Bindle Part 13

Bindle sighed involuntarily. "I wonder if I done right. Funny thing me playin' Coopid. Wonder wot Mrs. B. and 'Earty 'ud say. There's goin' to be trouble, J. B., and you're a-goin' to get yerself in an 'oly sort o' mess. If it 'adn't been for petticoats yer might a' been Mayor of Fulham or Charlie Chaplin."

At a quarter to ten Bindle left a merry group of intimates at the Scarlet Horse, and a few minutes later was waiting in the vestibule of the Pavilion, where he was joined by the lovers.

"I never knew Millikins was such a pretty gal," muttered Bindle, as they approached. Then aloud, "Where'd you two got to? I been searchin' everywhere."

With a wealth of detail they explained exactly where they had been sitting.

"Funny I didn't see yer," remarked Bindle. "Now you two must say good-night; and," turning to the youth, "if yer'll follow across the bridge slowly, maybe I'll see yer outside the Grand Theatre after I've taken this young woman 'ome."

Millie was strangely silent as the three crossed Putney Bridge. She was thinking deeply of her new-found happiness and, as she gripped Bindle's arm with both hands, she felt that he represented her special Providence. She could tell him anything, for he understood. She would always tell Uncle Joe everything.

Outside Fulham Theatre she said good-night to Charlie Dixon.

"You ain't said a word since I met you, Millikins. Wot's up?" enquired Bindle, puzzled at Millie's silence.

"I've been wondering, Uncle Joe," replied the girl in a subdued voice.

"Wot about? Tell yer ole uncle."

"I've been wondering why you are so good to me, and why you don't think me a wicked girl." Then, turning to him anxiously, "You don't, Uncle Joe, do you?"

"Well, Millikins, there ain't any think very wicked, so far as I can see, in wantin' to be 'appy in the way you do. 'Is nibs looks a nice young chap, an' if 'e ain't 'e'll wish 'e'd never seen your ole uncle." There was a grim note in Bindle's voice that surprised his niece.

"You don't think G.o.d minds us being happy that-that way, do you, Uncle Joe?" questioned Millie earnestly.

"I'm sure 'E don't, Millikins. 'E's all for the 'appiness wot don't do n.o.body any 'arm. That parson chap told me, an' 'e was a dean or somethink, an' 'e ought to know."

Millie drew a sigh of relief. Then her mood suddenly changed.

"Uncle, let's run," she cried; and without waiting for the protest that was forming itself on Bindle's lips, she caught him by the hand and dashed off. After a moment's hesitation Bindle entered into her mood and the pair tore up Fulham High Street, Millie running obliquely in front, striving to urge Bindle to a greater pace.

Just as they reached the Heartys' private door, Mr. Hearty himself emerged on his way to post a letter. Millie running sideways did not see him. Bindle was unable to avoid the inevitable collision, and Millie's elbow took her father dead in the centre of his waistcoat and drove the breath out of his body.

"Oh, father!" cried his horrified daughter.

"Millie!" gasped Mr. Hearty when he had regained sufficient breath for speech.

"My fault, 'Earty. I likes a run now and again; we was 'avin' a bit of a race. Millikins beats me in the matter o' legs."

To Mr. Hearty women had limbs, not legs, and he disliked intensely Bindle's reference to those of his daughter.

"I hope this will not occur again," he said severely. "I shall have to stop these-these--" Unable to find the word, Mr. Hearty pa.s.sed on to the pillar-box.

Millie stood watching him, horror in her eyes.

"Oh, Uncle Joe, am I a very bad girl? Father always makes me feel so wicked."

"'E'd make an 'oly saint feel a bit of a rip. You're just about as bad as a first-cla.s.s angel; but p'raps it 'ud be better not to 'old sports outside the shop. Might get me a bad name. Now in yer go, young 'un, an' we'll 'ave another bust next Friday, eh? I'll be seein' 'is nibs on me way 'ome."

"Good-night, dear Uncle Joe. I'm glad you're my uncle." She put her arms round his neck and kissed him, and Bindle experienced a curious sensation in his throat.

"Gawd bless yer, Millikins," Bindle mumbled in an unsteady voice, as she tripped along the pa.s.sage.

"'Fancy me sayin' that!" he muttered, as he closed the door. "It kind o' slipped out."

A few yards down the High Street Bindle met his brother-in-law returning from the post.

"I'm sorry, 'Earty, about that collision. It was all my fault. I like playin' wi' kids." There was an unaccustomed humility in Bindle's voice, a.s.sumed for the purpose of making things easier for Millie, that pleased Mr. Hearty.

"Millie is no longer a child, Joseph," he remarked, "but we'll say no more about it. I'm not hurt. Good-night." He bared his yellow teeth in token of forgiveness.

As he pa.s.sed on, Bindle gazed up at the skies meditatively. "I wonder if Gawd really likes that sort?" he murmured with a seriousness that was unusual to him.

Outside the theatre he found waiting for him Charlie Dixon, who greeted him with:

"Will you bring her again, Mr. Bindle?"

"'Ere, I ain't a nurse, young feller. Nice mess you got me in. It's all through you that Millikins nearly killed 'er father. Ran clean into 'im and sort o' knocked the wind out of 'is bellows." Bindle told the story of the collision with great gusto.

"Now," he continued, "you and me's got to 'ave a talk, an' we'll 'ave a gla.s.s of beer at the same time."

Bindle learned the story of Millie's romance. It appeared that she and Charlie Dixon, who was in a s.h.i.+pping-office, went to the city by the same train every morning, Millie being a typist at a wholesale draper's. Young Dixon had watched her week after week, and he eventually became acquainted owing to a breakdown on the line, which resulted in a corresponding breakdown of the pa.s.sengers' usual reserve. After that they went up regularly together, met at lunch, after business hours and on every occasion that Millie could possibly manage it. Once they had each obtained a half-holiday, which they had spent at the Zoo.

Charlie Dixon's frankness and obvious devotion to Millie Hearty entirely won Bindle's heart.

"You will help us, Mr. Bindle, won't you?" he pleaded.

"Look 'ere, young feller," said Bindle, with an unusual note of seriousness in his voice, "I don't know nothink about yer, an' before I 'elps I got to be sure wot I thinks yer are. Now you jest get me a letter or two from them as knows wot sort of a villain yer are, an' then p'r'aps I'll be the same sort of ole fool I been to-night. See?"

They parted with mutual regard and promises to meet again next Friday, when Charlie Dixon was to bring such doc.u.ments as would vouch for his respectability.

"Yes; I been an ole fool," muttered Bindle, as he walked home. "This 'ere business is goin' to lead to trouble between me an' 'Earty. What a pity people gets it as bad as 'Earty. No man didn't ought to be religious all the week. It ain't natural."

That night Bindle entered his house whistling "Gospel Bells" with unaccustomed abandon.

"Been enjoyin' yerself, leavin' me at 'ome to slave and get yer meals ready," snapped Mrs. Bindle. "One o' these days you'll come 'ome and find me gone."

"'Oo's the man?" interrogated Bindle with a temerity that surprised himself.

That night Bindle lay awake for some time thinking over life in general and the events of the evening in particular. He never could quite understand why he had been precipitated into an atmosphere so foreign to his nature as that surrounding Mrs. Bindle and Mr. Hearty. He had striven very hard to stem the tide of religious gloom as it spread itself over Mrs. Bindle. Unaware of the cause, he not unnaturally selected the wrong methods, which were those of endeavouring to make her "cheer up."

"The idea of goin' to 'eaven seems to make her low-spirited," was Bindle's view.

Even Mrs. Bindle was not entirely proof against his sallies, and there were times when a reluctant smile would momentarily relieve the grim severity of her features. There were occasions even when they chatted quite amiably, until the recollection of Mr. Hearty, and the mental comparison of his success with Bindle's failure, threw her back into the slough from which she had temporarily been rescued.

"There must be somethink funny about me," Bindle had once confided to Mrs. Hearty. "My father was as religious as a woman wi' one leg, then I gets Lizzie an' she turns away from me an' 'Mammon'-I don't rightly know 'oo 'e is, but she's always talkin' about 'im-then you goes back on me an' gives me a sort of brother-in-law 'oo's as 'oly as ointment. You ain't been a real pal, Martha, really you ain't."

If called upon to expound his philosophy of life Bindle would have found himself in difficulties. He was a man whose sympathies were quickly aroused, and it never troubled him whether the object of his charity were a heathen, a Christian, or a Mormon. On one occasion when a girl had been turned out of doors at night by an outraged father who had discovered his daughter's frailty, it was Bindle who found her weeping convulsively near Putney Pier. It was he who secured her a night's lodging, and stood her friend throughout the troubled weeks that followed, although it meant neither beer nor tobacco for some months.