The Tenants of Malory. Volume 2
The "office" in Wormwood Court is an old-fashioned, narrow-fronted, dingy house. It stands apart, and keeps its own secrets, having an uninhabited warehouse on one side, and a shabby timber-yard at the other. In front is a flagged court-yard, with dingy grass sprouting here and there, and lines of slimy moss, grimed with soot.
The gate is, I believe, never opened – I don't know that its hinges would work now. If you have private business with the firm on a wet day, you must jump out of your cab in the street, and run up through the side door, through the rain, over the puddled flags, and by the famous log of mahogany which the Messrs. Goldshed and Levi and their predecessors have sold, in bill transactions, nearly six thousand distinct times, without ever losing sight of it.
In the street this day there stood a cab, at that door. Mr. Jos. Larkin, the Gylingden attorney, was in consultation with the firm. They were sitting in "the office," the front room which you enter at your right from the hall. A high, old-fashioned chimney-piece cuts off the far angle of the room, obliquely. It is wainscoted in wood, in tiny square panels, except over the fireplace, where one great panel runs across, and up to the ceiling, with somebody's coat of arms carved in relief upon it. This woodwork has been painted white, long ago, but the tint has degenerated to a cream or buff colour, and a good washing would do it no harm. Mr. Levi and others have pencilled little sums in addition, subtraction, and multiplication on it. You can see the original oak where the hat-rack was removed, near the window, as also in those places where gentlemen have cut their names or initials.
The window is covered with dust and dirt, beaten by the rain into all sorts of patterns. A chastened light enters through this screen, and you can't see from without who is in the room.
People wonder why Messrs. Goldshed and Levi, with so well-appointed an office in Scroop Street, will keep this private office in so beggarly a state; without a carpet, only a strip of nearly-obliterated oil-cloth on its dirty floor. Along the centre of the room extends a great old, battered, oblong mahogany quadrangle, full of drawers, with dingy brass handles, and having midway a sort of archway, like a bridge under a railway embankment, covered with oil-cloth of an undistinguishable pattern, blotched with old stains of red ink and black, and dribblings of sealing-wax, curling up here and there dustily, where office-knives, in fiddling fingers, have scarred its skin. On top of this are two clumsy desks. Behind one sits the junior partner, on a high wooden stool, and behind the other, the senior, on a battered office chair, with one of its haircloth angles protruding, like the corner of a cocked hat, in front, dividing the short, thick legs of Mr. Goldshed, whose heels were planted on the rungs, bending his clumsy knees, and reminding one of the attitude in which an indifferent rider tries to keep his seat on a restive horse.
Goldshed is the senior in every sense. He is bald, he is fat, he is short. He has gems on his stumpy fingers, and golden chains, in loops and curves, cross the old black velvet waistcoat, which is always wrinkled upward by the habit he has of thrusting his broad, short hands into his trousers pockets.
At the other side, leaning back in his chair, and offering, he flatters himself, a distinguished contrast to the vulgar person opposite, sat Mr. Jos. Larkin, of the Lodge, Gylingden. His tall, bald head was thrown a little back; one arm, in its glossy black sleeve, hung over the back of his chair, with his large red knuckles near the floor. His pink eyes wore their meek and dove-like expression; his mouth a little open, in repose; an air of resignation and beatitude, which, together with his well-known elegance, his long, lavender tinted trousers, and ribbed silk waistcoat of the same favourite hue, presented a very perfect picture, in this vulgar Jewish setting, of a perfect Christian gentleman.
"If everything favours, Mr. Goldshed, Mr. Dingwell may be in town to-morrow evening. He sends for me immediately on his arrival, to my quarters, you understand, and I will send him on to you, and you to Mrs. Sarah Rumble's lodgings."
"Mish Rumble," drawled Goldshed; "not married —a girl, Mish."
"Yes, Mrs. Rumble," continued Larkin, gently, "there's no harm in saying Mrs.; many ladies in a position of responsibility, prefer that style to Miss, for obvious reasons."
Here Goldshed, who was smiling lazily, winked at his junior, who returned that signal in safety, for Mr. Larkin, whose countenance was raised toward the ceiling, had closed his eyes. The chaste attorney's discretion amused them, for Miss Sarah Rumble was an industrious, careworn girl of two-and-fifty, taciturn, and with a brown pug face, and tresses somewhat silvery.
"We are told by the apostle," continued Mr. Larkin, musingly, "not only to avoid evil, but the appearance of evil. I forgot, however, our religions differ."
"Yes – ay – our religions differ, he says; they differ, Levi, don't they?"
"Yes, they do," drawled that theologian.
"Yes, they do; we see our way to that," concluded Goldshed.
Larkin sighed.
There was a short silence here. Mr. Larkin opened his pink eyelids, and showing his small, light blue eyes, while he maintained his easy and gentlemanlike attitude.
The senior member of the firm looked down on his desk, thoughtfully, and picked at an old drop of sealing wax with his office knife, and whistled a few slow bars, and Mr. Levi, looking down also, scribbled the cipher of the firm thirteen times, with flourishes, on a piece of paper.
Mr. Goldshed worked his short thick knees and his heels a little uneasily; the office chair was growing a little bit frisky, it seemed.
"Nishe shailing, Mr. Larkin, and oh, dear! a great lot of delicashy! What do you think?" said Mr. Goldshed, lifting up the office knife, with the edge toward the attorney, and letting it fall back two or three times, between his finger and thumb, dubiously. "The parties being swells, makesh it more delicate – ticklish – ticklish; do you shinsherely think it's all quite straight?"
"Of course, it's straight. I should hope, Mr. Goldshed, I have never advised any course that was not so," said Mr. Larkin, loftily.
"I don't mean religious – law blesh you – I mean safe," said Mr. Goldshed, soothingly.
A light pink flush touched the bald forehead of the attorney.
"Whatever is right, sir, is safe; and that, I think, can hardly be wrong – I hope not – by which all parties are benefited," said the attorney.
"All parties be diddled – except our shelves. I'm thinking of my shelf – and Mr. Levi, here – and, of courshe, of you. Very much of you," he added, courteously.
Mr. Larkin acknowledged his care by a faint meek bow.
"They're swells," repeated Mr. Goldshed.
"He saysh they're swelsh," repeated Mr. Levi, whose grave look had something of the air of a bully in it, fixing his dark prominent eyes on Mr. Larkin, and turning his cheek that way a little, also. "There's a danger in handling a swell – in them matters specially."
"Suppose theresh a contempt?" said Mr. Goldshed, whose chair grew restive, and required management as he spoke.
"He saysh a contempt," repeated Mr. Levi, "or shomething worse," and he heightened the emphasis with an oath.
"I'll guarantee you for twopence, Mr. Levi; and pray consider me, and do not swear," urged Mr. Larkin.
"If you guarantee us, with a penalty," began Mr. Levi, who chose to take him literally.
"I said that, of course, Mr. Levi, by way of illustration, only; no one, of course, dreams of guaranteeing another without a proper consideration. I should have hoped you could not have misunderstood me. I don't understand guarantees, it is a business I have never touched. I'm content, I hope, with the emoluments of my profession, and what my landed property gives me. I only mean this – that there is no risk. What do we know of Mr. Dingwell, that is not perfectly above board – perfectly? I challenge the world upon that. If anything should happen to fall through, we, surely, are not to blame. At the same time if you – looking at it with your experience – apprehend any risk, of course, I couldn't think of allowing you to go on. I can arrange, this evening, and not very far from this house, either."
As Mr. Larkin concluded, he made a feint of rising.
"Ba-ah!" exclaimed Levi. "You don't think we want to back out of thish transhaction, Mr. Larkin? no-o-oh! That's not the trick of thish offishe – is it, gov'nor? He saysh no."
"No," echoed Goldshed.
"No, never – noways! you hear him?" reiterated Mr. Levi. "In for a penny, in for a pound – in for a shilling, in for a thousand. Ba-ah! – No, never."
"No, noways – never!" reverberated Goldshed, in deep, metallic tones. "But, Levi, there, must look an inch or two before his noshe – and sho must I – and sho, my very good friend, Mr. Larkin, must you– a bit before your noshe. I don't see no great danger. We all know, the Honourable Arthur Verney is dead. We are sure of that– and all the rest is not worth the odd ha'pensh in that book," and he touched the mighty ledger lying by him, in which millions were entered. "The rest is Dingwell's affair."
"Just so, Mr. Goldshed," acquiesced Mr. Larkin. "We go together in that view."
"Dingwell be blowed! – what need we care for Dingwell?" tolled out Mr. Goldshed, with his ringing bass.
"Ba-ah! – drat him!" echoed the junior.
"Yes – a – quite as you say – but where's the good of imprecation? With that exception, I quite go with you. It's Dingwell's affair – not ours. We, of course, go straight – and I certainly have no reason to suspect Dingwell of anything crooked or unworthy."
"Oh, no – ba-ah! —nothing!" said Levi.
"Nor I," added Goldshed.
"It'sh delicate – it izh delicate – but very promishing," said Mr. Goldshed, who was moistening a cigar in his great lips. "Very – and no-thing crooked about it."
"No-thing crooked —no!" repeated Mr. Levi, shaking his glossy curls slowly. "But very delicate."
"Then, gentlemen, it's understood – I'm at liberty to assume – that Mr. Dingwell finds one or other of you here whenever he calls after dark, and you'll arrange at once about the little payments."
To which the firm having promptly assented, Mr. Larkin took his leave, and, being a client of consideration, was accompanied to the shabby doorstep by Mr. Levi, who, standing at the hall-door, with his hands in his pockets, nodded slily to him across the flagged court-yard, into the cab window, in a way which Mr. Jos. Larkin of the Lodge thought by many degrees too familiar.
"Well —there's a cove!" said Mr. Levi, laughing lazily, and showing his long rows of ivory fangs, as he pointed over his shoulder, with the point of his thumb, towards the street.
"Rum un!" said Mr. Goldshed, laughing likewise, as he held his lighted cigar between his fingers.
And they laughed together tranquilly for a little, till, with a sudden access of gravity, Mr. Goldshed observed, with a little wag of his head —
"He's da-a-am clever!"
"Ay – yes – da-a-am clever!" echoed Levi.
"Not as much green as you'd put your finger on – I tell you – no muff – devilish good lay, as you shall see," continued Goldshed.
"Devilish good – no, no muff – nothing green," repeated Mr. Levi, lighting his cigar. "Good head for speculation – might be a bit too clever, I'm thinking," and he winked gently at his governor.
"Believe you, my son, if we'd let him – but we won't – will we?" drawled Mr. Goldshed, jocosely.
"Not if I knows it," said Mr. Levi, sitting on the table, with his feet on the stool, and smoking towards the wall.
CHAPTER VI
MR. DINGWELL ARRIVES
Messrs. Goldshed and Levi owned four houses in Rosemary Court, and Miss Sarah Rumble was their tenant. The court is dark, ancient, and grimy. Miss Rumble let lodgings, worked hard, led an anxious life, and subsisted on a remarkably light diet, and at the end of the year never had a shilling over. Her Jewish landlords used to pay her a visit now and then, to receive the rent, and see that everything was right. These visits she dreaded; they were grumbling and minatory, and enlivened by occasional oaths and curses. But though it was part of their system to keep their tenants on the alert by perpetual fault-findings and menaces, they knew very well that they got every shilling the house brought in, that Miss Rumble lived on next to nothing, and never saved a shilling, and was, in fact, their underfed, overworked, and indefatigable slave.
With the uncomplaining and modest charity of the poor, Sarah Rumble maintained her little orphan niece and nephew by extra labour at needle-work, and wonderful feats of domestic economy.
This waste of resources Mr. Levi grudged. He had never done complaining of it, and demonstrating that it could only be accomplished by her holding the house at too low a rent; how else could it be? Why was she to keep other people's brats at the expense of Messrs. Goldshed and Levi? What was the workhouse for? This perpetual pressure was a sore trouble to the poor woman, who had come to love the children as if they were her own; and after one of Mr. Levi's minatory visits she often lay awake sobbing, in the terror and yearnings of her unspeakable affection, whilst its unconscious objects lay fast asleep by her side.
From Mr. Levi, in his accustomed vein, Miss Rumble had received full instructions for the reception and entertainment of her new lodger, Mr. Dingwell. He could not say when he would arrive, neither the day nor the hour; and several days had already elapsed, and no arrival had taken place. This evening she had gone down to "the shop," so designated, as if there had been but one in London, to lay out a shilling and seven pence very carefully, leaving her little niece and nephew in charge of the candle and the house, and spelling out their catechism for next day.
A tapping came to the door; not timid, nor yet menacing; a sort of double knock, delivered with a walking-cane; on the whole a sharp but gentlemanlike summons, to which the little company assembled there were unused. The children lifted their eyes from the book before them, and stared at the door without answering. It opened with a latch, which, without more ado, was raised, and a tall, white-haired gentleman, with a stoop, and a very brown skin, looked in inquisitively, and said, with a smile that was not pleasant, and a voice not loud but somewhat harsh and cold —
"Mrs. or Miss Rumble hereabouts, my dears?"
"Miss Rumble; that's aunt, please, sir;" answered the little girl, slipping down from her chair, and making a courtesy.
"Well, she's the lady I want to speak with, my love. Where is she?" said the gentleman, glancing round the homely chamber from under his white eyebrows with a pair of cold, gray, restless eyes.
"She's – she's" – hesitated the child.
"Not in bed, I see; nor in the cupboard" (the cupboard door was open). "Is she up the chimney, my charming child?"
"No, sir, please; she's gone to Mrs. Chalk's for the bacon."
"Mrs. Chalk's for the bacon?" echoed the gentleman. "Very good! Excellent woman! excellent bacon, I dare say. But how far away is it? – how soon shall we have your aunt back again?"
"Just round the corner, please, sir; aunt's never no time," answered the child. "Would you please call in again?"
"Charming young lady! So accomplished! Who taught you your grammar? So polite – so suspicious. Do you know the meaning of that word, my dear?"
"No, sir, please."
"And I'm vastly obliged for your invitation to call again; but I find your company much too agreeable to think of going away; so, if you allow me – and do shut that door, my sweet child; many thanks – I'll do myself the honour to sit down, if I may venture, and continue to enjoy your agreeable conversation, till your aunt returns to favour us with her charming presence – and bacon."
The old gentleman was glancing from under his brows, from corner to corner of this homely chamber; an uneasy habit, not curiosity; and, during his ceremonious speech, he kept bowing and smiling, and set down a black leather bag that he had in his hand, on the deal table, together with his walking-cane, and pulled off his gloves, and warmed his hands at the tiny bit of fire. When his back was toward them the children exchanged a glance, and the little boy looked frightened, and on the point of bursting into tears.
"Hish!" whispered the girl, alarmed, for she could not tell what effect the demonstration might have upon the stranger – "quiet!" – and she shook her finger in urgent warning at Jemmie. "A very nice gent, as has money for aunty —there!"
So the tears that stood in Jemmie's big eyes were not followed by an outcry, and the gentleman, with his hat and outside wrapper on, stood, now, with his back to the little fire, looking, in his restless way, over the children's heads, with his white, cold eyes, and the same smile. There was a dreamy idea haunting Lucy Maria's head that this gentleman was very like a white animal she had seen at the Surrey Zoological Gardens when her uncle had treated her to that instructive show; the same sort of cruel grin, and the same restless oscillation before the bars of its cage.
"Hey! so she'll be back again?" said he, recollecting the presence of the two children; "the excellent lady, your aunt, I mean. Superb apartment this is, but it strikes me, hardly sufficiently lighted, hey? One halfpenny candle, however brilliant, can hardly do justice to such a room; pretty taper – very pretty – isn't it? Such nice mutton fat, my dear young lady, and such a fine long snuff – like a chimney, with a Quaker's hat on the top of it – you don't see such fine things everywhere! And who's this young gentleman, who enjoys the distinction of being admitted to your salon; a page, or what?"
"It's Jemmie, sir; stand up, and bow to the gentleman, Jemmie."
Jemmie slipped down on the floor, and made a very alarmed bow, with his great eyes staring deprecatingly in the visitor's face.
"I'm charmed to make your acquaintance. What grace and ease! It's perfectly charming! I'm too much honoured, Mr. Jemmie. And so exquisitely got up, too! There's only one little toilet refinement I would venture to recommend. The worthy lady, Mrs. Chalks, who contributes bacon to this house, and, I presume, candles – could, I dare say, also supply another luxury, with which you are not so well acquainted, called soap– one of the few perfectly safe cosmetics. Pray try it; you'll find it soluble in water. And, ho? reading too! What have you been reading out of that exquisite little volume?"
"Catechism, please sir," answered the little girl.
"Ho, Catechism? Delightful! What a wonderful people we English are!" The latter reflection was made for his own entertainment, and he laughed over it in an undertone. "Then your aunt teaches you the art of godliness? You've read about Babel, didn't you? – the accomplishment of getting up to heaven is so nice!"
"Sunday school, sir, please," said the girl.
"Oh, it's there you learn it? Well, I shall ask you only one question in your Catechism, and that's the first – what's your name?"
"Lucy Maria."
"Well, Lucy Maria and Mr. Jemmie, I trust your theological studies may render you at last as pious as I am. You know how death and sin came into the world, and you know what they are. Sin is doing anything on earth that's pleasant, and death's the penalty of it. Did you ever see any one dead, my sweet child – not able to raise a finger or an eyelid? rather a fix, isn't it? – and screwed up in a stenching box to be eaten by worms – all alone, under ground? You'll be so, egad, and your friend, Jemmie, there, perhaps before me – though I'm an old boy. Younkers go off sometimes by the score. I've seen 'em trundled out in fever and plague, egad, lying in rows, like plucked chickens in a poulterer's shop. And they say you have scarlatina all about you here, now; bad complaint, you know, that kills the little children. You need not frighten yourselves though, because it must happen, sooner or later – die you must. It's the penalty, you know, because Eve once eat an apple."
"Yes, sir."
"Rather hard lines on us, isn't it? She eat an apple, and sin, and death, and colic – I never eat an apple in consequence —colic came into the world, and cider, as a consequence – the worst drink ever invented by the devil. And now go on and learn your Church Catechism thoroughly, and you'll both turn into angels. Upon my life, I think I see the feathers beginning to sprout from your shoulders already. You'll have wings, you know, if all goes right, and tails for anything I know."
The little boy looked in his face perplexed and frightened – the little girl, answering his haggard grin with an attempted smile, showed also bewilderment and dismay in her eyes. They were both longing for the return of their aunt.
Childish nature, which is only human nature without its scarf skin, is always afraid of irony. It is not its power, but its treachery that is dreadful – the guise of friendship hiding a baleful purpose underneath. One might fancy the seasoned denizens of Gehenna welcoming, complimenting, and instructing new comers with these profound derisions. How children delight in humour! how they wince and quail under irony! Be it ever so rudely fashioned and clumsily handled, still it is to them a terrible weapon. If children are to be either ridiculed or rebuked, let it be honestly, in direct terms. We should not scare them with this jocularity of devils.
Having thus amused himself with the children for a time, he unlocked his leather bag, took out two or three papers, ordered the little girl to snuff the candle, and pulled it across the table to the corner next himself, and, sitting close by, tried to read, holding the letter almost in the flame, screwing his white eyebrows together, and shifting his position, and that of the candle also, with very little regard to the studious convenience of the children.
He gave it up. The red and smoky light tried his eyes too severely. So, not well pleased, he locked his letters up again.
"Cat's eyes – owls! How the devil they read by it passes my comprehension. Any more candles here – hey?" he demanded with a sudden sharpness that made the children start.
"Three, please sir."
"Get 'em."
"On the nail in the closet, please sir."
"Get 'em, d – n it!"
"Closet's locked, please sir. Aunt has the key."
"Ha!" he snarled, and looked at the children as if he would like to pick a quarrel with them.
"Does your aunt allow you to let the fire out on nights like this – hey? You're a charming young lady, you– and this young gentleman, in manners and appearance, everything the proudest aunt could desire; but I'm curious to know whether either one or the other is of the slightest earthly use; and secondly, whether she keeps a birch-rod in that closet – hey? – and now and then flogs you – ha, ha, ha! The expense of the rod is trifling, the pain not worth mentioning, and soon over, but the moral effects are admirable, better and more durable – take my word for it – than all the catechisms in Paternoster Row."
The old gentleman seemed much tickled by his own pleasantries, and laughed viciously as he eyed the children.
"You did not tell me a fib, I hope, my dear, about your aunt? She's a long time about coming; and, I say, do put a little coal on the fire, will you?"
"Coal's locked up, please sir," said the child, who was growing more afraid of him every minute.
"'Gad, it seems to me that worthy woman's afraid you'll carry off the bricks and plaster. Where's the poker? Chained to the wall, I suppose. Well, there's a complaint called kleptomania – it comes with a sort of irritation at the tips of the fingers, and I should not be surprised if you and your friend Jemmie, there, had got it."
Jemmie looked at his fingers' ends, and up in the gentleman's face, in anxious amazement.