Mary Gresley, and An Editor's TalesTrollope, Anthony
General
Mary Gresley, and An Editor's Tales
Trollope, Anthony
Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
“You don’t stir a foot out of this to-night;--not that way,” said Mr.
Grimes.
“Who wants to stir?” said Mrs. Grimes.
We felt that there was something more to be told than we had yet heard,
and a great fear fell upon us. The woman’s manner to us was altered, and
we were sure that this had come not from altered feelings on her part,
but from circumstances which had frightened her. It was not her husband
that she feared, but the truth of something that her husband had said to
her. “If there is anything more to tell, for God’s sake tell it,” we
said, addressing ourselves rather to the man than to the woman. Then
Grimes did tell us his story. On the previous evening Mackenzie had
received three or four sovereigns from Mrs. Grimes, being, of course, a
portion of the Doctor’s payments; and early on that morning all
Liquorpond Street had been in a state of excitement with the drunken
fury of Mackenzie’s wife. She had found her way into the Spotted Dog,
and was being actually extruded by the strength of Grimes himself,--of
Grimes, who had been brought down, half dressed, from his bed-room by
the row,--when Mackenzie himself, equally drunk, appeared upon the
scene. “No, John;--not equally drunk,” said Mrs. Grimes. “Bother!”
exclaimed her husband, going on with his story. The man had struggled to
take the woman by the arm, and the two had fallen and rolled in the
street together. “I was looking out of the window, and it was awful to
see,” said Mrs. Grimes. We felt that it was “awful to hear.” A man,--and
such a man, rolling in the gutter with a drunken woman,--himself
drunk,--and that woman his wife! “There aint to be no more of it at the
Spotted Dog; that’s all,” said John Grimes, as he finished his part of
the story.
Then, at last, Mrs. Grimes became voluble. All this had occurred before
nine in the morning. “The woman must have been at it all night,” she
said. “So must the man,” said John. “Anyways he came back about dinner,
and he was sober then. I asked him not to go up, and offered to make him
a cup of tea. It was just as you’d gone out after dinner, John.”
“He won’t have no more tea here,” said John.
“And he didn’t have any then. He wouldn’t, he said, have any tea, but
went up stairs. What was I to do? I couldn’t tell him as he shouldn’t.
Well;--during the row in the morning John had said something as to
Mackenzie not coming about the premises any more.”
“Of course I did,” said Grimes.
“He was a little cut, then, no doubt,” continued the lady; “and I didn’t
think as he would have noticed what John had said.”
“I mean it to be noticed now.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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