CHAPTER LX.

SIR CHRISTOPHER BLUNT'S DOMESTIC HEARTH.

It was the morning following the incidents just related; and the scene changes to the house of Sir Christopher Blunt, in Jermyn Street.

The worthy knight and his lady were seated at breakfast.

The table literally groaned beneath the weight of the cold viands placed upon it; for the ex-lady's-maid was particularly addicted to good things, and she moreover thought that it was "quite the rage" to see cold fowls, ham, tongue, Perigord pie, and all kinds of marmalades spread for the morning repast.

Lady Blunt was in her glory of premeditated negligence and studied _deshabillée_. She was arrayed in a pea-green silk wrapper, trimmed all down the front with scarlet bows; and the cape was braided with the same glaring hue, so much affected by a certain Lady of Babylon. Her cap was decorated with ribands likewise of scarlet, and she wore red slippers. Her appearance was indeed most flaming, as she lolled, in delightful lassitude, in a capacious easy chair, with her foot upon an ottoman.

A stranger would have thought that so fine a lady could not possibly touch any thing more substantial than a thin slice of toast or half a muffin for her breakfast; but she had in reality paid her respects—and with a good will also—to every dish upon the table.

Sir Christopher was seated opposite to her, looking like a fish out of water; for, in order to please his dear wife—or rather, to have a little peace and quiet in the house—he had consented to adorn his person with a light blue dressing-gown, fastened by a gold cord and huge tassels at the waist, and a pair of bright red trowsers, large and loose like a Dutchman's. Moreover, a scarlet silk cap, with a long gold tassel, was perched airily over his left ear; so that altogether he seemed as if he were dressed out to enact the part of a Turk at a masquerade.

"Shall I cut you a _leetle_ slice more ham, my love?" enquired Sir Christopher, in a mincing tone, as if he were afraid of receiving a box on the ears for not speaking civilly enough.

"No, Sir Christopher," answered the lady sharply: "you shan't send me a _leetle_ ham, as you call it. I don't like the ham—and that's flat."

"And yet, my love—that is, my dear—" remonstrated the knight gently.

"And yet what?" demanded his wife.

"I _think_ I had the pleasure of helping you three times, my love," added Sir Christopher, astonished at his own boldness in uttering the words, the moment they had escaped his lips.

"Three times!" ejaculated the lady, turning as red as her ribands or as her husband's trowsers. "And if I like to be helped six times—or nine times, Sir Christopher—what should you say _then_?"

"Well, my love—I should say——"

"What should you say?" again asked the lady, assuming a menacing attitude.

"Why, my love—that you had a very good appetite," responded the knight, looking as miserable as if he expected eight finger nails to fasten on his cheeks the very next moment.

"I have no appetite, Sir Christopher!" cried the lady in a petulant tone, as she sank back again into her lounging attitude: "three miserable bits of ham, and a trifle of cold pie, with may be a taste of the chicken, and just one cut out of the tongue——"

"And two eggs, my love," suggested Sir Christopher meekly.

"Well—and two tiny eggs," continued the lady;—"I am sure all that doesn't say much for one's appetite. Why, when I was at Lady Hatfield's, I used to eat three great rounds of bread-and-butter, crustinesses and all."

"But you are no longer at Lady Hatfield's, my angel," said Sir Christopher, simpering; "you are with one who adores you—who has given you his name—a name, I flatter myself, that carries weight with it, in certain quarters; although, when I did so far forget myself as to put up for Portsoken——"

"Now, Sir Christopher, pray let us have none of that nonsense, if _you_ please!" interrupted Lady Blunt, in a tone and with a manner which showed that she knew full well she should be obeyed. "I can't a-bear to hear even the word _Alderman_ mentioned, ever since a lady I lived with once in the City talked something about the Guildhall police-court when she missed the silver spoons——"

"My dear, my dear," said Sir Christopher; "you forget that you are now Lady Blunt! Pray let us change the topic."

"Well, so we will," she cried sharply; "and I'll tell you what we'll talk about."

"What, my best love?" asked the knight.

"Your best love!" almost shrieked the lady. "Then you must have other loves, if I'm your best! Oh! Sir Christopher, was it to hear this that I gave up every thing—all my prospects in life—to become yours?"

"My dear girl," said the knight meekly, "I most humbly submit to you that I do not think you had so very much to give up when I asked you to become Lady Blunt."

"What! do you call a good place and being my own mistress, nothing to give up?" cried Charlotte. "Twenty-four guineas a-year, and the chance of marrying a Duke or a Prince!"

"Well—well, my love, we will not dispute," said the knight, who in his heart wished to God that she never _had_ given up the prospects she spoke of; or that she _had_ married some Duke or Prince—in which latter case Sir Christopher would not have envied either his Grace or his Royal Highness, after the trifling experience he had already enjoyed relative to the fair one's temper.

"No—I should think _you_ would _not_ dispute, either, Sir Christopher!" cried the vixen, tossing her head. "But I was going to tell you what we would talk about, when you interrupted me so rudely. I was going to say that I do not approve of that ham—or yet the chicken—or yet the tongue; and I do not mean to have my breakfast spoilt in this way. Ring the bell, Sir Christopher."

"My dearest Charlotte——"

"Ring the bell, Sir Christopher!" repeated the lady in a still more authoritative tone, as she looked daggers—nay, regular bayonets—at her miserable husband.

The knight rang the bell accordingly, gulping down a sigh—a very profound sigh—at the same time.

A footman answered the summons.

"John!" said the mistress of the house.

"Yes, my lady," was the reply.

"Tell Mrs. Bodkin to step up—_immediately_," added the wife of Sir Christopher's rash choice.

"Yes, my lady;"—and the footman disappeared, thanking his stars that _he_ was not "in for it,"—the bad humour of his mistress being very evident indeed.

In due time Mrs. Bodkin made her appearance, in the shape of a stout, matronly-looking female, "of a certain age," as a housekeeper ought to be;—for Mrs. Bodkin was neither more nor less than that high female functionary in the establishment.

"Mrs. Bodkin!" said Lady Blunt, endeavouring to distort her really pretty face into as stern an expression as possible.

"Yes, my lady," returned the housekeeper.

"That ham is detestable, Mrs. Bodkin."

"Indeed, my lady."

"The cold fowl's abominable!"

"Sure now, my lady!"

"And the tongue frightful!"

"Lawk-a-daisy!—your ladyship don't say so!"

"I _do_ say so, though, Mrs. Bodkin!" cried Sir Christopher's better half; "and I just tell you what it is—I don't mean to have my breakfast spoilt in this way; and if you can't find tradesmen who'll supply good things——"

"Why, please your ladyship," interrupted the housekeeper, quite astounded at these accusations against comestibles which she knew to be excellent: "Mr. Smuggs, who sent in the ham and tongue, is purveyor to His Majesty; and——"

"Then if His Majesty chooses to put up with Mr. Smuggs's rubbish, Lady Blunt will _not_!" exclaimed the mistress of the house, glancing indignantly, first at the petrified Mrs. Bodkin and then at the dumb-founded Sir Christopher.

There was, as romancists say, an awful pause.

Mrs. Bodkin knew not whether she were standing on her head or her heels: Sir Christopher was in an equally strange state of bewilderment as to whether he had heard aright or was labouring under a delusion; and Lady Blunt was triumphant in the impression she had evidently made upon her audience.

"But, my dear angel—my love," at length stammered the knight, "surely you will not—that is, you cannot—I appeal to you, my sweet, as a woman of sound judgment——"

"Sound fiddlestick, Sir Christopher!" interrupted her ladyship contemptuously. "I know what I am saying, and I mean what I say. Mrs. Bodkin, I order you once for all not to deal no more at Smuggs's; and if you can't choose good things, you'd better pack up your things and go about your business."

Now it happened that Mrs. Bodkin had managed, during long years of servitude and by rigid economy, to scrape together a very comfortable independence; and, feeling that she _was_ independent, she did not choose, as she afterwards observed to a friend, "to put up with any of missus's nonsense."

"Go about my business, eh!" she accordingly exclaimed. "Well, ma'am—the sooner I do that the better, I think: for since I can't give saytisfaction here, I'd much rayther resign at once."

"Resign!" echoed Lady Blunt, again turning red as her ribands.

"Yes, ma'am," continued the housekeeper; "_resign_ I said; and _you_ ought to know that's the right word—for I b'lieve you wasn't always used to sit in the parlour."

"Oh! you wretch!" exclaimed Lady Blunt, now manifesting a violent inclination to go off into hysterics. "Sir Christopher! can you sit there and hear me insulted by that owdacious woman? Turn her out of the house, Sir Christopher—let her bundle, neck and crop, this minute!"

"I rayther think there's no need for bundling in the matter," said the indignant Mrs. Bodkin. "Sir Christopher is too much of a gentleman to ill-treat me, after being eleven years in his service come next Aperil. But I don't require no favours at _your_ hands, ma'am—leastways, I wouldn't except them if they was offered."

And in a most stately manner Mrs. Bodkin walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind her.

"Sir Christopher!" exclaimed Lady Blunt, bursting into tears—but tears of rage, and not shame.

"Yes, my love," said the knight, who was rendered so nervous by this scene that he appeared to be labouring under incipient _delirium tremens_.

"You're a brute, Sir Christopher!" cried the angel in the pea-green wrapper and the red bows.

"My dear!—my love!" stammered the knight. "It was not my fault—you brought it on yourself—I really think——"

"Oh! I did, did I?" screeched Charlotte; and, unable to control the fury of her passion, she darted upon Sir Christopher, adown whose cheeks the marks of her nails were in another moment rendered most disagreeably visible.

"Lady Blunt!" vociferated the miserable man, struggling to extricate himself from the power of the fury.

"There! now I've taught you not to nag me on another time," said Charlotte, throwing herself back into her chair, already sorry and ashamed for what she had done, but too deeply imbued with vulgar and mean-spirited pride to manifest the least proof of such compunction.

Sir Christopher wiped his bleeding face with his cambric pocket-handkerchief: but his heart was too full to speak. He felt all the indignity which he had just sustained—and yet he had not courage enough to resent it.

The embarrassment of the newly-married pair was relieved, or rather interrupted, by a loud and unusually long double knock, which at that moment awoke every echo, not only in the house itself, but also half-way up Jermyn Street.

A few minutes elapsed, and then the footman entered the breakfast-parlour to announce to Sir Christopher that a gentleman, who had been shown into the drawing-room, wished to speak to him immediately upon most urgent business.

At the same time the servant placed upon the table a card, bearing the name of CAPTAIN O'BLUNDERBUSS.

"Tell the gentleman I'll be with him in a moment, John," said Sir Christopher.

The servant bowed and retired.

"Do you know who he is?" asked Lady Blunt.

"No, I do not," responded the knight, more sulkily than he had ever yet dared to speak to his wife.

"Come, now, Sir Christopher," exclaimed her ladyship; "don't have any of your ill-humours with me, because I can't a-bear them. Say you're sorry for what you've done, and I'll not only forgive you, but also patch your face for you with diakkulum plaster. Come, now—do what I tell you."

And as her ladyship seemed to examine her finger nails, as she spoke, in a manner which portended her readiness to make another onslaught, the miserable husband muttered a few words of abject apology for an offence which he had not committed, and the amiable Charlotte vouchsafed a pardon which she should rather have besought than bestowed.

Then there was a little fond—or rather foolish kissing and hugging; and this farce being concluded, the lady hastened to fulfil her promise relative to the diachylon plaster.

When this operation was likewise ended, Sir Christopher cast a rueful glance into the looking-glass over the mantel; and never did a more miserable wight see reflected a more woefully patched countenance. The wretchedness depicted on that face, apart from the long slips of plaster stuck upon the cheeks, contrasted in a most ludicrous fashion with the absurd splendour of the knight's morning attire; and, to use a common phrase, he wished himself at the devil, as he wended his mournful way to the drawing-room.