Devlin the Barber

"It wasn't encouraging, sir, but I didn't lose heart. 'The third time's lucky,' I said to myself, as I put the bill in the winder agin, little dreaming what was to come of it. It remained there nigh on a fortnight, when a knock come at the street-door.

"I do all the work in the house myself. A body may be genteel without keeping a parcel of servants to eat you out of house and home, and sauce you in the bargain. A knock come at the street-door, as I said. If I'd known what I know now, the party as knocked might have knocked till he was blue in the face, or dropped down in a fit before he'd got me to answer him. But I had no suspicions, and I went and opened the door, and there I saw a tall, dark man, with a black moustache, curled up at the ends.

"'You've got a bill in the winder,' said he, 'of a room to let.'

"'Yes, sir,' I answered, hardly giving myself time to look at him, I was that glad of the chance of letting the room; 'would you like to see it?'

"'I should,' said he.

"And in he walked, and up the stairs, after me, to the second floor front. It didn't strike me at the time, but it did often afterwards when I listened for 'em in vain, that I didn't hear his footsteps as he follered me up-stairs. Never, from the moment he entered this house, have I heard the least sound from his feet, and yet he wears what looks like boots. He's never asked me to clean 'em, and I'd rather be torn to pieces with red hot pinchers than do it now.

"'It's a cheerful room, sir,' said I to him. 'Looks out on the square.'

"'Charming,' he said, 'the room, the square, you, everything.'

"'That's a funny way of talking,' I thought, and I said out loud, 'Do you think it will suit, sir?'

"'Do I think it will suit?' he said. 'I am sure it will suit. I take it from this minute. What's the rent?'

"'With attendance, sir?' I asked.

"'With or without attendance,' he answered; 'it matters not.'

"Not 'It don't matter,' as ordinary people say, but 'It matters not,' for all the world like one of them foreign fellers we see on the stage. I told him the rent, reckoning attendance, and he said:

"'Good. The bargain is made. I am yours, and you are mine.'

"And then he laughed in a way that almost made my hair stand on end. It wasn't the laugh of a human creature; there was something unearthly about it. As a rule, a body's pleased when another body laughs, but this laugh made me shiver all over; you know the sensation, sir, like cold water running down your back. Then, and a good many times since when he's been speaking or laughing, I felt myself turn faint with sech a swimming sensation that I had to ketch hold of something to keep myself from sinking to the ground.

"'I beg your pardon, sir,' I said, when I come to, 'but if you've no objections I'd like a reference.'

"'Of course you would,' he said, laughing again, 'and here it is.'

"With that he gives me a sovering, and orders me to light the fire. There's that about him as makes it unpossible not to do as he orders you to, so on my knees I went there and then, and lit the fire.

"'Good,' he said. 'I couldn't have done it better myself. Mrs. Lemon-' and you might have knocked me down with a feather when I heard him speak my name. How did he get to know it? I never told him. – Mrs. Lemon,' said he, 'I see in your face that you'd like to ask me a question or two.'

"'I would, sir,' I said, shaking and trembling all over. 'If I may make so bold, sir, are you a married man?'

"He put his hand on his heart, and, grinning all over his face, answered, 'Mrs. Lemon, I am, and have ever been, single.'

"'Might I be so bold as to ask your name, sir?' I said.

"'Devlin,' said he.

"'Dev-what?' I garsped.

"'Lin,' said he. 'Devlin. I'll spell it for you. D-e-v-l-i-n. Have you got it well in your mind?'

"'I have, sir,' I said, very faint.

"'Good,' said he, pointing to the door. 'Go.'

"I had to go, sir, and I went, and that is how Mr. Devlin become our lodger."

CHAPTER XI

DEVLIN PERFORMS SOME WONDERFUL TRICKS, FASCINATES MR. LEMON, AND STRIKES TERROR TO THE SOUL OF FANNY LEMON

"That very night Mr. Devlin come down to this room, without 'with your leave or by your leave,' where Lemon and me was setting, having our regular game of cribbage for a ha'penny a game, and droring a chair up to the table, he begun to talk as though he'd known us all his life. And he can talk, sir, by the hour, and it never seens to tire him, whatever it does with other people. Lemon was took with him, and couldn't keep his eyes off him. No more could I, sir. No more could you if he was here. You might try your hardest, but it wouldn't be a bit of good. There's something in him as forces you to look at him-just as there's something in that bird, and the stone figger on the mantelshelf, and Lemon's portrait as forces you to look at them. I've found out the reason of that. When Devlin ain't here he leaves his sperrit behind him-that's how it is. I was never frightened of the dark before he come into the house, but now the very thought of going into a room of a night without a candle makes me shiver. And many and many's the time as I've been going up-stairs that I've turned that faint there's no describing. He's been behind me, sir, coming up after me, step by step. I can't see him, I can't hear him, but I feel him; and yet there ain't a soul in sight but me. At them times I'm frightened to look at the wall for fear of seeing his shadder.

"Well, sir, on the night that he come into this parlour he goes on talking and talking, and then proposes a hand at cribbage, which Lemon was only too glad to say yes to.

"'Mrs. Lemon must play,' said Devlin; 'we'll have a three-handed game.'

"I shouldn't have minded being left out, especially as our cribbage-board only pegs for two, but his word was lore. So we begun to play, and Devlin marks his score with a red pencil.

"The things he did while we played made my flesh creep. He threw out his card for crib without looking at it, and told us how much was in crib while the cards was laying backs up on the table; and when Lemon and me, both of us slow counters, began to reckon what we had in our hands, Mr. Devlin, like a flash of lightning, cried out how many we was to take. We played five games, and he won 'em all. Then he said he'd show us some tricks. Sir, the like of them tricks was never seen before or since. I've seen conjurers in my time, but not one who could hold a candle to Mr. Devlin. He made the cards fly all over the room, and while he held the pack in his hand and you was looking at 'em, they'd disappear before your very eyes.

"'Where would you like 'em to be?' he asked. 'Underneath you, on your chair? Git up; you're sitting on 'em. In your workbox? Open it and behold 'em.'

"And there they was, sir, sure enough, underneath me, though I'd never stirred from my seat, or in my workbox, which was at the other end of the room. It wasn't conjuring, sir, it was something I can't put a name to, and it wasn't natural. I could hardly move for fright, and as I looked at Mr. Devlin, he seemed to grow taller and thinner, and his black eyes become blacker, and his moustaches curled up to his nose till they as good as met. But Lemon didn't feel as I felt; he was that delighted that he kep on crying-

"'Wonderful! Beautiful! Do it agin, Mr. Devlin, do it agin. Show us another.'

"I don't know when I've seen him so excited; that Devlin had bewitched him.

"'We're brothers you and me,' said Devlin to him. 'I am yours, and you are mine, and we'll never part.'

"The very words, sir, he'd used to me.

"'Hooray!' cried Lemon, 'we're brothers, you and me, and we'll never, never part.'

"'I once kep a barber's shop myself,' said Devlin.

"'What!' cried Lemon, 'are you one of us?'

"'I am,' said Devlin, 'and I've worked for the best in the trade-for Truefitt and Shipwright, and all the rest of 'em. I've been abroad studying the new styles. I'll show you something as 'll make you open your eyes, something splendid.'

"And before I knew where I was, sir, Devlin, in his shirt-sleeves, had whipped a large towel round my neck, and had my hair all down, and was beginning to dress it. Where he got the towel from, and the combs, and the curling-tongs, and the fire, goodness only knows. I didn't see him take them from nowhere, but there they was on the table, and there was Devlin, with his hands in my hair, frizzling it up and corkscrewing it, and twisting and twirling it, and me setting in the chair for all the world as if I'd been turned into stone. But though I didn't have the power to move, I could think about things, and what come into my head was that the man as had taken the second floor front must be some unearthly creature, sprung from I won't mention where.

"'Do you really believe so?' whispered Devlin in my ear.

"'Believe what?' I asked, though my throat was that hot and dry that I wondered how he could make out what I said.

"'That I am an unearthly creature,' he said softly, 'sprung from a place which shouldn't be mentioned to ears perlite?'

"If I was petrified before, sir, you may guess how I felt when I found out that he knew what I was thinking of.

"'You shouldn't be, you shouldn't be,' he whispered agin.

"'Shouldn't be what?' I managed to git out, though the words almost stuck to the roof of my mouth.

"'Sorry you ever took me as a lodger,' he said with a grin. 'Fye, fye! It isn't grateful of you after sech a good reference as I give you. Something 'll happen to you if you don't mind.'

"Well, sir, it was true I'd thought it, but I'll take my solemn oath I never spoke it. It was jest as though that Devlin had my brains spread open before him, and could see every thought as was passing through 'em. I was so overcome that I as good as swooned away, and I believe I should have gone off in a dead faint if he hadn't put something strong to my nose as made me almost sneeze my head off. And while I was sneezing, there was Devlin and Lemon laughing fit to burst theirselves. All the time he was dressing my hair that sort of thing was going on; there wasn't a thought that come into my head that he didn't tell me of the minute it was there, till he got me into that state that I hardly knew whether I was asleep or awake. At last, sir, he finished me up, and stepping back a little, he waved his hand and said to Lemon,

"'There! what do you think of that?' meaning my hair.

"'Wonderful! Beautiful!' cried Lemon, clapping his hands and jumping up and down in his chair, he was that egscited. 'I never saw nothing like it in all my whole born days. It's a new style-quite a new style, and so taking! The ladies 'll go wild over it. Where did you git it from?'

"'From a place,' said Devlin, grinning right in my face, 'as shall be nameless.'

"'But you'll tell me some day, won't you?' cried Lemon. 'Because there might be other styles there as good as that, and we could make our fortunes out of 'em.'

"'I'll take you there one day,' said Devlin, with an unearthly laugh, 'and you shall see for yourself.'

"'Do, do!' screamed Lemon. 'I'd give anything in the world to go there with you!'

"'Good Lord save him!' I thought, looking at Lemon whose eyes was almost starting out of his head. 'He's going mad, he's going mad!'

"'As to making our fortunes,' Devlin went on, 'why not? It shall be so.'

"'It shall, it shall!' cried Lemon.

"'We'll make hunderds, thousands,' said Devlin.

"'We will, we will!' cried Lemon. 'Fanny shall ride in her own kerridge.'

"'Fanny shall,' said Devlin.

"'The Lord forbid,' I thought, 'that I should ever ride in a kerridge bought at sech a price!'

"I thought more free now that Devlin's hands was not in my hair; he didn't seem to be able to read what I was thinking of so long as we was apart.

"'I bind myself to you,' said Devlin to my poor dear Lemon, 'and you bind yourself to me. The bargain's made. Your hand upon it.'

"Lemon gave him his hand, and whether it was fancy or not, it seemed to me that Devlin grew and grew till he almost touched the ceiling; and that, while he was bending over Lemon and looking down on him, like one of them vampires you've read of, sir. Lemon kep growing smaller and smaller till he was no better than a bag of bones.

"'We go out to-morrer morning,' said Devlin, 'you and me together, to look for a shop. Is it agreed?'

"'It is,' answered Lemon, 'it is.'

"'We will set London on fire,' said Devlin.

"'We will, we will,' said Lemon; 'and we'll have shops all over it.'

"'You're a man of sperrit,' said Devlin. 'I kiss your hand.'

"He said that to me; but I clapped my hands behind my back.

"'If you refuse,' said Devlin, smiling at me all the while, 'I must show Lemon another style.'

"And he made as though he was about to dress my hair agin.

"'No, no!' I screamed; 'anything but that, anything but that!"

"I give him my hand, and he kissed it. His mouth was like burning hot coals, and I wondered I wasn't scarred.

"'Don't forgit,' said Lemon, 'to-morrow morning.'

"'I'll not forgit,' said Devlin. 'Till then, adoo.'

"The next minute he was gone.

"No sooner did he close the door behind him than I felt as if tons weight had been lifted off me. I started up, and put my hands to my hair, intending to pull it down.

"'What are you doing?' cried Lemon, starting up too, and seizing hold of me. 'Don't touch it-don't touch it! I must study the style. I never saw sech a thing in all my life. It's more than wonderful, its stoopendous. You look like another woman. Jest take a sight of yerself in the glass.'

"I did take a sight of myself in the glass, and if you'll believe me, sir, it seemed as if my head was covered with millions of little serpents, curling and twisting all sorts of ways at once; and, as I looked at 'em moving, sir-which might have been or might not have been, but so it was to me-I saw millions of eyes shining and glaring at me.

"'O, Lemon, Lemon!' I cried, bursting out into tears; 'what have you done, what have you done?'

"'Done?' said Lemon, rubbing his hands; he'd let mine go. 'Why, gone into partnership with the finest hairdresser as ever was seen. Our fortune's made, Fanny, our fortune's made!'

"I tried to reason with him, but I might as well have spoke to stone. He was that worked up that he wouldn't listen to a word I said. All the satisfaction I could git out of him was-

"'A good night's work, Fanny; a good night's work!'

"If he said it once he said it fifty times. But I knew it was the worst night's work Lemon had ever done, and that it'd come to bad. And it has, sir."

CHAPTER XII

FANNY LEMON RELATES HOW HER HUSBAND, AFTER BECOMING BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH DEVLIN THE BARBER, SEEMED TO BE HAUNTED BY SHADOWS AND SPIRITS

"I had my way about my hair before I went to bed. I waited till Lemon was asleep, and then I brushed all the serpents out, and did it up in a plain knot behind. I felt then like a Christian, and I said my prayers before I stepped in between the sheets. I didn't sleep much; Lemon was that restless he torsed and torsed the whole night long, and his eyes was quite bloodshot when he got up. While he was dressing I heard Devlin call out:

"'Lemon, I'm coming down to have breakfast with you.'

"'Do,' cried Lemon. 'You're heartily welcome.'

"I was down-stairs at the time-I always git up before Lemon, to make the place straight and cook the breakfast-and I heard what passed. Lemon, half-dressed, come running down to me, and told me to be sure to git something nice for breakfast, and not to cut the rashers too thin.

"'Go to the fish-shop,' he said, 'and git a haddick. We must treat him well, Fanny, or he might cry off the bargain he made with me last night.'

"I thought to myself I knew how I'd treat him if I had my way, but it wouldn't have done jest then for me to go agin Lemon. There was times when he said a thing that it had to be done, and that was one of 'em. So I goes to the fishmonger's and gits a haddick, and I cooks three large rashers and six eggs-three fried and three biled-and then Lemon and Devlin they come in together as thick as thieves. Devlin had been telling Lemon something as had made him laugh till his face was purple.

"'You never heard sech a man,' said Lemon to me. 'He's one in a thousand.'

"'He's one in millions,' I thought, and I kep my head down for fear Devlin should suspect what I was thinking of; 'and there's only one as ever I heard of.'

"Devlin give me good morning and shook hands with me; I didn't dare to refuse him. If he'd offered to kiss me, Lemon wouldn't have objected, I believe, though there was a time when he was that jealous of me that a man hardly dared to look at me. But those happy days was gone for ever.

"I didn't have much appetite for breakfast, and no more had Lemon, but Devlin made up for the pair of us. There was the haddick, and there was the three rashers, and there was the six eggs. Devlin pretty well cleared the lot. It was Lemon, I must say, who pushed him on to it, though it didn't seem to me as he wanted much persuading. He had the appetite of a shark. It didn't give me no pleasure to hear him praise my cooking and to hear him say to Lemon that he'd got a treasure of a wife.

"'I have,' said Lemon; 'Fanny's a good sort.'

"When breakfast was over and everything cleared away Lemon asked Devlin if he was ready, and Devlin said he was, and they went out arm in arm jest as if they was brothers.

"They come home late, and Lemon was more excited than ever.

"'It's all settled, Fanny,' he said, 'I've taken another shop, and Devlin and me's gone into partnership. We're going to work together, and we'll astonish your weak nerves.'

"As if they hadn't been astonished enough already.

"I asked Lemon where the shop was that he'd taken, but he wouldn't tell me.

"'It's a secret,' he said, 'between Devlin and me. What an egstrordinary man he is, Fanny! What a glorious, glorious fellow! What a fortunate thing that he saw the bill in our winder of a room to let, and that he didn't go somewheres else! It's a providence, Fanny, that's what it is.'

"I wasn't to be put down so easy, and I tried my hardest to git out of Lemon where the shop was, but he wouldn't let on.

"'I've promised Devlin,' he said, 'not to say a word about it to a living soul. Perhaps we sha'n't keep it open long; perhaps we shall shut it up after a month or two and take another; perhaps we shall do a lot of trade at private houses. It's all as Devlin likes. I've give him the lead. There never was sech a man.'

"That was all I could git out of him. Devlin had him tight; 'twas nothing but Devlin this, and Devlin that, and Devlin t'other. Devlin was as close as he was; I couldn't git nothing out of him.

"'I love wimmin,' he said, 'but they must be kep in their place. Eh, Lemon?'

"That was a nice thing for a wife to hear, wasn't it?

"'Yes,' said Lemon: 'you mind your business, Fanny, and we'll mind our'n.'

"They went out the next morning together, and kep out late agin; and so it went on for a matter of four or five weeks. Then there come a change. From being in love with Devlin, Lemon begun to be frightened of him. I saw it in his face every morning when they went away. Instead of Lemon's taking Devlin's arm as he did at first, it was Devlin who used to take Lemon's arm, jest above the elber jint, as much as to say:

"'I've got you, and I'm not going to let you escape me.'

"And instead of Lemon being brisk and lively and egscited of a morning, as though he was going for an excursion in a pleasure van, he got grumpy and dull, as though he was going to the lock-up to answer for some dreadful thing he'd done. I spoke to him about it, but if he was close before, he was a thousand times closer now.

"'Don't ask me nothing, Fanny,' he'd say; 'don't put questions to me about him. I daren't say a word, I daren't, I daren't!'

"That didn't stop me; he was my husband, and if strange things was being done, who had a better right than me to know all about 'em? But it was all no use; I couldn't git nothing out of him.

"'If you don't shut up,' he said, quite savage like, 'I'll set Devlin on to you, and you'll have cause to remember it to the last day of your life!'

"Jest as if I haven't got cause to remember it! If I lived a thousand years I couldn't forgit what's happened.

"If I could have got rid of my lodger I shouldn't have thought twice about it; out he'd have gone; but he paid me reg'lar, did Devlin, and always in advance, so that I had no egscuse for giving him notice. And even if I had, I ain't at all sure that I should have had the courage to do it.

"It begun to trouble me more than I can say, that I never heard him come in or go out, and that I never caught the sound of his footsteps on the stairs or in the passage, and that, when he might have been in the Canary Islands for all I knew, I'd turn my head and see him standing at the back of me, without my having the least idea how he got into the room.

"'Here I am, you see, Mrs. Lemon,' he'd say; 'back agin, like a bad penny. You're glad to see me, I'm sure. Say you're glad.'

"And I had to, whether I liked it or not. Then he'd grin and wag his head at me, and sometimes say if he knew where there was another woman like me he'd stick up to her. 'Lord have mercy,' I used to think, 'on the woman who'd give you a second look unless she was obliged to!'

"I grew to be that shaky and trembly that my life was a perfect misery; and so was Lemon's. But I used to speak about it, which was a little relief, while poor Lemon would never so much as open his lips. I pitied him a deal more than I did myself. I did say to him once:

"'Lemon, let's call a broker in when Devlin's not here, and sell the furniture, and run away.'

"'You talk like a fool,' said Lemon. 'If we was to hide ourselves in the bowels of the earth he'd ferret us out.'

"Then Lemon said one night that Devlin was going to paint our portraits.

"'He sha'n't paint mine,' I cried, 'not if he orfered to frame it in dymens!'

"The words was no sooner out of my lips than I turned almost to a jelly at hearing Devlin's voice at the back of me, saying,

"'Nonsense, nonsense, Mrs. Lemon! Surely it ain't me you're speaking of? Don't they paint all the Court beauties, and ain't you as good as the best of them? Your face is like milk and roses, and I'm the artist that's going to do justice to it. You can't refuse me; you won't have the heart to refuse me.'

"Which I hadn't, with him so close to me. He seemed to take the backbone out of me; I used to feel quite limp when he took me up like that. He did paint my picture, and there it is, stuck on the wall; and though it's come over me a hunderd times to drag it down and burn it, it's more than I dare do for fear of something dreadful happening.

"I can't describe what I went through while that picture was being painted. There was I, setting like a stature in the position that Devlin placed me; and there was Lemon, leaning for'ard, with his hands clarsping the arms of his chair, and his eyes glaring like a ghost's; and there was Devlin, waving his brush and painting me, making all sorts of strange remarks, and singing all sorts of songs in all sorts of languages. He could do that, sir; I don't believe there's a language in the world that he can't speak, and I don't believe there's anything in the world, or out of it, for that matter, that he doesn't know. "Now, where did he get it all from?

"I used to wonder about his age. It was a regular puzzler. Sometimes he looked quite young, and sometimes he looked as old as Methusalem. I plucked up courage once to ask him.

"'What do you say to twenty?' he answered. 'Or if that won't do, what do you say to eighty, or a couple of hunderd?'

"When my portrait was finished he pretended to go into egstacies over it, and said that it really ought to be egshibited.

"'Mind you keep it as a airloom,' he said. 'You've no notion what it's worth.'

"Then he took Lemon's picture, and it was a comfort to me that he painted my husband up-stairs. Every night for a fortnight Lemon went up to Devlin's room, and set there for two or three hours, and then he'd slide into this room looking as if he'd jest come out of his corfin. It give me such a shock when I first saw the picture that I threw my apern over my head.