CHAPTER XII

MRS. BINDLE BREAKS AN ARMISTICE

I

"Pleasant company, you are," snapped Mrs. Bindle, as she made an onslaught upon the kitchen fire, jabbing it viciously with a short steel poker.

Bindle looked up from the newspaper he was reading. It was the third attack upon the kitchen fire within the space of five minutes, and he recognised the portents--a storm was brewing.

"I might as well be on a desert island for all the company you are," she continued. "Here am I alone all day long with no one to speak to, and when you come home you just sit reading the horse-racing news in the paper."

"Wot jer like to talk about?" he enquired, allowing the paper to drop to the floor opposite him.

She sniffed angrily and threw the poker into the ash-pan.

"I wasn't readin' about racin'," he continued pacifically. "I was jest readin' about a cove wot went orf with another cove's missis, 'is best overcoat and two chickens."

"Stop it!" She stood over him, her lips compressed, her eyes hard and steely, as if meditating violence, then, turning suddenly, she walked swiftly across to the dresser and pulled out the left-hand drawer. Taking from it her bonnet, she put it on her head and proceeded to tie the strings beneath her chin.

From behind the kitchen door she unhooked a brown mackintosh, into which she struggled.

"Goin' out?" he enquired.

"Yes," she replied, as she tore open the door, "and perhaps I'll never come back again," and with a bang that shook the house she was gone.

She took a tram to Hammersmith on her way to see her niece, Millie Dixon. She was angry; the day had been one of continual annoyances and vexations. Entering the car she buried her elbows deep into the redundant figure of a woman who was also endeavouring to enter.

Once inside, the woman began to inform the car what she thought of "scraggy 'Uns with faces like a drop of vinegar on the edge of a knife."

"That's the way you gets cancer," she continued, as she stroked the left side of her ample bust. "People with elbows like that should 'ave 'em padded," and Mrs. Bindle was conscious that the car was with her antagonist.

Mrs. Bindle next proceeded to quarrel with the conductor about the fare, which had gone up a halfpenny, and she ended by threatening to report him for not setting her down between the scheduled stopping-places.

"She's lost a Bradbury and found the water-rate," remarked the conductor, as he turned once more to the occupants of the car after watching Mrs. Bindle alight.

The fat woman responded to the pleasantry by expressing her views on "them wot don't know 'ow to be'ave theirselves like ladies."

With Mrs. Bindle, the lure of Joseph the Second was strong within her. When her loneliness became too great for endurance, or the domestic atmosphere manifested signs of a greater voltage than the normal, her thoughts instinctively flew to the blue-eyed nephew, who slobbered and cooed at her and raised his chubby fists in meaningless gestures. Then the hunger within her would be appeased, until some chance mention of Bindle's name would awaken her self-pity.

She found Millie alone with Joseph the Second asleep in his cot beside her. As she feasted her gaze upon the eye-shut babe, Mrs. Bindle was conscious of a feeling of disappointment. She wanted to babble baby-talk, and gaze into those filmy blue eyes.

In spite of her aunt's protests, Millie made a cup of tea, explaining as she did so that Charley was staying late at the office.

"It's a good cake, Millie," said Mrs. Bindle a few minutes later, as she delicately cut another small square from the slice of home-made cake upon the plate before her. In her eyes there was a look which was a tribute from one good cook to another. "Who gave you the recipe?"

"It was all through Uncle Joe," said Millie. "He was always saying what a wonderful cook you are, Aunt Lizzie, and that if you didn't feed pussy he wouldn't purr," she laughed. "You know what funny things he says," she added parenthetically--"so I took lessons. You see," she added quaintly, "I wanted Charley to be very happy."

"Pretty lot of purring there is in our house," was Mrs. Bindle's grim comment, as she raised her cup-and-saucer from the table upon the finger-tips of her left hand and, with little finger awkwardly crooked, lifted the cup with her disengaged hand and proceeded to sip the tea with Victorian refinement.

"How is Uncle Joe?" asked Millie. "I wish he had come."

"Oh! don't talk to me about your uncle," cried Mrs. Bindle peevishly. "He's sitting at home smoking a filthy pipe and reading the horse-racing news. I might be dirt under his feet for all the notice he takes of me."

The grievances of the day had been cumulative with Mrs. Bindle, and the burden was too heavy to be borne in silence. Beginning with a bad tomato among the pound she had bought that morning at Mr. Hearty's Fulham shop, her troubles had piled up one upon another to the point when she found Joseph the Second asleep.

She had burned one of her best hem-stitched handkerchiefs whilst ironing it, the milk had "turned" on account of the thunder in the air and, to crown the morning's tragedies, she had burned a saucepan owing to the dustman coming at an inconvenient moment.

"He's never been a proper husband to me," she sniffed ominously.

"Dear Aunt Lizzie," said Millie gently, as she leaned forward and placed her hand upon Mrs. Bindle's arm.

"He humiliates me before other people and--and sometimes I wish I was dead, Millie, God forgive me." Her voice broke as she stifled a sob.

Millie's large, grave eyes were full of sympathy, mixed with a little wonder. She could not understand how anyone could find "Uncle Joe" other than adorable.

"Ever since I married him he's been the same," continued Mrs. Bindle, the flood-gates of self-pity opening wide under the influence of Millie's gentleness and sympathy. "He tries to make me look small before other people and--and I've always been a good wife to him."

Again she sniffed, and Millie squeezed her arm affectionately.

"He's just the same with Mr.--with your father," Mrs. Bindle corrected herself. "Why he stands it I don't know. If I was a man I'd hit him, that I would, and hard too," she added as if to allow of no doubt in her niece's mind as to the nature of the punishment she would administer. "I'd show him; but Mr. Hearty's so good and patient and gentle." Mrs. Bindle produced a handkerchief, and proceeded to dab the corners of her eyes, although there was no indication of tears.

"But, Aunt Lizzie," protested Millie gently, "I'm sure he doesn't mean to make you--to humiliate you." She felt that loyalty to her beloved Uncle Joe demanded that she should defend him. "You see, he--he loves a joke, and he's very good to--to, oh, everybody! Charley just loves Uncle Joe," she added, as if that settled the matter as far as she were concerned.

"Look how he goes on about the chapel," continued Mrs. Bindle, fearful lest her niece's sympathy should be snatched from her. "I wonder God doesn't strike him dead. I'm sure I----"

"Strike him dead!" cried Millie in horror. "Oh, Aunt Lizzie! you don't mean that, you couldn't." She paused, seeming to bring the whole twelve months of her matronhood to the examination of the problem. "I know he's very naughty sometimes," she added sagely, "but he loves you, Aunt Lizzie. He thinks that----"

"Love!" cried Mrs. Bindle with all the scorn of a woman who has no intention of being comforted. "He loves nothing but his food and his low companions. He shames me before the neighbours, talking that familiar with common men. When I'm out with him he shouts out to bus-conductors, or whistles at policemen, or winks at--at hussies in the street." She paused in the catalogue of Bindle's crimes, whilst Millie turned her head to hide the smile she could not quite repress.

She herself had been with Bindle when he had called out to his bus-conductor friends, and whistled under his breath when passing a policeman, "If You Want to Know the Time Ask a Policeman"; but he had never winked at girls when he had been with her; of that she was sure.

"You see, Aunt Lizzie, he knows so many people, and they all like him and----"

"Only common people, like chauffeurs and workmen," was the retort. "When I'm out with him I sometimes want to sink through the ground with shame. He lets them call him 'Joe,' and of course they don't respect me." Again she sniffed ominously.

"I'll speak to him," said Millie with a wise little air that she had assumed since her marriage.

"Speak to him!" cried Mrs. Bindle scornfully. "Might as well speak to a brick wall. I've spoken to him until I'm tired, and what does he do? Laughs at me and says I'm as----" she paused, as if finding difficulty in bringing herself to give Bindle's actual expression--"says I'm as holy as ointment, if you know what that means."

"But he doesn't mean to be unkind, Aunt Lizzie, I'm sure he doesn't," protested Millie loyally. "He calls Boy--I mean Charley," she corrected herself with a little blush, "all sorts of names," and she laughed at some recollection of her own. "Don't you think, Aunt Lizzie----" she paused, conscious that she was approaching delicate ground. "Don't you think that if you and Uncle Joe were both to try and--and----" she stopped, looking across at her aunt anxiously, her lower lip indrawn and her eyes gravely wide.

"Try and what?" demanded Mrs. Bindle, a hardness creeping into her voice at the thought that anyone could see any mitigating circumstance in Bindle's treatment of her.

"I thought that if perhaps--I mean," hesitated Millie, "that if you both tried very hard to--to, not to hurt each other----" again she stopped.

"I'm sure I've never said anything to him that all the world might not hear," retorted Mrs. Bindle, with the unction of the righteous, "although he's always saying things to me that make me hot with shame, married woman though I am."

"But, Aunt Lizzie," persisted Millie, clasping Mrs. Bindle's arm with both hands, and looking appealingly up into her face, "won't you try, just for my sake, pleeeeeease," she coaxed.

"I've tried until I'm tired of trying," was the ungracious retort. "I moil and toil, inch and pinch, work day and night to mend his clothes and get his food ready, and this is what I get for it. He makes me a laughing-stock, talks about me behind my back. Oh, I know!" she added hastily, as Millie made a sign of dissent. "He can't deceive me. He wants to bring me down to his own level of wickedness, then he'll be happy; but he shan't," she cried, the Daughter of the Lord manifesting herself. "I'll kill myself first. He shall never have that pleasure, no one shall ever be able to say that I let him drag me down.

"I've always done my duty by him," she continued, returning to the threadbare phrase that was ever present in her mind. "I've worked morning, noon and night to try and keep him respectable, and see how he treats me. I'm worse off than a servant, I tell him so and what does he do?" she demanded. "Laughs at me," she cried shrilly, answering her own question, "and humiliates me before the neighbours. Gets the children to call after me, makes----"

"Oh, Aunt Lizzie! You mustn't say that," cried Millie in distress. "I'm sure Uncle Joe would never do such a thing. He couldn't," she added with conviction.

"Well, they do it," retorted Mrs. Bindle, conscious of a feeling that possibly she had gone too far; "only yesterday they did it."

"What did they say?" enquired Millie curiously.

"They said," she paused as if hesitating to repeat what the youth of Fenton Street had called after her. Then, as if determined to convict Bindle of all the sins possible, she continued, "They called after me all the way up Fenton Street----" again she paused.

"Yes, Aunt Lizzie."

"They called 'Mrs. Bindle turns a spindle.'"

Millie bent quickly forward that her involuntary smile might not be detected.

"They never call out after him," Mrs. Bindle added, as if that in itself were conclusive proof of Bindle's guilt. "And now I must be going, Millie," and she rose and once more bent down to gaze where Joseph the Second slept the sleep of an easy conscience and a good digestion.

"Bless his little heart," she murmured, for the moment forgetting her own troubles in the contemplation of the sleeping babe. "I hope he doesn't grow up like his uncle," she added, her thoughts rushing back precipitately to their customary channel.

"I'm going to have a talk with Uncle Joe," said Millie, as she followed her aunt along the passage, "and then----" she paused.

"You'd talk the hind leg off a donkey before you'd make any impression on him," was the ungracious retort. "Good night, Millie, I'm glad you're getting on with your cooking," and Mrs. Bindle passed out into the night to the solitude of her own thoughts, populated exclusively by Bindle and his shortcomings.

II

"I haven't told Charley, Uncle Joe, so be careful," whispered Millie, as Bindle hung up his hat in the hall.

"'Aven't told 'im wot, Millie?"

"That--that----" she hesitated.

"I get you Steve," he cried, with a knowing wink, "you ain't told 'im 'ow you're goin' to make yer Aunt Lizzie the silent wife of Fulham."

"Now, Uncle Joe," she admonished with pouting lips, "you promised. You will be careful, won't you?" She had spent two hours the previous night coaching Bindle in the part he was to play.

"Reg'lar dove I am to-night," he said cheerily. "I could lay an egg, only I don't know wot colour it ought to be."

Millie gazed at him for a few seconds in quizzical doubt, then, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders, and a pout that was very popular with Charley, she turned and led the way into the drawing-room.

Charley Dixon was doing his best to make conversation with his aunt-in-law; but Mrs. Bindle's monosyllabic methods proved a serious obstacle.

"Now we'll have supper," cried Millie, after Bindle had greeted Charley and gazed a little doubtfully at Mrs. Bindle. He seemed on the point of making some remark; but apparently thought better of it, instead he turned to admire an ornament on the mantelpiece. He had remembered just in time.

Millie had spread herself upon the supper. There was a small cold chicken that seemed desirous of shrinking within itself; a salad in a glass bowl, with a nickel-silver fork and spoon adorned with blue china handles; a plate of ham well garnished with parsley; a beef-steak and kidney pie, cold, also garnished with parsley; some pressed beef and tongue, of a thinness that advertised the professional hand which had cut it.

On the sideboard was an infinity of tarts, blanc-mange, stewed fruit and custard. With all the recklessness of a young housewife, Millie had prepared for four what would have been ample for fourteen.

It was this fact that first attracted Mrs. Bindle's attention. Her keen eyes missed nothing. She examined the knives and spoons, identifying them as wedding presents. She lifted the silver pepper-castor, a trifle, light as air, examined the texture of the tablecloth and felt the napkins with an appraising thumb and forefinger, and mentally deprecated the lighting of the two pink candles, in silver candlesticks with yellow shades, in the centre of the table.

Millie fluttered about, acutely conscious of her responsibilities and flushed with anxiety.

"I hope--I hope," she began, addressing her aunt. "I--I hope you will like it."

"You must have worked very hard, Millie," said Mrs. Bindle, an unusual gentleness in her voice, whereat Millie flushed.

Bindle and Charley were soon at work upon the beef-steak and kidney pie, hot potatoes and beans. Bindle had nearly fallen at the first hurdle. In the heat of an argument with Charley as to what was the matter with the Chelsea football team, he had indiscreetly put a large piece of potato into his mouth without realising its temperature. A look of agony overspread his features. He was just in the act of making a preliminary forward motion to return the potato from whence it came, when Charley, with a presence of mind that would have brought tears to Bindle's eyes, had they not already been there, indicated the glass of beer in front of him.

With a swoop Bindle seized it, raised it to his lips, and cooled the heated tuber. Pulling his red silk handkerchief from his breast-pocket, he mopped up the tears just as Mrs. Bindle turned her gaze upon him.

"Don't make me laugh, Charley," he cried with inspiration, "or I'll choke," at which Charley laughed in a way that proved him entirely devoid of histrionic talent.

"I'll do as much for you one o' these days, Charley," Bindle whispered, looking reproachfully at the remains of the potato that had betrayed him. "My Gawd! It was 'ot," he muttered under his breath. "Look out for yourself an' 'ave beer 'andy."

He turned suddenly to Mrs. Bindle. In his heart there was an uncharitable hope that she too might be caught in the toils from which he had just escaped; but Mrs. Bindle ate like a book on etiquette. She held her knife and fork at the extreme end of the handles, her elbows pressed well into her sides, and literally toyed with her food.

After each mouthful, she raised her napkin to her lips, giving the impression that it was in constant movement, either to or from her lips.

She took no table risks. She saw to it that every piece of food was carefully attached to the fork before she raised it from the plate, and never did fork carry a lighter load than hers. After each journey, both knife and fork were laid on her plate, the napkin--Mrs. Bindle referred to it as a serviette--raised to her unsoiled lips, and she touched neither knife nor fork again until her jaws had entirely ceased working.

Between her visits to the kitchen, Millie laboured desperately to inveigle her aunt into conversation; but although Mrs. Bindle possessed much religious and domestic currency, she had no verbal small change.

During the afternoon, Millie had exhausted domesticity and herself alike--and there had been Joseph the Second. Mrs. Bindle did not read, they had no common friends, she avoided the pictures, and what she did see in the newspapers she so disapproved of as to close that as a possible channel of conversation.

"Aunt Lizzie," cried Millie in desperation for something to say, "you aren't making a good supper."

"I'm doing very nicely, thank you, Millie," said Mrs. Bindle, who in a quarter of an hour had managed to envelop about two square inches of ham and three shreds of lettuce.

"You don't like the ham, Aunt Lizzie," protested the hospitable Millie; "have some pie."

"It's very nice, thank you, Millie," was the prim reply. "I'm enjoying it," and she proceeded to dissect a piece of lettuce to a size that even a "prunes and prisms" mouth might have taken without inconvenience.

"Charley," cried Millie presently. "I won't have you talking football with Uncle Joe. Talk to Aunt Lizzie."

A moment later she realized her mistake. Bindle returned to his plate, Charley looked at his aunt doubtfully, and conversation lay slain.

"Listen," cried Millie who, at the end of five minutes, thought she must either say something, or scream. "That's Joey, run up and see, Charley, there's a dear"--she knew it was not Joey.

Charley rose dutifully, and once more silence descended upon the table.

"Aunt Lizzie, you _are_ making a poor meal," cried Millie, genuinely distressed, as Mrs. Bindle placed her knife and fork at the "all clear" angle, although she had eaten less than half what her plate contained.

"I've done very nicely, thank you, Millie, and I've enjoyed it."

Millie sighed. Her eyes wandered from the heavily-laden table to the sideboard, and she groaned in spirit. In spite of what Bindle and Charley had done, and were doing, there seemed such a lot that required to be eaten, and she wondered whether Charley would very much mind having cold meat, blanc-mange and jam tarts for the rest of the week.

"It wasn't him, Millie," said Charley, re-entering the room, and returning to his plate with the air of one determined to make up for the time he had lost in parental solicitude, whilst Bindle pushed his own plate from him as a sign that, so far as the first round was concerned, he had nothing more to say.

"You're very quiet to-night, Uncle Joe," said Millie, the soul of hospitality within her already weeping bitter tears.

"Me?" cried Bindle, starting and looking about him. "I ain't quiet, Millie," and then he relapsed once more into silence.

Charley did not seem to notice anything unusual. In his gentle, good-natured way he hoped that Millie would not again ask him to talk to Aunt Lizzie.

Mrs. Bindle partook, no other word adequately describes the action, of an open jam tart with the aid of a spoon and fork, from time to time sipping daintily from her glass of lemonade; but she refused all else. She had made an excellent meal, she repeatedly assured Millie, and had enjoyed it.

Millie found comfort in plying Bindle with dainties. He had received no orders to curtail his appetite, so he had decided in his own idiom to "let 'em all come"--and they came, tarts and turnovers, fruit-salad and blanc-mange, custard and jelly. By the time the cheese and biscuits had arrived, he was forced to lean back in his chair and confess himself vanquished.

"Not if you was to pay me," he said, as he shook a regretful head.

After the meal, they returned to the drawing-room. Millie showed Mrs. Bindle an album of coloured postcards they had collected during their honeymoon, whilst Charley wandered about like a restless spirit, missing his after-dinner pipe.

"Ain't we goin' to smoke?" Bindle had whispered hoarsely, as they entered the drawing-room; but Charley shook a sad and resigned head.

"She mightn't like it," he whispered back, so Bindle seated himself in the corner of a plush couch, and wondered how long it would be before Mrs. Bindle made a move to go home.

Millie was trying her utmost to make the postcards last as long as possible. Charley had paused beside her in his restless strolling about the room, and proceeded to recall unimportant happenings at the places pictured.

At length the photographs were exhausted, and both Millie and Charley began to wonder what was to take their place, when Mrs. Bindle rose, announcing that she must be going. Millie pressed her to stay, and strove to stifle the thanksgiving in her heart, whilst Charley began to count the minutes before he would be able to "light up."

The business of parting, however, occupied time, and it was fully twenty minutes later that Bindle and Mrs. Bindle, accompanied by Charley and Millie, passed down the narrow little passage towards the hall door.

Another five minutes were occupied in remarks upon the garden and how they had enjoyed themselves--and then the final goodnights were uttered.

As his niece kissed him, Bindle muttered, "I been all right, ain't I, Millikins?" and she squeezed his arm reassuringly, at which he sighed his relief. The tortures he had suffered that evening were as nothing, provided Millie were happy.

As the hall door closed, Charley struck a match and lighted his pipe. Returning to the drawing-room, he dropped into the easiest of the uneasy chairs.

"What's the matter with Uncle Joe to-night, Millie?" he enquired, and for answer Millie threw herself upon him, wound her arms round his neck and sobbed.

* * * * *

"Been a pleasant evenin', Lizzie," said Bindle conversationally, as they walked towards the nearest tram-stop.

Mrs. Bindle sniffed.

"Nice young chap, Charley," he remarked a moment later. He was determined to redeem his promise to Millie.

"What was the matter with you to-night?" she demanded aggressively.

"Matter with me?" he enquired in surprise. "There ain't nothink the matter with me, Lizzie, I enjoyed myself fine."

"Yes, sitting all the evening as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth."

"But----" began Bindle.

"Oh, I know you," she interrupted. "You wanted Millie and Charley to think it's all my fault and that you're a saint. They should see you in your own home," she added.

"But I ain't said nothink," he protested.

"You aren't like that at home," she continued. "There you do nothing but blaspheme and talk lewd talk and sneer at Mr. Hearty. Oh! I can see through you," she added, "and you needn't think you deceived Millie, or Charley. They're not the fools you think them."

Bindle groaned in spirit. He had suffered acutely that evening, mentally having had to censor every sentence before uttering it.

"Then look at the way you behaved. Eating like a gormand. You made me thoroughly ashamed of you. I could see Millie watching----"

"But she was watchin' to see I 'ad enough to eat," he protested.

"Don't tell me. Any decently refined girl would be disgusted at the way you behave. Eating jam tarts with your fingers."

"But wot should I eat 'em with?"

Before she had time to reply, the tram drew up and, following her usual custom, Mrs. Bindle made a dart for it, elbowing people right and left. She could always be trusted to make sufficient enemies in entering a vehicle to last most people for a lifetime.

"But wot should I eat 'em with?" enquired Bindle again when they were seated.

"Sssh!" she hissed, conscious that a number of people were looking at her, including several who had made acquaintance with the sharpness of her elbows.

"But if you ain't to eat jam tarts with yer fingers, 'ow are you goin' to get 'em into yer mouth?" he enquired in a hoarse whisper, which was easily heard by the greater part of the occupants of the tram. "They don't jump," he added.

A ripple of smiles broke out on the faces of most of their fellow-passengers.

"_Will_ you be quiet?" hissed Mrs. Bindle.

"Mind you don't grow up like that, kid," whispered an amorous youth to a full-busted young woman, whose hand he was grasping with interlaced fingers.

Mrs. Bindle heard the remark and drew in her lips still further.

"Been gettin' yer face sticky, mate?" enquired a little man sitting next to Bindle, in a voice of sympathy.

Bindle turned and gave him a wink.

No sooner had they alighted from the tram at The King's Head, than Mrs. Bindle's restraint vanished. All the way to Fenton Street she reviled Bindle for humiliating her before other people. She gave full rein to the anger that had been simmering within her all the evening. Millie should be told of his conduct. Charley should learn to hate him, and Little Joey to execrate the very mention of his name.

"But you shouldn't go a-jabbin' yer elbows in people's----" Bindle paused for a word sufficiently delicate for Mrs. Bindle's ears and which, at the same time, would leave no doubt as to the actual portion of the anatomy to which he referred.

"I'll jab my elbows into you, if you're not careful," was the uncompromising response. "I'm referring to the tarts."

And Bindle made a bolt for it.

"Now this all comes through tryin' to sit on a safety-valve," he muttered. "Mrs. B. 'as got to blow-orf some'ow, or she'd bust."