ADELAIDE ANNE, 1825-1864;DICKENS, CHARLES, 1812-1870;GASKELL, ELIZABETH CLEGHORN, 1810-1865;COLLINS, WILKIE, 1824-1889 PROCTER: A HOUSE TO LET . Страница

I had been living at Tunbridge Wells and nowhere else, going on for ten

years, when my medical man--very clever in his profession, and the

prettiest player I ever saw in my life of a hand at Long Whist, which was

a noble and a princely game before Short was heard of--said to me, one

day, as he sat feeling my pulse on the actual sofa which my poor dear

sister Jane worked before her spine came on, and laid her on a board for

fifteen months at a stretch--the most upright woman that ever lived--said

to me, "What we want, ma'am, is a fillip."

"Then Lard forgive you, Doctor Towers," I said; "why don't you get into a

habit of expressing yourself in a straightforward manner, like a loyal

subject of our gracious Queen Victoria, and a member of the Church of

England?"

Towers laughed, as he generally does when he has fidgetted me into any of

my impatient ways--one of my states, as I call them--and then he began,--

"Tone, ma'am, Tone, is all you require!" He appealed to Trottle, who

just then came in with the coal-scuttle, looking, in his nice black suit,

like an amiable man putting on coals from motives of benevolence.

Trottle (whom I always call my right hand) has been in my service two-and-

thirty years. He entered my service, far away from England. He is the

best of creatures, and the most respectable of men; but, opinionated.

"What you want, ma'am," says Trottle, making up the fire in his quiet and

skilful way, "is Tone."

"Lard forgive you both!" says I, bursting out a-laughing; "I see you are

in a conspiracy against me, so I suppose you must do what you like with

me, and take me to London for a change."

For some weeks Towers had hinted at London, and consequently I was

prepared for him. When we had got to this point, we got on so

expeditiously, that Trottle was packed off to London next day but one, to

"They are opposite a House to Let."

"O!" I said, considering of it. "But is that such a very great

"I think it my duty to mention it, ma'am. It is a dull object to look

"Ever so long," said Trottle. "Years."

"Is it in ruins?"

"It's a good deal out of repair, ma'am, but it's not in ruins."

The long and the short of this business was, that next day I had a pair

of post-horses put to my chariot--for, I never travel by railway: not

that I have anything to say against railways, except that they came in

when I was too old to take to them; and that they made ducks and drakes

of a few turnpike-bonds I had--and so I went up myself, with Trottle in

the rumble, to look at the inside of this same lodging, and at the

outside of this same House.

As I say, I went and saw for myself. The lodging was perfect. That, I

was sure it would be; because Trottle is the best judge of comfort I

know. The empty house was an eyesore; and that I was sure it would be

too, for the same reason. However, setting the one thing against the

other, the good against the bad, the lodging very soon got the victory

over the House. My lawyer, Mr. Squares, of Crown Office Row; Temple,

drew up an agreement; which his young man jabbered over so dreadfully

when he read it to me, that I didn't understand one word of it except my

own name; and hardly that, and I signed it, and the other party signed

it, and, in three weeks' time, I moved my old bones, bag and baggage, up

to London.

For the first month or so, I arranged to leave Trottle at the Wells. I

made this arrangement, not only because there was a good deal to take

care of in the way of my school-children and pensioners, and also of a

new stove in the hall to air the house in my absence, which appeared to

me calculated to blow up and burst; but, likewise because I suspect

Trottle (though the steadiest of men, and a widower between sixty and

seventy) to be what I call rather a Philanderer. I mean, that when any

friend comes down to see me and brings a maid, Trottle is always

remarkably ready to show that maid the Wells of an evening; and that I

have more than once noticed the shadow of his arm, outside the room door

nearly opposite my chair, encircling that maid's waist on the landing,

like a table-cloth brush.

Therefore, I thought it just as well, before any London Philandering took

place, that I should have a little time to look round me, and to see what

girls were in and about the place. So, nobody stayed with me in my new

lodging at first after Trottle had established me there safe and sound,

but Peggy Flobbins, my maid; a most affectionate and attached woman, who

never was an object of Philandering since I have known her, and is not

likely to begin to become so after nine-and-twenty years next March.

It was the fifth of November when I first breakfasted in my new rooms.

The Guys were going about in the brown fog, like magnified monsters of

insects in table-beer, and there was a Guy resting on the door-steps of

the House to Let. I put on my glasses, partly to see how the boys were

pleased with what I sent them out by Peggy, and partly to make sure that

she didn't approach too near the ridiculous object, which of course was

full of sky-rockets, and might go off into bangs at any moment. In this

way it happened that the first time I ever looked at the House to Let,

after I became its opposite neighbour, I had my glasses on. And this

might not have happened once in fifty times, for my sight is uncommonly

good for my time of life; and I wear glasses as little as I can, for fear

of spoiling it.

I knew already that it was a ten-roomed house, very dirty, and much

dilapidated; that the area-rails were rusty and peeling away, and that

two or three of them were wanting, or half-wanting; that there were

broken panes of glass in the windows, and blotches of mud on other panes,

which the boys had thrown at them; that there was quite a collection of

stones in the area, also proceeding from those Young Mischiefs; that

there were games chalked on the pavement before the house, and likenesses

of ghosts chalked on the street-door; that the windows were all darkened

by rotting old blinds, or shutters, or both; that the bills "To Let," had

curled up, as if the damp air of the place had given them cramps; or had

dropped down into corners, as if they were no more. I had seen all this

on my first visit, and I had remarked to Trottle, that the lower part of

the black board about terms was split away; that the rest had become

illegible, and that the very stone of the door-steps was broken across.

Notwithstanding, I sat at my breakfast table on that Please to Remember

the fifth of November morning, staring at the House through my glasses,

as if I had never looked at it before.

All at once--in the first-floor window on my right--down in a low corner,

at a hole in a blind or a shutter--I found that I was looking at a secret

Eye. The reflection of my fire may have touched it and made it shine;

but, I saw it shine and vanish.

The eye might have seen me, or it might not have seen me, sitting there

in the glow of my fire--you can take which probability you prefer,

without offence--but something struck through my frame, as if the sparkle

of this eye had been electric, and had flashed straight at me. It had

such an effect upon me, that I could not remain by myself, and I rang for

Flobbins, and invented some little jobs for her, to keep her in the room.

After my breakfast was cleared away, I sat in the same place with my

glasses on, moving my head, now so, and now so, trying whether, with the

shining of my fire and the flaws in the window-glass, I could reproduce

any sparkle seeming to be up there, that was like the sparkle of an eye.

But no; I could make nothing like it. I could make ripples and crooked

lines in the front of the House to Let, and I could even twist one window

up and loop it into another; but, I could make no eye, nor anything like

an eye. So I convinced myself that I really had seen an eye.

Well, to be sure I could not get rid of the impression of this eye, and

it troubled me and troubled me, until it was almost a torment. I don't

think I was previously inclined to concern my head much about the

opposite House; but, after this eye, my head was full of the house; and I

thought of little else than the house, and I watched the house, and I

talked about the house, and I dreamed of the house. In all this, I fully

believe now, there was a good Providence. But, you will judge for

yourself about that, bye-and-bye.

My landlord was a butler, who had married a cook, and set up

housekeeping. They had not kept house longer than a couple of years, and

they knew no more about the House to Let than I did. Neither could I

find out anything concerning it among the trades-people or otherwise;

further than what Trottle had told me at first. It had been empty, some

said six years, some said eight, some said ten. It never did let, they

all agreed, and it never would let.

I soon felt convinced that I should work myself into one of my states

about the House; and I soon did. I lived for a whole month in a flurry,

that was always getting worse. Towers's prescriptions, which I had

brought to London with me, were of no more use than nothing. In the cold

winter sunlight, in the thick winter fog, in the black winter rain, in

In all that month's time, I never saw anyone go into the House nor come

out of the House. I supposed that such a thing must take place

sometimes, in the dead of the night, or the glimmer of the morning; but,

I never saw it done. I got no relief from having my curtains drawn when

it came on dark, and shutting out the House. The Eye then began to shine

in my fire.

I am a single old woman. I should say at once, without being at all

afraid of the name, I am an old maid; only that I am older than the

phrase would express. The time was when I had my love-trouble, but, it

is long and long ago. He was killed at sea (Dear Heaven rest his blessed

head!) when I was twenty-five. I have all my life, since ever I can

remember, been deeply fond of children. I have always felt such a love

for them, that I have had my sorrowful and sinful times when I have

fancied something must have gone wrong in my life--something must have

been turned aside from its original intention I mean--or I should have

been the proud and happy mother of many children, and a fond old

grandmother this day. I have soon known better in the cheerfulness and

contentment that God has blessed me with and given me abundant reason

for; and yet I have had to dry my eyes even then, when I have thought of

my dear, brave, hopeful, handsome, bright-eyed Charley, and the trust

meant to cheer me with. Charley was my youngest brother, and he went to

India. He married there, and sent his gentle little wife home to me to

be confined, and she was to go back to him, and the baby was to be left

with me, and I was to bring it up. It never belonged to this life. It

took its silent place among the other incidents in my story that might

have been, but never were. I had hardly time to whisper to her "Dead my

own!" or she to answer, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust! O lay it on my

breast and comfort Charley!" when she had gone to seek her baby at Our

Saviour's feet. I went to Charley, and I told him there was nothing left

but me, poor me; and I lived with Charley, out there, several years. He

was a man of fifty, when he fell asleep in my arms. His face had changed

to be almost old and a little stern; but, it softened, and softened when

--I was going on to tell that the loneliness of the House to Let brought

In reply to this observation, the ridiculous man put the tips of my five

right-hand fingers to his lips, and said again, with an aggravating

accent on the third syllable:

"Sophon_is_ba!"

I don't burn lamps, because I can't abide the smell of oil, and wax

candles belonged to my day. I hope the convenient situation of one of my

tall old candlesticks on the table at my elbow will be my excuse for

saying, that if he did that again, I would chop his toes with it. (I am

sorry to add that when I told him so, I knew his toes to be tender.) But,

really, at my time of life and at Jarber's, it is too much of a good

thing. There is an orchestra still standing in the open air at the

Wells, before which, in the presence of a throng of fine company, I have

walked a minuet with Jarber. But, there is a house still standing, in

which I have worn a pinafore, and had a tooth drawn by fastening a thread

to the tooth and the door-handle, and toddling away from the door. And

how should I look now, at my years, in a pinafore, or having a door for

my dentist?

Besides, Jarber always was more or less an absurd man. He was sweetly

dressed, and beautifully perfumed, and many girls of my day would have

given their ears for him; though I am bound to add that he never cared a

fig for them, or their advances either, and that he was very constant to

me. For, he not only proposed to me before my love-happiness ended in

sorrow, but afterwards too: not once, nor yet twice: nor will we say how

many times. However many they were, or however few they were, the last

time he paid me that compliment was immediately after he had presented me

with a digestive dinner-pill stuck on the point of a pin. And I said on

that occasion, laughing heartily, "Now, Jarber, if you don't know that

two people whose united ages would make about a hundred and fifty, have

got to be old, I do; and I beg to swallow this nonsense in the form of

this pill" (which I took on the spot), "and I request to, hear no more of

it."

After that, he conducted himself pretty well. He was always a little

squeezed man, was Jarber, in little sprigged waistcoats; and he had

always little legs and a little smile, and a little voice, and little

round-about ways. As long as I can remember him he was always going

little errands for people, and carrying little gossip. At this present

time when he called me "Sophonisba!" he had a little old-fashioned

lodging in that new neighbourhood of mine. I had not seen him for two or

three years, but I had heard that he still went out with a little

perspective-glass and stood on door-steps in Saint James's Street, to see

the nobility go to Court; and went in his little cloak and goloshes

outside Willis's rooms to see them go to Almack's; and caught the

frightfullest colds, and got himself trodden upon by coachmen and

linkmen, until he went home to his landlady a mass of bruises, and had to

be nursed for a month.

Jarber took off his little fur-collared cloak, and sat down opposite me,

with his little cane and hat in his hand.

"Let us have no more Sophonisbaing, if _you_ please, Jarber," I said.

"Call me Sarah. How do you do? I hope you are pretty well."

"Thank you. And you?" said Jarber.

"I am as well as an old woman can expect to be."

Jarber was beginning:

"Say, not old, Sophon--" but I looked at the candlestick, and he left

off; pretending not to have said anything.

"I am infirm, of course," I said, "and so are you. Let us both be

thankful it's no worse."

"Is it possible that you look worried?" said Jarber.

"It is very possible. I have no doubt it is the fact."

"And what has worried my Soph-, soft-hearted friend," said Jarber.

"Something not easy, I suppose, to comprehend. I am worried to death by

a House to Let, over the way."

Jarber went with his little tip-toe step to the window-curtains, peeped

out, and looked round at me.

"Yes," said I, in answer: "that house."

After peeping out again, Jarber came back to his chair with a tender air,

and asked: "How does it worry you, S-arah?"

"It is a mystery to me," said I. "Of course every house _is_ a mystery,

more or less; but, something that I don't care to mention" (for truly the

Eye was so slight a thing to mention that I was more than half ashamed of

it), "has made that House so mysterious to me, and has so fixed it in my

mind, that I have had no peace for a month. I foresee that I shall have

no peace, either, until Trottle comes to me, next Monday."

I might have mentioned before, that there is a lone-standing jealousy

"_Trottle_," petulantly repeated Jarber, with a little flourish of his

cane; "how is _Trottle_ to restore the lost peace of Sarah?"

"I think it would be too much for you, Jarber."

"Sarah!"

"There would be coming and going, and fetching and carrying, Jarber, and

you might catch cold."

"Sarah! What can be done by Trottle, can be done by me. I am on terms

of acquaintance with every person of responsibility in this parish. I am

intimate at the Circulating Library. I converse daily with the Assessed

Taxes. I lodge with the Water Rate. I know the Medical Man. I lounge

habitually at the House Agent's. I dine with the Churchwardens. I move

to the Guardians. Trottle! A person in the sphere of a domestic, and

totally unknown to society!"

"Don't be warm, Jarber. In mentioning Trottle, I have naturally relied

on my Right-Hand, who would take any trouble to gratify even a whim of

his old mistress's. But, if you can find out anything to help to unravel

the mystery of this House to Let, I shall be fully as much obliged to you

as if there was never a Trottle in the land."

Jarber rose and put on his little cloak. A couple of fierce brass lions

held it tight round his little throat; but a couple of the mildest Hares

might have done that, I am sure. "Sarah," he said, "I go. Expect me on

Monday evening, the Sixth, when perhaps you will give me a cup of