Bindle Part 26

Bindle climbed out of bed resplendent in pyjamas with alternate broad stripes of pale blue and white.

"'Oo's the Master? I'll lunch with anybody wot's not temperance." Bindle was sleepy.

"It's the Master of St. Joseph's, and you've got to clear out."

"We've sent him a letter in your name regretting that you have to return to town at once."

"Oh, you 'ave, 'ave yer?" remarked Bindle drily. "I 'ope you told 'im that I got ter call at Buckingham Palace."

Bindle dressed, shaved, and kept his visitors amused by turn. He caught the 11.6, accompanied by d.i.c.k Little. The two men spent their time in reading the long accounts in the Oxford papers of the previous evening's "banquet." They were both full and flattering. Bindle chuckled to find that his speech had been reported verbatim, and wondered how Reggie was enjoying the biographical particulars.

d.i.c.k Little and Bindle were unaware that in his rooms at St. Joseph's Reginald Graves also was reading these selfsame accounts with an anguish too great for expression. The accounts of his early life in particular caused him something akin to horror.

"It didn't last long," murmured Bindle regretfully, "but it was top-'ole (your words, sir) while it did. I wonder 'oo's 'oldin' Reggie's 'ead this mornin'?" and he chuckled gleefully.

CHAPTER XIV

MR. HEARTY GIVES A PARTY

I

"I'm surprised at 'Earty," remarked Bindle to Millie one Friday evening as they walked across Putney Bridge on the way to meet Charlie Dixon. "Fancy 'im givin' a party! It'll be all 'ymns an' misery, wi' some oranges thrown in to give it the right smell. There won't be no Kiss-in-the-ring an' Postman's-knock for the likes o' you an' me, Millikins."

Millie blushed. She had no illusions as to the nature of the festivity: she knew who were to be invited.

"I'm glad you're coming, Uncle Joe," she cried, dancing along beside him. "It would be hateful without you."

"Well, o' course I am a bit of an attraction," replied Bindle. "Lord! how the ladies fight for me in the kissin' games!"

It was rarely that Mr. Hearty unbent to the extent of entertaining. He was usually content with the mild pleasures that the chapel provided, in the shape of teas, the annual bazaar, and occasional lantern-lectures bearing such t.i.tles as "Jerusalem Revisited," "The Bible in the East," "A Christian Abroad," delivered by enthusiastic but prosy amateurs and ill.u.s.trated by hired lantern-slides.

One day, however, Mr. Hearty came to the determination that it was quite compatible with his beliefs to give a party. Not one of the stupid gatherings where the gramophone vied with round-games, and round-games with music-hall songs; but one where the spirit of revelry would be chastened by Christian sobriety. Mr. Hearty did not object to music as music, and there were certain songs, such as "The Village Blacksmith" and "The Chorister" that in his opinion were calculated to exercise a beneficial effect upon those who heard them.

When Mr. Hearty had at length come to his momentous decision, he was faced with the problem of the Bindles. He felt that as a fellow-chapel-goer he could not very well omit Mrs. Bindle from the list of the invited; but Bindle would be impossible where Mr. Sopley, the pastor of the chapel, was to be an honoured guest.

One evening at supper he had, as he thought with consummate tact, broached the matter to his family.

"Not have Joe?" wheezed Mrs. Hearty.

"Not ask Uncle Joe?" Millie had exclaimed in a tone that her father thought scarcely filial.

"He is not interested in parties," Mr. Hearty had explained feebly.

"We can't leave Joe out," panted Mrs. Hearty with a decisiveness unusual to her. "Why, he'll be the life and soul of the evening."

This was exactly what Mr. Hearty feared; but seeing that his women-folk were united against him, and after a further feeble protest, he conceded the point, and the Bindles received their invitation. Mr. Hearty had, however, taken the precaution of "dropping a hint" to Mrs. Bindle, the "hint" in actual words being: "I hope that if Joseph comes he-he won't--"

"I'll see that he doesn't," was Mrs. Bindle's reply, uttered with a snap of the jaws that had seemed to rea.s.sure her brother-in-law.

II

Mrs. Bindle was engaged in removing curl-papers from her front hair. On the bed lay her best dress of black alpaca with a bright green satin yoke covered with black lace. Beside it lay her best bonnet, also of black, an affair of a very narrow gauge and built high up at the back, having the appearance of being several sizes too small for its wearer.

Mrs. Bindle was dressing with great care and deliberation for Mr. Hearty's party. Her conception of dress embodied the middle-cla.s.s ideals of mid-Victorian neatness, blended with a standard of modesty and correctness peculiarly her own.

It had cost Mrs. Bindle many anxious days of thought before she had been able to justify to herself the green satin yoke in her best dress. With her, to be fas.h.i.+onable was to be fast. A short skirt and a pneumonia-blouse were in her eyes the contrivances of the devil to show what no modest woman would think of exhibiting to the public gaze.

As she proceeded with her toilette Mrs. Bindle was thinking of the shamelessness of women who bared their arms and shoulders to every man's gaze. On principle she disapproved of parties and festivities of any description that were not more or less concerned with the chapel; but to her Mr. Hearty could do no wrong, and the fact that their pastor was to be present removed from her mind any scruples that she might otherwise have felt.

She was slowly brus.h.i.+ng her thin sandy hair when Bindle entered the bedroom in full evening-dress, the large imitation diamond stud in the centre of his s.h.i.+rt, patent boots, a red silk handkerchief stuck in the opening of his waistcoat, the light coat over his arm, and an opera hat stuck at a rakish angle on his head. Between his lips was a cigar, one of the last remaining from the Oxford adventure.

Mrs. Bindle knew nothing of that, and consequently was unaware that Bindle's wardrobe had been considerably enlarged.

Mrs. Bindle caught sight of him in the looking-gla.s.s. For a moment she stared at the reflection in helpless amazement, then turning round with startling suddenness, she continued to regard him with such fixity as he stood complacently smoking his cigar, that Bindle could not resist replying with the broadest of grins.

"Where'd you get that dress-suit?" she asked at length, in the tone a policeman might adopt to a navvy found wearing a diamond tiara.

"It's me own, o' course," replied Bindle cheerily.

"Your own!" gasped Mrs. Bindle.

"O' course it is. Your ole man's a bit of a blood, Mrs. B., and you're a lucky woman. Won't ole 'Earty open them merry eyes of 'is when 'e sees me to-night. What-oh!" and Bindle executed a few impromptu steps, holding his overcoat at arm's-length.

Mrs. Bindle continued to regard him with wonder. She glanced at her own rather shabby black dress lying on the bed, and then her eyes returned to Bindle. She examined with grim intentness his well-cut clothes.

"Where'd you get them from?" she rapped.

"Don't you worry where your peac.o.c.k got 'is tail; you just feel proud," replied Bindle, seating himself on the only chair the bedroom boasted. "Your ole man is goin' to be the belle of the ball to-night."

"You been buyin' them things, an' me doin' my own housework an' keepin' you when you're out of work!" Mrs. Bindle's voice rose as the full sense of the injustice of it all began to dawn upon her. "You spendin' money on dress-suits and beer, an' me inchin' an' pinchin' to keep you in food. It's a shame. I won't stand it, I won't." Mrs. Bindle looked about her helplessly. "I'll leave you, I will, you-you--"

"Oh no, yer won't," remarked Bindle complacently; "women like you don't leave men like me. That's wot matrimony's for, to keep two people together wot ought to be kept apart by Act o' Parliament."

"Where'd you get that dress-suit?" broke in Mrs. Bindle tenaciously.

"As I was sayin'," continued Bindle imperturbably, "matrimony's a funny thing."

"Where'd you get that dress-suit?" Mrs. Bindle broke in again.

Bindle sighed, and cast up his eyes in mock appeal. "I 'ad it give to me so that I might be worthy o' wot the Lord 'as sent me an' won't 'ave back at no price-that is to say, yerself, Mrs. B. If marriages is really made in 'eaven, then there ought to be a 'Returned with thanks' department. That's my view." The happy smile with which Bindle accompanied the remark robbed it of its sting.

For some time Mrs. Bindle continued her toilette in silence, and Bindle puffed contentedly at his cigar. Mrs. Bindle was the first to speak.

"I hope you'll be careful what you say to-night." She had just put on her bonnet and with many strange grimaces had at last adjusted it and the veil to her satisfaction.