Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy

by Charles Dickens

that your food mightchoke you, but so civil and so hot and attentive and every waycomfortable except Jemmy pouring wine down his throat by tumblers-fulland me expecting to see him drop under the table.

  And the way in which Jemmy spoke his French was a real charm. It wasoften wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable to me I says"Non-comprenny, you're very kind, but it's no use--Now Jemmy!" and thenJemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the only thing wanting in Jemmy'sFrench being as it appeared to me that he hardly ever understood a wordof what they said to him which made it scarcely of the use it might havebeen though in other respects a perfect Native, and regarding the Major'sfluency I should have been of the opinion judging French by English thatthere might have been a greater choice of words in the language thoughstill I must admit that if I hadn't known him when he asked a militarygentleman in a gray cloak what o'clock it was I should have took him fora Frenchman born.

  Before going on to look after my Legacy we were to make one regular dayin Paris, and I leave you to judge my dear what a day _that_ was withJemmy and the Major and the telescope and me and the prowling young manat the inn door (but very civil too) that went along with us to show thesights. All along the railway to Paris Jemmy and the Major had beenfrightening me to death by stooping down on the platforms at stations toinspect the engines underneath their mechanical stomachs, and by creepingin and out I don't know where all, to find improvements for the UnitedGrand Junction Parlour, but when we got out into the brilliant streets ona bright morning they gave up all their London improvements as a bad joband gave their minds to Paris. Says the prowling young man to me "Will Ispeak Inglis No?" So I says "If you can young man I shall take it as afavour," but after half-an-hour of it when I fully believed the man hadgone mad and me too I says "Be so good as fall back on your French sir,"knowing that then I shouldn't have the agonies of trying to understandhim, which was a happy release. Not that I lost much more than the resteither, for I generally noticed that when he had described something verylong indeed and I says to Jemmy "What does he say Jemmy?" Jemmy sayslooking with vengeance in his eye "He is so jolly indistinct!" and thatwhen he had described it longer all over again and I says to Jemmy "WellJemmy what's it all about?" Jemmy says "He says the building was repairedin seventeen hundred and four, Gran."

  Wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits I cannot beexpected to know, but the way in which he went round the corner while wehad our breakfasts and was there again when we swallowed the last crumbwas most marvellous, and just the same at dinner and at night, prowlingequally at the theatre and the inn gateway and the shop doors when webought a trifle or two and everywhere else but troubled with a tendencyto spit. And of Paris I can tell you no more my dear than that it's townand country both in one, and carved stone and long streets of high housesand gardens and fountains and statues and trees and gold, and immenselybig soldiers and immensely little soldiers and the pleasantest nurseswith the whitest caps a playing at skipping-rope with the bunchiestbabies in the flattest caps, and clean table-cloths spread everywhere fordinner and people sitting out of doors smoking and sipping all day longand little plays being acted in the open air for little people and everyshop a complete and elegant room, and everybody seeming to play ateverything in this world. And as to the sparkling lights my dear afterdark, glittering high up and low down and on before and on behind and allround, and the crowd of theatres and the crowd of people and the crowd ofall sorts, it's pure enchantment. And pretty well the only thing thatgrated on me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or whetheryou change your money at a money-dealer's or whether you take your ticketat the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up (I suppose bygovernment) behind the strongest iron bars having more of a Zoologicalappearance than a free country.

  Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed thatnight, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks "What do you thinkof this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?" I says "Jemmy I feel as if it wasbeautiful fireworks being let off in my head." And very cool andrefreshing the pleasant country was next day when we went on to lookafter my Legacy, and rested me much and did me a deal of good.

  So at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a pretty little townwith a great two-towered cathedral and the rooks flying in and out of theloopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers like a sort of astone pulpit. In which pulpit with the birds skimming below him ifyou'll believe me, I saw a speck while I was resting at the inn beforedinner which they made signs to me was Jemmy and which really was. I hadbeen a fancying as I sat in the balcony of the hotel that an Angel mightlight there and call down to the people to be good, but I little thoughtwhat Jemmy all unknown to himself was a calling down from that high placeto some one in the town.

  The pleasantest-situated inn my dear! Right under the two towers, withtheir shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind of a sundial, andcountry people driving in and out of the courtyard in carts and hoodedcabriolets and such like, and a market outside in front of the cathedral,and all so quaint and like a picter. The Major and me agreed thatwhatever came of my Legacy this was the place to stay in for our holiday,and we also agreed that our dear boy had best not be checked in his joythat night by the sight of the Englishman if he was still alive, but thatwe would go together and alone. For you are to understand that the Majornot feeling himself quite equal in his wind to the height to which Jemmyhad climbed, had come back to me and left him with the Guide.

  So after dinner when Jemmy had set off to see the river, the Major wentdown to the Mairie, and presently came back with a military character ina sword and spurs and a cocked hat and a yellow shoulder-belt and longtags about him that he must have found inconvenient. And the Major says"The Englishman still lies in the same state dearest madam. Thisgentleman will conduct us to his lodging." Upon which the militarycharacter pulled off his cocked hat to me, and I took notice that he hadshaved his forehead in imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte but not like.

  We wont out at the courtyard gate and past the great doors of thecathedral and down a narrow High Street where the people were sittingchatting at their shop doors and the children were at play. The militarycharacter went in front and he stopped at a pork-shop with a littlestatue of a pig sitting up, in the window, and a private door that adonkey was looking out of.

  When the donkey saw the military character he came slipping out on thepavement to turn round and then clattered along the passage into a backyard. So the coast being clear, the Major and me were conducted up thecommon stair and into the front room on the second, a bare room with ared tiled floor and the outside lattice blinds pulled close to darken it.As the military character opened the blinds I saw the tower where I hadseen Jemmy, darkening as the sun got low, and I turned to the bed by thewall and saw the Englishman.

  It was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair was all gone,and some wetted folded linen lay upon his head. I looked at him veryattentive as he lay there all wasted away with his eyes closed, and Isays to the Major--

  "_I_ never saw this face before."

  The Major looked at him very attentive too, and he says "I never saw thisface before."

  When the Major explained our words to the military character, thatgentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed the Major the card on whichit was written about the Legacy for me. It had been written with a weakand trembling hand in bed, and I knew no more of the writing than of theface. Neither did the Major.

  Though lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well taken care of ascould be hoped, and would have been quite unconscious of any one'ssitting by him then. I got the Major to say that we were not going awayat present and that I would come back to-morrow and watch a bit by thebedside. But I got him to add--and I shook my head hard to make itstronger--"We agree that we never saw this face before."

  Our boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting out in the balconyin the starlight, and he ran over some of those stories of formerLodgers, of the Majo
r's putting down, and asked wasn't it possible thatit might be this lodger or that lodger. It was not possible, and we wentto bed.

  In the morning just at breakfast-time the military character camejingling round, and said that the doctor thought from the signs he sawthere might be some rally before the end. So I says to the Major andJemmy, "You two boys go and enjoy yourselves, and I'll take my PrayerBook and go sit by the bed." So I went, and I sat there some hours,reading a prayer for him poor soul now and then, and it was quite on inthe day when he moved his hand.

  He had been so still, that the moment he moved I knew of it, and I pulledoff my spectacles and laid down my book and rose and looked at him. Frommoving one hand he began to move both, and then his action was the actionof a person groping in the