The Ghost of the Marhcioness of Appleford

by Jerome K. Jerome

This is the story, among others, of Henry the waiter--or, as he nowprefers to call himself, Henri--told to me in the long dining-room of theRiffel Alp Hotel, where I once stayed for a melancholy week "betweenseasons," sharing the echoing emptiness of the place with two maidenladies, who talked all day to one another in frightened whispers. Henry'sconstruction I have discarded for its amateurishness; his method beinggenerally to commence a story at the end, and then, working backwards tothe beginning, wind up with the middle. But in all other respects I haveendeavoured to retain his method, which was individual; and this, Ithink, is the story as he would have told it to me himself, had he toldit in this order:My first place--well to be honest, it was a coffee shop in the Mile EndRoad--I'm not ashamed of it. We all have our beginnings. Young"Kipper," as we called him--he had no name of his own, not that he knewof anyhow, and that seemed to fit him down to the ground--had fixed hispitch just outside, between our door and the music hall at the corner;and sometimes, when I might happen to have a bit on, I'd get a paper fromhim, and pay him for it, when the governor was not about, with a mug ofcoffee, and odds and ends that the other customers had left on theirplates--an arrangement that suited both of us. He was just about assharp as they make boys, even in the Mile End Road, which is saying agood deal; and now and then, spying around among the right sort, andkeeping his ears open, he would put me up to a good thing, and I wouldtip him a bob or a tanner as the case might be. He was the sort thatgets on--you know.One day in he walks, for all the world as if the show belonged to him,with a young imp of a girl on his arm, and down they sits at one of thetables."Garsong," he calls out, "what's the menoo to-day?""The menoo to-day," I says, "is that you get outside 'fore I clip youover the ear, and that you take that back and put it where you found it;"meaning o' course, the kid.She was a pretty little thing, even then, in spite of the dirt, withthose eyes like saucers, and red hair. It used to be called "carrots" inthose days. Now all the swells have taken it up--or as near as they canget to it--and it's auburn."'Enery," he replied to me, without so much as turning a hair, "I'mafraid you're forgetting your position. When I'm on the kerb shouting'Speshul!' and you comes to me with yer 'a'penny in yer 'and, you'remaster an' I'm man. When I comes into your shop to order refreshments,and to pay for 'em, I'm boss. Savey? You can bring me a rasher and twoeggs, and see that they're this season's. The lidy will have afull-sized haddick and a cocoa."Well, there was justice in what he said. He always did have sense, and Itook his order. You don't often see anybody put it away like that girldid. I took it she hadn't had a square meal for many a long day. Shepolished off a ninepenny haddick, skin and all, and after that she hadtwo penny rashers, with six slices of bread and butter--"doorsteps," aswe used to call them--and two half pints of cocoa, which is a meal initself the way we used to make it. "Kipper" must have had a bit of luckthat day. He couldn't have urged her on more had it been a free feed."'Ave an egg," he suggested, the moment the rashers had disappeared. "Oneof these eggs will just about finish yer.""I don't really think as I can," says she, after considering like."Well, you know your own strength," he answers. "Perhaps you're bestwithout it. Speshully if yer not used to 'igh living."I was glad to see them finish, 'cause I was beginning to get a bitnervous about the coin, but he paid up right enough, and giv me aha'penny for myself.That was the first time I ever waited upon those two, but it wasn't to bethe last by many a long chalk, as you'll see. He often used to bring herin after that. Who she was and what she was he didn't know, and shedidn't know, so there was a pair of them. She'd run away from an oldwoman down Limehouse way, who used to beat her. That was all she couldtell him. He got her a lodging with an old woman, who had an attic inthe same house where he slept--when it would run to that--taught her toyell "Speshul!" and found a corner for her. There ain't room for boysand girls in the Mile-End Road. They're either kids down there orthey're grown-ups. "Kipper" and "Carrots"--as we named her--looked uponthemselves as sweethearts, though he couldn't have been more thanfifteen, and she barely twelve; and that he was regular gone on heranyone could see with half an eye. Not that he was soft about it--thatwasn't his style. He kept her in order, and she had just to mind, whichI guess was a good thing for her, and when she wanted it he'd use hishand on her, and make no bones about it. That's the way among thatclass. They up and give the old woman a friendly clump, just as you orme would swear at the missus, or fling a boot-jack at her. They don'tmean anything more.I left the coffee shop later on for a place in the city, and saw nothingmore of them for five years. When I did it was at a restaurant in OxfordStreet--one of those amatoor shows run by a lot of women, who knownothing about the business, and spend the whole day gossiping andflirting--"love-shops," I call 'em. There was a yellow-haired ladymanageress who never heard you when you spoke to her, 'cause she wasalways trying to hear what some seedy old fool would be whispering to heracross the counter. Then there were waitresses, and their notion ofwaiting was to spend an hour talking to a twopenny cup of coffee, and tolook haughty and insulted whenever anybody as really wanted somethingventured to ask for it. A frizzle-haired cashier used to make love allday out of her pigeon-hole with the two box-office boys from the OxfordMusic Hall, who took it turn and turn about. Sometimes she'd leave offto take a customer's money, and sometimes she wouldn't. I've been tosome rummy places in my time; and a waiter ain't the blind owl as he'ssupposed to be. But never in my life have I seen so much love-making,not all at once, as used to go on in that place. It was a dismal, gloomysort of hole, and spoony couples seemed to scent it out by instinct, andwould spend hours there over a pot of tea and assorted pastry. "Idyllic,"some folks would have thought it: I used to get the fair dismals watchingit. There was one girl--a weird-looking creature, with red eyes and longthin hands, that gave you the creeps to look at. She'd come in regularwith her young man, a pale-faced nervous sort of chap, at three o'clockevery afternoon. Theirs was the funniest love-making I ever saw. She'dpinch him under the table, and run pins into him, and he'd sit with hiseyes glued on her as if she'd been a steaming dish of steak and onionsand he a starving beggar the other side of the window. A strange storythat was--as I came to learn it later on. I'll tell you that, one day.I'd been engaged for the "heavy work," but as the heaviest order I everheard given there was for a cold ham and chicken, which I had to slip outfor to the nearest cook-shop, I must have been chiefly useful from anornamental point of view.I'd been there about a fortnight, and was feeling pretty sick of it, whenin walked young "Kipper." I didn't know him at first, he'd changed so.He was swinging a silver-mounted crutch stick, which was the kind thatwas fashionable just then, and was dressed in a showy check suit and awhite hat. But the thing that struck me most was his gloves. I supposeI hadn't improved quite so much myself, for he knew me in a moment, andheld out his hand."What, 'Enery!" he says, "you've moved on, then!""Yes," I says, shaking hands with him, "and I could move on again fromthis shop without feeling sad. But you've got on a bit?" I says."So-so," he says, "I'm a journalist.""Oh," I says, "what sort?" for I'd seen a good many of that lot duringsix months I'd spent at a house in Fleet Street, and their get-up hadn'tsumptuousness about it, so to speak. "Kipper's" rig-out must have tottedup to a tidy little sum. He had a diamond pin in his tie that must havecost somebody fifty quid, if not him."Well," he answers, "I don't wind out the confidential advice to oldBeaky, and that sort of thing. I do the tips, yer know. 'Cap'n Kit,'that's my name.""What, the Captain Kit?" I says. O' course I'd heard of him."Be'old!" he says."Oh, it's easy enough," he goes on. "Some of 'em's bound to come outright, and when one does, you take it from me, our paper mentions thefact. And when it is a wrong 'un--well, a man can't always be shoutingabout himself, can 'e?"He ordered a cup of coffee. He said he was waiting for someone, and wegot to chatting about old times."How's Carrots?" I asked."Miss Caroline Trevelyan," he answered, "is doing well.""Oh," I says, "you've found out her fam'ly name, then?""We've found out one or two things about that lidy," he replies. "D'yerremember 'er dancing?""I have seen her flinging her petticoats about outside the shop, when thecopper wasn't by, if that's what you mean," I says."That's what I mean," he answers. "That's all the rage now,'skirt-dancing' they calls it. She's a-coming out at the Oxfordto-morrow. It's 'er I'm waiting for. She's a-coming on, I tell you sheis," he says."Shouldn't wonder," says I; "that was her disposition.""And there's another thing we've found out about 'er," he says. He leantover the table, and whispered it, as if he was afraid that anybody elsemight hear: "she's got a voice.""Yes," I says, "some women have.""Ah," he says, "but 'er voice is the sort of voice yer want to listento.""Oh," I says, "that's its speciality, is it?""That's it, sonny," he replies.She came in a little later. I'd a' known her anywhere for her eyes, andher red hair, in spite of her being that clean you might have eaten yourdinner out of her hand. And as for her clothes! Well, I've mixed a gooddeal with the toffs in my time, and I've seen duchesses dressed moreshowily and maybe more expensively, but her clothes seemed to be just aframework to show her up. She was a beauty, you can take it from me; andit's not to be wondered that the La-De-Das were round her when they didsee her, like flies round an open jam tart.Before three months were up she was the rage of London--leastways of themusic-hall part of it--with her portrait in all the shop windows, andinterviews with her in half the newspapers. It seems she was thedaughter of an officer who had died in India when she was a baby, and theniece of a bishop somewhere in Australia. He was dead too. There didn'tseem to be any of her ancestry as wasn't dead, but they had all beenswells. She had been educated privately, she had, by a relative; and hadearly displayed an aptitude for dancing, though her friends at first hadmuch opposed her going upon the stage. There was a lot more of it--youknow the sort of thing. Of course, she was a connection of one of ourbest known judges--they all are--and she merely acted in order to supporta grandmother, or an invalid sister, I forget which. A wonderful talentfor swallowing, these newspaper chaps has, some of 'em!"Kipper" never touched a penny of her money, but if he had been her agentat twenty-five per cent. he couldn't have worked harder, and he just keptup the hum about her, till if you didn't want to hear anything more aboutCaroline Trevelyan, your only chance would have been to lie in bed, andnever look at a newspaper. It was Caroline Trevelyan at Home, CarolineTrevelyan at Brighton, Caroline Trevelyan and the Shah of Persia,Caroline Trevelyan and the Old Apple-woman. When it wasn't CarolineTrevelyan herself it would be Caroline Trevelyan's dog as would be doingsomething out of the common, getting himself lost or summoned ordrowned--it didn't matter much what.I moved from Oxford Street to the new "Horseshoe" that year--it had justbeen rebuilt--and there I saw a good deal of them, for they came in tolunch there or supper pretty regular. Young "Kipper"--or the "Captain"as everybody called him--gave out that he was her half-brother."I'ad to be some sort of a relation, you see," he explained to me. "I'da' been 'er brother out and out; that would have been simpler, only thefamily likeness wasn't strong enough. Our styles o' beauty ain'tsimilar." They certainly wasn't."Why don't you marry her?" I says, "and have done with it?"He looked thoughtful at that. "I did think of it," he says, "and I know,jolly well, that if I 'ad suggested it 'fore she'd found herself, she'dhave agreed, but it don't seem quite fair now.""How d'ye mean fair?" I says."Well, not fair to 'er," he says. "I've got on all right, in a smallway; but she--well, she can just 'ave 'er pick of the nobs. There's oneon 'em as I've made inquiries about. 'E'll be a dook, if a kid pegs outas is expected to, and anyhow 'e'll be a markis, and 'e means thestraight thing--no errer. It ain't fair for me to stand in 'er way.""Well," I says, "you know your own business, but it seems to me shewouldn't have much way to stand in if it hadn't been for you.""Oh, that's all right," he says. "I'm fond enough of the gell, but Ishan't clamour for a tombstone with wiolets, even if she ain't ever Mrs.Capt'n Kit. Business is business; and I ain't going to queer 'er pitchfor 'er."I've often wondered what she'd a' said, if he'd up and put the case toher plain, for she was a good sort; but, naturally enough, her head was abit swelled, and she'd read so much rot about herself in the papers thatshe'd got at last to half believe some of it. The thought of herconnection with the well-known judge seemed to hamper her at times, andshe wasn't quite so chummy with "Kipper" as used to be the case in theMile-End Road days, and he wasn't the sort as is slow to see a thing.One day when he was having lunch by himself, and I was waiting on him, hesays, raising his glass to his lips, "Well, 'Enery, here's luck to yer! Iwon't be seeing you agen for some time.""Oh," I says. "What's up now?""I am," he says, "or rather my time is. I'm off to Africa.""Oh," I says, "and what about--""That's all right," he interrupts. "I've fixed up that--a treat. Truth,that's why I'm going."I thought at first he meant she was going with him."No," he says, "she's going to be the Duchess of Ridingshire with thekind consent o' the kid I spoke about. If not, she'll be the Marchionessof Appleford. 'E's doing the square thing. There's going to be a quietmarriage to-morrow at the Registry Office, and then I'm off.""What need for you to go?" I says."No need," he says; "it's a fancy o' mine. You see, me gone, there'snothing to 'amper 'er--nothing to interfere with 'er settling down as aquiet, respectable toff. With a 'alf-brother, who's always got to bespry with some fake about 'is lineage and 'is ancestral estates, and whodrops 'is 'h's,' complications are sooner or later bound to a-rise. Meout of it--everything's simple. Savey?"Well, that's just how it happened. Of course, there was a big row whenthe family heard of it, and a smart lawyer was put up to try and undo thething. No expense was spared, you bet; but it was all no go. Nothingcould be found out against her. She just sat tight and said nothing. Sothe thing had to stand. They went and lived quietly in the country andabroad for a year or two, and then folks forgot a bit, and they came backto London. I often used to see her name in print, and then the papersalways said as how she was charming and graceful and beautiful, so Isuppose the family had made up its mind to get used to her.One evening in she comes to the Savoy. My wife put me up to getting thatjob, and a good job it is, mind you, when you know your way about. I'dnever have had the cheek to try for it, if it hadn't been for the missis.She's a clever one--she is. I did a good day's work when I married her."You shave off that moustache of yours--it ain't an ornament," she saysto me, "and chance it. Don't get attempting the lingo. Keep to thebroken English, and put in a shrug or two. You can manage that allright."I followed her tip. Of course the manager saw through me, but I got in a"Oui, monsieur" now and again, and they, being short handed at the time,could not afford to be strict, I suppose. Anyhow I got took on, andthere I stopped for the whole season, and that was the making of me.Well, as I was saying, in she comes to the supper rooms, and toffy enoughshe looked in her diamonds and furs, and as for haughtiness there wasn'ta born Marchioness she couldn't have given points to. She comes straightup to my table and sits down. Her husband was with her, but he didn'tseem to have much to say, except to repeat her orders. Of course Ilooked as if I'd never set eyes on her before in all my life, though allthe time she was a-pecking at the mayonnaise and a-sipping at theGiessler, I was thinking of the coffee-shop and of the ninepenny haddickand the pint of cocoa."Go and fetch my cloak," she says to him after a while. "I am cold."And up he gets and goes out.She never moved her head, and spoke as though she was merely giving mesome order, and I stands behind her chair, respectful like, and answersaccording to the same tip,"Ever hear from 'Kipper'?" she says to me."I have had one or two letters from him, your ladyship," I answers."Oh, stow that," she says. "I am sick of 'your ladyship.' Talk English;I don't hear much of it. How's he getting on?""Seems to be doing himself well," I says. "He's started an hotel, and isregular raking it in, he tells me.""Wish I was behind the bar with him!" says she."Why, don't it work then?" I asks."It's just like a funeral with the corpse left out," says she. "Servesme jolly well right for being a fool!"The Marquis, he comes back with her cloak at that moment, and I says:"Certainement, madame," and gets clear.I often used to see her there, and when a chance occurred she would talkto me. It seemed to be a relief to her to use her own tongue, but itmade me nervous at times for fear someone would hear her.Then one day I got a letter from "Kipper" to say he was over for aholiday and was stopping at Morley's, and asking me to look him up.He had not changed much except to get a bit fatter and more prosperous-looking. Of course, we talked about her ladyship, and I told him whatshe said."Rum things, women," he says; "never know their own minds.""Oh, they know them all right when they get there," I says. "How couldshe tell what being a Marchioness was like till she'd tried it?""Pity," he says, musing like. "I reckoned it the very thing she'd tumbleto. I only come over to get a sight of 'er, and to satisfy myself as shewas getting along all right. Seems I'd better a' stopped away.""You ain't ever thought of marrying yourself?" I asks."Yes, I have," he says. "It's slow for a man over thirty with no wifeand kids to bustle him, you take it from me, and I ain't the talent forthe Don Juan fake.""You're like me," I says, "a day's work, and then a pipe by your ownfireside with your slippers on. That's my swarry. You'll find someoneas will suit you before long.""No I shan't," says he. "I've come across a few as might, if it 'adn'tbeen for 'er. It's like the toffs as come out our way. They've beenbrought up on 'ris de veau a la financier,' and sich like, and it justspoils 'em for the bacon and greens."I give her the office the next time I see her, and they met accidentallike in Kensington Gardens early one morning. What they said to oneanother I don't know, for he sailed that same evening, and, it being theend of the season, I didn't see her ladyship again for a long while.When I did it was at the Hotel Bristol in Paris, and she was in widow'sweeds, the Marquis having died eight months before. He never droppedinto that dukedom, the kid turning out healthier than was expected, andhanging on; so she was still only a Marchioness, and her fortune, thoughtidy, was nothing very big--not as that class reckons. By luck I wastold off to wait on her, she having asked for someone as could speakEnglish. She seemed glad to see me and to talk to me."Well," I says, "I suppose you'll be bossing that bar in Capetown nowbefore long?""Talk sense," she answers. "How can the Marchioness of Appleford marry ahotel keeper?""Why not," I says, "if she fancies him? What's the good of being aMarchioness if you can't do what you like?""That's just it," she snaps out; "you can't. It would not be doing thestraight thing by the family. No," she says, "I've spent their money,and I'm spending it now. They don't love me, but they shan't say as Ihave disgraced them. They've got their feelings same as I've got mine.""Why not chuck the money?" I says. "They'll be glad enough to get itback," they being a poor lot, as I heard her say."How can I?" she says. "It's a life interest. As long as I live I'vegot to have it, and as long as I live I've got to remain the Marchionessof Appleford."She finishes her soup, and pushes the plate away from her. "As long as Ilive," she says, talking to herself."By Jove!" she says, starting up "why not?""Why not what?" I says."Nothing," she answers. "Get me an African telegraph form, and be quickabout it!"I fetched it for her, and she wrote it and gave it to the porter then andthere; and, that done, she sat down and finished her dinner.She was a bit short with me after that; so I judged it best to keep myown place.In the morning she got an answer that seemed to excite her, and thatafternoon she left; and the next I heard of her was a paragraph in thenewspaper, headed--"Death of the Marchioness of Appleford. Sadaccident." It seemed she had gone for a row on one of the Italian lakeswith no one but a boatman. A squall had come on, and the boat hadcapsized. The boatman had swum ashore, but he had been unable to savehis passenger, and her body had never been recovered. The paper remindedits readers that she had formerly been the celebrated tragic actress,Caroline Trevelyan, daughter of the well-known Indian judge of that name.It gave me the blues for a day or two--that bit of news. I had known herfrom a baby as you might say, and had taken an interest in her. You cancall it silly, but hotels and restaurants seemed to me less interestingnow there was no chance of ever seeing her come into one again.I went from Paris to one of the smaller hotels in Venice. The missisthought I'd do well to pick up a bit of Italian, and perhaps she fanciedVenice for herself. That's one of the advantages of our profession. Youcan go about. It was a second-rate sort of place, and one evening, justbefore lighting-up time, I had the salle-a-manger all to myself, and hadjust taken up a paper when I hears the door open, and I turns round.I saw "her" coming down the room. There was no mistaking her. Shewasn't that sort.I sat with my eyes coming out of my head till she was close to me, andthen I says:"Carrots!" I says, in a whisper like. That was the name that come to me."'Carrots' it is," she says, and down she sits just opposite to me, andthen she laughs.I could not speak, I could not move, I was that took aback, and the morefrightened I looked the more she laughed till "Kipper" comes into theroom. There was nothing ghostly about him. I never see a man look moreas if he had backed the winner."Why, it's 'Enery," he says; and he gives me a slap on the back, asknocks the life into me again."I heard you was dead," I says, still staring at her. "I read it in thepaper--'death of the Marchioness of Appleford.'""That's all right," she says. "The Marchioness of Appleford is as deadas a door-nail, and a good job too. Mrs. Captain Kit's my name, nee'Carrots.'""You said as 'ow I'd find someone to suit me 'fore long," says "Kipper"to me, "and, by Jove! you were right; I 'ave. I was waiting till I foundsomething equal to her ladyship, and I'd 'ave 'ad to wait a long time,I'm thinking, if I 'adn't come across this one 'ere"; and he tucks her upunder his arm just as I remember his doing that day he first brought herinto the coffee-shop, and Lord, what a long time ago that was!* * * * *That is the story, among others, told me by Henry, the waiter. I have,at his request, substituted artificial names for real ones. For Henrytells me that at Capetown Captain Kit's First-class Family and CommercialHotel still runs, and that the landlady is still a beautiful woman withfine eyes and red hair, who might almost be taken for a duchess--untilshe opens her mouth, when her accent is found to be still slightlyreminiscent of the Mile-End Road.

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