“_I often envy the snail. Mon Dieu, think of at ways travelling beneath
the comfortable roof of one's own house!_”
--Maxime Argon.
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ND now I must tell you something about my rooms, the little ledge in
London in which I rested, and flapped my wings and preened my feathers.
The door of the house rented by Mr. and Mrs. Titch, and disposed of
piece-meal to unmarried gentlemen, looked upon a very tiny square
opening off a busy street. But my two chambers were at the back, and
from their windows I saw nothing of square or street, or any house at
all. The green Hyde Park with its trees and grass, and the wide drive
where carriages and people aired themselves and lingered, that was what
I saw; and often I could fancy myself in the woods and the gardens about
a certain house in another land, and then I would shut my eyes and let
the picture grow and grow, till I could hear known voices and look upon
old faces that perhaps I should never again hear or see in any other
fashion. Yes, the exile may be very gay, and jingle the foreign coins
in his pocket, and whistle the airs of alien songs, and afterwards write
humorously of his adventures; but there are many moments when he and the
canary in the cage are very near together.
For myself, I am best, my friends say, when I am laughing at the world
and playing somewhat the buffoon. And, of course, I am naturally anxious
to appear at my best. Besides, I must confess that I do not think this
world is an affair to be treated with a too great gravity; not, at
least, if one can help it. Frequently it makes itself ridiculous even in
the partial eyes of its own inhabitants. How much more frequently if one
could sit outside--upon a passing shower, for instance--and see it as we
look upon a play? Ten to one, some of our most sententious friends would
seem no different from those amusing sparrows discussing the law of
property in a bread-crumb, or from my dog playing the solemn comedy of
the buried bone. Therefore I always think it safer to assume that there
is some unseen cynic, some creature in the fourth dimension, looking
over my shoulder as I write, and exclaiming, when I grow too sensible,
“Oh, the wise fool!”
Yet for all this excellent philosophy, and in spite of a most reasonable
desire to say those things that are instantly rewarded by a smile,
rather than those an audience receives in silence, and perhaps approves,
perhaps condemns--despite all this, the rubbing of the world upon a set
of nerves does not always make one merry; and in that humor I should
sometimes like to perpetrate a serious sentence. If ever I succumb to
this temptation of the writer's devil, please turn the page and do not
linger over the indiscretion.
Therefore I shall pass quickly over the thin ice of sentiment, the days
when I felt lonely on my comfortable ledge, the hours I spent looking at
the fire. More amusing to tell you of the bright lining to my clouds;
of the sitting-room, for instance, low in the ceiling, commodious, and
shaped, I think, to fit the chimneys or the stairs or the water-butt
outside; at any rate, to suit something that required two unequal
recesses and three non-rectangular corners. It was on the ground-floor,
and had two French windows (of which the adjective cheered me, I think,
as much as the noun). These opened upon a little, stone-paved space,
shaded by a high tree in the park, and which I called my garden.
Rejecting some articles of my landlord's furniture as too splendid
for an untitled tenant--a plush-covered settee, for instance, and
an alabaster tea-table, adorned with cut-glass trophies from the
drawing-room of a bankrupt alderman--I replaced them by a bookcase,
three easy-chairs, and an inviting sofa of my own; I bought substitutes
for the engravings of “The Child's First Prayer” and “The Last Kiss,”
and the colored plates representing idyllic passages from the lives of
honest artisans, which had regaled my predecessor; I recurtained the
dear French windows.
Neither Mr. Titch nor his good wife entirely approved of these changes.
In fact, I suspect they would have given such a Goth notice to quit in
a month had it not been for the reflection that, after all, such
eccentricities were only to be expected of a foreigner. The English
have a most amusing contempt for the rest of mankind, accompanied by
an equally amusing toleration for the peculiarities that are naturaly
associated with such degenerates. The Chinese, I understand, have an
equal national modesty, but their contempt for the foreigner finds
expression in a desire to decapitate his mangled remains. John Bull,
on the other hand, will not only allow but expect you to walk upon your
head, eat rats and mice, maintain a staff of poisonous serpents, and
even play the barrel-organ. This goes to such a length that supposing
you beat him at something he most prides himself upon, such as rowing,
boxing, or manufactures, he will but smile and shake his head and say,
“These are, indeed, most remarkable animals.”
Mr. and Mrs. Titch were no exceptions to this rule, and I think that
in time they even came to have an affection for and a pride in their
preposterous tenant, much like an enthusiastic savant who handicaps
himself with a half-tamed cobra.
Mr. Titch was a little, gray-haired man, with a respectful manner
overlaid upon a consequential air. He had enjoyed varied experience as
footman and butler in several families of distinction, and my Halfred
had been but a short time in the house before he became tremendously
impressed by Mr. Titch's reminiscences of the great, and his vast
knowledge of Halfred's own profession.
“Wonderful man, Mr. Titch, sir,” he would say to me. “What 'e don't
know about our Henglish haristocracy ain't worth knowing. You'd 'ardly
believe it, sir, but he seed the Dook of Balham puttin' his arm round
Lady Sarah Elcey's waist three months before their engagement was in
the papers, and the Dook 'e says to 'im, 'Titch,' says he, ''ere's a
five-pun' note; you're a man of discretion, you are, and what you
sees you keeps to yourself, don't you? I mean no 'arm,' he says. 'I'll
hundertake to marry the lady if you only gives me time.' And Mr. Titch,
he lay low three 'ole months a-knowing a secret like that.”
Mr. Titch's caution and advice were certainly serviceable to Halfred,
who was rapidly becoming transformed from the cheerful 'bus-driver into
the obliging valet. Whether the world did not lose more than I gained
by this change I shall not undertake to say; but I can always
console myself for depriving society of a friend, and Halfred of his
“hinderpendence,” by picturing the little man, poorly protected by his
nondescript rug, driving his 'bus all day through the wind and the rain,
he, at least, enjoyed the transformation; and one result is worth a
hundred admirable theories. Besides, the virtues of Halfred remained the
virtues of Halfred through all the polishings of circumstances and Mr.
Titch.
For the good Mrs. Titch, my discerning servant expressed a respect only
a shade less profound than his homage to her spouse. Now this excellent
lady, though motherly in appearance and wonderfully dignified in
the black silk in which she rustled to church of a Sunday, was not
remarkable either for acuteness of mind or that wide knowledge of the
world enjoyed by Mr. Titch. She knew little of the aristocracy except
through his reminiscences, though I am bound to say her respect for that
august institution was as profound as Major Pendennis himself could have
desired. Also her observations on that portion of the world she had met
were distinguished by an erroneous and solemn foolishness that cannot
have passed unnoticed by Halfred.
Yet he quoted and reverenced her with an inexplicable lack of
discrimination.
“Mrs. Titch is what I calls, sir, a genuwine lady in a 'umble sphere,”
he once remarked to me. “Her delicacy is surprisin'.”
Yes, there must be some mysterious glamour about these worthy people,
and this glamour I began to have dark suspicions was none other than
Miss Aramatilda Titch, daughter of the ex-butler and his genuine lady.
At first I saw this maiden seldom, and then only by glimpses. As
more than one of these revealed her in curl-papers, and as I do not
appreciate woman thus decked out, I paid her but little attention. But
after a week or two had passed I surprised her one afternoon conversing
in my sitting-room with the affable Halfred.
“Miss Titch is a-lookin' to see if the windows want cleaning,” he
explained. Though, as they were standing in the recess farthest removed
from the windows, I came to the conclusion that other matters also were
being discussed.
It was about this time that I had hired a piano to console my solitude,
and a day or two later, as I came towards my room, I heard a tinkle of
music. Pushing the door gently open, I saw Miss Aramatilda picking out
the air of a polka, and Halfred listening to this melody with the most
undisguised admiration.
This time his explanation was more lamely delivered, while Aramatilda
showed the liveliest confusion and dismay.
“My dear Miss Titch,” I assured her, “by all means practise my piano
while I am out--provided, of course, that Mr. Winkles gives you
permission. She asked you, no doubt, if she might play it, Halfred?”
This did not diminish their confusion, I am afraid, and after that their
concerts were better protected against surprise.
Not that I should have objected very strongly to take Halfred's place as
audience one day, for these further opportunities of seeing Miss Titch
roused in me some sympathy with my valet. Aramatilda was undoubtedly
attractive with her hair freed from a too severe restraint, a plump,
brown-eyed young woman, smiling in the most engaging fashion when
politely addressed. Indeed, I should have addressed her more frequently
had not Halfred shown such evident interest in her himself. In these
matters I have always held it better that master and man should be
separately apportioned.
There remains but one other inhabitant of this house who comes into
my story and that was a certain old gentleman living in the rooms
immediately over mine. In fact, we two were the only lodgers, and so,
having few friends as yet, I began to feel some interest in him.
I had heard him referred to always as “the General,” and the few
glimpses I had had of him confirmed this title. Figure to yourself an
erect man of middle height, white-mustached, quick in his step, with an
eye essentially military--that is to say, expressionless in repose, keen
when aroused--and do you not allow that, if he is not a general, he at
least ought to be?
“Who is this general?” I asked Halfred one day.
“As rummy a old customer as ever was, sir,” said Halfred. “Been here
for three years and never 'ad a visitor inside his room all that time,
exceptin' one lady.”
“A lady?” I said. “His--”
“Don't know, sir. Some says one thing, some says another. Kind o' a
hexotic, I calls 'im, sir. Miss Titch she thinks he's 'ad a affair
of the 'eart; I think he booses same as a old pal o' mine what kept a
chemist's shop in Stepney used to. My friend he locks 'isself up in the
back room and puts away morphine and nicotine and strychnine and them
things by the 'alf-pint. 'Ole days at it he were, sir, and all the time
the small boys a-sneak-ing cough-drops, and tooth-brushes for to make
feathers for their 'ats when playin' at soldiers, and when the doctor he
sees 'im at last he says nothing but a hepileptic 'ome wouldn't do 'im
any good.”
“You think, then, the General drinks?” I said.
“Either that or makes counterfeit coins, sir,” said Halfred, with an
ominous shake of his bullet head.
I was quite aware of my Halfred's partiality for the melodramatic.
Nevertheless there was certainly something unusual in my neighbor's
conduct that excited my interest considerably. For I confess I am one of
those who are apt to be blind towards the mysteries of the obvious and
the miracles of every day, and to revel in the romance of the singular.
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