“Who wants to stir?” said Mrs. Grimes.
We felt that there was something more to be told than we had yet heard, and a great fear fell upon us. The woman’s manner to us was altered, and we were sure that this had come not from altered feelings on her part, but from circumstances which had frightened her. It was not her husband that she feared, but the truth of something that her husband had said to her. “If there is anything more to tell, for God’s sake tell it,” we said, addressing ourselves rather to the man than to the woman. Then Grimes did tell us his story. On the previous evening Mackenzie had received three or four sovereigns from Mrs. Grimes, being, of course, a portion of the Doctor’s payments; and early on that morning all Liquorpond Street had been in a state of excitement with the drunken fury of Mackenzie’s wife. She had found her way into the Spotted Dog, and was being actually extruded by the strength of Grimes himself,—of Grimes, who had been brought down, half dressed, from his bed-room by the row,—when Mackenzie himself, equally drunk, appeared upon the scene. “No, John;—not equally drunk,” said Mrs. Grimes. “Bother!” exclaimed her husband, going on with his story. The man had struggled to take the woman by the arm, and the two had fallen and rolled in the street together. “I was looking out of the window, and it was awful to see,” said Mrs. Grimes. We felt that it was “awful to hear.” A man,—and such a man, rolling in the gutter with a drunken woman,—himself drunk,—and that woman his wife! “There aint to be no more of it at the Spotted Dog; that’s all,” said John Grimes, as he finished his part of the story.
Then, at last, Mrs. Grimes became voluble. All this had occurred before nine in the morning. “The woman must have been at it all night,” she said. “So must the man,” said John. “Anyways he came back about dinner, and he was sober then. I asked him not to go up, and offered to make him a cup of tea. It was just as you’d gone out after dinner, John.”
“He won’t have no more tea here,” said John.
“And he didn’t have any then. He wouldn’t, he said, have any tea, but went up stairs. What was I to do? I couldn’t tell him as he shouldn’t. Well;—during the row in the morning John had said something as to Mackenzie not coming about the premises any more.”
“Of course I did,” said Grimes.
“He was a little cut, then, no doubt,” continued the lady; “and I didn’t think as he would have noticed what John had said.”
“I mean it to be noticed now.”
“He had noticed it then, Sir, though he wasn’t just as he should be at that hour of the morning. Well;—what does he do? He goes up stairs and packs up all the papers at once. Leastways, that’s as I suppose. They aint there now. You can go and look if you please, Sir. Well; when he came down, whether I was in the kitchen,—though it isn’t often as my eyes is off the bar, or in the tap-room, or busy drawing, which I do do sometimes, Sir, when there are a many calling for liquor, I can’t say;—but if I aint never to stand upright again, I didn’t see him pass out with the box. But Miss Wilcox did. You can ask her.” Miss Wilcox was the young lady in the bar, whom we did not think ourselves called upon to examine, feeling no doubt whatever as to the fact of the box having been taken away by Mackenzie. In all this Mrs. Grimes seemed to defend herself, as though some serious charge was to be brought against her; whereas all that she had done had been done out of pure charity; and in exercising her charity towards Mackenzie she had shown an almost exaggerated kindness towards ourselves.
“If there’s anything wrong, it isn’t your fault,” we said.