THAT NASTY LITTLE STETHOSCOPE! A RETROSPECT ABOUT THE RECTOR AND MISS FOSSETT. A TRANSACTION IN KISSES. AUNT STINGY'S WEEDS, AND WHAT A GOOD COOK SHE WAS

The dead drunkard's funeral expenses had been made conditional on his widow postponing her visit to the Hospital. No doubt the stress laid by Miss Fossett and her brother's friend on Jim's unfitness to receive visitors, was owing to their desire to justify this. It is fair to say that the woman spent the money honourably on its assigned object. She belonged to a class that expresses its emotions in the presence of Death by the celebration of obsequies, just as much as Kings and Princes—perhaps even more, considering its limitations. The classes that keep funeral ecstasies in check are to be found half-way on the human ladder, somewhere.

The object of using the power thus gained was not so much to conceal the story of the drunkard's death—for it was soon clear that Jim would not be injuriously affected by hearing of that—as to keep from him that Lizarann was the worse for her exposure in the snow on that terrible night. It appeared to Miss Fossett and the Rev. Athelstan—or Yorick, as she always called him and thought of him—that a certain amount of playing double was justified by the circumstances. It might have been a very serious throwback to Jim to know that his little lass was being kept away from him by anything but his own wish to be "on his pins again" next time he saw her; and he held on so stoically to his resolution not to see her till then that it seemed a very diluted mendaciousness to say no more of Lizarann's health than that she had caught a slight cold, and would be much better cared for at the schoolhouse than at her aunt's—unless, indeed, Jim especially wished Mrs. Steptoe to have her back. Jim didn't.

"She's such a nice little girl in herself, Yorick," said Miss Fossett a fortnight after Lady Arkroyd's visit to the Hospital, "that one wishes it could be managed." She was referring to a suggestion her ladyship had made.

"Does one, altogether?" was Yorick's reply. "What was it she said?—'Get her away from her terrible surroundings, and give her a chance of doing well.' Our Baronetess is a good-hearted woman in reality—with a little flummery—only she's apt to be taken in by sounding phrases. This one would either mean taking the little person away from her Daddy, or else getting him away from his terrible surroundings. Who's to do it, Addie? You would shirk the task just as much as I, if you knew Jim."

"But couldn't he be got away, too?"

"Well!—of course, I was thinking of that as impracticable at the moment."

"But is it?"

"Why—no! It's only a question of money. Jim would be ductile enough, I see that. I suppose I should be right in getting Sir Murgatroyd's money used that way?"

"Certainly. He has twenty thousand a year. What does it matter? One-pound-five a week is fifty-two pounds for the pound, and thirteen pounds for the five shillings—one-fourth part. Sixty-five pounds! Oh, Yorick, what can it matter?"

"I don't know," says Yorick. He is one of those rare people who don't think misappropriation of funds grows less and less immoral in the inverse ratio of the one borne to them by the source of their supply.

"Well!—I do," says Miss Fossett. "Sir Murgatroyd can perfectly well afford it."

There was time to discuss the matter, and Yorick and Miss Fossett did so at intervals during the weeks that followed. Discussion of any project favours its materialization, which often comes about more because it is kept alive than in consequence of any agreement on details among its promoters. The idea that "something would have to be done" about Lizarann and her Daddy took root both in Grosvenor Square and the neighbourhood of Tallack Street, and only waited for Jim's wooden leg, to become a reality. It was taken for granted that Lizarann's cough, which was really hardly anything now, would be quite gone by then, and that her pulse would be normal. Six whole weeks!

Meanwhile Lizarann herself was not prepared to admit there was anything the matter with her. She secretly regarded the whole thing as a conspiracy to keep her away from her Daddy—a conspiracy somehow fostered and encouraged by Dr. Ferris's stethoscope; but not one to be denounced and rebelled against, because of the obviously good intentions of Teacher, the gentleman, and the doctor-gentleman. It wasn't their fault! They were misled by that audacious little lying pipe, which was no use either to play upon or look through, and yet had the effrontery to pretend you could listen with it. Absurd!

Other forms of medical investigation she regarded as games, and resolved that when she and her Daddy were back at Aunt Stingy's, she was going to ply them gymes with Bridgetticks. She would listen to Bridgetticks's chest with a hoopstick many a day when the spring came, and weather permitted doorsteps. And vice versa; fair play, of course! And she would get her down flat, and put one hand on lots of different places on her chest, and thud it unfairly hard with the other, and say, "Does that hurt you?" and make her draw long breaths. She accepted diagnosis as human and lovable in benefactors, but still a weakness, and a sure road to misapprehension in chest cases.

If it had not been for cod-liver oil, and restraints, and mustard poultices that printed her small chest red, she would have regarded the whole thing as a lark, especially in view of the banquets that accompanied it. And was she not assured that Daddy was having the same, only heaps more? The oil was the worst trial. It pretended to be tasteless certainly, but that was mere pharmaceutical hypocrisy; the bottles knew better, whatever the labels might say. Her first hearing of the name of this nasty elixir vitÆ produced a curious confusion in her mind, the revelation of which shocked Miss Fossett, taxed Yorick's command of his countenance, and made the doctor chuckle at intervals all the way home. For she recalled an occasion on which the Rev. Wilkinson Wilkins had denounced "ungodly livers." Herein lay great possibilities of misapprehension, and Lizarann was not slow to infer that cod-liver oil was divine, as opposed to some still worse abomination on draught in the opposite camp—devil-liver oil, perhaps!

The foregoing shows to what an extent Teacher had turned her residence next door to the School into a hospital for the accommodation of this case. The good-natured lady was always liable to get involved in the fortunes of any of her young students, and though the present one had no claim on her that a hundred others might not have had, she was no doubt a lovable child, and her courage under trial had fairly engaged the affections of the Rev. Athelstan. Now Yorick had always been an idol of Adeline Fossett's from the day when he was first introduced to her, a girl his junior in years, but older than he for all that, as an Eton friend to whom her favourite brother probably owed his life. She had been much in his confidence in the years that followed; had been his great friend and adviser all through his Oxford days; had sympathized with him in all his youthful love-affairs. Why it was invariably taken for granted that he and she were always to beat up different covers for a lifelong mate it would have been difficult to say. But so it was, and so it continued, quite to the seeming satisfaction of both. She remained his confidante during all the hesitations and perplexities of his courtship of Sophia Caldecott, while only giving a qualified approval to his choice; and when he departed, beaming, with that young lady on a wedding-tour, she honestly believed that her own burst of tears as soon as she found herself, after the day's excitement, alone with her sense that the world had got empty and chill, was due to the fact that Yorick had married, as she viewed the matter, the wrong sister—Sophia instead of Elizabeth, her great friend. Sophia was the pretty one, of course! But men were blind!

Adeline's life was so interwoven with that of a brother who, she believed, would certainly never marry that she looked on herself as not entered for the race of life at all. The idea held her with such force that she could build castles in the air for a bosom friend without a suspicion of a wish for self-election to their suzerainship. Sophia—once fourteen, and nothing—changed into a woman and captured the best castle for herself. Is it certain that Elizabeth's entry into that castle would have left Adeline's world so much less empty and chill? Who can say? All there is room to tell here is that Sophia's death came in a few years; and that Adeline's contemplation of Elizabeth's instalment as Queen Regent, without rights of coronation, was productive of involutions of thought and feeling that would have baffled Robert Browning. She was glad to believe she believed her secret grief that Yorick and Elizabeth could never be man and wife genuine. Perhaps it was.

Very likely the readiness of Miss Fossett to harbour and cherish Lizarann does not want such an elaborate explanation. Lizarann, as the story has shown, was far from being an unattractive scrap in herself, although the mouth was too large for beauty—no doubt of it! She was especially so in these well-washed days when Miss Fossett went after her own very early breakfast to wake her in the morning; or, if awake, to prevent her trying to get up before Dr. Ferris came.

"Maten't I go to see Daddy to-day, Teacher?" she said—always the first question—one such morning about a month after her appropriation by Miss Fossett.

"Maten't you—funny child! Mayn't you's what you mean. No, dear, you mayn't—not yet! No till Dr. Ferris says yes. You must be a good little girl and have patience." For Miss Fossett knew children too well to weep with them invariably in their troubles. Here was one that would bear a bracing treatment. Its effect this time was that a sob never came to maturity—was resolutely swallowed—and that the career of a couple of tears was nipped in the bud by a nightgown-sleeve. A sniff made a protest in their favour, but cut a poor figure. Courage had the best of it.

"Mustn't I only send a kiss to Daddy, Teacher?" Lizarann says this very ruefully.

"Teacer!" Miss Fossett mimics her pronunciation. "Of course you may, dear, as many as you like! You give them to me, and I'll see that Daddy gets them." This is very rash, as Lizarann springs like a tiger, and discharges a volley that would have kept a game of kiss-in-the-ring going for a fortnight. An evil, you will say, easily endurable by a childless woman, with perhaps a hungry heart! Agreed. But embarrassing complications followed. As soon as Lizarann, who was evidently going to be much better to-day, had disposed of a very respectable breakfast for an invalid, and was brought into good form to receive the doctor—she was very nice when she smelt of soap, was Lizarann—her mind harked back on the kissing transaction.

"Who shall you give the skisses to, to tike to Daddy?"

"Never you mind! Daddy shall get them, and that's enough for any little girl at this time in the morning. Now lie still and be good. There's Dr. Ferris's knock."

Lizarann complied. But curiosity rankled. Would Miss Fossett entrust those kisses to Dr. Ferris to give to Daddy? That was the substance of the question that came in perfect good faith from the pillow Lizarann was lying still and being good on. And this with Dr. Ferris audible below!

"Most certainly not! I don't know him well enough." This was very decisive; and Lizarann's impersonal mind discerned in it a mistrust of the goods reaching their destination. Dr. Ferris might give them to someone else. Another carrier must be found.

"But you do the gentleman?"

"Yes, of course! I could give them to the gentleman. But we'll do better than that, Lizarann. I'll give them back to you, and you'll give them to the gentleman." An arrangement that pleases Lizarann, whose allegation that there was siskteen, makes the refund a long job. It lasts till the doctor knocks at the room door.

"Who were you talking to, Doctor?" Lizarann's tickle is still on the speaker's face, as she smooths matters—hair and such-like.

"It's the aunt, Widow Steptoe...."

"Do take care, Doctor!" "Oh—I forgot! It's all right, I think, though ... she wants a testimonial, to say she can cook. She can't, of course! How's the patient?"

"Look and see! I suppose I must see Mrs. Steptoe. She wants to talk, you know. I could just as easily write to this Mrs. What's-her-name ... oh yes; I know who it's for ... as have a long talkee-talkee. If she keeps me, come in as you go, to tell me."

There is a twofold advantage in the loss of a husband who is a curse to your existence—who is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, with all the disadvantages of a community of goods, such as was endured by Zohak the tyrant, who shared his with two serpents that had grown out of him, and partook of him at intervals. One gain is, that your husband is now no more—as the vernacular puts it when not claiming various forms of hereafters for the departed; the other, that we may now mourn his loss and ascribe beauties of character to him without fear of his coming to life to give them practical disclaimers. We can do it with crape, and if we can't afford a pair of black kids, Lisle thread lasts a long time, if wore careful; indeed, Mrs. Hacker, whose testimony we are quoting, was able to dwell on the cheapness of job-lots in the article of mourning, and the advantages we enjoy from sales—advantages unknown to Zohak in his day; only perhaps his snakes outlived him. If they did, there can have been no false note in the pathos with which they spoke of him as "now no more."

Mrs. Steptoe, having been so liberally assisted towards funeral expenses, had been able to enjoy herself thoroughly over the millinery department. Even Bridgetticks had been impressed by the respectability of her appearance. Tallack Street felt it, and joined in tributes to the moral qualities of Mr. Steptoe. It did not shut its eyes to his failing, but rather utilized it to the advantage of his memory, sketching an exalted character that he would certainly have possessed if it had not been undermined by his unfortunate propensity. Each male inhabitant of Tallack Street could conscientiously call upon all his neighbours to bear witness to the many times he had dwelt on what a good, honest, generous, trustworthy nature underlay this unfortunate proclivity to drinking spirits continually, during waking hours, whenever he had a trup'ny bit left, or could get credit, or stood treat to. All agreed to regard it as a sort of involuntary habit, like blinking; or at worst a flaw in culture—like eating peas, or the butter, with the blade of your knife. "The man he was, be'ind it all!"—that was what Tallack Street looked at. The Philosopher might, if Time permitted, have exclaimed: "De non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio!" Tallack Street would have replied, forcibly as we think, that it warn't messin' about with any blooming reasonings—only turning of it over like.

But we doubt if Tallack Street would have recognized Uncle Bob's virtues so readily if his widow's grief had been less effectively shown.

Her mourning gownd was that respectable to look at you couldn't 'ardly tell her for Mrs. Steptoe, goin' along the street, or in at the butcher's. Whereat Tallack Street shook its heads, and accepted the past as a lesson for the future, its older ones saying to its younger ones: "Pore Bob! What did I tell you, N. or M., concernin' of small goes of gin took at all hours and no sort o' system!" The tone of melancholy forgiving retrospect being entirely a reaction produced by the correct attire of the widow.

The same influence made Miss Fossett believe, for the moment, that Mrs. Steptoe could cook, for all Dr. Ferris said. She wrote a testimonial for her which suggested that behind the good plain-cooking accomplishment, as scheduled, were unexplored possibilities this candidate for a place would not lay claim to, from modesty. But for the applicant's decent gown and gloves and new umbrella, she would have thought nothing of her account of her cooking powers, as shown many years since in the early days of her marriage, in certain apartments at Ramsgate, where her husband then worked, before they came to London. She had then cooked a dinner for ten persons, with entrÉes and sweets. Miss Fossett hesitated, metaphorically, to swallow this dinner—tried to persuade Mrs. Steptoe to reduce it to eight. That good woman, however, on taxing her memory, rather showed a disposition to increase it to twelve. On which Miss Fossett surrendered at discretion.

"Of course you'll soon get your hand back again, Mrs. Steptoe; and I hope you'll get this place." At this point the character was written, with a full certificate of the circumstances. It seemed worded to convey that a female cordon bleu, who had been seeing better days, had been forced by ill-hap to resume her old rÔle of life. Completing it, Miss Fossett again spoke: "Where did you say you were in service, Mrs. Steptoe? Ramsgate?"

"Not exactly in service, miss."

"What, then?"

"In apartments to let." Mrs. Steptoe seemed a little uncertain; like a respectable person telling fibs, and in a difficulty. Then she saw her way, and went on, relieved. "I was requested to it, as a faviour. Owing to landlady indisposed—having known her from early childhood." She was proud of this expression evidently. "By the name of Cantrip. I was left in charge, and give every satisfaction. Thirty-two, Sea View Terrace, on the clift."

"And the lodgers had ten people at dinner!" Miss Fossett was surprised, and showed it. The image her mind formed of thirty-two, Sea View Terrace, did not jump with a dinner of ten persons, with entrÉes and sweets. But was it reasonable in not doing so? Mrs. Steptoe must have appreciated the difficulty, for she threw in, "Did you know the house, miss?" and the question was skilful. Miss Fossett admitted that she did not. "But I certainly thought it seemed a large party for a lodging-house," said she, feeling apologetic. She did not wish to be unjust, even to a lodging-house.

Mrs. Steptoe was all amazement that the extensive accommodation of Sea View Terrace should be unknown anywhere in Europe. Her desire to express it seemed to expand beyond dictionaries. Her sakes—why, a many more could have sat down! She then went on to substantiate her statement, giving the names of the guests: "There was Mr. and Mrs. Hallock and family was five, staying in the apartments. And Mrs. Bridgman and her daughter was seven. And Mr. and Mrs. Thorne, and Mr. Hollings—no!—Harris, a young gentleman from town. Countin' up to ten!" Mrs. Steptoe was triumphant. Such detail would verify anything.

"Well!—anyhow, there's the letter, Mrs. Steptoe, and I hope you'll get the place and do well." Miss Fossett was convinced the good woman had been lying, more or less; and so she had, but the only portion of her statement that affects this story was true enough. She had relieved her conscience about the fib that she had cooked this dinner by giving the actual names of those who had eaten it as nearly as she remembered them. Can we not sympathize with her? Are we not human?

She took the letter with abasement and deep gratitude, neither altogether unconnected with a religious fog, unexplained, hanging about the memory of her lamented husband. She inquired after her brother—was looking forward to seeing him on Friday, the next visiting-day at the Hospital—understood he had asked for her to come, with a distinct implication that his nature was a neglectful one, and that she was neglected.

"He has asked for you several times," said Miss Fosset. "But Mr. Taylor thought—so did I—that it would be best for him to know nothing of your husband's death till he was stronger. He puts it down to the Hospital regulations—thinks you have not been admitted. Mr. Taylor will tell him all about it before you see him."

"As you and the gentleman think best, miss! And the little girl, you was a-sayin', is better?"

"The little girl is a great deal better. Wait a minute, and I'll ask Dr. Ferris if he thinks you could see her."

Mrs. Steptoe, who was quite able to keep her anxiety to see her niece in due subordination, dwelt upon her unwillingness to encroach on Miss Fossett's time. Who, accounting these professions honest—which they weren't—went away and met the doctor coming down. He had been a long time over his patient, she remarked. "This patient," said he, "is good company. Glad to say she's going on capitally. Temperature all but normal."

"That aunt-woman's here still." Miss Fossett drops her voice to say this. "Could I take her up to see her safely, do you think?"

"Can you be sure she won't talk about her conf ... about her husband, I mean?"

"Ye-es! I think so, if she promises. I don't know."

"It can't do any great harm, in any case. The child is thinking of nothing but Daddy. Five past nine—oh dear! I'm off ... oh yes!—you may try it." And off goes the doctor.

As to Lizarann's interview with her aunt that followed, a few words will be enough. For no story can record everything everywhere closely; it must take and reject. It was, on the part of Aunt Stingy, an unpresumptuous interview, fraught with meek reminders to little girls of what was due on their part towards their benefactors; as also with suggestions of the depravities inherent in all their species. An interview mysteriously saturated with a sense of religious precepts refrained from, but conferring a sense of moral superiority in one who could, had she chosen, have become a well-spring and fountain-head of little-girl-crushing platitudes. On Lizarann's part, an interview with a background of indictments against herself undisclosed connected, no doubt, somehow with her demeanour on the terrible occasion when she saw her aunt and uncle last. She dared not ask what she had done, preferring to refer her blood-guiltiness—of which, as a general rule, she entertained no doubt—in this case to the lucifer-match negotiation which had induced Uncle Bob to leave hold. That seemed more likely than that she had left the street-door stood on the jar. Of course, she might have been convicted of concealed chestnuts; or even, by some necromancy, Aunt Stingy might have divined how near she had felt to passing the forbidden Vatted Rum Corner limit. But the lucifer-match theory seemed the most probable—not to be broached, however, without the gentleman himself there to protect her. Teacher was good—angelic, indeed—but she was uninformed. And who could say that the evil plausibilities of a subtle human aunt might not persuade her to turn against her protÉgÉe, and rend her? However, the question was not raised, and Lizarann felt grateful when the said aunt departed, after a horny farewell peck.

But as soon as she had departed, Lizarann became suddenly talkative. "Is Aunt Stingy's new gownd pide for?" said she.

"Inquisitive little monkey!" said Teacher. "Perhaps it is; perhaps it isn't."

"What did it costited?" asked Lizarann. But she was really uninterested about the purchase. She was keeping the question before the House in the hope that the debate would throw a light on a collateral point. "Mrs. Hacker's married daughter Sarah was a widow," said she, to give the conversation a lift. "She wore her cloze out, she did."

But why had widowhood come suddenly on the tapis? Evidently sharp ears had heard the doctor's indiscreet speech. Miss Fossett grasped the position. Lizarann would have to know some time. Why not now?

"Poor Aunt Stingy!" She spoke with her eye on Lizarann, on the watch for a guess on the child's part that would assist disclosure. She saw in the large puzzled orbs that met hers, and the small hands pulling nervously at the sheet, that the idea she wanted was either dawning or fructifying. She continued: "Aunt Stingy will have to be a widow now, Lizarann."

The idea had taken hold, and another young mind that up to that moment had looked on Death as a visitor to other families, not hers, had got to face the black terror—just as terrible a mystery, just as cold a cloud, when that which dies is what none would wish should live, as when all worth living for seems lost with it. Even the opportune removal of an Uncle Bob turns the whole world into an antechamber of the great Unknown, and veils the sun in heaven. Nobody had died, in Lizarann's immediate circle, so far, and as for outsiders that was their look out! Uncle Bob wasn't wanted certainly, rather the reverse; but none the less the two large eyes that were fixed on Miss Fossett's informing face filled slowly with tears, and their small owner's hands came out towards her, feeling for something to cry on. Yes!—Uncle Bob was dead, and would never mend any more boots; thus, substantially, the testimony of Teacher, confirming and amplifying the deluge that followed. It was some time before mere awe of Death allowed Lizarann to refer to the fact that Daddy would never enjoy Uncle Bob's society again; there may have been ambiguity here—was it all unmixed disadvantage?—and still longer, quite late in the day, in fact, before her reflections reminded her that Mrs. Hacker's married daughter Sarah, having wore her cloze out, took up with Mr. Brophy, her present husband. A reminiscence evidently recording the exact language of older persons than herself.

"What did you say was the name of that gentleman you met at Royd, Yorick?—the amusing one?..."

"Brownrigg?"

"No—the other."

"Challis."

"The same name as the author?"

"He is the author. Titus Scroop is his nom-de-plume. Why do you ask?"

"Because it must be his wife I wrote Mrs. Steptoe's character for last week. Mrs. Alfred Challis, The Hermitage, Wimbledon."

"Oh yes—that would be. How did you know of her?"

"That Mrs. Eldridge—she's a sort of cousin, you know—wrote to see if I knew of a cook."

"But you knew nothing about Mrs. Steptoe's cooking."

"No—but she can try."

"I don't call that conscientious."

"Oh, my dear Yorick? Isn't that just like you now? If everyone was such a dragon, no one would ever do a good-natured action."

"Was it good-natured—to Mrs. Challis?"

"It may turn out so. Mrs. Steptoe may be a real treasure."

The above is short and explains itself. The time of it may have been three days after the previous story time.