IN WHICH THE QUESTION OF THE BREWERY IS SETTLED.
During the day or two immediately subsequent to the election, Mr.
Tappitt found himself to be rather downhearted. The excitement of the
contest was over. He was no longer buoyed up by the consoling and
almost triumphant assurances of success for himself against his enemy
Rowan, which had been administered to him by those with whom he had
been acting on behalf of Mr. Hart. He was alone and thoughtful in
his counting-house, or else subjected to the pressure of his wife's
arguments in his private dwelling. He had never yet been won over to
say that he would agree to any proposition, but he knew that he must
now form some decision. Rowan would not even wait till the lawsuit
should be decided by legal means. If Mr. Tappitt would not consent
to one of the three propositions made to him, Rowan would at once
commence the building of his new brewery. "He is that sort of man,"
said Honyman, "that if he puts a brick down nothing in the world will
prevent him from going on."
"Of course it won't," said Mrs. Tappitt. "Oh dear, oh dear, T.! if
you go on in this way we shall all be ruined; and then people will
say that it was my fault, and that I ought to have had you inquired
into about your senses."
Tappitt gnashed his teeth and rushed out of the dining-room back into
his brewery. Among all those who were around him there was not one
to befriend him. Even Worts had turned against him, and had received
notice to go with a stern satisfaction which Tappitt had perfectly
understood.
Tappitt was in this frame of mind, and was seated on his office
stool, with his hat over his eyes, when he was informed by one of the
boys about the place that a deputation from the town had come to wait
upon him;--so he pulled off his hat, and begged that the deputation
might be shown into the counting-house. The deputation consisted of
three tradesmen who were desirous of convening a meeting with the
view of discussing the petition against Mr. Cornbury's return to
Parliament, and they begged that Mr. Tappitt would take the chair.
The meeting was to be held at the Dragon, and it was proposed that
after the meeting there should be a little dinner. Mr. Tappitt would
perhaps consent to take the chair at the dinner also. Mr. Tappitt
did consent to both propositions, and when the deputation withdrew,
he felt himself to be himself once more. His courage had returned
to him, and he would at once rebuke his wife for the impropriety of
the words she had addressed to him. He would rebuke his wife, and
would then proceed to meet Mr. Sharpit the attorney, at the Dragon,
and to take the chair at the meeting. It could not be that a young
adventurer such as Rowan could put down an old-established firm, such
as his own, or banish from the scene of his labours a man of such
standing in the town as himself! It was all the fault of Honyman,--of
Honyman who never was firm on any matter. When the meeting should be
over he would say a word or two to Sharpit, and see if he could not
put the matter into better training.
With a heavy tread, a tread that was intended to mark his
determination, he ascended to the drawing-room and from thence to the
bed-room above in which Mrs. Tappitt was then seated. She understood
the meaning of the footfall, and knew well that it indicated a
purpose of marital authority. A woman must have much less of natural
wit than had fallen to Mrs. Tappitt's share, who has not learned from
the experience of thirty years the meaning of such marital signs and
sounds. So she sat herself firmly in her seat, caught hold of the
petticoat which she was mending with a stout grasp, and prepared
herself for the battle. "Margaret," said he, when he had carefully
closed the door behind him, "I have come up to say that I do not
intend to dine at home to-day."
"Oh, indeed," said she. "At the Dragon, I suppose then."
"Yes; at the Dragon. I've been asked to take the chair at a popular
meeting which is to be held with reference to the late election."
"Take the chair!"
"Yes, my dear, take the chair at the meeting and at the dinner."
"Now, T., don't you make a fool of yourself."
"No, I won't; but Margaret, I must tell you once for all that that
is not the way in which I like you to speak to me. Why you should
have so much less confidence in my judgment than other people in
Baslehurst, I cannot conceive; but--"
"Now, T., look here; as for your taking the chair as you call it, of
course you can do it if you like it."
"Of course I can; and I do like it, and I mean to do it. But it isn't
only about that I've come to speak to you. You said something to me
to-day, before Honyman, that was very improper."
"What I say always is improper, I know."
"I don't suppose you could have intended to insinuate that you
thought that I was a lunatic."
"I didn't say so."
"You said something like it."
"No, I didn't, T."
"Yes you did, Margaret."
"If you'll allow me for a moment, T., I'll tell you what I did say,
and if you wish it, I'll say it again."
"No; I'd rather not hear it said again."
"But, T., I don't choose to be misunderstood, nor yet
misrepresented."
"I haven't misrepresented you."
"But I say you have misrepresented me. If I ain't allowed to speak
a word, of course it isn't any use for me to open my mouth. I hope
I know what my duty is and I hope I've done it;--both by you, T.,
and by the children. I know I'm bound to submit, and I hope I have
submitted. Very hard it has been sometimes when I've seen things
going as they have gone; but I've remembered my duty as a wife,
and I've held my tongue when any other woman in England would have
spoken out. But there are some things which a woman can't stand and
shouldn't; and if I'm to see my girls ruined and left without a roof
over their heads, or a bit to eat, or a thing to wear, it shan't be
for want of a word from me."
"Didn't they always have plenty to eat?"
"But where is it to come from if you're going to rush openmouthed
into the lion's jaws in this way? I've done my duty by you, T., and
no man nor yet no woman can say anything to the contrary. And if it
was myself only I'd see myself on the brink of starvation before
I'd say a word; but I can't see those poor girls brought to beggary
without telling you what everybody in Baslehurst is talking about;
and I can't see you, T., behaving in such a way and sit by and hold
my tongue."
"Behave in what way? Haven't I worked like a horse? Do you mean
to tell me that I am to give up my business, and my position, and
everything I have in the world, and go away because a young scoundrel
comes to Baslehurst and tells me that he wants to have my brewery? I
tell you what, Margaret, if you think I'm that sort of man, you don't
know me yet."
"I don't know about knowing you, T."
"No; you don't know me."
"If you come to that, I know very well that I have been deceived.
I didn't want to speak of it, but now I must. I have been made to
believe for these last twenty years that the brewery was all your
own, whereas it now turns out that you've only got a share in it, and
for aught I can see, by no means the best share. Why wasn't I told
all that before?"
"Woman!" shouted Mr. Tappitt.
"Yes; woman indeed! I suppose I am a woman, and therefore I'm to have
no voice in anything. Will you answer me one question, if you please?
Are you going to that man, Sharpit?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then, Mr. Tappitt, I shall consult my brothers." Mrs. Tappitt's
brothers were grocers in Plymouth; men whom Mr. Tappitt had never
loved. "They mayn't hold their heads quite as high as you do,--or
rather as you used to do when people thought that the establishment
was all your own; but such as it is nobody can turn them out of
their shop in the Market-place. If you are going to Sharpit, I shall
consult them."
"You may consult the devil, if you like it."
"Oh, oh! very well, Mr. Tappitt. It's clear enough that you're not
yourself any longer, and that somebody must take up your affairs and
manage them for you. If you'll follow my advice you'll stay at home
this evening and take a dose of physic and see Dr. Haustus quietly in
the morning."
"I shall do nothing of the kind."
"Very well. Of course I can't make you. As yet you're your own
master. If you choose to go to this silly meeting and then to drink
gin and water and to smoke bad tobacco till all hours at the Dragon,
and you in the dangerous state you are at present, I can't help
it. I don't suppose that anything I could do now, that is quite
immediately, would enable me to put you under fitting restraint."
"Put me where?" Then Mr. Tappitt looked at his wife with a look that
was intended to annihilate her, for the time being,--seeing that no
words that he could speak had any such effect,--and he hurried out of
the room without staying to wash his hands or brush his hair before
he went off to preside at the meeting.
Mrs. Tappitt remained where she was for about half an hour and then
descended among her daughters.
"Isn't papa going to dine at home?" said Augusta.
"No, my dear; your papa is going to dine with some friends of Mr.
Hart's, the candidate who was beaten."
"And has he settled anything about the brewery?" Cherry asked.
"No; not as yet. Your papa is very much troubled about it, and I fear
he is not very well. I suppose he must go to this electioneering
dinner. When gentlemen take up that sort of thing, they must go on
with it. And as they wish your father to preside over the petition, I
suppose he he can't very well help himself."
"Is papa going to preside over the petition?" asked Augusta.
"Yes, my dear."
"I hope it won't cost him anything," said Martha. "People say that
those petitions do cost a great deal of money."
"It's a very anxious time for me, girls; of course, you must all of
you see that. I'm sure when we had our party I didn't think things
were going to be as anxious as this, or I wouldn't have had a penny
spent in such a way as that. If your papa could bring himself to give
up the brewery, everything would be well."
"I do so wish he would," said Cherry, "and let us all go and live at
Torquay. I do so hate this nasty dirty old place."
"I shall never live in a house I like so well," said Martha.
"The house is well enough, my dears, and so is the brewery, but it
can't be expected that your father should go on working for ever as
he does at present. It's too much for his strength;--a great deal too
much. I can see it, though I don't suppose any one else can. No one
knows, only me, what your father has gone through in that brewery."
"But why doesn't he take Mr. Rowan's offer?" said Cherry.
"Everybody seems to say now that Rowan is ever so rich," said
Augusta.
"I suppose papa doesn't like the feeling of being turned out," said
Martha.
"He wouldn't be turned out, my dear; not the least in the world,"
said Mrs. Tappitt. "I don't choose to interfere much myself because,
perhaps, I don't understand it; but certainly I should like your papa
to retire. I have told him so; but gentlemen sometimes don't like to
be told of things."
Mrs. Tappitt could be very severe to her husband, could say to him
terrible words if her spirit were put up, as she herself was wont
to say. But she understood that it did not become her to speak ill
of their father before her girls. Nor would she willingly have been
heard by the servants to scold their master. And though she said
terrible things she said them with a conviction that they would not
have any terrible effect. Tappitt would only take them for what
they were worth, and would measure them by the standard which his
old experience had taught him to adopt. When a man has been long
consuming red pepper, it takes much red pepper to stimulate his
palate. Had Mrs. Tappitt merely advised her husband, in proper
conjugal phraseology, to relinquish his trade and to retire to
Torquay, her advice, she knew, would have had no weight. She was
eager on the subject, feeling convinced that this plan of retirement
was for the good of the family generally, and therefore she had
advocated it with energy. There may be those who think that a wife
goes too far in threatening a husband with a commission of lunacy,
and frightening him with a prospect of various fatal diseases; but
the dose must be adapted to the constitution, and the palate that is
accustomed to large quantities of red pepper must have quantities
larger than usual whenever some special culinary effect is to be
achieved. On the present occasion Mrs. Tappitt went on talking to
the girls of their father in language that was quite eulogistic. No
threat against the absent brewer passed her mouth,--or theirs. But
they all understood each other, and were agreed that everything was
to be done to induce papa to accept Mr. Rowan's offer.
"Then," said Cherry, "he'll marry Rachel Ray, and she'll be mistress
of the brewery house."
"Never!" said Mrs. Tappitt, very solemnly. "Never! He'll never be
such a fool as that."
"Never!" said Augusta. "Never!"
In the mean time the meeting went on at the Dragon. I can't say that
Mr. Tappitt was on this occasion called upon to preside over the
petition. He was simply invited to take the chair at a meeting of
a dozen men at Baslehurst who were brought together by Mr. Sharpit
in order that they might be induced by him to recommend Mr. Hart to
employ him, Mr. Sharpit, in getting up the petition in question; and
in order that there might be some sufficient temptation to these
twelve men to gather themselves together, the dinner at the Dragon
was added to the meeting. Mr. Tappitt took the chair in the big,
uncarpeted, fusty room upstairs, in which masonic meetings were held
once a month, and in which the farmers of the neighbourhood dined
once a week, on market days. He took the chair and some seven or
eight of his townsmen clustered round him. The others had sent word
that they would manage to come in time for the dinner. Mr. Sharpit,
before he put the brewer in his place of authority, prompted him
as to what he was to do, and in the course of a quarter of an hour
two resolutions, already prepared by Mr. Sharpit, had been passed
unanimously. Mr. Hart was to be told by the assembled people of
Baslehurst that he would certainly be seated by a scrutiny, and
he was to be advised to commence his proceedings at once. These
resolutions were duly committed to paper by one of Mr. Sharpit's
clerks, and Mr. Tappitt, before he sat down to dinner, signed a
letter to Mr. Hart on behalf of the electors of Baslehurst. When
the work of the meeting was completed it still wanted half an hour
to dinner, during which the nine electors of Baslehurst sauntered
about the yard of the inn, looked into the stables, talked to the
landlady at the bar, indulged themselves with gin and bitters,
and found the time very heavy on their hands. They were nine
decent-looking, middle-aged men, dressed in black not of the newest,
in swallow-tailed coats and black trousers, with chimney-pot hats,
and red faces; and as they pottered about the premises of the Dragon
they seemed to be very little at their ease.
"What's up, Jim?" said one of the postboys to the ostler.
"Sharpit's got 'em all here to get some more money out of that ere
Jew gent;--that's about the ticket," said the ostler.
"He's a clever un," said the postboy.
At last the dinner was ready; and the total number of the party
having now completed itself, the liberal electors of Baslehurst
prepared to enjoy themselves. No bargain had been made on the
subject, but it was understood by them all that they would not be
asked to pay for their dinner. Sharpit would see to that. He would
probably know how to put it into his little bill; and if he failed in
that the risk was his own.
But while the body of the liberal electors was peeping into the
stables and drinking gin and bitters, Mr. Sharpit and Mr. Tappitt
were engaged in a private conference.
"If you come to me," said Sharpit, "of course I must take it up. The
etiquette of the profession don't allow me to decline."
"But why should you wish to decline?" said Tappitt, not altogether
pleased by Mr. Sharpit's manner.
"Oh, by no means; no. It's just the sort of work I like;--not much to
be made by it, but there's injury to be redressed and justice to be
done. Only you see poor Honyman hasn't got much of a practice left to
him, and I don't want to take his bread out of his mouth."
"But I'm not to be ruined because of that!"
"As I said before, if you bring the business to me I must take it up.
I can't help myself, if I would. And if I do take it up I'll see you
through it. Everybody who knows me knows that of me."
"I suppose I shall find you at home about ten to-morrow?"
"Yes; I'll be in my office at ten;--only you should think it
well over, you know, Mr. Tappitt. I've nothing to say against Mr.
Honyman,--not a word. You'll remember that, if you please, if there
should be anything about it afterwards. Ah! you're wanted for the
chair, Mr. Tappitt. I'll come and sit alongside of you, if you'll
allow me."
The dinner itself was decidedly bad, and the company undoubtedly
dull. I am inclined to think that every individual there would have
dined more comfortably at home. A horrid mess concocted of old gravy,
catsup, and bad wine was distributed under the name of soup. Then
there came upon the table half a huge hake,--the very worst fish that
swims, a fish with which Devonshire is peculiarly invested. Some hard
dark brown mysterious balls were handed round, which on being opened
with a knife were found to contain sausage-meat, very greasy and by
no means cooked through. Even the _dura ilia_ of the liberal electors
of Baslehurst declined to make acquaintance with these dainties.
After that came the dinner, consisting of a piece of roast beef very
raw, and a leg of parboiled mutton, absolutely blue in its state of
rawness. When the gory mess was seen which displayed itself on the
first incision made into these lumps of meat, the vice-president
and one or two of his friends spoke out aloud. That hard and greasy
sausage-meat might have been all right for anything they knew to the
contrary, and the soup they had swallowed without complaint. But they
did know what should be the state of a joint of meat when brought
to the table, and therefore they spoke out in their anger. Tappitt
himself said nothing that was intended to be carried beyond the
waiter, seeing that beer from his own brewery was consumed in the tap
of the Dragon; but the vice-president was a hardware dealer with whom
the Dragon had but small connection of trade, and he sent terrible
messages down to the landlady, threatening her with the Blue Boar,
the Mitre, and even with that nasty little pothouse the Chequers.
"What is it they expects for their three-and-sixpence?" said the
landlady, in her wrath; for it must be understood that Sharpit knew
well that he was dealing with one who understood the value of money,
and that he did not feel quite sure of passing the dinner in Mr.
Hart's bill. Then came a pie with crust an inch thick, which nobody
could eat, and a cabinet pudding, so called, full of lumps of suet.
I venture to assert that each liberal elector there would have got
a better dinner at home, and would have been served with greater
comfort; but a public dinner at an inn is the recognized relaxation
of a middle-class Englishman in the provinces. Did he not attend
such banquets his neighbours would conceive him to be constrained
by domestic tyranny. Others go to them, and therefore he goes also.
He is bored frightfully by every speech to which he listens. He is
driven to the lowest depths of dismay by every speech which he is
called upon to make. He is thoroughly disgusted when he is called on
to make no speech. He has no point of sympathy with the neighbours
between whom he sits. The wine is bad. The hot water is brought to
him cold. His seat is hard and crowded. No attempt is made at the
pleasures of conversation. He is continually called upon to stand
up that he may pretend to drink a toast in honour of some person or
institution for which he cares nothing; for the hero of the evening,
as to whom he is probably indifferent; for the church, which
perhaps he never enters; the army, which he regards as a hotbed of
aristocratic insolence; or for the Queen, whom he reveres and loves
by reason of his nature as an Englishman, but against whose fulsome
praises as repeated to him ad nauseam in the chairman's speech his
very soul unconsciously revolts. It is all a bore, trouble, ennui,
nastiness, and discomfort. But yet he goes again and again,--because
it is the relaxation natural to an Englishman. The Frenchman who sits
for three hours tilted on the hind legs of a little chair with his
back against the window-sill of the cafe, with first a cup of coffee
before him and then a glass of sugar and water, is perhaps as much to
be pitied as regards his immediate misery; but the liquids which he
imbibes are not so injurious to him.
Mr. Tappitt with the eleven other liberal electors of Baslehurst went
through the ceremony of their dinner in the usual way. They drank
the health of the Queen, and of the volunteers of the county because
there was present a podgy little grocer who had enrolled himself in
the corps and who was thus enabled to make a speech; and then they
drank the health of Mr. Hart, whose ultimate return for the borough
they pledged themselves to effect. Having done so much for business,
and having thus brought to a conclusion the political work of the
evening, they adjourned their meeting to a cosy little parlour
near the bar, and then they began to be happy. Some few of the
number, including the angry vice-president, who sold hardware, took
themselves home to their wives. "Mrs. Tongs keeps him sharp enough by
the ears," said Sharpit, winking to Tappitt. "Come along, old fellow,
and we'll get a drop of something really hot." Tappitt winked back
again and shook his head with an affected laugh; but as he did so he
thought of Mrs. T. at home, and the terrible words she had spoken to
him;--and at the same moment an idea came across him that Mr. Sharpit
was a very dangerous companion.
About half a dozen entered the cosy little parlour, and there they
remained for a couple of hours. While sitting in that cosy little
parlour they really did enjoy themselves. About nine o'clock they
had a bit of the raw beef broiled, and in that guise it was pleasant
enough; and the water was hot, and the tobacco was grateful and the
stiffness of the evening was gone. The men chatted together and
made no more speeches, and they talked of matters which bore a true
interest to them. Sharpit explained to them how each man might be
assisted in his own business if this rich London tailor could be
brought in for the borough. And by degrees they came round to the
affairs of the brewery, and Tappitt, as the brandy warmed him, spoke
loudly against Rowan.
"By George!" said the podgy grocer, "if anybody would offer me a
thousand a year to give up, I'd take it hopping."
"Then I wouldn't," said Tappitt, "and what's more, I won't. But
brewing ain't like other businesses;--there's more in it than in most
others."
"Of course there is," said Sharpit; "it isn't like any common trade."
"That's true too," said the podgy grocer.
A man usually receives some compensation for having gone through the
penance of the chairman's duties. For the remainder of the evening he
is entitled to the flattery of his companions, and generally receives
it till they become tipsy and insubordinate. Tappitt had not the
character of an intemperate man, but on this occasion he did exceed
the bounds of a becoming moderation. The room was hot and the tobacco
smoke was thick. The wine had been bad and the brandy was strong.
Sharpit, too, urged him to new mixtures and stronger denunciations
against Rowan, till at last, at eleven o'clock, when he took himself
to the brewery, he was not in a condition proper for the father of
such daughters or for the husband of such a wife.
"Shall I see him home?" said the podgy grocer to Mr. Sharpit.
Tappitt, with the suspicious quickness of a drunken man, turned
sharply upon the podgy and abashed grocer, and abused him for his
insolence. He then made his way out of the inn-yard, and along the
High Street, and down Brewery Lane to his own door, knowing the way
as well as though he had been sober, and passing over it as quickly.
Nor did he fall or even stumble, though now and again he reeled
slightly. And as he went the idea came strongly upon him that
Sharpit was a dangerous man, and that perhaps at this very moment he,
Tappitt, was standing on the brink of a precipice. Then he remembered
that his wife would surely be watching for him, and as he made his
first attempt to insert the latch-key into the door his heart became
forgetful of the brandy, and sank low within his breast.
How affairs went between him and Mrs. Tappitt on that night I will
not attempt to describe. That she used her power with generosity I do
not doubt. That she used it with discretion I am quite convinced. On
the following morning at ten o'clock Tappitt was still in bed; but
a note had been written by Mrs. T. to Messrs. Sharpit and Longfite,
saying that the projected visit had, under altered circumstances,
become unnecessary. That Tappitt's head was racked with pain, and his
stomach disturbed with sickness, there can be no doubt, and as little
that Mrs. T. used the consequent weakness of her husband for purposes
of feminine dominion; but this she did with discretion and even with
kindness. Only a word or two was said as to the state in which he had
returned home,--a word or two with the simple object of putting that
dominion on a firm basis. After that Mrs. Tappitt took his condition
as an established fact, administered to him the comforts of her
medicine-chest and teapot, excused his illness to the girls as having
been produced by the fish, and never left his bedside till she had
achieved her purpose. If ever a man got tipsy to his own advantage,
Mr. Tappitt did so on that occasion. And if ever a man in that
condition was treated with forbearing kindness by his wife, Mr.
Tappitt was so treated then.
"Don't disturb yourself, T.," she said; "there's nothing wants doing
in the brewery, and if it did what would it signify in comparison
with your health? The brewery won't be much to you now, thank
goodness; and I'm sure you've had enough of it. Thirty years of such
work as that would make any man sick and weak. I'm sure I don't
wonder at your being ill;--not the least. The wonder is that you've
ever stood up against it so long as you have. If you'll take my
advice you'll just turn round and try to sleep for an hour or so."
Tappitt took her advice at any rate, so far that he turned round
and closed his eyes. Up to this time he had not given way about the
brewery. He had uttered no word of assent. But he was gradually
becoming aware that he would have to yield before he would be allowed
to put on his clothes. And now, in the base and weak condition of
his head and stomach, yielding did not seem to him to be so very
bad a thing. After all, the brewery was troublesome, the fight was
harassing. Rowan was young and strong, and Mr. Sharpit was very
dangerous. Rowan, too, had risen in his estimation as in that of
others, and he could not longer argue, even to himself, that the
stipulated income would not be paid. He did not sleep, but got into
that half-drowsy state in which men think of their existing affairs,
but without any power of active thought. He knew that he ought to be
in his counting-house and at work. He half feared that the world was
falling away from him because he was not there. He was ashamed of
himself, and sometimes almost entertained a thought of rising up and
shaking off his lethargy. But his stomach was bad, and he could not
bring himself to move. His head was tormented, and his pillow was
soft; and therefore there he lay. He wondered what was the time of
day, but did not think of looking at his watch which was under his
head. He heard his wife's steps about the room as she shaded some
window from his eyes, or crept to the door to give some household
order to one of her girls outside; but he did not speak to her,
nor she to him. She did not speak to him as long as he lay there
motionless, and when he moved with a small low groan she merely
offered him some beef tea.
It was nearly six o'clock, and the hour of dinner at the brewery
was long passed, when Mrs. Tappitt sat herself down by the
bedside determined to reap the fruit of her victory. He had just
raised himself in his bed and announced his intention of getting
up,--declaring, as he did so, that he would never again eat any of
that accursed fish. The moment of his renovation had come upon him,
and Mrs. Tappitt perceived that if he escaped from her now, there
might even yet be more trouble.
"It wasn't only the fish, T.," she said, with somewhat of sternness
in her eye.
"I hardly drank anything," said Tappitt.
"Of course I wasn't there to see what you took," said she; "but you
were very bad when you came home last night;--very bad indeed. You
couldn't have got in at the door only for me."
"That's nonsense."
"But it is quite true. It's a mercy, T., that neither of the girls
saw you. Only think! But there'll be nothing more of that kind, I'm
sure, when we are out of this horrid place; and it wouldn't have
happened now, only for all this trouble."
To this Tappitt made no answer, but he grunted, and again said that
he thought he would get up.
"Of course it's settled now, T., that we're to leave this place."
"I don't know that at all."
"Then, T., you ought to know it. Come now; just look at the common
sense of the thing. If we don't give up the brewery what are we to
do? There isn't a decent respectable person in the town in favour
of our staying here, only that rascal Sharpit. You desired me this
morning to write and tell him you'd have nothing more to do with
him; and so I did." Tappitt had not seen his wife's letter to the
lawyer,--had not asked to see it, and now became aware that his only
possible supporter might probably have been driven away from him.
Sharpit too, though dangerous as an enemy, was ten times more
dangerous as a friend!
"Of course you'll take that young man's offer. Shall I sit down and
write a line to Honyman, and tell him to come in the morning?"
Tappitt groaned again and again, said that he would get up, but
Mrs. T. would not let him out of bed till he had assented to her
proposition that Honyman should be again invited to the brewery. He
knew well that the battle was gone from him,--had in truth known it
through all those half-comatose hours of his bedridden day. But a
man, or a nation, when yielding must still resist even in yielding.
Tappitt fumed and fussed under the clothes, protesting that his
sending for Honyman would be useless. But the letter was written in
his name and sent with his knowledge; and it was perfectly understood
that that invitation to Honyman signified an unconditional surrender
on the part of Mr. Tappitt. One word Mrs. T. said as she allowed her
husband to escape from his prison amidst the blankets, one word by
which to mark that the thing was done, and one word only. "I suppose
we needn't leave the house for about a month or so,--because it would
be inconvenient about the furniture."
"Who's to turn you out if you stay for six months?" said Tappitt.
The thing was marked enough then, and Mrs. Tappitt retired in muffled
triumph,--retired when she had made all things easy for the simplest
ceremony of dressing.
"Just sponge your face, my dear," she said, "and put on your
dressing-gown, and come down for half an hour or so."
"I'm all right now," said Tappitt.
"Oh! quite so;--but I wouldn't go to the trouble of much dressing."
Then she left him, descended the stairs, and entered the parlour
among her daughters. When there she could not abstain from one
blast of the trumpet of triumph. "Well, girls," she said, "it's all
settled, and we shall be in Torquay now before the winter."
"No!" said Augusta.
"That'll be a great change," said Martha.
"In Torquay before the winter!" said Cherry. "Oh, mamma, how clever
you have been!"
"And now your papa is coming down, and you should thank him for what
he's doing for you. It's all for your sake that he's doing it."
Mr. Tappitt crept into the room, and when he had taken his seat in
his accustomed arm-chair, the girls went up to him and kissed him.
Then they thanked him for his proposed kindness in taking them out of
the brewery.
"Oh, papa, it is so jolly!" said Cherry.
Mr. Tappitt did not say much in answer to this;--but luckily there
was no necessity that he should say anything. It was an occasion on
which silence was understood as giving a perfect consent.