Long, long ago, when Our Street was the country--a stagecoach between us
and London passing four times a-day--I do not care to own that it was a
sight of Flora Cammysole’s face, under the card of her mamma’s “Lodgings
to Let,” which first caused me to become a tenant of Our Street. A fine
good-humoured lass she was then; and I gave her lessons (part out of the
rent) in French and flower-painting. She has made a fine rich marriage
since, although her eyes have often seemed to me to say, “Ah, Mr. T.,
why didn’t you, when there was yet time, and we both of us were free,
propose--you know what?” “Psha! Where was the money, my dear madam?”
Captain Bragg, then occupied in building Bungalow Lodge--Bragg, I say,
living on the first floor, and entertaining sea-captains, merchants, and
East Indian friends with his grand ship’s plate, being disappointed in a
project of marrying a director’s daughter, who was also a second-cousin
once removed of a peer, sent in a fury for Mrs. Cammysole, his landlady,
and proposed to marry Flora off-hand, and settle four hundred a-year
upon her. Flora was ordered from the back parlour (the Ground-floor
occupies the Second-floor bed-room), and was on the spot made acquainted
with the splendid offer which the First-floor had made her. She has been
Mrs. Captain Bragg these twelve years.
You see her portrait, and that of the brute, her husband, on the
opposite side of the page.
Bragg to this day wears anchor-buttons, and has a dress-coat with a gold
strap for epaulets, in case he should have a fancy to sport them. His
house is covered with portraits, busts, and miniatures of himself. His
wife is made to wear one of the latter. On his sideboard are pieces of
plate, presented by the passengers of the Ram Chunder to Captain Bragg.
“The Ram Chunder East Indiaman, in a gale, off Table Bay;” “The
Outward-bound Fleet, under convoy of Her Majesty’s frigate Loblollyboy,
Captain Gutch, beating off the French squadron, under Commodore Leloup
(the Ram Chunder, S.E. by E., is represented engaged with the Mirliton
corvette);” “The Ram Chunder standing into the Hooghly, with Captain
Bragg, his telescope, and speaking-trumpet, on the poop;” “Captain Bragg
presenting the Officers of the Ram Chunder to General Bonaparte at St.
Helena”--TITMARSH (this fine piece was painted by me when I was in
favour with Bragg); in a word, Bragg and the Ram Chunder are all over
the house.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN AND MRS. BRAGG OF OUR STREET.]
Although I have eaten scores of dinners at Captain Bragg’s charge, yet
his hospitality is so insolent that none of us who frequent his
mahogany, feel any obligation to our braggart entertainer.
After he has given one of his great heavy dinners he always takes an
opportunity to tell you, in the most public way, how many bottles of
wine were drunk. His pleasure is to make his guests tipsy, and to tell
everybody how and when the period of inebriation arose. And Miss
Clapperclaw tells me that he often comes over laughing and giggling to
her, and pretending that he has brought _me_ into this condition--a
calumny which I fling contemptuously in his face.
He scarcely gives any but men’s parties, and invites the whole club home
to dinner. What is the compliment of being asked, when the whole club is
asked too, I should like to know? Men’s parties are only good for boys.
I hate a dinner where there are no women. Bragg sits at the head of his
table, and bullies the solitary Mrs. Bragg.
He entertains us with stories of storms which he, Bragg, encountered--of
dinners which he, Bragg, has received from the Governor-General of
India--of jokes which he, Bragg, has heard; and however stale or odious
they may be, poor Mrs. B. is always expected to laugh.
Woe be to her if she doesn’t, or if she laughs at anybody else’s jokes.
I have seen Bragg go up to her and squeeze her arm with a savage grind
of his teeth, and say, with an oath, “Hang it, madam, how dare you laugh
when any man but your husband speaks to you? I forbid you to grin in
that way. I forbid you to look sulky. I forbid you to look happy, or to
look up, or to keep your eyes down to the ground. I desire you will not
be trapesing through the rooms. I order you not to sit as still as a
stone.” He curses her if the wine is corked, or if the dinner is
spoiled, or if she comes a minute too soon to the club for him, or
arrives a minute too late. He forbids her to walk, except upon his arm.
And the consequence of his ill-treatment is, that Mrs. Cammysole and
Mrs. Bragg respect him beyond measure, and think him the first of human
beings.
“I never knew a woman who was constantly bullied by her husband who did
not like him the better for it,” Miss Clapperclaw says. And though this
speech has some of Clapp’s usual sardonic humour in it, I can’t but
think there is some truth in the remark.
[Illustration: A STUDIO IN OUR STREET.]