The Four Sisters story in
English by Dickens
The row of
houses in which the old lady and her troublesome neighbour reside, comprises,
beyond all doubt, a greater number of characters within its circumscribed
limits, than all the rest of the parish put together. As we cannot,
consistently with our present plan, however, extend the number of our parochial
sketches beyond six, it will be better perhaps, to select the most peculiar,
and to introduce them at once without further preface.
The four Miss
Willises, then, settled in our parish thirteen years ago. It is a melancholy
reflection that the old adage, 'time and tide wait for no man,' applies with
equal force to the fairer portion of the creation; and willingly would we
conceal the fact, that even thirteen years ago the Miss Willises were far from
juvenile. Our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to
every other consideration, and we are bound to state, that thirteen years
since, the authorities in matrimonial cases, considered the youngest Miss
Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was positively given
over, as being far beyond all human hope. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease
of the house; it was fresh painted and papered from top to bottom: the paint
inside was all wainscoted, the marble all cleaned, the old grates taken down,
and register-stoves, you could see to dress by, put up; four trees were planted
in the back garden, several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front
one, vans of elegant furniture arrived, spring blinds were fitted to the windows,
carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and
repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid-servants in the
row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss Willises were
commencing; the maid-servants told their 'Missises,' the Missises told their
friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25,
in Gordon-place, had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property.
At last, the
Miss Willises moved in; and then the 'calling' began. The house was the
perfection of neatness--so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal,
stiff, and cold--so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the
whole set was ever seen out of its place--not a single Miss Willis of the whole
four was ever seen out of hers. There they always sat, in the same places,
doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used
to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They
seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to
winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the
addition, like a school-dinner, of another long grace afterwards--the three
fates with another sister--the Siamese twins multiplied by two. The eldest Miss
Willis grew bilious--the four Miss Willises grew bilious immediately. The
eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious--the four Miss Willises were
ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did, the others did,
and whatever anybody else did, they all disapproved of; and thus they
vegetated- -living in Polar harmony among themselves, and, as they sometimes
went out, or saw company 'in a quiet-way' at home, occasionally icing the
neighbours. Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked for and
extraordinary phenomenon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer,
the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place. Was it possible? one
of the four Miss Willises was going to be married!
Now, where on
earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor man could have been
actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four Miss Willises succeeded in
persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry one of them,
without marrying them all, are questions too profound for us to resolve:
certain it is, however, that the visits of Mr. Robinson (a gentleman in a
public office, with a good salary and a little property of his own, besides)
were received--that the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said
Mr Robinson--that the neighbours were perfectly frantic in their anxiety to
discover which of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair, and that the
difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by
the announcement of the eldest Miss Willis,--'WE are going to marry Mr.
Robinson.'
It was very
extraordinary. They were so completely identified, the one with the other, that
the curiosity of the whole row--even of the old lady herself--was roused almost
beyond endurance. The subject was discussed at every little card-table and
tea-drinking. The old gentleman of silk-worm notoriety did not hesitate to
express his decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and contemplated
marrying the whole family at once; and the row, generally, shook their heads
with considerable gravity, and declared the business to be very mysterious.
They hoped it might all end well;--it certainly had a very singular appearance,
but still it would be uncharitable to express any opinion without good grounds
to go upon, and certainly the Miss Willises were QUITE old enough to judge for
themselves, and to be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so
forth.
At last, one
fine morning, at a quarter before eight o'clock, A.M., two glass-coaches drove
up to the Miss Willises' door, at which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten
minutes before, dressed in a light-blue coat and double-milled kersey
pantaloons, white neckerchief, pumps, and dress-gloves, his manner denoting, as
appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the
door-steps at the time, a considerable degree of nervous excitement. It was
also hastily reported on the same testimony, that the cook who opened the door,
wore a large white bow of unusual dimensions, in a much smarter head-dress than
the regulation cap to which the Miss Willises invariably restricted the
somewhat excursive tastes of female servants in general.
The intelligence
spread rapidly from house to house. It was quite clear that the eventful
morning had at length arrived; the whole row stationed themselves behind their
first and second floor blinds, and waited the result in breathless expectation.
At last the Miss
Willises' door opened; the door of the first glass-coach did the same. Two
gentlemen, and a pair of ladies to correspond--friends of the family, no doubt;
up went the steps, bang went the door, off went the first class-coach, and up
came the second.
The street door
opened again; the excitement of the whole row increased--Mr. Robinson and the
eldest Miss Willis. 'I thought so,' said the lady at No. 19; 'I always said it
was MISS Willis!'-- 'Well, I never!' ejaculated the young lady at No. 18 to the
young lady at No. 17.--'Did you ever, dear!' responded the young lady at No. 17
to the young lady at No. 18. 'It's too ridiculous!' exclaimed a spinster of an
UNcertain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation. But who shall portray
the astonishment of Gordon- place, when Mr. Robinson handed in ALL the Miss
Willises, one after the other, and then squeezed himself into an acute angle of
the glass-coach, which forthwith proceeded at a brisk pace, after the other
glass-coach, which other glass-coach had itself proceeded, at a brisk pace, in
the direction of the parish church! Who shall depict the perplexity of the
clergyman, when ALL the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion-table, and
repeated the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible
voice--or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when--even after
the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted--ALL the Miss Willises went
into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony, until the sacred edifice
resounded with their united wailings!
As the four
sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same house after this
memorable occasion, and as the married sister, whoever she was, never appeared
in public without the other three, we are not quite clear that the neighbours
ever would have discovered the real Mrs. Robinson, but for a circumstance of
the most gratifying description, which WILL happen occasionally in the
best-regulated families. Three quarter-days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new
light appeared to have been bursting for some time, began to speak with a sort
of implied confidence on the subject, and to wonder how Mrs. Robinson--the
youngest Miss Willis that was- -got on; and servants might be seen running up
the steps, about nine or ten o'clock every morning, with 'Missis's compliments,
and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself this morning?' And the
answer always was, 'Mrs. Robinson's compliments, and she's in very good
spirits, and doesn't find herself any worse.' The piano was heard no longer,
the knitting-needles were laid aside, drawing was neglected, and mantua-making
and millinery, on the smallest scale imaginable, appeared to have become the
favourite amusement of the whole family. The parlour wasn't quite as tidy as it
used to be, and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table,
with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three particularly
small caps, rather larger than if they had been made for a moderate-sized doll,
with a small piece of lace, in the shape of a horse-shoe, let in behind: or perhaps
a white robe, not very large in circumference, but very much out of proportion
in point of length, with a little tucker round the top, and a frill round the
bottom; and once when we called, we saw a long white roller, with a kind of
blue margin down each side, the probable use of which, we were at a loss to
conjecture. Then we fancied that Dr. Dawson, the surgeon, &c., who displays
a large lamp with a different colour in every pane of glass, at the corner of
the row, began to be knocked up at night oftener than he used to be; and once
we were very much alarmed by hearing a hackney-coach stop at Mrs. Robinson's
door, at half-past two o'clock in the morning, out of which there emerged a fat
old woman, in a cloak and night-cap, with a bundle in one hand, and a pair of
pattens in the other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of
bed for some very special purpose.
When we got up
in the morning we saw that the knocker was tied up in an old white kid glove;
and we, in our innocence (we were in a state of bachelorship then), wondered
what on earth it all meant, until we heard the eldest Miss Willis, in propria
persona say, with great dignity, in answer to the next inquiry, 'MY
compliments, and Mrs. Robinson's doing as well as can be expected, and the
little girl thrives wonderfully.' And then, in common with the rest of the row,
our curiosity was satisfied, and we began to wonder it had never occurred to us
what the matter was, before.
