Chapter 7

"No, you won't, sir--not while I'm alive. A separate room! And you call yourself a religious man, Mr. Caudle. I'd advise you to take down the Prayer Book, and read over the Marriage Service. A separate room, indeed! Caudle, you're getting quite a heathen. A separate room! Well, the servants would talk then! But no: no man--not the best that ever trod, Caudle--should ever make me look so contemptible.

"I SHA'N'T go to sleep; and you ought to know me better than to ask me to hold my tongue. Because you come home when I've just stepped out to do a little shopping, you're worse than a fury. I should like to know how many hours I sit up for you? What do you say?

"NOBODY WANTS ME TO SIT UP?

"Ha! that's like the gratitude of men--just like 'em! But a poor woman can't leave the house, that--what?

"WHY CAN'T I GO AT REASONABLE HOURS?

"Reasonable! What do you call eight o'clock? If I went out at eleven and twelve, as you come home, then you might talk; but seven or eight o'clock--why, it's the cool of the evening; the nicest time to enjoy a walk; and, as I say, do a little bit of shopping. Oh yes, Mr. Caudle, I do think of the people that are kept in the shops just as much as you; but that's nothing at all to do with it. I know what you'd have. You'd have all those young men let away early from the counter to improve what you please to call their minds. Pretty notions you pick up among a set of free-thinkers, and I don't know what! When I was a girl, people never talked of minds--intellect, I believe you call it. Nonsense! a new-fangled thing, just come up; and the sooner it goes out, the better.

"Don't tell me! What are shops for, if they're not to be open late and early too? And what are shopmen, if they're not always to attend upon their customers? People pay for what they have, I suppose, and aren't to be told when they shall come and lay their money out, and when they sha'n't? Thank goodness! if one shop shuts, another keeps open; and I always think it a duty I owe to myself to go to the shop that's open last: it's the only way to punish the shopkeepers that are idle, and give themselves airs about early hours.

"Besides, there's some things I like to buy best at candle-light. Oh, don't talk to me about humanity! Humanity, indeed, for a pack of tall, strapping young fellows--some of 'em big enough to be shown for giants! And what have they to do? Why nothing, but to stand behind a counter, and talk civility. Yes, I know your notions; you say that everybody works too much: I know that. You'd have all the world do nothing half its time but twiddle its thumbs, or walk in the parks, or go to picture-galleries, and museums, and such nonsense. Very fine, indeed; but, thank goodness! the world isn't come to that pass yet.

"What do you say I am, Mr. Caudle?

"A FOOLISH WOMAN, THAT CAN'T LOOK BEYOND MY OWN FIRESIDE?

"Oh yes, I can; quite as far as you, and a great deal farther. But I can't go out shopping a little with my dear friend Mrs. Wittles--what do you laugh at? Oh, don't they? Don't women know what friendship is? Upon my life, you've a nice opinion of us! Oh yes, we can--we can look outside of our own fenders, Mr. Caudle. And if we can't, it's all the better for our families. A blessed thing it would be for their wives and children if men couldn't either. You wouldn't have lent that five pounds--and I dare say a good many other five pounds that I know nothing of--if you--a lord of the creation!--had half the sense women have. You seldom catch us, I believe, lending five pounds. I should think not.

"No: we won't talk of it to-morrow morning. You're not going to wound my feelings when I come home, and think I'm to say nothing about it. You have called me an inhuman person; you have said I have no thought, no feeling for the health and comfort of my fellow- creatures; I don't know what you haven't called me; and only for buying a--but I sha'n't tell you what; no, I won't satisfy you there- -but you've abused me in this manner, and only for shopping up to ten o'clock. You've a great deal of fine compassion, you have! I'm sure the young man that served me could have knocked down an ox; yes, strong enough to lift a house: but you can pity him--oh yes, you can be all kindness for him, and for the world, as you call it. Oh, Caudle, what a hypocrite you are! I only wish the world knew how you treated your poor wife!

"What do you say?

"FOR THE LOVE OF MERCY LET YOU SLEEP?

"Mercy, indeed! I wish you could show a little of it to other people. Oh yes, I DO know what mercy means; but that's no reason I should go shopping a bit earlier than I do--and I won't. No; you've preached this over to me again and again; you've made me go to meetings to hear about it: but that's no reason women shouldn't shop just as late as they choose. It's all very fine, as I say, for you men to talk to us at meetings, where, of course, we smile and all that--and sometimes shake our white pocket-handkerchiefs--and where you say we have the power of early hours in our own hands. To be sure we have; and we mean to keep it. That is, I do. You'll never catch me shopping till the very last thing; and--as a matter of principle--I'll always go to the shop that keeps open latest. It does the young men good to keep 'em close to business. Improve their minds indeed! Let 'em out at seven, and they'd improve nothing but their billiards. Besides, if they want to improve themselves, can't they get up, this fine weather, at three? Where there's a will, there's a way, Mr. Caudle."

"I thought," writes Caudle, "that she had gone to sleep. In this hope, I was dozing off when she jogged me, and thus declared herself: 'Caudle, you want nightcaps; but see if I budge to buy 'em till nine at night!"

LECTURE XXIII--MRS. CAUDLE "WISHES TO KNOW IF THEY'RE GOING TO THE SEA-SIDE, OR NOT, THIS SUMMER--THAT'S ALL"

"Hot? Yes, it IS hot. I'm sure one might as well be in an oven as in town this weather. You seem to forget it's July, Mr. Caudle. I've been waiting quietly--have never spoken; yet, not a word have you said of the seaside yet. Not that I care for it myself--oh, no; my health isn't of the slightest consequence. And, indeed, I was going to say--but I won't--that the sooner, perhaps, I'm out of this world, the better. Oh, yes; I dare say you think so--of course you do, else you wouldn't lie there saying nothing. You're enough to aggravate a saint, Caudle; but you shan't vex me. No; I've made up my mind, and never intend to let you vex me again. Why should I worry myself?

"But all I want to ask you is this: do you intend to go to the sea- side this summer?

"YES? YOU'LL GO TO GRAVESEND?

"Then you'll go alone, that's all I know. Gravesend! You might as well empty a salt-cellar in the New River, and call that the sea- side. What?

"IT'S HANDY FOR BUSINESS?

"There you are again! I can never speak of taking a little enjoyment, but you fling business in my teeth. I'm sure you never let business stand in the way of your own pleasure, Mr. Caudle--not you. It would be all the better for your family if you did.

"You know that Matilda wants sea-bathing; you know it, or ought to know it, by the looks of the child; and yet--I know you, Caudle-- you'd have let the summer pass over, and never said a word about the matter. What do you say?

"MARGATE'S SO EXPENSIVE?

"Not at all. I'm sure it will be cheaper for us in the end; for if we don't go, we shall all be ill--every one of us--in the winter. Not that my health is of any consequence: I know that well enough. It never was yet. You know Margate's the only place I can eat a breakfast at, and yet you talk of Gravesend! But what's my eating to you? You wouldn't care if I never ate at all. You never watch my appetite like any other husband, otherwise you'd have seen what it's come to.

"What do you say?

"HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

"There you are, Mr. Caudle, with your meanness again. When you want to go yourself to Blackwall or to Greenwich you never ask, how much will it cost? What?

"YOU NEVER GO TO BLACKWALL?

"Ha! I don't know that; and if you don't, that's nothing at all to do with it. Yes, you can give a guinea a plate for whitebait for yourself. No, sir: I'm not a foolish woman: and I know very well what I'm talking about--nobody better. A guinea for whitebait for yourself, when you grudge a pint of shrimps for your poor family. Eh?

"YOU DON'T GRUDGE 'EM ANYTHING?

"Yes, it's very well for you to lie there and say so.

"WHAT WILL IT COST?

"It's no matter what it will cost, for we won't go at all now. No; we'll stay at home. We shall all be ill in the winter--every one of us, all but you; and nothing ever makes you ill. I've no doubt we shall all be laid up, and there'll be a doctor's bill as long as a railroad; but never mind that. It's better--much better--to pay for nasty physic than for fresh air and wholesome salt water. Don't call me 'woman,' and ask 'what it will cost.' I tell you, if you were to lay the money down before me on that quilt, I wouldn't go now-- certainly not. It's better we should all be sick; yes, then you'll be pleased.

"That's right, Mr. Caudle; go to sleep. It's like your unfeeling self! I'm talking of our all being laid up; and you, like any stone, turn round and begin to go to sleep. Well, I think that's a pretty insult!

"HOW CAN YOU SLEEP WITH SUCH A SPLINTER IN YOUR FLESH?

"I suppose you mean to call me the splinter?--and after the wife I've been to you! But no, Mr. Caudle, you may call me what you please; you'll not make me cry now. No, no; I don't throw away my tears upon any such person now.

"What?

"DON'T?

"Ha! that's your ingratitude! But none of you men deserve that any woman should love you. My poor heart!

"Everybody else can go out of town except us. Ha! If I'd only married Simmons--What?

"WHY DIDN'T I?

"Yes, that's all the thanks I get.

"WHO'S SIMMONS?

"Oh, you know very well who Simmons is. He'd have treated me a little better, I think. He WAS a gentleman.

"YOU CAN'T TELL?

"May be not: but I can. With such weather as this, to stay melting in London; and when the painters are coming in!

"YOU WON'T HAVE THE PAINTERS IN?

"But you must; and if they once come in, I'm determined that none of us shall stir then. Painting in July, with a family in the house! We shall all be poisoned, of course; but what do you care for that?

"WHY CAN'T I TELL YOU WHAT IT WILL COST?

"How can I or any woman tell exactly what it will cost? Of course lodgings--and at Margate, too--are a little dearer than living at your own house.

"POOH! YOU KNOW THAT?

"Well, if you did, Mr. Caudle, I suppose there's no treason in naming it. Still, if you take 'em for two months, they're cheaper than for one. No, Mr. Caudle, I shall not be quite tired of it in one month. No: and it isn't true that I no sooner get out than I want to get home again. To be sure, I was tired of Margate three years ago, when you used to leave me to walk about the beach by myself, to be stared at through all sorts of telescopes. But you don't do that again, Mr. Caudle, I can tell you.

"WHAT WILL I DO AT MARGATE?

"Why, isn't there bathing, and picking up shells; and aren't there the packets, with the donkeys; and the last new novel, whatever it is, to read?--for the only place where I really relish a book is at the sea-side. No; it isn't that I like salt with my reading, Mr. Caudle! I suppose you call that a joke? You might keep your jokes for the daytime, I think. But as I was saying--only you always will interrupt me--the ocean always seems to me to open the mind. I see nothing to laugh at; but you always laugh when I say anything. Sometimes at the sea-side--especially when the tide's down--I feel so happy: quite as if I could cry.

"When shall I get the things ready? For next Sunday?

"WHAT WILL IT COST?

"Oh, there--don't talk of it. No: we won't go. I shall send for the painters to-morrow. What?

"I CAN GO AND TAKE THE CHILDREN, AND YOU'LL STAY?

"No, sir: you go with me, or I don't stir. I'm not going to be turned loose like a hen with her chickens, and nobody to protect me. So we'll go on Monday? Eh?

"WHAT WILL IT COST?

"What a man you are! Why, Caudle, I've been reckoning that, with buff slippers and all, we can't well do it under seventy pounds. No; I won't take away the slippers and say fifty. It's seventy pounds and no less. Of course, what's over will be so much saved. Caudle, what a man you are! Well, shall we go on Monday? What do you say -

"YOU'LL SEE?

"There's a dear. Then, Monday."

"Anything for a chance of peace," writes Caudle. "I consented to the trip, for I thought I might sleep better in a change of bed."

LECTURE XXIV--MRS. CAUDLE DWELLS ON CAUDLE'S "CRUEL NEGLECT" OF HER ON BOARD THE "RED ROVER." MRS. CAUDLE SO "ILL WITH THE SEA," THAT THEY PUT UP AT THE DOLPHIN, HERNE BAY.

"Caudle, have you looked under the bed?

"WHAT FOR?

"Bless the man! Why, for thieves, to be sure. Do you suppose I'd sleep in a strange bed without? Don't tell me it's nonsense! I shouldn't sleep a wink all night. Not that you'd care for that; not that you'd--hush! I'm sure I heard somebody. No; it's not a bit like a mouse. Yes; that's like you--laugh. It would be no laughing matter if--I'm sure there IS somebody!--I'm sure there is!

"--Yes, Mr. Caudle; now I AM satisfied. Any other man would have got up and looked himself; especially after my sufferings on board that nasty ship. But catch you stirring! Oh, no! You'd let me lie here and be robbed and killed, for what you'd care. Why you're not going to sleep? What do you say?

"IT'S THE STRANGE AIR--AND YOU'RE ALWAYS SLEEPY IN A STRANGE AIR?

"That shows the feelings you have, after what I've gone through. And yawning, too, in that brutal manner! Caudle, you've no more heart than that wooden figure in a white petticoat at the front of the ship.

"No; I COULDN'T leave my temper at home. I dare say! Because for once in your life you've brought me out--yes, I say once, or two or three times, it isn't more; because, as I say, you once bring me out, I'm to be a slave and say nothing. Pleasure, indeed! A great deal of pleasure I'm to have, if I'm told to hold my tongue. A nice way that of pleasing a woman.

"Dear me! if the bed doesn't spin round and dance about! I've got all that filthy ship in my head! No: I sha'n't be well in the morning. But nothing ever ails anybody but yourself. You needn't groan in that way, Mr. Caudle, disturbing the people, perhaps, in the next room. It's a mercy I'm alive, I'm sure. If once I wouldn't have given all the world for anybody to have thrown me overboard! What are you smacking your lips at, Mr. Caudle? But I know what you mean--of course, you'd never have stirred to stop 'em; not you. And then you might have known that the wind would have blown to-day; but that's why you came.

"Whatever I should have done if it hadn't been for that good soul-- that blessed Captain Large! I'm sure all the women who go to Margate ought to pray for him; so attentive in sea-sickness, and so much of a gentleman! How I should have got down stairs without him when I first began to turn, I don't know. Don't tell me I never complained to you; you might have seen I was ill. And when everybody was looking like a bad wax-candle, you could walk about, and make what you call your jokes upon the little buoy that was never sick at the Nore, and such unfeeling trash.

"Yes, Caudle; we've now been married many years, but if we were to live together for a thousand years to come--what are you clasping your hands at?--a thousand years to come, I say, I shall never forget your conduct this day. You could go to the other end of the ship and smoke a cigar, when you knew I should be ill--oh, you knew it; for I always am. The brutal way, too, in which you took that cold brandy- and-water--you thought I didn't see you; but ill as I was, hardly able to hold my head up, I was watching you all the time. Three glasses of cold brandy-and-water; and you sipped 'em, and drank the health of people who you didn't care a pin about; whilst the health of your own lawful wife was nothing. Three glasses of brandy-and- water, and _I_ left--as I may say--alone! You didn't hear 'em, but everybody was crying shame of you.

"What do you say?

"A GOOD DEAL MY OWN FAULT? I TOOK TOO MUCH DINNER?

"Well, you are a man! If I took more than the breast and leg of that young goose--a thing, I may say, just out of the shell--with the slightest bit of stuffing, I'm a wicked woman. What do you say?

"LOBSTER SALAD?

"La!--how can you speak of it? A month-old baby would have eaten more. What?

"GOOSEBERRY PIE?

"Well, if you'll name that you'll name anything. Ate too much indeed! Do you think I was going to pay for a dinner, and eat nothing? No, Mr. Caudle; it's a good thing for you that I know a little more of the value of money than that.

"But, of course, you were better engaged than in attending to me. Mr. Prettyman came on board at Gravesend. A planned thing, of course. You think I didn't see him give you a letter.

"IT WASN'T A LETTER; IT WAS A NEWSPAPER?

"I daresay; ill as I was, I had my eyes. It was the smallest newspaper I ever saw, that's all. But of course, a letter from Miss Prettyman--Now, Caudle, if you begin to cry out in that manner, I'll get up. Do you forget that you are not at your own house? making that noise! Disturbing everybody! Why, we shall have the landlord up! And you could smoke and drink 'forward,' as you called it. What?

"YOU COULDN'T SMOKE ANYWHERE ELSE?

"That's nothing to do with it. Yes; forward. What a pity that Miss Prettyman wasn't with you! I'm sure nothing could be too forward for her. No, I won't hold my tongue; and I ought not to be ashamed of myself. It isn't treason, is it, to speak of Miss Prettyman? After all I've suffered to-day, and I'm not to open my lips! Yes; I'm to be brought away from my own home, dragged down here to the sea-side, and made ill! and I'm not to speak. I should like to know what next.

"It's a mercy some of the dear children were not drowned; not that their father would have cared, so long as he could have had his brandy and cigars. Peter was as near through one of the holes as -

"IT'S NO SUCH THING?

"It's very well for you to say so, but you know what an inquisitive boy he is, and how he likes to wander among steam-engines. No, I won't let you sleep. What a man you are! What?

"I'VE SAID THAT BEFORE?

"That's no matter; I'll say it again. Go to sleep, indeed! as if one could never have a little rational conversation. No, I sha'n't be too late for the Margate boat in the morning; I can wake up at what hour I like, and you ought to know that by this time.

"A miserable creature they must have thought me in the ladies' cabin, with nobody coming down to see how I was.

"YOU CAME A DOZEN TIMES?

"No, Caudle, that won't do. I know better. You never came at all. Oh, no! cigars and brandy took all your attention. And when I was so ill, that I didn't know a single thing that was going on about me, and you never came. Every other woman's husband was there--ha! twenty times. And what must have been my feelings to hear 'em tapping at the door, and making all sorts of kind inquiries-- something like husbands and I was left to be ill alone? Yes; and you want to get me into an argument. You want to know, if I was so ill that I knew nothing, how could I know that you didn't come to the cabin-door? That's just like your aggravating way; but I'm not to be caught in that manner, Caudle. No."

"It is very possible," writes Caudle, "that she talked two hours more, but, happily, the wind got suddenly up--the waves bellowed-- and, soothed by the sweet lullaby (to say nothing of the Dolphin's brandy-and-water) I somehow sank to repose."

LECTURE XXV--MRS. CAUDLE, WEARIED OF MARGATE, HAS "A GREAT DESIRE TO SEE FRANCE."

"Bless me! aren't you tired, Caudle?

"NO?

"Well, was there ever such a man! But nothing ever tires you. Of course, it's all very well for you: yes, you can read your newspapers and--What?

"SO CAN I?

"And I wonder what would become of the children if I did! No; it's enough for their father to lose his precious time, talking about politics, and bishops, and lords, and a pack of people who wouldn't care a pin if we hadn't a roof to cover us--it's well enough for--no, Caudle, no: I'm not going to worry you; I never worried you yet, and it isn't likely I should begin now. But that's always the way with you--always. I'm sure we should be the happiest couple alive, only you do so like to have all the talk to yourself. We're out upon pleasure, and therefore let's be comfortable. Still, I must say it: when you like, you're an aggravating man, Caudle, and you know it.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE NOW?

"There, now; we won't talk of it. No; let's go to sleep: otherwise we shall quarrel--I know we shall. What have you done, indeed! That I can't leave my home for a few days, but I must be insulted! Everybody upon the pier saw it.

"SAW WHAT?

"How can you lie there in the bed and ask me? Saw what, indeed! Of course it was a planned thing!--regularly settled before you left London. Oh yes! I like your innocence, Mr. Caudle; not knowing what I'm talking about. It's a heart-breaking thing for a woman to say of her own husband; but you've been a wicked man to me. Yes: and all your tossing and tumbling about in the bed won't make it any better.

"Oh, it's easy enough to call a woman 'a dear soul.' I must be very dear, indeed, to you, when you bring down Miss Prettyman to--there now; you needn't shout like a wild savage. Do you know that you're not in your own house--do you know that we're in lodgings? What do you suppose the people will think of us? You needn't call out in that manner, for they can hear every word that's said. What do you say?

"WHY DON'T I HOLD MY TONGUE THEN?

"To be sure; anything for an excuse with you. Anything to stop my mouth. Miss Prettyman's to follow you here, and I'm to say nothing. I know she HAS followed you; and if you were to go before a magistrate, and take a shilling oath to the contrary, I wouldn't believe you. No, Caudle; I wouldn't.

"VERY WELL, THEN?

"Ha! what a heart you must have, to say 'very well'; and after the wife I've been to you. I'm to be brought from my own home--dragged down here to the sea-side--to be laughed at before the world--don't tell me. Do you think I didn't see how she looked at you--how she puckered up her farthing mouth--and--what?

"WHY DID I KISS HER, THEN?

"What's that to do with it? Appearances are one thing, Mr. Caudle; and feelings are another. As if women can't kiss one another without meaning anything by it! And you--I could see you looked as cold and as formal at her as--well, Caudle! I wouldn't be the hypocrite you are for the world!

"There, now; I've heard all that story. I daresay she did come down to join her brother. How very lucky, though, that you should be here! Ha! ha! how very lucky that--ugh! ugh! ugh! and with the cough I've got upon me--oh, you've a heart like a sea-side flint! Yes, that's right. That's just like your humanity. I can't catch a cold, but it must be my own fault--it must be my thin shoes. I daresay you'd like to see me in ploughman's boots; 'twould be no matter to you how I disfigured myself. Miss Prettyman's foot, NOW, would be another thing--no doubt.

"I thought when you would make me leave home--I thought we were coming here on pleasure: but it's always the way you embitter my life. The sooner that I'm out of the world the better. What do you say?

"NOTHING?

"But I know what you mean, better than if you talked an hour. I only hope you'll get a better wife, that's all, Mr. Caudle. What?

"YOU'D NOT TRY?