"Bah! That's the third umbrella gone since Christmas.
"WHAT WERE YOU TO DO?
"Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I'm very certain
there was nothing about HIM that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He
doesn't look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd have
better taken cold than take our only umbrella. Do you hear the rain,
Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear the rain? And as I'm alive, if it
isn't St. Swithin's day! Do you hear it against the windows?
Nonsense; you don't impose upon me. You can't be asleep with such a
shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? Oh, you DO hear it! Well,
that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no
stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don't think me a fool,
Mr. Caudle. Don't insult me. HE return the umbrella! Anybody would
think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever DID return an
umbrella! There--do you hear it! Worse and worse! Cats and dogs,
and for six weeks, always six weeks. And no umbrella!
"I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-
morrow? They sha'n't go through such weather, I'm determined. No:
they shall stop at home and never learn anything--the blessed
creatures!--sooner than go and get wet. And when they grow up, I
wonder who they'll have to thank for knowing nothing--who, indeed,
but their father? People who can't feel for their own children ought
never to be fathers.
"But I know why you lent the umbrella. Oh, yes; I know very well. I
was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow--you knew that; and
you did it on purpose. Don't tell me; you hate me to go there, and
take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, Mr.
Caudle. No, sir; if it comes down in buckets-full I'll go all the
more. No: and I won't have a cab. Where do you think the money's
to come from? You've got nice high notions at that club of yours. A
cab, indeed! Cost me sixteenpence at least--sixteenpence! two-and-
eightpence, for there's back again. Cabs, indeed! I should like to
know who's to pay for 'em; _I_ can't pay for 'em, and I'm sure you
can't, if you go on as you do; throwing away your property, and
beggaring your children--buying umbrellas!
"Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear it? But I
don't care--I'll go to mother's to-morrow: I will; and what's more,
I'll walk every step of the way,--and you know that will give me my
death. Don't call me a foolish woman, it's you that's the foolish
man. You know I can't wear clogs; and with no umbrella, the wet's
sure to give me a cold--it always does. But what do you care for
that? Nothing at all. I may be laid up for what you care, as I
daresay I shall--and a pretty doctor's bill there'll be. I hope
there will! It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I
shouldn't wonder if I caught my death; yes: and that's what you lent
the umbrella for. Of course!
"Nice clothes I shall get too, trapesing through weather like this.
My gown and bonnet will be spoilt quite.
"NEEDN'T I WEAR 'EM THEN?
"Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I SHALL wear 'em. No, sir, I'm not going out a
dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows! it isn't often
that I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at
once,--better, I should say. But when I do go out,--Mr. Caudle, I
choose to go like a lady. Oh! that rain--if it isn't enough to break
in the windows.
"Ugh! I do look forward with dread for to-morrow! How I am to go to
mother's I'm sure I can't tell. But if I die I'll do it. No, sir; I
won't borrow an umbrella. No; and you sha'n't buy one. Now, Mr.
Caudle, only listen to this: if you bring home another umbrella,
I'll throw it in the street. I'll have my own umbrella or none at
all.
"Ha! and it was only last week I had a new nozzle put to that
umbrella. I'm sure, if I'd have known as much as I do now, it might
have gone without one for me. Paying for new nozzles, for other
people to laugh at you. Oh, it's all very well for you--you can go
to sleep. You've no thought of your poor patient wife, and your own
dear children. You think of nothing but lending umbrellas!
"Men, indeed!--call themselves lords of the creation!--pretty lords,
when they can't even take care of an umbrella!
"I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me. But that's what
you want--then you may go to your club and do as you like--and then,
nicely my poor dear children will be used--but then, sir, then you'll
be happy. Oh, don't tell me! I know you will. Else you'd never
have lent the umbrella!
"You have to go on Thursday about that summons and, of course, you
can't go. No, indeed, you DON'T go without the umbrella. You may
lose the debt for what I care--it won't be so much as spoiling your
clothes--better lose it: people deserve to lose debts who lend
umbrellas!
"And I should like to know how I'm to go to mother's without the
umbrella! Oh, don't tell me that I said I WOULD go--that's nothing
to do with it; nothing at all. She'll think I'm neglecting her, and
the little money we were to have we sha'n't have at all--because
we've no umbrella.
"The children, too! Dear things! They'll be sopping wet; for they
sha'n't stop at home--they sha'n't lose their learning; it's all
their father will leave 'em, I'm sure. But they SHALL go to school.
Don't tell me I said they shouldn't: you are so aggravating, Caudle;
you'd spoil the temper of an angel. They SHALL go to school; mark
that. And if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault--I
didn't lend the umbrella."
"At length," writes Caudle, "I fell asleep; and dreamt that the sky
was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs; that, in fact, the
whole world turned round under a tremendous umbrella!"
LECTURE VII--MR. CAUDLE HAS VENTURED A REMONSTRANCE ON HIS DAY'S
DINNER: COLD MUTTON, AND NO PUDDING.--MRS. CAUDLE DEFENDS THE COLD
SHOULDER
"Umph! I'm sure! Well! I wonder what it will be next? There's
nothing proper, now--nothing at all. Better get somebody else to
keep the house, I think. I can't do it now, it seems; I'm only in
the way here: I'd better take the children, and go.
"What am I grumbling about now? It's very well for you to ask that!
I'm sure I'd better be out of the world than--there now, Mr. Caudle;
there you are again! I SHALL speak, sir. It isn't often I open my
mouth, Heaven knows! But you like to hear nobody talk but yourself.
You ought to have married a negro slave, and not any respectable
woman.
"You're to go about the house looking like thunder all the day, and
I'm not to say a word. Where do you think pudding's to come from
every day? You show a nice example to your children, you do;
complaining, and turning your nose up at a sweet piece of cold
mutton, because there's no pudding! You go a nice way to make 'em
extravagant--teach 'em nice lessons to begin the world with. Do you
know what puddings cost; or do you think they fly in at the window?
"You hate cold mutton. The more shame for you, Mr. Caudle. I'm sure
you've the stomach of a lord, you have. No, sir: I didn't choose to
hash the mutton. It's very easy for you to say hash it; but _I_ know
what a joint loses in hashing: it's a day's dinner the less, if it's
a bit. Yes, I daresay; other people may have puddings with cold
mutton. No doubt of it; and other people become bankrupts. But if
ever you get into the Gazette, it sha'n't be MY fault--no; I'll do my
duty as a wife to you, Mr. Caudle: you shall never have it to say
that it was MY housekeeping that brought you to beggary. No; you may
sulk at the cold meat--ha! I hope you'll never live to want such a
piece of cold mutton as we had to-day! and you may threaten to go to
a tavern to dine; but, with our present means, not a crumb of pudding
do you get from me. You shall have nothing but the cold joint--
nothing as I'm a Christian sinner.
"Yes; there you are, throwing those fowls in my face again! I know
you once brought home a pair of fowls; I know it: and weren't you
mean enough to want to stop 'em out of my week's money? Oh, the
selfishness--the shabbiness of men! They can go out and throw away
pounds upon pounds with a pack of people who laugh at 'em afterwards;
but if it's anything wanted for their own homes, their poor wives may
hunt for it. I wonder you don't blush to name those fowls again! I
wouldn't be so little for the world, Mr. Caudle.
"What are you going to do?
"GOING TO GET UP?
"Don't make yourself ridiculous, Mr. Caudle; I can't say a word to
you like any other wife, but you must threaten to get up. DO be
ashamed of yourself.
"Puddings, indeed! Do you think I'm made of puddings? Didn't you
have some boiled rice three weeks ago? Besides, is this the time of
the year for puddings? It's all very well if I had money enough
allowed me like any other wife to keep the house with: then, indeed,
I might have preserves like any other woman; now, it's impossible;
and it's cruel--yes, Mr. Caudle, cruel--of you to expect it.
"APPLES AREN'T SO DEAR, ARE THEY?
"I know what apples are, Mr. Caudle, without your telling me. But I
suppose you want something more than apples for dumplings? I suppose
sugar costs something, doesn't it? And that's how it is. That's how
one expense brings on another, and that's how people go to ruin.
"PANCAKES?
"What's the use of your lying muttering there about pancakes? Don't
you always have 'em once a year--every Shrove Tuesday? And what
would any moderate, decent man want more?
"Pancakes, indeed! Pray, Mr. Caudle,--no, it's no use your saying
fine words to me to let you go to sleep; I sha'n't!--pray do you know
the price of eggs just now? There's not an egg you can trust to
under seven and eight a shilling; well, you've only just to reckon up
how many eggs--don't lie swearing there at the eggs in that manner,
Mr. Caudle; unless you expect the bed to let you fall through. You
call yourself a respectable tradesman, I suppose? Ha! I only wish
people knew you as well as I do! Swearing at eggs, indeed! But I'm
tired of this usage, Mr. Caudle; quite tired of it; and I don't care
how soon it's ended!
"I'm sure I do nothing but work and labour, and think how to make the
most of everything; and this is how I'm rewarded. I should like to
see anybody whose joints go further than mine. But if I was to throw
away your money into the street, or lay it out in fine feathers on
myself, I should be better thought of. The woman who studies her
husband and her family is always made a drudge of. It's your fine
fal-lal wives who've the best time of it.
"What's the use of your lying groaning there in that manner? That
won't make me hold my tongue, I can tell you. You think to have it
all your own way--but you won't, Mr. Caudle! You can insult my
dinner; look like a demon, I may say, at a wholesome piece of cold
mutton--ah! the thousands of far better creatures than you are who'd
been thankful for that mutton!--and I'm never to speak! But you're
mistaken--I will. Your usage of me, Mr. Caudle, is infamous--
unworthy of a man. I only wish people knew you for what you are; but
I've told you again and again they shall some day.
"Puddings! And now I suppose I shall hear of nothing but puddings!
Yes, and I know what it would end in. First, you'd have a pudding
every day--oh, I know your extravagance--then you'd go for fish,--
then I shouldn't wonder if you'd have soup; turtle, no doubt: then
you'd go for a dessert; and--oh! I see it all as plain as the quilt
before me--but no, not while I'm alive! What your second wife may do
I don't know; perhaps SHE'LL be a fine lady; but you sha'n't be
ruined by me, Mr. Caudle; that I'm determined. Puddings, indeed!
Pu-dding-s! Pud--"
"Exhausted nature," says Caudle, "could hold out no longer. She went
to sleep."
LECTURE VIII--CAUDLE HAS BEEN MADE A MASON--MRS. CAUDLE INDIGNANT AND
CURIOUS
"Now, Mr. Caudle--Mr. Caudle, I say: oh: you can't be asleep
already, I know now, what I mean to say is this; there's no use, none
at all, in our having any disturbance about the matter; but, at last
my mind's made up, Mr. Caudle; I shall leave you. Either I know all
you've been doing to-night, or to-morrow morning I quit the house.
No, no; there's an end of the marriage state, I think--an end of all
confidence between man and wife--if a husband's to have secrets and
keep 'em all to himself. Pretty secrets they must be, when his own
wife can't know 'em! Not fit for any decent person to know, I'm
sure, if that's the case. Now, Caudle, don't let us quarrel, there's
a good soul, tell me what it's all about? A pack of nonsense, I dare
say; still--not that I care much about it,--still I SHOULD like to
know. There's a dear. Eh: oh, don't tell me there's nothing in it:
I know better. I'm not a fool, Mr. Caudle: I know there's a good
deal in it. Now, Caudle, just tell me a little bit of it. I'm sure
I'd tell you anything. You know I would. Well?
"Caudle, you're enough to vex a saint! Now don't you think you're
going to sleep; because you're not. Do you suppose I'd ever suffered
you to go and be made a mason, if I didn't suppose I was to know the
secret too? Not that it's anything to know, I dare say; and that's
why I'm determined to know it.
"But I know what it is; oh yes, there can be no doubt. The secret
is, to ill-use poor women; to tyrannise over 'em; to make 'em your
slaves: especially your wives. It must be something of the sort, or
you wouldn't be ashamed to have it known. What's right and proper
never need be done in secret. It's an insult to a woman for a man to
be a freemason, and let his wife know nothing of it. But, poor soul!
she's sure to know it somehow--for nice husbands they all make. Yes,
yes; a part of the secret is to think better of all the world than
their own wives and families. I'm sure men have quite enough to care
for--that is, if they act properly--to care for them they have at
home. They can't have much care to spare for the world besides.
"And I suppose they call you BROTHER Caudle? A pretty brother,
indeed! Going and dressing yourself up in an apron like a turnpike
man--for that's what you look like. And I should like to know what
the apron's for? There must be something in it not very respectable,
I'm sure. Well, I only wish I was Queen for a day or two. I'd put
an end to freemasonry, and all such trumpery, I know.
"Now, come, Caudle; don't let's quarrel. Eh! You're not in pain,
dear? What's it all about? What are you lying laughing there at?
But I'm a fool to trouble my head about you.
"And you're not going to let me know the secret, eh? You mean to
say,--you're not? Now, Caudle, you know it's a hard matter to put me
in a passion--not that I care about the secret itself: no, I
wouldn't give a button to know it, for it's all nonsense, I'm sure.
It isn't the secret I care about: it's the slight, Mr. Caudle; it's
the studied insult that a man pays to his wife, when he thinks of
going through the world keeping something to himself which he won't
let her know. Man and wife one, indeed! I should like to know how
that can be when a man's a mason--when he keeps a secret that sets
him and his wife apart? Ha, you men make the laws, and so you take
good care to have all the best of 'em to yourselves: otherwise a
woman ought to be allowed a divorce when a man becomes a mason: when
he's got a sort of corner-cupboard in his heart--a secret place in
his mind--that his poor wife isn't allowed to rummage!
"Caudle, you sha'n't close your eyes for a week--no, you sha'n't--
unless you tell me some of it. Come, there's a good creature;
there's a love. I'm sure, Caudle, I wouldn't refuse you anything--
and you know it, or ought to know it by this time. I only wish I had
a secret! To whom should I think of confiding it, but to my dear
husband? I should be miserable to keep it to myself, and you know
it. Now Caudle?
"Was there ever such a man? A man, indeed! A brute!--yes, Mr.
Caudle, an unfeeling, brutal creature, when you might oblige me, and
you won't. I'm sure I don't object to your being a mason: not at
all, Caudle; I dare say it's a very good thing; I dare say it is--
it's only your making a secret of it that vexes me. But you'll tell
me--you'll tell your own Margaret? You won't! You're a wretch, Mr.
Caudle.
"But I know why: oh, yes, I can tell. The fact is, you're ashamed
to let me know what a fool they've been making of you. That's it.
You, at your time of life--the father of a family! I should be
ashamed of myself, Caudle.
"And I suppose you'll be going to what you call your Lodge every
night, now. Lodge, indeed! Pretty place it must be, where they
don't admit women. Nice goings on, I dare say. Then you call one
another brethren. Brethren! I'm sure you'd relations enough, you
didn't want any more.
"But I know what all this masonry's about. It's only an excuse to
get away from your wives and families, that you may feast and drink
together, that's all. That's the secret. And to abuse women,--as if
they were inferior animals, and not to be trusted. That's the
secret; and nothing else.
"Now, Caudle, don't let us quarrel. Yes, I know you're in pain.
Still, Caudle, my love; Caudle! Dearest, I say! Caudle!"
"I recollect nothing more," says Caudle, "for I had eaten a hearty
supper, and somehow became oblivious."