Читать книгу Jessie Trim - B. L. Farjeon - Страница 5

There was a friend of the family of whose name I have no remembrance, and whom, from a certain personal peculiarity, I must denominate Snaggletooth. He was a large man--very tall, and round in proportion--with a glistening bald head, a smooth full-fleshed face, and clear gray eyes. In repose, and when he was not speaking, he was by no means an unpleasant-looking man; his face was benignant, and his clear gray eyes beamed kindly upon you. But directly he smiled he became transformed, and his features were made to assume an almost fiendish expression by reason of a hideous snaggle-tooth which thrust itself forward immediately he opened his mouth. It stuck out like a horn, and the change it effected in his appearance was something marvellous.

As the friend of the family, Snaggletooth came forward and offered his assistance. My father being confined to his bed by sickness, there was no man in the house to look after the funeral of my grandmother, and Snaggletooth's services were gladly accepted. I fancy that he was fond of funerals, from the zealous manner in which he attended to the details of this and a sadder one which followed not long afterwards. Setting this fancy aside, he proved himself a genuine and disinterested friend. We had no near relatives; my mother was an only daughter, and my father had but one brother, older than he, whom I had never seen, and who had disappeared from the place many years ago. He was supposed to be dead; and from certain chance words which I must have heard, I had gained a vague impression that he was not a credit to the family.

It was a strange experience for me to sit in my grandmother's room after her death, gazing at her empty armchair. I could not keep away from the room; I crept into it at all hours of the day, and sat there trembling. I mentally asked the stone monkey-figure what it thought of my grandmother's death, and I put my fingers in my ears lest I should hear an answer. Jane Painter found me there in the evening when she came to put me to bed, and stated that my grandmother's spirit was present, and that she was in communication with it. She held imaginary conversations with my grandmother's ghost in the dusk, speaking very softly and waiting for the answers. The effect was ghastly and terrifying. These conversations related to nothing but poor me, and the exquisite pain Jane Painter inflicted upon me by these means may be easily imagined.

The first thing Snaggletooth did after my grandmother's funeral was to search for her long stocking and the treasures it was supposed to contain. Taking the words in their literal sense, I really thought that the long stocking would be found hidden somewhere--under the bed perhaps, or among the feathers, or up the chimney--stuffed with money, in shape resembling my grandmother's leg, which I knew from actual observation to be a substantial one.

'Perhaps she made a will,' observed Snaggletooth to my mother. Jane Painter was present, hovering about us with hungry jealous eyes, lest she should be cheated.

'She did make a will,' said Jane Painter, 'and I'm down in it.'

'Then we will find it,' said Snaggletooth cheerfully.

My grandmother's desk was opened, and every piece of paper in it was examined. No will was there, nor a word relating to it. Her trunk was searched with a like result.

'Never mind,' said Snaggletooth, with a genial smile, 'we shall be sure to find the old lady's long stocking.'

And he set to work. But although a rigid search was made, no long stocking could be found. Snaggletooth became immensely excited. Very hot, very dusty and dirty, and with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his shoulders, he gazed at vacancy, and paused to take breath. Disappointed as he was up to this point, his faith in my grandmother's long stocking was not shaken; he had it not, and yet he saw it in form as palpable as the lisle-thread stockings of my grandmother, which were scattered about the room. A closer and more systematic search was commenced. The hunt became more and more exciting, and still not a glimpse of the fox's tail could be seen. Under Snaggletooth's instructions the bedstead was taken down, the pillows and mattresses were ripped open (Snaggletooth being determined not to leave a feather unturned), the posts were sounded to discover if they were hollow, and the strictest examination was made of every vestige of my grandmother's clothing without a satisfactory result. Dirtier and hotter than ever, and covered with fluff and feathers, Snaggletooth looked about him with an air of 'What next?' His eye fell upon my grandmother's armchair. Out came the stuffing that it contained, and nothing more. My grandmother's footstool: a like result. Her portly pincushion: nothing but bran. Up came the carpet, and almost blinded us with dust. And then Snaggletooth sat down in the midst of the wreck and said disconsolately:

'I am afraid we must give it up.'

So it was given up, and the mystery of my grandmother's long stocking took honourable place in the family records as an important legend for ever afterwards.

Jane Painter passed through many stages of emotion, and ended by being furious. She vowed--no, she swore; it is more appropriate--that she had been robbed, and openly declared that my mother had secreted my grandmother's long stocking, and had destroyed the will. Nay, more; she screamed that she had seen the treasure, which consisted of new Bank of England notes and a heap of gold, and that in the will my grandmother had left her three hundred pounds.

'Woman!' exclaimed Snaggletooth, rising from the ruins, 'be quiet!'

'Woman yourself!' screamed Jane Painter. 'You're in the plot to rob a poor girl, and I'll have the law of you; I'll have the law, I'll have the law!'

'Take it and welcome,' replied Snaggletooth. 'I hate it.'

But he was no match for Jane Painter, and he retired from the contest discomfited; did not even stop to wash his face.

My mother was sad and puzzled. I did not entirely realise at the time the cause of her sadness, because I did not know how poor she really was, but I learnt it afterwards. She gathered sufficient courage to tell Jane Painter that of course she could not stop in the house after what she had said.

'If every hair in your head was a diamond,' gasped Jane Painter, 'I wouldn't stop. No, not if you went down on your bended knees! I'll go to-morrow.'

Then she pounced upon two silk dresses and some other articles of clothing, and said that my grandmother had given them to her. My mother submitted without a word, and Jane Painter marched to her room and locked them in her box. She did as much mischief as she could on her last evening in our house; broke things purposely and revenged herself grandly on poor little me. After undressing and putting me to bed as usual, and after smelling about the room, and under the bed, and up the chimney for blood, she imparted to me the cheerful intelligence that my grandmother's ghost would come and take me away exactly at twelve o'clock that night. Near to our house was a church, and many a night had I lain awake waiting for the tolling of the hour; but I never listened with such intensity of purpose as I listened on this night. As midnight drew near, I clenched my fists, I bit my lips, I drew my knees almost up to my nose. I trembled and shook in the darkness. I would not look, I thought; and when the hour tolled, every note seemed charged with terrible meaning, and I shut my eyes tighter and held my breath under the clothes. But when the bell had done tolling, my state of horrible curiosity and fear compelled me to peep out, and there in the middle of the room stood a tall figure in white. So loud and shrill were my hysterical cries that my mother ran into the room, there to find Jane Painter in her nightdress. I think the woman herself; fearful lest she had gone too far, was glad to quit the house the following day without being called to account for her misdeeds. She did not leave without a few parting words. She called us all a parcel of thieves, and said that a judgment would fall upon us one day for robbing a poor servant of the money her dead mistress had left her.