Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings by Charles Dickens (the first e reader TXT) đ
- Author: Charles Dickens
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Knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak right hand, I took it and laid it on her breast and then folded her other hand upon it, and she prayed a good good prayer and I joined in it poor me though there were no words spoke. Then I brought the baby in its wrappers from where it lay, and I says:
âMy dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This is for me to take care of.â
The trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last time, and I dearly kissed it.
âYes my dear,â I says. âPlease God! Me and the Major.â
I donât know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul brighten and leap up, and get free and fly away in the grateful look.
*
So this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear that we called him Jemmy, being after the Major his own godfather with Lirriper for a surname being after myself, and never was a dear child such a brightening thing in a Lodgings or such a playmate to his grandmother as Jemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding what he was told (upon the whole) and soothing for the temper and making everything pleasanter except when he grew old enough to drop his cap down Wozenhamâs Airy and they wouldnât hand it up to him, and being worked into a state I put on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol with the child in my hand and I says âMiss Wozenham I little thought ever to have entered your house but unless my grandsonâs cap is instantly restored, the laws of this country regulating the property of the Subject shall at length decide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it may.â With a sneer upon her face which did strike me I must say as being expressive of two keys but it may have been a mistake and if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham have the full benefit of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she says âJane, is there a street-childâs old cap down our Airy?â I says âMiss Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question you must allow me to inform you to your face that my grandson is NOT a street-child and is NOT in the habit of wearing old caps. In factâ I says âMiss Wozenham I am far from sure that my grandsonâs cap may not be newer than your ownâ which was perfectly savage in me, her lace being the commonest machine-make washed and torn besides, but I had been put into a state to begin with fomented by impertinence. Miss Wozenham says red in the face âJane you heard my question, is there any childâs cap down our Airy?â âYes Maâamâ says Jane, âI think I did see some such rubbish a-lying there.â âThenâ says Miss Wozenham âlet these visitors out, and then throw up that worthless article out of my premises.â But here the child who had been staring at Miss Wozenham with all his eyes and more, frowns down his little eyebrows purses up his little mouth puts his chubby legs far apart turns his little dimpled fists round and round slowly over one another like a little coffee-mill, and says to her âOo impdent to mi Gran, me tut oor hi!â âO!â says Miss Wozenham looking down scornfully at the Mite âthis is not a street-child is it not! Really!â I bursts out laughing and I says âMiss Wozenham if this ainât a pretty sight to you I donât envy your feelings and I wish you good-day. Jemmy come along with Gran.â And I was still in the best of humours though his cap came flying up into the street as if it had been just turned on out of the water-plug, and I went home laughing all the way, all owing to that dear boy.
The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, Jemmy driving on the coach-box which is the Majorâs brass-bound writing desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair and the Major Guard up behind with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do assure you my dear that sometimes when I have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driving and the Major blowing up behind to have the change of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have half believed we were on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to see that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper matchboxes on the chimney-piece is to see the Major enjoying it fully as much as the child I am very sure, and itâs equal to any play when Coachee opens the coach-door to look in at me inside and say âWery âpast that âtage.ââPrightened old lady?â
But what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost that child can only be compared to the Majorâs which were not a shade better, through his straying out at five years old and eleven oâclock in the forenoon and never heard of by word or sign or deed till half-past nine at night, when the Major had gone to the Editor of the Times newspaper to put in an advertisement, which came out next day four-and-twenty hours after he was found, and which I mean always carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as the first printed account of him. The more the day got on, the more I got distracted and the Major too and both of us made worse by the composed ways of the police though very civil and obliging and what I must call their obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was stolen. âWe mostly find Mumâ says the sergeant who came round to comfort me, which he didnât at all and he had been one of the private constables in Carolineâs time to which he referred in his opening words when he said âDonât give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, itâll all come as right as my nose did when I got the same barked by that young woman in your second floorââsays this sergeant âwe mostly find Mum as people ainât over-anxious to have what I may call second-hand children. YOUâLL get him back Mum.â âO but my dear good sirâ I says clasping my hands and wringing them and clasping them again âhe is such an uncommon child!â âYes Mumâ says the sergeant, âwe mostly find that too Mum. The question is what his clothes were worth.â âHis clothesâ I says âwere not worth much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, but the dear child!ââ âAll right Mumâ says the sergeant. âYouâll get him back Mum. And even if heâd had his best clothes on, it wouldnât come to worse than his being found wrapped up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane.â His words pierced my heart like daggers and daggers, and me and the Major ran in and out like wild things all day long till the Major returning from his interview with the Editor of the Times at night rushes into my little room hysterical and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and says âJoy joyâofficer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I was letting myself inâcompose your feelingsâJemmyâs found.â Consequently I fainted away and when I came to, embraced the legs of the officer in plain clothes who seemed to be taking a kind of a quiet inventory in his mind of the property in my little room with brown whiskers, and I says âBlessings on you sir where is the Darling!â and he says âIn Kennington Station House.â I was dropping at his feet Stone at the image of that Innocence in cells with murderers when he adds âHe followed the Monkey.â I says deeming it slang language âO sir explain for a loving grandmother what Monkey!â He says âHim in the spangled cap with the strap under the chin, as wonât keep onâhim as sweeps the crossings on a round table and donât want to draw his sabre more than he can help.â Then I understood it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me and the Major and him drove over to Kennington and there we found our boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing fire having sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small accordion nothing like so big as a flat-iron which they had been so kind as to lend him for the purpose and which it appeared had been stopped upon a very young person.
My dear the system upon which the Major commenced and as I may say perfected Jemmyâs learning when he was so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with his motherâs own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and Commons and then might obtain some promotion for the Major which he well deserves and would be none the worse for (speaking between friends) L. S. D.-ically. When the Major first undertook his learning he says to me:
âIâm going Madam,â he says âto make our child a Calculating Boy.
âMajor,â I says, âyou terrify me and may do the pet a permanent injury you would never forgive yourself.â
âMadam,â says the Major, ânext to my regret that when I had my boot-sponge in my hand, I didnât choke that scoundrel with itâon the spotââ
âThere! For Graciousâ sake,â I interrupts, âlet his conscience find him without sponges.â
ââI say next to that regret, Madam,â says the Major âwould be the regret with which my breast,â which he tapped, âwould be surcharged if this fine mind was not early cultivated. But mark me Madam,â says the Major holding up his forefinger âcultivated on a principle that will make it a delight.â
âMajorâ I says âI will be candid with you and tell you openly that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his appetite I shall know it is his calculations and shall put a stop to them at two minutesâ notice. Or if I find them mounting to his headâ I says, âor striking anyways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but Major you are a clever man and have seen much and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying try.â
âSpoken Madamâ says the Major âlike Emma Lirriper. All I have to ask, Madam, is that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or twoâs preparations for surprising you, and that you will give me leave to have up and down any small articles not actually in use that I may require from the kitchen.â
âFrom the kitchen Major?â I says half feeling as if he had a mind to cook the child.
âFrom the kitchenâ says the Major, and smiles and swells, and at the same time looks taller.
So I passed my word and the Major and the dear boy were shut up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could I hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy clapping his hands
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