Evan Harrington, v5

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EVAN HARRINGTON

By George Meredith

BOOK 5.

XXVI. MRS. MEL MAKES A BED FOR HERSELF AND FAMILY
XXVII. EXHIBITS ROSE'S GENERALSHIP; EVAN'S PERFORMANCE ON THE SECOND
FIDDLE; AND THE WRETCHEDNESS OF THE COUNTESS
XXVIII. TOM COGGLESBY'S PROPOSITION
XXIX. PRELUDE TO AN ENGAGEMENT
XXX. THE BATTLE OF THE BULL-DOGS. PART I.
XXXI. THE BATTLE OF THE BULL-DOGS. PART II.

CHAPTER XXVI

MRS. MEL MAKES A BED FOR HERSELF AND FAMILY

The last person thought of by her children at this period was Mrs. Mel:
nor had she been thinking much of them till a letter from Mr. Goren
arrived one day, which caused her to pass them seriously in review.
Always an early bird, and with maxims of her own on the subject of rising
and getting the worm, she was standing in a small perch in the corner of
the shop, dictating accounts to Mrs. Fiske, who was copying hurriedly,
that she might earn sweet intervals for gossip, when Dandy limped up and
delivered the letter. Mrs. Fiske worked hard while her aunt was occupied
in reading it, for a great deal of fresh talk follows the advent of the
post, and may be reckoned on. Without looking up, however, she could
tell presently that the letter had been read through. Such being the
case, and no conversation coming of it, her curiosity was violent. Her
aunt's face, too, was an index of something extraordinary. That
inflexible woman, instead of alluding to the letter in any way, folded it
up, and renewed her dictation. It became a contest between them which
should show her human nature first. Mrs. Mel had to repress what she
knew; Mrs. Fiske to control the passion for intelligence. The close
neighbourhood of one anxious to receive, and one capable of giving, waxed
too much for both.

'I think, Anne, you are stupid this morning,' said Mrs. Mel.

'Well, I am, aunt,' said Mrs. Fiske, pretending not to see which was the
first to unbend, 'I don't know what it is. The figures seem all dazzled
like. I shall really be glad when Evan comes to take his proper place.'

'Ah!' went Mrs. Mel, and Mrs. Fiske heard her muttering. Then she cried
out: 'Are Harriet and Caroline as great liars as Louisa?'

Mrs. Fiske grimaced. 'That would be difficult, would it not, aunt?'

'And I have been telling everybody that my son is in town learning his
business, when he's idling at a country house, and trying to play his
father over again! Upon my word, what with liars and fools, if you go to
sleep a minute you have a month's work on your back.'

'What is it, aunt?' Mrs. Fiske feebly inquired.

'A gentleman, I suppose! He wouldn't take an order if it was offered.
Upon my word, when tailors think of winning heiresses it's time we went
back to Adam and Eve.'

'Do you mean Evan, aunt?' interposed Mrs. Fiske, who probably did not see
the turns in her aunt's mind.

'There--read for yourself,' said Mrs. Mel, and left her with the letter.

Mrs. Fiske read that Mr. Goren had been astonished at Evan's non-
appearance, and at his total silence; which he did not consider
altogether gentlemanly behaviour, and certainly not such as his father
would have practised. Mr. Goren regretted his absence the more as he
would have found him useful in a remarkable invention he was about to
patent, being a peculiar red cross upon shirts--a fortune to the
patentee; but as Mr. Goren had no natural heirs of his body, he did not
care for that. What affected him painfully was the news of Evan's doings
at a noble house, Beckley Court, to wit, where, according to the report
of a rich young gentleman friend, Mr. Raikes (for whose custom Mr. Goren
was bound to thank Evan), the youth who should have been learning the
science of Tailoring, had actually passed himself off as a lord, or the
son of one, or something of the kind, and had got engaged to a wealthy
heiress, and would, no doubt, marry her if not found out. Where the
chances of detection were so numerous, Mr. Goren saw much to condemn in
the idea of such a marriage. But 'like father like son,' said Mr. Goren.
He thanked the Lord that an honest tradesman was not looked down upon in
this country; and, in fact, gave Mrs. Mel a few quiet digs to waken her
remorse in having missed the man that he was.

When Mrs. Fiske met her aunt again she returned her the letter, and
simply remarked: 'Louisa.'

Mrs. Mel nodded. She understood the implication.

The General who had schemed so successfully to gain Evan time at Beckley
Court in his own despite and against a hundred obstructions, had now
another enemy in the field, and one who, if she could not undo her work,
could punish her. By the afternoon coach, Mrs. Mel, accompanied by Dandy
her squire, was journeying to Fallow field, bent upon things. The
faithful squire was kept by her side rather as a security for others than
for, his particular services. Dandy's arms were crossed, and his
countenance was gloomy. He had been promised a holiday that afternoon to
give his mistress, Sally, Kilne's cook, an airing, and Dandy knew in his
soul that Sally, when she once made up her mind to an excursion, would
go, and would not go alone, and that her very force of will endangered
her constancy. He had begged humbly to be allowed to stay, but Mrs. Mel
could not trust him. She ought to have told him so, perhaps.
Explanations were not approved of by this well-intended despot, and
however beneficial her resolves might turn out for all parties, it was
natural that in the interim the children of her rule should revolt, and
Dandy, picturing his Sally flaunting on the arm of some accursed low
marine, haply, kicked against Mrs. Mel's sovereignty, though all that he
did was to shoot out his fist from time to time, and grunt through his
set teeth: 'Iron!' to express the character of her awful rule.

Mrs. Mel alighted at the Dolphin, the landlady of which was a Mrs.
Hawkshaw, a rival of Mrs. Sockley of the Green Dragon. She was welcomed
by Mrs. Hawkshaw with considerable respect. The great Mel had sometimes
slept at the Dolphin.

'Ah, that black!' she sighed, indicating Mrs. Mel's dress and the story
it told.

'I can't give you his room, my dear Mrs. Harrington, wishing I could!
I'm sorry to say it's occupied, for all I ought to be glad, I dare say,
for he's an old gentleman who does you a good turn, if you study him.
But there! I'd rather have had poor dear Mr. Harrington in my best bed
than old or young--Princes or nobodies, I would--he was that grand and
pleasant.'

Mrs. Mel had her tea in Mrs. Hawkshaw's parlour, and was entertained
about her husband up to the hour of supper, when a short step and a
querulous voice were heard in the passage, and an old gentleman appeared
before them.

'Who's to carry up my trunk, ma'am? No man here?'

Mrs. Hawkshaw bustled out and tried to lay her hand on a man. Failing to
find the growth spontaneous, she returned and begged the old gentleman to
wait a few moments and the trunk would be sent up.

'Parcel o' women!' was his reply. 'Regularly bedevilled. Gets worse and
worse. I 'll carry it up myself.'

With a wheezy effort he persuaded the trunk to stand on one end, and then
looked at it. The exertion made him hot, which may account for the rage
he burst into when Mrs. Hawkshaw began flutteringly to apologize.

'You're sure, ma'am, sure--what are you sure of? I'll tell you what I am
sure of--eh? This keeping clear of men's a damned pretence. You don't
impose upon me. Don't believe in your pothouse nunneries--not a bit.
Just like you! when you are virtuous it's deuced inconvenient. Let one
of the maids try? No. Don't believe in 'em.'

Having thus relieved his spleen the old gentleman addressed himself to
further efforts and waxed hotter. He managed to tilt the trunk over, and
thus gained a length, and by this method of progression arrived at the
foot of the stairs, where he halted, and wiped his face, blowing lustily.

Mrs. Mel had been watching him with calm scorn all the while. She saw
him attempt most ridiculously to impel the trunk upwards by a similar
process, and thought it time to interfere.

'Don't you see you must either take it on your shoulders, or have a
help?'

The old gentleman sprang up from his peculiarly tight posture to blaze
round at her. He had the words well-peppered on his mouth, but somehow
he stopped, and was subsequently content to growl: 'Where 's the help in
a parcel of petticoats?'

Mrs. Mel did not consider it necessary to give him an answer. She went
up two or three steps, and took hold of one handle of the trunk, saying:
'There; I think it can be managed this way,' and she pointed for him to
seize the other end with his hand.

He was now in that unpleasant state of prickly heat when testy old
gentlemen could commit slaughter with ecstasy. Had it been the maid
holding a candle who had dared to advise, he would have overturned her
undoubtedly, and established a fresh instance of the impertinence, the
uselessness and weakness of women. Mrs. Mel topped him by half a head,
and in addition stood three steps above him; towering like a giantess.
The extreme gravity of her large face dispersed all idea of an assault.
The old gentleman showed signs of being horribly injured: nevertheless,
he put his hand to the trunk; it was lifted, and the procession ascended
the stairs in silence.

The landlady waited for Mrs. Mel to return, and then said:

'Really, Mrs. Harrington, you are clever. That lifting that trunk's as
good as a lock and bolt on him. You've as good as made him a Dolphin--
him that was one o' the oldest Green Dragons in Fallifield. My thanks to
you most sincere.'

Mrs. Mel sent out to hear where Dandy had got to after which, she said:
'Who is the man?'

'I told you, Mrs. Harrington--the oldest Green Dragon. His name, you
mean? Do you know, if I was to breathe it out, I believe he'd jump out
of the window. He 'd be off, that you might swear to. Oh, such a
whimsical! not ill-meaning--quite the contrary. Study his whims, and
you'll never want. There's Mrs. Sockley--she 's took ill. He won't go
there--that 's how I've caught him, my dear--but he pays her medicine,
and she looks to him the same. He hate a sick house: but he pity a sick
woman. Now, if I can only please him, I can always look on him as half a
Dolphin, to say the least; and perhaps to-morrow I'll tell you who he is,
and what, but not to-night; for there's his supper to get over, and that,
they say, can be as bad as the busting of one of his own vats. Awful!'

'What does he eat?' said Mrs. Mel.

'A pair o' chops. That seem simple, now, don't it? And yet they chops
make my heart go pitty-pat.'

'The commonest things are the worst done,' said Mrs. Mel.

'It ain't that; but they must be done his particular way, do you see,
Mrs. Harrington. Laid close on the fire, he say, so as to keep in the
juice. But he ups and bounces in a minute at a speck o' black. So, one
thing or the other, there you are: no blacks, no juices, I say.'

'Toast the chops,' said Mrs. Mel.

The landlady of the Dolphin accepted this new idea with much
enlightenment, but ruefully declared that she was afraid to go against
his precise instructions. Mrs. Mel then folded her hands, and sat in
quiet reserve. She was one of those numerous women who always know
themselves to be right. She was also one of those very few whom
Providence favours by confounding dissentients. She was positive the
chops would be ill-cooked: but what could she do? She was not in command
here; so she waited serenely for the certain disasters to enthrone her.
Not that the matter of the chops occupied her mind particularly: nor
could she dream that the pair in question were destined to form a part
of her history, and divert the channel of her fortunes. Her thoughts
were about her own immediate work; and when the landlady rushed in with
the chops under a cover, and said: 'Look at 'em, dear Mrs. Harrington!'
she had forgotten that she was again to be proved right by the turn of
events.

'Oh, the chops!' she responded. 'Send them while they are hot.'

'Send 'em! Why you don't think I'd have risked their cooling? I have
sent 'em; and what do he do but send 'em travelling back, and here they
be; and what objections his is I might study till I was blind, and I
shouldn't see 'em.'

'No; I suppose not,' said Mrs. Mel. 'He won't eat 'em?'

'Won't eat anything: but his bed-room candle immediately. And whether
his sheets are aired. And Mary says he sniffed at the chops; and that
gal really did expect he 'd fling them at her. I told you what he was.
Oh, dear!'

The bell was heard ringing in the midst of the landlady's lamentations.

'Go to him yourself,' said Mrs. Mel. 'No Christian man should go to
sleep without his supper.'

'Ah! but he ain't a common Christian,' returned Mrs. Hawkshaw.

The old gentleman was in a hurry to know when his bed-room candle was
coming up, or whether they intended to give him one at all that night;
if not, let them say so, as he liked plain-speaking. The moment Mrs.
Hawkshaw touched upon the chops, he stopped her mouth.

'Go about your business, ma'am. You can't cook 'em. I never expected
you could: I was a fool to try you. It requires at least ten years'
instruction before a man can get a woman to cook his chop as he likes
it.'

'But what was your complaint, sir?' said Mrs. Hawkshaw, imploringly.

'That's right!' and he rubbed his hands, and brightened his eyes
savagely. 'That's the way. Opportunity for gossip! Thing's well done
--down it goes: you know that. You can't have a word over it--eh?
Thing's done fit to toss on a dungheap, aha! Then there's a cackle! My
belief is, you do it on purpose. Can't be such rank idiots. You do it
on purpose. All done for gossip!'

'Oh, sir, no!' The landlady half curtsied.

'Oh, ma'am, yes!' The old gentleman bobbed his head.

'No, indeed, sir!' The landlady shook hers.

'Damn it, ma'am, I swear you do.'

Symptoms of wrath here accompanied the declaration; and, with a sigh and
a very bitter feeling, Mrs. Hawkshaw allowed him to have the last word.
Apparently this--which I must beg to call the lady's morsel--comforted
his irascible system somewhat; for he remained in a state of composure
eight minutes by the clock. And mark how little things hang together.
Another word from the landlady, precipitating a retort from him, and a
gesture or muttering from her; and from him a snapping outburst, and from
her a sign that she held out still; in fact, had she chosen to battle for
that last word, as in other cases she might have done, then would he have
exploded, gone to bed in the dark, and insisted upon sleeping: the
consequence of which would have been to change this history. Now while
Mrs. Hawkshaw was upstairs, Mrs. Mel called the servant, who took her to
the kitchen, where she saw a prime loin of mutton; off which she cut two
chops with a cunning hand: and these she toasted at a gradual distance,
putting a plate beneath them, and a tin behind, and hanging the chops
so that they would turn without having to be pierced. The bell rang
twice before she could say the chops were ready. The first time, the
maid had to tell the old gentleman she was taking up his water. Her next
excuse was, that she had dropped her candle. The chops ready--who was to
take them?

'Really, Mrs. Harrington, you are so clever, you ought, if I might be so
bold as say so; you ought to end it yourself,' said the landlady. 'I
can't ask him to eat them: he was all but on the busting point when I
left him.'

'And that there candle did for him quite,' said Mary, the maid.

'I'm afraid it's chops cooked for nothing,' added the landlady.

Mrs. Mel saw them endangered. The maid held back: the landlady feared.

'We can but try,' she said.

'Oh! I wish, mum, you'd face him, 'stead o' me,' said Mary; 'I do dread
that old bear's den.'

'Here, I will go,' said Mrs. Mel. 'Has he got his ale? Better draw it
fresh, if he drinks any.'

And upstairs she marched, the landlady remaining below to listen for the
commencement of the disturbance. An utterance of something certainly
followed Mrs. Mel's entrance into the old bear's den. Then silence.
Then what might have been question and answer. Then--was Mrs. Mel
assaulted? and which was knocked down? It really was a chair being
moved to the table. The door opened.

'Yes, ma'am; do what you like,' the landlady heard. Mrs. Mel descended,
saying: 'Send him up some fresh ale.'

'And you have made him sit down obedient to those chops?' cried the
landlady. 'Well might poor dear Mr. Harrington--pleasant man as he was!
--say, as he used to say, "There's lovely women in the world, Mrs.
Hawkshaw," he'd say, "and there's Duchesses," he'd say, "and there's they
that can sing, and can dance, and some," he says, "that can cook." But
he'd look sly as he'd stoop his head and shake it. "Roll 'em into one,"
he says, "and not any of your grand ladies can match my wife at home."

And, indeed, Mrs. Harrington, he told me he thought so many a time in the
great company he frequented.'

Perfect peace reigning above, Mrs. Hawkshaw and Mrs. Mel sat down to
supper below; and Mrs. Hawkshaw talked much of the great one gone. His
relict did not care to converse about the dead, save in their practical
aspect as ghosts; but she listened, and that passed the time. By-and-by,
the old gentleman rang, and sent a civil message to know if the landlady
had ship's rum in the house.

'Dear! here's another trouble,' cried the poor woman. 'No--none!'

'Say, yes,' said Mrs. Mel, and called Dandy, and charged him to run down
the street to the square, and ask for the house of Mr. Coxwell, the
maltster, and beg of him, in her name, a bottle of his ship's rum.

'And don't you tumble down and break the bottle, Dandy. Accidents with
spirit-bottles are not excused.'

Dandy went on the errand, after an energetic grunt.

In due time he returned with the bottle, whole and sound, and Mr.
Coxwell's compliments. Mrs. Mel examined the cork to see that no process
of suction had been attempted, and then said:

'Carry it up to him, Dandy. Let him see there's a man in the house
besides himself.'

'Why, my dear,' the landlady turned to her, 'it seems natural to you to
be mistress where you go. I don't at all mind, for ain't it my profit?
But you do take us off our legs.'

Then the landlady, warmed by gratitude, told her that the old gentleman
was the great London brewer, who brewed there with his brother, and
brewed for himself five miles out of Fallow field, half of which and a
good part of the neighbourhood he owned, and his name was Mr. Tom
Cogglesby.

'Oh!' said Mrs. Mel. 'And his brother is Mr. Andrew.'

'That 's it,' said the landlady. 'And because he took it into his head
to go and to choose for himself, and be married, no getting his brother,
Mr. Tom, to speak to him. Why not, indeed? If there's to be no
marrying, the sooner we lay down and give up, the better, I think. But
that 's his way. He do hate us women, Mrs. Harrington. I have heard he
was crossed. Some say it was the lady of Beckley Court, who was a
Beauty, when he was only a poor cobbler's son.'

Mrs. Mel breathed nothing of her relationship to Mr. Tom, but continued
from time to time to express solicitude about Dandy. They heard the door
open, and old Tom laughing in a capital good temper, and then Dandy came
down, evidently full of ship's rum.

'He's pumped me!' said Dandy, nodding heavily at his mistress.

Mrs. Mel took him up to his bed-room, and locked the door. On her way
back she passed old Tom's chamber, and his chuckles were audible to her.

'They finished the rum,' said Mrs. Hawkshaw.

'I shall rate him for that to-morrow,' said Mrs. Mel. 'Giving that poor
beast liquor!'

'Rate Mr. Tom! Oh! Mrs. Harrington! Why, he'll snap your head off for a
word.'

Mrs. Mel replied that her head would require a great deal of snapping to
come off.

During this conversation they had both heard a singular intermittent
noise above. Mrs. Hawkshaw was the first to ask:

'What can it be? More trouble with him? He's in his bed-room now.'

'Mad with drink, like Dandy, perhaps,' said Mrs. Mel.

'Hark!' cried the landlady. 'Oh!'

It seemed that Old Tom was bouncing about in an extraordinary manner.
Now came a pause, as if he had sworn to take his rest: now the room shook
and the windows rattled.

'One 'd think, really, his bed was a frying-pan, and him a live fish in
it,' said the landlady. 'Oh--there, again! My goodness! have he got a
flea?'

The thought was alarming. Mrs. Mel joined in:

'Or a ------'

'Don't! don't, my dear!' she was cut short. 'Oh! one o' them little
things 'd be ruin to me. To think o' that! Hark at him! It must be.
And what's to do? I 've sent the maids to bed. We haven't a man. If I
was to go and knock at his door, and ask?'

'Better try and get him to be quiet somehow.'

'Ah! I dare say I shall make him fire out fifty times worse.'

Mrs. Hawkshaw stipulated that Mrs. Mel should stand by her, and the two
women went up-stairs and stood at Old Tom's door. There they could hear
him fuming and muttering imprecations, and anon there was an interval of
silence, and then the room was shaken, and the cursings recommenced.

'It must be a fight he 's having with a flea,' said the landlady. 'Oh!
pray heaven, it is a flea. For a flea, my dear-gentlemen may bring that
theirselves; but a b-----, that's a stationary, and born of a bed.
Don't you hear? The other thing 'd give him a minute's rest; but a
flea's hop-hop-off and on. And he sound like an old gentleman worried by
a flea. What are you doing?'

Mrs. Mel had knocked at the door. The landlady waited breathlessly for
the result. It appeared to have quieted Old Tom.

'What's the matter?' said Mrs. Mel, severely.

The landlady implored her to speak him fair, and reflect on the desperate
things he might attempt.

'What's the matter? Can anything be done for you?'

Mr. Tom Cogglesby's reply comprised an insinuation so infamous regarding
women when they have a solitary man in their power, that it cannot be
placed on record.

'Is anything the matter with your bed?'

'Anything? Yes; anything is the matter, ma'am. Hope twenty live geese
inside it's enough-eh? Bed, do you call it? It's the rack! It's
damnation! Bed? Ha!'

After delivering this, he was heard stamping up and down the room.

'My very best bed!' whispered the landlady. 'Would it please you, sir,
to change--I can give you another?'

'I'm not a man of experiments, ma'am-'specially in strange houses.'

'So very, very sorry!'

'What the deuce!' Old Tom came close to the door. 'You whimpering! You
put a man in a beast of a bed--you drive him half mad--and then begin to
blubber! Go away.'

'I am so sorry, sir!'

'If you don't go away, ma'am, I shall think your intentions are
improper.'

'Oh, my goodness!' cried poor Mrs. Hawkshaw. 'What can one do with him?'
Mrs. Mel put Mrs. Hawkshaw behind her.

'Are you dressed?' she called out.

In this way Mrs. Mel tackled Old Tom. He was told that should he consent
to cover himself decently, she would come into his room and make his bed
comfortable. And in a voice that dispersed armies of innuendoes, she
bade him take his choice, either to rest quiet or do her bidding.
Had Old Tom found his master at last, and in one of the hated sex?
Breathlessly Mrs. Hawkshaw waited his answer, and she was an astonished
woman when it came.

'Very well, ma'am. Wait a couple of minutes. Do as you like.'

On their admission to the interior of the chamber, Old Tom was exhibited
in his daily garb, sufficiently subdued to be civil and explain the cause
of his discomfort. Lumps in his bed: he was bruised by them. He
supposed he couldn't ask women to judge for themselves--they'd be
shrieking--but he could assure them he was blue all down his back.
Mrs. Mel and Mrs. Hawkshaw turned the bed about, and punched it, and
rolled it.

'Ha!' went Old Tom, 'what's the good of that? That's just how I found
it. Moment I got into bed geese began to put up their backs.'

Mrs. Mel seldom indulged in a joke, and then only when it had a
proverbial cast. On the present occasion, the truth struck her forcibly,
and she said:

'One fool makes many, and so, no doubt, does one goose.'

Accompanied by a smile the words would have seemed impudent; but spoken
as a plain fact, and with a grave face, it set Old Tom blinking like a
small boy ten minutes after the whip.

'Now,' she pursued, speaking to him as to an old child, 'look here. This
is how you manage. Knead down in the middle of the bed. Then jump into
the hollow. Lie there, and you needn't wake till morning.'

Old Tom came to the side of the bed. He had prepared himself for a
wretched night, an uproar, and eternal complaints against the house, its
inhabitants, and its foundations; but a woman stood there who as much as
told him that digging his fist into the flock and jumping into the hole--
into that hole under his, eyes--was all that was wanted! that he had
been making a noise for nothing, and because he had not the wit to hit on
a simple contrivance! Then, too, his jest about the geese--this woman
had put a stop to that! He inspected the hollow cynically. A man might
instruct him on a point or two: Old Tom was not going to admit that a
woman could.

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