MRS. BINDLE DEMANDS A HOLIDAY
I
"I see they're starting summer-camps." Mrs. Bindle looked up from
reading the previous evening's paper. She was invariably twelve hours
late with the world's news.
Bindle continued his breakfast. He was too absorbed in Mrs. Bindle's
method of serving dried haddock with bubble-and-squeak to evince much
interest in alien things.
"That's right," she continued after a pause, "don't you answer. Your
ears are in your stomach. Pleasant companion you are. I might as well be
on a desert island for all the company you are."
"If you wasn't such a damn good cook, Mrs. B., I might find time to say
pretty things to you." It was only in relation to her own cooking that
Bindle's conversational lapses passed without rebuke.
"There are to be camps for men, camps for women, and family camps,"
continued Mrs. Bindle without raising her eyes from the paper before
her.
"Personally myself I says put me among the gals." The remark reached
Mrs. Bindle through a mouthful of haddock and bubble-and-squeak, plus a
fish-bone.
"You don't deserve to have a decent home, the way you talk."
There were times when no answer, however gentle, was capable of turning
aside Mrs. Bindle's wrath. On Sunday mornings in particular she found
the burden of Bindle's transgressions weigh heavily upon her.
Bindle sucked contentedly at a hollow tooth. He was feeling generously
inclined towards all humanity. Haddock, bubble-and-squeak, and his own
philosophy enabled him to withstand the impact of Mrs. Bindle's most
vigorous offensive.
"It's years since I had a holiday," she continued complainingly.
"It is, Mrs. B.," agreed Bindle, drawing his pipe from his coat pocket
and proceeding to charge it from a small oblong tin box. "We ain't
exactly wot you'd call an 'oneymoon couple, you an' me."
"The war's over."
"It is," he agreed.
"Then why can't we have a holiday?" she demanded, looking up
aggressively from her paper.
"Now I asks you, Mrs. B.," he said, as he returned the tin box to his
pocket, "can you see you an' me in a bell-tent, or paddlin', or playin'
ring-a-ring-a-roses?" and he proceeded to light his pipe with the
blissful air of a man who knows that it is Sunday, and that The Yellow
Ostrich will open its hospitable doors a few hours hence.
"It says they're very comfortable," Mrs. Bindle continued, her eyes
still glued to the paper.
"Wot is?"
"The tents."
"You ought to ask Ging wot a bell-tent's like, 'e'd sort o' surprise
you. It's worse'n a wife, 'otter than religion, colder than a
blue-ribboner. When it's 'ot it bakes you, when it's cold it lets you
freeze, and when it's blowin' 'ell an' tinkers, it 'oofs it, an' leaves
you with nothink on, a-blushin' like a curate 'avin' 'is first dip with
the young women in the choir. That's wot a bell-tent is, Mrs. B. In the
army they calls 'em 'ell-tents."
"Oh! don't talk to me," she snapped as she rose and proceeded to clear
away the breakfast-things, during which she expressed the state of her
feelings by the vigour with which she banged every utensil she handled.
As she did so Bindle proceeded to explain and expound the salient
characteristics of the army bell-tent.
"When you wants it to stand up," he continued, "it comes down, you bein'
underneath. When you wants it to come down, nothing on earth'll move it,
till you goes inside to 'ave a look round an' see wot's the trouble,
then down it comes on top o' you. It's a game, that's wot it is," he
added with conviction, "a game wot nobody ain't goin' to win but the
tent."
"Go on talking, you're not hurting me," said Mrs. Bindle, with indrawn
lower lip, as she brought down the teapot upon the dresser with a super
bang.
"I've 'eard Ging talk o' twins, war, women, an' the beer-shortage; but
to 'ear 'im at 'is best, you got to get 'im to talk about bell-tents."
"Everybody else has a holiday except me." Mrs. Bindle was not to be
diverted from her subject. "Here am I, slavin' my fingers to the bone,
inchin' and pinchin' to keep you in comfort, an' I can't 'ave a holiday.
It's a shame, that's what it is, and it's all your fault." She paused in
the act of wiping out the inside of the frying-pan, and stood before
Bindle like an accusing fury. Anger always sullied the purity of her
diction.
"Well, why don't you 'ave an 'oliday if you set yer 'eart on it? I ain't
got nothink to say agin it." He continued to puff contentedly at his
pipe, wondering what had become of the paper-boy. Bindle had become too
inured to the lurid qualities of domesticity to allow them to perturb
him.
"'Ow can I go alone?"
"You'd be safe enough."
"You beast!" Bindle was startled by the vindictiveness with which the
words were uttered.
For a few minutes there was silence, punctuated by Mrs. Bindle's
vigorous clearing away. Presently she passed over to the sink and turned
on the tap.
"Nice thing for a married woman to go away alone," she hurled at Bindle
over her shoulder, amidst the rushing of water.
"Well, take 'Earty," he suggested, with the air of a man anxious to find
a way out of a difficulty.
"You're a dirty-minded beast," was the retort.
"An' this Sunday, too. Oh, naughty!"
"You never take me anywhere." Mrs. Bindle was not to be denied.
"I took you to church once," he said reminiscently.
"Why don't you take me out now?" she demanded, ignoring his remark.
"Well," he remarked, as he dug into the bowl of his pipe with a
match-stick, "when you caught a bus, you don't go on a-runnin' after it,
do you?"
"Why don't you get a week off and take me away?"
"Well, I'll think about it." Bindle rose and, picking up his hat, left
the room, with the object of seeking the missing paper-boy.
The loneliness of her life was one of Mrs. Bindle's stock grievances. If
she had been reminded of the Chinese proverb that to have friends you
must deserve friends, she would have waxed scornful. Friends, she seemed
to think, were a matter of luck, like a goose in a raffle, or a rich
uncle.
"It's little enough pleasure I get," she would cry, in moments of
passionate protest.
To this, Bindle would sometimes reply that "it's wantin' a thing wot
makes you get it." Sometimes he would go on to elaborate the theory into
the impossibility of "'avin' a thing for supper an' savin' it for
breakfast."
By this, he meant to convey to Mrs. Bindle that she was too set on
post-mortem joys to get the full flavour of those of this world.
Mrs. Bindle possessed the soul of a potential martyr. If she found she
were enjoying herself, she would become convinced that, somewhere
associated with it, must be Sin with a capital "S", unless of course the
enjoyment were directly connected with the chapel.
She was fully convinced that it was wrong to be happy. Laughter inspired
her with distrust, as laughter rose from carnal thoughts carnally
expressed. She fought with a relentless courage the old Adam within
herself, inspired always by the thought that her reward would come in
another and a better world.
Her theology was that you must give up in this world all that your
"carnal nature" cries out for, and your reward in the next world will be
a sort of perpetual jamboree, where you will see the damned being boiled
in oil, or nipped with red-hot pincers by little devils with curly
tails. In this she had little to learn either from a Dante, or the
Spanish Inquisition.
The Biblical descriptions of heaven she accepted in all their
literalness. She expected golden streets and jewelled gates, wings of
ineffable whiteness and harps of an inspired sweetness, the whole
composed by an orchestra capable of playing without break or interval.
She insisted that the world was wicked, just as she insisted that it was
miserable. She struggled hard to bring the light of salvation to Bindle,
and she groaned in spirit at his obvious happiness, knowing that to be
happy was to be damned.
To her, a soul was what a scalp is to the American Indian. She strove
to collect them, knowing that the believer who went to salvation with
the greatest number of saved souls dangling at her girdle, would be
thrice welcome, and thrice blessed.
In Bindle's case, however, she had to fall back upon the wheat that fell
upon stony ground. With a cheerfulness that he made no effort to
disguise, Bindle declined to be saved.
"Look 'ere, Lizzie," he would say cheerily. "Two 'arps is quite enough
for one family and, as you and 'Earty are sure of 'em, you leave me
alone."
One of Mrs. Bindle's principal complaints against Bindle was that he
never took her out.
"You could take me out fast enough once," she would complain.
"But where'm I to take you?" cried Bindle. "You don't like the pictures,
you won't go to the 'alls, and I can't stand that smelly little chapel
of yours, listenin' to a cove wot tells you 'ow uncomfortable you're
goin' to be when you're cold meat."
"You could take me for a walk, couldn't you?" demanded Mrs. Bindle.
"When I takes you round the 'ouses, you bully-rags me because I
cheer-o's my pals, and if we passes a pub you makes pleasant little
remarks about gin-palaces. Tell you wot it is, Mrs. B.," he remarked on
one occasion, "you ain't good company, at least not in this world," he
added.
"That's right, go on," Mrs. Bindle would conclude. "Why did you marry
me?"
"There, Mrs. B.," he would reply, "you 'ave me beaten."
From the moment that Mrs. Bindle read of the Bishop of Fulham's
Summer-Camps for Tired Workers, she became obsessed by the idea of a
holiday in a summer-camp. She was one of the first to apply for the
literature that was advertised as distributed free.
The evening-paper that Bindle brought home possessed a new interest for
her.
"Anything about the summer-camps?" she would ask, interrupting Bindle in
his study of the cricket and racing news, until at last he came to hate
the very name of summer-camps and all they implied.
"That's the worst o' religion," he grumbled one night at The Yellow
Ostrich; "it comes a-buttin' into your 'ome life, an' then there ain't
no peace."
"I don't 'old wiv religion," growled Ginger.
"I ain't got nothink to say against religion _as_ religion," Bindle had
remarked; "but I bars summer-camps."
Mrs. Bindle, however, was packing. With all the care of a practised
housewife, she first devoted herself to the necessary cooking-utensils.
She packed and unpacked half-a-dozen times a day, always stowing away
some article that, a few minutes later, she found she required.
Her conversation at meal-times was devoted exclusively to what they
should take with them. She asked innumerable questions, none of which
Bindle was able satisfactorily to answer. To him the bucolic life was a
closed book; but he soon realised that a holiday at the Surrey
Summer-Camp was inevitable.
"Wot am I to do in a summer-camp?" he mumbled, one evening after supper.
"I can drive an 'orse, if some one's leadin' it, an' I knows it's an 'en
wot lays the eggs an' the cock wot makes an 'ell of a row in the
mornin', same as them ole 'orrors we used to 'ave; but barrin' that, I'm
done."
"That's right," broke in Mrs. Bindle, "try and spoil my pleasure, it's
little enough I get."
"But wot are we goin' to do in the country?" persisted Bindle with
wrinkled forehead. "I don't like gardenin', an'----"
"Pity you don't," she snapped.
"Yes, it's a pity," he agreed; "still, it's saved me an 'ell of a lot o'
back-aches. But wot are we goin' to do in a summer-camp, that's wot I
want to know."
"You'll be getting fresh air and--and you can watch the sunsets."
"But the sun ain't goin' to set all day," he persisted. "Besides, I can
see the sunset from Putney Bridge, an' damn good sunsets too, for them
as likes 'em. There ain't no need to go to a summer-camp to see a
sunset."
"You can go on, you're not hurting me." Mrs. Bindle drew in her lips and
sat looking straight in front of her, a grim figure of Christian
patience.
"I can't milk a cow," Bindle continued disconsolately, reviewing his
limitations. "I can't catch chickens, me with various veins in my legs,
I 'ates the smell o' pigs, an' I ain't good at weedin' gardens. Now I
asks you, Mrs. B., wot use am I at a summer-camp? I'll only be a sort o'
fly in the drippin'."
"You can enjoy yourself, I suppose, can't you?" she snapped.
"But 'ow?"
"Oh! don't talk to me. I'm sick and tired of your grumbling, with your
don't like this, an' your don't like that. Pity you haven't something to
grumble about."
"But I ain't----"
"There's many men would be glad to have a home like yours, an' chance
it."
"Naughty!" cried Bindle, wagging an admonitory finger at her. "If I----"
"Stop it!" she cried, jumping up, and making a dash for the fire, which
she proceeded to poke into extinction.
Meanwhile, Bindle had stopped it, seizing the opportunity whilst Mrs.
Bindle was engaged with the fire, to slip out to The Yellow Ostrich.
II
"Looks a bit lonely, don't it?" Bindle gazed about him doubtfully.
"What did you expect in the country?" snapped Mrs. Bindle.
"Well, a tram or a bus would make it look more 'ome-like."
The Bindles were standing on the down platform of Boxton Station
surrounded by their luggage. There was a Japanese basket bursting to
reveal its contents, a large cardboard hat-box, a small leather bag
without a handle and tied round the middle with string to reinforce a
dubious fastening. There was a string-bag blatantly confessing to its
heterogeneous contents, and a roll of blankets, through the centre of
which poked Mrs. Bindle's second-best umbrella, with a travesty of a
parrot's head for a handle.
There was a small deal box without a lid and marked "Tate's Sugar," and
a frying-pan done up in newspaper, but still obviously a frying-pan.
Finally there was a small tin-bath, full to overflowing, and covered by
a faded maroon-coloured table-cover that had seen better days.
Bindle looked down ruefully at the litter of possessions that formed an
oasis on a desert of platform.
"They ain't afraid of anythink 'appening 'ere," he remarked, as he
looked about him. "Funny little 'ole, I calls it."
Mrs. Bindle was obviously troubled. She had been clearly told at the
temporary offices of the Committee of the Summer-Camps for Tired
Workers, that a cart met the train by which she and Bindle had
travelled; yet nowhere was there a sign of life. Vainly in her own mind
she strove to associate Bindle with the cause of their standing alone on
a country railway-platform, surrounded by so uninviting a collection of
luggage.
Presently an old man was observed leaving the distant signal-box and
hobbling slowly towards them. When within a few yards of the Bindles, he
halted and gazed doubtfully, first at them, then at the pile of their
possessions. Finally he removed his cap of office as railway porter, and
scratched his head dubiously.
"I missed un that time," he said at length, as he replaced his cap.
"Missed who?" enquired Bindle.
"The four-forty," replied the old man, stepping aside to get a better
view of the luggage. "Got a-talkin' to Young Tom an' clean forgot un."
It was clear that he regarded the episode in the light of a good joke.
"Yours?" he queried a moment later, indicating with a jerk of his head
the litter on the platform.
"Got it first time, grandpa," said Bindle cheerfully. "We come to start
a pawnshop in these parts," he added.
The porter looked at Bindle with a puzzled expression, then his gaze
wandered back to the luggage and finally on to Mrs. Bindle.
"We've come to join the Summer-Camp," she explained.
"The Summer-Camp!" repeated the man, "the Summer-Camp!" Then he suddenly
broke into a breeze of chuckles. He looked from Mrs. Bindle to the
luggage and from the luggage to Bindle, little gusts of throaty croaks
eddying and flowing. Finally with a resounding smack he brought his hand
down upon his fustian thigh.
"Well, I'm danged," he chuckled, "if that ain't a good un. I maun go an'
tell Young Tom," and he turned preparatory to making off for the
signal-box.
Bindle, however, by a swift movement barred his way.
"If it's as funny as all that, ole sport, wot's the matter with tellin'
us all about it?"
Once more the old man stuttered off into a fugue of chuckles.
"Young Tom'll laugh over this, 'e will," he gasped; "'e'll split
'isself."
"I suppose they don't 'ave much to amuse 'em," said Bindle patiently.
"Now then, wot's it all about?" he demanded.
"Wrong station," spluttered the ancient. Then a moment later he added,
"You be wantin' West Boxton. Camp's there. Three mile away. There ain't
another train stoppin' here to-night," he added.
Mrs. Bindle looked at Bindle. Her lips had disappeared; but she said
nothing. The arrangements had been entirely in her hands, and it was she
who had purchased the tickets.
"How far did you say it was?" she demanded of the porter in a tone that
seemed, as if by magic, to dry up the fountain of his mirth.
"Three mile, mum," he replied, making a shuffling movement in the
direction of where Young Tom stood beside his levers, all unconscious of
the splendid joke that had come to cheer his solitude. Mrs. Bindle,
however, placed herself directly in his path, grim and determined. The
man fell back a pace, casting an appealing look at Bindle.
"Where can we get a cart?" she demanded with the air of one who has
taken an important decision.
The porter scratched his head through his cap and considered deeply,
then with a sudden flank movement and a muttered, "I'll ask Young Tom,"
he shuffled off in the direction of the signal-box.
Bindle gazed dubiously at the pile of their possessions, and then at
Mrs. Bindle.
"Three miles," he muttered. "You didn't ought to be trusted out with a
young chap like me, Mrs. B.," he said reproachfully.
"That's enough, Bindle."
Without another word she stalked resolutely along the platform in the
direction of the signal-box. The old porter happening to glance over his
shoulder saw her coming, and broke into a shambling trot, determined to
obtain the moral support of Young Tom before another encounter.
Drawing his pipe from his pocket, Bindle sank down upon the tin-bath,
jumping up instantly, conscious that something had given way beneath him
with a crack suggestive of broken crockery. Reseating himself upon the
bundle of blankets, he proceeded to smoke contentedly. After all,
something would happen, something always did.
Twenty minutes elapsed before Mrs. Bindle returned with the announcement
that the signalman had telegraphed to West Boxton for a cart.
"Well, well," said Bindle philosophically, "it's turnin' out an 'appy
day; but I could do with a drink."
An hour later a cart rumbled its noisy way up to the station, outside
which stood the Bindles and their luggage. A business-like little boy
scout slid off the tail.
"You want to go to the Camp?" he asked briskly.
"Well," began Bindle, "I can't say that I----"
"Yes," interrupted Mrs. Bindle, seeing in the boy scout her St. George;
"we got out at the wrong station." She looked across at Bindle as she
spoke, as if to indicate where lay the responsibility for the mistake.
"All right!" said the friend of all the world. "We'll soon get you
there."
"An' who might you be, young-fellow-my-lad?" enquired Bindle.
"I'm Patrol-leader Smithers of the Bear Patrol," was the response.
"You don't say so," said Bindle. "Well, well, it's live an' learn, ain't
it?"
"Now we'll get the luggage up," said Patrol-leader Smithers.
"'Ow 'Aig an' Foch must miss you," remarked Bindle as between them they
hoisted up the tin-bath; but the lad was too intent upon the work on
hand for persiflage.
A difficulty presented itself in how Mrs. Bindle was to get into the
cart. Her intense sensitiveness, coupled with the knowledge that there
would be four strange pairs of male eyes watching her, constituted a
serious obstacle. Young Tom, in whom was nothing of the spirit of Jack
Cornwell, and his friend the old porter made no effort to disguise the
fact that they were determined to see the drama through to the last
fade-out.
Bindle's suggestion that he should "'oist" her up, Mrs. Bindle had
ignored, and she flatly refused to climb the spokes of the wheel. The
step in front was nearly a yard from the ground, and Mrs. Bindle
resented Young Tom's sandy leer.
It was Patrol-leader Smithers who eventually solved the problem by
suggesting a dandy-chair, to which Mrs. Bindle reluctantly agreed.
Accordingly Bindle and the porter crossed arms and clasped one another's
wrists.
Mrs. Bindle took up a position with her back to the tail of the cart,
and the two Sir Walters bent down, whilst Patrol-leader Smithers turned
his back and, with great delicacy, strove to engage the fixed eye of
Young Tom; but without success.
"Now when I says 'eave--'eave," Bindle admonished the porter.
Gingerly Mrs. Bindle sat down upon their crossed hands.
"One, two, three--'eave!" cried Bindle, and they heaved.
There was a loud guffaw from Young Tom, a stifled scream, and Mrs.
Bindle was safely in the cart; but on her back, with the soles of her
elastic-sided boots pointing to heaven. Bindle had under-estimated the
thews of the porter.
"Right away!" cried Patrol-leader Smithers, feeling that prompt action
alone could terminate so regrettable an incident, and he and Bindle
clambered up into the cart, where Mrs. Bindle, having regained control
of her movements, was angrily tucking her skirts about her.
The cart jerked forward, and Young Tom and his colleague grinned their
valedictions, in their hearts the knowledge that they had just lived a
crowded hour of glorious life.
The cart jolted its uneasy way along the dusty high-road, with Bindle
beside the driver, Mrs. Bindle sitting on the blankets as grim as
Destiny itself, engaged in working up a case against Bindle, and the boy
scout watchful and silent, as behoves the leader of an enterprise.
Bindle soon discovered that conversationally the carter was limited to
the "Aye" of agreement, varied in moments of unwonted enthusiasm with an
"Oh, aye!"
At the end of half an hour's jolt, squeak, and crunch, the cart turned
into a lane overhung by giant elms, where the sun-dried ruts were like
miniature trenches.
"Better hold on," counselled the lad, as he made a clutch at the
Japanese basket, which was in danger of going overboard. "It's a bit
bumpy here."
"Fancy place in wet weather," murmured Bindle, as he held on with both
hands. "So this is the Surrey Summer-Camp for Tired Workers," and he
gazed about him curiously.