Mrs. Bindle Part 22

"P'raps you ain't 'is father," giggled a feminine voice at the end of the queue.

The big man turned in the direction from which the voice had come, stared stolidly at an inoffensive little man, who had "not guilty"

written all over him, then, deliberately swinging round, he lifted a small wicker clothes-basket from the cart.

"'Ere, catch it, Charley," he cried, and without waiting to a.s.sure himself of Charley's willingness or ability to do so, he pitched it over the railings.

Charley turned just in time to see the basket coming. He endeavoured to avoid it, tripped over the colander, and sat down in the centre of the geranium-bed, carrying riot and desolation with him.

"Ain't you a----" but Charley was never to know how he appeared to his father at that moment.

Observing that several heads were turned towards the front door, the eyes of the big man had instinctively followed their direction. It was what he saw there that had caused him to pause in describing his offspring.

Standing very still, her face deathly pale, with no sign of her lips beyond a thin, grey line, stood Mrs. Bindle, her eyes fixed upon the geranium-bed and the desolation reigning there. Her breath came in short jerks.

With an activity of which his previous movements had given no indication, Charley climbed the railings to the comparative safety of the street.

Mrs. Bindle turned her gaze upon the big man.

"'Ere, come along, let me get in," he cried, pus.h.i.+ng his way through the crowd, which showed no inclination for resistance. The little man who had first arrived was already well outside, talking to the woman with the tweed cap and hat-pin, while she of the foulard blouse was edging down the path towards the gate. None showed the least desire to protest against the big man's claim to the house by right of conquest--and he pa.s.sed on to his Waterloo.

"I taken this 'ouse," he cried, as he approached the grim figure on the doorstep. "Fifteen an' a kick a week, an' cheap at 'alf the price," he added jovially.

"'Ere, get on wiv it, Charley," he called out over his shoulder.

Charley, however, stood gazing at his parent with a greater show of interest than he had hitherto manifested. He seemed instinctively to grasp the dramatic possibilities of the situation.

"Thought I'd bring the sticks wiv me, missis," said the man genially.

"Nothink like makin' sure in these days." He stopped suddenly. Without a word, Mrs. Bindle had turned and disappeared into the house.

"May as well pay a deposit," he remarked, thrusting a dirty hand into his trouser pocket. He glanced over his shoulder and winked jocosely at the woman with the foulard blouse.

The next thing he knew was that Drama with a capital "D" had taken a hand in the game. The crowd drew its breath with almost a sob of surprised expectancy.

Into Charley's vacant eyes there came a look of interest, and into the big man's mouth, just as he turned his head, there came a something that was wet and tasted odiously of carbolic.

He staggered back, his eyes bulging, as Mrs. Bindle, armed with a large mop, which she had taken the precaution to wet, stood regarding him like an avenging fury. Her eyes blazed, and her nostrils were distended like those of a frightened thoroughbred.

Before the big man had time to splutter his protests, she had swung round the mop and brought the handle down with a crack upon his bare, bald head. Then, once more swinging round to the business end of the mop, she drew back a step and charged.

The mop got the big man just beneath the chin. For a moment he stood on one leg, his arms extended, like the figure of Mercury on the Piccadilly Circus fountain.

Mrs. Bindle gave another thrust to the mop, and down he went with a thud, his head coming with a sharp crack against the tiles of the path.

The crowd murmured its delight. Charley danced from one foot to the other, the expression on his face proving conclusively that the vacuous look with which he had arrived was merely a mask a.s.sumed for defensive purposes.

"Get up!"

Into these two words Mrs. Bindle precipitated an amount of feeling that thrilled the crowd. The big man, however, lay p.r.o.ne, his eyes fixed in fear upon the end of the mop.

"Get up!" repeated Mrs. Bindle. "I'll teach you to come disturbing a respectable home. Look at my garden."

As he still made no attempt to move, she turned suddenly and doubled along the pa.s.sage, reappearing a moment later with a pail of water with which she had been was.h.i.+ng out the scullery. Without a moment's hesitation she emptied the contents over the rec.u.mbent figure of the big man. The house-cloth fell across his eyes, like a bandage, and the hearthstone took him full on the nose.

"Oo-er!"

That one act of Mrs. Bindle's had saved from entire annihilation the faith of a child. For the first time in his existence, Charley realised that there was a G.o.d of retribution.

Murmurs of approval came from the crowd.

"Give it to 'im, missis, 'e done it," shouted one. "It warn't the kid's fault, blinkin' 'Un."

"Dirty profiteer," cried the thin woman. "Look at 'is stummick," she added as if in support of her words.

"Get up!" Again Mrs. Bindle's hard, uninflected words sounded like the accents of destiny.

She accompanied her exhortation by a jab from the mop-end of her weapon directed at the centre of that portion of the big man's anatomy which had been advanced as proof of his profiteering propensities.

He raised himself a few inches; but Mrs. Bindle, with all the inconsistency of a woman, dashed the mop once more in his face, and down went his head again with a crack.

"Charley!" he roared; but there was nothing of the Paladin about Charley. Between him and his father at that moment were eleven years of heavy-handed tyranny, and Charley remained on the safety-side of the railings.

"Get up! You great, hulkin' brute," cried Mrs. Bindle, reversing the mop and getting in a stroke at his solar-plexus which would have made her fame in pig-sticking.

"Grrrrumph!" The fat man's exclamation was involuntary.

"Get up, I tell you," she reiterated. "You fat, ugly son of Satan, you Beelzebub, you leper, you Judas, you----" she paused a moment in her search for the undesirables from Holy Writ. Then, with inspiration, she added--"Barabbas."

The man made another effort to rise; but Mrs. Bindle brought the end of the mop down upon his head with a crack that sounded like a pistol-shot.

The expression on Charley's face changed. The lower jaw lifted. The loose, vacuous mouth spread. Charley was grinning.

For a moment the man lay still. Mrs. Bindle was standing over him with the mop, a tense and righteously indignant St. George over a particularly evil dragon.

Suddenly he gave tongue.

"'Elp!" he yelled. "I'm bein' murdered. 'Elp! Charley, where are you?"

But Charley's grin had expanded and he was actually rubbing his hands with enjoyment.

Mrs. Bindle brought the mop down on the man's mouth. "Stop it, you blaspheming son o' Belial," she cried.

The big man roared the louder; but he made no effort to rise.

"'Ere comes a flatty," cried a voice.

"Slop's a-comin'," echoed another, and a minute later, a clean-shaven embodiment of youthful dignity and self-possession, in a helmet and blue uniform, approached and began to make his way through the crowd towards the Bindles' gate.

From the position in which he lay the big man, unable to see that a.s.sistance was at hand, continued to roar for help.

At the approach of this symbol of the law, Mrs. Bindle stepped back and brought her mop to the stand-at-ease position.