But as it was a wet day, poor dear mother was so long before she dropped in upon me, that I made certain she wouldn’t come that morning, so I set to work to prepare Edward’s dinner. As he is fond of made dishes, I thought I could not do better than give him a sweet little toad in the hole, especially as it was very easy to make, and I could get the baker to take it with him to the bakehouse when he left our daily bread in the afternoon. While I was making the batter to cover the toad with, a tremendous double-knock came to the door, which nearly made me drop the egg I had in my hand at the time. As of course I could not, in the state that I was, go up to the door myself and say I was not at home, I thought it best to let them knock away until they were tired; and it was not until I had heard them do so, I should say, seven or eight times at least, that I went to the kitchen window, and pulled aside the blind I had let down, when who should it be but poor dear mother, whom I had kept waiting all that time in the pouring rain, and who, when she got down in the kitchen, I found to be literally dripping. Having taken off her pattens, and put her umbrella to dry in the back kitchen, I threw up the cinders, and made such a nice comfortable clear fire for her, and got the dear old soul to drink off a glass of scalding-hot spirits and water, which, I assured her, would not hurt her, as it would keep the cold out nicely, and which she consented to take in the light of medicine, as she said she was certain she wanted it; adding, that she felt as if every bone in her body was broken to bits, and she was sure that on her road she had picked up the shivers somewhere.
I told mamma all that had taken place, and how hastily Edward had behaved, without showing the least regard to my feelings, and had set upon poor Mary for all the world like a Turk. But dear mother told me, with her usual kindness, that she wasn’t in the least surprised at my husband’s forgetting himself, as it was just what she had expected from him all along; for, from the insight she had had into Edward’s character of late, she was afraid that I should have a good deal more to bear with from him, and that my time was likely to be a hard one. Still, as the good soul very truly observed, it was no business of hers, and she was the last person to think of setting me against my husband; though, from what I had told her, she could not help saying, that Edward certainly did appear to her to be just like the rest of the men, and no better than he should be; adding, that the best way would be for me to have an understanding with him the very first opportunity, and tell him, that if he couldn’t conduct himself more like a rational creature for the future, that he had better manage the house himself. She begged me, in saying this, however, to remember that she had no wish to figure in quarrels between man and wife; observing, with great truth, that as I had made my bed, so I must lie upon it; and that if my bed were strewed with thorns, however uncomfortable it might be, still it could be no fault of hers, though she pitied me from the bottom of her heart; for, as she said, it must be a sad change for a poor dear that was so thinskinned as myself; adding, with great kindness, that if she could possibly have known half as much of Edward before my marriage as she did now, that she certainly should have thought twice before she had given her consent for the house of the Sk—n—st—ns to be grafted upon the family tree of the B—ff—ns.
Dear mother, however, promised not to desert me in my trouble, and undertook to procure me a charwoman, who would come in until that Irish fury of a Cornwall hussey was ready to be with me. Mrs. Burgess[A] was the name of the charwoman, and mother said that I should find her of great use and comfort to me, as she was a married woman, though she had been deserted by her husband—poor thing!—who had run away to America like a brute, leaving her with a fine family of ten young children on her hands;—that she was a good, hard-working, industrious, stout-made woman; and that the poor babes had nothing but the sweat of their mother’s brow to subsist upon; and that it was only by doing a little charing out and a little washing at home, that the poor creature was enabled to keep her head above water. And mother said, that tired and wet as she was, still she would make it a point that very afternoon to go round to the Mews, where Mrs. Burgess lived, and leave word at her loft, even if she couldn’t see her, for her to come round to me the first thing the next morning; adding, that all the poor thing would want would be eighteenpence a day, two pots of beer, and a glass of spirits before leaving at night.
When Edward came home from business, he wouldn’t make the least allowance for the state I was in, but seemed determined to find fault with everything, and appeared to expect that the house should be in the same apple-pie order as if I’d a regiment of maids of all work at my heels. What made him much worse, too, was, that the baker had forgotten to send round the dinner when it was done, so that he had to wait some trifling twenty minutes until I could get some one to run for it; and when it came home, I declare my nice little toad in the hole was as black as a coal, and quite burnt to a cinder. My husband’s behaviour during dinner nearly broke my heart; and he cut me up so dreadfully, that I really couldn’t say whether my head was on my shoulders or not. Indeed, all that evening he was one too many for me, for I declare he went on just like one beside himself. He made his dinner off bread and cheese, and kept grumbling all the time, saying that he would have been better treated if he had dined at a common “Slap bang” in the City, (those were his very words—though what on earth a “slap bang” can be I haven’t the remotest idea). So I left him to his filthy cigar and bills of costs as soon as I could, and went down stairs and sat by myself all alone by the kitchen fire, as I wished to put an end to his spiteful goings on, and I knew he wouldn’t follow me down stairs, and get pulling me over the coals there.
I took good care that he should feel the want of a servant as much as I did, and that he should know that the poor creatures were useful members of society, if they were only properly treated; for I made a point of keeping him without a mouthful of tea till near bed-time. Though I only punished myself in the end, for the cup that “cheers but not inebriates,” as the poet says, wouldn’t allow him to get a wink of sleep, and he was so restless and cross all the night through, that he only kept getting in and out of bed, and walking up and down the room, and opening the windows, and raving at me like a wild Hottentot let loose from Bedlam, declaring that I was quite an altered woman of late, and that he couldn’t tell what on earth had come to me that day. When I told him that nothing had come to me but dear mamma, he flew out most dreadfully, and said that mother was a snake in the grass, who came poisoning my mind and picking holes in his coat directly he was out of the house; and that, as he knew that one bad sheep would destroy a whole flock, he would take precious good care that my mother should never ruin me, for he would forbid her the house the very next day; adding, that if I encouraged her in coming there, that he would sell the furniture off and run away from us both, and allow me a pound a week for the rest of my life,—which I recollect at the time struck me as being very ungenerous on his part, and not what I should naturally have expected from him; for I thought that, under the circumstances, he really might have made a greater allowance, when he knew that I could get nobody to help me.
In the morning, Mrs. Burgess came as soon as it was light, and it having been, I should say, four o’clock before I closed my eyes, I felt she was knocking me up by waking me so early. However, I slipt on my wrapper, and went down stairs and let her in. I told her to do the parlour immediately, and take care and black-lead the stove before lighting the fire, and after that to wash-up the dinner and tea things I had left overnight, and then just to clean down the door-step a little (for goodness’ sake!) for it was quite grubby to look at—and to sweep the hall and shake the mats a bit, for the passage was as full of dirt as it could hold, and I was really quite ashamed to see it—and I also told her to take in a ha’p’orth of milk when the milkman called—and to have the breakfast ready by eight o’clock precisely, as Mr. Sk—n—st—n was a very punctual man. Then I went up stairs just to finish my night’s rest; and no sooner had I jumped into bed than I fell off again so fast, that I lay there till it was as near ten o’clock as it could be.
Mr. Sk—n—st—n was in a tremendous passion at what he chose to call my want of respect in allowing him to lie in bed so long, and when he came down to breakfast he was as surly as a bear with a scald head, (as the phrase runs.) He must needs go flying in a passion because the baker had left the wrong bread—for Mrs. Burgess, unfortunately, had taken in a cottage for breakfast—and he would have that it was my fault, and not the woman’s, saying, that I ought to have told her that he never eat anything of a morning but “bricks.” As he was going to office, I asked him whether he would dine at home that day, and what he would have; but he was very sulky, and said that he wouldn’t trouble me again, for that, as he was going into the City, he would take a chop at Joe’s; and when I inquired of him who Joe was, he told me it was the name of a chop-house keeper near the Royal Exchange; on which I remarked that he ought to be ashamed of himself to speak in that familiar way of such people. This made him laugh, so that I thought it was a good opportunity to make friends with him, and told him that if he would promise to come home, that I would get him a beautiful leg of mutton; but he said he thought he should like a nice shoulder, well browned, with onion sauce, for the legs we had had in our house lately had not been fit to be seen. But, knowing that he was partial to one with veal stuffing, I told him that if he would only come home to dinner that day, like a good man, I would give him such a treat—I would promise him to put on the table as fine a leg as he had ever beheld, for I intended to stuff it for him, and would take care that it should be beautifully dressed, and quite a picture to look at—all of which seemed to please him very much, and he left quite in good humour.
On going down into the kitchen to prepare the dinner, Mrs. Burgess really seemed to me to be a very superior sort of body; and I thought that she was one of the best disposed and most honest of women, until I found her to be quite the contrary; for at first I really felt interested in the poor thing, on account of her being the mother of such a large family, and all by herself without a husband. I was quite pleased to hear the good woman go on as she did all that day, continually telling me that servants were such a bad lot, and that nothing was good enough for them, and how little gentlemen thought of what we poor women had to undergo for their sakes. And she likewise told me the whole history of how shamefully Mr. Burgess, who drove a cab, had behaved towards her—never treating her as he ought to have done—though she had always been a good wife to him, (the wretch,) and had seldom or never flown in his face, (the brute,)—that her life had been one continued struggle with him from morning to night, she might say, and that after the hard battles they had had together, his going to New Orleans under the disguise of coming back in a few weeks, she must say was a return that she never expected. Upon which I remarked, that for Mr. Burgess, to run away to America in the way he had done, certainly did appear to me to be going a little too far. And then she was so kind as to hope that Mr. Sk—n—st—n would never treat me in the same way, although, as she very truly said, she was afraid that the men were all alike, and that they really were not fit to be trusted out of your sight for two days together.
I couldn’t have left Mrs. Burgess more than five minutes, and was just going to put myself to rights a bit, when I heard a most tremendous scream in the kitchen, and on going down, found the poor woman was nearly fainting, (the deceitful baggage!) for she told me that she had just seen a great rat as big as a Shetland pony scamper across the scullery. This, of course, put me all of a twitter, and made my blood run quite cold down my back, for I didn’t know that there was a rat in the place; and, as Mrs. Burgess observed, with great truth, but bad grammar, “we hadn’t never so much as a cat in the house, and that if I didn’t keep my eyes about me, I should find myself swarming with vermin before I knew where I was.” Then she was kind enough to tell me that she had got a beautiful Tom at home, which I was perfectly welcome to if I liked; for that though she loved the animal as much as if it were her own flesh and blood, still dear mother had been such a true friend to her, that she really couldn’t think of keeping the cat from me; especially, as she said, Tom was such a capital mouser, that he’d soon clear the place, and besides he was so tame, and had been so well brought up, that he was more like a Christian than a dumb animal; for I should find that he would take anything from me, (and so I did, with a vengeance; though I really believe now that the cat had no finger in it after all; but that that smoothfaced old Mrs. Burgess had only brought the animal into our establishment for the worst of purposes—and what’s more, that the tale she told me about the rat was all a cock-and-a-bull story, and made up just to get her Tom into the house, so that she might use the cat as a cloak for her own shameful practices.)
After Mrs. Burgess had taken in the milk that afternoon, the poor woman—who appeared very fond of me—would run round and fetch her fine Tom; and when she brought him, I do think he was the prettiest pet I ever saw. He was so black, that really his coat was for all the world like your hat; and the dear had got three such beautiful white stockings on his feet, and as fine a frill round his neck as I ever beheld in all my life. Nor can I omit to mention Tom’s sweet pretty whiskers, which stood out on each side of his face just like two shaving brushes; so that, indeed, taking the animal altogether, I really don’t think I ever saw so fine a cat. I declare he was quite a duck.