The Christmas Books of Mr. M.A. Titmarsh. Уильям Мейкпис Теккерей

Cyril Thuryfer and assistants—a splendid Anglo-Norman edifice, vast, rich, elaborate, bran new, and intensely old. Down Avemary Lane you may hear the clink of the little Romish chapel bell. And hard by is a large broad-shouldered Ebenezer (Rev. Jonas Gronow), out of the windows of which the hymns come booming all Sunday long.

      Going westward along the line, we come presently to Comandine House (on a part of the gardens of which Comandine Gardens is about to be erected by his lordship); farther on, "The Pineries," Mr. and Lady Mary Mango: and so we get into the country, and out of Our Street altogether, as I may say. But in the half-mile, over which it may be said to extend, we find all sorts and conditions of people—from the Right Honorable Lord Comandine down to the present topographer; who being of no rank as it were, has the fortune to be treated on almost friendly footing by all, from his lordship down to the tradesman.

      OUR HOUSE IN OUR STREET

      We must begin our little descriptions where they say charity should begin—at home. Mrs. Cammysole, my landlady, will be rather surprised when she reads this, and finds that a good-natured tenant, who has never complained of her impositions for fifteen years, understands every one of her tricks, and treats them, not with anger, but with scorn—with silent scorn.

      On the 18th of December, 1837, for instance, coming gently down stairs, and before my usual wont, I saw you seated in my arm-chair, peeping into a letter that came from my aunt in the country, just as if it had been addressed to you, and not to "M. A. Titmarsh, Esq." Did I make any disturbance? far from it; I slunk back to my bedroom (being enabled to walk silently in the beautiful pair of worsted slippers Miss Penelope J—s worked for me: they are worn out now, dear Penelope!) and then rattling open the door with a great noise, descending the stairs, singing "Son vergin vezzosa" at the top of my voice. You were not in my sitting-room, Mrs. Cammysole, when I entered that apartment.

      You have been reading all my letters, papers, manuscripts, brouillons of verses, inchoate articles for the Morning Post and Morning Chronicle, invitations to dinner and tea—all my family letters, all Eliza Townley's letters, from the first, in which she declared that to be the bride of her beloved Michelagnolo was the fondest wish of her maiden heart, to the last, in which she announced that her Thomas was the best of husbands, and signed herself "Eliza Slogger;" all Mary Farmer's letters, all Emily Delamere's; all that poor foolish old Miss MacWhirter's, whom I would as soon marry as——: in a word, I know that you, you hawk-beaked, keen-eyed, sleepless, indefatigable old Mrs. Cammysole, have read all my papers for these fifteen years.

      I know that you cast your curious old eyes over all the manuscripts which you find in my coat-pockets and those of my pantaloons, as they hang in a drapery over the door-handle of my bedroom.

      I know that you count the money in my green and gold purse, which Lucy Netterville gave me, and speculate on the manner in which I have laid out the difference between to-day and yesterday.

      I know that you have an understanding with the laundress (to whom you say that you are all-powerful with me), threatening to take away my practice from her, unless she gets up gratis some of your fine linen.

      I know that we both have a pennyworth of cream for breakfast, which is brought in in the same little can; and I know who has the most for her share.

      I know how many lumps of sugar you take from each pound as it arrives. I have counted the lumps, you old thief, and for years have never said a word, except to Miss Clapperclaw, the first-floor lodger. Once I put a bottle of pale brandy into that cupboard, of which you and I only have keys, and the liquor wasted and wasted away until it was all gone. You drank the whole of it, you wicked old woman. You a lady, indeed!

      I know your rage when they did me the honor to elect me a member of the "Poluphloisboiothalasses Club," and I ceased consequently to dine at home. When I DID dine at home—on a beefsteak let us say—I should like to know what you had for supper. You first amputated portions of the meat when raw; you abstracted more when cooked. Do you think I was taken in by your flimsy pretences? I wonder how you could dare to do such things before your maids (you a clergyman's daughter and widow, indeed), whom you yourself were always charging with roguery.

      Yes, the insolence of the old woman is unbearable, and I must break out at last. If she goes off in a fit at reading this, I am sure I shan't mind. She has two unhappy wenches, against whom her old tongue is clacking from morning till night: she pounces on them at all hours. It was but this morning at eight, when poor Molly was brooming the steps, and the baker paying her by no means unmerited compliments, that my landlady came whirling out of the ground-floor front, and sent the poor girl whimpering into the kitchen.

      Were it but for her conduct to her maids I was determined publicly to denounce her. These poor wretches she causes to lead the lives of demons; and not content with bullying them all day, she sleeps at night in the same room with them, so that she may have them up before daybreak, and scold them while they are dressing.

      Certain it is, that between her and Miss Clapperclaw, on the first floor, the poor wenches lead a dismal life.

      It is to you that I owe most of my knowledge of our neighbors; from you it is that most of the facts and observations contained in these brief pages are taken. Many a night, over our tea, have we talked amiably about our neighbors and their little failings; and as I know that you speak of mine pretty freely, why, let me say, my dear Bessy, that if we have not built up Our Street between us, at least we have pulled it to pieces.

      THE BUNGALOW—CAPTAIN AND MRS. BRAGG.

      Long, long ago, when Our Street was the country—a stagecoach between us and London passing four times a day—I do not care to own that it was a sight of Flora Cammysole's face, under the card of her mamma's "Lodgings to Let," which first caused me to become a tenant of Our Street. A fine good-humored lass she was then; and I gave her lessons (part out of the rent) in French and flower-painting. She has made a fine rich marriage since, although her eyes have often seemed to me to say, "Ah, Mr. T., why didn't you, when there was yet time, and we both of us were free, propose—you know what?" "Psha! Where was the money, my dear madam?"

      Captain Bragg, then occupied in building Bungalow Lodge—Bragg, I say, living on the first floor, and entertaining sea-captains, merchants, and East Indian friends with his grand ship's plate, being disappointed in a project of marrying a director's daughter, who was also a second cousin once removed of a peer—sent in a fury for Mrs. Cammysole, his landlady, and proposed to marry Flora off-hand, and settle four hundred a year upon her. Flora was ordered from the back-parlor (the ground-floor occupies the second-floor bedroom), and was on the spot made acquainted with the splendid offer which the first-floor had made her. She has been Mrs. Captain Bragg these twelve years.

      Bragg to this day wears anchor-buttons, and has a dress-coat with a gold strap for epaulets, in case he should have a fancy to sport them. His house is covered with portraits, busts, and miniatures of himself. His wife is made to wear one of the latter. On his sideboard are pieces of plate, presented by the passengers of the "Ram Chunder" to Captain Bragg: "The 'Ram Chunder' East Indiaman, in a gale, off Table Bay;" "The Outward-bound Fleet, under convoy of her Majesty's frigate 'Loblollyboy,' Captain Gutch, beating off the French squadron, under Commodore Leloup (the 'Ram Chunder,' S.E. by E., is represented engaged with the 'Mirliton' corvette);" "The 'Ram Chunder' standing into the Hooghly, with Captain Bragg, his telescope and speaking-trumpet, on the poop;" "Captain Bragg presenting the Officers of the 'Ram Chunder' to General Bonaparte at St. Helena—TITMARSH" (this fine piece was painted by me when I was in favor with Bragg); in a word, Bragg and the "Ram Chunder" are all over the house.

      Although I have eaten scores of dinners at Captain Bragg's charge, yet his hospitality is so insolent, that none of us who frequent his mahogany feel any obligation to our braggart entertainer.

      After he has given one of his great heavy dinners he always takes an opportunity to tell you, in the most public way, how many bottles of wine were drunk. His pleasure is to make his guests tipsy, and to tell everybody how and when the period of inebriation arose. And Miss Clapperclaw tells me that he often comes over laughing and giggling to her, and pretending that he has brought ME into this condition—a calumny which I fling contemptuously in his face.

      He