Charles Dickens - Somebody's Luggage

When I began to settle down in this right-principled and well-conducted House, I noticed, under the bed in No. 24 B (which it is up a angle off the staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly-minded), a heap of things in a corner. I asked our Head Chambermaid in the course of the day,

“What are them things in 24 B?”

To which she answered with a careless air, “Somebody’s Luggage.”

Regarding her with a eye not free from severity, I says, “Whose Luggage?”

Evading my eye, she replied,

“Lor! How should I know!”

– Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, though acquainted with her business.

A Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail. He must be at one extremity or the other of the social scale. He cannot be at the waist of it, or anywhere else but the extremities. It is for him to decide which of the extremities.

On the eventful occasion under consideration, I give Mrs. Pratchett so distinctly to understand my decision, that I broke her spirit as towards myself, then and there, and for good. Let not inconsistency be suspected on account of my mentioning Mrs. Pratchett as “Mrs.,” and having formerly remarked that a waitress must not be married. Readers are respectfully requested to notice that Mrs. Pratchett was not a waitress, but a chambermaid. Now a chambermaid may be married; if Head, generally is married, – or says so. It comes to the same thing as expressing what is customary. (N.B. Mr. Pratchett is in Australia, and his address there is “the Bush.”)

Having took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to the future happiness of all parties, I requested her to explain herself.

“For instance,” I says, to give her a little encouragement, “who is Somebody?”

“I give you my sacred honour, Mr. Christopher,” answers Pratchett, “that I haven’t the faintest notion.”

But for the manner in which she settled her cap-strings, I should have doubted this; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to be discriminated from an affidavit.

“Then you never saw him?” I followed her up with.

“Nor yet,” said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and making as if she had just took a pill of unusual circumference, – which gave a remarkable force to her denial, – “nor yet any servant in this house. All have been changed, Mr. Christopher, within five year, and Somebody left his Luggage here before then.”

Inquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the Bard of A.1.) “confirmation strong.” So it had really and truly happened. Miss Martin is the young lady at the bar as makes out our bills; and though higher than I could wish considering her station, is perfectly well-behaved.

Farther investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill against this Luggage to the amount of two sixteen six. The Luggage had been lying under the bedstead of 24 B over six year. The bedstead is a four-poster, with a deal of old hanging and valance, and is, as I once said, probably connected with more than 24 Bs, – which I remember my hearers was pleased to laugh at, at the time.

I don’t know why, – when DO we know why? – but this Luggage laid heavy on my mind. I fell a wondering about Somebody, and what he had got and been up to. I couldn’t satisfy my thoughts why he should leave so much Luggage against so small a bill. For I had the Luggage out within a day or two and turned it over, and the following were the items: – A black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick. It was all very dusty and fluey. I had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it out; and though he habitually wallows in dust, – swims in it from morning to night, and wears a close-fitting waistcoat with black calimanco sleeves for the purpose, – it made him sneeze again, and his throat was that hot with it that it was obliged to be cooled with a drink of Allsopp’s draft.

The Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it put back when it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth, – previous to which it was so covered with feathers that you might have thought it was turning into poultry, and would by-and-by begin to Lay, – I say, instead of having it put back, I had it carried into one of my places down-stairs. There from time to time I stared at it and stared at it, till it seemed to grow big and grow little, and come forward at me and retreat again, and go through all manner of performances resembling intoxication. When this had lasted weeks, – I may say months, and not be far out, – I one day thought of asking Miss Martin for the particulars of the Two sixteen six total. She was so obliging as to extract it from the books, – it dating before her time, – and here follows a true copy:

Mem.: January 1st, 1857. He went out after dinner, directing luggage to be ready when he called for it. Never called.

So far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared to me, if I may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more lurid halo. Speculating it over with the Mistress, she informed me that the luggage had been advertised in the Master’s time as being to be sold after such and such a day to pay expenses, but no farther steps had been taken. (I may here remark, that the Mistress is a widow in her fourth year. The Master was possessed of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which Spirits turns to Water, and rises in the ill-starred Victim.)

My speculating it over, not then only, but repeatedly, sometimes with the Mistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, led up to the Mistress’s saying to me, – whether at first in joke or in earnest, or half joke and half earnest, it matters not:

“Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.”

(If this should meet her eye, – a lovely blue, – may she not take it ill my mentioning that if I had been eight or ten year younger, I would have done as much by her! That is, I would have made her a offer. It is for others than me to denominate it a handsome one.)

“Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer.”

“Put a name to it, ma’am.”

“Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody’s Luggage. You’ve got it all by heart, I know.”

“A black portmanteau, ma’am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick.”

“All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing tampered with.”

“You are right, ma’am. All locked but the brown-paper parcel, and that sealed.”

The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin’s desk at the bar-window, and she taps the open book that lays upon the desk, – she has a pretty-made hand to be sure, – and bobs her head over it and laughs.

“Come,” says she, “Christopher. Pay me Somebody’s bill, and you shall have Somebody’s Luggage.”

I rather took to the idea from the first moment; but,

“It mayn’t be worth the money,” I objected, seeming to hold back.

“That’s a Lottery,” says the Mistress, folding her arms upon the book, – it ain’t her hands alone that’s pretty made, the observation extends right up her arms. “Won’t you venture two pound sixteen shillings and sixpence in the Lottery? Why, there’s no blanks!” says the Mistress; laughing and bobbing her head again, “you must win. If you lose, you must win! All prizes in this Lottery! Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen-Sportsmen, you’ll still be entitled to a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick!”