Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures Part 22

"That cough again! You've got a cold, and you'll always be getting one--for you'll always be missing the omnibus as you did on Tuesday,- -and always be getting wet. No const.i.tution can stand it, Caudle.

You don't know what I felt when I heard it rain on Tuesday, and thought you might be in it. What?

"I'M VERY GOOD?

"Yes, I trust so: I try to be so, Caudle. And so, dear, I've been thinking that we'd better keep a chaise.

"YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT, AND YOU WON'T?

"Don't tell me: I know you'd save money by it. I've been reckoning what you lay out in omnibuses; and if you'd a chaise of your own-- besides the gentility of the thing--you'd be money in pocket. And then, again, how often I could go with you to town,--and how, again, I could call for you when you liked to be a little late at the club, dear! Now you're obliged to be hurried away, I know it, when, if you'd only a carriage of your own, you could stay and enjoy yourself.

And after your work you want enjoyment. Of course, I can't expect you always to run home directly to me: and I don't, Caudle; and you know it.

"A nice, neat, elegant little chaise. What?

"YOU'LL THINK OF IT?

"There's a love! You are a good creature, Caudle; and 'twill make me so happy to think you don't depend upon an omnibus. A sweet little carriage, with our own arms beautifully painted on the panels. What?

"ARMS ARE RUBBISH; AND YOU DON'T KNOW THAT YOU HAVE ANY?

"Nonsense: to be sure you have--and if not, of course they're to be had for money. I wonder where Chalkpit's, the milkman's arms, came from? I suppose you can buy 'em at the same place. He used to drive a green cart; and now he's got a close yellow carriage, with two large tortoise-sh.e.l.l cats, with their whiskers as if dipped in cream, standing on their hind legs upon each door, with a heap of Latin underneath. You may buy the carriage if you please, Mr. Caudle; but unless your arms are there, you won't get me to enter it. Never!

I'm not going to look less than Mrs. Chalkpit.

"Besides, if you haven't arms, I'm sure my family have, and a wife's arms are quite as good as a husband's. I'll write to-morrow to dear mother, to know what we took for our family arms. What do you say?

What?

"A MANGLE IN A STONE KITCHEN PROPER?

"Mr. Caudle, you're always insulting my family--always: but you shall not put me out of temper to-night. Still, if you don't like our arms, find your own. I daresay you could have found 'em fast enough, if you'd married Miss Prettyman. Well, I will be quiet; and I won't mention that lady's name. A nice lady she is! I wonder how much she spends in paint! Now, don't I tell you I won't say a word more, and yet you will kick about!

"Well, we'll have the carriage and the family arms? No, I don't want the family legs too. Don't be vulgar, Mr. Caudle. You might, perhaps, talk in that way before you'd money in the Bank; but it doesn't at all become you now. The carriage and the family arms!

We've a country house as well as the Chalkpits! and though they praise their place for a little paradise, I dare say they've quite as many blackbeetles as we have, and more too. The place quite looks it!

"Our carriage and our arms! And you know, love, it won't cost much-- next to nothing--to put a gold band about Sam's hat on a Sunday. No: I don't want a full-blown livery. At least, not just yet. I'm told that Chalkpits dress their boy on a Sunday like a dragon-fly; and I don't see why we shouldn't do what we like with our own Sam.

Nevertheless, I'll be content with a gold band, and a bit of pepper- and-salt. No: I shall not cry out for plush next; certainly not.

But I will have a gold band, and -

"YOU WON'T; AND I KNOW IT?

"Oh yes! that's another of your crotchets, Mr Caudle; like n.o.body else--you don't love liveries. I suppose when people buy their sheets, or their tablecloths, or any other linen, they've a right to mark what they like upon it, haven't they? Well, then? You buy a servant, and you mark what you like upon him, and where's the difference? None, that _I_ can see."

"Finally," says Caudle, "I compromised for a gig; but Sam did not wear pepper-and-salt and a gold band."

LECTURE x.x.xI--MRS. CAUDLE COMPLAINS VERY BITTERLY THAT MR. CAUDLE HAS "BROKEN HER CONFIDENCE."

"O you'll catch me, Mr. Caudle, telling you anything again. Now, I don't want to have any noise: I don't wish you to put yourself in a pa.s.sion. All I say is this; never again do I open my lips to you about anybody. No: if man and wife can't be one, why there's an end of everything. Oh, you know well what I mean, Mr. Caudle: you've broken my confidence in the most shameful, the most heartless way, and I repeat it--I can never be again to you as I have been. No: the little charm--it wasn't much--that remained about married life, is gone for ever. Yes; the bloom's quite wiped off the plum now.

"Don't be such a hypocrite, Caudle; don't ask me what I mean! Mrs.

Badgerly has been here--more like a fiend, I'm sure, than a quiet woman. I haven't done trembling yet! You know the state of my nerves, too; you know--yes, sir, I HAD nerves when you married me; and I haven't just found 'em out. Well, you've something to answer for, I think. The Badgerlys are going to separate: she takes the girls, and he the boys, and all through you. How you can lay your head upon that pillow and think of going to sleep, I can't tell.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

"Well, you have a face to ask the question. Done? You've broken my confidence, Mr. Caudle: you've taken advantage of my tenderness, my trust in you as a wife--the more fool I for my pains!--and you've separated a happy couple for ever. No; I'm not talking in the clouds; I'm talking in your bed, the more my misfortune.

"Now, Caudle--yes, I shall sit up in the bed if I choose; I'm not going to sleep till I have this properly explained; for Mrs. Badgerly sha'n't lay her separation at my door. You won't deny that you were at the club last night? No, bad as you are, Caudle--and though you're my husband, I can't think you a good man; I try to do, but I can't--bad as you are, you can't deny you were at the club. What?

"YOU DON'T DENY IT?

"That's what I say--you can't. And now answer me this question.

What did you say--before the whole world--of Mr. Badgerly's whiskers?

There's nothing to laugh at, Caudle; if you'd have seen that poor woman to-day, you'd have a heart of stone to laugh. What did you say of his whiskers? Didn't you tell everybody he dyed 'em? Didn't you hold the candle up to 'em, as you said, to show the purple?

"TO BE SURE YOU DID?

"Ha! people who break jokes never care about breaking hearts.

Badgerly went home like a demon; called his wife a false woman: vowed he'd never enter a bed again with her, and to show he was in earnest, slept all night upon the sofa. He said it was the dearest secret of his life; said she had told me; and that I had told you; and that's how it has come out. What do you say?

"BADGERLY WAS RIGHT. I DID TELL YOU?

"I know I did: but when dear Mrs. Badgerly mentioned the matter to me and a few friends, as we were all laughing at tea together, quite in a confidential way--when she just spoke of her husband's whiskers, and how long he was over 'em every morning--of course, poor soul! she never thought it was to be talked of in the world again. Eh?

"THEN I HAD NO RIGHT TO TELL YOU OF IT?

"And that's the way I'm thanked for my confidence. Because I don't keep a secret from you, but show you, I may say, my naked soul, Caudle, that's how I'm rewarded. Poor Mrs. Badgerly--for all her hard words--after she went away, I'm sure my heart quite bled for her. What do you say, Mr. Caudle?

"SERVES HER RIGHT--SHE SHOULD HOLD HER TONGUE?

"Yes; that's like your tyranny--you'd never let a poor woman speak.

Eh--what, what, Mr. Caudle?

"That's a very fine speech, I dare say; and wives are very much obliged to you, only there's not a bit of truth in it. No, we women don't get together, and pick our husbands to pieces, just as sometimes mischievous little girls rip up their dolls. That's an old sentiment of yours, Mr. Caudle; but I'm sure you've no occasion to say it of me. I hear a good deal of other people's husbands, certainly; I can't shut my ears; I wish I could: but I never say anything about you,--and I might, and you know it--and there's somebody else that knows it, too. No: I sit still and say nothing; what I have in my own bosom about you, Caudle, will be buried with me. But I know what you think of wives. I heard you talking to Mr.

Prettyman, when you little thought I was listening, and you didn't know much what you were saying--I heard you. 'My dear Prettyman,'

says you, 'when some women get talking, they club all their husbands'

faults together; just as children club their cakes and apples, to make a common feast for the whole set.' Eh?

"YOU DON'T REMEMBER IT?

"But I do: and I remember, too, what brandy was left when Prettyman left. 'Twould be odd if you could remember much about it, after that.

"And now you've gone and separated man and wife, and I'm to be blamed for it. You've not only carried misery into a family, but broken my confidence. You've proved to me that henceforth I'm not to trust you with anything, Mr. Caudle. No; I'll lock up whatever I know in my own breast,--for now I find n.o.body, not even one's own husband, is to be relied upon. From this moment, I may look upon myself as a solitary woman. Now, it's no use your trying to go to sleep. What do you say?

"YOU KNOW THAT?

"Very well. Now I want to ask you one question more. Eh?