MRS. BINDLE BURNS INCENSE
"I wonder you allow that girl to wear such disgusting clothes."
For the last five minutes Mrs. Bindle had been watching Alice, Mrs.
Hearty's maid, as she moved about the room, tidying-up. The girl had
just returned from her evening out, and her first act had been to bring
Mrs. Hearty her nightly glass of Guinness and "snack of
bread-and-cheese," an enormous crust torn from a new cottage loaf and
plentifully spread with butter, flanked by about a quarter-of-a-pound of
cheese. Now that the girl had left the room, Mrs. Bindle could contain
herself no longer.
Mrs. Hearty was a woman upon whom fat had descended as a disguise. Her
manifold chins rippled downwards until they became absorbed in the
gigantic wave of her bust. She had a generous appetite, and was damned
with a liking for fat-forming foods.
With her sister she had nothing in common; but in Bindle she had found a
kindred spirit. The very sight of him would invariably set her heaving
and pulsating with laughter and protestations of "Oh, Joe, don't!"
For response to her sister's comment, Mrs. Hearty took a deep draught
of Guinness and then, with a film of froth still upon her upper lip, she
retorted, "It's 'er night out," and relapsed into wheezes and endeavours
to regain her breath.
Mrs. Bindle was not in a good humour. She had called hoping to find Mr.
Hearty returned from choir-practice, after which was to be announced the
deacons' decision as to who was to succeed Mr. Smithers in training the
choir.
Her brother-in-law's success was with her something between an
inspiration and a hobby. It became the absorbing interest in life,
outside the chapel and her home. No wife, or mother, ever watched the
progress of a husband, or son, with keener interest, or greater
admiration, than Mrs. Bindle that of Mr. Hearty.
As a girl, she had been pleasure-loving. There were those who even went
to the extent of regarding her as flighty. She attended theatres and
music-halls, which she had not then regarded as "places of sin," and her
contemporaries classified her as something of a flirt; but
disillusionment had come with marriage. She soon realised that she had
made the great and unforgivable mistake of marrying the wrong man. It
turned her from the "carnal," and was the cause of her joining the Alton
Road Chapel, at which Mr. Hearty worshipped.
From that date she began a careful and elaborate preparation for the
next world.
Although she nightly sought the Almighty to forgive her her trespasses,
volunteering the information that she in turn would forgive those who
trespassed against her, she never forgave Bindle for his glib and ready
tongue, which had obscured her judgment to the extent of allowing to
escape from the matrimonial noose, a potential master-greengrocer with
three shops.
There was nothing in her attitude towards Mr. Hearty suggestive of
sentiment. She was a woman, and she bowed the knee at an altar where
women love to worship.
"I call it----" Mrs. Bindle stopped short as Alice re-entered the room
with a small dish of pickled onions, without which Mrs. Hearty would
have found it impossible to sleep.
With a woman's instinct, Alice realised that Mrs. Bindle disapproved of
her low-cut, pale blue blouse, and the short skirt that exposed to the
world's gaze so much of the nether Alice.
"You ain't been lonely, mum?" she queried solicitously, as she took a
final look round before going to bed, to see that everything was in
order.
Mrs. Hearty shook her head and undulated violently.
"It's my breath," she panted, and proceeded to hit her chest with the
flat of her doubled-up fist. "'Ad a nice time?" she managed to gasp in
the tone of a mistress who knows and understands, and is known and
understood by, her maid.
"Oh! it was lovely," cried Alice ecstatically. "I went to the pictures
with"--she hesitated and blushed--"a friend," then, pride getting the
better of self-consciousness, she added, "a gentleman friend, mum.
There was a filum about a young girl running away with 'er boy on a
horse who turned out to be a millionaire and she looked lovely in her
veil and orange-blossom and 'im that 'andsome."
"And when's it to be, Alice?" enquired Mrs. Hearty, between the assaults
upon her chest.
"Oh, mum!" giggled Alice, and a moment later she had disappeared round
the door, with a "Good night, mum, mind you sleeps well."
"I'm surprised the way you let that girl talk to you, Martha," snapped
Mrs. Bindle, almost before the door had closed behind the retreating
Alice. "You allow her to be too familiar. If you give them an inch,
they'll take an ell," she added.
"She's a good gal," gasped Mrs. Hearty, as she lifted the glass of
Guinness to her lips. "It's gone orf," she added a moment later. "It
ain't wot it used to be," and she shook a despondent head as she
replaced the almost empty glass upon the table.
"You'd be better without it," was the unsympathetic rejoinder, then, not
to be diverted from the topic of Alice and her scanty attire, Mrs.
Bindle added, "Her blouse was disgusting, and as for her skirt, I should
be ashamed for her to be seen entering my house."
Mrs. Bindle believed in appearances as she believed in "the Lord," and
it is open to question, if the two had at any time clashed, whether
appearances would have been sacrificed.
"She's all right," wheezed Mrs. Hearty comfortably, through a mouthful
of bread-and-cheese.
"The way girls dress now makes me hot all over," snapped Mrs. Bindle.
"The police ought to stop it."
"They,"--with a gigantic swallow Mrs. Hearty reduced the
bread-and-cheese to conversational proportions,--"they like it," she
gasped at length, and broke into ripples and wheezes.
"Don't be disgusting, Martha. You make me ashamed. You ought to speak to
Alice. It's not respectable, her going about like that."
Mrs. Hearty made an effort to speak; but the words failed to penetrate
the barrage of bread-and-cheese--Mrs. Hearty did everything with gusto.
"Supposing I was to go out in a short skirt like that. What would you
say then?"
"You--you ain't got the legs, Lizzie," and Mrs. Hearty was off into a
paroxysm of gasps and undulations.
"Oh don't, don't," she gasped, as if Mrs. Bindle were responsible for
her agony. "You'll be the death of me," she cried, as she wiped her eyes
with a soiled pocket-handkerchief.
To Mrs. Hearty, laughter came as an impulse and an agony. She would
implore the world at large not to make her laugh, heaving and shaking as
she protested. She was good-natured, easy-going, and popular with her
friends, who marvelled at what it was she had seen in the sedate and
decorous Mr. Hearty to prompt her to marry him.
During her sister's paroxysm, Mrs. Bindle preserved a dignified
silence. She always deplored Mrs. Hearty's lack of self-control.
"There are the neighbours to consider," she continued at length. Mrs.
Bindle's thoughts were always with her brother-in-law. "Look how low her
blouse was."
"It's 'ealthy," puffed Mrs. Hearty, who could always be depended upon to
find excuses for a black sheep's blackness.
"I call it disgusting." Mrs. Bindle's mouth shut with a snap.
"You----" Mrs. Hearty's reply was stifled in a sudden fit of coughing.
She heaved and struggled for breath, while her face took on a deep
purple hue.
Mrs. Bindle rose and proceeded to bestow a series of resounding smacks
with the flat of her hand upon Mrs. Hearty's ample back. There was a
heartiness in the blows that savoured of the Old rather than the New
Testament.
Nearly five minutes elapsed before Mrs. Hearty was sufficiently
recovered to explain that a crumb had gone the wrong way.
"Serves you right for encouraging that girl in her wickedness," was Mrs.
Bindle's unsympathetic comment as she returned to her chair. Vaguely she
saw in her sister's paroxysm, the rebuke of a frowning Providence.
"You wasn't always like wot you are now," complained Mrs. Hearty at
length.
"I never dressed anything like that girl." There was a note of
fierceness in Mrs. Bindle's voice, "and I defy you to say I did, Martha
Hearty, so there."
"Didn't I 'ave to speak to you once about your stockings?" Mrs. Hearty's
recent attack seemed to have rendered speech easier.
"No wonder you choke," snapped Mrs. Bindle angrily, "saying things like
that."
"Didn't the boys shout after you 'yaller legs'?" she gasped, determined
to get the full flavour out of the incident. "They wasn't worn coloured
then."
"I wonder you aren't afraid of being struck dead," cried Mrs. Bindle
furiously.
"And you goin' out in muslin and a thin petticoat, and yer legs showin'
through and the lace on----"
"Don't you dare----" Mrs. Bindle stopped, her utterance strangled. Her
face was scarlet, and in her eyes was murder. She was conscious that her
past was a past of vanity; but those were days she had put behind her,
days when she would spend every penny she could scrape together upon her
person.
But Mrs. Hearty was oblivious to the storm of anger that her words had
aroused in her sister's heart. The recollection of the yellow stockings
and the transparent muslin frock was too much for her, and she was off
into splutters and wheezes of mirth, among which an occasional "Oh
don't!" was distinguishable.
"I don't know what's coming to girls, I'm sure," cried Mrs. Bindle at
length. She had to some extent regained her composure, and was desirous
of turning the conversation from herself. She lived in fear of her
sister's frankness; Mrs. Hearty never censored a wardrobe before
speaking of it.
"They're a lot of brazen hussies," continued Mrs. Bindle, "displaying
themselves like they do. I can't think why they do it."
"Men!" grunted Mrs. Hearty.
"Don't be disgusting, Martha."
"You always was a fool, Lizzie," said Mrs. Hearty good-humouredly.
Mrs. Bindle was determined not to allow the subject of Alice's
indelicate display of her person to escape her. She had merely been
waiting her opportunity to return to the charge.
"You should think of Mr. Hearty," she said unctuously; "he's got a
position to keep up, and people will talk, seeing that girl going out
like that."
At this, Mrs. Hearty once more became helpless with suppressed laughter.
Her manifold chins vibrated, tears streamed down her cheeks, and she
wheezed and gasped and struck her chest, fierce, resounding blows.
"Oh, my God!" she gasped at length. "You'll be the death of me, Lizzie,"
and then another wave of laughter assailed her, and she was off again.
Presently, as the result of an obvious effort, she spluttered, "'E likes
it, too," she ended in a little scream of laughter. "You watch him. Oh,
oh, I shall die!" she gasped.
"Martha, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," she cried angrily.
"You're as bad as Bindle."
For fully a minute, Mrs. Hearty rocked and heaved, as she strove to
find utterance for something that seemed to be stifling her.
"You don't know Alf!" she gasped at length, as she mopped her face with
the dingy pocket-handkerchief. "Alice gives notice," she managed to
gasp. "Alf tries to kiss----" and speech once more forsook her.
The look in Mrs. Bindle's eyes was that she usually kept for
blasphemers. Mr. Hearty was the god of her idolatry, impeccable, austere
and unimpeachable. The mere suggestion that he should behave in a way
she would not expect even Bindle to behave, filled her with loathing,
and she determined that her sister would eventually share the fate of
Sapphira.
"Martha, you're a disgrace," she cried, rising. "You might at least have
the decency not to drag Mr. Hearty's name into your unclean
conversation. I think you owe him an apology for----"
At that moment the door opened, and Mr. Hearty entered.
"Didn't you, Alf?" demanded Mrs. Hearty.
"Didn't I what, Martha?" asked Mr. Hearty in a thin, woolly voice. "Good
evening, Elizabeth," he added, turning to Mrs. Bindle.
"Didn't you try to kiss Alice, and she slapped your face?" Mrs. Hearty
once more proceeded to mop her streaming eyes with her handkerchief. The
comedy was good; but it was painful.
For one fleeting moment Mr. Hearty was unmasked. His whole expression
underwent a change. There was fear in his eyes. He looked about him like
a hunted animal seeking escape. Then, by a great effort, he seemed to
re-assert control over himself.
"I--I've forgotten to post a letter," he muttered, and a second later
the door closed behind him.
"'E's always like that when I remind him," cried Mrs. Hearty, "always
forgotten to post a letter."
"Martha," said Mrs. Bindle solemnly, as she resumed her seat, "you're a
wicked woman, and to-night I shall ask God to forgive you."
"Make it Alf instead," cried Mrs. Hearty.
Five minutes later, Mr. Hearty re-entered the parlour, looking furtively
from his wife to Mrs. Bindle. He was a spare man of medium height, with
an iron-grey moustache and what Bindle described as "'alleluia
whiskers"; but which the world knows as mutton-chops. He was a man to
whom all violence, be it physical or verbal, was distasteful. He
preferred diplomacy to the sword.
"Oo's got it, Alf?" enquired Mrs. Hearty, suddenly remembering the
chapel choir and her husband's aspirations.
"Mr. Coplestone." The natural woolliness of Mr. Hearty's voice was
emphasised by the dejection of disappointment; but his eyes told of the
relief he felt that Alice was no longer to be the topic of conversation.
"It's a shame, Mr. Hearty, that it is."
Mrs. Bindle folded her hands in her lap and drew in her chin, with the
air of one who scents a great injustice. The injustice of the
appointment quite blotted-out from her mind all thought of Alice.
"You got quite enough to do, Alf," wheezed Mrs. Hearty as, after many
ineffectual bounces, she struggled to her feet, and stood swaying
slightly as she beat her breast reproachfully.
"I could have found time," said Mr. Hearty, as he picked nervously at
the quicks of his finger-nails.
"Of course you could," agreed Mrs. Bindle, looking up at her sister
disapprovingly.
"I've never once missed a choir-practice," he continued, with the air of
a man who is advancing a definite claim.
"Trust you," gasped Mrs. Hearty, as she rolled towards the door. "It's
them gals," she added. "Good-night, Lizzie. Don't be long, Alf. You
always wake me getting into bed," and, with a final wheeze, she passed
out of the room.
Mr. Hearty coughed nervously behind his hand; whilst Mrs. Bindle drew in
her lips and chin still further. The indelicacy of Mrs. Hearty's remark
embarrassed them both.
It had always been Mr. Hearty's wish to train the choir at the Alton
Road Chapel, and when Mr. Smithers had resigned, owing to chronic
bronchitis and the approach of winter, Mr. Hearty felt that the time had
come when yet another of his ambitions was to be realised. There had
proved, however, to be another Richmond in the field, in the shape of
Mr. Coplestone, who kept an oil-shop in the New King's Road.
By some means unknown to Mr. Hearty, his rival had managed to invest the
interest of the minister and several of the deacons, with the result
that Mr. Hearty had come out a very bad second.
Now, in the hour of defeat, he yearned for sympathy, and there was only
one to whom he could turn, his sister-in-law, who shared so many of his
earthly views and heavenly hopes. Would his sister-in-law believe----
"I call it a shame," she said for the second time, as Mr. Hearty drew a
deep sigh of relief. In spite of herself, Mrs. Bindle was irritated at
the way in which he picked at the quicks of his finger-nails, "and you
so musical, too," she added.
"I have always been interested in music," said Mr. Hearty, with the air
of one who knows that he is receiving nothing but his due. Alice and her
alluring clothing were forgotten. "I had learned the Tonic Sol-fa
notation by heart before I was twenty," he added.
"You would have done so much to improve the singing." Mrs. Bindle was
intent only on applying balm to her hero's wounds. She too had forgotten
Alice and all her ways.
"It isn't what it might be," he remarked. "It has been very indifferent
lately. Several have noticed it. Last Sunday, they nearly broke down in
'The Half Was Never Told.'"
Mrs. Bindle nodded.
"They always find it difficult to get high 'f'," he continued. "I should
have made a point of cultivating their upper registers," he added, with
the melancholy retrospection of a man who, after a fire, states that it
had been his intention to insure on the morrow.
"Perhaps----" began Mrs. Bindle, then she stopped. It seemed unchristian
to say that perhaps Mr. Coplestone would have to relinquish his newly
acquired honour.
"I should also have tried to have the American organ tuned, I don't
think the bellows is very sound, either."
For some minutes there was silence. Mr. Hearty was preoccupied with the
quicks of his finger-nails. He had just succeeded in drawing blood, and
he glanced covertly at Mrs. Bindle to see if she had noticed it.
"Er----" he paused. He had been seeking an opportunity of clearing his
character with his sister-in-law. Suddenly inspiration gripped him.
"I--we----" he paused. "I'm afraid Martha will have to get rid of
Alice."
"And about time, with clothes like she wears," was Mrs. Bindle's
uncompromising comment.
"And she tells--she's most untruthful," he continued eagerly; he was
smarting under the recollection that Alice had on one occasion pushed
aside the half-crown he had tendered, and it had required a ten shilling
note to remove from her memory the thought of her "friend" with whom she
had threatened him.
"I've been speaking about her to Martha this evening." The line of Mrs.
Bindle's lips was still grim.
"I'm afraid she's a bad--not a good girl," amended Mr. Hearty. "I----"
"You don't push yourself forward enough," said Mrs. Bindle, her thoughts
still on Mr. Coplestone's victory. "Look at Bindle. He knows a lord,
and look what he is." She precipitated into the last two words all the
venom of years of disappointment. "And you've got three shops," she
added inconsequently.
"I--I never had time to go out and about," stuttered Mr. Hearty, as if
that explained the fact of his not possessing a lord among his
acquaintance. His thoughts were still preoccupied with the Alice
episode.
"You ought to, Mr. Hearty," said Mrs. Bindle with conviction. "You owe
it to yourself and to what you've done."
"You see, Joseph is different," said Mr. Hearty, pursuing his own line
of thought. "He----"
"Talks too much," said Mrs. Bindle with decision, filling in the blank
inaccurately. "I tell him his fine friends only laugh up their sleeves
at him. They should see him in his own home," she added.
For some moments there was silence, during which Mrs. Bindle sat,
immobile as an Assyrian goddess, her eyes smouldering balefully.
"I should have liked to have trained the choir," he said, his mind
returning to the cause of his disappointment.
"It's that Mr. Coplestone," said Mrs. Bindle with conviction. "I never
liked him, with his foxy little ways. I never deal with him."
"I have always done what I could for the chapel, too," continued Mr.
Hearty, not to be diverted from his main theme by reference to Mr.
Coplestone's shortcomings.
"You've done too much, Mr. Hearty, that's what's the matter," she cried
with conviction, loyalty to her brother-in-law triumphing over all sense
of Christian charity. "It's always the same. Look at Bindle," she added,
unable to forget entirely her own domestic cross. "Think what I've done
for him, and look at him."
"Last year I let them have all the fruit at cost price for the
choir-outing," said Mr. Hearty; "but I'll never do it again," he added,
the man in him triumphing over the martyr, "and I picked it all out
myself."
"The more you do, the more you may do," said Mrs. Bindle oracularly.
Mr. Hearty's reference was to a custom prevailing among the worshippers
at the Alton Road Chapel. It was an understood thing that, in placing
orders, preference should always be given to members of the flock, who,
on their part, undertook to supply their respective commodities at cost
price. The object of this was to bring all festivities "within reach of
our poorer brethren," as Mr. Sopley, a one-time minister, had expressed
it when advocating the principle.
The result was hours of heart-searching for those entrusted with the
feeding of the Faithful. Mr. Hearty, for instance, spent much time and
thought in wrestling with figures and his conscience. He argued that
"cost price" must allow for rent, rates and taxes; salaries, a knowledge
of the cheapest markets (which he possessed) and interest on capital
(his own).
By a curious coincidence, the actual figures came out very little above
the ordinary retail price he was charging in his shops, which proved to
him conclusively that he was in no sense of the term a profiteer. As a
matter of fact, it showed that he was under-charging.
Other members of the chapel seemed to arrive at practically the same
result as Mr. Hearty, and by similar means.
As the "poorer brethren" had no voice in the fixing of these prices, and
as everyone was too interested in his own figures to think of
criticising those of others, the "poorer brethren" either paid, or
stayed away.
"You ought to join the choir, Elizabeth." It was Mr. Hearty's
thank-offering for sympathy.
"Oh, Mr. Hearty!" she simpered. "I'm sure I couldn't sing well enough."
"You sing very nicely, Elizabeth. I have noticed it on Sunday evenings
when you come round. You have a very good high soprano."
A quiver passed through Mrs. Bindle. She drew herself up, and her lips
seemed to take on a softer line.
"I'm sure it's very good of you to say so," she responded gratefully.
"I shall still sing in the choir," said Mr. Hearty; "but----"
A heavy pounding overhead caused him to start violently. It was Mrs.
Hearty's curfew.
Mrs. Bindle rose and Mr. Hearty accompanied her to the street-door.
Alice was in the passage, apparently on her way to bed.
"Good night, Mr. Hearty," said Mrs. Bindle.
"Good night, Elizabeth," and Mr. Hearty closed the door behind her.
She paused to open her umbrella, it was spotting with rain and Mrs.
Bindle was careful of her clothes.
Suddenly through the open transom she heard a surprised scream and the
sound of scuffling.
"You beast," cried a feminine voice. "I'll tell missis, that I will."
And Mrs. Bindle turned and ran full-tilt into a policeman.