“But if we wullent be content
Wi’ th’ blessings sec as heav’n has sent,
But obstinately wad prevent
Wise fate’s decree,
See fwoak mun just pursue the bent
I’ their own bree.
“What if the hand of fate, unkind,
Has us’d fremtly, need we peyne?
Tho’ you’ve lost your sight an’ me meyne,
We cannot mend it.
Let us be glad the powers deveyne
Nae war’ extendit.
“Let us—sen leyfe is but a span—
Still be as canty as we can,
Rememb’ring Heaven has ordered Man
To practise patience,
An’ not to murmur ’neath his han’,
Leyke feckless gations.”
_John Stagg._
NOW, it so happened, that in the house where the Sandboys had taken up
their residence, there was located on the second floor one of those
_malades imaginaires_, in a white robe-de-chambre, who are so popular
and pretty at the present day.
Mrs. Blanche Quinine certainly dressed the part of the invalid to the
life—or, rather, to the death. Robed from head to foot in the purest
white, she managed to look extremely well and ill at one and the same
time. She was got up with the greatest possible regard to medical
effect; for, although Mrs. Quinine was naturally a plump and
strong-built woman, she was costumed so artistically, and looked, as she
languished on the couch, so perilously delicate, that one could not help
fancying but that, with the least shock or jar to her nerves, every bone
in her body would fall asunder, like the skeleton in the Fantoccini, at
the sudden “bomb” of the drum.
Her complexion—which could not have been called florid even at her
healthiest moments—was rendered still more pale by the “bloom” of
“babies” powder, with which she never failed to indue it, previous to
leaving her chamber. Her eyes—they were of the Irish grey kind—she
always kept half-closed, as if from long want of rest—but then Nature
had blessed Mrs. Quinine with long, dark, sweeping eye-lashes, and these
were never seen to such perfection as when brought into contrast with
her white skin. Her upper lip was drawn up slightly, as if in continual
pain—but then Mrs. Quinine was gifted with a “remarkably fine set of
teeth,” and was sufficient “woman of the world” to know that there was
no use in her having such things unless she showed them. Moreover, the
favourite, because the most touching, posture, of Mrs. Quinine, was with
her head slightly drooping, and her cheek resting on her hand—but then
the lady prided herself on the smallness of her extremities (the tips of
toes could be just seen at the end of the couch, peeping from beneath
her robe); and, with her arms raised, she knew that the blood could not
circulate so freely in her fingers, and, consequently, that she would be
saved the trouble of continually rubbing them, in order to improve their
whiteness.
And, truth to say, the illness of Mrs. Quinine was as agreeable to
herself as it was interesting to her doctor and acquaintances, and
inconvenient to her husband. Mrs. Blanche’s prevailing belief was, that
she was suffering from extreme debility, and that if she had not the
very best of food to live upon, accompanied with continual change of air
and scene, she felt satisfied she had but a short time to remain in this
world.
In this conviction Mrs. Quinine was fully borne out by the profound
opinion, most gravely delivered, with the lady’s pulse in one hand, and
his gold repeater in the other, by her medical adviser—that “dear,
loveable old man,” Doctor Twaddles—who added, that unless she _would_
keep herself quiet, and refrain from making the least exertion, and
could at the same time be secured perfect peace of mind at home, without
being thwarted in the slightest wish—as he said this, the doctor knitted
the grey, bushy brows which hung down about his eyes like a Skye
terrier’s, and looked death-warrants at the husband of the lady—he would
not take it upon himself to answer for the consequences.
Now, Doctor Twaddles was a gentleman who had fortunately been blest with
a remarkably imposing appearance.
Nature had been most bountiful to the Doctor. He had an intensely “fine
bald head of his own”—round and hairless as an ostrich’s egg; and this
attractive exterior had been worth a thousandfold more to him than the
interior ever could have been, even had it been as full of brains as
every egg is said to be full of meat. Had the Doctor depended for his
advancement in life on his skill, he might have remained without a
patient and without a crust; but, so to speak, standing on his bald
head, he had been able to drink his wine daily, although he certainly
was “no conjuror.”
The head, to which Doctor Twaddles owed so much, and which had won for
him such a number of hatbands from departed patients, was fringed with
silver, for the little hair that still lingered round it was white as
driven snow. His features were prominent and statuesque. His coat, which
was always scrupulously clean and dustless, was black and glossy as that
of a mourning-coach horse; and he so far clung to the manners of the old
school, as to allow his nether garments to descend only to his knees,
where they were fastened by a pair of small gold buckles. His legs,
which—to do Doctor Twaddles justice—were exceedingly well shaped, and
perhaps accounted for the Doctor’s still clinging to the obsolete
fashion of exhibiting them, were veiled by a pair of very thin
gossamer-like black silk stockings, through which the flesh showed with
a pinky hue; so that the medical gentleman’s calves, as he sat with them
crossed one over the other, so as to give the foremost an extra
plumpness, bore a strong resemblance in colour to black currant jam.
The only ornaments that the Doctor wore, were a diamond pin “set
transparent,” and so pellucid as to be scarcely visible on the white
neckcloth that it fastened; and a series of mourning rings on his third
and little fingers, as ostentatious marks of respect from some of the
most illustrious and wealthy patients he had buried; while from below
his waistcoat there dangled a bunch of gold seals, almost as big as the
tassel at the end of a bell-rope, and these the Doctor delighted, as he
leant back in his chair, to swing up and down, like a muffin-bell, while
delivering his opinion.
Doctor Twaddles was wont to increase the importance of his opinion by
multiplying himself into many, and substituting, in his discourse, for
the plain, humble, and honest I, the pompous, imposing and presumptuous
We,—the special prerogative of monarchs and editors. Certainly this
style of discourse was fraught with some few attendant advantages, even
beyond that of leading the hearer to believe that the verdict pronounced
was not the judgment of one solitary individual, but the unanimous
opinion of an indefinite number; for when the Doctor, after due feeling
of pulse and knitting of brows, said to his patients that _we_ must take
a blue pill and black dose, it appeared to the invalid as if the
generous Physician intended to swallow half his own medicine.
But, on the other hand, some of the Doctor’s plural edicts had a
particularly singular sound with them; for when he told his
lady-patients that _we_ must put _our_ feet in hot water, it seemed as
if he intended indulging in a joint foot-bath with them. Equally strange
and startling did it sound when he said, that “_we_ really must go out
of town;” or, stranger still, when in a mysterious manner he declared,
that “_we_ really must go to bed as quick as possible.”
Dr. Twaddles was a great favourite with the ladies, by whom he was
invariably described as a “loveable old man.” His manner was gentle and
polite as a well-fee’d pew-opener. His voice he always subdued to a
complimentary sympathy, and he was especially tender in his handling of
his fair patients’ pulses. He was, moreover, “remarkably fond of
children,” for whom he generally carried in his pockets a small canister
filled either with acidulated drops, “refined liquorice,” or “black
currant lozenges.” In his habits, too, he was quite a family man, and
never failed, if in his visits he found the more healthy members of the
family at a “hot lunch,” of seating himself good-humouredly at the
table, and declaring that he _must_ really have a bit of the pudding,
for he was happy to say that he was still quite a boy in his “love of
sweets.”
Nor was the “advice” usually given by Dr. Twaddles of a less attractive
character.
The Doctor invariably acted upon the apparently disinterested plan of
objecting to the use of physic—excepting of course in the most urgent
cases. Formerly, according to the old fable, curriers were prone to
insist there was nothing like leather, but of late the contrary, and far
more lucrative, practice has sprung up among us; and now-a-days lawyers
counsel their clients on no account to “go to law,”—with the greatest
possible success; and physicians rail at the exhibition of physic—to
equal advantage.
With Doctor Twaddles, “diet was everything”—all maladies proceeding,
according to his popular pathology, from the stomach; for patients, he
had long ago discovered, never objected to being fed into good health,
however strong an aversion they might have to being dosed into
convalescence.
Another mode of insinuation that the Doctor adopted was to explain to
the invalids, in language that they could not possibly understand, the
cause of the malady for which he was prescribing, and the reason for the
remedies be adopted: this he did in short family physiological lectures,
which he loved to illustrate by the most ordinary objects. He would tell
the astonished and half-affrighted patients how the greater part of the
food taken into the system acted simply as coals to the vital fire,—how
the lungs were, if he might be allowed the expression, nothing more than
the grate in which the alimentary fuel was being consumed, and keeping
up a continued supply of caloric for the human frame, for, that the
selfsame operation was going on in the human chest as in the stove
beside him.
As he said this, the bald-headed Doctor would lean back with evident
self-satisfaction in the easy chair, and swing his watch-seals round and
round like a watchman’s rattle. Then he usually proceeded to explain how
every human creature was burning away, in the process of respiration, at
the least one pound of charcoal per diem; that every meal was, when
viewed with the philosophic eye, nothing more than throwing another
shovelful or two of coals on to the ever-consuming fire; and that for
himself, he did not care in what form the charcoal was introduced into
the system, but one pound of it he must really insist upon being
swallowed daily.
Mrs. Quinine—who, by-the-bye, never lost an opportunity of impressing
upon strangers that her name was pronounced Keneen, even as the
Beauvoirs, the Cholmondeleys, the Majoribanks, and the Cockburns, insist
upon being called Beavers, Chumleys, Marchbanks, and Coburns—Mrs.
Quinine, we repeat, agreed with the rest of the female world in her
estimation of the dear old Doctor Twaddles. Nor was it to be wondered
at, for the Doctor certainly did his best to make the lady’s
indisposition as pleasant and profitable as possible to her.
True to his dietetic discipline, the loveable old Physician gave the
lady to understand that all she required was nourishing food, and
accordingly his prescriptions consisted of a succession of the most
agreeable and toothsome delicacies; so that the fair invalid having
merely to submit to a course of high feeding, gave herself up to the
care of the dear Doctor with the most exemplary patience.
At six in the morning, Mrs. Quinine began her dietetic course with a cup
of homœopathic cocoa, that was kept simmering through the night in a
small teapot, resting (heaven knows why!) on the turrets of a china
castle, in the porcelain donjon of which burnt a melancholy spirit lamp.
This it was her husband’s duty to give the lady immediately her eyes
were opened. Her breakfast, which was mostly taken in bed, consisted of
coffee, procured, according to the express injunctions of the Doctor,
from a house where analysis had proved it to be unadulterated, and made,
after Doctor Twaddles’ own receipt, entirely with milk, obtained from an
establishment where the Doctor could vouch for its being genuine. The
coffee was sometimes accompanied with the lean of a mutton-chop, “cut
thick,” and “done with the gravy in it;” sometimes with a rasher or two
of “Dr. Gardner’s digestive bacon,” and sometimes with the wing of a
cold chicken; while the bread of which she partook was of the
unfermented kind, had fresh every day from the Doctor’s own man in the
City. At twelve the invalid rose, and descended to a light lunch of
either oysters, a small custard pudding, or some calf’s-foot jelly made
palateable and strengthening with wine; and with this, and an egg or two
beaten up with milk, and flavoured with a glass of Madeira, the delicate
lady was enabled to linger on till the more substantial meal of the day.
Mrs. Quinine’s dinner, for the most part, was made up of a “little bit”
of fish and a “mouthful or two” of game; for the lady condescended but
seldom to partake of butcher’s meat, and, when she did so, it was solely
of the more delicate and expensive kinds, known as Southdown or Welsh
mutton; while the digestion of these was assisted either with “Rumford
ale,” or “India pale,” or “Guinness,” or some other agreeable and
stimulating form of dietetic medicine, procured from establishments
which were noted for supplying only the very best articles.
Her supper was usually eaten in bed, for the invalid was strictly
enjoined to retire to rest at an early hour; and long before she did so,
a fire was lighted in her bed-room, so that she might not suffer from
the shock of going into a cold apartment: for the same reason, the
lady’s bed was well warmed previous to her entering it; and when she had
been comfortably tucked up by her maid, a hot water bottle swathed in
flannel was placed at her feet. Here the invalid was consoled either
with a glass of warm white-wine-whey, or a posset, or arrowroot bought
expressly for her at Apothecaries’ Hall; and thus the poor delicate lady
was enabled to keep body and soul together until the morrow.
But the course of diet followed by the lady was far from settled, for
Doctor Twaddles paid great attention to what he termed “the voice of
Nature,” and consequently gave strict orders that whatever his patient
fancied she was to have. Accordingly, Mrs. Quinine continually felt
convinced that her system required change, and that she needed some most
expensive and agreeable article of diet. Now her mouth was parched, and
nothing but strawberries, though they cost a guinea a pint, or a bunch
or two of hot-house grapes, could relieve her; then she would give the
world for just a taste of spring lamb and new potatoes; and then nothing
would satisfy her but a mouthful or two of turbot, even though it were
impossible to buy less than a whole one.
All these little fancies Doctor Twaddles dignified by the name of
“instincts,” and declared that they were simply the out-speakings of
exhausted Nature.
Mrs. Quinine was, of course, too weak to walk abroad, so Doctor Twaddles
enjoined a daily airing in the park, when the weather was mild, in an
open carriage; or, if the lady preferred it, he would advise a little
horse exercise; and as Mrs. Quinine thought she looked extremely well in
a habit and “wide-awake,” she seldom stirred out unless mounted on a
“palfrey” from the neighbouring livery stables.
Now these and other similar prescriptions of Doctor Twaddles made
illness so pleasant, that, coupled with the interesting character of the
invalid costume (Mrs. Quinine wore the prettiest of nightcaps, trimmed
with the most expensive of lace, when she received visitors in her
bed-room), the lady naturally felt disposed to feel indisposed. And it
was odd how the several complaints to which she professed herself
subject, came and went with the fashionable seasons. In winter she was
“peculiarly susceptible” to bronchitis, so that this necessitated her
being in town at the gayest period of the metropolis. Doctor Twaddles
would not take upon himself to answer for the consequences if Mrs.
Quinine passed a winter in the provinces: and—what was a severe
calamity—the poor lady could go nowhere in the summer for change of air,
but to the fashionable and lively watering-places, for she was always
affected with the hay fever if she visited the more retired and
consequently duller parts of the country.
The prevailing afflictions of Mrs. Quinine, however, were neuralgia, and
“a general debility of the system”—indeed, she was always suffering from
her “poor poor nerves;” and though subject to the greatest depression of
spirits in the presence of her husband, (for that gentleman seldom
remonstrated with her, but she burst into a flood of tears, and declared
he was “throwing her back,”) still, before company, she was always
lively enough, excepting when the visitors made tender inquiries after
her health, and _then_ no one certainly could be more severely
afflicted.
Nor was the “debility” under which the lady laboured less eccentric in
its nature, for though it prevented her taking any exercise in the open
air—but in a carriage or on horseback—still, when an invitation came to
a dance, it in no way interfered with her polking in an “extremely low”
dress half the night through.
Mr. Quinine was an eminent painter of “still-life;” and though his
braces of partridges on canvas, and his dead hares, and his grapes and
pine-apples “in oil” were highly admired, and fetched large sums, it was
nevertheless as much as he could do to pay the physician’s fees by his
game and fruit pieces. While his wife was breakfasting or supping off
her dainties in bed, or “doing” the elegant and interesting invalid in
white cambric on the sofa in the front room, or riding out in the Park,
he, (poor man!) was painting away for dear life in his studio at the
back of the house. This the clever little artist (for he stood but five
foot five in his high-heeled Wellingtons) did without a murmur; for,
truth to say, he doated on his dear Blanche, and strove, by making
“studies” of the “birds” prescribed by Doctor Twaddles before they were
cooked for his wife’s dinner, somehow or other to lessen the expenses of
“the housekeeping;” for not one of the Doctor’s delectable dietetic
prescriptions was ever sent to Covent Garden or Leadenhall Market to be
“dispensed,” but the economic Quinine was sure to use it as a model
before administering it to the patient.
But even if the little man had felt inclined to raise his voice against
the course pursued, he would immediately have had the united battery of
Twaddles and Blanche opened against him; and while the lady overpowered
him with tears, the Doctor would have impressed upon him, in the most
solemn manner, that unless Mrs. Quinine could be allowed to enjoy the
greatest tranquillity of both mind and body, and be assured the
gratification of her slightest wish, it was beyond the highest talent in
the kingdom to undertake to say what distressing event might happen.
* * * * *
The opening of the Great Exhibition had operated almost as magically
upon the nerves of the susceptible Mrs. Quinine, as an invitation to a
_Thé Dansante_. Her bronchitis, and the “short hacking cough” which
accompanied it, had almost disappeared under the influence of the
delicious _pâte de Guimauve_, prescribed by Doctor Twaddles; the lady’s
neuralgia had been dissipated by her steel medicine (and she had
swallowed enough of that metal in her time to have admitted of being cut
up into “magnum bonum” pens for the million); the “weak state of her
nerves” no longer required the carriage-way in front of her house to be
strewn with straw, nor the iron-hand of the street-door knocker to be
embellished with a white kid glove; for the lady had grown suddenly “so
much better,” that on requesting permission of Doctor Twaddles to visit
the Exhibition, she declared that she felt herself quite equal to the
task of exploring even its “five miles of galleries.”
Doctor Twaddles did not hesitate to confess himself delighted at the
favourable change that had so evidently set in, saying it was due solely
to the wonderful constitution of Mrs. Quinine; but, like a prudent man,
he wished to “see how matters went on” for a short time, before he
became a consenting party to her walking out—a thousand little things as
he said might happen to throw her back again.
The consequence was that the lady made up her mind to take the Doctor by
surprise at his next visit, and not only to be ready in the sitting-room
to receive him when he called, but to be able to say that she had
breakfasted down stairs, and felt herself in no way fatigued with the
exertion.
Accordingly, Mrs. Quinine, for the first time since the coronation of
Her Majesty Queen Victoria—when she had been obliged to be down in
Parliament-street by six in the morning—had risen at daybreak. She had
dressed herself with great care, so that she might be able to make the
most favourable impression upon Twaddles. She had put on a clean white
cambric robe-de-chambre, and left off applying the baby’s powder to her
complexion; she had, moreover, such a delicate tinge of pink upon her
cheeks, that it was difficult to say how the colour had got there in so
short a space of time. Yesterday, she was as pale as if she had been
white-washed—to-day, her cheeks were as pinky as the inner lining of a
shell. Whether the change arose from the contrast of her white dress, or
from the absence of the wonted “violet powder,” or whether from the
faintest touch of the hare’s-foot that her prying maid had once
discovered secreted in the lower tray of her dressing-case, must for
ever remain one of those mysteries of the toilet that it is base
presumption in Man to seek to unravel. Suffice it, Mrs. Quinine, even in
her severest illness, never looked better; and as she left her bed-room,
and gave a parting glance at herself in the long cheval-glass, she
smiled with inward satisfaction at the appearance she made on her sudden
restoration to health.
Now as the lady was slowly descending the stairs on her way to the
breakfast room, Mr. Christopher Sandboys was rapidly mounting to an
upper apartment, whither he had been directed by Mrs. Fokesell as the
only convenient place where he could cleanse his face, hands, and
clothes, from the dust of the “half-ton” of coals, in which he and the
partner of his bosom had been almost smothered.
The more “particular” Mrs. Sandboys bad retired to the nearest “baths
and washhouses,” convinced that nothing but a warm-bath could ever
restore _her_ to her pristine purity.
The less fastidious Cursty, however, as we said before, was hastening up
the stairs, two at a time, with a jug of warm water in his hand, intent
upon a good wash and effecting that physical impossibility of scrubbing
the blackamoor white; for, so intensely sable with adhering coal-dust
was the complexion of Mr. Sandboys, that, truth to say, the most
experienced ethnologist would, at the first glance, have mistaken that
gentleman for one of the Ethiopian tribe. The lady in white had
descended the first flight of stairs, and was just preparing to turn the
corner of the second, when the black gentleman darted sharply round, and
bounced suddenly upon her.
The nervous Mrs. Quinine was in no way prepared for the sight of a “man
of colour” in such a place or at such a time. Had even her own husband
pounced so unexpectedly upon her, the shock would have been sufficient
to have driven all the breath out of the body of so susceptible a lady;
but to find herself, without the least preparation, face to face with “a
black”—as Mr. Cursty Sandboys appeared to be—was more than the shattered
state of her nerves was able to bear.
The lady no sooner set eyes upon the sable monster than she screamed
like a railway engine on coming to some dark tunnel, and fainted off
dead into the arms of the astonished and terrified Sandboys; and as the
lifeless body of the invalid fell heavily against the wretched Cursty,
the dusty, grimy, coaly garments of that gentleman left their deep black
mark not only upon the white cambric robe but imprinted a large black
patch upon the cheek of the poor unconscious Mrs. Quinine.
The industrious little artist who called that lady his wife was busy in
his studio, transferring a brace of wild ducks to canvas, previous to
their being cooked for his wife’s dinner, when he heard the piercing
scream of his dear Blanche. With his palette still upon his thumb, and
his wet paint-brush in his hand, he darted forth, and discovered his
lady insensible, in the arms of a man who, at first sight, struck him as
being nothing more refined than a London coal-heaver.
Guarding his face with his palette, like a shield, the little artist
rushed at the amazed Sandboys, and began attacking him with his
paint-brush, as with a broadsword, while every stroke he made at the
wretched Cursty’s head, left a dab of paint upon his cheeks; so that by
the time the indignant Quinine had broken the brush in his repeated
blows, the complexion of Mr. Sandboys was as dark and many-coloured as
that of a highly tattooed Indian chief.
In such a situation it was impossible for Cursty to defend himself; to
have done as much he must have let the strange lady in white drop to the
ground. His gallantry bore the vigorous attack of the enraged husband
for some few minutes, but when the little painter had discarded the
impotent weapons of his art, and Sandboys saw him about to belabour him
with his fists, his Cumbrian blood could put up with it no longer.
Cursty impulsively withdrew his arm from the lady’s waist, to throw
himself into an attitude of self-defence; and, as he did so, the figure
of the unconscious Mrs. Quinine fell heavily on the floor.
The fall had the effect of bringing the lady to her senses, when she
immediately clung to the legs of the little artist so firmly as to
prevent his continuing the attack. Then, as that gentleman stooped to
raise his wife from the floor, and Sandboys advanced to explain and
apologize for, the misadventure, the lady no sooner set eyes on the
black face that had before deprived her of her senses, than she fell
into a violent fit of hysterics, and made the whole house ring with her
laughter.
The noise brought the hundred-and-one lodgers from their apartments to
the stairs, and, from the top to the bottom, at every landing-place, was
a bunch of heads “of all nations,”—bearded, whiskered, and
moustachio’d,—some in turbans, others in Greek caps, fez-caps, and
nightcaps—all enjoying the scene, and mightily taken with the piebald
state of Mrs. Quinine’s face and robe-de-chambre, and the party-coloured
character of Mr. Sandboy’s complexion.
* * * * *
Nor was Mrs. Sandboys less fortunate in her endeavours to free herself
from the black of the coals. Having removed the superficial grubbiness
from her skin by a hasty rinse of her face and hands at the sink in the
back kitchen—the only available place—but which merely had the effect of
diluting her complexion down to the swarthiness of a neutral tint, she
“jumped” into a cab, and, as we said before, made the best of her way to
the nearest public baths.
Here she was delayed some considerable time in procuring her ticket,
owing to the “rush” of Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, and Poles,
congregated round the building, for the London lodging-house keepers had
come to a resolution not to receive any foreigners into their
establishments unless they came prepared with a certificate from some of
the metropolitan washhouses. Her ticket, once obtained, however, Mrs.
Sandboys proceeded to make her way down the long narrow passage, between
the two rows of little bath rooms, on the “ladies’ side” of the
establishment. At the end of the corridor she was met by the female
attendant, who, in answer to her request for a bath, informed her that
all the “warms” were full, but that she expected there’d be “a shower”
shortly.
Now, the innocent Mrs. Sandboys, having never heard of such a style of
bathing as the last mentioned, was naturally led to believe that the
attendant alluded to nothing less than the unsettled state of the
weather; so casting her eyes up to the skylight, she observed in reply,
that she dare say they _would_ have a shower before long, adding, that
it was just what country people wanted.
“Perhaps, then, you wouldn’t object to that there, mum?” returned
attendant, as she arranged the pile of towels in the cupboard.
“Whya, as Ise here, I dunnet mind, if ’artsease be ow’r suin,” replied
the simple-minded Mrs. Sandboys, still referring to the rain. “I dare
say ’t’ull dui a power of guid to cwuntry fwoke.”
“Oh, yes, mum! always does a vast deal of good, and is sure to be over
in no time,” returned the bath-woman, still harping on her baths.
In a few minutes the shower-bath was at liberty, and Mrs. Sandboys
seated herself in a chair in the passage, while the attendant went to
prepare the room for her use.
Presently the woman returned with the heavy-looking wet towels of the
departed bather in her hand, hanging down like paunches; letting them
“flop” on the floor, she requested Mrs. Sandboys to follow her, as the
room was quite ready. Mrs. Sandboys did as desired, and was shown into a
small apartment, into which she was no sooner ushered than the attendant
withdrew, saying, that if the lady wanted anything there was a bell and
she would please to ring.
The room was a small cabin-like apartment, with a narrow little bench
against one side of it, while above this a few wooden hooks projected
from the wall. A tiny “shaving-glass” hung against the partition, and
the uncarpeted floor was dark-coloured with the drippings of the
previous bathers. In one corner was what appeared at first sight to be a
long upright cupboard, but which in reality was “the second-class”
shower-bath. The door of this apparatus was placed wide open, and inside
there stood a chair, while a small cord dangled from above.
Mrs. Sandboys observing nothing that appeared to her primitive mind to
bear the slightest resemblance to a bath in the room, conjectured that
the hot water would be brought to her in a large pan immediately it was
ready.
Accordingly, she set to work to divest herself of her bonnet and cloak;
and having arranged those articles on the bench, she proceeded, in her
simplicity, to seat herself in the chair immediately under the
shower-bath, in the corner of the little apartment, there to await the
coming of the expected pan.
Her patience endured the imaginary delay for some few minutes, but at
length growing wearied of her solitary situation, she got angry at the
non-appearance of the attendant, and starting from her seat, seized the
cord which dangled above her head, and which she—poor innocent
dame!—mistook for the bell-pull.
Determined to put up with the neglect no longer, she gave a vigorous
pull at the rope. Thump went the catch, and instantly down, through the
colander above, came a miniature deluge, consisting of two pailsful of
“cold pump,” suddenly let loose, in the form of a thousand watery wires,
upon the head of the luckless Mrs. Sandboys.
What with the unexpectedness of the catastrophe, and the coldness of the
water—rendered still more cold by the minuteness of its division—and the
rapidity of its descent through the air, together with the perfectly
novel character of the bath to the unsophisticated native of Buttermere,
the poor lady was so perfectly paralysed by the icy torrent, that she
was unable to escape from it; and it was not until a few moments after
the cataract had ceased that she rushed out of the balneatory cupboard,
gasping for breath, and fighting the air; while her clothes, shining
with the wet, like a tarpaulin clung about her as tight as if she had
been done up in brown paper, and her hair hung in skeins over her face,
so that she had very much of the soaked appearance of a Polish hen on a
rainy day.
As soon as she could fetch sufficient breath to scream, she gave a
series of shrieks, and capered about the apartment after the manner of
the war-dance of the wild Indians.
The peal of screams were echoed and re-echoed as they rattled against
the bare walls of the building, and spread an instant alarm among the
entire corps of ladies then in the bathing-rooms. One and all they
imagined, from the piercing tone of the shrieks, that nothing less could
have occurred than that some brute of a man—some impudent Frenchmen, or
a wretch of a Turk perhaps—through accident or design—had found his way
to the ladies’ side of the establishment, and taken some poor dear by
surprise. Accordingly they, one after another, repeated the screams of
the original screamer—shouting, “It’s a man! It’s a man! It’s a man!”
In an instant the female attendant came rushing down the corridor. Such
of the lady bathers as were dressed suddenly opened the doors of their
little apartments, and stood with them ajar, so that they might slam
them to again in case of danger; while those who were unable to make
their appearance, jumped upon the bench within, and popped their
bald-looking heads, encased as they were in yellow greasy-looking
bathing-caps, over the doors, and squinted into the passage like so many
birds from the house-tops; and as they saw the male authorities come
hurrying towards the point of alarm, they each uttered a sudden “Ho!”
and bobbed down again into the privacy of their cabins, as jauntily as
so many “Jacks-in-the-box.”
The female attendant endeavoured to explain to the infuriated Mrs.
Sandboys that “it was all a mistake;” but that lady felt convinced that
the whole affair was nothing more nor less than a preconcerted trick,
and that a cistern full of water, at the very least, had been emptied
upon her, through a trap-door in the ceiling, by some wicked wretch
secreted over head; and that this had been done simply because the
people saw she was—like the railway milk—fresh from the country.
In vain did the authorities—who with difficulty were able to sustain
that solemnity of countenance which is so necessary a part of the duties
of all public functionaries—beg to assure the lady that the apparatus in
question was really a form of bath—a shower—belonging to the
establishment, much approved of, and highly recommended by the faculty.
But Mrs. Cursty was fully satisfied that no person in his senses would
dream of coming to such a place to _enjoy_ a shower, when, if they were
that way inclined, they might, on any wet day, have one for nothing.
Moreover, she begged to be informed, with an air of triumph,—just to let
the Londoners see that she was not quite so simple as they seemed to
fancy her,—“if showers were so highly recommended by the faculty, what
people carried umbrellas for?” and as she made the overpowering inquiry,
she, in the ardour of the discussion, gave so self-satisfied a shake of
her head, that she sprinkled the water from her hair all over the
by-standers, like a Newfoundland dog just emerged from a river.
It was impossible even for the grave functionaries to keep serious any
longer, but their smiles served only to make the assurance of Mrs.
Sandboys “doubly sure” that a wicked trick had been played upon her; so,
putting on her bonnet and cloak—wet as she was—she left the
establishment, vowing that she would have them all up before a
magistrate, and well punished for their shameful conduct towards a poor
lone countrywoman like herself.
* * * * *
A cab soon conveyed the wretched, and shivering, and moist Mrs. Sandboys
back to her lodgings. There she and her dear Cursty once more
endeavoured to console one another—but consolation was bootless in the
state of the Sandboys’ wardrobe.
Accordingly, while Aggy borrowed a “change” of the landlady, and
proceeded to squeeze her corpulent figure into the thin Mrs. Fokesell’s
“things,” Jobby was dispatched to the railway station to see after the
three-and-twenty boxes that constituted the family luggage, with full
instructions (given at Mrs. Fokesell’s advice)—provided no tidings of
the missing packages could be obtained at the “goods department”—to
scour the whole country round, by means of the electric telegraph, in
search of them.
To prevent accidents, however, Elcy was made to write down all that was
wanted, together with an accurate description of all that was missing;
and, as she did so, the tender-hearted girl did not fail to include a
graphic account of her dear pet Psyche, whom, she felt convinced, must
be reduced to a positive “bag of bones”—a canine “living skeleton”—by
this time.
The youth, as directed, took the Hungerford omnibus, and made his way,
without much difficulty, to the railway station. There, he could hear
nothing as to the whereabouts of the family boxes; accordingly he
proceeded to the Telegraph Office, and having handed in the written
instructions, he set out on his return home.
As he passed under the archway of the station, it so happened that “a
school of Acrobats” were exhibiting their feats within the open space in
front of the two large railway hotels. Jobby, with his mouth wide agape,
stood outside the gates watching the posturers pile themselves, three
men and a boy, high on one another’s shoulders.
The exhibition was as new as it was exciting to the lad. With a thrill
of pleasurable amazement the youth saw for the first time in his life
the “pole balancer” in his suit of spangled cotton “fleshings,” and the
tawdry black velvet fillet round his well-oiled hair, lie on his back on
a small handkerchief of carpet, and balance and catch and twirl the
heavy pole on the soles of his feet. Then, almost breathless with
ecstasy, he beheld the “bending tumbler” slowly bend his body back till
his head reached the ground, and proceed to pick up pins with his
eyelids. Next, he witnessed “the equilibrist” balance, spinning plates
high in the air, and burning paper-bags upon his chin, and catch huge
cannon balls from a height in a cup upon his head—and as all this went
on, and he heard the sound of the music, and looked at the glittering
costumes of the performers, Jobby was entranced with positive rapture.
He had never seen, never heard, never dreamt of anything half so
beautiful.
Nor could he scarcely credit that they were human like himself, till he
saw the men put their shabby black coats over their spangles, and as one
shouldered the pole, and the other carried the box, stroll off in close
conversation with “the drum and pipes,” and a troop of pinafored boys at
their heels, to some fresh quarter of the town.
Jobby stood for a moment looking after the crowd, longing, but fearing,
to follow them. The temptation, however, of once more beholding their
marvellous feats was too much for him—so, as he saw them turn the
corner, he took to his heels, and hurried after the troop.
There for the present we must leave him.
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