it’s you, Mrs. Preedy?” he said, half-questioning.
“Yes,” she replied, “it’s me.”
“You startled me,” he said, coming close to her. “As the door opened it sounded like a smothered cry for ‘Help,’ and I won’t deny that it startled me.”
“I don’t wonder at it,” said Mrs. Preedy; “sometimes the least sound sends my ’eart into my mouth.”
By one impulse they both looked at the house next door, No. 119 Great Porter Square. The next moment they turned their heads away from the house.
“Will you have a glass of gin?” asked Mrs. Preedy.
“I’ve no objections,” replied the guardian of the night.
He stepped inside the passage, and waited while Mrs. Preedy went downstairs – now with a brisker step – and returned with a glass of liquor, which he emptied at a gulp. Thus refreshed, he gave the usual policeman’s pull at his belt, and with a “thank ’ee,” stepped outside the street door.
“A fine night,” he said.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Preedy.
“But dark.”
“Yes,” acquiesced Mrs. Preedy, with a slight shudder, “but dark. ‘As anythink been discovered?” with another shrinking glance at No. 119.
“Nothing.”
“‘As nobody been took up?” she asked.
“No,” replied the policeman. “One man come to the station last night and said he done it; but he had the delirium trimmings very bad, and we found out this morning that he was in Margate at the time. So of course it couldn’t have been him.”
“No,” said Mrs. Preedy, “but only to think of it – though it’s more than two months ago – sends the cold shivers over me.”
“Well, don’t you be frightened more than you can help. I’ll look after you.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
She closed the door and crept down to her kitchen, and sat down once more to a perusal of the newspaper.
There were other papers on the table at which she occasionally glanced, and also a quarto bill printed in large type, with a coat of arms at the top, which caused her to shudder when her eyes lighted on it; but this one paper which she read and re-read in anguish and tribulation of soul, appeared to enchain her sole attention and sympathy. The quarto bill was carefully folded, and what was printed thereon was concealed from view; but its contents were as vivid in Mrs. Preedy’s sight as they would have been if they had been printed in blood.
The truth was, Mrs. Preedy was in trouble. A terrible misfortune had fallen upon her, and had occasioned a shock to her nervous system from which she declared she could never recover. But even this affliction might have been borne (as are many silent griefs from which, not unfrequently, the possessors contrive to extract a sweet and mournful consolation), had it not been accompanied by a trouble of a more practical nature. Mrs. Preedy’s means of livelihood were threatened, and she was haunted by grim visions of the workhouse.
The whole of the upper part of her lodging-house – the dining rooms, the drawing rooms, the second and third floors, and the garrets or attics, the boards of which were very close to the roof – were ordinarily let to lodgers in various ranks and stations of life, none apparently above the grade of the middle class, and some conspicuously below it. Many strange tenants had that house accommodated. Some had come “down” in life; some had been born so low that there was no lower depth for them; some had risen from the gutters, without adding to their respectability thereby; some had floated from green lanes on the tide which is ever flowing from country to city. How beautiful is the glare of lights, seen from afar! “Come!” they seem to say; “we are waiting for you; we are shining for you. Why linger in the dark, when, with one bold plunge, you can walk through enchanted streets? See the waving of the flags! Listen to the musical murmur of delight and happiness! Come then, simple ones, and enjoy! It is the young we want, the young and beautiful, in this city of the wise, the fair, the great!” How bright, even in fragrant lanes and sweet-smelling meadows, are the dreams of the great city in the minds of the young! How bewitching the panorama of eager forms moving this way and that, and crossing each other in restless animation! Laughter, the sound of silver trumpets, the rustle of silken dresses, the merry chink of gold, all are there, waiting to be enjoyed. The low murmur of voices is like the murmur of bees laden with sweet pleasure. Distance lends enchantment, and the sound of pain, the cry of agony, the wail and murmur of those who suffer, are not heard; the rags, the cruelty, the misery, the hollow cheeks and despairing eyes, are not seen. So the ships are fully freighted, and on the bosom of the tide innocence sails to shame, and bright hope to disappointment and despair.
But it mattered not to Mrs. Preedy what kind of lives those who lodged with her followed. In one room a comic singer in low music-halls; in another a betting man; in another a needle-woman and her child; in another a Frenchman who lay abed all day and kept out all night; in another a ballet girl, ignorant and pretty; in another the poor young “wife” of a rich old city man; and a hundred such, in infinite variety. Mrs. Preedy had but one positive test of the respectability of her lodgers – the regular payment of their rent. Never – except, indeed, during the last few weeks to one person – was a room let in her house without a deposit. When a male lodger settled his rent to the day, he was “quite a gentleman;” when a female lodger did the same, she was “quite a lady.” Failing in punctuality, the man was “a low feller,” and the woman “no better than she should be, my dear.”
At the present time the house was more than half empty, and Mrs. Preedy, therefore, was not in an amiable mood. Many times lately had she said to neighbour and friend that she did not know what would become of her; and more than once in the first flush of her trouble, she had been heard to declare that she did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels. If the declaration were intended to bear a literal interpretation, it was on the face of it ridiculous, for upon such a point Mrs. Preedy’s knowledge must have been exact; but at an important period she had persisted in it, and, as the matter was a public one, her words had found their way into the newspapers in a manner not agreeable or complimentary to her. Indeed, in accordance with the new spirit of journalism which is now all the fashion, three or four smartly-conducted newspapers inserted personal and quizzical leading articles on the subject, and Mrs. Preedy was not without good-natured friends who, in a spirit of the greatest kindness, brought these editorial pleasantries to her notice. She read them in fear and trembling at first, then with tears and anger, and fright and indignation. She did not really understand them. All that she did understand was that the cruel editors were making fun of the misfortunes of a poor unprotected female. Curious is it to record that the departed Mr. James Preedy came in for a share of her indignation for being dead at this particular juncture. He ought to have been alive to protect her. Had the “blessed angel” been in the flesh, he would have had a warm time of it; as it was, perhaps, he was having – But theological problems had best be set aside.
Mrs. Preedy read and read, and sipped and sipped. Long habit had endowed her with a strength of resistance to the insidious liquid, and, although her senses were occasionally clouded, she was never inebriated. She read so long and sipped so frequently, that presently her eyes began to close. She nodded and nodded, bringing her nose often in dangerous proximity with the table, but invariably, at the critical moment, a violent and spasmodic jerk upwards was the means of saving that feature from fracture, though at the imminent risk of a dislocation of the slumberer’s neck.
