father's obstinacy, as well as his carelessness about money. Nicholas
no sooner got money in his hands than he played ducks and drakes with
it; and Philip is bent on doing the same. Four thousand pounds to that
minx, Salome! There goes the church bell. When will Lamb be in?'
Mrs. Sidebottom lit a bedroom candle, and went upstairs to dress for
dinner. Whilst ascending, she was immersed in thought, and suddenly an
idea occurred to her which made her quicken her steps. Instead of
dressing for dinner, she put on her bonnet. The church bell had diverted
her thoughts into a new channel. When dressed to go out, she rang for
the parlourmaid. 'Susan,' she said, 'I had forgotten. This is a holy
day. I believe, I am morally certain, it is a saint's day, and
appointed by the Church to make us holy. We must deny ourselves. So
put off dinner half an hour. I am going to church--to set an example.'
Mrs. Sidebottom was not an assiduous church-goer. She attended on
Sundays to do the civil to the parson, but was rarely or never seen
within the sacred walls on week days. Consequently her announcement to
Susan, that she was about to assist at divine worship that evening, and
that dinner was to be postponed accordingly, surprised the domestic and
surprised and angered the cook, who did not object to unpunctuality in
herself, but resented it in her master and mistress.
'If Salome is not at church,' said Mrs. Sidebottom to herself, 'I shall
be taken with faintness; fan myself with my pocket-handkerchief, to let
the congregation see I am poorly, and will come away at the _Nunc
Dimittis_.'
But Mrs. Sidebottom tarried in church through the _Nunc Dimittis_,
professed her adhesion to the Creed, and declared her transgressions.
As she listened to the lessons, her mind reverted to the quenilles.
'They will be done to chips!' she sighed, and then forgetting herself,
intoned, 'A--men.' At the prayers she thought of the shoulder of
mutton, and in the hymn hovered in soul over the marmalade-pudding.
Probably, if the hearts of other worshippers that evening had been
revealed, they would not have been discovered more wrapped in devotion
than that of Mrs. Sidebottom. In the life of St. Modwenna, Abbess of
Stoke-on-Trent, we read that this holy woman had the faculty of seeing
the prayers of her nuns dancing like midges under the choir roof; they
could not pierce the vault, being deficient in the boring organ, which
is true devotion. It is perhaps fortunate we have not the same gift.
On that evening a row of tittering girls sought to attract the attention
and engross the admiration of the choristers. Five young ladies, hating
each other as rivals, sought by their attendance to catch the curate,
who was unmarried. Old Bankes was there, because he hoped to sell two
bags of potatoes to the parson. Mary Saunders was there, because some
unpleasant stories had circulated concerning her character, and she
hoped to smother them by appearing at church on week days. Mr. Gruff
was there, to find fault with the parson's conduct of the service, and
Mrs. Tomkins attended to see who were present.
When the service was concluded, Mrs. Sidebottom came out of church
beside Salome, who had been seated in front of her. She at once
addressed her.
'My dear Miss Cusworth, how soothing it is to have week-day prayer. I
have had so much of the world forced on me of late, that I felt I must
for the good of my soul to fly to the sanctuary.'
'There is always service on Thursday evening.'
'My goodness!--is this not a saint's day? I thought it was, and I have
been so devout, too. You don't mean to tell me there is no special call
for it?--and these saints--they are perfectly fascinating creatures.'
Mrs. Sidebottom could talk what she called 'goody' when there was need
for it; she generally talked it when chance led her into a poor man's
cottage. As children are given lollipops by their elders, so the poor,
she thought, must be given 'goody talk' by their superiors. She put on
her various suits of talk as occasion offered. She had her scandal suit
and her pious suit, and her domestic-worry suit and her political
suit--just like those picture-books children have, whose one face does
for any number of transformation garments, and the same head figures now
as a bronze, then as Nell Gwynne, as a Quakeress, or as a tight-rope
dancer.
The author at one time knew a bedridden man who had two suits of
conversation--the one profane, abusive, brutal, the other pious,
sanctified, and seasoned with salt. When his cottage-door was open, the
passer heard some such exclamations as these as he approached, addressed
to the wife: 'Now then, you ---- toad!' Then a reference to her eyes
best left unquoted. 'If I could only get at you, I'd skin you!' Then a
change. 'Fetch me my Boible; O my soul, be joyful, raise the sacred
hanthem! Bah! I thought 'twas the parson's step, and he'd give me a
shilling! Now then, you gallopading kangaroo!' This, of course, was an
extreme case, and Mrs. Sidebottom was far too well-bred to go to
extremities.
'I was so glad you came in when you did,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'I was
really feeling somewhat faint. I feared I would have been forced to
leave at the _Nunc Dimittis_, and I was just fanning myself with my
handkerchief, on which was a drop of eau de Cologne, when you came in,
and a whiff of cool air from the door revived me, so I was able to
remain. I am so thankful! The hymn afforded me such elevating
thoughts! I felt as if I had wings of angels, which I could spread, and
upward fly!'
'I was late--I could not get away earlier.'
'And I am grateful to be able to walk back with you. You will allow me
to take your arm. I am still shaken with my temporary faintness. I
have, I fear, been overdone. I have had so much to try me of late. But
when the bell rang, I was drawn towards the sacred building. Upon my
word, I thought it was a saint's day, and it was a duty as well as a
pleasure to be there. I am so glad I went; and now I am able to walk
back with you, and after public worship--though the congregation was
rather thin--the mind is turned to devotion, and the thoughts are
framed, are, in fact, just what they ought to be, you know. I have
wanted for some time to speak to you, and tell you how grieved I was
that I was forced to give your mother notice to leave. I had no thought
of being inconsiderate and unkind.'
'I am aware of that,' answered Salome quietly. 'Mr. Philip
Pennycomequick has already told mamma that the notice was a mere
formality. The explanation was a relief to us, as mamma was somewhat
hurt. She had tried to do her best for dear Mr. Pennycomequick.'
'You will have to induce her to forgive me. What is religion for, and
churches built, and organs, and hot-water apparatus, and all that sort
of thing, but to cultivate in us the forgiving spirit. I am, myself,
the most placable person in the world, and after singing such a hymn as
that in which I have just joined, I could forgive Susan if she dropped
the silver spoons on the floor and dinted them.'
No one would have been more astonished than Mrs. Sidebottom if told that
she was artificial, that she affected interests, sympathies, to which
she was strange. At the time that she talked she felt what she said,
but the feeling followed the expression, did not originate it.
'My dear Miss Cusworth,' she went on, 'I am not one to bear a grudge. I
never could. When my poor Sidebottom was alive, if there had been any
unpleasantness between us during the day--and all married people have
their tiffs--when you are married you will have tiffs. As I was saying,
if there had been any unpleasantness between us, I have shaken him at
night to wake him up, that he might receive my pardon for an incivility
said or done.'
'We had made our preparations to leave Mergatroyd,' said Salome, 'but my
mother has been ill again, and my poor sister has heard of the death of
her husband, who fell in a skirmish with the Germans. So when Mr.
Philip Pennycomequick was so kind as to ask my mother to remain on in
the house, in the same capacity as heretofore, we were too thankful----'
'What! You stay?'
'Yes, my mother is not in a condition to move just now, and my sister is
broken down with grief. But, of course, this is only a temporary
arrangement.'
Mrs. Sidebottom said nothing for a moment. Presently, however, she
observed: 'No doubt this is best, and I am very, very pleased to hear
it. Philip did not mention it--I mean Mr. Pennycomequick. I must not
any longer call him Philip, as he is now head of the family, unless the
captain be regarded also as a head, then the family will be like the
Austrian eagle--one body with two heads. But, my dear Miss Cusworth,
tell me, did Mr. Pennycomequick say some foolish nonsense about three or
four thousand pounds?'
'He mentioned something of the sort to mamma.'
'It is all fiddlesticks,' said Mrs. Sidebottom confidentially. 'He is
the most inconsiderate and generous fellow in the world. His father was
so before him. But it won't do. The mill will suffer, the business fall
to the ground; we shall all go into the bankruptcy court. I respect the
memory of my darling brother too highly to wish that the firm he managed
should collapse like a house of cards. Philip is generous and all that
sort of thing, and he will try to press money on you. You must not
consent to receive it, for two reasons--first, because it would smash
the whole concern, and next, because people would talk in a way you
would not like about you. Do you understand--you could not receive a
large allowance from a young unmarried man. However,' continued Mrs.
Sidebottom, 'do not suppose I wish you to waive all expectations of
getting anything. I ask you only to trust me. Lean on me and wait; I
have your interests at heart as much as my own. I dare say you have
heard my brother say he would be driven to adopt improved machinery?'
'Yes, I heard him say that.'
'Very well. My nephew, Philip, must reconstruct the mechanism of the
factory at the cost of several thousands. Now, my dear brother did not
leave enough money to be used both on this and on satisfying your just
claims. If you will wait, say till your marriage--then you may be sure
I and my son and nephew will strain every nerve to make you
comfortable.'
'Mrs. Sidebottom,' said Salome calmly, 'you are very kind. When Mr.
Philip Pennycomequick made the request to my mother that she should stay
in the house, she consented, but only temporarily, till he is settled,
and has had time to look about him for someone who will be a more active
housekeeper than my mother can be; and at the same time it will be a
convenience to us, giving us breathing-time in which to recover from the
shock of Mr. Albert Baynes' death, and consider in what manner my sister
Janet's future will be tied up with our own. As for that other very
generous offer--we had no time to give it a thought, as it came to us
simultaneously with the crushing news from France.' Salome halted.
'You have passed your door, Mrs. Sidebottom.'
'Bless me! So I have--I was so interested in what you were saying, and
so charmed with your noble sentiments. Can I persuade you to enter and
dine with us--only shoulder of mutton, quenilles, and
marmalade-pudding.'
Salome declined: she must return immediately to her mother.
'Why!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom, 'bless my soul, here is my nephew come
to meet us--I cannot, however, take the compliment as paid to me, for we
have parted in dudgeon.'
Philip had left his aunt's house in boiling indignation. She had led him
into a trap, from which escape was difficult. He felt himself in honour
bound by the proposal he had made to Miss Cusworth; he could not
withdraw from it, and yet at that time to have to find the entire sum
mentioned would severely embarrass him. He could not tell Salome that
he had been precipitate in making the offer, and crave her indulgence to
allow him to put off the fulfilment to a convenient season. The only
way out of the difficulty that commended itself to him was to offer
Salome an annual sum, charged on the profit of the mill, till such time
as it suited her to withdraw her four thousand pounds and invest it
elsewhere; in a word, to take her into partnership.
Having come to this decision, he resolved on preparing it for her
acceptance at once, and he descended to the rooms occupied by the
Cusworths, there to learn that she had gone to church. He at once took
his hat and walked to meet her.
He was ill-pleased to see her returning with his aunt hanging on her
arm; he mistrusted this exhibition of sudden affection in Mrs.
Sidebottom for one whom he knew she disliked.
'You see, Philip,' said his aunt, 'I thought it was a saint's day, and
the saints want encouragement; so I went to the parish church. I put
dinner off--now can I induce you and Miss Cusworth to come in and pick a
little meat with me?--not bones, Philip, these we have pulled already
together. I was taken with a little faintness in church, and Miss
Cusworth has kindly lent me support on my way home.'
The little group stood near the doorstep to the house occupied by Mrs.
Sidebottom. A gaslight was at the edge of the footway, a few paces
lower down the road. Mrs. Sidebottom disengaged her hand from the arm
of Salome--then the girl started, shrank back, and uttered an
exclamation of terror.
'What is the matter?' asked Mrs. Sidebottom.
'I have seen it again,' said the girl, in a low tone.
'Seen what?' asked the lady.
'Never mind what,' interrupted Philip, divining immediately from
Salome's alarm and agitation what she meant. 'We must not keep my aunt
waiting in the street. The ground is damp and the wind cold.
Good-night, Aunt Louisa. I will escort Miss Cusworth home.'
When Philip was alone with Salome, he said: 'What was it?--what did you
see?'
'I saw that same man, standing by the lamp-post, looking at us. He wore
_his_ hat and overcoat. Again I was unable to see any face, because the
strong light fell from above, and it was in shadow. You had your back
to the lamp, and the figure was in your rear. When you turned--it was
gone.'
*CHAPTER XXI*
*HYACINTH BULBS.*
The figure seen in the dark had diverted Philip from his purpose of
speaking to Salome about money. He was not particularly eager to make
his proposal, because that proposition had in it a smack of evasion of
an offer already made; as though he had speedily repented of the
liberality of the first. In this there was some moral cowardice, such
as is found in all but blunt natures, and induces them to catch at
excuses for deferring an unpleasant duty. There exists a wide gulf
between two sorts of persons--the one shrinks and shivers at the
obligations to say or do anything that may pain another; the other
rushes at the chance with avidity, like a hornet impatient to sting. On
this occasion Philip had a real excuse for postponing what he had come
out to say, for Salome was not in a frame of mind to attend to it; she
was alarmed and bewildered by this second encounter with a man whose
face she had not seen, and who was so mysterious in his proceedings.
Accordingly Philip went to bed that night without having discharged the
unpleasant task, and with the burden still weighing on him.
Next day, when he returned from the factory, in ascending the stairs he
met Salome descending with her hands full of hyacinth glasses, purple,
yellow and green, and a pair tucked under her arms.
She smiled recognition, and the faintest tinge of colour mounted to her
face. Her foot halted, held suspended for a moment on the step, and
Philip flattered himself that she desired to speak to him, yet lacked
the courage to address him.
Accordingly he spoke first, volunteering his assistance.
'Oh, thank you,' she replied, 'I am merely taking the glasses and bulbs
to the Pummy cupboard again.'
'Thank you in English is the equivalent for _s'il vous plait_ and not of
_merci_,' he said, 'so I shall carry some of the glasses. But--what is
the Pummy cupboard?'
'You do not know the names of the nooks and corners of your own house,'
said Salome, laughing. 'My sister and I gave foolish names to different
rooms and closets when we were children, and they have retained them, or
we have not altered them. I had put the bulbs in a closet under the
staircase till we thought of changing quarters, and then I removed them
so as to pack them. It was whilst I was thus engaged that I saw that
strange, inexplicable figure for the first time. Now that I know we are
to remain here, I have put them in glasses to taste water, and am
replacing them in the dark, in the cupboard.'
'Have you many?'
'A couple of dozen named bulbs, all good.'
'I will help you to carry down the glasses and roots. Where are they?'
'In the drawing-room. We kept the glasses there all summer in the
chiffonnier.'
'I hope you will be able to spare me one or two for my study.'
'Of course you shall have a supply in your window. They were procured
partly for Mr. Pennycomequick and partly for my mother.'
'You say "of course"; but I do not see the force of the words. Remember
I have had a lodging-house experience; my sense of the fitness of things
is framed on that model, and my landlady never said "of course" to
anything I suggested which would give me pleasure, but cost her some
trouble. I am like Kaspar Hauser, of whom you may have heard; he was
brought up in a solitary dark cell, and denied everything, except bare
necessaries; when he escaped and came among men, he had no notion how to
behave, and was lost in amazement to find they were not all gaolers. I
had on my chimney-piece two horrible sprigs of artificial flowers,
originally from a bridecake, that from length of existence and
accumulation of soot were become so odious that at last I burnt them.
The landlady made me pay for them as though they were choice orchids.'
'You must not make me laugh,' said Salome, 'or I shall drop the glasses
from under my arms.'
'Then let me take them,' said Philip promptly; 'you have two in your
hands, that suffices. I tire you with my reminiscences of lodging-house
life?'
'Not at all--they divert me.'
'It is the only subject on which my conversation flows. I do not know
why it is that when I speak on politics I have a difficulty in
expressing my ideas, but when I come on landlady-dom, the words boil out
of my heart, like the water from a newly-tapped artesian well. I have a
great mind to tell you my Scarborough experiences.'
'Do so.'
'Once when I was out of sorts I went to the sea-coast for a change--but
I am detaining you.'
'Well, I will put down the glasses and bulbs in the Pummy cupboard and
return to hear your story.'
Instead of going downstairs with Salome, Philip, though he had relieved
her of two glasses, went with them to the drawing-room, whence she had
taken them--which was in no way assisting her. Moreover, when he was
there, he put down the glasses on the table and began examining the
names of the bulbs--double pink blush, single china blue, the queen of
the yellows, and so on. He had offered to help Salome, but he was doing
nothing of the kind; he waited till she had filled the glasses with
water, planted a couple of bulbs in them, and consigned them to the
depths of the cupboard. When she returned to the parlour, he was still
examining the names of the tubers.
'Now,' said he, 'I will tell you about my landlady at Scarborough.' He
made no attempt to carry down glasses, he detained the girl from
prosecuting her work. 'I was at Scarborough for a week, and when I left
my lodgings the landlady charged me thirty shillings for a toilet set,
because there was a crack in the soap-dish. I had not injured it. I
pointed out the fact that the crack was gray with age, that the
discolouration betokened antiquity; but she was inaccessible to reason,
impossible to convince. The injury done to the soap-dish spoiled the
whole set, she said, and I must pay for an entire set. I might have
contested the point at law; but it was hardly worth my while, so I
agreed to pay the thirty shillings, only I stipulated that I should
carry off the fractured soap-dish with me. Then she resisted; the
soap-dish, she argued, could be of no use to me. I must leave it, and
at last, when I persisted in my resolve, she let me off with a couple of
shillings.'
'But why?'
'Because the cracked soap-dish was to her a source of revenue. Every
lodger for years had been bled on account of that crack to the tune of
thirty shillings, and that cracked soap-dish was worth many pounds per
annum to that wretched woman.' Then, with a sudden tightening of the
muscles at the corners of his mouth, he added, 'I know their tricks and
their ways! I have been brought up among landladies, as Romulus was
nursed by a wolf, and Jupiter was reared among goats.'
'I suppose there are good lodging-house keepers as well as bad ones,'
said Salome, laughing.
'Charity hopeth all things,' answered Philip grimly, 'but I never came
across one. Just as colliers acquire a peculiar stoop and walk, and
horse-dealers a special twist in conscience, and sailors a peculiar
waddle, engendered by their professions, so does lodging-house keeping
produce a warp and crick and callousness in women with which they were
not born. You do not know what it is, you cannot know what it is, to be
brought up and to form one's opinions among landladies. It forces one
to see the world, to contemplate life through their medium as through
lenses that break and distort all rays. Do you recall what the King of
Israel said when the King of Syria sent to him Naaeman to be healed of
his leprosy?'
'Yes,' answered Salome, '"See how he seeketh a quarrel against me."'
'Exactly. And those who live in furnished lodgings are kept continually
in the King of Israel's frame of mind. Whatever the landlady does,
whatever she leaves undone, when she rolls her eyes round the room, when
she sweeps with them the carpet, one is always saying to one's self, see
how this woman seeketh a quarrel against me. Landladies are the
cantharides of our nineteenth century civilization, the great source of
blister and irritation. Even a man of means, who has not to count his
shillings, must feel his wretchedness in lodgings; but consider the
apprehensions, the unrest that must possess a man, pinched in his
circumstances who lives among landladies. Her eye,' continued Philip,
who had warmed to his subject, 'is ever searching for spots on the
carpet, fraying of sofa edges, tears in the curtains, scratches in the
mahogany, chips in the marble mantelpiece. I think it was among
Quarles' emblems that I saw a picture of man's career among traps and
snares on every side. In lodgings every article of furniture is a gin
ready to snap on you if you use it.'
Then Philip took up two hyacinth glasses, one yellow, the other blue,
but put down that which was blue, and took up another that was yellow,
not for aesthetic predilection, but to prolong the time. It was a real
relief to him to unburden his memory of its gall, to go through his
recollections, like a Jew on the Paschal preparation, searching for and
casting out every scrap of sour leaven.
'I dare say you are wondering, Miss Cusworth,' he said, 'to what this
preamble on landladies is leading.'
Salome looked amused and puzzled; so perhaps is the reader.
Philip had been, as he said, for so many years in furnished lodgings,
and had for so many years had before his eyes nothing but a prospect of
spending all his days in them, and of expiring in the arms of
lodging-house keepers, that he had come to loathe the life. Now that
his financial position was altered, and before him opened a career
unhampered and unsoured by pecuniary difficulties, a desire woke up in
him to enjoy a more cheerful, social life than that of his experience.
Now the difference between the days in his uncle's house at Mergatroyd
and those he had spent in lodgings at Nottingham did not differ
radically. It was true that he no longer had the tongue of a landlady
hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, but his day was no
brighter, quite as colourless.