“I forget,” says Caudle, “my precise answer; but I think I gave her a very wide permission to go somewhere, whereupon, though not without remonstrance as to the place - she went to sleep.”
LECTURE XXVI - MRS. CAUDLE’S FIRST NIGHT IN FRANCE - “SHAMEFUL INDIFFERENCE” OF CAUDLE AT THE BOULOGNE CUSTOM HOUSE
“I suppose, Mr. Caudle, you call yourself a man? I’m sure such men should never have wives. If I could have thought it possible you’d have behaved as you have done - and I might, if I hadn’t been a forgiving creature, for you’ve never been like anybody else - if I could only have thought it, you’d never have dragged me to foreign parts. Never! Well, I did say to myself, if he goes to France, perhaps he may catch a little politeness - but no; you began as Caudle, and as Caudle you’ll end. I’m to be neglected through life, now. Oh yes! I’ve quite given up all thoughts of anything but wretchedness - I’ve made up my mind to misery, now.
“You’re glad of it?
“Well, you must have a heart to say that. I declare to you, Caudle, as true as I’m an ill-used woman, if it wasn’t for the dear children far away in blessed England - if it wasn’t for them, I’d never go back with you. No: I’d leave you in this very place. Yes; I’d go into a convent; for a lady on board told me there was plenty of ’em here. I’d go and be a nun for the rest of my days, and - I see nothing to laugh at, Mr. Caudle; that you should be shaking the bed-things up and down in that way. But you always laugh at people’s feelings; I wish you’d only some yourself. I’d be a nun, or a Sister of Charity.
“Impossible?
“Ha! Mr. Caudle, you don’t know even now what I can be when my blood’s up. You’ve trod upon the worm long enough; some day won’t you be sorry for it!
“Now, none of your profane cryings out! You needn’t talk about Heaven in that way: I’m sure you’re the last person who ought. What I say is this. Your conduct at the Custom House was shameful - cruel! And in a foreign land, too! But you brought me here that I might be insulted; you’d no other reason for dragging me from England. Ha! let me once get home, Mr. Caudle, and you may wear your tongue out before you get me into outlandish places again.
“What have you done?
“There, now; that’s where you’re so aggravating. You behave worse than any Turk to me, - what?
“You wish you were a Turk?
“Well, I think that’s a pretty wish before your lawful wife! Yes - a nice Turk you’d make, wouldn’t you? Don’t think it.
“What have you done?
“Well, it’s a good thing I can’t see you, for I’m sure you must blush. Done, indeed!
“Why, when the brutes searched my basket at the Custom House!
“A regular thing, is it?
“Then if you knew that, why did you bring me here? No man who respected his wife would. And you could stand by, and see that fellow with mustachios rummage my basket; and pull out my night-cap and rumple the borders, and - well! if you’d had the proper feelings of a husband, your blood would have boiled again. But no! There you stood looking as mild as butter at the man, and never said a word; not when he crumpled my night-cap - it went to my heart like a stab - crumpled it as if it were any duster. I dare say if it had been Miss Prettyman’s night-cap - oh, I don’t care about your groaning - if it had been her night-cap, her hair-brush her curl-papers, you’d have said something then. Oh, anybody with the spirit of a man would have spoken out if the fellow had had a thousand swords at his side. Well, all I know is this: if I’d have married somebody I could name, he wouldn’t have suffered me to be treated in that way, not he!
“Now, don’t hope to go to sleep, Mr. Caudle, and think to silence me in that manner. I know your art, but it won’t do. It wasn’t enough that my basket was turned topsy-turvy, but before I knew it, they spun me into another room, and -
“How could you help that?
“You never tried to help it. No; although it was a foreign land, and I don’t speak French - not but what I know a good deal more of it than some people who give themselves airs about it - though I don’t speak their nasty gibberish, still you let them take me away, and never cared how I was ever to find you again. In a strange country, too! But I’ve no doubt that that’s what you wished: yes, you’d have been glad enough to have got rid of me in that cowardly manner. If I could only know your secret thoughts, Caudle, that’s what you brought me here for, to lose me. And after the wife I’ve been to you!
“What are you crying out?
“For mercy’s sake?
“Yes; a great deal you know about mercy! Else you’d never have suffered me to be twisted into that room. To be searched, indeed! As if I’d anything smuggled about me. Well, I will say it, after the way in which I’ve been used, if you’d the proper feelings of a man, you wouldn’t sleep again for six months. Well, I know there was nobody but women there; but that’s nothing to do with it. I’m sure, if I’d been taken up for picking pockets, they couldn’t have used me worse. To be treated so - and ’specially by one’s own sex! - it’s that that aggravates me.
“And that’s all you can say?
“What could you do?
“Why, break open the door; I’m sure you must have heard my voice: you shall never make me believe you couldn’t hear that. Whenever I shall sew the strings on again, I can’t tell. If they didn’t turn me out like a ship in a storm, I’m a sinner! And you laughed!
“You didn’t laugh?
“Don’t tell me; you laugh when you don’t know anything about it; but I do.
“And a pretty place you have brought me to! A most respectable place, I must say! Where the women walk about without any bonnets to their heads, and the fish-girls with their bare legs - well, you don’t catch me eating any fish while I’m here.
“Why not?
“Why not, - do you think I’d encourage people of that sort?
“What do you say?
“Good-night?
“It’s no use your saying that - I can’t go to sleep so soon as you can. Especially with a door that has such a lock as that to it. How do we know who may come in? What?
“All the locks are bad in France?
“The more shame for you to bring me to such a place, then. It only shows how you value me.
“Well, I dare say you are tired. I am! But then, see what I’ve gone through. Well, we won’t quarrel in a barbarous country. We won’t do that. Caudle, dear, - what’s the French for lace? I know it, only I forget it. The French for lace, love? What?
“Dentelle?
“Now, you’re not deceiving me?
“You never deceived me yet?
“Oh! don’t say that. There isn’t a married man in this blessed world can put his hand upon his heart in bed and say that. French for lace, dear? Say it again.
“Dentelle?
“Ha! Dentelle! Good-night, dear. Dentelle! Den-telle.”
“I afterwards,” writes Caudle, “found out to my cost wherefore she inquired about lace. For she went out in the morning with the landlady to buy a veil, giving only four pounds for what she could have bought in England for forty shillings!”
LECTURE XXVII - MRS. CAUDLE RETURNS TO HER NATIVE LAND. “UNMANLY CRUELTY” OF CAUDLE, WHO HAS REFUSED “TO SMUGGLE A FEW THINGS” FOR HER
“There, it isn’t often that I ask you to do anything for me, Mr. Caudle, goodness knows! and when I do, I’m always refused - of course. Oh yes! anybody but your own lawful wife. Every other husband aboard the boat could behave like a husband - but I was left to shift for myself. To be sure, that’s nothing new; I always am. Every other man, worthy to be called a man, could smuggle a few things for his wife - but I might as well be alone in the world. Not one poor half-dozen of silk stockings could you put in your hat for me; and everybody else was rolled in lace, and I don’t know what. Eh? What, Mr. Caudle?
“What do I want with silk stockings?
“Well - it’s come to something now! There was a time, I believe, when I had a foot - yes, and an ankle, too; but when once a woman’s married, she has nothing of the sort; of course. No: I’m not a cherub, Mr. Caudle; don’t say that. I know very well what I am.
“I dare say now, you’d have been delighted to smuggle for Miss Prettyman? Silk stockings become her!
“You wish Miss Prettyman was in the moon?
“Not you, Mr. Caudle; that’s only your art - your hypocrisy. A nice person too she’d be for the moon: it would be none the brighter for her being in it, I know. And when you saw the Custom House officers look at me, as though they were piercing me through, what was your conduct? Shameful. You twittered about and fidgeted, and flushed up as if I really was a smuggler.
“So I was?
“What had that to do with it? It wasn’t the part of a husband, I think, to fidget in that way, and show it.
“You couldn’t help it?
“Humph! And you call yourself a person of strong mind, I believe? One of the lords of the creation! Ha! ha! couldn’t help it!
“But I may do all I can to save the money, and this is always my reward. Yes, Mr. Caudle; I shall save a great deal.
“How much?
“I sha’n’t tell you: I know your meanness - you’d want to stop it out of the house allowance. No: it’s nothing to you where I got the money from to buy so many things. The money was my own. Well, and if it was yours first, that’s nothing to do with it. No; I haven’t saved it out of the puddings. But it’s always the woman who saves who’s despised. It’s only your fine-lady wives who’re properly thought of. If I was to ruin you, Caudle, then you’d think something of me.
“I sha’n’t go to sleep. It’s very well for you, who’re no sooner in bed than you’re fast as a church; but I can’t sleep in that way. It’s my mind keeps me awake. And after all, I do feel so happy to-night, it’s very hard I can’t enjoy my thoughts.
“No: I can’t think in silence!
“There’s much enjoyment in that, to be sure! I’ve no doubt now you could listen to Miss Prettyman - oh, I don’t care, I will speak. It was a little more than odd, I think, that she should be on the jetty when the boat came in. Ha! she’d been looking for you all the morning with a telescope, I’ve no doubt - she’s bold enough for anything. And then how she sneered and giggled when she saw me, - and said ‘how fat I’d got:’ like her impudence, I think. What?
“Well she might?
“But I know what she wanted; yes - she’d have liked to have had me searched. She laughed on purpose.
“I only wish I’d taken two of the dear girls with me. What things I could have stitched about ’em! No - I’m not ashamed of myself to make my innocent children smugglers: the more innocent they looked, the better; but there you are with what you call your principles again; as if it wasn’t given to everybody by nature to smuggle. I’m sure of it - it’s born with us. And nicely I’ve cheated ’em this day. Lace, and velvet, and silk stockings, and other things, - to say nothing of the tumblers and decanters. No: I didn’t look as if I wanted a direction, for fear somebody should break me. That’s another of what you call your jokes; but you should keep ’em for those who like ’em. I don’t.
“What have I made, after all?
“I’ve told you - you shall never, never know. Yes, I know you’d been fined a hundred pounds if they’d searched me; but I never meant that they should. I daresay you wouldn’t smuggle - oh no! you don’t think it worth your while. You’re quite a conjuror, you are, Caudle. Ha! ha! ha!
“What am I laughing at?
“Oh, you little know - such a clever creature! Ha! ha! Well, now, I’ll tell you. I knew what an unaccommodating animal you were, so I made you smuggle whether or not.
“How?
“Why, when you were out at the Café, I got your great rough coat, and if I didn’t stitch ten yards of best black velvet under the lining I’m a sinful woman! And to see how innocent you looked when the officers walked round and round you! It was a happy moment, Caudle, to see you.
“What do you call it?
“A shameful trick - unworthy of a wife? I couldn’t care much for you?
“As if I didn’t prove that by trusting you with ten yards of velvet. But I don’t care what you say: I’ve saved everything - all but that beautiful English novel, that I’ve forgot the name of. And if they didn’t take it out of my hand, and chopped it to bits like so much dog’s-meat.
“Served me right?
“And when I so seldom buy a book! No: I don’t see how it served me right. If you can buy the same book in France for four shillings that people here have the impudence to ask more than a guinea for - well, if they do steal it, that’s their affair, not ours. As if there was anything in a book to steal!
“And now, Caudle, when are you going home? What?
“Our time isn’t up?
“That’s nothing to do with it. If we even lose a week’s lodging - and we mayn’t do that - we shall save it again in living. But you’re such a man! Your home’s the last place with you. I’m sure I don’t get a wink of a night, thinking what may happen. Three fires last week; and any one might as well have been at our house as not.
“No - they mightn’t?
“Well, you know what I mean - but you’re such a man!
“I’m sure, too, we’ve had quite enough of this place. But there’s no keeping you out of the libraries, Caudle. You’re getting quite a gambler. And I don’t think it’s a nice example to set your children, raffling as you do for French clocks, and I don’t know what. But that’s not the worst; you never win anything. Oh, I forgot. Yes; a needle-case, that under my nose you gave to Miss Prettyman. A nice thing for a married man to make presents: and to such a creature as that, too! A needle-case! I wonder whenever she has a needle in her hand!
“I know I shall feel ill with anxiety if I stop here. Nobody left in the house but that Mrs. Closepeg. And she is such a stupid woman. It was only last night that I dreamt I saw our cat quite a skeleton, and the canary stiff on its back at the bottom of the cage. You know, Caudle, I’m never happy when I’m away from home; and yet you will stay here. No, home’s my comfort! I never want to stir over the threshold, and you know it. If thieves were to break in, what could that Mrs. Closepeg do against ’em? And so, Caudle, you’ll go home on Saturday? Our dear - dear home! On Saturday, Caudle?”
“What I answered,” says Caudle, “I forget; but I know that on the Saturday we were once again shipped on board the ‘Red Rover’.”
LECTURE XXVIII - MRS. CAUDLE HAS RETURNED HOME. THE HOUSE (OF COURSE) “NOT FIT TO BE SEEN.” MR. CAUDLE, IN SELF-DEFENCE, TAKES A BOOK
“After all, Caudle, it is something to get into one’s own bed again. I shall sleep to-night. What!
“You’re glad of it?
“That’s like your sneering; I know what you mean. Of course; I never can think of making myself comfortable, but you wound my feelings. If you cared for your own bed like any other man, you’d not have stayed out till this hour. Don’t say that I drove you out of the house as soon as we came in it. I only just spoke about the dirt and the dust, - but the fact is, you’d be happy in a pig-sty! I thought I could have trusted that Mrs. Closepeg with untold gold; and did you only see the hearthrug? When we left home there was a tiger in it: I should like to know who could make out the tiger, now? Oh, it’s very well for you to swear at the tiger, but swearing won’t revive the rug again. Else you might swear.
“You could go out and make yourself comfortable at your club. You little know how many windows are broken. How many do you think? No: I sha’n’t tell you to-morrow - you shall know now. I’m sure! Talking about getting health at Margate; all my health went away directly I went into the kitchen. There’s dear mother’s china bowl cracked in two places. I could have sat down and cried when I saw it: a bowl I can recollect when I was a child. Eh?
“I should have locked it up, then?
“Yes: that’s your feeling for anything of mine. I only wish it had been your punch-bowl; but, thank goodness! I think that’s chipped.
“Well, you haven’t answered about the windows - you can’t guess how many?
“You don’t care?
“Well, if nobody caught cold but you, it would be little matter. Six windows clean out, and three cracked!
“You can’t help it?
“I should like to know where the money’s to come from to mend ’em! They sha’n’t be mended, that’s all. Then you’ll see how respectable the house will look. But I know very well what you think. Yes; you’re glad of it. You think that this will keep me at home - but I’ll never stir out again. Then you can go to the sea-side by yourself; then, perhaps, you can be happy with Miss Prettyman? - Now, Caudle, if you knock the pillow with your fist in that way, I’ll get up. It’s very odd that I can’t mention that person’s name but you begin to fight the bolster, and do I don’t know what. There must be something in it, or you wouldn’t kick about so. A guilty conscience needs no - but you know what I mean.
“She wasn’t coming to town for a week; and then, of a sudden, she’d had a letter. I dare say she had. And then, as she said, it would be company for her to come with us. No doubt. She thought I should be ill again, and down in the cabin, but with all her art, she does not know the depth of me - quite. Not but what I was ill; though, like a brute, you wouldn’t see it.
“What do you say?
“Good-night, love?
“Yes: you can be very tender, I dare say - like all of your sex - to suit your own ends; but I can’t go to sleep with my head full of the house. The fender in the parlour will never come to itself again. I haven’t counted the knives yet, but I’ve made up my mind that half of ’em are lost. No: I don’t always think the worst; no, and I don’t make myself unhappy before the time; but of course that’s my thanks for caring about your property. If there aren’t spiders in the curtains as big as nutmegs, I’m a wicked creature. Not a broom has the whole place seen since I’ve been away. But as soon as I get up, won’t I rummage the house out, that’s all! I hadn’t the heart to look at my pickles; but for all I left the door locked, I’m sure the jars have been moved. Yes; you can swear at pickles when you’re in bed; but nobody makes more noise about ’em when you want ’em.
“I only hope they’ve been to the wine-cellar: then you may know what my feelings are. That poor cat, too - What?
“You hate cats?
“Yes, poor thing! because she’s my favourite - that’s it. If that cat could only speak - What?
“It isn’t necessary?
“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Caudle: but if that cat could only speak, she’d tell me how she’s been cheated. Poor thing! I know where the money’s gone to that I left for her milk - I know. Why, what have you got there, Mr. Caudle? A book? What!
“If you aren’t allowed to sleep, you’ll read?
“Well, now it is come to something! If that isn’t insulting a wife to bring a book to bed, I don’t know what wedlock is. But you sha’n’t read, Caudle; no, you sha’n’t; not while I’ve strength to get up and put out a candle.
“And that’s like your feelings! You can think a great deal of trumpery books; yes, you can’t think too much of the stuff that’s put into print; but for what’s real and true about you, why, you’ve the heart of a stone. I should like to know what that book’s about. What!
“Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’?
“I thought some rubbish of the sort - something to insult me. A nice book, I think, to read in bed; and a very respectable person he was who wrote it.
“What do I know of him?
“Much more than you think. A very pretty fellow, indeed, with his six wives. What?
“He hadn’t six - he’d only three?
“That’s nothing to do with it; but of course you’ll take his part. Poor women! A nice time they had with him, I dare say! And I’ve no doubt, Mr. Caudle, you’d like to follow Mr. Milton’s example; else you wouldn’t read the stuff he wrote. But you don’t use me as he treated the poor souls who married him. Poets, indeed! I’d make a law against any of ’em having wives, except upon paper; for goodness help the dear creatures tied to them! Like innocent moths lured by a candle! Talking of candles, you don’t know that the lamp in the passage is split to bits! I say you don’t - do you hear me, Mr. Caudle? Won’t you answer? Do you know where you are? What?
“In the Garden of Eden?
“Are you? Then you’ve no business there at this time of night.”
“And saying this,” writes Caudle, “she scrambled from the bed and put out the night.”
LECTURE XXIX - MRS. CAUDLE THINKS “THE TIME HAS COME TO HAVE A COTTAGE OUT OF TOWN”
“Oh, Caudle, you ought to have had something nice to-night; for you’re not well, love - I know you’re not. Ha! that’s like you men - so headstrong! You will have it that nothing ails you; but I can tell, Caudle. The eye of a wife - and such a wife as I’ve been to you - can at once see whether a husband’s well or not. You’ve been turning like tallow all the week; and what’s more, you eat nothing now. It makes me melancholy to see you at a joint. I don’t say anything at dinner before the children; but I don’t feel the less. No, no; you’re not very well; and you’re not as strong as a horse. Don’t deceive yourself - nothing of the sort. No, and you don’t eat as much as ever: and if you do, you don’t eat with a relish, I’m sure of that. You can’t deceive me there.
“But I know what’s killing you. It’s the confinement; it’s the bad air you breathe; it’s the smoke of London. Oh yes, I know your old excuse: you never found the air bad before. Perhaps not. But as people grow older, and get on in trade - and, after all, we’ve nothing to complain of, Caudle - London air always disagrees with ’em. Delicate health comes with money: I’m sure of it. What a colour you had once, when you’d hardly a sixpence; and now, look at you!
“’Twould add thirty years to your life - and think what a blessing that would be to me; not that I shall live a tenth part of the time - thirty years, if you’d take a nice little house somewhere at Brixton.
“You hate Brixton?
“I must say it, Caudle, that’s so like you: any place that’s really genteel you can’t abide. Now Brixton and Baalam Hill I think delightful. So select! There, nobody visits nobody, unless they’re somebody. To say nothing of the delightful pews that make the churches so respectable!
“However, do as you like. If you won’t go to Brixton, what do you say to Clapham Common? Oh, that’s a very fine story! Never tell me! No; you wouldn’t be left alone, a Robinson Crusoe with wife and children, because you’re in the retail way. What?
“The retired wholesales never visit the retired retails at Clapham?
“Ha! that’s only your old sneering at the world, Mr. Caudle; but I don’t believe it. And after all, people should keep to their station, or what was this life made for? Suppose a tallow-merchant does keep himself above a tallow-chandler, - I call it only a proper pride. What?
“You call it the aristocracy of fat?
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘aristocracy’; but I suppose it’s only another of your dictionary words, that’s hardly worth the finding out.
“What do you say to Hornsey or Muswell Hill? Eh?
“Too high?
“What a man you are! Well, then - Battersea?
“Too low?
“You’re an aggravating creature, Caudle, you must own that! Hampstead, then?
“Too cold?
“Nonsense; it would brace you up like a drum, - Caudle; and that’s what you want. But you don’t deserve anybody to think of your health or your comforts either. There’s some pretty spots, I’m told, about Fulham. Now, Caudle, I won’t have you say a word against Fulham. That must be a sweet place: dry and healthy, and every comfort of life about it - else is it likely that a bishop would live there? Now, Caudle, none of your heathen principles - I won’t hear ’em. I think what satisfies a bishop ought to content you; but the politics you learn at that club are dreadful. To hear you talk of bishops - well, I only hope nothing will happen to you, for the sake of the dear children!
“A nice little house and a garden! I know it - I was born for a garden! There’s something about it makes one feel so innocent. My heart somehow always opens and shuts at roses. And then what nice currant wine we could make! And again, get ’em as fresh as you will, there’s no radishes like your own radishes! They’re ten times as sweet! What?
“And twenty times as dear?
“Yes; there you go! Anything that I fancy, you always bring up the expense.
“No, Mr. Caudle, I should not be tired of it in a month. I tell you I was made for the country. But here you’ve kept me - and much you’ve cared about my health - here you’ve kept me in this filthy London, that I hardly know what grass is made of. Much you care for your wife and family to keep ’em here to be all smoked like bacon. I can see it - it’s stopping the children’s growth; they’ll be dwarfs, and have their father to thank for it. If you’d the heart of a parent, you couldn’t bear to look at their white faces. Dear little Dick! he makes no breakfast. What!
“He ate six slices this morning?
“A pretty father you must be to count ’em. But that’s nothing to what the dear child could do, if, like other children, he’d a fair chance.
“Ha! and when we could be so comfortable! But it’s always the case, you never will be comfortable with me. How nice and fresh you’d come up to business every morning; and what pleasure it would be for me to put a tulip or a pink in your button-hole, just, as I may say, to ticket you from the country.
“But then, Caudle, you never were like any other man! But I know why you won’t leave London. Yes, I know. Then, you think, you couldn’t go to your filthy club - that’s it. Then you’d be obliged to be at home, like any other decent man. Whereas you might, if you liked, enjoy yourself under your own apple-tree, and I’m sure I should never say anything about your tobacco out of doors. My only wish is to make you happy, Caudle, and you won’t let me do it.
“You don’t speak, love? Shall I look about a house to-morrow? It will be a broken day with me, for I’m going out to have little pet’s ears bored - What?
“You won’t have her ears bored?
“And why not, I should like to know?
“It’s a barbarous, savage custom?
“Oh, Mr. Caudle! the sooner you go away from the world, and live in a cave, the better. You’re getting not fit for Christian society. What next? My ears were bored and - What?
“So are yours?
“I know what you mean - but that’s nothing to do with it. My ears, I say, were bored, and so were dear mother’s, and grandmother’s before her; and I suppose there were no more savages in our family than in yours, Mr. Caudle? Besides, - why should little pet’s ears go naked any more than any of her sisters’? They wear earrings; you never objected before. What?
“You’ve learned better now?
“Yes, that’s all with your filthy politics again. You’d shake all the world up in a dice-box, if you’d your way: not that you care a pin about the world, only you’d like to get a better throw for yourself, - that’s all. But little pet shall be bored, and don’t think to prevent it.
“I suppose she’s to be married some day, as well as her sisters? And who’ll look at a girl without earrings, I should like to know? If you knew anything of the world, you’d know what a nice diamond earring will sometimes do - when one can get it - before this. But I know why you can’t abide earrings now: Miss Prettyman doesn’t wear ’em; she would - I’ve no doubt - if she could only get ’em. Yes, it’s Miss Prettyman who -
“There, Caudle, now be quiet, and I’ll say no more about pet’s ears at present. We’ll talk when you’re reasonable. I don’t want to put you out of temper, goodness knows! And so, love, about the cottage? What?
“’Twill be so far from business?
“But it needn’t be far, dearest. Quite a nice distance; so that on your late nights you may always be at home, have your supper, get to bed, and all by eleven. Eh, - sweet one?”
“I don’t know what I answered,” says Caudle, “but I know this: in less than a fortnight I found myself in a sort of a green bird-cage of a house, which my wife - gentle satirist - insisted upon calling ‘The Turtle Dovery.’”
LECTURE XXX - MRS. CAUDLE COMPLAINS OF THE “TURTLE DOVERY.” DISCOVERS BLACK-BEETLES. THINKS IT “NOTHING BUT RIGHT” THAT CAUDLE SHOULD SET UP A CHAISE
“Tush! You’d never have got me into this wilderness of a place, Mr. Caudle, if I’d only have thought what it was. Yes, that’s right: throw it in my teeth that it was my choice - that’s manly, isn’t it? When I saw the place the sun was out, and it looked beautiful - now, it’s quite another thing. No, Mr. Caudle; I don’t expect you to command the sun, - and if you talk about Joshua in that infidel way, I’ll leave the bed. No, sir; I don’t expect the sun to be in your power; but that’s nothing to do with it. I talk about one thing, and you always start another. But that’s your art.
“I’m sure a woman might as well be buried alive as live here. In fact, I am buried alive; I feel it. I stood at the window three hours this blessed day, and saw nothing but the postman. No: it isn’t a pity that I hadn’t something better to do; I had plenty: but that’s my business, Mr. Caudle. I suppose I’m to be mistress of my own house? If not, I’d better leave it.
“And the very first night we were here, you know it, the black-beetles came into the kitchen. If the place didn’t seem spread all over with a black cloth, I’m a story-teller. What are you coughing at, Mr. Caudle? I see nothing to cough at. But that’s just your way of sneering. Millions of black-beetles! And as the clock strikes eight, out they march. What?
“They’re very punctual?
“I know that. I only wish other people were half as punctual: ’twould save other people’s money and other people’s peace of mind. You know I hate a black-beetle! No: I don’t hate so many things. But I do hate black-beetles, as I hate ill-treatment, Mr. Caudle. And now I have enough of both, goodness knows!
“Last night they came into the parlour. Of course, in a night or two, they’ll walk up into the bedroom. They’ll be here - regiments of ’em - on the quilt. But what do you care? Nothing of the sort ever touches you: but you know how they come to me; and that’s why you’re so quiet. A pleasant thing to have black-beetles in one’s bed!
“Why don’t I poison ’em?
“A pretty matter, indeed, to have poison in the house! Much you must think of the dear children. A nice place, too, to be called the Turtle Dovery!
“Didn’t I christen it myself?
“I know that, - but then, I knew nothing of the black-beetles. Besides, names of houses are for the world outside; not that anybody passes to see ours. Didn’t Mrs. Digby insist on calling their new house ‘Love-in-Idleness,’ though everybody knew that that wretch Digby was always beating her? Still, when folks read ‘Rose Cottage’ on the wall, they seldom think of the lots of thorns that are inside. In this world, Mr. Caudle, names are sometimes quite as good as things.
“That cough again! You’ve got a cold, and you’ll always be getting one - for you’ll always be missing the omnibus as you did on Tuesday, - and always be getting wet. No constitution can stand it, Caudle. You don’t know what I felt when I heard it rain on Tuesday, and thought you might be in it. What?
“I’m very good?
“Yes, I trust so: I try to be so, Caudle. And so, dear, I’ve been thinking that we’d better keep a chaise.
“You can’t afford it, and you won’t?
“Don’t tell me: I know you’d save money by it. I’ve been reckoning what you lay out in omnibuses; and if you’d a chaise of your own - besides the gentility of the thing - you’d be money in pocket. And then, again, how often I could go with you to town, - and how, again, I could call for you when you liked to be a little late at the club, dear! Now you’re obliged to be hurried away, I know it, when, if you’d only a carriage of your own, you could stay and enjoy yourself. And after your work you want enjoyment. Of course, I can’t expect you always to run home directly to me: and I don’t, Caudle; and you know it.
“A nice, neat, elegant little chaise. What?
“You’ll think of it?
“There’s a love! You are a good creature, Caudle; and ’twill make me so happy to think you don’t depend upon an omnibus. A sweet little carriage, with our own arms beautifully painted on the panels. What?
“Arms are rubbish; and you don’t know that you have any?
“Nonsense: to be sure you have - and if not, of course they’re to be had for money. I wonder where Chalkpit’s, the milkman’s arms, came from? I suppose you can buy ’em at the same place. He used to drive a green cart; and now he’s got a close yellow carriage, with two large tortoise-shell cats, with their whiskers as if dipped in cream, standing on their hind legs upon each door, with a heap of Latin underneath. You may buy the carriage if you please, Mr. Caudle; but unless your arms are there, you won’t get me to enter it. Never! I’m not going to look less than Mrs. Chalkpit.
“Besides, if you haven’t arms, I’m sure my family have, and a wife’s arms are quite as good as a husband’s. I’ll write to-morrow to dear mother, to know what we took for our family arms. What do you say? What?
“A mangle in a stone kitchen proper?
“Mr. Caudle, you’re always insulting my family - always: but you shall not put me out of temper to-night. Still, if you don’t like our arms, find your own. I daresay you could have found ’em fast enough, if you’d married Miss Prettyman. Well, I will be quiet; and I won’t mention that lady’s name. A nice lady she is! I wonder how much she spends in paint! Now, don’t I tell you I won’t say a word more, and yet you will kick about!
“Well, we’ll have the carriage and the family arms? No, I don’t want the family legs too. Don’t be vulgar, Mr. Caudle. You might, perhaps, talk in that way before you’d money in the Bank; but it doesn’t at all become you now. The carriage and the family arms! We’ve a country house as well as the Chalkpits! and though they praise their place for a little paradise, I dare say they’ve quite as many blackbeetles as we have, and more too. The place quite looks it!
“Our carriage and our arms! And you know, love, it won’t cost much - next to nothing - to put a gold band about Sam’s hat on a Sunday. No: I don’t want a full-blown livery. At least, not just yet. I’m told that Chalkpits dress their boy on a Sunday like a dragon-fly; and I don’t see why we shouldn’t do what we like with our own Sam. Nevertheless, I’ll be content with a gold band, and a bit of pepper-and-salt. No: I shall not cry out for plush next; certainly not. But I will have a gold band, and -
“You won’t; and I know it?
“Oh yes! that’s another of your crotchets, Mr Caudle; like nobody else - you don’t love liveries. I suppose when people buy their sheets, or their tablecloths, or any other linen, they’ve a right to mark what they like upon it, haven’t they? Well, then? You buy a servant, and you mark what you like upon him, and where’s the difference? None, that I can see.”
“Finally,” says Caudle, “I compromised for a gig; but Sam did not wear pepper-and-salt and a gold band.”
LECTURE XXXI - MRS. CAUDLE COMPLAINS VERY BITTERLY THAT MR. CAUDLE HAS “BROKEN HER CONFIDENCE.”
“O you’ll catch me, Mr. Caudle, telling you anything again. Now, I don’t want to have any noise: I don’t wish you to put yourself in a passion. All I say is this; never again do I open my lips to you about anybody. No: if man and wife can’t be one, why there’s an end of everything. Oh, you know well what I mean, Mr. Caudle: you’ve broken my confidence in the most shameful, the most heartless way, and I repeat it - I can never be again to you as I have been. No: the little charm - it wasn’t much - that remained about married life, is gone for ever. Yes; the bloom’s quite wiped off the plum now.
“Don’t be such a hypocrite, Caudle; don’t ask me what I mean! Mrs. Badgerly has been here - more like a fiend, I’m sure, than a quiet woman. I haven’t done trembling yet! You know the state of my nerves, too; you know - yes, sir, I had nerves when you married me; and I haven’t just found ’em out. Well, you’ve something to answer for, I think. The Badgerlys are going to separate: she takes the girls, and he the boys, and all through you. How you can lay your head upon that pillow and think of going to sleep, I can’t tell.
“What have you done?
“Well, you have a face to ask the question. Done? You’ve broken my confidence, Mr. Caudle: you’ve taken advantage of my tenderness, my trust in you as a wife - the more fool I for my pains! - and you’ve separated a happy couple for ever. No; I’m not talking in the clouds; I’m talking in your bed, the more my misfortune.
“Now, Caudle - yes, I shall sit up in the bed if I choose; I’m not going to sleep till I have this properly explained; for Mrs. Badgerly sha’n’t lay her separation at my door. You won’t deny that you were at the club last night? No, bad as you are, Caudle - and though you’re my husband, I can’t think you a good man; I try to do, but I can’t - bad as you are, you can’t deny you were at the club. What?
“You don’t deny it?
“That’s what I say - you can’t. And now answer me this question. What did you say - before the whole world - of Mr. Badgerly’s whiskers? There’s nothing to laugh at, Caudle; if you’d have seen that poor woman to-day, you’d have a heart of stone to laugh. What did you say of his whiskers? Didn’t you tell everybody he dyed ’em? Didn’t you hold the candle up to ’em, as you said, to show the purple?
“To be sure you did?
“Ha! people who break jokes never care about breaking hearts. Badgerly went home like a demon; called his wife a false woman: vowed he’d never enter a bed again with her, and to show he was in earnest, slept all night upon the sofa. He said it was the dearest secret of his life; said she had told me; and that I had told you; and that’s how it has come out. What do you say?
“Badgerly was right. I did tell you?
“I know I did: but when dear Mrs. Badgerly mentioned the matter to me and a few friends, as we were all laughing at tea together, quite in a confidential way - when she just spoke of her husband’s whiskers, and how long he was over ’em every morning - of course, poor soul! she never thought it was to be talked of in the world again. Eh?
“Then I had no right to tell you of it?
“And that’s the way I’m thanked for my confidence. Because I don’t keep a secret from you, but show you, I may say, my naked soul, Caudle, that’s how I’m rewarded. Poor Mrs. Badgerly - for all her hard words - after she went away, I’m sure my heart quite bled for her. What do you say, Mr. Caudle?
“Serves her right - she should hold her tongue?
“Yes; that’s like your tyranny - you’d never let a poor woman speak. Eh - what, what, Mr. Caudle?
“That’s a very fine speech, I dare say; and wives are very much obliged to you, only there’s not a bit of truth in it. No, we women don’t get together, and pick our husbands to pieces, just as sometimes mischievous little girls rip up their dolls. That’s an old sentiment of yours, Mr. Caudle; but I’m sure you’ve no occasion to say it of me. I hear a good deal of other people’s husbands, certainly; I can’t shut my ears; I wish I could: but I never say anything about you, - and I might, and you know it - and there’s somebody else that knows it, too. No: I sit still and say nothing; what I have in my own bosom about you, Caudle, will be buried with me. But I know what you think of wives. I heard you talking to Mr. Prettyman, when you little thought I was listening, and you didn’t know much what you were saying - I heard you. ‘My dear Prettyman,’ says you, ‘when some women get talking, they club all their husbands’ faults together; just as children club their cakes and apples, to make a common feast for the whole set.’ Eh?
“You don’t remember it?
“But I do: and I remember, too, what brandy was left when Prettyman left. ’Twould be odd if you could remember much about it, after that.
“And now you’ve gone and separated man and wife, and I’m to be blamed for it. You’ve not only carried misery into a family, but broken my confidence. You’ve proved to me that henceforth I’m not to trust you with anything, Mr. Caudle. No; I’ll lock up whatever I know in my own breast, - for now I find nobody, not even one’s own husband, is to be relied upon. From this moment, I may look upon myself as a solitary woman. Now, it’s no use your trying to go to sleep. What do you say?
“You know that?
“Very well. Now I want to ask you one question more. Eh?
“You want to ask me one?
“Very well - go on - I’m not afraid to be catechised. I never dropped a syllable that as a wife I ought to have kept to myself - no, I’m not at all forgetting what I’ve said - and whatever you’ve got to ask me speak out at once. No - I don’t want you to spare me; all I want you is to speak.
“You will speak?
“Well then, do.
“What?
“Who told people you’d a false front tooth?
“And is that all? Well, I’m sure - as if the world couldn’t see it. I know I did just mention it once, but then I thought everybody knew it - besides, I was aggravated to do it; yes, aggravated. I remember it was that very day, at Mrs. Badgerly’s, when husbands’ whiskers came up. Well, after we’d done with them, somebody said something about teeth. Whereupon, Miss Prettyman - a minx! she was born to destroy the peace of families, I know she was: she was there; and if I’d only known that such a creature was - no I’m not rambling, not at all, and I’m coming to the tooth. To be sure, this is a great deal you’ve got against me, isn’t it? Well, somebody spoke about teeth, when Miss Prettyman, with one of her insulting leers, said ‘she thought Mr. Caudle had the whitest teeth she ever had beheld.’ Of course my blood was up - every wife’s would be: and I believe I might have said, ‘Yes, they were well enough; but when a young lady so very much praised a married man’s teeth, she perhaps didn’t know that one of the front ones was an elephant’s.’ Like her impudence! - I set her down for the rest of the evening. But I can see the humour you’re in to-night. You only came to bed to quarrel, and I’m not going to indulge you. All I say is this, after the shameful mischief you’ve made at the Badgerlys’, you never break my confidence again. Never - and now you know it.”