Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 3

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

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It was Sunday evening. Mr. Tippens sat on one side of the fire and his wife on the other. They had partaken of tea, and it was not yet quite time for supper; the children were abed, three of them in a little room at the end of the passage Doctor Jones had used as a surgery, while the baby was, for a wonder, fast asleep in its cradle, which stood in a dark corner behind Mrs. Tippens' chair. The horses had long been fed and littered down. Mr. Tippens always took a look at them last thing, but last thing would not be yet for an hour or more. The house was as quiet as the grave, and through the smoke caused by his pipe Richard Tippens, with a delightful sense of well-being, and doing, and feeling, dreamily regarded his wife, who was certainly an extremely pretty woman, possessing further the reputation of being an extraordinarily good manager; neat in her own person, she always kept her children clean and tidy and well dressed; her rooms were regularly swept and scrubbed, and hearthstoned and blackleaded; she mended her husband's clothes, and sewed on his buttons, and with the help of a woman who came in to “char,” as it is generally called, did the family washing and the family ironing; she was a very fair cook, not in the least lazy—quite the contrary, indeed—and yet, if I may venture to say so, in the teeth of public opinion, which always favours women of her type, I do not think she was a good manager, for she spent up to the hilt of her income, whatever that might be. She was always considering how to increase her “gettings,” but she never gave a thought as to how she might save them.

Her husband gave her a liberal allowance, and brought home from outlying regions, where he saw such articles marked up cheap, fowls, fish, necks of mutton, vegetables, and other welcome helps to housekeeping. She had a house full of regularly paying lodgers, who found their own latch-keys, and required no attendance. She took in needlework, at which, as she got it by favour, she was able to make a considerable amount of money—and yet, if she had told the truth to her own heart, she would have said, “We are not one bit better off than we were when d**k only gave me a pound certain every week, and paid the rent.”

It is a pity someone, thoroughly up in financial questions, does not inform us why uncertain incomes lead almost invariably to extravagant living.

Your true economist, your excellent manager, your incomparable financier, is a labourer at a given weekly wage, a clerk on starvation salary, the lady left with the poorest of limited incomes. The moment “gettings,” in any shape, enter into the question economy retires, worsted, from the contest. “You have got so much to-day, you may get so much more to-morrow,” that is the reasoning. Now, why cannot the “gettings” be put aside? Why cannot they be left like an egg in the nest for more to be laid? We know, of course, they never are; but why is it?

Among my own somewhat varied acquaintances, I number, at this moment of writing, two persons—one, a lady whose income, all told, does not reach a hundred a year; on this amount she pays the rent of her rooms, she lives, she dresses; she is not young, and her health requires some few luxuries; yet she is never in debt, and she has always a trifle to spare for those who may be sick or sorry. The other is a youth who I do not think has yet counted eighteen summers; his health is perfect, his rank does not necessitate other than the most moderate expenditure for a bed; his hat covers his family; when he visits, his toilet is easily and perfectly made with a clean collar and a fancy tie; his weekly income has been from thirty to five-and-thirty shillings a week and “gettings”; and yet, lately, when he had been four days out of work, with the certainty of getting into work again on the next day but one, he had to pawn his watch!

Most certainly political economists of the age now coming towards us will find few more difficult questions to deal with than this of “gettings.” Were an angel to descend from Heaven to-night and tell Mrs. Tippens what I know, that “gettings” had been the curse of herself, her husband, and her children, she would not believe him; so it would be worse than folly for me to speak—even if not cruel impertinence—now the inevitable end has come: the parish; the philanthropic society, the ever-decreasing bounty for which she is able to make interest; such casual help as she can get, and such work as she is able to obtain.

But no one that evening, looking at her and her husband, as they sat beside the fire, at the comfortable, well-furnished room, the bright blaze, the clean-swept hearth, could possibly have thought evil days were looming in the distance for both husband and wife. He, the picture of health and strength; she, a slight and still apparently quite young woman, with a refined style of beauty, and a cast of features altogether unusual in her rank. When her voice was not upraised and her temper tried, both of which had been the case during her encounter with that arch-hypocrite Mike, her mode of speaking accorded with the pure and delicate lines of her countenance. In truth, she had been well brought up, and from her youth knew how, with propriety, to address ladies—real ladies, as she was sometimes almost too careful to add; and since her marriage she had kept herself to herself; and in her own home, her children, her relations, and her husband found all the interest and society she required.

“d**k,” she said, after they had sat in silence for some little time.

“I'm here, Luce,” he answered; “what is it, my girl?”

“You never told me this house was haunted.”

“I told you people said it was haunted,” he answered, “and you laughed at the idea; because, as you wisely remarked, 'when once people are buried they've done with this world, surely.”

“But that's just what we don't know—whether old Mrs. Jones was ever buried or not.”

“We don't know whether she is dead or not, for that matter.”

“Then if she's not dead, where can she be?”

“And if Doctor Jones isn't dead, where can he be?” retorted Mr. Tippens.

“There's dreadful things said about this house, Dick.”

“Well, you just turn a deaf ear to them, and they won't break your night's rest. What's Doctor or Mrs. Jones to us? He was a bad man, we know; and she, if all accounts may be trusted, was a bit of a shrew, and held a tight grip on the money, which he married her for. He did not take her for her good looks, I'm sure; for a plainer, more ordinary woman you couldn't have met in a day's walk in London. She was more like a witch than anything else—a little bit of a woman, with eyes like black beads, and a face the colour of mahogany; but there—I've described her before, Luce, and I think we might find something pleasanter to talk about now.”

“But they say, d**k—they do, indeed—she walks the house, and—”

“Pack of rubbish,” interrupted Mr. Tippens warmly; “who says it—at least, who says it to you?”

“Why, mostly everybody—the baker, and the bootmaker down the street, and Mike.”

“She didn't hinder him staying in the house, at any rate,” commented d**k.

“Well, Mr. Mowder lived here, you know.”

“And he was turned out because he wouldn't pay a farthing of rent.”

“He says,” persisted Mrs. Tippens resolutely; “there was always like a cold air in the passage.”

“You can't expect the hall to feel exactly sultry with those great underground kitchens and cellars. I've a mind to put a few spikes in the door, and so shut the whole of those caverns off the rest of the house.”

“But then, d**k, dear, what should we and our lodgers do about coals?”

“Aye, there you go,” observed d**k. “Every woman's alike; the moment a man makes a suggestion, she's sure to raise some difficulty. Then I won't nail up the door; will that meet your views, Mrs. Tippens?”

“Now, d**k, don't let us quarrel,” entreated his better half; “there was enough of quarreling here, if all accounts be true, in the Joneses time, without our beginning the same game, and—”

He did not let her finish the sentence, he took his pipe out of his mouth, and drew his chair nearer to where she sat, and put his arm round her waist, and drew her head down on his shoulder, and stroked her hair tenderly, and said, “No fear of that, old girl—ghosts or no ghosts; Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Anybodyelse, we'll not take to quarrelling. Only, you see, I don't want you to be listening to foolish stories and the envious talk of people who, maybe, think we're getting on a bit too fast in the world. The house suits me and my business well, and I can't afford to have you set against it, and, likely as not, wanting to leave, and me bound for the rent for three years. Mind that, my lass,” and he gave her a kiss so loud and hearty, neither of them heard the opening of the front door till the sound of several voices caused Mr. Tippens to exclaim: “What noise is that, Luce?”

“The Pendells coming in,” she answered; “they've her brother and sister with them up from the country.”

“It's about getting on for supper time, then, isn't it, Luce?” asked Mr. Tippens tentatively. He was always ready for his meals on a Sunday, perhaps because he did not take out his cab and had nothing to do.

“Yes, I'll bring it in now,” answered his wife; and as she spoke she passed into a lean-to, opening off the sitting-room, which she had metamorphosed into a tiny kitchen, perhaps to avoid the dark loneliness of those underground regions Mr. Tippens well described as caverns.

She had provided a nice little meal, and she looked pretty and graceful as she flitted backwards and forwards, fetching one dish and then another.

“Why, girl, this is a supper fit for the Lord Mayor,” said Mr. Tippens, looking approvingly at the contents of the table; “I don't think the Queen herself—”

What he was going to say concerning Victoria by the Grace of God will never now be known, for when he arrived at this point in his sentence there echoed through the silent house a shriek, which brought both husband and wife to their feet, followed by a thud, as of something heavy falling to the ground.

“Lord bless and save us!” exclaimed Mr. Tippens, and seizing a light he rushed out into the passage, followed by his wife.

It was a strangely built house; there were only six steps to the first landing, where was a cupboard in the wall which Mrs. Pendell used as a sort of pantry; half-way down this landing there were three steps more, and then the flight that led direct to the rooms where the Pendells lived.

As d**k Tippens and his wife ran up the half-dozen steps leading from the hall, a posse of people came hurrying pell-mell from the upper part of the house. “What is it? What has happened? Is it thieves? Is the house on fire?” No, the house was not on fire, neither had thieves set themselves at the unprofitable task of effecting an entry; it was only that on the landing Mrs. Pendell lay in the deadest faint woman ever fell into, a large dish she had evidently just taken out of the cupboard smashed to atoms beside her, and the remnants of the joint the family had operated upon in the middle of the day a few steps down, where it had rolled when she dropped the dish.

Everything possible and impossible the house contained was brought to revive Mrs. Pendell; everybody was talking at once, and each individual had some pet theory to account for the phenomenon.

“I told her she was a-overdoing of it,” said her husband, a slow, florid, phlegmatic, pig-headed sort of man. “Didn't I, Bill? Didn't I say to her just on this side of Whitechapel Church, 'you've been a-over-doing it, Mary, you'll have a turn of them spasms to-morrow'?”

Meantime, the subject of these remarks had been carried into the inner chamber and laid on her bed, where every recognised experimental and favourite personal expedient was tried in order to restore her to consciousness; she was “poor deared,” her dress was unfastened and her stays loosened, smelling salts of every degree of strength were held to her nostrils, burnt feathers thrust almost up her nose, her hands slapped, cold water dabbed on her forehead, an attempt made to get some brandy down her throat, with various other ingenious efforts at t*****e, which almost drove Mrs. Tippens, who was in the main a very sensible woman, distracted.

“If you'd only leave her to me and Susie,” she said; “there's not a breath of air in the room, with so many standing about the bed and the doorway. She'll be right enough after a little, if you'll only not crowd about her, and let me open the windows.”

“She's right,” observed Mr. Pendell, from the doorway. “Come along, all of you, Mrs. Tippens knows what's what.”

Mrs. Pendell, however, was so long in justifying this flattering eulogy in Mrs. Tippens' favour, that Susie, the sister, who had come up to see her, was just asking if it would not be better to send Bob for the nearest doctor, when Mrs. Tippens, raising her hand to enforce silence, said:

“Sh—sh—she's coming to now.”

There was a pause, a pin might have been heard drop, so silent and eager and expectant were the two watchers; then Mrs. Pendell, recovering, opened her eyes a very little, and Mrs. Tippens, holding her left hand, and softly rubbing it, said: “Don't be frightened, dear, it's only me.”

“What is it? Where am I?” murmured Mrs. Pendell, adding suddenly, with a gesture of the extremest terror, “Oh! I remember. Keep her away from me, Mrs. Tippens! Mrs. Tippens, won't you keep her away—that dreadful woman, you know?”

“She's a bit light-headed,” said her sister; “I'm sure Bob had better go for the doctor.”

“I don't think there's any need,” answered Mrs. Tippens, quietly enough, though her very heart seemed to stand still at the words. “There's nobody shall come near you, dear, but Susie and me. Don't be looking about the room that way—indeed, there's no one here but your sister and myself.”

“She has long grey hair streaming over her shoulders. Oh, the wickedest face I ever did see! I know her well, don't you, Mrs. Tippens?”

“Yes, yes, dear; but never mind her now; keep yourself quiet.”

“She must be the smallest woman in the world,” this after a moment's silence; “when I turned from the cupboard I felt like a rush of cold air, and then she stood on the top step but one.”

“I think she would be the better for some sort of quieting draught,” remarked Mrs. Tippens, sotto voco to Susan Hay—and it is no disparagement of a courageous woman's courage to say, after Susie left the room she looked fearfully around, while Mrs. Pendell rambled on about the dreadful sight which had struck her down like one dead.

“I have seen people in their coffins, who didn't look half so deathlike,” she whispered; “she was that dark, and her face and her eyes were so fierce, and her arms so shrivelled, and her hands so like claws going to make a clutch at me; and she had a red mark round her throat, as if she had been wearing a necklace too tight.”

“Did she say anything to you?” Mrs. Tippens forced herself to ask.

“No; she was just going to speak when I screamed out with horror. Shall I ever forget her?—ever—ever!” and she buried her head despairingly in the pillow.

“Well, Polly, lass, how do you find yourself now?” said Mr. Pendell, coming into the room at this juncture, and causing a welcome diversion at least to Mrs. Tippens' fancy. “You're getting all right now, aren't you? Ah, I felt afraid what was coming; did I say to you, or did I not, on this side of Whitechapel Church, 'You've been a-overdoing of it, Mary; you'll have a turn of them spasms to-morrow'?”

For answer Mary only put her hand in her husband's and lay strangely still and quiet.

“Bob has gone for the doctor,” proceeded Mr. Pendell, nodding across at Mrs. Tippens. In replying, Mrs. Tippens looked at the patient and then nodded back at him.

Before morning broke Mrs. Pendell had brought a child prematurely into the world. That she lived and the baby lived the doctor assured Mr. Pendell was owing entirely to Mrs. Tippens' extraordinary devotion and excellent nursing; and Mr. Pendell declared solemnly to Mrs. Tippens he would never forget her goodness—“night or day, she had only to say what she wanted, and he would be quite at her service”—a promise he found it convenient to forget when evil days fell upon d**k and his wife.

While these events and exchanges of amenities were passing, there happened a curious experience to Mrs. Tippens one night while she was off duty.

Her husband was out on “a late job,” and had told her not to sit up for him; and Mrs. Tippens having undressed and said her prayers, and placed a box of matches where she could instantly lay hand upon it, was about to blow out the candle and step into bed when from the little room at the end of the passage there came a chorus of “Mother! Mother! MOTHER!” which caused her, without making any addition to her toilet beyond instinctively thrusting her bare feet into a pair of her husband's slippers, to snatch up the candle and rush to the place where her children slept.

“Now then, what is all this noise about?” she asked, seeing they were every one alive and each sitting bolt upright in bed. Theoretically Mrs. Tippens was nothing if not a disciplinarian, but the young ones twisted her round their little fingers for all that. “You'll bring all the lodgers down; I have a great mind to give each of you a good whipping.”

“There was a woman in the room, mamma!” said Mrs. Tippens' second-born.

“And she came and touched me,” added the youngest of the trio.

Yes, that she did, I see her,” exclaimed the eldest son; “a little woman with hair hanging about her like yours, only grey and not so long, and with eyes as black as Lucy's new doll's, the one Mr. Pendell gave her, and as dark as that man with the white turban we saw in the Strand and—”

“Hold your tongue this instant, and never let me hear your nonsense again,” interrupted Mrs. Tippens angrily. “You had too much pudding for supper, that's what's the matter with you, and you got the nightmare and woke up thinking you saw all sorts of things.”

“But we couldn't all have had nightmares,” persisted d**k, who was a sturdy lad, and his father's pride and hope; “I saw her go up to Effie and lay her hand on her.”

“It was cold, too,” supplemented the child.

“And I saw her as well,” capped Lucy, fearful of lagging behind the others in this little matter of renown and glory.

“You are very naughty children,” answered Mrs. Tippens, in a superior sort of tone; then, descending to details, “it is so very likely, Dicky, you could see anyone in the dark.”

“Oh, but she brought a light with her, a sort of a lamp.”

At this point Mrs. Tippens collapsed. If old Mrs. Jones were able, not merely to go wandering about a house for which she paid no rent or taxes, but also to find her own light, what other feat might that lady not be expected to perform? “Now, never let me hear any more of such folly,” she said, however, valiantly, upon the principle that most noise is to be got out of an empty barrel; “I'll turn the key in the door, and then you'll know nobody can get in.”

“No, leave the key inside, and I'll lock the door, and then, if she comes again, I'll holloa.”

“You'd better not,” retorted his mother, so sharply that d**k, discomfited, wrapped the bedclothes about his head, and twisting himself up like a hedgehog, lay repeating in a sort of rhyme the description of the woman who had broken in upon his rest.

That Mrs. Tippens did not sleep much during the course of the night—no, not even when her husband was snoring by her side, and the children had long sunk into slumber—will be readily imagined.