‘I am William Ford; let me in.’
‘Oh, I cannot, I cannot! I am afraid of everyone.’
It _was_ Jimmy Rose!
‘Let me in, Rose; let me in, man. I am your friend.’
‘I will not. I can trust no man now.’
‘Let me in, Rose; trust at least one, in me.’
‘Quit the spot, or----’
With that I heard a rattling against the huge lock, not made by any key,
as if some small tube were being thrust into the keyhole. Horrified, I
fled fast as feet could carry me.
I was a young man then, and Jimmy was not more than forty. It was
five-and-twenty years ere I saw him again. And what a change. He whom I
expected to behold--if behold at all--dry, shrunken, meagre,
cadaverously fierce with misery and misanthropy--amazement! the old
Persian roses bloomed in his cheeks. And yet poor as any rat; poor in
the last dregs of poverty; a pauper beyond almshouse pauperism; a
promenading pauper in a thin, threadbare, careful coat; a pauper with
wealth of polished words; a courteous, smiling, shivering gentleman.
Ah, poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose!
Though at the first onset of his calamity, when creditors, once fast
friends, pursued him as carrion for jails; though then, to avoid their
hunt, as well as the human eye, he had gone and denned in the old
abandoned house; and there, in his loneliness, had been driven half mad,
yet time and tide had soothed him down to sanity. Perhaps at bottom
Jimmy was too thoroughly good and kind to be made from any cause a
man-hater. And doubtless it at last seemed irreligious to Jimmy even to
shun mankind.
Sometimes sweet sense of duty will entice one to bitter doom. For what
could be more bitter than now, in abject need, to be seen of those--nay,
crawl and visit them in an humble sort, and be tolerated as an old
eccentric, wandering in their parlours--who once had known him richest
of the rich, and gayest of the gay? Yet this Jimmy did. Without rudely
breaking him right down to it, fate slowly bent him more and more to the
lowest deep. From an unknown quarter he received an income of some
seventy dollars, more or less. The principal he would never touch, but,
by various modes of eking it out, managed to live on the interest. He
lived in an attic, where he supplied himself with food. He took but one
regular repast a day--meal and milk--and nothing more, unless procured
at others’ tables. Often about the tea hour he would drop in upon some
old acquaintance, clad in his neat, forlorn frock-coat, with worn velvet
sewed upon the edges of the cuffs, and a similar device upon the hems of
his pantaloons, to hide that dire look of having been grated off by
rats. On Sunday he made a point of always dining at some fine house or
other.
It is evident that no man could with impunity be allowed to lead this
life unless regarded as one who, free from vice, was by fortune brought
so low that the plummet of pity alone could reach him. Not much merit
redounded to his entertainers because they did not thrust the starving
gentleman forth when he came for his poor alms of tea and toast. Some
merit had been theirs had they clubbed together and provided him, at
small cost enough, with a sufficient income to make him, in point of
necessaries, independent of the daily dole of charity; charity not sent
to him either, but charity for which he had to trudge round to their
doors.
But the most touching thing of all were those roses in his cheeks; those
ruddy roses in his nipping winter. How they bloomed; whether meal and
milk, and tea and toast could keep them flourishing; whether now he
painted them; by what strange magic they were made to blossom so; no son
of man might tell. But there they bloomed. And besides the roses, Jimmy
was rich in smiles. He smiled ever. The lordly door which received him
to his eleemosynary teas, knew no such smiling guest as Jimmy. In his
prosperous days the smile of Jimmy was famous far and wide. It should
have been trebly famous now.
Wherever he went to tea, he had all of the news of the town to tell. By
frequenting the reading-rooms, as one privileged through harmlessness,
he kept himself informed of European affairs, and the last literature,
foreign and domestic. And of this, when encouragement was given, he
would largely talk. But encouragement was not always given. At certain
houses, and not a few, Jimmy would drop in about ten minutes before the
tea-hour, and drop out again about ten minutes after it; well knowing
that his further presence was not indispensable to the contentment or
felicity of his host.
How forlorn it was to see him so heartily drinking the generous tea, cup
after cup, and eating the flavorous bread and butter, piece after piece,
when, owing to the lateness of the dinner hour with the rest, and the
abundance of that one grand meal with them, no one besides Jimmy touched
the bread and butter, or exceeded a single cup of Souchong. And knowing
all this very well, poor Jimmy would try to hide his hunger, and yet
gratify it too, by striving hard to carry on a sprightly conversation
with his hostess, and throwing in the eagerest mouthfuls with a sort of
absent-minded air, as if he ate merely for custom’s sake, and not
starvation’s.
Poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose!
Neither did Jimmy give up his courtly ways. Whenever there were ladies
at the table, sure were they of some fine word; though, indeed,
toward the close of Jimmy’s life, the young ladies rather thought
his compliments somewhat musty, smacking of cocked hats and
small-clothes--nay, of old pawnbrokers’ shoulder-lace and sword-belts.
For there still lingered in Jimmy’s address a subdued sort of martial
air; he having in his palmy days been, among other things, a general of
the State militia. There seems a fatality in these militia generalships.
Alas! I can recall more than two or three gentlemen who from militia
generals became paupers. I am afraid to think why this is so. Is it that
this military learning in a man of an unmilitary heart--that is, a
gentle, peaceable heart--is an indication of some weak love of vain
display? But ten to one it is not so. At any rate it is unhandsome, if
not unchristian, in the happy, too much to moralise on those who are not
so.
So numerous were the houses that Jimmy visited, or so cautious was he in
timing his less welcome calls, that at certain mansions he only dropped
in about once a year or so. And annually upon seeing at that house the
blooming Miss Frances or Miss Arabella, he would profoundly bow in his
forlorn old coat, and with his soft, white hand take hers in gallant
wise, saying, ‘Ah, Miss Arabella, these jewels here are bright upon
these fingers; but brighter would they look were it not for those still
brighter diamonds of your eyes!’
Though in thy own need thou hadst no pence to give the poor, thou,
Jimmy, still hadst alms to give the rich. For not the beggar chattering
at the corner pines more after bread than the vain heart after
compliment. The rich in their craving glut, as the poor in their craving
want, we have with us always. So, I suppose, thought Jimmy Rose.
But all women are not vain, or if a little grain that way inclined, more
than redeem it all with goodness. Such was the sweet girl that closed
poor Jimmy’s eyes. The only daughter of an opulent alderman, she knew
Jimmy well, and saw to him in his declining days. During his last
sickness, with her own hands she carried him jellies and blanc-mange;
made tea for him in his attic, and turned the poor old gentleman in his
bed. And well hadst thou deserved it, Jimmy, at that fair creature’s
hands; well merited to have thy old eyes closed by woman’s fairy
fingers, who through life, in riches and in poverty, was still woman’s
sworn champion and devotee.
I hardly know that I should mention here one little incident connected
with this young lady’s ministrations, and poor Jimmy’s reception of
them. But it is harm to neither; I will tell it.
Chancing to be in town, and hearing of Jimmy’s illness, I went to see
him. And there in his lone attic I found the lovely ministrant.
Withdrawing upon seeing another visitor, she left me alone with him. She
had brought some little delicacies, and also several books, of such a
sort as are sent by serious-minded well-wishers to invalids in a serious
crisis. Now whether it was repugnance at being considered next door to
death, or whether it was but the natural peevishness brought on by the
general misery of his state; however it was, as the gentle girl
withdrew, Jimmy, with what small remains of strength were his, pitched
the books into the furthest corner, murmuring, ‘Why will she bring me
this sad old stuff? Does she take me for a pauper? Thinks she to salve a
gentleman’s heart with Poor Man’s Plaster?’
Poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose!
Well, well, I am an old man, and I suppose these tears I drop are
driblets from my dotage. But Heaven be praised, Jimmy needs no man’s
pity now.
Jimmy Rose is dead!
Meantime, as I sit within the parlour of the peacocks--that chamber from
which his husky voice had come ere threatening me with the pistol--I
still must meditate upon his strange example, whereof the marvel is, how
after that gay, dashing, nobleman’s career, he could be content to crawl
through life, and peep about among the marbles and mahoganies for
contumelious tea and toast, where once like a very Warwick he had
feasted the huzzaing world with Burgundy and venison.
And every time I look at the wilted resplendence of those proud peacocks
on the wall, I bethink me of the withering change in Jimmy’s once
resplendent pride of state. But still again, every time I gaze upon
those festoons of perpetual roses, ’mid which the faded peacocks hang, I
bethink me of those undying roses which bloomed in ruined Jimmy’s cheek.
Transplanted to another soil, all the unkind past forgot, God grant that
Jimmy’s roses may immortally survive!
------------------------------------------------------------------------