Mrs Lirripers Lodgings | Page 4

turnpike too when
that dreadful horse that never would stand still for a single instant set
off, but for its being night and the gate shut and consequently took his
wheel, my poor Lirriper and the gig smashed to atoms and never spoke
afterwards. He was a handsome figure of a man, and a man with a
jovial heart and a sweet temper; but if they had come up then they
never could have given you the mellowness of his voice, and indeed I
consider photographs wanting in mellowness as a general rule and
making you look like a new-ploughed field.
My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being buried at
Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place but
that he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms where we went upon our
wedding-day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was, I went
round to the creditors and I says "Gentlemen I am acquainted with the
fact that I am not answerable for my late husband's debts but I wish to
pay them for I am his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I
am going into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper
every farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of
the love I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to do but it
was done, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the
bed and the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs
so sure as ever the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the
gentlemen engraved "To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her
honourable conduct" gave me a turn which was too much for my

feelings, till Mr. Betley which at that time had the parlours and loved
his joke says "Cheer up Mrs. Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only
your christening and they were your godfathers and godmothers which
did promise for you." And it brought me round, and I don't mind
confessing to you my dear that I then put a sandwich and a drop of
sherry in a little basket and went down to Hatfield church-yard outside
the coach and kissed my hand and laid it with a kind of proud and
swelling love on my husband's grave, though bless you it had taken me
so long to clear his name that my wedding-ring was worn quite fine and
smooth when I laid it on the green green waving grass.
I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my
dear over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you
used to pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much
how you came out, which made you very careful how you left it about
afterwards because people were turned so red and uncomfortable by
mostly guessing it was somebody else quite different, and there was
once a certain person that had put his money in a hop business that
came in one morning to pay his rent and his respects being the second
floor that would have taken it down from its hook and put it in his
breast-pocket--you understand my dear--for the L, he says of the
original--only there was no mellowness in HIS voice and I wouldn't let
him, but his opinion of it you may gather from his saying to it "Speak
to me Emma!" which was far from a rational observation no doubt but
still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I think myself it WAS like me
when I was young and wore that sort of stays.
But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and
certainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it
so long, for it was early in the second year of my married life that I lost
my poor Lirriper and I set up at Islington directly afterwards and
afterwards came here, being two houses and eight-and- thirty years and
some losses and a deal of experience.
Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even worse than
what I call the Wandering Christians, though why THEY should roam
the earth looking for bills and then coming in and viewing the

apartments and stickling about terms and never at all wanting them or
dreaming of taking them being already provided, is, a mystery I should
be thankful to have explained if by any miracle it could be. It's
wonderful they live so long and thrive so on it but I suppose the
exercise makes it healthy, knocking so much and going