a house to let(转让的房子)

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A HOUSE TO LET

By Dickens, et.al.

A HOUSE TO LET

OVER THE WAY

I had been living at Tunbridge Wells and nowhere else, going on for

ten years, when my medical man--very clever in his profession, and the

prettiest player I ever saw in my life of a hand at Long Whist, which was a

noble and a princely game before Short was heard of-- said to me, one day,

as he sat feeling my pulse on the actual sofa which my poor dear sister

Jane worked before her spine came on, and laid her on a board for fifteen

months at a stretch--the most upright woman that ever lived--said to me,

"What we want, ma'am, is a fillip."

"Good gracious, goodness gracious, Doctor Towers!" says I, quite

startled at the man, for he was so christened himself: "don't talk as if you

were alluding to people's names; but say what you mean."

"I mean, my dear ma'am, that we want a little change of air and scene."

"Bless the man!" said I; "does he mean we or me!"

"I mean you, ma'am."

"Then Lard forgive you, Doctor Towers," I said; "why don't you get

into a habit of expressing yourself in a straightforward manner, like a loyal

subject of our gracious Queen Victoria, and a member of the Church of

England?"

Towers laughed, as he generally does when he has fidgetted me into

any of my impatient ways--one of my states, as I call them--and then he

began, -

"Tone, ma'am, Tone, is all you require!" He appealed to Trottle, who

just then came in with the coal-scuttle, looking, in his nice black suit, like

an amiable man putting on coals from motives of benevolence.

Trottle (whom I always call my right hand) has been in my service

two-and-thirty years. He entered my service, far away from England. He

is the best of creatures, and the most respectable of men; but, opinionated.

"What you want, ma'am," says Trottle, making up the fire in his quiet

and skilful way, "is Tone."

"Lard forgive you both!" says I, bursting out a-laughing; "I see you are

in a conspiracy against me, so I suppose you must do what you like with

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me, and take me to London for a change."

For some weeks Towers had hinted at London, and consequently I was

prepared for him. When we had got to this point, we got on so

expeditiously, that Trottle was packed off to London next day but one, to

find some sort of place for me to lay my troublesome old head in.

Trottle came back to me at the Wells after two days' absence, with

accounts of a charming place that could be taken for six months certain,

with liberty to renew on the same terms for another six, and which really

did afford every accommodation that I wanted.

"Could you really find no fault at all in the rooms, Trottle?" I asked

him.

"Not a single one, ma'am. They are exactly suitable to you. There

is not a fault in them. There is but one fault outside of them."

"And what's that?"

"They are opposite a House to Let."

"O!" I said, considering of it. "But is that such a very great

objection?"

"I think it my duty to mention it, ma'am. It is a dull object to look at.

Otherwise, I was so greatly pleased with the lodging that I should have

closed with the terms at once, as I had your authority to do."

Trottle thinking so highly of the place, in my interest, I wished not to

disappoint him. Consequently I said:

"The empty House may let, perhaps."

"O, dear no, ma'am," said Trottle, shaking his head with decision; "it

won't let. It never does let, ma'am."

"Mercy me! Why not?"

"Nobody knows, ma'am. All I have to mention is, ma'am, that the

House won't let!"

"How long has this unfortunate House been to let, in the name of

Fortune?" said I.

"Ever so long," said Trottle. "Years."

"Is it in ruins?"

"It's a good deal out of repair, ma'am, but it's not in ruins."

The long and the short of this business was, that next day I had a pair

A HOUSE TO LET

of post-horses put to my chariot--for, I never travel by railway: not that I

have anything to say against railways, except that they came in when I was

too old to take to them; and that they made ducks and drakes of a few

turnpike-bonds I had--and so I went up myself, with Trottle in the rumble,

to look at the inside of this same lodging, and at the outside of this same

House.

As I say, I went and saw for myself. The lodging was perfect. That, I

was sure it would be; because Trottle is the best judge of comfort I know.

The empty house was an eyesore; and that I was sure it would be too, for

the same reason. However, setting the one thing against the other, the

good against the bad, the lodging very soon got the victory over the House.

My lawyer, Mr. Squares, of Crown Office Row; Temple, drew up an

agreement; which his young man jabbered over so dreadfully when he

read it to me, that I didn't understand one word of it except my own name;

and hardly that, and I signed it, and the other party signed it, and, in three

weeks' time, I moved my old bones, bag and baggage, up to London.

For the first month or so, I arranged to leave Trottle at the Wells. I

made this arrangement, not only because there was a good deal to take

care of in the way of my school-children and pensioners, and also of a new

stove in the hall to air the house in my absence, which appeared to me

calculated to blow up and burst; but, likewise because I suspect Trottle

(though the steadiest of men, and a widower between sixty and seventy) to

be what I call rather a Philanderer. I mean, that when any friend comes

down to see me and brings a maid, Trottle is always remarkably ready to

show that maid the Wells of an evening; and that I have more than once

noticed the shadow of his arm, outside the room door nearly opposite my

chair, encircling that maid's waist on the landing, like a table-cloth brush.

Therefore, I thought it just as well, before any London Philandering

took place, that I should have a little time to look round me, and to see

what girls were in and about the place. So, nobody stayed with me in my

new lodging at first after Trottle had established me there safe and sound,

but Peggy Flobbins, my maid; a most affectionate and attached woman,

who never was an object of Philandering since I have known her, and is

not likely to begin to become so after nine-and-twenty years next March.

A HOUSE TO LET

It was the fifth of November when I first breakfasted in my new rooms.

The Guys were going about in the brown fog, like magnified monsters of

insects in table-beer, and there was a Guy resting on the door-steps of the

House to Let. I put on my glasses, partly to see how the boys were

pleased with what I sent them out by Peggy, and partly to make sure that

she didn't approach too near the ridiculous object, which of course was full

of sky-rockets, and might go off into bangs at any moment. In this way it

happened that the first time I ever looked at the House to Let, after I

became its opposite neighbour, I had my glasses on. And this might not

have happened once in fifty times, for my sight is uncommonly good for

my time of life; and I wear glasses as little as I can, for fear of spoiling it.

I knew already that it was a ten-roomed house, very dirty, and much

dilapidated; that the area-rails were rusty and peeling away, and that two

or three of them were wanting, or half-wanting; that there were broken

panes of glass in the windows, and blotches of mud on other panes, which

the boys had thrown at them; that there was quite a collection of stones in

the area, also proceeding from those Young Mischiefs; that there were

games chalked on the pavement before the house, and likenesses of ghosts

chalked on the street-door; that the windows were all darkened by rotting

old blinds, or shutters, or both; that the bills "To Let," had curled up, as if

the damp air of the place had given them cramps; or had dropped down

into corners, as if they were no more. I had seen all this on my first visit,

and I had remarked to Trottle, that the lower part of the black board about

terms was split away; that the rest had become illegible, and that the very

stone of the door-steps was broken across. Notwithstanding, I sat at my

breakfast table on that Please to Remember the fifth of November morning,

staring at the House through my glasses, as if I had never looked at it

before.

All at once--in the first-floor window on my right--down in a low

corner, at a hole in a blind or a shutter--I found that I was looking at a

secret Eye. The reflection of my fire may have touched it and made it

shine; but, I saw it shine and vanish.

The eye might have seen me, or it might not have seen me, sitting

there in the glow of my fire--you can take which probability you prefer,

A HOUSE TO LET

without offence--but something struck through my frame, as if the sparkle

of this eye had been electric, and had flashed straight at me. It had such

an effect upon me, that I could not remain by myself, and I rang for

Flobbins, and invented some little jobs for her, to keep her in the room.

After my breakfast was cleared away, I sat in the same place with my

glasses on, moving my head, now so, and now so, trying whether, with the

shining of my fire and the flaws in the window-glass, I could reproduce

any sparkle seeming to be up there, that was like the sparkle of an eye. But

no; I could make nothing like it. I could make ripples and crooked lines

in the front of the House to Let, and I could even twist one window up and

loop it into another; but, I could make no eye, nor anything like an eye.

So I convinced myself that I really had seen an eve.

Well, to be sure I could not get rid of the impression of this eye, and it

troubled me and troubled me, until it was almost a torment. I don't think I

was previously inclined to concern my head much about the opposite

House; but, after this eye, my head was full of the house; and I thought of

little else than the house, and I watched the house, and I talked about the

house, and I dreamed of the house. In all this, I fully believe now, there

was a good Providence. But, you will judge for yourself about that, bye-

and- bye.

My landlord was a butler, who had married a cook, and set up

housekeeping. They had not kept house longer than a couple of years,

and they knew no more about the House to Let than I did. Neither could I

find out anything concerning it among the trades- people or otherwise;

further than what Trottle had told me at first. It had been empty, some said

six years, some said eight, some said ten. It never did let, they all agreed,

and it never would let.

I soon felt convinced that I should work myself into one of my states

about the House; and I soon did. I lived for a whole month in a flurry,

that was always getting worse. Towers's prescriptions, which I had

brought to London with me, were of no more use than nothing. In the

cold winter sunlight, in the thick winter fog, in the black winter rain, in the

white winter snow, the House was equally on my mind. I have heard, as

everybody else has, of a spirit's haunting a house; but I have had my own

A HOUSE TO LET

personal experience of a house's haunting a spirit; for that House haunted

mine.

In all that month's time, I never saw anyone go into the House nor

come out of the House. I supposed that such a thing must take place

sometimes, in the dead of the night, or the glimmer of the morning; but, I

never saw it done. I got no relief from having my curtains drawn when it

came on dark, and shutting out the House. The Eye then began to shine

in my fire.

I am a single old woman. I should say at once, without being at all

afraid of the name, I am an old maid; only that I am older than the phrase

would express. The time was when I had my love-trouble, but, it is long

and long ago. He was killed at sea (Dear Heaven rest his blessed head!)

when I was twenty-five. I have all my life, since ever I can remember,

been deeply fond of children. I have always felt such a love for them,

that I have had my sorrowful and sinful times when I have fancied

something must have gone wrong in my life- -something must have been

turned aside from its original intention I mean--or I should have been the

proud and happy mother of many children, and a fond old grandmother

this day. I have soon known better in the cheerfulness and contentment

that God has blessed me with and given me abundant reason for; and yet I

have had to dry my eyes even then, when I have thought of my dear, brave,

hopeful, handsome, bright-eyed Charley, and the trust meant to cheer me

with. Charley was my youngest brother, and he went to India. He

married there, and sent his gentle little wife home to me to be confined,

and she was to go back to him, and the baby was to be left with me, and I

was to bring it up. It never belonged to this life. It took its silent place

among the other incidents in my story that might have been, but never

were. I had hardly time to whisper to her "Dead my own!" or she to

answer, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust! O lay it on my breast and comfort

Charley!" when she had gone to seek her baby at Our Saviour's feet. I

went to Charley, and I told him there was nothing left but me, poor me;

and I lived with Charley, out there, several years. He was a man of fifty,

when he fell asleep in my arms. His face had changed to be almost old

and a little stern; but, it softened, and softened when I laid it down that I

A HOUSE TO LET

might cry and pray beside it; and, when I looked at it for the last time, it

was my dear, untroubled, handsome, youthful Charley of long ago.

- I was going on to tell that the loneliness of the House to Let brought

back all these recollections, and that they had quite pierced my heart one

evening, when Flobbins, opening the door, and looking very much as if

she wanted to laugh but thought better of it, said:

"Mr. Jabez Jarber, ma'am!"

Upon which Mr. Jarber ambled in, in his usual absurd way, saying:

"Sophonisba!"

Which I am obliged to confess is my name. A pretty one and proper

one enough when it was given to me: but, a good many years out of date

now, and always sounding particularly high-flown and comical from his

lips. So I said, sharply:

"Though it is Sophonisba, Jarber, you are not obliged to mention it,

that _I_ see."

In reply to this observation, the ridiculous man put the tips of my five

right-hand fingers to his lips, and said again, with an aggravating accent

on the third syllable:

"SophonISba!"

I don't burn lamps, because I can't abide the smell of oil, and wax

candles belonged to my day. I hope the convenient situation of one of

my tall old candlesticks on the table at my elbow will be my excuse for

saying, that if he did that again, I would chop his toes with it. (I am sorry

to add that when I told him so, I knew his toes to be tender.) But, really,

at my time of life and at Jarber's, it is too much of a good thing. There is

an orchestra still standing in the open air at the Wells, before which, in the

presence of a throng of fine company, I have walked a minuet with Jarber.

But, there is a house still standing, in which I have worn a pinafore, and

had a tooth drawn by fastening a thread to the tooth and the door-handle,

and toddling away from the door. And how should I look now, at my

years, in a pinafore, or having a door for my dentist?

Besides, Jarber always was more or less an absurd man. He was

sweetly dressed, and beautifully perfumed, and many girls of my day

would have given their ears for him; though I am bound to add that he

A HOUSE TO LET

never cared a fig for them, or their advances either, and that he was very

constant to me. For, he not only proposed to me before my love-

happiness ended in sorrow, but afterwards too: not once, nor yet twice:

nor will we say how many times. However many they were, or however

few they were, the last time he paid me that compliment was immediately

after he had presented me with a digestive dinner- pill stuck on the point

of a pin. And I said on that occasion, laughing heartily, "Now, Jarber, if

you don't know that two people whose united ages would make about a

hundred and fifty, have got to be old, I do; and I beg to swallow this

nonsense in the form of this pill" (which I took on the spot), "and I request

to, hear no more of it."

After that, he conducted himself pretty well. He was always a little

squeezed man, was Jarber, in little sprigged waistcoats; and he had always

little legs and a little smile, and a little voice, and little round-about ways.

As long as I can remember him he was always going little errands for

people, and carrying little gossip. At this present time when he called me

"Sophonisba!" he had a little old-fashioned lodging in that new

neighbourhood of mine. I had not seen him for two or three years, but I

had heard that he still went out with a little perspective-glass and stood on

door-steps in Saint James's Street, to see the nobility go to Court; and went

in his little cloak and goloshes outside Willis's rooms to see them go to

Almack's; and caught the frightfullest colds, and got himself trodden upon

by coachmen and linkmen, until he went home to his landlady a mass of

bruises, and had to be nursed for a month.

Jarber took off his little fur-collared cloak, and sat down opposite me,

with his little cane and hat in his hand.

"Let us have no more Sophonisbaing, if YOU please, Jarber," I said.

"Call me Sarah. How do you do? I hope you are pretty well."

"Thank you. And you?" said Jarber.

"I am as well as an old woman can expect to be."

Jarber was beginning:

"Say, not old, Sophon- " but I looked at the candlestick, and he left off;

pretending not to have said anything.

"I am infirm, of course," I said, "and so are you. Let us both be

A HOUSE TO LET

thankful it's no worse."

"Is it possible that you look worried?" said Jarber.

"It is very possible. I have no doubt it is the fact."

"And what has worried my Soph-, soft-hearted friend," said Jarber.

"Something not easy, I suppose, to comprehend. I am worried to

death by a House to Let, over the way."

Jarber went with his little tip-toe step to the window-curtains, peeped

out, and looked round at me.

"Yes," said I, in answer: "that house."

After peeping out again, Jarber came back to his chair with a tender air,

and asked: "How does it worry you, S-arah?"

"It is a mystery to me," said I. "Of course every house IS a mystery,

more or less; but, something that I don't care to mention" (for truly the Eye

was so slight a thing to mention that I was more than half ashamed of it),

"has made that House so mysterious to me, and has so fixed it in my mind,

that I have had no peace for a month. I foresee that I shall have no peace,

either, until Trottle comes to me, next Monday."

I might have mentioned before, that there is a lone-standing jealousy

between Trottle and Jarber; and that there is never any love lost between

those two.

"TROTTLE," petulantly repeated Jarber, with a little flourish of his

cane; "how is TROTTLE to restore the lost peace of Sarah?"

"He will exert himself to find out something about the House. I have

fallen into that state about it, that I really must discover by some means or

other, good or bad, fair or foul, how and why it is that that House remains

To Let."

"And why Trottle? Why not," putting his little hat to his heart; "why

not, Jarber?

"To tell you the truth, I have never thought of Jarber in the matter.

And now I do think of Jarber, through your having the kindness to suggest

him--for which I am really and truly obliged to you--I don't think he could

do it."

"Sarah!"

"I think it would be too much for you, Jarber."

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AHOUSETOLET1AHOUSETOLETByDickens,et.al.AHOUSETOLET2OVERTHEWAYIhadbeenlivingatTunbridgeWellsandnowhereelse,goingonfortenyears,whenmymedicalman--verycleverinhisprofession,andtheprettiestplayerIeversawinmylifeofahandatLongWhist,whichwasanobleandaprincelygamebeforeShortwasheardof--saidtome,oneday,ashesa...

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