The Shucklefords—such was the name of this amiable family—were comparatively recent sojourners in Dull Street. They had come there six years previously, on the death of Mr Shuckleford, a respectable wharfinger, who had saved up money enough to leave his wife a small annuity. Shortly before his death he had been promoted to the command of one of the Thames steamboats plying between Chelsea and London Bridge, in virtue of which office he had taken to himself—or rather his wife had claimed for him—the title of “captain,” and with this patent of gentility had held up her head ever since. Her children, following her good example, were not slow to hold up their heads too, and were fully convinced of their own gentility. Samuel Shuckleford had, as his mother termed it, been “entered for the law” shortly after his father’s death, and Miss Jemima Shuckleford, after the month’s sojourn at a ladies’ boarding-school already referred to, had settled down to assist her mother in the housework and maintain the dignity of the family by living on her income.
Such were the new next-door neighbours of the Crudens when at last they arrived, sadly, and with the new world before them, at Number 6, Dull Street.
Mr Richmond, who, with all his unfortunate manner, had acted a friend’s part all along, had undertaken the task of clearing up affairs at Garden Vale, superintending the payment of Mr Cruden’s debts, the sale of his furniture, and the removal to Dull Street of what little remained to the family to remind them of their former comforts.
It might have been better if in this last respect the boys and their mother had acted for themselves, for Mr Richmond appeared to have hazy notions as to what the family would most value. The first sight which met the boys’ eyes as they arrived was their tennis-racquets in a corner of the room. A very small case of trinkets was on Mrs Cruden’s dressing-table, and not one of the twenty or thirty books arranged on the top of the sideboard was one which any member of the small household cared anything about.
But Mr Richmond had done his best, and being left entirely to his own devices, was not to be blamed for the few mistakes he had made. He was there to receive Mrs Cruden when she arrived, and after conducting the little party hurriedly through the three rooms destined for their accommodation, considerately retired.
Until the moment when they were left to themselves in the shabby little Dull Street parlour, not one of the Crudens had understood the change which had come over their lot. All had been so sudden, so exciting, so unlooked-for during the last few weeks, that all three of them had seemed to go through it as through a dream. But the awakening came now, and a rude and cruel one it was.
The little room, dignified by the name of a parlour, was a dingy, stuffy apartment of the true Dull Street type. The paper was faded and torn, the ceiling was discoloured, the furniture was decrepit, the carpet was threadbare, and the cheap engraving on the wall, with its title, “As Happy as a King,” seemed to brood over the scene like some mocking spirit.
They passed into Mrs Cruden’s bedroom, and the thought of the delightful snug little boudoir at Garden Vale sent a shiver through them as they glanced at the bare walls, the dilapidated half-tester, the chipped and oddly assorted crockery.
The boys’ room was equally cheerless. One narrow bed, a chair, and a small washstand, was all the furniture it boasted of, and a few old cuttings of an antiquated illustrated paper pinned on to the wall afforded its sole decoration.
A low, dreary whistle escaped from Horace’s lips as he surveyed his new quarters, followed almost immediately by an equally dreary laugh.