Fatal Boots | Page 4

name; and I haven't got a shilling: I have borne the
commission of lieutenant in the service of King George, and am
NOW--but never mind what I am now, for the public will know in a
few pages more. My father was of the Suffolk Stubbses--a well-to- do
gentleman of Bungay. My grandfather had been a respected attorney in
that town, and left my papa a pretty little fortune. I was thus the
inheritor of competence, and ought to be at this moment a gentleman.
My misfortunes may be said to have commenced about a year before
my birth, when my papa, a young fellow pretending to study the law in
London, fell madly in love with Miss Smith, the daughter of a
tradesman, who did not give her a sixpence, and afterwards became
bankrupt. My papa married this Miss Smith, and carried her off to the
country, where I was born, in an evil hour for me.
Were I to attempt to describe my early years, you would laugh at me as
an impostor; but the following letter from mamma to a friend, after her
marriage, will pretty well show you what a poor foolish creature she

was; and what a reckless extravagant fellow was my other unfortunate
parent:--
"TO MISS ElIZA KICKS, IN GRACECHURCH STREET, LONDON.
"OH, ELIZA! your Susan is the happiest girl under heaven! My
Thomas is an angel! not a tall grenadier-like looking fellow, such as I
always vowed I would marry:--on the contrary, he is what the world
would call dumpy, and I hesitate not to confess, that his eyes have a
cast in them. But what then? when one of his eyes is fixed on me, and
one on my babe, they are lighted up with an affection which my pen
cannot describe, and which, certainly, was never bestowed upon any
woman so strongly as upon your happy Susan Stubbs.
"When he comes home from shooting, or the farm, if you COULD see
dear Thomas with me and our dear little Bob! as I sit on one knee, and
baby on the other, and as he dances us both about. I often wish that we
had Sir Joshua, or some great painter, to depict the group; for sure it is
the prettiest picture in the whole world, to see three such loving merry
people.
"Dear baby is the most lovely little creature that CAN POSSIBLY
BE,--the very IMAGE of papa; he is cutting his teeth, and the delight of
EVERYBODY. Nurse says that, when he is older he will get rid of his
squint, and his hair will get a GREAT DEAL less red. Doctor Bates is
as kind, and skilful, and attentive as we could desire. Think what a
blessing to have had him! Ever since poor baby's birth, it has never had
a day of quiet; and he has been obliged to give it from three to four
doses every week;--how thankful ought we to be that the DEAR
THING is as well as it is! It got through the measles wonderfully; then
it had a little rash; and then a nasty hooping-cough; and then a fever,
and continual pains in its poor little stomach, crying, poor dear child,
from morning till night.
"But dear Tom is an excellent nurse; and many and many a night has he
had no sleep, dear man! in consequence of the poor little baby. He
walks up and down with it FOR HOURS, singing a kind of song (dear
fellow, he has no more voice than a tea-kettle), and bobbing his head
backwards and forwards, and looking, in his nightcap and
dressing-gown, SO DROLL. Oh, Eliza! how you would laugh to see
him.
"We have one of the best nursemaids IN THE WORLD,--an

Irishwoman, who is as fond of baby almost as his mother (but that can
NEVER BE). She takes it to walk in the park for hours together, and I
really don't know why Thomas dislikes her. He says she is tipsy, very
often, and slovenly, which I cannot conceive;--to be sure, the nurse is
sadly dirty, and sometimes smells very strong of gin.
"But what of that?--these little drawbacks only make home more
pleasant. When one thinks how many mothers have NO nursemaids:
how many poor dear children have no doctors: ought we not to be
thankful for Mary Malowney, and that Dr. Bates's bill is forty- seven
pounds? How ill must dear baby have been, to require so much physic!
"But they are a sad expense, these dear babies, after all. Fancy, Eliza,
how much this Mary Malowney costs us. Ten shillings every week; a
glass of brandy or gin at dinner; three pint-bottles of Mr. Thrale's best
porter every day,--making twenty-one in a week, and nine hundred and
ninety in the eleven