if I might look at her little sitting-room? She willingly replied
Yes, and we went into it together: she leaving the door open, with
an eye as I understood to the social proprieties. The door opening
at once into the room without any intervening entry, even scandal
must have been silenced by the precaution.
It was a gloomy little chamber, but clean, and with a mug of
wallflower in the window. On the chimney-piece were two peacock’s
feathers, a carved ship, a few shells, and a black profile with one
eyelash; whether this portrait purported to be male or female
passed my comprehension, until my hostess informed me that it was
her only son, and ‘quite a speaking one.’
‘He is alive, I hope?’
‘No, sir,’ said the widow, ‘he were cast away in China.’ This was
said with a modest sense of its reflecting a certain geographical
distinction on his mother.
‘If the old gentlemen here are not given to talking,’ said I, ‘I
hope the old ladies are? – not that you are one.’
She shook her head. ‘You see they get so cross.’
‘How is that?’
‘Well, whether the gentlemen really do deprive us of any little
matters which ought to be ours by rights, I cannot say for certain;
but the opinion of the old ones is they do. And Mr. Battens he do
even go so far as to doubt whether credit is due to the Founder.
For Mr. Battens he do say, anyhow he got his name up by it and he
done it cheap.’
‘I am afraid the pump has soured Mr. Battens.’
‘It may be so,’ returned the tidy widow, ‘but the handle does go
very hard. Still, what I say to myself is, the gentlemen MAY not
pocket the difference between a good pump and a bad one, and I
would wish to think well of them. And the dwellings,’ said my
hostess, glancing round her room; ‘perhaps they were convenient
dwellings in the Founder’s time, considered AS his time, and
therefore he should not be blamed. But Mrs. Saggers is very hard
upon them.’
‘Mrs. Saggers is the oldest here?’
‘The oldest but one. Mrs. Quinch being the oldest, and have
totally lost her head.’
Page 183
Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
‘And you?’
‘I am the youngest in residence, and consequently am not looked up
to. But when Mrs. Quinch makes a happy release, there will be one
below me. Nor is it to be expected that Mrs. Saggers will prove
herself immortal.’
‘True. Nor Mr. Battens.’
‘Regarding the old gentlemen,’ said my widow slightingly, ‘they
count among themselves. They do not count among us. Mr. Battens
is that exceptional that he have written to the gentlemen many
times and have worked the case against them. Therefore he have
took a higher ground. But we do not, as a rule, greatly reckon the
old gentlemen.’
Pursuing the subject, I found it to be traditionally settled among
the poor ladies that the poor gentlemen, whatever their ages, were
all very old indeed, and in a state of dotage. I also discovered
that the juniors and newcomers preserved, for a time, a waning
disposition to believe in Titbull and his trustees, but that as
they gained social standing they lost this faith, and disparaged
Titbull and all his works.
Improving my acquaintance subsequently with this respected lady,
whose name was Mrs. Mitts, and occasionally dropping in upon her
with a little offering of sound Family Hyson in my pocket, I
gradually became familiar with the inner politics and ways of
Titbull’s Alms-Houses. But I never could find out who the trustees
were, or where they were: it being one of the fixed ideas of the
place that those authorities must be vaguely and mysteriously
mentioned as ‘the gentlemen’ only. The secretary of ‘the
gentlemen’ was once pointed out to me, evidently engaged in
championing the obnoxious pump against the attacks of the
discontented Mr. Battens; but I am not in a condition to report
further of him than that he had the sprightly bearing of a lawyer’s
clerk. I had it from Mrs. Mitts’s lips in a very confidential
moment, that Mr. Battens was once ‘had up before the gentlemen’ to