“Three times did I fall off to sleep,” says Caudle, “and three times did my wife nudge me with her elbow, exclaiming - ‘You’ll not forget the venison?’ At last I got into a sound slumber, and dreamt I was a pot of currant jelly.”
LECTURE XX - “BROTHER” CAUDLE HAS BEEN TO A MASONIC CHARITABLE DINNER. MRS. CAUDLE HAS HIDDEN THE “BROTHER’S” CHEQUE-BOOK
“But all I say is this: I only wish I’d been born a man. What do you say?
“You wish I had?
“Mr. Caudle, I’ll not lie quiet in my own bed to be insulted. Oh, yes, you did mean to insult me. I know what you mean. You mean, if I had been born a man, you’d never have married me. That’s a pretty sentiment, I think; and after the wife I’ve been to you. And now I suppose you’ll be going to public dinners every day! It’s no use your telling me you’ve only been to one before; that’s nothing to do with it - nothing at all. Of course you’ll be out every night now. I knew what it would come to when you were made a mason: when you were once made a ‘brother,’ as you call yourself, I knew where the husband and father would be; - I’m sure, Caudle, and though I’m your own wife, I grieve to say it - I’m sure you haven’t so much heart that you have any to spare for people out of doors. Indeed, I should like to see the man who has! No, no, Caudle; I’m by no means a selfish woman - quite the contrary; I love my fellow-creatures as a wife and mother of a family, who has only to look to her own husband and children, ought to love ’em.
“A ‘brother,’ indeed! What would you say, if I was to go and be made a ‘sister’? Why, I know very well the house wouldn’t hold you.
“Where’s your watch?
“How should I know where your watch is? You ought to know. But to be sure, people who go to public dinners never know where anything is when they come home. You’ve lost it, no doubt; and ’twill serve you quite right if you have. If it should be gone - and nothing more likely - I wonder if any of your ‘brothers’ will give you another? Catch ’em doing it.
“You must find your watch? And you’ll get up for it?
“Nonsense! - don’t be foolish - lie still. Your watch is on the mantelpiece. Ha! isn’t it a good thing for you, you’ve somebody to take care of it?
“What do you say?
“I’m a dear creature?
“Very dear, indeed, you think me, I dare say. But the fact is, you don’t know what you’re talking about to-night. I’m a fool to open my lips to you - but I can’t help it.
“Where’s your watch?
“Haven’t I told you - on the mantelpiece?
“All right, indeed!
“Pretty conduct you men call all right. There now, hold your tongue, Mr. Caudle, and go to sleep: I’m sure ’tis the best thing you can do to-night. You’ll be able to listen to reason to-morrow morning; now, it’s thrown away upon you.
“Where’s your cheque-book?
“Never mind your cheque-book. I took care of that.
“What business had I to take it out of your pocket?
“Every business. No, no. If you choose to go to public dinners, why - as I’m only your wife - I can’t help it. But I know what fools men are made of there; and if I know it, you never take your cheque-book again with you. What? Didn’t I see your name down last year for ten pounds? ‘Job Caudle, Esq., £10.’ It looked very well in the newspapers, of course: and you thought yourself a somebody, when they knocked the tavern tables; but I only wish I’d been there - yes, I only wish I’d been in the gallery. If I wouldn’t have told a piece of my mind, I’m not alive. Ten pounds indeed! and the world thinks you a very fine person for it. I only wish I could bring the world here, and show ’em what’s wanted at home. I think the world would alter their mind then; yes - a little.
“What do you say?
“A wife has no right to pick her husband’s pocket?
“A pretty husband you are, to talk in that way! Never mind: you can’t prosecute her for it - or I’ve no doubt you would; none at all. Some men would do anything. What?
“You’ve a bit of a headache?
“I hope you have - and a good bit, too. You’ve been to the right place for it. No - I won’t hold my tongue. It’s all very well for you men to go to taverns - and talk - and toast - and hurrah - and - I wonder you’re not all ashamed of yourselves to drink the Queen’s health with all the honours, I believe, you call it - yes, pretty honours you pay to the sex - I say, I wonder you’re not ashamed to drink that blessed creature’s health, when you’ve only to think how you use your own wives at home. But the hypocrites that the men are - oh!
“Where’s your watch?
“Haven’t I told you? It’s under your pillow - there, you needn’t be feeling for it. I tell you it’s under your pillow.
“It’s all right?
“Yes; a great deal you know of what’s right just now! Ha! was there ever any poor soul used as I am!
“I’m a dear creature?
“Pah! Mr. Caudle! I’ve only to say, I’m tired of your conduct - quite tired, and don’t care how soon there’s an end of it.
“Why did I take your cheque-book?
“I’ve told you - to save you from ruin, Mr. Caudle.
“You’re not going to be ruined?
“Ha! you don’t know anything when you’re out! I know what they do at those public dinners - charities, they call ’em; pretty charities! True Charity, I believe, always dines at home. I know what they do: the whole system’s a trick. No: I’m not a stony-hearted creature: and you ought to be ashamed to say so of your wife and the mother of your children, - but you’ll not make me cry to-night, I can tell you - I was going to say that - oh! you’re such an aggravating man I don’t know what I was going to say!
“Thank Heaven?
“What for? I don’t see that there’s anything to thank Heaven about! I was going to say, I know the trick of public dinners. They get a lord, or a duke, if they can catch him - anything to make people say they dined with nobility, that’s it - yes, they get one of these people, with a star perhaps in his coat, to take the chair - and to talk all sorts of sugar-plum things about charity - and to make foolish men, with wine in ’em, feel that they’ve no end of money; and then - shutting their eyes to their wives and families at home - all the while that their own faces are red and flushed like poppies, and they think to-morrow will never come - then they get ’em to put their hand to paper. Then they make ’em pull out their cheques. But I took your book, Mr. Caudle - you couldn’t do it a second time. What are you laughing at?
“Nothing?
“It’s no matter: I shall see it in the paper to-morrow; for if you gave anything, you were too proud to hide it. I know your charity.
“Where’s your watch?
“Haven’t I told you fifty times where it is? In the pocket - over your head - of course. Can’t you hear it tick? No: you can hear nothing to-night.
“And now, Mr. Caudle, I should like to know whose hat you’ve brought home? You went out with a beaver worth three-and-twenty shillings - the second time you’ve worn it - and you bring home a thing that no Jew in his senses would give me fivepence for. I couldn’t even get a pot of primroses - and you know I always turn your old hats into roots - not a pot of primroses for it. I’m certain of it now - I’ve often thought it - but now I’m sure that some people dine out only to change their hats.
“Where’s your watch?
“Caudle, you’re bringing me to an early grave!”
We hope that Caudle was penitent for his conduct; indeed, there is, we think, evidence that he was so: for to this lecture he has appended no comment. The man had not the face to do it.
LECTURE XXI - MR. CAUDLE HAS NOT ACTED “LIKE A HUSBAND” AT THE WEDDING DINNER
“Ah, me! It’s no use wishing - none at all: but I do wish that yesterday fourteen years could come back again. Little did I think, Mr. Caudle, when you brought me home from church, your lawful wedded wife - little, I say, did I think that I should keep my wedding dinner in the manner I have done to-day. Fourteen years ago! Yes, I see you now, in your blue coat with bright buttons, and your white watered-satin waistcoat, and a moss-rose bud in your button-hole, which you said was like me. What?
“You never talked such nonsense?
“Ha! Mr. Caudle, you don’t know what you talked that day - but I do. Yes; and you then sat at the table as if your face, as I may say, was buttered with happiness, and - What? No, Mr. Caudle, don’t say that; I have not wiped the butter off - not I. If you above all men are not happy, you ought to be, gracious knows!
“Yes, I will talk of fourteen years ago. Ha! you sat beside me then, and picked out all sorts of nice things for me. You’d have given me pearls and diamonds to eat if I could have swallowed ’em. Yes, I say, you sat beside me, and - What do you talk about?
“You couldn’t sit beside me to-day?
“That’s nothing at all to do with it. But it’s so like you. I can’t speak but you fly off to something else. Ha! and when the health of the young couple was drunk, what a speech you made then! It was delicious! How you made everybody cry as if their hearts were breaking; and I recollect it as if it was yesterday, how the tears ran down dear father’s nose, and how dear mother nearly went into a fit! Dear souls! They little thought, with all your fine talk, how you’d use me.
“How have you used me?
“Oh, Mr. Caudle, how can you ask that question? It’s well for you I can’t see you blush. How have you used me?
“Well, that the same tongue could make a speech like that, and then talk as it did to-day!
“How did you talk?
“Why, shamefully! What did you say about your wedded happiness? Why, nothing. What did you say about your wife? Worse than nothing: just as if she were a bargain you were sorry for, but were obliged to make the best of. What do you say?
“And bad’s the best?
“If you say that again, Caudle, I’ll rise from my bed.
“You didn’t say it?
“What, then, did you say? Something very like it, I know. Yes, a pretty speech of thanks for a husband! And everybody could see that you didn’t care a pin for me; and that’s why you had ’em here: that’s why you invited ’em, to insult me to their faces. What?
“I made you invite ’em?
“Oh, Caudle, what an aggravating man you are!
“I suppose you’ll say next I made you invite Miss Prettyman? Oh yes; don’t tell me that her brother brought her without you knowing it. What?
“Didn’t I hear him say so?
“Of course I did; but do you suppose I’m quite a fool? Do you think I don’t know that that was all settled between you? And she must be a nice person to come unasked to a woman’s house? But I know why she came. Oh yes; she came to look about her.
“Oh, the meaning’s plain enough. - She came to see how she should like the rooms - how she should like my seat at the fireplace; how she - and if it isn’t enough to break a mother’s heart to be treated so! - how she should like my dear children.
“Now, it’s no use your bouncing about at - but of course that’s it; I can’t mention Miss Prettyman but you fling about as if you were in a fit. Of course that shows there’s something in it. Otherwise, why should you disturb yourself? Do you think I didn’t see her looking at the ciphers on the spoons as if she already saw mine scratched out and hers there? No, I sha’n’t drive you mad, Mr. Caudle; and if I do it’s your own fault. No other man would treat the wife of his bosom in - What do you say?
“You might as well have married a hedgehog?
“Well, now it’s come to something! But it’s always the case! Whenever you’ve seen that Miss Prettyman, I’m sure to be abused. A hedgehog! A pretty thing for a woman to be called by her husband! Now you don’t think I’ll lie quietly in bed, and be called a hedgehog - do you, Mr. Caudle?
“Well, I only hope Miss Prettyman had a good dinner, that’s all. I had none! You know I had none - how was I to get any? You know that the only part of the turkey I care for is the merry-thought. And that, of course, went to Miss Prettyman. Oh, I saw you laugh when you put it on her plate! And you don’t suppose, after such an insult as that, I’d taste another thing upon the table? No, I should hope I have more spirit than that. Yes; and you took wine with her four times. What do you say?
“Only twice?
“Oh, you were so lost - fascinated, Mr. Caudle; yes, fascinated - that you didn’t know what you did. However, I do think while I’m alive I might be treated with respect at my own table. I say, while I’m alive; for I know I sha’n’t last long, and then Miss Prettyman may come and take it all. I’m wasting daily, and no wonder. I never say anything about it, but every week my gowns are taken in.
“I’ve lived to learn something, to be sure! Miss Prettyman turned up her nose at my custards. It isn’t sufficient that you are always finding fault yourself, but you must bring women home to sneer at me at my own table. What do you say?
“She didn’t turn up her nose?
“I know she did; not but what it’s needless - Providence has turned it up quite enough for her already. And she must give herself airs over my custards! Oh, I saw her mincing with the spoon as if she was chewing sand. What do you say?
“She praised my plum-pudding?
“Who asked her to praise it? Like her impudence, I think!
“Yes, a pretty day I’ve passed. I shall not forget this wedding-day, I think! And as I say, a pretty speech you made in the way of thanks. No, Caudle, if I was to live a hundred years - you needn’t groan, Mr. Caudle, I shall not trouble you half that time - if I was to live a hundred years, I should never forget it. Never! You didn’t even so much as bring one of your children into your speech. And - dear creatures! - what have they done to offend you? No; I shall not drive you mad. It’s you, Mr. Caudle, who’ll drive me mad. Everybody says so.
“And you suppose I didn’t see how it was managed that you and that Miss Prettyman were always partners at whist?
“How was it managed?
“Why, plain enough. Of course you packed the cards, and could cut what you liked. You’d settled that between you. Yes; and when she took a trick, instead of leading off a trump - she play whist, indeed! - what did you say to her, when she found it was wrong? Oh - it was impossible that her heart should mistake! And this, Mr. Caudle, before people - with your own wife in the room!
“And Miss Prettyman - I won’t hold my tongue. I will talk of Miss Prettyman: who’s she, indeed, that I shouldn’t talk of her? I suppose she thinks she sings? What do you say?
“She sings like a mermaid?
“Yes, very - very like a mermaid; for she never sings but she exposes herself. She might, I think, have chosen another song. ‘I love somebody,’ indeed; as if I didn’t know who was meant by that ‘somebody’; and all the room knew it, of course; and that was what it was done for, nothing else.
“However, Mr. Caudle, as my mind’s made up, I shall say no more about the matter to-night, but try to go to sleep.”
“And to my astonishment and gratitude,” writes Caudle, “she kept her word.”
LECTURE XXII - CAUDLE COMES HOME IN THE EVENING, AS MRS. CAUDLE HAS “JUST STEPPED OUT, SHOPPING.” ON HER RETURN, AT TEN, CAUDLE REMONSTRATES
“Mr. Caudle, you ought to have had a slave - yes, a black slave, and not a wife. I’m sure, I’d better been born a negro at once - much better.
“What’s the matter now?
“Well, I like that. Upon my life, Mr. Caudle, that’s very cool. I can’t leave the house just to buy a yard of riband, but you storm enough to carry the roof off.
“You didn’t storm? you only spoke?
“Spoke, indeed! No, sir: I’ve not such superfine feelings; and I don’t cry out before I’m hurt. But you ought to have married a woman of stone, for you feel for nobody: that is, for nobody in your own house. I only wish you’d show some of your humanity at home, if ever so little - that’s all.
“What do you say?
“Where’s my feelings, to go shopping at night?
“When would you have me go? In the broiling sun, making my face like a gipsy’s? I don’t see anything to laugh at, Mr. Caudle; but you think of anybody’s face before your wife’s. Oh, that’s plain enough; and all the world can see it. I dare say, now, if it was Miss Prettyman’s face - now, now, Mr. Caudle! What are you throwing yourself about for? I suppose Miss Prettyman isn’t so wonderful a person that she isn’t to be named? I suppose she’s flesh and blood. What?
“You don’t know?
“Ha! I don’t know that.
“What, Mr. Caudle?
“You’ll have a separate room - you’ll not be tormented in this manner?
“No, you won’t, sir - not while I’m alive. A separate room! And you call yourself a religious man, Mr. Caudle. I’d advise you to take down the Prayer Book, and read over the Marriage Service. A separate room, indeed! Caudle, you’re getting quite a heathen. A separate room! Well, the servants would talk then! But no: no man - not the best that ever trod, Caudle - should ever make me look so contemptible.
“I sha’n’t go to sleep; and you ought to know me better than to ask me to hold my tongue. Because you come home when I’ve just stepped out to do a little shopping, you’re worse than a fury. I should like to know how many hours I sit up for you? What do you say?
“Nobody wants me to sit up?
“Ha! that’s like the gratitude of men - just like ’em! But a poor woman can’t leave the house, that - what?
“Why can’t I go at reasonable hours?
“Reasonable! What do you call eight o’clock? If I went out at eleven and twelve, as you come home, then you might talk; but seven or eight o’clock - why, it’s the cool of the evening; the nicest time to enjoy a walk; and, as I say, do a little bit of shopping. Oh yes, Mr. Caudle, I do think of the people that are kept in the shops just as much as you; but that’s nothing at all to do with it. I know what you’d have. You’d have all those young men let away early from the counter to improve what you please to call their minds. Pretty notions you pick up among a set of free-thinkers, and I don’t know what! When I was a girl, people never talked of minds - intellect, I believe you call it. Nonsense! a new-fangled thing, just come up; and the sooner it goes out, the better.
“Don’t tell me! What are shops for, if they’re not to be open late and early too? And what are shopmen, if they’re not always to attend upon their customers? People pay for what they have, I suppose, and aren’t to be told when they shall come and lay their money out, and when they sha’n’t? Thank goodness! if one shop shuts, another keeps open; and I always think it a duty I owe to myself to go to the shop that’s open last: it’s the only way to punish the shopkeepers that are idle, and give themselves airs about early hours.
“Besides, there’s some things I like to buy best at candle-light. Oh, don’t talk to me about humanity! Humanity, indeed, for a pack of tall, strapping young fellows - some of ’em big enough to be shown for giants! And what have they to do? Why nothing, but to stand behind a counter, and talk civility. Yes, I know your notions; you say that everybody works too much: I know that. You’d have all the world do nothing half its time but twiddle its thumbs, or walk in the parks, or go to picture-galleries, and museums, and such nonsense. Very fine, indeed; but, thank goodness! the world isn’t come to that pass yet.
“What do you say I am, Mr. Caudle?
“A foolish woman, that can’t look beyond my own fireside?
“Oh yes, I can; quite as far as you, and a great deal farther. But I can’t go out shopping a little with my dear friend Mrs. Wittles - what do you laugh at? Oh, don’t they? Don’t women know what friendship is? Upon my life, you’ve a nice opinion of us! Oh yes, we can - we can look outside of our own fenders, Mr. Caudle. And if we can’t, it’s all the better for our families. A blessed thing it would be for their wives and children if men couldn’t either. You wouldn’t have lent that five pounds - and I dare say a good many other five pounds that I know nothing of - if you - a lord of the creation! - had half the sense women have. You seldom catch us, I believe, lending five pounds. I should think not.
“No: we won’t talk of it to-morrow morning. You’re not going to wound my feelings when I come home, and think I’m to say nothing about it. You have called me an inhuman person; you have said I have no thought, no feeling for the health and comfort of my fellow-creatures; I don’t know what you haven’t called me; and only for buying a - but I sha’n’t tell you what; no, I won’t satisfy you there - but you’ve abused me in this manner, and only for shopping up to ten o’clock. You’ve a great deal of fine compassion, you have! I’m sure the young man that served me could have knocked down an ox; yes, strong enough to lift a house: but you can pity him - oh yes, you can be all kindness for him, and for the world, as you call it. Oh, Caudle, what a hypocrite you are! I only wish the world knew how you treated your poor wife!
“What do you say?
“For the love of mercy let you sleep?
“Mercy, indeed! I wish you could show a little of it to other people. Oh yes, I do know what mercy means; but that’s no reason I should go shopping a bit earlier than I do - and I won’t. No; you’ve preached this over to me again and again; you’ve made me go to meetings to hear about it: but that’s no reason women shouldn’t shop just as late as they choose. It’s all very fine, as I say, for you men to talk to us at meetings, where, of course, we smile and all that - and sometimes shake our white pocket-handkerchiefs - and where you say we have the power of early hours in our own hands. To be sure we have; and we mean to keep it. That is, I do. You’ll never catch me shopping till the very last thing; and - as a matter of principle - I’ll always go to the shop that keeps open latest. It does the young men good to keep ’em close to business. Improve their minds indeed! Let ’em out at seven, and they’d improve nothing but their billiards. Besides, if they want to improve themselves, can’t they get up, this fine weather, at three? Where there’s a will, there’s a way, Mr. Caudle.”
“I thought,” writes Caudle, “that she had gone to sleep. In this hope, I was dozing off when she jogged me, and thus declared herself: ‘Caudle, you want nightcaps; but see if I budge to buy ’em till nine at night!”
LECTURE XXIII - MRS. CAUDLE “WISHES TO KNOW IF THEY’RE GOING TO THE SEA-SIDE, OR NOT, THIS SUMMER - THAT’S ALL”
“Hot? Yes, it is hot. I’m sure one might as well be in an oven as in town this weather. You seem to forget it’s July, Mr. Caudle. I’ve been waiting quietly - have never spoken; yet, not a word have you said of the seaside yet. Not that I care for it myself - oh, no; my health isn’t of the slightest consequence. And, indeed, I was going to say - but I won’t - that the sooner, perhaps, I’m out of this world, the better. Oh, yes; I dare say you think so - of course you do, else you wouldn’t lie there saying nothing. You’re enough to aggravate a saint, Caudle; but you shan’t vex me. No; I’ve made up my mind, and never intend to let you vex me again. Why should I worry myself?
“But all I want to ask you is this: do you intend to go to the sea-side this summer?
“Yes? you’ll go to Gravesend?
“Then you’ll go alone, that’s all I know. Gravesend! You might as well empty a salt-cellar in the New River, and call that the sea-side. What?
“It’s handy for business?
“There you are again! I can never speak of taking a little enjoyment, but you fling business in my teeth. I’m sure you never let business stand in the way of your own pleasure, Mr. Caudle - not you. It would be all the better for your family if you did.
“You know that Matilda wants sea-bathing; you know it, or ought to know it, by the looks of the child; and yet - I know you, Caudle - you’d have let the summer pass over, and never said a word about the matter. What do you say?
“Margate’s so expensive?
“Not at all. I’m sure it will be cheaper for us in the end; for if we don’t go, we shall all be ill - every one of us - in the winter. Not that my health is of any consequence: I know that well enough. It never was yet. You know Margate’s the only place I can eat a breakfast at, and yet you talk of Gravesend! But what’s my eating to you? You wouldn’t care if I never ate at all. You never watch my appetite like any other husband, otherwise you’d have seen what it’s come to.
“What do you say?
“How much will it cost?
“There you are, Mr. Caudle, with your meanness again. When you want to go yourself to Blackwall or to Greenwich you never ask, how much will it cost? What?
“You never go to Blackwall?
“Ha! I don’t know that; and if you don’t, that’s nothing at all to do with it. Yes, you can give a guinea a plate for whitebait for yourself. No, sir: I’m not a foolish woman: and I know very well what I’m talking about - nobody better. A guinea for whitebait for yourself, when you grudge a pint of shrimps for your poor family. Eh?
“You don’t grudge ’em anything?
“Yes, it’s very well for you to lie there and say so.
“What will it cost?
“It’s no matter what it will cost, for we won’t go at all now. No; we’ll stay at home. We shall all be ill in the winter - every one of us, all but you; and nothing ever makes you ill. I’ve no doubt we shall all be laid up, and there’ll be a doctor’s bill as long as a railroad; but never mind that. It’s better - much better - to pay for nasty physic than for fresh air and wholesome salt water. Don’t call me ‘woman,’ and ask ‘what it will cost.’ I tell you, if you were to lay the money down before me on that quilt, I wouldn’t go now - certainly not. It’s better we should all be sick; yes, then you’ll be pleased.
“That’s right, Mr. Caudle; go to sleep. It’s like your unfeeling self! I’m talking of our all being laid up; and you, like any stone, turn round and begin to go to sleep. Well, I think that’s a pretty insult!
“How can you sleep with such a splinter in your flesh?
“I suppose you mean to call me the splinter? - and after the wife I’ve been to you! But no, Mr. Caudle, you may call me what you please; you’ll not make me cry now. No, no; I don’t throw away my tears upon any such person now.
“What?
“Don’t?
“Ha! that’s your ingratitude! But none of you men deserve that any woman should love you. My poor heart!
“Everybody else can go out of town except us. Ha! If I’d only married Simmons - What?
“Why didn’t I?
“Yes, that’s all the thanks I get.
“Who’s Simmons?
“Oh, you know very well who Simmons is. He’d have treated me a little better, I think. He was a gentleman.
“You can’t tell?
“May be not: but I can. With such weather as this, to stay melting in London; and when the painters are coming in!
“You won’t have the painters in?
“But you must; and if they once come in, I’m determined that none of us shall stir then. Painting in July, with a family in the house! We shall all be poisoned, of course; but what do you care for that?
“Why can’t I tell you what it will cost?
“How can I or any woman tell exactly what it will cost? Of course lodgings - and at Margate, too - are a little dearer than living at your own house.
“Pooh! You know that?
“Well, if you did, Mr. Caudle, I suppose there’s no treason in naming it. Still, if you take ’em for two months, they’re cheaper than for one. No, Mr. Caudle, I shall not be quite tired of it in one month. No: and it isn’t true that I no sooner get out than I want to get home again. To be sure, I was tired of Margate three years ago, when you used to leave me to walk about the beach by myself, to be stared at through all sorts of telescopes. But you don’t do that again, Mr. Caudle, I can tell you.
“What will I do at Margate?
“Why, isn’t there bathing, and picking up shells; and aren’t there the packets, with the donkeys; and the last new novel, whatever it is, to read? - for the only place where I really relish a book is at the sea-side. No; it isn’t that I like salt with my reading, Mr. Caudle! I suppose you call that a joke? You might keep your jokes for the daytime, I think. But as I was saying - only you always will interrupt me - the ocean always seems to me to open the mind. I see nothing to laugh at; but you always laugh when I say anything. Sometimes at the sea-side - especially when the tide’s down - I feel so happy: quite as if I could cry.
“When shall I get the things ready? For next Sunday?
“What will it cost?
“Oh, there - don’t talk of it. No: we won’t go. I shall send for the painters to-morrow. What?
“I can go and take the children, and you’ll stay?
“No, sir: you go with me, or I don’t stir. I’m not going to be turned loose like a hen with her chickens, and nobody to protect me. So we’ll go on Monday? Eh?
“What will it cost?
“What a man you are! Why, Caudle, I’ve been reckoning that, with buff slippers and all, we can’t well do it under seventy pounds. No; I won’t take away the slippers and say fifty. It’s seventy pounds and no less. Of course, what’s over will be so much saved. Caudle, what a man you are! Well, shall we go on Monday? What do you say -
“You’ll see?
“There’s a dear. Then, Monday.”
“Anything for a chance of peace,” writes Caudle. “I consented to the trip, for I thought I might sleep better in a change of bed.”
LECTURE XXIV - MRS. CAUDLE DWELLS ON CAUDLE’S “CRUEL NEGLECT” OF HER ON BOARD THE “RED ROVER.” MRS. CAUDLE SO “ILL WITH THE SEA,” THAT THEY PUT UP AT THE DOLPHIN, HERNE BAY.
“Caudle, have you looked under the bed?
“What for?
“Bless the man! Why, for thieves, to be sure. Do you suppose I’d sleep in a strange bed without? Don’t tell me it’s nonsense! I shouldn’t sleep a wink all night. Not that you’d care for that; not that you’d - hush! I’m sure I heard somebody. No; it’s not a bit like a mouse. Yes; that’s like you - laugh. It would be no laughing matter if - I’m sure there is somebody! - I’m sure there is!
“ - Yes, Mr. Caudle; now I am satisfied. Any other man would have got up and looked himself; especially after my sufferings on board that nasty ship. But catch you stirring! Oh, no! You’d let me lie here and be robbed and killed, for what you’d care. Why you’re not going to sleep? What do you say?
“It’s the strange air - and you’re always sleepy in a strange air?
“That shows the feelings you have, after what I’ve gone through. And yawning, too, in that brutal manner! Caudle, you’ve no more heart than that wooden figure in a white petticoat at the front of the ship.
“No; I couldn’t leave my temper at home. I dare say! Because for once in your life you’ve brought me out - yes, I say once, or two or three times, it isn’t more; because, as I say, you once bring me out, I’m to be a slave and say nothing. Pleasure, indeed! A great deal of pleasure I’m to have, if I’m told to hold my tongue. A nice way that of pleasing a woman.
“Dear me! if the bed doesn’t spin round and dance about! I’ve got all that filthy ship in my head! No: I sha’n’t be well in the morning. But nothing ever ails anybody but yourself. You needn’t groan in that way, Mr. Caudle, disturbing the people, perhaps, in the next room. It’s a mercy I’m alive, I’m sure. If once I wouldn’t have given all the world for anybody to have thrown me overboard! What are you smacking your lips at, Mr. Caudle? But I know what you mean - of course, you’d never have stirred to stop ’em; not you. And then you might have known that the wind would have blown to-day; but that’s why you came.
“Whatever I should have done if it hadn’t been for that good soul - that blessed Captain Large! I’m sure all the women who go to Margate ought to pray for him; so attentive in sea-sickness, and so much of a gentleman! How I should have got down stairs without him when I first began to turn, I don’t know. Don’t tell me I never complained to you; you might have seen I was ill. And when everybody was looking like a bad wax-candle, you could walk about, and make what you call your jokes upon the little buoy that was never sick at the Nore, and such unfeeling trash.
“Yes, Caudle; we’ve now been married many years, but if we were to live together for a thousand years to come - what are you clasping your hands at? - a thousand years to come, I say, I shall never forget your conduct this day. You could go to the other end of the ship and smoke a cigar, when you knew I should be ill - oh, you knew it; for I always am. The brutal way, too, in which you took that cold brandy-and-water - you thought I didn’t see you; but ill as I was, hardly able to hold my head up, I was watching you all the time. Three glasses of cold brandy-and-water; and you sipped ’em, and drank the health of people who you didn’t care a pin about; whilst the health of your own lawful wife was nothing. Three glasses of brandy-and-water, and I left - as I may say - alone! You didn’t hear ’em, but everybody was crying shame of you.
“What do you say?
“A good deal my own fault? I took too much dinner?
“Well, you are a man! If I took more than the breast and leg of that young goose - a thing, I may say, just out of the shell - with the slightest bit of stuffing, I’m a wicked woman. What do you say?
“Lobster salad?
“La! - how can you speak of it? A month-old baby would have eaten more. What?
“Gooseberry pie?
“Well, if you’ll name that you’ll name anything. Ate too much indeed! Do you think I was going to pay for a dinner, and eat nothing? No, Mr. Caudle; it’s a good thing for you that I know a little more of the value of money than that.
“But, of course, you were better engaged than in attending to me. Mr. Prettyman came on board at Gravesend. A planned thing, of course. You think I didn’t see him give you a letter.
“It wasn’t a letter; it was a newspaper?
“I daresay; ill as I was, I had my eyes. It was the smallest newspaper I ever saw, that’s all. But of course, a letter from Miss Prettyman - Now, Caudle, if you begin to cry out in that manner, I’ll get up. Do you forget that you are not at your own house? making that noise! Disturbing everybody! Why, we shall have the landlord up! And you could smoke and drink ‘forward,’ as you called it. What?
“You couldn’t smoke anywhere else?
“That’s nothing to do with it. Yes; forward. What a pity that Miss Prettyman wasn’t with you! I’m sure nothing could be too forward for her. No, I won’t hold my tongue; and I ought not to be ashamed of myself. It isn’t treason, is it, to speak of Miss Prettyman? After all I’ve suffered to-day, and I’m not to open my lips! Yes; I’m to be brought away from my own home, dragged down here to the sea-side, and made ill! and I’m not to speak. I should like to know what next.
“It’s a mercy some of the dear children were not drowned; not that their father would have cared, so long as he could have had his brandy and cigars. Peter was as near through one of the holes as -
“It’s no such thing?
“It’s very well for you to say so, but you know what an inquisitive boy he is, and how he likes to wander among steam-engines. No, I won’t let you sleep. What a man you are! What?
“I’ve said that before?
“That’s no matter; I’ll say it again. Go to sleep, indeed! as if one could never have a little rational conversation. No, I sha’n’t be too late for the Margate boat in the morning; I can wake up at what hour I like, and you ought to know that by this time.
“A miserable creature they must have thought me in the ladies’ cabin, with nobody coming down to see how I was.
“You came a dozen times?
“No, Caudle, that won’t do. I know better. You never came at all. Oh, no! cigars and brandy took all your attention. And when I was so ill, that I didn’t know a single thing that was going on about me, and you never came. Every other woman’s husband was there - ha! twenty times. And what must have been my feelings to hear ’em tapping at the door, and making all sorts of kind inquiries - something like husbands and I was left to be ill alone? Yes; and you want to get me into an argument. You want to know, if I was so ill that I knew nothing, how could I know that you didn’t come to the cabin-door? That’s just like your aggravating way; but I’m not to be caught in that manner, Caudle. No.”
“It is very possible,” writes Caudle, “that she talked two hours more, but, happily, the wind got suddenly up - the waves bellowed - and, soothed by the sweet lullaby (to say nothing of the Dolphin’s brandy-and-water) I somehow sank to repose.”
LECTURE XXV - MRS. CAUDLE, WEARIED OF MARGATE, HAS “A GREAT DESIRE TO SEE FRANCE.”
“Bless me! aren’t you tired, Caudle?
“No?
“Well, was there ever such a man! But nothing ever tires you. Of course, it’s all very well for you: yes, you can read your newspapers and - What?
“So can I?
“And I wonder what would become of the children if I did! No; it’s enough for their father to lose his precious time, talking about politics, and bishops, and lords, and a pack of people who wouldn’t care a pin if we hadn’t a roof to cover us - it’s well enough for - no, Caudle, no: I’m not going to worry you; I never worried you yet, and it isn’t likely I should begin now. But that’s always the way with you - always. I’m sure we should be the happiest couple alive, only you do so like to have all the talk to yourself. We’re out upon pleasure, and therefore let’s be comfortable. Still, I must say it: when you like, you’re an aggravating man, Caudle, and you know it.
“What have you done now?
“There, now; we won’t talk of it. No; let’s go to sleep: otherwise we shall quarrel - I know we shall. What have you done, indeed! That I can’t leave my home for a few days, but I must be insulted! Everybody upon the pier saw it.
“Saw what?
“How can you lie there in the bed and ask me? Saw what, indeed! Of course it was a planned thing! - regularly settled before you left London. Oh yes! I like your innocence, Mr. Caudle; not knowing what I’m talking about. It’s a heart-breaking thing for a woman to say of her own husband; but you’ve been a wicked man to me. Yes: and all your tossing and tumbling about in the bed won’t make it any better.
“Oh, it’s easy enough to call a woman ‘a dear soul.’ I must be very dear, indeed, to you, when you bring down Miss Prettyman to - there now; you needn’t shout like a wild savage. Do you know that you’re not in your own house - do you know that we’re in lodgings? What do you suppose the people will think of us? You needn’t call out in that manner, for they can hear every word that’s said. What do you say?
“Why don’t I hold my tongue then?
“To be sure; anything for an excuse with you. Anything to stop my mouth. Miss Prettyman’s to follow you here, and I’m to say nothing. I know she has followed you; and if you were to go before a magistrate, and take a shilling oath to the contrary, I wouldn’t believe you. No, Caudle; I wouldn’t.
“Very well, then?
“Ha! what a heart you must have, to say ‘very well’; and after the wife I’ve been to you. I’m to be brought from my own home - dragged down here to the sea-side - to be laughed at before the world - don’t tell me. Do you think I didn’t see how she looked at you - how she puckered up her farthing mouth - and - what?
“Why did I kiss her, then?
“What’s that to do with it? Appearances are one thing, Mr. Caudle; and feelings are another. As if women can’t kiss one another without meaning anything by it! And you - I could see you looked as cold and as formal at her as - well, Caudle! I wouldn’t be the hypocrite you are for the world!
“There, now; I’ve heard all that story. I daresay she did come down to join her brother. How very lucky, though, that you should be here! Ha! ha! how very lucky that - ugh! ugh! ugh! and with the cough I’ve got upon me - oh, you’ve a heart like a sea-side flint! Yes, that’s right. That’s just like your humanity. I can’t catch a cold, but it must be my own fault - it must be my thin shoes. I daresay you’d like to see me in ploughman’s boots; ’twould be no matter to you how I disfigured myself. Miss Prettyman’s foot, now, would be another thing - no doubt.
“I thought when you would make me leave home - I thought we were coming here on pleasure: but it’s always the way you embitter my life. The sooner that I’m out of the world the better. What do you say?
“Nothing?
“But I know what you mean, better than if you talked an hour. I only hope you’ll get a better wife, that’s all, Mr. Caudle. What?
“You’d not try?
“Wouldn’t you? I know you. In six months you’d fill up my place; yes, and dreadfully my dear children would suffer for it.
“Caudle, if you roar in that way, the people will give us warning to-morrow.
“Can’t I be quiet, then?
“Yes - that’s like your artfulness: anything to make me hold my tongue. But we won’t quarrel. I’m sure if it depended upon me, we might be as happy as doves. I mean it - and you needn’t groan when I say it. Good-night, Caudle. What do you say?
“Bless me!
“Well, you are a dear soul, Caudle; and if it wasn’t for that Miss Prettyman - no, I’m not torturing you. I know very well what I’m doing, and I wouldn’t torture you for the world; but you don’t know what the feelings of a wife are, Caudle; you don’t.
“Caudle - I say, Caudle. Just a word, dear.
“Well?
“Now, why should you snap me up in that way?
“You want to go to sleep?
“So do I; but that’s no reason you should speak to me in that manner. You know, dear, you once promised to take me to France.
“You don’t recollect it?
“Yes - that’s like you; you don’t recollect many things you’ve promised me; but I do. There’s a boat goes on Wednesday to Boulogne, and comes back the day afterwards.
“What of it?
“Why, for that time we could leave the children with the girls, and go nicely.
“Nonsense?
“Of course; if I want anything it’s always nonsense. Other men can take their wives half over the world; but you think it quite enough to bring me down here to this hole of a place, where I know every pebble on the beach like an old acquaintance - where there’s nothing to be seen but the same machines - the same jetty - the same donkeys - the same everything. But then, I’d forgot; Margate has an attraction for you - Miss Prettyman’s here. No; I’m not censorious, and I wouldn’t backbite an angel; but the way in which that young woman walks the sands at all hours - there! there! - I’ve done: I can’t open my lips about that creature but you always storm.
“You know that I always wanted to go to France; and you bring me down here only on purpose that I should see the French cliffs - just to tantalise me, and for nothing else. If I’d remained at home - and it was against my will I ever came here - I should never have thought of France; but - to have it staring in one’s face all day, and not be allowed to go! it’s worse than cruel, Mr. Caudle - it’s brutal. Other people can take their wives to Paris; but you always keep me moped up at home. And what for? Why, that I may know nothing - yes; just on purpose to make me look little, and for nothing else.
“Heaven bless the woman?
“Ha! you’ve good reason to say that, Mr. Caudle; for I’m sure she’s little blessed by you. She’s been kept a prisoner all her life - has never gone anywhere - oh yes! that’s your old excuse, - talking of the children. I want to go to France, and I should like to know what the children have to do with it? They’re not babies now - are they? But you’ve always thrown the children in my face. If Miss Prettyman - there now; do you hear what you’ve done - shouting in that manner? The other lodgers are knocking overhead: who do you think will have the face to look at ’em to-morrow morning? I sha’n’t - breaking people’s rest in that way!
“Well, Caudle - I declare it’s getting daylight, and what an obstinate man you are! - tell me, shall I go to France?”