Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

"I knew it, I knew it!" cried Zela passionately, as she trod the echoing and melancholy school-room; "he told me that none ever prospered who loved him, – that every flower was blighted upon which he shone! Ferdinand, Ferdinand! you have caused ruin there" (pointing to the empty cupboards and forms); "but what is that to the blacker ruin here!" and the poor creature slapped her heart, and the big tears rolled down her chin, and so into her tucker.

A very, very few weeks after this, the plate of Bulgaria House was removed for ever. That mansion is now designated "Moscow Hall, by Mr. Swishtail and assistants: " – the bankrupt and fugitive Misses Pidge have fled, Heaven knows whither! for the steamers to Boulogne cost more than five shillings in those days.

Alderman Grampus, as may be imagined, did not receive his daughter with any extraordinary degree of courtesy. "He was as grumpy," Mrs. G. remarked, "on the occasion as a sow with the measles." – But had he not reason? A lovely daughter who had neglected her education, forgotten her morals for the second time, and fallen almost a prey to villains! Miss Grampus for some months was kept in close confinement, nor ever suffered to stir, except occasionally to Bunhill-row for air, and to church for devotion. Still, though she knew him to be false, – though she knew that under a different, perhaps a prettier name, he had offered the same vows to another, – she could not but think of Roderick.

That Professor (as well – too well – he may be called!) knew too well her father's name and reputation to experience any difficulty in finding his abode. It was, as every City man knows, in Cheapside; and thither Dandolo constantly bent his steps: but though he marched unceasingly about the mansion, he never (mysteriously) would pass it. He watched Adeliza walking, he followed her to church; and many and many a time as she jostled out at the gate of the Artillery-ground, or the beadle-flanked portal of Bow, a tender hand would meet hers, an active foot would press upon hers, a billet discreetly delivered was as adroitly seized, to hide in the recesses of her pocket-handkerchief, or to nestle in the fragrance of her bosom! Love! Love! how ingenious thou art! thou canst make a ladder of a silken thread, or a weapon of a straw; thou peerest like sunlight into a dungeon; thou scalest, like forlorn hope, a castle wall; the keep is taken! – the foeman has fled! – the banner of love floats triumphantly over the corpses of the slain!15

Thus, though denied the comfort of personal intercourse, Adeliza and her lover maintained a frequent and tender correspondence. Nine times at least in a week, she by bribing her maid-servant, managed to convey letters to the Professor, to which he at rarer intervals, though with equal warmth, replied.

"Why," said the young lady in the course of this correspondence, "why, when I cast my eyes upon my Roderick, do I see him so wofully changed in outward guise? He wears not the dress which formerly adorned him. Is he poor? – is he in disguise? – do debts oppress him, or traitors track him for his blood? Oh that my arms might shield him! – Oh that my purse might aid him! It is the fondest wish of

"Adeliza G.

"P.S. – Aware of your fondness for shell-fish, Susan will leave a barrel of oysters at the Swan with Two Necks, directed to you, as per desire.

"Ad. G.

"P.S. – Are you partial to kippered salmon? The girl brings three pounds of it wrapped in a silken handkerchief. 'Tis marked with the hair of

"Adeliza.

"P.S. – I break open my note to say that you will find in it a small pot of anchovy paste: may it prove acceptable. Heigho! I would that I could accompany it.

"A.G."

It may be imagined, from the text of this note, that Adeliza had profited not a little by the perusal of Mrs. Swipes's novels; and it also gives a pretty clear notion of the condition of her lover. When that gentleman was a professor at Bulgaria House, his costume had strictly accorded with his pretensions. He wore a black German coat loaded with frogs and silk trimming, a white broad-brimmed beaver, hessians, and nankeen tights. His costume at present was singularly changed for the worse: a rough brown frock-coat dangled down to the calves of his brawny legs, where likewise ended a pair of greasy shepherd's-plaid trousers; a dubious red waistcoat, a blue or bird's-eye neckerchief, and bluchers, (or half-boots,) remarkable for thickness and for mud, completed his attire. But he looked superior to his fortune; he wore his grey hat very much on one ear; he incessantly tugged at his smoky shirt-collar, and walked jingling the halfpence (when he had any) in his pocket. He was, in fact, no better than an adventurer, and the innocent Adeliza was his prey.

Though the Professor read the first part of this letter with hope and pleasure, it may be supposed that the three postscripts were still more welcome to him, – in fact, he literally did what is often done in novels, he devoured them; and Adeliza, on receiving a note from him the next day, after she had eagerly broken the seal, and with panting bosom and flashing eye glanced over the contents, – Adeliza, we say, was not altogether pleased when she read the following:

"Your goodness, dearest, passes belief; but never did poor fellow need it more than your miserable, faithful Roderick. Yes! I am poor, – I am tracked by hell-hounds, – I am changed in looks, and dress, and happiness, – in all but love for thee!

"Hear my tale! I come of a noble Italian family, – the noblest, ay, in Venice. We were free once, and rich, and happy; but the Prussian autograph has planted his banner on our towers, – the talents of his haughty heagle have seized our wealth, and consigned most of our race to dungeons. I am not a prisoner, only an exile. A mother, a bed-ridden grandmother, and five darling sisters, escaped with me from Venice, and now share my poverty and my home. But I have wrestled with misfortune in vain; I have struggled with want, till want has overcome me. Adeliza, I want bread!

"The kippered salmon was very good, the anchovies admirable. But, oh, my love! how thirsty they make those who have no means of slaking thirst! My poor grandmother lies delirious in her bed, and cries in vain for drink. Alas! our water is cut off; I have none to give her. The oysters was capital. Bless thee, bless thee! angel of bounty! Have you any more sich, and a few shrimps? My sisters are very fond of them.

"Half-a-crown would oblige. But thou art too good to me already, and I blush to ask thee for more. "Adieu, Adeliza,

"the wretched but faithful"Roderick Ferdinand,"(38th Count of Dandolo.)

"Bell-yard, June – ."

A shade of dissatisfaction, we say, clouded Adeliza's fair features as she perused this note; and yet there was nothing in it which the tenderest lover might not write. But the shrimps, the half-crown, the horrid picture of squalid poverty presented by the count, sickened her young heart; the innate delicacy of the woman revolted at the thought of all this misery.

But better thoughts succeeded: her breast heaved as she read and re-read the singular passage concerning the Prussian autograph, who had planted his standard at Venice. "I knew it!" she cried, "I knew it! – he is of noble race! O Roderick, I will perish, but I will help thee!"

Alas! she was not well enough acquainted with history to perceive that the Prussian autograph had nothing to do with Venice, and had forgotten altogether that she herself had coined the story which this adventurer returned to her.

But a difficulty presented itself to Adeliza's mind. Her lover asked for money, – where was she to find it? The next day the till of the shop was empty, and a weeping apprentice dragged before the Lord Mayor. It is true that no signs of the money were found upon him; it is true that he protested his innocence; but he was dismissed the alderman's service, and passed a month at Bridewell, because Adeliza Grampus had a needy lover!

"Dearest," she wrote, "will three-and-twenty and sevenpence suffice? 'Tis all I have: take it, and with it the fondest wishes of your Adeliza.

"A sudden thought! Our apprentice is dismissed. My father dines abroad; I shall be in the retail establishment all the night, alone.

"A.G."

No sooner had the Professor received this note than his mind was made up. "I will see her," he said; "I will enter that accursed shop." He did, and to his ruin.* * *

That night Mrs. Grampus and her daughter took possession of the bar or counter, in the place which Adeliza called the retail establishment, and which is commonly denominated the shop. Mrs. Grampus herself operated with the oyster-knife, and served the Milton morsels to the customers. Age had not diminished her skill, nor had wealth rendered her too proud to resume at need a profession which she had followed in early days. Adeliza flew gracefully to and fro with the rolls, the vinegar bottle with perforated cork, and the little pats of butter. A little boy ran backwards and forwards to the Blue Lion over the way, for the pots of porter, or for the brandy and water, which some gentlemen take after the play.

Midnight arrived. Miss Grampus was looking through the window, and contrasting the gleaming gas which shone upon the ruby lobsters, with the calm moon which lightened up the Poultry, and threw a halo round the Royal Exchange. She was lost in maiden meditation, when her eye fell upon a pane of glass in her own window: squeezed against this, flat and white, was the nose of a man! – that man was Roderick Dandolo! He seemed to be gazing at the lobsters more intensely than at Adeliza; he had his hands in his pockets, and was whistling Jim Crow.16

Miss Grampus felt sick with joy; she staggered to the counter, and almost fainted. The Professor concluded his melody, and entered at once into the shop. He pretended to have no knowledge of Miss Grampus, but aborded the two ladies with easy elegance and irresistible good-humour.

"Good evening, ma'am," said he, bowing profoundly to the elder lady. "What a precious hot evening, to be sure! – hot, ma'am, and hungry, as they say. I could not resist them lobsters, 'specially when I saw the lady behind 'em."

At this gallant speech Mrs. Grampus blushed, or looked as if she would blush, and said,

"Law, sir!"

"Law, indeed, ma'am," playfully continued the Professor; "you're a precious deal better than law, – you're divinity, ma'am; and this, I presume, is your sister?"

He pointed to Adeliza as he spoke, who, pale and mute, stood fainting against a heap of ginger-beer bottles. The old lady was quite won by this stale compliment.

"My daughter, sir," she said. "Addly, lay a cloth for the gentleman. Do you take hoysters, sir, hor lobsters? Both is very fine."

"Why, ma'am," said he, "to say truth, I have come forty miles since dinner, and don't care if I have a little of both. I'll begin, if you please, with that there, (Lord bless its claws, they're as red as your lips!) and we'll astonish a few of the natives afterwards, by your leave."

Mrs. Grampus was delighted with the manners and the appetite of the stranger. She proceeded forthwith to bisect the lobster, while the Professor in a dégagé manner, his cane over his shoulder, and a cheerful whistle upon his lips, entered the little parlour, and took possession of a box and a table.

He was no sooner seated than, from a scuffle, a giggle, and a smack, Mrs. Grampus was induced to suspect that something went wrong in the oyster-room.

"Hadeliza!" cried she; and that young woman returned blushing now like a rose, who had been as pale before as a lily.

Mrs. G. herself took in the lobster, bidding her daughter sternly to stay in the shop. She approached the stranger with an angry air, and laid the lobster before him.

"For shame, sir!" said she solemnly; but all of a sudden she began to giggle like her daughter, and her speech ended with an "Have done now!"

We were not behind the curtain, and cannot of course say what took place; but it is evident that the Professor was a general lover of the sex.

Mrs. Grampus returned to the shop, rubbing her lips with her fat arms, and restored to perfect good-humour. The little errand-boy was despatched over the way for a bottle of Guinness and a glass of brandy and water.

"Hot with!" shouted a manly voice from the eating-room, and Adeliza was pained to think that in her presence her lover could eat so well.

He ate indeed as if he had never eaten before: here is the bill as written by Mrs. Grampus herself.

"Shell-fish in all varieties. N.B. a great saving in taking a quantity."

"A saving in taking a quantity," said the stranger archly. "Why, ma'am, you ought to let me off very cheap;" and the Professor, the pot-boy, Adeliza, and her mamma, grinned equally at this pleasantry.

"However, never mind the pay, missis," continued he; "we an't agoing to quarrel about that. Hadd another glass of brandy and water to the bill, and bring it me, when it shall be as I am now."

"Law, sir," simpered Mrs. Grampus, "how's that?"

"Reseated, ma'am, to be sure," replied he as he sank back upon the table. The old lady went laughing away, pleased with her merry and facetious customer; the little boy picked up the oyster-shells, of which a mighty pyramid was formed at the Professor's feet.

"Here, Sammy," cried out shrill Mrs. Grampus from the shop, "go over to the Blue Lion and get the gentleman his glass: but no, you are better where you are, pickin' up them shells. Go you, Hadeliza; it is but across the way."

Adeliza went with a very bad grace; she had hoped to exchange at least a few words with him her soul adored; and her mother's jealousy prevented the completion of her wish.

She had scarcely gone, when Mr. Grampus entered from his dinner-party. But, though fond of pleasure, he was equally faithful to business: without a word, he hung up his brass-buttoned coat, put on his hairy cap, and stuck his sleeves through his apron.

As Mrs. Grampus was tying it, (an office which this faithful lady regularly performed,) he asked her what business had occurred during his absence.

"Not so bad," said she; "two pound ten to-night, besides one pound eight to receive;" and she handed Mr. Grampus the bill.

"How many are there on 'em?" said that gentleman smiling, as his eye gladly glanced over the items of the account.

"Why, that's the best of all: how many do you think?"

"If four did it," said Mr. Grampus, "they wouldn't have done badly neither."

"What do you think of one?" cried Mrs. G. laughing, "and he an't done yet. Haddy is gone to fetch him another glass of brandy and water."

Mr. Grampus looked very much alarmed. "Only one, and you say he an't paid?"

"No," said the lady.

Mr. Grampus seized the bill, and rushed wildly into the dining-room: the little boy was picking up the oyster-shells still, there were so many of them; the Professor was seated on the table, laughing as if drunk, and picking his teeth with his fork.

Grampus, shaking in every joint, held out the bill: a horrid thought crossed him; he had seen that face before!

The Professor kicked sneeringly into the air the idle piece of paper, and swung his legs recklessly to and fro.

"What a flat you are," shouted he in a voice of thunder, "to think I'm a goin' to pay! Pay! I never pay – I'm Dando!"

The people in the other boxes crowded forward to see the celebrated stranger; the little boy grinned as he dropped two hundred and forty-four oyster-shells, and Mr. Grampus rushed madly into his front shop, shrieking for a watchman.

As he ran, he stumbled over something on the floor, – a woman and a glass of brandy and water lay there extended. Like Tarquinia reversed, Elijah Grampus was trampling over the lifeless body of Adeliza.

Why enlarge upon the miserable theme? The confiding girl, in returning with the grog from the Blue Lion, had arrived at the shop only in time to hear the fatal name of Dando. She saw him, tipsy and triumphant, bestriding the festal table, and yelling with horrid laughter! The truth flashed upon her – she fell!

Lost to worldly cares in contemplating the sorrows of their idolized child, her parents forgot all else beside. Mrs. G. held the vinegar-cruet to her nostrils; her husband brought the soda-water fountain to play upon her; it restored her to life, but not to sense. When Adeliza Grampus rose from that trance she was a MANIAC!

But what became of the deceiver? The gormandizing ruffian, the lying renegade, the fiend in human shape, escaped in the midst of this scene of desolation. He walked unconcerned through the shop, his hat cocked on one side as before, swaggering as before, whistling as before: far in the moonlight might you see his figure; long, long in the night-silence rang his demoniac melody of Jim Crow!

When Samuel the boy cleaned out the shop in the morning, and made the inventory of the goods, a silver fork, a plated ditto, a dish, and a pewter pot were found to be wanting. Ingenuity will not be long in guessing the name of the thief.

Gentles, my tale is told. If it may have deterred one soul from vice, my end is fully answered: if it may have taught to school-mistresses carefulness, to pupils circumspection, to youth the folly of sickly sentiment, the pain of bitter deception; to manhood the crime, the meanness of gluttony, the vice which it occasions, and the wicked passions it fosters; if these, or any of these, have been taught by the above tale, Goliah Gahagan seeks for no other reward.

Note. Please send the proceeds as requested per letter; the bearer being directed not to give up the manuscript without.

BIDDY TIBS, WHO CARED FOR NOBODY

"Marry in thy youth!" This golden truth is writ in one of the "gates," or articles of the "Sadder." We know not if the eyes of Jacob Tibs ever opened upon this questionable axiom; or whether the consciousness of his own weakness was the load-star which lighted him, "poor darkened traveller," to the blessed state. Be it as it might, Jacob, though no longer in youth, and in spite of my Uncle Toby's showing that "love is below a man," – Jacob took unto himself a wife, – an unquestionable better half, seeing his share was so small in the economy of domestic life. But at how high a standard Jacob ought to have placed his happiness, – and marriage is with some supposed to be a good, – he held it a plague, a sickness long in killing! Jacob, as we have before stated, married, and from that seed his crops of evil sprung! The apple of his eye, like that of the East, was ashes to his taste. Alas! that Jacob ever married!

Biddy Tibs, "who cared for nobody," was, at the time we write, a small withered piece of stale old age. In her husband's days, – and they a bountiful Providence, or rather rope, had shortened; not that he was hanged, for Jacob was a modest-minded man! – she made up in temper what she lacked in size; which temper, in the opinion of many, was the personal property of the devil! And as the most difficult conquest of Mahomet was that of his wife, so it proved with Jacob, who vainly hoped that, "as with time and patience the leaf of the mulberry-tree becomes satin," so might his wife's temper from sour turn to sweet! How little did Jacob appreciate the constancy of woman!

Jacob Tibs was part owner of a Liverpool West India trader, and of which he was nominally the captain. But Mrs. T., in this as in all other instances, was the great "captain's captain: " her lungs – and never had a speaking-trumpet such lungs – were hurricane-proof! and the title of "boatswain" was not improperly a sobriquet of this fair cheapener of sugar, with which the vessel was ostensibly freighted, though upon occasions she had more slaves than her husband on board; so that, what with natural and human produce, Jacob climbed a golden ladder. Tired with a "life of storms," he changed his vessel for a house, the sea for a quiet town, and might have rested his old age in peace; but, alas for Jacob! he was married!

Argus is reported to have slept, – can we wonder that Mrs. Tibs's two eyes for once lost their vigilance, and left her husband the master of himself, and one day – for that she passed a short distance off; and Jacob resolved that this drop of comfort should prove a well; and in truth it did, as will be shown. Old Jacob had friends, as who has not that has anything to give? – and this day – the only one he could look forward to with a smile since he had been "blessed" – he determined should prove a golden one; and, spite of the servant-girl's warnings of "How missus would wop him!" Jacob held a levee, – some dozen sons of Eve, whose mouths sucked brandy like a sponge, – good old souls of a good old age, whose modest wants 'bacca and brandy could supply.

Jacob held his levee! but as he boasted no privy purse, no stocking with a foot of guineas, and no brandy but a bottle two-thirds full, left by strange accident in the cupboard, what was to be done? For the first time in his life Jacob was surprised into an act of rebellion; and with a death-doing hammer in one hand, and a screwdriver in the other, did Jacob invade the – to him – sanctity of the cellar. The lock was wrenched, lights were stuck in empty bottles, and Jacob, who in his young-going days had swilled it with the best, soon verified the sentiment of Le Sage, that "a reformed drunkard should never be left in a cellar." Now, whether joy or brandy had to answer for the sin, we know not; but, certain it is, Jacob got drunk, and measured his length – he was a tall man – upon the ground. Friends should be our brothers in affliction; his were true ones, and at happy intervals of time they sank beside him, completely overcome, – showing how little was their pride, how great their fellowship!

How long they might have continued in this undeniable state of bliss would be an useless guess, for the last of Jacob's friends – and he was no sudden faller-off – had scarcely deposited himself upon the ground in happy indifference for his clothes, when the cracked-bell voice of Mrs. Tibs, who had unexpectedly returned, roused the maid into a consciousness that missus had come home! Domestic contentions are at no time an interesting theme; and as most of our readers – we allude to the married portion – have doubtless experienced them in real life, romance would fall far short of the truth; the single we advise to marry, and experience will teach them what we here pass over. When Jacob's better half beheld her bottles empty, her casks upturned, and her husband, for the first time since he had enjoyed that felicity, deaf to the music of her voice, a bucket of water from the well refreshed Jacob to a truth he would willingly have slept in ignorance of, – that the wife of his bosom was alive, and he started as a thief would at an opening door. She seized him by the collar, and, showering the first-fruits of her passion upon him who could so well appreciate it, the "boatswain" rose within her, and, after bestowing sundry terms of approbation upon his boon companions, she turned them out of the house, as the vulgar saying hath it, "with their tails between their legs." Jacob would have slunk away, but Fortune willed it otherwise. His "rib" shouted the word of command, "Tack, you lubber, and be – to you!" Jacob recognised the voice, – how could he have mistaken it? – and waited for orders. Now it so fell out, as Mrs. Tibs ran for the bucket of water, her cap, in the press of business, caught by a twig, dropped into the well, and eighteen-pence had been that day expended in decoration. With the assistance of Nanny the maid, Jacob was to be wound down in the bucket; and, spite of his appeals to the contrary, with one foot in the tub, and both hands on the rope, he was lowered, and half soused in water, until he reached the ribbon treasure of his wife's head. The cap clutched in one hand, he was raised dripping by the windlass. Each twist brought him nearer to the top, when, sorrowful to relate, the rope gave way, and Jacob dropped like lead into the well; a hollow splash was heard in the water, and Mrs Tibs stood by in speechless agony. At length her grief found vent, and, pitching her voice to its shrillest note, she cried, "Oh, my cap!"