ON DIPPERS.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his treatise on the composition of a picture,
lays down as a necessity that a patch of blue sky should be introduced
into every painting, an opening through which the eye may escape out of
the constraint and gloom of the canvas. If the subject be a dungeon, in
one corner must be a window through which the eye can mount to heaven;
if a forest, there must be a gap in the foliage through which the sun
may strike and the free air blow. If a landscape under a grey canopy, or
a storm at sea under rolling clouds, there must be a rift somewhere
through which the upper azure gleams; otherwise the picture oppresses
and the frame cramps. For this reason, the preceding chapter was
entitled “A Patch of Blue Sky,” for in that chapter a small opening was
made quite in a corner, into that serene and super-terrestrial, that
ethereal and sublime realm—matrimony.
For a good many chapters our hero and heroine have been in a poor way,
inhaling London smoke, without sunshine enlivening their existences.
From Orleigh Park to Shepherd’s Bush, and from the elastic atmosphere of
the country to the fogs of the metropolis, is a change which,
considering the altered conditions of both—Jingles without a situation,
living on bread and thin tea, and Arminell without a home, living with
third-rate people—was depressing to both, and the picture was
overcharged with shadows. Therefore a little glimpse has been given into
that heaven to which all youthful and inexperienced novel-readers
aspire.
Sir Joshua Reynolds, moreover, insists on a proper balance of lights and
shadows. He says that it is false art to accumulate dark spots on one
side of the picture without relieving them with a corresponding number
of luminous foci on the other. Now in this story the reader has been
given three deaths. Therefore, there must needs be the same number of
marriages to produce equilibrium. Accordingly, over against the dark
points of Archelaus Tubb, Lord Lamerton, and Captain Saltren, we set off
the bright combinations of Samuel and Joan, of Captain Tubb and
Marianne, and of Arminell and Jingles. These are not, it is true, spots
of transcendent brilliancy, double stars of the first order, but of
subdued and chastened effulgence. Not many roses crowned the hymeneal
altar of Sam Ceely, nor would an impassioned epithalamium suit the
nuptials of Mrs. Saltren, just recovered from a touch of paralysis. Nor
will the beaker of ecstatic love brim over at the union of Arminell and
Giles Saltren, seeing that it is largely filled with De Jongh’s
cod-liver oil. When a cook has over-salted the soup, he mixes white
sugar with it, and this neutralises the brine and gives the soup a
mellowness, and velvety softness to the palate. On the same principle,
having put too many tears into this tale, I am shaking in the hymeneal
sugar in just proportions.
I know very well I am letting the reader into the secrets of
construction, telling the tricks of the trade, but as this narrative is
written for instruction as well as for amusement, I do not scruple thus
to indicate one of the principles of the art of novel writing; and I do
this with purpose, to gain the favour of the reader, who I fear is a
little ruffled and resentful, because I do not give a full and
particular account of the marriage. But it really hardly merited such an
account, it was celebrated so quietly—without choral song and train of
bride’s-maids, and without peal of bells. I am so much afraid that by
omitting to make a point of the marriage I may offend my readers that I
have let them into one of the secrets of the construction of a plot.
Among poor people a bottle of lemon-drops is set on the table, and the
children are given bread to eat. Those little ones whose conduct has
been indifferent are allowed only bread and point for a meal, but those
who have behaved well are permitted to enjoy bread and rub. To their
imaginations some of the sweetness of the lollipops penetrates the glass
and adheres to their slices.
A novel is the intellectual meal of a good many readers, and it begins
with bread and point, and is expected to end with bread and rub at the
acidulated drops of connubial felicity. Usually the reader has to
consume a great deal of bread and point and is only allowed bread and
rub in final chapters. In this story, however, I have been generous, I
have allowed of three little frettings at the bottle instead—indeed,
instead of keeping one tantalising bottle before the eyes of the reader,
I have set three on the table in front of him.
That I have transgressed the rule which requires the marriage of hero
and heroine to be at the end of the book, in the very last chapter, I
freely admit; but I have done this on purpose, and I have, for the same
purpose, most slyly slipped in the marriage, or rather left it to the
imagination, between the end of Chapter LI. and the beginning of Chapter
LII. And what do you suppose is my reason? It is, that I want to _dodge
the dippers_. The dippers are those readers who are only by an euphemism
called readers. They stand by the course of a story, and pop a beak down
into it every now and then, and bring up something from the current, and
then fly away pretending that they have read the whole story. The dipper
generally plunges the bill into the first chapter, then dips into the
last of the three volumes, and then again once or twice in the
mid-stream of the tale.
These dippers are gorgeous creatures, arrayed in gold and azure, with
bejewelled necks and wings and crowns. But in one matter they differ
from all other fowl—they have no gizzards. Other birds, notably those of
the barn door, when they eat pass their food through a pair of internal
grindstones, and thoroughly digest and assimilate it. The dippers, being
devoid of this organ, neither digest nor assimilate anything. They take
nothing into them for the purpose of nutrition, but for the taste it
leaves on their tongues. Consequently, the food they like best is not
that which invigorates, but that which is high flavoured.
A dipper may seem very small game at which to fire, a shot, but the
dippers are the special aversion of novel writers. These latter have
laboured to please, perhaps to instruct; they have worked with their
pens till their fingers are cramped, and their brains bemuzzed, and they
see the fruit of conscientious toil treated as a bird treats a
nectarine—pecked at and spoiled, not eaten.
But I have headed this chapter “On Dippers,” not because I intended to
blaze at those little, frivolous, foolish birds who dip into my story
and let all they scoop up dribble from their beaks again, but because I
have another class of dippers in my eye, about whom I have still sharper
words to say. And see!—one of this order has unexpectedly dropped in on
the Welshes—and that is Mrs. Cribbage.
The Reverend Mrs. Cribbage was not one of the king-fishers, but was a
dipper of the cormorant or skua genus. She was not one to stand by the
stream of a story and dip in that, but in the sea of life, and seek in
that for savoury meat over which to snap the bill, and smack the tongue,
and turn up the eyes, and distend the jaw-pouches. The dippers of this
order congregate on a rock above the crystal tide and chatter with their
beaks, whilst their eyes pierce the liquid depths. They have no
perceptions of the beauty of colour in the water, no admiration for its
limpidity. They inhale with relish none of the ozone that wafts over
it—their eyes explore for blubber, for uprooted weed, for mollusks that
have been bruised, for dead fish, for crustaceans that have lost limbs,
for empty shells invaded by parasites, for the scum, and the waste, and
the wreckage, in the mighty storm-tossed ocean of life.
Aristotle, in his “History of Animals,” says that most fish avoid what
is putrescent; but the taste of the dippers is other than that of the
fish. The dippers have no perception and liking for the freshness and
fragrance of the sea, but have vastly keen noses for carrion. The
suffering whiting, the crushed nautilus, the disabled shrimp, are
pounced on with avidity, and the great penguin-pouch expands under the
beak like a Gladstone bag full of the most varied forms of misery, of
sorrow and of nastiness.
The skua is a dipper akin to, but more active than the wary cormorant
and the clumsy auk. It is a lively bird, and darts on nimble wing over
the sea, and when it perceives a glutted dipper in flight, it dives
under it, strikes it on the breast, and makes it disgorge; whereupon it
seizes the prey as it falls, for itself. There are skuas as well as
cormorants about the coasts of the great social ocean, and there are
birds with the voracity of the cormorant and the quickness and
adroitness of the skua—of such was Mrs. Cribbage. It was part of her
cleverness in getting the food she required to come with a whisk and
blow at those who least expected her; and such was her visit or swoop on
the Welshes.
Unfortunately for her, James Welsh was at home when she swept in, and he
was quite able to hold his own before her.
“My dear,” said he to his wife, “I think I hear the cook squealing. She
is in an epileptic fit. You had better go down into the kitchen and
remain below as long as the fit lasts. Get the slavey to sit on her
feet, and you hold her head. I will remain at the service of Mrs.
Cribbage. I am sure she will excuse you. We have an epileptic cook,
ma’am—not a bad cook when out of her fits.”
“I am Mrs. Cribbage,” said the visitor, “the wife of the Rector of
Orleigh. We have not had the pleasure of meeting before, but I know your
sister, Mrs. Tubb, very well; she is a parishioner and the wife of one
of our Sunday-school teachers. Of course I know about you, Mr. Welsh,
though you may not know me.”
“I have heard a good deal about you, ma’am.”
“Through whom?” asked the lady eagerly.
“Through my nephew.”
“I have come to break to you some sad news about your sister. Poor
thing, she had a first seizure on the death of her first husband, and
she had a second immediately after her return to Orleigh as a bride. It
was kept quiet. I was not told of it, nor was my husband sent for. Now a
third has ensued which has bereft her of speech, and it is feared will
end fatally. I have come to town for some purchases and on a visit to
friends, and I thought it would be kind and wise if I came to see you
and tell you what I knew.”
“Very kind indeed, ma’am.”
“I promised Captain Tubb that I would do so; he is not a great hand at
letter writing, and I said that I could explain the circumstances so
much better by word of mouth than he could with the pen. The case, I
fear, is serious. She cannot speak.”
“It must indeed be serious, if Marianne can’t speak,” observed Welsh
dryly; “I’ll run down to Orleigh to-morrow.”
“How is your nephew? Mrs. Tubb hadn’t heard of him for three or four
months. I dare say anxiety about him has brought on the seizure.”
“My late nephew?” Welsh heaved a sigh. “Poor fellow, he is gone. He
always was delicate.”
“Gone!—”
“Yes—to a warm place.”
“It is not for us to judge,” said Mrs. Cribbage, sternly.
“Well, perhaps not,” answered Welsh; “but between you and me, ma’am, for
what else was he fit?”
“I always considered that he gave himself airs, and I had an impression
that he indulged in free-thinking. Still, he was not positively vicious.
Nothing was proved against his morals.”
“Others go to a warm place that shall be nameless, besides those who are
positively vicious.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Cribbage, “that is true, sadly true. And now to change
the topic—how is Miss Inglett? Is she still with you?”
“Miss Inglett?” Welsh’s eyes twinkled. He knew what the woman had come
to his place for. It was not out of kindness to communicate to him his
sister’s condition. He felt the dig of the skua’s beak in his chest.
“Oh yes, we know all about it. Marianne Tubb talked before she had the
stroke and lost the power of speech. You must not suppose, Mr. Welsh,
that we are taken in and believe that the Honourable Arminell Inglett
died as has been represented, through the shock caused by her father’s
fatal fall.”
“Ah! I remember seeing something about it in the papers. She died, did
she?”
“No, no, Mr. Welsh, that will not do. Your sister let the cat out of the
bag. She said that Miss Inglett was lodging here with you; and very
boastful Mr. Tubb was about it, and much talk did it occasion in
Orleigh. Some people would not believe it, they said that Marianne
Saltren had been a liar, and Marianne Tubb was no better. However,
others say that there is something in it. So, as I am come to town, I
thought I would just run here and inquire, and see Miss Inglett myself.”
“We have had an Inglett here, certainly,” answered Welsh composedly,
“and very decent pastry she made. She had a light hand.”
“I do not comprehend.”
“Are you in want of a cook, a nursemaid, or parlour maid? She was a
handy girl, and Mrs. Welsh would be happy to give her a good character—a
true and honest one, no reading between the lines, no disguising of
defects. She did not drink, was not a lie-abed, and was clean in her
work and person. I won’t say whether she put her fingers into the sugar,
because I don’t know, and Mrs. Welsh keeps the preserves and candied
fruit locked up in the side-board.”
“I do not understand,” said Mrs. Cribbage, gazing perplexedly at Mr.
Welsh’s imperturbable face.
“She was a sort of general hand with us,” explained Welsh, “was that
girl Inglett. We were sorry to lose her, but she thought to better
herself, and we do not give high wages. We can’t afford to pay more than
twelve pounds, and no beer. But the maid has the tea-leaves and
dripping. That is—she had; but now that we have a cook, the cook
arrogates the dripping to herself. We bear the young woman no grudge for
leaving us. It is the way with girls, they will always be on the move,
and if they can better themselves by moving, why not? What wages do you
pay, ma’am? And how about perquisites?”
“You had a general servant named Inglett?”
“Yes, and our present housemaid is named Budge. Our cook is Mrs. Winter.
The last cook we had drank, and ran up a ladder. It took several
policemen to get her down. The ladder was of extraordinary height. It
stood in a builder’s yard. It was impossible for us to retain the woman
after that. She had risen into notoriety. Then, for awhile, the girl
Inglett cooked for us; she was not brought up to it, had never passed
through her apprenticeship as kitchen-maid, but some women take to
cooking as poets take to verses—naturally.”
“That is true,” said Mrs. Cribbage. Her mouth was gradually falling at
the corners. She had expected to fish up a very queer and unpleasant bit
of scandal, and, to her disappointment, began to see that she had
spooned up clean water in her beak.
“Mrs. Welsh, seeing her abilities, may have advised the girl Inglett to
take a kitchen-maid’s place—I cannot say. Has she applied to you for
such a situation in your house, ma’am? If so, I am sure Mrs. Welsh can
confidently recommend her.”
“We thought,” said Mrs. Cribbage, in a tone of discouragement, “that is
to say, Mrs. Tubb said most positively that—that the Honourable Arminell
Inglett, daughter of Lord Lamerton, was not dead, but was lodging with
you. And you _really_ had a servant of the name of Inglett?”
“Certainly, a general, as I said—and now you mention it, it does seem
queer that she should have had such an aristocratic name, but I daresay
she assumed it, as actresses do.”
“I was led by Marianne Tubb to suppose—”
“Was not that like Marianne?” Mr. Welsh went into a fit of laughter.
Mrs. Cribbage, with a ghastly smile, admitted that it was like Marianne
Tubb, who was certainly given to boasting and romancing. However, she
added, charitably—
“Really, it almost seems a judgment on her.”
“What does?”
“The stroke. It was too bad of her to make us suppose that the
Honourable Arminell Inglett had come to live in such a quarter as this.
Then you really believe, Mr. Welsh, that Lord Lamerton’s daughter died
of the shock, when she heard of her father’s premature death?”
“I saw it so stated in the papers, and they are generally well informed.
What sort of a person was she? I ask you, as the Rector’s wife, was she
worldly? Was she at all prepared for the great change?”
Mrs. Cribbage shook her head.
“I was afraid it was so,” said Welsh solemnly. “Then I should not be at
all surprised if she also had gone to the same warm place as my poor
nephew.”
“It is not for us to judge,” said Mrs. Cribbage gravely; “still, if it
be permitted us to look beyond the veil, I would not say but that she
had. She was barely civil to me, once she was positively rude. Yes—I
have no doubt that she also has gone—gone—”
“To the same warm place,” added Welsh.