Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

by George Manville Fenn

But now Agnes Hardon was in greater trouble, for something whispered her that this sickness of poor Mrs Jarker was a sickness unto death, and her soul clave to the suffering, ill-used woman who had filled the place of mother to her child; while, at the same time, she trembled for the future of her little one after each visit—ever feeling the necessity, but ever dreading, to take it away, for truly there was a change coming; and time after time when she left the garret, it was with a shudder, for there seemed to be a shadow in the room.

It was almost impossible to ascend the creaking stairs to the garret tenanted by Mr Jarker without hearing Mrs Sims, who, through some spiritual weakness, had left the house in the square to return once more to the Rents—a court honoured by most of those unfortunates who, from unforeseen circumstances, fell from the heights of the square; while the latter was always looked up to, in its topmost or basement floors, for promotion by the more fortunate tenants of the Rents; and now an ascending visitor was almost certain to hear the melancholy, sniffing woman blowing her fire. Generally speaking, we see bellows hang by the mantelpiece, with a time-honoured, bees’-waxy polish glossing them, as though they were family relics whose services were seldom called into requisition; but chez Mrs Sims, the bellows had rather a bad time of it, and were worked hardly enough to make them short-winded. They already wheezed so loudly that it was impossible to take Mrs Sims’ bellows for anybody else’s bellows; and this was probably due to their having inhaled a sufficiency of ashy dust to make them asthmatic, while the nozzle was decayed and burned away from constant resting upon the specially-cleared bottom-bar; the left half of the broken tongs doing duty for the vanished poker, borrowed once to clear the grating in the court, and never returned, for the simple reason that it found its way to Mrs Slagg’s marine-store shop, where it stayed in consideration of the porter receiving the best price given, namely, twopence.

Your boots might creak, and, as was their wont, the stairs would crack and groan, but still there was the sound of the bellows to be heard as you ascended the staircase—puff, puff, puff; and the stooping woman’s stays crackled and crumpled at every motion, for Mrs Sims, from always requiring support, external as well as internal, sought the external in whalebone, though for the internal she preferred rum. There was always “suthin’ as wanted a bit of fire:” perhaps it was washing-day, which, from the small size of Bennett’s-rents’ wardrobes, happened irregularly, with Mrs Sims three times a week, when the big tin saucepan used for boiling divers articles of wearing-apparel, in company with a packet of washing-powder, would be placed upon the little damaged grate, upon which it would sit like Incubus, putting the poor weak fire quite out of heart, when it had to be coaxed accordingly. Sometimes the bellows were required to hurry the “kittle,” a battered old copper vessel that never boiled if it could help it, and, when compelled by the said hurrying, only did so after passing through a regular course of defiant snorts, even going so far as to play the deceiver, and sputter over into the fire, pretending to be on the boil when many degrees off, and so spoiling Mrs Sims’ tea—never the strongest to be obtained. Sometimes, again, the bellows were required to get a decent fire to cook a bit of steak for the master’s dinner, or even “to bile the taters.” At all events, of all Mrs Sims’ weaknesses, the principal lay in her bellows, and she could generally find an excuse for a good blow, accompanied sometimes by a cry over the wind-exhalers, as she sniffed loudly at her task.

There is no doubt but that in her natural good-heartedness Mrs Sims would have operated quite as cheerfully upon any neighbour’s fire as she did now upon the handful of cinders in Mrs Jarker’s grate; for, in spite of her sniffs, her weakness for the internal and external support, and her whining voice, Mrs Sims was one of those women who are a glory to their sex. Only a very humble private was she in the noble army, but one ever ready for the fight: fever, cholera, black death, or death of any shade, were all one to Mrs Sims, who only seemed happy when she was in trouble. If it was a neighbour who could pay her, so much the better; if it was a neighbour who could not, it mattered little; send for Mrs Sims, and Mrs Sims came, ready to nurse, comfort, sit up, or do anything to aid the needy; and old Matt had been heard more than once to wish she had been a widow.

Poor Mrs Jarker would have suffered badly but for this woman’s kindness; many a little neighbourly act had been done by Lucy, but Mrs Jarker’s need was sore, and beyond minding the child for her occasionally, Lucy’s powers of doing good were circumscribed. And now, one night, sat Mrs Sims, sniffing, and forcing a glow from the few embers in the Jarker grate as she made the sick woman a little gruel.

Mr William Jarker ascended the stairs after having had “a drop” at the corner—that is to say, two pints of porter with a quartern of gin in each; and upon hearing the noise of the bellows he uttered what he would have denominated “a cuss,” since he bore no love for Mrs Sims, and her sniff annoyed him; but when, upon ascending higher, he found that the sound did not proceed, as he expected, from the second-floor, but from his own room, he began to growl so audibly that the women heard him coming like a small storm, and trembled, since Mr Jarker was a great stickler for the privacy of his own dwelling, which he seemed to look upon as a larger sort of cage in which he kept his wife.

But although forbidden to enter the room, Mrs Sims glanced at the pallid sufferer lying in the bed, with the feeble light of a rush candle playing upon her features; and muttering to herself, “Not if he kills me,” resolved not to abdicate; and then, after a few final triumphant puffs, dropping at the same time a tear upon the top of the bellows—a tear of weakness and sympathy—she laid down the wind instrument upon which she had been playing, and thrust an iron spoon into the gruel upon the fire, stirring it round so energetically that a small portion was jerked out of the saucepan upon the glowing cinders, and hissed viciously, forming a fitting finale to Mr Jarker’s feline swearing.

But the gruel did not hiss and sputter as angrily, nor did the erst glowing cinders look so black, as did Mr William Jarker when he found “the missus still abed,” and Mrs Sims in possession.

“I have said as I won’t have it,” growled Mr Jarker; “and I says agen as I won’t have it. So let people wait till I arsts ’em afore they takes liberties with my place. So now p’r’aps you’ll make yourself scarce, Missus Sims;” and then the birdcatcher crossed over to, and began muttering something to, his wife.

But Mrs Sims was nothing daunted; she was in the right, and she knew it, and though her hands trembled, and more of the gruel fell hissing into the fire, as the tears of weakness fell fast, she stood her ground firmly.