"Well, yes, sir," said Matt, standing hat in hand, "'tis snug and
comfortable, sir; and I'm glad to see the change, and I'm sure I wish
you long life to enjoy it. Glad you've got here all right, sir; and
sorry I was too weak to help you move. I've got the address down all
right in my memo-book: look here, sir--150 Essex-street, Strand, sir."
"And now we'll go, then, Matt," said Septimus, rising.
"Go, sir?" said Matt.
"Yes," said Septimus, "if you will; for the thing has been too long
neglected already."
"Very true, sir," said Matt: "but you told me as the parson, sir, Mr
Sterne, was going to take it in hand; and if so--"
"Now, Matt," said Septimus appealingly, "isn't he lying upon a bed of
sickness, weak and helpless, and unable to move?"
"Well, yes, sir, that's true; and a rum start that was, too. Wonder who
would have a spite against him? But I thought that now, sir, as
you'd--"
Septimus Hardon took the old man by the arm and placed him in a chair;
for it was evident that he was a little testy and jealous of other
interposition in the matters in which he had taken so much interest; but
the cordiality of Mrs Septimus seemed to chase it away; while Lucy,
returning from a walk, beamed so happily upon the old man, that he
looked his old self again, and owned to the feeling that, as he
expressed it, he had expected that he was going to be "pitched
overboard," now there were new friends.
It was partly by Mr Sterne's advice that Septimus had sought out and
asked Matt to accompany him this day; for though much hurt, and weak
from loss of blood, the curate had taken great interest in the future of
the Hardon family. At his request Septimus had sought and removed to
lodgings in Essex-street, and since then passed an evening by the
curate's bedside; for he had been found by a policeman perfectly
insensible, and carried home; and, though nearly certain of who was his
assailant, he felt indisposed to take any steps in the matter for fear
that affairs might be made public which he wished concealed. He had not
seen Lucy since; but somehow there was a feeling of repose and content
within his breast that it had not known for months; and he longed for
the time when he could again meet with the woman whose words would have,
he now felt, set him at rest for ever.
There seemed, too, a brightness in Lucy foreign to her looks, as
Septimus leaned over her and whispered a few words before leaving; then,
after kissing her tenderly, he descended to the street with old Matt,
who, though weak, still refused sturdily every offer of a ride, and they
trudged steadily on till they reached Finsbury.
"Hallo!" said Matt, "what d'ye call this? Same name, but the business
is changed, and that's her a-cutting up paper. To be sure--why it is
her! I thought I knew her face, but I was in such a muddle just then
that all my letter was mixed, and whenever I wanted a p, I got a q, and
all on like that. Why, she came and chattered away, and bought an old
set of tobacco-jars and covers and a heap of waste-paper of Mother
Slagg, just before I went into hospital; and there they are, sir--that's
them, fresh varnished and painted, and stuck on the shelf. Ikey took
'em home for her, and I remember asking myself ever so long as to where
I'd seen her before. Well, come on, sir. I want a bit of snuff, so
that's an excuse for going in. P'r'aps, after all, she's bought the
very paper."
The visitors made their way into the old formal registry-office, turned
into a very smart little shop, fitted up with some taste; where Miss
Tollicks herself was busily weighing and packing a pile of those little
rolls of tobacco known as "screws." Fine thick paper, too, she was
using, such as would weigh well and add to the rather fine profit she
obtained upon her fragrant weed. For there was no mistake: Miss
Tollicks had executed her threat, turned the registering out of doors,
and taken to the business most popular in the streets of London. No
seat now existed for maids to sit and wait to be hired from ten to four;
no green baize; no intense air of respectability, but all quite the
correct thing as established by custom in the weedy way. There was a
monster cigar outside, set perpendicularly, with an internal gas-jet,
and a transparency bearing the legend, "Take a light." On the other
side of the door was a little, freshly-varnished, red-nosed,
chip-elbowed Scotchman, taking snuff in the imperfect tense, with his
fingers half-way to his nose; an imitation roll of tobacco hung over the
door; while just inside, upon a tub, stood a small black gentleman in a
very light feather petticoat, smoking a pipe about double the length of
his body. Then there were clay pipes, crossed and tied into
diamond-pattern d'oyleys, swung in the top panes of the windows; while
beneath them "so gracefully curled" a perfect anaconda of a hookah--one
that it would have taken a bold Turk to smoke. There were meerschaums
and brier-roots, cutty- and billiard-pipes; glass, cherry, and jasmine
stems; tobacco-pouches of india-rubber, looking like fresh-flayed
negro-skin; snuff-boxes of all sorts and sizes, embracing miniature,
scene, and tartan of every pattern; stacks of cigar-boxes carefully
branded but very European in their look; bundles of cigars tied with
fancy ribbon; the day's playbills on the walls; rows of snuff- and
tobacco-jars, as pointed out by Matt, and labelled from "Scotch" to
"Hardham's 37," and from "Returns" to "Latakia." There was a whole
tubful of odorous shag, and a stack of packets of Bristol bird's-eye;
the scales were of the glossiest, the glass-case of the cleanest, and
altogether the shop owned by Miss Tollicks seemed to be of the most
prosperous; for things looked smart and well attended to--a rare sign of
plenty of business, as, according to the old saying, "the less there is
to do, the worse it is done;" but there was a strong smell of varnish,
and it was evident that Miss Tollicks had been picking up her fittings
here and there at various secondhand stores, or, as Matt Space called
it, "on the cheap."
Matt advanced to the counter and asked for his penn'orth of snuff.
"Then you're not dead!" exclaimed Miss Tollicks, putting down the jar in
a most businesslike way, with motions rapid as her speech; for she had
banished the black-velvet blackbird and deportment along with the green
baize; but, not quite used to her business, in spite of her ability of
adapting herself to circumstances, she sneezed loudly as she lifted the
lid. "And how do you do?--there, dear me, how I do sneeze!--and I
thought I had quite conquered it, for it does look so--tchisher-er--so--
er-tchisher! There, I'm sure I beg your pardon. And how do you do? and
you've got well again, like poor Mary did, in that horrible place, who
was dying too, and didn't. And Mr Harding too! and I'm so glad to see
you, for you were _that_ kind to me, I don't know what I should have
done else. Now you've come to ask me about the doctor again--now
haven't you?"
Septimus said he had.
"Well, now, I hadn't forgotten it, and you were both right, you know;
but I shall never forget your kindness, Mr Harding, for but for you
that day, everyone must have seen that I had been crying. But you were
right; and the doctor did live here, and died here too, ages ago; and
then his widow went to live somewhere in one of those quiet streets by
the Strand, going down to the river, you know; and then she died, and
there was a sale, and that's all; and it isn't much, is it?"
Septimus said it was not, certainly.
"But then, you know," said Miss Tollicks, "it's no use to try and make
more of things of that sort, is it? No, he didn't know the street, nor
anything more about it, for he bought the lease of the house of someone
else."
As for Matt, he did not speak, but took snuff ferociously, and glared at
the paper squares upon the counter.
"But there, do come in," cried Miss Tollicks; "and, dear me, Mr--Mr--I
don't know your name, but don't, pray, take snuff like that; you'll make
yourself ill. But there, do come in;" and in spite of refusals Miss
Tollicks soon had her visitors seated in her bower, in company with a
spirit-bottle and a couple of tumblers and sugar, a tiny kettle upon the
fire singing merrily.
"I do suffer so from spasms," said Miss Tollicks as she placed the
suspicious-looking spirit-bottle upon the table; but all these
preparations were not made at once, for, from her many pops in and out
of the shop, and the rattling of the scales, it was evident that Miss
Tollicks had chosen the right business at last, and was prospering
famously. The decanter was brought out of a Berlin-wool-worked
overgrown dice-box on one side of the fire, the glasses from its ditto
on the other, the kettle out of a window-locker, and divers other ways
of economising space were shown; while the visitors were informed that
so much of the house was let off. "It all helps so," said Miss
Tollicks; "for London rents are enough to kill you; and you doing
nothing but feed your landlord."
Old Matt grunted acquiescence.
"Now one each, please," said Miss Tollicks, "just to be sociable; and
then you can speak up for the quality of my goods. How do you find the
snuff, Mr --?"
"Space, ma'am," said Matt. "Good; very good, ma'am, but not durable."
"That's right," exclaimed Miss Tollicks, as she pressed the two mild
Havannas she had brought in upon her visitors. "Don't mind me, pray--I
am trying to get used to smoke as well as snuff."
Septimus and Matt were both non-smokers, but as they exchanged glances
they came to the conclusion that they could extinguish their cigars as
soon as they were outside. So Septimus set the example, with a very
ludicrous cast of countenance, by placing the little vegetable roll in
his mouth, and Miss Tollicks tore off a piece of paper from a square on
the counter, doubled, lit, and handed it to the smoker.
Septimus Hardon's face was a regular study as Matt, grumbling to
himself, "Why didn't she make it snuff?" watched him trying to light his
cigar--a new feat to him entirely.
"The other end first, sir," growled Matt; and in a rather confused way
Septimus made the requisite alteration, and then sucked and puffed so
vigorously that he extinguished the light, which he re-lit at the fire.
But the next moment his face changed from one of comical resignation to
a state of intense wonder, as old Matt, under the excuse of helping
himself to a light, was turning over some leaves of a heap of
waste-paper on a chair by the door.
Suddenly Septimus dashed the lighted paper upon the table, hurriedly
extinguishing it with trembling hands, but not without oversetting his
glass of spirits-and-water.
"What is the matter? Have you burnt yourself?" cried Miss Tollicks.
"Is it, sir?" cried old Matt, reaching across the table.
But Septimus Hardon did not move for a few seconds, but stood with his
hands pressed down over the roughly-folded piece of paper, into which
the spirits-and-water was now soaking, as it made a way between his
fingers.
"Why didn't I give you a splint!" exclaimed Miss Tollicks, whose mind
was full of goose-grease, starch-powder, and cotton-wool. "Is it very
bad?"
But Septimus Hardon did not speak, only slowly and with palsied hands
unfolded the soaked paper; but even then he could hardly read it for the
mist that swam before his eyes. Old Matt, though, not to be behindhand,
pulled out his glasses, and stretched out his hand to reach the paper;
but Septimus shrank back, and then read with difficulty, for the ink had
begun to look blurred with the wet:
S. Hardon,
Medicine and at-dance 2.
And that was all. Septimus turned it over carefully and found a list of
names, but no other entry; there was a figure, part of a date evidently,
at one edge, but it was charred, and as he touched it and held it
towards the window it crumbled away into brown tinder. He read the
entry again and again, and then looked at the ashes of the paper to see
if anything could be made of them. Then, as if for a forlorn hope, he
turned to his hostess, saying in a strange, husky voice:
"The date's burnt off. Where did you get this?"
"O, what have I done?" exclaimed Miss Tollicks. "What is the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing," said Septimus, looking in a dreary, bewildered way
at Matt. "It's of no use; it's my usual ill luck, and it's of no use to
fight against it."
"I never saw such a thing in my life!" cried Matt, bringing his fist
down upon the table so that the glasses jumped again. "Put it in a
book, and no one would believe it: and yet there it is. I wouldn't have
believed it myself if I had not seen it with my own eyes."
"But where is the piece you tore it from?" exclaimed Septimus, trembling
still.
"To be sure!" cried Matt exultingly. "But I was right--I did see it,
and she bought it, and Ikey brought it here, and it'll all come right
yet.--Where's the piece you tore it from, ma'am?" and he again greatly
endangered Miss Tollicks' glasses by thumping the table.
Miss Tollicks hastily produced the other half of the square of paper;
but on one side the list of names was continued, while upon the other
there was the tail of a flourish, the tops of a few letters, and the
rest was blank.
"Have you any more of these sheets--these book-leaves?" exclaimed
Septimus; when Miss Tollicks hastily took up the little heap on the
chair by the door, the same that had excited Matt's curiosity, and into
which he had been quietly peering.
"Those are not the same," said Septimus despondently; "this is thicker."
"Yes," said Miss Tollicks dolefully, as she examined the few remaining
squares upon the counter; "these are all different, too, and I don't
know how that scrap came to be left. I used all that thick paper first,
because it weighed well, and I used it for screws."
"But," stammered Septimus, "it is a part of the very man's books--the
very man who lived here, and about whom we came to ask you."
"Bless me!" said Miss Tollicks dolefully, "and I've been letting it go
for weeks past in screws to the Sun, and the Green Dragon, and the
Duke."
"But let's see if there's any more," said Matt. "A leaf would almost do
all we want if it has only got the right dates."
Matt's advice was taken: screws were examined, turned over, unrolled;
the tied-up squares of paper were looked at; Matt went down upon his
knees behind the counter and routed about amongst some rubbish; the
squares freshly cut up were looked over; and then once more the heap on
the chair in the room was scanned, leaf by leaf, but only one more
fragment was found, evidently a portion of the same book; but it bore a
date four years prior to the marriage of Septimus Hardon's parents.
"Makes worse of it," muttered old Matt to himself; "but perhaps he was
only a young doctor, and one book lasted him a long time. S'pose we go
and have a look round at some of the publics," he said aloud, "eh, sir?"
Septimus jumped at the suggestion, and together they noted down the
names of Miss Tollicks' principal customers for screws, for she said
that she was sure the thick paper had been used entirely for that
purpose; but on making inquiry at the different pewter-covered bars, one
and all of the stout gentlemen in shirt-sleeves and short white aprons
declared that they were sold out, and could have got rid of "twiced as
much."
"I suppose," said Septimus to one red-faced gentleman, "it would be of
no use to ask you who bought the screws?"
The man stood, and softly rubbed with a strange rasping noise his
well-shorn range of stubble on chin and cheek; then pulled open the
screw-drawer, looked in it, then at the counter, then at Septimus, as if
doubtful of his sanity, and said:
"Well, no, sir, I don't think as it would."
They returned to the little tobacconist's shop, Septimus holding tightly
to the newly-found scrap of paper. And yet it was useless--waste-paper;
no more. There could be no doubt about it's being the entry made when
he saw the light; but now it was found, with his own hand he had
destroyed the most precious part, for without date it was of no avail.
Septimus Hardon felt sick at heart when he again sat down in Miss
Tollicks' room, and gazed with woebegone looks in his companion's face.
The prize as it were within his reach; his old troubles swept away; his
legitimacy proved--the cup almost at his lips, and then dashed away. It
was in vain that Miss Tollicks vented her well-meant platitudes, and
shone with hospitable warmth; Septimus Hardon seemed crushed, and Matt
had scarcely a word to say.
"Have a little more sugar," said Miss Tollicks to the man of the bitter
cup. "What a tiresome world this is! And only to think of me buying
that very paper, and the great dirty ruffian of a man bringing it home,
and wanting to buy half-a-pound of tobacco before I began business and
had a license; and then asking me if I had any old boots, while he
chipped two of the jars shamefully."
"Only think," muttered old Matt as they went slowly homewards, "for me
to have had that entry under my very nose, and then only turned it up
and wouldn't look at it."
Volume Three, Chapter IX.