The Recollections of a “Two-Pair Back”[1]
1880
Norwood News and Crystal Palace Chronicle, 17 Jan 1880, p. 5
Once upon a morning dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Why they had the sweeps so often at the house next door;
While I nodded, feebly blinking, suddenly there came a slinking,
Slinking up the stairs and chinking, chinking at my chamber door.
“Irish Biddy, ’tis,” I muttered, “bringing to my chamber door
Luke-warm water, nothing more!”
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
How I cherished every ember, how my throat and nose were raw.
Anxiously I feared the morrow: I’d been fool enough to borrow
Long time since, and hence my sorrow, money from the grand “first floor,”
From the rich and radiant lodger, landladies will term “first floor”—
Nameless here for evermore.
And the starchy, sad, uncertain rustling of each cheap chintz curtain
Thrilled me, filled me with pecunious terrors, never felt before;
For I feared that he now fearing, at my threshold was appearing,
And, as gentle hint, was bringing that sum to my chamber door—
And, as mild reminder, bearing that sum to my chamber door,
Just that sum and nothing more.
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Mr. Nameless,” said I, “truly your small loan I will restore,
But the fact is I’ve been ‘nap’-ping, and so gently cash goes rapping,
And so faintly your purse sapping, sapping sure till all is o’er,
That I scarce am ready for you.” Here I opened wide the door—
Coldness there, but nothing more.
Staying in that coldness quivering, long I stood there shaking, shivering,
Shivering, shivering shakes no agues ever caused to come before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the jug the only token
Of the only word there spoken, of the whispered “Water, sor!”
This I whispered, and an echo gave the lie, “Hot water, sor.”
Merely Bridget, nothing more.
This is one of several entries printed in the Norwood News and Crystal Palace Chronicle’s competition to create a poem in the style of Poe’s Raven. The four poems were divided into two Class I winners (The Bailiff and Hope), and two Class II winners (The Recollections of a “Two-Pair Back” and The Angel).
Footnotes
- Two Pair Back — In a lodging house, a house on the second floor (reached by "two pair" of stairs), at the back of the house. Presumably, this is a cheaper lodging than that afforded by a first-floor tenant. (back to text)
Return to the Quaint and Curious index for more pastiches and parodies of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”.
