Men's Wives Part 4

"I say, Tom," cried Walker, inspired with a sudden thought, "you, who know everything, and are a theatrical man, did you ever know a Miss Delancy, an actress?"

"At 'Sadler's Wells' in '16? Of course I did. Real name was Budge. Lord Slapper admired her very much, my dear boy. She married a man by the name of Crump, his Lords.h.i.+p's black footman, and brought him five thousand pounds; and they keep the 'Bootjack' public-house in Bunker's Buildings, and they've got fourteen children. Is one of them handsome, eh, you sly rogue--and is it that which you will give five pounds to know? G.o.d bless you, my dear dear boy. Jones, my dear friend, how are you?"

And now, seizing on Jones, Tom Dale left Mr. Walker alone, and proceeded to pour into Mr. Jones's ear an account of the individual whom he had just quitted; how he was the best fellow in the world, and Jones KNEW it; how he was in a fine way of making his fortune; how he had been in the Fleet many times, and how he was at this moment employed in looking out for a young lady of whom a certain great marquess (whom Jones knew very well, too) had expressed an admiration.

But for these observations, which he did not hear, Captain Walker, it may be p.r.o.nounced, did not care. His eyes brightened up, he marched quickly and gaily away; and turning into his own chambers opposite Eglantine's, shop, saluted that establishment with a grin of triumph.

"You wouldn't tell me her name, wouldn't you?" said Mr. Walker. "Well, the luck's with me now, and here goes."

Two days after, as Mr. Eglantine, with white gloves and a case of eau-de-Cologne as a present in his pocket, arrived at the "Bootjack Hotel," Little Bunker's Buildings, Berkeley Square (for it must out--that was the place in which Mr. Crump's inn was situated), he paused for a moment at the threshold of the little house of entertainment, and listened, with beating heart, to the sound of delicious music that a well-known voice was uttering within.

The moon was playing in silvery brightness down the gutter of the humble street. A "helper," rubbing down one of Lady Smigsmag's carriage-horses, even paused in his whistle to listen to the strain. Mr. Tressle's man, who had been professionally occupied, ceased his tap-tap upon the coffin which he was getting in readiness. The greengrocer (there is always a greengrocer in those narrow streets, and he goes out in white Berlin gloves as a supernumerary footman) was standing charmed at his little green gate; the cobbler (there is always a cobbler too) was drunk, as usual, of evenings, but, with unusual subordination, never sang except when the refrain of the ditty arrived, when he hiccupped it forth with tipsy loyalty; and Eglantine leaned against the chequers painted on the door-side under the name of Crump, and looked at the red illumined curtain of the bar, and the vast well-known shadow of Mrs. Crump's turban within. Now and again the shadow of that worthy matron's hand would be seen to grasp the shadow of a bottle; then the shadow of a cup would rise towards the turban, and still the strain proceeded.

Eglantine, I say, took out his yellow bandanna, and brushed the beady drops from his brow, and laid the contents of his white kids on his heart, and sighed with ecstatic sympathy. The song began,--

"Come to the greenwood tree, [1]

Come where the dark woods be, Dearest, O come with me!

Let us rove--O my love--O my love!

O my-y love!

(Drunken Cobbler without) O my-y love!"

"Beast!" says Eglantine.

"Come--'tis the moonlight hour, Dew is on leaf and flower, Come to the linden bower, Let us rove--O my love--O my love!

Let us ro-o-ove, lurlurliety; yes, we'll rove, lurlurliety, Through the gro-o-ove, lurlurliety--lurlurli-e-i-e-i-e-i!

(Cobbler, as usual)-- Let us ro-o-ove," etc.

"YOU here?" says another individual, coming clinking up the street, in a military-cut dress-coat, the b.u.t.tons whereof shone very bright in the moonlight. "YOU here, Eglantine?--You're always here."

"Hush, Woolsey," said Mr. Eglantine to his rival the tailor (for he was the individual in question); and Woolsey, accordingly, put his back against the opposite door-post and chequers, so that (with poor Eglantine's bulk) nothing much thicker than a sheet of paper could pa.s.s out or in. And thus these two amorous caryatides kept guard as the song continued:--

"Dark is the wood, and wide, Dangers, they say, betide; But, at my Albert's side, Nought, I fear, O my love--O my love!

"Welcome the greenwood tree, Welcome the forest tree, Dearest, with thee, with thee, Nought I fear, O my love--O ma-a-y love!"

Eglantine's fine eyes were filled with tears as Morgiana pa.s.sionately uttered the above beautiful words. Little Woolsey's eyes glistened, as he clenched his fist with an oath, and said, "Show me any singing that can beat THAT. Cobbler, shut your mouth, or I'll break your head!"

But the cobbler, regardless of the threat, continued to perform the "Lurlurliety" with great accuracy; and when that was ended, both on his part and Morgiana's, a rapturous knocking of gla.s.ses was heard in the little bar, then a great clapping of hands, and finally somebody shouted "Brava!"

"Brava!"

At that word Eglantine turned deadly pale, then gave a start, then a rush forward, which pinned, or rather cus.h.i.+oned, the tailor against the wall; then twisting himself abruptly round, he sprang to the door of the bar, and bounced into that apartment.

"HOW ARE YOU, MY NOSEGAY?" exclaimed the same voice which had shouted "Brava!" It was that of Captain Walker.

At ten o'clock the next morning, a gentleman, with the King's b.u.t.ton on his military coat, walked abruptly into Mr. Eglantine's shop, and, turning on Mr. Mossrose, said, "Tell your master I want to see him."

"He's in his studio," said Mr. Mossrose.

"Well, then, fellow, go and fetch him!"

And Mossrose, thinking it must be the Lord Chamberlain, or Doctor Praetorius at least, walked into the studio, where the perfumer was seated in a very glossy old silk dressing-gown, his fair hair hanging over his white face, his double chin over his flaccid whity-brown s.h.i.+rt-collar, his pea-green slippers on the hob, and on the fire the pot of chocolate which was simmering for his breakfast. A lazier fellow than poor Eglantine it would be hard to find; whereas, on the contrary, Woolsey was always up and brushed, spick-and-span, at seven o'clock; and had gone through his books, and given out the work for the journeymen, and eaten a hearty breakfast of rashers of bacon, before Eglantine had put the usual pound of grease to his hair (his fingers were always as damp and s.h.i.+ny as if he had them in a pomatum-pot), and arranged his figure for the day.

"Here's a gent wants you in the shop," says Mr. Mossrose, leaving the door of communication wide open.

"Say I'm in bed, Mr. Mossrose; I'm out of sperrets, and really can see n.o.body."

"It's someone from Vindsor, I think; he's got the royal b.u.t.ton," says Mossrose.

"It's me--Woolsey," shouted the little man from the shop.

Mr. Eglantine at this jumped up, made a rush to the door leading to his private apartment, and disappeared in a twinkling. But it must not be imagined that he fled in order to avoid Mr. Woolsey. He only went away for one minute just to put on his belt, for he was ashamed to be seen without it by his rival.

This being a.s.sumed, and his toilet somewhat arranged, Mr. Woolsey was admitted into his private room. And Mossrose would have heard every word of the conversation between those two gentlemen, had not Woolsey, opening the door, suddenly pounced on the a.s.sistant, taken him by the collar, and told him to disappear altogether into the shop: which Mossrose did; vowing he would have his revenge.

The subject on which Woolsey had come to treat was an important one.

"Mr. Eglantine," says he, "there's no use disguising from one another that we are both of us in love with Miss Morgiana, and that our chances up to this time have been pretty equal. But that Captain whom you introduced, like an a.s.s as you were--"

"An a.s.s, Mr. Woolsey! I'd have you to know, sir, that I'm no more a ha.s.s than you are, sir; and as for introducing the Captain, I did no such thing."

"Well, well, he's got a-poaching into our preserves somehow. He's evidently sweet upon the young woman, and is a more fas.h.i.+onable chap than either of us two. We must get him out of the house, sir--we must circ.u.mwent him; and THEN, Mr. Eglantine, will be time enough for you and me to try which is the best man."

"HE the best man?" thought Eglantine; "the little bald unsightly tailor-creature! A man with no more soul than his smoothing-hiron!" The perfumer, as may be imagined, did not utter this sentiment aloud, but expressed himself quite willing to enter into any HAMICABLE arrangement by which the new candidate for Miss Crump's favour must be thrown over.

It was accordingly agreed between the two gentlemen that they should coalesce against the common enemy; that they should, by reciting many perfectly well-founded stories in the Captain's disfavour, influence the minds of Miss Crump's parents, and of herself, if possible, against this wolf in sheep's clothing; and that, when they were once fairly rid of him, each should be at liberty, as before, to prefer his own claim.

"I have thought of a subject," said the little tailor, turning very red, and hemming and hawing a great deal. "I've thought, I say, of a pint, which may be resorted to with advantage at the present juncture, and in which each of us may be useful to the other. An exchange, Mr. Eglantine: do you take?"

"Do you mean an accommodation-bill?" said Eglantine, whose mind ran a good deal on that species of exchange.

"Pooh, nonsense, sir! The name of OUR firm is, I flatter myself, a little more up in the market than some other people's names."

"Do you mean to insult the name of Archibald Eglantine, sir? I'd have you to know that at three months--"

"Nonsense!" says Mr. Woolsey, mastering his emotion. "There's no use a-quarrelling, Mr. E.: we're not in love with each other, I know that.

You wish me hanged, or as good, I know that!"

"Indeed I don't, sir!"

"You do, sir; I tell you, you do! and what's more, I wish the same to you--transported, at any rate! But as two sailors, when a boat's a-sinking, though they hate each other ever so much, will help and bale the boat out; so, sir, let US act: let us be the two sailors."

"Bail, sir?" said Eglantine, as usual mistaking the drift of the argument. "I'll bail no man! If you're in difficulties, I think you had better go to your senior partner, Mr Woolsey." And Eglantine's cowardly little soul was filled with a savage satisfaction to think that his enemy was in distress, and actually obliged to come to HIM for succour.

"You're enough to make Job swear, you great fat stupid lazy old barber!"

roared Mr. Woolsey, in a fury.

Eglantine jumped up and made for the bell-rope. The gallant little tailor laughed.

"There's no need to call in Betsy," said he. "I'm not a-going to eat you, Eglantine; you're a bigger man than me: if you were just to fall on me, you'd smother me! Just sit still on the sofa and listen to reason."