Sawn Off: A Tale of a Family Tree

“Hey? Turn proud? No; I sha’n’t turn proud. You will. Won’t he, Jessie?”

“No,” said Jessie, speaking up. “Father will never alter – never.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Dick, with a peculiar smile, which he seemed to wipe off directly by passing his hand across his mouth. “Perhaps I may alter, you know, and a good deal too. But, look here, old Hopper, you stop to-day, and we’ll have a holiday – the first I’ve had for years.”

“Hey? Holiday? What, go out?”

“No,” said Dick, “stay at home. We’ll have a bit of supper together, and drink the health of him as sent me that money – bless him. I can’t work to-day. I’m ripening up something, and I can do it best over the old fiddle. We haven’t had a scrape for weeks.”

“Scrape? No,” said the old fellow, “we haven’t;” and, getting up, he toddled to the corner cupboard, from which he drew out a violoncello in its faded green baize bag, and, patting it affectionately, brought it out into the middle of the room. “I was going to take it away to-day,” he said. “It’s too valuable to be lost.”

“Thought we were going to be sold up, eh, Hopper, old man?” said Dick, taking down a violin that hung by the eight-day clock.

“Hey?”

“Thought we were going to be sold up, eh? I should have taken care of your old bass,” said Dick, with a nod and a smile. “It should not have come to harm, Hopper, anyhow. Now, missus, and you, Jessie, give us a cup of tea, with srimps and creases, and a nice bit of supper about eight. We’ll have a happy day in the old house for the last one.”

“Last one, Dick!”

“Yes, mother, the last one. I shall move into better premises to-morrow.”

“Dick dear,” cried Mrs Shingle imploringly – while Hopper seemed to be busying himself over the strings of the ’cello – “what does all this mean? What are you going to do?”

“Do!” said Dick, making his violin chirrup: “throw away wax-end and leather. They say, let the shoemaker stick to his last; but I’ve stuck to it too long. Mother, I’m going to make a fortune.”

“But how, Dick – how?”

“Wait and see.”

“You’ll tell me what you are going to do?” said Mrs Shingle, half angrily.

“I sha’n’t tell a soul,” replied Dick firmly; and then, seeing the effect his words had upon his wife, he kissed her, tuned up his violin, and began to turn over the leaves of some very old music with the bow. “Here’s the note, mother; and don’t spare expense – as far as five shillings go. Get a drop of whiskey, too.”

“Hey! whiskey? Who said whiskey?” exclaimed Hopper. “Going to have a drop of whiskey to-night, Dick?”

Dick nodded.

“That’s good,” said the old fellow, laughing and nodding his head. “We’ll drink success to the new venture, Dick.”

“We will. Now, then, what’s it to be, eh? Here we go: ‘Life’s a bumper!’ That’ll do, for it is; and many a bump and bruise it has given me.”

Hopper’s head went down over his ’cello, Dick’s cheek on his violin; and the oddly assorted couple began to solemnly scrape away, sometimes melodiously, sometimes getting into terrible tangles over the score, consequent upon its being set for three voices or instruments, and Dick having to dodge up and down, from the treble to the tenor and back; while Hopper, with half-closed eyes, and his head moving to and fro like a snag on an American river, kept on sawing away, regardless of everything but the deep tones he evolved from the strings.

From “Life’s a Bumper” they went on to “Vital Spark,” and from “Vital Spark” to the “Hallelujah Chorus,” and from the “Hallelujah Chorus” to “Forgive, blest Shade;” and then Dick tried a solo known as “The Cuckoo.” But it was a failure; for though he managed the first note of the bird, the second would not come – all owing to want of practice, – so he gave way to Hopper, who, with knitted brows, played his solo, “Adeste fideles,” with variations; the effect upon the boy being absolutely painful, causing him to thrust his legs up under the stool, and head down, with his arms crossed over his person. His face, too, was drawn; and had it not been for the variations, it seemed probable that he would have had a fit of sobbing. These latter, being more lively, saved him; though he had a painful relapse during the third variation, which was largo, and in A minor, his face during the performance being a study. However, he became convalescent during the allegro finale, and all ended well.

Tea being declared ready, the musicians ceased their toils for the time being, and feasted on watercress and shrimps; and though the “creases,” as Dick called them, were a little yellow, and the shrimps dull in hue, and too crumby and soft for crustaceans, the meal was a great success, and Hopper actually made a joke.

Like giants refreshed, Dick and he returned to their instruments, and sawed away until supper, which was luxurious, consisting, as it did, of a highly savoured rump-steak pudding, with so much pepper in it, in fact, that both took off their coats, and perspired in peace.

“Ha!” said Hopper suddenly – “I like this; it’s better than eating curry in company at your brother’s, where you can’t scratch your head.”

“Yes, nice pudding,” said Dick, with his mouth full. “You’ve put a good lot of salt in it, Jessie.”

“Lot!” chuckled Hopper. “I had one bit that tasted as if Jessie had put in Lot’s wife as well – the whole pillar. But, never mind, my dear; that’s the best pudding I ever ate in my life. I could taste your fingers in the crust.”

The table being cleared, half a bottle of whiskey and the pipes were placed, with hot water, on the table by Jessie, whose eyes were always wandering nervously towards the door, as if expecting to see some one come in.

Hopper was the first to help himself to whiskey, which he did liberally, apparently not being able to judge the quantity on account of the foreshortening effect of the tumbler.

“That boy Fred been about here lately?” he said, taking his pipe from his mouth, and poking at the lump of sugar in his glass with a spoon, as if he were offended with it, or looked upon it as Fred’s head.

“Not for some days,” said Dick, puffing out a cloud of smoke, while he glanced at Jessie, whose forehead contracted, and she turned slightly away.

“Don’t have him here: he’s a bad one,” said Hopper. “I don’t like him. Look at his moustaches.”

“Ain’t here.”

“Hey? Ain’t here? Who said he was? Just look at his moustaches, stretching straight out on both sides, and worked into a point with wax.”

“Well, they ain’t pretty, certainly.”

“Pretty? Did you say pretty?”

Dick nodded.

“Look as if they were fixed there as handles to open his mouth with, or to steer him. I don’t like that boy. You, Jessie, if you let that chap make love to you – Heyday, what’s the matter now?”

The matter was that Jessie had darted an indignant look at him and gone upstairs to her bedroom.

“Look at that now!” said Hopper.

“Well, you shouldn’t speak to her like that,” said Mrs Shingle indignantly.

“Oh, if it’s coming to pride, I’m off,” said Hopper.

“This is getting on in the world.” And, laying down his pipe, he prepared to go.

“No, no, no – what nonsense!” cried Dick and his wife. And together they forced the old fellow back into his chair, where, becoming somewhat mollified after another glass of whiskey and water, he began to talk.

“She oughtn’t to have huffed off like that,” he said. “But I like Jessie: she’s a sensible girl, wears her own hair, and doesn’t turn her boot-heels into stilts and walk like a hen going to peck the ground with her beak; though how she expects to get on without being more fashionable I don’t know. Ah! it’s a strange world, but it’s a great nuisance that we shall all have to die some day. Max won’t mind it a bit,” he chuckled, “he’s such a good man.”

“You leave Max alone,” said Dick gruffly.

“Hey? what say?”

“I say you leave Max alone. He’s my brother; and blood is thicker than water after all – ain’t it, mother?”

“Hush!” said Hopper, suddenly removing his pipe and making signs with the stem.

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s some one outside, under the window,” he said, in a whisper.

“Why, you can’t hear,” said Dick, in the same low voice.

“Can’t hear? No; but I can feel some one there.”

“It’s the boy,” said Dick.

“No; he’s gone to bed this hour,” said Mrs Shingle nervously.

“Let’s go and see,” whispered Hopper.

“Stop a moment,” said Dick, frowning; and, getting up, he opened the door that led upstairs, when a low whispering was plainly heard from above.

Dick shut the door quickly, and turned to his wife.

“Mother,” he said huskily, “I wouldn’t have believed this if I’d been told. Did you know of it?”

“No, dear – no,” she cried agitatedly. “But pray – stop. What are you going to do?”

“Put an end to it!” he cried fiercely. “My gal’s going to be a lady; and do you think I’m going to let her be the talk of the town?”

“Don’t do anything rash, Dick, old chap,” said Hopper, laying his hand upon the other’s arm.

“Rash!” cried Dick, bitterly. “I’ve been waiting for prosperity to come all my life; but, curse it, give me poverty again, if riches are to be like this.”

A complete change seemed to have come over the man, as he darted to the door and swung it open, just as there was the rush of rapid footsteps along the paved court, and he ran off in pursuit; while Mrs Shingle and Hopper followed.

They met Dick at the entrance, coming back panting; and he motioned them into the house, and closed the door.

“Mother,” he panted, in a voice that trembled with grief and passion, “I’ve left it to you to train our girl while I earned – no, tried to earn – the bread; and it’s been my pride through it all to hold up my head and point to our Jessie, and say to folks, ‘Look at her – she’s not like the rest as go to the warehouse for work.’”

“But, Dick – dear Dick, don’t, pray don’t judge hastily,” cried Mrs Shingle.

“I won’t,” said Dick hoarsely. “All I say is there was a man out there, and she was talking to him on the sly. Is that right, Hopper? I say, is that right?”

The old man looked at him vacantly, and seemed not to hear.

“Curse him! whoever he was,” cried Dick hoarsely; “he was ashamed to meet me. It was Tom Fraser, I’ll swear; and he’s not the man I thought him. Here,” he cried, swinging open the door that led upstairs, “Jessie – Jessie, come down! Hopper, old man, you’re like one of us – you needn’t go.”

The visitor, with a sorrowful look upon his face, had already reached the door, where he stood, leaning upon his stick, as Jessie slowly descended, looking very pale, and glancing anxiously from one to the other.

Mrs Shingle was crossing – mother-like – to her child’s side; but Dick motioned her back.

“Stop there!” he said fiercely; and then, taking a step forward – “Jessie, you were talking to some one outer window just now?”

She did not answer for a moment, but gazed at him in a frightened way.

“I say you were talking to some one outer window?”

“Yes, father,” she faltered.

“It was to Tom Fraser,” he said, in a low, angry voice. “And he’s a sneak.”

There was no answer.

“I say it was – to Tom Fraser.”

“No, father, it was not,” said Jessie, in a low clear voice.

“Who was it, then?” cried Dick.

There was no answer.

“I say, who was it, then?”

“It was to his brother Fred, father,” said Jessie, almost in a whisper.

But all the same Tom Fraser had stood at the entrance to the court, and been a witness of the scene.

Volume Two – Chapter Eight.

After a Lapse

Max Shingle lived in the unfashionable district of Pentonville; but he had a goodly house there, and well furnished, at the head of a square of little residences that some ingenious builder had erected to look like a plantation of young Wesleyan chapels, growing up ready for transplanting at such times as they were needed to supply a want.

Mrs Max, relict of the late Mr Fraser, was a tall, bony, washed-out woman, with a false look about her hair, teeth, and figure; large ears, in each of which, fitting close to the lobe, was a large pearl, looking like a button, to hold it back against her head. She was seated in her drawing-room, but not alone; for opposite to her, in a studied, graceful attitude, sat Max’s ward, Violante, daughter of a late deacon of his chapel – a rather good-looking girl in profile, but terribly disfigured, on looking her full in the face, by a weakness in one eye, the effect of which was that it never worked with its twin sister, but was always left behind. Thus, whereas her right eye turned sharply upon you, and looked you through and through, the left did not come up to its work until the right had about finished and gone off to do duty on something else. The consequence was that when talking to her you found you had her attention for a few moments; and then, just as you seemed to have lost it, eye Number 2 came up to the charge, and generally puzzled and confused a stranger to a remarkable extent.

“Dear me! Hark at the wind!” said Mrs Max; “and look at it. Give me my smelling bottle, Violante. I’m always giddy when the wind gets under the carpet like that.”

The smelling bottle was duly sniffed; and then, changing her position so that her fair hair and white eyebrows and lashes were full in the light, Mrs Max looked more than ever as if there had been too much soda used in the water ever since she was born; and she sighed, and took up her work, which was a large illuminated text on perforated cardboard.

In fact, Max Shingle’s house shone in brightly coloured cards and many-tinted silken pieces of tapestry, formed to improve the sinful mind. Moral aphorisms about honesty and contentment looked at you from over the hat-pegs in the hall; pious precepts peeped at you between the balusters as you went upstairs, and furnished the drawing-room to the displacement of pictures. Many of them lost their point, from being illuminated to such an extent that the brilliancy and wondrous windings of the letters dazzled the eye, and carried the mind into a mental maze, as you tried to decipher what they meant; but there they were, and Mrs Max and the ward spent their days in constantly adding to the number.

The hall mat, instead of “Cave canem,” bore the legend “Friend, do not swear; it is a sinful habit,” and always exasperated visitors; while, if you put your feet upon a stool, you withdrew them directly, feeling that you had been guilty of an irreverent act; for there would be a line worked in white beads, with a reference to “Romans xii.” or “2 Corinthians ii.” If you opened a book there was a marker within bidding you “flee,” or “cease,” or “turn,” or “stand fast.” If you dined there, and sat near the fire, a screen was hung on your chair, which was so covered with quotations that it made you feel as if you were turning your back on the Christian religion. But still, look which way you would, you felt as if you were in the house of a good man.

Pictures there were, of course. There was a large engraving of Ruth and Boaz, to which Mrs Max always drew your attention with —

“Would not you suppose that Mr Shingle had sat for Boaz?”

And when you agreed that he might, Violante always joined in, directing one eye at you, and saying —

“People always think, too, that the Ruth is so like Mrs Maximilian.” Then the other eye came slowly up to finish the first one’s task, and seemed to say, “Now, then, what do you think of that?”

The place was well furnished, but, from the pictures to the carpets, everything was of an ecclesiastical pattern; and when Max came in, with a white cravat, you felt that you were in the presence of a substantial rector, if he were not a canon, or a dean.

In a wicked fit, Dick had once dubbed his brother and sister-in-law “Sage and Onions” – the one from his solid, learned look; the other from her being always strangely scented, and her weakness for bursting into tears.

Upon the present occasion, she sat for a few minutes, and then, taking out her handkerchief, began to weep silently.

“Your guardian is always late for dinner, my dear; and everything will be spoilt. Where is Tom?”

“Gone hanging about after Miss Jessie, I suppose,” said Violante, with a roll of one eye. “And Fred as well,” she added, with the other.

“It is a strange infatuation on the part of my two sons. Your dear guardian’s Esau and Jacob,” said Mrs Max, wiping her eyes. “I wonder how it is that poor creature, Richard Shingle, makes his money.”

“I don’t know,” said Violante. “They’ve set up a very handsome carriage.”

“Dear me! It is a mystery,” said Mrs Max, still weeping. “Two years ago Richard was our poor tenant; now he must be worth thousands. I hope he is honest.”

“Perhaps we had better work him some texts,” said Violante, maliciously. Then, raising her other eye, “They might do him good.”

“I don’t know,” sighed Mrs Max; “we never see them now they have grown so rich. It is very shocking.”

Violante did not seem to see that it was shocking, for she only tossed her head.

“Has Tom been any more attentive to you lately, my dear?”

“No, not a bit,” said the girl spitefully, and one eye flashed at Mrs Max; “nor Fred neither,” she continued, bestowing a milder ray with the other.

“The infatuation will wear off,” said Mrs Max, wringing her hands, but seeming as if wringing her pocket-handkerchief, “and then one of them will come to his senses.”

“I shall never marry Tom,” cried the girl decidedly. “Don’t speak so, my child,” said Mrs Max. “You know your guardian has so arranged it; and he can withhold your money if you are disobedient.”

“Yes,” cried Violante, “money, money, money – always money. That’s why I am kept for the pleasure of those two scapegraces, and mocked at by that saucy hussy of a Jessie. I wish I hadn’t a penny.”

“Hush, hush!” cried Mrs Max, “here is your guardian.” As she spoke she hastily wiped her eyes – pretty dry this time – and put away her handkerchief, for voices were heard below.

In fact, half an hour before, Max Shingle had been rolling grandly along from the City, looking the full-blown perfection of a thick-lipped, self-inflated, sensual man, when he encountered Hopper, who hooked him at once with his stick.

“Hullo, Max Shingle!” he cried: “been doing good, as usual? Here: I’ll come home to dinner with you,” he continued, taking his arm.

Max swore a very ugly oath to himself; but he was obliged to put up with the annoyance – a feeling modified, however, by his curiosity being excited.

“I’ve just come from your brother Dick’s,” said Hopper, winking to himself.

Max was mollified directly, for reasons of his own; for, though over two years had passed, Dick had kept his own counsel so well that not a soul, even in his own family, knew the full secret of his success. Hopper was as ignorant as the rest; but he assumed a knowledge in Max’s presence that he did not possess.

“Is – is he doing well?” said Max, in an indifferent tone. “Hey?”

“I say, is he doing well?” shouted Max.

“Wonderfully! Keeps his brougham, and a carriage besides, for his wife and daughter.”

“Ah!” said Max. “Is he civil to you? No music now, I suppose?”

“Only three nights a week,” said Hopper, winking to himself. “Fine princely fellow, Dick. Ah! here we are. Very glad – I’m hungry. He wanted me to stay, but I would not.”

Max opened the front door with his latchkey, and drew back for Hopper to enter which that worthy did, and began to wipe his feat upon the mat, which said in scarlet letters, “Friend, do not swear,” etc.

“Damn that mat!” exclaimed Hopper loudly, as he caught one toe in the long pile, and nearly fell headlong, while Max gazed at him in horror.

“Couldn’t help it,” said Hopper apologetically. “Didn’t swear, did I?”

“Indeed, sir, you did.”

“Hey? What say?”

“You did, sir,” shouted Max.

“Did what?”

“Swore – at the mat.”

“Hey?” said Hopper, who had grown wonderfully deaf since he had been in the hall.

“I say you – swore – at – the – mat.”

“I swore at the mat? Did I? Tut, tut, tut! How hard it is to break oneself of bad habits! Now, I’ll be bound to say you never did such a thing as that, Max?”

Max shook his head.

“No, of course you would not. Ah, Max, I wish I was as good a man as you. It’s wonderful how some men’s minds are constituted.”

Hopper took off an unpleasant-looking respirator that he had been wearing more or less – more when he was speaking, less when he was not; and when it was in its place it seemed to have the effect of sticking his grey moustache up into his nostrils, like a fierce chevaux de frise. Then he put his hat on his hooked stick, and his great-coat on a chair, so as not to confront the moral aphorisms that were waiting to catch his eye, and followed Max up into the drawing-room, where the ladies looked horror-stricken at the sight of the guest.

But there was no help for it; and Mrs Max, at a sign from her lord, put on her most agreeable air, though Violante gave him, uncompromisingly, an ugly look with one eye, which seemed to pierce him, while she clinched the shaft with the other, Hopper replying with his lowest bow.

The brothers Tom and Fred came in directly after, – Tom to offer his hand, while Fred gave a supercilious nod and went up to his mother.

Hopper nodded, and as soon as the dinner was announced, offered his arm to Mrs Max, and they went down to the dining-room.

A well-ordered house had Max Shingle, and his dinners were nicely served; and since he was obliged to receive the visits of Hopper, he made a virtue of necessity, trying all the dinner-time to lay little traps for him to fall into about his brother Richard. But as Hopper saw Tom lean eagerly forward, and Fred turn sharply to listen to his answers, while a frown passed between the two brothers, he misunderstood every word said to him as the dinner went on.

“So Richard is doing uncommonly well, is he?” said Max.

“Hey? You’re not doing uncommonly well? So I heard in the City. Some one told me your house was quite shaky.”

“Who told you that?” cried Fred fiercely.

“Hey?”

“I say who told you that?” cried Fred, more loudly.

“I can’t hear a word you say, young man,” replied Hopper; “you must come round. This, is a bad room of yours for sound, Maximilian – I’d have it altered.”

There were several little encounters of this kind during the repast; for Hopper, as soon as he saw the object of his host, strove religiously to frustrate his efforts, and with such success that Max gave up in disgust, and tried another tack, after making up his mind to call on his brother and become reconciled. This he was the more eager for, since it was a fact that he had lost very heavily of late, and his house was tottering to its fall.

“Ah!” said Max at last, as the dinner progressed slowly, “it’s a pity, Hopper, that you have no money to invest.”

“Hey? Money to invest? No, thank you. But don’t talk shop, man. I wonder so good a creature thinks so much of money. But you keep a carriage?”

“Oh yes,” said Max, smiling good-humouredly at his wife, as if to say, “You see, he will have his joke!”

“And horses?”

“Of course,” said Max, smiling.

“There, don’t put on that imbecile smile,” cried Hopper. “There’s only been one decent dish on the table yet, and I’ve got some of it now. You don’t send your horses out to work in their nosebags? so don’t make me work when I’ve got on mine. I’m hard of hearing, but I’m fond of my digestion. Don’t treat your guest worse than your horses.”

“You always did like a joke, Hopper,” said Max.

“Joke! – it’s no joke,” cried Hopper, pointing at a pie before him. “Look at that – there’s a thing to eat! Look at the crust: just like the top of a brown skull, with all the sutures marked, ready to thrust a knife in and open it, – only it’s apple inside instead of brains.”

Mrs Max gave a horrified glance at Violante.

At last the dessert was placed on the table, and in due time the ladies rose, Tom following them shortly, and Fred, with a sneering look at his brother, rising, and saying he should go and have a cigar.

“You don’t smoke, I suppose, old Hopper?”

“Hey? Not smoke? Yes, I do; but I shall have a pipe.” Left alone, the visitor condescended to talk about Richard, and gave Max a full account of his handsomely furnished house; growing so confidential that, when he took his cup of coffee, he drew nearer and nearer, gesticulating as he described the rich Turkey carpets.