Passing of the Third Floor Back
( The Passing of the Third Floor Back and Other Stories - 1 )
Jerome Klapka Jerome
Dictionary of Literary Biography on Jerome Klapka Jerome:
Jerome K. Jerome was a popular turn-of-the-century humorist. He was a born storyteller, and his works often began as anecdotes that he developed into short stories, plays, essays, or novels. He sometimes used his short stories as the initial embodiments of themes or moral twists that he later transferred to the stage. Often the lack of character development in his short fiction can be attributed to the fact that he was writing a synopsis or abstract to be fleshed out later in another genre, usually drama. Certainly the story “The Passing of the Third Floor Back” (1907) seems slight compared to the treatment given in the play of the same name, even though critics of the day still thought the stage characters stiff and flat. In this sense Jerome is a better playwright than a short-story writer. But many of his short stories seem to be written out of a true love for the genre and are quite successful as vehicles for his purposes, sometimes serious and sometimes humorous.
Jerome K. Jerome
Passing of the Third Floor Back
The neighbourhood of Bloomsbury Square towards four o'clock of a November afternoon is not so crowded as to secure to the stranger, of appearance anything out of the common, immunity from observation. Tibb's boy, screaming at the top of his voice that she was his honey, stopped suddenly, stepped backwards on to the toes of a voluble young lady wheeling a perambulator, and remained deaf, apparently, to the somewhat personal remarks of the voluble young lady. Not until he had reached the next corner—and then more as a soliloquy than as information to the street—did Tibb's boy recover sufficient interest in his own affairs to remark that he was her bee. The voluble young lady herself, following some half-a-dozen yards behind, forgot her wrongs in contemplation of the stranger's back. There was this that was peculiar about the stranger's back: that instead of being flat it presented a decided curve. “It ain't a 'ump, and it don't look like kervitcher of the spine,” observed the voluble young lady to herself. “Blimy if I don't believe 'e's taking 'ome 'is washing up his back.”
The constable at the corner, trying to seem busy doing nothing, noticed the stranger's approach with gathering interest. “That's an odd sort of a walk of yours, young man,” thought the constable. “You take care you don't fall down and tumble over yourself.”
“Thought he was a young man,” murmured the constable, the stranger having passed him. “He had a young face right enough.”
The daylight was fading. The stranger, finding it impossible to read the name of the street upon the corner house, turned back.
“Why, 'tis a young man,” the constable told himself; “a mere boy.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the stranger; “but would you mind telling me my way to Bloomsbury Square.”
“This is Bloomsbury Square,” explained the constable; “leastways round the corner is. What number might you be wanting?”
The stranger took from the ticket pocket of his tightly buttoned overcoat a piece of paper, unfolded it and read it out: “Mrs. Pennycherry. Number Forty-eight.”
“Round to the left,” instructed him the constable; “fourth house. Been recommended there?”
“By—by a friend,” replied the stranger. “Thank you very much.”
“Ah,” muttered the constable to himself; “guess you won't be calling him that by the end of the week, young—”
“Funny,” added the constable, gazing after the retreating figure of the stranger. “Seen plenty of the other sex as looked young behind and old in front. This cove looks young in front and old behind. Guess he'll look old all round if he stops long at mother Pennycherry's: stingy old cat.”
Constables whose beat included Bloomsbury Square had their reasons for not liking Mrs. Pennycherry. Indeed it might have been difficult to discover any human being with reasons for liking that sharp-featured lady. Maybe the keeping of second-rate boarding houses in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury does not tend to develop the virtues of generosity and amiability.
Meanwhile the stranger, proceeding upon his way, had rung the bell of Number Forty-eight. Mrs. Pennycherry, peeping from the area and catching a glimpse, above the railings, of a handsome if somewhat effeminate masculine face, hastened to readjust her widow's cap before the looking-glass while directing Mary Jane to show the stranger, should he prove a problematical boarder, into the dining-room, and to light the gas.
“And don't stop gossiping, and don't you take it upon yourself to answer questions. Say I'll be up in a minute,” were Mrs. Pennycherry's further instructions, “and mind you hide your hands as much as you can.”
***
“What are you grinning at?” demanded Mrs. Pennycherry, a couple of minutes later, of the dingy Mary Jane.
“Wasn't grinning,” explained the meek Mary Jane, “was only smiling to myself.”
“What at?”
“Dunno,” admitted Mary Jane. But still she went on smiling.
“What's he like then?” demanded Mrs. Pennycherry.
“'E ain't the usual sort,” was Mary Jane's opinion.
“Thank God for that,” ejaculated Mrs. Pennycherry piously.
“Says 'e's been recommended, by a friend.”
“By whom?”
“By a friend. 'E didn't say no name.” Mrs. Pennycherry pondered. “He's not the funny sort, is he?”
Not that sort at all. Mary Jane was sure of it.
Mrs. Pennycherry ascended the stairs still pondering. As she entered the room the stranger rose and bowed. Nothing could have been simpler than the stranger's bow, yet there came with it to Mrs. Pennycherry a rush of old sensations long forgotten. For one brief moment Mrs. Pennycherry saw herself an amiable well-bred lady, widow of a solicitor: a visitor had called to see her. It was but a momentary fancy. The next instant Reality reasserted itself. Mrs. Pennycherry, a lodging-house keeper, existing precariously upon a daily round of petty meannesses, was prepared for contest with a possible new boarder, who fortunately looked an inexperienced young gentleman.
“Someone has recommended me to you,” began Mrs. Pennycherry; “may I ask who?”
But the stranger waved the question aside as immaterial.
“You might not remember—him,” he smiled. “He thought that I should do well to pass the few months I am given—that I have to be in London, here. You can take me in?”
Mrs. Pennycherry thought that she would be able to take the stranger in.
“A room to sleep in,” explained the stranger, “—any room will do—with food and drink sufficient for a man, is all that I require.”
“For breakfast,” began Mrs. Pennycherry, “I always give—”
“What is right and proper, I am convinced,” interrupted the stranger. “Pray do not trouble to go into detail, Mrs. Pennycherry. With whatever it is I shall be content.”
Mrs. Pennycherry, puzzled, shot a quick glance at the stranger, but his face, though the gentle eyes were smiling, was frank and serious.
“At all events you will see the room,” suggested Mrs. Pennycherry, “before we discuss terms.”
“Certainly,” agreed the stranger. “I am a little tired and shall be glad to rest there.”
Mrs. Pennycherry led the way upward; on the landing of the third floor, paused a moment undecided, then opened the door of the back bedroom.
“It is very comfortable,” commented the stranger.
“For this room,” stated Mrs. Pennycherry, “together with full board, consisting of—”
“Of everything nee
dful. It goes without saying,” again interrupted the stranger with his quiet grave smile.
“I have generally asked,” continued Mrs. Pennycherry, “four pounds a week. To you—” Mrs. Pennycherry's voice, unknown to her, took to itself the note of aggressive generosity—“seeing you have been recommended here, say three pounds ten.”
“Dear lady,” said the stranger, “that is kind of you. As you have divined, I am not a rich man. If it be not imposing upon you I accept your reduction with gratitude.”
Again Mrs. Pennycherry, familiar with the satirical method, shot a suspicious glance upon the stranger, but not a line was there, upon that smooth fair face, to which a sneer could for a moment have clung. Clearly he was as simple as he looked.
“Gas, of course, extra.”
“Of course,” agreed the Stranger.
“Coals—”
“We shall not quarrel,” for a third time the stranger interrupted. “You have been very considerate to me as it is. I feel, Mrs. Pennycherry, I can leave myself entirely in your hands.”
The stranger appeared anxious to be alone. Mrs. Pennycherry, having put a match to the stranger's fire, turned to depart. And at this point it was that Mrs. Pennycherry, the holder hitherto of an unbroken record for sanity, behaved in a manner she herself, five minutes earlier in her career, would have deemed impossible—that no living soul who had ever known her would have believed, even had Mrs. Pennycherry gone down upon her knees and sworn it to them.
“Did I say three pound ten?” demanded Mrs. Pennycherry of the stranger, her hand upon the door. She spoke crossly. She was feeling cross, with the stranger, with herself—particularly with herself.
“You were kind enough to reduce it to that amount,” replied the stranger; “but if upon reflection you find yourself unable—”
“I was making a mistake,” said Mrs. Pennycherry, “it should have been two pound ten.”
“I cannot—I will not accept such sacrifice,” exclaimed the stranger; “the three pound ten I can well afford.”
“Two pound ten are my terms,” snapped Mrs. Pennycherry. “If you are bent on paying more, you can go elsewhere. You'll find plenty to oblige you.”
Her vehemence must have impressed the stranger. “We will not contend further,” he smiled. “I was merely afraid that in the goodness of your heart—”
“Oh, it isn't as good as all that,” growled Mrs. Pennycherry.
“I am not so sure,” returned the stranger. “I am somewhat suspicious of you. But wilful woman must, I suppose, have her way.”
The stranger held out his hand, and to Mrs. Pennycherry, at that moment, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take it as if it had been the hand of an old friend and to end the interview with a pleasant laugh—though laughing was an exercise not often indulged in by Mrs. Pennycherry.
Mary Jane was standing by the window, her hands folded in front of her, when Mrs. Pennycherry re-entered the kitchen. By standing close to the window one caught a glimpse of the trees in Bloomsbury Square and through their bare branches of the sky beyond.
“There's nothing much to do for the next half hour, till Cook comes back. I'll see to the door if you'd like a run out?” suggested Mrs. Pennycherry.
“It would be nice,” agreed the girl so soon as she had recovered power of speech; “it's just the time of day I like.”
“Don't be longer than the half hour,” added Mrs. Pennycherry.
Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, assembled after dinner in the drawing-room, discussed the stranger with that freedom and frankness characteristic of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, towards the absent.
“Not what I call a smart young man,” was the opinion of Augustus Longcord, who was something in the City.
“Thpeaking for mythelf,” commented his partner Isidore, “hav'n'th any uthe for the thmart young man. Too many of him, ath it ith.”
“Must be pretty smart if he's one too many for you,” laughed his partner.
There was this to be said for the repartee of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square: it was simple of construction and easy of comprehension.
“Well it made me feel good just looking at him,” declared Miss Kite, the highly coloured. “It was his clothes, I suppose—made me think of Noah and the ark—all that sort of thing.”
“It would be clothes that would make you think—if anything,” drawled the languid Miss Devine. She was a tall, handsome girl, engaged at the moment in futile efforts to recline with elegance and comfort combined upon a horsehair sofa. Miss Kite, by reason of having secured the only easy-chair, was unpopular that evening; so that Miss Devine's remark received from the rest of the company more approbation than perhaps it merited.
“Is that intended to be clever, dear, or only rude?” Miss Kite requested to be informed.
“Both,” claimed Miss Devine.
“Myself? I must confess,” shouted the tall young lady's father, commonly called the Colonel, “I found him a fool.”
“I noticed you seemed to be getting on very well together,” purred his wife, a plump, smiling little lady.
“Possibly we were,” retorted the Colonel. “Fate has accustomed me to the society of fools.”
“Isn't it a pity to start quarrelling immediately after dinner, you two,” suggested their thoughtful daughter from the sofa, “you'll have nothing left to amuse you for the rest of the evening.”
“He didn't strike me as a conversationalist,” said the lady who was cousin to a baronet; “but he did pass the vegetables before he helped himself. A little thing like that shows breeding.”
“Or that he didn't know you and thought maybe you'd leave him half a spoonful,” laughed Augustus the wit.
“What I can't make out about him—” shouted the Colonel.
The stranger entered the room.
The Colonel, securing the evening paper, retired into a corner. The highly coloured Kite, reaching down from the mantelpiece a paper fan, held it coyly before her face. Miss Devine sat upright on the horse-hair sofa, and rearranged her skirts.
“Know anything?” demanded Augustus of the stranger, breaking the somewhat remarkable silence.
The stranger evidently did not understand. It was necessary for Augustus, the witty, to advance further into that odd silence.
“What's going to pull off the Lincoln handicap? Tell me, and I'll go out straight and put my shirt upon it.”
“I think you would act unwisely,” smiled the stranger; “I am not an authority upon the subject.”
“Not! Why they told me you were Captain Spy of the Sporting Life—in disguise.”
It would have been difficult for a joke to fall more flat. Nobody laughed, though why Mr. Augustus Longcord could not understand, and maybe none of his audience could have told him, for at Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square Mr. Augustus Longcord passed as a humorist. The stranger himself appeared unaware that he was being made fun of.
“You have been misinformed,” assured him the stranger.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Augustus Longcord.
“It is nothing,” replied the stranger in his sweet low voice, and passed on.
“Well what about this theatre,” demanded Mr. Longcord of his friend and partner; “do you want to go or don't you?” Mr. Longcord was feeling irritable.
“Goth the ticketh—may ath well,” thought Isidore.
“Damn stupid piece, I'm told.”
“Motht of them thupid, more or leth. Pity to wathte the ticketh,” argued Isidore, and the pair went out.
“Are you staying long in London?” asked Miss Kite, raising her practised eyes towards the stranger.
“Not long,” answered the stranger. “At least I do not know. It depends.”
An unusual quiet had invaded the drawing-room of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, generally noisy with strident voices about this hour. The Colonel remained engrossed in his paper. Mrs. Devine sat with her plump white hands folded on her lap, whether asleep or not it was impossible to say. The lady
who was cousin to a baronet had shifted her chair beneath the gasolier, her eyes bent on her everlasting crochet work. The languid Miss Devine had crossed to the piano, where she sat fingering softly the tuneless keys, her back to the cold barely-furnished room.
“Sit down!” commanded saucily Miss Kite, indicating with her fan the vacant seat beside her. “Tell me about yourself. You interest me.” Miss Kite adopted a pretty authoritative air towards all youthful-looking members of the opposite sex. It harmonised with the peach complexion and the golden hair, and fitted her about as well.
“I am glad of that,” answered the stranger, taking the chair suggested. “I so wish to interest you.”
“You're a very bold boy.” Miss Kite lowered her fan, for the purpose of glancing archly over the edge of it, and for the first time encountered the eyes of the stranger looking into hers. And then it was that Miss Kite experienced precisely the same curious sensation that an hour or so ago had troubled Mrs. Pennycherry when the stranger had first bowed to her. It seemed to Miss Kite that she was no longer the Miss Kite that, had she risen and looked into it, the fly-blown mirror over the marble mantelpiece would, she knew, have presented to her view; but quite another Miss Kite—a cheerful, bright-eyed lady verging on middle age, yet still good-looking in spite of her faded complexion and somewhat thin brown locks. Miss Kite felt a pang of jealousy shoot through her; this middle-aged Miss Kite seemed, on the whole, a more attractive lady. There was a wholesomeness, a broadmindedness about her that instinctively drew one towards her. Not hampered, as Miss Kite herself was, by the necessity of appearing to be somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two, this other Miss Kite could talk sensibly, even brilliantly: one felt it. A thoroughly “nice” woman this other Miss Kite; the real Miss Kite, though envious, was bound to admit it. Miss Kite wished to goodness she had never seen the woman. The glimpse of her had rendered Miss Kite dissatisfied with herself.
“I am not a boy,” explained the stranger; “and I had no intention of being bold.”
“I know,” replied Miss Kite. “It was a silly remark. Whatever induced me to make it, I can't think. Getting foolish in my old age, I suppose.”
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