supposed that an enamoured swain, after marriage, would grow in love,
like a conflagration, which increases as you add fuel. But it was not so;
he was warm and approving, but never rose above blood-heat. Moreover, he
had a provoking Christian name—Josiah—that he could not alter. Eliza had
fed on poetry and romance in her maiden days, and the name, Josiah, had
in it nothing poetical, no romance.
“I can’t call you Jos,” she said, “for that is the short for Joseph or
Joshua.”
“Then call me Siah.”
“Sire. No, thank you; it would seem as though I regarded you as my
sovereign.”
As yet there was no child, nor prospect of one. This fact might have been
considered a reason why they should have been more than ever devoted to
one another, as there was no distraction, no one else in the house to
love, except the slavey, and she was, naturally, out of the question.
But it was not so. Mrs. Birdwood had nothing else to think about except
the lack of ardour in Mr. Birdwood, and nothing else to do but fret over
it.
“My dear,” said Josiah Birdwood one day at table, “my dear, I think
Maggie Finch is just about your size and build.”
“Maggie Finch!—and who is she?”
“I mean the girl at Miss Thomas’s, the dressmaker’s.”
“Maggie Finch, indeed!” exclaimed Eliza, turning first red, then white.
“And pray, what do you know about”—witheringly—“Maggie Finch?”
“Oh, nothing, my dear, only she is in Miss Thomas’s shop.”
“And what do _you_ know of Miss Thomas’s shop?”
“Why not, my dear? You go to Mr. Gardener’s—Mr. Gardener the tailor, I
mean.”
“Of course, I do. I have tailor-made dresses.”
“Then why should not I go to the milliner’s to have a milliner-made
suit?”
“It is preposterous. Maggie Finch, indeed! How do you know she is a
Maggie?”
“Miss Thomas calls her so. Besides——”
“Well?” sternly eyeing him.
“I got her the situation.”
“Oh! I see! you got her the situation.”
“Yes. Her poor father——”
“I want to hear nothing of the poor father; it is poor Maggie you think
of. I see all, clear as daylight—a Finch and a Birdwood match much better
than a Gubbins and a Birdwood.” Then she burst into tears.
“My dear, be reasonable, and—kindly give me a spoonful of gravy; my bacon
is dry.”
“How can you! How can you! Heartless, cruel man! Oh that I had married a
commercial traveller!”
“A bagman, my dear!”
“You need not open your mouth, nostrils, and eyes with such a snorting
affectation of surprise. I said it—a commercial traveller.”
“I did not know, my dear——”
“No. You did not know that I had a—a tender corner in my heart, a
general predilection for commercials. They go about in flights, like
humming-birds in the Brazilian forests.”
“Have you been in Brazil, dear?”
“No, I have not; but I have read of them. Living—animated jewels they
are.”
“Which? The bagmen or the humming-birds?”
“I won’t speak to you any more. You purposely misunderstand me to insult
me, that you may go off to your Maggie Finches.”
“There is only one, dear.”
“And so much the worse. You focus, you concentrate, on that wretched
object the admiration, the love, of which I am bereaved. If you go
gallivanting and meandering round dressmakers’ assistants, I can do the
same. I will not be left out in the cold for any Maggie Finches, I can
tell you. There are plenty of bagmen, as you call them—commercials is
their proper designation—who would be only too glad, too proud, to lick
the dust off my feet.”
“My dear, you are hot.”
“I have occasion to be hot.”
“And my tea is cold.”
“This is an outrage!”
Mrs. Birdwood rose and flounced out of the room. She rushed upstairs,
casting at the slavey, _en passant_, a notice to quit, for no particular
reason, but as a vent to her wrath; and she dashed into the bedroom,
where nothing had as yet been put in order, and threw herself in the
arm-chair and burst into a flood of tears. She remained for some time
crying and fanning herself into a greater flame of wrath. Then she rose
and went to the window. She saw her husband—he had taken off his coat,
and he was digging in the garden. He had told her, the previous evening,
that he expected hard frost, and would turn up the mould, that the slugs
might be killed. Actually, after that scene, after those reproaches
hurled at him, after that exposure, he was placidly digging, that the
frost might kill the slugs.
Really the man was unendurable.
About an hour later he drew on his coat and came in, and brushed down his
trousers and washed his hands.
Mrs. Birdwood lurked about watching. He went out at the front door,
passed into the street, and disappeared. Mrs. Birdwood drew on her cloak,
adjusted a hat, and followed.
She had hardly reached the gate before she saw Josiah turn in at a door
to a shop some way up the street, over which was inscribed: “Thomas:
Milliner and Dressmaker.”
“The die is cast. Flaunting his vices in the face of his wife! I, too,
can be vicious. If he goes hunting dressmakers, I—even I—can seek
commercial travellers.”
She set her lips. Her eyes glared. Her face was terrible in its wrath.
She hastened to retrace her steps, gathered together a few of her most
valued and necessary goods, and left the house.
“There!” said she, slamming the iron gate after her. “There! Two can
play at this game. If he deserts me, I also can desert him. Good-bye to
Jessamine Villa! Oh that I had married a commercial!”
She took her way to the station. “Let me see,” said she; “I’ll go
a-junketing to the seaside and enjoy myself. Happily I have money; he
gave me enough to pay the monthly bills. Won’t he be surprised when he
comes back from Finching to find me flown! Yes—I’ll go to Sandbourne
and enjoy the sea breezes, and pick up shells and seaweeds, and look at
the visitors, and perhaps a commercial or two may flit past my admiring
eyes. Their manners are so elegant; they have such persuasive ways; their
address is so engaging!”
Furnished with a ticket, she got into a second-class carriage. She was
about to enjoy herself, so she would not go third—and she had money to
spend.
There was a gentleman in the carriage. He had been seeing a number of
large black boxes put into the luggage van. He took his seat after Mrs.
Birdwood had ensconced herself in a corner, hoping to have a carriage to
herself.
Off went the train.
As already said, Mrs. Birdwood was a comely woman, and this the other
traveller perceived, and was unable to take his eyes off her. If a cat
may look at a king, then surely a commercial may gaze on a pretty woman!
Mrs. Birdwood did not like it, and put up her hand to let down her veil;
unhappily, in her hurry at leaving, she had forgotten her veil.
“Christmas coming soon,” said the gentleman; “a time of holly and
mince-pies—and above all, of mistletoe! I think I know some one who would
like to be under a mistletoe bush with somebody else, unnamed.”
“And I think,” said Mrs. Birdwood, “I know some one who would like to
have a bunch of holly with which to whack into somebody else—unnamed!”
“Going any distance, miss?” asked the bagman.
“I don’t quite know where I am going,” inadvertently replied the runaway
wife. Then she bit her tongue in vexation at having said what she had.
“Let me recommend Sandbourne,” said he confidingly. “A charming
place—beautiful beach. Excuse me, I think the ticket you hold—ah! it is
for Sandbourne. How happy a coincidence! I am going there as well. If I
can be of any assistance with your luggage, command me.”
“I have none.”
“Indeed! Going to friends?”
She was silent. Tears came into her eyes—tears of mortification and anger.
“My dear young lady,” said the fellow-passenger, “I trust I have
not touched on any tender point. When lovely woman stoops to
conquer—especially with tears as her weapons—she is irresistible.”
“Really, sir,” exclaimed Mrs. Birdwood, “I must request you to desist
from these impertinences and this odious familiarity.”
“A thousand pardons—I am mute.”
On reaching Sandbourne station Mrs. Birdwood dismounted from the train,
greatly relieved to be able to shake off the gentleman who had annoyed
her. She sought out a modest inn, and then walked down to the shore.
“A pretty pass Josiah will be in,” thought she, “when he finds that I am
gone! There will be ructions in the house. Well, if he will run after
Finches, he must take the consequences. And Christmas coming on as well,
and no comforts, no plum-pudding. I’ll be bound that Jemima will serve
up the roast beef without any horse-radish—serve him right; and as to
Yorkshire pudding, she can’t make it!—very glad. He’ll suffer where most
sensitive. Oh!” She saw a large coloured poster. “A circus! I have not
seen one since I was a girl. I will go.”
But she did not enjoy herself at the horsemanship. Her mind reverted to
Jessamine Villa, and to a plum-pudding she had made a month ago, and had
put away in a tin to be ready for Christmas. She wished she had brought
it with her; but she had left it behind, locked up. Her husband knew
nothing about it. The slavey was equally ignorant. Now that costly and
excellent plum-pudding would be lost, for she would never go back to
Jessamine Villa—never, never within the sound of the name of Finch.
That plum-pudding had been made from an excellent recipe given her by her
mother—
“5 lb. suet, 4 lb. flour, 3 lb. bread-crumbs, 4½ lb. raisins, 3 lb.
currants, 1½ lb. sugar, 1 lb. mixed peel, 1 pint old ale, 1 nutmeg, 6
teaspoonfuls salt, 2 quarts milk, 12 eggs; boiled 8 hours; a sufficient
quantity for 9 puddings, 4 of which are large.”
She could rehearse it by heart. Of course, in the small establishment at
Jessamine Villa nine puddings—four of which were large—were not required.
But the late Mrs. Gubbins had been a woman with a large family and a
larger heart, and she had been accustomed to send puddings to her married
sons and daughters. Mrs. Birdwood had halved everything, and then had
been able to give a pudding to an aunt at Bandon, another she had sent to
a married brother in London, a small one she had reserved for a poor old
woman who received her charities, and the rest were for Jessamine Villa
consumption. And now——
“Dear, dear, dear!” sighed Mrs. Birdwood, not observing anything in the
arena.
“I beg pardon—did you mean me?” asked a voice. She turned, and saw the
commercial traveller beside her.
“No, sir!” she retorted sharply. “I alluded to the pudding; with raisins
at fivepence, and only nine eggs a shilling, it is dear, very dear,
inexpressibly dear.”
“I beg your pardon again; I don’t quite take it in.”
“The pudding was not for your consumption, sir.”
“You would confer on me, miss, a great favour if you would give me your
name. A thousand apologies for asking.”
“My name is—” She choked; should she give her married or her maiden name?
“Never mind.”
“And mine is Fisher. I am in the hosiery and haberdashery business. That
is to say, I travel for a firm in that line. I am now staying at the
‘Woolpack.’”
“At the ‘Woolpack’! So am I!” she cried in dismay. “This will never
do—no, never!”
She dashed out of the circus, went to the inn, removed her trifling
effects, paid her bill, and departed to the “Red Lion.”
Next morning she came down to the coffee-room, and was dismayed to find
there Mr. Fisher.
“Good gracious me!” she exclaimed, “I thought you were at the ‘Woolpack’?”
“So I was; but as it seemed to offend you, and I could not think of
annoying a lady, I went back when the performance was over, paid my
account, and departed to another inn—the ‘Red Lion.’”
“This will never do!” gasped Mrs. Birdwood. “I shall leave immediately!”
She hastened to the station and took the train for Bandon; she would go
to her aunt. The plum-pudding had preceded her; if she followed, it was
but like a player of bowls, who delivers his ball and then runs after it.
Her aunt was pleased to see her, and asked what occasioned this visit.
Mrs. Birdwood made the excuse that she wished to see her before
Christmas, and that she had friends in Bandon she also desired to see.
She had not visited them since her—she gulped—her marriage. “I dare say,
auntie, I may remain here a few days.”
“Delighted, my dear, to see you; but you do not intend to remain
long—because Christmas is at hand—the day after to-morrow—and of course
you will be back for that?”
Mrs. Birdwood looked down, and did not answer. Next morning she went to
see friends. About mid-day she returned, when she was encountered by her
aunt in the passage. “My dear—dreadful news! Have you heard?”
“Heard—no. What?”
“It comes from Jemima’s mother, your maid-of-all-work as you took from
here at my recommendation. She writ to her mother yesterday evening; and
it is shocking—orful!”
“What is it, aunt?”
Mrs. Birdwood turned white; that slavey had written that her mistress had
run away, and—doubtless with amplifications of her own—run away with a
commercial in the hosiery and haberdashery line, and had been seen with
him at a circus at Sandbourne.
“You must prepare yourself for the worst,” said the aunt.
“I know it—I know it!” gasped Mrs. Birdwood.
“I don’t see how you can, as it only happened yesterday,” said the old
lady.
“Well, tell me all—hold back nothing!”
“Your dear Josiah—he’s gone and scalded hisself to death, in trying to
bile a plum-pudding for his Christmas dinner. The flesh is come off in
collops—just like an over-boiled leg of veal—with rice, you know. Don’t
cling to th’ bone. I had a rabbit too, once——”
Mrs. Birdwood uttered a cry; she did not stay to hear about the rabbit,
but flew to the station. She was just in time to catch a train. She took
her ticket for—she asked for one to Jessamine Villa, but the clerk said
there was no such station; then she recalled the name of the town in the
outskirts of which Jessamine Villa was situated.
Weeping, trembling, sick at heart, she sat in the third-class carriage,
as she was whirled home—to the home she had left, to the husband she had
deserted.
On reaching the station where she had to disembark she flew to the villa.
From a distance she could see—the blinds were drawn down; but then it was
evening, and a lamp was alight within—was it where he was laid out in his
bones?
She burst in at the door, bathed in a dew of anguish as well as heat,
rushed into the sitting-room, and found there Mr. Birdwood in an
arm-chair by the fire, his foot up, reading a catalogue of horticultural
structures.
“Well, my dear,” said he, “back again?”
“And you—you have been scalded?”
“Yes; my foot.”
“How?”
“Jemima said she couldn’t make a Christmas plum-pudding, and I said we
must have one, so I tried my hand.”
“But the flesh—has it left the bone in collops?”
“No; I am blistered, that is all. I spilt the mess over my foot. It was
not quite on the boil, I believe.”
“Goodness me! And how did you make the mess?”
“All right—raisins and flour.”
“No suet?”
“No.”
“No mixed peel?”
“Never thought of it.”
“Any old ale?”
“Of course not.”
“Nor eggs?”
“Did not suppose they were wanted.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Birdwood, “it was a mess. I am glad it was all spilt.”
She heaved a sigh. “Oh, Josiah, how could you?”
“I did my level best,” he replied. “Now look here. Do you see that
parcel? Open it. It is a silk gown—my Christmas present to you, all ready
for you to wear to church to-morrow. It was fitted on Maggie Finch, as
she is your size and shape.”
With trembling fingers Mrs. Birdwood opened the parcel and drew forth a
really gorgeous silk dress.
“Oh!” she said, “and that Finch——”
“She served as dummy on which to fit it, you know.”
“And that was all that took you to Miss Thomas’s?”
“What more do you want? Not an evening dress also—low-breasted and
shoulder-straps?”
“Oh! oh! oh! Josiah, I have been so wicked. I thought—but never mind what
I thought. I intended to run away and desert you—fancy!—for ever.”
“Pshaw! you couldn’t do it.”
“And to take up with a commercial!”
“My dear, you couldn’t do it.”
“And his name Fisher.”
“Not a humming-bird, but a king-fisher, I suppose.”
“But in the hosiery and haberdashery line.”
“You couldn’t do it.”
“I really believe you are right,” said Mrs. Birdwood, throwing herself on
his neck and bursting into tears.
“There, there, dear; that will suffice,” said Josiah.
“And,” asked his wife, “what did you think when I disappeared?”
“I didn’t think anything about it. I knew it was all right.”
“And what have you been doing without me?”
“Well, I have been trying to make up my mind whether to have a span or a
lean-to conservatory.”
“You are positively incorrigible.”
“Then I tried my hand on the plum-pudding and failed. So now we shall
have to do without.”
“No, ten thousand times no,” replied Mrs. Birdwood triumphantly. She went
to a corner cupboard, unlocked it, produced a tin, took off the lid.
“Here—here is a real plum-pudding for our happy Christmas dinner.”
“And,” said Mr. Birdwood, “I bought a sprig of mistletoe at the door, and
will kiss you under it.”
A CHRISTMAS TREE
A CHRISTMAS TREE
Tom Mountstephen was dressed in his very best—a black coat, a tie of blue
satin studded with veritable planets, and in it a new zodiacal sign—a
fox in full career, that formed the head of a pin. Tom’s collar was so
stiffly starched and so high that to turn his head and look over the top
of that Wall of China was impossible. If he desired to see that which lay
to his right or left, he was compelled to turn his entire body, as on a
pivot.
Tom was unaccustomed to such a “rig out,” and therefore did not look
happy in it. Tom in his workaday suit, of the colour of the earth, with
a string tied under his knees, gathering the trouser together, and with
a dusty slouched wideawake stuck at the back of his head, but on one
side of that, and with his great, honest, cheery face, ever with a smile
on the lips and a dancing light in his eyes—thus Tom was picturesque,
delightful. But Tom in his Sunday best did not look at his best.
The day was Christmas Eve, and there was to be a supper with a dance at
the Hall, given by the squire to his workmen and their families. Tom
was on his way to this, with a face that shone with yellow soap and the
friction of a rough towel; and not only so, but he was to attend thither
Isabella Frowd, the belle of the village, and one with whom, as every one
said, he had made it up, and a handsome couple they would be. “Bless y’,”
said Tom, when folks asked him when it would be, “Lor’ bless y’, you know
more about it than me! Go and ax Bella. She, maybe, can fix it. ’Tain’t
my place, you know!” And then he laughed, and thought he had said a good
thing.
Tom Mountstephen was an active, intelligent young fellow, serving as
under-gardener, getting a respectable wage, and there was positively
no reason why he should not marry; but he was inert in just this one
particular, or unable to make up his mind.
Isabella was three years his junior, with a very delicate skin and
lovely rosy complexion, fair hair, and forget-me-not blue eyes; somewhat
doll-like, save in this, that a doll is never self-conscious, and
self-consciousness spoke out of every look of Bella’s eyes, every turn
of her head, every motion of her body. But was she to be blamed? I think
not. The squire always had a pleasant word to give her; the young ladies
at the Hall made much of her; every one with one voice declared that
she was a beauty and the pride of the village. Under such circumstances
she must have been endowed with unusual common-sense and strength of
character not to have become vain and self-satisfied.
Bella lived at the Lodge, and it was her practice to open the gates when
carriages drove up; and on such occasions she was quite aware that the
ladies, and above all the gentlemen, looked at her, and when, immediately
after passing, she saw them turn to each other and say something, then
she was confident that they said: “What a pretty girl!” And being obliged
to keep herself neat and nicely dressed did much towards making her
attractive.
It was understood, or half-understood, that Tom would call at the Lodge
on his way to the Hall and pick up Isabella, and go on with her. It was
in this way. The day before, Tom had said to her: “More wu’nerful things
may hap, Bell, than that I should come and fetch you away to the Hall
to-morrow, and then you’ll give me the fust dance and five arter.”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t mind,” she had replied; and so it was understood
that he should go for her, and that she should expect him.
“Why, whatever be you about, Polly?” exclaimed Tom Mountstephen, as he
came upon a tall, pale girl with pick and spade over her shoulder.
That girl was Mary Mauduit, who lived with a frail, suffering little
sister in a cottage, and supported herself by needlework and starching
and washing. She had been a teacher in the school, but had been compelled
to resign, owing to her sister’s health. These two were together, and
they were orphans. The child could not be left.
“Why, Tom, how fine you be! Where be you a-going to?”
That is the way in the country: a question begets another before it is
answered.
“I be going to the Hall; there’s grand goings on there to-night.”
“So I’ve heerd, but I didn’t mind it. And I reckon that Bella will be
there too?”
“For certain. But what are you after with pick and shovel, I’d like for
to know?”
“If you must know everything, Tom, it’s for little Bess.”
“Not going to dig her grave?”
Tom could have bitten his tongue out—he was mad with himself for uttering
such a question. It had bounced out of his mouth without thought, and
now he saw the colour rush into Mary’s face, her eyes fill, and her lips
tremble.
“Hang me for an idjot!” said Tom; “I didn’t mean it; it’s just like my
ways, Poll. I want to say summut smart, and just say the wrong thing
always. But what be you about wi’ them tools?”
“It’s this, Tom: I thought I’d give little Bessie a Christmas tree. I’ve
got a few trifles to hang on it—some oranges and nuts and a needle-case
and so; and I got Mrs. Wonnacott to come in for an hour and sit wi’ she
whilst I went to the plantation after a tree; the squire gave me leave,”
she added in explanation and self-exculpation.
“But, dear heart alive! you don’t want pick and spade for gettin’ up a
young spruce! You want the chopper or a little handsaw.”
“I don’t wish to kill the tree. I thought if I get her up by the roots I
could plant her again in the garden, and she’d grow up to a big tree, and
it ’ud be something to look at—every year growin’ bigger.”
“What sized tree do you want?”
“Not such a terrible big one. Just middlin’ like. I can’t have her too
small, as I ain’t got no tapers like the tiny red and yaller and green
’uns they had up to the Parsonage last Christmas. I’ve only got bits o’
common candle ends, and they’d be too heavy for a mite of a tree.”
“And how will you bring back your tree and the mores (roots), Mary, wi’
soil, and pick, and all together?”
“I reckon I can make two journeys.”
“You can’t make two for the tree!”
Mary stood silent.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Polly. I’ll off with this dratted collar and
put aside my new coat, and away with you to the plantation. If you go
and mistake and have up a deodara or a douglas instead o’ a spruce, the
squire’ll kick and scream.”
“You’re too kind, Tom; but you’ll be late for the entertainment.”
“Oh, that’s nothing—not two minutes! She’ll wait.”
He did not explain, but Polly understood that _she_ signified Bella. But
she did not know that it had been understood that Tom was to fetch the
pretty girl from the Lodge.
“I daresay you’ll let me put my coat and that dratted collar in your
cottage? Lor’, Polly, I’m like a donkey in a pound when I’ve that there
collar on, jumpin’ up and down and tryin’ to look over the wall and
clear it if I can!”
A couple of minutes later Tom, divested of collar and coat, with pick
and spade over his shoulder, was attending Mary Mauduit, when the
head-gardener passed. He was a Scotchman, and a widower—a man of much
self-confidence and independence.
“What—off, Mr. Mountstephen?”
The gardener addressed his subordinates with a “mister.” It made himself
more important; marked the distance between them more emphatically.
“Yes, Mr. MacSweeny; just to take up a young spruce for she.”
“Ta-ta!” said the Scotchman condescendingly, and passed on.
“He’s been a bit snuffy wi’ me,” said Tom confidingly to his companion.
“What it’s all about I can’t tell. Perhaps he guesses I knows too much;
but Lor’! I’m not one to blab.”
“Perhaps he’s a little jealous,” said Mary slily; “folk do say he has
been thinking about Bella. But there—’tain’t no good dreaming of going
against _you_, Tom.”