The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens [fox in socks read aloud txt] 📗

down from the bean-stalk country to earth and her guardian’s chambers.

“And now, my dear,” said Mr. Grewgious, “what is to be done next? To put the same thought in another form; what is to be done with you?”

Rosa could only look apologetically sensible of being very much in her own way and in everybody else’s. Some passing idea of living, fireproof, up a good many stairs in Furnival’s Inn for the rest of her life, was the only thing in the nature of a plan that occurred to her.

“It has come into my thoughts,” said Mr. Grewgious, “that as the respected lady, Miss Twinkleton, occasionally repairs to London in the recess, with the view of extending her connection, and being available for interviews with metropolitan parents, if any—whether, until we have time in which to turn ourselves round, we might invite Miss Twinkleton to come and stay with you for a month?”

“Stay where, sir?”

“Whether,” explained Mr. Grewgious, “we might take a furnished lodging in town for a month, and invite Miss Twinkleton to assume the charge of you in it for that period?”

“And afterwards?” hinted Rosa.

“And afterwards,” said Mr. Grewgious, “we should be no worse off than we are now.”

“I think that might smooth the way,” assented Rosa.

“Then let us,” said Mr. Grewgious, rising, “go and look for a furnished lodging. Nothing could be more acceptable to me than the sweet presence of last evening, for all the remaining evenings of my existence; but these are not fit surroundings for a young lady. Let us set out in quest of adventures, and look for a furnished lodging. In the meantime, Mr. Crisparkle here, about to return home immediately, will no doubt kindly see Miss Twinkleton, and invite that lady to co-operate in our plan.”

Mr. Crisparkle, willingly accepting the commission, took his departure; Mr. Grewgious and his ward set forth on their expedition.

As Mr. Grewgious’s idea of looking at a furnished lodging was to get on the opposite side of the street to a house with a suitable bill in the window, and stare at it; and then work his way tortuously to the back of the house, and stare at that; and then not go in, but make similar trials of another house, with the same result; their progress was but slow. At length he bethought himself of a widowed cousin, divers times removed, of Mr. Bazzard’s, who had once solicited his influence in the lodger world, and who lived in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square. This lady’s name, stated in uncompromising capitals of considerable size on a brass door-plate, and yet not lucidly as to sex or condition, was BILLICKIN.

Personal faintness, and an overpowering personal candour, were the distinguishing features of Mrs. Billickin’s organisation. She came languishing out of her own exclusive back parlour, with the air of having been expressly brought-to for the purpose, from an accumulation of several swoons.

“I hope I see you well, sir,” said Mrs. Billickin, recognising her visitor with a bend.

“Thank you, quite well. And you, ma’am?” returned Mr. Grewgious.

“I am as well,” said Mrs. Billickin, becoming aspirational with excess of faintness, “as I hever ham.”

“My ward and an elderly lady,” said Mr. Grewgious, “wish to find a genteel lodging for a month or so. Have you any apartments available, ma’am?”

“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “I will not deceive you; far from it. I have apartments available.”

This with the air of adding: “Convey me to the stake, if you will; but while I live, I will be candid.”

“And now, what apartments, ma’am?” asked Mr. Grewgious, cosily. To tame a certain severity apparent on the part of Mrs. Billickin.

“There is this sitting-room—which, call it what you will, it is the front parlour, Miss,” said Mrs. Billickin, impressing Rosa into the conversation: “the back parlour being what I cling to and never part with; and there is two bedrooms at the top of the ’ouse with gas laid on. I do not tell you that your bedroom floors is firm, for firm they are not. The gas-fitter himself allowed, that to make a firm job, he must go right under your jistes, and it were not worth the outlay as a yearly tenant so to do. The piping is carried above your jistes, and it is best that it should be made known to you.”

Mr. Grewgious and Rosa exchanged looks of some dismay, though they had not the least idea what latent horrors this carriage of the piping might involve. Mrs. Billickin put her hand to her heart, as having eased it of a load.

“Well! The roof is all right, no doubt,” said Mr. Grewgious, plucking up a little.

“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “if I was to tell you, sir, that to have nothink above you is to have a floor above you, I should put a deception upon you which I will not do. No, sir. Your slates WILL rattle loose at that elewation in windy weather, do your utmost, best or worst! I defy you, sir, be you what you may, to keep your slates tight, try how you can.” Here Mrs. Billickin, having been warm with Mr. Grewgious, cooled a little, not to abuse the moral power she held over him. “Consequent,” proceeded Mrs. Billickin, more mildly, but still firmly in her incorruptible candour: “consequent it would be worse than of no use for me to trapse and travel up to the top of the ’ouse with you, and for you to say, ‘Mrs. Billickin, what stain do I notice in the ceiling, for a stain I do consider it?’ and for me to answer, ‘I do not understand you, sir.’ No, sir, I will not be so underhand. I do understand you before you pint it out. It is the wet, sir. It do come in, and it do not come in. You may lay dry there half your lifetime; but the time will come, and it is best that you should know it, when a dripping sop would be no name for you.”

Mr. Grewgious looked much disgraced by being prefigured in this pickle.

“Have you any other apartments, ma’am?” he asked.

“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, with much solemnity, “I have. You ask me have I, and my open and my honest answer air, I have. The first and second floors is wacant, and sweet rooms.”

“Come, come! There’s nothing against them,” said Mr. Grewgious, comforting himself.

“Mr. Grewgious,” replied Mrs. Billickin, “pardon me, there is the stairs. Unless your mind is prepared for the stairs, it will lead to inevitable disappointment. You cannot, Miss,” said Mrs. Billickin, addressing Rosa reproachfully, “place a first floor, and far less a second, on the level footing “of a parlour. No, you cannot do it, Miss, it is beyond your power, and wherefore try?”

Mrs. Billickin put it very feelingly, as if Rosa had shown a headstrong determination to hold the untenable position.

“Can we see these rooms, ma’am?” inquired her guardian.

“Mr. Grewgious,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “you can. I will not disguise it from you, sir; you can.”

Mrs. Billickin then sent into her back parlour for her shawl (it being a state fiction, dating from immemorial antiquity, that she could never go anywhere without being wrapped up), and having been enrolled by her attendant, led the way. She made various genteel pauses on the stairs for breath, and clutched at her heart in the drawing-room as if it had very nearly got loose, and she had caught it in the act of taking wing.

“And the second floor?” said Mr. Grewgious, on finding the first satisfactory.

“Mr. Grewgious,” replied Mrs. Billickin, turning upon him with ceremony, as if the time had now come when a distinct understanding on a difficult point must be arrived at, and a solemn confidence established, “the second floor is over this.”

“Can we see that too, ma’am?”

“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Billickin, “it is open as the day.”

That also proving satisfactory, Mr. Grewgious retired into a window with Rosa for a few words of consultation, and then asking for pen and ink, sketched out a line or two of agreement. In the meantime Mrs. Billickin took a seat, and delivered a kind of Index to, or Abstract of, the general question.

“Five-and-forty shillings per week by the month certain at the time of year,” said Mrs. Billickin, “is only reasonable to both parties. It is not Bond Street nor yet St. James’s Palace; but it is not pretended that it is. Neither is it attempted to be denied—for why should it?—that the Arching leads to a mews. Mewses must exist. Respecting attendance; two is kep’, at liberal wages. Words has arisen as to tradesmen, but dirty shoes on fresh hearth-stoning was attributable, and no wish for a commission on your orders. Coals is either by the fire, or per the scuttle.” She emphasised the prepositions as marking a subtle but immense difference. “Dogs is not viewed with favour. Besides litter, they gets stole, and sharing suspicions is apt to creep in, and unpleasantness takes place.”

By this time Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines, and his earnest-money, ready. “I have signed it for the ladies, ma’am,” he said, “and you’ll have the goodness to sign it for yourself, Christian and Surname, there, if you please.”

“Mr. Grewgious,” said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candour, “no, sir! You must excuse the Christian name.”

Mr. Grewgious stared at her.

“The door-plate is used as a protection,” said Mrs. Billickin, “and acts as such, and go from it I will not.”

Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.

“No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this ’ouse is known indefinite as Billickin’s, and so long as it is a doubt with the riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin’, near the street-door or down the airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe. But commit myself to a solitary female statement, no, Miss! Nor would you for a moment wish,” said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, “to take that advantage of your sex, if you were not brought to it by inconsiderate example.”

Rosa reddening as if she had made some most disgraceful attempt to overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious to rest content with any signature. And accordingly, in a baronial way, the sign-manual BILLICKIN got appended to the document.

Details were then settled for taking possession on the next day but one, when Miss Twinkleton might be reasonably expected; and Rosa went back to Furnival’s Inn on her guardian’s arm.

Behold Mr. Tartar walking up and down Furnival’s Inn, checking himself when he saw them coming, and advancing towards them!

“It occurred to me,” hinted Mr. Tartar, “that we might go up the river, the weather being so delicious and the tide serving. I have a boat of my own at the Temple Stairs.”

“I have not been up the river for this many a day,” said Mr. Grewgious, tempted.

“I was never up the river,” added Rosa.

Within half an hour they were setting this matter right by going up the river. The tide was running with them, the afternoon was charming. Mr. Tartar’s boat was perfect. Mr. Tartar and Lobley (Mr. Tartar’s man) pulled a pair of oars. Mr. Tartar had a yacht, it seemed, lying somewhere down by Greenhithe; and Mr. Tartar’s man had charge of this yacht, and was detached upon his present service. He was a jolly-favoured man, with tawny hair and whiskers, and a big red face. He was the dead image of the sun in old woodcuts, his hair and whiskers answering for rays all around him. Resplendent in the bow of the boat, he was a shining sight, with a man-of-war’s man’s shirt on—or off, according to opinion—and his arms and breast tattooed all sorts of patterns. Lobley seemed to take it easily, and so did Mr. Tartar; yet their oars bent as they pulled, and the boat bounded under them. Mr. Tartar talked as if he were doing nothing, to Rosa who was really doing nothing, and to Mr. Grewgious who was doing this much that he steered all wrong; but what did that matter, when a turn of Mr. Tartar’s skilful wrist, or a mere grin of Mr. Lobley’s over the bow, put all to rights! The tide bore them on in the gayest and most sparkling manner, until they stopped to dine in some ever-lastingly-green garden, needing no matter-of-fact identification here; and then the tide obligingly turned—being devoted to that party alone for that day; and as they floated idly among some osier-beds, Rosa tried what she could do in the rowing way, and came off splendidly, being much assisted; and Mr. Grewgious tried what he could do, and came off on his back, doubled up with an oar under his chin, being not assisted at all. Then there was an interval of rest under boughs (such rest!) what time Mr. Lobley mopped, and, arranging cushions, stretchers, and the like, danced the