Mrs Fiddison was a tall, thin lady, who was supposed to be a widow from
her display of caps; but the fact was that she had no right to the
matronly prefix, she being a blighted flower--a faded rosebud, on whom
the sun of love had never shone; and the consequence was that her head
drooped upon its stalk, hung over weakly on one shoulder, while a
dewdrop-like tear stood in one eye; and, like carbonic acid gas
concealed in soda-water, she always had an indefinite number of sighs
waiting to escape from her lips.
She smiled sadly at Richard, and waved him to a chair, to have taken
which would have caused the immolation of a widow's cap--which, however,
Mrs Fiddison rescued, and perched awry upon her head, to be out of the
way.
"This gentleman wants apartments, Mrs F.," said Mrs Jenkles.
"Mine are to let," said Mrs Fiddison, sadly; "but does the gentleman
play anything brass?"
Richard stared, and then remembered about the last lodger.
"Oh, dear, no," he said, smiling.
"Because I don't think I could bear it again, let alone the neighbours'
lodgers," said Mrs Fiddison. "I might put up with strings, or wood,
but I could not manage brass."
"I do not play any instrument," said Richard, looking at the lady in a
troubled way, as her head drooped over the cap she was making, and she
gazed at it like a weeping widow on a funeral card.
"So many orchestral gentlemen live about here," said Mrs Fiddison.
"You can hear the double bass quite plain at Cheadley's, next door but
one; but Waggly's have given the kettledrum notice."
"Indeed," said Richard, glancing at Mrs Jenkles, who stood smoothing
her apron.
"Yes," said Mrs Fiddison, holding out the white crape starched grief
before him, so that he might see the effect of her handiwork. "The last
new pattern, sir."
Richard stared at Mrs Jenkles, and that lady came to his assistance.
"Mrs F. makes weeds for a wholesale house, sir."
"They ought to be called flowers of grief, Mrs Jenkles," said the lady.
"A nice quiet, genteel business, sir; and if you don't object to the
smell of the crape, you'd not know there was anything going on in the
house."
"Oh, I'm sure I shouldn't mind," said Richard.
"Prr-oooomp!" went something which sounded like young thunder coming up
in the cellar.
"That's the double bass at Cheadley's, sir," said Mrs Fiddison; "and,
as I was a-saying, you'll find the rooms very quiet, for Waggly's have
given the kettledrum notice. Mrs Waggly said she was sure it was that
made her have the bile so bad; and I shouldn't wonder if it was."
"And the terms," said Richard.
"You are sure you don't play anything brass, sir?" said Mrs Fiddison,
looking at him with her head all on one side, as if to say, "Now, don't
deceive a weak woman!"
"Indeed, I am not musical at all," said Richard, smiling.
"Because it isn't pleasant, sir, for a landlady who wishes to make
things comfortable," continued Mrs Fiddison, smiling at the cap--which
she had now put on her left fist--as if it were a face.
"It can't be, of course." said Richard, getting impatient.
"Mr Took, my last lodger, sir, played the rumboon; and sometimes of a
morning, when he was doing his octaves, it used to quite make my brain
buzz."
"I think the rooms would suit me," said Richard, glancing round.
"Thank you, sir," said Mrs Fiddison, wiping one eye with a scrap of
crape. "You can see the marks all over the wall now."
"Marks--wall?" said Richard.
"Ah, you don't understand the rumboon, sir," said Mrs Fiddison,
pointing with a pair of scissors to various little dents and scratches
on the wall, as she still held up the widow's cap. "Those places are
what he used to make when he shot the thing out to get his low notes--
doing his octaves, sir."
"Indeed," said Richard, recalling the action of the trombone player in
the marine band on board his last ship.
"Perhaps you'd like to see the bedroom, sir?"
"Would you mind seeing that for me, Mrs Jenkles?" said Richard.
"It's plain, sir, but everything at Mrs Fiddison's here is as clean as
hands can make it," said Mrs Jenkles, glancing from one to the other.
"Then it will do," said Richard. "And the terms?"
"Seven shillings my last lodger paid me, sir," said Mrs Fiddison,
drooping more and more, and evidently now much impressed by one of
Richard's boots. "I did hope to get seven and six for them now, as
there's a new table-cover."
Richard glanced at the new cotton check on the table.
"Then I'll pay you seven and sixpence," he said.
"The last being full of holes he made when smoking," said Mrs Fiddison.
"Then that's settled," said Richard. "Mrs--Mrs--"
"Jenkles, sir," said the cabman's wife, smiling.
"Mrs Jenkles, I'm much obliged to you for your trouble," he said.
"And so am I," said Mrs Fiddison, removing a tear once more with a
scrap of crape. "My dear," she continued, fixing a band to the cap, and
holding it out--"isn't that sweet!"
Mrs Jenkles nodded.
"I think the gentleman wants the rooms at once," she said, glancing at
Richard.
"Yes, that I do," he replied. "I'll fetch my portmanteau over
directly."
"Oh, dear!" ejaculated Mrs Fiddison--"so soon."
And with some show of haste, she took a widow's cap off a painted
plaster Milton on the chimneypiece, another from Shakespeare, and
revealed, by the removal of a third, the celebrated Highland laddie, in
blue and red porcelain, taking leave of a green Highland lass, with a
china sheep sticking to one of her unstockinged legs.
Half an hour after, Richard was sitting by the open window, looking
across the street at where a thin, white hand was busy watering the
fuchsias and geraniums in the window, and from time to time he caught a
glimpse of Netta's sweet, sad face.
Then he drew back, for two men came along the street. The first,
black-browed and evil-eyed, he recollected as the fellow with whom he
had had the encounter on the race day, and this man paused for a moment
as he reached Sam Jenkles's door, turned sharply round, pointed at it,
and then went on; the second, nodding shortly as he came up, raised his
hand, and knocked, standing glancing sharply up and down the street,
while Richard mentally exclaimed--"What does he want here?" Then the
door opened, there was a short parley with Mrs Jenkles, and the man
entered, leaving Richard puzzled and wondering, as he said, half aloud--
"What could these men be doing here?"
Volume 3, Chapter V.