A House to Let | Page 7

me; but I hold no communication with
him. George Forley has been a hard, bitter, stony father to a child now
dead. George Forley was most implacable and unrelenting to one of his
two daughters who made a poor marriage. George Forley brought all
the weight of his band to bear as heavily against that crushed thing, as
he brought it to bear lightly, favouringly, and advantageously upon her
sister, who made a rich marriage. I hope that, with the measure George
Forley meted, it may not be measured out to him again. I will give
George Forley no worse wish."
I was strong upon the subject, and I could not keep the tears out of my
eyes; for, that young girl's was a cruel story, and I had dropped many a
tear over it before.

"The house being George Forley's," said I, "is almost enough to
account for there being a Fate upon it, if Fate there is. Is there anything
about George Forley in those sheets of paper?"
"Not a word."
"I am glad to hear it. Please to read on. Trottle, why don't you come
nearer? Why do you sit mortifying yourself in those arctic regions?
Come nearer."
"Thank you, ma'am; I am quite near enough to Mr. Jarber."
Jarber rounded his chair, to get his back full to my opinionated friend
and servant, and, beginning to read, tossed the words at him over his
(Jabez Jarber's) own ear and shoulder.
He read what follows:

THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE
Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw came from Manchester to London and took the
House To Let. He had been, what is called in Lancashire, a Salesman
for a large manufacturing firm, who were extending their business, and
opening a warehouse in London; where Mr. Openshaw was now to
superintend the business. He rather enjoyed the change of residence;
having a kind of curiosity about London, which he had never yet been
able to gratify in his brief visits to the metropolis. At the same time he
had an odd, shrewd, contempt for the inhabitants; whom he had always
pictured to himself as fine, lazy people; caring nothing but for fashion
and aristocracy, and lounging away their days in Bond Street, and such
places; ruining good English, and ready in their turn to despise him as a
provincial. The hours that the men of business kept in the city
scandalised him too; accustomed as he was to the early dinners of
Manchester folk, and the consequently far longer evenings. Still, he
was pleased to go to London; though he would not for the world have
confessed it, even to himself, and always spoke of the step to his
friends as one demanded of him by the interests of his employers, and
sweetened to him by a considerable increase of salary. His salary
indeed was so liberal that he might have been justified in taking a much
larger House than this one, had he not thought himself bound to set an
example to Londoners of how little a Manchester man of business cared
for show. Inside, however, he furnished the House with an unusual
degree of comfort, and, in the winter time, he insisted on keeping up as

large fires as the grates would allow, in every room where the
temperature was in the least chilly. Moreover, his northern sense of
hospitality was such, that, if he were at home, he could hardly suffer a
visitor to leave the house without forcing meat and drink upon him.
Every servant in the house was well warmed, well fed, and kindly
treated; for their master scorned all petty saving in aught that conduced
to comfort; while he amused himself by following out all his
accustomed habits and individual ways in defiance of what any of his
new neighbours might think.
His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and character. He
was forty-two, she thirty-five. He was loud and decided; she soft and
yielding. They had two children or rather, I should say, she had two; for
the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs. Openshaw's child by Frank Wilson
her first husband. The younger was a little boy, Edwin, who could just
prattle, and to whom his father delighted to speak in the broadest and
most unintelligible Lancashire dialect, in order to keep up what he
called the true Saxon accent.
Mrs. Openshaw's Christian-name was Alice, and her first husband had
been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain in
Liverpool: a quiet, grave little creature, of great personal attraction
when she was fifteen or sixteen, with regular features and a blooming
complexion. But she was very shy, and believed herself to be very
stupid and awkward; and was frequently scolded by her aunt, her own
uncle's second