out like wild things all day long till
the Major returning from his interview with the Editor of
the Times at night rushes into my little room hysterical
and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says “Joy
25
Charles Dickens
joy—officer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I
was letting myself in—compose your feelings—Jemmy’s
found.” Consequently I fainted away and when I came to,
embraced the legs of the officer in plain clothes who seemed
to be taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind of the
property in my little room with brown whiskers, and I
says “Blessings on you sir where is the Darling!” and he
says “In Kennington Station House.” I was dropping at
his feet Stone at the image of that Innocence in cells
with murderers when he adds “He followed the Monkey.” I
says deeming it slang language “O sir explain for a loving
grandmother what Monkey!” He says “Him in the spangled
cap with the strap under the chin, as won’t keep on—him
as sweeps the crossings on a round table and don’t want
to draw his sabre more than he can help.” Then I under-
stood it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and
the Major and him drove over to Kennington and there we
found our boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing
fire having sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small
accordion nothing like so big as a flat-iron which they had
been so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it
appeared had been stopped upon a very young person.
My dear the system upon which the Major commenced
and as I may say perfected Jemmy’s learning when he was
so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table
you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with
his mother’s own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing
that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and
Commons and then might obtain some promotion for the
Major which he well deserves and would be none the worse
for (speaking between friends) L. S. D.-ically. When the
Major first undertook his learning he says to me:
“I’m going Madam,” he says “to make our child a Calcu-
lating Boy.
“Major,” I says, “you terrify me and may do the pet a
permanent injury you would never forgive yourself.”
“Madam,” says the Major, “next to my regret that when
I had my boot-sponge in my hand, I didn’t choke that
scoundrel with it—on the spot—”
“There! For Gracious’ sake,” I interrupts, “let his con-
science find him without sponges.”
“—I say next to that regret, Madam,” says the Major
26
Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
“would be the regret with which my breast,” which he
tapped, “would be surcharged if this fine mind was not
early cultivated. But mark me Madam,” says the Major
holding up his forefinger “cultivated on a principle that
will make it a delight.”
“Major” I says “I will be candid with you and tell you
openly that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his
appetite I shall know it is his calculations and shall put a
stop to them at two minutes’ notice. Or if I find them
mounting to his head” I says, “or striking anyways cold
to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbi-
ness in his legs, the result will be the same, but Major you
are a clever man and have seen much and you love the
child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a confi-
dence in trying try.”
“Spoken Madam” says the Major “like Emma Lirriper. All
I have to ask, Madam, is that you will leave my godson
and myself to make a week or two’s preparations for sur-
prising you, and that you will give me leave to have up
and down any small articles not actually in use that I may
require from the kitchen.”
“From the kitchen Major?” I says half feeling as if he
had a mind to cook the child.
“From the kitchen” says the Major, and smiles and swells,
and at the same time looks taller.
So I passed my word and the Major and the dear boy
were shut up together for half an hour at a time through
a certain while, and never could I hear anything going on
betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy clap-
ping his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to
myself “it has not harmed him yet” nor could I on exam-
ining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him
which was likewise a great relief. At last one day Jemmy
brings me a card in joke in the Major’s neat writing “The
Messrs. Jemmy Jackman” for we had given him the Major’s
other name too “request the honour of Mrs. Lirriper’s com-
pany at the Jackman Institution in the front parlour this
evening at five, military time, to witness a few slight
feats of elementary arithmetic.” And if you’ll believe me
there in the front parlour at five punctual to the moment
was the Major behind the Pembroke table with both leaves
up and a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on
27
Charles Dickens
old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was the Mite
stood upon a chair with his rosy cheeks flushing and his
eyes sparkling clusters of diamonds.
“Now Gran” says he, “oo tit down and don’t oo touch
ler people”—for he saw with every one of those diamonds
of his that I was going to give him a squeeze.
“Very well sir” I says “I am obedient in this good com-
pany I am sure.” And I sits down in the easy-chair that
was put for me, shaking my sides.
But picture my admiration when the Major going on al-
most as quick as if he was conjuring sets out all the articles
he names, and says “Three saucepans, an Italian iron, a
hand-bell, a toasting-fork, a nutmeg-grater, four potlids, a
spice-box, two egg-cups, and a chopping-board—how
many?” and when that Mite instantly cries “Tifteen, tut
down tive and carry ler ‘toppin-board” and then claps his
hands draws up his legs and dances on his chair.
My dear with the same astonishing ease and correctness
him and the Major added up the tables chairs and sofy,
the picters fenders and fire-irons their own selves me and
the cat and the eyes in Miss Wozenham’s head, and when-
ever the sum was done Young Roses and Diamonds claps
his hands and draws up his legs and dances on his chair.
The pride of the Major! (“Here’s a mind Ma’am!” he says
to me behind his hand.)
Then he says aloud, “We now come to the next elemen-
tary rule,—which is called—”
“Umtraction!” cries Jemmy.
“Right,” says the Major. “We have here a toasting-fork,
a potato in its natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a
wooden spoon, and two skewers, from which it is neces-
sary for commercial purposes to subtract a sprat-gridiron,
a small pickle-jar, two lemons, one pepper-castor, a
blackbeetle-trap, and a knob of the dresser-drawer—what
remains?”
“Toatin-fork!” cries Jemmy.
“In numbers how many?” says the Major.
“One!” cries Jemmy.
(“Here’s a boy, Ma’am!” says the Major to me behind his
hand.) Then the Major goes on:
“We now approach the next elementary rule,—which is
entitled—”
28
Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
“Tickleication” cries Jemmy.
“Correct” says the Major.
But my dear to relate to you in detail the way in which
they multiplied fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of
ginger and a larding needle, or divided pretty well every-
thing else there was on the table by the heater of the
Italian iron and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon
over, would make my head spin round and round and round
as it did at the time. So I says “if you’ll excuse my address-
ing the chair Professor Jackman I think the period of the
lecture has now arrived when it becomes necessary that I
should take a good hug of this young scholar.” Upon which
Jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, “Gran oo
open oor arms and me’ll make a ‘pring into ‘em.” So I
opened my arms to him as I had opened my sorrowful heart
when his poor young mother lay a dying, and he had his
jump and we had a good long hug together and the Major
prouder than any peacock says to me behind his hand, “You
need not let him know it Madam” (which I certainly need
not for the Major was quite audible) “but he is a boy!”
In this way Jemmy grew and grew and went to day-
school and continued under the Major too, and in summer
we were as happy as the days were long, and in winter we
were as happy as the days were short and there seemed to
rest a Blessing on the Lodgings for they as good as Let
themselves and would have done it if there had been twice
the accommodation, when sore and hard against my will I
one day says to the Major.
“Major you know what I am going to break to you. Our
boy must go to boarding-school.”
It was a sad sight to see the Major’s countenance drop,
and I pitied the good soul with all my heart.
“Yes Major” I says, “though he is as popular with the
Lodgers as you are yourself and though he is to you and
me what only you and me know, still it is in the course of
things and Life is made of partings and we must part with
our Pet.”
Bold as I spoke, I saw two Majors and half-a-dozen
fireplaces, and when the poor Major put one of his neat
bright-varnished boots upon the fender and his elbow on
his knee and his head upon his hand and rocked himself a
little to and fro, I was dreadfully cut up.
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Charles Dickens
“But” says I clearing my throat “you have so well pre-
pared him Major—he has had such a Tutor in you—that
he will have none of the first drudgery to go through. And
he is so clever besides that he’ll soon make his way to the
front rank.”
“He is a boy” says the Major—having sniffed—”that
has not his like on the face of the earth.”
“True as you say Major, and it is not for us merely for
our own sakes to do anything to keep him back from
being a credit and an ornament wherever he goes and
perhaps even rising to be a great man, is it Major? He will
have all my little savings when my work is done (being all
the world to me) and we must try to make him a wise man
and a good man, mustn’t we Major?”
“Madam” says the Major rising “Jemmy Jackman is be-
coming an older file than I was aware of, and you put him
to shame. You are thoroughly right Madam. You are sim-
ply and undeniably right.—And if you’ll excuse me, I’ll
take a walk.”
So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home,
I got the child into my little room here and I stood him
by my chair and I took his mother’s own curls in my hand
and I spoke to him loving and serious. And when I had
reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth
year and when I had said to him about his getting on in
life pretty much what I had said to the Major I broke to
him how that we must have this same parting, and there
I was forced to stop for there I saw of a sudden the well-
remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back
that time! But with the spirit that was in him he con-
trolled it soon and he says gravely nodding through his
tears, “I understand Gran—I know it must be, Gran—go
on Gran, don’t be afraid of ME.” And when I had said all
that ever I could think of, he turned his bright steady
face to mine and he says just a little broken here and
there “You shall see Gran that I can be a man and that I
can do anything that is grateful and loving to you—and if
I don’t grow up to be what you would like to have me—
I hope it will be—because I shall die.” And with that he
sat down by me and I went on to tell him of the school of
which I had excellent recommendations and where it was
and how many scholars and what games they played as I
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
had heard and what length of holidays, to all of which he
listened bright and clear. And so it came that at last he
says “And now dear Gran let me kneel down here where I
have been used to say my prayers and let me fold my face
for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, for you
have been more than father—more than mother—more
than brothers sisters friends—to me!” And so he did cry
and I too and we were both much the better for it.
From that time forth he was true to his word and ever
blithe and ready, and even when me and the Major took
him down into Lincolnshire he was far the gayest of the
party though for sure and certain he might easily have
been that, but he really was and put life into us only
when it came to the last Good-bye, he says with a wistful
look, “You wouldn’t have me not really sorry would you
Gran?” and when I says “No dear, Lord forbid!” he says “I
am glad of that!” and ran in out of sight.
But now that the child was gone out of the Lodgings
the Major fell into a regularly moping state. It was taken
notice of by all the Lodgers that the Major moped. He
hadn’t even the same air of being rather tall than he used
to have, and if he varnished his boots with a single gleam
of interest it was as much as he did.
One evening the Major came into my little room to take
a cup of tea and a morsel of buttered toast and to read
Jemmy’s newest letter which had arrived that afternoon
(by the very same postman more than middle-aged upon
the Beat now), and the letter raising him up a little I says
to the Major:
“Major you mustn’t get into a moping way.”
The Major shook his head. “Jemmy Jackman Madam,”
he says with a deep sigh, “is an older file than I thought
him.”
“Moping is not the way to grow younger Major.”
“My dear Madam,” says the Major, “is there any way of
growing younger?”
Feeling that the Major was getting rather the best of
that point I made a diversion to another.
“Thirteen years! Thir-teen years! Many Lodgers have come
and gone, in the thirteen years that you have lived in the
parlours Major.”
“Hah!” says the Major warming. “Many Madam, many.”
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Charles Dickens
“And I should say you have been familiar with them all?”
“As a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear
Madam” says the Major, “they have honoured me with
their acquaintance, and not unfrequently with their con-
fidence.”
Watching the Major as he drooped his white head and
stroked his black mustachios and moped again, a thought
which I think must have been going about looking for an
owner somewhere dropped into my old noddle if you will
excuse the expression.
“The walls of my Lodgings” I says in a casual way—for
my dear it is of no use going straight at a man who mopes—
”might have something to tell if they could tell it.”
The Major neither moved nor said anything but I saw he
was attending with his shoulders my dear—attending with
his shoulders to what I said. In fact I saw that his shoul-
ders were struck by it.
“The dear boy was always fond of story-books” I went
on, like as if I was talking to myself. “I am sure this
house—his own home—might write a story or two for his
reading one day or another.”
The Major’s shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his
head came up in his shirt-collar. The Major’s head came up
in his shirt-collar as I hadn’t seen it come up since Jemmy
went to school.
“It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a
friendly rubber, my dear Madam,” says the Major, “and
also over what used to be called in my young times—in
the salad days of Jemmy Jackman—the social glass, I
have exchanged many a reminiscence with your Lodgers.”
My remark was—I confess I made it with the deepest
and artfullest of intentions—”I wish our dear boy had
heard them!”
“Are you serious Madam?” asked the Major starting and
turning full round.
“Why not Major?”
“Madam” says the Major, turning up one of his cuffs,
“they shall be written for him.”
“Ah! Now you speak” I says giving my hands a pleased
clap. “Now you are in a way out of moping Major!”
“Between this and my holidays—I mean the dear boy’s”
says the Major turning up his other cuff, “a good deal may
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
be done towards it.”
“Major you are a clever man and you have seen much
and not a doubt of it.”
“I’ll begin,” says the Major looking as tall as ever he
did, “to-morrow.”
My dear the Major was another man in three days and he
was himself again in a week and he wrote and wrote and
wrote with his pen scratching like rats behind the wain-
scot, and whether he had many grounds to go upon or
whether he did at all romance I cannot tell you, but what
he has written is in the left-hand glass closet of the little
bookcase close behind you.
CHAPTER II
HOW THE PARLOURS ADDED A FEW
WORDS
I
HAVE THE HONOUR of presenting myself by the name
of Jackman. I esteem it a proud privilege to go
down to posterity through the instrumentality of
the most remarkable boy that ever lived,—by the name of
Jemmy Jackman Lirriper,—and of my most worthy and
most highly respected friend, Mrs. Emma Lirriper, of Eighty-
one, Norfolk Street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, in
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
It is not for me to express the rapture with which we
received that dear and eminently remarkable boy, on the
occurrence of his first Christmas holidays. Suffice it to
observe that when he came flying into the house with two
splendid prizes (Arithmetic, and Exemplary Conduct), Mrs.
Lirriper and myself embraced with emotion, and instantly
took him to the Play, where we were all three admirably
entertained.
Nor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of
her good and honoured sex—whom, in deference to her
unassuming worth, I will only here designate by the ini-
tials E. L.—that I add this record to the bundle of papers
with which our, in a most distinguished degree, remark-
able boy has expressed himself delighted, before re-con-
signing the same to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs.
Lirriper’s little bookcase.
Neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original
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Charles Dickens
superannuated obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his deg-
radation) of Wozenham’s, long (to his elevation) of
Lirriper’s. If I could be consciously guilty of that piece of
bad taste, it would indeed be a work of supererogation,
now that the name is borne by Jemmy Jackman Lirriper.
No, I take up my humble pen to register a little record
of our strikingly remarkable boy, which my poor capacity
regards as presenting a pleasant little picture of the dear
boy’s mind. The picture may be interesting to himself when
he is a man.
Our first reunited Christmas-day was the most delightful
one we have ever passed together. Jemmy was never si-
lent for five minutes, except in church-time. He talked as
we sat by the fire, he talked when we were out walking, he
talked as we sat by the fire again, he talked incessantly at
dinner, though he made a dinner almost as remarkable as
himself. It was the spring of happiness in his fresh young
heart flowing and flowing, and it fertilised (if I may be
allowed so bold a figure) my much-esteemed friend, and
J. J. the present writer.
There were only we three. We dined in my esteemed
friend’s little room, and our entertainment was perfect.
But everything in the establishment is, in neatness, order,
and comfort, always perfect. After dinner our boy slipped
away to his old stool at my esteemed friend’s knee, and
there, with his hot chestnuts and his glass of brown sherry
(really, a most excellent wine!) on a chair for a table, his
face outshone the apples in the dish.
We talked of these jottings of mine, which Jemmy had
read through and through by that time; and so it came
about that my esteemed friend remarked, as she sat
smoothing Jemmy’s curls:
“And as you belong to the house too, Jemmy,—and so
much more than the Lodgers, having been born in it,—
why, your story ought to be added to the rest, I think,
one of these days.”
Jemmy’s eyes sparkled at this, and he said, “So I think, Gran.”
Then he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to
laugh in a sort of confidence with the fire, and then he
said, folding his arms across my esteemed friend’s lap,
and raising his bright face to hers. “Would you like to hear
a boy’s story, Gran?”
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Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
“Of all things,” replied my esteemed friend.
“Would you, godfather?”
“Of all things,” I too replied.
“Well, then,” said Jemmy, “I’ll tell you one.”
Here our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a
hug, and laughed again, musically, at the idea of his com-
ing out in that new line. Then he once more took the fire
into the same sort of confidence as before, and began:
“Once upon a time, When pigs drank wine, And monkeys
chewed tobaccer, ’Twas neither in your time nor mine, But
that’s no macker—”
“Bless the child!” cried my esteemed friend, “what’s
amiss with his brain?”
“It’s poetry, Gran,” returned Jemmy, shouting with laugh-
ter. “We always begin stories that way at school.”
“Gave me quite a turn, Major,” said my esteemed friend,
fanning herself with a plate. “Thought he was light-headed!”
“In those remarkable times, Gran and godfather, there
was once a boy,—not me, you know.”
“No, no,” says my respected friend, “not you. Not him,
Major, you understand?”
“No, no,” says I.
“And he went to school in Rutlandshire—”
“Why not Lincolnshire?” says my respected friend.
“Why not, you dear old Gran? Because I go to school in
Lincolnshire, don’t I?”
“Ah, to be sure!” says my respected friend. “And it’s not
Jemmy, you understand, Major?”
“No, no,” says I.
“Well!” our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfort-
ably, and laughing merrily (again in confidence with the
fire), before he again looked up in Mrs. Lirriper’s face,
“and so he was tremendously in love with his schoolmaster’s
daughter, and she was the most beautiful creature that
ever was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she had brown
hair all curling beautifully, and she had a delicious voice,
and she was delicious altogether, and her name was
Seraphina.”
“What’s the name of YOUR schoolmaster’s daughter,
Jemmy?” asks my respected friend.
“Polly!” replied Jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her.
“There now! Caught you! Ha, ha, ha!”
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Charles Dickens
When he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a
hug together, our admittedly remarkable boy resumed with
a great relish:
“Well! And so he loved her. And so he thought about
her, and dreamed about her, and made her presents of
oranges and nuts, and would have made her presents of
pearls and diamonds if he could have afforded it out of his
pocket-money, but he couldn’t. And so her father—O, he
was a Tartar! Keeping the boys up to the mark, holding
examinations once a month, lecturing upon all sorts of
subjects at all sorts of times, and knowing everything in
the world out of book. And so this boy—”
“Had he any name?” asks my respected friend.
“No, he hadn’t, Gran. Ha, ha! There now! Caught you
again!”
After this, they had another laugh and another hug, and
then our boy went on.
“Well! And so this boy, he had a friend about as old as
himself at the same school, and his name (for He had a
name, as it happened) was—let me remember—was
Bobbo.”
“Not Bob,” says my respected friend.
“Of course not,” says Jemmy. “What made you think it
was, Gran? Well! And so this friend was the cleverest and
bravest and best-looking and most generous of all the
friends that ever were, and so he was in love with
Seraphina’s sister, and so Seraphina’s sister was in love
with him, and so they all grew up.”
“Bless us!” says my respected friend. “They were very
sudden about it.”
“So they all grew up,” our boy repeated, laughing heartily,
“and Bobbo and this boy went away together on horse-
back to seek their fortunes, and they partly got their horses
by favour, and partly in a bargain; that is to say, they had
saved up between them seven and fourpence, and the two
horses, being Arabs, were worth more, only the man said
he would take that, to favour them. Well! And so they
made their fortunes and came prancing back to the school,
with their pockets full of gold, enough to last for ever.
And so they rang at the parents’ and visitors’ bell (not the
back gate), and when the bell was answered they pro-
claimed ‘The same as if it was scarlet fever! Every boy goes
36
Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
home for an indefinite period!’ And then there was great
hurrahing, and then they kissed Seraphina and her sis-
ter,—each his own love, and not the other’s on any ac-
count,—and then they ordered the Tartar into instant
confinement.”
“Poor man!” said my respected friend.
“Into instant confinement, Gran,” repeated Jemmy, try-
ing to look severe and roaring with laughter; “and he was
to have nothing to eat but the boys’ dinners, and was to
drink half a cask of their beer every day. And so then the
preparations were made for the two weddings, and there
were hampers, and potted things, and sweet things, and
nuts, and postage-stamps, and all manner of things. And
so they were so jolly, that they let the Tartar out, and he
was jolly too.”
“I am glad they let him out,” says my respected friend,
“because he had only done his duty.”
“O, but hadn’t he overdone it, though!” cried Jemmy.
“Well! And so then this boy mounted his horse, with his
bride in his arms, and cantered away, and cantered on and
on till he came to a certain place where he had a certain
Gran and a certain godfather,—not you two, you know.”
“No, no,” we both said.
“And there he was received with great rejoicings, and he
filled the cupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he
showered it out on his Gran and his godfather because
they were the two kindest and dearest people that ever
lived in this world. And so while they were sitting up to
their knees in gold, a knocking was heard at the street
door, and who should it be but Bobbo, also on horseback
with his bride in his arms, and what had he come to say
but that he would take (at double rent) all the Lodgings
for ever, that were not wanted by this a boy and this Gran
and this godfather, and that they would all live together,
and all be happy! And so they were, and so it never ended!”
“And was there no quarrelling?” asked my respected
friend, as Jemmy sat upon her lap and hugged her.
“No! Nobody ever quarrelled.”
“And did the money never melt away?”
“No! Nobody could ever spend it all.”
“And did none of them ever grow older?”
“No! Nobody ever grew older after that.”
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Charles Dickens
“And did none of them ever die?”
“O, no, no, no, Gran!” exclaimed our dear boy, laying
his cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him.
“Nobody ever died.”
“Ah, Major, Major!” says my respected friend, smiling
benignly upon me, “this beats our stories. Let us end with
the Boy’s story, Major, for the Boy’s story is the best that
is ever told!”
In submission to which request on the part of the best
of women, I have here noted it down as faithfully as my
best abilities, coupled with my best intentions, would
admit, subscribing it with my name,
J. JACKMAN. THE PARLOURS. MRS. LIRRIPER’S LODGINGS.