Who was the Thirteenth Guest?: 1883

“WHO WAS THE THIRTEENTH GUEST?”

By Jerome A. Hart.

“It is extremely annoying,” said Vernon, looking at his watch. “It is always disagreeable to a host to have a dinner delayed by one of the guests’ tardiness, but in this instance it is particularly so.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because,” he replied, ” the number of guests is exactly fourteen, and if Sedley does not come we shall be obliged to sit at table with that most ill-omened of numbers — thirteen.”

“But you surely do not believe in that old woman’s superstition, do you?” cried Sinclair.

His remark jarred upon me. I am myself not of a superstitious way of thinking, but it does not follow from this that I have the right to jeer at the superstitions of others. I would not knowingly wound the feelings of an African by making light of his fetich. But Sinclair is not of that turn of mind. A wit, a scoffer, a brilliant talker — I have noticed that these qualities may be frequently found associated with an utter disregard for the feelings of others.

Vernon frowned. “Whether I believe in it or not,” said he, “is not of so much importance as whether any of my guests do. I would not be willing that any man should sit at my table as one of thirteen if he thought it an ill omen. It would spoil his dinner, if it would do nothing worse. But I have no hesitation in saying that I am affected by what you are pleased to call an old woman’s superstition —I am, in fact, so powerfully affected by it that I would not sit at table with thirteen for any consideration.”

“Would nothing induce you to do so?” asked Sinclair, with what I considered ill-timed banter.

“Nothing,” said Vernon, firmly ; and growing somewhat heated at the tone and smile of Sinclair, he added: “I feel so strongly on this matter that I would rather the devil himself should fill a seat at the table than to sit down to it with thirteen.”

“Aha!” cried Sinclair, “the devil is invited, but will his plutonic majesty come?”

While the tones of his voice were still vibrating, the bell rung. A moment after the servant announced: “Mr. Sedley.”

“Ah,” said Vernon, much relieved, “here he is at last. How are you, Sedley? You are doubly welcome, for just before you came we were speculating as to whether your absence would not make it necessary for us to sit down with thirteen at table.”

“I was detained,” said Sedley, briefly, “I ask your pardon.”

There was something odd about his tone. I noticed it, and I saw that Vernon did so too. But he replied:

“Don’t mention it, old fellow. It’s an accident which may happen to all of us.”

But as I grasped Sedley’s hand I met Vernon’s eye. I don’t know whether it was that or Sedley’s hand which startled me. But if Vernon’s look was peculiar, Sedley’s hand-grasp was even more so. It was clammy, snake-like — ugh! I can remember it still.

We repaired to the table, and it was my lot to sit opposite to Sedley. Beside me sat Sinclair. But although he seemed in unusual spirits, and was more brilliant even than was his wont, the conversation flagged. There seemed to be some spell upon us, for all the guests were good fellows, and, as a rule, at dinner-parties where there are no ladies the merriment is apt to be unchecked.

Yet so it was. As for myself, whenever I attempted any sally, I would catch the eye of Sedley, and it invariably exercised an unpleasant effect upon me. I could not divine the cause. Ordinarily, Sedley was as jolly a fellow as you would find in a day’s ride, but to-night — well, I couldn’t understand it. I gave it up, and devoted myself to my dinner.

As if to complete the ill-fortune of the evening, the conversation persistently rolled on thirteen. The various superstitions connected with that number were discussed, and they were many. It seemed, from the amount of curious lore brought forth by this discussion, that the evil properties of the number are by no means confined to the table.

“It is said of the Turks,” remarked Sinclair, as he sipped a glass of sherry, “it is said of the Turks that they consider the number thirteen so unlucky that they have almost expunged it from their vocabulary. They substitute for it the word siyadeh, which is a sort of an invocation, like that used by the Italians against the evil eye.”

“So it seems, then,” remarked Vernon, “that the prejudice against thirteen is not confined to the number of guests?”

“By no means. Yet that superstition is a wide-spread one. As every one knows, its origin is generally attributed to the Last Supper, at which there were thirteen — Christ and the twelve apostles — and from which Judas, with the Saviour’s accusing words still ringing in his ears, went forth to deliver up his master to the death. But the superstition is in reality much older. In the ancient Norse mythology, when the gods sat down to feast with Loki in the Walhalla, Baldur was the thirteenth at the board, and Baldur had to die. The same fallacy holds, I believe, in the vulgar superstition of to-day; those who believe that it is unlucky to sit with thirteen at table, also believe that the last man to seat himself will die before the year is out.”

Sedley lifted his head and fixed his eye on Sinclair.

Really, I had never noticed what extremely unpleasant eyes Sedley had. They were cavernous, piercing, green eyes, and there was a sinister gleam about them that night which actually made me uncomfortable. But apparently not so Sinclair.

“The vulgar superstition, you say?” began Sedley. It was the first time he had spoken, and involuntarily a hush came over the table. “The vulgar superstition, you say? Do you not believe in it, then?”

“Believe in it? No!” sneered Sinclair. “It is an old wives’ tale. It is fit only for the consideration of fools, children, and old women.”

“Ah,” replied Sedley, dryly. He lifted a glass of wine as he spoke — I remember that it was a green glass, and held Chateau Yquem — and as he did so, the light fell through the green glass and the amber wine, and stained his face a hideous yellowish green. He smiled sardonically as he spoke, and what with his gruesome eyes and the strange tinge of his face, he looked positively demoniac. I can see him now— I can conjure him up out of the mists of my memory as if it were but yesterday.

“I consider the whole belief puerile beyond description,” went on Sinclair, who was becoming somewhat heated with wine. “True, there may be something in the belief that one out of every thirteen assembled at table will die before the year is out, for it is extremely probable that out of every group of thirteen one will die before a period of such length passes. But that is merely the result of fixed laws. It has nothing to do with thirteen. It has nothing to do with the table. I might say with as much reason that I would not sit down at table with twelve people, for the reason that the laws of statistics tell me that one of us will surely die before eleven months expire.”

“You think, then, that it is pure chance?” asked Sedley, fixing his sunken eyes on Sinclair’s face.

“Entirely so. It is true that the number thirteen has come to have various evil associations connected with it, as I have already said. But then this is merely owing to vulgar traditions. The Romans, for example, looked on thirteen as an unlucky number. This may have had its effect on the common people of our day, even after the lapse of ages. The Italians of to-day, who may be looked upon as descendants in right line of the Romans, have the same belief. They push it to such an extent that they will never use this number in making up their bollete for the lotteries which impoverish them. The thirteenth card, too, used by them in playing the game called tarocchi, bears a figure which their fervid imaginations have succeeded in likening to that of Death.”

“To Death? Indeed?” interrupted Sedley. There was nothing in his words to irritate Sinclair, yet he seemed to grow angry.

“Yes, I said Death, sir,” he retorted, warmly. “I mean the figure conventionally accepted as that of Death.”

“Ah, yes — you interest me — pray go on,” replied Sedley, this time with a semi-sneer.

Sinclair felt himself being forced into the position of one who was exhibiting his knowledge through pedantry, but he was so nettled that he continued:

“As I was saying, the belief is a wide-spread one. The Russians possess it as well as the Italians. I remember reading somewhere that at a dinner once at Count Orloff’s, an English nobleman who was present noticed that Orloff would not sit at the table, but paced the room constantly. He asked the host the reason, and Orloff said: ‘Do you not see that there are twelve at table? Were I to sit down Nerishkin would instantly leave the room. And to tell the truth,’ he added, with a frank laugh, ‘I am not anxious to defy the fates myself.'”

“Orloff was a man of the world,” remarked I, sententiously.

“I grant you,” said Sinclair, turning suddenly upon me, “but a superstitious one. There are many such. Tom Moore relates how, when he was once dining with Catalini, some guest failed to make his appearance, and a poverty-stricken French countess, companion to some great lady, was immediately sent up-stairs. When the tardy guest appeared, however, she was at once sent for again to make up fourteen.

Now, all this seems to me the height of folly, and unworthy the belief of sensible men. It is fitted only for the common people — particularly that part of the superstition which declares that the thirteenth man shall die.”

“By the way,” said Vernon, looking around the table with an attempt at pleasantry, “who was the thirteenth man to sit to-night?”

“Ay,” added Sedley, in a tone which deprived the remark of all pleasantry, “who was the thirteenth man?”

We all looked around the table, and, as if by one accord, fixed our eyes on Sinclair.

“You were the thirteenth man, I believe, Sinclair,” said I.

“Yes, yes, it was Sinclair,” came from every hand.

Really, we were looking at him with a solemnity which was as absurd as it was amusing. Sinclair felt it, and endeavored to remove the uneasy feeling which lay upon us by some witticism, but the jest fell flat. Its effect was not added to, either, by Sedley, who looked at him fixedly for some moments, and then said, pointedly:

“So you were the thirteenth man to sit?”

“Yes; and what of it?” retorted Sinclair, rudely. He was losing command of himself. “What does it matter to you?”

“To me—not at all. To you—perhaps much,” was the strange reply of Sedley.

After this remark there was nothing to be said. The gayety — if there were any — was hopelessly gone, and after a gloomy cup of coffee and a funereal cigar, the party rose.

But instead of repairing to the smoking-room with the rest of us, Sedley declared that he must go.

“Why are you in such a hurry? ” asked Vernon, hospitably.

“I have something to attend to which can not wait,” he replied. ” I beg you to excuse me. You know I would not leave the gathering were it not compulsory. But I must leave you. I am waited for.” And as he pressed Vernon’s hand, I saw, by the peculiar expression of the host’s face, that he had noticed the same odd feeling in Sedley’s hand that had struck me.

Sedley turned to Sinclair.

“Good-night, sir,” he said. ” I hope you may come to have more toleration for the superstitions of others. Good-night. We shall meet again.” And as he took Sinclair’s hand in his, I saw that the same strange feeling which had struck Vernon and myself was pervading him.

“Confound the fellow!” cried Sinclair, when the door was closed behind the gloomy guest. “He’s a nice one to have at a convivial gathering. He reminds me of those cheerful Trappists, one of whose customs is to have a friar at every

meal, whose duty it is to say at intervals: ‘Brothers, we must all die.’ Good-bye and good riddance. May the devil go with him!”

The words clung to me —”May the devil go with him!”

The devil? A strange farewell, truly, to a departing guest.

***

Six months had passed since the evening of the disagreeable dinner I have described. Family affairs had called me from the city the very day after it took place, and they had been of such a nature as to keep me away a much longer time than I had anticipated. I had heard nothing, or next to nothing, from home since my departure. One of the very first things that teaches a man how little his friends

care for him, is their utter indifference to him the moment his back is turned. And he will find, as a rule, that those who are the most kindly and considerate in the matter of corresponding are generally the busiest men. Your true idler never finds time to write.

Well, as I said, I had been away for a long time, and knew nothing of what had been taking place since my departure. One of the first men I happened to meet on my return was Vernon, and I besought him to tell me the news.

“News?” said he, “news? I know of nothing. It seems to me that you are the one to tell the news — you who come from the outside world. We here have been leading our every-day humdrum existence, with nothing to chronicle and nothing to tell.”

“Nothing to tell!” I exclaimed. “That is always the cry of him who stays at home. He does not realize that everything is of interest to the wanderer — everything — scandal, births, marriages, and deaths.”

“Deaths — ay,” said he, thoughtfully. “You speak of deaths. Of course, you know that Sinclair is dead?”

“Sinclair dead?” cried I. “You amaze me. Why, he was a young and vigorous man, and the last time I saw him he was in the most robust of health. Of what did he die?”

“The doctors -called it pneumonia,” replied Vernon, with a short cough.

“Pneumonia — well, well. They say it is the bane of American civilization ; that our heated rooms, carelessness in exposure, and ways of living encourage it. Yet true it is that our grandfathers scarcely knew of it. So Sinclair is dead. Poor fellow! Why, it seems but yesterday I saw him in the heyday of manhood. Let me see — when was it that I saw Sinclair last? Why, it was at that dinner you gave, the day before I went away.”

“Yes,” assented Vernon, “it was an unfortunate dinner. I shall never forget it. Of course you know that Sedley is dead?”

“Sedley, too?” I cried, more shocked than I cared to show. “No, I knew nothing of it. What was the matter with him? When did he die?”

“Why he died the day after you left the city — the day after the dinner, you know. Or the night before,” added Vernon gloomily. “I’m sure I don’t know. There was some talk concerning it. It was very extraordinary.”

“But tell me about it,” I said, “I am entirely in the dark. I know of nothing that has taken place since my departure.”

“Well,” said Vernon, uneasily, “I’m sure I don’t like to talk of it, for it’s a very strange affair. If a man discusses it seriously he feels cursed silly, and if he doesn’t discuss it seriously he feels cursed queer. You remember the dinner, of course?”

“I remember it very well.”

“Well, you remember the strange manner of Sedley, his late arrival, his altered demeanor, and his clammy hands. Damme, if I can’t feel the corpse-like clutch of his hand on mine yet.” And Vernon inspected his hand uneasily, as if he expected to see marks upon it.

“Yes — go on.”

” You know, too, that he and Jack Sinclair had some wordy sparring, in which Jack didn’t come off first best as he generally did. I don’t know as Sedley said it in so many words, but he certainly left the impression on most of our minds that Jack was going to die before the year was out.

“I remember.”

“The party broke up in short order after his departure, and all went home feeling rather blue. You can perhaps imagine our feelings when we heard next day that Sedley was dead.”

“Sedley dead ? But how — why”

“Well, I suppose it was apoplexy — that’s what the doctors called it. He was a bachelor, you know, and lived alone, with the exception of his servant. The man never stayed up for him when his master went out, but got things in readiness for his going to bed, and then went to bed himself. The morning after the dinner Sedley was found lying on the floor, dressed as if for dinner, and stone dead. He had been dead for hours — the corpse was cold.”

I looked at Vernon curiously. “You say dressed as if for dinner. You mean dressed as he had been at dinner.”

Vernon rubbed his nose hesitantly. “Well, I don’t know,” he said, reflectively, “I suppose so. At all events he was in his dinner-dress. And he was dead.”

I looked at him keenly. “You haven’t told me all, Vernon,” I said.

“That’s all there is to tell,” said he. “Unless it be for an absurd notion that poor Jack Sinclair got in his head.”

“And what was that?”

“Well, of course Jack was sick, and sick men are not responsible for the hallucinations which afflict them. But the notion Jack got was this. You see he remembered some foolish speech that I had made before the dinner in regard to being willing to have the devil himself make up the fourteen rather than sit at table with thirteen.”

“Yes, I remember it.”

“Most of those who were there remember it,” said Vernon, meditatively. ” I wish their memories were not so good. Well, Jack took it into his head — but it’s too absurd an idea to even think of seriously.”

“Let me hear it, none the less.”

“Before Jack died he said to me: ‘Vernon, old boy, I’m afraid your wish came true.’”

“’What wish?’ said I.

“’You wished that the devil might come to your table rather than thirteen should sit there. Vernon, the devil came?’

“’Nonsense, Jack,’ said I, ‘you’re out of your head; it was Sedley who came.’

“’No,’ said he, ‘it may have been Sedley’s body, but it wasn’t Sedley’s soul. Vernon, I tell you that Sedley died that night before and not after dinner, and the fourteenth guest who sat there was the devil. I was the thirteenth, Vernon. And that’s what’s killing me.’ ‘Pooh!’ said I, thinking to humor him, ‘you’re not going to die. Besides that nonsense about the thirteenth man don’t apply to you anyway, for there were fourteen of us.’ ‘Fourteen guests — yes,’ said he, with a sickly smile, “but only thirteen men. Vernon, it was the devil I was disputing with, and he’s got me.’ I saw it was useless to attempt to cure him of his delusion, and so I left him. And that was the last time I saw Jack Sinclair alive.”

“But do you believe, Vernon,” I asked him, “do you believe it was the devil?”

“Was it the devil?” he replied, testily. ” How the devil should I know?”

Aye, truly — how the devil should he?

The Argonaut 6 January 1883

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  There was some thought that the Thirteen-at-Table Curse could be prevented by dividing guests among two tables, but the superstition persisted–and persists–even unto modern times.

In Paris, at least, one could hire an extra guest.

In the Rue de la Chaussee d’Antin, in Paris, there is a man who furnishes professional diners-out at a fixed tariff rate. It is to him that superstitious hosts apply at the last moment when they require a fourteenth guest. Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine 1893 : pp. 355-62

In London, of course, there was an entire class of young gentlemen of the type found at The Drones Club, ready to appear at the shortest notice in faultless evening costume to avert the numerical peril. Amateurs, of course, but talented amateurs.

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Widow on the Train: 1888

Mourning veil, 1895 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bank’s Flirtation.

Mr. Banks and Mrs. Banks had had a falling out. She said that he didn’t spend enough of his time at home, and he told her that she was too much taken up with society to make home pleasant. That morning they agreed to separate and he slammed his hat on the back of his head, and left the room telling her that she could keep the house and furniture and do what she pleased with it. She was just vowing very sharply that she didn’t want anything to do with the old trash, when the front door slammed and he was gone. Then Mrs. Banks swallowed a few sobs that insisted on coming out, paid the hired girl and sent her away, and went up stairs to pack her valise so as to catch the next train which would take her to her mother’s home.

Banks went down town whistling dance tunes, breaking here and there into an abstracted quaver which made them sound strangely mournful. He sat down in his law office, and tried to work on a case, but it was of no use. He put on his hat, took up his cane and went down town. A huge poster met his eye, and informed him that rates to a town near Barnesville were very low. As he had an old college chum at Barnesville he concluded to take the opportunity to go and see him and talk it all over.

He boarded the train and found the out his pocket I usual excursion crowd on it Some ladies too, who seemed very much out of place, and full of regret because they had ventured to come, were there. One especially attracted his attention. She was dressed entire in black and wore a heavy veil. She was struggling up the steps with a heavy valise as the bell gave warning that the train was about to start. Banks gallantly came to her assistance and taking the valise out of her willing hand helped her on the platform, and found a seat for her. She thanked him merely with a nod, but she seemed to have a sort of fascination for Banks. He kept near at hand and was constantly tendering little services. She was apparently averse to acquaintances formed in this way and indicated very plainly by her manner, that his attentions were not pleasing.

In the course of a half hour the conductor came around for tickets. The little woman in black put her hand in her pocket and withdrew it, in evident consternation.

“It’s gone,” she said in a dismayed tone.

“What’s gone?” asked the conductor.

“My pocketbook and ticket too.”

Banks stepped up and said politely. “I trust you will permit me to offer some assistance in this dilemma,” at the same time taking out his pocket book.

“Never sir, never,” and she said it with an air that meant plainly that she would have a scene rather than accept his offer of help. “I will get off at the next station.”

” Very well,” said Banks. “Here is the station now. I think I will get off here too.”

When they reached the waiting room which was empty, Banks. handed her her valise which he had picked up and carried for her. She lifted her veil and looked him fiercely in the eye and said:

“Now sir, I have discovered you in the midst of your perfidy. You had no idea that you were pursuing your own wife with your wicked attentions, had you.” Here she burst into years. “O just to think that I was scarcely out of the house before you commenced trying to flirt with some other woman. I didn’t think it of you.”

“Didn’t you tell me this morning that I might forget you just as soon as I pleased?”

“Yes-es, but I didn’t mean it that way.”

“And you didn’t want me to forget you after all?”

“No; of course not.”

“Well, look here, Clara, there’s no use of crying about it It’s all right.”

“Don’t come near me any more.”

“But I knew it was you all the time.”

“Don’t try to deceive me. You could not recognize me.”

“No, but you see, I recognized my own name on your valise.”

The next train took them back home and he went out that evening and told the servant girl that she needn’t consider herself discharged.  

The Sherman County Dark Horse [Eustis KS] 31 May 1888: p. 4

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Two sundered hearts re-united–by a valise! Not, perhaps, the most romantic of plot devices, but, there–it will do. At least until the next time Mr Banks spends too much time out at lodge meetings. It would serve him right if she met him at the door at 2 am in her widow’s weeds–in mourning for the “late” Mr Banks. Which begs the question: why did she have a set of mourning clothing at the ready in her wardrobe? Was she, perhaps, so annoyed at his absences that she was preparing to poison his coffee?

The Wife Disguised, particularly at masquerade parties, is one of the hoariest chestnuts in the amusing anecdote file. We have read about “The Lost Columbine,” with its frisson of French intrigue. Then there is this naughty tale:

At Cornely’s Masquerade , last Monday, a pretty Fruit Wench attracted so forcibly the Attention of Lord Grosvenor that for two Hours she was the sole Object of his Flattery and Admiration. At length, worked up into an irresistible Want of forming an Alliance with her, he told her his Name, offered a Carte Blanche, and begged she would not delay his Happiness. The Lady whispered her Consent, but insisted upon continuing masked. The amorous Lord, overjoyed at the Conquest he had made, conducted his fair Inamorata to the Nunnery in Pall Mall, where, having praised and re-praised every Charm he beheld and enjoyed, he obtained Leave to untie the odious Mask that concealed the Beauty who had made him happy. What Pen, or Pencil, could paint or describe the ghastly Astonishment of his Lordship at the Sight of that Woman! What! my Wife, muttered he, shaking in every Limb! Lady Grosvenor burst into Laughter and left the Room, thanking him ironically for the Right he had given her to taste with Impunity of the forbidden Fruit.

The Virginia Gazette [Williamsburg VA] 14 May 1772

See also The Woman in Black, the Conductor, and the Abandoned Infant, for the seductive “Widow on the train” motif.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Duchess and the Maid: 1907

Cartier diamond tiara, 1908 https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/an-exquisite-belle-epoque-diamond-tiara-by-4196547-details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=4196547&sid=66ae8bde-9d1d-42ac-a709-de1332944877

The Duchess and the Maid,

Walter E. Grogan

Mary, Duchess of Birchester sat in her boudoir in the Birchester town house, which is on the west side of Berkeley Square. She was in a peculiarly dissatisfied mood. Circumstances had combined to ruffle what usually was a complacent personality. She had been on a visit to Burnay— sufficient cause for considerable ruffling. Lord Burnay was a cousin of Birchester’s. It is a well-known truism that the relatives with whom one is hampered by birth are bad, but the relatives forced into one’s reluctant bosom by marriage are infinitely worse. Burnay, in addition to being an acquired relative, was a Cabinet Minister with a theological bent, a cumulation of horrors sufficient to depress the lightest-hearted Duchess. And Mary, Duchess of Birchester was that growing anomaly, a well-born Peeress, and had no humour of the music-hall with which to leaven dull decorum. Bridge was taboo at Burnay—another grievous thing. And, above all, on the way down her jewel-case containing the famous Birchester tiara had been stolen.

The manner of the theft followed the usual custom. It had no spark of originality to relieve its crudeness. There was some bustle at the railway terminus; the footman whose duty it was to look after the precious case had had his attention momentarily distracted, a substitution had been effected, and nothing had been discovered until the arrival at Burnay. The substituted case was a marvel of exactness. The Duchess herself had no apprehension until it was opened in her presence by her maid. A few stones—not precious— were all it contained.

Burnay had contrived to see in this unoriginal theft an intervention of Providence not unconnected with bridge.

“My dear Mary, I hope it will be a lesson,” he had said. “No doubt it is intended as a warning.” Being unconvincing, he invariably spoke impressively.

There had followed interviews with detectives, alert men who persisted in suspecting the unlikeliest people and demanded particulars of her Grace’s occupations, which her Grace found very inconvenient to give.

“My dear Burnay,” she had said, “why do we fuss? The tiara is insured. The What-d’You-Call-‘Em Burglary Insurance people will pay the amount—it was insured for a little more than its actual value, in deference to our family pride. And that’s an end to it. The thing is not very old—not two hundred years. Besides, by now they’ve melted it down or cut it up or done whatever they do to these things.”

“Birchester is my cousin. His only claim to fame was in the possession of that tiara, for as Dukes go nowadays a jewel two hundred years in the family is a notable adjunct to rank. And I like to have famous relatives. That also is unique in the Cabinet.” So had Burnay remonstrated, with other references to bridge “absurdly beside the point,” as the Duchess thought. In conclusion he had evinced some shrewdness. “Besides, my dear Mary, you have not yet received the cheque.”

That fact remained unaltered now, and was largely instrumental in rendering Mary, Duchess of Birchester dissatisfied. To her uncommercial mind the transaction should have been so simple. You insured your jewels against theft, your jewels were stolen, therefore you should at once receive a cheque for the amount. That happy simplicity of procedure had not obtained. She had received not a cheque but letters, admirably typewritten no doubt, but otherwise unsatisfactory. They had a clue, they were making all inquiries, and matters were progressing, were the brief epitomes of the insurance company’s lengthy epistles. She had written in answer that the details of their daily occupations were not at all interesting to her, and she would esteem a cheque by return. By return they had sent her a more than usually alert detective, who had suggested Birchester as the possible conjurer of the case, and had been more curious as to her Grace’s habits and customs than any of his predecessors.

Her Grace had been indignant.

“You don’t know his Grace!’” she had cried. “This theft required practice—it was uncommonly well done. My husband is on the board of only one company, and that does not pay even directors’ fees. You see how impossible it is that this could have been his work. Certainly I play bridge—I daresay you play draughts. But I hardly see how our predilections affect this matter.”

This last alert man had vacated her boudoir only half an hour ago. There were therefore admirable reasons why Mary, Duchess of Birchester was dissatisfied.

A rather peremptory knock at the door hardly roused her. She supposed vaguely that it was another alert detective who would insist upon suspecting the butler. She would have to be firm there. Such a butler as Miggs was not to be replaced. Husbands may be replaced, good butlers never.

The door opened, and a quiet, self-possessed woman of thirty entered. She was dressed in black, and she wore no hat. Her face was more shrewd than pretty, and more capable than handsome. She had a determined mouth and chin, and a certain pride was denoted by the way she carried her head.

“Ah, Parker,” Mary, Duchess of Birchester said, “I thought you had gone home. Surely your mother was dead, or your niece was to be christened?  Something of a family nature, I know. It was on the eve of that annoying journey to Burnay, too, and I had to go without you. With a cousin-in-law’s maid one cannot–Positively, my complexion wore atrociously, Parker. Everyone remarked on my ill looks. And I gave you a fortnight’s leave. I remember I thought it a long time for a funeral or a christening: but I really know nothing of these functions in your sphere of life.”

“I am sorry that I inconvenienced your Grace. I do not think your Grace’s complexion is much the worse.” Her manner of speaking conveyed the impression that she was thinking of something else.

“Oh, my dear woman, I had it renovated directly I got back from that terrible place. Really, Parker, Cabinet Ministers grow more like Dissenting ministers every year. And their wives like Dissenting Ministers’ wives.”

“Never mind them, your Grace.” She spoke sharply.

“I don’t, Parker, I don’t. If I did, life would be unlivable.” Her Grace sighed. “The political woman of our set masquerades in the virtues of the lower orders, and the virtues don’t fit. If one might say it of virtues, they seem a trifle loose.”

“I wish to speak to your Grace.”

“Surely they haven’t suspected you, Parker? Ah, you have been away, but you have heard–?” She closed her eyes wearily.

“I have heard about your loss of the tiara.” There was a distinct note of acerbity in the maid’s voice.

“Ah, yes, you would. I was never in the newspapers before, Parker—never!” Her Grace became querulous. “I used to boast of my immunity from print. Now they have dragged in everything about me. One paper brazenly asserts that I am fond of muffins and eat three for tea. What has that to do with the theft? I ask you, Parker, what possible connection can it have?”

“I wish to speak to your Grace about it.”

“The muffins, Parker?”

“No, the theft. I have taken the liberty of telling Miggs that you are engaged, and will be so for an hour.”

“That was thoughtful of you, Parker. Really, I am being slowly talked to death by detectives.”

“It is a personal matter with me, your Grace.” An angry light gleamed in the eyes of the maid, generally so passively capable.

“Then they have suspected you!” cried her Grace. “Take no notice of it, Parker. It is a common affliction I assure you. They have suspected Birchester, and I am in hourly fear that Miggs will be the next.”

“No, they have not suspected me. I am the last person in the world they would suspect.”

“Why? I really don’t see why they should not. One man seriously suggested my brother Jack. He was so positive, and sketched out poor Jack’s probable course of action so graphically that I nearly believed he was guilty. I was quite relieved when I remembered Jack was dead.”

“The reason why they are not likely to suspect me is—that I stole the tiara.” The maid could not altogether restrain an accent of pride.

“You, Parker!” cried her Grace, in amazement. “Why?”

“It is my profession, your Grace.”

“But—but you are my maid! And an excellent maid.”

“In the same way that an actress is an excellent dairymaid. It is all a matter of professional training. I own that I have never before achieved so high a position as maid to a Duchess. My testimonials were hardly sufficient, I thought.”

“No—they were not.” Her Grace paused for a moment. “I think it was the name. It was so typical a name for a lady’s maid.”

“Your Grace has always been an admirer of the British drama.”

“Ah, was that it . . . But the tiara. Really, Parker, after what you have said I must ask you to ring the bell. I shall have to give you in charge. It’s all most annoying.”

“You will not give me in charge,” the maid answered confidently.

“If you are going to crave for mercy—”

“Oh, no ; I shall not do that.”

“You are a very remarkable person, Parker.”

“I am, your Grace.” The maid spoke modestly, but with a certain accent of honest pride. “Professionally, I have no equal.”

“As a maid?”

“As a thief. It is there that you have hurt me. When I think of it I feel so mortified that I could burst into tears.”

“I hope you won’t, Parker. Tears always depress me. On consideration, I think it is unwise of me to continue speaking to you. Please ring, Parker.” Her Grace became perceptibly severe.

“I really do not think your Grace appreciates the position. In the first place, I shall not ring; in the second place, I have given strict orders that you are not to be disturbed; and in the third place, you are—if I may respectfully say so—in my power. Above all, you have done me a wrong, and I know that your love of justice, inherent in all members of the hereditary ruling Peers—believe me, I insinuate nothing against those Scotch and Irish families which are unrepresentative—will insist upon your righting it.”

“I was under the impression that you had done me a wrong,” gasped Mary, Duchess of Birchester. “Surely the theft of the Birchester tiara—”

“Your impression is erroneous. I stole a tiara.–not the Birchester tiara. That is how you have humbled me—that is how you have hurt my professional pride.”

Mary, Duchess of Birchester would have grown pale if her recently renovated complexion had permitted such a feat. As it was, she fell back limply in the embrace of the cushions of her chair.

“What do you mean, Parker?” she demanded in a shaking voice.

“I stole a tiara from your case—or rather, I engineered it. The absolute details are, of course, left to subordinates. I arranged everything. I had the substituted case made to my own designs. I myself ascertained the exact weight of your jewel-case when packed. I am not sure whether you weighed the substituted case with the pebbles it contained. Possibly not. For my own sake, I could wish you had. It was quite accurate. The mere trick of substitution was carried out by my subordinates. You can imagine my extreme mortification when I found that a paste tiara had been substituted. I subjected the tiara to no tests—reprehensibly careless, no doubt; but I relied on you. I confess I have been deceived in you–grossly deceived.”

“I don’t—don’t understand, Parker,” her Grace said weakly.

“Shall I continue?’’ said the maid, firmly but respectfully. “I have ascertained that the Birchester tiara is pawned, and that the counterfeit was then made. That was some time before I came to you. Since then you have done pretty well at bridge. Had you been incurring losses I should have been more careful. You will perceive that it is useless to protest further, as I am acquainted with all the facts.”

Her Grace thought for a while. Then she sat forward a little. This action caused the maid something of uneasiness. She would have preferred dealing with a perfectly limp Duchess.

“The theft even of a paste tiara is a theft, and punishable, is it not?” the Duchess inquired. “I daresay you know more about such matters than I do, Parker; but I believe I am correct.”

“That is so. But the fact of the paste substitution would be made known.”

“It might—I throw this out as a suggestion, Parker—it might have been made by you for substitution.”

“That is ingenious—but it will hardly hold water. I am used to thinking these matters out. It is part of my professional equipment. You forget the pawnbroker.”

“It occurred to me,” said the Duchess, gradually becoming possessed of more backbone, “it distinctly occurred to me that Erickstein, having in his possession an article worth far more than the amount lent upon it, would respect my secret. Surely his business would suffer if he were known to betray family secrets?”

“There would be the difficulty of disposal. But I confess I do not rely upon this. Erickstein, no doubt, made the paste copy?”

“He did. I am not a business women, Parker, but—but there is no correspondence between us, not even an account. My father used to say it was beneath our position to write on business matters. A bad memory is then so useful.”

“So there is only Erickstein in the secret?”

“Exactly. And having no absolute proof of the transaction, he would hardly accuse me of—of ordering a substitute. You see, Parker, one can really trust no one nowadays. For all Erickstein knows I might say he had substituted the paste one for the real, which was sent to him for cleaning. The discovery of the real tiara in his safe might lend colour to the statement.”

The maid glanced at the Duchess with admiration.

“I do not think I ever appreciated your Grace at your true worth before,” she said. “If we could be partners—”

“No, no,” murmured the Duchess. “Noblesse oblige. Besides, it’s a risky business at the best. If I have to go into trade I prefer marriage brokerage.”

“Then–I grieve to say it, but I really have no alternative; the confidence of my subordinates is shaken, my position at the head of my profession is threatened—then I must remind you that his Grace does not know of this transaction with Erickstein, and that he will be informed.”

“Ah, my husband—I had forgotten him,” said the Duchess, “The habits of years are so difficult to eradicate quickly. Of course, Birchester would believe anything to my demerit. Such a gullible man otherwise. It is strange, is it not? Well, what do you propose?”

“You grant I have a strong card there?’’

“There are certainly reasons why at the present moment I am not anxious that Birchester should have the whip hand of me.”

“May I presume to guess at the reasons:” smiled the maid.

“It would be, as you say, presumption,” answered her Grace.

“You have done fairly well at bridge lately.”

“I have been fortunate in discovering some enthusiastic players. They have had little experience. I helped to correct that. This is an age of education, Parker.”

“Not always free, your Grace.”

“Well, well. There are no scholarships tenable at the University of the World.”

“Of course I could not ask you for the full value of the Birchester tiara. That is fifteen thousand, I believe.”

“You flatter me and it. Ten thousand is the outside price. Some of the stones are Brazilian.”

“What did you get on it with Erickstein?”

“Three thousand. It was all I needed just to tide over.”

“Are you in a position to redeem?”

“Yes.”

“Suppose we say that amount? I am really dealing lightly with you. In view of those reasons concerning your Grace and his Grace, about which it would be presumptuous to assert a knowledge, I think I am dealing very lightly with you.”

“I am right in presuming you have the counterfeit with you?”

“Yes. It is in a cardboard box done up in brown paper in the hall.”

“And that I shall retain it ”

“You will redeem it with the three thousand.”

“Very well. I must give you a cheque—I have no cash by me. Will you ring for Miggs and ask him to fetch the cardboard box and the brown paper?”

“I should prefer cashing the cheque first.”

Mary, Duchess of Birchester smiled as she rose slowly from her chair and crossed the room to a small davenport.

“Naturally. But I should prefer possession of the counterfeit first—also naturally. An exchange, Parker, will be an alteration of your methods, of course, for we are told it is no robbery. But you must do me the favour of pocketing your professional predilections for once.”

“Your signature to the cheque will be a safeguard.”

“You perceive I place myself in your hands,” agreed her Grace. “Please ring.”

The maid thought for a moment, then rang. When Miggs appeared, she gave the necessary directions. In the meantime, her Grace chose a pen with elaboration, and wrote a cheque with the deliberation characteristic of her. She blotted it carefully and thoughtfully, and then held it in her hand.

“Not until the exchange, Parker,” she said. “I am so unused to these little transactions that I force myself to be as careful as possible for my own protection.”

Miggs returned with a package, a slight expression of disdain at the plebeian brown paper visible upon his face.

“Thank you,” said her Grace and Parker simultaneously, both holding out hands. Miggs considered the demands with care, and deliberately chose the Duchess, for rank will tell, even with a butler. “Your Grace –” commenced Parker,

“Oh, Miggs,” said the Duchess, clasping the box thankfully, “you will be glad to hear that the tiara is quite safe. Parker has only just heard of my loss–-she has a cultivated distaste for newspapers quite remarkable in this age of literary dissipation–and has hurried to me at once. It appears that, owing to a misunderstanding, she returned the tiara to safe keeping.” Her hand closed more firmly on the box. “If any more alert detectives call, you may say that it was mislaid. You can go, Miggs.”

“Very good, your Grace,” said Miggs, and went.

“Oh, here is the cheque, Parker,” her Grace observed, laying it on the davenport, and stripping the cardboard box.

“There is a mistake, your Grace,” cried the maid. “You have made out the cheque for two guineas!”

“Exactly,” answered the Duchess—“in lieu of a month’s wages. You have taken great care of this, Parker,” she added, taking out the tiara. “Thank you so much. Good afternoon.”

The Sketch 30 January 1907: p. 88-90

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil is quite dizzy from the to-and-fro-ing of the above dialogue. It is usually the clever servant who prevails in these exchanges, so this is a refreshing change. Parker rightly deserved to have her professional pride humbled: any actual lady’s maid worth her pay would have known how to detect pastes by their temperature (paste is a poor conductor of heat) or their wear.  Mrs Daffodil also wonders if the cheque was actually a good one. Of course, a neat twist would be if, in the sequel to this tale, the Duchess hired a lady’s maid, sent by Parker in response to the advertisement. Her Grace was fortunate that the code of the jewel thief precludes murder.

The theme of pastes substituted for real diamonds in aristocratic tiaras is a hackneyed one. One wonders what a random sampling of the tiaras of the Peerage would yield to-day.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Gerty’s Elopement: 1889

Factory girls at dinner. The Dinner Hour, Wigan, Eyre Crowe, 1874 https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-dinner-hour-wigan-204776/view_as/grid/search/keyword:girl-factory/page/1

GERTY’S ELOPEMENT

“I understand, then, you mean an elopement? Oh, surely, surely, Gerty, you never can be in earnest?”
Gerty Fane sat on a fallen log. whose mossy cylinder was half hidden in tall, plumy ferns, and where the trembling July sunbeams rained down through soft summer foliage like a cascade of gold. An artist would have painted her as a wood nymph. with her hair of braided sunshine, her deep, limpid eyes, and the peach-like bloom upon her perfect cheeks.
And yet this dew-eyed beauty was neither more or less than a factory girl, who worked a machine in the big shop whose gray stone chimneys rose out of the hollow below, at a dollar a day; a girl who had grown up on a diet of yellow-covered novels, and dreamed of knights and ladies and perilous adventures.
“Yes,” said Gerty, lifting her dew-blue eyes, “an elopement. Isn’t it romantic? And isn’t he handsome?”
Sarah Willis looked sadly down into the eyes that were so like blue flowers
“Gerty,” said she, “I beseech of you to think twice about this business. Have you forgotten Francis Tryon?”
“Francis Tryon! Only a cutter in the shop!”
“An honest, honorable man,” said Sarah, impressively.
“Why don’t you take him yourself, since he is such a paragon?” retorted Gerty, saucily.
“Because he loves no one but you.”
“Then he may leave off loving me at his leisure,” said Gerty. “I don’t care a fig for him, and never shall. I am going to marry Mr. Montressor; and I never would have told you of the elopement if I had supposed you were going to be so ill natured about it. My father is as unjustly prejudiced against him as you are, and so I am driven to it.”
And Gerty Fane tried to vail her exaltation beneath a tone of injury as she rose up and began to make her way through the tall ferns. Sarah looked wistfully after her.
“A spoiled, harmless little beauty!” she said to herself. “But Mr. Tryon was kind to me when I came here friendless and alone; and Mr. Tryon loves her; for his sake I will not stand quietly by and see her rush on to ruin.”
“You see,” Gerty Fane had told her, confidentially, “I am to go to the shop on Wednesday, just as usual, so that my father will not suspect anything, and then I am to feign a headache, just at train time, and leave work, step quietly on board the train, and go to Pittsburg; there I stop at the Hapgood house. He comes there the next day, and we’re married; and then we shall go to Saratoga, or Newport, or Long Branch, or some of those aristocratic places; and won’t it be charming?”
But Sarah Willis shook her head dubiously.
“I don’t like Mr. Montressor’s looks,” said she.
“He’s just exactly like that picture, ‘Lord Byron,” in the ‘Poets of England,'” retorted Gerty, triumphantly.
“He is only a traveling salesman.”
“But he’s to be a partner in the firm in the fall. He told me so himself, and he showed me the photograph of his employer’s daughter, who is madly in love with him.”
“Why don’t he marry her, then?”
And now Gerty dimpled into radiant consciousness. “I suppose because he likes me best.” said she.
“Oh, Gerty! and you believe all this farrago?” sighed Sarah, despairingly.
“You’re only jealous because you haven’t such a lover yourself,” retorted Gerty, frowning under her curls like a lovely, willful child. And then Sarah Willis abandoned the task of remonstrance. But for all that, the thought of Frank Tryon’s heart-break lay sore and heavy at her inmost soul.
“She may go to ruin her own way,” thought Sarah; “but she shall not drag him down with her. Montressor–Montressor I know I have heard the name somewhere–it carries a disagreeable remembrance with it. I remember now! It was a Mr. Montressor that boarded so long with Aunt Polly Sharker, and then went away without settling his score. George Gordon Montressor! that was the name! I’ll go see Aunt Polly this very night. I can easily get there on the train by 9 o’clock, and back again in time for work tomorrow morning. And if there is anything to be found out, I’ll find it! Francis Tryon was good to me once, and I shall never forget it.”
***
“Can I speak to you tonight, Gerty?”
Gerty Fane was hurrying away from the great workroom where the buzz of wheels was gradually decreasing, and the girls were beginning to look for their hats and shawls, when Francis Tryon advanced toward her.
“No!” she retorted, petulantly. “I’m in a hurry!”
“Then I will walk along toward home with you.”
“I’d rather go alone!”
He cast one sad, reproachful glance toward her and stepped back. “Gerty—” began he.
“I’m not Gerty, I’m Miss Fane.” said the girl, half defiant, half frightened. “And I’ll trouble you to keep your distance.”
And away she flew like an arrow out of a bow. She was just in time for the train that paused a minute at the solitary little depot in the woods, and, leaning back in the seat, reflected joyfully that she was already beginning the elopement.
Pretty, blossom-like little fool! How little had she calculated the end of her rash experiment! And yet to her it seemed that she was beginning to live romance.
It was toward 10 o’clock at night when the train stopped at Pittsburg. The Hapgood house was nearly opposite the terminus, a comfortable, old-fashioned wooden structure, its windows gleaming with lights, like the shine of friendly eyes; and thither Gerty bent her footsteps.

“Oh!” said the plump, motherly landlady, “it’s the young lady from Wardham village as a room was engaged for by Mr. Montressor. Number 16. Yes, it’s all right, Miss. Please to walk up. The lady’s there, waiting for you!”
“The lady?”
“Mrs. Montressor, you know,” said the landlady. “And a fine, handsome person she is, only a trifle stout, as we all is, when we gets toward 40 odd.”
Gerty stood as still and white as if she was turned to stone.
“His mother, I suppose,” she told herself, regaining courage. “How kind of him to send her here, to welcome me!”
At the same moment the landlady flung open the door of number 16, a small cozy room, with a bright lamp burning on the table.
“It’s the young lady, mem!” said she, dipping a courtesy.
And a fat woman, gayly dressed in cotton velvet and imitation lace, waddled forward.
“Oh!” said she, “good evening, my dear. So you’re the gal that’s goin’ to marry my husband?”
“Your husband?” echoed Gerty.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the fat woman, busying herself with the strings of Gerty’s hat. “We was divorced eight years ago. He couldn’t support me, and I wasn’t goin’ to support him. He’s had two wives since. But don’t worry. He’s got bills from both of ’em. One of ’em drank, and t’ other one said he drank. I guess they was both true! And now he’s shined up to you! Well. I guess you’ll get enough of him: a great lazy, drinkin’ vagabond, as was raised in Pork Hill workhouse, and served two terms in the penitentiary for forgin’ Lawyer Odderley’s name to a check for $50.”
Gerty stood pale and shocked.
“It is false!” gasped she. “You are inventing these lies to estrange me from him.”
“Bless your heart, my dear, no I ain’t,” said the fat woman, with a comfortable, chuckling laugh. “What should I gain by estrangin’ you from him? I don’t care. I’ve my marriage lines to show, and my papers of divorce, and Gordy’s welcome to marry as many new wives as Bluebeard, for all I care.”
Gerty turned to the landlady.
“How early does the first train for Wardham start in the morning,” said she.
“At 4 o’clock,” said the landlady. The railroad hands go down on it.” “So will I.” said Gerty. “And how about the gentleman as engaged the rooms?” questioned Mrs. Hapgood.
“I’ll never speak to him again!” said Gerty, with spirit.

She was at her machine the next morning, as usual, and when Frank Tryon came past she looked up shyly into his face.
“Please, Mr. Tryon,” she said, “won’t you forgive me for being so cross with you last night? I–I am very sorry. And if you can walk home with me tonight–”
That was enough for Mr. Tryon. They were engaged before the moon was an hour high that night!
For Gerty’s fancy could not endure the idea of being fourth or fifth wife to a man who had once graced the penitentiary, and Mr. Montressor never beheld his pretty fiancee again.
And Sarah Willis kept the secret of her elopement well.
The Shippensburg [PA] Chronicle 12 September 1889: p. 1

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: A spoilt little beauty she may be, but Gerty is far from harmless. Her engagement to Mr Tryon is one best characterised as “rebound.” Mrs Daffodil wonders if there had not been quite so many Mrs Montressors–if she had been, say, only the second wife–if she would have gone through with the elopement. One fears that Gerty will continue to sigh over yellow-covered novels and long for perilous adventures. Sooner than later she will tire of the faithful Mr Tryon for whom she does not care a fig and run off with some plausible, Byronesque drummer with a wife and five children back in Buffalo. If there was any justice in this world, Mr Tryon, hurt by Gerty’s refusal, would have walked home with Sarah Willis and immediately awakened to her kindliness and goodness, recognising that Gerty’s dew-blue eyes and hair of braided sunshine concealed a cankered heart. One does not like to dwell on the sequel to this “happy ending.”

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Conscientious Broker: 1889

The Conscientious Broker.

I heard a very clever story on a prominent broker a few days ago–a man whose name I am not at liberty to discuss, though I may say that he is well known as a picture buyer. This broker had some mining stock which he had long regarded as worthless, and one day when he found an opportunity to get rid of it at a pretty fair consideration, he was very happy. That very night, however, after he went home, he received a telegram announcing that this mine, of which he had sold the stock, had developed a lead of extraordinary richness. An hour afterward the purchaser of the stock received a telegram from the broker, who desired to see him immediately upon a subject of great importance. The buyer called and was told by the servant that the broker was very ill and could not be seen.

“But I must see him: I have been sent for by him not half an hour ago ”

The servant went upstairs and brought back word that the visitor might go up.

The broker was in bed, moaning with pain. The lights were turned low. When the visitor entered the broker began:

“My dear Jones, I have had to-day another of the dreadful attacks I am subject to, and I am afraid this last one is going to ‘do me up.’ I sent for you to confess that I have taken advantage of you in a business transaction, and I want to make reparation before I die. That mining stock I sold you to-day was really worthless, and it troubles me that I took advantage of you.”

“Oh, nonsense; that is all right. I didn’t pay you much for it and I can easily sell it to somebody else.”

“No, that will not do. I want to take it back and pay you back your money. I can’t rest until I have made this right.”

“Oh, well if you feel that way, of course I will give you it back.”

“Very well, and while I am able to sign a check I will prepare one, and, in the meanwhile, you can bring back the stock.”

The visitor went home, got the stock, and returning it, received the check which the now utterly exhausted broker had filled out for him. He went away musing upon the vicissitudes of human life and filled with profound sympathy for the sorrowing family of the rapidly sinking broker.

And the broker? The moment his customer was out of the house he leaped out of bed and gleefully danced around the room in a manner that would have aroused the envy of Carmencita could she have seen it. But the customer, next day, when he learned of the rise in the value of the stock, metaphorically kicked himself for his stupidity in being taken in by a broker’s “conscience.”

The Ketchum [ID] Keystone 23 November 1889: p. 4

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil shared this diverting anecdote with a scholar who is studying Victorian urban legends. He noted that he would have preferred an ending where the customer sells back the shares at double the original price, and is then revealed as the sender of the falsely optimistic telegram.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

The Brute Asked Her to Black His Boots: 1890

A Case of Mistaken Identity.

A young lady of this city who is engaged to a well-known young society gentleman recently made an experiment to try the temper and habits of her fiancé which nearly resulted in disastrous consequences. Reading her morning paper she saw an advertisement for a domestic. The number of the house was that of her lover’s, where he kept a sort of bachelor’s hall with his father, who was a widower. It occurred then and there to Miss H– to supply the demand. Not in person, but by proxy. She knew of a tidy little German who was bright and engaging, and who wanted a place. She sent for her and gave instructions as to what she was to see and hear, and particularly charged her to observe how Mr. F– conducted himself, what he ate, and if he was good-tempered and easy to please. Christine promised to watch everything and report at the end of the week.

But before the week was up the girl reported with all her belongings and her eyes overflowing with tears. She had been asked to black Mr. F’s. boots, he had ordered her about as if she were a dog, and he wouldn’t eat anything but gruel, and toast, and he swore at her because she forgot to wash off the front steps. Then Miss H. sat down and wrote to her lover:

“You are a brute. No man who was not a brute would ask a woman to black his boots and swear at her for a moment’s forgetfulness. I consider that I have had a narrow escape.”

There was a frantic man went tearing up the avenue that evening and rushed into the presence of Miss H.—but it was some time before he could make her understand the truth of the matter or that he was not that manner of man. The girl had not seen him at all, but had been employed by his dyspeptic old father–whom she knew solely as Mr. F. It was simply a case of mistaken identity.

Daily Independent [Elko NV] 21 February 1890: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil is pursing her lips dubiously. It is axiomatic that the apple does not fall far from the tree. It is entirely possible that the young society gentleman will become just like his father as he ages. Should Miss H. risk marrying him, it might be well to insist on competent medical advice and to pour out gold without stinting to keep any cook who understands his digestive system. Personally Mrs Daffodil would not risk linking her lot in life with one brought up by a brute, but she can recommend a daily splash of cider vinegar in water for his collywobbles.

 

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Secret Honeymoon: 1898

FADS DON’T GO WITH HIM.

He Had a Taste of Latest and He is Cured.

Fell Info a Trap Which a Revengeful Rival Had Planned for Him.

Cost Groom Something to Change His Route, but He Paid Cheerfully.

“I don’t go very much on these new fads in the line of weddings,” said the bridegroom, cocking his feet on the desk of the insurance man and lighting a fresh cigarette. “I’ve just been up against the game, and I’ll stake any body to my part of it next time.”

“What are you talking about?” asked the insurance man. “What do you mean by new fads in weddings?”

“Well, I’ll tell you my troubles and you can figure It out for yourself,” said the benedict. “You see, some daffy guy framed up a game some place or other where the fads come from for what is known as a ‘secret honeymoon.’ The bride and groom are not to be wise to where they are going until they are on the train after the ceremony. The best man is the whole works and does everything for them. He selects a route, buys the tickets, checks the baggage, frames it up with the hotels and gets everything ready for one round of pleasure. Then the tickets and a letter of instructions are put in a sealed envelope and dealt out to Mr Sucker, the bridegroom, and he opens it on the train and goes wherever the best man has things arranged. Now what do you think of that tor a nutty scheme?”

“That is certainly very much foolish house,” admitted the insurance man. “If the best man wanted to gently josh you along the line he couldn’t do a thing under that scheme.”

“Well maybe you think he didn’t, said the bridegroom. “Wait till I tell you. They kept on shooting a bunch of hot air into me about this game and what a good thing it was and how novel it was, that they finally got me to stand for it. I don’t know what kind of hop I was against when I said all right but this fellow Haskins, who was framed to pull off the deal certainly had me conned. I was a little bit daffy anyhow, you know, as a man is likely to be just when he is going to be married, and I thought it would be a grand little plan and it was me to it.

“But it’s no more for me, not if I get married eight times more. It’s me for the little details and all the plans next time. Old Mr Haskins is a good thing and this was the only chance he had to jolly me. As a matter of fact he used to be pretty well stuck on this girl I married and I guess he thought he was there until I got in the running and then he wasn’t 1, 2, 46. But any how, he pretended to be the real glad-hand friend when he heard I had things settled, and it was nobody but him for the best man at the doin’s, and then he springs his funny game on me about the secret honeymoon.

“I let him go ahead and frame every thing up, and I congratulated myself that I wouldn’t have to worry about train time and hotels and Niagara falls and other things, as the average bridegroom does. He got me the tickets and everything, and I got his little old sealed envelope and the wife, and I tore for the rattlers all in good shape after the ceremony. When I got her nicely seated in the parlor car I went into the smoker, a little bit nervous, to see what Haskins had framed up for me.

“O, but he was there with the goods strong! ‘Get off at Albion and go to the Pararzoom house,’ says Mr Sealed Instructions. And I spent the next three hours wondering what Albion was like and whether the Pararzoom house had money enough to buy fly screens. Of course Edith and I were not especially anxious to tip off to the mob that we had just been married. Every couple feels that way, I suppose, and I know I was willing to keep dark for a while and make a bluff that we were celebrating our golden wedding.

“Well, about 7 o’clock In the evening we pulled in at a little old bum wooden station with a big sign ‘Albion’ all across the front of It. I didn’t get wise on the jump that we were on a lobster, but I piled out with Edith on my arm and the porter carrying a wagonload of grips. A coachman steps up to me as soon as I got off and says:

“‘Mr Amschasm?’

“I says ‘Yes.'”

“’This is your rig, sir,’ he says. Well, I thought that was pretty fair for a starter, and we got in, me handing Haskins a little mental compliment for his thoughtfulness about the rig. Just then I heard a band playing the ‘Wedding March’ from ‘Lohengrin.’ I thought I was dopey first, and that it was only a memory, but around the corner of the station came the Albion silver cornet band, and it fell in right ahead of our carriage. I was wise in a minute.

“Edith was ready to jump out and take to the woods, but I managed to make the driver stop while about 200 rubbernecks gathered around us. I helped Edith out of the carriage, and we hustled for another one, while the crowd sent up three cheers for the bride. I was sore enough to have shot Haskins if he was there, and I told the driver to take us to the best hotel in town. He whipped up and in a few minutes we walked into a hotel.

“As soon as I registered the clerk turned around and handed me the key to the bridal chamber. It was decorated with white ribbon, and he smiled a knowing smile as he laid it before he. I wanted to strangle him, but I took the key and went upstairs. The room was about 10 feet square, low ceilinged and hot. There was no screen in the window, and I could see my finish in there. I went back to the clerk and made a large roar, but he said it was the best room in the house and had been especially ordered for me.

“’When does the next train leave here?’ I asked.

“’Quarter after 1 tomorrow morning,” he said, with a bow and a rub of the hands which drove me frantic.

“‘Well I’ll take it,’ I said. ‘I don’t want your clothes closet up there.’

“We gathered up our baggage and were driven back to the station, and there I fixed it up with the station agent to wire to the division headquarters and hire me a special car and engine to take me Cincinnati. It came all right and It cost me $125, but we got out of Albion. The next morning I carefully tore up Mr Haskins’ letter of instructions, got a lot of time tables and framed up a little wedding tour of our own, and I’ve been looking for him ever since. I understand he has enlisted.”

The Boston [MA] Globe 2 October 1898: p. 37

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  The embarrassing ordeal of the honeymoon for both bride and groom was well recognised. If they went directly to their own home, they were apt to be serenaded in the night by neighbours with horns, banging pots, and celebratory gunfire. If they went on a wedding tour, every porter, hotel clerk, and waiter easily identified them as newlyweds and grinned a knowing grin.

The ideal was to pass for an old married couple on a little holiday jaunt–it was axiomatic that “no one tries to look so experienced as a brand-new bride”—but this did not always work:

And when a honeymoon couple are trying to pass themselves off as married folk of long standing, and a shower of tell-tale rice, descending from a pocket or a suddenly-opened umbrella, gives the whole show away, the result is embarrassing.

Taranaki [NZ] Daily News 23 October 1909: p. 4

The reality was more often like this gentleman’s experience:

Will not the postboy, the fly-driver, the landlord, and the chambermaids pursue him with commiseration?…Brisk, cheery, bald-headed old gentlemen, utter strangers to you, shake you by the hand; elderly and excellent dowagers, with no claims on your friendship, take a warm interest in you — perhaps one will utterly confound you with a smacking kiss — and away you are jostled out of the passage, across the pavement, bundled into the carriage, slippers shied at your head, and amid the cheers of the company, the jeers and hurrahs of all the butcher boys, costermongers, and little urchins of the neighborhood, hey! presto! you’re on your honeymoon, minus one glove, and your hat backside foremost….As to Fred [the bridegroom]…he wishes all this parade over. Of course every one is smiling, and can see he is a foo — bridegroom….. Draw up with a very sudden halt at first-class entrance Paddington Station, porters twig in a moment, require no whistling now — bran’ new boxes, and “Both of ’em rigged out in new clothes; I say, Bill, here’s a wedding….”

And thus after a month’s bliss, a sweet honeymoon and the consciousness that they have been stared at and detected throughout the length and breadth of the land, the “happy couple” return to the quietness of their new little — their own home, to receive the congratulations of their friends, and the calls of their acquaintances. Bella is contented and happy, Fred himself again, thoroughly glad that the ordeal of the honeymoon has been passed, and that the world can now recognise his new position without staring at him, and without thinking him a — well, without thinking him a bridegroom.

North Otago Times 15 March 1872: p. 4

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Bigamist Writes His Memoirs: 1870

“Seven Wives and Seven Prisons”

A young woman had continued to linger in the parental household until she had considerably passed the average age of marriage. Somehow the young men of her acquaintance had failed to appreciate her. Therefore it was all the more gratifying when a recent arrival in the community, a man of ingratiating appearance, began to pay her marked attentions. Her romantic impulses which had been subdued by untoward circumstances, could now be given full sway. Her admirer was impetuous and would hear of no delays, and they were soon married.

The historian does not furnish any details of the honeymoon nor how long it lasted, but it would appear that the bride, although of a clinging nature, was very curious as to her husband’s antecedents, and this, unfortunately, was the weak spot in his armour. The more the aforesaid antecedents were investigated, the more unattractive they proved to be and within a very short time the bride indignantly refused to have any further dealings with her husband, incidentally starting a line of inquiry with startling results; the man was apparently a bigamist.

With indefatigable zeal, the bride and her disgusted parents continued their investigations which soon resulted in the bridegroom being snugly established in the local jail.

Then followed a remarkable series of revelations. A wife was discovered at about every turn in the crooked path of the prisoner, who engaged a lawyer and resigned himself to the inevitable.

Some months were to elapse before a regular session of court and in the meantime the bridegroom found time hanging heavily on his hands. Apparently the game was up and, with the inordinate vanity of certain criminal minds, he decided to write an autobiography. In due course of time there appeared a remarkable book, entitled, “Seven Wives and Seven Prisons,” which created a sensation. It also aroused much local feminine indignation, because, in his desire to “get even” with his last wife, whom he regarded’ as responsible for his present misfortunes, the bigamist declared in his book that of all the wives he had ever had, she was not only the most disagreeable, but also the homeliest and the most generally unattractive.

Apparently masculine depravity could go no further.

New England Joke Lore: The Tonic of Yankee Humor, Arthur George Crandall, 1922: p. 49-51

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: While this sounds simply like an amusing anecdote, there truly was a book called Seven Wives and Seven Prisons or Experiences in the Life of a Matrimonial Monomaniac. A True Story, by L.A. Abbott, 1870. The book, the story of a man who just couldn’t say no, complete with “spoiler-alert” chapter headings, has been classified as both a novel and as a memoir. Perhaps the most charitable thing Mrs Daffodil could say about it, is that it makes for compulsive reading.

There was no shortage of such matrimonial monomaniacs:

One James Flatherty was brought up before a magistrate for marrying six wives. the magistrate asked him “how he could be such a hardened villain?” please your worship,” says James, “I was trying to get a good one.” Vincennes [IN] Gazette 20 February 1868

A man in Zanesville, Ohio, who has buried three wives, has their photographs in a group, within which his own picture is the center figure, and underneath is this touching inscription: “The Lord will provide.” San Francisco [CA] Chronicle 12 November 1871: p. 2

A Marrying Man. —The Utica Gazette cautions ladies against one Hiram N. Barnes, a hatter. He has already had five wives. The Liberator [Boston, MA] 26 June 1846

One Robert Cleneay was recently arrested near Atlantic City, New Jersey on charge of having married a widow while he had five other wives living. He confessed he had had the wives, but said he thought they had all died of broken hearts when he ran away from them. Savannah [GA] Daily Advertiser 12 April 1871: p. 1

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Mrs Bungay and Undertaker Toombs: 1882

Bungay’s Experiment

By Max Adeler.

Bungay, the real-estate agent over at Pencader, suspected that Mrs. Bungay didn’t care as much for him as she ought to. So one day he went up to the city after leaving word that he would be gone two or three days. While there he arranged with a friend to send a telegram to his wife, at a certain hour, announcing that he had been run over on the railroad and killed. Then Bungay came home, and, slipping into the house unperceived, he secreted himself in the closet in the sitting-room, to await the arrival of the telegram and to see how Mrs. Bungay took it. After a while it came, and he saw the servant-girl give it to his wife. She opened it, and as she read it she gave one little start. Then Bungay saw a smile gradually overspread her features. She ran for the girl, and when the servant came Mrs. Bungay said to her:

“Mary, Mr. Bungay’s been killed. I’ve just got the news. I reckon I’ll have to put on black for him, though I hate to give up my new bonnet for mourning. You just go round to the milliner’s and ask her to fetch me up some of the latest styles of widow’s bonnets, and tie a bunch of crape on the door, and then bring the undertaker here.”

While Mrs. Bungay was waiting she smiled continually, and once or twice she danced around the room, and stood in front of the looking-glass, and Bungay heard her murmur to herself:

“I ain’t such a bad-looking woman, either. Wonder what James will think of me?”

“James!” thought Bungay, as his widow took her seat and sang softly, as if she felt particularly happy. “Who’n the thunder’s James? She certainly can’t mean that infamous old undertaker, Toombs? His name’s James, and he’s a widower; but its preposterous to suppose that she cares for him, or is going to prowl after any man for a husband as quick as this.”

While he brooded, in horror, over the thought, Mr. Toombs arrived. The widow said:

“Mr. Toombs, Bungay is dead; run over by a locomotive and chopped all up.”

“Very sorry to hear it, madam; I sympathize with you in your affliction.”

“Thank you; it is pretty sad. But I don’t worry much. Bungay was a poor sort of a man to get along with, and now that he’s gone I’m going to stand it without crying my eyes out. We’ll have to bury him, I s’pose, though?”

“That is the usual thing to do in such cases.”

“Well, I want you to ’tend to it for me. I reckon l the Coroner ’ill have to sit on him first. But when they get through, if you’ll just collect the pieces and shake him into some kind of a bag and pack him into a coffin, I’ll be obliged.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Bungay.  Funeral to occur?”

“Oh, ’most any day. P’rhaps the sooner the better, so’s we can have it over. It’ll save expense, too, by taking less ice. I don’t want to spend much money on it, Mr. Toombs. Rig him up some kind of a cheap coffin, and mark his name on it with a brush, and hurry him with as little fuss as possible. I’ll come along with a couple of friends; and we’ll walk. No carriages. Times are too hard.”

“I will attend to it.”

“And, Mr. Toombs, there is another matter. Mr. Bungay’s life was insured for about twenty thousand dollars, and I want to get it as soon as possible, and when I get it I shall think of marrying again.”

“Indeed, madam!”

“Yes; and can you think of anybody who’ll suit me?”

“I dunno. I might. Twenty thousand you say he left?”

“Twenty thousand; yes. Now, Mr. Toombs, you’ll think me bold, but I only tell the honest truth when I say that I prefer a widower, and a man who is about middle-age, and in some business connected with cemeteries.”

“How would an undertaker suit you?”

“I think very well, if I could find one, I often told Bungay that I wished he was an undertaker.”

“Well, Mrs. Bungay, it’s a little kinder sudden; I haven’t thought much about it; and old Bungay’s hardly got fairly settled in the world of the hereafter; but business is business, and if you must have an undertaker to love you and look after that life insurance money, it appears to me that I am just about that kind of a man. Will you take me?”

“Oh, James! fold me to your bosom!”

James was just about to fold her, when Bungay, white with rage, burst from the closet, and exclaimed:

“Unhand her, villain! Touch that woman and you die! Leave this house at once, or I’ll brain you with the poker! And as for you. Mrs. Bungay, you can pack up your duds and quit. I’ve done with you; I know now that you are a cold-hearted, faithless, abominable wretch! Go, and go at once! I did this to try you, and my eyes are opened.”

“I know you did, and I concluded to pay you in your own coin.”

“That’s too awful thin. It won’t hold water.”

“It’s true anyhow. You told Mr. Magill you were going to do it, and he told me.”

“He did, hey? I’ll bust the head off of him.”

“When you are really dead I will be a good deal more sorry, provided you don’t make such a fool of yourself while you’re alive.”

“You will? You will really be sorry?”

“Of course?”

“And you won’t marry Toombs? Where is that man Toombs? By George, I’ll go for him now! He was mighty hungry for that life insurance money! I’ll step around and kick him at once while I’m mad. We’ll talk this matter over when I come back.”

Then Bungay left to call upon Toombs, and when he returned he dropped the subject. He has drawn up his will so that his wife is cut off with a shilling if she employs Toombs as the undertaker.

The Elocutionist’s Journal. A Repository of the Choicest Standard and Current Pieces for Readings and Declamations.June 1882: p. 14

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: One can only imagine the hilarity when this was presented as a parlour recitation.

Jealous husbands shamming death are nothing new in the annals of fiction as we previously saw in “Mr Mathias Rises from the Grave,” And a very sick man thought, as Mr Bungay did, that his wife was utterly heartless because he overheard her discussing not wearing the appropriate mourning.

Perhaps the best we can say is that many wives lamented their late lords and masters rather less than those gentlemen expected.

Comforting.

Jones (sick): My dear, what will you do if I should die?

Mrs. Jones: Is your insurance all paid up?”

Jones: Yes, dear.

Mrs. Jones: I’d have the loveliest mourning gown that’s ever been seen on this street!

Barbour County Index [Medicine Lodge KS] 25 November 1908: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

A Rose from the May-Queen’s Crown: 1892

 

Queen of the May, Herbert Gustave Schmalz, 1884 https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/queen-of-the-may-90281/view_as/grid/search/keyword:may-queen/page/5

A Rose from the May-Queen’ s Crown.

“Oh dear! oh dear! What can it be he wants? If I could only tell! For he does want it so!” Margery wrung her hands in her impotence. To think she could not help him—not help him, who had been so good, so good to her!

She fell down on her knees at the bedside.

The old face upturned on the pillows could not turn to look at her thus. The restlessness grew in the haggard eyes, that seemed the only thing alive in the poor stricken body bound fast by paralysis.

“Dear Mr. Gregory, if you could only speak one word—could only tell me what to do for you!”

“One thing you must not do, Miss Margery,” said Dick Strafford’s voice, from the other side of the bed; “you must not take your face out of his sight. I can see my uncle grows more troubled when he loses sight of you.”

As she rose to her feet at his bidding, the young man looked full at her with that in his eyes, which showed a quite sufficient appreciation of the old man’s whim.

But Margery was not heeding Dick. All her thoughts were bent on poor Mr. Gregory, lying there these three days, with that hunger in his look—motionless.

“No, not quite!” cried out Margery suddenly, replying to her own thoughts. “See, his poor fingers are moving, moving. Not his hand—only his finger-tips. Oh, do you think life is coming back into them? Oh Dick, shan’t we send and have the doctor here again at once?”

In her earnestness, she did not notice how she had called his name; but Dick glowed with what appeared to her an eager hope; and no doubt was so, though not what she thought.

“Look at him, Miss Margery. If eyes could speak, his seem to me to say he does not want the doctor; he does want you.”

“The poor hand—the dear hand, that has always been doing deeds of kindness. Always,  always!”

With a little inarticulate murmur of tenderness, such as one uses to a child, she put her hand on the now useless one.

More and more his fingers strove to stir under hers. What his lips could not, his eyes tried hard to tell her. So often did they glance from Margery to the small table at the bedside, that Margery touched one by one the things that stood upon it, hoping to come at his meaning.

Not the cooling drink; not the medicine phials—the bit of paper and pencil for jotting down the directions the doctor had given her?

The paper, the pencil?

His look of relief was so instantaneous, that Margery caught at it eagerly.

“Oh, do you think he could write what he wishes, if I could guide his hand?” she asked Dick, who brought her a book to put under the bit of paper on the bed.

Dick brought the book, indeed; but he looked more than doubtful, as once more she knelt down at the bedside, and put her soft hand over the restless withered one.

Yes, she was not mistaken. Slowly, and with difficulty, under her guidance a few straggling, hardly legible words were traced upon the paper:

“Watch-chain key desk will—”

There the pencil fell from the relaxing fingers. For an instant those disconnected words seemed to stare blankly out of the paper with no meaning for the two young heads bent wistfully above them.

Dick tapped his forehead significantly, standing where the old eyes could not see him.

“He’s wandering,” the gesture said plainly enough to Margery.

But the girl shook her head.

“Do you know where his watch and chain were put?” she asked quickly.

They were found presently, in the dressing case where they were laid three days ago, when at the close of her May ball, Margery came up as May Queen in her white dress and rose crown, to say good-night to the invalid giver of the May ball, her father’s old friend, and so-called guardian of the penniless orphan girl. She came up, to find him fallen in the doorway between his two rooms, half hidden by the portière; rigid and motionless in that death-in-life paralysis.

A small gold key on the watch-chain proved the key to the mysterious writing. It unlocked the desk on the writing table in view in the outer room; and as the lid flew up, there was disclosed a half unfolded paper: “Last Will and Testament—”

“That is what he wants,” began Margery, eagerly; then stopped and drew her breath short and hard, as her eyes fell upon a line of figures in the body of the will. $100,000—

“$100,000 to my nephew Richard Stafford; the rest of my property, real and personal, to be divided equally between my nephew Oliver Dean, and Margery—”

Margery read no more. With a hot blush for her inadvertence in reading anything at all, and a dim sense of wonder at the terms of the will—(for was not Oliver Dean considered old Mr. Gregory’s favorite; and was not old Mr. Gregory’s modest fortune generally estimated at somewhere about a hundred thousand?)— the girl lifted the paper from its place.

“It must be this, that your Uncle Gregory wants—” she was beginning.

The words stopped suddenly upon her lips. The color flew into her face that the next instant was strangely pale; for as she lifted the paper, her eyes fell upon something lying under it. A dead rose from the May Queen’ s crown! The May-Queen herself, and Dick Stafford looking over her shoulder into the open desk, knew it at a glance. A whitish-brown, withered Cherokee rose with its glossy green leaves.

Dick Stafford had reason good to recognize it; since he had been at some pains to send for these same hedge row blossoms, from the girl’s old home, for that occasion of the May party.

There it lay now, under the old man’s will, in the locked desk, the key of which had never been out of the old man’s possession until this moment, when he had signified his wish to have the will brought to his bedside.

The keen eyes of the old man were watching both the young people from his pillow. They were not conscious of the scrutiny; they were only conscious each of the tense look in the other’s face.

Then slowly, still not lowering his eyes from Margery, Dick Stafford stretched out his hand for the dead rose and thrust it into his breast pocket. Margery turned cold, shivering, as he did it. How furtively he did it; how guilty he looked, she said to herself with a sinking heart.

No one but Dick and she had had Cherokee roses; and what had Dick been doing at that desk?

That desk; of which he had appeared to be so profoundly ignorant, when together they looked over poor Mr. Gregory’s scrawl.

Meanwhile, Dick was regarding her with a sort of wrathful pity in his troubled eyes. Was the child mad, that she had done this thing? Had women no sense of right and justice in their unselfishness? Those two last ciphers of the 100,000 were squeezed together, as if they had been inserted afterwards. Was the child mad—in her desire to help him, Dick Stafford, to more than a paltry $1,000 left him in the will; had she not scrupled not only to defraud herself, but also Oliver Dean, who had always been considered the old man’s favorite nephew? Had she tampered with the will, leaving her rose there unawares, a silent witness against her?

He thrust it out of sight; breathlessly, not knowing what was possible to do,— only not to betray this child, who could not have known what she was doing!

As for Margery, her brain was reeling with the wild thoughts pressing on her.

Was Dick Stafford mad, that he had done this thing? Was it because he had done this thing, that he would not understand the poor old man’s writing just now? Surely, surely, he could not have added those two cramped, wedged in ciphers, and so enriched himself! It seemed clearly impossible; and yet—and yet—

That, word took Margery’s breath away; with the swift memory of Dick’s tirades against poor young men wooing rich girls, and her secret consciousness that if he had not been poor, and she with expectations from the old man who had been as a father to her, Dick would long ago have spoken. And the dainty, glossy-leaved Cherokee rose she had fastened in his buttonhole, the night of the ball—

Margery turned sharply away, as he thrust it in his breast. With fire in her eyes, but a deathly pallor in her face, she moved back to the bed, the will in her hand. She could not deny the command, the entreaty, in the old man’s eyes. She had laid it, folded close, under his hand. But he would have it unfolded; how could she deny him that, either? She opened it, and held it out to him, slowly, reluctantly; yet she would not meet his eyes as he read it; nor herself read in them the story of Dick Stafford’s sin. She turned aside, and busied herself with arranging the phials on the stand beside the bed.

The click of the door presently startled her into glancing over her shoulder at it. It was Dick leaving the room. As she turned back, the restless fingers were still moving, moving, as though they vainly strove to reach the pencil. The restless eyes met hers again; not to be gainsaid.

Dick had gone; no harm need be done she told her quailing heart. She flung herself down on her knees at the bedside; she put the pencil once more into the helpless fingers, guiding them. Ah, how she watched for the irregular, hardly legible words they formed with so much difficulty! Her breath came fast; there was a mist before her eyes.

“Pair young fools. Will all right. Oliver’s rose.”

Margery laid her hot cheek against the weary hand, from which she drew away the paper, and hurried to the bell, pulling it vehemently again and again.

As the door was opening:

“Send Mr. Dick here—at once, at once, do you hear?” she cried to the servant she supposed answering her summons.

But this was Dick himself; who came hastily forward and took her in his arms, seeing her changing color.

She broke into a tearful laugh.

“‘Pair of young fools—'” she cried: “Pair of young fools!'”—and thrust the penciled paper on him.

“Pair of young fools!” This May day a year later, the words were spoken again; this time by old Mr. Gregory himself.

For after all, he recovered sufficiently to explain how he had had knowledge of Oliver Dean which caused him to alter his will by the addition of the two ciphers to convey the bulk of his fortune to Dick Stafford; who, he knew, would then be sure to marry Margery. It was the shock of that discovery of Oliver’s unworthiness, which was the cause of the paralytic seizure a moment after altering the will; and the old man fallen in the doorway between his two rooms—speechless—had seen Oliver enter, go to the open desk; the rose stolen from Margery, to provoke Dick’s jealous anger, dropping into the desk from his lapel as he lifted the will from its place. Then something had drawn the young man’s eyes to the prostrate figure staring at him; he had flung back the will, letting the spring lock slam to, and fled.

“The will might bide its time,” said Mr. Gregory; meanwhile, he would give his blessing to this pair of fools, upon this their wedding day.

Godey’s Lady’s Book, May 1892

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  The plot might have been cribbed, Mrs Daffodil suggests, raising her eyebrows censoriously, from Mr William Shakespeare’s Othello, save for the murders and suicide in one and the happy ending in the other, of course. “Pair of young fools,” scarcely covers the idiocy of two young persons in love that they can, on such slender “evidence,” assume the worse of the Beloved.

The maddest merriest day of all the glad new year, indeed…

Mrs Daffodil is also thinking hard thoughts about the kindly Mr Gregory who easily could have left the bulk of his fortune to Margery, rather than to a jealous young man who the old gentleman assumes will marry the dear girl, worn out from watching at his bed-side. Why does no author ever write a story in which Dick inherits, then jilts the comparatively-portionless Margery for high life in London?

A similar strain of brutal realism may be found in these previous posts on Tennyson’s “The May Queen” Adapted for Inclement Weather and The Ideal May-Day; The Actual May-Day.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.