A House to Let by Charles Dickens (best ebook for manga TXT) đ
- Author: Charles Dickens
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She stopped on the second-floor landing to treat herself to another chuckle, while Trottle privately posted up in his memory what he had just heard. âTwo points made out,â he thought to himself: âthe house is kept empty on purpose, and the way itâs done is to ask a rent that nobody will pay.â
âAh, deary me!â says Benjaminâs mother, changing the subject on a sudden, and twisting back with a horrid, greedy quickness to those awkward money-matters which she had broached down in the parlour. âWhat weâve done, one way and another for Mr. Forley, it isnât in words to tell! That nice little bit of business of ours ought to be a bigger bit of business, considering the trouble we take, Benjamin and me, to make the imp upstairs as happy as the day is long. If good Mr. Forley would only please to think a little more of what a deal he owes to Benjamin and meââ
âThatâs just it,â says Trottle, catching her up short in desperation, and seeing his way, by the help of those last words of hers, to slipping cleverly through her fingers. âWhat should you say, if I told you that Mr. Forley was nothing like so far from thinking about that little matter as you fancy? You would be disappointed, now, if I told you that I had come to-day without the money?ââ(her lank old jaw fell, and her villainous old eyes glared, in a perfect state of panic, at that!)ââBut what should you say, if I told you that Mr. Forley was only waiting for my report, to send me here next Monday, at dusk, with a bigger bit of business for us two to do together than ever you think for? What should you say to that?â
The old wretch came so near to Trottle, before she answered, and jammed him up confidentially so close into the corner of the landing, that his throat, in a manner, rose at her.
âCan you count it off, do you think, on more than that?â says she, holding up her four skinny fingers and her long crooked thumb, all of a tremble, right before his face.
âWhat do you say to two hands, instead of one?â says he, pushing past her, and getting down-stairs as fast as he could.
What she said Trottle thinks it best not to report, seeing that the old hypocrite, getting next door to light-headed at the golden prospect before her, took such liberties with unearthly names and persons which ought never to have approached her lips, and rained down such an awful shower of blessings on Trottleâs head, that his hair almost stood on end to hear her. He went on down-stairs as fast as his feet would carry him, till he was brought up all standing, as the sailors say, on the last flight, by agravating Benjamin, lying right across the stair, and fallen off, as might have been expected, into a heavy drunken sleep.
The sight of him instantly reminded Trottle of the curious half likeness which he had already detected between the face of Benjamin and the face of another man, whom he had seen at a past time in very different circumstances. He determined, before leaving the House, to have one more look at the wretched muddled creature; and accordingly shook him up smartly, and propped him against the staircase wall, before his mother could interfere.
âLeave him to me; Iâll freshen him up,â says Trottle to the old woman, looking hard in Benjaminâs face, while he spoke.
The fright and surprise of being suddenly woke up, seemed, for about a quarter of a minute, to sober the creature. When he first opened his eyes, there was a new look in them for a moment, which struck home to Trottleâs memory as quick and as clear as a flash of light. The old maudlin sleepy expression came back again in another instant, and blurred out all further signs and tokens of the past. But Trottle had seen enough in the moment before it came; and he troubled Benjaminâs face with no more inquiries.
âNext Monday, at dusk,â says he, cutting short some more of the old womanâs palaver about Benjaminâs indisgestion. âIâve got no more time to spare, maâam, to-night: please to let me out.â
With a few last blessings, a few last dutiful messages to good Mr. Forley, and a few last friendly hints not to forget next Monday at dusk, Trottle contrived to struggle through the sickening business of leave-taking; to get the door opened; and to find himself, to his own indescribable relief, once more on the outer side of the House To Let.
LET AT LASTâThere, maâam!â said Trottle, folding up the manuscript from which he had been reading, and setting it down with a smart tap of triumph on the table. âMay I venture to ask what you think of that plain statement, as a guess on my part (and not on Mr. Jarberâs) at the riddle of the empty House?â
For a minute or two I was unable to say a word. When I recovered a little, my first question referred to the poor forlorn little boy.
âTo-day is Monday the twentieth,â I said. âSurely you have not let a whole week go by without trying to find out something more?â
âExcept at bed-time, and meals, maâam,â answered Trottle, âI have not let an hour go by. Please to understand that I have only come to an end of what I have written, and not to an end of what I have done. I wrote down those first particulars, maâam, because they are of great importance, and also because I was determined to come forward with my written documents, seeing that Mr. Jarber chose to come forward, in the first instance, with his. I am now ready to go on with the second part of my story as shortly and plainly as possible, by word of mouth. The first thing I must clear up, if you please, is the matter of Mr. Forleyâs family affairs. I have heard you speak of them, maâam, at various times; and I have understood that Mr. Forley had two children only by his deceased wife, both daughters. The eldest daughter married, to her fatherâs entire satisfaction, one Mr. Bayne, a rich man, holding a high government situation in Canada. She is now living there with her husband, and her only child, a little girl of eight or nine years old. Right so far, I think, maâam?â
âQuite right,â I said.
âThe second daughter,â Trottle went on, âand Mr. Forleyâs favourite, set her fatherâs wishes and the opinions of the world at flat defiance, by running away with a man of low originâa mate of a merchant-vessel, named Kirkland. Mr. Forley not only never forgave that marriage, but vowed that he would visit the scandal of it heavily in the future on husband and wife. Both escaped his vengeance, whatever he meant it to be. The husband was drowned on his first voyage after his marriage, and the wife died in child-bed. Right again, I believe, maâam?â
âAgain quite right.â
âHaving got the family matter all right, we will now go back, maâam, to me and my doings. Last Monday, I asked you for leave of absence for two days; I employed the time in clearing up the matter of Benjaminâs face. Last Saturday I was out of the way when you wanted me. I played truant, maâam, on that occasion, in company with a friend of mine, who is managing clerk in a lawyerâs office; and we both spent the morning at Doctorsâ Commons, over the last will and testament of Mr. Forleyâs father. Leaving the will-business for a moment, please to follow me first, if you have no objection, into the ugly subject of Benjaminâs face. About six or seven years ago (thanks to your kindness) I had a weekâs holiday with some friends of mine who live in the town of Pendlebury. One of those friends (the only one now left in the place) kept a chemistâs shop, and in that shop I was made acquainted with one of the two doctors in the town, named Barsham. This Barsham was a first-rate surgeon, and might have got to the top of his profession, if he had not been a first-rate blackguard. As it was, he both drank and gambled; nobody would have anything to do with him in Pendlebury; and, at the time when I was made known to him in the chemistâs shop, the other doctor, Mr. Dix, who was not to be compared with him for surgical skill, but who was a respectable man, had got all the practice; and Barsham and his old mother were living together in such a condition of utter poverty, that it was a marvel to everybody how they kept out of the parish workhouse.â
âBenjamin and Benjaminâs mother!â
âExactly, maâam. Last Thursday morning (thanks to your kindness, again) I went to Pendlebury to my friend the chemist, to ask a few questions about Barsham and his mother. I was told that they had both left the town about five years since. When I inquired into the circumstances, some strange particulars came out in the course of the chemistâs answer. You know I have no doubt, maâam, that poor Mrs. Kirkland was confined while her husband was at sea, in lodgings at a village called Flatfield, and that she died and was buried there. But what you may not know is, that Flatfield is only three miles from Pendlebury; that the doctor who attended on Mrs. Kirkland was Barsham; that the nurse who took care of her was Barshamâs mother; and that the person who called them both in, was Mr. Forley. Whether his daughter wrote to him, or whether he heard of it in some other way, I donât know; but he was with her (though he had sworn never to see her again when she married) a month or more before her confinement, and was backwards and forwards a good deal between Flatfield and Pendlebury. How he managed matters with the Barshams cannot at present be discovered; but it is a fact that he contrived to keep the drunken doctor sober, to everybodyâs amazement. It is a fact that Barsham went to the poor woman with all his wits about him. It is a fact that he and his mother came back from Flatfield after Mrs. Kirklandâs death, packed up what few things they had, and left the town mysteriously by night. And, lastly, it is also a fact that the other doctor, Mr. Dix, was not called in to help, till a week after the birth and burial of the child, when the mother was sinking from exhaustionâexhaustion (to give the vagabond, Barsham, his due) not produced, in Mr. Dixâs opinion, by improper medical treatment, but by the bodily weakness of the poor woman herselfââ
âBurial of the child?â I interrupted, trembling all over. âTrottle! you spoke that word âburialâ in a very strange wayâyou are fixing your eyes on me now with a very strange lookââ
Trottle leaned over close to me, and pointed through the window to the empty house.
âThe childâs death is registered, at Pendlebury,â he said, âon Barshamâs
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