in a tall rocking chair above a smoky fire, with her face all shiny from the heat and the remains of some genteel refection (Tite Street inclines to pork chops and sweetbreads) lying on the rickety table beside her.
The capital’s actor managers, did they know of this Tite Street faery’s existence, would probably subscribe a respectable sum to induce her onto the London stage, so professed is her ability to reproduce the symptoms of inward agitation. There is no one in the room save thecat, but curiously Mrs. Farthing’s attitude suggests that she believes there to be a burglar, say, concealed under the fender, or a bailiff with an eye on the mahogany sideboard sat at the breakfast table before her. Twice in the course of ten minutes Mrs. Farthing starts up in her chair and reaches forward, with who knows what constriction of her old bones, to stir the fire irons and administer a wholly unnecessary prod to the slumbering fire with the poker. Twice, again, she rises to her feet, makes a halfhearted sally in the direction of the parlour door, thinks better of it and retires. A man delivering circulars comes and pushes one through the letter box, and Mrs. Farthing pops her old head into the passage, catches sight of the white paper fitfully descending and mutters something scornful and unintelligible under her breath. Another glance at the parlour door, another rattle of the fire irons, and Mrs. Farthing resumes her seat.
Fast approaching four o’clock in Tite Street and the twilight is no longer a hint or a plausible speculation but an irrevocable fact. A few children, home early from the variety of select establishments in which the neighbourhood abounds, venture out to play at ninepins on the area steps or make cockshies in the corners of gloomy courtyards and are swiftly routed out and brought back by their nursemaids. A muffin man marches up Tite Street clanging his bell, to depart a few moments later with ever so few pence for his trouble. A mad old lady with a rolling eye and a ragged umbrella lingers before the door of the French milliner’s, thereby awakening all kinds of unreasonable hopes in the breast of its proprietress, before skipping girlishly away in the direction of Somers Town.
Within the walls of the back kitchen, now practically drowning in a sea of inky shadows, Mrs. Farthing, who has spent the past ten minutes staring very vigilantly into the fire, as if it formed an additional door to the premises, rises once more to her feet and begins to shake out her skirts in a way that suggests thoroughgoing ill-humour, one ear cocked like a bad-tempered old fox hearing the huntsman’s horn borne up on the wind. What is it that Mrs. Farthing hears? A footstep creaking this way and that on an uncarpeted floor? A voice—a female voice, by the sound of it—murmuring ever so softly somewhere? Whatever it is, Mrs. Farthing doesn’t mean to put up with it. Taking a last angryglance at the clock face, in whose powers she has long since ceased to believe, Mrs. Farthing steams off in the direction of the parlour door like a fearful old battleship, pushes it half open and stands balefully under the lintel.
“No good will come of it, ma’am.”
The noise, which might be that of a person—a female person—walking up and down, ceases abruptly. Surer now of her ground, Mrs. Farthing, in what she imagines—heaven knows why—to be a kindlier tone, extemporises further: “No good at all, ma’am, in taking on so. There is nothing to be done.” The silence is by now so absolute that the ticking of the grandfather clock a dozen feet distant, very tall and ominous in the dark, seems to run away like some mechanical demon capering off in pursuit of an inventor’s prize plate.
“Nothing to be done, ma’am,” Mrs. Farthing remarks, darting sharp little glances at the room’s interior, at the shadows wreathed around the principal armchair, and the solitary hand—very pale and delicate and tremulous—tapping
The capital’s actor managers, did they know of this Tite Street faery’s existence, would probably subscribe a respectable sum to induce her onto the London stage, so professed is her ability to reproduce the symptoms of inward agitation. There is no one in the room save thecat, but curiously Mrs. Farthing’s attitude suggests that she believes there to be a burglar, say, concealed under the fender, or a bailiff with an eye on the mahogany sideboard sat at the breakfast table before her. Twice in the course of ten minutes Mrs. Farthing starts up in her chair and reaches forward, with who knows what constriction of her old bones, to stir the fire irons and administer a wholly unnecessary prod to the slumbering fire with the poker. Twice, again, she rises to her feet, makes a halfhearted sally in the direction of the parlour door, thinks better of it and retires. A man delivering circulars comes and pushes one through the letter box, and Mrs. Farthing pops her old head into the passage, catches sight of the white paper fitfully descending and mutters something scornful and unintelligible under her breath. Another glance at the parlour door, another rattle of the fire irons, and Mrs. Farthing resumes her seat.
Fast approaching four o’clock in Tite Street and the twilight is no longer a hint or a plausible speculation but an irrevocable fact. A few children, home early from the variety of select establishments in which the neighbourhood abounds, venture out to play at ninepins on the area steps or make cockshies in the corners of gloomy courtyards and are swiftly routed out and brought back by their nursemaids. A muffin man marches up Tite Street clanging his bell, to depart a few moments later with ever so few pence for his trouble. A mad old lady with a rolling eye and a ragged umbrella lingers before the door of the French milliner’s, thereby awakening all kinds of unreasonable hopes in the breast of its proprietress, before skipping girlishly away in the direction of Somers Town.
Within the walls of the back kitchen, now practically drowning in a sea of inky shadows, Mrs. Farthing, who has spent the past ten minutes staring very vigilantly into the fire, as if it formed an additional door to the premises, rises once more to her feet and begins to shake out her skirts in a way that suggests thoroughgoing ill-humour, one ear cocked like a bad-tempered old fox hearing the huntsman’s horn borne up on the wind. What is it that Mrs. Farthing hears? A footstep creaking this way and that on an uncarpeted floor? A voice—a female voice, by the sound of it—murmuring ever so softly somewhere? Whatever it is, Mrs. Farthing doesn’t mean to put up with it. Taking a last angryglance at the clock face, in whose powers she has long since ceased to believe, Mrs. Farthing steams off in the direction of the parlour door like a fearful old battleship, pushes it half open and stands balefully under the lintel.
“No good will come of it, ma’am.”
The noise, which might be that of a person—a female person—walking up and down, ceases abruptly. Surer now of her ground, Mrs. Farthing, in what she imagines—heaven knows why—to be a kindlier tone, extemporises further: “No good at all, ma’am, in taking on so. There is nothing to be done.” The silence is by now so absolute that the ticking of the grandfather clock a dozen feet distant, very tall and ominous in the dark, seems to run away like some mechanical demon capering off in pursuit of an inventor’s prize plate.
“Nothing to be done, ma’am,” Mrs. Farthing remarks, darting sharp little glances at the room’s interior, at the shadows wreathed around the principal armchair, and the solitary hand—very pale and delicate and tremulous—tapping
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