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| Transcriber's note: |
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| Inconsistent and missing punctuation have been corrected |
| without comment. |
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WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST
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| BY WILLIAM DE MORGAN |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| |
| JOSEPH VANCE |
| |
| An intensely human and humorous novel of life near London in |
| the '50s. $1.75. |
| |
| ALICE-FOR-SHORT |
| |
| The story of a London waif, a friendly artist, his friends |
| and family. $1.75. |
| |
| SOMEHOW GOOD |
| |
| A lovable, humorous romance of modern England. $1.75. |
| |
| IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN |
| |
| A strange story of certain marital complications. Notable |
| for the beautiful Judith Arkroyd with stage ambitions, Blind |
| Jim, and his daughter Lizarann. $1.75. |
| |
| AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR |
| |
| Perhaps the author's most dramatic novel. It deals with the |
| events that followed a duel in Restoration days in England. |
| $1.75. |
| |
| A LIKELY STORY |
| |
| Begins comfortably enough with a little domestic quarrel in |
| a studio. The story shifts suddenly, however, to a |
| brilliantly told tragedy of the Italian Renaissance embodied |
| in a girl's portrait. $1.35 _net._ |
| |
| WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST |
| |
| A long, genial tale of old mysteries and young lovers in |
| England in the '50s. $1.60 _net._ |
| |
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WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST
by
WILLIAM DE MORGAN
Author of "Joseph Vance," "Alice-for-Short," Etc.
New York
Copyright, 1914,
by
Henry Holt and Company
Published February, 1914
Dedicated to The Spirit of Fiction
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER PAGE
0. SAPPS COURT 3
I. DAVE AND HIS FAMILY 6
II. A SHORTAGE OF MUD 16
III. DAVE'S ACCIDENT 24
IV. BACK FROM THE HOSPITAL 30
V. MRS. PRICHARD 40
VI. THE STORY OF THE TWINS 45
VII. DAVE'S CONVALESCENT HAVEN 60
VIII. DAVE'S RETURN TO SAPPS COURT 72
IX. A VERDICT OF DEATH BY DROWNING 84
X. AT THE TOWERS 93
XI. MR. PELLEW AND MISS DICKENSON 110
XII. THE MAN WHO WAS SHOT 117
XIII. AN INQUIRY FOR A WIDOW 127
XIV. A SUCCESSFUL CAPTURE 134
XV. WHAT AUNT M'RIAR OVERHEARD 150
XVI. THE INNER LIFE OF SAPPS COURT 156
XVII. HOW ADRIAN WAS NURSED AT THE TOWERS 171
XVIII. HOW GWEN AND THE COUNTESS VISITED ADRIAN 185
XIX. GWEN'S VERY BAD NIGHT 200
XX. SLOW AND FAST APPROXIMATION 208
XXI. A RAPID ARRIVAL 220
XXII. A CONFESSION AND ITS EFFECTS 239
XXIII. GWEN'S VISIT TO MRS. MARRABLE 258
XXIV. THE SLOW APPROXIMATION GOES SLOWLY ON 272
XXV. A GAME OF WHIST 282
XXVI. HOW AUNT M'RIAR'S STORY CAME OUT 293
XXVII. HOW SAPPS HEARD A VISITOR WAS COMING 312
XXVIII. GWEN'S VISIT, AND WHAT ENDED IT 320
XXIX. HOW THE SLOW COUPLE BECAME ENGAGED 331
XXX. GWEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CRASH 351
XXXI. MRS. PRICHARD AT CAVENDISH SQUARE 364
XXXII. AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS 379
PART II
CHAPTER PAGE
I. AUNT M'RIAR'S HUSBAND 389
II. GWEN'S VISIT TO PENSHAM 412
III. HOW THE TWINS SAW EACH OTHER 429
IV. MAISIE AT THE TOWERS 444
V. MOTHERWARDS IN THE DARK 461
VI. HOW MAISIE LOVED POMONA 474
VII. GWEN'S NIGHT-FLIGHT TO LONDON 491
VIII. MAISIE AT STRIDES COTTAGE 498
IX. THE DUTIFUL SON 511
X. GWEN'S SECOND VISIT TO SAPPS COURT 528
XI. IN PARK LANE 543
XII. AN ENLIGHTENMENT 563
XIII. HOW GWEN TOLD SAPPS COURT 576
XIV. GWEN'S RETURN, AND THE TASK BEFORE HER 591
XV. GWEN FACES THE MUSIC 607
XVI. DR. NASH TELLS GRANNY MARRABLE 626
XVII. THE COUNTESS CALLS AT PENSHAM 646
XVIII. WHAT FOLLOWED AT CHORLTON 665
XIX. THE MEETING 677
XX. THE NIGHT AFTER THEY KNEW IT 686
XXI. SAPPS COURT AGAIN 703
XXII. STRIDES COTTAGE AGAIN 721
XXIII. GWEN'S VISIT TO PENSHAM 734
XXIV. PENSHAM AT STRIDES COTTAGE 751
XXV. A FESTIVITY AT THE TOWERS 764
XXVI. ANOTHER NIGHT WATCH 776
XXVII. HOW SHE SAW THE MODEL AGAIN 793
XXVIII. HOW HER SON CAME TOO LATE 807
XXIX. A RIGHT CROSS-COUNTER THAT LANDED 826
A BELATED PENDRIFT 853
WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST
PART I
CHAPTER 0
A CONNECTING-LINK BETWEEN THE WRITER AND THE STORY, AMOUNTING TO
VERY LITTLE. THERE WAS A COURT SOME FIFTY YEARS SINCE IN LONDON,
SOMEWHERE, THAT IS NOW NOWHERE. THAT'S ALL!
Some fifty years ago there still remained, in a street reachable after
inquiry by turning to the left out of Tottenham Court Road, a rather
picturesque Court with an archway; which I, the writer of this story,
could not find when I tried to locate it the other day. I hunted for it
a good deal, and ended by coming away in despair and going for rest and
refreshment to a new-born teashop, where a number of young ladies had
lost their individuality, and the one who brought my tea was callous to
me and mine because you pay at the desk. But she had an orderly soul,
for she turned over the lump of sugar that had a little butter on it, so
as to lie on the buttery side and look more tidy-like.
If the tea had been China tea, fresh-made, it might have helped me to
recollecting the name of that Court, which I am sorry to say I have
forgotten. But it was Ceylon and had stood. However, it was hot. Only
you will never convince me that it was fresh-made, not even if you have
me dragged asunder by wild horses. Its upshot was, for the purpose of
this story, that it did not help me to recollect the name of that Court.
I have to confess with shame that I have written the whole of what
follows under a false pretence; having called it out of its name, to the
best of my belief, throughout. I know it had a name. It does not matter;
the story can do without accuracy--commonplace matter of fact!
But do what I will, I keep on recollecting new names for it, and each
seems more plausible than the other. Coltsfoot Court, Barretts Court,
Chesterfield Court, Sapps Court! Any one of these, if I add
seventeen-hundred-and-much, or eighteen-hundred-and-nothing-to-speak-of,
seems to fit this Court to a nicety. Suppose we make it Sapps Court, and
let it go at that!
Oh, the little old corners of the world that were homes and are gone!
Years hence the Court we will call Sapps will still dwell in some old
mind that knew its every brick, and be portrayed to credulous hearers
yet unborn as an unpretentious Eden, by some _laudator_ of its _tempus
actum_--some forgotten soul waiting for emancipation in an infirmary or
almshouse.
Anyhow, _I_ can remember this Court, and can tell a tale it plays a part
in, only not very quick.
Anybody might have passed down the main street and never noticed it,
because its arched entry didn't give on the street, but on a bay or
_cul-de-sac_ just long enough for a hansom to drive into but not to turn
round in. There was nothing to arrest the attention of the passer-by,
self-absorbed or professionally engaged; simultaneous possibilities, in
his case.
But if the passer-by forgot himself and neglected his proper function in
life at the moment that he came abreast of this _cul-de-sac_, he may
have thereby come to the knowledge of Sapps Court; and, if a Londoner,
may have wondered why he never knew of it before. For there was nothing
in the external appearance of its arched entry to induce him to face the
difficulties incidental to entering it. He may even have nursed
intentions of saying to a friend who prided himself on his knowledge of
town:--"I say, Old Cock, you think yourself mighty clever and all that,
but I bet you can't tell me where Sapps Court is." If, however, he never
went down Sapps Court at all--merely looked at his inscription and,
recollecting his own place in nature, passed on--I shouldn't be
surprised.
It went downhill under the archway when you did go in, and you came to a
step. If you did not tumble owing to the suddenness and depth of this
step, you came to another; and were stupefied by reaching the ground
four inches sooner than you expected, and made conscious that your
skeleton had been driven an equal distance upwards through your system.
Then you could see Sapps Court, but under provocation, from its entry.
When you recovered your temper you admitted that it was a better Court
than you had anticipated.
All the residences were in a row on the left, and there was a dead wall
on the right with an inscription on a stone in it that said the ground
twelve inches beyond belonged to somebody else. This wall was in the
confidence of the main street, lending itself to a fiction that the
houses therein had gardens or yards behind them. They hadn't; but the
tenants believed they had, and hung out chemises and nightgowns and
shirts to dry in the areas they built up their faith on; and really, if
they were properly wrung out afore hung up there was nothing to complain
of, because the blacks didn't hold on, not to crock, but got shook off
or blew away of theirselves. We put this in the language of our
informant.
However, the story has no business on the other side of this wall. What
concerns it is the row of houses on the left.
If ever a row of houses bore upon them the stamp of having been
overtaken and surrounded by an unexpected city, these did. The wooden
palings that still skirted the breathing-room in front of them almost
said aloud to every newcomer:--"Where is the strip of land gone that we
could see beyond, day by day; that belonged to God-knows-who; whose
further boundary was the road the haycarts brought their loads on, drawn
by deliberate horses that had bells?" The persistent sunflowers that
still struggled into being behind them told tales of how big they were
in youth, years ago, when they could turn to the sun and hope to catch
his eye. The stray wallflowers murmured to all who had ears to
hear:--"This is how we smelt in days gone by--but oh!--so much
stronger!" The wooden shutters, outside the ground-floors that really
stood upon the ground, told, if you chose to listen, of how they kept
the houses safe from thieves in moonlit nights a century ago; and the
doors between them--for each house was three windows wide--opened
straight into the kitchen. So they were, or had been, cottages. But the
miscreant in possession twenty years ago, instigated by a jerry-builder,
had added a storey and removed the tiled roofs whose garrets were every
bit as good as the jerry-built rooms that took their place. Sapp himself
may have done it--one knows nothing of his principles--and at the same
time in a burst of overweening vanity called his cottages his Court. But
one rather likes to think that Sapp was with his forbears when this came
about, when the wall was built up opposite, and the cottages could no
longer throw their dust everywhere, but had to resort to a common
dustbin at the end of the Court, which smelt so you could smell it quite
plain across the wall when the lid was off. That dustbin was the outward
and visible sign of the decadence of Sapp.
CHAPTER I
OF DAVE AND DOLLY WARDLE AND THEIR UNCLE MOSES, WHO HAD BEEN A
PRIZEFIGHTER, AND THEIR AUNT M'RIAR, WHO KEPT AN EYE ON THEM. OF
DAVE'S SERVICES TO THE PUBLIC, AND OF ANOTHER PUBLIC THAT NEARLY
MADE UNCLE MO BANKRUPT. OF HIS PAST BATTLES, NOTABLY ONE WITH A
SWEEP. OF MRS. PRICHARD AND MRS. BURR, WHO LIVED UPSTAIRS. OF A BAD
ACCIDENT THAT BEFELL DAVE, AND OF SIMEON STYLITES. HOW UNCLE MO
STRAPPED UP DAVE'S HEAD WITH DIACHYLUM BOUGHT BY A VERY BAD BOY,
MICHAEL RAGSTROAR, THE LIKE OF WHOM YOU NEVER! OF THE JUDGEMENT OF
SOLOMON, AND DAVE'S CAT
In the last house down the Court, the one that was so handy to the
dustbin, lived a very small boy and a still smaller sister. There were
other members of the household--to wit, their Uncle Moses and their Aunt
M'riar, who were not husband and wife, but respectively brother and
sister of Dave's father and mother. Uncle Moses' name was Wardle, Aunt
M'riar's that of a deceased or vanished husband. But Sapps Court was
never prepared to say offhand what this name was, and "Aunt M'riar" was
universal. So indeed was "Uncle Mo"; but, as No. 7 had been spoken of as
"Wardle's" since his brother took the lower half of the house for
himself and his first wife, with whom he had lived there fifteen years,
the name Wardle had come to be the name of the house. This brother had
been some ten years younger than Moses, and had had apparently more than
his fair share of the family weddings; as "old Mo," if he ever was
married, had kept the lady secret; from his brother's family certainly,
and presumably from the rest of the world.
Our little boy was the sort of boy you were sorry was ever going to be
eleven, because at five years and ten months he was that square and
compact, that chunky and yet that tender, that no right-minded person
could desire him to be changed to an impudent young scaramouch like
young Michael Ragstroar four doors higher up, who was eleven and a
regular handful.
His name was Dave Wardle, after his father; and his sister's Dorothea,
after her mother. Both names appeared on a tombstone in the parish
churchyard, and you might have thought they was anybody, said Public
Opinion; which showed that Dave and his sister were orphans. Both had
recollections of their father, but the funeral he indulged in three
years since had elbowed other memories out of court. Of their mother
they only knew by hearsay, as Dave was only three years old when his
sister committed matricide, quite unconsciously, and you could hear her
all the way up the Court. Pardon the story's way of introducing
attestations to some fact of interest or importance in the language in
which its compiler has received it.
They were good children to do with, said their Aunt M'riar, so long as
you kep' an eye. And a good job they were, because who was to do her
work if she was every minute prancing round after a couple of young
monkeys? This was a strained way of indicating the case; but there can
be no doubt of its substantial truth. So Aunt M'riar felt at rest so
long as Dave was content to set up atop of the dustbin-lid and shout
till he was hoarse; all the while using a shovel, that was public
property, as a gong.
Perhaps Dave took his sister Dolly into his confidence about the nature
of the trust he conceived himself to hold in connection with this
dustbin. To others of the inhabitants he was reticent, merely referring
to an emolument he was entitled to. "The man on the lid," he said, "has
a farden." He said this with such conviction that few had the heart to
deny the justice of the claim outright, resorting to subterfuges to
evade a cash settlement. One had left his change on the piano; another
was looking forward to an early liquidation of small liabilities on the
return of his ship to port; another would see about it next time Sunday
come of a Friday, and so on. But only his Uncle Moses ever gave him an
actual farthing, and Dave deposited it in a cat on the mantelshelf, who
was hollow by nature, and provided by art with a slot in the dorsal
vertebrae. It could be shook out if you wanted it, and Dave occasionally
took it out of deposit in connection with a course of experiments he was
interested in. He wished to determine how far he could spit it out.
This inquiry was a resource against ennui on rainy days and foggy days
and days that were going to clear up later. All these sorts were devised
by the malignity of Providence for the confusion of small boys yearning
to be on active service, redistributing property, obstructing traffic,
or calling attention to personal peculiarities of harmless passers-by.
But it was not so inexhaustible but that cases occurred when those
children got that unsettled and masterful there was no abiding their
racket; and as for Dolly, her brother was making her every bit as bad as
himself. At such times a great resource was to induce Uncle Moses to
tell some experiences of a glorious past, his own. For he had been a
member of the Prize Ring, and had been slapped on the back by Dukes, and
had even been privileged to grasp a Royal hand. He was now an unwieldy
giant, able to get about with a stick when the day was fine, but every
six months less inclined for the effort.
Uncle Moses, when he retired from public life, had put all his winnings,
which were considerable, into a long lease of a pot-house near Golden
Square, where he was well-known and very popular. If, however, there had
been a rock on the premises and he had had all the powers of his
namesake, four-half would have had to run as fast from it as ever did
water from the rock in Horeb, to keep down the thirst of Golden Square.
For Uncle Moses not only refused to take money from old friends who
dwelt in his memory, but weakly gave way to constructive allegations of
long years of comradeship in a happy past, which his powers of
recollection did not enable him to contradict. "Wot, old Moses!--you'll
never come for to go for to say you've forgot old Swipey Sam, jist along
in the Old Kent Road--Easy Shavin' one 'apenny or an arrangement come to
by the week!" Or merely, "Seein' you's as good as old times come alive
again, mate." Suchlike appeals were almost invariable from any customer
who got fair speech of Uncle Moses in his own bar. In his absence these
claims were snuffed out roughly by a prosaic barman--even the most
pathetic ones, such as that of an extinct thimblerigger for whom three
small thimbles and one little pea had ceased for ever, years ago, when
he got his fingers in a sausage-machine. But Uncle Moses was so much his
own barman that this generosity told heavily against his credit; and he
would certainly have been left a pauper but for the earnest counsels of
an old friend known in his circle of Society as Affability Bob, although
his real name was Jeremiah Alibone. By him he was persuaded to dispose
of the lease of the "Marquess of Montrose" while it still had some
value, and to retire on a pound a week. This might have been more had he
invested all the proceeds in an annuity. "But, put it I do!" said he. "I
don't see my way to no advantage for David and Dorothy, and this here
young newcome, if I was to hop the twig." For this was at the time of
the birth of little Dave, nearly six years before the date of this
story.
Affability Bob applauded his friend's course of action in view of its
motive. "But," said he, "I tell you this, Moses. If you'd 'a' gone on
standin' Sam to every narrycove round about Soho much longer, 'No
effects' would have been _your_ vardict, sir." To which Uncle Moses
replied, "Right you are, old friend," and changed the subject.
However, there you have plenty to show what a rich mine of past
experience Uncle Moses had to dig in. The wonder was that Dave and Dolly
refused to avail themselves of its wealth, always preferring a
monotonous repetition of an encounter their uncle had had with a Sweep.
He could butt, this Sweep could, like a battering-ram, ketching hold
upon you symultaneous round the gaiters. He was irresistible by ordinary
means, his head being unimpressionable by direct impact. But Uncle Moses
had been one too many for him, having put a lot of thinking into the
right way of dealing with his system.
He had perceived that the hardest head, struck evenly on both sides at
the same moment, must suffer approximately as much as if jammed against
the door-post and catched full with a fair round swing. Whereas had
these blows followed one another on a yielding head, the injury it
inflicted as a battering-ram might have outweighed the damage it
received in inflicting it. As it was, Peter--so Uncle Moses called the
Sweep--was for one moment defenceless, being preoccupied in seizing his
opponent by the ankles; and although his cranium had no sinuses, and was
so thick it could crush a quart-pot like an opera-hat, it did not court
a fourth double concussion, and this time he was destined to disappoint
his backers.
His opponent, who in those days was known as the Hanley Linnet, suffered
very little in the encounter. No doubt you know that a man in fine
training can take an amazing number of back-falls on fair ground, clear
of snags and brickbats; and, of course, the Linnet's seconds made a
special point of this, examining careful and keeping an eye to prevent
the introduction of broke-up rubbish inside the ropes by parties having
an interest, or viciously disposed.
"There you are again, Uncle Mo, a-tellin' and a-tellin' and a-tellin'!"
So Aunt M'riar would say when she heard this narrative going over
well-known ground for the thousandth time. "And them children not
lettin' you turn round in bed, I call it!" This was in reference to Dave
and Dolly's severity about the text. The smallest departure from the
earlier version led to both them children pouncing at once. Dave would
exclaim reproachfully:--"You _did_ say a Sweep with one blind eye, Uncle
Mo!" and Dolly would confirm his words with as much emphasis as her
powers of speech allowed. "Essoodid, a 'Weep with one b'ind eye!"--also
reproachfully. Then Uncle Moses would supply a corrected version of
whatever was defective, in this case an eye not quite blind, but nearly,
owing to a young nipper, no older than Dave, aiming a broken bottle at
him as the orficers was conducting of him to the Station, after a fight
Wandsworth way, the other party being took off to the Horspital for
dead.
The Jews, I am told, won't stand any nonsense when they have their
sacred writings copied, always destroying every inaccurate MS. the
moment an error is spotted in it. Dave and Dolly were not the Jews, but
they were as intolerant of variation in the text of this almost sacred
legend of the Sweep. "S'ow me how you punched him, wiv Dave's head,"
Dolly would say; and she would be most exacting over the dramatic
rendering of this ancient fight. "Percisely this way like I'm showing
you--only harder," was Uncle Moses' voucher for his own accuracy. "Muss
harder?" inquired Dolly. "Well--a tidy bit harder!" said the veteran
with truth. The head of the Sweep's understudy, Dave, was not equal to a
full-dress rehearsal. So Dolly had to be content with the promise of a
closer reading of the part when her brother was growed up.
But it was rather like Aunt M'riar said, for Uncle Moses. Those two
young Turks didn't allow their uncle no latitude, in the manner of
speaking. He couldn't turn round in bed.
These rainy days, when the children could not possibly be allowed out,
taxed their guardians' patience just to the point of making
them--suppose we say--not ungrateful to Providence when old Mrs.
Prichard upstairs giv' leave for the children to come and play up in her
room. She was the only other in-dweller in the house, living in the
front and back attics with Mrs. Burr, who took jobs out in the
dressmaking, and very moderate charges. When Mrs. Burr worked at home,
Mrs. Prichard enjoyed her society and knitted, while Mrs. Burr cut out
and basted. Very few remarks were passed; for though Mrs. Burr was
snappish now and again, company was company, and Mrs. Prichard she put
up with a little temper at times, because we all had our trials; and
Mrs. Burr was considered good at heart, though short with you now and
again. Hence when loneliness became irksome, Mrs. Prichard found Dave
and Dolly a satisfaction, so long as nothing was broke. It was a
pleasant extension of the experience of their early youth to play at
monarchs, military celebrities, professional assassins, and so on, in
old Mrs. Prichard's room upstairs. And sometimes nothing _was_ broke.
Otherwise one day at No. 7, Sapps Court, was much the same as another.
Uncle Mo's residence in Sapps Court dated many years before the coming
of Aunt M'riar; in fact, as far back as the time he was deprived of his
anchorage in Soho. He was then taken in by his brother, recently a
widower; and no question had ever arisen of his quitting the haven he
had been, as it were, towed into as a derelict; until, some years later,
David announced that he was thinking of Dolly Tarver at Ealing. Moses
smoked through a pipe in silence, so as to give full consideration; then
said, like an easy-going old boy as he was:--"You might do worse, Dave.
I can clear out, any minute. You've only got to sing out." To which his
brother had replied:--"Don't you talk of clearing out, not till Miss
Tarver she tells you." Moses' answer was:--"I'm agreeable, Dave"; and
the matter dropped until some time after, when he had made Dolly
Tarver's acquaintance. She, on hearing that her union with David would
send Mo again adrift, had threatened to declare off if such a thing was
so much as spoke of. So Moses had remained on, in the character of a
permanency saturated with temporariness; and, when the little boy Dave
began to take his place in Society, proceeded to appropriate--so said
the child's parents--more than an uncle's fair share of him.
Then came the tragedy of his mother's death, causing the Court to go
into mourning, and leaving Dave with a sister, too young to be conscious
of responsibility for it. Not too young, however, to make her case
heard--the case all living things have against the Power that creates
them without so much as asking leave. The riot she made being
interpreted by both father and uncle as protest against Mrs. Twiggins, a
midwife who made herself disagreeable--or, strictly speaking, more
disagreeable; being normally unpleasant, and apt to snap when spoke to,
however civil--it was thought desirable to call in the help of her Aunt
M'riar, who was living with her family at Ealing as a widow without
incumbrance. Dolly junior appeared to calm down under Aunt M'riar's
auspices, though every now and then her natural indignation got the
better of her self-restraint. Dave junior was disgusted with his sister
at first, but softened gradually towards her as she matured.
His father did not long survive the death of his young wife. Even an
omnibus-driver is not exempt from inflammation of the lungs, although
the complaint is not so fatal among persons exposed to all weathers as
among leaders of indoor lives. A violent double pneumonia carried off
Uncle Mo's brother, six months after he became a widower, and about
three years before the date of this story.
Whether in some other class of life a marriageable uncle and aunt--sixty
and forty respectively--would have accepted their condominium of the
household that was left, it is not for the story to discuss. Uncle Moses
refused to give up the two babies, and Aunt M'riar refused to leave
them, and--as was remarked by both--there you were! It was an _impasse_.
The only effect it had on the position was that Uncle Mo's temporariness
got a little boastful, and slighted his permanency. The latter, however,
paid absolutely no attention to the insult, and the only change that
took place in the three following years at No. 7, Sapps Court, had
nothing to do with the downstairs tenants. Some months before the first
date of the story, a variation came about in the occupancy upstairs,
Mrs. Prichard and Mrs. Burr taking the place of some parties who, if the
truth was told, were rather a riddance. The fact is merely recorded as
received; nothing further has transpired regarding these persons.
Mrs. Prichard was a very old lady who seldom showed herself outside of
her own room--so the Court testified--but who, when she did so,
impressed the downstairs tenants as of unfathomable antiquity and a
certain pictorial appearance, causing Uncle Mo to speak of her as an old
picter, and Dave to misapprehend her name. For he always spoke of her as
old Mrs. Picture. Mrs. Burr dawned upon the Court as a civil-spoken
person who was away most part of the day, and who did not develope her
identity vigorously during the first year of her tenancy. One is
terribly handicapped by one's own absence, as a member of any Society.
* * * * *
As time went on, Dave and Dolly, who began life with an idea that Sapps
Court was the Universe, became curious about what was going on outside.
They grew less contented with the dustbin, and ambition dictated to Dave
an enthronement on an iron post at the entrance, under the archway. The
delight of sitting on this post was so great that Dave willingly faced
the fact that he could not get down, and whenever he could persuade
anyone to put him up ran a risk of remaining there _sine die_. When he
could not induce a native of the Court to do this, he endeavoured to
influence the outer public, not without success. For when it came to
understand--that public--that the grubby little tenant of Dave's grubby
little shirt and trousers was not asking the time nor for a hoyp'ny, but
was murmuring shyly:--"I soy, mawster, put me up atop," at the same
time slapping the post on either side with two grubby little, fat hands,
it would unbend and comply, telling Dave to hold on tight, and never
asking no questions how ever the child was to be got off of it when the
time came. Because people are that selfish and inconsiderate.
The difficulty of getting down off of it all by himself, without a
friendly supporting hand in the waistband of his trousers, was connected
with the form of this post's head. It was not a disused twenty-four
pounder with a shot in its muzzle, as so many posts are, but a real
architectural post, cast from a pattern at the foundry. Its capital
expanded at the top, and its projecting rim made its negotiation
difficult to climbers, if small; hard to get round from below, and
perilous to leave hold of all of a sudden-like, in order to grasp the
shaft in descent. But then, it was this very expansion that provided a
seat for Dave, which the other sort of post would hardly have afforded.
How did Simeon Stylites manage to scrat on? One prefers to think that an
angel put him on his column, carrying him somewhat as one carries a cat;
and called for him to be taken down at convenient intervals by
appointment. The mind revolts at the idea that he really never came
down, quite never! But then, when the starving man is on at the
Aquarium, we--that is to say, the humane public--are apt to give way to
mere maudlin sentimentalism, and hope he is cheating. And when a person
at a Music Hall folds backwards and looks through his legs at us
forwards, we always hope he feels no strain--nothing but a great and
justifiable professional pride. It is not a pleasant feeling that any of
these good people are suffering on our behalf. However, in the case of
Simeon Stylites there was a mixture of motives, no doubt.
Dave Wardle was too young to have motives, and had none, unless the
desire to surprise and impress Dolly had weight with him. But he had the
longing on him which that young gentleman in the poem expressed by
writing the Latin for _taller_ on a flag; and to gratify it had scaled
the dustbin as the merest infant. It was an Alpine record. But the iron
post was no mere Matterhorn. It was like Peter Bot's Mountain; and once
you was up, there you were, and no getting down!
The occasional phrases for which I am indebted to Aunt M'riar which have
crept into the text recently--not, as I think, to its detriment--were
used by her after a mishap which befell her nephew owing to the child's
impatience. If he'd only a had the sense to set still a half a minute
longer, she would have done them frills and could have run up the Court
a'most as soon as look at you. But she hoped what had happened would
prove a warning, not only to Dave, but to all little boys in a driving
hurry to get off posts. And not only to them either, but to Youth
generally, to pay attention to what was said to it by Age and
Experience, neither of which ever climb up posts without some safe
guarantee of being able to climb down again.
What had happened was that Dave had cut his head on the ornate plinth of
that cast-iron post, his hands missing their grip as his legs caught the
shaft, so that he turned over backwards and his occiput suffered. He
showed a splendid spirit--quite Spartan, in fact--bearing in mind his
uncle's frequent homilies on the subject of crying; a thing no little
boy, however young, should dream of. Dolly was under no such obligation,
according to Uncle Moses, being a female or the rudiment of one, and on
this occasion she roared for herself and her brother, too. Aunt M'riar
was in favour of taking the child to Mr. Ekins, the apothecary, for
skilled surgery to deal with the case, but Uncle Moses scouted the idea.
"Twopenn'orth o' stroppin' and a basin o' warm water," said he, "and
I'll patch him up equal to Guy's Hospital.... Got no diacklum? Then send
one of those young varmints outside for it.... You've no call to go
yourself." For a various crowd of various ages under twelve had come
from nowhere to enjoy the tragic incident.
"Twopenn'orth of diaculum plaster off of Mr. Ekings the 'poarthecary?"
said that young Michael Ragstroar, thrusting himself forward and others
backward; because, you see, he was such a cheeky, precocious young
vagabond. "Mean to say I can't buy twopenn'orth of diaculum plaster off
of Mr. Ekings the 'poarthecary? Mean to say my aunt that orkupies a
'ouse in Chiswick clost to high-water mark don't send me to the
'poarthecaries just as often as not? For the mixture to be taken regular
... Ah!--where's the twopence? 'And over!"
Whereupon, such is the power of self-confidence over everyone else, that
Aunt M'riar entrusted twopence to this youth, quite forgetting that he
was only eleven. Yet her faith in him was not ill-founded, for he
returned like an echo as to promptitude. Only, unlike the echo, he came
back louder than he went, and more positive.
"There's the quorntity and no cheatin'," said he. "You can medger it up
with a rule if you like. It'll medger, you find if it don't! Like I
told you! And a 'apenny returned on the transaction." The tension of the
situation did not admit of the measuring test--nor indeed had Aunt
M'riar data to go upon--and as for the halfpenny, it stood over.
Uncle Moses had not laid false claim to surgical skill, and was able to
strap the wound a'most as if he'd been brought up to it. By the time it
was done Dave's courage was on the wane, and he wasn't sorry to lie his
head down and shut to his eyes. Because the lids thereof were like the
lids of plate-chests.
However, before he went off very sound asleep--so sound you might have
took him for a image--he heard what passed between Uncle Moses and
Michael, whose name has been spelt herein so that you should think of it
as Sapps Court did; but its correct form is Rackstraw.
"Now, young potato-peelin's, how much money did the doctor hand you back
for that diacklum?"
"Penny. Said he'd charge it up to the next Dook that come to his shop."
Thereupon Aunt M'riar taxed the speaker with perfidy. "Why, you little
untrue, lyin', deceitful story," she said. "To think you should say it
was only a ha'penny!"
"I never said no such a thing. S'elp me!"
"''Apenny returned on the transaction' was the very identical selfsame
words." Thus Aunt M'riar testified. "And what is more," she added
inconsecutively, "I do not believe you've any such an aunt, nor yet ever
been to Chiswick."
But young potato-peelings, so called from his father's vocation of
costermonger, defended himself with indignation. "Warn't that square?"
said he. "He never said I warn't to keep it all, didn't that doctor!"
Then he took a high position as of injured virtue. "There's your
'apenny! There's both your 'apennies! Mean to say I 'aven't kep' 'em
safe for yer?" Uncle Moses allowed the position of bailee, but disposed
of the penny as Solomon suggested in the case of the baby, giving one
halfpenny to Michael, and putting the other in Dave's cat on the
mantelshelf.
He justified this course afterwards on the ground that the doctor's
refund was made to the actual negotiator, and that Aunt M'riar had in
any case received full value for her money. Who could say that the
doctor, if referred to, would not have repudiated Aunt M'riar's claim
_in toto_?
Warnings, cautions, and moral lessons derived from this incident had due
weight with Dave for several days; in fact, until his cut healed over.
Then he forgot them and became as bad as ever.